Brookfield Asset Management is a leading global alternative asset manager and one of the largest investors in real assets. Our investment focus is on real estate, renewable power, infrastructure and private equity assets. Our objective is to generate attractive long-term risk-adjusted returns for the benefit of our clients and shareholders. We manage a range of public and private investment products and services for institutional and retail clients. We earn asset management income for doing so and align our interests with our clients by investing alongside them. We have an exceptionally strong balance sheet, with over $30 billion of capital invested, primarily in our four listed partnerships: Brookfield Property Partners, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, Brookfield Renewable Partners and Brookfield Business Partners. This access to large-scale capital enables us to make investments in sizeable, premier assets across geographies and asset classes that few managers are able to do. We create value for BAM shareholders in the following ways: As an asset manager A- by investing both our own capital and that of our investors A- this enables us to increase the scale of our operations, and enhances our financial returns through base management fees and performance-based income; as an investor and capital allocator A- we strive to invest at attractive valuations, particularly in value-oriented situations that create opportunities for superior valuation gains and cash flow returns, or by monetizing assets at appropriate times to realize value; and as an owner-operator A- we constantly work to increase the value of the assets within our operating businesses and the cash flows they produce through our operating expertise, development capabilities and effective financing. Read More I only buy one kind of stock. 37 of these cash cows are in my portfolio right now... and for every dollar invested in them they are sending us 69 cents in dividends. That's an effective yield of 69% a year-every year. All without leverage, options, or gimmicks. Guidewire Software, Inc. provides software products for property and casualty insurers worldwide. The company offers Guidewire InsuranceSuite comprising Guidewire PolicyCenter, BillingCenter, and ClaimCenter applications. It also provides Guidewire InsuranceNow, a cloud-based platform, which offers policy, billing, and claims management functionality to insurers. In addition, the company offers Guidewire Underwriting Management, a cloud-based integrated business application; Guidewire Rating Management to manage the pricing of insurance products; Guidewire Reinsurance Management to use rules-based logic to execute reinsurance strategy through underwriting and claims processes; and Guidewire Client Data Management to enable customer information management. Further, it provides Guidewire Product Content Management that offers software tools and standards-based line-of-business templates to introduce and modify products; Guidewire AppReader, a submission intake management solution; Guidewire ClaimCenter Package for the London market supports the claims workflow used by London Market insurers and brokers; and Guidewire for Salesforce to provide customer information regarding policies and claims. Additionally, the company offers analytics and artificial intelligence products, such as Guidewire DataHub, an operational data store; Guidewire InfoCenter, a business intelligence warehouse; Guidewire Risk Insights, that allows insurers to assess new and evolving risks; Guidewire Predictive Analytics, a set of cloud-native applications; and Guidewire Business Intelligence that allows insurers to measure business performance, as well as Guidewire Digital Engagement Applications, which enable insurers to provide digital experiences to customers, agents, vendors, and field personnel through their device of choice. It also provides implementation and integration, and professional services. The company was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California. Read More Director general of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, presidential campaign organization, Bukola Saraki has said that the choice before Nigerians in the forthcoming election is that a better Nigeria or insecurity, job losses and the unfriendly economic policies. The PDP campaign DG, also Nigerias Senate President made this known in Ondo state on Monday, when the campaign train hit the state. Saraki, said the choice is clear and that onus now lie with Nigerians to decide what they want. Thank you Ondo, the Sunshine State for the warm reception! As we prepare for the General Election, know that you have a clear choice between a #BetterNigeria with PDP/Atiku/Obi and 4 more years of insecurity, job losses and the unfriendly economic policies of this administration. Meanwhile, speaking at Agbaji, his family quarters in Ilorin on Sunday, Saraki revealed also that Nigerians are tired of the lawlessness and impunity under the All Progressives Congress, APC government. Saraki had gone to access the level of damage done to his family quarters and community in Agbaji, Ilorin by the thugs of a factional All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in the state. He noted that no amount of intimidating will sway their resolve to vote the opposition PDP in the forthcoming elections. In his words: One thing is clear: Nigerians are tired of the lawlessness and impunity under the APC government and no amount of intimidation will change their resolve to vote for the PDP. Jerry was born April 20, 1948, in Portage, the son of Loris and Evelyn (Paulson) Jermier. He was a long life resident of Wisconsin Dells and descendant of the early Irish settlers of Kilbourn City, the Bresnahan and Cavanaugh families. His early years he lived in the Hollow on River Road exploring the river banks of the Wisconsin and Crandall Bay. In 1959, the family moved to a farm in the town of New Haven, where he helped his dad milk cows and farm the land. He attended the Big Spring School there through the eighth grade, and graduated from Wisconsin Dells High School in 1966. He then enrolled in West Allis Technical School in the Automotive Service Skill Development Program, graduating in the top of his class. As a young man Jerry worked at Fort Dells on the Antique Car Rides and helped build the Homestead fireplace with Elmer Soma. For several years he worked for Morse Enterprises doing small engine repair. In 1969, he married the love of his life Gail Kaiser and they had one child, a son James. They recently celebrated 49 years of marriage. Jerry began working part time for his father-in-law at Kaiser Distributing Co. Inc., doing service and truck repair. In 1970, he started work for the City of Wisconsin Dells in the Public Works Department. He was their chief mechanic for 42 years, retiring in 2012. Jerry had a creative and inventive mind. He applied that talent to his work at the city. He would create and build tools to repair the machinery in house rather than send it out to the company. He was always trying to find a way to invent something to help save the city money. He gave of his time freely. Making sure the machinery was ready to go, to his satisfaction, on Monday. He was a selfless and giving man, always ready and willing to help others and never expecting anything in return. Freezing drizzle is causing problems for the morning commute Tuesday, especially in southwest Wisconsin, with about 10 school districts starting two hours late because of slick road conditions. The National Weather Service said the freezing drizzle should end by 10 a.m., but another round of freezing drizzle could make for more problems during the evening commute. School delays can be found at Channel3000.com Tuesday's high should top out at 32, then skies are expected to clear late at night, setting the stage for a sunny day on Wednesday with a high near 29. 27 Storm Track meteorologist Branden Borremans said Thursday should be cloudy with a few snow flurries and a high of 30, then we could see light snow Friday night with a high of 22. The light snow is from a winter storm system developing in the central Plains states. Most of the storm will be south of Wisconsin but it could bring measurable snow to southern Wisconsin Friday night into Saturday, especially in the far southeast corner of Walworth, Racine and Kenosha counties. The storm will also bring colder temperatures, with highs only reaching 18 on Saturday and 12 on Sunday. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Commission member Craig Bender asked Strunz what he thought was contributing to the low number of applicants. Strunz said an often negative portrayal of police in the media is one aspect, while other factors include a lack of desire on the individuals part to work weekends and evenings. Strunz also said younger recruits believe they can get higher pay and better working conditions in the private sector. I do think it has a lot to do with the media portrayal of law enforcement, Strunz said. Not our local media, necessarily, but theres a lot of immediate scrutiny of police officer actions on the street because of certain technology and that tends to portray certain situations in a light that might not be portraying the full facts of the case. Strunz said some major cases of police misconduct have been widely publicized, and that has changed some of the publics perception of what law enforcement is and what we do, he said. I think its discouraging young people from pursuing that as a career. Strunz said other issues such as budget restraints have led to a lack of resources as well. The small pool of qualified applicants could mean the department extends the application period, Strunz said, or could even lead to a future discussion about the requirements of applicants. Viegut said if another payday comes and goes with the government still shut down, he might not be able to afford fuel to drive an hour and 15 minutes from his home in Omro to work. Other Oxford prison employees are in similar straits. Russ Kaminsky of Windsor said his income is the only one his household has, and losing it means he might have difficulty affording things like mortgage payments and medication. My creditors do not care if I am getting paid or not or that the government is shut down, he said, in a news release issued by Viegut. Not only are Oxford workers required to show up for their jobs, Viegut said, many of them also have to work overtime, without pay of any kind, much less overtime compensation. And a part-time job during the shutdown is not an option, because workers are required to show up for the job for which theyre not getting paid. Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill assuring back pay for federal workers after the shutdown is over. One of seven Congress members who voted against the bill was Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Glenbeulah, whose district includes Marquette and Columbia counties. Ive talked to other legislators, Kurtz said. Theyre not opposed to this either. It may have to be tax incentives, or what, to get people to move to these areas. Rural high speed internet access is another issue taking focus in Wisconsin. Kurtz hopes to see more public-private partnerships and grants to help speed the process of getting rural areas online. Im antiquated too, and it drives me nuts, Kurtz said of his home internet. The work is in the pipeline, it just takes so long to get this done. Republican leaders recently in the legislature sent a letter to Governor Evers laying out their priorities. One of them was passing a bill guaranteeing coverage of preexisting conditions. Kurtz is optimistic about the opportunity for bipartisanship on covering preexisting conditions. My first committee meeting as the vice chair of health will be on this bill, Kurtz said. Infrastructure is another area Kurtz says is ripe for bipartisanship. Kurtz said Governor Evers will be meeting with Republicans in the legislature Jan. 15. In an interview, he said hes optimistic and looking forward to the opportunity, Kurtz said. As far as infrastructure, if we dont get something done, thats a shame on us. It really is. You can reach Jake Ekdahl on Twitter @JakeaEkdahl or contact him at 608-697-6353 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Providing a home environment is central to success in the real world, according to Schramm. What we teach has to be practical and it has to be taught in a variety of environments, she said. Otherwise skills that are taught in one environment cant be applied anywhere else. Schramm tells a story about a student who was taught in the school setting how to use a toilet brush. In a different environment, the brush was pink, so he didnt know what to do with it. Something that we might take for granted a toilet brush is something that can really be a challenge for students with different abilities, Schramm said. She tells another story about a fire alarm. In school, when a fire alarm goes off everyone has to leave the building. In an apartment, however, tossing burnt toast into the sink and waving a dish towel at the alarm would likely be a better solution. The Waupun School District pursued its newest and smallest facility with those types of challenges in mind. Thats why we decided to gather together the support of the community and the school board and the city of Waupun to allow us to purchase the property we did, Dawson said. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} I know this is not a popular thing to say, but in the past when the department had a million dollars (in excess revenue), theyd come in and say, Where can we spend this? Why dont we do the reverse and now that theyre $490,000 short let them cover it? I did not make the decision to be short, Schmidt said. That was a decision made by the county board. County Administrator Jim Mielke advised, however, that finding the funds is not likely to be a problem. From the general fund as a whole, Human Services is looking at a significant return from 2018, Mielke said. That will far exceed this estimate. Other departments will certainly have carry-forward dollars and other dollars that will be returned. The issue will be discussed by the committee and will be up for a vote by the county board in February. The Mayville Common Council voted to officially oppose the expansion of the Glacier Ridge Landfill site. The landfill, which is off County Road V between the rest of Mayville and Highway 33, is due for an expansion. The city is already suing over how many members it should have on the landfill siting board, which represents the relevant government bodies as negotiations go forward. Mayville officials believe the city should have four members on the board instead of one, giving it more negotiating power. Now the city has gone a step further in officially opposing the 100-foot vertical expansion of the landfill, which the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources said would add more years of useful life to the facility. There were four yes votes on the resolution, with Bob Smith abstaining over his involvements in the negotiations and Molly Henkel absent. In his remarks, Mayville Mayor Rob Boelk said that the city is concerned about how the landfill affects the water and air, including odors emitted from the facility. He also said the city does not believe the DNR's feasibility study was accurate and that Mayville needs to act for future generations to come. Baraboo High School seniors will embark on a daylong trip to the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in March as part of the response to a photo that shows boys in the class making what appears to be a Nazi salute. Many people both from the district and outside it called for Baraboo students to receive more education on the Holocaust after the photo surfaced and went viral online in November. That goal was included in a community action plan developed from facilitated discussions at a public meeting Nov. 29. Administrators plan to hold an annual field trip for seniors to visit either the Illinois museum or the Jewish Museum Milwaukee, according to BHS Principal Glenn Bildsten. This year, District Administrator Lori Mueller said the trip to Illinois is planned for March 25 at no cost to students. BHS social studies teacher Erick Blasing said the trip is a great opportunity. Though the district does a good job of teaching topics such as World War II, he noted the benefit of getting out of the classroom. When you can get out and actually see people that were involved or touch things that were involved, it just gives you a different perspective and an opportunity to see something being presented in more of a tactile way than just a school setting, he said. Another employee told police that Winchell made a comment to him last week in which he said something similar to the following: One of these days a driver is going to park his truck and clean it out because he knows he is not coming back. He will go into dispatch and start shooting people. He will then find the fifth person in the bathroom with his pants around his ankles because he will be (expletive) his pants scared and then one head shot it will be over. Massage is known to promote relaxation, ease pain, and increase flexibility. At Minnesota State College Southeast, Massage Therapist program students are learning how to provide expert massage services under the guidance of instructors Jeanne Handke and Amanda McDougal. Now these students are ready to work directly with clients at the colleges student clinic. Starting in January, one-hour massages will be available to the general public on Mondays and Tuesdays at 3 p.m., 4:20 p.m., and 5:40 pm. The cost is $20. The student clinic is at Minnesota State College Southeast, 1250 Homer Rd., Winona, and runs through May 13. The schedule fills quickly, so the college recommends making appointments as early as possible. To make an appointment, contact Amanda at 507-453-1457 or amanda.mcdougal@southeastmn.edu. For more information about enrolling in the colleges Massage Therapist program, see www.southeastmn.edu. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 The death sentence China has imposed on Canadian tourist Robert Schellenberg is obviously a political act related to the China-U.S. trade war. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/1/2019 (884 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The death sentence China has imposed on Canadian tourist Robert Schellenberg is obviously a political act related to the China-U.S. trade war. Mr. Schellenberg was serving a 15-year prison sentence for involvement in hiding methamphetamines inside tires in a warehouse in Dalian, China. He says he is innocent. The Chinese police had produced a witness and some evidence to support the conviction. After Canada, at the request of the U.S., arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, the Chinese authorities suddenly discovered new evidence against Mr. Schellenberg and this week held a new, unusually well-publicized trial in which they convicted him as a drug-smuggling kingpin. He was swiftly sentenced to death. THE CANADIAN PRESS / HANDOUT Robert Lloyd Schellenberg is shown in a family handout photo provided by his aunt Lauri Nelson-Jones. That makes three Canadian hostages China is holding and threatening on account of the Meng Wanzhou arrest. Ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor were arrested soon after Ms. Mengs arrest in Vancouver. Canada is taking one for the team here three times over in order to comply faithfully to our extradition treaty with the United States. The U.S. got us into this and the U.S. has to take a large role in solving the problem. As long as Mr. Schellenberg is alive under sentence of death, China will see him as a means of putting pressure on Canada. If they kill him they will lose leverage. They will presumably keep him alive as long as he seems politically useful to them. Canada should therefore show great concern about his welfare, in the hope of keeping him alive. We should not simply betray our neighbours by sending Ms. Meng back to China without regard for the extradition treaty. We have, however, the option of moving in that direction if we are unable to win U.S. co-operation in bringing an early resolution of the growing dispute. Canadas message to the U.S., couched in the politest possible diplomatic language, should be clear and, in its implications, brutally frank. CCTV VIA THE ASSOCIATED PRESS In this image taken from a video footage run by China's CCTV, Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg attends his retrial at the Dalian Intermediate People's Court in Dalian, northeastern China's Liaoning province on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. We will not indefinitely put up with maltreatment of Canadians in China in support of a U.S. political strategy that does us no good. If the U.S. shows it is going to reach a settlement with China which includes the release of Chinas Canadian hostages, then we will do our best to honour the extradition request. But the case against Meng Wanzhou had better be good and it has to be resolved without delay. Some of the oldest known Chinese writing is found on oracle bones from the Shang dynasty of the second millennium BCE, in which the king asks diviners whether he should kill the hostages. The diviners were to find the answer by heating the tortoise shell and then reading the resulting cracks. We know by this that the Chinese have been studying hostage-management for a very long time. Canadians have less experience in this field. In some circumstances, the astute response to this kind of blackmail would be to send Mr. Schellenberg a warm farewell message and promise him a first-class memorial service. In this case, however, a far better solution is available. That solution, however, lies in the hands of U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration, whose capacity for careful reasoning and consistent policy has yet to be determined. He has declared that he is smarter than all previous U.S. presidents. Now, well see how well he deals with Chinese hostage-takers. Heidi Schreck, playwright/star of What The Constitution Means To Me, takes her acclaimed show to a Broadway run in New York City, March 14 to June 9. Last September, a video was posted on YouTube, showing a visibly annoyed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meeting with leaders from the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations in Saskatchewan. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/1/2019 (884 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Last September, a video was posted on YouTube, showing a visibly annoyed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meeting with leaders from the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations in Saskatchewan. The prime minister was annoyed a one-hour meeting was taken up by 20 to 30 chiefs, who each spoke for a few minutes about the challenges facing their communities. "I am really, really upset about this," Trudeau said. "That is not in the spirit of reconciliation, of the nation-to-nation relationship that we're supposed to have. I am stuck with an absolute time cap at 9:05 (a.m.)." FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron seemed similarly annoyed: "One hour is not enough time to give the respect our chiefs deserve. How can we get real answers for all of the issues that our plaguing our people?" The irony of Trudeaus words is this is exactly what a nation-to-nation relationship looks like. Reconciliation -- if possible in Canada -- is going to take patience, commitment, and a whole lot of listening. Definitely more than an hour of a prime ministers time. On Monday, the federal Liberals reached their "time cap" on Indigenous issues. In a somewhat surprising move, Trudeau shuffled two of the governments most important ministers on Indigenous issues, moving Jody Wilson-Raybould to veterans affairs from justice and Jane Philpott to Treasury Board from Indigenous services. Wilson-Raybould, as Canadas first Indigenous justice minister and current highest-ranking Indigenous person in Parliament, was arguably the face of Trudeaus reconciliation agenda. Philpott was well-liked amongst Indigenous peoples, and expected to herald in some major changes over the next few months, including legislation that would hand over care of Indigenous children to Indigenous governments. "Hearing lots of disappointment from #Indigenous people on this cabinet shuffle," tweeted executive director of Canadian Roots (a youth organization based on implementing reconciliation) Max FineDay. "I havent heard one person say theyre glad Philpott/Wilson-Raybould were moved." "I felt we had an established relationship with Minister Philpott," Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Arlen Dumas stated in a news release. SEAN KILPATRICK / THE CANADIAN PRESS Jody Wilson-Raybould (left) is sworn in as Veterans Affairs Minister at a swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa. Even Wilson-Raybould seemed frustrated, issuing a statement: "I have received many questions and inquiries about the cabinet shuffle announced today, and why I am no longer the Minister of Justice... while I can understand the interest of Canadians in this matter, I will not be commenting." Ouch. Montreal MP David Lametti is Canadas new justice minister, and Seamus ORegan of Newfoundland now leads Indigenous services. Both are non-Indigenous men. At his first cabinet meeting, Trudeau explained why the group had gender balance, saying: "Because its 2015." Well, this cabinet is for 2019: a federal election year. While no one expected the federal Liberals to make Indigenous issues a centrepiece of their re-election campaign, shuffling two of their most important advocates into new portfolios that draw their attention, while effectively grinding their existing departments to a halt, is a red flag. Trudeau has run out of patience on reconciliation. At least, for now. SEAN KILPATRICK / THE CANADIAN PRESS Minister of Indigenous Services Seamus O'Regan takes part in a meeting with Assembly of First Nations leaders in Ottawa on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Indigenous issues will continue on the federal agenda, of course, but the days of big, sweeping policy change promises ended with the arrests of members of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation last week in B.C. The federal government owns a pipeline Indigenous peoples are standing in the way of, a massive challenge surrounding consultation, and very little achievement on the issues they promised to deal with (tainted water, over-incarceration of Indigenous youth and under-serviced Indigenous health and education systems). During the last federal election campaign, social media was filled with Indigenous peoples tweeting out "Reconciliation is Here" and selfies with Trudeau. I never see that anymore. What was supposed to be a strength for Liberals -- their record on Indigenous issues -- has become a weakness, from the flawed National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls to the limited scope of the Indigenous rights legislation to the failures to adequately consult First Nations on pipeline development. In each case, policy failure came because the Liberals, while promising to act differently than Canadian governments of the past, repeated the mistake of failing to take into account Indigenous views and perspectives when making decisions about them. ADRIAN WYLD / THE CANADIAN PRESS Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses the media on Monday at Rideau Hall. While well-meaning and regularly using terms such as "nation to nation," they ultimately havent put in the time to create meaningful, lasting, and equal relationships with Indigenous nations. This comes from working with them, not over them. Listening, learning, then acting. Part of this might be the Liberals have had only the most recent four years as a government, and it took Canada more than 150 years of violent and oppressive practices and policies trying to control Indigenous peoples to get us to this point. However, the Liberals have been repeating the mistakes of Canadian governments past. Even when they include Indigenous peoples or their allies, they have trouble working with them. If they dont like what they hear, they dont listen. Then, they make decisions. What they need to do is spend the time. More than an hour, anyways. niigaan.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca Its long past time that journalists paid attention to the millions of Canadians who dont trust the news the way we used to. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion Its long past time that journalists paid attention to the millions of Canadians who dont trust the news the way we used to. Sure, we could have lost faith because of the #fakenews narrative that has flowed north across the border. Or from learning that many of the characters influencing public reaction to events on social media are not real people but bots programmed to push issues this way or that. And, for sure, some of it is because of the Der Spiegel scandal, as well as other issues that result in substandard "news" items more closely related to stenography than journalism. But I suspect its in large part due to the tolerance of too many journalists for those of their peers who are determined, through their undisciplined abandonment of once-cherished standards, to undermine their crafts credibility. Im aware that the creation and maintenance of a high social media profile is one of the assumed defences against the layoffs that have pervaded the Canadian news industry in recent years: journalism as clickbait, if you will. But the outcome of this "look at me" behaviour is frequently that some of the most basic rules most prominently the strict insistence upon the appearance of objectivity that anchor the craft are tossed aside as if they were little other than last years footwear. The most valuable commodity journalists trade in is trust: contacts and subjects who have faith they will be portrayed not just truthfully but fairly; editors who believe that facts and allegations have been confirmed and cross-checked; and, most of all, the confidence of consumers that the news item in question has been inquired into without fear or favour. As with any relationship, that trust isnt granted until its earned by either the individuals involved or the corporate entity that employs them. It take years to amass and only seconds to destroy. When the latter happens, it takes even longer to rebuild it, which explains why purple-faced editors used to and perhaps still do go pretty crazy over what many might consider the mildest of errors, such as a misspelled name or misstated date. "If you get anything wrong," they would spit, "how does the reader know you didnt get everything wrong?" As Anna Altman elegantly noted recently in the Columbia Journalism Review regarding the fraud perpetrated by Der Spiegels star writer Claas Relotius, theres a bond between reader and writer that in German is reduced to a single noun: leserbindung. Relotiuss fracturing of that bond was so extensive that its possible that Der Spiegel will never recover. As Altman describes it, in one of Relotiuss most decorated stories, "he wrote of orphan siblings in Turkey, Ahmed and Alin, who had been displaced from Syria. Ahmed, Relotius wrote, had seen his father shot by a firing squad and buried his mother by hand. In reality, Ahmeds father had disappeared but wasnt shot; his mother is alive and works in a furniture store; and Alin, if she exists, is not his sister." Most analyses point to systemic faults, mostly human, that allowed Relotius to kill Der Spiegels leserbindung. One would have hoped that tragic denouement, recent as it was, would have imposed a bit more discipline within the industry. But theres no evidence of that to date none at all. Indeed, within days of the demise of Relotius, NBC News merrily retweeted with sarcastic comment by at least one senior member of Canadas parliamentary press gallery was falsely reporting that Donald Trump had become the first U.S. president since 2002 not to visit his troops at Christmastime while he was in fact en route to Iraq. Tempting as Trump derangement syndrome might be for those within the broader public, there is no excuse for this, particularly when the error is unapologetically left to stand uncorrected. Fairness dictates that it be noted the majority of journalists conduct themselves objectively online and when speaking in public. I would encourage them, though, to hold their more undisciplined peers to account. While their sins are generally not on the scale of Relotiuss, those putting their profile ahead of their principles are encouraging the decline of trust in their craft and, with that, hastening its demise. I trust they will try. Troy Media columnist Peter Menzies is a former newspaper publisher who also served as vice-chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Troy Media At the Railway Association of Canada (RAC), we always welcome scrutiny of the operations of the more than 50 freight and passenger railway companies we represent. Those companies are part of the fifth-largest rail network in the world, and the backbone of Canadas transportation system. They employ more than 31,000 Canadians who work together to move more than $280 billion worth of goods across our country each year thats close to 70 per cent of all surface goods, and half of the countys exports. They do it all with remarkable efficiency, and with a continual focus on operating safely and responsibly. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion At the Railway Association of Canada (RAC), we always welcome scrutiny of the operations of the more than 50 freight and passenger railway companies we represent. Those companies are part of the fifth-largest rail network in the world, and the backbone of Canadas transportation system. They employ more than 31,000 Canadians who work together to move more than $280 billion worth of goods across our country each year thats close to 70 per cent of all surface goods, and half of the countys exports. They do it all with remarkable efficiency, and with a continual focus on operating safely and responsibly. In the interest of fairness and balance, heres context that every resident of Winnipeg and indeed, Canada should know about the countrys rail industry. Canadian freight railways are the safest in North America. A statutory review of railway safety was completed just last year by an independent panel and found that rail in Canada is safe. According to the latest information published by the Transportation Safety Board, 2017 was our safest year on record. Canadas freight railways transport everything. From our cars to our clothes to the chemicals that keep our community pools clean it all moves safely by rail. In fact, rail is the safest way to move commodities over land. RAC and its members have long advocated for more robust tank car standards. Last fall, RAC welcomed Protective Directive 39, issued by Transport Minister Marc Garneau. It accelerated the phase-out of older, less crash-resistant models of tank cars used to transport crude oil and condensates. Our railways invest heavily in safety-related infrastructure and technology. In 2018, railways invested a record $5.1 billion in capital infrastructure improvements such as new railway tracks, ties and ballast, and in innovation to detect potential risks across their network and rolling stock. Track geometry systems and infrared detectors to identify warm or hot wheel bearings are just two examples of the technology railways deploy every day to improve safety. They also invest heavily in their people, providing advanced technical training and promoting a rigorous safety ideology. CN and CP maintain world-class training facilities in Winnipeg and Calgary, respectively. Canadians have been living and working around trains since the railway tied the country together. As communities evolve, commercial and residential development can bring people closer to active rail operations, sometimes generating complaints. Its the byproduct of a vibrant, growing economy and country. While theres rarely an easy solution, RAC and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities are building common approaches to resolving issues that may arise when people live and work in close proximity to railway operations. We encourage municipalities to adopt the guidelines as a means to advancing rail safety in Canada. Finally, with respect to worker fatigue, RAC has long advocated that fatigue is a matter requiring empirical evidence and scientific support. In collaboration with our member companies, we will continue to work with all stakeholders to make improvements that will meaningfully enhance rail safety. One-off anecdotes and stories might make for good headlines, but when it comes to data and year-over-year performance, Canadas railways are safe and getting safer. Marc Brazeau is president and CEO of the Railway Association of Canada. Ten of thousands of residential school survivors who received compensation for abuse they suffered were notified Monday they have one more decision to make: the fate of their settlement claim records. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/1/2019 (884 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Ten of thousands of residential school survivors who received compensation for abuse they suffered were notified Monday they have one more decision to make: the fate of their settlement claim records. Those records contain sensitive testimony about specific abuses and the trauma which affected their lives and their families for years afterward. Without express consent, the files will be destroyed Sept. 19, 2027. Claimants also have the option to keep a copy for themselves and/or deposit them with the Winnipeg-based National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to share or preserve, with or without their names made public. The federal office set up adjudicate the claims rolled out a program Monday to ensure survivors were made aware they are the only ones with the power to preserve the files. "Your records are private and confidential. The choice is yours," declared a new website (MyRecordsMyChoice.ca) set up to handle the potential responses. "The Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat has launched (the) program to alert former students who made claims of abuse at Indian residential schools about their options on what happens to the records from their claims," the secretariat said in a statement issued from its Regina office. To date, more than 38,000 former students of Indian residential schools have submitted claims for compensation for abuse -- sexual, physical and emotional -- suffered at the institutions. As of Nov. 30, 2018, 99 per cent of all claims had been settled and the remaining are expected to be resolved by 2020. The average compensation is just over $91,000 and has cost $3.1 billion in claims and legal fees. In Manitoba, all but six of the 5,430 claims received have been settled. The question of what happens to the records was the subject of protracted court battles until the Supreme Court of Canada settled matter in 2017. "The courts were clear that IAP and ADR (the two processes that handled the abuse claims) records are private and confidential," the secretariats IAP chief adjudicator, Dan Shapiro, said in a statement announcing the website. "Claimants, and no one else, control their... records. They alone have the right to decide what to do with them." The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation officials hope donation will be the choice most make. "Fundamental in this, the courts have recognized... survivors do have the right to deposit their material here... (and) that these records, if survivors chose, will be added to the overall collection of history on what happened in residential schools and the legacy of harm to survivors and their families," centre director Ry Moran said Monday. "What is at stake is what we have in those records is the best collection of the worst abuses that were inflicted on residential school survivors," he said. "Well know that abuse occurred. We know it did occur with great frequency. We know that it was widespread, across the residential school system but (without the records) we wont have a full and conclusive picture of the long standing nature of those harms and the specific nature of the abuse that occurred in those residential schools." If a person has already died without making a decision, theres no accommodation to preserve their records, officials said. Claimants have until 2027 to make a choice. alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca A former Winnipeg child psychologist has pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography but will fight the law that says he has to go to jail for it. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/1/2019 (884 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A former Winnipeg child psychologist has pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography but will fight the law that says he has to go to jail for it. Dr. Gary Anthony Shady appeared in provincial court Monday and admitted possession of the illegal images, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of six months in jail. Gary Anthony Shady (trekfortourettewpg / Instagram) But defence lawyer Mike Cook signalled Shady plans to launch a constitutional challenge of the mandated jail term when he appears again for sentencing May 16. "Its not right that a 72-year-old man with no record, who has pleaded guilty should be subjected to the mandatory minimum," Cook told the Free Press outside court. Cook said he would ask for Shady to serve a suspended sentence and a period of probation if the challenge is successful adding his client admitted responsibility to police when he was arrested. Officers with the Winnipeg Police Service internet child exploitation unit raided Shadys Fort Rouge home in October. Police said they seized several pieces of electronic equipment and had identified child sexual abuse imagery that had been uploaded to an online storage and computing service. The investigation began after a tip from a computer-service provider was received by the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the U.S. That agency alerted the National Child Exploitation Co-ordination Centre in Ottawa and Winnipeg police. No facts of the case were revealed in court Monday. Shady was a practising child psychologist at the time of his arrest. He has since retired, Cook said. He specialized in treating children diagnosed with Tourette syndrome and behaviour problems. Corrections officials will meet with Shady and then prepare a pre-sentencing report on his background and personal circumstances. Minimum sentences for possession of child pornography have existed in Canada since 2005 and mandatory jail penalties have increased twice since then, in 2012 and 2015, as the number of police-reported incidents began to soar, a recent Statistics Canada analysis shows. Chad Williams the man shot dead in a confrontation with Winnipeg police Friday was holding a weapon and yelling just shoot me while surrounded by officers after a chase in an almost identical situation in 2016. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Chad Williams the man shot dead in a confrontation with Winnipeg police Friday was holding a weapon and yelling "just shoot me" while surrounded by officers after a chase in an almost identical situation in 2016. While details about Williams final fatal encounter with police are yet to be known, a provincial court judge was told in 2017 that when Williams was high on methamphetamine or other substances, he was more likely to commit criminal acts. FACEBOOK Chad Williams is dead after a confrontation with Winnipeg police officers in the city's West End on Friday night after he produced an unspecified weapon. "Keep using meth and you will be dead you wont be back in custody. I guarantee it," Judge Brent Stewart told Williams during sentencing for the October 2016 incident. (Williams was given an extra 12 months in custody on top of the year he had already served for break and enter and assaulting a police officer with a weapon.) "Just as an example: the police were really good in terms of only tasering you, because when you come threatening with bars and irons, there has been those ones that actually take their gun out and shoot you. Thats what you were looking for." Williams responded: "Yes, I was looking to end my life right there. I know Ive made a lot of mistakes in my life... I dont want to go back to that drug or alcohol ever again. Drugs are destroying me." On Friday night, Williams, 26, was shot dead by police on a snow-covered lawn on Sherbrook Street. Winnipeg police said the latest incident began at about 7:50 p.m. when officers saw a man acting suspiciously near Sherbrook Street and Sargent Avenue. The man fled, but officers caught up to him in a nearby vacant lot. "More than one officer" fired when the man pulled out an unspecified weapon, police said. The officers gave the man medical attention, including CPR, but he died shortly after being rushed to hospital. Police said they dont have any indication he was high on any substances at the time. The Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba is investigating, and asking the public for any information it may have. At least one cellphone video taken by an area resident has surfaced on Facebook, showing a man on the ground and officers surrounding him. Williams dad, Jonathan, on both Facebook and during an interview Monday, accused officers of having "murdered my son." "My son was not causing any harm he was walking on a public sidewalk," he said. "A witness told me my son wasnt holding anything. He had his arms up and they shot him. Why didnt they use the Taser? "Theyre supposed to serve and protect, and not serve and murder." He said the family has been in discussions with a lawyer to look at taking legal action against city police. (A Gofundme webpage has been established to raise $5,000 for Williams funeral and headstone.) Williams sister, Shaina, said on Facebook her brother was trying to better himself while battling addiction. "He had a goal to change his life around," she said. "He was a handyman, building house, carpenter... he was a jack-of-all-trades. (He) had a heart of gold he would take his shirt off his back helping." In 2017, court was told when police encountered Williams in October 2016, he was holding a metre-long metal bar in one hand, a tire iron in the other, and had two smaller metal bars in his waistband. Crown attorney Boyd McGill said officers armed with Tasers chased Williams and used the electro-shock devices on him but they didnt appear to faze him. It took several officers to tackle and hold him down while handcuffing him. Defence counsel John Corona told the court Williams had suffered several tragedies in his life, including having his mother, who had a substance-abuse problem, die in 2008; the family losing their Flora Avenue home and all their possessions in a 2011 fire; and his younger sister dying by suicide in their residence. A Free Press story at the time of the fire quoted Williams saying after his father ran into the bedroom to wake him and his girlfriend, "I could see flames through the door." "I had to get out and get my woman out. I couldnt follow my dad through the flames and the only way out was through that (upper-storey) window. I landed in the snow, and then told my woman to jump and broke her fall as she landed," he said. Corona told the judge the fire caused the family "to lose everything." "I think it was the beginning of a spiral for all of them... this is the oldest boy in trouble," the defence lawyer said. "I see this as a cry for help." kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca The union representing Manitobas Lifeflight nurses is worried their members may be asked to perform duties outside their scopes of practise due to a shortage of doctors on upcoming air ambulance flights. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/1/2019 (884 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The union representing Manitobas Lifeflight nurses is worried their members may be asked to perform duties outside their scopes of practise due to a shortage of doctors on upcoming air ambulance flights. Michelle Gawronsky, president of the Manitoba Government and General Employees Union, said there are five shifts in January where Lifeflight doctors arent scheduled to work. The first of those is Wednesday. The MGEU has advised the six Lifeflight nurses it represents to not work on aircraft where physicians arent present. "If they refuse to fly without the full team, without the proper team, its not job action. Its not a political response to privatization. Its got nothing to do with that," Gawronsky said. "The nurses have the right, and more so they have the professional responsibility, to refuse an unreasonable directive from their employer based on ethical, moral, professional (grounds) and most importantly the patients safety concerns. If you dont have a complete team, how can you be providing the best care that you possibly can?" The staff shortage is the latest concern in an ongoing back-and-forth with the provincial government as Lifeflight's future remains up in the air. PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES MGEU President Michelle Gawronsky: "The nurses have the right, and more so they have the professional responsibility, to refuse an unreasonable directive from their employer." Last summer, the province issued a request for proposals to consider privatizing government air services, including operations of Lifeflight and water bombers used to put out forest fires. The wildfire-suppression services contract was awarded to Babcock Canada in November, but a decision on Lifeflight isnt expected until early 2019. Health Minister Cameron Friesen appeared to be caught off guard by Lifeflight's scheduling issues. "We were surprised to learn from the Lifeflight medical director that gaps remain in the schedule for the remainder of January" Health Minister Cameron Friesen "Our government is committed to ensuring air medical services continue to be available. We were surprised to learn from the Lifeflight medical director that gaps remain in the schedule for the remainder of January," he said in a prepared statement. "We encourage Lifeflight doctors to fill these few vacancies on the schedule and to continue to work with government to provide a robust and sustainable air medical service for Manitobans." Sources with knowledge of Lifeflight's operations told the Free Press the government may be considering putting respiratory therapists (RTs) on flights when doctors aren't available. RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Last summer, the province issued a request for proposals to consider privatizing government air services, including operations of Lifeflight. On Monday, a department spokesperson said "no RTs are scheduled to take any flight" and the idea isn't one government is presently considering. All 16 Lifeflight doctors told the province in October they would consider quitting if the service was privatized, listing safety concerns. A physician with 10 years of experience working with Lifeflight spoke to the Free Press on condition of anonymity. He said the government would be putting nurses' and patients' safety at risk if Lifeflight flew without doctors. "Its morally and ethically wrong for the province to even attempt to force (nurses) to work in that environment," he said. The doctor said dealing with those with influenza who need to be intubated and medically ventilated, stabilizing patients who are in motor-vehicle accidents and need chest tubes, and helping those who need resuscitation with central lines are examples where nurses and/or RTs shouldn't be working alone. "Its clearly beyond their scope of practise," he said. "To care for these patients, its been long established and rightfully so that you need a physician-nurse combination." Lifeflight provides a 24-hour air ambulance service and its medical staff take about 400 to 500 trips per year. They help critically ill or injured patients outside a 200-kilometre radius of Winnipeg. A flight crew would consist of a doctor, a nurse and the pilot. jessica.botelho@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @_jessbu After six days of testimony, Crown prosecutors closed their case against two men accused of manslaughter in the death of Jeanenne Fontaine. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/1/2019 (884 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. After six days of testimony, Crown prosecutors closed their case against two men accused of manslaughter in the death of Jeanenne Fontaine. The 29-year-old mother, a cousin of slain teenager Tina Fontaine, was shot in the back of the head and left inside her burning Aberdeen Avenue home on the morning of March 14, 2017. Christopher Matthew Brass and Jason Michael Meilleur have pleaded not guilty to manslaughter, and a jury of seven men and five women has now heard all of the prosecution's evidence against them. FACEBOOK PHOTO Jeanenne Fontaine. Before the case was adjourned until Wednesday morning, jurors finished watching a 4.5-hour video-recorded interview Meilleur had with Winnipeg Police Service homicide investigators in May 2017. At the end of the interview, WPS Det. Sgt. Jarett Reid told Meilleur he wasn't being charged in Fontaine's death but that the investigation would continue. Later, the Crown's office did authorize homicide charges and Meilleur was arrested and charged with manslaughter a few days after his interview with Reid. "This is bulls---," Meilleur told officers upon his arrest for manslaughter, according to Reid's notes the officer shared with the jury Monday. "I didn't take anyone there to kill her. I didn't kill anyone, either," Meilleur said, according to Reid's testimony. Reid testified Meilleur said he didn't set any fires or intend for anyone to get hurt at Fontaine's home. He'd gone to the small bungalow at 457 Aberdeen Avenue to talk to Fontaine's boyfriend to "square up" a drug debt, he said. Fontaine's boyfriend, admitted drug dealer Monte Bull, owed Meilleur's girlfriend some meth after she'd been sold fake drugs from his traphouse, Meilleur told police. He said Brass and Malcolm Mitchell followed him to 457 Aberdeen that morning, but that he'd already run from the house by the time he heard a gunshot. "I ran for my life, nothing more, nothing less," Meilleur told Reid upon his arrest for manslaughter. Court of Queen's Bench Justice Gerald Chartier reminded jurors they can't use Meilleur's police statement against his co-accused, Brass. The jury was told Mitchell was responsible for shooting Fontaine but that he's not part of this trial. During the video-recorded interview, after he was told he wasn't being charged in the homicide, Meilleur told police Fontaine's death was "bulls---." "An innocent girl who had nothing to do except say hi to somebody lost her life," Meilleur said. "In my eyes, that's bulls---." Jurors also heard about Meilleur's request to be placed in protective custody after talking to police. Det. Sgt. Jeff Stalker of the police service's secure operations unit testified there wasn't much police could do to protect him because he was already in custody on breach charges when the request was made. Stalker said he spoke to corrections officials to ensure Meilleur was separated from his co-accused, but after Meilleur was charged with manslaughter, he said there was nothing the unit could do for him. "You don't put someone into witness protection when they're also an accused for the same offence," Stalker said. katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A former Winnipeg firefighter convicted of stealing from a dead woman's apartment has lost his appeal at Canada's highest court. The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed Darren Fedyck's appeal Tuesday, siding with the majority of Manitoba's Court of Appeal to uphold his conviction for theft under $5,000. Fedyck was convicted in 2017 of stealing gold jewelry and hundreds of dollars in cash from a dead woman's apartment while he was on duty as a city firefighter. Fedyck's defence lawyer, Sarah Inness, argued at the Supreme Court that the prosecution's case against him, and the trial judge's finding of guilt, were all based on inferences instead of facts. The panel of Supreme Court justices had to decide whether Manitoba provincial court Judge Kael McKenzie made legal errors in his 2017 decision to convict Fedyck. "Purely circumstantial cases increase the risk of a miscarriage of justice and a wrongful conviction," Inness argued Tuesday, emphasizing that no one saw Fedyck steal and no one could say for certain whether anything was missing from the deceased woman's apartment. Fedyck told his co-workers the cash wasn't stolen and the jewelry belonged to him. She questioned why the Crown hadn't tried to obtain Fedyck's bank records to prove its case and suggested the burden of proof in the case was "shifting" from the Crown to the accused. Crown attorney Jennifer Mann told the Supreme Court justices the prosecution didn't know which bank Fedyck used, and they would have had to request records from every financial institution in Winnipeg to try to prove he didn't take the cash out of a bank machine or ATM, as he claimed. "Proving a negative, in these circumstances, quite frankly is impossible," Mann said during the hearing, a webcast of which was reviewed by the Free Press. "The appellant's banking records were entirely within his control. Surely he would have produced these records that would, if he is correct, have fully exonerated him. They would have ended the prosecution." Justice Michael Moldaver seemed to agree. "If he took the money out of the bank that day or the day before, the simplest thing to do is just go and get a receipt, show the money being taken out of the bank, show it to the police, and none of us is sitting here now," he said. "That's what defies logic. So when the trial judge is looking at this explanation, it's totally open to him to reject it as being completely unreasonable." Fedyck lost his job with the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service after he was criminally charged following his co-workers' accusations that he'd stolen cash and jewelry from a 76-year-old woman who had died in her Henderson Highway apartment. Fedyck was on duty with the crew from Fire Station 16 in October 2015 when they were called out to check on the woman's well-being because of a foul smell reported in the seniors' building. His co-workers got suspicious when Fedyck volunteered to go back into the building alone to retrieve the woman's health card, and they later searched his belongings to find two gold necklaces and between $800 and $1,000 in cash, although they initially told police the items had simply fallen out of Fedyck's pocket. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail, but he appealed the conviction last year at Manitoba's Court of Appeal, which upheld his conviction 2-1. Because the decision wasn't unanimous, he was allowed to take his case to the high court in Ottawa. He remained free on bail, pending the Supreme Court's decision. katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay Canada shot back at China on Tuesday, branding the death sentence imposed on a British Columbia man as inhumane and flaunting the support of its allies in trying to win the release of two other imprisoned Canadians. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. In this image taken from a video footage run by China's CCTV, Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg attends his retrial at the Dalian Intermediate People's Court in Dalian, northeastern China's Liaoning province on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. A Chinese court sentenced the Canadian man to death Monday in a sudden retrial in a drug smuggling case that is likely to escalate tensions between the countries over the arrest of a top Chinese technology executive. (CCTV via AP) Canada shot back at China on Tuesday, branding the death sentence imposed on a British Columbia man as inhumane and flaunting the support of its allies in trying to win the release of two other imprisoned Canadians. The two countries toughened their respective travel advisories, making a mockery of a last year's bilateral feel-good initiative to boost tourism between them. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada has asked China to spare the life of Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who was originally sentenced in 2016 to a 15-year term for drug smuggling. On Monday, after a new trial, he was sentenced to die. "We believe it is inhumane and inappropriate, and wherever the death penalty is considered with regard to a Canadian we speak out against it," Freeland said in Saint-Hyacinthe, Que. Freeland also trumpeted a long list of allies that Canada has courted in its efforts to free Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, two other Canadians imprisoned last month after Canada arrested a Chinese executive at the request of the United States. "So much of the world is speaking with one voice on this matter and I think that is certainly a good start. But the people (Kovrig and Spavor) are not yet free, and there is still more work to be done," Canada's ambassador to China, John McCallum, said in an exclusive interview in Montreal. "I think that's very important, and I think the prime minister and foreign-affairs minister have done a great job in getting all those major countries to come out publicly in support of Canada." Freeland said she wanted to "emphasize" how glad Canada is that "a large and growing, group of our allies has stood with Canada." She rhymed off a list of countries Germany, France, the Netherlands, the European Union, the United States, Britain, Australia, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia for "publicly coming out and speaking against these arbitrary detentions. And that is very important." Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also courted the leaders of Argentina and New Zealand in separate telephone calls on Monday. The international outreach has sparked Chinese ire, including a scathing attack from Beijing's envoy in Ottawa that it smacks of "Western egotism and white supremacy." Freeland and McCallum spoke after China's foreign ministry blasted Trudeau earlier on Tuesday, expressing "strong dissatisfaction" with his criticism of the death sentence for Schellenberg. Trudeau said Monday he was very concerned to see China "acting arbitrarily." Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying upbraided Trudeau on Tuesday, saying he should "respect the rule of law, respect China's judicial sovereignty, correct mistakes and stop making irresponsible remarks." Hua told reporters in Beijing that China expresses "our strong dissatisfaction with this" and is cautioning its citizens about travelling to Canada. It urged Chinese citizens to consider their personal circumstances and "fully assess the risks of going to Canada for tourism." The Chinese foreign ministry's consular-affairs office also published a notice Tuesday saying that Canada has recently "arbitrarily detained" a Chinese national a reference to Canada's arrest of Chinese telecommunications executive Meng Wanzhou. The notice mirrored Canada's revision of its own travel advisory Monday that warned of the "risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws" in China. McCallum, a former cabinet minister who was a vocal booster of Sino-Canadian tourism, said his top priority "is to do everything I can to get the two Michaels" released as quickly as possible. "I also agree with the prime minister, who referred to the arbitrary death penalty," said McCallum, who is expected to brief Trudeau's cabinet at a retreat this week in Sherbrooke, Que. Canada has asked China's ambassador to Canada for clemency in Schellenberg's case, said Freeland, adding that she had "a very emotional conversation" with Schellenberg's father on Monday. "With the case of Mr. Schellenberg, it's important for us to remember that we're talking about a human being, about a person," the minister said. "We really understand how difficult the situation is, and I think the Schellenberg family has our country's sympathy." Schellenberg had a history of criminal drug offences that dated back to 2003, and pleaded guilty in April 2012 to cocaine trafficking in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, according to a transcript of the hearing. Judge Neill Brown noted Schellenberg's criminal history and the fact he was battling a drug addiction after breaking his leg. He was on probation from a 2010 drug offence when he committed the new offence. "His father has turned his back on him because of his criminal history although he still has the support of some family members," Brown said as he handed Schellenberg a two-year sentence. "You are not caught up in Libya or Syria and I accept that you have your own struggles to deal with, but you have to confront those," Brown added. "I hope this is the last time you appear in court. You are fortunate that you have some family members supporting you." Freeland said even though Canada believes the death penalty is wrong, "Canadians who travel to countries where the death penalty is part of the criminal justice system need to be aware that it exists. That is just a reality." With files from The Associated Press FRANKFURT - Volkswagen and Ford are forming a global alliance to develop commercial vans and medium-sized pickups together while exploring broader co-operation on future battery-powered and autonomous vehicles and services. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Ford Motor Co. President and CEO, Jim Hackett, left, meets with Dr. Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen AG, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio) FRANKFURT - Volkswagen and Ford are forming a global alliance to develop commercial vans and medium-sized pickups together while exploring broader co-operation on future battery-powered and autonomous vehicles and services. Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess and Ford CEO Jim Hackett said Tuesday that the first jointly developed vehicles could hit the market as early as 2022 and that the linkup would offer efficiencies that would mean stronger profits starting in 2023. Ford Motor Co., based in Dearborn, Michigan, would make the medium-sized pickups, one of its strengths, as well as larger vans. Volkswagen would develop and build a small van for crowded cities. Cooperation on development lets carmakers spread their costs over more vehicles, lowering their costs per vehicle. The two companies also said they would look into possibly co-operating on electric and autonomous cars and were willing to consider additional projects, but without taking shares in each other. Ford Motor Co. President and CEO, Jim Hackett, left, meets with Dr. Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen AG, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio) The deal is the latest in a string of alliances across the industry as carmakers face the need to keep up with new technologies and invest billions in research and development. They are under pressure from governments in key markets such as the European Union and China to come up with electric vehicles so they can meet tougher pollution limits. And they are racing with tech companies such as Waymo and Uber to develop autonomous vehicles and to find ways to offer temporary use of an auto as a service through smartphone apps. At the same time, a slowing global economy is putting pressure on profits and underlining the need to control costs. Ford last week announced a shake-up of its European operations that will mean dropping less profitable vehicle lines. Hackett said the alliance "will not only drive significant efficiencies and help both companies improve their fitness, but also gives us the opportunity to collaborate on shaping the next era of mobility." He said in a conference call with reporters that the rush of new technologies is broad and "moving at the speed of light." "You can't do this alone," he said. Jessica Caldwell, executive director of industry analysis at car shopping website Edmunds, said that the success of the partnership "could ultimately determine the long-term fate of two of the world's most iconic brands." "Automakers aren't just competing with each other anymore, they're under intense pressure from well-funded tech companies who are eager to get in on the future of mobility," she said. "Cutting costs by sharing vehicle architectures and manufacturing facilities is just table stakes in this new world, and is a nice place to start. However, the key to success will be if Ford and VW can help each other fend off the upstarts and become leading forces in electric and autonomous vehicle technology." Because of the huge costs involved, automakers, ride-hailing companies and tech firms have announced numerous partnerships. Fiat Chrysler is providing minivans to Google's Waymo autonomous vehicle unit, while General Motors and Honda, Uber and Toyota and Lyft and parts supplier Magna International are teaming up on self-driving cars. Volkswagen CEO Diess said that while Volkswagen is generally highly competitive it lacks volume in light trucks and midsize pickups. "Sharing platforms and parts with Ford provides very competitive scale effects in this segment - with the effect that jointly we will become No. 1 in this area," he said in a statement. Diess said Volkswagen would use the Ford platform for the successor to its current Amarok medium-sized pickup, to be sold in Latin America, Europe, South Africa and potentially in the U.S. Co-operating with an American company also makes sense for Volkswagen - which is based in Wolfsburg, Germany, and owns the Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi, Skoda and other brands - because the regulatory conditions for preparing the start of widespread autonomous driving are more advanced in the U.S. than in Europe. He and Hackett said both brands would keep separate identities and be sold through their own dealer networks. Hackett said the companies would ensure that the vehicles have different driving dynamics and driver interfaces in line with their own brand images. Krisher contributed from Detroit. SAN FRANCISCO - The nation's largest utility said Monday it is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy because it faces at least $30 billion in potential damages from lawsuits over the catastrophic wildfires in California in 2017 and 2018 that killed scores of people and destroyed thousands of homes. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/1/2019 (884 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. FILE - In this Sept. 11, 2010, file photo, Geisha Williams, right, then-senior vice president of energy delivery for Pacific Gas & Electric, speaks to hundreds of displaced San Bruno residents that jammed a town hall meeting at St. Roberts Catholic Church in San Bruno, Calif. PG&E said Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019, that CEO Williams was stepping down and that John Simon, the company's general counsel, would serve as interim CEO until a replacement is found. (AP photo/Tony Avelar, File) SAN FRANCISCO - The nation's largest utility said Monday it is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy because it faces at least $30 billion in potential damages from lawsuits over the catastrophic wildfires in California in 2017 and 2018 that killed scores of people and destroyed thousands of homes. The move by Pacific Gas & Electric Corp., expected by the end of the month, would be the biggest bankruptcy by a utility in U.S. history, legal experts said. It would allow PG&E to hold off creditors and continue providing electricity and natural gas without interruption to its 16 million customers in Northern and central California while it tries to put its finances in order. The filing would not make the lawsuits disappear, but would result in all wildfire claims being consolidated into a single proceeding before a bankruptcy judge, not a jury. That could shield the company from excessive jury verdicts and buy time by putting a hold on the claims. Chapter 11 reorganization represents "the only viable option to address the company's responsibilities to its stakeholders," Richard Kelly, chairman of PG&E's board of directors, said in a statement. "The Chapter 11 process allows us to work with these many constituents in one court-supervised forum to comprehensively address our potential liabilities and to implement appropriate changes." State officials are investigating whether the utility's equipment sparked the deadliest, most destructive wildfire in California history, a November Northern California blaze that killed at least 86 people and burned down 15,000 homes. State investigators have also blamed PG&E power lines for some fires in October 2017. Authorities are also looking into the cause of a blaze that destroyed thousands of homes and killed 22 people in Santa Rosa last year. California law requires utilities to pay damages for wildfires if their equipment caused the blazes even if the utilities weren't negligent through, say, inadequate maintenance. The logo for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. appears above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. PG&E lost half its value after the troubled California utility, which faces huge liabilities over the state's deadly wildfires, said it would file for bankruptcy protection. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) PG&E, which is the nation's largest utility by revenue and is based in San Francisco, said it is giving the required 15 days' notice that it plans to file for bankruptcy protection. It said it will continue working with regulators and stakeholders to consider how it can safely provide energy "in an environment that continues to be challenged by climate change." The announcement follows the resignation of chief executive Geisha Williams a day earlier. She leaves with a $2.5 million severance payout, a spokesman told the Mercury News of San Jose. In a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said the liabilities it faces from 2017 and 2018 wildfires could exceed $30 billion, not including punitive damages, fines and penalties. The largest bankruptcy filing on record by a utility was Energy Future Holdings Corp. in 2014, which had $49.7 billion in liabilities in today's dollars, according to an analysis by Kevin Kelly, director of publications at S&P Global. Veteran New York bankruptcy lawyer H. Jeffrey Schwartz said PG&E's bankruptcy should prove to be the biggest yet, since it had about $50 billion in liabilities at the end of 2017. That does not include claims from 2018 wildfires. He said the utility has no other way of getting out from under the mountain of legal claims. "The liability is too great. It's too many claims, the aggregate amount is too great, and it looks at first blush to be indefensible because PG&E knew of this risk and didn't clear the line areas as it should have," Schwartz said. He said he expects shareholders to bear the brunt of the restructuring. Bankruptcy court has no say over the rates utility customers pay; those are decided by state regulators and politicians. As for the lawsuits, PG&E will negotiate with the plaintiffs and its other creditors a reorganization plan based on how much the utility is able to pay, said Hugh Wynne of Sovereign Research, an investment research firm. "You avoid a situation where some jury in California thinks PG&E is responsible for this fire, so we should hit them up for all these damages and let them sort out how they pay for it," Wynne said. A bankruptcy also would allow PG&E to raise cash by selling assets such as its gas business and hydropower plants more easily, he said. PG&E spent millions in an 11th-hour lobbying effort at the end of the California legislative session in August in a failed attempt to change the law to reduce its liability in wildfires. Before last year's disastrous fire in Northern California's Butte County, PG&E's stock stood at $47.80. But in early Monday trading it tumbled $8.48 to $9.11, its lowest level in more than 16 years. Wall Street last week slashed PG&E's credit rating to junk status. PG&E also filed for Chapter 11 in 2001 amid rising electricity prices during California's energy crisis. California's new governor, Democrat Gavin Newsom, told reporters that "safety, reliability and affordability" are his top concerns, alongside protecting wildfire victims and ratepayers, in confronting the potential bankruptcy. He sought to assure the public that this potential bankruptcy won't result in power shutoffs. He said addressing the pending bankruptcy, and potentially avoiding it, is a top priority for his new administration, but he hasn't settled on what actions to take. He said the state has "no choice" but to work collaboratively with the utility even though it has not been a "trusted player" in the past. The Natural Resources Defence Council warned that bankruptcy could threaten billions in funding for PG&E's clean energy initiatives, which are key to California's environmental goals. PG&E is the state's largest investor in energy efficiency and electric vehicle infrastructure, said the NRDC's Ralph Cavanagh. "California needs healthy utilities with access to capital to be able to meet its environmental goals and policies. It's essential," said Travis Miller, a strategist at Morningstar Inc. This version corrects the name of Natural Resources Defence Council. Bussewitz reported from New York. LONDON - British lawmakers overwhelmingly rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's divorce deal with the European Union on Tuesday, plunging the Brexit process into chaos and triggering a no-confidence vote that could topple her government. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. An activist from Avaaz wears a mask of Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May as Pro-European demonstrators protest opposite the Houses of Parliament in London, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is struggling to win support for her Brexit deal in Parliament. Lawmakers are due to vote on the agreement Tuesday, and all signs suggest they will reject it, adding uncertainty to Brexit less than three months before Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) LONDON - British lawmakers overwhelmingly rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's divorce deal with the European Union on Tuesday, plunging the Brexit process into chaos and triggering a no-confidence vote that could topple her government. The defeat was widely expected, but the scale of the House of Commons' vote 432 votes against the government and 202 in support was devastating for May's fragile leadership. It followed more than two years of political upheaval in which May has staked her political reputation on getting a Brexit deal and was the biggest defeat for a government in the House of Commons in modern history. Moments after the result was announced with Speaker John Bercow bellowing "the noes have it" to a packed Commons chamber May said it was only right to test whether the government still had lawmakers' support to carry on. Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn quickly obliged, saying May's government had lost the confidence of Parliament. Lawmakers will vote Wednesday on his motion of no-confidence. If the government loses, it will have 14 days to overturn the result or face a national election. Pro-European demonstrators protest opposite the Houses of Parliament in London, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is struggling to win support for her Brexit deal in Parliament. Lawmakers are due to vote on the agreement Tuesday, and all signs suggest they will reject it, adding uncertainty to Brexit less than three months before Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) Although May lacks an overall majority in Parliament, she looks likely to survive the vote unless lawmakers from her Conservative party rebel. Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, which props up May's government, said it would support her. "The House has spoken and the government will listen," May said after the vote, which leaves her Brexit plan on life support just 10 weeks before the country is due to leave the EU on March 29. May promised to consult lawmakers on future moves, but gave little indication of what she plans to do next. Parliament has given the government until Monday to come up with a new proposal. Two men wearing shirts and hats supporting US President Donald Trump join Leave demonstrators protesting opposite the Houses of Parliament in London, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is struggling to win support for her Brexit deal in Parliament. Lawmakers are due to vote on the agreement Tuesday, and all signs suggest they will reject it, adding uncertainty to Brexit less than three months before Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) She faces a stark choice: Steer the country toward an abrupt "no-deal" break with the EU or try to nudge it toward a softer departure. Meanwhile, lawmakers from both government and opposition parties are trying to wrest control of the Brexit process from a paralyzed government, so that lawmakers by majority vote can specify a new plan for Britain's EU exit. But with no clear majority in Parliament for any single alternate course, there is a growing chance that Britain may seek to postpone its departure date while politicians work on a new plan or even hand the decision back to voters in a new referendum on EU membership. "If you can't resolve the impasse here in Westminster, than you have to refer it back to the people," said Labour Party lawmaker Chuka Umunna, who supports a second referendum. An pro-Brexit demonstrator confronts police officers in Parliament square in London, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. Rival groups of pro-Brexit and pro-EU demonstrators are rallying outside Britain's Parliament ahead of Tuesday's historic vote on a divorce deal with the European Union. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) May, who had postponed a vote on the deal in December to avoid certain defeat, had implored lawmakers to back her deal and deliver on voters' decision in 2016 to leave the EU. But the deal was doomed by deep opposition from both sides of the divide over U.K.'s place in the bloc. Pro-Brexit lawmakers say the deal will leave Britain bound indefinitely to EU rules, while pro-EU politicians favour an even closer economic relationship with Europe. The most contentious section of the deal was an insurance policy known as the "backstop" designed to prevent the reintroduction of border controls between the U.K.'s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. Assurances from EU leaders that the backstop is intended as a temporary measure of last resort completely failed to win over many British skeptics. In this grab taken from video, Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May listens to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn speaking after losing a vote on her Brexit deal, in the House of Commons, London, Tuesday Jan. 15, 2019. British lawmakers have plunged Brexit into chaos and the U.K. politics into crisis by rejecting Prime Minister Theresa May's divorce deal with the European Union. The 432 to 202 vote in the House of Commons was widely expected but still devastating for May, whose fragile leadership is now under siege. (House of Commons/PA via AP) Two and a half years after the referendum, Britain remains divided over how, and whether, to leave the EU. As lawmakers debated in the chamber, there was a cacophony of chants, drums and music from rival bands of pro-EU and pro-Brexit protesters outside. One group waved blue-and-yellow EU flags, the other brandished "Leave Means Leave" placards. Inside, the government and opposition parties ordered lawmakers to cancel all other plans to be on hand for the crucial vote. Labour legislator Tulip Siddiq delayed the scheduled cesarean birth of her son so she could attend, arriving in a wheelchair An anti-Brexit demonstrator cries as he gathers in Parliament square in London, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. British lawmakers have rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal by a huge margin, plunging U.K. politics into crisis 10 weeks before the country is due to leave the European Union. The House of Commons voted 432 -202 on Tuesday against the deal struck between Britain's government and the EU in November. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) Some Conservatives want May to seek further talks with EU leaders on changes before bringing a tweaked version of the bill back to Parliament, even though EU officials insist the 585-page withdrawal agreement cannot be renegotiated. Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said May was unlikely to get changes to her deal from that could "placate her Brexiteers." "Or, she reaches out to Labour and goes for a softer Brexit than most Brexiteers would contemplate" but which the EU might accept, Bale said. FILE - In this June 19, 2017 file photo, a member of protocol changes the EU and British flags at EU headquarters in Brussels. British lawmakers on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019 overwhelmingly rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's divorce deal with the European Union, plunging the Brexit process into chaos. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File) Frustrated EU leaders called on May to make her intentions clear on the future of Brexit. "Now, it is time for the U.K. to tell us the next steps," said Michel Barnier, the bloc's chief negotiator. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker who returned to Brussels late Tuesday to deal with fallout from the vote said the rejection of May's deal had increased "the risk of a disorderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom." "Time is almost up," he said. Economists warn that an abrupt break from the EU could batter the British economy and bring chaotic scenes at borders, ports and airports. Business groups expressed alarm at the prospect of a "no-deal" exit. "Every business will feel no-deal is hurtling closer," said Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry. "A new plan is needed immediately." European Council President Donald Tusk highlighted the quagmire the U.K. had sunk into, and hinted that the best solution might be for Britain not to leave. "If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?" he tweeted. Casert reported from Strasbourg, France. Associated Press writers Danica Kirka in London and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed. Follow AP's full coverage of Brexit at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit Folks in Manitoba and Saskatchewan are the best in Canada at doing financial planning for their retirement but are less confident than the national average when it comes to eventually having what they think they will need. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/1/2019 (884 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Folks in Manitoba and Saskatchewan are the best in Canada at doing financial planning for their retirement but are less confident than the national average when it comes to eventually having what they think they will need. According to a new survey done by Ipsos for RBC Financial Planning, 63 per cent of people in Manitoba and Saskatchewan have a financial plan, compared with 54 per cent nationally and only 46 per cent in Atlantic Canada. The survey asked participants, without any prompting, what they think they will need to have for their retirement and the resulting national average was $787,000 ($907,000 in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.) But Richa Hingorani, senior director of digital strategy for RBC, said financial-planning professionals do not focus on that number until an actual financial plan is put in place. She said the actual nest-egg number could be interpreted in many different ways. "But what would build up the confidence is going to be if they have a plan in place and are able to articulate it," she said. Anyones "nest-egg" income would be paid in a few different ways, she said the money people already have, income from employer pension, income from government pension and other things such as home equity that they will be tapping into. Ryan Remiorz / The Canadian Press files According to a new survey done by Ipsos for RBC Financial Planning, 63 per cent of people in Manitoba and Saskatchewan have a financial plan, compared with 54 per cent nationally. Nationally, the survey participants expressed varying degrees of confidence about their ability to save enough to build their nest egg, with 45 per cent feeling somewhat confident (only 40 per cent in Manitoba and Saskatchewan), 16 per cent very confident (versus only 12 per cent in Manitoba and Saskatchewan). "They seem to be a step ahead in Manitoba (and Saskatchewan), which should be celebrated that they at least have the inclination to put a plan together. They are definitely starting to think about their financial future. Thats good," Hingorani said. "Now, what is going to bring up the confidence level? This is the real question here." She said at RBC, they have found that having a written plan in place can bring confidence levels up by 10 per cent. Survey participants were asked what the top motivators were to build a nest egg for their financial future. Being debt-free was the most common at 66 per cent, and the most common action to save for that nest egg was spending less on non-essentials at 74 per cent (80 per cent for those in Manitoba and Saskatchewan). RBC and others suggest those planning on retirement not get fixated on one thing, such as eliminating debt or figuring out how much to contribute to an RRSP. RBC has designed an online tool that digitally connects the client with the bank and professional advisers that includes a digital interactive dashboard that displays the clients savings and investment goals along with actions to achieve those goals. "Its not just about paying down the debt. Its not just about RRSPs," Hingorani said. "We hear from our clients qualitatively that (the visual representation on the dashboard) is really making a difference by helping them to see the big picture. They can actually see how, if they put money into an RSP and pay down the debt, what the impact will be on the future." martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca DETROIT Ford and Germanys Volkswagen will disclose some details of their planned alliance this morning, top officials with both companies said Monday at the Detroit auto show. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. DETROIT Ford and Germanys Volkswagen will disclose some details of their planned alliance this morning, top officials with both companies said Monday at the Detroit auto show. The companies scheduled a joint conference call for 7:30 a.m. CST today, with Volkswagen AG CEO Herbert Diess and Ford CEO Jim Hackett "to provide an update on the companies ongoing discussions regarding a global alliance." Both Diess and Bill Ford, executive chairman of the automaker his great-grandfather founded, said on Monday that talks are continuing but the companies have considerable opportunities to collaborate. "The talks are going really well. Were going to have more to say later this week. Stay tuned," Bill Ford said after the company unveiled the 2020 Mustang Shelby GT500, a new Police Interceptor and an Explorer ST. "Were still actually in final discussions," he said. Diess, speaking after the introduction of the new Passat sedan, said, "We love to work together with the Ford guys. They are really serious and professionals." Reports have said discussions evolved from commercial vehicles to electric and autonomous vehicle research, and both Diess and Hackett have hinted at shared production. Diess, who raised the possibility last month that VW could build cars in U.S. Ford plants with UAW workers, said on Monday: "Its too early to announce." We have a press meeting tomorrow. Well announce more and want to announce it together." He added: "We are really strong in Europe and China, probably not as strong in the United States so we are very complementary Ford and Volkswagen. More tomorrow. "Partnership is very often about economies of scale in our industry. As I said, we are big, but there are segments where it makes sense to work together... Combining forces would strengthen Ford and Volkswagen." When asked if Volkswagen might one day build vehicles in Ford factories, Diess said, "It might be a possibility in the future." Specifically asked about building Audi in the U.S., he said: "This is under consideration. Not yet decided." Bill Ford said: "There is a very strong future for manufacturing in North America. We are a global company. That wont change." Detroit Free Press PROVIDENCE, R.I. - In a story Jan. 16 about government workers taking on odd jobs during the government shutdown, The Associated Press erroneously described the work of Cheryl Inzunza Blum. She represents immigrants in criminal matters in federal court, not in immigration court. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. PROVIDENCE, R.I. - In a story Jan. 16 about government workers taking on odd jobs during the government shutdown, The Associated Press erroneously described the work of Cheryl Inzunza Blum. She represents immigrants in criminal matters in federal court, not in immigration court. A corrected version of the story is below: Federal workers take on odd jobs to make ends meet Other government workers are driving for Uber, relying on word of mouth and social networks to find handyman work and looking for traditional temp gigs to help pay the bills during the longest shutdown in US history By MICHELLE R. SMITH Associated Press When her paychecks dried up because of the partial government shutdown, Cheryl Inzunza Blum sought out a side job that has become a popular option in the current economy: She rented out a room on Airbnb. Other government workers are driving for Uber, relying on word-of-mouth and social networks to find handyman work and looking for traditional temp gigs to help pay the bills during the longest shutdown in U.S. history. The hundreds of thousands of out-of-work government employees have more options than in past shutdowns given the rise of the so-called "gig economy" that has made an entire workforce out of people doing home vacation rentals and driving for companies like Uber, Lyft and Postmates. It's even happening among White House staff. Kevin Hassett, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters on a conference call Tuesday that "a long-time dedicated employee" trying to make ends meet without a paycheque was driving for Uber to make ends meet. Blum decided to capitalize on the busy winter travel season in Arizona to help make ends meet after she stopped getting paid for her government contract work as a lawyer representing immigrants in criminal matters in federal court in Tucson. She says she has no choice but to continue to work unpaid because she has clients who are depending on her, some of whom are detained or have court hearings. But she also has bills: her Arizona state bar dues, malpractice insurance and a more than $500 phone bill for the past two months because she uses her phone so heavily for work. Blum bills the government for her work, but the office that pays her hasn't processed any paychecks to her since before the shutdown began. So she's been tapping every source she can to keep herself afloat even her high school- and college-aged children and is even thinking about driving for Uber and Lyft as well. "So after working in court all day I'm going to go home and get the room super clean because they're arriving this evening," she said of her Airbnb renters. "I have a young man who's visiting town to do some biking, and he's going to come tomorrow and stay a week," she added. "I'm thrilled because that means immediate money. Once they check in, the next day there's some money in my account." The shutdown is occurring against the backdrop of a strong economy that has millions of open jobs, along with ample opportunities to pick up Uber and Lyft shifts. The Labor Department reported that employers posted 6.9 million jobs in November, the latest figures available. That's not far from the record high of 7.3 million reached in August. Roughly 8,700 Uber driver positions are advertised nationwide on the SnagAJob website, while Lyft advertises about 3,000. But the gig economy doesn't pay all that well something the furloughed government workers are finding out. Pay for such workers has declined over the past two years, and they are earning a growing share of their income elsewhere, a recent study found. Most Americans who earn income through online platforms do so for only a few months each year, according to the study by the JPMorgan Chase Institute. Chris George, 48, of Hemet, California, is furloughed from his job as a forestry technician supervisor for the U.S. Department of Agriculture forest service. He's been driving for Lyft but has only been averaging about $10 for every hour he drives. Paying for gas then eats into whatever money he has made. He just got word that he'll be getting $450 in weekly unemployment benefits, but hadn't received any money as of Monday. In the meantime, he's taking handyman or other odd jobs wherever he can. "I've just been doing side jobs when they come along," he said Monday. "I had two last week, and I don't know what this week's going to bring." George Jankowski is among those hunting around for cash. He's getting a $100 weekly unemployment check, but that's barely enough to pay for food and gas, he said. On Monday, he made $30 helping a friend move out of a third-floor apartment in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Jankowski is furloughed from a USDA call centre and does not expect to get back pay because his job is part-time and hourly. Jankowski, an Air Force veteran, calls the situation "grueling." "It's embarrassing to ask for money to pay bills or ask to borrow money to, you know, eat," he said. Some employers were looking at the shutdown as a way to recruit, at least temporarily. Missy Koefod of the Atlanta-based cocktail-mixer manufacturer 18.21 Bitters said the company needs temporary help in the kitchen, retail store and getting ready for a trade show, and decided to put out the word to furloughed federal workers on social media that they were hiring. "I can't imagine not getting paid for a couple of weeks," Koefod said. American Labor Services, a staffing agency that employs 500 people a week in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, sent out an appeal to furloughed federal workers on Monday, asking them to get in touch for clerical or light-industrial work. "Some might not realize that they could get something temporary, it could last for a short period," said Ben Kaplan, the company's president and CEO. Israel Diaz sought out an Uber job and applied to be a security guard after he was furloughed from his Treasury Department job in Kansas City. He said federal work has become increasingly demoralizing and that he and many of his co-workers are considering quitting. "In the old days, you work for the federal government, you get benefits, great," said Diaz, a Republican and Marine Corps veteran. "Now, it's not even worth it." Associated Press writers Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Chris Rugaber in Washington contributed to this report. Animal Services officers, with the assistance of general patrol police officers, seized 15 dogs and transported them to a city facility for medical care. Viewed of Take Five - This is your final free article during this 30 day period.Stay in touch with all of the news from Winchester, Frederick and Clarke. Sign up today for complete digital access to The Winchester Star. The mere presence of a Jewish police officer clad in a kippah, the traditional religious skullcap worn by Jews, has set off a riot on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Posts ever-intrepid Khaled Abu Toameh reports that protesters have barricaded themselves inside the Dome of the Rock after being offended and incensed by the sight of a Jew patrolling the holy area: Muslim worshipers and guards for the Wakf Islamic religious trust protested on Monday against an Israeli policeman wearing a kippah who tried to enter the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount as part of a routine security patrol. The protesters barricaded themselves inside the shrine after a large police force was rushed to the area, witnesses said. They demanded that the policeman remove the kippah before entering the site, triggering a standoff with police The Wakf said in a statement that it had ordered the closure of the Dome of the Rock after an Israeli policeman attempted to storm it while wearing a kippah. It said that two Israeli policemen enter the site daily in the morning and evening for a routine security check. The guards at the Dome of the Rock asked the policeman to remove his kippah before entering the site, but he refused and insisted on entering it even by force, the Wakf statement said. The guards then closed all the gates of the Dome of the Rock. Later, police officers were deployed at the entrances to the Dome of the Rock, while the guards and worshipers remained inside The standoff began shortly after Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel (Bayit Yehudi) toured the Temple Mount accompanied by scores of Jewish visitors. The Palestinian Authoritys minister for religious affairs, Yusef Edais, condemned the incident at the Temple Mount as an assault on the feelings of Muslims and their holy sites. These are immoral practices that create more religious incitement inside and outside of Jerusalem, he charged. He also accused Israel of working toward dividing Al-Aqsa Mosque in time and space between Muslims and Jews. Stand for Israel told you about Israeli airstrikes that targeted terrorist sites in Syria strikes that were, unusually, confirmed by Israeli leadership. But now our friends at JNS tell us that the airstrikes not only targeted terrorist infrastructure, but terrorist leadership, as well: The Israeli airstrike on Iranian warehouses in Damascus on Friday was timed to target a meeting of Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders who were meeting with Syrian military leaders, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jadira reported on Monday. Al-Jadira quoted sources in the Revolutionary Guards who said the Syrian, Iranian, and Hezbollah commanders had convened to discuss a joint Russian-Turkish plan to attack the Al Qaeda-affiliated jihadist Nusra Front group in Idlib in northwestern Syria. The sources told the Kuwaiti paper that the strike came moments after the meeting adjourned, and badly wounded two Revolutionary Guard commanders and a number of Hezbollah and Syrian military personnel. In a highly unusual step, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed on Sunday that Israel was responsible for the strike on the Damascus airport. Just in the past 36 hours, the IDF struck Iranian targets in Damascus, proving we are more determined than ever to take action against Iran in Syria, Netanyahu said A man pulled a knife on several Canton police officers after he was stopped for suspicious activity; he was found to have a functional meth lab in a backpack he was carrying, police said. Recently, The Fellowship and Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein provided a $1 million gift to Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital in Jerusalem. The gift allowed the hospital to purchase a Lokomat therapy machine, which provides robot-assisted walking therapy, and will treat wounded soldiers, terror victims, and wheelchair bound patients. The hospital also purchased equipment for the Department of Cardiology. The hospital is thrilled to offer physical therapy with the Lokomat machine, which uses a robotic device to help people whose ability to walk has been impaired from a stroke, spinal cord or brain injury, or suffer from a neurological or orthopedic condition. With this therapy, patients can learn to walk again, bringing new hope and healing to many. Recently, Rabbi Eckstein visited Hadassah Medical Center for the dedication of the Lokomat machine, along with Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Leon and Dalia Itzik, a former MK and government minister who currently serves as Chair of the Board of Hadassah International in Israel. Thank you to all our donors who continue to support important Fellowship projects like this one! The official, who is also a Politburo member, lauded the visit amidst the growing ties between Vietnam and Laos in all fields. She noted that many friendship visits have been made by the high-ranking leaders of both sides over the years, which affirms the two countries commitments to further promoting their bilateral relations. Expressing her delight at the sound partnership between the Vietnam News Agency and the KPL, Phong asked the two agencies to better perform their tasks in providing accurate and timely information to the local media systems, and in popularising the policies of each country as well as the Vietnam-Laos traditional friendship to international friends. Stressing that the VNA is the strategic and trustworthy news centre of the Party and State with various media products, she expressed her hope that the VNA will continue supporting and exchanging experiences with the KPL to better meet the requirements of each country in the new period. Phong said she believes that the VNA and the KPL will continue making reforms and effectively implement their cooperation, thus promoting their role as major media agencies of each country and contributing to strengthening the special relations between the two peoples. For his part, Sounthone Khanthavong spoke highly of the VNAs support to and cooperation with the KPL in all fields, including technical infrastructure, equipment, and information exchange. Currently, the KPL is facing difficulties in personnel training, with fewer reporters and editors fluent in Vietnamese, the Lao official said, expressing his hope that the Vietnamese NA would pay greater attention to the matter and provide more long-term scholarships to officials from the KPL. Earlier the same day, VNA General Director Nguyen Duc Loi held talks with the visiting KPL leader, during which the two sides briefed each other of their operations and progress and reviewed the bilateral cooperation activities over the past few years. They shared their delight at the efficiency of the professional collaboration between the two agencies. During their stay in Vietnam, the KPL delegation will attend a ceremony to present Isala Orderd and the Labour Order of Laos to individuals and collectives from the VNA. They will visit the Vietnam-Laos revolutionary relic site and Moc Chau milk plant in Son La province, as well as the Nghi Son economic zone and the citadel of the Ho Dynasty in Thanh Hoa. In a statement the Communist Party of Swaziland has denounced the arrest of two Party cadres, Mcolisi Ngcamphalala and Njabulo Dlamini, by the local authorities. The full statement is the following: Today 11 January 2019 at around 10h45 the royal Swaziland police arrested two leaders of the Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS), claiming that they were jaywalking. The leaders are Deputy Chairperson Comrade Mcolisi Ngcamphalala and International Organiser Comrade Njabulo Dlamini. They were arrested in Manzini on their way to attend a teachers meeting in their capacity as leaders in one of the branches of their union, the Swaziland National Association of Teachers. The two leaders were in the company of a large group which was crossing the road legally. The police arrested only the two and let everyone else leave. When Comrade Njabulo Dlamini pointed out the obvious anomaly, the police threatened him with violence. A back-up of about 30 police, half of whom were plain clothed, then stormed the arrest scene and forcefully dragged them into a police van. They then decided to charge him with obstruction of police on duty. Comrade Mcolisi Ngcamphalala was also charged with resisting arrest for raising the same questions concerning the obviously illegal and unreasonable act by the police. During the arrest, the police were making all sorts of threats and insults against them. They threatened to fix them, among other utterances. They intended to keep them in the police holding cells the whole weekend until Monday, 14 January, merely to prove we can do whatever we want with you!, as the police boasted. Thankfully, a human rights lawyer reacted promptly when alerted by other activists and demanded that the comrades be released. He succeeded to secure their release. They will appear before the Manzini Magistrates Court on Monday, 14 January 2019, at 09h00. It is interesting that the two leaders, who have been at the forefront of workers struggles in recent years, were snatched while on their way to prepare for a teachers meeting that was scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday 12 January. This was clearly a ploy by the Mswati autocracy to disrupt the preparatory meeting. As the CPS we are not shocked by the latest machinations of the regime. It is a well-documented fact that the regime has been following communists inside and outside Swaziland, intending to cripple the CPS and workers struggles. Late last year the Swazi Observer, a newspaper owned by sub-Saharan Africas last absolute monarch, Mswati, went to the extent of publishing the two leaders pictures, claiming that they were the ringleaders during workers actions. The intention was to divide the workers, cause division between the workers and the CPS and also cripple the CPS. The CPS has continued to practically and publicly support the demands of workers in Swaziland. We expected the regime to resort to such tricks; to try and intimidate workers into submission. The CPS continues to make the call for Maximum Defiance in the Maximum Number of Sites against the autocratic regime! We will intensify our support for the struggling masses of Swaziland, where close to 70 percent of the people survive on less than US$2 a day. This continued victimisation of communist cadres and workers will force the CPS to respond with direct decisive force against these agents of oppression. We will not allow the regime to silence workers into submission. These sham charges must be dropped, including the charges of all other activists who have been out on bail for many years. We also call for the unconditional release of political prisoners. The CPS finally calls for the intensification of local and international solidarity with civil servants who will, from 28 January 2019, embark on a strike action to demand a 6.55 percent cost of living adjustment. * * * KKE: Release now the cadres of CP of Swaziland The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) strongly condemns the apprehension of the Deputy President, Mcolisi Ngcamphalala and of the International Organizer, Njabulo Dlamini of the Communist Party of Swaziland. The two cadres of the CP of Swaziland were apprehended by the repression mechanisms on January 11th, 2019 in Manzini, Swaziland, while en route to a Meeting of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers, where they both belong, to schedule the activities of the Union. The two cadres of the CP of Swaziland are charged with obstruction of police on duty and resisting arrest. The CP of Swaziland stresses that this is a persecution of political nature of the Mswati regime against the CP of Swaziland and against the working class and trade-union movement. The Mswati regime is the last absolute monarchy in sub-Saharan Africa: the political parties are banned, trade-union activity is under severe restrictions, 70% of the country survives with less that $2 per day and 38% of the people live in absolute poverty. Shine Your Light at the 19th WSU Gospel Festival January 14, 2019 OGDEN, Utah Weber State Universitys Diversity & Inclusive Programs invites the public to attend the 19th annual Gospel Music Festival Jan. 25 from 7:30-9:30 p.m. at the Browning Center Austad Auditorium. Ogden's KIDS Are MUSIC children's choir will be returning to perform this year. The theme this year, Shine Your Light, is a reminder that throughout the challenges and obstacles of life, everyone has light that can help illuminate the paths of others. Gospel music radiates the spirit of hope and resiliency through the power of storytelling, said Andrea Hernandez, Diversity & Inclusive Programs coordinator. It is a significant form of art, deeply rooted in culture and history, that can be used to bring the community together. Six choirs are currently scheduled to perform at the festival designed to educate and celebrate cultural enrichment. Gospel music contains spiritual messages and oral histories shared during the time of slavery and has heavily influenced contemporary music. WSUs gospel festival began as a one-time community event in 2000. The festival has evolved into an annual campus and community tradition to celebrate the new year and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The event is free to the public. Donations of canned or non-perishable food items for the Weber Cares Pantry are encouraged. The Weber Cares Pantry provides assistance to WSU students, faculty and staff who are experiencing food insecurity or need resources such as personal hygiene items. To learn more about WSU Diversity & Inclusive Programs, visit weber.edu/diversity. Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University. Engineer with Freese and Nichols Tim Sansone presented an update on the transportation bond projects at the Parker County Commissioners Court Monday morning saying that the projects are looking good with $21 million spent so far of the $76.2 million budgeted. Perry Burdick, left, navigates one of McCann Tech's new drone to School Committee member Rachel Branch during a demonstration on Thursday. PreviousNext McCann Tech Drone Program Taking Off NORTH ADAMS, Mass. McCann Technical School unveiled its new drone after-school program last week. Principal Justin Kratz and teacher Perry Burdick gave the School Committee a drone presentation Thursday night and demonstrated what the little aircraft could do even in the confines of the meeting room. "It's going to be one more great avenue for our kids to get involved in the school and I think you will see a large number of kids interested in it," Kratz said. "I think they are really going to get into it." The idea was brought forth late last year by School Committee member Robert Reilly who saw a presentation of a similar program at the Massachusetts Associations of School Committees and of Schools Superintendents. Superintendent James Brosnan said the initial startup cost was nearly $4,000 given to the school by Riley's professional group IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Kratz said before purchasing the drones they visited Bristol County Agricultural School in Dighton, which has a more substantial program. "They really have gone whole hog on this drone thing ... they have a whole fleet of drones," he said. "They took us out and let us fly some. As an agricultural school, they have a ton of fields they look at agricultural, environmental, and also law enforcement applications." Burdick said they recommended purchasing DJI brand drones. Kratz said the school purchased three Spark drones that are equipped with GPS and a gimbal camera to provide stable video recording. He said they are smaller and more suitable for training. These cost $450 a piece. The school also purchased a Mavic model that is larger and faster able to reach speeds up to 40 miles per hour and heights of 16,400 feet above sea level (legally drones are not supposed to go this high). This drone costs $850. It also is equipped with a 4K camera and GPS that Burdick said really comes in handy. "They are really user-friendly and the software makes it so at any time if you want to do something you push a button," he said. "At one point I was flying it out here in front and I was getting a little close to Drury ... I turned my head for a second and I lost it so I pushed a button and it landed at my feet." Kratz outlined what the after-school program may do once it officially meets. "I think we only scratched the very surface but we will certainly rely on the kids and their creativity," Kratz said. Kratz said they want to explore recreational flying, drone avocation and exploration, aeronautics and engineering, Federal Aviation Administration regulations, public relations work, drone racing, and, hopefully, some community service. "The unfortunate house fire in North Adams, a local guy brought his drone and flew it over the top of the fire," he said. "He was able to help direct the firefighters. If word gets out that we have this drone club maybe we can provide some service." Kratz added that the Bristol County Agricultural School drone program said they were interested in meeting up with the McCann students and he also heard a drone club was popping up in south county. "Maybe we can get a couple schools together and fill the field with drones," Kratz said. He said both he and Burdick are undergoing training and will receive their commercial drone license. "If we are going to be responsible for these young people flying we have to be licensed," he said. "We are both enrolled in a prep course ... the 'Top Gun' references have been nonstop. I'm Maverick and he is Goose." Burdick added that they cannot take the course now because of the government shutdown. Kratz said students are already excited about the program and some of the robotics students have already purchased loops for a forthcoming obstacle course. "We haven't even officially published the first meeting yet and kids are already lining up and trying them out," Kratz said. "So even though it has been under the radar the response has been really good." Holding signs reading "Honk for the wall," members of the TEA Party of Kentucky and the American Family Association rally support for a border wall, Jan. 14, 2019. (WDRB Photo) Man accused of raping woman during alleged burglary spree at U of L says gun was fake Reporter I cover a range of stories for WDRB, but really enjoy tracking what's going on at our State Capitol. I grew up on military bases all over the world, but am a Kentuckian at heart. I'm an EKU alum, and have lived in Louisville for 30 years. COLOMBO Animal protection campaigners in Sri Lanka, Humane Society International, are renewing calls for the countrys outdated 1907 animal welfare law to be replaced, following a series of shocking cases of animal abuse. The most recent case on New Years Eve saw a Labrador dog named Charlie burnt alive whilst in his outdoor kennel in Negombo. Charlie sustained devastating burns and died of his injuries on New Years Day. Sri Lankas Animal Welfare Bill is yet to be passed into law despite having received Cabinet approval in January 2016. The Bill is designed to replace the countrys Cruelty to Animals Ordinance of 1907, which is an inadequate deterrent against animal cruelty. The maximum punishments currently available are a 100 rupee fine (equivalent to the cost of a bottle of soda in Sri Lanka) and a prison sentence which may extend to six months, which campaigners believe have rarely been imposed. Images/video: (Warning: distressing content) Humane Society International works in countries around the world, and has been instrumental in helping to advance animal welfare laws in countries such as India. The charity believes that creating robust legal protections is vital in tackling animal cruelty. Humane Society Internationals Sri Lanka Director Vositha Wijenayake Attorney-at-Law, says: Enacting the Animal Welfare Bill is now an urgent need in Sri Lanka where punishments for cruelty to animals are woefully inadequate and rarely enforced. As a result, there is little to deter offenders from committing animal cruelty. This has to change. Sri Lanka has been dragging its feet for too long in bringing the Animal Welfare Bill into law. Animals and people alike benefit from animal protection being enshrined in law, because a society that ignores wanton acts of cruelty to defenceless animals sends a disturbing message to the community that those who cannot speak for themselves are worthless. To promote a humane society we need to start with the humane treatment of all living creatures. The tragic case of Charlie is just one of a number of high profile cruelty incidents. In 2016 Sri Lankan police arrested two men for torturing a sea eagle in Habaraduwa after photos on social media showed the endangered bird being skinned alive and the eagles legs cut off. And last year another act of cruelty made global media headlines when a leopard was brutally beaten to death by a group of villagers in Kilinochchi. The cruelty was filmed on a mobile phone, footage from which circulated on social media and prompted global outrage and police action. HSIs Wijenayake says the police response to the killing of the leopard and of Charlie the Labrador are positive because arrests were made. The charity hopes this is a signal that animal cruelty is starting to be taken more seriously in the country. Wijenayake says: Sri Lankan leopard, a leopard subspecies native to the country, is protected in Sri Lanka because of their endangered status. There are fewer than 1,000 leopards on our island. The incident highlights how communities lack awareness on how to humanely deal with human/wildlife conflict, and how easily people can turn to violence to resolve an issue. The police are to be commended for making arrests in these high profile cases, but sadly that is still not the case in Sri Lanka for all cases related to animal cruelty that do not make the news. We hope these arrests are a sign that times are changing. The Animal Welfare Bill would strengthen the law by: WDEL Breaking News Reporters Mike Phillips & Sean Greene remember back to the protest, and the looting, that took place on May 30, 2020 in Downtown Wilmington. El Buki Mayor y sus companeros de siempre se convierten en los primeros artistas latinos en debutar en uno de los estadios mas modernos y nuevos del pais. Submitted by Patty Locher At an awards evening Wednesday, Jan. 9, at the Sabetha Memorial Post 7285 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post Commander Tom Evans, right, presents Post 7285s Voice of Democracy youth essay winner Nathan Knapp, left, with a First District second-place award of $75. This VFW annual audio essay contest is a script-writing program designed to give high school students the opportunity to voice their opinion on the patriotic theme, which changes each year, and to express their thoughts to the American people. The Finnish Ministry of Culture and Education and Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism on Monday signed a letter of intent to enhance co-operation on culture and cultural tourism. FINLAND and China have announced their intention to increase co-operation in a number of sectors in conjunction with the meeting between Presidents Sauli Niinisto and Xi Jinping in Beijing on 1415 January. Business Finland and the Province of Jilin signed a letter of intent to increase co-operation on economy and winter sports, while the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH) and Chinese intellectual rights organisation agreed to supplement their previous agreement. No details were disclosed as to the content of the letters of intent or their projected ramifications for the operating environment of Finnish businesses in China. Zhu Jing, a deputy director at Chinas Department of European Affairs, shed light on the content of the discussions after the official opening ceremony of the China-Finland Winter Sport Year. Zhu said two of the main themes of the discussions were enhancing innovation-driven co-operation particularly in high technology and enhancing co-operation on Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an economic and diplomatic programme to improve regional connectivity. He revealed the two countries will unveil a co-operation plan for the next four years to add a practical dimension to the co-operation launched during an official visit to Finland by Xi in 2017. The co-operation will encompass themes such as political and economic co-operation, sustainable growth and data connections. The plan also lays out a clear timetable and practical measures for meeting the objectives of the co-operation, as well as can serve as a guideline for business-related negotiations, according to Zhu. Aleksi Teivainen HT Source: Uusi Suomi A police spokesperson said yesterday two of the three men have been released after it was determined there is currently no reason to suspect them of any involvement in the suspected sex crimes against children. HELSINKI Police Department has shed further light on the investigation as part of which three people were brought into custody in an eastern area of the Finnish capital on Saturday. The young man who remains in custody, however, is suspected of aggravated rape and aggravated child sexual abuse. The investigators are to request that he be detained on suspicion of the offences later this week. Related posts: Police arrest three on suspicion of sex crimes against children in Helsinki (14 January, 2019) Helsinki Police Department described the suspect as a foreign citizen born in the 1990s residing in Finland. There were three people in the flat at the time of the arrests. All of them were brought into custody to make sure we can determine their role in the suspected offences. The more serious the offence in question, the lower is the threshold for police to arrest people for the duration of interrogations, explained Saara Asmundela, a detective chief inspector at Helsinki Police Department. Police were notified of the suspected offences through the emergency call centre on Saturday. The investigators have interrogated the suspect and interviewed the sole victim of the offences but declined yesterday to comment in more detail on the age or gender of the victim to protect their privacy. We are talking about an underage child, summarised Asmundela. The pre-trial investigation indicates the suspected offences took place in a private flat between early October 2018 and 9 January 2019. The information currently available to the police indicates there were no other people present in the flat. More specific details of the act will not be released into public to protect the injured party, said Asmundela. Aleksi Teivainen HT Source: Uusi Suomi Peter Dutton still insists he knows better than the Fijian government how its citizenship laws apply to the leading Islamic State member Neil Prakash, captured in Turkey in 2016 and now awaiting trial there. The Home Affairs minister is adamant: his departments legal advice is that Prakash is entitled to Fijian citizenship and thus can be stripped of his Australian citizenship, without risk of being rendered stateless, under a law allowing this for dual citizens convicted of serious terrorism offences or taking up arms against Australia. Illustration: Dionne Gain Credit: This is a mystery to the Fijians. From Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama down, they are saying the Melbourne-born Prakash, 27, son of an Indo-Fijian father and Cambodian-origin mother, would have had to apply for Fijian citizenship by descent and had never done so. It was not automatic. Further, the Fijians deny outright Duttons assertion they were consulted in advance about the Prakash decision. No doubt Dutton will come under torrid questioning when Parliament resumes about the legal advice he claims to have, and about his communications or lack of them with Fiji. So I looked around to see if I could find further research which had gone beyond the gathering of anecdotes at a local watering hole. Shaun Ratcliff and Simon Jackman at the University of Sydney, with global survey company YouGov, set voters a number of propositions. If you want insight into what voters value, it would be hard to do better than this survey of more than 1000 Australians. Three in four voters say the government should spend more on infrastructure instead of cutting taxes; less than half believe the government should permit more fracking; 87 per cent believe that the differences between rich and poor have become too large; and nearly 90 per cent believe there should be subsidies for renewable energy sources. Sadly, at least for this child of refugees, nearly two thirds of Australians believe we should accept fewer immigrants (the question was designed to make respondents take a position). It may be this last which causes Morrison to decide to police Australia Day when the rest of us are in our boardies, sarongs and thongs hes conflated citizenship ceremonies with an Australian anxiety about immigration, although by the time anyones gearing up to be brought into the fold, theyve usually had the difference knocked out of them. Ratcliff says: "Culture war issues appear to be more important for politicians than voters. While some people are very concerned by these matters, more are focused on issues that directly and significantly impact their quality of life, such as stagnant wages, job security and cost of living." Dairy farmer Graham Forbes says he's never really heard of a farmer keen to escalate a dispute with a milk processor, but he hopes a new code will remove the need to take on big businesses in court. "Let's hope so if this works properly, farmers shouldn't have to need to," he says. Dairy farmer Graham Forbes, based in Gloucestor NSW, is hopeful about the mandatory dairy code. The department of agriculture and water resources released a draft of its mandatory dairy code of conduct on Tuesday morning. The 98 clauses cover hot-button issues like the use of exclusive milk supply clauses and whether processors can reduce the price paid for milk mid way through a contract. Forbes, whose family dairy farm at Gloucester has been running for several generations, has negotiated with a number of milk processing businesses. He hopes the blueprint will allow the milk industry to "settle down". Afterpay Touch shares slid 3.6 per cent to $13.05, Wisetech Global fell 0.1 per cent to $19.11 and Xero closed 1.6 per cent lower lower at $42.00. Energy stocks also closed lower as oil prices slid for a second straight session. Woodside Petroleum fell 0.5 per cent to $33.08, Origin Energy declined 1.1 per cent to $6.91, Oil Search closed 0.8 per cent lower at $7.55 and Santos went down 0.2per cent to $5.83. The banks led the market gains on Monday with some modest advances. ANZ rose 0.5 per cent to $25.37, NAB advanced 0.5 per cent to $24.67, Commonwealth Bank climbed 0.4 per cent to $71.92 and Westpac lifted 0.5 per cent to $25.74. Retail Food Group shares rose after The Australian Financial Review reported private equity invest PAG Asia Capital was in talks to purchase Crust Gourmet Pizzas. The company responded to the report, saying it was looking to reduce its debt by various means, including the sale of assets. Retail Food Group's shares closed 15.3 per cent higher at 34. Costa Group continued to rebound from its 38.8 per cent loss last Thursday, closing higher for a second straight session on Tuesday as it climbed 4.5 per cent to $4.85. Stock watch Ansell Macquarie Wealth Management upgraded Ansell from 'neutral' to 'outperform' on Monday. The broker believes a combination of raw materials prices trending lower (natural latex, synthetic latex and butadiene are key for Ansell's latex gloves products), an on-track cost reduction program commenced by management in 2017, and greater balance sheet flexibility after Ansell's divestment of its Sexual Wellness business support their favourable investment view. The broker believes Ansell looks attractive compared to domestic and international peers on a price-to-earnings growth basis. Macquarie reduced its 12-month price target on the glove manufacturer from $27.20 to $26.50, citing minor revenue growth adjustments. What moved the market Iron ore premiums A fall in steel margins has pushed steel mills toward lower grade iron ore, decreasing the premium being paid for higher grade ores. In the second half of last year, higher grade iron ore was trading at almost a 45 per cent premium to mid-grade iron ore but have now slid to be trading at less than a 20 per cent premium. "The fall in high-grade iron ore prices don't mean that China's preferance for high-grade ore is set to diminish structurally, but the economics of higher grade ore over mid- and low-grade ore remains an important considerations," said CBA mining and energy commodities analyst Vivek Dhar in a note on Monday. Aluminium US Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer will attempt to force a vote to obstruct the Trump administration's decision to relax sanctions on companies associated with Oleg Deripaska after the Russian oligarch stood down from positions within three sanctioned companies. Schumer said in a statement on Sunday the Treasury Department's proposal is flawed and failed to limit Deripaska's influence and control over the companies. Markets have not priced in harsher sanctions against companies such as RUSAL, meaning aluminium prices could spike sharply if Schumer's proposal is successful. 'The book worm' MacKenzie Tuttle, an aspiring novelist, met her husband at D.E. Shaw, a New York hedge fund where Jeff Bezos, a computer scientist by training, had become a senior vice president. She told Vogue that she took the position of administrative assistant to pay the bills while she worked on her novels, but she soon found herself enamored with the laugh of the man who worked in the next office over. As MacKenzie Bezos put it in a 2013 interview with Charlie Rose: "It was love at first listen." Within three months of dating, the two were engaged; they married shortly thereafter at a resort in West Palm Beach, Florida. Jeff Bezos was 30; MacKenzie Bezos was 23. She often described herself as a bookish introvert, especially compared with Jeff Bezos, a swaggering, infinitely expansive businessman whose chief romantic desire, he told Wired in 1999, six years after his wedding, had been to meet someone "resourceful." (That type of attraction seems to be mutual. In 2017, at a Summit panel, Bezos said that one of his wife's sayings is: "I would much rather have a kid with nine fingers than a resourceless kid.") Mackenzie Bezos played an integral role in the early years of Amazon. Credit:David Ryder MacKenzie Bezos' literary ambitions began early. According to interviews and her author biography on Amazon (where she coyly notes that she "lives in Seattle with her husband and four children"), she started writing seriously at age 6, when she finished a 142-page chapter book titled "The Book Worm." It was later destroyed in a flood; Bezos has said that she now meticulously backs up her work. At Princeton, she studied creative writing under Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison, who hired her as a research assistant for the 1992 novel "Jazz" and introduced her to her high-powered literary agent, Amanda Urban. In Vogue, Morrison hailed Bezos as a rare talent, calling her "one of the best students I've ever had in my creative writing classes." In 2005 she gave Bezos a glowing blurb on her debut novel, "The Testing of Luther Albright," calling it, "a rarity: a sophisticated novel that breaks and swells the heart." Mackenzie Bezos book The Testing of Luther Albright Bezos After graduating from Princeton in 1992, six years after Jeff Bezos graduated from the same university, MacKenzie Bezos took the job that introduced her to the future e-commerce titan. The couple married in 1993 and moved to Seattle in 1994, the same year Amazon was incorporated. Quickly, Bezos' identity became enfolded into her husband's company, even as she sought to make her mark in a publishing industry that he worked tirelessly to upend. Amazon Ambassador MacKenzie Bezos, who first lived with her husband in a rented home in an East Seattle suburb, was heavily involved in the business at the start: In addition to working as an accountant, she helped brainstorm names for the company and even shipped early orders through UPS, according to "The Everything Store." "She was clearly a voice in the room in those early years," Stone said in an interview for this article. In 1999, they moved into a $US10 million mansion in Medina, Washington, and she became pregnant with their first child. As they rapidly accumulated wealth, the Bezos family took pains to preserve the trappings of normalcy. MacKenzie Bezos often drove the four children to school in a Honda, and would then drop Jeff Bezos at the office, Stone wrote. As the company flourished, MacKenzie Bezos stepped back and focused on her family and her literary ambitions. "Business wasn't her passion, and when Amazon took off she wasn't as involved in the day-to-day business," Stone said. She spent a decade on her first novel, often getting up early to write, and signed with her mentor's literary agent, Urban at ICM Partners, who also represents Cormac McCarthy, Haruki Murakami and Kazuo Ishiguro. "The Testing of Luther Albright," which was published by Harper in 2005 and was widely embraced by critics, tells the story of an engineer whose professional and home lives begin to unravel in the 1980s. In a review in The New York Times, Kate Bolick called the novel "quietly absorbing." The Los Angeles Times named it one of the best books of the year, and Publishers Weekly praised Bezos'"subtle imagination and a startling talent for naturalism." Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video In 2013, Bezos published her second novel, "Traps," which follows the journey of woman named Jessica Lessing, a reclusive film star, as she emerges from hiding to confront her father, a con man who has been selling her out to the paparazzi for years. Jessica drives to Las Vegas to meet him, and encounters three other women: a teen mother, a dog-shelter owner and a former military bodyguard, who become her allies. Loading "I would say the biggest theme in the book is the idea that the things that we worry over the most in life, the things that we feel trapped by, the mistakes we've made, the bad luck that we come across, the accidents that happen to us, the paradoxes in the end, oftentimes those things are the things that we'll look back and be the most grateful for," Bezos said of the novel during an interview with Charlie Rose. "They take us where we need to go." Throughout their marriage, Jeff Bezos was an enthusiastic supporter of MacKenzie Bezos' fiction, and would clear his schedule to read drafts of her novels, MacKenzie Bezos told Vogue. In the acknowledgments of "Traps," she called him "my most devoted reader." But Bezos' literary career may have been complicated to some extent by her high-profile husband, who has done more than perhaps any individual in recent history to transform and sometimes destabilise the book-selling business. Many independent booksellers, publishers and agents blame Amazon for building a monopoly that has put independent stores out of business and poses a dire threat to once thriving chains like Barnes & Noble. Even though Amazon splashily introduced its own publishing imprints, Bezos still chose traditional houses for her books: Harper and Knopf. (When asked by an interviewer why Bezos wasn't publishing her books through Amazon's fiction imprints, Jeff Bezos jokingly described his wife as "the fish that got away.") Sales of her books have been modest: The novels have sold a few thousand print copies, according to NPD BookScan, which tracks some 85 per cent of print sales. Some independent booksellers refused to stock Bezos' novels, according to a publishing executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Urban, Bezos' literary agent, declined to comment for this article. Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison praised Mackenzie Bezos's literary work. Credit:AP Billion-dollar divorce The Bezoses were the richest couple in the world; their divorce exists at a level of wealth that is virtually unprecedented. There have been billion-dollar divorces, like that of Steve and Elaine Wynn who owned casinos together, and certainly, technology entrepreneurs have been in and out of divorce court most notably Larry Ellison, a co-founder of Oracle who has been wed and unwed four times. But there has never been a divorce with a couple worth an estimated $US137 billion, as Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos are. Loading Little is known about the couple's financial arrangements. Divorces are governed by state law, and the Bezoses' primary residence and business are in Washington state, a community property state where any income earned or wealth created during the marriage is to be divided equitably between spouses. But some lawyers think it is unlikely that Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos will adhere to that guideline in a predictable manner. If they were to split assets equally, Jeff Bezos could find the 16.1 per cent of Amazon stock he owns halved. "I'd imagine they didn't fight at all over how much wealth each other gets," said William Zabel, a founding partner of the law firm Schulte Roth and Zabel, who has handled many high-profile divorce cases but not worked with the Bezoses. Probably, he said, "they fought about control." Zabel represented Wendi Murdoch and Jane Welch in their separations, and said he thought the Bezoses would almost certainly negotiate a way to split the value of the Amazon shares while allowing Jeff Bezos the leverage he might need. The length of time such an agreement remains in place would be part of the negotiations. MacKenzie Bezos has kept a low profile in recent weeks, and has not been photographed since the divorce was announced. (Jeff Bezos, by contrast, has continued to appear publicly and was pictured this month at a Golden Globes after-party with Lauren Sanchez, a former television anchor he is reportedly seeing.) It is unknown what MacKenzie Bezos will do next, and how the divorce will play out. There will be inevitable questions, for instance, about her plans regarding philanthropy. The Bezoses' charitable contributions have been modest in the past. In 2011, they donated $US15 million to their alma mater to create a center to study the brain. The following year, they gave $US2.5 million to support a same-sex marriage referendum in Washington. In 2017, Jeff Bezos asked his followers on Twitter for ideas about how better to give, and in September he and MacKenzie announced a $US2 billion fund to help homeless families and start a network of Montessori-inspired preschools. But MacKenzie could pave her own philanthropic path, like Laurene Powell Jobs, who started her own foundation, the Emerson Collective. And if MacKenzie Bezos continues to write and publish, perhaps she could find a more receptive audience among independent booksellers. Some publishing executives, who declined to be quoted on the record, spoke gleefully, at least, of the blockbuster potential if she decides to write a memoir. At the end of the day, building wealth is relatively simple: earn good money, save and invest. But theres a fourth step millionaires often take once thats all said and done - investing in real estate. Investing in real estate is key if you want to become a millionaire. Credit:Shutterstock Investing in real estate seems like a natural result once the basics are covered and excess cash is generated, John, who retired at the age of 52 with a $US3 million ($4.2 million) net worth and writes personal finance blog ESI Money, wrote in a blog post. John would know he spent the past few years interviewing 100 millionaires. Here he breaks down the four-step process many of the millionaires he spoke with used to build wealth: Another similar meeting has been scheduled for Friday, according to Sipila. THE FINNISH GOVERNMENT will hold an extraordinary meeting today due to the inhumane and condemnable events that have transpired in Oulu, North Ostrobothnia, Prime Minister Juha Sipila (Centre) said on Sunday. Antti Kaikkonen, the chairperson of the Centre Parliamentary Group, said earlier on Sunday he has invited all parliamentary groups to discuss the recent revelations about suspected sex crimes against children in Oulu and Helsinki. Sex crimes against children are categorically condemnable. I invite all parliamentary groups to convene to discuss measures to prevent the kind of crimes we have now witnessed. Everyone arriving in Finland must live by the laws of our country and respect the bodily integrity of others, he underscored on Twitter. The same proposal was made also by Antti Lindtman, the chairperson of the Social Democratic Parliamentary Group. Lindtman viewed that the parliamentary groups should agree on concrete measures to combat sex crimes against children before the next parliamentary elections in order to send a strong, united message that decision makers are capable of making quick decisions to prevent crimes that seriously test the public sense of justice. He also listed six proposals that could be presented to the Parliament before mid-April. The Parliaments Administration Committee, he said, should ask the government to supplement its amendments to the aliens act to enable authorities to strip people convicted of sex and violent crimes of Finnish citizenship. The Parliaments Legal Affairs Committee, meanwhile, should supplement amendments to the criminal code to raise the minimum punishments for sex crimes against children. Lindtman also stated that the government should supplement its budget proposal to strengthen police resources and launch preparatory work to establish a sufficiently funded special police unit to prevent and investigate online criminal activity. The supplementary budget should also contain funding for strengthening youth social work and, if necessary, aftercare required by the events in Oulu, he told. Aleksi Teivainen HT Source: Uusi Suomi Up for debate: Live legislation tracker Check out the latest developments on bills pending before state lawmakers in four key topics. Trusted local news has never been more important, but providing the information you need, information that can change sometimes minute-by-minute, requires a partnership with you, our readers. Please consider making a contribution today to support this vital resource that you and countless others depend on. Brian Gregory Robling of Washington, 23, passed away Monday, June 7, 2021. Brian was born July 11, 1997, in Washington, to Amber (Robling) Whiteman and Michael Bernard. He graduated from Washington High School in 2016. Brian is survived by his parents; his son, Zyler Mehrer of Washington; da In the crowd Monday evening was Jimmy Senteno, who carried a small red backpack and his 5-year-old daughter on his hip. As the 23-year-old wiped sweat from his forehead, he said, I want to apply for asylum in the U.S., but I would stay in Mexico if I had to.. Unable to find work or leave his house due to gangs in his hometown of Comayagua, Senteno said he saw no other option but to leave. I know only some in the last caravan made it, but I have to try. Kerrville ISD will join the Texas Association of School Boards and other districts across the state to honor the countless contributions of these locally elected advocates for Texas schoolchildren and public schools. Principal Zhang Zhanliang and students make fire to cook a meal at Huangni elementary school in Chuntao Town of Yujiang District of Yingtan City, east China's Jiangxi Province, Jan. 3, 2019. Zhang Zhanliang, the principal of Huangni primary school, has been known nationwide recently for taking care of the school's left-behind children, whose parents are migrant workers in towns and cities. For years, there's no canteen at Huangni elementary school. Appointed as principal in 2018, Zhang Zhanliang spent his own money cooking additional meal for these left-behind children. Zhang Zhanliang cooks different dishes every day, hoping to improve their health and arouse their interest in coming to study. (Xinhua/Hu Chenhuan) 14 1 [ Editor: zyq ] Even now, though, Acting Attorney General Matthew G. Whitaker is technically in charge of Mueller having declined to recuse himself, despite past public comments that were critical of the special counsel. While Rosenstein is still handling the routine supervision of Mueller, Whitaker could block steps the special counsel wants to take. And his comments on the special counsel were far more strident than Barrs. He once suggested, for example, that an acting attorney general could choke off the special counsels funding as a way to shut down the investigation. Tuesdays attack happened just a mile from Westgate. After the Westgate attack, security was ramped up all around Nairobi. At malls and restaurants, Nairobians now have their cars checked by guards and must go through metal detectors at entrances. The checks often seem perfunctory, however, and Tuesdays attack will raise questions about how attackers could penetrate one of the citys most closely guarded compounds. Hardcore Brexiteers, such as former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, cheered the result as increasing the chances of Britain leaving the European Union with no deal and no compromises or with a much, much better deal than May or E.U. leaders say is realistic. At the same time, those who want to see a second referendum on Brexit, and who want to stay in the union, think Mays loss gets them closer to their goal. Even though U.S. officials and legal experts say that Mengs extradition warrant was legally justified, China has viewed the detention of its star executive as symbolic of a broad, U.S.-led conspiracy against its growing tech industry and against Chinas very rise. After Poland arrested a Chinese Huawei executive last week on espionage charges, many Chinese social media users rallied to the companys cause, with some joking that China should find a Polish drug trafficker to sentence, much like it did a Canadian. Vashukevich had long promoted herself as an expert on sex and the art of seduction, and she wrote a book on her alleged liaison with Deripaska titled A Diary About Seducing a Billionaire. Deripaska has said that Vashukevich was making up stories, and he won a court case against her in which he argued that Vashukevich was violating his privacy. There is no tape for this interview that I did. . . . There is no way to go back and listen, said the congressman, who conceded that he might have said the quoted words but challenged how they have been interpreted. But I can tell you this: That ideology never shows up in my head. I dont know how it could possibly come out of my mouth. Hes right where he has always been, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said as he left a private lunch Monday with McConnell. As soon as the president tells him there is something hed be willing to sign, hell bring it to the floor. But the presidents signature isnt a given on anything, and the leader isnt going to go through with some futile act on something in the meantime . There is no debate about the facts of the case. Denard Stokeling was arrested in connection with a Miami Beach restaurant robbery in 2015, and acknowledged to police he had a firearm and ammunition in his backpack. After he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, prosecutors said he should be sentenced under the ACCA. White House allies, however, said they expect Trump to ultimately be vindicated, arguing the Constitution bestows on the executive branch significant unilateral authority on immigration. Some conservatives accused Trumps opponents of venue-shopping for sympathetic judges but predicted the Supreme Court will rule in the administrations favor in some of the cases, as it did last summer when a majority of justices affirmed a revised version of a ban on travelers from some Muslim-majority countries on national security grounds. One email prosecutors alleged Corsi deleted was a July 25, 2016, note from Stone in which Stone asked Corsi to try to make contact with Assange and get copies of hacked emails in his possession. The draft document says that when investigators first asked Corsi about the email, he claimed that he told Stone that trying to reach Assange was a bad idea that should be avoided. Thats a problem when youre like, It will be a wall, or It will be this, or We can only do it with this, ORourke said when asked why he doesnt have firm stances. The genius is we can nonviolently resolve our differences, though I wont get to my version of perfect or I, working with you, will get to something better than what we have today. . . . Its rare that someones ever been able to impose their will unilaterally in this country. We dont want that. Here is part of what King said last year to a right-wing Austrian website: When I made a statement on Twitter saying, We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies, it seemed to be more irritating to the left than anything I have ever said. First of all, the total fertility rate in Europe is below replacement rate. When that happens, you are a dying civilization. . . . If we continue to abort our babies and import a replacement for them in the form of young violent men, we are supplanting our culture, our civilization. The idea of replacement is a cornerstone of white-supremacist ideology. Seeking refuge in its political horse race roots, NBC (and others) meanwhile report the story of war as one of Rumsfeld vs. the Generals, as Wolfowitz vs. Shinseki, as the CIA vs. Cheney, as the bad torturers vs. the more refined, about numbers of troops and number of deaths, Arkin wrote. He went on to condemn the media establishments bias toward uncritically accepting and repeating the word of military and intelligence officials who are invested in escalating conflicts, not ending them. For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trumps various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet Im alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Historically, these workers have gotten zero back pay after the government reopens, in part because getting them made whole is complicated. Unlike those on federal payrolls, the government doesnt necessarily know who all of these contract workers are, making it challenging to cut them a check directly. Its also not clear how to get private contractors to reimburse such workers for the lost time without amending thousands of existing contracts. A group of Democratic senators including Tina Smith (Minn.) and Chris Van Hollen (Md.) is developing legislation that aims to address this problem. Deciding whos in the room during a bilateral meeting may seem like a mere logistical detail, but it is an essential way to diminish counterintelligence risks. Including advisers in meetings allows the president to benefit from readily available expertise. But it also frees the president to engage actively in the meeting while a member of his team takes detailed notes, not only recording what has been said and agreed upon but also describing the foreign leaders demeanor. Without at a note taker for the administration present and focused on the discussion, no record can be established by the United States to corroborate what did or did not occur. Yes, poor him. He shut down the government, taking hostage 800,000 furloughed federal workers, but nobody is willing to pay him ransom. Now, the economy is hurting (S&P Global Ratings put the damage at $3.6 billion so far, nearly the amount Trump sought for his border wall), and most Americans correctly blame him (he is, after all, the one who boasted: Ill be the one to shut it down). The terms of the statute require the president to find that wrongdoing abroad is not simply repugnant and worthy of a strong American response, as the destruction of democracy in Belarus and in other targets of U.S. sanctions, such as Venezuela certainly was. The site has also undergone a major reputation change. If you ask Siri, Alexa or Google Home a general-knowledge question, it will likely pull the response from Wikipedia. The online encyclopedia has been cited in more than 400 judicial opinions, according to a 2010 paper in the Yale Journal of Law & Technology. Many professors are ditching the traditional writing assignment and instead asking students to expand or create a Wikipedia article on the topic. And YouTube Chief Executive Susan Wojcicki announced a plan last March to pair misleading conspiracy videos with links to corresponding articles from Wikipedia. Facebook has also released a feature using Wikipedias content to provide users more information about the publication source for articles in their feed. He pointed to his millions of followers on Twitter and Facebook, explaining that the days of television anchors and commentators acting as gatekeepers between newsmakers and the public were essentially over. Without discernible acrimony, Trump trotted out one of the early versions of what would eventually become a leitmotif of his presidency: The media was made up of largely terrible people trafficking in fake news. There was nothing personal in the observation. It was the unsheathing of a multipurpose device, one he used adroitly in tandem with the endlessly adaptable political vehicle provided by social media during the election campaign and now during his presidency. In the 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States traveled a path from euphoria through catastrophe into confusion, one which ultimately led President Barack Obama into the fantastical view that he could remake the world by ignoring its truths. The Nixon Trap the attempt to turn the world upside down via a deft diplomatic move ensnared Obama and led him to abandon realities around the world. He gave away the store to Irans mullahs. He offered a reset button to Vladimir Putin (which when pushed gave Moscow Crimea) and legitimacy to the remnants of Castroism, while turning a cold shoulder to Israel and a blind eye to the misery in Venezuela. The chaos of Libya that followed our intervention there was swept under the rhetorical rug. The Syrian genocide was met with shrugged shoulders and erased red lines. Our troops were abruptly pulled from Iraq in 2011, while the president deemed the then-fledgling Islamic State a JV team. North Koreas sprint to a 60-weapon nuclear arsenal was hidden from public view. China was emboldened to militarize the South China Sea even as its Belt and Road strategy indebted many countries rulers to Beijings agenda. German intelligence further scrutinizes far-right party: Germany's domestic intelligence agency said it was putting the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, under increased observation amid concerns that it is flirting with extremism. The BfV plans to examine public comments by AfD members and its ties to extremist groups but stopped short of putting the party as a whole under covert surveillance. The AfD is the largest opposition party in parliament and has walked a fine line in recent years by promoting views far outside the country's political mainstream while insisting that it remains committed to law and order. The suspects, identified as Jesus J. Payan-Mendoza and Jorge Crecencio-Gonzalez, were arrested on suspicion of attempted aggravated murder, but investigators are not yet sure whether either of them fired the shots that hit the victims, who were also involved in the fight, said Kenny Bass, a police spokesman in the Salt Lake City suburb of Murray. Macomb County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Smith told the Detroit Free Press that investigators think the child overdosed after drinking something that contained the drug, and that an autopsy showed she had ingested the highest dose of fentanyl officials have seen in 871,000-person Macomb County. He said an autopsy showed that the child had ingested up to 15 times the amount of fentanyl officials have seen in recent overdose deaths in the county. There are thousands of things from the subtle and psychological to the highly technical that contribute to the extraordinary safety record of the U.S. commercial aviation system, in which there has been just one death on a U.S. carrier in nine years. But for weeks, the federal government has been conducting something of an experiment: What happens when politicians decide that safety buffers meant to minimize risk can be sacrificed in pursuit of unrelated priorities? Its unclear how many people the Womens March in the District will draw this year. In an application to the National Park Service, organizers estimated more than half a million people about the estimated number that came out in 2017 would attend. But Dana R. Fisher, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland who studies and tracks protest movements, said turnout probably will number in the tens of thousands, weather permitting. So far about 9,400 people have expressed interest in attending the event on Facebook. Because of the time crunch, conflicting scenarios could play out simultaneously, legal experts say. For example, if the Supreme Court were to rule in the governments favor on New York after the other lower courts ruled against the government, the Supreme Court could order those courts to reconsider their opinions in light of the higher courts ruling, said Thomas Wolf, counsel with the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. Todays Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy There is a bit of a disconnect traditionally between substance-abuse-related policy and what the science is ready to show, Bergman said. Things get rolled out because we are looking for a solution to a problem, but there are ways we can be more confident that something will work because its been tried or tested scientifically. Authorities arrested Jordan, then an officer at the prison, in October 2017 after he met with an inmates twin sister and received $2,000 cash as payment for smuggling heroin and other drugs, tobacco and nine cellphones into the prison, according to prosecutors. Some of the passengers said they had years of experience experimenting with the drug as medication outside of the law. Others described themselves as marijuana virgins who once stigmatized the controlled substance but have come to view it through an enlightened lens since it became legal at the state level for certified patients to purchase in December 2017. No police officer has been charged in connection with Blacks death, and no cause of death has been determined. But family and friends are hoping for a different outcome beyond the narrative of white police officer and dead black man. They are hoping that the town will come together so that Blacks death will not be in vain. So whats left to accomplish? Plenty, he says. First off, that money wont cover every congressional intern. Many may end up earning far below a living wage. Second, he cites a slew of D.C. workplaces, from party organizations to think tanks and nonprofits, that still need persuading to pay their interns, including do-gooder groups that profess to want to change the world for the better. I reached out to several for comment. The Public Interest Network said in an email: To our knowledge, nonprofits in general dont pay interns, but they do offer college credit for internships, and pay recent college grads to be organizers. Human Rights Watch said that it offered paid and unpaid internships, but not consistently across jurisdictions, and that it was working to find a way to remedy that. Mark and I had begun talking about if and how we could get involved in helping reduce gun violence. That discussion actually started during a vacation we took in July 2012. The day before we got on the plane, the news was dominated by a gunman opening fire in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 and injuring 58 others. It was absolutely horrifying. Mark and I talked about putting out a statement but didn't think that was nearly enough. In my career, I've always sought to find the common ground. So, on that plane, while we thought about Aurora, both of us realized that more needed to be done to bridge the divide between gun owners, like us, and the majority of Americans who simply want their communities to be safe. Food has always been an important transmitter of stories and heritage in my family. I was raised in a Jewish home where the partaking of very specific foods was the centerpiece of each holiday. An essential part of the festivities was the recounting of the history, the explaining of the symbolism around the preparation and the eating of those foods. Our home was also unquestionably American, and I was very conscious of the contrast between these two facets of my family in not only what we ate, but also how and why we ate what we did. The Chihuahua (cheese) sticks. Photo: Liz Clayman Alex Stupaks Empellon al Pastor is the gruffer, metal-loving younger sibling of the chefs restaurant group, a place to drink mezcal pina coladas and eat jalapeno poppers. Originally conceived as a bar that served only its namesake taco, the East Village haunt has evolved since it opened in 2014 to have a more substantial menu of Mexican-American bar food. Now, Stupak will bring a sort of modified version of the restaurant to midtown when he officially opens a second location on Friday. The second al Pastor isnt an entirely new restaurant. Its in the Pod Hotel space that previously housed Salvation Taco, which Stupak took over last year from April Bloomfield and disgraced restaurateur Ken Friedman. Since then, hes run that space as Salvation Taco, gradually giving it new parts in the form of al Pastor menu items, before closing it this week to make a final push. When it reopens this Friday, the new restaurant wont be a clone of its big sibling. There will be table service, a lounge, and a game room, as well as a different look, one that doesnt take its cues from East Village dives. If I were to bomb the new one with graffiti, it wouldnt sit right with me, Stupak says. Its in a new place I had to start looking for a different set of elements to inspire this. So Stupak looked to an unlikely source of inspiration: Murray Hill pubs. The style here is captured, appropriately, by the the bar top, which the chef describes as like a Celtic knot bar a straight-up wood-tavern situation. Its like he opened a place called Flannagans in Mexico City, with its dark wood tables, tan leather, and walls that are brick or painted a deep forest green. But theyre also decorated with unusual photos and art reminiscent of what youd see at other Empellons, and one section is covered in a psychedelic painting of a praying mantis. The kibbeh. Photo: Liz Clayman Likewise, the menu has been rejiggered to fit the new environs. There are 11 dishes on the menu here that arent available at the downtown location. These include three salads (Its a lot lunchier here, Stupak explains), a sweet potato taco, and bar snacks like deviled eggs and pickles that the team decided wouldnt fit in downtown. Some of the new dishes also pull from the American-Irish bar canon, like Chihuahua cheese sticks with tomato sauce, and broiled oysters with hoja santa and bacon. The junk food theme started at the original al Pastor (both locations have jalapeno poppers with bacon-cream cheese filling), and carries over to the desserts. Here, theres a Klondike-esque crunchy corn masa ice cream bar served, of course, in foil wrapping. Stupak also pulls inspiration from the Middle East in dishes like the Lebanese bulgur fritters called kibbeh, or even a fried-chicken sandwich topped with the garlic sauce toum. Its becoming less about the Mexicanization of things for me. That was a big approach, and now its becoming more willy-nilly, for lack of a better term, Stupak says, explaining hes been adding Persian-inspired dishes to his other menus. I love that. In my mind, Mexicos most iconic taco the al pastor comes from Middle Eastern food. The Fruit Blood cocktail. Photo: Liz Clayman Al Pastor being a bar, theres also plenty to drink. The cocktails here are divided into the same four sections (margaritas, cocktails, tiki, and frozen) as at the original location. Some of these are on the menu downtown right now, like the Por Que No? margarita, and others arent, such as the Mutineer with rum, canela, and pink grapefruit. In the age of scaling, its notable that Stupak isnt simply copying the original al Pastor wholesale with the aim of dotting the landscape with his particular style of bar food. Nowhere in my mind am I like, Its time to bang out my easy, I dont need to be there, cash-cow moneymaker, he says. I think more like, we did something, lets be objective about it, whats good about it, whats not good about it? How do we fix that? Broiled oysters with hoja santa and bacon. Photo: Liz Clayman The fried chicken sandwich with the garlic sauce toum and cucumber. Photo: Liz Clayman The cheeseburger taco isnt new, but come on: its a cheeseburger taco. Photo: Liz Clayman The crunchy corn masa ice cream bar. Photo: Liz Clayman It looks kind of like a pub, no? Photo: Liz Clayman The lounge. Photo: Liz Clayman Empellon Al Pastor, 145 E. 39th St., nr. Lexington Ave.; 212-865-5800 Abbott doesnt favor extremes. Like many formally trained chefs, he aims for balance, which is what youll find even with dishes better known for their higher frequencies. Take the blackened catfish, which he grills on a flat-top. His seasons the fillets with three kinds of pepper black, red pepper flake and chili powder but this power trio is attenuated with sugar, which brings order to the dish. Same goes for the grits that accompany Abbotts tight curls of grilled shrimp: The chef doses his porridge with sugar, which aligns well with the heavy cream and the corns natural sweetness, but he balances out the grits with salt. The servers will warn you the grits are sweet, but dont sweat it for a second. Theyre terrific. The aide said Pelosi went on to tell her caucus: We want to talk about our values in terms of immigration and how thats always been bipartisan, including George Herbert Walker Bush, Ronald Reagan and the rest. Not to go into that, but to just say that I understand you all want to know whats the next step, but just the message of Open up government so we can have this discussion is a very important message. The Bank of Hawaii is offering financial assistance programs for federal or contract employees that include a personal loan of up to $5,000 at a fixed interest of 3 percent. The loan term is 27 months, with no payments due during the first three months. The bank also has a loan forbearance program, in which affected workers may defer payments for up to three months for residential mortgages, home equity loans and home equity lines in amortization. Customers may also be able to extend personal or auto loans for up to three months. A former Ferrari team manager says he is not surprised the Maranello team ousted Maurizio Arrivabene. "If you don't win, after four years it's difficult to remain in a leading position," said Daniele Audetto, an experienced former F1 manager who was most recently involved with Super Aguri and HRT. "At a team like that, which is born to win, when you don't win, the manager automatically changes," he said. "It's the hard law of F1, which for Ferrari applies in an even more special and exclusive way. "It's a shame for Maurizio as he is a friend, but he also paid for not having a purely racing pedigree. On the other hand it's a great result to have stayed in that position for as long as he did," the Italian told Autosprint. Succeeding Arrivabene as the Ferrari team boss is Mattia Binotto, who is also still technical director. "I do not know him well enough to say much, but I know he is a good engineer. I also know that at Ferrari it is very, very difficult to be the team principal or even the sporting director. "I hope and wish that he has the personality, charisma and experience to manage the complex things he is about to face," Audetto added. He said life as Ferrari's team boss is even harder these days without a figure like former president Luca di Montezemolo at the helm. "It is true that Arrivabene made a good impression compared to the first days of Jean Todt," said Audetto. "Jean was always supported and defended by a great media man like di Montezemolo. For years and years he shielded his men, including Schumacher who for the first four years did not win the title. "Right now there is not a Montezemolo to defend everyone and enchant the media," he added. (GMM) Rome mayor announces plans for playschool and library at waste treatment site destroyed by fire. Rome is to build a new headquarters for the city's waste collection company AMA on the site of the Salario waste treatment plant, devastated by fire on 11 December, according to plans announced by the city's mayor Virginia Raggi. The mayor said that in addition to AMA's new "business centre", the north Rome site would include a "playschool, library, green lawns and a room for public meetings available to citizens." The plan will see the transformation of the former TMB Salario which processed a quarter of the capital's trash each day - until going up in flames at dawn on 11 December, spreading thick black smoke and pungent fumes over the city. Raggi said in her Facebook post that AMA's new headquarters would save the city "about 2.5 million in rent each year", adding that in her election campaign she pledged to close TMB Salario by 2020. Raggi acknowledged that the "damn fire" on 11 December caused "inconvenience" for the city's waste collection but at the same time brought forward the impending closure of the controversial plant. Built in 2009, the waste processing facility on Via Salaria had long been upopular with local residents who complained of foul smells. A police investigation is ongoing into the cause of the blaze that gutted the 2,000-sqm site, with sabotage and arson not being ruled out. The fire resulted in the city receiving assistance from regional authorities in Lazio and Abruzzo as it scrambled to deal with an extra 800 tons of trash per day. The situation has exacerbated an already-stretched waste collection service, leading to rubbish piling up on streets in the capital, particularly in the suburbs. (TNS) As he looks to the next phase for the Georgia Cyber Center, Augusta University President Brooks Keel thinks research and graduate education could be the key while being careful to preserve the "ecosystem" of collaboration among university, military and industry partners.At least one major cyber intelligence firm looking to move into the center believes Augusta's "recipe" of training, education and shared facilities, and the city's relatively low cost compared with other cyber hubs, are attractive for more investment. That mix is what made the center instantly appealing to BAE Systems, a global defense, aerospace and security company based in Arlington, Va., with more than 83,000 employees, said Peder Jungck, the vice president and general manager of its Intelligence Solutions business.When he first saw what was going on and the services and facilities available there, he remarked, "Oh my gosh, here you have it," he said. "The recipe was just incredible."Having been a CEO in Silicon Valley, the kind of shared resources and shared responsibilities that made that work are in play here and are the right way to build it, Jungck said. The same is true for those who are developing cloud-based businesses and artificial intelligence, he said."They are all models of shared investment and shared responsibility," Jungck said. "What got me was how that team down there that came up with this, they got it. They instantly got a champion out of me."The company employs nearly 400 intelligence personnel at Fort Gordon but is looking to potentially move more assets to the area, he said."As I look at my investment portfolio for research, I really believe that I can do more research and more things down there. Just the economics of that region is much better than the kind of the challenge that I live in" in northern Virginia, Jungck said. In the Washington, D.C. area, as well as other cyber hubs such as Austin, Texas, and Silicon Valley, the cost of living is so high it is "just unlivable for a family," he said.The D.C. corridor and the competition for talent and housing is only likely to get worse as Amazon prepares to put half of its second headquarters, and potentially 25,000 employees, into northern Virginia, Jungck said. Augusta is much more affordable, he said."The cost of living, the cost of talent, I believe I can fundamentally get more done if I move some of my research facilities there," Jungck said.Other companies like BAE are also likely to follow U.S. Army Cyber Command as it relocates its headquarters in Virginia to a new building at Fort Gordon. Some personnel have already arrived, but the bulk of that move is now expected in the summer of 2020, said Charlie Stadtlander, Army Cyber Command's chief of public affairs. That will involve approximately 1,000 personnel, of which there are about 300 civilian positions. But not all of those positions will be filled and the Army will be "definitely looking to the local talent pool" as well as conducting a nationwide search to fill them, he said.Keel and other officials are trying to look ahead to the next phase after the opening of the second Cyber Center building, which was dedicated Thursday. Where once universities looked at decades-long master plans, that is far too slow now, he said."Even five years is not thinking fast enough," Keel said. "In terms of what is needed, where we're going, who we're going after, who is going to fund it, that's a one- to three-year timeframe."The next building or next phase is likely to be driven by what the greatest need will be, and right now Keel is thinking that will be research and answers the question of "what is the type of research we should be doing here that takes advantage of this incredible two facilities we have here." It could also play off the university's and Augusta's considerable strength in health care and pair that with its advancing expertise in cyber and its connections with private industry, he said.That research could "give us an opportunity to be a world leader in electronic medical records and electronic medical devices," which are increasingly wireless and connected and potentially vulnerable, Keel said. It will also depend on the kind of faculty the university is rapidly trying to hire into its School of Computer and Cyber Sciences as well as what degree programs are added in the future, with a new cybersecurity engineering degree already beginning in the fall.The next phase should also build on the "ecosystem" the Cyber Center has created where the university is working with private industry and the military on training and problem-solving. Some of that collaboration is natural and necessary in cybersecurity because those problems are "not that much different from what the government is concerned about to what the military is concerned about to what private industry is concerned about," said Eric Toler, the executive director of the Cyber Center.The mix of education and training with real-world practical skills is an important offering of the Hull McKnight Building, considered phase one of the project, and is also key to whatever comes after, Keel said."We've got to really make sure we get firm footing on our education-training piece before we can really become attractive in the long-term for business and industry to come here," he said. In particular, it is needed to respond to the specific training needs of industry and the military, Keel said."The nimbleness we have to make curriculum fit what industry and the military is needing is what really makes us unique," he said. "And we can do that here because we have industry and military and government and academia all in one building, all on one campus." Trump would prefer, of course, to continue interacting with Putin unsupervised. He also would prefer the broader public to adopt his view of investigations of his conduct as witch hunts. All of that would also involve the country accepting an imperial understanding of presidential powers. Thats why one of the great tests of the Trump presidency involves seeing how ready the Republican Party and voters are to accommodate themselves to executive overreach or malfeasance. Trump and his advocates have argued that Comeys firing cant be construed as obstruction of justice because, under Article II of the Constitution, the president was merely exercising the powers of his office as he saw fit. Comey worked for him, after all. A similar argument has surfaced around the voluminous body of critical or meddlesome tweets Trump has directed at federal investigators and defendants in various legal probes that might circle back to him. Trump can tweet whatever he wants because its free speech, say his defenders. The plan was immediately excoriated by students and others as an expensive shrine to white supremacy. And it was rejected by the University of North Carolina System Board of Governors, which oversees the state's universities, because of concerns about public safety and the estimated cost: $5.3 million to erect a building to house the monument and an $800,000 budget to maintain it. The board of governors directed Folt and several members of the panel to devise a new plan by March 15. On Monday, Folt took a stand. Despite their best efforts, she said, threats continued to grow around the remnants of the monument. "As chancellor, the safety of the UNC-Chapel Hill community is my clear, unequivocal and non-negotiable responsibility," she wrote in a statement to the university. "The presence of the remaining parts of the monument on campus poses a continuing threat both to the personal safety and well-being of our community," and to the school's fundamental mission of providing a stable, productive place to learn. The joint federal-state health insurance program for the poor and disabled continues to be a point of frustration for Texas legislators, doctors, patients and advocates. The costs for the program continue to grow and will be a point of contention during budget talks as legislators balance other funding priorities like Hurricane Harvey recovery, property taxes and school finance. It will also be important to watch if and how legislators overhaul the states Medicaid managed care program. The program has been scrutinized in recent months after The Dallas Morning News reported on how private companies running the program have failed to care for vulnerable Texans, and put that money toward paying lobbyists and executives bonuses. In addition, doctors are again pushing for higher reimbursement rates under the program, which they say would likely encourage more physicians to participate. Another issue is if Texas legislators will give Medicaid expansion one more look. The state has previously resisted expanding coverage for low-income Texans but advocates are making the case again citing the potential financial savings and how it would help hospitals who treat uninsured people. (TNS) Portland police are reviving their effort to equip officers with body cameras nearly four years after a federal judge urged their use in the city.A new program manager is leading a team within the Police Bureau to seek public input to draft policies to govern use of the cameras, retention of the recordings and access to the footage.Tammy Mayer, a civilian employee, kicked off the first of 18 community meetings Friday in Northeast Portland.Police also hope to work closely with Western Oregon Universitys criminal justice graduate program to develop performance measures to evaluate the impact of the cameras.The city council four years ago awarded $834,610 to put more cameras in police cars, but the bureau decided instead to use the money for body cameras. The city also put aside another $1.6 million in annual funding for the program in fiscal 2016-17.But the reserve remained untapped after Mayor Ted Wheeler expressed a reluctance to move forward without more information. We havent really done anything with that money. Were ready now, Mayer said Friday.She plans to address the city council about her teams efforts and research by the end of the month.She hopes to post a request for proposals for vendors in February and select two companies to provide cameras for testing by Central Precinct officers during a six-month pilot program from June through December.The goal, she said, is to equip officers across the bureau with cameras by October 2020.If the plan sounds familiar, its because the city embarked on a similar exercise in 2014 and 2015. A now-retired police captain held community sessions to draw feedback on policy questions , the bureau evaluated potential vendors and officers tested out a variety of cameras.Whats changed since Wheeler put the idea on hold in March 2017?Nicole Grant, Wheelers senior policy adviser, and Katie Shipley, an analyst from the city budget office, traveled with Police Bureau members last spring to Phoenix and Oakland to review their body camera programs and policies. Portland police also visited police departments in Anaheim and Fullerton, Calif.The mayor supports developing a limited pilot at the moment, supported by data collection and analysis, Eileen Park, the mayors spokeswoman, said in an email. Once the pilot is complete, the question of whether to proceed with full deployment will be revisited.In an end-of-the-year message to her officers last month, Police Chief Danielle Outlaw wrote that the bureau plans this year to continue community outreach and internal discussions to set parameters and select a camera system for the pilot project.Portland would follow Beaverton and Portland State University officers, who already wear cameras. Oregon State Police, Hillsboro and the Washington County Sheriffs Office are now implementing body camera programs.More than half of all medium-to-large police departments in the United States now use or are testing body-worn cameras, according to the Police Executive Research Forum. But many agencies are still grappling with deciding what footage to make public and how long to retain the recordings.Mayer and the mayors office contend Portland police have had an advantage by waiting and learning from the mistakes other police agencies have made. But many community leaders have urged the city for years to adopt body cameras for officers, hoping theyll increase police accountability and transparency.Mayer is a former U.S. Air Force security forces officer and commander who joined the Police Bureau in October 2015 and spearheaded the rollout of a new regional law enforcement computer records management system. She said she recognizes shes repeating a process that others in the Police Bureau have already undertaken and will incorporate the earlier public comments on body cameras in the renewed effort.Questions to work out, she said, include: Determining who will wear the cameras, when they must be turned on or shut off, how long to keep the footage and whether officers can view the video before writing reports or getting interviewed for internal affairs inquiries.State lawmakers approved a bill in 2015 that set some basic guidelines for law enforcement agencies that choose to outfit their officers with the cameras. Under the guidelines, when an officer has reasonable suspicion or probable cause that a crime has occurred or is about to occur, they can film an encounter. Police would be obligated to retain the footage for a minimum of 180 days.In its earlier planning, the Police Bureau was leaning toward giving officers some discretion on when to turn the cameras off and on. They also were leaning toward not allowing video to roll inside a medical facility where a patient's privacy could be violated, during interviews of a reluctant witness or sexual assault victim or inside a private home when a suspect is no longer present.Two years ago, a draft police union policy drew community criticism. It would allow officers who witness another officer's use of deadly force to review video recordings of the encounter from their own body cameras before writing their reports or view video taken from their body cameras before being interviewed in internal affairs cases that don't involve deadly force or deaths in police custody. The draft agreement the city reached with the union in 2016 , however, says substantial additional public input would be required before the policy is finalized.The proposal calls for officers to turn the camera system power to the on position when they begin their shift and initiate an audio/video recording upon receiving a call for service where a possible crime is in progress or has just occurred. This includes any self-initiated activity where enforcement action occurs. The camera shall remain in record mode until the completion of the contact. This also includes unknown disturbances or calls involving people in a mental health crisis, with the caveat that officers be aware of privacy regulations, the draft agreement says.The city also must budget ongoing costs to cover the program manager, an IT staff person, and four additional staff members in the records division to support the program, estimated to be roughly $500,000 per year.U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon, who monitors the citys settlement with the U.S. Justice Department over police use of force against people with mental illness, has voiced support for the cameras. In a 2014 ruling approving the agreement that called for police reforms, he wrote:The court notes that as the technology in this area continues to improve and become more dependable and affordable, more city police departments in the United States are choosing to employ this technology in ways that protect both law enforcement officers and the public they serve."Next week, the Police Bureau will include Mayers PowerPoint presentation on its website and more information about the revived body camera project. A baby giant panda (R) celebrates her one year old birthday with her mother at the Malaysian National Zoo near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Jan. 14, 2019. The second giant panda born in Malaysia celebrated her first birthday at the Malaysian national zoo on Monday. The baby giant panda is the second offspring of her parents Xing Xing and Liang Liang who arrived in Malaysia in 2014. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei) KUALA LUMPUR, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- The second giant panda born in Malaysia celebrated her first birthday at the Malaysian national zoo on Monday. Members of the public cheered as zookeepers attempted to feed cake to the one-year-old giant panda, but she coyly refused and insisted on bamboo instead. The female giant panda is with her mother, Liang Liang, at the giant panda conservation center in the zoo. Mat Naim Ramli, director of the giant panda conservation center, said the second cub weighing at 34 kg was slightly lighter than her older sister Nuan Nuan who weighed 37 kg when she was the same age. "Generally she is in good health and behaves very well; no problem at all so far. Still depending on milk, she eats a little bit of mother's food like fruits and bamboo leaves," he said. Mat Naim said the second cub spends most of her time with her mother and is less active than her sibling, Nuan Nuan. The baby giant panda, born in January last year, is the second offspring of her parents Xing Xing and Liang Liang who arrived in Malaysia in 2014. Their first-born, Nuan Nuan, returned to China in November last year after turning two years old. 20 1 [ Editor: zyq ] Dixon said he was against the settlement. Ms. Muskes TWC complaint was settled by the Texas Municipal League over our vehement objections, Dixon said. The Texas Municipal League believes in making business decisions. Sometimes thats hard to swallow. I like to sometimes feel like we can have some principle too. Councilwoman Erica Bruce said it was offensive to see the term live-in girlfriend used in the report to reference to Allgood. This is unprofessional, at the very least, and can be perceived as gender bias in itself, she said. Why was the term live-in boyfriend not used when referring to the other party involved? Neither of those terms is professional and add no pertinent information to the report. Bruce said the personnel issues highlighted in the report do not negate or justify the discriminating, disparaging, intimidating and retaliatory actions of the accused council members. Bruce said she spoke with Miles twice when he was city manager regarding incidents by council members shed witnessed. Reyna said he is in the process of becoming licensed to practice in federal court. The news release notes that Texas has seen significant growth in technology-based businesses, and one of the growth areas is the Western District of Texas, which includes Waco, Austin and San Antonio. Many companies from the east and west coasts have relocated to the Western District of Texas or expanded their businesses in the area. The addition of Reyna, who the release says is well-known in the district and has significant trial experience, will build upon the expansion of the firms trial practice with experienced litigators John H. Barr, Jr. and Jay Yates, who joined the firms Houston office in August 2018, according to the release. With the addition of these outstanding attorneys, we are expanding our litigation practice to include not only intellectual property cases, but also general business litigation and white-collar criminal defense cases, said Patterson + Sheridan founding partner B. Todd Patterson. Abel Reyna had an extensive background in criminal defense work before he became district attorney. Abel also has a sincere dedication and commitment to Waco and McLennan County as represented by his family history and service to the community. When you live at a place, even a hotel, longer than 30 days, you are given a relocation check. You make your move, and TxDOT gives you check, said Brown. Several said, No, we want the check first. My clients told TxDOT they no longer had a dog in this hunt, and said the highway department should take control. Again, some did not want to leave. Who knows everyones motivations? Anyway, TxDOT ended up placing a notice on the door of every occupied room. There were not that many. Most had already moved out. Finally, the eviction notice brought the matter to a close. Brown said the TxDOT deal would have left the business partners with a fraction of the one-acre site, so they chose to pull the plug. The hotel/motel industry has changed dramatically, become very competitive, he said. To get back in would take a lot more than they got for this place. I doubt they get back into the lodging industry. The Astro Motel site carries a $970,640 appraised taxable value, with $204,870 representing the value of the land, according to the McLennan County Appraisal District. The McLennan County Tax Office said $37,048 in delinquent 2017 taxes are owed on the property. Changing perceptions Real Time Crime Center Saving money and manpower (TNS) Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul buzzed briskly around the skeleton of a room on the second floor of the departments headquarters on Airline Highway recently as he talked about his vision for a state-of-the-art Real Time Crime Center.Two workstations here, he motioned toward an open space, with a landing for supervisors over there. And surrounding the hub for crime analysts will be screens, he said, gesturing toward a long, blank wall.The key to the Real Time Crime Center is the analytical support that its going to provide, Paul said.Getting all the data the department compiles into the hands of analysts at a central location will allow them to analyze it and push that information back out to the boots on the ground, Paul said.The technology center is Pauls latest initiative, set to bring the citys law enforcement agency, along with parishwide partners, further in line with 21st-century policing.He said he hopes to expand the centers capabilities by having residents and local businesses register their security cameras with the department, giving investigators and analysts quick knowledge about where cameras exist and if they can help solve crime.Its all about community engagement, Paul said. I think if we do it right ... people will be excited about it, and they feel like theyre taking ownership and being part of the solution.The project embodies two central points Paul has emphasized throughout his first year leading the Police Department: technology and community. In both arenas, Paul has brought tangible changes to the department. He said he's confident the improvements will continue to positively affect his officers jobs and the citys public safety.Despite taking over a police agency in early 2018 still embroiled with controversy and negative perceptions most notably from the lingering 2016 police shooting of Alton Sterling Paul has been able to win support from the community through his policies, decisions and visibility.This year, however, will test the positive foundation Paul has set, especially whether he can secure the pay raise hes been lobbying for his officers and whether the city will continue to record a declining homicide and violent crime rate.The citizens like his responsiveness, his engagement and believe in his ability to lead the BRPD, said East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome, who hired Paul in late 2017 after a decadeslong career at Louisiana State Police. I believe that his impact will continue to grow, in the department and in the community.From his inauguration speech in January 2018 to his most recent December news conference on crime rates, Paul has repeatedly stressed the need for community support of the Police Department, and that narrative also has been pushed within his officer corps.He said he sees changing the communitys perceptions of the department as his biggest accomplishment since taking over as chief.Changing perceptions on how the community sees the police officers that are out there to serve and protect but also how we see the community that we serve ... its important to change both of those, Paul said in an interview.Paul said theres anecdotal evidence indicating the department is getting more cooperation from the community in solving crimes, with more people willing to work with detectives and to call Crimestoppers to share tips. Paul said he wants to build on that in 2019, when he plans to partner with some families of homicide victims to encourage more residents to come forward with information about crimes or potential crimes.I think Chief Paul has done a real good job with breaking down some of the barriers that existed between the Police Department and the community, said the Rev. Dale Flowers, pastor of New Sunlight Baptist Church. There has certainly been a shift in a positive direction, toward better relations. Of course theres lots of work to be done, (but) we are nowhere near where we were a year and a half ago, a year ago, before he started on the job.Flowers is among Baton Rouge residents who were glad to see how Paul disciplined the two officers involved in killing Sterling, a task that fell to him after Attorney General Jeff Landry declined to bring criminal charges against the officers.Paul fired Officer Blane Salamoni, who shot and killed Sterling, and suspended Officer Howie Lake, who responded with Salamoni to the call about an armed man at a convenience store in early July 2016. Sterling was killed during a brief struggle with the officers at the store and was found to have a gun in his pants pocket.Flowers said he was also glad that Paul fired Officer Yuseff Hamadeh, whose story about why he shot at a fleeing motorist in August conflicted with other evidence from the encounter. No one was injured, but the officers account of the shooting left a 21-year-old man in jail for weeks on a count of attempted murder of a police officer until evidence surfaced that contradicted Hamadehs account.Paul said he knows the Police Department still has a long way to go in gaining the communitys trust but is working toward that end.He cited a new online system where residents can complain about, or praise, their encounters with police. He also pointed to an improved body camera policy that allows for quicker release of footage after a critical incident, at the chiefs discretion.In the first year, the online system received 57 commendations and 44 complaints, a police spokesman said. The body camera policy, meanwhile, is more in line with national best practices, although it was not fully utilized in two cases that drew media attention at the end of 2018, including the one involving Hamadeh.Paul said he will continue his part in changing interactions, planning improved and increased training for officers, and finding ways to be more transparent, wherever possible. But, he said, decreasing crime in Baton Rouge will take a combined effort.We need more help from the community, Paul said.Paul said he expects his pet project, which has won support from Broome, parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III and Sheriff Sid Gautreaux, will be up and running in 2019, hopefully by the summer. It will include seats for the department's own analysts, as well as those from partner law enforcement agencies in the parish, including the Zachary and Baker police departments, and LSU and Southern University police.Paul said in the average of five minutes that officers drive to respond to a call, analysts in the center will be able to pull information about the address, including any pertinent warrants or previous incidents, and share that with the officer.You can provide data, information to that responding officer so he can make a better informed decision and take more of a problem-solving approach to de-escalate that situation, Paul said.A new computer system will weave together and display the technology parish law enforcement agencies already use, like ShotSpotter, license plate readers and crime cameras, and make them communicate, said Sgt. Jim Verlander, who is overseeing the Real Time Crime Center. While Paul hopes they will also expand that technology, he said they will work with the funding as they get it.Its kind of a piecemeal approach. Were using a combination of grant dollars, existing dollars in our budget, Paul said, noting that an officer who is also a licensed contractor has begun the physical building of the center. We dont like waiting.With the community camera registration program, the Real Time Crime Center will integrate video feeds from neighborhood crime districts and businesses that give permission. It will also map where other cameras at personal residences are located for when residents dont want to share their feed but would be agreeable to sharing footage pertinent to a specific investigation.Paul said some of the video technology will quickly scan through hours of footage and also pinpoint which cameras could be helpful to an investigation, a task that has previously taken detectives hours.With technology, we can do more with less, Paul said. Technology can help leverage the shortages we have in the Police Department.After Paul came into the department, he reviewed many of the day-to-day practices, trying to find areas to increase efficiencies, realizing that the effort could save money and help ease the jobs of an officer corps that is stretched thin.Paul said he wants the department to run as efficiently as possible as he awaits the final report from the officer pay study, which has estimated it will cost about $20 million a year to pay Baton Rouge officers on par with peer agencies.In October, Paul helped change the way uniform patrol officers transport suspects to the Parish Prison for booking, a process that can take more than two hours. With Uniform Patrol Commander Sgt. Kevin Newman, they brought back a prisoner processing transport unit that takes over the booking part of prison processing from street officers after paperwork is complete so those officers can get back on the street more quickly.Were saving an awful amount of money and manpower, Newman said.He said the uniform patrol officers will take only about 45 minutes to do the front end of prison processing, while a small team consolidates the back end, like the drive to Parish Prison and waiting at booking, saving about an hour, on average, of patrol time or officer backup.It allows us to go back out in the field much quicker, said Cpl. Daryl Armstead, whos served in uniform patrol for 10 years. It helps out with officer safety. Its just simple. It should have been like this.Paul said he hopes to restructure the police districts to even out the workload early this year and move some officers from administrative roles back to the street.He said he hopes these changes, among others, will make it easier to secure what he says is a much-needed pay raise for his officers. And if hes successful in that venture, it would mean a big win for him among his officer corps, especially the police union, which has not wholly embraced him in the same way hes been embraced by the community.He has been visionary in where he wants to take the department, said the Rev. Lee Wesley, of Community Bible Baptist Church. As long as progress is being made and we can see that progress, were willing to work with the chief. Priorities Technology Infrastructure Managing and running operations for all government programs and services. Managing life cycles of numerous systems (legacy, midlife, and new). Managing and running operations for all government programs and services. Managing life cycles of numerous systems (legacy, midlife, and new). Cybersecurity Preventing and mitigating incidents; and protecting infrastructure, including technical monitoring, assessing risk, training users, planning mitigations, procuring tools, developing and testing security controls, responding to and recovering from cyberincidents. Preventing and mitigating incidents; and protecting infrastructure, including technical monitoring, assessing risk, training users, planning mitigations, procuring tools, developing and testing security controls, responding to and recovering from cyberincidents. IT Transformation Fostering organizational change; and considering and modifying IT organizational structures to meet ongoing and emerging business and architectural needs of local government. Fostering organizational change; and considering and modifying IT organizational structures to meet ongoing and emerging business and architectural needs of local government. Governance Developing, running and leading enterprise governance for IT investments across all levels and departments. Developing, running and leading enterprise governance for IT investments across all levels and departments. IT System Modernization Spearheading the move off of older technology to ensure continuity of programs and services. Gathering requirements, decision-making, procurement, deployment, and training. Spearheading the move off of older technology to ensure continuity of programs and services. Gathering requirements, decision-making, procurement, deployment, and training. Social Media Defining and managing social media presence; and supporting programs by informing platform selection, developing policies, and providing guidance to departments using social media. Defining and managing social media presence; and supporting programs by informing platform selection, developing policies, and providing guidance to departments using social media. Innovation and Smart City Programs Leading, or playing a key role in, smart city programs by leveraging data and technology to achieve social impact. Leading, or playing a key role in, smart city programs by leveraging data and technology to achieve social impact. Data Building and maintaining a robust data environment, including the development of an overall data strategy and data-centric culture, with key elements: technical infrastructure, developing data management processes and competencies, and defining and implementing department data literacy. Building and maintaining a robust data environment, including the development of an overall data strategy and data-centric culture, with key elements: technical infrastructure, developing data management processes and competencies, and defining and implementing department data literacy. Workforce Recruiting and retaining skilled IT staff even with salary, requirement, and policy limitations. Recruiting and retaining skilled IT staff even with salary, requirement, and policy limitations. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Preparing for cyber-, weather and man-made incidents by developing and testing business continuity and disaster recovery plans to ensure programs and services stay online. Preparing for cyber-, weather and man-made incidents by developing and testing business continuity and disaster recovery plans to ensure programs and services stay online. Citizen Engagement Leading and supporting departments through informing platform selection, participating in developing policies, and, in some cases, engaging citizens. Leading and supporting departments through informing platform selection, participating in developing policies, and, in some cases, engaging citizens. Emerging Technologies Preparing for and assessing emerging technologies to understand how technologies will impact networks, overall department workflow, and then, where appropriate, deploying those technologies. Preparing for and assessing emerging technologies to understand how technologies will impact networks, overall department workflow, and then, where appropriate, deploying those technologies. Emergency Communications Developing an interoperable emergency network; and working with public safety agencies in funding, building, and maintaining interoperable technical and organizational infrastructure. This requires working across levels of government and municipal boundaries. Challenges Expanding Portfolios As portfolios expand in demand and diversity including the Internet of Things and connectivity efforts CIOs are often working to meet differing and increasing needs with only the resources available in their departments. As portfolios expand in demand and diversity including the Internet of Things and connectivity efforts CIOs are often working to meet differing and increasing needs with only the resources available in their departments. Cyber Boots on the Ground Cybersecurity prevention and mitigation requires a distinct set of operational and strategic skills. Many cities and counties, especially smaller ones, dont have the skilled staff required to carry out these functions. CIOs must work to spread out cyber-responsibilities among staff with competing priorities. Cybersecurity prevention and mitigation requires a distinct set of operational and strategic skills. Many cities and counties, especially smaller ones, dont have the skilled staff required to carry out these functions. CIOs must work to spread out cyber-responsibilities among staff with competing priorities. Shadow IT When IT is purchased and implemented without informing the IT department, it becomes Shadow IT infrastructure. This creates security, interoperability and long-term sustainability issues. Even governments with established governance processes find technology is purchased, built and/or used without IT department notification. When IT is purchased and implemented without informing the IT department, it becomes Shadow IT infrastructure. This creates security, interoperability and long-term sustainability issues. Even governments with established governance processes find technology is purchased, built and/or used without IT department notification. IT Governance A government-wide IT investment governance body, structure, and process can be the cornerstone of sound decision-making. While many cities and counties have this in place, it does not always operate as envisioned. CIOs are challenged to get government leadership to commit to, and routinely invest in, the governance process. A government-wide IT investment governance body, structure, and process can be the cornerstone of sound decision-making. While many cities and counties have this in place, it does not always operate as envisioned. CIOs are challenged to get government leadership to commit to, and routinely invest in, the governance process. Investment in Infrastructure Typically, back office projects while necessary to support many programs and services are neither eye-catching nor well-understood. CIOs must know when underlying structures are weakening. However, even after communicating with leadership about these issues, they often still have difficulty getting critical investments funded. In 1968, when some of the countrys foremost technologists were working at NASA to put a man on the moon, a group of local gov tech leaders met in New York City for the first time to informally exchange ideas about common challenges. Computers were just beginning to emerge as powerful data processing tools to help the public sector, but already there was a need to learn who was doing what and how. This marked the beginning of the Metropolitan Information Exchange (MIX).While not as well-known as NASCIO the National Association of State Chief Information Officers MIX has quietly grown to become a prestigious and tight-knit CIO organization with membership limited to 64 members around the U.S. Some past presidents of MIX include Bill Kehoe, CIO, Los Angeles County; Otto Doll, former CIO, Minneapolis; Brad Hartig, CIO, Scottsdale, Ariz.; Bill Greeves, CIO, Wake County, N.C.; Laura Fucci, CIO, Henderson County, Nev.; and Mike Taylor, CIO, Pitt County, N.C., who is the current president of MIX.Think of MIX as a premier networking club for local government CIOs. Information shared between members through open dialog has great value. Despite members coming from different-sized governments with different types of organizational structures, governance models and varied resources, they share a commitment to helping each other as they face similar challenges every day.A key element of these exchanges is the annual conference. In 2018, members of MIX met in Scottsdale, Ariz., where they created a list of information technology priorities and challenges . The list, members agreed, represents an ideal resource for communicating with city and county leaders about the role of a local CIO and the operations they run to sustain government.Since MIX members are committed to working with community leaders to solve problems and create value for citizens, they hope the list illustrates to local government leaders how local government CIOs impact day-to-day government and its ability to serve and engage in new and innovative ways. Additionally, the list of priorities can help government leaders understand what city and county CIOs do as well as explain the kinds of IT investments they are making and why they are important to the operations of city and county government. The wife of a furloughed federal employee won $100,000 and a new SUV in the lottery in Virginia, USA Today reported. Carrie Walls purchased what turned out to be a losing scratch-off ticket in early December. However, she entered the ticket into a second-chance drawing held by the lotto and won the money and a new Ford Expedition. Walls, herself an Air Force veteran, said her family was planning to take a trip to Disney World when her husband was furloughed from his job. She said the family will now be able to take the trip thanks to their winnings. The Alabama Department of Transportation advises motorists that the outside lane and shoulder of Interstate 65 southbound at Exit 334 (Alabama 67) in Priceville will be closed from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday for installation of a pole, weather permitting. Expect delays and plan accordingly. Alabama's Secretary of State, John Merril, told WAAY 31 he's happy with the plan from Madison County's new Probate Judge, Frank Barger, to prevent another swollen ballot problem like the one during the General Election in November that caused headaches for some voters. Judge Barger plans on making sure ballots are not loaded into the secure transport trailers while it is raining. He also plans on making sure the climate controlled building the ballots live in during the election is not too humid. Improving the voting process is just one thing that has Barger's attention. Besides making sure voters have a good experience at the polls, Probate Judge Barger said he has two other points of emphasis. One is changing the court's policies for committing people with mental health problems. The other is to improve the guardianship requirements for people who take care of children or elderly people. In a speech following Barger's swearing in he said the county committed 321 people battling mental health problems in 2018. Over 75 percent of those were repeat commitments, so Barger vowed to work on improving services for people once they're stable and released, "So that we reduce recidivism, expanding the number of days per week we actually handle those mental health commitments so that we serve people as quickly as possible and we are good stewards of county resources," said Barger. The new Probate Judge said he'll also create better protections for seniors and children that the court oversees, "Tightening up on the reporting process and reporting requirements for conservators or guardians. Some education will be involved that they're going to be required to undergo, so they'll be required to go through that as well," said Barger. He wants to make sure guardians get all the training they might need, "Many individuals get involved serving as a conservator, or serving as a guardian, with the best intentions, but don't know the amount of work that is involved," said Barger. Judge Barger said he identified those two areas while handling over a thousand cases serving as a senior officer in the Madison County Probate Office. Alabama's largest city is one of the top in the nation for robocalls. An indexing company lists the Birmingham area code as 12th in the nation for spam calls. But huntsville is not immune! The same firm says last month alone, more than 850,000 robocalls were made to the 256. People tell us they just want the calls to stop. "I really hate them. Like I wish there was something to be done about them. Like it's ridiculous about how many of these calls I get," said Lydia Flores. Like death and taxes you can pretty much count on getting spam calls, usually daily. People we talked to today said they get anywhere from one to five or more. And it makes them hesitant to answer their phones. "I usually answer the phone because, you know, it could be someone important or something like that. And then when I realize it's not I just hang up," said Flores. Sorry, Lydia. That's the worst thing you can do. Cyber experts tell WAAY 31, most robocallers are searching for a legit number. Answer the call, and you've just shown them you're legit. The calls range from unreal... "I've gotten some about going on a cruise, like I wish I could but I know it's not real." To outright ridiculous... "Or something about car insurance or something like that. I don't have a car!" We all want the calls to go away. But an attorney told us, it's nearly impossible to catch the people placing these calls. And adding your number to a do not call list? Well, that only works for legal businesses which doesn't solve the problem of these spam calls. "We do have the power to block numbers so I feel like that's enough effort to stop people from calling you," said Kyla Salomon. The Federal Communications Commission said combating robocalls is a top priority. It recently issued an $8-million fine to one company! But it also says phone companies need to start filtering out the numbers, so the calls don't even get through in the first place. It's been a deadly year for police officers. Just 14 days into the new, 7 police officers were killed in the line of duty. That includes the Birmingham officer killed Sunday morning. Local agencies are honoring Birmingham Sgt. Wytasha Carter. "The sheriff's office has draped their badges until midnight of day of funeral . It shows utmost respect and to honor someone who has fallen in the law of duty," said Lt. Donny Shaw with Madison County Sheriff's Office. Lt. Donny Shaw with the Madison County Sheriff's Office said when one law enforcement officer dies in another agency, it reminds him that anything can happen at any moment. "It's not known what the next hour or next minute can be when you're in your response or your daily duty activities. You pray everyday before you leave that you are going to be kept safe so you can return home to your family," Lt. Shaw said. Huntsville Police Chief Mark McMurray said violent crimes against police officers were up last year and the year before. "It's a disturbing trend of violence towards police and again it makes you wonder where this is going to end," said Chief McMurray with Huntsville Police Department. People who live in Huntsville said they depend on police officers to help them feel safe when in trouble, so hearing about Birmingham Sgt. Wytasha Carter being killed and another officer injured while responding to a car break-in is troubling. "They put down their lives every single day for us and yet they're being killed off very very frequently. I think it's shocking," said Caden Beilstein "I work in the public school system over at Lee High School. I get to know the school resource officers that are in the building and those men and women have families. When I hear that one of them is put in the line of fire and die that way, I think about their families," said Carlos Colon. Huntsville police officers and Madison County deputies plan to attend Sgt. Wytasha Carter's funeral. Healthy Huntsville is kicking off Monday as part of Scale Back Alabama, a free statewide program meant to encourage people to lose weight. This year, the goal for Healthy Huntsville is for participants to lose 10 pounds by the beginning of April. Those who participate have the chance to win a cash prize. To help with progress, there will be weigh-in stations at multiple locations around the city. Courtesy of the city of Huntsville Courtesy of the city of Huntsville Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle attended the event and said to be healthy is to be happy. "You can save on medical costs, which keeps people out of the hospital rooms ... If you're healthy, you're a little bit more productive. You're more productive at home. You're more productive at work," Battle said A local gym-goer, Phil Landers, said for some people, just getting to the gym is half the battle. He said you don't have to be an expert to go to the gym and to just do something you're comfortable with and do it with people you like. "Working out, we all enjoy it. We all get a benefit of it," he said. "We're all together at the same time, and I think it just brings the family closer together." Funeral arrangements for the slain Birmingham Police Sergeant Wytasha Carter were announced Tuesday. Carter, 44, was shot early Sunday morning in downtown Birmingham as he and an undercover officer confronted a pair of suspected car burglars. A visitation will be held Friday from noon until 6 p.m. at Rideout's Trussville Chapel on Gadsden Highway. A funeral will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. at the BJCC in downtown Birmingham. Alabama law enforcement agencies have taken to social media this week to express sorrow about Carter's death. Here are some of the posts: New Deal Roots (TNS) Electric cooperatives want to help bridge the digital divide between rural and urban America as more federal funding becomes available for rural broadband.But a 77-year-old law may prevent one of the nations poorest states from fully tapping into millions of new federal dollars to expand high-speed internet service to needy rural communities.Mississippi is among the states that rely most heavily on rural electric cooperatives, nonprofits that deliver power to their members in rural areas. Mississippis electric cooperatives service area covers 85 percent of the states land mass.Yet since 1942, Mississippi state law has restricted its cooperatives to working in electric services. Its legislature is expected to take up bills that challenge the state law and the role of electric cooperatives early in its session that began on Jan. 8.Should the Magnolia State change its law, its electric cooperatives could compete for $350 million in loans and grants set aside to improve broadband access under the federal farm bill Congress passed last month. They also could go for a separate pilot program the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced days later that offers up to $600 million in loans and grants to connect rural areas that have poor broadband service. The latter portion was included in the fiscal 2018 spending bill that President Donald Trump signed in March.Neither pot of money would meet all the broadband needs of rural America, but as more cooperatives across the country provide internet services to their members, or consider expanding their roles, the ability to compete for federal funding becomes more important. Mississippis hurdle might be cleared quickly with new state legislation, but its conundrum illustrates the challenges rural states often face in keeping up with economy-boosting technology and the ability to pay for it.Rural electric cooperatives will compete alongside rural utilities, telecommunications companies, internet service providers and municipalities for the USDA pilot program funding.Beyond Mississippi, electric cooperatives in other states also face barriers: Georgias electric cooperatives are considering expanding into broadband, but state law does not address whether they can.Tennessees electric cooperatives had been barred from offering internet services to their members until the Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act passed in 2017. But theyre unable to invest assets from electricity services into broadband expansion or offer broadband outside their coverage area without local permission.And in North Carolina, a state law prohibits electric cooperatives from using USDA funds to provide telecommunications services.At this point, it hasnt been a significant barrier, said Nelle Hotchkiss, chief operating officer of North Carolinas Electric Cooperatives, in a phone interview with Stateline. However, with the additional dollars and focus U.S. Congress is putting on USDA for deployment dollars, its going to become a problem, and so thats why were talking to legislative leaders about relief.Answers to addressing rural broadband challenges should stem from the local level, according to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Solutions may require public-private partnerships, partnerships between electric and telephone cooperatives or electric cooperatives not getting involved because participation is too costly. The association says it wants broadband to be available in rural America and doesnt care how it gets done.Some proponents for electric cooperatives argue that as member-owned nonprofits, they are more cost-effective than commercial telecommunications providers, which lack a market incentive to serve rural areas. But leaders of telecommunications companies argue that cooperatives will face the same cost barriers to serving rural areas when they enter the market, and that the telecom providers bring expertise in broadband.Broadband, according to the Federal Communications Commission, means offering access speeds of 25 megabits per second (known as Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload, known in shorthand as 25-3. By that definition, 39 percent of rural areas lack broadband access compared with only 4 percent of urban areas, the FCC reports.In an era of instant communication, those slow speeds can hinder business.How do we communicate with our board? By email, said John Stuhlmiller, CEO of the Washington Farm Bureau. But even the cellular service is bad. We literally have to call and say, I sent you an email.The digital divide affects the long-term economic health and vitality of rural America, while also creating quality-of-life issues. Rural areas, defined by the USDA as counties outside cities and their suburbs, have weathered six consecutive years of population losses. Meanwhile, cities have grown. (A Stateline analysis of census estimates show rural areas gained population between 2016 and 2017 for the first time since 2010, likely due to improved housing and job markets.)Northwest Alabama has been exporting its best asset: its children, said Steve Foshee, president and CEO of Tombigbee Electric Cooperative in northwest Alabama. Theyre all leaving to go to these cities to have a better way of life, Foshee said. Would [broadband] change their opinion?Tombigbees subsidiary, Tombigbee Communications, is undertaking a $38 million project to deliver high-speed internet, which Foshee expects will attract new industries and build the capacity of local hospitals to adopt e-medicine tools and become more efficient. Alabamas electric cooperatives are not inhibited by state laws on access to federal funding or providing internet services.If they can make this happen in Alabama through their electric cooperative, theres absolutely no reason except this arcane law that we cant do it in Mississippi, said Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley.Proponents such as Foshee say that if co-ops dont take the lead on rural broadband, no one will, since small population densities could mean expensive projects reach only a handful of people. They point to co-ops early leadership in powering the country during the Great Depression as an example cooperatives could now follow.Electric cooperatives began in the 1930s, when roughly 90 percent of urban America had electricity, and 90 percent of rural America did not. Congress passed the Rural Electrification Act in 1936, and within three years, 417 rural electric cooperatives served 288,000 households. Today, more than 900 cooperatives in 47 states provide electric service to people living across 56 percent of the nations landmass, according to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.Rural electric co-ops began building fiber networks to homes about 10 years ago, said Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit advocacy group focused on local solutions for sustainable community development. About 68 rural electric co-ops in 22 states are engaged in fiber optic projects, up from two prior to 2010, according to the group. Another 18 in 11 states have announced or begun building fiber projects that they have not yet turned on, Mitchell said.Electric cooperatives are simply the single greatest hope for most of rural America to have really good internet access, Mitchell said.But the projects are expensive and would require federal support, which cooperatives appear to have from top USDA leaders. Last summer, 13 cooperatives and a 22-member Rural Electric Cooperative Consortium were winners of the FCC Connect America II reverse auction and will collectively receive $225 million over a decade to deploy broadband to unserved areas. The auction marked the first time that the FCC allowed electric cooperatives to bid for funding as broadband service providers.Rural electric cooperative and telecommunications leaders describe the $600 million in loans and grants available through USDAs new pilot program, ReConnect, as a down payment. Of course, its going to take more resources than this, said Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. This is just a step in the right direction.Still, Matheson and others criticize the design of federal programs like ReConnect because of the inaccuracies in rural broadband coverage data. Projects funded through ReConnect, for example, must serve communities where service speeds are slower than 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload, or 10-1.However, service is determined by census block, so while just one home in a block may be receiving 10-1 service, federal programs treat the entire block the same.That would be like us getting electricity to one house and declaring the whole neighborhood as served, Foshee said.Mississippi often lands near the bottom of state average internet speed.Last June, the Public Services Presley hosted 46 members of the Mississippi legislature for a rural internet summit in neighboring Hamilton, Alabama, to learn about Tombigbees work. In addition to receiving a $2.9 million USDA Community Connect Grant for a fiber project to connect nearly 500 area households and businesses, the Alabama cooperative is in the midst of a project to provide high-speed internet to more than 70,000 residents with more than 1,300 miles of fiber line over a thousand square miles.Weve got to fix our problem here within the state of Mississippi to ever have access to federal dollars, said Presley, who oversees 33 northern Mississippi counties. Thats why its imperative we pass this bill in January.Presley said the law change is supported by nearly 60 municipalities and several local and state associations, including the Farm Bureau, Association of Realtors and AARP.Seventy-seven percent of respondents to a statewide survey of voters in mid-September supported allowing electric power associations to provide high-speed internet to their customers. The survey was conducted by left-leaning research and advocacy firm Chism Strategies at its own expense.Sixteen co-ops conducted feasibility studies and determined it would cost $1.5 billion to provide fiber to the home of every member, according to Michael Callahan, CEO of Electric Cooperatives of Mississippi. Even if the state law is changed, any decision to go into broadband would be made by local boards of directors.Mississippi business and political leaders agree on expanding rural broadband access, but not all are convinced the electric cooperatives should lead. Republican state Rep. Jim Beckett, chairman of the House Public Utilities Committee, said his primary concern is assuring the cooperatives financial viability.They didnt form this cooperative to provide broadband, Beckett said. I think everybodys model, even the electric power associations, realize that a majority of the people are not going to subscribe. As were going forward, we need to make sure that those customers are not burdened by their subsidizing the people who do want broadband.Lisa Shoemaker, executive director of the Mississippi Cable Telecommunications Association, said electric cooperatives would face the same high cost of serving rural areas as her members do if they were to enter the market, and that the solution will require the involvement of cable and telecom companies, wireless providers, rural telephone companies and electric cooperatives.Regardless of what happens in Mississippi, the federal 1996 Telecommunications Act says states cannot prevent any entity from providing service.Hence, Mississippi co-ops could challenge the state, said Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. There is a path forward even in Mississippi if the state doesnt change the law. Decatur Police need help identifying a suspect associated with robbing a gas station clerk. About 1:15 a.m. Jan. 8, Morgan County 911 got a call about a robbery at the Texaco located at 819 6th Ave. NE, said Emily Long, police department spokesperson. During the incident, a man walked up to the store and put on a ski mask. He then entered the business, pulled out a firearm and demanded money. The clerk provided an undisclosed amount of money to the perpetrator, who fled on foot, Long said. Prior to the suspect entering the store, he was in view of the camera without the mask. If anyone has any information identifying the subject, please contact Detective Sean Mukaddam at 256-341-4617 or email smukaddam@decatur-al.gov. On Tuesday, Athens City Schools Superintendent Trey Holladay announced the new Athens High School will open its doors to students Wednesday, January 23 to start the new semester. The building of the new school is completed aside from its auditorium, which is expected to be ready in March. As of now, a grand opening is planned for March 31 when the auditorium should be finished. The current semester ends this Friday, and Athens City Schools are off Monday, January 21 for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Superintendent Holladay said there will be a teacher work day on Tuesday to get the new classrooms prepared. An orientation will be held that evening from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. to get families acquainted to the new facility. Holladay said the opening has been a long-time coming and he is excited for students. The $57 million project was originally expected to be ready for students in November 2018. The weather had a major impact in construction of the school, along with roadwork and sidewalk development. Photo: Jessica Kourkounis/Universal Pictures In his 2004 supernatural melodrama The Lady in the Water, M. Night Shyamalan cast himself as an author who receives a message from a madam narf (i.e., an elite mermaid-ish entity from the Blue World) to the effect that he shouldnt give up writing in spite of low wages and nasty critics, because the story hes penning at that very moment will inspire a child who will grow up and transform the world. Im pretty sure Shyamalan regards his decades-in-the-making thriller, Glass, as the same sort of world-transformative work an exhortation to incipient superheroes who walk among us to believe in their own powers. I only wish Shyamalans storytelling was as lively as his pathology. His mixture of pulp and idolatry congeals on the screen. The sequel to both last years surprise horror hit, Split, and the glacial comic-book art movie, Unbreakable (2000), Glass takes off from the notion that we have gods in our midst: humans who have metamorphosed via a mixture of latent genius and severe emotional trauma into superheroes or, in the case of the ultrabreakable Elijah Price, a.k.a. Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson), archvillains. (It was Price in Unbreakable who contended that comic books were not disposable fantasies for adolescents but an ancient way of passing on history.) Shyamalans true villains, though, are not the arch ones. Theyre the people who deny that such exalted individuals exist or actively strive to suppress them. Shrinks. Bureaucrats. Critics. This critic can at least refresh your memory of the Shyamsters cosmos, because if you havent seen or dont recall Split and/or Unbreakable youll be mighty puzzled. Split came on as a B-horror picture in which Kevin (James McAvoy), a psycho with multiple distinct personalities, kidnapped some high-school girls, tortured them with silly accents, and slaughtered all but the nonbasic one, Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy). But then Shyamalan got fancy. Casey survived, it turns out, because shed been sexually abused, which gave her preternatural sensitivity and strength. I dont think Shyamalan meant to say that sexual assault is super-empowering, but his view of defense mechanisms and their hierarchy is not dissimilar from the one trumpeted by Mr. Glass, who engineered traumas to help superior individuals locate their individual superiorities. Kevin the psycho with his horde of inner entities who take turns in the spotlight was also abused, with the result that he has not just a wide range of stereotyped alter egos (prim matron, lisping 11-year-old, working-class tough, film professor) but a swollen, raging entity called the Beast off whom bullets bounce. Any day the Beast appears is going to be a bad day. The commercial hook of Glass is a monster jamboree: The Beast meets the hero and villain of Unbreakable. Its Shyamalans The Avengers. The hero is Bruce Williss David Dunn, the lone survivor of a train wreck on account of David having bones that dont break. In Glass, he has become with the aid of his computer-whiz son, Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark) the Overseer, a vigilante in a rain poncho who trudges around Philadelphia accosting thugs while TV talking heads pose civic-minded questions about the ethics of vigilantism. After their first Frankenstein-meets-the-Wolfman face-off, David and Kevin wind up in the west wing of Raven Hill Memorial Hospital alongside a heavily sedated Mr. Glass and under the care of Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), whose declared mission is to convince them their superpowers are all in their heads. Most of Glass takes place in that vast, chilly facility (it was filmed in the now-closed Allentown State Mental Hospital north of Philly), in long group therapy sessions in which Dr. Staple tries to get David Dunn and whichever member of Kevins horde takes the spotlight to recall the moment when he first became aware that he was super, as well as the moment when he knew he had a weakness akin to Supermans kryptonite. She explains to them that there are medical reasons for their disorders. She tells Kevin, the Beast isnt as powerful as you think, thereby shaking Kevins confidence which ought to be a good thing, right? Not in the Shyamsters universe, where its not only essential to believe but damnable not to. (I dont think Shyamalan wants to demonize psychiatry the way the Scientologists do, only to say that shrinks tend to miss the big, metaphysical picture. Williss Malcolm Crowe in The Sixth Sense missed a doozy.) Mr. Glass, meanwhile, lolls in his wheelchair at a 45-degree angle, leaving us to wonder whether hes genuinely drugged or faking it while hatching a diabolical plan to foment a super-battle between the Beast and the Overseer on the worlds mightiest stage. Three guesses. Make that one. Glass has to be present because hes the catalyst. He put the story in motion. To be clear, I have no problem with the essentials of that story. I had no problem with it when Bruce Wayne suffered the trauma of losing his parents and created a vigilante alter ego whose activities raised all manner of ethical questions, or when Superman lost his parents but found in his alienation a source of clarity and strength, or when various X-Men and X-Women learned to set aside their sadness at being shunned for their differences and nurture what made them special. I had no problem with the Beast when he was the Wolverine or the more family-friendly Hulk. Theres nothing in Glass that hasnt been done faster and more entertainingly in scores of superhero movies, minus the funereal pacing and pompous, clunky dialogue. If Shyamalan is an original, his originality is in draining the life out of pop archetypes, twerpily annotating them, and presenting it all as a gift from on high. The train-station finale of Glass must be seen to be disbelieved. The actors must have wanted to jump on the next train out. Oh, these poor actors. The great Sarah Paulson has the worst lines (It would be an honor to get to know your perspicacious mind, Dr. Staple tells Dunn) and the worst camera setups. Id love to be able to forget her last shot. Anya Taylor-Joy is brought back to be ludicrously mushy and supportive of Kevin, whom Casey supposedly saw massacre teenage girls a mere three weeks earlier. (Casey knows that Kevins inner self is sweet and scared.) As Elijahs mother, Charlayne Woodard must convince us that (a) her son, though a gleeful mass murderer, is a tender, hurting soul, and (b) that she gave birth to him at the age of negative five. (Woodard was born in 1953, Jackson in 1948.) Willis successfully reproduces his stuporous-ness from Unbreakable not a happy achievement. But Jackson is agreeably hammy, especially when he finally gets to don his purple jacket and white ascot and madly gesticulate with his cane. And McAvoy slips more fluidly in and out of his various stereotypes hes impressive even if his material isnt. Glass comes after two hit movies (The Visit and Split) in which Shyamalan tamped down his ambitions and tried to tell scary stories with a minimum of fuss. But the end of Split was a tip-off that the journeyman genre-man was being shoved out of the spotlight by the Lady in the Water scribe whose work would inspire the messiah. I hope Shyamalan comes to realize that he should be careful of his inner grandiose posturing apostle. Its his Beast. Billy McFarland, scammer extraordinaire. Photo: The Cinemart/Hulu On Monday Hulu fought fyre with fyre by surprise-releasing its own documentary on the doomed-from-the-start Fyre Festival just days ahead of Netflixs scheduled release of its own rival doc on the same fiasco. Fyre Fraud, Hulus version, is described by its directors Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason as more than the story of a failed music festival in the Bahamas but a cautionary tale for a generation. Or, at the very least, one super-specific privileged, megalomaniac set of that generation. Hulus doc, while attempting to diagnose how Fyre became a cancer to millennial culture, turns the mirror on its mastermind, Billy McFarland, who scammed attendees, investors, and the Bahamas collectively out of millions of dollars with his pipe dream of a luxe Instagrammable destination festival that ultimately went up in smoke. The doc features tense interviews with McFarland just before he went to prison for fraud, as well as with employees who witnessed firsthand how his hubris and desperation snowballed to derail the festival. Here are our eight takeaways from those interviews, including the supposed truth about what co-founder Ja Rule really knew, Hulus subtle dig at Netflix, and McFarlands lies exposed. Ja Rule knew something was up. Half of the inspiration for Fyre Festival came from rapper/aspiring mogul Ja Rule, who was touted as a co-creator. (Though, according to a McFarland employee interviewed in the doc, his role was more for flashy marketing purposes than any real hands-on involvement with the nuts and bolts of the festival.) Rule himself never took any responsibility for the festivals wrongdoings but gladly took credit for its idea however the doc now claims that he was very much clued in on the festivals inevitable implosion. Delroy Jackson, a local Bahamian hired as a fixer for the festival, recalls Rule visiting the barren festival grounds four months out from the start date and expressing skepticism that theyd actually pull it off. He pulled me aside like, Yo, Delroy. Just be straight up dawg. Is this festival gonna happen. Whatd you think? he says. All I did was scratch my head. I was just like, Ja, its really not gonna happen. Asked point-blank in the doc if Ja Rule, who declined to be interviewed, had any knowledge of his scam, McFarlands answer is less than convincing. I was in charge of the festival and I made the decision to keep it going to to to I was in charge, and so its on me, he stutters. But yeah. Asked if while on the island Ja Rule ever told him to cancel the festival, McFarland says he wont give details of their private discussions: Weve had many conversations, as well as I did with the rest of the team, and those were the decisions we made. McFarland truly doesnt see a correlation between his committing fraud and the festival going awry. For scamming investors with fraudulent wire taps, McFarland was ultimately sentenced to six years in prison. But if you ask him, which the doc painstakingly does, that fraud apparently had nothing to do with the festival. The legal situation does not involve any aspects of the execution of the festival, he says. Then later repeats, We didnt break the law in the execution of the festival. Is he a compulsive liar? the doc asks next. Ive been called a lot of things since the festival, he says, then asks Hulu to show him the lie. Which it does, one receipt after another, prompting McFarland to take a ten-minute personal break, presumably from the truth. Employees were instructed to delete negative comments. In order to ramp up the festivals clout, Fyre outsourced its social-media marketing to Instagram influencer Fuck Jerrys media company Jerry Media. The doc reveals that even until the bitter end, Jerry Media employees were told to keep on promoting the festival like it was business as usual, though they allegedly knew it would be a disaster. Oren Aks, an exJerry Media designer hired to do social media for Fyre, says he was personally instructed to delete any negative or accusatory posts about Fyre on its Instagram even simple logistical questions from attendees and block any accounts that left such comments. He was told to flag on Fyres socials general words like lineup, performers, details, info, flights, fraud, stupid, scam, and, yes, even festival (it got that bad, according to Aks). I could say, Im scared. I could say, This is dangerous, Aks remembers of those last days before the festival. It wont change anything cause the festival has to happen. Hulu shades Netflixs rival Fyre doc for bias. Speaking of Fuck Jerry, its creator Elliot Tebele is one of the many executive producers of Netflixs rival Fyre Fest doc. The problem? Hulus doc accuses Fuck Jerry and Jerry Media of knowingly lying to attendees by positively promoting the festival all the way up until launch day despite all evidence of pending disaster and, indirectly, also accuses Netflix of bias for letting Jerry Media produce its doc. (Jerry Media is one of the defendants named in celebrity lawyer Mark Geragoss class-action lawsuit against the festival.) In a statement to Hulu read in the doc, Jerry Media slams Oren Akss accusations that the company deceived attendees, insisting that McFarland duped them, too: All actions taken by Jerry Media were done at the direction of the Fyre Festival. Like the ticket holders, we were also misled. Per our previous correspondence, Oren Aks has misrepresented himself. Well, fuck you guys, Aks responds, adding, I honestly cant believe this documentary theres two of them. Hulu doesnt name-drop Netflix as that other doc, but it then acknowledges Jerry Medias role as a producer of said second doc, followed by a rather pointed word from an attorney representing the firm suing Jerry Media: You kind of hope they do the right thing. You can hope all you want. More frequently, you have to sue. People slept in FEMA tents because McFarland lost the keys to their sweet villas. Fyre Festival attendees were promised fancy villas, suites, and mansions as their accommodations. But as was famously documented on Twitter, they were instead greeted with FEMA-style tents and mattresses all posted up on gravel. But if you believe McFarland, the luxe living truly did exist he just misplaced all the keys to get in. Behold, a scammer at work: We have 250 houses rented for millions of dollars with paper receipts and pictures of every house. [Pause.] We had a box of physical keys, cars to take people there, and maps for every single house, and the box of keys uh unfortunately it went missing. So why didnt he just break that news to attendees? [Blinks. Stares at ground. Internal panicking ensues.] McFarland tried to steal back his merch from the Bahamian government. With so much already going wrong with Fyre, remembering to pay pesky things like national insurance and customs bills to the Bahamian government wasnt high on the priority list. So after all was said and done, the Bahamas seized all the Fyre merch as collateral. According to fixer Delroy Jackson, one of McFarlands many bright ideas to recoup money to pay back investors, then, was to merely steal the merch back. As in, have Jackson rob his own government without even so much as a plan for how to do it. So did he? Me aint never stole any merch, he smirks. McFarlands been scamming since the fifth grade When McFarland was sentenced for his Fyre Fest and other related crimes, the judge diagnosed him as a serial fraudster. And its true his schemes go way back. In the doc, McFarland boasts about being a scamming prodigy. In the second grade, he offered to fix a crayon for a girl he had a crush on but only if she gave him $1, which he then turned into a whole crayon business. He figured out how to hack his schools internet access, lock teachers out of the schools AlphaSmarts, and post messages on it promoting his new venture. By fifth grade, he posed as an adult and hired three full-time employees outsourced from India for his web-posting company. I had like the worst fake-deep voice on the planet, he reminisces. His mother, whose quotes in the doc are for some reason read via a Stephen Hawkingesque robotic voice, describes her son as dangerously resourceful from the start: Billy has been gifted with a blessing and a curse. He can only think big. McFarland says adult Billy went on to come up with the idea for his luxury credit-card business, Magnises, when he committed debit-card fraud after dinner with friends, wanting to make debit cards cooler. (He successfully copied his cards bar using metal and magnetic tape to make working fakes. Dont get any ideas, folks!) And hes still scamming behind bars. While out on bail on the Fyre Fest fraud charges, McFarland ran another ticket-buying scheme that landed him additional charges and time on his sentence. But McFarlands in for the long con. Its revealed that, while now in federal prison, his latest scheme is teaching a class on music entrepreneurship to other inmates. His true vocation at last! Violent protests erupted in Zimbabwe's two largest cities after the government announced a massive fuel hike. Police fired tear gas in order to contain the protests in the capital Harare and Bulawayo Monday, while protesters threw rocks, burned tires and blocked streets. There were media reports of riot police using live ammunition to disperse the crowds. At least 13 people were injured by gunfire, the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights said. The clashes came on the first day of a three-day strike called by unions in response to an intensifying economic crisis. On Saturday, President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced a 150 percent rise in fuel prices. Mnangagwa on Monday defended the decision at the start of a five-nation tour. "Zimbabwe is going through both political and economic reforms and these do not come easily," he told reporters in Moscow. "It will take time for things to settle and results to be shown." He said the fuel price hike was necessary because local fuel was the cheapest in the region. Mnangagwa, who took power after longtime leader Robert Mugabe was forced to resign in November 2017, is trying to win back foreign investors sidelined under Mugabe. Zimbabwes government has accused the opposition Movement for Democratic Change Alliance for the outbreak of violence in the country, following a call by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions for a complete shutdown of businesses and work. Addressing journalists at a news conference Tuesday, Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said the shutdown and the ensuing outbreak of violence which has claimed lives, is the work of the opposition, though the leader of the MDC party Nelson Chamisa and his party members have remained largely silent on the call to by the ZCTU and others, to shutdown the government. Pursuant to this nefarious agenda, the MDC Alliance activated its notorious terror groups, which include the so-called Democratic Resistance Committee and para-military vanguard," said Mutsvangwa. Mutsvangwa, who accuses the opposition and organizers of the shutdown of attempting to overthrow the government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, warned that such a move would have consequences. "Threats to overthrow a constitutionally-elected government by force and install an unelected person as president of Zimbabwe will be thwarted - it won't work. The shutdown, called in reaction to increased prices in fuel and shortage of basics including cash and food, coincides with President Mnangagwas trip to various countries in Eastern Europe, including Russia, and also Switzerland for the World Economic Forum in Davos. Mutsvanga said the shutdown and the violence that has erupted between members of the security forces and citizens, was aimed to bring unnecessary attention to the country. "The timing of these events is instructive in two ways, they come against the background where his Excellency the President ED (Emmerson) Mnangagwa is out of the country. And two, they are intended to undermine the ongoing re-engagement efforts of the president to market Zimbabwe at high level forums such as at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland," Mutsvangwa said. President Mnangagwa has declared that Zimbabwe is open for business and has pushed for Zimbabwes readmission into the international community, which has imposed sanctions on the country due to allegations of human rights violations and lack of rule of law. The opposition has denied any involvement in the shutdown, but has challenged Mnangagwas legitimacy following his July 30th election victory, which was decided by the Constitutional Court. WASHINGTON Unites States Senators Chris Coons and Cory Booker have urged Zimbabwean officials to respect the rights of protesters and restore access to social media, internet and telephone services following a nationwide protests staged by local people over the countrys economic crisis. In a statement, Coons (Democrat, Delaware) and Booker (Democrat, New Jersey) said the current situation in the country is worrying as state security agents have launched a crackdown on protesters amid reports of several deaths, arrests and detentions. The two, who are members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, We are deeply troubled by reports of deaths, widespread arrests, beatings, and harassment of protestors by security forces of the Government of Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean people have the constitutional right to protest peacefully and express themselves regarding developments in their country. Government officials and security forces must respond with professionalism and respect for human rights and the rule of law. We also call on the Government of Zimbabwe to rescind the directive ordering communication service providers to cut or restrict access to social media, internet, and telephone services. Such abrogations of constitutional and basic legal rights are not what the people of Zimbabwe were promised under President Mnangagwa. Coons and Booker said Zimbabwean authorities should urgently address peoples concerns. Instead, the government should work to meet the basic economic and social needs of its people. We strongly urge the Zimbabwean authorities to resolve the current situation through dialogue and non-violent, fully legal means, and for protesters to exercise their constitutional rights peacefully. Under no circumstances should the Zimbabwean government disregard the constitutional rights of its citizens, engage in the illegal suppression of expression and assembly, or employ the disproportionate use of force or extralegal violence to respond to the current situation. Coons and Booker are among several other senators who were in Zimbabwe before the country held its elections last July won by President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his ruling Zanu PF party. The poll results were challenged by the Movement for Democratic Change led by Nelson Chamisa, who lost the case in the Constitutional Court which cited lack of evidence in nullifying the election outcome. The country was facing serious economic problems before the harmonized elections and worsened soon after Mnangagwa was declared winner by Priscilla Chigumbas Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. Mnangagwa recently announced fuel price increases of up to 150% in a nation with an unemployment rate of over 80%. With the partial shutdown of the U.S. federal government now in its fourth week, President Donald Trump continues to hold out the possibility that he will declare a national emergency along the southern border with Mexico. Trump could use the declaration to fund his long sought border wall, but Democrats in Congress firmly oppose the barrier, and even some Republicans object to the idea, calling it an overreach of executive authority. "I have the absolute legal right to call it," Trump told reporters Monday at the White House. "But I am not looking to do that because this is too simple. The Democrats should say we want border security. We have to build a wall, otherwise you can't have border security, and we should get on with our lives." Holding back Trump seemed to back away a bit from the emergency route Monday, especially after he told reporters last week that he might issue a declaration if congressional negotiations reached a dead end. "If this does not work out, probably I will do it. I would say almost definitely." WATCH: Trump Mulls Border Emergency to Fund Wall Some Republicans say that point may be fast approaching. "It seems to me the only way left is for him to exercise that authority," said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. "I don't see any action in the Congress." On Sunday, Graham suggested on TV that Trump reopen the government for three weeks to allow border negotiations to continue. The president rejected that idea Monday. Bipartisan pushback Democrats oppose the emergency declaration, including Maryland Congressman Anthony Brown. "The use of these authorities, like the deployment of our troops to the border, is irresponsible, unnecessary and misguided," Brown said in a speech on the House floor last week. "Mr. Speaker, we don't have a crisis on the border. We have a crisis in the Oval Office." Trump is meeting resistance not just from Democrats but from some Republicans. Politico reported that members of the House Freedom Caucus have been urging Trump not to issue a declaration, fearful that future Democratic presidents could cite the move as precedent to declare an emergency on climate change or some other policy priority. Presidential leeway Presidents have frequently declared national emergencies since Congress passed the National Emergencies Act in 1976. Analysts say that generally speaking, presidents have a lot of leeway when it comes to deciding what constitutes such an emergency. "The president has fairly broad power to declare a national emergency," said Brookings Institution scholar John Hudak. "According to a pretty firm reading of that law, it is hard to see where there is an exception to the president's ability to do it." Hudak says there are constitutional limits on the president's power, either through Congress or the courts. "Presidents have tried to go around Congress in terms of spending money in the past," noted Hudak. "And frequently presidents are stopped because the spending power in the Constitution rests with the Congress." Polling hit Several recent polls show the public is blaming Trump for the impasse more than congressional Democrats. A new Quinnipiac poll on Monday found that 56 percent hold Trump and Republicans responsible for the shutdown, compared to 36 percent who blame Democrats. That survey is similar to others by CNN, The Washington Post/ABC News and CBS News, which all reported that voters blamed Trump more than Democrats by significant margins. Trump remains focused on his political base and may be encouraged by surveys that show Republicans generally standing with him on the shutdown. "This is not going to end until at least parts of Trump's base agree to go along, or say, Well, you tried your best and those darn Democrats just won't give in,'" said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, via Skype. But focusing on his political base does carry risks for the president, said Hudak. "President Trump is playing to his base here. But unfortunately, his base is a small percentage of the population and most of the rest of the population is not with him on this issue of the wall." Monday's Quinnipiac poll found that voters oppose a wall along the Mexico border by a margin of 55 percent to 43 percent. Other recent surveys also show more Americans oppose a wall than support it, although some polls have shown a slight bump in support for the wall of late. Quinnipiac also found that 65 percent of those surveyed in the latest poll oppose Trump using executive powers to build the wall, while 32 percent support it. Trump is hoping that his unwavering commitment to building the wall will shore up support from his base for his re-election bid next year. Many analysts, however, caution that his singular focus on delivering a wall for his supporters appears to be doing little to expand his base of support and may have contributed to a weakening of his public approval numbers in recent weeks. ISLAMABAD - Zalmay Khalilzad, the man responsible for overseeing Americas negotiations with the Afghan Taliban, arrived Tuesday night in Kabul, after making stops in India, the United Arab Emirates, and China. He is expected to visit Islamabad next. His outreach to regional players continues despite what seems like a setback in talks with the Taliban. The [dialogue] process has halted for now so the venue and the date for a future meeting are not known, a senior Taliban official who is privy to the developments confirmed to VOA earlier this week when asked whether their peace talks with the U.S. were still on track. Talks scheduled with the Taliban in Saudi Arabia earlier this month were called off by the insurgent group after it came under pressure by the host government to meet with representatives of the current Afghan government. The insurgent group pushed to change the venue to Doha, Qatar, but later canceled those talks as well over disagreements on the agenda. FILE - The Taliban political office is seen in Doh FILE - A general view of the Taliban office in Doha, Qatar, May 2, 2015, site of several past negotioations with the Taliban. FILE - A general view of the Taliban office in Doha, Qatar, May 2, 2015, site of several past negotioations with the Taliban. The last significant round of talks between Khalilzad and the Taliban was held in December in Abu Dhabi. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the host government also took part in that round. The Afghan government sent a delegation to Abu Dhabi in hopes of joining the talks, but the Taliban refused to meet them. The group so far has resisted pressure from multiple actors, including the U.S., to meet with the Kabul administration, calling it a puppet regime unable to deliver on their demands. The U.S. goal, according to a statement issued by its embassy in Kabul, is to encourage the parties to come together at the negotiating table to reach a political settlement. Khalilzad will meet with President Ashraf Ghani, CEO Abdullah Abdullah, and political leaders to discuss the next steps in U.S. efforts to support and facilitate an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process, the statement added. Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani, right, and U FILE - Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani, right in backgroud, and U.S. special envoy for peace in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, left in background, meet in Kabul, Nov.10, 2018. FILE - Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani, right in backgroud, and U.S. special envoy for peace in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, left in background, meet in Kabul, Nov.10, 2018. A feud among Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar also seems to be damaging the process, say various media reports. According to the Reuters news agency, Saudi and UAE diplomats refused to take part in any meeting held in Qatar, where the Taliban maintain an unofficial political office. The two countries severed ties with Qatar in 2017, accusing the Gulf state of funding militants - a charge Doha denies. In December, it was reported that President Donald Trump told the Pentagon to prepare for the withdrawal of 7,000 American military personnel from Afghanistan, which would reduce the U.S. presence in the country by half. The U.S. fulfilled a major Taliban demand last year of talking directly to the Americans, in an effort to jumpstart a peace process. Since then, several rounds of negotiations between the two have been held, albeit without the Kabul administration. Meanwhile, security in Afghanistan continues to present a major challenge. An attack in Kabul Monday killed several people and wounded dozens of others. When Democratic lawmakers took control of the U.S. House of Representatives in early January, they promised to launch multiple investigations into President Donald Trump's administration, his 2016 campaign, and his family's businesses. Here is a summary of what the committees are planning to begin investigating. Committee: House Intelligence Chairman: Adam Schiff Russia inquiry Wants the phone records of the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., to find out whom he called while arranging a June 2016 meeting between a Russian lawyer and members of the Trump campaign. Russia inquiry Wants financial records relating to Trump's sale of a Florida mansion to a Russian oligarch in 2008, as well as information on loans from Deutsche Bank to the Trump Organization. FILE - U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters seen at th FILE - U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters seen at the 2018 Human Rights Campaign Los Angeles Dinner at JW Marriott L.A. Live in Los Angeles, March 10, 2018. ?Committee: Financial Services Chairwoman: Maxine Waters Russia inquiry Along with the Intelligence Committee, plans to seek financial records relating to hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from Deutsche Bank to the Trump Organization. The bank was accused in an unrelated case of laundering Russian money. Committee: Foreign Affairs Chairman: Eliot Engel Trump Engel says his first act as chairman will be to create a new subcommittee devoted entirely to investigating President Trump. Russia inquiry Wants to find out what Trump said to Russian President Vladimir Putin during their private meeting last summer in Helsinki, Finland. Russia inquiry Plans to look at how Trump's foreign business deals have impacted the Trump administration's foreign policy, a similar line of inquiry to the Intelligence Committee and House Financial Services Committee. North Korea Wants to investigate Trump's relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Saudi Arabia Will look into the killing of the Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the Trump family's ties with the Saudi crown prince. Syria Wants answers as to why Trump abruptly announced in December the withdrawal of 2,000 U.S. forces from Syria, an action that led to the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis. FILE - U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., is pictur FILE - U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., is pictured at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 20, 2018. ?Committee: House Judiciary Chairman: Jerrold Nadler Russia inquiry Nadler says he will wait for special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation to conclude before considering any possible impeachment inquiry over the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. Immigration policies Will investigate the recent deaths of two migrant children held in U.S. custody. Justice Department Wants to subpoena acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker on his involvement in Trump's decision to fire former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump payments Will look into Trump's involvement in payments before the election to two women who claim to have had affairs with Trump, a possible campaign finance violation. Committee: Ways and Means Chairman: Richard Neal Trump taxes Will seek to build a public case for why Trump's tax returns should become public, and could later lodge a formal request for the returns to be released to the committee. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., speaks to reporters d FILE - Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., speaks to reporters during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 27, 2017. ?Committee: Oversight and Reform Chairman: Elijah Cummings Ivanka Trump Will investigate the use by the president's daughter of a private email account for government business. 2020 Census Wants to look into Democratic allegations that the Trump administration is manipulating the 2020 Census for political gain. Hurricanes Plans to look at how the Trump administration responded to hurricanes Irma and Maria, which hit Caribbean islands and Puerto Rico in 2017. Cabinet officials Will look into Cabinet officials' use of government jets for personal travels, as well as alleged misconduct by former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt. Flint water crisis Will investigate the Trump administration's response to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, in which a change in the water treatment caused water pipes to leach lead into the drinking supply. (TNS) Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle have developed a smartphone app that can detect opioid overdose and could save the lives of those who use alone.Called Second Chance, the app sends inaudible sound waves from the phone to a persons chest to sense breathing patterns. When a person is taking seven or fewer breaths per minute a rate that commonly leads to bedside visits in hospitals the app is triggered.Researchers said the app still is being tweaked, but the goal is for it to then ask whether a person is OK. Absent a response, the app will instruct the phone to either call 911 or the emergency contact of a persons choice.Our vision is that people, if theyre going to use, should use in the safest manner possible, said co-corresponding author Dr. Jacob Sunshine, an assistant professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine in the School of Medicine. A lot who end up dying are using alone. This is to help particularly those people, but could also be useful for people using with others as well.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 70,237 people died by overdose in 2017. About 47,600 of them had at least one opioid in their system.Rajalakshmi Nandakumar, a doctoral student in UWs Allen School who took the lead in developing the app, said researchers chose to harness sound waves because theyre so widely available.The speakers and microphones present in off-the-shelf devices can detect even minute motion, she said. One of the issues with new hardware is getting people to adopt it. If you use existing devices, its easier."Second Chance, which works up to 3 feet away, also detects movement. Someone whos moving likely hasnt overdosed, researchers said. The opposite is true for someone whose head has slumped.Nandakumar traveled with some colleagues to the Insite supervised injection facility in Vancouver, Canada, to test the app.Ninety-four people agreed to participate, wearing monitors on their chests as they prepared their drugs and for five minutes afterward the window when overdose symptoms typically occur.Of the participants, 47 took seven or fewer breaths per minute, 49 stopped breathing, and two required oxygen, ventilation and/or naloxone, an overdose-reversal drug. The app correctly identified their breath rates 90 percent of the time, researchers said.Nandakumar said the participants, once they understood the app used sonar rather than a camera, didnt have privacy concerns.In general, people at the injection site were really excited and supportive of our app, she said. They were asked separately if they would use it when its available and most were interested.If you look at addiction as a medical issue, these people generally want help they come to safe injection sites because they can engage in medical supervision, Nandakumar said. The United States doesnt have any such facility currently but this app could provide similar protection.Nandakumar and Sunshine said theyre working with a California group to get approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. They arent sure when that may happen but are hoping their application will be expedited because of the seriousness of the opioid epidemic.Researchers said the app, while it only has been tested on those who inject, likely can be used for all forms of opioid use.Sunshine said researchers, whose work was funded by the UW Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute and the National Science Foundation, havent tested whether the app detects slowed breathing faster than a person could.But as a clinician I can tell you its not as straightforward as you might think, he said. Theres literature on this that features medical staff of various levels of training trying to estimate the rate and, compared to a monitor, the performance is not as good as you might think. GENEVA - The U.N. refugee agency and 35 partners report $296 million is needed this year to provide life-saving assistance to 345,000 Burundian refugees living in desperate conditions in neighboring Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. UNHCR reports thousands of Burundians are going hungry because food rations have been cut for lack of money. The health of many people is on a knifes edge because medicine is in short supply and shelter is inadequate, it says. Schools are overcrowded, with many children missing out on an education. The UNHCR says Burundian refugees are in dire straits because the world pays scant attention to their plight and responds poorly to appeals for aid. Agency spokesman Charlie Yaxley said children, who make up more than half of the refugee population, bear the brunt of this serious underfunding. He said many children have become separated from their families while fleeing from Burundi. He said many are traumatized from the violence they have witnessed. He said there is little money to provide them with the psychological and social care they need. Women and girls are suffering high levels of sexual and gender-based violence and exploitation," Yaxley said. "... Last year, food cuts were implemented in Tanzania, DRC and Rwanda. Families have been regularly left without enough food to last until the end of the month. And this has seen women and girls resorting to negative coping mechanisms, including survival sex, and forced and early marriage." Conditions in the camps are so bad that a number of refugees are opting to go home, Yaxley said. He told VOA about 57,000 Burundians have returned since the middle of 2017. He said some report the security situation overall has improved. Nevertheless, he said an average of 300 Burundians a month continue to flee the country. They cite persecution, harassment and fear of attack as their reasons for fleeing. There also are reports from those fleeing of food insecurity as well. So, we do urge States to first of all continue providing asylum and open borders to those seeking international protection, Yaxley said. The UNHCR said it does not believe conditions in Burundi are currently conducive to promote returns. It added that nobody now should be returned to Burundi without his or her "full and informed consent. Greek officials predict Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will survive a no-confidence vote in parliament later this week. Tsipras called for the vote Monday after defense minister Panos Kammenos resigned and pulled his nationalist ANEL party from the ruling coalition. Kammenos quit to protest the deal with neighboring Macedonia over the use of the name Macedonia. ANEL leaving the coalition leaves Tsipras' ruling leftist Syriza Party without a majority of seats in parliament, opening the door to possible early elections. But a government spokesman says the party is confident of winning the no-confidence vote, set for Wednesday, and completing its four-year term in October. The U.N.-brokered deal with Macedonia ends a nearly 30 year-long dispute over who gets to use the name. If approved by the Greek parliament, the former Yugoslav republic would be officially called the Republic of North Macedonia. But many Greeks, especially nationalists, are still upset, saying the name should exclusively belong the ancient region of northern Greece, made famous by Alexander the Great. They say letting the country of Macedonia use it implies territorial claims on the region. The dispute has held up Macedonia's desires to join NATO and the European Union because of Greek objections. BANGKOK - Thai Department of Intellectual Property (DIP) officials rushed the inspection of a controversial foreign medical marijuana patent application that the Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO) said violated Thai laws, official communications seen by VOA indicate. The patent application, which is still pending, was submitted by the British firm GW Pharmaceuticals and Japans Otsuka Pharmaceutical for what opponents of the claim say is effectively an attempt to copyright a raw extract of cannabis that they argue should not be considered an invention. The concern is that the patents, and others pertaining to medical cannabis, would lead to foreign corporate monopolization of Thailand's new medical marijuana industry, which was legalized in December. In a May 28 meeting last year, pharmacist Lucksamephen Sarnchawanakit from the GPOs Drug Patent Information Subdivision told DIP staff the application sought to patent phytocannabinoid, an active ingredient found naturally, for use in the treatment of spasms. It is clear that this is in violation of Article 9(1) of the Thai Intellectual Property Act stating that inventions not protected under the Act include microorganisms and/or any part of the microorganisms found in nature, animals, plants, and plant extracts, Lucksamephen said, according to the minutes of the meeting seen by VOA. According to the minutes, a DIP representative told those at the meeting, (We) only have a small number of inspectors, who are not specifically trained for medical patent inspection, and many more patents which are not yet inspected. Therefore, the inspectors rushed the inspections, which may have caused some problems in the inspections. The DIP will accept all the suggestions and will discuss with the legal team as to ways to deny the applications in the already released [official registry]. Violation of Thai law In a follow up meeting in June, GPO chairman Dr. Sopon Mekthon expressed concern that up to five of the patents lodged by the two firms violated Thai law before DIP director-general Thosapone Dansuputra reassured him they would be rejected but explained lengthy application procedures would have to take place first. On Monday Mekthon confirmed his opposition the patent application. The [article] 9(1) states that it is not possible to patent plant extracts. They bring in cannabis extract and want to patent it, claim its new. You cant do that. You cant claim that, he said. Asked why the application had still not been declined, he said: I dont know. You have to ask DIP. Its their responsibility to comment on the matter. I also would like to know their criteria so we can act accordingly. DIP officials have yet to respond to VOAs requests for comment on this story. In response to the civil society uproar over the patents, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha indicated in November that he might invoke article 44 - a provision of the military drafted constitution that gives him sweeping powers - to cancel them, according to The Nation newspaper. In late December a GW Pharmaceuticals spokesperson told VOA via email it had applied for six patents but said they had not yet been granted and it would not therefore be appropriate for GW to comment in detail. GWs patents are specific to the use of cannabinoids in therapeutic areas in which we have achieved novel innovations and we believe they are both valid and defensible, the spokesperson said. Our patents are a result of 20 years of cutting-edge research into cannabinoid science and the development of regulatory approved medicines, which have already helped thousands of seriously ill patients around the world. GW produces Sativex, the worlds first cannabis derived prescription drug, which is used to treat Multiple Sclerosis-related symptoms, and are also developing marijuana based drugs for epilepsy, cancer, psychosis, and chemotherapy side effects. Warangkana Tewapunkul, senior compliance officer at Otsuka Pharmaceutical Thailand, said the patents were being handled exclusively by their parent company in Japan and that news reports implying her company had tried to buy off Thai government officials were false. Patent challenges Thai Marijuana advocates have also argued the patents, which date back as far as 2008, should have been automatically invalidated as they predate the legalization. Marijuana had long been strictly forbidden under Thai law until the country moved toward a tightly controlled model of legalized medical marijuana late last year. Dr. Somyot Kittimunkong, author of Marijuana is Medicine That Cures Cancer, said many Thais who had applied for medical marijuana patents previously had been outright rejected. So if we cannot get it, get the patent, why [is it] the company like Otsuka or G[W] Pharma can get it, he asked. Chokwan Kitty Chopaka, an activist with Highland Network, said some of the GW and Otsukas patent applications were recipes for medicines that were understandable. But there has been a few of them that actually just patent the substance itself - the substance thats derived from cannabis like they were trying to patent THC, CBD, THCA, you know all those named substances, the active ingredients of cannabis, she said. It actually violated the patent policies of Thailand but the fact that the actual application is still pending within the actual patent application process without being cancelled, thats a big problem that we are having right now. Niyada Kiatying-Angsulee, manager of the Drug System Monitoring and Development Center, said the number of medical marijuana patent applications had dramatically increased recently. Of the 13 that were publicly listed at present, all appeared to her to contravene the legal prohibition on patenting microorganisms, plants and plant extracts, she said. Russia and the United States said Tuesday there was no progress in talks over Washington's intention to withdraw from a 1987 nuclear arms treaty because it says Moscow is violating its terms. "On the whole, we are forced to state that there is no progress. The U.S. position is frozen in its uncompromising and peremptory demands," state news agency Tass quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying after talks with U.S. Under Secretary of State Andrea Thompson in Geneva. The U.S. side described the meeting as "disappointing." FILE - Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryab FILE - Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. FILE - Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. The three-decade-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty bans production, testing and deployment of land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. President Donald Trump said the U.S. would abandon the pact on Feb. 2 because of Russian violations. Ryabkov contended that "responsibility for (the possible demise of the treaty) fully and completely rests with the American side." He said the two sides failed to agree on anything and that Washington did not appear to be willing to negotiate further. The U.S. has demanded that Russia dismantle missiles that Washington claims violate the treaty. Ryabkov said Russia proposed holding more negotiations but got no answer from the U.S. "We are ready for dialogue on the basis of equality, mutual respect, (and) without putting forward ultimatums," Ryabkov said. Ryabkov said Russia would brief European diplomats Friday on the status of the talks. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that collapse of the treaty would threaten a new arms race. Putin suggested that he was open to other countries joining the INF treaty or to starting talks on a new agreement. U.S. President Donald Trump is thinking about recognizing Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country's legitimate president, according to CNN, which cited three unidentified sources. Guaido, the leader of Venezuela's opposition-led Congress, said last week he was willing to replace socialist President Nicolas Maduro. The White House did not immediately comment on the report, but U.S. National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis told VOA on Tuesday the Trump administration "has expressed its support" for Guaido and that it "supports the National Assembly as the only legitimate democratic entity in Venezuela." FILE - Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro holds FILE - Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro holds a copy of the National Constitution while he speaks during a news conference at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 9, 2019. FILE - Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro holds a copy of the National Constitution while he speaks during a news conference at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 9, 2019. Maduro assumed power in 2013 and has since been confronted with a growing list of international sanctions since winning another term in office last May in an election that was widely considered fraudulent. Latin American, U.S. and Venezuelan critics have labeled Maduro a dictator who has implemented failed policies that triggered the country's worst-ever economic crisis. Maduro contends he is the target of a U.S.-led "economic war" aimed at forcing him out of office. The oil-rich country's economy has been hard hit by five years of recession and severe shortages of food and medicine. Economic hardship has forced some three million Venezuelans to emigrate since 2015. Communities in the Middle East are showing the ability to resist the slide toward the worst sectarian impulses and draw lessons for cooperation, despite brutal conflicts, Middle East experts found in a new report published Monday. "Countering Sectarianism in the Middle East," a report by a group of seven Middle East researchers at the Rand Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization in Washington, D.C., said that certain communities with a history of cross-sectarian strife such as in Lebanon, Bahrain, Syria and Iraq have proven to recover and build trust that defies sectarian lines. "Although sectarian conflict have led to horrific bloodshed, sectarian violence in the region is still the exception rather than the norm," said Jeffrey Martini, the lead author of the report. Citing Lebanon's Beirut Madinati movement, the research team found that political leadership with a non-sectarian agenda and increased cross-sectarian interaction could enhance civil society and prevent the outburst of violence in the face of sectarian-driven armed conflicts. "You need to have alternatives to sectarian entrepreneurs, people who are playing on sect to define their political projects. And to build those alternatives, you really do need conditions for civil society to be able to operate," Martini told VOA. FILE - Beirut Madinati candidates and delegates ch FILE - Beirut Madinati candidates and delegates cheer while monitoring ballot counts for the municipality elections after closing the polling stations during Beirut's municipal elections, Lebanon, May 8, 2016. FILE - Beirut Madinati candidates and delegates cheer while monitoring ballot counts for the municipality elections after closing the polling stations during Beirut's municipal elections, Lebanon, May 8, 2016. Beirut Madinati rose to popularity during the garbage crisis of 2015 when a group of civil society activists and independents across sectarian lines organized to protest a swirling sea of garbage on Beirut streets and power and water shortages. The movement later expanded into a cross-sectarian coalition competing for seats in 2016 municipal elections and winning one of the three Beirut electoral districts. "That is a movement that could not have come about without significant investment and support and an environment for civil society development. The leaders of that movement came out of civil society. Their ability to move beyond sectarianism was the result of their experiences with civil society," Martini told VOA. Strong civil society Beyond Lebanon, the research found that communities with significant cross-sectarian mixing and strong civil society in Iraq, Bahrain and Syria were less hit by sectarian-driven conflict. One researcher, Justine Gengler, charged that in communities with limited cross-sectarian mixing, government employment, access to public services and perceptions of economic well-being are contingent on sect. In Bahrain, where the majority-Shi'ite population claims to be repressed by Sunni rulers, the sectarian strife is significantly small in mixed towns, Gengler said. He found that "Isa Town where residents have frequent exposure to sectarian mixing and where the stark division between Sunni and Shia are mitigated by the mixed nature of the community was less prone to sectarian violence and Sunni reprisals against the Shia during the uprising. Lacking the same basis for community resilience, Hamad Town featured violent clashes and retribution." FILE - Sunni protesters wave a Bahraini flag as th FILE - Sunni protesters wave a Bahraini flag as they protest, demanding the government end chaos in their country, in Hamad Town south of Manama, Dec. 24, 2011. FILE - Sunni protesters wave a Bahraini flag as they protest, demanding the government end chaos in their country, in Hamad Town south of Manama, Dec. 24, 2011. Gengler said in Hamad Town, Sunni militias were defending their communities from neighboring Shi'ite villagers. In Syria, where a civil war has ensued since the Arab Spring protests in 2011, communities with a strong civil society away from foreign influence remained less hit by war, the researchers found. The United Nations estimates more than 400,000 Syrians have died since 2011, with over 6 million displaced internally and some 5 million seeking refuge abroad. External state actors Kathleen Reedy, one of the report's co-authors, found that Daraa governorate near the Jordanian border in southwestern Syria remained largely resilient to the inroads of Sunni sectarian actors as compared to Idlib in northwest on Turkey border. The key difference between the two Sunni governorates, according to her, is in the approach of external state actors. Reedy said Turkey was abetting sectarian actors in Idlib in the service of broader Turkish national security interests as opposed to the U.S. and Jordan's involvement in Syria's Daraa governorate, where both countries limited their assistance to the "moderate opposition." "Early on in the war, Turkey's overriding objective was the overthrow of the Assad regime, which Turkey saw as an impediment to stability on its southern border. Over time, that objective has evolved into checking Kurdish autonomy, for which the Sunni-Arab opposition forces are a useful partner. ... In contrast to Turkey, the Hashemite Kingdom (Jordan) and the United States have taken a much stricter approach to the opposition that operates on the Jordanian border," she argued. The Middle East experts concluded that the international community could work with Middle Eastern governments to curb sectarianism by helping mediate the early onset of conflict and accomplish strong border monitoring. "We found that a number of policy measures can help counter sectarianism even in highly divided societies, including improving border controls to cut off the flow of resources and fighters from foreign sources, limiting foreign funding to sectarian leaders and encouraging space for civil society development," said Dalia Dassa Kaye, director of Rand's Center for Middle East Public Policy, and a report co-author. "In other words, endless bouts of sectarian violence are not inevitable in the Middle East," she added. The British parliament on Tuesday overwhelmingly defeated Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plan for Britain's departure from the European Union, leaving in doubt how it would depart the continent's 28-member bloc of nations by the planned March 29 date. The House of Commons, on a 432- 202 vote, rejected May's call to approve what she said was the "democratic decision" of voters in a referendum 2-1/2 years ago to leave the EU. Opposition Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbin called the vote a "catastrophic defeat" for May's Conservative Party rule and demanded a vote of no confidence on Wednesday in what he said was the "sheer incompetence of this government." Prime Minister Theresa May sits down in Parliament Prime Minister Theresa May sits down in Parliament after the vote on May's Brexit deal, in London, Britain, Jan. 15, 2019 in this image taken from video. Prime Minister Theresa May sits down in Parliament after the vote on May's Brexit deal, in London, Britain, Jan. 15, 2019 in this image taken from video. The vote against May was widely expected, but it is not clear what comes next for Brexit. Before the vote, May warned parliamentarians that the EU would not offer an "alternative deal." "The responsibility on each and every one of us at this moment is profound, for this is a historic decision that will set the future of our country for generations," May said. A poster against a hard border stands on the borde FILE - A poster against a hard border stands on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland near the town of Derrylin, Northern Ireland, Dec. 12, 2018. FILE - A poster against a hard border stands on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland near the town of Derrylin, Northern Ireland, Dec. 12, 2018. One of the key provisions in her plan sought to avoid a hard border between EU member Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland, in order to prevent the return of border checks if Britain and the EU failed to reach a free trade agreement after a 21-month transition period. May's deal would have preserved the rights of more than three million EU citizens living in Britain and the one million British living in the EU. Britain would have paid $51 billion to settle its financial responsibilities with the EU. An anti-Brexit protester demonstrates outside the An anti-Brexit protester demonstrates outside the Houses of Parliament, ahead of a vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal, in London, Britain Jan. 15, 2019. An anti-Brexit protester demonstrates outside the Houses of Parliament, ahead of a vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal, in London, Britain Jan. 15, 2019. Now, it is not clear whether Britain will move toward a "no-deal" break with the EU, push it toward altered terms of departure or even trigger a new referendum on whether to leave. May canceled a previous vote in December when it was clear she did not have enough votes for the deal to pass, and since then little seemed to have changed. The May plan drew opposition from both sides of the debate over Brexit, with those favoring a split saying her deal would still leave Britain tied indefinitely to EU rules, while opponents favor even closer economic links to the rest of Europe. Pro-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Hous Pro-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament, ahead of a vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal, in London, Britain, Jan. 15, 2019. Pro-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament, ahead of a vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal, in London, Britain, Jan. 15, 2019. In the streets outside the House of Commons, rival bands of pro-EU and pro-Brexit protesters kept up a steady cacophony of chants, drums and music. One group waved blue-and-yellow EU flags, the other carrying "Leave Means Leave" placards. Negotiators from Britain and the EU agreed to the terms of the Brexit deal in November after difficult talks, and with the British parliament voting against the agreement there is great uncertainty about what will happen next. May has until next Monday to put forth a new proposal. WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump contended Tuesday that a new migrant caravan leaving Honduras justifies his demand for a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border to keep them from surging into the United States. "A big new Caravan is heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras," Trump said on Twitter. He urged people to tell House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, the top Democratic leaders who oppose his demand that U.S. taxpayers pay for a wall, "that a drone flying around will not stop them. Only a Wall will work. Only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe!" Trump Vows to 'Never Back Down' on Border Wall Demand Although a majority of Americans blame the U.S. Although a majority of Americans blame the U.S. He told Pelosi and Schumer to "Stop playing political games and end the Shutdown!" -- the record 25-day partial government closure spawned by the dispute over Trump's demand for more than $5 billion to build a border barrier. Democrats have offered $1.3 billion for improved border security, but none specifically for a wall. A big new Caravan is heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras. Tell Nancy and Chuck that a drone flying around will not stop them. Only a Wall will work. Only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe! Stop playing political games and end the Shutdown! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2019 About 800,000 federal workers have been furloughed or ordered to work without pay in the Trump stalemate with Democratic lawmakers, an impasse that has curtailed government services, such as airport security monitoring, and closed some museums and parks. "Why is Nancy Pelosi getting paid when people who are working are not?" Trump tweeted. Why is Nancy Pelosi getting paid when people who are working are not? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2019 The White House said that it invited Republican and Democratic lawmakers to lunch to discuss the shutdown, but only Republicans accepted. "It's time for the Democrats to come to the table and make a deal," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. Trump said, "Polls are now showing that people are beginning to understand the Humanitarian Crisis and Crime at the Border. Numbers are going up fast, over 50%. Democrats will soon be known as the Party of Crime. Ridiculous that they don't want Border Security!" Polls are now showing that people are beginning to understand the Humanitarian Crisis and Crime at the Border. Numbers are going up fast, over 50%. Democrats will soon be known as the Party of Crime. Ridiculous that they dont want Border Security! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2019 The Honduran caravan left the crime-ridden city of San Pedro Sula in the early hours Tuesday, with more migrants expected to join it later in the day. Thousands of other Hondurans and people from other Central American countries remain encamped in Tijuana, Mexico, just south of the U.S. border, blocked from entering the United States after walking thousands of kilometers as part of a caravan that started in October. Although a majority of Americans blame the U.S. president and Republicans for the prolonged partial government shutdown, Trump on Monday said Democrats in Congress are squarely responsible. Trump last month, before the shutdown started, said he would be "proud" to "own" it in a fight over border security "They will not approve the measures we need to keep American safe," Trump said of Democrats at a national convention of farmers in New Orleans. "I will never ever back down" from efforts to keep America safe, Trump vowed in the speech to the 100th annual convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation. He accused Democrats of refusing to approve money for a wall because they want to use it as an issue for next year's presidential campaign when Trump faces re-election. At Trump's Side, Border Patrol Union Leader in Spotlight Brandon Judd, president of the union that represents thousands of border patrol agents, has flipped the axiom that there are no winners in a government shutdown.His proximity to President Donald Trump has elevated the union leaders profile while burnishing the image of the U.S. Brandon Judd, president of the union that represents thousands of border patrol agents, has flipped the axiom that there are no winners in a government shutdown.His proximity to President Donald Trump has elevated the union leaders profile while burnishing the image of the U.S. Six major polls indicate that half of or more Americans hold the president and his Republican Party responsible for the shutdown. And 63 percent of American voters support a Democratic proposal to reopen parts of the government that do not involve border security while negotiating funding for a border wall, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released Monday. Earlier in the day, Trump told White House reporters he would not, at least for the moment, declare a national emergency to build the wall without congressional authorization. "I'm not going to do that," Trump said as he left the White House for the New Orleans trip. "We are open to resolution and negotiation," Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told VOA News on Monday, indicating that communication is under way between the executive branch and Democrats, but she provided no details. Trump rejected a call by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of his staunchest congressional supporters, to reopen shuttered agencies for three weeks while he holds more talks with Democratic leaders about his plan for a wall along the 3,200-kilometer southern U.S. border. Graham told the Fox News Sunday television program he would still support a presidential emergency declaration to build the border wall after giving talks another chance. Trump Wont Declare National Emergency to Build Border Wall U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday he would not, at least for the moment, declare a national emergency to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexican border, instead demanding that opposition Democrats agree to fund the barrier construction. This is so simple, Trump told reporters at the White House as left to speak at a farm convention in New Orleans. U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday he would not, at least for the moment, declare a national emergency to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexican border, instead demanding that opposition Democrats agree to fund the barrier construction. This is so simple, Trump told reporters at the White House as left to speak at a farm convention in New Orleans. "I would urge him to open up the government for a short period of time, like three weeks, before he pulls the plug, see if we can get a deal. If we can't at the end of three weeks, all bets are off," Graham said. "I'm not interested," Trump replied to a reporter's query on Monday about Graham's suggestion, contending that top Democrats in Congress could quickly end the stalemate. The Democrat-led House of Representatives has passed several measures that would reopen the shuttered agencies while border security talks continue. Another such bill is up for consideration Tuesday that would reopen the agencies through Feb. 1, and another that would open them through Feb. 28 is expected to go before the House on Thursday. Pelosi on Monday used Twitter to blame Republicans for starting the shutdown, and called for Trump to allow the Senate to vote to end it, arguing furloughed federal workers, who have already missed one paycheck, "are facing a life or death situation" just so the president "can try to force taxpayers to fund a border wall he promised Mexico would pay for." AP FACT CHECK: Trump and the Disputed Border Crisis In his prime-time speech to the nation, President Donald Trump declared a border crisis that's in sharp dispute, wrongly accused Democrats of refusing to pay for border security and ignored the reality of how drugs come into the country as he pitched his wall as a solution to varied ills.A look at his Oval Office remarks Tuesday night:TRUMP: "Our southern border is a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl. In his prime-time speech to the nation, President Donald Trump declared a border crisis that's in sharp dispute, wrongly accused Democrats of refusing to pay for border security and ignored the reality of how drugs come into the country as he pitched his wall as a solution to varied ills.A look at his Oval Office remarks Tuesday night:TRUMP: "Our southern border is a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl. In a speech on the Senate floor Monday, Democratic Minority Leader Schumer called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to allow a vote on legislation already approved by the House of Representatives to end the shutdown. "How much more suffering must the president cause before leader McConnell realizes it's time to move ahead without him? It seems clear to everybody but leader McConnell that Congress needs to move forward without the president," Schumer said. "It's time for leader McConnell to realize he has the power to break this impasse, passing the House legislation to reopen the government." Although it is unclear if the United States and China will be able to meet a 90-day deadline and strike a deal on trade by March 2, the tussle is clearly adding to uncertainty about the future fate of the Chinese governments strategic plan named Made in China 2025. The plan itself is much like other countries goals to move up the industrial value chain. According to Beijings plan, China aims to make the country a world leader in 10 key sectors such as robotics, information technology, and artificial intelligence by 2025. However, what has raised concerns is how China is going about reaching that goal. Foreign companies and governments have voiced growing concern about the plan and the Chinese policy and practice of forcing companies to hand over technology in exchange for access to the countrys massive economy. At the same time, analysts believe Beijing has done little to stop Chinese companies from stealing technology through their operations overseas. Dilute or delay? Pushback from abroad has already impacted the implementation of Made in China 2025, said Anna Holzman, a junior research associate with the Berlin-based Mercator Institute of China Studies (MERICS). The tough stance followed by actions taken by the United States has notably increased the sense of urgency amongst Chinese policymakers to speed-up the development of domestic capabilities, she said. Aside from the trade deficit, forced technology transfers are a key reason why President Donald Trump launched the trade war. It is also the main component of ongoing negotiations between the worlds two biggest economies. FILE - A robot entertains visitors at the booth of FILE - A robot entertains visitors at the booth of a Chinese automaker during the China Auto 2018 show in Beijing, China, April 26, 2018. Under President Xi Jinping, a plan known as "Made in China 2025" aims to make the country a tech superpower. FILE - A robot entertains visitors at the booth of a Chinese automaker during the China Auto 2018 show in Beijing, China, April 26, 2018. Under President Xi Jinping, a plan known as "Made in China 2025" aims to make the country a tech superpower. During last weeks talks, China said the two sides made progress on addressing the issue of technology transfers as well as other structural problems. But the trade dispute, rising investment restrictions on its companies in western countries, and declines in its own industrial economy have some arguing that Beijing may be forced to either dilute or delay the plan. Over the past few months, officials have stopped mentioning the plan. Beijing recently ordered Chinese companies not to force foreign firms based in China to surrender their technologies. And for the first time in years, the Made in China 2025 plan did not figure in the list of development priorities outlined by the central government for 2019. Great leap forward The move by officials to downplay and stop mentioning the plan and other recent measures to open up China's economy are positive signals, said Scott Kennedy, deputy director of the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. But they are going to need to be backed up by a much more broad, clear, transparent, change in policies that everyone can see, that are across the board, if you really want to convince the United States and others that China is taking a great leap forward in economic liberalization, he said. But while Washington waits for China to change its tune, it is unlikely to shift its increasingly tough stance on technology that has already impacted major Chinese tech firms such as Huawei and ZTE. A growing number of countries have taken steps to ban Huawei from participating in the build of fifth-generation networks or 5G. Technology issues will continue to be there. President [Donald] Trump has a very confrontational position against Huawei as well as ZTE. So this will continue, Lourdes Casanova, director at Cornells Emerging Markets Institute, said while referring to two major Chinese technology companies. FILE - A woman stands at the booth of Huawei featu FILE - A woman stands at the booth of Huawei featuring 5G technology at the PT Expo in Beijing, China, Sept. 28, 2018. FILE - A woman stands at the booth of Huawei featuring 5G technology at the PT Expo in Beijing, China, Sept. 28, 2018. Last week, Poland arrested a Huawei employee on spying charges. Polish authorities say there is no connection between the arrest and the company, but at the same time, they have taken steps to urge the EU and NATO to jointly ban Huawei products. The arrest of the Huawei employee in Poland follows the detention of the companys chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Canada. Chinese investments slump Chinese companies often pour money into investments in the U.S. to acquire new technologies and learn new ways of doing business. But now, stepped up scrutiny of investments imposed by Washington and the deterioration of U.S.-China trade relations has led to a sharp decline. Last year, according to data compiled by the research firm Rhodium Group, Chinese investments in the U.S. hit a seven-year low of $4.8 billion, a steep drop of 84 percent from $29 billion in 2017. And 2019 is likely to be equally dismal. Washington is moving to implement tougher screening of venture capital and other high-tech acquisitions; and the dark cloud over U.S.-China relations is unlikely to disappear, although a major deal between China and the U.S. could help revitalize investor appetite in sectors with low national security sensitivities, said New York-based Rhodium Group. Digging in However, some analysts believe that Western restrictions and criticisms has made the 2025 program a lot more important for China than in the past. Instead it has pushed Beijing to step up its pursuit of technological leadership and self-sufficiency. China is merely reducing the propaganda around the 2025 program and talking less about it, said Xiaoyu Pu, author of a recent book, Rebranding China: Contested Status Signaling in the Changing Global Order. Regardless of any re-branding exercises and concessions made by the Chinese government to appease Western minds, efficient policy implementation in industries and technologies listed under the Made in China 2025 scheme remains a top priority, Holzman at Merics said. South Korea has dropped a reference to North Korea as its enemy in the militarys updated policy document, reflecting President Moon Jae-ins initiative in achieving detente with Pyongyang. The Defense Ministry has labeled the North as enemy in its biennial policy document since 2010, when 50 South Koreans were killed in separate attacks on an island and a naval vessel blamed on Pyongyang. The absence of the enemy label in the 2018 document, published Tuesday, is likely to anger conservatives in South Korea, who say that President Moons efforts to build better relations with the regime of Kim Jong Un is undermining the Souths defense posture. Kims New Years Day speech in 2017 offering to send a contingent of North Korean athletes to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea set off a series of diplomatic breakthroughs, including three summits with President Moon. The newly established diplomatic ties have also led to a set of confidence-building measures, including dismantling dozens of all armed guard posts and landmines in the so-called Joint Security Area located within the 250-kilometer demilitarized zone (DMZ), where troops from both Koreas are face to face. The South Korean Defense Ministry paper warns that North Koreas weapons of mass destruction, a reference to its nuclear and missile program, continues to pose a threat to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. The Defense Ministry says North Korea maintains an active duty force of 1.28 million troops, compared with the Souths 599,000 active duty troops. The regime either possesses or is developing 14 different types of ballistic missiles, including five intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with a range of more than 5,500 kilometers. The North also owns a considerable amount of highly enriched uranium, along with 50 kilograms of weaponized plutonium. (TNS) - A storm over Southern California dumped rain and snow on the area Monday, heightening the threat of mud and debris flows in areas scarred by recent wildfires, prompting evacuation orders, and closing a stretch of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu and the Grapevine section of the 5 Freeway.The National Weather Service issued a flood advisory for western Los Angeles County and Ventura County, warning that roads, streams and highways could pool with rain as showers are expected through the week.As rain pelted the state Monday, setting new rainfall records in Burbank and Sandberg, a town near the Grapevine, officials began to close roads that were too dangerous for traffic.Snow on the 5 Freeway shut down all lanes of the road in both directions for five miles near the Grapevine, the California Department of Transportation said. Weather service officials warned that heavy winds and snow could make the freeway treacherous at times with blowing snow and icy conditions through Tuesday morning. Caltrans said several vehicles were stuck on the freeway and tow trucks were being brought in.A 12-mile stretch of Highway 1 also was closed in Big Sur between Mud Creek Road and Pauls Slide, according to Caltrans.One lane of westbound PCH was closed about 7:30 a.m. just south of Leo Carrillo State Beach because of a mudslide, the agency reported. Officials said crews were working to clear the right lane and were unsure how long the road would be blocked.Three and a half hours later, a river of mud closed all lanes of the coastal highway from Trancas Canyon Road and Broad Beach Road in Malibu to Las Posas Road in Ventura County. Later in the afternoon, a 250-foot mud flow damaged an Encino home and swept its guesthouse off its foundation. The three people who were inside escaped without injuries. A voluntary evacuation was issued for 14 homes potentially in a slide zone in the area.Earlier this month, a shallow mudslide covered a stretch of PCH in Malibu and trapped some cars.The hillsides along PCH were charred by the Woolsey fire in November. L.A. County officials ordered people to evacuate some areas burned by the blaze, which claimed four lives and destroyed more than 1,500 structures from Oak Park to Malibu, by 8 a.m. Tuesday.Authorities said Monday the fourth person killed in the blaze died five weeks later of smoke inhalation.Malibu City Manager Reva Feldman said at Monday nights City Council meeting that her staff will send out a reverse 911 call to residents living in neighborhoods under the mandatory evacuation. The city will open its emergency operations center at 6 a.m. Tuesday and keep it open 24/7 until the weather passes.I urge everybody to please assess your personal situation, Feldman said. You cannot escape mud flow. You cannot fight it. You need to be very careful and think this through. Please think this through and take care of your family.Malibu City Council member Skylar Peak urged residents to heed the citys warnings and leave their homes, especially if they live near the end of canyons.Do not let what happened up the coast happen here, Peak said, referring to last years fatal slides in Montecito. Its serious, and its real.Though Kanan Road between Agoura Hills at the 101 Freeway and PCH in Malibu remained open, the torrential rain sent rocks the size of cantaloupes down the burned hillsides, forcing drivers to dodge the small boulders.At Decker Canyon Road, a California Highway Patrol officer blocked access to anyone but residents. Officials are concerned about the potential for debris flows along the route, which winds through hills blackened by the Woolsey fire.Near Leo Carrillo State Beach, a fleet of dump trucks and bulldozers did cleanup work and utility workers dotted the landscape, repairing electrical lines and poles.In Riverside County, authorities ordered residents to evacuate communities near the Holy fire burn area in Riverside County, citing the potential for dangerous debris flows.People in these zones SHOULD GO NOW because it is the safest time to leave, an alert from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Riverside County Fire Department said Sunday.The Riverside County Emergency Management Department ordered residents in the Glen Ivy and Horsethief Canyon areas to get out of the area.Philip Gonsalves, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego, said that as storms emerged over the next few days, officials would be monitoring the Holy fire burn scar, which straddles the border between Orange and Riverside counties.That is of the most concern to us because its the most vulnerable one, he said.Gonsalves said the risk of mudslides increased with heavier downpours but also as showers continued for many days and eroded the land.Authorities in Santa Barbara County ordered people who live below the Sherpa, Whittier and Thomas fire burn zones to evacuate by 10 a.m. Tuesday. They said people living next to the evacuation areas, particularly in Montecito, Summerland and Carpinteria, could be stranded if debris flows damage or block roads.Residents in these adjacent areas should be prepared for this possibility and consider leaving the area during the evacuation, authorities said in an alert.Heavy runoff and a failing drainage pipe likely combined to create the gaping sinkhole, Caltrans spokeswoman Cathryne Bruce-Johnson said. Officials expected it would take crews all night to complete repairs on the hole, which covered the right lane of the exit ramp and was estimated to be 20 feet long, 10 feet wide and 20 feet deep.Despite all the chaos the storm was bringing to the Southland, some were happy about the moody weather.A film crew of about 25 people that had set up next to Mugu Rock off PCH weathered the rain as waves crashed on the jagged rocks below. It was the crews first day of a two-day shoot for a short film called Our Father, based on a true story that happened on the East Coast.Unlike many residents anxious about what the weather would bring, the film crew was happy: A rainy, dreary day helped set the scene perfectly.It helps us, Jamie Duneier, the films writer and director, said. We are actually happy about the rain, as long as we can get everything we need.In Northern California, where the Camp fire razed the town of Paradise 90 miles north of Sacramento, rain was also heightening the risk of mudslides this week.Showers are expected to begin in that area Monday night, with the heaviest rainfall predicted for Wednesday, said Karleisa Rogacheski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento.Well be watching all our burn scars, she said, just in case.Times staff writers Ruben Vives, Alene Tchekmedyian and Richard Winton contributed to this report.2019 the Los Angeles TimesVisit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. WASHINGTON - The Kenyan government is struggling to respond to revelations that a multi-billion dollar contract with China may imperil its sovereignty, according to The Daily Nation newspaper. Details of the loan for the Standard Gauge Railway, Kenyas largest infrastructure project since independence, emerged Sunday when The Nation published excerpts from a 2014 contract between the Export-Import Bank of China and the Republic of Kenya. Beijings infrastructure deals typically unfold in secret, and The Nations reporting provides a rare glimpse into how China structures the terms of its loans. Now, according to the paper, the government has canceled planned appearances and scheduled emergency meetings to determine how best to navigate the latest in a series of damaging reports about the SGRs funding, construction and operation. Sovereignty in question Of chief concern is language that details the scope of assets Kenya must forfeit if it defaults on the loan. According to an excerpt quoted by The Nation, Kenyas largest independent newspaper, Neither the borrower (Kenya) nor any of its assets is entitled to any right of immunity on the grounds of sovereignty. The contract also stipulates that Kenya must use Chinese goods, technology and services in the railways construction and operation, and a confidentiality clause prohibits the Kenyan government from disclosing the terms of the contract without Beijings expressed written consent. The excerpts provide some of the most tangible evidence to date that Beijing may engage in what critics, including the United States, characterize as debt-trap diplomacy lending designed to force countries into handing over land, minerals or strategic assets when they default. The Nation didnt reveal how it acquired the contract, nor how it determined its authenticity. But language in the document closely matches contracts VOA uncovered for projects tied to the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinas trillion-dollar global infrastructure plan, in Serbia, Kyrgyzstan and Guyana, suggesting the terms of the Kenya loan, from asset seizure and confidentiality clauses to stipulations about using Chinese vendors, may reflect Bejings lending practices across Africa, and beyond. FILE - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, left, and Kenyas President Uhuru Kenyatta applaud after the signing of the Standard Gauge Railway agreement with China at the State House in Nairobi, May 11, 2014. Charles Kanjama, the Nairobi Branch Chairman of the Law Society of Kenya, told The Nation that some features of the contract, such as the confidentiality clause, are typical. He raised concerns, however, with other language specifying that all disputes around the contract must be arbitrated in China. Since launching in 2017, the SGR has been marred by allegations of corruption, racism and poor management. Both Kenyan and Chinese officials have faced criminal charges. Even before ground broke on the project, analysts raised concerns about the cost of the project and design decisions that brought the track through the middle of one of the countrys largest national parks. I will continue to borrow Late last month, President Uhuru Kenyatta pushed back against claims that Chinese lending has hurt the country. China is not seeking to colonize us, but they understand us to our point of need, Kenyatta told a roundtable of journalists, The Star, another Kenyan newspaper, reported. We are ahead of the payment schedule, and so Kenyans must ignore any propaganda being peddled. I will continue to borrow, but develop, Kenyatta added. Despite ongoing controversies, some experts say the railway could still be a net-positive for a country in need of infrastructure to support its long-term development. The standard gauge railway is a real game-changer, Irene Sun, the author of The Next Factory of the World, a book about Chinese manufacturing in Africa, told VOA. Before the SGR, Sun added, Kenyas two largest cities, Nairobi and Mombasa, were connected by poor roads and an unpredictable 1015 hour drive. Now you have a railway where you can get on a train and you can arrive at the other end in five hours, Sun, an associate partner at the consulting group McKinsey & Company, said. That is completely game-changing for people movement, but I think perhaps more importantly for goods movement. The Islamic extremist group al-Shabab is claiming responsibility for Tuesday's terrorist attack on a hotel and office complex in Nairobi, Kenya. Police say at least 15 people were killed and a still undetermined number wounded. The U.S. State Department has confirmed that one American was among the dead, but has not identified the victim. A British citizen was also reportedly killed in the attack. Kenya's Interior Minister Fred Matiang'i says the country is safe and the situation under control. But gunshots could still be heard several hours after he made that pronouncement. The attack on the DusitD2 complex began in mid-afternoon with an explosion outside a bank and a suicide bombing in the hotel lobby. Map of Dusit, D2 Hotel in Nairobi Kenya Map of Dusit, D2 Hotel in Nairobi Kenya Map of Dusit, D2 Hotel in Nairobi Kenya Four gunmen could be seen on surveillance video walking through the parking lot with at least one stopping to open fire. Terrified office and hotel workers and guests ran for cover, streaming from the buildings, climbing out of windows, ducking behind police vehicles and anything they could find while gunfire echoed off the walls. Police found a sad and grisly scene inside one of the restaurants wounded and dead diners at their tables, slumped over unfinished meals. Other witnesses say they found human limbs lying on the ground. Witness Duran Farah told VOA he and some colleagues were entering the complex at the time of the attack. "A loud explosion happened at the gate. Next there was shooting, an exchange of fire, a lot of fire, and we see people rushing and running around in every direction," he said. He and his friends escaped by running down an alleyway. Cars are seen on fire at the scene of explosions a Cars are seen on fire at the scene of explosions and gunshots in Nairobi, Kenya January 15, 2019. Cars are seen on fire at the scene of explosions and gunshots in Nairobi, Kenya January 15, 2019. The DusitD2 hotel and shops are in an upscale Nairobi neighborhood popular with American, European, and Indian tourists, although exactly who was targeted and why is unclear. The militant Islamic Al-Shabab staged several previous attacks in Kenya, including the September 2013 assault on Nairobi's Westgate Mall that left 67 dead. The militants targeted Kenya after Kenyan forces entered Somalia in 2011 with al-Shabab as their target. Rescuers and journalists evacuate an injured man f Rescuers and journalists evacuate an injured man from the scene where explosions and gunshots were heard at the Dusit hotel compound, in Nairobi, Kenya, Jan. 15, 2019. Rescuers and journalists evacuate an injured man from the scene where explosions and gunshots were heard at the Dusit hotel compound, in Nairobi, Kenya, Jan. 15, 2019. Tuesday's attack comes one day after a Nairobi court said three men accused aiding the Westgate attack will be put on trial. A State Department spokesperson tells VOA the U.S. embassy in Nairobi is closely watching the situation and "has actively offered assistance to local authorities." VOA State Department correspondent Nike Ching, Somali service senior editor Harun Maruf, national security correspondent Jeff Seldin, Nairobi bureau chief Daniel Schearf, and reporter Mohammed Yusuf in Nairobi all contributed to this report. When the Democrats took control of the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this month, the new committee chairs said they would use their role of oversight to begin investigating the controversies and scandals regarding President Donald Trump's businesses, campaign and administration. Russia inquiry *At least four House committees plan to look into aspects of the Russian election interference investigation Intelligence, Financial Services, Foreign Affairs, and Judiciary. However, none plan to reopen a full-scale investigation, since Democratic officials say special counsel Robert Mueller's probe is already doing that. House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler says he will wait for Mueller to conclude his investigation before considering any possible impeachment inquiry. The lines of questioning by the committees reflect their particular purview. For example, the Foreign Affairs Committee will look into what Trump said to Russian President Vladimir Putin during their private meeting last summer in Helsinki, Finland, while the Financial Services Committee plans to seek financial records relating to hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from Deutsche Bank to the Trump Organization. FILE - Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., ranking member FILE - Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 24, 2017. ?Trump's taxes * Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal says he wants to try to build a public case for why Trump's tax returns should become public before he makes any formal request for the returns to be released. He says he will hold hearings on the matter and will propose legislation that would require all presidents and candidates for the office to make their returns public. If Neal does request the tax returns from the Treasury Department, he has the authority under the tax code to be granted them as chairman of a House committee, however it is not clear if the Trump administration would challenge the matter. Immigration policies * Top Democrats have made clear they want to investigate the Trump administration's immigration policies, with several committees planning to look into the matter of family separations and detentions at the border. * The House Judiciary Committee plans to investigate the recent deaths of two migrant children held in detention Jakelin Caal, 7, and Felipe Gomez Alonzo, 8. Three committees have ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection to preserve evidence related to their deaths. A man looks at a TV screen showing North Korean le FILE - A man looks at a TV screen showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump shaking hands before their meeting in Singapore, in Tokyo, June 12, 2018. ?Foreign issues * In addition to Russia, the Foreign Affairs Committee plans to investigate issues involving several countries, including North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Syria. The committee plans to look at Trump's relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as well as his family's close ties with the Saudi crown prince. * It also wants answers to why Trump abruptly announced in December the withdrawal of 2,000 U.S. forces from Syria, which led to the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis. * The new chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel, says he plans to create an entire subcommittee devoted to investigating Trump. Domestic issues * The House Judiciary Committee wants to look into Trump's decision to fire former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and what his acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker knew about the decision. * It also wants to investigate Trump's involvement in payments before his 2016 election to two women who claim to have had affairs with Trump, a possible campaign finance violation. * The Oversight and Reform committee will look at a host of other domestic issues, including the use by Trump daughter Ivanka Trump of a private email account for government business, the Trump administration's response to hurricanes Irma and Maria, and some Trump Cabinet officials' use of government jets for personal travels. U.N. officials say they expect to shortly wrap up their investigation into a bloody November massacre in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, that left at least 21 men dead. Suspected gang members brutally shot or hacked the victims with machetes in the impoverished La Saline neighborhood. "Investigations by both the authorities and human rights organizations are ongoing, and our human rights service is also working to determine what happened," the head of the current U.N. mission in Haiti said last month. Uniformed men open fire Witnesses told The Associated Press that on Nov. 13, a police truck with uniformed men drove into La Saline. The witnesses said they thought the men were police officers looking to head off a gang war. Instead, the men opened fire before going from house to house, dragging out unarmed males and fatally shooting them or slicing their bodies with machetes. Residents said gang violence in many Haitian neighborhoods has spiked since armed U.N. peacekeepers left Haiti in 2017 and were replaced by a smaller police training force. "The lawless zones are multiplying," the head of a local human rights group said. "The authorities have said nothing. They haven't even condemned this massacre." Part of gang war? Some residents told the AP they believe the massacre was part of a gang war, while others suspect it was orchestrated by government officials trying to stop a planned anticorruption march. Haitian police chief Michel-Ange Gedeon called the violence a fight between two gangs. He said two policemen accused of being involved in the killings have been suspended. According to the AP, gang money comes from neighborhoods with thriving markets where they extort money from vendors. GENEVA - More than 3,200 government, business, academics and civil society leaders will address issues of globalization, climate change and other matters of world importance next week at the annual World Economic Forum in the plush Swiss Alpine village of Davos. The list of participants reads like the Whos Who of the most powerful, successful and inventive movers and shakers in the world. They will be rubbing shoulders during hundreds of formal sessions and workshops, as well as in private bilaterals on the sidelines of the meeting. They will discuss and seek solutions to some of humanitys most vexing problems. The theme of this years gathering is Globalization "4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. That refers to the emerging technology breakthroughs in such fields as artificial intelligence and robotics. Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of th Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum holds the meeting's manifesto as he addresses a news conference ahead of the Davos annual meeting in Cologny near Geneva, Jan. 15, 2019. Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum holds the meeting's manifesto as he addresses a news conference ahead of the Davos annual meeting in Cologny near Geneva, Jan. 15, 2019. Founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab says this fourth wave of globalization needs to be human-centered. He says globalization in its present form is not sustainable. He says globalization must be made more inclusive. Globalization produced winners and losers, and so there were many more winners in the last 24, 25, 30 years. But now we have to look after the losers after those who have been left behind...what we need is a moralization, or re-moralization, of globalization, he said. The program is very wide-ranging. For example, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will discuss the state of the world. He will broach issues like climate change, fighting poverty and sustainable development. There will be special sessions by others about ways to make economic growth more inclusive, on rethinking world trade, as well as many scientific, artistic and cultural meetings. Leaders from all regions of the world will attend. The Middle East will be represented by the presidents of Libya and Iraq. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be there. So will Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. Six or seven presidents from Africa will be in attendance. And organizers of the forum say there is great interest in an appearance by the new Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, who has established peace with Eritrea during his first six months in office. The forum president, Borge Brende, says a strong United States delegation will attend next weeks event, although President Donald Trump canceled his participation. We fully understand that, of course, President Trump will have to stay in D.C. as long as the government is facing this shutdown. We are very pleased, though, that the U.S. will be participating with key secretaries, he said. Brende confirms that among those coming will be Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, fresh from his travels in the Middle East, Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin, and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. PARIS - French President Emmanuel Macron is formally launching a "grand debate" to try to appease the yellow vest movement following weeks of anti-government protests. Macron heads Tuesday to Grand Bourgtheroulde, a small town in Normandy, where he is to meet about 600 mayors and local officials. Despite a high security presence, a ban on traffic and restricted access to the town, dozens of yellow vests protesters gathered outside the town to express their discontent. "We are being prevented from accessing the village," said protester Florence Clement. "I was crossing the road with my yellow vest but I was asked to remove it because it's forbidden." Macron started his journey with a stop in the small town of Gasny to attend a local officials' meeting, where some expressed their concerns over the loss of purchasing power of retirees and civil servants. FILE - French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a FILE - French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during a traditional epiphany cake ceremony at the Elysee palace in Paris, France, Jan. 11, 2019. FILE - French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during a traditional epiphany cake ceremony at the Elysee palace in Paris, France, Jan. 11, 2019. Macron addressed this week a "letter to the French" to encourage people to express their views on a series of economic and political matters during a three-month "grand debate." The consultation will take place through local meetings and on the internet. The debate will focus on taxes, public services, climate change and democracy. The French leader, whose popularity ratings hit record lows at the end of last year, hopes the process will help quell anger over his economic policies. Yellow Vest Protesters Hit With Water Cannon, Tear Gas in Paris Paris police fired water cannon and tear gas to push back yellow vest demonstrators from around the Arc de Triomphe monument Saturday, in the ninth straight weekend of protests against French President Emmanuel Macron's economic reforms.Thousands of protesters in Paris marched noisily but mostly peacefully through the Grands Boulevards shopping area in northern Paris, close to where a massive gas explosion in a bakery killed two firefighters and a Spanish tourist and injured nearly 50 people earlier Paris police fired water cannon and tear gas to push back yellow vest demonstrators from around the Arc de Triomphe monument Saturday, in the ninth straight weekend of protests against French President Emmanuel Macron's economic reforms.Thousands of protesters in Paris marched noisily but mostly peacefully through the Grands Boulevards shopping area in northern Paris, close to where a massive gas explosion in a bakery killed two firefighters and a Spanish tourist and injured nearly 50 people earlier About 84,000 people turned out last weekend for the ninth round of anti-government demonstrations across France, according to the French Interior Ministry. The yellow vest movement, prompted in November by a tax hike on diesel fuel, has expanded to encompass demands for wider changes to France's economy to help struggling workers. Protesters have denounced Macron's pro-business policies as favoring the rich. The movement is named for the fluorescent garments French motorists are required to keep in vehicles. Attackers set off a bomb and opened fire at a hotel complex in Kenya's capital on Tuesday, leaving at least five people dead. The attack at Nairobi's Dusit D2 Hotel began around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon with a huge explosion outside the property. Gunmen then charged onto the grounds and opened fire. Witnesses reported seeing at least five bodies at the site of the upscale complex, which includes a hotel, a restaurant, shops and offices. One witness, Duran Farah, told VOA that he saw "many people injured." Police and rescue workers at Dusit D2 Hotel, Nairobi following the terror attack #Riverside pic.twitter.com/AH1DQUNxmr The African Voice (@teddyeugene) January 15, 2019 Kenyan police chief Joseph Boinnet confirmed there were casualties, but authorities have not released a tally for the dead or wounded. Boinnett told reporters that police have evacuated many people from the complex and are in the process of securing the property. As night fell, gunfire could still be heard echoing around the site on Nairobi's Riverside Drive. Police instructed journalists to move back and have cordoned off the area. Map of Dusit, D2 Hotel in Nairobi Kenya ?Al-Shabab claims responsibility Somalia-based militant group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack in an online statement. The group later said "fierce clashes" continued at the site and said 47 people had been killed, a number not confirmed by other sources. The group has carried out several previous attacks in Kenya, including the September 2013 assault on Nairobi's Westgate Mall. That attack claimed the lives of 67 people and injured 150. The hotel assault comes one day after a Nairobi court said three men accused of aiding the Westgate attack will be put on trial. Attack started with blast Witness Duran Farah, who is the former president of Somalia's Olympic Committee, told VOA's Harun Maruf that he and some colleagues were entering the complex at the time of the attack. "A loud explosion happened at the gate. Next there was shooting, an exchange of fire, a lot of fire, and we see people rushing and running around in every direction," he said. He said he and his colleagues escaped by running down an alleyway. Workers who escaped the buildings said colleagues had huddled in offices and under desks for safety. In response to an inquiry from VOA News, a State Department spokesperson said the U.S. embassy in Nairobi is closely monitoring the attack and working with Kenyan authorities to determine if any U.S. citizens were affected. The spokesperson said all U.S. mission personnel are safe and accounted for. The State Department says the U.S. embassy "has actively offered assistance to local authorities." ANKARA - President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday he had discussed a safe zone which Turkey would set up inside Syria along the length of their border, during a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump which he described as positive. Trump, who announced he was pulling U.S. troops out of northeast Syria last month, suggested in a tweet on Sunday creating safe zone, without elaborating. "The safe zone issue, including a safe zone along Turkey's borders that will be formed by us an issue that I have brought up since the Obama era was reiterated by him as 20 miles," Erdogan told members of his AK Party in parliament. He later told reporters that the zone could be extended beyond 20 miles, but did not say by how far. Turkey has promised to take over the fight against Islamic State in Syria following the U.S. withdrawal. However, bitter differences between Washington and Ankara over the Kurdish YPG militia had soured talks between the two NATO partners. FILE - U.S. forces are seen at the Kurdish People' FILE - U.S. forces are seen at the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) headquarters after it was hit by Turkish airstrikes in Mount Karachok near Malikiya, Syria, Apr. 25, 2017. FILE - U.S. forces are seen at the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) headquarters after it was hit by Turkish airstrikes in Mount Karachok near Malikiya, Syria, Apr. 25, 2017. The YPG has been a main U.S. ally in the fight against Islamic State, but Turkey views it as a terrorist organization and an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey. Monday's call between the two leaders came after Trump threatened Turkey with economic devastation if Turkish forces attacked the YPG militia. Erdogan said he was saddened by Trump's tweet but that the phone call later in the day was positive. Trump's threat to devastate Turkey's economy also sparked concern among investors, sending the lira down as much as 1.6 percent on Monday. Erdogan said he and Trump had agreed to improve economic ties during their phone call. "Turkey will continue to do what it has to in order to solve this issue in line with the spirit of its alliance, so long as our rights and laws are respected," he said. "We reached a historic understanding with Trump last night." U.S. Rep. Steve King says a decision by House Republican leaders to remove him from several committees in response to comments he made about white nationalism and white supremacy is "a political decision that ignores the truth." House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Monday that King, who is in his ninth term representing Iowa, will not be given committee assignments in the Congress that began this month. King had served on the Agriculture, Small Business and Judiciary committees. The fallout against King stems from an interview published in The New York Times last week in which King lamented, "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization how did that language become offensive?" But his offensive remarks date back to 2006 when he compared immigrants to livestock. U.S. Rep Bobby Rush (D-IL) attends a Joint Session U.S. Rep Bobby Rush (D-IL) attends a Joint Session of Congress with President Donald Trump in Washington, Feb. 28, 2017. U.S. Rep Bobby Rush (D-IL) attends a Joint Session of Congress with President Donald Trump in Washington, Feb. 28, 2017. King said in a statement late Monday that his New York Times quote was mischaracterized, and that his remark about "that language" becoming offensive was only in reference to "Western civilization." The decision Monday by Republican leaders came with condemnation for the veteran lawmaker from both sides of the isle. "There is no place in the Republican Party, the Congress or the country for an ideology of racial supremacy of any kind," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Rep. Joaquin Castro, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said in a statement that for a number of years King "has made increasingly more xenophobic and racist statements," and that "there must be a price for shameless bigotry." Democratic Congressman Bobby Rush of Illinois was the first of three House Democrats to propose a measure sanctioning King. "As with any animal that is rabid, Steve King should be set aside and isolated,'' Rush said in a statement that also called on Republicans to strip King of his committee memberships until he apologizes. "My resolution to censure Representative King sends a clear message to the American people this Congress will not turn a blind eye to his repugnant and racist behavior," Rush said. Rep. Tim Ryan speaks to reporters following the Ho Rep. Tim Ryan speaks to reporters following the House Democratic Caucus elections for House leadership positions, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 30, 2016. Rep. Tim Ryan speaks to reporters following the House Democratic Caucus elections for House leadership positions, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 30, 2016. Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio, and House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, have also said they will introduce resolutions against King. On Friday, King said on the House floor that the interview with the Times "also was a discussion of other terms that have been used, almost always unjustly labeling otherwise innocent people. The word racist, the word Nazi, the word fascist, the phrase white nationalists, the phrase white supremacists.'' King said he was only wondering aloud: "How did that offensive language get injected into our political dialogue? Who does that? How does it get done? How do they get by with laying labels like this on people?'' Iowa Republican state senator Randy Feenstra has announced plans to challenge King in 2020. A federal judge has blocked the Commerce Department from including a question about U.S. citizenship on the 2020 census. To plaintiffs in the case a sizable coalition of states, cities and advocates the question seemed aimed at turning the official population survey into a tool to advance Trump administration policies by discouraging immigrants from participating. In Tuesday's ruling, which came after a two-week trial in New York, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman said that the decision to add the citizenship question was made before data was collected to show that a change in policy was necessary. In his 277-page ruling, Furman wrote that the decision was "pretextual" and thus violated a federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Furman said the APA requires federal agencies to study an issue before changing policies, and the Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, "violated the public trust." Documented noncitizens About 11 million people who live in the U.S. are undocumented, but there are also about 13 million documented noncitizens who might fear responding to the census questionnaire if citizenship is included. "Hundreds of thousands if not millions of people will go uncounted in the census if the citizenship question is included," Furman said. The U.S. census is taken every 10 years and is next scheduled for 2020. It plays a critical role in U.S. politics since the apportionment of House of Representative seats is based on population figures derived from the census and also disbursement of millions in federal funds. In addition, decisions from the location of businesses to the makeup of state and local districts are based on the census. Plaintiffs argued that noncitizens tend to live in places that disproportionately vote Democratic, so an undercount would likely shift political power and federal spending to Republican areas. Furman's ruling is only the opening salvo on the citizenship question. The Supreme Court has already agreed to hear an aspect of the case in February, hoping to rule before the Census Bureau has to print its questionnaire. In addition, the government is expected to quickly appeal Furman's ruling. Reasoned explanation The U.S. government fought hard to keep the citizenship question out of court. When that failed, government lawyers argued that how Commerce Department Secretary Wilbur Ross reached his decision on the citizenship question was "immaterial." "All the secretary is required to do is to provide a reasoned explanation," Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate told the court. "He doesn't have to choose the best option." Ross has said that he decided to add citizenship to the census in response to a request from the Justice Department, which said that census data on citizenship would help it better enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Citizenship was on the questionnaire in censuses before 1960 and is still part of the American Community Survey, which samples about 2.6 percent of the population each year, in order to help local officials and businesses understand what is going on in their communities. 'Forceful rebuke' But last January, the Census Bureau itself recommended against adding a citizenship question, estimating that at least 630,000 households would refuse to fill out the 2020 questionnaire if such a question were included. "This victory in our case is a forceful rebuke of the administration's attempts to weaponize the census to attack immigrants and communities of color," the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement about the case. Along with the ACLU, plaintiffs included 18 states, the District of Columbia, several cities and some immigrant rights groups. The Center for Digital Government* has been tracking the status of state projects revamping and rebuilding their IT structures since early 2016. In just three years, the landscape has changed dramatically. Comparing then and now gives us a chance to assess successful efforts as well as document the ways that IT infrastructures (both in tech and personnel) have shifted over time.There is no IT project more daunting than overhauling a states entire IT structure. More than an initiative or a realignment of resources, these reorganizations change a structural component of government operation across every agency.To track changes, we put states into three categories: centralized, hybrid and decentralized. Once a system strays far enough to escape easy classification as mostly centralized or mostly decentralized, it is a hybrid system.Centralized state IT is characterized by a single consolidated IT organization which provides most IT services to the other agencies. This main agency provides IT governance, strategy and oversight as well as most IT services, support and personnel for other state agencies. For years, this has been considered the most advanced and desirable form of IT structure. Centralizing IT generally results in simplified and more comprehensive governance and security, along with significant cost savings.Decentralized state IT is a structure where individual agencies have internal IT departments which provide most of their support, systems and strategy. A state or central IT agency may also be present, but it does not provide services or staff, instead focusing on policy and possibly even oversight of large projects and procurements. This structure is usually characterized by siloed systems and data across the agencies. It is also significantly more expensive and is difficult to maintain consistent security and quality.Hybrid state IT structures are a mix of the two, either by design or because the state is transitioning towards a fully centralized structure. Hybrid IT provides options and agility while still allowing the state to benefit from some of the cost-savings of a fully centralized system.Here's what the landscape of state IT systems looked like in 2016:And here's what it looked like at the end of 2018:Since our 2016 analysis, 15 states have transitioned to a different IT structure. Almost half of these states (seven) were originally decentralized.A total of 13 states shifted toward centralization. Eight states Alaska, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee and Washington moved into the centralized category. Another five Hawaii, Idaho, Massachusetts, Nevada and South Carolina transitioned from a decentralized to a hybrid system.Interestingly, two states broke the mold by backing away from centralization. New Jersey moved from centralized to a hybrid system. Meanwhile, Oregon abandoned its centralization attempt and continues its legacy decentralized structure.Only Illinois and North Carolina fully moved from decentralized to centralized within the time frame of this ongoing project.While the centralized system has been commonly viewed as the ideal, states seem to be trending toward hybridization instead of complete centralization. In addition to the five states that transitioned into hybrid structures, 10 more states retained their hybrid designation over these three years: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Montana.Flexibility is a major reason hybrid modeling may be appealing over full centralization. If agencies have widely varying day-to-day infrastructural needs, a nimbler system may allow for better responsiveness and specialized skills. Purchasing and equipment refresh may also be expedited where larger contractual/purchasing oversight is in place, but individual agencies retain some purchasing power. Whatever the underlying reasoning, state IT structures are changing; over the last three years, 30 percent of states have shifted their IT governance structure.Government Technology's China issued an advisory to its citizens Tuesday, urging them to "fully assess the risks of travel" to Canada after a Chinese executive was arrested in the North American country. China's Foreign Ministry said Canada recently "arbitrarily detained" a Chinese national, a reference to Chinese executive Meng Wanzhou. Meng, the chief financial officer at Huawei, a global telecommunications conglomerate, was arrested on December 1 at the request of the United States. Meng was charged with conspiring to defraud banks through transactions that violated U.S. sanctions against Iran. She denies the allegations. Meng was released on bail in Vancouver and could be extradited to the U.S. The travel advisory is the latest sign of escalating tensions between Canada and China. Two Canadian citizens were detained in China after Meng's arrest. And on Monday, a court in northeastern China sentenced Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg to death for drug smuggling in a hastily-arranged one-day retrial. Schellenberg had been sentenced to 15 years in prison back in November on the drug conviction. China has denied the trials are linked to Meng's situation. The retrial prompted Canada to update its travel advisory for China, warning citizens to "exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws." YAOUNDE - Cameroon says rebels in the neighboring Central African Republic released three men and a woman Sunday who were abducted late last year. The four were among more than 300 Cameroonians and thousands of cattle reportedly seized by rebels in the past two years. Border communities are asking the Cameroonian government to authorize armed self-defense groups to fight the rebels. Cattle rancher Daouda Halidou, 37 years old, says the four adults who were beaten regularly by their captors were tied up and abandoned in the bush after their families paid more than $40,000 to secure their release. Kildadi Taguieke Boukar, governor of the Adamawa region which shares a boundary with the C.A.R., says it was one in a series of kidnappings in the last month. He says armed gangs from the troubled C.A.R. have been working in collaboration with men of the underworld in Cameroon to abduct and kill individuals. "They have kidnapped the chief of Akunure, and they have asked him a ransom of 100 million CFA [$175,000]," Boukar said. "The gang had been hiding their arms near Bacada, and all the members of the gang escaped to a neighboring country. Cameroonians came from Garoua and some of them came from Yaounde to carry out this act." A study conducted by the Mbororo Cultural and Development Association, whose members are mainly cattle ranchers, indicate that at least 8,000 cattle had been seized or killed, more than 300 citizens kidnapped and over $4,000,000 lost to the armed gangs within the last two years. Spokesperson Daji Amina Innatou says the association is taking care of hundreds of children whose parents were killed by the attackers. "It is really devastating. It is more than 70 men and some women who were killed, and you can imagine how many orphans as a result of this," Innatou said. Village militias Authorities within Cameroon's national assembly are inviting the public to work with the military to curb the insecurity, while the government prepares to deploy more troops to the porous border localities used by the rebels to infiltrate Cameroon. Local elites want to create village militias to stop the rebels. Mohaman Gabdo Yaya, traditional ruler of Banyo, a town in the Adamawa region, says they are negotiating with the government to authorize the militias to use weapons. Yaya says the administration should allow militias to use guns because sending self-defense group members to fight the rebels without modern weapons is like sending them to commit suicide. The government has not said when it will decide on the local officials' request. The C.A.R. descended into chaos after longtime leader Francois Bozize was overthrown in 2013 by a predominantly Muslim rebel alliance called the Seleka. Christian militias called the anti-Balaka emerged in response, accelerating a cycle of sectarian violence. Britain appears set for a full-blown constitutional crisis, with a cross-party group of senior lawmakers conspiring to sideline embattled Prime Minister Theresa May by seizing control of Brexit negotiations. They want to reduce the power of the government to control legislative business in parliament, boosting the chances of lawmakers being able to table a series of motions to stop Britain from leaving the European Union without a deal, or even offering legislation for a second referendum on British membership in the EU that could lead to the country not leaving at all. Ahead of Tuesday's crucial vote in the House of Commons on her highly contentious Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, the result of two years of ill-tempered haggling with Brussels, May warned that if her draft deal with the EU is voted down, the most likely outcome would be Britain remaining an EU member. Speaking to factory workers in Wales on Monday, May said if she loses the vote, "it is now my judgment that the more likely outcome is a paralysis in parliament that risks there being no Brexit." She added, "There are some in Westminster who would wish to delay or even stop Brexit and who will use every device available to them to do so." British Prime Minister Theresa May walks by the Un FILE - British Prime Minister Theresa May walks by the Union flag and the EU flag as she departs a media conference at an EU summit in Brussels, Dec. 14, 2018. FILE - British Prime Minister Theresa May walks by the Union flag and the EU flag as she departs a media conference at an EU summit in Brussels, Dec. 14, 2018. Most observers even ministers in her own divided cabinet expect her to lose the vote on the withdrawal agreement, despite EU officials offering assurances Monday designed to diminish parliament's opposition to the 585-page deal. The big question is over the scale of the defeat, with some commentators predicting it could be the biggest rebuff a government has endured since 1924, when then-Labor Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald lost a vote by 166, triggering the collapse of his government and a general election he lost. Transition deal With the deal, May has tried to square the circle between Britons who want to remain in the EU, or closely tied to it, and Brexiters. The withdrawal agreement would see Britain locked in a customs union with the EU for several years while it negotiates a more permanent, but vaguely defined, free-trade settlement with its largest trading partner. In the temporary customs union, Britain would be unable to influence EU laws, regulations and product standards it would have to observe. It would not be able to implement free-trade deals with non-EU countries. The transition was agreed to avoid customs checks on the border separating Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, but British lawmakers fear Britain could be shackled indefinitely to the bloc, even if a final free-trade deal isn't negotiated. Brexiters claim the Brexit agreement May negotiated turns Britain into a "vassal state, a rule-taker and not a rule-maker." On Monday, EU leaders sought to assuage lawmakers' fears by saying it wouldn't lock Britain in an indefinite transition. But opponents both Brexiters and Remainers appear unconvinced, calling assurances "meaningless," as they don't have the force of law, while the agreement, if passed by the British parliament, would. Government vs. parliament In readiness for May losing a key vote on the highly contentious Brexit Withdrawal Agreement in the House of Commons Tuesday, veteran lawmakers, including former ministers from her cabinet, are laying the groundwork to upend the centuries-old relationship between Britain's government and parliament. That relationship is built on No. 10 Downing Street being able to control the legislative agenda, with government business taking precedence over that of individual lawmakers or the opposition parties. The shift would set the stage for a constitutional showdown that could have significant consequences for how Britain is governed, as Brexit itself would, said analysts. "We may now be witnessing one of the most fundamental shifts in (the) relationship between the government and parliament since William Lenthall, the speaker, defied King Charles I in 1642," according to Philip Cowley, a political scientist at London's Queen Mary University. That defiance came on the eve of the English Civil War, when the king entered the Commons to arrest five rebellious lawmakers. Charles demanded to know where the lawmakers were, and Lenthall replied, "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here." Role of John Bercow While the current behind-the-scenes parliamentary maneuvering is unlikely to trigger a clash of arms, it has thrust the spotlight on current Speaker John Bercow, who when he was elected to the post in 2009, made no secret of his determination to strengthen the powers of parliament and lessen the dominance of the government. FILE - John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Common FILE - John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons, speaks at Westminster Hall inside the Palace of Westminster in London, March 22, 2018. FILE - John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons, speaks at Westminster Hall inside the Palace of Westminster in London, March 22, 2018. Last week Bercow, a moderate Conservative but ardent Remainer, outraged No. 10 Downing Street and Brexiters by allowing an amendment to the government's business motion for the vote on May's Brexit deal. The amendment was in breach of standard practice. Under standard parliamentary rules, government motions can't be amended. But Bercow accepted it, announcing that if precedence was always followed, nothing would ever change. Two groups of Brexit opponents are planning to use Bercow's ruling last week to try to pull away from government control of the parliamentary timetable. One group wants to suspend the Brexit schedule, allowing them to postpone Britain's earmarked EU departure date of March 29, and for more efforts to be made to shape a national consensus. Britain's former Prime Minister John Major gives a FILE - Britain's former Prime Minister John Major gives a speech on Brexit in London, Feb. 28, 2018. FILE - Britain's former Prime Minister John Major gives a speech on Brexit in London, Feb. 28, 2018. Other lawmakers are looking at ways to force a second referendum. On Sunday, one of May's predecessors, former Conservative Prime Minister John Major, called for Britain's exit from the EU to be delayed and control of future negotiations with the EU be controlled by parliament. He also called for another referendum. "In the midst of chaos, it is always sensible to pause and think," he said. According to recent polls, a majority of Britons now want a second plebiscite. May has adamantly ruled out that option to break the parliamentary deadlock. With this week shaping up to be one of the most tumultuous in the modern history of the House of Commons, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labor Party, has said that if May loses the vote on Tuesday, he will table a motion of no-confidence in the government. CARACAS - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday called Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro a modern Adolf Hitler, days after Brasilia officially recognized an opposition leader as the legitimate head of the increasingly isolated country. Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro arrives for the Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro arrives for the inauguration ceremony of his new naval commander, Ilques Barbosa Junior, at the Naval Club in Brasilia, Jan. 9, 2019. Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro arrives for the inauguration ceremony of his new naval commander, Ilques Barbosa Junior, at the Naval Club in Brasilia, Jan. 9, 2019. Brazil on Saturday said it recognized Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's opposition-run Congress, as legitimate president after Maduro was sworn in to a second term that countries around the world described as illegitimate. "Over there we've got Brazil in the hands of a fascist Bolsonaro is a Hitler of the modern era!" Maduro said during a state of the nation speech. "Let's leave the task of Bolsonaro to the wonderful people of Brazil, who will fight and take care of him." The Brazilian president's office said through a spokeswoman that it would not comment. FILE - Juan Guaido, president of the Venezuelan Na FILE - Juan Guaido, president of the Venezuelan National Assembly delivers a speech during a public session with opposition members, at a street in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 11, 2019. FILE - Juan Guaido, president of the Venezuelan National Assembly delivers a speech during a public session with opposition members, at a street in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 11, 2019. Guaido on Friday had said he was willing to assume the presidency after opposition leaders said Maduro's second term was illegitimate because the broadly boycotted 2018 elections were rigged in his favor. Guaido, who was briefly detained by intelligence agents on his way to a political rally on Sunday, has not declared himself president. Brazil and Venezuela maintained cordial relations for over a decade thanks to friendly ties between Brazil's Workers Party and Venezuela's Socialist Party. Bolsonaro, a fervent anti-communist who has praised his country's 1964-85 military dictatorship, has promised to target Venezuela. CAPITOL HILL - U.S. President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general, William Barr, goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee again Wednesday, after pledging in his first day of confirmation hearings to shield the special counsel's Russia probe from political pressure. In his initial appearance before the panel, Barr also took issue with Trump's labeling the investigation of his inner circle's contacts with Moscow as a "witch hunt." "I don't believe (special counsel Robert) Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt," Barr said, adding that he intends to let the probe run its course and that the results should be made known to the public and Congress. Barr said the special counsel could only be terminated for good cause and that "it's unimaginable" that Mueller would "ever do anything that gave rise to good cause." Democrats repeatedly stressed the importance of independence to the role of attorney general and noted Trump's penchant for lashing out at the Justice Department. "I believe it is important that the next attorney general be able to strongly resist pressure, whether from the administration or Congress," California Democrat Dianne Feinstein said. "He must have the integrity, the strength and the fortitude to tell the president 'no' regardless of the consequences." Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., accompanied by Ranking Member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.,(R) questions Attorney General nominee William Barr during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 15, 2019. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., accompanied by Ranking Member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.,(R) questions Attorney General nominee William Barr during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 15, 2019. "If confirmed, the president is going to expect you to his bidding. I can almost guarantee he'll cross the line at some point," Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy said. "I can truly be independent," Barr insisted. "I'm in a position in life where I can do the right thing and not really care about the consequences ... I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong." Barr's memo Barr, who served as attorney general under President George H. W. Bush, has drawn scrutiny for a memo he wrote last year criticizing special counsel Mueller for examining whether Trump tried to obstruct the investigation by firing then-FBI Director James Comey in 2017. In a memo to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the Russia investigation, Barr opined that probing Trump's actions toward Comey was "fatally misconceived" and "grossly irresponsible." Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks during a new Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks during a news conference to announce a criminal law enforcement action involving China, at the Department of Justice in Washington, Nov. 1, 2018. Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks during a news conference to announce a criminal law enforcement action involving China, at the Department of Justice in Washington, Nov. 1, 2018. The memo, written last June, came to light after Trump nominated Barr, 68, to succeed then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom Trump ousted over his recusal from oversight of the Russia investigation. The document sparked widespread concern among minority Democrats in the Senate, who have long feared Trump intends to shut down the probe. At the confirmation hearing, Barr argued his memo was "narrow in scope" and did not address the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and other "potential obstruction-of-justice theories." Later in the hearing, Barr said, "I think Russians attempted to interfere with the [2016] election, and I think we have to get to the bottom of it." Attorney General nominee William Barr testifies du Attorney General nominee William Barr testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 15, 2019. Attorney General nominee William Barr testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 15, 2019. Republicans also sought assurances from the nominee. The committee's new chairman, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, expressed outrage over extensive communications between two FBI agents during the 2016 presidential campaign that showed extreme bias and prejudice against Trump. "We're relying on you to clean this place up," Graham said of the Justice Department. Graham also asked if, as commander in chief, Trump has the authority to divert federal funding in order to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. "Without looking at the statute, I really couldn't answer that," Barr replied. The nominee criticized so-called "sanctuary cities" that do not notify federal officials about undocumented immigrants who are taken into custody. He also weighed in on the current standoff between the White House and congressional Democrats over border wall funding. "I would like to see a deal reached whereby Congress recognizes that it's imperative to have border security, and that part of that border security, as a commonsense matter, needs barriers," Barr said. Chinese President Xi Jinping's government is sparing no expense to its international reputation in its determination to force Canada to back down over the case of a Chinese telecommunications executive it detained last month. While Beijing formally denies any connection, the arrest of two Canadians on vague national security charges and the re-sentencing of a convicted Canadian drug smuggler to death on Monday point to a determined campaign of intimidation and retribution. And while global perceptions of China's adherence to free trade and rule of law may take a beating, for Xi and other highly nationalistic Communist leaders, the stakes are simply too high. "The Chinese will stop at nothing because it's a huge loss of face, for both the Chinese government and Xi Jinping in particular," said Willy Lam, an expert on Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Canadian Court Grants Bail to CFO of China's Huawei A Canadian court on Tuesday granted bail to a top executive of Huawei Technologies while she awaits a hearing for extradition to the United States, a move that could help placate Chinese officials angered by her arrest. Meng Wanzhou, 46, Huawei's chief financial officer and the daughter of its founder, faces U.S. accusations that she misled multinational banks about Iran-linked transactions, putting the banks at risk of violating U.S. A Canadian court on Tuesday granted bail to a top executive of Huawei Technologies while she awaits a hearing for extradition to the United States, a move that could help placate Chinese officials angered by her arrest. Meng Wanzhou, 46, Huawei's chief financial officer and the daughter of its founder, faces U.S. accusations that she misled multinational banks about Iran-linked transactions, putting the banks at risk of violating U.S. Canada detained Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. The U.S. wants Meng, who is also the daughter of Huawei's founder, extradited to face charges that she committed fraud by misleading banks about the company's business dealings in Iran. Trudeau to China: Respect Diplomatic Immunity of Detained Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that Chinese officials are not respecting the diplomatic immunity of one of the Canadians detained in China last month as he ramped up efforts to get them released.China arrested former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor on vague national security allegations.Huawei executive's arrestThe arrests came after a top Chinese executive was arrested in Canada on Dec. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that Chinese officials are not respecting the diplomatic immunity of one of the Canadians detained in China last month as he ramped up efforts to get them released.China arrested former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor on vague national security allegations.Huawei executive's arrestThe arrests came after a top Chinese executive was arrested in Canada on Dec. China responded nine days later by arresting former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor. On Monday, a Chinese court sentenced Robert Lloyd Schellenberg to death, overturning a 15-year prison term handed down earlier. The actions fit a pattern of retaliation against nations that offend China, which sometimes extends to their citizens inside the country. Past instances have shown China willing to endure long freezes in relations and subsequent damage to its national image. China suspended its bilateral trade deal with Norway and restricted imports of Norwegian salmon when the Nobel peace prize was awarded to political prisoner Liu Xiaobo in 2010. Britain and other countries were retaliated against over meetings with the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, considered a dangerous separatist by Beijing, and in 2014, a Canadian couple was detained in northeastern China and charged with espionage following Canada's arrest of a man accused of stealing U.S. aviation secrets for China. Analysts say they have little doubt Kovrig and Spavor's cases are related to Meng's, and the handing down of tougher sentences on appeal is rare enough to arouse suspicion. "This really hurts China" and its efforts to promote its influence around the world, said David Zweig, a Canadian who directs the Center on China's Transnational Relations at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "Xi Jinping has been talking so much about promoting soft power... I certainly think that it hurts China's soft power and its argument that it supports the rule of law," Zweig said. Retaliating against Canada, widely seen as a benign influence on the global order, also offers fewer dividends for China than confronting the U.S., which is regarded by many in the international community as at least as much of a bully as China, Zweig said. "China doesn't win any points by pushing around Canada," he said. However, Beijing's dismissive attitude toward Canada seems very much in line with its binary view of the world as divided into "big'' or powerful nations that need to be deferred to, and "small" ones which China can afford to push around, said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at London's School of Oriental and African Studies. China is picking on Canada "because they can," said Tsang. "It will have lots of negative effects on China's standing in the world and international perceptions of China." He said Beijing's handling of the case shows its refusal to recognize the concept of an independent judiciary, something unknown in China, where the ruling Communist Party controls the courts. FILE - Meng Wanzhou, Executive Board Director of t FILE - Meng Wanzhou, Executive Board Director of the Chinese technology giant Huawei, attends a session of the VTB Capital Investment Forum "Russia Calling!" in Moscow, Oct. 2, 2014. FILE - Meng Wanzhou, Executive Board Director of the Chinese technology giant Huawei, attends a session of the VTB Capital Investment Forum "Russia Calling!" in Moscow, Oct. 2, 2014. As the daughter of the founder of Huawei closely connected to China's powerful military and considered something of a national treasure Meng is afforded special status, Tsang said. While he predicts further steps by Beijing to pressure Canada, Tsang said he doubts they will have any bearing on the result. "It will have no impact in terms of how the Canadian government deals with the Meng case," he said. International observers also point to the strikingly different ways in which the cases are being handled by the two countries. While Meng has been afforded a lawyer and released on bail to her Vancouver mansion, Kovrig and Spavor are being held in cells with only minimal consular access. Canada has also complained that as a former diplomat, Kovrig should be accorded a degree of immunity. China Sentences Canadian to Death for Drug Smuggling A Chinese court has sentenced a Canadian man to death on drug trafficking charges, leading Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to accuse China of using the death penalty arbitrarily. The Chinese court in the northeast city of Dailian retried Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who was initially given a 15-year sentence for drug trafficking. A Chinese court has sentenced a Canadian man to death on drug trafficking charges, leading Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to accuse China of using the death penalty arbitrarily. The Chinese court in the northeast city of Dailian retried Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who was initially given a 15-year sentence for drug trafficking. The timing and circumstances of Schellenberg's resentencing are also being called into question. While his case was on appeal, the speed with which the new hearing was held, with only four days' notice, drew criticism from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a subsequent sharp rebuke of him by Beijing. Underlying China's behavior is the apparent conviction that Meng's detention was a political act that must be responded to in kind. Given the limited information about the cases allowed by government censors, Chinese have "no sense that Ms. Meng was grabbed for anything other than political reasons," Zweig said. "And if it's completely political, then I guess in their viewpoint, kidnapping people is just tit-for-tat," he said. On Beijing's frigid streets Tuesday, public opinion seemed to be running strongly in the government's favor. "It shows China is standing up'' to Canada, said teacher Liang Reufen, adding that she hopes the matter will not be "elevated to a political level." Finance worker Huo Yong said politics were already inextricably tied up in the case. "We should pressure them since they use politics to contain our economic growth,'' said Huo. "My attitude is, 'whoever bullies us, we should bully them back.'" Life came to a standstill in Zimbabwe's capital Tuesday after protests over a massive hike in fuel prices turned deadly. The streets of Harare were virtually empty, with many businesses, banks and schools closed, following a call for a three-day strike by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions in response to an intensifying economic crisis. Despite the relative calm due to the strike, police and protesters clashed once again, as a military helicopter fired tear gas on demonstrators in Kuwadzana township on the outskirts of Harare. Meanwhile, residents in Harare say they are unable to access social media, prompting concerns that authorities have disabled the Internet. On Monday, several people were killed when police in Harare and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second-largest city, fired live ammunition at protesters, who threw rocks, burned tires and blocked streets. Authorities have not released an official death toll, but the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights tells the Associated Press that five people were killed in the unrest. At least 200 people were arrested. Zimbabweans are angry over President Emmerson Mnangagwa's announcement last Saturday of a 150 percent rise in fuel prices. Mnangagwa on Monday defended the decision at the start of a five-nation tour. "Zimbabwe is going through both political and economic reforms and these do not come easily," he told reporters in Moscow. "It will take time for things to settle and results to be shown." He said the fuel price hike was necessary because local fuel was the cheapest in the region. Zimbabwe is suffering through a severe economic downturn marked by high inflation, a shortage of many basic goods and a shortage of foreign currency that many Zimbabweans use to conduct transactions. The country's own currency, known as bondnotes, has been depreciating in value. Mnangagwa, who took power after longtime leader Robert Mugabe was forced to resign in November 2017, is trying to win back foreign investors sidelined under Mugabe. The protests are the biggest unrest in Zimbabwe since deadly post-election riots last August. When Democratic lawmakers won the majority in the House of Representatives in recent elections, they not only won the ability to better shape legislation in the House, they also gained the enormous power of investigation. Investigations have always been an important way for Congress members to hold government officials accountable, to inform public policy and to spur national debate. ? ? House Democrats have promised to hold investigations on a range of topics, including the activities of President Donald Trump and his staff. Here is a look at the history and importance of Congress' power to investigate matters. Why does Congress have the ability to investigate? The U.S. Constitution says Congress will hold "all legislative powers" of government. While the Constitution does not explicitly grant Congress the right to carry out investigations, the founding fathers envisioned lawmakers investigating matters as part of their responsibility to legislate and courts have long upheld that role. According to a website run by the Senate Historical Office, George Mason of Virginia said at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 that members of Congress "are not only Legislators but they possess inquisitorial powers. They must meet frequently to inspect the Conduct of the public offices." Congressional investigations date back to 1792 when the House passed a resolution to examine the St. Clair expedition, according to the Senate Historical Office. General Arthur St. Clair led U.S. soldiers to their defeat in a 1791 battle against Native American fighters in what is now Ohio, prompting President George Washington to demand his resignation and for Congress to start an investigation. What can Congress investigate? Congress is able to investigate anything that pertains to legislative matters. "Hearings are most commonly held for three reasons: to consider pending legislation; to investigate issues that may require legislation in the future; and, to investigate and oversee federal programs," according to a website run jointly by the Clerk of the House's Office and the State Department's Office of the Historian. Investigations also serve an important function to oversee the judicial and executive branches, including probing possible presidential wrongdoing, and in rare cases laying the groundwork for impeachment proceedings. In its more than 200 years, Congress has investigated a huge range of topics including the sinking of theTitanic, organized crime, the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, which was instrumental in bringing about the resignation of President Richard Nixon. "Today congressional oversight enables House and Senate members to serve as the eyes and ears of the American public," according to the Senate Historical Office. The Supreme Court has ruled that one thing Congress cannot investigate is the private affairs of individual citizens. Who carries out the investigations? Both the House and Senate can hold investigations, which are usually carried out by one of the many committees by which the houses of Congress are organized. Lawmakers can also set up joint committees composed of members of both houses of Congress as well as create special committees, which are set up for a specific purpose. What resources do Congressional committees have for investigations? Members of Congress generally have more ability to research topics than the average citizen. Lawmakers typically have access to government information, including, in some cases, classified material. They also have a trained staff that has the time and ability to research issues. Additionally, Congressional committees have the ability to compel witnesses to testify before lawmakers. In 1927, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress could hold witnesses in contempt if they failed to testify when subpoenaed. In a ruling two years later, the high court said that witnesses who lie before a congressional committee can be convicted of perjury. Congressional committee members can also call on outside experts to testify before investigative hearings and to help make a more detailed study of the issues. What is the impact of Congressional investigations? Congressional investigations are not just a means to get information that is important to lawmakers. They are also a way to inform the public about various topics and to shape the political narrative. Most committee hearings are open to the public and are widely reported in the media. While investigations generally function to enable lawmakers to make better policy decisions, they are also an integral part of the U.S. government's system of checks and balances. By design, lawmakers have a responsibility to bring to light abuses by the others branches of government, including those carried out by the president, cabinet members, and judges. Challenges to the success of Congressional investigations include the appearance of partisanship, which can taint the results in the public eye. Sam Ervin, the chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee, which was set up to investigate the Watergate scandal in 1972, warned that for an investigation to be successful, it must avoid partisan politics. He said investigations "can be the catalyst that spurs Congress and the public to support vital reforms in our nation's laws," but said they may also "afford a platform for demagogues and the rankest partisans." Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can download this video to view it offline. Motorola Solutions, a major player in public safety technology, has acquired a company whose license-plate-reading technology has stirred up controversy in recent years.According to a press release , Motorola Solutions paid $445 million for VaaS International Holdings, the parent company of Vigilant Solutions. Vigilant offers license plate readers to law enforcement, which allows for passive, constant, automated license plate checks as opposed to the more manual process of police calling in to a command center to check on license plates, Vigilants technology will scan the plates of passing vehicles, check them in databases and then create alerts when theres a hit. Police can also search the license plate logs to locate a specified vehicle, giving them a tool to track down suspects.Automated license plate recognition is an increasingly powerful tool for law enforcement, said Greg Brown, chairman and CEO of Motorola Solutions, in the statement. With this acquisition, VaaS will expand our command center software portfolio with the largest shareable database of vehicle location information that can help shorten response times and improve the speed and accuracy of investigations.Its an approach that has come with some criticism , since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has used it to find undocumented immigrants it is targeting for deportation a politically charged issue, especially in sanctuary cities that have policies against providing information to ICE. Last year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation spoke out against Sacramento County, Calif.s use of Vigilant for welfare fraud investigation.Vigilant also offers facial recognition technology, which the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups have criticized for its potential to elevate police surveillance to ever-higher levels of thoroughness The data creation and analytics processes involved in those technologies fit right in with a lot of what Motorola Solutions has been doing all along its one of the largest providers of computer-aided dispatch, records management and 911 systems in the market. Those are the kinds of systems law enforcement uses to wrangle data. Motorola Solutions also provides body-worn cameras, which is a target for facial recognition technology since police officers wearing the devices naturally capture video of the faces of people they interact with.VaaS International Holdings also owns Digital Recognition Network, which is angled at private-sector markets such as insurance and financial services. Motorola Solutions expects VaaS 2019 revenue to hit about $100 million, according to the statement. Click here to log in and see all of our other subscription options for the Mesabi Tribune, including online only & auto-renewal subscriptions. Investors monitor market data at the BIDV Security Company trading floor in Hanoi. - VNS Photo Truong Vi The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange lost 0.10 per cent to close at 901.80 points. The southern market index totalled growth of 2.47 per cent last week. The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange slumped 0.28 per cent to close at 101.58 points. It gained 1.01 per cent last week. Market liquidity remained at a very low level with more than 177 million shares traded on the two local exchanges, worth VND3.2 trillion (US$136 million). Large-cap stocks performed poorly on Monday morning as the blue-chip VN30 Index dropped 0.10 per cent to 859.42 points. In the VN30 basket, 17 of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation declined while only eight advanced. On a sector basis, securities, real estate, mining, insurance and construction material stocks lost ground in the morning session. Those industry indices were down between 0.09 per cent and 1.8 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed. In the morning, selling pressure dragged Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), Military Bank (MBB), real estate developer (NVL), PetroVietnam Drilling & Well Services Corporation (PVD) and Sai Gon Securities Incorporation (SSI). In the afternoon session, bottom-fishing activities occurring in some blue-chip stocks such as Vinhomes (VHM), Vincom Retail (VRE) and GAS, curbed the decline of the VN-Index. The 11-member Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) officially comes into force today, pushing up the textile stocks. Textile stocks such as DamSan Joint Stock Company (ADS), Everpia JSC (EVE), Garmant 10 Corporation - Joint Stock Company (M10), Thanh Cong Textile Garment Investment Trading Joint Stock Company (TCM), TNG Investment and Trading JSC (TNG), Viet Tien Garment Corporation (VGG) and Vietnam National Textile & Garment Group (VGT), all soared. M10 hit the daily limit rise of 7 per cent. TCM increased 2.5 per cent. TNG increased by 0.6 per cent. From January 14, the tariff lines of Viet Nam have officially been abolished according to the agreement and Viet Nam will avoid tariffs imposed by 6 countries which have ratified the CPTPP. According to Bao Viet Securities Company (BVSC), despite the withdrawal of the US, the CPTPP can still have extremely beneficial impacts for Viet Nam. Specifically, due to the tariff cut, the CPTPP can boost GDP by 1.32 per cent, or US$1.7 billion. From now until 2035, GDP growth each year could see an increase of 0.016 per cent on average or US$0.02 billion per year, BVSC said. According to BIDV Securities Company, the market will fluctuate around 900 points while investors are waiting for information from the US-China trade discussion and news on the US government shutdown. The UPCOM Index on the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM) was down 0.09 per cent to finish at 53.14 points. Medical equipment production at Germany-invested B.Braun Viet Nam Ltd.Co in Thanh Oai Industrial Zone in Ha Noi.-VNA/VNS Photo Danh Lam He made the request at a conference held in Ha Noi on Monday to discuss a draft plan on Orientation to complete mechanism and policies and to improve the quality and efficiency of FDI attraction and use until 2030. The plan will be submitted to the Politburo for consideration. The plan should not only assess the current situation but also analyse FDI attraction trends and show changes in FDI attraction policies, he said. It needed qualitative and quantitative data to assess FDI commitment, disbursement and contribution. He noted the plan still lacked measures to connect and transfer technology between the FDI sector and domestic businesses. The plan was not aimed at developing policies but aimed at finalising mechanisms and policies on FDI attraction and at addressing legal shortcomings relating to tax, business, investment, land use and more, he said. He asked the Ministry of Planning and Investment to work with HCM City, Ha Noi and southern Binh Duong Province, which are key localities in FDI attraction, to listen to the opinions of local authorities and businesses on policies to improve FDI attraction. Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Vu Dai Thang stressed the importance of the plan, saying it would serve as a foundation to attract FDI in line with economic restructuring and growth model renewal. It would also help the Party and State incorporate FDI attraction to fulfil socio-economic development tasks, he said. Regarding FDI attraction in the future, the ministry proposed to continue considering FDI as an important part of the economy in the long-term. FDI attraction must be selective, connected with domestic businesses and help improve Viet Nams position in the global value chain on the basis of multilateralisation and diversification to ensure the independence of the economy and national security, according to Thang. Many participants noted the need for policies to encourage investment projects in technology and develop infrastructure in connection with climate change adaptation. Peoples Committees vice chairman of northern Hai Phong city Nguyen Van Thanh proposed the Government invest in transport infrastructure to connect different regions to help attract more FDI while completing mechanisms and policies to improve FDI attraction. Vice chairman of central Da Nang Citys Peoples Committee Ho Ky Minh recommended amending regulations relating to foreign investment attraction such as the laws on businesses, public-private partnership, competition and the Land Law. He also pointed to the need to reduce conditional business lines. FDI commitment for 3,046 newly-licensed projects reached nearly $18 billion in 2018. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi has been forced to postpone a planned visit to Myanmar, at the request of the government. (Photo: AFP/Denis Balibouse) UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi was due to visit last week but Myanmar authorities scrapped the trip to Rakhine, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims were driven out in a military crackdown that started in 2017. Fighting has flared after 13 police officers were killed on Jan 4 in an attack by Rohingya militants on border posts near the frontier with Bangladesh. "Based on assessment of Myanmar authorities of the security situation in Rakhine, the visit has been postponed," said UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic. Britain is expected to raise the issue at the UN Security Council later this week, according to diplomats. The decision to delay Grandi's trip and uncertainty surrounding a separate planned visit by the UN envoy Christine Schraner Burgener to Myanmar is fueling concerns that authorities are backtracking on their commitments to address the Rohingya refugee crisis. "They have done nothing at all and didn't particularly want that to be exposed," said a Security Council diplomat of the decision to postpone Grandi's visit. Myanmar's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to requests for information. Britain in December circulated a draft Security Council resolution on Myanmar that would have set a deadline for authorities to roll out a strategy for addressing the Rohingya crisis. China, backed by Russia, however raised strong objections and refused to take part in negotiations, suggesting it was ready to use its veto at the council to block the measure. Myanmar's violent military campaign in 2017 forced more than 720,000 Rohingya across the border to Bangladesh, with refugees bringing accounts of murder, rape and arson. Britain, France, the United States and UN chief Antonio Guterres have described the campaign as ethnic cleansing while UN investigators have called for top generals to be investigated for war crimes. Rohingya in Buddhist-majority Myanmar have suffered decades of persecution and are denied citizenship rights. Myanmar has denied that it has singled out the Rohingya and described its army operation as a campaign to root out terrorists. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) met his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono for the first time since they agreed last year to increase efforts to sign a treaty to formally end WWII. (Photo: AFP/Kirill Kudryavtsev) The two diplomats met for the first time since leaders of Japan and Russia agreed last year to increase efforts to sign a treaty ending World War II. Talks stalled for decades due to Japan's claim to strategic islands seized by the Soviet army in the final days of the war. "Sovereignty over the islands is not up for discussion, this is Russian territory," Lavrov said in a briefing following talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono. Moscow is willing to work toward a peace resolution provided "Japan's indisputable recognition of the entirety of results of World War II, including Russia's sovereignty over all of the islands of the southern Kuril chain," he said. Lavrov said this basic premise is reflected in the 1956 joint declaration of the Soviet Union and Japan, which Moscow is willing to use as a starting point. "This is our base position and without steps in this direction it is very difficult to expect movement forward on other issues," he added. Lavrov said that for the time being, efforts to jointly develop the islands per recent bilateral agreements have not been particularly successful. He said one of Moscow's goals in bilateral cooperation was visa-free travel between the two countries, which could start with Tokyo dropping the visa requirement for Russian citizens residing on the Kurils. DECADES-LONG DISPUTE A spokesman for the Japanese foreign ministry in Moscow said the two ministers had a "serious and frank exchange" but did not comment on the details of the negotiations. "There are differences of positions ... we will work to get the positions closer," Takeshi Osuga told journalists. He confirmed Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe would meet in Moscow next week. The disputed Kuril islands, one of which lies less than 10 kilometres from Japan's Hokkaido, consist of Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan and Habomai. Three are inhabited while Habomai is a group of islets with only the presence of a border patrol. Japan and the Soviet Union signed the 1956 document, which stipulated that the USSR was willing to cede Shikotan and Habomai following a signed peace agreement, but Japan demanded all four islands. Lavrov said Monday that it was "unacceptable" that Japan still called the islands Northern Territories in its national law. Working with the 1956 declaration would also need to reconcile the fact that Japan has since entered a military alliance with the United States. "Now of course we have to take into account that the situation with regards to Japan's military alliances has drastically changed," Lavrov said. US efforts to "militarise" the Asia Pacific region created additional risks for Russia, he added. Unusually, the two foreign ministers did not appear in a joint press conference but scheduled two separate briefings for the media. Lavrov said this was done at the request of Tokyo. He said any peace settlement would have to be "supported and accepted by the people in our countries". Ceding any islands to Japan is unlikely to go down well in Russia, where the Kremlin has whipped up a wave of patriotic sentiment since 2014, when Moscow annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine. The governor of the Russian island of Sakhalin, who also administers the Kurils, last week said locals opposed territorial changes. Hundreds protested recently against any handover. "The Kuril islands are Russian soil, that is clear. The issue of handing over the Kuril islands is not on the agenda," governor Valery Limarenko told the Gazeta.Ru news website. Garbage piles up near Nam Son dump Residents living around the Nam Son Waste Treatment Complex or Nam Son dumping ground, the largest dump of the city, haveblocked the garbage trucks entering the dump since last Friday. This is because of sluggish process of land clearance and compensation for a relocation project. In 2017, due to pollution caused by the Nam Son dump, local authorities approved a project to relocate three seriously affected communes - Bac Son, Hong Ky and Nam Son. Residents wanted the citys authorities to address pollution and pay compensation for the affected households before they move out. The authorities of Soc Son District and the municipal Peoples Committee held three meetings and talks with residents since the protest broke out last week. According to deputy chairman of the citys Peoples Committee Nguyen The Hung, after discussions with residents, the Peoples Committee ordered the Soc Son Districts authorities to pay compensation for those affected living within 500m from the site. The Soc Son Districts authorities were requested to survey the pollution-affected area and report to the citys Department of Natural Resources and Environment before January 15. The city Peoples Committee asked the authorities to approve compensation plans before March 30 and start to allocate the payments from the second quarter of this year. The money will come from the citys development and investment fund. Vietnamplus.vn reported that after the dialogues, protesters agreed to dismantle tents and clear the way leading to the dump. However, it was reported yesterday afternoon around 40 people representing affected households still gathered at a crossroads connecting Ha Loc and Lien Xuan villages of Nam Son Commune and continued to block the garbage trucks. The residents said they agreed with the meetings results but wanted answers to other problems. According to the villagers, they expected solutions and commitments from local authorities. March 15 was set as a deadline for finishing compensation plans while the money will be allocated within second quarter. However, residents wanted to know when the work would be completed and when they would receive all the compensation, they said. They also asked local authorities for the rate and for a meeting with the Secretary of the citys Party Committee. A lot of garbage trucks are still waiting between two and three km from the dump. Workers of the Hanoi Urban Environment Company have transported garbage to Cau Dien dumping grounds in Nam Tu Liem District for collection. Set up in 1999, the Nam Son garbage dump, covering an area of 83ha, receives more than 4,000 tonnes of waste per day from four Hanoi inner districts. In 2017, the first industrial waste-to-energy facility with the capacity of treating 75 tonnes of toxic and industrial waste per day in Nam Son Waste Treatment Complex was inaugurated with help from Japan. The generated power is used for the factorys own production activities and for national power grids electricity supply. PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc (seventh from left) and investors pose for a photo. - Photo VNA The PM delivered the remarks during an investment promotion conference held in the province on Monday. The event the biggest of its kind so far witnessed the participation of nearly 1,000 delegates and business people at home and abroad. In order to ensure the success of investors, which should be considered the success of Dak Nong, the PM urged the locality to have professional staff which could assist investors in dealing with its administrative procedures. That could contribute to improving its investment climate. Such improvement could then compensate for its other disadvantages such as inadequate infrastructure, the PM said. In his speech at the event, the PM also advised Dak Nong to promote trade development. According to PM Phuc, the province should focus on products overseas markets need rather than those it could supply. Fostering the application of technology to expand its production capacity and improve the quality of its products and surveying customers demand should also be included, he noted. During the conference, representatives from the FLC Group praised the strong commitments of local authorities in creating a transparent investment climate with many investment incentives, revealing the groups desire to develop tourism projects here. Other firms such as T&T and Sam Agritech expressed their interest in the provinces untapped agriculture sector thanks to the provinces large cultivated area, totalling about 588,000ha. At the conference, the provincial Peoples Committee granted investment licences to four projects worth of VND2.7 trillion ($116 million). The committee also signed deals worth total registered capital of more than VND48 trillion ($2.06 billion). Dak Nong is a gateway to the south of the Central Highlands. It shares a borderline of 130km with Cambodia and two border gates. The province has large areas of fertile land and mild climate suitable for agriculture, especially industrial crops and fruit trees. It is rich in mineral resources, particularly bauxite. It also has great potential for tourism development thanks to a beautiful landscape and the rich culture of local ethnic communities. Despite these advantages and potentials, the provinces results in investment attraction remained modest, local authorities said. Statistics from the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) revealed that the province lured only one foreign-invested project, worth US$48 million, in 2018. The latest addition has brought its total number of foreign-invested projects up to 12, capitalised at $145 million. Currently, the province ranks 53rd among 64 localities in terms of foreign direct investment attraction, FIAs data showed. In order to attract more investment, local authorities have put forth a number of specific policies and mechanisms to draw investors, including the approval of a resolution in August 2018 to encourage and attract investment in the province. Besides accelerating administrative reform, the province has promoted the application of information technology and improved the business investment environment. The province has put into operation two industrial parks on a combined area of 328ha and it is making a planning scheme for Nhan Co 2 Industrial Park on over 800ha to facilitate investment in mining and aluminium processing projects. Luu Van Trung, Director of the provincial Department of Planning and Investment, said the locality wanted to call for domestic and foreign economic groups to invest in the fields of hi-tech agriculture, mining, renewable energy, and tourism, in line with the provinces development direction for 2015-20. The 11th Congress of the provinces Party organisation for the 2015-20 tenure defined three breakthroughs for the local economy, which were mining-energy, processing-hi-tech agriculture, and tourism-service, Trung said. Chairpersons of districts should be responsible for ensuring roads and pavements are orderly. - kinhtedothi.com.vn Illegal parking, street vendors, impromptu markets, and use of pavements to store goods, dump waste and put up shop signboards are all common problems during the years biggest holidays. According to Department of Transport statistics, the city has 1,238 streets with a length of 1,716km that are over 7.5m wide, or 42.5 per cent of all roads. Only on these streets can vehicles be parked. Many districts like 1, 3, 4, 6, Thu Duc and Cu Chi are regularly patrolled, and authorities send text messages warning regular encroachers, thus reducing pavement and road encroachment on normal days. However, things could go pear-shaped if there is any laxness in patrolling, with street vendors with pushcarts capitalising on it. Impromptu markets are a common phenomenon, especially in the citys outskirts and around industrial parks. Public awareness of pavement and road encroachment is limited, street vending is a traditional practice and local authorities education is not effective and patrol is not often, Nguyen Ngoc Tuong, deputy chief of the citys Traffic Safety Committee, told Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) newspaper. The role local authorities play is the most important factor in improving the situation. Chairpersons of districts should be responsible for ensuring roads and pavements are orderly. The city Peoples Committee will arrange for temporary markets or build new ones to prevent impromptu ones from coming up and tighten control of production and sales of push carts. Education should be taken to the doorsteps of the public. (TNS) This year, when volunteers comb the region to count and interview San Diegos homeless population, theyll have a bit of high-tech help.Organizers of the annual Point-in-Time Count will use infrared technology on drones and helicopters to help them locate people living in canyons and other areas were they might be harder to find.The idea is that those images, and other changes planned for the Jan. 25 event, could provide more useful and accurate results.The count, conducted by the San Diego Regional Task Force on the Homeless as a funding requirement by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is challenging on many levels. Its done in pre-dawn hours, when people are most likely to be asleep, in an attempt to make them easier to count, but inevitably some people are missed.Task force CEO Tamera Kohler said several steps are being taken this year in an effort to count more people and gather more demographic information.There was some confusion and a little controversy with last years count. While the official report of 8,576 homeless people represented a 6 percent drop from last year, the count did not include at least 300 people who were staying at the San Diego Rescue Mission, which did not file its paperwork in time.Volunteers also did not count people who live in recreational vehicles last year, although some were counted in past years.The January count will include RVs as well as many people who have been missed in the past because they live in canyons and other places out of sight of volunteers.Taking a cue from Las Vegas, San Diego will use overhead thermal imaging devices that can locate people in the dark by detecting their heat.The San Diego Police Department will fly a helicopter equipped with thermal imaging equipment over central areas of the city and the Sheriffs Department will fly a helicopter with the devices over Lakeside.The Chula Vista Police Department also will use thermography to find people, but will fly a drone instead of a helicopter.Sheriffs Lt. Fran Passalacqua said the flights over Lakeside could find homeless people who have gone uncounted in past years.We thought this was a great opportunity, she said.Passalacqua said the largest number of homeless people in Lakeside are along the San Diego River near state Route 67 near Mapleview Street and at the end of Vine Street. A helicopter is scheduled to fly overhead before sunrise Jan. 25 to locate people in the area.The helicopter crew then will phone the volunteers doing the count to direct them to where people were detected, she said. For safety reasons, crews will wait until sunrise before walking into the brush to interview people in encampments.Passalacqua said a more accurate count could mean more money for homeless services in East County.The east region is severely lacking in resources for those who are homeless, she said. If we dont get an accurate count, how can we get resources? We do not have any shelters. We dont have a Father Joes or Alpha Project.San Diego County has the fourth largest homeless population in the nation but often is ranked 20th in funding from HUD.Last years countywide count found about 5,000 homeless people outdoors or in vehicles and about 3,600 in shelters.So far more than 700 people have volunteered to participate in this years count by registering at rtfh.volunteerhub.com. Volunteers also must participate in a one-hour online training session.HUD has pushed the task force to collect more information from homeless people, and 11 contracted workers from the federal agency have been in San Diego since Tuesday to help prepare for the count.The most significant change in this years count will be an increased effort to gather demographic information from more homeless people through a 21-question survey. People will be asked about their race, health, the reasons why they became homeless and for how long, whether they are a veteran, have a substance abuse problem and other questions.Only 19 percent of people counted last year were surveyed, and the goal this year is 50 percent, Kohler said.Conducting those surveys can be tricky, however, because the count begins at 4 a.m., when most people are asleep. The early hour is intended to make the count easier and avoid accidental duplicate counts that could happen when people are up and about.It also means the volunteers will have to wake people up to ask them questions.To prepare for that scenario, Kohler and point-in-time count coordinator Kathryn Duran participated in a trial run in December by going out with a Downtown San Diego Partnership crew that conducts monthly counts.Most volunteers in the January count wont have to wake people up, however. About 120 outreach workers, including people who work for nonprofit service provides and police officers in homeless outreach team, will conduct the surveys after participating in special training sessions.Volunteers will assist the outreach workers in teams of two or three, Durant said.Surveys wont be conducted in most of the 627 census tracts covered in the count, but only in areas with the most dense homeless populations to make the best use of resources.In a new approach, census tracts throughout the county are given priority numbers from one to five, with priority one having the highest homeless populations. Surveys will be conducted in priority one and two areas, which are found in parts of downtown, El Cajon, Spring Valley, East County and Ramona.Chula Vista also may open a parking lot for one night to allow homeless people in recreational vehicles a safe and legal place to park, she said.Also new this year, volunteers will interview all RV dwellers they find on public streets and will only count those who consider themselves homeless.Last years results were challenged by homeless advocate Michael McConnell, who asked HUD not to accept the task forces report because it didnt include RVs.HUD did accept the report, but said the task force should have followed the more preferred method of interviewing people in RVs to determine if they were homeless.Kohler said she does not know how many people in RVs will be included in the upcoming count because they had never been surveyed before. This years report will more accurately reflect who is homeless and who is simply choosing to live in recreational vehicles, she said. Jean-Marc Nasr, newly-appointed president Asia-Pacific, Airbus Based in Singapore, Jean-Marc Nasr will be responsible for Airbus overall strategy, industrial footprint, and operations in the region, as well as for advancing the companys One Roof policy to integrate its various business entities in key markets. The area led by Jean-Marc Nasr covers the whole Asia-Pacific region. In addition, Jean-Marc Nasr is concurrently nominated as head of Regional Sales Asia-Pacific, including China and India, for Airbus Defence and Space. In this role, he will be responsible for sales of the companys complete range of defence and space products in this area. Jean-Marc Nasr was until the end of December Head of Regional Sales for the Middle East, Africa, France and the UK for Airbus Defence and Space. He joined the division (then EADS Defence and Security) in 2005 and has previously held key management positions leading the secure networks, integrated systems, and cybersecurity businesses. Born in 1961, he began his career with Aerospatiale in 1986 and has an engineering degree from Frances Ecole Superieure d'Electricite and a PhD in Physics from the University of Paris. Jean-Marc has successfully led a diverse range of businesses within the Airbus organisation, said Patrick de Castelbajac, Airbus executive vice president Strategy and International. His proven management skills, commercial track record, and international experience make Jean-Marc the right choice to build our presence further in one of the most important regions for all areas of our business. We wish him every success. Jean-Marc Nasr succeeds Pierre Jaffre, who has led Airbus in the region for the past 18 years. Pierre Jaffre will remain with the company until October 2019 to ensure a smooth transition with his successor. In 2017 Airbus generated revenues of 67 billion ($76.6 billion) and employed a workforce of around 129,000. Airbus offers the most comprehensive range of passenger airliners from 100 to more than 600 seats. Airbus is also a European leader providing tanker, combat, transport, and mission aircraft, as well as one of the worlds leading space companies. In helicopters, Airbus provides the most efficient civil and military rotorcraft solutions worldwide. In Vietnam, Airbus aircraft have been present since 1991, when Singapore-based Regionair began operating A310 wide-body aircraft on behalf of Vietnam Airlines. This was followed at the end of 1993 by the arrival of the first of seven 150-seat A320s, operated under a wet lease agreement with Air France. Vietnam is now an important market for Airbus, which is a partner of airlines and leasing companies in Vietnam. Customers include Vietnam Airlines, Jetstar Pacific, VietJet Air, and Vietnam Aviation Leasing Company. To date, Airbus has sold almost 200 civil passenger aircraft to airlines and leasing companies in Vietnam. Together, they have placed orders for aircraft, including the best-selling single-aisle A320 family, the popular and versatile A330 wide-body, and the all-new long-haul A350 XWB. Vietnam Airlines increase competitiveness with new aircraft The national carrier Vietnam Airlines has officially welcomed the new Airbus A321neo, starting its launch of an additional 20 narrow-body aircraft scheduled for delivery by ... Airbus to cooperate with Vietnam in space industry development Airbus will work with Vietnam to develop the countrys space industry following a letter of intent inked recently between the company and the Ministry of ... The smash-hit comedy Sex Tips for Straight Women from a Gay Man recently celebrated its 500th performance at Paris Las Vegas. Stars of the show Mark Melton, Katie Kenner, and Chris Hodgson celebrated with a custom cake made in honor of this momentous performance. Voted Best Comedy for Couples, Sex Tips for Straight Women from a Gay Man became Off-Broadways Longest Running Comedy in New York and launched a national tour before making its Las Vegas debut with Kendra Wilkinson and Jai Rodriguez in 2017. Scheana Shay (Vanderpump Rules) and Chester Lockhart (MTVs TODRICK) also starred in the pop culture phenomenon in 2018. This hilarious production has also been featured in three reality television series whose stars performed in the show, including Kendra on Top, Real Housewives of New York, and Shahs of Sunset. The source material, the internationally bestselling book of the same title, has been published in more than 50 countries and translated into 17 languages. A co-production of Matt Murphy and Shawn Nightingale, Sex Tips for Straight Women from a Gay Man has been hailed by Robin Leach of Las Vegas Review Journal as a laugh-out-loud hilarious and wild show! and by Las Vegas Magazine as an evening of big laughs and naughty fun! About 3,000 survivors of Indias anti-Christian riots of more than 10 years ago joined Church authorities, lay leaders and rights activists on Jan 12 in Raikia, Odisha states Kandhamal district, to assess the state of justice. By Robin Gomes The Catholic Church of eastern Indias Odisha state organized a meeting on Saturday to assess the state of justice and compensation with regard to the victims and survivors of the terrible anti-Christian violence in the state more than 10 years ago. About 3,000 survivors of the violence of Christmas 2007 and August 2008 and thereafter, together with Catholic Church authorities, lay leaders and rights activists gathered on Jan. 12 in Raikia town of Odishas Kandhamal district that was the epicentre of the outrage. Hell broke loose on the Christians of Kandhamal on August 25, 2008, after Hindu extremists blamed Christians for the August 23 murder of Hindu leader Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, even though Maoist rebels claimed the assassination. The Justice, Peace and Development Commission of the Archdiocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar under whose jurisdiction comes Kandhamal district, organized the Raikia meeting. It was attended, among others, by local Archbishop John Barwa, senior Supreme Court advocate Colin Gonsalves, Thomas Minze, president of the "All India Catholic Odisha" association and several lawyers, priests, activists and lay leaders. Those present reiterated their approach to peace, justice and human dignity, noting the urgency of compensation for those whose homes were completely damaged by the wave of violence. Father Ajaya Kumar Singh is the secretary of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Odisha Bishops Regional Council (OBRC). The priest of Cuttack-Bhubaneshwar Archdiocese who was at the Raikia meeting spoke to Vatican News about it. Listen to Fr. Ajaya Kumar Singh Justice denied Fr. Singh said that ten years after the violence, the victims, their families and survivors still await justice. In addition, 7 Adivasi Dalit (indigenous of low cast origin) Christians who were falsely accused of the murder of Lakshmanananda, are behind bars for the last 10 years under life imprisonment. On the contrary, not a single person who committed heinous crimes such as murder, gang rape, arson, looting and destruction of churches and homes, is behind bars. Besides, Fr. Singh said, there is also a huge amount of intimidation and threat against justice and the Christians. A 2016 ruling by the Supreme Court of India had ordered compensation to the victims and survivors of the violence but Fr. Singh said it is not going the way they are expecting. Those who have been denied or not enlisted for compensation are running from office to office without any result. Another major Supreme Court verdict ordered the re-opening of 315 cases of violence and injustice against the Christians of Kandhamal. The priest lamented that not a single case has been re-opened so far. This shows the apathy, indifference and mockery of the countrys apex court by both the state and union governments. Death and damages Fr. Singh pointed out that the 2007 and 2008 violence on Christians was the worst in past 300 years in India. Hundreds of innocent people were killed or injured in the violence, nearly 7000 homes were reduced to ashes and 395 churches were demolished. This went on for 6 to 7 months but what Fr. Singh regrets most is that 10 years after the violence, people still havent been able to return to their homes and villages. Some hope The priest drew some hope from last months Supreme Court life sentence to a man for crimes in the notorious 1984 anti-Sikh violence that erupted following the assassination of then Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, by her two Sikh bodyguards. Fr. Singh said that the sentence after 34 years gives hope to the survivors of Kandhamal violence, and they gathered in Raikia on Jan. 12 to see how they can obtain justice. The Tennessee Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that the Nashville vote that created a civilian board with the power to investigate police was legitimate, rejecting the police union's challenge and clearing the way for the board to begin work.In the ruling, the Court of Appeals sided with the Davidson County Circuit Court, which threw out the challenge in September. Nashville voters in November approved the formation of a community oversight board while the appeal was pending.Advocacy group Community Oversight Now gathered signatures to put the issue on the Nov. 6 ballot. In a crackdown on political candidates who file campaign reports late or not at all, the Oklahoma Ethics Commission for the first time has filed lawsuits over unpaid late fees.The watchdog agency on Thursday sued former state Sen. Anastasia Pittman and 13 other former candidates for public office.It also sued two lobbyists and two political action committees.The lawsuits filed in Oklahoma County District Court represent a new get-tough approach by the Ethics Commission. Its executive director warned Thursday that it would be going to court over outstanding fees once or twice a year beginning now. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (L) shakes hands with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during their meeting at the UN headquarters in New York, Jan. 14, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is in New York on Monday for a takeover of the chairmanship of the Group of 77 (G77) developing countries. Abbas is expected to attend a ceremony at UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday for the handover of the G77 chairmanship from Egypt to Palestine for the year 2019. Upon arrival in New York on Monday, Abbas met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Guterres congratulated the State of Palestine for assuming the G77 chairmanship and expressed his wishes for a successful year for the group, said Guterres' press office after the meeting. Guterres reiterated that the two-state solution is the only viable option to sustainable peace in the region, said the office. The G77, which got its name from 77 founding members, is a group of 133 developing countries at the United Nations. China aligns itself with the group, whose aim is to promote collective economic interests of the members and to try to have a bigger say in the world organization. 4 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen will arrive in Damascus on Tuesday for talks with a number of Syrian government officials, an informed source told Sputnik on Monday DAMASCUS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th January, 2019) UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen will arrive in Damascus on Tuesday for talks with a number of Syrian government officials, an informed source told Sputnik on Monday. Pedersen took up his duties as the UN Special Envoy for Syria on January 7. This will be his first visit to Damascus. "Pedersen will arrive in Damascus on Tuesday and hold a series of meetings with Syrian officials," the source said, without specifying the level of meetings. Geir Pedersen, newly appointed UN envoy to Syria, will start a three-day visit to the Arab country on Monday, the pro-government al-Watan newspaper reported DAMASCUS, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Jan, 2019 ) :Geir Pedersen, newly appointed UN envoy to Syria, will start a three-day visit to the Arab country on Monday, the pro-government al-Watan newspaper reported. It will be the first visit of Pederson, a Norwegian diplomat, to Syria since his recent appointment after the resignation of his predecessor, Staffan de Mistura, over personal reasons after four years as the UN envoy to Syria. Ayman Soussan, assistant of the Syrian Foreign Minister, was cited by al-Watan as saying the new envoy would achieve what his predecessors could not. The Syrian government has expressed readiness to cooperate with the new UN envoy to make his mission a success, the newspaper said. During his four-year mission in Syria, Mistura could not mediate a workable solution between the Syrian government and the opposition to end the more than seven-year crisis. SPEED READ: Funding will run out at the end of February for food stamps and at the end of January for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, if the shutdown has not ended. States must pick up the tab for food stamps, but because TANF was not reauthorized in December, they can cut those benefits. The food stamps program cost the federal government $4 billion a month. What Happens If TANF Runs Out During the Shutdown? As the longest shutdown in U.S. history drags into its fourth week, and the standoff between Congress and the White House shows no signs of thawing, states are starting to scramble to figure out how to fund their safety-net programs, which are in higher demand because close to a million federal workers aren't receiving paychecks.The federal government has allocated money for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, through the end of February. Before that, at the end of this month, states will run out of money for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, also known as cash welfare.The two programs function differently, which may decide how -- or whether -- states step in to fill the holes.SNAP -- which serves around 14 percent of the U.S. population -- is fully funded by the federal government and doles out $4 billion a month to states.If the government is still shut down in February, states will have to pick up the tab.The idea that a state could cover that gap with state funding is a really daunting idea and probably not possible, says Ann Flagg, director of the Center for Child and Family Well-Being at the American Public Human Services Association. There arent existing line-items in state budgets that can be shifted. And even if a state would try, theres no guarantee theyd be reimbursed from the feds. (Nearly four years after the 2013 shutdown, Arizona, Colorado, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah were still waiting to get reimbursed by the federal government.)Flagg says states are "deep in contingency planning mode." Many, she says, are looking to public-private partnerships or community organizations to potentially help fill the gaps.Unlike SNAP, states have a bit more wiggle room with TANF, which covers 3.4 million people, for several reasons.Its jointly funded by states and the federal government; states are allowed to use leftover money from the last fiscal year to fund it; and states can also take money from other TANF-funded services -- including child care -- to supplement the loss.A spokesperson for Oregon's Department of Administrative Services told KATU that the state has some leftover funds from last year to help plug TANF holes in February, but it may be challenging.The program expired at the end of December when the government shut down, so even when it reopens, Congress will have to reauthorize TANF funding before any is available. Furthermore, states are not required to continue TANF during a lapse in authorization, according to James Nash, spokesperson for the National Governors Association.As of now, no state has announced that it will cut TANF until Congress reauthorizes it, but it would not be unprecedented: Arizona briefly cut TANF benefits during the 2013 shutdown.On Monday, the House unanimously passeda bill to reauthorize TANF, but it still needs to be taken up by the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has blocked voting in the Senate until Democrats budge on President Trump's border wall.Since SNAP is such a large program in size and scope, its causing the greatest amount of concern," says Flagg. "There are just fewer options to fill in the gaps." But, she stresses that SNAP and TANF touch so many other safety-net programs that Americans rely on -- from food pantries to shelters for victims of domestic violence. All of these things are interconnected, and its hurting families." A celebration of the life for John Robert "Bobby" Brown, 72, will be held at his residence on Wednesday, June 16, 2021, at 10 a.m. Bobby was born in Dublin, but his home was Baldwin County. He was predeceased by his parents, John Preston "Pete" Brown and Virginia Watson Brown. He was retired The punishment (and attendant reeducation) of two Bedford police officers may have been a bit harsh for their offense but thats difficult to determine. In fact, Chief John Bryfonski has not shed much light on laffaire TikTok, in which two of his men using the video social platform apparent IT GOT INTO the 90s back home the other day and friends complained to me over the phone though guiltily because they knew Id spent a day in the ER in New York which, honestly, had been a beautiful illuminatory experience and not miserable at all, but they felt sheepish about complaining of President Donald Trumps warning that the partial federal government shutdown could last for months or even years has states, cities and businesses increasingly nervous.States depend on federal money to pay for food stamps, welfare and programs such as the Child Care and Development Fund Plan, the National Flood Insurance Program and the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which provides matching grants for state and local parks and recreation projects.Marcia Howard, the executive director of the nonprofit Federal Funds Information for States, said states have enough leftover federal dollars, plus money of their own, to keep key programs going for several weeks but any period longer than that would create significant problems. The longest previous shutdown was for 21 days, in 1995-1996.We dont know how it goes, Howard said. We dont know how it gets resolved. And states are as curious as everyone else.In Michigan, for example, $22 billion of the $57 billion state budget comes from the federal government. A spokesman for the Michigan State Budget Office, Kurt Weiss, said the state wouldnt face significant challenges until 45 days have elapsed. But the day that marks the end of that period, Feb. 5, is fast approaching.Thats when we push the panic button, Weiss said. We are starting to get more concerned. We need to start taking this seriously.Weiss office recently asked the heads of state agencies to assess how long they can remain open without federal dollars and which of their programs are most essential. Their responses are due Friday.A spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Jennifer Holton, said her department is reevaluating its budget ahead of the deadline, but would not comment on specific programs.Minnesota also is trying to get a handle on how long its state agencies can operate without federal dollars. Myron Frans, the commissioner of Minnesota Management and Budget, said his state has contingency plans for short-term shutdowns that last for days, but not months.Those people need that money, Frans said of the Minnesotans who depend on federally funded programs. What do we do? How do we plan to help these people when payments get cut off?We need to accept the fact that this shutdown is going to last a long time.The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as food stamps, is funded through the month. If the shutdown lasts longer, the benefit might be cut off, affecting about 40 million people. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC, already ran out of money.That has New Jersey officials concerned. A spokesman for the state Department of Human Services, Tom Hester, said if the shutdown lasts past January, it could affect 730,000 food stamp recipients and 12,600 Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients in New Jersey.We are closely monitoring actions at the federal level and any potential impacts on New Jersey, Hester said. He wouldnt expand on what the state would do, however, if the shutdown lasts past the end of the month.Federal funding for Medicaid, the joint federal-state health care program for low-income people, is not immediately in jeopardy because Congress already has approved the federal share of those payments through September.The shutdown effect on national parks is familiar to states. Arizona, California, New York and Utah are among those that are using state dollars to keep some of their national parks open and protect their local tourism industries by providing basic services such as trash pickup and restroom cleaning.There is no guarantee that states will be reimbursed for those outlays, Howard said. Its up to Congress to determine whether to pay back states, and though it has done so after some shutdowns, states have not always been made whole.Four years after the two-week shutdown in 2013, for example, Arizona, Colorado, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah still hadnt gotten paid back after shelling out millions to keep parks open.In Utah, state Rep. Ken Ivory said the federal government still has not paid his state back for the 2013 shutdown, and he can only hope it pays Utah back for this shutdown. The biggest issue for the state now, he said, is uncertainty.People plan for years and years in advance to see these iconic landscapes that we have, the Republican lawmaker said. We spent a lot of money for a marketing campaign because of the black eye that the federal government imposed on us last time.As a result of the shutdown, 420,000 federal employees are working without pay and 380,000 have been furloughed, according to a Democratic report from the Senate Appropriations Committee.The economies of Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., which have the highest concentrations of federal workers, will feel the impact of those missed paychecks most acutely. But they arent the only places: Federal employees make up at least 3 percent of the workforce in Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and West Virginia.Hundreds of Marylanders are applying for unemployment insurance benefits because of the shutdown, the Baltimore Sun has found. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, lambasted the shutdowns impact on the 147,000 federal employees who live in his state, calling it unacceptable.City officials across the country also are worried. Steve Benjamin, the Democratic mayor of Columbia, South Carolina, and the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, called the shutdown a crisis for cities.Because the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is closed, officials there wont process Section 8 and veterans housing vouchers, or answer cities questions on grants, Benjamin said. Cities may soon have to work with landlords, food banks and within their own limited budgets to help residents get by in the meantime.This is affecting peoples lives, he said. Were not just talking about the 800,000 federal workers. Our most economically vulnerable and hardest-working citizens wont be able to pay rent.The National League of Cities program director for community and economic development, Michael Wallace, said rural residents who are using federal loans to purchase homes have not been able to close on their new properties because the Department of Agriculture is closed, creating unexpected hardship.If the shutdown extends into February, he said, cities are going to have to transfer money from other programs and services to make sure their residents are fed and sheltered.The shutdown needlessly complicates what should be standard transactions between different levels of government, Wallace said. We dont have a lot of experience with shutdowns that have lasted this long. Cities are going to have to figure out how to get by until the government resumes. MANCHESTER School board members are expected to vote later this month on a Request for Proposals for firms to assist in the search for a new For full access, please log in, register your subscription or subscribe. Try for 99 a month for two months, cancel or pause anytime. When Mr. Trump first raised the possibility of leaving the alliance, senior administration officials were unsure if he was serious. There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years. Last year, President Trump suggested a move tantamount to destroying NATO: the withdrawal of the United States. Read alsoUkrainian general speaks of country's NATO membership prospects Senior administration officials told The New York Times that several times over the course of 2018, Mr. Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Current and former officials who support the alliance said they feared Mr. Trump could return to his threat as allied military spending continued to lag behind the goals the president had set. In the days around a tumultuous NATO summit meeting last summer, they said, Mr. Trump told his top national security officials that he did not see the point of the military alliance, which he presented as a drain on the United States. At the time, Mr. Trump's national security team, including Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary, and John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, scrambled to keep American strategy on track without mention of a withdrawal that would drastically reduce Washington's influence in Europe and could embolden Russia for decades. Now, the president's repeatedly stated desire to withdraw from NATO is raising new worries among national security officials amid growing concern about Mr. Trump's efforts to keep his meetings with Mr. Putin secret from even his own aides, and an F.B.I. investigation into the administration's Russia ties. Read alsoUkraine has every chance of joining NATO after Macedonia head of Ukraine's mission to NATO A move to withdraw from the alliance, in place since 1949, "would be one of the most damaging things that any president could do to U.S. interests," said Michele A. Flournoy, an under secretary of defense under President Barack Obama. "It would destroy 70-plus years of painstaking work across multiple administrations, Republican and Democratic, to create perhaps the most powerful and advantageous alliance in history," Ms. Flournoy said in an interview. "And it would be the wildest success that Vladimir Putin could dream of." Retired Adm. James G. Stavridis, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, said an American withdrawal from the alliance would be "a geopolitical mistake of epic proportion." "Even discussing the idea of leaving NATO let alone actually doing so would be the gift of the century for Putin," Admiral Stavridis said. Senior Trump administration officials discussed the internal and highly sensitive efforts to preserve the military alliance on condition of anonymity. When Mr. Trump first raised the possibility of leaving the alliance, senior administration officials were unsure if he was serious. He has returned to the idea several times, officials said increasing their worries. The expert says Russia will retain most of the territory. Christo Grozev, one of Bellingcat's contributors and a senior researcher at Risk Management Lab, has said the Kremlin is considering a referendum on the disputed Kuril Islands to legitimize the annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. "Moscow source: 'A referendum [on the] Kuril Islands is being considered resulting in partial handover of [the] islands to Japan. [The] goal is to legitimize [the] Crimean referendum and reset relations with the West. The referendum will be tightly managed; majority of territory will remain in Russia,'" he wrote on Twitter on January 14, 2019. Moscow source: A referendum in Kuril Islands is being considered resulting in partial handover of islands to Japan. Goal is the legitimize Crimean referendum and reset relations with the West. The referendum will be tightly managed,; majority of territory will remain in Russia Christo Grozev (@christogrozev) January 14, 2019 Grozev later explained how the "Kremlogic" works: "1. We stand for self-determination; 2. We allowed Kurillers to secede, ergo we permitted [a] fair referendum on Crimea." UNIAN memo. Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea in March 2014 after its troops had occupied the peninsula. An illegal referendum was held for Crimeans to decide on accession to Russia. De-facto Crimean authorities reported that allegedly 96.77% of the Crimean population had voted for joining Russia. On March 18, 2014, the so-called agreement on the accession of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol to Russia was signed in the Kremlin. The West did not recognize the annexation in response to which sanctions against Russia were introduced. Ukraine's parliament voted to designate February 20, 2014, as the official date when the temporary occupation of Crimea began. According to the president, Javelin guided missiles are able to strike tanks at a sufficient range. President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said that, after the Armed Forces of Ukraine received Javelin anti-tank missiles, tank attacks on Ukrainian positions in Donbas by the Russian occupation forces ceased. I'd like to draw attention to the psychological effect of the provision of Javelins to Ukraine," the president said as he was addressing representatives of businesses and public in Volyn region, according to an UNIAN correspondent. As soon as the Russian tankers heard that the Ukrainian military, armed with Javelins, could be at this sector of the front, able to 'shoot and forget'," Russian tank crews "refused to deploy and shell Ukrainian positions." Read alsoNational Guard receives 500 U.S.-made grenade launchers (Photo) "We're not seeing tank attacks now. This is the effect of only one type of weapon, the head of state added. As UNIAN reported earlier, at the end of 2017, the Donald Trump Administration decided to sell Ukraine lethal weapons, in particular Javelin anti-tank missile systems. On March 2, 2018, the U.S. State Department approved the sale to Ukraine of 210 Javelin missiles and 37 launchers worth a total of about $47 million. Read alsoUkrainian Army about to get powerful Canadian sniper rifles On April 30, the Ukrainian president announced that Javelins had been delivered to Ukraine. On May 22, Ukraine successfully tested the new weapons. Peskov says everything depends on the elections in Ukraine in 2019. The Kremlin says the election of the president of Ukraine and the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, will determine whether the "conflict" in Donbas is going to be "frozen for many decades" or resolved. Read alsoRussian-led forces in Donbas lose over two dozen people in December 2018 blogger "It will depend on Kyiv whether the war party comes to power. In this case, there is no chance that the conflict will end. On the contrary, if there is a party of peace and diplomacy, then there is a chance," Russian president's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said in an interview to the Russian Argumenty i Fakty newspaper. As UNIAN reported earlier, the Ukrainian-based Information Resistance (IR) OSINT group said "leaders" of the self-proclaimed republics in Donbas the "Donetsk People's Republic" ("DPR") and the "Luhansk People's Republic" ("LPR") had announced that residents of Luhansk and Donetsk regions with the so-called "DPR and LPR passports" would be able to get Russian passports after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a relevant decree. The terrorists' non-combat losses were six people. Ukrainian blogger aka Necro Mancer estimates the Russian occupation forces in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, lost over two dozen people in December 2018. Read alsoAnother member of Russian-led terrorist forces eliminated in Donbas (Photo) According to his data, the terrorists' combat losses were 19 people. Another two unidentified fighters were reportedly eliminated near the village of Zholobok on December 21, as reported by the Russian-led forces themselves. The terrorists' non-combat losses were six people, the blogger said. The losses include five citizens of the Russian Federation (three of them were killed in action). In addition, one former mercenary with Russian citizenship died in Russia; the causes of his death are not disclosed. As UNIAN reported earlier, four members of Russian-led forces were killed and another three were wounded in Donbas on January 14, according to Ukrainian intelligence reports. According to intelligence reports, four enemy troops were eliminated and another three were wounded. Russia's hybrid military forces mounted 12 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas in the past 24 hours, with one Ukrainian soldier reported as killed in action (KIA) and another two as wounded in action (WIA). Read alsoDonbas death toll rises as Ukraine reports 1 KIA, 2 WIAs on Monday "One Ukrainian soldier was killed and another two were wounded in the past day. According to intelligence reports, four occupiers were killed and another three were wounded," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) said in an update on Facebook as of 07:00 Kyiv time on January 15, 2019. Russian occupation forces opened aimed fire from grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, and small arms to attack the defenders of the villages of Novomykhailivka, Pavlopil, Starohnativka, Chermalyk, Taramchuk, Pisky, Vodiane, Hladosove, Novotoshkivske, Krymske, and Triokhizbenka. "Since Tuesday midnight, Russian-led forces have attacked the Ukrainian positions near the village of Slavne, using grenade launchers, while those near the village of Novo-Oleksandrivka came under fire from automatic grenade launchers. No casualties among Ukrainian troops have been reported since the start of the day," the report said. The invaders opened fire on Ukrainian positions five times from day-start. One Ukrainian soldier was killed in action and another two were wounded in Donbas on Monday, according to a report by the Joint Forces Operation Staff as of 18:00 Kyiv time. The invaders opened fire on Ukrainian positions five times from day-start. "In the operational area of the "Skhid" ["East"] Grouping, the enemy opened fire from large-caliber machine guns and small arms at positions of the Ukrainian military outside Novomykhailivka, from grenade launchers near the village of Pavlopil, from grenade launchers, large-caliber machine guns, and small arms near the village of Starohnativka, and from large-caliber machine guns and small arms in the area of the village of Chermalyk," the JFO press center wrote on Facebook. Read alsoTurkish strike drones to boost Ukraine's defense capabilities Air Force As a result of criminal attacks by Russian occupation forces, one soldier of the Joint Forces was killed and another two were wounded, according to the report. At the same time, the press service says the Ukrainian military continue monitoring the enemy along the contact line while observing ceasefire conditions. Bayraktar TB2 UAVs boast of a 150 kg combat load, able to carry missiles, while reconnaissance remains one of its main tasks given a long operating range. Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 strike drones will significantly strengthen Ukraine's defense capability, the country's Air Force Command reported. No information has been revealed yet on the exact units that will receive the new equipment, the report says. The Turkish product is the first drone of such type in the Ukrainian Army's arsenal. The enemy will have to react to this. For example, if there is even one submarine in the water area, whatever type it is, anti-submarine measures have to be taken, so once we've received these drones, this certainly brings advantage, the Air Force official said. Read alsoUkraine to buy Turkish strike drones Poroshenko Bayraktar TB2 UAVs boast of a 150 kg combat load, able to carry missiles, while reconnaissance remains one of its main tasks given a long operating range. The Command noted the need to complete appropriate training of UAV operators before the strike drones are put to service. As UNIAN reported earlier, on January 12, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko announced the signing of an agreement on the purchase of Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 strike drones for the needs of the Ukrainian army. None of them was vaccinated against the flu. Nineteen people, including a pregnant woman and three children, have died of influenza in Ukraine. "I'd like to inform about 19 deaths from influenza, among them are a pregnant woman, three children, two medical workers. And none of them was vaccinated against the flu," head of the influenza and acute respiratory viral infection (ARVI) department of the Ukrainian Health Ministry's Public Health Center Oksana Artemchuk told TV Channel Pryamiy. Read alsoAmbulance teams' response time researched in Ukraine "According to an update for last week, the number of influenza and ARVI cases grew mainly among the adult population in Ukraine. Children were on vacation, they returned to school on Monday, so starting next week we will see a surge in flu and ARVI cases among children," she said. Epidemic thresholds across Ukraine on the average are not exceeded, she said. "On the contrary, we are below the threshold, it is good. However, epidemic thresholds are higher than the norm in certain regions, namely in Zhytomyr, Sumy, Odesa regions. The number of cases in those regions, especially in Zhytomyr region, is nearing an epidemic," she added. A mere 0.4% of Ukrainians were vaccinated against influenza. Flu vaccination is not mandatory in Ukraine. The detainee, who is now in a detention center in Kherson, will be transported to Kyiv. The case on the merits against chief of the Russian RIA Novosti's Kyiv office Kirill Vyshinsky, who was detained on May 15, 2018, on treason charges, will be considered by one of the district courts of Kyiv. "Vyshinsky and his lawyers were informed about the completion of a pretrial investigation into the criminal proceedings and given access to pretrial investigation materials. Under Article 12 of the Law of Ukraine 'On ensuring the rights and freedoms of citizens and the legal regime in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine,' the Kyiv Court of Appeal will decide which jurisdiction this case falls under," the press service of the Ukrainian-based Crimean prosecutor's office, which supervised the pretrial investigation conducted by the SBU Security Service's Main Directorate for Crimea, told UNIAN. Read alsoKremlin doesn't consider Sushchenko swap for Vyshinsky The prosecutor's office also said the case against Vyshinsky would be transferred for consideration to one of the district courts of Kyiv, where the detainee would be transported from a detention center in Kherson. As UNIAN reported earlier, the press secretary of the Ukrainian SBU Security Service's chief, Olena Gitlianska, said on May 15, 2018, SBU officers had conducted raids in the office of RIA Novosti Ukraine in Kyiv. Later, it became known that Vyshinsky was detained and indicted on charges of high treason. The SBU and prosecutors had uncovered the illegal activity of a Russian-controlled media chain in Ukraine. It was established that in spring 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea, Vyshinsky produced anti-Ukrainian materials and received a medal "For the Return of Crimea" from Russian President Vladimir Putin, the SBU said. Vyshinsky jointly with several other journalists started actively supporting the terrorist organizations in Donbas, the "DPR" and the "LPR," after his return from Crimea in 2014. Deputy head of the SBU Security Service of Ukraine Viktor Kononenko said Vyshinsky had been paid EUR 53,000 every month for discrediting the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Vyshinsky's lawyer said on May 16 his client had been transferred by Ukrainian law enforcers from Kyiv to Kherson for hearings on a preventive measure. On May 17, the Kherson City Court chose Vyshinsky a preventive measure in the form of detention. In November, the court extended the arrest of the suspect until January 27, 2019. On January 10, 2019, the pretrial investigation into Vyshinsky's case was completed. This year, the Ukrainian military will take part in 20 exercises on foreign soil. The Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2019 will take part in six multinational exercises in Ukraine. Also, the Army will participate in 20 joint exercises abroad, as reported by the Ministry of Defense. According to First Deputy Head of the Main Directorate for Training of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Ihor Podolian, the largest military exercises will be "Rapid Trident", "Sea Breeze", "Maple Arch" and "Riverine". Read alsoUkraine, NATO jointly defending Europe against Russian aggression Poroshenko at Sea Breeze 2018 Ukrainian military will partake in command and staff exercises and training, tactical exercises, and flight tactical exercises. Last year, within the framework of international cooperation, five large-scale international exercises took place on the territory of Ukraine. The interior ministry pledges full assistance to the team of observers. Some 850 OSCE observers will arrive in Ukraine to monitor the upcoming presidential elections, the press service of Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs wrote on Facebook on Tuesday, January 15. It is noted that the ministry has set up a special working group to provide for effective cooperation with the monitors and ensure public security during the electoral process. Also, the interior ministry said it would guarantee safety of OSCE representatives. "We are ready to provide full assistance to the OSCE observers in their work. We already have the coordination headquarters set up at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, while regional headquarters are in the process of creation. We are making every effort to ensure that elections are fair, transparent and in line with European standards," said Ivan Stoiko, the advisor to the interior minister. Read alsoWashington urges Moscow not to use captured Ukrainian sailors as "political pawns" In turn, head of the Ministry, Arsen Avakov, stressed that all presidential candidates would be guaranteed protection. At a meeting of the Ministry of Internal Affairs attended by a member of the CEC, the OPORA Civil Network, members of the board of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and National Police leadership, we agreed on mechanisms for ensuring public safety and legality of the elections," Avakov wrote on Facebook. "We'll be acting resolutely and in coordination. All candidates will receive protection, not preferences," the minister wrote. Earlier on Tuesday, Moscow's Lefortovo district court extended the detention term for 12 captive Ukrainian sailors until April 24. Russia must release Ukraines sailors immediately, not use them as political pawns, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine wrote on Twitter Tuesday. "For over 50 days, Russia has unjustly detained Ukrainian sailors who were exercising Ukraines freedom of navigation in its territorial waters," the American diplomats wrote. "We are deeply concerned about their health & rights." Russia must release Ukraines sailors immediately, not use them as political pawns. For over 50 days, Russia has unjustly detained Ukrainian sailors who were exercising Ukraines freedom of navigation in its territorial waters. We are deeply concerned about their health & rights. U.S. Embassy Kyiv (@USEmbassyKyiv) January 15, 2019 As UNIAN reported earlier on Tuesday, Moscow's Lefortovo district court extended the detention term for 12 captive Ukrainian sailors until April 24. UNIAN memo. On the morning of November 25, Russia blocked the passage to the Kerch Strait for the Ukrainian tugboat "Yany Kapu" and two armored naval boats "Berdyansk" and "Nikopol," which were on a scheduled re-deployment from the Black Sea port of Odesa to the Azov Sea port of Mariupol. The Ukraine Navy Command noted that the Russian side had been informed of the plans to re-deploy the vessels in advance in accordance with international standards to ensure the safety of navigation. The Russian coast guard ship "Don" rammed the Ukrainian tugboat, damaging the Ukrainian vessel. As the Ukrainian boats were heading back in the Odesa direction after being rejected passage via the Kerch Strait, Russian coast guards opened aimed fire on them. Read alsoEU urges Russia to immediately release Ukrainian sailors, Pavlo Hryb, Edem Bekirov, other political prisoners All 24 crew members on board were captured and later remanded in custody for two months, being charged with "illegal border crossing" (the sailors are facing up to six years in prison). Three crewmen were wounded in the attack. Russian-controlled "courts" in occupied Crimea ruled that all 24 detainees should be remanded in custody, after which they were transferred to the Moscow-based Lefortovo and Matrosskaya Tishina detention centers. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin says the Russian Federation will exploit the issue of the release of Ukrainian sailors and political prisoners captured by Moscow in the context of the upcoming Ukraine elections. On Jan 8, 2019, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said Russia would exploit the issue of the release of Ukrainian sailors and political prisoners captured by Moscow in the context of the upcoming Ukraine elections. Slovakia took over the OSCE chairmanship from Italy on January 1 for the next 12 months. OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic Miroslav Lajcak has made his first visit to Ukraine. "Today, I travelled to Ukraine on my first visit as OSCE Chairperson-in-Office. Directly after my arrival, I received a comprehensive briefing from OSCE_SMM on their work and the security situation in and around Ukraine," he wrote on Twitter on January 15, 2019. Today, I travelled to #Ukraine on my first visit as @OSCE Chairperson-in-Office. Directly after my arrival, I received a comprehensive briefing from @OSCE_SMM on their work and the security situation in and around Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/PGW30tuQye Miroslav Lajcak (@MiroslavLajcak) January 15, 2019 As UNIAN reported earlier, Slovakia took over the OSCE chairmanship from Italy on January 1 for the next 12 months. On January 10, Lajcak announced his visit to Ukraine. In a statement on Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the deal was a Western plot to draw the Balkan country into the NATO security alliance. The Greek Foreign Ministry has dismissed Moscow's criticism of the deal to resolve the name dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) as tantamount to meddling in Greece's affairs. Read alsoRFE/RL: Macedonian Parliament votes to change country's name In a statement on Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the deal was a Western plot to draw the Balkan country into the NATO security alliance, Ekathimerini reported. In response, the Greek Foreign Ministry said the Russian Foreign Ministry's decision to cite political developments in countries which enjoy friendly relations with Moscow is "incompatible" with Greek-Russian bilateral ties and the long-standing bonds of friendship between the two peoples. The ministry went on to say that legitimate concerns are raised as the Russian Foreign Ministry statement overlooks the democratic functioning of institutions in Greece, whose constitution has clear provisions for dealing with anything that impacts the country's internal political order. Last week, FYROM lawmakers ratified the deal under which the country will be renamed "Republic of North Macedonia." The deal, which has met with fierce opposition in both countries, also needs to be ratified by the Greek Parliament. "The decision by Macedonia's Parliament, which voted in favor of changing the country's name, has been imposed from outside and does not reflect the will of the people," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "It is clear that there is an ongoing process imposed from outside which is aimed at changing the country's name in an artificial way with the ultimate goal of forcefully inducting Skopje into NATO. This is taking place in violation of Macedonian law," the ministry said, adding that FYROM President Gjorge Ivanov and the majority of the country's population were against the agreement. Moscow plans to refer the issue to the United Nations Security Council. Dmytro Salamatin, who headed the ministry during the Yanukovych rule, is believed to have been working in Moscow's interests to oust Ukraine from global arms markets. Ukraine's former Defense Minister Dmytro Salamatin is suspected of participation in the criminal organization set up by ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, according to Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko. Salamatin is charged with high treason in the interests of Russia, undermining the country's defenses, as well as national and economic security by committing deliberate actions aimed at ousting Ukraine from global arms markets in Russia's favor. He is also suspected of illegal seizure of property on a large scale by abusing his official position. In one episode alone, Salamatin's deliberate actions in disrupting the contract between the state-owned Kharkiv-based Morozov Engineering Design Bureau, Antonov, and Progres with Iraq's Defense Ministry for the supply, repair, and maintenance of military equipment led to $560 million in losses, according to Lutsenko. Read alsoUkraine manufactures prototype of APC hull from steel supplied by NATO ally PGO spokesperson Larysa Sargan said that Salamatin's actions led to a significant deterioration in Ukraine-Iraq relations, early termination of contracts, and gave Russia an opportunity to strengthen their negotiating position in the market as Ukraine's competitor. Also, Sargan noted that as a result, since the termination of the Iraq contracts, Ukraine has not concluded any similar large-scale contracts in the defense area. As UNIAN reported earlier, on January 4, came the reports that former Defense Minister Dmytro Salamatin had been summoned to the Prosecutor Generals Office for questioning on January 8. Salamatin occupied a top post in Ukroboronprom, Ukraine's state-owned defense concern (2010-2012), and led the defense ministry from February 8 to December 24, 2012. In the hills above the Honduran capital, a typical school day is underway. The voices of hundreds of elementary school students echo through the little courtyard connecting classrooms. One class is reciting their multiplication tables. Another is repeating words in English. But beneath the appearance of normalcy is an education system under threat. Just this week a boy from the secondary school disappeared, one of the teachers whispers. They say he dropped off his younger sister at school three days ago and has not been seen since. His parents are too scared to report that he is missing. The teachers are too. There is a simple reason: street gang violence. The 18th Street gang controls this neighborhood but MS-13 controls the neighborhood directly above and below us so its pretty conflictive here, says Dolores,* the deputy headmistress at the school, which teaches elementary classes in the mornings and secondary in the afternoons. Just this week a boy from the secondary school disappeared. The rival gangs, known as maras, are fighting for turf where they run rackets ranging from extortion to drug dealing. Criminal incidents around schools remain unreported as family, friends or witnesses fear that gang members will come after them. This school in an informal community above Tegucigalpa one of dozens of irregular, marginalized neighborhoods that sprang up after a hurricane displaced thousands of people two decades ago is a microcosm for the deterioration of Honduras education system. Enrollment at the school has fallen from more than 300 to around 180 in just a couple of years as gangs prohibit many children and youngsters from entering the neighborhood where the school is located. Gang recruitment and drug addiction hit local teenagers hard. The school is understaffed and short on supplies. A once useful technology room is now filled with broken computers. Children attend an education centre in a high-risk area of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. UNHCR/Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo Yolani Rios teaches fifth grade students at a UNHCR-supported education centre in a high-risk area of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. UNHCR/Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo Elvin Cruz teaches first grade students at a UNHCR-supported education centre in a high-risk area of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. UNHCR/Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo And of course, there is the violence faced by students and teachers alike in the local area, ranging from sexual assault to murder. In addition, some of the parents of pupils are in prison, while the teachers themselves face extortion and threats, leaving them feeling powerless. It really hurts to see all these problems and not be able to do anything but what other option do we have? Dolores asks. She is not alone. Teachers across Honduras are overwhelmed. We are exhausted and worn down to the point of literally becoming sick, physically or mentally, says Reyna Rodriguez, a secondary school administrator from Tegucigalpa. In this fight, it feels like both our hands and our feet are tied. We are exhausted and worn down to the point of literally becoming sick, physically or mentally." Despite the exhaustion, Rodriguez has partnered with two other school administrators, Daisy Zelaya and Carlos Garcia, to speak out in a campaign in support of teachers from hundreds of schools across Honduras. We cant just stand here with our arms crossed and do nothing, says Garcia. The campaign started when UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in coordination with Save the Children, began a survey of public schools. The initial aim was to look at 23 schools in the capital to understand what teachers went through and how UNHCR could support them. But as numerous teachers lined up to be heard, the survey expanded to 253 different schools in the capital and more than 2,300 throughout the country. As work to address their concerns began, Rodriguez, Garcia, and Zelaya were chosen to be the spokespeople for the wider group. Children attend an education centre in a high-risk area of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. UNHCR/Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo The first takeaway from the survey was that educators feel they have nowhere to turn when faced with threats, sexual harassment, extortion and physical assault. The thing we heard first, and then heard over and over again, is that teachers feel like they are alone, like they have no one backing them, says Lorena Nieto, UNHCRs protection officer in Honduras. Rodriguez says reporting students to police is not an option as she puts herself and her entire school at risk. It could be a death sentence, even if their gang involvement was forced. Teachers try to support students to deal with their distress. But few schools have counselors, nurses, psychologists or other support staff. So Rodriguez recently sat down with a student who had been kidnapped by a gang, together with a companion. He was forced to watch as the gang murdered and mutilated his friend. Rodriguez was the only person he could turn to for support. What am I supposed to do in the face of that? I can listen but I dont have the tools to help someone like him, she says. Another major takeaway from the educator survey was the impact of declining funding and resources each year. If we dont prioritize investment in schools ... we cant expect anything to ever change." Class sizes are growing, with up to 50 students per teacher. Adding to their challenges, teachers are asked to instruct students with special needs alongside the general population. The few after school activities on offer are taken by staff on their own initiative, without compensation. If we dont prioritize investment in schools and continue to invest primarily in the military and police, we cant expect anything to ever change, says Garcia. Under a comprehensive regional support and protection programme developed by UNHCR and regional governments - known by its Spanish acronym MIRPS - the Government of Honduras is committed to formulating and implementing a prevention and protection strategy for schools by 2020 within the Ministry of Education. With UNHCR support, teachers have begun working to improve safety and conditions in schools. First, UNHCR is helping them develop protection measures and security protocols both for staff and the students themselves. They are creating communication networks among themselves and school administrators to report issues and warnings to protect teachers and students. A UNHCR-supported youth centre in a high-risk area of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. UNHCR/Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo Through a partnership with Doctors Without Borders, dozens of teachers have been trained in psychological first response for students struggling with effects of violence. UNHCR officials have trained teachers how to protect themselves, students or families that have been displaced by violence. See also: Gangs drive Hondurans from their homes and land And the leaders of this teachers group, Rodriguez, Garcia and Zelaya, plus a dozen others across the country, are developing proposals for improving schools, including a country-wide protocol for dealing with violence and threats within schools. The three recently met with the deputy minister of education to discuss the state of public schools and work with government agencies to formalize protection measures for the displaced within the school system. "We know that without better education, our country will never advance. Given the risk levels in the school environment, the government has established response mechanisms that include the increase of security forces presence in critical schools. Recently, it was launched the securing education programme, with support for violence prevention from the United States. We know we have a huge responsibility in educating the new generations of the country, but its hard to do it well with the current state of things, says Rodriguez. But we also know that without better education, our country will never advance. *Some names have been changed for protection purposes Burundian refugees at Mulongwe settlement in South Kivu, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.in April 2018. UNHCR/Georgina Goodwin UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and 35 partners are today jointly appealing for US$296 million to provide desperately needed aid in 2019 to some 345,000 Burundian refugees in neighbouring countries. Burundi is one of the most neglected refugee situations globally. And measurably so; In 2018 it was among the worlds least-funded. The consequences of this are being felt across the board by Burundian refugees in four neighbouring countries, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda. People are enduring cuts to food rations, lack of medicines, overcrowded schools and inadequate shelter. Despite the best efforts of all, a massive increase in support is needed to adequately provide for even the most basic needs. Children, who make up more than half of the refugee population, are bearing the brunt. Many arrived in the countries where they are after having become separated from their parents or wider family. The challenges in providing safe and adequate foster care are significant. Others suffer psychological distress from the violence they have witnessed. These children need psycho-social care. Access to education beyond primary school is far from what it should be. Just 20 per cent of secondary school-aged Burundian refugee children are enrolled in education. Across the region, more teachers and more educational resources are sorely needed. Classrooms are so overcrowded that in Tanzania students make do with trees for schoolrooms. Women and girls are suffering high levels of sexual and gender-based violence and exploitation. Makeshift and dilapidated shelters provide little protection. A lack of available materials for cooking and shelter construction is forcing women and girls to walk long distances to collect wood from outside the camps and settlements where they are isolated and vulnerable to attack. Last year, food cuts were implemented in Tanzania, DRC and Rwanda. Families have been regularly left without enough food to last until the end of the month. Women and girls are resorting to negative coping mechanisms, including survival sex, and forced and early marriage. In light of policies in Uganda, Rwanda and DRC, that allow refugees to work and own businesses, a key objective is to help generate economic opportunities that will allow them to purchase supplementary food and make a living for themselves. While overall security has improved in Burundi, significant human rights concerns persist. Around 57,000 refugees have returned to Burundi since mid-2017, citing the wish to return to their houses and farms, and to reunite with family. Other returnees believe that conditions at home, no matter how challenging, will be an improvement on the situation they experienced as refugees. UNHCR does not believe conditions in Burundi are currently conducive to promote returns, however, we are assisting refugees who indicate they have made an informed choice to voluntarily return. We urge States to ensure that no refugee is returned to Burundi against their will. As more refugees are expected to voluntarily return during 2019, the appeal includes funding to assist and reintegrate returnees. In the meantime, an average of 300 refugees still flee Burundi each month, and UNHCR urges governments in the region to maintain open borders and access to asylum for those who need it. Last year, the inter-agency regional refugee response for Burundian refugees received just 33 per cent of the US$391 million requested. UNHCR urges the international community to accelerate and increase funding for this years appeal to provide much-needed humanitarian assistance and meet basic needs. You can read the full text of the Burundi Regional Refugee Response Plan 2019-2020 here. For more information on this topic, please contact: The foreign ministers of Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland have cut short their visit to the town of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine because of adverse weather conditions. "We tried to fly to Mariupol despite the adverse weather conditions. The crew decided to return. I wanted to show our partners the empty port of Mariupol, the consequences of the Russian economic blockade of the Azov Sea region. We will contact those, who were waiting for us in Mariupol, via videoconferencing, Ukrainian foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin tweeted. As reported, Ukrainian foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin, Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevicius, Latvian foreign minister Edgars Rinkevics, Estonian foreign minister Sven Mikser and Polish foreign minister Jacek Czaputowicz left for Mariupol in the morning. Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has said he plans to pay an official visit to Norway in late January. In a post on his Facebook page, Groysman wrote: " I plan an official visit to Norway at the end of January. Among the events of the visit will be a business forum, which we will open together with the leadership of the Government of Norway. Groysman noted that he met with Norwegian businessmen working in Ukraine on Tuesday and discussed the prospects for further cooperation. The number of Norwegian companies that implement their investment projects in Ukraine exceeds 50. Renewable energy, IT sector, energy saving and environmental protection, hydrocarbon production, shipbuilding and education are the most promising for cooperation, the prime minister wrote. Chief of the General Staff, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General of the Army of Ukraine Viktor Muzhenko will take part in a meeting of the NATO Military Committee at the Alliance headquarters. "On January 15-16, 2019, a regular meeting of the NATO Military Committee at the level of the Chiefs of General Staff will be held at the Alliance headquarters ... Chief of the General Staff, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General of the Army of Ukraine Viktor Muzhenko intends to take part in the meeting, the Mission of Ukraine to NATO reports. The security situation in the Euro-Atlantic region, the progress of implementation of the decisions approved at the previous NATO summits regarding the response to Russia's growing aggression, and the situation in the Middle East are among the issues on the agenda that will be discussed at the NATO Military Committee meeting. The Military Committee is the senior military authority in NATO and the oldest permanent body in NATO after the North Atlantic Council. It is the primary source of military advice to the North Atlantic Council and the Nuclear Planning Group, and gives direction to the two Strategic Commanders. NATO provides Ukraine with practical and effective assistance in enhancing the capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in particular, in improving the military administration system. Chief of the General Staff, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General of the Army of Ukraine Viktor Muzhenko said this in a commentary to an Ukrinform correspondent after a meeting with NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller on Monday, January 15. Viktor Muzhenko arrived in Brussels to participate in the NATO Military Committee meeting at the Alliance headquarters. "Much attention is paid now to the technical issues of standardization with NATO. I and Rose Gottemoeller discussed the issues of improvement of the administration system based on the NATO principles. We have a great way ahead in this direction. Already in January we plan to hold a workshop with [strategic] advisers on the adaptation of such an administration system, implementation of new approaches, changes in the legislative framework and other related issues," Muzhenko said. In addition, the issues related to the logistics and medical support for the Armed Forces of Ukraine were discussed during the meeting. Militants launched 12 attacks on Ukrainian positions in the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) area in Donbas over the past day. The enemy used heavy machine guns and small arms to fire on Ukrainian positions near Novomykhailivka (28km south-west of Donetsk), grenade launchers outside Pavlopol (30 km northeast of Mariupol), grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms near Starohnativka (52km south of Donetsk), heavy machine guns and small arms outside Chermalyk (31km north-east of Mariupol), heavy machine guns in the area of Taramchuk (30km south-west of Donetsk), grenade launchers and small arms near Pisky (12km north-west of Donetsk), grenade launchers and heavy machine guns near Vodiane (16km north-west of Donetsk), the JFO Headquarters press center reports. Moreover, Russia-occupation troops fired on Ukrainian strongholds near Hladosove (51km north-east of Donetsk), using grenade launchers of different systems, heavy machine guns and small arms. Ukrainian troops outside Novotoshkivske (53km north-west of Luhansk) came under grenade launcher, heavy machine gun and small arms fire. Militants also fired grenade launchers in the area of Krymske (42.5km north-west of Luhansk), grenade launchers and small arms near Trokhizbenka (33km north-west of Luhansk). One Ukrainian serviceman was killed, another two were wounded in shelling over the past day. Today, the enemy has already opened fire from grenade launchers near Slavne (25km south-west of Donetsk) and from automatic grenade launchers outside Novooleksandrivka (65km west of Luhansk). The man accused of killing English tourist Grace Millane and leaving her body in the bush west of Auckland has denied killing her. Grace Millane Source: 1 NEWS He entered a plea of not guilty at Auckland High Court to the charge of murder was remanded in custody this morning. A trial date has been set for November 4. Ms Millane, 22, arrived in New Zealand in November last year and went missing on December 2 - her body was found a week later. The accused is a 27-year-old man, but no further details can be revealed about him due to court suppressions in place. He last appeared at Auckland District Court on December 10, where Judge Evangelos Thomas refused to give him name suppression. With Angus Eve now in the hot seat, and that too a time when T&T football is in shambles, the former player has come in for praise for accepting the job. OKLAHOMA CITY - Oklahoma City district students with a medical condition that requires marijuana will be permitted to use the drug at school, the school board voted unanimously Monday night. According to the new policy, which takes effect immediately, the district will provide a private location for a caregiver to administer medical marijuana to students at school. The caregiver would be responsible for bringing the medical marijuana to the qualifying student and promptly removing the medical marijuana from the premises after consumption or use, the policy states. Voters passed State Question 788 in June, legalizing medical marijuana, which is recommended by a doctor in the treatment of a medical condition. Former State Treasurer Ken Miller said the evening signaled a new beginning and optimism for a better state future. Tonight means a new start for Oklahoma, said Labor Commissioner Leslie Osborn. We are on a better fiscal footing and ready to move the state forward with investment. Sen. John Haste, R-Broken Arrow, noted that at the end of the inaugural swearing-in ceremony earlier in the day, the sun came out. If you look for signs, it was a great sign, he said. Haste, who was recently elected to his first term in the Legislature, said he likes Stitts team. He described Stitt as very accessible. I am seeing enthusiasm, Haste said. I guess energy is the real word. Rep. Meloyde Blancett, D-Tulsa, said she hoped the installation of new administration and new lawmakers marks the beginning of a new tone in state government. The last few years contained a lack of civil discourse at the Capitol, Blancett said. I hope we are able to have respectful conversations that lead to movement and progress for the people of Oklahoma, she said. In an allusion to Stitts campaign phrase the turnaround starts now, Sen. James Leewright, R-Bristow, said, I am just excited to get this turnaround started. Barbara Hoberock 405-528-2465 barbara.hoberock@tulsaworld.com Twitter: @bhoberock Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Salter confirmed that samples of the seized product had been collected for testing by the DEA. He estimated that it could be up to four weeks before results are available. It was unclear Monday how the federal government shutdown might affect testing procedures. According to Department of Justice information, 14 percent of DEA employees were furloughed, leaving more than 7,500 agency staff on the job, but media inquiries could not be addressed because of the shutdown, according to a phone message at the DEA public affairs office. Pawhuska police stopped a tractor-trailer rig and a van providing security for the rig after a traffic violation, Pawhuska Police Chief Rex Wickle said. The rig and van drivers disclosed to the patrol officer that they were hauling industrial hemp. Wickle said the odor of marijuana was detected. A field test of the substance being shipped came up positive for marijuana, he said. Were now waiting to come back with the quantity of THC in the marijuana, Wickle said. For hemp to be legal, it must contain no more than three-tenths of 1 percent THC, the intoxicating chemical in cannabis. Marijuana for medical or recreational use is closer to 15 to 20 percent THC. He talked about the need to reduce lengthy prison sentences for nonviolent crimes. These sentences make reintegration into society much more challenging, Stitt said. They often destroy families and fall short in respecting the dignity, worth and potential of people who have made mistakes and need help. Stitt also said he wanted to make government more accountable to the citizens, putting state agencies on notice. He said state agencies have the ability to ignore executive orders, skirt state laws, hide money and hire lobbyists to protect their interests. We can only guarantee such accountability when state agencies understand that they exist to serve and to answer to the people of Oklahoma, Stitt said. Reforming and improving education should not be a partisan issue, he said. Every child in Oklahoma deserves to be inspired by the very power of education itself and the potential of a bright future, Stitt said. This is why we value teachers and seek to recruit the very best teachers in the profession. Stitt promised to be a good listener, a continuous learner, a committed communicator and a bold leader. Topics of discussion included the use of surveys to better understand perceptions of minority groups and individual success plans to target the needs of each student. Board President Suzanne Schreiber liked the idea of analyzing staff demographics at TPS and striving for a workforce that reflects the diversity of its students. Schreiber told the Tulsa World that the school board hosts similar retreats about once every quarter on a variety of topics but that equity has been one of the most prevalent themes. We have had a couple different retreats focused solely on equity, because it is really difficult, uncomfortable work that is going to push us to think about the status quo differently, she said. Under Gists leadership, district officials reportedly have focused on recognizing the causes of student inequity, such as suspensions and absenteeism, and diverting resources to reverse those trends and eliminate systemic disparities. Equity doesnt fit into a bucket and a list that were going to check off and say, These are our equity measures, Schreiber said. Every single thing we do, whether were renaming a school, naming a new principal, selecting a board member I mean whatever it is if we really internalize this conversation (in the board retreat), thats driving the decisions that we make so that we can do the work together to get more equitable outcomes for our kids. Kyle Hinchey 918-581-8451 kyle.hinchey@tulsaworld.com Twitter: @kylehinchey Brian Hosmer As a career educator and spouse of a teacher, I am deeply committed to public education and convinced of its centrality not only to the welfare of our children and families but to the concept of community more generally. ... I seek this position because, like many Tulsans, I am alarmed by the declining support for public education in this state, and convinced that citizens like myself have a role to play in ensuring that all our children receive the education they deserve. Rebecca Marks Jimerson Everyone has expressed to me that serving as a TPS board member is one of the most important responsibilities and challenges that a citizen can undertake. No doubt, I know this is true. Being a product of TPS and an educator, I can think of no better way of encouraging student success and giving back to the school system that engaged me to learn and prepared me for the life than serving on the school board. Virginia Pendleton To help make TPS great again. To help make Oklahoma a top-10 state in education. To give back to TPS. Misti Ryan This man was treated like he was a fugitive from justice, because thats what the state of Oklahoma told the state of North Carolina, when in fact he was coming home from a vacation with his family, DeMuro continued. In a statement on Sunday, DeMuro called the arrest one of the most outrageous abuses of power hes seen in his legal career. He questioned why police waited to arrest Connor as he returned from vacation when the indictment was filed two months previously. This was done for press impact and humiliation. Why not just call me and Winston comes in voluntarily? DeMuro asked. Because the state wants to hurt and humiliate Winston as much as possible. This is a blatant abuse of power. Winston is innocent, and we will fight this tooth and nail. Connor is accused of conducting a pattern of racketeering activity or the collection of unlawful debt in Tulsa and Pittsburg counties while employed by his law firm, Stockwell & Connor PLLC. The case is filed in Tulsa County, even though some of the offenses are alleged to have occurred in Pittsburg and Ottawa counties, because prosecutors believe he committed two or more crimes in the Tulsa area that all stem from the same scheme or plan. For the first time, many Oklahoma hospitals are posting their prices online for every service or item they offer, creating a consumer menu. But a closer look at these price lists shows that they are unlikely to help patients comparison-shop with ease or figure out complicated medical bills. A check of websites for some of the largest hospital systems in Oklahoma City and Tulsa showed that the price lists are hard to find and usually are in the form of a link to a large downloadable spreadsheet file. The itemized information in the files, listing procedures, drugs and supplies, ranges from clear-cut to nearly indecipherable, at least for ordinary patients. Moreover, many listed charges for procedures, such as an organ transplant or emergency care, dont represent the entire potential cost to patients because they dont include charges from physicians who are not hospital employees. The price lists stem from a federal regulation that went into effect Jan. 1 requiring hospitals to post standard charges for drugs, supplies and services. However, the list, typically called a chargemaster, is rarely the amount charged to patients with private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid. Patients without insurance rarely pay the listed price, either, because of hospital discounts or write-offs for uncompensated care. Update (noon Thursday): The Oklahoma State Medical Examiner's Office positively identified the bodies as those of Jenna Scott and Michael Swearingin. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and detectives from the Temple, Texas, police department recovered two bodies Tuesday in rural Okfuskee County believed to be two missing persons from the central Texas city. Temple police detectives believe the bodies are those of Jenna Scott, 28, and Michael Swearingin, 32, who were reported missing Jan. 4, according to a news release. Both victims families were reportedly notified Tuesday afternoon. OSBI was requested to assist in the homicide investigation and the Oklahoma State Medical Examiners Office will reportedly conduct an autopsy. Police received information connecting the missing persons to Okfuskee County on Jan. 9, according to a news release. The Temple Daily Telegram reported Tuesday afternoon the two victims were close friends and that Scotts former boyfriend has been arrested in Grand Rapids, Michigan. From staff reports Kendrick Marshall 918-581-8378 kendrick.marshall@tulsaworld.com Twitter: @KD_Marshall Review by Scott Cherry Photos by Tom Gilbert Fassler Halls relationship with Prairie Creek Farms to supply its pork didnt happen overnight, even after the deal was made. Trevor Tack, corporate executive chef for the McNellies Group, of which Fassler Hall is a part, and Brian Fontaine, the first Fassler Hall manager and now vice president with McNellies Group, visited the 80-acre farm near Kellyville last summer. We talked to the owners, and I left it to Brian and them to figure out how to make it work, Tack said. I knew it was going to be a big deal for us. Fontaine said he was eager to get things started. I asked them how quickly we could get going, and they said five months, Fontaine said. Five months? They said, Well, we have to grow the pigs. The way it works is Fassler Hall buys the purebred Berkshire piglets, and Prairie Creek Farms raises them. Like the farms cows and chickens, the pigs are pasture-raised. In addition to whatever they can root out in the pasture, the pigs are given non-GMO feed custom milled in Oklahoma and never are given shots, chemical wormers, antibiotics, steroids or anything else made in a lab. Valley National Bank on Monday announced it will change its name to Vast Bank. The Tulsa-based bank is rebranding in an effort to reflect its new emphasis on enhanced services to meet changing consumer expectations. We want to be the bank that helps people realize their dreams, build their visions and create great things for our community, said Chairman Tom Biolchini in a letter to the banks customers. We realize that todays banking needs and expectations are quickly changing, and Vast captures our desire to meet these emerging needs by being a trusted partner that is savvy, bold, tech-forward and also surprisingly easy to do business with. Moreover, in the digital age of social media, we are now often confused with another Valley National Bank in New Jersey. For multiple reasons, it is time for a change. Valley National Bank, founded by Bob Biolchini in 1982, will begin the rebranding in March. Customers can expect to see the new name and logo on current Valley National buildings, documents and online platforms. Allegiant on Tuesday announced nonstop service from Tulsa to the Florida Panhandle via Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport (VPS) beginning June 6. This new seasonal route, which offers fares as low as $59 each way, will operate twice weekly. With the addition of this new route, Allegiant will serve five cities from Tulsa International Airport (TUL). Reservations for Tulsa to Destin-Fort Walton Beach flights can be booked through Aug. 13. Were very excited to announce this brand new service from Tulsa, Drew Wells, Allegiant vice president of planning and revenue, said in a statement. Were sure area travelers will take advantage of our friendly, nonstop, ultra-low-cost service to enjoy all that the Emerald Coast has to offer. Founded with one aircraft and one flight route in 1999, Las Vegas-based Allegiant has grown to more than 80 aircraft and at least 300 routes across the country with base airfares less than half the cost of the average domestic round-trip ticket. We are excited to welcome new nonstop service on Allegiant to Destin, Alexis Higgins, interim CEO for Tulsa International Airport, said in a statement. The Emerald Coast is a generational destination for Tulsa-area residents who enjoy the regions beautiful beaches and friendly hospitality. Subscribe to Daily Headlines Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Tucson, AZ (85741) Today Some clouds. Low 83F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds. Low 83F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph. THE Leader of the Opposition stepped way over the line last Saturday in a media release in which she sought to make comparisons between the current situation regarding last Wednesdays failed mass vaccine roll-out, and the 1990 attempted coup. THE legislative road has been paved for the decriminalisation of pepper spray in Trinidad and Tobago. The Firearms (Amendment) Bill 2021 was passed yesterday in the House of Representatives with no objection. The Senate unanimously passed a bill yesterday which gives the public the right to access a sex offender website providing names, photographs and date of birth of convicted sex offenders. All present in the chamber supported the Sexual Offences Amendment which was passed 28 for, none against. rchopra@tribunemail.com Washington, January 15 President Donald Trump has attributed the partial government shutdown, which is now into its 24th day, to the opposition Democrats who have blocked his proposal of USD 5.7 billion in Congressional funding to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. He said he would never ever back down when it comes to keeping the American people safe. The partial government shutdown, which is the longest ever, has left more than 800,000 federal government workers out of work across the key departments. The government remains shut down for one reason and one reason only, the Democrats will not fund border security, our safety, our national security, Trump said on Monday while addressing a rally of farmers in Louisiana. Referring to his visit to the Mexico border last week, Trump said illegal aliens not only from Mexico, but also from other nations entered the country from the southern border. People come from many countries. When I was at the wall the other day, Border Patrol said they had 150 people they caught that day who werent from Mexico. I said thats a strange statement, he said. They said no, these are the people that werent from Mexico and I was surprised. Three were from Pakistan, four from another Mideast, two Mideast countries and many were from other countries, including China, countries all over the world. Around 150 of the people, as he said, were not from Mexico. Now they caught, many, many more but thats 150 people coming from countries that you wouldnt believe, Trump said. He said the Democrats would not approve the measures he needed to keep America safe. We cant do that. We cant do that because this is of paramount importance to our country and again, I could take it nice and easy. I could enjoy myself. I could relax. I have been in the White House because I think its very important to be there, he said. He alleged that the Democrat leaders went on a nice wonderful vacation over the weekend. They had a great time but I would have loved to have been with them. I didnt like the look of it. I would have loved to have been with them but we have a very big problem. This should have been done by other presidents just like the moving of the embassy to Jerusalem should have been done. It was promised by many other presidents, the US President said. Trump insisted that the US needed a wall all around, all the length of the border. We have got to stop the drug packers bringing drugs to poison our people, he said, arguing that walls, as being said by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are not immoral. Ive travelled around the world and the biggest wall I have ever seen is around the Vatican. Now you cant tell me that the wonderful priests and officials of the Roman Catholic church, including the Pope, are immoral. They have a wall. Why cant we? he said. Asserting that the defence of the nation is his highest and most important duty, Trump said when it came to keeping the American people safe, he would never ever back down. I didnt need this fight. This is a real fight. We are dealing against people who think if they can stop me from building the wall again, weve already done a lot of work but they think thats a good thing for 2020 because theyre not going to win. They think if they cant stop me from building the wall thats good. This is the reason why they dont want the wall built because they all know it works, they all approved it numerous times, he said. PTI vermaajay1968@gmail.com Istanbul/Riyadh, January 14 US President Donald Trump threatened Turkey with economic devastation if it attacks a US-allied Kurdish militia in Syria, drawing a sharp rebuke from Ankara on Monday and reviving fears of another downturn in ties between the NATO allies. Relations between the United States and Turkey have long been strained by Washingtons support for the Kurdish YPG, which Turkey views as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that is waging a decades-long insurgency in Turkey. Speaking in Riyadh, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he did not think the threat would change plans to withdraw troops from Syria. Asked what Trump meant by economic devastation, he said: Youll have to ask the president. We have applied economic sanctions in many places, I assume he is speaking about those kinds of things, Pompeo said, adding he had not spoken with Ankara since Trumps comment. Trump said on Sunday the United States was starting the military pull-out from Syria that he announced in December but that it would continue to hit Islamic State fighters there. Will attack again from existing nearby base if it reforms. Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20 mile safe zone...Likewise, do not want the Kurds to provoke Turkey, Trump wrote on Twitter. Ankara is well aware of the cost of strained ties with the United States. A diplomatic crisis last year, when Trump imposed sanctions on two of President Tayyip Erdogans ministers and raised tariffs on Turkish metal exports, helped push the Turkish lira to a record low in August. Turkish spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Trump should respect Washingtons alliance with Ankara. Trump gave no details about the safe zone proposal, but Pompeo said Washington wanted to provide security for those who have fought against Islamic State and to prevent any attack on Turkey from Syria. If we can get the space and the security arrangements right it would be a good thing for everyone in the region, Pompeo added said. Reuters Ankara hits back rchopra@tribunemail.com Washington, January 15 US President Donald Trump has sent a letter to North Koran leader Kim Jong-un, an informed familiar with the ongoing denuclearisation talks between Washington and Pyongyang told CNN. The letter comes as the two sides negotiate details of a second meeting between the two leaders. It was flown to Pyongyang and delivered by hand, the source said on Monday night. According to the source, North Koreas former intelligence chief Kim Yong Chol--one of Pyongyangs top negotiators --could visit Washington to finalise details of the upcoming summit. CNN had previously reported that US scouting teams visited Bangkok, Hanoi and Hawaii as they search for a location for the second summit. Last week, South Korean President Moon Jae-in threw his support behind another Trump-Kim meeting, saying it would be a turning point that will firmly solidify peace on the Korean Peninsula. During his visit to Beijing last week, Kim said Pyongyang would make efforts for the second summit with the US leader to achieve results that would be welcomed by the international community. North Korea would continue sticking to the stance of denuclearisation and resolving the Korean Peninsula issue through dialogue and consultation, he added. Trump and Kim held a historic summit last June in Singapore where they had agreed to work towards denuclearisation in return for security guarantees from Washington. Talks are currently stalled due to the lack of a clear disarmament road map. IANS rchopra@tribunemail.com Washington, January 15 President Donald Trumps eldest daughter and senior adviser Ivanka will help the US to pick the new World Bank president, the White House has said, dismissing media reports that she herself is a key contender for the top position. World Banks current president Jim Yong Kim announced last week that he would step down next month, triggering speculation about his replacement. The Financial Times reported on Sunday that former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley in addition to Ivanka were the possible candidates for the top job. However, the White House refuted media reports that the daughter of the US President herself was under consideration for the banks presidency. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney have asked Ivanka to help manage the US nomination process as shes worked closely with the World Banks leadership for the past two years--however, reports that she is under consideration are false, White House Deputy Director of Communication Jessica Ditto said on Monday. An American has traditionally led the World Bank while the top position in the International Monetary Fund has been held from Europe. While the candidature of World Bank presidency is finally approved by the financial institution itself, the US has a major say in its decision-making process by virtue of being its biggest stakeholder. Last week, the Word Bank announced its process to accept the application for the top position. The World Bank works to promote economic development and poverty eradication through loans and technical support. The 189-member international financial institution provides loans to countries and focuses on development. The US President cannot install its leader, who must be approved by the banks board, but has traditionally placed his nominee in the job. Trump has already faced harsh criticism for appointing his daughter as a senior White House adviser. PTI monicakchauhan@gmail.com Toronto, January 14 Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun plans to pursue an education, get a job and live a normal life in Canada - things she said she could not do in her home of Saudi Arabia, which she fled fearing for her life, she told Canadian media on Monday. Being in Canada is a very good feeling, she told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation two days after arriving in Toronto from Bangkok. It's something that is worth the risk I took. Qunun grabbed international attention last week after she barricaded herself in a Bangkok airport hotel room to resist being sent home to her family, which denies abusing her. Qunun refused to meet her father and brother, who arrived in Bangkok to try to take her back to Saudi Arabia. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees granted her refugee status, and Canada agreed to take her in. Canada's decision to grant Qunun asylum comes at a delicate time. Relations between Ottawa and Riyadh have been tense after Canada demanded the immediate release of jailed rights activists last year. Saudi Arabia retaliated by freezing new trade with Ottawa and forcing many of its students to return to the kingdom. Qunun's case has drawn global attention to Saudi Arabia's strict social rules, including a requirement that women have the permission of a male "guardian" in order to travel, something rights groups say can trap women and girls as prisoners of abusive families. In her CBC interview, Qunun said: "I felt that I could not achieve my dreams that I wanted as long as I was still living in Saudi Arabia." Having come to Canada, "I felt that I was reborn, especially when I felt the love and the welcome," she said. In her new home, "I will try things I haven't tried. I will learn things I didn't learn. I will explore life. ... I will have a job and live a normal life." Reuters rchopra@tribunemail.com Kohistan, January 15 Nine labourers were killed when their van was buried in a sudden landslide in mountainous northern Pakistan, authorities said. The incident occurred on Monday night near Khushi point on the Karakoram Highway, authorities confirmed. Rescue workers have successfully recovered the bodies of nine people from inside the van, the station house officer (SHO) at the site said. The deceased were returning from work when their vehicle was crushed by the landslide. The Karakoram Highway was subsequently closed for traffic. Police said heavy machinery had been deployed to rescue other trapped labourers. PTI shalender@tribune.com A CORRESPONDENT enquires of us if any British or American or European statesman has said the proposed League of Nations is to be a league of all the nations of the world, instead of being merely a league of a small number of leading nations. As we have said, the present idea of a League of Nations is essentially President Wilsons. We cannot have a higher authority in this matter than himself. The President said in his message to the Congress on January 8, 1918:-What we demand in this war is that the world be made fit and safe to live in, and particularly that it may be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own free life, determine its own free institutions and be assured of justice and fair-dealing by other peoples of the world. laxmi@tribune.com Saurabh Malik Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 14 The Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed issuance of notice to the Amritsar Judicial Magistrate (First Class). He has been asked to show cause why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against him for willfully disobeying a High Court judgment brought to his notice. The direction came after a Division Bench of Justices Rajiv Sharma and BS Walia was told that the judicial officer had not passed an order on an application for release of a convict, to be heard by the High Court on the quantum of sentence. Prima facie, the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Amritsar, has not complied with the directions of this court, the Bench asserted. Justice Sharma directed the Amritsar Jail Superintendent to produce convict Sukhdev Raj in court. The registry was directed to prepare his release warrant. The Bench had earlier converted the conviction and sentence of three appellants under Section 302 of the IPC for murder to Section 304 Part-I (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the IPC. The state was directed to produce the accused for quantum of sentence. Justice Sharma observed that convicts Sukhbir Lal and Kashmiri Lal were present in court, but Sukhdev Raj wasnt. The state counsel submitted that an application was moved before Harpreet Singh, Judicial Magistrate (First Class), Amritsar, on January 12 for release of Sukhdev Raj, but he did not pass an order. editorial@tribune.com Archit Watts Tribune News Service Muktsar, January 14 The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) kept its focus on the SGPC elections, rather than the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, during its Maghi Mela conference held here today. Though the Badals highlighted the achievements of the Central government, they talked more about the SGPC, alleging that the Congress had stooped too low to seize control of the committee and trying to create a divide within the community by colluding with anti-Sikh forces. SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal started his speech, saying, The anti-Panthic forces are misleading the Sikhs by saying that the Badals have control over the SGPC. Its elections are held by a central commission and even votes are prepared by it. How can any party control it? Further, the elections are not just held in Punjab, but in Haryana too. He also targeted Sikh hardliners calling them money-minting people. They (protesters at Bargari) had earned Rs22 crore during their months-long dharna, Sukhbir claimed. He further trained his guns on Finance Minister Manpreet Badal, saying: Manpreet will do something that the Congress will never come back to power in Punjab. He said this after highlighting some schemes launched by the previous SAD-BJP government, but were either discontinued by the Congress or awaiting funds since long like shagun scheme, scholarships and free tubewell power supply. On the Chief Minister, he said: Capt Amarinder never goes anywhere in the state, whereas Badal sahib always remains among people, said Sukhbir. He appealed to party workers to visit every household in the state in the next two months, work hard and win all 13 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal started his speech with a choked voice, but got the momentum within seconds. The Congress is responsible for the 1984 riots and attack on the Golden Temple. Now, other parties are trying to take control over the SGPC, he alleged. He appreciated Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that he had a positive approach towards the state and Sikhs. In his high-decibel speech, former minister Bikram Singh Majithia targeted Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu without naming him over his demand for additional security cover. BJP leader Tikshan Sood represented the BJP in the rally. Though partys state chief Shwait Maliks photo was displayed on the hoarding, he failed to turn up. The anti-Panthic forces are misleading the Sikhs by saying that the Badals control the SGPC. Its elections are held by a central commission and even votes are prepared by it. How can any party control it? Sukhbir Singh Badal, Shiromani Akali Dal Chief ON THE SIDELINES Women presence nil Barring two women on the stage and another in the pandal, there was no other woman present in the SAD conference. Even a senior party leader admitted to the fact. Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal too skipped the event. YAD, SOI workers upbeat Youth Akali Dal (YAD) and Students Organisation of India (SOI) workers, who were present in large numbers, kept waving the party flags till the end of rally Manpreet duplicate Badal Former minister Bikram Singh Majithia termed Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal as duplicate Badal. He said, There is a difference between duplicate and original Badal. You have seen the working of Badal sahib (Parkash Singh Badal), who granted funds for development works, but now if employees go and meet Manpreet for their provident funds they can better understand the difference. Sounds of laughter Senior SAD leader and RS member Balwinder Singh Bhunder made the public laugh when he said, Why are you touching me? Are we in a hurry? When Bhunder was addressing the public, SADs Muktsar district president Kanwarjit Singh Rozy Barkandi came to the dais and touched Bhunder, hinting him to cut short his speech. Badal speaks, people leave When Parkash Singh Badal was addressing the public as the last speaker, not just people sitting in the pandal and some leaders present on the stage started leaving the venue, but Bikram Majithia too started holding a meet with some youth and student wing leaders just behind the dais. Maluka justifies rally Though the Congress said it did not hold a rally as it was against the directive of the Akal Takht, SAD leaders Sikander Singh Maluka and Balwinder Singh Bhunder said religion and politics were inter-linked for Sikh community. Archit Watts editorial@tribune.com Archit Watts Tribune News Service Muktsar, January 14 Even though the state government or the ruling Congress did not organise any public function on the occasion of Maghi today, yet it made the presence felt by especially sending two Cabinet ministers Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa and Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria to pay obeisance at Gurdwara Darbar Sahib here. They arrive in in a chopper. Punjabi Ekta Party chief Sukhpal Khaira and some local AAP leaders also did not hold political conferences and just paid obeisance at the gurdwara. Lok Insaaf Party founder Simarjit Singh Bains, too, had come here on Sunday to participate in a cleanliness drive and paid obeisance at the gurdwara. Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh had on January 4 announced that the Congress or state government would not hold any public function during the sacred event to maintain the sanctity of the occasion. He had even appealed to other parties not to hold political conferences. Later, however, it was decided to send these two ministers to pay obeisance at the gurdwara. Though PPCC chief Sunil Kumar Jakhar was also expected, yet he did not come. Both Bajwa and Sarkaria after landing at the helipad made at a school playground, visited the gurdwara, along with Deputy Speaker Ajaib Singh Bhatti, Gidderbaha MLA Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, former Muktsar MLA Karan Kaur Brar, district Congress president Harcharan Singh Sotha and former district Congress president Gurmeet Singh Khudian. Thereafter, the ministers visited a private school, launched a website of the district administration Mera Muktsar, Mera Maan and interacted with media. Bajwa said, We abide by the directive of Akal Takht of not to hold political conference on religious occasion, thus did not hold the conference. Later, talking to The Tribune over phone in the evening, he said, I visited Muktsar today as a true Sikh to pay obeisance on the occasion of Maghi. There is no special announcement made on behalf of the state government, but if the DC will write about anything we will sanction that. About their visit on a chopper, he said, There will be no burden on the state exchequer with my visit in a state governments chopper. Actually, the CM had to come to Muktsar to launch the website linked with the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, which I launched today. Bajwa said the state government, acting as per the law, would reserve some seats of chairpersons of panchayati raj institutions for women. What Cm had said Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh had, on January 4, announced that the Congress or state government would not hold any public function on Maghi to maintain the sanctity of the occasion. Later, it was decided that two ministers would pay obeisance at the gurdwara. Did my duty as sikh We abide by the directive of Akal Takht of not holding political conference on religious occasions. So, we did not hold the conference. I visited Muktsar as a true Sikh to pay obeisance on the occasion of Maghi. Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Minister National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan arrives in Siem Reap, Cambodia on January 14th (Photo: VNA) The trip is made at the invitation of President of the Cambodian National Assembly Samdech Akka Moha Ponhea Chakrei Heng Samrin who doubles as Chairman of the APPF-27. The APPF was established on March 15th, 1993, with the purpose of building trust among parliaments in the Asia-Pacific via the enhancement of dialogues between regional parliamentarians, thus contributing to regional peace, sustainability and prosperity. It gathers 27 member parliaments: Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands, Mexico, Micronesia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, the US, and Vietnam. Since becoming an APPF member in January 1995, the Vietnamese NA has actively participated in all activities of the forum with the first most special event being the hosting of the APPF-13 in January 2005 in Ha Long, northern province of Quang Ninh. Through APPF meetings, Vietnams legislative body made proposals and recommendations to step up coordination, contribute to maintaining peace, stability, and prosperity in the region, while expanding the forums ties with other inter-parliamentary organizations in the world. At the APPF-26 in Hanoi from January 18th-21st, 2018, the Hanoi Declaration was adopted, setting forth a new vision for parliamentary ties towards 2030. It boosted the partnership between APPF and APEC to realize Asian-Pacific peoples aspiration about a region of peace and development. Under the theme Strengthening parliamentary partnership for peace, security, and sustainable development, the APPF-27 will set priority on the goal of safeguarding peace, security and sustainable development. Through their attendance at the APPF-27, Vietnamese parliamentarians continue performing their proactive involvement in multilateral parliamentary diplomatic activities, thus heightening the countrys role and position at this forum and joining in diplomatic efforts for peace, cooperation and development./. editorial@tribune.com Anirudh Gupta Ferozepur, January 14 A couple of days after Congress MLA Kulbir Singh Zira left the state government red-faced by alleging from the stage that police were patronising liquor contractors and drug peddlers, a liquor contractor and a sarpanch on Monday hit back, accusing him of harassing them. At a press conference here, liquor contractor from Zira Phurman Singh and Bhaba Landa village sarpanch Gurpreet Singh accused the MLA of unethical practices. Phurman accused Zira of demanding bribe from him to run his business. I had paid him money and arranged liquor for him on several occasions. But there was no end to his greed. When I refused to pay up, his henchmen attacked me and my son, he said, adding Why should I bribe anyone when I am paying taxes to the government? Besides Zira, I have business is Tarn Taran and Moga. There, nobody demands bribe from me. He further said he would meet the DGP and apprise him of the matter. Bhaba Landa village sarpanch Gurpreet, who attended the oath-taking ceremony which Zira had boycotted on Saturday, told the media, The MLA nursed a grudge against me as members of his family have been elected as sarpanch for the past 15 to 20 years. Gurpreet is a former block president of the Youth Congress. I was attacked three years ago. About 35 rounds were fired at my car and I had received two bullet injuries. Four cases were registered in connection with the attack against gangsters owing allegiance to Zira, Gurpreet said, adding he would file a defamation case against the Congress MLA. The MLA, however, denied all accusations, saying the truth would soon come out. Its a part of conspiracy to divert peoples attention from the charges (that I had levelled from the stage at the oath-taking ceremony), he said. A senior Congress leader told The Tribune that a Congress sarpanch hitting out at a ruling party MLA was a result of infighting in the party in Ferozepur. Congress leaders are leaving no opportunity to put each other down, he said. Row belies govt claims: Khaira Chandigarh: Sukhpal Singh Khaira, MLA and president of Punjabi Ekta Party, has sought an explanation from the Chief Minister on the allegations levelled by Zira. In a statement, Khaira said Zira had clearly blamed the police for sheltering drug mafia at a public event, deflating the false propaganda by the Congress government. tns laxmi@tribune.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 14 Arguing that there is a strong case for reorganising Uttar Pradesh, former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh today said with a population of 200 million, it is the fifth largest in the world, on a par with Brazil, and by 2050, its population could be close to a quarter of countrys population. He also made a case for the country remaining multi-lingual while states may be unilingual officially. If Andhra Pradesh could be reorganised by Parliament in its wisdom and that too overriding the majority view in the state legislature, surely Uttar Pradesh, which has a more compelling case for such an intervention, could also be, he said while delivering the annual Dr CD Deshmukh Memorial Lecture on CD Deshmukh: Reorganisation of states and thereafter. Jairam Ramesh noted that while the country applauds linguistic reorganisation that helped steer India through some extremely difficult years in spite of the fears of our founding fathers, barring Gandhi, we must also rediscover and renew the wellsprings for linguistic minorities. Our states may be unilingual officially, but our nation and indeed our society has been and should continue to be multi-lingual. His remarks come in the backdrop of intermittent concerns, especially in the South, over promotion of Hindi. At the lecture, organised by the India International Centre (IIC) in memory of one of the most distinguished economic administrators of the country and one who set up the IIC, the former Union Minister said even with the most modern technology and with the strongest of political acumen and will, UP is ...simply ungovernable. It is too big, too unwieldy to be run effectively. Internal devolution of powers to the 75 districts, 820-odd blocks and the 52,000-odd gram panchayats will make no difference whatsoever. IIC President NN Vohra recalled that British administrators preferred to deal with any situation more for the convenience of the Raj and advancement of British objectives. Subsequent reorganisation intended to provide better opportunities to the people and promote unity, security and integration of people. He said to what extent objectives were met or not, or has there been greater focus on politics and elections, and concerns on finance, economics and administration is relevant. President Vohra lauded the experiment of creating two districts in Ladakh region which are, except some irregularities and corruption, functioning extremely well with peoples involvement. He also referred to the Punjab Suba agitation and the turmoil after the creation of separate states in 1966. rchopra@tribunemail.com New Delhi, January 15 The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the West Bengal government to allow proposed public meetings and rallies of BJP under its Ganatantra Bachao Yatra. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the BJPs West Bengal unit to submit a revised schedule of its proposed Rath Yatra with the authorities and seek necessary approvals. The bench also comprising Justices LN Rao and SK Kaul asked the West Bengal government to consider the revised schedule of the BJP for the Rath Yatra keeping in mind the fundamental right of speech and expression under the Constitution. The bench said the apprehension of the state government of possible law and order situation could not be called unfounded and the BJP would have to take all possible steps to address the apprehension in a reasonable manner. PTI monicakchauhan@gmail.com Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 15 The Supreme Court is unlikely to take up on January 22 close to 50 petitions seeking review of its Sabarimala verdict allowing women of all age groups into the famous hill-top shrine in Kerala. Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on Tuesday said it may not be possible to hear the review petitions as Justice Indu Malhotra is on medical leave. The CJI was responding to advocate Mathew J Nedumpara's plea for live streaming of the hearing of the hearing of Sabarimala review petitions. The advocate mentioned the matter this morning before the CJI's Bench. The Supreme Court in November last said it would take up on January 22 in open court close to 50 petitions seeking review of its Sabarimala verdict allowing women of all age groups into the famous hill-top shrine in Kerala. But a five-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had said there will be no stay on its September 28 verdict allowing entry of women of all age groups to the temple. Applications for hearing of review petitions in Open Court are allowed, the Bench had said posting all the review petitions along with all pending applications for hearing on 22nd January, 2019 before the appropriate Bench. We make it clear that there is no stay of judgment dated September 28, said the Bench, which also included Justice Rohinton Nariman, Justice AM Khanwilkar, Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Indu Malhotra. The court had already made it clear that fresh writ petitions would be taken up after review petitions were decided. As per general norms, hearing on review petitions are done through a procedure called hearing by circulation in chamber of the CJI where parties were not represented by their advocates. But in exceptional cases, review petitions are heard in open court and parties can be represented by their advocates. Earlier, the Supreme Court had several times refused to give urgent hearing to petitions seeking review of its ruling lifting age-old restrictions on procreating women from entering famous Lord Ayyappa Temple at Sabarimala. A Constitution Bench headed by the then CJI Dipak Misra had on September 28 lifted the restriction on the entry of women into the temple, evoking a series of protests by women devotees of Lord Ayyappa. The review petitioners contended that sheer uniqueness of Sabarimala Temple made it a fit case for grant of religious denomination status. By 4:1, a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra had declared the practice unconstitutional. Justice Indu Malhotra, the lone woman on the Bench, had dissented. The majority declared unconstitutional Rule 3(b) of the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship (Authorisation of Entry) Rules, 1965 which barred entry of women between 10 and 50 years of age into the temple. The review petitioners, including Nair Service Society and People for Dharma, said the top court wrongly concluded that exclusion of women between the age of 10 and 50 was discriminatory and erred in allowing women of all age groups into the temple. A clear perusal of the opinions rendered as part of the majority view shows that apart from patent legal errors, the factually erroneous assumption that the practice of the temple is based on notions of menstrual impurity has materially contributed to the majority view. This necessitates a review of the judgment, read one of the petitions. The petitioners submitted that to deny a religious denomination status to Sabarimala Temple and Lord Ayyappas devotees merely because they did not conform to Abrahamic notions of religious denominations, is to defeat the very object of the absence of a definition and to abrahamise the core of the Hindu faith, which is unconstitutional. In the present case, the subsequent events that transpired after the judgment of which judicial notice may be taken, clearly demonstrate that overwhelmingly large section of women worshippers are supporting the custom of prohibiting entry of females between the age of 10 and 50 atSabarimala temple, Nair Service Society said, adding its submissions had not been set out in the judgment. The review petitioners pointed out that the petitioners in the original PIL were not devotees of Lord Ayyappa and hence had no cause of action to approach the court. Millions of devotees whose fundamental right to religion was infringed did not get an opportunity to be heard and the review petition was the first opportunity for them to to assert their rights and seek enforcement thereof. The petitioners contended that the majority opinion erred in not considering the evidence placed on record which demonstrated that the practice was a direct consequence of the celibate form of Lord Ayyappa and the rules of Naishthika Brahmacharya which applied to the deity. monicakchauhan@gmail.com Shahira Naim Tribune News Service Lucknow, January 15 On her 63rd birthday BSP national president Mayawati on Tuesday appealed to the workers of both BSP and Samajwadi Party to set aside past grievances and put their might in strengthening the alliance register a historical victory. "UP decides who will come to power in the centre and who will become the prime minister. The announcement of the BSP-SP alliance has robbed the BJP and other parties of their sleep. I want the people to ensure the victory of the alliance. It would be the best and most precious birthday gift that the people can give me, said Mayawati. She was addressing the ritual press conference on her birthday dressed in a pink shalwar-qameez, a colour reserved for the occasion. Mayawati also made a move to win over the support of the Muslims by pitching for reservation for them on economic grounds. While welcoming the 10 per cent reservation for economically deprived upper castes, she said that the Muslims also need support as their participation in government jobs had sharply declined from 33 per cent at the time of independence to 2-3 per cent at present times. She also attacked the BJP for targeting the Muslims and now even misusing the government machinery to create a controversy around Friday prayers. She did not spare the Congress either. Mayawati once again criticised the party for ignoring the interest of the marginalized, Dalits, OBCs, minorities, and especially farmers during their long rule. She said that it was due to the poor condition of these sections that the BSP was set up on April 14, 1984. Beating both the BJP and Congress with the same stick Mayawati said that the results of the recently-concluded state elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh had a strong political message for not only the BJP but also Congress party and company. According to her, the disappointment with the Congress had already set in as the promises made to the farmers were only partially being met. "The big question is why the farm loan waiver cut offs have been set to nine months ago. Also these governments are only waiving loans up to Rs 2 lakh. This will not help farmers in any manner," said Mayawati. Keeping the ground realities in mind Mayawati urged the central and state governments to establish a dialogue for a long term comprehensive solution to the farmers problems. She strongly recommended the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission for a satisfactory solution of the farmers problems. Once again equating the Rafale and Bofors deals Mayawati suggested the central government to engage with the opposition to draw up a long term and transparent mechanism for defence purchases so that controversies around them could be eliminated. She also claimed that her BSP had never been a stooge of the capitalist and big industry, "unlike others who ultimately end up only writing off the loans of big industrialists", said Mayawati. Describing Chief Minister Aditynaths rule in Uttar Pradesh as nirala (peculiar), she said money was being poured into projects that had nothing to do peoples welfare or development and where founds could easily be misused and further fuelling corruption. editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Mumbai, January 14 Senior BJP leaders in Maharashtra, including Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, are making a last-ditch effort to stitch up an alliance with the Shiv Sena for the Lok Sabha elections ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Mumbai later this month. Modi will visit Mumbai on January 23 to lay the foundation stone for the Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway. Sources in the BJP say Fadnavis and other leaders in the state BJP want Modi and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray to share the dais at the foundation stone laying ceremony. The appearance of the two leaders together would indicate that they were burying the hatchet ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, sources said. Mediators of the two parties have held several meetings, but have failed to reach common ground, sources say. Nationalist Congress Party chief Jayant Patil even went on to claim that Fadnavis and Thackeray had a midnight meeting at a Mumbai hotel earlier this month. Though neither the BJP nor the Shiv Sena have commented on the matter, several Shiv Sena leaders have ratcheted up their demands via the media. The Sena wants the post of Chief Minister should the alliance emerge victorious in the Assembly elections in October 2019, irrespective of the fact which party won more seats. A section of the Shiv Sena is also demanding that both parties carve up the 48 Lok Sabha seats equally. On the other hand, Thackeray and Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamna continue with the attack on the BJP and Modi. Shiv Sena leader and Environment Minister Ramdas Kadam even went on to say that Shiv Sainiks would bury the BJP. monicakchauhan@gmail.com New Delhi, January 15 The Delhi Police on Tuesday arrested a man on the charge of sending an email to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's Office threatening to kidnap his daughter. "The accused, identified as Vikas, was arrested by a team of the Special Cell from Bihar's Motihari. The Cyber Cell team had tracked his IP address," said a senior police officer. The police is interrogating Vikas to ascertain his modus operandi. Further investigation is underway, he said. The Chief Minister's Office received an anonymous email on January 9, threatening to kidnap Kejriwal's daughter. It then lodged a complaint and forwarded the email to Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik. The case was handed over to the Cyber Cell of the Special Cell. A Personal Security Officer was deployed for the security of Kejriwal's daughter. IANS amansharma@tribunemail.com Kolkata, January 15 A professor at Kolkatas premier Jadavpur University (JU) has stoked a major controversy by making comments on virginity of women on Facebook and later defending his remarks. International Relations professor Kanak Sarkar has likened a womans virginity to a sealed bottle or packet in a Facebook post on Sunday, triggering a furore on social media and academic circles. Though he was quick to delete the post, screenshots of it went viral. Students unions on Tuesday submitted memorandums to JU Vice-Chancellor Suranjan Das, demanding strict action against Sarkar. The professor, in his post, wrote: Are you willing to buy a broken seal while purchasing a bottle of cold drink or a packet of biscuits? It is the same case with your wife. A girl is biologically sealed from birth until it is opened. A virgin girl means many things accompanied as values, culture, sexual hygiene. To most boys, virgin wife is like angel. Facing criticism from all quarters, a defiant Sarkar appeared to justify his comments, asserting it was intended for fun among a social media group of friends and not for public consumption. Someone took a screenshot of the post and forwarded it, which triggered the response. I did not intend to hurt anyones sentiment or insult any woman, he said. He also said according to a Supreme Court order every individual is entitled to express his opinion. The JU Arts Faculty Students Union leader Debraj Debnath told PTI that both the AFSU and the Students Federation of India (SFI) have submitted separate memorandums against the professor to the VC for the sexist post. It is their democratic right to submit memorandum against me to the authorities. But, I should be allowed to explain my stand, Sarkar said. A student of his department alleged that Sarkar made similar sexist comments on social media in the past as well. During classes, he had created an uncomfortable situation for woman students. We dont feel secure in his presence in the department, she said. The International Relations Department of the varsity will also appeal to the VC for action against him, she added. The vice-chancellor was not available for comments. PTI amansharma@tribunemail.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 15 India has condemned the latest brutal terror attack that shook Kabul on Monday night. An Indian national was among the four killed when a bomb laden truck exploded near a heavily fortified Green Village compound in the capital city of Afghanistan. Taliban today claimed responsibility for the attack which injured at least 90, including women and children. India strongly condemns the horrific terror attack in Kabul yesterday in which an Indian national and many others lost their lives. We express our sincere condolences to the families of the victims of this cowardly attack and wish early recovery to the injured, said the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) While the identity of the Indian national has not been disclosed, sources said that the woman, working in an organisation involved with the civil society sector, died when the roof her house in the attack area collapsed following impact of the strong blast. The Indian Embassy in Kabul is completing formalities necessary for repatriation of the mortal remains of the Indian national. India calls for the perpetrators of this heinous attack and those who provide them shelter to be brought to justice expeditiously, added the MEA in its statement. rchopra@tribunemail.com New Delhi, January 15 An Indian national was among those killed in the terror attack in Afghanistans capital on Monday, the Ministry of External Affairs said and called for the perpetrators of the assault as well as those who provided them shelter to be brought to justice expeditiously. A bomb exploded near a heavily-fortified foreign compound in Kabul, killing at least four people and wounding over 100. The Taliban on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attack in Kabul that ripped through surrounding neighbourhoods. India strongly condemns the horrific terror attack in Kabul on Monday in which an Indian national and many others lost their lives, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement on Tuesday. The Indian Embassy in Kabul is taking steps for repatriation of the mortal remains of the Indian national, the MEA said. We express our sincere condolences to the families of the victims of this cowardly attack and wish early recovery to the injured, it said. India called for the perpetrators of this heinous attack and those who provided them shelter to be brought to justice expeditiously, the ministry said. PTI editorial@tribune.com Smita Sharma Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 14 India, through its High Commission in Islamabad, issued a note verbale to the Pakistan Foreign Ministry to protest harassment of Indian diplomats and officials serving at the mission in Islamabad. Sources said the protest note was issued on January 10. Among other issues, the note objected to "attempts to hack the Facebook accounts of two officers and close-watching and aggressive surveillance of the Indian High Commissioner and Deputy High Commissioner while attending a wedding at Serena Hotel in Islamabad on December 4." The identity of relatives of two Indian officials were reportedly cloned by Pakistani hackers in an attempt to hack accounts. Diplomatic ties between India and Pakistan have soured again over the past few months with aggressive tailing and surveillance methods reportedly being pressed even against Indias envoy in Pakistan. Sources said for the past nearly five months, there had been simmering tension over a non-functional gas pipeline. The Indian mission is waiting for the pipeline to be functional despite a contract being signed with agency Sui in 2015. Architects and consultants are not being allowed by Pakistani authorities to come inside the new compound. The Indian officials there are without their families ... These obstructions are against diplomatic norms, said a source. editorial@tribune.com Aditi Tandon Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 14 Two days after being left out of the Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party alliance in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress found itself facing fresh embarrassment today on account of Rashtriya Janata Dals public endorsement of the Mayawati-Akhilesh Yadav pact minus the Congress. As RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav warmed up to BSP chief Mayawati and SP president Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow, the Congress felt the heat in the capital with party insiders acknowledging that the coalition setback in UP could have far reaching consequences for Rahul Gandhis plans of a national level anti-BJP coalition by way of state-level understandings. After what happened in UP, nothing can be ruled out. Its the time to wait and watch, said a senior Congress leader, not ruling out changing political equations across states for the General Election. The Congress has reacted warily to the remarks of RJD supremo Lalu Prasads son Tejashwi, who said in Lucknow today that the BSP and the SP were enough to defeat the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. The remarks literally implied irrelevance of Congress. Senior Congress leader and former Lok Sabha MP from UPs Kushinagar RPN Singh today accused the BSP and the SP of toeing the BJPs line in UP. In UP, no one can defeat the BJP without the Congress. The BSP and the SPs decision is the decision the BJP was hoping for originally. The BJP wanted secular parties to contest separately. The BJP wanted to disturb Opposition unity. The Congress, on the other hand, has been working to bring everyone together to take on the BJP. Rahul Gandhi is attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi on corruption, but no one else is doing that. Why? asked Singh, a former MoS Home. Congress president Rahul Gandhi recently said the BSP and the SP didnt even speak to the Congress before taking the call on UP alliance. Privately, some Congress functionaries admitted today that the party would have to bat on the front-foot going forward lest UP setback is replicated in Bihar or Jharkhand. UP setback can have consequences and we have to watch out for that, a Congress source said, exuding confidence that the Congress was prepared for LS polls in every state. Even in Karnataka, the JD-S today warned the Congress against treating it as a third grade citizen in seat-sharing talks for the General Election. Though the Congress believes the JD-S will eventually come around, it realises the impact of public threats in politics. Eventually in Karnataka, everything will work out well between the Congress and the JD-S, who are the ruling allies, Congress spokesman Pawan Khera said. rchopra@tribunemail.com New Delhi, January 15 Leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, terming the appointment of M Nageswara Rao as the CBI's interim director "illegal" and demanding that a meeting of the selection committee be convened immediately to appoint a new chief of the probe agency. Kharge, who is part of the prime minister-headed three-member panel that removed Alok Verma as CBI chief, alleged that the government is scared of CBI led by an "independent" director. "Actions of the government indicate that it's scared of a CBI headed by an independent director," Kharge wrote in his letter to Prime Minister Modi. He also demanded that the government come clean on the issues and make public the CVC report, Justice A K Patnaik's report and minutes of the January 10 meeting. Rao's appointment as CBI interim chief is "illegal", the Congress leader wrote in the letter. Barely two days after the Supreme Court reinstated him, Verma was Thursday last removed as CBI director by the high-powered committee headed by Modi on charges of corruption and dereliction of duty, in an unprecedented action in the central probe agency's 55-year history. There were eight charges against Verma in the CVC report presented before the committee that also comprised Kharge and Justice AK Sikri, appointed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi as his nominee. PTI amansharma@tribunemail.com New Delhi, January 15 With Congress president Rahul Gandhi mocking the prime minister for being awarded the Philip Kotler award, the marketing guru took to Twitter to congratulate Narendra Modi for the honour and hailed his "selfless service towards India". "I congratulate PM @narendramodi for being conferred the first ever Philip Kotler Presidential Award. He has been selected for his outstanding leadership & selfless service towards India, combined with his tireless energy," Kotler said on Twitter Tuesday. He said Modi's efforts in India have resulted in "extraordinary economic, social and technological advances". "His winning the first Philip Kotler Presidential award raises the bar for future recipients," the marketing guru said. I congratulate PM @narendramodi for being conferred the first ever Philip Kotler Presidential Award. He has been selected for his outstanding leadership & selfless service towards India, combined with his tireless energy. (1/2) Philip Kotler (@kotl) January 15, 2019 Gandhi earlier took a dig at Modi saying he wanted to "congratulate" him on winning the "world famous" Philip Kotler Presidential award. "In fact it's so famous it has no jury, has never been given out before & is backed by an unheard of Aligarh company. Event Partners: Patanjali & Republic TV :)," he said on Twitter. In a sharp retort, Union minister Smriti Irani, while tagging Gandhi's tweet, suggested that unlike Prime Minister Modi, who was awarded by someone else, Gandhi family members had conferred themselves the country's top civilian honour-Bharat Ratna. "Rich !!! Coming from a person whose illustrious family decided to confer the 'Bharat Ratna' on themselves," she tweeted. Modi had on Monday received the first-ever Philip Kotler Presidential award here. According to a statement from the Prime Minister's Office, the award focuses on the triple bottom-line of 'people, profit and planet' and will be offered annually to the leader of a nation. Philip Kotler is a professor of marketing at Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management. - PTI laxmi@tribune.com Washington, January 14 There is a strong possibility of Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Hussain Ranas extradition to India before the completion of his 14-year jail term in the US in 2021 for plotting the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, an informed source here has said. Rana, 58, a resident of Chicago, was arrested in 2009 on the charges of plotting the 26/11 terror attack. A total of 166 persons were killed in the attack carried out by 10 LeT terrorists in Mumbai. In 2013, Rana was sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment (see box), followed by five years of supervised release by US District Judge Harry Leinenweber. US officials say he is set to be released in December 2021. The Indian government, with full cooperation from the Trump administration, is currently working on completing the necessary paperwork to ensure the extradition before his current jail term ends in December 2021. India would not seek extradition of Rana on the charges for which he is already serving his jail sentence, as officials pointed out that the double jeopardy clause in the US justice system prohibits punishing a person twice for the same crime. India is seeking extradition of Rana on the ground that he was actively involved in planning an attack on the New Delhi-based National Defence College and Chabad Houses in several cities. There is also a forgery case registered against him in India. Following a recent visit to the US by Indias NIA team, officials from both sides have agreed to cut down on the bureaucratic procedures so that all the necessary paperwork is ready before the current jail term ends. As per the US law, Rana, a Canadian national, would most probably be deported to Canada if India and the US are unable to complete the cumbersome extradition process before his release. PTI rchopra@tribunemail.com New Delhi, January 15 Two lawmakers withdrew support from the Congress-JDS government in Karnataka on Tuesday in a drama that plays out less than a year after the government was sworn in. Members of Legislative Assembly H Nagesh (Independent) and R Shankar (Karnataka Pragnyavantha Janatha Party) pulled out of the HD Kumaraswamy government. In separate but identical letters now made available to the press, the lawmakers said they were withdrawing support extended to the coalition government of the Congress and the JDS with immediate effect. The MLAs, who are now staying in a Mumbai hotel, requested the Governor to take "necessary action". The development comes amid allegations of poaching from both sides. The Congress, which holds majority in the House, accuses rivals BJP of trying to wean away its lawmakersa charge the BJP denies. The BJP, meanwhile, says it fears the Congress luring its own MLAs, and has even parked its own lawmakers at a resort in Haryanas Nuh district near the national capital, according to sources. BJP state president BS Yeddyurappa, former chief minister Jagadish Shettar and other senior leaders like Shobha Karandlaje are among the 104 MLAs staying put in the ITC Grand Bharat resort in Hasanpur Tauru in Nuh district since Monday. Sources said the BJP legislators had been shifted to the resort in an attempt to keep the flock together and thwart any poaching attempt by the Congress-JD(S) combine. ALSO READ We are staying in the resort. We dont know how long we are going to be here, Shettar told PTI. Three to four MLAs had gone back to the state for personal work and they would return soon, sources said. According to media reports, six to eight Congress MLAs are ready to cross over to the BJP and some lawmakers of the ruling coalition have gone incommunicado. There are also reports of some Congress and Independent MLAs staying at a hotel in Mumbai. On Monday, both the ruling Congress-JDS coalition and opposition BJP traded charges of making a renewed bid to poach MLAs. Rubbishing reports about the BJP attempting Operation Lotus to topple the coalition government in Karnataka, state party chief Yeddyurappa had said that there was no truth in it and alleged that the Congress-JD(S) combine was trying to lure Opposition MLAs. Operation Lotus is a reference to the BJPs alleged bid to lure several opposition MLAs to defect to ensure stability of its then government headed by Yeddyurappa in 2008. 'No threat' The ruling coalition claims its government is under no threat despite the most recent pullout of two lawmakers. AICC General Secretary Karnataka in-charge, K Venugopal alleged that the BJP had been making attempts to destabilise the secular government headed by Kumaraswamy ever since it came to power in the state seven months ago after Karnataka Assembly polls. "Our government will continue at any cost. It will complete five years. Nothing will happen. Our MLAs are strong and united," Venugopal said after holding a meeting with Kumaraswamy in Bengaluru. "This will be a big slap on the face of the BJP," Venugopal said. Asked whether relations between the Congress and JD(S) are strained, the Congress leader said: "We are very much united." Accusing BJP of trying to lure legislators offering huge sums of money, he said: "The anti-democratic and unethical practice of the BJP will be exposed soon". He also accused media of "celebrating the unholy horsetrading being carried out by the BJP" in the state. JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda echoed the statement. "It is not in anybody's hands, including the media. However much you cry hoarse, nothing will happen because it is in the hands of God. When a party (JDS) of 38 MLAs gets the blessings of a national party (Congress), it is all the wish of God," Gowda said. Gowda said it was an "illusion" to think that the Congress-JD(S) government was in trouble. "You (the press) are under some confusion (about the stability of the government) as also is Yeddyurappa, but Ive no such confusion. Nobody can destabilise the government because it is the wish of God," the JD(S) supremo said. Gowda also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi over allegations that Rs 60 crore and ministerial positions were offered to the MLAs of the ruling coalition by the BJP. "Does it look good that a national party (BJP) is hoarding its 104 MLAs? I am not talking about Amit Shah but Modi, who talks a lot throughout the day," he said. "All our MLAs are together at home. We are not worried about them," he added. Gowda said the Congress was unnecessarily worried. "(KC) Venugopal (AICC general secretary in-charge of Karnataka affairs) has arrived here because he must have been shook after listening to some news, but there is no need for any confusion," he said. Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy claimed on Monday that he had the support of 120 MLAs, and accused Yeddyurappa of making futile attempts to destabilise his government. In the 224-member Assembly, the BJP has 104 members, Congress 79, JDS 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each, besides the Speaker. Also supporting the coalition is the BSP's sole legislator in the House. Agencies Col DS Cheema (Retd) Col DS Cheema (Retd) THIS piece is a tribute to the innate genius of an unsung hero of science and relates to the period when there was no need for the government to make special efforts to develop scientific temper among students. The subject was a craze with parents and students alike, unlike the present-day when humanities has taken the lead. A man in his mid-40s roamed about on his bicycle, loaded with bags of different sizes, demonstrating science experiments in schools. The man, who earned his livelihood by doing so, was affectionately called Hans Raj Wireless. In 1958, when I was a student of class X in a small town, our science teacher informed us about his programme in the auditorium of the local college, within walking distance of school. The auditorium was filled with students of classes IX and X from three schools of the town. All were curious. A teacher came up on the stage and asked everyone to keep quiet. In no time, there was almost complete silence. The level of discipline among students then was such that no one dared go against the instructions of teachers. We were introduced to a small, smiling man who waved both hands. In a few minutes, the equipment was set up with the help of some students. He had created a makeshift room by hanging a dirty, unironed sheet on a rope and demonstrated how a light bulb would switch on and off when he moved in or out. Next, he showed us how water would automatically flow when he put hands under a rusty iron tap, crudely fixed in a cement basin, and how it would stop when the hands were moved away. The two demonstrations were enough to mesmerise us boys and girls from a semi-rural background. We clapped again and again when the bulb went on or off, or when the water flowed out of the tap or stopped flowing. He got maximum applause for an automatic shoe-polishing machine. He asked a student wearing leather shoes to put his foot in the wooden box. Just then, the sound of a motor was heard for some time and then it stopped. He asked the boy to remove his foot and the shoe had been polished. To our amusement, the boy struggled as the foot wouldnt get free and the box moved up and down. Someone in the audience was asked to give him a chawanni, which he put in a special slot, and lo and behold, the foot came out without any effort! There must be many villages even today, where such demonstrations will be treated as miracles. It is difficult to understand why even with hundreds of national-level science laboratories and institutions of technical excellence, such useful gadgets have not been commercialised for use by the common man, when the prototypes could be demonstrated over 50 years ago. Perhaps bureaucrats and technocrats have failed to maintain a fine balance between basic and applied research. editorial@tribune.com New Delhi, January 14 The Supreme Court on Monday ordered tagging of a PIL challenging the validity of Article 370 of the Constitution, which grants a special status to Jammu and Kashmir and limits Parliaments power to make laws concerning the state, with another pending plea on the issue. A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Ashok Bhushan and SK Kaul said the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay would be listed for hearing, along with the other plea, on April 2. The plea says the special provision was temporary in nature at the time of framing of the Constitution and Article 370(3) had lapsed with the dissolution of the Jammu and Kashmir Constituent Assembly on January 26, 1957. A similar plea, challenging Article 370 of the Constitution, has been filed by one Kumari Vijayalakshmi Jha. In his plea, Upadhyay has also sought a declaration from the apex court that the separate Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir is arbitrary and unconstitutional on various grounds, including that it is against the supremacy of the Constitution of India and contrary to the dictum of one nation, one constitution, one national anthem and one national flag. PTI What the plea says The plea says the special provision was "temporary" in nature at the time of framing of the Constitution and Article 370(3) had lapsed with the dissolution of the Jammu and Kashmir Constituent Assembly on January 26, 1957 editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Jammu, January 14 Governor Satya Pal Malik on Monday said politicians were using wrong term for the Armys counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir, saying There is nothing like Operation All-out (against militants) in Jammu and Kashmir. Politicians are using a wrong term. There is no term like Operation All-out in J&K. When terrorists open fire or throw grenades (on security forces), this is not possible that we will reciprocate them with bouquets of flowers, Malik told reporters after inaugurating an open air gymnasium and musical fountain at Rajinder Singh Park here. The park is maintained by J&K Bank. Malik was reacting to the recent statement of National Conference president Farooq Abdullah who had said his party would not support the Armys Operation All-out against the militants in Kashmir if voted to power. We want these youth (referring to local militants) should return (to the mainstream) and we are ready to do whatever we can do. They should shut the path of violence and gun. They must understand that the path of violence will achieve them nothing, he said. Asked about the NC chiefs demand for constitution of a truth and reconciliation commission for a thorough probe into civilian killings in Kashmir, the Governor said it was not appropriate for him to comment on his (Farooqs) statement. He makes a new statement every day and changes it next day. He is a senior leader and I respect him. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on his remarks, Malik said. To another query, Malik said political compulsions made Kashmir-based politicians make pro-separatists and pro-militants statements. All of them are political people. They have certain political compulsions. In this country, the people can do anything for the vote-bank politics, he added. The Governor reiterated that they were ready for elections but the decision (in this regard) would be taken by the Election Commission of India. Shun path of violence We want the youth (referring to local militants) should return to the mainstream and we are ready to do whatever we can do. They should shut the path of violence and gun. They must understand that the path of violence will achieve them nothing. Satya Pal Malik, Governor editorial@tribune.com Lakhimpur Kheri (UP), Jan14 Kashmir is still a challenge due to destabilising activities by Pakistan, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said here on Monday. He was talking to mediapersons after inaugurating the administrative building, residential block and officers mess at the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) sector headquarters in Lakhimpur. Kashmir is still a challenge due to destabilising activities by neighbouring Pakistan. However, the Army, CRPF, J&K police and Intelligence Bureau men are acting in better coordination, he said. Speaking about Naxal incidents, the Home Minister said they had dropped by 50 per cent during the past four years. Extremist violence in northeastern areas saw a decline of 80 per cent, Rajnath Singh said. Lauding improvements made on the internal security front, he said, No major terrorist incident had taken place in India during the last four-and-a-half years (of the Narendra Modi government). He said the countrys economy today was counted as the worlds fastest growing. By 2030, the Indian economy would rank among top three economies of the world, he said. The Modi government has launched the worlds largest universal health care scheme Ayushmaan Bharat which has benefitted 7.5 lakh people so far, Rajnath Singh said. The Union minister also visited Bahraich, where he laid the foundation stone of the states first Integrated Check Post (ICP) at the Indo-Nepal border in the Rupaideha area. The ICP was constructed at a cost of Rs 200 crore. Rajnath Singh said the security forces were tackling well the terrorists pushed into India by Pakistan. Pakistan sends terrorist to separate Jammu and Kashmir from India, but the security forces are dealing well with the anti-national elements and terrorists, he said. Responding to a question about the alliance between the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh, Rajnath Singh said the BJP would win not less than 72 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. PTI Pakistan sends terrorist to separate Jammu and Kashmir from India, but the security forces are dealing well with the anti-national elements and terrorists. Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister rchopra@tribunemail.com Jammu, January 15 A BSF officer was killed on Tuesday in sniper fire from across the border in the Samba sector of Jammu and Kashmir, officials of the border guarding force said. They said Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad was hit by a sniper shot at about 10.50 am when he and his patrol party were out for carrying out border domination along the IB. Pakistani snipers opened fire at them, leading to grievous injuries to the officer. Prasad was rushed to a medical facility in Satwari in Jammu where he later succumbed to his injuries, an official said. The Border Security Force (BSF) is tasked to guard the India-Pakistan International Border in the Jammu region of the state. PTI editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Jalandhar, January 14 The Education Secretary, Krishan Kumar, has invited all principals of the smart schools of the state tomorrow to discuss utilisation of grants provided to the schools. As many as 261 principals of the smart schools of various districts have been invited to attend the meeting. The circular has been sent to District Education Officers (Secondary and Primary), in which it has been mentioned that the grants have been given to the schools. The principals have been accorded the grants and they are using the money for the growth of the schools. A smart school principal from Jalandhar said: We have made a list regarding the things on which we have spent the money. We have also clicked pictures, showing the achievements of the students. Besides we have also made sure that we do not miss any achievement that our school has made in every field, he added. Another smart school principal from rural area said it was appreciable that the principals had been called to attend the meeting and the secretary would monitor everything that where we were spending the amount that was being sent to us. He said it would definitely bring transparency in the process under which the grants had been spent for the development of the schools. From urban area, a teacher of the government smart school said they had been involved in the process of making proper notes for the development of our school. Lately, in an event, the Education Minister OP Soni had said the government had so far built 2,200 smart schools in the state and would achieve the target of 5,000 smart schools by March 31. The Education Minister had said the state government also introduced pre-primary classes in the government schools to strengthen the foundation of school education in the state. editorial@tribune.com Sunit Dhawan Tribune News Service Rohtak, January 14 A significant increase has been registered in the number of swine-flu cases at the PGIMS, Rohtak, this year, though doctors maintained that there was no need to panic and people just needed to be cautious and take vaccinations for the disease. Dr Dhruva Chaudhry, Senior Professor and Head of the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the PGIMS/University of Health Sciences, Rohtak, said influenza infection peaks during the winter season and there has been a spurt in the cases of swine-flu as well as normal flu as compared to the last season. Last year (2017-18), we had 82 suspected cases of swine-flu, of whom seven tested positive for swine-flu and five for normal flu (Influenza A). This year (2018-19), we got 131 patients tested till January 12, of whom 36 tested positive for swine-flu and 30 for normal flu, he said, adding that a majority of patients were from Hisar, Bhiwani, Jind and Fatehabad districts. As per the experts, normal flu (Influenza A) is identified by H3N2 virus, while swine-flu is identified by H1N1 virus. The H1N1 virus, which had California strain till about a couple of years ago, has lately undergone changes and now shows Michigan strain. Prof Chaudhry said there was no need to panic, but the persons having symptoms of flu should be cautious and seek medical advice timely. Those who come in contact with the infected persons, especially doctors, nurses and other paramedics, should take precautions and get themselves vaccinated, he stated. It may be pertinent to mention here that the average efficacy of the anti-influenza vaccination is about 60 per cent. The expert further pointed out that the elderly, diabetic and obese individuals, pregnant women and patients on immunosuppressant medication like steroids and anti-cancer drugs are more susceptible to the influenza infection, adding that frequent fliers to various international destinations are also likely to catch some infection from foreign lands. laxmi@tribune.com Bijendra Ahlawat Tribune News Service Palwal, January 14 Constructed at a cost of Rs 13 crore in 2017, the government college at Hathin, Palwal district, for undergraduate arts and commerce courses has just one regular lecturer for 181 students. The lone woman lecturer holds classes for both streams and that too for three days a week. She teaches at another college for the remaining days, claimed a commerce student. I need regular guidance in mathematics and accounts, but there is no teacher for these subjects. I fear I may not be able to get good grades, he added, as other pupils nodded in acquiescence. Sarfuddin, a relative of one of the students, said they had approached the authorities concerned several times, but to no avail. What good is the college when it does not have adequate staff? he asked. Originally set up as a womens college under the governments Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao initiative, it was converted into a co-ed institution last year after it failed to get adequate enrolment. Kehar Singh Rawat, Hathin MLA, blamed the state government for the sorry state of affairs. Besides jeopardising the future of students, infrastructure worth several crores has been allowed to go waste. The college lacks drinking water facility. The office has no phone and the brackish underground water is ruinous for any plantation, he observed. Admitting a severe staff crunch, AK Gupta, the college principal, said the services of two teachers one on deputation and the other on contract had been acquired till the time more lecturers were appointed. The authorities are seized of the matter, he added. The fate of two women colleges at Badoli and Mandkola villages is no different. Both lack infrastructure and do not have more than three teachers each. editorial@tribune.com Deepender Deswal Tribune News Service Hisar, January 14 The information technology (IT) cells of various political parties are geared up to exploit the penetration of social media among the electorate for the Jind byelection. Besides the tradition style of canvassing, social media too is emerging as an integral part the ongoing campaign. Social media, including Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and Youtube, is flooded with political content in the form of videos and text posts, adding colour to the ongoing electoral fight. However, the police action against some persons for an objectionable post about Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar seems to have cautioned social media people and no controversial posts have emerged so far. The BJP, Congress, INLD and the newly formed JJP have set up well-equipped war rooms in Jind town. The information technology (IT) cells have adopted well-chalked out strategies to spread their messages and counter the agenda of their opponents on social media. The Haryana BJP, Congress candidate Randeep Singh Surjewala, INLD leader Abhay Singh Chautala, JJP leaders Dushyant Chautala, and his father Ajay Chautala, BJPs rebel MP Rajkumar Saini have verified Facebook accounts, which have large followings and attract likes and comments in hundreds on every upload. The video posts of Abhay Chautala and his nephews Dushyant and Digvijay go viral on social media. Their supporters take potshots at each other, terming their leaders as genuine legacy holders of former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala and former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal. Arun Yadav, Haryana head of the IT cell of the BJP, says that they have a team of 25 people in the war room in Jind. Our rival candidates are well ahead of us in the social media campaign right now. But we too are catching up with them. We have been running a positive agenda, highlighting the achievements of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, he said, adding that they also keep a tab on the posts of the rivals. The IT cells of other parties, especially the JJP, and the INLD, have embedded their supporters, posing as social media anchors having a unique style of presentation. They interact with voters in the constituency to create content, which has wit, humour and take hard hits at the opponents to grab eyeballs. Prof Vikram Kaushik, communication management and technology department head at Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, says that social media is an uncontrolled but powerful tool, which has the capacity to unleash mistrust. It plays with innocent minds. People believe in technology and thus believe in content, Kaushik adds. laxmi@tribune.com Ravinder Saini Tribune News Service Mahendragarh, January 14 Haryanas Education and Tourism Minister Ram Bilas Sharma today courted controversy by distributing cash among 2,000 people during a programme at his residence near Satnali Chowk here. Information about cash distribution was given to the media via a press release. Sharma had invited people belonging to the economically weaker section to mark Makar Sankranti. He distributed Rs 100 in cash among each of those present, including women and sadhus, besides handing over blankets, peanuts and rewri. A press release later said cash and others items were distributed. Hours later, an email was sent to the media asking them to delete the information about cash distribution, saying it was mentioned inadvertently. However, photographs released initially by the ministers office clearly showed him distributing cash. Sources said Sharma had been organising the event every year. Following the custom and tradition, Rs 100 each was given as a token of respect. There is nothing wrong in it, they added. Earlier, Sharma said there was a lot of significance of donation on Makar Sankranti. shalender@tribune.com The BJPs national convention, organised just a month after the stunning electoral reversals in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, should have served as a sobering platform for introspection, an opportunity to take an uncompromising look at the chinks in the armour before the Lok Sabha battle. Instead, it turned out to be yet another venom-spewing exercise. Opposition parties, which are busy regrouping with new-found energy, were ridiculed for even dreaming of wresting power from the saffron party. PM Modis penchant for wordplay was on display as he asked the country to choose between a mazboot sarkar and a majboor one. He did not miss the chance of patting himself and his government on the back for a job well done, but conveniently skipped all that had gone wrong in the past five years. He did caution party workers to guard against complacency, putting it as subtly as he could that the Modi wave was a thing of the past. However, he made it clear in the same breath that his leadership remained undisputed and the poll narrative would again revolve around him. At his equivocal best, party president Amit Shah admitted that their opponents had won the recent Assembly polls, but he refused to acknowledge that the BJP had lost ground. Modi and Co had conducted a no-holds-barred campaign against the Congress-led UPA in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The ploy had worked as the scam-tainted alliance was facing anti-incumbency wrath after 10 turbulent years in power. Replaying the track wont do the trick now. The ruling party should focus on its own governments performance, warts and all, rather than constantly mocking its foes, who are pushovers no more. The top brass needs to realise that its potshots are like water off a ducks back for a resurgent Congress, which knows that the once yawning gap between the BJP and the rest has narrowed considerably. The voters have had enough of jumlas. A development-centric plank is a must-have to keep them interested. JV Yakhmi JV Yakhmi Fellow, National Academy of Sciences MOLASSES, a byproduct of the sugar manufacturing process, is used to make alcohol in distilleries. Sugar factories often store huge stocks of this syrup-like fluid. In May last year, about 10,000 quintals of molasses spilled over from the storage lagoons of a sugar mill at Kiri Afghana in Gurdaspur district into a drain leading to the Beas river. Thousands of fish died as oxygen levels in the water depleted due to the pollution caused by molasses. The Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) sealed the mill for months as a deterrent and imposed a fine of Rs 5 crore on it as environmental compensation for the rejuvenation of aquatic life and quality of drinking water drawn from the Beas. To avoid further spillage, the PPCB instructed the mill to store molasses in steel tanks with cooling arrangements, recirculation and proper venting, and to follow all industrial safety norms. On the centenary of the Boston molasses disaster, the first major industrial accident of its kind, it is pertinent to highlight that any disregard of safety in the handling of molasses in large steel tanks at sugar mills and distilleries can lead to disastrous consequences, even fatalities. That is what happened on January 15, 1919, in Boston when an iron storage tank with 90-ft diameter and 50-ft height, filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses ready to be distilled into industrial alcohol, split open and exploded at the Purity Distilling Company, a subsidiary of the United States Industrial Alcohol (USIA). The blast released huge amounts of molasses like a tidal wave of syrup 40-ft high and 160-ft wide at its peak, travelling through the neighbouring streets at 35 mph. This flood of molasses demolished buildings and a nearby fire station, buckled an elevated railway track and crushed vehicles. People, horses and dogs on the streets got engulfed in the molasses, and any attempt by them to escape only sank them further, drowning them in the viscous fluid that stretched chest-deep even 90 metres from the tank and carried floating debris. The accident killed 21 persons and injured 150. Why did the storage tank at the Boston distillery explode? The tank had shown frequent leaks earlier due to a weakened structure, a fact ignored by the owners. A combination of factors led to its bursting: structural defects, rise in ambient temperatures, and fermentation in the tank kept filled with molasses for several days, producing carbon dioxide that built excessive pressure inside it. Why was the wave of molasses so deadly? Unlike water, molasses is what physicists call a non-Newtonian fluid, the velocity of which depends on the force applied to it. Swimming in molasses is nearly impossible because of a low value of its Reynolds number, which is related to its viscosity and density, and the size of the object trying to swim. The Reynolds number for an adult man in water is about one million, but in molasses it is just 130. Since 1919, there have been several fatal accidents due to the bursting of storage tanks of molasses at sugar mills. Two men were killed and eight injured in Karachi in April 2018; three workers were killed and 16 injured at Ahmednagar in Maharashtra in April 2016; a woman and her two children died in Orissas Ganjam district in 2012; seven persons were killed and 14 injured in Hyderabad region of Pakistan in 2008. Besides, several accidents related to suffocation while cleaning a molasses tank have led to the loss of lives, such as the death of two men in Sarina (Australia) in January 2018. Unsafe handling of large quantities of other fluids, too, has led to industrial disasters. The most cited among them is the London Beer flood incident, when a large wooden vat of beer, 21-ft high and 60-ft across, holding about one million pints of hot fermenting ale, exploded at Meuxs Horse Shoe Brewery in London on October 17, 1814. A tsunami of beer inundated the streets and houses nearby, drowning eight persons, all women or children. At Kolantar in the Hungarian countryside, a caustic waste reservoir collapsed at Ajka Alumina Plant on October 4, 2010, spilling over one million cubic metres of highly alkaline red sludge which flooded several villages, killing 10 persons and injuring 120. The Hungarian Government had to declare a state of emergency, evacuating 8,000 people. It also imposed a fine of $647 million on MAL Hungarian Co. for damaging environment. But it was the 1919 Boston molasses disaster which underlined industrial safety as a matter of serious concern for the first time. Promulgation of restrictions governing the quality of concrete/steel used in industry, observing safety margins in the construction of large tanks, employing trained supervisory staff to handle safety operations, holding periodic safety inspections by regulatory agencies, and seeking approvals of the state before setting up a large factory handling unsafe and toxic materials became the norm thereafter. The Boston blast caused the loss of so many lives because the huge tank that could hold 2.3 million gallons of molasses was set up in a congested neighbourhood of the Commercial Street in North End, without taking permissions. Safety hazards related to transport and storage of inflammable fluids such as petroleum products and petrochemicals are often discussed. However, toxic effluents are discharged into Indian rivers and canals recklessly by leather tanneries, textile dyeing units, etc., often without treating the effluents, as required by the safety norms. Regulations against damage to life and ecology are only as strong as their enforcement, which can be done only by upright officials. To oversee the lawsuit that followed the Boston molasses disaster, the Massachusetts Superior Court had appointed an auditor, Col Hugh W Ogden. In 1925, Ogden declared the company USIA fully at fault for the disaster, forcing it to pay out $7 million in settlements, a lesson to big industries to follow safety norms. Lt Gen DS Hooda (Retd) Lt Gen DS Hooda (Retd) Former Northern Army Command Chief Today, as we celebrate the 71st Army Day, the Indian Army can be justifiably proud of its past record of having served the nation with distinction and honour, while retaining its secular and apolitical character. However, it is also an opportune time to consider the many challenges that face the Army as it looks at the year ahead. The Armys primary responsibility is to guard the borders, and these borders remain troubled. The LOC with Pakistan is extremely hostile. As per reports, 2018 witnessed 2,936 ceasefire violation cases, the highest in 15 years. The latest martyrdom of Major Nair and another soldier in an IED attack is a grim reminder of the dangers that our soldiers are exposed to on a daily basis. In the absence of any diplomatic engagement, only the guns will do the talking. Unfortunately, this is the bloody reality of the LOC in the foreseeable future. Faced with this, the Army will have to move urgently to minimise casualties by better individual protective gear, modern counter-IED equipment, advanced surveillance systems and an effective smart fence that detects infiltration. Each death on the LOC raises high emotions among the citizens that further restrict political and diplomatic space. Some way has to be found around this vicious cycle of death and retribution. After Doklam, there has been relative calm on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China. However, this should not lull us into a sense of complacency. Two neighbouring rising powers cannot have a completely harmonious relationship. As John Mearsheimer reminds us in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics: Even when a great power achieves a distinct military advantage over its rivals, it continues looking for chances to gain more power. The pursuit of power stops only when hegemony is achieved. An outbreak of conflict with China is unlikely, but Chumar and Doklam-type incidents are very real, and fuelled by nationalistic fervour, such incidents can take on a larger dimension. With superior Chinese infrastructure along the LAC, our Army remains at a disadvantage in many areas, particularly Arunachal Pradesh. The present government has given a push to the building of roads along the LAC but the pace remains unsatisfactory. According to the Border Roads Organisation website, by January 20, 2017, the East Directorate had achieved only about 30 per cent of its road construction targets for the financial year 2016-17. There is a need for a comprehensive plan for speeding up infrastructure development. In internal security, J&K remains the biggest challenge. The situation is worrying, and we should not quote selective data to support claims that things are on the mend. The Army often states that its job is restricted to bringing the security situation under control so that political steps can be initiated for conflict resolution. While this statement is not incorrect, this compartmentalisation of strategy has not proved helpful. In the past, on many occasions, the Army has brought the situation to near normalcy, but the opportunity was squandered as corresponding political and governance issues were not addressed. The Army leadership must insist on the framing of a coherent government strategy for J&K that combines the security, economic, political and information domains. In the preparation of this strategy, the Army must be a major stakeholder. The political leadership ultimately has the final word, but Army leaders, with their vast experience in the state, must offer frank, unbiased and professional advice. Internally, the Army is considering an ambitious plan to reduce its manpower. In the time of stressed military budgets, revenue costs are prohibiting modernisation plans, leaving the Army with a majority of vintage equipment. The raising of the Mountain Strike Corps has put added pressure, as in the absence of a dedicated budget for the raising, the War Wastage Reserve was depleted to equip the new corps. There is no option but to trade off manpower for modernisation. The Army should seize this opportunity for restructuring and reforming itself to fight future wars. This requires a deeper look at emerging threats, and a review of the Armys current doctrine, strategy, and tactics. The government must support this transformation by not viewing it merely as a money-saving exercise but one that will enhance national security. This will require a comprehensive long-term plan and not one that promotes ideas like selling off cantonment lands. The Army must also renew its focus on people. The men and women are our greatest asset and must remain highly motivated. Some current trends are worrying. More and more of our officers and men are approaching the civil courts. Dissatisfied officers from certain corps appealed against what they considered to be an unfair distribution of Colonels vacancies as recommended by the AV Singh Committee. The arguments in the SC took on a somewhat Arms vs Services tenor that left a bad taste. Last year, over 300 officers and soldiers approached the SC over the dilution of AFSPA. The court rejected their contention, but their worries cannot be wished away. There is obviously no ban on the rights of soldiers to appeal before courts and tribunals, but if such cases increase, it could chip away at the faith in the military organisation. Officers and soldiers must feel that they will get justice from their Army. This is squarely a priority task for the Armys leadership. Finally, issues like women in combat role, and decriminalisation of same-sex relations and adultery are some of the matters that the Army will have to grapple with. The Indian Army has its own unique ethos and culture, but these sensitive concerns cannot be casually dismissed without a serious internal debate. Dealing with challenges defines the true mettle of an organisation. ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 14 A car driver escaped after snatching a mobile phone from a traffic cop, who was making his video for using a mobile phone while driving on Monday evening. Sources said traffic constable Sushil was on duty at Piccadily Chowk when he saw a motorist using a mobile phone while driving. The cop stopped the car driver. However, the driver snatched his mobile and sped away. The cop managed to note down the registration number of the car. The police were informed about the incident, who visited the spot. The number of the car was flashed to all PCR vehicles. Bikers target pedestrian Two motorcycle-borne miscreants allegedly snatched a mobile phone near the Sector 25/38 light point. Complainant Ajit Kumar, a resident of Maloya village, reported that he was going on foot when the miscreants came and snatched his mobile on January 13. The police were informed about the incident, who registered a case at the Maloya police station. Mobile snatched in Sec 35 An Activa-borne miscreant escaped after snatching a mobile phone from a person in Sector 35 on Monday evening. According to the police, the incident was reported from near the Sector 35 market around 6.45 pm. The police were informed. ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Ramkrishan Upadhyay Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 14 Once again, a revolt in the city BJP came to the fore as one of its councillors, Satish Kainth, filed papers for the post of Mayor as an Independent. Kainth was miffed at the party high command for fielding Rajesh Kalia for the post. Another BJP aspirant, Farmila, supported Kainth and seconded his name, which was proposed by Independent councillor Dalip Sharma. The row ensued the announcement of the candidature of Kalia by BJP organisation secretary Dinesh Kumar and city MP Kirron Kher. Hardeep Singh, who belongs to the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), has been fielded for the post of the Senior Deputy Mayor, while Kanwarjeet Singh of the BJP will contest for the Deputy Mayors post. This time, the BJP has left the post of the Senior Deputy Mayor for the SAD. While Dinesh Kumar was announcing names of the candidates at a press conference at the party office in the city, both Kainth and Farmila had left the venue in protest. Later, when all candidates filed their nomination papers, both Kainth and Farmila were absent. Kainth filed his papers around 4.30 pm, leaving senior leaders baffled. A day before declaring the candidates, Dinesh Kumar had held a one-on-one meeting with all councillors and submitted a report in this regard to the party high command. The party decided to field Kalia despite opposition from many councillors during the meeting. But he emerged as a unanimous choice of Kher and Tandon. This is the second consecutive year when the party faced a revolt over the selection of the candidate for the mayoral elections. Last year, Asha Jaswal had filed papers after the party announced the candidature of Davesh Moudgil. Jaswal withdrew her nomination papers at the last moment after a lot of persuasion. Of 26 votes in the MC House, the BJP has 20. The Congress has four votes while the SAD and Independent councillors have one vote each. Due to the revolt in the party, the BJP will have to prevent cross-voting. Against politics of caste: Rebels BJP councillors Satish Kainth and Farmila, who revolted against the party choice, alleged that instead of selecting the candidate on the basis of merit, party leaders promoted casteism. Farmila said this was a new trend, which she opposed strongly. Kainth said the majority view was ignored by the party. He said there were other candidates who enjoyed support of many councillors but were ignored. ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 14 Amidst infighting within the BJP, the city Congress has fielded Sheela Devi for the post of Mayor. Gurbax Rawat has filed nomination papers for the post of Senior Deputy Mayor while Ravinder Kaur Gujral has filed papers for the post of Deputy Mayor. All three Congress candidates have filed the papers in the presence of Pawan Kumar Bansal and other senior leaders of the party. On the revolt in the BJP, Chandigarh Congress president Pradeep Chhabra said any decision to support the rebel candidate of the BJP would be taken after a discussion with the party leaders. He said at present all three candidates of the party had filed the nomination papers and the party was taking the elections seriously. Party will probe the issue, says Tandon City BJP president Sanjay Tandon said all senior leaders of the party were in touch with rebel candidate Satish Kainth and he was hopeful of resolving the matter soon. He said the party would probe the issue as who had instigated Kainth to take the decision for filing the nomination papers and Farmila supporting him. He said the party High Command would be apprised of the matter. From a rag-picker to mayoral candidate From a rag-picker to a candidate for the post of Mayor, the political journey of Rajesh Kalia was not easy. Kalia (46) worked as a rag-picker on the dumping ground in Sector 25 to earn money for family. Kalia said he has seven brothers and sisters. As he was not well-off, he had no choice but to work as a rag-picker to help his father in his school time. Educated up to plus two, he worked as a rag-picker for three years and later entered into politics. He was also active in the RSS and later served as the chairman of the Chandigarh SC Morcha. On the questions of his criminal past, he said he was never convicted by any court and the police have also given him a clean chit all cases. Some of the cases were filed with political motives. ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Naina Mishra Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 14 Students of government schools have been forced to brave the chill while taking lessons due to a paucity of rooms and non-receipt of grant for the winter uniform. At Government Model High School, Vikas Nagar, some classes run in corridors due to a dearth of classrooms in the school. There are 3,267 students in the school with only 30 rooms for instructional purposes. To accommodate such a huge strength of students, the school also runs in a double shift. During a random check, The Tribune correspondent found students struggling hard to study in the open space in the corridors. On one side, a few students of Class VII were being taught in a walkway, while students of Class X were forced to write their test sans benches on the cold floor on the other side. Asked why the students were made to sit on the cold floor in the winter, the teacher who was taking the exam said the students were made to sit on the floor so that they could not cheat. Meanwhile, students found it cumbersome to put pen to paper and sit on the floor at the same time. The classes are being run in corridors on all three floors of the school. School Principal Sangeeta Yadav said, Government school students are rough and tough. They can manage and adjust well in odd circumstances. As far as the problem of the school is concerned, the Education Department is aware of it. There is apparently more strength in the school with only 30 classrooms. These are peripheral areas where the strength is more. As per the Right to Education Act, we cannot refuse admission to any student. A new building for the nearby Raipur Kalan school is being constructed. The strength may get streamlined as many students are expected to shift there, she added. Similar is the state of affairs at many other government schools where there is a problem of infrastructure. At Government Middle School, Kishangarh, that runs from two places a small school building and a dharamshala, as many as 80 students of Class V are exposed to cold wind at a passageway. School Principal Gurpreet Singh said, The problem has existed for years now. We try to cover the open space with a tarpaulin to check cold wind. At Government Middle School, Raipur Kalan, students are accommodated under a shed covered by a tarpaulin on all sides to save them from the chill. The school has only two classrooms, that do not suffice for 580 students. School head Poonam Chaliya said, We are trying our best to keep the children covered in the cold weather. No winter uniform grant till date Of the 115 government schools, only a handful have been able to give the winter uniform grant to the students. This despite the Education Department having transferred the winter uniform grant to all schools in September. Till last year, the department was following a centralised system for disbursing the grant. All schools used to receive the grant through the office of the District Education Officer. The problem arose this year after the schools were made responsible for disbursing the grant to the students. In view of the delay, the District Education Officer had sought details from all schools the deadline for which was today. However, till 4 pm, no response was received from the schools by the DEO office. Requesting anonymity, sources in the DEO office said there was a delay in the grant at the schools end due to change in the portal, Public Financial Management System (PFMS), used for flowing funds. However, schools were already intimated about the change in the version of the software and were given time to disburse funds by December 31. Training for the transfer of funds in the new portal was also given in September. School heads did not bother to release the grant to the students. Now, again a training-cum-workshop has been organised by the Education Department in this regard. editorial@tribune.com New Delhi, January 14 In a bid to align with the best corporate practices, the Finance Ministry has asked the public sector banks to gradually bring down the governments equity to 52%, a top official said. The government is essentially a major shareholder. So, this need to be aligned to the best corporate practices. The shareholding needs to come down to at least 52% in the first phase. As and when market condition allows, banks will take step in that direction. They have all the permission in hand, Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar said. Dilution of government stake will help banks to meet 25% public float norms of market regulator SEBI. Some of the public sector banks have governments holding beyond 75%. Besides, it will encourage the banks to follow the prudential lending norms. The countrys largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has already initiated step for Rs 20,000-crore share sale through qualified institutional placement (QIP). Post QIP, the government stake will be diluted from the existing 58.53%. Last month, shareholders of the bank approved sale of shares to fund the business growth. Many other banks are planning to raise capital through some means or other, depending on the market condition. Some of the lenders like Syndicate Bank, Union Bank of India, PNB, and Oriental Bank of Commerce among others have already issued or in process of issuing Employee Share Purchase Scheme. PTI SEBI GUIDELINES vermaajay1968@gmail.com Vijay C Roy Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 14 Punjab-based engineering goods manufacturers are in catch-22 situation. On the one hand, they are facing slowdown in exports to European countries, on the other hand, exports to neighbouring countries such as Nepal and Bhutan are becoming unviable in the absence of any incentive from the Centre under Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) and stiff competition from China. Punjab alone exports engineering goods such as auto parts, cycle parts, fasteners, valves and hand tools worth Rs 500 crore to these two countries annually. According to Commerce Ministry officials, as per Foreign Trade Policy 2015-2020, the reward under MEIS is admissible on value of exports realised in foreign currency only and not in Indian rupees. Since exports to these countries are done in Indian rupees, the exporters are not entitled to any incentive under the MEIS. There is a huge potential for export of engineering goods to these countries. The MEIS incentives range from 3-8% depending on kinds of goods exported. So if the government introduces incentives for the exporters, the exports will further get fillip, said Engineering Export Promotion Councils deputy director Opinder Singh. Singh had recently raised the issue with Union Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan who was in the city recently to interact with exporters. Even if we are exporting in Indian rupees, we are creating employment and contribute to the economic development of the country. Considering this, the government should introduce MEIS scheme for exports to any nation, including Nepal and Bhutan, said a Batala-based exporter who exports machinery to Nepal and Bhutan. According to the exporters if the same goods are exported to other countries, they are entitled to incentives, but slowdown in European countries and the US has impacted the exports. According to the Commerce Ministry data, the engineering goods the second largest export item after petroleum products posted a 16.35% fall in November 2018 to $5.9 billion as compared to the same period in 2017. The exporters believe that introduction of MEIS will increase Punjab engineering goods exposure to these two countries, as they will be able to compete with Chinese engineering goods. We export e-rickshaw batteries to Nepal and see a lot of potential there, but the absence of incentives restricts our exports as margins are very thin and competition is tough from China, said Action Batteries general manager Rajesh Handa. MEIS claims should also be applied to exports made in Indian currency. The procedure to apply MEIS claims online should also be simplified so that exporters can themselves apply for MEIS claims, said Opinder Singh. Exports to Nepal, Bhutan from Punjab uttara@tribuneindia.com Shiv Kumar Tribune News Sercice Mumbai, January 15 State Bank of India's new credit policy under which gem and jewellery merchants with loans of Rs 50 crore and above are required to incorporate themselves has left several medium diamond merchants reeling. The country's biggest public sector bank which accounts for a bulk of loans to the diamond cutting and polishing sector has set a deadlineof December 2019 for the incorporation process to be completed. Those in the trade fear that incorporation of their companies would require them to open up their books for inspection by auditors and various government agencies and would subject them to harassment. "At the very least several companies will have to hire chartered accountants and lawyers to complete the process of incorporation. In addition, these companies will have to get their books audited regularly," an office-bearer of the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council said. After the Nirav Modi and Mehul Chokshi scams hit the banking sector, private and public sector banks in the country had tightened lending norms to the gem and jewellery sector. Members of the influential sector based mainly in Gujarat and Rajasthan have been lobbying with the union finance ministry for relaxation in lending norms for most of last year. Many in the trade fear that the new regulations by SBI would adopted by other banks as well. With most of the diamond cutting and polishing sector operating in an opaque manner, many in the trade fear that medium-sized companies would also have to resort to borrowing from the grey market like their counterparts in the small-scale sector. With Modi and his uncle Choksi caught round-tripping rough stones in and out of the country, the sector is already facing increasing scrutiny and procurement of rough stones and export of polished gems to associate companies has been restricted. "This business operates entirely on trust and the trade is controlled mainly by Palanpuri Jains from Gujarat and Rajasthan who are closely connected," says a small trader from Mumbai. With families in the diamond trade having close relatives in major centres like Antwerp, Dubai, Hong Kong and other places round-tripping is more norm than exception, it is felt. Meanwhile following the rise in NPAs, prominent Indian banks are shutting down operations in Belgium from where diamond traders routine source cheaper credit. ICICI Bank has followed Union Bank of India in exiting Belgium and other Indian banks are expected to follow suit. uttara@tribuneindia.com Shiv Kumar Tribune News Service Mumbai, January 15 Aircraft manufacturing in India will soon become a reality with the government working on a blueprint for the same, Union Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu said on sidelines of the Global Aviation Summit 2019 here. Speaking to reporters after the inauguration of the event, Prabhu said India needed 2300 aircraft to meet the domestic demand for air-travel in the coming years. "We will soon roll out a road map for manufacturing aircraft in India," Prabhu said. He added that the government was looking to attract top players from around the world to build aircraft in India. The minister added that maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of aircraft be done domestically. At present most of the MRO work on bigger aircraft are carried out abroad. Apart from money, job opportunities for Indians were being lost with MRO work being done out of the country, the minister noted. Prabhu added that the government wanted aircraft financing to be carried out by domestic financial institutions. We are already working on financing of aircraft and how that should happen from India. We are losing out lot of resources to outsiders, he told reporters. According to the minister, the government was now emphasising on the growth of air cargo and policy for this segment has been unveiled. The government has also regulated the use of drones and these tools would be used in agriculture and disaster management, Prabhu said. Meanwhile, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the state government was planning nine airports across Maharashtra in addition to the proposed Navi Mumbai airport. Pune and Nagpur airports were in the process of being upgraded to cater to national and international traffic, Fadnavis added. While Pune airport would provide global connectivity to one of India's major IT hubs Nagpur which is just an hour's flying distance from all major cities in the country would be an ideal international hub, the chief minister said. Fadnavis, who hails from Nagpur, said a passenger and cargo hub will also be created in that city. MCKINNEY, Texas - Velma Lynn Yettman passed away on June 4th, 2021 in Mckinney, Texas. She was born on October 25th, 1951 in Terre Haute, Indiana. She was predeceased by her sister Valeta May in 2018, and her parents Lloyd and Frances Zenor. Velma is survived by her brother Steve (Becky) Zen L.A. Parker is a Trentonian columnist. Find him on Twitter @LAParker6 or email him at LAParker@Trentonian.com. @IsaacAvilucea on Twitter Isaac Avilucea is The Trentonians main municipal scribe. A two-time prior restraint winner and testicular cancer survivor, he relishes his reputation as the "Mean Girls" reporter that followed his 18-day stay at the now-defunct North Adams Transcript. Screengrab from body camera footage of police investigating a reported break-in at the office of Trenton Mayors chief of staff Yoshi Manale, seen here in his office. Getting out more often into nature does good things for us physically and mentally; of course, it's even better when done in the comfort of a cabin. In collaboration with Format Engineers and the Norwegian Trekking Association, SPINN Arkitekter recently constructed this fantastic egg-shaped cabin for day hikers near Hammerfest, Norway. Tor Even Mathise Tor Even Mathise Tor Even Mathisen Measuring about 150 square feet (13.9 square metres), the Dagsturhytter cabin is intended to accommodate hikers travelling through the area. Taking a nice, long hike over the course of a few days and sleeping overnight in humble, wooden cabins without too many amenities (a phenomenon called "hytte") is apparently a very Norwegian thing to do, and isolated cabins are scattered throughout the countryside. Tor Even Mathisen Inside, the cabin walls are completely done up in wood, creating a warm, womb-like and stylish atmosphere, thanks to the woodstove, built-in seating, hexagonal stools and table. The benches are positioned to take full advantage of the view out of the large glass window at the other end of the small cabin. Tor Even Mathisen Tor Even Mathisen Tor Even Mathisen The Dagsturhytter cabin is unique in that it features a rounded profile made up of loosely hexagonal-shaped wooden panels. This aerodynamic form helps reduce snow accumulation, and reduces the forces of the wind bearing down on the walls. Additionally, the exterior has been clad with Kebony, a sustainably sourced softwood material that has been treated with a bio-based liquid, imparting hardwood characteristics. Created in Norway, this modified wood product will eventually develop a silver-gray patina as it weathers. Tor Even Mathisen Not only do these unique cabins offer shelter, they offer a good example of how a cabin can be built to blend into its surroundings. To see more, visit SPINN Arkitekter, Facebook and Instagram. We know air pollution is harmful to the environment and our bodies, but we are still learning the depth of the problem. There's the risk of respiratory diseases, fatigue and headaches, anxiety, cardiovascular damage, harm to reproductive organs, damage to the liver, spleen, blood and even the nervous system, according to Active Sustainability. Long-term exposure to air pollution can lead to emphysema, a chronic lung condition most often linked to smoking, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found. Exposure to air pollution especially ground-level ozone is like smoking a pack of cigarettes every day for decades. "The increase in emphysema we observed was relatively large, similar to the lung damage caused by 29 pack-years of smoking and 3 years of aging," said senior author R. Graham Barr, M.D., professor of medicine and epidemiology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, in a statement. (One pack-year means smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for a year.) And while lung damage may seem obvious, there are more insidious connections. "Environmental risks like air pollution are not large in magnitude their importance comes because everyone in the population is exposed," Scott Weichenthal from Canada's McGill University, told The Guardian. Weichenthal was the lead author on a study that linked air pollution nanoparticles to brain cancer for the first time. "So when you multiply these small risks by lots of people, all of sudden there can be lots of cases. In a large city, it could be a meaningful number, particularly given the fact that these tumors are often fatal." There are also a number of other ways pollution harms our health that aren't as well known. Here are just a few: 1. Pollution and intelligence Unhealthy air can chip away at your intelligence. ESB Professional/Shutterstock When we think of the toll air pollution takes on our health, we usually think about it in terms of its physical impact. But, studies have shown that this goes beyond physical health; our cognitive skills can be affected as well. A study conducted in China and published in PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that breathing unsafe air for too long can create an effect that's equal to losing a year's worth of intelligence, reports The Guardian. According to the collected research, those who are consistently exposed to polluted air can experience a large drop in language and arithmetic scores. "Polluted air can cause everyone to reduce their level of education by one year, which is huge," said team research member Xi Chen at Yale School of Public Health. "But we know the effect is worse for the elderly, especially those over 64, and for men, and for those with low education. If we calculate [the loss] for those, it may be a few years of education." The researchers examined language and arithmetic tests administered as part of the China Family Panel Studies to 20,000 people throughout China between the years of 2010 to 2014. The results were studied in correlation to the amount of nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide pollution levels in the air at the time. The longer individuals were exposed to the harmful air, the larger the loss of cognitive functioning. Language abilities took a bigger hit than arithmetic abilities. 2. Pollution and dementia One study showed that people who live near major highways are more prone to developing Alzheimer's later in life. Tom Wang/Shutterstock Researchers in the United Kingdom discovered that air pollution can potentially raise dementia risks by 40%, according to a study published in BMJ Open. The research team examined a population of 131,000 Londoners aged 50 to 70 who were registered patients of local doctors' practices. The team looked at the postal codes of participants to get a rough estimate of their exposure to nitrogen dioxide, ozone pollution, traffic and road noise pollution, as well as heavy amounts of particulate matter (all the fine particles in the air that are toxic). Participants exposed to the highest levels of nitrogen dioxide had a 40% higher risk of developing dementia than those with lower exposure. "As air pollution has been linked with vascular problems in other studies including heart disease and stroke and thus, if anything, we expected to see a link with vascular dementia," Dr. Iain Carey, lead study author of St. George's, University of London, told Newsweek. "However when we looked at specific diagnoses, we only saw a link with Alzheimer's disease, not vascular dementia in this study," said Carey. So, while the link isn't definite, it's certainly a possibility. A study conducted by Public Health Canada published in The Lancet found that individuals living near major roadways could be at higher risk for dementia. The team looked at 7 million adults aged 20 to 85 living in Ontario by using their postal codes. Researchers considered people who lived near highways and roads with heavy traffic, and compared the data with the number of individuals who developed some sort of neurodegenerative condition like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. They found that those living within 50 meters (165 feet) of a major highway or roadway had a 4% increased risk of developing dementia. The further a person lived from major highways and roadways, the risk decreased. Once someone's home was beyond 200 meters (650 feet) from major roads, there appeared to be no risk. A study published in the journal Translational Psychiatry suggests that women living in areas with unsafe levels of particulate matters are possibly at twice the risk of developing dementia. 3. Air pollution and mental disorders A thick blanket of smog covers Manila, the dynamic and mega-dense capital city of the Philippines. (Photo: Jay Directo/AFP/Getty Images) A study conducted by Hong King Polytechnic University revealed that those with mental and behavioral disorders have a higher chance of dying on days when air pollution reaches extreme heights, The Guardian reports. The research was published in Environmental International. Researchers looked at a decade's worth of death records and statistics, and found that death risks increase 16% on the first day of heavy haze, and rise to 27% on the second day. In the event that heavy ozone pollution is added to the mix, the mortality risk rises to 79%. This most recent research somewhat ties into earlier research that examined increased air pollution and instances of suicide. "Although we do not yet understand how pollutants inhaled into the lung affect cognitive function, these new findings from Asia are compatible with a recent Belgian study that reported an association between short-term increases in air pollution and suicide," Johnathan Grigg of Queen Mary University told The Guardian. Grigg didn't participate in the study. For the study, researchers examined the link between death risk and haze days. Haze days are when the level of pollutants in the air are high enough that the sky's visibility is obscured. "Although a hazy day generally has 2.9% higher risk [of death] than a day without haze, a very intense adverse effect is found on the mortality associated with mental and behavior disorders," says the research team. "A combined influence of haze, extreme weather/air quality and urban environment can result in extremely high mortality." Research team member Lin Yang of Hong Kong Polytechnic University told The Guardian. "Haze days are very likely to trigger an acute depression response in people. This has been shown in surveys in Indonesia, where there was a big disaster of haze from forest fires." Further research proves how pervasive the problem is. In a meta-analysis published in Environmental Health Perspectives, scientists reviewed research compiled from January 1974 to September 2017. The data revealed a strong statistical link between toxic air and depression and suicide. This was true across the globe. While the scientists say they don't know that air pollution is causing depression, but they believe there is a connection. "We've shown that air pollution could be causing substantial harm to our mental health, making the case for cleaning up the air we breathe even more urgent," Isobel Braithwaite, at University College London (UCL), who led the research, told The Guardian. 4. Pollution and mental illness in children and adolescents Children may be more prone to psychiatric disorders than adults from exposure to air pollution. Soloviova Liudmyla/Shutterstock Researchers in Sweden conducted a study that found a connection between air pollution and increased risk for mental illness in children, The Guardian reports. The study was published in the journal BMJ Open. Researchers looked at the medical records of 500,000 Swedes under the age of 18 and found that more children and adolescents living in areas where air pollution was higher were prescribed drugs such as anti-psychotics and sedatives for various psychiatric disorders. "The results can mean that a lower concentration of air pollution, first and foremost from traffic, may reduce psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents," study leader Anna Oudinof of Umea University said. "I would be worried myself if I lived in an area with high air pollution." Professor Frank Kelly of King's College in London, who was not part of the study, noted that the research "builds on existing evidence that children are particularly sensitive to poor air quality probably because their lifestyles increase the dose of air pollution they are exposed too i.e. they are more active and that developing organs may be more vulnerable until they fully mature." Interestingly, Sweden isn't known for high air pollution. "This suggests that other countries and cities have an even bigger challenge, as they will have to make significant improvements to their air quality so that it is even cleaner than Sweden's," says Kelly. 5. Pollution and miscarriages A study published in the journal Fertility and Sterility suggests that air pollution can increase the risk of miscarriage in the early stages of pregnancy by more than 10%. Researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Development looked at records from a long-term study conducted by the National Institutes of Health which studied 501 couples between 2005 and 2009. "We found that both ozone and particles in the air were related to an increased risk of early pregnancy loss," senior researcher Pauline Mendola told WebMD. Of the 501 couples, women from 343 of the couples became pregnant; 98 of the 343 women (28%) had a miscarriage within 18 weeks of the pregnancy. The researchers examined pollution levels in the areas where the couples lived to see if the pollution may have had some connection to the miscarriages. They found that exposure to air pollution in the ozone increased miscarriage risk by 12%, and that exposure to airborne particles raised the risk to 13%. It's not clear that air pollution was the direct cause of the miscarriages, but the researchers think there may be an association. Mendola hypothesized that oxidative stress and inflammation due to air pollution can impede the development of both the fetus or placenta, or even cause problems with implantation of fertilized eggs. Dr. Jill Rabin, co-chief of ambulatory care with Women's Health Programs-PCAP Services at Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, New York, suggests toxins may be able to directly penetrate the placenta and cause harm to the fetus. "It's incomprehensible that something you're breathing in that's toxic wouldn't affect young developing tissue," Rabin told WebMD. "It's conceivable some of those toxins would be able to get through the placenta and to the baby." 6. Pollution and premature birth Nearly 15 percent of all premature births in the world can be linked to air pollution. Kristina Bessolova/Shutterstock A study published in Environmental International conducted by researchers at The Stockholm Environmental Institute at the University of York, saw that in 2010, roughly 2.7 million premature births worldwide (18%) were potentially linked to a harmful, atmospheric fine particulate matter known as PM2.5. PM2.5 is fine particulate matter that mainly comes from agricultural waste-burning, forest fires, power plants, diesel vehicles and airplanes. PM2.5 is harmful to the lungs in particular. "This study highlights that air pollution may not just harm people who are breathing the air directly it may also seriously affect a baby in its mother's womb," Chris Malley, a researcher in SEI's York Centre at the University of York and lead author of the study, said in a release. In 2010 about 14.9 million babies were born prematurely overall. Roughly 14 to 15% of these preterm births occurred in African and South Asian countries regions where there are large concentrations of PM2.5. The number of preterm births in South Asia and East Asia were exorbitant. About 1 million of the 2.7 million premature births believed to have a connection with high amounts of PM2.5 occurred in India, and 500,000 occurred in China. 7. Pollution and autism in children A study conducted by The Harvard School of Public Health, suggests a connection between air pollution and autism risks for children. The study was published in Environmental Health Perspectives. A child could be twice as likely to develop autism if he is born to a mother exposed to high levels of particulate matter during her pregnancy especially during the third trimester of the pregnancy. "Our data add additional important support to the hypothesis that maternal exposure to air pollution contributes to the risk of autism spectrum disorders," Marc Weisskopf, senior author of the study, said in a statement. "The specificity of our findings for the pregnancy period, and third trimester in particular, rules out many other possible explanations for these findings." The children were all offspring of participants in the Nurses' Health Study II (Now the Nurses' Health Study III.) The Nurses' Health Study is among the largest prospective investigations into the risk factors for major chronic diseases in women. The research team looked at data of the participants based on their place of residences and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Children who lived in areas where there is a higher concentration of PM2.5 were more likely to be diagnosed with autism. The connection between autism and PM2.5 exposure was considered before, during (including each trimester), and after pregnancy. "The evidence base for a role for maternal exposure to air pollution increasing the risk of autism spectrum disorders is becoming quite strong," Weisskopf said. "This not only gives us important insight as we continue to pursue the origins of autism spectrum disorders, but as a modifiable exposure, opens the door to thinking about possible preventative measures." 8. Pollution and the development of babies' brains Air pollution can even affects a baby's brain development as particulates enter the baby's bloodstream and travels to the brain. Oksana Kuzmina/Shutterstock In 2017, UNICEF published a report that found 17 million babies under the age of 1 living in South Asia are breathing in toxic air, which can cause a hindrance to their brain development, reports India Today. The ways in which air pollution affects the brains of babies are mostly neurogenerative issues. Particulate matter that is equal to or less than 2.5 micron (a micron is one millionth of a meter), can enter our bloodstreams with relative ease and make its way to the brain with little effort, harming the blood-brain barrier and causing damage. The blood-brain barrier is a brain membrane that helps to shield the brain from toxic substances. Damage to the blood-brain barrier can cause neuroinflammation which can cause neurodegeneration conditions. While children aren't in danger of Alzheimer's at such a young age, exposure to anything causing neurodegeneration at a developmental stage can be seen as detrimental. In addition, air pollution particles such as magnetite the most magnetic of all naturally occurring minerals are of such minuscule size that they are able to make their way into the body via the gut and olfactory nerve. Magnetite's toxicity is due to its magnetic charge which creates oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is also capable of causing neurodegenerative conditions. Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons pollutants formed from fossil fuels have shown to cause harm to white matter in the brain. White matter is responsible for neural communication within the brain. Without white matter that functions properly, communication between neurons becomes difficult. All three of these factors can cause significant challenges to the development of a healthy and functional brain. 9. Pollution and DNA changes You can see the effects of sleep in your DNA. (Photo: Caroline Davis2010 [CC BY 2.0]/Flickr) It's also been suggested that exposure to air pollution can causes changes in our DNA. In another study, researchers at the University of British Columbia asked volunteers to sit in a walled-in aquarium where pollution levels of the world's most polluted cities were simulated, filling the room with diesel exhaust. The participants sat in the room for two hours. The researchers took a blood sample from the participants before entering the room, and after exiting the room. While the participants' DNA wasn't completely changed after sitting in the smog-filled space, the researchers did notice that there was a difference in their DNA methylation patterns upon exiting the room. DNA methylation patterns are the layer of methyl molecules that turn genes on or off. The results were the same across the board for all participants meaning the connection between DNA alteration and heavy pollution is a strong possibility. Does all this mean we need to pack up and move to areas where pollution is less present? Probably not and that doesn't seem like it would fix much anyway. What all this information does signify, though, is that it's clear air pollution is a problem in many more ways than we may have previously thought. In case you're curious as how to pollution levels are rising, taking a look at this interactive map, courtesy of The Revelator, which shows where pollution levels are headed country by country, and gives us a look at the state of things by the year 2100. 10. Pollution and bone health Air pollution may make our bones weaker. After measuring levels of PM2.5 in Hyderabad, South India, researchers analyzed the health of 3,717 people who lived in 28 surrounding villages. They looked to see whether they had changes in bone mineral content, which is used to measure bone strength and diagnose osteoporosis. What we see overall is a quite consistent pattern of lower bone mineral content with increasing levels of air pollution, co-author Cathryn Tonne at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, told New Scientist. The people in the study were exposed to average annual PM2.5 levels of 32.8 micrograms per cubic meters that's three times higher than what is considered safe by the World Health Organizations. Researchers found that every additional 3 micrograms per cubic meters of PM2.5 was associated with relatively minimal, but still notable drops in bone mineral density in the spine and hip. The research was published in the journal JAMA Network Open. There is a lot of money to be made in the travel section. Should other media follow their example? Travel sections make a lot of money for newspapers, and one of the great perks of being a writer is that you get to travel at someone else's expense. As the old photos from SAS show, Scandinavians know how to do it in style. So it is really surprising to read about plans at the Danish newspaper Politiken to drastically curtail travelling by its writers. They will immediately stop domestic flying and will offset all flights that they do take. But more importantly, they are changing their travel section. Editor-in-chief Christian Jensen says that they are going to refocus their coverage: 1) Do more coverage of travel in Denmark, the Nordic countries and Northern Europe, which can be reached by public transport. 2) Drop the Weekend Guide format because it can be perceived as a call to take long flights for a weekend. (This is a very big deal, given that Europeans can fly so cheaply, cross borders quickly in the EU, and do it a lot.) 3) Reduce the number of overseas trips to a maximum of one per release. SAS Museum, Norway/ That's a big ham! Via Google Translate, he explains that travel is a good thing, but can be done better: We should not make enemies of foreign travel and friends with the hometown band. We must discover the alien, taste the exotic and feel the warm blood roll in the encounter with the folkloric diversity. But it does not exclude that one can think well of the climate along the way. As a newspaper, we do not believe in information via the raised index finger. We believe that we can change habits if we give merciful inspiration and concrete information about the consequences of the choices we make each and every one as a society. This is an issue we have wrestled with at TreeHugger. It has been a decade since we wrote about how flying is dying, quoting George Monbiot who said, "If we want to stop the planet from cooking, we will simply have to stop traveling at the kind of speeds that planes permit." Meteorologist Eric Holthaus quit flying and notes that a jet-setting culture in which people travel around the globe for a few days or a week is not compatible with a future that is livable." SAS Museum, Norway/ buffet in first class/CC BY 2.0 Yet I still fly to conferences and love seeing new places, although I do feel guilty and tried to justify it here. Katherine, who also feels a bit guilty, has suggestions for making travel a bit less damaging. But Christian Jensen in Denmark is convinced that we have to change the way we travel and the way journalists cover it: We believe that there is a path where growth and sustainability on the one hand can co-exist with consumption and reason on the other. It is the balance that we seek to find also in our travel journalism. We believe that one can think of the future of the planet and at the same time be pleased to discover the world. Politiken deserves a lot of praise for their actions; they could take a financial hit from the Easyjet-style weekend advertising. However, Jensen thinks that both customers and travel advertisers are also going in a more climate-conscious direction. "That is how it all hangs together." About PHOTO: A glimpse of all Cape Town, South Africa has to offer. (Photo via vwPix/ iStock / Getty Images Plus) Cape Town, South Africa, is sometimes called the Mother City of Africa. Founded in 1652 by the Dutch, it was the first permanent European settlement in Africa. It began as a way station for ships sailing around the southern tip of Africa. Like New Amsterdam (New York City), which was also founded by the Dutch around the same time, Cape Town was chosen as the best harbor to be used as an outpost for Dutch traders and then taken over by the British. Cape Town developed its own rich history set against the history of colonialism. Slaves were brought in from Indonesia, Madagascar and West Africa, which all became part of the multicultural mix that gave rise to the citys rich cosmopolitan culture of the 21st century. Asians who were brought as slaves became the Cape Malay population, a cultural or ethnic group that became one element of a community that was later classified as a racial group known as coloured, and whose influence on the cuisine of Cape Town is still strongly felt. The Asian slaves transformed the European dishes into a new fusion of styles that became known as Cape Malay style. The city is also rich in Mediterranean and Asian restaurants, with a growing trend of native African styles of cuisine. Cape Town has its own styles of folk, jazz and pop music; painting, sculpture and design; and its own blend of cuisines and accents. It was the major driving force in the growth of the cultural amalgamation that became modern, multi-ethnic South Africa. Cape Town remained the largest city until gold was discovered in Johannesburg in 1886, after which the tent town grew rapidly and by 1895 had surpassed Cape Town with a population of 80,000. Today Cape Towns population is about 3.5 million. PHOTO: Aerial shot of Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo via Alexcpt / iStock / Getty Images Plus) The city stands against the imposing background of Table Mountain, which dominates the skyline, and looks dramatic from nearly any view. The city was laid out around the features of the mountain range, and Lions Head is a mountain in the city that interrupts the street plan and serves as a landmark from nearly any point in the city. Cable car rides to Table Mountain are inexpensive and well worth the time for the expansive view of the harbor and the city. Hikers can scale Table Mountain and outfitters are there to help them do it. The Victoria and Alfred Waterfront is at the center of the citys busy harbor and has grown into a beautifully gentrified strolling, congregating and shopping area, with many restaurants, shops and a big mall full of top line stores. Nearer the city center, Long Street is an aptly named strip of colorful and funky restaurants, bars and shops with fascinating vintage architecture featuring ornate second-floor balconies over the street a la New Orleans. Air access is good, but flights from New York, Washington, D.C. or Atlanta travel to Cape Town with a stop in Johannesburg. The national carrier, South African Airways, provides many flights from New York and Washington, D.C. to Johannesburg. Other carriers who service Cape Town from the U.S. are Virgin, Delta, United, KLM and British Airways. With a tweet in a snowstorm, former state Rep. Robert Cornejo prosecuted the Republican establishment case against Amendment 1. In November, Missouri voters of all political stripes overwhelmingly approved the anti-corruption constitutional amendment, sponsored by the bipartisan Clean Missouri coalition. JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - Missouri House leaders are backing legislation that could undo mandatory minimum sentencing laws enacted decades ago. House Speaker Elijah Haahr says he wants to fix "a broken criminal justice system" that he says places a lot of people in prison who could instead be working. Kansas governor renews, expands ban on state anti-LGBT bias Kansas governor's office SOURCE: Kansas governor's office Kansas' new Democratic governor has reinstated a ban on anti-LGBT bias in hiring and employment decisions by state agencies and extended it to state government contractors. Gov. Laura Kelly's executive order Tuesday fulfills a promise she made repeatedly in her successful campaign last year and restores a policy that had been rescinded by a conservative Republican predecessor. Elections have consequences and the "blue wave" in Kansas has inspired great protections for diverse communities in the Sunflower State. Here's a look at Brownback rolled back. Take a look: Quinton Lucas DUI case continues; he hopes for dismissal | The Kansas City Star Kansas City Councilman Quinton Lucas was arrested on suspicion of a DUI in October. His attorney was granted a continuance on Tuesday. He's now expected to appear in Lawrence Municipal Court next month. More than a few of our readers called this dismissal last year . . . NOW, the newspaper is catching up to the inevitable and offering a quote spin.Even better, our blog community tells us that the DUI snub has the Council Dude looking more relatable to urban core voters who might be tired of politicos who are above the fray . . . The "incident" might make it seem as if the law school prof can relate to urban core and broke-ass constituents who also confront their fair share of problems with the po-po.Here's a cleaned-up newspaper perspective on the topic . . . Nvidia has released new GeForce Game Ready 417.71 WHQL drivers with support for GeForce RTX 2060 graphics cards and monitors recently tested and approved to support G-Sync. The RTX 2060 is a mid-tier option for people who want some of the features introduced with Nvidias latest GPUs, like ray tracing, but who dont want to drop $1,000 on a higher-end card like the RTX 2080. Nvidia is set to release the RTX 2060 Founders Edition today, January 15, so its not surprising that the company released accompanying drivers as well. The other feature introduced with the GeForce Game Ready 417.71 WHQL drivers is support for "G-Sync Compatible Monitors." With the new drivers installed, both RTX 20-series and GTX 10-series graphics cards will be able to enable G-Sync for monitors that werent specifically built for the variable refresh rate (VRR) utility. But there are some caveats to this support. Nvidia tested 400 monitors and confirmed that 12 of them would automatically support G-Sync when connected to one of its graphics cards, it announced during the CES 2019 trade show in Las Vegas last week. For the many other FreeSync monitors, Nvidia said it might be possible to enable G-Sync via the Nvidia Control Panel. But the company didnt exactly inspire confidence, saying, it may work, it may work partly, or it may not work at all. Of course, Nvidia still thinks people would be better off buying true G-Sync monitors. Note that expanding G-Sync support to FreeSync monitors doesnt mean Nvidia no longer cares about how well monitors designed specifically for use with its GPUs perform. This is Nvidia extending an olive branch, not waving a white flag. Yet, its not hard to imagine many people who own Nvidia-powered graphics cards buying FreeSync monitors now that they support G-Sync at least a little bit. G-Sync monitors typically cost a lot more than their FreeSync counterparts, and for people who dont care about anything other than VRR, it makes sense to save money by purchasing a so-called G-Sync Compatible Monitor. The GeForce Game Ready 417.71 WHQL drivers are available now via Nvidias website and the GeForce experience app. Samsung is said to be planning to finally unveil its foldable phone on Feb. 20. And now, the company's senior vice president and head of its visual R&D team Hark-sang Kim is making the case for buying one. (Image credit: Royole's Flexpai. Credit: Tom's Guide) In a post on Samsung's website, Kim argues that the future of smartphones and smartphone design is in larger displays. He believes that in order to take full advantage of artificial intelligence, 5G, augmented reality, and other up and coming technologies, a larger screen is a requirement. Realizing that, Kim wrote, Samsung had a choice. It needed to find a way to build a smartphone with a big-enough screen to take advantage of future technologies without sacrificing quality of making it too difficult to carry around. "Instead of accepting the status quo, resolving the contradiction between screen size and portability and developing a new form factor became the central focus of our innovation efforts," Kim wrote. Samsung actually unveiled plans for a foldable smartphone all the way back at CES 2011. Since then, the development went underground and its progress has been kept under wraps. At Samsung's Developer Conference in November, the company showcased its Infinity Flex Display, which will be used in its upcoming Galaxy F. However, it stopped short of showing an actual design. The Infinity Flex Display is a foldable handset that, when closed, is about the size of a standard smartphone. But when it's open and the screen fully stretched out, it's the size of a tablet. MORE: Samsung Galaxy F Rumors: Foldable Phone Release Date, Specs and More Of course, Samsung isn't the only company working on a foldable phone. Huawei, LG, and others are also working on a handset that could come with the unique design. But Samsung's Galaxy F is arguably the most sought-after, given the sheer number of rumors surrounding it for so long. Kim wrote that Samsung's new foldable comes with an all-new "material that completely changes the anatomy of the smartphone display." He added that the screen can be folded "hundreds of thousands" of times, but the company had to "rethink the placements of the battery, cooling system, and camera so that they can be placed inside the slim body efficiently." Samsung also needed to build a new software experience to accommodate the screen. Kim didn't say when the handset would launch or what it would look like, but all signs are now pointing to it being unveiled alongside the Galaxy S10 on Feb. 20. But it might only be the beginning, if Kim can be believed. "We expect to see a sea change in the smartphone form factor in the coming years," Kim wrote. "From rollable and stretchable devices to the devices that can fold in multiple ways are no longer beyond the realms of reality." Feb. 4 Update: Verizon just announced the latest version of its free Netflix deal, we've got details below. If Netflix's price hike to $13 a month is pushing you away from the streaming giant or its pricing has always been a deal-breaker we've looked into ways you can save. (Image credit: Najmi Arif / Shutterstock.com) From one trick built right into Netflix to services that include Netflix as part of their own membership, you may not have to pay for the streaming video service. MORE: Streaming Netflix? Here's the Best Stuff to Watch Sharing is caring This might sound cheap of me, but I don't pay for Netflix, I just share it with my parents. From the Netflix start up screen on your TV (or the Manage Profiles page online) select "+ Add Profile" to create a new user, or open the Manage Profiles page. Then, type in that user's name and click Continue. Now, that user's activity won't mess with the recommendations for the main user. It's an approach that requires an understanding parent, generous roommate or someone other benefactor, but it's a way to save yourself $13 each month. Note that the entry-level $9 per month Netflix service doesnt allow for simultaneous streams, which is limited to the $13 per month Standard package (2 streams at once) and the $16 per month Premium option (4 streams at once). Free trials The most traditional way to sample Netflix for free are its free 1-month trials, which you can sign up for here. Each time you want to use a free trial, you'll need a new email address and credit card number, though, which means you won't be able to create too many before running out of opportunities. You'll want to keep an eye on those email accounts, though, as Lifewire notes that Netflix often sends additional free trial offers to lapsed members. Remember to cancel those trials, if you don't want to pay. This is why I love the Reminders app on my iPhone, which I use to ping myself when free trials are about to come to an end.. T-Mobile One Use T-Mobile? Able to switch to the self-titled 'Un-Carrier'? You can get Netflix for free if you sign up for the right data plan. T-Mobile says it will pick up the cost of Netflix's standard two-screen subscription when you've got two or more lines of its T-Mobile One plan. Two T-Mobile One lines regularly cost $120 a month the carrier sometimes runs promotions on multiple lines but at least you won't have to pony up another $13 on top of that. Other T-Mobile plans, like its lower-cost Essentials unlimited offering or its discounted plan of seniors, aren't eligible for free Netflix. MORE: Netflix Hidden Gems: Best Shows and Movies You've Missed Verizon Fios If Verizon's speedy Fios service is available in your area, you have another option. Verizon just announced its latest version of its free Netflix offer on Feb. 1: new customers purchasing Verizon Fios Gigabit Connection Internet or Fios Gigabit Connection Triple Play, provided they sign a 2 year contract. That's not just any Netflix, but the $15.99 Premium package, which includes HD streams, with UHD content when available, and up to 4 concurrent streams at once. Amazon is upgrading its Fire TV Stick package to include its new Alexa Voice Remote, which now includes volume control and mute buttonsso you no longer have to dive for a second remote when the explosions in that Mission: Impossible movie you're watching threaten to wake your baby. Amazon's new Alexa Voice Remote, which came out late last year, looks pretty much the same as the old voice remote. A button at the top activates Amazon's voice assistant, and a circular d-pad and two rows of buttons below let you navigate menus and play/pause content. However, on the new remote is a volume rocker as well as a mute button that, when paired with a TV or sound bar, will let you control your TV's volume. It's a small, but handy addition. For those who already own a Fire TV device, Amazon is also offering the new Alexa Voice Remote for 50 percent off its regular price of $29.99 (29.99 in the UK), while supplies last. MORE: Best Streaming Devices The Fire TV Stick with the all-new Alexa Voice Remote will cost $39.99 (39.99 in the UK), which is the same price as the package with the older remote. However, the Fire TV Stick 4K, which also comes with the newer remote, is just $10 more (or 10 more), and can stream 4K content, making it the better long-term deal. The new Alexa Voice Remote is only compatible with the Fire TV Stick, Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Cube, and 3rd-generation Fire TV. According to the product page on Amazon, it will also work with the Nvidia Shield. It will not work with the 1st or 2nd-generation Amazon Fire TV, the 1st-generation Fire TV Stick, and Amazon Fire TV Edition smart TVs. We've generally found Amazon's streaming devices to be very capable, with a well-thought out interface, good quality video, and plenty of apps. Of course, with Alexa built in, by pressing the button on the remote, you can not only look up programs by title, genre, actor and more using your voice, but you also access Alexa's 70,000-plus skills, including the news and weather, streaming music, restaurant recommendations, and more. Credit: Amazon [January 15, 2019] Blockchain Revolution Global announces inaugural Enterprise Blockchain Awards -- First to recognize excellence in international enterprise blockchain innovation and transformation in community TORONTO, Jan. 15, 2019 /CNW/ - Blockchain Revolution Global (BRG) -- the collaborative partnership between Blockchain Research Institute (BRI), the world's leading think-tank for blockchain and MCI Group , one of the global leaders on building community -- is pleased to unveil the inaugural Enterprise Blockchain Awards (EBAs) recognizing excellence in enterprise blockchain. Presented by The Tapscott Group, the EBAs will bring together the brightest and best of the international enterprise blockchain community to celebrate both achievements and opportunities. The call for entries runs January 10 February 28, 2019 at www.blockchainrevolutionglobal.com/ebawards . An independent judging panel will be chaired by renowned MIT lecturer and retired IBM executive, Irving Wladawsky-Berger. Winners will be announced at the inaugural Blockchain Awards Gala on April 24 during the Blockchain Revolution Global Congress held in Toronto, Canada at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on April 24 25, 2019. "The innovation happening in the enterprise blockchain space is truly transformative," says Don Tapscott, CEO of the Tapscott Group and Executive Chairman and co-founder of the Blockchain Research Institute. "With the Enterprise Blockchain Awards, we will recognize and celebrate those companies and individuals at the leading edge of the enterprise blockchain revolution." EBA awards and categories Awards will be given for the categories of Enterprise Blockchain Transformation: recognizing companies that are using blockchain to transform their industries based on a commitment to drive innovation; Innovative Entrepreneurship in Blockchain: recognizing a start-up that provides innovative blockchain solutions to support enterprises in the journey to transform their businesses; New Frotier in Enterprise Blockchain Research: recognizing a researcher/academic who leverages blockchain technology to push boundaries of new business models, and Blockchain Leadership: honouring an executive who has championed blockchain for their industry. "The Enterprise Blockchain Awards will recognize organizations and individuals that are uniquely committed to blockchain innovation," adds Dr. Wladawsky-Berger, who is also a research director at the Blockchain Research Institute. "It is an honor to be leading the judging panel for the inaugural awards." Why EBAS The Enterprise Blockchain Awards acknowledge innovation and leadership in the transformation that blockchain is bringing to business, government and society. Winning an EBA demonstrates to the world that an organization is uniquely committed to blockchain innovation. Winners will receive a 2019 Enterprise Blockchain Award trophy and may be considered for publication by the Blockchain Research Institute. Nominations are due February 28th, 2019 by 5PM EST. More information is available at awards@blockchainrevolutionglobal.com Why Blockchain Revolution Global Unlike other events on blockchain, which primarily focus on cryptocurrencies, BRG will cover blockchain's transformation of enterprises, governments and industries. It will showcase inspiring talks, provocative sessions and brain dates featuring global CEOs, practitioners, BRI researchers and prominent blockchain experts including Bettina Warburg, co-founder of Animal Ventures, Brian Behlendorf, executive director of The Hyperledger Project, Perianne Boring, president, Chamber of Digital Commerce, Ron Resnick, executive director, Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and Joseph Lubin, co-founder, ConsenSys, among others. About MCI Group MCI is the global leader in engaging and activating audiences. Our business is founded on a simple human insight: When people come together, magic happens. This magic is called community. Since 1987 we have been bringing people together through inspiring meetings, events, congresses and association management. MCI helps organizations harness the power of community by applying our strategic engagement and activation solutions to build unforgettable online and offline experiences that foster change, inspire, educate and enhance business performance. MCI is an independently owned company with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and boasts a global presence with +2,300 professionals in 60 offices and 31 countries, who work with clients across Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, India, the Middle East and Africa. Find out more at www.mci-group.com . About The Blockchain Research Institute The Blockchain Research Institute (BRI) is an independent, global think-tank dedicated to inspiring and preparing private- and public-sector leaders to be the catalysts for blockchain transformation. Funded by international corporations and government agencies, the BRI has brought together the world's top thinkers to undertake ground-breaking research on the strategic implications of blockchain technology, producing practical insights for its member organizations. The Institute has 80+ research projects underway in the areas of financial services, manufacturing, retail, energy and resources, technology/media, healthcare and government; as well as how this nascent technology is changing the way companies are managed. The Blockchain Research Institute is based in Toronto, Canada, and was founded in 2017 by Don and Alex Tapscott, the co-authors of the best-selling book, Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies is Changing the World. To find out more, please visit www.blockchainresearchinstitute.org . View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/blockchain-revolution-global-announces-inaugural-enterprise-blockchain-awards-300778971.html SOURCE Blockchain Revolution Global [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] McDonald Hopkins welcomes associate Amanda Rose Martin to Cleveland office CLEVELAND, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- McDonald Hopkins LLC today announced Amanda Rose Martin has joined its Cleveland office as an associate in the Data Privacy and Cybersecurity Practice Group of the firm's Litigation Department. Martin comes to McDonald Hopkins after spending four years as an associate at McGlinchey Stafford PLLC in Cleveland. In addition to advising clients in data privacy and cybersecurity, she has counseled state and federal banks, automotive and personal property finance companies, fintech companies, and small loan companies on a variety of regulatory matters. She has particular experience with state and federal consumer financial services compliance issues, including licensing requirements consumer credit laws, and consumer protection laws. Martin has an interest in the application of technology to regulated industries, furthering her experience in the review of innovative business and lending models (including bank partnership lending), apps, fintech platforms, and electonic contracts for compliance with state and federal laws. Super Lawyers named Martin a 2019 Rising Star in the area of Banking. She was also recently selected as a member of the 2019 inaugural class of FDCC Ladder Down Cleveland, a yearlong leadership, business development and mentoring program for women attorneys. Martin earned her J.D. from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, graduating magna cum laude in 2014. While in law school, she was articles editor of the Cleveland State Law Review and vice chair of the Cleveland-Marshall Moot Court Team. Martin also served as a legal extern to Judge Christopher A. Boyko in the U.S. District Court's Northern District of Ohio in 2013. In 2011, she completed a bachelor's degree in English and psychology from Case Western Reserve University. Martin can be reached at amartin@mcdonaldhopkins.com or at 216-348-5774. About McDonald Hopkins Founded in 1930, McDonald Hopkins is a business advisory and advocacy law firm with locations in Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Miami, and West Palm Beach. With more than 50 service and industry teams, the firm has the expertise and knowledge to meet the growing number of legal and business challenges our clients face. For more information about McDonald Hopkins, visit mcdonaldhopkins.com. CONTACT: David Carducci McDonald Hopkins LLC 600 Superior Avenue, East, Suite 2100 Cleveland, Ohio 44114 Phone: 216.348.5814 Email: dcarducci@mcdonaldhopkins.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mcdonald-hopkins-welcomes-associate-amanda-rose-martin-to-cleveland-office-300778903.html SOURCE McDonald Hopkins [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Range Systems Releases PerfectFit Compact Shooting Range Range Systems has partnered with Ti Outdoors to release PerfectFit Compact Shooting Range, an all-in-one range designed specifically for smaller spaces and maximum profit potential. A virtual, live-fire shooting range, PerfectFit pairs Ti Outdoors' V23 technology with Range Systems' ballistic rubber to help firearms retail business owners get the most out of their space. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005861/en/ Comparison of PerfectFit Compact Range versus traditional shooting ranges. (Graphic: Range Systems) PerfectFit brings all of the aspects of a standard commercial range for one third of the overall size. Its 35x39 footprint allows firearms retail owners who are short on space to provide their customers with a 10-lane interactive shooting area. "It's rare that a commercial firearms business owner has 5,000 extra square feet of space on their property to add a traditional shooting range," said Doug VanderWoude, Commercial Managing Director at Range Systems. "With PerfectFit, that simply doesn't matter. Owners can now get a dynamic shooting space that fits their footprint and provides an interactive shooting environment for their guests." PerfectFit is outfitted with Ti Outdoors' V23 technology. Using V23, virtual targets are broadcast in each individual range lane, allowing for live-fire shooting. These virtual targets are closer to the shooter, meaning less overall space is required down range. With less space required, PerfectFit ranges experience less wear and tear, meaning decreased upkeep costs for owners. V23 also brings more than 32 interactive game options to PerfectFit. This makes the range a great option for a new generation of shooting enthusiasts interested in live-fire gaming. "No two operations are alike," said VanderWoude. "With PerfectFit, we aim to create a space that a wide variety of firearms retail owners can implement in their space to maximize their profits." The PerfectFit Compact Shooting Range will be showcased for the first time at the 2019 SHOT Show in Las Vegas. For more information on the products and services provided by Range Systems, email sales@range-systems.com or visit range-systems.com. About Range Systems Manufacturer of Dura-Panel and Dura-Bloc, the original ballistic rubber products, Range Systems designs and builds custom shooting ranges as well as realistic and dynamic training environments for commercial, military, law enforcement, private, forensic, and testing markets. Dedicated to providing unsurpassed, responsive service, Range Systems offers shooting supplies and services worldwide. About Ti Outdoors Ti Training and Ti Outdoors manufacture industry leading simulation and training technology for military/law enforcement and commercial indoor ranges. Our systems are made in the USA and feature the latest technologies associated with simulated firearms and other tactical devices. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005861/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Shyft hires seasoned industry veterans, Eric Delgado from Zippy Shell and Elise Riordan from NuCompass to join their executive team SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Shyft, a leading technology and software company in the moving and relocation industry, recently hired two industry veterans - Eric Delgado and Elise Riordan, to join their leadership team. Eric Delgado will join Shyft as Executive Vice President and Elise Riordan will join as Vice President of Strategic Solutions. "Eric and Elise both bring tremendous value and experience to Shyft's leadership team and both will be instrumental in fostering growth as we scale the company in 2019," said Alex Alpert, CEO of Shyft. "Eric and Elise have deep industry expertise, leadership qualities and a track record of driving operational excellence and will be a great addition to Shyft." Delgado spent the last 6 years at Zippy Shell as Executive Vice President contributing to the explosive growth of the company as well as managing the corporate relocation division. "This is a rare opportunity to join a talented team of movers, operators and technology experts working diligently to transform how people move and shift their lives," said Delgado. "I have been watching their growth over the last two years and I am excited to contribute my experience and work with a highly skilled team that is poised to do incredible things in the moving and relocation industry." Riordan spent the last 23 years at NuCompass where she led technology and strategic solutions. Riordan's experience spans decades and icludes an outstanding track record of operational and strategic accomplishments. "I joined Shyft because I saw how they were committed to developing technology that was truly disrupting an age old industry," said Riordan. "I am excited to join a dynamic company with passionate people where I can apply my skills and experience to transform corporate relocation." Eric's and Elise's hires come after Shyft hired Rajiv Parikh as CMO last year who led the rebranding efforts from what was formerly Crater. About Shyft Shyft (formerly Crater) is a technology company focused on developing a state-of-the-art lump sum solution for relocation management companies and HR mobility departments within corporations allowing employees the freedom to live and move anywhere in the world. Shyft has offices in San Francisco, CA and Belgrade, Serbia; and is backed by notable investors including NFX Guild, Ocean Azul, Keiretsu Capital, the Band of Angels, Frontier Ventures and others. For more information visit shyftmoving.com and follow Shyft on LinkedIn and Twitter. Rajiv Parikh CMO SHYFT rajiv@shyftmoving.com This release was issued through WebWire(R). For more information, visit http://www.webwire.com. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/shyft-hires-seasoned-industry-veterans-eric-delgado-from-zippy-shell-and-elise-riordan-from-nucompass-to-join-their-executive-team-300778704.html SOURCE Shyft [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] The Linux Foundation Announces 2019 Events Schedule SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Linux Foundation , the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced its 2019 events schedule. Linux Foundation events are where the creators, maintainers and practitioners of the world's most important open source projects meet. In 2018, Linux Foundation events attracted more than 32,000 developers, architects, community thought leaders, business executives and other industry professionals from more than 11,000 organizations across 113 countries. New events hosted by the Linux Foundation for 2019 include Cephalocon and gRPC Conf . The Linux Foundation's 2019 events will gather more than 35,000 open source influencers to learn from each other about new trends in open source and share knowledge of best practices across projects dealing with operating systems, cloud applications, containers, IoT, networking, data processing, security, storage, AI, software architecture, edge computing and more. Events are hosted by the Linux Foundation and its projects, including Automotive Grade Linux , Cloud Foundry , the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and Kubernetes , Hyperledger , LF Networking and ONAP . The events also looking at the business side of open source, gathering managers and technical leaders to learn about compliance, governance, building an open source office and other areas. "Linux Foundation events bring open source leaders, technologists and enthusiasts together in locations around the world to work together, network and advance how open source is expanding and developing in various industries," said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director at the Linux Foundation. "Our events proudly accelerate progress and creativity within the larger community and provide in-person contact that is vital to successful collaboration." With a new year comes several new co-located events. After incorporating what was previously known as LinuxCon + ContainerCon + CloudOpen (LC3) , the event in Shanghai June 24-26, KubeCon + CloudNativeCon + Open Source Summit China will now be the largest open source conference in China. Also, Embedded Linux Conference North America will now be co-located with Open Source Summit North America, as Embedded Linux Conference Europe has been with Open Source Summit Europe for several years. The complete schedule and descriptions of all 2019 events follows below. The Linux Foundation's 2019 Schedule of Events Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) All Member Meeting March 5-6, 2019 Tokyo, Japan The Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) All Member Meeting takes place bi-annually and brings the AGL community together to learn about the latest developments, share best practices and collaborate to drive rapid innovation across the industry. Open Source Leadership Summit March 12-14, 2019 Half Moon Bay, California The Linux Foundation Open Source Leadership Summit is the premier forum where open source leaders convene to drive digital transformation with open source technologies and learn how to collaboratively manage the largest shared technology investment of our time. An intimate, by invitation only event, Open Source Leadership Summit fosters innovation, growth and partnerships among the leading projects and corporations working in open technology development. gRPC Conf 2019 March 21, 2019 Sunnyvale, California Experts will discuss real-world implementations of gRPC, best practices for developers, and topic expert deep dives. This is a must-attend event for those using gRPC in their applications today as well as those considering gRPC for their enterprise microservices. Cloud Foundry Summit April 2-4, 2019 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania From startups to the Fortune 500, Cloud Foundry is used by businesses around the globe to automate, scale and manage cloud apps throughout their lifecycle. Whether they are a contributor or committer building the platform, or using the platform to attain business goals, Cloud Foundry Summit is where developers, operators, CIOs and other IT professionals go to share best practices and innovate together. Open Networking Summit North America April 3-5, 2019 San Jose, California Open Networking Summit is the industry's premier open networking event, gathering enterprises, service providers and cloud providers across the ecosystem to share learnings, highlight innovation and discuss the future of Open Source Networking, including SDN, NFV, orchestration and the automation of cloud, network, & IoT services. Linux Storage, Filesystem and Memory Management Summit April 30-May 2, 2019 San Juan, Puerto Rico The Linux Storage, Filesystem & Memory Management Summit gathers the foremost development and research experts and kernel subsystem maintainers to map out and implement improvements to the Linux filesystem, storage and memory management subsystems that will find their way into the mainline kernel and Linux distributions in the next 24-48 months. Cephalocon May 19-20, 2019 Barcelona, Spain Cephalocon Barcelona aims to bring together more than 800 technologists and adopters from across the globe to showcase Ceph's history and its future, demonstrate real-world applications, and highlight vendor solutions. KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe May 20-23, 2019 Barcelona, Spain The Cloud Native Computing Foundation's flagship conference gathers adopters and technologists from leading open source and cloud native communities. Join developers using Kubernetes, Prometheus, OpenTracing, Fluentd, gRPC, containerd, rkt, CNI, Envoy, Jaeger, Notary, TUF, Vitess, CoreDNS, NATS, Linkerd, Helm, Harbor and etcd as the community gathers for four days to further the education and advancement of cloud native computing. KubeCon + CloudNativeCon + Open Source Summit China June 24-26, 2019 Shanghai, China In 2019, KubeCon + CloudNativeCon and Open Source Summit combine together for one event in China. KubeCon + CloudNativeCon gathers all CNCF projects under one roof. Join leading technologists from open source cloud native communities to further the advancement of cloud native computing. Previously known as LinuxCon + CloudOpen + ContainerCon China (LC3), Open Source Summit gathers technologists and open source industry leaders to collaborate, share information and learn about the newest and most interesting open source technologies, including Linux, IoT, blockchain, AI, networking, and more. Open Source Summit Japan July 17-19, 2019 Tokyo, Japan Open Source Summit Japan is the leading conference in Japan connecting the open source ecosystem under one roof, providing a forum for technologists and open source industry leaders to collaborate and share information, learn about the latest in open source technologies and find out how to gain a competitive advantage by using innovative open solutions. Automotive Linux Summit July 17-19, 2019 Tokyo, Japan Automotive Linux Summit connects the developer community driving the innovation in automotive Linux together with the vendors and users providing and using the code in order to drive the future of embedded devices in the automotive arena. Linux Security Summit North America August 19-21, 2019 San Diego, California The Linux Security Summit (LSS) is a technical forum for collaboration between Linux developers, researchers, and end users with the primary aim of fostering community efforts in analyzing and solving Linux security challenges. LSS is where key Linux security community members and maintainers gather to present and discuss their work and research to peers, joined by those who wish to keep up with the latest in Linux security development and who would like to provide input to the development process. Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference North America August 21-23, 2019 San Diego, California Open Source Summit North America connects the open source ecosystem under one roof. It's a unique environment for cross-collaboration between developers, sysadmins, devops, architects and others who are driving technology forward. Embedded Linux Conference (ELC) is the premier vendor-neutral technical conference where developers working on embedded Linux and industrial IoT products and deployments gather for education and collaboration, paving the way for innovation. For the first time in 2019, Embedded Linux Conference North America will co-locate with Open Source Summit North America. Linux Plumbers Conference September 9-11, 2019 Lisbon, Portugal The Linux Plumbers Conference is the premier event for developers working at all levels of the plumbing layer and beyond. Kernel Maintainer Summit September 12, 2019 Lisbon, Portugal The Linux Kernel Summit brings together the world's leading core kernel developers to discuss the state of the existing kernel and plan the next development cycle. Cloud Foundry Summit Europe September 11-12, 2019 The Hague, The Netherlands From startups to the Fortune 500, Cloud Foundry is used by businesses around the globe to automate, scale and manage cloud apps throughout their lifecycle. Whether they are a contributor or committer building the platform, or using the platform to attain business goals, Cloud Foundry Summit Europe is where developers, operators, CIOs and other IT professionals go to share best practices and innovate together. Open Networking Summit Europe September 23-25, 2019 Antwerp, Belgium Open Networking Summit Europe is the industry's premier open networking event, gathering enterprises, service providers and cloud providers across the ecosystem to share learnings, highlight innovation and discuss the future of Open Source Networking, including SDN, NFV, orchestration and the automation of cloud, network, & IoT services. Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference Europe October 28-30, 2019 Lyon, France Open Source Summit Europe is the leading conference for developers, architects, and other technologists as well as open source community and industry leaders to collaborate, share information, learn about the latest technologies and gain a competitive advantage by using innovative open solutions. The co-located Embedded Linux Conference is the premier vendor-neutral technical conference where developers working on embedded Linux and industrial IoT products and deployments gather for education and collaboration, paving the way for innovation. Linux Security Summit Europe October 31-November 1, 2019 Lyon, France The Linux Security Summit (LSS) is a technical forum for collaboration between Linux developers, researchers, and end users with the primary aim of fostering community efforts in analyzing and solving Linux security challenges. KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America November 18-21, 2019 San Diego, California The Cloud Native Computing Foundation's flagship conference gathers adopters and technologists from leading open source and cloud native communities. Join developers using Kubernetes, Prometheus, Envoy, OpenTracing, Fluentd, gRPC, containerd, rkt, CNI, Jaeger, Notary, TUF, Vitess, CoreDNS, NATS, Linkerd, Helm, Harbor and etcd to learn and advance cloud native computing. Open FinTech Forum December 9, 2019 New York, New York Focusing on the intersection of financial services and open source, Open FinTech Forum will provide CIOs and senior technologists guidance on building internal open source programs as well as an in-depth look at cutting-edge open source technologies, including AI, Blockchain/Distributed Ledger, Kubernetes/Containers, that can be leveraged to drive efficiencies and flexibility. Event dates and locations will be announced shortly for additional 2019 events including: The API Strategy & Practice Conference (APIStrat) KVM Forum Open Compliance Forum And much more! Speaking proposals are now being accepted for the following 2019 events: KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe (Submission deadline: January 18 ) ) Open Networking Summit North America (Submission deadline: January 21 ) ) gRPC Conf 2019 (Submission deadline: January 23 ) ) Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) All Member Meeting (Submission deadline: January 23 ) ) Open Source Leadership Summit (Submission deadline: January 28 ) ) Cephalocon (Submission deadline: February 1 ) ) KubeCon + CloudNativeCon + Open Source Summit China (Submission deadline: February 15 ) ) Automotive Linux Summit (Submission deadline: March 24 ) ) Open Source Summit Japan (Submission deadline: March 24 ) ) Linux Security Summit North America (Submission details coming soon) Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference North America (Submission deadline: April 2 ) ) Linux Plumbers Conference (Submission details coming soon) Kernel Maintainer Summit (Submission details coming soon) Cloud Foundry Summit Europe (Submission details coming soon) Open Networking Summit Europe (Submission deadline: June 16 ) ) Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference Europe (Submission deadline: July 1 ) ) Linux Security Summit Europe (Submission details coming soon) KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America (Submission dates: May 6 - July 12 ) ) Open FinTech Forum (Submission dates: January 17 - September 22 ) Speaking proposals for all events can be submitted at https://linuxfoundation.smapply.io/ . For more information about all Linux Foundation events, please visit: http://events.linuxfoundation.org . Additional Resources Video: The Linux Foundation Event Experience: http://youtu.be/-WUeelICQ2U Twitter: Follow Linux Foundation event promotions, discounts and updates at http://www.twitter.com/eventsLF Facebook: Linux Foundation Events on Facebook About The Linux Foundation The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world's top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org . The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage . Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Media Contact: Dan Brown The Linux Foundation 415-420-7880 dbrown@linuxfoundation.org View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-linux-foundation-announces-2019-events-schedule-300778787.html SOURCE The Linux Foundation [January 15, 2019] ECi Named to Great Place to Work List for Second Consecutive Year ECi Software Solutions, a leader in industry-specific cloud-based business management solutions, today announced that it has been certified as a Great Place to Work for the second consecutive year. These results are based on extensive ratings provided by employees via anonymous surveys that are administered by Great Place to Work's team of independent analysts. According to the survey results, ECi employees feel valued and comfortable: 89 percent reported that their coworkers cared about them, 86 percent felt they could be themselves at work, and 88 percent said ECi makes new hires feel welcome. Overall, 86 percent of employees completed the survey. "We are thrilled to be certified by the Great Place to Work for a second year in a row," said Andrew Pryor, SVP of Human Resources, ECi. "The feedback we received from our employees during the survey clearly demonstrates their passion for serving our customers and the pride they have in their jobs. It also validates our never-ending efforts to ensure ECi has a culture that is fun, engaging and transparent. We remain committed to creating the best possible workplace for our employees." A summary of the survey findings can be found on ECi's Great Place to Work profile. For more information about working for ECi from one of its many offices across the United States or abroad, please visit https://www.ecisolutions.com/about-us/culture/. About Great Place to Work Great Place to Work is the global authority on high-trust, high-performance workplace cultures. Through proprietary assessment tools, advisory services, and certification programs, including Best Workplaces lists and workplace reviews, Great Place to Work provides the benchmarks, framework, and expertise needed to create, sustain, and recognize outstanding workplace cultures. In the United States, Great Place to Work produces the annual Fortune "100 Best Companies to Work For" list and a series of Great Place to Work Best Workplaces lists including lists for Millennials, Women, Diversity, Small and Medium Companies and over a half dozen different industry lists. Follow Great Place to Work online at www.greatplacetowork.com and on Twitter (News - Alert) at @GPTW_US. About ECi ECi Software Solutions provides industry-specific business software solutions and services, focusing on cloud-based technologies. For 30+ years, ECi has served small to medium-sized manufacturing, wholesale/retail distribution, building and construction, and field service organizations. Privately held, ECi is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, USA, with offices throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, England, the Netherlands, and Australia. For information, email info@ecisolutions.com, visit www.ECiSolutions.com or call (800) 959-3367. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005483/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Extract Data from Your PDFs, Including Tables and Images, with Datalogics PDF Alchemist, Version 2.3 Datalogics, the preferred provider of industry-leading PDF technologies, is excited to announce PDF Alchemist version 2.3, now available for immediate online download. A robust enterprise solution, PDF Alchemist can accurately extract valuable data from PDF documents for specific business processes, information management, and automation. Core features of PDF Alchemist include advanced table extraction algorithms for accurate data correlation and information reconstruction to ensure that the recomposed extracted content is tailored to specific device and end user needs. This tool also features multilingual support that facilitates complex extraction capabilities for PDFs containing multiple languages and supports optical character recognition engine integration. Users can select HTML, XML and EPUB output options for optimal data management flexibility and device-responsive content delivery. "Making sense of unstructured information contained within PDF documents is more important than ever before. Data locked within traditional PDF files is inaccessible to machine learning, to business process automation, and to advanced analysis and decision logic. With the additio of OCR support, and with our continuing improvements to structured data extraction of elements such as tables and logical text flows, this release of Datalogics PDF Alchemist enables more complete PDF data extraction than ever before," says Matt Kuznicki, Datalogics CTO. Available as an annual subscription for both Windows and Linux 64-bit platforms, PDF Alchemist is offered as an easy-to-use scriptable server tool for direct purchase on the Datalogics website for seamless integration into existing workflows. Also available as an SDK, PDF Alchemist is ideal for SaaS (News - Alert) and OEM implementations. If you'd like to start working with PDF Alchemist, click here for a free evaluation or buy now. About Datalogics Datalogics, Inc. is a leading software company specializing in both enterprise PDF and digital publishing technologies. Based in Chicago, IL, we support hundreds of customers worldwide who are using our technology in diverse applications. With over 50 years of industry experience, we provide unmatched support, enabling customers to bring their products to market faster. Datalogics is on the PDF Association board and is a member of the Readium Foundation. For more information, visit www.datalogics.com 2019 Datalogics, Incorporated Datalogics is a registered trademark of Datalogics Incorporated. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005099/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] BAE Systems to Enhance the Communications and Connectivity of U.S. and Joint Forces Across the Pacific BAE Systems will assist the U.S. Navy in maintaining and operating multiple electronic, communication, and computing platforms under a five-year, $79.8 million contract. The program, which supports the Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station, Pacific, will enable BAE Systems (News - Alert) to continue providing 24/7 operations and maintenance support for afloat and ashore command, control, communications, computer, and intelligence systems. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005696/en/ The U.S. Navy has awarded BAE Systems a five-year contract to maintain communication platforms that connect U.S. and Joint forces operating across the Pacific. (Photo: U.S. Navy) "We are maintaining ship-to-shore, shore-to-aircraft, and shore-to-shore long-range communications systems," said Mark Keeler, vice president and general manager of BAE Systems' Integrated Defense Solutions business. "Our work is enabling naval, joint, agency, and coalition forces to effectively communicate and operate across the Pacific and Indian Oceans." Through this contract, BAE Systems engineers will also continue servicing the U.S. Navy's Mobile User Objective System, a narrowband military communications satellite system that offers enhanced and secure communications, including voice, video, and data for all branches of the Department of Defense and other federal agencies. A majority of the contract work will take place in Oahu, Hawaii, with additional work performed in Geraldton, Australia. BAE Systems delivers a broad range of solutions and services enabling militaries and governments to successfully carry out their respective missions. The company provides large-scale systems engineering, integration, and sustainment services across air, land, sea, space, and cyber domains. BAE Systems takes pride in its support of national security and those who serve. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005696/en/ [January 15, 2019] The Doctors Company now using Milliman Datalytics-Defense's innovative AI platform for its claims defense management SEATTLE, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Milliman, Inc., the premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today announced that The Doctors Company has implemented Milliman Datalytics-Defense as its advanced analytics legal management platform for processing defense cost invoices. The choice of Datalytics-Defense puts The Doctors Company at the forefront of claims defense management, allowing the medical malpractice insurer to collaborate with defense counsel to use best practices for defense strategy through artificial intelligence and data-driven decisions. Milliman Datalytics-Defense employs powerful data mining algorithms and machine learning to help insurers and self-insureds detect patterns in attorney billing practices, delivering a better understanding of costs and case strategies. "At The Doctors Company, we are continually looking for innovative ways to harness the data available to us and use it to improve our operations and increase efficiencies," says Cathy Shutack, Senior Vice President of Claims at The Doctors Company. "With Milliman Datalytics-Defense, we've found a way to apply artificial intelligence based techniques to our vast amounts of data, and use the resulting information to make better data-driven decisions around the claims management process." Milliman Datalytics-Defense is designed specifically for the insurance industry and has subject matter expertise built into the technology and reporting. The tool's predictive analytic engine is fueled by powerful and proprietary data-mining algorithms that convert text-based data into rich and powerful structured data. "Leading companies recognize the importance of analyzing the data available to them and unlocking its hidden intelligence as a way to effectively manage and mitigate risk," says Chad C. arls, principal and consulting actuary with Milliman. "The Doctors Company has a reputation as a forward-thinking organization that understands how a tool like Datalytics-Defense can benefit its members, and I'm looking forward to continuing our work together." To learn more about Milliman Datalytics-Defense, go to http://us.milliman.com/Solutions/Products/Milliman-Datalytics-Defense/. About Milliman Milliman is among the world's largest providers of actuarial and related products and services. The firm has consulting practices in healthcare, property & casualty insurance, life insurance and financial services, and employee benefits. Founded in 1947, Milliman is an independent firm with offices in major cities around the globe. For further information, visit milliman.com. About The Doctors Company Founded and led by physicians, The Doctors Company (thedoctors.com) is relentlessly committed to advancing, protecting, and rewarding the practice of good medicine. The Doctors Company takes the mal out of malpractice insurance by helping hospitals and practices of all sizes manage the complexities of today's healthcare environmentwith expert guidance, resources, and coverage. The Doctors Company is the nation's largest physician-owned medical malpractice insurer, with 79,000 members and over $4.8 billion in assets, and is rated A by A.M. Best Company and Fitch Ratings. To learn more about data-driven insights and to stay up to date on industry trends, follow and subscribe to The Doctors Company on Twitter (@doctorscompany), YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-doctors-company-now-using-milliman-datalytics-defenses-innovative-ai-platform-for-its-claims-defense-management-300778649.html SOURCE Milliman, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] WhereiPark Acquires GarageHop And Expands Digital Parking Marketplace TORONTO, CA and SEATTLE, WA, Jan. 15, 2019 /CNW/ - WhereiPark, a leading digital marketplace for monthly parking across North America, announced today the acquisition of GarageHop, a provider of parking for non-resident tenants of buildings in the Seattle area with an emphasis on transit hub locations. WhereiPark will integrate GarageHop's network of active parkers and buildings into WhereiPark's digital platform. "We are excited to be working with GarageHop's team to offer our services to individuals, companies and real estate partners in the Seattle area," said co-founder of WhereiPark, Jeremy Zuker. "With this acquisition, WhereiPark will be offering a turn-key solution for monthly parking at over 50 locations in the Seattle area where individuals or corporate groups can easily reserve and manage their monthly parking. Our platform creates tremendous value fo buildings and groups of parkers alike," added co-founder, Alex Enchin. Property owners use WhereiPark to generate revenue from under-utilized parking assets, offer an improved experience to their parkers, and gain access to WhereiPark's management and reporting tools. Toronto-based WhereiPark offers parking in cities across North America including Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Toronto, Washington DC and Portland. The Company expects multiple cities to come online in 2019. "GarageHop is pleased to be joining a network that spans the country and offers greater choice to our parkers especially for public transit commuters looking for a space near their park-and-rides. Additionally, by joining forces with WhereiPark our real estate partners have access to broader demand for parking through WhereiPark's platform," said Helene Costa co-founder of GarageHop. WhereiPark's services are employed by hundreds of buildings and its real estate partners include many of the largest apartment building owners and managers in North America. The transition was completed on December 31, 2018. About WhereiPark WhereiPark, founded in 2014, is a marketplace for monthly parking. The Company simplifies the process of finding and booking monthly parking for individuals and groups while creating a new revenue source for buildings. WhereiPark offers a turn-key solution that is employed by many of the largest owners and mangers of buildings in North America. www.whereipark.com About GarageHop GarageHop is an IoT parking company based in Seattle, which provides parking to commuters, carpoolers and more. http://www.garagehop.co View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/whereipark-acquires-garagehop-and-expands-digital-parking-marketplace-300778645.html SOURCE Where I Park Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Former UCC Executive Mark Matlock Joins Pro-Vigil as VP of Indirect Channel Revenue - Will Drive Growth of Recent Lydia Security Monitoring Dealer Partnership SAN ANTONIO, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Pro-Vigil , the largest global provider of video-based security solutions, announced today the appointment of Mark Matlock to the position of Vice President of Indirect Channel Revenue. The hiring follows the 2018 Q3 partnership the company entered into with Lydia Security Monitoring, operator of top brands including COPS Monitoring and UCC. His main responsibility is to oversee the growth of the company's solutions to alarm dealers. He'll directly manage Lydia Security Monitoring's more than 4,200 new dealers that now have access to Pro-Vigil's solutions. He and the sales and marketing team will assist dealers with the design, sales, and installation of solutions. Matlock will work with dealers to deepen their understanding of ways to properly leverage Pro-Vigil's technology so they can diversify and build recurring revenue. Mr. Matlock enjoyed a 16-year career with UCC / Lydia Security Monitoring, where he served as Senior Vice President and a vital member of the company's executive management team. He managed all of the marketing and sales efforts for the company. During his tenure at UCC, Matlock was the driving force behind the company's rapid growth. "The partnership and Mark's appointment have the full support of the executive team. We all understand it's the right move at the right time for our business' continued success," said Mark Eblin, Chief Executive Officer of Pro-Vigil. The Lydia Security Monitoring partnership will be extraordinarily impactful, and Mark's guidance will prove to be invaluable as it develops over the coming years." "We knew going into our Lydia Security Monitoring partnership that we needed high-level personnel assistance to drive growth," said Jeremy White, Founder of Pro-Vigil. "Mark brings more than 30 years of alarm industry experience along with, of course, his intimate knowledge of UCC. He was instrumental in growing that company into a nationally-recognized central station brand and helped to further their growth after the Lydia acquisition. We'll rely on his expertise to re-sell our services to dealers and help them understand how easy it is to support live outdoor video monitoring through Pro-Vigil." "I'm thrilled to join Pro-Vigil and to help them leverage this very promising partnership with Lydia Security Monitoring," said Matlock. "I've worked in this industry for a long time and am confident my expertise will prove an asset to Pro-Vigil as we aggressively expand our sales footprint. We'll provide Lydia Security Monitoring's massive network of dealers with impeccable service and the industry's very best outdoor video monitoring solution." For more information about Pro-Vigil's innovative security solutions, visit www.pro-vigil.com . About Pro-Vigil Founded in 2006, Pro-Vigil is the smartest, fastest, most reliable, surveillance and monitoring solution, to enable you to focus on your core business, whether that's in construction, an auto dealer, boat dealer, or more. Pro-Vigil doesn't sleep on the job, with an average 18 second response time, be assured your assets are safe at any hour. We do all the work for you and offer an industry only "Peace of mind" $5,000 service guarantee. The only solution you can buy that actually stops crime before it happens. Visit www.pro-vigil.com to learn more. Media Contact: Laura Waldron, IDPR for Pro-Vigil 207765@email4pr.com; 949.777.2485 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/former-ucc-executive-mark-matlock-joins-pro-vigil-as-vp-of-indirect-channel-revenue---will-drive-growth-of-recent-lydia-security-monitoring-dealer-partnership-300778641.html SOURCE Pro-Vigil [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Argentum Electronics Wins N100, Secures $250,000 Investment Northumberland CFDC today announced that Argentum Electronics is the winner of its 2018 $250,000 N100 Evolution technology startup competition. The multi-stage competitive gauntlet began in July 2018 at Venture13 in Cobourg, with a total of 44 startups competing at the outset. Argentum Electronics has designed a product line of Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) technologies and smart power management solutions, working within an ecosystem of innovative architects, builders and producers. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005100/en/ CEO Bolis Ibrahim of Argentum Electronics pitches at Venture13 as part of N100 Evolution. (Photo: Business Wire) The startup and its Founder and CEO Bolis Ibrahim were already on a major winning streak leading up to N100 Evolution, previously garnering multiple accolades, such as the Norman Esch Engineering and Innovation Award, Ontario Centres of Excellence David McFadden Energy Entrepreneur Challenge, the RECODE Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award, the Global Student Entrepreneur Award and most recently, the company took home a Gold Medal in Korea Electric Power Corporation's (KEPCO) digital transformation conference held in Gwangju this past October. With an impressive patent portfolio, backed by partnerships with Microsoft's IoT & AI Insider Lab in Redmond, Washington, with early support from the Impact Centre at th University of Toronto and Ryerson University's Clean Energy Zone, and accelerated by a successful customer demonstration project with WZMH Architects, Argentum Electronics is going to market now with a significant boost from N100. And with their win, company operations are coming to Venture13 where Argentum Electronics is immediately hiring for technical positions (click here to apply via Angel List). Following a recent $2 million solar-powered electric vehicle charging station funding announcement at Venture13 by MP for Northumberland-Peterborough South, Kim Rudd (click here to view the release) N100 continues the momentum with Argentum Electronics as we work together to realize a smarter, greener, more efficient and dynamic future. "We are excited about Argentum Electronics' PoE technologies and the opportunity for collaboration with local firms and organizations devoted to industrial innovation," said Northumberland CFDC Executive Director Wendy Curtis. "Congratulations to Bolis Ibrahim for your exemplary performance in N100 and we look forward to playing a major role in your advancement." "Winning the N100 competition is a game changer for us," said Bolis Ibrahim, Founder and CEO of Argentum Electronics. "With this capital injection we will be able to get our Smart Power over Ethernet Controller (SPEC) product line ready for manufacturing and market entry. Ultimately this will put our company in a highly investable position. We are grateful for all of the support we've received from Northumberland CFDC, the N100 Power Panel, and our mentors in this journey." In addition, all eligible N100 Evolution Semi-Finalists are now pre-qualified for up to $30,000 in matching seed funding from Northumberland CFDC's $2.2 million N1M initiative, with increased support from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) also recently announced by MP Kim Rudd (click here to view the release). Through N100 and all of its programs, Northumberland CFDC endeavours to add value to entrepreneurs through funding, financing and entrepreneurial development opportunities in a continuous effort to strengthen the chain of innovation in Northumberland and across Ontario. About Northumberland CFDC Located at the Venture13 innovation centre in Cobourg, Ontario, Northumberland Community Futures Development Corporation (Northumberland CFDC) provides financing and strategy for entrepreneurs as a pathway to future prosperity, delivering local and regional programs including N100, N1M, the Nventure Angel Sidecar Fund, EODP, CEDP and the core Community Futures Program, with the support of the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario). For more, visit Northumberland CFDC's website (click here). About N100 Launched in 2013, N100 Evolution is the sixth edition of Northumberland's open invitational technology startup competition at Venture13. N100 Startups compete for a $250,000 convertible note from Northumberland CFDC through a series of challenges from the pitch competition to business planning and board room presentations, with entrepreneurial development and support along the way from the Power Panel, advisors and partners. N100 is a biennial competition starting up again in 2020, and proudly sponsored by MathWorks, Budgeto and CCO Productions. For more, visit the official website (click here). About Argentum Electronics The mission of Argentum Electronics is to bring fundamental innovation to the world of power electronics and IoT technology. The multi-award-winning company provides the smart building value chain (owners, architects, building engineers, and construction firms) with DC power management and Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) solutions through application of a suite of patent pending technologies. The company's Smart Power over Ethernet controller (SPEC) line features a cloud-managed Smart PoE Splitter, and a cloud-managed PoE Power Combiner for high power PoE delivery. For more information, visit the Argentum Electronics website (click here). View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005100/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP Alerts Investors to Securities Class Action Against Danske Bank A/S Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP ("Scott+Scott"), a national shareholder and consumer rights litigation firm, is notifying investors that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Danske Bank A/S ("Danske Bank" or the "Company") (OTC:DNKEY) and other defendants, related to alleged violations of federal securities laws. If you purchased Danske Bank American Depositary Receipts ("ADRs") between January 9, 2014 and October 23, 2018, you are encouraged to contact a Scott+Scott attorney at (844) 818-6980 for more information. Danske Bank provides personal banking, business banking, corporate and institutional banking, and wealth management products and services, along with mortgage finance, real-estate brokerage, foreign exchange and equity services, and trades in fixed income products, including with customers who reside or are domiciled outside Denmark. According to the lawsuit, defendants made false and misleading statements and/or failed to disclose adverse informationregarding Danske Bank's business and operations. Specifically, defendants failed to disclose that: (i) Danske Bank's Estonian branch was facilitating money laundering through at least March 2016; (ii) a whistleblower had reported the Estonian money laundering to the Company in 2013; (iii) Denmark's Financial Supervisory Authority (the "DFSA") had been investigating the Estonian money laundering since 2014; (iv) Danske Bank had concealed the results of its own internal investigation from the DFSA, further exposing it to regulatory action and fines; (v) Danske Bank had been overstating its historical profits by including the profits derived from its illicit Estonian operations; and (vi) Danske Bank lacked effective internal and reporting controls. On October 23, 2018, following news that began to come out in early September 2017, The Wall Street Journal published an article disclosing the full extent of the information a whistleblower had alerted Danske Bank's senior executives to back in 2013 and detailing how Danske Bank had tried to silence the whistleblower for years. Upon the gradual revelation of the Company's reliance on illicit profits and its resulting exposure to regulatory action, the price of the Company's ADRs plummeted a total of approximately 54%, from a high of $20.90 on February 16, 2018, to a low of $9.50 on October 23, 2018. What You Can Do If you purchased Danske Bank ADRs between January 9, 2014 and October 23, 2018, inclusive, or if you have questions about this notice or your legal rights, please contact attorney Rhiana Swartz at (844) 818-6980, or at rswartz@scott-scott.com. The lead plaintiff deadline is March 11, 2019. About Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP Scott+Scott has significant experience in prosecuting major securities, antitrust, and employee retirement plan actions throughout the United States. The firm represents pension funds, foundations, individuals, and other entities worldwide with offices in New York, London, Connecticut, California, and Ohio. Attorney Advertising View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005630/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] NSS Labs to Develop its 2019 Next Generation Intrusion Prevention System Group Test AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NSS Labs, Inc., a global leader and trusted source for independent, fact-based cybersecurity guidance, today announced that it is developing the next iteration of its Next Generation Intrusion Prevention Systems (NGIPS) Group Test with results expected to be released in 2019. As part of todays announcement, the company is also issuing a call for industry engagement from both enterprises and NGIPS vendors to help shape and evolve the upcoming NGIPS Group Test and accompanying methodology. NGIPS technology continues to play a critical role in addressing enterprise requirements for deep forensics and incident response capabilities to manage insider threats. These threats have been linked to many large-scale breaches and often bypass traditional NGFWs deployed at the perimeter. NGIPS are also deployed for traditional branch/campus deployments that combine NGFW and IPS capabilities and for policy control to help mitigate highly adaptable threats. In addition to supporting perimeter deployments, NGIPS are becoming even more important in supporting new use cases. Enterprises are looking to improve segmentation, operational agility, and time to mitigate through security orchestration and automation response (SOAR) and through security information and event management (SIEM), and these technologies are now placing new demands on NGIPS as they increasingly rely on intelligence and action from IPS systems. In 2018, NSS Labs performed the industrys most comprehensive group test of leading NGIPS products. Seven products from six market-leading vendors were examined for security effectiveness, performance, and total cost of ownership. Of the products that participated in the group test, two missed at least one evasion. Testing also revealed stability issues with certain product versions. For more information about the test, click here . Enterprises continue to rely on NGIPS because they are highly effective and easy to deploy without new network architectures and also because they can be tuned and complement the capabilities of NGFWs that are deployed at the perimeter, said Jason Brvenik, Chief Technology Officer at NSS Labs. NSS Labs is continuously evolving its group tess to keep pace with industry advancements. With new use cases for NGIPS, empirical data is critical to inform decision making. We encourage both enterprises and vendors to collaborate with us as we examine leading NGIPS products in the market. NSS Labs has a long history in testing enterprise-class security products. NSS Labs rigorous group tests offer independent analysis of the top security technologies used today by Global 2000 companies. The tests provide the industrys most comprehensive review of security effectiveness, performance, and total cost of ownership. Enterprises rely on our tests for fact-based, empirical data that they can use to inform their decision making. Within the last 12 months, NSS Labs has released group test results for several categories of mature and evolving cybersecurity products. To learn more about our group tests, visit the NSS Labs website . As with all NSS Labs group tests , there is no fee for participation, and the test methodology is available in the public domain to provide transparency and to help enterprises understand the factors behind test results. Click here for more information about our group test policies. Enterprises that wish to provide feedback regarding NSS Labs upcoming NGIPS Group Test and its associated test methodology can send feedback to enterprise_relations@nsslabs.com . Vendors can send feedback to vendor_relations@nsslabs.com . Additional Resources: Purchase the NSS Labs 2018 NGIPS Group Test Reports Read our blog titled Detection and Prevention: The IPS in the US Enterprise Learn more about NSS Labs Security Product Testing Learn more about NSS Labs Test Policies Follow NSS Labs on Twitter Follow NSS Labs on LinkedIn About NSS Labs, Inc. NSS Labs, Inc. is the global leader in cybersecurity product testing, research, and advisory services. Our mission is to advance transparency and accountability within the cybersecurity industry. We provide enterprises with the objective information services they need to successfully manage cybersecurity risk through our advisory services, continuous testing, and security validation programs that rigorously subject security products to cyberattacks in real time. C-Suite executives and information security professionals from many of the world's most demanding enterprises rely on fact-based information from NSS Labs to accelerate security decisions with greater confidence. For more information, visit www.nsslabs.com . Contact: Jessica Johannes Phone: +1 512-498-7076 jjohannes@nsslabs.com [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] MaxLinear G.hn Wave-2 Technology Selected by Zinwell for New Family of Home Networking Products MaxLinear, Inc. (NYSE: MXL), a leading provider of radio frequency (RF), analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits for the connected home, wired and wireless infrastructure, and industrial and multimarket applications, and Zinwell (News - Alert) , a leading manufacturer of wired and wireless broadcast and broadband communication equipment, today announced a new family of G.hn home-networking products based on MaxLinear G.hn Wave-2 powerline technology. Zinwell's new G.hn product family includes several devices that enable consumers and service providers to build gigabit-class Wi-Fi networks with whole-home coverage: PWS-9121 (base model) and PWS-9131 (pass-through model) are 802.11ac 2x2 dual-band concurrent Wi-Fi extenders that leverage MaxLinear G.hn Wave-2 technology as a gigabit-class powerline backhaul. Both devices include a Gigabit Ethernet port and an easy-to-use push-button configuration. They are available in EU and US plug versions. PLS-9111 (base model) and PLS-9141 (pass-through model) are Gigabit Ethernet adapters with embedded MaxLinear G.hn Wave-2 powerline connectivity. Both devices are available in EU and US plug versions. By leveraging MaxLinear's industry-leading G.hn powerline technology, Zinwell can offer a solution that delivers a robust whole-home Wi-Fi experience while avoiding the problems often found in other Wi-Fi mesh solutions (wireless signals blocked by walls, interference from neighbor wireless networks, unpredictable latency). Because G.hn powerline technology is not affected by walls or congested wireless spectrum, consumers experience a high-performance Wi-Fi service that meets the requirements of 4K and 8K IP video, online multi-player gaming and cloud-based file sharing. Service providers see a reduction in truck rolls and customer complaints, while simultaneously increasing their remote diagnostic and proactive management capabilities. All Zinwell home-networking products based on MaxLinear G.hn Wave-2 technology are fully compliant with the latest version of the ITU-T G.hn standard, and are certified according to FCC, UL and EN50561. All products support IPv6, remote firmware upgrades, 8-level QoS, IGMP snooping for multicast IPTV (News - Alert) , web-based management, AES-128 encryption and VLANs. A carrier-grade version which includes TR-069 remote management is also available. "Zinwell is one of the leading providers of networking products for the consumer and service provider market, with several years of experience building powerline products," said Will Torgerson, Vice President & General Manager of the roadband Group for MaxLinear. "We are excited that Zinwell has chosen our G.hn Wave-2 technology to power their new generation of home-networking products." "MaxLinear's G.hn Wave-2 powerline technology provides the fastest data rates in the industry, so it was an easy decision for us to select it to power our newest home-networking products," said Mark Yang, Digital Product BU Head at Zinwell. "Using our G.hn/Wi-Fi extenders and G.hn/Ethernet adapters, carriers can deliver on their promise of gigabit broadband anywhere in the home, without any of the performance and latency problems associated with other Wi-Fi mesh solutions in the market." About Zinwell Corporation Founded in 1981, Zinwell has grown to be globally recognized as one of the major Taiwanese manufacturers of ultra-high speed home networking, multimedia networks, digital set-top box, satellite, CATV and terrestrial receiving equipment. With headquarters in Taipei and corporate offices in Hsinchu, Zinwell sells to three of the top 10 operators in the world. For more information, please visit www.zinwell.com.tw. About MaxLinear, Inc. MaxLinear, Inc. (NYSE:MXL) is a leading provider of radio frequency (RF), analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits for the connected home, wired and wireless infrastructure, and industrial and multimarket applications. MaxLinear is headquartered in Carlsbad, California. For more information, please visit www.maxlinear.com. MxL and the MaxLinear logo are trademarks of MaxLinear, Inc. Other trademarks appearing herein are the property of their respective owners. Cautionary Note About Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements include, among others, statements concerning or implying future financial performance, anticipated product performance and functionality, or trends and growth opportunities affecting MaxLinear, in particular statements relating to MaxLinear's announcement of the selection of its G.hn Wave-2 technology by Zinwell for new family of home networking products. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from any future results expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. We cannot predict whether or to what extent such new technology will affect our future revenues or financial performance. Forward-looking statements are based on management's current, preliminary expectations and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements may contain words such as "will be," "will," "expected," "anticipate," "continue," or similar expressions and include the assumptions that underlie such statements. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements: intense competition in our industry and product markets; risks relating to the development, testing, and commercial introduction of new products and product functionalities; the ability of our customers to cancel or reduce orders; uncertainties concerning how end user markets for our products will develop; our lack of long-term supply contracts and dependence on limited sources of supply; potential decreases in average selling prices for our products; and the potential for intellectual property litigation, which is prevalent in our industry. In addition to these risks and uncertainties, investors should review the risks and uncertainties contained in MaxLinear's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, including risks and uncertainties identified in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2018. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. MaxLinear is providing this information as of the date of this release and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005019/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Zadara Announces Virtual Private Storage Array for VMware Cloud on AWS IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Zadara, provider of the Zero-Risk Enterprise Data Cloud, today announced its enterprise-class storage solutions are available to customers of VMware Cloud on AWS. VMware Cloud on AWS brings together VMware's enterprise-class Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) software and elastic, bare-metal infrastructure from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to give organizations a consistent operating model and application mobility for private and public cloud. Zadara Virtual Private Storage Arrays deliver the advanced data storage and management features that customers of VMware Cloud on AWS need. Zadara is a cloud-based Enterprise NAS and SAN service with NFS, CIFS/AD and iSCSI interfaces, dual HA controllers, dedicated high performance drives and enterprise-class storage features (snapshots, replication, thin provisioning, encryption, etc.). Data is stored on dedicated hardware for the ultimate privacy and quality of service, and protected with in-flight and at-rest encryption, with user-managed keys. With Zadara, users get more than enterprise-class storage. Zadara comes with 24/7/365 live support, proactive system management, and periodic non-disruptive hardware upgrades included. That's why Zadara can offer a 100%-uptime guarantee. "Zadara is an ideal complement to VMware Cloud on AWS. That's because we deliver a full-featured, on-demand, single-tenant experience including predictable performance, complete data privacy, and universal protocol support," said Noam Shendar, vice president and general manager of the hyperscale cloud business for Zadara. VMware Cloud on AWS technology partners enable customers to deploy the same proven solutions seamlessly in both the public and private cloud. VMware simplifies the deployment and eliminates the need for partners to refactor solutions for VMware Cloud on AWS. If a partner solution works on preises in a VMware vSphere environment, it will easily support VMware Cloud on AWS. VMware technology partners complement and enhance native VMware Cloud on AWS service and enable customers to realize new capabilities. "VMware Cloud on AWS provides customers a seamlessly integrated hybrid cloud offering that gives customers the SDDC experience from the leader in private cloud, running on the leading public cloud provider, AWS," said Kristen Edwards, director, Technology Alliance Partner Program, VMware. "Solutions such as Zadara Virtual Private Storage Arrays enable IT teams to reduce cost, increase efficiency, and create operational consistency across on-premises and cloud environments. We're excited to work with partners such as Zadara to enhance native VMware Cloud on AWS capabilities and empower customers with flexibility and choice in solutions that can drive business value." About VMware Cloud on AWS Delivered, sold and supported by VMware and its channel partners as an on-demand service, and running on elastic, bare-metal AWS infrastructure, VMware Cloud on AWS is powered by VMware Cloud Foundation, the unified SDDC platform that integrates vSphere, VMware vSAN and VMware NSX virtualization technologies. With the same architecture and operational experience on premises and in the cloud, IT teams can quickly derive business value from use of the AWS and VMware hybrid cloud experience. For more information on the VMware Cloud on AWS partner ecosystem, visit: http://cloud.vmware.com/vmc-aws About Zadara Zadara offers agile, secure enterprise cloud storage as a fully-managed service, with a 100%-uptime guarantee and consumption-based pricing. Any location, any data type, any protocol. Zadara offers resource isolation, exceptional security, and management control. Get Zadara on premises and through cloud and colocation providers. More at www.zadara.com, LinkedIn, and Twitter. VMware, VMware Cloud, vSphere, Cloud Foundation, vSAN, and NSX are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions. Zadara is a registered trademark of Zadara Storage, Inc. Media Contact(s): Greg Newman Zadara 207711@email4pr.com +1-949-251-0360 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/zadara-announces-virtual-private-storage-array-for-vmware-cloud-on-aws-300778064.html SOURCE Zadara Storage, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Top Cybersecurity Breaches in 2018 Could Have Been Avoided, According to Cybersecurity Firm, VirtualArmour CENTENNIAL, Colo., Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Several major cybersecurity breaches surfaced last year, from Google, Facebook and British Airways to T-Mobile, Uber and Marriott. Lapses in security exposed the personal data of hundreds of millions of individuals to unauthorized users. These were in addition to the countless number of other breaches around the world that went unreported. Unfortunately, these events could have been avoided. Last years major data security breaches could have been prevented with a properly implemented cybersecurity strategy and proactive management, according to Andrew Douthwaite, chief technology officer at VirtualArmour International (OTCQB: VTLR , CSE: VAI , F: 3V3 ), a fast-growing cybersecurity managed services provider based in Denver, Colorado. Leading the growth of VirtualArmour over the last decade, Douthwaite knows a few things about Cybersecurity, and his companys track record shows it. While there were plenty of attempts, none of our enterprise clients were breached utilizing our services in 2018 or ever, for that matter, since they became a client and for good reason, said Douthwaite. We are the best at what we do. 2018 taught us a lot about cybersecurity and the consequence of not having robust policies in place. Last October, Google announced it discovered a security bug in Google+ that allowed unauthorized access to private user data. his included a wealth of personal information, including full names, occupations, birth dates, email addresses, personal photographs, addresses, and relationship status. This breach, which played out between 2015 and 2018, affected hundreds of thousands of users. If this was not bad enough, Google+ suffered a second major data breach only a few months later that affected another 52.5 million users. According to Douthwaite, these breaches could have been avoided if the security bug had been identified early and if a patch had been immediately created and deployed. Such breaches can also be costly. Last year, Uber was forced to pay $148 million to the Federal Trade Commission after falsely claiming that they closely monitored internal access to customers' personal information. The FTC also found that Uber had not lived up to its promise to provide a reasonable level of cybersecurity to safeguard customer data. This settlement stems from two separate data breaches that occurred in 2015 and 2016. These major security events highlight how opportunities for specialized service providers like VirtualArmour have grown in line with the increasing volume of cyber-attacks against businesses, non-profits and government institutions. This shift has not only led to increasing enterprise budgets being allocated to cyber protection, but also greater interest in investment opportunities in this high-growth sector. According to Cybersecurity Ventures recent quarterly report, global cybersecurity spending is predicted to exceed $1 trillion cumulatively from 2018 to 2021. In 2004, the global cybersecurity market was worth $3.5 billion. In 2018, spending is expected to hit $120 billion. Along with the increasing demand for cybersecurity solutions, many cybersecurity hardware and software stocks also realized strong gains in 2018. As the only publicly-traded pure-play cybersecurity managed services provider in North America, VirtualArmour is well positioned to capitalize on the industry growth opportunity. VirtualArmour services a wide range of clients, which include Fortune 500 companies and several industry sectors in over 30 countries across five continents. Its customized solutions help businesses build, monitor, maintain and secure their networks, and it maintains 24/7 client monitoring with specialist teams located at its U.S. and UK-based security operation centers. The companys proprietary CloudCastr client platform provides clients with all-in-one dashboard with unparalleled access to real-time reporting on threat levels, breach prevention and overall network security. While the big breaches in 2018 are behind us, companies should brace for more sophisticated and devastating attacks in the new year, said Douthwaite. Cybercrime remains a seriously strong threat, and every business manager should be taking steps to ensure that their company does not become a successful target. Douthwaite delves more into these simple solutions and other major 2018 breaches in a recent article published on LinkedIn.com here . For more information about what steps a company should take to safeguard sensitive information, contact VirtualArmour at (720) 644-0913 or email here. To learn more about VirtualArmour as a publicly-traded company, contact Ronald Both or Grant Stude at (949) 432-7566 or email here. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Nurx Launches Home HPV Screening Test SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Nurx, the consumer health and telemedicine company, today introduced its Home HPV Screening test, which allows women to conveniently and affordably check their risk for cervical cancer from the comfort of their own home. The Home HPV Screening test is yet another example of how Nurx is removing barriers to care, making it easy for people to get the information they need to make better decisions about their health. "Nurx's Home HPV Screening test provides women with vital information to help inform their healthcare decisions, but from the convenience of their own home," said Nurx CEO and co-founder Hans Gangeskar. "We believe that everyone deserves to have easy and affordable access to this important information in order to potentially lower their risk for cervical cancer. Nurx is a patient-first company and we're committed to breaking down health care barriers by offering high-quality care that is both convenient and affordable." Nurx's Home HPV Screening test checks for high-risk strains of HPV that can lead to cervical cancer, which nearly 13,000 women are diagnosed with each year and is one of the most preventable types of cancer. HPV is the most commonly transmitted STI, with nearly 80 million Americans currently infected with the virus. While the majority of strains are considered low-risk, nearly 80 percent of sexually active people contract HPV at some point in their lives.* After answering a few questions about their medical history, Nurx's meical team will determine if a patient is an appropriate candidate for the home test. The testing kit will then be delivered to the patient's home, where they will complete a simple vaginal swab and send the sample back to the lab in a pre-paid envelope. Within a few days, Nurx's medical team will reach out to the patient to discuss their results. Nurx's Home HPV Screening test meets recently updated guidelines, which now offers HPV testing as an appropriate alternative to a pap smear. Committed to giving patients full control of their health, Nurx also offers prescriptions for birth control and the HIV prevention medication PrEP. Last year, Nurx introduced a Home PrEP test kit, allowing people to complete all of the required and recommended lab work to determine if they are eligible to receive the HIV prevention medication - from their home. Since the company began offering the test kit, Nurx has seen a tenfold increase in the request for PrEP and is now the leading online provider of the HIV prevention medication. "Our goal is to provide women with freedom and control over their healthcare, along with the information they need to make healthcare choices," said Nurx Clinical Development Director Jessica Horwitz. "Understanding their risk for cervical cancer is one of those vital choices we are now providing access for - especially for women that may not live near a health clinic or have health insurance." Nurx's Home HPV Screening tests are available in 20 states and the District of Columbia. Patients can learn more and request the home test at www.nurx.com/hpv-screening. About Nurx Nurx is a telemedicine company offering easy online access to medical providers and seamless delivery of medications and home testing kits. We put you in control of your own health, empowering you to get the care you need, when you need it. From diagnosis to delivery, we make every part of getting healthy and staying healthy, better. Source *National Cervical Cancer Coalition Media Contact Allison Berry Communications Lead allison@nurx.co (650) 799 2676 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nurx-launches-home-hpv-screening-test-300777922.html SOURCE Nurx [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] BenchPrep Closes $20 Million Series C Round of Funding Co-Led by Jump Capital and Owl Ventures Leading expansion stage investor Jump Capital and leading edtech venture firm Owl Ventures join existing investors NewView Capital and Revolution Ventures Targets $200B professional education market with most advanced and flexible solution to support personalized, online learning at scale CHICAGO, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BenchPrep , the leading provider of an advanced white-label online learning platform for education and training organizations, announced today a $20 million Series C round of funding co-led by leading expansion stage investors Jump Capital and Owl Ventures . Previous investors who joined this round include NewView Capital and Revolution Ventures. This latest round also incorporates debt financing and brings BenchPreps funding total to $28.2 million. The funds will be used to fuel the Companys growth, further enhance its product offering, and extend its leadership position in the education and training industry. The funding follows a year of record growth for BenchPrep, which tripled its revenue rate and its team in the last two years. In 2018, BenchPrep signed partnerships with world-leading education and training organizations, including Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE), Association of Supply Chain Management (ASCM), American Institute of Architects (AIA), and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). 2018 was a banner year for BenchPrep. We are excited to help the leading education and training organizations modernize their learning programs to serve millions of learners, said Ashish Rangnekar, co-founder and CEO of BenchPrep. The professional learning landscape is going through a dramatic shift towards online, personalized learning. BenchPrep is well positioned to lead this shift by helping education and training companies transform their business models and digitize their learning programs. Rangnekar founded BenchPrep in 2009 with Ujjwal Gupta, COO. Continuous learning has become an economic imperative for both professionals and organizations. Education and training organizations are being forced to reevaluate their learning strategies and programs. BenchPrep is proving to be n industry leader in learning program delivery by offering a variety of customized online solutions that drive user adoption and engagement, improve pass rates, and increase revenue. We view the acceleration of digital transformation in the professional education and learning space as a large opportunity and we are very excited to partner with an industry leader in BenchPrep, said Michael McMahon, Managing Partner at Jump Capital. BenchPrep delivers the most advanced and flexible learning experience for certification, credentialing, test prep, continuing education, and training. Its cloud-based learning platform is designed to help education and training organizations deliver a highly engaging and effective learning experience for users who are trying to advance their careers. The platform also offers the latest in learner-centered technology to deliver personalized, gamified, omni-channel learning experiences that lead to higher engagement, increased learner satisfaction, and improved success rates. For many organizations, delivering a modern digital learning experience can be very challenging and costly. By partnering with BenchPrep, organizations can offer a state-of-the-art learning program that generates high margin revenue and strengthens their long-term relationships with their learners, said Ian Chiu, Managing Director at Owl Ventures. We look forward to supporting Ashish, Ujjwal, and the BenchPrep team as they bring new and innovative capabilities to professional education and training. To learn more about BenchPrep, please visit: benchprep.com . About BenchPrep Based in Chicago, BenchPrep enables the world's leading education, training, and assessment companies to build and deliver best-in-class online learning programs. The Companys innovative enterprise SaaS learner success solutions incorporate the latest in learner-centered technology, including personalization, gamification, data science, usability and omni-channel delivery. Customers include ACT, Becker Professional Education, AAMC, CFA Institute, ProLiteracy, HR Certification Institute, Hobsons, McGraw-Hill Education, OnCourse Learning, GMAC, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. More than 3 million learners have used BenchPreps platform to attain academic and professional success. To discover more about BenchPrep, please visit benchprep.com . About Jump Capital Jump Capital is a venture capital firm specializing in expansion and growth stage investments ranging from $2-$20mm. Jump invests in data-driven enterprise software companies across a breadth of industries. With offices in Chicago and New York, Jump provides advocacy and support through a platform of institutional-level resources for entrepreneurs. Learn more at www.jumpcap.com or follow on twitter @jumpcapital . About Owl Ventures Owl Ventures is a Silicon Valley based venture capital fund that invests in the world's leading education technology companies. Owl has been a major investor in many of the fastest growing companies in the education market, including Accelerate Learning, Degreed, DreamBox Learning, Newsela, Noodle Partners, and Quizlet. The firm has invested in 24 companies across the education spectrum encompassing early childhood, K-12, higher education and career mobility/professional learning. Owl leverages its deep domain expertise and takes an active hands-on approach to help entrepreneurs scale their businesses into transformative category leading companies. The firm was founded in 2014 and has over $600 million in assets under management. Learn more at www.OwlVC.com . Media Contact: Jon Aderson Director of Marketing 312-650-5135 Jon@benchprep.com A video accompanying this announcement is available at //www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/821b6400-74ca-487c-b57d-a514291a1108 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] IoT Radar App from CYBEATS Now Available on the Palo Alto Networks Application Framework On the heels of a $ 3M (News - Alert) seed investment, Cybeats, a cybersecurity company protecting Internet of Things (IoT) devices, today announced the availability of its IoT Radar app for the Palo Alto Networks Application Framework. The Application Framework is a cloud-based framework that extends the capabilities of the Palo Alto Networks Security Operating Platform, which allows organizations to rapidly consume and implement a variety of innovative cloud-based security applications from any provider, large or small. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005288/en/ Cybeats deploys internal defense, monitoring and lifecycle management for IoT devices to protect against known and unknown threats. By taking an "inside-out" approach to cybersecurity, Cybeats deploys its microagent firmware at the point of manufacture, complementing the existing software and hardware of the device to ensure it will not be compromised. The IoT Radar app allows customers to correlate their IoT monitoring data with Palo Alto (News - Alert) Networks network data toincrease visibility into an attack, enhance coverage across the network and IoT devices and provide more accurate detection. The IoT Radar app on the Palo Alto Networks Application Framework: Analyzes the network connection and provides insights into known and unknown IoT threats; Shows insights about connections made to rogue networks and displays transferred data; and Visualizes the IoT devices on the network, identifying devices with known vulnerabilities. QUOTES "Cybeats is thrilled to work with Palo Alto Networks in bringing efficient, reliable cybersecurity products to market faster. IoT devices are becoming an integral part of organization's IT environments, but security has traditionally not been top of mind in their deployment. This leaves devices open to vulnerabilities, and we are seeing the number of threats on IoT devices grow rapidly. Cybeats technology provides real-time detection and neutralization to the cybersecurity threats that target IoT devices." - Dmitry Raidman, CEO and co-founder, Cybeats "We are thrilled to see the debut of third-party applications for our customers, and we welcome Cybeats to the Application Framework developer community. Together, we are fueling innovation in the cybersecurity market by completely changing the way that organizations test, deploy, and manage security. This important advancement will make organizations everywhere more secure and help protect our way of life in the digital age." - Lee Klarich, chief product officer, Palo Alto Networks AVAILABILITY Cybeat's IoT Radar App is now available on the Palo Alto Network Application Framework, here. The Palo Alto Networks Application Framework is now available worldwide to customers. About Cybeats Cybeats solves a critical security problem for companies that manufacture, integrate or deploy IoT devices in the smart building, medical and critical infrastructure environments. Until now, IoT devices have been vulnerable to cyber threats, making them easy targets for attackers. Cybeats protects IoT devices throughout their lifecycle by taking an "inside-out" approach to cybersecurity. Cybeats' microagent is implanted into devices to provide continuous protection that allows devices to detect threats instantly and gather data to help security professionals neutralize the threat. By bringing Cybeats inside every IoT device from the start, security experts can monitor the systems while device developers can focus on improving features and functionality of their products, reducing the time to market. Co-founded by former Israeli IT infosec professionals, Dmitry Raidman, Peter Pinsker and Vlad Kharbash, Cybeats is the recipient of the 2018 IoT Global Awards in both the Security IoT and Big Data, Cloud and Analytics categories. For more information, visit cybeats.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005288/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Navigant Strengthens, Expands Financial Services Segment in Europe Navigant (NYSE: NCI) today announced the European expansion of its Financial Services Advisory and Compliance (FSAC) segment through additions to the segment's global investigations and compliance (GIC) practice leadership team in London. As part of the expansion, Alma Angotti, managing director and co-lead of GIC, has relocated to Navigant's London office from Washington, D.C. Angotti will continue to work with current clients while also strengthening relationships with institutions in the United Kingdom, continental Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. In addition to managing GIC operations, Angotti will focus on issues concerning anti-money laundering (AML), "Know Your Customer" regulations, sanctions compliance, remediation of compliance deficiencies, and adapting to the rise of new financial products such as cryptocurrencies. In addition, Navigant announced that James Siswick, a seasoned risk and compliance professional specializing in financial crime compliance, has joined the company as managing director and European GIC lead. Siswick will help manage client relationships while also developing technology and forensic solutions for institutions facing increasingly complex compliance demands from regulators. He will also help lead the growth of the European GIC team. "Ongoing regulatory scrutiny, new technological challenges, and reputational risks facing financial institutions require a global focus," said Ellen Zimiles, manaing director and FSAC segment leader at Navigant. "Alma is an accomplished leader who has worked closely with clients and regulators around the world. Her background as an enforcement attorney conducting investigations and litigating a variety of enforcement actions ensures that our clients receive world-class service and expertise." "James is a skilled partner for financial institutions, particularly in helping to prevent and remediate financial crime, and adapting to ever-expanding regulatory scrutiny," added Zimiles. "His adept use of new technologies and data analytics will also benefit our client partners in reducing the cost of effective compliance." Commitment to Senior-Level Expertise Angotti is a widely recognized AML consulting expert and has trained and advised the financial services industry as well as other regulators and government officials worldwide on AML and combating the financing of terrorism. She has an extensive background as an enforcement attorney conducting investigations and litigating a variety of enforcement actions. Angotti has 25 years of regulatory practice, and prior to joining Navigant in 2011, served as senior special counsel in the Department of Enforcement at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, senior enforcement counsel at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and senior counsel in the Division of Enforcement at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. She holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law. Siswick joins Navigant from KPMG, where he was a partner in the forensic financial crime practice, which he led for two years. He has over 20 years' experience in financial crime and technology engagements, and has led numerous large, global financial crime investigation and remediation projects. He has given a particular focus to sanctions, AML, tax evasion compliance, and helping clients take advantage of new technologies, including artificial intelligence. Siswick has led teams focused on new U.S. and U.K. tax compliance regulations, and previously served as director for data analytics and financial crime at Deloitte (News - Alert) . He has strong international experience, having led engagements in France, Germany, Switzerland, the U.S., and the Caribbean. Siswick is a FCCA-qualified accountant, holds a postgraduate diploma in AML from the International Compliance Association, and a BSc degree in physics from the University of Durham. Navigant's GIC practice specialists have the deep expertise and skills required to provide compliance strategies and programs that are rigorous, as well as to offer pragmatic recommendations, which allow clients to act with clarity and decisiveness. Its services include monitorships required under regulatory settlements, corporate investigations, remediation of regulatory violations and financial crime deficiencies, bespoke creation of AML programs, and the use of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, to reduce the cost of compliance and boost operational efficiency. About Navigant Navigant Consulting, Inc. (NYSE: NCI) is a specialized, global professional services firm that helps clients take control of their future. Navigant's professionals apply deep industry knowledge, substantive technical expertise, and an enterprising approach to help clients build, manage, and/or protect their business interests. With a focus on markets and clients facing transformational change and significant regulatory or legal pressures, the firm primarily serves clients in the healthcare, energy, and financial services industries. Across a range of advisory, consulting, outsourcing, and technology/analytics services, Navigant's practitioners bring sharp insight that pinpoints opportunities and delivers powerful results. More information about Navigant can be found at navigant.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005079/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Endace Joins IBM Security App Exchange Community Endace, specialists in high speed network recording and analytics hosting, today launched the EndaceProbe integration with IBM Security to enable customers to retrace the detailed, step-by-step actions of an attacker to accelerate forensic investigation. EndaceProbe Network Analytics Platform captures, indexes, and stores network traffic with 100% accuracy while simultaneously hosting a wide variety of network security and performance monitoring applications in Application Dock, EndaceProbe's built-in hosting environment. The new application is freely available to the security community through IBM (News - Alert) Security App Exchange, a marketplace where developers across the industry can create applications based on IBM Security technologies. As threats are evolving faster than ever, collaborative development amongst the security community will help organizations adapt quickly and speed innovation in the fight against cybercrime. EndaceProbe leverages IBM Security QRadar, the company's security intelligence platform, which analyzes data across an organization's IT infrastructure in real-time to identify potential security threats. Leveraging QRadar's open application programming interfaces (API), EndaceProbe allows ndace and IBM customers to better understand and respond to, network events, including everything from anomalous behavior to insider and advanced threats. "Corporate networks are more vulnerable than ever to an accelerating volume of threats, and security analysts need to understand what's happened with a threat to accelerate security investigation and response," said Stuart Wilson, CEO, Endace. "Leveraging the Pivot-to-Vision API integration of EndaceProbes, analysts can click on an alert in QRadar to go directly to view the related packets in EndaceVision, the EndaceProbe's built-in investigation tool, to see precisely what's happened so they can respond appropriately." More information on the integration can be found at www.endace.com/ibm. The application is available for download now from IBM's Security App Exchange. About Endace Endace's multifunctional Analytics Platform can host 3rd-party network analytics applications while simultaneously recoding a 100% accurate Network History, providing definitive evidence for investigating cybersecurity threats, quantifying data breaches and analyzing network or application performance problems. Deploying a dedicated Analytics Platform enables agile deployment of analytics functions on-demand and dramatically reduces OPEX (News - Alert) and CAPEX costs by consolidating datacenter hardware. Hosted analytics applications can analyze live traffic at full line rate, or use Playback to analyze historical traffic for powerful, back-in-time analysis. Global customers include banks, hospitals, telcos, broadcasters, retailers, web giants, governments, and military. www.endace.com About IBM Security IBM's security platform provides the security intelligence to help organizations holistically protect their people, data, applications, and infrastructure. IBM offers solutions for identity and access management, security information and event management, database security, application development, risk management, endpoint management, next-generation intrusion protection and more. IBM operates one of the world's broadest security research and development, and delivery organizations. For more information, please visit www.ibm.com/security, follow @IBMSecurity on Twitter (News - Alert) or visit the IBM Security Intelligence blog. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005018/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Media Advisory: Even.com & Kronos Talk Financial Wellness at NRF Big Show 2019 At this year's National Retail Federation Big Show, Jon Schlossberg, CEO of Even.com, will present a special session for large retail employers, analysts, and press titled "How Walmart solved the employee financial wellness equation." During the session, Jon will announce Even's new "5:1 ROI Guarantee," achieved through reductions in staff turnover and absenteeism, for employers that partner with Even in 2019. Michael May, senior director of the Workforce Dimensions Technology Partner Program at Kronos (News - Alert) , will also present on stage with Mr. Schlossberg. Kronos is a leading provider of workforce management and human capital management cloud solutions, which announced a partnership earlier this year to bring Even into the Workforce Dimensions Marketplace. "What Even has accomplished with Walmart proves that there is a massive need for every employer to offer holistic financial wellness benefits," said Mr. May. "Workforce Dimensions reimagines what's possible with workforce management technology and Even is a perfect example of the innovative products that can easily be offered through our platform to solve everyday workforce challenges." When: Tuesday, Jan. 15 - 11:30am to 12:30pm Where: NRF 2019: Retail's Big Show Javits Convention Center EXPO Hall, Level 1, Stage 2 Presenting new details and research about the company's tremendously popular partnership with Walmart, Mr. Schlossberg will lay out the roadmap that allows any employer to effectively address employee financial stress. Financial stress causes businesses to lose up to $536B a year, and Even lets large employers offer a holistic financial wellness benefit that addresses each of the Four Pillars of Financial Wellness identified by the CFSI. Even integrates with time and attendance, payroll, and banking systems to understand and directly improve the full picture of financial health: Instant Budget: Connecting directly with the employee's bank account, Even instantly creates a personalized budget that takes into account upcoming pay cycles and bills that are coming due. Connecting directly with the employee's bank account, Even instantly creates a personalized budget that takes into account upcoming pay cycles and bills that are coming due. Okay to Spend: An alternative to banking apps, Even lets employees know exactly what is "Okay to spend" at any given moment based on their personal budget. An alternative to banking apps, Even lets employees know exactly what is "Okay to spend" at any given moment based on their personal budget. Instapay earned wage access: Even lets users safely weather financial emergencies and access money they've already earned ahead of payday. Even lets users safely weather financial emergencies and access money they've already earned ahead of payday. Automatic savings: Even automatically saves small amounts to help employees get ahead and save towards large financial goals. Together, these core products decrease accidental overspending, eliminate the cost of interest and loans, and help users build savings. Even is also FDIC insured and takes rigorous measures to ensure its system is completely secure, using 256-bit end-to-end encryption and undergoing regular security and privacy audits by some of the nation's largest employers. Visit Even at NRF: Even executives and team members will be available for in-person meetings at this year's Big Show at booth 1431. To request a meeting, contact Kevin Brown at kbrown@clarity.pr. About Even Even is a mission-driven technology company working to end the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. The company's technology integrates with attendance, payroll, and banking systems to create innovative products that address the core components of financial health. The company was founded by former Instagram and Google (News - Alert) engineers, and is headquartered in Oakland, California. Additional information at www.even.com. About Kronos Incorporated Kronos is a leading provider of workforce management and human capital management cloud solutions. Kronos industry-centric workforce applications are purpose-built for businesses, healthcare providers, educational institutions, and government agencies of all sizes. Tens of thousands of organizations - including half of the Fortune 1000 - and more than 40 million people in over 100 countries use Kronos every day. Visit www.kronos.com. Kronos: Workforce Innovation That Works. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005001/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Parsec Technologies Announces First to Market CAT 18 Rugged In-Vehicle Antenna to meet LTE LAA Specifications for Public Safety, Gigabit LTE and 5G Ready Applications PLANO, Texas, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Parsec Technologies, Inc., a pioneering American antenna company specializing in ruggedized, high performance antennas announces the first to market rugged antenna to meet the LTE LAA specifications for Public Safety, Gigabit LTE, and 5G Ready applications. Parsec's Doberman antenna series are omnidirectional, ruggedized, high performance antennas covering cellular frequencies from 600MHz to 6GHz that support 256 QAM. It is the first antenna to meet the LTE LAA (Licensed Assisted Access) specifications as well as all common North American LTE bands with high gain and high efficiency. The Doberman series antennas effortlessly expand across Bands 12, 14, 66, and 71 in addition to the CBRS Bands 42, 43 and 48 as well as the unlicensed bands in the 5GHz spectrum allowing for the fastest speeds possible today while also providing a path to easily upgrade to 5G in the future. Parsec's Doberman antenna series antennas pair with and support current 4G LTE radios as well as the new Gigabit-Class LTE router solutions for fast, relable access to the new public safety network, including Band 14. The Doberman series of antennas by Parsec are optimized to work specifically with current 4G LTE routers and new in-vehicle and in-building routers for Gigabit-Class LTE and 5G Ready networks. Doberman series antennas operate using MIMO LTE, MIMO Wi-Fi and precision GPS antennas. Parsec's Doberman series antennas cover LTE frequency bands ranging from 617-894MHz, 1695-2700MHz, 3300-3800MHz, and 5150-5850MHz through MIMO LTE antennas. These frequency bands cover all current 4G LTE bands, as well as the bands on the new public safety network and on the CBRS bands. MIMO Wi-Fi antennas within the Doberman series support Wi-Fi frequencies ranging from 2400-2483.5MHz and 4900-5900MHz. The Doberman operates as an omnidirectional antenna with 85% efficiency. Also included is precision GPS. "Every antenna in the Parsec PRO Series is high performance and ruggedized, to support uninterrupted communications for our first responders and critical communications infrastructure applications," says Michael A. Neenan CEO of Parsec. "Parsec's latest high performance antenna is a best in class performer for Band 14 and LAA applications due to its robust design with high gain and high efficiency". Configurable as a 6-in-1, 5-in-1, 4-in-1, 3-in-1, or 2-in-1 antenna, the Doberman can be used together with other Doberman configurations to achieve 4X4 MIMO with dual carrier support. The Doberman and other Parsec antennas in the PRO Series of high performance, ruggedized antennas are IP67 rated and highly configurable to meet the needs of a wide range possible solutions. For more information about Parsec, please visit https://www.parsec-t.com About Parsec Technologies, Inc. Parsec Technologies, Inc. a pioneering American antenna company specializing in ruggedized, high performance antennas for wireless mobile and enterprise applications within the industrial internet of things. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/parsec-technologies-announces-first-to-market-cat-18-rugged-in-vehicle-antenna-to-meet-lte-laa-specifications-for-public-safety-gigabit-lte-and-5g-ready-applications-300777801.html SOURCE Parsec Technologies, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Cutting ribbon to open the space It aims to honour the remarkable cultures of Vietnamese ethnic groups and encourage ethnic people to preserve their traditional brocade craftsmanship. It is also expected to create a venue for local artisans to exchange experience and shape the sustainable handicraft movement in society. An exhibition of Vietnamese brocade cultural spaces, brocade weaving practice sessions, restoration of several aspects of traditional ethnic minority festivals, art performances, a seminar on brocade culture, a street festival, and a brocade fashion show are being organized during the event. Along with trying to embroider and weave brocade by themselves, visitors will have opportunity to taste traditional cuisine of Vietnamese ethnic groups, watch art performances, and experience several traditional rituals of ethnic minority groups. Visitors to the exhibition Arts performance at the space Visitors have a look at brocade [January 15, 2019] Fast-growing Travel Technology Company Kiwi.com Takes off Towards a Smoother Payment Experience With SafeCharge Kiwi.com, online travel provider specialising in virtual interlining, rolls out SafeCharge Payments Engine to seamlessly accept payments from travellers anywhere in the world LONDON, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --SafeCharge (AIM: SCH), the payments partner of choice for businesses who demand more from payments technology, today announced it has partnered with Kiwi.com, the fast-growing online travel business providing flight and vehicle transportation services. The collaboration will enable Kiwi.com to provide a smooth payment experience for travellers worldwide and accept a full range of traditional and alternative payment methods. Thanks to its direct connections to major card schemes as well as to over 150 local payment methods, SafeCharge drives higher payment conversions by offering Kiwi.com customers their preferred payment methods. As one of the fastest-growing online travel agencies in the world, Kiwi.com pioneered its Virtual Interlining Technology which can analyse over 15 billion flight combinations - from non-cooperating airlines - into a single itinerary, to provide the best customer experience within any given budget. With the need to match increasingly different booking experiences from customers around the globe, Kiwi.com has furthered its mission to make travelling simpler and more accessible by investing in the latest payments technology. "In today's globalised world, providing a flexible travel platform that can adapt to passengers' varying travel needs is vital to success. To offer the best experience possible to our global customer base, we needed a payments technology provider who not only shared our ambitious mindset, but also possessed a knowledge of cross-border payments," said Juraj Striezenec, Chief Financial Officer at Kiwi.com. "By partnering with SafeCharge, we are able to take advantage of a solid payments technology infrastructure that will ultimately enable us to grow and expand into other markets." "We were looking for a payment partner able to povide global acquiring with a wide portfolio of global solutions," adds Natalia Cermakova, Payment Specialist at Kiwi.com "Our partnership with SafeCharge will allow us to offer to our clients more payment products, more currencies and an improved overall customer experience. This is key for a company as Kiwi.com that aims to quickly roll out in new markets." SafeCharge will be providing local and international payment processing services under one roof, enabling Kiwi.com to easily manage its global transaction flows and giving the most secure and easy way for a passenger to book a holiday. By providing a seamless checkout experience, Kiwi.com will be able to increase conversion rates and scale up internationally. David Avgi, CEO at SafeCharge, added, "With digital shopping increasing dramatically in volume, omnichannel experience is becoming a must for the next generation travellers. And with the rise of local payment preferences, it is important for merchants to fine-tune their payments strategies to streamline the shopping experience for customers around the world. This partnership once again demonstrates the capabilities of our native payments platform as the ideal solution for travel businesses demanding flexible solutions to grow and expand internationally." About SafeCharge SafeCharge International Group Limited (AIM: SCH), is the payment service partner for the world's most demanding businesses. SafeCharge provides global omni-channel payments services from card acquiring and issuing to payment processing and checkout, all underpinned by advanced risk management solutions. This fully featured proprietary payment platform connects directly to all major payment card schemes including Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Union Pay as well as over 150 local payment methods. With offices around the world, SafeCharge serves a diversified, blue chip client base and is a trusted payment partner for customers across a range of vertical markets. The company has been listed on the London Stock Exchange AIM market since 2014. For more information see: http://www.safecharge.com/ About KIWI Kiwi.com (formally known as SkyPicker) was founded in 2012 by Oliver Dlouhy and Jozef Kepesi. The travel tech company was created for travellers by travellers. Powered by its proprietary algorithm that allows users to combine flights from over 500 airlines (virtual interlining), including many that do not normally cooperate, and its industry-leading Kiwi.com Guarantee, it is one of the fastest growing technology company in Central Europe. It entered the 2017 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA list in 7th place, becoming the highest ever ranked Czech company. Today, the company sees more than 90 million flight searches every day and employs over 2400 people worldwide. Accumulating more than 10, 000 daily bookings, the company generated 700 million Euros turnover in 2017 and is still growing. 2018 saw the launch of NOMAD, a revolutionary new way to combine cheap flights and Tequila, the new B2B platform is for partners of all sizes. In the second consecutive year, Kiwi.com was named the best Start-up of the Czech Republic by the Czech Forbes Magazine (June 2018). Contacts Michela Toffali Senior Marcom Manager SafeCharge michelat@safecharge.com +31-6-18945522 Francesco Tius PR for SafeCharge safecharge@axicom.com +44-7921-058-736 Kiwi.com Press Office pr@kiwi.com [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Telia Carrier Welcomes Unidata to its Rome PoP Telia Carrier announced today that Unidata, one of Italy's most successful ISP and data center providers, is using Telia Carrier's recently launched Rome PoP (Point-of-Presence) to ensure its enterprise customers get the best possible connectivity experience. The Rome PoP gives Unidata direct access to Telia Carrier's global fiber backbone, the first 100G-enabled network in both Europe and North America. Together with three other PoPs in Milan - Caldera, Data4 and Supernap - the Rome PoP provides crucial IP backbone and Cloud Connect services for enterprises, operators and content providers throughout the country, who demand a reliable high-speed backbone for their traffic. Renato Brunetti, president of Unidata, said, "Telia Carrier was a clear choice for us when looking for a network partner. Our customers now get the highest quality connectivity in the region, and the partnership with Telia means we can continue to evolve our customer offerings through services such as Cloud Connect, which give enterprises a secure, dedicated and scaleable connection to their cloud, wherever it is in the world." Telia Carrier has made significant investments in Italy during recent years, ensuring the network is in place to support the ever growing content and traffic demands of businesses and end users alike. "We foresaw the rise in traffic throughout Italy and have spent two years building the infrastructure needed to ensure enterprises, content providers and ISPs like Unidata, an maintain the performance of their services and expand their offerings to take full advantage of Internet and cloud-based technology," said Davide Binaghi, managing director of Telia Carrier Italy. "Unidata shares Telia's passion to be at the cutting edge of connectivity, and we look forward to a long partnership together." Top-ranked global backbone For more than two decades Telia Carrier's global fibre backbone has grown organically, without acquisitions. It was the first network to successfully transmit 1 Tb/s in super channels on its U.S. network and recently announced the first real-time transmission of 600Gb/s wavelengths in a live production network. According to Dyn (News - Alert) Research's global backbone rankings, Telia Carrier's global IP backbone, AS1299, is currently ranked number one. Telia Carrier's rapid growth and ascension through the rankings was highlighted in Dyn's 'Baker's Dozen' report. The company enables worldwide connectivity by connecting more than 280 Points of Presence (PoPs) across Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East. About Telia Carrier Telia Carrier owns and operates one of the world's most extensive fiber backbones. Our mission is to provide exceptional network infrastructure and services - empowering individuals, businesses and societies to execute their most critical activities. By working close to our customers, we make big ideas happen at the speed of fiber. Discover more at teliacarrier.com. About Unidata Founded in 1985 as a pioneering company in the field of microelectronics, the company has been providing innovative Internet services for over twenty years. It offers the best fiber optic connectivity, cloud services, Internet of Things (IoT) solutions and solutions for home automation and smart cities. The company has always been innovative, proposing the first PCs in Italy and the first networks services, then the first VoIP solutions, and even today the most innovative services to allow secure, stable and faster connections. Unidata's mission is capturing the most innovative expressions of technological and IT progress in order to make work more efficient and productive and the leisure time of its customers more enjoyable. Find out more on unidata.it View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005073/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Worldpay, Inc.: mCommerce to overtake desktop sales by 2020 Worldpay data shows mobile leads as the fastest growing channel in India, set to double by 2022 LONDON, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- India's mCommerce market is one of the fastest growing in the world, as consumers increasingly turn to their phones to pay for goods and services. Growing at a rate of 28 percent annually, the Indian mCommerce market will more than double over the next four years, set to be worth $54.0bn in 2022, according to new data from Worldpay, Inc. (NYSE: WP; LSE: WPY), a global leader in the payments technology industry. Mobile commerce is also on track to overtake desktop sales as the online channel of choice as early as 2020 in India. In its annual Global Payments Report, Worldpay found that India's mCommerce growth is driven by the rise of eWallets; currently accounting for a quarter of online sales, eWallets are forecasted to make up 44 percent of the market by 2022. eWallets are also gaining popularity in-store, growing at a rate of 39 percent each year. Already familiar with using smartphones for social networking, Indian consumers are using their trusted mobile devices to pay for goods both online and offline. Worldpay's report, which examines online shopping in 36 countries across five continents, found that mCommerce currently accounts for 38 percent of the $1.3tn global eCommerce market, and is set to grow by a staggering 19 percent over the next four years. By 2022, the largest mCommerce markets in the world are forecasted to be China ($1.18tn), U.S. ($0.36tn), UK ($115.3bn), France ($62.3bn) and India ($54bn). Ron Kalifa, Executive Director at Worldpay, Inc., said: "India is a mobile-first country, with the majority of digital time being spent on smartphones. As the number of mobile users increases exponentially over the next few years, so will the rise of mCommerce and eWallets for payments. While the use of cash remains popular, it will decrease dramatically over the next four years and merchants must prepare for the increased use of mobile instead." Worldpay has published guidelines for merchants to help capitalise on the global mCommerce opportunity: Consider developing a branded app, as the majority of shoppers prefer apps to mobile browsers when shopping on their smartphone.[1] It's no longer enough to have a mobile-optimised website -- if you're not prioritising a transactional app for your brand; you're not putting your best foot forward. Use biometrics to speed the journey. Shoppers are becoming increasingly familiar with fingerprint scanning and facial recognition. Biometrics place payments at the back of the user's mind, making the payment seem 'invisible'. Identify the most popular payment methods in each territory in which you operate. There's no one-size-fits-all in any region so you'll need to understand the best options for your company. It is also important to ensure payments take into account India's recent data localisation requirements.[2] To learn more about these key insights and trends in global payments, visit https://worldpay.globalpaymentsreport.com/ [1] Worldpay Mobile Payment Journey 2018 [2] In April 2018, the Reserve Banks of India published restrictions on how payment transaction data must be held, specifically requiring that this information must not be stored outside of India for all domestic Indian transactions. About the 2018 Global Payments Report The 2018 Global Payments Report offers a snapshot of the current payment landscape across 36 countries globally. Worldpay's Market Intelligence team compiles the Global Payment Report using a combination of authoritative third-party vendors and other publicly available data. This compiled data was analyzed using Worldpay's proprietary data model and categorization scheme, with support from McKinsey. The report also draws upon Worldpay's decades of experience in providing global eCommerce solutions, informed by our processing of more than 40 billion transactions annually via more than 300 payment types, across 146 countries and 126 currencies. The projected growth figures contained in this report were sourced from GlobalData and McKinsey and relate to the industry as a whole, not Worldpay's business. The data has been collected using consumer surveys, B2B surveys and input from local research teams. 45,000 consumers were surveyed globally. Any indicative predictions based on the data we have used should be treated as such. No representation or warranty, expressed or implied, is made by Worldpay, Inc. and/or any of its affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents or advisers as to the reliability, accuracy, timeliness or completeness of any information, opinions or analysis contained in this document, which is not intended to be relied upon by you or any person for any purpose whatsoever. About Worldpay Worldpay, Inc. (NYSE: WP; LSE: WPY) is a leading payments technology company with unique capability to power global omni-commerce. With an integrated technology platform, Worldpay offers a comprehensive suite of products and services, delivered globally through a single provider. Worldpay processes over 40 billion transactions annually, supporting more than 300 payment types across 146 countries and 126 currencies. The company is focused on expanding into high-growth markets and customer segments, including global eCommerce, integrated payments and B2B. Visit us at www.worldpay.com. SOURCE Worldpay, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] Park Group Expands Its Multi-channel Marketing and Analytics Capabilities With the BlueVenn Marketing Hub BRISTOL, England, January 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- - Park Group will use the advanced analytics and marketing automation capabilities of BlueVenn for targeted, multi-channel marketing - The platform will enable cross-channel personalisation by integrating email, mobile, direct mail and SMS marketing channels Park Group plc, the UK's leading multi-retailer redemption product provider to corporate and consumer markets, has selected the BlueVenn Marketing Hub to enhance its multi-channel marketing and real-time personalisation capabilities. The investment in BlueVenn technology will empower the marketing team at Park Group to provide a personalised customer experience across channels and devices by integrating their email, mobile, direct mail and SMS marketing channels. Using its marketing automation and analytics capabilities BlueVenn will centralise Park's marketing campaigns into one platform and will automate the delivery of targeted customer journeys. Speaking about the partnership, Steve Klin, BlueVenn CEO said: "Park Group is an innovative brand supporting the UK and Ireland retail industries and is a truly multi-channel business. I'm therefore delighte that Park Group has selected BlueVenn to provide their multi-channel marketing technology and that we can support the marketing team with their vision." Nicola Milford, Commercial Manager at Park Group, added: "We are constantly seeking ways to help improve our customer experiences and that means embracing new channels of communication and delivering more relevant, personalised and timely messages. The BlueVenn solution will help us to streamline our processes, drive better efficiencies and help us add more value." Steve Miller, Chief Information Officer at Park Group, further added: "By putting the voice of the customer at the heart of what we do our partnership with Blue Venn is a significant step towards delivering our recently announced strategic focus on clarity, experience, productivity and appeal. This is a step change in our marketing and communications capability and will help drive our digitally enabled product and customer future." About BlueVenn The BlueVenn Marketing Hub is the only customer-centric marketing automation solution that provides marketers with all the analytics, predictive insights and omnichannel marketing automation capabilities they need. Powered by its Customer Data Platform it works to create a real-time single customer view of every customer touchpoint to help businesses undertake an omnichannel transformation. They serve clients across 12 countries with headquarters in the UK and US. Some of the 300+ brands using BlueVenn include Domestic and General, The Washington Post, Gatehouse Media, Space NK, Liverpool Victoria, The White Company and Subaru. Website: http://www.bluevenn.com About Park Group plc Park Group is the UK's leading multi-retailer redemption product provider to corporate and consumer markets. Founded in 1967, Park Group owns and operates the UK's favourite multi-retail gift voucher, Love2shop, which can be used in more than 20,000 high street stores and with more than 150 top UK brands as well as online voucher retailer, highstreetvouchers.com. For more information on the Park Group Plc visit http://www.parkgroup.co.uk/ . The information set out in this article is correct at the time of going to press. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] WISeCoin, through a Security Token Offering (STO), will be available from Q2 2019 WISeCoin, through a Security Token Offering (STO), will be available from Q2 2019 Geneva, Switzerland - January 15, 2019: WISeKey International Holding Ltd (WIHN.SW) ("WISeKey"), a leading Swiss based cybersecurity and IoT company, today announced that WISeCoin AG, a Special Purpose Vehicle created by WISeKey to build the infrastructure for secure intra-object interactions, received a "non-Action Letter" from The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA). WISeCoin will pursue a Security Token Offering (STO) and will be available from Q2 2019. The securities being issued by WISeCoin AG are not in any way related to the securities issued by WISeKey International Holding Ltd. WISeCoin AG was formally established in August 2018 to secure the Blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) world, which due to its continuously increasing size and complexity, is constantly vulnerable to cyber threats. It manages all Blockchain initiatives and operations of WISeKey to pave the way for the daily use of 4th Industrial Revolution technologies. WISeCoin AG benefits from the WISeKey architecture as the first and only vertically integrated platform combining proprietary cybersecurity software and secure microcontrollers designed to protect connected devices against evolving cyber threats. One of WISeCoin's key milestone is to build a Blockchain of Identity to store objects and people's identity. It offers connected objects the ability to identify, authenticate and verify each other with a digital certificate. For each interaction, the Blockchain of Identity will verify the validity of each digital certificate to secure the interaction. To compensate the use of the platform, a micro service fee is charged through a utility token, called the WISeCoin token. To complete the offer, each connected object is equipped with WISeKey's Secure Element consisting of a tamper resistant silicon chip, called VaultIC184. Carlos Moreira, WISeKey's CEO noted, "We are happy to move forward with thelaunch of our STO. WISeCoin combines a range of Blockchain enabled microchips with software applications that cater to our customers' specific business and security needs, enabling them to adapt to an evolving device landscape without compromising digital security. The software solution driven by proprietary technologies, such RoT and PKI, enables our clients to effectively and securely manage their digital identity, information, and communications through a single integrated platform. WISeKey's RoT secures electronic information/transitions and PKI creates tamperproof electronic 'fingerprints' of these digital certificates." About WISeKey WISeKey (SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large scale digital identity ecosystems for people and objects using Blockchain, AI and IoT respecting the Human as the Fulcrum of the Internet. WISeKey Microprocessors Secures the pervasive computing shaping today's Internet of Everything. WISeKey IoT has an install base of over 1.5 billion microchips in virtually all IoT sectors (connected cars, smart cities, drones, agricultural sensors, anti-counterfeiting, smart lighting, servers, computers, mobile phones, crypto tokens etc.). WISeKey is uniquely positioned to be at the edge of IoT as our semiconductors produce a huge amount of Big Data that, when analyzed with Artificial Intelligence (AI), can help industrial applications to predict the failure of their equipment before it happens. Our technology is Trusted by the OISTE/WISeKey's Swiss based cryptographic Root of Trust ("RoT") provides secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, for the Internet of Things, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. The WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor to ensure the integrity of online transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit www.wisekey.com. Press and investor contacts WISeKey Company Contact: Carlos Moreira Chairman & CEO Tel: +41 22 594 3000 info@wisekey.com WISeKey Investor Relations (US) Contact: Lena Cati The Equity Group Inc. Tel: +1 212 836-9611 lcati@equityny.com Disclaimer: This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning WISeKey International Holding Ltd and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of WISeKey International Holding Ltd to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. WISeKey International Holding Ltd is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, and it does not constitute an offering prospectus within the meaning of article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. Investors must rely on their own evaluation of WISeKey and its securities, including the merits and risks involved. Nothing contained herein is or shall be relied on as, a promise or representation as to the future performance of WISeKey. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 15, 2019] TA Associates Announces Investment in LIST S.p.A. TA Associates, a leading global growth private equity firm, today announced that it has completed an investment in LIST S.p.A. ("LIST"), a developer of software solutions for the financial industry. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190114005574/en/ LIST is a provider of mission-critical trading and compliance software solutions and infrastructural services to a wide range of financial institutions. The company's trading and brokerage platform offering, FastTrade, supports operations in a multi-asset and multi-market environment with modules for pricing, quoting, hedging, position keeping, algorithmic trading and execution management in high and low-touch business environments. LIST's capital markets, governance, risk and compliance solutions are used by more than 130 customers ranging from investment banks and asset managers in Italy to large global financial corporations. The company is headquartered in Pisa, Italy, and has additional offices throughout Italy and around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Poland, Canada, India and Malaysia. "As one of Europe's leading capital markets technology providers, LIST has a strong and long-term track record of delivering exceptional software and services across a wide range of trading and compliance needs," said J. Morgan Seigler, a Managing Director at TA Associates who will join the LIST S.p.A. Board of Directors. "Importantly, we are investing alongside what we believe to be a seasoned, passionate and talented management team that will continue to actively build the company. We are honored to be a part of the LIST family and are excited to begin working closely with management to help LIST capitalize on its strategy and international growth initiatives." "Over the course of our 33-year history, we have strived to provide our customers with high qualiy products and services to help them meet their unique trading and compliance needs," said Enrico Dameri, Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of LIST S.p.A. "We believe our partnership with TA Associates will help us expand our offerings and territories, while continuing to deliver the services our customers have come to expect. Perhaps what we are most excited about is that TA is fully-aligned with and supportive of our strategy, and has committed to working collaboratively with our team to accelerate our forward momentum. We welcome TA as an investor and look forward to benefitting from this partnership." "Software services for financial-focused companies around the world are increasingly playing a more critical role in a variety of daily operations," said Naveen Wadhera, a Managing Director at TA Associates who will join the LIST S.p.A. Board of Directors. "As institutions around the world continue to shift towards electronic trading practices, we believe LIST is well positioned to take advantage of further growth opportunities in international and emerging markets. We are pleased to have the opportunity to partner with LIST's management team and founders as we seek to create significant additional value in the company." In addition to Morgan Seigler and Naveen Wadhera, Stefan Dandl, a Vice President at TA Associates, will also join the LIST S.p.A. Board of Directors. Latham & Watkins LLP provided legal counsel and KPMG served as financial advisor to TA Associates. Nctm Studio Legale provided legal counsel and Studio MCCR served as financial advisor to LIST S.p.A. About LIST S.p.A. LIST S.p.A. has been a leader for more than 30 years in designing and developing innovative software solutions for the financial world. The company has conceived, designed, developed and produced software and cutting-edge systems for capital markets, helping to create the first electronic Monetary and Financial markets. The company has developed platforms and solutions for trading on financial markets, which have been milestones in the evolution of Trading Systems. LIST has also created integrated solutions for managing risk, audit and governance of organizations and financial processes (governance, risk and compliance). The company was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Pisa, Italy. More information can be found at www.list-group.com. About TA Associates TA Associates is one of the largest and most experienced global growth private equity firms. Focused on five target industries - technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer and business services - TA invests in profitable, growing companies with opportunities for sustained growth, and has invested in more than 500 companies around the world. Investing as either a majority or minority investor, TA employs a long-term approach, utilizing its strategic resources to help management teams build lasting value in growth companies. TA has raised $24 billion in capital since its founding in 1968 and is committing to new investments at the pace of $2 billion per year. The firm's more than 85 investment professionals are based in Boston, Menlo Park, London, Mumbai and Hong Kong. More information about TA Associates can be found at www.ta.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190114005574/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 14, 2019] Xoriant Signs MoU With VIT to Develop Center of Excellence on Next-gen Technologies Like AI, ML, Data Science and Deep Learning for Department of IT, VIT MUMBAI, January 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Xoriant, a Silicon Valley-headquartered product engineering, software development and technology services company, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT), a leading engineering college in Pune with A++ rating as per NAAC accreditation. (Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/449859/PRNE_Xoriant_Logo.jpg ) According to the MoU, Xoriant will develop Center of Excellences in digital technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, deep learning and data science for VIT. Xoriant aims to organize innovative sessions, set up labs with a training program curriculum by proficient technology experts for the faculty and students of VIT. In addition to co-creating content on new-age digital technologies, the MoU provides an opportunity for VIT to gain first-hand experience of use cases where these new technologies will be used to solve real-time business challenges. Students of VIT will gain internships, employment opportunities and will be able to do collaborative research on next-gen technologies at Xoriant. Mr. Rakesh Lagu, Vice President, Xoriant said, "One of the core values of Xoriant has been the passion for technology. We have invested heavily in leveraging cutting-edge technologies and upskilling talent for the digital age paradigm. This agreement is a step towards collaboration and strengthening our eforts for imparting high-class training and education to nurture the new talent. Xoriant aims to mentor students and select interns to work on new technologies, co-create innovative solutions to address business problems using AI, ML, DL and data science." Prof (Dr.) Rajesh Jalnekar, Director, VIT Pune said, "We have been associated with Xoriant for several years. Xoriant has a broad portfolio of clientele across industry verticals." Dr. Premanand Ghadekar, HoD of IT, VIT said, "With this joint venture, our faculty and students will get an exposure to work with industry professionals while demonstrating the application of IT in live business use cases. Thus, making our students an active contributor to innovative ideas much earlier in their career using the latest technologies." About Xoriant Xoriant is a Silicon Valley-headquartered product engineering, software development and technology services firm with offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia. For both technology companies and enterprises, from startups to the Fortune 100, we leverage our expertise in emerging technologies and our high-performing teams to deliver innovative solutions that accelerate time to market and keep our clients competitive. Across all our technology focus areas - Product Engineering, DevOps, Cloud, Infrastructure & Security, Big Data & Analytics, Data Management & Governance, Digital and IoT - every solution we develop benefits from our product engineering pedigree. For 25 years and counting, we have taken great pride in the long-lasting, deep relationships we have with our clients. Learn more at http://www.xoriant.com. About VIT Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune, a highly commendable private engineering institute, occupies a place of pride amongst the premier technical institutes of the western region of India. Established in the year 1983, VIT is financed and run by the Bansilal Ramnath Agrawal Charitable Trust, Pune. It is affiliated to the University of Pune. Within three decades, the institute marched towards the pinnacle of glory through its remarkable achievements and laurels in the field of engineering education of high caliber. The Institute is running 9 undergraduate, 8 postgraduate & 6 Ph.D. Programs which are affiliated to the University of Pune. Learn more at http://www.vit.edu. US Media Contact: David Sawatzke david.sawatzke@xoriant.com Tel: +1-408-743-4400 India Media Contact: Ritu Rungta ritu.rungta@xoriant.com Tel: +91-22-3051-1000 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 14, 2019] Performance Marketing Tech Firm iKala completes USD 10MM Funding TAIPEI, Taiwan, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- iKala, one of the largest Google Cloud partners, has completed its series A+ funding by expanding its previous A round size to USD 10MM with the same investors. In addition to providing cloud and AI technology to corporate customers, iKala is now using these capabilities to address some of the most important problems in advertising. "It's actually a happy surprise for me that our cloud and AI technology can be easily generalized to help advertisers do performance marketing and allocate their ad budgets very wisely. This is what we call 'Cloud for Marketing (C4M),'" said iKala's CEO Sega Cheng. "KOL Radar", an influencer search engine launched by iKala last June, comes with the ambitious goal to "organize influencer information and make it accessible and useful for advertisers." iKala is using AI extensively to measure the performance of influencer marketing and also make precise influencer recommendation for advertisers. KOL Radar is already used by more than 4,000 advertisers in the world, including some Fortune 500 companies. According to Mediakix, an advertising firm, the market size of inluencer marketing will grow from USD 1.6B in 2018 to USD 10B in 2020. Another product, "Shoplus", is iKala's answer to social commerce in ASEAN market. It is estimated there are 2 million social sellers in Thailand and 51% of online shoppers purchase goods through social media. Shoplus is a free but full-fledged app for merchants doing e-commerce on social networks, with complete order management, customer service, payment, logistics, and ad features. "It's also about measuring the performance of social sellers, helping them do better at selling and later re-marketing," said Sega Cheng. Launched last September, Shoplus has garnered more than 70,000 merchants in Thailand and Vietnam, expecting an even stronger traction going forward as the market size of e-commerce ads will double every year, according to DMA. "There is a clear paradigm shift in advertisement, people are turning to performance-based marketing, instead of pursuing max impressions," said Sega Cheng, "and solving these important measurement problems really takes the best machine learning and AI talents. So if you want to tackle the challenges and build AI applications at global scale, you are welcome to join us." With operations in Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong, iKala will expand its team aggressively from 100 to 150 people in 2019. "We are making lots of exciting progress in using machine learning at scale," concluded Sega Cheng, "and I am glad that what we do is real human-centered AI, making people valuable again." Setting off from its solid ground on the cloud, iKala is now committed to becoming a leader in performance marketing technology. Media Contacts Iris Jia iris.jia@ikala.tv +886-983-921971 About iKala iKala is an AI-driven marketing technology company. Headquartered in Taiwan and operating in Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam, iKala dedicates to developing performance marketing technologies that help advertisers and marketers do better jobs. More than 4,000 advertisers and brands, including Fortune 500 companies, are using iKala's technology to reach and sell to their customers. iKala is recognized by Google as Google Technology Partner and Google Cloud Premier Partner. Website: https://ikala.tv/ Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20190114/2345747-1 SOURCE iKala [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 14, 2019] Teradata Appoints Oliver Ratzesberger President and CEO Teradata (NYSE: TDC), the industry's only pervasive data intelligence company, today announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Oliver Ratzesberger President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), effective immediately. Ratzesberger succeeds Victor L. Lund, who is transitioning from his role as President and CEO to Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190114005848/en/ Oliver Ratzesberger (Photo: Business Wire) Ratzesberger has served as Teradata's (News - Alert) Chief Operating Officer (COO) since February 2018, responsible for the Company's global operations and leading its strategies for go-to-market, products and services. He joined Teradata in 2013 and, from 2016 to 2018, served as the Company's Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer, leading Teradata's research and development organization, following a distinguished career in advancing innovation in technology at both established and start-up companies. While COO, Ratzesberger worked alongside Lund in architecting and implementing the Company's transformation. This appointment reflects the Board's confidence in Ratzesberger as Lund's successor, and in the continued execution of the Company's strategy as well as the development of its culture and values. "I am honored to serve as the next CEO of Teradata as we continue to challenge the market's perceptions of how data can lead to answers and deliver the industry's only pervasive data intelligence solution," said Ratzesberger. "Over the last few years, we have revitalized Teradata by making significant advancements to our offerings while also working to transition our business model to provide the subscription-based services our customers prefer. As CEO, I look forward to continuing to work with our talented team to build on this momentum and create long-term value for our customers and shareholders." Lund said, "As we continue to successfully execute on Teradata's strategic transformation, including the pivot to a subscription model, which is showing up in our financial performance, now is the right time for this leadership transition and Oliver is the right person. He is a technology visionary who, along with an exceptional team, has charted a course for Teradata Vantage, our world-class analytics platform, and helped to drive our overarching vision. His track record at Teradata and in the industry make him a natural choice as our next CEO. I am extremely proud of the Teradata team, and all that we have accomplished together over the last three years in transforming our strategy and management team to help drive Teradata forward. It has been my privilege to lead a company that has such a strong foundation and bright future ahead. The employees at Teradata are world class, and the value that we are providing to the most visionary companies in the world has and will only continue to grow." Ratzesberger added, "I'm grateful to Vic for his steadfast guidance, support and leadership of Teradata through a critical period in the Company's history. Under his leadership, Teadata has reimagined its brand and modernized its overall market strategy to include subscription-based analytics-as-a-service." Teradata also announced today that, although final results will not be available until normal year-end review procedures are completed, it currently expects the Company's fourth-quarter and full-year 2018 total revenue, recurring revenue and annual recurring revenue (ARR) results to be in line with, or better than, its most recent guidance. Teradata will not be providing any additional information regarding its fourth-quarter or full-year performance until it reports final results in early February 2019. In connection with Lund's appointment to Executive Chairman, the Board has appointed Michael Gianoni, a member of the Board of Directors since January 2015, as independent Lead Director, effective immediately. James Ringler, who has been Chairman of Teradata since 2007, will remain a member of the Board. Gianoni commented, "Today's announcement regarding Teradata's new CEO is the culmination of a thorough and thoughtful process undertaken by the Board over the past few years to ensure that the Company is best positioned to deliver on our value proposition to all stakeholders. The Board and I are confident that Oliver is the right person to lead Teradata forward and deliver profitable growth and shareholder value creation. We are also thrilled that the Company will continue to benefit from Vic's wealth of experience and strategic guidance as he transitions to his new role as Executive Chairman of the Board, and we appreciate Jim's significant contributions as Chairman and continued service to our Board and company." About Oliver Ratzesberger Oliver Ratzesberger is the president and chief executive officer of Teradata Corporation and has been a member of the company's board since November 2018. Previously, he served as Teradata's chief operating officer, with global operating responsibility for the company's operations and led the company's strategies for go-to-market, products and services. Ratzesberger has an extensive background in analytics, big data and software development. Prior to Teradata, he worked for both Fortune 500 and early-stage companies, holding positions of increasing responsibility in software development and IT, including leading the expansion of analytics at eBay (News - Alert) . A pragmatic visionary, Ratzesberger frequently speaks and writes about leveraging data and analytics to improve business outcomes. His recent book with co-author Mohanbir Sawhney, "The Sentient Enterprise: The Evolution of Decision Making," was published in 2017 and was named to The Wall Street Journal Bestseller List. Ratzesberger is a graduate of Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program and earned his engineering degree in Electronics and Telecommunications from HTL Steyr in Austria. He lives in San Diego with his wife and two daughters. About Victor Lund Victor Lund served as Teradata's president and chief executive officer from May 2016 until Ratzesberger's appointment. He has been a member of Teradata's board since September 2007 and was the chair of the Audit Committee from 2007 until May 2016. About Michael Gianoni Michael Gianoni is the president and chief executive officer of Blackbaud, Inc., a provider of software and services specifically designed for nonprofit organizations, a position he has held since joining the company in January 2014. He has been a member of Teradata's board since January 2015 and chair of the Committee on Directors and Governance since February 2017. Note to Investors This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based upon current expectations and assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause Teradata's actual results to differ materially. In addition to the factors discussed in this release, other risks and uncertainties could affect our future results, and could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Such factors include those relating to: the global economic environment in general or on the ability of our suppliers to meet their commitments to us, or the timing of purchases by our current and potential customers, and other general economic and business conditions; the rapidly changing and intensely competitive nature of the information technology industry and the data analytics business, including the increased pressure on price/performance for data analytics solutions; fluctuations in our operating results, unanticipated delays or accelerations in our sales cycles and the difficulty of accurately estimating revenues; failure to realize the anticipated benefits of our business transformation program, divestitures, senior management changes, or other restructuring and cost saving initiatives; risks inherent in operating in foreign countries, including the impact of economic, political, legal, regulatory, compliance, cultural, foreign currency fluctuations and other conditions abroad; the timely and successful development, production or acquisition and market acceptance of new and existing products and services, including our ability to accelerate market acceptance of new products and services as well as the reliability, quality, security and operability of new products because of the difficulty and complexity associated with their testing and production; tax rates; turnover of workforce and the ability to attract and retain skilled employees; availability and successful exploitation of new acquisition and alliance opportunities; our ability to execute integration plans for newly acquired entities, including the possibility that expected synergies and operating efficiencies may not be achieved, that such integration efforts may be more difficult, time-consuming or costly than expected, and that operating costs, customer loss and business disruption (including, without limitation, difficulties in maintaining relationships with employees, customers, clients or suppliers) may be greater than expected following the transaction; recurring revenue may decline or fail to be renewed; changes in Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and the resulting impact, if any, on the company's accounting policies; continued efforts to establish and maintain best-in-class and secure internal information technology and control systems; and other factors described from time-to-time in the company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent quarterly reports on Forms 10-Q, as well as the company's annual reports to stockholders. The company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. About Teradata Teradata transforms how businesses work and people live through the power of data. Teradata leverages all of the data, all of the time, so you can analyze anything, deploy anywhere, and deliver analytics that matter. We call this pervasive data intelligence. And it's the answer to the complexity, cost, and inadequacy of today's approach to analytics. Get the answer at teradata.com. The Teradata logo is a trademark, and Teradata is a registered trademark of Teradata Corporation and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and worldwide. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190114005848/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 14, 2019] Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP Announces Investigation on Behalf of Danske Bank A/S Investors (DNKEY) Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP ("GPM") announces an investigation on behalf of Danske Bank ("Danske" or the "Company") (OTC: DNKEY) investors concerning the Company and its officers' possible violations of federal securities laws. If you are a shareholder who suffered a loss, click here to participate. On October 24, 2018, the Wall Street Journal reportd that the U.S. Department of Justice, Treasury Department, and the SEC (News - Alert) , are investigating Danske's small Estonian branch for allegedly processing nearly $234 billion from 2007 through 2015 from foreign countries, and that the Company's CEO had resigned. The Wall Street Journal also claimed that Danske's management was informed that the Estonian branch could not isolate the issue and "therefore acts against [anti-money-laundering] legislator principles." On this news, Danske ADRs and U.S. bonds' value fell, thereby injuring investors. If you purchased Danske stock, have information, or would like to learn more about these claims, or have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Lesley Portnoy, of GPM, 1925 Century Park East, Suite 2100, Los Angeles, CA (News - Alert) 90067 at 310-201-9150, Toll-Free at 888-773-9244, or visit our website at www.glancylaw.com. If you inquire by email please include your mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased. This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190114005857/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 14, 2019] The 56th Design Automation Conference Offers Opportunities for Students to Engage in the Premier Event Focused on the Design and Automation of Electronic Circuits and Systems For more than 55 years, the Design Automation Conference (DAC) has striven to foster a vibrant worldwide community of electronic design and systems professionals as well as improve the diversity among attendees. DAC's student fellow and scholarship programs are designed to give young students their first experience with the electronic design and systems industry. Newton Young Student Fellow Program: In honor of the memory of Dr. A. Richard Newton, The Newton Young Student Fellow Program actively supports the next engineering generation by enabling young students at the beginning of a career to enter the dynamic world of design and automation of electronic systems. Each Young Student Fellow will actively engage at DAC through numerous events, including meetings with design automation luminaries, attendance at technical sessions and exhibits, participation in student-related events at DAC, and a poster session designed to introduce each Young Student Fellow to the DAC community. Each selected Fellow will receive a free DAC full conference registration including tutorials. In addition, DAC will issue partial grants to cover travel expenses, subject to some matching funds from the student's advisor or university. The awardees will participate in the following activities during the conference: Participate in the DAC summer school on Sunday, June 2. Kickoff breakfast meeting on Sunday, June 2 sponsored by Cadence. Selected conference sessions, including sessions with Best Paper Award nominations. Poster presentation (either current research, or relevant coursework/projects) introducing each Fellow during the DAC studet event. Attendance at the awards ceremony. Attendance at the closing session during the Thursday evening reception. Social media postings (Twitter, Facebook (News - Alert) , LinkedIn, etc.) to provide timely news, photos and feedback on events during DAC. Preference is given to junior or senior undergraduates in Engineering; to under-represented demographics such as women and minorities; to students in smaller research groups; to students pursuing a master's degree and pre-candidacy Ph.D. students. In past years, DAC has sponsored more than 70 students as part of this program. To apply for a Newton Young Student Fellowship, students must complete the application form. The submission site is open now through February 22, 2019. Qualifying students will be notified by March 19, 2019. Conference participation will be June 2 - 6, 2019 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV. P.O. Pistilli Scholarship Program: The objective of the P.O. Pistilli Undergraduate Scholarship for Advancement in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering is to increase the number of professionals in electrical engineering, computer engineering and computer science from under-represented groups. Scholarships of $4,000 per year, renewable for up to five years, are awarded annually to between two and seven high school seniors who have a 3.00 GPA or better (on a 4.00 scale), have demonstrated high achievement in math and science courses, have a strong desire to pursue careers in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or computer science, and who have demonstrated substantial financial need. To apply for the P.O. Pistilli Scholarship, students must complete the application form. The submission site is open now through March 1, 2019. Qualifying students will be notified by April 4, 2019. For additional information on awards and the Design Automation Conference, visit www.dac.com. About DAC The Design Automation Conference (DAC) is recognized as the premier event for the design of electronic circuits and systems, and for electronic design automation (EDA) and silicon solutions. A diverse worldwide community representing more than 1,000 organizations attends each year, represented by system designers and architects, logic and circuit designers, validation engineers, CAD managers, senior managers and executives to researchers and academicians from leading universities. Close to 60 technical sessions selected by a committee of electronic design experts offer information on recent developments and trends, management practices and new products, methodologies and technologies. A highlight of DAC is its exhibition and suite area with approximately 200 of the leading and emerging EDA, silicon, intellectual property (IP) and design services providers. The conference is sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ( IEEE (News - Alert) ), and is supported by ACM's Special Interest Group on Design Automation (ACM SIGDA) and IEEE's Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA). Design Automation Conference acknowledges trademarks or registered trademarks of other organizations for their respective products and services. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190114005810/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 14, 2019] Varian Showcases Radiotherapy Ecosystem at 2019 China Users Meeting WUHAN, China, Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- With nearly 1,300 Chinese radiation oncology professionals in attendance and an additional 8,000 users watching via a live webcast, Varian (NYSE: VAR) recently held its 2019 China Users Meeting in Wuhan, China January 12-13. The largest event in the company's history, attendees heard from Varian executives and customers regarding the company's vision of a world without fear of cancer, as well as cancer care solutions including radiotherapy, radiosurgery, proton therapy, software and integrated services. At the User Meeting, Varian introduced to the China market the Halcyon treatment system, which received China National Medical Product Administration (NMPA) approval in November 2018. Reaffirming its commitment to the China market, Chris Toth, president of Varian Oncology Systems, outlined the company's innovation strategy, positive clinical impact and Varian's transformation to a multimodal cancer company. "We aim to increase the number of patients worldwide touched with our technology from three million today to six million by 2022," stated Toth. "We are very excited about the launch of the Halcyon treatment system in China, and it's an important step to achieving our goal and expanding access to advanced cancer care." The China Users Meeting provided attendees with new insights on the latest technologies, best practices and future trends in cancer care. The meeting topics included: Halcyon treatment system Varian vision for adaptive therapy 1 The combination of immunotherapy and radiotherapy Varian advances in proton therapy and Flash therapy 2 The advantages of SRS/SBRT Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven automated treatment planning Kolleen Kennedy , chief growth officer and president of Varian's Proton Solutions, introduced the new single-room proton therapy system, ProBeam 360, and advances in Flash therapy. The Maryland Proton Treatment Center and Cincinnati Children's/UC Health Proton Therapy Center also shared their proton therapy experiences with the audience. Corey Zankowski, senior vice president of Varian Oncology Software Solutions shared Varian's roadmap of AI-driven automated treatment planning. The adoption of AI has the potential to improve clinical efficiency and quality, especially for the busiest cancer centers in China. About Varian Varian is a leader in developing and delivering cancer care solutions and is focused on creating a world without fear of cancer. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Varian employs approximately 7,000 people around the world. For more information, visit http://www.varian.com and follow @VarianMedSys on Twitter. 1. Varian's adaptive solution is a works in progress and not available for sale. 2. Flash therapy is currently in the research phase and not available for sale. Press Contact Mark Plungy Director, Public Relations +1 (650) 424-5630 mark.plungy@varian.com Helen Yang Greater China Manager, Public Relations +86 (10) 87836354 helen.yang@varian.com Investor Relations Contact J. Michael Bruff Senior Vice President, Investor Relations +1 (650) 424-5163 investors@varian.com View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/varian-showcases-radiotherapy-ecosystem-at-2019-china-users-meeting-300777874.html SOURCE Varian [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 14, 2019] Inter-American Development Bank Taps PO8 as Best Blockchain Company in The Caribbean FREEPORT, Bahamas, Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- PO8, the award-winning Bahamian tech company is leading the charge in ocean impact and asset management with blockchain solutions. Selected from a pool of over 250 tech companies competing at Demand Solutions 2018 in Santiago, Chile, PO8's innovative and impact driven solutions earned them the Creative Business Cup Award, a first for the Caribbean. "This achievement demonstrates the significant potential of the innovation ecosystem in The Bahamas and highlights the creativity of Bahamian entrepreneurs," said Mikia Carter with the IDB Lab in The Bahamas. Led by Bahamian tech visionary Matthew Arnett and co-founder Raul Vasquez, the team has found a way to improve the lives of fellow Bahamians by using blockchain technology and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) to recover and reshape the ownership of $100B dollars in sunken treasures and artifacts, while driving sustained and inclusive growth to the region. NFTs convert ownership rights of recovered artifacts with economic value into a digital title, while staying in the custody of the PO8 Museum Foundation to be preseved and exhibited. With a stored value derived from its underlying asset, NFTs can be sold to anyone around the world. "NFTs are a new store of value and commodity class," exclaimed Arnett after leading his team to victory in Santiago. "We are shifting The Bahamas from tourism to a new third pillar, which is tech, and giving young people a new dream to create in new industries like blockchain, A.I. and fintech; resulting in social and economic impact to The Bahamas by simply using something rotting away in our waters," added Arnett. The unicorn idea has caught the attention of many, especially after Titanic expeditioner David Gallo join the team last year. The IDB's Luis Alejandro Simon, who worked with all the startup finalists at Demand Solutions added, "This is indeed a great way to inspire other entrepreneurs in the Caribbean to follow PO8. They are an amazing solution for a unique and relevant issue, and I'm certain PO8 will have an outstanding future ahead." About PO8 PO8 is a marine archaeology startup utilizing blockchain technology to excavate underutilized sunken treasures and artifacts from ocean floors, generating untapped sources of revenues for funding social programs, creating jobs and jumpstarting local economies all while protecting marine habitats. Press contacts: PO8 Raul Vasquez raul@po8.io https://www.po8.io View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/inter-american-development-bank-taps-po8-as-best-blockchain-company-in-the-caribbean-300777932.html SOURCE PO8 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 14, 2019] Hawkins Point Adds Valuable VP of Business Development Hawkins Point welcomed John Auclair to their leadership team as an additional Vice President of Business Development, giving their Business Development team an even more targeted approach to new business and meeting the needs of clients. For many years, Auclair has been a friend of the company and of many members of the Hawkins Point family. As he begins his role at Hawkins Point, Auclair's goal is to ensure that his clients can easily communicate their needs while he simultaneously leverages Hawkins Point to meet them. He is most excited about serving in this role because he is proud to sell the expert capabilities of Hawkins Point and their entire delivery team. Auclair considers this transition to be a natural one because of his relationships there and his alignment with their model as an employee-based technology consulting firm. "I can confidently promote the Hawkins Point model better than other models used by consulting organizations. When someone in my role sells the work, we're also delivering it with an individual who is on our payroll, an employee who has a vested interest in both the success of Hawkins Point and our client. It brings tremendous credibility when delivering complex solutions within the market. We can say yes to a client's request for services and know that our team can truly deliver." Hawkins Point is equally excited to have Auclair on board. They expect exponential growth in the reach of their business, as a direct result of his addition. Auclair has a long track record helping clients solve business problems as well as a rich work history in technolgy services and consulting. He was a Computer Information Systems major at Bryant College, now called Bryant University. He then spent his first 3 years as a developer and programmer analyst, which gave him in-depth experience with the delivery-side of technology. Very early in his career, he was offered a partnership at Coopers and Waterhouse, now PwC. It was there that he was ushered into sales, which eventually led him to become a Managing Director in Business Development. Throughout his career, it was the smaller, employee-based consulting opportunities he enjoyed most; which was also the same setting that introduced him to Heather Morris Kyer, CEO and Co-Founder of Hawkins Point, as well as John Williams, CSO of Hawkins Point. "This business setting is a 'relationship business' between a Business Developer and the clients. It's also a relationship business among members of the same team." He believes it is important to have shared vision along with the strategic placement of different expertise. This is his experience at Hawkins Point. "We share many of the same passions. But we also bring different expertise. Stepping into the organization with this team of people feels almost like coming back home." Collectively, the Hawkins Point team, joined by John Auclair, look forward to greater revenue growth, introductions to new clients and organizations, and growth as leaders. They invite the business community to get to know John, who is currently based in Rhode Island with his family. He will spend much of his time building out relationships within the Life Sciences community in the Greater Boston Area. About Hawkins Point Hawkins Point proudly serves the Life Sciences community and has the privilege over many years of working with countless professionals who consistently strive to improve the quality of life for patients every day, across multiple medical conditions and challenges that lead to life-altering therapies. Hawkins Point Partners is a team of dedicated professionals who craft solutions to address their clients' business challenges through the appropriate use and implementation of technology. In their 6 years as a company, they have been locally and nationally recognized for their success and growth. They were recognized in Inc500's list of America's fastest-growing private companies in both 2017 and 2018 and also named the 6th fastest-growing private company in the Boston Business Journal's Fast 50 List. Find out more about them here. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190114005761/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Vipal Rubbers VR01 Smart Duo buffing machine has been installed at Tyre Retreads in Christchurch, New Zealand the first machine of this type to be delivered outside of Latin America by the company. The system can buff up to 35 tires per hour and enables loading, unloading and finishing to be performed simultaneously during the procedure, thus streamlining the whole retreading process. ') } // --> ') } else { console.log ('nompuad'); document.write('') } // --> ') } else { console.log ('nompuad'); document.write(' ') } // --> ') } else if (width >= 425) { console.log ('largescreen'); document.write('') } else { console.log ('nompuad'); document.write('') } // --> Representing Vipal, Andre Desconsi, Tiago Campanharo, Leandro Paim, Marcelo Cenci and Henry Pasqualotto traveled to Oceania to celebrate this important milestone for the Brazilian company. During their time there they were able to meet and exchange knowledge with members of Power Retreads, an importer of Vipal products in the region. Tyre Retreads acquired the system due to Vipals excellent service. The high quality of the product was also a central factor, as well as the machines low energy consumption and better use of the saws. The technical service was excellent both during installation and in the aftermarket, said Alan Neuman, one of the owners of the New Zealand-based reformer. Doris Jean Ice, 85, of Fairview, passed away Sunday, June 13, 2021. She was born February 10, 1936 in Pine Grove, WV, a daughter of the late Clarence LeMasters and Jesse Anderson LeMasters. Doris enjoyed quilting and crocheting. Doris is survived by her sons, William Ricky Ice and his wife K It's a familiar scenario for classic movie lovers: You sit down with popcorn and your Netflix account, start scrolling through to find an old movie, and are left with nothing palatable to watch. For its many pleasures, Netflix comes up short way short when it comes to classic films. If you're hunting for anything made before about 1980, prepare for disappointment. A recent search in their "classic movies" genre only turned up a scant handful real classics: several Orson Welles vehicles ("The Third Man," "The Stranger" and "Touch of Evil"), "East of Eden," "Cool Hand Luke" and "The Graduate." There are a few reasons for this and, luckily, a few other places that can help narrow the content gap. ALSO: New on streaming services this year One of the main reasons is Netflix's shrinking library. As they've switched to focusing on "original" content although eagle-eyed viewers will often notice these are already-aired foreign shows that have been acquired by or partnered with Netflix the library of other content has decreased. According to data from a third-party Netflix search engine, the service's movie catalog has 2,000 fewer films than in 2010. All that money put into Netflix originals means there's less cash for licensing other content, and the streaming rights of many films aren't cheap. In a 2017 Newsweek article called "Netflix, video streaming and the slow death of classic film," one expert argued Netflix probably doesn't see a large enough audience to justify the cost of acquiring old films. "An emphasis on mainstream, contemporary movies has replaced what had been a broad archive of world cinema," Virginia Tech cinema studies professor Stephen Prince told Newsweek. "Convenience biases viewers toward mainstream fare and makes films of the past or from cultures less visible." So what are the best alternatives? Amazon Prime has a decent selection of older films. Some are movies that have lapsed into the public domain, like the screwball comedy favorite "His Girl Friday." But because they're public domain movies, the sound and picture quality vary; their stream for "His Girl Friday" has noticeable audio issues. Another surprisingly good source is YouTube. Although the selection there leans decidedly in the B-movie direction, there are lots of fun horror, Western and noir full films there, all for free. Popular channels like Classic Movies Channel and Timeless Classic Movies are a great place to start. If you're willing to wait and you've got some disposable income, Criterion films will launch its own streaming service this year. The problem with resolving the border wall hoax is twofold: President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The only thing they will agree with is building a physical barrier, which is of undetermined material, length in miles, exact cost or time of completion. As a master of construction, Trump should have presented a detailed plan so that the American people could understand the true national emergency he claims is so urgent. This is wasting tax dollars that would be better spent resolving the needs of our struggling classes, unlike the wealthy whose taxes have been exponentially reduced by this Republican administration. It is harder to vote in New York than in Georgia. Really. Georgia a state whose ruling government is passionately committed to voter suppression provides three weeks of early voting, voting by mail, sample ballots and on-the-spot choice of party primary. In New York state we have none of these things. Instead, a state with twice as many registered voters expects us all to vote on one day, or sometimes half a day. New York's new state Legislature finally took steps to fix this problem with bills passed Monday by the Senate and Assembly. I'm a proud New Yorker who spent this past fall working to elect Stacey Abrams governor of Georgia, specifically by helping run the Democratic Party voter protection hotline. Our hotline answered 25,000 calls between Labor Day and Election Day, and 43,000 more calls in the two weeks after Election Day. What I saw was a system designed to dissuade and intimidate voters but not in the ways that Yankees imagine. Ironically, Georgia has much to teach New York about access to the ballot. More people voted for Abrams than any Democrat in Georgia history even more than voted for Barack Obama. Yet she lost to Brian Kemp by 54,723 votes, for two reasons: a surge in voter turnout by Republicans and systemic voter suppression by the state agency in charge of voting, which is a relic of the Reconstruction era and was run by Kemp himself. Georgia's voter suppression takes many forms: "purging" voters automatically throwing them off the rolls as soon as they miss three general elections; "exact match" policies that reject registrations for typos or formatting mistakes; strict ID requirements that I saw being applied incorrectly; and no voting rights for people on probation or parole. And yet, for those whom Georgia wants voting, the experience of voting is often simple and even pleasant. I met voters throughout Fulton County who had voted early at one of 20 locations open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for three weeks plus two weekends. I helped hotline callers apply to track their vote-by-mail ballots through the state website and see when their ballot had been received. In New York, only those with a legal excuse for an absentee ballot can vote by mail, and the ballots aren't easy to get. Though it hurts to admit it, Kemp's office runs an informative website that New Yorkers can only envy. Georgians can look themselves up and check their voter registration and their polling place on Election Day and throughout three weeks of early voting. They can see an accurate sample ballot for every race; in New York we have no such thing, though nonprofit projects like Whosontheballot.org have tried to fill the gap. In Georgia, teenagers can pre-register to vote before they turn 18, which has been shown to increase lifetime voter participation. In New York, once you've chosen a party affiliation, you're locked into it if you're registered as a Republican or independent and you wanted to vote for Andrew Cuomo or Cynthia Nixon in the most recent Democratic primary, you would have had to change your registration nearly a year before. No other state locks its primary system so completely certainly not Georgia, where voters choose their party on primary day. There's only one of those in Georgia, by the way; New York is the last state to hold separate federal and state primaries, which makes voting more expensive, confusing, and time-consuming. New York's backward voting processes are so turnout-dampening as to seem deliberate. But unlike in Georgia, I don't believe overt racism is to blame. Instead, New York's "three men in a room" government has held our state back for decades. Now that one of those men is a woman, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and all of them are Democrats, we have the opportunity to let New Yorkers vote. Yet another marijuana shop opens near the state line in Massachusetts on Tuesday. Temescal Wellness opens at 11 a.m. The shop, which welcomed Massachusetts officials for a visit on Monday, is about an hour from Albany, though it is illegal to purchase marijuana out of state and transport it back into New York. Last week, Theory Wellness opened a pot shop in Great Barrington, Mass. The state legalized recreational marijuana last year and shops opened across the state in recent months. Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he backs legalization in New York and the legislature is expected to take up the issue this year. The opening of each marijuana shop in Massachusetts has been greeted by long lines. Despite below freezing temperatures, it is expected the Pittsfield store will open to a big crowd. ALBANY The state Legislature on Monday passed a slate of electoral reform bills that would update New York's arcane voting laws and increase access to the polls on Election Day. The ambitious legislation, which included two bills requiring a constitutional amendment, moved hastily through committees and passed overwhelmingly in both houses on Monday afternoon. Activists, noting New York's abysmal voter turnout compared to other states, have long pushed for these reforms, including closing a loophole that allows unfettered donations from limited liability companies, no-excuse absentee voting, early voting, same-day voter registration, and state and federal primary consolidation. Most of the measures had passed the overwhelmingly Democratic Assembly numerous times, but were impeded by Senate Republicans, who feared that such reforms would jeopardize the conference's slim majority in the chamber. "The Assembly Majority is committed to making it easier, not harder for New Yorkers to exercise their constitutional right to vote," Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie told reporters before Monday's session. Senate Democrats, following a high turnout election that allowed them to claim nine seats and seize control of the house, made electoral reform their first priority in 2019. "Government should be about breaking down barriers, which is why the Senate Democratic Majority is making it easier for those who are eligible to vote. We need more voices in our democracy, not fewer," Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said. Early voting, which establishes a nine-day voting period outside of election day, will allow counties flexibility to offer hours that best meet the needs of its residents. The measure goes into effect immediately, and will be available for the 2019 general election. Some form of early voting is available in 38 states and the District of Columbia, including Texas and Louisiana, noted the bill's sponsor, Sen. Zellnor Myrie. "Too many New Yorkers struggle to get to the polls because of work obligations, family obligations, or other barriers," Myrie said. Republicans in the Senate criticized the hasty manner in which the bill moved through the Senate committee process Monday morning, but only 13 of 24 Republicans voted against it. Sen. Cathy Young, R-Olean, cited a 2013 study indicating that early voting may be associated with lower turnout, questioned its financial impacts, and suggested that it would open up the electoral system to voter fraud. "There hasn't been any kind of public input on this," Young said. "It has just been rushed through." There are still open questions regarding the cost of implementation. Democrats estimate early voting will cost $7 million statewide, but will be absorbed by the estimated $25 million saved by the counties when they consolidate primary days. New York State Association of Counties (NYSAC) places the cost of expanded voting services significantly higher, burdening local boards of elections. "Estimates for these new provisions suggest that it will cost between $500,000 to $1 million per county, depending on its size," NYSAC executive director Stephen J. Acquario said. "Under a two percent property tax cap, counties cannot afford additional new costs associated with early voting and other election reforms." Consolidating New York's split primary election days has also been the subject of much debate in the Senate. Democrats want a June election day, while Republicans have pushed for a primary later in the summer to allow more time for petitioning. Electoral reforms Early Voting: Allows eligible voters in New York State to vote in person during a designated period. Consolidation of Federal and State Primaries: Makes state primary elections the same day as federal primary elections. It also ensures that New York State's election law complies with the federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act. Closing the LLC Loophole: Amends Election Law to hold LLC's to the same aggregate contribution limit of $5,000 that applies to corporations. Same-Day Voter Registration: Amends the constitution to remove the ten-day advance voter registration requirement, subject to second passage of the next legislature and approval by a statewide referendum. No-Excuse Absentee Voting: Amends the state Constitution to allow voter to request to vote by mail without declaring reason. Constitutional amendments must pass the Legislature twice and then be approved by voters in referendum. Voter Registration Transfers: Requires the Board of Elections to transfer the registration and enrollment of a voter who moves within New York State. Voter Pre-Registration: Enable 16- and 17-year olds to pre-register to vote and requires local boards of education to adopt policies to promote student voter registration and pre-registration. See More Collapse The closure of the LLC loophole deals a blow to the real estate industry, which has flooded the campaign accounts of state lawmakers for two decades, who in turn have helped block meaningful to reform to New York City's rent laws. The loophole is based on a 1996 state Board of Elections ruling that determined every LLC is subject to its own campaign finance limits, even if several LLCs are held by a single owner. This has allowed special interests to circumvent the $5,000 campaign contribution limit for corporations. The legislation includes a constitutional amendment that requires the disclosure of the identity and proportion of ownership of all direct and indirect owners of the membership interests in the LLC, and may go into effect as soon as 2021. Two more bills, sponsored Sen. David Carlucci, will allow voter registration to follow residents who move within the state and permit 16- and 17-year-olds to register to vote in advance of their 18th birthday. Carlucci said that measure is intended to encourage younger New Yorkers to vote. "Statistics have shown that if young people are registered at an early age, then it becomes a habit for the rest of their lives," he said. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had promised that these reforms would be passed within the first 100 days of the session, on Monday announced additional electoral reforms including making Election Day a state holiday, banning all corporate donations and expanding upstate voting hours during primary elections. In the Capital Region, and throughout most of upstate, primary polls are open noon-9 p.m. In New York City and Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam and Erie counties, polls open at 6 a.m. "Let's fix these crazy irregularities," Cuomo told WAMC's Alan Chartock. Monday's committee meetings and floor proceedings were packed with activists, who turned out in numbers to witness the historic moment. "We had over 150 grassroots activists from around the state who dropped everything to be here for this historic day," said Susan Lerner of the Let NY Vote coalition. "This was a spectacular first step and we are really excited to work on the next package that we expect will happen between now and June." ALBANY - The Albany County Legislature appointed someone to fill the seat left vacant by Ralph Signoraccis resignation late last year, but its not who Cohoes Democrats initially touted. Instead of Van Schaick Island Neighborhood Watch Group leader Tom McGrath, legislators approved the recommendation of John Frainier, a former Cohoes council candidate, to the empty District 17 seat. After plans to recommend McGrath were made public Jan. 7, concern began to swirl around the appointment. Cohoes Democratic Committee Chairman Gil Ethier, a county legislator, said the choice was made quickly because of the time crunch. County legislators are up for reelection this year, and McGrath wasn't planning on running for the seat in November, Ethier said. The recommendation of McGrath also allowed all those who were interested in the seat a fair shake, he said. Signoracci, a Democrat, resigned as legislator to become director of municipal affairs for county Comptroller Michael Conners. He also resigned as Cohoes' director of operations. The move comes at a time when he and Cohoes Mayor Shawn Morse are being investigated by the FBI for the handling of Morse's campaign funds. Signoracci was Morse's treasurer. Republicans in Cohoes had recommended 33-year-old Cassandra Horn. Her nomination was defeated by legislators. Ethier blamed the shift among Democrats on "awful, nasty" emails forwarded by Cohoes councilman Randy Koniowka to legislative leaders. In 2017, McGrath forwarded two chain emails to dozens of people in the Van Schaick Island Neighborhood Watch Group. McGrath didn't write the emails, but the content within them suggested Muslims couldnt be good people or good Americans and another suggested that the removal of the Robert E. Lee memorial statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, was a precursor to other actions which could threatened the constitution, according to the emails obtained by the Times Union. At the time the emails were sent, Koniowka and others expressed their displeasure over them. When word got out that McGrath was being recommended to represent Cohoes residents on the county legislature, Koniowka said constituents considered making those emails public. When you send something out to 50 people, its going to come out," Koniowka said. "I tried to prevent a scandal. Ethier said during the county Legislature meeting Monday that the emails forwarded by Koniowka implied McGrath was "racist against Muslims." McGrath could not be reached Tuesday. Wanting to avoid the boiling controversy, Ethier said McGrath backed out and Cohoes Democrats had to go back to the drawing board. Ward leaders within District 17 consulted with committee members, Ethier said, and ultimately voted on the people they knew were interested in running for the seat Frainier, Koniowka and former Cohoes council member Bill Ricard. Frainier was the only one to receive support from committee members, Ethier said. ALBANY Gov. Andrew Cuomo's executive budget will include a ban on "stretched" or remanufactured limousines in New York, as well as sweeping measures to expand regulation of the limousine industry in response to October's fatal crash in Schoharie County that killed 20 people. The governor's proposed changes, scheduled to be unveiled Tuesday afternoon as part of his executive budget package, would seek to close gaps in the safety and oversight of limousine passenger vehicles by the state Department of Transportation and the Department of Motor Vehicles. "This crash was a horrific tragedy that shocked this state to its very core," Cuomo said in a statement. "We are advancing reforms that will give aggressive new powers that will allow authorities to take dangerous vehicles off the roads without delay, hold unscrupulous businesses accountable and increase public safety in every corner of New York." In addition to an outright ban on stretched limousines, Cuomo's proposals would: Make it a felony for any owner/operator to tamper with a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard tag or vehicle inspection sticker, or remove an "out of service" sticker placed by a DOT inspector from a vehicle without having the vehicle re-inspected and cleared by DOT to return to service; Create new criminal penalties for any DMV-regulated inspection station that illegally issues an inspection sticker; Require mandatory reporting by inspection stations to DMV if a vehicle attempts an unauthorized inspection; Increase the civil penalty to a maximum fine of $25,000 per violation for any person found operating with suspended DOT "operating authority" or operating a vehicle without such authority; Require drivers to hold a Commercial driver license with a special passenger endorsement to operate a for-hire vehicle with eight or more passengers; Prohibit U-turns for larger vehicles on all roads within the state; Establish stronger registration suspension and vehicle impoundment powers, including "an explicit process for immediate suspension of operating authority by the DOT Commissioner in circumstances that endanger the health, safety, and welfare of the public"; Subject multiple violators to the potential for civil forfeiture of vehicle; Eliminate the exception to seatbelt requirements for limousines, buses, taxis, liveries, and school buses; Establish a DOT inspection fee of $120 per inspection for vehicles subject to such inspection; Make explicit the authorization of DOT and DMV to seize suspended license plates. The October crash involved a 2001 Ford Excursion stretch limousine that was allegedly transporting passengers unlawfully after the owners failed to heed DOT's directives to keep the vehicle out of service because it lacked operating authority and had failed multiple safety inspections. The Times Union first reported that the Ford Excursion was pulled over by a state trooper in Saratoga Springs in late August and after dropping off 11 people the same driver who was killed in the fatal crash was cited for operating the vehicle without a proper license. Nauman Hussain of Cohoes operated the limousine company, Prestige Limo, and has been charged with homicide in connection with the fatal crash. Records indicate the company is owned by his father, Shahed Hussain, a former FBI informant who has been overseas since before the crash took place and has not returned to the United States. During the August traffic stop, Nauman Hussain was made aware that his now-deceased driver, Scott T. Lisinicchia, was not licensed to drive the large passenger vehicle. Hussain also was informed that the vehicle was not properly registered with the U.S. Department of Transportation, as required. Other records obtained by the Times Union confirmed that state DOT officials had inspected the vehicle two other times, in March and in early September, just 10 days after the traffic stop. During those inspections, the investigators had flagged numerous safety issues on the oversized Excursion, including bad brakes. On Oct. 6, the SUV failed to stop at an intersection and careened off a rural state highway, killing two bystanders, 17 passengers in the vehicle and the driver. Last April, Nauman Hussain wrote a check to the state for $700 after he was fined for failing to appear before a DOT administrative law judge to answer violations related to his limousine company. The hearing was apparently scheduled as a result of the March inspection in which a DOT investigator ordered the vehicle taken out of service. Former U.S. Rep. John Faso, R-Kinderhook, and Reps. Paul Tonko D-Amsterdam, and Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, last year introduced a federal bill to impose safety checks on limousines that have been retrofitted to increase seating capacity to more than 10 passengers. On the state level, Sen. Simcha Felder, D-Brooklyn, introduced a bill a week after the crash that would regulate stretch limousines. Felder said the passenger vehicles are not properly defined by state law and operate under a "patchwork of regulations." His legislation would require stretch limousines be taken off the road after 10 years; create new procedures if a vehicle fails a safety inspection; impose a minimum liability insurance coverage of $2 million; and display inspection results on the state DOT website. Washington President Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general will tell senators "it is vitally important" that special counsel Robert Mueller be allowed to complete his Russia investigation, and said he believes Congress and the public should learn the results, according to remarks prepared for his confirmation hearing. William Barr also insisted in testimony he'll deliver Tuesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Trump never sought any promises or assurances before selecting him to be the country's chief law enforcement officer. In releasing written testimony ahead of his hearing, the Justice Department moved to pre-empt the most significant questions Barr is likely to face from Democrats on the panel including whether he can oversee without bias or interference the final stages of Mueller's probe into potential ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign, and whether he will permit the findings to be made public. "I believe it is in the best interest of everyone the president, Congress, and, most importantly, the American people that this matter be resolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work," Barr said. He described Mueller, a former Justice Department colleague, as a friend he has known personally and professionally for 30 years. Mueller headed the department's criminal division while Barr served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993. The special counsel is required to confidentially report his findings to the Justice Department. Barr stopped short of directly pledging to release Mueller's report, but he expressed general support for disclosing the findings, whatever they may be. "For that reason, my goal will be to provide as much transparency as I can consistent with the law," Barr said. "I can assure you that, where judgments are to be made by me, I will make those judgments based solely on the law and will let no personal, political, or other improper interests influence my decisions." The remarks are intended to reassure Democratic senators troubled by Barr's past comments on the special counsel's probe. Barr, who also moved to quell concerns during meetings last week with lawmakers, insisted that Trump had "sought no assurances, promises, or commitments from me of any kind, either express or implied." "As attorney general, my allegiance will be to the rule of law, the Constitution, and the American people," Barr said. "That is how it should be. That is how it must be. And, if you confirm me, that is how it will be, and I have not given him any, other than that I would run the department with professionalism and integrity." ALBANY The state Legislature on Tuesday passed measures that would establish the strongest human rights protections for LGBTQ individuals since the state legalized gay marriage in 2011. One bill enshrines gender expression as a protected class in the state's human rights and hate crimes laws, protecting trans individuals from employment and housing discrimination, and the second prohibits mental health professionals from practicing conversion therapy a discredited practice that attempts to change someone's sexual orientation on minors. The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, or GENDA, has passed the Assembly for 11 consecutive years, but was repeatedly blocked in the GOP-controlled Senate. Senate Democrats, who reclaimed the Senate by a healthy margin in November's election, made strengthening LGBTQ protections a legislative priority and moved the bills through the committee process on the first official day of the legislative session. "It's a new day," Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, said as the votes were being taken. "We were proud when we were able to pass marriage equality eight years ago. None of us thought it would take eight years to get to this place." Sen. Brad Hoylman, D-Manhattan, the Senate's only openly gay member and the bill's long-time sponsor, recalled how in 2002, lawmakers voted to exclude trans individuals from protections afforded to gay and lesbian New Yorkers by the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act. "There was and remains unfinished business in the civil rights movement," Hoylman said on the Senate floor. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo took executive action interpreting human rights law to include trans and gender non-conforming individuals in 2015. But without the protections codified in state law, they could be subject to judicial interpretation or scaled back by a future governor. The federal government's recent efforts to ban transgender individuals from serving in the military, and to roll back protection for trans children in schools, has amplified the issue in New York. "An act of law sends a message to families and to kids that they are perfect just the way they were born, and this is such a crucial message when the White House and other federal officials are sending just the opposite signal," Hoylman said outside the chamber. The conversion therapy ban, which in past years was held up by the Republican-controlled Senate, passed both houses overwhelmingly. "Conversion therapy is a dangerous and discredited practice," said the bill's Assembly sponsor, Assemblywoman Deborah Glick. "It is built on the denial of LGBTQ people's basic humanity, jeopardizes young people's mental health, and is a perversion of mental health professionals' mission to help." Fourteen states and the District of Columbia currently ban the practice on minors. Numerous cities and counties recently enacted local bans, including the city and county of Albany, which banned conversion therapy last year. Cuomo in 2016 took executive action to prohibit insurers, health plans and Medicaid from covering and reimbursing conversion therapy, and banned its practice on minors in mental health facilities funded by the state. The Senate chamber was filled with LGBTQ activists and prominent figures, including New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Sarah McBride, a well-known transgender-rights activist who currently serves as national press secretary of the Human Rights Campaign. Applause broke out in the Senate chamber as the bill passed. Mental health associations also praised the move in a statement Tuesday. "Recognizing there is no scientific or empirical evidence that conversion therapies work and, in fact, there is evidence of harm, every major medical and professional organization has repudiated the efficacy of 'conversion therapy,'" said Jack Drescher, a physician who drafted the American Psychiatric Association's 2002 position on sexual orientation conversion efforts. Both bills are expected to be signed into law by the governor. Cohoes Shawn Morse is running for reelection. That's the word from a source close to the embattled Cohoes mayor, who also says Morse's official announcement, planned for Wednesday, will include an apology. An apology for what? That isn't clear. We can presume Morse will not apologize to the several women who have accused him of physical abuse. The mayor has always insisted, implausibly, that all the women were lying. "I've never touched a woman in my life," he said. We can presume he won't say sorry for anything connected to the ongoing FBI investigation into his campaign finances and business dealings, because an apology could imply, you know, guilt. But Morse has talked, with raw emotion, about the difficulties in his personal life, so expect his apology to sound something like this: "I am sorry that the trouble in family life has embarrassed the city I love." Surprised Morse is running? You shouldn't be. When the combative mayor faced demands that he resign from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other Democrats, Morse said he'd leave the decision to the people of Cohoes. The implication was that he would run again. And back when things were good, before a 911 call from the mayor's wife in November 2017 led to the discovery of other abuse allegations, Morse had seemed born for the job. It seemed like he could be mayor for a decade or longer. That was then. Can Morse win now, after all the allegations and the bad publicity, with the FBI sniffing around? Absolutely. Like it or not, the former firefighter, 51, retains a loyal base of support in Cohoes, consisting of people who either don't believe the accusations or consider them irrelevant to the running of the city. Some even consider the attacks on "our Shawn" to be unfair and unjust. This may shock you, but there are people in Cohoes who couldn't care less what Andrew Cuomo thinks. They don't care what the Times Union reports or what its columnists blather on about. Cities like Cohoes, blue-collar towns, are often protective of their own, especially when the heat is coming from the outside. For sure, there is also a sizeable chunk of Cohoes, population 16,000, that is rightly mortified by Morse's stain on the city and believes that allowing him to continue in City Hall is akin to saying that abuse allegations don't matter all that much. Some of those folks considered Morse a bully long before he was elected mayor in 2015, and his time in office has only justified their worst fears. Some in the anti-Morse crowd rightly realize that his troubles are hurting the city. They know that Cohoes can't survive as an island, without help from outside developers and money. They know that so long as the mayor is toxic, the city will suffer. At the moment, though, the Anybody But Morse contingent has a problem: They have too many mayoral candidates. If the anti-Morse vote is divided, it increases the odds of the mayor succeeding. Steve Napier and Randy Koniowka, both members of the Common Council, are weighing challenges. So is William Keeler, the retired State Police Troop G commander. Other names are also in the mix for the upcoming Democratic primary, which is the election that really matters in one-party Cohoes. Four years ago, Morse won the primary with about 1,500 votes 58 percent of the total. This time around, in a four- or five-person field, could Morse still get the 1,000 votes he would need to win? There isn't much doubt that he could, even if the FBI investigation leads to charges. Morse will, however, be forced to run a me-against-the-world campaign. He will struggle to raise money. Many other politicians won't go near him, much less endorse him. He won't get help from the usual consultants who manage campaigns. The lift, in other words, will be heavy. But it won't be impossible. As one Cohoes political observer said Monday, "Shawn is wounded, but he isn't dead." The Wednesday announcement is planned for noon at Veterans Memorial Park. The location is significant. That same park is where Morse, with a red scratch under his left eye, arrived for his first public event after his wife's 911 call, a turning point when his private troubles became widely known. Morse will return hoping that voters will forgive those troubles and give him a second chance, that an apology can sway enough skeptics to keep his political career alive. I wouldn't bet against him. ALBANY Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is in line for a $70 million grant from the state that will help the company significantly expand its operations in East Greenbush, where it does all of its domestic drug manufacturing. The grant, coming from Empire State Development Corp., is awaiting approval by the Public Authorities Control Board, which is meeting Wednesday afternoon at the Capitol. Despite its size, the $70 million grant to Regeneron is not expected to face much opposition from the board, whose members are appointed by the governor and Legislature. The Empire State Development board, which approved the grant last month, was told that without the funding Regeneron would have instead expanded in Ireland where it also does manufacturing. The company has a market capitalization of $44 billion and does about $500 million in monthly sales. Its most popular drug, Eylea, is used to treat age-related macular degeneration, a common cause of vision loss. "New York is proud to be at the forefront of the life sciences industry and the home of global biotech leaders like Regeneron," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said when he announced the grant in September. "The continued growth of Regeneron here in New York is yet another indication that we are leading the way in the life sciences and attracting the jobs of tomorrow. Regeneron's expansion will further drive economic growth in the Capital Region and fuel life-saving innovation and development that benefits the entire world." The money will go toward a much larger, $800 million expansion by Regeneron, which has its headquarters in Tarrytown but does all of its U.S. drug manufacturing in Rensselaer County. The expansion is mostly taking place at Regeneron's new Tempel Lane campus, not far from its existing manufacturing campus next to the University at Albany's Health Sciences Campus. The expansion is expected to grow Regeneron's employment numbers in the state from 4,835 currently to 6,083 people by 2025. Construction at the Tempel Lane campus is already underway, with a warehouse already completed. Dorothy Eleanor Mercer passed away on June 9, 2021 at Archbold Memorial Hospital. She was born on December 18, 1932, in Pavo to the late Early Byrd Wood and to the late Nellie Deen Wood. She was married to Eugene Mercer who precedes her in death. Survivors include her children, Leon David Mc remaining of SUPPORT LOCAL JOURNALISM! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Tifton, GA (31794) Today Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 67F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 67F. Winds light and variable. 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TORONTO, January 14, 2019 Thomson Reuters (NYSE, TSX: TRI) announced today that its full-year and fourth-quarter 2018 earnings will be issued via news release on Tuesday, February 26, 2019. Jim Smith, president and chief executive officer, and Stephane Bello, executive vice president and chief financial officer, will host a conference call and simultaneous webcast that morning at 8:30 a.m. EST. Discussions may include forward-looking information. You can access the webcast by visiting the Investor Relations section of the Thomson Reuters website. Registration for the webcast is now open. Additionally, an archive of the webcast will be available following the presentation. Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters (TSX/NYSE: TRI) is the worlds leading provider of news and information-based tools to professionals. Our worldwide network of journalists and specialist editors keep customers up to speed on global developments, with a particular focus on legal, regulatory and tax changes. Thomson Reuters shares are listed on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges. For more information on Thomson Reuters, visit tr.com and for the latest world news, reuters.com. CONTACT MEDIA Andrew Green Senior Director, Corporate Affairs +1 646 223 4228 andrew.green@tr.com INVESTORS Frank J. Golden Senior Vice President, Investor Relations +1 646 223 5288 frank.golden@tr.com Carlos Ghosn's wife has complained about the 'harsh treatment' the former Nissan boss is facing in a Japanese jail. In a nine-page letter to Human Rights Watch, Carole Ghosn claimed he is being held in 'draconian' conditions in an unheated cell as temperatures plummet close to zero at night. The 52-year-old said: 'For hours each day, the prosecutors interrogate him, browbeat him, lecture him and berate him, outside the presence of his attorneys, in an effort to extract a confession. Carole Ghosn claims her husband Carlos is being held in 'draconian' conditions in an unheated cell as temperatures plummet close to zero at night 'No one should be forced to endure what my husband faces every day, particularly in a developed nation like Japan, the third-largest economy in the world.' Ghosn, 64, has been held since his arrest on November 19 for allegedly under-reporting his pay by around 34million over the five years to 2015. He has been charged with financial misconduct as well as 'aggravated breach of trust' over claims he shifted personal investment losses to Nissan during the financial crisis. He denies the charges, while his lawyers said it could be more than six months until his trial. Stepping down: JAB boss Bert Becht with wife Ann Veteran dealmaker Bart Becht is retiring after years of mammoth earnings. The 62-year-old is standing down from German investment group JAB Holdings, which he helped turbo charge through an acquisition spree. Becht who ran British consumer goods group Reckitt Benckiser for 16 years transformed JAB into a major player that owns Dr Pepper, Krispy-Kreme Doughnuts and Pret A Manger. As well as retiring as a JAB partner, he will also give up eight board seats at companies it owns. The Dutchman was renowned for his huge pay packets while working at Reckitt, on one occasion earning 92million for a single year's work. He oversaw the firm's creation through a 1999 mega-merger between Benckiser and Reckitt & Coleman, and its value increased fivefold under his tenure. JAB is owned by the Reimanns, one of Germany's richest families, which historically drew its wealth from Benckiser. L'Occitane has snapped up premium British skincare brand Elemis for just under 700million. The Hong Kong-listed beauty group plans to expand the brand across Asia while taking advantage of its popularity with younger customers. Elemis was founded in 1990 by Noella Gabriel, Sean Harrington and Oriele Frank, all of whom will stay at the business when the purchase completes. Hong Kong-listed beauty group L'Occitane plans to expand expensive skin care brand Elemis across Asia The company, known for its pro-collagen range of skin creams which costs up to 150 for 100ml, is owned by Steiner Leisure, which was founded by Ocado chief executive Tim Steiner's great-grandfather. Steiner Leisure was originally set up by Henry Steiner as a hair and skincare brand in 1901 and is owned by private equity group, L Catterton. Reinold Geiger, chairman and chief executive of L'Occitane, said the deal would allow it to develop a portfolio of premium beauty brands. Sean Harrington, co-founder and chief executive of Elemis, added: 'Reinold Geiger has a strong history of developing and supporting brands like ours that are creating products sourced from nature and developed through cutting-edge science and technology. 'With his inspiring and entrepreneurial leadership, I am confident that through this transaction we can continue to realise our mission of delivering extraordinary products and experiences, and grow Elemis into one of the leading skincare brands in the world.' Britain's five largest listed Government contractors have paid their chief executives more than 80million since 2010 despite years of shoddy performance. On the anniversary of the collapse of Carillion, Mail analysis reveals the heads of Interserve, Serco, Mitie, G4S and Capita raked in a combined 81.2million between 2010 and 2017. The findings come as figures from research group Tussell show the value of public sector outsourcing contracts rocketed 53 per cent last year to 95billion. On the anniversary of the collapse of Carillion, Mail analysis reveals the heads of Interserve, Serco, Mitie, G4S and Capita raked in a combined 81.2million between 2010 and 2017. Rehana Azam, national secretary at the GMB union, said: 'What this shows is despite the tragic fiasco of Carillion, the Government hasn't learned its lesson.' The crisis was preceded by years of excess in the boardrooms. Several of the outsourcing bosses were removed or resigned over the past decade after mis-steps that put their companies in financial distress. And most of their successors have taken smaller salaries or waived bonuses, meaning the chief executives who made the most mess have walked away with the most cash, taking home almost 58million of the 81million total. From construction work on HS2 to providing school meals, outsourcers take on public contracts in a wide range of industries paid for by taxpayers. Mitie spent nearly 15m on the salaries of long-standing chief exec Ruby McGregor-Smith and her successor Phil Bentley G4S has paid its bosses the most out of the five so far this decade. The security and services firm has shelled out 21.4million to chief executives Nick Buckles and Ashley Almanza. Buckles left after two major failures, with G4S scrapping a 5billion bid for catering and cleaning business ISS in 2011 and failing to supply enough security guards for the 2012 London Olympics, meaning the Army was called in. Interserve paid its bosses the least, doling out 10.8million from 2010 to 2017. Shortly before Christmas it conditionally agreed a refinancing plan with its lenders to avoid going bust and merged two of its divisions. Adrian Ringrose ran Interserve between 2003 and 2017 and bagged 10.2million in pay between 2010 and 2017. He was the architect of a diversification strategy that included a move into the energy-from-waste sector, which has since become an albatross around the company's neck. Serco paid its chief executives the second-biggest sum, spending 19.9million on its top brass, followed by Mitie which spent nearly 15million on the salaries of long-standing chief executive Ruby McGregor-Smith and her successor, Phil Bentley. Serco boss Chris Hyman, who was paid almost 9million between 2010 and 2013, left after a string of corporate embarrassments. Capita spent 14.1million on its bosses, according to its annual reports. Andy Parker took over in 2014, but was ousted in 2017 after announcing a string of profit warnings. During that time he was paid more than 6million. Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre think-tank, said: 'The boards of the companies in question, and the policymakers who awarded them their contracts, have been made to look ridiculous. 'The argument that this represents value for money or is necessary to deliver better services is risible.' It seems highly unlikely that Theresa May's Brexit deal will get voted through parliament this evening - and markets expect it to fail. However, even if that is the case, a lost vote could still be the first step to finally getting some form of agreement sorted on how Britain will leave the EU. If that is the case, rather than a further descent into political chaos, would an eventual deal see sentiment on the UK stock market sharply turnaround? On our latest Investing Show, Richard Hunter, of Interactive Investor, said that there is a chance of this happening but investors should still look for companies with good balance sheets, cash flow and a strong track record of delivering profits. The past year has seen the FTSE 100 rise to a record level but then sink since late spring as worries over Brexit have taken centre stage, along with concerns over global trade He says: 'There's no question that there's a number of quality companies in the FTSE 100 if you are willing to look bottom up. 'If you're taking a long-term view then the question to be asking yourself in investing terms is "is it likely to be better in five years' time than it is today?" And at the moment you have to say we very much hope so.' Investors have been shunning UK shares and the funds that invest in them off the back of Brexit uncertainty. While worries over global trade and US president Donald Trump locking horns with China are denting market sentiment overall, the UK has suffered more. Most see better opportunities with less potential headaches elsewhere, while at the extreme end some have even branded the UK as 'uninvestable' at the moment, as a US analyst for investment firm Bernstein did in November. It's not necessarily Brexit that is the problem, but rather the muddled way that Britain is seen as leaving the EU and the potential for political upheaval and a socialist Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government taking power. The UK stock market did worse than most international rivals last year, with a total return of minus 10.2 per cent, compared to the MSCI World index's minus 8.2 per cent decline and US S&P 500's minus 4.4 per cent. All this means that UK shares look cheap, with the FTSE 100 closing 2018 with a dividend yield of 4.68 per cent and the broader FTSE All Share yielding 4.46 per cent. Shares may be cheap for a reason, but a number of fund managers and professional investors suggest the pendulum has swung too far. That has led to the suggestion that a Brexit deal would see a bounce, with the sectors that have been beaten down the most - UK-focussed companies and big consumer businesses - seeing the greatest gains. The question investors must ask themselves though is even if a Brexit deal sugar rush were to send UK shares sharply higher, would major retailers, housebuilders and banks be a good long-term investment, or still have many problems to deal with? The UK stock market as measured by the FTSE All-Share had a total return of minus 10.2 per cent in 2018, compared to the MSCI World index's minus 8.2 per cent decline and US S&P 500's minus 4.4% Funds and trusts to back a Brexit bounce When This is Money asked a panel of investment experts for their views on how 2019 could pan out, many said UK shares could bounce back. A thread that ran through their comments, however, was that investors should be picky and that one way to limit risk of being blindsided by a sharp downturn instead was to look for value and quality - and avoid over indebted companies. A simple way to back the UK market would be to buy a passive tracker fund or ETF, such as L&G's UK Index fund, which has ongoing charges of just 0.1 per cent and tracks the FTSE All-Share. However, while this removes the chance of getting it wrong by trying to pick winners, this would mean buying the whole market, including those companies whose prospects are poorer. Among the active funds suggested by our panel were a number that focus on value and picking companies with robust balance sheets and strong fundamentals. Laith Khalaf, of Hargreaves Lansdown, said that Mark Barnett's Edinburgh Investment Trust has suffered in recent times and slipped to a discount of 7.4 per cent, however, 'it invests in lots of solid UK business that will almost certainly survive Brexit'. He added: 'Some are more reliant on consumer spending, others are truly international, but theyre all businesses that Mark Barnett, the trusts manager, thinks are undervalued but fundamentally well-managed and in good financial health. 'This is important because as well as aiming to grow your investment over the long-term, Barnett tries to pay high and rising dividends. Profitable, cash-generative companies should be well-placed to do this.' The chart above shows the UK stock market's valuation compared to the MSCI World and the long run median level Adrian Lowcock, of Willis Owen, mentioned Investec UK Alpha, where manager Simon Brazier pays close attention to both the bigger picture and a company's balance sheet. He said: 'His assessment of a company managements track record, strategy, and allocation of free cash flow are vital parts of the research framework, alongside a thorough valuation analysis that considers both the upside potential and downside risk of any investment.' M&G Recovery was also mentioned by Yearsley, which hunts for undervalued shares where the market has got it wrong and there may be some catalyst for a turnaround in a company's fortunes. He said: 'The UK has been beaten up mainly due to Brexit negotiations and the threat of a Corbyn government, which has led to many segments of the market looking cheap. 'This is one of a number of funds that you could buy but Ive always liked the approach of Tom Dobell the manager in accessing cheap but interesting UK companies.' Thomas Becket, of Psigma Investment Management, says that the UK could be a value opportunity, but investors may want to wait to see if things get worse, for example, when the lorries start queuing on the M20. He said: 'Our favoured active funds in UK equities remain Artemis Income, which has a value bias, and Royal London UK Equity Income, where the manager favours opportunities amongst mid cap companies that could see a reversal next year in the negative sentiment that has afflicted them in recent months.' Westerly, RI (02891) Today Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 51F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 51F. Winds light and variable. New Delhi, Jan 15 (PTI) A 49-year-old woman was rescued by the PCR staff after a fire broke out in her home in Rohini, police said Tuesday. The staff of the Police Control Room (PCR) van located in Rohini area was informed on Monday at 2.15 pm by one Rachit Verma regarding the fire on the first floor of the woman's home following which the officials rushed to the spot, they added. On reaching the spot, they found that smoke had engulfed inside the house due to the fire. The PCR van in-charge, Sandeep, immediately used the fire extinguisher kept in the van and extinguished the fire, a senior police official said. He covered his face and with the help of other persons, he entered the home and saved the life of Hansraj Sukhija who was trapped inside her house, he added. Sukhija was shifted to a safe zone. She was in the kitchen, where the fire started. Due to heavy smoke, she panicked and went into the other room instead of coming out of the house, police said. PTI AMP DPB Issue has got complicated after India failed to get FEO tag for him New Delhi, Jan 15 (PTI) The National Green Tribunal expressed surprise over an MLA approaching it on an environmental issue instead of heading to the authority concerned, saying it wondered "whether even an MLA has no trust and faith in the statutory authorities and is 'helpless' in making such authorities do their duty". A bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel said it was astonished that a Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) had to approach the tribunal against the construction and debris waste stored, transported and distributed by IL&FS at Jahangirpuri here. "It is surprising that an MLA has approached this tribunal instead of approaching the authorities. We wonder whether even the MLA has no trust and faith in the statutory authorities and helpless in making such authorities do their duty," the bench, also comprising Justice S P Wangdi, said. Taking note of the legislator's plea, the tribunal asked the Delhi Pollution Control Committee to look into the matter, take appropriate action in accordance with law and furnish a factual and action taken report within a month. It also reiterated that every order of the NGT was binding as a decree of court and non-compliance was actionable by way of punitive action in terms of the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010. The tribunal has posted the matter for hearing on April 24. Adarsh Nagar MLA Pawan Kumar Sharma had approached the tribunal against dumping of construction and debris waste at Jahangirpuri in north west Delhi. He alleged that in the process, tonnes of stones and cement blocks are crushed, the waste is put on the government land by way of encroachment and garbage dumps have been created, adversely affecting the environment. PTI PKS SRY New Delhi, Jan 15 (PTI) The International Centre for Automotive Technology is conducting a study to analyse if remote sensing can be used in detecting heavy polluting vehicles, the Supreme Court-appointed EPCA has said. The ICAT has till now tested 70,000 vehicles in Delhi-NCR, the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) was told in a meeting by representatives of the R&D body. The results of the study would be submitted to the Supreme Court. On May 10 last year, the apex court had issued directions regarding trials for remote sensing equipment to be used for monitoring pollution from on-road vehicles. The EPCA also said on Monday it will work with insurance bodies to ensure complete compliance of the Supreme Court order for mandatory linking of Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificate with issuance of annual vehicle insurance. The insurance bodies said they will also start a pilot project in the Delhi region to identify the vehicles that do not come back for registration of the PUC. "We will then share the details of such vehicles with the transport department," the companies said. The EPCA also said it would direct the Delhi government to "strongly advertise that insurance is mandatory and so is PUC". "What we can make sure is that there is good compliance of the order in Delhi-NCR," EPCA member Sunita Narain said. "Let us work towards 100 per cent insurance and 100 per cent PUC compliance in the NCR and see what are the loopholes and let us see how the improvements can be made," she said. PTI UZM UZM DIV DIV New Delhi, Jan 15 (PTI) CBI interim chief M Nageswara Rao has started the process of making structural changes in the Central Bureau of Investigation in order to streamline the work load on various zones of the agency across the country, officials said. Several senior officers have raised the issue of uneven distribution of work in various zones which is affecting the ongoing probes and work force distribution. Normally the issues such as these are discussed in the quarterly review meeting of all the joint directors and deputy inspector general when they converge at New Delhi headquarters of the agency. The last quarterly meeting scheduled in December last year did not take place as the Supreme Court had barred Rao, in his first tenure as acting director, from taking any policy decisions. In a controversial order on October 23, 2018, the government had divested the powers of the then CBI director Alok Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana sending them on forced leave as both had accused each other of corruption. The move was taken after a bitter battle between the two top officials of the agency spilled in the public domain. A corruption case was filed against Asthana. A plea to quash it has been rejected by the Delhi High Court. The government had given charge of the agency to Joint Director Rao, who was later promoted as additional director. On a plea of Verma, challenging the forced leave order of the government, the Supreme Court had directed Rao to not take any major policy decision. The Supreme Court had reinstated Verma on January 8 this year, setting aside government order to send him on forced leave. Within 48 hours, a high powered committee comprising of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Justice A K Sikri and Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge in a split verdict, decided to transfer Verma as Director General Fire Services. Following the decision, Rao was again given the charge of the agency. Rao has now moved a proposal among all the joint directors seeking their comments on the restructuring of zones as the previous restrictions imposed by the Supreme Court do not apply in his fresh term, officials said. Each zone will have a Special Crime branch and an Economic Offences branch in addition to the Anti Corruption Branches with co-terminus jurisdiction of respective zone, a proposal circulated among all the CBI offices said. According to the proposal, Anti Corruption Branch of Bengaluru will be reporting to Chennai zone. It is reporting to Hyderabad which has just three branches under it. Hyderabad zone will also look after the works of the Anti Corruption Branches of Raipur, Jabalpur and Bhopal. Mumbai zone will get two new branches, under it a special crime and an Anti Corruption based in Nagpur, taking the tally from current five to seven branches under it. PTI ABS KJ New Delhi, Jan 15 (PTI) A panel, which was asked to propose changes in electoral laws dealing with campaigning in the last 48 hours, has recommended a ban on advertisements in newspapers on election day, but according to senior Election Commission officials statutes are unlikely to get amended ahead of Lok Sabha polls. As of now, only electronic media is barred from showing election publicity material during the last 48 hours before conclusion of polling. But the committee has now recommended bringing the print media under the ambit of Section 126 of the Representation of the People Act 1951. It in effect means that political parties cannot publish campaigning advertisements on the day of election. "It would require amendment in the RP Act. It is unlikely to happen in the Budget session. It means that things would continue the way they are," said a top EC official. In 2016, the EC had urged the government to amend electoral law to bar political advertisements in newspapers 48 hours before the day of polling on the lines of the restriction on electronic media. The move had come in the wake of poll panel using its constitutional powers to ban such newspaper advertisements on a case-by-case basis during the Bihar assembly election in October-November of 2015. Meanwhile, the EC Tuesday accepted the recommendations of the committee in principle. The committee has now been asked to take time-bound steps to formalise its recommendations and implementations of the report, official sources said. PTI NAB ZMN Kumaraswamy govt will come down in two days: Maha BJP minister Mumbai, Jan 15 (PTI) After two Independent MLAs in Karnataka withdrew support to the Congress-JD(S) alliance government, a Maharashtra BJP minister Tuesday said the Kumaraswamy-led dispensation will "come down" within two days. Comments of Water Conservation, Protocol and OBC Minister Ram Shinde came amid a fresh political turmoil in the southern state. "People of Karnataka had given the mandate in favour of BJP (in 2018 polls), but we fell short by some numbers (to form government). As the Congress-JD (S) alliance has been on a sticky wicket, there are indications that the (Kumaraswamy) government would come down in two days," he told reporters. The two MLAs, H Nagesh (Independent) and R Shankar (KPJP), staying at a hotel in Mumbai, wrote to Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala, conveying their decision to withdraw their support with immediate effect, which set off a political storm. Karnataka Water Resource Minister D K Shivakumar had said that three Congress MLAs were camping at a hotel in Mumbai in the "company of some BJP leaders". In the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, BJP has 104 members, Congress-79, JD(S) 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each, besides Speaker. BSP, KPJP and an Independent are supporting the coalition. Referring to the outcome of last year's elections in Karnataka wherein the BJP had emerged as the single largest party, Shinde, a close associate of state chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, said, "You cannot ignore the mandate of the people. BJP got the maximum votes but Congress' politics kept us away from power. Such arrangements don't work". Amid reports of uncertainty over survival of his seven-month old government, Kumaraswamy has said his ministry was stable and he is "totally relaxed." The BJP has shifted its flock of 104 MLAs to a resort in Haryana's Nuh district, fearing their poaching by the ruling coalition. Shinde pointed out that the Congress had backed JD (S) patriarch H D Deve Gowda in becoming prime minister in 1996, but later withdrew support. "It is the same Congress that had played politics with the then prime ministers Chandra Shekhar, Deve Gowda and I K Gujaral. How can you ignore such history and expect the current alliance of the Congress and JD (S) in Karnataka to be successful," the minister questionned. Taking a swipe at Congress, Shinde said the Karnataka CM wept in public because of troubles he was facing in running the alliance government along with Congress. PTI ND NSK VT VT VT (Eds: Updating with Shah's statement, more details) Washington, Jan 15 (PTI) Raj Shah, the first Indian-American to hold a top White House Press Office post, has quit to join an arm of a prominent communications and lobbying firm, becoming the latest of several senior officials to leave the Trump administration in recent months. Shah, 34, White House deputy spokesman and a former researcher at the Republican National Committee, was in the administration since president Trump took office in January 2017. "I'm excited to join Brian, Jamie and the top-notch team to launch Ballard Media Group. Our team, with years of proven results, will provide the strategic communications clients need to navigate these challenges and successfully deliver their message to the right audience," Shah said in his statement. His portfolio recently included helping prepare Justice Brett M Kavanaugh for his Senate confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court. Shah will lead the Media Group, the press wing of Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm with offices in Florida and Washington, The New York Times reported. He will work with Jamie Rubin, a Democrat who was a spokesman for Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state, the report said, quoting the officials. Shah's departure comes as the White House press and communications teams have been depleted. Several aides have moved on to roles at government agencies or have left the Trump administration entirely. Born in 1984 to Indian parents of Gujarati origin, Shah's parents moved to Chicago in 1970s and then moved to Connecticut where he was born and raised. He joined the White House right from the day the Trump administration took charge. He was made the Deputy Communications Director at the White House. Previously, he was director of Opposition Research in the Republican National Committee. Shah is the latest in a number of top officials to leave the Trump administration. Former Defence Secretary James Mattis left Trump's Cabinet last month, after former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was pushed out in November. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was unceremoniously fired in March and national security adviser H R McMaster was replaced last year. In a sudden move, Indian-American US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley resigned in October. Ballard Partners said Shah will join the firm as a partner. PTI MRJ AKJ MRJ Washington, Jan 15 (PTI) Donald Trump has sent a letter to Kim Jong-un, a media report said Tuesday, days after the US President said he received a "great letter" from the reclusive North Korean leader, amid talks about a second summit between them on denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. Kim and Trump held a historic meeting in Singapore on June 12 last year where they issued a vague goal for the "complete denuclearisation" of the Korean Peninsula without describing when and how it would occur. The letter delivered over the weekend comes after President Trump said early this month that he had received a "great letter" from Kim and was looking forward to meet the North Korean leader for a second time in the "not-too-distant future". The letter comes as the two sides negotiate details of a second meeting between the two leaders. It was flown to Pyongyang and delivered by hand, the CNN reported, quoting a source familiar with the ongoing talks between Washington and Pyongyang on denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. North Korea's former spy chief Kim Yong Chol - one of Pyongyang's top negotiators - could visit Washington as soon as this week to finalise details of the upcoming summit, it said. The CNN previously reported that US scouting teams had visited Bangkok, Hanoi and Hawaii as they search for a location for the second summit. Last week, South Korean President Moon Jae-in threw his support behind another Trump-Kim meeting, saying it - along with a visit by Kim to Seoul - would be a turning point "that will firmly solidify peace on the Korean Peninsula", the report said. "We will not loosen our guard until the promise to denuclearise the Peninsula is kept, and peace is fully institutionalised," Moon said. Trump's announcement of receiving a letter from Kim had come after the North Korean leader warned that Pyongyang may change its approach to nuclear talks if Washington persists with sanctions. Earlier, the US president expressed satisfaction over the progress in talks with the North Koreans, saying he is in no rush for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. "We're getting along fine. I'm not in any rush. I don't have to rush. All I know is there's no rockets, there's no testing," he said. Trump said his administration was not getting any credit for this peace initiative which has averted the world from a major war. After years of isolation, Kim held a number of diplomatic summits in 2018, meeting with Moon, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Last week, he made a surprise visit to Beijing to meet again with Xi, a meeting which indicated that China remains a major player in any future action to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula. PTI MRJ AKJ MRJ Kabul, Jan 15 (AFP) The Taliban on Tuesday claimed responsibility for a powerful truck bomb in Kabul that ripped through surrounding neighbourhoods, killing at least four people including an Indian national, and wounding more than 100 in the latest assault on the Afghan capital. In a grim message, the militants also vowed to carry out more attacks in the city in direct response to the recent appointment of former spymaster and anti-Taliban veteran Amrullah Saleh as interior minister. Monday evening's explosion near the heavily fortified Green Village foreign compound shook Kabul and comes as diplomats ramp up efforts to end the 17-year war in Afghanistan, which by some estimates was the world's deadliest conflict in 2018. The force of the blast was felt across the sprawling city, initially causing confusion about the exact location of the attack. It shattered the windows of surrounding houses and shops. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told journalists on WhatsApp that four attackers blew up an explosives-packed truck before entering Green Village and "killing many" foreigners. Four people, including three guards and one civilian, have been confirmed dead and 113 wounded, the health ministry said. An Indian national was among those killed, India's foreign ministry said in a statement. Kabul police spokesman Basir Mujahid told AFP that most of the victims were Afghan civilians. "Seven or eight people have been injured in every house around here including myself," said resident Mohammad Aref. "When I came out, the street was full of bodies of the dead and injured." Until recently some UN staff had lived and worked at Green Village, which is heavily protected by cement blast walls. But interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said earlier the compound was now largely empty and "only a number of guards" were left. A much bigger UN compound along with Afghanistan's customs office and headquarters for the Independent Election Commission are also nearby. It is the second Taliban-claimed attack on a foreign compound in Kabul in recent months. In late November a vehicle bomb exploded outside the compound of British security firm G4S, killing at least 10 people. Five G4S employees were among the dead. That was followed by a suicide and gun attack on a government compound in Kabul on December 24 that killed at least 43 people, making it one of the deadliest assaults on the city last year. The latest bombing comes as US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad visits the region for further meetings aimed at bringing an end to the war in Afghanistan. Khalilzad, who met Taliban representatives last month in Abu Dhabi, is travelling to Afghanistan as well as China, India and Pakistan on the trip lasting through January 21. Afghan officials suggested the latest attack appeared to be an attempt to derail the burgeoning peace process, vowing the bombing would not go unanswered. "As we are trying to reach a regional consensus on peace, the enemy is trying to sabotage it," said National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib on social media. "I strongly condemn this attack and promise I will seriously investigate and avenge it," he added. Last month's leaking of US President Donald Trump's plan to slash troop numbers in Afghanistan, however, has threatened to derail the efforts and alarmed many Afghans who fear a return to oppressive Taliban rule. Diplomats in Kabul have long said any negotiations with the militants would likely happen as fighting continued on the battlefield -- cold comfort for Afghan civilians who have long borne the brunt of the war. (AFP) KUN KUN (Eds: Updating with more inputs and changing slug) London, Jan 15 (PTI) A 36-year-old Bangladeshi-origin British lawmaker has delayed giving birth to vote on the UK's landmark divorce deal with the European Union on Tuesday. Tulip Siddiq, a Labour lawmaker and a niece of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has been advised by doctors to have a caesarean section, but agreed to push the procedure back to Thursday so she can vote on the Brexit deal Tuesday in the House of Commons. By her decision, the Opposition lawmaker from Hampstead and Kilburn, has reigniting the debate over proxy voting in Parliament, the BBC reported. Siddiq told the Evening Standard that she had a difficult first pregnancy with her two-year-old daughter, and was originally due to give birth to her second child by elective caesarean section on February 4. But after developing gestational diabetes, her doctors recommended she bring the date forward to a delivery this Monday or Tuesday. She spoke to medical staff at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, and they agreed to the delay. Siddiq said: "If my son enters the world even one day later than the doctors advised, but it's a world with a better chance of a strong relationship between Britain and Europe, then that's worth fighting for." British MPs are preparing to vote on Tuesday whether to back embattled Prime Minister Theresa May's deal for leaving the European Union on March 29, 2019. May has called for politicians to back her deal or risk "letting the British people down". But with many of her own MPs expected to join opposition parties to vote against the deal, it is widely expected to be defeated, British media reported. Siddiq said she plans to go through the lobby of the House of Commons in a wheelchair. Siddiq is the grand-daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first president of Bangladesh. Her aunt is Hasina, who was sworn in as Bangladesh's prime minister for a record fourth term on January 7. Meanwhile, Speaker of the Commons John Bercow said that a proxy vote for Siddiq would be his "preference", but it was not in his power to grant it. However, he was happy for her to be "nodded through". This process normally means an MP's vote can be counted if they are anywhere on the parliamentary estate, rather than going through the voting lobby. It has traditionally been used for unwell MPs, such as during the votes on the Maastricht Treaty in the 1990s, where some were driven onto the estate by ambulance to be "nodded through" on crucial votes. There is a system in Parliament for MPs who cannot make a vote called "pairing" - where an MP on either side of an issue agree to not vote, so cancelling each other out. However, Siddiq said she did not trust the system after Tory chairman Brandon Lewis was accused of breaking the system when he voted on a Trade Bill, despite being paired with Liberal Democrat Jo Swinson, who was on maternity leave. He later apologised for making an "honest mistake". "If the pairing system is not honoured, there's nothing I can do, and it's going to be a very close vote," said Siddiq. "I've had no pressure at all from the whips to come and vote but this is the biggest vote of my lifetime. "I've sat down with my husband Chris and he said to me this is my choice, but that he would support me," she said. PTI AKJ AKJ Mumbai, Jan 15 (PTI) Actor Farida Jalal says older female actors get typecast in the role of a mother while their male co-stars still get to meaty characters. Jalal laments that the older actors often end up playing either mother or wife, which is sad as that is how they get typecast. "My male counterparts like Anupam Kher, Om Puri, Amrish Puri and others get to play different roles like a lawyer, doctor etc. We are given a sari with a border and are told to play a mother or wife. I am dying to play different kinds of role. "After a certain age, we are slotted. Nobody thinks a female actor can play different roles other than mother. What can one do? We just have to wait for good roles to come," Jalal told PTI. Bollywood saw a spate of female-centric films recently but that change is just limited to leading ladies, says Jalal. "There are women-oriented films and roles being written, they are making a noise and I am proud and happy for them. But after a certain age, it will stop and even they won't get exciting roles. "The biggest of actors like Waheeda Rehman, Rakhee ji, Shabana Azmi are all mostly playing roles of mother, there are no other roles being written. I get lot of offers even today but I look for something different even in what is offered to me. I wait for something that excites me." Jalal says her scenes from Shahid Kapoor starrer "Batti Gul Meter Chalu" were chopped in the final edit. "If they think the film is a little long they chop our scenes. So this way or that way, we are given the worst. But I don't blame anyone." The 69-year-old actor, however, feels there is respect for the older generation of actors and the remuneration has also improved. "There is respect. In terms of remuneration things have improved. Some girls are lucky to get heroine oriented roles." Jalal is excited about her web series titled 'Parchayee: Ghost Stories By Ruskin Bond'. The OTT platform ZEE5 will stream four of Ruskin Bond's ghost stories starting today. "For me it is about facing the camera, be it a web series, TV or films, an actor acts in front of a camera. It is a new medium. Creatively, it is different for the writers and makers," Jalal says. "The name Ruskin Bond in itself is big. I love to be associated with a project which is marvellous from writing to the team involved. This is coming from Ruskin Bond so the horror has a different class and tone. It is not the typical horror stuff," she adds. PTI KKP BK BK Ludhiana, Jan 15 (PTI) Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh Tuesday stressed on the use of sexed semen technology to improve the quality of milch cattle, especially buffaloes and cows, in the state and called for tie-ups with world-class companies for technology transfer for the same. The chief minister was reviewing the progress of Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (GADVASU) and Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) here, according to an official release. Sexed semen technology would help dairy farmers ensure production of only female calves and would eventually put an end to the practice of abandoning male buffaloes, which is posing a major threat to human life in the form of the stray cattle menace, he said. Animal Husbandry Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu told the chief minister the department was making concerted efforts to explore the possibility of making sexed semen technology available to the farmers through the US-based company, 'Sexing Technologies'. Amarinder also asked the animal husbandry department to collaborate with the National Dairy Research Institute, as well as world renowned veterinary institutions and companies, to bring improvements in embryo transfer technology (ETT) to ensure production of quality livestock. ETT could help in speeding up breed improvement, which would fetch better prices to the dairy farmers through higher milk yield, he added. Livestock has a huge potential to double farmers' income through improved efficiency of production, quality, food safety and economics, he said. Amarinder also said that the fisheries department, in collaboration with GADVASU, should work out a plan to encourage fish farmers in southern Punjab to go for shrimp and pangas farming in a big way as it fetches more remunerative prices than the traditional varieties of carp. He asked the fisheries department to procure good quality shrimp seed from Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry as the water in the southern belt was brackish and conducive for this variety. Conceding a proposal put forth by commissioner agriculture to allow electricity to the livestock sector on rates at par with the agriculture sector, the Chief Minister asked Punjab State Power Corporation to examine the issue and come out with financial implications in this regard. PTI CHS RVK RVK New Delhi, Jan 15 (PTI) The Congress Tuesday accused the Modi government of systematic decimation of the economy and jeopardising the future of youths, farmers and the marginalised through its decisions. Congress spokesperson Gaurav Vallabh demanded the government come out with a white paper on Mudra loans to ascertain in which sector there was default. He accused the government of unleashing anarchy in the country's economy, destroying the unorganised sector and worsening the agrarian crisis. The government has "ill-treated" the farmers, who are getting less prices for their produce and are paying more for their daily needs, he said. "As the Narendra Modi government enters its last lap, it is crystal clear that it has unleashed an economic anarchy of 'jumlanomics' and wreaked havoc in the lives of the people. It is high time that PM Modi reflect on his unwitting decisions and apologise to the people. Ninety days are now left, and the people have already made up their mind to vote out the BJP," he told reporters here. He said the falling farm-produce prices and rising non-farm prices was causing rural distress, frauds, fake news. "The Narendra Modi government is single-handedly responsible for destroying, damaging and demolishing the Indian economy, thereby severely jeopardising the future of youths, farmers and the marginalised. There is no doubt that the twin assaults on the economy -- demonetisation and a flawed GST -- finished jobs and completely decimated the unorganised sector," he said. Vallabh alleged the Modi government's gross financial mismanagement was killing consumption and purchasing power, encouraging deflation, hurting exports, stagnating investments, terminating manufacturing growth and lowered the faith of the people in the banking sector. "There are no jobs. Farmers are in extreme distress. The rural sector is anguished. The poor are suffering. The countdown for Modi government's exit has begun, even though it is trying to clutch at straws by announcing one 'jumla' after another," he said. Charging the government with dealing a severe blow to the socio-economics of the country, he said there are no jobs, the unemployment rate has increased to a 27-month high of 7.38 per cent in December 2018. In the last one year, 1.1 crore people have lost their jobs, 3 crore people are looking for jobs and unemployment rose to a four-year high post-demonetisation. Taking on the government over joblessness, he said while the prime minister claims there is no 'data on jobs', a report prepared by the former Niti Aayogs VC Arvind Panagariya on 'jobs data' has been "deliberately kept in the cold storage by the Modi Government" which is said to have painted a "grim picture" for job creation. The government has also held back labour bureau's employment/unemployment report for 2016-17, he alleged, noting that HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar made an "obnoxiously bizarre remark" on the unemployment crisis where he allegedly said "people who don't work out of choice, cannot be considered unemployed". "This comment not only mocks our youth, but also rubs salt on their wounds inflicted by the Modi government. Earlier, we have heard horribly repulsive comments by PM Modi himself on how opening a 'pakoda' stall is also job creation," he alleged. He said the wholesale price index (WPI) for December revealed that the WPI for the sub-component for primary food articles has been negative for six consecutive months beginning July 2018 which means the price at which farmers are selling their products are falling. Fall in nominal rural incomes due to falling prices and low rural wage growth are bound to put a squeeze on consumption demand in the economy, Vallabh said. He said the worst agrarian crisis in 20 years created due to "the demonetisation scam and Gabbar Singh Tax" has forced the government "to bandage the situation" by giving interest-free loans and income support schemes ahead of the general elections. "Like all other schemes, this is a hurried scheme prepared by a panic-stricken Modi government. This will only turn out to be an electoral 'jumla'," he said. He also said that Indias foreign direct investment (FDI) outflows more than doubled in 2017 to USD 11.3 billion while FDI inflows fell 9 per cent to USD 40 billion during the year, according to the latest World Investment Report, 2018, released by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). "Which means even though ease of doing business ranking is getting better, economic conditions created by the Modi government are not conducive for private investment," he said. PTI SKC SKC IND IND New Delhi, Jan 15 (PTI) The country's exports growth remained almost flat in December 2018, recording a marginal expansion of 0.34 per cent to USD 27.93 billion, mainly on account of global trade tensions. Subdued exports and declining imports have narrowed the trade deficit to ten-month low of USD 13.08 billion in December 2018 as against USD 14.2 billion in the same month previous year. According to trade data released by the commerce ministry, in last December, exports grew by 0.34 per cent (lowest in three months), while imports entered negative zone, registering a decline of 2.44 per cent to USD 41 billion. Last time, imports had plunged into negative territory in September 2016. It was dipped by 2.54 per cent then. The import of gold too contracted by 24.33 per cent to USD 2.56 billion in December 2018. During the month under review, several key export sectors recorded negative growth. It includes engineering goods, gems and jewellery, leather, pharmaceuticals, marine products, iron ore, tea and coffee. Commenting on the figures, exporters body FIEO said that the marginal growth in exports was due to uncertain global cues and challenges on the domestic front. "Chinas exports contracted in December 2018, highlighting fragile global conditions. The weak global economic outlook are showing no signs of respite," Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President Ganesh Kumar Gupta said. Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) Chairman Ravi Sehgal too said the unfolding global situation comprises not only problems on account of trade tensions between China and the US but other issues like uncertainty over Brexit fall-out in the European markets. "The situation certainly calls for a major rethink and redrawing of our export strategy," he said. However, cumulatively during April-December this fiscal, exports grew by 10.18 per cent to USD 245.44 billion. Imports rose by 12.61 per cent to USD 386.65 billion. The trade deficit widened to USD 141.2 billion during the nine months of the current fiscal from USD 120.57 billion in April-December 2017-18. Oil imports in December 2018 rose by 3.16 per cent to USD 10.67 billion. During April-December this fiscal, imports grew by 42.85 per cent to USD 108.10 billion. Non-oil imports during the nine-month period of the fiscal increased by 4.06 per cent to USD 278.54 billion. PTI RR CS BAL The Sabarimala protests had its reverberations at a function attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Kollam to inaugurate a bypass road on Tuesday. As Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan started speaking, a section of the audience tried to create a disturbance by chanting Saranam Ayyappa hymns, prompting him to warn the hecklers. "It is better not to create unnecessary noise. Everyone should maintain decorum. Do not use this as a venue for showing off, Vijayan said, and added that some people have come to the event just to make noise. Kerala has been witnessing widespread protests ever since a Constitution bench of the Supreme Court lifted a ban on women aged between 10 and 50 from entering the famous hill shrine. The CPI(M)-led LDF government has been at the receiving end of these protests, since it repeatedly maintained that it would implement the top court order. Besides Modi, Governor P. Sathasivam, MLAs and MPs were present at the dais when the incident happened on Tuesday. Modi, while addressing a gathering of party workers later in the day, lashed out at both the CPI(M) and the opposition Congress over their stand in the issue. He said the state government's conduct in the Sabarimala issue would go down as one of the "most shameful behaviours" by any party and government. "We know that the Communists do not respect the Indian history, culture and spirituality but nobody imagined they would have such hatred," the prime minister said. Slamming the "multiple stand" taken by the Congress and the party-led opposition front UDF in the state, he urged them to clear their stance. With inputs from PTI Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to arrive in Odisha and Kerala on Tuesday on brief visits to inaugurate various development projects and also address BJP rallies as the party prepares for Lok Sabha polls. The BJP has heightened efforts to make inroads in both states in recent years. Modi is first scheduled to visit Odisha, where he will arrive in the morning. Modi will be visiting Balangir district in Western Odisha, where he will dedicate a multi-modal logistics park (MMLP) in Jharsuguda and a new railway line between Balangir and Bichupali around 10am. Modi is then scheduled to address a rally in Balangir's Patharchepa ground by 11am. Interestingly, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik will not be attending Modi's official programmes as he has alternate events scheduled. Patnaik is scheduled to address a farmers' meeting during the time of Modi's visit. A minister in the state government is expected to be deputed to attend Modi's official programme. During an earlier visit of Modi to Baripada on January 5, Patnaik was absent. Patnaik's decision to abstain from attending Modi's programmes has given risen to speculation he wants to appear equidistant from both the BJP and Congress. Modi will arrive in Thiruvananthapuram after his visit to Odisha. He is scheduled to fly by helicopter to Kollam district after 5pm to inaugurate the Kollam bypass, built at a cost of nearly Rs 352 crore. The bypass is 13km long and is expected to reduce travel time between Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is expected to be present at the event. Modi is then scheduled to address a rally of BJP workers in Kollam. BJP workers from Mavelikara, Kollam and Alappuzha are expected to attend the rally. Later in the evening, Modi is scheduled to pray at the revered Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram. Modi's visit comes in the wake of months of protest by the BJP and groups affiliated to the RSS against the Supreme Court decision on allowing entry of women of all ages to the Sabarimala temple. The Supreme Court on Tuesday reinforced a ban on mining in East Jaintia hills of Meghalaya, amid government's failure to rescue 15 miners from a rat hole mine for the past one month. In an order which accepted the arguments of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which had said, in 2014, that rivers, farms and forest lands were greatly damaged due to massive mining in the hilly area, SC accepted all arguments of the NGT as valid. It has asked the state government to monitor the state so that the mines are not used illegally. The apex court has also asked the Meghalaya government to do the needful to enforce a mining ban in the area. Speaking exclusively to THE WEEK last month, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said mining in the Jaintia hills was allowed, with suitable measures to protect the environment and ecological balance. Sangma said, "We will have to do a bit of balancing between giving permission to mines, along with protecting the nature." The BJP, which is part of the coalition, had asked the government to take all necessary steps to submit a petition to the Supreme Court legalising mining in the area. There are around 24,000 rate hole mines around Jaintia hills in Meghalaya, which are all owned by private bodies. The coal rich belt has huge forests, and is surrounded by several rivers which flows down to the valley of Assam. As coal waste flowed down, all the rivers were polluted over the years. Despite the ban, in the absence of any other livelihood, villagers continued to mine the hilly areas illegally. Last month, 15 of them were trapped inside one of thousands of rat holes. The matter was reported to government hours later as the villagers were subject to government action. Disaster relief officials were able to reach around 370 feet but rescue was not possible. With no trace of the villagers, the chief minister sought help from the central government after three days. Prime Minister Narendra Modi pressed the defence ministry into action, and Navy and Air force were made available. Several water pumps from a private organisation were rushed to Meghalaya from Odisha, with additional NDRF men, but that too failed. After Supreme Court's intervention, about 15 days later, Indian army contingent was sent to the accident spot on January 4. Senior government officials of Meghalaya said senior scientists have been sent to Meghalaya from Hyderbad as well. "They are using remote controlled equipments to pump out the water inside the mine," a senior NDRF official said in a statement. The real hindrance is rising water level inside the mine. "Even if we pump out water, the water inside the hole does not subside. There is also a problem in placing more equipment as the mines are not scientifically dug up," said the NDRF official. Officials have accepted that there is no chance of the trapped villagers being alive. All three services of the Indian Armed forces have dedicated days that celebrate their significance and their role in protecting the nation. While Air Force Day is celebrated on October 8 every year to commemorate the founding of the service on that day in 1932, Navy Day is celebrated on December 4 to celebrate the Indian Navy's missile attacks on Karachi on that day in the 1971 War. Army Day, which is being celebrated on Tuesday, commemorates the appointment of lieutenant general Kodandera Madappa Cariappa as the first 'Indian' commander-in-chief of the Indian Army. He took over from Roy Butcher as chief of the Indian Army on January 15, 1949. Born in Madikeri, Coorg, in present-day Karnataka in 1900, K.M. Cariappa, had many distinctions in military service. He became the first Indian officer to join the Staff College in Quetta (present-day Pakistan) in 1933. He saw action under the British during World War II in the Middle East and Burma. Pakistan's first military dictator, General Ayub Khan, served under Cariappa's command during this period. Before partition, Cariappa was recalled from the Imperial Defence College (since renamed the Royal College of Defence Studies) to serve on the Army Sub Committee of the Forces Reconstitution Committee that would divide the British Indian Army between India and Pakistan. Before taking over as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Army, Cariappa had led Indian Army units that drove out Pakistan-back raiders from Jammu and Kashmir in 1948. In addition to showing prowess as a military leader, Cariappa also won the hearts of the local residents by arranging for essential food items. There is a park in honour of Cariappa in Baramullah. Cariappa remained active in public life after retirement, serving as high commissioner to Australia and New Zealand and was active in promoting the cause of ex-servicemen's welfare. Cariappa was given the rank of field marshal of the Indian Army in 1986, only the second Indian after Sam Manekshaw to get the title. Cariappa died in 1993. Cariappa had a memorable exchange with his subordinate Ayub Khan during the 1965 war when his son, K.C. Cariappa, an IAF fighter pilot, was shot down over Pakistan. When his son was taken prisoner, Khan contacted his former commander, offering to release him. However, Cariappa told Khan he expected no special treatment for his son. Doordarshan National will now have an hourly slot for science. Called Doordarshan Science, the one-hour daily programme, from 5 to 6pm, is an attempt to communicate science and its values to distant reaches of the country. A joint effort of the Department of Science and Technology and Vigyan Prasar, the programming was initially in English. But Doordarshan director general Supriya Sahu said, during the launch, that the plan was to get programming done in regional languages to extend the reach. DST and Vigyan Prasar have also launched India Science, an internet-based channel that will offer live, scheduled video-on-demand services. Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan, who launched both the channels, said that these had been in the making for over two years, but that they did not want to launch something without ensuring it was a good product. Doordarshan is the best medium to communicate good science, because it is not governed by the pressures of TRPs. Ashutosh Sharma, secretary, science and technology, added that India ranked fifth in the number of scientific publications, but when it came to communicating these scientific achievements, the efforts were inadequate and ineffective. He said that in addition to the two channels, the DST will soon launch an India Science and Technology Innovation portal, where PhD scholars will be encouraged to write popular science stories or create videos and blogs of their research. We have already received 3,000 such entries, he said. These efforts should take away some of the bad publicity the government has received in recent times for encouraging an atmosphere of pseudo-science in the name of harking back to India's past. Utterances from both ministers and men of science have left the scientific community aghast. Some of these include claims that the Kauravas were test-tube babies and that ancient Indians pioneered not just air travel, but also inter-galactic travel. Mammootty fans have enough and more to cheer for in February. Two highly anticipated filmsYatra and Peranbu of the veteran actor are set for release in February. Director Ram confirmed on Monday that Peranbu will release worldwide on February 1. Since its international debut at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam in 2018, Peranbu has been a widely talked-about film. It was also screened at the Shanghai International Film Festival. The Mammootty-starrer, back from the festival circuit, also features Samuthirakani, Suraj Venjaramoodu and Siddique. The film also features Anjali Ameer, a transexual woman from Kerala, in a pivotal role. The bilingual film will release in both Tamil and Malayalam. Telugu film Yatra in which Mammootty essays former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, is scheduled for release on February 8. In this biopic, director Mahi V. Raghav will take the audience through YSR's political journey and his famous padayatra in 2003 which led him to the chief minister's chair. The film also features Jagapathi Babu, Suhasini Maniratnam, Sudheer Babu and Rao Ramesh. Going by the photos and trailer, Mammootty has easily slipped into the shoes of the legendary politician. He has also dubbed his own lines in Telugu in Yatra . After wrapping up the shoot, the director who was all praise for the veteran actor had penned an emotional note in which he thanked the star for being part of the film. 'Wink girl' Priya Prakash Varrier is gearing up for her Bollywood debut. The teaser of her first Bollywood film, Sridevi Bungalow, was released on Monday. In the teaser, Priya plays a glamorous actress and refers to herself as Sridevi. The teaser has become talk of the town for its uncanny resemblance to late Bollywood actress Sridevi and her sudden death in Dubai last year. The teaser ends with the scene of the actress in the bathtub with only her feet visible. This has raised eyebrows as actress Sridevi had died of accidental drowning in a bathtub during her stay in a Dubai hotel. Though makers have not come out with an official statement, the seemingly insensitive promotion has irked Sridevi's husband, Boney Kapoor. According to reports, he has sought legal action against the makers of the film. Speaking to media, Priya Varrier said the audience is free to interpret in their own way after watching the film. Sridevi Bungalow is written and directed by Prasanth Mambully who is a Malayali. Also Read: 'Winking girl' Priya Varrier spotted with leading Bollywood actors Priya Prakash Varrier became an overnight sensation last year after her appearance in the song Manikya Malaraya Poovi from Malayalam movie Oru Adaar Love. The scene in which she winks flirtatiously at a boy went viral on social media with Priya garnering a record one million followers on Instagram in a single day. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc addresses the conference (Photo: VNA) The PM attended an investment promotion conference in Dak Nong on January 14th during his working visit to the locality. The conference brought together nearly 1,000 ministry and sector insiders, provincial officials, and delegates representing local and foreign enterprises. Dak Nong lies in the southwest exit of the Central Highlands, linking with Ho Chi Minh city and the southeastern region via highway 14, and Lam Dong and central coastal provinces via highway 28. It shares a borderline of 13 km and two border-gates with Cambodia. It has over 120,000 ha grown with coffee, 32,900 ha with pepper plants, over 2,600 ha with avocado, and over 7,000 ha with sweet potato. The province has two operating industrial zones covering a total land of 327.5 ha, and the over 800-ha Nhan Co 2 industrial zone which is being planned. It has adopted policies for hi-tech agriculture and aluminum processing industry, and completed a dossier on Dak Nong geopark for submission to UNESCOs recognition as a global geopark. In 2018, Dak Nong posted a GRDP growth rate of 8.21 percent with average income per capita reaching VND45.24 million, and collected over VND2.3 trillion for the State budget. With such advantageous strengths and potential, Dak Nong wishes to draw more big economic groups to invest in the locality. PM Phuc said Dak Nong should increase the growing of avocado, pepper, coffee, passion fruit, and macca trees given its 650,000 ha of fertile land. Investors need to work together with local people to promote the development of hi-tech and organic agriculture to raise the added value of products. For tourism, the province should tap tangible and intangible heritages of over 40 ethnic groups residing there and mild weather, he said. Mining, especially the production of bauxite, which has reserves of billions of tonnes, should be the other way for the localitys development, he added, showing his delight at the initial success of the bauxite production project in Nhan Co. To become rich and strong, Dak Nong needs to make the best use of its potential and strengths and have a bold mindset in investment, he stressed. The province should speed up administrative reform and train professional staffers to assist investors, he said, suggesting the locality using advantages in the business environment to make up for disadvantages in infrastructure. The leader reminded the local authorities of developing trade, improving the quality of human resources, especially the public workforce helping them to have better management, and promoting the growth of private businesses. He asked the province to well manage immigration and unregistered workers along with protecting the environment and connecting with other regions for mutual development. The Government is committed to creating all favourable conditions to develop infrastructure in Dak Nong and other localities ridden by difficulties. The Government will provide all possible conditions for investors to help them feel secured doing their business in localities, the PM said. At the conference, Dak Nongs authorities handed over investment certificates worth nearly VND2.7 trillion, and signed investment commitments with big economic groups with pledged investment capital nearing VND48 trillion./. Dating in the time of social media can be confusing. When THE WEEK caught up with author Preeti Shenoy at the Kerala Literature Festival in Kozhikode, we discussed this and more. Known for her slice-of-life kind of writing on love and relationships, Shenoy talked about finding joy in little things, her Kerala connection and her penthouse farm. What works against him are the below average dialogues and a sloppy script The Office of theUnited Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established on December 14,1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. UNHCRs mandate under the Statuteof the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is to leadand co-ordinate action for international protection to refugees; seek permanentsolutions for the problems of refugees and safeguard refugee rights andwell-being. UNHCR has an additional mandate concerning issues of statelessness,as it is given a designated role under Article 11 of the 1961 Convention on theReduction of Statelessness. The lawsuit, originally filed June 13, 2016, by D. Duane Cook on behalf of Dr. James Taylor and his wife, Dinah, alleges that the UC's board of trustees negotiated an approved an agreement in an October 2005 meeting to continue Taylor's salaries and benefits "following his retirement from the position of president" beginning "on the date of his retirement until his death." In addition, the lawsuit claims that if Taylor were to precede his wife in death, she would receive all "such compensation and benefits." The university has denied that such an agreement was ever made. | File Photo Timothy Seth Bryant Pennington was born on January 30, 1988 in Corbin, Ky. He departed this life on June 3, 2021 to be with his Lord and Savior, whom he accepted as a young boy at his church, West Corbin Baptist. Seth was assured of his salvation and knew where he would spend his eternity. S Working folks of Medicare age need to be aware of how COBRA health insurance works for them. If you leave your job for any reason and are considering buying a COBRA, you should think again. You will pay a premium for primary coverage, but claims will be processed as secondary to Medicare whether or not you have enrolled in Medicare Part B. If Medicare Part B has not been activated, you will owe the providers what Medicare would have paid; i.e., the insurance company pays nothing. You will have paid a premium for no coverage. Many Americans today will have to Google Angela Davis just to learn who she is. For Baby Boomers such as myself, however, Davis symbolized the political radicalism of the 1960s and early 1970s. As a professor at the University of California and member of the Communist party, Davis was outspoken in her condemnation of racism and publicly characterized police officers as pigs. Such bluntness didnt sit well with the universitys Board of Regents, who dismissed Davis from the faculty in 1970. Davis became a media sensation later that year when she purchased firearms that were used by Jonathan Jackson in a California courtroom, where the presiding judge and several others were taken hostage. Jackson intended to use the hostages to secure the release of the Soledad Brothers from prison. During the ensuing shoot-out, four people were killed, including the judge and Jackson, who was the kid brother of Soledad Brother George Jackson. Davis became a fugitive but was eventually captured and brought to trial, where she pleaded not-guilty. She became a cause celebre. The Rolling Stones Sweet Black Angel and John Lennon and Yoko Onos Angela were dedicated to Davis. On June 4, 1972, an all-white jury found her not guilty. Once again, Davis is back in the news. The Birmingham (AL) Civil Rights Institute announced last year that Davis would receive the prestigious Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award at its annual gala in February 2019. However, the institute recently released a statement announcing that supporters and other concerned individuals..began to make requests that we reconsider our decision. The organizations board decided not to bestow this award on Davis. Many Leftists are livid. Theyre convinced that the American Jewish community lobbied the institute to deny Davis this award because of her support for the Palestinians and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. The institute stated in its press release, Upon closer examination of Ms. Davis statements and public record, we concluded that she unfortunately does not meet all the criteria on which the award is based. I couldnt agree more. Davis decades of membership in the Communist Party, USA disqualify her for any kind of human rights award. One can be a member of the CPUSA or a human rights activist but not both. She was a member of the party when it was nothing more than a puppet of the old Soviet Union. Davis consistently took the United States to task for human rights abuses but said nothing about the oppression and persecution perpetrated by the governments of the USSR and its East European satellites. When asked to voice her opposition to the imprisonment of dissidents in the Soviet Union, Davis responded, They are all Zionist fascists and opponents of socialism. While in East Germany to receive an award as well as an honorary degree, she visited the Berlin Wall. Davis said nothing about the East Berliners who had been gunned down while trying to escape to the West. Davis support for cult leader and mass murderer Jim Jones further disqualifies her for a human rights award. On September 10, 1977, Davis addressed Jones and his followers in Guyana via a radio phone-patch. Davis said she was very deeply obligated to you for what you have done to further the fight for justice, to further the struggle against oppression, to further the fight against racism. She told Jones and his cult members that critics attacked them because of your progressive stand. Davis also said that there was a very profound conspiracy to destroy the contributions which you have made to our struggle. That was hardly what the paranoid Jones needed to hear. On November 18, 1978, Jones orchestrated the mass suicide of over 900 of his followers by drinking a cyanide-laced powdered-drink mix. Angela Davis doesnt deserve a human rights award. Again and again, she sided with the oppressor rather than the oppressed. John J. Dunphys latest book, Unsung Heroes of the Dachau Trials, includes interviews with veterans of the U.S. Army 7708 War Crimes Group, who apprehended and prosecuted Nazi war criminals after World War II. GLEN CARBON Two men have been charged with multiple felony counts in an incident involving a stolen vehicle and a subsequent foot pursuit. Lamont C. Johnson III, 26, and Christopher V. Johnson, 30, of the St. Louis, were both charged with unlawful possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, criminal damage to government supported property, unlawful possession of a stolen license plate, and offenses relating to motor vehicle. Both men also had outstanding warrants from outside of Illinois which resulted in the fugitive from justice charges. Five years ago, James Watson, one of the fathers of DNA, tried to sell his Nobel Prize because people thought he was a racist. Watson, who won the prize in 1962 for outlining the double-helix structure of DNA, wanted to offer penance for the comments that brought his reputation crashing down in 2007. That year, the scientist told Britain's Sunday Times that he was "gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because he believed African intelligence was genetically lower than that of Europeans. For years, Watson never lived the comments down, telling the Financial Times in 2014 that he believed the backlash over his comments had made him an "unperson." But if he had been trying to change his reputation on the topic of race, on Friday it became apparent that the 90-year-old scientist hasn't done himself any favors this month. In "American Masters: Decoding Watson," a PBS documentary released Jan. 2, he revealed that his scientifically unsupported views on race and genetics have not changed "at all" since 2007 - leading the laboratory where he spent the bulk of his career to revoke his honorary titles. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island issued the announcement Friday along with a searing rebuke of Watson, calling his beliefs "reprehensible" and "unsupported by science." "Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) unequivocally rejects the unsubstantiated and reckless personal opinions Dr. James D. Watson expressed on the subject of ethnicity and genetics during the PBS documentary 'American Masters: Decoding Watson' that aired January 2, 2019," Marilyn Simons, CSHL's chair of the board of trustees, and Bruce Stillman, president and CEO, said in the statement. They added: "The Laboratory condemns the misuse of science to justify prejudice." Cold Spring Harbor had removed Watson as chancellor and from all administrative duties in 2007 following his explosive comments but allowed him to maintain an office and several titles after Watson expressed regret over making them. On Friday, the lab revoked his titles of chancellor emeritus, honorary trustee, and Oliver R. Grace professor emeritus. Attempts to reach Watson late Sunday night were unsuccessful. Watson, renowned for his landmark co-discovery of the double-helix in the 1950s and his ensuing research in molecular biology, also developed a reputation as an unfiltered provocateur, sometimes denigrating the reputations of colleagues or making remarks seen as sexist, homophobic or racist. The scientific community drew a line in the sand in 2007. Watson told a British reporter with the Sunday Times that "all our social policies are based on the fact that African intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really." He added that he hoped everyone was equal - "but people who have to deal with black employees find this not true." Days later, he said in a statement to the Associated Press: "I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said. There is no scientific basis for such a belief." That was also the resounding consensus from the scientific community. Geneticist Joseph L. Graves explained in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper at the time that Watson's beliefs stemmed from some geneticists who believed there were relationships between IQ scores and genetics. But Graves said there is no scientific basis suggesting the two are causally linked, or that IQ scores are even a reliable measure of intelligence. The most "obvious" explanation for differences in IQ tests are environmental factors affecting a person's upbringing, he added. In the PBS documentary, when the interviewer asked Watson whether his views on the relationship between race and intelligence have changed, Watson responded, "no, not at all." "I would like for them to have changed," he said. "There would [have to be] new knowledge, which says that your nurture is much more important than nature. But I haven't seen any knowledge. And there's a difference on the average between blacks and whites on IQ tests. I would say the difference is ... it's genetic." "Racism suspends all rational judgment. It really does," Graves said in the PBS documentary. "It's one of the most insidious things that racism does. It takes people who are otherwise brilliant people and gets them down roads that are intellectually unsupportable." Criticism of Watson's remarks and his treatment of others date back to his and his colleague Francis Crick's Nobel Prize for the discovery of the double-helix. A third scientist, Rosalind Franklin, whose critical X-ray photograph of a DNA molecule led to the discovery, died four years before Crick and Watson won the prize. And in Watson's book recounting the discovery, "The Double Helix," he dismissed Franklin as "Rosy," criticized her clothing and makeup and otherwise downplayed her role, critics have pointed out. In 2000, the San Francisco Chronicle reported he told an audience at the University of California at Berkeley that there was a link between sunlight exposure and sex drive, saying, "That's why you have Latin Lovers. You've never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient." He also suggested that thin people weren't happy, which made them inherently more ambitious than "fat people." "Whenever you interview fat people," he said, the Chronicle reported at the time, "you feel bad, because you know you're not going to hire them." In 2012, he told a science conference that "having all these women around makes it more fun for the men but they're probably less effective." Perhaps his most controversial take on sexuality came in the 1997, when he suggested to the Sunday Telegraph that if a gene was discovered for homosexuality prior to a baby's birth and a pregnant woman didn't want the baby with this gene, she should be allowed to abort. He later said his comments were taken out of context but said in an interview with the Independent: "During an interview, I was asked about homosexuality and I related a story about a woman who felt her life had been ruined because her son was a homosexual and she would never have grandchildren. I simply said that women in that situation should have a choice over whether or not to abort. I didn't say that fetuses found to have a gay gene should be aborted." In its statement Friday, Cold Spring Harbor said it "acknowledges and appreciates Dr. Watson's substantial scientific legacy," but that his statements in the PBS documentary reaffirming his belief in the relationship between race and intelligence are "utterly incompatible with our mission, values and policies." The statements "require the severing of any remaining vestiges of his involvement," the lab said. EDWARDSVILLE Loretta the dog is enjoying her last days, thanks to Patti Barney and Partners for Pets. Loretta was left at the Clinton County Animal Control office near Lake Carlyle on Nov. 27. The animal control office called Partners for Pets, and they went and picked her up. When they got her, she had a large tumor on her abdomen. After we took her to the vet, Barney, Lorettas foster mom and president of the Board of Director of Partners for Pets, said, we knew she was terminal. We through about leaving the tumor but decided to remove it because it made it difficult for her to get up and down and go to the bathroom. A lot of shelters would have euthanized her, but we believe that there is value in every life, Barney said. She has fostered dogs before, she said, but never a hospice dog. We wanted her to go from where she had been to experiencing love and safety, Barney said. She said that Partners for Pets could tell she had been outside most of her life. She had also been bred several times. Now she is inside, she is loved, she has a family, Barney said. When Partners for Pets first took Loretta to the veterinarian, they were told she had about eight weeks to live. We are nearing that eight-week mark, Barney said. But removing the tumor gave her more energy. The cancer had moved into her lungs before Partners for Pets got her, Barney said. If the people who had her before would have removed it earlier, it would have been different. Loretta coughs a lot, but otherwise is a typical dog. Barney said she tires more easily than most dogs, but she is very friendly. She is the sweetest dog and she loves people, Barney said. She would have been a great therapy dog. Shes the way people should be nice to everybody. One of the items on her bucket list was to visit a school, and she got to visit Trinity Lutheran School on Monday. Megan Langendorfs first-grade class at Trinity was ready for Loretta. They had drawn pictures of her to give Barney. They also had several questions for Barney. They asked how old Loretta is, and what she likes to do. Barney said the veterinarian estimated Loretta was around six years old. She is a yellow Labrador. Barney said that Loretta like cats and dogs and people. I havent found someone she doesnt love, she said. Other items on her bucket list that Loretta has completed include being on the TV news, and being a lawyer for a day. Barney provides updates on Lorettas activities on social media. She likes to ride in a car, Barney said. The students suggested more activities for her, including sledding, going to the movies and swimming. They also suggested several travel destinations. She has a lot of followers, Barney said. She also has friends that come and take her to the park and dog park. She has had Annies custard and eats a lot of cheeseburgers, she said. She likes French fries, too. She gets pretty much whatever she wants. She said just being able to be inside and warm and safe during the snow-filled weekend was probably a first for Loretta. Barney said Loretta has gained some weight since Partners for Pets got her, but she could gain more. She is due for another veterinarian visit Thursday. Im just trying to let her best life, Barney said after the classroom visit. People ask how it will be when she passes. Yes, it will be heartbreaking, but it would be more heartbreaking to not have her. Carol Arnett is a freelance photographer and reporter for the Intelligencer. DOWNERS GROVE Local and state law enforcement officials on Monday were still grieving the loss of an Illinois State Police District 15 trooper over the weekend. At approximately 4:45 p.m. Saturday, District 15 Trooper Christopher Lambert was on scene of a three-vehicle traffic crash, in the left lane on I-294. While handling that crash, another vehicle in traffic failed to stop and struck Lambert while he was outside of his police car. Lambert sustained serious injuries as a result of the crash and was given CPR by an off-duty nurse, before being transported to Glenbrook Hospital. At approximately 7:24 p.m., Lambert succumbed to his injuries. Trooper Lambert was a great trooper and was respected by those within and form outside the ISP, this is a tremendous loss which could have been prevented and should have never happened, said ISP Director Leo P. Schmitz. Trooper Lambert deliberately places his vehicle in a position to protect the lives of the victims of the previous crash, and took on the danger himself. He will be remembers for his dedication to the Illinois State Police and for giving the ultimate sacrifice to protect and serve the citizens of Illinois. The Wood River Police Department expressed their thoughts and prayers for Lambert, posting on their Facebook page, our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and the Illinois State Police as they mourn the loss of one of their troopers who was struck and killed by a passing vehicle while working a multi vehicle crash earlier this afternoon. #moveover #slowdown. Lambert was a five-year veteran of the Illinois State Police district in Downers Grove and was assigned to the Criminal Patrol Team. Lambert was also a prior member of the U.S. Army. Lamberts visitation and funeral arrangements are pending. ISP has also stated that the family of Lambert and the Illinois State Police has not started or created any type of GoFundMe account. If, and when, an account is created and vetted by a representative from Lamberts family, the ISP will confirm it and make it known to the public. Until then, Illinois residents are encouraged not to donate to un-verified funding accounts. Theres nothing like a biopic on a snowy Monday afternoon to get the juices flowing. In todays case, the picture was one Id literally been waiting months to see. On the Basis of Sex opened in limited capacity a few weeks ago, but in wide release last Friday. It reminded me a lot of The Post from last year and I would recommend it similarly. Its also about a topic and subject matter that I find impressive and important. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a popular American figure, even rating her own documentary feature in 2018, but moreover she is a catalyst for the ever-changing world in which we live. The new movie focuses on a very specific segment of her life, the one that first brought her to prominence of the national gender-rights campaign, and shows us what made the legend start her crusade in the first place. Ruth (Felicity Jones, the British Oscar winner) enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1956, one of only nine women permitted to do so by the conservative bastion of male legal status (embodied by Sam Waterston as Dean Erwin Griswold, her antagonist and later Solicitor General of the United States). Her pluck and determination were the foundation for a successful studentship that ultimately led her to finish her J.D. at Columbia after her husband, Martin, moved to take a great job in his own field of tax law. She always had a sharp mind and a fierce attacking spirit, but the constant insult of failing to land her own litigating career drove her to become one of the first tenured female professors at Rutgers, teaching the next generation of legal eagles. There is, as you can see, quite a bit of exposition in this movie before the actual action of the plot gets underway. As a matter of fact, I thought the build-up was a nice way to show how Marty and Ruth were equals, both driven by their love of the law, but both also understanding that her destiny was that of a great woman. The demonstration of what this means to their children, particularly daughter Jane (Cailee Spaeny), is also one of the better relationships examined by the film. Frustration over being relegated to teaching gets to Ruth, but Marty comes to the rescue with the 1970 Denver Appellate Court case of Charles L. Moritz v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue. Its been a while since high school civics class, but history has a way of sticking with you. Moritz was a bachelor who was denied reimbursement on his taxes for money hed laid out to a nurse that cared for his ill mother while he continued to work simply because he was a man and men werent thought of as approved caregivers. The door that this opened for Ruth and Marty was one that showed equal protection for the sexes under the law as portended by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was being rejected in federal court. My nerdy little heart gave a cheer when Joness eyes twinkled over the prospect of getting to adjudicate this one. In order to garner support for their case, Ruth turns for help to the ACLU and its legal director, Mel Wulf (Justin Theroux). She twists his arm with the help of their shared hero pioneer, Dorothy Kenyon (Kathy Bates). Better armed with Mels resources and banner, Ruth takes on the government, who counters her argument by presenting its defense of the American family as its reason for upholding this law and 177 others that hold men and women to different legal standards.Something this repugnant was able to withstand nearly two hundred years of our nations history, but thats not the way its supposed to be. Thats my take-away from this movie and one day, I hope, for my four nieces and two goddaughters to understand that the law cant stop them from being who they want to be simply because they are women. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a big part of why this is so and why shes now served more than a quarter of a century on the U.S. Supreme Court. I wish her a lasting recovery for the cancer treatment that is currently causing her to miss this terms oral arguments. Godspeed, RBG! On the Basis of Sex runs 115 minutes and is rated PG-13 for some language and suggestive content. I give this film three stars out of four. SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) Billionaire J.B. Pritzker took the oath Monday as Illinois governor, giving Democrats nearly unprecedented power at the Statehouse after four years of divided government only worsened the economic woes of a state billions of dollars in debt. The 53-year-old heir to the Hyatt hotel chain defeated Republican predecessor Bruce Rauner in November. Throughout his four years in office, Rauner clashed with Democrats who dominate the Legislature, contributing to the longest stretch without an annual budget of any state since the Great Depression and driving the states credit rating to the brink of junk status. Pritzker offered a cooperative future while blaming the stalemate on Rauner and his insistence that only a complete reboot could fix broken Illinois. At 200 years old, Illinois is still a young promise, said Pritzker, who became the states 43rd executive six weeks after its bicentennial. We must begin a new century with new maturity and enough foolishness to believe we can make a difference. That starts with leadership that abandons single-minded, arrogant notions. No, everything is not broken. Circumstances have set the bar low for Pritzker success. Rauners demand for his business-friendly, anti-union agenda in exchange for a state spending plan hit a buzz-saw in the Democrats who controlled the General Assembly. Chicago Democrat Michael Madigan took the gavel last week for his 18th term as House speaker, a tenure covering all but two years since 1983. The longest serving speaker of a state House in U.S. history brought with him near-record legislative majorities. In the past 140 years, the 74-44 Democratic House majority is second only to the partys strength in 1965-67, and the Senates 40 Democrats to 19 Republicans matches the 2013-15 count and, as a percentage, falls behind only the Democrats 1935-37 majority. Pritzker repeated pledges to create a long-desired capital construction plan to fix roads and bridges and to make a push in the just-begun General Assembly to legalize the recreational use of marijuana and its hoped-for $1 billion in annual tax revenue. And Illinois flat-rate income tax system, which turns 50 this year, is unsustainable, according to Pritzker, whose $3.2 billion net worth ranked him 251st on Forbes wealthiest 400 Americans last fall. He reiterated his promise to change the state Constitution to create a progressive system that forces the rich to pay a greater percentage of income. Our regressive tax system has the middle class paying more than double the rate the wealthy pay. Thats not fair, and it also doesnt pay our bills, Pritzker said. Today our states fiscal instability affects every single person who lives and works in Illinois, whether you earn millions or the minimum wage. Illinois taxpayers well know the fiscal foibles, which predate Rauners term. Overdue bills total $7.5 billion and a $130 billion shortfall in what the state owes to its pension plans continues to haunt politicians who repeatedly short-changed it. The Rauner administration last fall predicted the current state budget will fall $500 million short at the end of the fiscal year June 30, although tax revenues in the first six months of the budget year ran 10 percent ahead of the previous year. After Mondays inauguration, Democrats comprise Illinois entire statewide slate. Incoming Lt. Gov. Julianna Stratton and Attorney General Kwame Raoul were inaugurated. Secretary of State Jesse White, 84, took the oath for an unprecedented fifth term. Beginning second terms were Treasurer Michael Frerichs and Comptroller Susana Mendoza, who shortly after her November re-election entered a crowded field to replace retiring Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Februarys election. Follow Political Writer John OConnor at https://twitter.com/apoconnor. SPRINGFIELD The Illinois Association of Museums (IAM) has recognized the Illinois State Museum as the Leader Institution of the Year (2018), one of the associations Awards of Distinction that recognize excellence in the museum field, the highest honor given by the IAM. In presenting the award, an IAM review committee member hailed the Illinois State Museum for continuing its tradition of research, conservation, exhibits and programming. In addition to its outstanding work maintaining, expanding and interpreting the museums collections, the Illinois State Museum has furthered its mission of inspiring exploration of Illinois history and promoting stewardship of the states cultural and natural resources through a variety of programs and platforms. In 2018, in addition to popular monthly family and youth programs and special events, the Illinois State Museum helped celebrate Illinois Bicentennial: Developed The Story of Illinois website, featuring objects from the collections of museums from throughout the state that help celebrate the states rich heritage; Hosted the major exhibition Bicentennial and Beyond: The Illinois Legacy Collection featuring rare artifacts from the museums 13.5-million-object Illinois Legacy Collection to highlight the dynamic story of Illinois; the exhibition remains open through Feb. 3; Collaborated with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and Mid-West Family Broadcasting in production of daily Bicentennial Minute features on Illinois history for broadcast, podcast and online listening; Presented a monthly Bicentennial speaker series, The Culture and Heritage of Illinoisans in partnership with Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield. In 2019, the Illinois State Museum will continue a wide array of dynamic exhibitions and programs to connect Illinois residents and visitors to the story of Illinois history and culture, including: Super Saturdays special events for children and families the first Saturday of each month; Music at the Museum monthly concerts on Thursday evenings featuring contemporary and traditional folk and acoustic music; Tales from the Vault - collaborative programs hosted by the ISM and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum featuring artifacts from the institutions collections not normally on display, with commentary by staff members or local scholars; Friday evening Museum After Hours events connecting museum visitors to special collections and programs with food, drink and fun. Lectures and Learning Series programs on a variety of research and educational topics at the museum and Museum Research and Collections Center in Springfield. Our programming, special events, research and curation of our collections really do aim to share the story of Illinois, said ISM Interim Director Robert Sill. Its a great honor for the Illinois State Museum to receive the Illinois Association of Museums Leader Institution of the Year award. The re-emergence of the Museum has been a team effort by a great staff that understands and honors its legacy. EDWARDSVILLE A Florissant, Missouri, woman pleaded guilty Monday, was sentenced to six years in prison and must pay $75,000 in restitution for cheating the Illinois Department of Public Aid. Deedra Brown was one of three people, including one from Alton, who was accused of submitting false claims of time spent caring for an elderly woman at home while the woman was in a nursing home. Brown, 46, pleaded guilty to a Class X theft charge for submitting false time sheets for home services of a client between Nov. 30, 2010 and Jan. 30, 2016. She was charged Nov. 10, 2016. The Class X theft charge is punishable by a prison term of between six and 30 years. In exchange for her plea, authorities dropped charges of vendor fraud and a class 1 felony theft charge. Attorney General Lisa Madigan and the Illinois State Police announced the charges in March 2017. The three were accused of cheating the state out of more than $151,000 in personal assistance services that were not provided. Marcus Brumfield, 26 of Springfield, and Amanda Jett, 39, of Alton, were also charged with the same counts, but their cases are pending. A court document stated Brown admitted to police who visited her at her home in April 2016 that she has hip and back problems brought on by guilt about the fraud. Jett and Brumfield were personal assistants, while Brown was the power of attorney for a Medicare recipient, according to information provided by Madigans office. Jett and Brumfield are accused of submitting time sheets to the Illinois Department of Human Services Division of Rehabilitation Services for personal assistant services they claimed to have provided while the recipient was living in a nursing home. Brown allegedly approved these time sheets, although the recipient was moved into a nursing home in November 2010. The fraud allegedly continued through January 2016. Reach reporter Sanford Schmidt at 618-208-6449. Kwame Raoul was sworn in today as the states new attorney general. U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman presiding over the ceremony at the inauguration in Springfield. Raoul, the song of Haitian immigrants, was joined onstage by his children, Che and Mizan, as well as his fiancee, Lisa Moore, and his sisters, Edwidge Raoul and Ninaj Raoul. Kwame Raoul paid tribute to Lisa Madigans 16 years of service as attorney general. He pledged to advocate for residents and announced plans to work with the Legislature to pass legislation to create a bureau within the Attorney Generals Office to protect people from wage theft, misclassification, workplace discrimination and other violations. He also emphasized the need for a statewide approach to addressing the opioid and gun violence crises. Kwame Raoul appointed Kim Janas as chief of staff, Adam Braun as executive deputy attorney general and Brent Stratton as chief deputy attorney general. CARLINVILLE An area author is releasing a fresh look at Abraham Lincoln that details many overlooked episodes of the sixteenth Presidents life, including many of Lincolns experiences in central Illinois. Tom Emery, a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville, is creating Moments in Lincolns Life, a unique, easy-to-read look at the lesser-known stories that helped define the greatness of Lincoln. This one-of-a-kind work will feature fifty-six articles on a wide variety of people and events that influenced Lincoln, from the friends, jobs, and events in his New Salem days, his life in Springfield, and his incomparable years in the White House. Lincolns first political campaigns in the 1830s are covered, as are his relationships with his wife and family, his early romances, and his greatest speeches. Other key topics include some of Lincolns legendary legal cases, his divided support as President in Illinois, and how he celebrated Christmas and holiday seasons. Little-known facts about the Lincoln assassination are also featured in Moments in Lincolns Life, including an analysis of the final week of Lincolns life. Illustrations, a list of sources, bibliographic essays, and an index will be included in the book, which is expected to receive favorable pre-publication reviews. There are a lot of stories about Lincoln that need to be told, said Emery. I wanted to bring out new information and new perspectives on Lincoln, since he was such a complex and fascinating individual. I was drawn to some of the events and relationships in his life that havent always been covered before. Emery has created thirty book and booklet titles, and has won eleven awards from the Illinois State Historical Society. Articles with his byline have appeared in over 100 newspapers, including many in Illinois. Moments in Lincolns Life will be released in mid-February, for Presidents Month. The book sells for $19.99 plus $1.25 tax and $3.76 postage and handling ($25 total). Orders may be placed using PayPal (use the e-mail enjoyhistorytoday@gmail.com) or mail by sending your name, address, phone, and check or money order to History in Print, 337 E. Second South, Carlinville, IL 62626. For more information, call 217-710-8392. What worried Ed Wagner the most about exploring the gloomy cluster of abandoned Mission Revival-style buildings in a prime section of San Jose was where to park his bike. He needed some place to lock it up. The nearby Cisco parking lot would do, but he feared Cisco security wouldn't welcome a stranger wandering about their grounds. Wagner, 30, didn't know at the time that the decaying buildings adjacent to Cisco were originally part of an insane asylum constructed to house patients that newspapers of the early 20th century routinely described as "mad," "demented" or the tabloid-friendly "lunatics." But the size of the property in San Jose made an impression. "It initially stuck out to me because what was this huge, disused plot of land doing in such a valuable location?" He said in an email to SFGATE. MORE: The Bay Area's 'ruins': 8 abandoned sites in glorious decay The amateur photographer had stumbled on the East Campus of the old Agnews Developmental Center, formerly known as "The Great Asylum for the Insane" and the California Hospital for the Chronic Insane. The asylum was built in 1885 in what is now Santa Clara, only to be destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. Newspapers reported 117 people, including 96 inmates, were crushed to death when the main building's walls collapsed. Hundreds of "insane persons" who survived the quake fled the grounds and roamed the countryside, the Daily Palo Alto reported. For weeks and even months, the San Francisco Chronicle and other papers ran stories of "lunatic" escapees being recaptured. The asylum was rebuilt in 1911 as the Agnews State Mental Hospital and expanded to a second campus, the East Campus about two miles away at Zanker and Center roads in San Jose in 1926. The two facilities resembled college campuses, small self-contained villages of two-story Mission RevivalSpanish Colonial Revival buildings. For almost five decades the 400-acre East Campus housed and cared for the mentally ill. In 1972, the facility now known as the Agnews Developmental Center changed its mission, becoming exclusively dedicated to treating and caring for patients with major developmental disabilities. RELATED: As care shifts, developmental center to close - April 6, 2008 The center closed 10 years ago. Since then the campus has slowly fallen into disrepair. Its walls have attracted spray-paint vandals and at least one talented muralist. Its offices are trashed. Weeds have overtaken its sprawling lawns. When Wagner happened upon the old asylum last April, it was being prepped for teardown. "The Mission-style buildings had the eeriest atmosphere the corridors and rooms were all dark and cramped," Wagner says. "It was enough to inspire a sense of claustrophobia." The biggest surprise? "Definitely the "Boardwalk" mural. It was two stories tall, but it was tucked into a courtyard. I remember feeling struck by the thought of how something beautiful was locked up where virtually no one would ever see it again, except whoever came to demolish it." You can follow Wagner's footsteps through the old asylum in the above gallery. Where the insane asylum complex once stood, three new schools will rise. The Santa Clara Unified School District is expected to open state-of-the-art elementary and middle schools on 67 acres of the property in fall 2020, with a high school following a year later. One thing we never really addressed back when we were making the Bitsquid engine was localization of the tools. We supported localization of the games made in the engine, of course, but the engine tools themselves were only available in English. As both the number of tools and the number of frameworks used for the tools (Winforms, WPF, HTML, ) grew, the localization task became more daunting. When youre writing an engine, youre never short of stuff to do, and there always seemed to be something more pressing than addressing localization. With The Machinery, we didnt want to make the same sharp distinction between tools and games as we envision lots of use cases where the creative experience is taken all the way to the end user. So it was important to get this right from the start. The scope of the problem Localization in the context of game development can mean many different things. Localization of strings in the UI is probably what first comes to mind, but language can also be found in dialogue audio files and text baked into textures. Finally, there can be legal and cultural issues. For example, localization to Germany requires removing blood and gore. Plot or animation changes might also be necessary. In the Bitsquid engine, all these things were all handled in the same generalized localization framework. I.e., everything was a resource (string resource, audio resource, texture resource, script resource) and we could localize these resources for different targets. Treating everything the same has the advantage of being conceptually simple, but it also has disadvantages. Data-oriented design tells us to look at the data and the data for these different cases looks completely different. The UI text typically only amounts to a couple of KB for an entire game, whereas the audio dialogue can easily end up in the GB range. Solutions that work well in one case might not work well for the other. For example, we can easily keep the UI text for all the supported languages permanently in memory and provide instant switching between different languages. For dialogue sounds, on the other hand, switching language might require unloading and loading megabytes of data a significantly slower and more complicated procedure. If we force everything in under the same localization abstraction, we might force the UI text localization to become as slow and complicated as the other kinds of localization, even though that is completely unnecessary. So in The Machinery, we treat these as separate problems and do not try to solve them all using the same mechanism. In this article, I will only look at the specific problem of localizing UI text. Basic approach The Machinery uses an immediate mode GUI approach (IMGUI), where the UI is built in code rather than in a UI editor. The advantages and disadvantages of this could be the topic of a whole another post. What it means, though, is that since all the UI text is in the C code, what we need for localization is a way of localizing strings in C code. I.e. we need a function that given some key key that identifies a string in the UI, returns a translation of that string in the users currently selected interface language: localize(key) text In The Machinery, this function is actually implemented as a macro TM_LOCALIZE(key) , so I will use capital letters to refer to it from now on. Ill go into details on how TM_LOCALIZE is implemented later, but for now, just think of it as having some kind of table that provides the interface text for each key in all the supported languages and using the key to do a lookup in that table: Key English French Swedish key_file_menu File Fichier Arkiv key_save Save Enregistrer Spara So far, Ive been deliberately vague about what the key that we use to index into this table actually is. One common option is to use an integer identifier for the key and have a big header file that enumerates all the possible key values. Something like this: #define TM_STRING_ID__FILE_MENU 0x0001 #define TM_STRING_ID__SAVE 0x0002 ... However, I find that this approach has a number of problems: It is a little bit painful to go in and edit this header file for every string in the UI, and the header can get pretty large. The Machinery is built as a collection of DLLs. To use this approach we would have to make sure that the IDs did not collide across DLLs, for example by giving each DLL a unique numerical prefix for its IDs. But then we also need a mechanism to ensure that these prefixes never collide. Sequential numbering like this tends to cause a lot of merge conflicts in version control tools. Any programmer who wants to add new IDs needs to put them at the end of the list where they will conflict with new IDs from other programmers as soon as they merge. IDs that are no longer used will still remain in the index as ghosts or holes unless you reuse them for new strings, but then you have the problem that the IDs now has different meanings depending on the version of the software. Because it is a little bit painful to create new IDs, there is a temptation to keep the ID even if you change the UI text. For example, suppose you have a tool in your UI for moving objects around called Relocate. So you create a key ID_RELOCATE and associate it with the string "Relocate" . Later, you decide it is simpler and better to just call the tool "Move" . It is tempting to do this by just changing the text in the translation table and leaving the identifier as it is, but then you end up with the somewhat confusing situation where ID_RELOCATE actually refers to the string "Move" rather than "Relocate" . What can we do instead? Whenever we need unique identifiers but sequential enumeration is problematic, hashing is a good approach. So instead of: TM_LOCALIZE(TM_STRING_ID__FILE_MENU) We could do: TM_LOCALIZE(hash("TM_STRING_ID__FILE_MENU")) This gets rid of several of the pain points. We dont need the big header file enumerating all the IDs. There is no risk of collision (if we hash into a big enough key space). And we dont have any ghosts or holes any more (since we dont have the big list anymore). Isnt hashing expensive compared to using a sequential ID? True, hashing has an extra cost, but in this case, it doesnt really matter. In an IMGUI you should only be drawing the things that end up on the screen (you can always do a quick rect intersection test to determine if your control is visible.) If we assume that the hash is only called for things that are actually drawn, the cost doesnt really matter, because it will be dwarfed by the cost of drawing the glyphs on the screen. We can make the macro look a bit nicer too. We dont really need the TM_STRING_ID__ prefix anymore since these are no longer global defines that need to be unique, but just ordinary strings, and we can bake in the call to hash() into the TM_LOCALIZE macro itself, leaving us with: TM_LOCALIZE("FILE_MENU") There is still something I dont like about this though: every time we want to add a new string to the UI we have to come up with a new identifier name for it, and naming is one of the two hard things in Computer Science. It is easy enough for things like the Filemenu, but what about a string like "Number of rendered triangles: %d" . You end up with something ridiculous like: TM_LOCALIZE("NUMBER_OF_RENDERED_TRIANGLES_WITH_INTEGER_FORMATTER") There is also a bad disconnect here. To know what the NUMBER_OF_RENDERED_TRIANGLES_WITH_INTEGER_FORMATTER actually resolves to, which is pretty important when you try to write your sprintf() call, you have to go and look in a completely different file the file that contains the translation tables. It would be much better if I could just see the actual text of the string at the place where it is being used. This leads us to the galaxy brain solution: instead of coming up with a suitable ID and hashing that to get a unique number, we just hash the string were translating itself and use that as the key. Thus, we end up with: TM_LOCALIZE("File") TM_LOCALIZE("Save") sprintf(buf, TM_LOCALIZE("Number of rendered triangles: %d"), ntri); Much better. Note that if the string changes the key will change too, so the old translations no longer work. But that is a good thing. If the string has changed it probably needs a new translation. For example, if we changed to using a double for ntri and printing it with %g we would want to be sure that all translations made this change too, or we would run into trouble. There is one problem with using the string itself as the key and that is homonyms words with the same spelling but with different meanings. For example, File has at least eight different meanings and each of those meanings might have different translations. In fact, even words that have a single unambiguous meaning may have multiple translations. For example, the Swedish translation for the English word sock could be either socka (thick sock) or strumpa (thin sock). We handle homonyms with an optional context parameter for the TM_LOCALIZE macro: TM_LOCALIZE_WITH_CONTEXT("File", "menubar") This specifies that we want the translation of File in the context of the menubar which disambiguates it from other potential uses of File. We use a hashed string to identify the context, to avoid the problems with numerical IDs listed above. Context only needs to be used where there is a possibility that the same string will be used multiple times for different purposes. Things like "Number of rendered triangles: %d" do not need context. You could perhaps argue that this approach is worse than using sequential IDs since there is a risk that we forget to add context where its needed. With IDs, you are more aware of reusing a string that has been used previously, whereas, with this approach, reuse can happen accidentally. I dont think this is a big drawback though, as we can always go in and add context later as needed to disambiguate. Implementing the lookup Lets look at the implementation of the TM_LOCALIZE macro: struct tm_localizer_i { tm_localizer_o *inst; const char *(*localize)(tm_localizer_o *inst, const char *s, const char *context); }; struct tm_localizer_api { // Current default localizer. tm_localizer_i **def; }; #define TM_LOCALIZE_WITH_CONTEXT(s, ctx) ((*tm_localizer_api->def)-> \ localize((*tm_localizer_api->def)->inst, s, ctx)) #define TM_LOCALIE(s) TM_LOCALIZE_WITH_CONTEXT(s, "") This defines an abstract interface for a localizer tm_localizer_i as having a single function localize() that given a string s and a context context returns the translation of that string in the current interface language. Then it defines an API tm_localizer_ api for getting and setting the current default localizer. Note that we just use a variable for this, rather than getter and setter functions to keep things simple. Finally, the TM_LOCALIZE() macro calls on the current default localizer to localize the supplied string with an empty context. We use this indirection through an abstract interface rather than a hard-coded localization function so that end users can implement completely custom localizers if they want to. For example, you could implement a Google Translate based localizer (probably not a good idea). Our default localizer uses localizer tables defined in the C code: { { .english = "File", .swedish = "Arkiv" }, { .english = "Save", .swedish = "Spara" }, } to create hashmaps from English words to their translations in different languages. Localizer tables can be defined in any DLL and registered in a central registry for use by the localizer. Thus, if you wanted to localize The Machinery to Xhosa or any other language that we dont currently support, you could do so by adding a plugin DLL with translator tables. Things that can go wrong and ways to fix them There are two main ways that localization can fail: You have localized a string with TM_LOCALIZE() in the source code, but forgot to provide a translation for it in the translation table. You have a string in the UI that was supposed to be localized, but you forgot to wrap it with TM_LOCALIZE() . To handle the first problem, we provide a tool localize.exe that scans the source code for TM_LOCALIZE macros and also parses the localization tables. If it finds TM_ LOCALIZE macros that dont have any corresponding translation table entries or vice versa, table entries that are unused, it will print out error messages, so that the problem can be fixed. Here is a sample run: > bin/Debug/localize plugins/editor_views/localizer_table.inl: Unused: "Test Sample Content", the_machinery/localizer_table.inl: Missing: { .english = "Created: %s", .swedish = "" }, { .english = "Deleted: %s", .swedish = "" }, Since localize parses the source code, it depends on TM_LOCALIZE being used with static strings only. I.e. you cant dynamically compose a string and then localize it. // This doesn't work, localize.exe can't figure out the strings that // need to be localized. s = TM_LOCALIZE(sprintf(b, "%s job!", score > 10 ? "Great" : "Good")); // Instead do this s = score > 10 ? TM_LOCALIZE("Great job!) : TM_LOCALIZE("Good job!"); In general, it is better to localize full sentences anyway, rather than to compose sentences out of individually localized pieces, because the former approach can better handle situations where word order differs between languages, etc. To diagnose the second problem when the programmer has forgotten to add the TM_LOCALIZE() macro we support setting the user interface language to Gibberish. When the language is set to Gibberish, our localize() implementation algorithmically transforms the input string into nonsense text. E.g. File Hgryp, Save Xcdan. If you set the interface language to Gibberish **and still see proper English text somewhere in the UI, you know that part of the UI is missing a TM_LOCALIZE() call. The Gibberish translation serves another purpose too. We intentionally make the Gibberish strings ~40 % longer than their English counterparts to make sure the UI layout doesnt break down if some strings end up longer after translation. To type or not to type The Gibberish approach to finding missing TM_LOCALIZE() macros is not perfect. It requires us to inspect the entire UI all menus, dialogs, etc to find any strings that are lacking translations. There is a different approach you could take to define a separate type for strings that have been localized: struct tm_localized_string_t { char *s; }; tm_localized_string_t localize(const char *s); bool button(tm_localized_string_t text); This way, the UI button() function would only accept localized strings and the localize() function which is called by TM_LOCALIZE() would turn ordinary strings into localized strings. A missed TM_LOCALIZE() call would result in a compile error. The drawback of this approach is that it requires a little bit more type juggling. For example, say you want to line break a localized string text . You can no longer get the next word of the string with: char *w = strchr(text, ' ') + 1; Instead, you need to do: tm_localized_string_t w = {.s = strchr(text.s, ' ') + 1}; This trade-off between type safety and type juggling is not unique to localized strings. Ive found it shows up all the time in API design, forcing you to make a choice between a familiar generic type that is easier to understand and manipulate and a system specific one that provides better type safety. For example, suppose you have a sound system that identifies each playing sound with an ID that can be used to stop or otherwise moderate the sound. Which is better: // ID is a plain integer uint64_t play(sound_resource_t *res); void stop(uint64_t id); // ID is a custom type typedef struct playing_sound_id_t { uint64_t id; } playing_sound_id_t; playing_sound_id_t play(sound_resource_t *res); void stop(playing_sound_id_t id); Is the extra type safety of making sure that the user doesnt pass any old uint64_t to the stop() function worth the complexity of adding another type? VANCOUVERA death sentence was handed down Monday to Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, 36, after a one-day trial in a Chinese court on charges of drug trafficking. The sentence, announced by a court in Dalian in northeastern Liaoning province, overturned a 15-year prison sentence issued following an earlier trial that began in 2016. Schellenberg was accused of being involved with an operation that sought to smuggle 222 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine in tires and tubing from China to Australia. When his initial prison term was handed down in November 2018, Schellenberg appealed the sentence. Chinese courts swiftly ordered a review of Schellenbergs case in late December. Prosecutors claimed they had new evidence proving hed played a key role in the smuggling operation. The court allowed foreign media to attend the retrial an unusual move but did not allow journalists to take notes or make recordings. Chinese state television reported Schellenberg argued in court hed been framed during a visit to China as a tourist. The retrial ended with his death sentence. Some experts and academics fear the stiffened sentence is part of a bid by Beijing to force the release of Huaweis chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1 at the request of authorities in the United States. Read more: Freeland, McCallum decry China death sentence, tout growing support of allies Vancouver travel agency faces cancellations to China after travel warning issued China has carried out death penalty threats against Canadians in the past, Star has learned Meng is currently out on bail in Vancouver, awaiting a possible extradition hearing to face fraud charges related to violations of U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. Last updated: Jan. 16, 2019 WHAT WE KNOW Schellenberg has a chance to appeal: Schellenberg, originally from Abbotsford, B.C., was initially detained in 2014. According to his lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo, Schellenberg has 10 days to contest the latest sentence. Zhang told The Associated Press he argued during the trial there was insufficient evidence to prove Schellenbergs involvement in the drug-smuggling operation, nor had prosecutors introduced new evidence to justify a heavier sentence. Ottawa is protesting the sentence: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday the development in Schellenbergs case is of extreme concern to the Canadian government, as it should be to all of Canadas friends and allies. In the same address, Trudeau said China is acting arbitrarily in applying this sentence. Beijing has condemned Trudeaus criticism of the death sentence handed down to Schellenberg, expressing strong dissatisfaction with Trudeaus characterization of the sentence as arbitrary and admonishing him to respect the rule of law, respect Chinas judicial sovereignty, correct mistakes and stop making irresponsible remarks. Canada intercedes on behalf of any Canadian sentenced to death in a foreign country. Schellenbergs family is devastated: His aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones, said in an email to StarMetro on Monday: All I can really say at this moment is, it is our worst-case fear confirmed. Our thoughts are with Robert at this time. It is rather unimaginable what he must be feeling and thinking. It is a horrific, unfortunate, heartbreaking situation. We anxiously anticipate any news regarding an appeal. Schellenbergs family is in touch with Canadian MP Ed Fast, they said in another short statement. They said Fast is working hard on our behalf to ensure that the Trudeau government makes every effort to secure fair treatment for Robert. Schellenberg has a criminal record in Canada: According to online court records, he was sentenced to a year in prison in February 2010 and two years probation on three counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking. In August 2011, Schellenberg was charged with two counts of simple possession and two more counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking. The 2011 case was sent to trial in B.C. Supreme Court, and in 2012, Schellenberg was convicted on all four counts, receiving a sentence of two years in prison. Minus time served in pretrial custody, that sentence came to just over 16 months in prison. This could be death-threat diplomacy, expert says: Some human-rights and foreign-policy experts believe the harsher sentence may be an attempt to strong-arm Canada into reconsidering its own detention of star Chinese tech executive Meng Wanzhou. Various Chinese government officials have called Canadas detention of Meng groundless and illegal and have accused Canada of Western egotism and white supremacy for its criticism of Beijing. Donald Clarke, a law professor at George Washington University, called Schellenbergs sentence death-threat diplomacy, while Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth called the development an example of hostage politics. These characterizations follow similar concerns regarding the detentions of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor an ex-diplomat and an entrepreneur, respectively who were detained in China following Mengs arrest. The rare permission given foreign journalists and diplomats to attend Schellenbergs retrial buoys the perception Beijing wished to make the sentence an international issue, according to Phil Calvert, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives at the University of Victoria. Calvert served for 10 years as a diplomat in China and as Canadas ambassador to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos from 2012 to 2016. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... The death penalty is common in China: The country executes more people each year than all other countries around the world combined, according to a statement from Amnesty International. John Kamm, head of Dui Hua, a San Francisco-based non-governmental group that advocates for political prisoners in China, said in an interview that his organization is aware of 19 foreigners no North Americans among them who have been executed by China from 2009 to the present. However, according to Guy Saint-Jacques, former Canadian ambassador to China from 2012-2016, China dismissed clemency pleas by former prime minister Stephen Harper and former governor general David Johnston in the cases of two Canadians who were later executed. Global Affairs says about 200 Canadians are currently detained in China for a variety of infractions and continue to face legal proceedings. Many of these Canadians are out on bail or serving probation, while a handful are in custody. Canada has updated its travel advisory: In its first update since tensions between the two countries began last month, Canada changed its travel advisory Monday for Canadian citizens visiting China. The Global Affairs website now warns a high degree of caution must be exercised while travelling in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws. It now cautions that Chinese authorities apply, sometimes arbitrarily, the death penalty for both violent and non-violent crimes. Canadas embassy in Beijing emailed Canadians registered in the country Monday, warning them to remain aware of these new risks and asking them to update the embassy if they leave China. The Chinese Foreign Ministrys office of consular affairs, meanwhile, issued its own warning Tuesday to Chinese citizens, cautioning them to fully assess the risks of going to Canada for tourism since Canada has arbitrarily detained a Chinese national a reference to the arrest of Meng Wanzhou. WHAT WE DONT KNOW How often Chinese courts commute a death sentence, and how rapidly the sentence would be carried out if upheld: Margaret Lewis, professor at Seton Hall University School of Law, said Schellenberg can first appeal to the provincial high court in Liaoning, which is expected to uphold the sentence. The case would then go to the Supreme Peoples Court (SPC), the highest court in China, which retook final review power over all death penalty cases in 2007. If the SPC upholds the case, an execution order would be sent to the lower court, Lewis said. Thereafter, the sentence could be carried out fairly quickly an outcome Beijing may pursue as a way to pressure Canada for the release of Meng, she added. But the SPC could also decide to modify the sentence, and there is also room for the government to slow down the pace of the proceedings. If the sentence is altered, one possibility is a suspended death sentence, which is usually commuted to a long prison term after two years of good behaviour, Lewis told The Star in an email. This would be harsher than the original 15-year sentence but certainly not as dire as the current death sentence. How closely Schellenbergs sentence is related to Canadas detention of Meng Wanzhou: While there are some unusual aspects to Schellenbergs case, a death sentence for a conviction related to drug charges is not one of them, Lewis said. China takes drug smuggling very seriously, and quantities of meth that are far smaller than the 222 kilograms allegedly at issue here can lead to a death sentence, she said, adding that while Schellenbergs role in the smuggling operation appears to be in dispute, no one seems to be disputing the existence of the drugs. Accordingly aside from the defendants foreign nationality triggering certain consular assistance requirements, this seemed (initially to be) an unremarkable drug case. On the other hand, the rapid-fire pace of court proceedings from appeal to retrial does raise some red flags, Lewis said. Most often, a retrial occurs when courts have learned of new evidence that suggests a lighter sentence is warranted. The courts decision to send the case from appeal back to retrial is therefore unusual, given the governments clear intent to seek after four years of investigation and trial harsher punishment for what it suddenly alleged was Schellenbergs key role in the smuggling operation. The governments decision to allow foreign media coverage likewise points toward political motives, Lewis said. Why the shift to alleging Schellenberg as a key participant? Lewis asked. Why the rapid pace of the proceedings, including the almost immediate decision on appeal and same-day announcement of the new, much harsher sentence? Why the push for international attention? Its not a long inferential bridge to the conclusion that the case has become intertwined in the China-Canada diplomatic row. With files from Tonda MacCharles and The Canadian Press Read more about: Premier Doug Ford continued to meet with Toronto police Supt. Ron Taverner even after the search for a new OPP commissioner was underway. Sources told the Star that Ford had breakfast with Taverner, 72, at Wallys Grill a Rexdale diner near the offices of Deco Labels, the Ford familys business on Sept. 12. That was one week after Vince Hawkes, 56, announced he was retiring as Ontario Provincial Police commissioner, triggering the hunt for a new head of Canadas second-largest force that eventually led to Taverners appointment. The close relationship between the premier and Taverner has raised concerns about the independence of the OPP. Ford dines frequently with his long-time chum as both the Star and the Globe and Mail have independently confirmed. On Tuesday, the opposition New Democrats released the premiers official calendar for Oct. 9, obtained through a freedom of information request, that showed they also lunched at Wallys Grill that day. Read more: Hearing into whether ombudsman should examine Taverner appointment wont be fast tracked, judge says Integrity watchdog has yet to interview Ford over hiring of Taverner as OPP commissioner Doug Ford blasts OPP deputy commissioner for Ron Taverner complaint They say meetings between Ford and Taverner during the search for Hawkess replacement raise questions about the hiring process. Ford has claimed that he had zero influence on the choice to appoint Ron Taverner the OPP commissioner, but that story is crumbling, said NDP MPP Kevin Yarde (Brampton North). It was a formal complaint from Yarde that sparked an ongoing investigation by integrity commissioner J. David Wake into whether there was political interference surrounding the Nov. 29 appointment. Taverner has put off assuming the post until Wakes investigation is concluded, and returned to his previous position with Toronto police in the meantime. While the premier, who has yet to be interviewed by the ethics watchdog, insists he had nothing to do with the hiring, he said it is within his purview. However, the OPPs commissioners post has not traditionally been a patronage appointment. On Monday, Ford told CP24s Nathan Downer that if I wanted to, I could appoint you OPP commissioner. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Its a political appointment. Kathleen Wynne had a political appointment. Dalton McGuinty and the 14 other premiers prior to that, Ford said, dismissing a complaint and ongoing court fight by OPP deputy commissioner Brad Blair as sour grapes. Yarde urged Ford to come clean about events leading up to Taverners appointment. The police cannot be controlled by a politician, the New Democrat said, adding theres a fear in the OPP and throughout Ontario that thats what Ford is attempting by rigging the system to install an ally in the commissioners seat. Last month, iPolitics revealed that the Progressive Conservative government quietly modified the job listing for a new OPP commissioner on Oct. 22, two days after it was initially posted. That helped Taverner meet the criteria, as the superintendent was two ranks below the initial threshold to qualify for the position. On Oct. 9, Fords Twitter feed featured a photo of the premier with the superintendent and other Toronto police officers at Wallys Grill. Having lunch with some of our excellent police officers in Etobicoke today. Its always great to hear from those on the front lines protecting our communities, Ford tweeted. On Tuesday, the premiers office said this particular meeting was with a number of police officers who serve Etobicoke the community Premier Doug Ford is proud to represent at Queens Park. For the first time in 15 years, the brave police officers who we count on to keep our communities safe have a government at Queens Park that will support and listen to them, Fords office said, noting the premier regularly meets with front-line police officers from across the province to hear feedback on how the Ontario government can better support their work. According to an NDP freedom of information request, Ford also met with Taverner on July 30. The Globe disclosed Monday that the two men also met on Aug. 16 at Wallys, and again on Aug. 28 at the premiers cottage. Robert Benzie is the Star's Queen's Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie Read more about: Hopes are high among many Canadians that 2019 will be the year that this country finally gets a national pharmacare program. Not so fast this weeks shuffle of Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus cabinet is a timely check on dreams of a new federal, service-delivery program. If there was a theme to the changes to Trudeaus ministry on Monday, it was that service delivery is hard especially for the federal government. Paying veterans, providing services to Indigenous Canadians, even meeting payroll for public servants all were massive headaches for the former ministers in charge of veterans affairs, Indigenous services and treasury board, and likely will remain the same for the new people who were put in charge of those departments on Monday. With that rather dismal reality in mind, just imagine how well Ottawa would do with a brand-new national program, requiring another try at mass service delivery; in this case, helping Canadians pay for the cost of prescription drugs. A federal pharmacare study has been under way for a year, led by former Ontario health minister Eric Hoskins, who is due to issue his report in the coming weeks. Dont bet that Hoskins will be urging the government to get into yet another form of service delivery. Trudeau alluded to the governments service deficiencies in the sunniest way possible, of course when he spoke to reporters outside Rideau Hall after Mondays cabinet shuffle. Read more: Opinion | Tanya Talaga: Trudeaus cabinet shuffle sends troubling signals to Indigenous communities Justin Trudeau shuffles cabinet, Jane Philpott takes over as Treasury Board president We know there are two areas in which the federal government has direct-delivery responsibility, he said. Thats for our veterans and for Indigenous peoples. That is where we are putting tremendous emphasis as a government. Another area of tremendous emphasis (read: tremendous vexation) is the debacle known as the Phoenix payroll system, so ravaged with problems since it was rolled out a few years ago that thousands and thousands of public servants have been radically underpaid, overpaid or not paid at all. Though fixing this fiasco has been largely assigned to Public Services Minister Carla Qualtrough, new Treasury Board president Jane Philpott has been handed responsibility for the federal civil service, with all the damage that Phoenix has inflicted on morale, recruitment and even the livelihood of the nations bureaucrats. We are all concerned about the impact that the Phoenix pay system has had on literally thousands of people across this country and it has been extremely unfortunate that they have been affected in such a way, Philpott said when she got her turn to talk outside Rideau Hall. Note: on this significant day in the life of this government, the nations top politicians were talking about problems in meeting payroll. For many Canadians who arent veterans, public servants or part of the Indigenous community, the main, direct contact with the federal government is Canada Revenue at tax time. But the auditor-general has issued a couple of scathing reports in the past year or so about dreadful service there too. In a 2017 report, Auditor-General Michael Ferguson documented how millions of calls by citizens to Revenue Canada were going unanswered and how even when the calls did go through, incorrect information was being provided about one-third of the time. I keep delivering the same message that the government doesnt understand the results from the citizens perspectives, Ferguson said when he handed down that report. Perhaps inspired by that finding, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business did its own, more recent audit of government service to small business and found similarly concerning results. Using mystery shoppers, the CFIB set out to determine how well Service Canada provided information to callers with small-business questions. Over two months, these shoppers placed a little over 200 calls to Service Canadas line for general inquiries and the employer-contact centre. Here are the results, announced in a CFIB news release: The study found that 41 per cent of all calls were redirected to another government agency, requiring callers to hang up and go through the waiting process again, without the assurance that they will receive the information they need. Only 34 per cent received complete and correct information on their first call. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Trudeaus newly reshuffled cabinet starts meeting on Wednesday in Sherbrooke, Que. Unlike the earlier retreats, the schedule doesnt seem to include any guest appearances by deliverology gurus. With three years of hard-earned experience, ministers probably dont need any more lessons in how hard it is to deliver especially when it comes to services. A federal pharmacare program would be another severe test of Ottawas service-delivery capability, already creaking under its own weight. So keep those hopes checked on prospects for pharmacare the federal government may want to get into drugs, but its main need at the moment might be the performance-enhancing type. Susan Delacourt is the Stars Ottawa bureau chief and a columnist covering national politics. Reach her via email: sdelacourt@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @susandelacourt Read more about: There is one very brave young woman in Alberta whose courage will hopefully inspire others to speak up about sexual abuse inflicted by people who are so powerful it seems impossible that they could eventually be toppled. She cant be identified because she was a 10-year-old child when the sexual abuse began. But her assailant is well known, a pillar of the community, the kind of person people turn to when they want to make things happen. Thats because Don MacIntyre, 63, was the outspoken MLA for Innisfail-Sylvan Lake, which sits between Edmonton and Calgary. He is a religious man, who said he went into politics to uphold historical values that make for strong families and well-knit communities. That was in 2015 about five years after he had regularly slipped into bed with the 10-year-old victim and sexually touched and massaged her, according to an agreed upon statement of facts presented in court. MacIntyre waited until her mother was out of town and then told his young victim that this is what God wanted, that it would help prepare her to be a good wife. Were those the historical values he was talking about as a candidate? God forbid. Once elected he sat with the official opposition, first with the Wildrose Party, which later morphed into the United Conservative Party. He held the lofty position of energy critic; he was even a member of the Rural Crime Task Force. He has an MBA and was an instructor in the renewable energy program at the well-regarded Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton. His credentials were outstanding. Who wouldnt trust a man with such a record? A man who did so much for the community? But he is now in prison for the next three years after pleading guilty last Friday in a Red Deer courtroom to sexual interference. He would likely have carried on as an influential MLA, a frightening thought, if his young victim and her family had not decided to fight back. During her impact statement the victim said at first she didnt understand that what had happened to her was wrong. When it became clear to her that it was wrong she thought it was her fault and the guilt she felt was so heavy it hurt my chest. When MacIntyre stood for election in 2015 her pain and despair worsened. Everyone had his signs up, she said. His face was everywhere. When he won the election she told her mother what had happened. Its hard to believe but every day that MacIntyre served as an elected representative he was under investigation for a serious crime. He resigned in February 2018 after charges were laid. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Although she cant be publicly identified, MacIntyres victim did speak to reporters on the steps of the courthouse after the sentencing. What she had to say was beyond inspiring. She sounded nervous but she spoke with confidence and explained how relieved she felt because she didnt have to be afraid anymore. It feels so good because forever he has been safe with his superiority, in his job, and in his position, in politics, in his position of power. As for MacIntyre, he still doesnt sound that bothered by the whole affair. In court he offered a brief apology to his victim and his family. And then he mentioned that his third wife, 77-year-old Maggie MacIntyre, will have to tend to the farm alone while he is incarcerated but we will live life as best as possible after he is released. Just thinking about the crime MacIntyre committed against that child makes me furious. But its almost as infuriating to know that an elected representative who was entrusted with so much authority and good will did not deserve any of it or the paycheque he received. Every day that he served as an MLA he was living a lie, betraying his constituents trust in him, making a mockery of his dedication to family and community. That was a crime in itself. His victim knew that and lived with that knowledge for a long time. Thank goodness she summoned the courage to speak out. Correction January 17, 2019: This column was edited from a previous version that misstated Maggie McIntyres given name. Read more about: Heads up, distracted drivers, Jan. 9 I am all for eliminating distracted driving, as I have seen its effects first-hand. However, it seems the lawmakers are drawing false causation in their new approach. Since texting and smartphones have come on the market, distracted driving and collisions involving cyclists and pedestrians have increased. The article cites the statistic that texting drivers are 23 times more likely to crash. Where is the data regarding other forms of distracted driving? People have been drinking coffee while driving and eating take-out fries for decades, yet the numbers only went up with the advent and popularity of texting. So, under the new rules, will all drive-through lanes be shut down? Car manufacturers will have to stop installing music systems; even hands-free conversations are under scrutiny, as they may distract the driver. I am really looking forward to my next long road trip, not talking to any passengers, driving in silence, with no sips of water or coffee, no snacks, never taking my eyes off the road or having any thoughts not directly related to my driving. What about the monotony of heavy traffic, staring at the back of the vehicle in front? Heaven forbid I should have music playing to keep me alert. What if I get caught glancing down at my dashboard speedometer to make sure Im not over the limit? Mike Thomas, Milton Recently, as I stood waiting at a bus stop at Warden and Lawrence for approximately 10 minutes, I counted five and another possible two drivers using their cellphones as they drove by or waited for the light to change. One was driving a tractor trailer, making a right turn with his cell phone in his left hand, in plain view. I think a few plainclothes police officers rotating at different major intersections in the GTA would make a dent (excuse the pun) in the needed and overdue crackdown on distracted drivers. When I boarded the bus, I was just stunned by what I had just witnessed and told the bus driver. He laughed and said I should see what happens from his point of view. It will be interesting seeing the ticket stats soon to be coming in. How serious is China about putting Canada in its place over the Huawei affair? In the words of legal scholar Donald Clarke, its deadly serious quite literally. Thats the only conclusion that can be drawn in the wake of the death sentence pronounced with extraordinary haste on a Canadian citizen convicted of drug smuggling in China. Everything we know about the case points to this most recent development being yet another escalation by China in its campaign of retaliation for Canadas arrest of a senior executive of telecom giant Huawei in Vancouver as a result of an extradition request by U.S. authorities. Almost immediately after the executive, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested the Chinese arbitrarily detained two Canadians on suspicion of endangering Chinas national security, without presenting any evidence of such crimes. Now a Chinese court has passed a death sentence on another Canadian, Robert Schellenberg, whose case has been slowly wending its way through the judicial system there for more than four years. There had been no publicity around that case, but now that Canada and China are locked in their bitter dispute over the arrest of Meng, it has been vaulted into the public eye. Read more: Trudeau enlists Trump to seek release of Canadians detained by China Hundreds of Canadians held by China raises the stakes for Trudeaus government Rebuke of China from Canadas allies clearest and best diplomatic path forward, say experts Schellenberg was sentenced to 15 years in prison in November, but at the end of December a Chinese court sent his case back for retrial. The customary legal delays magically vanished; within mere hours this week Schellenberg had his new trial and the harshest possible sentence was pronounced: death. Unusually, foreign journalists were invited to witness the process, presumably to get the word out and make a point. And in the context of the dispute between Beijing and Ottawa, that message is unmistakeable: China will do whatever it takes to push back against the arrest of one of its citizens and the threat to Huawei, its premier international tech champion, legal niceties be damned. That includes holding the threat of execution over a Canadian citizen, presumably as another bargaining chip for an eventual negotiated settlement of the dispute. In short, concludes Clarke, an expert on Chinese law, in the online national security journal Lawfare, it all reinforces the message that China views the holding of human hostages as an acceptable way to conduct diplomacy. This at least has the merits of dropping all pretense about legality and due process, as was the completely over-the-top commentary published last week by Chinas ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye. In the Hill Times, he cut to the chase and blamed Western egotism and white supremacy for criticism about the detention of the two Canadians seized in clear retaliation for the arrest of Meng. Unlike Meng, who had a public hearing before being released on bail to the comfort of her Vancouver home, they languish in Chinese jails without clear charges or regular access to legal and consular help. Yet, according to the Chinese ambassadors logic, only white supremacy can explain the push-back against their detention. Right from the start of this sorry affair, its been clear that Canada is caught between two giants the United States, whose justice departments case against Meng is frankly questionable, and China, which sees all this as a test of political and economic strength, not a legal issue of right and wrong. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Canada has no choice but to honour its extradition treaty with Washington and let the case take its course in Canadian courts. Meng will get all the advantages of due process, something the Canadians detained in China will not enjoy. Eventually, though, the cases will likely be resolved as part of a new understanding on trade issues between Washington and Beijing. In the meantime, the true nature of Chinas thoroughly politicized legal system is being laid bare for all to see. Read more about: This blog covers software patent news and issues with a particular focus on wireless, mobile devices (smartphones, tablet computers, connected cars) as well as select antitrust matters surrounding those devices. Its 2019, and with the change in calendar comes a sense of hope, optimism and renewal. Yet those with an eye on politics or more broadly, the state of our democracy would tell a different story. In the first few days of the new year, theres an ominous sense thats somethings gone wrong. The more alarming part: something has. In the wake of U.S. President Donald Trumps first prime time Oval Office speech in an attempt to dredge up support for his southern border wall from a president with a history of falsehoods and fact-fudging exaggerations what do political leaders, media and the public owe to each other? And are those duties being upheld? Too many people believe that the answer is no. Trust in politics, public institutions and media is on the decline and its not just a U.S. phenomenon. Elections have become more volatile, and mainline political parties are losing support in democracies around the world. The mistrust and concern isnt just directed at those in power, but those who are supposed to check power. In Canada, more and more people are worried about where their information is coming from. The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer found that 65 per cent of Canadians worry about false information or fake news being used as a weapon. The Index showed a slight uptick in media trust in 2018, but the trends also show a precipitous drop in the numbers of people and institutions who do the work of journalism. In the last 10 years 225 Canadian newspapers have closed or merged and local TV channels have to compete for attention with a staggering number of options. Voters increasingly rely on social media for news. But as presently structured, social media can be a malignant political force and the firms running social media giants are more distant from, and face less accountability than, other trusted institutions. Do these trends mean that we will disengage, or leave the decisions to others? Nationally, voter turnout has been on a downward trend for 50 years, 65 per cent at the last election. Turnout is even less provincially (58 per cent in the last Ontario election) and municipally (43 per cent on average, in Ontario). And here too, big forces that feel hard to dislodge may be at play. Political parties may not feel accountable to non-members (or their members, for that matter), and electoral systems can make it harder for voters to feel their voice or choice has been heeded. As a result, we still have a mismatch between politicians and those they represent only 26 per cent of MPs are women and 16 per cent visible minorities. Indigenous Canadians continue to be shortchanged through any number of democracy processes in Canada. Apathy is not the answer. Nor is deferring to a strongman. The less attention communities pay to how they are governed, the easier it is to intrude on the rule of law, the rights of minorities, or threaten the values that we do share. So what can Canadians do to shift these trends? It starts with recognizing democracy is about more than elections. That, in the words of Barack Obamas Chicago mentor, Abner Mikva, democracy is a verb. Democracy is learning about the issues that matter to us, telling those in power what we want done, and then organizing and strategizing to make sure we achieve those things. And claiming power for ourselves by serving in governing roles, whether its a neighbourhood park committee or the Parliament of Canada. If democracy is a verb, the practice of democracy brings to mind some other verbs, many of which we learned when we were very young: Talk. Listen. Gather. Speak. Walk. Eat. And its a practice that has its own nascent sector with institutions like Ryersons Faculty of Arts, the Samara Centre for Democracy, Toronto Public Library, and the Luminate Group, including the not-for-profit startups we both lead, all using our powers to bring people together, drive research, and champion democratic values. Like any sector, it can be cultivated, grown and improved upon. The approaches arent much different: start conversations, build networks, invest in skills development, mobilize communities and get people to take notice. At the DemocracyXChange summit happening at Ryerson University later this month, well be bringing the sector together to learn from each other, to reach across ideological difference, and to drive change from the ground up. Maria Ressa, Time Magazines Person of the Year, will be the closing keynote speaker. She is the founder of the Rappler news site in the Philippines, bringing fearless journalism to a country that has just elected an authoritarian leader who wants to shut her down. Shes able to join us in Toronto, in the midst of a politically motivated legal battle that could see her in jail. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... If Maria Ressa can practice her version of democracy in those circumstances, lets come together as Canadians to do the same. DemocracyXChange, co-founded by Open Democracy Project and Ryerson Leadership Lab takes place Jan. 25-27 at Ryerson University. More information can be found at democracyxchange.org. Karim Bardeesy is Co-Founder of the Ryerson Leadership Lab and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ryerson University. Ana Serrano is the Canadian Film Centres Chief Digital Officer and Co-Chair of Open Democracy Project. Serrano and Bardeesy are Co-Directors of DemocracyXChange 2019. Read more about: Rahaf Alqunun, the Saudi teen whose dramatic escape from an abusive family unfolded over Twitter last week, has reached Canada safely. Alqunun is likely shopping for her first winter wardrobe. Soon she will have access to some pretty terrific (and free) programs for government-assisted refugees. The UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has the power to expedite cases where the risk of death is imminent. But it doesnt use this power often enough, which is why the story of how Alqunun and her friends harnessed the power of social media to get her story traction and have her be recognized by the UN as a refugee within mere days is remarkable. It is also incredibly rare. Currently, there are 19.9 million UNHCR-recognized refugees around the world. Last year the UNHCR resettled just 1 per cent. This means there are millions currently languishing in the limbo between a home that no longer exists and the future promise of a someday, somewhere home. Ironically, the path that Alqunun originally set out on would have seen her joining this global line of the languishing millions. Had she reached her intended destination, Australia, without first being apprehended by Thai authorities, she would have joined a large number of asylum seekers and would have spent years dealing with the vagaries of waiting and the capriciousness of uncertainty. Certainly, she would not have flown in first class, as reports suggest. She may even have found herself detained temporarily. But because of her access to superior technology, her social media savvy, her dedicated trio of friends, her heavily filtered Snapchat-pretty photos, her Western-style clothing, and one helluva daunting story (featuring a six-month stint locked in a room for getting her haircut) all things which made for the perfect headlines Alqunun has not only managed to bypass the long, listless line of the languishing, lowly refugees but has managed to walk away with the ultimate in the lottery for all asylum seekers: an instant new life, a fresh start. Dont get me wrong. I am thrilled to see the Canadian government backing up last years rhetoric of prioritizing women in vulnerable situations for resettlement through loud, public action. Yet, at the same time, something niggles at this jaded refugee lawyers heart. Saving the life of one Saudi woman is noble and important. But it does not make Canada the human rights rock star the world thinks we are right now. Lest we settle into our smugness, wed be well served to recall that we are still bungling our way through our own refugee crisis. We still havent found a way to deal with the unprecedented number of asylum seekers who continue to flow in courtesy of our southern neighbour. We still have no transparency when it comes to our immigration detention centres centres in which 16 people have died and which continue to house children as guests alongside their parents. We have yet to up our refugee intake numbers, despite having the space and economy to do so. And we still continue to convince ourselves that the Safe Third Country Act works despite all evidence indicating that the U.S. is not a safe country for asylees. When I first heard of Alqunun I was reminded of a similar story that barely broke the surface of the news cycle last year. Facing a nearly identical situation of domestic abuse, a Saudi woman managed to flee only to be found in the Philippines and be forcibly returned to Saudi Arabia with her hands and mouth duct-taped. She hasnt been heard from since. In that sense, its a relief to hear Alqununs story. I am glad that she will be OK. And I hope she will continue to share her story and shake up the status-quo. But, it also makes me wonder: do certain lives just matter more? Law school made me believe that the world of refugee law is neatly bound with rules, procedure and time frames. Practice makes me realize that the life of a refugee turns on a mere whim, of sheer luck or, maybe, of being in the right place at the right time seen by the right people. That Canada was so quick to beat Australia to the punch in processing Alqununs case should surprise no one. Governments can move fast to make a great, self-congratulatory PR move happen and taking in Alqunun when the whole world was watching was just that: an awesome PR stunt and not-so-gentle reminder for Saudi Arabia of just how right we have been since last year when we first took to reminding the Saudis just how terrible of a job they are doing at protecting women. Ultimately, none of this dialoguing will really matter. We will continue to tell our clients that they will be waiting for years. We will continue to see newly arrived hopefuls face mandatory detention or deportation. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... But for now, Alqunun is safe. And I hope she will see the same successes in Canada that my sister and I have experienced since our parents, upon sensing a lack of opportunity for their daughters post-high school, had the good sense to take us out of Riyadh and to Vancouver more than 20 years ago. Yet still, something continues to niggle at the heart of this jaded refugee lawyer there may be no immigration line. But there sure as heck is an immigration lottery. And some lives just matter more. Maria Kari is a lawyer and freelance writer. Read more about: If you are confused about Brexit, you are certainly not alone. Britains path to leaving the European Union has grown rather complicated and long full of forks in the road, U-turns and more than a few dead ends. Even seasoned Brexit watchers have been left at a loss for words. With a momentous vote forthcoming, weve answered some of the most pressing questions about Brexit. Q: What is Brexit? A: British Prime Minister Theresa May has said, Brexit means Brexit. But what that actually means is that Britain is going to leave the European Union. This would likely mean giving up the automatic free-movement and free-trade rights that come with EU membership. Q: Why is Britain leaving the EU? A: Thats a big debate. But basically, its because Britain voted to do so in a referendum on June 23, 2016. Those voters who wanted out of the EU and to take back control of Britains laws and borders won, 52 to 48 per cent. Q: So Britain is definitely leaving the EU? A: Probably. Q: Probably!? A: First Britain and the EU need to reach a withdrawal agreement. Q: A withdrawal agreement? Is that different from a trade deal? A: Yes. The withdrawal agreement outlines how Britain will leave the EU things such as a timetable for a transition period, what happens to EU nationals living in Britain and the amount of money that Britain has to pay the EU A trade deal would establish an independent Britains future economic relationship with the EU Read More: U.K. lawmakers prepare to deliver verdict on EU divorce deal U.K. leader May mounts last-ditch bid to win Brexit deal backing U.K.s May warns Brexit deal rejection would be catastrophic Q: OK, Hows all that going? A: Not so well. Q: But I thought I read that May got a deal? A: Well, Mays government has drawn up a withdrawal agreement, and the EU has agreed to it. But first, Britains Parliament needs to approve it. Lawmakers were scheduled to debate it and vote on it in December. But when it became apparent that May couldnt win that vote, it was delayed. So now shes having a vote on Tuesday, Jan. 15, due to start at 7 p.m. local time (2 p.m. Eastern time). Q: So shes got the votes to pass it now, right? A: Nope. May is widely expected to lose Tuesdays vote. Q: Oh. So if May loses the vote, what would happen next? A: There are four basic scenarios. May could try to find a deal more likely to pass Parliament in the next few days and resubmit it for a vote. She could also try to delay Britains exit from the EU so that she could have a longer period for negotiations. It is also possible that May could call for a general election or even a second referendum a so-called Peoples Vote on the terms of Brexit. But the British prime minister has suggested she would not pursue these possibilities, and its not clear she can be forced to. Q: If May somehow wins the vote, what happens? A: Very unlikely! But it would mean that the process would go as planned. Britain would leave the EU within a few months, and it would be possible to move on to negotiating trade deals. Q: What is her deadline? A: Unless its delayed, its just 10 weeks away on March 29. Q: Could May actually go back and get a better agreement from the EU? A: Not likely. May has already spent months in a last-ditch search for a deal that her Conservative Party would support. It is hard to imagine that she (or anyone else) could get a better deal than her EU negotiators have accepted or even that there is any single deal that could get past the current Parliament. Q: Yikes! A: Yep, thats the correct response. Q: Why would Britains Parliament vote on the withdrawal agreement, considering that a referendum has already been held? A: The referendum itself was never legally binding. May and the British government had originally hoped they would not have to turn to Parliament, but that didnt work. Britain is a parliamentary democracy, meaning that Parliament is sovereign. After a lengthy legal debate, it was agreed that Parliament would get a meaningful vote on the deal a move that significantly complicated Mays negotiations. Q: So, this withdrawal agreement has the full support of Mays government? A: Not at all. The BBC estimates that about 100 members of Mays own Conservative Party could join forces with opposition politicians to vote down the deal suggesting that a considerable defeat is coming. Thirteen members of Mays government have resigned over her stance on Brexit, including one of her chief whips in Parliament just this week. There are plenty of people within Mays Conservative Party who want to remain in the EU, as well as many hardcore Brexiteers who dont support her plan for the opposite reason. Q: Why do people who want Brexit not support May? A: They feel as though May has made too many concessions to Europe with this deal and argue that it isnt in the spirit of the 2016 referendum. Q: What sort of Brexit did they want? A: Many Brexiteers want an agreement that keeps the economic benefits of the EU but ends free movement, takes away EU control over Britains trade laws and avoids a hard Irish border (more on all this later). They are particularly concerned that Mays deal aligns Britain too closely with Europes economic rules, which could make forming new trade deals with other countries difficult in the future. Q: Who are they, by the way? A: The most notable ones are Boris Johnson, Mays former foreign secretary, and Jacob Rees Mogg, another member of the Conservatives. But there are many others. Q: What is the worst-case scenario for Brexit? A: Most economists would say it was the doomsday scenario of a no-deal Brexit, whereby Britain has to revert to World Trade Organization trade rules at its borders because it cannot reach an agreement with Europe. Q: Why would that be so bad? A: It would probably cause major changes to British trade, resulting in serious disruption to almost every aspect of Britains business. An International Monetary Fund projection warned that up to 8 per cent of Britains gross domestic product could be lost. Q: Yikes. Are people prepared for that? A: Well, Britain has tried to prepare. Earlier this month, Britain rehearsed a traffic jam along its southern coast, hoping to prep for the likely chaos at its ports. Britons have also been hoarding refrigerators, wine and chocolate in the event of no deal. Q: How likely is this? A: Its definitely possible. One study that came out before May made her deal last year estimated there were five possible scenarios for Brexit. All but one resulted in no deal. Q: So is this any less likely now? A: Hardly. Scores of members of Parliament have said they will vote against Mays deal. If that deal fails, its not clear whether anyone could replace it or if there is even time to reach a new deal before March. Q: Does the EU want a no-deal for Britain? A: European leaders have voiced real concerns about a no-deal Brexit. It could potentially disrupt their own agreements, too. But the EU is also worried about other countries trying to leave, so it is driving a hard bargain with Britain and offering few concessions. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Q: Does Britains opposition party oppose Brexit? A: Labour is split on Brexit generally but is likely to oppose Mays deal for political reasons. As a party, it is unlikely to stop Brexit anytime soon its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said recently that Brexit could not be stopped but it is possible that May could reach across the aisle and persuade some Labour party members to support a version of her deal. Q: Does anyone want to stop Brexit? A: Yes. Lots of politicians in both the Labour and Conservative parties do want to stop it, while smaller parties, such as the Liberal Democrats, actively campaign against it. Q: Could Brexit be stopped? A: Theoretically, yes a point May herself recently alluded to for the first time after reaching her draft agreement. The European Unions highest court also ruled late last year that Britain could unilaterally reverse its decision to leave. But it would be a risky move politically. Q: Couldnt Britain just hold a second referendum? A: The idea of a second referendum (a peoples vote) on the final terms has considerable support among the public, but politicians are hesitant, as it could unleash further political chaos. Q: How would Britain vote if that happened? A: Hard to say, but many polls do suggest that British voters have grown more opposed to Brexit over the past two years. Q: OK, lets back up. What is EU freedom of movement, and why didnt Brexiteers like it? A: Citizens of the European Union are entitled to move around the nation states. For many in the pro-Brexit camp, immigration was a major issue with the rest of Europe. Q: And what is the Customs Union? And the Single Market? A: The EU Customs Union means it negotiates trade laws as a bloc, and the Single Market means that Europe has no trade barriers within it. Pro-Brexit voices hope that by leaving Europe, Britain can negotiate its own, better trade deals. Q: What is the big issue with the Irish border? A: If Britain were to leave the Customs Union and the Single Market, there could be a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, where border checks are now minimal. Q: Why is that a problem? A: It could jeopardize the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and, with it, the Northern Ireland peace process. It also would probably have a significant impact on trade. Plus, May needs to get her political partner in Northern Ireland (the Democratic Unionist Party) and the Irish government on her side. Q: Did Mays deal solve all this? A: Kind of. But also, not really. Q: How so? A: In the Brexit withdrawal agreements 585 pages, the most notable outcome was the creation of a transition period, which would essentially keep Britain in the blocs Customs Union until 2020, and possibly past then. Q: And that solves the Irish border problem? A: No, but it appears to provide a backstop and pledges to sort it out in the future. Q: What is a backstop, in this situation? A: Basically, its an insurance agreement that even if a broader agreement cannot be worked out, there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Q: And freedom of movement? A: EU nationals living in Britain and Brits living in EU states will retain their rights, but they will have to formally apply for status to remain in the country. Q: This doesnt sound as though it would please everyone. A: It doesnt. As we noted before, both pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit camps have voiced opposition. Q: Have EU leaders tried to help May at all? A: To a degree, yes. In a letter published on Monday, European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker explained that they did not want the Irish backstop to come into force, describing it as a suboptimal trading arrangement for both sides. However, they also said that there was little room for more negotiations, writing: We are not in a position to agree to anything that changes or is inconsistent with the Withdrawal Agreement. Q: Do any British politicians have a better idea? A: Others claim to. Corbyn says he could solve the Irish border problem without a backstop, for example, and avoid a no-deal Brexit. But we probably wont find out how these ideas work in practice unless May loses her job. Q: Wait, May could lose her job? A: Yes. Though May survived a no-confidence vote from her own party, meaning that she cant be challenged internally for a year, it is possible that Corbyn could push for one. Its also possible she could willingly step down, though she hasnt hinted at that. Read more about: China asked some state-run enterprises to avoid business trips to the U.S. and its allies and to take extra precautions to protect their devices if they need to travel, according to people familiar with the request. In recent weeks, the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission a regulatory body that oversees about 100 government-run companies has told some firms to take only secure, company-issued laptops meant for overseas use if travelling is necessary, the people said. They said the warning extended to the other countries in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing pact: the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The order also said that employees should have the company verify which files they are carrying on any trip and store them only on secure USB flash drives, two people familiar with the warning said separately, adding that SASAC didn't specify how long the travel rules will apply. The commission didn't respond to a fax requesting comment. Chinese and American executives have become more cautious when travelling after the December arrest of Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou in Canada on behalf of the U.S., and the subsequent detention of two Canadian citizens in China. The U.S. has also stepped up efforts to catch and prosecute executives at Chinese companies that it alleges steal technology, which has resulted in several legal actions. In January, state-owned Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. and its Taiwan-based partner United Microelectronics Corp. were the first companies indicted under the U.S. Justice Department's new initiative. The companies pleaded not guilty. China has repeatedly denied accusations of trade secrets theft. Meng was charged with conspiracy to defraud banks in relation to transactions that violated U.S. sanctions against Iran, an allegation that comes as the Trump administration seeks to limit Chinese telecom companies from dominating 5G wireless networks. She has denied wrongdoing. Read more: China criticizes Trudeaus comments on decision to hand down death penalty China has carried out death penalty threats against Canadians in the past, Star has learned Detained Canadian does not have diplomatic immunity, says China Tensions between Beijing and Ottawa have also risen after a Chinese court sentenced a Canadian man to death for drug trafficking after a one-day retrial. The move prompted Canada to update its travel advisory for China, urging its citizens to "exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws." China in turn issued a travel alert for Canada, telling its citizens to "fully assess the risks of travel" after a Chinese citizen was "arbitrarily" detained by Canadian law enforcement on the request of a third country. "As long as foreigners including Canadians abide by the law, their freedom and safety is guaranteed," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told reporters at a regular briefing on Tuesday. "It is Canada, not China, that is arbitrarily detaining foreign citizens under the guise of the law." Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Read more about: KAJO KEJI COUNTY, SOUTH SUDANSouth Sudan opposition commander Moses Lokujo flipped through his notes, explaining international humanitarian law to an attentive group of senior officers. Soldiers are not supposed to kill someone whos not an enemy, he said. And if a civilian is walking with a goat it doesnt mean you can steal it just because you have a gun. Just months ago, such training seemed implausible in a country that was embroiled in a five-year civil war that killed almost 400,000 people and displaced millions. Since a fragile peace deal was signed in September, however, South Sudans previously warring parties have been trying to rebuild trust in some of the areas hardest-hit by the war. On a trip this month to government and opposition-held territories in Kajo Keji in Central Equatoria state, The Associated Press met with both sides who said the reconciliation of former rivals President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar was the reason peace efforts appear to be working on the ground. If these two have united, why cant we? said John Camillo, deputy commander for government troops in Kajo Keji. For the first time, 10 opposition soldiers were stationed in the government barracks as part of a makeshift soldier swap. Government soldiers walked through town, unarmed and in civilian clothes, seemingly unconcerned by the possibility of attack. Read more: At scene of South Sudan mass rape, no one could hear me In South Sudan, a never-ending hunger season puts millions in danger Thousands demonstrate in Sudan against Bashirs rule Theres really been a total change, said Abiggo Manson, field officer for the Support for Peace and Education Development Program, a local aid group. Waving to soldiers on a motorbike, Manson said he never would have done that in September because suspicions at the time remained high. The peace efforts continue to be undermined by violence, however. In October, government soldiers attacked the opposition in Kajo Keji. More recently, the opposition has accused the government of not withdrawing its troops from opposition territory as stipulated by the peace agreement. Renowned as South Sudans breadbasket, the Equatoria region was devastated by fighting after renewed clashes erupted in the countrys capital, Juba, in July 2016. Desolate, damaged houses line Kajo Kejis eerily quiet streets. Vandalized shops, robbed of their windows, roofs and doors, are concealed by overgrown brush. Kajo Keji county has been cut off from aid for more than two years due to repeated denials of humanitarian access by the warring sides, according to an internal humanitarian report seen by AP. The county lacks food, shelter and water. The government doesnt have resources to bring people back, said Luka Yombek, Kajo Kejis former commissioner who left office in October. In November, a United Nations-led humanitarian convoy drove from Juba to Kajo Keji for the first time since 2016 to assess its needs. While the U.N. said it plans to provide assistance where needed, it is contingent on having safe space to operate, said Andrea Noyes, head of the U.N. humanitarian office for the country. In town, only a handful of people have trickled back, with the majority of civilians too wary to return. Were still waiting to see if the peace deal is a real one, said Francis Ladu, one of more than 35,000 people sheltering in the Korijo displaced persons camp in the opposition-held part of Kajo Keji on the Ugandan border. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Life in the camp is hard. With no clean water, people are forced to drink from muddy ponds. Ladu said he walks six hours into Uganda several times a week to work odd jobs to make money to buy food for his family. Intently watching his 2-month-old twin girls, he said it ultimately doesnt matter where they live. Going there and staying here is all the same at the moment. The government cant provide for us, he said, hanging his head. People are suffering, theyre just surviving. Duchess Meghan is reportedly pinning down her due date. For their first engagement together in 2019, Prince Harry and his pregnant wife visited community-service organizations and greeted excited fans on walkabout on Monday in the northwest English county of Merseyside, an area that birthed the Beatles and The Merseyside Sound. The royal couple, due to become first-time parents, arrived in Birkenhead, Merseyside (meaning on the banks of the Mersey River), to the usual full-throttle welcome they have come to expect at their public appearances. While greeting members of the crowd, People magazine reports that Meghan shared she is six months along. We asked her how her pregnancy was going and she said she was six months and she tapped her tummy, Carla Gandy, accompanied by her young daughter, told the outlet. ITV News reports Meghan talked of her due date with another woman, Eileen Ashurst, who told the outlet Meghan said the newest royal baby is expected in April. Read more: Tabloids: With Duchess Meghan, you take the bad with the ... also bad Opinion | Vinay Menon: Forget Frogmore Castle: Come back to Toronto Harry and Meghan! Prince Harry and Meghan Markles unborn child is doomed to a life of perfection Kensington Palace, which has said only that the baby is due in the spring, declined to comment Monday to USA TODAY. Kensington Palace has said the baby is due in spring. Harry and Meghan began their day outside Birkenheads town hall, where they viewed a new sculpture marking the 100th anniversary of the death of the famous Birkenheadwar poet Wilfred Owen. The bronze statue, named after one of Owens poems, Futility, shows an exhausted World War I soldier. Meghan, 37, looked dazzling as usual, dressed in a purple dress from Babaton by Aritzia, a cheery red coat from Sentaler and matching red Stuart Weitzman pumps. Share your thoughts The purpose of their four-stop visit to the northwest of England, home of Liverpool, was in keeping with Harry and Meghans developing royal patronage and charity interests: Theyll be meeting with local social-service and community organizations, Kensington Palace said. Meghans pregnancy has not slowed her down: She has two other appearances scheduled this week, including a visit Wednesday to an animal welfare charity for which she has just become royal patron. The couple will also attend the premiere of Cirque du Soleils Totem in support of Harrys African childrens charity, Sentebale, at Londons Royal Albert Hall in the evening. Last week, Meghan visited Smart Works, one of her new royal patronage organizations, which gathers donations of womens work clothes and helps women search and dress for jobs. Following visit to the statue, Harry and Meghan met with local veterans and members of the Birkenhead Institute Old Boys, of which Owen was a member, and which played a part in the creation of the tribute. Then they plunged into a walkabout in Hamilton Square, where throngs of locals were gathered to see them. Their plans for the day also include a stop to officially open a new discount supermarket and community cafe set up by Feeding Birkenhead, a coalition of churches, food banks and community groups to help reduce hunger in Birkenhead. They are also scheduled to visit Tomorrows Women Wirral (Wirral is the name for the local peninsula region, meaning myrtle corner in Old English). Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Initially established in 2011 to support women released from prison, Tomorrows Women now offers a range of training courses and workshops for more than 6,000 local women in vulnerable circumstances due to mental health issues, domestic abuse and addiction, the palace said. Theyre scheduled to drop in at the on-site charity shop, cafe and Inspiration Hall. Their last visit will be at the Hive Wirral Youth Zone, created by the charity OnSide Youth Zones, where they will meet young people taking part in activities and workshops. And before they leave, theyll unveil the usual royal plaque to mark their visit. Read more about: More than 10,000 kilometres away from home in Saudi Arabia, Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun pauses when asked about the family from whom she fled. Then the tears come. I felt so sad. It was hard. I didnt expect my family to disown me, Rahaf, 18, says during an exclusive interview Monday with the Star and CBC. Sitting in a small office at a Toronto immigrant settlement agency, the Saudi teens voice cracks with emotion as she talks about the family she plotted for years to escape, alleging they subjected her to both physical and mental abuse and ultimately led to her being granted refuge in Canada. The scene is in stark contrast to the confident young woman who smiled and waved at supporters at Pearson International Airport Saturday, when she arrived in Canada after a tumultuous week that began with her fleeing from her family during a trip to Kuwait. From there, she flew to Bangkok, where she was detained by Thai authorities who prepared to deport her. Rahaf fought back, barricading herself in her hotel room and launching a desperate plea for help on Twitter that caught international attention and, eventually, sparked Canadas swift response to offer her protection. Read more: Opinion | Rosie Dimanno: Canada is Rahaf Mohammeds guardian now Canada faces a war on all fronts over refugee rights and wrongs Granted asylum in Canada, Saudi teen happy to be in her new home Wearing a white sweater and torn jeans, attire not atypical for teenagers, a still tired-looking Rahaf says she had long planned her escape once turning 18, an age that would allow her to be recognized and treated as a free adult woman in the West. Rahaf, who has dropped her last name after learning on social media her family has disowned her, alleges she faced physical violence at the hands of her mother and brother claims her family have denied. Rahaf says her father is married to another woman, with whom he lives, but was her legal guardian. For Rahaf, the last straw came when she cut her hair really short and was locked up in the house for looking too manly for a Muslim woman. (I) got beat up for not praying and not helping around the house. Its daily oppression, Rahaf claimed, through an interpreter. We are treated as an object, like a slave. We could not make decisions about what we want. Rahaf, who is from Hail in northwestern Saudi Arabia, said she convinced her family to take a trip to Kuwait, where she knew society is less oppressive for women and that, unlike her homeland, she could travel alone without her parents permission. Rahaf managed to purchase a plane ticket and escaped to Thailand, with the hopes of travelling from there to Australia, but the plan quickly fell apart when she was picked up by Thai authorities as a runaway. I was scared of being captured, arrested and sent back home, and no one would know anything about (me), said Rahaf, who believed, if sent back to Saudi Arabia, her life would be in danger for dishonouring her family and Islam. Upon her arrival in Bangkok, she said she was accosted by a man who offered to help her obtain a visa to remain in Thailand. But after taking her passport, the man allegedly told her he was acting for Saudi officials and intended to bring her back to her family. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... While her father and brother were en route to retrieve her in Thailand, Rahaf said she contemplated ending her life and began scribbling a letter to her friends, telling them she feared for her life and imploring them to publicize her story if she disappeared. In the meantime, she turned to Twitter, pleading for help from the German, Swedish and Australian embassies. My life was in danger and I felt I had nothing to lose. I wanted to tell people my story and about what happens to Saudi women, said Rahaf, who at one point used her mattress to block the door to stop officials from entering her hotel room. Her tweets not only garnered international media headlines, but also drew the attention of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which dispatched a team to the hotel and conducted a thorough emergency assessment of the situation to determine if Rahaf was in need of protection by a third country given her pending deportation to Saudi Arabia. She was skeptical at first, thinking the UNHCRs offer of help was a ruse by local officials to lure her out of her hotel room. She started to cry when she saw proof that they were legitimate. Rahaf said it was surreal when she eventually got a permit Friday to come to Canada as a government assisted refugee. I never thought there was a 1 per cent chance that this could happen, noted Rahaf, who got her first real sleep in days while on board the flight to Canada. I feel very safe in Canada, a country that respects human rights. Her first impression of her new home is that its frigid, but that Canadians are warm. I feel very happy. I feel born again from feeling the love coming from everyone waiting for my arrival, said Rahaf. I want to tell them I love them. But along with love, there is also hate. Rahaf said she has received hundreds of threats and insults from online trolls. Despite the taunts, she treasures her newly found freedom. Its worth risking my life for, said Rahaf, who plans to start English classes, go back to school, find a job and make a life for herself in her adopted homeland. Its a beautiful feeling. Read more about: A week ago the Star reached out to readers via social media to get their thoughts on the future of Ontario Place. After the stories ran on the weekend, readers followed up with a fresh round of ideas. I have always thought Ontario Place should be remodeled into a theme park for the Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight, whose members include the world famous Wolverine, wrote reader Barry Brown. The other well-known Canadian superhero, Deadpool, could also be included. This would give tons of work for Canadian designers, actors, tech people for animatronics, rides etc. It would attract a huge number of tourists from the U.S. and around the world while showcasing Canada and Canadian talent. Other exhibits could include a display of the history of Canadian superheroes from the 1940s to the present. As Brown points out, Wolverine was conceived of as a Canadian character and Deadpool also hails from Canada and was recently played by Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds. Alpha Flight was a team of Canadian superheroes, by Marvel Comics. Read more: Revitalize Ontario Place but dont raze it, residents say at rally for waterfront park From the beginning, Ontario Place was about the future Ontario Place must remain family friendly and accessible to all, experts say. Here are their ideas Brown said redeveloping the 155-acre Ontario Place site is an opportunity to think big. Canada, most of the time, when we market ourselves, we market ourselves for all of our natural wonders and multicultural cities, but as far as a big theme park, like a Disneyland, that is really out-sized and reaches out to the rest of the world we dont really have that, said Brown. Readers Tom and Michele Shanahan said they would like to see a series of Venice-like canals on the site, bordered by small boutiques and restaurants that could be converted to skating rinks during the winter. Shanahan, a former Montrealer, said he got the idea from Expo 67, which he attended. Ontario Place was inspired in part by the success of that world fair held in Montreal. I think Canadian cities can learn a lot from one another, said Shanahan, a retired school teacher. He said hed like to see more wide lakeside boardwalks at the Ontario Place site to take advantage of the views of the city and a sandy beach where people could swim. Reader Fred K. Wong suggested the site be turned into a EcoResort with educational activities for all ages. He said it would be a great spot for a fish hatchery, greenhouses and gardens, as well as a bird and wildlife habitat. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Toronto city councillor Cynthia Lai polled her constituency on the social media website WeChat and found some support for the casino. Only building a casino can make a profit, wrote one respondent, suggesting a multi-storey parking lot to accomodate at least 5,000 cars, with an underground passage for direct access to the casino and shopping mall. Correction January 15, 2019: This article was edited from a previous version that misstated Barry Browns given name. A $28.5-million lawsuit against the City of Brampton launched by a local developer in 2011 has finally come to an end. On Friday (Jan. 11), Ontario Superior Court Justice John R. Sproat issued his decision in favour of the city, dismissing the suit brought by Inzola Group Limited and its owner, John Cutruzzola. In the suit, Inzola alleged city staff and former mayor Susan Fennell were biased against Cutruzzola and his firm during the 2009 City Hall West Tower contract tendering process, which was part of the larger and since-cancelled Southwest Quadrant downtown renewal project. Inzola was disqualified from bidding on the project after the city claimed it violated the request for proposal (RFP) rules. The project was ultimately awarded to Dominus Construction. In his 92-page decision, Sproat did not find any bias on the part of Fennell, former CAO Deborah Dubenofsky or members of the steering committee made up of senior staff. He also didnt agree with Inzolas claims that it would have had the best chance at winning the contract had it been allowed to complete the bidding process. Read more: Former Brampton mayor Susan Fennell denies corruption in $28.5M Inzola lawsuit Brampton developer suing City for $28.5 million awaits judges decision Judge says Brampton failed to act reasonably in $28.5M lawsuit I believe that Inzola was fighting an uphill battle to become the Preferred Respondent. Its chances were, therefore, not one in three. My finding is that Inzola had a 20% chance of becoming the Preferred Respondent, the judge wrote. Several former members of council and former senior city employees testified at the two-month trial, held in Orangeville last summer. The City of Brampton is pleased with Justice Sproats decision, ruling in favour of the City in the procurement process for the construction of the Southwest Quadrant. Justice Sproat found the City not to be liable and dismissed the action against the City, it said in a release. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... The Citys procurement process and the conduct of the RFP were upheld and found to have been undertaken fairly and in good faith, it added. Inzola told the Brampton Guardian its legal team is reviewing the decision and the company has no comment at this time. Graeme Frisque is a reporter with The Mississauga News and Brampton Guardian. Read more about: OTTAWADistance and geography have been cited as the primary reasons Canadian medical helicopters remained on the ground in northern Mali during two bloody attacks on United Nations peacekeepers last fall. The Oct. 28 attacks on Ber and Konna by Islamic extremists left two peacekeepers dead and more than a dozen injured on the single bloodiest day for the UN mission in Mali since Canadian peacekeepers arrived at the end of June. Yet while the main purpose of Canadas 12-month mission in Mali is to provide helicopter-borne medical evacuations for injured peacekeepers and UN officials, the Canadians were not deployed in that role. Small Griffon helicopters were used to fly a bomb-disposal team to and from their base in Gao to Timbuktu, near Ber. They also helped refortify the UN camp at Ber by delivering personnel and materials from Timbuktu. But Canadian mission commander Col. Chris McKenna, whose troops have performed only five medical evacuations since August, says the larger Chinook helicopters specifically configured as flying hospitals were not sent. For Ber, McKenna said the UN decided to deploy contracted civilian helicopters that were already based in Timbuktu because it is much closer. Read more: Mali officials say 37 civilians were killed in attack on central village Disappointment emerges as Canadas Mali mission nears halfway mark Canadian troops in Mali provide life-saving medical support Theres a bunch of contracted aircraft that are right around the theatre that the UN can elect to deploy, and so that would have been the closest asset to that incident, McKenna said in an interview on Tuesday. As for Konna, McKenna said the Canadian helicopters would have had to stop to refuel before arriving on the scene, which is why the UN similarly turned to other alternatives. You would have to step through somewhere to get gas, he said. Youre talking about hours and hours to just get to the incident site and be effective. It would be like launching a medevac chopper out of Ottawa to get to Kingston. Its far. The episode underscores two of the main challenges facing both the Canadians and UN officials in Mali, notably the countrys size and a marked shift in the violence from the remote north of the country to the centre and south. The UN has struggled to address both issues, but a lack of resources means that its presence in much of the country remains sparse while it has faced difficulties shifting focus from the north to the centre. The escalating violence in the centre has nonetheless emerged as a major point of concern, as outlined by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in numerous quarterly reports on the situation in Mali. Before they were replaced by the Canadians, German peacekeepers in Mali had complained that red tape and penny-pinching at the UN headquarters in Bamako had at times prevented them from quickly responding to emergencies. McKenna, whose troops will be replaced by another contingent of Canadians this month, said he had not experienced the same degree of challenges as his predecessors. He attributed that to the advice gleaned from the Germans and improved communications with the UN. Weve had a very good experience here in terms of moving information between the force headquarters and us, he said. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... And certainly the relationships that my staff and I have built with key decision-makers in Bamako and the closeness with which weve maintained those relationships has paid off. He also said that despite the extreme weather and harsh operating environment, the Canadian helicopters have held up surprisingly well and the force has managed to meet its requirement to provide round-the-clock medical coverage. It has also helped ferry numerous UN troops and tonnes of equipment to different parts of the country, most recently to the northern town of Kidal. Read more about: Canada shot back at China on Tuesday, branding the death sentence imposed on a British Columbia man as inhumane and flaunting the support of its allies in trying to win the release of two other imprisoned Canadians. The two countries toughened their respective travel advisories, making a mockery of last years bilateral feel-good initiative to boost tourism between them. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada has asked China to spare the life of Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who was originally sentenced in 2016 to a 15-year term for drug smuggling. On Monday, after a new trial, he was sentenced to die. We believe it is inhumane and inappropriate, and wherever the death penalty is considered with regard to a Canadian we speak out against it, Freeland said in Saint-Hyacinthe, Que. Freeland also trumpeted a long list of allies that Canada has courted in its efforts to free Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, two other Canadians imprisoned last month after Canada arrested a Chinese executive at the request of the United States. So much of the world is speaking with one voice on this matter and I think that is certainly a good start. But the people (Kovrig and Spavor) are not yet free, and there is still more work to be done, Canadas ambassador to China, John McCallum, said in an exclusive interview in Montreal. I think thats very important, and I think the prime minister and foreign affairs minister have done a great job in getting all those major countries to come out publicly in support of Canada. Freeland said she wanted to emphasize how glad Canada is that a large and growing, group of our allies has stood with Canada. She rhymed off a list of countries Germany, France, the Netherlands, the European Union, the United States, Britain, Australia, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia for publicly coming out and speaking against these arbitrary detentions. And that is very important. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also courted the leaders of Argentina and New Zealand in separate telephone calls on Monday. The international outreach has sparked Chinese ire, including a scathing attack from Beijings envoy in Ottawa that it smacks of Western egotism and white supremacy. Freeland and McCallum spoke after Chinas foreign ministry blasted Trudeau earlier on Tuesday, expressing strong dissatisfaction with his criticism of the death sentence for Schellenberg. Trudeau said Monday he was very concerned to see China acting arbitrarily. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying upbraided Trudeau on Tuesday, saying he should respect the rule of law, respect Chinas judicial sovereignty, correct mistakes and stop making irresponsible remarks. Hua told reporters in Beijing that China expresses our strong dissatisfaction with this and is cautioning its citizens about travelling to Canada. It urged Chinese citizens to consider their personal circumstances and fully assess the risks of going to Canada for tourism. The Chinese foreign ministrys consular affairs office also published a notice Tuesday saying that Canada has recently arbitrarily detained a Chinese national a reference to Canadas arrest of Chinese telecommunications executive Meng Wanzhou. The notice mirrored Canadas revision of its own travel advisory Monday that warned of the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws in China. McCallum, a former cabinet minister who was a vocal booster of Sino-Canadian tourism, said his top priority is to do everything I can to get the two Michaels released as quickly as possible. I also agree with the prime minister, who referred to the arbitrary death penalty, said McCallum, who is expected to brief Trudeaus cabinet at a retreat this week in Sherbrooke, Que. Canada has asked Chinas ambassador to Canada for clemency in Schellenbergs case, said Freeland, adding that she had a very emotional conversation with Schellenbergs father on Monday. With the case of Mr. Schellenberg, its important for us to remember that were talking about a human being, about a person, the minister said. We really understand how difficult the situation is, and I think the Schellenberg family has our countrys sympathy. Schellenberg had a history of criminal drug offences that dated back to 2003, and pleaded guilty in April 2012 to cocaine trafficking in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, according to a transcript of the hearing. Judge Neill Brown noted Schellenbergs criminal history and the fact he was battling a drug addiction after breaking his leg. He was on probation from a 2010 drug offence when he committed the new offence. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... His father has turned his back on him because of his criminal history although he still has the support of some family members, Brown said as he handed Schellenberg a two-year sentence. You are not caught up in Libya or Syria and I accept that you have your own struggles to deal with, but you have to confront those, Brown added. I hope this is the last time you appear in court. You are fortunate that you have some family members supporting you. Freeland said even though Canada believes the death penalty is wrong, Canadians who travel to countries where the death penalty is part of the criminal justice system need to be aware that it exists. That is just a reality. With files from The Associated Press Read more about: OTTAWACritics of NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh say his performance in a weekend TV interview is a sign he may not be prepared for the challenges of the election year ahead. His supporters shrugged it off as an inconsequential moment that only those within the Ottawa bubble actually care about. During an appearance on the political show CTV Question Period, Singh appeared to be unaware of a news story that made a lot of headlines last week. Singh was asked how he would respond, if elected prime minister, to the recent statement by Chinas Canadian ambassador Lu Shaye, that Canada and its Western allies calls for the release of two Canadians detained in China is rooted in white supremacy. Sorry, who accused who of white supremacy? Singh asked his interviewer. He later told the Toronto Star he didnt hear the initial question. Host Evan Solomon repeated it in full and asked how Singh would have responded if he were prime minister. I dont know if there is any evidence of that suggestion, Singh said, then quickly pivoted to talking about U.S. President Donald Trump. Read more: Jagmeet Singh addresses Canada-China tensions as race for Burnaby South kicks off Jagmeet Singh and the NDP look to change the narrative in 2019 Opinion | Thomas Walkom: Singh not fully to blame for NDP woes The performance spawned a social-media backlash from NDP supporters and foes alike. Karl Belanger, the NDPs former national director, said Singhs response to the China question is not a big problem on its own, but he believes these kinds of things can add up. Whether he didnt hear the question properly or he wasnt fully briefed, Belanger thinks Singh should have been able to handle it better. Frankly, its not helpful to have answered the way he answered because it feeds into a narrative that Jagmeet Singh is not ready to play at the same level as the other main party leaders, Belanger said. Singh, elected the NDP leader about 15 months ago, is in the political fight of his life as he seeks to win a seat in the House of Commons for the first time. He is currently devoting almost all his time to that campaign ahead of the Feb. 25 vote but has said even if he doesnt win he will continue to lead the party into next falls general election. British Columbia NDP MP Peter Julian, who has been canvassing the riding alongside his leader, said Burnaby voters like Singh because, compared to the candidates from other parties, he has a lot to say on the issues that are most important to people in the riding, like housing affordability, the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and education. Were certainly seeing, both with the phone calls were making and the door to door, very strong support, said Julian, who insisted hes heard absolutely nothing about Singhs response on the China question. Its just not something that people are talking about in Burnaby South and thats, I think, indicative as well of the difference between the kind of issues that are talked about in the Ottawa bubble and the types of issues that people are actually talking about. Belanger said Singh absolutely has to win the byelection. Failure is not an option. Despite what some might say, he must win if he wants to remain leader and lead the NDP in the next general election, he said. Nationally the NDP is at around 16-per-cent support in polls, which supporters argue is good by historical standards. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... One party insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged theres pressure on Singh, but said there were times in the NDPs history when it would have kill(ed) to be hovering around 16 per cent. However the NDP hasnt polled that low in an election since 2004, when it won just 19 seats, fewer than half the 44 seats won in 2015. The insider said the party expects more people to tune in as the October general election gets closer. Theyre also confident Singh is going to take the Burnaby South seat, which NDP candidate Kennedy Stewart won by just over 500 votes in the 2015 election. Singh is running against Liberal candidate Karen Wang and Conservative hopeful Jay Shin. The Greens have decided not to field a candidate. Read more about: OTTAWAPrime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned a Chinese courts decision Monday to sentence a Canadian man to death on drug trafficking charges, but there is new reason to doubt that China will be persuaded to grant clemency. The Star has learned that China has previously dismissed clemency pleas by a former prime minister, Stephen Harper, and former governor-general David Johnston against imposing the death penalty on Canadians in two cases. The former Canadian ambassador to China, Guy Saint-Jacques, said in an interview he was personally involved in steps taken by the embassy and the Canadian government, including personally delivering a letter Harper wrote seeking to prevent the execution of two Canadians of Chinese origin. Saint-Jacques recalls it occurred in late 2014 or early 2015, in separate drug trafficking cases in Guangdong province. I think what we just succeeded in doing was delay their execution by maybe one year. Thats cause for alarm as Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg faces execution by a Chinese justice system that had previously sentenced him to 15 years in jail on charges of smuggling 222 kilograms of crystal meth. A Chinese appeal court had ordered the sentence reviewed in late December, and after a one-day hearing the prosecution request to toughen the sentence was granted. Schellenberg, reported to have prior drug convictions in B.C., now has 10 days to file an appeal. Read more: China acting arbitrarily in imposing drug case death sentence, Trudeau says Chinese court orders new trial for Canadian in drug case Justin Trudeau shuffles cabinet, Jane Philpott takes over as Treasury Board president Saint-Jacques says the two Canadians previously executed in China were dual citizens. One had entered China on his Canadian passport, the other had travelled on a Chinese travel document. In the latter case, he said, China did not recognize the mans dual citizenship and dealt with him as a Chinese citizen. Harper took up their cases personally during a visit to China in a meeting with President Xi Jinping, who Saint-Jacques said told the Canadian leader China regards drug trafficking as a very serious crime and they were following Chinese law. Harper travelled to China in November 2014. Harpers letter was sent weeks after the visit, the day before the scheduled execution of one man, but was to no avail, said Saint-Jacques. He said Canadian officials were allowed one last consular visit, but the execution eventually went ahead, with the second execution occurring within weeks as well, he said. Saint-Jacques could not recall the full names of either man, nor are there any records of such cases in English-language Canadian media. Global Affairs Canada did not confirm details of Saint-Jacques statements when first contacted but acknowledged late Monday that executions did occur in roughly that time period. The Star was unable to independently verify any other details. The revelation was one of a number of alarming developments Monday. The Canadian government warned of new travel risks for Canadians. Ottawa said while the risk level for travel to and within China was unchanged at high, it added a new warning: We encourage Canadians to exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws. Canadas embassy in Beijing emailed Canadians registered in the country to be aware of the new risks, asking them to update the embassy if they leave China. The Canadian government also made clear its concern over the fate of other Canadians now facing the Chinese justice system. On Monday, the Chinese government formally dismissed Trudeaus claim of diplomatic immunity for a Canadian former diplomat, Michael Kovrig, arrested by China last month. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, said Kovrig is not entitled to diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations by any measure. He is not currently a diplomat. Michael Kovrig used an ordinary passport and a business visa to come to China. Kovrig was on leave from Global Affairs Canada to work for a non-governmental peace advocacy group, the International Crisis Group. Arrested by China after Canada arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on Dec. 1, Kovrig faces vague allegations of engaging in activities that endangered Chinese state security. A second Canadian, businessman Michael Spavor, was arrested last month as well, and faces similar unspecified charges. Trudeau reacted Monday with dismay to the latest developments in Schellenbergs case and tied it to his concern about Chinas actions in the other cases. It is of extreme concern to us as a government as it should be to all our international friends and allies that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply death penalty in cases facing as in this case facing a Canadian. Trudeau told reporters he would seek clemency for Schellenberg, speaking after he shuffled his cabinet Monday morning. As part of that shuffle, Trudeau moved his justice minister out of the portfolio responsible for handling the U.S. extradition request of Meng, and installed a legal expert in comparative and public law, David Lametti. Mengs arrest infuriated the Chinese government, which has accused Canada of acting arbitrarily in the matter. China dismissed Canadas explanation that it was obliged to act under a bilateral extradition treaty with the U.S., with its ambassador in Ottawa publicly accusing Canadas government last week of double standards driven by white supremacy. Chunying fired a shot at the Canadian governments insistence that Trudeau is bound to respect the independence of a Canadian court now seized with the Meng case. As to the Canadian sides claim that all countries should respect judicial independence, I believe this is quite right if only the Canadian side itself could first prove its judicial independence with concrete actions. Saint-Jacques, who was Ottawas envoy from 2012 to 2016 and worked with Kovrig, said in an interview there is little doubt that with the mens arrests and Schellenbergs suddenly toughened sentence, China is sending a clear message to Canada. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... He said the government needs to prepare a Plan A and a Plan B in case this further escalates because this problem is going to be with us for some time, said Saint-Jacques. Saint-Jacques predicted Mengs legal defence team will try to block the U.S. request and draw out the legal arguments for years, and he encouraged the Trudeau government to keep up the international pressure because China cares about its international reputation, even if it does not care about Canada. Trudeau said Canada would continue to enlist the support of its international friends and allies to object to Chinas actions. Trudeau said all governments should be worried about Chinas arbitrary moves. We are extremely concerned as should be all countries around the world that China is choosing to act arbitrarily whether it is in application of its own justice system to its own citizens and people around the world or whether its in its choice to not respect longstanding practices and principles in regard to diplomatic immunity. This is something that everyone should be alert to and certainly something we as a government take very seriously and will continue to engage strongly with China on. Several governments, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the European Union, and Australia have already stepped up to express concern about Chinas arrests of Kovrig and Spavor. Schellenbergs aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones, in an email to the Stars Vancouver reporter Perrin Grauer, said All I can really say at this moment is, it is our worst case fear confirmed. Our thoughts are with Robert at this time. It is rather unimaginable what he must be feeling and thinking. It is a horrific, unfortunate, heartbreaking situation. We anxiously anticipate any news regarding an appeal. Canada seeks clemency for all Canadians facing the death penalty in foreign jurisdictions. We have sought clemency in the case of Mr. Schellenberg and will continue to do so, said Global Affairs spokesman Guillaume Berube. Global Affairs says about 200 are currently detained in China for a variety of infractions and continue to face legal proceedings. Many of these Canadians are out on bail or serving probation, while a handful are in custody. Alex Neve, of Amnesty International Canada, said Monday the sentence against Schellenberg was imposed after a rushed retrial, and called on the Chinese government to abandon its plans to carry out the death sentence. Neve called on the Canadian government to intervene at very senior levels, including the Prime Minister, to press that request. Neve said the fact the Schellenberg death penalty has arisen in the context of the strained relationship between China and Canada arising from Canadas arrest of Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition warrant, adds greater urgency to the need for immediate and concerted effort on the part of the Canadian government to convince Chinese authorities to overturn the death penalty in this case. John Kamm, head of Dui Hua, a San Francisco-based non-governmental group that advocates for political prisoners in China, said in an interview that Schellenbergs aunt has asked for his help in advocating for the Canadian man. He said his organization is aware of 19 foreigners, but no North Americans among them, who have been executed by China from 2009 to present. Kamm said the best thing that could happen now for Schellenberg is for an appeal to be filed, and a cooling off period between the two countries, the sooner the better. However, Trudeaus comments, and Ottawas travel advisory update, signaled a distinct shift in tone from the Liberal government towards China. In December, Trudeau told reporters he has learned since taking power that it does no good to politicize or amplify consular cases because it can actually hinder what he said is the ultimate goal of securing Canadians release from detention and their safe return home. Read more about: CALGARYAlberta Premier Rachel Notley expressed frustration again Monday about a lack of progress in completing the Trans Mountain pipeline. Notleys comments came after a federal cabinet shuffle that left Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi in his portfolio. She said thats probably a good thing as removing Sohi before the outcome of a court-ordered Indigenous consultation by the National Engery Board would be likely to cause even further delay. Albertans still need the federal government to step up and support the industry while we are trying to get through this ridiculousness of having not enough capacity to get our oil and gas to market, Notley said. Weve talked about that. Weve talked about rail. Weve talked about other interim programs that could come into place, and were disappointed weve not heard anything from the federal government yet. Notley announced late last year that her government will buy rail cars to transport an additional 120,000 barrels a day, which would increase the amount of oil being moved by rail in Canada by one- third. Read more: Alberta votes in 2019 as energy issues, Trudeau dominate debate Notley says oil cut plan working, takes yuletide jab at prime minister Albertas output-cut mandate may be driving oil prices too high Discussions about a purchase agreement are ongoing, she said. She was asked whether the current Liberal government should receive another mandate from voters in a federal election expected later this year. The facts of the matter is that the previous government, which happened to be from a different political party, also didnt get it done, she said. Quite honestly, the considerations that have led to the ridiculousness that Albertans are so frustrated with right now ... has been in the making for decades. The federal government bought Trans Mountain and its expansion project for $4.5 billion last summer only to have the Federal Court of Appeal strike down the energy boards approval. The court said there had been inadequate Indigenous consultation and failure to consider impacts on the marine environment. The boards final report needs to be submitted to the federal cabinet by Feb. 22. Notley said partisanship should have nothing to do with support for the resource sector, which is an economic engine for the rest of Canada. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... The current federal government has at least accomplished one thing, she said. There was decades of factors that were at play which led to the instability that jeopardized that project. We did get the federal government to buy the pipeline. Thats not nothing. There is a vested interest they have now in getting this darn thing built. Read more about: HALIFAXChoosing Bernadette Jordan as the new Nova Scotian in the federal cabinet likely points to the governments desire to keep a precarious riding in Liberal hands while maintaining gender parity, says one Halifax expert. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau named Jordan the minister of rural economic development, a new cabinet position, on Monday as part of a cabinet shuffle prompted by the departure of Nova Scotias Scott Brison. After 22 years in politics, the MP for Kings-Hants announced last week he was resigning his cabinet position wont run in the 2019 federal election. Dalhousie University associate political science professor Lori Turnbull knew a cabinet shuffle would require a Nova Scotia MP to take Brisons place, the question was simply a matter of who the government would choose. Would the party reward a good soldier with a longer track record, or go with somebody whos not a guaranteed shoo-in for re-election and this is a political move to try to shore that up? Turnbull said in an interview on Monday. Careful not to detract from Jordans qualifications, Turnbull said it struck her that its not an accident that the person whos been chosen is somebody who is in a traditional Tory riding, and might need a little bit of a leg up in order to be able to get through the next campaign. Jordan is a first-time MP for South Shore-St. Margarets, and was elected in the 2015 sweep that saw the province turn completely Liberal. Shes now the first woman in federal cabinet ever elected from a N.S. riding. Before Jordan, Conservative MP Gerald Keddy held the South Shore riding from 1997 to until 2015 election, when he decided not to run again. Keddy held various parliamentary secretary roles and was the party whip in 2003, but never landed a cabinet spot. Liberal Derek Wells was elected in 1993, serving one term as a backbencher. Before him was Progressive Conservative Peter McCreath, who was the last MP in that riding to hold a cabinet spot when he served as Minister of Veterans Affairs in 1993. Although Jordan won quite decisively in 2015, in the 2011 election a Liberal wasnt even a player in the South Shore race, Turnbull said. In that year, Wells had run again but only landed 16.9 per cent of the vote, while Gordon Earle of the NDP placed second with 36.1 per cent behind Keddys 43.1 per cent. While other Liberal MPs like Andy Fillmore in Halifax and Darren Fisher of Dartmouth-Cole Harbour won NDP ridings in the last election and might be in precarious spots themselves, you cant put them all in cabinet, Turnbull said. Theres always got to be a calculation about the risk factor and a whole bunch of other factors too. Im sure, in terms of the prime ministers commitment to a gender-equal cabinet, her being a woman didnt hurt her, Turnbull said, particularly since Trudeau brought in Quebec MP David Lametti as the new justice minister. Turnbull pointed out that Trudeau couldnt choose another male MP from N.S. to replace Brison and still keep gender parity without making other major changes. Thats the thing about a cabinet shuffle, its all like a balancing act. Theres no decisions made in isolation, theres no vacuum. Its all dominoes, right, so its like how many dominoes have to move for the whole thing to fit together and make sense. When asked about Jordans new portfolio, Turnbull said the move is consistent with the Trudeau governments message of mobilizing the middle class in rural Canada, or it could be seen as a political move to grow the rural vote, which might make a whole lot of sense. While more details about the portfolio might become clear later when the mandate letter is released, right now Turnbull said she was not sure what the party hopes to achieve as there seems to be a lot of overlap with infrastructure (Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne) and economic development (Minister Navdeep Bains). The shuffle also comes in an election year, which gives Jordan barely any runway to tackle the job. If I were her, Id be thinking OK, you want me to develop a rural economic development strategy, and the writs going to drop in a matter of months? What am I supposed to do with this? Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... But Jordan said Monday the Liberals have already been working on rural issues, and shes confident she can get some moving pieces going in the 2019 rural economic strategy. There are a number of Liberal MPs who have been advocating for a rural ministry of some kind because they recognize how important and how different a rural economy is from an urban one, Jordan said. However, when she was called to Ottawa for meetings last week she had no idea Brison was resigning and theyd be looking for another N.S. MP to take his place. Those are really big shoes to fill. Scott Brison has been an absolute phenomenal Member of Parliament, Jordan said. He is a trailblazer, hes been a huge mentor to me. Before her time in Ottawa, Jordan worked in the community newspaper industry and for the local Health Services Foundation in Bridgewater, N.S., which is about an hour from Halifax on the South Shore. Bridgewater Mayor David Mitchell, who said community is the first word that comes to mind when asked about Jordan, said she will be a great advocate for rural communities in her new role. Jordan was quite thrilled to be offered the rural economic development portfolio, which includes plans to extend broadband internet to rural areas and help in rural infrastructure development. She said its important to take a targeted approach to rural and northern communities, which often have unique pressures. One example she gave was of post-secondary students who are unable to return home on weekends to do homework, since their house and parts of their community might not be covered by broadband internet. A wider internet connection could also mean bringing Telehealth (medical information or diagnosis via video and telecommunications) to small rural communities that struggle with few doctors and health care resources, Jordan said. If someone wants to live in rural Canada and work there, they should have that ability to do that. And if they need specific infrastructure in order to do that, I think its (up) to us as a government to make sure that thats in place, she said. With files from The Canadian Press Read more about: EDMONTONA Calgary father and son are dead after an avalanche south of Invermere, B.C., on Saturday. Columbia Valley RCMP say a 51-year-old man and his 24-year-old son were part of a group of nine snowmobilers from Calgary who were riding together on the east face of Mount Brewer on Saturday afternoon when the avalanche occurred. A GoFundMe page, launched Monday afternoon, identifies the father and son as Larry and Matt Burdiga, respectively. The world has lost two of the brightest lights, reads a post by Lauren Stein, who organized the GoFundMe campaign. Larry and Matt Burdiga were tragically lost in an avalanche accident on Jan. 12 doing what they love most, sledding. RCMP got a call from the International Emergency Response Coordination Centre around 2:50 p.m. MT, informing police of an emergency beacon message regarding snowmobilers caught in an avalanche. RCMP called the Columbia Valley Search and Rescue team, which recovered the 51-year-old man and initiated CPR. The man was flown to a nearby hospital, where his death was confirmed. Police said the mans son was missing and believed to have been swept into a lake. The RCMPs underwater recovery team was out on Sunday and was expected to resume its search efforts Monday morning. The B.C. Coroners Service later confirmed in an email that they were investigating a second death involving the missing male. According to a post on Avalanche Canadas website, a transreceiver signal from the son was found on the lake, where debris was floating on the water. Avalanche Canada says the two men were caught in a very large deep persistent slab avalanche that was 200 to 400 metres wide and ran 900 to 1,100 metres onto a small lake. They said the 51-year-olds snowmobile airbag had activated and he was recovered from a two-metre deep burial. RCMP say the avalanche was triggered by one of the riders high-marking a practice of trying to ride as far up a steep mountain slope as possible before turning around and coming back down. They say the other seven snowmobilers are safe and no injuries were reported. Calgary Snowmobile Club president Scott Kjarsgaard said Monday afternoon he was not aware of any club member being involved in the incident. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Its unfortunate, its really sad and my heart goes out to the family, he said. The B.C. Coroners Service is investigating to determine how, where, when and by what means the men died. Read more about: CALGARYIn a tiny waiting room sandwiched between makeshift screening areas on a converted bus in northeast Calgary, sixth graders sit patiently waiting for their dental exams. The chilly winter morning is typical for the Alex Community Health Centres dental bus. Parked outside schools, shuttling kids through appointments one after the other, the mobile dental office can help as many as 90 kids a week. The kids hopping in and out of the mobile dental chairs tend to come from families who have trouble getting them to a more conventional dentists office, and the children often have concerning enough dental decay that they need repeat checkups. The idea for the bus was born back in 2011, with organizers looking ahead to what they saw as a looming challenge for low-income families in Calgary: thats when city council voted to end water fluoridation. Calgary has long had a prickly relationship with fluoride, having voted on the issue no less than five times. Calgarians rejected fluoridation through plebiscites in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s before approving it in 1989, and residents gave it a green light a second time in a 1998 plebiscite. In 2011, council switched course again, with a majority of councillors voting to remove fluoride from the citys water supply after a lengthy and contentious public hearing that lasted more than 10 hours. But a recent vote in Windsor, Ont., to reintroduce water fluoridation has some public health advocates wondering if the debate could be revived at home. Windsor city council voted 8-3 last month to reverse a 2013 vote to stop fluoridation, and many health professionals in Calgary say theyd like to see city council follow suit here. Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral that is released into soil, water and air. But its also routinely added to water supplies in many countries to prevent tooth decay and cavities. In Canada, fluoride at 0.7 mg/L is considered the optimal level to support dental health. Theres still naturally occurring fluoride in Calgarys water, but at lower levels that vary between 0.1 mg/L and 0.4 mg/L, according to the city. The first Canadian community to begin fluoridating its water was Brantford, Ont., in 1945. Share your thoughts The majority of scientific research favours appropriate levels of water fluoridation, and its recommended by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States. Community water fluoridation is widespread in Canada, but some parts of the country have little or no fluoride in most of their water systems. In Newfoundland, New Brunswick, British Columbia and Quebec, less than 3 per cent of the population had a fluoridated water system as of 2017, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. Ontario has the highest rate of community water fluoridation in the country, with 71 per cent of the population drinking fluoridated water. But opposition to it has been heated in some circles, with some critics questioning the health benefits or chalking it up to personal freedom arguing the government shouldnt dictate the chemicals to go into peoples drinking water. The latter argument swayed some Calgary councillors when they ultimately decided to take fluoride out of the water in 2011. But Windsors vote came from a council that had almost entirely turned over since the last time fluoridation was on the agenda. All but one of the city councillors elected after 2013 supported putting fluoride back in the water. And this time, their discussion focused on a new Windsor-Essex County Health Unit report that found the percentage of children with decay or requiring urgent dental care increased 51 per cent between the 2011/2012 and 2016/2017 school years. In presenting the case for restoring fluoridation, Windsor-Essex County Health Unit acting medical officer of health Dr. Wajid Ahmed said he stressed to council: Its not only (that) we saw an increase in the number of children with more cavities, but also the severity was very high as well. Ahmed said hes pleased with the outcome of the recent vote. Issues like dental cavities definitely impact a childs ability to to grow up to become a fully developed adult and develop their full health potential, he said. We are looking forward that our city may act as a leader to setting an example to other cities that they should be looking back at their own local data to see if there are any negative impacts. A University of Calgary study from 2016 found a greater increase in tooth decay in Calgary compared to Edmonton, where the water remains fluoridated. Researchers found this increase for primary teeth decay consistent with a negative effect of ending fluoridation. That prompted an ultimately unsuccessful move on council to ask public health experts for more advice. But the fluoride debate has never fully died in Calgary: a coalition tried to make it an election issue in the 2017 municipal vote, tracking each candidates stance on adding it to city water. About half the Calgary council members currently in office were elected prior to the 2011 fluoride debate, and all of them except Mayor Naheed Nenshi, who was absent, voted in favour of removing fluoride at the time. Since then, some of those councillors say theyre unsure where they fall on the issue. At least one of the fresh faces on council would like to see the debate return: Ward 11 Councillor Jeromy Farkas, elected for the first time in 2017, said hes in favour of restoring water fluoridation in Calgary. But in terms of whether council is interested in rehashing the issue right now, I dont think that the will is there, he said. Hes planning to submit a request for city administration to provide information on exactly what the cost would be to go back to fluoridating the water, but his ultimate hope would be for it to inform another plebiscite on the issue during the 2021 election. I think that there is a requirement for elected officials to go back to Calgarians on this as an issue given the past precedent, Farkas said. Ward 10 Councillor Ray Jones, who was first elected in 1993, said hes not sure there would be much more to say about fluoridation eight years after council decided to remove it. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... It would be the same dog-and-pony show. You get the naysayers and you get the people who are in favour of it. Jones said he thinks council had a healthy discussion when they voted to remove fluoride, but it was a tough issue to sift through with strong opinions coming from both sides. Its not as easy as a yes or no. It really, truly isnt, he said. University of Calgary political science associate professor Brenda ONeill recently published a study examining the politics behind the decision to stop water fluoridation in Calgary. Its an interesting case, she said, because its an example of a long-standing policy being stopped, which can be a hard political sell. People will get up in arms over no longer getting the benefits of the program, but there are obviously reasons why that might not be the case. And one of them is if the benefits of the program are diffuse, and theyre hard to nail down like fluoride, she said. For now, she said, without any other major changes, it seems to me youd have to have some precipitating factor for the decision to be revisited. In Windsor, the health unit issued several recommendations, including bringing back community water fluoridation, improving access to oral health services, and advocating to expand public dental-health programs. Some in Calgary have argued that should be the real focus of the fluoride debate. Ward 7 Councillor Druh Farrell, who brought the motion that ultimately led to the decision to end fluoridation, maintains that responsibility for health rests with the province, and the onus is on those officials to look for ways to provide more equitable access to dental care. Alberta Health Services needs to look at cities that are successful and adjust, she said. They keep going back to the city, and thats an old idea. In Europe, they have a much higher success rate (with tooth decay) and they dont fluoridate their water. Ward 3 Councillor Jyoti Gondek, currently serving her first term, agrees with Farrells assessment. This is provincial jurisdiction, she said. They should be responsible for it fully. In the city, health-care workers say theyre seeing the impact of fluoride being removed from city water. The Alex bus visits schools in Calgarys high-need areas each week, using Alberta Health Services information on tooth decay rates to find which parts of Calgary residents are most likely in need of dental care. The children they help are largely from low-income populations. The bus provided dental checkups for 2,200 Calgarians over the last school year. But program lead Denise Kokaram said the number of people they reach annually is a drop in the bucket for a city of Calgarys size. To think that we or other social organizations can keep up with this on our own without any additional community measures is ridiculous, Kokaram said. Kokaram said the bus has seen roughly 26 per cent of their patients in need of an urgent procedure over the past year, a number she finds staggeringly high. Ive heard people who oppose community water fluoridation saying, Oh, well these people need to teach their children how to brush their teeth, they need to take them to the dentist, they need to give them better food. Yes, youre right. Those are all the barriers plus more that these families face. Read more about: Thanks General Motors. For the jobs you create, the investments you make, the communities you support and for choosing to plant your feet firmly on Ontario soil once again. That was then-premier Dalton McGuinty in March 2005, announcing funding for the Beacon Project, celebrating what was billed as the most comprehensive automotive investment in Canadian history. The federal government tipped in $200 million, the province anted $235 million, the automaker made a $2.5-billion investment commitment and the premier sounded assured that the provinces Automotive Investment Strategy would hold Ontarios place as a world leader in auto manufacturing and push it to the forefront of innovation. As part of the revitalization plan, GM committed to maintaining employment at an average of 16,000 jobs across a nine-year period. It is instructive to revisit the Beacon Project as a reminder of the history of big subsidies to the auto industry, and high hopes too, that even in an ever-advancing era of cheaper offshore production, Ontario would keep its place as a, well, beacon for automotive manufacture. The automaker ultimately breached its target commitments three years later as the financial crisis moved into full swing. The multibillion-dollar bailout that followed understandably leaves a bitter taste for those Oshawa GM plant workers whose jobs have been declared redundant by the decision-makers at corporate headquarters in Detroit. Unifor president Jerry Dias is attempting to capitalize on the citys famed auto show as the equivalent of the political hustings this week, promising to take more drastic action to get General Motors attention. The scope of that action remained unclear at a press conference Tuesday, beyond the walkout of more than 100 workers at the Inteva products plant in Whitby and beyond Dias promising to make the auto show the worst that General Motors will ever face. Read more: GM tells Ottawa, Queens Park that Oshawa assembly plant will definitely close GM reaffirms Oshawa closure after meetings with Ontario and federal officials Opinion | Shawn Micaleff: Oshawa shutdown was a shock, but it wasnt a surprise Buying time by at least getting the automaker to extend the Oshawa plant closing to September 2020, is clearly on the unions agenda. But thats no answer. Writing in the Socialist Project in December, Sam Gindin, research director of the Canadian Auto Workers from 1974-2000, addressed what he called the limited options facing the union. The impact of consumer boycotts, he writes, are generally marginal and not sustained. They have only worked in narrow circumstances: boycotting a local business, or in support of a mass movement for social justice, like the opposition to South African apartheid. Even in the case of South Africa, he adds, the impact was primarily due to institutions such as university pension funds. Gindin points out that there was no boycott called when Quebec lost its assembly plant, nor London, Ont. Plant occupation? Such action would keep the focus on the looming closure but presents no alternative. If there is any lesson to be learned here is that overturning this imposed reality cant be achieved by traditional protest and traditional alternatives, insists Gindin. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... And then theres this cold reality: No matter what workers do, how good their work, how restrained their demands, and how much they accept in terms of work pressures, they will always remain vulnerable in a system geared to profits, competition and the priorities of stockholders and senior executives. There will always be someplace cheaper to run to. The prior uncertainty over product allocation for Oshawa, the phasing out of car assembly, and the finishing and painting of outgoing truck models as opposed to incoming truck models prefigured a plant dynamic that made it especially vulnerable, even after the four-year contract ratified in September 2016, and even after GMs plant investments of more than $550 million, the bulk of which went to Oshawa. The Oshawa plant, Gindin writes, was doomed. So whats the plan? Our politicians will no doubt tout GMs commitment to engineering, software and testing, and champion its technical centres and look ahead to the mobility campus slated for Toronto that I have written about before. Thats a standard deflection trick. Gindin reminds us that at the end of the 1970s, GM had approximately 23,000 plant and office workers in Oshawa. Eighty-five per cent of those jobs have already vanished. Was the financial crisis of 2008 a possible tipping point? Gindin think so. If, after the financial crisis, when hundreds of plants were shuttered and we actually had some kind of plan in place and were ready to save some of those plants and capacities, we would today have a structure for also thinking more concretely where the Oshawa plant and its suppliers might fit in. Instead we tend to think small at the time of crises. Gindin is thinking big in ways that will sound outrageous to some, but at least he has more interesting thoughts than Jerry Dias. How about placing the plant under public ownership, with no further compensation to GM, followed by a grand conversion. To what? New manufacturing driven by environmental change? How about revamping household appliances for an increasingly environmental future? How do we capture the skills and capacities we do have? Gindin understands that none of this would be on politically, but is disappointed by the inevitable dead-end talk of the union. Continuing our dependence on unaccountable corporations, offering subsidies and concessions without means to enforce job guarantees, making competitiveness the only test of worthwhile activity, looking to better free trade agreements and so on, are dead ends. All they offer is more of the same: death by a thousand cuts. Read more about: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continues to work the phones to rally support in Canadas dispute with China. Trudeau spoke Monday with Argentinian President Mauricio Macri and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, after calls last week to other world leaders including Donald Trump. Earlier Monday, he expressed extreme concern about Chinas actions in the wake of Canadas arrest of a Huawei Technologies Co. executive on a U.S. extradition request. Trudeaus office released summaries of the two calls. One said he discussed the arbitrary detention of two Canadians in China and Chinas application of the death penalty to a Canadian citizen with Macri. Another said he and Ardern discussed the detention and legal treatment of Canadian citizens in China and the need for all countries to respect judicial procedure and rule of law. Canada has also updated its travel advisory on the Asian nation, urging Canadians to exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws. In response, Beijing issued its own travel alert for Canada on Tuesday. Tensions continue to rise between the two countries, after a Chinese court sentenced Robert Schellenberg to death in a drug case Monday. The Canadian citizen will appeal the ruling. China executes more people than any other country in the world, and is one of only a handful to do so for drug charges. Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said Tuesday that the country is seeking clemency for Schellenberg. It is true that this is a difficult moment and our government will continue to advocate for the Canadians who are arbitrarily detained, and we will continue to seek clemency for Mr. Schellenberg, Freeland said during a news conference in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec. Read More: China asks state firms to avoid travel to U.S. and its allies China has carried out death penalty threats against Canadians in the past, Star has learned China criticizes Trudeaus comments on decision to hand down death penalty China also seized two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, on national security grounds as the government in Beijing complains about Canadas arrest of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver. Meng is out on bail, while Kovrig and Spavor remain in custody. Ren Zhengfei, Huaweis reclusive billionaire founder and Mengs father, broke a years-long silence this week to insist his company doesnt help Chinese intelligence services. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Read more about: TORONTO - Ontario and federal politicians have walked away empty-handed from meetings with General Motors about the companys plans to close the Oshawa Assembly Plant. Federal Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains met briefly with GM CEO Mary Barra on the sidelines of an auto show in Detroit Monday and Ontario Premier Doug Ford met with GM president Mark Reuss Tuesday morning. Both politicians said they urged the company to reconsider its decision to shutter the plant at the end of this year and are disappointed GM refused to budge on the closure. I had a very candid conversation with Mary and the senior executive team at GM, Bains told The Canadian Press on Tuesday in an interview. I also articulated that GM is making a mistake by leaving Oshawa. He told Barra and other senior GM executives that Ottawa is prepared to be part of any solution related to the Oshawa facility. Barra, he said, indicated GM will continue to support its assembly operation in Ingersoll and its engine and transmission factory in St. Catharines. She also insisted the company will continue to make investments in its Markham research and development facility, he said. Bains, who met with Chrysler CEO Michael Manley on Tuesday, said automakers are optimistic about Canadas role as a place to build cars of the future, including zero-emissions and automated vehicles. Obviously, we regret the decision that GM has taken vis-a-vis Oshawa but theyre an outlier, said Bains, who added that Manley reaffirmed his commitment to Chryslers Brampton and Windsor assembly plants in Ontario. In a statement, Ford said he promised to press GM executives to extend the companys operations at its Oshawa plant to give workers more time to prepare for the consequences of the closure. Despite raising this on repeated instances, I was disappointed to hear that General Motors position has not changed, Fords statement said. Union leader Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, has criticized Ford for not fighting for Oshawa workers after the premier initially said little could be done to change the minds of GM executives. Ford met with Dias on Monday and committed to raising the issue with the company. Dias, speaking at a press conference Tuesday, said he welcomed increased support from government after a frustrating amount of silence. Fighting General Motors is a significant enough battle, I ought not to have to fight with the premier of Ontario or the prime minister of the country. Dias said about 100 unionized workers at Oshawa auto parts supplier Inteva Products walked off the job in Whitby, Ont. Tuesday to draw attention to how the Oshawa closure will affect supplier jobs as well. He said GM can expect more actions to put pressure on the company to reverse its decision. Though Mary Barra and others keep saying sorry, this decision is final, we dont view it that way at all. This is about greedy motors. This is about a poor decision. GM announced in late November that it would wind down its Oshawa operations by the end of 2019 at a loss of about 2,600 unionized workers and 340 other staff. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Car parts maker Magna International Inc. said Tuesday that the Oshawa shutdown, as well as four potential GM plant closures in the U.S., had hurt its outlook for the year ahead. Our North American business reflects the negative impact of the recently announced General Motors assembly plant actions, Magna said in its financial outlook, which came in a little below analyst expectations. - with files from Andy Blatchford in Ottawa Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will top the list of leaders attending the World Economic Forums annual meeting next week after the withdrawal of U.S. President Donald Trump. The U.S. president cancelled his trip to the annual gathering of global financial elites because of the government shutdown, which is now the longest in the nations history. The U.S. delegation will include Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Brazils recently sworn-in President Jair Bolsonaro is another one of the 60 heads of state and government expected in the Swiss mountain town of Davos for the event that runs from Jan. 22 to Jan. 25 under the theme Globalization 4.0. They gather at a time when investors are questioning the outlook for the world economy and increasingly linking the prospects for its expansion to factors such as trade wars and Brexit. On hand to provide insights on such hot-button matters will be International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde and World Trade Organization Director General Roberto Azevedo. U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, Turkeys Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu and Canadas Chrystia Freeland will share their thoughts on the geopolitical outlook. The election of Trump in the U.S. and Britains departure from the European Union are events that ave been attributed to a renaissance of populism, a backlash by those who dont see themselves as the beneficiaries of the technology-driven economic expansion of recent years. Read more: Globalization can no longer be the scapegoat for worlds problems: Olive While globalization has been of net benefit to people, we have to look after the losers, those that were left behind, said Klaus Schwab, founder of the Forum, said at a press conference in Geneva on Tuesday, introducing the 2019 program. We have to define a new approach of globalization, which is more inclusive. In that vein, a panel entitled More than GDP will feature New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Angel Gurria, secretary general at Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development. There will also be a discussion about redesigning social safety nets. Forum regulars like U2 frontman Bono are also expected, as is Britains Prince William. So are Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief executive officer David Solomon and hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio. Architecture not of buildings but of societies is one of the themes of the 2019 event. One of the first sessions will be a discussion of the evolving business environment with Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan and Stephen Schwarzman of BlackRock early on Jan. 22. Lagarde is due to take up the theme building a more equitable world order on the Forums last day, chairing a panel with Britains Chancellor Philip Hammond and Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Read more about: MIRABEL, Que. - Airbus is not ruling out the possibility that Quebec will host a fighter plane assembly line and satellite construction plant if the European giant manages to win federal contracts in Canada. Simon Jacques, head of Canadian operations for the multinational, mentioned the possibility Monday at a company event in Mirabel, an off-island Montreal suburb, where it manufactures A220 jetliners, previously known as the Bombardier C Series. A call for tenders for 88 new fighter planes is expected from Ottawa before the start of the 2019 election campaign in a bid to replace the governments aging CF-18s. Airbus makes the Eurofighter Typhoon. Absolutely, Jacques said, when asked if the assembly line could be in Quebec. Were evaluating our options. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Saab are all in the running alongside Airbus for the federal contract. Jacques said the construction of a new assembly line, which would create numerous jobs, would not pose a logistical challenge given the extra space at the Mirabel plant. He stressed the need for a Canadian solution, given that the call for tenders would include local content requirements. In 2016 Airbus landed its first major contract with Ottawa, which ordered 16 search and rescue aircraft under a $2.4-billion agreement, on top of a pledge for $2.3 billion in maintenance and after-sales service for 20 years. The first vehicle must be delivered by the end of 2019. The CF-18s put into service in the 1980s were set to be phased out by 2020, but their replacement has turned into a drawn-out saga. Six years ago, the Harper government abandoned its controversial plans to purchase untendered F-35 fighter jets to take the place of the aging fleet. The Trudeau government, which had subsequently decided to buy 18 Super Hornet aircraft from Boeing also without a tender cancelled that purchase in 2017 in the wake of a commercial dispute between Boeing and Bombardier over the C Series. According to Jacques, Canada is really committed to stimulating competition, which may open a door to a manufacturer other than the U.S.-based Boeing. I think its important for Canada to have a different fleet from what is in the United States [with Boeing], he said, calling the prospect a good thing for NORAD [North American Aerospace Defense Command]. Jacques suggested Canada could learn from the United Kingdom, which counts counts Airbus and Lockheed Martin aircraft among its fighter fleet. Airbus executives also said the Netherlands-based company may turn to Quebec for satellite construction if its proposal is accepted up by Telesat Canada, a satellite operator. The company had solicited offers from Airbus and the France-based Thales Group as part of an Internet service project tied to the launch of between 300 and 500 satellites, Jacques said. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... This would change the situation in Quebec, he said, adding that the project would create about 200 new jobs. Airbus said it is having ongoing discussions with various levels of government, including Quebec and Ottawa, to set up shop in the province if the multinational wins the contract. Born in Liverpool, the talented drummer founded a heavy metal group called Orange with Jimmy Barnes, Ian Moss, Don Walker and Leszek Kaczmarek as their lineup. The band eventually evolved to Cold Chisel in 1974 and Kaczmarek was replaced a year later with Phil Small. Prestwich wrote "When the War is Over" and "Forever Now" which appears on the 1982 album, "Circus Animals. He also co-wrote the song "Flame Trees" with Walker for their 1984 album, "Twentieth Century". His last appearance with the band was in 1983 for their "Last Stand Tour". Prestwich then moved on to another band called Little River Band to release two albums and go on a short American tour. He then rejoined Cold Chisel in their later reformations. In the later years of 2000, Prestwich went on to release his first solo album, "Since You've Been Gone" and his second in 2009, titled "Every Highway". In 2011, the drummer had sadly passed away in Sydney after failing to regain consciousness following a surgery to remove a brain tumour that was diagnosed just two weeks prior. Barnes had later planted a flame tree to commemorate Prestwich at the National Arboretum Canberra. Staff reports Watertown Public Opinion Despite advance billing that President Trumps border wall speech would break news and contain new information, it was mostly familiar rhetoric: criminals and drugs, rapists and murderers are coming to America and the wall is the only way to stop them. The president named families who have lost loved ones at the hands of undocumented immigrants. A case could be made, though, that American citizens are killing each other at higher rates during an average weekend in Chicago and other big cities than are killed by immigrants. Whose facts to believe? There are plenty on both sides of the argument. Raul Ortiz, the deputy chief of Border Patrol agents, says his agents are arresting up to 641 undocumented immigrants every day. Other sources say arrests and border crossings have substantially declined in recent years. What frustrates average Americans is the flip-flopping by politicians who were for a border wall and holding people who broke our laws accountable before they were against it. These include Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer, all of whom once championed stronger border security. When he was a senator from Illinois in 2006, Obama said: Those who enter our country illegally and those who employ them disrespect the rule of law. And because we live in an age where terrorists are challenging our borders, we simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, and unchecked. Americans are right to demand better border security and better enforcement of our immigration laws. Those remarks are in line with what President Trump is now saying. The president tweeted a comment Hillary Clinton made as recently as 2015 to underscore his claim of hypocrisy by Democrats: I voted, when I was a senator, to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in. The major media and their Democrat allies claim that the decline in the number of people crossing the southern border is proof that a wall or other barrier is not needed. But a case could be made and the White House made it in a statement that walls already in place are proof that barriers work. Since San Diego built its wall in 1992, the statement notes, apprehensions of illegal aliens have declined by 92 percent; El Paso, Texas erected a wall in 1993 and illegal border crossings dropped 72 percent the first year and 95 percent over 22 years; Tucson built its wall in 2000 and apprehensions dropped 90 percent over 15 years; Yumas wall went up in 2005, contributing to a decline in crossings of 95 percent over nine years. Yes, many went to other places where they could cross more easily, but thats an argument for expanding the wall or constructing other barriers. Schumer and Pelosi challenged the president in a sleight-of-hand deal to re-open the part of government that is closed and then continue the debate about a wall. That reminds me of the deal offered to President George H.W. Bush by then-Speaker Jim Wright (D-Texas). Wright said Congress would cut spending if Bush would OK a tax increase. Bush was blamed for the tax hike, never got the spending cuts and lost his re-election bid. In the end it is going to be a battle of images. One image is of people trying to cross the border illegally, throwing rocks, a few engaging in criminal activity; the other image is of 800,000 suffering federal employees going without paychecks. Which side will win is less important than what is best for America. If only more politicians cared about that higher goal. This year marks Cal Thomas 35th year as a syndicated columnist. Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Staff reports Watertown Public Opinion CLEAR LAKE Voters will get to ask District 4 legislators questions and voice concerns at a cracker barrel hosted by Dakota Rural Action and Farmers Union later this month. The cracker barrel will take place on Saturday, January 26, at 1 p.m. at the Clear Lake Municipal Building. All of the legislators for District 4 are slated to attend: Senator John Wiik, Representative John Mills, and Representative Fred Deutsch. The South Dakota state legislative session began on Tuesday, January 8. District 4 includes Deuel County, Grant County, and parts of Codington and Brookings counties. Complimentary coffee and cookies will be served at the event. We're always interested in hearing about business news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Still no charges for taxi driver who wiped out six vehicles, killed motorcyclist PHUKET: Ten weeks after a Phuket airport taxi driver wiped out six vehicles and killed a motorbike rider whilst driving a tourist from the airport during morning rush hour traffic on Thepkrasattri Rd, the investigating officer from the Thalang Police has yet to formally press charges for reckless driving. transportdeathaccidentspolice By The Phuket News Tuesday 15 January 2019, 06:18PM A tourist was in the taxi when the accident happened at 8am, Oct 30 last year, but escaped unharmed, and immediately returned to the airport to leave Phuket. Photo: Seang Prachachon Kon Phuket The taxi driver, 23-year-old Marut Puangsombat, was initially charged by police with reckless driving causing death after the wipe out which killed 40-year-old Phuket resident Mr Anuson Rattanadilok Na Phuket. (See story here.) A tourist was in the taxi when the accident happened at 8am, Oct 30, but escaped unharmed, and immediately returned to the airport to leave. (See story here.) The investigation is still not complete, Capt Supon Mueangkai of the Thalang Police told The Phuket News. Asked what the delay was in concluding the investigation, he said I have many things to do. Last month, I had an official meeting in another province, However, Capt Supon assured, I will send this case to court before the end of January. The victims family has already spoken with Mr Marut about compensation, he added. Meanwhile, no officials will confirm whether or not Marut is still working as a taxi driver picking up tourists from Phuket International Airport. Praprai Sounkul, Chief Policy Specialist at the Phuket Land Transportation office (PLTO), the government department responsible for issuing general and commercial drivers licences, repeated to The Phuket News that at this stage his office was still powerless to take any action over the incident. In a criminal case like this, the PLTO will revoke the taxi drivers license, but only after we conduct our own review of the incident and that will not happen unless the court finds him guilty, Mr Praprai said. Phuket in the cold as Smart Drivers licences launch PHUKET: Confusion reigned today (Jan 15) as the Department of Land Transport (DLT) officially released its electronic drivers licenses, launching a downloadable application that can digitally hold driver authorisations and vehicle details. transport By The Phuket News Tuesday 15 January 2019, 07:00PM The Smart Licence app launched today (Jan 15), but no one in Phuket could register through it. Screengrab: DLT The Smart Licence app launched today (Jan 15), but no one in Phuket could register through it. Screengrab: DLT The Smart Licence app launched today (Jan 15), but no one in Phuket could register through it. Screengrab: DLT The Smart Licence app launched today (Jan 15), but no one in Phuket could register through it. Screengrab: DLT The Smart Licence app launched today (Jan 15), but no one in Phuket could register through it. Screengrab: DLT The Smart Licence app launched today (Jan 15), but no one in Phuket could register through it. Screengrab: DLT Only the newer licences with the QR code can be used to register through the app, when it gets up and running. Photo: The Phuket News DLT Director-General Pirapol Tawornsupacharoen today explained that with electronic licenses made valid yesterday (Jan 14), citizens may now download the DLTs E-License application for either Android (click here) or iOS devices (click here). However, only the newer licenses that feature QR Codes on the reverse side can be scanned into the app, he said. The DLT claims that the digital licenses will be more convenient as they dont require drivers to carry cards, while containing more information for use by authorities, reported state news agency NNT. (See story here.) Yet, the Phuket Land of Transport Office (PLTO) this morning received a deluge of calls asking about how to register online through the app, which callers said failed to allow them to register. An official at the License Division at the PLTO, who asked not to be named, told The Phuket News this afternoon, Today I received a lot of calls asking about the app, which is not available for people in Phuket right now. We are waiting for officials in Bangkok to fix it first, then people will be able to link their licences through the app, she added. PLTO Chief Banyat Kantha declined to comment on whether or not the system works as yet in Phuket. I have no comment about it. It may be related to many causes, he said. However, he added, We (the PLTO) are only a user (of the new system). This project belongs to the Department of Land Transport with the app linking to an information centre in Bangkok. Chief Banyat aslo obscurely noted, This application is active for Thai users with Thai driving licenses, and does not include foreign users. Mr Banyat declined to elaborate further, as many expats have Thai driving licences with their passport number issued as the driving licence number. Of note, the app itself features a login window plainly labelled PASSPORT in English. The rest of the app is labelled in Thai language only. Local residents angered over open sewer stench PHUKET: Residents and business owners in Samkong, on the northwestern outskirts of Phuket Town, gathered yesterday (Jan 14) to jointly complain to officials about the overpowering stench and health risks of the canal that runs through their bustling community. pollutionhealthenvironmentconstruction By The Phuket News Tuesday 15 January 2019, 10:46AM Local residents representative Vichat Trairat explains how the wastewater treatment is affecting local homes and businesses. Photo: PR Dept Local residents representative Vichat Trairat (white shirt) explains how the wastewater treatment is affecting local homes and businesses. Photo: PR Dept The canal, Klong Panieng, has long been a source of ire for the residents, with scores of homes and even factories in the area for years dumping untreated wastewater into the waterway. Phuket City Municipality responded with a project to build three wastewater treatment points, literally nothing more than wastewater traps so waste can oxygenise and break down further before being emptied into the canal. These wastewater traps are now causing problems of their own, residents argued yesterday. Representing the residents and business owners, Vichat Trairat explained that even dust and noise from drilling while the construction was ongoing was bad enough, but worse was the odour still coming from the wastewater treatment points. And then there is the problem of mosquitoes, germs and sewage, he added. The problem was severely affecting shops, restaurants, companies, hospitals, tutoring schools and residences in the area, Mr Vichat said. People do not want to obstruct the project but we want it moved to another location, which does not affect people, he explained. He also claimed that local residents were not asked at a public meeting for their opinions on building the wastewater-treatment ponds, a which is required by law for all major construction projects. In turn, the residents yesterday only ask for fairness, Mr Vichat said. Phiphat Charoen, Director of Phuket Municipality Civil Works Division, who met the residents to receive their complaint, said that consultants hired found no other suitable location for the project, which is now being built under a budget of B30 million. However, Mr Phiphat noted the residents complaint and said that the issue would be raised with the senior municipality figures in order to come up with a solution. A meeting will be called at a later date to further discuss the problems with the residents, he added. A HISTORY OF FILTH The stench and health problems arising from the filthy canal stem back to 2013, when a base plan was mapped out to counter the raw sewage being emptied into Klong Panieng, which empties into Klong Bang Yai. Klong Bang Yai, as Phukets longest canal, starts in Kathu and meanders through the heart of Phuket Town before emptying into Phuket Bay at Saphan Hin. However, even back then it was recognised that the problems start further upstream in Rassada, where newly built housing estates created densely populated areas alongside factories and other businesses that use the canal for dumping untreated wastewater. (See story here.) In 2015, Phuket Governor at the time Maitri Inthusut and Vice-Governor at the time Sommai Preechasilpa, along with Phuket Provincial Administration Organisation (OrBorJor) President Paiboon Upatising (now deceased) attended a meeting, presided over by Rassada President Phudit Raksarat, at which plans to deal with polluted water flowing from the Soi Panieng area into Klong Bang Yai were discussed. The complaints came after the dry weather slowed the water in the klong to a trickle, with stagnant pools rotting and sending waves of foul smells into homes and businesses in the Samkong area. (See story here.) Later that same year, a video clip of the polluted water being released into the canal at Yaowarat Bridge in Samkong went viral along with a message to local authorities requesting they find the source of the water. Phuket City Deputy Mayor at the time Thaworn Jirapattanasopon immediately after seeing the video ordered officials to investigate and collect a sample of the water. The water is as black as ink, but I can confirm that this foul water belongs to Rassada Municipality. It is not coming from the City Municipality, he said. Rassada Municipality are releasing polluted water from Soi Panieng Moo 5 in Rassada into the Phuket City pipeline without treatment it. It then goes into Klong Bang Yai. This has once again caused great distress to local residents living in the area, he added. Mr Thaworn also noted, Rassada Municipality does not have a wastewater treatment facility, so Phuket City Municipality has set aside B60 million from next years budget to this water pollution problem. Construction of the wastewater treatment facility will begin next year. Until the facility is completed, Phuket City Municipality is allowing Rassada Municipality to release its wastewater via the City Municipality pipe for the next five years so we can treat the water before it is released into the canal. This is a temporary solution until the facility is complete, he concluded. (See story here.) Regardless, the problems continued. In 2017, Phuket Vice Governor at the time Teera Anantaseriwidhya ordered environment officials across the island to clean up their areas across Phuket and ordered to be updated on the project install wastewater-treatment facilities along the canal that runs through Samkong. The Provincial Trash and Wastewater Committee must solve these issues. It must take more effective action about all forms of waste disposal on the island, V/Gov Teera said. V/Gov Teera ordered every relevant government office to take steps to immediately address the islands growing problems with garbage. These issues are serious and must be addressed urgently, he said. (See story here.) That order was issued on Jan 28 two years ago. Hit men kill politician and wife YALA: Police are stepping up efforts to arrest a group of gunmen who allegedly shot dead an election candidate and his wife in a raid they suspect was politically motivated. crimepoliticsmurderviolencepolice By Bangkok Post Tuesday 15 January 2019, 09:11AM Armed police on guard as the crime scene is examined after the Sunday (Jan 13) shooting. Photo: Bangkok Post Warin Saengchan was preparing to run for the newly established Thai Nation Power Party in this year's poll. According to police, at least two black-clad men raided Warin's house in Moo 7 in Kabang district at about 9pm on Sunday night (Jan 13). His wife, who was working in front of the house, was not aware of their arrival because they entered the building from its backyard. Warin and his five-year-old son were watching television when the attackers broke into his home. The intruders "talked about something" with Warin but their dialogue soon descended into a quarrel, which prompted his wife to enter the living room, officers said. Her husband was tied up and shot. The gunman also killed his wife, Rokiyo Sapaeing, police said. Their son managed to flee with his 16-year-old sister. A police inspection of their home found 11mm shell casings from a pistol. Officers from Kabang police station and a special unit tasked with handling the southern insurgency are jointly looking into the murder, said Kabang police chief Pol Col Prayong Khotsakha. Investigators believe Warin's death stemmed from a conflict he had become embroiled in while preparing for the poll. Because the incident erupted in the insurgency-torn province of Yala, the investigators were searching for any possible links, the source said. Warin was a native of Pattani's Panare district but he moved to Kabang after he married. In a related story, the chief of Na Pradu police in Pattani's Khok Pho district has been transferred to an inactive post following a brazen attack on his police station in broad daylight. One of his subordinates was killed. The station's sentry post was stormed by a group of unidentified men on Sunday afternoon who shot Pol Sgt Chaloemphon Khomkham, 33. The incident was considered a case of "negligent" security measures, and Na Pradu police chief Amphai Chumchuai must take responsibility, police spokesman Pol Lt Piya Uthayo said, referring to an order given by the Provincial Police Region 9 chief. The mastermind behind the attack is believed to be the leader of the Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK) guerrilla group. Police have so far made seven arrests. Read full story here. @MarkCavitt on Twitter Mark Cavitt is a multimedia journalist at The Oakland Press and MediaNews Group in Michigan. His beat includes all Oakland County government offices, departments, boards, commissions and committees. Waterford Township Upcoming Parents Social offers networking for parents of children with special needs A humidity indicator is shown in a batch of marijuana at a cannabis dispensary in North Hampton, Mass. in this Associated Press photo last year. Royal Oak and many other Michigan cities are trying to decide whether they want to allow pot facilities in their communities since state voters approved it for recreational use Nov. 6. Before residents head out on the ice this winter, it's probably best to keep a few things in mind. DETROIT (AP) Right up until the end, John Dingell wouldn't go down without a fight or a tweet. featured Pontiac Sheriff: Woman grabbed from the street, dragged into bushes and assaulted by ex-con Sheriff: Pontiac woman hospitalized after being grabbed from the street, dragged into bushes and assaulted by ex-con Deputy Director of the Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency Tim Loney (left) and Director of the Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs Lt. Gen. Gregory Vadnais signed a memorandum of agreement to officially launch the Guard/Reserve Interview Promise as a pilot program. . , , , ... Linear B, a Santa Monica, CA- and Tel Aviv, IL-based startup that provides software engineering leaders with actionable, objective insights into their engineering workforce, raised $1.6m in seed funding. The round was led by Ariel Maislos. The company intends to use the funds to evolve its product offering and to expand the team to support increased customer and product demand. Co-founded in April 2018 by Ori Keren and Dan Lines, Linear B is a people-focused software team analytics platform that uncovers actionable, objective insights for continuous productivity improvement. By connecting to a customers code management service, the platform provides an analysis of code quality, methodology, team dynamics, and benchmarks each customer against the industry, giving priority-ranked improvement recommendations customized to each organizations unique behavioral patterns. Now available in private beta, the company invites software engineering executives to run a team productivity assessment for quantitative insights into both their engineering workforce and existing projects. Powered by a proprietary analytics engine, Linear B analyzes customer data from BitBucket, GitHub, and GitLab, providing engineering leaders with data-driven insights for continued growth and improved productivity. The system is used by companies like Axonius, Best Practice Energy and Kanban Zone. FinSMEs 15/01/2019 This subscription will allow curernt subscribers of The News Guard to access all of our online Subscriber-Only content, including the E Editions area. NOTE: To claim your access to the site, you will need to enter the Last Name and First Name that is tied to your subscription in this format: SMITH, JOHN If you need help with exactly how your specific name needs be entered, please call us at 1-541-994-2178 or email admin@countrymedia.net. Investcorp, a global provider and manager of alternative investment products, signed a secondary transaction in relation to a number of assets from its European private equity portfolio, under a new fund arrangement. The fund, subject to receipt of relevant regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions, will be capitalized with approximately US$ 1 billion of aggregate commitments. Coller Capitals current fund, Coller International Partners VII, will underwrite the new fund, with Investcorp retaining a continued interest in the portfolio through a meaningful GP commitment to the fund. The transaction also includes new capital for any follow-on investments, future investments and co-investments. Investcorps European Private Equity team will manage both the assets acquired through the secondary transaction and the funds new capital, as it continues to invest in mid-market buyout transactions across Europe. The transaction, when closed, will provide relevant existing investors with immediate liquidity for some of their exposures as well as an opportunity for Investcorp to seek to further create value through active management and additional capital that is being made available under the transaction. The transaction is a further milestone in Investcorps growth strategy to reach US$ 50 billion of AUM over the medium term and follows its acquisition in 2017 of a US$ 11 billion AUM credit management business, Investcorp Credit Management, and in 2018, a strategic minority investment in Banque Paris Bertrand, an independent Swiss-regulated private bank based in Geneva. Founded in 1990, Coller Capital provides liquidity solutions to private equity investors worldwide, acquiring interests in private equity funds, portfolios of private companies, and other private equity-related assets. In Coller, which has headquarters in London, and offices in New York and Hong Kong, closed Coller International Partners VII in December 2015, with capital commitments of US$ 7.15 billion and backing from approximately 170 of the worlds leading institutional investors. FinSMEs 15/01/2019 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department in Washington on Aug. 16, 2018. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Andrew Harrer. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is freaking out the media. And it's working for her. In this Jan. 8, 2019, photo, clouds roll over the White House, Tuesday Jan. 8, 2019, in Washington. The 2020 primary campaign is exploding 13 months before the first voters head to the polls. Candidates and potential candidates are hiring staff and traveling to key states all in a mad scramble to gain a leg up in what will be a rollicking Democratic primary. Isabella Man who killed California officer was former Mt. Pleasant resident Axe, a 4-year-old police dog on the St. Clair Shores police force since 2016, was killed by a suspect while on duty on Nov. 4, 2018. Courtesy St. Clair Shores Police Department Fortify, a Boston, MA-based additive manufacturing startup, raised $2.5M in seed funding. Backers included Neotribe Ventures, Prelude Ventures, Mainspring Capital, Ocean Azul Partners, and McCune Capital. The company is using the funds to expand the team, enabling new capabilities for innovation and partnership development. Founded on research in composite 3D printing by Dr. Randall Erb and Dr. Joshua Martin (CEO), Fortify is a leader in Digital Composite Manufacturing. Its patented Fluxprint technology combines magnetics and digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing to produce composite parts with ideal mechanical properties, tailored reinforcement and geometric freedom. In addition to the additive manufacturing platform, the companys team has launched two resins, filed IP and is engaging in partnerships with manufacturers across the country. Fortify is also introducing the Fortify Fiber Platform, inviting materials companies and resin suppliers to develop high-performance resins in conjunction with its material scientists and engineers. This platform is already being used by partners such as DSM, an industry leader in the development of photoactive resins for additive manufacturing. Looking to 2019, the company is seeking an additional round of $8M in Series A funding while moving into the beta launch of their system. Beginning this upcoming winter, the beta program will focus on delivering the digital composite platform to 10 select partners. FinSMEs 15/01/2019 Quotient Technology Inc. operates as a digital media and promotions technology company that offers power integrated digital media and promotions programs for brands and retailers. The company offers Quotient Promotions Platform offers digital paperless and print promotions, including Coupons.com website and mobile applications; brand and retailer websites and mobile applications; and third-party publishing websites and mobile applications. It also provides Quotient Retailer Promotions Platform that uses consumer data and insights to distribute personalized and targeted media and promotions for retailers of grocery, drug, mass merchant, dollar, club and convenience merchandise; and Quotient Media Platform, which provides targeted advertising solutions that enables brands to reach shoppers before, during, and after their shopping cycles with digital media campaigns. It also provides Quotient Retailer Performance Media Platform that uses retailer's consumer data to drive sales and enhances the shopper experience; Quotient Analytics provides campaign analytics and measured sales results to brands and retailers; Quotient Consumer Properties; and Quotient Retailer Media Services. It serves approximately 800 consumer packed goods, representing approximately 2,000 brands, including various food, beverage, personal care, and household product manufacturers; retail partners representing various classes of trade, such as grocery retailers, drug, mass merchant, dollar, club, and convenience merchandise channels; and consumers visiting its websites, mobile properties, and social channels. The company was formerly known as Coupons.com Incorporated and changed its name to Quotient Technology Inc. in October 2015. Quotient Technology Inc. was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California. Read More PetroChina Company Limited, together with its subsidiaries, engages in a range of petroleum related products, services, and activities in Mainland China and internationally. It operates through Exploration and Production, Refining and Chemicals, Marketing, and Natural Gas and Pipeline segments. The Exploration and Production segment engages in the exploration, development, production, and marketing of crude oil and natural gas. The Refining and Chemicals segment refines crude oil and petroleum products; and produces and markets primary petrochemical products, derivative petrochemical products, and other chemical products. The Marketing segment is involved in marketing of refined products and trading business. The Natural Gas and Pipeline segment engages in the transmission of natural gas, crude oil, and refined products; and sale of natural gas. As of December 31, 2020, the company had a total length of 31,151 km, including 22,555 km of natural gas pipelines, 7,190 km of crude oil pipelines, and 1,406 km of refined product pipelines. The company is also involved in the exploration, development, and production of oil sands and coalbed methane; trading of crude oil and petrochemical products; storage, chemical engineering, storage facilities, service station, and transportation facilities and related businesses; and production and sales of basic and derivative chemical, and other chemical products. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Beijing, the People's Republic of China. PetroChina Company Limited is a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation. Read More Greenhill & Co., Inc., an independent investment bank, provides financial and strategic advisory services to corporations, partnerships, institutions, and governments worldwide. The company offers advisory services related to mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, spin-offs, and other strategic transactions, as well as various stages of a transaction's life cycle ranging from initial structuring and negotiation to final execution. It also advises clients on strategic matters, including activist shareholder defense, special committee projects, licensing deals, and joint ventures; and valuation, negotiation tactics, industry dynamics, structuring alternatives, and timing and pricing of transactions, as well as financing alternatives. In addition, the company provides debt restructuring advisory services to debtors, creditors, governments, pension funds and other stakeholders, and acquirers of distressed companies and assets; and advice on restructuring alternatives, capital structures, and sales or recapitalizations. Further, it assists clients in identifying and capitalizing on incremental sources of value; and on court-assisted reorganizations by developing and seeking approval for plans of reorganization, as well as the implementation of such plans. Additionally, the company advises on other financing matters, including debt issuances, equity financings, and exchange offers; and initial public offerings and other equity capital market transactions. It also offers financial advisory services to pension funds, endowments, and other institutional investors on transactions involving alternative assets; and advice to alternative asset fund sponsors for capital raising, financing, liquidity options, and related services. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in New York, New York. Read More Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Thanaporn Promyamyai and Joe Freeman (Agence France-Presse) Pattaya, Thailand Tue, January 15, 2019 19:07 883 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e6fd91c 2 World #Thailand,#Donald-Trump,Belarus,model,deported,Donald-Trump,Russia,affair Free A Belarusian model who claimed she had proof of Russian efforts to help Donald Trump win office was set to be deported after being convicted Tuesday nearly a year after her arrest in Thailand for participating in a "sex training course". Anastasia Vashukevich, known by her pen name Nastya Rybka, has been held with several others since a police raid in the sleazy seaside resort of Pattaya last February. She had travelled to Thailand after becoming embroiled in a political scandal with Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska, a one-time associate of US President Trump's disgraced former campaign director Paul Manafort. She set off a scramble for details after promising to reveal "missing puzzle pieces" regarding claims the Kremlin aided Trump's 2016 election victory. But the material never surfaced and critics dismissed it as a publicity stunt. The Pattaya Provincial Court convicted her and seven co-defendants after they suddenly pleaded guilty to multiple charges including solicitation and illegal assembly. "The court found them all guilty of soliciting sex," said a judge on the panel, handing them three-year sentences and $6,000 fines but reducing the sentences to time served. "The court releases them today," the judge added. Thai immigration chief Surachate Hakparn said they would be transferred to an immigration detention centre in Bangkok and deported. "The next step, I will coordinate with the Russian government for their deportation, which will likely take one week for all the processes to complete," Surachate told AFP. "They are blacklisted from Thailand permanently for conducting bad deeds." Seduction guru The risque seminar was led by self-styled Russian seduction guru Alex Kirillov and some participants wore shirts that said "sex animator" even though one participant at the time described it as more of a romance and relationship course. Kirillov, who has served as a spokesman for the mostly Russian group, told reporters as they arrived at court Tuesday that he believed they were set up. "I think somebody ordered (our arrest)... for money," he said. Vashukevich and Kirillov had once expressed fear of being deported back to Russia and at one stage called on Washington for help. But Vashukevich later blamed the US for their imprisonment. Both Washington and Moscow publicly had shrugged off Vashukevich's story, which the US State Department described as "bizarre". A friend of theirs who has been involved in the case and was at the court told AFP they were "very happy" with the verdict. Vashukevich, who has penned a book about seducing oligarchs, also faces legal problems in Russia. Deripaska won an invasion of privacy lawsuit against her and Kirillov in July after a video apparently filmed by the model showed the tycoon vacationing with an influential Russian deputy prime minister. Kremlin-connected Deripaska and Manafort, Trump's ex-campaign manager, did business together in the mid-2000s. Manafort has since been convicted in the US of financial crimes related to political work he did in Ukraine before the 2016 election as well as witness tampering. He has also admitted to providing polling data to a Russian with intelligence ties during the 2016 presidential race. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 15, 2019 14:24 883 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e6e9b9b 1 National bad-weather,#bad-weather,heavy-rain,Gowa,#SouthSulawesi,South-Sulawesi,TNI,#TNI Free A soldier died and three others were injured when they were struck by lightning on Monday afternoon in the mountainous area of Bontomarannu district in Gowa, South Sulawesi. Chief Warrant Officer Onik died and three other soldiers -- Warrant Officer Andi Safri, Chief Sgt. Basri and First Cpl. Saiful -- were injured. The four soldiers, instructors at the Armys officer school, were conducting a final check after a training session around the hills in Nirannuang village. When heavy rain occurred, accompanied by lightning, they took shelter in a farmer's hut, authorities reported. The incident occurred when they took shelter in the hut, Military Regional Command (Kodam) XIV/Hasanuddin spokesman Col. Alamsyah was quoted as saying by kompas.com on Tuesday. As of Tuesday, the three injured soldiers were being at Pelamonia Hospital in the provincial capital of Makassar, while Oniks body was sent to a funeral home in Matallo village in Bontomarannu. Alamsyah said all officer school attendees had returned safely to headquarters before the incident. The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) previously warned of possible heavy rain and strong winds this week in a number of regions, including in Gowa regency. (kuk/ipa) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 15 2019 Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo ordered suspended Bekasi regent and graft suspect Neneng Hasanah Yasin to facilitate the issuance of the necessary permits for the Meikarta mega-development project in the regency, Neneng has claimed. Neneng made the statement while testifying as a witness against defendants Lippo Group operational director Billy Sindoro and three Lippo Group consultants and employees at the Bandung Corruption Court in West Java on Monday. The ministrys director general for regional autonomy, Sumarsono, summoned me to his office [to talk about a West Java bylaw on infrastructure development around Bekasi]. Upon arriving at his office, he was talking to the minister over the phone, Neneng said as quoted by tribunnews.com. Sumarsono later gave his phone to me and Tjahjo Kumolo later said [over the phone] please facilitate the permi... Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Dian Septiari and Novan Iman Santosa (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 15 2019 Indonesia has voiced its support of Thailands bid for ASEAN chairmanship this year following a gathering of the blocs foreign ministers at the Thai resort town of Chiang Mai to discuss several major regional issues. Indonesian Ambassador to ASEAN Ade Padmo Sarwono told The Jakarta Post on Monday that Indonesia would fully support Thailands priority programs. We are particularly interested in one of Thailands program on strengthening fisheries cooperation [because it is] related to Indonesias efforts to combat IUU [irregular, unreported and unregulated] fishing, he said. Last Wednesday, Thai Ambassador to ASEAN Pasporn Sangasubana said in a discussion that her country had proposed the establishment of an ASEAN IUU fishing task force. By the time Vietnam takes the ASEAN chairmanship in 2020, the regional bloc would have adopted a... Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Usman Hamid (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 15 2019 The police are usually the target of various campaigns and human rights advocates. But they can also be an ally of human rights and anticorruption activists. The loss of the police as an ally is reflected in the passing of Bambang Widodo Umar on Monday. Born in Ngawi, East Java, on Dec. 10, 1947, Bambang completed his elementary school education in Surabaya, East Java, in 1960 and graduated from SMA 3 state high school in 1966. He became a member of the police after graduating from the Armed Forces Academy (Akabri) in 1971. Bambang also attended the Police Staff College (PTIK) in 1978 and the National Police Staff and Command School (Sespim) in 1984 after which he was appointed to be a senior detective in 1985. He was a recipient of the highest awards from the state and the National Police. He rose to prominence when he and seven other senior officers came out in suppo... Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Kharishar Kahfi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 15, 2019 19:44 883 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e6fe965 1 Politics KPK,Idrus-Marham,GolkarParty,graft,trial Free The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) indicted on Tuesday former social affairs minister Idrus Marham, accusing the Golkar Party politician of accepting bribes from a businessman to finance his failed bid to replace Setya Novanto as party leader. Setya was ousted from his position after being charged with graft. In the indictment read during the first hearing at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Tuesday, a copy of which was made available to The Jakarta Post, prosecutors accused Idrus and fellow Golkar politician Eni Maulani Saragih of accepting Rp 2.25 billion (US$159,506) in installments from Johannes Budisutrisno Kotjo, one of the shareholders at energy firm BlackGold Natural Resources Limited. In return, the two politicians would help a consortium led by Blackgold and China Huadian Engineering Company Limited to win the Riau-1 coal-fired power plant construction project, valued at around US$900 million. The indictment also revealed that the illicit deal for the project was made in 2015, when Johannes allegedly agreed to a deal with the Chinese company on a project fee for several individuals, including then-Golkar chairman Setya Novanto, amounting of $6 million. Setya later played a role in the project by connecting Johannes with Eni, a lawmaker of the House of Representatives Commission VII overseeing energy and mineral resources, the indictment said. Setya was believed to have ordered Eni to smoothen the businessmans way for the Riau project. When the KPK arrested Setya in November 2017 for his alleged role in the e-ID corruption case, Eni reported all progress related to the power plant construction project to Idrus, who was appointed as the then-acting Golkar chairman. Eni reported on the project to the defendant so she would be noticed by Johannes Budisutrisno Kotjo because of the defendants role as the partys acting chairman, prosecutors wrote in the indictment. According to the indictment, after taking up the role as party chairman, Idrus told Eni to ask for money from the businessman amounting to $2.5 million, which would be used for the partys extraordinary national congress (munaslub) in December 2017. At that time, Idrus allegedly served as the guarantor for the munaslub, while Eni served as the treasurer. Prosecutors accused Idrus of making the request because of his wish to replace Setya as Golkar chairman during the munaslub. Johannes accepted the request and gave Idrus Rp 2 billion through Enis expert staff Tahta Maharaya. Eni gave around Rp 713 million [of the money accepted from Johannes] to munaslub steering committee deputy secretary Muhammad Sarmuji, according to the defendants wish as a person in charge of the congress, the prosecutor wrote in the indictment. The money had been returned by a Golkar politician to the KPK in September last year. At that time, Eni confirmed it came from the munaslub committee and said it was evidence that some of the illicit money was used for the congress. Golkar chairman Airlangga Hartanto, who was elected during the munaslub, had denied the allegation. Enis trial is ongoing at the Jakarta Corruption Court. Johannes was found guilty by judges in the case and sentenced to prison for two years and eight months for his crime. Idrus was also accused of helping Eni ask for illicit money from Johannes to be used for her husbands campaign during the 2018 regional election in Temanggung, East Java. After refusing because of the difficult financial situation, the businessman eventually handed over Rp 250 million to the lawmaker. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Kharishar Kahfi and Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 15, 2019 17:31 883 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e6f686a 1 National #KPK,KPK,meikarta-bribery-case,Tjahjo-Kumolo,Home-Minister,Bekasi,#Bekasi,corruption-case,#corruption Free Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo has dismissed a recent accusation made by suspended Bekasi regent and graft suspect Neneng Hasanah Yasin over his involvement in an alleged corruption case surrounding the Meikarta mega-development project in the regency. Every time there is a problem regarding permit issuance, particularly because of overlapping authority among regional administrations, the Home Ministry has a role in finding [solutions to the problems] as long as it is in line with existing regulations, Tjahjo said in a press statement on Monday afternoon. Neneng testified as a witness against defendants Lippo Group operational director Billy Sindoro and three Lippo Group consultants at the Bandung Corruption Court in West Java on Monday -- during which Neneng said Tjahjo had told her to facilitate the issuance of the necessary permits for the Meikarta project. According to Neneng, the ministrys director general for regional autonomy, Sumarsono, had summoned her to his office to talk about a West Java bylaw on infrastructure development around Bekasi. Upon arriving at Sumarsonos office, Neneng found the director general talking to the minister over the phone. Sumarsono later gave her the phone and Tjahjo asked her to facilitate the permit issuance for Meikarta, Neneng told the court in an apparently incriminating statement against Tjahjo. Neneng told the court she had agreed to fulfill the request, as long as she followed procedures. Febri Diansyah, the spokesman of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) that is investigating the Meikarta case, said the KPK would study Nenengs testimony, along with other information obtained during the investigation. The KPK has accused Neneng of accepting Rp 7 billion (US$495,530) from Billy to facilitate the issuance of permits necessary for the Meikarta project. Billy allegedly promised Rp 13 billion as a commitment fee to the regent -- who was arrested and named a suspect last October. On Monday, Neneng also testified that Sumarsono would facilitate a meeting between the West Java provincial administration, Bekasi regency and Meikarta project developer PT Mahkota Sentosa Utama. Last week, KPK investigators grilled Sumarsono for further information on the meeting. Sumarsono claimed the meeting was intended to find a solution to the conflicting authority between the West Java and Bekasi administration regarding the permit issuance. After the meeting, we sent a letter to the then-governor to solve the problem immediately, Sumarsono told the media after the KPK questioning. He, however, said he did not know how the provincial administration had followed up on the meeting. Last week, graft-busters had summoned the then-West Java governor Ahmad Heryawan to question him on his role as governor in relation to the project. Ahmad admitted he had issued a recommendation that would facilitate the issuance of Meikarta permits, but maintained that he was innocent as he knew nothing about the bribes. Febri said Neneng had returned Rp 11 billion that she had accepted from Billy, warning others, including Bekasi councillors, to follow in Nenengs step. We will appreciate a cooperative attitude because graft-busters have the names of people who allegedly accepted a bribe in the form of a trip to Thailand, Febri said. The Meikarta modern city project in Cikarang, Bekasi, West Java, is the flagship project of the Lippo Group. (ipa) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Marchio Irfan Gorbiano (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 15, 2019 11:52 883 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e6deaac 1 Business electric-vehicle,incentives,import-duties Free President Joko Jokowi Widodo announced on Monday fiscal incentives for the development of electric cars by lowering the luxury goods tax (PPnBM), while Industry Minister Airlangga Hartarto said the government would cut to zero the import duty for electric vehicles. Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, meanwhile, explained that the government was preparing a presidential regulation that would provide incentives to support certain industrial activities, such as battery production and the construction of charging stations. The draft of the regulation is already formulated, but we need to consult with the House of Representatives as mandated by the value-added tax [VAT] law, said Sri Mulyani after a Cabinet meeting in Jakarta on Monday. Airlangga said the regulation would detail which businesses were eligible for such incentives. The initial step has to be the introduction of a zero percent import duty for electric vehicles, Airlangga added. The issuance of the regulation was long awaited, said Airlangga, as BMW and Volkswagen, among other international carmakers, had expressed their desire to invest in Indonesia if such a regulation was issued. He previously said that the government expected 20 percent of the cars in Indonesia to be electric vehicles in 2025. Jokowi said after the meeting that Indonesias natural resource wealth put the country in a good position to develop the industry. We have a chance to become a player in the electric vehicle [industry], because we have nickel, cobalt and mangan, which are key [materials] for building electric vehicle batteries, said Jokowi. He added that the widespread domestic usage of electric vehicles would also lessen the countrys burden from fossil fuel imports, saving around Rp 798 trillion in the process. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 15, 2019 14:32 883 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e6ea335 1 National BPJS,BPJS-Kesehatan,military,defense-ministry Free The Defense Ministry has urged the Health Ministry to issue a regulation to exempt Indonesian Military (TNI) personnel from needing a referral to be treated at military hospitals under the national healthcare scheme (JKN). In a meeting on Monday at House of Representatives Commission I, which oversees defense, Defense Director General Maj. Gen. Bambang Hartawan requested that the health minister issue a ministerial regulation as the legal basis for military personnel to bypass the tiered referral scheme when they want to get treated at military hospitals. According to Article 2 of Health Ministry Regulation No. 4/2018 on hospital and patient obligations, every hospital must implement a tiered referral scheme. As of December, 1.5 million TNI members have been registered with the national healthcare program. Like civil servants, police officers and government officials, military personnel get a small part of their pay deducted from their salary to cover the monthly premiums, but military members only need to pay 2 percent of their salaries, while the remainder is covered by profits generated by the operation of military hospitals. We give the Health Ministry one month to issue the regulation. We dont want to do it without a proper legal basis, he said, adding that the health minister should immediately form a task force to address the issue by the end of March. Budi Youyastri, a member of Commission I from the National Mandate Party, said the commission supported the request. Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) politician Hidayat Nur Wahid said he, too, supported the plea, adding that such a regulation would not only pertain to military personnel but also their families. Without such protection, it will be difficult for them to perform their duties, Hidayat said. Fellow PKS politiciam Sukamta agreed, saying the ministry should encounter no significant problem in the process, as it did not involve any budget. He also urged state insurer BPJS Kesehatan to prioritize paying off claims made by military hospitals to ensure their cash flow, as the government only allocated Rp 107 trillion (US$7.6 billion) from the state budget to the TNI. Military hospitals should be a priority. They dont get a hefty budget allocation, they cant possibly be [expected] to cope with mediocre health services too, Sukamta said. Kalsum Komaryani, the head of the Health Ministrys center for health insurance and financing, said the ministry had not included the requested regulation on its priority list so far. Were discussing many regulations, including drafts and revised regulations, she said. Kalsum said they would need to get input from various ministries and institutions, including the Indonesian Medical Association and the Hospitals Association. At the meeting, Commission I also encouraged the Ministry of Defense to insert a new clause about healthcare services in Law No. 34/2004 concerning TNI personnel. (ggq) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 15, 2019 19:17 883 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e6fe27f 4 Business e-commerce,tax,NPWP Free The Finance Ministry has assured that traders on online marketplaces are not required to have tax identification numbers (NPWP) to register with online marketplaces. The decision was made during a meeting between Finance Ministry bodies the Fiscal Policy Agency, Taxation Directorate General and Customs and Excise Office with members of the Association of E-commerce Indonesia (IdEA) on Monday. This is the proper interpretation of Finance Ministerial Regulation No. 210/PMK.010/2018, said Finance Ministry spokesman Nufransa Wira Sakti as quoted by kompas.com, referring to a regulation on taxation for e-commerce transactions. He said during registration, traders only needed to show the number of their identity cards. Under the general taxation regulation, people with an income of less than Rp 4.5 million (US$318.91) per month or Rp 54 million per year are not required to have an NPWP. Before the meeting, IdEA protested the regulation, saying that the requirement to have an NPWP for e-commerce traders would harm their business because many of the traders were small entrepreneurs who do not have an NPWP. Because of the confusion, the association initially called on the government to delay the enforcement of the regulation that was scheduled to take effect on April 1. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Marchio Irfan Gorbiano and Fadli (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Batam Tue, January 15, 2019 10:27 883 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e6dbea1 1 Business BP-Batam,leadership,change,DarminNasution,business,comments Free When the government announced late last year its plan to place the Batam Industrial Development Authority (BP Batam) under the Batam administration, businesspeople welcomed it as an effort to cut down on red tape and end the dualism in the islands leadership. But Makruf Maulana, chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerces (Kadin) Riau Islands chapter, said the appointment of a new transitional BP Batam head revealed a lack of certainty on the governments part, particularly as the transition period could potentially stretch beyond the presidential and legislative election held on April 17. He was referring to Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasutions recent decision to inaugurate Edy Putra Irawadi, formerly his special staffer, as BP Batam chief. The move effectively ended Lukita Dinarsyah Tuwos 15-months leadership in BP Batam. Darmin said Edy had been tasked to lead the transition period in the merger between BP Batam and the Batam city administration, as under the plan, the Batam mayor would act as ex-officio BP Batam head in a move to abolish the dualistic authority of the island-city. The move was decided by President Joko Jokowi Widodo during a cabinet meeting on Dec. 12. Darmin said the transition period was expected to go on until April 30, the deadline for the government to amend Government Regulation No. 46/2007 to serve as a legal basis for the appointment of the Batam mayor as ex-officio BP Batam head. There will be a presidential election in April. This means that the next decision [from the government] is still unclear, Makruf said recently, highlighting the political uncertainty in the period close to the election, particularly if there was to be a regime change. Batamindo Batam Industrial Zone general manager Mook Sooi Wah added that the government had frequently changed BP Batams leadership. Therefore, he said, the latest move would add confusion for the islands business community. A change [in BP Batams leadership] would not be a problem if the government was consistent with its policy. But too many changes would confuse investors, Wah said. We do not know what the government will do in April, whether it will still be consistent with its policy or change it again. Under the administration of Jokowi, BP Batam has had three different leaders. The government appointed Hatanto Reksodiputra as BP Batam head on April 5, 2016, replacing Mustofa Widjaya, whose leadership dated back to April 2005 when BP Batam was still the Batam Authority. In October 2017, the government gave the post to Lukita Dinarsyah Tuwo, who was formerly the secretary to the coordinating economic minister. Former Riau Islands governor Ismeth Abullah, who was also former Batam Authority head, criticized the central governments chop and change of BP Batams leadership, which he said ignored local officials. In the three changes, not even one local figure be it from BP Batam or the Batam administration was placed in the BP Batam leadership board, said Ismeth. The government seems to overlook our local human resources, even though it is the local people who know the problems of Batam, not [people from] Jakarta. Darmin argued that Edys appointment as BP Batam head would smoothen the transition period. He further assured that the planned appointment of the Batam mayor as ex-officio BP Batam head would not violate Law No.23/2014 on regional administrations, which bars regional leaders from holding double positions in other governments institution. He added that the position of BP Batam head did not fall directly under the government. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Bekasi Tue, January 15, 2019 14:24 883 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e6e94d7 1 City ChemicalsSubstances,Bekasi,contamination,hazardous-substance,Gegana,bomb-squad Free Three children in the Segara Makmur subdistrict of Tarumajaya, Bekasi regency, West Java, have reportedly suffered skin burns after making contact with soil suspected to have been contaminated with a chemical substance. The Jakarta Police bomb squad has been dispatched to check the site following the report. They aim to examine the [soil] believed to be contaminated with chemical waste, Tarumajaya Police chief Adj. Comr. Agus Rohmat said on Monday, as quoted by kompas.com. Six officers from the squad had already taken samples of the soil for laboratory testing. Previously, a team from the regencys environment agency also took a sample of the soil to be examined. The three children, identified as Denda, Raga and Ramadan, suffered burns to several parts of their bodies on Jan. 10 after being mired in the soil. They reportedly complained of burns on their skin. Denda and Raga were sent to a nearby hospital, since they suffered the worst, while Ramadan got medical treatment at a clinic. (fac) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 15, 2019 16:18 883 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e6ee690 1 Politics #KPU,KPU,Bawaslu,#Jokowi,Jokowi,Prabowo-Subianto,#Prabowo,2019-elections,#2019-elections,#2019PresidentialElection Free The Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) and the General Elections Commission (KPU) are set to coordinate with the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) to evaluate potential violations of election regulations over televised speeches by the two competing presidential candidates. The three institutions are set to talk about mechanisms to look for potential campaign violations, in the context of both administrative and criminal law, during a meeting slated for Wednesday. We will coordinate with the KPI because these are related to television broadcasting, Bawaslu commissioner Fritz Edward Siregar said on Tuesday, as quoted by kompas.com. On Sunday, several television networks broadcast a kind of televised town hall meeting by President Joko Jokowi Widodo -- during which the incumbent not only answered questions from the audience, but also gave a speech on the Presidents vision and mission for the next five years. On the following day, presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto and running mate Sandiaga Uno held their first town hall meeting, where the former delivered a speech laying out their campaign platform before their supporters. The event was also televised by several television networks. Fritz said a joint media supervisory team comprising Bawaslu, the KPU, the KPI and the Press Council had seven days to look for potential violations. If the team found any violation, the supervisory agency could sanction the candidate pair in question, their campaign teams or the television stations. The sanctions range from a Bawaslu warning to a ban from campaigning on mass media. Fritz said there would not be a cancelation of any candidacy as there were no regulations stipulating such a sanction. KPU commissioner Wahyu Setiawan previously said presidential candidates were allowed to have political ads on mass media during the last three weeks of the campaign period, citing a 2018 KPU regulation. The KPU, however, had yet to decide whether Jokowis and Prabowos televised speeches constituted campaign ads or not. As part of an effort to maintain media neutrality in anticipation of the presidential and legislative elections, particularly after media moguls entered the campaign scene, election organizers and related institutions like the KPI, have agreed to limit TV campaigns. (kuk/ipa) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Martin Parry (Agence France-Presse) Melbourne, Australia Tue, January 15, 2019 09:09 884 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e6d7049 2 Sports #sports,#AustraliaOpen,Andy-Murray,Crash,Roger-Federer,Rafael-Nadal,fighting Free A battling Andy Murray bowed out of the Australian Open at the first hurdle Monday, but it was business as usual for ruthless Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal who joined Caroline Wozniacki in round two. The Scottish five-time Melbourne Park finalist gave it everything he had and showed glimpses of the form that won him three Grand Slams, but his ailing body let him down during a gutsy 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5/7), 6-7 (4/7) defeat to 22nd seed Roberto Bautista Agut. Murray tearfully revealed before the tournament that he was in constant agony from a hip injury and planned to retire this year. The 31-year-old hopes to end his career at Wimbledon, but has admitted the Australian Open could be his last event, unless he has a late change of heart. "Amazing. That was incredible, thank you so, so much to everyone that came out tonight," he said after being given a rapturous send-off. While his tournament ended in despair, Swiss master Federer, six years older than Murray, continued his march towards a record seventh Australian Open title. He swept past Uzbek Denis Istomin 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 said he was in "disbelief" that he was the double defending champion at his age and vowed to give his all to make it three in a row. "I'm going to try everything possible (to win again) and leave it all on the court," said the world number three. His long-time rival Nadal, who cut short his 2018 season to have surgery on a foot injury, showed no mercy to Australian wildcard James Duckworth in his opening round clash. The 17-time Grand Slam winner cruised through 6-4, 6-3, 7-5 and said it was an important victory. "Not easy to come back after a lot of months, especially against a player playing super aggressive on every point," said the 2009 Australian champion, who showed no sign of any injury worries. "The energy I feel in this place is fantastic." The second seed is bidding to become the first man in the Open era, and only the third in history along with Roy Emerson and Rod Laver, to win each Grand Slam on two or more occasions. Fifth seed Kevin Anderson progressed, as did NextGen Finals champion Stefanos Tsitsipas. But ninth seed John Isner became the first top seed to crash out. World number three Wozniacki, who made her Grand Slam breakthrough in Melbourne last year, opened her defence with a convincing 6-3, 6-4 win over Belgium's Alison van Uytvanck. It was an emotional win for the Dane who is struggling with rheumatoid arthritis and she was in tears afterwards. "Last year I had some special memories and just to be able to be back out here on Rod Laver Arena is something extremely special and emotional," she said. Good test Second seed and 2016 champion Angelique Kerber was also impressive, breezing past Slovenia's Polona Hercog 6-2, 6-2. Maria Sharapova, a winner at Melbourne in 2008, signalled her intent with a rare 6-0, 6-0 double bagel demolition of Britain's Harriet Dart. Playing in her 15th Australian Open, the three-time finalist said she was pleased to go through so easily as she battles back from injuries. "I'm still working through some painful days. But, you know, I felt like I did all the right things today in order to get through that match," said the Russian. Fifth seeded Sloane Stephens, the 2017 US Open champion who struggled in her warm-up tournaments in Brisbane and Sydney, got back to business with an easy two-set win against fellow American Taylor Townsend. Eleventh seed Aryna Sabalenka, widely tipped as a potential future champion, also safely negotiated round one on a hot day. But Germany's 14th seed Julia Goerges was knocked out, as was former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko. Britain's Katie Boulter, meanwhile, created a slice of history by becoming the first woman to win in a third set tiebreak - a new rule introduced to the Open this year, beating Russia's Ekaterina Makarova 6-0, 4-6, 7-6 (10/6). Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 15, 2019 09:02 884 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e6d639e 1 City 2019-elections,debate,security,Jakarta-police,Presidential-Debate,#2019PresidentialElection Free The Jakarta Police force is to deploy up to 2,000 officers to secure the first presidential debate at the Bidakara Hotel in South Jakarta, which is scheduled for Thursday. "The Jakarta Police and the Indonesian Military would help to secure the first presidential debate at the Bidakara. The Jakarta Police have prepared 2,000 officers," police spokesman Argo Yuwono said on Monday, as quoted by wartakota.tribunnews.com. Argo expressed hope that all supporters of both candidates would keep the debate running in an orderly manner. He added that police officers are to be deployed at locations near the debate venue that are prone to traffic congestion. The General Elections Commission (KPU) is to hold a series of five presidential debates in Jakarta starting on Jan. 17. Each debate would deal with a different topic. The debates are to be broadcast and live streamed by national television news agencies. Indonesia is holding simultaneous presidential and legislative general elections on April 17. (sau) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Rachmadea Aisyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 15, 2019 09:07 883 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e6d6bf2 1 Business cigarette,excise-tax,criticism,YLKI Free Smoking has long been a habit in Indonesia that does not only involve adults but also affects minors, including elementary school students, and has led to swelling healthcare spending for smoking-related diseases. However, policy makers are reluctant to address the issue and are defending the cigarette business, critics say. President Joko Jokowi Widodos decision not to increase the cigarette excise in 2019 betrayed his development agenda, in which he and Vice President Jusuf Kalla vowed to double the tax from 2015 to 2019, Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) chairman Tulus Abadi said. This decision is a terrible setback on excise policies, Tulus told reporters in a press conference over the weekend, adding that the revenue from the excise was not comparable to the financial losses caused by smoking. The state has failed to understand the true [point] of the excise, Tulus said. The lack of tobacco control, he said, was a major contributor to noncontagious diseases covered by the Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan), with the prevalence increasing to 1.8 percent in 2018 from 1.4 percent in 2014, according to the Basic Health Survey. The decision to keep the excise unchanged was ironic, he said, as the government had allocated 50 percent of the regional excise revenue to cover expenses incurred by BPJS Kesehatan, which is running at a deficit of Rp 16.5 trillion (US$1.17 billion). Jokowi has increased the cigarette excise every year since assuming office but is not planning to do so in 2019. It went up by 10.04 percent in 2018, 10.5 percent in 2017, 11.3 percent in 2016 and 8.7 percent in 2015, according to Statistic Indonesia (BPS) data compiled by the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef). Public policy analyst Azas Tigor Nainggolan said on the same occasion that, in reality, 25 percent of the healthcare claims covered by the BPJS were triggered by smoking. He cited the results of a study conducted by the Center for Indonesias Strategic Initiative (CISDI), which showed that heart disease and lung cancer made up 25 percent of BPJS claims. The CISDIs research also points out that for every Rp 150 trillion the government earned from the cigarette excise, it had to disburse Rp 600 trillion to treat patients with smoking-related diseases. Tulus urged the government to increase the excise tax by 57 percent, as the accumulated increase since 2015 only reached about 40 percent. The cigarette excise contributed Rp 153 trillion to state revenue in 2018, he said, adding that the revenue could reach Rp 350 trillion if the government had a firmer stance on its regulation. Tulus also lamented the fact that Indonesia, as a major cigarette and tobacco producer, still had not joined the World Health Organizations Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which had been ratified by 181 countries since 2003. We had high hopes that Jokowi would ratify the FCTC, but no such thing has happened up to his fifth year now. National Commission on Tobacco Control member Jalal said the government should start looking beyond the income from the cigarette excise, suggesting that its true use was to control cigarette consumption to prevent swelling BPJS claims. The lack of cigarette control in the country also went against Indonesias commitment to fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, which included the good health and wellbeing of citizens, he added. The government is treating the cigarette excise as a valuable compensation and a huge source of state revenue, but I see it as a mere fine [for cigarette producers] that hardly covers what they truly cost, Jalal said at the event. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 15, 2019 08:13 884 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e6d4474 1 City Bekasi,children,burns,accident Free Three children in Bekasi regency, West Java, suffered severe burns after getting caught in a sand mound suspected of containing oil waste last Thursday. The sand mound is located on a piece of deserted land in Kramat Blencong, Tarumajaya district. Dwi Rahajeng said on Monday that her 8-year-old son, Muhamad Ramadan, and his friends Denda, 9, and Raga, 8, were playing on the deserted land last Thursday when they decided to climb the sand mound. Denda and Raga were the first ones to sink into the sand, followed by Ramadan who had been trying to pull them out. The whole area smells like oil; as if oil waste had been dumped there, but I dont know that for sure, Dwi said as reported by kompas.com. The moment the children pulled themselves free from the mount, their skin began to sting, she said. Denda and Raga were administered to Koja Hospital while Ramadan was taken to the nearest clinic. Tarumajaya Police chief Adj. Comr. Agus Rohmat said that authorities were currently investigating the matter to discern what had caused the severe reaction. Investigators have taken samples of the sand mound that are currently being tested, he added. The scene has been cordoned off with a police line to prevent more people from coming in contact with the sand, according to kompas.com. In late December last year, residents of Marunda subdistrict, North Jakarta, came across several soil mounds suspected of containing hazardous and toxic waste. Suspicions were raised on its flammable nature after one of the mounds emitted smoke and later caused a fire on Dec. 28. (sau) The Yogyakarta Palace is restoring old portraits of Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono VI and Gusti Kanjeng Ratu Hageng. Created by maestro and pioneer of Indonesian Romantic art Raden Saleh Sjarief Boestaman in the 19th century, the paintings were displayed at the Yogyakarta Kraton Museum in Yogyakarta. Gusti Kanjeng Ratu (GKR) Bendara, a representative of the palaces cultural section, said they had spent two years to find the right restorer for the paintings. Were anxious if the paintings are not handled by an expert, as theyre items of our heritage, said GKR Bendara in Yogyakarta on Monday. Italian art conservation and framing consultant and restorer Michaela Anselmini has been appointed to breathe new life into the old works. Currently based in Jakarta, Anselmini has established her career since 1993. During a media visit attended by Italian Ambassador to Indonesia Vittorio Sandalli and local curators, Anselmini demonstrated the restoration process, including removing painting from their frames, cleaning up the dust and repairing the frame as well as other damaged parts. This process is also for educating the public [on] how to conserve paintings, Anselmini said. Read also: Raden Saleh painting discovered in France Art restorer Michaela Anselmini (left), Italian Ambassador to Indonesia Vittorio Sandalli (right) and a representative from the palaces cultural section, Gusti Kanjeng Ratu Bendara (second left), look at paintings in Yogyakarta on Monday. The restoration of paintings is to be finished in late February. (JP/Tarko Sudiarno) She said she believed the damage had been caused by collision with other objects and by humidity, as they used to be covered in glass. Anselmini also discovered Raden Salehs signature on another painting of a woman of unknown identity. Taking place near the Yogyakarta Kraton Museum, the restoration process is open for the public and scheduled to be completed in late February. The restoration is also part of the museums 2019 revitalization. The number of museum visitors has decreased we are disrupted by selfie tourism. Hopefully, the revitalization can modernize the museum, GKR Bendara said, adding that around 400 other paintings were to be restored as well. Meanwhile, art collector and curator Oei Hong Djien said, Im glad, as Ive been waiting [for the restoration] for more than 10 years, Oei said. He also explained the importance of properly storing the paintings during the restoration. That is because not all paintings can be displayed, therefore, they must be stored properly, so that they wont get damaged, he said. (wir/mut) Norwegian police said on Monday they were investigating allegations that some listening numbers at Tidal Music, owned by Jay-Z, Beyonce and other stars, were artificially inflated. A complaint filed last year by groups working for Norwegian artists and record labels said the alleged fraud had deprived other artists of their fair share of subscription revenues. Tidal, which began life as Norwegian start-up Wimp, has previously dismissed the allegations and its lawyer Fredrik Berg on Monday denied any wrongdoing. "Tidal is not under suspicion in this case," Berg, of the law firm Fend, said, adding the company was in a dialogue with police. The probe follows an investigation by Norwegian business daily Dagens Naeringsliv (DN) last May that Tidal had manipulated user data, citing internal data from the company it said it had had access to. "We've begun an investigation to confirm or reject the suspicion of manipulation," said Oekokrim, the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime, in a statement on Monday. Read also: Norway artists file complaint against Tidal over false streaming The investigation looked at "whether someone has manipulated the number of times certain songs have been played," Oekokrim added, but without naming any suspects. DN asked a research group specialized in data security at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) to review the data. In its report, dated April 10, 2018 and made public following DN's publication of the story in May, the group found there had been a manipulation of the data at certain times. Tidal last year denied any manipulation had taken place and said the DN article was factually wrong. The newspaper said it stood by its reporting. Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Corey Carter, in 2015 bought the company behind the Wimp service for 464 million Swedish crowns ($51.90 million), and owns it together with other artists, including Alicia Keys, Beyonce, Madonna and Kanye West. Thirty-two historic sites in Malang, East Java, including 27 old buildings and five structures, have been added to the city's cultural heritage list. The old buildings, including Malang's City Hall, the Bank Indonesia office, Kota Baru Train Station, schools and churches, were named cultural heritage sites based on Law No. 11/2010 and Regional Government Regulation (Perda) No. 1/2018. Malang Mayor Sutiaji handed the certificates to the building owners at City Hall on Monday. He said the buildings had the potential to provide historical and architectural information, making them interesting tourist attractions. Sutiaji said that the number of Malang cultural heritage sites was expected to increase following research conducted by the Malang City Cultural Heritage Expert Team. As the buildings are regulated by law, the owners need to preserve them and are prohibited from renovating them without the approval of the city administration, explained Sutiaji, adding that sanctions would be imposed for violation of the rules. Read also: Malang failing to preserve architectural heritage: Expert Sutiaji said the cultural heritage site owners were expected to receive some benefits, such as discounts on property taxes. However, the city administration had yet to decide on the amount. M Iskandar Sjachran, representative of Malang cultural heritage sites, said the building owners welcomed the plan. We hope that in the future we will also receive operational support, similar to other cultural heritage sites in other provinces, he said. The manager of Hotel Pelangi, one of the longest-standing hotels in Malang, explained that the maintenance costs of old buildings were considerable. Were also trying to beautify the building as one of our [efforts] to preserve it, said Iskandar. (jes/wng) Some netizens have boycotted razor and shaving supply company Gillette following its latest ad that was uploaded online on Sunday. On Twitter, netizens posted a photo of them tossing the brand's razors or other products into the trash while adding the hashtag #BoycottGillette. Gillette's latest ad, titled We Believe: The Best Men Can Be, is a 1 minute 48 second commercial that confronts masculinity, bullying and harassment by showing different scenes, including boys fighting each other and a man stopping a woman from getting harassed. Is this the best a man can get? said the ads narrator while mentioning the brands famous tagline. We cant hide from it. It has been going on far too long. We cant laugh it off, making the same old excuses boys will be boys. On a special page about the campaign, the Procter & Gamble-owned brand explained that it has a responsibility to promote positive, attainable, inclusive and healthy versions of what it means to be a man. From today on, we pledge to actively challenge the stereotypes and expectations of what it means to be a man, read the statement, also noting that the company will donate US$1 million annually for the next three years to non-profit organizations that aim to help men of all ages achieve their personal best. The campaign apparently does not resonate with some of the brands customers. Read also: Nike's Colin Kaepernick ads spark boycott calls Since it was published on YouTube on Sunday, the commercial video has been watched by more than 2 million viewers, liked by over 19,000 users and disliked by over 187,000 users. The brands Twitter account is filled with protests from those who consider the ad offensive and a form of feminization. Some said they simply want to shave in peace without being lectured. Goodbye! Enjoy your social commentary and male guilt elsewhere. You may be surprised there are actually men out there who would just like to shave in peace and not be lectured by the company providing their razors... #BoycottGilette Daniel Schuldt (@SchuldtDaniel) January 15, 2019 However, some netizens were found praising the ad for being great and excellent. Excellent ad by @Gillette Gone are the days of boys will be boys. Time to change for the sake of the next generation of men pic.twitter.com/bMKwWFJYJT TJ Manotoc (@tjmanotoc) January 15, 2019 The comments under the @Gillette toxic masculinity ad is a living document of how desperately society needs things like the Gillette toxic masculinity ad. Seriously: if your masculinity is THAT threatened by an ad that says we should be nicer then you're doing masculinity wrong. Andrew P Street (@AndrewPStreet) January 15, 2019 Pankaj Bhalla, the company's North America brand director, told CNN Business that they expected such a debate to arise. The ad isnt about toxic masculinity. Its about men taking more action every day to set the best example for the next generation, he said. (wir/kes) __________ Editor's note: Paragraph seven in this article has been corrected. A British company plans to launch a Braille e-reader for blind people this year that should greatly enhance their reading experience and spare them from lugging around hefty print volumes. Since it was developed by Louis Braille in the 19th Century, the alphabet of raised dots has brought the joy of reading to millions of blind and partially-sighted people. But in its printed form it's not exactly convenient or portable: A Braille copy of the Bible can take up about 5 feet (1.5 meters) of shelf space. British firm Bristol Braille Technology hopes to change this with Canute 360, their new 'Kindle for the blind' which it says is the world's first multi-line Braille e-reader, displaying nine lines of text at a time, or about a third of a page of regular print. "This means you only have to press the forward button every 360 characters rather than every 20," said Stephanie Sergeant, whose company Vision Through Sound provides training for blind people and has been working with Bristol Braille. "It refreshes a line at a time, starting at the top. So even though it takes a little while for all the lines to refresh, you can start reading almost as soon as you press the forward key." Read also: Indonesian language dictionary available in braille version Any text that has been translated into Braille format can be downloaded into the Canute, potentially putting an endless supply of reading material at the user's fingertips. The proportion of blind people who can read Braille lettering, formed of one to six dots in a range of combinations, has fallen, partly due to advances in audio description technology. But Bristol Braille says learning to read it can significantly boost literacy and numeracy rates among the blind. The final prototype of Canute will enter mass production this year, priced similar to a high-end laptop. "Innovations in the field of Braille technology make this a very exciting time for Braille readers," said Claire Maxwell, senior product developer for Braille at the Royal National Institute of Blind People. Indonesia's resort island of Bali is a popular holiday spot among global travelers, and its status as a gateway tourist destination to Southeast Asia's largest economy has led to US coffee giant Starbucks opening its largest store in the region in the island's busy neighborhood of Seminyak. The branch takes after Bali's colloquial title, namely Starbucks Reserve "Dewata", a term that means "god" in the Hindu-majority island locally dubbed Pulau Dewata (Island of the Gods). Situated on Jl. Sunset Road in Seminyak, the store is built on over 2,000 square meters of land and boasts a laid-back layout. With swinging seats on the patio and plush couches in the library-themed room on the second floor, it will be easy to feel cozy and right at home in Southeast Asia's largest Starbucks store. The spacious building's floor-to-ceiling windows on one side look out on to a micro-plot of arabica coffee trees measuring 100 sq. m, which mirrors the size of 90 percent of all coffee farms in the country, physically illustrating the store's aim to give an insight from seed to cup. A working coffee farm in Starbucks Reserve Dewata. (JP/Liza Yosephine) Dewata goes beyond being a regular Starbucks hub, even with its upscale Reserve bar, as the store has been designed to become a coffee sanctuary that offers an in-depth look into the coffee-making process. Indonesia is the world's fourth-largest coffee producer after Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia, according to Trade Ministry data. There are six main coffee-growing areas in the country, namely Sumatra, Sulawesi, Java, Flores, Bali and West Papua. Read also: Starbucks gets new drinks from lab to cafe in one-fifth the time Starbucks chief executive officer Kevin Johnson, who officially opened the store over the weekend, said the company had sourced arabica coffee from Indonesia since the beginning of its journey almost half a century ago. "We started sourcing coffee here in Indonesia in 1971 when we opened, and today we are the largest buyer of arabica coffee in Indonesia," Johnson said on Saturday. "Now that coffee is served in over 29,000 Starbucks stores, across 78 markets around the world," he added. Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson opened Dewata in Bali. (JP/Liza Yosephine) Johnson, whose favorite brew is the specialized Aged Sumatra, said the Dewata store was also a tribute to coffee farmers around the world. Since early in its inception, which began almost two years ago, the store was involved closely with the company's farmer-support center in Indonesia in designing the unique concept of providing an elevated experience in showing how coffee grows, to how the cherry is processed and eventually becomes a beverage. It offers guided tours to learn of the coffee-production journey, an experience only available at Dewata, which also houses a coffee-tree nursery, tasting room, interactive games and a media room that screens interviews with its agronomists. Southeast Asia's largest Starbucks store also houses a coffee-tree nursery. (JP/Liza Yosephine) Anthony Cottan, the director of PT Sari Coffee Indonesia (Starbucks Indonesia), said the store aimed to tell the Indonesian coffee story. He added that the location of Bali was chosen since it allowed for both large numbers of Indonesians, as well as foreigners to access the location in a relaxed atmosphere. A popular destination, Bali welcomed 5.2 million foreign tourists from January to October 2018, a 6.5 percent increase from 4.9 million visitors recorded in the same period in 2017, according to data from I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar. It is also a top vacation spot for domestic tourists. "If it's rushed, it's not going to work, they need to spend a little of time with us -- half an hour to an hour -- to kind of embrace what we're doing," Cottan said. Additionally, Starbucks Dewata also features three specially curated beans only available at its store, from Bali, Sumatra and Priangan in West Java, on top to the selected limited beans at the Reserve bar. Starbucks has over 370 stores across Indonesia, including nine other Reserve bars, which offer unique options to customers seeking an enhanced coffee experience, as they provide special coffee serving techniques and rare beans from across the globe to choose from. (kes) Pilgrims from across the world are gathering in India for the Kumbh Mela, a heady mix of spirituality, politics and tourism that begins on Tuesday, garnering extra attention ahead of a general election in the Hindu-majority country this year. During the eight-week festival at Prayagraj in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, authorities expect up to 150 million people, including a million foreign visitors, to bathe at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna, and a mythical third river, the Saraswati. Devout Hindus believe that bathing in the waters of the Ganges absolves people of sins and bathing at the time of the Kumbh Mela, or the "festival of the pot", brings salvation from the cycle of life and death. "Kumbh is a conglomeration of spiritual consciousness and cultural heritage," Mahesh Sharma, who heads the culture ministry, said in a statement. "We are also showcasing here Indias rich traditions, as visualized by Prime Minister Narendra Modi." On Tuesday millions of pilgrims, led by naked, ash-smeared ascetics, some of whom live in caves, will plunge themselves into the icy waters during the first Shahi Snan, or Royal Bath, that begins around 4 a.m. (2230 GMT). With less than 24 hours until the festival starts, the last of the arriving ascetics paraded towards temporary ashrams, or monasteries, built of corrugated steel and canvas on the eastern banks of the Ganges, many decked in fairy lights. Pilgrims poured in to the site, which is closed to traffic around bathing days, carrying bundles on their heads, while vendors peddled neon balloons and cotton candy, as securitymen stood guard, with priests and armed police seated side-by-side. Authorities have set up temporary bridges, 600 mass kitchens and more than 100,000 portable toilets in a pop-up city at the confluence of the rivers, which is known as the sangam. Those with cash can make their pick of luxury campsites on the river banks that offer ayurvedic spas and yoga that cost up to 32,000 rupees ($454.09) each night. Most of the pilgrims make do with more modest lodgings, sleeping in vast tents or out in the open. "I don't know where I will stay yet, but you do not often get to meet these saints and sadhus," said Rajendra Singh, a retired soldier now working as a security guard, who rode a bus from the state capital, Lucknow, about 200 km away. Read also: Millions gather to 'purify souls' in Hindu bathing ritual Political pilgrimage This year's event comes at a critical time for Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), expected to face a tough contest in a general election due to be held by May. It lost power in three key states in assembly elections in December, and will want to avoid a similar result during the general election in Uttar Pradesh, a state of 220 million where a good showing can often decide the contest. The state's chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, is a firebrand Hindu monk from the BJP, who has championed policies that play to the party's core Hindu base. This year Adityanath has transformed a smaller Ardh, or "half" Kumbh Mela, into a full version of the festival. He has also lobbied for a controversial Hindu temple on the site of a former mosque, and renamed several cities - including Prayagraj, which used to be known as Allahabad until it got its new name in October. Modi and his rival, opposition Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, are both expected to attend the festival before it wraps up in March. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Usman Hamid (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Tue, January 15, 2019 15:09 883 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e6ec5f7 3 Opinion bambang-widodo-umar,National-Police,activist Free The police are usually the target of various campaigns and human rights advocates. But they can also be an ally of human rights and anticorruption activists. The loss of the police as an ally is reflected in the passing of Bambang Widodo Umar on Monday, Jan. 14. Born in Ngawi, East Java, on Dec. 10, 1947, Bambang completed his elementary school education in Surabaya, East Java, in 1960 and graduated from SMA 3 state high school in 1966. He became a member of the police after graduating from the Armed Forces Academy (Akabri) in 1971. Bambang also attended the Police Staff College (PTIK) in 1978 and the National Police Staff and Command School (Sespim) in 1984 after which he was appointed to be a senior detective in 1985. He was a recipient of the highest awards from the state and the National Police. He rose to prominence when he and seven other senior officers came out in support of then-president Abdurrahman Gus Dur Wahid, who had dismissed police chief Bimantoro Gen. Rusdihardjo for his reported refusal to arrest former president Soehartos youngest son, Tommy Soeharto, in relation to the bombing of the Jakarta Stock Exchange, as cited by Gus Durs biographer Greg Barton. The incident became even more complicated after Gus Durs impeachment. Bambang and the other officers were later arrested and during interrogation he was intensively questioned about his relationship with activists. I met him a number of times with slain activist Munir S. Thalib. When Munir was murdered in September 2004, Bambang was deeply skeptical about the National Polices will and capacity to reveal the mastermind and actors behind the murder. Investigators assigned to the case, Bambang noted then, numbered less than those handling bombings, although big cases usually appealed to those seeking promotion. Bambang was therefore convinced that only international pressure would solve Munirs murder, which remains unsolved. When Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) senior investigator Novel Baswedan was attacked with acid in April 2017 Bambang was outraged. As in Munirs case he doubted the polices ability to solve the case. He cited their reluctance to arrest Novels attackers. The police instead focused on reports by KPK director of investigations Brig. Gen. Aris Budiman and a National Police officer investigation corruption, Erwanto, who reported Novel for defamation. Taking note of the stance the police were taking against Novel, Bambang was convinced that the case could only be solved by an independent team under the auspices of President Joko Jokowi Widodo. Last week, the team was established but its independence is highly questionable as it is led by the National Police. Despite being dismissed from an institution that he dearly loved, he never gave up on the police. He became even more serious about police reform, especially with his inside knowledge and experience as a long-time police officer educated and trained within the dominant militaristic culture of the corps. Bambangs closeness with the late Munir and his growing reputation as a pro-reform former police officer made him a welcome figure within the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) on whose board he sat. In January 2017, he cited the very concerning situation of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM). Please help, bung,[brother] he told me. Encourage friends with courage to apply as commissioners, he said when he was on its selection committee. He would also actively provide input and encourage anticorruption activists when they were targets of criminalization and persecution. Bambang was also active in Transparency International Indonesia and supported the KPK. In 2012, he was among those who signed an online petition in support of the antigraft body, which was then under attack from all corners, including lawmakers who were attempting to revise the KPK law to undermine its authority. The attempts to criminalize KPK leaders from National Police headquarters were also evident at the time and it included the arrest of leading KPK investigator Novel. Bambang wrote articles and was widely quoted in the mass media on his thoughts about human rights and corruption. His intense involvement in such issues would often make him a target from the very institution he came from. Bambang was an avid student and educator. He achieved a Masters degree in sociology at Padjadjaran University in Bandung in 1992, where he also gained his doctorate a few years later. He lectured in postgraduate studies at five higher education institutions including his alma mater the PTIK and police studies at the University of Indonesia. His articles showed his conviction that the police is a civilian institution, and that therefore the militarism that has been in place since the New Order regime is a mistake. The law on the military separated both institutions after the regime fell, but the militaristic remnants still remain. Bambang would often display his conviction that the polices role was to prevent and detect crime, preserve public order and provide assistance to the public. However, in executing their authority, he would always remind them of the importance of using that power legally and to respect human rights. He was aware that a perfect police force did not exist, especially when it comes to discretion. However, he would repeatedly remind us that this was precisely why we needed a functioning accountability system. With such knowledge and insight, it was natural that he joined a number of civil society organizations. I met him for the last time at Persahabatan General Hospital in East Jakarta, where he was being treated. Holding my hands tightly, he repeatedly tried to say something, also scratching on paper, but his body could not follow his brain; he was clearly still sharp, recognizing all his visitors. Ismawati, his wife, had moved to a rented space near the hospital to be near him with their daughters. When I bid him farewell, I conveyed the prayers of fellow activists for his recovery. I also told him we all hoped to be with him again to discuss urgent reforms. Bambangs death is a great loss. It is not easy for Indonesia to have a police figure who is a critical thinker and a man of action who was willing to sacrifice himself for the ideal aspirations of Indonesias police force. Rest in peace, Pak Bambang. *** The writer is on the board of the independent Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), and leads the Indonesian chapter of Amnesty International. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) Just days before he left office, former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner granted posthumous clemency to a man imprisoned for a stabbing that a serial killer later confessed to committing. The Illinois Innocence Project at the University of Illinois in Springfield said Tuesday that Grover Thompson received the first posthumous exoneration in state history and the 21st nationwide, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. Rauner granted Thompson executive clemency Friday, Illinois Prisoner Review Board spokesman Jason Sweat said. Rauner had denied Thompson clemency in 2015. Thompson died in prison in 1996 while serving a 40-year sentence for the attempted 1981 murder of Ida White, 72, in Mount Vernon. More than a decade later, in 2007, serial killer Timothy Krajcir confessed to former Carbondale, Illinois, police detective Paul Echols that he stabbed White. Uncle Grover suffered a tragedy that never should have happened, Thompsons nephew, S.T. Jamison of Minnesota, said in a statement. He was an innocent black man just trying to get home to his family and he never came home. Krajcir is imprisoned for two southern Illinois killings, has received life sentences for five southeast Missouri killings and has pleaded guilty to killings in Kentucky and Pennsylvania. He admitted stabbing White in return for assurance that he would not be prosecuted for the death penalty in Missouri. Thompson could not have committed the crime, according to the Illinois Innocence Project, due to a disability and because he wasnt wearing clothing matching the attackers description. At the time, Thompson had stopped to rest in the Mount Vernon post office lobby while traveling by bus to visit family in Mississippi, the innocence project said. Echols, who wrote a book about the Krajcir killings, said Krajcir described peeping through Whites windows when he came across an unlocked bathroom window, climbed in and hid in a shower stall before ambushing the woman when she entered the room. White, now deceased, had said the intruder attacked her in her bathroom, slashing her with a pocketknife when she wouldnt stop screaming. She described him as black, as did a neighbor who interrupted the attack and tried to keep the suspect from escaping through the window. Krajcir is white. Thompson, who is black, was arrested near Whites house within a half hour of the attack. Echols said that Krajcirs dark hair and dark complexion led to a flawed identification by White of her attackers race. A White neighbor who later identified Thompson as the attacker said he was only shown one suspect in the police line-up. The mainstream media, including the Associated Press, is desperately trying to convince the American public that the border crisis is, as each talking head has echoed, manufactured by President Trump. I am going to state, without any hesitation, that the crisis on the border is all too real. I know, from personal experience, what it is like all along the Rio Grande Valley when it comes to illegal immigration and drug trafficking. I worked in McAllen, Harlingen and Brownsville from 1986 to 1999. I fished the Rio Grande River and Falcon Reservoir nearly weekly. I witnessed, firsthand, illegals wading, swimming, and floating across the river. I witnessed drug runners floating barges of drugs across the Rio Grande and Falcon Reservoir. I was even shot at on the Rio Grande River. In my profession working in drug and alcohol treatment and the provision of mental health services, I know exactly what the drain to federal, state and local resources has resulted from unfettered illegal immigration and the ever-expanding drug trafficking in that region. It is way beyond what the public is led to believe. Some of the buses are chartered from Arrow Stage Lines. Others are coming from the Nebraska Veterans Homes in Norfolk, Scottsbluff and Bellevue. The vehicles will meet the needs of each member. The veterans home has a lot of folks with special needs, including those in wheelchairs and walkers, Klimek said. Some of the moving buddy volunteers and staff members will be at the new facility Tuesday, helping to unpack items in anticipation of the members arrival. That way, the members wont be overwhelmed with all these boxes that have to be unpacked, Klimek said. Hopefully, the bulk of the unpacking will be done by their Wednesday arrival. At that point, members will be able to finalize where they want pictures hung or where they want different things placed, Klimek said. Some of the volunteers will travel from Kearney to Grand Island on Wednesday to help. Members of the Patriot Guard and other motorcycle riders will be on hand Wednesday in Grand Island, Klimek said. Weather permitting, some of the motorcyclists may lead the trek to Kearney. Klimek has heard that a band will welcome the veterans to Kearney. The intersection began to be evaluated in 2017 because there were structural issues and the signals and signs were old and almost unusable, Collins said. Also needing to be addressed was the safety of pedestrians crossing the south leg of Broadwell and Eddy. Getting a pedestrian across that was really challenging and we were having trouble coming up with a route we could do that safely, Collins said. Consideration was given to prohibit pedestrian crossing on the side of the intersection that includes Broadwell and Eddy. That would have required people to walk to the north side and then cross. But, Collins said, people would have likely disobeyed and crossed on the south side anyway. Olsson Associates, which was hired for the consulting process, proposed a roundabout, which the Nebraska Department of Transportation liked and awarded the city federal-aid safety funds for the project at the busy intersection. The average daily traffic count at Five Points is different on each leg. The north leg, which is Broadwell, has 9,182 vehicles per day. The west leg of State has 8,237 and the east leg of State has 4,781. The south leg of Broadwell has 6,748 and the south leg of Eddy has the most traffic with 9,479 vehicles daily. Grand Island police received a call Monday evening about a man who dropped a backpack in the parking lot of Menards and ran away. The backpack turned out to contain a homemade shank. The alleged owner of the backpack, Keenath Turner, was arrested because, as a convicted felon, he is prohibited from possessing a deadly weapon. Turner, 30, told police he was traveling through Grand Island from Iowa with his girlfriend. He said he and his girlfriend got into an argument and she left him in the Menards parking lot. He said he was upset and his backpack was slowing him down so he dropped the backpack in the parking lot and took off toward Walmart. Turner admitted the shank was his. Because it was 11 inches long, it was a pretty fair-sized weapon, said Capt. Jim Duering of the Grand Island Police Department. It looked pretty singular in purpose to us. A short time later, officers conducted a welfare check on Turner and the female he was with at Pumpers Gas Station on Diers Avenue. When a party loses a national election to someone such as Donald President Trump, it's time to rethink everything. But with just a year from the Iowa caucuses, I'm worried some of our leaders in the Democratic Party are learning the wrong lessons. Some are saying that bold ideas such as Medicare-for-all, a job guarantee and free college sound great - but aren't realistic. "When the stakes are another four years of Trump degrading our country, do we really want to use the 2020 campaign as a first-time experiment on idealistic but unrealistic policies?" wrote former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe in The Post this month. McAuliffe is right that we should not overpromise. But he's absolutely wrong that a bold vision of fundamental change is more than we can deliver. We progressives are all too familiar with his argument. It's a lie we've been told by the members of our own party and the mainstream media for far too long. When I first ran for mayor in 2013, the New York Times praised my "ambitious plans" but urged voters to support a different candidate because my ideas looked "like legislative long shots." The common belief is that you are either a dreamer or a realist. But idealism and pragmatism aren't as far apart as one might think. I won that race in 2013 because of the grass-roots power that pundits and pontificators cannot understand. We put forward a clear, populist message: New York City was a tale of two cities, with unacceptable levels of inequality that had to change. The voters agreed. We took from the great example of Franklin Delano Roosevelt - that you must make change people can feel and must do so quickly. We implemented prekindergarten for all, we created an ambitious mental-health program called ThriveNYC, and we proposed the biggest affordable-housing plan in the city's history. Meanwhile, crime fell to record lows when we ended the era of stop-and-frisk and created neighborhood policing. Last week, I announced a similar policy in that same mold: We will deliver guaranteed health care for all New Yorkers. If one of our residents is insurable, we're going to enroll her in New York City's public option. If she can't afford insurance or she's ineligible, we've created a way for her to get guaranteed, quality care in a public hospital or clinic. We're doing this because it's the right thing to do morally and medically, and we're not alone in expanding health care. In Washington state, Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee proposed last week the creation of a public option to be sold on the state insurance exchange. Down the coast, newly sworn-in California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is also pushing to get more people the care they need. I'm sure at this point some people are thinking that all this is easy to do in deep-blue places such as New York City, California and Washington. And they'll note that the 2020 election will require Democrats to win in places such as Florida, Michigan and Missouri, where convincing voters to support such ideas will be much harder. The results from the 2018 midterm elections prove them wrong. Trump's incredibly small margin in Florida in 2016 was clearly helped by the fact that 1.5 million people in the state who were previously convicted of a felony could not vote - even if they'd served their time. But last November, 64 percent of Floridians supported Amendment 4 restoring their voting rights. In Michigan, 11,000 votes separated Trump and Hillary Clinton when the dust settled. Can you guess the size of the margin when automatic voter registration was on the ballot in 2018? "Yes" beat "no" by 1.4 million. Trump won Missouri in 2016 by 19 percentage points. Two years later, Missourians voted overwhelmingly to eliminate the state's "right to work" law. They also approved medical marijuana and sweeping campaign finance reform. These are exactly the kind of "idealistic" and "radical" changes everyday people demand, and we can deliver - not just in blue states but all over country. Too many Americans feel like the walls are closing in. They don't care about returning "normalcy" to our political discourse - whatever the hell that means. Voters want significant proposals for equality and fairness. Anyone who tells you otherwise is dooming our party to repeat the mistakes of the past. There are many signs that the dawn of a new progressive era is here. Now is the time for our party to redefine the possible. We can only do it by refusing to listen to what centrists tell us is realistic. Look instead at what progressives have already done. It's time to catch up with the new, progressive future and not allow ourselves to be left behind. --- De Blasio, a Democrat, is mayor of New York City. On Friday, the New York Times reported that "in the days after President Donald Trump fired James Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president's behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests." That investigation may well be continuing under the auspices of special counsel Robert Mueller III. We don't know what Mueller has learned. But we can look at the key, publicly available evidence that both supports and undercuts this explosive allegation. Here is some of the evidence suggesting "Individual 1" could be a Russian "asset": - Trump has a long financial history with Russia. As summarized by Jonathan Chait in an invaluable New York magazine article: "From 2003 to 2017, people from the former USSR made 86 all-cash purchases - a red flag of potential money laundering - of Trump properties, totaling $109 million. In 2010, the private-wealth division of Deutsche Bank also loaned him hundreds of millions of dollars during the same period it was laundering billions in Russian money. 'Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,' said Donald Jr. in 2008. 'We don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia,' boasted Eric Trump in 2014." According to Trump attorney Michael Cohen's guilty plea of lying to Congress, Trump was even pursuing his dream of building a Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign with the help of a Vladimir Putin aide. These are the kind of financial entanglements that intelligence services such as the FSB typically use to ensnare foreigners, and they could leave Trump vulnerable to blackmail. - The Russians interfered in the 2016 U.S. election to help elect Trump president. - Trump encouraged the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton's emails on July 27, 2016 ("Russia, if you're listening"),on the very day that Russian intelligence hackers tried to attack Clinton's personal and campaign servers. - There were, according to the Moscow Project, "101 contacts between Trump's team and Russia linked operatives," and "the Trump team tried to cover up every single one of them." The most infamous of these contacts was the June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower between the Trump campaign high command and a Kremlin emissary promising dirt on Clinton. Donald Trump Jr.'s reaction to the offer of Russian assistance? "If it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer." - The Trump campaign was full of individuals, such as Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and Michael Flynn, with suspiciously close links to Moscow. - Manafort, who ran the Trump campaign for free and was heavily in debt to a Russian oligarch, now admits to offering his Russian business partner, who is suspected of links to Russian intelligence, polling data that could have been used to target the Russian social media campaign on behalf of Trump. - Trump associate Roger Stone, who was in contact with Russian conduit WikiLeaks, reportedly knew in advance that the Russians had hacked Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's emails. (Stone has denied it.) - Once in office, Trump fired Comey to stop the investigation of the "Russia thing" - and then bragged about having done so to the Russian ambassador and foreign minister while also sharing with them top-secret information. Later, Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions because he would not end the special counsel investigation that resulted after the firing of Comey. As Lawfare editor Benjamin Wittes argues, "the obstruction was the collusion" - Trump has been effectively protecting the Russians by trying to impede the investigation of their attack on the United States. - Trump has refused to consistently acknowledge that Russia interfered in the U.S. election or mobilize a government-wide effort to stop future interference. He has accepted Putin's protestations that the Russians did not meddle in the election over the "high confidence" assessment of the U.S. intelligence community that they did. - Like no previous president, Trump attacks and undermines the Justice Department and the FBI ("a cancer in our country") - two institutions that stand on the front lines of combatting Russian espionage and influence operations in the United States. - Again, like no previous president, Trump attacks and undermines the European Union and NATO - he has suggested that France should leave the E.U. and that the United States should leave NATO, reportedly saying, "NATO is as bad as NAFTA." The E.U. and NATO are the two major obstacles to Russian designs in Europe. - Trump supports populist, pro-Russian leaders in Europe, such as Viktor Orban in Hungary and Marine Le Pen in France, just as the Russians do. - Trump has praised Putin ("a strong leader") while trashing just about everyone else from grade-B Hollywood celebrities to leaders of allied nations. Trump even praised Putin for expelling U.S. diplomats and, notwithstanding instruction from his aides ("DO NOT CONGRATULATE"), congratulated Putin on winning a rigged re-election. - Trump was utterly supine in his meetings with Putin, principally in Hamburg and Helsinki. Even more suspicious, according to a Washington Post article on Saturday, Trump "has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with ... Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials ... Several officials said they were never able to get a reliable readout of the president's two-hour meeting in Helsinki." - Trump defends the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and repeats other pro-Russian talking points. - Trump is pulling U.S. troops out of Syria, handing that country to Russia and its ally Iran. - Trump has effectively done nothing in response to the Russian attack on Ukrainian ships in international waters, thereby encouraging greater Russian aggression. - Trump is sowing chaos in the government, most recently with a record-breaking partial government shutdown and "acting" appointees in key posts such as the Defense Department and Justice Department, thus furthering a Russian objective of undermining its chief adversary. Now that we've listed 18 reasons Trump could be a Russian asset, let's look at the exculpatory evidence... (This page intentionally left blank) I can't think of anything that would exonerate Trump aside from the difficulty of grasping what once would have seemed unimaginable: that a president of the United States could actually have been compromised by a hostile foreign power. In his own defense, Trump claims he has been tougher on Russia "than any other President," but literally in the next sentence he says, "getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing." When the United States actually has taken steps to get tough with Russia in the past two years, it has usually been the work of Congress (the 2017 Russia sanctions bill) or Trump aides (expelling 60 Russian diplomats). The Post reports that Trump was "furious" when his administration was portrayed as being tough on Russia, and NBC News reports that he instructed subordinates never to publicly discuss plans to sell weapons to Ukraine. This is hardly a "beyond a reasonable doubt" case that Trump is a Russian agent - certainly not in the way that Robert Hanssen or Aldrich Ames were. But it is a strong, circumstantial case that Trump is, as former acting CIA director Michael Morell and former CIA director Michael Hayden warned during the 2016 campaign, "an unwitting agent of the Russian federation" (Morell) or a "useful fool" who is "manipulated by Moscow" (Hayden). If Trump isn't actually a Russian agent, he is doing a pretty good imitation of one. NORWALK In 1973, the Rev. Albert Ray Dancy was sentenced to four years in prison; now, he visits penal institutions by choice. In fact, the 68-year-old has spent the last 30 years volunteering in prisons leading Bible study and worship groups and acting as a mentor to men reintegrating into the community after incarceration. His desire to help youth and adults in the criminal justice system stems from his own experiences. After suffering abuse as a child, he said he turned to drugs and alcohol at a young age. At 23, he was convicted of armed robbery and served three out of his four-year sentence behind bars at Somers Correctional Facility in New York, now Osborn Correctional Institute. By all standards, I shouldnt even be here with the abuse as a child, being in and out of prison, having a drug and alcohol addition, I shouldnt be here, said Dancy, who lives in Darien. But there is redemption; there is hope not only for our young people but adults that are struggling with those kinds of issues. In my latter years, I really want to trumpet that message because it needs to be trumpeted. To further his reach, Dancy accepted a role in 2007 as executive director at Saving All Vessels Equally, Inc. He had a spent a year volunteering with the Norwalk nonprofit that formed in 2006 to help youth involved in gang-related violence, while empowering their parents and connecting clergy leaders with youth for one-on-one counseling. Looking back over his 14-year tenure at S.A.V.E., Dancy said one of his biggest success stories came out of the academic and mentoring group, Pen(itentiary) or Pencil. The nationwide initiative helps young people stay on track with school and avoid jail or prison. Students receive a stipend, extra credit, support with legal proceedings and help with suspension or expulsion meetings. While Dancy was recruiting at Richard C. Briggs High School later called Norwalk Pathways Academy at Briggs, which ceased last year he was introduced to then-16-year-old David Davis. Davis agreed to participate, eventually going on to become a leader in one of S.A.V.E.s other programs, Youth Council for Justice. I made a lot of connections for the future, Davis said. It really gave me a sense of potential in my mind because before that I never had a job. Davis said S.A.V.E. helped him to establish a positive relationship with city and law enforcement officials while leading public forums and learning how to write grants. Now 21, Davis said his goal is to receive his GED and find a social justice job to fight inequality among youths. Inspired by her sons progress, Davis mother, Nicole Davis, joined S.A.V.E.s board in 2015. I believe this experience that hes going through and his experience at S.A.V.E. has helped him to figure out what he wants to do with his life and helped him have some goals for himself, she said. Ive seen other children whose lives have been turned around. It is because of the help provided to people such as Davis that Dancy is being honored for his 14 years of service at S.A.V.E.s Justice Sunday event, which occurs annually nationwide the day before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The gathering, which is open to the public, commemorates Kings work and singles out people for their extraordinary service. Dancys 14 years of services, including more than a decade as executive director of S.A.V.E he stepped down in August, making way for Pamela Y. George will be recognized Sunday at 11 a.m. at Canaan Baptist Church, 31 Concord St. I felt like 10 years was a sufficient amount of time, Dancy said. I wanted to focus more on adult offenders and positioning myself to provide resources to adult offenders. Dancy said he will dedicate his time to working on a masters degree in criminal justice and teaching college courses to inmates at York Correctional Institution and Cheshire Correctional Institution. But, Dancy still plans to continue his service at S.A.V.E. in other capacities. Hes a big-hearted man who sticks by his morals, Davis said. He gave many youths in our town the same opportunities he gave me. Not all of them have utilized it to the same extent but he gave us all the opportunity nonetheless. NORWALK Jeopardy! viewers on Monday evening saw a peculiar reference to a snack offered at Norwalks Maritime Aquarium. At the Maritime Aquarium, focused on the life of this geographic sound, Jeopardy host Alex Trebek said, Dont toss cafeteria pretzels to the fish. The correct response to the question, of course, was What is the Long Island Sound, answered by Anneke Garcia, and instructional design consultant from Salt Lake City, Utah. It was the $1,000 question in a round called Connectiquette, which mixed references to various places in the state with corresponding rules of etiquette. Other questions include: Senators arent supposed to talk about the same subject more than twice when the Conn. state senate meets, in this city (Hartford); As a new student at Yale med school, youll have this garment placed on you by a senior faculty member (a lab coat); In the clubhouse of GCC, short for Greenwich this, shorts must be Bermuda length (country club); New graduates from this New London academy give a silver dollar to the first person to salute them (the Coast Guard Academy). Dave Sigworth, publicist for the Maritime Aquarium, was surprised as anyone to see the mention. I wish I could take credit for it. We love it, but have no idea how this happened, Sigworth said. justin.papp@scni.com; @justinjpapp1; 203-842-2586 HARTFORD-A Haitian national who spend much of the last decade dealing heroin in the Greater Norwalk area will be spending 14 years in federal prison. U.S. District Judge Michael Shea imposed the term on Charles Thelusma, 44 during his sentencing on Jan. 14, 2019.. Thelusma has been detained without bond since his June 14, 2017 arrest. He pleaded guilty last June 27 to conspiring to possess with the intent to distribute more than 2.2 pounds of heroin. Police and federal authorities became aware of Thelusmas operation in 2012. It continued even while he was incarcerated in state prison, free on parole and serving time on probation, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Dave Vatti. The defendant made his living as a heroin dealer fro a considerable time, Vatti told the judge. And he did so because he was motivated purely by desire to profit and his perception of the glamour in the lifestyle drug dealing afforded him. Vatti said Thelusma admitted to authorities that he decided to get into that line of work the first time he saw a package of crack cocaine and was told it was worth $1,000. Assistant U.S. Public Defender James Maguire painted a different picture of the defendant. He told the judge Thelusma lived in poverty in Haiti for awhile before being brought to the U.S. by his father when he was 10. Five years later, his father kicked him out of the home and Thelusma was forced to live out of car and work in a fast food restaurant. Even though Thelusma has seven prior felony drug convictions, Maguire said his client avoided the use of guns and violence. Investigators determined that Thelusma purchased heroin in New York and had women deliver it to his customers in the Norwalk area. Vatti explained the women were used because Thelusma thought there was a less likelihood they would be stopped by police. Police became aware of his activities in 2012. During this investigation they seized heroin from a Norwalk and Port Chester, N.Y. stash house and made undercover drug buys. Gail Howard has had it with the Catholic Church. Howard is co-leader of the Connecticut chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a support and advocacy group. She said was unmoved by the recent news that the Archdiocese of Hartford is joining other Catholic organizations that will release a list of member clergy who have been credibly accused of abuse. The Bridgeport Diocese released something similar in October, and dioceses and archdioceses across the country are publishing lists of their own. Experts tie this apparent explosion of transparency to the August release of a Pennsylvania grand jury report that revealed the names of more than 300 priests accused of child abuse in that state. Howard admits these are positive steps for the church, but said they are insufficient and too late, particularly for those whose lives have been irreversibly damaged by abuse. Im just done with the Catholic church, she said. Others are more accepting of the churchs recent gestures. I think this does indicate that the Archdiocese (of Hartford) has a real commitment to transparency, said Michael W. Higgins, a distinguished professor of Catholic thought at Sacred Heart University. I think this is the right thing to do, and I think theyre doing it for the right reasons. A scandal explodes For decades, the Catholic Church both in Connecticut and nationwide has come under fire for hiding abuse, largely by moving those accused from parish to parish. But the Pennsylvania grand jury report set off a chain reaction of revelations intended, at least from the churchs standpoint, to show accountability. Dioceses and archdioceses in many states have unveiled lists of credibly accused clergy, and other actions have been taken, including the removal of Theodore McCarrick, the retired archbishop of Washington, as a cardinal after an assault allegation against him was found to be credible. Higgins said removing a cardinal is an extremely rare occurrence. The Connecticut Catholic community got on board in October, when the Diocese of Bridgeport released a report showing that the diocese had paid $52.5 million to settle abuse claims since 1953. The diocese also published a list on its website of 26 of its priests credibly accused of sexual abuse. Then last weekend, Hartford Archbishop Leonard P. Blair announced the decision to release the names of the credibly accused. The archdiocese also said it would contract for a further independent review of all our clergy files to identify any additional names from the present, going back to (its founding) 1953. The organization also announced plans to publish the amount of money paid out as a result of the abuse, and the source of those funds. The states Catholic leadership has also had a shakeup. Michael C. Culhane has stepped down as executive director of the Connecticut Catholic Conference the public policy office of the church in the state and former state Republican party leader Christopher Healy has taken the job. Healys background includes helping to run Connecticut campaigns for former GOP presidential candidates Bob Dole and John McCain. Healy also ran the congressional campaign of Lisa Wilson-Foley, who eventually pleaded guilty to conspiring to hide payments to disgraced former Gov. John Rowland, who acted as her secret consultant. But not all Catholic dioceses in the state have committed to this attempt at transparency. On Wednesday, The Associated Press reported that the Diocese of Norwich said it has no information on whether or not it will release the names of priests accused of abuse. Not enough Higgins cheered the churchs recent decisions. He said its hard to know what the outcome of these revelations will be, but that there will be political consequences; there will be moral consequences and there will be legal consequences. Others arent so sure, including Cindy Robinson, a partner in the Bridgeport law firm Tremont, Sheldon, Robinson and Mahoney, which was part of the 2005 global mediation before U.S. Magistrate Judge William I. Garfinkel that involved 43 people making accusations against 14 priests within the Archdiocese of Hartford. Robinson said that while the review planned by the archdiocese sounds good on paper, it will only be effective if it is truly independent, and that will, in large part, depend on whether the reviewer has total access to all records, files and secret archives. When reached for comment, a spokesperson for the Hartford Archdiocese said it had no further updates beyond Blairs statement. Howard said what she would like to see is stronger investigation by state legal authorities. We need truth, she said. We need all the truth and we need it come from people responsible for investigating crime in Connecticut. However, when reached for comment, Chief States Attorney Kevin T. Kane said his office was not aware of having received any complaints at this time that have not been sufficiently investigated. Any further information received would be reviewed and acted on as appropriate as governed by the applicable statute of limitations and other criminal laws, Kane said. In Connecticut, the criminal statute of limitations for felony sex crimes is five years, with the exception of class A felonies, such as sex crimes against minors, or crimes with DNA evidence. The civil statute of limitations is 30 years past reaching the age of majority, meaning that in most cases, someone who was abused as a child has until his or her 48th birthday to make a claim. Both Howard and Robinson said it can take victims decades to come forward, and these limits mean that even when they do, they might not receive any justice. Those people (accusing the clergy) can take most of their lives to believe it wasnt their fault, Howard said. Franklin County dairy farmers can now apply for $637,500 in funding from United States Department of Agricultures Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to implement conservation practices that improve water quality, soil health, and wildlife habitat. Focal practices will include waste storage facilities, riparian buffers, nutrient management, and stream exclusion. Interested dairy producers in Franklin County, please call or visit the Rocky Mount USDA Service Center to confirm eligibility and complete an application by Jan. 18. If funds are not obligated, the next deadline will be Feb. 15 and the third Friday of succeeding months through early summer. Please contact Cynthia Martel 540-483-5161 or Eric Capps 540-483-5341 ext. 120 for more information. Being isolated in total darkness has many physical and psychological consequences, though can be therapeutic as well. (Vlue/Shutterstock) What Are the Effects of Total Isolation? Being alone is the dark is uncomfortable and can be psychologically dangerous Imagine being confined to a small, dark room, with no social interaction whatsoever for 30 days. Not many people would jump at this opportunity. But, in November 2018, a professional U.S. poker player Rich Alati bet $100,000 that he could survive 30 days alone and in total darkness. He was kept in a small, completely dark room with nothing but a bed, fridge, and bathroom. Even with all the resources he needed to survive, Alati couldnt last the month. After 20 days he negotiated his release, taking a payout of $62,400. There are countless negative effects that social isolation and extreme isolation can have on our minds and bodies. Alati was no exception, reporting that he experienced a range of side effects, including changes to his sleep cycle, and hallucinations. But why is isolation so difficult for humans to withstand? One of the reasons that living in isolation is difficult is because humans are social creatures. Many people that have lived in isolated environmentssuch as researchers stationed in Antarcticareport that loneliness can be the most difficult part of the job. Yossi Ghinsberg, an Israeli adventurer and author who survived weeks alone in the Amazon, said that loneliness was what he suffered from most and that he had created imaginary friends to keep himself company. Loneliness can be damaging to both our mental and physical health. Socially isolated people are less able to deal with stressful situations. Theyre also more likely to feel depressed and may have problems processing information. This, in turn, can lead to difficulties with decision-making and memory storage and recall. People who are lonely are also more susceptible to illness. Researchers found that a lonely persons immune system responds differently to fighting viruses, making them more likely to develop an illness. The impacts of social isolation become worse when people are placed in physically isolating environments. For example, solitary confinement can have negative psychological effects on prisonersincluding significant increases in anxiety and panic attacks, increased levels of paranoia, and being less able to think clearly. Many prisoners also report long-term mental health problems after being held in isolation. Natascha Kampuschan Australian woman who was kidnapped at the age of 10 and held captive in a cellar for eight yearsnoted in her biography that the lack of light and human contact mentally weakened her. She also reported that endless hours and days spent completely isolated made her susceptible to her captors orders and manipulations. Alone in the Dark The effects of isolation can become even more pronounced if you experience it in total darkness, causing both physical and psychological consequences. One impact of being in complete darkness is that it can wreck your sleep cycle. Two of the key mechanisms for sleep cycle regulation, the hormone melatonin, and the brains suprachiasmatic nucleus, both rely on light to function. Daylight reduces our levels of melatonin, helping us feel awake. Daylight also helps the suprachiasmatic nucleus to reset our waking time if our sleep cycles start to drift. Without daylight, our 24-hour circadian rhythm can change. This explains why people exploring cave systems, for example, may find that their sleep-wake cycle becomes disrupted. This means that the time they feel like going to sleep doesnt stay in a regular pattern and can shift each day. Disruptions to our circadian rhythm can also make us feel depressed and fatigued. This has also been linked to increased cancer risk, insulin resistance, and heart disease, as well as other physical problems such as obesity and premature aging. People placed in isolation may also experience hallucinations. The lack of stimuli causes people to misattribute internal thoughts and feelings as occurring in the outer environment. Essentially, hallucinations happen because of a lack of brain stimulation. In fact, Alati revealed he began experiencing hallucinations by his third day in isolation, ranging from seeing the room fill up with bubbles, to imagining that the ceiling had opened up to show him a starry sky. People in total isolation may also feel that there is a ghostly presence or someone watching them. While the impact of total isolation can be severe, the good news is that these effects are reversible. Exposure to daylight can normally correct sleep-wake patternsthough this might take weeks, or even months in some cases before its fully adjusted. Reconnecting with other humans can reduce loneliness and help restore us to good mental and physical health. However, some people who have been held in social isolation against their will may develop long-term mental health conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. But some people who have faced the challenge of being alone for an extended period of time may show personal growthincluding emotional growth, feeling closer to family and friends, and having a better perspective on lifeas a result of their experience. After 20 days willingly spent in total isolation, even Alati said hes changedreporting that the experience gave him a greater appreciation for people and life, better attention and focus, and overall feeling happier than before. Sarita Robinson is a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. This article was first published on The Conversation. Chinese tech company Huawei is facing challenges to renewing a permit for its research branch in California due to national security concerns in Washington. (Thomas Peter/Reuters) Wall Street Journal: US Bars Huaweis Silicon Valley Branch From Exporting Tech and Software to China Huawei, Chinas biggest telecommunications conglomerate, is facing challenges in renewing a permit for its research branch in California, called Futurewei, due to national security concerns in Washington over the technology being developed and acquired there. Founded as Huaweis U.S. subsidiary in 2001 in Plano, Texas, Futurewei employs more than 1,200 employees in the United States. In 2011, Futurewei opened a research and development (R&D) center in Santa Clara, in Californias Silicon Valley. It employs around 700 people, most of them design engineers and scientists. Futurewei Santa Clara focuses on developing new technologies for Huaweis global market. On Jan. 10, The Wall Street Journal reported that Futurewei Santa Claras export license expired in April 2018, but the U.S. Commerce Department hasnt renewed it for reasons of national security. Futurewei hasnt been able to send certain technologies back to China in the past several months and may be unable to do so in future. The report said the Commerce Department first gave notice of its decision in a letter in June 2018, in which the department described clearly that exports of telecom technology and software were banned. This includes high-speed data-transfer technology, a key advance that Futurewei Santa Clara invested $16 million to produce and has 40 full-time designers working on. In July, Futurewei Santa Clara informed the Commerce Department that it would relocate its research center to another country if it couldnt get the export license. As of now, the Commerce Department hasnt approved Futureweis application, and Huawei is still trying to appeal the decision. But it could be difficult for Huawei to change minds in Washington. The New York Times reported April 17 last year that William Plummer, the Huawei external affairs president, and four other American Huawei employees had been laid off. Plummer joined Huawei in 2011, and his main role was convincing the U.S. government to favor Huawei. Plummer made a name for himself with his 17-slide PowerPoint presentation titled Huawei Is Huawei, Not the Chinese Government. Despite these Sisyphean efforts by Plummer to lobby the U.S. government, as The New York Times put it, Huawei received no special treatment. Open Secrets reported that Huawei spent $1.2 million on lobbying in 2012, $120,000 in 2018, and around $600,000 in the period between 2013 and 2016. Before 2012, Huaweis business in the U.S. market had been running well. That year, however, the U.S. governments investigative report on national security issues posed by Chinese telecommunications warned that Huawei products could be used to destabilize U.S. telecom networks and spy on Americans. In 2018, Verizon and AT&T blocked Huaweis hardware from their networks. Since then, Huawei has only been able to sell its products to small carriers in the country. On Dec. 1, 2018, Canada arrested Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou at the United States request. Huawei was charged with having done business with Iran and other countries in violation of American sanctions. Even without the export license, Futurewei Santa Clara still can export a number of unbanned products to China, as well as continue selling Huawei telecom systems to small U.S. carriers. A teenage girl who claims to be a victim of sexual abuse and alleged grooming in Rotherham, United Kingdom, on Sept. 3, 2014. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images) UK Police Arrest 55 Men Over Child Sexual Abuse LONDONDetectives in the United Kingdom have arrested 55 men over historical allegations of child sexual abuse. All the men were interviewed and released under investigation, according to detectives in West Yorkshire. The allegations were made by seven women in connection with sexual abuse against them as children between 2002 and 2009. The men are from Dewsbury, Batley, and Bradford in the north of the UK. Detective Inspector Ian Thornes said, This investigation demonstrates the forces ongoing commitment to the investigation of both current and non-recent sexual offenses against children. Child sexual abuse and exploitation is an abhorrent and heinous crime and one which affects some of the most vulnerable people in our society. He said the police work closely with local authorities, charities, and other organizations to bring the perpetrators to justice and make our communities safer. Police urged any victims of sexual abuse, recently or not, to report it to the authorities. Please be assured that you will be listened to, taken seriously, and supported by professionals with experience of dealing with these kind of offenses, he said. Grooming Gangs Still Operating Investigators warned in 2017 that child exploitation was still in operation across the country. I think theres every likelihood that this is happening in every town and city across the country, chief constable Steve Ashman of Northumbria Police told The Independent. Last August, 30 men and one woman were charged with sexual exploitation in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. The suspects were charged with abusing five girls under the age of 18 over a period of seven years, between 2005 and 2012. Charges included rape, trafficking, and sexual exploitation. The alleged victims were between the ages of 12 and 18. In March 2018, seven men were convicted of abusing young girls in Oxford. The gang frequently abused girls aged between 13 and 15, the court heard. A number of grooming gangs have been exposed in the UK in recent years; one of the most prominent cases is in Rotherham. A 2014 investigation found there were 1,400 sex abuse victims in the town between 1997 and 2013. The men would ply the girls with drugs and alcohol, and threatened them with violence or being transported and abandoned in an unfamiliar location if they didnt comply with the sexual demands, said the National Crime Agency in a statement. The girls said that the abuse was mainly carried out at night in a variety of secluded or derelict locations, including empty houses where there was no electricity. They were often sexually abused on mattresses on the floor and locked in rooms so that they couldnt escape. The largely Pakistani and South Asian backgrounds of the men has proven controversial. Rotherham lawmaker Sarah Champion resigned from her position as lead on equalities in the opposition Labour Party after being criticized for an article she wrote on the scandal. Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls, she wrote in the article in The Sun. A 2015 government-commissioned report into the abuses said: Children were sexually exploited by men who came largely from the Pakistani heritage community. Not enough was done to acknowledge this, to stop it happening, to protect children, to support victims, and to apprehend perpetrators. The councils culture is unhealthy: bullying, sexism, suppression, and misplaced political correctness have cemented its failures, the report said. Epoch Times staff John Smithies and Simon Veazey contributed to this report House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ranking member Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD) is seen in the office after speaking about former national security adviser Michael Flynn at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, on April 27, 2017. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters) U.S. Lawmaker Launches Investigation Into Pharma Drug Pricing A top U.S. lawmaker launched an investigation into pharmaceutical industry pricing practices on Jan. 14, less than a week after he and fellow Democrats introduced legislation aimed at lowering medicine prices. Representative Elijah Cummings, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, sent letters to 12 drugmakers seeking information on price increases, investment in research and development, and corporate strategies to preserve market share and pricing power, his office said in a statement. AbbVie Inc, Amgen Inc, AstraZeneca PLC, Celgene Corp, Eli Lilly and Co, Johnson & Johnson, Mallinckrodt PLC, Novartis AG, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer Inc, Sanofi and Teva Pharmaceutical all received letters seeking information about their pricing practices. Novo Nordisk, Amgen, Celgene, and Novartis said they were reviewing the request. The other drug companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Cummings letters focused on drugs that are the costliest to Medicare Part D, a program that helps beneficiaries of the federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled pay for self-administered medicines like those purchased at drugstores, as well as drugs that have had the largest price increases over a five-year period. They include AbbVies Humira, the worlds top-selling medicine that had a price increase at the start of the year, Johnson & Johnsons blockbuster cancer drug Imbruvica and several diabetes medications. President Donald Trump made high prescription drug prices a top issue in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and said that drug companies were getting away with murder. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last year rolled out a plan to lower drug prices and has introduced several modest proposals to curb medicine costs, but Democrats have said Trump and his administration are not doing enough. Several pharmaceutical companies temporarily froze prices on select drugs last year after being criticized by Trump on Twitter. But drugmakers raised prices on more than 250 prescription drugs to begin 2019. Cummings, along with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, introduced three bills last week aimed at lowering drug prices. That legislation would peg U.S. prescription drug prices to the median price from five countries Canada, Britain, France, Germany and Japan where drug costs are typically far lower because of government price controls. It would also allow Americans to import medication from Canada and other countries, as well as allow the HHS secretary to negotiate prices in Medicare Part D. By Yasmeen Abutaleb President Donald Trump appears on a television screen in the Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington on Jan. 8, 2019, as he speaks during a presidential address about the government shutdown and border security from the Oval Office. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images) TV Networks Coverage of Trump Was 90% Negative in 2018, Study Shows Coverage of Donald Trumps presidency on the three major TV networksABC, CBS, and NBCwas overwhelmingly negative in 2018, just as it was a year earlier, according to a study conducted by the Media Research Center. Excluding neutral statements on the Trump administration, the tone was 90 percent negative versus 10 percent positive for the year, the Media Research Center (MRC) report published Jan. 15 found. Even so, Trumps approval ratings actually ticked upward during the year to a 42.7 percent approval rating on Dec. 31, from a 40 percent rating on Jan. 1, according to an analysis by RealClearPolitics. Trumps presidency was again the biggest story of 2018, as in 2017, with almost 87 hours, or 28 percent of all evening news airtime, dedicated to it. Those numbers were, in fact, lower than the 99 hours of coverage in 2017. To determine the spin of news coverage, our analysts tallied all explicitly evaluative statements about the president or his administration from either reporters, anchors, or non-partisan sources, such as experts or voters, Rich Noyes, MRCs research director, explained in the report. Similarly, a 2017 report by Pew Research Center found reporting on Trump has been the most negative compared to other presidents over the past 25 years. Their analysis across 24 different media organizations on the first 100 days of Trumps presidency revealed that only 5 percent of media reporting during the period was positive. Strong Disconnect In spite of what the president has done for economic growth, such as gains of more than 3 percent in the GDP and historically low unemployment ratesspecial counsel Robert Muellers investigation was the single most covered news topic in 2018, garnering 858 minutes of airtime. Since Jan. 20, 2017, Muellers probe into alleged links between the Russian government and Trumps 2016 presidential campaign has received a combined total of 2,092 minutes of coverage across the three networks evening newscasts. Meanwhile, a majority of Americans believe Trumps critics are politicizing the Russia investigation according to a new poll by IBD/TIPP, a collaboration between Investors Business Daily and TechnoMetrica. The Jan. 14 poll found 51 percent of Americans agreed that the presidents opponents are using the ongoing special counsel investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion as a way to delegitimize the 2016 election [result]. Of those who agreed, 52 percent were independents, while the majority were Republicans at 70 percent. The poll also found almost a third of Democrats, 31 percent, concurred. Meanwhile, about 44 percent disagreed with the statement. Network Spin Just five topics were the focus of over half of Trumps coverage on the three evening newscasts, according to MRC. The topics include the Russia investigation (858 minutes); immigration policy (643 minutes); the Kavanaugh nomination (435 minutes); dealing with North Korean nukes (410 minutes); and the Michael Cohen/hush-money investigation (341 minutes). An MRC chart highlighted how each networks slant on the topics was again, overwhelmingly negative. The coverage ranged from 80 percent negative press on North Korea to 99 percent negative on the Cohen story. Meanwhile, in December, the partial government shutdown gained 67 minutes of network airtime, or about one-fifth of the total coverage of Trump. In that month alone, almost 97 percent of the broadcasting had a negative slant as to how the president handled the shutdown. Turning to Twitter, Trump hit back at the slanted coverage but didnt name any specific person or media. The Fake News gets crazier and more dishonest every single day. Amazing to watch as certain people covering me, and the tremendous success of this administration, have truly gone MAD! Their Fake reporting creates anger and disunity, he wrote on Jan. 14. Take two weeks off and come back rested. Chill! President Donald Trump arrives to answer questions from reporters as he departs the White House in Washington, on Jan. 14, 2019. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) Trump Lauds Volkswagens $800 Million Expansion in US as Big Win President Donald Trump lauded German automaker Volkswagen on Jan. 15 for choosing Chattanooga, Tennessee, as the companys North American base for manufacturing electric vehicles. Volkswagens U.S. expansion includes an investment of $800 million in the facility, which is poised to create 1,000 jobs at the plant and additional jobs at suppliers. Congratulations to Chattanooga and Tennessee on a job well done. A big win! Trump wrote on Twitter. The Chattanooga plant is the first dedicated location in North America for the production of vehicles using Volkswagens modular electric toolkit chassis or MEB. Electric Vehicle (EV) production at the site will begin in 2022, according to the automaker. Dr. Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen AG, said the move is vital for the companys expansion. The U.S. is one of the most important locations for us and producing electric cars in Chattanooga is a key part of our growth strategy in North America, said Diess. Manufacturing in the United States under the Trump administration has made historic gains. In early January, the manufacturing industry reported a net creation of 284,000 jobs in 2018, the best performance in the sector since 1997. Meanwhile, in December, the Labor Department said manufacturers added 32,000 jobs. Trump has pledged to grow the manufacturing sector and has made it one of his top priorities in boosting the U.S. economy. Many of the new jobs added were in fields such as fabricated metals and electronics. In 2017, factories added 207,000 jobs for a two-year total of 491,000. Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam praised the automakers move, saying it would provide massive benefits to the state. He also added that it would help them build a pipeline of talent for years to come. Volkswagens decision to locate its first North American EV manufacturing facility in Chattanooga underscores Tennessees manufacturing strength and highly-skilled workforce, Haslam said. As one of Hamilton Countys top employers, these additional 1,000 jobs will have a lasting impact on the region. At the same time, Volkswagen and Ford announced the first formal agreements of a broad alliance to develop commercial vans and medium-sized pickups for global markets beginning as early as 2022, according to a Jan. 15 statement (pdf). The automakers said the alliance would not entail cross-ownership between the two companies. Foreign Investment A mix of Trumps deregulation policies, tax reform, and booming economy are luring European companies to invest more in the United States, signaling that Trumps policies have been making a difference. After a meeting between the Trump administration and German automakers in December, BMW said that they plan to invest a further $600 million dollars into their plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, for production of future generations of the BMW X models. In a statement, BMW said the move would create an additional 1,000 jobs at the plant by 2021, bringing the total number of jobs in Spartanburg to approximately 11,000. BMW is also considering building a second manufacturing plant in the United States that could produce engines and transmissions, but a final decision has not yet been made. At the White House meeting, German automakers, including Volkswagen, BMW, and Daimler, said they planned to invest more in the United States, dependent on whether the Trump administration imposes tariffs on them or not. Overall, the automakers were optimistic about the idea of investing more in the United States. Trump has previously warned that he could impose tariffs on cars assembled in the European Union as part of his America First trade policy. A shop displays some of the cheap products from China in Mutare, zimbabwe. (Andrew Mambondiyani/Special to The Epoch Times) Cheap Chinese Imports Disrupt Manufacturing in Zimbabwe, Cost Thousands of Jobs MUTARE, ZimbabweThousands of people in Zimbabwe have lost their jobs in the past few years because a flood of cheap imports from China has essentially destroyed the countrys manufacturing industry, experts say. Businessman and former Harare Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni told The Epoch Times that some businesses in Zimbabwe have collapsed as a result of stiff competition from cheap Chinese products. Local industry has suffered, he said. The Chinese costs of production are painfully low for Zimbabwean industries to match. The low cost of labor and mechanization make China a formidable producer even after adding shipping and customs duties, Manyenyeni said. He said the influx of cheap products has negatively affected Zimbabwes clothing, manufacturing, electrical, plastic ware, and equipment sectors. He noted, however, that the quality of some of the Chinese products is very low, to the point that such products have earned the derogatory moniker zhing zhongs, a name Zimbabweans use when they have disdain for something. Retailers sometimes offer two-tier pricing and a disclaimer on the quality of the Chinese products, he said. In Manyenyenis opinion, industry in Zimbabwe needs to have globally competitive costs, especially in the area of labor. We may need a sector-by-sector impact analysis to determine which particular sectors require special treatment, for how long, and for what tangible benefit. It could be value-driven, prioritizing the high-value, high-impact options, he said. The effects of cheap Chinese goods on the Zimbabwean market has been huge, Linda Masarira, national spokesperson for the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change, said. It has totally collapsed the local clothing industry and created massive unemployment, Masarira said. It has contributed heavily to the currency crisis we are having. The Chinese are mopping up the U.S. dollars from Zimbabwe. She said the government has the obligation to protect local industry from cheap Chinese goods, but hasnt acted. Its rather unfortunate that we have a greedy government that only cares about its pockets and not the peoples livelihoods and welfare, she said. In the leadup to the countrys general elections last July, Democratic Opposition Party (DOP) leader Harry Peter Wilson promised that if he was elected, he would phase out the importation of cheap Chinese goods to boost the capacity of local industry and create jobs. Wilson didnt get elected, but in an interview with The Epoch Times, he criticized the approach of the current government under President Emmerson Mnangagwa. I dont think [the government] understands the word industrialization, and that once you have a stronger industry, you create more employment. This is our biggest sector for employment and it is not worth bringing in Chinese products to Zimbabwe, where you have skilled workers and a strong working class, he said. However, Wilson noted that the government may not be able to do much because the country has received loans and donations from Beijing for projects like a new parliament. In addition, Mnangagwas government is expecting more than a US$2 billion economic bailout from China under the One Belt, One Road initiative. Zimbabwe has also received various loans from China for energy and agriculture development, airport expansion, and other key infrastructure development. Masarira has grave concerns about that approach and questions whether it is of benefit to Zimbabweans. As it stands, we do not even know what our government is trading these so-called economic bailouts for. One day, we will wake up and find out that the whole country was mortgaged to the Chinese, she warned. Manyenyeni believes Zimbabwe can reduce Chinese imports if it goes about it the right way. It can be done, he said. Not every decision that has a local impact is big enough to attract the attention or wrath of giant China. Thousands of people gather to honor Pawel Adamowicz, the late mayor of Gdansk, in Warsaw, Poland, on Jan. 14, 2019. (Janek Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images) Thousands Gather Across Poland to Mourn Stabbed Mayor Thousands have gathered across Poland to mourn the death of mayor Pawel Adamowicz, who was stabbed on Jan. 13 and died the next day from his wounds. Adamowicz, 53, had been mayor of the city Gdansk for 20 years and was well known for his liberal views. A former convict rushed the stage during a charity event Jan. 13 and stabbed him. The man screamed Adamowicz is dead as he ran onstage to stab the mayor. Television footage showed the man blaming the mayors former party for his incarceration before his arrest. He claimed he was tortured while in prison. Authorities said the alleged attacker identified as Stefan, 27, had served 5 1/2 years in prison for attempted bank robbery. A source told state news agency PAP the attacker had been previously treated in a prison hospital for schizophrenia. Doctors operated on Adamowicz for five hours, PAP reported. We couldnt win, Health Minister Lukasz Szumowski told commercial broadcaster TVN. Poland has designated Adamowiczs funeral as a national day of mourning. Thousands of Polish citizens took to the streets to commemorate Adamowicz in Gdansk and the capital city, Warsaw. European Council President Donald Tusk, who is from Gdansk and was a good friend of Adamowicz, addressed the mayor in his speech, the Guardian reported: My dear Pawel, we are here with you today as your friends. You had to wait so long, until such a tragic moment, to see from up there just how many friends you have here in Gdansk. The mayor had attended a charity event to raise money for medical equipment in hospitals. Fundraising efforts had collected more than a billion zlotys ($265 million) throughout its 27-year history. The charitys head resigned following the death of Adamowicz. Separately, a 72-year-old man has been detained after making threats on the phone that Andrzej Duda, the next in line for Polands presidency, will be killed. Duda appealed for unity in the face of violence, saying many Polish nationals are united by their desire to do good despite political differences. Reuters contributed to this article. The revelation that a Phoenix woman in a vegetative state recently gave birth has prompted Hacienda HealthCare CEO Bill Timmons to resign, putting a spotlight on the safety of long-term care settings for patients who are severely disabled or incapacitated.Hacienda HealthCare in Phoenix. on Jan. 4, 2019, (Ross D. Franklin/AP Photo) The Babys Turning Blue: 911 Call Details Woman Giving Birth in Vegetative State The babys turning blue! Babys turning blue! screamed a woman into a phone at a 911 dispatcher last month when a woman in a vegetative state gave birth. She called on the paramedics to arrive faster. Were not prepared for this, said the nurse at the Hacienda HealthCare facility in Phoenix, Arizona. The 911 calls from the Dec. 29 birth were released on Jan. 11. One of our patients just had a baby, and we had no idea she was pregnant, the nurse also said in the call. The 911 dispatcher then asked the nurse how far along the mother was in her pregnancy but the nurse didnt know. This is a complete surprise. We were not expecting this, the nurse said. The 29-year-old woman, who had incapacitated since age 3, delivered a healthy child, The Associated Press reported. Previous reports said the woman had been in a vegetative state for the past 14 years after a near-drowning incident. About five minutes after the call, the caller told emergency services that the baby was breathing. Thats the baby crying. Were getting vitals from mom right now, the caller said. Phoenix police have launched a sexual assault investigation into the case and are looking for a suspect. Investigators are now collecting DNA from the facilitys male employees or anyone else who might have contacted her, reported AP. The infant is in good health in the care of a hospital and will be taken in by family, reported The Washington Post. Internal Investigation Hacienda HealthCare announced on Jan. 13 that it had hired former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley to carry out an internal review of the companys policies. Mr. Romley will have unfettered access to every facet of Haciendas businessincluding all the records related to this matter, read a statement from Hacienda, NBC News reported. We will do everything we can to aid this review and, once it is complete, to make sure this unprecedented situation never, ever happens again. Hacienda will work with investigators and will accept nothing less than a full accounting of this absolutely horrifying situation, an unprecedented case that has devastated everyone involved, from the victim and her family to Hacienda staff at every level of our organization, Gary Orman, a member of Haciendas board of directors, stated, according to the Post. I will be looking at all facets that are tied around how a situation as horrendous as this can come about, Romley told the Arizona Republic. The womans birth ensnared Haciendas CEO, Bill Timmons, who tendered his resignation last week. No suspects have been named in the case. Anyone with information regarding the alleged assault can contact the Phoenix Police Department Violent Crimes Bureau at 602-262-6141. Dr. C. Kevin Huls, who is a clinical assistant professor and maternal-fetal medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix, told AP that if a woman is fed the same amount every day, she may not show signs of pregnancy. Reports have indicated that the unnamed woman has tubes to help her breathe and eat. A good way to understand it is that really, the babys going to continue to grow even at the expense of the moms nutrition, Huls told AP. So, her weight may not change because shes not taking in additional calories. There may be changes to her body that are going to go undetected in a chronic care condition or at a facility like this. Saudi Teen Who Fled Her Family Speaks of Her Ordeal Saudi teen Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun said she felt born again on Jan. 14 when she arrived in Canada after being granted asylum. Qunun, 18, grabbed international attention last week after she barricaded herself in a Bangkok airport hotel room to resist being sent home to her family, which denies abusing her. Qunun refused to meet her father and brother, who arrived in Bangkok to try to take her back to Saudi Arabia. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees granted her refugee status, and Canada agreed to take her in. Qununs case has drawn global attention to Saudi Arabias strict social rules, including a requirement that women have the permission of a male guardian in order to travel, something rights groups say can trap women and girls as prisoners of abusive families. Speaking with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Qunun hoped that her story would act as an agent of change and encourage other women in Saudi Arabia. Jose Hernandez, an illegal alien from Mexico, was arrested in Conroe, Texas, on Jan. 12, 2019, for allegedly committing sexual assault against a child. (Montgomery County Sheriff's Office) Previously Deported Illegal Alien Arrested for Allegedly Sexually Assaulting Child An illegal alien who was previously deported was arrested in Texas on suspicion of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old child. Jose Hernandez was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child after his arrest in Conroe on Jan. 12. Officials said he was trying to flee to Mexico when he was captured. According to the Montgomery County Sheriffs Office, authorities learned when serving a search warrant on Hernandezs home in Conroe that he was trying to flee and they widened the investigation to a second home as part of the effort to locate him. Investigators with the office, along with special agents with the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the U.S. Marshals Service, located Hernandez and apprehended him. The sheriffs office said that Hernandez is in the country illegally and has been deported back to Mexico multiple times, meaning he was already a criminal for committing the felony crime of re-entering the United States after being deported. Hernandez is being held at the Montgomery County Jail and ICE has placed a hold on him; once hes worked his way through the court system, he will be deported again. Trump Addresses Illegal Immigrant Crime President Donald Trump has been making the case recently in his push for the southern border wall that not only are vulnerable migrants preyed upon as they make their way north but criminals who are able to enter the country illegally commit a number of crimes in the United States. In the last two years, ICE officers made 266,000 arrests of aliens with criminal records, including those charged or convicted of 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes, and 4,000 violent killings. Over the years, thousands of Americans have been brutally killed by those who illegally entered our country, and thousands more lives will be lost if we dont act right now, the president said during a Jan. 8 speech to the nation. Americas heart broke the day after Christmas when a young police officer in California was savagely murdered in cold blood by an illegal alien, who just came across the border. The life of an American hero was stolen by someone who had no right to be in our country, he added, citing a number of other crimes confirmed or allegedly committed by illegal aliens. Over the last several years, Ive met with dozens of families whose loved ones were stolen by illegal immigration. Ive held the hands of the weeping mothers and embraced the grief-stricken fathers. So sad. So terrible. I will never forget the pain in their eyes, the tremble in their voices, and the sadness gripping their souls, he said. How much more American blood must we shed before Congress does its job? In addition to the criminals themselves, he noted, organizations smuggle huge quantities of drugs over the border. This barrier is absolutely critical to border security. Its also what our professionals at the border want and need, Trump said. This is just common sense. The border wall would very quickly pay for itself. The cost of illegal drugs exceeds $500 billion a year, vastly more than the $5.7 billion we have requested from Congress. From NTD News Police Shootings in Black America: The 2018 Data Is In Commentary There were 15 shooting deaths by police of unarmed black men in the United States in 2018, according to official data compiled by The Washington Post. These figures come despite pervasive, yet misplaced, public outcry that has characterized police shootings of blacks as pathologically widespread and the most critical issue facing the black community. Year after year, the statistics dont support that narrative, and 2018 was no exception. The political left in America incessantly characterizes the police and the country itself as racist, in part based on the occurrence of police shootings, even with the statistically paltry numbers of officer-involved shooting deaths. And while they routinely rile their base by mischaracterizing police shooting data as they engage in demagoguery of political opposition, they ignore a real crisis within the black communitythe thousands of blacks who are shot every year by non-police. Lets discuss the real tragedy of last year. The Baltimore Sun reported that 217 blacks were killed in Baltimore in shooting deaths, while The Los Angeles Times said that 124 black victims were shot and killed in Los Angeles in 2018, and the Chicago Tribune reported 279 blacks were shot to death last year. In three of the largest cities in the country, 620 blacks were slaughtered with no outcry from leftist media pundits. There were no candlelight vigils or marches, no outrage from celebrity athletes or prominent leftist black leaders, and certainly no attention from the Democrats who control policymaking in those cities. Its precisely this lack of attention to the biggest problem concerning violence in black communities that leads many to suspect that, for Democrats, black lives dont really matter, just black votes. The vogue commentary of the liberal left in the 21st century is to drone on about the many failures of the white devils. Those evil white supremacists who are invariably described as conservative Republicans, Tamara Enalls-Fenner, author of How the Democrats Destroyed the Black Community and No One Noticed told me in an interview. Its a dog bone thrown by the dog whisperers of today, calling for an attack on an entire group of people who have nothing to do with the [15] shootings of unarmed black men who fell prey to the weapon of a police officer in 2018. Enalls-Fenner is an activist who co-authored the white paper Reforming the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (The Crime Bill): A Rebuilding of the Criminal Justice System. Where is the outrage for the deaths of black men shot by other black men? she asked. Democrats have overseen the most populated cities in the United States for decades, and yet, in the most impressive of ways, they somehow are taken seriously when they screech, Its those conservative Republicans fault, a party who has had no representation, thus no voice, in these cities for years. At some point, the black community needs to shake the dust off of its collective eyes and admit there is a real problem and its not conservatives. She couldnt be more correct. Data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed that in 2017, there were 2,627 murders of blacks by other blacks in the United States. For perspective, consider that this nearly equates to the number of the lives lost in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And this is happening annually within our communities. Such an honest examination of the data isnt meant to excuse legitimate cases of police brutality. In such cases, the officers involved should be (and often are) charged and convicted. Take, for instance, the case of Walter Scott, a South Carolina resident who was shot eight times in the back by police officer Michael Slager. Slager was charged with murder, convicted, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. A more recent example would be the case of officer Amber Guyger, a white police officer in Dallas, who was charged with murder after she allegedly shot and killed her black neighbor Botham Jean in his apartment. As of the time of writing, Guyger is awaiting trial and faces a possible sentence of life in prison. Also, in 2018, white police officer Jason Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting death of black teen Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times. Police shootings of this nature are the exception, not the norm. However, sweeping coverage from leftist news organizations would have you believe otherwise. Additionally, the above examples illustrate that in clear-cut cases of wrongdoing, officers do face severe punishment. Yet, even if each of the 15 shootings of unarmed black men resulted in the conviction of a police officer, it pales in comparison to the violent deaths we inflict upon ourselves. Just 0.01 percent of the murders of blacks in the United States are from officer-involved shootings. To state this more clearly, 99.99 percent of murders of blacks in the United States are non-police related. This is the real epidemic. Americas black communities certainly have a problem with shootings. But the police arent the ones pulling most of the triggers. Adrian Norman is a writer and political commentator. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Visitors look at artificial-intelligence security cameras using facial recognition technology at the 14th China International Exhibition on Public Safety and Security at the China International Exhibition Center in Beijing on Oct. 24, 2018. (Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images) Peephole Cameras in Hotels Become Problem in Chinas Surveillance State In a little over a month, Chinese media have reported multiple incidences of people discovering peephole cameras hidden within hotel rooms in China. As the Chinese regime advances a surveillance state, with millions of artificial-intelligence (AI)-enhanced security cameras positioned in public areas around the country, ordinary Chinese citizens are now finding it easy to obtain similar cameras to fulfill their voyeuristic desires. On Jan. 6, Chinese news portal Tencent and Sina both carried a video, where an unidentified man with his face facing away from the camera explained that while he and his girlfriend were staying at an unnamed hotel in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, he detected a black dot within a power socket. The socket faced the bed in their hotel room. After realizing that the black dot was a hidden camera, the man called the police. He stated that he believed he deserved an apology or some sort of compensation for the invasion of privacy. In the background, the voice of a woman, presumably the owner of the hotel, could be heard saying that she did not know why there was a hidden video inside the room. She added that she would wait for an investigation by the police. About a month ago, on Dec. 22, a man nicknamed Xiao Wu and his girlfriend were staying at room 508 at the Mei Hao Hostel in Nanning, the capital of southern Chinas Guangxi Province. They discovered that a hidden camera was taped onto the edge of a ceiling light, according to a report by Chinas state-run Guangxi Peoples Broadcasting Station. Xiao Wu eventually called the police and the hotel booked a different room for the couple. The next day, Xiao Wu stated that he received compensation from the hotel, of about 600 yuan ($89) in coupon and cash. Ms. Zheng, a manager at the hotel, refused to offer the full compensation of 5,000 yuan ($740), in accordance to the hotels policy, because the case was under police investigation. She added that she had no idea how the camera ended up in the room in the first place. On Dec. 11, several Chinese media reported a hidden camera incident at the Maizi Express Hotel in Xian, the capital of Shaanxi Province. According to local news site Huashang, two unnamed guests discovered hidden cameras facing the hotel room they booked, as well as a 16-gigabyte memory card and a recording device. After contacting the police and arriving at the police station, the two guests saw that the memory card contained over 1,200 video files. According to the news site, there have been many similar incidences of hidden cameras inside hotel rooms across China. Some Chinese Communist Party officials have been sacked after their inappropriate sexual behavior was caught on hidden camera and exposed. One well-known example involved Lei Zhengfu, former Party secretary of Beibei District in Chongqing City, one of the four directly-governed municipalities in China. Lei was caught on tape with a woman named Zhao Hongxia. The video of Lei and Zhao began circulating on Chinese social media in November 2012. It turned out that Zhao was hired by a local real estate developer Xiao Ye, who wanted to use the sex tape to blackmail Lei into gaining favorable construction contracts. Lei was sentenced to 13 years in prison on graft charges by the Chongqing No. 1 Intermediate Peoples Court in June 2013. Seven people were arrested across Florida for allegedly participating in a human trafficking scheme. (St. Petersburg Police Department) Officials Warn About Sex Traffickers Using Gaming App to Entice Teens as 7 Arrested Authorities said two teenage boys were found in a squalid mobile home in Florida and that one of them was lured there through a gaming application. The St. Petersburg Police Department conducted the raid, which ended with seven arrests. In a press conference on Jan. 14, officials said the raid revealed two teen boys, ages 16 and 17, and that the latter had been lured from Louisiana through the gaming app Discord. According to the app, its used for calls and text chats between gamers. One of the boys was repeatedly sexually abused. Six people were arrested and the last suspect turned himself in on Jan. 15. Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said that the case was extremely disturbing to law enforcement officials. As a mother, I cannot begin to stress how disturbing the facts of this case are for me, Moody said in a statement. Those arrested were identified as Mark Earl Dennis, 52 and Andrew Barry Dennis, 45, a married couple; Michael Ray Blasdel, 36, and J.R. Gauthier, 29; Eleanor Faye McGlamory, 56; Michael Wayne Schwartz, 51; and Curtis Lee Gruwell, 34. Officials said the reason the investigation took so long was its complexity. They also believe there may be more victims of the sex traffickers. .@AGAshleyMoody joined #stpetepd Chief Holloway today to announce the arrests of 5 men, 1 woman in a human trafficking case where they lured a teen to use as a sex slave. One suspect still at large. @MCSOFlorida @leesheriff assisted. pic.twitter.com/DidxSnPptm St. Pete Police (@StPetePD) January 14, 2019 They said the 16-year-old boy met with the Dennises when he was 15, lured by a family acquaintance, McGlamory, who promised him a better life. Several weeks later, he left his familys house, asking them not to look for him, and moved into the trailer with the men, along with Blasdel and Gauthier. All four men sexually abused the boy, officials said and forced him to live on a small mattress that was surrounded by animal cages and waste. The boy was found by officials searching for the 17-year-old who was lured through the Discord app. The teenage victim, in this case, was lured away from his family with promises of a better life. Instead, he was moved into a filthy trailer and used as a slave for nearly a year, Moody said. The men face charges of sexual battery of a child under the age of 16 while all seven defendants face charges of conspiracy to commit human trafficking and interference with custody. The case highlights a big problem in Florida, Moody said. You would not think that you live in Florida, its an ideal place to live, work, and raise a family. We all know that, and yet we have the third highest incidents of human trafficking in the nation, she said, reported Fox 13. #BREAKING | St. Petersburg Police arrest 7 people accused of sexually exploiting teen boys; 7th suspect turned himself in to police this morning https://t.co/CrbklqTcqS pic.twitter.com/wKkIVib6QE ABC Action News (@abcactionnews) January 15, 2019 Predators Use Technology Experts said that sexual predators commonly use technology to try to lure minors to them. Traffickers and predators are using social media every single day to recruit children, said Natasha Nascimento, the founder and executive director of Redefining Refuge, a Tampa Bay-based organization that helps young trafficking victims. Weve had children in our program who are born and raised sort of in foster care, unfortunately, and weve had kids in our program from seven-figure households where they have parents who are physicians. So, no child is exempt. There were 464,324 missing children reported in the FBIs National Crime Information Center in 2017, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Under federal law, when a child is reported missing to law enforcement they must be entered into the database. Nancy McBride, the executive director of Florida Outreach at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said that runaways, which make up the bulk of missing children cases, often involve technology. (Technology) has great benefits and some potential risks, McBride told USA Today in 2017. Its important to stay plugged into their lives. Tech is utilized by online predators, McBride said, who exploit gaps when the childrens relationships with their parents arent strong. From NTD News New Fish Kill in Murray-Darling Basin as Emergency Meeting Called in Canberra The NSW Department of Primary Industries said on Jan. 15 there has been another fish kill at the NSW-Victorian border at Lake Hume. The department announced that some 1,800 fish had died at Lake Hume, which is part of the Murray River system, and that the cause of the mass deaths is so far unknown, according to AAP. NSW Primary Industries Minister Blair announced that the NSW Government has purchased 16 aerators to help restore and maintain oxygen levels in the Darling River at Menindee. He calls the approach a band-aid solution. Nothing will stop this fish kill unless we get proper river flows and water levels in our dams back up to normal, but were looking at doing everything we can to try and limit the damage, he told reporters at a dam near Tamworth on Jan. 15, according to local media. The aerators are solar powered and will be predominantly run through the night, when oxygen depletion is more prominent and will arrive within 24 hours from Western Australian, Blair said. He told reporters: It just goes to show that when we get a week of weather like this, on top of the drought conditions that weve seen right across NSW, that fish kills are something that unfortunately we do experience. Blair added that there had also been a fish kill outside Port Macquarie on Jan. 11, as well as at Lake Burrendong near Dubbo on Jan. 14. Blair attributed the Lake Burrendong incident to minor flash flooding that washed organic matter into the dam. Lake Hume is at 30 percent capacity and under the management of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, he said. Fish Kill Darling River Why have up to a million fish died along a 40-kilometre stretch of the Darling River in far west New South Wales? ABC Sydney 201918 Menindee Expecting Another Fish Kill The new mass fish deaths come just a week after up to one million fish died due to algal blooms in the Darling River at Menindee in NSWs far west. Another fish kill in the Darling River may be expected in the coming week as temperatures are forecasted to rise in western NSW. The Bureau of Meteorology predicts temperatures to remain high in the area until Saturday, Jan. 19. Blair said that state and local governments should cooperate with the community to prevent another potential fish kill. We know that weve got high temperatures right across the state and a lot of poor water quality situations particularly brought on by the extended drought so unfortunately, we are expecting that we may see more fish killed, Blair said, according to the ABC. Killing a river system. Generations of huge Murray Code wiped out in other huge fish kill #Menindee #auspol #MurrayDarling pic.twitter.com/poRJ3B6YQx Terry Australis (@AustralisTerry) January 6, 2019 Meanwhile, contractors are clearing up the dead fish over 40 kilometres of the Darling River before the corpses rot. Officials from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority have called a preliminary meeting to take place in Canberra on Jan. 15 to discuss how to respond and prevent further deaths. MDBA Chief Executive Phillip Glyde said the meeting will review the latest fish deaths and the current state of the environment to see what can be done. The fish deaths in the lower Darling River are a tragic reminder of the impact of severe drought, on an already over-stretched river system, Glyde said in a release. The meeting will facilitate the exchange of information about what is happening in relation to fish deaths, water quality, and drought. It will consider mitigation options and the role of the MDBA and other water agencies. Sadly, fish deaths are common events across Australia, particularly during summer and drought conditions, and we expect more events will happen before the current drought breaks. Water officials will also consider how to help fish stocks recover once the drought breaks and more water is available in the MurrayDarling system. The Australia Institute said its research suggests that the Lower Darling and Menindee Lakes had been mismanaged over an extended period. Approximately two Sydney Harbours worth of water has been taken out of the region in the last two years, research director Rod Campbell said in a release. Repeated policy failure in the management of the Lower Darling and Menindee Lakes has implications for major projects, irrigation and the environment throughout the basin. The river of dead fish is symbolic of the death of public trust in the management of the Murray-Darling basin plan. Only an extensive inquiry which stops the finger-pointing and gets real answers to the cause of the fish deaths will start to restore public confidence in the management Murray-Darling Basin Plan. From NTD.com Watch Next: The FEDIt Causes Crises it Claims to Fix Centralized banks were supposed to end the financial cycles of boom and bust, but instead amplified it. We explore the FederalReserve, state banks, the abandonment of the gold standard, and the financial cycles of debt and irresponsible lending. Most Americans Support Syria Pullout: Poll New polling data shows a majority of Americans support President Donald Trumps withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, despite some criticism from Washington. An early January Morning Consult/Politico poll, taken weeks after Trump first announced the pullout on Dec. 19, revealed 49 percent of Americans supported the withdrawal. Meanwhile, 33 percent opposed the move, while 17 percent said they had no opinion or didnt know. The pollsters asked 1,989 registered voters whether they agreed that the United States was engaged in too many military conflicts in Middle Eastern countries, such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and should prioritize getting Americans back safely. The survey was taken from Jan. 4 to Jan. 6. It has been four years since the beginning of the U.S.-led intervention in the Syrian civil war. Trump made the decision to withdraw, citing the defeat of ISIS and that U.S. forces no longer needed to be there. A Department of Defense spokesman confirmed Jan. 11 that the coalition has started the withdrawal process. Democrat Reversal While a clear majority of Americans still oppose having troops in Syria, the polling data also revealed that Democrats have changed their opinion since Trump took office. Republicans, meanwhile, stayed largely unchanged on the issue. The majority of recent support for keeping U.S. troops in Syria came from Democrat voters, whereas Republicans and Independents largely favored the removal of troops. This was also seen during the 2018 midterm elections when out of those who voted Democrat, only 28 percent supported the withdrawal while 54 percent opposed it. But in the years during former President Barack Obamas administration, polling data repeatedly showed how vast majorities of Democrats actually favored the withdrawal of troops from Middle Eastern countries such as Afghanistan. In 2008, Obama pledged to end the war in Afghanistan and bring all the troops home. In a June 2011 poll by the Pew Research Center, two-thirds of Democrats (67 percent) said troops should be removed as soon as possible from Afghanistan, up from 43 percent the year before. Recent reports speculated that Trump was planning to withdraw about 7,000 of the 14,000 or so U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but a White House official said no such order has been sent. In the recent Morning Consult/Politico poll, 51 percent said they would support a decision by Trump to withdraw half the of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, while 27 percent said they would oppose it. Meanwhile, for those who voted for then-presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016, only 26 percent supported the removal of troops from Syria while 59 percent opposed it. Trump voters again overwhelmingly supported the withdrawal by 76 percent to 14 percent at the time. Police seal off the area around the Jinhu County government building on Jan. 11, 2019. More than 20,000 children are reported to have been injected with expired vaccines in the county in Jiansu Province, China. (Supplied) More Than 20,000 Children Injected With Expired Vaccines in Chinese County, Protesting Parents Say Angered parents beat the top Chinese Communist Party official of Jinhu County in the southeastern province of Jiangsu upon discovering that local authorities failed to prevent expired vaccines from being used on their children. Since Jan. 7, when the first reported case emerged that a child had been injected with an expired vaccine, parents say the number has swelled to more than 20,000 children younger than 14 years old who have been injected with expired vaccines. Hundreds of them fell ill, while others are disabled, they told the Chinese-language Epoch Times. On Jan. 14, thousands of tactical police officers, riot police, and other security agents descended on the streets of Jinhu County to control the crowds of protesting parents. The county government promised that it would conduct a further investigation, but did not provide a solution for the children who were already injected with expired vaccines. So far, 17 local government officials and clerks have been punished for the incident, according to a Jan. 11 report by state-run media Xinhua. Gao Changping, the deputy mayor in charged of county affairs, was among several local officials suspended from their positions and currently under investigation. Thirteen clerks at the Licheng Hospital, where many children were injected with expired vaccines, were expelled from the Chinese Communist Party and dismissed from their positions as well. The Xinhua report claimed that only 145 children were injected with the expired vaccines, though parents cite a much larger number. Xinhua named one of the vaccine manufacturers as Beijing Bio-Institute Biological Products Co. Parents have staged protests for the past three days, leading local authorities to dispatch thousands of police from neighboring cities such as Huaian, Nanjing, and Shanghai to quash the protests. On Jan. 11, thousands of angered parents whose children were injected with expired vaccines protested in front of the county government office. Some of the parents were beaten by police. There are dozens of police cars, and police have sealed off the neighborhood and have not allowed people to enter, Liao, a protesting father, told The Epoch Times by phone on Jan. 11. Liao, who did not wish to provide his full name, said local authorities have shut down mobile communication services in the neighborhood in an attempt to stop parents from mobilizing for protests. He said more and more police have arrived from other cities. Several parents said there were about 2,000 parents who gathered on the morning of Jan. 11. After 9 a.m., Zhang Zhiyong, the Party secretary of Jinhu County, stepped out of the government building and told the parents that only 145 children were injected with expired vaccines. The parents were upset and began to beat Zhang. He eventually escaped the crowd with his assistants. Some parents who were injured from police beatings were sent to the hospital for treatment. When we were standing in front of the government building, the tactical officers rushed forward and forced us to leave. When the police pushed us, some of them started to beat us. A womans leg was broken, Bai, a protesting mother, told The Epoch Times on Jan. 11. On Jan. 7, a retired medical doctor took her grandson to Licheng Hospital to get his polio vaccine, according to Chinese media reports. The grandmother discovered that that the vaccine had expired on Dec. 11, 2018. After the grandmother spread the news and urged local families to check their childrens vaccine records, many discovered that their children were also injected with expired vaccines. Some of the children have become disabled as a result. A young mother told The Epoch Times on Jan. 14 that her son is 1 1/2 years old. He was injected with a type A meningitis (ECM) vaccine and a hepatitis B vaccine when he was 6 months old. Three days after the injection, her son fell ill and was diagnosed with a pseudomonas aeruginosa infection. Now, the boy has facial paralysis, his left ear nerves are injured, and his digestive system is weak, among other problems, his mother said. At the beginning, I thought maybe my son is the only victim, but then I found many children have the same problems, the mother said. Us parents could not imagine that the vaccine supplied by the government can hurt our children so badly. Another mother with a 13-year-old daughter said she was injected with 17 vaccines that were later confirmed to be expired. Her daughter is now physically weak. The mother added that some of her daughters classmates are experiencing similar symptoms. We trusted the government too much, the mother told The Epoch Times on Jan. 13. Watch Next: Anastasia LinThe Chinese Communist Party Does Not Represent The Chinese People EXCLUSIVE: McCabes FBI Tried to Re-engage Christopher Steele After Comey Was Fired Transcript of congressional testimony by DOJ official Bruce Ohr shows FBI went back to disgraced source between Comeys firing and Muellers appointment In the days following the firing of FBI Director James Comey by President Donald Trump, the FBI, under Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, sought to re-engage with former MI6 spy and author of the Steele dossier, Christopher Steele. The FBIs attempts to re-engage Steele, who had been fired by the FBI six months earlier for breaking protocol by talking to reporters, were soon thwarted by the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. McCabe appears to have been blindsided by the appointment of Mueller, who was appointed as special counsel on May 17, 2017, the day after a meeting with Trump and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in the oval office. The appointment of Mueller shifted control of the Russia investigation from the FBI and McCabe to Mueller. Rosenstein would retain ultimate authority over the probe, and any expansion of Muellers investigation required authorization from Rosenstein. McCabe had been a key player in the FBIs counterintelligence investigation of the Trump presidential campaign, which relied heavily on information provided by Steele. The FBI also obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) spy warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page using the information. Bruce Ohr (C), a Justice Department official demoted from the posts of associate deputy attorney general and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, on Capitol Hill for testimony on Aug. 28, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) Former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr served as a key conduit in transferring information from Steele, both before and after the FBI terminated Steele, along with information from Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson. An Aug. 28, 2018, testimony before Congress by Ohr, which was reviewed for this article, sheds new light on McCabes involvement in the investigation. His testimony also illustrates how Steele and Simpson passed their information targeting Trump to the FBI, using Ohr as an unofficial back-channel. Try The Epoch Times Newspaper for Only $1 Start My $1 Month Trial Ohr, per his testimony, reported directly to then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. Prior to a series of demotions that occurred in December 2017 and January 2018, Ohr held two titles: associate deputy attorney general and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Ohr testified that he had known Steele since 2007, when they met during an official meeting while Steele was still employed by the British government. After that, they maintained contact approximately once a year. Ohr had also met Mr. Simpson on various occasions over the years and his wife, Nellie Ohr, had also known Simpson for several years. A 2010 report by the National Institute of Justice listed the three as participants in a paper. Nellie Ohr, who would join Fusion GPS in late 2015 as a Russia analyst, was listed in the report as working for the CIAs Open Source Works as a researcher. On July 30, 2016, Bruce and Nellie Ohr met with Steele and an unknown associate of Steeles. Almost immediately, Ohr would initiate a meeting with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to detail his conversation with Steele. Also present at the meeting was McCabes counsel, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who would play a key role in the counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign. Shortly thereafter, on Aug. 15, 2016, FBI agent Peter Strzok would send the now-infamous insurance policy text referencing McCabe to Page. Later that same month, the FBI suddenly reached out to Steele asking for the information in his possession. Ohr would also meet with Simpson on or around Aug. 22, 2016. At that point, Ohr says in his testimony, he was aware that his wife was working for Simpsons company as a contractor, that Steele worked for Fusion GPS as well, and that there were ties to the Democrats and Hillary Clintons 2016 presidential campaign. Ohr would have another meeting with Steele on Sept. 23, 2016, and would also meet either that same month or early October with Strzok, Page, and Justice Department (DOJ) career officials from the criminal division, Bruce Swartz, Zainab Ahmad, and Andrew Weissman (Ohr testified that he was unsure whether Weismann was at this or a later meeting). Sometime in late 2016, Nellie Ohr provided her husband with a memory stick containing the research she compiled while employed at Fusion GPS. Bruce Ohr testified he gave the memory stick to FBI agent Joe Pientka. Nellie Ohr had left Fusion in September 2016. Steele was terminated as a source by the FBI on Nov. 1, 2016, for communicating with the media. Despite this, Bruce Ohr and Steele communicated regularly for another full year, until November 2017. Ohr relayed all these communications with Steele to the FBI through Pientka and possibly two other handlers. On Nov. 21, 2016, Ohr had a meeting with Strzok and Page and was introduced to Pientka, who became Ohrs FBI handler. Pientka was also present with Strzok during the Jan. 24, 2017, interview of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. Former FBI Lawyer Lisa Page arrives to testify before a House Judiciary Committee closed-door meeting on July 13, 2018. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images) The next day, Nov. 22, 2016, Ohr met alone with Pientka. Ohr would continue to relay his communications with Steele to Pientka, who then recorded them in FD-302 forms. During a meeting on Dec. 10, 2016, Ohr met with Simpson, who gave him a memory stick that Ohr believed contained the Steele dossier. Ohr passed the memory stick to Pientka. Ohr, in his testimony, detailed his interactions with Steele and Simpson, as well as his communications with officials at the FBI and DOJ. Notably, Ohr repeatedly stated that he never vetted any of the information provided by either Steele or Simpson. He simply turned it over or relayed it to the FBIusually to Pientka. What Ohr didnt know was that Pientka was transmitting all the information directly to Strzok. Details of Ohrs First Meeting With Steele About Trump Bruce and Nellie Ohr met for a breakfast with Steele on July 30, 2016. In addition to the Ohrs and Steele, there was a fourth individual, described by Ohr as an associate of Mr. Steeles, another gentleman, younger fellow. I didnt catch his name. The topics covered at the meeting were discussed during testimony by Ohr: In the July 30th conversation, one of the items of information that Chris Steele gave to me was that he had information that a former head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, had stated to someoneI didnt know whothat they had Donald Trump over a barrel. He also mentioned that Carter Page had met with certain high-level Russian officials when he was in Moscow. My recollection is at that time, the name Carter Page had already been in the press, and there had been some kind of statement about who he had met with when he went to Moscow. And so the first item that I recall Chris Steele telling me was he had information that Carter Page met with higher-level Russian officials, not just whoever was mentioned in the press article. So that was one item. Try The Epoch Times Newspaper for Only $1 Start My $1 Month Trial And then the third item he mentioned was that Paul Hauser, who was an attorney working for Oleg Deripaska, had information about Paul Manafort, that Paul Manafort had entered into some kind of business deal with Oleg Deripaska, had stolen a large amount of money from Oleg Deripaska, and that Paul Hauser was trying to gather information that would show that, you know, or give more detail about what Paul Manafort had done with respect to Deripaska. Ohr also testified that Chris Steele had provided some reports to the FBI, I think two, but that Glenn Simpson had more. The information on Deripaska is particularly notable. The New York Times published the article Secret Ledger in Ukraine Lists Cash for Donald Trumps Campaign Chief on Aug. 14, 2016, approximately two weeks after Ohrs meeting with Steele. The article states: Mr. Deripaska would later say he invested $18.9 million in Pericles in 2008 to complete the acquisition of Black Sea Cable. But the planned purchaseincluding the question of who ended up with the Black Sea assetshas since become the subject of a dispute between Mr. Deripaska and Mr. Manafort. Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who heads aluminium producer Rusal, attends the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in Saint Petersburg on June 1, 2017. (OLGA MALTSEVA/AFP/Getty Images) Steele wrote a document on Aug. 22, 2106, to be included in his dossier that detailed payments to Manafort from former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Steele had known Deripaska since at least 2012, when he was hired by Deripaskas U.S. lawyer, Adam Waldman, on behalf of Deripaska to assist in a lawsuit filed by a business rival, according to an article by John Solomon for The Hill. In late 2014, Steele and Ohr met in Washington to discuss cultivating Deripaska into an FBI informant on Russian organized crime, according to a New York Times article. This wasnt disclosed during Ohrs testimony. In 2015, Steele helped set up a meeting between Deripaska and the FBI, but wasnt directly involved in the meeting itself, according to the New York Times article. Ohr, however, was personally involved in the meeting, which reportedly involved pressing Deripaska on the connections between Russian organized crime and Mr. Putins government, as well as other issues. During a series of communications in early 2016, Steele appeared to be lobbying Ohr on Deripaskas behalf, and Waldmans name was also mentioned. Notably, the FBIs investigation, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane was formally opened the following day by FBI agent Strzok. Details of Ohrs Initial Meeting With McCabe, Page Sometime in early August 2016, following closely on the July 30 breakfast meeting with Steele, Ohr reached out to McCabe in order to set up a meeting to detail the information he had been given by Steele. The meeting took place in McCabes office: Q: Shortly after you met with Christopher Steele on July 30, you had a meeting with Andy McCabe and Lisa Page? Ohr: Yes. Q: You said that meeting was at main Justice? Ohr: No, that meeting was in Andrew McCabes office. Q: It was in Andrew McCabes office. Ohr: Yes. Q: And it was sometime, you believe, in August, because it was shortly after the meeting with Christopher Steele? Ohr: Probably, yes. Q: And that was because, at that point in time, you wanted the FBI to have that information and be aware of your contact with Christopher Steele? Ohr: Yes. Q: Did anyone prompt that call to Andy McCabe? Ohr: No, I dont think so I think that was me. Just me. Present at this meeting was Lisa Page, assistant general counsel at the FBI. Ohr had known Page for some time as she previously had worked under his supervision at the DOJ for a period of 5-6 years. During the questioning, Ohr noted that he had not informed his boss, Deputy AG Sally Yates. It is also unclear if then-FBI Director Comey was ever informed of the meeting: Q: Sally Yatesshe was your boss, right? Ohr: Yes. Q: You said she didnt know that you were talking to Steele or Simpson? Ohr: Correct. Q: How do you know she didnt know? Ohr: Well, I didnt tell her. Q: Okay. So she may have known from some other source. Ohr: Possible. Q: Well, you would think she would, because over at the FBI, Andy McCabe knew that you were talking to Steele and Simpson as early as August of 2016. Ohr: Right. But I dont know what, if anything, was conveyed to Sally Yates. Q: Andy McCabe knew. Did Jim Comey know in August of 2016 that you were talking to Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson? Ohr: I dont know. Ohr Became Conduit Following Steeles Termination by FBI Steele was terminated by the FBI as a source on or about November 1, 2016. Following Steeles termination, Ohr was provided with an FBI agentPientkaon Nov. 21, 2016, who would serve as his handler. Ohr transmitted all of his communications with Steel and Simpson to Pientka, who would then relay the information to Strzok: Q: Was Joe Pientka your go-between in December when you got additional information from either Christopher Steele or Glenn Simpson in getting it to the FBI? Ohr: Joe Pientka, I believe, was my contact at that time, yeah. Q: You immediately go to Joe Pientka, who immediately goes to Peter Strzok. Are you aware of that? Ohr: No. Steeles information was going directly to Strzok, after Steele had been terminated by the FBI as a source. Ohr testified that he thought the FBI was verifying Steeles informationbut Comey said the dossier remained unverified in December 2016. FBI agent Peter Strzok during testimony before Congress on July 12, 2018. Strzok oversaw both the FBIs investigation into Hillary Clintons use of a private email server and the counterintelligence investigation into Donald Trumps campaign. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) Meanwhile, Ohr continued to transmit information from Steele to the FBI throughout 2017. There were 12 meetingsprimarily with Pientkadocumented in a series of FD-302s that ran from Nov. 22, 2016, until May 15, 2017. The 302ssummaries of FBI interviewshavent been made public: Ohr: So they [Strzok & Page] understood that I had received information, and they said they would get me an agent to talk to who would write the stuff down and do whateverwell, I dont know if write it down, but that they would give me an agent to speak with and provide the information. Q: Is that why there are 302s of you in the file? Ohr: I believe so. Q: That is the agent interviewing you? Ohr: Yes. Missing 302s Ohr testified that he maintained contact with Steele beyond the date of the final 302but this was either not documented in FBI 302s or the 302s werent provided to congressional investigators: Q: On page 2 of the letter it lists 12 separate dates and 302s where the FBI interviewed you indicating the first interview took place on November 22, 2016, and the last one on May 15, 2017. Is this list of interviews and dates generally consistent with your recollection? Ohr: Yes. The caveat I would say is, I continued to have some conversations with Christopher Steele after May 15, 2017. Ive reported all of those to the FBI, but I do not see any 302s relating to those conversations. Ohr later testified that he maintained contact with Steeleand relayed the content of that contact to the FBI into November 2017. Ohr also testified that he wasnt aware the FBI was documenting his meetings in 302s: Q: Do you know anything different about those interviews or about those 302s as to why they wouldnt have been produced in response to a request by Members of Congress? Ohr: I dont know if they did 302s later on. A lot of these conversations seemed less substantive, but I dont know. I didnt know about the original 302s either. Q: Did you continue to meet with the FBI to discuss your conversations with Mr. Steele all the way up through late November of 2017? Ohr: Correct. On at least two occasions in 2017, Ohr was provided with a new FBI handler. Most of his meetings took place at FBI headquarters but Ohr also had later meetings at the Washington Field Office. Q: And who at the Washington field office conducted an interview? Ohr: I cannot remember the names. Q: But it wasnt Pientka? Ohr: Right. Q: So it was somebody, another agent, or agents, at the FBIs Washington field office? Ohr: My recollection is at least on two occasions, I was handed onto a new agent. The FBI Attempts to Re-establish Direct Contact The information flow between Ohr and Steele typically went in one direction. Steele would provide information to Ohr, who would then provide it to the FBI. Q: Was there an unofficial back channel that was acknowledged by the FBI that they knew that you were the unofficial handler for Chris Steele after that termination? Ohr: I dont know if you can characterize it that way. All I can say is, I would get calls from Chris Steele and I would pass it to the FBI. But in May 2017, the direction changed. Try The Epoch Times Newspaper for Only $1 Start My $1 Month Trial Q: Did the FBI ever encourage you to reach out to try to get additional information from Chris Steele? Ohr: Yes, there was one occasion. Q: So there was a coordination? If theyre reaching out to you, then there is obviously this channel that has been at least unofficially acknowledged. Ohr: On one of the occasions when I talked to the FBI to tell them I got a call from Chris Steele, they said, oh, next time you talk with him, can you ask him if hes willing to meet with us? And I conveyed that back to Chris Steele. Q: After he had been terminated Ohr: Correct. The FBI, which had maintained that when it uncovered a credibility issue with Steele, it immediately severed contact, was now looking to re-establish direct contact. And it was using Ohr to do it. FBI Attempts to Re-engage With Steele After Comeys Firing, But Prior to Muellers Appointment In May 2017, the FBI suddenly decided to reach out to Steele through Ohr. The re-engagement attempt came six months after Steele had been formally terminated by the FBI on Nov. 1, 2016. Former FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8, 2017. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) The matter, which was discussed at several points during Ohrs testimony, was highlighted during a review of some text messages between Ohr and Steele: Q: The next page, 2 months forward, 5-15, three-quarters of the way down. Having now consulted my wife and business partner about the question we discussed on Saturday, I am pleased to say yes, we should go ahead with it. Best, Chris. Q: Go ahead with what? Ohr: The FBI had asked me a few days before, when I reported to them my latest conversation with Chris Steele, they had had would henext time you talk with him, could you ask him if he would be willing to meet again. Q: So this is the re-engagement? Ohr: Yes. The texts that are being referenced were sent on May 15, 2017, and refer to a request that Ohr received from the FBI to ask Steele to re-engage with the FBI in the days after Comey had been fired on May 9. Q: So you have asked him will he re-engage with the FBI? Ohr: Yes. Q: And he says: Talked with my wife; Im in. You say: Thanks. Well let them know and we will follow up. Ohr: Yes. Q: Thanks again. I chatted with my colleagues and can give you an update when you have a minute. What was the update about? Was it about that subject? Ohr: Yes. Q: So that all happens on May 15? Ohr: Yes. Several days prior, on May 12, 2017, Ohr and Steele exchanged a series of text messages published by John Solomon of The Hill, that appear to detail Ohr reaching out to Steele following the FBIs request for re-engagement: Ohr: Thanks again for your time on Wednesday. Do you have time for a short follow up call sometime this weekend? Steele: Yes, of course. Perhaps sometime tomorrow. When might suit? Ohr: Would 3 pm your time work? Im pretty open so just let me know. Thanks! Steele: Fine, or possibly even at 2 pm our time if that works for you? Best Ohr: 2 pm your time is good. It will be quick. Thanks! The next text message is a response from Steele on May 15, 2017: Steele: B, having now consulted my wife and business partner about the question we discussed on Saturday Im pleased to say yes, we should go ahead with it. Best C Ohr: Thanks! I will let them know and we will follow up. Comey was fired by Trump on May 9, 2017. This appears to have been the precipitating event that led the FBI to suddenly attempt to re-establish contact with Steele through Ohr. This was the only time the FBI used Ohr to reach out to Steele. Notably, McCabe was now the acting FBI director. On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to Acting FBI Director McCabe that he secretly record Trump. This remark was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced from memos from the now-fired McCabe. Rosenstein immediately issued a statement denying the accusations. An unidentified participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the conversation somewhat differently, noting that Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying, What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president? The comments by Rosenstein allegedly occurred at a meeting where McCabe was pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president. Note that just five days earlier, McCabe had publicly testified that there was no obstruction, stating there has been no effort to impede our investigation to date. Following Rosensteins meeting with McCabe, Trump met with former FBI Director Robert Mueller, reportedly as an interview for the FBI director job. Rosenstein was present at that meeting as well. Trump, in an interview with The New York Times said this about the meeting: We were interviewing replacements at the F.B.I. Did you know Mueller was one of the people that was being interviewed? Now what happens is, [Mueller] leaves the office. Rosenstein leaves the office. The next day, [Mueller] is appointed special counsel. Try The Epoch Times Newspaper for Only $1 Start My $1 Month Trial The idea that Mueller would be considered for the FBI director role seems highly unlikely, although not entirely impossible. Mueller had previously served as the FBI director from 2001 to 2013two years beyond the normal 10-year tenure. In 2011, President Barack Obama requested that Mueller stay on as FBI director for an additional two years, which required special approval from the Senate. We still dont know what was actually said at the meeting between Mueller, Rosenstein, and Trump. On May 17, 2017, the day after Trumps meeting with Muellerand the day after Rosensteins encounter with McCabeRosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel. In doing so, Rosenstein took the TrumpRussia investigation out of McCabes control. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testifies before the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 13, 2017. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) On the one hand, McCabe testified there was no obstruction from Trump, yet, just five days later, McCabe was attempting to convince Rosenstein to go along with his efforts to open an obstruction investigation into the president. Events suggest that McCabes efforts were met with alarm from Rosenstein, who responded by appointing Mueller as special counsel. Rosenstein may have also informed Trump of McCabes intentions. Rosenstein would now retain ultimate authority over the probe, and any expansion of Muellers investigation required authorization from Rosenstein. Text messages to Ohr from Steele provide some hints and highlight an abrupt pullback by the FBI. In June 2017, Steele sent Ohr the following text: We are frustrated with how long this re-engagement with the Bureau and Mueller is taking. There are some new perishable operational opportunities we do not want to miss out on. Steele sent another text to Ohr on Nov. 18, 2017: I am presuming youve heard nothing back from your SC colleagues on the issue you kindly put to them for me. We have heard nothing from them either. To say this is disappointing would be an understatement. Ohr testified that at some point during 2017, Chris Steele did speak with somebody from the FBI, but I dont know who. Steeles Anti-Trump Bias Steeles biases against then-candidate Trump have been reported in the media. Ohr testified that he relayed these to the FBI prior to the election. Prior to the election, when I spoke with Chris Steele, I got the sense he was very alarmed by this information, which I think he believed to be true. And so I definitely got the impression he did not want Donald Trump to win the election, Ohr said in his testimony. I dont recall the exact words. I definitely had a very strong impression that he did not want Donald Trump to win, because he believed his information he was giving me was accurate, and that he was, as I said, very concerned, or he was desperate, which is what I then told the FBI, Ohr said. Try The Epoch Times Newspaper for Only $1 Start My $1 Month Trial Ohr later testified that he informed the FBI of Steeles bias, along with details of his wifes employment with Fusion GPSand Fusions political mandateprior to the Oct. 21, 2016, FISA application made on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page: Q: So the record is clear, what the Department of Justice and the FBI was aware of prior to the first FISA application was your relationship with Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson, your wifes relationship with Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson, Mr. Steeles bias against Donald Trump, Mr. Simpsons bias against Donald Trump, your wifes compensation for work for Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS, correct? Ohr: Right. So just, again, to reiterate, when I spoke with the FBI, I told them my wife was working for Fusion GPS. I told them Fusion GPS was doing research on Donald Trump. You know, I dont know if I used the term opposition research, but certainly that was mywhat I tried to convey to them. I told them this is the information I had gotten from Chris Steele. At some point, and I dont remember exactly when, I dont think it was the first conversation, I told them that Chris Steele was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected. It turns out that Ohr personally told Deputy FBI Director McCabe of his concerns about possible bias during the initial August 2016 meeting: Q: So in August of 2016, you tell Andy McCabe that youre concerned because your wife works for Fusion GPS and thats where youre getting the information? Ohr: I wanted Mr. McCabe to know that there was a possible, you knowthat the Q: Conflict of interest Ohr: of interest or appearance thereof, yeah. Q: So theres a possible conflict of interest in August of 2016 before a FISA warrant is actually initiated? Ohr: I think I did not mean to say conflict of interest. What I would say is that in evaluating any information that I transmitted to the FBI, I wanted the FBI to be aware of any possible bias Q: So you believe there was the possibility of bias? Ohr: Yes. The FBIs Other Channel to Steele We know that Steele had been interacting with the FBI prior to Ohrs July 30, 2016, meeting with Steele. FBI agent Michael Gaeta traveled to London on July 5, 2016, for the express purpose of obtaining Steeles initial two documents on Trump. Notably, it isnt fully known to whom in the FBI that Gaeta transmitted Steeles documents. The counterintelligence team didnt receive them until mid-September. Gaeta, an FBI agent and assistant legal attache at the U.S. Embassy in Rome, had known Steele since at least 2010, when the former spy provided assistance in the FBIs investigation into the FIFA corruption scandal. The US embassy in Rome, Italy, on Feb. 23, 2014. (Simone Ramella/Flickr) But following Steeles meeting with Gaeta, there had been no further contact with Steele by the FBI. After nearly a month, Steele initiated the July 30 breakfast meeting with Ohr. His tactic appeared to work. Following Steeles July meeting with Ohr, and Ohrs meeting with McCabe and Page in early August, the FBI was now fully re-engaged with Steele and, by association, Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS. Try The Epoch Times Newspaper for Only $1 Start My $1 Month Trial According to a House Intelligence Committee minority memo released on Jan. 29, 2018, Steeles reporting didnt reach the FBI counterintelligence team until mid-September 2016. This almost certainly occurred at a meeting in Rome between FBI officials and Steele. Gaeta was also present at the meeting: In September, Steele went back to Rome. There, he met with an FBI team. Their response was one of shock and horror, Steele said, according to The Guardian. The bureau asked him to explain how he had compiled his reports, and to give background on his sources. It asked him to send future copies. Ohr appears to have been unaware of these ongoing events. Steeles Contacts Outside the FBI According to the Washington Post, in early fall of 2016, Steele and his partner, Christopher Burrows, met with former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlovewho they had both served under. Dearlove advised the two men to work with an unknown top British official to get their information to the FBI. Steele also met with various media sources in the United States during two separate visits in September and October of 2016, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Yahoo News, and CNN, according to UK court documents. Separately, Steele talked with Mother Jones reporter David Corn via Skype. On the same day as Steeles second breakfast meeting with Ohr, on Sept. 23, 2016, Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News, published an article based on an interview with Steele. The article, which was used to corroborate the dossier, would later be used by the FBI in the FISA application on Carter Page. At an undetermined point in September 2016probably during this same trip to WashingtonSteele also met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and a former special envoy for Libya, whom he had known since at least 2010. Winer had received a separate dossier, very similar to Steeles, from longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This second dossier had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the second dossier. Steele then shared this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier. According to the Guardians Luke Harding, Steele met with Sir Andrew Wood, the UKs former ambassador to Russia, at some point prior to the 2016 presidential election. Wood later relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during a meeting at the Halifax International Security Forum. McCain then dispatched longtime associate David Kramer to London to meet with Steele on Nov. 28, 2016, and review Steeles memos. Sen. John McCain speaks at a press conference in Washington on Oct. 25, 2017. (Reuters/Aaron P. Bernstein) McCain later passed a copy of the dossier to FBI Director Comey on Dec. 9, 2016. It isnt known if McCain also provided a copy to then-CIA Director John Brennan. Notably, Brennan did attach a two-page summary of the dossier to the Intelligence Community Assessment that he delivered to outgoing President Obama on Jan. 5, 2017. Ohrs Contacts With Simpson Ohr met with Simpson twice in 2016once in August 2016, prior to the election, and again in December 2016. Ohr also had one call with Simpson on Jan. 20, 2017the same day as Trumps inauguration. Ohrs first meeting with Simpson in August 2016 followed the July 30, 2016, breakfast meeting Ohr had with Steele: I dont know exactly what Chris Steele was thinking, of course, but I knew that Chris Steele was working for Glenn Simpson, and that Glenn might have additional information that Chris either didnt have or was not authorized to prevent [present], give me, or whatever. I dont recall the exact facts he gave me in August. I believe I made some notes at the time, and I believe it had to do with possible intermediaries between the Russian Government and the Trump campaign. Ohr testified that Simpson mentioned a number of names at the August 2016 meeting: Sergei Millian, Michael Cohen, Carter Page, and Paul Manafort. Ohr also noted that Page and Manafort had been previously mentioned by Steele at the July 30, 2016, breakfast meeting. But Ohr also testified that Simpson didnt relay the specific nature or content of communications he was referring toonly the means by which they were occurring: What Glenn Simpson was giving me was more the means by which this communication was beingwhat he thought how the communication was happening. I dont think he was talking as much about what exactly they wereyou know, what policies or whatever they were talking about. Ohr did note that either Simpson or Steele told him that somebody associated with the Trump campaign had advance knowledge of hacking or leaks related to the Clinton campaign: Ohr: I dont remember if it was Glenn Simpson or Chris Steele that mentioned thistalked aboutIm going to get the names wrong, but somebody associated with the Trump campaign having advance knowledge of when information about the Clinton campaign that had been stolen and hacked, when it was going to be leaked. Try The Epoch Times Newspaper for Only $1 Start My $1 Month Trial Notably, the Aug. 22, 2016, meeting with Simpson preceded the FBI counterintelligence team having seen the Steele dossierwhich they received in mid-September 2016. Other individuals within the FBI may have seen the first two Steele documents by this time as FBI agent Michael Gaeta received them directly from Steele in early July 2016 during the London meeting, which had been officially sanctioned by former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland. Nellie Ohr, who had left her position with Fusion GPS in September 2016, gave Ohr a memory stick that included research she had done for Fusion GPS on various Russian figures. And the reason she provided that information to me is, my understanding was, it related to some of the sameit related to the FBIs Russia investigation. And she gave me that stick to give to the FBI. At the December 2016 meeting, Simpson provided Ohr with additional information regarding contacts with the Trump campaign. Simpson also provided Ohr with a memory stick: Ohr: He provided me with a memory stick, and he provided additional information regarding the contacts between the Russians and the Trump campaign. Ohr testified that he gave Simpsons memory stick, along with one he received from his wife, Nellie, to FBI agent Pientka, who had been assigned as his handler. It isnt clear if Ohr handed these to Pientka in a single meeting or if Ohr provided them to Pientka on separate occasions. Pientkas receipt of the two memory sticks does provide a timing implication, in that it would imply that Ohr gave Nellies memory stick containing her Fusion research to the FBI post-election, given that Ohr first met Pientka on Nov. 21, 2016. Later testimony does make clear that Ohr turned over his handwritten notes of his meetings with Steele and Simpson on either Nov. 21 or Nov. 22. Ohr would later testify that he believed the memory stick provided by Simpson may have contained the Steele dossier: Q: Glenn Simpson gave you a thumb drive and didnt suggest what was on it or anything else and said give it to the FBI, and your curiosity was not piqued? Ohr: I think I assumed it was the dossier, but he did not say that. Q: Why did you assume it was the dossier? Ohr: This was in December. The rest of the conversation had to do with additional information that he had gathered about the possible connections between the Russian Government and the Trump campaign, and he gives me a thumb drive. I think the natural assumption at that pointI had not seen the dossier. I had heard there was such a thing as a dossier, but I hadnt seen it. So he gives me a thumb drive. I assumed this was the dossier. Q: So he gives you the dossier or what you believed to be the dossier. How did you first become aware of the dossier? Ohr: I dont recall. It might have been in the press. Ohr Notes Simpsons Reluctance to Speak With FBI Ohr repeatedly testified that Simpson refused or was reluctant to speak with the FBI directlydespite Ohrs encouraging him to do so. Notably, Steele was already speaking with the FBI: Q: Why not tell Steele and Simpson to go talk to the Bureau directly? Ohr: I believe Steele was talking to the Bureau directly. I think Glenn Simpson was willing to talk with me. Im not sure thatmy recollection is Im not sure he was willing to talk with the FBI, although that was where obviously it would be better to Q: Why not? Why talk to a prosecutor who does not investigate crime? Were you assigned to the Russia investigation? Ohr: I was not. Q: Did you have any connection with the Russia investigation at all? Ohr: Aside from passing this information, no. Q: So why would Glenn Simpson go through you and not go directly to the Bureau? Ohr: I dont know what was in his head. I know he was willing to talk Q: Im sure you asked him. Ohr: I think I tried to get him to talk with the FBI, but I dont recall the exact conversation. During a later point in Ohrs testimonyafter Ohrs meetings and history with Steele and Simpson had been detailedthe observation was made that both Steele and Simpson simultaneously re-engaged with Ohr and his wife in 2016 after a quiet period: Q: It had been 2 years prior before yousince you had most recently talked to Chris Steele before he wants to meet you on July 30, a couple years prior before Glenn Simpson wants to meet you on August 22. Same pattern with your wife? Ohr: I cantbecause I dont know the years. Im guessing itsagain, I shouldnt guess, but I know it was not close in time, in terms of weeks or months. Q: Why do you think they picked your wife? Theres probably lots of Russian experts in the Washington, D.C., area. Ohr: You know, I thinkfirst of all, I dont think that there are that many people that do Russia research that are available to do these kinds of contracts. So I think, you know, they have talked over the years from time to time. So I dont know why he picked her, but they were certainly acquainted and knew of each other. The timing of Steeles re-engagement with Ohr was particularly notable, given that Steele had met with Gaeta in London in early July 2016, but had since heard nothing back from the FBI. Ohr Didnt Verify Information From Simpson or Steele Ohr testified at multiple points that he simply transmitted information from Steele and from Simpson to the FBI, but did nothing to attempt to verify its accuracy. Ohr knew that Steele held a bias against Trump. He was also fully aware that Fusion GPS was engaged in opposition researchhis wife was part of the ongoing effort. Ohr also testified that although he didnt know Fusion was employed by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), he was aware they were somehow working associated with the Clinton campaign. From his testimony: Q: Who were Steeles sources? Ohr: I dont know. Q: How did you vet thosehow did he vet those sources? How did Fusion GPS vet those sources? Ohr: I thinkI dont know the specifics. The fact that my wife was looking at some of the same figures, like Sergei Millian, suggests that that was one way they were trying to vet the information. Ohr attempted to make clear his concernshis reason for passing Steeles information directly to the FBIbut his logic appeared somewhat one-sided: Ohr: I think any attempt by a foreign power to gain influence over a Presidential campaign would be troubling. Q: But that does not include Steele relying on Russians to provide dirt on Trump? Ohr: Im sorry, I dont understand the question I think my understanding is that what Steele was finding out was investigating the links, the national-security threat posed by Russian Government officials attempting to gain influence over the Trump campaign. Q: He was relying on foreign nationals for that information? Ohr: I dont know who he was getting it from. A bit later in Ohrs testimony, an interesting exchange took place, during which Ohr admitted that the information he had provided to the FBI on the behalf of Steel and Simpson wouldnt be admissible in court: Q: So tell me all of the questions, cross-examination-like questions, that you asked Chris Steele about the source of his information. Ohr: I knewhe would not give me the source of his information, so I couldnt get it. Q: How much of what Chris Steele told you would have ever come out in a courtroom? Ohr: Im not sure it would have. It was source information. It was hearsay. Steele had no direct connections to his sources of information and everything Steele listed in the dossier was provided to him second- or third-hand. Which creates evidentiary problems: Q: Im guessing you never talked to the sources or sub-sources. Ohr: That is correct. Q: Well, Mr. Ohr, that information would never see the inside of a courtroom, because you cant cross-examine it. You cant find out who, if anyone, really is the source of that. Do you agree? Ohr: Yes. But this is not evidence in a courtroom. He is providing information fromthis is source information. Q: Best-case scenario, its double hearsay. Worst-case scenario, we dont have anyit could be quintuple hearsay, right? Ohr: I thinkI dont know. It definitely is hearsay, and it was source information, which is what I was telling the FBI. Q: I guess what alarms me about this fact pattern is all the way in December of 2016, a guy named Comey was referring to the information as unverified. Thats in December of 2016. To this day, the Steele dossier remains unverified. Steele Was Working Concurrently for Fusion GPS, FBI Steele had been working with the FBI prior to approaching Ohr. On July 5, 2016, Steele provided FBI agent Gaeta copies of his early memos. However, after Steele provided the information to the FBI, he heard nothing back in response. It was at this time that Steele, perhaps in concert with Simpson, decided to reach out to Ohr. Journalists gather outside the headquarters of Orbis Business Intelligence, the company run by former intelligence officer Christopher Steele, in London on January 12, 2017. (Leon Neal/Getty Images) Ohr, who met with Steele on July 30, 2016, didnt appear to be initially aware that Steele was already engaging with the FBIbut he would later learn that Steele was indeed doing so. Q: So Chris Steele was working for Fusion GPS and the FBI at the same time? Ohr: Yes, I believe so. Q: Was he being paid by both? Ohr: I believe so. Q: Why was the Bureau paying him for information if you were going to pass it on from Fusion GPS to the Bureau? Ohr: I know the FBI had other contacts with Chris Steele besides my contact, besides what I was getting, but I dont know the specific nature of what they paid him for. This sequence highlights the anomaly of Ohrs actions. But it also points to his role in larger events. Brennan Briefs White House, Rep. Harry Reid Ohr went to McCabe and Lisa Page in early August 2016 following his meeting with Steele at the end of July. Then-CIA Director Brennan has admitted during congressional testimony that his intelligence helped establish the FBI counterintelligence investigation: I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation. Brennans role was discussed during a testimony by Lisa Page before Congress, which hasnt been publicly released. Page was questioned in relation to an Aug. 25, 2016, text message: What are you doing after the CH brief? CH almost certainly referred to Crossfire Hurricane. Former CIA director John Brennan and former director of National Intelligence James Clapper arrive at a closed hearing before the Senate intelligence committee on May 16, 2018. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) Page was then asked about another briefing that occurred on the same day: Its the same day that Director Brennan is briefing Harry Reid, is why I ask. And so what youre saying is you were unaware that Director Brennan was briefing Harry Reid that same day? Page said she was unaware of Brennans briefing to Rep. Harry Reid (D-Nev.). The discussion continued: Q: We have documents that would suggest that in that briefing the dossier was mentioned to Harry Reid and then, obviously, were going to have to have conversations. Does that surprise you that Director Brennan would be aware [of the dossier]? Page: Yes, sir. Because with all due honesty, if Director Brennanso we got that information from our source, right? The FBI got this information from our source. If the CIA had another source of that information, I am neither aware of that nor did the CIA provide it to us if they did, because the first time we Q: We do know there are multiple sources. Page: I do know that. I do know that the information ultimately found its way lots of different places, certainly in October of 2016. But if the CIA as early as August, in fact, had those same reports, I am not aware ofIm not aware of that and nor do I believe they provided them to us, and that would be unusual. Q: Were you aware that Christopher Steele had conversations or multiple conversations with Fusion GPS and others outside of just working special intel for you? Page: As of August of 2016, I dont know who Christopher Steele is. I dont know that hes an FBI source. I dont know what he does. I have never heard of him in all of my life. So let me just sort of be clear. When the FBI first receives the reports that are known as the dossier from an FBI agent who is Christopher Steeles handler in September of 2016 at that time, we do not know whowe dont know why these reports have been generated. We dont know for what purpose. There are two major questions raised by this discussion. How did Brennan come to have knowledge of Steeles dossier in August 2016? And how is it possible that Page is saying as of August of 2016, I dont know who Christopher Steele is. Page was present at the early August meeting in McCabes office where the entire purpose of Ohrs visit was to fill McCabe in on what had been learned at his July 30, 2016, breakfast with Steele. Its possible that Ohr never divulged Steeles name at the initial August meeting with McCabe and Page. But that seems unlikely. Try The Epoch Times Newspaper for Only $1 Start My $1 Month Trial After the July 30th meeting with Chris Steele, I wanted to provide the information he had given me to the FBI, Ohr testified. I reached out for Andrew McCabe, at that time, Deputy Director of the FBI, and somebody who had previously led the organized crime, Russian organized crime squad in New York and who I had worked with in the past, and asked if he could meet with me. I went to his office to provide the information, and Lisa Page was there. So I provided the information to them. Later during his testimony, Ohr was asked about communications regarding Steele: Q: Did you ever discuss Mr. Steele with Ms. Page? Ohr: I assume so, since I was telling them about what I was hearing from Chris Steele. Ohr is mentioned five times on Day One of Pages testimony and twice on Day Two. Pages name, by contrast, comes up repeatedly throughout Bruce Ohrs testimony. On Day Two of Pages testimony, both of her references to Ohr were contained within this conversation: Q: You were asked on Friday again about the Christopher Steele dossier and how it came to the FBI. I believe you claimed that you were not really involved with how the dossier came to the FBI so you werent clear on its providence. Is that correct? Page: No, that is not correct. I am very clear about its providence. Q: Oh, youre very clear about its providence? Page: How we received the reports from Christopher Steele, yes, I am very clear about how we received those. Q: Certainly. So are you also clear then as to whether Bruce Ohr gave those dossiers to the FBI? Page: This is in the category of things that I cant answer. What I can say is when we first received the set of reports that are commonly referred to as the dossier, that initialour having obtained those documents initially, did not come from Bruce Ohr. They came from Christopher Steele, through his handler to the FBI. Pages statement is factually correct. FBI agent Michael Gaeta obtained the first two documents from Steele at a meeting in London on July 5, 2016. But it in no way precludes information that was subsequently provided by Ohr at the August 2016 meeting. Nellie Ohrs Role Nellie Ohr began working for Fusion in late 2015 as a Russia analyst. Bruce Ohr testified that he didnt believe that Nellie Ohr was initially hired to investigate Trump: Ohr: She was a Russia analyst, and she would research people and companies that Fusion GPS asked her to look into. She would do her research on the internet, open sources; and she would report her findings to Fusion GPS, usually I thinkI dont remember exactly the names. Q: Was she hired specifically to work on an investigation into then-candidate Trump, or was it a broader portfolio than that? Ohr: My understanding is that it was a broader portfolio. She began, as I said, I believe in late 2015. But Nellie Ohrs focus began to shift toward the Trump campaign: Ohr: At some point, I dont remember when, I became aware that she was looking at some of the same figures as part of her work for Fusion GPS. Q: So Fusion GPS were looking at potential Russian contacts with the Trump campaign. Ohr: Yes. Q: And thats what your wife was working on? Ohr: Yes. At some point, I became aware that some of the people she was investshe was researching were some of the same people that I had heard about from Chris Steele and Glenn Simpson. Later in his testimony, Bruce Ohr provided greater clarity as to who Nellie Ohr was actually investigating: At some point, I became aware that she was looking at, among other people, Sergei Millian, which was one of the names that either Chris Steele or Glenn Simpson had given to me. Ohr testified at several points, he didnt believe that his wifes work made it into the dossier: Q: So your wife didnt work on the dossier? Ohr: Not specifically, from what I can tell. She worked on some of the same peopleSergei Millian. But Ohr also testified he had no way of being certain as he never reviewed his wifes work: Q: You testified before that you didnt look at the information that your wife gave you to the FBI? Ohr: Correct; I did not look. Q: So how do you know, as you are testifying under oath here, that the information that your wife gave to the FBI was not part of the dossier? Ohr: What I saw of the dossier was in the form of the kinds of reports that Chris Steele and [Steeles firm] Orbis prepared. So I believe from what I can telland I havent studied it closelythat these reports reflected information that Orbis has collected and then provided to Fusion GPS. Q: But, again, to be clear, you never reviewed the information that your wife gave to the FBI. Ohr: Right I am not aware that my wife ever gave any information [directly] to Chris Steele. Additionally, Ohr testified that he and his wife didnt discuss sensitive work matters with each other: Q: When she works on sensitive projects, does she discuss those details with you? Ohr: Generally, no. Q: And on the flip side, have you discussed details of your cases with her? Ohr: No. Former Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr arrives for a closed-door interview with investigators from the House Judiciary and Oversight committees on Capitol Hill on October 19, 2018. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) As previously noted, Nellie had provided Ohr with a memory stick sometime after she left Fusion in September 2016. Ohrs acceptance of the memory stick brought him into the chain of evidence. It also raised some questions: Q: Im just asking if this was proprietary information that belonged to Fusion GPS and it was being given to you by your wife, but effectively, it was being given to you through your wife by Fusion GPS. Thats what it appeared to be. I just want to see if you knew that or reasonably would believe that. Ohr: I dont think that was the case. Q: So you think she did that on a rogue basis, that she didnt go to Fusion GPS for permission? Ohr: I think it was her giving it to me, notwithoutyou know, without any sanction or whatever fromas far as I know, yes. Ohr claimed that he never examined the contents of the memory stick that his wife provided to him: Q: Did you look at that stick or thumb drive? Ohr: No. Q: You didnt even open it? Ohr: No. I didnt want to plug it into my machine at work. I just gave it to the FBI. Q: What did she describe was on it? Ohr: My understanding was that it included her research on behalf of Fusion GPS. Inconsistencies of Ohrs Involvement Ohr often struggled to explain why he got involved as an intermediary between the FBI and Steele and Simpson in the first place: Q: You got the worlds premier law enforcement agency investigating a fact pattern. Chris Steele already has a handler, already is in contact with the FBI; and you allow the person hired by the DNC to dig up dirt on a Presidential candidate to talk to you directly and use you as a conduit. Were just trying to figure out why you let that happen? Ohr: I took the information. I thought the information might be important, and I wanted to get it to the FBI. It seemed the only way to do it. Q: What information would Glenn Simpson have that the Bureau couldnt get or already have? Ohr: I dont know exactly what the FBI had access to, and I know Glenn Simpson was also gathering information. So more information is better. The FBI is in a position to decide whether the information is useful or credible. Toward the beginning of Ohrs interview, he was questioned in regard to precisely who he had brought Steeles information to within the FBI: Q: Who at the FBI did you pass it on to? Ohr: Well, at that point I hadI believe I met with Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and some people from the DepartmentsJustice Departments Criminal Division, and I gave them the information that I had received. And a notable point was made: Q: Can you see how it might be troubling? You just called the names of two people, neither of whom I think are with the Bureau, one who was mentioned unfavorably in an IG report, both of whom had, at least from my standpoint, an unprecedented amount of animus or bias towards one of the candidates, and you are getting information from someone hired by the DNC and funneling it to the lead agent on the Russia investigation. Can you possibly see how that might be troubling to people? Ohr: Yes. Ohr also admitted that his actions represented an unusual pattern of behavior for him: Q: Are there other cases where you recall taking information from fact witnesses and passing it on to the Bureau? Ohr: I dont recall specific instances, but whenever Iover the years, as Ive talked with people who are, you know, experts or have information one way or another on transnational organized crime, including Russian organized crime, I take their information, and if it looked like itif theres anything there, I would pass it to the FBI. Q: Ive been out of it for about 8 years, so you help me if Im wrong, but a stick, or thumb drive, would be physical evidence for which a chain would exist if it were ever needed in court? And you made yourself part of the chain? Ohr: Yes. Q: Can you think of other instances in your career since 1991 where you made yourself part of a chain of custody? Ohr: NotI dont remember getting any other sticks or anything like that, so Q: And you cant think of a single case where you inserted yourself into a chain of custody other than this one? Ohr: Thats right. Q: I guess my colleagues are wondering why. Why this one? Ties at DOJ and Ohrs Aversion to Political Appointees Ohr noted at several points that he never informed anyone above him at the DOJ. At the time, Ohr occupied the highest career position within the DOJ. All positions above his own were political appointees. Q: Did DAG Yates know that you were talking to Steele or Simpson? Ohr: No. Q: Did any of your supervisors at the Department know? I think the others you described were more peers. Ohr: Right. Q: Any of your supervisors? Ohr: No. Q: Did you have any specific thoughts as to why it was important to inform the career level but not that one political level above it? Ohr: Beyond saying I wanted to keep it in career channels, and not make it political or not have it treated in a political way, thats all I can say. Try The Epoch Times Newspaper for Only $1 Start My $1 Month Trial Q: So was it important to you to keep it in career channels? .Ohr: I thought it was appropriate that career officials would be the ones dealing with the information. Q: is it your typical habit to let your supervisor or those you report to know your professional activity? Ohr: In general, yes. Ohr seemed to indicate his preference for keeping communications out of the political appointee level. But there was another individual who would also be communicating with the DOJ. And he was the person responsible for running the entire investigation. Former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates on Capitol Hill on May 8, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) From Lisa Pages testimony, we know that Deputy FBI Director McCabe was keeping the DOJ informed: Page: I do know that at least John Carlin, for example, who is a political appointee, was kept abreast of the sort of investigative activity that was going on. And the only reason I know this is because when there was conflicts between us and DOJ, John might call over toJohn Carlin might call over to Andy McCabe, and sort of make his teams pitch, and then Andy would, you know, sort of the back-and-forth would go on. So it is clear that John had, was getting some sort of briefing, but he was not, it was, it never occurred by the FBI, which is, in my view, atypical. In response to a question asking who was McCabes direct counterpart at the DOJ on the investigation, Page responded, it would have been John. It was either John Carlin or George Toscas who would have, who would have reached out to Mr. McCabe. Ohrs Demotion Despite being demoted in December 2017 and then being removed as director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force in January 2018, Ohr remained in an active position within the DOJ. Ohrs official title at the time of his interview was senior counsel in the Office of International Affairs in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. It appears that Ohrs demotion, while significant, wasnt as severe as originally thought. The Department of Justice in Washington on July 11, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) Ohr described his current role as advising director and deputy directors of the Office of International Affairs in the operation of the office and the work of the office. During testimony, Ohr described the reasons given to him for his reassignment in December 2017, when he was stripped of his associate deputy attorney general title: Q: The reasons they gave for that reassignment, the first? Ohr: Two reasons. One was they said I had not given them sufficiently and timely notice of my conversations with Chris Steele. And, secondly, that they were planning a reorganization of the Department, where none of the component heads would be sitting within the Deputy Attorney Generals Office. Q: Did they provide you anything in writingwith regard to their explanation? Ohr: No, they didnt cite anything specific. The commentary regarding his removal as head of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force in January proved particularly intriguing: Ohr: I was told at this time that the Attorney General or the deputy attorney general did not want me in a position where I would be having contact with the White House. Q: Did they offer an explanation as why you couldnt have contact with the White House, why they didnt want you in that type of position? Did they offer details? Ohr: They did not provide any additional details. Q: Did the DAGs at any point speak with you directly? Ohr: No. Recall that Ohrs demotions took place at the end of 2017, and the start of 2018, Jeff Sessions was attorney general and Rod Rosenstein was deputy AG. Given Ohrs role in events, it may have been considered legally prudent that Ohr not be allowed to have interaction with anyone within the White House. Ohr Has Met With DOJs Inspector General Q: Have you at any point been approached by the Departments Inspector Generals Office regarding your contacts with Mr. Steele? Ohr: Yes. Q: If you can, share approximately when that occurred? I wont pry into the details of it. Ohr: I think it was in July of this year [2018]. Q: And have you fully cooperated with his request? Ohr: Yes. Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork. Man Arrested for Punching 11-Year-Old Girl in the Face in North Carolina Warning: Video footage is disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised A North Carolina man is facing criminal charges after he allegedly assaulted three girls in North Carolina, according to local reports. David Steven Bell, 51, of Black Mountain, attacked the female victim after girls surrounded him near the Asheville Mall over the weekend. The 6-foot-5 Bell then shoved one of them during an exchange, according to video footage. Nancy Grace 2019115 The girl then raised her hands and ran at Bell, who hit her in the face, knocking her to the ground. The other people in the video then began screaming before the recording ended. Some of the others are seen running back into the mall. Bell was booked on three charges, including assault on a child under the age of 12, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times. The girl he punched was 11 years old, according to the report. This is hard to watch. New York Post 2019115 Hes also facing two counts of assault on a female after two teen girls told police he shoved them, the paper reported, citing police. The condition of the 11-year-old girl is not clear. Two representatives of the teen girls who alleged he assaulted them declined to issue a comment. Some measures are visible to the public and others are not, mall spokeswoman Catharine Wells told the Citizen-Times about security at the mall. In addition to maintaining a full-time professional security team, we partner with the Asheville Police Department and hire off-duty officers to patrol the interior and exterior of the property. The report said that Bell is listed as 6-foot-5 and 250 pounds. Other details about the case are not clear. Commenters online expressed their outrage over the incident. This is disgusting, one comment said, according to the New York Post. Who in their right mind finds it okay to punch an eleven year old girl? Especially being as large as he is. It saddens me that this hatred is in a town that I hold dear to my heart and has always had such a peaceful environment. Bell is due in court on Feb. 5 We are aware of the videos circulating on social media. The @AshevillePolice responded immediately and the situation was diffused. An arrest has been made. Please contact the Asheville Police Department with further questions. Asheville Mall (@AshevilleMall) January 13, 2019 The video went viral on social media after actor D.L. Hughley tweeted about it. One of The Nations Most Serious Concerns According to a report published by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (pdf), around 3.5 million children in 2016 were the subjects of at least one maltreatment report to authorities. Child abuse is one of the nations most serious concerns, the authors of the report wrote. About 17 percent of those reports were substantiated, and the department said that there were an estimated 676,000 victims of child abuse and neglect. That amounts to 9.1 victims per 1,000 children. Children in their first year of life had the highest rate of victimization at 24.8 per 1,000 children, the report said. About three-fourths of the cases were neglect, and about 18 percent were physical abuse. Some children suffered from multiple forms of maltreatment, the HHS said. Edward Brown, 24, was arrested and charged with reckless discharge of a firearm and unlawful use of a weapon after allegedly firing a weapon in Chicago on Dec. 17, 2018. (Chicago Police Department) Man Arrested After Deaths of Two Police Officers Could Be Released From Jail Chicago police officers are expressing shock after a bond worker said that a man arrested after the death of two officers will likely be released from jail soon. Edward Brown, 24, allegedly fired a gun that prompted two officers to investigate an area that included train tracks. While investigating the gunshot, Conrad Gary and Eduardo Marmolejo were struck by a train and killed. Brown was later arrested and charged with reckless discharge of a firearm and unlawful use of a weapon. We are planning to post bond this week, yes, Sharlyn Grace of Chicago Community Bond Fund told Fox 32. Were just waiting on a couple more things to come through. The fund uses donations to help accused criminals post bond. Browns attorney, Frank Koustoros, said that his client is looking forward to getting out of prison. Hes hanging in there, Koustoros said. You know, nobody wants to be in jail, but hes hanging in there. Not everyone was pleased with Browns impending release, though. We are continually disappointed with the Kim Foxx administration when the police are the victims of crime, a representative of the Fraternal Order of Police said. Members will be shocked and disappointed if Brown is released, the representative added. Prosecutors said that Brown fired two gunshots and then fled the area. Browns lawyer claimed the young man had gone to the tracks to be away from people in an area he felt would be safer to fire the gun, reported the Chicago Sun-Times. While setting the bond, the judge called his actions inherently dangerous because both of the bullets he fired had to come down somewhere. Officers Likely Didnt See Train Gary and Marmolejo may not have seen or heard the train that struck them because they were focused on another train coming from the opposite direction. Chicago Police Department spokesman said very limited video from a body camera one of the officers was wearing helped investigators piece together how the tragedy might have happened. The officers had run onto an elevated area of the tracks Monday night on the citys far South Side to investigate gunfire. n the video, they clearly acknowledge a northbound train just before the southbound train hit them, Guglielmi said. They must have thought the sound they heard was the northbound train, he said. They must have missed the sound of the train right behind them. They were investigating in the area after detecting the sound of gunfire. These brave young men were consumed with identifying a potential threat, Superintendent Eddie Johnson explained to reporters at a news conference. The officers were assigned to the Calumet police district. Marmolejo, 36, had been a member of the department for 2.5 years; Gary, 31, had been on the force for 18 months. Both were married with children. Marmolejo was the father of three children, one in high school and two younger children; Gary had a 6-month-old daughter. The Associated Press contributed to this report. From NTD News Multiple states around the country sued the Trump administration for its decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 U.S. census. (AP Photo/Michelle R. Smith/AP Photo, File) Judge Bars Citizenship Question for Census, Trump Administration Likely to Appeal A federal judge in New York has barred the Trump administration from reintroducing a question about citizenship into the 2020 census, a decision that will likely be appealed. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman handed down a 277-page decision on Jan. 15, ruling that while the question is constitutional, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had acted arbitrarily and did not follow procedure. In his opinion, Furman said Ross violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA)which governs how federal agencies may propose and establish regulationsas the law requires him to collect citizenship data using administrative records instead of through direct inquiries on a survey such as the census. He added that Rosss decision was arbitrary and capricious as he failed to consider several important aspects of the problem and failed to justify significant departures from past policies and practices. We are disappointed and are still reviewing the ruling, Department of Justice (DOJ) spokeswoman Kelly Laco said in a statement. The lawsuit, spearheaded by state and local Democratic officials, was filed in April last year. It was consolidated with another suit by several immigrant rights groups accusing the government of discrimination against nonwhite immigrants in violation of the Constitutions guarantee of equal protection under the law. Furman said the plaintiffs were unable to prove Ross was motivated by discriminatory intent. The plaintiff also argued that illegal aliens will fear to participate in the survey, which would disproportionally affect the population counts in Democratic-leaning states and reduce funding to those states. Proponents of the question argue that aliens who are in the country illegally should not be counted to determine congressional districts and the distribution of federal aid. University of Texas School of Law professor Stephen Vladeck told Fox News that Furmans decision wont be the final word on the matter as the Trump administration would likely appeal. The Supreme Court is already scheduled to hear an appeal related to the pretrial proceedings in this case in February, and the government will certainly appeal this decision to the federal appeals court in New York and, if necessary, the justices. That said, todays ruling means that, for now, at least, there wont be a citizenship question on the 2020 census, Vladeck told the news broadcaster. The Supreme Court has already agreed to hear a portion of the case on Feb. 19, after multiple parties including several states across the nation sued the Census Bureau and its parent agency, the Department of Commerce. In that case, the high court is expected to decide whether those challenging the decision to include the citizenship question must rely exclusively on the administrative record detailing the governments decision-making process, or whether the courts should consider the intention of the government officials participating in that process. Multistate Lawsuits The DOJ asked the Census Bureau in December 2017 to reinstate the citizenship question, and it was done so in March last year. Court documents show that Ross had reviewed several options to provide the citizen voting age population data to the DOJ and concluded the census would provide the most complete and accurate data. Ross also said the citizenship question has been well-tested, as it has been included in the American Community Surveyan annual survey of a sample populationsince 2005. Meanwhile, Hans A. von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, wrote in a piece last year that the public has a right to expect that the government will do everything in its power to get as accurate a picture as possible of the American body politic. That includes, as Thomas Jefferson recommended, knowing how many citizens and noncitizens make up our democratic republic, he wrote. After the announcement, several state governments and interest groups across multiple states, including New York, Maryland, and California, filed lawsuits against the Trump administration. The DOJ tried to get the cases tossed out, but their efforts have been rejected by multiple judges in several states. The hearing in California is currently underway in San Francisco. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions described the lawsuits as a judicial encroachment, a term he defines as an overreach by the courts allowing unprecedented reviews of governmental operations. The attorney general said that the court wants to examine Rosss motives, while the real issue before the court is if the census question is either legal or illegal. The words on the page dont have a motive; they are either permitted or they are not, Sessions said last year. But the judge has decided to hold a trial over the inner-workings of a Cabinet secretarys mind. The Constitution requires the census to be collected every 10 years. This information helps determine how many seats a state holds in the Congress based on its respective populations. The federal government also relies on this data to determine how to distribute billions of dollars in funding each year like Medicaid, Medicare Part B, and the Highway Planning and Construction Program. The United States previously collected peoples citizenship status from 1820 to 1950. Epoch Times reporter Ivan Pentchoukov, Matthew Vadum, and The Associated Press contributed to this report Japanese Electronics Company Ricoh Moving Production Out of China Move is a part of manufacturing exodus as U.S.China trade war penalizes Chinese exports Due to the impact of the SinoU.S. trade war and Chinese economic downturn, foreign companies in China have been moving their production lines out of the country to reduce costs. On Jan. 5, Ricoh, the Japanese producer of electronics and office equipment, announced that it would be relocating a factory out of China, according to a report by Radio Free Asia (RFA), citing Japans Kyodo News. The Ricoh Company, Ltd., a multinational imaging and electronics company, primarily produces cameras and office equipment, is preparing to transfer its printer production line to Thailand. The company currently exports printers from Shanghai and Shenzhen to the United States. Once the decision comes into effect, Ricoh will be able to restart production in Thailand within two months. An employee who has worked at Ricohs Shenzhen branch for 10 years confirmed to RFA that some of the companys factories are moving their production lines to Thailand. The employee, who did not want his name to be publicized, said the company relocated its factories for reasons of cost-effectiveness. Ricoh is also building a new factory in Dongguan, a Chinese city near Shenzhen. Four hundred U.S.-funded companies have announced that they will withdraw from China since the beginning of the trade war. On Dec. 31 last year, South Koreas Samsung Electronics shut down its smartphone factory in Tianjin, a port city in northern China. Apple Inc. will begin assembling its top-end iPhones in India through the local unit of Foxconn as early as 2019, the first time the Taiwanese contract manufacturer will have made the product in the country, according to a source familiar with the matter. Chinese economist Mr. Zeng, identified by surname only, told RFA that under the environment of economic depression, high land prices, and rising labor costs, foreign investors are bound to withdraw from China sooner or later. It is natural for foreign businessmen to withdraw from China. It can be foreseen because Chinas economy is getting worse and the economic situation is in downturn, Mr. Zeng said. The withdrawal of foreign capital is related to Chinas economic and political conditions, and even the recent state of Chinese society. Chinese society is increasingly showing itself to be unwelcoming and intolerant to foreign investment and foreign businesses. This is also a big reason for the withdrawal of a large number of foreign investors amid Chinas economic downturn. Mr. Zeng added: Not only Japanese capital, American capital and even Hong Kong businessmen and Taiwanese businessmen are now withdrawing from mainland China in large numbers. They are moving to Southeast Asia. A scholar surnamed Zhou told RFA, While the United States is facing the competitive rising big power in the form of China, which does not follow rules, universal values, and has no integrity, the U.S. is likely to take some drastic measures. Among the manufacturing giants that have withdrawn from China or shut down factories last year are more than 10 world-class companies, including General Motors, Samsung Electronics, Omron, Nitto Denko, Olympus Corporation, and AU Optronics. Reuters contributed to this report. The Payam satellite is launched in Iran on Jan. 15, 2019. (Reuters TV/via Reuters) Iran Satellite Launch, Which United States Warned Against, Fails GENEVAIrans bid to put a satellite into orbit, in defiance of warnings from the United States, failed on Jan. 15 after the rocket carrying it did not reach escape velocity, as the countrys telecoms minister said a second launch would go ahead. Authorities in Washington this month warned Tehran against undertaking three planned launches that they said would, by using long-range ballistic missile technology, violate the U.N. Security Council resolution that enshrined Irans 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The United States is concerned that that technology can also be used to launch warheads. Iran, which considers its space program a matter of national pride, has said its space vehicle launches and missile tests are not violations and will continue. Telecoms Minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi said Tuesdays satellite, named Payam, was mounted with four cameras. It was intended to be used for imaging and communications purposes and orbit at an altitude of 310 miles, according to a report on the ministrys website. He said the satellite failed at the third stage because the rocket did not reach adequate speed. I would have liked to make everybody happy with good news but sometimes life doesnt go forward the way we anticipate, he said on Twitter. Another satellite, named Doosti, was waiting to be launched. We should not come up short or stop, Azari-Jahromi wrote. Its exactly in these circumstances that we Iranians are different than other people in spirit and bravery. Under the nuclear dealwhich Washington pulled out of last spring before reimposing sanctionsthe country is called upon to refrain from work for up to eight years on ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear weapons. President Hassan Rouhani said Washington was waging an economic war against Tehran in order to get concessions on the missile program, but is not able to build a wall around Iran. The country launched its first domestically built satellite, the OMID (Hope) research and telecoms satellite, in 2009 on the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution. The 40th anniversary falls in February. David Hale, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs of the Department of State, talks during a news conference in Beirut, Lebanon, on Jan. 14, 2019. (Reuters/Mohamed Azakir) In Lebanon, U.S. State Department Official Calls Hezbollah Unacceptable BEIRUTThe U.S. State Department criticized Lebanons Iran-backed Hezbollah group Jan. 14 for digging tunnels into Israel and stockpiling rockets, as Washington steps up efforts to isolate Tehran. In recent weeks, Israeli forces uncovered tunnels they said were dug by Hezbollah, and Lebanon complained about Israels construction of a barrier along disputed parts of the border. The United States, Israels closest ally, regards Hezbollah as a terrorist group and has pledged tougher steps to counteract Iranian influence in the region, but it has also reiterated its backing for the Lebanese governmentwhich includes Hezbollah representativesand army. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week vowed to expel every last Iranian boot from Syria, where Iran has been fighting alongside Hezbollah, and where Israel has been carrying out strikes against both. While Lebanon has the right to defend itself, that is the right of the Lebanese state alone, said David Hale, U.S. under secretary of state for political affairs, after meeting Lebanese prime minister designate Saad al-Hariri. It is unacceptable to have a militia outside the control of the state, and unanswerable to all people of Lebanon digging attack tunnels across the blue line to Israel or assembling an arsenal of over 100,000 missiles with which to threaten regional stability, he added. Israel, which regards Hezbollah as the biggest threat on its borders, on Jan. 13 said it had completed efforts to find and destroy tunnels under the frontier that it said the group had dug to infiltrate fighters during a future war. Hezbollah has not commented on the tunnels. Lebanons National Security Council last week said an Israeli border wall that crosses into territory claimed by Lebanon, constitutes an act of aggression. However, both sides appear ready to contain matters for now. Israels interest is to keep the (situation) quiet. I think for them (Hezbollah), that interest is even greater, Lieutenant General Gadi Eizenkot said last week after completing his term as Israeli army chief. By Angus McDowall A Border Patrol Agent takes down information of a man and his son who crossed the Rio Grande River from Mexico into the United States in Hidalgo County, Texas, on May 26, 2017. (Benjamin Chasteen/The Epoch Times) 4 Media Lies About the Government Shutdown The fake news media loves to lie about President Donald Trump, and theyve been especially brazen in their dishonesty when it comes to the partial government shutdown over border security. For the last three weeks, the mainstream media has framed the government shutdown as a catastrophe, amplifying the voices of impacted federal workers while ignoring the many federal employees who still want the president to stand firm on border security. While the media has been unfairly critical of Trump throughout his presidency, the degree of journalistic dishonesty has never been higher than it is today. Here are the four biggest lies perpetrated by the press about the border wall debate. 1. There Is No Immigration Crisis The fake news media wants to convince the American people that there is no border security crisis, hoping to turn them against Trumps crusade to secure the border. MSNBCs Joe Scarborough even called Americans who recognize the border crisis stupid while accusing the president of being a liar. [Trump] is going to be telling nothing but lies and falsehoods, and hes going to be twisting reality, Scarborough said before the president delivered his Oval Office address to the American people last week. And at this point Ive got to say, how stupid are Americans who still believe theres a crisis on the southern border? CNNs Jim Acosta also did his best to downplay the presidents claim by posting a widely-mocked video of himself standing next to the border wall in which he inadvertently acknowledged that border walls are effective. I found some steel slats down on the border, he said. But I dont see anything resembling a national emergency situation. Of course, there is a real crisis at the borderand the media knows it. Women and children suffer deprivation, exposure, and the constant threat of violence and sexual assault while attempting to cross the border illegally; drug cartels exploit our overstretched border security resources and bring crime to our communities; and American families are robbed of their loved ones by illegal aliens who should never have been allowed in the country. Denying that this problem exists only enables this humanitarian tragedy to continue. 2. Trump Used Border Patrol Agents as Props Another popular argument made by the talking heads in the media is that Trump is using some Border Patrol agents as political props to advocate for the wall. Indeed, the president recently held a White House press conference with several Border Patrol officials, but he only did so because he thought it was important for them to tell the American people what they had just said in a private meeting. The president also gave a television interview in Texas surrounded by about a dozen immigration agents in uniform, but then, the whole reason he was there was to solicit their input. Nonetheless, these moves did not sit well with many members of the press. Vox, for instance, slammed Trump, publishing an article headlined Trump uses Border Patrol agents as props during Fox News interview. If the mainstream media and biased press truly cared about the Border Patrol, they would acknowledge the fact that the agency overwhelmingly supports Trumps effort to build a physical barrier on the border. A 2018 survey, for instance, found that 89 percent of agents believe that a wall system in strategic locations is necessary to securing the border. Border Patrol officials are not propsthey are genuine supporters of Trumps proposal because they know firsthand what it truly takes to achieve border security. If they gave officials on the border air time to express their support for a border wall, the president wouldnt have to. 3. Trump Is Responsible for Keeping the Government Closed When Trump said that the government remains closed because the Democrats refuse to compromise on border security, the press quickly noted that the president had previously agreed to take responsibility for the shutdown. While Trump did vow to shut down the government if the Democrats failed to fund the border wall, he also welcomed productive negotiations, repeatedly urging his counterparts to solve the budget impasse. Despite their repeated claims to be in favor of border security, however, Democrat leaders have refused to meet the president in the middle. They simply refuse to negotiate or compromise whatsoever. 4. The President Lies to the American People The most preposterous lie of all came in the form of fact checks that slammed Trump for telling falsehoods during his Oval Office address on border security. Multiple news networks and publications, including The New York Times and CNN, accused Trump of lying to the American people, but their fact checks contained little substantive criticism of the presidents speech, and a great deal of opinionated semantics. The Times, for example, somehow managed to fact-check the Presidents prediction that the wall will be indirectly paid for by Mexico, arguing that the statement was false even though it addressed what will happen in the future. CNN, meanwhile, reluctantly agreed with the presidents statistic that one-in-three illegal immigrant women are subjected to sexual assault, but felt compelled to point out that the figure doubles when you include violence of all varieties. The fake news media loves to lie about Trump and his policiesand their outrageous coverage of the border security crisis proves that they have no interest in being factual, objective, or unbiased. Charlie Kirk is the founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, an advocacy group for young conservatives. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Children playing in a pond in Warawa Local Government Area of Kano State, Nigeria, on Nov. 11, 2016. (Toluwani Eniola/Special to The Epoch Times) Fate of 10 Million Children Uncertain as Nigerias Religious Leaders Clash Over Education Initiative LAGOS, NigeriaSix-year-old Mohammed from Kano State, Nigeria, has never been able to have a normal childhood. While his peers enjoy a more regular upbringing, Mohammed earns his living by begging on the streets, having lost both his parents at a tender age. But Mohammed began going to school for the first time on Jan. 8 this year, thanks to the intervention of a non-governmental organization that rescues out-of-school children and places them in formal educational institutions. He is among the lucky few to benefit from this approach; however, the initiative has faced opposition from Islamic leaders. The Almajiri Problem There are over 3 million out-of-school children in the state, according to Kano State Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje. These children, aged 4 to 18, are called Almajiris. They swarm the cities of northern Nigeria with hands outstretched holding bowls, chanting pleas for alms at passersby. In Nigeria as a whole, there are estimated to be 10 million such children. Almajiri is a derivation of the Arabic word Al-Mahaajirun, which refers to those who have left their homes to learn about Islam. In Nigeria, the term applies to children training to become Islamic scholars. In recent times, it has come to be used for children begging on the street, who are prone to recruitment by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram and others to perpetrate crimes. The Almajiris are supposed to be receiving Islamic education from teachers who often lack the necessary financial and moral support, and hence send these children onto the street to solicit alms, Ibrahim Garba, who adopted Mohammed under the Friends of the Community Initiative (FOCO), told The Epoch Times. FOCO is a community intervention program that aims to rescue orphaned and vulnerable children in Nigeria. But FOCO, which is sponsored by Nigerian Catholic bishop Rev. Matthew Kukah, has been met with stiff opposition from Islamic leaders in the country. Worried by the social and economic impacts of the Almajiri problem, the Kukah Center, a policy research center founded by Kukah, recently announced plans to train the 10 million Almajiris in vocational skills in order to transform their lives. Kukah believes many of the problems in society will be reduced when these children are empowered and gainfully employed. However, a prominent Islamic group, Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), attacked the initiative on the grounds that it is a plan to convert the children to Christianity. In a statement that has stirred raging debate, MURICs director Ishaq Akintola said, We cannot pretend to be so naive as to entrust our Muslim children to the hands of Christian godspellers [sic]. As far as we are concerned, Kukahs Almajiri dream is a Trojan horse. Other Islamic groups, such as Jamaatu Nasril Islam (JNI), the umbrella body of Muslim organizations in Nigeria, have backed MURIC on the issue. Aisha Usman, the Kaduna State Coordinator of JNIs womens wing, told The Epoch Times that, although she intimately understands the costs of child begging and destitution, Kukahs initiative is unacceptable. Usman claims Kukahs approach would cause another religious crisis in the country. Kaduna, her home state, has witnessed many conflicts between Christians and Muslims, which have polarized the population and ended in high death tolls. In Kaduna, Christians and Muslims rarely live together because of this history. If [Kukah] is really worried about the Almajiri issue, like most of us, he can make contributions by giving advice. We want to see his contributions to the orphans and vulnerable children who are Christians. We say no to Father Kukahs Almajiri project, Usman said. Burden of Almajiri Children Despite the opposition, initiatives like Kukahs are urgently needed in northern Nigeria, which has lagged behind in literacy rate compared to the south, despite getting requisite funding. The most recent data on literacy published by the National Bureau of Statistics shows that the huge gap in educational development between southern and northern Nigeria has not improved 59 years after independence from British rule. Many factors are fueling the rise in numbers of Almajiri children, such as the Boko Haram crisis, herdsmen killings, disease, natural disasters, domestic violence, and rising poverty. These problems have torn families apart and increased the number of orphans and vulnerable children in Nigeria, estimated to be 17.5 million. Hakeem Hassan, 7, is one of these depressing statistics. He took to the streets when his family could not afford to feed him. His experience symbolizes the child labor Almajiris are subject to in order to survive. I met Hassan on the streets. He dropped out of school because his parents could not afford his school fees. Last year, Hassan was spotted on the street working as a cobbler, said Garba, who is also the project manager of the NGO Transparency and Development Information Initiative. Garba is worried that the opposition to the Kukah initiative will adversely affect children like Hassan, who are determined to succeed in life. He urges religious leaders to stop bickering about the issue but look at it holistically. For him, adoption of Almajiris by some Catholic groups is not new in the region and has lessened the Almajiris burden. He cited the cases of some Almajiris adopted by Catholic mission groups in northern Nigeria who have not had to change their religion in the process. I am a Muslim, but I condemn in strong terms MURICs statement to stop a gesture that can change the future of these children. It is unfortunate that people who dont have solutions to these problems are busy trying to stop others who have good intentions, Garba said. Our governments do not have genuine plans for these children and it is annoying that some groups would rather oppose Kukahs initiative than proffer a solution to the Almajiri problem. We should never allow religion to hold us backward. The cost of not helping these children will be huge in the future. In his statement, MURICs Akintola said there are existing Muslim NGOs that could deal with the problem and called on Kukah to join with them instead of implementing his own initiative. He also appealed to foreign donors to fund Muslim NGOs instead of Christian organizations, claiming a bias in funding. Members of the wealthy Sackler family behind Purdue Pharma LP personally pushed the company to boost sales of OxyContin and other opioid products even as questions emerged about the extent its painkillers were being abused, Massachusetts attorney general alleged Jan. 15. Attorney General Maura Healey filed an amended lawsuit against Purdue and current and former officers and directors of the drugmaker that drew on internal records to reveal new details about familys involvement in the company. Her lawsuit, originally filed in June in Suffolk County Superior Court, was the first by a state attorney general to try to hold members of the Sackler family, who own privately-held Purdue, personally responsible for contributing to the U.S. opioid epidemic. Purdue in a Jan. 15 statement said Healeys lawsuit distorts critical facts and is littered with biased and inaccurate characterizations of these documents and individual defendants. The allegations were made public despite Purdues legal efforts to keep much of the 279-page complaint redacted, though parts remains sealed. Healeys lawsuit alleges Purdue for years deceived doctors and patients by misrepresenting the risks of addiction and death associated with the prolonged use of its prescription opioids. The complaint cites years of internal records to argue that members of the Sackler family including Richard Sackler, its former chief executive and chairman, personally directed the marketing in order to make billions of dollars. They did so despite growing evidence of the dangers opioids posed, the lawsuit said. In a 2001 email, Richard Sackler argued Purdue needed to shift responsibility away from the company and hammer on the abusers in every way possible, the complaint said. The lawsuit alleges the push to boost sales came even after Purdues staff showed him and other family members on the companys board a map correlating suspected illegal prescribers and reports of opioid poisonings in 2011. Hundreds of lawsuits have accused Purdue and other companies like Endo International Plc and Johnson & Johnson of deceptively promoting the benefits of using opioids to treat chronic pain while downplaying the risk of addiction. At least 1,549 lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors are pending in federal court. Many other cases by state attorneys general are pending in states courts. At least 37 states have sued Purdue. In 2007, Purdue and three executives pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the misbranding of OxyContin and agreed to pay a total of $634.5 million in penalties. Reporting by Nate Raymond. Ex-prosecutor to Lead Health Care Firms Rape Investigation PHOENIXA former top prosecutor in Phoenix was hired on Jan. 14 by a health care facility to investigate the circumstances into how a patient in a vegetative state gave birth after she was sexually assaulted. Police are conducting a separate criminal investigation. Former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley said Monday that his review for Hacienda HealthCare will focus on patient-security procedures and management practices to ensure patients dont suffer harm in the future. They gave me assurances that they wanted to not just find out what happened, but they (also) wanted to correct the situation, he said. The 29-year-old victim has been in Haciendas care since she became incapacitated at age 3 after suffering a near-drowning. She gave birth Dec. 29. The child will be taken in by the mothers family. The sexual assault has triggered not only a police investigation but reviews by state regulatory agencies. Hacienda CEO Bill Timmons resigned a week ago after news surfaced of the sexual assault. A nurse who cared for the victim during her delivery said in a 911 call that she was unaware that the patient was pregnant. Investigators are gathering DNA from all men who worked at the facility. A lawyer representing the victims family has said the family was outraged at the neglect of their daughter. Unlike police, Romley will not have subpoena power to force employees to give DNA samples. Still, he said he would encourage any employee to cooperate with investigators. Romley said he made it clear to Haciendas board that he will not bury any wrongdoing he may uncover. I call it as I see it, and if not, I walk away, Romley said. Romley said his review will include examining how visitors enter Haciendas buildings, whether doors are locked, reviewing safety audits and complaints, and trying to speak with the chief executive who recently quit. The former prosecutor also said he will ask doctors who cared for the victim why they didnt know sooner that she was pregnant. Romley is known for leading a team of prosecutors who pressed cases against Catholic priests in a sex abuse scandal about 15 years ago. The Hacienda facility serves infants, children and young adults who are medically fragile or have developmental disabilities, according to its website. Voters exit after casting their ballots at a polling station setup in the Fire Department in Gallant, Alabama, on Dec. 12, 2017. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Election Watchdog Warns Against Empowering FEC in Calls for Alabama False-Flag Probe An election-integrity watchdog is skeptical of an aggressive push for the Federal Elections Commission to investigate an alleged false-flag disinformation campaign during a 2017 special U.S. Senate election in Alabama. While the campaign was allegedly perpetrated by Democratic Party operatives and funded by party mega-donors, the center-right Public Interest Legal Foundation is wary of emboldening federal authorities at the FEC, even though the secret social-media operation resembled the Russian meddling attack during the 2016 presidential election. Lets call this what it isan influence operation, said Logan Churchwell, spokesman for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, in an interview. But we shouldnt fight fire with fire, to ban fire. In other words, Be careful about giving the FEC too much power, Churchwell said, warning about the potential for the Alabama false-flag eventwhere fake evidence was created to sway the electionto boomerang into regulating political speech. The New York Times reported in December that the secret Alabama operation was funded in part by Democratic billionaire and Linkedin co-founder Reid Hoffman. The project directed thousands of Twitter accounts designed to appear like Russian bots to follow Moore. A Facebook page then falsely portrayed Moores social-media efforts as being amplified by a network of Russian bots. On Jan. 7, The New York Times reported on a second false-flag campaign that falsely promoted a non-existent Republican initiative to ban alcohol in the state. Doug Jones, a Democrat, won the U.S. Senate seat in the deeply conservative stronghold of Alabama by just 1.5 percent, or 20,715 votes. Jones has denied any involvement or foreknowledge of the alleged social-media attack against his Republican opponent, Roy Moore. In a letter dated Jan. 9, Jones asked FEC investigators to examine efforts to disseminate misinformation in the 2017 race to replace former Sen. Jeff Sessions, a Republican, after he was appointed U.S. Attorney General. It is imperative to send a clear message that these disinformation tactics will not be tolerated and will be punished to the fullest extent of the law, he wrote. A thorough investigation, however, could further implicate activist donors at the highest reaches of the Democratic Party. The Democracy Integrity Project The day after Joness FEC request, it was revealed that the Democracy Integrity Project, a nonprofit with funding ties to activist billionaire George Soros, was working with the technology firm New Knowledge in advance of the November midterm elections. New Knowledge is the tech company implicated in the Alabama false-flag operation. Moreover, the Democracy Integrity Project was founded by Daniel Jones (no relation to Sen. Doug Jones), a former U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee staffer for committee member Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.). According to Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller, the Democracy Integrity Project and New Knowledge partnered in using a dashboard website called Disinfo2018.com. The site purportedly tracked foreign social-media disinformation networks during the 2018 midterm campaign. Disinfo2018.com operates similarly to Hamilton 68, another disinformation tracking site launched in part by Weekly Standard founder and staunch Trump critic Bill Kristol. Jonathon Morgan, the founder of New Knowledge and a former State Department adviser, helped create Hamilton 68. Morgan said the Alabama project was only an experiment that had no effect on the special election. As previously reported by The Epoch Times, wealthy donors from California and New York, including Soros, have paid $50 million to Daniel Joness organization to conduct a private, parallel investigation into President Donald Trumps alleged collusion with Russia during his 2016 presidential campaign. In March 2017, the project hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS and former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who produced the infamous Steele dossier used to obtain a secret FISA warrant to surveil the Trump campaign and White House transition figures. Steele compiled the anti-Trump dossier for Fusion GPS, after the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid Fusion GPS through the Democratic Partys international law firm, Perkins Coie. Firm partner Marc Elias, also the Clinton campaigns general counsel, then shared the dossier with the FBI. An April 2017 House Intelligence Committee report concluded that there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. However, the special counsel investigation into Russian election meddling and alleged Trump campaign collusion continues. Project Birmingham According to The Washington Post, a document was circulated among Democratic operatives during a secret meeting held in Washington, in September 2017, just weeks before the Alabama special election. The operatives were attempting to identify ways to shift support away from Moore, and over to Jones. Arguably the most controversial tactic thats in the document speaks about creating fake evidencewhat they call a false flagthat Russian bots were supporting Roy Moore, Washington Post reporter Craig Timberg said in a National Public Radio interview. Tweets with Russian language Cyrillic characters were created and amplified shortly thereafter, with news organizations subsequently reporting that Moore was being supported by Russian efforts. Hoffman supplied about $100,000 for the Project Birmingham operation, which is roughly equivalent to the Russian disinformation Facebook posts in 2016. Hoffman has since apologized and denied any knowledge of wrongdoing. I categorically disavow the use of misinformation to sway an election, Hoffman said. I would not have knowingly funded a project planning to use such tactics, and would have refused to invest in any organization that I knew might conduct such a project. Mikey Dickerson is another identified key actor in the Alabama false flag. Dickerson is a Democratic operative known for fixing the Affordable Care Acts calamitous health insurance website. He also denies knowledge of any wrongdoing. The Alabama attorney general also has called on federal authorities to investigate. The Attorney Generals Office has evaluated reports of possible deception in the Alabama U.S. Senate race and has determined the matter to be under the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Federal Election Commission, a spokesman for the attorney generals office said Jan. 8. Accordingly, the Attorney General has requested that FEC officials investigate the matter to determine if any federal laws were violated. President Donald Trump speaks to media before departing the White House en route to the U.S.-Mexico border in McAllen, Texas, on Jan. 10, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times) Democrats Refuse to Meet With President Trump, Boycott Lunch Democrat leaders refused to participate in a working lunch with President Donald Trump on Jan. 15, instead boycotting the meeting amid the ongoing partial government shutdown. Democrats summarily rejected invitations for the lunch, the White House said. The president still held the lunch, meeting with nine House Republicans: Reps. Susan Brooks (Ind.), Rodney Davis (Ill.), Doug Collins (Ga.), John Katko (N.Y.), Brad Wenstrup (Ohio), Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio), Jodey Arrington (Texas), Van Taylor (Texas), and Clay Higgins (La.). Trump and Democrat leaders are at an impasse over funding for the southern border wall, one of Trumps main campaign promises. The president wants $5.7 billion for the wall included in appropriations to fund the government, but Democrat leader and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she would only give him $1. As Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi refuse to negotiate, President Donald J. Trump and his team are working hard to find solutions to solve the humanitarian and national security crisis at the border and reopen the government. The President has a proposal on the table that includes additional technology at ports of entry, allows minors from Central America to seek asylum in their home country, and physical barriers between ports of entry made of steel instead of concrete, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement sent to media outlets. Today, the President offered both Democrats and Republicans the chance to meet for lunch at the White House. Unfortunately, no Democrats will attend. The President looks forward to having a working lunch with House Republicans to solve the border crisis and reopen the government. Its time for the Democrats to come to the table and make a deal. The White House later named five Democrats who received invitations: Reps. Lou Correa (D-Calif.), Charlie Crist (R-Fla.), David Scott (D-Ga.), Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), and Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.). Several of them said they received the invitations but declined to attend; Murphy cited a scheduling conflict. WH sends over names of FIVE Democrats who rejected Trump lunch meeting today: LOU CORREA CHARLIE CRIST DAVID SCOTT STEPHANIE MURPHY ABIGAIL SPANBERGER https://t.co/I6dUetR0kI Scott Wong (@scottwongDC) January 15, 2019 I have attended meetings with the president at the White House before, but a scheduling conflict prevented me from accepting this invitation. However, I continue to believe the Senate should pass and the President should sign the bills reopening government that the House already passed, Murphy said in a statement, adding that shed prefer the government re-open. Correas office told The Hill that Correa wouldnt talk to Trump unless the government was open. The congressman is declining the invitation, said Correa spokesman Andrew Scibetta. Congressman Correa welcomes the opportunity to talk with the president about border security, as soon as the government is reopened. A Democratic aide said that Pelosi left it up to rank-and-file members to decide whether to attend the meeting. During a closed-door meeting on Monday night, she told other Democrat leaders that members should go and see what weve been dealing with. And theyll want to make a citizens arrest, she said, the aide told ABC. While some outlets portray the shutdown as all-consuming, it affects about 25 percent of the government and 15 percent of the workforce, or around 800,000 workers. Lawmakers from both parties passed legislation that would fund back pay for the current shutdown and future shutdowns. Trump was expected to sign the legislation. From NTD News The U.S. flag flies over Chinese shipping containers that were unloaded at the Port of Long Beach, in Los Angeles County, U.S. on Sept. 29, 2018. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images) China Warns State Firms to Avoid Travel to US Amid Diplomatic Row Over Huawei Arrest BEIJINGChina has asked some of the countrys state-run companies to avoid business trips to the United States and its allies, Bloomberg reported Jan. 15. The State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), which oversees about 100 government-run companies, has told some firms in recent weeks to only take secure, company-issued laptops meant for overseas use if traveling is necessary, according to the report, citing people familiar with the request. The news comes amid growing strain between China and the United States after the recent arrest of Meng Wanzhou, a top executive at Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, in Canada at the request of U.S. authorities. The detention has raised concerns over a potential backlash on U.S. firms operating in China, amid a trade war between the two countries. Chinas travel advice also included warning on traveling to the other countries in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing pactCanada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, Bloomberg said. SASAC did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. The Chinese regime also has targeted Canada since the arrest of Meng, the chief financial officer and heiress of Huawei. U.S. prosecutors have accused Meng of misleading banks about transactions linked to Iran, putting the banks at risk of violating U.S. sanctions. Since the arrest, China has warned of unspecified consequences unless Meng was released, and has detained Michael Kovrig, a Canadian diplomat on unpaid leave from the embassy in Beijing, and Michael Spavor, a Canadian consultant, on suspicion of endangering state security. Then on Jan. 14, the Dalian City Intermediate Peoples Court sentenced Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian citizen, to death, on charges of smuggling 220 kilograms (485 pounds) of methamphetamine from China to Australia in 2014. Donald Clarke, a law professor at George Washington University who writes about Chinese law, said Schellenbergs case may be connected to Chinas efforts to get Meng released before her extradition to the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Beijing of choosing to arbitrarily apply the death sentence. Western diplomats say the cases are a tit-for-tat reprisal. While Beijing has denied any link between the detentions and Mengs case, the message is clear: They are hostages that the Chinese regime wants to use to secure the Huawei executives release. Clarke published an article in the Washington Post back in December, saying that the Chinese regime sees the Canadians as hostages. China is taking innocent people as hostages to pressure Canada not to extradite Meng Wanzhou, Clarke wrote. On Jan. 14, Canadas foreign ministry updated its travel advisory for China to warn citizens about the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws. On Jan. 3, the U.S. State Department renewed its warning for U.S. citizens traveling in China to exercise increased caution due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws amid heightened diplomatic tensions over the arrest of Meng. The travel advisory also warned about extra security checks and increased police presence in the Xinjiang and Tibet regions. Chinas foreign ministry has issued its own travel warning for Canada, citing the arbitrary detention of a Chinese national in Canada. The Epoch Times contributed to this report. This Page Is Under Construction - Coming Soon! Why am I seeing this 'Under Construction' page? Chinese Premier Li Keqiang attends the Third "1+6" Roundtable Dialogue at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China on Nov. 6, 2018. (Andrea Verdelli/Getty Images) China Must Live Through Times of Austerity, Chinese Premier Says Regime leaders speak of lean times; analysts see an economy heading south News Analysis Chinese Premier Li Keqiang recently said that times of austerity are ahead for the country. His warning follows a similar one by the regimes finance minister, and analysts say that such talk of belt-tightening is a sign that Chinas economy is getting worse. According to the official website of the State Council of China, Li chaired a State Council executive meeting on Jan. 9. During the meeting, decisions were made to roll out inclusive tax-reduction measures for small and micro enterprises. Reducing so much tax every year will naturally bring pressure to our fiscal revenues, Li said at the meeting. All levels of government bodies and departments should make resolute cuts to their regular expenditures, with a firm and clear realization that we are living through times of austerity. Small and micro enterprises are the main entities that create employment opportunities. The main purpose in reducing their taxes is to support employment. At a time when the pressure of economic downturn is mounting, this measure can play a critical role in stabilizing the employment situation. Minister of Finance Liu Kun said, during a national financial meeting in Beijing on Dec. 27 to 28, that in the complicated international environment, in order to maintain stability, the state was going to cut taxes, fees, and regular expenditures, and should be prepared to live through times of austerity. In China, small-, micro-, and medium-sized enterprises amount to 99 percent of all enterprises in terms of numbers; most of themaround 70 millionare privately owned. They contribute more than 60 percent to Chinas GDP, compared to state-owned enterprises which are mostly large-scale businesses. Ninety-eight state-owned firms contribute about 32 percent of GDP. That Chinas top leaders have stressed living through times of austerity in comments indicates that Chinas economy is having a very difficult time, Chinese commentator Shi Shi said. Xiang Songzuo, the former chief economist at the Agricultural Bank of China, former deputy director at the Peoples Bank of China, and deputy director and senior fellow of the Center for International Monetary Research at Chinas Renmin University, said in an internal speech in December that, according to an important research institute, Chinas GDP growth was as low as 1.67 percent. Using another system of measurement, the GDP growth was negative. The official GDP growth figure was 6.5 percent, the lowest in more than a decade. Xiang believes that the cause of the economic downturn is that privately owned businesses in China were heavily impacted in 2018, and the SinoU.S. trade war played a big role. Shi said the Chinese state is having to cut taxes now to prevent further deterioration of the economy, as well as to sustain the job market to avoid social unrest. Small and medium enterprises employ about 80 percent of the work population. If these workers were to lose their jobs, it would be a heavy blow for the regime. State-owned enterprises employ just about 1.6 percent of the workforce. On Oct. 22, the Chinese news website Net Ease published a report titled In the First Half of This Year, 5.04 Million Enterprises Go Bankrupt, Over 2 Million People Lose Their Jobs. The report was deleted shortly afterward. In September 2018, an article in Sina Finance said that every year, there are about 1 million enterprises in China going into bankruptcy. In other words, every minute, there are two businesses shutting down. Among the millions of small and medium enterprises, less than 7 percent survive for more than 5 years; and less than 2 percent survive for more than 10 years. Put another way, 98 percent of small and medium enterprises in China will eventually die out. Chinas stock markets tumbled Jan. 14 after import and export figures for December were announced. According to the General Administration of Customs of China, Chinas imports in December fell 7.6 percent; a 4.5 percent increase had been expected. Overall exports fell 4.4 percent from a year earlier, the biggest monthly drop in two years. Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg appears in court for a retrial of his drug smuggling case in Dalian, Liaoning province, China, on Jan. 14, 2019. (Handout via REUTERS) China Blasts Canadian PMs Remarks About Death Sentence of Canadian BEIJINGChina denounced Canada on Jan. 15 for irresponsible remarks after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused it of arbitrarily sentencing a Canadian to death for drug smuggling, aggravating already icy relations. Canada updated its travel advisory on China on Jan. 14, saying Canadians should exercise a high degree of caution due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws. The two countries have been at odds since early December, when Canadian police arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, on a U.S. extradition request as part of an investigation into suspected violations of U.S. trade sanctions. Days later, China detained two Canadians on suspicion of endangering state securityformer diplomat Michael Kovrig and business consultant Michael Spavor. The death sentence for Canadian Robert Schellenberg on Jan. 14 for smuggling 489 pounds of methamphetamines has become the latest strain on ties. China has not linked any of the three Canadians cases to Mengs arrest but has warned of severe consequences if she was not immediately released. Trudeau said it should be of extreme concern to Canadas friends and allies, as it was to Canadas government, that China had chosen to arbitrarily apply the death penalty. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, speaking at a regular news briefing, expressed strong dissatisfaction with the comments. The remarks by the relevant Canadian person lack the most basic awareness of the legal system, Hua said. Taking Canada to task for issuing an updated travel advisory warning its citizens about the risk of arbitrary enforcement of laws in China, Hua said that Canada should instead remind its people to not engage in drug smuggling there. We urge the Canadian side to respect the rule of law, respect Chinas legal sovereignty, correct its mistakes, and stop making irresponsible remarks, Hua said. Hours later, the ministry issued its own travel warning. Citing the arbitrary detention of a Chinese national in Canada at the request of a third-party country, it urged its citizens to fully evaluate risks and exercise caution when traveling there. No New Evidence Schellenberg had appealed against an original 15-year prison sentence issued in November, but the Dalian Intermediate Peoples Court in Liaoning province sided with prosecutors at the retrial that the punishment was too light. A lawyer for Schellenberg, Zhang Dongshuo, said his client would appeal. Zhang said there was insufficient evidence to prove Schellenberg was part of a drug syndicate, or that he was involved in the smuggling of methamphetamines. Even if the court accepted all the charges, it should not have increased his sentence, given that facts the prosecution presented as new evidence had already been heard in court, Zhang told Reuters. Chinese law stipulates that during an appeal, only if new evidence is discovered and retried can there be an increase in the severity of a sentence, Zhang said. Schellenberg was arrested in 2014. State media has played up coverage of his case following the deterioration in relations with Canada. The court invited media to cover the retrial, and state television aired a five-minute segment on the proceedings. Drug smuggling is routinely punished severely in China, and foreigners convicted of drug crimes have been executed before, including a Briton in 2009. Schellenberg had faced a number of charges in Canada related to drug possession and drug trafficking, according to Canadian court records. But international rights groups condemned Schellenbergs sentence, with some saying it was too severe and may have been politically motivated. China is going to face lots of questions about why this particular person, of this particular nationality, had to be retried at this particular time, Human Rights Watchs Washington-based China director Sophie Richardson told Reuters. Gavin Newsom attends 'Families Belong Together - Freedom for Immigrants March Los Angeles' at Los Angeles City Hall in Los Angeles on June 30, 2018. (Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Families Belong Together LA) California Gov. Newsoms State Budget Revives Possible Water Tax Part of Governor Newsoms new state budget proposes a special fund to deal with unsafe drinking water in California, and it could signal the return of a water tax that has failed to pass the State Legislature multiple times over the years. The proposal, named the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, aims to pay for the short-term and long-term costs of obtaining clean drinking water for disadvantaged communities with money from new water, fertilizer and dairy fees, according to the budget revealed on Jan. 10. The budget states that many local water systems have failed to deliver safe drinking water, due to the lack of funding for long-term maintenance and operations. Though details about the fund have not been released, its structure echoes previous water tax bills that planned to collect fees from drinking water, fertilizer manufacturers and dairy producers. Almost immediately, the proposal raises concerns over its necessity, as California is projected to have a $21.4 billion surplus, according to Newsom. The Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA), which has more than 430 public agency members representing 90% of the states water supply, issued a statement shortly after the budgets debut to advise the governor not to impose the new tax. ACWA believes that making access to safe drinking water for all Californians should be a top priority for the State. However, a statewide water tax is highly problematic and is not necessary when alternative funding solutions exist and the state has a huge budget surplus, said Cindy Tuck, Deputy Executive Director for Government Relations with ACWA. ACWA wants to work with Gov. Newsom, his administration, the Legislature and other stakeholders on a funding solution that does not impose a statewide water tax, she added. In one of his first official acts @GavinNewsom wants to TAX YOUR WATER. There is no limit to what @TheDemocrats will tax or excuses they'll make to TAKE YOUR MONEY. It's time Republicans start fighting and TAKE BACK CALIFORNIA!! https://t.co/mCQOYPIH3t Travis Allen (@JoinTravisAllen) January 11, 2019 Travis Allen, a Republican candidate for Governor of California in the 2018 election, also opposed the proposal. In one of his first official acts @Gavin Newsom wants to TAX YOUR WATER. There is no limit to what The Democrats will tax or excuses theyll make to TAKE YOUR MONEY. Its time Republicans start fighting and TAKE BACK CALIFORNIA, Allen wrote in a Twitter post last week. Gov. Newsoms proposal symbolizes the state governments latest effort to create a drinking water tax, which has been welcomed by some Democratic lawmakers and other advocates. The day after proposing the new water tax, Newsom brought his cabinet to the Central Valley, where he said residents are suffering from a lack of access to affordable and clean water. Took my Cabinet on a surprise trip to the Central Valley to hear directly from folks who lack access to affordable, clean water. Our first stop: we met with residents who cannot drink or bathe with the water in their homes while paying more for it than those in Beverly Hills. pic.twitter.com/b25vueQf4B Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) January 11, 2019 Over the past two years, at least three bills proposing to impose taxes on drinking water died in the State Legislature. Senate Bill 845, during 2017-18 legislative session, required that starting from July 1, 2019, a voluntary drinking water tax would be automatically added onto California ratepayers bills. Customers would have needed to opt out via their community water system in order to avoid the tax, which was expected to cost 95 cents monthly for most customers. Senate Bill 844, from the 2017-18 legislative session, proposed a mandatory fee on dairy producers starting 2021 and fertilizer manufacturers starting 2019. These two industries have been largely blamed for nitrate-related water pollution. Senate Bill 623, from the 2017-18 legislative session, basically shared the same content as SB 845 and 844, but without the voluntary option. California Election Watchdog Celebrates Lawsuit Victory, Plans Deep Audit As many as 1.5 million inactive registered names on the voter rolls in Los Angeles County alone are being contacted for potential removal, after the recently-announced settlement of a lawsuit against the state of California and Los Angeles County initiated by Election Integrity Project California (EIPCa) and Judicial Watch. Inactive voters who have not voted in two general federal elections will receive a postcard in the mail, and if the postcard is not returned, those names will be removed from the voter registration list. The entire process of cleaning the voter rolls of deceased and other ineligible voters will take up to eight years, according to Linda Paine, president of EIPCa. EIPCa held a special meeting with local supporters in Pasadena, California on Jan. 12 to celebrate the settlement, which they consider a colossal win. Finally!! California Agrees to Begin Cleanup of its Voter List! LA County to Remove 1.5 Million Inactive Registrants EIPCa Press Releasehttps://t.co/RHDQQrrt4m Stay in Touch!https://t.co/Ho7HGkAeAW EIPCa (@EIP_CA) January 10, 2019 This is powerful. This is historic. This has never happened in the state before, where a citizen group documented, researched, and sued the state of California and the LA County Registrar to ensure that they become compliant with federal law, so this is huge, said Paine at the meeting. In August 2017, EIPCa filed the lawsuit as a primary plaintiff, alleging that the defendants were not following the requirements of Section 8 of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The NVRA requires states to reasonably maintain state and county voter registration rolls. The mandates of this settlement, when performed, will bring California into federal compliance as is required of every other state, according to a press release. The lawsuit found that California has not cleaned up its voter rolls for more than 20 years. A 2018 Supreme Court ruling also confirmed the voter registration cleanups were mandatory under the NVRA. Dean Logan, Los Angeles Countys registrar-recorder and county clerk, responded to the settlement in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times on Jan. 14. Los Angeles County prioritizes the maintenance of voter records and works hard to maintain protections that ensure eligible voters stay on the rolls in compliance with state and federal voter registration laws. In settling this lawsuit, all parties agree that they each had a good faith interpretation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requirements, state law, and federal law regarding voter file maintenance, read the statement. Logan also said the settlement included no admission of wrongdoing, and he claimed that Judicial Watch was inaccurate in alleging Los Angeles County has a registration rate of 112 percent of its adult citizen population. Judicial Watch has stated this information was provided to and published by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. The 2016 National Voter Registration Act report issued by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), reported that California was one of nine states that had more people registered to vote than were eligible, with a 100.1 percent registration rate. Whats Next for the EIPCa The EIPCa has been in operation in different forms since 2010 and has trained a total of 9,000 citizen volunteers to observe Californias voting process, according to Paine. For eight years, the organization has documented and compiled witness statements and election data, as well as identifying any potential problems in the process. All of the data obtained by EIPCa is kept off the internet and on a secure server, so its protected from hackers. Because of the powerful and overwhelming evidence provided by EIPCa, this was an exceptionally strong case, said Paine of the recent lawsuit. As well as continuing to provide independent oversight of election data, Paine said the group is now planning a deep audit of provisional and vote by mail ballots in the 2018 general election. We are very concerned with the tens of thousands and potentially hundreds of thousands of citizens who did not get their vote by mail ballot, said Paine. Paine said some of those voters went to the polls to vote, but they found they were switched to vote by mail without their knowledge or permission. However, they never received ballot in the mail. Others were all set to vote by mail but never received a ballot either. Both groups had to vote with provisional ballots. We have some who tell us that they went to the polls to vote having not received the vote by mail ballot, anticipating voting with a provisional ballot, only to find that the clerk said, But you did turn in your vote by mail ballot. We have it indicated right here that its been processed. Wed like to find out how many vote by mail ballots have a corresponding provisional ballot, said Paine. The group plans to do the audit for every county in California. Our chief analyst told us that LA County had a 400 percent increase in the use of provisional ballots. It created chaos in the polls, and it was a disaster, Paine added. 2-Year-Old Who Died in New Hampshire After Wandering out Into Cold Is Identified A 2-year-old girl was found dead outside her New Hampshire cold as temperatures plummeted this week, according to local reports. All indications are the child left the home on her own in the course of the night without the parents knowing, said Newport Police Chief Jim Burroughs, reported CBS Boston. The girls mother, Courtney VanSchoick, said her name was Sofia, according to the report. Police say the 2-year-old's death appears to be a bad accident." WBZ | CBS Boston 2019114 A neighbor reported hearing what sounded like crying at around 4 a.m. It was eight degrees below zero Fahrenheit in Newport. It wasnt until 7 a.m. that a neighbor found the girl. Usually I take a midnight stroll to go to the store and I felt like I could have done something its just you know weighing on me, neighbor Keith Dee said. NEWPORT, NEW HAMPSHIRE: Sofia Van Schoick was just 2 1/2 y/o. She somehow got out of her house in the middle of the night. A neighbor saw her face down on the ground. Sofia died of hypothermia. pic.twitter.com/xWE8JCqRjQ Malini Basu (@WFXTMalini) January 15, 2019 VanSchoick moved to the home with her twin sons and daughter. A family member said she had spoken with her landlord about changing the locks on the doors, saying they were too easy to open, according to the CBS report. The girls grandfather, Lindsay VanSchoick, said that Courtney had moved in with him over the weekend, NECN reported. He said Sofia wasnt familiar with the home, which might have been why she went down the stairs and got outside. I dont blame her for anything, said neighbor James Dee. It was an accident. Police agreed with that assessment, but are not ruling out possible charges as the investigation unfolds. This is the 2-year-old girl from Newport, New Hampshire, who died after wandering outside in frigid temperatures this morning. Her grandfather sent us these photos. #NBC10Boston #NECN pic.twitter.com/9JKUoxKpqL Mike Manzoni NBC10 Boston (@MikeNBCBoston) January 14, 2019 VanSchoick issued a comment on Facebook. My little angel fly high Mommy loves you and misses you. Thank you for the best 2 and a half years of my life. Mommy loves you so much, she wrote. Police, meanwhile, said her death appears to be a bad accident, NECN reported. Burroughs said its not clear if anyone will faces charges in the death. A preliminary autopsy report showed the child died due to exposure. It was 8 below zero overnight here in Newport at the scene, added Burroughs. The investigation is very much ongoing at this time and cause of death has not been determined. Right now everything appears to be consistent with exposure. Burroughs said its among the most tragic cases he has investigated. You do this job long enough you see a lot of horrible things, Burroughs told CBS Boston. This ranks right up there as one of the worst. BREAKING: 2 yr old girl found dead in #NewportNH police believe she left home early this morning & was unable to get back in. She was discovered in the cold around 7am. #7news Kimberly Bookman (@KimberlyBookman) January 14, 2019 A police investigation is ongoing. A very unfortunate set of circumstances that involves a 2-1/2-year-old young girl who left the residence apparently by her own accord and just wasnt able to regain entry, Burroughs said, NECN reported. Sofia was described to be very precocious, very active and a very happy child, WHDH reported. Flowers left at the bottom of these #NewportNH stairs where a 2 yr old girl was found dead in frigid temps. Her grandfather tells me she was a twin. #7news pic.twitter.com/aPDoJ9HuJx Kimberly Bookman (@KimberlyBookman) January 14, 2019 A small memorial was set up at the scene of the tragedy. Freezing to Death Freezing to death is known as hypothermia, or a preventable lowering of the core body temperature to lower than 95 degrees (normal body temperature is around 98.6 degrees), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hypothermia causes approximately 600 deaths each year in the United States. Exposure to excessive cold (or excessive exposure to cold) slows enzymatic activity throughout the body, leading to potentially fatal rhabdomyolysis, coagulopathy, renal failure, and dysrhythmias. Alcohol intake, activity level, and type of clothing are among the modifiable factors associated with hypothermia, the agency stated. Still, our modern age witnessed two effective physical barriers: The Berlin Wall, a hated symbol of the last stage of the Cold War, and the Israeli wall separating it from Palestinian territories, a symbol of unfulfilled hopes for peace in the Middle East. Both achieved their aims of preventing unwanted ingress and egress. Some say walls are immoral. Others say they are un-American. But according to our president, there have been 4,000 violent killings attributed to illegal aliens in the past two years. Well, last fall a few dozen people hospitalized after eating tainted romaine lettuce caused sensational headlines, national distress, huge increases in iceberg lettuce pricing from $1.89 to $4.99, and super-immediate action by our government. How do we react to 4,000 violent deaths? It is morally imperative and incumbent on this nation to do all it can to prevent the next 4,000 deaths. Lets step back, calm down and take our example from the Romans Danube mixed elements defense systems. Let us take advantage of modern technology of drones, manned and electronically manned watch towers, motion detectors and other spyware, natural barriers and migrant traffic patterns to fashion physical and virtual walls that will protect our great land. Walls work. Real ones. Virtual ones. Porter said the Manufacturer Executive Summit is an example of the commission's efforts to reach out to industry members for input on issues or challenges they face, and how TABC can help. "When it comes to the experts of the industry, there's no one better to tell you about those things than industry members themselves," Porter said. "We obviously regulate from Austin, but we also try to make sure we have as much face time as we can with the people we regulate in the industry, and even just retail workers. Hearing from those folks, what their concerns are and how we can help them to continue to be successful, it's a very good thing." The Brazos Valley Area Agency on Aging announced that the deadline to file for elections in the 18th Texas Silver-Haired Legislature is Feb. 28. The organization will seat five representatives from the Brazos Valley for its upcoming session. The Texas Silver-Haired Legislature (TSHL) is a nonpartisan body of citizens from 27 subregions in the state that meets every two years to identify problems of, and offer solutions for, older Texans. The TSHL body then presents those proposed solutions to the governor and the state Legislature. The TSHL meets in Texas Legislature off years. Any Brazos Valley registered voter at least 60 years old may file to become a candidate. Ronnie Gipson, program manager for the Brazos Valley Area Agency on Aging, said the legislature first convened in 1985. "This is a group of seniors, and advocates for seniors, that get together and gather potential legislation to pitch to the legislature and the governor on different programs and proposals," Gipson said. "Their process runs just like the legislature." If more than five people from the Brazos Valley file candidacies, an election to choose between them would be held on April 26. "We won't hold an election if there is no competition for the region's seats," Gipson said. Melanie joined The Daily Times in the early 90s and has served as the Life section editor since 1993. A William Blount and UT alum, Melanie is generally the early arriver who turns on the lights in the newsroom. Follow Melanie Tucker Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today EARLVILLE - Mary E. Watkins, 90, passed away Monday, June 14, 2021, at her home surrounded by her family. She was born in Davenport, a daughter of Horace and Katherine Olmstead Burns and was a graduate of Davenport High School. On June 29, 1950, Mary married Gerald E. Watkins in Oneonta, and This is the temporary subscription pass for users returning from the Vision Data subscription process. Your subscription will be updated within 24 hours, after your information is verified. Please click the button below to get your pass. Hanover School Division said in a release on Tuesday, shortly before 11 a.m., that a bomb threat received at Clearspring Middle School earlier in the morning has been identified as a prank by RCMP. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Hanover School Division said in a release on Tuesday, shortly before 11 a.m., that a bomb threat received at Clearspring Middle School earlier in the morning has been identified as a prank by RCMP. The division said in the release that a suspect has now been identified. The school was evacuated after a threat was received at approximately 8:30 a.m. in a voice mail received at the school. The message indicated the threat would be carried out at noon. Students were held on school buses until arrangements were made after 10 a.m. for parents to pick up their children at St Paul's Lutheran Church at 465 Henry Street. Police have now said that the school has been deemed safe and clearance has been given for students to return. Students will be transported back to CMS, where school will be in session for the afternoon. The division said parents may bring students back to school if they wish. Update 10:10 a.m.: Adds information about pick up details. Update 11:10 a.m.: Adds details about suspect and information about the resumption of classes. The president also hit out at reports that the FBI had opened an investigation into whether he was following directions from Russia, angrily declaring: "I never worked for Russia." Trump's remarks to a gathering of farmers came as a raft of new polls show most Americans oppose a border wall and blame Trump and his Republican colleagues, rather than Democrats, for the government shutdown. US President Donald Trump talks with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before departing for the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention in New Orleans. Credit:AP New York: President Donald Trump is refusing to budge on his demand for a border wall, saying there is "no substitute" for a physical barricade on the Mexican border as the longest federal government shutdown in US history entered its fourth week. Trump's continued insistence on wall funding suggests the government will not re-open any time soon. He has proved reluctant to declare a national emergency that would allow him to build a wall without congressional approval, saying on Monday local time: "I'm not looking to do that." "We can have all the drones in the world flying around, we can have all the sensors in the world but if you don't have a strong steel or concrete barrier there is no way you are going to stop these people from rushing [in]," Trump said in a speech to the American Farm Bureau Federation. A US Border Patrol agent rides a vehicle on the beach in San Diego. Credit:AP "There is no substitute for a wall or physical barrier. There is no substitute." Trump said he agreed with critics that the idea of a border wall was "medieval" but this did not mean it was a bad idea. Wheels were also a medieval invention but are still used today, he said. Washington: A panel of Republican leaders voted unanimously to keep veteran Iowa lawmaker Steve King off of House committees, a firm rebuke to a influential opponent of illegal immigration. King sparked outrage last week after openly questioning whether the term "white supremacist" was offensive. Representative Steve King of Iowa. Credit:AP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the decision by the Republican Steering Committee, which seats lawmakers on House committees, followed his own recommendation and was meant to send a message about the GOP at large. "That is not the party of Lincoln," he said of King's comments. "It is definitely not American. All people are created equal in America, and we want to take a very strong stance about that." Budapest: An Israeli recovery team will search Hungary's Danube river for remains of Holocaust victims, with Hungarian permission and assistance, so they can be buried in accordance with Jewish rite, a visiting Israeli official said on Monday. According to Israel's Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem, some 565,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust, the majority of them deported to the Auschwitz death camp between May and July 1944. In October of that year, when the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross party took power in Hungary, thousands of Jews from Budapest were murdered on the banks of the Danube, according to Yad Vashem. Arye Deri, Israel's interior minister and an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, said his Hungarian counterpart, Sandor Pinter, had agreed to his request to provide special equipment to forensic experts from the ZAKA, the Israeli volunteer community response team, who travelled with him to Budapest. Beijing: The founder of Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, Ren Zhengfei, has said he puts business first, and would definitely say no to a request from the Chinese government to spy on western customers. He also praised US president Donald Trumps tax cuts for businesses and called Trump a great president. Ren, 74, granted a rare interview with western business media outlets as the geopolitical crisis over Huawei worsened this week. Ren Zhengfei, founder of Huawei Technologies, denies company spies for China. Credit:Bloomberg Canada and China imposed tit-for-tat warnings about tourists travelling to the others country, after a Canadian man was sentenced to death by a Chinese court for drug smuggling. An Australian woman has begged a friend for help after being detained in Thailand for reasons unknown. A week after she was to fly in to Sydney, Claire Johnson messaged a friend saying she was "so scared" and asked her to contact the consulate. Claire Johnson is being held in detention in Thailand. Credit:Facebook Ms Johnson describes herself on social media as founder and managing director of Cosmetic Holidays International, "a medical tourism agency that offers cosmetic packages in Phuket". On Monday night, she got in touch with her friend Juliet Potter via a series of Facebook messages, indicating she was in an immigration detention centre. There are fears for the welfare of a former Canberra public servant imprisoned in Cambodia on drugs charges. Gary Knowles, now 73, was arrested in the south-east Asian country more than a year ago. Now one of his former colleagues, worried about his health given the harsh reputation of Cambodian prisons, has called on the Australian government to intervene. Gary Knowles at his arrest. Cambodian papers said the woman was his girlfriend. Credit:Cambodian police Peter Harris, a former director at the IT group in the Attorney-General's department who was Mr Knowles's boss when the two worked together in Canberra, wants the government to do more for its imprisoned former employee. While Mr Knowles worked for the federal government, he was seconded to the Thai government to install a computer system meant to help disrupt the illicit drugs route to Australia. Her friend Cynthia Kibe stayed in contact with her by phone overnight. "I think I panicked when she told me that the gunshots are next to her," Kibe said. "I had to keep telling her 'Just wait, help is on the way, they are almost there, they are almost there.' And then at one point she was like, 'Please tell me I am getting out of here alive' and then it was just like my breaking point." Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Gunmen blasted their way into a hotel and office complex in Nairobi, sending workers diving under desks and leaving body parts strewn in the street. The attack sent people fleeing in panic as explosions and heavy gunfire reverberated through the complex on Tuesday. A witness said he saw five bodies at the entrance alone. Al-Shabab the Somalia-based Islamic group that carried out the 2013 Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi that left 67 people dead claimed responsibility. The group has asserted that 47 people were killed but it gave no details in a post published by its Shahada news agency. Kenyan authorities have not yet announced the fate of the attackers. At least four were seen on surveillance video storming the hotel on Tuesday afternoon. The ministry simply says the "mopping-up process" continues. The coordinated assault began with an explosion that targeted three vehicles outside a bank, and a suicide bombing in the hotel lobby that severely wounded a number of guests, said Kenya's national police chief, Joseph Boinnet. "It is terrible. What I have seen is terrible," said Charles Njenga, who ran from a scene of blood, broken glass, burning vehicles and pillars of black smoke. "The main door of the hotel was blown open and there was a human arm in the street severed from the shoulder," said Serge Medic, the Swiss owner of a security company who ran to the scene to help when he heard of the attack from his taxi driver. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Survivors reported hearing a shattering blast and saw people mowed down by gunmen as they sat at a cafe. Victims were left lying on tables, bleeding. "We were changing our shifts, and that is when I heard a loud blast and people were screaming," said Enoch Kibet, who works as a cleaner at the cafe and managed to crawl out a basement gate. "I couldn't believe I was alive. The blast was so loud and shook the whole complex." People take cover after an attack on a hotel in Nairobi on Tuesday. Credit:AP Authorities sent special forces into the hotel to flush out the gunmen believed holed up inside. The complex which includes the DusitD2 hotel, along with bars, restaurants, banks and offices is in a well-to-do neighbourhood with large numbers of American, European and Indian expatriates. It is 500 metres from the Australian consulate. Security forces surround a hallway behind a shattered door in which an unexploded grenade lies. Credit:AP In a statement, a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokeswoman said no Australians had been reported injured in the hours following the attack. "The Australian High Commission in Nairobi is making urgent inquiries of local authorities to determine whether any Australians were affected by the attack on the DusitD2 Hotel complex," the spokeswoman said. A police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media said that bodies were seen in restaurants downstairs and in offices upstairs, but "there was no time to count the dead". A man who suffered gun wounds was taken to hospital after the hotel attack. The number of dead and wounded is unclear. Credit:AP Also, a witness who gave his name only as Ken said he saw five bodies at the entrance. He said that other people were shouting for help and "when we rushed back to try to rescue them, gunshots started coming from upstairs, and we had to duck because they were targeting us and we could see two guys shooting". Kenyan hospitals appealed for blood donations even as the number of wounded remained unclear. Associated Press video from inside the hotel showed Kenyan security officers searching the building and scared workers emerging from hiding while gunfire could still be heard. Some women climbed out of windows. One man got up from the floor where he appeared to be trying to hide under a piece of wood panelling, then showed his ID. Civilians flee through a window after an attack at a luxury hotel complex in Nairobi. Credit:AP Like al-Shabab's Westgate Mall attack, this one appeared aimed at wealthy Kenyans and foreigners living in the country. It came a day after a magistrate ruled that three men must stand trial in connection with the Westgate Mall siege. A fourth suspect was freed for lack of evidence. Al-Shabab has vowed retribution against Kenya for sending troops to Somalia since 2011. The al-Qaida-linked group has killed hundreds of people in Kenya. In 2015, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for an attack on Kenya's Garissa University that killed 147 people, mostly students. Tuesday's violence also came three years to the day after al-Shabab extremists attacked a Kenyan military base in Somalia, killing scores of people. A Kenyan intelligence official said the country had been on high alert since November, with information about potential attacks on high-profile targets in Nairobi. The official was not authorised to talk to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity. Pedestrians flee the hotel and office complex as a member of the security forces watches during an attack in the Westlands district. Credit:Bloomberg A scuffle broke out between animal activists and authorities at the scene of a cattle truck crash on Tuesday after several cows had to be euthanised south-east of Melbourne. Video footage has emerged of an arrest in which animal activist Leah Doellinger claims a heavy-handed police officer, pushed her to the ground, handcuffed her and sat on her back. Ms Doellinger said she was filming and trying to comfort a dying cow on the side of the road when she was arrested. A man has been impaled by a large piece of steel while working on a trailer in central Queensland. The man, aged in his 60s, suffered significant internal injuries when the steel struck him in the abdomen on Monday morning about 230 kilometres south of Rockhampton. A man in his 60s was airlifted after he was impaled by a large piece of steel. Credit:RACQ Capricorn Helicopter Rescue Service. The RACQ Capricorn Helicopter Rescue Service's onboard medical crew suspected the man had broken ribs and internal bleeding. The critical care paramedic and doctor treated him on scene before he was airlifted to the Rockhampton Base Hospital in a serious but stable condition. A man has died after his ute veered off the road, hit a tree and rolled in the South Burnett region. The ute left Mundubbera Durong Road in Proston, 135 kilometres west of Gympie, about 12.30pm on Monday and the driver, a 40-year-old South Toowoomba man, died at the scene. The fatal crash on Mundubbera Durong Road, near Boondooma Dam. Credit:RACQ LifeFlight Rescue - Twitter Two male passengers, aged 26 and 50, were flown to Brisbane hospitals by RACQ rescue helicopters. The Forensic Crash Unit was investigating. A man has been charged with assaulting two passengers on Brisbane buses after patrolling police recognised the shirt he was wearing and arrested him. Police released shocking video of a man punching two passengers in the face as he was getting off the bus in what detectives believed were random and unprovoked attacks. CCTV footage of one of the assaults on a Brisbane bus, previously released by detectives. Credit:Queensland Police Service The accused was taken into custody about 2.30pm on Tuesday by officers on Lutwyche Road in Windsor after he was allegedly wearing the same shirt as he was in the CCTV footage of the two attacks. It will be alleged the first assault happened about 7.45pm on December 9, when a 40-year-old man was punched while he was a passenger on a bus that stopped on Maundrell Terrace in Chermside. Paul Murphy, grandson of an Irish immigrant, grew up in humble circumstances, in the backblocks of Milperra, free to go to sites of visiting circuses but unable to get in because he did not have the money. Throughout his life, he never forgot his origins and devoted himself to industrial law and conditions of employment. The bright boy motivated to creating a more equitable society, he became an outstanding labour lawyer, practised in courts and lectured in Australia and internationally. His lifelong friend, Narelle Kennedy, said: Unlike many, Paul lived and acted on his ideals. Without fanfare and not always neatly, Paul worked out what he believed in, what was just and fair, and put in the effort to make it happen - getting more streetwise and skilled as he grew older. Paul Murphy employment law specialist. Credit:SMH Paul Murphy was born on April 4, 1952, one of four sons of a Maritime Services Board employee, Michael Murphy, and Eileen (nee Smith). He grew up in a fibro house his father had built on a block of land bought post-war for 50 pounds on Henry Lawson Drive, then a dirt road. Murphy and his brothers swam in the Georges River. Michael Murphy supplemented the family income by growing flowers and raising chickens. Young Paul weeded the gardens and sold flowers at Bankstown Hospital, but also showed an early absorbing interest in reading. He went to Benilde Senior High School, a De La Salle college, which he considered a great influence on his future career. McDonald's said it plans to appeal after losing some European Union trademark rights to the Big Mac name after a challenge by smaller Irish rival Supermac's. McDonald's says it will appeal the decision. Credit:AP The EU's Intellectual Property Office in a Friday decision said McDonald's failed to prove "genuine use" of the trademark across the EU over a continuous five-year period. The Irish fast-food chain filed its challenge in early 2017, the same year that the Big Mac celebrated its 50th anniversary. The EUIPO, based in Alicante, Spain, agreed with Supermac's that the evidence given by McDonald's was "insufficient to prove that the EUTM was put to genuine use." McDonald's argued that its EU right was put to extensive use in Germany, France and the UK, and that that "is sufficient" to prove its use in the bloc. The ruling can be appealed all the way to the EU's highest court in Luxembourg, and McDonald's plans to fight. A generation of food enthusiasts turned to Emeril Lagasses cookbooks and cooking shows for inspiration and insight. Now the New Orleans-based celebrity chef has started a new venture to consult other food and hospitality businesses. Lagasses company today announced the launch of We Love Food Hospitality. Its aim, spelled out in a release, is to consult with both existing and new concept restaurants on menu development, culinary training and other restaurant operations. At the same time, We Love Food Hospitality unveiled its first project, a collaboration with a New York-based restaurant group on a Greek restaurant called Rodos. The company intends to use the new division as an umbrella for similar future projects around the country. Rodos is owned and operated by Mykonos Blue Group and led by Yiannis Chatiris, who hails from the restaurants namesake island of Rhodes. It opened early in January in the Hotel Henri in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood (37 West 24th St.). The new restaurant serves a mix of traditional Greek flavors and more contemporary dishes. Some examples: tamara, a whipped fish roe dip, finished with Cajun Caviar, a Louisiana product made with roe from local choupique (a.k.a bowfin); octopus beignets; whole roasted artichoke with blue crab vinaigrette; and Miss Hildas pork chop, named for Lagasses late mother and finished with the Portuguese-style sauce molho cru. This collaboration with We Love Food Hospitality was a revamp of Chatiris earlier restaurant at the same hotel, called Mykonos Blue Grill. Chatiris and Lagasse traveled to Greece together and toured the chefs New Orleans restaurants before officially partnering on the Rodos project. Food and restaurant news in your inbox Every Thursday we give you the scoop on NOLA dining. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up I have been operating restaurants for over 30 years now, and its truly my passion and something my team and I take great pride it, Lagasse said in a release. This is about using what weve learned and perfected over the years and sharing our craft in a thoughtful and strategic way to have a positive impact through food and service in established restaurants looking to reach the next level. Other high-profile restaurant groups have developed sidelines in consulting, including Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group and Chicago's Lettuce Entertain You. Lagasses company has 11 restaurants in New Orleans, Las Vegas, Miramar Beach, Florida and at the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. Closer to home, recent moves include opening Meril in the Warehouse District in 2016 and a revamp of NOLA in 2017. President Donald Trump barely had a chance to step off Air Force One before being greeted with a king cake -- it is Carnival time in New Orleans, after all. Trump's arriving gift, before a speech to members of the American Farm Bureau , was brought in hand by Congressman Garret Graves, who confirmed the brand and style on social media: Rouses, cream cheese. Images showed Graves awaiting Trump's arrival, joined by U.S. Rep Steve Scalise, as well as U.S. Senators John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy. Rouses sells 24 flavors of cakes at their Gulf Coast stores, with cream cheese among its top-selling flavors. Trump, who arrived at Louis Armstrong International Airport just before noon, spoke to a crowd inside the the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center while a protest was held outside. A guillotine weaved between a crowd of 400 people marching to the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on Jan. 14 as President Donald Trump was scheduled to address the American Farm Bureau. The guillotines message: Let them eat king cake. Trumps appearance in New Orleans his first as president, following a 2016 campaign rally at the Lakefront Airport comes on the heels of reports that the president could divert funding for flood control projects in Louisiana to pay for his sought-after, multi-billion dollar border wall, a fight at the center of a budget deadlock that led to a federal shutdown, now in its 24th day. Trump repeated calls for a border wall to a crowd inside the Convention Center, where conference attendees gave him a warm reception despite tariffs and the federal shutdown threatening domestic farm business. With Trump threatening to declare a national emergency to secure funding for the wall, labor and immigration advocacy organizers declared a national emergency of their own pointing to the irony of a shutdown over Trumps assertion of a border crisis while potentially taking away funding for Louisianas ability to combat the next disaster. Trump gives Drew Brees shout-out, calls for border wall in New Orleans address First came the hometown shout-outs from President Donald Trump to the exciting New Orleans Saints, to Drew Brees, who is one hell of a qu The protest organized by the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice and Peoples Assembly, among others also combat Trumps rhetoric around the wall, directed at immigrants painted as criminals illegally entering the country. Organizers wore reflective construction vests as a reminder of the Hispanic community that helped rebuild New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and the levee failures, and of the consequences of a poor government response to disasters. Its kind of ridiculous to call whats going on now an emergency, said Santos Alvarado, a day laborer and organizer with the immigration and labor advocacy group Congress of Day Laborers. The true emergencies are here, inside out country. In Puerto Rico, in Houston, in the Carolinas those are emergencies. Many cities in the U.S. are suffering after natural disasters. Thats where the true emergencies are. Originally from Honduras, Alvarado has lived in the U.S. with temporary protected status, or TPS, giving him legal permission to live and work in the country, a status that the Trump administration has attempted to terminate as part of his sweeping anti-immigration policy. Hate, Alvarado added, is the real emergency. Nearby, Santos Canales held a poster with an outline of a border wall depicted as a graveyard, with a message to Trump written in Spanish underneath: your racism is fear of equality. Another posterboard displayed show us your taxes written in beads, adding to a Carnival-esque procession with miniature, bright orange Trump baby balloons bobbing above the crowd, anchored by a golden Napoleonic Trump sitting on an atomic bomb (a piece titled Fat Man and Little Boy) and a Swamp Thing-inspired three-piece sculpture declaring Fuck all borders and The swamp is a sanctuary. Let refugees in. +17 Photos: Protestors gather around the Morial Convention Center as President Trump speaks in New Orleans About 300 protestors marched to the Morial Convention Center as President Donald Trump visited New Orleans to speak at the American Farm Burea The march moved from the foot of Canal Street across from Harrahs Casino, up Canal to Royal Street, turned left on St. Charles Avenue, then turned left on Julia Street toward the Convention Center passing half a dozen large construction projects, from new hotels and condos to street repairs. Construction workers shot thumbs up or whistled in support, or stared at their phone screens as they filmed the march, or leaned against scaffolding and watched. A woman danced in the doorway of Subway to show support and tourists gawked on sidewalks or joined in, clapping as the march passed them by. One construction worker on St. Charles Avenue offered a muted make America great again. Gaynell Dumas, an organizer with New Orleans black labor advocates Stand With Dignity, said she also wants Trumps visit to recognize the dire need for fair wages and housing among lower-income workers in the city. She said his manipulation of the media to depict a border compromised by murderers, rapists and gang members is ludicrous. Its right-out wrong, she said. People coming to the states are seeking asylum. They need help. We have communities of a lot of different races, the culture is beautiful, and we want to keep it that way. Were uniting in solidarity for the benefit of all people. The federal shutdown, nearing a month-long Congressional standstill, has impacted more than 800,000 workers. Workers groups also rallied in solidarity with out-of-work employees, whose paychecks hinge on Trumps passage of a federal budget agreement. A banner leading the march read, "Trump's war on workers is the real emergency." One person (who asked to go by Donald Trump) wore white briefs and a large American flag tie as they winced and stuck their face and blonde mop of a wig through a handheld guillotine a French solution for an American tyrant. Outside the Convention Center entrance, blocked by a fleet of New Orleans Police Department officers, organizers Arthur Clark and Malcolm Suber passed a megaphone to several speakers who voiced their support, from NAACP state president Mike McClanahan to rapper Bishop the Ghetto Priest, who brought a small speaker to blast a beat for his song. The constitution feel like mace in my eye, he rapped. They put Trump in the White House / hes a hell of a guy. At a talent announcement for the 50th New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, the biggest news was confirmation of the Rolling Stones' appearance, a lineup including Katy Perry, Jimmy Buffett, Pitbull, Chris Stapleton, Ciara and others, and ticket information. Jazz Fest producer Quint Davis also said the festival will include 20 tributes to Louisiana music legends spread throughout the festival April 25-28 and May 2-5. [UPDATE: Rolling Stones won't play 2019 Jazz Fest after tour postpones due to Mick Jagger health issues] The Rolling Stones will perform Thursday, May 2. There will be a full lineup on all stages until 5 p.m., after which the Rolling Stones will perform. Tickets for that day cost $185 (plus fees). People with Louisiana ID have an opportunity to buy up to two tickets to that Thursday beginning at 10 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 17 at the plaza level of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. The festival released its talent lineup by day. Headliners include the Dave Matthews Band, Santana, Jimmy Cliff, Tom Jones, Santana, Van Morrison, Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, Al Green, John Fogarty, Logic, Earth, Wind & Fire, Chaka Khan, Alanis Morisette, Indigo Girls and many others. There will be tributes to musicians including Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Professor Longhair, Clifton Chenier, Allen Toussaint, Danny Barker and others. Before Davis spoke, a band including many musicians who performed at the first Jazz Fest performed. Ellis Marsalis, Germaine Bazzle, Johnny Vidacovich, George French and James Rivers played "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)." The festival's Cultural Pavilion stage will feature an array of bands that have visited the festival before, such as Septeto Santiaguero of Cuba, Ile Aiye of Brazil, Crocodile Gumboot Dancers from South Africa and others. Daily tickets (not good for Thursday, May 2) go on sale Friday, Jan. 18. Daily tickets are $70 through Feb. 1, when they rise to $75. Daily tickets will cost $85 at the gate, except for May 2. On Thursday, April 25, attendees with a Louisiana ID will be able to purchase $50 tickets at the gate for attendance that day. There is a limit of two $50 tickets per person. Children's tickets cost $5 and are available at the gate. Children's tickets will not be available for May 2. Several VIP ticket packages are available for each weekend. They include all four days for the weekend purchased. Last year, when state lawmakers wasted hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on pointless special sessions to discuss budget issues they could have resolved much earlier, we suggested that they shouldnt collect their paychecks for the special sessions because they bungled their duties. The same principle should hold true for members of Congress, including those who represent Louisiana, as an ongoing government shutdown causes misery for federal workers and those theyre supposed to serve. About a fourth of the federal government has been shut down for weeks as President Donald Trump bickers with Capitol Hill over billions of dollars in funding for a border wall with Mexico. Security is important, but key parts of the border already have a wall, and as a presidential candidate, Trump repeatedly promised that Mexico would pay for such a wall. Despite all the hoopla about a so-called crisis, illegal crossings at the southern border have been trending downward for years. +4 As federal workers miss paychecks, Louisiana congressmen split on whether to accept pay WASHINGTON Hundreds of thousands of federal workers weren't paid Friday because of a partial government shutdown, and at least six dozen con The real crisis involves the ongoing incompetence in Washington, where the president and members of Congress cant even agree to fund basic services of government. Meanwhile, key federal employees like air traffic controllers, members of the Coast Guard and airport security staffers are working without pay. Trump has been donating his paycheck to various government initiatives since taking office. As of last week, four Louisiana House members Republicans Garret Graves, Clay Higgins, Mike Johnson and Ralph Abraham said theyve sent letters asking that their paychecks be withheld until after the shutdown is resolved. The other House members havent publicly indicated whether theyll follow suit. A spokesman for Louisianas Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy said the senator plans to continue taking his pay, arguing that the senator is working hard at his job. Too bad that thousands of government employees, like Coast Guard members also working hard and risking their lives, dont have a choice about whether theyll get paid. For the moment, theyre stuck with nothing. Louisiana Republican U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, whos seldom at a loss for words about anything, was unusually reticent when asked last week if hed decline taking his pay during the shutdown. I dont have an answer for you, Kennedy told a reporter last Thursday. Im still thinking it through. Spokespeople for House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, a Jefferson Parish Republican, didnt directly answer questions about what Scalise would do about his paycheck while the stalemate drags on. Instead, a spokeswoman offered the usual partisan blather about those pesky Democrats. U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond of New Orleans, Louisianas only Democratic member of Congress, was noncommittal on the issue of his pay, too, suggesting that hell decide later. As of last week, more than 70 members of Congress had pledged to refuse their paychecks until the shutdown is over, according to a tally from CNN. All the members of Louisianas congressional delegation, regardless of party, should decline getting paid while the shutdown continues. If members of Congress have such a direct stake in reaching a resolution of the stand-off, maybe this will speed an end to a political fiasco that never should have happened. President Donald Trump speaks from the Oval Office of the White House as he gives a prime-time address about border security Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2018, in Washington. (Carlos Barria/Pool Photo via AP) A report by the usually noncontroversial League of Women Voters of Louisiana that says charter schools need more oversight is sparking arguments. The review said the growth of charter schools is cause for concern and represents a trend that has set off competition for state dollars with traditional public schools. It also said new rules are needed on the makeup of charter school boards, more transparency is due on school operations and state officials should demand fast action on any shortcomings that appear in state audits. "Charter schools are a significant issue in Louisiana," said Kathleen Schott Espinoza, who lives in Lafayette and chaired the league panel that did the study. "We felt that with the rapid expansion of charter schools, the significant exchange of public dollars and private enterprises, we felt we really needed to do a deep dive into charter schools," Espinoza said. Caroline Roemer, executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools, said the league review was pushed by longtime critics of charter schools, notably Espinoza. "It was not unbiased," Roemer said. "I think their process has been hijacked by a group of people who have an ax to grind with charter schools." Charter schools are public schools run by nongovernmental boards, unlike traditional public schools. They were launched in Louisiana in 1995. Louisiana Supreme Court sides with charter schools in challenge of state funding system The Louisiana Supreme Court sided with charter school backers Tuesday in a lawsuit that had threatened state aid for about 18,000 students. Backers say the schools offer innovative classrooms that give parents another option in a state long known for low public school achievement. The explosion of charter schools in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005 has sparked national attention. Critics argue that the push for charters has failed to deliver on earlier promises, and that the schools divert precious state dollars away from traditional schools. The state has about 150 charter schools, or roughly 10 percent of public schools statewide. The league, which held its 2019 convention in New Orleans earlier this month, has several hundred members statewide, including chapters in Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Lafayette. Unlike this one, voter guides and other reports sponsored by the group rarely spark controversy. League officials said the review stemmed from action at its 2017 state convention. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Espinoza said the group reached out to Roemer during the process as well as officials of the state Department of Education. Louisiana charter schools must recognize and bargain with teacher unions, court decides The president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers is praising a federal court ruling that says Louisiana charter schools have to recognize "The league is pretty serious about making sure that we get good information out there," Espinoza said. Roemer said her group was sent an early draft of the report and returned it with heavy editing, in part to correct "misinformation." She said she attended a league meeting in New Orleans to evaluate the study and it was led by a Jefferson Parish teacher "who was nothing less than hostile to charter schools." Erin Bendily, assistant state superintendent of education, said a group of league officials traveled to Baton Rouge to meet with state educators on charter school laws and other issues. Bendily said state officials were later sent a draft of the report. "We ended up calling them because there was so much wrong that it was too much to put into an email," Bendily said. "That was the last we heard from them." Espinoza has served as spokeswoman for a group called The Power of Public Education Lafayette, which has been viewed as anti-charter schools. She said in an email last week that she does not have that job now and that league studies represent a consensus. "People all over the state have contributed to the findings," Espinoza said. The report said charter school board members should represent the geographical area of their students, that a timeline is needed for returning state-run charter schools to the local school board and that taxpayers should have internet access to charter contracts. The Louisiana League said its review of charter schools is one of eight nationwide done by state chapters. Whether the study sparks legislative action is unclear. Espinoza said it will serve as a "framework" when league members contact state lawmakers. The 2019 regular session of the Louisiana Legislature begins April 8. East Baton Rouge Parish School Board member Jill Dyason, who represents much of what could become the city of St. George, passed on the first petition but has signed the latest petition floated by supporters seeking to create the new city in the southeastern corner of the parish. I have always said that its not for me to stifle the voice of the people, Dyason said. I know this is a very hot subject, very divisive. Ive always felt like, lets figure this out, whichever way its going to go, so we can move forward. The Advocate contacted Dyason after the newspaper obtained a picture showing Dyasons name on a page of the petition, along with her date of birth, home address and her precinct number. It was dated July 27. Dyason, the longest serving member of the School Board, who took office in 2001, has long said she was against efforts to prevent a public vote on St. George but had previously stopped short of signing the incorporation petition that would force the issue onto the ballot. She told The Advocate she had considered signing the petition for a long time. She is the first member of the School Board known to have signed the petition. The board and the school system has generally been opposed to the creation of a new city and plans to eventually create a St. George school district out of the parish school system as Baker, Central and Zachary have done before it. School officials have said a St. George school district would have a severe financial impact on the parish school district, drawing money away from the schools in the rest of Baton Rouge, schools that generally serve the most challenging students, and that it would lead to further school balkanization in the parish. A few School Board members in the past have gone further, suggesting that the St. George effort is driven by racial animus. Dyason said shes not persuaded the current effort to create a City of St. George will inevitably shift to forming a St. George school district. Everything I heard this time was all just about the city, she said. Dyason acknowledged she has not told many people about her signing the petition, including many of her colleagues on the School Board. I definitely dont feel that it is a School Board issue in any way, Dyason said. But whether it becomes one when the board meets on Thursday remains to be seen. Dyason is in the middle of a fight to become vice president of the board and needs to win the support of at least five of the nine board members. Last Thursday, the board deadlocked 4-4, as Dyason tied with Dadrius Lanus, newly elected to the board, on who should become board vice president. The board plans to try again this coming Thursday. In her 17-plus years of service, Dyason has never held a leadership position on the board, which oversees the second largest public school district in Louisiana. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up +3 Ex-Albemarle executive easily wins Baton Rouge school board presidency; board deadlocks over VP Mike Gaudet, who has been attacked by teacher unions and celebrated by charter school groups, was selected Thursday night without opposition b M.E. Cormier, leader of Better Together/Residents Against the Breakaway, which opposes the St. George incorporation, confirmed that she had snapped the photo showing Dyason's signature on the petition, although she was not the person who provided it to The Advocate. Cormier also confirmed that Dyason did not sign the first St. George petition, which was gathered in 2013 and 2014. Cormier said she took the picture Oct. 20, one of several she took of notable signatories as she was paging through for the first time the 14,500 names on the petition. The parish Registrar of Voters Office is in the process of verifying the petition, and Cormiers group is conducting its own vetting of the signatures. Cormier said she shared a few pictures like the one showing Dyasons signature with a limited number of people at the time, but said shes not releasing information about them until Better Together completes its own review. Dyasons District 6, which includes the Woodlawn area and Woodlawn High School, falls mostly within the proposed boundaries of St. George. The area has been the epicenter of the St. George incorporation effort, as well as earlier unsuccessful legislation filed in 2012 and 2013 to create a southeast Baton Rouge school district from the parish school system, similar to what Baker, Central and Zachary had previously done. In 2013, supporters of the breakaway school district changed tactics. Following the example of Central, they decided first to create a city before petitioning the Legislature again for a school district and decided to call the proposed new city St. George. St. George was already the name of a Catholic church, a subdivision and a fire department in the area. The original St. George petition, submitted in late 2014, ultimately fell 71 signatures short of being placed on the ballot. St. George supporters ended their second petition drive on Oct. 15 when they submitted about 14,500 signatures. They need 12,951 valid signatures to get the item on the ballot that's 25 percent of the registered voters living within St. George's proposed boundary at the time the petition drive officially began in early 2018. +2 Dyason easily wins fifth term representing East Baton Rouge Parish School Board District 6 Jill Dyason, the East Baton Rouge Parish School Boards longest serving member, earned another four years in office Tuesday after voters in Di The July 27 date of Dyasons signature is a week after qualifying ended for the Nov. 6 School Board elections. This election, Dyason drew an opponent for the first time in years, Tammy Dabadie, wife of former Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie. Tammay Dabadie, who at first seemed like she might be a threat to Dyason, ended up barely campaigning and raised little money. Dyason won on Nov. 6 by nearly a 2-1 margin. Dyason last week started her fifth four-year term on the board. Cormier said that both Tammy and Carl Dabadies signature appears on the latest St. George petition as well, dated March 5. Dyason said she knew Tammy Dabadie had signed the petition but said that had no bearing on her own decision to sign the document. The original deadline to submit the latest St. George petition was Nov. 27, but supporters submitted it a month early. If they had stuck to the original timetable, the signatures of the District 7 School Board candidates would have been made public, at the earliest, after the Nov. 6 elections. Dyason has two children who graduated from East Baton Rouge Parish public schools. She serves as executive director of the Louisiana Association of Children and Family Agencies. Ascension and Livingston parishes and an area levee district appear close to working out a deal to allow initial work to proceed on the controversial $24 million Laurel Ridge Levee extension. Livingston Parish sued its neighbor, Ascension Parish, and the Pontchartrain Levee District in May over concerns that the 4.5-mile levee extension along the west side of the Amite River would flood Livingston residents to the east. The Amite is a rough dividing line between the two parishes, and the critical drainage artery for the region. The disputing parishes have come up with an interim agreement that's seen as the first step toward a wider pact among Livingston, Ascension and East Baton Rouge parishes to restrict drainage projects that could shunt water away from one parish and dump it on another, parish officials said. +3 Livingston Parish asking for pause in levee lawsuit, as negotiations continue with Ascension Parish Livingston Parish is seeking a continuance of the lawsuit filed over its fears of the flood risk from the Laurel Ridge Levee proposed in Ascen While the levee suit is still pending, the interim deal would allow Ascension and the levee district, which are both behind the project, to proceed with engineering and land acquisition although not construction while the three parties try to reach a final consensus. "The understanding is there will be no construction until all parties are satisfied, and if the parties are not satisfied, the lawsuit will move forward in court, Livingston Parish President Layton Ricks said in an interview Tuesday. Ricks, who said he expects to sign the accord in the next few days, said satisfaction would mean that Livingston officials determine there would be no adverse effect from the $24 million levee extension. If adverse impacts were found, mitigation projects to address them would have to be funded and implemented. The levee project, which has been discussed since the late 1970s, raised the hackles of Livingston officials early last year after news broke that the levee project had received a key wetlands permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Dwight Poirrier, the levee district attorney, said Tuesday one factor in brokering the interim deal to allow at least initial work to be done was the time frame on permits for the levee, which will be built through sensitive wetlands and Louisianas coastal zone. While the Corps permit has a five-year time frame, another key permit through the state Department of Natural Resources has a two-year limit. Poirrier said one year of that permit has already passed. A key committee of the levee district board of commissioners agreed Tuesday night in Lutcher to move the interim deal to final vote early next week. The vote would allow Commissioner Ricky Bosco, the levee board president, to sign the deal. After the vote, Bosco and Poirrier said they are confident the parties can find a flood control solution to protect both parishes. Theres no doubt about it that the water has to go somewhere, Bosco said. On Monday night, the Ascension Parish Council authorized its president to execute any and all documents between the relevant parties to move the project forward on the Laurel Ridge Levee. A spokesman for President Kenny Matassa declined Tuesday afternoon to say directly whether the president would sign the three-party agreement, noting the still pending lawsuit. We will wait until we hear from the Pontchartrain Levee District before making any decisions, spokesman Martin McConnell said. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Ricks, the Livingston Parish president, said the tri-parish consensus on a broader agreement not to pursue projects that would put water on their neighbors came during a meeting before the holidays among the three parish presidents and U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge. They discussed how they could work together to apply for part of the $1.2 billion in federal flood mitigation funding recently designated for Louisiana. Fred Raiford, East Baton Rouge transportation and drainage director, confirmed such a deal is in the works. But he said the process for how the three parishes will work together and manage disputes is not yet decided. Raiford also suggested bringing in Iberville Parish, whose leader has clashed with Baton Rouge over the use of inflatable dams along the parish line and Bayou Manchac. I dont want (Iberville President) Mitch Ourso to think we dont give a damn about them, Raiford said. Already, there has been collaboration. East Baton Rouge is working with Ascension through the company HNTB, which is performing drainage studies in both parishes. Livingston has also recently been included in discussions with the Corps of Engineers about East Baton Rouges plans to dredge and widen several local waterways. That cooperation is important because those bayous drain toward Ascension and Livingston; however, the tri-parish agreement between the neighbors doesnt contain any language about specific projects the three may attempt together, Raiford said. As one mitigation alternative that would also improve drainage in the Amite River Basin, Ascension Parish has proposed digging under La. 22 in the Acy area near the Amite River Diversion Canal. The parish would create new channels under the highway that would ferry floodwater. La. 22 would cross over the new canals with nearly three-quarters of mile of new bridges. +3 Ascension officials find fix for flood impact in Livingston of contested Laurel Ridge Levee upgrades ACY Drivers zip obliviously down La. 22 past Acadian-style homes, metal workshops and dense patches of cypress and tupelo lining the highway Ascension Parish officials have maintained that La. 22, which is on a man-made, elevated earthen berm, serves as a kind of dam, holding up and rerouting floodwater from the north. The new channels would allow the water to continue moving south. Ascensions engineers say their modeling shows the new channels would greatly reduce, though not completely eliminate, the flood effects from the levees construction. Port Vincent in Livingston would see no impact, Ascension engineers say. The La. 22 changes would also require rerouting part of the Laurel Ridge Levee. Those changes would be part of an overall $186 million plan, financed with $1.2 billion in federal flood mitigation money, to do the Laurel Ridge levee extension and additional work to the more southerly protection levees for Ascension's Marvin J. Braud Pumping Station. Advocate Staff Writer Steve Hardy contributed to this report. GEISMAR Ascension Parish sheriff's deputies arrested a 20-year-old man and say more arrests may be coming in a shooting that injured four last week. Deputies said that the Jan. 9 shooting happened in and around a vacant trailer home on Conner Road in Geismar where as many as 10 people were believed to have been working on a music video. Sheriff Bobby Webre said his detectives and Louisiana State Police Fugitive Apprehension Task Force agents were able to find and capture Nepton Ruger-Rudy Hatfield Jr. early Tuesday. +6 While filming music video, 3 shot, one critically, in Geismar, Ascension sheriff says GEISMAR An apparent music video production effort Wednesday on a rural lane in Ascension Parish ended in an argument and gunfire, hitting th Hatfield Jr. was booked in to the Ascension Parish Prison on counts of attempted second-degree murder, home invasion and aggravated assault with a firearm, Webre said. Initial reports last week were that three people were shot in the gun play that sent people fleeing from the trailer off Stevenson Road: 22-year-old, an 18-year-old and a 21-year-old. They were treated at area hospitals for their injuries. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up But detectives learned Tuesday morning that Hatfield also suffered a minor gunshot wound to the leg, Webre said. He said the investigation continues and additional arrests may be pending. Can't see video below? Click here. Amid a push to send the East Baton Rouge parish attorney packing, Metro Council members are already lining up who they'd like to see as a replacement. Councilman LaMont Cole has asked his colleagues to consider firing Lea Anne Batson, but hasn't said why. With that move under consideration, two members of the Metro Council already have a temporary replacement in mind, according to emails The Advocate obtained Monday. +3 Metro Council to hold hearing in two weeks on whether to fire Parish Attorney Lea Anne Batson Parish Attorney Lea Anne Batson will have to appear before the East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council in two weeks to try to save her job. Batson has said she's being pushed out so Cole can appoint her first assistant, Tedrick Knightshead, but Councilwomen Erika Green and Tara Wicker are poised to push city Prosecutor Andy Dotson as the interim parish attorney if Batson is shown the door. Green has asked that an item be placed for introduction on Metro Council's Jan. 23 meeting, stating that Dotson should step in if Batson is removed. Green's Jan. 11 email to Council Administrator/Treasurer Ashley Beck also indicates that Green would like the resolution to include language that would prevent the Metro Council from appointing Knightshead. Neither Cole, Dotson, Green nor Wicker returned calls Monday seeking comment. Batson and Knightshead each declined to comment. The Metro Council could vote to remove Batson after the public hearing scheduled for its Jan. 23 meeting. Batson has served as the Parish Attorney Office's top official since the council fired her predecessor in 2015. East Baton Rouge councilman seeks Parish Attorney's ouster, won't comment why An East Baton Rouge Parish councilman has launched an effort to oust the head of the Parish Attorneys Office, but says he cant go into detai Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up According to the city-parish Plan of Government, if Cole has enough votes to oust Batson at next weeks public hearing, the council would have to give Batson written notice stating the grounds for which they want to remove her. Another hearing must take place within 10 days of the Jan. 23 public hearing, and then Batson could make a final plea for her job before the councils vote to remove her would be final. Green's email to Beck states that the resolution she's sponsoring with Wicker should include language restricting anyone from being appointed as interim who is not employed with the Parish Attorney's Office upon Batson's possible removal. "I would also like the language to restrict the council from appointing anyone who is employed with the Parish Attorney's Office but has submitted a letter of resignation after Dec. 1 until Lea Anne is removed," Green wrote. Green's email also says she want the item to prohibit anyone who has submitted their resignation after Dec. 1 "from withdrawing that resignation and being eligible to be appointed." "I want the only people eligible to be appointed to be employees of the Parish Attorney's office and no one else," Green wrote. The language would impact Knightshead's eligibility to serve. On Dec. 14, he submitted a letter of resignation from the No. 2 spot in Batson's office. His resignation is effective Jan. 31. He has previously denied wanting Batson's job and said he was ready to move on from the Parish Attorney's Office where he was worked for the past 13 years. Batson previously informed the Metro Council she had appointed Dotson to become first assistant after Knightshead's resignation takes effect. Dotson has served as the city prosecutor since 2016. Former employees of the bankrupt Knight Oil Tools are forming a new group of oilfield services businesses, with construction of a new corporate headquarters planned along Interstate 10 in Lafayette Parish. The owners say they expect to employ about 50 people at the new complex at 251 S. Gentilly Road, on the north side of the interstate between Lafayette and Scott. The three businesses are being bankrolled by a Lafayette Parish businessman in an unrelated industry who does not want to be publicly identified, said Clayton Courville, president of EDI Environmental Services. EDI, which has been in business for nearly three decades, plans to relocate to the new headquarters alongside Sea Shore Energy Services and Paramount Inspection Services. Sea Shore, an equipment rental company that opened in August, is led by Mickey Broussard, a former Knight Oil Tools chief operating officer. Paramount, which started operating this month, is led by a former Knight Oil manager, Dwayne Laliberte. EDI formerly worked on a retainer contract for Knight Oil, Courville said. Courville decided to sell a 75 percent stake to the unnamed investor to become part of the new operation, he said. Courville will remain the EDI president while also serving as safety and environmental coordinator for the other two companies. To be a 100 percent owner of a small company wasnt as satisfying as being a smaller owner of a larger family of companies, Courville said. Knight Oil filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017 after the companys former chief executive, Mark Knight, was accused of framing his brother in a phony drug bust. Knight pleaded no contest to public bribery and corrupt influencing in August. He is scheduled for sentencing Feb. 6. Inside info on doing business in Acadiana We'll keep you posted on the Acadiana economy. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Courville said he believes the timing of the new businesses is optimal, despite the 30 percent dip in crude oil prices in the last three months. He said he expects prices to rebound over the next year with increased demand for U.S. exports and domestic production. There is always going to be a need for hydrocarbon-based fuels, Courville said. Plans for the new complex call for a 15,000-square-foot primary building along with three or four smaller ones, Courville said. He said he expects all three companies to be fully moved in within one year. The Lafayette City-Parish Council on Jan. 7 approved a zoning change to "industrial light" for the site. Final plat approval is still required. Thank you! You've reported this item as a violation of our terms of use. This content was contributed by a user of the site. If you believe this content may be in violation of the terms of use, you may report it. YouTube wants to make binge-watching videos easier, more straightforward, and with as less friction as possible. What better way to do that than to copy what's perhaps one of the most used gestures these days swiping? The YouTube app is getting updated to make it easier to navigate between videos. The company has announced that it will roll out a new horizontal swiping gesture this week that lets users iOS only for now flip through multiple videos by swiping forward and backward, as done on Instagram Stories. YouTube Swiping Once this update rolls out, moving from one video to the next will take less time than it does currently. Swiping to the left takes users to the next video, while swiping to the right will bring back the previous video they watched. The video will resume where the user left off too, YouTube confirms. The change, as TechCrunch reports, will give users more control over video playback, especially on mobile where a whopping 70 percent of YouTube viewing takes place. The feature doesn't come as a total surprise. In fact, it makes perfect sense for YouTube to do something like this. Video itself and its consumption has become more dynamic in years past, but the way they're watched and flipped through hasn't exactly received that much facelift. YouTube's changes are a welcome evolution of the typical video interface and should help lessen the friction involved in moving from one video to the next. The update doesn't come as a surprise also because some users have previously seen the functionality on Android way back in July 2018. Android Release Date Unfortunately, there's no word yet on when the update will arrive on Android, which is kind of odd since YouTube is owned by Google, which owns Android. Perhaps the iOS rollout is its way of testing if people will warm up to the new gestures. Expect it to come sooner rather than later if the public reaction is positive. YouTube Improvements YouTube has been rolling out a number of improvements for its mobile app in recent months. Just last year, the company rolled out short-form videos from content creators called Stories. It also released screen time controls, autoplaying videos on the mobile app's homepage, and in 2017, it introduced in-app video sharing and messaging. The company's gesture experiments also stretch back as early as 2017. For instance, that year it introduced a feature where double-tapping fast-forwards or retracts it by 10 seconds. That's now a part of the YouTube mobile app, and it's easy to imagine swiping will soon be too. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A judge in the Northern District of California says that police cannot compel people to unlock their smartphones with their face or finger because it is a violation of the Fifth Amendment that upholds the right against self-incrimination. The court ruling sheds light on the long-debated means of law enforcement personnel to forcefully have suspects unlock their gadgets in search procedures. Other federal judges previously ruled that police can coerce the process despite the rule that they can't press people for their passcodes and passwords. Fingerprint, Face, Iris Unlock Judge Kandis Westmore denied a search warrant for an Oakland property stemming from a Facebook extortion case. The suspects asked the victim to pay up or an "embarrassing" video will make the rounds on the internet, so cops wanted to raid the place where the two alleged culprits were in and have the go-signal to check the gadgets belonging to everyone in the scene even if that meant unlocking it with the face, fingerprint, or iris. "If a person cannot be compelled to provide a passcode because it is a testimonial communication, a person cannot be compelled to provide one's finger, thumb, iris, face, or other biometric feature to unlock that same device," the judge explained. Cops' Search Warrant On Suspects' Devices Denied Furthermore, the judge sees the warrant as "overbroad" because it sought permission to forcefully check all devices at the premises and that because there were only two suspects. Although Westmore found that the police had probable cause to search, the magistrate denied the warrant and said it can be resubmitted if the police will only target the suspects and their gadgets. Westmore explained that the face, fingerprint, and iris that are used in unlocking smartphones and other gadgets fall under "testimonial communication," which contradicts other rulings that said only passwords and passcodes belong to this category. The judge contested that it is not limited to "verbal or written communications." 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Facebook has been facing a storm of bad publicity lately. Concerns over the company's handling of user data cropped up once more when it was revealed that Facebook may have been sharing their users' private messages with third parties, such as Netflix and Spotify. To make matters worse, a December bug let apps access "millions" of unauthorized Facebook photos; regardless of user privacy settings. Facebook is hoping to counter some of this negative PR with an act of goodwill. According to a blog post published by the company today, it will be investing a whopping $300 million into local news, in the hopes that a cash injection will promote quality reporting and help the industry fight fake news. Most importantly, the cash could help to keep local news alive. In the age of web-based news, such outlets are having a much harder time staying afloat; particularly if they rely on print for the majority of their revenue. Facebook's $300 million will be spread across a wide variety of local news-oriented projects and organizations, including the Pulitzer Center, Report for America, the American Journalism Project, and others. This isn't the first time Facebook has tried to give local newsrooms a boost. In November, the company launched a similar (but significantly smaller) 4.5 million fund to support local UK journalists. The money, which was managed by the National Council for the Training of Journalists, was used to recruit and train roughly 80 would-be reporters. It remains to be seen whether or not this cash injection will improve Facebook's public image much, but at this point, it certainly can't hurt. Why it matters: Microsoft was a bit vague in describing the specifics of its multi-year partnership with Walgreens but all that you really need to know is that it's a huge data play. Given the recent string of data breaches, knowing that yet another set of eyes are on your data - health data, no less - may be unnerving for some. Microsoft and Walgreens on Tuesday entered into a seven-year agreement in which the two aim to make health care more convenient to people through data-driven insights. Microsoft will become the strategic cloud provider for Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), the holding company that owns Walgreens and other related pharmaceutical, manufacturing, wholesale and distribution companies. As such, WBA plans to move most of its IT infrastructure over to Microsoft Azure. The partnership will also provide Microsoft 365 to more than 380,000 WBA employees and stores globally. Microsoft's stock is up nearly three percent on the day while WBA shares are trading up around 1.7 percent as of writing. The two said they have also committed to a multi-year research and development investment to build health care solutions, improve health outcomes and lower the cost of care. Microsoft specifically mentioned connecting stores and health information systems to people through their mobile devices, allowing them to access things like virtual care when and where they need it. Microsoft and WBA additionally hope to improve medication adherence, reduce emergency room visits and lower hospital readmissions. Data science and artificial intelligence will play a key role in achieving these goals, were told. Lead image courtesy elenabsl via Shutterstock What just happened? Huaweis reclusive founder, Ren Zhengfei, has given his first foreign media interview in four years. During the briefing, he denied allegations that the tech giant spied on behalf of the Chinese government and called Donald Trump a great president. US intelligence agencies have long advised against using Huawei equipment, claiming that doing so could put you at risk of having your personal data accessed or stolen. In August last year, President Trump signed the Defense Authorization Act, which bans US government agencies and contractors from using certain tech from Huawei and other Chinese companies. In November, the US reportedly asked its allies not to use Huawei equipment, but relations still hadnt reached rock bottom. A month later, the companys CFO, Meng Wanzhouwho is also Rens daughterwas arrested in Canada at the request of the US for allegedly violating Iran sanctions. Another executive was arrested in Poland last week on espionage charges, though he has been fired by the company. During a roundtable interview, which was just the third time hes spoken to foreign reporters, Ren said: I love my country, I support the Communist Party. But I will not do anything to harm the world. The former People's Liberation Army engineer added that I dont see a close connection between my personal political beliefs and the businesses of Huawei. Ren heaped praise on Donald Trump and said hell take a wait-and-see approach as to whether the president will intervene on behalf of his daughter, something Trump said he might do if it helps secure a trade deal or is in the USs national security interests. Speaking about the US-China trade war, Ren said Huawei was just a sesame seed in the middle of the conflict. Trump is a great president. He dares to massively cut taxes, which will benefit business. But you have to treat well the companies and countries so that they are willing to invest in the U.S. and the government will be able to collect enough tax, he said. While Trump is reportedly considering banning US companies from using Huawei telecoms equipment, Ren said he hopes such a scenario can be avoided. The message to the US I want to communicate is, 'Collaboration and shared success,'" he said. But Ren did acknowledge that his firm will struggle to do business in some countries, such as Australia, where its banned from selling 5G tech to local network providers. You can't work with everyone. We'll shift our focus to better serve countries that welcome Huawei." Through the looking glass: Modern technology poses many issues in the legal system when old laws are applied to new devices that were never even dreamed of when legislation was being written. A court ruling has determined that biometric security on smartphones should not be used to forcibly unlock a mobile device and allow self-incrimination. American police forces may now face greater difficulty in unlocking mobile devices related to crimes. At the US District Court for the Northern District of California, a judge has denied issuing a search warrant that would have allowed a mobile device to be unlocked via a fingerprint, iris scan, or facial recognition. Since there is a very fine line that prevents suspected individuals from providing evidence against themselves under the fifth amendment, the California judge has ruled that all forms of login information is to be treated as testimony. Regardless of whether a phone is secured by a pin, lengthy password, or biometric sensor data, individuals may not be forced to unlock their device so as to testify against themselves. "If a person cannot be compelled to provide a passcode because it is a testimonial communication, a person cannot be compelled to provide ones finger, thumb, iris, face, or other biometric feature to unlock that same device," wrote the judge. "Technology is outpacing the law." Despite the fact that mobile devices may no longer be forcibly unlocked, device security can still be broken on a seized device. Private contractors are able to provide services to law enforcement by granting access to data contained on most mobile devices for modest fees. Nearly all Android and iOS devices are able to be compromised if enough cash is offered up. Rulings at the district level are still able to be overturned by higher courts. Should there be something incriminating on your mobile device, utilizing a very strong password and avoiding the use of biometric options will still provide the greatest protection against the law. Better yet, just don't do anything that results in your phone being seized. What just happened? Apple and Qualcomm have been engaged in a bitter legal battle for some time now. Most assumed the animosity had resulted in Apple refusing to use its opponent's modems in the latest iPhones, but it appears that wasnt the caseit was Qualcomm who said no. Qualcomm is on trial in San Jose, California, right now, accused by the FTC of monopolistic practices such as charging too high a fee for royalty payments. During his testimony (via CNET), Apple's Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Williams, said that his company wanted to use both Qualcomm and Intel modems in the iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max, but only Intels modems ended up in the handsets. Qualcomm was the sole supplier of modem chips for the 2011 iPhone 4S up to the iPhone 6S/Plus in 2015. After that point, Apple started using Intel modems in some iPhone 7 and 7 Plus models. The strategy was to dual source in 2018 as well, Williams said. We were working toward doing that with Qualcomm, but in the end they would not support us or sell us chips. Williams even contacted Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf to try and convince him to sell the modems to Apple, but he refused. This meant a call to Intel boss Brian Krzanich, asking him to fulfill the entire order of chips. "He had to scramble," Williams said. "We would have loved to continue to have access to Qualcomm's tech." Mollenkopf appears to dispute Williams claim. The Qualcomm chief and other executives said they were still trying to supply chips to Apple but hadnt had any new business since the previous contracts expired. The crux of the companies legal dispute is the royalty rate Apple is paying Qualcomm for using its patents. At $7.50 per device, its five times more than the $1.50 Apple believes it should be paying. The issue has led to court cases around the world and bans on older iPhones in China. Using only Intel chips could hurt Apples 5G ambitions, as the companys 5G modems arent expected until 2020, whereas every major Android vendor is expected to have a 5G phone available by the 2019 holiday season. Earn your Associate of Applied Business in Business IT (BIT) degree online from the University of Cincinnati. This program can be completed fully online, with curriculum customized to fit your schedule, interests and how quickly you want to complete your degree. Application deadline July 1, 2021. Learn More Selling location data collected by mobile phones has become a lucrative business, The New York Times reported Monday. Location advertising sales are expected to reach US$21 billion this year, according to the article. At least 75 companies receive anonymous, precise location data from applications with the location services feature activated. Several of those outfits claim to track 200 million mobile devices in the United States -- about half of all devices in the country, the Times reported. The data is very accurate, coming within a few yards of a person's whereabouts at a point in time, and is updated often -- as frequently as 14,000 times a day, the paper noted. With that kind of accuracy and frequency, calling the data "anonymous" is a bit misleading. "If you are collecting a person's location over time, and it's tied to a unique identifier, it's disingenuous to call that anonymous," said Natasha Duarte, a policy analyst with the Center for Democracy & Technology in Washington, D.C. "If you have information about where people are going and where people live, you can build the story of who that location data belongs to," she told TechNewsWorld. Someone can learn a lot about you from your location, said French Caldwell, CFO of The Analyst Syndicate, an IT research and analysis group. "They can tell what your interests are and who you're meeting with," he told TechNewsWorld. "Your location data tells more about you than your Social Security number." Not So Anonymous Businesses that collect consumer data typically say they're not interested in individuals but in patterns. Data collected on individuals is "anonymized" by attaching it to an ID number. However, that ID doesn't even have the cover of a fig leaf for anyone with access to raw location data. Those people, who include employees or customers of the data collector, still could identify individuals without their consent, as the Times did in compiling its report. Not surprisingly, the leaders in location-based advertising are Google and Facebook. Both companies offer mobile apps that they use to collect location data. They say they don't sell it but use it only internally, to personalize services, sell targeted ads online, and determine if the ads lead to sales in the physical world. Google did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Facebook, through spokesperson Jay Nancarrow, declined to comment. Some large companies have started to get in front of the location data issue before it becomes a problem for them. For example, Verizon and AT&T announced during the summer that they would stop selling their customers' location data to data brokers. Deceptive Omissions Most mobile apps request permission to use a device's location services before accessing them, but the Times found that process could be misleading. An app might ask for location services access for one purpose but use the information for multiple purposes. "Not all app notices are perfectly clear as to what location data is being used for," CDT's Duarte said. "Often the app will ask, 'Do you want us to use your location to provide you with local weather information, or personalize your experience, or improve the accuracy of the maps that you're using?' They don't list all the other purposes the data will be used for -- like advertising and sales to third parties," she pointed out. Some 1,400 popular applications contain code to share location information, the Times reported. About 1,200 were written for Android phones and 200 for Apple models. In a sample of 17 apps sending precise location data, three Apple iOS programs and one Android offering mentioned that location data could be used for advertising while seeking permission to access the service, the Times found. Creepiness Factor Understanding what's done with location data can be an onerous task for a consumer. It requires reading user agreements and privacy policies, and changing settings for all the apps on a phone. "That can be incredibly time-consuming," Duarte said. "No individual has the capacity to do that properly, and it's not a burden we should be placing on individuals to depend on location-based services." How concerned are consumers about possible abuse of their location information? "Most consumers don't care, but there's a creepiness factor that bothers them a little bit," said The Analyst Syndicate's Caldwell. "We've all been on the Web and looked at a new pair of shoes or something, and all of sudden all you see in your browser for hours are ads for those things," he continued. "The same kind of thing is happening with your physical location," Caldwell pointed out. "Stores are tracking your location and will start pushing suggestions to you based on where you went in that store. There's a creepiness factor there." Legislation Needed Consumers are very concerned about what's being done with their location data, maintained Duarte. "The problem isn't that consumers are not concerned," she said. "It's that even if you're very concerned, it's impossible for anyone to have the capacity and time to understand all the things companies are doing with your data, and then go into your settings and make the choices that align perfectly with your personal privacy interests," Duarte explained. "What really needs to happen is for our laws to recognize that location privacy in a commercial context has to be built into any service," she suggested. Congress should pass a commercial privacy law, "which would include limits on how companies can collect and use location information," Duarte said. Such a law might include provisions already adopted in Europe's General Data Protection Regulation, which allow people to access information companies have collected about them, correct information if it's used to make important decisions about them, and delete information. One area where U.S. lawmakers may want to depart from the GDPR is in consent. The European rule allows data to be collected if consent is given by the owner of the data. "Some uses of information shouldn't be allowed even with consent," Duarte said. "One of those uses might be repurposing of location information -- collecting the information for a location-based service, then reusing it for something completely unrelated -- like location-based advertising -- or selling it to a data broker." John P. Mello Jr. has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, IT issues, privacy, e-commerce, social media, artificial intelligence, big data and consumer electronics. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including the Boston Business Journal, the Boston Phoenix, Megapixel.Net and Government Security News. Email John. Hong Kong: CE urges responsible Budget vote It is unreasonable for some legislators to link how they will vote on the next Budget with the Governments plan to adjust the eligible age for elderly Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) recipients, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said today. She was responding to some lawmakers saying they would vote down the incoming Budget, if the Government went ahead with adjusting the eligible age for elderly CSSA from 60 to 65 from February 1. Mrs Lam said they would be acting irresponsibly as they have yet to see the Budgets content. I also have not seen the content of the next Budget. So to suggest that because of unhappiness over one policy issue or maybe other policy issues in time to come that they should now in advance say that they are not going to approve the next Budget, I do not think this is a very responsible way of dealing with Legislative Council business. The Chief Executive also noted that she had made it clear to legislators the eligibility adjustment was no longer a proposal but had been approved in the context of the 2018-19 Estimates, adding that she was simply being factual. If individual members felt uncomfortable with that sort of straight talk, then I will be more diplomatic in future. But I still need to talk about the facts because nobody could change the facts. This story has been published on: 2019-01-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. sandx BHPian Join Date: Nov 2017 Location: Hyderabad Posts: 229 Thanked: 541 Times View My Garage Ownership Report: My 2018 Aprilia SR 150 The silhouette of the SR 150 is just so beautiful: A pronounced beak and a (very) tall scooter: Aesthetically designed indicators as well: Shortlists and the buying process: The 2 wheeler industry has matured to a whole new level, helped of course through some path-breaking (or rather timely) models launched by the erstwhile Hero-Honda consortium and of course the Pulsar series from Bajaj. I think it was the CBZ first launched during 1999 or 2000 which changed the perception of how we look at 2-wheelers, and then it was the Karizma later which gave me goosebumps whenever I looked at one, a faired bike was unheard of a few years back. The transition from the Chetaks, the Rajdoots and the RX-100s took a while but it came in surely. And then we had a watershed moment when the Activa was launched, lot of products have come and gone but it managed to single handedly resurrect the automatic scooter market. The dominance has been such that other manufacturers have been happy to be playing a distant second or even the third fiddle to the leader. A quick glance at the sales figures: More than 2 lakh Activas are bought on an average every month while the second placed Jupiter sells only around 60k units. So the point is, there is not much to think when buying a scooter or is it? Lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then and now we are in a situation where we are spoilt for choices (Some bhpians may disagree). There are so many models and new launches happening that YouTube vlogs are becoming commonplace and my feeds are full of those because I happened to check a review once. Its a different thing altogether that none of them are of the tbhp quality and you end up confused than ever before if you do happen to follow those. But the problem is - how do you decide, a needle in a haystack problem, at least for me it was when I started. So I started with the most basic tenet of vehicle buying: I decided that I need a 2 wheeler. Since I already own a Pulsar but which is not with me right now (sent it to my hometown) I decided on a scooter. And since I am married now, a scooter made more sense. I thought I would go for something which my wife will be able to ride as well, but it has become a challenge because of the SR 150 (Did I mention the scooter being tall?) let's see how it goes in the days to come. Now I thought that the maximum one can spend in a scooter is around 70 k, there is no point in spending beyond that. You get all the utility you would ever need within that range in its 5g form (read Activa). So why would any sane person ever decide against it. But I decided, in a newly found realization that I like going against the tide so didn't even go near a Honda dealer due to this. The result, other scooters like the Dio, Grazia etc. got sidelined. I did check out the Dio in the later part of my search as an updated version had just been released. I was in fact about to buy a Dio back in 2010 instead of a Pulsar but the dealer I went to told me that the waiting period was 4 months or something and the only readily available model was in a shade of pink. In comparison the Bajaj Dealer had a bunch of Pulsars ready to be delivered. Shift to 2018, dealer experiences for 2 wheelers havent changed much, we still have the bored sales guys going about their job, misinformation is rampant and Activa is still the king since time immemorial. Thats how it was going for my scooter search. Now I had my shortlists as well, the very elementary step of going about on a shopping spree. Had the Dio and the Yamaha ray in my radar cause I didnt want to spend too much, thinking I just had to worry about a 7 km commute to the Metro Station and back and of course the occasional biryani runs (Yes getting a biryani was on my list of need as a lot of the food delivery apps do not deliver to my area, which is good in a way) near to my colony. My first biryani run, and I just love the convenience. Then I saw the Ntorq and wondered, how is this scooter not on my list? The world was fine till then until the government decided to bring in the insurance law. 5 years of compulsory TP insurance cover along with PA and own damage jacked up the prices by more than 5k. So the Ntorq price went up from around 74k to more than 80k and all I could think was: 80k for a scooter, seriously? Anyway as part of my search I filled up online forms for all of the manufacturers. Funny thing is I got to the Aprilia site through an ad that popped up when searching for the site of the other manufacturers. After a few days I got a call back only from TVS and Aprilia. First up was TVS, got a call from the call center and was directed to the nearest Dealer promptly. I landed up in the dealer at the scheduled time but I dont think there was any sort of co-ordination for the time I was told to visit between the call-center and the dealer. Anyway after a few minutes of aimlessly walking around with a hope of being solicited, discarded the hope. I saw the dealer folks sitting on a corner and approached them asking about the Ntorq, the on road price, discounts etc. etc. Got the quote of around 81K with no discounts whatever. Asked for a test ride to which initially I was said no but they decided to give me the scooter that was waiting to be delivered. I was reluctant at first but went ahead nevertheless with a self-made promise to be gentle on the throttle. The dealer folks brought the vehicle down the pedestal and off we went with a service guy as pillion. He kept on egging me to go fast to check the performance. Test ride done, clicked a few pics and asked around about the other formalities. The ride was good but it ultimately felt like a scooter which are inherently unstable contraptions on 2 wheels. The Ntorq however is a great product in itself from TVS and I respect them (along with Tata) for the products they have been launching lately. Bookmarked for later. Next stop was the Yamaha showroom. The folks there were receptive and was asked about my need right away. I asked them for the details of the Ray-Z, they remarked that the model had been discontinued and I have the option of the Ray-Z street rally edition or something. On checking out that particular model was taken aback by seeing how you can put some unwanted contraptions around a relatively good looking scooter and name it as such. First impressions purely and I didnt feel like taking a test ride so moved on indicating I will get back later. The quote indicated a price of around 75K which according to me was not a value for money proposition at all. Now I hadnt given a thought to the Aprilia or Vespa scooters at any point of time during my shortlisting process. The initial asking price was too high for my budget. I actually went in to the showroom to check out the SR 125 as the price was almost the same with Ntorq so just for comparisons sake I went to the showroom nearest to me while still being around 7 Kms away. For the other showrooms I just had to cross the road from my office. Took a metro ride to the showroom while thinking about how things will pan out. The showroom experience was quite pleasant as compared to others. All the vehicles were neatly stacked and laid out, good decor, less crowd and the front desk staff were courteous too. All the Italian Beauties. The Aprilias: And the Vespas: The black shade was a natural choice but the blue felt more contemporary: I had in fact received a call from the Aprilia call center when I had filled a form in their website. In this case I was followed up through a call from the dealer itself and they had queried me about the time when I would make a visit and if I would like a test ride. The test drive vehicles were ready when I reached and I had all the vehicles at my disposal even a Vespa, I decided to go with the SR 150 first. I was provided a helmet before getting onto the scooter, the TVS folks didnt care less whether you wore one or not. The roads near the dealership was newly laid and I got a chance to get a good amount of Kms under the wheels. I had ridden a lot of commuter 2 wheelers before but nothing like the SR 150 till date. The handling was supreme with pin-point accuracy, you could feel it while taking a turn etc. Didnt feel like a scooter at all. The engine sounded a bit unrefined but nothing of the sort that was a deal breaker. And the way it looks is simply amazing, got onto the SR 125 next, some elements were toned down like the grab rail and the seat which will make you want the SR 150 more. Anyway this time around there wasnt any amazement, went in a straight line and came back right after. There is a marked difference as expected in the throttle response and the straight line acceleration. If you do decide to get an SR 125 do not test drive the SR 150, period. And I decided if I do buy myself an Aprilia it has to be in the 150 guise. So went ahead and asked for the quote to be prepared. Was in for a pleasant surprise because as per some Festive offers the discounts ran into the tune of around 10k on the total on road price. So basically I was getting an SR 150 for the price which was almost similar to the on road price of an Ntorq. Booked it right away through PAYTM. Some of the PROs which tilted my decision in favor of the SR 150. Bike like feel Sharp Handling Beautifully crafted scooter, looks way too good Came in a shade of Blue I liked Acceptable quality levels on the switches and other panels, felt better than the Ntorq Panels are well fitted with no prominent gaps When buying stuff I usually look for the things which I need rather than what I am missing so not listing down the CONs but will mention some of the aspects later. The one area where the dealer experience was not up to the mark was on the delivery day. The Sales person assigned to me was on leave and so were the other folks. I think I must have been the first person in their history who took out the vehicle from the basement on his own and drove away with it. I was not expecting a grand ceremony but a little bit of attention would have been great. I didnt get the manual, first aid kit and the likes as well. Did a check on the VIN verified the manufacturing date and thats it. Even the perimeter frame and the connectivity device which I had paid for werent installed on the vehicle. The solace was that I got my hands on a gleaming blue Aprilia SR 150 and there was an uninitiated grin all the way back home. After I pushed it from the basement to the ground level: Set against the market leader. I chose you anyway: On one of the rides till now, hopefully many will follow: Red detailing on the seat is eye catching and gels well with the overall design: I like the rear of the SR 150, very sporty: A balanced design that screams for attention: No problem off the road: Or on the well laid out roads: You, me and a perspective: Helmet-Check, Riding Gloves-Check, Wind Cheater-Check: Planet saving step. Using the scooter more : A well designed saree guard (and yes on a scooter). Deciding on a vehicle to buy in today's age can be a daunting task - as I found out recently in my search for that quintessential scooter. I overshot my budget by a good margin, bought something so tall that I can't keep my feet flat on the ground, mileage is just shy of reaching 35 kmpl etc. But I love my SR 150 as I have discovered after spending a good amount of time with this awesome piece of a machine, notwithstanding the minor niggles that I have experienced. I have tried to describe my buying process and the days that I have spent with my SR so far in this thread. And I hope that the pictures do some justice as all of them have been captured on my phone. So here it goes.The silhouette of the SR 150 is just so beautiful:A pronounced beak and a (very) tall scooter:Aesthetically designed indicators as well:The 2 wheeler industry has matured to a whole new level, helped of course through some path-breaking (or rather timely) models launched by the erstwhile Hero-Honda consortium and of course the Pulsar series from Bajaj. I think it was the CBZ first launched during 1999 or 2000 which changed the perception of how we look at 2-wheelers, and then it was the Karizma later which gave me goosebumps whenever I looked at one, a faired bike was unheard of a few years back. The transition from the Chetaks, the Rajdoots and the RX-100s took a while but it came in surely. And then we had a watershed moment when the Activa was launched, lot of products have come and gone but it managed to single handedly resurrect the automatic scooter market. The dominance has been such that other manufacturers have been happy to be playing a distant second or even the third fiddle to the leader. A quick glance at the sales figures: More than 2 lakh Activas are bought on an average every month while the second placed Jupiter sells only around 60k units. So the point is, there is not much to think when buying a scooter or is it?Lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then and now we are in a situation where we are spoilt for choices (Some bhpians may disagree). There are so many models and new launches happening that YouTube vlogs are becoming commonplace and my feeds are full of those because I happened to check a review once. Its a different thing altogether that none of them are of the tbhp quality and you end up confused than ever before if you do happen to follow those. But the problem is - how do you decide, a needle in a haystack problem, at least for me it was when I started.So I started with the most basic tenet of vehicle buying: I decided that I need a 2 wheeler. Since I already own a Pulsar but which is not with me right now (sent it to my hometown) I decided on a scooter. And since I am married now, a scooter made more sense. I thought I would go for something which my wife will be able to ride as well, but it has become a challenge because of the SR 150 (Did I mention the scooter being tall?) let's see how it goes in the days to come. Now I thought that the maximum one can spend in a scooter is around 70 k, there is no point in spending beyond that. You get all the utility you would ever need within that range in its 5g form (read Activa). So why would any sane person ever decide against it. But I decided, in a newly found realization that I like going against the tide so didn't even go near a Honda dealer due to this. The result, other scooters like the Dio, Grazia etc. got sidelined. I did check out the Dio in the later part of my search as an updated version had just been released. I was in fact about to buy a Dio back in 2010 instead of a Pulsar but the dealer I went to told me that the waiting period was 4 months or something and the only readily available model was in a shade of pink. In comparison the Bajaj Dealer had a bunch of Pulsars ready to be delivered. Shift to 2018, dealer experiences for 2 wheelers havent changed much, we still have the bored sales guys going about their job, misinformation is rampant and Activa is still the king since time immemorial. Thats how it was going for my scooter search.Now I had my shortlists as well, the very elementary step of going about on a shopping spree. Had the Dio and the Yamaha ray in my radar cause I didnt want to spend too much, thinking I just had to worry about a 7 km commute to the Metro Station and back and of course the occasional biryani runs (Yes getting a biryani was on my list of need as a lot of the food delivery apps do not deliver to my area, which is good in a way) near to my colony.My first biryani run, and I just love the convenience.Then I saw the Ntorq and wondered, how is this scooter not on my list? The world was fine till then until the government decided to bring in the insurance law. 5 years of compulsory TP insurance cover along with PA and own damage jacked up the prices by more than 5k. So the Ntorq price went up from around 74k to more than 80k and all I could think was: 80k for a scooter, seriously? Anyway as part of my search I filled up online forms for all of the manufacturers. Funny thing is I got to the Aprilia site through an ad that popped up when searching for the site of the other manufacturers. After a few days I got a call back only from TVS and Aprilia. First up was TVS, got a call from the call center and was directed to the nearest Dealer promptly. I landed up in the dealer at the scheduled time but I dont think there was any sort of co-ordination for the time I was told to visit between the call-center and the dealer. Anyway after a few minutes of aimlessly walking around with a hope of being solicited, discarded the hope. I saw the dealer folks sitting on a corner and approached them asking about the Ntorq, the on road price, discounts etc. etc. Got the quote of around 81K with no discounts whatever. Asked for a test ride to which initially I was said no but they decided to give me the scooter that was waiting to be delivered. I was reluctant at first but went ahead nevertheless with a self-made promise to be gentle on the throttle. The dealer folks brought the vehicle down the pedestal and off we went with a service guy as pillion. He kept on egging me to go fast to check the performance. Test ride done, clicked a few pics and asked around about the other formalities. The ride was good but it ultimately felt like a scooter which are inherently unstable contraptions on 2 wheels. The Ntorq however is a great product in itself from TVS and I respect them (along with Tata) for the products they have been launching lately. Bookmarked for later.Next stop was the Yamaha showroom. The folks there were receptive and was asked about my need right away. I asked them for the details of the Ray-Z, they remarked that the model had been discontinued and I have the option of the Ray-Z street rally edition or something. On checking out that particular model was taken aback by seeing how you can put some unwanted contraptions around a relatively good looking scooter and name it as such. First impressions purely and I didnt feel like taking a test ride so moved on indicating I will get back later. The quote indicated a price of around 75K which according to me was not a value for money proposition at all.Now I hadnt given a thought to the Aprilia or Vespa scooters at any point of time during my shortlisting process. The initial asking price was too high for my budget. I actually went in to the showroom to check out the SR 125 as the price was almost the same with Ntorq so just for comparisons sake I went to the showroom nearest to me while still being around 7 Kms away. For the other showrooms I just had to cross the road from my office. Took a metro ride to the showroom while thinking about how things will pan out. The showroom experience was quite pleasant as compared to others. All the vehicles were neatly stacked and laid out, good decor, less crowd and the front desk staff were courteous too.All the Italian Beauties. The Aprilias:And the Vespas:The black shade was a natural choice but the blue felt more contemporary:I had in fact received a call from the Aprilia call center when I had filled a form in their website. In this case I was followed up through a call from the dealer itself and they had queried me about the time when I would make a visit and if I would like a test ride. The test drive vehicles were ready when I reached and I had all the vehicles at my disposal even a Vespa, I decided to go with the SR 150 first. I was provided a helmet before getting onto the scooter, the TVS folks didnt care less whether you wore one or not. The roads near the dealership was newly laid and I got a chance to get a good amount of Kms under the wheels. I had ridden a lot of commuter 2 wheelers before but nothing like the SR 150 till date. The handling was supreme with pin-point accuracy, you could feel it while taking a turn etc. Didnt feel like a scooter at all. The engine sounded a bit unrefined but nothing of the sort that was a deal breaker. And the way it looks is simply amazing, got onto the SR 125 next, some elements were toned down like the grab rail and the seat which will make you want the SR 150 more. Anyway this time around there wasnt any amazement, went in a straight line and came back right after. There is a marked difference as expected in the throttle response and the straight line acceleration. If you do decide to get an SR 125 do not test drive the SR 150, period. And I decided if I do buy myself an Aprilia it has to be in the 150 guise. So went ahead and asked for the quote to be prepared. Was in for a pleasant surprise because as per some Festive offers the discounts ran into the tune of around 10k on the total on road price. So basically I was getting an SR 150 for the price which was almost similar to the on road price of an Ntorq. Booked it right away through PAYTM.Some of the PROs which tilted my decision in favor of the SR 150.When buying stuff I usually look for the things which I need rather than what I am missing so not listing down the CONs but will mention some of the aspects later. The one area where the dealer experience was not up to the mark was on the delivery day. The Sales person assigned to me was on leave and so were the other folks. I think I must have been the first person in their history who took out the vehicle from the basement on his own and drove away with it. I was not expecting a grand ceremony but a little bit of attention would have been great. I didnt get the manual, first aid kit and the likes as well. Did a check on the VIN verified the manufacturing date and thats it. Even the perimeter frame and the connectivity device which I had paid for werent installed on the vehicle. The solace was that I got my hands on a gleaming blue Aprilia SR 150 and there was an uninitiated grin all the way back home.After I pushed it from the basement to the ground level:Set against the market leader. I chose you anyway:On one of the rides till now, hopefully many will follow:Red detailing on the seat is eye catching and gels well with the overall design:I like the rear of the SR 150, very sporty:A balanced design that screams for attention:No problem off the road:Or on the well laid out roads:You, me and a perspective:Helmet-Check, Riding Gloves-Check, Wind Cheater-Check:Planet saving step. Using the scooter moreA well designed saree guard (and yes on a scooter). Last edited by CrAzY dRiVeR : 15th January 2019 at 14:57 . Reason: Typo corrected. Thanks Seminole, FL (33772) Today Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 74F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%.. Tonight Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 74F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. LOS ANGELES - Teachers in the nations second-largest school system walked off the job Monday, heading for rain-soaked streets amid a battle with district leaders over crowded classrooms, depleted staff and the very future of Los Angeles schools. The strike drew thousands of unionized teachers to the picket lines, where they marched in front of schools in unrelenting rain, wearing red ponchos and rain boots. The walkout affected more than 30,000 educators and 600,000 schoolchildren across the sprawling district, which encompasses 710 square miles and hundreds of K-12 schools, making it larger than many state systems. The job action, the first teachers strike in Los Angeles in three decades, follows a year in which educators in a half-dozen GOP-controlled states walked out to demand raises and more money for schools. But this movement, taking place in the heart of deep-blue California, is no red state revolt. Instead, it highlights an existential fight unfolding in urban school systems across the nation and in the Democratic Party: Should public classrooms be surrendered to private operators, taking students and dollars from traditional schools? Instead, it highlights an existential fight unfolding in urban school systems across the nation and in the Democratic Party: Should public classrooms be surrendered to private operators, taking students and dollars from traditional schools? In Los Angeles, that fight is especially evident. In some schools, the traditional public system occupies one wing while another corner of the school houses a charter operator. And the actors in the battle here are quintessentially L.A.: tech and film giants, and philanthropists with big wallets and connections to the arts and high society. "Schools are not playgrounds for the rich. They belong to the people of Los Angeles," said Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing educators. The union is demanding that the school system invest in reducing class sizes and hiring more support staff. Many schools have nurses only one day a week, and counselors are overburdened with students. The union, which also seeks a 6.5 percent pay raise, hopes those investments will prevent families from leaving comprehensive public schools for the city's robust charter school network, taking state funding with them. Average class size hovers above 32 students for middle and high school students, with some teachers contending with up to 42 students in a single class. About 90 percent of the district's funding comes from the state, which in 2016 ranked 41st in the nation in per-pupil spending funding when the cost of living was taken into account. Maria Arienza, who teaches AP Spanish at North Hollywood High, said she had 49 students in a single class last semester. "My kids don't have enough desks," said Arienza, who has taught for seven years. "They sit on the floor in a crowded classroom." Outside Baldwin Hills Elementary on bustling Rodeo Road, teacher Marie Germaine said the district has given a charter school space on their campus. It means the predominantly African American school, with a premier gifted program, no longer has a computer lab or art room. An occupational therapist now meets with students in a storage closet. "We have a charter school on campus that is eating away at our spaces, our resources," Germaine said. But schools superintendent Austin Beutner, a former investment banker and nonprofit executive who was hired to get the system's finances in order, said the district cannot afford the union's demands. The school system presented another offer to the union last week, after the newly installed governor, Gavin Newsom (D), pledged to give Los Angeles schools more money. But it was not close enough to the union's demands. "If we agreed to UTLA's demands, the district would become immediately bankrupt and would be taken over by the state that same day," Beutner said in an interview Saturday. "That's the fact." Beutner disputes the notion that he favors charter schools - which are privately run but publicly funded - over traditional public schools, saying that charter school policy is made at the state level. "I'm not a charter guy. I'm not a no-charter guy," Beutner said in the interview. "I don't think charters are the solution. I don't think they're the problem, either. I believe in choice." The school system remained open, deploying central office staff to classrooms across the city and bringing in high-priced substitutes to teach and supervise children. About 1 million meals are served every school day, with three-quarters of schoolchildren qualifying for free meals because they come from low-income households. Many parents are keeping their children out of school, because of safety concerns or in solidarity with teachers. Some of the striking teachers are being joined by students, who said they have felt the effects of the system not investing sufficiently in their education. Makailah Jenkins, 16, is a junior at Washington Preparatory High in South Los Angeles. One of her classes was so crowded that she had to stand until a student transferred, freeing up a seat. There is no one to teach AP U.S. History, so she takes it online. "I am being affected by these things as well," Jenkins said. "It's my duty to make my voice heard." Max Jimenez, an 18-year-old senior at James Monroe High in the North Hills section of Los Angeles, joined throngs of protesters at a rally Monday, coming with several classmates. Making his first-ever appearance at a protest, he said he was taking a lesson from his AP government teacher - about the importance of standing up for his beliefs - to heart. "I've only seen this . . . in movies," Jimenez said, marveling at the crowd. The strike is the continuation of a long-running battle in the state between Democrats who align themselves with unions, and those who back charter operators. The latter group includes wealthy philanthropists such as Eli Broad, whose namesake contemporary art museum sits on a hill above downtown Los Angeles; Reed Hastings, chief executive of Netflix; and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. The three men donated millions of dollars in a bid to elect former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to the governor's office. He was trounced in the primary by Newsom. Teachers unions backed Newsom. Charter backers also spent tens of millions of dollars in a bid to elect a former charter network CEO as state superintendent of public instruction, a role that has little power over charter school policy. He was edged out by Tony Thurmond, who was backed by teachers unions in the most expensive state school chiefs race in history, with campaign contributions topping $40 million. The clash in Los Angeles is viewed by some as the latest chapter in the long-running - and expensive - battle for the future of California schools. At a news conference Monday morning, Beutner urged the union to come back to the bargaining table and said he had engaged Newsom, Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) and Thurmond. "It is our desire to have our educators well-supported and back in our schools serving the needs of our students," Beutner said. "We shouldn't be putting kids in the middle of this existential conversation about public education," the superintendent said Saturday. Asked how long the strike would last, Caputo-Pearl said Sunday evening that teachers "are prepared to strike for as long as it takes." Debbie Truong in Washington contributed to this report. Albany, N.Y. The state Legislature is expected to pass bills today banning gay conversion therapy and adding gender identity to the states anti-discrimination laws. Bills on both matters have repeatedly passed the state Assembly, but stalled in the Senate. With both chambers now in the hands of Democrats, lawmakers have been moving quickly. The gay conversion ban would bar licensed therapists from trying to change the sexual orientation of minors, according to The Associated Press. Fourteen other states have already passed similar laws. New York must send the message that conversion therapy is harmful, the bill's sponsor, Democratic state Sen. Brad Hoylman of Manhattan, said, according to AP. A person's sexual orientation is not a disorder that needs treatment. So-called conversion therapy is child abuse, plain and simple, Hoylman said, according to the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. The other bill set for a vote today is the Gender Non-Discrimination Act, known as GENDA. It will add gender identity and gender expression to New York anti-discrimination laws, the D&C said. The bill passed the Assembly every year since 2008, but never moved in the Republican-led Senate. "After a protracted 16-year battle, the Democratic majority will finally be able to shield transgender and gender-nonconforming New Yorkers from discrimination and hate," Hoylman said, according to the D&C. Cuomo is expected to sign both bills. The Legislature started its session fast on Monday with the passage of a series of voting reforms. Cuomo will unveil his proposed budget this afternoon. It is expected to include a plastic bag ban, among other things. The governor is also expected to provide more details today on a plan to legalize recreational marijuana in New York. Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598 Gov. Andrew Cuomo will promise a new economic development initiative in his State of the State speech today that hes calling the Syracuse Surge, but the governor is offering few details of his plan. Cuomo said the new development will focus on a series of tech-related priorities identified by Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh and the states Regional Economic Development Council. The governor said the council will adjust its economic development plans for Central New York to focus on the new umbrella concept of the Syracuse Surge. Cuomo offered no other details and Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh could not be reached for comment. Walsh is attending the governors combined 2019 State of the State and budget address at 2 p.m. in Albany. As Cuomo begins his third term, he said its appropriate to shift the focus of development efforts in Central New York. He said the state has invested $5.6 billion in the regions development since 2012. With all that has been accomplished, there is now an opportunity to reexamine priorities and make new investments in Central New York, Onondaga County, and Syracuse, the governor said in his State of the State blueprint. The previous investments include about $120 million at the New York State Fair in Geddes for new buildings and modernized infrastructure. The governors budget proposed spending a relatively modest $5 million at the fairgrounds this year to continue modernization projects. Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751 As expected, Gov. Andrew Cuomo today called for New York to legalize adult recreational marijuana use, and his budget proposal for 2019 outlines regulations and taxes to make it happen. Cuomos plan, unveiled in his annual State of the State speech, would create a new government office to regulate both the proposed recreational weed business and the states existing legal medical marijuana program. It creates new taxes on both the growing of cannabis for recreational use and the sale of recreational marijuana. The new wholesale tax on weed would be 20 percent of the price. The plan also authorizes a 2 percent wholesale tax that would go to counties that host a dispensary, or marijuana shop. But the plan gives counties and the states larger cities the option of declining to host such shops. Cuomo recently estimated the taxes could generate about $300 million per year, while warning the exact number is hard to pin down. His administrations official budget briefing book, released today, warns about falling in the trap of overestimating revenue from the adult-use of marijuana. Cuomos public stance on legal marijuana has changed over time, He once called it a gateway drug,: but in the past year accepted the findings of state health reports that conclude the benefits of legal weed outweigh the negatives. In addition, 10 other states and the District of Columbia have adopted some form of legal marijuana use. Were sort of past that bridge. ... the recreational sale of marijuana is here, Cuomo said during an interview Tuesday with Albanys WAMC. Cuomo also points to what he calls the social justice aspect of legalizing marijuana, citing studies that show people of color are disproportionately arrested and jailed for marijuana use. Cuomos plan would, for example, seal the records of some past marijuana convictions. Cuomos plan calls for a new state Office of Cannabis Management, which would regulate the production, distribution, licensing and enforcement of the new industry. Marijuana sales would be setup similar to the alcohol industry, with a separation of manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers. The program will limit the number of producers and retail dispensaries to guard against a market collapse," according to Cuomos budget proposal, and "encourage equity through craft growers and cooperatives, and provide training and incubators to ensure meaningful and sustained participation by communities disproportionately harmed by cannabis prohibition. The budget plan also supports a $100 million Hemp Industrial Park to be developed in the Southern Tier by Canopy Growth Corp. It would include growing, processing, manufacturing and research facilities. The specific location has not been identified. Canopy Growth is a Canadian company that recently received a $4 billion investment from the giant drinks company Constellation Brands, based in the Rochester suburb of Victor. CannaGather, which bills itself as New Yorks largest cannabis industry community, welcomed Cuomos proposal. "New York is already the largest unlicensed market in the world, so its legalization will ultimately yield billions of dollars for the legal economy in the form of sales, ancillary business, medicine and research, the groups co-founder, Josh Weinstein, aid in a statement. This is money that can go into the hands of entrepreneurs and taxes that can be used by the State for education and social services. Don Cazentre writes for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook. Three priests who lived and worked in Syracuse were included on a list released today of Jesuits with credible claims of child sex abuse. The Rev. Roy Drake spent almost a decade in Syracuse, including as director of research at Le Moyne College. Drake is among 50 Jesuit priests named today by the USA Northeast Province. The list, which covers New York, New England and other nearby states, also includes Peter Conroy and Raymond Fullam, who both worked at the Christ the King Retreat Center in Syracuse. Drake and Fullam are deceased. Drake was removed from ministry in 2003 after a report of child sex abuse stemming from 1973 was found to be credible after an investigation, according to the Jesuits. An additional claim regarding conduct in 1968 was found to be credible in 2006. He died in 2008. Drake first came to Le Moyne in 1978 to 1979 after working in Rochester and New York City. The allegations against him appear to predate his time in Syracuse. After a brief stint in Syracuse, he left for four years to work at John Carroll University in Cleveland. He returned to Le Moyne in 1985 and stayed until 1993, after which he was at the Chris the King Retreat Center until 1994. Fullam spent three years at Christ the King Retreat Center from 1969 to 1972. He had several assignments throughout New York state during his lifetime. He died in 1987. Allegations were made against Fullam in 2009 over conduct in 1954 and 1965. An investigation found the allegations to be credible, according to the Jesuits. Conroy, who was first named a child sex abuser by the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, worked in Syracuse for nine years. The allegations against him were not connected to his time in Syracuse. Public Affairs Reporter Julie McMahon covers courts, government and other issues affecting taxpayers. She can be reached anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-412-1992 SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer has asked the Food and Drug Administration to declare an emergency in an effort to stock local pharmacies with a shingles vaccine, which is in short supply. Schumer visited Burnet Pharmacy in Syracuse Monday to talk about the vaccine shortage and urge the FDA to subvert the federal government shutdown by declaring an emergency. The FDA is closed, Schumer said. "And when [pharmacies]...call the FDA and say we have a shortage of shingle shots, they say Theres no one here to help because the FDA is closed. " Last year, pharmaceutical manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline went to market with Shingrix, a vaccine that is 90 percent effective for preventing shingles. It requires two doses administered six months apart. Burnet Pharmacy has run out of the shingles vaccine. So have other local pharmacies, Schumer said. People waiting for their second dose are unsure if theyll get it in time. Typically, FDA staff communicate with pharmacies and manufacturers with information about vaccine production and shipment dates. Now, Schumer said, pharmacies have been left in the dark, unsure when their next shipment of Shingrix will come and how much theyll get. When theres a shortage of a drug, the FDA will work with the drug company to make sure the drug theyre short of is available. They space it out, Schumer said. He added the FDA also works with manufacturers to increase production of the drug. Those FDA workers have been deemed nonessential as part of the federal government shutdown. Schumer wrote a letter to the FDA urging them to declare the vaccine shortage an emergency. In it he asks for four things: Consider the shortage an emergency Work as a go-between with manufacturers to let local pharmacies know when shipments will arrive Expedite regulatory hurdles that could prevent shipments from getting to the U.S. Prioritize vaccine shipments to New York and other high population states Shingles is a virus that leads to a painful skin rash. It most often impacts people older than 50. Its caused by the same virus that leads to chicken pox in children. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in his annual address and budget proposal outlined new requirements for student loan servicers and for-profit colleges. Cuomo detailed his priorities for the coming year, noting in the 2020 budget book that New York state would step in to protect student loan borrowers in New York state in the absence of federal leadership. Cuomo made several digs at the Trump administration, noting in the Higher Education portion of his proposal that Trumps education department has or is planning to roll back several regulations. The Cuomo administration is proposing new state oversight to monitor for-profit colleges and companies that service student loans. According to the budget book, 2.8 million borrowers live in New York and are serviced by 30 student loan companies. The state does not currently regulate or license those companies. Cuomos proposal would create licensing standards and rules for these companies. The companies would be banned from engaging in predatory lending acts, misleading borrowers and other harmful practices. Cuomo would also begin state oversight of for-profit schools through the For-Profit College Accountability Act. The Cuomo administration estimates 33,000 students in New York attend degree-granting for-profit schools, while another 180,000 attend non-degree granting for-profit institutions, where they can earn certification or learn skills and trades. Cuomo proposed the following regulations on for-profit schools: Mandatory regular reporting to the state on funding sources. No school would be allowed to operate with more than 80 percent of its funding from taxpayers. This would create stricter rules in New York than in the rest of the country. The federal government caps schools' taxpayer funding at 90 percent. Mandatory regular reporting to the state on expenditures. Each school would be required to spend at least 50 percent of its budget on instruction and learning. Mandatory reporting on salaries and bonuses for school presidents and senior leadership. A prohibition on school leaders serving on boards for accreditation agencies to which they apply. Public Affairs Reporter Julie McMahon covers courts, government and other issues affecting taxpayers. She can be reached anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-412-1992 The St. Josephs Health Amphitheater at Lakeview is making history this year -- and risking Mother Natures wrath -- with its earliest ever concert date. Jason Aldean will perform at the Syracuse concert venue on Thursday, May 16, 2019, as part of his Ride All Night Tour. Kane Brown, Carly Pearce and Dee Jay Silver will open the show at 7 p.m. Its the first time the former Lakeview Amphitheater has hosted a concert in May. The earliest concerts on the Amps past concert calendars have all been in June: Ringo Starr on June 3, 2016; Zac Brown Band on June 24, 2017; and Kidz Bop Live on June 3, 2018. That raises a big question: Could it snow? May 16 is technically spring, but Central New Yorkers know that Syracuse can see winter weather as late as mid-May. In fact, the Salt City has seen snow on Mothers Day four times in the past century, including 2.1 inches of snow on May 12, 1996. According to the Northeast Regional Climate Centers daily almanac chart, it snowed in Syracuse on May 16, 2016 -- though it was just a trace amount. The latest date on which measurable snow fell in Syracuse is a day later; 1.2 inches of snow fell on May 17, 1973. But even if it doesnt snow, CNY country fans may still need to prepare for cold, especially at an outdoor concert by Onondaga Lake at night. May 16 in Syracuse typically sees high temperatures of 69 degrees and lows of 46 (with an average overall temperature of 57.6), according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center. The record high for that date is 90 in 1962, while the record low is 32 in 1936. Other, potentially warmer options to see Jason Aldean in Upstate New York include an Aug. 10 concert at CMAC in Canandaigua and Sept. 5 at SPAC (Saratoga Performing Arts Center) in Saratoga Springs. Tickets for Aldeans concerts are expected to go on sale Jan. 25 as part of Live Nations Country Megaticket. Prices have not been announced. Other Megaticket artists have not been named. Aldean, a 41-year-old Georgia native, is best known for hits like Big Green Tractor, Dirt Road Anthem, Burnin' It Down, Tonight Looks Good on You and You Make It Easy. Hes won two ACM Awards for Entertainer of the Year and most recently released his eighth studio album, Rearview Town, in 2018. Aldean is the fourth concert scheduled for the 2019 season at St. Josephs Health Amphitheater at Lakeview, which opened in 2015 as the Lakeview Amphitheater. Additional shows are expected to be announced in the coming weeks. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse police have arrested two teenagers in connection with the Dec. 19 killing of Asim Musa, a Sudanese immigrant, who was shot and killed while working behind the counter at Eddies Eagle Market on Oakwood Avenue. Troy Derby and Stanley Sawyer, both 18, of Syracuse, were charged with murder on Monday, police said. Derby is facing first-degree murder, while Sawyer was charged with second-degree murder. Both men also were charged with second-degree criminal possession of a weapon and first-degree attempt robbery. Syracuse police were called to Eddies Eagle Market, at 140 Oakwood Ave., at 9:27 p.m. Dec. 19 after the shooting death. Police have said a masked man entered the store. Musa asked the man to take the mask off, but the man refused, which led to an physical altercation between the two men. The men continued to fight outside on the sidewalk when another man walked up and shot Musa in the back. AMR Ambulance took Musa to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, where he died. Musa was a Sudanese immigrant who had lived in Syracuse for 14 years, according to his family. He was a gifted mathematician and cook who left behind brothers, a father in Sudan and his 9-year-old daughter, Hadia Musa. In the days after his death, Hadia Musa wrote a message to her slain father, written in marker on poster board, asking him why he had to leave her. Meanwhile, Syracuse police detectives continued to search for Asim Musas killers. They interviewed numerous people, conducted an extensive neighborhood canvass and studied video surveillance from the surrounding area, police spokesman Detective George Hack said in a news release. Earlier this month, police released surveillance photos of a suspect wearing a mask, along with a Fowler Falcons sweatshirt from Fowler High School that read Class of 2011 on the back. During the investigation, police identified Derby and Sawyer as suspects, Hack said in the release. After their arrests Monday, both Derby and Sawyer were sent to the Onondaga County Justice Center. Police say they are withholding mugshots of Derby and Sawyer while this investigation is continuing. They also ask anyone with information about the homicide to call them at (315) 442-5222. AUBURN, N.Y. -- One person was killed this morning in a house fire in Auburn, according to the Auburn Police Department. The person, who was not identified by police, was unable to get out of the the home at 47 Pulsifer Dr. The fire was fully involved when firefighters arrived and it took the fire department 90 minutes to bring the fire under control, said Capt. James Moore, a spokesman for the police department. The blaze was reported at about 12:45 a.m. The fire is under investigation by the Auburn Fire Department, New York State Fire Investigators and the Auburn Police Department. The identity of the victim is not being released until a positive identification can be made, Moore said. Police asked anyone with information about the fire, to call Detective Chris Coopper at (315) 255-4706 or the Auburn Police Department at (315) 253-3231. Callers may remain anonymous. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Two 18-year-old men are accused of going to Eddies Eagle Market on Oakwood Avenue at about 9:27 p.m. on Dec. 19 with loaded handguns and the intent to rob the Syracuse store, according to court records. During the attempted robbery, Asim Musa, a Sudanese immigrant, who was working behind the counter at the store was shot and killed, Syracuse police said. Troy Derby and Stanley Sawyer, both of Syracuse, were charged Monday with murder, police said. Derby was the shooter, according to a felony complaint from Syracuse City Court. Derby is facing first-degree murder, while Sawyer was charged with second-degree murder. Both men also were charged with second-degree criminal possession of a weapon and first-degree attempted robbery, police said. Police have said a masked man entered the store. Musa asked the man to take the mask off, but the man refused, which led to an physical altercation between the two men. The men continued to fight outside on the sidewalk when another man, identified as Derby in court records, walked up and shot Musa in the back. AMR Ambulance took Musa to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, where he died. Musa was a Sudanese immigrant who had lived in Syracuse for 14 years, according to his family. He was a gifted mathematician and cook who left behind brothers, a father in Sudan and a 9-year-old daughter. After their arrests Monday, Derby and Sawyer were sent to the Onondaga County Justice Center. Police said they are withholding mugshots of Derby and Sawyer while this investigation is continuing. They also ask anyone with information about the homicide to call them at (315) 442-5222. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A man who was lured by vigilantes to a Syracuse-area parking lot on an offer that he could have sex with an underage girl has been charged by Syracuse police. Robert J. Loth, 35, of 213 Village Drive, Apt. 2, Syracuse, was arrested Monday and charged with first-degree attempted disseminating indecent material to a minor, city police spokesman Detective George Hack said. The suspect can be seen on a Facebook video being confronted by two men who said they were with a group called Nationwide Parents Against Predators. On the video, the pair claimed to have chat logs showing that the man expected to have sex with a 15-year-old girl and to meet her at a parking lot of Dunkin Donuts in Lyncourt. Pressed by the vigilantes, the man in the video, appeared to admit he was there to meet the underage girl who he thought he had exchanged messages with. Its unclear if there was an underage girl involved in the sting. I swear this will not happen again, the man told the two vigilantes, adding he didnt know the person he was texting with was underage. Were handing this over to police, the vigilantes said. Can you please not do that? the man said. The men involved with the vigilante group declined to comment, and they later removed the video from Facebook. Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick told Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard said the DAs office has independent evidence to base the charges on against the man, though he didnt describe what the evidence was. The man who filmed the exchange also posted a screenshot of an email apparently showing that Loth was fired from his job at AAA. In a statement, a AAA spokeswoman, Elizabeth Carey, said the company was aware of the Facebook post depicting a former employee who is no longer employed by AAA. Fitzpatrick said this type of vigilantism isnt a good idea. Its not something wed recommend at all, he said. Suspects can be violent, for example, if theyre confronted, he said. People turn to rage, go absolutely berserk because to them their life is effectively over, he said. Loth was sent to the Onondaga County Justice Center in Syracuse after his arrest Monday. Syracuse police ask anyone with information about the case or others similar in nature to call their Abused Persons Unit at (315) 435-3016. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse police say two men were shot Monday on Holland Street. One of the men is in critical condition Monday night, city police spokesman Detective George Hack said in a news release. Officers were called to the 300 block of Holland Street at 3:05 p.m. for a report of shots fired. While they were there, police learned two men who had been shot had arrived at Upstate University Hospital in a private vehicle, the release said. A 23-year-old man was shot in the left forearm, police said. His injury is not life-threatening. A 20-year-old man was shot in the back. He is in critical condition. There is no suspect information at this time," Hack said in the release. "This investigation is very active and ongoing." Syracuse police ask anyone with information about the shootings to call them at (315) 442-5222. DEWITT, NY - Herb Philipsons closed its DeWitt store Monday, as the locally owned chain reorganizes and restructures after struggling financially, its owner said Tuesday. Guy Viti, who purchased the clothing and sporting/outdoor goods chain in early 2018, filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 in October 2018. As part of that, Viti told Syracuse.com | The Post Standard he is looking to make cuts where he can. Viti said he tried downsizing his space in DeWitt first, but that didnt work. The store was in a plaza at 3179 Erie Boulevard East. So far, about four of the 24 workers at the DeWitt store have transferred to the Liverpool location, Viti said. The others may be laid off if they dont want to transfer to openings in other locations. The Rome-based chain has six stores remaining - Liverpool, Oneida, Rome, New Hartford, Herkimer and Watertown. Viti said these are staying open at this time, although he said hes working on leases right now. "It would be very difficult to say there wont be more cuts,'' he said. "Before I can grow, I have to restructure. Retail is bad right now with e-commerce,. I know I can grow as I move forward, and I am trying to save jobs in Central New York." Viti said Christmas sales were good, but he is looking at the sales numbers, and had to close the DeWitt store. This doesnt make me happy, Viti said. Viti, who bought the company at age 68, worked for the local chain for three decades before purchasing it. Poff said the bridge on Rt. 91 couldnt accommodate the load so they worked with Saltville and VDOT officials on a bridge near the old government plant site. The piers of that bridge could handle the load of the transformers but the deck couldnt. So, Poff said, the project team had to get creative. The team decided to erect a Bailey bridge, which is a temporary portable truss bridge first used during World War II. However, before the transformers can be brought in, Shepelwich noted that VDOT must complete a detailed inspection of the Lee Highway bridge crossing over the railroad just west of the Seven Mile Ford rail siding. Once VDOT gives Appalachian Power the green light, the transformers will be transported to Broadford one at a time on four consecutive weekends. Poff noted that its slow going with the rigs moving at a walking pace. Do you already have a paid subscription to any of the SWNewsMedia newspapers? If so, you can Activate your Premium online account by clicking here. Activation will allow you to view unlimited online articles each month. To activate your Premium online account, the email address and phone number provided with your paid newspaper subscription needs to match the information you use in setting up your online user account. If you are having trouble or want to confirm what email address and phone number is listed on your subscription account, please call 952-345-6682 or email circulation@swpub.com and we'll be happy to assist. It is a combination of emotions that shows how well the Cheyenne County School District No. 1 is teaching its students. That is how Sheri Ehler describes the coming Advanced Education Accreditation visit. It is really exciting, but it is a lot of work, Ehler said of the accreditation visit. The visit is scheduled for Jan. 30 through Feb. 1. It is an event scheduled once every five years. It is a peer visit that includes interviews of teachers, administration and students. It is very collaborative, Ehler said. She said the goal is to be as effective as teachers, and with the educ... Cheyenne County businesses and community supporters will be in the limelight Friday, when the Cheyenne County Chamber of Commerce hosts its annual awards banquet. From the most influential new business to the citizen of the year, the Chamber will recognize those who have impacted the Cheyenne County community. This is an opportunity to honor everything that we as a county have accomplished, said Chamber President Hope Feeney. And, it give us the opportunity to highlight businesses and other community members have done to improve the community. Feeney said this year she believes... Click the image above to watch the video In todays weather forecast we are expecting morning rain, then showers, possibly heavy, along with southwesterlies. Its a one-clothing layer day today with a high of 25 and an overnight low of 17 degrees. Humidity is 79 per cent. Low tide is at 9am and high tide at 3.10pm (Tay St). Theres a sea swell of 0.6m and sea temperature is 21 degrees. Sunset tonight is at 8.35pm. If youre going fishing the next best fish bite time is between 8 and 10pm. On this day in NZ history in 1941 the NZ Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) was founded. WAAF was formed to enable the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) to release more men for overseas service during the Second World War. On this day in world history in 1547 Ivan IV crowned himself the new Czar of Russia in Assumption Cathedral in Moscow. In 1900 the U.S. Senate recognised the Anglo-German Treaty of 1899 by which the UK renounced its rights to the Samoan Islands. In 1909 one of Ernest Shackletons polar exploration teams reached the Magnetic South Pole. In 1920 the League of Nations held its first meeting in Paris. In 1940 Hitler cancelled an attack in the West due to bad weather and the capture of German attack plans in Belgium. In 1942 Japans advance into Burma began. In 1944 Eisenhower assumed supreme command of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. In 1956 the Egyptian government made Islam the state religion. In 1991 the Persian Gulf War began. The massive U.S.-led offensive against Iraq Operation Desert Storm ended on February 28, 1991 when President George H. W. Bush declared a cease-fire and Iraq pledged to honour future coalition and U.N. peace terms. Today is the birthday of Italian tragic poet Vittorio Alfieri. Born in 1749 he once said Often the test of courage is not to die but to live. To get involved in activities around the Bay of Plenty, please check out our Whats on page. Have a great day! Growing up, Sam Sinclair was a Silver Ferns ball girl, aspiring to be like Casey Kopua, and dreaming of one day wearing the black dress. Now, Sams a key member of the Silver Ferns starting seven, playing alongside her former inspiration, now friend, Casey Kopua, and vice-captain of the Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic in the ANZ Premiership. After a busy year of touring the world for the Commonwealth Games, Quad Series and Constellation Cup, Sams preparing for her next big challenge. Shes one of four Step Higher Award recipients from the University of Waikato who will follow Sir Edmund Hillarys footsteps in Nepal in February, climbing 4800 metres to Ama Dablam Base Camp, fundraising for the Himalayan Trust Literacy Programme, and working in local schools and hospitals. Im really excited to go to a place Ive never been, says Sam. No matter how much I read about it, I know its going to be a bit of a surprise when I get there. Im also looking forward to engaging with people from a completely different culture and I think it will give me a deep appreciation for what we have in New Zealand. Sams already underway with her fundraising, having raised more than $1,000 for the Himalayan Trust through selling raffle tickets for Silver Ferns kits. It was cool to see how many people were willing to buy raffle tickets and support the cause, says Sam. The former John Paul College student from Rotorua started playing netball when she was six, inspired by her older sister who played. Sam became a Hillary scholar at the University of Waikato in 2014, the same year she joined the Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic. She debuted for the Silver Ferns in 2017, quickly becoming a valuable player alongside fellow Waikato student Kelly Jury and alumna Laura Langman. She says winning the Hillary Scholarship has been crucial to maintaining her high sporting and academic performances. Being a Hillary scholar has been a big highlight of university, says Sam. We get so many opportunities to become better people figuring out our personal purpose, listening to all the great guest speakers, doing public speaking courses, engaging with the other scholars and seeing what they do its great to be part of that community. Her competitive drive has been an asset, not just on the netball court but also in the lecture theatre. When I start something, I want to get it done. Sometimes its a challenge to juggle assignments and tests with netball tours, but I love it. The sense of accomplishment makes it all worth it. Sam graduated with a Bachelor of Management Studies in December, and will return this year to complete a Postgraduate Certificate in Leadership Communication. I know Ill only be able to play netball for so long, so I want to set myself up for a career for afterwards, says Sam. Im passionate about working with people and helping to create change in society, so Id love to be involved with some sort of social enterprise one day. In New Zealand, were so blessed to have the opportunity to help others, create change and give our lives purpose and meaning its so important to step out of the box and do something that will inspire people, says Sam. Bay of Plenty If you love working out doors and in a small team then we have the role for you. We are needing someone who has either maintenance... View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz Five people have been arrested following an attempted robbery and fleeing driver incident in Hamilton. About 9.30am yesterday, a group of people entered a dairy on Knighton Road in Hillcrest armed with screwdrivers and poles. They fled when the dairy owner activated a fog cannon. Later that day, the same group approached another dairy - in Aberdeen Drive, Dinsdale - in a similar manner, says a police spokesperson. "Police were called and attending officers located a vehicle with the alleged offenders inside. "When the vehicle failed to stop, a pursuit was initiated but quickly abandoned due to the manner of driving." Police located the vehicle a short time later, but the occupants had fled on foot. Five people four youths and one adult (aged 17) were located following a search by officers, the dog section and Eagle helicopter. "The youths have been referred to Youth Aid, while the 17-year-old is due to appear in Hamilton District Court today, charged with assault with intent to rob and unlawfully getting into a vehicle. "Police are still making enquiries to locate a sixth person, seen wearing a dark green long sleeve top, as pictured." Anyone with information is urged to contact Constable Ben Boserio at BBCO09@police.govt.nz or by calling Hamilton Police on (07) 858 6200, quoting file 190114/4567. Bay of Plenty You will be driving the Roller and also required to help out the team hands on. You will be working around Tauranga, for... View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz Brazil association criticises planned tariffs on chicken exports to South Africa South Africa's move to impose tariffs on the import of frozen chicken parts could have an adverse impact on local consumers and the supply of such products in the country, the Brazilian Association of Animal Protein said. The imposition of a higher tariff is seen as a way to control imports entering South Africa. According to Francois Baird, founder of Fairplay, an organisation that tackles unfair trade practices and dumping, years of "steadily increasing imports of chicken portions dumped below the cost of production" have eroded the competitive position of the local poultry industry. Higher tariffs, Baird argued, will prevent the loss of "thousands of jobs" in the sector, given that " [cheap] imports now claim between a quarter and a third of the (South African) market." Due to the ease of access for these products, smaller local producers are forced to close their businesses, while larger ones have to restructure their business models and retrench manpower. As such, the South African Poultry Association (SAPA) made an application to the International Trade Administration Commission - the organisation tasked with customs tariff investigations, trade remedies, and import and export control - to implement an 82% increase to an ad valorem tariff on bone-in and boneless frozen chicken portions, from existing levels of 37% and 12%, respectively. But Brazilian Association of Animal Protein dismissed South Africa's justification for the tariff as unsustainable, questioning the country's ability to maintain poultry productions at sufficient levels as the sector is affected by pathogenic avian influenza "since 2017." The association also stated that local production supplemented with imported chicken meat could meet South Africa's demand for fresh and frozen chicken products in a safe, efficient and reliable manner. "These partnerships create jobs locally and benefit processors, restaurant chains, retailers, wholesalers and especially... families, who have access to healthy, top-quality poultry meat. The requested tariff-rate increase in frozen poultry products would also affect the domestic prices for consumers, given that imports would be more expensive and there would be a lack of supply by South Africa's production," the association added. - Business Day Blog Archive June 2021 (1) May 2021 (77) April 2021 (77) March 2021 (82) February 2021 (68) January 2021 (64) December 2020 (67) November 2020 (66) October 2020 (66) September 2020 (67) August 2020 (74) July 2020 (83) June 2020 (92) May 2020 (86) April 2020 (104) March 2020 (105) February 2020 (74) January 2020 (75) December 2019 (75) November 2019 (70) October 2019 (89) September 2019 (69) August 2019 (81) July 2019 (77) June 2019 (73) May 2019 (110) April 2019 (110) March 2019 (102) February 2019 (85) January 2019 (123) December 2018 (116) November 2018 (112) October 2018 (121) September 2018 (107) August 2018 (150) July 2018 (163) June 2018 (190) May 2018 (145) April 2018 (112) March 2018 (124) February 2018 (113) January 2018 (164) December 2017 (150) November 2017 (144) October 2017 (169) September 2017 (171) August 2017 (135) July 2017 (131) June 2017 (147) May 2017 (160) April 2017 (138) March 2017 (156) February 2017 (143) January 2017 (203) December 2016 (208) November 2016 (185) October 2016 (173) September 2016 (194) August 2016 (232) July 2016 (225) June 2016 (238) May 2016 (231) April 2016 (215) March 2016 (246) February 2016 (226) January 2016 (252) December 2015 (230) November 2015 (250) October 2015 (234) September 2015 (222) August 2015 (253) July 2015 (275) June 2015 (279) May 2015 (223) April 2015 (226) March 2015 (243) February 2015 (258) January 2015 (281) December 2014 (292) November 2014 (296) October 2014 (413) September 2014 (472) August 2014 (506) July 2014 (483) June 2014 (488) May 2014 (512) April 2014 (497) March 2014 (531) February 2014 (482) January 2014 (535) December 2013 (482) November 2013 (441) October 2013 (416) September 2013 (491) August 2013 (521) July 2013 (491) June 2013 (470) May 2013 (457) April 2013 (426) March 2013 (420) February 2013 (414) January 2013 (489) December 2012 (433) November 2012 (504) October 2012 (469) September 2012 (430) August 2012 (427) July 2012 (360) June 2012 (336) May 2012 (362) April 2012 (322) March 2012 (263) February 2012 (224) January 2012 (291) December 2011 (295) November 2011 (325) October 2011 (330) September 2011 (319) August 2011 (333) July 2011 (318) June 2011 (387) May 2011 (373) April 2011 (389) March 2011 (375) February 2011 (335) January 2011 (400) December 2010 (445) November 2010 (395) October 2010 (312) September 2010 (262) August 2010 (277) July 2010 (323) June 2010 (386) May 2010 (360) April 2010 (333) March 2010 (351) February 2010 (336) January 2010 (384) December 2009 (353) November 2009 (300) October 2009 (308) September 2009 (350) August 2009 (298) July 2009 (255) June 2009 (203) May 2009 (193) April 2009 (186) March 2009 (197) February 2009 (173) January 2009 (148) December 2008 (181) November 2008 (197) October 2008 (236) September 2008 (304) August 2008 (314) July 2008 (273) June 2008 (27) May 2008 (1) April 2008 (6) October 2007 (1) May 2007 (1) April 2007 (6) March 2007 (2) February 2007 (1) October 2006 (1) September 2006 (1) August 2006 (4) July 2006 (4) June 2006 (1) July 2005 (1) May 2005 (2) March 2005 (1) June 2004 (2) May 2004 (1) April 2004 (4) March 2004 (2) February 2004 (2) July 2003 (2) June 2003 (5) Provided James Clyde Jenkins III is being held in the Payne County Jail on charges related to a domestic disturbance and police pursuit that took place Nov. 17. He was paralyzed after exchanging gunfire with a Payne County deputy and is receiving medical care at the county's expense as long as he remains in the Payne County Jail. The Payne County Facilities Authority authorized $250,000 from sales tax funds to cover his medical expenses during a special meeting on Monday. The December 18th ceasefire around the Red Sea port of Hodeida has failed and the Shia rebels have resumed most of their combat operations including attacks against targets in Saudi Arabia using Iranian ballistic missiles and UAVs carrying explosives. The December 18th deal was supposed to make it possible for food and other aid to be unloaded from ships and sent off on trucks to an increasingly desperate and hungry population in northern and central Yemen. The ceasefire halted a government offensive that was about to capture the port facilities and the Shia rebels indicated that would (one way or another) probably lead to major damage to the port facilities. The ceasefire terms called for the rebels to withdraw their forces from the port area by January 1st and from all of Hodeida a week later. This was to be monitored by 40 UN personnel. This process could not get started until the shooting stopped and that never happened. That is how previous ceasefire agreements have unraveled and this one was no different. The rebels often went through the motions but some complication always seemed to appear that kept the UN inspectors out of the port area and blocked any supervision of how aid was being handled (and often misdirected or stolen by the rebels). The government is at a disadvantage here because the rebels have been stealing and stockpiling (on their northwestern Yemen homeland) or selling much of the food and other aid. Their core supporters were taken care of but the majority of Yemenis in need of that foreign aid were not. Major damage to Hodeida port facilities would mean delays in getting aid in from the two major southern ports (which do not have the capacity Hodeida has). Rebuilding Hodeida port facilities would take over a year although some unloading could begin within a month or so of an end to the violence around the port that would allow repair equipment and personnel to get in. The rebels could be really nasty and leave Iranian naval mines in the waterways the port depends on. That would make it more times consuming to restore use of the port. The rebels have already planted thousands of landmines and explosive traps in and around the port area. The government forces have been clearing those as they advanced and that did slow the advance. But the rebels could not stop the advance and the rebels know they will eventually lose and all these obstructions are mainly to encourage the government and neighboring Saudi Arabia to leave the Shia tribes with some autonomy and little retaliation for all the mess this failed rebellion has caused. Another reason the war is still stalemated is Iran, which has persuaded the Shia rebels that continued resistance is possible with Iranian support and that this strategy will eventually result in lasting gains for the Shia minority in northwest Yemen. Iran might appear to be overconfident what with growing popular unrest in Iran and opposition to these foreign wars. Even though supporting Yemeni rebels is relatively cheap compared to similar operations in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq most Iranians want it all halted. At the same time, the Gulf Arabs (led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE) do not want a pro-Iran Shia Arab entity in southern Arabia and are willing to keep fighting to get what they want. There are no popular protests in the rest of Arabia about the fight against the Iran-backed rebels. There is general agreement that it is not a good idea having an Iranian ally sitting on the Red Sea coast where Iranian anti-ship missiles can mysteriously appear (along with less visible naval mines underwater) to block traffic in the Red Sea. This would be a major disaster for Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel who all depend on free access to the Red Sea. The Saudis have a major incentive to shut down the Red Sea port of Hodeida; the port made possible major smuggling efforts to get Iranian weapons (especially long-range missiles) to the rebels, who then fire those missiles at targets deep inside Saudi Arabia. These missiles have, so far, done little damage because of the Saudi anti-missile defenses (Patriot PAC 3 anti-missile missiles). The fighting that has shut down Hodeida has also halted the delivery of these missiles (which are broken down and smuggled in as smaller items that are reassembled under the supervision of Iranian technicians). Because of this keeping Hodeida under siege and largely inoperative benefits the Saudis because it is much more difficult to smuggle in large Iranian missiles using the smaller smuggler boats (coastal fishing boats and cargo transports). Currently, all of these small boat smuggling efforts only appear to be carrying small arms, ammo and short-range rockets (and mortar shells). The rebels are not getting any more of the large Iranian UAVs because of this and have to rely on the commercial quad-copters which are much easier to obtain via commercial shipments. In the weeks following the start of the December 18th ceasefire more cargo unloading took place at Hodeida and the rebels managed to keep most UN inspectors away. So the way was clear for the Iranian smuggling to resume. In the last two weeks, the rebels have resumed their use of ballistic missiles and explosive carrying UAVs to hit targets in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Even the UN is losing patience by increasingly blaming the rebels for the failure of the ceasefire deal. The Shia rebels and their Iranian backers are both obsessed with self-destructive, and dangerous for bystanders, goals. The Shia rebels want their autonomy back. The Sunni majority in Yemen opposes autonomy or weapons for the Shia up north because those two things have made the Shia tribes a constant source of trouble for centuries. Iran wants world domination, starting with control of Saudi Arabia and most of the Middle East. Iran also seeks to destroy Israel and the United States. Neither Iran nor the Yemeni Shia have a reputation for honoring promises, treaties or anything that limits their activities. In short, negotiations may seem smooth but compliance will be in short supply. Expect both sides to resist implementing an actual, working, ceasefire or truce. The Shia tribes never had the degree of Iranian support they have now. That support has included large shipments of Iranian ballistic missiles and rockets. These are primarily for use against Saudi Arabia. Because of that Saudi Arabia can both identify with what Israel is going through with Hamas and Hezbollah rocket attacks because Iranian sponsored Shia rebels in Yemen have been firing rockets, ballistic missiles and, mortar shells and machine-gun bullets into Saudi Arabia since 2015 killing over a hundred civilians and soldiers on the border. The Saudis have found the American made Patriot anti-missile missiles very effective in stopping nearly all the ballistic missiles. The shorter range rockets are another matter and there have been discussions about obtaining the Israeli Iron Dome anti-rocket system. This rocket and missile threat to Saudi Arabia will make negotiating a Yemeni peace deal difficult. The Yemeni Shia have always been hostile to the Saudis but now it has moved beyond that. The Saudis will not accept any peace deal that does not guarantee a halt to the rocket and missile attacks. That means more government control of the Shia tribal areas of Yemen than before the rebellion began. That will be difficult for the Yemeni Shia to accept but for the Saudis nothing less is acceptable. Continued rocket and missile attacks would be evidence of Saudi inability to defend its own borders and the Saudi citizens that live there. Iran knows this too but the UN is less concerned about that sort of thing. January 14, 2019: The Shia rebels say they fired another Badr ballistic missile into Saudi Arabia. This one was aimed at the Saudi military base in Narjan province in southwest Saudi Arabia. Normally the Saudis quickly announce that the missile was intercepted and there were no casualties. But in this case, there has been no announcement and that may mean the missile got through to a target. On November 18 the Shia rebels announced a halt of their ballistic missile and drone attacks as a show of good faith and to encourage Yemeni agreement to a ceasefire in the Red Sea port of Hodeida. January 13, 2019: In the north (across the border in Saudi province of Jizan), Shia rebels used an Iranian Ababil UAV carrying explosives to attack a military base near Jizan. The Saudis did not report such an attack. The Yemeni rebels said they would halt their UAV and ballistic missile attacks if the Arab coalition halted all its air attacks. January 12, 2019: The UN openly complains about rebel interference with the ceasefire and Hodeida port operation. The rebels responded by accusing the UN of trying to turn over Hodeida to hostile (to the Shia) powers like America, Britain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Since these accusations were used the Shia refused to meet with UN negotiators. The government was still willing to talk but the UN negotiators were now being shut out by the Shia. Most Yemenis see these tactics as typical of the Shia tribes in the north. Foreigners are unsure what to do when faced with this sort of thing. In Hodeida, there was gunfire and explosions heard most of the day. The fire was coming from the rebels and government forces. January 10, 2019: In the south (Lahj province, just north of the port of Aden), Shia rebels used an Iranian Ababil UAV carrying explosives to attack a scheduled parade and ceremony at an airbase. The UAV was caught on video diving down and exploding over the area where senior officials were standing. The explosion killed seven and wounded at least a dozen. One of those killed was the chief intelligence officer of the Yemen Army. This attack could have been made with the UAV navigating on its own and following pre-programmed instructions to dive on a particular location and explode. The ceremony attacked was scheduled and the location of where the senior people would be was known. The Iranians have used this tactic before. In 2017 four UAVs that Shia rebels used to attack Saudi and UAE air defense radars were not locally made as the rebels claimed but were smuggled in (disassembled) from Iran via Oman hidden in truckloads of non-military goods. The four UAVs were identified as Ababils which are made in Iran and provided to several Islamic terror groups so far. In Yemen, the Ababils are used to try and incapacitate Saudi Patriot air defense systems. If you know where the air defense radars are you can use the GPS guidance of the Ababil to send the UAV, armed with an explosive warhead, to destroy or damage the radar. Ababil is an 83 kg (183 pound) UAV with a three meter (ten foot) wingspan, a payload of about 36 kg (80 pounds), a cruising speed of 290 kilometers an hour and an endurance of 90 minutes. The Ababil under radio control can operate as far as 120 kilometers from its ground controller. But it also has a guidance system that allows it to fly a pre-programmed route and then return to the control of its controllers for a landing (which is by parachute). The Ababil can use its GPS guidance to fly over 300 kilometers in cruise missile mode. The Shia rebels took credit for the UAV attack and said there would be more. The day after the attack the Arab air coalition attacked what they believed was the base the UAVs were operating from. January 5, 2019: In the south (Abyan province), AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) gunmen attacked a checkpoint and left two pro-government militiamen dead. This was apparently a side effect of the major battle with AQAP in the area yesterday. January 4, 2019: In the south (Shabwa province), Yemeni special operation troops sought to capture a rural AQAP base and were met with heavy gunfire. The soldiers eventually prevailed but not until six soldiers and nine AQAP (and tribal allies) died. The soldiers also persuaded tribal elders to help by convincing armed tribesmen not to work for AQAP. The effort to clear AQAP out Hadramawt, Abyan (Aden) and Shabwa provinces has been going on since late 2016 but became more intense since early 2017 when the United States increased its effort to find and kill key AQAP personnel, especially the many who were based in Shabwa. This was mainly done from the air using UAVs for surveillance and attacks using guided missiles and smart bombs. As a result of the air operations, the remaining AQAP groups became more vulnerable to detection and attack on the ground. There are also some ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) groups out in the hills and they will fight with AQAP men as well as soldiers. There seem to be no ISIL groups left in this region and not many AQAP but the search, and the occasional battles, continue. January 1, 2019: In central Yemen (Marib province), the first UAV missile attack of the year killed Jamel al Badawi, the man responsible for planning the year 2000 suicide boat bombing of a U.S. destroyer refueling at Aden. That attack killed 17 American sailors and wounded 40 more. The U.S. carried out 36 UAV missile attacks in Yemen during 2018. These were against Islamic terrorist groups operating in central and southern Yemen. The last such attack was in September. One of the 2018 attacks was against ISIL while all the others were against AQAP targets. There were 144 UAV attacks in 2017 and 44 in 2016. December 31, 2018: The UN threatened to halt food shipments to Yemen if the Shia rebels did not stop stealing portions of this aid and interfering with the distribution of the rest. The rebels responded that they were surprised to hear these accusations. This stealing and interference has been an issue for years and the UN tried to deal with it quietly and that did not work. The government forces also pointed out that the major aid shipments coming through the rebel-controlled port of Hodeida often contained weapons and military equipment that the rebels retrieved while preventing UN personnel from conducting inspections. The government reported to the UN that between December 18 and 30 the Shia rebels carried out 268 attacks, killing 23 government troops and wounding 163. Most of these attacks were small, several mortar shells or small rockets or some machine-gun or sniper fire. But they were all ceasefire violations and the Yemeni government wanted to know why the UN does not recognize those violations because in many cases UN personnel were in the area. A year ago a UN investigation concluded that Iran was indeed smuggling weapons, large (ballistic missiles and UAVs) and small (pistols and rifles) into Yemen for the Shia rebels. December 29, 2018: In Hodeida, the rebels turned over control of the port area to pre-war Yemeni coast guard personnel, who turned out to be allies of the Shia rebels. This was not obvious at first but when these new security personnel proved just as uncooperative with UN inspectors it became clear what had happened. To make matters worse the rebels continued to open fire in and around Hodeida often enough to keep most additional UN personnel away. The UN had a ceasefire deal but they did not have access. December 25, 2018: During the first week of the Hodeida ceasefire the rebel violations became more common and the government forces suffered ten dead and 143 wounded in and around Hodeida city. December 19, 2018: In the northwest, Shia rebels violated the port of Hodeida ceasefire 27 times in the first 24 hours. Iran condemned Sudan for agreeing to send more troops to Yemen to support the Saudi Arabian-led pro-government coalition. Sudan supplies thousands of troops in part because the Saudis pay well and much of the money goes to the Sudan government but enough goes to the soldiers to make it an attractive proposition. Saudi Arabia carried out an airstrike against the rebel-controlled Sanaa (the national capital) airport. The specific target was an Iranian UAV which the rebels were apparently operating from the airbase which is supposed to be free of any military activity. December 18, 2018: The UN arranged ceasefire around the Red Sea port of Hodeida began today. Vietnam has purchased $140 million worth of Israeli Heron 1 UAVs. Vietnam will use the Herons for strategic reconnaissance which probably includes patrolling coastal waters. That is something the Heron does a lot of for many foreign customers. The Heron first flew in the 1990s and is not only similar to the American Predator but has been produced in larger quantities and sold to more foreign customers. Heron is the primary heavy UAV for the Israeli military, which makes sense as it was Israel, not the United States that pioneered UAVs of this type. It was the Israeli successes in UAV technology that motivated an American firm (General Atomics) to create the MQ-1 Predator. The Heron 1, because it was so similar to the Predator has sold well to foreign customers who cannot obtain the MQ-1. In addition to being one of the primary UAVs for the Israeli armed forces security organizations from India, Turkey, Russia, France, Brazil, El Salvador, the United States, Canada, and Australia have either bought, leased, or licensed manufactured the Heron. The original Heron 1 weighs about the same (1.2 tons) as the Predator and has greater endurance (40 hours). Max speed is 205 kilometers an hour and cruising speed is a bit less. Heron 1 has a slightly higher ceiling (10 kilometers/30,000 feet, versus 8 kilometers) than Predator and software which allows it to automatically take off, carry out a mission, and land. Not all American large UAVs can do this. Heron 1 does have a larger wingspan (16.5 meters/51 feet) than the Predator (13.2 meters/41 feet) and a payload of about 250 kg (550 pounds). The ground control equipment can control a Heron 1 up to 350 kilometers away but Heron can travel much farther using pre-programmed instructions and will automatically try to get back if there are any problems. While under pre-programmed flight Heron 1 cannot be jammed. Heron 1 currently sells for about $10 million each although the Israelis are willing to be flexible on price. Herons are sold as a system (three Herons, a ground control station, maintenance equipment and training) that can cost $50 million (or more) per such system. Most Herons are used for reconnaissance and surveillance, including maritime patrol. Heron can be equipped with missiles but all those exported are unarmed and most used by the Israeli military are also unarmed. Heron does carry a wide array of sensors (day/night vidcams, radars, laser rangefinders and such) and often provides target information of warplanes and helicopter gunships. Largely unnoticed is the fact that Vietnam is the third largest customer for Israeli military exports. While India gets about half of Israeli arms exports, Azerbaijan gets about 12 percent and Vietnam six percent. In the last decade, Israel has sold $1.5 billion worth of military weapons and military equipment to Vietnam. Israel and Vietnam established diplomatic relations in 1993 and a decade later Israel was supplying Vietnam with a growing number of high-tech exports, including a growing number of military items. It began with Israel providing training, advisory and equipment. After that Vietnam became a customer for a growing number of Israeli weapons and military equipment, including Derby air-to-air missiles, Spyder air defense systems, a factory for producing ACE assault rifles and air defense radars. The Washington Post is a noisily anti-Russian newspaper which every weekday by email produces for subscribers (of whom I am one) the Daily 202 (Power Post Intelligence for Leaders) which covers US politics, a little international stuff, and a section called Theres a Bear in the Woods aimed at denigrating, belittling and generally insulting Russia. The Post is intent on convincing citizens of the United States and the world in general that nothing good is ever done by, in or with the government of Russia, and a favourite target is President Putin. A typical Editorial was headed Trump just colluded with Russia. Openly and dealt savagely with the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki last year. Much of the world believes that such discussions between nations leaders are better than hostile rhetoric, and most reasonable people are pleased and even relieved when meetings take place. They prefer amicable dialogue to venomous confrontation. But the Post ended its comment on the meeting by asserting that Mr Trump in fact was openly colluding with the criminal leader of a hostile power. Thats the hostile power' that has cooperated for twenty years with the United States in operating the International Space Station. The Post doesnt like such news as [Russian space agency] Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin and Bill Gerstenmaier, head of NASA's human explorations and operations, said after a conference marking the 20th anniversary of the International Space Station that their agencies plan to collaborate on developing a moon orbiting outpost. Russia is working on a heavy booster rocket and a new spacecraft to complement American projects intended for a future moon mission, Rogozin said. We absolutely trust each other, and political winds haven't touched us. Gerstenmaier spoke in kind, noting that partnership in space exploration could be an example to the outside world. It has been a blessing that our governments have both seen the wisdom of what we are doing and both our governments have avoided placing sanctions on us or getting us caught up in the political things. It is most gratifying that the United States and Russia can cooperate so closely on such an important endeavour. As noted by CNN, since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011 the US has depended on Roscosmos to transport astronauts to the space station. In other words, the space station could not exist without Russias no-strings collaboration. But most western media play down, ignore or deplore such instances of harmony and amity. The UKs Daily Telegraph, for example, is entirely negative, and grudgingly reported last December that the most recent launch of the MS-11 ship was a closely watched test for Russia's space industry, which has suffered several high-profile failures in recent years but remains the only reliable way to deliver crew to the orbiting station. There had been an accident in the course of a previous launch but, to the regret of many in the West, Russias emergency procedures were flawless and there was no loss of life. In spite of this example of outstandingly successful bilateral cooperation, a meeting scheduled for February between the space professionals of Russia and the United States was cancelled after mounting pressure from Capitol Hill. Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin had hosted his NASA counterpart, Jim Bridenstine, in October last year, so his February visit was to be a combination of practicality and courtesy but this isnt the way the US Senate sees or does things. Senator Bob Menendez of the Foreign Relations Committee declared that to welcome Mr Rogozin to the United States and provide him a platform to speak is an affront to our sanctions regime and will further undermine the Trump Administration's limited credibility on Russia policy, and Senator Jeanne Shaheen of the Senate panel that funds NASA said the planned meeting undermines the United States' core national security objectives and weakens the US's global standing by demonstrating the ease by which Russian officials can get around transatlantic sanctions. The Senates pressure on NASA is part of the campaign of petulant and spiteful attacks on Russia which show that Washington is intent on destruction of even the slightest efforts to bring the US and Russia closer. Which brings us back to the Washington Post which distinguished itself by getting just a little mixed up during one of its anti-Russia forays when it enthusiastically seized on a faulty piece in the New York Times. It all started when the Times breathlessly revealed that during the 2016 election campaign, Trumps campaign manager, Paul Manafort and his Russian associate, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, discussed a plan for peace in Ukraine. This dastardly anti-America, pro-Russia activity could not be tolerated by the US mainstream media which reported that one of Mr Manaforts menacing machinations involved sharing political polling data with a business associate tied to Russian intelligence. (As an aside, it is difficult to believe that notification of political polling data is in some fashion a national security risk. Most of us know that poll results can be made public without release conditions. Every foreign mission in Washington analysed them.) The Times continued, in a version of the report that has been deleted, that Manafort wanted the data passed on to Oleg V Deripaska, a Russian oligarch close to the Kremlin, and in its 202 the Washington Post went to town about this supposedly sinister character. It began by stating that several experts said the Deripaska connection makes this news a huge deal and quoted Steven Hall, a former head of Russia operations at the CIA, as tweeting Remember, the polling info Manafort passed to Kilimnik was headed to Deripaska, who is close to Putin The margins the Russians needed to change in key states during the 2016 elections [were] pretty small. Now we know how they were able to be so precise: Paul Manafort was providing polling data to Russia. Shock! Horror! Another expert shaken by such disclosures was Post columnist Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who declared This is potentially very significant evidence of collusion Why would Manafort share polling data with the Russians unless it was to help them target their pro-Trump social media campaign? On it went for over 400 words recounting how the dastardly Deripaska was up to his ears in conspiracy, although a cautionary note was sounded by former ambassador to Russia Mike McFaul who like a good diplomat injected the phrase if proven in his tweet before agreeing this is serious. Yes, it was serious. But not as serious as the downplayed low-profile admission by the Washington Post that its chatter allegations were not proven. The Post noted that the New York Times corrected a story we included in yesterdays 202: A previous version of this article misidentified the people to whom Paul Manafort wanted a Russian associate to send polling data. Mr. Manafort wanted the data sent to two Ukrainian oligarchs, Serhiy Lyovochkin and Rinat Akhmetov, not to Oleg V Deripaska, a Russian oligarch close to the Kremlin. So much for the Washington Posts Bear in the Woods, but a sad indicator of how determined are some of the US media to help destroy any movement towards rapprochement with Russia. Fortunately, in spite of their malevolent efforts and the spiteful Senate shenanigans, the International Space Station cooperation will continue, which shows, thank goodness, that there are still some grown-ups in the woods. During the recent years of the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, there has been one issue where the Western mainstream press simply cannot fully ignore or reject the Russian arguments. This issue concerns the life and actions of Stepan Bandera (1909-1959) and his followers from what is known as the Banderite faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN, a far-right organization that took terrorist actions against Polish and Soviet officials from the 1920s to the 1950s and which is now legally protected from any criticism in Ukraine). THE WRONG AND RIGHT VICTIMS Because Bandera was born on January 1, 1909, celebrations of his birthday have become disgusting New Years rituals in Ukraine in recent years, with thousands participating in Nazi-style torch-lit marches that include shouted protests against Putins Russia and rants such as, Jews out! which are heard by everyone except the police. This New Year was no exception, since the current Ukrainian government under President Petro Poroshenko (who publicly identified himself as a Banderite after taking office in 2014) officially added Banderas 110th birthday to the list of Ukraines most important anniversaries. This time, there were several quiet voices of condemnation heard in Poland, Israel, and even the US. Why? In truth, torches, masks, political murders, and mob attacks against pro-Russian public figures are nothing new in post-Maidan Ukraine. And these things usually pose no problem for the mainstream press of the US and its allies. So, why is Bandera an exception? The answer is ethnic, as awful as that may sound. Unlike Poroshenko with his aerial bombings of the Russian-speaking Donbass in 2014 and 2015, Bandera killed the wrong victims, the representatives of those nations that are valued even by the modern Western media, with its double and triple standards. In the 1930s Bandera killed Polish officials, in the 1940s his people killed civilian Jews and Polish peasants, and these are groups whose plight even the New York Times cannot ignore today. If Banderas infamous slogan Death to enemies! had been directed only against disloyal Russians and anti-Banderite Ukrainians (the groups currently persecuted by Poroshenko), Bandera would have been no different from his modern admirers in the Ukrainian government. But Banderas followers from the OUN decimated the Jewish population of Lvov and Kiev in 1941, trying to curry favor with the advancing Germans. And between 1943 and 1944, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), taking its orders from Banderas OUN officers, ethnically cleansed his native Western Ukraine of ethnic Poles, killing from 70,000-100,000 of them (the infamous slaughter of Volhynia). The aim was to create an ethnically pure Ukraine before the arrival of the Red Army in late 1944. Documents published by the Polish historian Grzegorz Motyka indicate that Bandera and the OUN hoped that the Red Army would soon be replaced by Anglo-American domination. His strategy was to clean up the house before the arrival of the real master, Motyka concludes in his book. THE LADY OF THE RADA VS. ISRAELS PRESIDENT The American domination took another 70 years, but it did come. And now the Banderites (and Poroshenkos) only historic disagreement with the West is over the infamous ethnic cleansing, to which Banderas glorious heroes subjected Ukraine in 1941-1944. When Israeli President Reuven Rivlin dared to raise the issue during his visit to Ukraine in 2016, he got a scolding from the vice speaker of the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada), Irina Gerashchenko: The Israeli president allowed himself some incorrect and undiplomatic words about the OUNs tragic history, Gerashchenko said at the time. It was highly inappropriate, especially now, when Ukraine is fighting for its independence. Gerashchenko forgot to mention the fact that Babi Yar, the burial site of some 30,000 Jews killed by German and Ukrainian Nazis in Kiev in 1941, was vandalized nine times between 2015 and 2016, according to data provided by the Ukrainian Jewish Committee. WHY THE WEST WANTS TO FORGET, BUT CANNOT In the immediate aftermath of the Maidan coup in 2014, the mainstream press was ready to forget even that, since an honest account of Banderas activities between 1939 and 1959 could rekindle memories of the undesirable parallels to the resistance to Russian occupation by Poroshenkos army in the Donbass in 2014 and 2015. Between the summer of 2014 and the winter of 2015, about 10,000 people died there, victims of the aircraft and tanks sent by Poroshenko (just months earlier, the US and the EU had been unable to abide the use of truncheons by the police of the ousted president, Viktor Yanukovych). At the time, the NYT called Bandera the Ukrainian nationalists hero. Obviously, the NYTs authors were taking their cues from the Washington Posts Anne Applebaum, with her Banderite headline, Nationalism is exactly what Ukraine Needs in the once-glorious New Republic. But here the mainstream press tried to kill off a memory that will never die the memory of how Hitlers East European Nazi allies participated in the destruction of the regions Jewish population in the early 1940s. This was something not even Anne Applebaum could make people forget. In his articles in the American press, the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, Eduard Dolinsky, tried to explain to the American public that Banderas cult is not an isolated, unpleasant phenomenon: Stepan Bandera never acted alone, he represented a crudely nationalist ideology. Unfortunately, this ideology reigns triumphant in modern Ukraine behind the liberal facade displayed for the West. For example, Dolinsky notes that Poroshenkos hypocritical speeches memorializing Jewish victims can be heard next to, say, a memorial to OUN activist Ivan Rogach, whose newspaper called Jews the greatest enemy of the people in 1941. The Ukrainian leadership set itself on the course of rehabilitating anti-Semitism and introducing censorship of history, concludes the official statement of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human-rights group, famous for its work to bring Nazi criminals to justice. THE RUSSIAN QUESTION BEHIND THE JEWISH ONE If the West cannot afford to be completely silent about Banderas participation in the Holocaust, it is willingly ignoring another huge injustice that is inseparable from Banderas cult in modern Ukraine the erasure of the Russian and anti-Banderite component of Ukraines historic memory. In 2017, Kievs Vatutin Avenue was renamed Bandera Avenue, resulting in an outcry in Russia and complete silence in the West. This avenue, a major thoroughfare in the Ukrainian capital, had originally been named in honor of General Nikolai Vatutin, who liberated Kiev from Nazi occupation in 1943 and died in a shootout with the OUNs guerillas in 1944. At the time, there was no question about where Americas sympathies lay: the fight against Hitler was not yet over, and Vatutin, born in 1901 to a peasant family living immediately adjacent to the future Russian-Ukrainian border, was a useful ally for the United States. Will Bandera and his modern followers be a good replacement? Only someone with Poroshenkos plans for Ukraine or with Anne Applebaums views on history could agree. This will be a bridge year for airlines in the United States. The genuine "next big thing" will be David Neeleman's new airline, and it won't fly until at least a year or two later. The most visible new route expansion will be when, to nobody's surprise, Southwest will finally start flying to Hawaii. Another visible trend may well be more low-fare nonstop routes flown less than once a day: Frontier and Sun Country recently announced a bunch of new routes for next summer, many competing directly with established lines on busy routes and almost all offering fewer than seven flights a week. The idea, apparently, is to provide enough additional capacity to attract bargain-hunters but not enough to disturb the big lines. That strategy may sound good, but it hasn't worked well in the past. In Canada, the big thing will be the continuing roll-out of Swoop, WestJet's low-fare subsidiary. Security lines are growing at some of the nations busiest airports, including Atlanta, Houston and Miami, as a shortage of Transportation Security Administration inspectors is hampering TSAs ability to screen travelers. President Donald Trumps government shutdown has jumped beyond the realm of mere inconvenience for a group of faceless government workers. It is impacting millions of American lives in real ways. Trumps Republican supporters have tried hard to shrug off the shutdown as no big deal. They argue that a little hardship today for 800,000 government workers will yield bigger payoffs with increased border security, provided congressional Democrats agree to $5.7 billion in funding for a border wall. The Senate passed the right bill, which will guarantee (workers) that they get paid when this is over, period. So they will all get compensated, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich told National Public Radio on Monday. Whether they go to work or not, whether theyre laid off or not, everybody will get paid. So nobody, on an annual basis, nobody will lose money. So why have Bells new colleagues responded to his election by asserting their strength in numbers? A reforming prosecutor attempting to clean house will obviously generate fears over job security. However, some St. Louis police officers argue that there is a racial element, given that Bell is the countys first black prosecuting attorney. Detective Sgt. Heather Taylor of the Ethical Society of Police stated: We can sugarcoat it all we want. Theyve been under Bob McCulloch for almost 30 years, and theyve never come together to unionize. Suddenly, when Wesley Bell wins ... they want to become a union. Aside from the implication of racial animus, there are serious problems associated with combining law enforcement officers and prosecutors in one union. If a prosecutor gets handed a case where he or she is prosecuting a friend or colleague, would the public be comfortable with his or her handling of the case? Of course not. Prosecutors would recuse themselves, or their supervisors would likely remove them from the case. Now imagine that the prosecutor is part of an association that has a vested interest in protecting one another. Moreover, we cannot dismiss the recent surge of scholarship on police unionism, which has found quantitative and qualitative links between certain dimensions of unionism and police accountability. A: Well, Britain has tried to prepare. Earlier this month, Britain rehearsed a traffic jam along its southern coast, hoping to prep for the likely chaos at its ports. Britons have also been hoarding refrigerators, wine and chocolate in the event of no deal. Q: How likely is this? A: It's definitely possible. One study that came out before May made her deal last year estimated there were five possible scenarios for Brexit. All but one resulted in no deal. Q: So is this any less likely now? A: Hardly. Scores of members of Parliament have said they will vote against May's deal. If that deal fails, it's not clear whether anyone could replace it - or if there is even time to reach a new deal before March. Q: Does the EU want a no-deal for Britain? A: European leaders have voiced real concerns about a no-deal Brexit. It could potentially disrupt their own agreements, too. But the EU is also worried about other countries trying to leave, so it is driving a hard bargain with Britain and offering few concessions. Q: Does Britain's opposition party oppose Brexit? A serial killer later pleaded guilty to the stabbing in Mount Vernon as part of a multi-state crime spree. "There's power in the name because of what we've all done and the movement we've all created," said Katherine Siemionko, who founded Women's March Alliance, a New York organization that will lead a Manhattan march Saturday, and who organized the first Women's March there in 2017. "But then having the name also ties us to a group we have nothing to do with. And that's been a problem for us this year." The story of the Women's March began in 2016 with a single Facebook post calling for women to rally in the wake of Donald Trump's election. While the group that would become Women's March Inc. organized a massive rally in Washington, more than 600 cities and towns across the country hosted sister events. The groups that grew out of those marches have, in many states, continued to organize. Most registered as nonprofits, and many gave themselves names that included the words "Women's March," a nod to the event that started it all. "We just didn't see down the pipeline what would happen," said Emiliana Guereca, the executive director of Women's March Los Angeles Foundation, which is independent from the national organization. "There was never a discussion of trademarking or what would happen if we continued to work under this brand. We have all built this brand together. All of us. But there's one organization taking ownership." Hidden in the woods in rural North Carolina stands an 8-foot-tall creature with what appears to be luscious black fur, flared nostrils and abdominal muscles that would put the Terminator to shame. It looks hostile, holding a giant branch. And when its eyes are caught in the headlight beams from approaching and unsuspecting drivers, those peepers glow blood red. Perhaps that's why people have been calling the Davie County Animal Shelter in Mocksville, N.C., to report what they think it is: Bigfoot. It is, in fact, a statue. But when animal control began receiving numerous calls about a bigfoot sighting, it decided to set things straight. "This handsome fellow stands on Pine Ridge Rd. in Mocksville," Davie County Animal Shelter said in a Facebook Post late last week. "If you are traveling this road at night, please be advised that the eyes appear to glow. If you see this phenomenon, you do not need to call animal control to report seeing Bigfoot, Sasquatch or any other large creature. Thank you." King begins the sermon in a steady cadence: "If I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, 'Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?,' I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God's children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there." King described traveling to Greece and to Mount Olympus, "and I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon. And I would watch them around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality. But I wouldn't stop there." He spoke of traveling through the "heyday of the Roman Empire," then moving on to the "day of the Renaissance." "I would even go by the way that the man for whom I'm named had his habitat, and I would watch Martin Luther as he tacks his 95 theses on the door at the church of Wittenberg." "I don't believe Mr. Mueller to be involved in a witch hunt," Barr said at one point. Relating what he told Trump about Mueller when the latter was appointed as special counsel, Barr recounted he told the President that the former FBI director is "is a straight shooter and should be treated as such." Asked by Delaware Sen. Chris Coons (D) whether he would reject an order from Trump to fire Mueller without what he considered good cause, Barr said he would do so -- and resign his post. (He also said it was "unimaginable" to him that Mueller would do something that would trigger his legal removal.) He made clear he would not allow any editing by the President of the final report put forward by the special counsel. The cherry on top? Barr repeatedly referred to Mueller as "Bob" -- a sign of their long friendship. Barr said he told Trump in June 2017 that "I knew Bob Mueller and how the Barrs and Muellers were good friends and would be good friends when this is all over, and so forth." 2. Barr doesn't really care what people think of how he would do the job One of Barr's strongest moment was when, under questioning from Democrats, he insisted he would not be bullied by Trump or anyone else. Take Five - This is your final free article during this 30 day period. Stay in touch with all of the news. Sign up today for complete digital access to The Daily News-Record. When a woman who has been in a vegetative state for years suddenly gave birth at an Arizona care facility, caregivers were taken completely by surprise, telling 911 dispatchers, "We had no idea she was pregnant." CNN's Sara Sidner reports. Hacienda HealthCare says it will turn over all records related to the patient in a vegetative state who gave birth inside its facility last month. As part of its internal review, the Arizona facility will also divulge all operational procedures related to the unit where she was a patient, according to a statement from the Hacienda HealthCare board of directors. The board announced Sunday the hiring of former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley to lead the internal review. The facility's employees will continue to cooperate with the Phoenix Police Department, whose investigators have begun to gather DNA from men who work at the facility. "We will do everything we can to aid this review and, once it is complete, to make sure this unprecedented situation never, ever happens again," the board's statement said. "As an organization, our top priority is to quickly identify the perpetrator and to make sure that person is brought to justice." The patient, 29, gave birth December 29 at the facility for people in need of long-term medical care. Caregivers were taken by surprise at the birth, telling 911 dispatchers, "We had no idea she was pregnant." Police have said the baby was in distress when it was born, but they haven't said whether the woman had a full-term pregnancy. JEFFERSON CITY State officials approved $1.5 million in tax credits Tuesday to support the development of new lab space in the Cortex district of St. Louis. The Missouri Development Finance Authority voted unanimously to approve the deal with BioSTL, which operates BioGenerator Labs. The money will help BioSTL consolidate its offices and lab space at the Crescent Building at 4340 Duncan Avenue, a former Post-Dispatch printing plant under development by BOBB LLC, a company affiliated with Washington University. This will allow them to consolidate from three separate locations, said finance authority executive director Robert Miserez. Im thrilled, Malin told the Post-Dispatch. Its really important that Missourians have access to open records. Its really important that government officials are held accountable for violating the law. Richardson, Joyce wrote, acted with full awareness of the consequences and conscious design to violate the law, citing Richardsons experiences as a licensed attorney and municipal court judge including a class in which Richardson taught state agency officials how to respond to public records requests. Joyce ruled that Richardson intentionally refused to provide the records or search for them, and that there was no support for Richardsons claim that the records were closed under the law. She outlined seven distinct violations of the open records law Richardson made. Joyce ordered Richardson to produce the records Malin requested and pay $12,100 in damages. Richardson was also ordered to pay Malins attorneys fees, which were $24,070, according to Tuesdays ruling. Judge Mark D. Pfeiffer on Tuesday wrote that the prosecutors office had not challenged the civil penalty or the attorneys fees, or that the office knowingly and purposefully violated the law. Sean Nicholson, Clean Missouris campaign manager, said the courts could ultimately decide whether the House rule runs counter to the state constitution. I think it would be pretty hard to justify ... in court and with constituents why they are trying to undo the will of the voters right after Amendment 1 passed in a landslide, Nicholson said. Rep. Nick Schroer, R-OFallon, said he was seeking to protect his constituents emails from disclosure. He said the media and others could exploit the new provision to air sensitive constituent communications that constituents may believe are confidential and were previously kept private. Basically what we are going to allow is discretion to each individual member to keep records confidential, Schroer said. I think that each individual member as the custodian of their own records, should have this right, should be able to determine what is confidential. Nicholson said the Sunshine Law already details several exemptions public entities can use to redact or close records; those provisions allow for the closure of personal information in certain cases. WASHINGTON In his first major act on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., got attorney general nominee William Barr to say he would dig into whether giant Silicon Valley social media corporations were engaging in anti-trust practices. The exchange came during a daylong hearing on Barrs nomination to replace Jeff Sessions as President Donald Trump's attorney general. Barr, who was attorney general under George H. W. Bush, faced questions on everything from his views of the independence of special counsel Robert Mueller to the tough sentencing laws passed by Congress after Barr left office in the early 1990s. Hawley, who defeated Democrat Claire McCaskill in November, focused on privacy concerns and what he said is concentrating power in major social media firms like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Officials from those companies appeared before congressional committees numerous times over the last year and denied political bias. Some promised to enact policies that both would protect the privacy of users while blunting the ability of hostile foreign governments, particularly Russia, to influence U.S. political discourse and elections. She survived, and both she and a witness claimed the attacker was a black man. Thompson, who had been sleeping in a post office lobby near the victims apartment, was arrested shortly after the crime. Then in his early 40s, Thompson was homeless and was passing through the town on his way to Mississippi from Milwaukee by bus, a route he traveled to see relatives, his nephew said. At the time, Thompson had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Thompson shuffled, rather than walked, because his legs had been injured when he was struck by a car, Jamison said. His public defender, Steve Swofford, has said seeing Thompson shuffle up to the witness stand during his trial was one of the most poignant moments in the courtroom. He hoped the jury would see that he was physically incapable of carrying out the attack. Instead, the all-white jury returned a guilty verdict within four hours. In 1996, Thompson died from natural causes. He had served 14 years. He was 60. A serial killers confession JEFFERSON CITY The Missouri Supreme Court ordered a new trial Tuesday for a professor who alleged she lost her job at Harris-Stowe State University because of discrimination. Siding with an earlier appeals court decision, the high court said the instructions given to jurors at the close of a 2015 circuit court trial were erroneous and prejudicial. Shereen Kader had been awarded $2.5 million after a St. Louis jury agreed that her contract was not renewed based on her ethnicity. Kader is a Caucasian of Egyptian origin and an Arab Muslim. She was a professor in Harris-Stowes College of Education from 2007 through 2010, when she filed the lawsuit. Kader alleged in her suit that she was denied a leave of absence while trying to extend her work visa. According to the appeals court decision, Kader asked for the leave of absence during a 30-day grace period after her visa expired. A man and woman have been charged in a high-speed chase from St. Ann to Bellefontaine Neighbors on Sunday that included a crash that injured an officer. "This was the craziest police chase I have ever seen," St. Ann Police Chief Aaron Jimenez said after watching dash cam footage. "It was a serious police chase." Travis Jones, 44, of Jennings, was charged with felony resisting arrest by fleeing and felony stealing. Kimberly Bluiett, 40, of St. Louis is charged with felony stealing. Both are being held in lieu of $10,000 bail. It began when an off-duty St. Ann police major heard a description of a vehicle wanted in a theft from a Menards store on St. Charles Rock Road about 4 p.m., Jimenez said. The major spotted the vehicle, a Dodge Ram pickup with two large doors and other stolen items in the back. Officers tried to stop the truck and pursued it on St. Charles Rock Road and Cypress Road to Interstate 70 when it didn't stop, Jimenez said. The truck headed into St. Louis, then to Interstate 270 over into Illinois, then back into Missouri. At one point, the driver handed the female passenger a handgun, and she tried to throw it into the river, Jimenez said. The gun didn't make it to the river and an officer was able to recover it. ST. LOUIS An Ohio company and its president who were involved in the storage of 9 million pounds of hazardous waste in a Franklin County warehouse were sentenced in federal court here Friday to probation and ordered to pay $1.5 million to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, lawyers said Monday. Three days earlier in an unrelated case, U.S. Technology Corp. president Raymond Williams was sentenced in federal court in Georgia to five years in prison for bribing a Department of Defense official. He, U.S. Technology Corp. and U.S. Technology Aerospace Engineering Corp. were also ordered to pay a total of $4.1 million in fines and restitution, Williams plea agreement says. King gave about a five-minute opening statement, briefly describing a marriage that had devolved into arguments via text messages on topics both serious and petty: Nicholas Hunters affair with a woman in California; his stealing her debit card; one of them leaving the garage door open. King said the evidence would prove premeditated murder. About 30 minutes before the shooting, King told jurors, Ashley Hunter asked her husband in a text: Why did you marry me? Nicholas Hunter replied: I have no idea. In his opening, Rosenblum spent about 30 minutes describing a brief but tumultuous marriage characterized by frequent verbal and physical abuse and rape. He also said Nicholas Hunter was known to become violent while drinking or using steroids. Earlier in the day, the couple had exchanged numerous texts, including a declaration by Nicholas Hunter that he never really loved his wife, followed by another text that he actually did, Rosenblum said. She didnt want to give up on the marriage, Rosenblum said. The night of the shooting, Nicholas Hunter returned home from a road trip enraged, demanding a divorce and threatening suicide. During the fight, he said, Nicholas Hunter struck and choked his wife so forcefully by the neck that he lifted her feet off the floor. UPDATED at noon with information from charging documents. A man has been charged following the discovery of a body in a garage near his home in Calverton Park on Sunday afternoon, according to a statement by the Major Case Squad. Jeffrey E. Tod, 53, was charged Monday with second-degree murder and armed criminal action. He is being held in lieu of $500,000 cash-only bail. The dead man was identified Monday as Kenneth Alvern Linzie, 68, of the 5900 block of Hancock Avenue in Berkeley. He had been shot to death, police said. Linzie's body was discovered about 12:30 p.m. Sunday in a garage behind a home on Williams Boulevard in Calverton Park, police said. Tod lives on Williams Boulevard. Linzie's nephew learned that Linzie may have gone to Tod's home "to settle a debt" that Tod owed him, charging documents said. Linzie's nephew went to Tod's home on Sunday and found Linzie's body in the garage in the back yard, along with the car Linzie was last seen driving. ST. LOUIS A man caught on Interstate 44 in St. Louis County with nearly $750,000 in cash was sentenced in federal court here Tuesday to 366 days in prison. Rodolfo Emilio Saenz, 34, was driving a rented 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee when St. Louis County police Officer Stephen Shue pulled him over for "improper lane usage" in 2016, Saenz' plea says. Saenz, who had a drivers license listing an El Paso, Texas, address, said he was in Chicago for business and was then heading to visit his brother in Oklahoma. Shue thought Saenz was acting suspiciously and got his permission to search the Jeep, the plea says, spotting a vacuum-sealed bag of cash in a suitcase. Investigators would later find a total of $748,320 in the SUV, including five counterfeit $100 bills. The money was supposed to be transported to Mexico, the plea says. Saenz pleaded guilty in October to a charge of bulk cash smuggling. The law focuses on cash moved with the intent to avoid currency reporting requirements. Authorities use the law to combat drug trafficking organizations and other criminal enterprises trying to move money across the border, according to the Department of Homeland Security. A message from David Nicklaus Want to stay smart about what's happening in St. Louis? Make a modest investment in a Post-Dispatch subscription and I'll tell you how developments around the world affect local businesses big and small. Intro subscription rate: Just $1 for 6 months Shake off your afternoon slump with the oft-shared and offbeat news of the day, hand-brewed by our online news editors. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The developer turning the Steelcote Paint Company Building into a 33-unit loft apartment complex plans more residential projects in the industrial area next to St. Louis University. Michael Hamburgs Pier Property Group is nearly finished with the $8 million rehab of the five-story Steelcote building at 801 Edwin Street, with Hamburg aiming for a May opening. Next up is the Columbia Oil building just to the south of the Steelcote building, where Hamburg said he planned a $4 million rehab into 15 lofts and ground floor space for a brewery or distillery. Thirty-foot ceilings, evoking its past use as an oil services building, provide ample space for brewing tanks, Hamburg noted. Work should be complete there by this fall. And over the summer, Hamburg hopes to break ground on a $20 million, 96-unit apartment building branded as Mill Creek Flats. The new apartments would replace an existing one-story structure along Theresa Avenue just to the west of the Steelcote building. PARIS A French court canceled the license for one of Monsanto's glyphosate-based weedkillers on Tuesday over safety concerns, placing an immediate ban on Roundup Pro 360 in the latest legal blow to the Bayer-owned business. Germany's Bayer, which bought Monsanto for $63 billion last year, faces thousands of U.S. lawsuits by people who say its Roundup and Ranger Pro products caused their cancer. A court in Lyon in southeast France ruled that the approval granted by French environment agency ANSES in 2017 for Roundup Pro 360 had failed to take into account potential health risks. Bayer, which said it disagreed with the decision and was considering its legal options, has cited regulatory rulings as well as scientific studies that found glyphosate to be safe. The firm is appealing a first U.S. court ruling that awarded $78 million in damages to a school groundskeeper from California. "Bayer disagrees with the decision taken by the Administrative Court of Lyon to cancel the marketing authorization for RoundUp Pro 360," it said in a statement. Facebook says it is investing $300 million over the next three years in news initiatives, with a focus on local news partnerships and other programs. The money will go toward reporting grants for local newsrooms, expanding Facebooks program to help local newsrooms with subscription business models and investing in nonprofits aimed at supporting local news. It will also be used for Facebooks other, broad news initiatives such as news literacy programs and third-party fact-checking. The move comes at a difficult time for the news industry, which is facing falling profits and print readership. Facebook, like Google, has also been partly blamed for the ongoing decline in newspapers share of advertising dollars as people and advertisers have moved online. Campbell Brown, Facebooks head of global news partnerships, acknowledges the company cant uninvent the internet, but says it wants to work with publishers to help them succeed on and off the social network. The industry is going through a massive transition that has been underway for a long time, she said. None of us have quite figured out ultimately what the future of journalism is going to look like, but we want to be part of helping find a solution. Cluj-Napoca city will host the Start-up Europe Summit in March, taking into account that the local councilors approved on Tuesday the allocation of 282,000 lei for organising the event. The draft, voted by 25 councilors, show that the summit will be organised in partnership with Romania's Communication and Information Society Ministry and the European Commission, being scheduled to take place between 21 and 22 March 2019. This summit dedicated to start-ups is being organised for the first time in Romania, in the context of Romania taking over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, on 1 January 2019. The main theme that the European Commission proposed for this year is called "Digital Single Market." "This distinction is an inducement to strengthen the role and support granted to the developers in the digitisation area through their active participation in changing the society through a sustainable urban development process and their support. Cluj-Napoca municipality is an important academic and university center, hosting 10 public and private universities and approximately 100,000 students, this advantages representing an ideal framework for the development of research and creative industries," shows the resolution draft. Attending the Start-up Europe Summit will be 400 persons belonging to the European Commission, companies of the digitalisation and innovation area, the twin-cities of Cluj-Napoca municipality. The organisers of this event are the European Commission, through the DIGI Connect, Cluj-Napoca municipality and Romania's Communication and Information Society Ministry and the budget allocated to the event is approximately 1,450,000 lei, and it is ensured by all the partners (of which 600,000 by the European Commission and 500,000 by the Ministry). The Cluj-Napoca City Hall will also have a non-financial contribution by involving the specialist services in organising the event and by realising the communication campaign developed by the municipality's employees. Prime Minister Viorica Dancila reiterated in Strasbourg Romania's commitment to being a reliable partner in the EU decision-making process during our country's presidency of the Council of the European Union, a a government press release sent to AGERPRES says. Prime minister Viorica Dancila and members of the Government attended on Monday evening in Strasbourg an official dinner offered by European Parliament President Antonio Tajani. Attending the event were also EP Vice-President Ioan Mircea Pascu, EP Secretary General Klaus Welle, S & D Group Chairman Udo Bullman, EPP Group Vice-President Marian Jean Marinescu, ECR Group Vice-President Olaf Henckel, ALDE Group Vice-President Norica Nicolai, co-chairpersons of the Romanian delegation in EPP - Adina Valean and Teodor Stolojan, the Romanian delegation leader in S & D - Dan Nica, EP President's Chief of Staff - Diego Vanga Fano and representatives of SGCONS. The Romanian delegation included Carmen Dan - Minister of Internal Affairs, Rovana Plumb - Minister of European Funds, Teodor Melescanu - Minister of Foreign Affairs, Eugen Teodorovici - Minister of Public Finance, Marius Constantin Budai - Minister of Labor and George Ciamba - Minister-delegate for European Affairs. "Prime minister Viorica Dancila reiterated Romania's commitment to being a reliable partner in the EU decision-making process during our country's presidency of the EU Council. In this context, the prime minister expressed the desire to advance as many of the legislative files in the first part of the term of the Romanian presidency. Viorica Dancila assured her interlocutors of the complete availability of the Government of Romania to a sustained institutional cooperation, in view of consolidating the European Union and bringing it closer to the citizens," reads the release. Read also: National Culture Day: Festive session attended by President Iohannis, exhibitions, concerts, film screenings The President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani wished good luck to Romania's presidency of the EU Council, the first presidency since accession, and expressed his openness and that of the European Parliament to closely work and cooperate with a view to closing the legislative files, the Gov't release further shows. AGERPRES . A festive session organised at the Romanian Athenaeum in the presence of President Klaus Iohannis, exhibition mountings, concerts, film screenings, workshops dedicated to children or guided tours are only a few of the events dedicated to the National Culture Day, as scheduled to unfold on Tuesday in Bucharest. * President Klaus Iohannis will attend the festive session "National Culture Day" organised by the Romanian Academy at the Romanian Athenaeum. He will deliver a speech at the event chaired by the President of the Romanian Academy, Ioan-Aurel Pop, then lectures will be delivered by academician Eugen Simion, academician Razvan Theodorescu, the Romanian Orthodox Church Patriarch Daniel, academician Mihai Cimpoi, the National Education Minister Ecaterina Andronescu and the National Identity Culture Minister Valer Daniel Breaz. The festive session will be followed by a poetry recital performed by actor Dorel Visan, and a concert by the "Royal Camerata", and the lobby of the Romanian Athenaeum will be the host of a photo-documentary exhibition carried out by the Romanian Academy Library partnered by the National History of Romania Museum (MNIR). The Romanian Academy will launch on Tuesday the digital application "Mihai Eminescu, complete works" making available the works of the national poet, free of charge and in a smart-phone compatible format in the App Store and Google Play stores. * The Bucharest Metropolitan Library will celebrate the National Culture Day through a series of events in its outlets throughout the Capital City. * On this very day, the National Museum of Romania's History (MNIR) will be opened according to its usual schedule, from 09:00 to 17:00, with free access to the museum's exhibitions. Also at the MNIR from 11:00 to 13:00 and from 15:00 to 17:00 will be screened the "Golden book of the Greater Union's Centennial" documentary film, that is the screening of the homonym volume edited by historian Bogdan Bucur, a best-seller dedicated to the Greater Union's Centennial, published by the RAO Publishing House. * Exceptional names of the Romanian painting gather on 15 January at the "Romanian painters in France" exhibition whose mounting will take place in the Great Hall of the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) starting with 18:00 hrs. The opening of the exhibition will take place in the presence of the Ambassador of France to Romania, Michele Ramis, along with the ICR head and some of the exhibiting artists. * A classical music concert dedicated to the National Culture Day will be staged from 18:00 to 19:00 in the Victor Ion Popa Hall of the "Dimitrie Gusti" National Village Museum, performed by the Canticum Choir conducted by Razvan Rados. The concert pays a music tribute to the national poet Mihai Eminescu at 169 years from his birth, and to noted Romanian creations as well. * The I. L. Caragiale National Theatre organizes from 13:00 and 17:00 two free of charge guided tours in the lobby of the Great Hall, accompanied by the unmistakable voice of late actor Gheorghe Cozurici reciting from Eminescu. Moreover, at the Media Hall from 11:00 to 18:00 special screenings with the "Trecut-au anii" recital, a TNB record of 15 January 2008, starring actors Valeria Seciu, Ovidiu Iuliu Moldovan, Ion Caramitru and Aurelian Octav Popa, will take place. Read also: Ciamba-Guillaume meeting at EP, focus on communicating with citizens as priority in defining EU future * A religious service will take place at the Bellu Cemetery in Bucharest. * As is customary every year, the Writers Union in Romania (USR) will mark the birthday of poet Mihai Eminescu - National Culture Day - with a series of activities and projects, most of which countrywide. AGERPRES . The European Union should be pragmatic in the discussions of the European Parliament regarding the freezing of EU funds for the countries that breach the rule of law, as it competes with other powers of the world that "don't expect things to occur at the whim of some or the others," Public Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovici told AGERPRES on Tuesday. "This is a much wider discussion, criteria should be established, it's a mechanism that should be established in detail. We are talking about the welfare of the European Union, we are talking about the fact that we are in a competition with other powers of the world. The other powers of the world don't expect issues to occur at the whim of some or the others in Parliament, the Committee, the Council. No, we must be much more pragmatic at European level. We truly have to be competitors or, ultimately, as a Romanian saying goes, be mounted by some or the others, economically speaking, from outside Europe. We must be more pragmatic," Teodorovici stated, when asked about his view on this topic. Furthermore, in respect to the discussions on the cohesion funds, whether thy should increase or decrease, Teodorovici underscored that this topic is being discussed every year. "Some want them to decline, others to increase. Romania and other states wish to maintain those financial jackets, both in terms of the cohesion funds and the common agriculture policy. Now, there is also a context which creates a more agitated situation, namely Brexit, an important contributor. We have to find a way to make up for the amount difference, if this departure occurs. But there are discussions and we are seeking the best approaches," the Finance Minister said. According to him, also very important is the manner in which the money is spent. "Any type of delay can create, as it happened in the previous financial framework, chain delays in each member state. We must learn from the experience of the past. Romania brings a very important contribution in terms of expertise, on the technical side and, perhaps, a different political involvement than it has ever been at European level," Teodorovici added. The priorities of Romania's Presidency of the EU Council and the assessment of the Austrian Presidency results over the past six months, as well as the regulations for freezing EU payments to member states that go to courts or do not take measures against fraud and corruption are included on the agenda of the first plenary session of the European Parliament (EP) to be held between 14 and 17 January in Strasbourg. President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani reiterated on Tuesday, within a joint press conference with Romania's Prime Minister Viorica Dancila, the support of the European Parliament for the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU, mentioning, at the same time, that the institution counts on the support of the Romanian Presidency for completing several important files. "First of all, I want to underscore the support of the European Parliament for Romania's Presidency [of the EU Council] and, just as I had the opportunity to tell you within our bilateral meetings, hard work is needed in view of reaching a solution in respect to the migration package. The Dublin Reform is a priority of the European Parliament, that wishes very much to reach an agreement with the member states in respect to the migration package. We need to do more, the solution lays in the hands of the Council and this is why we are trying to collaborate as much as possible with Romania's Presidency," Antonio Tajani stated. Among the important events scheduled to take place in the next six months, EP President Tajani also mentioned Brexit, the elections to the European Parliament, as well as the negotiation of the Multiannual Financial Framework. Europe has always known to overcome obstacles and be born again after the less fortunate episodes in history, PM Viorica Dancila said in Strasbourg on Tuesday, adding that "it is important to show the European citizens that the EU institutions work for them." The Romanian Prime Minister presented before the European Parliament gathered in plenary session in Strasbourg the priorities of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. "I am honoured to be here today before you as Romania's Prime Minister. We have taken over the European mandate from Austria and I would like to reiterate on this occasion my thanks to the Austrian Presidency. At the same time, I insist on thanking our partners in the trio, Finland and Croatia, with whom we have had a very good coordination in preparing a balanced common programme for the next 18 months. In continuation, I will present you the Romanian EU Council Presidency's priorities and its vision for the Union's future. Ladies and gentlemen, Europe has always known to overcome obstacles and be born again after the less fortunate episodes in history. The European project itself in its current form has been shaped by the multiple crises it went through. Today we are again facing a complex moment in the process of European construction. However, as you well-know, any situation of this kind can be turned into an opportunity, in a new beginning," Dancila said. The Romanian PM underscored that in her vision the EU Council Presidency exercise isn't just a formal duty and that "it is important to show the European citizens that the EU institutions work for them." Also attending the meeting at the European Parliament are Foreign Affairs Minister Teodor Melescanu, Minister-delegate for European Affairs George Ciamba, European Funds Minister Rovana Plumb, Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovici, Labour and Social Justice Minister Marius Budai and Interior Minister Carmen Dan. Minister-delegate for European Affairs George Ciamba had a meeting with Sylvie Guillaume, European Parliament Vice-President, on Monday in Strasbourg on the sidelines of the official visit carried out by the delegation headed by the Romanian Prime Minister, on which occasion was highlighted the need for better communication with citizens as a priority in defining the future of the EU, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) informs in a press release. According to the MAE, the Romanian official expressed Romania's willingness to contribute to the consolidation of the necessary consensus in the co-decision process with the European Parliament with a view to advancing and finalizing a significant number of legislative files during the Presidency of the Council of the EU. In this context, the priorities of the Romanian Presidency, as well as issues related to the cooperation with the European Parliament on the current files on the European agenda, were reviewed. In the run-up to the forthcoming elections to the European Parliament, the two officials highlighted the importance of ensuring better communication with European citizens on the actions and outcomes achieved at EU level, as well as their involvement in the processes aimed at defining the future priorities of the Union, the MAE release shows. According to the cited source, the minister-delegate reiterated Romania's commitment to working closely with the European Parliament during the six months of the mandate in order to obtain positive and concrete results for the European citizens. Read also: Over 14k inmates benefit from the law of the compensatory appeal until end-2018 The Minister-delegate for European Affairs also stressed the need to combat the misinformation phenomenon and stated that the Romanian Presidency intends to advance concrete actions at EU level in order to increase the level of information in the population, to consult the credible sources and to educate the media. AGERPRES . German Ambassador in Bucharest Cord Meier-Klodt has recited Mihai Eminescu's poem "Revedere" (Reunion), on Romania's National Culture Day, and also inaugurated on the same occasion, in the courtyard of the embassy, a mural painting showing the long road traveled by the Danube - from its spring in the Black Forest mountains to the Danube Delta. In a video posted on Tuesday on Facebook, the diplomat said that the National Culture Day is also a very good day to celebrate the Romanian-German relations in the cultural field. "I am inviting you all to inaugurate together, in the courtyard of our embassy, a contemporary work of art, a mural painting symbolizing the profound relation existing between our countries. The work was created by two young architects from Bucharest. It shows the Black Forest mountains, in the southern part of Germany, and the pelicans here, in the Danube Delta. Between this two points, as a bridge linking our countries, also through time - there is the Danube," said Cord Meier-Klodt in the said video, while presenting the work of art. Read also: Romanian Simona Halep battles through to Australian Open second round On January 15 of every year, starting with the year 2011, Romania marks the birthday of poet Mihai Eminescu as the National Culture Day. AGERPRES . By August of 1863 some 11,000 prisoners were incarcerated at Fort Delaware, most of them captured at Gettysburg. By the end of the war some 33,000 rebel soldiers had been imprisoned here. Around 2,500 to 2,700 of them died at Fort Delaware of dysentery, scurvy and smallpox. Typhoid fever and malaria also killed many prisoners. They are buried in a mass grave at Finns Point National Cemetery in Pennsville, New Jersey. It is said that the names of some Confederate prisoners of war carved into the bricks of some of the rooms can still be seen. As the fort/prison is located on an island, summer days can be miserably hot and humid. Conditions were bad, but not, perhaps, as bad as those reported in other prisoner-of-war prisons. One Confederate prisoner wrote, "Things here are not quite as bad as I expected to find them. They are, however, bad, hopeless and gloomy enough without any exaggeration. We went into dinner about three o'clock, which consisted of three hardtack, a small piece of meat (about three bites) and a pint tin cup of bean soup. We only get two light meals a day. Rowan County law enforcement is searching for a unknown suspect involved in an identity theft case. Deputies say the suspect used false information to purchase items, including at a store in Mooresville. The Rowan County Sheriffs Office received a report of identity theft on Nov. 25 saying that a man had taken the victims drivers license information, credit card information and other personal details. The suspect then used the victims personal information to open multiple credit card accounts and a bank account with Fort Still National Bank in Spring Lake, according to a news release. The sheriff's office released security images from the bank showing the suspect, a black male. The suspect is also accused of renting and stealing a U-Haul vehicle that was used to transport items purchased with the victims information, according to the release. Authorities say that the suspect used the victims information to get a fake North Carolina drivers license. In addition, the suspect bought electronic devices from the Sams Club located on River Highway in Mooresville with the victims information and used the U-Haul to transport a lawn mower bought from the Bobcat Company in Fayetteville, according to the release. Review of Lassiters employment record showed no suspensions, demotions or dismissals taken by county administration for disciplinary reasons. The Record & Landmark spoke with Statesville High School office staff that said Lassiter was not on the school campus on Wednesday, and refused to comment to whether or not Lassiter would be present the rest of the week. In a press release, the district noted Jenkins accomplishments in education. She served as principal at East Alexander Middle School and worked in the Alexander County Schools district office. She coordinated an $800,000 Golden Leaf Grant for Alexander Central High School while working in the district office. Jenkins also has experience implementing Blended Learning classrooms at all grade levels, and promoting data interpretation to improve learning, according to the release. Prior to her new position, she served as principal of the Northview School for over three years. The Northview School is currently ranked third in North Carolina out of all charter and public schools. I am very excited to be trusted with the position of principal at Statesville High School, Jenkins said in the release. I look forward to working with the students, staff and community. She lives on a family farm in western Iredell County with her husband, Tracy, and children Lilia and Harrison. 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On December 10, 1869, Wyoming territory passed the first law in United States history granting women the right to vote and hold public office - more than 50 years prior to the U.S. ratification of the 19th amendment. With the milestone anniversary, Wyoming wants to encourage travelers to plan a visit to celebrate the history and the strong women of today. From Cheyenne to Rock Springs and Jackson to Sheridan, the state will mark the anniversary with activities, events, retreats and must-visit historic destinations that commemorate the spirit of Wyoming as the first frontier for women. We are proud to declare 2019 the Year of Wyoming Women, as the home of many firsts for women in the country and the world, Diane Shober, executive director of Wyoming Office of Tourism. Determination, resiliency and the pioneering spirit is built into the DNA of the West, so its no surprise to me that the strong women of Wyoming helped to pave the way for womens suffrage. With significant events, including our state Capitol building reopening this coming summer, Wyoming is truly a top destination for travelers next year. LINCOLN Anglers can learn about the status of Nebraska fisheries by attending one of seven public informational meetings this winter. Attendees will hear a presentation by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission on current and future projects, aquatic invasive species, regulations, and a fishing forecast. Staff then will answer fisheries-related questions. All meetings will be held from 7-9 p.m. The meeting schedule is: March 4 Sidney, South Platte NRD, 551 Parkland Drive March 5 Ogallala, Lake McConaughy Visitor Center, 1475 Hwy. 61 N. Submit Your News We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form The question is whether or not prosecutors can carry through and get a conviction in cases involving CBD. In trying cases, Eubanks said, he has spoken to juries about legalization of marijuana for medical and recreational uses and he estimates that 60 to 65 percent of people are in favor of legalization of marijuana for medicinal uses. You take that and you apply it to a substance, although derived from marijuana that does not contain THC, cant get you high, and doesnt have the hallucinogenic effects of THC and I dont know that a jury will convict." The Nebraska Legislature needs to address the issue, he said. Eubanks said he has talked to other prosecutors, law enforcement and even a judge and it's felt that the states senators need to address the definition of marijuana. State Sen. Anna Wishart of Lincoln introduced a bill last week that would legalize medical marijuana. With the number of methamphetamine cases that we (Scotts Bluff County) have that come across my desk on a weekly basis, I think that is where we need to concentrate our resources." Northport is one of four irrigation districts that receive water from the North Platte Project. Water for Northport is carried 80 miles from the Guernsey Reservoir in Wyoming through the Tri-State Canal, which is privately owned and operated by the Farmers Irrigation District in Scottsbluff. In 1958, Northport and BOR agreed to amend the contract so that if the amount of the carriage fee was more than $8,000 per year, Northport was not obligated to make its annual capital repayment to the federal government. However, those annual carriage fees paid to Farmers Irrigation District can be between $80,000 to $100,000, and have been more than $8,000 per year since the early 1950s, The district makes its required annual payment of $3,500 to BOR for the cost of conveying water to the district, but the districts outstanding debt of $924,000 has been stagnant since the 50s, in part because the contract prohibited individual members of the district from making payments on their portion of the overall debt. Ogden jazz icon Joe McQueen may be gone, but his memory and legacy live on. One physical reminder of his life, McQueen's lifelong home at 3158 Grant Ave., has now become available for sale. The house received extensive remodeling, but as investor Richard Casperson has said, "Joe's energy is K atherine Schwarzenegger didnt let the rain get her down as she flashed her massive engagement ring in California. The 29-year-old braved the wet weather as she headed out for lunch at La Scala in Brentwood, before making a pit stop at Hermes. It wasnt hard to miss Schwarzeneggers diamond ring as she made her first public appearance since Chris Pratt revealed he had popped the question. The author and lifestyle blogger fashioned her blue denim jeans and boots with a rain mac and a flat cap as she sheltered from the rain. Flashing: Katherine Schwarzenegger's engagement ring makes its debut / SplashNews.com The pair shared a snap of themselves hugging as they broke their big news on Instagram on Monday. Pratt posted: Sweet Katherine, so happy you said yes! Im thrilled to be marrying you. Proud to live boldly in faith with you. Here we go! Loved up: Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger embrace (Instagram/ Chris Pratt ) / Chris Pratt Schwarzenegger wrote: My sweet love. Wouldnt want to live this life with anyone but you. Pratts ex-wife Anna Faris, who he shares six-year-old son Jack with, was among the first to congratulate the loved up couple on their whirlwind engagement. Im so happy for you both!! Congratulations! she wrote. Two minutes with Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard Faris and Pratt were married for eight years before announcing their split in 2017. Faris went on to date Michael Barrett. Pratt and Schwarzenegger were first linked back in July, with a source telling PEOPLE that Katherine had been introduced to Pratt by her mother Maria Shriver. They confirmed their relationship in December after Pratt paid tribute to his wife-to-be on her birthday. T he family of a Canadian man sentenced to death in China have said their worst fears have been realised. Robert Schellenberg was handed the sentence on Monday in a sudden retrial for a drug smuggling case. He was initially sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2016, which Schellenberg appealed, but it was increased to death at the end of a retrial. He is expected to appeal this verdict, arguing no new evidence had been introduced during the retrial. The sentence is another strain on relations between China and Canada, which have been at odds since early December when Canadian police arrested the chief financial officer of Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, on a US extradition warrant. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he is extremely concerned that China chose to "arbitrarily" apply the death penalty to a Canadian citizen. / AP Schellenberg is the third Canadian to run afoul of Chinese law since Meng was arrested as part of an investigation by US authorities into alleged violations of US trade sanctions. China has not linked any of the three Canadians' cases to Meng's arrest. Following Schellenberg's death sentence, Canada has since updated its travel advice for China, urging citizens to "exercise a high degree of caution due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws". The BBC reports that Schellenberg's aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones said the death sentence was "a horrific, unfortunate, heartbreaking situation". "It is our worst case fear confirmed," she added. "It is rather unimaginable what he must be feeling and thinking." Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada on a US extradition warrant, escalating tensions between China and Canada. / AP The court said it ruled on Monday that Schellenberg was involved in an international drug smuggling operation. It said he was recruited to help smuggle more than 222kg of methamphetamine from a warehouse in Dalian city to Australia. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the ruling. "It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply the death penalty," he said in a statement, according to the broadcaster. China's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said it was strongly dissatisfied Mr Trudeau labelled the decision as arbitrary. Speaking at a daily news briefing in Beijing, ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying urged Canada to respect China's sovereignty and stop making such remarks. A Chinese state-run newspaper rejected any suggestion China was putting pressure on Canada with the sentence, saying it was "unreasonable speculation" and showed "rude contempt" toward Chinese law. "Public opinion in Canada has claimed recently that China is 'politicizing' Schellenberg's case, but what Canada is doing is actually politicizing law," the nationalist Global Times said in an editorial late on Monday. A British expat has been found murdered at his home in St Lucia. The victim has been named locally as marina owner and manager Robert Hathaway, 66. It is understood he was found at his home on the Caribbean island by a neighbour at around midday on Sunday. Mr Hathaway, who founded the Marigot Sunshine marina, is thought to have lived in St Lucia since 2001. A CV on his website says he studied engineering at the University of Cambridge before going on to work for Haringey Council in north London. It also says he was vice-president of the Caribbean Marine Association. His Facebook page says he was originally from the village of Codford St Peter in Wiltshire, but studied at St Johns School in Leatherhead, Surrey. Keats Compton, president of the Marine Industries Association of Saint Lucia and a close friend of Mr Hathaway, said: "I heard the news late yesterday. It's really horrific. "Apart from anything else, Bob was a pal of mine. He was on the executive committee of the Marine Industries Association and he was an integral part of it. "I'm also concerned because the yachting fraternity is very close-knit, and the fact that this kind of thing can happen - if it's not reported properly it can do the industry quite a lot of damage." Mr Compton said he had known the victim for more than 10 years and he would be following the police investigation closely. Asked about a possible motive for the murder, he said: "It was a big shock to me but it's a bit early to make any speculation." Friends posted their condolences on his Facebook, where one said this is so so sad. Lost for words. RIP Bob. A police spokesman in Gros Islet said investigators were awaiting the outcome of a post-mortem examination. He said: "The body of a British national was found where he lived in Grand Riviere, Gros Islet. We are treating his death as a homicide." A post-mortem was due to be carried out on Monday afternoon. He added: "We will be getting in touch with his family in the UK. We don't yet know if he has any next of kin on St Lucia. A t least seven people have been killed and eight injured after gunmen blasted their way into a luxury hotel complex in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. The complex in the citys Westlands neighbourhood includes a large hotel known as DusitD2, shops and restaurants, as well as the offices of a number of international companies. Several vehicles were seen burning as people rushed and were carried from the scene on Tuesday. Somalia-based extremist group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for the attack and says fighters are still inside the complex. Nairobi Hotel and Office Complex 'Terror Attack' - In Pictures 1 /39 Nairobi Hotel and Office Complex 'Terror Attack' - In Pictures Cars are seen on fire at the scene of explosions and gunshots in Nairobi, Kenya Reuters Kenyan security forces enter the building attached to the DusitD2 hotel in Nairobi, Kenya AFP/Getty Images Muslim women console each other as they mourn the death of felllow Muslim men Abdalla Mohammed Dahir, 28, and his age mate Feisal Ahmed Rashid, who were killed in an attack, during a prayer service at a mosque in Nairobi, Kenya EPA A glass damaged by bullets is seen at the scene where explosions and gunshots were heard at the Dusit hotel compound, in Nairobi, Kenya Reuters Armed plain clothes officials secures the areas during an ongoing gunfire and explosions in Nairobi, Kenya EPA A member of security forces keeps guard as people are evacuated at the scene where explosions and gunshots were heard at the Dusit hotel compound, in Nairobi, Kenya Reuters A woman is evacuated at the scene where explosions and gunshots were heard at the Dusit hotel compound, in Nairobi, Kenya Reuters This frame taken from video shows a scene of an explosion in Kenya's capital, Nairobi AP People running in a street in Nairobi as a gunfight was underway following a blast at a hotel and office complex in a leafy Nairobi neighbourhood AFP/Getty Images Cars are seen on fire at the scene where explosions and gunshots were heard at the Dusit hotel compound, in Nairobi, Kenya Reuters Security forces are seen at the scene of a blast in Nairobi AP People are evacuated at the scene where explosions and gunshots were heard at the Dusit hotel compound, in Nairobi, Kenya Reuters People are evacuated at the scene where explosions and gunshots were heard at the Dusit hotel compound, in Nairobi, Kenya Reuters Security forces are seen at the scene of a blast in Nairobi AP People run for cover during an ongoing gunfire and explosions in Nairobi, Kenya EPA An injured man is evacuated from the scene of an explosion at a hotel complex in Nairobi's Westlands suburb AFP/Getty Images People run after being rescued from the Dusit Hotel Getty Images People walk with their hands up after being rescued from the Dusit Hotel Getty Images Members of security forces secure the scene where explosions and gunshots were heard at the Dusit hotel compound, in Nairobi, Kenya Reuters People leave a hotel at the scene of an explosion in Nairobi's Westlands suburb AFP/Getty Images People are evacuated by a member of security forces at the scene where explosions and gunshots were heard at the Dusit Hotel compound, in Nairobi, Kenya Reuters Students leave their campus following an explosion at a nearby hotel complex in Nairobi's Westlands suburb AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AP AP AP AP AFP/Getty Images EPA EPA EPA EPA EPA EPA EPA EPA EPA EPA AFP/Getty Images Police said the attack began with an explosion targeting cars followed by a detonation from a suicide bomber. "The main door of the hotel was blown open," said Serge Medic, the Swiss owner of a security company who ran to the scene to help when he heard of the attack from his taxi driver. Medic, who was armed, said he entered the building with a police officer and two soldiers but they came under fire and retreated. An unexploded grenade lay in the lobby, he said. "One man said he saw two armed men with scarves on their head and bandoliers of bullets," Mr Medic added. People are evacuated at the scene where explosions and gunshots were heard / REUTERS Plainclothes police officers were said to moving "from shop to shop" searching for the attackers. Sporadic gunfire could be heard inside the complex. One witness, who hid in his office, said: "I have been hiding. My colleagues were running everywhere. "I didn't see an attacker. Yeah, it was a terrorist attack. I think so." "It is terrible. What I have seen is terrible, another witness, Charles Njenga, said. At least seven people were killed and eight wounded, hospital officials and witnesses told Reuters news agency. A member of security forces holds a weapon at the scene / REUTERS "A group of unknown armed assailants attacked the Dusit Complex in what we suspect could be a terror attack," Kenyan police chief Joseph Boinnet said. In 2013, al-Shabab extremists burst into the nearby Westgate Mall, hurling grenades and starting a days-long siege that left 67 people dead. That attack came three years to the day after al-Shabab extremists attacked a Kenyan military base in neighbouring Somalia, killing scores of people. A Saudi teenager who fled her family and claimed asylum in Canada said today she expects her actions will inspire other women to escape oppression in the kingdom. Rahaf Mohammed, 18, barricaded herself in a Bangkok hotel room and refused to fly home earlier this month. She alleged that her family had abused her, once locking her in a room for six months for cutting her hair, and said she feared she would be killed if she was repatriated. Its something that is worth the risk I took, she told the Toronto Star newspaper. I had nothing to lose. We are treated as an object, like a slave. I wanted to tell people my story and about what happens to Saudi women. In a separate interview with Australian broadcaster ABC, she said: Im sure that there will be a lot more women running away. I hope my story encourages other women to be brave and free. I hope my story prompts a change to the law, especially as its been exposed to the world. This might be the agent for change. Ms Mohammed arrives at Toronto Pearson International Airport on January 12 (REUTERS) / Reuters Ms Mohammed had been on a trip to Kuwait with her family when she fled to the Thai capital, intending to take a connecting flight on to Australia. But she claims her passport was seized by a Saudi diplomat who met her coming off the flight, leaving her stranded. Ms Mohammed sent a series of tweets pleading for help from her airport hotel room, which were picked up by the international media and led to the intervention of the United Nations. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau granted a request from the UNs High Commissioner for Refugees to offer her asylum, and she arrived in Toronto on Saturday. Ms Mohammed, who has dropped al-Qunun from her name because her family has disowned her, said she felt like I was born again when she was met at the airport by foreign minister Chrystia Freeland. It was something amazing. There was a lot of love and hospitality, especially when the minister welcomed me and told me I was in a safe country and had all my rights, she said. Asked why she had fled her homeland, she replied: I wanted to be free from abuse and oppression. I wanted to be independent. I wouldnt be able to marry the person I wanted to. I couldnt get a job without permission. Ms Mohammed said that although still acclimatising to the Canadian winter, she was now excited at her future prospects. I will try things I havent tried, she added. I will learn things I didnt learn. I will explore life. I will have a job and live a normal life. T he first set of special stamps for 2019 have been announced, featuring designs released in the reign of monarchs from Queen Victoria to Queen Elizabeth II. The so-called Stamp Classics include the Queen Victoria 1 green of 1891, the King Edward VII 2d Tyrian plum of 1910 and the King George V 2s 6d of 1913. The Royal Mail said the new issue marks the 150th anniversary of the Royal Philatelic Society London (RPSL). It also comes on the 50th anniversary of the Queen opening the National Postal Museum. Richard Stock, of the RPSL, said: "The Royal Philatelic Society London welcomes the excellent Royal Mail Stamp Classics released early in the Society's 150th Anniversary celebrations. A policeman left critically ill after being poisoned with nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury has returned to active duty. police said today. Wiltshire Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey is believed to have come into contact with the deadly nerve agent when he and two colleagues searched the Salisbury home of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal. Mr Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were left fighting for their lives after they collapsed on a bench in Salisbury on March 5, while Mr Bailey was also rushed to hospital. Mr Bailey said his life "will never be the same again" after he was discharged on March 22. But he has now returned to work, Wiltshire Police confirmed on Tuesday, although the force would not comment further. "He's doing very well and we look forward to working with him," Wiltshire Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Angus Macpherson told the BBC. "He's making a good recovery - but I suspect the mental recovery will be longer, as it would for any of us who were exposed to something as horrific as that. "He will be given all the support he needs." Mr Bailey's return to work comes as the Skripals' home in Christie Miller Road is set to be dismantled as decontamination work continues in the cathedral city. Scaffolding has been put up and workmen could be seen erecting metal beams around the semi-detached house on Tuesday afternoon. Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, the two men who carried out the Novichok attack, captured by CCTV on Fisherton Road, Salisbury at 1.05pm on March 4, 2018. / PA/Met Police A police officer stood watch at a cordon in the quiet cul-de-sac. Wiltshire Council has written to neighbours warning them of the disruption the deep clean and construction work - expected to take up to four months - will cause. Investigators believe the Skripals first came into contact with the poison when it was sprayed on the door handle of their property. Mr Skripal and his daughter survived the attack, which Prime Minister Theresa May said had "almost certainly" been approved by the Russian state. Dawn Sturgess, 44, fell ill in Amesbury months after the incident and died in hospital in July after coming into contact with a perfume bottle believed to have been used in the attack on the Skripals and then discarded. Her partner, Charlie Rowley, 45, was also exposed to the same nerve agent but was treated and discharged. Two Russian nationals have been accused of travelling to the UK to try to murder Mr Skripal with Novichok. Evidence gathered by intelligence agencies led the Government to conclude that the men were officers from the Russian military intelligence service, the GRU. The two suspects - known by their aliases Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov - were caught on CCTV in Salisbury the day before the attack. T he mayors of London, Manchester and Liverpool today warned that a no-deal Brexit would deal a hammer blow to the economy. In a letter to the Prime Minister, Labour metro mayors Sadiq Khan, Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram said crashing out is not an option because it would mean losing growth and jobs. They wrote: It is unacceptable to play poker like this with peoples livelihoods and public services. Political posturing risks crashing us out of the EU without a deal. Our economy simply isnt prepared. "It is time to step back from the brink, and take no-deal off the table for good. TODO: define component type apester T he postponed meaningful vote on Theresa Mays deal for leaving the European Union is due to go ahead tonight. Last month, the Prime Minister dramatically called off the vote on her controversial deal as the Government faced a major defeat in the Commons. It was later announced that the vote would be deferred to mid-January, in the hope it would allow Mrs May time to seek assurances from the EU to address MPs concerns over the deal. But Mrs May is expected to lose the vote by at least 100. And while the PM has spent recent days urging support from her party, it still appears unlikely that Mrs May will achieve enough backing from MPs to pass the deal. Theresa May dramatically postponed the vote last month in the face of a major defeat in the Commons / PA Here's what you need to know ahead of the vote. When will the vote take place? The "meaningful vote" on Theresa May's Brexit Withdrawal Agreement will take place in the House of Commons on January 15, Downing Street has said. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay opened five days of debate on Wednesday, January 9, said Mrs May's official spokesman. Mrs May herself will close the debate on Tuesday evening before MPs take part in the crucial vote. MPs will vote in the Commons tonight from 7pm, though the time of the actual "meaningful vote" will be slightly later as MPs must first vote on amendments. Four amendments have been tabled by Speaker John Bercow. Fifteen minutes is allowed for each amendment so the Meaningful Vote is expected between 8pm and 8.15pm. The result will come soon after voting. TODO: define component type apester Parliament was due to vote on the deal on December 11 after the Government agreed the Withdrawal Agreement and the political declaration on the future relationship with the EU on November 25. It then passed a motion to schedule a five-day debate ahead of the vote, at the end of which Parliament was expected to be able to vote to approve or reject the deal. However the vote was postponed, with the Government later confirming it would not take place until after Christmas. Why was the vote delayed? The Government delayed the vote after three days of debate. Mrs May told the Commons this was because, if the Government proceeded with the vote, it would lose. Countdown to Brexit: 80 days until Britain leaves the EU "If we went ahead and held the vote tomorrow, the deal would be rejected by a significant margin, she said. Mrs May added that she wanted to address MPs concerns about the deal, particularly around the Northern Ireland backstop. The move prompted criticised from many MPs, including the opposition, who called for an emergency debate on the Governments handling of the meaningful vote debate. What are MPs are voting on? Parliament will vote on whether to approve the Governments Brexit deal, which was negotiated with the EU over months of back-and-forth negotiations. This includes the withdrawal agreement and a declaration on future relations. The withdrawal agreement is a legal text setting out provisions such as citizens' rights, the transition period and the so-called backstop arrangement concerning the Irish border. MPs are set for a crunch vote on Mrs May's Brexit deal / PA While the declaration on a framework for future relations is a non-legal document defining how the UK and EU will work together after Brexit on areas such as trade and security. The Government has been saying since October 2016 that Parliament will have a vote on the Brexit deal it negotiates with the EU. This was later made law under Section 13(1) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which requires the draft deal to be put to both the House of Commons and House of Lords. Former attorney general Dominic Grieve campaigned for the law in 2017 after a lack of clarity over whether the vote on the deal would be meaningful meaning it would allow MPs to reject the agreement. How many votes does Theresa May need to pass her Brexit deal? There are 650 MPs in the House of Commons. Excluding non-voting members such as the Speaker and others who never take up their seats, around 320 votes are required for the deal to be approved. The vote will be decided on a simple majority, with the actual number needed for victory dependent on abstentions and absences on the day. What happens if the PM loses the vote? As it stands, the Government remains unlikely to win any vote on the current deal. Many Tory MPs continue to believe the deal does not represent the Brexit people in the UK voted for in 2016, and the opposition has been adamant that it opposes the deal. If Mrs May loses the vote, there are a number of different outcomes that might follow. The PM may go back to Brussels again to renegotiate ahead of a second attempt to pass the deal in the Commons, despite the EU claiming it will not budge any further on the deal. Theresa May is 'working to get further EU assurances' The EU may relent when faced with the prospect of no-deal and offer a concession on the backstop. On Monday, Brussels said the agreed Brexit deal was "the best and the only deal possible" and the European Commission was focused on watching what happened in the vote. But in the period between the first and second attempt to pass the deal, Labour may attempt to force a General Election via a vote of no confidence in the Government. This would prove difficult as the vote would require Tory MPs to help topple their own Government. If that attempt fails, Labour may also try and secure a vote for a second referendum. T heresa May has called on MPs to fulfil a duty to deliver on the 2016 referendum in her final speech of the debate on her withdrawal deal. Closing the eight-day debate in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister said that a vote against her deal was a vote for uncertainty division and the very real risk of no-deal. Mrs May spoke minutes before voting began on the Governments motion and just one amendment, amid expectations that her blueprint would go down to a crushing defeat. She appealed to wavering MPs to back her deal as one that honours the vote of the referendum to leave the EU while protecting jobs and citizens rights. James Cleverly believes London missed opportunities whilst being in the EU Addressing a packed House in emotional tones she said: This is the most significant vote that any of us will ever take part of. Theresa May summing up five days of debate on her Brexit deal / AFP/Getty Images The time has now come for all of us in this House to make a decision, a decision that will define our country for decades to come. A decision that each of us will have to justify and live with for decades to come. TODO: define component type apester Mrs May said the eight days of debate had seen the Commons at its most passionate and that over 200 MPs had taken part. Parliament gave the people a choice. We set the clock ticking on our departure. Tonight we will decide if we go forward with a withdrawal agreement that honours the vote I believe we have a duty to deliver on the democratic decision of the British people. AFP/Getty Images The PM listed rival plans for Brexit and to thwart Brexit, highlighting what she said were the fatal flaws in each. A second referendum would lead to more division, she said. There would be no agreement on the questions let alone the answer. Jeremy Corbyn summing up after the mammoth Commons debate / PA She said MPs who opposed her solution would be opening the door to uncertainty, division and the very real risk of no-deal. Crashing out without a deal, she said, would mean no implementation period, no security pact and no reciprocal protection for the rights of EU citizens and Britons abroad. She said MPs had been entrusted with the sacred right to create a brighter future for the people. Tonight we can choose certainty over uncertainty, we can choose unity over division, we can choose to deliver on our promise to the British people, not break that promise and endanger trust in politics for a generation, she said. Because as Members of Parliament we have a duty to serve not our own self-interest, nor that of our parties, but the people we were elected to represent. Its the people of this country that we were sent here to serve. The people of this country who queued up at polling stations, who cast their ballots so they might put their faith in us. Its the people of this country who entrusted us with the sacred right to build for them and their children and grandchildren the brighter future that they expect and deserve. And if we act in the national interest and back this deal tonight, then tomorrow we can begin to build that future together. Together we can show the people that we serve that their voices have been heard, that their trust was not misplaced, that our politics can and does deliver, that politicians can rise above our differences and come together to do what the people asked of us. That is the test that history has set for us today. Three amendments from MPs were withdrawn after Mrs May indicated she would seek more concessions to the backstop. She told Tory MP Edward Leigh, who highlighted the permanent nature of the Northern Ireland backstop in an intervention that she was open to creative solutions. Mrs May poured scorn on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyns claims that he could deliver a better agreement. A general election would just lead to two more months of uncertainty and division, she claimed. As the vote drew near, the Pound has come under selling pressure. Sterling was trading down over 1% versus the US dollar at 1.273 and shed 0.3% against the euro at 1.118. Some MPs claimed the Tory whips had calculated a rebellion by just over 100 Conservatives. E uropean politicians have reacted to Theresa Mays historic crushing defeat, as MPs voted overwhelmingly against her deal. Mrs May has been warned time is almost up after she lost the Meaningful vote on her EU exit deal in the biggest government defeat in history by 432 votes to 202. The Prime Minister responded by telling the Commons: "The House has spoken and the Government will listen". The European Parliaments Brexit Co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt said it is now the time for Britain to decide what it wants. He tweeted: The UK Parliament has said what it doesnt want. Now is the time to find out what the UK parliamentarians want. In the meantime, the rights of citizens must be safeguarded. European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker speaks during a press conference / AFP/Getty Images European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, who had pulled out of an event in Strasbourg on Wednesday because of the vote, warned of impending disorder following the vote. He said in a statement: "I take note with regret of the outcome of the vote in the House of Commons this evening. "On the EU side, the process of ratification of the Withdrawal Agreement continues. "The Withdrawal Agreement is a fair compromise and the best possible deal. It reduces the damage caused by Brexit for citizens and businesses across Europe. It is the only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. "The European Commission, and notably our Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier, has invested enormous time and effort to negotiate the Withdrawal Agreement. We have shown creativity and flexibility throughout. I, together with President Tusk, have demonstrated goodwill again by offering additional clarifications and reassurances in an exchange of letters with Prime Minister May earlier this week. Loading.... "The risk of a disorderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom has increased with this evening's vote. While we do not want this to happen, the European Commission will continue its contingency work to help ensure the EU is fully prepared. "I urge the United Kingdom to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. "Time is almost up." President of the European Council, Donald Tusk tweeted: If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is? Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald has urged Irish Premier Leo Varadkar to "stand firm on the backstop". "Ireland's people, Ireland's economy and Ireland's peace process all need to be protected as we go forward now," she said. "The Taoiseach and the Tanaiste and our partners at a European level need to stand firm and not move away from or attempt to dilute the backstop. TODO: define component type apester "We need to say clearly to the British that if they wish to Brexit then that's a matter for themselves but any Brexit agreement needs to recognise, understand and protect the people, the economy and the peace process on this island." Chancellor of Austria, Sebastian Kurz said he regretted the outcome of the vote. President of the European Council Donald Tusk, Jean-Claude Juncker and Sebastian Kurz, Chancellor of Austria / Getty Images, He said: "I regret the outcome #Brexit of the vote. The ball is now in after the vote in the House of Commons. #London In any case, there will be no renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement. "Our goal remains #HardBrexit to avoid one and to continue to cooperate as closely as possible in the future #UK. "I talked to that tonight @MichelBarnier as well." European Parliament President Antonio Tajani posted on Twitter: "Brexit vote is bad news. "Our first thoughts are with the 3.6m EU citizens living in UK and Britons living elsewhere in EU. They need assurances with regards to their future. "We will alway stand by their side. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Twitter that his Government regretted the "negative result" in the Commons. He added that the PM's Withdrawal Agreement was the "best possible" and said a disorderly exit would be "negative for the EU and catastrophic for the United Kingdom". Spain would work on contingency measures and "would prioritise the rights of citizens and residents", he said. T housands of protesters are expected to gather at Parliament Square today as MPs prepare to vote on whether to back Theresa Mays deal for leaving the European Union. The so-called meaningful vote will take place later today as five days of debate on Brexit comes to a close. Events listed on social media for demonstrations starting from 10am show there could be thousands of people from both sides of the debate converging outside the Houses of Parliament. Organisers have said there will be screens available to watch the debate and result as well as speakers addressing the crowds. A pro-Brexit supporter holds up a placard as he demonstrates outside the Houses of Parliament in central London. / AFP/Getty Images Already, tensions are flaring as Leavers and Remainers have come head-to-head in the streets in recent days. From 10am, Stand of Defiance European Movement (Sodem) will hold a Meaningful Vote Protest. The group describes themselves as peaceful (if noisy) anti Brexit, pro EU protest. Nearly 1,000 people have registered their interest to attend on Facebook. Pro and anti-Brexit supporters outside the Houses of Parliament in London. / EPA From midday, the new political party Renew is expecting 50 people to attend their demonstration at Parliament Square. Cambridge Stays has 3,000 people interested on Facebook to attend their demonstration. You can join thousands of people outside in Parliament Square to watch the debate and outcome of the vote live on giant screens and hear from a huge variety of politicians and speakers live on stage, the event description reads. It adds: MPs in Parliament will be able to hear us in the Square as they make their decision. Around 900 people could join London Earth Strike UKs Climate Protest, which said it will be at the square today demonstrating to save our planet. About 200 people are expected to join Another Europe is Possible to demonstrate at the square. And a few thousand are expected to join a protest organised by the People's Vote campaign for a second referendum. T ensions were running high outside Parliament as pro and anti-Brexit campaigners gathered ahead of the Meaningful Vote this evening. Even the staunchest members of the opposing groups said they were united in "despair" at the Government's handling of leaving the EU. As Remainers waved blue and yellow European Union flags overhead, Brexiteers held placards calling for the referendum to be honoured. Verbal clashes broke out as the opposing groups' views were shouted in the streets. Brexit: Meaningful Vote - In Pictures 1 /29 Brexit: Meaningful Vote - In Pictures A Leaver and a pro-European demonstrator argue during protests opposite the Houses of Parliament in London AP A police officer extinguishes a flag that was set alight by pro-Brexit protestors outside the Houses of Parliament PA An anti-Brexit protester dressed in a Theresa May costume recreates a scene from the 1997 film 'Titanic, EPA Pro Brexit supporters outside the Houses of Parliament, London, ahead of the House of Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal PA PA John Bercow speaks in the House of Commons Sky News Pro-Brexit protestors outside the Houses of Parliament, London PA Prime Minister Theresa May listens to the Attorney-General Geoffrey Cox, speak in the House of Commons ahead of the Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal PA Pro Brexit supporters outside the Houses of Parliament, London, ahead of the House of Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal PA Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament in London Reuters Effigies of Prime Minister Theresa May, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, current Environment Secretary Michael Gove and former Brexit secretary David Davis, are driven past the Houses of Parliament, London, ahead of the House of Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal PA Former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union Dominic Raab, Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Arlene Foster, Conservative Peer Lord Lilley and former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union David Davis speak to the media during a press conference to offer an alternative Brexit plan Getty Images Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg speaks to the media outside the Palace of Westminster Getty Images Pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament Reuters Former leader of UKIP Nigel Farage speaks to the media as Pro-Brexit and Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament Reuters Anti-Brexit protester Steve Bray outside the Houses of Parliament, London PA Pro EU protesters and Pro Leave protesters demonstrate outside Parliament EPA A man dressed to imitate former foreign secretary Boris Johnson holds a fake bank note for 350 million pounds outside the Houses of Parliament AFP/Getty Images A pro-Brexit 'battle bus' (L) drives past a mix of pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit protesters outside the Houses of Parliament AFP/Getty Images Anti-Brexit protester Steve Bray (left) talks with a Brexiteer outside the Houses of Parliament, London, ahead of the House of Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal PA A pro-European demonstrator sings during a protest opposite the Houses of Parliament AP Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes leaves 10 Downing Street, London, following a cabinet meeting, ahead of the House of Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal PA Anti-Brexit and Pro-Brexit protesters fly flags outside the Houses of Parliament, London, ahead of the House of Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal PA Theresa May leaves a cabinet meeting at Downing Street AP A pro remain supporter wears anti brexit badges on his hat, during protests outside of the Parliament EPA Anti and pro Brexit placards are displayed outside of the Parliament EPA Anti-Brexit supporters hold up placards outside Parliament AFP/Getty Images Anti-Brexit demonstrators hold up placards outside Parliament AFP/Getty Images Pro-Brexit supporters hold up placards outside Parliament AFP/Getty Images One ardent Brexiteer yelled: Leave means leave, lets get rid of these vermin, as he stood beside a cohort of Remainers. In another confrontation with a leave means leave Brexiteer, someone was told to leave this country, before offering to pay for their plane ticket. Pro-European Sherri Dingle, 55, said she was called a fascist traitor outside the Houses of Parliament. Remainers and Brexiteers united in 'despair' ahead of Meaningful vote Although Ms Dingle, a languages teacher from Somerset, said the atmosphere on the whole at the protest was did not feel overtly aggressive she said she was scared by some of the language and behaviour surrounding the Brexit debate. Protesters at Parliament this afternoon / AFP/Getty Images 65-year-old Brexiteer Sally Smith spoke of the stigma around backing Brexit and feeling abused due to her stance. She had travelled to Westminster from Shropshire with her Liberty Bell, a large 150-year-old artefact chimed in a show of support for leaving the EU. A man dressed as Boris Johnson outside Parliament this afternoon / AFP/Getty Images During the day she claimed to have had Remoaners shout at her and said one of her friends had been pushed in the furore. Ill speak to anyone so long as theyre not angry. Some people get really in your face, she told the Standard. While views differed drastically, the one thing everyone had in common was being united in their disappointment over the Brexit process thus far. Ms Smith said: All politicians have been absolutely hopeless. All the world is looking at us and we appear as though were incompetent. I feel absolutely embarrassed. Remainers Ms Dingle and her friend Sarah Jane Checkland were also disparaging of Theresa May and the Governments handling of Brexit. Ms Checkland said: I think she is stubborn to the point of stupidity. Ms Dingle said she expects the vote tonight to be a humiliation for the Prime Minister. Peter Hayden, a 72-year-old from Worcestershire, said he will cancel his Labour membership should Jeremy Corbyn not back a second referendum. He said Britain should learn from the EUs mature negotiations and democratic processes. He said: Its like the mad hatters tea party us trying to negotiate with Europe. We can learn from Europe, not the other way around. Colin Hussey and Marietta King are both UKIP members who feel leaving the EU with no deal is the best option. Ms King, from Rutland, said: I dont think any body knows anything at the moment. The government doesnt know. Anybody they interview doesnt know. It makes me despair. We had a referendum. We gave them [MPs] an instruction. If an MP won their seat with a one vote majority they wouldnt consider they didnt win the seat. We shouldve left the day after the referendum. Vanessa Gledhill, 44, and Rob Wheatley both travelled from Blackpool for the protest. They are pro-Europe. Ms Gledhill said: I came to support those who will not back Mrs Mays deal. Particularly those in her own party, they deserve support for that. Both spoke of the risk to protections in terms of human rights and workers rights as reasons they are concerned over leaving the bloc. The two gave damning indictments of how negotiations have been handled. TODO: define component type apester Ms Gledhill said: She [Theresa May] had let down not just the country but the European Union too. Mr Wheatley said: Its a farce. You couldnt make it up some of it. Its completely unbelievable. The vote upon Mrs Mays deal is set for sometime after 7pm on Tuesday, with a number of amendments to be voted on prior to the final meaningful vote. Despite her and her Cabinet rallying behind it, the deal is unlikely to pass through Parliament. P arliament must start talking about a second referendum on quitting the European Union, Labours Brexit spokesman demanded today. Sir Keir Starmer said space must be created for a discussion around alternatives, and that includes another public vote. But so far party leader Jeremy Corbyn has been accused of dragging his feet over a second referendum amid fears that it could alienate some voters in Leave constituencies. His stance has left him at odds with many of his MPs, party members and Labour voters, including in London. Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir this morning put another public vote firmly into the spotlight just hours before Theresa May was expected to suffer a heavy defeat over her Brexit plan. He told the BBC Radio 4s Today programme: In the end it comes down really to: is there going to be a general election? That is one option. Is there some form of deal that people can coalesce around or should there be a public vote or a second referendum? We need to create the space for that discussion about the credible alternatives. Pressed on his preference, he added: We cant have no deal and therefore we need to find a majority for something else. Our party conference set out the option of a public vote, a second referendum, and obviously that has got to be discussed. TODO: define component type apester Shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald said his party was deadly serious about tabling a motion of no confidence in the Government, which is expected to happen swiftly if Mrs May loses the vote tonight. He also emphasised that her attempts to woo union leaders to gain backing for her deal appeared to have been rebuffed. He told Sky News: What she has done, shes brought a few people in, a selected number of MPs, and rang some trade union leaders and got short shrift. The GMB tweeted this morning: Whichever way we voted, we didnt vote for Theresa Mays bad Brexit deal. It wants the public to have the final say on the UK quitting the EU. Mr Speaker, the House has spoken and the Government will listen. It is clear that the House does not support this deal. But tonights vote tells us nothing about what it does support. Nothing about how - or even if - it intends to honour the decision the British people took in a referendum Parliament decided to hold. People, particularly EU citizens who have made their home here and UK citizens living in the EU, deserve clarity on these questions as soon as possible. Those whose jobs rely on our trade with the EU need that clarity. So with your permission Mr Speaker I would like to set out briefly how the Government intends to proceed. First, we need to confirm whether this Government still enjoys the confidence of the House. I believe that it does, but given the scale and importance of tonights vote it is right that others have the chance to test that question if they wish to do so. I can therefore confirm that if the Official Opposition table a confidence motion this evening in the form required by the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, the Government will make time to debate that motion tomorrow. And if, as happened before Christmas, the Official Opposition decline to do so, we will on this occasion - consider making time tomorrow to debate any motion in the form required from the other opposition parties, should they put one forward. Second, if the House confirms its confidence in this Government I will then hold meetings with my colleagues, our Confidence & Supply partner the DUP and senior Parliamentarians from across the House to identify what would be required to secure the backing of the House. The Government will approach these meetings in a constructive spirit, but given the urgent need to make progress, we must focus on ideas that are genuinely negotiable and have sufficient support in this House. Third, if these meetings yield such ideas, the Government will then explore them with the European Union. Mr Speaker I want to end by offering two reassurances. The first is to those who fear that the Governments strategy is to run down the clock to 29th March. That is not our strategy. I have always believed that the best way forward is to leave in an orderly way with a good deal and have devoted much of the last two years negotiating such a deal. As you confirmed Mr Speaker, the amendment to the business motion tabled last week by my Right Honourable and Learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield is not legally binding, but the Government respects the will of the House. We will therefore make a statement about the way forward and table an amendable motion by Monday. The second reassurance is to the British people, who voted to leave the European Union in the referendum two and a half years ago. I became Prime Minister immediately after that referendum. I believe it is my duty to deliver on their instruction and I intend to do so. Mr Speaker every day that passes without this issue being resolved means more uncertainty, more bitterness and more rancour. The Government has heard what the House has said tonight, but I ask Members on all sides of the House to listen to the British people, who want this issue settled, and to work with the Government to do just that. T heresa May is braced for a potentially crushing Commons defeat over her Brexit deal after an eleventh-hour appeal for support apparently failed to win round critics. On a historic day at Westminster, MPs will finally deliver their verdict on the Withdrawal Agreement hammered out with Brussels on Tuesday evening. With more than 100 Tory MPs having declared their opposition to the plan, there was speculation the Government could go down to one of the heaviest defeats of modern times. The Prime Minister has insisted she is focused on winning the vote, telling Conservative rebels last night they risked handing the keys of Number 10 to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Jeremy Corbyn: The Prime Minister warned rebels they risked handing the keys to No 10 to the Labour leader / EPA However The Daily Telegraph quoted one Cabinet source as saying it would be "hard for her to carry on" if she lost by more than 100 votes. The Leader of the House Andrea Leadsom insisted Mrs May was determined to continue fighting for her agreement in the best interests of the country. "Anything that looks like that level of disruption would incredibly bad - both for the country and for Brexit," she told BBC2's Newsnight. "So I think the Prime Minister will remain determined to deliver on this deal. Her purpose is to leave the European Union in line with what people voted for. She could not be clearer about that." The deal suffered its first official parliamentary defeat in the House of Lords on Monday night as peers voted by 321 votes to 152 - a majority of 169 - to reject it. Brexit Withdrawal Agreement: How might MPs vote? Mr Corbyn indicated he was finally ready to table a vote of no-confidence in the Government if it loses in the Commons. "Don't be concerned, it's coming soon," he told a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. It would appear unlikely Labour can muster enough votes to force a general election, with both Tory rebels and the DUP indicating they would continue to back the Government in a confidence vote. However Downing Street has given little indication as to how the Prime Minister intends to proceed if she is defeated. Under the terms of an amendment passed last week, she must table a motion on her Plan B by Monday - although in practice she is unlikely to want to wait that long. Theresa May said MPs will be judged 'when the history books are written' / AFP/Getty Images Some reports have suggested she could fly to Brussels - possibly as early as Wednesday - in an attempt wring further concessions on the crucial issue of the Northern Ireland "backstop". But that could prove problematic if she has suffered a massive defeat, with EU leaders reluctant to give ground if they believe it is simply impossible for her to get the deal through the Commons. Alternatively, she could to bring back the deal to the House for a second - or possibly even a third - time in an attempt to wear down the opposition. Some MPs claimed to have detected some movement towards her position after she addressed a private meeting of Conservatives MPs at Westminster on Monday evening Theresa May said she is to step down if her Brexit deal is voted down / EPA So far, however, the numbers contemplating backing the deal would appear to fall far short of what is needed to affect the final outcome. Mrs May will make her final appeal when she winds up five days of debate in the Commons before MPs head to the division lobbies. Voting is due to begin at 7pm and could continue for around two hours, depending on how many amendments Speaker John Bercow calls before the final "meaningful vote" on the deal. Those tabled include one by the Labour MP and chairman of the Commons Exiting the EU Committee Hilary Benn intended to block both Mrs May's deal and a no-deal Brexit. TODO: define component type apester Speaking in the Commons on Monday, Mrs May acknowledged the deal was "not perfect" but urged MPs to give it a "second look". With some pro-Remain MPs backing moves to take control of the parliamentary timetable if she is defeated, she warned any attempt by the House to thwart Brexit would be a "subversion of our democracy". On Monday, Conservative former ministers Nick Boles, Sir Oliver Letwin and Nicky Morgan put forward a plan to give Parliament control over the Brexit process. Their European Union Withdrawal Number 2 Bill would give the Government three weeks to seek a compromise that can get through the Commons and allow the UK to leave the EU on March 29 as planned. If that failed, the Liaison Committee - made up of senior backbenchers who chair Commons committees - would be given the job of coming up with its own compromise deal, which the Government would be legally required to implement if approved by MPs. T heresa May is on course for a crushing Commons defeat on her Brexit deal today after a Labour MP withdrew an amendment that could have spared her the humiliation. Hilary Benn, Labour chairman of the Brexit select committee, has withdrawn his proposal that would have killed both the Prime Minister's deal and prevented a no-deal Brexit. It was believed that the amendment was favoured by Government whips because it would have potentially spared Mrs May from a major defeat on Tuesday and was seen by some as an "escape route". In a series of tweets on Tuesday morning, Mr Benn confirmed he had withdrawn the amendment but said he would pursue a vote to veto a no-deal Brexit at the "earliest opportunity." He said: "I have decided to withdraw my amendment to the Governments Withdrawal Agreement motion today which would have rejected both the PMs deal and leaving with no deal. "Its vital that we now get the clearest expression of view from the House on the Governments deal - like many others I will vote against it - but I intend to pursue a no to no deal vote at the earliest opportunity. "Since I originally tabled the amendment in December, the House has voted for a no deal amendment to the Finance Bill which is a clear and very welcome indication of MPs opposition to no deal. Hilary Benn had tabled an amendment to reject Theresa May's deal and prevent no-deal / PA "Dominic Grieves amendment and the Speakers ruling that a business motion can be amended are also very important and there is now a proposal for a Bill that would allow the Commons in effect to rule out a no deal Brexit by seeking an extension to Article 50 if necessary. "All these developments mean that the House will soon have the opportunity to make it clear that it rejects no deal and so offer reassurance to the many businesses and their workers who are very anxious about the disaster that a no deal Brexit would represent. "If the Prime Minister loses tonight the Government must reach out across the House to try and find a way forward. If this doesnt happen, then Parliament will have to take the lead." On a historic day at Westminster MPs will finally deliver their verdict on the Withdrawal Agreement hammered out with Brussels on Tuesday evening. With more than 100 Tory MPs having declared their opposition to the plan, there was speculation the Government could go down to one of the heaviest defeats of modern times. Theresa May's Brexit deal will be put to MPs in the so-called 'meaningful vote' on Tuesday / REUTERS The PM has insisted she is focused on winning the vote - telling Conservative rebels on Monday evening they risked handing the keys of No 10 to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. The Leader of the House Andrea Leadsom insisted Mrs May was determined to continue fighting for her agreement in the best interests of the country. The deal suffered its first official parliamentary defeat in the House of Lords on Monday night as peers voted by 321 votes to 152 - a majority of 169 - to reject it. Brexit Withdrawal Agreement: How might MPs vote? Jeremy Corbyn indicated he was finally ready to table a vote of no-confidence in the Government if it loses in the Commons. "Don't be concerned, it's coming soon," he told a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. It would appear unlikely Labour can muster enough votes to force a general election, with both Tory rebels and the DUP indicating they would continue to back the Government in a confidence vote. However Downing Street has given little indication as to how the Prime Minister intends to proceed if she is defeated. Under the terms of an amendment passed last week, she must table a motion on her Plan B by Monday - although in practice she is unlikely to want to wait that long. Mrs May will make her final appeal when she winds up five days of debate in the Commons before MPs head to the division lobbies. Menindee resident Dick Arnold and Rob stand in the Darling river above weir 32 each holding a hundred year old fish, 7 January 2019. These Murray cod have lived through the highs and lows of this system however could not survive this human-made disaster. Up to a million local fish have perished in the smothering conditions caused by the blue-green algae event. Photo: Tolarno Station By Matt Coughlan 14 January 2019 (AAP) More fish are likely to die in NSW as state and federal water managers prepare for an emergency meeting to canvass options to mitigate the ecological disaster. Water Minister David Littleproud described the situation as horrible, joining his state counterpart Niall Blair in warning of more devastation after up to a million fish died in the Darling River system. Im advised there is a high likelihood of more fish kills very soon, Mr Littleproud said in a statement on Monday. The federal government wants states to agree to use $5 million from Murray-Darling Basin funds for a strategy to look after native fish. [] Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he was concerned some may attempt to play politics with the bipartisan Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Its a devastating ecological event, Mr Morrison told ABC News Breakfast. For those who live all throughout the region, just the sheer visual image of this is terribly upsetting, he said. Labor wants an emergency task force to investigate how and why the fish died, including the potential impact of agricultural chemicals like fertiliser. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten also wants it to look at whether water diversions or management in the Murray-Darling system made the disaster worse. Scientists argue mismanagement of the river system is to blame, but the NSW government insists the devastating drought gripping the state is a key factor. Drought is a natural event. Blue green algae outbreaks and fish kills of this scale are not natural events, Mr Shorten wrote in a letter to the Prime Minister. Mr Littleproud and Mr Morrison pointed to barren conditions as the central factor behind the fish deaths. The reality is were in a serious drought and the only silver bullet is rain, Mr Littleproud said. [more] Grim warnings of more fish deaths in NSW M Ps are to vote on Theresa May's Brexit deal today but several amendments have been tabled. These are suggested by MPs and Commons Speaker John Bercow will select the most important ones, in his view, for a vote as the final day of debate starts on Tuesday. It is also possible that MPs could decide to drop their amendments and new ones may emerge. TODO: define component type apester Mr Benn, who is chairman of the Commons Exiting the European Union Committee, had Tory support for his proposal but tweeted that he had decided to act because "its vital that we now get the clearest expression of view from the House on the Government's deal". He said he would vote against the motion and intends to pursue a 'no to no deal' vote at the earliest opportunity. So what are the notable amendments tabled so far? Amendment A from the Labour frontbench Labour's bid to reject Mrs May's deal and "pursue every option" to prevent the UK leaving the EU with no deal. Brexit Withdrawal Agreement: How might MPs vote? It rejects the deal because it fails to provide a permanent customs union and a "strong single market deal" as set out in Labour's "six tests". The Liberal Democrats have tabled an amendment to this proposal, which seeks to include a second referendum as one of the options. Amendment F by Tory MP John Baron The amendment gives the UK the right to terminate the Northern Ireland backstop without having to secure the agreement of the EU. It has been backed by a cross-party group of Brexiteers. Amendment I from the Lib Dems Separately, Sir Vince Cable and the Lib Dems have tabled an amendment that calls on the Government to "take all necessary steps to prepare for a Peoples Vote in which the public may give their informed consent on leaving the EU or retaining the United Kingdoms membership of the European Union. Amendment K from the SNP The SNP wants to reject the Brexit deal "in line with the views of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly that they would be damaging for Scotland, Wales and the nations and regions of the UK as a whole". It also calls on the Government to delay the UK's departure from the EU until another withdrawal deal is agreed. Amendment O by Tory MP Sir Hugo Swire Former minister Sir Hugo Swire, along with fellow Tories, wants to ensure parliamentary approval on either extending the transition period or triggering the backstop - should a trade deal not be concluded by the end of 2020. It also aims to push the UK Government to secure further assurances from the EU to limit the backstop to 12 months. Amendment P by Labour MP John Mann A Labour backbench amendment supports the PMs deal on condition the Government agree to bolster workers' rights and environmental standards. Amendment Q by Tory MP Andrew Murrison Tory MP Dr Andrew Murrison has tabled an amendment that would put a time limit on the Northern Ireland backstop, aimed at reducing the scale of the expected Government defeat. Amendment A: Labour frontbench The official amendment from the opposition proposes rejecting Mrs May's deal because it fails to provide a "permanent customs union" and "strong single market", which the party says would harm business and could mean the Irish backstop coming into force. It also calls on the Government to "pursue every option" to prevent the UK leaving the EU with no deal. The Lib Dems have put forward an amendment to this amendment and want it to include a pledge to back a second referendum "as endorsed by the Labour Party Conference 2018". Amendment K: SNP/Plaid Cymru The SNP amendment moves to reject Mrs May's deal in line with the views of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. It also asks the Government to request an extension of Article 50 so that Britain does not leave the EU without a deal. And it calls on the UK Government to "respect the will" of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly in rejecting the Brexit deal. Amendment B: Edward Leigh Conservative former minister Sir Edward Leigh amendment suggests noting the Irish border backstop is "intended to be temporary". It urges the Government to give notice on January 1, 2022 that it will terminate the Withdrawal Treaty if it becomes clear that the EU will not agree to remove the backstop. Amendment F: John Baron Tabled by Tory MP John Baron, it seeks to give the UK the right to terminate the Irish border backstop without having to secure the agreement of the EU T he House of Lords has voted to "emphatically reject" a no-deal Brexit scenario in a vote that has been labelled meaningless. Lords voted to reject Mrs Mays proposals by 321 to 152 in the ballot on Monday night. The Commons has the final say over the Prime Minister's deal on Tuesday, leading to the Lords ballot being dubbed the meaningless vote. The House of Lords highlighted its toothlessness on its Twitter account, telling one user: Under the EU (Withdrawal) Act the @HouseofCommons must vote on the withdrawal agreement and the #HouseofLords must complete this debate. The Commons has the final say. Lords peer Tanni Grey-Thomson remarked she had "rarely seen it so busy". Closing the debate on behalf of the government, Lord Keen of Elie had defended Mrs May by saying: A second referendum would be seen by many as a constitutional outrage. Great advances were made in the negotiations so far as the backstop was concerned. So many people in the UK chose to leave. They were against the notion of ever-closer political union [with the EU]. The Withdrawal Agreement was made in good faith. And we perhaps need to remind ourselves the referendum wasnt a choice between good and evil. We must proceed with the Withdrawal Agreement." B rexit is like the Second World War, David Davis MP announced to journalists based in Berlin. The former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union broke the cardinal rule of diplomacy whatever you do, dont mention the war during an interview with German newspaper Der Spiegel in which he also mentioned the Suez Crisis. Im certain that Brexit will be a success, the MP and former Territorial Army SAS reservist told correspondent Jorg Schindler. When asked by Schindler if he was concerned Britain would end up on the wrong side of history, Davis replied: Remember, every single major issue in our history is one where you might be right or wrong. Appeasement before the Second World War, we might be right or wrong. Suez, we might be right or wrong. But big changes demand that you dont run away in fear from a decision. And, of course, in Brexit lies a risk as well. But Im not remotely concerned that we are wrong. Davis, who resigned from Cabinet last July two days after Theresa May unveiled her deal to the Cabinet in an away day at Chequers, maintained, however, that the Prime Minister was still the right person to lead the country yeah, yeah. Surely, Schindler persisted, the convoluted deal negotiations suggest that something isnt quite right? Davis conceded that: Its true that the debate has become more corrosive. Part of the reason is because it is so important. This happens in British history. It happened over Suez when there was a fierce debate, and it happened when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister. But then it always settled back down. Sadly, Daviss attempts to win over German audiences were ultimately unsuccessful. Today saw N-TV, a German station, present a Brexit report illustrated with an image of a figure wearing Union Jack shoes shooting themselves in the foot. Holding the floor As a doctor, I admire good bladder control, began GP-turned-International Trade Secretary Dr Liam Fox yesterday as things took a turn for the weird in the Commons. Fox, praising Theresa Mays resilience over the two-hour Commons debate, apparently pricked the ego of the Speaker, John Bercow, who rarely misses an opportunity to boast about his iron pelvic floor. I am able to stay in the House for many, many hours, he declared. We are not talking about two hours, for the avoidance of doubt. I will very happily be here for 12 hours. Keep holding on: Speaker John Bercow / Getty Images -- Labours Chris Williamson tweeted praise for the huge social housing programme ... on track in Venezuela. Except this is the same Venezuela that has seen three million flee the political crisis since 2015. Williamson makes no secret of his admiration of Nicolas Maduros repressive regime yet still has the Labour whip. -- Channel 4s new series Pure was launched at Bafta last night and screenwriter Kirstie Swain explained how she treated nudity. We didnt just want to be gratitutous and show a tit when there was no need for the tit to be shown, she said. The tit had to be earned. Which is a rule for life. Quite. Double vision and a total blackout Too modest: Steve Coogan / Dave Benett/Getty Images Steve Coogan may be Bafta-nominated for Stan & Ollie but his other recent film, Holmes & Watson, was less acclaimed: mass cinema walk-outs were reported. The creator of Alan Partridge and The Trip admits he never watched the film himself, in case it was two hours of my life Id never get back. He told the Empire Film podcast: People say its a load of rubbish. I think in 20 years time when the dust has settled and people are able to look at Holmes & Watson objectively, people will say: Its still rubbish. Killing Eve strikes again as Phoebe picks up another gong at Writers Guild Awards Phoebe Waller-Bridge at the Golden Globes earlier this month / WireImage Women won big at yesterday nights Writers Guild Awards, scooping nine of 16 prizes as great writing was celebrated from across theatre, TV, radio, comedy, books and video games. Woman of the moment Phoebe Waller-Bridge won Best Long-Form TV Drama for the fifth episode of hit TV drama Killing Eve, while its star Sandra Oh was honoured across the pond at the Critics Choice Awards in LA, winning Best Actress for her performance. Expect more great things from Waller-Bridge in 2019: her hugely successful BBC drama Fleabag, which began as a one-woman Edinburgh show before propelling the actor and writer to international stardom, will return for a second season on BBC later this year. As with Killing Eve, Fleabag has been making waves in America, both on the small screen and on Broadway. Also awarded for original, female-driven writing was Sarah Phelps, who penned this Christmass hit Agatha Christie adaptation The ABC Murders, and Call The Midwifes Heidi Thomas. Thomas was presented with the outstanding contribution to writing award in honour of her body of work, which includes Little Women and Cranford. Other winners included Russell T Davies, known for his work on Doctor Who. He was recognised for his critically acclaimed three-part drama A Very English Scandal in the best short-form TV drama category. Australian comedian Sarah Kendall took home the award for best radio comedy for the second year in a row. Also at the central London ceremony were Mackenzie Crook and Stephen McGann. SW1A Why is Theresa May so inflexible? She sees fact as opinion explains a former Cabinet colleague who clashed with her for years. So, for example, when she is given legal advice, or told that a vote wont go through, she just assumes it is the view of the person telling her, not an actual impediment. Seeing "fact as opinion": Theresa May / Getty Images Boris Johnson broke Commons convention by not returning to the chamber last night, having spoken in the debate. Understandable, given the debate wound up at 1.45am? No, says Labours Lucy Powell MP: Hes above us all, isnt he? But where was he? Seeking consolation elsewhere? Killer comeback: Angela Eagle / Getty Images Dont mess with Angela Eagle. Alok Sharma, a minister at the Department for Work and Pensions, challenged the Labour MP to meet in the Jobcentre in her area. Impossible. Eagle swiftly shouted back: You shut it down. Quote of the Day How many babies do we in this House have to have before we see any change? A UK university is taking the unprecedented step of switching off its social media channels to encourage students to do their own digital detox. De Montfort University, in Leicester, is going on a social media blackout between Wednesday and Monday. The university is trying to draw attention to the impact of unrestrained social media use on mental health. During the five-day period, it wants students to join in the experiment to see if it makes a difference. Vice-chancellor Prof Dominic Shellard said: I have been really struck and shocked by the degree to which their over-engagement with social media is having a negative impact on their mental health. The last thing we are doing at night is flicking through our Twitter feeds. We wake up in the middle of the night and we are looking at our Instagram. Some of us, me in particular, have lost the ability to sit quietly for three minutes and not be flicking through their phone. S cotland Yard's murder investigation unit has lost a quarter of its officers and staff over the past decade, data shows. The units overall strength decreased by a huge 26 per cent between 2008 and last year, the figures suggest. And the number of major investigation teams (MITs) appears to have decreased from 26 to 18. The revelation comes amid a rising tide of violence on Londons streets, with the number of homicides reaching 128 in 2018. This is the highest level seen in a calendar year this decade, according to analysis. London has seen a bloody start to 2019, with six murder probes launched so far, including one into the death of 14-year-old Jaden Moodie, pictured / Metropolitan Police Last year there were 315 fewer police and civilians working for the Mets homicide and major crime command (HMCC) than there were in 2008, the same data revealed. Data from Britains largest police force showed that there were half the number of officers within the specialist HMCC and MIT teams last year than there were a decade earlier. The figures were released to the Press Association under freedom of information law Scotland Yard said its HMCC includes murder detectives as well as specialist operations, such as Winter Key - its child sex abuse probe - and investigations into alleged electoral fraud and the Grenfell Tower fire. Explaining the figures, a spokeswoman for the force said: "The Metropolitan Police Service frequently adjusts resources to respond to violence in London." However, London Mayor Sadiq Khan blamed a shortfall in police funding, which has seen the overall number of police officers drop below 30,000 for the first time in 15 years. "This is the stark reality of years of damaging government cuts that have seen the Met having to make colossal savings of 850 million," a spokesman said. The revelations come amid a rising tide of violence in the capital with the number of homicides reaching 128 in 2018 - according to PA analysis - the highest level in a calendar year this decade. London has seen a bloody start to 2019, with six murder probes launched so far, including one into the death of 14-year-old Jaden Moodie. Victim: Jayden Moodie The youngster was rammed off a moped and repeatedly stabbed in east London last week in what detectives believe was a targeted attack. Data showed that the total strength of the Metropolitan Police's HMCC dropped from 1208 in 2008 to 893 in 2018 - a 26 per cent decrease. The number of HMCC officers dropped from 850 to 715 - a dip of nearly 16 per cent - over the period, while the number of other staff members fell from 358 to 177 - a 50 per cent plunge. In 2008, the Met had 717 police officers and 168 other staff working across 26 MITs. But last year there were 402 officers 43 per cent fewer - and just 36 other staff - a 78 per cent reduction -working across 18 MITs, which represents a 50 per cent overall decrease in MIT strength, according to the data. Scotland Yard's HMCC dropped to its lowest staffing levels across the period in 2017, when there were just 590 officers and 168 other staff, making a total strength of 758. However, a boost in officer numbers to 715 and civilian staff members to 177 last year, saw an increase in total HMCC strength to 893 - a percentage increase of almost 18 per cent from the previous year and a return to its highest level since 2014. Figures released separately in December by the Mayor's office show the overall strength of the Met police went from 31,460 on October 31 2008 to 29,654 on the same date last year - a decrease of 5.7 per cent. A spokesman for the Mayor said: "This is the stark reality of years of damaging government cuts that have seen the Met having to make colossal savings of 850 million, which has resulted in officer numbers falling below 30,000 for the first time in 15 years. "While even the Home Office admits there is a link between the increase in violence and a decrease in officer numbers, it's fallen on deaf ears with ministers failing to reverse the cuts which could see the number of police officers fall still further by 2022." Scotland Yard said last week: "The Metropolitan Police Service frequently adjusts resources to respond to violence in London. "The remit of the Homicide and Major Crime Command (HMCC) incorporates murder detectives as well as a number of specialist operations including the Met's special enquiry team, operation Winter Key and enquiries into election fraud. "HMCC staff figures also reflect those working on the Grenfell Tower fire investigation." A McDonalds customer at Waterloo station suffered a fractured eye socket in a brutal attack after asking a fellow diner to stop throwing chips at him. British Transport Police (BTP) has released images of a suspect following the assault, which left the victim in hospital. The force said the victim had been ordering food at the restaurant when a large amount of chips were thrown at him and his friend. He asked those involved to stop, but a young man then punched him in the face, causing him to fall to the floor. British Transport Police is hunting this suspect after the attack at Waterloo station's McDonald's / British Transport Police The victim was taken to hospital, where he was treated for a fractured eye socket. The attack happened on October 4 last year at about 12.10am, and BTP is appealing for information on the male shown in the CCTV images. Waterloo is the UKs busiest railway station. D etectives investigating the murder of a 14-year-old boy in east London launched a fresh appeal for witnesses today as they revealed he was riding a stolen moped at the time of the attack. Jaden Moodie was rammed off the moped by a Mercedes car before being stabbed in the back repeatedly and left to die in the street in Leyton. Police are returning to the scene of the attack in Bickley Road this evening, a week on from the killing, to appeal for witnesses. Detectives say they are still keeping an open mind about the motive for the attack at around 6.30pm in an area notorious for gang-related violence and drug-dealing. After the murder it was revealed that he had been excluded from school and sent to a Pupil Referral Unit. His family say he was not involved with gangs, but he described himself on social media as a trapper kid (drug dealer) and in images online he is seen waving bundles of 50 notes and making gang signs. He moved to the capital last year for a new start away from his former home in Nottingham. Jayden had moved to London recently, family say / Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Inspector Chris Soole, who is leading the investigation, said: We want to make sure we fully understand every aspect of Jadens lifestyle, and the reason, for instance, that he was riding a stolen moped. I believe there are a number of people who witnessed the crime or who have information about Jadens murder and we would like to hear from them. Detectives are urging young people to use the website Fearless.org, which is aimed at 11 to 16-year-olds, to pass on information anonymously. DCI Soole said police would also be returning to Carlisle Road, half a mile from the murder scene, where the stolen Mercedes B Class was dumped the day after the attack. A teenage boy has admitted carrying out an appalling attack on the former British ambassador to the US at Victoria Tube station, the Standard has learned. Sir Christopher Meyer, 74, suffered severe facial injuries when he was knocked to the ground last July. He was pictured covered in blood on a hospital stretcher following the attack, which was initially thought to be an attempted robbery. Witnesses later suggested that the former diplomat had tripped and fallen. But it has emerged Sir Christopher was pursued and pushed to the ground after leaving a train following a verbal altercation with the boy. He woke to find himself in a bruised and bloody state on the platform before being rushed to St Marys Hospital in Paddington, a major trauma centre. He spent six days in hospital and has undergone a number of operations. Knocked unconscious: Sir Christopher Meyer A 15-year-old girl from Croydon and a 16-year-old boy from Hillingdon were arrested immediately following the attack on July 11 and later released under investigation. No further action was taken against the girl. But the boy, now aged 17, was charged in November and admitted causing grievous bodily harm when he appeared before Highbury magistrates on December 17. He will appear at Uxbridge magistrates court on January 31 for sentencing, police said. Pc Maya Alayli, of British Transport Police, said: The violence the defendant unleashed on his victim was appalling, and left him unconscious for a number of minutes. Terrible shock: Sir Christopher with his wife Catherine, who was called by police after the attack / Rex Features I am pleased that the man pleaded guilty to the charge, saving the victim a lot of unnecessary stress from having to attend court. The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, attacked Sir Christopher as he got off a northbound Victoria line train. The broadcaster, commentator and company director was travelling to be with 30 American students for a course he was running at the Royal United Services Institute in Whitehall. He told the Standard: The physical damage was located around the eye; several bruisings and lastly a scar on the lip. For a long time I had an eyelid that was not properly shaped... I had a weird look. Because I had this severe laceration I had to have two operations beneath my eye. Thankfully the eyeball was unaffected. When I saw myself in the mirror I thought, Jesus Christ, its Night of the Living Dead. What really upset me was not the way I looked, but the fact my wife and two kids had to look at that. I did not feel clear of all these problems until probably November. Sir Christopher said he could not remember the argument with the boy, but knew he had not just tripped over. He even retraced his steps as soon as he was out of hospital in a bid to try to make the events clearer in his mind. He also went straight back on the Tube to make sure he did not feel cowed by what happened. I was very pleased [with the conviction]. I know I was pushed over in a deliberate assault. I feel that justice has been done. The attack happened just days after his wife, Catherine, was appointed to the House of Lords. T he mothers of three premature babies who died after receiving contaminated food in NHS hospitals today told how a five-year court delay was adding to their grief. They broke their silence to express overwhelming anger and despair as they revealed that each child had left behind a twin brother or sister. Two of the babies, Yousef Al-Kharboush and Tameria Aldrich, shared neighbouring neonatal intensive care cots at St Thomas hospital, in Lambeth. The third, Oscar Barker, died at Rosie hospital in Cambridge. Baby food manufacturer ITH Pharma yesterday appeared at Southwark crown court but no plea was entered and the hearing was adjourned until March 15. The trial is unlikely to start until later this year, five years since the deaths. Investigation: Yousef Al-Kharboushs death was potentially linked to contaminated batch of feed Yousef died from septicaemia on June 1, 2014, nine days after being born two months premature with twin brother Abdulelah. His mother Ghada Al-Kharboush said today: I should be celebrating life with two little four-year-old boys. Unfortunately that is not the case. Tameria, whose twin sister Tia survived, had been transferred to St Thomas from Broomfield hospital in Chelmsford. She died on June 10, nine days after Yousef. Her mother Vicky Golden, from Romford, said: My precious Tameria suffered such an agonising death and thinking of her will always cause us so much sadness. When I look at her twin sister Tia, I am constantly reminded of Tameria and what she would be doing if she was with us now. My children and I have struggled for five years trying to fully understand what happened and why we lost Tameria. She was the strongest twin and yet lost her battle. She added: We deserve closure and the delay yet again prolongs the overwhelming anguish and despair we have lived with since the day we lost her. Hollie Barker, mother of Oscar, who died on June 29, said: For five agonising weeks I had to watch my precious baby boy Oscar suffer and deteriorate until his body could no longer fight. Oscar Barker also died after being born prematurely The most vulnerable lives were involved and now to prolong our pain when we need justice and closure to heal is heartless and cruel. Ms Barker, who lives in Suffolk, added: Oscar left behind his beautiful identical twin brother Riley who is a constant blessing in this nightmare. But having Riley does not halve the pain of losing Oscar, it doubles it because a very special bond has been stolen from Riley and he will feel that loss for the rest of his life. The babies all received an intravenous feed called Total Parental Nutrition. A four-year investigation by the Met and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency established that only Yousefs death was potentially linked to a contaminated batch of TPN. The other deaths were found not to be linked to TPN. The Harlesden-based firm was charged last October with seven counts of supplying a medicinal product which was not of the nature or quality specified in the prescription on May 27, 2014. It was also charged with failing to take all reasonably practical steps to ensure that patients were not affected by contaminants between August 1, 2009, and June 1, 2014. A total of 23 babies at nine UK hospitals developed a bacterial infection after receiving TPN but the others recovered after being given antibiotics. Penrith, NSW, Australia was the worlds hottest place on 7 January 2018 (47.3C). But the most above average was the Arctic north of Finland, which really shouldnt be above or anywhere near 0C at this time of year. Graphic: Andrew B. Watkins / ClimateReanalyzer By Lisa Cox 15 January 2019 (The Guardian) Port Augusta in South Australia has reached 48.9C on Tuesday, as a heatwave sets in across much of Australia threatening more record hot days. All-time highest minimum temperatures have also been broken in three places. Meekatharra in Western Australia and Fowlers Gap and White Cliffs in New South Wales all registered an overnight minimum of 33C on Monday. Severe to extreme heatwave conditions extending from the interior of WA across South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, the ACT and NSW will bring maximum temperatures of 8C to 12C above average, and in some places up to 16C above average before the end of the week. From Tuesday through to Friday, parts of South Australia, Victoria and NSW may break January heat records, with daytime maximums extending up to the mid-40s. Its quite a significant heatwave because we are expecting a number of records to fall across those areas for both minimum and maximum temperatures, said Dean Sgarbossa, a senior meteorologist with the Bureau of Meteorology. On Tuesday, Port Augusta in South Australia reached 48.9C, an all-time high since records began in 1962. Port Augusta Hay in NSW had reached a high of 47.2C by Tuesday afternoon and several locations in Victoria reached temperatures in the mid-40s, with Walpeup in the states north-west recording 45.6C.South Australia is forecast to have three days of severe to extreme heat. The South Australian housing authority has issued a code red until 16 January 2019 for greater metropolitan Adelaide. [more] Screenshot of an iPhone that has shut down in the record-breaking Sydney heat wave, 7 January 2018. Photo: Ammy Kwong / Twitter Australia extreme heatwave: code red issued as Port Augusta hits 48.9C By William McInnes 8 January 2018 (The Sydney Morning Herald) High temperatures, combined with high humidity, made it an unpleasant sleep for some in Sydney overnight. The Bureau of Meteorology confirmed on Monday that Penrith had reached the highest temperature on earth in the past 24 hours when it reached 47.3 degrees on Sunday afternoon. It looks like its the highest temperature recorded in the Sydney area in 80 years, Jacob Cronje, a senior meteorologist with Weatherzone, said. It was certainly the hottest place in Australia, he said. A map published by the University of Maines Climate Change Institute shows Australia was the hottest continent globally. [] Penriths record-breaking day didnt cool off quickly with temperatures above 30 degrees still being recorded at 7.30pm and humidity as high as 91 per cent overnight. [more] Sydney clocks the hottest place on Earth as hot weather continues I f you live or work in any of the hipper parts of south London, prepare to be assaulted next month by the sight of bright shiny foil-covered billboards declaring You Know You Want This in huge letters. Theyre just a small part of one of the biggest publicity campaigns ever mounted for a book of short stories Kristen Roupenians debut collection of the same name. Roupenian, in case you missed it, is the 37-year-old American author whose short story, Cat Person, went viral when it came out online and in print in The New Yorker magazine on December 4 2017. It has already been read more than 4.6 million times and resulted in Roupenian landing a lucrative pub-lishing deal on both sides of the Atlantic and a HBO series yet to be made for a collection of 11 further short stories she had written before she wrote Cat Person. What seemed to many to be a competently written if unremarkable read about the naivety and callousness of youth 20-year-old college student Margot hooks up with 34-year-old podgy, bearded Robert and after two dates has what he considers great, and she considers terrible, sex, before an awkward break-up turned into a talking point almost overnight. Why? For young women dating in the digital age it chimed with almost every bad date they had ever been on, while young men squirmed. Couples argued over whether Roupenians writing was serious or comic, and whether it was Margot or Robert who was most at fault. Millennial feminists raged in Margots defence was the sex even consensual? others condemned her for not being prepared to tell the truth about her feelings. Everyone had an opinion. In essence a fable about the way straight men and women continue to misunderstand each other in the sexual arena, Cat Person hit the zeitgeist, coming as it did in the wake of the Weinstein scandal and the birth of #MeToo. Instantaneously amplified by social media, everyone clamoured to share, like and comment. Within days, there was even a Twitter account, Men React to Cat Person, set up by 27-year-old writer Anna Fitzpatrick, who claimed, predictably, that many of the mens online posts seemed to completely miss the point. Touche! Roupenian later announced that while the story was inspired by a small but nasty encounter shed had with a man she had met online, it wasnt her story. She also revealed that after an almost seven-year-long engagement followed by years of bad dates, she was in a relationship with another woman, fellow writer Callie Collins, with whom she now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In May, after the noise had died down, Cape, Penguin Random Houses most literary imprint, decided, bizarrely, to publish Cat Person as a standalone paperback, having snapped up the entire collection for a pre-emptive five-figure sum just weeks after The New Yorker victory, while in the US, Roupenian clinched a seven-figure deal for the collection and a novel, yet to be published. Adroitly kick-started by Roupenians article in last Thursdays The New Yorker: What It Felt Like When Cat Person Went Viral, the publicity beast is now beginning to stir once more. The levels of interest from the press have been unlike anything Ive ever experienced for a short-story collection. And thats been going on for nearly a year, says Joe Pickering, Capes publicity director. So it was obvious we needed to do a massive campaign. Roupenian, who was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the eldest of three, and studied at the University of Michigan, arrives in London on February 4 for a jam-packed publicity schedule. Interviews with lifestyle websites and live podcast events that have already sold out are just part of Pickerings carefully orchestrated campaign, along with tote bags and billboards, to target a social media-savvy audience. He says: Young people are the holy grail of publishing and the hardest to reach. Cat Person became successful through people sharing it online, which has showed us these potential new ways to reach them. Even the title, You Know You Want This, is a gift, he adds, which isnt to say that he doesnt think the book is serious, with ambitious literary chops. Her writing here is sharp and pitiless, and these stories show beyond a doubt that she is not a one-trick pony. The title comes from a line in Bad Boy, the opening story, about a friendship gone sour that makes Cat Person look tame. The bad boy in question is reduced to becoming a submissive masochist when his friends, a couple, begin to abuse him, with pain and bruises, chains and toys, eventually goading him into avenging himself in the most transgressive way possible. Good Guy is another tale of male sexual ineptitude and creepy self-loathing which has this memorable opening line: By the time he was 35, the only way Ted could get hard and remain so for the duration of sexual intercourse was to pretend that his dick was a knife, and the woman he was fucking was stabbing herself with it. But women dont get off lightly either. In Sardines, a woman organises her daughters birthday party at her ex-husbands house, and has to contend with his new girlfriend. The daughter wants to play sardines and sends The Girlfriend to hide in the forest; she is joined one by one by the other girls, eventually turning into a monster that drools and spasms and suffers... The Matchbox Sign strides straight into Alien territory when a woman develops an itch on her arm that turns out to be a sinister parasite. The stories, a mix of schlock horror and dark fairytales layered with sexual mores, are toe-curlingly nasty at times, and owe more to writers such as Shirley Jackson and Joyce Carol Oates than to the new wave of post#MeToo fem-lit; they will also appeal to fans of modern horror movies such as Get Out and It Follows. The biggest influence, however, is Roupenians literary hero, Stephen King. Apparently enthralled at the age of four by the cover of her mothers copy of Pet Sematary, she read Kings seminal screamer when she was 11 and had nightmares for years. To be 11 is to live the horror novel, she has said. Everyone knows that female adolescence is horror, all about discovering what power is. And indeed learning how to manipulate the scales in ones favour between power and powerlessness, torturer and victim, controller and controlee, is the very thing that seems to fascinate Roupenian still. She knows that discovering and wielding power can turn us into monsters. All of us, that is, men and women both. Does this have the miaow factor? Our verdict The target audience Predictably, as a 28-year-old woman, I became a zealot of the cult of Cat Person; in the parlance of the Gen Y feminist, it spoke to me. The rest of You Know You Want This did not. The collection is grotesque but the macabre lacks any meaning. In fact, many of the stories about a disturbed childrens party, say, or the fable about a queen who falls in love with a bone failed to say much at all. The collection didnt send a chill up my spine so much as make me want to toss the book across the room; after three stories on the trot I reverted to an episode of The OC to calm down. - Phoebe Luckhurst The literary editor Cat Person reads differently in the context of this collection than it did in the literary setting of the New Yorker. On its own, it seemed such a realistic description of a bad date turning into worse sex, through embarrassment, misunderstanding and possible coercion. But remember Margot getting into Roberts car and thinking he could take her some place and rape and murder her; she hardly knew anything about him, after all? And actually saying, Its okay you can murder me if you want? W eve been thrilled to see such a positive response to the announcement that the British Museum will exhibit the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. Although he was prolific, it is the emotional intensity of The Scream that has reverberated throughout history, making it one of the most recognised images of all time. That The Scream has resonated so widely and become a universal symbol of anxiety is for two reasons. One is that Munch was a master at expressing emotion. He could capture and express his feelings with an intensity like no other. The second is he chose to express this image as a black-and-white lithograph. It meant this most haunting of faces could be circulated quickly, cheaply and widely in print and be seen by more people. To see the lithograph reproduced so prominently in the pages of the Evening Standard last week felt like the story coming full circle, and a wholly befitting way to announce the arrival of the masterpiece in the UK. Giulia Bartrum Curator, British Museum EDITOR'S REPLY Dear Giulia The exhibition of Munchs prints at the British Museum in April promises to put the artist right back on to the contemporary radar. As you say, it was his technical mastery of printmaking and, in the case of The Scream, the lithograph which enabled his work to be widely disseminated, even though he made only a small number of prints of the picture. And its telling that its this version, rather than the ones in paint and pastel, which is best known. In some ways The Scream has been a victim of its own ubiquity: its perhaps the most instantly recognisable image in art. That single physical gesture has entered into the common visual language: its an emoji (perhaps the ultimate trope); it made an appearance in The Simpsons, and its every other Halloween mask. Actually, what Im looking forward to in the exhibition are the other works and the story of the artist behind The Scream. We know Munch chiefly from this one image and it will be good to be reminded of the rest of his work in print, not least the haunting Madonna. Melanie McDonagh, Senior Writer No-deal will be an economic disaster For our cities and their surrounding communities a no-deal Brexit would be a disaster. Only half our businesses have been able to plan for Brexit because of uncertainty over future relationships with the EU. Nearly a third of small and medium-sized enterprises say they wouldnt know where to start (YouGov, Nov 2018). Our city regions of the Northern Powerhouse and London collectively represent 712 billion 42 per cent of the UK economy and are home to more than 23 million people. No deal would be a hammer blow to local economies, all of which would gladly find use for the 2 billion earmarked for a no-deal Brexit. We need to be better prepared for trade post-Brexit. The Government must provide a deal for this. Crashing out is not an option. Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region Nick Forbes, leader of Newcastle City Council and member of the North of Tyne Combined Authority Arsenal are failing to make progress M ichael Goves relentlessly upbeat assessment of the Theresa May deal as a glistening bowl of cherries woke us up this morning with a paradox. The fruit has proved so untempting, despite months of hawking it around, that the Prime Minister looks set to suffer the heaviest parliamentary defeat of a government on key legislation in decades. Because her deal serves up not enough Brexit to please Leavers and not enough Remaining to please Stayers, Parliament has already moved on to the quest for something else. Like the cherries, it is now consigned to mould. Along the way, more is changing than an ill-fated plan and a personal nadir for the Prime Minister. An exchange between her and Ed Miliband during a warm-up debate for tonights vote brought rare pithiness to the current wordy disputes. The former Labour leader ventured that the Government is the servant of this House. May rallied tartly that the Government was in this issue, the servant of the people. Both have a point and neither, in the sense of clinching the argument, can be wholly right. The argument about how to deliver Brexit, water it down or stop it is rapidly becoming one about where power lies in practice with Number 10 or in the Speakers chair. Critics of John Bercow, the bullish, often tetchy Speaker of the Commons, believe he is overseeing a shift in power away from the executive and towards MPs a coup deploying amendments, rather than the palace-storming sort. Allowing a controversial amendment to be voted on last week Dominic Grieves plan to force the PM to set out a back-up plan within three days of losing tonight was a watershed moment but one that could only happen because Tory MPs failed to rally behind May, a poor augury for tonights showdown. Boris Johnsons jibe at key figures in Parliaments take back control movement as the deep state has a splinter of truth. The combination of Grieve, Oliver Letwin and Ken Clarke does remind us of the deeper magic before the dawn of time reasserting itself in this political Narnia. This degree of mutiny is symptomatic of Mays failure to win support for her plan after two years of deliberation. Politics in moments of high drama is about where energy lies and Parliament looks a lot livelier than the Tory front bench. Anne McElvoy Talking to senior ministers, I have the impression that they are commenting on a process and weighing up outcomes, rather than identifying themselves with it or its success. Even the PM has given up selling the deals benefits and now trades in the cheaper currency of warnings about the danger of Jeremy Corbyn supplanting the Tories in Number 10. We will see tonight how effective this last-ditch attempt at torsion has been, but the best outlook for May looks like a defeat by a majority of over 100 and the worst one looks like it might be a devastating one of up to twice that. A likely no-confidence vote will then be tabled, according to Labour sources, by Corbyn, who is sensitive to accusations that he failed to act when May was on the ropes in December. Not for the first time, all this looks more like Japanese Kabuki drama than a serious plan to topple the PM. Even a Corbynite MP sounded unconvinced. Jeremy has to do something. But when she goes, it will be her Cabinet that does the deed. The more decisive battle will rage between the Speaker and No 10, on how far each will shape the next tranche of options to be voted on. Much dramatic irony lurks in this grudge match: May and Bercow are so alike in their vices. Both are prickly, inflexible, touchy and tend towards tone-deafness to the arguments of others. "Politics in moments of high drama is about where energy lies: Parliament looks livelier than the Tory front bench" Theres an intriguing role-swap: May made her way to power from the stolid, pragmatic Tory centre and is trying to deliver on a Brexit driven by the Right. Yet the Bercow I first encountered in the late Eighties was an amiable, ferociously Right-wing Tory Boy of Eurosceptic bent. As Mike Penning, a yeoman Leaver recalls: He made Norman Tebbit look a bit Left-wing. Since those heady days, Bercow has marched steadily towards the progressive centre, in part driven by ambition to secure Labour votes for the Speakers job, a genuflection that irritated many Tories even before his present incarnation. But he is genuinely determined that Parliament should play a key role in shaping the outcome of the Brexit stand-off and, in particular, avoiding no-deal. Still, banking on Parliament taking back control, or bringing around a second referendum vote soon is unwise. The same problem that has dogged the executive and divided Cabinet also afflicts the legislature. The only clear majority likely in Parliament is against leaving the EU without a deal. Mustering majorities against a big, disruptive thing is a lot easier than doing so for something particular, across the party divide, on a question as fraught as this. Currently that applies as much to a bid for a second referendum as to solutions based in membership of the European Economic Area (the Norway option) or any other acronym. Among themselves, Cabinet members are sounding out positions for a series of indicative votes including a possible extension of Article 50. Again, this looks hard to achieve unless there were a clear route ahead to justify the delay. But working through the options is an option the PM and her proxies have been quietly discussing with Angela Merkel. A phone call at the weekend was reasonably productive, by the standards of their previously chilly dealings. It did not, as The Sun suggested, herald a change in the proposed Irish backstop. But it did underline the German leaders concern over the wider implications of Britain crashing out of the EU. Merkels finance minister Peter Altmaier took to Twitter noting (in sympathetic terms) that the best plan was to patiently wait. So when the counting is over, Parliament will have its day, or rather days, of tussles over amendments, compromises and Houdini-esque solutions. But the number of Tory MPs who do follow their leader tonight will tell its own story. May has proved a stubbornly hard PM to remove. The more testing question will be what shes achieving by being there. W hen a building first disappears from Londons landscape its as if the face of a friend has suddenly changed glasses swapped for contact lenses, or a beard shaved off. Its strange but we soon become acclimatised. Something new comes out of the ground, as architects and planners put it, and the original structure is quickly forgotten: who now remembers Nine Elms cold store by the Thames at Vauxhall, or what London Bridge looked like before the Shard? Im not writing off Londons heritage lightly I miss the Astoria in Charing Cross Road and the other buildings sacrificed to Crossrail. I still mourn the Hand and Racquet in Whitcomb Street behind Leicester Square, which fell foul of the development of the Odeon West End site. But I also know cities must grow and change and I have learned to savour the short, interim stage when the gaps where buildings used to be have the capacity to startle. I cant say Ive ever noticed the grey block on the corner of Marble Arch and Great Cumberland Street, home at ground level to a McDonalds and a bureau de change, until the demolition of another Odeon in Edgware Road afforded everyone a view of its staggered western side and slanting fire escapes. Its like looking backstage at a theatre, a brief glimpse of an elevation that was never meant to be seen, and which will soon be masked by a new tower. Similarly, I now cant remember what stood on the spot in Wilton Street at Hyde Park Corner which will soon host the Peninsula Hotel. But on my morning bus commute I am taken aback by the openness of the sky above the building site, and the new views of glorious Georgian Forbes House in Halkin Street. The bus affords further glimpses of sky and hitherto unseen buildings behind the empty windows of a retained facade on Kensington High Street, opposite Hyde Park: the entire building behind this frontage has gone. We think of London as a city of edifices and structures but it is also one of voids. When buildings are demolished they dont just give us an altered vista above ground, they remind us of the teeming life below. The deep excavations of new buildings, and the vast shafts dug for Crossrail and the Northern line extension, have opened huge portals into subterranean London, caverns criss-crossed with water mains and gas pipes. Theres so much stuff down there we dont know about or had forgotten: the automated Post Office railway, now open for paying customers at Mount Pleasant; the Georgian ice house near Regents Park. At Farringdon theres a grate where you can allegedly hear the Fleet River (or, I hope, something clean running into it, since the Fleet is now a sewer). P erched on a cliff just a 10-minute drive from New Zealands adventure capital of Queenstown, Onsen Hot Pools is the perfect mountain oasis. Park your car, head down an unassuming path to the retreat, and your host will get you settled in for the experience. If youve chosen the Tandeki package, youll be able to choose a glass of wine or beer to have with crisps and chocolate while you bathe. The perfect combination of relaxation and indulgence. Yet, Onsen is more than just incredibly scenic hot pools. It also has an in-house spa complete with a menu of facials and massages. Famous for: The private hot pools are definitely what you could class as Insta-famous. With views over the Shotover River Canyon and bordered by rolling green hills, these hot pools wash a sense of calm over you as you spend an hour relaxing to the sounds of the birds and watching the Shotover jet boats pass along the river below. The alpine scenery makes it a perfect place to visit during any season, with winter snow offering the perfect cooling antidote to the hot and steamy baths, or try a bath come nightfall to relax under the stars. The treatment: While I spent my time at Onsen bathing in one of the hot pools, they also offer on-site massages as well. While there, you can combine your one-hour hot pool experience with an added one-hour massage (176 total) and one-hour facial (282 total). After enjoying your time in the cedar hot tub, you'll be led to the spa treatment room where your therapist will tailor your massage or facial to your individual needs. Whether you want a cleansing facial or a firm massage, simply tell the therapist what you want and they'll arrange it for you. If you're visiting Onsen with your partner, book in for a couples massage to make the experience extra special. Verdict: If youre looking for a spa set among picture-perfect scenery, this is the place. The private hot pool was reasonably priced and an hour is long enough to take in the setting and to let your body completely relax. Youll leave feeling Relaxed, serene and with a phone full of photos ready to post on Instagram. Details: (A) Ice speed of the Antarctic Ice Sheet derived from multisensor data for the time period 20142016 (11) with 18 subregions AK (black thin lines) delineated from surface slope and ice flow direction data (SI Appendix, Fig. S3). (B) Change in flow speed from the time period 20072008 to 20142015 color-coded from blue (deceleration) to red (acceleration). Grey areas have no data. (C) Basin names for subregions and ocean temperature at 310-m depth from the Southern Ocean State Estimate (SOSE) (12) color-coded from cold (blue) to warm (red). White areas in the ocean are shallower than 310 m depth. (D) Bed topography between 0 and 1,100 m depth, with SLE of each basin in centimeters of SLE (1, 13). (E) Change in grounding line ice discharge, D, for 19792017 for the 18 major subregions in billions of tons per year with percentage change in speed color-coded from red (acceleration) to blue (deceleration) and circle radius proportional to change. (F) Total change in mass of major basins color-coded from blue (gain) to red (loss) for 19792017 with circle radius proportional to the absolute mass balance. Graphic: Rignot, et al., 2019 / PNAS IRVINE, California, 14 January 2019 (UCI) Antarctica experienced a sixfold increase in yearly ice mass loss between 1979 and 2017, according to a study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Glaciologists from the University of California, Irvine, NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Netherlands Utrecht University additionally found that the accelerated melting caused global sea levels to rise more than half an inch during that time. Thats just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, said lead author Eric Rignot, Donald Bren Professor and chair of Earth system science at UCI. As the Antarctic ice sheet continues to melt away, we expect multi-meter sea level rise from Antarctica in the coming centuries. For this study, Rignot and his collaborators conducted what he called the longest-ever assessment of remaining Antarctic ice mass. Spanning four decades, the project was also geographically comprehensive; the research team examined 18 regions encompassing 176 basins, as well as surrounding islands. Techniques used to estimate ice sheet balance included a comparison of snowfall accumulation in interior basins with ice discharge by glaciers at their grounding lines, where ice begins to float in the ocean and detach from the bed. Data was derived from fairly high-resolution aerial photographs taken from a distance of about 350 meters via NASAs Operation IceBridge; satellite radar interferometry from multiple space agencies; and the ongoing Landsat satellite imagery series, begun in the early 1970s. The team was able to discern that between 1979 and 1990, Antarctica shed an average of 40 gigatons of ice mass annually. (A gigaton is 1 billion tons.) From 2009 to 2017, about 252 gigatons per year were lost. The pace of melting rose dramatically over the four-decade period. From 1979 to 2001, it was an average of 48 gigatons annually per decade. The rate jumped 280 percent to 134 gigatons for 2001 to 2017. Rignot said that one of the key findings of the project is the contribution East Antarctica has made to the total ice mass loss picture in recent decades. Ice mass balance of Antarctica using the component method (SMB, on grounded ice minus ice discharge, D, at the grounding line) for (A) 19791990, (B) 19892000, (C) 19992009, and (D) 20092017. The size of the circle is proportional to the absolute magnitude of the anomaly in D (dD = SMB19792008 D) or SMB (dSMB = SMB SMB19792008). The color of the circle indicates loss in dD (dark red) or dSMB (light red) versus gain in dD (dark blue) or dSMB (light blue) in billions of tons (1012 kg) per year. Dark color refers to dD; light color refers to dSMB. Plots show totals for Antarctica, Antarctic Peninsula, West Antarctica, and East Antarctica. Background is the total mass balance spread into the drainage basins color-coded from red (loss) to blue (gain). Graphic: Rignot, et al., 2019 / PNAS The Wilkes Land sector of East Antarctica has, overall, always been an important participant in the mass loss, even as far back as the 1980s, as our research has shown, he said. This region is probably more sensitive to climate [change] than has traditionally been assumed, and thats important to know, because it holds even more ice than West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula together. He added that the sectors losing the most ice mass are adjacent to warm ocean water. As climate warming and ozone depletion send more ocean heat toward those sectors, they will continue to contribute to sea level rise from Antarctica in decades to come, said Rignot, whos also a senior project scientist at JPL. Co-authors of this study are Jeremie Mouginot, UCI associate researcher in Earth system science; Bernd Scheuchl, UCI associate project scientist in Earth system science; Mathieu Morlighem, UCI associate professor of Earth system science; and Michiel van den Broeke and Jan M. Melchior van Wessem of the Netherlands Utrecht University. Funding and support were provided by NASAs cryospheric sciences and Measures programs, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Researchs polar program and the Netherlands Earth System Science Centre. Contact UCI/JPL: Antarctica losing six times more ice mass annually now than 40 years ago Time series of cumulative anomalies in SMB (blue), ice discharge (D, red), and total mass (M, purple) with error bars in billions of tons for (A) West Antarctica, (B) East Antarctica; (C) Antarctic Peninsula), and (D) Antarctica, with mean mass loss in billions of tons per year and an acceleration in billions of tons per year per decade for the time period 1979 to 2017. The balance discharge is SMB19792008. Note that the total mass change, M = SMB D, does not depend on SMB19792008. Graphic: Rignot, et al., 2019 / PNAS ABSTRACT: We use updated drainage inventory, ice thickness, and ice velocity data to calculate the grounding line ice discharge of 176 basins draining the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1979 to 2017. We compare the results with a surface mass balance model to deduce the ice sheet mass balance. The total mass loss increased from 40 9 Gt/y in 19791990 to 50 14 Gt/y in 19892000, 166 18 Gt/y in 19992009, and 252 26 Gt/y in 20092017. In 20092017, the mass loss was dominated by the Amundsen/Bellingshausen Sea sectors, in West Antarctica (159 8 Gt/y), Wilkes Land, in East Antarctica (51 13 Gt/y), and West and Northeast Peninsula (42 5 Gt/y). The contribution to sea-level rise from Antarctica averaged 3.6 0.5 mm per decade with a cumulative 14.0 2.0 mm since 1979, including 6.9 0.6 mm from West Antarctica, 4.4 0.9 mm from East Antarctica, and 2.5 0.4 mm from the Peninsula (i.e., East Antarctica is a major participant in the mass loss). During the entire period, the mass loss concentrated in areas closest to warm, salty, subsurface, circumpolar deep water (CDW), that is, consistent with enhanced polar westerlies pushing CDW toward Antarctica to melt its floating ice shelves, destabilize the glaciers, and raise sea level.SIGNIFICANCE: We evaluate the state of the mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet over the last four decades using a comprehensive, precise satellite record and output products from a regional atmospheric climate model to document its impact on sea-level rise. The mass loss is dominated by enhanced glacier flow in areas closest to warm, salty, subsurface circumpolar deep water, including East Antarctica, which has been a major contributor over the entire period. The same sectors are likely to dominate sea-level rise from Antarctica in decades to come as enhanced polar westerlies push more circumpolar deep water toward the glaciers. Four decades of Antarctic Ice Sheet mass balance from 19792017 There is a relatively long-standing edict in residential real estate: When selling your home, give it fresh coats of paint in popular neutral colors. The snap of a freshly painted decor, combined with the soft, subtle hue is said to be most appealing to buyers as they consider home options. The use of bold color in a homes interiors can help to get the attention of prospective homebuyers who are surfing the Web for their dream home, according to Carol Zuckert, a Realtor with Sothebys International Realty and the owner-developer of 9 Keofferam Road, a 6,000-square-foot, six-bedroom coastal colonial. The original 1910 house was demoed to make room for the new construction. Today, the majority of homebuyers start their search online, so it is important to have eye-catching photos. While neutral colors allow buyers to visualize their furnishings and artwork in a home, bold color used in discreet spaces, such as libraries and powder rooms, create drama and draws a person into the space, where they can visualize themselves and create a mental connection, Zuckert explained. 9 Keofferam Road is Zuckerts third major development project in Greenwich. She previously developed 17 and 19 Pintail Lane and built her own two homes at 19 Sherwood Farm and, more recently, 2 Highview Avenue in Old Greenwich. At 9 Keofferam, I decided to use a deep navy-blue paint in the library and an oversized gold light fixture, which creates contrast and drama, Zuckert said. Blue is a color that is popular with both men and women and is considered to be beneficial to the mind and body, as it symbolizes comfort, calmness, safety, loyalty, wisdom and trustworthiness. I worked with Kate DeCarlo, owner of Greystone Staging, to accessorize the room with gold accents and beautiful furnishings, she continued. The navy color is then continued in the staging of the neutral open spaces throughout the home in the form of furnishings, pillows and accessories, so the color palette of the home remains consistent. Whether its marketing her own projects or the homes of her selling clients, Zuckert said that pops of color tastefully chosen and expertly applied can further distinguish properties online. Theres evidence to support that theory. The increasing use of social-media applications, such as Facebook or Instagram, to market and promote homes for sale also bodes well for the use of color in home interiors, Zuckert explained. A study conducted by Readers Digest found that Instagram photos that had one dominant color received 17-percent more double-taps than those with multiple colors. A splash of color The newly constructed six-bedroom Georgian colonial at 37 Doubling Road in mid-country was developed by Greenwich Custom Home Builders, LLC, and designed by James Schettino Architects. Its an outstanding property both IRL and through its virtual presence. Shelly Tretter Lynch of Compass is serving as the listing broker for the $5.295 million property. Here, the decor is predominantly a blank slate for the potential, with white-on-white walls and moldings, contrasted by darker-stained hardwood floors with character. Even the kitchen is crisp and bright white cabinets, white surfaces, set off only by the richness of the hardwood and the sheen of the high-end stainless-steel appliances. The homes library breaks from that neutral theme. Its walls, crown moldings, fireplace mantle and buttressed built-ins have been uniformly painted in a muted blue hue. Buyers browsing online may remember this space as one of the rooms that prompted them to seek out an in-person tour of the home. Neutral colored interiors invoke a sense of new, clean, pure spaces, as well as blank canvases for new owners, and therefore a majority of sellers opt to follow this trend, according to Tretter Lynch. For this reason, its important to stand out from the masses. A splash of color in one or two rooms is a great way to make a memorable impression on potential buyers. Swarthmore, PA (19081) Today Clear to partly cloudy. Low near 55F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Clear to partly cloudy. Low near 55F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph. STAMFORD The citys biggest builder, Building and Land Technology, and one of its most controversial daughters, Candace Owens, have something in common. Theyll face off this spring in a civil jury trial in state Superior Court in Stamford. Owens claims her 16th-floor luxury apartment in BLTs Beacon building where she lived from October 2015 until January 2017 was so infested with mold and/or other contaminants that she developed more than a dozen ailments. The 29-year-old conservative commentator, who first made headlines for being bullied and threatened as Stamford High School student, is seeking more than $15,000 from BLT. BLT, through holding company Three Harbor Point Square, denies Owens allegations and counters that she bilked them six months rent $3,550 a month in the luxury building. She was responsible for any mold or mildew, BLT attorney Trevor J. Keenan wrote in a counter claim. BLT did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for a comment. Owens, reached by phone this week, declined to comment. Its an open case, so I dont really have the privilege to talk about it, she said. Her attorney, Jeffrey Lynch, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. According to Owens complaint, filed in July 2017, she learned of an old leak in the apartment in August 2016. Owens claims the leak was caused by BLTs carelessness and negligence. BLT caused or allowed and permitted the water to penetrate the apartment, according to the complaint, causing the air to become contaminated and dangerous for use and causing mold to grow. BLT failed to resolve the dangerous condition and did not clean up the apartment or warn Owens of the situation, the complaint said. The toxic luxe apartment soon started harming the headline makers health. She came down with 15 ailments, some or all of which may be permanent in nature, the complaint said. Her symptoms include wheezing, an inability to think clearly, scars requiring laser removal, eczema and systemic yeast infections. Months before Owens filed the lawsuit, she invited a Hearst Connecticut Media Group reporter and photographer into her apartment and home office for a story on her new venture, launching a website to call out online bullies. The purpose of SocialAutopsy.com was to allow social media users to take screenshots of posts they find offensive and send them to the site, which would collect them into profiles. The website was going to have a search engine, allowing users to type in someones name and see if theyve made offensive comments online. Owens believed people might be disinclined to post hateful and offensive speech if they could be forever tagged to it. The site, which was roundly condemned as promoting further discord and the act of doxing, or publishing personal information of others online, was never launched, according to New York Magazine. An online fundraising campaign seeking $75,000 to run the site was suspended by Kicksarter after only garnering $4,244. BLT, in a counter suit, is seeking money for rent it claims Owens didnt pay and legal costs. The builder said Owens declined to pay rent as she continued to live in the apartment after filing the lawsuit. Her lease would have ended in February 2017, but she was evicted the previous month after an order from Norwalk Housing Court, according to BLT. State eviction data, however, shows the outcome was a withdraw of action. BLT said Owens created any mold by leaving windows open with the air conditioning running, failed to tell the landlord about the leak in a timely manner and did not comply with mold and mildew related provisions of her lease. Jury selection and a trial, originally slated for later this month, has been postponed to May 5. Owens first made headlines after receiving threatening and racist epithet-filled voicemails while a student at Stamford High. The issue turned scandal when the boy charged in the case was in a car with several other teens including the then-14-year-old son of former mayor and governor Dannel P. Malloy. Owens family sued the city Board of Education, which later paid $37,500 to settle the case. Owens made headlines again when she became communications director for Turning Point USA, a conservative group close to President Donald Trump. barry.lytton@stamfordadvocate.com; 203-964-2263; @bglytton New York, January 14, 2019 (SPS) - The United Nations denied Moroccos allegations regarding the ceasefire violations by the Polisario Front, stating that the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) has not recorded any incident which may constitute a violation to the terms of applicable agreements. The UN Mission, MINURSO, was present during the two alleged incidents and didnt notice anything that could constitute a violation to the terms of the applicable agreements, said the UN Spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, during a press briefing in New York. Dujarric said that there is a procedure established by the Minusro to assess such allegations, this latter is based on observation and impartial monitoring functions, of the UN Missions employees, he added. The incidents identified as violation to the applicable agreements are shared with parties for their immediate action, a process that has been effective in preventing conflict and maintaining the ceasefire since its establishment, he said. Morocco sent a letter to the Security Council in which it wrongly accused the Polisario Front of violating the ceasefire for organizing military maneuvers on the 6th of January in Mhiriz and inaugurating Administrative locals in this locality situated in the Sahrawi liberated territories. (SPS) 062/SPS/APS Durban (South Africa), January 13, 2019 (SPS) - President of South African, Cyril Ramaphosa, has reaffirmed support for the just struggle of Sahrawi people for freedom and independence, in a speech marking the 107th anniversary of the founding of the African National Congress (ANC) in Durban, South Africa. "The struggle of the Sahrawi people for freedom and independence is our struggle," he said. "In the ANC, we will continue to fight alongside the Polisario Front to enable the Sahrawi people to exercise their right to self-determination, freedom and independence, he added. He also affirmed continuation of work alongside the Government of the Sahrawi Republic in the African Union and at the United Nations level in order to complete its sovereignty over all the territory of Western Sahara, the last colony in Africa. (SPS) 062/SPS/TRA New Original Series Coming to CBS All Access in 2019VANCOUVER, BC Jan. 14, 2019 DeWanda Wise and Jessica Williams have entered the fifth dimension. Wise and Williams are the latest to star in an upcoming episode of CBS All Access original series THE TWILIGHT ZONE. The episode will also feature Lucinda Dryzek, Jefferson White and Jonathan Whitesell. Previously announced cast includes host and narrator Jordan Peele , as well as John Cho Alison Tolman, Jacob Tremblay and Steven Yeun DeWanda Wise currently stars as Nola Darling in the Netflix adaptation of Spike Lees Shes Gotta Have It, which will return for a second season in 2019. Previous television credits include FOXs Shots Fired, WGNs Underground, Boardwalk Empire, The Good Wife, The Mentalist and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Wises film credits include the upcoming comedies Someone Great and The Weekend. Wise executive-produced and starred in How to Tell Youre a Douchebag and has also appeared in Spinning into Butter and Precious. She is the writer of the short film Where You Go, and is also an accomplished stage actress, appearing in productions in New York, Los Angeles and regional theater companies across the country.Jessica Williams is the co-creator of the popular live show and podcast 2 Dope Queens, which have aired as hour-long specials on HBO and will return with four new specials next month. Williams can soon be seen in Corporate Animals, which will premiere at this years Sundance Film Festival, as well as Booksmart, and will star, write and executive produce an upcoming SHOWTIME comedy. Her past television credits include The Daily Show, where she was the first African-American woman and youngest correspondent to date, HBOs Girls, and Nickelodeons Just for Kicks. In film, Williams was most recently seen in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Netflixs summer 2017 release The Incredible Jessica James, and People Places Things.THE TWILIGHT ZONE is produced by CBS Television Studios in association with Jordan Peeles Monkeypaw Productions and Simon Kinbergs Genre Films. Jordan Peele and Simon Kinberg serve as executive producers along with Win Rosenfeld, Audrey Chon, Glen Morgan, Carol Serling, Rick Berg and Greg Yaitanes.The original The Twilight Zone premiered on Oct. 2, 1959 on CBS. The series took viewers to another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. The Twilight Zone became a worldwide phenomenon as it used socially conscious storytelling to explore the human condition and culture of the times. It was a journey into a wondrous land of imagination for five years on CBS, from 1959 to 1964. The godfather of sci-fi series, the show explored humanitys hopes, despairs, prides and prejudices in metaphoric ways conventional dramas could not. Every episode of the original series is available to stream now on CBS All Access. Riley Voelkel (The Originals, Roswell New Mexico) has joined the cast of Starz's Hightown per Deadline. Voelkel will co-star opposite Monica Raymund and James Badge Dale. The project hails from Rebecca Cutter (Gotham), Gary Lennon (Power) and Jerry Bruckheimer TV. Production for the show starts in March. Lennon will showrun the series whilst Cutter will pen the pilot. Hightown is a crime drama set amid the drug trade on Cape Cod, touched off when a body washes ashore and discovered by an irreverent National Marine Fisheries Service officer, Jackie Quinones (Raymund), who is determined to help solve the murder even if the state cops want her nowhere near the case. Source: Deadline Voelkel will play Renee Shaw. Born and raised on the Cape, she's a survivor who has been shaped to believe relationships are transactional. Caustic at times, she keeps up an emotional wall only penetrable by her five-year-old son. The child is a product of her ongoing relationship with Frankie, the biggest drug dealer on the Cape, who is currently serving time, which puts pressure on her from the police, leading her into a developing relationship with Detective Ray Abruzzo (Dale). She keeps her friends close and enemies closer. MEDIA With Civil War monuments in the news recently, particularly those situated in the South, it is interesting to reflect on local monuments in our area. One of these, Delaware Countys Memorial to the Civil War, known as the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, features a Union soldier leaning on his rifle atop a 30-foot column and is located on the east side of the Delaware County Courthouse facing Olive Street. The story of its creation is of particular interest during these times. This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going. Optimization Are you frustrated with a slow pc or a hard disk not performing as it should? Try SLOW-PCfighter to speed up boot time on a slow PC, or try a free scan of FULL-DISKfighter to recover space on a full disk. The latest offering is DRIVERfighter to update your driver updater. Get complete PC optimization and extend the life of your PC with these must-have software tools. SEATTLE A cigar-shaped space rock named 'Oumuamua caused quite a stir when it became the first interstellar visitor discovered in our solar system. Is it an asteroid, a comet or an alien spacecraft? While astronomers continue to work on answering these big questions, one thing has become certain: 'Oumuamua probably isn't that special. In fact, there are likely trillions upon trillions of objects just like 'Oumuamua drifting through the Milky Way galaxy, Greg Laughlin, an astronomer from Yale University, said during a lecture here at the 233rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society. More precisely, he estimated that there are about 10^26 of them in our galaxy alone. So, though 'Oumuamua may be the first and only interstellar visitor astronomers have spotted in the solar system, this kind of interstellar object may not be that rare, astronomers say. Rather, it's possible we just haven't seen them, because we haven't been looking hard enough. ['Oumuamua: The Solar System's 1st Interstellar Visitor Explained in Photos] Artist's illustration of 'Oumuamua, the first interstellar object ever spotted in our solar system. (Image credit: M. Kornmesser/ESO) A new study from Harvard University suggests that about two 'Oumuamua-like objects swing past the sun every year. The paper, published Jan. 4 to the pre-print journal arXiv.org (and not yet peer-reviewed), offers a new way to learn about 'Oumuamua's composition and origin: by comparing the object to other comets and asteroids observed in the solar system. By factoring in the estimated density of interstellar comets, the researchers found that 'Oumuamua-like objects "collide with the sun every 30 years, while about two pass within the orbit of Mercury each year." At its closest approach, on Sept. 9, 2017, 'Oumuamua was about 0.26 AU (astronomical units, or the average Earth-sun distance) away from the sun. Astronomers using the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii discovered the object about one month after its closest approach to Earth. Pan-STARRS 1 is tasked with searching for potentially hazardous asteroids near Earth. Officially designated 1I/2017 U1, the space rock was given the Hawaiian nickname 'Oumuamua, meaning "scout" or "visitor from afar arriving first," according to the International Astronomical Union, which is in charge of naming bodies in space. But astronomers have yet to figure out exactly what 'Oumuamua is, because it has properties of both comets and asteroids. "There's lots of mysteries over 'Oumuamua, but it doesn't appear that there's anything completely crazy," Laughlin said, adding that 'Oumuamua's discovery "implies that there's lots of them out there. The fact that Pan-STARRS was able to observe 'Oumuamua means that there are on the order of 10^26 such objects in our own galaxy floating freely." Those objects have a combined mass of about 100 billion Earths, Laughlin said. To become an interstellar traveler, an object like 'Oumuamua could be slung out of its own solar system by getting a gravitational boost from a giant gas planet resembling those in our own solar system Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. While Earth's sun may see an 'Oumuamua-like space rock swing by twice per year, 'Oumuamua "will never encounter another star," Laughlin said. "The odds of it coming close to another star are roughly 1 in every 10^14, 10^15 years, so those brief and exciting moments in September and October were wonderful for us, but they were really the time of 'Oumuamua's life." Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Original article on Space.com. The new television series "Roswell, New Mexico" premieres tonight (Jan. 15) with a bold new take on a show that first aired 20 years ago. The new show is based on the "Roswell High" book series written by Melinda Metz from 1998 to 2002; that series was the springboard for a previous television series, "Roswell," broadcast starting in 1999 on The WB network. "Roswell, New Mexico" airs its first episode on The CW, the successor to The WB. See more While both adaptations blended classic themes of teen angst with the science-fiction elements of the Roswell 1947 UFO crash, there's now a pivotal change. To justify bringing the show back to television, the "Roswell, New Mexico" creators retained the protagonist's Mexican heritage from the books, which was omitted from the 1999 adaptation. [10 Alien Encounters Debunked] "One of the important things I wanted to do was return Liz Parker back to Liz Ortecho, and create a show with a Latino lead and a really diverse cast," executive producer Carina Adly MacKenzie said at a panel event in October 2018. "I wanted to make sure there was a reason to reboot it I wanted to make sure that it felt very grounded in 2018." The show begins with human Liz Ortecho returning to her hometown, Roswell, to live with her father. As she comes up against the racist and xenophobic environment in her community, she resumes a relationship with her high school sweetheart Max Evans, who she discovers is one of the three extraterrestrials who arrived in the UFO crash landing of 1947. "Roswell, New Mexico" is filmed in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is produced by Warner Bros. Television and CBS Television Studios in association with Amblin Television and Bender Brown Productions. The show features the talents of actors Jeanine Mason, Nathan Dean Parsons, Lily Cowles, Michael Vlamis, Michael Trevino, Tyler Blackburn, Heather Hemmens, Trevor St. John and Karan Oberoi. "Roswell, New Mexico" airs on CW at 9 p.m. EST/PST 8 p.m. CST. Follow Doris Elin Salazar on Twitter@salazar_elin. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. The shape of Earth's magnetic field is the result of both the planet's north and south magnetic poles as well as the stream of particles coming from the sun. Earth's north magnetic pole is on the move, unpredictably lurching away from the Canadian Arctic and toward Siberia. It's wandered so much, that the current representation of the entire globe's magnetic field, just updated in 2015, is now out of date. And so, geologists have come up with a new model. This updated model, called the World Magnetic Model, was supposed to be published Jan. 15, but it's now been delayed to Jan. 30, on account of the government shutdown. Once it's made public, the new model will inform a wide array of navigation, including those directing airplanes and ships to people checking Google Maps on their smart devices. [Earth from Above: 101 Stunning Images from Orbit] The World Magnetic Model is one of a handful of models another is called the International Geomagnetic Reference Field that track so-called declination, or the difference between true, or geographic, north (that is, the North Pole) and magnetic north (the point where your compass needle points). Knowing that declination for points across the globe allows one to convert between a magnetic bearing and a true bearing, according to a report on the 2015 model. In that way, ships, aircraft, antennas, drilling equipment and other devices can be oriented. The latest World Magnetic Model was designed to last until 2020, but magnetic north's rapid and unexpected surge toward Siberia was so great, that researchers had to amend the model early, Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) National Centers for Environmental Information, told Nature. News of the magnetic north's meanderings isn't exactly new. Researchers figured out in the 1800s that magnetic north tended to drift. Then, in the mid-1990s, it began moving faster, from just over 9 miles (15 kilometers) a year to about 34 miles (55 km) annually, Nature reported. In 2018, magnetic north skipped over the International Date Line and entered the Eastern Hemisphere. Core message The North Poles erratic movements are largely the result of Earth's liquid-iron outer core, known as the core field. (Other factors play a role, too, including magnetic minerals in the crust and upper mantle, as well as electric currents created by the flow of seawater, but these influences are small compared to those from the core field, according to the 2015 report on the World Magnetic Model.) No one has ever seen the core field, but you can imagine it like this: Picture a bar magnet at the center of the Earth that has two poles: north and south. This magnet represents about 75 percent of the intensity of the Earth's magnetic field at the surface today, said Ronald Merrill, an emeritus professor of Earth and space sciences at the University of Washington, who wasn't involved with the new World Magnetic Model research. (In reality, electric currents and not a giant bar magnet in Earth's core create the magnetic field, but it's easier to think of it in terms of magnets, Merrill said.) But the intensity of this so-called bar magnet is decreasing over time, by about 7 percent every 100 years, Merrill told Live Science. That bar magnet is also moving right now, so that it's tilted toward Canada at slightly less than 10 degrees, he noted. The other 25 percent of the magnetic field comes from another field, which can be envisioned as bar magnets that are moving around, Merrill said. In other words, as the giant, central bar magnet loses its intensity, this other magnetic field gains more influence over Earth's magnetic field. "And that's what's causing this field to move in the direction [of Siberia]," Merrill said. [Doomsday: 9 Real Ways Earth Could End] In fact, the weakening of this giant bar magnet has alarmed some scientists, who wonder if it's a sign that Earth's north and south poles might flip, as they last did about 780,000 years ago. Such a flip wouldn't happen for thousands of years, and it remains to be seen what will happen. But a 2018 study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found evidence that Earth's magnetic field has weakened before without flipping. However, this weakening could lead to a field wobble, which could affect technologies such as electronics aboard low-Earth-orbit satellites, Live Science previously reported. A roving magnetic north has other implications, too. As it moves, it's likely that the best locations to see the Northern Lights will change over time. "In a hundred years, there might be a better place to see the Northern Lights than there are today," Merrill said. Digging in For now, scientists are trying to figure out exactly why magnetic north is shooting toward Siberia. One idea is that its rapid flight is connected to a high-speed jet of liquid iron under Canada, Nature reported. It appears that this jet is weakening the magnetic field beneath Canada by smearing it out, which means that Canada doesn't stand a chance against Siberia, Phil Livermore, a geomagnetist at the University of Leeds, in England, told Nature. "The location of the north magnetic pole appears to be governed by two large-scale patches of magnetic field, one beneath Canada and one beneath Siberia," Livermore told Nature. "The Siberian patch is winning the competition." Originally published on Live Science. South Bend Tribune Report South Bend Tribune NILES A vehicle crashed into a gun shop on 5th Street in Niles early Tuesday in an apparent robbery attempt, according to police. The shop targeted was The Firing Pin in the 300 block of North 5th Street. Police were called about the crash about 4:15 a.m. Tuesday. When officers arrived, they found a vehicle had crashed into the building, allowing access inside the store. Officers searched the building and realized several firearms were missing and no one was inside. The investigators believe several suspects were involved. Police also believe the vehicle used in the incident had been stolen from a Niles resident who reportedly left the keys in the unlocked vehicle overnight. A cash reward is being offered to information leading to the arrest of the suspects. Police can be reached by calling the Niles Police Detective Bureau (269) 683-0404, or by texting a tip to 274637 (start your text message with the keyword: tipnilespd. Tips also can be sent to Niles police online by visiting www.tipsoft.com, the city website. The Associated Press South Bend Tribune FORT WAYNE, Ind. A Fort Wayne man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for plotting with his girlfriend to try to poison her infant niece by adding crushed painkillers to a bottle of breast milk. An Allen County judge sentenced 23-year-old Sir Marshall S. Snyder III on Tuesday. The man, who is also known as Marshall Snyder, pleaded guilty last month to aiding attempted aggravated battery. Authorities said Snyder and 20-year-old Sarai Rodriguez-Miranda plotted to kill the infant in January 2017 by lacing a bottle of breast milk with enough crushed painkillers to kill an adult, and leaving it in a refrigerator The Journal Gazette reports that the plot was discovered and the baby wasn't harmed. Rodriguez-Miranda was sentenced to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to attempted murder. ___ Information from: The Journal Gazette, http://www.journalgazette.net In this Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018 photo, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb speaks about his agenda priorities for the upcoming legislative session in Zionsville, Ind. Members of the General Assembly will return Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019, to the Statehouse in Indianapolis for a session expected to last until late April. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings) Op. Barkhane: First Operational Deployment of the New MMP Medium-Range Missile (Source: French Armed Forces Ministry; issued Jan 14, 2019) (Unofficial translation by Defense-Aerospace.com) The French Army deployed its new MMP battlefield missile, the successor to the Milan, on foreign operations for the first time in December, when a firing team was deployed in Mali as part of Operation Barkhane. (FR Army photo) From December 10 to 22, the Picardie Battle Group carried out an operation in the Three Borders region of southeastern Mali, during which the new medium-range missile (Missile a Moyenne Portee) was deployed and used for the first time in-theater. Arriving in the operations area at dawn, the soldiers of Picardie BG leapt from their armored vehicle to set up the MMP on top of a ridge. Within the group of six soldiers, each has a definite role: commander, gunner, loader, rear gunner, a radio/marksman and driver. The MMP is now in place. Sergeant Nicolas and the gunner begin to observe their surroundings, and the terrain appears in detail in the MMPs sight. The operator scans each specific point, using the built-in zoom to refine his search. For Sergeant Nicolas, "the MMP is an exceptional weapon system for observation by day and night. The "fusion" mode detects heat sources and allows us, for example, to detect an individual hiding in a grove or behind a tree. " This new missile is a true digest of electronic innovations: with a range of over 4,000 meters, it can be used both as for anti-personnel and anti-vehicle strikes as well as against fortifications and high-value targets. This is an interesting innovation in the Sahelo-Saharan the theater of operations, where the flanks of some rock formations can be used as shelters by members of armed terrorist groups. On a technical level, the MMP is easy to use, as the sergeant demonstrated: "To switch from anti-personnel mode to anti-infrastructure mode, I just go to the MMP firing stations drop-down menu and check the corresponding box. Then, since the systems core is located in the missile itself, after firing my gunner sees in his sight exactly what the missile seeker sees. He can therefore switch targets at any time, thanks to the optical fiber that connects the missile to his console. The missile is equipped with a camera with vision day and night of a remarkable quality," he adds. Before their deployment, Sergeant Nicolas and his gunner underwent specific training on the MMP at the French Armys Infantry School in Draguignan. A major innovation developed for army infantry and light cavalry units, the MMP is the successor of the Milan system. Now deployed for the first time on combat operations, it will gradually equip the majority of first-line units. Led by the French armed forces, in partnership with the G5 Sahel countries, Operation Barkhane was launched on August 1st, 2014. It is based on a strategic approach based partnership with the main countries of the Sahel-Saharan strip (BSS): Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina-Faso. It brings together some 4,500 military personnel whose mission is to fight against armed terrorist groups and to support the armed forces of partner countries so that they can take engage this threat, notably within the framework of the joint G5 Sahel force which is being established. -ends- Wire-free, mobile first and data rich? The future of access control is within almost anyones reach The 2020s will be a wireless decade in access control, says Russell Wagstaff from ASSA ABLOY Opening Solutions EMEA. He examines the trends data, and looks beyond mobile keys to brand new security roles for the smartphone. The benefits of wire-free electronic access control are well rehearsed. They are also more relevant than ever. A wireless solution gives facility managers deeper, more flexible control over who should have access, where and when, because installing, operating and integrating them is easier and less expensive than wiring more doors. Battery powered locks Many procurement teams are now aware of these cost advantages, but perhaps not their scale. Research for an ASSA ABLOY Opening Solutions (AAOS) benchmarking exercise found installation stage to be the largest contributor to cost reduction. Comparing a typical installation of battery-powered Aperio locks versus wired locks at the same scale, the research projected an 80% saving in installers labour costs for customers who go cable-free. Battery powered locks all consume much less energy than traditional wired locks Operating costs are also lower for wireless: Battery powered locks all consume much less energy than traditional wired locks, which normally work via magnets connected permanently to electricity. Wireless locks only wake up when presented with a credential for which they must make an access decision. AAOS estimated a 70% saving in energy use over a comparable locks lifetime. Find out more about wireless access control at ASSA ABLOY's upcoming 29th June webinar Deploying wireless locks In short, every time a business chooses a wireless lock rather than a wired door, they benefit from both installation and operating cost savings. A recent report from IFSEC Global, AAOS and Omdia reveals the extent to which the advantages of wireless are cutting through. Responses to a large survey of security professionals end-users, installers, integrators and consultants serving large corporations and small- to medium-sized organisations in education, healthcare, industrial, commercial, infrastructure, retail, banking and other sectors suggest almost four locations in ten (38%) have now deployed wireless locks as a part or the whole of their access solution. The corresponding data point from AAOSs 2014 Report was 23%. Electronic access control Electronic access control is less dependent than ever on cabling Without doubt, electronic access control is less dependent than ever on cabling: Even after a year when many investments have been deferred or curtailed, the data reveals fast-growing adoption of wireless locks, technologies and systems. Is mobile access control based on digital credentials or virtual keys stored on a smartphone an ideal security technology for this wire-free future? In fact, the same report finds mobile access is growing fast right now. Among those surveyed, 26% of end-users already offer mobile compatibility; 39% plan to roll out mobile access within two years. Before the mid-2020s, around two-thirds of access systems will employ the smartphone in some way. The smartphone is also convenient for gathering system insights Driving rapid adoption What is driving such rapid adoption? The convenience benefits for everyday users are obvious witness the mobile boom in banking and payments, travel or event ticketing, transport, food delivery and countless more areas of modern life. Access control is a natural fit. If you have your phone, you are already carrying your keys: What could be easier? IBM forecasts that 1.87 billion people globally will be mobile workers by 2022 Less often discussed are the ways mobile management makes life easier for facility and security managers, too. Among those polled for the new Wireless Access Control Report, almost half (47%) agreed that Mobile was more flexible than physical credentials, and 36% believe that mobile credentials make it easier to upgrade employee access rights at any time. IBM forecasts that 1.87 billion people globally will be mobile workers by 2022. Workers in every impacted sector require solutions which can get the job done from anywhere: Access management via smartphone offers this. Site management device The smartphone is also convenient for gathering system insights. For example, one new reporting and analytics tool for CLIQ key-based access control systems uses an app to collect, visualise and evaluate access data. Security system data could contribute to business success. The apps clear, visual layout helps managers to instantly spot relevant trends, anomalies or patterns. Its simple to export, to share insights across the business. Reinvented for learning not just as a key or site management device the phone will help businesses make smarter, data-informed decisions. The smartphone will also play a major role in security and everything else for an exciting new generation of smart buildings. These buildings will derive their intelligence from interoperability. Over 90% of the reports survey respondents highlighted the importance of integration across building functions including access control, CCTV, alarm and visitor management systems. Genuinely seamless integration They offer greater peace of mind than proprietary solutions which lock you in for the long term Yet in practice, stumbling blocks remain on the road to deeper, genuinely seamless integration. More than a quarter of those polled felt held back by a lack of solutions developed to open standards. Open standards are key for the momentum behind the shift towards system integration, notes the Report. As well as being more flexible, open solutions are better futureproofed. Shared standards ensure investments can be made today with confidence that hardware and firmware may be built on seamlessly in the future. They offer greater peace of mind than proprietary solutions which lock you in for the long term. Open solutions and mobile management are critical to achieving the goals which end-users in every vertical are chasing: scalability, flexibility, sustainability, cost-efficiency and convenience. In the age of massive data breaches, phishing attacks and password hacks, user credentials are increasingly unsafe. So how can organisations secure accounts without making life more difficult for users? Marc Vanmaele, CEO of TrustBuilder, explains. User credentials give us a sense of security. Users select their password, it's personal and memorable to them, and it's likely that it includes special characters and numbers for added security. Sadly, this sense is most likely false. If it's anything like the 5.4 billion user IDs on haveibeenpwned.com, their login has already been compromised. If it's not listed, it could be soon. Recent estimates state that 8 million more credentials are compromised every day. Ensuring safe access Data breaches, ransomware and phishing campaigns are increasingly easy to pull off. Cyber criminals can easily find the tools they need on Google with little to no technical knowledge. Breached passwords are readily available to cyber criminals on the internet. Those that havent been breached can also be guessed, phished or cracked using one of the many brute-force tools available on the internet. It's becoming clear that login credentials are no longer enough to secure your users' accounts. Meanwhile, organisations have a responsibility and an ever-stricter legal obligation to protect their users sensitive data. This makes ensuring safe access to the services they need challenging, particularly when trying to provide a user experience that wont cause frustration or worse, lose your customers interest. After GDPR was implemented across the European Union, organisations could face a fine of up to 20 million, or 4% annual global turnover Importance of data protection So how can businesses ensure their users can safely and simply access the services they need while keeping intruders out, and why is it so important to strike that balance? After GDPR was implemented across the European Union, organisations could face a fine of up to 20 million, or 4% annual global turnover whichever is higher, should they seriously fail to comply with their data protection obligations. This alone was enough to prompt many organisations to get serious about their users security. Still, not every business followed suit. Cloud security risks Breaches were most commonly identified in organisations using cloud computing or where staff use personal devices According to a recent survey conducted at Infosecurity Europe, more than a quarter of organisations did not feel ready to comply with GDPR in August 2018 three months after the compliance deadline. Meanwhile, according to the UK Governments 2018 Cyber Security Breaches survey, 45% of businesses reported breaches or attacks in the last 12 months. According to the report, logins are less secure when accessing services in the cloud where they aren't protected by enterprise firewalls and security systems. Moreover, breaches were most commonly identified in organisations using cloud computing or where staff use personal devices (known as BYOD). According to the survey, 61% of UK organisations use cloud-based services. The figure is higher in banking and finance (74%), IT and communications (81%) and education (75%). Additionally, 45% of businesses have BYOD. This indicates a precarious situation. The majority of businesses hold personal data on users electronically and may be placing users at risk if their IT environments are not adequately protected. Hackers have developed a wide range of tools to crack passwords, and these are readily available within a couple of clicks on a search engine Hacking methodology In a recent expose on LifeHacker, Internet standards expert John Pozadzides revealed multiple methods hackers use to bypass even the most secure passwords. According to Johns revelations, 20% of passwords are simple enough to guess using easily accessible information. But that doesnt leave the remaining 80% safe. Hackers have developed a wide range of tools to crack passwords, and these are readily available within a couple of clicks on a search engine. Brute force attacks are one of the easiest methods, but criminals also use increasingly sophisticated phishing campaigns to fool users into handing over their passwords. Users expect organisations to protect their passwords and keep intruders out of their accounts Once a threat actor has access to one password, they can easily gain access to multiple accounts. This is because, according to Mashable, 87% of users aged 18-30 and 81% of users aged 31+ reuse the same passwords across multiple accounts. Its becoming clear that passwords are no longer enough to keep online accounts secure. Securing data with simplicity Users expect organisations to protect their passwords and keep intruders out of their accounts. As a result of a data breach, companies will of course suffer financial losses through fines and remediation costs. Beyond the immediate financial repercussions, however, the reputational damage can be seriously costly. A recent Gemalto study showed that 44% of consumers would leave their bank in the event of a security breach, and 38% would switch to a competitor offering a better service. Simplicity is equally important, however. For example, if its not delivered in ecommerce, one in three customers will abandon their purchase as a recent report by Magnetic North revealed. If a login process is confusing, staff may be tempted to help themselves access the information they need by slipping out of secure habits. They may write their passwords down, share them with other members of staff, and may be more susceptible to social engineering attacks. So how do organisations strike the right balance? For many, Identity and Access Management solutions help to deliver secure access across the entire estate. Its important though that these enable simplicity for the organisation, as well as users. Organisations need an IAM solution that will adapt to both of these factors, providing them with the ability to apply tough access policies when and where they are needed and prioritising swift access where its safe to do so Flexible IAM While IAM is highly recommended, organisations should seek solutions that offer the flexibility to define their own balance between a seamless end-user journey and the need for a high level of identity assurance. Organisations identity management requirements will change over time. So too will their IT environments. Organisations need an IAM solution that will adapt to both of these factors, providing them with the ability to apply tough access policies when and where they are needed and prioritising swift access where its safe to do so. Importantly, the best solutions will be those that enable this flexibility without spending significant time and resource each time adaptations need to be made. Those that do will provide the best return on investment for organisations looking to keep intruders at bay, while enabling users to log in safely and simply. Thelma Duncan, age 93 of Columbus, OH, formerly of Somerset, passed away on Wednesday, June 16, 2021 at Kobacker House Hospice Care in Columbus. Services are pending at this time and will be announced on Thursday. Lake Cumberland Funeral Home is entrusted with the arrangements for Thelma Duncan. It has been more than 30 days since the federal government shutdown began. While nearly 800,000 federal employees have been feeling the effect iovox Strengthens International Call Tracking Leadership with Acquisition of WannaSpeak Posted by Publisher Telecommunication January 15, 2019 ? iovox, a global provider of inbound and outbound call tracking solutions, announced today the acquisition of France-based provider, WannaSpeak. ?The team at WannaSpeak has built a growing and profitable company and we?re excited to have the staff and their loyal customers now part of the iovox family,? said Ryan Gallagher, co-founder and CEO of iovox. ?We believe 2019 has the makings of a breakout year for iovox due to the traction we?re seeing in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region for our core services, continued organic growth throughout Europe, the development and release of our new mobile solutions, and acquisitions such as this with WannaSpeak,? said Gallagher. Strategic Benefits The recently completed transaction: ? Solidifies European call tracking leadership. The acquisition of WannaSpeak adds important European brands to the iovox customer base including Orange, Axel Springer, Bouygues Telecom, Total (Direct Energie), BNP Paribas and Audi. ? Broadens the product portfolio. The combined company?s product portfolio will be unrivalled in its capabilities to handle, on a worldwide basis, inbound and outbound call tracking, including dynamic call tracking, web call back options, transcription, speech analytics, and the integration of phone data with marketing and CRM platforms. Solutions from iovox are designed for corporations as well as individuals via a unique new mobile app that iovox has been trialling through 2018. ? Strengthens leadership with experienced call tracking executives who have pioneered call tracking services in Europe with early work at eStara. ?We?re proud of what we built at WannaSpeak, yet we see the product vision of iovox which is distinctive in the industry and a big reason Benoit and I wanted to be part of the future of iovox,? said Thibaut Behaghel, co-founder and CEO of WannaSpeak. ?When evaluating strategic options, we found a fit with iovox that is perfectly aligned with the global customer and innovation focused culture we built at WannaSpeak,? said Benoit Dausse, co-founder and General Manager of WannaSpeak. Same Team. Expanded Roles All WannaSpeak staff are joining iovox and will continue to support customers while taking on expanded roles in the combined business. Thibaut Behaghel will be taking on the role of Director of Business Development with a focus on globally growing the company?s mobile business with an aim of making iovox the standard for mobile call tracking. Behaghel has prior experience with mobile through his role at LastPass where he helped the company establish a leadership position in Europe and throughout Asia prior to its acquisition by LogMeIn in 2015. Benoit Dausse will be taking on the role of Director of Sales, EMEA for iovox with a focus on growing the core enterprise call tracking business throughout Europe. Leveraging deep knowledge of the market, Dausse will be leading efforts across industries where call tracking has a proven and clear-cut return on investment. Transition and Support ?Some of our first customers were in France and we?ve operated there successfully for many years, so the customers of WannaSpeak can expect to continue to receive excellent support from a company that truly understands the market and their needs,? said Gallagher. In the near term, services by WannaSpeak and iovox will continue to be supported as standalone products. However, deeper integration of the offerings and operational processes will occur throughout 2019 creating options for customers to add new features and functionalities. Financing the Transaction The terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but growth capital was provided by Columbia Lake Partners and Octopus Ventures. PHILIPSBURG:--- On January 14th, 2018, the General Audit Chamber presented its report to Parliament regarding the Compliance Audit of the 2016 Financial Statements of the Government of Sint Maarten. We review the financial statements of Government on an annual basis. It is a legal requirement that we examine the financial statements and issue a report to Parliament. Examining the annual financial statements of St. Maarten is one of our fundamental tasks. While the budget is a forecast of public income and expenditure, the financial statements indicate the actual amount of money collected and spent. The report is an important instrument for Parliament to use. After all, Parliament discharges ministers of their financial responsibility. By granting discharge, Parliament approves of the ministers financial management and their accounting thereof. The 2016 Financial Statements were issued quite late by Government: they were due on September 1st, 2017. While we understand that Governments priority is rebuilding in the aftermath of the hurricanes of 2017, the fact remains the Council of Ministers approved these statements in October 2018. Subsequently, the financial statements were presented to SOAB on November 16th, 2018. The delay negatively impacts Parliaments ability to review the financial management for fiscal year 2016, and as such, reduces Parliaments discharge of ministers to a formality. It should be noted that the Minister of Finance is not authorized to unilaterally postpone the legal deadline for presentation of the financial statements. If the responsibility for the financial cycle remains absent, financial management will not improve. Similar to recent years, the audit results for fiscal year 2016, are worrisome. Information presented is not sound, substantiation of the use of public funds is minimal, spending of public money was unlawful, and there is a lack of accountability to Parliament. There was one area of slight improvement. Compared to 2015, the 2016 Financial Statements contain fewer errors. However, the deficiencies in the financial management, remain unresolved. For practically every line item, there is uncertainty in either the accuracy and/or completeness of the reported amounts. We specifically examined public procurement for fiscal year 2016. The National Accountability Ordinance requires detailed rules to govern public tendering. These rules have not been drafted since the inception of the country on October 10th, 2010. As a result, the process of public tendering is not uniformly organized across ministries. Also, the ministries were unable to provide us with information and documentation required to confirm compliance with the National Accountability Ordinance. In our opinion, the ministries are not in control of public funds as far as public tendering is concerned. Our audit results, SOABs audit opinion, and their audit report, indicate that Governments financial management is not in order, and not been so from the inception of the country on October 10th, 2010. In the preface of the 2016 Financial Statements, the Minister of Finance claims that the informational value of the statements has significantly improved. We do not share this opinion. In the interest of sound financial management, it is important that Government recovers as soon as possible. The report Compliance Audit: 2016 Financial Statement of Sint Maarten is published in both English and Dutch and is available on the website of the General Audit Chamber (www.arsxm.og). Click here to view statement. PHILIPSBURG:---It took more than a year in the making but Little Leagues Player Development now have a Rotary EarlyAct Club. EarlyAct is a service club for elementary students from ages 5 to 13. EarlyAct provides young students the opportunity for gaining increased awareness and knowledge of their community and the world. EarlyAct Player Development is a community-based club and is the third EarlyAct Club on Sint Maarten. After Hurricane Irma, a lot of children in the community joined Player Development. A lot of things were donated to this group which they shared with the people in the nearby shelter and within their communities. Due to their initiative more and more groups started to contribute to the group which also included Rotary Clubs from Canada as well as from SXM, they were soon supplying and still do to those in need with food, clothes, household items etc., which they do with a big smile on their faces. They are an inspiring group of youngsters. The Rotary Club of St. Maarten-Mid Isle inspired by this group started the process of forming an EarlyAct Club. This was finally realized when they held their first meeting on November 17th, 2018. So excited were the children that their board arrived an hour early to set up for their first meeting. The board is President Emma Croes, vice President Omar Bansingh, 2nd Vice President Malik Richardson, Corresponding secretary Rajik Violenes and Treasurer Jalen James. As this is a service club, they had to discuss what projects they could do. They have already been collecting pop tops for wheelchairs and have to date been able to donate 19 wheelchairs to St. Maarten. They are currently looking for someone in need for number 20. For the club, the project internet is on the table. For their International Project, they want to help Conductor Steven R. Torborg rebuild a steam engine for his Long Island Train Museum. The club needs to raise USD 15,000. Thus far they have raised USD 3,000.00. The children felt like a million dollars when the Rotary District Governor Patrick Adizua visited to welcome their EarlyAct Club into the Rotary Family. Each child received a Rotary EarlyAct pin. The Governor "pinned president" Ms. Emma! Mid Isle President Denise Antrobus and Rotarian Femke Jensen the Earlyact advisors presented the club with their very own bell and gavel. The EarlAactors presented DG Patrick with a framed picture of Engine 35. The EarlyAct Club will meet every second and fourth Saturday of the month. The Rotary Club of St. Maarten-Mid Isle meets Tuesdays at 7 pm at Pineapple Pete in Simpson Bay. For more information please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit our facebook page Rotary Club of St. Maarten-Mid Isle. Utrecht / PHILIPSBURG:--- The Sint Maarten Hospitality and Trade Association (SHTA) and Carib Beer have started their yearly Event Calendar Campaign. The official start was marked by handing over the first editions of the 2019 National Event Calendars to Ministers Stuart Johnson (Ministry of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication) and Valerie Damaseau (First Vice President of the Collectivity of Saint Martin) last week on the Dutch Vakantiebeurs, whereas today the calendar will be actively distributed by many channels both physically in poster format and digitally to partners and representatives of Sint Maarten abroad. The Calendars goal is to show the island has much to offer to the tourist again as it recovers from the 2017 hurricane season. The handover took place at Hollands largest vacation fair Vakantiebeurs in de Jaarbeurshallen in Utrecht where both countries tourist boards had a joint booth informing European tourists on their vacation opportunities in the presence of both Dutch side and French side ministers of tourism. The creation of this years edition is actively assisted by the tourism offices of both sides of the island. As the calendars main supporter, Carib Beer will disperse many calendars by its own partnerships. After the official launch by both Ministers, the calendar has been spread to members and partners of the island domestic and foreign. In addition to international websites and representatives placing the calendar on their websites and channeling the Sint Maarten events by Facebook, this years edition is placed in SHTAs 2019 in-room VISIT magazine. As with its previous editions, the Sint Maarten Event Calendar will be provided to its members, as well as interested individuals, for spreading the word of the many events Sint Maarten has to offer in 2019. As has been the case with the last Event Calendars, local artist Loic Bryan designed the artwork for the SHTA / Carib calendar. Special attention is given to the design in order to have the calendar be a true business card for Sint Maartens business community. Both local and domestic users have requested the calendar as a successor to their 2018 edition. Next to commercial events by SHTA members, the calendar tries to support events and fundraisers of non-governmental organizations supporting Sint Maarten society and culture. In coordination with the Sint Maarten carnival foundation, the many events of the special 50th edition of the Sint Maarten carnival coming up received special attention. All events will be placed and updated regularly at shta.com/events and downloaded entirely at shta.com/events2019. The previous calendars have been downloaded well over 1000 times from countries in the Caribbean, Europe and North and South America. Interested Sint Maarteners that would like an event calendar for personal use or have an event for next years edition can call 5420108 or freely request a copy of the calendar at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Loading A similar paradox is likely to be acted out in the confidence vote on Wednesday. Unless the Northern Irish DUP has a radical change of mind overnight, the Parliament will confirm that it wants Mays minority government to continue governing just differently. How differently is the big question. Before the vote it had been widely predicted that May would soldier on with her Brexit withdrawal deal after a loss. Sooner or later, this theory went, an essentially identical deal would return to the Commons, garnished with further "assurances" of good faith from the EU and laced with increasing urgency as the March 29 Brexit date approaches. But May would have to be desperate indeed to try this tactic now, given the scale of the loss, the biggest in UK history on a significant vote. Still, she may get that desperate. The big question is what on earth the alternative might be. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May listens to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn speaking after losing a vote on her Brexit deal. Credit:PA Mays anger was plain when, after the vote, she told off the Commons for giving her no idea of what kind of Brexit it wouldnt vote down. Its unlikely there are the numbers to bring on a new referendum. Its unlikely there will ever be the numbers for Mays deal. Its very unlikely there are the numbers simply to cancel Brexit, though it is within the Parliaments power. The only alternative, apart from reopening negotiations with the EU (which the EU say isnt on the table) is an economically ruinous "no-deal" Brexit, which has even less support in Parliament than a referendum, but has the "virtue" of being the default option that doesnt require a vote. Loading Its a depressing end to a miserable day for British democracy. Previous Brexit debates in the Commons and there have been many often had a sense of fun, or at least combative spirit. Not on Wednesday. This was grim. There was a pervading sense of sadness, even anger, and often regret. This was a parliament realising it has failed. The deal is not nearly good enough to vote for, was the majority mood. But they could only bicker helplessly about what to do about it. Loading Some thought the withdrawal deal that May had negotiated was not good enough because it didnt deliver enough Brexit, that it left the country in a halfway house still following EU rules and vulnerable in the coming trade and customs negotiation a deal crafted out of fear of leaving the EU rather than hope for an unshackled future. It led to some odd speeches, along the lines of "the people have voted and it is our solemn duty to deliver Brexit, and thats why Im voting against it". This lot seem increasingly resigned to (and determined to deny the dangers of) a no-deal Brexit. Others argued passionately that any Brexit is too much, that their job as representatives of the people was to make their lives better, not sign up to a policy that will make them worse. Seoul: The United States and North Korea plan to hold high-level talks in Washington this week to discuss a second summit of their leaders, following a prolonged stalemate in nuclear talks, according to an unnamed diplomatic source. The meeting, led by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol, would happen on Thursday or Friday, Washington time, South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo said, citing an unnamed source. Both sides are expected to finalise the date and location of a second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and the North's envoy is likely to meet Trump, the paper said. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, left, and US President Donald Trump shake hands at the conclusion of their meetings on Sentosa Island in Singapore in June 2018. Credit:AP Asked about the report, a State Department official said: "We don't have any meetings to announce." After the "censusfail" Twitter hashtag emerged in response and became a byword for federal government IT blunders, Australian Statistician David Kalisch is pushing back against the widespread view the bureau botched the 2016 survey. "It really irks me when people still talk about 'censusfail', because it didn't [fail]," Mr Kalisch said. "It had a glitch, it had a complication around the time of the availability of the online form. But when you look at what the census is supposed to do, in terms of providing high quality data around population, around features of the community, around features of local regions, Australia got all the data that they needed." A major review into the 2016 shutdown by Malcolm Turnbull's cyber security advisor Alastair MacGibbon warned public mistrust in the census would linger. "The publics confidence in the ability of government to deliver took a serious blow, more so than any previous IT failure," Mr MacGibbon's report said. The MacGibbon report found the bureau's trust in and closeness to IBM were factors leading to the August 9-10 shutdown, and criticised the agency for failing to own up to its mistakes. It found the bureau and the tech company had not adequately planned for a crisis. Loading Protections were inadequate against the distributed denial of service attacks that brought on the shutdown, despite being part of IBM's brief, Mr MacGibbon said. He called on government agencies to embrace cyber security in upgrading their IT and urged the bureau to improve how it managed tech contracts. Mr Kalisch said the bureau accepted Mr MacGibbon's findings and had reached similar conclusions in its own investigations. The agency has previously said it had completed the government cyber security chief's recommended reforms. "With the census, there'd been a history of doing it progressively, iterating the way it was done. But nonetheless the core model was pretty much the same. And within that can come some sense of 'it worked well last time, let's do it again the next time'," Mr Kalisch said. "One of the things we're particularly mindful of with 2021 is just thinking about some of those past practices can actually not be risk mitigations but actually lead you into the zone of potentially facing greater risks as the environment changes." Among the old ways that didn't serve the bureau in 2016 was a publicity campaign designed for an earlier era and failing to prepare people for a census moving more decisively away from paper forms. The agency had also mishandled the debate before the survey over its use and retention of data, Mr MacGibbon said. It really irks me when people still talk about 'censusfail', because it didn't fail. David Kalisch Mr Kalisch said the bureau had since realised its smaller size compared to other government agencies required it to partner more with others. Its relationships with cyber security agencies inside the federal government were well-established after 2016, he said. The bureau is speaking to the federal cyber security centre, and electronic spy agency the Australian Signals Directorate, about its protections against attacks. "I'm not about to disclose some of those treatments or actions, but certainly one of the things that is quite different from last time is that we're being quite proactive in engaging with the cyber security centre and ASD to make sure that as much as possible we specify the treatments that should be in place and also draw upon their expertise that isn't otherwise available in the marketplace." Mr Kalisch admitted its publicity campaign before the 2016 census didn't reflect one of its innovations, mailing households with an access code for the online form. It would need to communicate differently with the public before 2021. "It was quite clear when people thought about the change of the census process, there wasn't enough attention to how do we communicate this to the public, and over an extended period of time," he said. "We're also finding in terms of broader communications, that you do need to think through and actually have the conversation with the community. It's not something you can rush." The Coalition government is directing in the order of $500 million towards Census 2021, a similar figure to the last survey, when it was expected to save $100 million in the belief that growth in online take-up would reduce costs. Mr Kalisch said the agency was still working out the next census' costs. Budget pressures for the bureau include a $36 million shortfall last financial year and it is reviewing its statistical collections. Its overall budget had been declining, Mr Kalisch said. Loading "We've been trying to manage all of the risks while still delivering the types of statistics that Australia needs," he said. "It's really an ongoing challenge but it's one that many agencies are dealing with." The bureau is getting more critical voices from outside to review its work preparing for the census. Telstra and Tax Office staff sit on its census board, and KPMG is contracted to give advice, Mr Kalisch said. "It's just a way of making sure the organisation is not blindsided by things taking place in the broader environment that we're not aware of. And really just in the whole approach to decision-making and judgements, the more diverse the group of people you've got involved in the process, the more likely you are to make a better decision," he said. The bureau has escaped some of the distractions blamed for the troubled lead-up to the 2016 census. Mr Kalisch said there had been no discussion this time of scrapping the five-yearly event. The 2016 federal election closed communication between officials and ministers, and the bureau went a year without an agency chief in 2014. Australian National University demographer Liz Allen agreed census 2016 was not a failure and called the "censusfail" outcry a "beat-up". "Australians have embraced the census 2016 data in ways Ive not seen before," she said. An unexpected benefit of the controversy was greater public interest and conversation about data, and the bureau had received support from the public to continue its role, Dr Allen said. The bureau is consulting on its topics for the next survey. Dr Allen said she was heartened by the preparation for census 2021. "The public consultation about data collection topics and questions is what wed expect to see from a world class national statistical agency," she said. "The fact is Australia hasnt seen a change in the census form, in a substantive way, for around 20 years. This is extraordinary. Bhutan has its happiness index and New Zealand has a living standards dashboard. Now it's Canberra's turn. The ACT government is planning to go beyond economic and population data to measure progress by establishing a wellbeing index. The ACT government will soon measure factors like health and social capital, as well as economic growth. Credit:Megan Dingwall A government spokeswoman said the index was part of its focus on "making Canberra a more inclusive city". "Traditional indicators published and monitored by governments tend to focus on economic progress - such as Gross State Product, population growth and CPI," she said. The ACT government has rejected claims reforms to tenancy laws in Canberra could drive the cost of rents up, saying the changes aimed instead to protect tenants from excessive rent increases. Attorney-General Gordon Ramsay introduced the reforms in the Legislative Assembly in October last year, including changes to stop landlords charging above-inflation rents unless a tenant agrees or a tribunal allows it. ACT Attorney-General Gordon Ramsay has rejected claims tenancy law reforms would lead to higher rents. Credit:Karleen Minney The changes would also allow tenants to make some minor changes to properties without formal written approval from owners, allow pets in more rental properties and put the onus on landlords to prove steep rent increases were reasonable. But the real estate institute late last year urged the government to reconsider the changes, arguing it could see owners increase rents to help make up additional costs, at a time of rising taxes and rates. Mr Comrie found the falsification of breath tests was systemic. A target of 1 million tests a year was more than tripled in 2018-19 Budget, rising to 3.5 million tests, but police also set an internal target of 4.5 million. Loading This target was aspirational, but it became absolute for police on the beat. The figure was not based "on any credible scientific evidence or articulated strategy", but simply on the number of licence holders in Victoria, the review found. Police completed 3.3 million tests in the past financial year. More than 17 million tests were conducted over the period of the scandal. Police had to return negative results on 99.5 per cent of breath tests. Any more than 0.5 per cent positive tests meant the force did not meet its budget performance outcomes. Illustration: Matt Golding Credit: Perverse incentives could also affect the integrity of road-side drug tests, the review found. Victoria Police said no drug tests were falsified. Police officers said the practice had been going on for much longer than 5 years, damaging the veracity of Victorias drink-driving testing statistics and casting doubt on how public money was used to fund testing. The Transport Accident Commission provides about $4 million in annual funding for breath tests, drug tests and speed cameras. Mr Comrie also called for regular auditing of the tests, more transparency in the funding arrangement between Victoria Police and the Transport Accident Commission and a review of the states road safety strategy. Mr Comries investigation, dubbed Taskforce Deliver, found it is impossible to establish the exact number of false preliminary breath tests, but it was likely to be less than the 258,000 estimated by police. But new road policing boss, Assistant Commissioner Stephen Leane, accepted the number could be higher. Im personally disappointed that some of our members have chosen to do this but its also clear that many didnt do this and theyve let them down as well, he said. The figure was established using an algorithm where 10 or more tests completed in 30 seconds were probably false. Taskforce Deliver confirmed that bogus tests did not mean drivers were wrongfully fined or charged. Loading Mr Comrie's report found top down decision-making to determine targets did not adequately consult the police it would impact, resulting in considerable frustration and angst on the front-line. The report stated the practice was an ethical failure, rather than criminal. The major cause was to meet targets police regarded as meaningless and unachievable, but poor supervision, governance, inadequate data management and inadequate technology in the devices also played a part. Mr Comrie also claimed there was significant evidence decisions about resourcing commitments for tests were not evidence-based or intelligence-led, including for TAC-funded operations. Assistant Commissioner Leane said police were averaging 3.3 million tests a year. He said force command are still trying to establish how and why the figure for the target was set. Government and police [need] to sit down and refresh those expectations, he said. But Assistant Commissioner Leane said there was no doubt that preliminary breath tests reduced road trauma and while police would never stop doing them, the force would assess its targets. Loading He said there was no direct link between funding and breath testing targets. The broad issue is around gaining the confidence of our members to understand the impact that they have on road trauma when they do a [breath test] as well as the impact they do on drug testing. For some reason they lose that connection and saw it as something they did over and over for no purpose, he said. [A breath test] will make you think about that when you drive next time and you will tell somebody that youve been tested. Police Minister Lisa Neville said she has been assured the fake tests has stopped. It is extremely disappointing and unacceptable that it happened in the first place its wrong, its a breach of trust, and it wont be tolerated, Ms Neville said. Loading [The government] will work with Victoria Police to ensure that this never happens again. Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt said tests were faked because of the burden of unrealistic quotas for statistical purposes. The heatwave sweeping Victoria has already led to a spike in cardiac arrests, and things are only going to get worse as the heat goes on, with emergency services expecting deaths. The heatwave is forecast to last until Friday at least and is bringing extreme heat to some parts of the state, with overnight temperatures forecast to remain high as well. Parts of the Mallee face several days of 45-degree temperatures. Beachgoers in St Kilda on Tuesday. Credit:Luis Ascui Mildura and Swan Hill both topped 45 on Tuesday. Were in the second day of this," Justin Dunlop, Victorias state controller for heat, said on Tuesday. ''And we know the third, fourth and fifth day is when we expect to see a lot of people becoming unwell, and possibly dying. The man who once helped notorious ''Postcard Bandit'' bank robber Brenden James Abbott escape from prison, fled police on Tuesday into Gold Coast bushland where fires were raging nearby. Brendan Berichon, who is wanted on domestic violence warrants, fled when police came to his home on Tuesday morning. Brendon Berichon, in custody in Darwin in 1998. Credit:Jason South During the chase, he ran into bush areas at Pacific Pines, where a bushfire had been burning for the past few days. A police spokesman said he had been spotted on Fletcher Crescent before running into the bush. Detectives believe a boat and trailer found ablaze are the same ones stolen from a Gold Coast home just before it went up in flames and "this is for f---ing my wife" was spray painted on the outside. The boat and trailer were found alight on Henri Robert Drive in the Gold Coast suburb of Clagiraba about 6.30pm on Monday and police described the fire as "suspicious". The tinnie and trailer (inset) believed to have been stolen from the Ashmore home on Monday. Credit:7 News Gold Coast/Queensland Police Service A home on Belah Street in Ashmore, 21 kilometres east of the trailer and boat fire, went up in flames about 8am on Monday. Police said someone got into the homeowner's ute, reversed it into the side of the residence and set the vehicle alight. In 2019 were going to see teachers and the teaching profession return to the top of the education agenda. In a year of vigorous political argument with both state and federal elections conscripting our lounge rooms, education, and teachers in particular, will be, and should be, top of the list among public concerns. As Australian educators and parents prepare themselves for the inevitable political scraps and free-for-alls, were once again thinking about pencils, laptops and school shoes school is soon to return for the 2019 year. In the coming school year we can expect education as an election issue to be used, abused and misused. Education, especially education funding, at all levels primary, secondary and tertiary is, along with health, the most commonly misunderstood of the social and economic areas of public policy. We are all directly and intimately affected by education and health. We are all experts and we have "attitude" in each. What is state and what is federal responsibility continues to confuse. The major parties exploit this poor community understanding. Education will be central to the public discussion this year. In the coming school year we can expect education as an election issue to be used, abused and misused. Credit: Michele Mossop The teaching profession is set to return to the top of the education issues pecking order. Teacher attrition rates, teacher burnout, teacher preparation pathways and standards, how best to supply our regional schools, are already filtering into the public discourse. These will be highlighted during the upcoming state and federal elections. About 150 metres long, Wendy is gigantic by any measure. The third tunnel boring machine for the second stage of Sydney's multibillion-dollar metro railway, Wendy will worm her way from Chatswood to the edge of Sydney Harbour, churning through thousands of cubic metres of earth to create a tunnel for driverless trains. Wendy, one of two tunnel boring machines at Chatswood, starts tunnelling south towards Blues Point. Credit:Louise Kennerley In several weeks, another as-yet-unnamed boring machine set up beside Wendy will also start its journey south to Blues Point, creating a twin tunnel for the mega project. The boring machines exemplify the size and complexity of Australia's largest public transport project, which by 2024 will result in tens of thousands of passengers being carried on driverless trains every day under Sydney Harbour and the central city. The suspected overdose deaths of five young people in as many months at music festivals in NSW are to come under the judicial microscope next week as the Coroner's Court conducts a public hearing into the high-profile cluster of fatalities. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has welcomed an inquest into the spate of deaths, as well as any recommendations that arise from such an inquiry, while drug reform advocates are calling for pill testing to be discussed as part of a raft of harm minimisation measures in the proceedings. Alex Ross-King is the fifth young person to die at a music festival in recent months. Credit:Facebook Acting State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan will hold a directions hearing at the Coroner's Court in Glebe on January 22, 10 days after Central Coast woman Alex Ross-King, 19, died in hospital after attending the FOMO music festival in Parramatta. Ms Ross-King's death followed that of Josh Tam, 22, who died after taking a substance at the Lost Paradise festival on the Central Coast on December 29; 19-year-old Callum Brosnan, who died after attending the Knockout Games of Destiny at Sydney Olympic Park on December 8; and Joseph Pham, 23, and Diana Nguyen, 21, who died at Defqon.1 in Penrith on September 15. Almost two decades ago a wave of drug-related deaths in NSW led the then Carr Government to hold a drug crisis summit. A key outcome of the summit was the bold plan to establish a medically supervised injecting centre (MSIC) then it was the first of its kind in the English speaking world. Drug users used to shoot up in laneways at Kings Cross until an injecting room was set up in a nearby church premises. Credit:Rick Stevens Uniting MSIC was set up in King Cross which had the highest concentration of people dying from drug overdose in Australia. Many were sceptical of the move, others were openly hostile. There were fears it would give the "green light" to drug taking, a form of moral approval. A former police officer and the son of storied ex-drug squad commander Arthur Katsogiannis has been charged with importing steroids. Daniel Katsogiannis, whose LinkedIn profile says he lasted one month in "law enforcement", faced the Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday on charges of importing a prohibited import and intentionally importing a prohibited tier 1 good without approval. Daniel Katsogiannis (right) leaves the Downing Centre Local Court. Credit:AAP His father Arthur Katsogiannis recently retired after 38 years in the NSW Police force that saw him head up the cybercrime and fraud, gangs and drug squads. During his time as head of the gangs squad he called for harsher penalities for those caught dealing and using steroids. According to court documents seen by the Herald, Daniel Katsogiannis illegally imported potentially lethal stimulants popular with body builders and prescription-only steroids linked to an enhanced sexual performance. Looming government funding changes to private education will hit Canberra parents in the hip pocket as schools raise fees for 2019. The territory's most expensive private school fees will exceed $27,000 for the coming school year while, in the Catholic sector, the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn said it had been forced to put up its own centrally-controlled tuition fee by about seven per cent rather than the usual three to four per cent rise. Non-government school fees will rise sharply this year in Canberra, largely across the board. Credit:Louie Douvis Over the next decade, all schools in Australia will have their funding adjusted according to a cross-sector, needs-based formula introduced under the Gonski reforms, known as the Schooling Resource Standard. That will see a number of over-funded non-government schools lose money but many cash-starved public schools topped up. On Tuesday, the ACT government told The Canberra Times it would introduce cuts along the same lines to non-government schools over the next five years as part of its commitment to equitable funding. Down in Rivett, at the edge of an oval, there sits a little brick structure with a sign hanging from the wire fence out the front: 'Weston Creek Men's Shed'. It mightn't look much to the average Canberran, but it's a huge step up for the 30-odd men who gather here every week - looking to have a chat, a coffee, and help out the local community. Workshop manager Allan Booth, committee member Graeme Ireland, vice president Bryan Blackburn, and (front) president Graham Lacey at the new Men's Shed facilities at Weston Creek. Credit:Jamila Toderas "Where we were before was just a tin shed. There was no power, there was no water. It did serve a purpose for us to get started but this one is much better," said long-time member Allan Booth. "We've got a kitchen and the option to expand, which is great for us ... we've done some [carpentry] work for Mount Stromlo High School, disability services, and Noah's Ark Pre-School around the corner. Power outages are never convenient, but imagine being without electricity or cooling on a 40-degree day. Residents of the Southside Village long-stay caravan park in Symonston were bracing themselves for a day without power this week as power company Evoenergy - part of ActewAGL - announced it would be carrying out scheduled maintenance work. Southside Village caravan park, Symonston, resident John Deans, is concerned that Evoenergy is doing a scheduled all-day power cut at the village on Thursday, which is forecast to be 40 degrees. Credit:Karleen Minney The work to repair underground damage caused by NBN contractors in December was slated to take around eight hours to complete, from 8am-4pm. Temperatures are forecast to reach 40 degrees on Thursday, with 41-degree days on either side. Mental health services across Australia will share in $1.45 billion under a funding model shake-up that offers local organisations, staff and patients greater long term certainty. The federal government announced its new funding for the country's 31 Primary Health Networks (PHNs), which coordinate the health services needed to respond to the specific needs of communities, such as youth and indigenous services, suicide prevention and treatment for severe psychiatric conditions. The $1.45 billion in federal funding over three years from July 2019 to 2021-22 is $170 million more than the previous three years - just over $56 million per year. Mental health organisations will also be spared the uncertainty of re-tendering for contracts every year under the funding model, which offers greater security for staff and continuity of care for patients. Ever since I moved out of the family home with my two young children and lived separately from their father, Ive considered myself a "single mother". Its common parlance for women like me: mothers no longer with the fathers of our children. We may not like it theres a lingering stigma attached to single motherhood (unwelcome and misaligned, denoting misfortune and hardship) a little less worthy of our place in the world but well take it. Depending on the circumstances that got us here, some of us even celebrate it. What makes a 'single parent'? Credit:Stocksy But it turns out I and many women like me may not be eligible for this category. Youre not a single mother, a friend of a friend pointed out to me recently when I described myself as such, just by the by. This is because, she helpfully clarified, my children have a father. She, on the other hand, had her child via anonymous donor which makes her a bona fide single mother. The first of 16 machines aimed at keeping vital fish stocks alive in NSW's ailing rivers will be installed as soon as Wednesday as fears build of more large die-offs amid searing inland temperatures. The Department of Primary Industries is dealing with eight fish kill or algal bloom alerts across the state. The solar-powered aerators will bring much-needed oxygen to pockets of the hypoxic waters of Darling River at Menindee, the Keepit Dam near Tamworth, the Burrendong Dam near Dubbo and other sites. Inland NSW and Victoria roasted on Tuesday, with days more of the extreme weather to come. Tolarno station on the lower Darling had dust devils to add to the heat. Credit:Dean Sewell The first of the devices, which can raise dissolved oxygen levels over an area about the size of a basketball court, will go into Pooncarrie on the lower Darling not far from where up to a million fish died earlier this month near Menindee. Silver perch, Macquarie perch and Murray cod will be among targeted species. In plum velvet top hat and travel-stained coat, he looks part-ZZ Top, part-P.T. Barnum. He seizes attention and never lets go in a work that fuses comedy, tragedy, klezmer music and politics in a folk tale about a search for home. Here's a show that's out of the box. The container opens like a picture book to reveal the scant belongings of people forced to flee a battered suitcase, a samovar and a four-piece band. Caplan, The Wanderer, is emcee, narrator and commentator, constantly in motion around the stage as he accompanies his songs and patter with guitar and banjo. His scratchy baritone resembles Tom Waits. Between his numbers, within the container unfolds the story of Chaya (Mary Fay Coady) and Chaim (Dani Oore), two young Romanian Jews who meet in 1908 after fleeing their homeland for Canada. Chaya is deadpan and buttoned-up, Chaim boyish and endearing. They've both known pain and horror. The pair (who are also part of the band) tentatively attempt to make a life in a new land that has opened its door to them. Carol Channing, who won over audiences with a giddy, guileless charm in trademark roles in Broadway's Hello Dolly and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, died in her California home on Tuesday at the age of 97, according to her publicist. Channing died of natural causes in Rancho Mirage after having suffered multiple strokes last year, publicist Harlan Boll said. Farewell, Dolly: Carol Channing, pictured here in 2007, had a career that spanned decades on Broadway and television. Credit:AP In a career that spanned seven decades, the saucer-eyed, raspy-voiced musical-comedy star never shook her associations with matchmaker Dolly Levi from the 1964 Broadway musical Hello Dolly! or gold digger Lorelei Lee in Anita Loos's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Still, unlike many stars who dislike being linked strongly to the characters they have played, Channing was pleased to be identified with Lorelei, as well as Dolly, a role that won her a Tony Award. Labors education spokesperson is threatening to prevent students with a low ATAR from studying education. Exactly how Tanya Plibersek would do this and what mechanism shed use to achieve her goal isnt clear. After all, the whole premise of our tertiary system is that universities are independent although there are always ways around minor issues like this for a determined autocrat. Besides, nobody would want vice-chancellors to be forced to choose between their principles and a bucket of money; youd be knocked over in the rush. The result would not be an academic dilemma so much as a foregone conclusion. Education Minister Dan Tehan. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Not that the minister, Dan Tehan, offers us much of an alternative. He spent most of Tuesday fulminating about the need for discipline, more discipline. One almost suspects hed bring back the cane if he had his way ... The real surprise is that Plibersek didnt think to simply pay teachers more money. Maybe shes unaware this is the usual way of increasing job applications. Those agitating for change at ASX-listed entertainment business Village Roadshow are set to ramp pressure on a newly appointed custodian of governance on the riven company's board. American hotel executive Jennifer Fox Gambrell, a former chief executive of London-listed Millenium & Copthorne Hotels and Toronto-based Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, is chair of Village's corporate governance committee following the departure of David Evans. A feud between the two Kirby brothers who control Village Roadshow has developed over the future of the company. Credit:Scott McNaughton The Sydney Morning Herald and the Age yesterday revealed John Kirby, one of the two richlister brothers who controls the storied company founded by his father Roc Kirby, is pushing to oust his brother Robert Kirby as chairman and Graham Burke as chief executive. Along with Mr Burke, the brothers own a combined 42 per cent stake in the company. John Kirby has appointed former Rothschild investment bank boss David Kingston and high-profile Melbourne law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler to advise him on the move. Struggling menswear retailer Ed Harry has been placed in voluntary administration with an immediate clearance sale of merchandise coming into effect as creditors assess the business. On Tuesday, KPMG's Brendan Richards and Gayle Dickerson were appointed voluntary administrators after a "particularly tough" Christmas sales period for the chain, and mounting pressure from decreased shopping centre footfall. Ed Harry operates 87 stores across Australia and employs 498 staff. Credit:Simon Alekna The news follows the closure of a string of Australian retailers recent times, including Marcs, Pumpkin Patch, Payless Shoes and Roger David, while department store Myer has also struggled. Ed Harry managing director David Clark said the business had been facing fierce retail competition for some time. BGH Capital has finally broken through, with Navitas directors agreeing to recommend a proposed $2.1 billion offer after the BGH-led consortium raised its indicative offer and made a concession that may also give the private equity firms other big target, Healthscope, pause for thought. The about-face by Navitas, which slammed the door shut on BGH last November by refusing it access to due diligence, is of interest on two fronts. Ben Gray's BGH Capital has landed its first deal. Could that help it in its quest for another? One is that BGH, the firm founded by Ben Gray, Robin Bishop and Simon Harle that raised $2.7 billion from investors last year, was prepared to add 32.5 a share, or $116 million, to its indicative bid despite the market turmoil of recent months. Since BGH first approached Navitas in early October, the Australian market has fallen about 5 per cent. Perhaps of wider significance, and of particular interest to Healthscope, is that a key sticking point in its initial approach to Navitas - its relationships with industry fund giant AustralianSuper and Navitas co-founder Rod Jones - has been excised. Between them, AustralianSuper and Jones own about 18 per cent of the education provider. To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account. We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription. A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much! STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- In the hours leading up to a planned budget presentation Tuesday in Albany, Gov. Andrew Cuomo divulged a small piece of marijuana policy hell want to see when a bill inevitably hits his desk. Cuomo said in a radio interview Monday with The Capitol Connection, that he would want to set a 21-and-over policy, in terms of who would be allowed to purchase cannabis projects, according to a New York Daily News report. The age-limit would fall in line with each of the 10 U.S. states and Washington D.C., where adult-use has been legalized. Cuomo also said local governments, such as Richmond County, should be able to opt out of the program, as previously stated in a bill co-sponsored by members of both the Senate and Assembly. A budget presentation where Cuomo will lay out more details of his plan -- based in part on a months-long study by the Health Department and other state officials -- is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Tuesday. For updates, check back with SILive.com. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. To prosecutors, Natalya Fedyk is a predator, one who specifically targeted her victim, a visually-impaired man, because of his disability. Fedyk broke into the victims Tompkinsville apartment on April 14, 2018, while the man and his service dog were inside and snatched valuables, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Mobilia said Tuesday in his opening statement at Fedyks bench trial. She knew he was blind. She knew he couldnt see her, so she picked him, Mobilia told state Supreme Court Justice William E. Garnett, who is presiding over the trial. The defendant intentionally selected (the victim) because she knew she could take advantage of (him) because he is blind. Defense lawyer Mark J. Fonte countered Fedyk was a victim herself. And any actions she undertook that day were coerced by a man who had taken her off the street when she was homeless then forced her to make money for him any way she could, including turning tricks with day laborers. One predator took control of her, sexually abused her, Fonte said in his opening statement. It was not Ms. Fedyk who targeted someone visually impaired. It was not Ms. Fedyks idea to burglarize the apartment. Ms. Fedyk was under an immense threat of harm (and) continual beatings. Fonte did not identify the man but said more details would emerge as the trial progresses. The brown-haired defendant, who was garbed in a black skirt, blouse and tan scarf, sat attentively at the defense table as Fonte addressed the judge. She is expected to testify during the trial. Fedyk, 36, a Tompkinsville resident, is accused of hate crimes for allegedly targeting the visually-impaired victim. Under the Hate Crimes Act of 2000, someone can be charged with a hate crime if they commit specified offenses due to the victim's religion, race, color, gender, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation or disability. In addition to the hate crime charges, Fedyk is charged with multiple counts of burglary, grand larceny and stolen-property possession. The defendant has previously rejected prosecutors offer to plead guilty to third-degree burglary as a hate crime in exchange for a sentence of two to six years in prison. She faces up to 25 years behind bars if convicted of the top count, second-degree burglary as a hate crime. On Monday, she opted for a bench trial over a jury trial in a bid to eliminate any potential sympathy factor for the victim. Fedyk has no prior criminal record. The episode occurred at about 10:15 a.m., according to a criminal complaint. Mobilia, the prosecutor, said surveillance videotape taken in the buildings hallway shows the defendant illegally entering the victims apartment. Mobilia said Fedyk wait(ed) for the right opportunity and grabbed the victims possessions, including his watch, wallet, credit cards, a service-dog registration, insurance card and other items. At Fedyks arraignment on May 2, Assistant District Attorney Adam Silberlight, who is also prosecuting the case, said the videotape depicts the defendant peering into the apartment and watching the movements of the victim and his seeing-eye dog. She waited for the dog to move to the other end of the apartment, then entered, he said. Mobilia said cops tracked down Fedyk later that day. She was wearing the same clothes as she had been earlier, he said. When questioned by investigators, the defendant admitted to knowing the victim was blind and swiping his personal items, said Mobilia. Fonte contended Fedyk had acted under long-standing duress. At age 7, she immigrated to the United States from Moscow with her mother, he said. At some point thereafter, her mom became seriously ill, which basically left Natalya orphaned to the street (and) subject to predators, said Fonte. Because of these situations she found herself in, she had no choice but to commit these acts, Fonte said. He said Fedyks discomfort is clearly visible on the surveillance videotape. Close scrutiny shows her going back and forth several times between the victims door and the stairway, which she peers down, said the lawyer. All the while, Fonte said, she was thinking, Whos watching her? Whos forcing her to commit certain acts? Can she get away (from that person)? The trial resumes tomorrow. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police are asking for the publics help identifying an individual sought for questioning in connection to a jewelry theft that occurred Wednesday in Mariners Harbor. An unidentified male approached a 14-year-old boy near the intersection of Briarwood Road and Amador Street around 4:20 p.m. He ripped the chain with a gold Jesus pendant valued at approximately $1,000 off the victims neck, according to a written statement from the NYPDs Deputy Commissioner of Public Information. The alleged thief fled the scene in a dark-colored, four-door sedan, and was seen wearing a black jumpsuit and a red jacket with fur trim, according to police. A police spokesman said there was no apparent altercation before the theft, describing it as a snatch-and-grab. Police could not provide an approximate age for the individual sought for questioning, but described him as a Hispanic male, approximately 5 feet 10 inches with a thin build. Police provided photos taken from surveillance footage in the area of the individual sought and the car he fled in. A male is sought for questioning in connection to a chain snatching that occurred Wednesday in Mariner Harbor. He fled the scene in what police describe as a dark-colored sedan. (Coutesy: NYPD) Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM, on Twitter @NYPDTips or by texting tips to 274637(CRIMES) then entering TIP577. All calls are kept strictly confidential. Update: Oliva returned home unharmed, police said Tuesday. --- STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police are asking for the publics help finding a Graniteville man missing since Saturday. Seulis Olivo, 29, was last seen at his home on Domain Street at approximately 8:30 a.m., according to a written statement from the NYPDs deputy commissioner of public information. A spokesman for the NYPD said Olivo suffers from poor mental and physical health. He is described as approximately 5-feet-8-inches tall and 185 pounds. Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM, on Twitter @NYPDTips or by texting tips to 274637(CRIMES) then entering TIP577. All calls are kept strictly confidential. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Officials investigated a report of a threat at I.S. 75 Monday afternoon that proved to be unfounded, according to a Department of Education spokeswoman. According to Assistant Chief Kenneth Corey, the NYPD borough commander, an 8th grade student overheard another 8th grade student saying the crew is going to pop off tomorrow. The student who made the statement, along with his parents, have been interviewed and there is no threat to the school or students, Corey said. According to parents who contacted the Advance, I.S. 75s principal sent out a recording conveying that there is no credible threat to the school. Earlier today the NYPD received a call regarding threats at I.S. 75. After an investigation between the DOE and NYPD the threat was deemed to be NOT CREDIBLE. pic.twitter.com/8z4dWX9jfQ NYPD 123rd Precinct (@NYPD123Pct) January 15, 2019 Community Affairs officers from the 123rd Precinct will be present at the school for arrival Tuesday morning to answer parents questions, Corey said. In addition, the school will be visited periodically throughout the day by steady sector and neighborhood coordination officers, as we do with all schools on the Island, Corey added. Assemblyman Reilly posted on Facebook earlier today that the threats made against the school were found to be not credible. Barbot Miranda, a Department of Education spokeswoman, said, The NYPD immediately responded to a potential threat at I.S. 75 this afternoon, and after a thorough investigation determined it to be non-credible. The school is safe, and there will be an additional NYPD presence tomorrow out of an abundance of caution. CITY HALL -- Its no secret that some Islanders, especially on the South Shore, are upset about the citys new fast ferry route being added to an area with existing ferry service. But Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday at a press conference in Coney Island announcing the newest NYC Ferry routes and expansions that the door is still open to thinking about other fast ferry stops in the future. Come 2021, de Blasio said he plans to do another assessment to see if more fast ferry routes are needed around the city. We would love to keep seeing additional routes added but they have to be viable in every sense, he said. These were ones we had a high level of confidence in but given the success that NYC Ferry has experienced so far and given the possibility of cross registering the ferry with the [Metropolitan Transportation Authority], were going to keep an open door to further expansion in the future and I think the logical time to do that is after these lines are in place, so that will be by the summer of 2021. The new route will run from St. George to Battery Park/Vesey Street in a total of 18 minutes. It will continue on for another 17 minutes from Battery Park City/Vesey Street to Midtown West at Pier 79/West 39th Street. The trip will run for a total of about 35 minutes. BARGE TO BE BUILT AT SLIP 7 NYCEDC President and CEO James Patchett said the city plans to build a barge at an existing ferry slip -- Slip 7 -- which is off to the right side of the St. George Ferry Terminal if you are looking toward Manhattan. Patchett said NYCEDC has been working closely with the Department of Transportation and the U.S. Coast Guard to ensure the new route will not impact existing Staten Island Ferry service. The St. George route is expected to serve between 1.5 million to 2 million riders annually. The new St. George route will run every 24 minutes during peak hours and it will cost the city $44 million in capital costs, according to the latest projections outlined in a feasibility study on fast ferry expansion released by citys Economic Development Corporation Monday. The report showed the city initially looked at seven potential sites: St. George, Stapleton, Great Kills Park, Tottenville, New Dorp Beach/Midland Beach, Princes Bay, and the West Shore. That list was then narrowed down to five route combinations NYCEDC closely studied: St. George > Battery Park City > Midtown / West 39th Street Stapleton > Battery Park City > Midtown / West 39th Street St. George > Battery Park City > Midtown / West 39th Street > West 70th Street St. George > Battery Park City > Chelsea (Pier 57) > Midtown / West 39th Street Great Kills > Battery Park City > Midtown / West 39th Street But the city decided on the St. George route, concluding it would serve the most people for the lowest operating costs of Staten Island. The report notes the existing St. George Ferry terminal already provides transit connections from all areas of the Island which could provide travel time savings for those going to lower and Midtown Manhattan. MAYOR SAYS OTHER ISLAND SITES WERE PHYSICALLY VERY VERY DIFFICULT We looked long and hard at the options you may know that I went with [Borough President James Oddo] and other elected officials to look at sites on the South Shore, the mayor said. I certainly felt that there was some understanding after that tour that those sites were physically very very difficult and, unfortunately, werent viable. We also have to think about sites in terms of what kind of ridership we knew they would get cause this is an expensive endeavor to put together. Once it has a strong ridership, its worth it, but its a lot to build it up and we didnt see a place that worked properly. De Blasio also emphasized that getting to the West Side of Manhattan was something a lot of Staten Islanders wanted and would allow Island commuters to get to job sites at places like the Hudson Yards development. Following news of the addition of St. George to NYC Ferry, Oddo said he planned to set up a call with MTA President Andy Byford to see if the agency would go for running express trains from the South Shore to St. George so that commuters on the South Shore can use the new fast ferry route too. He also said he would continue to work with Arthur Imperatore, the president and founder of NY Waterway, to potentially bring a private fast ferry to another part of the Island, be it the east side of the North Shore, Mid-Island, or the South Shore. Other Island elected officials like South Shore Councilman Joe Borelli (R) and Minority Leader Steven Matteo (R-Mid Island) also said they would continue to push for additional ferry routes on the South Shore and Mid-Island. The city plans to launch the new route sometime in 2020. It will cost commuters $2.75 per ride and the city plans to provide a subsidy of $7-$8 per rider. FOLLOW SYDNEY KASHIWAGI ON TWITTER. Members may download one copy of our sample forms and templates for your personal use within your organization. Please note that all such forms and policies should be reviewed by your legal counsel for compliance with applicable law, and should be modified to suit your organizations culture, industry, and practices. Neither members nor non-members may reproduce such samples in any other way (e.g., to republish in a book or use for a commercial purpose) without SHRMs permission. To request permission for specific items, click on the reuse permissions button on the page where you find the item. Page Content Handbooks are a key asset for communicating company policies and promoting fairness and consistency in the workplace, and ever-evolving federal, state and local laws make routinely reviewing and updating handbooks critical for employers. 2018 proved to be a busy year, particularly at the state and local levels as new and amended employment-related laws took effect in 27 states and several key municipalities. Many of these laws apply to all employers, regardless of size, but some make exceptions for small businesses, so smaller employers may need to verify who counts as an employee under applicable laws. For example, some laws consider temporary, seasonal and part-time workers employees, and others do not. Employers operating in multiple jurisdictions may have the additional challenge of determining how to best proceed in the face of varying state and local legal requirements. New compliance requirements speak to such topics as equal employment opportunity (EEO), reasonable accommodations, smoking and leaves of absence. Here are some of the key state and local issues employers should note when updating their handbooks. 1. Equal Employment Opportunity States and municipalities continue to pass laws that extend equal employment opportunity protections to employees who are not protected under federal law, including medical marijuana users and those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. There has also been rapid movement on the state level to pass sexual-harassment-prevention laws in response to the #MeToo movement. In 2018, nine states and a key municipality adopted or amended 14 distinct EEO laws addressing issues such as: Requiring anti-harassment training focused on gender identity and sexual orientation. Defining retaliation procedures. Legalizing medical or recreational marijuana use. Adding discrimination protections based on gender identity and for victims of crimes. Providing nongender, single-user restrooms in public places or places of public accommodation. For example, under New York City's new sexual-harassment-prevention requirements, employers must incorporate expanded anti-harassment provisions into their policies, and post and distribute related notices and materials. Employers should be aware of additional compliance requirements that will take effect in 2019 under New York City and state laws. Employers in affected states and municipalities should review and revise their employee handbook and EEO policies, including policies on discrimination, harassment and retaliation. 2. Reasonable Accommodations In 2018, new or amended reasonable-accommodation compliance requirements took effect in seven states and two key municipalities. They address issues such as: Expanding reasonable accommodations for women who are pregnant or breast-feeding. Allowing people who have certain conditions public access to employee restrooms. Providing safety accommodations to people who have been sexually assaulted or experienced domestic violence or stalking. Amendments to the Illinois Nursing Mothers in the Workplace Act significantly expanded workplace accommodations and protections for women who breast-feed or need to express breast milk. Notably, Illinois employers are now required to provide a reasonable paid break each time an employee needs to express breast milk for her nursing infant child (for up to one year after the child's birth). Employers in affected states and municipalities should review and revise their employee handbook and reasonable-accommodation policies, including policies on breast-feeding and pregnancy. 3. Leaves of Absence Expanded state and local leave laws continue to present complex challenges for employers. Each leave of absence law has its own standards regarding which employees are covered, which employers must comply and how employers must comply. Multistate employers not only have to be aware of these standards, but they also must continuously monitor changes to state and local leave laws and adjust their business practices accordingly. In 2018, 17 states and three key municipalities adopted or amended leave laws, addressing such issues as: Requiring paid family leave. Expanding existing leave laws to cover smaller employers. Expanding leave and reinstatement rights for military service members. Requiring safe leave to be incorporated into existing sick-leave laws. Providing domestic-violence leave. New Jersey was one of several states that passed a statewide paid-sick-leave law. All New Jersey employers are required to provide up to 40 hours of paid sick leave a year to eligible employees. This law expressly pre-empted all existing municipal paid-sick-leave laws and enacted uniform compliance obligations across the state. So employers in those municipalities were required to overhaul their sick-leave policies and implement an updated policy in accordance with the new state law. Employers in affected states and municipalities should review and revise their employee handbook and leave-of-absence policies, including policies on sick leave, paid family leave and military leave. 4. Equal Pay and Wage Discrimination States and localities are aggressively pushing to pass pay-equity laws to achieve fair pay across the board. In 2018, four states and two key municipalities adopted or amended pay-equity laws, addressing such issues as: Prohibiting wage discrimination on the basis of gender. Prohibiting employers from asking job applicants and employees about salary history or otherwise seeking such information. Prohibiting employers from banning wage discussions among co-workers. For example, Massachusetts recently strengthened its existing equal-pay law. The law broadly prohibits pay discrimination based on gender for work that is "comparable" rather than "the same." The law also prohibits employers from asking about or otherwise screening job applicants based on their salary history. The amendments also address safe harbors for employers, enforcement and notice-posting requirements. Employers in Massachusetts and other locations with similar requirements should review and update their EEO and wage-discussion policies to ensure they incorporate the new protections. 5. Safe Driving Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, employers are responsible for providing a safe workplace. Businesses that require workers to drive while on the job should note the increasing number of state laws that address distracted driving, especially those laws restricting or prohibiting cellphone use and texting while driving, and ensure their safe-driving policies are up-to-date. In 2018, three states adopted or amended laws relating to the use of a cellphone while driving, addressing such issues as: Prohibiting the use of a hand-held cellphone while driving. Redefining the types of devices prohibited under the law. For instance, Georgia's hands-free law now prohibits all drivers from using hand-held wireless telecommunications devices and stand-alone electronic devices while driving. Drivers may not use any body part to physically hold or support a wireless telecommunications device or a stand-alone electronic device, or write, send or read text-based communications while driving. The law previously prohibited texting while driving but allowed adult drivers to talk on a hand-held cellphone. Employers in affected states should review and revise their employee handbook and safe-driving policies to incorporate these protections. 6. Smoke-Free Workplace More states are including e-cigarettes and other tobacco substitutes in their laws prohibiting smoking in the workplace. Employers may be required to post notices, provide designated smoking areas and make other adjustments under such laws. In 2018, two states adopted or amended laws related to smoking in the workplace. An example is an amendment to the Rhode Island Public Health and Workplace Safety Act, which expanded the definition of smoking to include the use of electronic cigarettes, electronic cigars, electronic pipes, electronic nicotine-delivery-system products and similar products that rely on vaporization or aerosolization. Items now included in the definition of smoking are prohibited in all enclosed areas in the workplace. Employers in affected states should review and revise their employee handbook and smoking policies to incorporate these protections. An elephant trapped in a farm well in Kuttikulama, Galenbinduwewa of Anuradhapura district in north Sri Lanka was rescued after 24 hours spent struggling in the water. A herd of wild elephants was passing through a rural farming area, and one got separated and fell into a farm well in Anuradhapura district on January 12. Noticing the elephant in the well, the residents raised an alarm but due to lack of facilities they couldn't rescue the elephant immediately, and informed forest officials. The officials, with the help of residents, started an operation the next day and rescued the elephant using earth moving machines by January 13. The rescued elephant moved in to the forest, and residents burst crackers to scare it deeper in. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. This includes cookies from third party social media websites and ad networks. Such third party cookies may track your use on Sharedots sites for better rendering. Our partners use cookies to ensure we show you advertising that is relevant to you. If you continue without changing your settings, we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on Sharedots website. However, you can change your cookie settings at any time. Learn more HARARE, Zimbabwe Soldiers on Monday deployed in some urban areas where police clashed with protesters over fuel hikes, deepening the crisis in a country whose economy is rapidly deteriorating. At least 13 people were injured by gunfire and 12 were arrested, human rights lawyers and doctors said. An Associated Press journalist saw military trucks with soldiers headed for Chitungwiza, a large suburb southeast of Harare, the capital, where clashes between police and protesters have occurred. Military helicopters were also seen flying over Harare. The militarys deployment Monday was criticized by the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a group of non-governmental organizations. The move by the government to deploy armed police and soldiers against citizens exercising their democratic right to protests should be condemned in the strongest of terms, the coalition said. The governments tactics will serve to worsen the current crisis in the country while further alienating the country from the international community, it said. Those who were shot on Monday included a woman hit in the leg as she was heading home, according to an AP journalist at the scene. The woman was not involved in any protest when a police officer aimed his gun at her. Zimbabwean police said rioters would be arrested. We have videos showing those involved in the mayhem, we will arrest all those involved, police spokeswoman Charity Charamba said on state television. Police in Harares Mabvuku and Epworth suburbs fired tear gas to disperse angry demonstrators who burned tires, threw stones and blocked roads. Children in school uniform joined the protests, which followed a weekend decision by the government to more than double the price of gasoline. Many people directed their anger at President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has not delivered on promises to revive the economy. Farai Mutsaka is an Associated Press writer. Neel Bhatt, a UW assistant professor of otolaryngology, specializes in treating patients with voice problems. Through his work, he began to realize people did not like the sound of their own voices. With the transition to school over Zoom, many students can relate to the discomfort of hearin A so-called "atmospheric river" is poised to barrel into the Bay Area Wednesday afternoon, delivering a drenching of rain that forecasters say could add up to 3 to 6 inches in the hills and 1 to 3 inches in the valleys in a matter of two days. "The city is likely to see in excess of two inches," says Ryan Walbrun, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Monterey. "Even places like Livermore where you don't usually get heavy rain will likely receive more than an inch, so it's going to be a good soaking for everybody." You've probably heard meteorologists throw around the term "atmospheric river," and you might be wondering what it means. (Learn about more weather terms in the gallery above.) The long plumes of water vapor in the atmosphere are like rivers in the sky250 to 375 miles wide on average. On the West Coast, they most often originate in the South Pacific, and as they travel from the tropics across the ocean, they collect incredible amounts of moisture, and funnel it into cities like San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle, where the runoff systems are often unequipped to deal with the days-long deluge. MORE: Why the promised rain never made it the Bay Area over the weekend An atmospheric river carrying moisture from as far away as Hawaii to the West Coast is what's known as a "pineapple express." Walburn explains this week's storm doesn't exactly fit this criteria as the moisture plume originates north of the islands. When an atmospheric river hits landfall, the water vapor rises and cools, unleashing precipitation. The amount that falls is dependent upon the strength of the storm and its moisture content. National Weather Service meteorologist Brian Garcia likens being at the core of one of these storms to standing under a waterfall. "Some are intense and will put immense amounts of water on you, while others can be seemingly trickles and only bring a little," Garcia says. "Either way, if you move away from the core of the waterfall, it's more of a spray." ALSO: Rain and snow batter Southern California: Grapevine, PCH and Highway 1 closed For more perspective, the strongest atmospheric rivers carry an amount of water vapor equivalent to about 7.5 to 15 times the average flow of liquid water at the mouth of the Mississippi River, according to the National Weather Service. When a system of this strength stalls over an area, it can dump tremendous amounts of rainfall, causing flooding, or immense amounts of snowfall, covering roads. Walbrun says weather models indicate that while Wednesday night's system will be wet, it's unlikely to be severe. "We might see some significant rises on rivers, but the water should stay within the banks of the rivers," he says. The National Weather report forecasts light rain through Wednesday morning. The stronger westerly system will sweep into the region late Wednesday afternoon, as the moisture plume from the Pacific meets a cold front dropping down from the Gulf of Alaska. Blustery conditions will arrive with the storm and the NWS issued a wind watch for Wednesday night with gusts of 50 to 60 mph likely. Showers will likely linger into Thursday, and Friday and Saturday are expected to be dry with light rain possible Sunday. Longing to see Stephen Curry in the flesh but can't afford tickets to a Warriors game? Look no further than In-N-Out burger. The Warriors star and his wife are known to frequent the Alameda location after games, but it's not the only spot where fans have seen the Dubs off the court. Airport security, customs and immigration lines at Oakland, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco and San Jose Airports have had no impact so far from the partial government shutdown. However, some airports in other parts of the country are beginning to report delays and back ups. At San Francisco International, airport screeners work for a private contractor, not the federal government, so they are still getting paychecks and it's pretty much business as usual. "It's a very light-volume time of year for us," said SFO spokesperson Doug Yakel. That was definitely my observation on a quick SFO-LAX trip last Thursday and Friday. I sped through airport security in record time for my 8 am flight from SFO-- via the PreCheck line, it took me about two minutes to get through the gauntlet at United's usually very busy Terminal 3 entry point. Friday afternoon at LAX was also a breeze. At 1 pm, I was about the only person in line at LAX Terminal 7. I blew through in about 30 seconds. At Mineta San Jose International Airport SJC, the impact is nil, too. "Our Operations team continues to monitor our passenger screening lines given the partial government shutdown. So far, SJC has not experienced any significant impact to our operation, including this morning," said spokesperson Rosemary Barnes. But she did have a word of warning: "We are especially focused on the upcoming three-day [MLK holiday] weekend ahead which will likely result in increased numbers of travelers using SJC." Over at Oakland International OAK, lines are light, but feelings are strong. Airport spokesperson Keonnis Taylor said, "Operations continue normally at OAK, with no impact related to the temporary government shutdown. In terms of passengers, we are seeing and receiving reports of them offering much kindness, empathy, and thanks to federal employees as they process through the checkpoints." "The federal shutdown is not impacting operations at Sacramento International Airport SMF. All TSA lanes are opening and operating as normal and there is no impact to passengers," said Samantha Mott, the airport's communication and media officer. Similarly, there are no major lines at security, customs or immigration at Los Angeles International Airport LAX today, according to spokesperson Becca Doten. In San Diego, Rebecca Bloomfield, senior communications specialist at SAN told San Diego Magazine: "Our Federal Aviation Administration and TSA operations are currently operating effectively. Passengers can expect TSA wait times to hover in between the normal 15 to 45 minutes." Like SFO, airport screeners work for a private contractor at Santa Rosa's Charles M Shulz airport. Here's a list of all 22 airports that use private contractors versus federal employees to screen bags. If you are flying back east, you are more likely to run into shutdown related issues at airports. At Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world's busiest, there were reports of 90 minute airport screening delays early today. ATL screeners were in the hot seat today anyway since reports that a woman was able to pass through security with a firearm in her carry on, and board a flight to Japan. The airport is currently advising travelers to arrive three hours ahead of time to avoid missing flights. There are also reports of long lines at airports at Houston Intercontinental Airport, Miami International and Washington Dulles. If there is a silver lining to the federal shutdown mess, it's that we are currently in the "dead weeks" for the travel industry-- with the lowest demand for travel all year. Which means that it could have been a lot worse if this happened just a few weeks earlier. Have your travel plans been impacted by the federal government shutdown? Please leave your thoughts in the comments. Read all recent TravelSkills posts here Get twice-per-week updates from TravelSkills via email! Sign up here Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, and it is used here by permission. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis. Posted Monday, January 14, 2019 12:00 pm Shirree J. Williams, 30, 204 E. Cleveland St., was arrested Jan. 4 on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of failure to register motor vehicle. Bond was set at $150 with a court date of Jan. 24. Koe Moua, 28, 702 Kendrick St., Knob Noster, was arrested Jan. 5 on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of displaying plates of another person. Bond was set at $200 with a court date of Jan. 31. Marcus L. Davis, 37, Kansas City, was arrested on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of driving while revoked/suspended. Bond was set at $300 with a court date of Jan. 31. Krystal D. Klaus, 27, 148 S.E. 421st Road, was arrested on a failure to appear warrant with an original felony charge of possession of controlled substance and charges of unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia and driving while revoked/suspended. Bond was set at $2,000 with a court date of Jan. 23. Jere Lasswell, 34, Peculiar, was arrested Jan. 6 on two failure to appear warrants with original charges of speeding and motor vehicle required to be registered. Total bond was set at $300 with a court date of Jan. 31. Paige L. Ruona, 18, 23 S.E. 250th Road, was arrested Jan. 5 on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of fraudulent use of credit/debit device. Bond was set at $500 with a court date of Feb. 1. Elijah Herr, 20, Shawnee Mission, Kansas, was arrested on five failure to appear warrants with original charges of driver/front seat passenger failure to properly wear seat belt, failure to maintain financial responsibility, failure to register motor vehicle and two counts of speeding. Total bond was set at $875 with a court date of Jan. 24. Michelle M. Bryant, 24, 100 E. Summerfield, Leeton, was arrested Jan. 7 on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of possession of marijuana. Bond was set at $300 with a court date of Feb. 1. Paul A. Dominguez, 51, Kansas City, was arrested Jan. 4 on a probation violation warrant for a felony charge of possession of controlled substance. Bond was set at $25,000 with a court date of Jan. 14. Nicole J. King, 26, was arrested Jan. 4 on a warrant with a felony charge of domestic assault and a charge of trespass. Bond was set at $5,000 with a court date of Jan. 23. Kevin R. Payne, 27, 321 S.E. 671st Road, was arrested on three warrants with felony charges attempted burglary, stealing unlawful possession of a firearm, two counts of possession of controlled substance and a charge of fraudulent use of credit/debit device. Total bond was set at $28,000. Alexis M. E. Rietbrock, 19, Springfield, was arrested on a warrant with a felony charge of possession of controlled substance and a charge of possession of drug paraphernalia. Bond was set at $3,000. Trustin A. Oja, 22, 20 S.E. 971st Road, Knob Noster, was arrested on a warrant with felony charges of unlawful possession of a firearm and stealing. Bond was set at $10,000. Nicholas A. Patterson, 26, 505 S.W. 150th Road, Centerview, was arrested Dec. 31 on a warrant with a felony charge of burglary. Bond was set at $7,500. Angela Fewell, 37, 1414 S. Maguire St., was arrested on a warrant with a felony charge of possession of controlled substance and a charge of unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia. Bond was set at $3,000 with a court date of Jan. 23. Deputies assisted the Lone Jack Police Department Jan. 6 with a pursuit on U.S. Highway 50. Deputies responded Jan. 6 to the report of identity theft. Deputies responded Jan. 7 to the report of a stolen vehicle in the 900 block of Northeast Highway 23, Knob Noster. Deputies responded Jan. 7 to the report of burglary in the 0 block of Northwest 1621st Road, Holden. Jacob R. Stagl, 34, was arrested Jan. 7 on felony charges of resisting arrest for a felony and assault when deputies responded to assist the Warrensburg Police Department with the report of a domestic disturbance and assault in the 600 block of West Clark Street. The report states WPD took custody of Stagl and completed the 24-hour hold, probable cause statement and warrant request. Deputies responded Jan. 8 to the report of a stolen gun in the 0 block of Southwest 11th Road. The Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga has hailed the Chinese government for supporting digital migration in Uganda. Kadaga said China through StarTimes, a digital TV service provider, have extended coverage to many parts of the country averting a situation where Ugandans would not be watching educative and informative programmes. I want to thank the Chinese Government. Through such programmes, our people will be able to be informed on time and also realize the many opportunities outside their communities, she said. Stories Continues after ad Kadaga was speaking at the closing ceremony and handover of the access to digital television project at Starlight Primary School in Kananage, Kamuli District on Monday, 14 January 2019. Access to Satellite TV for 10,000 African Villages, a China-Africa Cooperation project, aims to reduce the digital divide in African rural areas by giving Villages access to digital television. The Speaker urged the community to embrace the Programme in order to access news and information. She however, requested the Chinese government to scale up coverage because presently only 30 per cent of villages in Uganda can be reached. Kadaga asked the regulators to remove channels that promote homosexuality and provide educative programming. Mr Nyombi Thembo, who represented the Director, Information Communication and Technology in the ICT Ministry, thanked the Speaker for her zeal towards digital literacy in schools. As the Commission, we shall continue to pursue our investor-friendly regulatory framework geared towards ICT for all, a regulatory framework that respects the rights of the viewers, is gender sensitive and promotes peace, unity and prosperity of people, he said. The Chief Executive Officer of Startimes, Mr. Andy Wang said that the project would improve service delivery in schools and health centres. He added that it would create jobs for the youth who will work as technicians in the 500 villages where the project has been implemented. Over 1,000 youth will be trained and hired as technicians to help in installing and maintaining equipment, Wang said. The Resident District Commissioner Kamuli, Moses Dumba , thanked the Speaker for supporting development programmes and encouraging investors to set up in Uganda and Kamuli in particular Even if those records are on private devices or sent from or received on private accounts, Rhyne said. FOIA also does not require records to be maintained in a certain way or certain length of time, so if someone were to delete records that would not be a FOIA violation. Work continues on the Walter Reed Hospital expansion in Gloucester Tuesday January 15, 2019. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam will tour the facility on Thursday. (Rob Ostermaier/Daily Press) If people choose to stay in the neighborhood because of the ties they have to their community, that is normal, understandable, and I dont think having a source of income provision or a fair housing law precludes us from trying to make all of these neighborhoods as vibrant and economically robust as they can be, she said. VACAVILLE (BCN) Officers shot a suspect that was connected to a house fire and double stabbing in Vacaville - from earlier in the evening - on Monday night, according to police. Police provided an update on the situation - which started with the house fire and stabbings around 7:20 p.m. Monday and extended into a search for the suspect - around 11:15 p.m. According to police, the suspect, 37-year-old Nathaniel Holland, was seen walking in the area of Mason and Depot streets late Monday evening, where officers responded and tried to detain him. Police said the K-9 was injured as officers tried to arrest Holland, and Holland was shot. Holland and the K-9 were both transported to hospitals for treatment. Police didn't provide an update on either's condition. Police didn't say how or who injured the K-9. The areas around Mason and Depot streets will be closed through the morning as officers investigate the scene, police said. Holland was named as the suspect in a stabbing of a teenage girl and 43-year-old woman earlier Monday evening in Vacaville, police said. Just before 7 p.m., officers responded to a home in the 1200 block of Alderwood Way for a report of a stabbing as well as a house fire. There, they found the woman and the 16-year-old victim both suffering from stab wounds, according to police. Both victims suffered injuries not considered life-threatening. A 4-year-old child at the scene suffered burn injuries and was transported to a hospital in Sacramento. Anyone with information about the incident is being asked to contact Vacaville police Det. Yetter at (707) 469-4846. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. A man was arraigned on Monday on misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest and public intoxication in connection with an incident in Castro Valley on Thursday night in which an Alameda County sheriff's deputy fired a shot at him after a disturbance at a McDonald's restaurant. Arthur Richardson, 37, a warehouse temp worker who's being held at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin in lieu of $5,000 bail, is scheduled to return to court on Tuesday to be assigned an attorney and possibly enter a plea. Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly said deputies responded to the McDonald's at 1620 Strobridge Ave. near Castro Valley Boulevard at about 8:40 p.m. on Thursday after a customer reported that a man later identified as Richardson was "acting bizarre" and was threatening customers while wearing a Halloween mask by telling them, "I got something." Before the deputies arrived Richardson went to the McDonald's parking lot and blocked vehicles in the restaurant's drive-through lane, according to Kelly. The first deputy to arrive at the scene saw Richardson as he was walking across the street to the 76 gas station at 2445 Castro Valley Blvd., Kelly said. At that point Richardson's mask was turned backwards and was hanging around his neck, according to Kelly. The deputy ordered Richardson to show his hands but he didn't comply and instead reached toward a large bulge under his sweatshirt and told the deputy, "I got something for you," Kelly said. Richardson's hand wasn't visible to the deputy so the deputy fired one round toward Richardson because he believed Richardson was attempting to draw a firearm and he feared for his safety, according to Kelly. The shot didn't strike Richardson but he then laid on the ground and was handcuffed by deputies without incident, Kelly said. It turned out that Richardson didn't have a weapon and that the bulge under his sweatshirt was some personal items, including food from the McDonald's, according to Kelly. Richardson appeared to be heavily intoxicated, Kelly said. The deputy who fired Richardson has been placed on paid administrative leave while the shooting is investigated, according to Kelly. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. VACAVILLE (BCN) A teenage girl and a 43-year-old woman were rushed to the hospital after they were both stabbed Monday evening in Vacaville, police said. Just before 7 p.m. officers responded to a home in the 1200 block of Alderwood Way for a report of a stabbing as well as a house fire. There, they found the woman and the 16-year-old victim, both suffering from stab wounds, according to police. Both victims suffered injuries not considered life-threatening. Officers also found that a 4-year-old child at the scene suffered burn injuries and they were taken to a hospital in Sacramento. Police have identified a suspect as 37-year-old Nathaniel Holland. He's being described as being 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighing 210 pounds and was last seen wearing dark clothing. Residents in the area are being asked to shelter in place and if they see Holland, they should stay away from him and call 911 immediately, police said. Anyone with information about the incident is being asked to contact Vacaville police Det. Yetter at (707) 469-4846. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. SAN RAFAEL (BCN) Parents of students in north San Rafael's Dixie School District will deliver petitions to change the name of the district on Tuesday, Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. The petitions wrapped in ribbons call for a mandatory vote by the district school board on the name change. The district's Board of Trustees is required to vote on the issue within 40 days under the California Education Code, proponents of the name change said. Proposed new names for the district include Big Rock, John Muir, Live Oak, Live Oak Valley, Miller Creek, Miwok, Miwok Hills, Oak Valley, Skywalker and Terrawood Valley. Parents will present the petitions between 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. at the Dixie School District Office at 380 Nova Albion Way in San Rafael. The school district was founded in 1864 and its three K-5 elementary schools and one grade 6-8 school serve the communities of Terra Linda, Marinwood, Lucas Valley and a portion of Contempo Marin. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. OAKLAND (BCN) An ex-felon was sentenced on Tuesday to 18 years in state prison for robbing three businesses in Alameda at gunpoint in a 25-minute period in 2016. Alameda County prosecutors and Alameda police said 30-year-old Richard Joseph Lachaux of Hayward robbed a Walgreens store at 2300 Otis Drive at the South Shore Center, a nearby Wells Fargo ATM at 2260 Otis Drive and Alameda Cellars at 2425 Encinal Ave. between 9:20 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. on June 12, 2016. No one was hurt during the robberies and Lachaux was arrested in San Francisco at about 11:30 p.m. that night. Lachaux was charged with a total of 14 felony counts plus a number of enhancements, but at hearings on Oct. 18 and Nov. 7 prosecutors agreed to a deal in which he was allowed to plead no contest to just three counts: one count of first-degree robbery and two counts of second-degree robbery, plus an enhancement that he used a firearm. Lachaux has three prior convictions: being a felon in possession of a firearm in Alameda County, forgery in Los Angeles County and receiving stolen property in San Francisco. But in the plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to let him only admit one of them, the receiving stolen property conviction, for sentencing purposes. Lachaux's plea meant that he faced a sentence of between 18 and 26 years, and Alameda County Superior Court Judge James Cramer on Tuesday sentenced him to the lowest possible term of 18 years. Alameda police Officer Alex Keden wrote in a probable cause statement that after Lachaux entered the Walgreens, he removed a handgun from his waistband, fired a shot into the ceiling, ordered employees and customers to the ground and then stole about $315 in cash from the register and customers as well as a customer's wallet. Lachaux then fled and fired an additional round outside the store, according to Keden. At the Wells Fargo ATM, Lachaux approached two customers who were depositing money and demanded that they withdraw money from the machine but became impatient and tried to withdraw the money himself and the victims were able to flee, Keden wrote. At Alameda Cellars, Lachaux announced that he was committing a robbery, displayed a handgun and ordered the employee who was on duty and customers to get on the floor, according to Keden. Lachaux then ordered the employee to give him money from the cash register and the employee, who feared for his safety, gave him $500 in cash. He next pointed his gun at the customers as he searched through their pockets and fired one round into the air as he fled the store, according to Keden. Lachaux was identified as the suspect through surveillance camera footage and photo lineups that were shown to the victims, according to Keden. Lachaux's attorney Seth Morris said at the Oct. 18 hearing that the plea agreement resulted from a number of conferences with Judge Cramer and after he presented mitigating evidence that Lachaux suffers from mental health problems and drug addiction. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. A Healdsburg man is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon for a DUI charge in connection with a head-on collision that seriously injured a Forestville woman early Sunday morning. Hector Omar Cisneros-Ramirez, 38, was driving a 2016 Ford Focus north in the southbound lanes of U.S. Highway 101 when the Ford collided with a southbound 2016 Volkswagen Beetle and a 2018 GMC Sierra at Westside Road near Healdsburg around 12:55 a.m., according to the California Highway Patrol. The Volkswagen driver suffered major injuries and was taken to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. The male driver of the GMC Sierra and two passengers suffered minor injuries, CHP officials said. Cisneros-Ramirez also suffered minor injuries. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. HAYWARD (BCN) One man was killed and two others were wounded in a shooting in Hayward late Monday night, police said. Officers who responded to a report of shots being fired in the area of Mohican Street and Ontario Place in the southern part of Hayward shortly before 10:30 p.m. Monday found three men suffering from gunshot wounds, according to police. Paramedics responded to the shooting but one man was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. The other two men are being treated at hospitals for wounds that aren't considered life-threatening, according to police. Authorities said they know the identity of the man who was killed but they aren't yet releasing it pending notification of his family. Police said the shooting is the first homicide in Hayward this year. Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call Detective Ryan Sprague at (510) 293-7176. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. WASHINGTON William Barr, President Trumps nominee for attorney general, assured senators at his confirmation hearing Tuesday that he will permit the special counsel, Robert Mueller, to complete the Russia investigation and said he is determined to resist any pressure from Trump to use law enforcement for political purposes. Barr, whose confirmation seems virtually assured, pointed to his age and background he also served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993 as buffers to potential intrusions on the Justice Departments traditional independence. He suggested he had no further political aspirations that might cloud his judgment, as well as the experience to fight political interference. I am in a position in life where I can provide the leadership necessary to protect the independence and reputation of the department, Barr, 68, told the Senate Judiciary Committee, adding that he would not hesitate to resign if Trump pushed him to act improperly. I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong by anybody, Barr said. He also pledged that he would refuse any order from Trump either to fire Mueller without good cause. Barr is widely expected to be confirmed, both because Republicans control the Senate and because Democrats are deeply suspicious of Matthew Whitaker, the acting attorney general whom Trump installed after ousting Attorney General Jeff Sessions in November. Asked by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., why as a rational person he would want the job after seeing Trumps unrelenting criticism of Sessions, Barr portrayed himself as an institutionalist. Because I love the department and all its components, including the FBI, Barr said. I think they are critical institutions that are essential to preserving the rule of law, which is the heartbeat of this country. The nominee also appeared to emphasize a softer vision of presidential power than the unusually expansive view he has largely advanced throughout his career. Barr appeared to walk back or qualify some of his earlier writings, putting greater emphasis on the Justice Departments independence and legal limits on the presidency. For example, Barr said that if a president directed the Justice Department to close an investigation to protect himself or his family, that would violate the Constitution. He also pledged to seek the advice of ethics attorneys in the Justice Department about whether he should recuse himself from overseeing the Russia inquiry. And Barr repeatedly said that Mueller, whom he portrayed as a longtime friend, must be permitted to resolve the investigation. It is in the best interest of everyone the president, Congress and, most importantly, the American people that this matter be resolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work, Barr said. Charlie Savage, Nicholas Fandos and Katie Benner are New York Times writers. When the Bank of Uganda (BoU) started closing commercial banks right from 1993 on account of insolvency, the officials there did not at any one time anticipate they would face a parliamentary probe for their actions, for they thought the central bank was independent and could do its business causally without following the established laws and procedures. That long-held view by the BoU senior staff was to change when some of the owners of the closed banks started complaining of the unfair closure of their branches, even as they pleaded that they be given second chance. Particularly the sale of Crane Bank (CBL)in January 2017 put BoU in disrepute to the extent that parliament ordered the Auditor General John Muwanga to carry out a special audit on the closure of seven banks by BoU. BoU would later resist Muwangas probe but later gave in after failing to garner support from the executive. Muwangas well written audit report formed the basis on which the Parliamentary Committee on Commissions, State Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) are probing BoU senior staff as the MPs seek answers to the queries raised in the report. The report was published on August 27, 2018 and handed over to the Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga. Stories Continues after ad Mr. Muwangas report on closure of banks and COSASEs inquiry have been commended by the members of the public who have been watching the proceedings live on television. The inquiry has exposed BoU as an institution that doesnt follow its own procedures. It exposed BoU staff as disorgainsed, uncoordinated, negligent, careless and not suitable to hold those jobs, despite having the qualifications. For instance, the inquiry exposed director legal department, Margaret Kasule, as wanting as she could not appropriately respond to questions relating to closure and sale of banks. The inquiry further has exposed BoU staff as exhibiting corruption tendencies as well as allowing conflict of interest in the transaction. For instance the inquiry established that BoU sold Global Trust Bank Uganda (GTBU) and CBL to Dfcu Bank well knowing that BoU Staff retirement benefit scheme owns 0.59 shares in Dfcu Bank and as such stood to benefit from the two transactions. The MPs in the probe have established that that was foul play, which was accepted by BoU Governor Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile. Further, the probe has exposed BoU in the conflict of interest scenario. For instance, Dr. William Kalema was both on the boards of BoU and DFCU Bank when the latter bought GTBU. That is the reason why MPs on COSASE dismissed him from appearing alongside BoU staff in the inquiry. BoU has conceded defeat on this, saying it will never happen again, but the damage is already done. BoU has been further exposed in that it did business with law firms whose directors represent the banks the central banks is supposed to regulate. For instance some of the MMAKS Advocates counsels are directors in some commercial banks. Sebalu & Lule Advocates have had business with BoU, the latter well knowing they did the same with CBL. That raises a question whether BoU can effectively do its regulatory work in such a scenario. The same layers at one time worked for CBL. The inquiry has still exposed BoU as an institution a careless officials. For instance the Auditor General hired KPMG to produce a financial status report of CBL under receivership but responsible BoU officials did not sign on the report, leaving it hanging. The BoU staff were exposed as careless as they claimed to have spent Shs478.8 billion on CBL in liquidity support yet they cannot account for the money. Interestingly to show their carelessness they sold CBL at Shs200 billion, paid in installments. That is worsened that the bank doesnt have all documents related to the transaction as they sold banks. Mutebile recently accepted the faults committed by BoU as it closed banks. I would like to thank you in particular, for your candid approach to tackling issues that you believe needed to have been addressed, or at least taken into consideration by the staff of the Bank of Uganda. I also would like to express my appreciation to the Auditor General for his report which raised issues that will culminate in an improvement in the operations of Bank of Uganda, he told MPs on COSASE. The Bank of Uganda acknowledges the relevance of this exercise and we are confident that it will enhance transparency and accountability, which are key values that the Bank upholds. This interaction has highlighted the shortfalls within our processes, policies and practices, he said, adding that the MPs probe had been a learning process not only for the Management but also for the staff. I am confident that resulting from this process, we will review ourselves, the Banks processes and policies in order to strengthen our capacity to perform the functions of the Central Bank better, he said. He said it would be incumbent upon BoU to put in place measures that translate into a stronger institution and visibly boost the confidence of the public in the central Bank. We want to see a stronger financial sector and economy built on the confidence that the public has in us, he said. NEW YORK Former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto took a $100 million bribe from international drug traffickers, according to a witness at the trial of Joaquin Guzman Loera, the infamous crime lord known as El Chapo. The stunning testimony was delivered Tuesday in a New York courtroom by Alex Cifuentes Villa, a Colombian drug lord who worked closely with Guzman from 2007 to 2013, when they were hiding from the authorities at one of the kingpins remote ranches in the Sierra Madre mountains. Mr. Guzman paid a bribe of $100 million to President Pena Nieto? Jeffrey Lichtman, one of Guzmans lawyers, asked Cifuentes during cross-examination. Yes, responded Cifuentes. The bribe was delivered to Pena Nieto through an intermediary, according to Cifuentes. While other witnesses at Guzmans trial in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn have testified about payoffs from traffickers to the Mexican police and public officials, the revelations about Pena Nieto were the most egregious allegations yet. If true, they suggest that corruption by drug cartels had reached into the highest level of Mexicos political establishment. From the start of the trial in November, there were lurid hints that top Mexican leaders might have been compromised by dirty money. In his opening statement, Lichtman claimed his client had been framed for years by a conspiracy hatched by his partner, Ismael Zambada Garcia, in league with crooked American drug agents and a completely corrupt Mexican government, including two of its presidents. At the time, Pena Nieto released a statement calling Lichtmans claims false. The judge in the case, Brian M. Cogan, later cautioned Lichtman against making promises to the jury that the evidence in the case would not support. Then, as the first week of the trial came to an end, Guzmans lawyers informed Cogan at a sidebar conference that a coming witness, Jesus Zambada Garcia, Ismael Zambadas brother, would testify, if asked, that two Mexican presidents had taken bribes from the Sinaloa drug cartel. But Cogan forbade the testimony, citing the embarrassment it would cause to unnamed individuals and entities who were not directly involved in the case. Until Monday, the most prominent Mexican official accused of taking bribes was Genaro Garcia Luna, the countrys former public security director. When Jesus Zambada testified in November, he told jurors that he had met twice with Garcia Luna in a restaurant and both times gave him a briefcase stuffed with at least $3 million in cash. This article originally appeared in The New York Times WASHINGTON Private donors put up $107 million to usher Donald Trump into office in style two years ago, and it is now clear just how enthusiastically his inaugural committee went to town with it. There was $10,000 for makeup for 20 aides at an evening inaugural event. There was another $30,000 in per diem payments to dozens of contract staff members, in addition to their fully covered hotel rooms, room service orders, plane tickets and taxi rides, including some to drop off laundry. The bill from the Trump International Hotel was more than $1.5 million. And there was a documentary, overseen by a close friend of Melania Trumps, that was ultimately abandoned. The details of the expenditures, gleaned from interviews and from documents reviewed by The New York Times and not previously made public, show that the committee spent heavily on nearly every aspect of the events surrounding the inauguration. In 72 days, it laid out about $100 million, roughly twice as much or more than was raised by Barack Obama or George W. Bush for their first and second presidential inaugurations. The expansive spending reflected Trumps desire to make a grand entrance, with roughly 20 events around Washington, people familiar with the events said. It also had the hallmarks of previous Trump efforts, such as the campaign, with some Trump-family friends circumventing existing chains of command. Disclosure of the spending details comes at a time when the inaugural committee is facing legal scrutiny over the donations that funded it. Inaugural committees are required to document every donation with the Federal Election Commission, and the Trump teams reports are now under investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Investigators are also looking into whether any foreign donations, which are illegal in the United States, were passed through Americans, and whether any donations went unrecorded, people familiar with the investigations said. People involved with the committee have said that they vetted all donors, but that they could only do so much to prove someones money was their own. False statements to the Federal Election Commission can be a crime. The investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan was prompted at least partly by a recording that Trumps former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, made of a conversation he had with a central figure in the inaugural planning, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, shortly after Melania Trump ended Winston Wolkoffs role as an unpaid adviser to the first lady. Winston Wolkoff was dismissed after initial reports about the amount of money taken in by the entity she formed to help produce the inaugural. There is no indication of any investigation into the inaugural committees spending. For the most part, inaugural committees are free to spend the money they raise from private donations as they wish. The bulk of the money for the inaugural committee came from big corporations, like AT&T, Bank of America and Pfizer, and wealthy Republicans donors like Sheldon Adelson and Andrew Beal. Given the short time frame between Election Day and Inauguration Day, inaugural committees cannot always seek out the lowest bidder. In the case of Donald Trumps inaugural, some staff members and major vendors were veterans of previous inaugurations. Much of the spending, while outsize, was mundane. Documents reviewed by The Times accounted for the entire $107 million raised for the inaugural, with most of the money going to payroll expenses and roughly 40 entities, the bulk of which were hotel chains and other vendors. Roughly $5 million went to charity, which organizers have noted is the most ever for an inaugural committee. But millions were written off in lost revenue. That included $6.4 million for blocks of hotel rooms booked for guests who ended up arranging their own accommodations. The Republican National Committee booked the excess hotel rooms before the inaugural staff was even formed, but the committee had to pony up when only half as many rooms were used as the party committee had expected. Another $1.2 million in revenue that the committee expected to recoup for a media center never materialized. Other arrangements by the inaugural committee also proved unusual. Winston Wolkoff, then a close friend of Melania Trumps, was initially signed to a $1.6 million contract. Along with a friend, Jonathan Reynaga, she formed WIS Media Partners, a firm that oversaw broadcast rights for the inaugural events and worked on the documentary project featuring interviews with top inaugural committee officials. The idea was to sell the rights to a major distributor. The project was later abandoned, although the interview footage still exists, as do copies, according to three people familiar with the effort. WIS Media Partners became the inaugural committees top vendor, acting as a kind of general contractor and overseeing a series of events. It received nearly $26 million, much of which was paid out to other vendors. Steve Kerrigan, who was chief of staff for Obamas first inaugural committee, said that the firms $1.6 million supervisory fee was the equivalent of roughly one-fourth of what we paid our entire 450-person staff in 2009. Even if Winston Wolkoff shared the fee among more than a dozen other top managers, as she and others say she did, the charge itself, Kerrigan said, was outrageous. Greg Jenkins, executive director of President George W. Bushs second inaugural, said, I have never heard anybody getting that kind of fee associated with any inaugural, ever. Winston Wolkoff often fought with other top aides, according to people with direct knowledge of events. She was known to threaten to have senior officials fired, at times brandishing a cellphone and saying she would text Melania Trump or Ivanka Trump, conveying a sense of authority people later came to realize she did not have, three people with direct knowledge of the events said. A lawyer for Winston Wolkoff declined to comment. A spokesman for WIS Media Partners said all of the firms expenses were vetted, authorized and signed off on by the committees top officials, including Thomas J. Barrack Jr., the committees chairman; Rick Gates, the deputy chairman; and Sara Armstrong, the chief executive. He said that the firms fees were significantly below the customary charges for equivalent productions, and that officials provided the inaugural committee with all its audited records and receipts. He said the company could not reveal more because it is legally barred by the inaugural committee from discussing its work on the inaugural events. In a statement, Barrack said he continues to be proud of the incredible work of all those that were part of the committee and that it complied with all laws and regulations, and its finances were fully audited internally and independently. The donors were fully vetted and disclosed to the Federal Election Commission as required. Trumps inaugural committee has come under scrutiny in the past for its high administrative and logistical costs. The new details help flesh out how the inaugural spent the money. Among the payments was more than $2 million spent on the firm of Trump campaign official Brad Parscale for online advertisements to drum up inaugural crowds. The Trump International Hotel was paid more than $1.5 million for services including the use of a ballroom, an annex and a space called the town house, according to records and people familiar with the payments. While two other hotels, the Willard and the Fairmont, collected as much or more, Trumps hotel was also favored by vendors who billed their expenses directly to the committee. Overall, the Trump teams spending appears astronomical, said Emmett S. Beliveau, who was chief executive officer of Obamas first inaugural committee. Jenkins, who handled the Bush inaugural, said the scale of the Trump teams spending blows me away. Winston Wolkoff and Reynaga brought in nearly three dozen staff members, some of whom flew in from Los Angeles or other cities and remained on the East Coast for weeks. A New York-based party planner named David Monn, who refused to sign a contract, also came on board, according to two people familiar with the arrangement. Monn charged the committee a total of $3.7 million, from which he paid subcontractors. Among other tasks, Winston Wolkoff and colleagues managed two big events: the 500-person black-tie dinner hosted by Barrack at the neoclassical Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium and a 1,500-person candlelight dinner at Union Station. They decided the decorations were not elegant enough and needed to be enhanced. Monn spent $924,000 on 7-foot-high wreaths, moss-covered obelisks, flowers and other decorations to dress up Union Station. Makeup was provided for 20 staff members at a cost of $500 per person. For the dinner at the Mellon auditorium, table menus, table numbers and place cards, including an on-site calligrapher to correct last-minute mistakes, amounted to $91 per guest. Monn did not respond to repeated requests for comment Monday. The handling of expenses for contractors like WIS Media Partners was also unusual. Kerrigan, who also served as chief executive of Obamas second inaugural committee, said officials negotiated fixed-price contracts that limited how much vendors could charge for expenses. If a vendors staff member ran up a big room service bill, that was on them, said David Cusack, who was executive director of the second committee. They had a per diem, and they were supposed to eat on that. For Bushs second inaugural, too, vendors were required to build their expenses into their contracts, Jenkins said. He said his committee did not even hire vendors from outside the Washington area because there was no need to. The Trump inaugural committee covered not only a fixed per diem for the people brought in by WIS Media, but picked up expenses including room service, cab rides for assistants who dropped off laundry and an order of McDonalds. All told, those expenses came to $227,511. In less than two months, Reynaga alone billed $31,000 for his hotel rooms, including nearly $18,000 for rooms at the Trump International Hotel. He also billed thousands of dollars for meals, room service and travel. He charged $811 for one Amtrak train ticket from New York to Washington to sit with Barrack in first class. That was followed by a $100 Uber ride the next day to get to Toms plane. The spokesman for WIS said staff members stayed at the Trump International Hotel at the explicit direction of inaugural committee officials. He also said expenses of various staff members might have been recorded in the names of the firms senior officials, including Reynaga. A former official of the inaugural committee denied that the WIS employees were required to stay at the Trump hotel. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. House Republican leaders removed Rep. Steve King of Iowa from the Judiciary and Agriculture committees Monday night as party officials scrambled to appear tough on racism and contain damage from comments King made to the New York Times questionintg why white supremacy is considered offensive. The punishment came on a day when Kings own party leadership moved against him, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggesting King find another line of work and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah saying he should quit. In an attempt to be proactive, the House Republicans stripped him of his committee seats in the face of multiple Democratic resolutions to censure King that are being introduced this week. WASHINGTON William Barr, President Trumps nominee for attorney general, promised Monday to permit special counsel Robert Mueller to complete his investigation into Russias meddling in the 2016 campaign and said he would be as transparent as possible in releasing the findings. On Tuesday, Democrats are expected to grill Barr, the longtime Republican lawyer and former U.S. attorney general, about his broad views on executive powers, and to explain his previous criticism of Muellers investigation and staffing decisions. But in prepared testimony before his confirmation hearing Tuesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barr sought to deflect those concerns. I believe it is vitally important that the special counsel be allowed to complete his investigation, Barr said. I believe it is in the best interest of everyone the president, Congress and, most importantly, the American people that this matter be resolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work. Barr added that he also believed it was very important that the public and Congress be informed of the results of the investigation. For that reason, he added, my goal will be to provide as much transparency as I can consistent with the law. The White House has suggested it might seek to classify, or rewrite, parts of the report before it is released to Congress or the public. Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion with Russia, but media reports over the weekend raised new questions about his conduct, including allegedly destroying translators notes of his private conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Under Justice Department guidelines, the attorney general must report to Congress when the special counsel investigation is completed. Part of the report would include any instances in which the attorney general disagreed with a course of action being sought by Mueller. Barr pledged to give priority to protecting the integrity of elections by ensuring the full might of our resources are brought to bear against foreign powers who unlawfully interfere in the electoral process. He also sought to explain a memo he wrote to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last year in which he argued the special counsels investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey was fatally misconceived. My memo was narrow in scope, Barr said, and focused on a specific obstruction-of-justice theory under a single statute that I thought, based on media reports, the special counsel might be considering. He noted the memo did not address other theories and did not assert that the president could never obstruct justice. Barr previously served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush. Del Quentin Wilber is a Los Angeles Times writer. NEW YORK A federal judge blocked the Trump administration Tuesday from asking about citizenship status on the 2020 census, the first major ruling in cases contending that officials ramrodded the question through for Republican political purposes to intentionally undercount immigrants. In a 277-page decision, Judge Jesse Furman ruled that while such a question would be constitutional, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had added it arbitrarily and not followed proper administrative procedures. He failed to consider several important aspects of the problem; alternately ignored, cherry-picked, or badly misconstrued the evidence in the record before him; acted irrationally both in light of that evidence and his own stated decisional criteria; and failed to justify significant departures from past policies and practices, Furman wrote. Ross explanations for his decision were unsupported by, or even counter to, the evidence before the agency, the judge said. Among other things, the judge said, Ross didnt follow a law requiring that he give Congress three years notice of any plan to add a question about citizenship to the census. The ruling came in cases in which 18 states, the District of Columbia, and 15 big cities or counties, and immigrants rights groups argued that the Commerce Department, which designs the census, had failed to properly analyze the effect the question would have on households where immigrants live. California, which stands to lose congressional representation and billions in federal funds if a citizenship question lowered census participation, is challenging the administrations action in a separate suit along with local governments that include Oakland, San Jose, Fremont and Los Angeles. After a week of testimony that ended Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco has scheduled closing arguments Feb. 15. The U.S. Supreme Court is also poised to address the issue Feb. 19, meaning the legal issue is far from decided. The administration faces a summer deadline for finalizing questions so questionnaires can be printed. Chronicle staff reporter Bob Egelko contributed to this report. Larry Neumeister is an Associated Press writer. NEW YORK Its been 10 years, but there isnt anything Tripp Harris doesnt remember about the cold January day he cheated death on US Airways flight 1549. The jolt when the plane collided with a flock of geese and the engines stopped moments after takeoff from New York Citys LaGuardia Airport. The smoke filling the cabin. The electric, burning smell. The panic from the people around him. The calm, steady tone of Capt. Chesley Sully Sullenberger telling everyone to brace for impact as he steered the Airbus A320-214 into the frigid waters of the Hudson River on Jan. 15, 2009. And, of course, he knows the happy ending of the Miracle on the Hudson: All 155 people aboard survived. Harris has also never forgotten what that day taught him about what really mattered: his wife and then-2-year-old son. Everything that I could think about was the things I was going to miss, said Harris, 47, of Charlotte, N.C., where the flight was headed. That fundamentally shifted my priorities. Its colored his life ever since. He decided to spend more time with his family and have adventures and experiences he might otherwise have put off. That day made me a better father, a better husband, Harris said. Its a common refrain among survivors, of how that day led to big life changes and small everyday choices, and to feeling joy more readily. But some also speak of the anxiety that can still rise every time theyre on a flight. Flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia a decade ago Tuesday, with Sullenbergers co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles at the controls, three flight attendants and 150 passengers aboard. It was cold, only about 20 degrees Fahrenheit, but the skies were clear. Less than a minute later, plane and birds collided at 3,000 feet. Both engines stopped. Sullenberger took the controls and told air traffic controllers he couldnt make it back to LaGuardia. His choices were a small airport for private aircraft in New Jersey possibly too far or the river. Sullenberger picked the water. The plane splashed down and somehow stayed in one piece. Passengers got out on the wings and inflatable rafts as commuter ferries raced to the rescue. The submerged and damaged plane was recovered and is now held at the Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte, where survivors are planning to gather Tuesday to mark the 10-year anniversary, including a toast at the exact time of the crash. Getting over the trauma of the experience took some time for passenger Steve OBrien, 54, of Charlotte. That first year was tough. Youre scattered. You cant focus. Youre impatient, he said. Theres this thin place between life and death ... and we were at a really thin place and then you get yanked back. Deepti Hajela is an Associated Press writer. Despite a strong backlash from a controversial, recently leaked stand-up set, comedian and actor Louis C.K. is gearing up to perform on two nights this week at the San Jose Improv. The Improv announced the sets on Monday afternoon in a press release. On the Improv's webpage for the event is a warning: "Louis CK is trying new material. XXX Adults only." Tickets are being sold for between $35 and $85 per person. C.K. stepped away from the public eye in fall 2017, after five women came forward to accuse the comedian of exposing himself to them or otherwise sexually harassing them. C.K. later confirmed that "these stories are true," and added, "I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want. I will now step back and take a long time to listen." RELATED: Louis C.K. performed for the first time since admitting sexual misconduct It was, however, less than a year later that C.K. returned to the stage, bringing with him commentary on a host of contentious topics. The leaked audio of one particular set, reportedly recorded at Governor's Comedy Club in Long Island, New York, contained jokes about the teenagers who survived the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, Asian men, transgender and non-binary people, and about not being able to use the word "retarded." The set was widely panned. Among many criticisms, director Judd Apatow tweeted, "This hacky, unfunny, shallow routine is just a symptom of how people are afraid to feel empathy." Slate called it "sickening," and The Daily Beast wrote that it was "just plain disgusting," accusing C.K. of "pandering to the alt-right." Last week the comedian attempted to joke about the controversy during a show in upstate New York, saying "If you ever want people to forget that you (masturbated) in front of some women, you make a joke about kids getting shot." RELATED: Louis C.K. mocks Parkland survivors and transgender people in stand-up set Nothing about C.K.'s most recent headline-grabbing set is referenced in the Improv's ticketing page for the event. Rather, the venue hails him as a "six-time Emmy Award winner" and "the first comedian to sell out Madison Square Garden three times for the same tour." Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira. San Francisco police released a sketch Tuesday of a man suspected of brutally beating an 88-year-old woman and leaving her unconscious last Monday in a Visitacion Valley park. A witness found Yik Oi Huang covered in blood around 6:50 a.m. at a playground across from her home on the 1000 block of Visitacion Avenue. Huang suffered several fractured ribs, shattered facial bones and a fractured spine, her granddaughter, Sasanna Yee, told the Chronicle last week. This article, Giant spinning ice disc in river looks like the moon fell to Earth, originally appeared on CNET.com. The City of Westbrook, Maine, is inviting fans of strange natural phenomena to come check out a massive ice disc rotating in the Presumpscot River -- and perhaps you could patronize some local restaurants while you're at it. "It looks like the moon has landed in Westbrook," the city wrote on its Facebook page when it shared a gorgeous drone video of the ice circle on Tuesday. "The mysterious Ice Disk is still spinning today in Westbrook. Come down to the River Walk, take a selfie, and grab some lunch at one of our awesome nearby restaurants," the city later said on Facebook. Though spinning ice discs are unusual, they're also well-documented. They occur in cold conditions in slow waters. An 1895 issue of Scientific American magazine referenced a "revolving ice cake" on the Mianus River in New York, calling it a "curious formation." The Portland Press Herald reports the disc is roughly 300 feet (91 meters) in diameter. Observers likened it to a frozen crop circle. Bowdoin College physics professor Mark Battle told the Press Herald the circle's rotation is probably powered by the river current. The attention-grabbing ice circle will eventually melt away, but it's one of the most exciting things to happen along Westbrook's riverfront since a huge snake ate a beaver in 2016. CNET en Espanol: Get all your tech news and reviews in Spanish. Special Reports: CNET's in-depth features in one place. WASHINGTON The Internal Revenue Service is recalling about 46,000 of its employees furloughed by the government shutdown nearly 60 percent of its workforce to handle tax returns and pay out refunds. The employees wont be paid. With the official start of the tax filing season coming Jan. 28, the Trump administration has promised that taxpayers owed refunds will be paid on time, despite the disruption in government services caused by the partial shutdown now in its fourth week. There had been growing concern that the shutdown would delay refunds going out because the money wouldnt be available for them from Congress. Last week, the administration said customary shutdown policies will be reversed to make the money available and refund payments on time possible. An IRS document detailing its new shutdown plan shows that 46,052 agency employees will be called back to work, of the total workforce of 80,265. It says the plan will take effect as soon as the Treasury Department issues an official notice. About three-quarters of taxpayers receive annual refunds, giving them an incentive to file their returns early. Many lower-income people count on refunds as their biggest cash infusion of the year. The issue is politically sensitive. The tax law enacted by Republicans in Congress in late 2017, which is President Trumps signature legislative achievement, gave generous tax cuts to corporations and the wealthiest Americans and more modest reductions to middle- and low-income households. The law is expected to bring lower taxes for 2018 for the great majority of Americans, and the refunds are a big tangible part of that. Trump told supporters on a conference call Tuesday that his administration has been working to minimize the painful impacts of the shutdown. People are actually amazed that, with this many people, that government is really working so well. So were very proud of that, he said. Angered over employees having to work without pay, the union representing IRS staff sued in federal court last week to challenge any such agency action on constitutional grounds. The Constitution doesnt allow the government to obligate funds that havent been provided by Congress, and the executive branch cant continue to force more and more employees to show up in exchange only for an IOU, the National Treasury Employees Union said in its lawsuit. On Tuesday, a federal judge rejected the unions challenge, declining to force the government to pay the recalled employees. Some experts question whether the administration has the legal authority to reverse earlier policies to allow the government to issue refunds during a shutdown. Marcy Gordon is an Associated Press writer. An 18-year-old man is missing and feared dead after falling through a blowhole at a state beach south of Carmel-by-the-Sea, the Monterey County Sheriff's Office said. The teenager, identified by KION as Braxton Cooper Stuntz of Carmel, was hiking with friends Saturday along a cliff at Garrapata State Beach when he spotted a blowhole in the rocks. Curious, Stuntz approached the hole for a closer look, but slipped and fell through the opening, landing about 15 feet below on a sandy beach hemmed in by large rocks. He apparently was not hurt in the fall as he flashed a thumbs-up sign to his two companions peering through the hole, Coast Guard spokeswoman Emily Rowan told KSBW. But his friends soon lost sight of Stuntz as 14-foot waves crashed around him. The waves were coming in at 9-second intervals, the sheriff's office said. Stuntz's companions ran for help and flagged beachgoers Ali Bowen and her friend. "He said, 'Do you have cell phone service? Our friend fell into a hole between two rocks and we can't get him out,'" Bowen told KION. She called 911. MORE: Woman swept out to sea at Queen's Bath on Kauai The Monterey County Sheriff's Office, CalFire and the Coast Guard responded. Helicopters with the Coast Guard circled the area until sundown Sunday, but searchers found no sign of Stuntz. Divers were reportedly unable to enter the water Sunday morning because the surf was too rough. While Stuntz is considered missing, the sheriff's office is now treating the case as a recovery operation. Want a beer without all that annoying bartender chit chat? Head on over to Valencia Street. Now open in the former Osha Thai space is the Brew Coop, a pour-it-yourself bar. Its the first such dedicated bar of its kind in San Francisco and comes from Gore Song, who modeled the bar after the self-pour beer systems Song experienced while visiting Prague in college. Advanced manufacturing is exploding across the Bay Area, with about 650 companies using 3-D printers and computer-controlled machines to produce everything from robots to eyeglasses to drones to backpacks. But for most residents the fast-growing sector and the skills needed to join its workforce remain a mystery. Now San Francisco Mayor London Breed is trying to change that. The city Office of Economic and Workforce Development has allocated $300,000 to SFMade, a trade group representing San Francisco makers. The money will be used to train disadvantaged residents for jobs in advanced manufacturing, a fast-growing sector that pays above minimum wage but has struggled to attract enough qualified workers. The training program will be run out of a space at 150 Hooper St., where the nonprofit Humanmade is preparing to open a training, manufacturing and prototyping studio and education center. While $300,000 doesnt sound like a lot of money in a city with an $11 billion budget, its enough in the first year to allow 45 San Francisco residents to be trained for a new generation of jobs that include 3-D printer operators and rapid prototyping engineers or responsibility for operating and maintaining computer numerical control machines known as CNC mills that cut, carve and mill wood, plastic, foam and aluminum. If the program is successful, it probably will receive more money next year, which would fund more trainees. Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle The program will consist of three 24-week cohorts consisting of four weeks of employment preparation, eight weeks of skills-based training and 12 weeks of paid, on-the-job training hosted by local manufacturers. Finally, training center staff will work with local manufacturers to place the graduates in jobs. This has been a kernel of an idea for a while, and Im thrilled the city is ready to come forward with it, said SFMade CEO Kate Sofis, who added that the program is something former Mayor Ed Lee had talked about frequently before he died in late 2017. She said the project would provide pathways to equity through manufacturing. If the pilot is successful, it will become the citys fifth workforce training program. The city currently funds training programs in four sectors: construction, technology, health care and hospitality. These programs served nearly 1,300 disadvantaged job seekers in fiscal year 2017-18, including 494 in hospitality, 356 in health care, 253 in tech and 183 in construction. About two-thirds of the trainees found full employment after graduating from the programs, according to Joaquin Torres, who heads the Office of Economic and Workforce Development. These programs are directly in alignment with the opportunities Mayor Breed seeks to create for residents in growing industries, particularly in industries that can provide advancement and livable wages, Torres said. The program would be a godsend for manufacturers like Topology, a company that designs and manufactures custom-fit eyewear, said CEO Rob Varady. While new technologies have allowed manufacturing to rebound in San Francisco the sector has grown by at least 10 percent each year since 2010 this new generation of makers wont be able to stay here unless there are trained workers ready to fill the jobs. We cant find enough people with experience in these new methods, so the training that (the program) will provide is integral in equipping the area with the labor force ready to seize this new opportunity, he said. The program will focus on workers from economically depressed backgrounds, particularly from the southeast neighborhoods of San Francisco. Varady said he has already had success hiring workers through a privately funded program called CEO Works, which helped incarcerated men and women to find jobs when they are released from prison. It was through CEO Works that Varady found line operator Jerry Harmon. Five months into the job, Harmon said he loves spending his days using laser cutters and computer-controlled milling machines to carve custom eyeglasses out of plastic and stainless steel. Its not easy work, but its a good job that pays above minimum wage. And for Harmon who is 39 and was looking for a career after having been in prison its not just a second chance but an opportunity to build a meaningful life in an exciting sector. It is high pressure Ill tell you that, said Harmon, who lives in Oakland. I enjoy it because it keeps me busy. Its a good work environment. At first its intimidating looking at the machines, but if you just pay attention to detail, its nothing you cant learn. Just dont go off and start pushing some buttons that you dont know nothing about. Dan Kan, co-founder of Cruise Automation, an autonomous driving technology firm, said the company is looking forward to hiring graduates of the advanced manufacturing training program. Creating an opportunity for people to develop their skills to participate in the modern economy will have an enormous impact for the city, he said. Entry-level advanced manufacturing jobs generally start at about $20 an hour, 25 percent higher than San Franciscos $15 an hour minimum wage. Meanwhile, final touches are being put on the Humanmade workshop at 150 Hooper, where the first group of trainees will report to duty in the early spring. The space has a wood shop and a metal shop-machine shop with both CNC and manual mills, routers and lathes. It also has an electronics lab and textiles area, as well as digital production equipment such as 3-D printers and professional-grade laser cutters, according to Humanmade CEO Ryan Spurlock. We have a shop that is fully built out we are only waiting on the permit so we can open up for business, he said. Harmon said that, given the training, advanced manufacturing could create opportunities for a lot more folks like him. Its not just a program, its a career, a lifelong skill, its everything, he said. I think its well on its way to replacing the old factory jobs that are gone. J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen SACRAMENTO For California politicians, Pacific Gas and Electric Co.s announcement that it plans to declare bankruptcy was cause for concern, but not panic. Its time to take a few steps back, said state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, a longtime critic of the utility. We need to look at the pluses and minuses of bankruptcy and also look at other options. Lawmakers said the 15-day notice of an impending bankruptcy filing that PG&E gave to its employees Monday provides time for the Legislature to look at whether it should try to help the company and, if so, how. There was little evidence that lawmakers were eager to commit to bailing out the utility. I dont anticipate PG&E will be coming to us for relief, said Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco. They need to come to us with a plan. A PG&E filing for protection from creditors would allow time for the company to submit a plan to a bankruptcy court judge to deal with potentially billions of dollars of liabilities arising from wildfires that its electrical lines allegedly sparked. Although it has not been determined whether PG&E lines caused the Camp Fire that killed 86 people and destroyed the Butte County town of Paradise in November, the company already is facing potentially ruinous lawsuits over the blaze. The Legislature has already helped PG&E handle the fiscal strain of previous wildfires through a measure it passed last year, SB901, which created a process that regulators and the utility must follow before PG&E can pass along costs to customers. PG&E must first use a financial stress test to see how much of the burden it can pay on its own; then the utility can finance the rest through bonds its customers pay off over time. But the law allows PG&E to issue such bonds only for blazes that ignited in 2017. The Legislature would have to take new action if it wanted to protect the company from Camp Fire costs. Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, who chairs the Utilities and Energy Committee, had said he was working on legislation to extend the provisions of SB901 to 2018 fires. However, Holden hasnt filed the bill yet, and he said Monday that he would not do so. Our purpose was to keep PG&E from going into bankruptcy, but thats out the window now, Holden said. Now the courts are getting out in front. In considering any new legislation, lawmakers are likely to have one eye on the companys financial well-being and the other on customers who could be stuck with wildfire costs and litigants hoping to recoup disaster losses. The horrific Camp Fire has had a devastating impact on thousands of lives, and survivors are earnestly putting their lives back together, said state Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber (Tehama County), whose district includes Paradise. They are my first and only concern. PG&E officials gave assurances that any bankruptcy would not affect the day-to-day power services it provides. But something has to be done, they argued. Steve Malnight, PG&Es senior vice president of energy supply and policy, said the utility has been in frequent contact with regulators, Gov. Gavin Newsoms office and other stakeholders about the companys deteriorating financial condition. He did not say what specific measures the company may push for in Sacramento this year. We are going to continue to keep everyone informed of where we are and the work were doing, Malnight said. Its a little early to say exactly what will result. Newsom, in office for only a week, is likely to have to take the lead on any state action. Former Gov. Jerry Brown was often content to sit back and let the Legislature struggle before coming up with his own plan and suggestions. But Newsom, even in his days as mayor of San Francisco, had a more activist bent. At a news conference Monday evening, Newsom said he had put his chief of staff, Ann OLeary, in charge of a team coming up with options. This is a top priority for this administration, he said. This is not being pushed back in the file. The governor also sought to dispel any fears by customers that a bankruptcy filing would mean problems for PG&E service. This is not 2001. There is no energy crisis, Newsom said, referring to PG&E Co.s bankruptcy filing nearly 18 years ago brought on by problems with Californias energy deregulation, a debacle that led to rolling blackouts. Were not in a position where were worried about the lights turning off. One problem for PG&E: It will be dealing with a Legislature that has grown wary of taking utility leaders promises at face value. During the debate over SB901, PG&E told the Legislature that the only alternatives were bankruptcy or a state bailout, said Hill, the San Mateo state senator. But at the same time, it turned out, the company was developing another strategy that involved raising billions by potentially selling off its gas unit and the companys San Francisco headquarters. PG&Es credibility also took a hit when state regulators accused it of falsifying gas-inspection records in the years after a company gas line exploded in San Bruno in 2010, killing eight people and decimating the Crestmoor neighborhood. Frankly, I dont know if you can trust what they say or what they do, Hill said. John Wildermuth and J.D. Morris are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com, jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfwildermuth @thejdmorris Upcoming political events in the Bay Area. FRIDAY Rep. Jackie Speier: The San Mateo Democrat will discuss politics and her new book, Undaunted. $6. 6:30 p.m., Mannys, 3092 16th St., San Francisco. More information is here. Reproductive rights: Socialist analysis of womens fight for abortion access and reproductive rights. Sponsored by San Francisco Party for Socialism and Liberation. 7 p.m., 2969 Mission St., San Francisco. More information is here. SATURDAY Womens Marches: Third annual San Francisco Womens March and rally begins at 11:30 a.m. at Civic Center. More information is here. Marches will also be held in several other Bay Area cities; times and locations are here. Shutdown town hall: Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, holds a town hall meeting about the partial government shutdown. 2 p.m., Stanley Middle School, 3455 School St., Lafayette. More information is here. Libertarian convention: Libertarian Party of San Francisco holds its annual convention. Agenda includes activist training, speakers and socializing. Free. 1 p.m., ClickUp, 580 Howard St., Suite 101, San Francisco. More information is here. Race and education: A panel discussion on the impact of race on education, sponsored by the African American Community Health Advisory Committee and the African American Library Advisory Committee. Free. 2 p.m., San Mateo Public Library, 55 West Third Ave. More information is here. SUNDAY Impeaching a president: Constitutional scholar Alan Hirsch reviews issues surrounding impeachment, history of impeachment efforts and the ways in which President Trump may be vulnerable. Part of Grace Cathedrals Forum series. 9:30 a.m., Grace Cathedral, 1100 California St., San Francisco. More information is here. MONDAY MLK Day in S.F.: March begins at 11 a.m. at Caltrain station at Fourth and Townsend streets and ends at Yerba Buena Center on Mission Street between Third and Fourth sts., , where the Martin Luther King Jr. Day festival will be held. More information and other MLK Day weekend events can be found here. Bringing the Noise: 22nd annual event Martin Luther King Jr. Day event featuring young poets and multidisciplinary artists who focus on justice issues. Free; advance registration recommended. 7 p.m., Nourse Theater, 275 Hayes St., San Francisco. More information is here. MLK Day in Piedmont: Celebration features Oakland's youth poet laureate, Leila Mottley; Black Sheroes of Young Gifted and Black; Oakland Jazz Workshops; Together We Slam of Piedmont High School; and Oakland Interfaith Youth Choir. Free. Noon, Piedmont Veterans Memorial Building, 401 Highland Ave., Piedmont. More information is here. TUESDAY Roe v. Wade anniversary: Demonstration and celebration marking the 46th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Noon, Los Altos Youth Center building, 1 San Antonio Road, Los Altos. More information is here. WEDNESDAY Indivisible Sausalito: Inaugural 2019 meeting of Indivisible chapter. 7 p.m., Studio 333, 333 Caledonia St., Sausalito. More information is here. THURSDAY Female Shariah judge: Screening of The Judge, a documentary about Kholoud Al-Faqih , the first woman to be appointed to the Middle East's Shariah (Islamic law) courts. Benefit for Middle East Childrens Alliance. $15-$50. 7 p.m., Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St., Berkeley. More information is here. Facial recognition: Panel discussion on the uses and ethical issues surrounding artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology. Sponsored by Mid-Peninsula chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Free. 6:30 p.m., Palo Alto Art Center, 1313 Newell Rd., Palo Alto. More information is here. Indian land accounts: Screening of the documentary 100 Years; One woman's Fight for Justice, about Blackfeet warrior Elouise Cobells 30-year fight against the federal government over its mismanagement of Indian land. Free. 7 p.m., Ellen Driscoll Playhouse, 325 Highland Ave., Piedmont. More information is here. JAN. 25 Between the headlines: A socialist analysis of how to assess media coverage. Sponsored by the San Francisco Party for Socialism and Liberation. 7 p.m., 2969 Mission St., San Francisco. More information is here. JAN. 26 Money and politics: A discussion on fixing our tattered democracy, sponsored by Central Conta Costa County MoveOn. Free. 1 p.m., Our Saviors Lutheran Church, 1035 Carol Lane, Lafayette. More information is here. JAN. 27 Restorative justice: A panel discussion on implementing restorative justice, sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. Free. 2 p.m., Embassy Suites by Hilton, 101 McInnis Parkway, San Rafael. More information is here. Indian land accounts: Screening of the documentary 100 Years; One woman's Fight for Justice, about Blackfeet warrior Elouise Cobells 30-year fight against the federal government over its mismanagement of Indian land. Free. 12:30 p.m., New Parkway Theater, 474 24th St., Oakland. More information is here. Indivisible East Bay: All-member meeting. 1 p.m., Sports Basement, 2727 Milvia St., Berkeley. More information is here. JAN. 28 Feminist resistance in Brazil: A forum discussion with four feminist leaders of the resistance to the radical right in Brazil. Free. 4 p.m., 220 Stephens Hall, UC Berkeley. Registration and more information are here. JAN. 29 We Rise Women: 2020 strategy session featuring Sister District co-founder Lala Wu, Lisa Bennett of Swing Left and Indivisible, Sarah Grewe of Sister District and Airlift.fund founder Danny Altman. 6 p.m. Zephyr Real Estate, 350 Bon Air Center, No. 100, Larkspur. More information is here. Feminism in China: Journalist and author Leta Hong Fincher discusses the rise of feminism in China. Sponsored by the World Affairs Council. $20 for nonmembers, $7 for students. 6:30 p.m., 312 Sutter St., Suite 200, San Francisco. More information is here. JAN. 30 Negotiating with terrorists: Joel Simon, author of We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of Kidnapping, Hostages, and Ransom, discuss the conflicts and consequences of negotiating with terrorists and paying ransom, in a World Affairs Council event. $20 for nonmembers, $7 for students. 6:30 p.m., World Affairs Auditorium, 312 Sutter St., Suite 200, San Francisco. More information is here. Watergate documentary: Screening of the film Watergate and an appearance by director Charles Ferguson. Sponsored by Center for Latin American Studies at UC Berkeley. Free. 7 p.m., Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center, UC Berkeley. More information is here. JAN. 31 Rep. Jared Huffman: North Bay Democratic congressman holds a town hall meeting. 7 p.m., Buck Institute for Research on Aging, 8001 Redwood Blvd., Novato. More information is here. Carbon neutral: Can California go carbon neutral? A conversation with Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board, and Greg Dalton of Climate One. $20 for non-Commonwealth Club members, $7 for students. 6:30 p.m. 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here. FEB. 1 Election postmortem: An assessment of the 2018 midterm elections in California. Hosted by UC Berkeleys Institute of Governmental Studies. Free. 9 a.m.-6 p.m., Sutardja Dai Hall, Banatao Auditorium, UC Berkeley. More information is here. FEB. 4 Jose Antonio Vargas: Journalist and activist discusses immigration reform and being undocumented in America. $6. 6:30 p.m. Mannys, 3092 16th St., San Francisco. More information is here. FEB. 5 Segregation by Design: UC Merced political science Professor Jessica Trounstine discusses her book Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities. $5. 7 p.m., OMalley Hall, St. Kevins Catholic Church, 704 Cortland Ave., San Francisco. More information is here. FEB. 6 Robert Reich: Writer, public policy professor and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich discusses his new book, The Common Good, in a benefit for KPFA-FM. $12 advance tickets. First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way, Berkeley. More information is here. Chris Christie: Former GOP governor of New Jersey discusses his new book, Let Me Finish, and his relationship with President Trump. $30 for non-Commonwealth Club members, $10 for students. 6:30 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here. Stacey Abrams campaign: Ashley Robinson, political director of Stacey Abrams campaign for Georgia governor, and Genny Castillo, director of the campaigns Latinx constituency efforts, discuss the lessons they learned and how to engage people of color in the political process. Sponsored by Democracy Labs. Free. 6:30 p.m. at Mannys, 3092 16th St., San Francisco. More information is here. FEB. 12 Criminal justice reform: Jessica Jackson, national director and co-founder of #Cut50, discusses the newly enacted federal criminal justice reform legislation. Sponsored by the American Constitution Society, Bay Area chapter. Free. 6 p.m., Mannys, 3092 16th St., San Francisco. More information is here. FEB. 13 New citizen voting: Democracy Action volunteers will register new citizens to vote following swearing-in ceremonies. Two sessions, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. More information is here. Feb. 25 New Cold War: A discussion of the new conflicts between the United States and Russia, with Russia scholar Stephen Cohen and Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of the Nation magazine. Benefit for KPFA-FM. $12. First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way, Berkeley. More information is here. To list an event, email Politics Editor Trapper Byrne at tbyrne@sfchronicle.com Facing massive financial liabilities following Californias historic wildfires, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has announced its intention to file for bankruptcy protection by the end of this month. In its filing, the company said its potential wildfire liabilities could exceed $30 billion, not including punitive damages or fines. As of Friday, it claimed to have $1.5 billion in cash and cash equivalents on hand. PG&E and Gov. Gavin Newsom have pledged cooperation to ensure customers dont face service disruptions. But this is still grim news. Electricity customers were major victims of PG&Es last bankruptcy filing in 2001. That three-year rehabilitation process cost each customer $1,300 to $1,700 in above-market prices. Unless Sacramento insists on a different kind of bankruptcy process, theres little to believe things will be different this time. Wildfire victims, PG&Es retirees and renewable energy producers should be alarmed, too. The filing triggers a stay on lawsuits filed against the company, including those of wildfire victims. The many Camp Fire victims who have already filed suits against PG&E could potentially see their awards reduced as a result of the bankruptcy process. Bankruptcy can also allow companies to modify their labor agreements meaning that PG&Es employees could see sudden and dramatic pension alterations. Finally, a bankruptcy judge could alter agreements PG&E has made with suppliers of renewable energy sources. The potential impact could hit not just the suppliers, but the states plan to combat climate change. These are some of the many reasons Californias leaders and policymakers sought to avoid a PG&E bankruptcy. But now that its here, their focus must be on the future. One possible solution? Maybe its time to break up PG&E. Its a radical-sounding idea thats starting to look more sensible by the day. Smaller utilities have their dangers, but theres no policy benefit to a massive utility thats unable to finance its services and maintain its safety responsibilities. State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, has called for legislation to break up the states investor-owned utilities. His proposal should be given careful attention in Sacramento. This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters. Erin Schaff / New York Times Having already run the Justice Department under President George H.W. Bush, attorney general nominee William Barr appears more fit for the office than the fringe figures and lightweights President Trump increasingly favors. But Barrs expansive views of presidential power are ill-suited to the moment given the need to check Trumps relentless challenges to laws and institutions, not least the one the nominee would lead. The Senate Judiciary Committee, which is to consider Barrs nomination Tuesday, will no doubt examine his extensive critique of Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation. Barr excoriated the probe in an unsolicited 19-page memo to Justice officials in June, defending in particular Trumps firing of FBI Director James Comey. It was Comeys ouster that led Trumps first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to clear the way for Muellers appointment, a decision for which the president berated and ultimately banished him. Sessions provisional replacement, Matthew Whitaker, shares Barrs hostility to the special counsel. WASHINGTON There are few things that President Vladimir Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years. Last year, President Trump suggested a move tantamount to destroying NATO: the withdrawal of the United States. Senior administration officials said that several times over the course of 2018, Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Current and former officials who support the alliance said they feared Trump could return to his threat as allied military spending continued to lag behind the goals the president had set. In the days around a tumultuous NATO summit last summer, they said, Trump told his top national security officials that he did not see the point of the military alliance, which he presented as a drain on the United States. At the time, Trumps national security team, including Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary, and John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, scrambled to keep U.S. strategy on track without mention of a withdrawal that would drastically reduce Washingtons influence in Europe and could embolden Russia for decades. Now, the presidents repeatedly stated desire to withdraw from NATO is raising new worries among national security officials amid growing concern about Trumps efforts to keep his meetings with Putin secret from even his own aides, and an FBI investigation into the administrations Russia ties. A move to withdraw from the alliance, in place since 1949, would be one of the most damaging things that any president could do to U.S. interests, said Michele A. Flournoy, an undersecretary of defense under President Barack Obama. It would destroy 70-plus years of painstaking work across multiple administrations, Republican and Democratic, to create perhaps the most powerful and advantageous alliance in history, Flournoy said in an interview. And it would be the wildest success that Vladimir Putin could dream of. Retired Adm. James G. Stavridis, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, said a U.S. withdrawal from the alliance would be a geopolitical mistake of epic proportion. Even discussing the idea of leaving NATO let alone actually doing so would be the gift of the century for Putin, Stavridis said. Senior Trump administration officials discussed the internal and highly sensitive efforts to preserve the military alliance on the condition of anonymity. After the White House was asked for comment Monday, a senior administration official pointed to Trumps remarks in July when he called the United States commitment to NATO very strong and the alliance very important. The official declined to comment further. U.S. national security officials believe that Russia has largely focused on undermining solidarity between the United States and Europe after it annexed Crimea in 2014. Its goal was to upend NATO, which Moscow views as a threat. Russias meddling in American elections and its efforts to prevent former satellite states from joining the alliance have aimed to weaken what it views as an enemy next door, the U.S. officials said. With a weakened NATO, they said, Putin would have more freedom to behave as he wishes, setting up Russia as a counterweight to Europe and the United States. Trumps threats to withdraw sent officials scrambling to prevent the annual gathering of NATO leaders in Brussels in July from turning into a disaster. Senior national security officials pushed the military alliances ambassadors to complete a formal agreement on several NATO goals before the summit even began, to shield it from Trump. In the end, the NATO leaders publicly papered over their differences to present a unified front. But European leaders and American officials emerged from the two days in Brussels shaken and worried that Trump would renew his threat to withdraw from the alliance. Trumps skepticism of NATO appears to be a core belief, administration officials said, akin to his desire to expropriate Iraqs oil. While officials have explained multiple times why the United States cannot take Iraqs oil, Trump returns to the issue every few months. Similarly, just when officials think the issue of NATO membership has been settled, Trump again brings up his desire to leave the alliance. Any move against NATO would likely invite a response by Congress. U.S. policy toward Russia is the one area where congressional Republicans have consistently bucked Trump, including with new sanctions on Moscow and by criticizing his warm July 16 news conference with Putin in Helsinki. Julian E. Barnes and Helene Cooper are New York Times writers. A former Northern California dairy worker has won a million-dollar settlement against his ex-employers attorney, who responded to a lawsuit the man filed against the dairy over wages by according to the worker contacting immigration officials to try to get him deported. Jose Arias had already settled a retaliation suit against his former employer, Angelo Dairy of Acampo (San Joaquin County), when on Monday lawyers for California Rural Legal Assistance and Legal Aid at Work announced the $1 million settlement of a suit against attorney Anthony Raimondo. The settlement followed a federal courts decision to reinstate that case. The case ensures that employers cant game the system by cheating employees and then turning around and threatening to have the employees deported when they stand up for their basic rights, said Legal Aid attorney Christopher Ho. Raimondo, who has represented dairies during 20 years of law practice in Fresno, denied retaliating against Arias and said his former insurance company had insisted on settling the case. Im the only person in this case who didnt break the law, Raimondo said. Arias, an undocumented immigrant, went to work for Angelo Dairy as a milker in 1995. The dairy was supposed to file documents with federal officials to verify his work authorization, but instead wielded (federal immigration law) as a weapon to confine Arias in their employ, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 2017 ruling allowing his suit to proceed. When Arias told a company owner in 1997 that he had been offered a job with another dairy, the court said, the owner told him he would report the other dairy to immigration authorities if Arias left. Arias stayed but sued Angelo Dairy in 2006, claiming the companys failure to pay overtime and provide meal and rest breaks, the court said. As the suit was about to go to trial in 2011, Raimondo, the dairys lawyer, contacted immigration agencies to derail it, the court said. In one June 2011 email, the court said, Raimondo told an Immigration and Customs Enforcement auditor that Arias would be attending a deposition shortly, and if there is an interest in apprehending him, please let me know. Arias settled the wage suit and dropped his claims, due in substantial part to the threat of deportation, the court said. It said Raimondo had contacted ICE at least five times about other employees, and had confirmed his practice in a June 2013 email to the Legal Services Corp., saying he had acted in the past to deport workers who had sued his clients. Raimondo described the events differently Monday. The idea I was retaliating against Mr. Arias was ridiculous. I dont even know Mr. Arias, the attorney said. He said he had contacted officials for another reason: to accuse California Rural Legal Assistance of illegally using federal Legal Aid funds to represent undocumented immigrants. The only offer he made to the ICE auditor, Raimondo said, was to cooperate in Arias arrest if the agency considered him a dangerous person who should be deported immediately. And he said the appeals court ruling reinstating the suit against him came at a time when the Ninth Circuit is at open war with the White House over immigration. Blanca Banuelos, a California Rural Legal Assistance attorney, said the Legal Services Corp., which oversees Legal Aid funding, has not found her organization violated any rules in representing immigrants. Raimondo, she said, wants to distract from the issue in this case. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko Chesa Boudins world has never been free from the American criminal justice system. When he was just over a year old, his parents left-wing radicals in the Weather Underground took part in a Brinks armored car robbery outside New York City that ended in the murder of two police officers and a security guard. Before he could walk, he was making monthly trips through prison metal detectors and steel bars to visit his mom and dad. Like many other children of incarcerated parents, he was set up for a life of hardship and heartbreak. But nearly four decades later, Boudin, 38, is a deputy public defender in San Francisco. His impressive ascent to the office includes becoming a Rhodes scholar, earning a law degree from Yale and clerking for two federal judges. He recently helped upend Californias cash bail system, which was widely seen as inequitable to people of color and the poor. On Tuesday, Boudin will launch his campaign for San Francisco district attorney, and he plans to highlight his life experience and daily work in the criminal justice system as evidence of why he should be the citys next top prosecutor. We know the system is broken. Everyone knows that, Boudin said in a recent interview in his Outer Sunset apartment. I have the perspective, and the creativity, and the insight into the problems to do something other than just double down on harsher convictions and longer sentences. More than nine months ahead of the Nov. 5 election the first wide-open race for the district attorneys office in more than half a century Boudin has secured endorsements from city progressives like Supervisors Hillary Ronen and Aaron Peskin. He hopes to become the latest in a national wave of reform-minded candidates, in some cases public defenders, to run and win elections for district attorney. Boudin believes San Francisco can become safer and a leader in national criminal justice reform by prioritizing rehabilitation and reducing recidivism over punishment. As district attorney, he would work closely with the Police Department, whose members have fought against the kind of reforms he wants to expand. He has vowed to restore the integrity of the criminal justice system, which, he said, includes holding police officers accountable when they commit crimes. The district attorney decides whether to prosecute officers, and a Boudin victory could cause tensions around police use-of-force incidents. Tony Montoya, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, said the union has not endorsed anyone for district attorney and that Mr. Boudin has not reached out to us. Montoya said hes keeping an open door and open mind. As a reform-focused candidate, Boudin is stepping into a space left vacant by current District Attorney George Gascon, who announced in October that he would not seek re-election and has been widely cited as one of the most progressive district attorneys in the country. Gascon declined to comment for this story. Boudins politics are in many ways further left than those of Gascon, the citys former police chief. As a student, Boudin was a supporter of socialist President Hugo Chavezs efforts to alleviate poverty in Venezuela and has been a vocal critic of American foreign policy. Whether voters in San Francisco are ready or even interested in a candidate as progressive as Boudin is unknown. The city remains in the throes of an auto-burglary epidemic, and many residents and community groups have advocated for stricter punishments for perpetrators in the rare instance they are caught. Suzy Loftus, seen by many as the front-runner in the district attorney race, has mounted a platform focused on tackling car break-ins, crime and quality-of-life issues that have plagued San Francisco. The former prosecutor and current legal counsel for the Sheriffs Department has already secured endorsements from Mayor London Breed, U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, and dozens of other major politicians and leaders. Shes no slouch on reform, either. As president of the Police Commission, Loftus worked to restrict the departments use-of-force policy and helped select a reformer chief in Bill Scott. Boudin, however, offers a more significant departure from the status quo. Tall and lean with short brown hair and closely groomed beard, hes often seen wearing tailored suits and polished shoes and bustling around the Hall of Justice or city jails where he meets with clients. At the small one-bedroom apartment he shares with his partner, a young woman doing post-doctorate research at UCSF, Boudin keeps a pile of surfboards and hits the waves at Ocean Beach whenever he has time. Hes an avid runner and backpacker and has visited more than 100 countries on all seven continents. Boudins path in the criminal justice system began at 14 months old when his parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, dropped him off with a babysitter on their way to act as getaway drivers in an infamous 1981 robbery in Nyack, N.Y., that turned into a triple murder. Members of the Black Liberation Army killed Brinks guard Peter Paige during the initial holdup, fled the scene with $1.6 million in cash and switched vehicles into a moving truck driven by Boudins parents. When they were pulled over on the side of the highway, the assailants burst out of the back of the truck, spraying gunfire at unsuspecting officers and leaving police Sgt. Edward OGrady and Officer Waverly Brown dead from gunshot wounds. Kathy Boudin and Gilbert didnt fire any shots but were charged under New Yorks felony murder rule. Gilbert, 75, remains in New York state prison, where hes serving a 75-years-to-life sentence. Kathy Boudin was paroled in 2003 after 22 years in prison. Shes since earned a Ph.D. and is now an assistant professor at Columbia University. Boudin was adopted by Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, also members of the Weather Underground, and moved to Chicago where he spent much of his young life. As a child, he said, he experienced the guilt and shame and stigma associated with parental incarceration. It wasnt until he was able to forgive his parents that Boudin said he began to flourish. Restorative justice and forgiveness, he said, are major parts of his philosophy around criminal justice. Boudin graduated high school in Chicago in three years and headed to Yale, where he was a student leader against the war in Iraq. In 2002, he received a Rhodes Scholarship that sent him to Oxford University, where he earned two masters degrees. He returned to get his law degree at Yale before starting a fellowship at the San Francisco public defenders office in 2012. One of his first projects was working with then-Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi to write a policy rejecting inmate detainer requests from federal immigration agents. Alongside attorneys from around the country, Boudin developed a litigation strategy challenging Californias cash bail system, and last January the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled money bail was unconstitutional because the system did not factor in a defendants ability to pay. The decision, based on litigation Boudin wrote in the case of robbery suspect Kenneth Humphrey, is now under review by the state Supreme Court. Boudin may be known in city legal circles, but he faces an uphill climb in November. Political consultant Jim Stearns, whos consulting on Boudins campaign, said he isnt concerned about his candidates lack of name recognition. Nobody in this race is known by anyone its a completely open field, said Stearns, who ran Kamala Harris successful 2003 campaign for district attorney, in which she defeated incumbent Terence Hallinan. Supervisor Ronen recently called Boudin absolutely brilliant and one of the hardest workers Ive ever seen. We need someone who is going to keep us safe, but also who realizes where the system isnt keeping us safe and needs reform, Ronen said. His perspective is the type of new and innovative leadership we need in a very broken criminal justice system in the city and country as a whole. Boudin and Loftus are joined in the race by Leif Dautch, a state deputy attorney general; former city police commissioner Joseph Alioto Veronese, and longtime prosecutor Nancy Tung. Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky Shares of PG&E Corp. sank again Tuesday, one day after the company said looming wildfire costs were propelling it toward bankruptcy, as its stock endures one of its worst Wall Street performances since the early 2000s energy crisis. The companys shares closed at $6.91, down 17.3 percent from Monday, when it and its utility subsidiary Pacific Gas and Electric Co. announced they planned to file for bankruptcy protection on or about Jan. 29. It was the lowest closing price for PG&E shares since the utility subsidiary last filed for bankruptcy protection nearly 18 years ago, according to Travis Miller, a utilities analyst for Morningstar Research Services. By just one penny, Tuesdays close came in ahead of April 9, 2001, the Monday after the utilitys Friday bankruptcy filing that year. PG&E also disclosed Tuesday that one of its board members, Roger Kimmel, resigned Monday. He had been on the boards of PG&E Corp. and the utility since 2009. The departure of Kimmel, the vice chairman of the investment banking firm Rothschild Inc., does not involve any disagreement on any matter about the operations, policies or practices of PG&E Corp. or the utility subsidiary, according to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A PG&E spokesman said the companys filing speaks for itself. He also pointed to PG&Es earlier comments that it was searching for new board members and was already interviewing several candidates. State officials, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, have called for PG&E to shake up its board of directors. Kimmels departure from the board follows the abrupt exit on Sunday of CEO Geisha Williams, who resigned her board seats at the parent company and utility subsidiary in the process. Williams is leaving her role with a $2.5 million severance payment, the company confirmed Monday. PG&E stock has now plummeted nearly 86 percent from its opening price Nov. 8, the day the horrific Camp Fire ignited in Butte County. The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but PG&Es role has been a focus from the early days of the blaze, as the utility reported two instances of malfunctioning equipment in the area. While PG&Es Wall Street woes are reminiscent of the companys 2001 financial problems, the cases have important differences most notably the fact that the last bankruptcy involved balance sheet problems beyond PG&Es control, Miller said. At the time, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. owed $9 billion due to a botched deregulation of Californias energy market that forced it to pay abnormally high prices for wholesale electricity. While the utility subsidiary filed for bankruptcy in 2001, the parent company did not. This time, PG&E said both entities would seek protection from creditors. This time around, shareholders may end up with nothing, he said. The 2001 situation was a little different in that there was a liquidity crisis of no fault of PG&Es, Miller said. In this case, there is still potential out there that PG&E could be held liable for its own actions. This could have a much different impact on the equity value than what transpired in 2001. Interactive Vaccine Tracker: Latest developments Detailed information about the coronavirus vaccines as it becomes available. When PG&E revealed its intent to file for bankruptcy protection this month a disclosure it was required to make to employees in advance because of a new state law passed last year the company cited the massive potential liability it faces from 2017 and 2018 fires. California officials have already found PG&E equipment sparked at least 17 of the 2017 fires, though the most destructive of those blazes, the Tubbs Fire, is still under investigation. PG&E said that while the state insurance department has reported about $17 billion in insurance claims from 2017 and 2018 fires, the companys exposure could be far higher, possibly exceeding $30 billion. Investors appear to be assuming the worst case. Its rare for utilities to go bankrupt in this country, and clearly the talk of it is creating a fear of the unknown, said Paul Patterson, a utility analyst with Glenrock Associates. This is serious stuff, and the stock is reacting accordingly. Utilities are rightly perceived in a general sense as lower-risk investments, but they are not risk free, and PG&Es current situation shows that, Patterson said. These kind of moves can happen, he said. J.D. Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris Kome Japanese Seafood Buffet in Daly City closed its doors this week and laid off between 70 and 80 workers. The move comes less than a year after the California Labor Commissioners Office cited the restaurant for multiple wage violations in June 2018, resulting in a total fine of $5.16 million. In June, after investigating worker complaints, the Commissioners Office cited Kome for a host of violations involving 133 employees, including failure to pay minimum wage, overtime and split-shift premiums. The restaurant also included a service charge on the bill, and officials said it had illegally applied the money collected to the workers minimum wage instead of distributing it in tips. Ping Tam, a waiter at Kome, said that underpayment of wages, as well as workplace safety issues, have been problems since he started five years ago. They dont respect us, he said through a translator. David Leung, one of the owners, denied the claims when he spoke to The Chronicle in 2018. He and his co-owners appealed the citation, and a hearing before the commission has been set for March. According to the Chinese Progressive Association, a San Francisco nonprofit that supported the workers in filing the complaint, Kome employees have continued to organize to demand better working conditions. Yet tensions between workers and managers only increased. Tam said that when he raised concerns around the service charge and asked for the full minimum wage, the restaurant cut his hours. In December, the Commissioners Office fined the restaurant an additional $60,000 in unpaid wages and penalties for retaliating against former employee Chris Liu, who said he had assisted the commissioners inspection efforts. On Jan. 3, Komes employees arrived at work to find new signs posted, reading: In order to remedy the Suspected Mold Conditions, repair the outstanding items and complete the Venting Cleaning, starting 01/14/2019, the restaurant will temporarily be closed for three months or until all the outstanding issues are fixed. The notices made no mention of rehiring the employees after the unpaid break. Kome has disconnected its telephone, and attempts to reach Leung have been unsuccessful. The closure does not affect the $5.16 million citation. Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more. That means nothing, said Paola Laverde, public information officer for the Labor Commissioners Office. They still have a hearing scheduled for early March. Even if the business is shut down, in the citations the owners of the company have been named as liable. It is clear that Komes employers have not been respecting workers and shown any intention of correcting their behavior, said Joyce Lam, political director for the Chinese Progressive Association. Despite that, workers are going to be getting ready to speak truth at the hearing, and we ask the community to continue to support these workers as they move forward. The association and some of the laid-off workers will hold a speak-out Thursday at 12:30 p.m. at the organizations Chinatown offices. Tam has filed for unemployment and is searching for a new job. He and his coworkers are also preparing to testify at the March hearing. We should get what were owed: minimum wage, overtime wages and respect, he said. Its hard to believe Feb. 12 marks the 15th anniversary of then-Mayor Gavin Newsoms shocking decision to marry same-sex couples at City Hall against state law. All these years later, much has changed. Same-sex marriage is legal nationwide. Newsom is our new governor. And in a small but sweet update, a Minneapolis man who had a surprisingly powerful role in those weddings 15 years ago had a perfect wedding day himself. Thanks to many of you. I told you last month that Greg Scanlan was about to get hitched. Hes the one who had the idea to phone a San Francisco florist and order a bouquet with a note of congratulations to be delivered to any random couple standing in line to wed. His email describing the idea went viral, and soon hundreds of bouquets arrived at City Hall with notes, including Im an 87-year-old grandmother wishing you well and With love, from Dwight and Mike. The movement was dubbed Flowers from the Heartland, and it was even turned into a documentary. Several weeks ago, I heard from Scanlans fiance, Brad Althoff, who told me they were to marry on Jan. 4. Upon hearing theyd ordered boutonnieres but no other flowers, I had a thought: Readers could phone florists in Minneapolis and send bouquets, like Scanlan had encouraged all those years ago. Althoff, a 47-year-old public radio producer, didnt tell Scanlan hed contacted me or about my column item. So when they arrived at their wedding site and saw bouquets all over the room mostly featuring roses, lots and lots of roses Althoff knew he had some explaining to do. He pulled his soon-to-be-husband aside and said, So, you should know Ive done something. Scanlan, a 50-year-old public defender, said he was floored. They returned the favor and showed that generosity back to us, he said. It was very moving and beautiful. Notes included May you feel the love from your many fans in San Francisco and Thank you for the difference you made in the S.F. Bay Area and the world. One of the bouquets came from Cynthia Goldstein, 57, who married her wife during those 2004 weddings. They were offered a bouquet from a florist, but didnt accept it because theyd already been given flowers from co-workers and didnt want to be greedy. Their wedding, like the others, was annulled by the California Supreme Court, but their 2008 marriage stuck. As for why she sent a bouquet to Scanlan? He did something to make all of us feel special, so it seemed right to make him feel special, too, she said. Before the wedding ceremony began, Althoff explained the story behind the flowers to the 35 wedding guests. There was a moment of hush, and people reached for their Kleenex and away we went, Althoff said. From all of San Francisco, congratulations, gentlemen! State Sen. Scott Wiener isnt deterred by a loss. Several of his bills this legislative session are copies or tweaks of proposals that failed last year. Theres the rejiggered proposal to make it easier to build housing near public transit. Theres his second try at making it easier to prosecute car break-ins. He plans to take another shot at securing state approval for a safe injection pilot site in San Francisco. And this week, hes introducing for the second time a bill requiring California employers to make it easier for employees whove just given birth to breastfeed their babies or pump milk. Wiener wants to require employers to provide lactation facilities that arent broom closets or bathrooms (eww!) and that include seats, a table, adequate space and privacy. Employers would also have to provide access to running water and a refrigerator or cooler. New commercial construction with more than 15,000 square feet would also have to include lactation space. Former Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a different, less stringent lactation law last year, but vetoed Wieners proposal. Wiener said he thinks he has a better shot with new Gov. Gavin Newsom, himself a father of four young children whos already talked a lot about early childhood. He clearly gets it, Wiener said of Newsom. I asked Wiener why he cares so much about breastfeeding, since hes a single, gay man without any children. As a supervisor, he was also the backer of San Franciscos first-of-its-kind paid parental leave law. While it doesnt affect me personally, it affects a lot of people in my community, he said. Since Im a nosy columnist, I had to ask Wiener if he ever plans on having kids. Uh, I have no idea, he said with a laugh. Im getting a little up there. Id be one of those older dads. Hes 48 now. For fathers in San Francisco, thats still a spring chicken. The San Francisco district attorneys race is getting crowded on Wednesday, itll grow by one more. Nancy Tung, a former prosecutor in San Francisco who now works as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, will announce her candidacy in a speech on the steps of the Hall of Justice. Courtesy Nancy Tung She said District Attorney George Gascon, who has declined to run for re-election in November, hasnt done enough to support prosecutors or the very basic functions of the office. Hes never been a prosecutor, she said. He doesnt have that experience. She said 20 prosecutors left the office last year, many of them because they were dissatisfied. Max Szabo, spokesman for the district attorney, said that figure is actually 15 and that most of them left for practical reasons, like retirement or a shortened commute. There are 130 prosecutors in the office. Tung, 43, lives in SoMa with her husband and their 14-month-old son. She serves on the board of Court Watch, a group of San Francisco residents who think law enforcement in the city is too lax and who show up at court hearings to show judges they care about case outcomes. She said that as district attorney she would focus more on quality-of-life crimes, like car break-ins, bicycle theft and drug dealing. She said she heard a police captain, whom she declined to identify, say in a public meeting that the most his officers could do was shove drug dealing out of their own police district into the Tenderloin. We shouldnt sacrifice the Tenderloin, Tung said. These are the exact people we should be protecting if were true to our progressive values. Tung is positioning herself to the right of Gascon, as are Suzy Loftus , assistant chief legal counsel in the sheriffs office; Leif Dautch, deputy state attorney general; and former police commissioner Joe Alioto Veronese. Deputy public defender Chesa Boudin is the only progressive in the race so far. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf In a rift between University of California student leaders, one influential group now says it will not fight to save the student adviser to the regents role, while another says the position created two years ago provides crucial influence on everything from campus overcrowding to affordable tuition. Created as a pilot program in 2016, the student adviser is a non-voting position that gives the officeholder a one-year seat at the UC Board of Regents table. The board also has a voting student regent and a non-voting student regent-designate. Originally, students asked for a second voting student regent, which would require amending the state Constitution. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown opposed it, so students created the adviser role as a compromise. The program expires on June 30 unless the regents extend it. Now one group of student leaders is asking the regents to let the adviser role die, while another group led by the student adviser seeks to keep it going. Both groups support asking UC President Janet Napolitano to expand other leadership roles for students that dont need regents approval. The student rift erupted over the holidays. Thats when this years adviser Edward Huang, a UC Berkeley math major learned of an effort by the student regent and the UC Student Association to let the role expire. Those students said the job has failed to attract many applicants and has been a rogue position whose occupants have avoided working with other student groups. Huang and other student leaders representing student body presidents and graduate students fired back with a letter to the regents calling the role valuable, and arguing it supported a variety of student perspectives. Huang won support among rank-and-file students who couldnt imagine letting the regents eliminate any student seat at the decision-making table. So it was not surprising that the agenda for Wednesdays regents meeting in San Francisco had a resolution to continue the student adviser through June 2020, and to work out its bugs. Huang said a big bug is that the adviser gets no tuition break, while the student regents pay no tuition. Huang had a maintenance job, but said hes resigned to spend more time on adviser business. (Adviser opponents argue that they have jobs, too.) Until this weekend, Huang acknowledged that hed attended only one meeting of the UC Student Association, in July. We arent required to show up, and were not required to work with student groups, he said. And thats been the problem, said Caroline Siegel-Singh, president of the UC Student Association, which voted this weekend to support letting the program die. She and student regent Devon Graves want to get the advisers proposed extension yanked from the governance committee agenda. On Monday, regents Chairman George Kieffer advised Graves to see whether the committee votes Wednesday to recommend that the full board of regents extend the program when it meets Thursday. They also are asking that Napolitano boost student participation in other ways: Increasing from six to seven the number of student advocates to the regents. Those students, chosen by the UC Students Association, apply to attend one meeting where they can talk with the regents over meals and lobby for issues they care about. Doubling the number of student observers from three to six. Observers serve for one year and are each assigned to monitor a committee meeting. They deliver prepared comments but cannot automatically participate in the meeting. Adviser supporters say those roles are weaker than the adviser, who can fully participate in the regents meetings. On Monday, Huang sent a letter to the regents asking them not to kill it off and noting that the regents rules require that the program be evaluated after two years, which hasnt happened. Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov The windfall bucket grew by about $4 million this week after city Controller Ben Rosenfield revised some numbers. Now San Francisco has $185 million to wrestle over. San Francisco received a massive influx of cash in November from a state program that allocates local property taxes to public schools. The total amount was $415 million, but the City Charter says that more than half the money must go toward baseline contributions, which are pools of money for budget reserves and city agencies such as the Municipal Transportation Agency. The baseline contributions toward childrens services such as after-school and recreation programs dropped by about $4.8 million given the city budget appropriated more funds to such services than legally required. The controllers updated calculations also include a $500,000 expense for a city auditor. That leaves the city with an extra $4.3 million in its general fund. How to spend the windfall has divided city official in recent weeks. Mayor London Breed wants to spend the money exclusively on homelessness and housing initiatives, while a number of supervisors proposed divvying the money among homeless initiatives, municipal energy independence and child care. Meanwhile, there is growing support for spending a portion of the money on public schools. The schools are already getting about $36 million in baseline contributions, but education advocates say that is not enough. Trisha Thadani Late? No worries: San Francisco city officials are considering eliminating fines for late library books. On Monday, Mayor London Breed signaled her support for a proposal that would eliminate fines for overdue library books and other materials, citing the impact they have on low-income residents. As a city, we need to make sure that we are not placing unnecessary burdens on people to access our public resources, Breed said in a statement. In this case, the fines and fees are overwhelmingly affecting people in our community from disadvantaged backgrounds, which undermines the goal of the library and reinforces inequality in our city. Her announcement accompanied the release of a comprehensive report on the librarys late-fee system titled Long Overdue. The report, compiled by the treasurers office and the library, found that low-income communities, African American communities and communities without college degrees are the groups most frequently blocked from accessing the library due to overdue fines. In the Bayview District, for example, the report found that about 11 percent of adult library-card holders are blocked from using library services because of late fees, more than three times as many in higher-income neighborhoods. San Francisco library patrons who owe more than $10 in overdue fines have their accounts blocked, freezing their borrowing privileges, until the debt is paid. Blocking open access to public resources, the report concluded, is antithetical to the librarys purpose. Fines bring in around $330,000 in revenue each year, or about 0.2 percent of the librarys annual budget. Research into other library systems across the country that went fee-free found no circulation decreases or rises in late returns. As the citys debt collector, the research we conducted convinced me there are better tools to help people return books on time that dont disproportionately burden low-income people and block people from accessing the library, Treasurer Jose Cisneros said in a statement. On Thursday, the citys library commission will consider the report and could vote to recommend ending the late-fee system in the hope of bringing anyone barred by late fees back to the library. The final decision rests with the Board of Supervisors, which would likely take up the issue as they consider the librarys budget in June. Dominic Fracassa Email: cityinsider@ sfchronicle.com, tthadani@sfchronicle.com, dfracassa@sfchronicle. com, Twitter: @sfcityinsider @dominicfracassa @TrishaThadani A steady drizzle fell Tuesday morning as a dozen protesters and several dozen police squared off while UC Berkeley crews cut down what officials said were five damaged and diseased trees in Peoples Park. Protesters milled around the east side of the park, where construction crews arrived just after 5 a.m. to take down the pines and cedars behind police tape. At least 50 California Highway Patrol and University of California Police Department officers were on scene. San Francisco Mayor London Breed plans to introduce two pieces of legislation Tuesday that could shave as much as nine months off the timeline for opening and operating new homeless shelters including Navigation Centers, which offer services as well. The bills are also intended to drastically reduce the time it takes the city to hire organizations that manage programs meant to keep people from becoming homeless in the first place. Its really about addressing the issue of bureaucracy and trying to produce shelter beds sooner rather than later, Breed said. The citys abundance of regulations around construction and building permits, she said, slows down our ability to produce what people are asking of us getting people off the street, building more housing and making San Francisco work for people. In October, Breed pledged to create 1,000 new shelter beds by 2020. Shes opened just over 200 beds since becoming mayor in July. There are roughly 2,500 shelter beds available now, nearly all of which are spoken for each night. One of Breeds ordinances would declare a shelter crisis in San Francisco, triggering the provisions of a state bill that would allow city officials to get around a number of building code requirements when setting up a homeless shelter. The bill, AB932, was sponsored by Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, and signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 2017 in an effort to speed up the construction of homeless shelters. Leah Millis / The Chronicle If the measure passes the Board of Supervisors, the city would no longer be required to obtain building permits when trying to open a shelter a process that usually takes months. Instead, after a set of inspections, directors from relevant departments like the Fire Department, Department of Building Inspection, Public Works and others could sign memos authorizing construction. Its not like anyones cutting corners. We make sure its secure and safe, but at the same time you dont have to do the long line of waiting, said Shari Wooldridge, executive director of the St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Francisco, which operates several homeless shelters in the city. Its an emergency situation, so you want to move a little quicker. Sometimes the bureaucracy gets separated from the humanity a little bit. If Breeds bill passes, new shelters would not be subject to a public appeal, because there would be no permit with which to take issue. That could open up more potential locations for shelters beyond neighborhoods like the Mission or South of Market, where most are clustered. The Board of Supervisors, however, could vote to veto proposed shelter locations with a supermajority vote. The fact is, we all have to share in the responsibility. We cant say, we want the city to address this (homelessness) crisis, but we dont want it in our backyard, Breed said. The entire city needs to share in the responsibility of providing spaces for people. Allowing shelters to proceed without building permits also means that city departments could avoid paying fees to one another, which is common during the permitting process. That would allow more money to be spent directly on homeless services. Breeds second bill is even broader in scope. The ordinance seeks to speed up the process of hiring contractors to provide homelessness services. Rather than seek out contracts on a case-by-case basis, Breeds bill would allow Public Works and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing to create a pool of qualified organizations that the city can draw from when a project like providing services at a supportive-housing building or operating a shelter arises. Officials estimate that circumventing the traditional city contracting procedure for homeless service providers could speed up the procurement process by three to six months. To help ensure transparency, Public Works and HSH would be required to submit annual reports to the Board of Supervisors detailing what contractors were hired, how much money was spent and what outcomes were achieved. Breeds bills would expire in five years, or sooner, if the city reaches a 30 percent reduction in homelessness, as measured by the Point-in-Time Count, the homelessness census that takes place every two years. Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle 2017 The bills represent a significant expansion of an emergency shelter ordinance the Board of Supervisors passed last year. The ordinance lowered the bureaucratic barriers for setting up shelters, including the recently opened 84-bed Navigation Center at Fifth and Bryant streets. But the ordinance, which is set to expire at the end of February, only applies to a specific set of shelters. Breeds ordinances would apply to any potential shelter site that the city owns or leases. In addition to the Bryant Street Navigation Center, the emergency shelter ordinance helped expedite the Minna Lee supportive housing complex on Sixth Street, the Division Circle Navigation Center on Van Ness Avenue and the Bayshore Navigation Center on Bayshore Boulevard. For every single human being experiencing homelessness, this is an emergency and we need to do everything we can to expedite the provision of services, said Jeff Kositsky, director of the homelessness department, who supports the legislation. Whatever we can do to help people faster, we should be doing. Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa Thank you for reading! You have reached your 30-day limit of free access to SentinelSource.com, The Keene Sentinels website. If you would like to read two more articles for free at this time, please register for an account by clicking the sign up button below. We hope you find The Sentinels coverage of the Monadnock Region valuable. We rely on our subscribers to bring you strong local journalism and hope you will consider supporting our work by taking advantage of this special subscription offer here. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Submit news A driver was heading out for an afternoon at a local winery when they noticed three cylindrical floating objects speeding toward them. Confused, the driver reached for their cell phone, but it had gone dead and apparently overheated. Electrical gauges in the vehicle also apparently stopped working. A bright light shined and the driver threw up as a headache set in. The driver's cat, described as docile, "went insane." An odd symbol "resembling a cave and arrows surrounded by a circle" appeared on the car. This report is just one of the 157 UFO encounters reported in Washington state in 2018, reported on Dec. 25 in Richland, Wash. RELATED: Liminal Seattle wants to map the spooky peculiarities of the city The National UFO Reporting Center, based out of a former nuclear missile site in Davenport, Wash. about 50 miles west of Spokane, collects reports of UFO sightings from across the United States via a hotline or online form. Most reports are posted as they were submitted, though each are proofread and "obvious hoaxes" are removed. "We hope that this information will prove to be useful to the general public and the UFO community at large," the center says on its website. It also "makes no claims as to the validity of the information in any of these reports." Whether you believe the reports or not is up to you. RELATED: Historic Port Townsend: A haunting view to the seaport's past Washington state was the first place where a "flying saucer" sighting was reported. On June 24, 1947, a man named Kenneth Arnold saw nine high-speed objects "flying like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water" in the Cascades, according to HistoryLink.org. He estimated their speeds at 1,400 mph. A Seattle P-I headline read "Mystery Discs Hurtling in Sky." The story was picked up by the Associated Press and distributed nationwide. Reports of "flying discs" were filed all over the Pacific Northwest. The Seattle P-I published a photo of an alleged flying disc on Jul 5, 1947. RELATED: Washington ranks among top 5 for UFO sightings, says author of new book As previously stated, the National UFO Reporting Center is now based in Davenport. Founded by Robert J. Gribble in 1974, the center and 24-hour hotline were originally based in Seattle's University District. It moved to Davenport in 2006 and was described by the Associated Press as "a telephone, tape recorder and desktop computer run in an underground bunker," and in 2007, the center cost an estimated $500 per month to run. Current director Peter Davenport moved the center in part because he wanted to buy the former Atlas missile site. The center is a non-profit organization. Law enforcement agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Weather Service, military facilities and NASA, among other groups, often direct calls regarding possible UFO sightings to the center, it explains on its website. As for what information people call in with -- click through the slideshow above for some of the UFOs spotted in Washington in 2018. Producer Natalie Guevara can be contacted at natalie.guevara@seattlepi.com. Denver Nuggets guard Gary Harris has stepped up his real estate game. Emerging as a star for the high-flying Nuggets, the 24-year-old recently purchased a luxe condo in Denver for $4.5 million. The three-bedroom, 3.5-bath private residence atop the Four Seasons Hotel offers custom finishes and city skyline views. Recent real estate news has made much of how King County, and in particular Seattle, are slowing down somewhat. Prices may still be fairly high, but they've fallen nearly $100,000 since the spring heyday, and those price increases are now decreasing there faster than anywhere in the country. But areas around King County? Well, those are experiencing a bit of delayed heat from their proximity to one of the strongest job markets in the country. Last year that same effect was observed primarily in places that were close to King, and let buyers in at a cheaper price without sacrificing too much proximity Kitsap, Pierce, and Snohomish counties, for example. But more recently that trend has extended to counties even farther away than an "average commute" could promise: Thurston County, where one broker noted that there were "the most affordable options when compared to the other major counties along I-5," kept demand very high in September despite King County starting to cool. RELATED: Seattle home prices down $91k, here's what that gets you And the latest Northwest Multiple Listing Service report says it's not alone. In December, the last month for which data was available, Thurston, Cowlitz, and Lewis counties all experienced a year-over-year price gain of at least 12.4 percent. As transportation in the region continues to improve, many of these counties aren't as distant as they might seem, and boast prices far lower than what Seattle can. RELATED: Luxe manor on Puget Sound asks $6.850M "Regardless of what the news is saying about the Seattle market, at the end of the day, the Kitsap median home price is significantly lower than a home in King County," said Frank Wilson, Kitsap regional manager and branch managing broker at John L. Scott Real Estate in Poulsbo. "This will be what keeps our inventory low due to the improved mobility between Colman Dock and Kingston, Bremerton, and eventually Port Orchard." Which is true for King County versus any other county in the state: King's median sales price in December 2018 was $597,000, a good $80,000 more than the next closest county (San Juan) and more than $200,000 than Thurston, Kitsap, and Pierce counties. Heck, Lewis' $213,500 and Cowlitz's $199,000 could fit into King County's median price a few times over, let alone Seattle's $699,000. RELATED: In 2019 the largest generation will struggle with homeownership And so it seems this will be the fate of Washington for a while: Although King County might be cooling off, everywhere else is just getting started. Click through the slideshow above to see what some of the real estate looks like in Cowlitz, Lewis and Thurston counties. The homes start at $259,950. SeattlePI reporter Zosha Millman can be reached at zoshamillman@seattlepi.com. Follow Zosha on Twitter at @zosham. Find more from Zosha here on her author page. Gov. Jay Inslee, in his State-of-the State speech Tuesday, called for a transition to clean electricity by 2035, creation of community-based mental health facilities, and asked the Legislature for "unprecedented investments" to save endangered orca whales. The Governor asked the Legislature to "be bold" and "make history" -- and to raise raise taxes to "show that we pushed the limit." "Now I know things we're proposing this year are not small or easy," Inslee told lawmakers, supporters, state officials and our state's consular corps in the annual, ceremonial speech. Inslee has his eye on a challenge that is neither small nor easy -- the White House. He is New Hampshire bound as an unannounced candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. RELATED: Gov. Inslee off to New Hampshire, state he allegedly 'abandoned' in 2018 The Governor depicted Washington as a counterpoint and antidote to Donald Trump's America, without giving a mention to the 45th President. "During the past two years, we've been challenged by federal actions that appeal more to our darker natures than our better angels," said Inslee, applying the phrase made famous by Abraham Lincoln. He cited the state's gun safety initiatives, the state Supreme Court ruling ending the death penalty, and turned to immigration, saying: "While other places close their borders and fear the unfamiliar, we're the state that opens our communities to refugees seeking safety, shelter and sanctuary." What Inslee is proposing for the state won't come cheap. He has asked for a $54.4 billion biennial budget, a 21 percent increase over the current biennium. The program to save orca whales comes in at $1.1 billion. Inslee wants the Legislature to boost revenues with $3.7 billion in new taxes, a capital gains tax on high-income earners, and increasing the Business & Occupation Tax on services. Washington State Republicans had a quick response to Inslee's speech: "Political grandstanding, with presidential ambitions, paid for by the Washington State Taxpayer." The Inslee climate commitment, a cause he has long embraced, was expressed in urgent, borderline apocalyptic terms. "Historic wildfires blackened our air so much that we had the worst quality in the world. Not China. Not India. Washington state," Inslee said. "Science affirms the necessity of action -- this day. This is the 11th hour, but it is Washington's hour to shine." The Governor suffered a defeat last November when voters rejected Initiative 1631, which would have imposed a carbon fee on major polluters. Oil companies spent more than $31 million to defeat it. Inslee is undeterred but has shifted to a different track. "We will pass legislation to transition to 100 percent clean electricity, transform our buildings with cost-saving efficiencies, and modernize and electrify our transportation system," he said. "We'll phase down super-pollutants and phase in cleaner fuels." By 2035, Inslee said, he wants almost all of the state's electricity to come from solar, wind and hydroelectricity. And he wants tomorrow's grandparents talking about it, saying: "So when your grand-children ask what you did to protect them from climate change, you can tell them you weren't sitting around saying it was someone else's problem." With Orca whales, Inslee went so far as to say the state should set out to "restore the balance of our ecosystems." "We must make unprecedented investments to save our Orcas," the Governor argued. "The demise of any species is a warning to our natural systems." The Governor was talking to a Legislature with Democrats enjoying their largest majorities in a decade. The Great Recession is long past, with revenue flowing into state coffers. Without the proposed taxes -- which Republicans oppose -- revenue will top $50 billion. Inslee is clearly thinking big, in his own ambitions and the example he wants Washington to show the nation. The Governor began his speech quoting "Washington actor, philosopher and martial artist" Bruce Lee, with this nugget of Lee philosophy: "There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there. You must go beyond them." Words from Lee fueled highfalutin Inslee hyperbole at the Governor's summation: "I believe our next Washington chapter must show that we pushed the limit and moved beyond our plateau, that we always looked for the next beginning. So let this be our profound story. Let us be bold. And most of all, let us make history." Fitting words for a Governor looking to write the next chapter in Washington, D.C.,, move beyond the plateau of two terms in the statehouse, and make history by being the first president (or vice president) to come from this Washington. A marine protection plan, aimed at safeguarding endangered orca whales, must be part of the multi-billion-dollar plan to triple capacity of a Canadian oil pipeline, the National Energy Board of Canada says in a draft recommendation. The NEB was sent back to review the proposed Trans-Mountain Pipeline expansion, after a stinging Canadian appellate court decision last summer. The court said that the regulatory agency failed to consider potential impacts on marine mammals and did not adequately consult Aboriginal First Nations when it approved the project three years ago. The expanded pipeline would carry up to 895,000 barrels of bitumen crude oil from Alberta across British Columbia to an oilport at Burnaby, on Burrard Inlet just east of Vancouver. RELATED: New images of southern resident orca calf released It would not stay there. The oil would be exported, meaning a sevenfold increase in tanker traffic with 34 tankers a month passing through marine waters shared by the U.S. and Canada. The tankers' would traverse Haro Strait between the San Juan Islands and Canada's Gulf Islands, and then the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Any tanker spill in these internationally famous waters, bounded by national parks and monuments in both countries, would be catastrophic. The National Energy Board has until February 22 to recommend whether the pipeline should be built, should not be built, and under what conditions. The Canadian government bought the pipeline project from Houston-based Kinder Morgan last year. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to get it done. The pipeline enjoys passionate support in Alberta. The Alberta government has spent $50 million (Canadian) to promote it, and ads promoting the project have bombarded viewers of Vancouver TV stations. But the project continues to have widespread opposition in British Columbia. Native groups, conservationists and city governments in Vancouver, Victoria and Burnaby have warned of its impacts. The B.C. government opposes the project, but has been criticized for not taking more action to stop it. RELATED: 'Year of the orca': Gov. Inslee to unveil orca recovery steps Whatever promises are made by pipeline builders, Canada's record of responding to even small oil spills in West Coast waters has been abysmal. The National Energy Board is suggesting that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and Species at Risk Act be applied to the endangered orca whales. The southern resident population is down to 74 whales, although a new calf has been spotted and filmed the last few days. The NEB is suggesting measures to offset tanker noise. The agency may weigh in on whether whale watching should be curtailed. It is suggesting that the protection plan be in place three months before the pipeline begin operations. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has come out against the pipeline out of concern for the Orca whales. The Governor is expected to discuss his plan for saving the whales when he delivers his State-of-the-State speech at noon on Tuesday. A federal judge ruled Tuesday that U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross cannot add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, in a lawsuit brought by Washington and 17 other states, and joined by the city of Seattle. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman marks the 18th time that Attorney General Bob Ferguson's office has reversed or joined in reversing a Trump administration policy. Ferguson has yet to lose. Opponents have charged that Ross' citizenship question was designed to drive down participation in the 2020 Census, to the advantage of Republicans. One in seven Washington residents is an immigrant. "Today's ruling is a major victory for all Washingtonians and affirmation of our values as a country," said Ferguson. RELATED: Inslee, Ferguson, Durkan on Trump immigration rule: This is not America "The Census Bureau's own research confirms that asking people about their citizenship status would significantly undermine its Constitutional mandate, an accurate count of everyone in the United States, regardless of immigrant status." Census figures have great influence in American life. The count determines each state's number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The count influences the distribution of $600 billion in subsidies and grants to states, localities and Native American governments. "A citizenship question would risk billions of dollars of federal funding and adequate representation in Congress," Gov. Jay Inslee said in a Tweet. An estimated 24 million non-citizens live in the United States, with 11 million of them undocumented, the New York Times reported Tuesday. The Census Bureau told Ross not to include the question, and warned that 640,000 households would spurn the Census were it included. "The question would have jeopardized significant federal funding Washington receives every year and diluted our congressional representation for the next decade." Washington has picked up a seat in Congress in the 1980, 1990 and 2010 Census. "The court's decision to strike down the citizenship question is a victory for all Americans and the rule of law," said Massachusetts AG Maura Healey, a co-plaintiff. Rarely has a Cabinet secretary been slapped down as much as Ross, who was taken to the woodshed in Judge Furman's decision. The Commerce Secretary, one of Trump's Cabinet billionaires, "failed to consider several important aspects of the problem, alternately ignored, cherry picked or badly misconstrued the evidence in the record before him," the judge wrote. RELATED: Wash. AG Ferguson: We'll sue if Trump cold cocks 14th Amendment on citizenship As well, Ross "failed to justify significant departures from past policies and practices -- a veritable smorgasbord of violations." The federal judge took Ross and a top aide to ask for making misleading and untrue statements under oath as they sought to explain why the citizenship question was added. The Trump administration can appeal Judge Furman's decision to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and eventually take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Just a few years after their last visit, rock'n'roll gods The Who plan to hit Seattle once again. The group, now a duo of Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, plan to release an album later this year. The 29-date Moving On! Tour will accompany that release with a 29-date North American trek. Fair also said he kicked Skyler down a hallway in the home, Scheller said. The attack rendered the girl unconscious. Scheller said the state will seek natural life in prison for Fair, which grants no possibility of parole, because of the "brutal and heinous" nature of the alleged beating. Doctors also found bruising on the girl's body and injuries to her brain, which may be indicative of older incidents of abuse, Scheller said. "It's a sad case," he added. Fair's attorney, Sam Amirante, did not immediately return a phone call requesting comment Monday - but he told the Associated Press on Sunday that his client deserves the presumption of innocence. He did not comment on the allegation that the girl's death was sparked by the spilled juice. "When the real facts come out, he will be acquitted," Amirante told the AP. A GoFundMe set up in the girl's name by her relatives originally said that Skyler had suffered a tragic accident. In an update, however, the organizers wrote that they had learned "a monster" had killed their niece. FLORENCE, S.C. If S.C. Sen. Hugh K. Leatherman and state Reps. Phillip Lowe and Jay Jordan are any indication, education reform is going to dominate the 2019 session of the South Carolina General Assembly. The three Republican legislators provided an update, focusing on education, to the Florence County Republican Party on Monday evening at the Floyd Conference Center on the Carolinas Hospital System campus. Leatherman, who arrived to the meeting late, said he was coming from a meeting on education with Gov. Henry McMaster and S.C. House Speaker Jay Lucas. Leatherman also said that he had met with Florence One Schools Superintendent Rich OMalley and that he thought OMalley could improve the schools in the district. Leatherman also mentioned positives he saw at Francis Marion University, including the Health Sciences Center in downtown Florence, and at Florence-Darlington Technical College. Lowe began his presentation by holding up a graph illustrating the level of funding for education in comparison with other areas of the state. He said the state ranked 23rd in the nation in funding for its educational system but was getting 50th-place results. DARLINGTON, S.C. Two new members and two returning members of the Darlington County Board of Education took the oath of office Monday to begin new terms of office. Leigh Anne Kelley of Darlington will represent District 1 for the next four years, replacing former member Billy Baldwin, who did not seek re-election. Kelley had no opposition in the general election in November. Richard Brewer of Darlington will occupy the District 5 seat for the next four years, replacing Maureen Thomas of Hartsville. Brewer defeated Thomas in the Nov. 6 general election by just 11 votes, with 953 votes to Thomas 942. Incumbent members Dr. Thelma Dawson of Darlington in District 3 and Wanda Hassler of Hartsville in District 7 were re-elected without opposition and also took the oath of office Monday for new four-year terms. Darlington County Clerk of Court Scott Suggs administered the oaths . The board also elected new officers for the next two years during Mondays meeting. Board members unanimously elected Lamar board member Warren Jeffords as their new chairman. Jeffords is a former board chairman. He thanked outgoing chairman Jamie Morphis of Hartsville for his two years of service in the post. Dont go running down the road to the store to pick up a pack of Sea Island red peas you probably wont find them. You can sometimes snag a bag from Lowcountry farmers markets, where growers like Celeste and George Albers might have small quantities of peas for sale, or from area grocers under the brands, Geechie Boy (a small Edisto Island mill and farm) or Anson Mills (a Columbia-based mill and farming operation that produces the most Sea Island reds). The easiest way for Florence folks to add these peas to the pantry is to order them online from either of these suppliers. But these peas are so good you wont want to wait until Jan. 1 to cook up a pot. Be sure to follow the package directions of the brand you purchase; Anson Mills, in particular, uses special processes to preserve the integrity of their products. Founder and agricultural visionary, Glenn Roberts, strongly suggests you only use their tried-and-true cooking methods for the best results. As far as seasoning goes, the flavor of these Sea Island beauties blooms with the addition of smoky bits of meat, bay leaf, fresh thyme and a bit of salt. If youre making Hoppin John, carrots, celery, green pepper and onion are often called for. Minority and dissident communities face a perplexing challenge in countries with authoritarian governments. They need to remain anonymous to avoid persecution, but also must establish a trustworthy identity in their communications. An interdisciplinary group of researchers at UC Santa Barbara has designed an application to meet both of these requirements. Computer science and communication researchers affiliated with the university's Center for Information Technology & Society traveled to three countries to assess the challenges minority groups face in maintaining a secure, trustworthy social media presence. Based on the communities' feedback, the team designed an app for the Android operating system that would safeguard group members' anonymity as well as verify the reliability of posts coming from the group. A paper detailing the technology appeared in the Journal of Internet Services and Applications. The team, led by computer science professor Elizabeth Belding, traveled to Mongolia, Zambia and Turkey, where colleagues at local institutions connected them with members of marginalized communities. At the time, these countries offered a relatively safe alternative to other nations with restricted speech, like Russia, China and Egypt. About two weeks after the group visited Turkey, however, an attempted coup d'etat prompted the government to clamp down on political dissidence. Interviews and surveys with the general public and with members of marginalized groups in these countries confirmed that maintaining anonymity is crucial for protection. But it comes with drawbacks, as the team soon learned. "The problem with anonymous communication is you don't know if it's credible," said Miriam Metzger, a professor in the department of communication, and one of the paper's coauthors. "If you're just getting a message and you don't know who it's coming from, you're probably not going to do what that message tells you to do. Especially if it's risky." This is where SecurePost comes in. The app allows communities to create secure groups on Twitter and Facebook that let them maintain a consistent, visible presence on social media. This enables them to build up trust with their readership over time, explained Michael Nekrasov, a computer science doctoral student and lead author of the paper. What's revolutionary is that SecurePost allows a group to operate without any roster of its individual members. Additionally, the app checks the group's posts, flagging any content that lacks the proper credentials. In this way, each member is protected by their anonymity even if the group is infiltrated or hacked, all while communications from the group itself are verified as trustworthy. advertisement Naturally, these communities want a convenient, yet secure way to extend membership invitations. The research team learned that many groups used passwords for this, however sharing a password always puts the account at risk. "What we found was, people wouldn't just tell someone the password," said Nekrasov. "What they'd do is write it down or send it in a message, and that's incredibly unsafe." Instead the team developed a much more secure method for inviting a new member to the group. The process involves exchanging secure QR codes visually or over a trusted connection, a technique that uses a pair of visible, public keys and a second pair of hidden, private keys to send and receive encrypted information. This ensures the security of the invite even if a third party was witnessing the exchange, said Nekrasov, because the private key is hidden on the device of the person joining the group. Once the new member joins the group, they receive a new key pair. The private key enables them to sign posts on behalf of the group. The public key, which anyone can see and use, enables any social media user -- including those not in the group -- to verify posts. This ensures that if a post is forged or modified by a social network or government, any user will be able to identify it as a forgery. The researchers created an internet browser extension that automatically verifies posts' authenticity. The cryptographic signature, visible under each post on the left, is hidden when running the extension on the right. Content uploaded from an account through SecurePost appears as if it had a single author with no way of identifying individual posters or a group's membership roster. It accomplishes this by hosting the group on a third-party proxy server, which masks the individual's IP address from the social network. "This means you don't have to trust some outside party," said Nekrasov. "A group can run its own server and verify everything that is going on." What's more, SecurePost attaches a cryptographic signature to the post, generated from the group member's private key. The application then automatically verifies the authenticity of this signature for anyone else running the program, regardless of their membership status in a particular group. Because the proxy server never actually receives the users' private key, the verification feature can flag content such as posts made by an impostor or someone who hacked the proxy. advertisement The team designed SecurePost with the realities of its users in mind. They produced the application for the Android operating system, which made up 86 percent of the global market share at the time. They also made it compatible with older devices, so that as of October 2017, 99.9 percent of Android devices registered with Google could run the application. This is important because many individuals in the targeted user groups use phones with older operating systems, which are cheaper to purchase. SecurePost can also operate without a continuous internet connection, a necessity in many regions where it will find use. Instead of immediately uploading content, the app stores it on the device and posts it when internet connectivity resumes. To circumvent the vulnerability this creates if authorities confiscate the device, SecurePost also encrypts all data with an application-wide password. If the user is under duress, he or she can provide a false password that wipes the app's data, including the group keys. The team hopes the software ultimately gets developed into a full-fledged product with a wider reach. "At the end of the day, we're not a company, we're researchers," said Metzger. "We can develop apps, and we can put them in the app store, but we don't have a budget for marketing them." "But we can create new systems that a company could build a business around and market," she added. "And that's the way these technologies can have a big impact." Haida Gwaii's small population of northern goshawks -- already of great concern to conservationists -- are the last remnant of a highly distinct genetic cluster of the birds, according to a new genomic analysis by University of British Columbia researchers. "Goshawks across the British Columbia Coast appear to be declining, however, the distinct Haida Gwaii population is at a particularly high risk of extinction with such a small population size," says Kenneth Askelson, a researcher with the UBC Department of Zoology and Biodiversity Research Centre, who co-led the study. Latest counts puts the population on the archipelago at roughly 50. The genomic findings add new context and impetus to efforts to save this vulnerable pocket of goshawks, which are one of BC's most iconic birds of prey. "Accurate knowledge of geographic ranges and genetic relationships among populations is important when managing a species or population of conservation concern," said Darren Irwin, senior author on the paper. "This is a major step in drawing those boundaries for one iconic species." The diminishing population of northern goshawks across British Columbia's Coast (estimated at roughly 1,200 within B.C.), and continued habitat loss, have led to the laingi subspecies being listed as threatened under the Canadian Species at Risk Act. But debate over which individual northern goshawks should be considered part of the threatened laingi subspecies -- and the crucial question of what geographic areas should be considered within their range -- has complicated conservation efforts. The paper, published today in Evolutionary Applications, is one of the first to use genomics to inspect biodiversity on Haida Gwaii. "This underscores the importance of conservation-related studies of genetic variation -- too often, biodiversity vanishes invisibly," says Armando Geraldes, who co-led the study with Askelson. The researchers estimate the distinct population of birds may have been evolving separately on Haida Gwaii for 20,000 years. Percy Algernon Taverner (a prominent Canadian ornithologist) was the first to describe the laingi goshawk on Haida Gwaii in 1940 -- identifying them as darker than other examples of the bird. "There may be many unique subspecies that occur only on Haida Gwaii -- an indication that the area is a very unique biogeographic region with many distinct lineages of species that have been poorly studied," says Askelson. Human beings can configure their faces in thousands and thousands of ways to convey emotion, but only 35 expressions actually get the job done across cultures, a new study has found. And while our faces can convey a multitude of emotions -- from anger to sadness to riotous joy -- the number of ways our faces can convey different emotions varies. Disgust, for example, needs just one facial expression to get its point across throughout the world. Happiness, on the other hand, has 17 -- a testament to the many varied forms of cheer, delight and contentedness. "This was delightful to discover," said Aleix Martinez, cognitive scientist, professor of electrical and computer engineering at The Ohio State University, and study co-author, "because it speaks to the complex nature of happiness." The differences in how our faces convey happiness can be as simple as the size of our smiles or the crinkles near our eyes, the study found. The study also found that humans use three expressions to convey fear, four to convey surprise, and five each to convey sadness and anger. Those are the findings of a new study published online in the journal IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing. advertisement "Happiness acts as a social glue and needs the complexity of different facial expressions; disgust is just that: disgust," Martinez said. The findings build on Martinez's previous work on facial expressions, which found that people can correctly identify other people's emotions about 75 percent of the time based solely on subtle shifts in how blood flow colors a person's nose, eyebrows, cheeks or chin. In this study, Martinez and co-author Ramprakash Srinivasan, a doctoral student at Ohio State in Martinez's lab, assembled a list of words that describe feelings -- 821 English words, to be exact. They then used those words to mine the internet for images of people's faces. Professional translators translated those words into Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Farsi and Russian. To avoid bias, they used each word to download an equal number of images. They plugged the words into search engines popular in 31 countries across North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia, and ended up with approximately 7.2 million images of facial expressions across a variety of cultures. The study did not include countries from the African continent or other remote parts of the world because of the limited number of candid images available from those areas. Psychologists have debated how to classify human emotion for centuries. An ancient Chinese text -- dating back as early as 213 B.C., then modified over the years -- described seven "feelings of men" as joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, disliking and liking. advertisement Martinez, whose research interests intersect both engineering and the behavior of the human brain, thought there had to be more than just seven or eight. "To think that humans are only capable of eight emotions is absurd," he said. "We are complex creatures. What about the different forms of joy? We experience the world on a much deeper level than just eight emotions." Martinez and Srinivasan hoped to identify the facial configurations that convey emotion across cultures. Based on computer algorithms, they found that the human face is capable of configuring itself in 16,384 unique ways, combining different muscles in different ways. They took the 7.2 million images their searches yielded and sorted them into categories, looking for those that expressed emotion across cultures. Martinez figured they'd find at least a few hundred. They found only 35. "We were shocked," Martinez said. "I thought there would be way, way more." Since the number of universal expressions was smaller than expected, they wondered if most expressions of emotion were culture-specific. The result of this study surprised them even more. Analysis of the same dataset of 7.2 million images showed there are only eight expressions that are used in some -- but not all -- cultures. These eight expressions convey positive and negative affect, but not emotion categories like joy and anger. The researchers concluded that most facial expressions of emotion are universal, that there are only a few dozen of them and that a large number of them are used to express joyfulness. Both Martinez and Srinivasan hold appointments in Ohio State's Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences. This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Human Frontier Science Program. A mass of charred seeds found while clearing a home construction site in Brantford, Ontario, has been identified as ancient, domesticated goosefoot (C. berlandieri spp. jonesianum), a form of quinoa native to Eastern North America. The seeds date back to 900 B.C., and have never previously been found north of Kentucky this early in history, says Professor Gary Crawford of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), who was brought in by Archaeological Services Inc. (ASI), the archaeological consulting firm that excavated the site. Archaeological discoveries don't normally shock Crawford but this one comes close. "Finding domesticated seeds that are so old in Ontario is special," Crawford says. "The next time we find a crop in the province is about 500 A.D., and it's corn. All previous research on this species of quinoa, which is now extinct, has taken place in the central United States: Arkansas, Illinois and Kentucky." The charred seeds, about 140,000 in total, were discovered in Brantford in 2010 during a required archeological assessment conducted by Archaeological Services Inc. prior to site development. The Tutela Heights site, which has since become a housing development, yielded some stone tools, post holes, debris and the chenopod seeds. Jessica Lytle, a co-author of the resulting research paper, was one of the assessors who did the initial seed analysis and brought them to Crawford for further analysis, having studied with him at UTM. Their findings are published in the October 2018 issue of American Antiquity. The analysis took time, especially given the number of seeds and the need to document whether the whole collection was from the same crop. "This discovery raises more questions than it answers. We had to consider whether the seeds were only traded here or grown locally," says Ron Williamson, PhD, of ASI, another co-author. "We also had to consider whether this was the beginning of agriculture in the province. It appears not, because we don't see any evidence of local cultivation. If it were grown in the region, we would have expected to see seeds of the crop in other pits around the site, but they were confined to this specific pit. We also don't see any sign of agricultural weeds or stone tools that may have been used for cultivation. Indigenous peoples at the time exchanged certain kinds of minerals and finished stone objects over long distances, but this is the first evidence of a crop circulating in this exchange system. What meaning this plant had for local indigenous people nearly 3000 years ago still is not clear. Professor Crawford notes "We always wondered if they were also exchanging perishable materials. We're taking the conservative view that these seeds were traded; it would make sense that it wasn't only stone and minerals being moved around. In Kentucky, Illinois and Arkansas, this was a very important foodstuff; its nutrient value was probably similar to that of modern quinoa, which comes from South America." The researchers also explored how and why the seeds were charred. They speculate that it may have happened accidentally when the local inhabitants were attempting to parch them. "You can lightly parch seeds so they don't sprout and store them," Crawford says. "It could have been a mistake to have burned them. There was a slight oxidization of the surrounding sediment, so the soil was heated; we think they were burned in place in the pit." For Crawford, the next step in answering some of the questions will be to review seeds in his lab that were collected at other sites in Ontario to see if there are other charred seeds that may be variations of this subspecies and to examine other Ontario seed collections. Today, there is a weedy version that grows locally and he is curious whether this is a holdover from Indigenous agriculture. "All of these bits of data demonstrate that the Indigenous Canadians were knowledgeable, sophisticated and well-connected across Eastern North America," Crawford says. Reconstructive procedures and organ transplants demand nimble fingers that can restore blood flow by stitching together millimeter-scale arteries. It's a tough ask and time-consuming task for even the most skilled surgeon. But a stent full of sugar may help the surgeries go down -- in a 3D-printed way. Designed by Nebraska engineer Ali Tamayol and nationwide colleagues, the small sugar-based tube fits inside the adjacent ends of a clipped artery. By sticking to the interiors, the stent holds those ends in place and provides structural support during the precarious sewing process. "One of the plastic surgeons told us about the challenges of this kind of microsurgery -- how time-consuming it is, how skill-dependent it is," said Tamayol, assistant professor of mechanical and materials engineering. The stent-assisted suturing took just five minutes when tested on pig arteries, the team reported, compared with the roughly 15 minutes required of a conventional clamp-based technique. Tamayol said the stent also reduces the risk of a surgeon mistakenly threading through both the top and bottom walls of an artery, which blocks subsequent blood flow. Then, the finish: Minutes after the arteries are sutured, the resuming blood flow dissolves the stent and harmlessly sweeps it away. SWEET'N FLOW In designing the stent, the researchers came up with a checklist of essential properties. It needed some flexibility -- too brittle, and it could break during suturing -- so the team added a glucose derivative called dextran. It needed enough stickiness to bind with the arteries, which glucose itself provided, plus a large dose of sucrose to help combat blood clotting. And it needed a pinch of sodium citrate to further diminish any chance of clotting when the stent dissolved. The recipe was simple enough. But arteries, like the people who contain them, come in multiple sizes. So the team turned to 3D printing as a means of customizing the stent's diameter to individuals and areas of the body. By dissolving their sugar-based concoction in water and baking the solution until most of the water evaporated, the researchers produced a molten ink that's fluid enough to print but viscous enough to solidify in minutes. Experiments with transparent tubing and pig arteries showed that the stent erodes quickly but steadily when subjected to the flow rate, temperature and salinity of human arteries. The suturing held up, too, with no signs of leakage immediately following the procedure. The researchers eventually plan to test the stent's use in live animal arteries, Tamayol said. And they envision a future in which such stents are printed at hospitals to meet the needs of individual patients. "One thing that I really like about this concept: We are always trying to avoid sugar," Tamayol said. "Everyone knows that sugar is (sometimes) bad. But here we found an application in which it's good." Biologists at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered three new species of groundwater salamander in Central Texas, including one living west of Austin that they say is critically endangered. They also determined that an already known salamander species near Georgetown is much more endangered than previously thought. Writing today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team, which includes one of the scientists who identified the endangered Barton Springs salamander, warns that more severe droughts caused by climate change and increasing water use in Central Texas have left groundwater salamanders "highly vulnerable to extinction." The groundwater salamanders of Central Texas -- just 2 to 3 inches long -- swim in springs, underwater caves and channels deep within limestone rock and are keystone species in the local Edwards and Trinity aquifers. As top predators, they help maintain the health of aquifer ecosystems, meaning they are key for preserving water quality in the aquifers that local residents depend on for nearly all the fresh water supplying nearby cities, industries and agriculture. The loss of these salamanders would compromise the delicate aquifer systems of which they are a critical part, the biologists said. "Even if people do not care about salamanders, they care about maintaining the quality of the aquifer systems that provide most of Texas with its fresh water," said David Hillis, professor of integrative biology and senior author of the paper. "Fortunately, what's good for the salamanders is also really good for the people. What we need to do to protect these salamanders also happens to be the exact same things we need to do to protect the water resources that ranchers, cities, homeowners and everybody else depend upon." For years, Central Texans have worked toward preserving several threatened or endangered salamanders, many of them discovered because of research by Hillis and his colleagues. The new paper adds to this body of work, which has led to protections for the Barton Springs salamander, the Austin blind salamander, the San Marcos salamander and the Georgetown salamander through entities such as the Edwards Aquifer Authority, which addresses an aquifer segment that supplies water to San Antonio. One of three newly identified species, which is yet to be named, is critically endangered: a tiny, golden-colored salamander that lives only in a small area near the Pedernales River west of Austin. The scientists also discovered that the Georgetown salamander, which lives in springs near Lake Georgetown and already has federal protection as a threatened species, has a much smaller range than previously thought and, thus, is far more endangered. "I think the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should review the status of all these salamanders in light of the new evidence," Hillis said, referring to the process for assessing the conservation status of species under the Endangered Species Act. "They are part of the rich biological heritage of Texas, and losing these groundwater salamanders would be a huge loss for our state's biodiversity. Importantly, protecting these salamanders also means protecting the quality and quantity of fresh water that Texans rely upon." For the new study, Hillis and other researchers delineated the geographic ranges of more than a dozen Central Texas groundwater salamander species by studying the genetics of preserved specimens, collected over several decades and stored in the University of Texas Biodiversity Collections. First author Tom Devitt, currently an environmental scientist with the City of Austin's Watershed Protection Department, carried out the genetic analyses while still a postdoctoral researcher at UT Austin working with Hillis, helping to identify the three species previously unknown to science. Found nowhere else in the world and difficult to study due to the inaccessibility of their underground habitats, these salamanders, Devitt explained, represent a kind of mystery and rare beauty, a legacy of wildness that lives on despite a rapidly changing landscape. "There's a whole underground ecosystem all the way from Salado to West Texas that many people don't even know about," Devitt said. "Within it are these endemic species that are found nowhere else on Earth." Elizabeth City, NC (27909) Today Mainly clear. Low 63F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Mainly clear. Low 63F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph. File photoA Coast Guard vessel provides a security escort for an LNG tanker as it moves through Boston Harbor. Those serving in the Coast Guard aren't getting paychecks, but they must report to duty. New Delhi, Jan 15: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday greeted soldiers on the occasion of Army Day, saying the nation is proud of their grit and determination. "I bow to their courage and bravery," he tweeted. He said the countrymen are proud of the grit and determination of the soldiers. PM greets soldiers on Army Day Army Day is celebrated on January 15 every year to mark the taking over as commander-in-chief of the Indian Army by then Lt Gen K M Carriappa in 1949 from General Francis Butcher, the last British Commander-in-Chief of India. Carriappa later became a Field Marshal. 99 cent introductory offer Includes everything we offer online for 24-7 news. This option allows you to read unlimited stories at ctnewsonline.com, and access our e-Edition (digital replicate of the daily newspaper). $7.99 per month after the introductory offer. This service comes with a complimentary CT Select Card allowing for local discounts. Rates are subject to change. Watford City voters have overwhelmingly approved two ballot initiatives set to fund the construction of an elementary school and provide potential funding for another. Two questions were asked of voters. The first was whether or not residents should approve a general obligation bond up to 35 million dollars for the purpose of building a new elementary school, which would raise millage an additional 13 mills, equal to $13 dollars on each thousand dollars taxable valuation for the first taxable year. The second question posed was whether residents should approve an increase of its school Building Fund Levy from 10 mills to 20 in order to facilitate additional anticipated building needs. Voters approved the measures on January 8, with more than 80% of voters voting yes on the first question and more than 71% voting yes on the second question. Sixty percent of voters needed to approve the measures for them to move forward, which was handily achieved. A similar bonding issue was narrowly rejected in the Williston School District the same day. The Roundup spoke with Shilo Chavez, who organized the Vote Yes Committee, which promoted the passage of both initiatives. Chavez told the Roundup that she was excited about the two questions being answered by voters in the affirmative. Although there were not as high a percentage of affirming votes as the last similar school-funding measure, there was enough to get it done. Chavez said, The last vote was closer to 90 percent in favor, so we did come down from that, but we still see that a large part of the community supported it. We knew there were people who werent excited about the building structure of the high school and so may not be for the new elementary school, but we still had a lot of support from people in the community. Chavez also commented on the narrow defeat in Williston. Im heartbroken for Williston, Chavez continued, and I hope they have the ballots come in from absentees that they need. I believe their need is actually worse than our own here in Watford City. From my understanding, theyre already using quite a few portables and just lack the necessary space. According to Chavez, the results wont be official until all absentee ballots are counted, but it likely wont make a difference in the elections outcome. Chavez reported, The ballots that came in prior to the vote have been counted and had to be postmarked by the 7th. Theyll do a final tally on the 14th and will have the School Board approve the votes then. There are about twenty ballots that still havent been returned yet. Ultimately, were not expecting it to change anything. Chavez expressed thanks to the community, saying, We want to say thank you to everybody who supported us and supported our future and supported our kids. Thanks to everybody who helped sponsor the Vote Yes Committee and helped to get the word out. As for the Vote Yes Committee, Chavez says their work is done. For the most part, Chavez said, well just dissolve. Most people from the committee are already involved in other areas as parent volunteers. We dont have any next project. Billings On January 2, 2019, Stockman Bank implemented a plan to assist federal employees impacted by the government shutdown. This includes furloughed employees who are not working and essential employees who are currently working without pay. Government shutdowns are very stressful for workers who still have bills to pay, said Bill Bickle, Chief Credit Officer for Stockman Bank. We are happy to make accommodations for impacted federal employees to help reduce stress and protect their credit. Until the shutdown ends, Bickle said Stockman is offering to defer any loan payments that are due. Then, post shutdown, the bank will restructure debt for borrowers as necessary. Stockman will also work with commercial customers directly impacted by the shutdown on a case-by-case basis. Stockman Bank is Montanas largest, privately-held, family owned, community bank. Stockman has 34 locations throughout Montana and state-of-the-art online and mobile banking. Stockman is uniquely focused on Montana. Daytime Emmy Award nominated TV host, Darley Newman, rolls out the sixth season of her PBS and Amazon Prime series "Travels with Darley" with an episode based in Watford City and McKenzie County. Kicking off the series that travels to Brittany, France, California's Central Coast, Culpeper, Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas and a special episode dedicated to delectable global foods you must try on your travels, Darley discovers and falls in love with North Dakota's Badlands. Watch as Darley mountain bikes along the beautiful Maah Daah Hey Trail, learns about Native American Culture at the Earth Lodge Village, hikes to surprising ice caves in the Little Missouri National Grassland, celebrates the local flavor at a Watford City festival and learns about presidential history in Theodore Roosevelt National Park on a new half hour PBS episode of "Travels with Darley." McKenzie County Tourism and the Watford City Chamber of Commerce will be hosting two viewing parties on January 29 at 5 p.m. and on January 30 at 12:00 noon at Six Shooters Showhall. Guests are invited to attend a social, enjoy free popcorn and refreshments and view the show's premier on the big screen. Prairie Public will be airing Travels with Darley featuring Watford City/McKenzie County on Wednesday, January 30th at 12:30 pm on their sub channel called Lifelong Learning Channel. For more information on Travels With Darley and to preview the North Dakota episode, visit travelswithdarley.com For more information about the viewing party contact Doug Bolken at 701-444-5804 or email [email protected] Since 2008, the congregation of Fellowship Baptist Church in Sidney, Montana has been helping those in need of food through the Fellowship Food Pantry. Now, the people and businesses of Sidney and the surrounding area are helping them. Last December Town Pump Charitable Foundation, Town Pump Corporate Fund, and the Bridger Lounge Corporation, through Town Pump's match donation program, donated $3,300 to Fellowship Food Pantry for purchasing subsidized food products from the Montana Food Bank. The money went for helping those in need of food but in an indirect way assisted the church as well. Fellowship Food Pantry is usually staffed, paid for and supplied by the congregation of Fellowship Baptist Church. Fellowship Food Pantry is partnered with Montana Food Bank. Montana Food Bank is a non-profit organization out of Missoula that partners with neighborhood food banks, community pantries, social organizations, homeless shelters, schools, and hundreds of other organizations that are all working together to end hunger in Montana according to their website, https://mfbn.org. Through the partnership, the Food Pantry receives bulk donations of free dry goods, fresh produce, and frozen meats, and has the opportunity to purchase very low-cost food products. Every six weeks they have to purchase food products that were needed but not donated from the Montana Food Bank. The food pantry receives financial support from what the congregation gives in tithes and offerings that is budgeted for the purchases. Also in December, the students and Staff of Lambert School donated 500 lbs of food to Fellowship Food Pantry. It was part of their Do Good December Drive from December 17 through the 21. Principal Kara Hansen Triplett told me that students and staff were encouraged to bring in food, new socks, or pairs of shoes. They got to make an ornament to hang on the school's caring tree outside the Main Office, and then took the ornament home before Christmas break. The Student Council gave away a soda or water to those who contributed. According to their Facebook page, the drive was done to invite their students and staff to consider ways to spread holiday cheer. Several other businesses and organizations have assisted and donated to Fellowship Food Pantry over the last year. Wood Group, previously Mitchell's Oil Field Service, allows the Montana Food Bank to make Fellowship Food Pantry's drop on their property and loads the pallets to be taken to the church. The Pantry has received additional support from the Friends of Reynolds program at Reynold's Market, the Foundation for Community Care for outreach work, and the Lower Yellowstone REC's Operation Roundup program to purchase a new freezer; and has received donations of food from the Brorson Farmhands 4H group, Richland County Health Department staff, and many, many others. Fellowship Food Pantry gives thousands of pounds of foods each year to families unexpectedly in need, or experiencing chronic food insecurity. Just from July to November in 2018 they helped 306 individual families with 6,607 lbs of food. They will take food donations from individuals outside the church but do not solicit for them. Pastor Jordan Hall told me, "We understand there is another food bank in town that needs donations." He also told me that they have a Friends of Reynolds account and if individuals wish to donate they can simply give the cashier the number 2015 at checkout when shopping at Sidney's Reynolds Market and a percentage of the purchase will be donated to the food pantry. Fellowship Food Pantry is part of Fellowship Baptist Church and is located at 2181 W. Holly St. in Sidney, Montana. Those who wish to receive food must call the church at 406-433-4004 to make an appointment. The attackers, estimated to number at around four to six,[arrived in two vehicles. One attacker was a suicide bomber, the police said, detonating an explosion in the lobby of the seven-story DusitD2 Hotel which is part of a Thai-owned international chain. A message posted on the pro-al-Shababs Somali Memo website reported a death toll of 47 without offering any further evidence. There is nothing to support the militant groups claim and there has been no official statement from the government regarding a death toll.The attack also targeted banks and offices in the complex. Police and counterterrorism officers quickly surrounded the complex. Kenyan security forces were battling to retake control. Footage from the scene showed armed officers escorting office workers and injured people to safety. Several vehicles burned. Police said they detonated a car that had explosives inside. At least 15 people were wounded and several killed but the information was unclear. Several hospitals in the city were appealing for blood donations. Nairobis Village Market shopping complex closed temporarily after news of the attack broke, as a security precaution. The Shabab have been fighting the United Nations-backed government in Mogadishu, Somalia, for years, seeking to impose its strict interpretation of Islam. In recent months, they have carried out a spate of attacks in Kenya, killing dozens. UPDATE At least 15 persons were killed in the attack. ROTHERHAM MP Sarah Champion (pictured) says she will not support Prime Ministers Brexit deal. The Labour politician stopped short of saying she would vote against the proposal, on which MPs will have their say tonight, but said she was unable to back it, which could mean she will vote against or abstain. Rother Valley MP Sir Kevin Barron said he would support Theresa Mays deal, while Wentworth and Dearnes John Healey will oppose it. Ms Champion said: Over the past few weeks, I have carefully read and considered the many comments from constituents on how I should use my vote. As Rotherhams Member of Parliament, it is my duty to represent the views of the people of Rotherham. This is something I take incredibly seriously. Rotherham voted, overwhelmingly, to leave the European Union. I respect this decision. I therefore have no intention of seeking to block Brexit, or to try to reverse the result of the 2016 referendum. That is why I voted to trigger Article 50 to begin the Brexit process. Consequently, I had hoped that the result of the Governments two years of negotiation would be a deal that I could support, that I believed would deliver what the people of Rotherham voted for. Unfortunately, the deal on the table is far from that. On workers, human, womens, equality rights and environmental protections, it falls far short of the guarantees Rotherham needs. These are guarantees that are in the Governments gift to provide; legally binding assurances that we will not fall behind Europe on these fundamental issues. The Government could have provided these assurances, but it has chosen not to. Instead, we are left with an astoundingly vague set of principles and aims. It is not the framework for a future relationship with the EU, nor a vision for Britain post-Brexit. My speech (last night in the House of Commons) set out some of the reassurances the Government needs to provide so the deal works for Rotherham. Unfortunately, I have received no such assurances and consequently cannot support the deal as it stands. This does not mean that I will stand in the way of Brexit. It simply means that I do not believe the Prime Ministers deal is the right option for Britains future once we leave. I therefore dearly hope, should the deal be defeated in the House of Commons in tonights vote, that the Prime Minister will listen to the concerns that myself and colleagues have raised and bring back a deal that works for Rotherham. MPs are due to begin voting at 7pm. WENTWORTH and Dearne MP John Healey has said he plans to vote against the Brexit deal proposed by Prime Minister Theresa May. His South Yorkshire Labour colleague Sir Kevin Barron came under fire after declaring his intention to back the deal when MPs have their say this evening. But Mr Healey plans to follow party leader Jeremy Corbyn's pledge to oppose the proposal on offer. He said: "I will be voting against tonight, as the Government have not got a good enough Brexit deal for Britain. Rotherham MP Sarah Champion has yet to make her intentions known. Brumby was jailed at Sheffield Magistrates' Court on January 9 A CONVICT who assaulted a paramedic after being released from prison has been sent back to jail. Stephen Brumby (44), of Ridge Road, Rotherham, was jailed for 16 weeks at Sheffield Magistrates' Court on Wednesday for assaulting paramedic Michelle Aydin. Magistrates deemed the offence to be serious because Brumby had recently been released on licence from prison when he assaulted Ms Aydin last Monday (7). Brumby, who admitted the offence, was also ordered to pay 115 victim compensation. RETAIL giant M&S has today (Tuesday) announced plans to shut its Parkgate Shopping store putting 79 jobs at risk. Bosses said it had been a difficult decision and they were now consulting with colleagues on the proposed closure. Staff were told of the decision today and a spokeswoman said the consultation would take as long as it needs to. In total, 17 of M&S's 1,043 stores have been earmarked for closure, including those in Huddersfield and Hull. The Parkgate branch is the only South Yorkshire store under threat. The plans are part of M&Ss programme to "reshape its UK store estate". Paula Varley, M&S head of region for South Yorkshire, said: Proposing to close M&S Rotherham has been a difficult decision. Over the coming weeks well be speaking to all of our colleagues about what is best for them and they will be fully supported during this process. We remain dedicated to our customers and, if the proposal goes ahead, we will continue to serve them from our other stores in the region including M&S Meadowhall. Other nearby outlets include a M&S Food store at Cortonwood and M&S stores at Barnsley and Meadowhall. "Before we can have a conversation about changes to our constitution especially changes which voters already rejected we need to talk about how to ensure any new system will be protected from fraud,'' said Senate Republican leader Len Fasano of North Haven. "I have concerns about changing the constitution without having a full vision to implement early voting in a way that guarantees fraud cannot occur. I look forward to discussing these concerns with the Secretary of the State and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Weather Alert ...CODE ORANGE AIR QUALITY ALERT IS IN EFFECT FOR ATLANTA FOR Thursday June 17... The Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Environmental Protection Division has issued a Code Orange (Unhealthy for sensitive groups) Air Quality Alert for Atlanta for Thursday June 17. Under Code Orange conditions, the outdoor air quality is likely to be unhealthy for some people. Children, people who are sensitive to ozone, and people with heart or lung disease should limit prolonged outdoor exertion during the late afternoon or early evening when ozone concentrations are highest. For additional information on the Air Quality Index, please visit http://airnow.gov. This is big-picture stuff. The economy is changing. Just as the agricultural age gave way to the industrial age, that industrial age is now giving way to what many call the knowledge economy. There will still be factories, just as there are still farms but there will be fewer people working in them, and the workers who do will need more education than their predecessors. One of the things that drew the Eldor auto parts plant to Botetourt County was the mechatronics program at Virginia Western. Yes, even factory workers need a community college education if not a two-year degree, at least some kind of industry-recognized credential. The big economic growth is actually coming in jobs that require more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year college degree. All thats pretty basic to those who follow the economy, but bear repeating as many times as they can be. The economy each day demands workers with more skills, more education, which means communities that want to succeed need to get more of their students into college be those four-year schools or two-year schools. State policy, though, has not kept up with economic realities: State support for higher education is going down, not up, relatively speaking. In 1976, Virginia paid 70 percent of the cost of a students highest education with students footing the bill for 25 percent (and the rest would be covered by out-of-state students who had to pay higher rates). Over the years, the state has covered less and less of the cost. Today, Virginia college students must pay nearly half the cost of their education. LEXINGTON The newest member of the Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors was sworn in Monday before the boards first official meeting of the year. The board appointed Robert Bob Day at a continued meeting Jan. 7 after hearing presentations from five other potential candidates. Day retired in 2012 after working for the county sheriffs office for more than 34 years, including more than 20 years as sheriff. Day will fill the unexpired term of Ronnie Campbell, who resigned from his seat after winning a special election for the 24th district race of the Virginia House of Delegates in December. Day will represent the South River District and his term will end Dec. 31. I care deeply about Rockbridge County and saw this as an opportunity to give something back to the county I love, Day said. I look forward to working with the board to make every decision in the best interest of our citizens. Day was appointed unanimously by the four other board members. Mr. Day brings a wealth of knowledge to the board, having been elected to five terms as sheriff, Supervisor David Hinty said. The boards vote was unanimous and we look forward to working with Mr. Day in facing challenges and seeking new opportunities for Rockbridge County. RICHMOND The Senate of Virginia passed a resolution on Tuesday for Virginia to ratify the federal Equal Rights Amendment. Seven Republicans joined all 19 of the chambers Democrats in supporting the resolution sponsored by Sen. Glen Sturtevant, R-Richmond. The resolution now goes to the House of Delegates. Should it pass there, it would be sent to the national archivist. Supporters of the resolution say Virginia being the 38th state to ratify the ERA means it would be added to the U.S. Constitution. Opponents say that the deadline for ratification expired in 1982, and argue that should the amendment become law it would have unintended consequences detrimental to women. The proposed federal amendment says: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. It provides that Congress shall have the power to enforce its provisions by appropriate legislation. Among Republicans who joined in support of the ERA were Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment of James City County, and Sens. Frank Wagner and Bill DeSteph, both of Virginia Beach. Herring issued an opinion to the department that said the effort by the Lee County School Board was illegal. In his opinion, Herring made a distinction between conservator of the peace and special conservator of the peace. Conservators of the peace, a designation given to judges and other state and federal employees, are permitted to carry guns on school property. Special conservators of the peace, who must be appointed by a circuit court, are not. Virginia law expressly limits who may possess firearms on school grounds for safety purposes, and the General Assembly declined to enact bills presented every year from 2013 through 2017 to extend this authority to school teachers and administrators, Herring wrote. The Lee County School Board has said it approved the plan to increase safety in schools because the county could not afford to hire more school resource officers. Currently, the division has four officers among its 11 schools, but received state grant money in September to hire a fifth. As a school board member, I would vote to hire seven new school resource officers if that was an option in Lee County, School Board Vice Chair Mike Kidwell said in a news release. In my opinion, adding security against an active shooter in this day and time is a must for all public schools. Ken Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general and Republican gubernatorial candidate, will represent the school board in the lawsuit. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. He has said that one of the chairmans duties is to set each meetings agenda, a responsibility he said can be improperly used to that persons advantage if they are up for re-election. Kings and DeMotts respective elections as chairman and vice chairwoman also continues a recent return to bipartisan occupancy of the boards leadership roles. The board long practiced a custom of placing both a Republican and a Democrat in the boards two leadership roles. The board, however, stepped away from that practice in 2014 and 2015 when it elected Democrats to the roles, and in 2016 and 2017 when it elected Republicans. The Republican control of the chairman and vice chairman positions in 2017 drew some scrutiny from the Democrats, which prompted Tuck at the time to promise an eventual return to bipartisan control of the two roles. On votes, it has not been uncommon for the board to be split along party lines. The board has for a few years been split on proposed tax increases to benefit the local school district. After a phone call to Walter, we limped the car back to Roanoke, where he informed me the vehicles main computer was fried. When Walter told me the repair would cost $1,100, I canceled our vacation right there. We couldnt afford a rental in addition to the repair. Our son Zach was crestfallen when I told him we werent going to Ocean City. Walter overheard that conversation, took me aside and offered to let me borrow one of his own cars, a beat-up Volvo station wagon. He promised it would make it to Ocean City and back. It did. He didnt charge a dime for use of the car. You can hear all kinds of similar Walter stories by talking to his customers. Walking in Boxy Swedish is like visiting a different era, Mullet told me. Its not a how-do-you-maximize-business kind of place. The result is a kind of loyalty and love. What he needs is a little help. Hes trying to keep his business going and care for Hazel. One of the contributors to the Hazel Williams Fund on GoFundMe is Bev Fitzpatrick, former Roanoke vice mayor and ex-director of the Virginia Museum of Transportation. When I called Fitzpatrick on Monday, I learned he doesnt drive a Volvo and never has met Walter or Hazel. So why did Fitzpatrick donate? My son-in-law is a naturalized United States citizen who comes from Egypt. When his mother and father, who live in Cairo, came to visit two months ago, we had lunch together, and they had nothing but praise for President Donald Trump. Who could have guessed that the recent death of Captain & Tennille keyboardist Daryl Dragon would have a connection to Virginias sparsely populated Craig County? On Jan. 3, the day after Dragon died, Sirius XM morning disc jockey Gordon Phlash Phelps and his staff picked a city of the day, as is their custom, and challenged listeners to identify it through a series of topical clues. Aileen Anthony, a regular listener from Blacksburg, was brushing her teeth prior to a trip to the chiropractor when Phelps gave out one of his hints: Do you know what a Hokie is? She took that to mean that the city of the day was near Blacksburg. She went online and tried entering words like Dragon and Daryl into maps, without any luck. In fact, when I put in Dragon, up came Double Dragon Restaurant from down the street, she said. Eventually, a caller came up with Captain, Virginia, and was pronounced the winner by Phelps. The listener had successfully named the city of the day eight times and subsequently had visited each of them. He was ready to add Captain to the list, but Anthony was dubious. Im thinking to myself, Well, youre nuts because youre not going anywhere, Anthony said. The Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville will mark its silver anniversary with a busy schedule of readings, panel discussions and programs for all ages. On Monday, the festival unveiled its full schedule, which includes more than 100 free events. Events will dive into a wide range of book genres and industry disciplines, offering everything from poetry to publishing, race to religion and current events to climate change. The annual festival, a program of Virginia Humanities, generally draws more than 20,000 audience members from more than 40 states and has an estimated economic impact in the area of about $4 million. Among the events announced Monday are the following: We began implementing SmartShopper in October. SmartShopper is a shared savings incentive program that encourages health plan members to shop for certain medical services and to identify better-value, lower-cost facilities for these services. When choosing a better-value service, a plan member can earn a financial incentive, ranging from $25 to $500, depending on the service and the chosen facility. Having had the chance to speak directly with many state employees, I know that compensation alone is not the most effective driver for employee engagement, performance, and loyalty. Although state employees have been concerned about their salaries for several years, I am impressed by their strong commitment to public service nonetheless. Thats why I am especially pleased that my proposed budget includes both salary increases and a bonus for 2019, and that health care premiums will not change for the 2019-2020 fiscal year. Behind these many tangible expressions of my commitment to our state workforce resides an even greater commitment: to honor and improve the lives of those who protect us, educate our children, preserve our natural resources, grow our economy, build and maintain our transportation systems, develop our workforce, and ensure that our most vulnerable citizens have access to the best services and benefits available to them. My administration will continue to identify opportunities to enrich the lives of those who choose careers in public service. The commonwealth was founded on public service, and our state employees work together each day to make Virginia a better place for all of us to work and live. Virginia is ready to move past the politics of division. This issue has been decided by Virginia voters who, since 2009, have only elected officials to statewide office who proudly and explicitly support nondiscrimination protections for gay and transgender people. It has been decided by a bipartisan supermajority in the Virginia Senate, who have approved LGBT nondiscrimination legislation for three years in a row. It has been decided by the business community, where over 80 percent of all Fortune 500 companies include nondiscrimination protections for their gay and transgender employees. And it has been decided in the hearts of many Virginians who are proud to call LGBT people their children, siblings, friends, loved ones, co-workers, and neighbors. As I reflect on the 30 years since Equality Virginia was founded, Im so proud of how far weve come as a commonwealth and as a nation. Every day, I wake up ready to do everything in my power to create a Virginia where all young people know they will be safe, successful, and protected under the law no matter who they grow up to be or who they grow up to marry. I know in my heart that the commonwealth is at its strongest when were all free to work hard, earn a decent living, and go about our lives without fear of discrimination. 2019 is the year we can send a message to all Virginians and all Americans that discrimination has no place in our state. Together, lets make this happen. If youd like to visit Valley Forge to get even a glimpse of what life was like when George Washingtons Continentals camped there in the dead of winter, youre out of luck. The Valley Forge National Historic Park, which is part of the U.S. National Park Service, is closed thanks to the government shutdown. So are Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Fords Theater in Washington, the JFK Library and Museum in Boston, Martin Luther Kings birthplace in Atlanta, and the White House itself. The effect on the nations air traffic gets more attention than what the shutdown has meant for tourism. This is easily understood. But it is by visiting historic sites that many Americans learn or at least enrich their knowledge of the nations past, and right now the opportunities are limited. Lets hope by spring, when the weather is more conducive to travel, that changes. But theres no guarantee of it. There might never be a wall keeping refugees and other immigrants from crossing our southern border, but there are plenty of barriers keeping native-born citizens out of historic properties. The problem with the shutdown, MarketWatch reports, is not that President Trump is holding the government hostage, as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said, but that the government has taken hostage too much of the U.S. economy. Prosecutor David Zagaja argued to jurors that Maraghs story of what happened was not plausible, based upon the testimony of the medical examiner. The trajectory of the shotgun blast was down into Hoys body, he said in closing arguments, and not as described by Maragh. The Department of Social Services has asked the Senate Finance Committee to approve $17.2 million in budget amendments over the next two years, with more than half of that to pay for the costs to implement work requirements, as well as employment and housing services, that were a condition of the legislature approving Medicaid expansion. The proposed $10.4 million budget adjustment anticipates the cost of implementing conditions placed on participation in and services offered with the expanded Medicaid program. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is reviewing Virginias proposal to implement conditions, which will not go into effect until they are approved by the federal agency. At the same time, DSS expects to return $10.6 million in appropriated funds allocated to Medicaid expansion projects, which the agency now expects to recover from fees collected from medical providers. The agency has also requested $4.2 million for supplies for emergency shelters, nearly $3 million for increases in foster care and adoption cost-of-living stipends, and more than $1.4 million to upgrade software on mobile devices for caseworkers. We are talking monumental legislation, Ayers said. Its an opportunity for us, as a system, to do better in a way we havent been able to. The funding will be provided only to programs approved by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services which, so far, are 12 evidence-based programs, including Trauma Focused-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, according to the Child Welfare League of America and for residential programs that meet federal criteria. Mason said 31 of Virginias 141 group or institutional homes are accredited, one of the requirements to meet federal standards. One of his legislative priorities is to identify the programs that are close to qualifying and provide them the resources they need to meet the threshold. Gilbreath reported to the caucus on the state of kinship care, when a child is placed with a relative instead of foster parents. Evidence shows that placing a child with family increases the likelihood the child will find a permanent home and more stable life, she said. In Virginia, 6 percent of children in foster care are placed with a relative, compared with 32 percent nationwide. Senate panel advances increasing minimum wage to $15 by 2021 A Senate panel cast a surprise vote on Monday for a bill to gradually increase Virginias minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 per hour by 2021, as two senior Republicans backed the measure sponsored by Sen. Rosalyn Dance, D-Petersburg. Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment, R-James City County, and Sen. Frank Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, joined Dance and three other Democrats in the 6-4 vote in favor of Senate Bill 1200. Four other Republicans on the Commerce and Labor Committee voted against the measure. The vote, advancing the bill to the floor, could be an election-year effort to force all 19 Democrats to take a vote on an issue that could alienate members of the business community. All 40 senators and 100 delegates are up for election in November. As the 2017 campaign for governor got underway Norment engineered a vote on so-called sanctuary cities in order to force a tie-breaking vote by then-Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam. Liberal advocacy groups hailed Mondays vote. Virginias law barring sex with an animal was upheld by the Virginia Court of Appeals on Tuesday in a case appealed from Pittsylvania County Circuit Court. A three-judge panel of the court affirmed the 2017 conviction of Arthur Anderson Warren for soliciting another person to carnally know a brute animal or to submit to carnal knowledge with a brute animal. According to the appeals courts 13-page ruling, in October 2016, Warren used his cellphone to record video of encounters he had with a woman and her dog. In 2017 while Warren was talking to a deputy sheriff about another matter, he asked the deputy if bestiality type stuff was legal and described the cellphone videos. The deputy contacted an investigator and a search warrant was obtained before the videos were removed from Warrens phone. He was convicted in an August 2017 trial before Judge Stacey W. Moreau. Online court records show he was sentenced to four years with three years and 10 months suspended. Warren appealed, arguing the Virginia law is unconstitutional because it violated his due process rights. He argued that the videos showed nothing more than private sexual conduct of consenting individuals. Staff at Riverside Regional Jail failed to keep close enough watch on an inmate who committed suicide and an officer then falsified the logbook, and proper emergency supplies were unavailable to respond to a second prisoners suicide. These were among the concerns cited by state officials in a summary of an investigative report. On Tuesday, the jails new interim superintendent, Karen Craig, told officials that the facility has increased staff and implemented new procedures in response to the reports findings. Craig, on her second day on the job, addressed the Virginia Board of Corrections in Richmond and answered questions about the two deaths, which were among six deaths at Riverside Regional Jail in the past two years and at least 15 since 2013. Her comments on Tuesday came two days before Col. Jeffery Newton, the previous jail superintendent who resigned Dec. 1, is scheduled to appear in Chesterfield County Circuit Court on a charge of criminal contempt alleging that Riverside failed to transfer a mentally ill inmate to Central State Hospital, as ordered by a judge. A truck traveling on Route 288 in Chesterfield County on Tuesday struck and killed a man who was outside his disabled SUV, the Virginia State Police said. The state police were summoned at 8:33 a.m. to the crash on Route 288 north of Hull Street Road. According to a preliminary investigation, the driver of a 2006 Ford Explorer was outside the vehicle, which was disabled on the right shoulder, when he stepped into the left lane of travel and was hit by a southbound 2018 International tractor, according to state police Sgt. Keeli Hill. Police identified the driver as Derek D. Dambacher, 53, of Chesterfield. He died at the scene. No other injuries were reported and no charges have been placed in the case. It remains under investigation. Assisting at the scene of the crash were Chesterfield police, Chesterfield Fire and EMS, and the Virginia Department of Transportation. Shareholders of Richmond-based Union Bankshares Corp. and of Reston-based Access National Corp. approved an approximate $500 million all-stock deal for Union to acquire Access. The approval came during separate special shareholders meetings for both companies held on Tuesday. The deal, which strengthens Union Bankshares presence in Northern Virginia, received regulatory approvals late last week from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and from the Virginia State Corporation Commission. The transaction is expected to close by Feb. 1. It was announced in early October. The combined company would have total assets of about $16.4 billion, deposits of approximately $12.1 billion and loans of about $11.5 billion, Union Bankshares said based on financial data as of Sept. 30. Union Bankshares is the holding company for Union Bank & Trust, which has 140 branches, seven of which are operated as Xenith Bank, a division of Union Bank & Trust of Richmond. The deal comes slightly more than a year after Union Bankshares completed an all-stock, $701 million acquisition of Xenith, creating the largest regional financial institution based in Virginia. These events occurred more than 10 years ago. Ideally, this type of behavior has been eliminated from todays workplace. Fast-forward to 2018 when a female employee claims she was sexually harassed and assaulted, among other claims, by her female boss, the owner and pharmacist at a pharmacy in Illinois. The employee claims that she and others were compelled to line up and kiss the female owner on the mouth as a prerequisite to receive their paychecks; receive spankings from the owner as a form of discipline and sexual gratification; and observe displays of nudity by the owner, among other transgressions. The employee claims that after working for the pharmacy for more than a decade, she developed high blood pressure, severe anxiety and depression from the owners conduct. She says she was terminated as a result of her medical inability to work. The owner denies the allegations, calling them bogus and said the charges are being driven by a disgruntled employee. The U.S. District Court in Illinois has refused to dismiss the majority of the charges, including claims of unlawful sexual harassment, violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, assault and battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. I am out of the office. If your message is urgent, you need to reassess the people you depend upon. In fact, you should look at all your life choices, as I have. I would say your message is important to me, but the more I look out over the ocean the less that seems true, if it ever was. One day I will be out of the office forever. Someday, too, youll hit SEND for the last time. MOUNT VERNON Firefighters found a woman dead in her flame-filled Mount Vernon apartment early Sunday morning, Mount Vernon Fire Department Chief Chad Christopher said Monday. The name of the deceased woman has not been released. The Ohio State Fire Marshal's Office and MVFD Investigator Terry Davis are currently investigating the incident. State Fire Marshal Public Information Officer Brian Bonhert said Monday that no foul play is suspected. He said the cause of death is believed to be smoking while using a home oxygen system, which caused the system to combust. According to 911 records, the fire department was called to the Arbors of Mt. Vernon apartment complex, located at 1575 Yauger Road, at 12:25 a.m. Sunday. A neighbor called 911 to report a strange smell, which had awoken her. Its kind of wafting through the house now, the caller told dispatch. We heard a real loud noise, I dont know if it came from the apartment next door or what it was... And then I came out in the kitchen and I could really smell it, and now its kind of, like, in our bedroom. Its just kind of going through the house. After arriving on the scene, a MVFD captain saw fire inside an apartment window, Christopher said. Additional units then responded to the scene MVFD sent two engines and a command vehicle, while Fredericktown EMS and College Township Fire Department served as mutual aid. Firefighters discovered that the fire was coming from the apartments bedroom, prompting them to pull a handline and perform a transition attack, Christopher said. They doused the fire from the outside and then transitioned inside, where they found the woman deceased in her bedroom. Christopher said there were no other people found inside the apartment. No other injuries were reported, as firefighters were able to contain the flames to the bedroom. After arriving on the scene, officers from the Mount Vernon Police Department and College Township Fire Department evacuated residents from the five apartments that were connected to the burning residence, Christopher said. Those residents were assisted by Red Cross until they were allowed back into their apartments in the early morning hours, a MVFD press release stated. The press release added that there were working smoke alarms in the burning apartment. A representative from Arbors of Mt. Vernon declined to comment on Monday when asked about the incident. Bonhert said the State Fire Marshals Office typically only handles cases involving casualties, high-dollar losses or suspicious activity, although he said there was nothing suspicious or criminal about this incident. State Fire Marshal investigations can last anywhere from 14 days to several months, Bonhert said, as it really is a case-by-case basis. However, because the office already believes it has determined a cause of death, Bonhert said this investigation might conclude sooner. The state office is still waiting on lab results to confirm investigation details before it concludes its investigation, Bonhert said. The official cause and origin of the fire are expected to be included in the final report. Knox Pages contacted the Knox County Coroner's Office on Monday, seeking details concerning the identification of the deceased woman. The office did not issue a response as of press time. While Christopher wasnt sure of the last time a fatal house fire occurred in Mount Vernon, he said that, unfortunately, this type of tragedy seems to occur annually. It obviously is terrible, any time we lose somebody in a fire. It seems like just about every year or every other year we do lose somebody in a house fire, said Christopher, who has served as Mount Vernon's fire chief since 2013. Its tragic when that happens, but a lot of times, if you follow the right safety precautions and have your smoke detectors, these deaths can be prevented. Christopher added that the department typically sees more fires during the winter months because of wood burners, auxiliary heating sources, propane heaters and things like that. We will update this story as more information becomes available. MANSFIELD -- Local educator and entrepreneur Joel Vega today announced he is running in the May Democratic primary for an at-large seat on Mansfield City Council. Vega, who graduated from Madison High School in 1997, moved back to Mansfield from South Carolina to raise his family, be near relatives and start a performing arts non-profit organization. "Mansfield truly is the heart of the state and Ohio is the heart of the country," Vega said. "It's time to enter into the new economy and continue to show the rest of the country what theyre missing by not living and working here in Mansfield. Im proud I grew up here and proud theyll eventually bury me here. Lets get to work for us all. Vega, the proud father of a Mansfield Tyger freshman, has taught music as an adjunct professor at The Ohio State University-Mansfield, North Central State College, Mount Vernon Nazarene University and The College of Wooster, among others. Having lived all over the country before moving back, Vega said he aims to promote Mansfield as the single best area for small city life, business, and the arts in the country. Vega said he will seek opinions and hopes of Mansfield residents in all six wards equally. He said he aims to strengthen Mansfields public parks, schools, and other public infrastructure while ensuring locally based businesses can thrive. Vega said he wants to make sure all residents in all wards benefit from development and increased business as the city grows. BUCYRUS -- The Community Foundation for Crawford County has announced Samantha Peck as a 2019 scholarship winner for The Samuel Neff Fellowship for International Studies. Peck is a 2017 graduate of Wynford High School and is a sophomore at Wittenberg University. Her intended major is early childhood education. She plans on becoming an elementary school teacher. She will be one of a group of Wittenberg students participating in the Witt in Witt program and spending the spring semester in Wittenberg, Germany. There, she will complete two internships and study several different topics, including science, geology and of course, the German language. Students will also have the opportunity to travel to other European countries during their stay. I chose this program as I always wanted to travel to Europe to see how the environment is different than the United States, Samantha said. I hope to learn the German language, how Germans celebrate traditions and their culture. Also, I am currently at a preschool where each student has different backgrounds. "I think that traveling to a completely different area that has a completely different background will help me become an even better teacher in the long run. The Samuel Neff Fellowship for International Studies was established with the Foundation in 1999. During the one hundred years they were associated with the Bucyrus community, Samuel Neff and his family were actively involved with the larger world around them. Neff's descendants believe it is appropriate that the recipients are internationally-minded young men or women excited about engaging in a significant international experience that they are willing to share with others. This scholarship is intended for any Crawford County High School student or graduate of any Crawford County High School who is pursuing an educational experience outside the United States. Exchange programs set up by other organizations, like Rotary or college semesters abroad, are applicable for this award. To learn more about the scholarships offered through the Foundation visit www.cfcrawford.org. Established in 1984 with the generous help of the Timken Foundation, The Community Foundation for Crawford County bridges philanthropy with causes that improve Crawford Countys quality of life. GALION The Galion City School District Board of Education elected Grant Garverick to serve as Board President and Brian Owens to serve as Vice President for the 2019 calendar year during its organizational meeting Monday, Jan 14. The board also set its annual meeting calendar prior to closing the organizational meeting. Regular monthly meetings will be held the third Tuesday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in the Galion Middle School computer lab. The board immediately moved to the regular monthly meeting agenda after adjourning the organizational meeting. Donations from businesses and civic organizations highlighted the early portion of the meeting. The board accepted a donation from the Crawford County Retired Teachers to establish a fund to purchase school supplies for children in need. The donation from Christ United Methodist Church and Kountry Kitchen for the benefit of the districts Campus Wear Fund and for the Negative Lunch Balance Fund was also accepted by the board. The final donation the board accepted was from Avita Health System to purchase a device that helps to kill germs in classrooms, hallways and other areas of the districts facilities. I continue to be amazed at the support this community provides to its school district, Superintendent Jim Grubbs said. These are just a few of the many donations weve received, and I would like to thank every individual, business and organization that has helped our students, staff and district. A resolution was passed recognizing January as School Board Recognition Month, a program organized by the Ohio School Boards Association to recognize the effort and dedication of school board members around the state. The Galion City School District Board of Education members include: Grant Garverick, Brian Owens, Dennis Long, Debra Donaldson and Mike Mateer. It is important that we, as a school district and community, take time to thank the five community members who give so selflessly of their time to provide support for the education of all Galion children, Grubbs said. I encourage the Galion community to stop and thank each of our board members for their service to our students, staff and community. The board approved the calendar for the 2019-2020 school year during the meeting. The board also approved a resolution recognizing January 20-26 as Ohio Public Education Week. All other agenda items were approved as presented during the meeting. The board recessed to executive session with no additional action taken. The next regular meeting of the Galion City School District Board of Education will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Galion Middle School computer lab Tuesday, Feb 19. Richland County is just an arbitrary boundary on the edge of the Midwest, and in many ways it is just like any number of other signs along the highway; but it has long been one of the storied crossroads of the US, and has a most intriguing way of intersecting with American History. One of these stories has to do with William Henry Harrison who, as commander of the American Army of the Northwest, made an appearance in Richland County that proved to be a critical demonstration of the poise and strength of character that won him respect and loyalty, and ultimately, led him to become the 9th President of the United States. Harrison the President On coins and stamps he is usually seen as an old man because thats what he looked like when he was President; but he actually was a young man once, and he was only 39 when he rode his horse through the square in Mansfield. He was the man who was given responsibility for dealing with the great conflict in the Ohio frontier when Tecumseh united tribal forces to drive the Americans out of the west. Harrison was also the man who led the US forces against the Tribes at the Battle of the Thames when Tecumseh was killed. He emerged from the War of 1812 as an American celebrity and then, known as the Hero of Tippecanoe he ran for President in 1840. He was promoted as a candidate of the people, who rose from a common upbringing that started when he was born in a log cabin. Harrison was the first of those Log Cabin presidents long before Lincoln. His election was never much in doubt and he was ushered into the White House with great hope; but he is also known as the President with the shortest term of office because he died 32 days after being sworn in. Harrison was there long enough to get himself carved into stone among the pantheon of American heroes. The Wilderness Background in 1812 In October of 1812 Richland County was on land that had been acquired by the United States by Treaty, but it was still north of the Greenville Treaty Line where most of the Ohio tribes thought the United States ended and Indian Lands began. A series of forts west of here were supposed to establish our official presence in Ohio and keep the peace, but in 1812 Mansfield was the very edge of American settlements. No one had to tell the settlers here what to expect if the Tribes decided to take back their land, and it was well known that the British were supplying them with guns and ammunition just to make that possible. So it was a time of terrific tension and fear around these parts The United States stronghold that was supposed to keep all of these little settlements safe was up in Detroit; and when the Fort at Detroit surrendered in August, everything west of Richland County was considered no-mans land where any kind of terror and violence could be going on. It was at that time when General Beall organized an army of volunteers in eastern Ohio and set out towards the west to stand as a buffer between Mansfield and the danger zone. Camp Council When Bealls army got to about the middle of Richland County they found a likely campground near the two main roads through this part of the forest: one was an ancient tribal route called the Great Trail that went east and west; and the other was a newly forged north-south road that had been cut from Mansfield to Lake Erie at Huron, Ohio. They called the site where they stopped Camp Council. Bealls army had 2,000 men in it, and when they arrived at the site of Camp Council in the fall they had been chopping their way through the woods for several weeks, and away from home for a couple months. Though they had been mustered into the U.S. Army under emergency conditions, they had yet to see anything like pay or supplies or uniforms. They all left home with fantasies of great victories in great Indian wars and had been holding their breaths day after day for some kind of action. Instead they were encountering back-breaking labor and doing battle with mosquitoes and rattlesnakes. By Oct. 22 the force was on the verge of open rebellion. That was the night that a stranger came into camp. The Sentry Post The stranger on horseback was stopped at the entrance to the camp by a guard who asked him for the countersign, and threatened to shoot him if he didnt know it. The gentleman jabbered for a while about protocol and it was clear that he was stalling for time, which didnt increase his chances any of escaping without a bullet in him. Fortunately someone was roused who recognized that he was Major General William Henry Harrison and he was escorted into camp. The next morning at sunrise Harrison had the troops summoned to hear him speak. Many of the men arrived at the dawn assembly with their backpacks already on their backs ready to depart for home as soon as the speechifying was finished. The Turning Point in History It is often true that the most poignant moments in history pass by so quickly that they are not recognized until after they are gone. No one knows exactly what Harrison said to his army that day. There is a version of the speech that was written down many years later by some old soldier who said he would never forget it, but his rendition lacks the inspiration that Harrison must have imparted that day: because after he spoke not a single man left Camp Council. In many respects the war may have ended that day in Richland County, simply dying of inertia as the army disintegrated. Instead William Henry Harrison rose to the occasion and with words alone inspired a new dedication of purpose and patriotic fervor. Not a man walked away from the U.S. Army that day. They all went on to do their duty, and were recognized for decades afterward as heroes of the War of 1812. When this photo was taken of St. Marks Lutheran Church on Springmill Street in 1909, it was so new the ground was still broken. At the time, it was referred to in the papers as St. Marks Fifth Lutheran Church, because it was the fifth congregation of Lutherans in Mansfield. It had originated a few years before as a mission church in the north end of town sponsored by First Lutheran Church, meeting in a rented hall down the street. The church formally organized in 1906 with only 33 members, and by the time they had 100, they had built this amazing structure. A true vessel of light, the semicircular sanctuary is almost as much window as wall, and flooded with color. The U.S. Senate is set to vote on a resolution criticizing the decision by President Donald Trump's administration to ease sanctions on companies linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. The January 15 vote is not expected to pass the Senate because lawmakers from Trump's Republican Party control the chamber. But the vote is still a reminder of the mood among U.S. lawmakers toward Kremlin-connected oligarchs and Russia, more broadly. The resolution, sponsored by Senate Democrats, is in response to the December 20 announcement by the Treasury Department that it would lift sanctions on the core businesses of Deripaska. That includes aluminum giant Rusal, its parent company En+, and power firm EuroSibEnergo. The sanctions imposed in April roiled global metals markets; Rusal is one of the world's largest aluminum producers. "This is not the moment to give up a source of leverage over the Russian government," the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said in a speech on January 14. Deripaska, who is widely believed to have close ties to the Kremlin, has agreed to pare back his controlling stakes in the companies. Schumer said the timing of the sanctions decision was wrong, given the larger Russia investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and other congressional committees. With questions growing about his ties to Russia, Trump on January 14 said that he never worked for Russia, his first direct denial after a New York Times report that said the FBI had opened a counterintelligence investigation in May 2017. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last week testified before a House committee, telling lawmakers that the Trump administration would keep control over the companies. With reporting by Reuters ASHGABAT -- Turkmen authorities have launched a campaign to register army reservists -- nearly all men under 50 -- amid concerns about militants in neighboring Afghanistan, according to a Defense Ministry source and accounts by citizens. The Defense Ministry source told RFE/RL on January 14 that all conscription commissions across the Central Asian country had been instructed to register males younger than 50 and assess whether they are capable of taking part in military operations. "It is linked to the tense situation along the border" with Afghanistan, said the source, who was not authorized to speak about the issue publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. An RFE/RL correspondent in the capital, Ashgabat, said that men under 50 had been summoned to local conscription commissions for medical examinations in recent weeks. There has been no official announcement and Turkmen authorities have declined to comment. Many Afghan districts bordering Turkmenistan are at least partially controlled by militants, mainly the Taliban, rather than by the internationally-backed Afghan government. In December, a senior Russian military official said that the Russian Defense Ministry had resumed cooperation and joint training with Turkmen armed forces for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Turkmenistan says it is neutral and has been reluctant to join international military and security groups since the Soviet collapse. The head of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) -- which includes Russia and several other former Soviet republics but not Turkmenistan -- said there was a danger of a "powerful extremist group" appearing along Afghanistan's borders with Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. In January 2016, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a visit to Ashgabat that Russia was ready to help Turkmenistan patrol its southern border with Afghanistan, but that Turkmenistan did not need such assistance at the time. The death toll from an explosion at a residential building in Russia's southern city of Shakhty has risen to four after more bodies were found under the debris, officials say. The Emergency Situations Ministry said rescue workers found two more victims on January 15, a day after a blast rocked the nine-story building. Earlier in the day, the ministry said the body of a woman was found under the debris. Rescue teams found the first victim's body earlier on January 14. One person remains missing as rescue work continues. Investigators said they were treating the incident, in which four apartments were destroyed on the building's top two floors, as a gas explosion. INFOGRAPHIC: Domestic Gas Explosions In Russia (click to view) Four people were hospitalized, including a 2-year-old girl. The blast follows a similar incident in the southern Urals city of Magnitogorsk on December 31, when an explosion sent a section of a 10-story building crashing to the ground. Thirty-nine people died in the blast that authorities say was likely caused by a gas explosion. Based on reporting by RIA Novosti, Interfax, and AP Vega-Figeuroa thinks about adding something dramatic to the service, like carrying a coffin through the streets. He wants others to feel the urgency of the losses hes witnessed over 21 years in shelter services, like a young man suffering from AIDS who wanted his ashes scattered in the ocean. When no family came to collect the mans body, Vega-Figeuroa kept them in his office, talked to the remains each day, and brought them on a trip to his native Puerto Rico. MOSCOW -- A Moscow court has prolonged the pretrial detention for 12 of 24 Ukrainian sailors detained by Russian forces who attacked three Ukrainian Navy vessels in the Black Sea in November. In a series of rulings on January 15, the Lefortovo district court granted requests by the Russian Investigative Committee to keep commander Denys Hrytsenko, Security Service (SBU) officer Andriy Drach, and 10 sailors in jail until April 24. As Russian security officers escorted some of the sailors from the courtroom during a break in the proceedings for lunch, some spectators chanted "Glory to Ukraine!" The court was expected to issue identical rulings for the other 12 sailors later in the day. All 24 said they considered themselves prisoners of war. Russia has held the Ukrainian sailors since its forces fired on, boarded, and seized their vessels near the Kerch Strait, which links the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, on November 25. Moscow claims the Ukrainian vessels illegally entered Russian territorial waters near Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia occupied and took over in 2014. The sailors have been charged with illegal border crossing and face up to six years in prison if convicted. The court rulings come five days the European Union reiterated its call on Moscow to release the sailors and all other Ukrainians whom Brussels says have been "illegally detained" in Russia and Crimea. The United States and other Western countries have also called for their release. U.S. national-security adviser John Bolton said in December that there will be no substantial meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin while Moscow still holds the Ukrainian ships and sailors. Russia moved swiftly to seize control over Crimea after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was pushed from power in Kyiv by the pro-European Maidan protest movement in February 2014. Putin's government sent troops without insignia to the peninsula, seized key buildings, took control of the regional legislature, and staged a referendum denounced as illegitimate by at least 100 countries at the UN. Russia also fomented unrest and backed opponents of Kyiv in eastern Ukraine, where more than 10,300 people have been killed in the ensuing conflict since April 2014. The International Criminal Court ruled in November 2016 that the fighting in eastern Ukraine was "an international armed conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation." Russia remains "in material breach" of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the United States has said after a new round of bilateral talks ended with no progress. U.S. and Russian diplomats met in Geneva amid widespread concern over the future of the bilateral agreement, after U.S. President Donald Trump said in October that Washington would pull out of the deal unless Russia lived up to its terms. "The meeting was disappointing as it is clear Russia continues to be in material breach of the Treaty and did not come prepared to explain how it plans to return to full and verifiable compliance," U.S. Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson said in a statement on January 15. "Our message was clear: Russia must destroy its noncompliant missile system," Thompson added. Russia hosted the talks at its mission in Geneva and Moscow's delegation was led by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. "Responsibility for this fully and completely rests with the American side," Ryabkov was quoted as saying by state news agency RIA Novosti at the end of the talks. On January 14, Ryabkov told Interfax, "Recently we have noted that the American side has even hardened its tone, we see that as not a very favorable signal." Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington would withdraw within 60 days from the Cold War treaty limiting midrange nuclear arms if Russia did not dismantle missiles that the United States says breach the deal. Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the U.S. hard line by threatening to develop more nuclear missiles banned under the treaty. The INF treaty was signed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 and led to nearly 2,700 short- and medium-range missiles being eliminated. With reporting by AFP and Reuters LGBT activists allege that a new antigay purge in Chechnya has led to at least two deaths by torture and 40 detentions. The republic's information minister, Dzhambulat Umarov, says the "seeds of sodomy will not sprout" on the "blessed soil of the Caucasus." The purge began in late December, according to the Russian LGBT Network, and appears to be the second wave of a sweeping crackdown that provoked international condemnation but little action within Russia when reports of it first surfaced in April 2017. Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Moscow's ambassador to the Central African Republic (C.A.R.), where three Russian journalists were killed last summer under suspicious circumstances. Putin issued a decree on January 15 dismissing Sergei Lobanov and naming Vladimir Titorenko to be the new Russian ambassador. Titorenko has previously served as Moscow's ambassador to Iraq, Algeria, and Qatar. Orkhan Dzhemal, Aleksandr Rastorguyev, and Kirill Radchenko were shot dead on July 30, 2018, while in the C.A.R. to film a documentary about the Russian mercenary firm Vagner, which was operating in the war-torn African country. The film was funded by Russian opposition activist and former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Investigation Control Center. Investigators from Khodorkovsky's Dossier project said at a press conference in London on January 10 that they had uncovered evidence suggesting that mercenaries tied to Russian tycoon Yevgeny Prigozhin were involved in the killing of the three journalists. They urged the United Nations to ensure that credible investigation of the incident be conducted. The Russian Foreign Ministry and the C.A.R. government have said the men were killed while resisting a robbery attempt. C.A.R. officials said the perpetrators were Arabic speakers "in turbans." With reporting by Interfax Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the creation of a national system of municipal waste disposal, a move the follows unusually strident protests over a leaky Moscow region landfill. The order signed by Putin, and published on the government register on January 14, calls for establishing a "Russian Ecological Operator" that will serve as a national overseeing agency to coordinate waste disposal companies nationwide. The order gives few details except to say the agency should be set up before the end of 2019. However, it follows a series of angry protests staged in early 2018 over poorly managed landfills and household waste disposal. The largest, and more frequent, protests occurred in the Moscow regional town of Volokolamsk. Residents there demonstrated against a nearby landfill after dozens of children were rushed to hospitals with symptoms of gas poisoning. Residents blamed gases leaking from the landfill. At one point, protesters blocked a highway to keep trash trucks from traveling to the landfill to dump household trash and garbage. The protests drew wide attention across Russia, where similar political demonstrations have been under increasing pressure from the Kremlin, concerned about domestic unrest. The new agency is slated to be part of the Natural Resources Ministry, whose minister, Dmitry Kobylkin, was quoted by the newspaper RBK as saying that the reforms will help weed out inefficient waste disposal companies across the country. "In the near future, the strongest will survive, the weaker will fall, or they will have to sell their business. And we will get the best municipal solid waste businesses," he said. With reporting by RBK BAKU Azerbaijani investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilova has joined an ongoing hunger strike by a group of activists calling for the release of a jailed anticorruption blogger and other people they consider political prisoners. Ismayilova posted photos on Facebook on January 15 that showed her, activist Namiq Abdullayev, and others holding the hunger strike on the premises of the opposition Musavat party in Baku. Four other people, including Musavat deputy head Tofiq Yaqublu, have been on hunger strike there for several days, demanding that the Azerbaijani authorities immediately free Mehman Huseynov and all political prisoners in the South Caucasus country. "I have nothing else to sacrifice...other than my health," Ismailova said in a January 14 post announcing her intention to join the hunger strike. She demanded that President Ilham Aliyev's government "drop charges against five political prisoners who were about to end their prison terms" and "release all journalists, bloggers, and freedom of expression activists from prison." She also called on the government to implement a zero political prisoners policy that would include jointly reviewing "all political prisoners cases" with independent human rights groups. "Stop me if you can!" Ismayilova added. Yaqublu told RFE/RL that he and activist Natiq Irsafilli had refused both food and water since the evening of January 14. Calls for Huseynov's release have intensified inside and outside Azerbaijan since he was targeted with a new charge late last month, just weeks before his expected release from prison. He is accused of "resisting a representative of the authorities with the use of violence dangerous to [the representative's] health and life." Huseynov himself and several other political prisoners have started hunger strikes in protest. Huseynov is already serving a two-year prison term on libel charges that he and his supporters considered to be politically motivated. The bloggers lawyer said Huseynov could face up to seven years in prison if convicted of the new charge, which has triggered calls by Azerbaijani and international watchdog groups, members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), and The Washington Post's editorial board for Huseynovs release. Rights groups and Western governments have urged the Azerbaijani authorities to release political prisoners for years, and have accused the government of fabricating criminal cases to stifle dissent and media freedom. Aliev, who has ruled the oil-producing former Soviet republic of almost 10 million people with an iron fist since shortly before his long-ruling father's death in 2003, has shrugged off the criticism. A Belarusian escort whose reported relationship with a Russian billionaire put her at the center of a geopolitical scandal has been handed a suspended sentence by a Thai court on charges of soliciting to provide sexual services and ordered deported. A court in the beach resort city of Pattaya ruled on January 15 that Anastasia Vashukevich, who also goes by the name Nastya Rybka, must serve nine months of her three-year suspended sentence in prison, a term equal to the time she has already served in pretrial detention. The court issued identical rulings for her partner, Aleksandr Kirillov, known as Alex Lesley, and six other citizens of Russia and Belarus who were arrested along with the pair almost a year ago. Vashukevich and her associates will be fined the equivalent of $6,000 each and deported to Russia and Belarus, the court ordered. "The court found them all guilty of soliciting sex," said a judge on the panel, adding: "The court releases them today." Thai immigration chief Surachate Hakparn said all eight would be transferred to an immigration detention center in Bangkok and deported, a process he said would take about a week. "They are blacklisted from Thailand permanently for conducting bad deeds," Surachate told the news agency AFP. It was not immediately clear where Vashukevich would be sent, but Surachate said he would be coordinating the deportations with the Russian government. The court's ruling is the latest twist in a saga that started in February 2018, when Russian anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny published an expose appearing to show a former deputy Russian prime minister off the coast of Norway on a yacht belonging to the Kremlin-linked oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Navalny's report, which drew on photographs and video that Vashukevich published on Instagram in 2016, appeared to show then-Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko being offered lavish treatment on Deripaska's yacht. The two also appear to discuss U.S. politics. Vashukevich, who was pictured on the yacht, says she had an affair with Deripaska. Vashukevich and Kirillov made international headlines again when, shortly after their arrest in Pattaya, they asked for U.S. asylum. Vashukevich claimed that she could reveal details about Russia's alleged meddling in the U.S. election. Deripaska, who is one of several Russian tycoons hit by U.S. sanctions, was once an associate of U.S. President Donald Trump's ex-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. As the group arrived at the courthouse for the ruling, Kirillov told reporters, "I think somebody ordered [the arrests]...for money." Vashukevich and Kirillov could face legal problems in Russia, where Deripaska won an invasion of privacy lawsuit against them in July over the yacht video. With reporting by RIA Novosti, AFP, Mediazona, and Meduza Thousands of people have gathered in the southern Kosovo village of Racak to mark 20 years since 45 ethnic Albanians were massacred by Serbian forces in an act that sparked international anger. The killings were one of the factors that prompted NATO to launch an air campaign to end Kosovo's 1998-99 war. Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's government at the time claimed that the dead were all members of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) killed in combat with state security forces. The dead included a 12-year-old boy. Top government officials, including Kosovar Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, and others gathered on January 15 at the cemetery in Racak, 32 kilometers south of the capital, Pristina. Haradinaj, himself a former UCK fighter, said that the "pain, blood, and sacrifice of the people are not lost." More than 10,000 were killed in the war, and some 1,650 are still unaccounted for. Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence isn't recognized by Serbia. This week, a special international court on war crimes during and after the war began questioning members of the UCK -- as well as Kosovo's ethnic Serbs -- over alleged crimes against Serbian prisoners. With reporting by AP The United States has condemned Iran's latest attempt at launching a satellite into orbit, warning that Washington "will not stand for Iran's blatant disregard for international norms." The January 15 statement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo came hours after Iranian officials announced they had launched a rocket carrying an ecological monitoring satellite but that the mission had failed. The attempted launch, and the sharp response from Washington, were the latest indication of mounting tensions in the region as the United States tries to turn up pressure on Tehran. In comments to Iranian state TV, Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi did not say what caused the failure of the rocket but vowed that scientists would continue their research. He later said in a post on Twitter that another satellite would soon be launched. President Hassan Rohani said earlier this week that the two satellites were both intended to gather information on environmental change in Iran. Pompeo asserted in his statement that Iran's satellite program uses technologies "that are virtually identical and interchangeable with those used in ballistic missiles." "We have been clear that we will not stand for Irans flagrant disregard for international norms," he said. The launch drew condemnation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well, who alleged it was actually "the first stage of an intercontinental missile." Iran insists the launches do not violate United Nations resolutions aimed at curtailing its rocket programs. With reporting by AP and AFP THE HAGUE -- A former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) has completed two days of questioning at a controversial special court in the Netherlands about his role during Kosovo's 1998-99 war of independence from Serbia. Rrustem Mustafa and his attorney spent some 17 hours being interviewed by members of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and the Specialist Prosecutor's Office at The Hague on January 14-15. "The questions have been very serious and we have been very serious in response," Mustafa told reporters outside the Prosecutor's Office building on January 15. "The UCK has protected me and I did not have to defend the UCK." He added that he was "invited as a suspect witness." Sami Lushtaku, another UCK commander, is due to be interviewed by the court on January 16, said his lawyer, Arian Koci. Mustafa and Lushtaku were important figures during the uprising against Serbian forces and have been politically active in the Democratic Party of Kosovo during the last 20 years. Kosovar Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, who was acquitted in a UN court of war crimes and crimes against humanity -- met with Mustafa and Lushtaku on January 13 ahead of their visit to The Hague. Haradinaj proclaimed the UCK's role during the 1998-99 war to be "clean and sacred." Kosovar President Hashim Thaci, who also fought with the UCK, wrote on Facebook that the two men were "national war heroes" who will "always remain as such for the Kosovo institutions and the people." Many Serbs say UCK fighters committed atrocities against the minority Serbian community of Kosovo, which has about 2 million citizens. "This tribunal presents the last chance to shed light on the assassinations in Kosovo," said Beriana Mustafa, a journalist who lives in Pristina and whose father was killed near his home after he criticized UCK commanders. "Hope is always the last to die," said Natasa Scepanovic, the leader of an association of Serbian victims that is hoping for prosecutions against UCK members they say committed crimes. The body of Scepanovic's father was discovered in 2003, several years after he was killed. Her mother is one of about 1,700 people still listed as missing from the Kosovar war. The special court, which is funded by the European Union, will deal with alleged crimes committed in the period January 1998 through December 2000. The court was created by a law passed by Kosovo's parliament in 2015 under pressure from the EU, the United States, and international organizations. But it only became operational two years later when rules for procedure and evidence were adopted by the parliament. Although the judges, prosecutors, and other court officials are from various countries, the court is being administered under the laws of Kosovo. The court's establishment led to great opposition within Kosovo and particularly among UCK veterans, who believe that Serbs who are alleged to have committed crimes in Kosovo in 1998-99 should also be interviewed by prosecutors. But many leaders of Serbian forces have been tried and sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). At least 2,800 people were killed and hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes during the Kosovo War, which ended after NATO warplanes forced Yugoslav forces to pull out of Kosovo. The former Serbian-ruled region declared independence in 2008 and has been recognized by more than 110 countries, but not by Belgrade. With reporting by AP and AFP The development is estimated to cost $5.1 million. Mouta is pursuing $3.5 million in bridge financing from the Capital Region Development Authority and plans to repay the money with a bank loan. The financing must still be approved by the state bond commission. Mouta also received a $300,000 loan from the state Department of Economic and Community Development, and is seeking a $500,000 loan from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. He is putting in $800,000 of his own equity. The first online cryptocurrency exchange -- based on blockchain technology -- has been launched in Belarus. Media reports in Belarus said on January 15 that what they called the "world's first regulated tokenized securities exchange" at Currency.com was financially supported by London-based Belarusian entrepreneur Viktar Prakapenya and Russian businessman Said Gutseriyev. The online service would allow users to exchange different types of cryptocurrencies as well to sell and buy them for national currencies. Tokenization -- the process of substituting a sensitive data element with a nonsensitive equivalent, referred to as a token -- may be used to safeguard sensitive data such as bank accounts or financial statements. A blockchain is a digital ledger where transactions made in Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency are recorded chronologically and publicly. Blockchain technology makes online transactions faster and more secure as well as anonymous. The project is launched more than a year after Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka legalized transactions in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Lukashenka signed the decree on December 22, 2017. He said at the time that the move was aimed at attracting foreign investors and turn Belarus into a regional center for blockchain technology. Lukashenka said Minsk wanted to create conditions to encourage global IT firms to set up branches, research centers, and production facilities inside Belarus. The decree makes initial coin offerings and transactions in crypto-currencies legal and all such trades will not be taxed until January 1, 2023. The IT industry is one of the few booming sectors of the Belarusian economy. The High-Tech Park was created in Minsk in 2006 to spur growth in the IT industry. Based on reporting by Tut.by, Naviny.by, and AP The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the prison sentence recently imposed on Iranian journalist Hamed Aynehvand and urged the countrys authorities to stop persecuting the media for doing their job. Aynehvand's sham trial and harsh sentence demonstrate the flawed nature of the Iranian justice system," Sherif Mansour, Middle East and North Africa program coordinator at the New York-based media rights watchdog, said in a statement on January 14. Irans official IRNA news agency quoted Aynehvand's lawyer as saying last month that the journalist had been sentenced to six years in prison by Tehran's Revolutionary Court on charges of "propaganda against the state" and "assembly and collusion against national security." The lawyer, Hossein Bayat, said he will appeal the sentence. The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), citing the friend of Aynehvand, reported that the journalist was denied a lawyer of his choosing and that he was tried and convicted without the presence of his lawyer. Aynehvands articles on political and judicial issues in Iran have been published by several media outlets in the country, including the government-owned daily newspaper Iran, and news sites based abroad such as Gooya, Zeitoon, and Iran Global, according to CHRI. Agents of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' intelligence unit arrested him in Tehran in June last year and kept him in solitary confinement at Evin prison for a month and a half, CHRI said. Eight journalists were found to be imprisoned in Iran in direct relation to their work at the time of the CPJ's December 2018 prison census. Aynehvand was not included on the census because the group was not aware of his case at the time. Thirteen villagers detained by Myanmar soldiers, but later released, stand with other area residents outside the Arakan National Party office in Buthidaung township, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Jan. 14, 2019. Myanmars military on Monday freed all but two of 15 villagers suspected of contact with rebel forces after detaining them for a day in Buthidaung township amid fighting between government soldiers and insurgent Arakan Army troops in restive northern Rakhine state, a national lawmaker said Tuesday. The 13 who were released said soldiers questioned them about possible connections to the Arakan Army (AA) and asked if they were supplying food to soldiers, Maung Kyaw Zan, a legislator in the upper house of parliament, told RFAs Myanmar Service. Seven of the men are from Buithdaungs Pyin Chaung village, two are from Apautwa village in Kyauktaw township, one is from Kyauktaws Naypukhan village, and the rest are travelers, he said. The soldiers have not freed Maung Than Hlaing, head of Pyin Chaung village, or resident Maung Kyaw Win and have charged them under Section 17 (1) and (2) of Myanmars Unlawful Associations Act at Buthidaung township court, Maung Kyaw Zan said. A resident of Thayatpyin village who was detained for an explosion in Buthidaung on Dec. 30 was also charged under Section 17 (1) and (2) and sent to jail in the township, he said. Rights groups say Myanmar authorities use the act mainly to intimidate and arrest political activists and members of ethnic minorities, thereby posing a threat to freedom of association in the developing democracy. Section (1) of the act carries a three-year prison sentence for those who are members of or interact with an unlawful association, such as an ethnic armed group, while Section (2) carries a five-year term for assisting such an organization. In addition, two villagers who were taken by soldiers during fighting on Monday between the AA and government army have not returned home, and their mobile phones are turned off, their family members told RFA. Hostilities between the two armies have intensified in Buthidaung since Jan. 4 when the AA, a Rakhine Buddhist military force that wants greater autonomy in the state, carried out coordinated attacks on four police outposts near Myanmars border with Bangladesh, killing 13 policemen and injuring nine others. Government army troops had been conducting clearance operations in the area amid a new round of hostilities that began in late November 2018. The clashes, which have included the use of heavy weapons and helicopters by the Myanmar Army, have driven more than 5,000 civilians from their homes. Government military authorities have restricted displaced civilians' access to food supplies. On Tuesday, Myanmar officials postponed a planned visit by United Nations refugee chief Filippo Grandi to Rakhine state on account of fresh hostilities between security forces and the AA, Agence France-Press reported. Before the uptick in fighting, northern Rakhine state was rocked by a brutal military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims following deadly attacks on police outposts by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) militant group in August 2017. More than 725,000 Rohingya fled to safety in neighboring Bangladesh during the campaign of violence. Myanmar soldiers stand guard as air force helicopters arrive at the airport in Sittwe, capital of western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Oct. 13, 2016. Credit: AFP No restrictions on helicopters When asked about the use of helicopters in the fighting, Myanmar military spokesman Colonel Zaw Min Tun told RFA that government forces are conducting a counter-insurgency campaign against the AA, not a civil war. Government spokesman Zaw Htay told a news conference on Jan. 7 that the Presidents Office ordered the army to supply more troops to the area and if necessary use helicopters in military campaigns against the AA, which he said had links to ARSA, even though the latter purports to speak only for Muslim Rohingyas. The order sparked criticism against the military as well as against State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmars de factor leader, as a violation of international law and human rights. But Zaw Htay defended the decision by noting that both Myanmar and international practice have permitted the use of the aircraft in counter-insurgency campaigns. Theres no restriction on the use of helicopters in domestic conflict, he said. AA spokesman Khine Thukha accused the government armys air campaign of harming civilians. The excessive use of force will dishonor [the military], he said. The bombing campaign actually harms local residents. Bombing civilians is a crime against humanity. Khine Thukha also dismissed the armys term insurgent to describe the AA, and said the military is the force acting as an insurgent. Others expressed mixed reactions to the Myanmars Armys use of the helicopters in battle. Helicopters and advanced weapons shouldnt be used, because this is a domestic conflict, not one against a foreign adversary, said Naw Zipporah Sein, an ethnic Karen political activist and former vice president of the Karen National Union. That will hamper peace efforts in the country and cause a loss of public confidence, she said. Myanmar human rights lawyer Aung Htoo also questioned the helicopters use. Theres no indication of a terror organization at all, and under such circumstances, the governments use of air support is against international practice. Yu Lwin Aung, a member of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission, disagreed. Things like people fleeing and having no access to health care and education relate to human rights issues, he said. But you cant say for sure that every use of helicopters violates human rights. Confederation is unrealistic Also on Tuesday, the leader of the Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP), a Myanmar think tank, said the AAs dream of obtaining confederate status for Rakhine state is unrealistic. Min Zin, ISPs founding member and executive director, told reporters in Yangon that additional armed conflicts would arise in Rakhine state if the AA makes this its political objective. If the AA talks about a confederation of states with the intention of leveraging the organization, the AA and government can maintain their discussions, he said. But if AA considers this confederation issue as a political dream or vision or expectation for Rakhine, it will be difficult for us to have peace, and there will be more conflicts. Min Zin was commenting on a statement that AA commander-in-chief Brigadier General Tun Myat Naing made to the online journal The Irrawaddy that the rebel force prefers a confederation of states such as that of Wa state an unrecognized state located in eastern Myanmar divided into northern and southern regions which are separated from one another and administered by the United Wa State Army rather than a federal state that the government is striving for. Tun Myat Naing said this would give the AA a larger share of power in line with the countrys constitution, and that a confederation is better than federalism. The AA is one of seven ethnic armed groups belonging to the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC) that has proposed a confederate system in Myanmar that allows ethnic organizations to maintain their own armed forces. Min Zin also urged the ruling civilian-led National League for Democracy government to cooperate with the national army instead of trying to limit or reduce the powers granted to it by the 2008 constitution, drafted by a military junta that previously ruled the country. If the government tries to hold a meeting [with the national military] only when a problem occurs, such as the AAs attack in Rakhine, it can only expect a reactive response from the military, he said. If the government wants mutual respect and cooperation from military, then it must give priority to working with the military in parliament or in the states emergency and security meetings. Reported by Min Thein Aung, Htet Arkar, and Aung Theinkha for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Nandar Chann and Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. An international human rights group on Tuesday called on China to revoke the death penalty handed down by a court in its northeastern province of Liaoning to a Canadian national found guilty of drug smuggling, while Ottawa has warned its citizens that traveling to China should exercise "a high degree of caution" amid rising tensions in the wake of its arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. Robert Schellenberg was originally sentenced to 15 years in prison for drug smuggling last November by the Dalian Intermediate People's Court. He denied the charges, and the case proceeded to appeal. But prosecutors at an appeal hearing on Dec. 29, less than a month after Meng's arrest in Vancouver, said new evidence had led them to believe that a harsher sentence was merited, and ordered a retrial in the same court. London-based rights group Amnesty International called on the ruling Chinese Communist Party to revoke the sentence, saying that it "does not deliver justice." Schellenberg was sentenced to death by the Dalian Intermediate People's Court on Monday, after China detained 13 Canadian nationals in the wake of the arrest in Vancouver of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of its flagship telecoms company Huawei. His lawyer Zhang Dongshuo said his client has pleaded not guilty all along, and plans to appeal again. "I and the second defense attorney met with Schellenberg this morning," Zhang said. "He said he wanted to appeal, and my colleague has already told him the points he needs to raise in the appeal." Zhang said the court had ignored evidence presented by the defense in passing its sentence, and that it was "hard to predict" whether the provincial-level Higher People's Court would take the same approach. Travel warning Canada has now revised its travel advice to its citizens, warning them against travel to China. "Chinese authorities apply, sometimes arbitrarily, the death penalty for both violent and non-violent crimes," the travel advice on the official government website said on Tuesday. "There are identifiable safety and security concerns or the safety and security situation could change with little notice," the advice said. "You should exercise a high degree of caution at all times, monitor local media and follow the instructions of local authorities." The 13 Canadians were detained after Chinese officials vowed to retaliate for the arrest of Meng, who is wanted for questioning by investigators in the U.S. over alleged bank fraud linked to the breach of sanctions against Iran. While at least eight have since been released, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and tourism consultant Michael Spavor remain in detention on suspicion of "endangering national security." "Chinese authorities may define certain behaviours and activities as endangering national security that would not be considered as such in Canada," the Canadian government advisory said. "Chinese authorities may detain you for up to six months before you are formally arrested ... access to legal representation is frequently denied [and] trials often take place in closed court." Call to revoke Meanwhile, London-based rights group Amnesty International called on the ruling Chinese Communist Party to revoke the sentence, saying that it "does not deliver justice." The death sentence given to Robert Schellenberg does not deliver justice," China researcher William Nee said. "We urge the Chinese authorities to revoke this sentence. Drug-related offences do not meet international standards for the use of capital punishment." Nee added: "Many will be questioning the timing of this decision. We have seen before that in highly politicized cases the trial is often a mere spectacle with the outcome already decided." He said the retrial had been sudden and judgment rushed, highlighting problems with China judicial system. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the sentence was "arbitrary." "It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply [the] death penalty ... as in this case facing a Canadian," he said on Monday. But Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Beijing was "strongly dissatisfied" with his response. "We urge the Canadian side to respect the rule of law, respect China's judicial sovereignty, correct mistakes, and stop publishing irresponsible remarks," Hua told a regular news briefing on Tuesday, adding that China doesn't "politicize" legal cases. Canadian media reported that Schellenberg had been previously jailed in Canada for drug trafficking. Reported by Liu Fei for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Lau Siu-fung for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. A detained Chinese rights lawyer has won a European human rights award for his "exceptional contribution" to the protection and promotion of human rights. Yu Wensheng, who is in pretrial detention on subversion charges, has been held incommunicado by authorities in Jiangsu's Xuzhou city for more than a year. His wife Xu Yan received the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law on her husband's behalf from the French and German ambassadors to China on Jan. 14, she told RFA. "Yu Wensheng has been locked up in Xuzhou Detention Center, has lost his liberty, for a year now, and hasn't been allowed to meet with a lawyer that whole time," Xu said after meeting with France's ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert and Germany's ambassador Clemens von Goetze. "I am happy and delighted that free and civilized countries like France and Germany have chosen to honor Yu Wensheng in this way," she said. "Yet many more lawyers we know have ... suffered persecution because they agreed to represent clients in human rights cases in order to promote the rule of law," she said. "Many have lost their licenses or even their freedom ... and so Yu Wensheng isn't the only one being honored by this prize; many other rights lawyers are too," Xu said. The prize has been awarded annually since 2016 "to figures who have made an exceptional contribution to the protection and promotion of human rights and the rule of law in their country and at the international level," according to a description on the French diplomatic service website. "This prize reaffirms the constant commitment of France and Germany to human rights and the rule of law and helps strengthen their cooperation in this area," it said. Risk of torture Yu was initially held for more than two months without access to a defense attorney, and has been identified by London-based rights group Amnesty International as being at risk of torture. Xu Yan herself was detained and questioned by state security police in Xuzhou city on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power" for more than seven hours. Yu was snatched away from his son by large numbers of police in a car park near his home and placed under criminal detention on Jan. 19, 2018 on suspicion of obstructing public servants in the course of their duties." He was later transferred from Beijing to Jiangsu's Xuzhou city with the addition of the more serious charge of incitement to subvert state power. Fellow rights attorney Tan Yongpei said there are concerns that the award could cause more problems for Yu in detention. "For foreign countries to hand a human rights award to someone who China has designated a criminal is basically the same as calling them a human rights warrior," Tan said. "His situation is bad enough already, but this could make things worse for him." China's embattled legal profession has been targeted with more than 300 detentions, summons, travel bans, and restrictions imposed on rights lawyers, activists, and law firm staff since July 2015. Rights lawyers who accept politically sensitive cases, or who are publicly outspoken on behalf of vulnerable groups, have also been prevented from practicing law because their business licenses are being revoked during a newly instituted annual review process. Lawyers who try to defend clients held on suspicion of crimes ostensibly linked to state security concerns are also denied permission to meet with their clients, or are replaced by government-appointed lawyers amid threats and pressure on the people who hired them. Reported by Gao Feng for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Ng Yik-tung and Sing Man for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Sri Lankan security personnel and Buddhist monks clash during a protest in the southern port city of Hambantota over the creation of an industrial zone for Chinese investments on the island, on Jan. 7, 2017. China is confronting multiple setbacks, flaws, and failures in President Xi Jinpings ambitious overseas infrastructure projectthe Belt and Road Initiative. Experts note that more than five years after its launch, three of the six economic corridors planned for the massive initiative, often referred to as the BRI, lack any Chinese-funded major projects. And it appears that the BRI isnt as well organized as some believe it to be. Some nations worry about debts that they owe to China for project loans. Critics describe these as part of a kind of Chinese debt-trap diplomacy. Others fear that Chinese-built infrastructure projects, such as ports, dams, and railways, will result in an increase in Chinese political and strategic influence. According to Jonathan E. Hillman, senior fellow of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic & International Studies, the BRIs sheer scale demands attention. Spanning roughly 80 countries, it can claim to cover more than two-thirds of the worlds population, says Hillman. It could include Chinese investments approaching $1 trillion, seven times what the United States spent during the Marshall Plan. It will also carry exports, people, and data across the Eurasian supercontinent. So in many ways, says Hillman, when much of the West is looking inward, China is connecting with the world. A poll shows concerns about Chinas ambitions But a recent survey conducted by a Singapore-based think-tank shows that many Southeast Asian nations are wary of the Belt and Road Initiative. The ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute polled 1,008 respondents from all 10 members states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The respondents included government officials, scholars, business people, and members of civil society and the media. Some 73 percent of the respondents believe that China has more political and strategic influence in the region than the United States. But the respondents to the poll, which was released on Jan. 6, expressed concerns about Chinas geostrategic ambitions. Fewer than one in 10 saw China as a benign and benevolent power, with nearly half saying that Beiing possesses an intent to turn Southeast Asia into a sphere of influence. Some 70 percent said that their governments should be cautious in negotiating BRI projects to avoid getting into unsustainable financial debts to China, a view described as strongly held in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. Meanwhile, Matt Schrader of the U.S.-based Jamestown Foundation says that inside China itself some experts have even dared to question President Xis excessive foreign aid to countries in Africa and elsewhere. According to Schrader, such criticism is an obvious reference to Xi Jinpings globe-spanning Belt and Road Initiative. This is remarkable, because criticism inside China of the all-powerful Chinese leader has been rareat least until recently. As Schrader describes it, the BRI is a hallmark of Xi Jinpings foreign policy. But he also says that BRI lending has already begun to shrink, decreasing dramatically since 2015. A project that cant be allowed to fail China is expected to continue to expand its outreach to new countries through the BRI, partly because it has been written into the Chinese Communist Partys constitution. At the Partys 19th National Congress held in late October of 2017, the Partys amended charter pledged to pursue the Belt and Road Initiative. Reuters reporter Jason Lee said that this is evidence that President Xis ambitious project will endure even beyond his tenure. He cited analysts as saying that it also underscored how the Communist Party has increased its attention to foreign policy and reflects Xis growing desire for China to take a leadership role. And as some analysts describe it, the BRI has now become too important to fail. This has contributed to a perception that China is now moving methodically and successfully to create client states that will help advance its military and geopolitical ambitions. But Hillman at the Center for Strategic & International Studies disagrees with this perception. More chaos than conspiracy In an analysis published on Sept. 4, 2018, by CSIS, Hillman wrote that since the BRI was launched in 2013, it has yet to materialize on the ground as promised. The BRI includes six economic corridors, but Hillman says that a statistical analysis of 173 infrastructure projects finds that Chinese investment is just as likely to go outside these corridors than in them. In his analysis, Hillman argued that much of the BRIs activity looked more scattered and opportunistic than part of a well-implemented grand design. David Fickling, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering commodities as well as industrial and consumer companies, agrees with Hillmans view. In an article published by Bloomberg recently under the title Belt and Road Is More Chaos Than Conspiracy, Fickling argues that the initiative isnt ultimately a connected master plan for Chinese global ascendancy. Instead, he says, its better looked at as a somewhat chaotic branding and franchising exercise. Alternatively, he says, its a way for the countrys numerous provincial officials and state-owned companies to slip a presidential seal of approval on whatever project theyre seeking to pursue. Fickling adds that the prestige of the BRI may even end up being used to sell projects that are not just illogical but corrupt. And as he describes it, the massive web of private contracts, public funds and gate-keeping officials that support major infrastructure projects in emerging countries offer many opportunities for graft. Pushback against the BRI Some countries are pushing back against proposed Chinese infrastructure plans while others are sounding the alarm about already completed but flawed projects. Some planned projects are simply going nowhere. As Fickling notes, when it comes to failures in implementation, oil and gas pipelines linking a planned $9.6 billion dollar port in Myanmar to Chinas Yunnan Province are barely used five years after being launched. In Indonesia, a high-speed train project to connect the capital of Jakarta to the West Java capital of Bandung is running more than two years behind schedule and has barely started construction. In March of 2016, Liu Zhen reported in the South China Morning Post that provincial representatives in Indonesia had criticized the planned project for being too costly, unfair to less developed regions, and unhelpful to the poor. In an article published on Sept.6 last year by the Hong Kong-based website Asia Times, Indian scholar Gunjan Singh wrote that the number of countries expressing concern over Chinese investments adding to their debt was on the rise. Officials in South and Southeast Asian countries worry that China will eventually use countries inability to pay back debt as an excuse to gain control of vital transportation links, such as ports and railways. As Singh notes, the first prominent victim of Chinese infrastructure investments has been the South Asian nation of Sri Lanka. Last December, a heavily indebted Sri Lanka was forced to lease out its Hambantota Port and land around it to a Chinese shipping country for 99 years. Malaysia announced last August that it wouldnt be going ahead with three major Chinese projects that would have cost some $20 billion. On Jan. 12, The Washington Post summed up in an editorial what it described as jaw dropping corruption driving Chinese investment in Malaysia. Thanks to reporters of The Wall Street Journal, we know that Chinese officials offered in 2016 to help then-Prime Minister Najib Razak avoid a financial scandal. In exchange, they asked that Najib agree to railway and pipeline projects to be built at inflated prices by Chinese state companies. Previously, The Wall Street Journal had helped to expose how Najib had illegally acquired hundreds of millions of dollars from a Malaysian state investment fund. Malaysias anti-corruption agency has meanwhile charged Najib with three counts of money laundering. Najib denies any wrongdoing. Meanwhile, as David Fickling reports, three of the six trans-Asia economic corridors around which the BRI was originally designed are devoid of major projects, while countries well outside its original scope such as Nigeria and Argentina are being brought under the Belt and Road umbrella. And as if corruption or the backlash against faulty and failed projects were not enough, theres the issue of environmental damage caused by the BRI that could threaten global climate progress. A report published on Jan. 3 of this year by the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies says that the BRI has the potential to transform economies in Chinas partner countries. But the report, authored by Isabel Hilton, a London-based writer, broadcaster, and commentator, also concludes that with its focus on building coal-fired power plants along the way, the BRI could also tip the world into catastrophic climate change. The report says that building the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road will absorb massive amounts of concrete, steel, and chemicals, creating power stations, mines, and container ports, many in countries with poor environmental oversight. While China has imposed a cap on coal consumption at home, the report says, its coal and energy companies are on a building spree overseas. Only scattered popular protests against the BRI have been documented. But a few have gained international media attention. In 2018, protesters in a number of cities in Vietnam opposed plans to build new special economic zones (SEZs) where Chinese factories were expected to be opened. The protesters clashed with the police, and Vietnams National Assembly was forced to delay a vote on the zones that would have allowed them to be leased for up to 99 years. Dan Southerland is RFA's founding executive editor. Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email please call (208) 542-6777 for help. We get it. You don't want to see the ads. We'd just ask you to understand that those ads help us pay the bills and our reporters. Please, consider white-listing the Standard Journal in your ad-blocker or, even better, purchase a subscription so that you can help support quality local journalism. Critics of the citizenship question say it will intimidate noncitizens from participating in the census, leaving Connecticut with an undercount and loss of federal money. The state needs all the help it can get because its population is growing more slowly than the U.S. population. TORRINGTON Ron Merriman plans to decorate his house with red hearts for Valentines Day. With an eviction notice looming, the co-owner of the Christmas House at 285-287 Main St. said Monday that he expects to fight the legal action and stay in the house. He said his new attorney, Lou Martocchio, of Southington told him they would save my house, which was sold in a foreclosure auction in early November for $22,000. Merriman, along with his mother, Alice, who is 87, and his sister, Donna, are named in the court documents as co-owners. Martocchio is the second attorney to take the foreclosure case. According to Merriman, his new attorney isnt charging him for the legal work. Martocchio couldnt be reached for comment. According to court documents, the family is facing an execution for ejectment, which is a type of eviction. The action was ordered Nov. 19, but Superior Court Judge Dan Shaban stated in the order that no eviction would be granted prior to Jan. 1. The defendant has had well over a year to seek alternatives to foreclosure through both the assistance of the court, and individually, but has been unsuccessful. Even with the ability to do so, he has failed to actively market the property himself. The defendant has failed to cooperate with the committee which, had he done so, might otherwise have helped secure a higher purchase price for the property, Shaban said in the Nov. 19 order. The defendant also was provided multiple opportunities by the court to engage in mediation even outside the statutory mediation period. Notably, by choosing to use his limited available funds for his annual (Christmas) electrical display, the defendant has accelerated his inability to be eligible for options that might otherwise stave off foreclosure, Shaban wrote. Once the ejection paperwork is filed, state statutes require the action to be reviewed by the court clerks office. The plaintiff (the Merriman family) is allowed to choose the state marshal who would serve the document. State Marshal Arthur Quinn III of Thomaston served the foreclosure document last fall, but he said Monday, that he, or another marshal wont be involved until the order is filed. The Merrimans have lived in the two-family house since 1981, Ron Merriman said. He started the Christmas light display the next year. Donna Merriman said Monday that she is considering where she will live next, when the ejection order is filed. She said shes put her name on a waiting list at a few locations that provide low-income housing. The girl was reported missing in October. Officers found her several days later at Padillas home and arrested him, charging him with risk of injury to a minor for taking in a child known to be missing, Capt. Jeanette Portalatin said. The two knew each other. UPDATE: 12:04 PM MONDAY Police have identified the victim as Eduardo Concepcion, 30, of Bridgeport. Lt. Frank Eannotti said the preliminary investigation reveals that two males were sitting in a parked car on Regency Terrace when they were approached two males on foot. The males exchanged words, and one of the males produced a firearm and fired at least one shot striking the victim. The victim had been an occupant of the vehicle. The two males on foot fled the area. Anyone with information is asked to call the Stratford Police department at 203-385-4140 or 4128 and information may be shared anonymously on the Stratford Police TIP411 app. EARLIER STORY STRATFORD Police are investigating Stratfords first homicide in more than a year and a half, after an early morning streetside shooting led to the death of a male victim at Bridgeport Hospital. Police said the victim was sitting with someone else in a parked car on Regency Terrace when they were approached by two other males at about 2:20 a.m. The parties exchanged words, Stratford Police Capt. Frank Eannotti said, and one of the approaching males pulled out a gun and fired, with at least one shot striking the victim inside the car. Eannotti said police did not expect any further information, including the victims name, to be released Saturday. Before Saturday, the last homicide in Stratford had been Aug. 15, 2017. Raenetta Catchings, 27, of Stratford, was shot dead by her uncle, 21-year-old Michael Catchings. Police charged him with her murder. The other homicide in Stratford that year was on May 27, 2017, when 27-year-old Andre Pettway was shot on Garibaldi Avenue and later died in the hospital. Three people were charged in connection with Pettways killing Brandyn Ford, then 24, of Stratford; Jose Rivera, then 24, of Bridgeport; and Wilfredo Martinez, then 23, of Bridgeport. Pettways homicide was the first one the town had seen since 2011, according to city-data.com, a website that provides statistics on towns and cities nationwide. The data recorded on the site goes back to 2002 and showed that Stratford had two murders in 2002, 2003 and 2008; one murder in 2005, 2010 and 2011; and none in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. On Saturday afternoon, Police were piecing together what happened in the overnight hours. On Regency Terrace, as on many streets in Stratford, there is a Neighborhood Watch sign under the posted 25 mph speed limit. Warning, the sign reads, all suspicious persons and activities are immediately reported to our police department. A man around the corner on Peace Street was taking Christmas lights down from a tree next to his house, dogs wandered around fenced in front yards and a few cars drove down the street. At the corner of Peace Street and Regency Terrace there were broken down Stratford police barriers left behind from the murder investigation. Another pile of signs were left on the sidewalk at the corner of Regency Terrace and Barnum Avenue. Anyone with information is asked to call the Stratford Police Department at 203-385-4140. Anonymous tips can be submitted on the Stratford Police Tip411 smartphone application. CORRECTION: The story has been updated to indicate that the last homicide in Stratford was Raenetta Catchings, not Andre Pettway. Catchings murder was in Aug. 2017 and Pettways was in May 2017. That made the total for 2017 two murders, not one as previously reported. The New Milford Health Department and the state Department of Public Health is doing a program to encourage people to test their homes for radon gas and fix it when high levels are found. Testing is recommended in the winter months when radon levels tend to build up indoors. A limited number of testing kits are available in January for free while supplies last. Residents can get them by calling the town health department, which is also assisting residents with the test itself to ensure its done correctly. An appointment must be made by calling (860) 355-6035 for a sanitarian to visit your home at the start of the test and to collect the kit at the end. Radon gas is the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers and it is estimated to be responsible for 21,000 deaths each year in the United States. Radon is a naturally occurring, radioactive gas formed from the natural decay of uranium and is found in rock, soil and water. Radon in outdoor air poses a relatively low risk but it can enter homes through the soil and become a health hazard inside of buildings, especially because it is odorless and invisible, according to a press release. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends that homes with radon levels at or above 4.0 pCi/L be fixed. And consideration should be given to fixing homes with radon levels between 2 pCi/L and 4 pCi/L. This will reduce the potential lung cancer risk for those residing in these homes. More information is available at the state DPH website,. Joette Katz, the former commissioner of the Department of Children and Families and the former Connecticut Associate Supreme Court Justice, has taken a job with the prominent Hartford law firm, Shipman & Goodwin LLP. Katz, who served 11 years as commissioner and almost two decades on the state Supreme Court, will work with the firms business litigation group. Joette has had an exemplary career of public service on behalf of the state of Connecticut. Her experience in the judicial and executive branches of state government over a lifetime, as well as her commitment to our state, are extraordinary, Alan E. Lieberman, Managing Partner of Shipman & Goodwin said in a statement. We are honored that she has chosen this firm as her new professional home. A statement from the firm said that Katz will work in several areas, including with the firms practitioners who handle federal, state and administrative appeals. Katz will also be a significant contributor to the law firms pro-bono efforts, the statement said, providing legal services on behalf of the underserved and underprivileged members of the community. Katz said in a statement, I gave a great deal of thought to the next and likely final stage of my career, and am delighted to join Shipman & Goodwin, which has a stellar reputation for excellence and integrity. We are all working together and thinking outside of the box to create real value for our clients doing business in Connecticut and beyond, Katz continued. I am confident the firm will support the development of my practice and allow me to contribute in a variety of ways consistent with my more than four decades of legal experience. Ralph Haze Pettrey, 83, of Pipestem, died Tuesday, June 15, 2021 at Rockin Chair Residential Care. Born October 18, 1937 at Forest Hill, he was the son of the late Allen E. and Pearl Farley Pettrey. Mr. Pettrey was retired from the Wildlife Division of the West Virginia DNR. He was a US Navy At times, as investigators watched, the suspects attempted to identify any authorities in the area. While one suspect waited for the package, others would circle the block in what investigators said were apparent counter-surveillance tactics, according to the federal complaint. After picking up packages, the suspects would drive in circular patterns, forcing investigators to call off their surveillance, the complaint said. Source: January 15, 2019 14:16 IST Army chief General Bipin Rawat on Tuesday warned Pakistan that India will not hesitate in carrying out strong action against inimical moves, asserting that its forces were giving enemies along the Line of Control a befitting reply and inflicting heavy losses. IMAGE: Army Chief General Bipin Rawat addresses during the Army Day Parade in New Delhi. Photograph: Manvender Vashist/PTI Photo Gen Rawat also said Indias neighbour on the western border continues to support terrorism. The army is ensuring dominance along the LoC and will continue to do so, he assured. Our forces are giving a befitting reply to our enemies along the Line of Control. They are suffering heavy losses. I am warning our enemy (across the LoC) that we will not hesitate in carrying out strong action against any inimical action, he said while addressing army personnel on the occasion of Army Day. We are ensuring moral dominance along the border in Jammu and Kashmir, he said. The Indian Army has ensured heavy damage to terrorists in the state, Gen Rawat said. Youth in Jammu and Kashmir are being terrorised and forced to take up arms, he said. We do not want that people in J-K are disturbed. Our neighbouring country has a hand in these activities. Terrorists are being trained and given arms by our neighbouring country, which is being termed state-sponsored terrorism globally, the army chief said in an obvious reference to Pakistan. Referring to the border with China, he said the armies of both India and China have issued new guidelines to their respective forces. Efforts are on to maintain peace and tranquillity along the (eastern) border. But we will keep reviewing the situation. Our soldiers will not allow any compromise in guarding the border in the eastern sector, Gen Rawat said, adding that the orders given by the government will be strictly followed. Discussing the situation in the Northeast, Gen Rawat said the situation is peaceful in the region and the Army is carrying out regular anti-insurgency operations. He also urged army personnel and their families to be careful in using social media which he said is being used for radicalisation. Referring to criticism of the armys pyramidical structure, the army chief said, For us, the VIP is the jawan who faces the enemy along the LoC. Gen Rawat also talked about coordination with the Navy and the Air force. We will achieve decisive victory along with the navy and the air force in case of a war, he said. The army, he asserted, was carrying out major restructuring and modernisation. The security challenge facing the country will become more complex in the coming years. We will have to keep enhancing our combat prowess so that we can defeat our adversaries. I assure that we will keep the trust reposed on us by the people of the country, the army chief said. Source: Last updated on: January 15, 2019 14:45 IST One of the two women who had entered the Sabarimala temple defying tradition, alleged on Tuesday that she was beaten up by her mother-in-law after an altercation on the issue leading to her hospitalisation. IMAGE: Kanaka Durga (left) and Bindu Ammini were the first women to enter Sabarimala temple, which traditionally bans the entry of women of menstrual age. Photograph: Sivaram V/Reuters Kanakadurga, 44, who had been in hiding for the last two weeks after the darshan of Lord Ayyappa at the Sabarimala shrine due to security reasons, reached home in Perinthalmanna on Tuesday morning. Soon after entering the house, she had a verbal duel with her in-laws who vehemently opposed her entry at the temple. Her mother-in-law allegedly beat her up with a wooden plank and she was rushed to hospital, police said. She suffered head injuries and is admitted to a government hospital at Perinthalmanna in northern Malappuram district, they said. My mother-in-law beat me up severely with the wooden plank, Kanakadurga told TV channels from the hospital. WATCH: Kanakadurga and Bindu Ammini enter Sabarimala temple However, her aged mother-in-law also got admitted to the hospital later alleging that Kanakadurga had assaulted her. Both Kanakadurgas in-laws as well as her own family had opposed her decision to enter the Sabarimala temple taken in view of the landmark September 28 Supreme Court verdict permitting women of all age groups into the shrine. Kanakadurga and Bindhu had entered the hill shrine on January 3, breaking a centuries-old tradition and defying dire threats from right-wing groups. Following their entry, the head priest decided to close the sanctum sanctorum of the temple in order to perform the purification ceremony. Violence involving Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist rocked parts of Kerala during the January 3 hartal with several houses and shops of rival leaders and workers being attacked over the womens entry into the temple. Source: January 15, 2019 16:17 IST Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Tuesday appealed to workers of her party and the Samajwadi Party to forget their past differences to fight the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. IMAGE: BSP supremo Mayawati addresses during a book release titled A Travelogue of My Struggle-Ridden Life and BSP Movement during a press conference on the occasion of her 63rd birthday, in Lucknow. Photograph: Nand Kumar/PTI Photo On Saturday, the BSP and the SP announced an alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections to unitedly fight the BJP. Forget past differences and ensure victory of all joint candidates of the SP and the BSP. This will be my ideal birthday gift, Mayawati said at a press conference on the occasion of her 63rd birthday. SP president Akhilesh Yadav later visited the BSP chief and presented her with a bouquet and a shawl on her birthday. Mayawati said Uttar Pradesh, which is Indias largest state, will decide who will be the next prime minister. UP decides who will come to power at the Centre and who will be the prime minister. The BSP and the SP must fight together, setting aside their differences and ensure the victory of all gathbandhan (alliance) candidates, she said, apparently hinting at her prime ministerial ambitions. IMAGE: Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav greets Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on her 63rd birthday in Lucknow. Photograph: Nand Kumar/PTI Photo The BSP president, who had spelt out the reasons of keeping the Congress out of the alliance on Saturday, did not spare it, asking the party to understand that popular declarations will not help them anymore. Fingers have already been raised at the Congress government over the loan waiver scheme in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, and people are asking as to why the cut off dates for it has been fixed for March 31 when it should have been December 17, 2018, when the new government took over, she said. Also, these governments are only waiving loans up to Rs 2 lakh and this will not help farmers in any manner, Mayawati said. She called for one-time waiver of the entire loan which would check farmers suicides as well as resolve all their problems. Asking the state and central governments to prepare a long-term plan for resolving the problems of farmers, she said the farmers believe that implementation of the Swaminathan Commissions recommendations will help overcome their plight. Favouring 10 per cent reservation for the poor among the upper castes, Mayawati said Muslims and other religious minorities will not have much benefit till the narrow-minded thinking continues. IMAGE: The BSP president, who had spelt out the reasons of keeping the Congress out of the alliance on Saturday, did not spare it, asking the party to understand that popular declarations will not help them anymore. Photograph: Nand Kumar/PTI Photo She said at the time of Independence, the representation of Muslims in government jobs was about 33 per cent, which she claimed has now come down to two to three per cent. The BSP supremo said her party has been demanding 10 per cent for Muslims. Mayawati said the Bharatiya Janata Party governments alleged failure to fulfil poll promises has become the real election issue which is working against it. Referring to the demonetisation, she alleged that this aggravated the problems of the common people and had adverse impact on the economy. Mayawati also spoke about the problems arising over defence deals such as Bofors and Rafale. She called for a proper mechanism in consultation with the opposition parties for all defence purchases to avoid fiascos which have not only harmed the image of the country but has also been dragged in the courts. Mayawati termed as unfortunate the controversy over the caste of Lord Hanuman. The BJP and the RSS people are not only indulging in politics over religion but are also encouraging those who are using gods to serve their political interests as a result of which the BJP people are in a race to assign caste to the gods. This is unfortunate, she said. The BSP supremo alleged that the BJP is misusing the Central Bureau of Investigation and other investigating agencies for its political interests and the latest example of this is SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, who may face a CBI probe in a case of illegal mining. The SP and the BSP had formed an alliance in 1993 to stop the BJPs winning spree after the Ram temple movement. But the alliance ended in 1995 after the infamous Meera Bai Marg guest house incident wherein SP workers misbehaved with Mayawati. An unruly mob of SP workers had stormed into the Meerabai Guest House here where Mayawati was huddled in a meeting with her MLAs. Last updated on: January 16, 2019 10:11 IST The 71st Army Day was celebrated across the country on Tuesday with President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi extending wishes to the Indian Army. The Army Day is celebrated on January 15 every year to mark the taking over as commander-in-chief of the Indian Army by then Lt Gen K M Carriappa in 1949 from General Francis Butcher, the last British Commander-in-Chief of India. Cariappa was given the rank of field marshal of the Indian Army in 1986, only the second Indian after Sam Manekshaw to get the title. Cariappa died in 1993. Here are some of the magnificent moments from the Army Day parade. All photographs: Manvender Vashist/PTI Photo Army soldiers display their war skills during the Army Day Parade at Carriappa Parade Ground in New Delhi. PM Modi said the nation is proud of army's grit and determination. "I bow to their courage and bravery," he tweeted. He said the countrymen are proud of the grit and determination of the soldiers. Army soldiers display their warfare skills during the parade. Army daredevils perform a stunt on motorcycles during the parade. Army daredevils perform a stunt. Indian Army's tanks display combat skills during the parade. Soldiers display their war skills during the parade. A soldier gives command during the parade. Army chief General Bipin Rawat salutes the widow of an army martyr after honouring her during the Army Day Parade. During his speech, Rawat warned Pakistan that India will not hesitate in carrying out strong action against inimical moves. Army Chief General Rawat presents 'Unit Citations' award to members of Gorkha regiment. Source: January 15, 2019 22:58 IST The proposed "rath yatras" of the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal were put on hold on Tuesday by the Supreme Court, which asked the party to seek a fresh approval from the Mamata Banerjee government in the state by submitting a revised proposal, saying the law-and-order apprehensions were not "totally unfounded". The apex court, however, allowed the West Bengal unit of the BJP to continue with its proposed public rallies and meetings under its Ganatantra Bachao Yatra (Save Republic rally). As regards the non-grant of sanctions by the authorities for taking out the statewide rath yatras (chariot marches), a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said, "Looking into the details of the proposed rath yatras and the order of the state government dated January 14, 2019, we cannot say that the apprehensions expressed by the state government are totally unfounded. "It is for the state government to maintain law and order in the state and the apprehensions expressed in the order will have to be addressed by the petitioner in a reasonable manner." The bench, also comprising justices L Nageswara Rao and Sanjay Kishan Kaul, noted the state government's submission that it had no objections in holding of public meetings and rallies and had merely sought the details and schedules of such events from the BJP. As regards the "rath yatras", the bench asked the Trinamool Congress government in the state to consider the fresh, revised proposal of the saffron party, keeping in mind the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the Constitution. "Once such a proposal is submitted, the state government will consider the matter and pass appropriate orders, keeping in mind that the present involves a case of exercise of the fundamental rights, inter alia, under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India. It is in that spirit that we expect the state government to deal with the matter on receipt of such revised proposal as may be submitted," it said. The top court said the state government should respond to the revised proposal of the BJP with "utmost expedition", keeping in mind that with the commencement of the CBSE and other board examinations, the use of loudspeakers might be banned. Appearing for the BJP, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi said at the outset, the state authorities were not granting permission saying the processions would be communal at some places and political at other places. He assailed the observations made in the report of the state chief secretary and other officials that the "rath yatras" would have members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Bajrang Dal, the Durga Vahini and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and said to note that the participants would make the rallies communal was improper. "All these outfits -- RSS, Bajrang Dal, Durga Vahini and Vishwa Hindu Parishad -- are not banned outfits. We are a responsible party. How can they say it will be communal at places and political at some other places? I have my fundamental right to say whatever I want," Rohatgi said. Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the West Bengal government, said they had no objections to public rallies and meetings, but the BJP was not giving the details of who will attend these events, how many people will take part and who will be the speakers. He added that the state government had objections with respect to "rath yatras" as those would pass through various localities inhabited by different communities, including a sizeable population of the minority community. "The rath yatras will start from four different parts of the state, covering all the 42 Parliamentary constituencies, and over 2,000 people are expected to join each procession. The rallies will move to various parts of the state for 20 days. There are certain apprehensions with regard to the rath yatras, keeping in mind certain incidents of violence in the past," Singhvi said. He added that the state government had given more than 4,000 permissions to the opposition parties over the last one year for holding meetings and rallies. "The BJP was given permissions over 1,500 times to hold rallies and meetings in the last one year. It is not the case that we are not allowing the opposition parties to hold rallies and meetings," Singhvi said. The apex court had earlier sought the state government's response on the BJP's plea seeking permission to take out the "rath yatras" in the state. The Bengal BJP had challenged the December 21 order of a division bench of the Calcutta High Court, which had set aside the order of a single-judge bench allowing the processions. It had also asked the Bengal BJP to submit a revised plan for its "Save Democracy Rally" for the state government's consideration. The saffron party has now decided to cut short its 40-day programme to 20 days and the fresh "yatras" will start from Baharampur in Murshidabad district, Diamond Harbour in South 24 Parganas district, Medinipur and the Kolkata North Lok Sabha constituency, a lawyer associated with the matter said, adding that the decision was taken in view of the upcoming school examinations and the general election. According to the original schedule, the rallies were supposed to be flagged off by BJP president Amit Shah from Cooch Behar district on December 7 last year, from Kakdwip in South 24 Parganas district on December 9 and from the Tarapith temple in Birbhum district on December 14. January 15, 2019 21:29 IST Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday slammed the Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic Front government in Kerala and Congress-led United Democratic Front opposition over the Sabarimala women entry issue and said both fronts were two sides of the same coin. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses BJP workers in Kollam. Photograph: Press Information Bureau. Tearing into the Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government, Modi said its conduct in the Sabarimala issue will go down as one of the "most shameful behaviours" by any party and government. Kerala has today "become hostile to the corruption and communalism" of the LDF and the UDF, he said while addressing a huge gathering of BJP workers Kollam. Modi said for the last few months, the entire nation has been talking about Sabarimala. The conduct of the Kerala LDF government on the Sabarimala issue would go down in the history as one of the "most shameful behaviours by any party and government," he said. "We know that the Communists do not respect the Indian history, culture and spirituality but nobody imagined they would have such hatred," he said. Slamming the "multiple stand" taken by the Congress and the party-led opposition front UDF in the state, he urged them to clear their stand on the issue. "The UDF is no better. The Congress has multiple stands. They say one thing in Parliament but a different thing in Pathanamthitta (where the Lord Ayyappa shrine is located). They say one thing on Monday and a different thing on another day," he said. "I challenge the UDF, clearly state your stand on the issue. Your doublespeak has been exposed," Modi said, lashing out at his party's national arch rival. The BJP's stand on this issue has 'always' been clear, he said. "The actions of our party match our words. If there is one party that has been at the forefront of standing with Kerala and its culture, it is BJP," Modi said. "On one hand the NDA goverment at the centre is working day and night for the people of Kerala. But it pains me no end that the Kerala of spirituality and tranquility, the Kerala of harmony and happiness has become hostile to the corruption and communalism of two alliances-- the LDF and UDF," he said. Alleging that both LDF and UDF were "two sides of the same coin", Modi said the Congress and Communists were talking about gender justice in the Sabarimala issue but their actions were "just opposite." "The Left and the Congress make tall claims about respect to gender justice and social justice. But their actions are exactly the opposite," he said. He accused the respective fronts of being engaged in "vote bank politics" by supporting triple talaq. Modi also criticised the Muslim League's stand on the recent 10 per cent reservation for poor sections of society. Triple talaq was a "big injustice to women" which has been banned by several Islamic nations, he said, and asked why India should have the practice. "The NDA government has been working towards abolishing triple talaq. Who is opposing us on this. The Communists and the Congress," he said. "...driven by votebank politics, Congress and Communists support it. The people of Kerala should ask the LDF and UDF why are they supporting a practice that causes injustice to women," he said. On the NDA's 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections, he recalled it was passed by a 'historic' majority in Parliament. "We believe that every Indian of any caste, creed or community deserves equal opportunity. We have also made provisions to increase the number of seats in institutions so that justice is done to all sections," he said. However, the Indian Union Muslim League opposed it, he said. "Do you know which party opposed it tooth and nail. It is the IUML, the second largest partner of the UDF. We want to work towards social justice but the UDF does not agree with us," he said. The UDF and the LDF were two sides of the same old coin which were same in corruption, casteism and communalism, Modi alleged. "They are different in name, but in damaging Kerala's cultural fabric, they are the same. The UDF and the LDF are different names but in political violence they are the same. Different in name, but in neglecting Kerala's yuvashakthi, they are the same," he said. He accused both party-led fronts of "ignoring the poor." Indicating that the BJP could make better strides in Kerala, he cited the example of Tripura where his party trumped the CPI-M to form the government last year. "The UDF and the LDF may laugh at us. To them I say, don't underestimate the BJP karyakarta. Your stones, your sticks, your violence cannot break the moral of the BJP karyakarta. They should see what happened in Tripura. From zero, we formed the government there. What happened in Tripura will happen in Kerala," Modi said. His government was committed to all sections of society and recalled its efforts to release Indian nurses from ISIS activists, besides Father Tom Uzhunnalil, who was held hostage by militants in Yemen. Modi also recalled the rapid strides made by the country in attracting foreign investments in the past four years. Source: Last updated on: January 15, 2019 19:18 IST While the Congress has convened a meeting of all its MLAs on Wednesday to take stock of the evolving situation, the BJP legislators have been shifted to Haryana in an attempt to keep the flock together and thwart any poaching attempt by the Congress-JDS combine. Photograph: Shailendra Bhojak/PTI Photo In a jolt to the H D Kumaraswamy led Congress-Janata Dal Secular government in Karnataka, two Independent MLAs on Tuesday withdrew support to the seven month old ministry amid turmoil triggered by charges of horse trading flung at each other by the ruling coalition and the Bharatiya Janata Party. In a significant turn to the political war that erupted on Monday with both sides venting their fears of poaching, H Nagesh (Independent) and R Shankar (Karnataka Pragnyavantha Janatha Party) wrote to governor Vajubhai Vala, conveying their decision to withdraw their support with immediate effect. Both lawmakers, staying at a hotel in Mumbai, sent identical letters to the governor and requested him to take "necessary action", a move that reduced the ruling coalition's strength to 118, but still kept it in the safe zone in the 224-member assembly. Putting up a brave face, Congress and JDS top leadership said that the government was safe, with a seemingly unfazed Kumaraswamy, saying his ministry was stable and "I am very totally relaxed." The action by Nagesh and Shankar came even as the 104 BJP MLAs were hunkered down at a resort in Haryana's Nuh district near the national capital, fearing their poaching by the ruling coalition. Shankar was dropped from the ministry during the recent cabinet rejig, reportedly for showing reluctance to be an associate member of the Congress. Nagesh was miffed over not being included in the ministry. During the ministry formation exercise after the May 2018 assembly polls, Shankar had announced support to the BJP, but made a last minute switch towards Congress. Nagesh, a former member of Congress, had contested and won as an independent candidate after not getting the party ticket. IMAGE: B S Yeddyurappa and other Karnataka BJP MLAs at a hotel in Gurugram. Photograph: ANI/Twitter "I know my strength. My government is stable. Don't worry," said Kumaraswamy as he sought to portray of picture of being unperturbed by the development, insisting that the two MLAs action would have no bearing on his ministry. He added, "Whatever are the episodes in our Kannada (TV) channels going on from last one week I am enjoying it." Taking a swipe at the BJP, the chief minister said, "What is going to happen? If two independents declare support (to BJP). What will be the numbers? I am totally relaxed. I know my strength" With fear of 'Operation Lotus' taking shape, All India Congress Committee general secretary K C Venugopal held a meeting with Kumaraswamy after discussions with former chief minister Siddaramaiah, deputy chief minister G Parameshwara, senior minister D K Shivakumar, home minister M B Patil and other party functionaries. Later speaking to reporters, chief minister said "This 'Operation Lotus' is a false alarm created by media. There is no threat to the government. I enjoy the news channels running programmes like soap opera about threat to the government." JDS chief and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda also said nothing would happen to the government headed by his son. "It is not in anybody's hands, including the media. However much you cry hoarse, nothing will happen because it is in the hands of God. When a party (JDS) of 38 MLAs gets the blessings of a national party (Congress), it is all the wish of God," Gowda said. He also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi over allegations that Rs 60 crore and ministerial positions were offered to the MLAs of the ruling coalition by the BJP. "Does it look good that a national party (BJP) is hoarding its 104 MLAs? I am not talking about Amit Shah, but Modi, who talks a lot throughout the day," he said. IMAGE: The 104 MLAs are staying in the ITC Grand Bharat resort in Hasanpur Tauru in Nuh district. Photograph: ANI/Twitter Brushing aside any threat to Kumaraswamy, Venugopal said the coalition government would continue despite the BJP's "ugly and dirty" horse-trading attempts. In charge of party's Karnataka affairs, Venugopal alleged that the MLAs of the Congress-JDS ruling combine were being offered a "lot of things" by the BJP to switch sides. "We are confident that the Kumaraswamy government will continue. Even though they are offering a lot of things to our MLAs, we are very confident. We are in touch with all our MLAs. Our people are with us. Our government will continue," he added. The Congress has convened a meeting of all its MLAs on Wednesday to take stock of the evolving situation, party sources said. BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa, former chief minister Jagadish Shettar and other senior leaders like Shobha Karandlaje are among the 104 MLAs staying in the Haryana's ITC Grand Bharat resort in Hasanpur Tauru in Nuh district since Monday. Sources said the BJP legislators have been shifted to the resort in an attempt to keep the flock together and thwart any poaching attempt by the Congress-JDS combine. "We are staying in the resort. We don't know how long we are going to be here," Shettar said. Yeddyurappa has rubbished reports about the BJP attempting 'Operation Lotus' to topple the government and said there was no truth in it and alleged that the Congress-JDS combine was trying to lure Opposition MLAs. 'Operation Lotus' is a reference to the BJP's alleged bid to lure several opposition MLAs to defect to ensure stability of its then government headed by Yeddyurappa in 2008. In the 224-member assembly, the BJP has 104 members, the Congress-79, the JDS 37, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the KPJP and Independent one each, besides Speaker. The BSP, KPJP and an Independent are supporting the coalition. Source: January 15, 2019 15:56 IST An assistant commandant of the Border Security Force was killed in sniper firing by Pakistan Rangers along the International Border in Jammu and Kashmirs Kathua district on Tuesday morning, officials said. Pakistan troops also violated the ceasefire and resorted to firing and shelling along the Line of Control in Rajouri district, prompting the Indian Army to retaliate strongly. The BSF troops were carrying out border domination along the IB, when snipers of Pakistan Rangers opened fire on them around 1050 hours in Hiranagar-Samba sector of Kathua district, said a senior BSF officer. Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad was critically injured in the sniper fire and the officer was evacuated to the Military Hospital at Satwari (Jammu), where he succumbed to his injuries and attained martyrdom, he said. The BSF director general and all ranks of the force salute the supreme sacrifice of the martyr. The BSF stands with the family of the bereaved, the officer said. In another incident, Pakistan troops also resorted to firing and shelling along the LoC in Sunderbani sector. Pakistan Army initiated unprovoked ceasefire violations by resorting to firing and shelling along with heavy calibre weapons in Sunderbani sector from 1000 hours, PRO, Defence said. Indian Army troops guarding the borderline retaliated effectively and strongly. The exchange of fire is still on, he said. The year 2018 has witnessed the highest number of 2,936 ceasefire violations by Pakistan troops in the last 15 years along the Indo-Pak border. On Sunday, an army jawan was injured in ceasefire violation along the LoC in Rajouris Keri sector. On Friday, an army porter was killed in a ceasefire violation in Nowshera sector of Rajouri district. On the same day, a Major and a soldier were killed in an IED blast along the LoC in Laam sub-sector of Rajouri. Despite repeated calls for restraint and adherence to the 2003 ceasefire understanding for maintaining peace and tranquillity at Indo-Pak flag meetings, the truce has been repeatedly violated. January 15, 2019 08:37 IST 'This is a political case and the police is being used right from day one.' Almost three years after the controversy surrounding Jawaharlal Nehru University students, the Delhi police filed a chargesheet on Monday, January 14, under Sections 124A (sedition), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and other sections of the Indian Penal Code against Umar Khalid, Kanhaiya Kumar and several others. Khalid and others were also accused of shouting anti-India slogans during an event organised on the JNU campus on February 9, 2016, to 'commemorate the hanging of Parliament attack mastermind Afzal Guru'. The case was registered at the Vasant Kunj (North) police station following complaints by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Maheish Girri and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. "In another four months, people will show the rulers of this country that they believe in the Constitution and anti-Constitutional forces who are ruling us will not be allowed to remain in power," Khalid tells Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf. Your first reactions on the filing of the chargesheet against you and the others. I am yet to receive an official intimation from the police. If this is true then, I would first of all congratulate the Delhi police, the (Narendra Damodardas) Modi government and the (Union) home ministry for finally waking up from their deep sleep three years after filing the first information report, not so coincidentally three months before general elections in our country. Normally, a chargesheet is filed within three months, that is 90 days. But in this case it has been filed after three years. It is an attempt to sort of change the narrative from the failure of the Modi government to a false debate on what is national and what is anti-national. Debate should not be on questions of farmer suicide, questions of black money, or employment which Modi promised before 2014, but on the Hindu-Muslim and national versus anti-national question. This is the effort from their side. As far as the allegations are made, as I said, I am yet to see the chargesheet and I have yet to receive an official intimation and by what is going on in the media, I reject those allegations if that are the allegations in the chargesheet. I will contest them legally. I am convinced about my innocence. I have full faith in the court and truth will prevail. Can you tell us what happened when you were arrested for the first time? What did the police do? The police interrogated us for six, seven days. They wanted all information from us. We co-operated with them. Even after our release on bail, they came to us a couple of times and we always co-operated as we had nothing to hide. We were students and not criminals. We are not guilty and now, we have passed out of JNU. In this scenario, I am amused by this chargesheet which has come after three years as we co-operated with the entire investigation. This is a political case and the police is being used here right from day one. The way the FIR was filed after certain news channels raked up the issue and a certain BJP MP too raked up this issue. The police is being used for political ends. Let us not forget that the Delhi police comes under the central government. They are using the police to hide their failures. As far as we are concerned, we have nothing against the Delhi police and we have co-operated with them. The matter is now in court and we will be proved innocent. Is it not true that on that particular day, Afzal Guru's 'martyrdom' was being commemorated in JNU and you were a part of that programme? What is true and what is not true will be proved in court. The matter is sub judice, so I would not be able to comment on the specifics and as I said, I have not yet seen the chargesheet also. What comes under criminal offence and what does not, all of it the court will decide in the coming days. You became a hated figure as you were associated with the slogan 'Bharat tere tukde honge'. We saw those videos which now some say were doctored. Did this kind of sloganeering happen at JNU or not? As far as these slogans are concerned, I categorically deny raising those slogans. As far as being a hated figure is concerned, I do not think I am a hated figure for the people of this country. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh hate me because I speak the truth. They tried to run a hate campaign against me. They tried to mislead the people of the country through their (selected) media houses. Just to recall one such incident, there was a news anchor, who continues to be a news anchor even now, who back then said I had visited Pakistan twice whereas I don't even have a passport. The home minister of this country, based on a fake Twitter handle, said the JNU event was held by Lashkar-e-Tayiba chief Hafiz Saeed. Later on, they came to know it was a parody account. Based on these lies they have tried to propagate hate against me and against JNU in general. The consequence of their hate campaign was that Kanhaiya Kumar was attacked outside the Patiala court and there was an attempt to kill me outside the Constitution Club in New Delhi last year. But at the same time we have received enormous solidarity by the people who believe in democracy. We have been invited to many places and people have stood by us. They realised it was not an attack on me or Kanhaiya Kumar or Anirban (Bhattacharya), but an attack on democracy. The last four years of the Modi regime has been characterised by repeated attacks on democracy and undermining democracy and destroying universities. But it has not been one way traffic as people are fighting to defend the Constitution and democracy. In another four months, people will show the rulers of this country that they believe in the Constitution and anti-Constitutional forces who are ruling us will not be allowed to remain in power. What has life been like in the three years since this incident? Life has changed. There are many restrictions and many difficulties now. And those who are responsible for creating this situation for me, that is all the media houses, including those who tell 'what the nation wants to know', must come out and apologise for having run the hate content. At the same time, this is the price you pay for speaking out for people's rights under the Modi regime. Human rights activists are branded as traitors, Naxalites and put in jail. People are being lynched. People like Gauri Lankesh have been murdered and there were people who were celebrating that murder and the prime minister of India was following that person (on Twitter). This is the price you pay for speaking out against the Modi regime. Therefore, I say democracy is in danger today. Kanhaiya Kumar says the truth will come out in court. In a way, are you happy that the case has reached the court because, now, it will be clear what is the truth and what is untrue? I completely agree with Kanhaiya on this issue. And I am happy this case has come to the court. I hope the media trial will stop now and the actual trial will commence. I hope for a speedy trial. Once the trial begins, people will figure out there was nothing in the case. It was a fraud of a case meant for political ends. What does the future hold for you? Are you joining politics? I am already in politics by raising my voice against injustice. That is very political and as far as fighting elections is concerned, I have not thought about it. BRIDGEPORT Police in Bridgeport are investigating two separate incidents of gunfire on the same street where a 12-year-old was shot and killed in December to determine if they are related to the killing, police said. Last updated on: January 15, 2019 14:43 IST 'The resignation has been more like a statement. Like an alarm bell that "Look, something is wrong".' 'I am saying that "Look, I rang the bell, but I am also going to provide solutions".' Shah Faesal, the first Kashmiri to top the civil services, resigned after serving the Union government for nine years, to enter politics last week. Faesal, who trained as a doctor, returned to India after a fellowship at Harvard University's Kennedy School last month. In a telephone interview from Srinagar with Rediff.com's Archana Masih, Dr Faesal speaks about the urgent need to fill the political vacuum in Jammu and Kashmir, how the problem of stone pelters can be dealt with -- and why even though he worries for his life sometimes, he is not cynical, sceptical or pessimistic about Kashmir. You haven't said whether you will join any particular party or form a new party -- I am sure political overtures have been made to you. What are your immediate plans? Honestly speaking, it would have been very easy for me to join any existing political party. It was somehow in my mind to do that because it would be very easy for me to win an election, but the outpouring that the people of Kashmir, especially the youth, have shown has completely surprised me. I have been meeting youngsters in the past few days and at least there is one consensus that I should not be joining any existing political party. This entire energy which has been released, my difficulty is how to direct it. People are saying we should start a new party, some are saying we should go independent, I think we need to go more into the field, listen to more people before I can reach a conclusion. You have said there needs to be a reworking of the relationship between the Government of India and Jammu and Kashmir to ensure the aspirations of the people. What are the most important things that need to be done? 1. One constituency which I am trying to appeal to is those who don't have faith in electoral politics. That is an untapped space. Being in a conflict zone, that is a space which actually has the mistrust of the people. They believe electoral politics does not provide any solutions. I am telling them we are here for good governance and if you give us the opportunity, we will be getting better people into the system. 2. Make them understand that we will ensure that New Delhi at least understands that there is a problem in Kashmir. There has been a massive denial about Kashmir. They call it a development issue, job issue, electricity issue. Delhi needs to understand that it is a political issue. Politicians cannot keep holding on to something that is not sustainable while people are getting killed. Electoral politics is at the verge of decimation if killings continue in such a way and there is no political initiative from the government. We are telling the basic truth about Kashmir. The idea will be to ensure some sort of peace process, dialogue between Delhi and the Hurriyat Conference by telling Delhi that the Hurriyat does have a representative character. Photograph Umar Ganie for Rediff.com IMAGE: Kashmir came under President's rule after the Bharatiya Janata Party withdrew support to the Peoples Democratic Party government in J&K. Like many times in the past, the state is now governed directly by New Delhi. Politicians in J&K are irrelevant until the regime in Delhi agrees to go along. How do you think that barrier can be overcome? Politicians in Kashmir are irrelevant because they do not have an electoral base. We want to ensure that the legislator who gets elected has electoral legitimacy. He can at least go out into the constituency, speak to the people and be honest with Delhi. These days an MLA can't even walk out of his home. This will bring legitimacy to the electoral process and also give them courage to speak to Delhi. You said MLAs fear going out of their homes. While making this decision, at any point, did you fear for your life? I am operating in a space that does not belong to anybody. It neither belongs to the State or the non State. It is a very dangerous space. There are a lot of people who are operating and you don't know whose territory you actually may be encroaching upon unconsciously. It is a risky space. I do feel at times worried about myself. What was the trigger that made you resign from the civil services? How long has it been coming? Two, three years. There was a new cycle of violence and no credible political system. For someone like me who has been part of the law and order machinery, it has been very difficult to tell the central government that Kashmir is not a law and order situation, but we need to address it politically. It was important for me to make this statement at this stage that the central government should remember its responsibilities towards the people of Kashmir. Were the seeds for resignation sown during your tenure in the IAS and flowered while you were in Harvard till last month? Harvard enabled me to look at the situation in a more detached way. As I was part of the government, I had a very statist view. Once in Harvard I realised that there could be other perspectives also which were missing, more so the people's perspective. As somebody who was looking after law and order in Kashmir, usually we could never understand the people's perspective -- like why are people picking up the gun? We were not addressing the 'why' of it. At Harvard, I could figure out that perspective. I could meet people there who have given up great things in their lives to pursue public service -- poverty, human rights, left corporate jobs to teach. The courage also came somehow from my Harvard stint. You mentioned the 'why' behind young people picking up the gun. At the funeral of a terrorist Zeenat-ul-Islams, slogans were reportedly raised against your move to enter politics. How are you going to engage with young people who lionise such terrorists? You have to understand where those slogans come from. Youngsters perceive electoral politics as a betrayal of the sacrifices of the people. Once elections are conducted, Delhi shows those elections as the affirmation of the status quo in the people of Kashmir. So now people are saying anybody who wants an election is a traitor. It plays to the rhetoric which is against the people. The difficulty is how to possibly convince and communicate with Kashmiri youngsters today that electoral politics could be used constructively as a means of dispute resolution by not allowing New Delhi to play it wrongly. IMAGE: A Kashmiri student hurls a stone at the security forces in the Kashmir valley. Photograph: Danish Ismail/Reuters How do you think the problem of stone pelters can be solved? They attack security forces and hamper anti-terrorist operations. In the last 10 years we have been using the military, security forces to tackle stone pelting. But have we been successful? Fundamentally, you have to understand the motivation which turns a youngster into a stone pelter. When you say this guy has been given Rs 500 to become a stone pelter or being religiously indoctrinated to become one, you are basically missing the point. You are applying the wrong medicine because your diagnosis is wrong. You have to look at the motivation behind stone pelting and militancy. Why would somebody put his life in peril and pick up a stone or a gun? All the measures against these will be cosmetic and fail unless you understand the motivation. We cannot speak of Kashmir without the Pandits. They have been in exile for 30 years. What are your thoughts about their return home? I have a young child, my worry is he might never hear what a Kashmiri Pandit is. He may never get to study with a Pandit child. I see a sense of urgency. I feel they have to come back. What is our civilisation, our culture without the Pandits? Nothing. I have been very vocal about the return of Kashmiri Pandits all these years. The government should really ensure that they come back soon. How can that be brought about? By creating conditions in Kashmir where their return can be facilitated. When you are not ready for dialogue, not ready to even discuss de-escalation in Kashmir -- nothing else is going to move. Even the Pandits cannot come back. It is all related. When the violence level comes down and there is a political initiative, discussions on their homecoming can be undertaken. Why do you think politics is a better way of serving people than the civil services? You were serving the people even by being part of the system. I never said there was a problem in the civil services. I said there was a political problem in Kashmir which is very immediate and urgent. It is related to the dignity of the people because there is such a political vacuum in the state at the moment that it was important for me to try and occupy space which has been abandoned and on which youngsters have no faith. Solutions to political problems would be expected to come from that political space. I realised it was important for me to first attempt the more urgent issues of dignity than development. Development later, dignity first. How do you think your resignation will make a difference to the situation on the ground? The resignation has been more like a statement. Like an alarm bell that 'Look, something is wrong.' I don't believe in cynicism or scepticism or pessimism. I am saying that 'Look, I rang the bell, but I am also going to provide solutions.' I am trying to meet young people to tell them that there will be right people to give you good governance, representing your aspirations and telling the truth about the problem in Kashmir. January 15, 2019 17:34 IST The company has already put in place this digital register in Jaipur in Rajasthan and pilot projects are running in Haryana and Telangana Hospitality start-up company, OYO Hotels & Homes is aggressively putting in place a digital record system to facilitate direct data sharing of its customers with various state governments and law enforcement authorities in order to give them better information of guests staying at its hotels or visiting the state. Aditya Ghosh, chief executive officer of India and South Asia at OYO, said the company would be happy to make the platform open for all state governments. At this point, we have seen acceptance from the governments of Haryana, Rajasthan and Telangana of our proposed digitisation of guest entry and departure records. "The digital arrival and departure register aims to provide a real-time update to the respective governments on who's checking in and checking out, making this a more efficient and transparent process as compared to the manual version, he said at an event organised by the CII in Kolkata. Such data facilitation will not only help the states monitor movements of visitors but will also reduce the possibility of manipulating the hotel register, where entries are made manually. In effect, it will help the hotel streamline compliancies efficiently. OYO claims to be the pioneer in India on this digitisation drive. However, for such a drive, the state governments also need to have a digital register. The company has already put in place this digital register in Jaipur in Rajasthan and pilot projects are running in Haryana and Telangana. The hotel manager or the receptionist is equipped with an app that captures guest details and photos and directly shares them with the authorities. It is also targeting to become the worlds largest hotel chain in the coming one and a half years, as it plans to scale up its room keys from the current 0.45 million to one million. Ghosh said that a one-million room inventory will make this start-up unicorn the largest hotel chain globally. Of the 0.45 million rooms it has, China is its largest market in terms of rooms, with India at second spot. In India, it has over 8,700 leased and franchised hotels and over 164,000 rooms with footprints in over 180 cities. This firm has been adding 64,000 rooms every month globally. However, in terms of contributing to the consolidated revenue, India is the largest followed by China. The company was unable to provide the number of rooms it has in China. It is also mulling an entry into Japan besides other counties and is in talks with property owners for agreements in Japan. We are the largest hotel chain in Indonesia and intend to become the largest hotel chain in Japan before the (Summer) Olympics, he said. Japan will be hosting the Summer Olympics in 2020 and this event is poised to drive huge demand in the hospitality segment in that country. Photograph: Courtesy, oyorooms.com January 15, 2019 09:00 IST While payments banks surely lose money, their operating ratios were looking better in 2017-18 compared to the year before. This implies that as customer volumes start picking up, the business models may perk up too, says R Jagannathan. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi receives his Q card from Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha (left) during the launch of India Post Payments Bank. Photograph: Subhav Shukla/PTI Photo The Reserve Bank of Indias Trend and Progress of Banking In India 2017-18 seems to suggest that payments banks are still to find their feet, with net losses for five banks more than doubling from Rs 242 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 516 crore. While the data is available for five banks, as on date there are six payments banks in existence: Airtel, Jio, Aditya Birla, Paytm, Fino, and India Post. The first three are essentially payments banks that started as adjuncts to the promoters mainstream telecom business where they have millions of customers, while the last three are purer-play financial entrants. Payments banks are essentially vehicles for financial inclusion, and they are expected to use technology to expand reach where branches and ATMs cannot be viable. They are allowed to accept deposits up to Rs 100,000 per account, and 75 per cent of this has to be invested in government securities. Not more than 25 per cent can be invested in fixed deposits with regular banks. Since they are constrained on both the assets and liabilities sides, their business model has to be built on the narrow spreads available between their deposit rates, and yields on short-term government paper or bank fixed deposits. They can also make money from idle cash left as part of e-wallets, which was the avatar in which Paytm was formed. However, a straight reading of the RBIs report does not do full justice to the performance of payments banks in such a short term. Reason: as with any new business, initial investments in infrastructure, marketing, KYC (know-your-customer) compliance, and customer acquisition costs tend to be high. A closer look at some of the other ratios indicates that while payments banks surely lose money, their operating ratios were looking better in 2017-18 compared to the year before. This implies that as customer volumes start picking up, the business models may perk up too. Between 2016-17 and 2017-18, payment banks return on assets improved from -25.2 to -10.6, while net interest margins went up from 2.8 per cent to 4.5 per cent. The high net interest margins suggest that a lot of the cash with payments banks may well be interest-free wallet money, with the free float being deployed in higher-yield government bonds. Clearly, it is too early to write off payments banks as unviable, for it is only when their customer volumes are cranked up that we can see the full benefits of scale achieved at low per-customer overheads. Moreover, there are company-level issues that may have prevented payments banks from doing better. In the case of Airtel Payments Bank, Paytm and Fino, for instance, the RBI barred them from adding new banking customers for various transgressions, including opening accounts without the customers knowledge (Airtel), for inadequate security on customer data (Paytm), and for non-adherence to the upper limit for deposits (Fino). These restrictions surely cramped their growth earlier. The bans have now been lifted, and all three should be growing again. As for Aditya Birla Payments Bank and Jio, their operations are linked to their telecom user bases, and could see some accretions. India Post, which is the governments post office outfit with over 1,50,000 branches, most in rural areas, should be the payments player to watch, as it has both physical and digital access to millions of lower-value customers. The restrictions on deposits and ban on lending even small amounts to safe customers circumscribe the business models of payments banks needlessly. Some tweaks in rules are called for. For example, in case customer balances rise temporarily above the Rs 100,000 ceiling, payments banks can be given time to bring them down or retain the money with no interest being paid. Also, good customers can be given overdraft facilities, which can allow for some lending operations with higher margins. It is too early to write the epitaph of payments banks, for they are still to leverage scale and size to really make their business models work profitably. R Jagannathan is editorial director, Swarajya Many tend to get into a routine of dining at the same few favorites. But with January here in full-force, its time to break out of your comfo Porterville, CA (93257) Today Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low near 70F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low near 70F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. This is the first federal prosecution involving carfentanil in Connecticut, said then U.S. Attorney Deirdre M. Daly in a statement at the time. We will continue to devote numerous federal resources to battle the scourge of opioid abuse and distribution, and our commitment becomes stronger as these illegal drugs become more sinister and deadly. By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 06/09/2021 ADVERTISEMENT FOLLOW REALITY TV WORLD ON THE ALL-NEW GOOGLE NEWS! Reality TV World is now available on the all-new Google News app and website. Click here to visit our Google News page, and then click FOLLOW to add us as a news source! What couples are still together and which MAFS couples have split up and divorced? And where are they now? 's first twelve seasons featured 44 different couples getting married at first sight -- so which couples are still together, who has split up and divorced, and where are they all now?Each season of -- which premiered in the United States seven years ago and is based on a Danish series -- features couples (previously three couples, but four couples on Seasons 8 and 9, and five couples beginning with Season 10) being matched together by relationship experts and agree to marry when they first meet.Complete strangers become husband and wife in a matter of minutes, and the couples' lives are then documented by TV cameras over the course of the next four to eight weeks (eight weeks, in the case of 's most recent seasons).The couples typically enjoy their first night together in a hotel after exchanging vows -- with some couples deciding to consummate their marriage immediately -- and then embark on a honeymoon, move in together, and simply attempt to deal with the struggles of daily life as man and wife.At the end of the extreme marriage experiment, each couple must decide whether they'd like to stay married or get a divorce on "Decision Day."has experienced very mixed results over the years. While a significant number of couples decide to stay together and continue their new marriage at the end of their season, the real world seems to hit them hard after the cameras leave, resulting in the couple splitting up only months later.Do cast members see a different side of their spouses once cameras are gone, or do the romances naturally fizzle over time?Some couples are still together to this day and are extremely happy. Jamie Otis and Doug Hehner from Season 1, for example, have had two children.Several other couples have also had children -- including Ashley Petta and Anthony D'Amico Shawniece Jackson and Jephte Pierre Danielle Bergman and Bobby Dodd , and Deonna McNeill and Greg Okotie However, there are also relationships that ended badly. Jessica Castro from Season 2, for instance, accused Ryan De Nino of alleged death threats, and she went on to file a restraining order and lawsuit against him.Some couples have also never even made it to "Decision Day" and ended their marriage prematurely, including Season 4 couple Heather Seidel and Derek Schwartz as well as Season 6 couple Molly Duff and Jonathan Francetic Are the remaining couples now lovers, friends or enemies?! What about early season couples like Cortney Hendrix and Jason Carrion, Jaclyn Methuen and Ryan Ranellone, Vanessa Nelson and Tres Russell, Sonia Granados and Nick Pendergrast, and Lillian Vilchez and Tom Wilson?And how about more recent season couples like Danielle DeGroot and Cody Knapek Sheila Downs and Nate Duhon Jaclyn Schwartzberg and Ryan Buckley Dave Flaherty and Amber Martorana , and Tristan Thompson and Mia Bally Keith Dewar and Kristine Killingsworth , and AJ Vollmoeller and Stephanie Sersen Click thelink below to see photos of each couple and find out! BEGIN GALLERY >> Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. Kim Kardashian says her fourth baby is arriving "sometime soon." ADVERTISEMENT The 38-year-old "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" star confirmed on Monday's episode of "Watch What Happens Live" that she's expecting another son with husband Kanye West via surrogate. Kim told host Andy Cohen her child is due "sometime soon." She appeared alongside sisters Kourtney Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian, who expressed surprise when she announced the baby's sex. "It's a boy!" the star said before explaining her forthcomingness. "It's out there. I got drunk at our Christmas Eve party and I told some people and I can't remember who I told because I never get drunk." Kim and her sisters also addressed their relationship with their former stepfather, Caitlyn Jenner. The siblings have clashed with Caitlyn since her split from their mom, Kris Jenner, in 2014, but are back to speaking with the star. FOLLOW REALITY TV WORLD ON THE ALL-NEW GOOGLE NEWS! Reality TV World is now available on the all-new Google News app and website. Click here to visit our Google News page, and then click FOLLOW to add us as a news source! "We saw her on Christmas Eve," Kim said. "It's like, new year, drama-free. That's like our motto this year." Us Weekly reported this month that Kim and West are expecting a baby boy via surrogate. Sources said the couple's gestational carrier is due to give birth in early May. Kim and West are already parents to 5-year-old daughter North, 3-year-old son Saint and 1-year-old daughter Chicago. Kim posted photos with West and their kids in December from her family's Christmas Eve party. By Steven Rogers, 01/14/2019 ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Steven Rogers is a senior entertainment reporter for Reality TV World and been covering the reality TV genre for two decades. star Larissa Christina Dos Santos Lima had an emotional breakdown after learning the GoFundMe account she had created to raise money from her fans was shut down by the funding service.In an Instagram Live session with her followers on Sunday night, Larissa cried about how the $3,000 GoFundMe account she created to help her get out of jail after her recent domestic violence arrest and pay lawyers to deal with her mounting legal issues was closed."I'm not happy about it," Larissa, 32, said in tears during the video, according to Us Weekly, and urged her followers to donate their cash in other ways instead."I'm not proud about it, but it's something that I need your help with now."Larissa reportedly called out her "haters" for reporting her GoFundMe account to the service, leading to its cancellation.In addition to using the money to pay the bond that allowed her to be released from jail on Saturday, Larissa said she needed the GoFundMe cash to hire three attorneys -- one for her domestic battery case, one who specializes in immigration, and a divorce lawyer.As fans are well aware, Colt filed for divorce from Larissa on Friday after the pair had another explosive argument in their home late Thursday night, resulting in Larissa's arrest.And since Larissa was originally permitted into the United States on a K-1 spousal visa and Colt has filed for divorce, Larissa may now also be deported to her home country of Brazil."I am so thankful for all of the donations. Unfortunately, I wont get the money," Larissa continued in her Instagram Live session, according to Us, before sharing her Paypal, Venmo and Zelle usernames as alternate ways for people to send her money."I cannot work and for now just to have my friends help me with the situation, so I really need it," she said, E! News reported. "To come here to begait's really sad, really sad for me."The reality TV star also reportedly promised all the GoFundMe donations will be refunded to the donors since the account had been shut down by the service.Larissa's video concluded with a friend saying on her behalf, "She came with good intentions. She's not perfect. She has issues... but she's not a mean person," according to Us.Colt filed for divorce from Larissa in Clark County Court on Friday, according to court records obtained by Reality TV World. Colt's filing did not list an attorney and was filed "Pro Se," which means he is currently representing himself in the case.Colt's mom Debbie Johnson -- who ironically, had just publicly gushed about Larissa a few days ago -- is also listed in the court records as having paid the filing's $299.00 court fee.According to Larissa -- who updated her Instagram followers as well as blogger John Yates via text messages on Thursday night in real time as her fight with Colt was transpiring -- the disturbing incident began when she allegedly found email receipts for pornographic videos Colt had purchased.Larissa posted screenshots of one receipt in particular on Instagram, trying to prove Colt had bought a "Jacuzzi Sex" video for $59.99.Colt's alleged purchases sparked an argument, which then escalated into bloody injuries -- including a large gash on Larissa's cheek, scratches on Larissa's torso, blood smears on Larissa's face, and a cut on the inside of Colt's lip -- and Larissa's eventual arrest."Colt called the cops on me we argue," Larissa posted Thursday night on her own Instagram account alongside two photos of her face which had a nasty scratch down her cheek.In an Instagram Stories video, Larissa showed off her injuries and admitted she scratched Colt, but only in alleged self defense."Colt called the cops on me. I am going to be deported. I just scratched him because he was hurting me. As you see, I am really hurt," Larissa said. "But he called the police first."Larissa continued on Instagram Stories, "Colt argued because many vids he tortured me I need one attorney he called the cops. Please help me he will lie."Larissa later deleted most of the material she had posted about her altercation with Colt.Larissa apparently wanted fans to know her side of the story because she also begged John to publicly share information she had provided him with."The cops are here. Please let people know," Larissa apparently told John in a text message.John said Larissa asked him to post their private text messages."I found him buying pornography. John he's pedophile too," Larissa apparently told John in a text. "He cut off my [signal]."John also received a photo from someone claiming to be Colt's friend. The picture showed Colt holding his lip down and showing a bleeding cut on inside his mouth.John then shared a video on Instagram in which Larissa said she was recording herself to prove Colt had sprayed shaving cream all over her arms and clothing.Larissa alleged in the video Colt had sprayed her with the shaving cream in order to provoke a reaction and make her "crazy." She called him "abusive" as Colt stood in a doorway and repeatedly asked his wife to "stop."Larissa eventually told John that she had left her shared home with Colt and found safety at her close friend Carmen's house, where she received medical treatment from an EMT.John revealed Carmen later informed him that Larissa had been arrested. Carmen then setup the GoFundMe account on Larissa's behalf and posted messages on Larissa's Instagram account asking her followers donate to it.On Friday, TMZ reported, citing law enforcement sources, that police initially visited the couple's Las Vegas home around 11PM on Thursday night after Larissa called the police. However Colt was no longer at the home when they arrived.Officers then reportedly returned to the scene a couple of hours later and spoke with both Colt and Larissa and determined she had a single deep cut and blood spatter on her face.However, Colt reportedly denied being responsible for the scratches on Larissa's torso and claimed to be a nail-biter and showed the officers his fingernails, resulting in the police deciding Colt could not have caused the scratches and they had been self-inflicted by Larissa.Then, after also seeing Larissa already had two previous domestic violence arrests, the officers arrested Larissa.Before her arrest, Larissa actually took to Instagram and wrote, "I was nervous thinking that I would be arrested today because when I tried to call the cops, Colt [took] my phone and called the cops on me. Thank God, this life of abuse and manipulation is over. I received medical help and I am safe at my friends house."In addition to the new altercation, John released some disturbing screenshots of alleged text messages between Colt and Larissa on Instagram. Although it's unclear when the messages were exchanged, they show how unhealthy the couple's relationship was.Colt allegedly told Larissa that she had no control over what he did or whether he cheat on her. Colt also allegedly swore at Larissa and called her a "c-nt" and "piece of sh-t" among other horrible names.As viewers are well aware, Larissa previously accused Colt of cheating on her and flirting with multiple women on social media. Colt subsequently owned up to his mistakes and claimed he was going to try to be a better man and fight for his marriage.Larissa said she will likely be deported back to Brazil because she had already been arrested twice before during her time in the United States.Larissa was taken into custody back in November 2018 for domestic violence after another huge fight with Colt.Larissa had also been arrested in June 2018 for domestic battery under similar circumstances -- an off-screen incident that Colt was shown mentioning in the final minutes of 's sixth-season finale when it aired on December 30.While Larissa was charged in the June 2018 incident, the charge was eventually dismissed in October 2018. Several warning calls by prominent Iraqi political parties regarding the precarious situation in Mosul have emerged. More than a year has passed since Iraqs second largest city was cleared of Islamic State (IS), but the area seemingly remains vulnerable (Al Arabiya, November 21, 2018). Although there have been no major military operations since the city was retaken, circumstances similar to those that preceded the fall of Mosul in 2014 are widely reported. Corruption and the lack of effective reconstruction efforts have stalled normalization. Different Iraqi government forces and militias control the city of Mosul and the wider Ninawa province and are accused of using their power to generate revenue through controversial or illegal means. There has been no real work to address the root causes that led to IS rise, and Iraqs Shia-led federal government has not prioritized Mosul. The U.S. administrations recent decision to withdraw from Syria makes the situation in Mosul and Ninawa even more relevant for the efforts to defeat IS completely (Al-Ittihad, November 9, 2018). Corruption, Sectarianism and Stalled Reconstruction Corruption and sectarianism were among the major factors that led to the sudden fall of Mosul in June 2014. Soldiers were too corrupt to fight and retain the populations support, and many locals saw IS as the lesser of two evils. In the years preceding IS occupation of Mosul, Shia-led security forces pursued sectarian policies against the Sunni majority local population. Suffering humiliation and insults at security checkpoints was commonplace. Meanwhile, the government of the former hardline Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and many in Iraqs Shia community accused local Sunni leaders of inciting hatred against the security forces. The security forces were riddled with corruption before the fall of Mosul. Many soldiers paid part of their salaries and allowances to their commanding officers and stayed at home in remote provinces. IS, under its previous name the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), imposed illegal taxes on local businesses in Mosul for years before it took over the city. Meanwhile, the security forces did nothing to prevent this as they were engaging in similar practices. Today, security forces and powerful Shia militias are also involved in profiteering of various means, from seizing ownership of abandoned real estate to coercing local businesses to pay protection money. Iraqi security forces and Shia militias jointly control the city and the Ninawa province. Corruption within their ranks stands as one of the main challenges in the region. It makes the lives of the locals more difficult and weakens the combat capabilities of the Iraqi security forces. After the liberation of the city, many IS members were captured and released after paying bribes to the security forces, while other suspects who are likely innocent stayed in jail because they could not buy their freedom. This situation has caused confusion and uncertainty in the local community (Al-Khaleej Online, January 11). There is currently less sectarianism in the behaviors of the security forces, but the Shia dominance is still very clear. The U.S.-backed elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) played a major role in the liberation of Mosul. Most of the CTS commanders were Shia but were career officers who served in the old Iraqi army and were even members of former president Saddam Husseins now-banned Baath party of Iraq. They managed to win the hearts and minds of local Sunnis in Mosul. Their role ended after the liberation of Mosul, but they created and left a better atmosphere between the locals and the security forces. Also, the public appeal of the Sunni opposition movements struggle against Shia dominance in Iraqi politics has disappeared. The Sunni community, however, is still very weary after the whole saga of IS occupation. The U.S.-backed Major General Najim al-Juburia Sunni who comes from Mosulwas appointed the head military commander of Mosul but his real power is limited. Considering the balance of power and the chain of command of the most dominant units, he is not in a particularly prominent position. His role is closer to that of a local sheriff than a military ruler. The better equipped and trained units receive their orders from central command in Baghdad. More critically, the Iran-backed Shia militias which operate under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) have significant presence and power in Ninawa province and beyond. Despite earlier claims that they would pull out of major cities, especially Mosul, they are still there (Alghad Press, August 12, 2018). The process of reconstruction has also been stalled by the central governments apparent lack of interest. The Shia-led government did not prioritize Sunni-majority Mosul in its budget plan and very little money was allocated for reconstruction. Meanwhile, the local government is led by a governor, Nawfal Humadi al-Sultan al-Agoob, who is known for his unannounced visits to government services where he has had heated debates with junior officials regarding basic services, but apart from those showings, there has been no delivery (Erem News, February 28, 2018). The old city and other parts of the west bank of the Tigris River, which divides the city, look as devastated as they were a year ago. The governor is accused of facilitating illegal lucrative activities for influential parties. He is a Sunni but owes his appointment and survival to the support of the Iran-backed Shia militias who have a solid presence in Mosul. He is also on good terms with the Kurds who have a certain influence in the area (Mawazin, November 27, 2018). [1] IS is still too weak to run the same parallel system of control, but the group is likely watching and making plans. Sunni locals still consider the current situation to be better than IS rule, but continuing corruption, perceived sectarianism, and stalled reconstruction could create doubt and make many have second thoughts (Al Arabiya, December 10, 2018). IS Ambitions and Sleeper Cells Losing Mosul and other Sunni majority cities in Iraq was a major blow for IS. Recent statements and the groups literature, in general, do not make IS look desperate but rather determined to make a comeback. Much of this is morale-boosting rhetoric, but volatility in post-2003 Iraq suggests that any bad scenario is possible. The editorial of IS weekly newspaper al-Naba makes the case for a comeback. Under the title Wait and I will be waiting with you, the article explains how jihadists had come under immense pressure from local Iraqi partners backed by the United States before 2014 and how that changed after the U.S. withdrawal, for which IS claims credit. The Sahwat (Sunni, U.S.-backed, anti-IS militias) and Rafidha (the Shias) were encouraged by the power of the U.S. home they served and committed atrocities against Muslims (Jihadists and their supporters). They thought that America would protect them from Allahs will until Allah made his slaves (IS) in the charging position and they shattered the Sahwat and massacre the Rafidha. [2] A large part of the editorial is dedicated to the story of the Yezidi community, especially in the city of Sinjar. Sinjar, being located between Mosul and the border with Syria, was the scene of some of IS most atrocious acts. The group attacked the Yezidi community there and killed most of the adult men and captured and enslaved the minors and women. The recent rift between Kurds, Yezidis, Sunni, and Shia forces which control Sinjar now proves how fragile the situation could become. IS exploitation of the conflicts between rival Iraqi groups was a major element of the groups strategy to make gains. When IS captured Mosul in 2014, almost half of the population fled the city and the whole province to safer areas, especially in the neighboring semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan. Many could afford to rent houses, but thousands ended up living in poor conditions in internally displaced peoples camps. Those who stayed under IS rule quickly discovered how difficult their situation had become. They suffered IS heavy-handed security policies, increased isolation from the outside world and eventually major military operations that resulted in IS defeat but left civilian casualties and devastation along the way. Since the liberation, many returned home but others remain in the camps. Wives and minor children of IS members are also living in camps now. Abuses of camp residents, including sexual abuse and exploitation, are frequently reported. So far, the camps are under control but have the potential to become jihadist hotbeds. Indications also exist of IS having more fighters than suggested by the sparse activities the group has conducted since it lost the battle of Mosul. Iraqi sources estimated that, in Mosul alone, there are at least 300 IS fighters in sleeper cells, some likely within IDP camps, who are ready to move when the opportunity arises (Vice, December 20, 2018). Conclusion The threat of IS and the jihadist ideology will never disappear with the presence of corruption and a lack of meaningful reconciliation, accountability, and transitional justice. Meanwhile, IS is intent on making a comeback. One silver lining is the joint Iraqi-U.S. efforts to target active IS elements in the area. Those efforts, however, do not include any attempts to reform the system. When Mosul fell four and a half years ago, there was an Iraqi CTS unit located in the city, which had better discipline and a more trustworthy reputation. Yet the only difference in their response to IS attack was that they managed to withdraw properly without disintegrating like other larger units of the Iraqi military. From the outside, there is no immediate threat from IS and the jihadists. The main IS force that overran Mosul in the summer of 2014 came from Syria where they had controlled territory and established a solid base. IS no longer has that in Syria, but the U.S. administrations decision to withdraw from Syria has raised alarms in Mosul. With no intention of leaving Iraq, the U.S. forces will continue to support Iraqi security forces. The latter has yet to win major combat operations without U.S. support. Any military efforts, however, would still need to be matched by addressing the root causes that led to the rise of IS by introducing and implementing plans for reconstruction and reform. Having several parties, including different units of security forces, on the ground who share control makes the situation complicated and unpredictable. Those groups might coexist well at times, especially when they enjoy the financial rewards of power. However, without a powerful government that imposes the rule of law and fights corruption, the situation will remain fragile and vulnerable to a possible resurgence of IS, or its successor. Notes [1] Authors phone interview with an academic who lives in Mosul on December 27, 2018. [2] Al-Naba March 29, 2018 Twelve months ago in the Pentagons first new National Defense Strategy since 2008, President Trump quietly replaced terrorism with interstate competition as his top national security concern, thus relegating the threat of terrorism to pre-9/11 levels. Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of state rivals like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. However, even in the midst of the justified media frenzy surrounding allegations of Russian U.S. election meddling and other foreign influence operations, Washingtons growing complacency regarding terrorist activity should be troubling. Global terrorism peaked in 2014 but may spike again as Trump begins to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan. While most terrorist attacks occur in the Middle East, these attacks are perpetrated by ISIS and Al Qaeda, which target the U.S. homeland, as well as by other regional terrorist groups like the Taliban and Jaish-e-Mohammed, which undermine U.S. allies and partners in Europe and Asia. Accordingly, terrorism should continue to rank high in Americas order of national security priorities. Chinathough a strategic rivalshares Americas broad strategic concern about terrorism and other transnational threats to stability in Asia. To date, however, Chinas contributions to the War on Terror have been limited by its self-proclaimed attitude of noninterference in the politics of other nationsparticularly those the United States might consider illiberaland by its reluctance to adopt stricter counterterrorism (CT) measures that might cause it to suffer a terrorist backlash. Chinas contributions also serve an ulterior purpose, justifying the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)s repression of political dissidents and ethnic minorities. Chinas legal definition of terrorism is unspecific and sweeping, giving its government a convenient means to prosecute both real and imagined political opponents. Notably, for instance, Beijing has continued to deploy the charge of terrorism against the Turkistan Islamic Party, a separatist organization, in a brazen defense of the economic marginalization and mass detainment of Uyghur Muslims, Kazakhs, and other ethnic minorities in Chinas western province of Xinjiang. Beijings aggressive policies in Xinjiang reflect the growing influence of a new cadre of CCP bureaucrats like Chen Quanguo, who first gained international notoriety for suppressing political and cultural subversives in Tibet. Meanwhile, in neighboring Pakistan, China continues to turn a blind eye to Islamabads well-known ties to terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba in the interest of deepening bilateral cooperation on infrastructure, arms, and other technology exports. Such actions, which elevate Beijings international profile to the detriment of liberal governance in central and southern Asia, make it difficult for the United States to support Chinas CT activities in good faith. Despite Beijings exploitation of CT for domestic political gain and strong anxiety about committing to measures that could make it a target of violent extremists, China has tremendous potential to become a capable ally in U.S. international CT efforts as the worlds second-largest military power. Therefore, as Washington and Beijing appear headed for a period of sustained economic competition, the United States should consider developing a combination of economic pressures and incentives to engage China on CT operations in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Before the United States could attempt to bring down hostilities by cooperating on this area of shared interests, however, China must be restrained from using CT as a pretext for suppressing its domestic civil society and for exporting a Chinese model of development that undercuts the U.S.-led liberal rules-based consensus. Since 2013, China has invested in an economic corridor stretching across Pakistan, which promises to extend access for the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) west of the Indian peninsulapart of Chinas hemisphere-wide Belt and Road Initiative. In 2015, China passed far-reaching legislation allowing its military and police to conduct overseas operations against terrorists. In 2017, China established a military base in Djibouti, ostensibly to strengthen its peacekeeping operations in Africa. Also in 2017, China acquired a 99-year lease on a port in Sri Lankas Hambantota, giving it a toehold near an important commercial and military juncture in the Indo-Pacific. According to Xi Jinping, these and other actions strengthening the PLAs international military footprint are necessary for protecting Chinese nationals on foreign soil, overseas development projects, and other foreign investments from global terrorists. For American policymakers, however, Beijings failure to articulate a clear and objective role in the War on Terror introduces doubt about Chinas motives and commitment to global CT. Additionally, the CCPs inclusion of CT in a broader program of influence operations seemingly directed at challenging Americas strategic preeminence on every leveldiplomatic, economic, military, and culturalraises further alarm. As a first step, therefore, the United States should consider a complimentary comprehensive strategy, applying a creative mix of diplomatic, economic, and military incentives and pressures to turn China into an acceptable CT partner. While a comprehensive 'whole-of-government approach is often mentioned in CT policy discussions, harnessing the entire U.S. government in a coordinated pressure campaign against China could limit the CCPs repressive tactics in Xinjiang and clear a path to a bilateral consensus around the legal definition of terrorism. In other areas of the bilateral relationship, the Chinese leadership has been unexpectedly responsive to demands from Washington at least for now. On the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Argentina early last month, Xi and Trump agreed to a temporary suspension of their tariff war. In the weeks since, Beijing has signaled that it might permit certain concessions for foreign companies operating in its marketplacea nod to the Trump administrations insistence on structural economic changes in China. Beijings allowances have persisted despite Canadas arrest in December of a top executive for Chinese telecom giant Huaweipart of a broader U.S. Justice Department crackdown on illicit technology transfers. While Trumps aggressive efforts to open Chinas economy to American investment may be hobbled by his misgivings about destabilizing the global economy, Beijing, too, appears ready to compromise when U.S. demands endanger its short-term economic fortunes. Accordingly, U.S. policymakers could be more assertive about disrupting Chinas economy and thereby forcing the CCP to risk a greater degree of political capital on its ethnic suppression in Xinjiang and regarding CT more broadly. For the most part, Chinas domestic CT activities thus far have only alienated minorities and crushed individual freedoms, undermining the integrity of global institutions. Pooling CT resources with China risks pulling U.S. policymakers into the unsanctioned suppression of local minorities like the Uyghurs, compromising Americas moral authority in Asia. Therefore, only after taking China to task for Xinjiang, narrowing the CCPs legal definition of terrorism, and periodically re-clarifying the scope of Chinas CT activities through existing bilateral mechanisms, may the United States finally deepen the functional areas of its CT cooperation with China. Though Trump may be hard-pressed to muster the sort of large-scale political willpower needed for such a comprehensive endeavor given his administrations increasing vulnerability after the congressional midterm elections, the United States should at least remain clear-eyed about Chinas motives for fighting terrorism, and reposition over time to seek common bilateral ground on this still critical issue. Elliot I. Silverberg is an international relations masters candidate at Georgetown Universitys Walsh School of Foreign Service. He is an editor of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, and has worked in strategy consulting, journalism, the legal industry, and think tanks across Japan and the United States. Not all ballistic missiles submarines are built equal, and neither is all maritime geography. In a recent article at the Bulletin for Atomic Scientists, Owen Cote examines the boomer balance between China and the United States in light of the long-running competition between the United States and the USSR during the Cold War. Cote suggests that for the foreseeable future the United States can rely on technological and geographic advantages that will keep its own deterrent secure, while putting China's at risk. MYANMAR: A joint team of local and Chinese engineers has started work on ground surveys to finalise the alignment for the planned 431 km rail link from Mandalay to the Chinese border at Muse. Intended to link Myanmar with Kunming, the line is being promoted as part of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor within the Belt & Road Initiative. According to the Ministry of Transport and Communications, the route would broadly follow the existing line northeast from Mandalay to Nawnghkio and Lashio before turning north towards Muse. Surveying began on January 6 and is expected to be complete by mid-April, although Ministry of Transport & Communications Permanent Secretary U Win Khant said negotiations were still underway with the Ministry of Home Affairs for access to some areas in Shan state due to security concerns. Under a memorandum of understanding with Myanmar Railways signed in October, China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group will cover the full cost of the study, which will also assess the environmental and social impacts of the proposed railway. The 1 435 mm gauge electrified railway is being designed for a maximum speed of 160 km/h, with the ministry envisaging Mandalay Muse journey times of around 3 h compared with 8 h by road. There would be at least five passenger stations and seven freight terminals along the route, although the exact locations remain to be determined. According to the ministry, the line is would form part of the South Transportation Corridor of the UNESCAP-promoted Trans Asian Railway Network. Dismissing concerns that the scheme project could burden Myanmar with unsustainable debts, Minister of Transport & Communications U Thant Sin Maung told local media that the railway was one of five priority corridors in Myanmars national transport master plan. The government established a steering committee in November to co-ordinate its involvement with various Belt & Road projects. China is also to fund studies for a new road to link Ruili in Yunnan province to the Bay of Bengal port of Kyaukphyu in Rakhine state. An agreement to develop an 810 km railway in this corridor had been signed in 2011, but that project lapsed three years later. The Kiwi dream of owning a home is slipping out of reach for many Aucklanders, but there's one solution that could offer some hope. Tiny homes are being dubbed a solution to restore housing affordability in New Zealand's metropolis. They're mobile, compact, reasonably priced, and environmentally-friendly. They're portable so you can take them with you if you move cities. Gina Stevens, the creative force behind Build Tiny, believes tiny homes are the best option for those who are struggling to get onto the property ladder in Auckland. "There are lots of reasons to opt for a tiny home. The cost is one of the big things for a lot of people, but they have lots of other benefits too," she told RadioLIVE. "They're portable so you can take them with you if you move cities." Ranging in price from $100,000 to $120,000, tiny homes are a fraction of the median price of $699,000 Aucklanders are paying to get their feet on the property ladder. For those who want to live off-grid, Build Tiny offers a solar package for another $16,000 to $17,000. WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. The Purdue Ag-Celerator Fund has announced that it is investing $100,000 in two plant science startups: Heliponix LLC, which is developing coffee machine-like pods that can grow produce in homes, and Karyosoft, which is creating easy-to-use software solutions that simplify genome data analytics for microbiome professionals. This investment round was the fifth Ag-Celerator cohort helping Purdue entrepreneurs commercialize their agricultural innovations, said Karen Plaut, the Glenn W. Sample Dean of the College of Agriculture. We have enabled 10plant science startups to make progress on development of their company and products due to this investment. Previous recipients of the Ag-Celerator investment program are Ongenia LLC, JUA Technologies International LLC, ZeaVaxx LLC, Phicrobe LLC, VinSense Technology LLC, Akanocure Pharmaceuticals Inc., Progeny Drone Inc. and Gen3Bio Inc. The Ag-Celerator is a $2 million fund devoted to supporting the commercialization of technologies impacting plant sciences. In 2015, the College of Agriculture and the Purdue Research Foundation co-founded the Ag-Celerator fund as part of the Purdue Moves program. The program is managed by Purdue Ventures, the investment arm of the Purdue Foundry. We have seen that startups receiving Ag-Celerator investments during this critical time in their development are advancing quickly in the plant science industry, said John Hanak, Purdue Ventures managing director. The selection committee deliberated very carefully over the many high-quality presentations before choosing Heliponix and Karyosoft for this investment round. Heliponix and Karyosoft each received $50,000 investments. All finalists presented their innovations to the Ag-Celerator Selection Committee, which included judges Mark White of Prairie Crest Capital, Pat Morand of Open Prairie Ventures and Kyle Welborn of The Yield Lab. Purdue Polytechnic Institute alumni Scott Massey and Ivan Ball co-founded Heliponix to build GroPod, a fully automated aeroponic appliance growing clean produce in consumers' homes for daily harvest. The in-home greenhouse creates perfect climate conditions for a variety of crops, including spinach, cilantro and arugula. Our current user base has provided invaluable feedback that we used to perfect the GroPod software to achieve the highest degree of automation and eliminate as much user maintenance as possible, Massey said. Now, we have created the most energy-efficient and highest-yielding growing appliance possible. Heliponix will use its Ag-Celerator funding to expand GroPod production capacity to meet a large demand. Massey will also lead a sustainable farming and hydroponic systems workshop for African farmers in January 2018 with funding from the Department of State. Read more about Heliponix and GroPod here. Karyosoft, founded by Rajesh Perianayagam, is helping microbiome biologists to analyze genome data with Loci, a software platform that accelerates biologists time-to-market for their innovations and improves data integrity and cost efficiency. Loci helps biologists research microbes that could improve crop production, animal health and even advance cures for cancer, diabetes and Crohns disease. Winning Ag-Celerator is a testimony that investors recognize our innovative technology, Loci, solves a real-world problem and recognizes Karyosoft as a potential high-growth business, Perianayagam said. We have learned the microbiome market trends and the needs of our customers, and, we have plans to develop more intelligent software platforms to help them to market their microbiome innovations. Karyosoft will invest its Ag-Celerator investment for their next goals including the advancement of Loci 1.0, development of Loci 2.0 and marketing both products resulting in an increased customer base. Read more about Karyosoft and Loci here. The Ag-Celerator aligns with Purdue's Giant Leaps celebration of the universitys global advancements made in health, space, artificial intelligence and sustainability highlights as part of Purdues 150th anniversary. Those are the four themes of the yearlong celebrations Ideas Festival, designed to showcase Purdue as an intellectual center solving real-world issues. About Purdue Foundry The Purdue Foundry is an entrepreneurship and commercialization accelerator in Discovery Park's Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship whose professionals help Purdue innovators create startups. Managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, the Purdue Foundry was co-named a top recipient at the 2016 Innovation and Economic Prosperity Universities Designation and Awards Program by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities for its work in entrepreneurship. For more information about funding and investment opportunities in startups based on a Purdue innovation, contact the Purdue Foundry at foundry@prf.org. Writer: Kelsey Henry, 765-588-3342, kehenry@prf.org Purdue Research Foundation Contact: Tom Coyne, 765-558-1044, tjcoyne@prf.org Sources: Karen Plaut, kplaut@purdue.edu John Hanak, jmhanak@purdue.edu Scott Massey, scott@heliponix.com Rajesh Perianayagam, rajeshpn@karyosoft.com New York City-based Posman Books is slated to open a fifth location, this time in Boston, by summer. The bookstore will be the second Posmans to open nationally this year and the first new bookstore to open in the citys Back Bay neighborhood in a generation. According to Posman v-p Robert Fader, the store will also house an ice cream parlor. The 1500 sq. ft. store will occupy two storefronts among the boutique stores on Newbury St., with 1,000 sq. ft. devoted to books, and the remainder for the ice cream shop. By genre, the stores selection will lean heavily toward fiction and childrens books, but Fader said that the location affords Posmans the ability to stock an untraditional book selection similar to the Chelsea Market store. We want this store to be unexpected, Fader said. If its good, it will translate. By embracing an offbeat approach to title selectionand having an ice cream parlor instead of a cafeFader hopes the new store will avoid creating competition for nearby Trident Booksellers and Cafe. Were aware that theres Trident Books at the other end of Newbury St., Fader said. I think one of the things we want to be is clearly different than Trident and not going after the customers that Trident is going after. Posman began looking at the Boston location at the invitation of Jamestown, the real estate company responsible for redevelopment of Chelsea Market, where Posman has one of its two New York City locations. Jamestown sold Chelsea Market to Google in March 2018. Not long after Posmans signed a lease on the Boston location, Jamestown sold the Boston property to another development company. Fader said that the new landlord has supported the buildout, adding that "they really like the concept and really want to see it through." This spring, Posman will add another new store in the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta. The company also has an existing location nearby in Atlantas Ponce City Market. Fader told PW that the family-owned indie-chain is always looking for new locations, and has often explored locations at the suggestion of developers. As for the Boston location, Fader said Posmans is open to letting the store take shape over time, and curious about the directions it might take. It may be that once were up and running on Newbury Street well be more traditional. Or not, Fader said. Either way, he added, we hope people in Boston will like it. When the Paperback Exchange in Port Richie, Fla., hosted a "Drag Queen Story Time" a few days before Christmas last December, featuring a children's book reading by Stephanie Stuart, a 53-year-old drag queen, a local Baptist church organized a protest, with dissenters shouting at parents and children through bullhorns as they entered the store. "I have been a member of the LGBTQ community for 40 years and respect the right of people to protest and of peaceful assembly," said bookstore co-owner Joan Hepsworth, "But yelling at children was not peaceful. So I called the police." As events like the one featuring Stuart become more mainstream, the challenge for booksellers is finding strategies to handle protests that have become increasingly more organized and disruptive, while at the same time maintaining a safe and inclusive space for customers and members of the community. Hepsworth had one solution: when the store hosted a second reading, on January 5, she allowed parents and children to enter and exit through the back entrance of the store in order to avoid any confrontations. "It worked, though the police had to get involved again." What's more, the protestors this time had opposition of their own. "For the second reading, there were twice as many counter-protestors as protestors," said Hepsworth. Drag queen storytime began popping up in 2015 in San Francisco and have spread across the country to libraries, community centers, and increasingly, bookstores. An official organization, Drag Queen Story Hour, promotes such readings and now has more than 20 affiliate groups across the U.S., as well as in Sweden and Japan. Protests are commonplace at the readings and some communities have even seen lawsuits attempting ban such readings, though these efforts have largely been thwarted by the courts. Linda Sherman-Nurick, owner of Cellar Door Books in Riverside, Calif. began hosting drag queen storytimes at her store last November. "For the first one, we had a woman and a man protesting outside the store," she said. "I anticipated we might have someone object to it and I was fine with the protest, up until the point when started filming themselves and the children coming into the store. Filming children is not permissible, so we called the police." A second drag queen storytime at Cellar Door in December drew the attention of internet trolls saw, who, Sherman-Nurick surmised, must have seen an online listing for the event. "We got some very, very ugly and hateful things said to us on Facebook and elsewhere," said Sherman-Nurick. Concerned by threats of violence, police were also present at the store's second reading. Despite the challenges of hosting such events, both booksellers vow to continue hosting the readings. "Drag queens typically only perform at night, in bars, and have very little interaction with children. So something like this is really special for both groups of people," said the Paperback Exchange's Hepsworth. She noted that the purpose of the event is to promote literacy, tolerance and self-expression. "The queens dress appropriately and modestly and, of course, we don't talk about LGBTQ sex. Why would we?" She went on to explain that her intention is to create a safe space for children, parents and all people in the community, "however they may identify themselves." At The Cellar Door, Sherman-Nurick said she was especially motivated to continue the series after hearing an exchange between one of the readers and a young child in attendance. "It was a little girl who said to one of the drag queens after a reading, 'My brother likes to wear my mommy's dresses,' to which the queen responded, 'and that is perfectly okay.' It was then that I knew we were doing something good for the community." Beyond the social value of the readings, the events are drawing potential customers who may buy books. "We had 40 children at the first [drag queen storytime] and 50 at the second," said Sherman-Nurick. "They have easily been the best attended children's story times we have ever had." Capstone, the Minneapolis-based childrens book publishing group, is launching a literacy campaign throughout the year called Reading Is for Everyone, both celebrating and advocating for literacy. The campaign calls for educators, parents, and everyone who is passionate about literacy to work together to ensure every child feels the power of reading and recognizes themselves as a reader. Reading is for everyone. There should be endless opportunities for children to access books that speak to their curiosity and experiences, Capstone publisher Patricia Stockland said in a release. Kids need to see themselves in stories to feel connected, and to grow, learn, and be inspired. We hope to enlighten, energize, learn, and spark conversation on all of the incredible things that can happen when we come together to advocate for reading for all. The Reading Is for Everyone website includes resources for educators and parents, including reading tips and articles, free downloadable posters and bookmarks, curated reading lists, a spotlight on authors and illustrators, book trailers, videos, and more. As part of the campaign, Capstone will participate in what it is calling Drop Everything and Read Hour on World Read Aloud Day, February 1, from 10 a.m.11 a.m. (CST). During Drop Everything and Read Hour, Capstone employees will stop working and instead read something of their choosing for one hour. Schools are invited to join in the promotion by posting photos of students reading on social media using the hashtags #ReadingIsForEveryone and #CapstoneForAllKids. Capstone will select random winners throughout the day to win literary swag. PSFK Weekly Debrief PSFKs paid weekly newsletter product. Trends delivered right to your inbox. PSFK iQ PSFKs professional-grade research platform, featuring access to our full-report library and on-demand research services. Help, I have question! + What is my level of access? + Not sure what product is right me + I am having access issues Want to send us an email? We are ecstatic that our continued commitment to our clients and to quality has earned us this prestigious award. Wipfli LLP (Wipfli), a top 20 national accounting and consulting firm, announced today its inclusion in the 2018 Bob Scotts Insights VAR Stars, which honors 100 channel partners and resellers for their accomplishments, leadership and innovations in the field of midmarket financial software. The Bob Scotts Insights VAR Stars is an annual award that recognizes commitment to quality, service and innovation. Selection is based on factors such as growth, industry leadership and recognition, and is not based on revenue. The chosen firms represent a wide range of sizes and many different software publishers of accounting software. We are honored to once again be recognized for our ability to create products and integrations that improve the day-to-day operations for clients who use Microsoft Dynamics, Sage Intacct, NetSuite and QuickBooks, said Ken Kortas, partner and Technology Consulting Services Leader at Wipfli. We are ecstatic that our continued commitment to our clients and to quality has earned us this prestigious award. Wipfli is a national provider of ERP, CRM and financial solutions software for mid-sized businesses. The firm specializes in a variety of industries, including manufacturing and distribution, health care, construction, real estate, financial services, nonprofits and government. For more information about Wipflis technology consulting services, visit http://www.wipfli.com. About Wipfli At Wipfli, were committed to providing industry-focused assurance, accounting, tax and consulting services that make a lasting, positive impact on our clients helping them overcome personal and business challenges and plan for future success. With over 2,000 associates, Wipfli ranks among the top 20 accounting and business consulting firms in the nation. Were proud to give our clients the value and experience of a diverse firm that specializes in a wide range of services and industries, dedicated to enduring results, outstanding service and lifetime relationships. Learn more at http://www.wipfli.com. About Bob Scott Bob Scott has been informing and entertaining the mid-market financial software community via his email newsletters for 17 years. He has published this information via the Bob Scotts Insights newsletter and website since 2009. He has covered this market for more than 25 years through print and electronic publications, first as technology editor of Accounting Today and then as the editor of Accounting Technology from 1997 through 2009. He has covered the traditional tax and accounting profession during the same time and has continued to address that market as executive editor of the Progressive Accountant since 2009. About PMG360, Inc. Bob Scotts Insights and the Progressive Accountant are published by PMG360. PMG360 (http://www.pmg360.com) is a leading online media company that provides business-to-business (B2B) marketers and media planners unparalleled access to a highly qualified and engaged audience through their portfolio of lead generation programs, industry-specific web sites, email newsletters, web seminars, live events, podcasts, content/reviews, custom publishing and direct marketing databases focusing on the nonprofit, health care and accounting professionals. Where the Rabbits Run: a poignant poetry book. Where the Rabbits Run is the creation of published author William Carson, a Mississippi-born teacher now enjoying retirement, traveling, and grandparenting in Cypress, California, with his wife. Carson shares, Bill Carson weaves a verbal tapestry that takes you now to then and back again with an occasional look at tomorrow. This book is for boys of all ages. The girls will like it too. I started life as a child. B.C. Published by Christian Faith Publishing, William Carsons new book is a delightful literary escape from the endless stresses of modern urban life on the fast track. As Carson recounts his boyhood with wit, humor, and a welcoming sense of warmth and style, readers will find themselves immersed in the beautiful fog of another life in a simpler time. View a synopsis of Where the Rabbits Run on YouTube. Consumers can purchase Where the Rabbits Run at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about Where the Rabbits Run, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. By adding Fastcase to our suite of member benefits, WSBA members have another option to conduct high-quality legal research. ~ Bill Pickett, President of WSBA Today, Fastcase announced a partnership with the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) that will provide free access to Fastcases nationwide legal research system for all of its active members. Beginning in early 2019, the WSBAs almost 40,000 members will receive complimentary access to one of the largest law libraries in the world. Since 2005, the WSBA has provided its members with access to Casemaker as a legal research member benefit. In February, all active WSBA members will also enjoy free access to Fastcases full legal research platform. The subscription is comprised of a comprehensive nationwide law library available online anytime, anywhere. When the benefit is kickstarted, members will be able to access Fastcase through the WSBA website at http://www.wsba.org where they will be able to log in with their WSBA license information. The research benefit includes unlimited research, printing, webinar training, and reference support; it is not restricted by time or number of transactions. The service also includes industry-leading mobile apps and unlimited live, free customer support from experienced reference attorneys on the Fastcase team. An ongoing goal of the WSBA is to enhance the value-added benefits we offer to our membership, said Bill Pickett, president of WSBA. By adding Fastcase to our suite of member benefits, WSBA members have another option to conduct high-quality legal research. The new member benefit provides access to Fastcases extensive legal library of state and federal caselaw, as well as comprehensive coverage of statutes and regulations, at both the state and federal level. This includes Fastcases industry-leading advanced technology to make legal research smarter and easier, including its patented Interactive Timeline view of search results, Forecite to suggest cases researchers may have missed, and Bad Law Bot, the leading algorithmic tool to identify negative case treatment. Legal researchers can extend their capabilities in Fastcase with the opportunity to purchase access to exclusive integrated products, such as Full Court Press publications, data analytics and docket updates via Docket Alarm, and artificial intelligence tools within the AI Sandbox, plus access to licensed secondary materials through James Publishing and Wolters Kluwer/Aspen/CCH. Thirty-two state bar associations and dozens of metro, county and specialty bar associations offer Fastcases smarter legal research tools as a free benefit to members. Many of the largest law firms in America subscribe to Fastcase, as well as American law schools and leading corporate counsel. Through these partnerships, Fastcase is made available for free to more than 900,000 lawyers, nearly three-quarters of all lawyers in America. Fastcase was founded in 1999 with the mission of democratizing the law and making legal research smarter, so it is especially fitting that we have partnered with such an innovative bar association as we enter our twentieth year, said Fastcase President Phil Rosenthal. We welcome the WSBA and invite its many tech-savvy members to enjoy our advanced visualization tools and analytics as we make legal research smarter together. This partnership brings us closer to ensuring that all lawyers in America have access to the best legal research tools whenever they need them. About the Washington State Bar Association The Washington State Bar Association operates under the delegated authority of the Washington Supreme Court to license the states nearly 40,000 lawyers and other legal professionals. In furtherance of its obligation to protect and serve the public, the WSBA both regulates lawyers and other legal professionals and serves its members as a professional associationall without public funding. The WSBAs mission is to serve the public and the members of the Bar, to ensure the integrity of the legal profession, and to champion justice. About Fastcase As the smarter alternative for legal research, Fastcase democratizes the law, making it more accessible to more people. Using patented software that combines the best of legal research with the best of Web search, Fastcase helps busy users sift through the clutter, ranking the best cases first and enabling the re-sorting of results to find answers fast. Founded in 1999, Fastcase has more than 900,000 subscribers from around the world. Fastcase is an American company based in Washington, D.C. For more information, follow Fastcase on Twitter at @Fastcase, or visit http://www.fastcase.com. Under the cooperation of the travel industry and the government departments, the number of overseas visitors to Taiwan reached 10 million on Sunday night (Dec. 2). Its the fourth year in a row that the number of visitors to Taiwan has surpassed 10 million. This year, the goal was reached two weeks ahead of schedule. Under a competitive international tourism environment, Taiwan has been tapping into different tourism markets and diversifying its sources of tourists. According to government statistics, nearly 1 in four visitors came from the 18 countries covered by Taiwans New Southbound Policy, which seeks to expand tourism and other links with countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia as well as Australia and New Zealand. The fastest growth came from tourists from the Philippines and Vietnam, which grew by more than 50% and 30% respectively compared to last year. Overall, the growth in tourists is strong and relied on the government to build a friendly tourism environment, and industry to actively improve the quality of tourism, so that Taiwan can really stabilize the number of visitors. This shows Taiwans efforts to develop multi-source markets has achieved results. The Tourism Bureau, Ministry of Transportation and Communications pointed out that the top five source markets for Taiwanese tourists in the past four years include: mainland China, Japan, Hong Kong, Macao, South Korea, and the United States. Visitors from those markets accounted for more than 70% of the total number of visitors to Taiwan, of which the Japanese market is expected to exceed 2 million by the end of this year. Although the Korean market was affected by the Hualien earthquake in eastern Taiwan from January to October, it is expected to maintain the million-person scale this year. As the number of visitors from the 18 nations covered by the New Southbound Policy can exceed 2.5 million this year, all of these source markets added together will account for more than 95% of the total number of passengers coming to Taiwan. Under the Tourism 2020 strategy, the Tourism Bureau of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications will market Taiwan's tourism resources under an annual theme. It will also create a friendlier environment and make efforts to develop diverse sources of international tourists by developing a multi-market approach and promoting experience-filled tourism and such sightseeing strategies. With the joint efforts of the tourism industry this year, the performance of all major source markets has been outstanding. The growth rate in Southeast Asian market has grown by nearly 20% and the growth rate in the long-haul markets of Canada and Europe have been maintained at 6~16%, proving that Taiwan's tourism resources are indeed able to attract different source markets. This also gives us more confidence to open up more potential markets and make the market structure more diverse. We are looking forward to launching our tourism marketing to the world in 2019. In the face of fierce competition for tourists from neighboring countries, Taiwan's tourism will fully integrate with local industries in the hope of using Taiwans various small towns to attract tourists to have an in-depth travel experience in local areas and experience the most local Taiwanese style. Valuize Consulting, the leading strategy consulting and technology services partner for B2B SaaS companies seeking sustainable growth, is proud to announce today it has agreed to acquire Sandpoint Consulting in the United States. Valuize Consulting is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, serves B2B SaaS companies in Canada and the United States (US) and is a proud Gainsight and Salesforce partner. Sandpoint, also a Gainsight partner, specialized in applying customer success strategy consulting, customer success operations development and Gainsight adoption services to help B2B SaaS companies ensure their customer base is healthy, retained and expanded. Headquartered in the US with a significant client base in New York and Silicon Valley, Sandpoint helped businesses like Pathgather, productboard and Blue Cedar reduce churn, drive expansion and scale their customer success operations. Emily Speer Ryan, co-founder and principal of Sandpoint will now lead Valuizes customer success strategy and Gainsight practices in the US. Emily said: While customer success as a philosophy continues to take hold, companies are more and more aware that they need a plan to effectively execute in this space. The days of waiting for the customer to ask for help are coming to an end. Businesses have to be more proactive, more data-driven and more strategically aligned with their customers than ever before. And they need to do it at scale. Sandpoint Consulting is excited to join Valuize and continue to partner with companies like Gainsight to ensure the infrastructure supporting customer success is designed to scale, while keeping customers and companies healthy. Customer success isnt just an organization, its a company imperative. Ross Fulton, co-founder and CEO of Valuize Consulting, said: The alignment of values, objectives and capabilities between Valuize and Sandpoint was striking from the first day our two companies met. B2B SaaS companies are increasingly looking for a single partner that can help both engineer customer acquisition, adoption and expansion strategies AND operationalize these strategies in market-leading technologies like Gainsight and Salesforce. The addition of Sandpoint to Valuize will enable us to expand our role as that single partner to B2B SaaS companies across the US building upon the value were already delivering to the likes of General Electrics Digital division. About Valuize Consulting Valuize Consulting helps B2B SaaS companies achieve sustainable growth by unifying customer acquisition, adoption and expansion strategies and technologies. We are experts in subscription unit economics, sales and customer success strategy and customer lifecycle technologies including Salesforce, Gainsight and Zendesk. Were a proud Gainsight and Salesforce partner. http://www.valuizeconsulting.com The 10.1bn UK coffee shop market grew by 7.9% in turnover during 2018, representing 20 consecutive years of sales and outlet growth. But most industry leaders say Brexit is negatively impacting trade and creating business uncertainty Resilient coffee shops outperform troubled UK high street Branded coffee shops secured robust 8.7% outlet growth in 2018 to reach 8,149 stores. The fragility of the UK economy is, however, a key industry concern for 2019. Coffee shops are a vital piece of the UK high street fabric, with widespread retail closures exacerbating reduced footfall for all businesses. Allegra research shows coffee shops are well placed to catalyse growing consumer preference for experience-led and digitally-enhanced retail concepts 45% of industry leaders surveyed consider social media to be the most effective form of marketing. However, coffee quality remains the biggest factor behind cafe success according to industry leaders surveyed by Allegra. Reduced consumer confidence contributed to the success of value-focused chains in 2018. Allegra consumer data shows Greggs and McDonalds are perceived to offer the best value-for-money, with both brands introducing coffee-focused strategies in 2018. Most industry leaders indicate Brexit is negatively impacting trade Sustained uncertainty on the UKs future relationship with the EU continued to frustrate the coffee shop industry in 2018. The political impasse over the last 18 months has contributed to growing anxiety on labour shortages, rising prices, investment and eroded consumer confidence. 49% of industry leaders surveyed by Allegra indicated Brexit was negatively affecting their business, with 46% remaining neutral and 5% reporting a positive impact. 69% agreed it was negatively impacting consumer confidence, while 87% of industry leaders surveyed believe Brexit has damaged the UK economy. Consolidation and premiumisation reshape the UK coffee shop landscape The UK coffee shop market experienced significant consolidation in the last 18 months. Major deals such as Coca-Colas 3.9bn acquisition of UK market leader, Costa Coffee, and JAB Holdings 1.5bn acquisition of Pret A Manger have introduced unprecedented foreign investment into the UK branded coffee chain market. In the specialty segment, a burgeoning 5th Wave of scaled artisan concepts continues to grow and promote market-wide premiumisation. Department of Coffee and Social Affairs acquired several independent cafe businesses to increase its portfolio to 22 stores in 2018. London-based Grind continues to develop its travel hub partnership with SSP, and Caravan has expanded its portfolio with private investment firm, Active Partners. Coffee-focused segment achieves 8.1% outlet growth Costa Coffee, Starbucks and Caffe Nero remain the three largest coffee-focused branded chains in the UK, with 2,655 outlets, 992 and 683 stores respectively. UK coffee shop outlook Allegra forecasts the UK branded coffee shop market will exceed 10,000 outlets by 2023, displaying 5-year compound annual growth rate of 5%. Commenting on the research, Allegra CEO, Jeffrey Young said: 20 years of consecutive growth, in terms of outlets, turnover and like-for-like performance is an impressive feat by this robust segment that has become an intrinsic to UK lifestyles. More growth will continue, albeit at a slower pace, as the economy is subjected to myriad pressures, including structural retail change, technological development, changing consumer habits and deep uncertainty on the numerous potential outcomes of Brexit. -- About Allegra World Coffee Portal Allegra World Coffee Portal is the global information platform delivering unparalleled insight on the global coffee, cafe and related food-to-go sectors. World Coffee Portal provides data, reports, research and consultancy to help businesses make informed decisions and is the only specialist information platform for senior decision makers in the coffee industry. World Coffee Portal builds upon Allegra Strategies nearly two decades of experience in global coffee market analysis. http://www.worldcoffeeportal.com About Project Cafe UK 2019 Project Cafe UK is Allegra World Coffee Portal's definitive annual study on the growing and dynamic UK branded coffee shop market. The report enables industry stakeholders and investors understand the social and economic contributions of the branded coffee industry in the UK. The report details the segmentation of the market into branded coffee operators and branded food-led operators, providing in-depth profiles of key operators. http://www.worldcoffeeportal.com/Research/LatestReports/Project-Cafe2019-UK Best Online Programs Emblem "Because Embry-Riddle is No. 1, our students are well-positioned to secure rewarding, meaningful jobs, particularly because the aviation industry is rapidly growing, yet it faces a global shortage of pilots and other personnel. --Dr. John R. Watret, Embry-Riddle Worldwide Chancellor The worlds premier aviation and aerospace institution, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, earned the No.1 spot on U.S. News & World Reports 2019 ranking of the United States best online bachelors degree programs, affirming the schools focus on academic excellence, affordability and promising career opportunities for graduates. U.S. News & World Report identified Embry-Riddles Worldwide Campus as the No. 1 online undergraduate educator among 348 schools ranked on the 2019 list. It was the sixth consecutive year that Embry-Riddles online bachelors degree programs ranked within the Top 5 on the list. This years list placed Embry-Riddle among outstanding company: The university successfully competed with many of the countrys most distinguished research institutions, and it was the only private university among the top schools. Also ranking within the Top 5 were Arizona State University, Ohio State University-Columbus, Oregon State University and Pennsylvania State Universitys World Campus. Embry-Riddle President Dr. P. Barry Butler said: We are honored to be named No.1 among so many exceptional online educators. The latest U.S. News & World Report ranking will inspire us to sustain and advance all of our award-winning educational programs in service to students. Embry-Riddle Worldwide Chancellor Dr. John R. Watret added, Embry-Riddles online programs meet the highest standards of academic excellence, and they are also remarkably accessible to all students from first-generation university students to military members transitioning back into civilian life. Because Embry-Riddle is No. 1, our students are exceptionally well-positioned to secure rewarding, meaningful jobs, particularly because the aviation industry is rapidly growing, yet it faces a global shortage of highly qualified pilots and other personnel. According to Dr. Jason M. Ruckert, Vice Chancellor & Chief Digital Learning Officer at Embry-Riddle Worldwide, Advancing technology-enhanced education with affordability, academic quality and student success at the forefront is what sets Embry-Riddle apart. The 2019 U.S. News & World Report ranking involved an analysis of some 1,500 online bachelors degree programs, encompassing four general categories: student engagement (which counted for 35% of each institutions score); faculty credentials and training (20%); peer reputation (20%); and student services and technology (25%). The ranking was only the most recent distinction earned by Embry-Riddles Worldwide Campus, which includes fully online programs as well as more than 135 locations in the United States, Europe and Asia. In 2018, Embry-Riddle Worldwides unique virtual crash laboratory and aerial robotics virtual lab received a CIO 100 award for innovative and transformative digital educational technology. In addition, a high-tech effort to help students feel connected with Embry-Riddle and persist with their studies earned a top honor for excellence in education from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education Cooperative for Educational Technologies. While emphasizing effective technologies to enhance student learning, retention and persistence, Embry-Riddle has also remained steadfastly supportive of military service members and veterans. Among 97 institutions offering online bachelors programs for veterans, Embry-Riddle ranked #1 on a U.S. News & World Report list in 2018. Further, in 2018 Embry-Riddle became the first institution of higher learning to successfully complete and excel in all categories of The University of Professional and Continuing Educations National Council for Online Education Hallmarks of Excellence in Online Leadership Review. Moreover, according to Embry-Riddles annual alumni survey, 97% of graduates are employed or are in graduate school within a year of graduation. The 2017-2018 PayScale College Salary Report found that Embry-Riddle graduates have a higher salary than 82% of graduates from 1,531 other ranked institutions. Offering bachelors, masters and doctoral degree programs for some 23,000 students online and at its 135-plus locations in the United States and globally, Embry-Riddle Worldwide in 2018 was named by U.S. News & World Report as offering the No. 1 online bachelors program for veterans. It was also named one of the best online colleges in the nation by the Center for Online Education. Its online graduate degree programs have earned numerous accolades from independent online ranking providers. ABOUT EMBRY-RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is the worlds largest and most comprehensive institution specializing in aviation, aerospace, engineering and related degree programs. A fully accredited university, Embry-Riddle is also a major research center, seeking solutions to real-world problems in partnership with the aerospace industry, other universities and government agencies. A nonprofit, independent institution, Embry-Riddle offers more than 100 associates, bachelors, masters and Ph.D. degree programs. For more information, visit http://www.embryriddle.edu. Our high rate of retention reflects what weve been hearing from educators they enjoy working with us and they value the resulting learning outcomes for their students. According to the latest survey data, schools in 44 countries (up from 33) around the globe and 45 states (up from 40) within the United States, plus Guam and Puerto Rico, partnered with The Virtual High School (VHS Inc.) to bring online courses to students during the 2017-18 academic year. Additionally, 92 percent of partner schools from the previous academic year have continued to work with VHS in the current academic year. In fact, over the past three years, on average 94 percent of schools have stayed on as partners of the leading nonprofit online provider, year over year. Our high rate of retention reflects what weve been hearing from educators they enjoy working with us and they value the resulting learning outcomes for their students, said Jane Gallagher, Vice President of Operations at The Virtual High School. Not only did 97 percent of teachers say they were satisfied or very satisfied with their VHS experience this academic year, but we are also pleased to report that we had a 91 percent student pass rate, which is the percentage of students who finish the course and receive a grade of 60 percent or higher. The average VHS student pass rate for the past three years is 90 percent. VHS has gained a reputation for its high standard of educational quality, including rigorous professional development for teachers. In addition to all teachers being required to complete The Virtual High Schools graduate-level Online Teaching Methodologies (OTM) training course to learn best practices for online instruction and learning, VHS teachers have strong backgrounds in education, with 81 percent possessing a masters degree or higher. VHS design and delivery standards were the model used by the National Education Association when they created the first standards for online learning. VHS has also won numerous awards, including the Stockholm Challenge Award for Global Excellence in Information Technology, and is a three-time winner of the United States Distance Learning Associations (USDLA) award for Excellence in Programming and Excellence in Best Practices. There were more than 18,000 student enrollments in VHS courses in the 2017-18 academic year. Courses are open to students through their local schools participation in the VHS program, and are also available to homeschool and other students who choose to enroll in VHS courses directly. With more than 200 unique online courses, including 23 Advanced Placement (AP) options, the program is typically used as a supplement to give students additional course choices. About The Virtual High School The Virtual High School (VHS Inc.) is an online learning pioneer. Since 1996, the organization has set the standard for quality online education. VHS prepares students for college, careers, and life through supportive, instructor-led online and blended classroom experiences. The nonprofit organization provides student courses taught in global online classrooms, as well as online professional development for educators. Custom course development and offerings can be tailored to meet each schools unique needs. The Virtual High School is accredited by both Middle States Association Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools (MSA-CESS), and AdvancED. Courses are approved for initial eligibility by NCAA. For more information, visit http://www.vhslearning.org or call (978) 897-1900. The Village at RockvilleA National Lutheran Community was named a top vote getter in Bethesda Magazines annual Best of Bethesda readers poll in the best senior living community category. The Village at Rockville was ranked third amongst the five communities named by readers. The Best of Bethesda poll is one of numerous accolades earned by The Village at Rockville in 2018. Executive Director, Kyle Hreben said, In 2018 our team really focused on our commitment to care excellence and delivering the highest quality experience to every resident and guest at The Village at Rockville. Residents and guests are not just patients. These results reflect the collective achievement of team members across departments embracing our We CARE values. Continued Hreben, We really care about getting people well, and keeping them well. Im proud weve received so many accolades this year and especially proud that readers of Bethesda Magazine have recognized our efforts. Other accolades earned by The Village at Rockville in 2018 include: Best Nursing Home designation by U.S. News & World Report High-performing overall facility by U.S. News & World Report High-performing short-stay rehabilitation by U.S. News & World Report Maintains one of the lowest rehospitalization rates in the Nexus Montgomery Skilled Nursing Facility Alliance (According to MDS based PointRight Pro30 Rehospitalization data) The full results from Best of Bethesda appear in the January/February edition, which is on newsstands now. About The Village at Rockville The Village at RockvilleA National Lutheran Community in Rockville, Md., is a CCRC (Continuing Care Retirement Community) that offers independent living, myPotential short-term and outpatient rehabilitation, respite, long-term nursing care, hospice, assisted living and memory support. To learn more about the campus expansion featuring independent living apartments, visit http://www.glenmereapartments.org About National Lutheran Communities & Services (NLCS) With 128-years experience, NLCS honors, inspires and supports choice and opportunity in service to seniors. Based in Rockville, Md., NLCS is a faith-based, not-for-profit ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Americas (ELCA) Delaware-Maryland, Metropolitan Washington, D.C. and Virginia Synods, serving people of all beliefs. Entities sponsored by National Lutheran include myPotential at Home in Winchester Va., and Rockville, Md., The Village at Rockville in Rockville, Md., The Legacy at North Augusta in Staunton, Va., The Village at Orchard Ridge in Winchester, Va., Impact1890, and The Village at Providence Point in Annapolis, Md., subject to Maryland Department of Aging approval. For more information, visit http://www.nationallutheran.org ### Up-and-coming author with the pseudonym Concerned Citizen releases, Were the 911 Attacks & the First Black President Foretold in the Secret Hitler Files? (published by Xlibris in March 2018), a book that blends politics and witchcraft. I was on my way to New York City on September 11, 2001, when a friend called me and told me about predictions she had. She gave me the idea of putting a book of weird folklores together. Whether angels, demons, or metaphysical gods are real, its up to the reader, he shares. In the book, readers will get to know Dennis Martino, a teacher of world history and ethnic cultural studies who is concerned about the public worldwide. The book discusses the possibility of fulfilled predictions of the 9/11 attacks and if the political movements and controversies that has happened in the past were influenced by witchcraft. To purchase and to know more about the book, interested parties may visit https://www.xlibris.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-001158304. An excerpt from the book: His father quickly responds and says, I called Charles last night, and he told me that Franklin Roosevelt, his staff, and government officials had always shared stories of the witches coven cults that follow the current US presidents. His cousin Theodore Roosevelt had a terrifying encounter with such a group on September 3, 1902, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Presidents, staff, and the FBI still have always whispered about one of the most persistent and scariest witch cult exposed. Especially after the same cult had warned the government of the Presidential McKinley shooting of September 6, 1901! Were the 911 Attacks & the First Black President Foretold in the Secret Hitler Files? By Concerned Citizen Softcover | 8.5x11 in | 62 pages | ISBN 9781543474329 E-Book | 62 pages | ISBN 9781543474336 Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble Xlibris Publishing, an Author Solutions, LLC imprint, is a self-publishing services provider created in 1997 by authors, for authors. By focusing on the needs of creative writers and artists and adopting the latest print-on-demand publishing technology and strategies, we provide expert publishing services with direct and personal access to quality publication in hardcover, trade paperback, custom leather-bound and full-color formats. To date, Xlibris has helped to publish more than 60,000 titles. For more information, visit xlibris.com or call 1-888-795-4274 to receive a free publishing guide. Follow us @XlibrisPub on Twitter for the latest news. Brandon Hall Group Todays talent shortage means that if an employer cant offer people a fast and easy job application experience they will get left in the dust, said Erik Kostelnik, Co-Founder and CEO of TextRecruit. TextRecruit, the leading recruitment software for text messaging and chat communication, and automation through artificial intelligence, announced significant customer growth and the winning of multiple technology awards in 2018. Since its founding four years ago, TextRecruit has helped employers make it easier for job seekers to apply, qualify, and schedule interviews for openings, enabling organizations to win the war for talent despite unemployment reaching a 49-year record low. Three of the five largest global mail and logistics companies leveraged text message recruiting with TextRecruit in 2018, with one sending out over two million messages in order to recruit 120,000 new holiday employees. Five of the twenty largest U.S. fast-casual restaurant chains are now using TextRecruit as well, with one rolling it out across its 2,408 U.S. locations so that diners can text-in to apply to jobs from in their stores. TextRecruit also won multiple awards in 2018, including Gold for Best Advance in Mobile Talent Acquisition Technology at the Brandon Hall Awards in December, and Most Innovative Mobile Solution at the TATech Recruitment Service Innovations Awards (ReSIs) in September, as recognition for this years product work. This marked the second consecutive year that TextRecruit was honored at the TATech ReSIs. Employers within the United States have now used TextRecruit to message over 8% of the U.S. labor force. That includes approximately 80 million messages exchanged between recruiters and job seekers to date with over eight million new messages being sent each month. Todays talent shortage means that if an employer cant offer people a fast and easy job application experience they will get left in the dust, said Erik Kostelnik, Co-Founder and CEO of TextRecruit. The need for faster hiring has made text message and chat more essential than traditional communication channels like email or phone calls, which are getting flooded with SPAM. TextRecruit also launched ARI (or Automated Recruiter Interface) this year as the first hybrid chatbot, which allows recruiters to automate recruiting tasks like screening, answering questions, and scheduling, or reply to job seekers themselves. Employers can monitor ARIs behavior at all times, and if ARI ever has trouble answering a question the conversation can be passed to a human recruiter. Recruiters and job seekers both value their time and as a result are pursuing an on-demand recruiting experience where interviews can be scheduled 24/7, said Jed Danner, Co-Founder and CTO of TextRecruit. Speed is of the essence, but people also want transparency into what recruiting chatbots are saying and connect human-to-human if needed. Thats the value of having a hybrid chatbot that can deliver the best of both worlds. About TextRecruit: TextRecruit is candidate and employee engagement platform that uses text messaging, live chat, and artificial intelligence to help employers hire better people, faster. It's the first and only platform to centralize all talent communication, allowing recruiters and HR to manage relationships with their talent throughout the entire employee lifecycle. For more information, follow us at @TextRecruit, on LinkedIn, or at http://www.textrecruit.com. Contact for TextRecruit: Birch Faber, 323-440-4049, birch (at) textrecruit (dot) com The Shreveport-Bossier Mardi Gras Pop-Up Party will bring a taste of Carnival season in Northwest Louisiana to Plano, Texas on Feb. 9. Photo by Casey Habich. Shreveport-Bossiers biggest parade weekends are Feb. 22-24 and March 1-3. The Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau, in partnership with event1013 and the Historic Downtown Plano Arts District, will host the Shreveport-Bossier Mardi Gras Pop-Up Party, 7-10 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 9 at event1013 in Plano, Texas. The free party will include live music by Louisiana Music Prize-winning dance band Tipsey, free gumbo prepared by Chef Henry Griffin of Creole Cafe and Catering in Shreveport, king cake samples from three Shreveport-Bossier bakeries, a cash bar, door prizes, and more. Members of Shreveport-Bossiers Mardi Gras royalty, dressed in elaborate Carnival season attire, will be in attendance. Complete party information may be found online at http://www.ShreveportMardiGras.com. The purpose of the Shreveport-Bossier Mardi Gras Pop-Up Party is to give Louisiana's neighbors in Texas a fun, free taste of Carnival season in Northwest Louisiana. Shreveport-Bossiers biggest parade weekends are Feb. 22-24 and March 1-3, but Mardi Gras parties, parades, and events are already underway. Shreveport-Bossiers Carnival season celebrations offer a variety of experiences ranging from smaller, neighborhood parades to the giant Krewe of Centaur and Krewe of Gemini parades, which are attended by an estimated total of more than half a million parade-goers each year. One lucky attendee at the Shreveport-Bossier Mardi Gras Pop-Up Party will win the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the winner and a guest to ride aboard a float in the enormous Krewe of Highland Parade on Sunday, March 3. To claim this prize, the winner must be 21 years of age or older. This giveaway may also be entered online at http://www.ShreveportMardiGras.com. The Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau produces an annual printed brochure called The Gris Gris Guide to Mardi Gras in Shreveport-Bossier. Free copies of this colorful guide, which includes a Carnival season calendar or events, may be picked up at the Shreveport-Bossier Mardi Gras Pop-Up Party. The guide may also be requested by mail by calling 1-800-551-8682. For more information on planning a trip to Shreveport-Bossier, inclusing information on hotels, casinos, restaurants, and attractions, visit http://www.Shreveport-Bossier.org or call 1-800-551-8682. Digital is the new battlefield for wealth management firms, who historically have been laggards in the area of technology innovation. To stay competitive, wealth management firms must provide a mobile client experience that is on par with or exceeds the clients digital expectations,. Scivantage, a leading SaaS provider of Digital Wealth Management, Cost Basis and Information Reporting solutions, today announced a major update to its Wealthsqope Mobile app designed to enable wealth management firms to deliver robust mobile capabilities and further differentiate their competitive positioning. The new capabilities deliver significant improvements to the overall user experience including responsive display presentation by mobile device, interactive portfolio and account-level viewing features, enhanced contextual navigation and deeper views of the investors entire portfolio, all aimed at bringing investment information to the user instead of the user having to search for it. Digital is the new battlefield for wealth management firms, who historically have been laggards in the area of technology innovation, said Joe Stensland, Chief Commercial Officer, Digital Wealth, Scivantage. To stay competitive, wealth management firms must provide a mobile client experience that is on par with or exceeds the clients digital expectations, Stensland said. Wealthsqopes newly redesigned Mobile application offers improved mobile brokerage capabilities that deliver an increased level of sophistication and ease of use consumers have come to expect from large, retail digital experiences. Wealthsqope Mobile includes advanced features such as: Relationship Dashboard View: Provides a single comprehensive view across all financial accounts making a clients investment relationship with the financial institution easier to understand and navigate with direct access to account-level detail New Product Display and Interaction Features: Offers intuitive, touchable charts and navigation commands allowing users to more easily view, interpret and take action across the app Dynamic Take Action Functions: Gives the user the ability to act immediately on information presented (for example, get a quote or trade a specific holding when viewing their holdings) Enhanced Research & Trading Experience: Persistent access across the app, globally and contextually, to perform investment research and quickly place a trade with order entry pre-fill Markets & News Accessibility: Provides direct access to market performance and news in both authenticated and unauthenticated states, delivering quick access to relevant information At Scivantage we understand that client engagement is a primary objective for financial institutions for both client retention and growth. Delivering Wealth Management solutions via multiple channels is imperative for our clients to be competitive, said Scott Freeland, SVP of Digital Wealth Product, Scivantage. A key aspect of engaging clients is providing a consistent experience with each touch point the end-investor has with the financial institution. Delivering multi-device transparency aligns the users experience between web and mobile apps, making that experience unique to the financial institution, strengthening the firms brand and the client relationship, added Freeland. About Scivantage Scivantage is a SaaS provider of Digital Wealth Management and full End-to-End Tax solutions (including Cost Basis and Information Reporting). With proven expertise in online brokerage, tax and portfolio reporting, and wealth management platforms, Scivantage delivers intelligent and actionable information that goes beyond the boundaries of traditional financial software, helping improve investment decisions. Leading financial institutions, including broker-dealers, mutual fund companies, bank custodians, trust and prime brokers, depend on Scivantages cloud-based technology to achieve critical business insights, generate new revenue and build stronger customer relationships. For more information, please visit http://www.scivantage.com or contact us at +1.646.452.0050. La Dolche Vita Pizza - Grilled chicken, Gorgonzola cheese, Roma tomatoes, spinach, red onions, Wisconsin mozzarella, garlic, and Sicilian extra virgin olive oil Healthy pizza shouldnt compromise flavor, which is why we prepare our products by hand and use quality ingredients and traditional methods of cooking. - Chef Anthony Russo Russos New York Pizzeria, the global franchise chain known for its authentic New York style pizza and classic Italian fare, invites guests to embark on a savory culinary experience with its newest limited time offer: Kale Krust. Head Chef and Founder Anthony Russos latest wholesome creation incorporates a delectable, gourmet pizza crust packed with hidden veggies using fresh, organic kale. We use premium flour and Sicilian extra virgin olive oil, said Chef Russo, the creative mastermind behind Russos New York Pizzeria. This unique crust packs the nutrients and benefits of Kale into a delectable, flavorful crust that kidsand parentslove! Its a great way to get kids to enjoy eating fresh vegetables and kale. Russos Kale Krust pizza is made to order with guests favorite toppings and baked to perfection in a 500 degree brick oven. Chef Anthony Russo is proud to offer this top-of-the-line pizza crust with fresh, premium, high-quality ingredients. Chef Anthony Russos Kale Krust contains no additives, preservatives, artificial flavors, nitrates, rSBT or rennet. If it isnt fresh, dont serve it. Thats the Russo family promise since 1978. Healthy pizza shouldnt compromise flavor, which is why we prepare our products by hand and use quality ingredients and traditional methods of cooking. said Russo. Russos Kale Krust was perfected over a span of six months in Chef Anthonys private kitchen, which included crafting a great tasting authentic, New York-style crust that is unmatched in quality. In addition to the Kale Krust, the 49-location global restaurant chain has launched a new, delectable specialty menu item: La Dolce Vita Pizza. La Dolce Vita Pizza Grilled chicken, Gorgonzola Cheese, Roma Tomatoes, Spinach, Red Onions, Wisconsin Mozzarella, Garlic, and Sicilian extra virgin olive oil. Theres no doubt Russos is passionate about menu innovation. In addition to La Dolce Vita Pizza, Russos also offers these popular menu items: Gluten Free Pasta Primavera Gluten-free penne pasta with roasted cauliflower, Roma tomatoes, Portabella mushrooms, feta cheese, fresh kale, zucchini, pine nuts, Sicilian extra virgin olive oil garlic sauce and fresh basil. Prosciutto & Fig Pizza Prosciutto di Parma, arugula, basil, fig spread, Sicilian extra virgin olive oil, Wisconsin mozzarella and balsamic glaze. Truffle Mushroom Pizza Fresh portabella mushrooms, Wisconsin mozzarella and truffle mushroom olive oil sauce, topped with fresh arugula. Russos hand rolls and proofs its pizza dough fresh each day and only uses flour that doesnt contain any additives or preservatives. The restaurant makes its signature sauces fresh, in-house, and only uses the finest, premium ingredients. Russos incorporates vine ripened tomatoes from California, olive oil imported from Sicily, and authentic Italian spices in its signature sauces. A selection of gluten-free pastas and pizzas are also available. About Russos New York Pizzeria Russos Restaurants is a national and international franchisor of the casual dining brand Russos New York Pizzeria. Based in Houston, Russos Restaurants is composed of a mix of corporate and franchised locations across Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Florida. Russos has entered international markets as well, with locations in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Chef Anthony Russo created Russos Restaurants by applying his unique, family recipes featuring New York-style pizza, handcrafted pasta dishes, calzones, salads, sandwiches, soups and desserts. At its heart, Russos Restaurants reflects Chef Anthonys commitment to his New York roots where food and family come first. To learn more about Russos franchise development opportunities, visit https://nypizzeria.com/franchise/. ### Olon Ecuador "One of the strengths of our highest-scoring countries in the climate category is that they all offer a variety of climates, so retirees can find the spot that best suits their tastesfrom steamy beaches to cooler highlands. Climate is one of the most critical considerations for retirees choosing where to settle overseas. In the 2019 Annual Global Retirement Index, the countries that claim the best climates in the world all offer a variety of optionsfrom hot beach areas to year-round spring-like temperatures. Whether moving abroad full-time or part-time, its possible to escape the extremes of weather back homebe it the bitter cold in a place like Minnesota or the unbearable heat someplace like Arizonaand you live in greater comfort while spending less than it would cost to stay home, says Jennifer Stevens, Executive Editor of International Living. In identifying the worlds top retirement destinations, climate is a key consideration and our experts pinpoint the best options in the Climate category of our Global Retirement Index, where we factor in data about rainfall, temperature, humidity, and more. The sort of weather you prefer is a very personal thing, of course. And one of the strengths of our highest-scoring countries in the climate category is that they all offer a variety of climates, so retirees can find the spot that best suits their tastesfrom steamy beaches to cooler highlands. Each year, International Living uses its ever-expanding network of editors, correspondents, and contributors all over the world to give the on-the-ground information and recommendations needed to put the index togetherranking and scoring each of the 25 countries in the index across 13 categories, climate among them. The six countries that scored the highest marks for Best Climate in the World in this years Annual Global Retirement Index 2019 are... #1 Ecuador Ecuador is consistently a front-runner in the Climate category of International Livings Annual Global Retirement Index and takes the top spot again this year, scoring 95 out of 100. Quite simply, some of the best weather on the planet can be found in Ecuador, says Jim Santos, IL Coastal Ecuador Correspondent. The unique combination of its position on the equator, the cooling sea breezes from the Humboldt Current, the Andes mountain range and the Amazon basin have conspired to create a variety of climates. There are beaches that are warm year-round but rarely muggy (and are too close to the equator to ever have hurricanes or tropical storms), and places in the hills where you do not need a heating or cooling system. Lush, green hills and fertile valleys are the norm in Ecuador. Ecuador has four distinct geographical areasthe La Costa (Pacific coastal plains), the Sierra (mountains), the Oriente (eastern rainforests), and the Galapagos Islands. And because Ecuador lies directly on the equator, the entire country enjoys 12 hours of direct equatorial daylight 365 days a year. Ecuador gives retirees options, the power to select whatever climate they wantjust like Donna Stiteler, IL Cuenca, Ecuador, Correspondent. Im a Florida girl who spent over 40 years living within blocks of the Gulf Coast. I traded sweaty summers in Floridawhich now last close to seven months with temperatures climbing to 100 Ffor mountain views in Cuenca with year-round average highs in the mid-70s. The weather here makes walking during the day possible. I can exercise anytime during the day, not worry about humidity frizzing my hair, or have those high $350 air conditioning bills. I brag that I dont need central air for hot or cold. If its cold, I light the fireplace. If its hot, I open the windows. All that, with an Andes view and sunsets over the mountains. #2 Costa Rica Costa Rica claims second place in the Climate category, scoring 91 points. The third-smallest country in Central America offers an extensive array of different climatesso much so, no matter what climate retirees choose, they are guaranteed to find it here. With a dozen microclimates, there is someplace for everyone to fit personal weather preferences, says Kathleen Evans, IL Coastal Costa Rica Correspondent. Many people love the temperate eternal spring climate of San Jose , the capital, and all the surrounding Central Valley. Or the dry, hot beaches of Guanacaste, or the lush, green landscape of the jungles in the south. Personally, having grown up in the brutal Chicago winters, I love living in flip-flops in Tamarindo with my coat collecting dust! Meanwhile, Texas native John Michael Arthur, IL Central Valley Correspondent, lives in the Central Valleyhome to about two-thirds of Costa Ricas population. The thing I love about Costa Ricas climate is that while it is generally temperatewho can complain about temperatures in the 70 Fs and 80 Fsyou can easily fine-tune your favorite, preferred temperature simply by adjusting your altitude, he says. Yes, its warmer on the beaches and cooler on the higher mountains, but you can easily find several degrees of variation even in the same town just by going up, down or even around a hillside. #3 Colombia The second-most biodiverse country in world, Colombia takes third place in the Annual Global Retirement Index Climate category, scoring 90. From warm, tropical beach weather, to more temperate spring-like temperatures, Colombia has what you are looking for, says Nancy A. Kiernan, IL Colombia Correspondent. Whichever climate you choose, the weather remains the same all year long. So, January looks and feels the same as June or October. Colombia sits just above the equator so there is very little variation in the amount of daylight during the year. I live in the beautiful city of Medellin where the weather has perfect spring-like temperatures. My winter coat is a jean jacket. (Mexico, Peru and Portugal are all tied for fourth place in the Annual Global Retirement Index 2019 Climate Category with a score of 88.) #4 Mexico (tie) Because of Mexicos varied topography, the country has one of the worlds most diverse climate systems. Mexicos climate varies from arid to tropical, with a defined split. The Tropic of Cancer divides the country in two, so one part is temperate and the other is tropical. Land to the north has cooler temperatures during the winter months while more southerly regions see temperatures remain constant year-round. There is also more variation in the north, with summers being hotter and winters colder. That doesnt mean the climate is the same in all southern or northern areas. There can be differences in temperatures, even in areas relatively close together, due to elevationthe higher the elevation, the cooler the average temperatures. Perfect! says Don Murray, IL Riviera Maya, Mexico, Correspondent. That is the one word that I would use to describe Mexicos climate. And its perfect because Mexico is such a huge country that nearly every climate is available. Generally, however, the entire country is warm and mild with small amounts of snow falling only on the highest peaks. Just a light sweater will add some comfort on the few chilly evenings. #4 Peru (tie) With a mixture of desert, high mountains, jungle, and everything in between, retirees are almost guaranteed to find a climate tailored especially for them. Almost every climate zone in the world can be found somewhere in Peru, says Steve LePoidevin, IL Peru Correspondent. Here in the northern coastal city of Trujillo, the year-round temperature averages almost 70 F with virtually no rainfall. In the popular southern city of Arequipa, residents enjoy similar temperatures and over 300 days of sunshine a year, but the nights are cool because of the high altitude at 7,600 feet. The Andes Mountains, the cold Humboldt Current, and the 1,500-mile arid dessert coastline each do their part in creating the multifaceted weather that the country enjoys. Peru can roughly be divided into three climatic areasthe Pacific Coast, the Andean highlands, and the Eastern lowlands. Within each of these general zones there are often several microclimates that provide even more variations. #4 Portugal (tie) Portugal has a warm, moist, temperate climate, says Tricia Pimental, IL Portugal Correspondent. It has wet winters and dry summers with the average temperature of 71.6 F. You can drive this compact country from north to south in about five and a half hours. A road trip from west to east, from Lisbon to the Spanish border, takes less than half that time. While theres not a great variation in climate, conditions are influenced by factors like elevation and proximity to the coastline. Lisbons winter months bring about ten days of rain and daytime temperatures of 50 F or higher, while in the summertime, wet days average from none to one or two, and the mercury hovers around 85 F. In the north, winter means rain about half the time, and temperatures run about 10 degrees cooler year-round than farther south. Shorelines can be extremely windy. The same applies going down the coast, to the surfing destination of Nazarewhere a record was set with a 100-foot waveand even farther south. More details on the top six countries in the Climate category of International Livings Annual Global Retirement Index 2019 can be found here: The World Best Climate Editor's Note: Members of the media have permission to republish the article linked above once credit is given to Internationalliving.com Further information, as well as interviews with expert authors for radio, TV or print, is available on request. Photos are also available. For information about InternationalLiving.com content republishing, source material or to book an interview with one of our experts, contact PR Managing Editor, Marita Kelly, +001 667 312 3532, mkelly@internationalliving.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/internationalliving/ Twitter: @inliving https://twitter.com/inliving?lang=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/International.Living/ About International Living Since 1979, InternationalLiving.com has been the leading authority for anyone looking for global retirement or relocation opportunities. Through its monthly magazine and related e-letters, extensive website, podcasts, online bookstore, and events held around the world, InternationalLiving.com provides information and services to help its readers live better, travel farther, have more fun, save more money, and find better business opportunities when they expand their world beyond their own shores. InternationalLiving.com has more than 200 correspondents traveling the globe, investigating the best opportunities for travel, retirement, real estate, and investment. The Project Haystack Organization (https://www.project-haystack.org), a collaborative community addressing the challenge of utilizing semantic modeling and tagging to streamline the interchange of data among different systems, devices, equipment and software applications, today announced the publication of their fifth issue of Haystack Connections Magazine. The Connections Magazine Winter 2019 issue reports on the latest news from the Project Haystack community from around the world and documents how rapidly the data revolution is overtaking the built environment. Both IT and OT contingents are recognizing that sematic data modeling and metadata tagging is key to clearing the hurdles related to ease-of-use, unified data flow, edge-to-cloud, and data security. Not to be missed is the fact that the storytellers in this issue include the end users of the data generated by equipment systems including commissioning experts, smart building consultants, large-portfolio property managers and developers all of whom are demanding smarter, interoperable solutions, and companies that are responding by providing Haystack-compatible products and solutions. The theme of this issue of our Connections Magazine is Enabling the Data Revolution in the Built Environment. Given the number of projects, events and work in progress by the Haystack community around the world, this seemed an appropriate theme for this issue, said John Petze, Executive Director of the Project Haystack Organization. Our major effort this year will be the 4th biennial Haystack Connect Conference (http://www.haystackconnect.org), scheduled this May in San Diego. The worldwide Haystack community is gearing up for this unique event. This issue of Haystack of Connections demonstrates not only the growing acceptance of the value of the Haystack methodology, but also the wide range of real world implementations, added Marc Petock, Executive Secretary of the Project Haystack Organization. The battleground has opened up to who has the products and services that provide the best solution for automatically tagging data, works within an open framework that supports Haystack, and can most effectively create value from this new abundance of semantic data. The 62-page Connections Magazine Winter 2019 issue includes an interview with Joe Pattenaude, Director of Building Systems at Bedrock in Detroit, Michigan, a featured profile of the newest member of Project Haystack, BuildingFit, and community-contributed articles by BASSG, BuildingFit, Intellimation, J2 Innovations, Lynxspring, and Nube iO. Featured are some of the latest tools and services that support Haystack from BTIB, J2 Innovations, Lynxspring, OnBoard Data and Tridium. This issue also includes updates on technical resources, Project Haystack Working Groups, as well as the Project Haystack Organization roster of members. While building systems have been the place where Project Haystack gained traction and adoption, the Haystack methodology is not just about HVAC, temperature sensors, fans, meters, and building systems. The IoT, BIoT and the IIoT are bringing diverse smart devices into homes, high-rise commercial buildings, industrial facilities, factories and agriculture. As smart devices proliferate into solutions no one could have ever imagined even a few years ago, coming from different suppliers around the world, the opportunity for implementing a data management strategy that includes tagging has become even more critical. The Project Haystack Connections Magazine Winter 2019 Issue is available for download at https://project-haystack.org/file/32/Haystack-Connections-Magazine-Winter-2019-Issue-5.pdf. The Project Haystack Organization consists of Founding Member and Board Member companies Conserve It, Intel, J2 Innovations, Legrand, Lynxspring, Siemens and SkyFoundry, and Associate Member companies Accu-Temp Systems, Altura Associates, BASSG, Bueno Systems, BuildingFit, CABA, Energy Management Association, Intellastar, Intelligent Buildings, IoT Warez, KMC Controls, KNX Association, Kodaro, sensorFact, Tridium, VRT Systems and Yorkland Controls, as well as numerous Haystack supporters involved in Working Groups. More information about the Haystack methodology, the Project Haystack Organization and membership is available at: https://www.project-haystack.org. The Discussion Forums can be found at: https://www.project-haystack.org/forum/topic. Information about Haystack Connect 2019 sponsorships, speaking opportunities and registration to attend is available at https://www.haystackconnect.org. About Project Haystack Since its formation in March of 2011, the Project Haystack Organization (a 501(c) non-profit trade association) has been providing the industry with an open-source, collaborative environment to address the challenge of making data self-describing using semantic modeling, also known as data tagging. The work developed by the Project Haystack member companies and community streamlines the process of managing, presenting and analyzing the vast amount of data produced by smart devices and equipment systems. The Haystack methodology can be used with virtually any type of system and device data and is not tied to any vendor or communication protocol. More information about Project Haystack is available at: https://www.project-haystack.org. Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries. Contacts: Robin Bestel Project Haystack, Marketing Manager Editor, Connections Magazine robin@haystackconnect.org John Petze Project Haystack, Executive Director Principal, SkyFoundry johnp@haystackconnect.org Marc Petock Project Haystack, Executive Secretary Chief Communications Officer and Vice President, Marketing Lynxspring, Inc. marc.petock@lynxspring.com Short Stories: From a Long Life: a colorful book of true events. Short Stories: From a Long Life is the creation of published author Pat Harris, a happily married great-grandfather born in Dallas, Texas. Harris writes, Short Stories: From a Long Life tells of stories of enlightenment and stories of the darkness of this worldfrom a three-year-old boy to a twenty-year-old man: Stories that are funnysome are adventurous, some are exciting, some describe intelligence, some describe stupidity, some are about individual people, some are about happenings, and some are about evil and scary things. Some of these stories are a guide to good principles and good conduct, while others walk close to the edge of darkness, along and beside evil behavior and evil deeds This author opens up and tells things that most people would not divulge. A fast and busy life. A mind that is always on the lookout for knowledge and understanding. Real happenings and real people involved in the survival and the progress of this life. Stories of children, teenagers, and adults, some ignorant and some intelligentboth good and evil, likable and ugh! I tell of many of the weird things that people do for various reasons. If you have an analytical mind, you will understand some of the things that I notedthings that I saw firsthand, things that I recorded, and things that I became a part of. I hope that you enjoy the book. The stories in this book started in 1939 and ended in 1957, right after Helen and I were married. These stories should be very fascinating to the younger generations, especially if they have an exploring nature and an inquisitive mind. There are many things described in these stories that they have probably never even heard of or seen! Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Pat Harriss new book is an engaging tapestry woven from adventure, excitement, humor, and the supporting details of everyday life. Harris writes for the inquisitive mind, the young at heart, and the vital spirit for whom the richness of life is not lost. View a synopsis of Short Stories: From a Long Life on YouTube. Consumers can purchase Short Stories: From a Long Life at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about Short Stories: From a Long Life, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. On Top of the World, Ocalas premier active-adult community is equipping new homes with a smart home package that consists of 10 smart devices that work together to help residents live with ease. The smart devices work with Amazon Alexa to help automate routine tasks, provide more control over the home and allow residents to live a hands-free, convenient life. Whether residents are home or away, they are able to control connected devices in their home. Residents at On Top of the World with a smart home package will be able to get through daily routines and small tasks without even lifting a finger. The Echo Show is a built-in smart home hub where residents can ask Alexa to show them a recipe, make video calls to loved ones, or see who is at the front door through their Ring Video Doorbell. The Doorbell alerts residents when someone presses the doorbell or triggers the motion sensors. It allows residents to monitor their home around the clock day or night, rain or shine at home or away. The Echo Spot will give residents the weather, news in a video flash briefing, set an alarm, listen to audiobooks and more. Residents can easily enjoy Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, live and on-demand sports, music, photos and more with the Fire TV. Instead of having to get up and do small things around the house, Alexa can do them. All residents have to do is ask. Alexa, set the thermostat to 72 degrees and Alexa, turn on the front porch lights are just two simple commands that Alexa can take of. The package comes with the Ecobee 3 Lite Wi-fi Thermostat, a smarter thermostat that delivers unparalleled value, control and comfort. Residents can save money and energy by controlling the thermostat whether they are home or away. Their Lutron Pico Lighting Remote conveniently controls the lights from anywhere in the room or even from the car as they arrive home. The more time that goes by and the more interaction there is with Alexa, the more Alexa learns about the user. Alexa can be programmed with routines that make getting up, leaving or arriving home and going to bed as easy as saying Alexa, goodnight or Alexa, good morning and lights are turned on, off or dimmed and thermostat adjusted. The Lutron Smart Lighting Dimmer Switch gives residents the ability to schedule lights to adjust automatically or create favorite scenes that adjust multiple lights with a single command. It includes geo-fencing to turn lights on/off when residents arrive/leave their home and will even notify them if they have left lights on. The Smart Home at On Top of the World goes beyond the inside of the home. The Liftmaster Garage Door Opener is Wi-fi-enabled and allows residents to securely monitor and control the garage door with their smart phone devices. Residents can maintain a beautiful yard all year long without even touching a hose with the Hydrawise Smart Irrigation timer. It automatically adjusts watering based on local weather data and lets residents monitor and maintain their yard from their smart phone, even while away. New homes at On Top of the World now include many ways for residents to live smarter. All of these new devices included in the smart home package offer residents the ease that they need to be the most comfortable in their home; and offers additional peace of mind . With over 60 years of experience developing active-adult communities in Florida, On Top of the World is Ocalas premier amenity-rich lifestyle community. For more information, call 352-854-3600 or visit http://www.OnTopoftheWorld.com. On Top of the World is located at 8447 SW 99th St. Rd., Ocala, FL 34481. About OTOW: On Top of the World Communities, the premier 55+ active adult community in Florida, is an award-winning, family owned building and land development company in Marion County that has provided new homes for more than 50,000 home buyers since patriarch, the late Sidney Colen, founded it in 1947. Today, On Top of the World remains the oldest, privately owned land developer in the state of Florida. With TrackVia, we have instant visibility of the sterilization process and the ability to see immediately where potential issues may be occurring. TrackVia, the leading low-code workflow platform for operations, is automating the instrument sterilization process at Northside Hospital, one of the nations leading hospital systems. With real-time visibility into its processes, Northside is able to speed up audits, quickly address audit observations, and identify incremental improvements. Northside Hospital worked with TrackVia to create a custom mobile workflow application that automates every step in its sterilization process. Additionally, the mobile application prompts and allows employees to attach photos and enter notes to tasks, as well as captures timestamps for each task. This provides real-time reporting by timespan, facility, employee, shift and more. We are very pleased with the ease of use of the mobile workflow application, said Randy Eccleston, Business Operations Manager at Northside Hospital. We are thrilled to have instant visibility of the sterilization process and the ability to see immediately where potential issues may be occurring. This enables us to focus on our number one priority which is to our patients and their loved ones. Despite meeting and exceeding the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) compliance standards for tool sterilization, manual processes made the auditing process cumbersome and limited the hospitals ability to easily review all their data and self-identify areas of improvement during their quarterly executive sterilization quality council meetings. Northside found that automation with the TrackVia application could pull sterilization process data on-demand to streamline their AAMI audits, quickly address audits, increase their preparedness for joint commission meetings and allow cross-departmental collaboration. To learn more, visit: http://bit.ly/TV-Northside. About Northside Hospital The Northside Hospital health care system is one of Georgias leading health care providers with more than 150 locations across the state, including three acute care, state-of-the-art hospitals in Atlanta, Cherokee County and Forsyth County. Northside Hospital leads the U.S. in newborn deliveries and is among the states top providers of cancer care and surgical services. Northside has more than 2,800 physicians and 15,000 employees who serve 3 million patient visits annually across a full range of medical services. About TrackVia: TrackVia, the leading low-code workflow platform for operations, helps companies build applications that improve on-time performance and reduce costs. TrackVia offers operations leaders the fastest and easiest way to build powerful applications that are business led and IT-approved. Organizations like Lifeline of Ohio, Healthways, and Recordati rely on TrackVia to digitize their operations. Learn more at: https://www.trackvia.com. "Recent evidence has confirmed most patients with unverified penicillin allergy are needlessly avoiding penicillins; we find at least 9 of 10 patients are negative and will tolerate penicillins without having an allergic reaction." -AAAAI President-Elect David M. Lang, MD, FAAAAI While more than 32 million individuals in the United States have a documented penicillin allergy in their medical record, studies have shown that over 95% can actually be treated safely with this class of antibiotics, improving treatment outcomes and reducing the risk of infection with dangerous resistant pathogens such as Clostridium difficile (C. difficile). A review article in the January 15 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) recommends best practices for evaluating reported penicillin allergies and provides clinicians with guidance and tools to help determine appropriate procedures based on the severity of previously reported reactions. AAAAI President-Elect David M. Lang, MD, FAAAAI, states, More than 1 in 10 people who seek medical care self-report a history of penicillin allergy. Its only recently weve appreciated this label can be a barrier for optimal healthcare outcomes. Recent evidence has confirmed most patients with unverified penicillin allergy are needlessly avoiding penicillins; we find at least 9 of 10 patients are negative and will tolerate penicillins without having an allergic reaction. Penicillin skin testing can be done safely even in young children, pregnant women, and critically ill patients. So, if youre allergic to penicillin, dont be complacent. Talk about this with your doctor. Erica Shenoy, MD, PhD, and Kimberly Blumenthal, MD, MSc, FAAAAI, of Massachusetts General Hospital, Eric Macy, MD, MS, FAAAAI, of Kaiser Permanente, and Theresa Rowe, DO, MS, of the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University authored the report, which grew out of a collaboration between the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI), the Infectious Diseases Society of America (ISDA), and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA). Blumenthal and Macy were appointed to the writing team by the AAAAI, while Shenoy was appointed by the ISDA and Rowe by SHEA. Verification of patient-reported penicillin allergy is an advocacy priority of the AAAAI as a public health concern. The AAAAI encourages more widespread and routine performance of penicillin skin testing as a component of antibiotic stewardship programs that have been implemented at many medical centers in the United States. More frequent performance of penicillin allergy testing will lead to more patients safely receiving penicillins, and to improved outcomes and reduced costs of care, emphasized Dr. Lang. Key to the reports recommendations is taking a comprehensive history of the reaction that led to allergy documentation, which can help determine the patients risk level and appropriate procedures for testing. Blumenthal explains, A simple history can often distinguish intolerances for example, headaches or nausea from allergies. Side effects should be judged by their severity and, after discussion with the patient, clinicians should consider the safety of a potential drug challenge. For patients whose symptoms such as hives, shortness of breath, wheezing or anaphylaxis suggest a true allergic reaction, this report provides guidance for evaluation, risk determination and allergy management. The review authors stress that some form of evaluation of a documented penicillin allergy can and should be carried out in any clinical setting from routine outpatient care to preparation for surgery or other procedures and for all patients with such documentation, including children and pregnant women. Blumenthal adds, It is my hope that all patients who believe they have a penicillin allergy including the parents of children with a documented penicillin allergy become aware that the allergy label may not be accurate, is not benign and can be evaluated further. If such allergies are routinely evaluated, patients will not needlessly avoid the beta-lactams that may be the best treatment for their infection and reduce the development of antibiotic resistance. Allergies to penicillin or to other drugs are very real, so it is important not to be cavalier about the process of allergy evaluation. When patients have an unclear or severe allergy history, allergists are available and uniquely qualified to help with the assessment. You can learn more about penicillin allergy at the AAAAI website, aaaai.org. The AAAAI also offers a Penicillin Allergy Toolbox with resources for healthcare providers who treat patients with penicillin allergy, as well as resources for patients with a penicillin allergy. The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) represents allergists, asthma specialists, clinical immunologists, allied health professionals and others with a special interest in the research and treatment of allergic and immunologic diseases. Established in 1943, the AAAAI has nearly 7,000 members in the United States, Canada and 72 other countries. The AAAAIs Find an Allergist/Immunologist service is a trusted resource to help you find a specialist close to home. Joe G. Bax returns to the publishing scene with the release of Meadowbrook: The Neighborhood That Made Me (published by Archway Publishing). Told through the point of view of an adolescent, the autobiography depicts the life of the baby-boomer generation a childhood of absolute freedom, limited only by our imaginations. Set in Meadowbrook, a subdivision in southeast Houston, during the 1950s, Bax guides readers through his childhood, during a much simpler time. Meadowbrook was an average neighborhood of ordinary people; yet, each person made an impact on one another, and their influence lasted a lifetime. The book shares the candid, uncensored response of Baxs adolescent mindset, made contemporaneously with each event. He believes that the comments will simultaneously shock, entertain and educate readers. Have you ever wondered what your child is really thinking? Meadowbrook: The Neighborhood That Made Me will give you the answer, an answer that will amaze and amuse you, Bax says. Baby boomers will enjoy the walk down memory lane. All parents will be quickly educated in the true world of an adolescent. Youngsters will now be able to understand their grandparents. Meadowbrook encourages the interaction we now miss. To know more and purchase the book, readers can visit [add landing page link]. Meadowbrook: The Neighborhood That Made Me By Joe G. Bax Hardcover | 6 x 9in | ### pages | ISBN 9781480869943 Softcover | 6 x 9in | ### pages | ISBN 9781480869936 E-Book | ### pages | ISBN 9781480869929 Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ArchwayPublishing.com and Ingram Book Distributor About the Author Joe G. Bax, a product of Meadowbrook, a subdivision in southeast Houston, Texas, lives in San Antonio with his wife, Michele. He graduated from the University of Houston and Texas A&M University with a bachelors in American history and a masters in Southern history. He also earned a doctorate of jurisprudence. He has written many nonfiction articles and two historical novels: The General and Monaville, Texas and A Texas Destiny, the Saga Begins. He and his wife have two daughters, Brittani and Courtney (deceased). He retired from the practice of law in 1994 and returned to his agrarian roots as a rancher until 2012. Our employees are our most valued asset and promoting a culture of employee engagement and collaboration is part of what defines NACHA. We are honored to receive this recognition of our commitment to quality, service to each other, our membership, and the industry. NACHA has been named one of the Best Places to Work in Virginia in 2019. The annual list was created by Virginia Business and Best Companies Group. This statewide survey and awards program is designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Virginia, benefiting the state's economy, workforce and businesses. NACHA is proud to be named one of the Best Places to Work in Virginia, said NACHA President and CEO Janet O. Estep. Our employees are our most valued asset and promoting a culture of employee engagement and collaboration is part of what defines NACHA. We are honored to receive this recognition of our commitment to quality, service to each other, our membership, and the industry. To be considered for participation, companies had to fulfill the following eligibility requirements: Be a for-profit, not-for-profit business or government entity Be a publicly or privately held business Have a facility in the state of Virginia Have at least 15 employees working in the state of Virginia Be in business a minimum of one year Companies from across the state entered the two-part survey process to determine the Best Places to Work in Virginia. The first part consisted of evaluating each nominated company's workplace policies, practices, philosophy, systems and demographics. This part of the process was worth approximately 25 percent of the total evaluation. The second part consisted of an employee survey to measure the employee experience. This part of the process was worth approximately 75 percent of the total evaluation. The combined scores determined the top companies and the final ranking. Best Companies Group managed the overall registration and survey process in Virginia and also analyzed the data and used their expertise to determine the final ranking. The final rankings will be announced at an awards luncheon on Feb. 1 at the Boars Head Inn in Charlottesville, Va. For more information on the Best Places to Work in Virginia program, visit http://www.BestPlacesToWorkVA.com. About NACHA NACHA is a nonprofit organization that convenes hundreds of diverse organizations to enhance and enable electronic payments and financial data exchange within the U.S. and across geographies. Through development of rules, standards, governance, education, advocacy, and in support of innovation, NACHA's efforts benefit the providers and users of those systems. NACHA leads groups focused on API standardization, authors the Quest Operating Rules for EBT, and is the steward of the ACH Network, a payment system that universally connects all U.S. bank accounts and facilitates the movement of money and information. In 2018, 23 billion ACH payments valued at $50 trillion moved across the ACH Network. Visit nacha.org for more information, and connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Mylene Garot is an exceptional promising professional who will play a considerable role in both Urbanism and Emotional Intelligence fields Born and raised in France, Mylene Garot has always been proactive and business-oriented. From a modest family, at a young age, she committed to work on the side of her studies and took up her school expenses. Thanks to her determination, she could combine different jobs, and learned a useful panel of skills in various fields such as marketing, or public relations. She quickly earned more responsibilities. Evidence once again that shes not scared of doing some of the dirty work. Its a well- known fact that hard work is the key to success, and Mylene Garot is one more proof of it. After a bachelor degree in marketing and management, she decided to carry further. She undertook a master degree of business development and entrepreneurship. Undoubtedly we can assert that those years studying allowed Mylene to precisely define the very thing she exalts and what shes good at: developing strategic actions and marketing methods through Emotional Intelligence. In fact, at only 20, she managed to work at MMA, one of the biggest French insurance company or later on at EDF, which is one of the worlds leading electric utilities. Thanks to Emotional Intelligence, she established her ability to put her skills into actions. In such a way, she increased the sales of 15% for the insurance office. Plus, she produced a strategic audit and management recommendations. Alongside her studies and different jobs, Mylene always thrives in getting herself involved with some other professional projects. Business development represents her field of expertise and what motivates her, indeed. That is why she decided to employ her skills to help the famous French business man, Matthieu Wincker, to build a game plan for his new company Natura Pet Plus Ultra. Mylene developed for him a marketing and a distribution strategy. Always thinking outside of the box, she got the idea to create a membership for the pet owners: pet food automatically delivered to their doors every month. And guess what? Thanks to the new membership strategy and of her visionary approach, the company accomplished a turnover of 5 million euros in 2017. Her essential role in the collaboration was a key element to the success of this company that worths now more than 20 million euros. If developing business constitutes the main subject of her studies, Mrs Garot had always been attracted by Urbanism. She heard about her next project going to a conference about developing the city of Agen, France. Interested by the project, Mylene started collaborating with the City Officials in charge of developing the Agglomeration dAgen. Over there, she worked on creating the Technopole. In a nutshell, this project aims at bringing together dynamic companies into a sustainable area and to propel the City of Agen at the rank of major economic player in France. Mylenes persistence served in building a strong case to get all the necessary authorizations to build in that area. She had to manage the consistency of the zone with urban area, and assured that the natural resources wont be damaged. Mylene Garot was unquestionably a key player in this collaboration. Now, Agen has more than 1.5 acre of industrial facilities available, a startup incubator which has allowed creating more than 800 jobs. By working with the city of Agen, she discovered how important emotional intelligence for city branding was. Urbanism requires some values based on emotional intelligence, indeed. In 2014, she wrote a thesis titled Emotional intelligence and Performance . By the year of 2015, Mylene managed to complete her masters degree as valedictorian with the congratulations of the jury. This year totally changed her life as she realized one of her dream, moving to the United States of America, and especially to Miami. After a few years in the U.S., Mylene Garot has proven her skills in the workplace influencing different American companies such as Go Wine and Aquajet Miami. Throughout those experiences, Mylene kept the same compass and has implemented emotional intelligence in every step of the way. As a marketing expert, she organized by herself a product launch event side by side with Jessica June Childrens Cancer Foundation in 2015. She was then able to increase Aquajet Miamis popularity with full live coverages on Channel 7, Miami Herald, Univision and so forth. More importantly, her crucial role allowed the Charity to get 40% more donations. Mylenes strong ties to France led her to play an essential role in the development of Rotomod, (number 1 distributor of Kayaks) to ensure its American establishment. As a business development virtuoso, Mrs Garot proposed to engage a diversification strategy. With sales growth of over 20% in one year and 30% expected for 2019, Mylene Garots expertise, once again, hits the nail on the head. She is now working as a COO at Viac Luxury Real Estate in Miami Beach, FL. She is in :charge of growing the company and as you already know, that is what she excels at. Mylene is committed in hunting for worldwide partnerships and avant-garde marketing strategies to increase Viac Luxury Real Estates local and national influence. She developed new recruitment methods based on Emotional Intelligence or new sales technics such as the utilization of VR to present new construction projets. If developing Agen wasn't already challenging enough, Mrs Garot is now shaping Urbanism on another level. First, she is planning on improving the neighborhood of Little Haiti in Miami. In fact, shes interested in the project of Magic City Innovation District, which goal is to create a unique campus focused of innovation, sustainability, and entrepreneurship. Not only she desires to improve her city, but she is also aiming at converting the City of Detroit in new hottest real estate place to invest in the U.S. For that matter, she was a key speaker in a conference about Detroit investment plan last September 2018 and has performed a new one in November. She envisions the high potential of this city. Her aspiration is to reinvent a strong Detroit thanks to her ability in urbanism development, combined with her knowledge in emotional intelligence. Substantially, cities like Detroit, that have been highly affected by the economic crisis, the emotional part is playing a major role that Mylene Garot has definitely understood. Besides those important projects, our marketing expert is also dedicating into encouraging others. In fact, she was part of the Google Startup weekend in Miami, last September 2018, playing a mentor role. She talked about what she specializes in, initiating strategies to maximize profit and improve branding applying Emotional Intelligence. Moreover, Mylene was appointed for judging the international competitive entrance exam of the prestigious ESSCA business school in Bordeaux, France. She was selected as a result of all her projects for the region, particularly for the city of Agen and thanks to her recognition in the field of Emotional Intelligence. Lifted by her dedication and her experience, Mylene Garot is an exceptional promising professional who will play a considerable role in both Urbanism and Emotional Intelligence fields. Mrs Garot has a great deal to contribute to the development American cities and to the Emotional Intelligence research. She has just published a book named, The Emotional Intelligence Guidebook for Successful People. Mylene Garot is moving and she is moving fast, thats a name you should remember. "Cervical Health Awareness Month is a great time to remind everyone what they can do to help prevent and reduce the risk of cervical cancer. The myLAB Box cervical cancer screening uses advanced DNA technology to look for the high-risk types of HPV that can cause cervical cancer." With the U.S. Congress designating January as Cervical Health Awareness Month, myLAB Box, the first at-home sexually transmitted disease (STD) testing service, today announces tips to help reduce the risk of Cervical Cancer. Cervical cancer is a slow-growing cancer that is caused by the Human Papillomavirus (HPV). Genital HPV is the #1 most common STD and an STI that almost half of all American adults have. While there are many types of genital HPV, only about 14 are considered the high-risk types of HPV that have been linked to cervical cancer. Its estimated that more than 12,000 women in the US are diagnosed with cervical cancer every year. About 1 in 20 women 30 and over has high-risk HPV, which means they have an increased risk of developing cervical cancer. Women 30 and older who test positive for these high-risk viruses are more likely to have HPV infections that do not go away. Over time, these persistent HPV infections may cause changes in the cells of the cervix. Without regular screening and treatment, these changes can develop into cervical cancer. Luckily, this type of cancer can be prevented with regular screening tests and the HPV vaccine. Regular screenings can spot HPV infections that may cause abnormal cells to develop in the future. When found early, these cells can be treated before they turn into cancer. Here are tips from myLAB Box on reducing the risk of cervical cancer: 1. Regular Screening Tests. The most important thing you can do to help prevent cervical cancer is to have regular screening tests starting at age 21. 2. Getting an HPV Vaccine. Two vaccines, Cervarix and Gardasil, are available to protect against the types of HPV that cause the most cervical cancers, as well as anal cancers in men. The ideal time to get the HPV vaccine is before becoming sexually active. The HPV vaccine is available for children starting when theyre 11 or 12 years old. Women can still get the vaccine until theyre 26, and the cutoff for men is usually 21 years old, although it depends on the situation. 3. Dont Smoke. Smoking cigarettes doubles your risk of developing cervical cancer. Studies have shown that tobacco by-products damage the DNA of cervix cells and may contribute to the development of cervical cancer. 4. Safe Sex. If you are sexually active, use a condom every time you have sex. Condoms help to lower the risk of contracting HPV and developing HPV-related diseases, including cervical cancer. But while condoms help to lower the risk of developing HPV-related diseases, including cervical cancer, be aware that HPV can infect areas that are not covered by a condom, so condoms may not fully protect against HPV. 5. Limit number of Sexual Partners. Studies have shown that women who have many sexual partners increase their risk of developing HPV and their risk of cervical cancer. The myLAB Box Cervical Cancer Screening HPV home test uses a highly accurate process called genotyping to specifically identify the 2 high-risk types known to cause most cervical cancers, HPV-16 and HPV-18. The test also tells you if you are positive or negative for a group of 12 other high-risk HPV types: 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59, 66 and 68. This gives you more information about your cervical cancer risk and empowers you to take charge of your health by screening for cervical cancer from the comfort of home. Cervical Health Awareness Month is a great time to remind everyone what they can do to help prevent and reduce the risk of cervical cancer, said Lora Ivanova, CEO & Co-Founder, myLAB Box. The myLAB Box cervical cancer screening uses advanced DNA technology to look for the high-risk types of HPV that can cause cervical cancer, and help women determine if they are at risk of developing cervical cancer before any cancer cells appear. Screening tests are vital in terms of helping to prevent cervical cancer or find it early enough to treat and cure, but there are other ways besides screening that people can do daily to make mitigate the risks, including safe sex and vaccines. At myLAB Box, were proud to continue fulfilling our mission to raise awareness of maintaining your sexual health with solutions like the cervical cancer screening test. Partnership With The National LGBT Cancer Network, The Rural Cancer Prevention Center, and Transgender Activist Buck Angel To get more people screened for cervical cancer, myLAB Box is partnering with the National LGBT Cancer Network, the Rural Cancer Prevention Center, and transgender activist Buck Angel to donate free At Home STD Tests. From today to February 25, 2019, myLAB Box is offering 10% off on every At Home HPV test when shoppers use the discount code fightcancer10. myLAB Box will then donate one HPV kit to their cancer prevention partners to help get screenings to transgender and gender nonconforming members of the LGBT community, who are far less likely to get regular screenings at traditional healthcare settings. People will also have the option to donate directly to Rural Cancer Prevention Center to purchase kits. More info on the partnership available via this link. About myLAB Box Founded in 2013, myLAB Box is the first company to offer a nationwide at-home screening platform for STDs. All myLAB Box tests are validated by fully licensed CLIA-certified myLAB Box lab affiliates with extensive experience in testing for infectious diseases. By offering testing, screening or testing services directly to consumers, myLAB Box is able to offer exceptional service at half the cost of conventional lab tests. From affordable screening to complimentary physician consultations for positives, every aspect of the myLAB Box service is designed to be safe, effective and efficient. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California. For more information, visit: http://www.mylabbox.com. Morrison & Foerster, a leading global law firm, is pleased to announce that Ann Becchina and Ron Aizen have joined the firms New York office as partners in the Executive Compensation + ERISA Group. Ms. Becchina and Mr. Aizen further expand Morrison & Foersters executive compensation offerings and bring extensive experience in this area to its Private Funds Group, Mergers + Acquisitions Group and Business Restructuring + Insolvency Group. They both come to Morrison & Foerster from Davis Polk. Executive compensation is a critical component to a companys business model. We are therefore delighted to have the opportunity to strengthen our group with two of the finest legal practitioners in the space, said Anthony J. Carbone, co-chair of Morrison & Foersters Tax Department. Ann and Ron, with diverse skill sets, bring a thorough understanding of the intricate issues unique to compensatory and benefit arrangements. Their counsel will be invaluable to many of our clients involved in fund formations, M&A deals, and restructuring. Brett Miller, managing partner of Morrison & Foersters New York office and a partner in its Business Restructuring + Insolvency Group, added: Ann and Ron are the latest talented partners to join our team in New York and are an important addition to both our office and the firm. I look forward to working with them on critical matters for our clients. With more than 20 years of experience, Ms. Becchina provides sophisticated guidance to clients with complex compensation needs. Focusing her practice on federal tax and securities law aspects of executive compensation arrangements, Ms. Becchina regularly advises issuers, financial institutions, private funds and investment managers on a range of SEC-related issues, including reporting of beneficial ownership under Sections 13 and 16 under the Securities and Exchange Act. She also advises on the fiduciary and prohibited transaction provisions of ERISA in connection with investment products and services. She has particularly deep experience structuring and providing advice regarding complex compensatory structured products, carry and notional plans, and other equity-related programs for investment professional participation. Additionally, Ms. Becchina advises global, multinational clients on their cross-border executive compensation arrangements. What attracted me most to Morrison & Foerster is its prominent global client base, particularly in the tech industry, and its reputation for outstanding and creative client service, said Ms. Becchina. MoFo represents some of the most innovative companies in the world, and I look forward to having the opportunity to advise them on their compensation needs. With approximately 15 years of experience, Mr. Aizen regularly advises clients involved in mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructurings and bankruptcies, and equity capital markets matters, such as initial public offerings. He often counsels clients on compensatory and benefit arrangements in connection with a particular corporate transaction, handling the negotiating and drafting of relevant plans and agreements. Mr. Aizen also advises on tax and securities law considerations relating to compensatory arrangements, and helps public companies navigate compensation-related disclosure and corporate governance issues. I am delighted to join a growing practice at a firm of Morrison & Foersters global stature, said Mr. Aizen. The current strategic expansion of the firms tax offerings, which includes executive compensation, makes this a particularly exciting time to come to MoFo. I am also very impressed with the firms energizing culture. Ms. Becchina received her J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone scholar and served as senior editor of the Columbia Law Review. Mr. Aizen received his J.D. from Duke University School of Law, where he graduated with high honors and served as notes editor of the Duke Law Journal. Ms. Becchina and Mr. Aizen join a growing list of partners who have recently joined Morrison & Foerster in New York. Within the last year, the firm has also added capital markets partner John Owen, federal tax partners Jay Blaivas and Anthony Carbone, and securities litigation partner Michael Birnbaum. ABOUT MOFO We are Morrison & Foerster a global firm of exceptional credentials. Our clients include some of the largest financial institutions, investment banks, Fortune 100, and technology and life sciences companies. The Financial Times has named the firm to its lists of most innovative law firms in Northern America and Asia every year that it has published its Innovative Lawyers Reports in those regions. In the past few years, Chambers USA has honored MoFos Privacy and Data Security, Bankruptcy, and IP teams with Firm of the Year awards, the Corporate/M&A team with a client service award, and the firm as a whole as Global USA Firm of the Year. Our lawyers are committed to achieving innovative and business-minded results for our clients, while preserving the differences that make us stronger. The firm also has a long history of commitment to the community through providing pro bono legal services, including litigating for civil rights and civil liberties, improving public education for poor children, advocating for veterans, promoting international human rights, winning asylum for the persecuted, and safeguarding the environment. Marvin Edward Goody and Richard Hamilton, SB 1951, SB 1950 Monsanto House of the Future, 1956 The ways in which the education of the architect has changed over a century and a half and the evolution of professional practice itself is revealed through an examination of the MIT program, the first in the country, said curator Gary Van Zante. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) celebrates the oldest architecture program in the United States with the exhibition, Drawing, Designing, Thinking: 150 Years of Teaching Architecture at MIT February 14 - August 25, 2019 at the MIT Museum. Featuring works by distinguished alumni such as Robert R. Taylor 1892, I.M. Pei 40, and Charles Correa 55 that they created while students at MIT, the exhibition also presents educational material created by faculty including founder William R. Ware, Gyorgy Kepes, and Joan Jonas, highlighting the Institutes forward thinking leadership in architectural education. The exhibition is designed around five themes - Studio, Proxies, Research, Interdisciplinarity and Futures - that highlight the work of students and faculty in the course of the departments history. In this way, the exhibition shows how the department has constantly innovated pedagogically to prepare its students to design for the rapidly changing world around us. The exhibitions 200 drawings, models, and videos present highlights from the 150-years of history, and provides a glimpse of its future. The exhibition is part of the yearlong celebration of 150 years of architecture at MIT which includes a series of teaching experiments, alumni events, concluding with a symposium on design research this spring. The ways in which the education of the architect has changed over a century and a half and the evolution of professional practice itself is revealed through an examination of the MIT program, the first in the country, said Gary Van Zante, Curator of Architecture, Design and Photography at the MIT Museum. The early mission of the department was to elevate the profession of architecture and evolved to encompass an expanding field of practice, scholarship, and research. The earliest students had a rigorous training in architectural drawing and in the principles of design, but as the profession and architecture itself grew more complex, architectural thinking, as the founding architect and first instructor William R. Ware called it, required a multidisciplinary education. The School of Architecture and Planning at MIT of today is a large community of educators who work in a wide range of disciplines with a diverse student body from around the world, said Mark Jarzombek, Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture, MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Aiming to address global challenges, the department is a place where architecture is explored along a wide spectrum of possibilities, from the pragmatic to the visionary. Curatorial Team Mark Jarzombek, School of Architecture and Planning, Gary Van Zante, MIT Museum; Irina Chernyakova, Alexander Wood; Daryl McCurdy and Jennifer Tran; Andrew Scott and J. Meejin Yoon, Advisors; Ibanez Kim, Design; E Roon Kang and Richard The; Graphic Design. About the 150 Years of Architecture Education at MIT Anniversary In 1865, MIT President William Barton Rogers asked architect William Robert Ware to create a course in architecture at the Institute. Ware sought a new pedagogical model for preparing architects for practice. After visiting architecture, design, and trade schools across Europe to observe models of education, he returned to create a program that aimed to synthesize professional, artistic, and humanist pedagogies. Looking towards the future, Ware remarked in his Outline of a Course of Architectural Instruction: It is the aim of this School to do what it can, in its day and generation, to insure that the Architecture of the future shall be worthy of the future. The exhibition at the MIT Museum is part of a large-scale, year-long celebration which includes a series of events such as the Experiments in Pedagogy, Conversations on Practice, alumni receptions, and a symposium, Turning Points in Architecture, Design, and Research. Continuing through Spring 2019, the MIT Architecture community is marking this milestone by reflecting on the past and present, and envisioning the future of architectural education at MIT. 150th Advisory Committee: Andrew Scott, J. Meejin Yoon, Mark Jarzombek, Ana Miljacki, Les Norford, Skylar Tibbits, Azra Aksamija, Andreea O'Connell, Paul Pettigrew, Irina Chernyakova, with students and alumni Alexander Wood, Jessica Pace, Alex Bodkin, Borislav Angelov, and Alex Kobald. http://architecture.mit.edu/150 #mitarch150 About the MIT Museum The MIT Museum presents engaging exhibitions, robust programs, and lively events. The Institutes past achievements are celebrated through the Museums extensive and unique collection, while MITs current research, innovation, and design provide a catalyst for exhibition themes and stories. The Museum offers a wide range of programs that appeal to audiences ranging from middle-school students to adults, including the annual Cambridge Science Festival. For more information, visit mitmuseum.mit.edu. Visitor Information: MIT Museum 265 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139 USA Phone: 617-253-5927 https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/ Open daily 10 PM 5 PM Open daily 10 AM 6 PM July and August Closed major holidays. General admission to the Museum only: $10.00 for adults; $5.00 for youth under 18, students, seniors; free admission for MIT card holders and alumni. Discounts are listed online. Media Contacts Leah Talatinian, Arts at MIT +1-617-253-5351 leaht(at)mit(dot)edu Martha Davis MIT Museum +1-617-253-4422 marthad(at)mit(dot)edu MaidPro in Peru Theyre an opportunity to visit some places I never wouldve been able to experience. Theyre absolutely incredible. The Boston Globe shined the spotlight on MaidPros Adventure Trips in a recent feature article in the prestigious newspapers Top Places to Work series. Titled 10 Creative Perks Companies Are Using to Tell Workers Theyre Valued, the Globe article by Sarah Shemkus focuses on specific engagement practices that some of the top employers in Massachusetts are using that their employees love. MaidPro Franchise Corp. was named a Top Place to Work for 2018 by the newspaper in November. The list is based on surveys completed by employees of companies throughout the state. MaidPros Adventure Trips offer both its franchisees and home office employees unique opportunities to explore new places and have fun together, while at the same time participating in activities that make a positive difference in the world. In 2017, for instance, a MaidPro group, which included CEO Mark Kushinsky, spent 10 days in Peru, participating in once-in-a-lifetime activities in the Amazon Rainforest and Machu Picchu. As part of the trip, the group also visited with and delivered donations to children at the Shama Center orphanage in Lima. Trips like this not only offer employees unique experiences, but help to create bonds between employees and franchisees, and serve as a recruiting incentive, according to brand manager, Madeleine Park. She told the newspaper that the trips really pay off for MaidPro. In her quote in the Globe, she said: There really is a significant return we see from it in terms of the building of the community. Michelle Spitzer, a MaidPro franchisee out of Florida, also shared her thoughts on the Adventure Trips with the Globe. She was quoted in the article: Theyre an opportunity to visit some places I never wouldve been able to experience. Theyre absolutely incredible. MaidPros first Adventure Trip was a hiking and camping adventure in the Grand Canyon, including whitewater rafting down the Colorado River in 2011. That was followed by trips to Belize in 2013 and the British Virgin Islands in 2016. The company has planned for the next Adventure Trip to take place in Croatia later this year. ABOUT MAIDPRO MaidPro is a Boston-based franchisor of house cleaning services with over 255 locations in 38 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada. The company, which began franchising in 1997, takes pride in its strong owner community, cutting-edge technology, and creative marketing. It has been honored with the Franchise Business Reviews Four-Star Rating and Franchise 50 awards every year from 2006 to 2019 for owner satisfaction. MaidPro was named one of the Top 50 Franchises for Minorities by USA Todays Franchising Today. MaidPro is also a proud member of the International Franchise Association, Canadian Franchise Association, and the New England Franchise Association. The company can be found online at http://www.maidprofranchise.com. She is a recognized leader in the department and an excellent mentor and role model to younger staff, said David Thaw, Tax Department leader. I look forward to working with Karla within the Tax Department as it continues to grow. Gumbiner Savett Inc. is pleased to announce that Karla Chavez Luna, CPA, MST, has been named to the Shareholder group of the firm effective January 1, 2019. Karla is an excellent practitioner who has proven her skill and commitment to her clients over her tenure at the firm. She is a valuable addition to our Shareholder group, especially in the Tax Department, said Rick Parent, Managing Director of Gumbiner Savett Inc. We are thrilled to see dedicated employees, like Karla, rise through the ranks. Karla Chavez Luna began her career with Gumbiner Savett immediately after graduating from UCLA, joining as a staff accountant and earning promotions and leadership roles. Luna is the first Latina to become a Shareholder at the firm. She specializes in tax planning and compliance for high net worth individuals and their multi-generational families, with a special emphasis in estate and trust planning. Karla also serves business clients in the manufacturing, real estate, gaming and retail industries. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, as well as the California Society of Certified Public Accountants. She most recently held the distinction as a CalCPA Women to Watch and was a 2018 LABJ Influential Women in Accounting. She is a recognized leader in the department and an excellent mentor and role model to younger staff, said David Thaw, Tax Department leader. I look forward to working with Karla within the Tax Department as it continues to grow. About Gumbiner Savett Inc. - http://www.gscpa.com Gumbiner Savett Inc. is a full-service accounting and consulting firm headquartered in Santa Monica. Founded in 1950, its purpose is to enrich its clients lives by facilitating the achievement of their financial objectives and providing career fulfillment for its employees. Gumbiner Savett Inc. is dedicated to being a preeminent assurance, tax and business advisory firm for growth oriented businesses, middle market enterprises and high-net worth individuals in Southern California. In addition to traditional private and public company accounting and tax services, it specializes in general business consulting, estate and trust planning, fraud examination studies, business services and bookkeeping and litigation support. Gumbiner Savett Inc. is an independent member firm of BKR International. Greg Kraut Managing Partner of K Property Group Our advisory board of industry leaders both inside and outside of real estate will further strengthen our executive teams talent and background, and we are fortunate to have one of our existing partners, who has been a been a true leader and innovator in the institutional real estate community Robert Sessa to provide strategic guidance and input to KPG K Property Group (KPG), a burgeoning leader in value-add office and retail acquisitions and development in NYC, today announced Robert Sessa to the Advisory Board to support the companys rapid growth by providing strategic guidance and input to KPG. The board consists of leaders with diverse backgrounds in both the private and public sector. Each member brings deep experience in real estate and other fields, adding significant depth and breadth to the KPG team. Our advisory board of industry leaders both inside and outside of real estate will further strengthen our executive teams talent and background, and we are fortunate to have one of our existing partners, who has been a been a true leader and innovator in the institutional real estate community said Greg Kraut, KPGs Managing Partner. I am excited to be on a Board of individuals that are so diverse and accomplished. I am further delighted by the opportunity to provide KPGs strong team of investment professionals with my view on public pension plans, investment strategy, portfolio construction, and operations said Robert Sessa. Im convinced that Robert is going to make a valuable and positive impact on our company to help guide it through this accelerated growth period to further maturity. He has already been a valued and trusted partner said Rod Kritsberg, KPGs Managing Partner. About K Property Group LLC: K Property Group (KPG) is a vertically-integrated, privately held commercial real estate company located in New York. KPG is an NYC-focused investment and development company whose mission is to acquire and reinvest in value-add and core-plus office, retail and mixed-use properties in high growth areas and transform them into institutional-quality assets. KPG leverages its strong industry relationships to identify first look and off-market opportunities. This will provide long term value to KPGs partners and investorsboth institutional and private. Additional information about KPG and a selection of current and past holdings is available at http://www.KPropertyGroup.com K Property Group Contact: Gregory Kraut, 212-359-0743 Managing Partner Gkraut(at)kpropertygroup.com Source: K Property Group What Do You Really Want: an avant-garde book that delves into the aspect of prayer as written in the holy scriptures. What Do You Really Want is the creation of published author, Joyce Hondru, a retired financial planner; a leader of the youth, young adults, and women ministry for over thirty years; a speaker at various retreats, seminar, special events, and Bible studies; and an approved speaker for Stonecroft Ministries (aka Christian Women's Clubs). Hondru shares, What do you want? No, what do you really, really want? From God, that is. If prayer is the answer, then what the heck is the questions...the real question? Figuring out what you really, really want (and what God wants from you) is the essence of this study. "Inside, we are going to look at seven different prayers, from the Uncertain Prayer to the Perfect Prayer and everything in between. These prayers are taken from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In other words, they are stories about people who took their prayers directly to Jesus Christ when He was still here on earth. However, often what these people thought they wanted and they really wanted, deep inside, were two different things. Understanding what these seven people were asking/ praying for, and coming to terms with what Christ was asking of them, will help you not only have a better prayer life and a closer relationship with God, but also help you determine what you really, really want! Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Joyce Hondrus new book reminds believers with the true nature of prayer as more than just as a plea for help to the Lord; it is a significant path to reinforce their faith in him and his love. View a synopsis of What Do You Really Want on YouTube. Consumers can purchase What Do You Really Want at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about What Do You Really Want, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. The Whole Armor of God: A Womens Study from Ephesians 6:1018: a stirring spiritual style guide for women. The Whole Armor of God: A Womens Study from Ephesians 6:1018 is the creation of published author Joyce H. Hondru, a soldier for Christ. Hondru writes, Ladies, are you looking for the perfect killer outfit? If so, consider putting on the Armor of God! Each day we head out into the world looking good perhaps, but not giving a second thought to the dangers that await usNot the dangers we can see, but the dangers we cannot see. This study will show you how to spiritually clothe yourself for the battle that surrounds you: the battle between good and evil. Read and learn how to put on the Whole Armor of God, from the Helmet of Salvation to the Shoes of the Gospel of Peace and everything in between each and every day! Putting on the Armor of God will prepare you to fight the enemy and become the Superhero God intended you to be. It is your perfect dress for success outfit! Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Joyce H. Hondrus new book is an insightful and encouraging study for both the individual and the womens group. Hondru recasts a fundamental Christian principle in a way that daughters of God will appreciate, appealing to womens specific understanding of the importance of dressing for the occasion: in a manner that is not only functional but reflects who they truly are in Christ. View a synopsis of The Whole Armor of God: A Womens Study from Ephesians 6:1018 on YouTube. Consumers can purchase The Whole Armor of God: A Womens Study from Ephesians 6:1018 at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about The Whole Armor of God: A Womens Study from Ephesians 6:1018, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. Lot #1823, "The Artist In Her Studio" by Benjamin West, Estimated at $20,000-30,000. My team and I have spent the last six months preparing for this sale. We are thrilled to offer our customers over 1,800 lots of amazing merchandise. I am certain that collectors, decorators, museums, and historical societies will discover many temptations at this can't miss event. -John McInnis John McInnis Auctioneers, the largest full-service auction house on Boston's North Shore, is excited to announce its upcoming four-day midwinter event which will run from January 24th-27th, 2019. On Thursday, January 24th, McInnis will present 675 lots as part of their Numismatics, Exonumia, Silver, and Jewelry sales. On Friday, January 25th, the company hosts its Fine Asian Works of Art sale, featuring over 400 lots of pan-Asian selections. On Saturday, January 26th, the English and Continental sale will tempt buyers with over 500 lots of 17th - 20th century antiques. The final day of the event, Sunday, January 27th, offers over 260 lots of fine art as part of McInnis' Paintings, Bronzes And Sculpture sale. All items from this sale are on display in the McInnis Amesbury, MA auction gallery and are available for preview starting on January 21st. For more information on this sale, please see http://www.mcinnisauctions.com. Day one of the sale - Thursday, January 24th - launches at noon with 325 lots of currencies, tokens, badges, medals, and medallions, including fantastic selections of collectable 18th, 19th, and 20th century American gold and silver coins. There's certain to be high interest in lot #287, a 1934 United States Federal Reserve $1,000 bill. This perfect collector's note, without any apparent issues and nearly uncirculated, is estimated at $1,300-1,600. And lot #10, a 14k gold 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition presentation medal awarded to American architect Sophia Hayden - an icon in the woman's equality movement - is estimated at $2,500-5,000. Hayden designed the Women's Building for this Chicago event celebrating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus voyage to America; her venue featured exhibits from 47 nations. Included in the lot is an archive of photos and letters concerning Hayden and her work on this groundbreaking project. Day one also includes 350 lots of silver and jewelry on offer starting at 4pm. A full range of accessories and tableware, as well as watches and investment-quality rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets, will be on offer. Things are twice as nice with lot #559, a fine platinum and gold double diamond ring, estimated at $10,000-20,000. This exceptional 4.8 carat treasure features eight brilliant cut diamonds housed in a stunning platinum setting. Lot #560, a 18k gold Patek Philippe open faced lapel watch is estimated at $4,000-8,000. The dial is marked Shreve, Crump and Low. The watch features a yellow gold case enameled with a green dragon holding an arrow in its beak and a green enameled wings pin centered by a faceted amethyst. This remarkable timepiece comes with its original case and certificate of origin and warranty. And lot #562, a gentleman's 18k Gold Tri-Compax Universal Swiss Wristwatch, is estimated at $3,000-5,000. Its up to the minute features include a silvered dial and with gold batons, four subsidiary dials indicating date and moon-phase, constant seconds, and 30 minute and hour registers. All of day one's lots can be viewed here: https://www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/133929_numismatics-exonumia-silver-and-jewelry/ Day two of this four day auction event - Friday, January 25th - features over 400 lots of Chinese and Japanese art starting at 5pm. Enthusiasts looking to add a little foreign intrigue to their collections or interiors will truly appreciate all the pan-Asian ceramics, jades, furniture, bronzes, sculptures, paintings and textiles available. Lot #700, a 43" tall Chinese bronze temple censer with provenance to the Burbridge Collection Foundation, is estimated at $10,000-20,000. This 19th century incense burner is decorated in extraordinary detail with solid cast pine tree-form handles, a dragon finial, dragons above foxes, flying elephants, and Fenghuang. Equally breathtaking from all angles, its back is cast with an immortal in a landscape with dragons and dogs amongst whispery clouds. Lot #905, an important pair of 19th century Chinese porcelain vases, is estimated at $4,000-8,000. The vases stand nearly two feet tall and have flared neck rims. They are decorated with chrysanthemums, shoulders with floral medallions and various diaper patterns, as well as panels of figural court scenes, women socializing, and calligraphers. Lot #872, a 19th century three part Chinese gilt bronze cloisonne urn, is estimated at $2,000-4,000. Consisting of a cover, urn, and coordinating stand, this intricately designed and well manufactured example is detailed with a low relief running floral motif, dragon-from handles, and raised medallions and characters. Lot #792, an elaborately carved Chinese Zitan wood sideboard, is estimated at $1,000-3,000. Zitan is a highly desirable type of wood which sinks in water and is a member of the rosewood family; it is considered the finest material for cabinet-making. This buffet style table, measuring 49" x 72" x 22-1/4" has a scrolled top, a front carved with figures, clouds and dragons, and integrally carved figural drawer pulls. And lot #760, a rare, large 19h century Suzani textile from Central Asia is estimated at $8,000-14,000. It measures 8'6" X 5'7" and is lavishly embellished in heavy silk embroidery. All of day two's lots can be viewed here: https://www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/133933_fine-asian-works-of-art/ Day three of this sale - Saturday, January 26th - will tempt buyers with over 500 lots of eye-catching decorative arts, porcelains, lighting, clocks, religious art, and other fine antiques from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The bidding starts at 11am. One of the oldest items for sale as part of the English and Continental Sale just might be lot #1537, an Indian Vizagapatam dresser box. This rarity from the 1600's measures 3-1/4" x 5-1/2" x 2-3/4" and is lac-engraved with Hindu lettering, repeating geometric bands, and comb-work. Its gambrel-form lid is attached with an offset copper butt hinge that opens to a silk embroidered corduroy lining. It is estimated at $2,000-3,000. The selections of decorative and desirable lighting fixtures on offer on Saturday are simply electrifying. Lot #1651, an impressive pair of rock crystal table lamps, is estimated at $3,000-5,000. Each measures 36" tall overall and feature natural rock crystal vasiform bodies with gilded bases, hardware, mounts, and finials. Lot #1222, an elaborate light gilt bronze period chandelier from the Burbridge Collection Foundation, is estimated at $5,000-10,000. This impressive, two tiered fixture measures 50" x 38" and is stunningly decorated with scrolled shells and flora, Greek winged sirens, and scrolled acanthus leaf arms. Outstanding clocks and timepieces are also well represented on day three of this event. Lot #1495, a monumental - perhaps one of a kind - last quarter 19th century German Meissen figural clock is estimated at $35,000-55,000. This magnificent and impressive example, which would be the focal point for any room - measures 29x 27 x 11-1/2". It comes to life with sculptures of Father Time, frolicking cherubs holding symbolic props, and a floral encrusted dial ring. And lot #1254, a Lenzkirch bracket clock with a chiming Fusee movement is estimated at $2,000-3,000. This Black Forest beauty, measuring 31-1/2" x 17" x 10", is detailed with a Gothic style walnut lancet form case with carved panels, turned and carved stepping finials, gingerbread pieced panels, and offset column bundles. Its Fusee movement includes one bell and eight beautifully striking chimes. All of day three's lots can be viewed here: https://www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/133960_17th-20th-c-english-and-continental/ Day four of this sale - Sunday, January 27th - is dedicated to fine and classical art, including bronzes, paintings, and sculptures. Over 260 lots go under the gavel starting at 11am. Look for lot #1879, Pierre Felix Fix-Masseau's (1869-1937), "WWI Renault FT17 Tank and Hapsburg Eagle," to ignite a bidding battle between enthusiasts. Estimated at $3,000-5,000, this marked and signed bronze measures 8-1/2" x 15" x 9" and packs alot of detail - and history - into a small volume. Sunday's sale includes several important landscape paintings with the ability to take viewers to places long ago and far away. Lot #1901, a pair of Roman-themed paintings by Jean Victor Louis Faure (1786-1879) is estimated at $80,000-140,000. These oil on canvas works include "A View of the Forum Romanum" and "The Coliseum." Each is signed, framed, and measure 33" x 43" overall. Lot #2000, Theodore Clement Steele's (1847-1926) "Autumn Brown's County" is estimated at $10,000-20,000. Steele was an American Impressionist painter known for his Indiana landscapes, so it is very possible that this autumnal view originated in the Hoosier state. Also featured on Sunday are a number of appealing 19th century portraits and paintings of women. Lot #1906, Auguste Toulmouche's (French 1829-1890) "Reverie" is estimated at $9,000-14,000. This framed, oil on canvas work is signed and dated 1879. It measures 30-1/2" x 22" overall and depicts an elegantly dressed, daydreaming woman holding a note in one hand. What could she be thinking about? And its all work and no play with lot #1823, Benjamin West's (1738-1820) "The Artist In Her Studio." This framed, signed watercolor features a sitting female painter surrounded by glowing, cherubic children holding traditional fine art symbols. It is estimated at $20,000-30,000. All of day four's lots can be viewed here: https://www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/133962_paintings-bronzes-and-sculpture/ According to John McInnis of John McInnis Auctioneers, "My team and I have spent the last six months preparing for this midwinter event and we are thrilled to offer our customers and collectors over 1,800 lots of truly amazing merchandise. Included in the offerings are absolute rarities and important historical artifacts from several prestigious collections, including the Burbridge Foundation Collection in Oklahoma City. Given its sheer scope, quality, and range, this sale truly has something for everyone! I am certain that all collectors, decorators, museums, and historical societies will discover many temptations at this can't miss sale." About John McInnis Auctioneers: John McInnis Auctioneers, the largest full-service auction house on Boston's North Shore, specializes in the sale of fine art, antiques, and estates. Headquartered in a 12,000 square foot, 1930s-era former grocery store in Amesbury, Massachusetts, the company also has an office in Stuart, Florida. McInnis offers over 6 premiere auctions annually, as well as provides ongoing appraisal, consultation, liquidation, and property sale services. The McInnis auction team includes experts knowledgeable in 18th, 19th, and 20th century fine and decorative art, accessories, and other key antique categories. John McInnis Auctioneers is owned by John McInnis, a lifelong antiques enthusiast and licensed auctioneer with over three decades of professional industry experience. John McInnis Auctioneers is located at 76 Main Street, Amesbury, MA 01913 and can be reached by telephone at (978) 388-0400 or email at mcinnisauctions@yahoo.com. For more information regarding John McInnis Auctioneers, please visit http://www.mcinnisauctions.com. Rabbi Steve Blane creates a pragmatic rabbinic program for Jewish professionals who have always wanted to be a Rabbi or Cantor. On January 5th in Delray Beach, Florida 5 candidates joined the 151 strong alumni of the Jewish Spiritual Leaders' Institute. The school is Rabbi Steve Blane's pragmatic response to the training of the modern clergy and students hail from all over the US and the world. This class comes from Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, Long Island and Florida. Each brings a unique style to their work, have been involved as Jewish professionals and all have a passion to serve and do good work. Students in the program meet online weekly, doing coursework prior to each session and write a d'var they share with one another. The ordination shabbaton weekend gives them the opportunity to meet in person and confer with the three (3) Rabbis who make up the Bet Din. At the end of a weekend of study and prayer the Bet Din conveys S'micha. ABOUT JSLI AND SIM SHALOM: Sim Shalom is an interactive online Jewish Universalist synagogue which is liberal in thought and traditional in liturgy. Created in 2009 by Rabbi Steven Blane on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Sim Shalom offers a means of connecting the unconnected. Rabbi Blane leads accessible and short Shabbat services every Friday night using a virtual interface and additionally Sim Shalom provides online education programs, Jazz concerts, conversion and life-cycle ceremonies along with weeknight services at 7:00PM EST led by Rabbis and students of this online community. Rabbi Blane is also the Founder and Dean of the Jewish Spiritual Leader's Institute, http://www.jsli.net, the online professional rabbinical program and the Union of Jewish Universalist Communities http://www.ujuc.org. Sim Shalom, a non profit 501 (3) tax-exempt organization, nurtures a Jewish connection through its mission of innovative services, creative education and dynamic outreach to the global community. For more information visit http://www.simshalom.com or call 201-338-0165. Franchises have to go the extra mile and understand the local areas of each of their franchise locations. HigherVisibility announced the release of a new guide on Tuesday that tackles the unique marketing challenges that franchise companies face. Franchise marketing requires a company to be successful in their marketing efforts on several different levels at once. Their first goal is to market to potential franchisees, but they also need those locations to remain successful, Managing Partner Adam Heitzman said. Franchises have to go the extra mile and understand the local areas of each of their franchise locations. The key to a successful franchise marketing plan starts by researching competitors. Examining the competitive landscape of a proposed location can help marketers to determine what strategies will be most effective. Depending on the market and the competitions efforts, each franchise locations marketing needs will be unique. However, an online presence is more important than ever for small businesses. According to Google, 80% of consumers now use search engines to discover more information on a business before shopping. That makes local search marketing a necessity for any franchise. Franchises can benefit by establishing Google My Business pages for each location and investing in other forms of local search engine optimization. Depending on the industry, the size of the company, and the competition in each market, the right franchise marketing strategy can vary wildly, Heitzman said. But with that said, any franchise can succeed if its listening to its audience. HigherVisibilitys guide to franchise marketing can be found on their blog. About HigherVisibility: HigherVisibility is a digital marketing agency based in Memphis, Tenn. that provides services in search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, and web design to small businesses and Fortune 1000s alike. HigherVisibility was named Search Engine Lands SEO Agency of the Year in 2017 and works with clients all throughout the United States. The Spectrum Building - San Antonio, Texas Spectrum Building is an attractive value-add investment for vREIT XXI that allows us to continue adding value to shareholders while also offering a diverse range of solutions to tenants in the North Central San Antonio submarket, said Al Hartman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Spectrum Building is an attractive value-add investment for vREIT XXI that allows us to continue adding value to shareholders while also offering a diverse range of solutions to tenants in the North Central San Antonio submarket, said Al Hartman, Chief Executive Officer. Currently 87.7% leased, the Property is comprised of a diverse mix of tenants with staggered lease expirations, offering investors stable in-place cash flow and value creation opportunities through tenant retention and new leasing at increased market rental rates. The acquisition of the Spectrum Building represents another step in expanding our San Antonio footprint. This area provides both a centralized location and great access to the Northern San Antonio area that is attractive to many businesses, said David Wheeler, Hartmans Chief Investment Officer. This location is central to both business owners/decision makers and the people they employ. With over 4.6 million square feet of retail within a 1-mile radius, Spectrum features a robust amenity base including multiple restaurants, hotels, bars and shopping destinations accessible on foot or by car within minutes. Excellent access to key thoroughfares, such as Loop 410 and US 281, as well as San Pedro Avenue, Interstate 10 and Interstate 35 and 37 provides excellent connectivity to established neighborhoods and business centers across the city. Commonly known as the heart of Texas, San Antonio has consistently led the nation in economic growth and stability over the last several years. Building upon its rich history and authentic culture, San Antonio stands out as an opportunity city celebrated for its attractive quality of life, emerging culinary and arts scene and affordable cost of living. San Antonio continues to be one of the most attractive metros in the country due to its exceptional economic population growth, low business and living costs, central geographic location and versatile transportation infrastructure. About Hartman vREIT XXI Hartman vREIT XXI is a Texas-centric real estate investment company formed to acquire, develop and operate a diverse portfolio of value-oriented commercial propertiesthose with significant potential for growth in income and value from re-tenanting, repositioning, redevelopment, and operational enhancements. For additional information about these investments, please visit HartmanREITs.com. About Hartman* Hartman has extensive experience acquiring, owning, managing and leasing commercial office, retail, light industrial and warehouse properties located in Texas. Since 1983, Hartman and its affiliated entities (including founder, Allen R. Hartman) have sponsored 23 programs and acquired interests in more than 90 real assets totaling approximately $660 million as of December 31, 2017. *Hartman refers to Allen R. Hartman and affiliates and subsidiaries. Source: 2018 Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, L.P. (HFF) Offering Memorandum This material contains forward-looking statements regarding the business and financial outlook of Hartman vREIT XXI and its advisors that are based on managements current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections and are not guarantees of future performance. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed in these statements, and you should not place undue reliance on any such statements. A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ from the statements contained in this material. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which such statements were made and we undertake no obligation to update any such statements that may become untrue as a result of subsequent events. THIS IS NEITHER AN OFFER TO SELL NOR A SOLICITATION OF AN OFFER TO BUY ANY SECURITIES DESCRIBED HEREIN OR DESCRIBED ELSEWHERE. AN OFFERING IS MADE ONLY BY PROSPECTUS FILED WITH THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION (SEC) OR PURSUANT TO A VALID EXEMPTION. A COPY OF THE CURRENT PROSPECTUS OR OFFERING DOCUMENT MUST BE MADE AVAILABLE TO YOU IN CONNECTION WITH ANY OFFERING AND SHOULD BE READ IN ORDER TO MORE FULLY UNDERSTAND THE IMPLICATIONS AND RISKS OF THE OFFERING TO WHICH IT RELATES. NON-TRADED REIT INVESTMENTS ARE NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL INVESTORS. INFORMATION ABOUT INVESTING IN A SPECIFIC NON-TRADED REIT MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY A PROSPECTUS, WHICH SHOULD BE READ PRIOR TO INVESTING. Neither the SEC nor any other U. S. state or federal regulator has passed on or endorsed the merits of any offering or securities described herein or confirmed the adequacy or accuracy of the prospectus. Any representation to the contrary is unlawful. All information contained in this material is qualified in its entirety by the terms of a current prospectus. Investors should consider a programs investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses before investing. The achievement of any goals is not guaranteed. For more complete information about investing in any program, including risks, charges and expenses, refer to the programs prospectus. Securities offered through D.H. Hill Securities, LLLP, Member FINRA/SIPC, 1543 Green Oak Place, Suite 100, Kingwood, TX 77339 (800) 880-2212. Working with Travercent and Oracle made the transition to a modern and efficient foundation a success for Catholic Medical Center and Huggins Hospital" said Tom Della Flora, Vice President & CIO CMC GraniteOne Health is a non-profit, community-based healthcare system consisting of Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, NH, Huggins Hospital in Wolfeboro, NH, and Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough, NH. Together they represent over 380 beds, 3,700 employees and 950 plus physicians. Travercent (Travercent) is a top Oracle partner in the healthcare industry and recognized leader in Oracle integrated cloud solutions. Both companies announce the successful go-live of Oracle ERP and HCM Cloud applications at Catholic Medical Center and Huggins Hospital. The goal of the combined organization was to replace multiple aging disparate systems with a modern, fully integrated, single platform cloud application to facilitate growth and efficiencies. Oracle Cloud was selected after an extensive evaluation to replace Infor/Infinium, and related modules of Allscripts EPSI, Evident, iCims and a host of other 3rd party systems. The combined GraniteOne and Travercent project team transformed back-office processes and integrated the cloud-based applications to other internal systems and external trading partners that streamlined operations and gained efficiencies. Working with Travercent and Oracle made the transition to a modern and efficient foundation a success for Catholic Medical Center and Huggins Hospital. With their knowledgeable resources, and a collaborative and flexible implementation approach, we successfully completed a transformational project. We now have a more scalable integrated system to accommodate near term needs with longer term objectives. The Travercent team dedicated themselves to this project for a successful outcome for us in an accelerated timeframe, said Tom Della Flora, Vice President & CIO CMC. In partnership with GraniteOne Health, Travercent implemented Oracle ERP and HCM Cloud with the following applications; Financials, Expense Management, Purchasing with Self Service Requisitions, Inventory Management, along with Travercents CAPSURE application, Human Resources, Payroll, Self Service, Recruiting, and Onboarding. The talent management applications of Performance, Goals and Compensation Management along with Enterprise Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service will go live in March of 2019 providing these two hospitals with a comprehensive 360-degree view of the business to support their current and future needs. The GraniteOne team went above and beyond to make this project a huge success. They spent substantial time preparing for this initiative and understanding what it takes to successfully complete a project of this magnitude. They dedicated key personnel and stayed committed throughout the 9-month project timeline. They have been a delight to work with and were proud to be a business partner with such great organizations said Mike Feldman, Managing Partner, Travercent. About Huggins Hospital and Catholic Medical Center Huggins Hospital: Huggins Hospital is a 25-bed Critical Access Hospital located in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire with 400 employees, serving 30,000 year-round residents and approximately 120,000 seasonal residents in the 14 towns in the Eastern Lakes Region. Huggins is recognized as a HEALTHSTRONG Hospital and has been named a Top 100 Critical Access Hospital for the past five years by iVantage Health Analytics as well as a Top 20 Critical Access Hospital for QUALITY in 2016. Catholic Medical Center: Catholic Medical Center (CMC), a member of GraniteOne Health, is a nonprofit regional health system, with a commitment to delivering the highest quality and most advanced healthcare to patients across New Hampshire. CMC is the home of the nationally-renowned New England Heart & Vascular Institute, rated among the top cardiovascular programs in the country. CMCs birthing unit, The Moms Place, was the first hospital in the country to have a neonatal unit based on "couplet care. Our nationally-accredited Breast Care Center was the first in the state to use contrast enhanced mammography and SAVI SCOUT localization for breast surgery. With primary care practices that care for the very young to the young at heart and our dedication to community outreach programs, CMC is helping to foster a healthier community, everyday. CatholicMedicalCenter.org About Travercent Travercent is a business and technology consulting group that leverages 25 years of technology and healthcare expertise to deliver value to their clients. Core competencies include delivery of Oracles cloud-based ERP, HCM, EPM, and BI software services along with internally developed applications that address complex, healthcare-specific use cases. Travercent is Oracles top partner in the healthcare industry with a specialization on materials management and supply chain experience. Travercents CAPSURE product for PAR, RFID tracking, LUM, patient charge capture and OD/surgery case management that automates material management processes and reduces manual effort. Travercents mission is to help clients become more innovative organizations and to prepare them for the next phase of healthcare with a focus on outcomes and quality. To find out more visit: http://www.travercent.com Coronado, CA (92118) Today A mix of clouds and sun. High 72F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Mainly clear. Low around 65F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Rachel Reeves MP met with thebigword's Chairman, Larry Gould and CEO, Nihat Arkan. We were delighted to welcome Rachel Reeves to our office, and we welcome her support in our campaign including writing to the Secretary of State. We want to ensure that our employees, linguist community and clients are reassured that thebigword is ready. With less than 80 days until Britains expected departure from the European Union, Global Language Services provider thebigword has been putting in place plans for all eventualities. thebigword works with a network of over 15,000 linguists, many of which are EU nationals living in the UK. To support our partners in the linguist community, thebigword is also working with the Association of Translation Companies (ATC) to campaign for priority status for the linguist community living in the UK and providing interpreting for vital Government agencies and the National Health Service. As part of the campaign Nihat Arkan, thebigwords Global CEO and Larry Gould, Executive Chairman, have met with Rachel Reeves MP who chairs the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee in Westminster. They shared concerns about the uncertain status of linguist and the companys campaign for priority status. Rachel Reeves MP said: Leaving the European Union will be bad for business and threatens the security of jobs and investment in our country. Local businesses like thebigword are really important for jobs and investment here in Leeds West. Many specialist skills, like those offered by linguists, are essential for thebigword and I hope the Government starts listening to businesses who are worried about Brexit and what it means for jobs and skills. Chief Executive Officer of the Association of Translation Companies, Raisa McNab added: We are pleased to have the support of thebigword in our efforts to obtain special provisions for interpreters and translators who play a vital role in many of our public services. We will continue to work with thebigword in the coming weeks and months to ensure that the linguist community are supported. Rachel Reeves MP also met with employees including staff members from other EU countries living in the UK. A key priority for thebigword has been to take steps to support the 57 EU nationals who are understandably concerned about their status in the UK. Having put funds aside, thebigword plans to sponsor their applications for settled status and support them throughout the process. thebigword have also formed a Brexit Committee led by the companys Global Director of Operations, Mark Daley. With the shape of Brexit still to be defined, the committee has been tasked with preparing for every possible outcome. The Brexit Committee are charged with establishing the risks to employees, the global linguist community and the business in general. The company has taken steps to hedge funds and put aside a contingency fund to address any rising challenges upon EU exit. Nihat Arkan, Chief Executive Officer at thebigword said: We were delighted to welcome Rachel Reeves to our office, and we welcome her support in our campaign including writing to the Secretary of State. We want to ensure that our employees, linguist community and clients are reassured that thebigword is ready. About thebigword: thebigword is the largest interpreting services provider in Europe and is among the top 15 language and translation companies in the world. The company is the fastest growing interpreting centric Language Service Provider in the world with 28.33% growth in the last year. It works with many of the worlds biggest and best-known brands and a growing number of large US and UK government organisations, The group has 12 offices around the world, employs over 600 staff and works with a network of more than 15,000 linguists. Every month, thebigword handles one million minutes of telephone interpreting, 17,000 face-to-face interpreting assignments and half a billion words of translation. For more information, visit http://www.thebigword.com GKhair VIP Launch Event in New Delhi "When the ribbon was pulled, with the effervescent confetti and Champagne bottles poppin for all to toast! GKhair Bombshell Masques (Red Red, Ultra Blonde, and Lavender) were finally unveiled." 2018 topped the charts in terms of growth for GKhair and Auraine Botanicals and to finish the year with a bang, CEO Van Tibolli and Arpit Jain (Founder and Managing Director of Auraine Botanicals) hosted a launch party to present the newest innovations in hair care from GKhair. The first ever Wine & Cheese exclusive VIP event was held in New Delhi, India to introduce GKhairs New Bombshell Masques. Over 20 beauty and wellness influencers and bloggers had the opportunity to experience the GKhair Masques prior to the main event. Being the fashion insiders in India, it was important to have their feedback and give them the chance to see first what the salons would be receiving shortly after. The slew of high profile beauty influencers flaunted their vibrant hair colors at the event on the red carpet, patiently awaiting the official product launch, to the entire audience. A big gift box wrapped in ribbon was seen front and center by all the high profile attendees of this press launch. Amongst the crowd were editors from Harper's Bazaar India and Beauty Launchpad, as well as representatives of Auraine from all around the country to get a closer look beside their VIP clients. When the ribbon was pulled, with the effervescent confetti and champagne bottles popping for all to toast, GKhair Bombshell Masques (Red Red, Ultra Blonde, and Lavender) were finally unveiled. The masques in limelight and their results in manifestation on bloggers left the crowd spellbound and captivated. This was Van Tibollis (Founder and CEO of GKhair) first trip to India as he explained and shared his feedback about the country and ambitions for the overall growth of the brand in the future. Arpit Jain revealed that 2019 would be the Year of Color and promised that the event of 2019 would follow, to present the 87 shades of the Juvexin Cream Color Line. Over the years, GKhair and Auraine Botanicals - the exclusive partner of GKhair for India - have developed a strong presence in the professional salon industry. Through lots of dedication and hard work, the structure is in place to reach the masses with the full line of professional color, the service of the salon industry which makes of 80% of the revenue. The Indian Hair-care industry has evolved impeccably over the last few years and with recent progressions and market demand for high quality products, product users are more and more informed through social media and blogs and expectations have never been higher. Users want more than a product; they want to be part of a community to experience not only a product but the culture of the brand and get to know the people behind the scenes. For more details, click here. About GKhair Operating in more than 75 countries, GKhair is a US-based haircare brand that has millions of clients across the world. As Frazier & Deeter expands into new services and new geographic markets the new generation of partners will play a critical role in our growth. Frazier & Deeter, a nationally ranked top 60 CPA firm, is pleased to announce that three members of the firm have been named to Partner. Andrew Case, Matthew Foster and Jerry Johnson were each elected to Partner. Johnson has become a partner in the firms Audit Practice. Case and Foster are the newest partners in the Tax Practice. We are excited to welcome these new partners, said Seth McDaniel, Managing Partner of Frazier & Deeter. As Frazier & Deeter expands into new services and new geographic markets, the new generation of partners will play a critical role in our growth. Andrew Case, CPA, has more than 10 years of public accounting experience. Andrew works with middle market companies that are private equity backed, bringing his clients considerable expertise in tax planning for partnerships, S Corporations and high net individuals. He works across a variety of industries, including real estate, private equity, technology and manufacturing. He received his Master of Taxation from Georgia State University and his Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from Bob Jones University. Matthew Foster, CPA, has more than 10 years of experience in public accounting. He plays a leadership role within the firms Life Sciences Practice. Matthew specializes in helping middle market companies that are privately held or backed by private equity. His expertise includes corporate structuring for tax strategies, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and ESOPs. His clients operate in a variety of industries including cannabis, manufacturing and distribution, technology, real estate and construction. Matthew received his Master of Taxation and his Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from Georgia State University. Jerry Johnson, CPA, has more than 20 years of accounting experience and is a member of the firms Tampa office. Jerry has worked with a number of publicly traded companies, reviewing SEC filings, testing of internal controls over financial reporting, auditing merger and acquisition transactions, as well as performing, reviewing and supervising audits and other attestation engagements. Jerry has also helped privately held companies prepare for initial public offerings. His industry expertise includes the areas of manufacturing and distribution companies, food and beverage companies and health care providers. Jerry began his career at KPMG. He received both a Bachelor of Arts in Accounting and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of West Florida. About Frazier & Deeter Frazier & Deeter is a nationally recognized CPA and advisory firm headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with offices in Alpharetta, Georgia, Las Vegas, Nevada, Nashville, Tennessee and Tampa, Florida. The firm provides a wide range of tax, audit, accounting and advisory services to assist clients in reaching their unique financial goals. Over the past five years Frazier & Deeter has been named one of the Top Accounting Firms to Work For in the United States, the 52nd largest CPA firm and one of the Fastest Growing CPA firms among the top 100 firms in the U.S. by Accounting Today magazine. Frazier & Deeter has also been named a Best of the Best CPA firm by INSIDE Public Accounting 12 times and has been named a Best Firm for Women or Best Firm for Leadership Equity by The MOVE project for the past five years. Flutura Decision Sciences & Analytics Fluturas powerful portfolio effect creates value in the artificial intelligence (AI) market by guaranteeing a reliable, automated economic loss estimation, performance benchmarking, and baseline generation with zero impact on customers operational processes. Flutura Decision Sciences and Analytics, an industrial artificial intelligence (AI) product company focused on impacting business outcomes in the oil and gas, speciality chemicals, and OEM industries, today announced that it has won Frost & Sullivans Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award for Artificial Intelligence in the Energy Industry for North America in the growth companys annual Best Practices Awards. Flutura wins this accolade on the customer experiences surrounding its Cerebra platform. Cerebra is an artificial intelligence solution offering advanced analytics to provide diagnostics and prognostics for asset- and process-heavy industries, such as the oil and gas, heavy machinery, and manufacturing industries. Through its patented artificial intelligence (AI) platform Cerebra, Flutura creates unique user-specific solutions across different verticals, such as energy, heavy machinery, oil and gas, and specialty chemicals, said Swagath Navin Manohar, Senior Research Analyst, Energy & Environment, Frost & Sullivan. The AI platform is built to provide accurate, actionable insights based on an in-depth understanding of enormous stockpiles of data. Frost & Sullivan's annual Best Practices Awards are presented to companies predicted to encourage significant growth in their industries, those that have identified emerging trends before becoming a marketplace standard, and companies that are creating technologies that will advance and transform industries. Manohar added, Fluturas powerful portfolio effect creates value in the artificial intelligence (AI) market by guaranteeing a reliable, automated economic loss estimation, performance benchmarking, and baseline generation with zero impact on customers operational processes. Frost & Sullivan has a reputation for excellence and for awarding only the most cutting-edge and deserving companies, said Greg Slater, General Manager, Flutura. We are thrilled to have received the designation of Entrepreneurial Company of the Year for Artificial Intelligence in the Energy Industry, North America. We continue to expand our customer base and provide upstream, midstream, and downstream guidance to our clients around the globe. To learn more: http://www.flutura.com/cerebra About Flutura Decision Sciences and Analytics Flutura is a pioneer in the Industrial IoT Intelligence space having operations in Palo Alto, Houston, Tokyo and Bangalore. Its Cerebra IoT Intelligence solution providing diagnostics and prognostics solutions for equipment and process operations is unlocking new business value for many leading energy/Oil and Gas customers. To learn more about Flutura, please visit: http://www.Flutura.com For Inquiries: Greg Slater Flutura greg.slater(at)flutura.com Joanne Hogue Smart Connections PR (410) 658 8246 joanne(at)smartconnectionspr.com The Taiwan Tourism Bureau presents the innovative Taiwan Lantern Festival! The event will take place at the Dapeng Bay National Scenic Area in Pingtung County between February 19th and March 3rd. For the first time, the main lantern is designed as Bluefin Tuna - a Donggang specialty with the theme Giant Tuna Bringing Wealth. It represents the local waterfront and symbolizes surplus and great harvest every year. Three major lantern exhibition grounds Dapeng Bay, Pingtung, and Donggang are created to showcase the landscape features of the area; visitors get to immerse in the lantern viewing both on water and on shore. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the lantern festival with the theme Brilliant 30th Year. Innovative water dance and water curtain performances are introduced this year, integrating the local mascot of the Grandfather Pig of the Wind. Small handheld lanterns of Pingan Pig are available in red - festivity, yellow - brightness, and blue the ocean, during the event. They are both practical and eco-friendly that double as piggy banks for visitors to take home with. It will be the perfect occasion for families to travel together and create loving memories of family fun, said Mr. Brad Shih, director of the Taiwan Tourism Bureau Los Angeles office. In addition, Mr. Brad Shih recommends the World Flora Exposition to nature and floral lovers as it is a great time to take advantage of discounted air tickets during off-season travel. The Expo is hosted in Taichung, The most livable city in Taiwan named by CNN, and arranged into three distinct exhibition areas the Houli Horse Ranch & Forest Park site, the Fengyuan Huludun Park site, and the Waipu Park site; each of the show site highlights the floriculture accomplishments and cultural landscapes of Taiwan. Hurry now to plan for your 2019 Taiwan trip! Contact Sonic Travel & Tour, Allstate Travel, and XO Tours for their Taiwan Lantern Festival and World Flora Exposition value tour packages. Please join our Facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/TourTaiwan for more information about Taiwan travels. After a year of significant growth in revenue and customer integrations, eSSENTIAL Accessibility, Inc. today announced executive appointments to its expanded leadership team. Newly welcomed brands such as Avon, Hertz, Petco, and Marriott Vacation Club leverage the companys digital accessibility platform to make their websites, mobile apps and other digital products inclusive of people with disabilities. Digital accessibility is a growth industry, said Simon Dermer, CEO of eSSENTIAL Accessibility. We help companies comply with accessibility regulations and standards while projecting an inclusive and disability-friendly digital presence. Were excited to add a number of new leadership positions to support our accelerated growth and to ensure our brand partners can deliver a cutting-edge experience to their customers, job applicants, and employees with disabilities. The company is welcoming the following talented executives to the leadership team: Founding Board Member Mark Steele joins full-time as President. Mark has been an advisor to the company since its inception and is now taking on a permanent role to help scale the business. He brings extensive experience in the enterprise software space having held positions as Vice President at Oracle, EVP at Tulip Retail, and most recently as CRO at Newstore, Inc. Eric Feinberg joins as Chief Marketing Officer from customer experience analytics company, ForeSee. He was there for 14 years, most recently as Vice President of Marketing and Chief Evangelist. He is a board member emeritus of the Digital Analytics Association and a well-established customer experience thought leader. Helen Papathanasakis brings innovation and operational excellence to her expanded role as Vice President of Human Resources and Operations. Helen was most recently the Chief Operating Officer at Sky Regional Airlines. Sky Regional operates routes on behalf of Air Canada under the Air Canada Express banner. Helen is a recipient of Wings Magazines Top 20 Under 40 award. People with disabilities represent the largest minority group in the world, yet so many web, mobile, and product experiences are still inaccessible, said Mr. Steele. eSSENTIAL Accessibilitys growth is exciting because it means more and more companies are getting on board with digital equality. About eSSENTIAL Accessibility eSSENTIAL Accessibility is a comprehensive digital accessibility platform. We help organizations create inclusive web, mobile, and product experiences through digital accessibility testing, evaluation and remediation. Organizations can then enhance the digital experience for people with disabilities, comply with regulatory and statutory accessibility standards, and project an inclusive and disability-friendly presence. eSSENTIAL Accessibility delivers instant impact by virtue of its assistive technology application, a suite of keyboard, mouse and touch replacement tools designed to make the digital world accessible to people with physical disabilities. EnterWorks Sponsors Coresight Researchs 10 Retail Trends for 2019 Report "We are pleased to sponsor this important research and to be collaborating with Deborah as she continues her exceptional run as the top retail tech analyst of this generation. EnterWorks, a leading provider of Master Data Management (MDM) and Product Information Management (PIM) solutions, is proud to sponsor Coresight Researchs 10 Retail Trends for 2019 Report. The report, available for download here and also sponsored by two other premier technology vendors, highlight the top retail trends according to Coresight Research that are leading to a year of reinvention for the retail sector as a whole and for physical stores in particular. Coresight Research, the leader in retail technology research, helps retail clients accelerate innovation and growth. They focus on disruption at the intersection of retail and technology and help customers understand what it means for their business. Coresight Research has a global presence spanning the US, Europe and Asia, including deep expertise in the China market. We expect 2019 to be a year marked by spectacular retail, fast retail and smart retail. By the end of 2019, we expect to see spectacular new flagships, many more online-to-offline ventures and smarter supply chains, offered CEO & Founder of Coresight Research, Deborah Weinswig. We also anticipate that companies will embed artificial intelligence across retail functions, yielding improved communications and better experiences for customers, while enabling smarter decisions on inventories and pricing. The result will be a global retail sector that is stronger and better equipped to serve rising consumer expectations. We are pleased to sponsor this important research and to be collaborating with Deborah as she continues her exceptional run as the top retail tech analyst of this generation, said Rick Chavie, CEO of EnterWorks. Every retailer can draw on the insights in this report to help guide them through the plethora of technology choices confronting them as they seek to remain relevant in the increasingly digitized retail world, Weinswig as a panelist, along with Chavie as moderator, will be participating in EnterWorks Big Ideas panel today, Monday, January 14 at 3:15pm in the Expo Hall of NRF 2019: Retails Big Show. The panel will also feature the following thought leaders: Steven Keith Platt, Research Director for Northwestern Universitys Retail Analytics Council and its AI Lab; and Roy Taylor, CEO of Ryff, creator of a next gen, AI-based advertising platform for individualized product placement in film, TV and video. EnterWorks at NRF 2019 Retails Big Show Big Ideas Session Save the date and time for EnterWorks Big Idea Session, featuring an expert panel on experiential disruption that will explore "How Combinatorial Intelligence(TM) Enables Differentiation Through Precise Personalization" to learn more. Monday, January 14, 2019 3:15 p.m. 3:45 p.m. Expo Hall, Stage 5, Level 3 Fender Guitar Giveaway Stop by the EnterWorks Booth #2743 for a chance to win a Fender Stratocaster Guitar! EnterWorks and its MDM and PIM client Fender will be randomly giving away one guitar (valued at $699.99) per day (Sunday, Monday and Tuesday) just for stopping by the EnterWorks booth. Learn more about the Fender and EnterWorks partnership here. Booth #2743 Demonstration Schedule a demonstration of EnterWorks MDM and PIM and discuss AI thought leadership ideas with the EnterWorks team at Booth #2743. About EnterWorks EnterWorks Master Data Management (MDM) and Product Information Management (PIM) solution enables companies to acquire, manage and transform product information into persuasive content that drives higher sales and new competitive strengths through e-commerce Web, mobile, print and various electronic channels. Services offered include: Master Data Management, Product Information Management, Dynamic Data Modeling, Workflow & Collaboration, Syndication & Publishing, Digital Asset Management, Geographic Localization, Portal Content Exchange, and Digital Channel Accelerators. EnterWorks is highly ranked by various research analysts and used by industry leaders such as: Ariens, Big Rock Sports, CPO Commerce, Creative Converting, Darigold, Fender Musical Instruments, Guthy-Renker, Hearth & Home Technologies, HON Furniture, HP Hood, Interline Brands, Johnstone Supply, Mary Kay, Mercer, Orgill, Publishers Clearing House, Restoration Hardware, Strategic Market Alliance, US Foods, and W.B. Mason. Learn more at http://www.enterworks.com. I am honored to once again be selected as a Top Patient-Rated Plastic Surgeon because my patients ultimately determine my success, says Dr. Evan Ransom. Dr. Evan Ransom is a leader in his field as a Double Board-Certified, Ivy League-educated and fellowship-trained Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon. As the lead surgeon and director of the San Francisco Center for Facial Plastic, Reconstructive & Laser Surgery in California, Dr. Ransom serves patients with a personal philosophy to preserve the unique identity of each patient while helping them to look better and feel more confident. Dr. Ransom is known in the Bay Area for superior results in facelift, rhinoplasty, blepharoplasty and other facial cosmetic surgery procedures. The fulfillment of Dr. Ransoms approach to facial plastic surgery is undoubtedly reflected in the superior reviews and five-star ratings left by his actual patients this year. Such outstanding reviews across multiple credible online sources has led Find Local Doctors to feature Dr. Ransom as one of San Franciscos 2019 Top Patient-Rated Plastic Surgeons, an award he has received for the second year in a row. Find Local Doctors is a credible online directory that allows consumers to easily connect with reputable and qualified physicians in their geographical area. I am honored to once again be selected as a Top Patient-Rated Plastic Surgeon because my patients ultimately determine my success, says Dr. Evan Ransom. The Top Patient-Rated award is one of many honors and credentials that Dr. Ransom has earned in his career. Dr. Ransom has been recognized as a Castle Connolly Top Doctor for multiple years and featured on the RealSelf 500 list. He is most known for his elite reconstructive skills as well as his ability to address the concerns of aging with minimally-invasive procedures that are long-lasting and produce natural-looking results. Dr. Ransom routinely performs advanced facelifts, eyelid lifts, forehead lifts, fat grafting and reconstructive surgery for complex facial defects. For patients who want to avoid surgery, he offers an expansive line of the most proven facial injectables and chemical peels as well as ablative and non-ablative laser treatments. About Dr. Evan Ransom of San Francisco Center for Facial Plastic, Reconstructive & Laser Surgery: Owner and facial plastic surgeon, Dr. Evan Ransom is Ivy League educated and Double Board Certified, He carries elite fellowship training in facial plastic, reconstructive, and laser surgery. Dr. Ransom is an attending surgeon at the California Pacific Medical Center, St. Marys Medical Center, and St. Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco, as well as Marin General Hospital. He is the author of over 30 medical studies and textbook chapters and has given numerous lectures at national meetings. Beyond his distinguished education, Dr. Ransom has received high accolades and numerous awards for excellence in his field. If you would like to learn more about Dr. Ransom or his reconstructive and cosmetic services, please call the San Francisco office at (415) 550-1077 or visit their website at http://www.sanfranciscofacialplasticsurgery.com. 2018 VAR Stars Logo Continuous improvement is a major focus for us at Crestwood. Just one of the ways that we measure that success is appearing on lists of top VARs, like Bob Scotts. This is a great reward for us to know that we are being recognized for our expertise and innovation. Brian McGuckin, Partner Crestwood Associates has again been named to Bob Scotts list of VAR Stars for 2018, a group of 100 organizations honored for their accomplishments in the field of midmarket financial software. This is Crestwoods fifth consecutive year appearing on the list. The VAR Stars are chosen from organizations that sell and implement various types of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and accounting software. Continuous improvement is a major focus for us at Crestwood. Just one of the ways that we measure that success is appearing on lists of top VARs, like Bob Scotts. This is a great reward for us to know that we are being recognized for our expertise and innovation. Brian McGuckin, Partner How they choose the VAR Stars... Members of the VAR Stars were selected based on factors such growth, industry leadership and recognition, and innovation. Selection is not based on revenue and those firms chosen represent a wide range of size and many different software publishers of accounting software. To view the VAR Stars for 2018, check out the PDF. Crestwood continues to prove that they are a top Acumatica, Microsoft Dynamics, and MYOB Greentree partner servicing over 450 clients in 21 states and Canada. This is one of the many awards Crestwood has received over the years, continuously being recognized by Microsoft as a Presidents Choice Award recipient, the reigning Acumatica Partner of the Year (2016 and 2017), as well as making the Accounting Today Top 100 VAR list each year since 2015. Why Crestwood? Crestwood Associates enjoys consistent growth due to an unwavering commitment by every member of the Crestwood network. During planning, implementation, and maintenance, Crestwood's clients have access to an unparalleled level of support and guidance from their account managers, instructional how-to videos, an extensive library of informative blog posts, and more. Many associates are chosen throughout the year to present at industry events, such as GPUG Summit, Acumatica Summit, various conferences, and more. About Crestwood Associates, LLC Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Mount Prospect, Illinois, Crestwood Associates is a premier Cloud Service Provider (CSP), Gold Certified Microsoft Dynamics Partner, 10-time Presidents Club Award Winner, and 2017 Inner Circle recipient. In addition, Crestwood was honored to be chosen as Acumatica's US Partner of the Year in 2016 and 2017. Crestwood delivers a variety of business solutions, including: Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Dynamics CRM (now called Dynamics 365 for Sales), Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Acumatica Cloud ERP, and Greentree applications. From accounting and financial reporting, to CRM, manufacturing, distribution, payroll and human resources, Crestwood Associates provides the tools and services that help businesses perform above and beyond the competition. In a cloud-first world, you can rely on Crestwood to provide the right tools to run your business. The Crestwood team is comprised of over 45 certified professionals who provide in-depth industry experience and functional expertise. About Bob Scott Bob Scott has been informing and entertaining the mid-market financial software community via his email newsletters for 19 years. He has published this information via the Bob Scotts Insights newsletter and website since 2009. He has covered this market for more than 25 years through print and electronic publications, first as technology editor of Accounting Today and then as the Editor of Accounting Technology from 1997 through 2009. He has covered the traditional tax and accounting profession during the same time and has continued to address that market as executive editor of the Progressive Accountant since 2009. The war on terrorism needs to be fought less in military battles and more within Egypt, against institutions such as al-Azhar, which has continued to promote the totalitarian hate ideology of Salafi and Wahabi Islamists and produce intolerance and terrorism Coptic Solidarity welcomes the opening of a new cathedral in Egypts administrative Capital. Yet, a single church remains only symbolic, as it is not accompanied by genuine changes in the Copts conditions. It is not a reason to deny the ongoing persecution of Egypts Copts at the hands of the Egyptian government and society, or their lack of religious freedom. It does little to rectify the decades-long onerous restrictions by the Egyptian government on the repair and construction of churches. Many towns remain without a single church. In a recent report published by The Early Warning Project, run by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Egypt was ranked the third most likely country for a genocide to occur. Aside from the severe restriction on construction and repair of churches, Copts live as second-class citizens in every other area of life, and face increasing attacks on their persons and properties, driving about 15% of Copts to emigrate from Egypt in just the last few years. In August 2016, Egypt passed Law 80, which was touted to facilitate and streamline the church construction process. Yet, a recent study by POMED on implementation of this law, found that as of November 2018, the Egyptian government had issued only eight permits for construction of new churches, an approval rate that is lower than that under President Mubarak, and of the approximately 3,800 unlicensed churches awaiting legalization, the authorities conditionally recognized only 627 and permanently closed nine. Underscoring the current predicament of Christians in Egypt, the Mar Girgis Church in Minya was illegally closed and two priests were forced out, just two days after the opening of the new cathedral. Coptic Solidarity challenges recent statements by US officials and the delegation that visited Egypt claiming that opening of the cathedral demonstrates the high level of religious freedom in Egypt and other effusive praise for the Egyptian government. Such statements directly contradict the reality of increasing persecution and discrimination against Copts and all other minorities in Egypt as documented in the annual IRF report on Egypt, by the USCIRF, civil society, and the data on church construction. Coptic Solidarity endorses efforts to combat Islamic terrorism and ensure Egypts security and stability. It also acknowledges Egypts important role in the stability of the region. Coptic Solidarity has previously asserted that achieving such objectives need not be at the expense of human rights and religious freedom, consistent with Secretary Pompeos assertions. As Coptic Solidarity president, Dr. George Gurguis, stated in his testimony before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, The war on terrorism needs to be fought less in military battles and more within Egypt (and Saudi Arabia), against institutions such as al-Azhar, which has continued to promote the totalitarian hate ideology of Salafi and Wahabi Islamists and produce intolerance and terrorism. President Sisis call for reform of Islamic religious discourse., was never translated into action. Promoting human rights and religious freedom is an intrinsic value of the US and an integral part of its foreign policy. Turning a blind eye to the ongoing severe discrimination and persecution perpetuated by the Egyptian government against religious minorities will only create a more unstable Egypt, perpetuate security threats, and undermine the US governments reputation as a nation that promotes religious freedom and equality for all. Coptic Solidarity is an organization seeking to help minorities, particularly the Copts, of Egypt and we support those in Egypt working for democracy, freedom, and the protection of the fundamental rights of all Egyptian citizens. It advocates in cooperation with the affiliated organizations in Canada and in Europe (Solidarite Copte). For more information, contact Lindsay Griffin at 801-512-1713 or coptadvocacy(at)copticsolidarity(dot)org. Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili. Market Snapshot Compressed natural gas (CNG) powered Vehicles offer an alternative to traditional petrol or diesel-powered Vehicles due to the combustion of methane with oxygen and water vapor which burns cleanly and has lower carbon emissions. The global CNG Vehicles market recorded revenue of USD 1,09,783.6 Mn in 2017 and is expected to appreciate to an approximate market value of USD 1,85,422.3 Mn. The global market is slated to witness growth at a CAGR of 5.96% during the forecast period from 2019 to 2025. This MRFR market perspective presents an objective outlook towards the global market for CNG Vehicles. It also includes a seven-year (2019-2025) market forecast, until 2025. The research document includes a comprehensive discussion on the market dynamics as well as sub-markets of CNG Vehicles. The sub-markets comprise OME CNG Vehicles products and car modification CNG Vehicles products. In the report, revenue analysis based on major application areas for CNG Vehicles covers personal use and commercial use. The prominent players in the CNG Vehicles Market are- Volkswagen Group, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Hyundai Motor Company, Daimler AG, Toyota Motor Corporation, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Groupe PSA, Volvo Group, Honda Motor Co. Ltd., Renault and Suzuki Motor Corporation. Get Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/6497 CNG Vehicles Market Segmentation: By Product Type OEM Car Modification By Application Personal use Commercial use By Region North America Europe Asia Pacific (Japan, China, India, South Korea) RoW (rest of the world) Regional Analysis: The Rest of the World accounts for a market share of over 46% making it a key market for CNG Vehicles. Iran Pakistan and GCC countries are among the key country-level markets in the region. In GCC countries the CNG Vehicles market is witnessing growth as air pollution, and traffic congestion has encouraged emerging economies in the GCC to encourage adoption of CNG to reduce carbon emissions. Reduced price of natural gas which offers an overall reduction in Vehicles ownership and travel is highly attractive in the major countries of this region where CNG adoption is high. Government regulations in the region are additionally, encouraging CNG Vehicles adoption. These factors are expected to increase sales of CNG during the forecast period. China is another significant country-level market which has a market share exceeding 18%. The Chinese government has increased tax waiver initiatives to encourage the adoption of CNG Vehicles. High levels of air pollution have resulted in stringent government regulations in an effort to reduce carbon emissions. Moreover, improvement of infrastructure and tax incentives, combined with increasing environmental awareness have contributed significantly to Chinas leadership position in the global CNG Vehicles market. Japan has a comparable growth pattern to China which also makes it a significant market. Moreover, several key CNG Vehicles manufacturers are present in the country, thus contributing to Japans position in the market. Browse Full Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/cng-Vehicles-market-6497 Report Coverage Historical market trends, market dynamics, forecast, market value by region as well as by segmentation, country-level analysis for each market segment, key players market share analysis and market factor analysis which covers supply chain and Porters five forces analysis of the market. About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. Contact: Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar, Pune 411028, Maharashtra, India +1 646 845 9312 Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com We are all familiar with if not victims of hurtful lines that have been drawn to separate and exclude - Gregg Louis Taylor Author, Speaker, and Pastor, Gregg Louis Taylor, has been closing the gaps between the marginalized and the majority for 30 years. His new book Here, Now, With You: Six Movements of Compassion for Life and Leadership, with a foreword by Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries and author of Tattoos on the Heart, explores the reality of a compassionate God who is always here and present with each of us. Taylor invites readers to embrace God's presence in a way that motivates us to be compassionately present for others. Simply, to "Be compassionate, as God is compassionate (Luke 6:36). We are all familiar with if not victims of hurtful lines that have been drawn to separate and exclude, says Taylor, Through my work with people feeling the weight of marginalization homeless folks, addicts, immigrants, incarcerated men and women, juveniles caught up in the justice system, and many who have been wounded by the church Ive seen this reality have profound implications for individuals, for society, and in faith communities. Nearly half of Americans report feeling lonely, and its impacting our lifespan. Former U.S. surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, says the loneliness epidemic in our country has the same impact on our lifespan as smoking 15 cigarettes day. There is an answer for this loneliness epidemic, says Taylor. Compassion. So, where does our resistance lie? How do we become more receptive to being compassionate to others? Where do we start? Taylor responds to these questions in a relatable, practical style in Here, Now, With You, published by Abingdon Press. With accessible theological depth, Taylor lays out a path forward through personal reflection and group discussions. The book speaks to church leaders who want to cultivate a wildly welcoming, compassionate space of grace in which anyone touched by their community feels accepted and loved. The book also inspires everyday people to become more aware of compassions inner stirring, step into unfamiliar spaces, and be present in one anothers lives. The great Gregg Louis Taylor, in this book, helps us put one compassionate foot in front of the next, writes Boyle in the books foreword, Gregg takes us on a rich journey that reminds us all of our unshakeable goodness and comforts us as we choose the praxis of tenderness. The book is scheduled for release February 19, 2019, and is available for pre-order now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Abingdon Press, and other online book retailers. For more information about the book and Gregg Louis Taylor, visit http://www.gregglouistaylor.com. About Gregg Louis Taylor Gregg Louis Taylor is a regularly sought after speaker and the Pastor and Community Architect for Houston: reVision, an organization that leverages the power of compassionate community to connect gang-affected youth with adult mentors, positive peer experiences and life-changing resources, empowering them to revise the stories of their lives. Taylor is an ordained United Methodist Church pastor, co-hosts the reClaimed podcast and is the author of Here, Now, With You: Six Movements of Compassion for Life and Leadership. For more information visit Taylors website at http://www.gregglouistaylor.com or connect with him at Instagram.com/gregglouistaylor, Facebook.com/gregglouistaylor, Twitter.com/GreggLTaylor, and Linkedin.com/in/revgreggtaylor Getting online quotes will help drivers find better deals and plan their insurance budget, said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company. Compare-autoinsurance.org has released a new blog post that explains the main benefits of getting car insurance quotes online. Living in the age of the Internet has certain perks and advantages. Many of them are reflected in the way we shop for products and service. Buying online grants unprecedented flexibility and customization. Drivers who want to get coverage or to switch carriers should use online car insurance quotes. They offer the following advantages: They can help drivers save money. Comparing online quotes will help drivers find affordable deals. It is possible to save hundreds of dollars, even thousands of dollars in the case of high-risk drivers. Get in touch with multiple insurance companies. Most people only go to the big established companies, and in that way miss the newly established companies that could offer better deals in order to attract new customers. Today, using online car insurance quotes, it is easier to find those newly established companies. A very convenient way to get estimates. Drivers can get quotes from the comfort of their homes. All they need is an internet connection and a device capable to browse and display online insurance quotes (devices like smartphone, tablet, notebook, PC, etc.). A physical insurance agency has a fixed schedule, while online insurance quotes are available 24/7. Get multiple estimates. Clients can get each quote individually, or use brokerage websites to get multiple estimates on a single results page. The user has to fill up an online form and will get multiple insurance quotes from insurance companies available in his area. This will save precious time. Accurate estimates. Filling complex questionnaires with accurate data provided by the customer will lead to similar real-life insurance rates. The more honest a customer is, the better is the quote estimate. For more details and free online quotes, please visit http://compare-autoinsurance.org Compare-autoinsurance.org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc. Car Thief Comprehensive coverage will financially help you if your car is damaged or totaled by events not covered by collision insurance, said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company. Compare-autoinsurance.org has launched a new blog post that explains what events are covered by comprehensive car insurance and why drivers should buy it. This policy will reimburse the policyholder if the car is damaged by events not related to a collision. Comprehensive coverage will provide financial support if one of the following scenarios happens: The car is stolen. Comprehensive coverage is the only policy that reimburses a policyholder for car theft. Insurance companies will use the cars value at the moment it was stolen in order to provide compensation. Extreme weather. As recently seen in the United States, weather can wreak havoc. Annually, a huge number of cars are destroyed during hurricanes, tornados, wildfires, hail storms or avalanches. This policy covers weather-related damage. Animals can also pose a serious threat. Comprehensive coverage will pay the driver if he hits a car and damages his car. Hitting large animals such as moose, horses, cattle can easily total a car. It also covers scenarios when animals attack the car and destroy it. Vandalism or riots. Even cars parked in relatively safe locations are not spared by people with criminal intents. While graffiti and eggs can be cleaned, scratches, dents, or broken headlights need a visit to a car repair shop and will cost a significant amount of money. In the case of riots, the car can be set aflame and totally destroyed. For additional info, money-saving tips and free car insurance quotes, visit https://compare-autoinsurance.org/ Compare-autoinsurance.org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc. Giordanos comprehensive experience across a diverse plane of businesses makes him well suited for CMP and our customers, said Dr. William Drury, CMP President & CEO. We are extremely pleased to have him join the pool and spa industry as well as our own company. Following an extensive search, Custom Molded Products (CMP) announces the appointment of Joseph Giordano as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) effective December 3, 2018. Giordano joins CMP bringing considerable financial experience across multiple industries, including aviation and recreational vehicle components manufacturing. CMP is an excellent company, with an outstanding management team serving dynamic industries, which I am excited to join, said Giordano. I look forward to adding value to CMP through leveraging my experience in supplying components to higher end industries. As CFO and leader of the growing suppliers financial team, Giordanos role is pivotal in the financial success of CMP. In this capacity, along with the Executive team, Giordano will help orchestrate future acquisitions, equity and debt financings of the organization, and other financial matters to allow CMP to better serve its customers. Giordanos comprehensive experience across a diverse plane of businesses makes him well suited for CMP and our customers, said Dr. William Drury, CEO and President of CMP. We are extremely pleased to have him join the pool and spa industry as well as our own company, he added. As co-architect of the companys financial landscape, Giordanos contribution will help strategically leverage CMP as a multi-dimensional company in the recreational water and outdoor leisure industry. Giordano most recently served as CFO at Wencor Group, maker of FAA-approved alternate aviation replacement components, supporting many of the commercial airlines, repair stations and OEMs worldwide. Prior to Wencor, Giordano was CFO and Treasurer for Drew Industries Incorporated. He began his career at some of the largest accounting firms including KPMG and Deloitte. Giordano earned his Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Western Connecticut State University, and is a certified public accountant. About CMP CMP is a leading US based manufacturer of pool, spa and bath components. The global supplier provides innovative solutions to industry professionals including spa jets, water and fire features, LED products, white goods and more, as well as advanced sanitizer systems for residential and commercial facilities. CMP was founded with the premise, Take care of our customers and they will take care of us. CMP has been recognized extensively in the last year adding four new companies to its portfolio and largely growing market share across CMP brands. In 2018, the growing manufacturer was named top vendor in pool market by some of the industrys leading buying groups. CMP brands include: Bobe Water & Fire, DEL, Powerclean, Natural Wonders, Brilliant Wonders, Smart Sync, Pool Defender, Hydroseal, Air X, SQR, AquaEffects, Caresse, AquaElements, Flowskim and Spectrum. CMP designs, manufactures and distributes product from multiple locations including the United States, The Netherlands and Australia. CMP Products are carried by distributors and OEMs in the US, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. Visit c-m-p.com for more information. Cantsinks ICC-certified products provide documented performance quality attesting to their design and fabrication integrity. And Cantsink charges installers no franchise fees, directly selling products made in Cantsinks net-zero-energy facility to end users. Founded in 1988 in Atlanta, GA, Cantsink will display its red, white and true-blue colors in Booth #S13306 at the World of Concrete in the Las Vegas Convention Center, January 21-25, 2019. Made in the USA from 100 percent U.S. steel, Cantsink products are available throughout the nation. With support from a team of regional sales representatives, Cantsink offers free training for installers and ongoing support to its network of certified installers. This year, Kevin Spellacy joins other regional representatives on the Cantsink team to support customers with patented products and unsurpassed customer service in the Indiana market. Andrew Carter leads Cantsinks national sales from its Atlanta headquarters. He also works in concert with Dara Macias, covering Tennessee and hurricane recovery areas of the Northeast, and Rick Pashman, covering Florida. Cantsink has been in the business of underground stabilization for 30 years, and manufactures certified helical piers ranging in size from eight inches to 19 inches. Whatever the soil or climate conditions, Cantsink offers cost-effective products to meet every construction application. Cantsink remains focused on helping customers with patented product design and long-established expertise in the helical market. Cantsink Founder and CEO Patrick Hutchinson said the companys patented design is only one part of what separates its products from the competition. Cantsink offers permanent stability, expertise amassed over three decades, and peace of mind with a 40-year manufacturers warranty, one of the industrys best, he said. Cantsinks ICC-certified products provide documented performance quality attesting to their design and fabrication integrity. And Cantsink charges installers no franchise fees, directly selling products made in Cantsinks net-zero-energy facility to end users. Cantsinks energy savings and the special shape of its helix, which reduces waste, helps keep prices low. Contractors and construction professionals can receive free installation certification training at its Atlanta location. Client success is central to the companys mission, which is why Cantsink provides ongoing lead generation, marketing support and in-depth industry knowledge. With the recent expansion of Cantsinks manufacturing and storage facilities, the company is perfectly positioned to provide fast turn-around on orders, because customers project schedules are top priority. Supporting innovation for 30 years, these are the reasons Cantsink remains a structural stability leader. While learning more about Cantsink quality, innovation and customer service at Booth #13306, register for the drawing that will give away a portable Bluetooth speaker, or sign up online at http://www.cantsink.com/lp-world-of-concrete/ . Invitation - Open to families with special needs ABA was the best choice for our family and allowed our children to maintain their personalities while working through the anxiety and sensitivities often found in autism spectrum disorders. Autism is a developmental disorder that affects more than 3.5 million individuals ability to communicate and socialize with others. With the current rates being shown as approximately 1 in 59 individuals, chances are you know someone on the autism spectrum. While autism cannot be cured, there are a variety of therapy options to help teach a child with autism methods of communication and skills to interact with others. These options can help set a child up for success in their home, school, and into adulthood. One of the nations largest providers of autism therapy, Autism Learning Partners, exists to help parents navigate this stressful time through applied behavior analysis (ABA therapy). ALP serves families by implementing programs in the childs home, community, and often school programs to help support the functional skills necessary to succeed in various stages of life. For example, many children on the spectrum experience difficulty communicating with their peers and other critical individuals in their lives. This lack of communication and social skills can impact individuals in multiple ways such as their ability to build friendships, thrive in group settings, or participate effectively in group environments. In other scenarios, children may display other challenging behaviors such as aggression or a complete lack of verbal language which can dramatically impact their ability to experience independence as an adult later in life. One mother shared her experience with ABA therapy explaining that, ABA was the best choice for our family and allowed our children to maintain their personalities while working through the anxiety and sensitivities often found in autism spectrum disorders.[1] The familys three children who received ABA therapy eventually went on to be in gifted and talented programs in school, with one child even attending an international baccalaureate program. Without ABA therapy, this level of independence may not have been possible. ABA was imperative to their successes, stated the childrens mother. Autism Learning Partners, the parent company of the ALP Center for Autism - Bothell, has been serving children and families with autism for over 30 years; however, the recent increase in demand for services from families in WA facilitated opening in February, 2018 led by the local Clinical Director, Courtney Nolan, M.Ed., BCBA. The center has a number of components to serve community needs including a large classroom space, a large sensory/motor room, and 4 individual clinic rooms for individualized focus with a certified behavioral technician. This space is planned to host different group options for all ages, including after school programs, social skills groups, parent training groups, and part-day early intervention programs for children as young as 18 months. The ALP Center for Autism - Bothell is holding a family and friends open house event for families with special needs to see our new ABA center firsthand. The open house will take place on Saturday February 2nd from 10:00 AM 2:00 PM and will include free games, activities, food, and a raffle for all attendees. The raffle will include a family four-pack to the Pacific Science Center, another family four-pack to the Woodland Park Zoo, and a gift package to We Rock the Spectrum! For more information and to RSVP for the event, please visit autismlearningpartners.com/bothell For additional information about ALPs services in Washington please also feel free to contact Courtney Nolan, M.Ed., BCBA at cnolan@autismlearningpartners.com [1] This testimonial was solicited from a past Autism Learning Partners client The IIS Executive Council, at its December 2018 meeting, elected Avivas Executive Chairman of Asia, Chris Wei, to Chair the Council. With immediate effect, Mr. Wei will succeed Greig Woodring, former President & CEO of RGA, who will remain on the Executive Council serving as Immediate Past Chair. Greig leaves big shoes to fill; under his stewardship IIS has flourished, expanding its profile significantly with new initiatives and pioneering partnerships. Most recently, Greig led IIS through the successful affiliation with The Institutes, positioning IIS for greater expansion. We are grateful for Greigs commitment and steady hand at the helm of IIS for more than five years and we are very pleased to have found in Chris such a worthy successor, says Mike Morrissey, IIS President and CEO. Chris has been a member of the IIS leadership for several years, working closely with Greig and the Council members in plotting the course for IIS. Chris has not only embraced, but has helped shape the IIS's strategy and vision for the future. Chris serves as a guiding voice for IIS, providing expertise on a dynamic marketplace from the perspective of an industry frontrunner in Asia and globally. With the 2019 Global Insurance Forum taking place in Singapore, there is no better representation of IIS than Chris and we are proud to have him in this leadership role, says Greig Woodring. On behalf of all the members of the Executive Council, I would like to congratulate Chris on his election to Chairman with full recognition of the tremendous value he has already added to the IIS for the last many years as a member of our leadership team and with the greatest confidence that his leadership will continue to enhance IIS as a force for industry development. I am honored to have been elected to serve as Chair of the IIS Executive Council, said Mr. Wei. The global marketplace is evolving at an accelerated pace with rapid technological advancement. I believe innovation in insurance can bring about real social impact and mitigate some of the greatest challenges facing society today. It is therefore imperative for insurers to collaborate with all stakeholders to strengthen the resilience of the industry and improve the lives of our customers at the same time. IIS provides a perfect platform for us to do just that to drive betterment of the industry and communities. Mr. Wei joined Aviva in October 2014 as CEO Global Life Insurance. Since then, his role has evolved and he is currently the Executive Chairman for Asia and Friends Provident International, as well as the Global Chairman for Aviva Digital. From 2011 to 2014, Mr. Wei was Group CEO and Executive Director of Great Eastern Holdings Ltd and many of its key subsidiaries. Great Eastern is one of the most established insurance groups in Asia. During his tenure, Chris was responsible for successfully driving Great Eastern's business growth and further entrenching market leadership in its home markets of Singapore and Malaysia. Mr. Wei also served as Deputy Chairman of Lion Global Investors, a leading South-East Asian asset management firm, and was a Director of Singapore Reinsurance Corporation Ltd. Prior to this, Chris was the Executive Vice President and Group Chief Marketing Officer of AIA Limited. He also previously held the position of CEO at AIG United Guaranty Insurance (Asia) Limited and held various positions at ING Canada and Allstate Insurance Company of Canada, where his roles included Chief Risk Officer. ### About International Insurance Society IIS serves as the inclusive voice of the industry, providing a platform for both private and public stakeholders to promote resilience, drive innovation, and stimulate the development of markets. Our members include life and nonlife insurers from developed and emerging markets, as well as brokers, scholars, regulators and advisors. By virtue of its diverse membership, IIS is recognized for its global convening power amongst all stakeholders of the industry. IIS provides a policy neutral platform that explores the forces that shape the industry, supports industry expansion, and enhances the relevance of the industrys stature in the global economy. Its signature annual event, the Global Insurance Forum, is considered the premier industry conference and is attended by 500+ insurance leaders from around the globe. Founded in 1965, the IIS is a 501(c)3 not for profit organization based in New York, NY. IIS is an affiliate of The Institutes. Internationalinsurance.org About The Institutes | Risk and Insurance Knowledge Group As the industrys trusted and respected knowledge leader, The Institutes are committed to meeting the evolving professional development needs of risk management and insurance professionals through innovative research, networking, and career resources. The Institutes offers 28 designations, including the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU). Other offerings include certificate and introductory programs, online and continuing education courses, leadership education, custom solutions and assessments, and industry consortiums such as the RiskBlock Alliance. TheInstitutes.org. CPCU is a registered trademark of The Institutes. All rights reserved. Audacity Health | Brand Strategy for Health and Science We have no doubt that this bi-coastal access to our teams will serve to continue delivering tremendous value. Audacity Health, LLC, a premier brand strategy and activation agency for health and life sciences, announced this week the grand opening of their new Boston office location. The company is currently headquartered in San Diego and strategically situated in a West Coast hotbed for biotech and life sciences. The announcement of their new East Coast office signals even easier access to scientific branding strategy and creative expertise of the Audacity team. Formerly a member of global Huntsworth Health, Audacity is proudly under new private ownership since October 2017. The past year has been a year of tremendous growth as Audacity has expanded both its team and client roster. Audacity has been successfully serving many prestigious health and life sciences brands all across the United States for yearsincluding both startups and Fortune 500 companies. The team is comprised of a diverse and symbiotic team that enables the alchemy of art, science, and strategy. The expansion of our Audacity family is an exciting step toward our growing geographic presence, said Jill Collins, PhD, Chief Strategy Officer and Partner for the company. This new opportunity in Boston is all about continuing to provide world-class service. And as we continue to push innovation and connect brands to their local and global markets, we have no doubt that this bi-coastal access to our teams will serve to continue delivering the tremendous value that we are happy to provide to our clients all across the country. The new East Coast Audacity office is located in Bostons Back Bay neighborhood, just a short skip over to Cambridge where many of the citys biotech leaders, organizations, and companies reside. If interested in meeting the Audacity team or discussing your 2019 brand goals, please visit the newly redesigned Audacity Health website and let us know at audacityhealth.com. ABOUT AUDACITY HEALTH Audacity is a brand strategy + activation agency that builds powerful brands by sparking emotions because we ensure the human element is central to everything we create. Our integrated brand strategy and activation solutions help our health and science clients become market leaders. Our proprietary solutions help our clients successfully create and launch new brands, refresh or reposition existing brands, and create and deploy campaigns that shift perceptions and generate results. Our branding capabilities extend all the way from the corporate level down to a single product level. We serve clients across the whole continuum of health + science, including both startups and Fortune 500 companies focused on: biotechnology and life sciences diagnostics, medical device and pharmaceuticals consumer health and wellness Learn more at audacityhealth.com. More patients are taking advantage of our unique integrative care model & minimally-invasive approach to pain management. We are thrilled to extend our practice by opening a new clinic in Mountain View, allowing more patients to access our superior care & innovative treatments, says Dr. Petros. Dr. James Petros, Medical Director of Allied Pain & Spine Institute is pleased to announce the opening of yet another office location for the thriving practice, which is located at 100 W. El Camino Real in Mountain View, CA 94040. The new clinic is slated to open in mid-February and will offer the same comprehensive menu of pain management solutions as the other three clinics in San Jose and Los Gatos. Allied Pain & Spine Institute is set apart by its personalized care and multi-disciplinary approach to pain management. Allied Pain & Spine is staffed with doctors, chiropractors and other medical professionals that are qualified to deliver cutting-edge treatments for a wide variety of injuries, chronic diseases and spinal disorders. Treatment modalities range from minimally-invasive spine surgery, pain counseling and regenerative medicine to chiropractic care, acupuncture and more. All clinics also have physicians who are specially trained, certified and qualified under the Drug Addiction Treatment Act to prescribe Suboxone to combat opioid drug dependence. The opening of the Mountain View clinic will provide valued convenience for patients living or working in the Peninsula. The new office will also feature a Doctor of Physical Therapy, Dr. Jeremy Ballint as well Chinese-speaking physicians. These medical professionals bring extensive experience and diverse training in order to better help the vast range of patients that Allied Pain & Spine Institute aims to treat. More and more patients are taking advantage of our unique integrative care model and minimally-invasive approach to pain management. We are thrilled to extend our practice by opening a new clinic in Mountain View, which will allow more patients to access our superior care and innovative treatment modalities, says Dr. James Petros. More About Dr. James Petros, Medical Director of Allied Pain & Spine Institute: Dr. James Petros is the founder of Allied Pain & Spine Institute, subspecializing in pain management and musculoskeletal rehabilitation. With his diverse professional and personal backgrounds, Dr. Petros has transcended the science of pain medicine and captured the art of its practice. His integrated approach and balanced understanding of injury and illness are testaments to his unique style. Dr. Petros is an accomplished clinician, researcher, author, and regional speaker in the areas of injury and functional rehabilitation. He also works with Boston Scientific in the area of pain management. Dr. Petros reached the culmination of his medical education and training at Stanford University Medical Center, has received numerous honors and awards along his extensive journey. In the course of his budding professional career, Dr. Petros has already gained notable recognition from Americas Top Physicians and the Whos Who registry for his work in pain care and rehabilitation. To learn more about the opening of the new clinic in Mountain View or to schedule an appointment with Dr. James Petros, please visit http://www.myalliedpain.com or call one of his current office locations in San Jose or Los Gatos, CA. Prepared by Find Local Company Alignable's Co-Founders Eric Groves and Venkat Krishnamurthy have something new to celebrate. Alignable now has more than three million members. Today, over 10 percent of the small businesses in North America have a presence on Alignable. Ultimately, we want to expand our services, so all small business owners see Alignable as their most-trusted business resource. Alignable.com, The Small Business Network, has surpassed another major milestone: now 3 million+ small businesses are part of its North American membership, making it the largest online network of SMBs in the U.S. and Canada. While membership momentum has been rapid, engagement across the platform also has seen dramatic increases with more members than ever using Alignable to help each other build their businesses. Ive seen many SMB networks struggle to gather the 'snowflakes' of small business at scale, but clearly Alignable is on to something given this eye-popping milestone, said the B2SMB Institutes Co-Founder and CEO Dave Walker. I would credit the combination of relevance, of trustworthiness, and of ease of use that delivered these numbers, and I would anticipate their growth only gets bigger and faster from here. Alignables CEO and Co-Founder Eric Groves added, Today, over 10 percent of the small businesses in North America have a presence on Alignable. And were helping those members gain access to vital tools and resources that will fuel their success. Ultimately, we want to expand our services, so all small business owners see Alignable as their most-trusted business resource. To date, a whopping 42 million+ connections have been made across the U.S. and Canada on Alignable, up 40 percent over the past three months. Beyond that, millions of members have exchanged referrals and recommendations. This activity has helped improve visibility for members, driving more traffic and leads their way. To keep driving the growth of member businesses, the company has many new campaigns, partnerships, and product features launching in 2019, including the search for each communitys Small Businessperson of the Year, which has attracted thousands of nominations. For any small business owners who are not part of Alignable yet, but want to benefit from the know-how shared by its three million members, click here to join for free. And for others who would like to work at Alignable, several key positions are open. Go to Alignable.com to apply. ABOUT ALIGNABLE Alignable is quickly evolving into the voice of small business. It's an established, yet rapidly growing platform where 3 million+ small business owners network together across 30,000+ communities in North America. Members use Alignable to make meaningful connections, generate referrals, boost their business leads, promote events, find trusted vendors, and engage in a popular Q&A Forum. The company has a dynamic growth environment with an extremely talented and friendly team, which includes veterans of startups that became household names under their guidance, including Invisalign, Constant Contact, PayPal, and Wayfair. Alignable also has established the Alignable Trust Index, which collects and presents ratings and reviews for more than 100 national brands, showcasing the brands most recommended from one small business to another. To learn more about the company, go to Alignable.com. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, as well. Media Contact: Chuck Casto, 508-314-3284, chuck(at)alignable(dot)com. This study suggests that any team can exhibit significantly greater social perception and therefore effectiveness - if they work together as a real-time swarm, moderated by AI algorithms. - Prof. Askay A new study published today by California Polytechnic State University and Unanimous AI showed that business teams, when connected by AI algorithms modeled after swarms in nature, could significantly improve their decision-making abilities. The study demonstrated with a high degree of statistical significance that when working together as an AI-optimized system, networked teams showed significantly higher performance in tasks that require social perceptiveness than individuals working alone or teams working together by plurality vote. These results were presented at the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) by Professor David Askay of Cal Poly. The study was conducted on 60 teams, each one tasked with taking a standard social intelligence test known as the Reading the Mind in the Eyes (RME). The teams completed the test either by (i) working alone, (ii) collaborating by plurality vote, or (iii) connected over the internet using a technology called Swarm AI that is modeled after swarms in nature. Researchers used the RME test because prior studies have shown it to be a strong predictor of overall team effectiveness. Swarm AI technology enables networked human groups to make collaborative decisions by converging as a unified system upon optimized insights. Working as individuals, the participants demonstrated a 33% error rate on the RME intelligence test. Using Swarm AI technology, the error rate dropped to less than 16%, meaning that when working together as a real-time swarm teams reduced their errors by more than half. Successful groups are able to converge on optimal decisions, said Dr. David Askay, an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at California Polytechnic State University. This study suggests that any team can exhibit significantly greater social perception and therefore effectiveness - if they work together as a real-time swarm, moderated by AI algorithms. Swarm Intelligence, the science behind Swarm AI technology, is the reason why birds flock, bees swarm, and fish school they are smarter together than alone. By forming closed-loop systems, these organisms produce insights, together in groups, that greatly exceed the abilities of any individual member. While humans have not evolved this ability naturally, Swarm AI technology enables this artificially, allowing groups to amplify their intelligence by forming real-time swarms. The published paper outlines many potential applications of Swarm AI technology for use among business teams, from making optimized decisions to more accurately forecasting how consumers will react to marketing messaging, product features, or sales tactics. Future research is currently ongoing at California Polytechnic State University, exploring the potential benefits. Weve seen Swarm AI technology amplify the predictive intelligence of groups in a number of different fields, from financial forecasting to medical diagnosis said Dr. Louis Rosenberg, CEO and Chief Scientist at Unanimous AI and former Cal Poly Professor, but this study shows that swarming can be just as effective at increasing a business teams social awareness, which should inform significantly better decisions across a range of disciplines. This collaboration between Cal Poly and Unanimous AI has been nominated for Best Paper at the Hawaii International Conference for Systems Science. The national meeting is the perfect setting for technology transfer professionals and innovators to expand their knowledge of T2 policy and best practices. The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) will head to Orlando, Florida, for its 2019 national meeting. Hundreds of the nation's top technology transfer (T2) professionals will join together at the Hyatt Regency Orlando from April 23 25, 2019, to discover new ways for achieving commercialization success. Hailed as one of the most anticipated events in the T2 community, the FLC national meeting offers three days of T2 training, best practice strategizing sessions, expert public- and private-sector speakers, and networking opportunities designed to appeal to a diverse audience of technology and business professionals. Orlando provides an ideal location for meeting attendees to connect with potential collaborative partnersThe growing city is home to a wide range of industries and educational institutions, as well as several defense and aerospace firms. As the FLCs biggest event of the year, the national meeting is the perfect setting for technology transfer professionals and innovators from federal agencies, laboratories, and private businesses to expand their knowledge of T2 policy and best practices, stated FLC Chair John Dement. The primary goal of the FLC is to promote, educate, and facilitate labs and industry about the T2 process. This years meeting promises numerous opportunities for attendees to engage with like-minded professionals and take advantage of the FLCs valuable tools and resources available to accelerate innovations into the marketplace. The meeting kicks off with a full day of training at which attendees can strengthen their T2 skills while earning valuable continuing education credits (CEUs). Training course topics include: T2 for Beginners, Intellectual Property (IP) for T2 Professionals, Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs), and Licensing and Negotiation workshops. Additional training course selections will cover Technology Valuation & IP Portfolio Management and an American Management (AMA) course titled Developing Your Staff Through Teaching. FLC Chair John Dement will deliver opening remarks on the second day, followed by what promises to be lively interactive sessions featuring important T2 topics such as the National Institute of Standards and Technologys (NIST) Return on Investment (ROI) Initiative, which aims to modernize the federal governments T2 system in support of the Lab-to-Market Cross-Agency Priority (CAP) Goal of the Presidents Management Agenda. Other notable session topics will highlight successful collaborative case studies and how to work with a federal laboratory, which will feature NASA Kennedy Space Center, a local federal laboratory that has seen great innovation success. Day two will also shine a spotlight on some of this years most talented T2 professionals and their business partners at an annual awards reception and dinner honoring the 2019 FLC award winners. To round out the meeting on April 25, attendees will have the opportunity to share their feedback on FLC tools and resources during a Town Hall meeting, as well as participate in FLC committee and regional meetings where they can help shape the beneficial T2 resources and events the FLC provides members. For a detailed agenda, attendee justification forms, and to register, visit meeting.federallabs.org. About the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) Organized in 1974 and formally chartered by the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986, the FLC is a nationwide network of approximately 300 federal laboratories, centers, parent departments, and agencies that establishes strategies and opportunities for linking laboratory mission technologies and expertise with the marketplace. To accomplish its mission of assisting the movement of innovative federal research and development into the U.S. economy, the FLC provides various resources from training to regional and national meetings so its members can obtain the resources they need to achieve successful technology transfer. To learn more about the FLC and its mission, visit http://www.federallabs.org. EXPERT OBSERVER Media tends to measure markets by movements in median prices. But other measures of the health of major markets are worthy of attention, including sales volumes, vacancy rates and movements in rentals. Rental data is often a forward-looking marker of things to come with prices. Sydney had a couple of years of major rental growth, but little in the way of price growth, before embarking on its price boom from 2013 to 2017. Hobart recorded very low vacancies and the nations biggest rental growth before starting the mini-boom on prices thats still occurring. So we should keep a close eye on whats happening with vacancies and rents in the major cities. The Domain Rental Report for the December 2018 Quarter shows that rents are stronger than sale prices in terms of growth in the past year. Six of the eight capital cities delivered growth in their rentals in 2018, both for houses and for apartments. Recent rental data from SQM Research has similar numbers. There is, as always, a strong correlation between vacancy rates and rental growth. The cities with the tightest rental markets, Hobart (0.4% vacancy, according to SQM) and Canberra (0.9%), are the ones with the highest annual growth in their rentals. Other cities with low vacancies, Adelaide (1.2%) and Melbourne (1.9%), have also recorded solid growth in their rentals. Two cities where vacancy rates have been high in the recent past but have improved recently - Brisbane (3.0%) and Perth (3.4%) - are also both delivering moderate growth in their rents. The only cities where rents have fallen in the past year are those where vacancies are trending higher - Sydney (current vacancy rate 3.2%, up from 2.1% a year ago) and Darwin (4.0%, up from 2.8% a year ago). Sydney house rents have declined annually for the first time in 12 years. Sydney is no longer the nations most expensive capital city to rent a house. Canberra house rents have continued to rise on the back of low vacancies and the national capital is now the most expensive city for house rentals (according to Domain the SQM Research figures differ on this point). Brisbane house rents increased annually for the first time in almost three years, helped by improvement in the vacancy rate. This is one of numerous markers suggesting that Brisbane real estate will be stronger in 2019. Hobart house rents continue to increase, but the rate of growth has slowed. Theres a similar trend with prices and this, combined with a gradual decline in sales activity recently, suggests the mini-boom in the Tasmanian capital has passed its peak. Perth house rents have increased annually for the first time in five years. Coupled with improving yields, the city will become a more attractive option for investors, says Domain. I tend to agree and note that there are other indicators of improvement in the Perth market, including increased sales activity and elevated prices in the million-dollar suburbs. In the apartment markets, Sydney unit rents have declined for two consecutive quarters for the first time on record, with rents hitting an almost two-year low, Domain says. Brisbane unit rents recorded the strongest annual increase in almost three years. I note that Moodys Analytics is forecasting Brisbane will be a national leader on apartment price growth in the next year or two. Canberra unit rents experienced the strongest annual growth the city has seen in almost two years, yet another marker of stronger performance in this market, which is underpinned by one of the nations best economies and lowest jobless rate. Overall the rental data, alongside other figures, points to stronger markets this year in Canberra, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide and confirms the decline in Sydney, while pointing a gradual wind-down in Hobarts buoyant market. Terry Ryder is the founder of hotspotting.com.au [email protected] twitter.com/hotspotting The Sydney investment banker Mark Carnegie has joined forces with Cornerstone Property Group's Michael Grant to convert his concerted Darlinghurst church home into a high-end tech space. A $13.1 million development application has been lodged for the former 1926 First Church of Christ Scientist on Liverpool Street. The adaptive use plans by SJB Architects seek an office building with open-plan shared spaces, nine basement care spaces and a rooftop terrace. A rendered image of the level one auditorium Grant's high-end conversion projects have included the Griffiths Teas Building, Surry Hills and the nearby residential-converted 1912 historic warehouse at No 1 Lacey. The heritage home reportedly has a permit for conversion, approved by the City of Sydney in 2015 with prospect of having four apartments over ground floor office spaces and artist studios. A rendered image of the lower ground floor, formerly the Sunday School. The latest plans for the adaptive reuse propose a two-storey addition, rather than the four proposed. Carnegie and Grant will lease out the property. Another rendered image of the lower ground floor. Carnegie purchased the 2080 sqm property in 2010 for $8.75 million and refurbished it in 2011 into an award-winning home. The Gunnedah Hotel has been sold by it's long time owners at a yield of almost 11%. Nick Butler of Manenti Quinlan held the expression of interest campaign, which offered the hotel on freehold/vacant possession basis. Located at 298 Conadilly St, Gunnedah the hotel the hotel was purchased by the Gibbs family for $2 million back in 2011. Set on 2,921 sqm, the hotel has 12 PMEs, a 3am licence and 29 rooms for accommodation. According to the listing the hotel's weekly average revenue is $38,700. It was offered by Chris and Kim Gibbs, active members of the Gunnedah community. Nick Butler of Manenti Quinlan and Associates said the Gunnedah Hotel attracted a very high level of interest from Sydney publicans and "a long list of established country operators." "Gunnedah is expanding rapidly due to the growth of its industries, and the opportunity to take advantage of that via the Hotels passive income streams was particularly attractive to prospective buyers," he added. The hotel was sold, at an undisclosed price, to established hotelier Daniel Whitten (Robin Hood Hotel, Randwick) and Luke Prout who is already a partner, with Whitten, in the Tamworth Hotel. Their management of the hotel begins in mid-February. New Delhi, Jan 15 : The BJP on Tuesday rejected Congress' allegation that it is trying to topple seven-month-old Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S)-Congress coalition government in Karnataka and hit back at opposition parties calling the current crisis their "internal problems". "We are not doing any game. Why we should topple if they themselves are toppling their government? It is their problem. They have their internal problems and unnecessarily blaming us," BJP General Secretary and party's in-charge for Karnataka P. Muralidhar Rao told IANS. He said to date, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has never said that the Karnataka government is in minority, though he added that it cannot survive its full five-year term. "From our side, there was no meeting with dissidents or there was no such activity. If there are dissidents, they are within the Congress. Instead of solving the problem, they are calling dissidents as BJP agents. We are waiting and watching. But it's sure that this government cannot survive its full five-year term and will fall on its own due to internal conflicts," he said. Earlier in the day, R. Shankar, a legislator from Ranebennur Assembly segment in Haveri district, belonging to the regional Karnataka Pragnavantha Janata Party (KPJP), and H. Nagesh, Independent MLA from Mulbagal constituency in Kolar district, withdrew their support to the coalition government. Rao also slammed the Congress for their "failure to provide good and coherent government" in the southern state. The senior BJP leader said that the party MLAs are staying in a hotel in Manesar as a precautionary measure after Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy said that some BJP MLAs are in his touch. "My MLAs are here only because they had come to Delhi for National Convention. All over the country all MLAs came. We only stopped them as a precautionary measure after Kumaraswamy said that the BJP MLAs are in touch with him," he said. The BJP has kept 99 of its 104 legislators at a private resort in Gurugram, adjoining the national capital. In the 224-member Assembly, the BJP has 104 members, Congress-79, JD-S 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each, besides the Speaker. The Bahujan Samaj party, KPJP and an Independent were supporting the coalition. Amman, Jan 15 : Jordan agreed on Tuesday to host a meeting between the representatives of the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels upon the request of the UN special envoy to Yemen over the issue of the exchange of prisoners, the media reported. Martin Griffiths will attend the upcoming Jordanian conference on the earlier agreed 16,000 prisoner exchange between the warring Yemeni sides. The meeting in Jordan comes on the heels of December's Sweden-based peace negotiations where Griffiths attempted to end nearly four years of civil war that pushed the Arab country to the brink of famine. "Jordan with its all capabilities supports our brothers in Yemen in their efforts aimed at putting an end to this prolonged crisis, which needs a political solution," Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesman Sufyan Qudah said in a statement cited by Efe news. On January 9, Griffiths urged the UN Security Council to speed up the implementation of the agreements reached in Sweden as it would be necessary "before the parties can reach a comprehensive peace agreement". "Progress in Sweden is a basis for confidence. It would be conducive to further progress at the next round of consultations," Griffiths had said. Tension between the Houthis and Yemeni government increased in recent days due to violations of the December 18 ceasefire agreement in and around the Houthi-held port city of Hodeida, the main point of entry point for food and medicine for Yemen's population. The Arab country has been locked in a political and military crisis since popular regional uprisings began in 2011, with the Houthis taking control of Yemen's capital Sana'a in September 2014, a move that spurred Saudi Arabia to go to war against the Houthis in 2015 with the support of the United Arab Emirates and other key Saudi allies. New Delhi, Jan 15 : To advise the Delhi government over fixing and revising minimum wages for different categories of workers, Lieutenant Governor (LG) Anil Baijal has constituted the Minimum Wage Advisory Board, an official said on Tuesday. "For advising the government in respect of fixation and revision of minimum rates of wages, the Delhi LG has constituted the 'Delhi Minimum Wage Advisory Board' of 36 members," the Labour Department official told IANS on condition of anonymity. The members include the Labour Secretary as the Chairman, three official members, two non-official members and 15 representatives each from employers and employees. The Labour Department, headed by Cabinet Minister Gopal Rai, had in November last year proposed new minimum wages for all contractual workers in the national capital. The government has sought suggestions, views, inputs and comments on the proposed minimum wages till January 11. "The board will take into consideration the suggestions, views, inputs and comments and advise the government in respect of fixing and revising minimum rates of wages for different categories of workers," the official said. As per the proposed plan, unskilled labour will get a minimum wage of Rs 14,842 per month, a semi-skilled worker would get Rs 16,341 and a skilled worker Rs 17,991. Kolkata, Jan 15 : Former NSA M.K. Narayanan on Tuesday expressed concern over the "internal dissension at the highest level of an institution like CBI" and questioned the way the agency chief was being selected now. Responding to a query on the credibility of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Narayanan said: "Internal dissension at the highest level of an institution like the CBI is a matter of concern." Narayanan, who was participating at an interactive session organised by the Bharat Chamber of Commerce, however, said dissension at the top level of the CBI was not a new phenomenon but earlier such issues used to be decided primarily by the bureaucracy itself. Narayanan questioned the present methodology of selecting the CBI chief. CBI Director Alok Verma was unceremoniously removed from the post after a 2-1 decision by the high-level Selection Committee, a decision that came under attack from the opposition and legal experts. According to Narayanan, selection of the CBI Director should be "decided within the system, not by people outside". On China, he said: "China should be our main concern. One country which does pose danger to us is China. "China wants you off the main table, does not want you on the same table," he said. New Delhi, Jan 15 : Coal Minister Piyush Goyal has written to Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik requesting speedy resolution of the issues that have caused an indefinite strike in the Talcher coalfields of state-run Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) that has disrupted production. The Talcher coalfields have been completely shut for the last three days owing to the indefinite strike called by the Talcher Surakshya Manch, the letter accessed by IANS says. "It (strike) has reached the stage wherein mines safety has been adversely affected and may worsen as the machine deployed in mines may get submerged due to stoppage of pumping operations," Goyal said. "This has already caused loss of coal production of more than 1 MT (million tonnes) at the rate of more than 3 lakh tonnes per day." Goyal noted that in an earlier letter to Patnaik, he had pointed out how the frequent disruption in mining operations in Talcher were adversely affecting the investment climate in Odisha. Requesting the Chief Minister's support to end the "impasse", Goyal wrote: "By December 2018, MCL has already suffered production loss of nearly 20 MT, which has resulted in revenue loss of about Rs.1,130 crore to the government of Odisha." New Delhi, Jan 15 : The Union Home Ministry on Tuesday held discussions on issues relating to Kartarpur Corridor that included land acquisition on the Indian side for the project. Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba chaired the meeting in which Punjab Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh, BSF Director General Rajni Kant Mishra, DG Intel Punjab and Indian envoy to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria took place. The meeting lasted for approximately 45 minutes. The Home Ministry is the nodal ministry for coordinating with the authorities concerned, while Road Transport and the Highways Ministry is the nodal ministry for building and developing the corridor on the Indian side. The Union Cabinet on November 22 last year had approved building of Kartarpur Corridor on the Indian side from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district till the border and informed Pakistan about its decision. India also urged Islamabad to develop a corridor in its territory from the International Border to Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib. Vice President Venkaiah Naidu laid the foundation stone for the corridor on the Indian side on November 26 last year, while Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan laid the foundation stone on November 28 on their side of the border. Pune, Jan 15 : American rapper-actor Jaden Smith is set to perform songs from his debut album "Syre" during his maiden gig in India in February. He will perform here as part of the multi-genre Vh1 Supersonic music festival. Artistes like American music producer-DJ Marshmello, British musician Bonobo and drum and bass band Rudimental will also be a part of the sixth edition of the fest, which will be held on February 16 and 17 at Mahalaxmi Lawns, Pune. "Jaden Smith, Two Door Cinema Club, Gaiser and Breathe Carolina all play their first ever gigs in India at the sixth edition of our festival in Pune," the festival curator of Vh1 Supersonic, Nikhil Chinapa, said in a statement. "Rudimental return to Vh1 Supersonic with the release of their brand new album 'Toast To Our Differences' which drops on January 25. I'm incredibly excited to know that fans are going to experience an avalanche of new music, new genres and brand new experiences at our festival in Pune," he added. Saugato Bhowmik, Business Head, Integrated Network Solutions and Consumer Products, Viacom18, also said: "It is a matter of great joy to welcome Jaden Smith to India along with the likes of Rudimental and Two Door Cinema Club to curate a multi-genre festival that offers the best of EDM, Live, Techno and much mor"." The Hague, Jan 15 : The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday absolved former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and an ex-minister of crimes against humanity charges and ordered their immediate release. Gbagbo has been held in custody at The Hague since 2011 along with his former youth minister Charles BlA GoudA, accused by prosecutors of four counts of crimes against humanity, including rape and murder, allegedly carried out in the tumultuous aftermath of the 2010 elections in the Ivory Coast. At least 3,000 people had died in the unrest and 500,000 were displaced. Gbagbo was the first former head of state to go on trial at the ICC. ICC judges on Tuesday ruled that he had no case to answer because the prosecution had not managed to prove several charges against him. They ordered his immediate release. Presiding Judge Cuno Tarfusser said the prosecution had "failed to demonstrate that public speeches by Gbagbo constituted ordering or inducing the alleged crimes". Gbagbo was President of the West African nation from 2000 until his arrest in 2011. The violence in 2010 in Ivory Coast, the world's biggest cocoa producer, came after Gbagbo refused to accept that he lost a disputed election run-off to his rival, Alassane Ouattara. Chandigarh, Jan 15 : Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Tuesday sought waiver of the passport condition for pilgrims to pay obeisance at Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara in Pakistan on the 550th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev. In a letter to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, he requested that the condition of mandatory passport for devotees seeking to cross the Kartarpur Corridor be waived. Sikhism's founder, Guru Nanak Dev, spent the last 18 years of his life in Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara, which is located around three km from the India-Pakistan international border. In November last, Pakistan gave access to pilgrims from India, especially from the Sikh community, to visit the gurdwara. A spokesperson for the Chief Minister said Amarinder Singh has suggested to the Central government that any other valid government document such as the Aadhaar card may be used in place of passport for identification to enable maximum pilgrims to visit the gurdwara. The Central government should also create adequate infrastructure at the border crossing to handle a large number of pilgrims who would want to use the corridor to visit Kartarpur Sahib, the Chief Minister said. The gurdwara, which fell in Pakistan territory following the partition of India in August 1947, has big significance in Sikhism and history. For the past over 71 years, ever since partition, Sikhs have been offering prayers near the international border while seeing the gurdwara from a distance. --IANS vg/pgh/ vm Jerusalem, Jan 15 : Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday urged Iran to "get out of Syria fast". "I'm telling you, get out of there fast. We won't stop attacking," Netanyahu said during a ceremony, in which he appointed Deputy Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi as the new military Chief of Staff. Netanyahu dismissed as "a lie" the earlier remarks of Hassan Firouzabadi, a senior military adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader, who said Iranian "military advisers" will stay in Syria to defeat terrorists, Xinhua news agency reported. He also rejected a comment made earlier in the day by Iranian Communications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi on Tehran's failed attempt to place a satellite into orbit. "They are lying now that they supposedly send an innocent satellite into space, but actually they want to achieve the first stage of an intercontinental missile, contrary to all international agreements," Netanyahu said. "Iran and its proxy, namely the Lebanon-based Shia military of Hezbollah, are Israel's main enemies. "We promise to hand a crushing punch against both close and distant enemies," the Prime Minister said, adding that in the upcoming decade, Israel will complete building fences across all its borders. On Sunday, Netanyahu confirmed that Israel had attacked multiple Iranian sites in Syria over the weekend, in a rare public acknowledgment of such airstrikes. Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria over the past years, saying the attacks were aimed at Iranian military sites and weapon convoys to Hezbollah. New Delhi, Jan 15 (IANS) Unfazed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement that the government will wait for the Supreme Court ruling on a Ram temple in Ayodhya, the VHP on Tuesday said the government should come out with an ordinance in the upcoming Budget Session of Parliament. Vishwa Hindu Parishad's Working President Alok Kumar said the VHP would hold talks with spiritual leaders to chalk out a strategy on the Ram temple issue at the "Dharam Sansad" to be held at the Prayagraj Kumbh this month-end to put pressure on the government. "The VHP is committed to fight for Ram Temple till we achieve success. The strategy and programmes are chalked out by sants. We have called a meeting of Dharam Sansad between January 31 and February 1. It will decide how to take forward the fight," Kumar told IANS in an interview. Asked about the Prime Minister's statement on the issue, he said: "We have a right to continue to persuade him to our point of view, to frame a law. They have to pass a legislation and they have the February session to do it. We will place the whole situation before the sants and let the sants decide for us." He said that the government had brought an ordinance for triple talaq, which was good, but it should bring one on Ram temple too as the country cannot wait till eternity for it. "It's already 69 long years. Can't wait till eternity. The Supreme Court is not even beginning to hear it... Therefore, we ask the government to find out the alternative method of legislation," he said. The VHP President said that Hindus were still emotionally attached to the issue like they were in 1990s. But he refused to speak on political repercussions in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls if the government failed to bring a legislation. "The public meetings we held all over the country have shown an exceptionally enthusiastic response. We are sure that the issue has resonance with the general Hindu society. But whether it has impact on the elections or not, this is something I do not calculate," he said. Asked how the issue may impact BJP's prospects in Uttar Pradesh, if the BJP failed to fulfil its election promise ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, he said construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya was an issue for national "regeneration" and he does not know whether it will have an impact on election or not. "There is a BJP government in the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh. Therefore, they should take steps for the construction of a Ram temple." He hit out at the Congress for creating hurdles in the court over the issue. Kumar cited two evidences of that and accused the Congress of trying to put pressure on the judiciary to delay the temple construction. "Kapil Sibal was a Minister in the UPA government and he is a prominent Congress leader. He appeared for Sunni Waqf Board in the Supreme Court and wanted the hearing to be postponed till the Lok Sabha elections. They brought an impeachment motion against the Chief Justice on frivolous grounds. This proves that they tried to build up pressure on the judiciary to delay a ruling," he said. On Congress President Rahul Gandhi's temple visits, Kumar said: "I am certainly suspicious of his new found love for temples. We have not seen it decades. He suddenly declares that he wears a 'janeu'. Then the publicity department arranges a visit to Kailash Mansarovar. Then he declares his 'gotra'. Honestly, I do not know if it is a change of heart. But a propaganda is built up around it, and makes me suspicious," he said. The VHP leader, however, welcomed the Rajasthan government's decision to honour those who adopt stray cows on Independence Day and Republic Day. "This is a good thing and we support it. We believe that all governments irrespective of their colour should work towards the cause including cow protection." The VHP's Board of Trustees, which would meet on the sidelines of Kumbh in Prayag Raj from January 17, would take stock of the current situation, its performance in the last six months and the problems faced by Hindus. ( can be contacted at brajendra.n@ians.in) Chandigarh, Jan 15 : Over three lakh drug addicts were treated in Punjab in 2018 and more than 63,000 people are currently being treated, out of which 25,000 are heroin addicts, a top police official said on Tuesday. The retention rate is 91.71 per cent, Director General (Special Task Force) Mohammad Mustafa told reporters here. The Special Task Force, constituted by the state in April 2017, has been implementing a three-pronged strategy of enforcement, de-addiction and prevention (EDP) to combat the menace of drugs. The action plan named Comprehensive Action against Drug Abuse is aimed at choking the supply of drugs through enforcement and reducing the demand through de-addiction and prevention. Mustafa said a multi-layered monitoring and implementing mechanism has been put in place. The Cabinet sub-committee on drugs headed by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh is monitoring it. He said the outpatient treatment being rendered at 168 Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment Clinics is a great success. To make students aware about the ill-effects of drugs, the Buddy Project has been implemented. Approximately five lakh Drug Abuse Prevention Officers have been registered, 1,500 cluster coordinators and 15,000 Nasha Roku Nigran Committees are being trained through 523 master trainers. Under this project, he said, 329 master trainers are training three lakh school teachers and college lecturers who will impart skills to approximately 40 lakh students. He said 27 lakh students have already been covered. A separate drug division is being set up in the Department of Health for efficient drug administration and better monitoring of de-addiction. The Punjab Chief Minister in October 2018 sought a national drug policy to save the young generation, saying a comprehensive formula was needed at the central level to effectively check the drug abuse. Earlier, six northern states unanimously decided to set up a common secretariat, to be based in Panchkula near Chandigarh, for data and information sharing, which was critical to the joint action. The states that have joined hands are Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Delhi as also the Union Territory of Chandigarh. The meeting accepted the suggestion of Amarinder Singh to hold regular meetings at various levels to tackle the problem and monitor the progress of the anti-drug fight. Mumbai, Jan 15 : On the occasion of the 71st Army Day on Tuesday, members of the film fraternity paid tribute to the Indian soldiers for their bravery. The Army Day is celebrated to commemorate the day when Field Marshal M. Cariappa took over as Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army from General Sir Francis Butcher on January 15, 1949. So, celebrities like Anupam Kher, Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit Nene took to social media to praise the "real heroes" of the nation. Anupam thanked the army for always protecting the Indian flag and "sacrificing lives for civilians." "Our flag does not fly because the wind moves it, it flies with the last breath of each soldier who died protecting it. Wishing the amazing Indian Army a very happy 71st Army Day, Jai Hind." Remembering her freedom fighter grandfather on Army Day, actress Richa Chadha wrote: "It's Indian Army Day. This is my Nanaji. Lt Col Dharamveer Prasad. He was a freedom fighter and then a surgeon in the Indian army post independence. "He fought all wars till 1971 and even took a bullet in the leg in one. I miss him, he passed away in 2007. In these times of global jingoism, I miss his quiet dignity, his peaceful strength and his commitment to the cause of humanity." Actor Sushant Singh Rajput also marked the day by posting a motivating video on Instagram where he can be seen taking training from commandos. He also urged people to "spend at least one day, every six months with Indian Armed Forces and try to learn from the mindset of the Heroes and serve them with due respect in any way possible." Here's what others wrote: Anushka Sharma: There is nothing but gratitude to the men and women in uniform, the veterans and their families who have kept our nation safe and have put the country before themselves. Jai Hind. Sanjay Dutt: Playing a soldier is tough and being one is even tougher! On this Army Day, my tribute to the Indian Army jawans for their selfless sacrifice and service.I salute you all with respect and gratitude. Sunny Deol: Salute to all the men and women who do so much for us. Anil Kapoor: Wishing all the men and women in uniform who have dedicated their lives for our nation and it's safety a very happy Army Day. Saluting the real heroes of India. Arjun Kapoor: My utmost respect to all the soldiers and their families.No words will be enough to express how thankful we are for the sacrifices and everything that you do for us. Randeep Hooda: We sleep peacefully because there is someone staying awake guarding our peace...to the nameless soldier guarding our sovereignty, to the many who laid down their lives for our freedom. Madhuri Dixit Nene: We are safe as they are awake. A big salute and gratitude to the brave men & women of the Indian Army for their innumerable sacrifices, valour and dedication! Jai Hind. Preity Zinta: A Salute to our real life Superheroes and a heartfelt thank you to martyrs, soldiers, veterans and their families for their bravery, valour, courage and countless Sacrifices. Paresh Rawal: We are because of you. Ottawa, Jan 15 : Canada has reviewed its China travel advisory, warning of a risk of arbitrary law enforcement after a Chinese court sentenced of its nationals to death over drug charges. The Canadian government on Monday said there was a "risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws" and warned of the application of the death penalty for drug-related offences, reports Efe news. Ottawa recommended its nationals "exercise a high degree of caution" in the country. The advisory followed the death sentence ruled against Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, 36, earlier on Monday. Schellenberg was arrested in 2014 accused of planning to send 222 kg of methamphetamines from China to Australia. In November 2018, the Canadian was given a 15-year prison sentence by the Dalian Intermediate People's Court, but following an appeal, a court on Monday sentenced him to death. The sentence comes amid a diplomatic crisis between the two countries that started on December 1, 2018, when Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei, was detained in Canada. Meng's arrest was made at the request of the US, which wants her extradited for fraud and violating Washington's sanctions against Iran. In the weeks after her arrest, Chinese authorities detained two Canadians - former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor - suspected of activities that Beijing says put the country's national security at risk. Canadian media said that although in the past death sentences have been handed down to foreign citizens in China for drug trafficking, Schellenberg's case was not made public by the Chinese authorities until after Meng's arrest. "It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply the death penalty," Justin Trudeau told the media in Ottawa on Monday. Schellenberg has 10 days to appeal to the Liaoning High Court. China is believed to execute thousands of people each year - more than all other countries in the world put together, but is highly secretive about the number, according to the Amnesty International. Beijing, Jan 15 (IANS) China on Tuesday defended the death sentence given to a Canadian for drugs smuggling and warned Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau against making "irresponsible" remarks about Chinese law. A Chinese court on Monday handed the death penalty to Robert Lloyd Schellenberg for smuggling drugs, aggravating tensions between Beijing and Ottawa who are locked in a dispute over Canada's arrest of telecom giant Huawei's Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou. Trudeau slammed the court's judgment, saying that "China chose to arbitrarily apply the death penalty" on Schellenberg. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it was dissatisfied with Trudeau's "irresponsible" remarks. "I think this is wrong. I don't know if the relevant person has carefully read the notice issued by the Dalian's Intermediate People's Court and Chinese laws," ministry's spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a press briefing. Hua said there was enough evidence against the 36-year-old Canadian who was part of an international syndicate and smuggled 222 kg of methamphetamine in China. "Drugs smuggling is a grave crime in other countries of the world... and it is the same in China. All people are equal before the law. "The relevant remarks made by the Canadian side are full of double standard and lack the spirit of rule of law. We are highly dissatisfied with the remarks and we urge the Canadian side to respect China's rule of law and sovereignty and stop making such kind of irresponsible remarks," Hua added. Schellenberg was detained in China in 2014 and sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2016 for drug peddling in China. However, the court deemed the quantum of punishment for Schellenberg was way too lenient given the grave nature of his crime and ordered a retrial of the case. Schellenberg's case was the most recent in a series of incidents between Ottawa and Beijing which began with Meng's arrest at the request of the US. Washington has sought her extradition for fraud and violating the US sanctions on Tehran. The row was further aggravated when two Canadian citizens -- Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor -- were arrested in China, suspected of activities that Beijing said put the country's national security at risk. What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 319-352-3334 or email legals@waverlynewspapers.com. New Delhi, Jan 15 : The capital city has rolled out the red carpet for the first edition of the Diorama Film Festival, which has the aim of providing an impetus to filmmaking in Delhi and promote appreciation of cinematic art. "Delhi is a growing city in terms of actors. It has given many talented stars to Bollywood. Diorama Film Festival is a great initiative and I wish Manoj Srivastava all the luck for the great start,' veteran actor Randhir Kapoor said at the fest's opening here on Monday night. Actress Divya Dutta, one of the jury members at the gala, told IANS: "It's lovely that a film festival has come to Delhi." The event, being held here till January 20 at the Siri Fort auditorium, is organised by Manoj Srivastava, who worked closely on the International Film Festival of India, Goa till 2012. A slate of 130 films from over 50 countries has been lined up for the fest, where a slew of actors are expected to be in attendance. The opening ceremony saw Rajiv Kapoor, Arjun Bajwa, Neetu Chandra, T.P. Aggarwal, Rahul Rawail, Manu Rewal, Iranian actress Mozhgan Taraneh, and Singapore International Film Festival's former director Philip Cheah. The festival will also give out Sparrow Awards, named after the endangered bird, for the best work over 25 film categories and they will be decided by four international film juries. A highlight of the event is a masterclass on acting by "The Mummy" actor Erick Avari. New Delhi, Jan 15 : The CPI-M on Tuesday urged the government to stop the merger of three nationalized banks, saying it will weaken all three post unification. The CPI-M said it was "deeply concerned at the un-seemly haste with which the government has been going ahead with the merger/amalgamation process of Vijaya Bank, Bank of Baroda and Dena Bank" ignoring the opposition of the employees and officers. "The merger of banks is being justified by the government on ground of strengthening and consolidating the concerned banks; but in reality, such a merger will further weaken all the three banks post merger," the Communist Party of India-Marxist said. "Problems of public sector banks emanate from the deliberate default in loan-repayment by the big corporate houses. The solution lies in stern action by the government for outright recovery of the huge loan amounts from these defaulter corporates with penalty instead of the futile exercise on merger." But the CPI-M said that the government had been displaying "a totally indulgent attitude" to the defaulter corporates and through the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) procedure public sector banks were being forced to accept big reduction of the defaulted loan amounts. "Such merger of banks, instead of addressing their basic problems, will actually result in squeezing the banks' operational areas through inevitable closure of several branches seriously affecting employment," it said. "It also affects the spread and availability of banking services for common people particularly in comparatively remote areas," it added, calling upon the government to desist from such moves. Beijing, Jan 15 : Amnesty International on Tuesday urged China to revoke the death sentence handed down to a Canadian citizen in the country, a decision that was condemned by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as "arbitrary". On Monday, a court in Dalian city gave Robert Lloyd Schellenberg the death penalty over drugs charges, a decision which came amid a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Ottawa after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, on December 1. "The death sentence given to Robert Schellenberg does not deliver justice. We urge the Chinese authorities to revoke this sentence. Drug-related offences do not meet international standards for the use of capital punishment," China researcher for Amnesty, William Nee, said in a statement cited by Efe news. Schellenberg was initially arrested in 2014 and accused of planning to send 222 kg of methamphetamines from China to Australia. In November, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for drug smuggling, but the sentence was appealed, and on December 29 the court ordered a re-trial. "The sudden re-trial and apparent rush to judgment has highlighted the numerous flaws in China's judicial system," said Nee. After the death sentence was announced on Monday, Trudeau said it was an "extreme concern" for his government and also for the international community that China was using the death sentence "arbitrarily". Schellenberg's case was the most recent in a series of incidents between Ottawa and Beijing which began with Meng's arrest at the request of the US. Washington has sought her extradition for fraud and violating the US sanctions on Tehran. The row was further aggravated when two Canadian citizens, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, were arrested in China, suspected of activities that Beijing said put the country's national security at risk. The Canadian media said that although in the past death sentences had been handed down to foreign citizens in China for drug trafficking, Schellenberg's case was not made public by the Chinese authorities until after Meng's arrest. "China's death penalty system is shrouded in secrecy, which contributes to why many will be questioning the timing of this decision. We have seen before that in highly politicized cases the trial is often a mere spectacle with the outcome already decided," Nee added. China is believed to execute thousands of people each year -- more than all other countries in the world put together -- but is highly secretive about the number, Amnesty said. New York, Jan 15 : Scientists have created a robot that could help elderly people with dementia and other limitations live independently in their own homes. The Robot Activity Support System, or RAS, developed by the Washington State University (WSU), uses sensors embedded in a smart home to determine where its residents are, what they are doing and when they need assistance with daily activities. It navigates through rooms and around obstacles to find people on its own, provides video instructions on how to do simple tasks and can even lead its owner to objects like their medication or a snack in the kitchen. "RAS combines the convenience of a mobile robot with the activity detection technology of a WSU smart home to provide assistance in the moment, as the need for help is detected," said Bryan Minor, postdoctoral student at the WSU. With a number of adults over 85 needing assistance with every day activities such as preparing meals and taking medication, the researchers hope that technologies like RAS and the smart home will alleviate some of the financial strain on the healthcare system and make it easier for older adults to live alone. "Upwards of 90 per cent of older adults prefer to age in place as opposed to moving into a nursing home," said Diane Cook, Professor at the WSU. "We want to make it so that instead of bringing in a caregiver or sending these people to a nursing home, we can use technology to help them live independently on their own," Cook added. In the study, detailed in the journal Cognitive Systems Research, the team recruited a small group of students to complete three activities -- getting ready to walk the dog, taking medication with food and water and watering household plants -- in a smart home with RAS as an assistant. When the smart home sensors detected a human failed to initiate or was struggling with one of the tasks, RAS received a message to help. The robot then used its mapping and navigation camera, sensors and software to find the person and offer assistance. Bengaluru, Jan 15 : Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Tuesday questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi on why Karnataka's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders were being allowed to "destabilise" the state government. "'Mr.Saaf Niyat' Narendra Modi, is allowing your disgraceful BJP Karnataka leaders to destabilise government a 'Saaf Niyat' towards democracy?" the former Chief Minister tweeted. "Your PR slogans does not hide your actual 'niyat' and your 'sahi vikas' should go beyond developing resorts. First show your niyat to people." Siddaramaiah's tweet, mocking the Modi government's slogan of "Saaf Niyat, Sahi Vikas" (clean intent, right development), came a day after the southern state's Minister for Irrigation D.K. Shivakumar alleged that Congress legislators were being poached by the BJP. The BJP's Karnataka unit has rubbished the Congress' claims. Meanwhile, the BJP has shifted 99 of its 104 state legislators to a private resort in Gurugram, a party spokesman said. "A total of 99 legislators are currently at a private resort, while the other five are in Delhi itself and in touch with us," BJP Karnataka's spokesman Vamanacharya told IANS here. "The reason that our MLAs had to be kept in a resort points to the ill-intentions of the coalition partners Congress and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S)," he added. Mumbai, Jan 15 : Actress Shriya Pilgaonkar is set to make her debut in Tamil and Telugu cinema with director Prabhu Solomon's upcoming trilingual film "Haathi Mere Saathi". She says she would love to explore more movies from the south film industry. "I couldn't be happier starting 2019 with this film 'Haathi Mere Saathi'. It's the first time that I am doing a trilingual film which I'm excited about. It will be my Tamil and Telugu debut," Shriya said in a statement about the film, which will also be released in Hindi. "In the film, I play a journalist who feels very strongly about a story and is trying to put it out there in spite of the pressure on her not to cover it. She is a rebel in her own right and wants to stand by the truth. Prabhu Sir has such a grand vision for this film. I love elephants and the subject of this film is very close to my heart too," she added. The "Fan" actress said she follows Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu cinema. "I feel like it churns out some of the most interesting and diverse content. For me, the story of the film is the most important and I have always wanted to explore working in other industries as well. "It's a challenge of course, but I enjoy it. So yes, I would absolutely love to explore more films from the south as and when the opportunities present themselves," she said. New Delhi, Jan 15 (IANS) The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which took power in Delhi four years ago with a promise to build 1,000 Mohalla (neighbourhood) Clinics in the national capital, has managed to provide only 189 of the widely-praised clinics, blaming the central government for the slow pace of execution. The Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinic (AAMC) project -- the opening of primary healthcare centres to ensure free doctor consultations, tests and medicines to people -- was one of the flagship schemes of the AAP for which the initial deadline was December 2016. But it was extended to March 2017 and the government failed to meet that target as well. The tussle between the central and the Delhi governments has been blamed the most by the AAP for the delay in the construction of the clinics as the government lacked the power to take decisions until July 4, 2018, when the Supreme Court ruled that Delhi's Lt Governor was bound by the "aid and advice" of the Delhi government, bringing powers back to the AAP government. The AAP, which came to power in February 2015, had a plan to have a clinic each -- with a doctor, a pharmacist, a clinic assistant/multitasking worker -- in a radius of five kilometres over a population of 10,000-15,000. "Mohalla Clinics have been conceptualised as a mechanism to provide quality primary health care services accessible within the communities in Delhi at their doorstep. In the past three years, 164 clinics could be established. In just five months, 25 more clinics were opened. We can, for sure, say that the court ruling has given momentum to the work," an official told IANS on the condition of anonymity. The official said the tender to build 300 additional clinics had been finalised after land was identified. "The construction work is going on in full swing." "Identification and finalisation of land have been a major issue (as the subject of land is not under the Delhi government). Acquiring land takes most of the time... The other agencies are not very keen in giving us the land for clinics. As soon as we identify and finalise the land, construction is initiated." The PWD is given six months to build the clinic while three months time is assigned to ensure electricity and water supply along with posting of the staff -- a doctor, a pharmacist and a multi-tasker worker. The setting up of clinics has been envisaged in the form of a Pre-Engineered Insulated Box Type Re-located Structure which are to be manufactured and installed through PWD. The clinics, functional from 8.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m. on all days except Sundays, provide services like basic medical care based on standard treatment protocols which include curative care for common illnesses like fever, diarrhoea, skin problems, respiratory problems, first aid for injuries and burns, dressing and management of minor wounds and referral services. While medicines are provided free of cost to the patients as per the essential drug list, the lab investigations were carried out by the empanelled laboratories. Officials said a total of 214 tests can be done for free through the clinics. Along with providing health-related information, education and awareness, the clinics also provide preventive services such as antenatal and postnatal care of pregnant women, assessment of nutritional status and counselling and a preventive and promotive component of National/State Health Programmes. The Mohalla Clinic project has been widely praised, including by the late Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General, and Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Norwegian Prime Minister and a former Director-General of World Health Organisation. Another former UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, along with Brundtland visited some clinics last year and were "deeply impressed" by it. The Delhi government was providing health care services through primary, secondary and tertiary facilities out of which the primary care is delivered through dispensaries, secondary health care through multi-speciality hospitals and tertiary health care services through super-speciality hospitals. After the AAP came to power, in order to fill the gaps in services, there has been a paradigm shift in reorganising health care services. Now the Delhi government provides a four-tier health care delivery system, with Mohalla Clinics for primary health care, multi-speciality poly-clinics for secondary health care in the form of OPD consultation by specialist doctors including diagnostics, multi-speciality Hospitals for IPD care (earlier called secondary level hospital) and super-speciality hospitals (earlier called tertiary level hospital). The health services also cater to people from neighbouring states. The government is also planning school clinics, to be started on the lines of the Mohalla Clinic. "The school clinics will be started in Delhi government schools with an aim to improve the health and nutrition of the students. Locations of 265 School Clinics have been finalised," another officer said. The government has also proposed 94 additional polyclinics, apart from 25 functional ones in the city. "These will act as a satellite centre for outdoor specialised medical treatment centres," the official said. ( can be contacted at nivedita.singh@ians.in) New Delhi, Jan 15 : India has called for a more multilateral global order keeping in focus the Indo-Pacific, a region that has grown in significance in recent years. Noting that India was committed to upholding multilateralism and the institutions it engenders, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Monday that the world was going through a particularly disruptive phase. "Technology-driven transformation has further quickened that pace of change," the Minister said while addressing the First Annual Disarmament and International Security Affairs Fellowship Programme organised by the Ministry. "Many of these changes are marked by rebalancing of the global economy, and consequently, of international politics -- this is especially true of the Asia Pacific or Indo-Pacific region, where India is located." India, along with the US, Japan and Australia, is part of a quad revived in 2017 that is seeking to work for peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific, a region that stretches from the eastern coast of Japan to the eastern coast of Africa. This is of special geostrategic importance given China's increasing footprint in the region and its belligerence in the South China Sea. "The only way for us to take advantage of these opportunities so as to ensure sustainable peace and security, is to navigate these disruptions and underlying fault lines through a pragmatic and constructive approach, and most importantly, one that strengthens existing mechanisms of cooperation and helps to foster new and forward-looking partnerships," the Minister said. "The challenges we all face today, and all of us know this, whether they be the traditional security issues such as nuclear proliferation, armed conflict and so on or newer non-traditional issues such as terrorism, migration and refugee flows and environmental degradation - all of these, in our view, require more, and not less, multilateralism." Sushma Swaraj said that India's vision of engagement in the Indo-Pacific region will be based on the values of peace, stability and prosperity on a free, open, prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) regional bloc central to the concept, which serves the long-term interests of all countries in the region and of the world at large. "There is greater energy, pragmatism and strategic content in India's relations with Southeast Asian regions, known as Asean, in the context of the wider Indo-Pacific. "We are leveraging the full potential of this policy to accelerate the development of India's northeastern states and to enhance regional connectivity between them and Southeast Asia," she said. Sushma Swaraj said that the paradox is that globalisation seems to be leading to less, not more multilateralism. "Or to put it another way, unilateral tendencies are coming to the fore, be they in rising trade protectionism or in the disregard for established international mechanisms governing the global commons such as in maritime domain." She also highlighted India's revitalisation of ties with its immediate neighbourhood under the Neighbourhood First Policy. "And this includes a well thought-out approach towards the Indian Ocean region, including maritime security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, Blue Economy, as well as the leveraging of the economic and cultural complementarities between the littoral states. "We are paying special attention to infrastructure and connectivity projects." The Minister highlighted India's deepening of ties with all the major countries of the world. The annual programme covers a range of issues relevant to disarmament and international security such as global security environment, weapons of mass destruction, certain conventional weapons, space security, maritime cooperation, security of cyberspace, export controls and emerging technologies. It aims at equipping participants with knowledge and perspectives on various contemporary disarmament, non-proliferation, arms control and international security affairs. Young diplomats from 27 countries are participating in the programme, which is being held at the Foreign Services Institute and will conclude February 1. New Delhi, Jan 15 : Search engine giant Google on Tuesday celebrated the birth anniversary of Sake Dean Mahomed who was the first Indian author to publish a book in English and later, to open an Indian restaurant in Britain. Born in 1759 in Patna, Mahomed went on to find success as the "The Shampooing Surgeon of Brighton", opening a spa in the British seaside town that attracted the rich and the royal. In 1810 after moving to London, he opened the 'Hindostanee Coffee House', Britain's first Indian restaurant. However, Mahomed was forced to close his luxurious restaurant in 1812. He later moved his family to the beachside town of Brighton and opened a spa named 'Mahomed's Baths' which offered luxurious herbal steam baths whose specialty was a combination of a steam bath and an Indian therapeutic massage - a treatment he named 'shampooing', inspired by the Hindi word 'champissage' meaning a head massage. He also published a book about the therapeutic benefits of the treatment with testimonials from his patients. In 1822, King George IV appointed Mahomed as his personal 'shampooing surgeon', which greatly improved his business. A portrait of Mahomed also hangs in the Brighton Museum. Washington, Jan 15 : Raj Shah, an Indian American spokesman in the White House Press Office, has left President Donald Trump's administration and joined an arm of a Florida-based lobbying firm, officials said. Shah, a former researcher at the Republican National Committee, will lead the Media Group, the press wing of Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm with offices in Florida and Washington, The New York Times quoted the officials as saying on Monday. He will work with Jamie Rubin, a Democrat who was a spokesman for Madeleine Albright, the former Secretary of State. Shah served in the Trump White House beginning in January 2017 as Deputy Assistant to the President, Deputy Communications Director and Deputy Press Secretary. His portfolio recently included helping prepare Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh for his Senate confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court. His departure comes as the White House press and communications teams have been depleted. Several aides have moved on to roles at government agencies or have left the administration entirely. Prayagraj, Jan 15 (IANS) Hundreds of hoardings carrying the images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath dotted the streets of the holy town as millions from across India and abroad have descended here for the religious, spiritual and cultural congregation taking place barely three months ahead of the 2019 general elections. The Kumbh Mela, which opened formally in the early hours of Tuesday with the first of the six 'shahi Snan' (royal bath), and is expected to draw over 15 crore pilgrims this year, is a sea of saffron and slogans such as "Modi tum sangharsh karo, hum tumhare saath hain" (Modi you lead the fight, we are with you) and "Mandir wahin banayenge" (temple will be built at the disputed site in Ayodhya) rent the air at the site. Notably, both Modi and Yogi have waxed eloquent on the preparations for the holy dip, which according to legend, opens the doors to heaven. The Kumbh Mela administration officials told IANS that Yogi has resolved to provide an unforgettable pilgrimage experience to crores of devotees visiting Kumbh. They say that Yogi has laid special emphasis on "blending the grand traditions of Kumbh with the deployment of modern techniques and solutions" so that the kalpavasis, spiritual gurus, dignitaries, foreign visitors and the pilgrims have a "life emancipating experience" during their visit to Prayagraj. At a press conference on Monday, Prayagraj Commissioner Ashish Kumar Goyal told reporters that the state government is fully dedicated to providing a unique and fulfilling experience to visitors, highlighting that "there is no shortage of budget, we have sufficient funds". He maintained that the Chief Minister is personally monitoring the Kumbh Mela, and has advised officials to do everything that is needed. The Kumbh is also the world's largest religious congregation of its kind, making it a potential political playfield for the BJP that has a strong voter-base among the Hindus. The 2019 Kumbh Mela is organised on a much wider scale than its previous editions and multiple tent cities, along with lakhs of new toilets have cropped up along the banks of the holy river Ganga. The historic city was also recently renamed from Allahabad by the BJP government. Displayed here are multiple life-size hoardings welcoming pilgrims to Kumbh and they carry images of Modi and Yogi on either side with their messages. Such hoardings and posters are among the first sights that visitors arriving in the city encounter, and on the way leading up to the Sangam -- the confluence of Ganga and Yamuna rivers and the mystical Saraswati -- visitors are introduced to the various programmes and campaigns introduced and promoted by the BJP government. One example of this is a massive yellow-coloured hoarding that appears near the Parade Ground on Kali Road, about 3 kms before the Sangam, that sings praises of the bonhomie between the Yogi-led Up government and the Modi-led NDA government at the centre. It states that in keeping with the piousness of the Ganga, the state of Uttar Pradesh is marching forward. The hoarding, whose similar variations also appear in other parts of the city, states that Modi has allotted Rs 146.87 crores and Rs 52.76 crores towards Prayagraj District Sewerage Project and Prayagraj District Sewerage Network Project, respectively. The hoarding carries smiling pictures of Modi and Yogi on either sides, with the achievements of the BJP government inscribed at the bottom. Another similar hoarding reads: "Ek dubki aastha ki, ek bhaav sadbhav ka" and displays a saint offering water to the Sun god. The smiling pictures of Modi and Yogi on either sides of the hoarding keep the visitors company here as well. The Kumbh administration has built pontoon bridges that lead the visitors to the five-kilometre bathing ghat at Sangam. These bridges can only be reached after passing through the by-lanes of the city, which are dotted with hundreds of such hoardings and posters at regular intervals. While several such hoardings in multiple colours and sizes attract the visitors visually, there are occasional political sloganeering in the praise of the two leaders that reverberate the Kumbh nagri. Organised processions of men, women and sadhus were seen late on Monday evening, hailing lord Ram and calling for the construction of a grand Ram Temple at the disputed Babri Masjid site. Such slogans, almost routinely, shift from singing the praises of gods to those of PM Modi. Visitors too seem to have entered the election mood as political conversations and predictions can be heard at roadside tea stalls and dhabas. This gathering of Hindu pilgrims also becomes significant for its political implications as Congress President Rahul Gandhi had recently set on a Mandir-hopping exercise before the state assembly elections. The Kumbh Mela, 2019 is being held from January 15 to March 4, with six important bathing dates. Makar Sankranti, which falls on Tuesday, was the first of these dates for bathing, and officials expect over a crore devotees to take the holy dip on the first day of the fair. ( can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in) Washington, Jan 15 : US President Donald Trump has sent a letter to North Koran leader Kim Jong-un, an informed familiar with the ongoing denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang told CNN. The letter comes as the two sides negotiate details of a second meeting between the two leaders. It was flown to Pyongyang and delivered by hand, the source said on Monday night. According to the source, North Korea's former intelligence chief Kim Yong Chol -- one of Pyongyang's top negotiators -- could visit Washington to finalise details of the upcoming summit. CNN had previously reported that US scouting teams visited Bangkok, Hanoi and Hawaii as they search for a location for the second summit. Last week, South Korean President Moon Jae-in threw his support behind another Trump-Kim meeting, saying it would be a turning point "that will firmly solidify peace on the Korean Peninsula". During his visit to Beijing last week, Kim said that Pyongyang will make efforts for the second summit with the US leader to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community. North Korea will continue sticking to the stance of denuclearization and resolving the Korean Peninsula issue through dialogue and consultation, he added. Trump and Kim held a historic summit last June in Singapore where they had agreed to work towards denuclearization in return for security guarantees from Washington. Talks are currently stalled due to the lack of a clear disarmament road map. Chennai, Jan 15 : Tamil Nadu celebrated Pongal, a major harvest festival, on Tuesday with traditional fervour. Across the state, people got up early, put on new clothes and offered special prayers at temples. At homes at the auspicious time, children beating a small drum shouted "Pongolo Pongal, Pongolo Pongal" when the milk started boiling over the pot as a part of preparing "Chakarai Pongal", the special dish of the festival. In some homes, conches are blown prior to the formal offering. When the milk boils over, other ingredients -- rice, jaggery, Bengal gram -- are added to the milk and finally ghee, fried cashews, almonds and cardamom, are also added. The mud pot or stainless steel in which the dish is cooked is decorated by tying up ginger, turmeric, sugarcane piece and banana at the neck. The Pongal dish is offered to the sun god as thanksgiving and eaten as "prasad". People exchanged greetings and Chakarai Pongal with their neighbours. The Pongal festivities take place over four days, the first day being "Bhogi", which was on Monday, when people burn their old clothes, mats and other items. Homes are painted afresh. The second day is the main festival celebrated on the first day of the Tamil month, "Thai". The third day is "Mattu Pongal", when bulls and cows are bathed and their horns painted and worshipped as they play an important role in farms. Women feedbirds with coloured rice and pray for the welfare of their brothers. In some parts of the state, "jallikattu" - a bull-taming sport - is held. The fourth day is "Kannum Pongal" - the day to go out and meet relatives and friends. Washington, Jan 15 : US President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed "ongoing cooperation in Syria as American forces begin to withdraw" during a phone call, just a day after Trump threatened to "devastate Turkey economically" if the NATO-allied country attacks Kurdish militia in the region. "The President expressed the desire to work together to address Turkey's security concerns in northeast Syria while stressing the importance to the US that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian Democratic Forces with whom we have fought to defeat the IS (Islamic State)," CNN quoted White House press secretary Sarah Sanders as saying on Monday night about the call that took place earlier in the day. Sanders said that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford will meet his Turkish counterpart on Tuesday "to continue consultations" on Syria. "Gen. Dunford is scheduled to meet his Turkish counterpart this week on the sidelines of the NATO Military Committee in Chiefs of Defence Session, which will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium," Col. Patrick Ryder, a spokesperson for Dunford told CNN. On Monday night, Trump confirmed the phone call in a tweet. "Spoke with President Erdogan of Turkey to advise where we stand on all matters including our last two weeks of success in fighting the remnants of IS, and 20 mile safe zone. Also spoke about economic development between the US and Turkey - great potential to substantially expand," he wrote. During the call, Erdogan told Trump that Turkey backs the President's withdrawal decision and extends all kinds of support to the US, according to Turkish news agency Anadolu. Anadolu said Erdogan emphatically told Trump that Turkey does not have any problems with the Kurds and that "Turkey aims to fight all terror organisations including IS, PKK (The Kurdistan Workers Party) and its cross-border extensions that are threat to its national security". The two leaders agreed on developing bilateral economic relations to a higher level, according to the report, CNN reported. Monday's call between Trump and Erdogan comes a day after the US President issued a stark threat toward Turkey, saying that Washington "will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds". Turkey views some Kurdish groups in the region as terrorist groups and Kurds make up the majority of US-allied fighters operating in Syria in the civil war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu responded directly to Trump's comments on Monday prior to the phone call. "As for Donald Trump's threat language, we have repeatedly said that we will not be afraid of any threat... You cannot have any result from threatening Turkey economically. We need to see how we can solve this problem together." Washington, Jan 15 : US President Donald Trump on Monday spoke over phone with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan following recent bickering between Washington and Ankara, said the White House in a statement. The two leaders discussed several bilateral issues, including the US troops' withdrawal from Syria, said the White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders in the statement, reports Xinhua news agency. "The President expressed the desire to work together to address Turkey's security concerns in northeast Syria while stressing the importance to the US that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian Democratic Forces," added Sanders. The spokesperson also revealed that US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford will meet with his Turkish counterpart on Tuesday to continue "consultations with Turkey on Syria." On Sunday, Trump tweeted that the US would "devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds" amid the withdrawal of US troops from Syria. He also suggested the creation of a 20-mile (32 km) safe zone in Syria. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Monday hit back at the threats against Turkey, claiming that "economic threats against Turkey will get nowhere." The US and Turkey have been quarreling recently regarding the Kurdish militia in northern Syria, a US ally in the anti-Islamic State campaign but seen as a terrorist group by Ankara. New Delhi, Jan 15 : The pharmaceutical industry will be the core of ties between India and Uzbekistan as the Central Asian nation's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev visits India from January 18 to 20 for the Vibrant Gujarat Summit. President Mirziyoyev's visit comes after the first ever India-Central Asia Dialogue in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on Sunday. "President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev attends Vibrant Gujarat international investment summit as a key guest of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 18-20," the Uzbek Embassy said in a statement on Monday. "Uzbekistan becomes (the) first among Central Asian states to be a country partner of Vibrant Gujarat biennial event," it stated. Economic liberalisation, rapid political reforms and encouragement of foreign direct investment make Uzbekistan an inviting destination for business and investment. Indian companies are exploring investment opportunities in the pharmaceutical, textile, education, IT, tourism and other sectors in Uzbekistan, the Embassy statement said. "To attract investments in the pharmaceutical sector, an Uzbek Indian Free Pharmaceutical Zone is being developed in the Andijan region," it stated. Andijan is on the southeastern side of Uzbekistan near its border with Kyrgyzstan. Pharmaceutical products, mechanical equipment, vehicles, service, optical instruments and equipment are India's major exports to Uzbekistan. India imports fruit and vegetable products, services, fertilisers, juice products, extracts and lubricants. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj co-chaired the India-Central Asia Dialogue at Samarkand in Uzbekistan on Sunday that was also attended by the Foreign Ministers of Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan and the First Deputy Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan. The meet sought to work collectively for peace and reconstruction efforts in war-ravaged Afghanistan. India reiterated its support and commitment to peace, security and stability of Afghanistan; to promote inclusive Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled peace and reconciliation process and to assist in economic reconstruction of Afghanistan," she told the media after the Dialogue. In recent times, India has increased its engagements with Central Asia, a region that is important for New Delhi in terms of energy security. PLANO, Texas, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- ZeOmega established in 2001 to deliver Jiva, the industry's leading population health management (PHM) platform has appointed Sandra Hewett as its new Chief Nursing Officer (CNO). In this critical role, Hewett will plan and direct all aspects of development, use, and interpretation of clinical content and intelligence within Jiva. She will also help architect strategy for the organization's powerful PHM and value-based care solutions. "Sandra joined ZeOmega in 2012, bringing with her 25 years of experience in healthcare, including a director's role in care management at a large health plan serving the needs of Medicare and Medicaid populations in Washington state," says Co-Founder, President, and Chief Operating Officer for ZeOmega, Sadananda 'Sada' Babu Rai. "Sandra offers the kind of purposeful leadership that can only be inspired by living and breathing a life in the healthcare trenches." Since joining ZeOmega, Hewett has taken the lead on developing clinical assessment protocols for improving the management of chronically ill patients and those with complex needs. She has also provided vision and execution of an integrated set of clinical rules to drive identification and stratification of populations that help improve both clinical and financial outcomes. In her new role, Hewett will continue assisting in efficiently and effectively maintaining the high-level, operational aspects of Jiva while tracking compliance with all state, federal, and local regulations laws, standards, and protocols. The ZeOmega family looks forward to continued solution enhancements influenced by Hewett's talents and ambition. She is both a business-minded and client-conscious problem solver who has demonstrated the ability to keep the delicate balance between patient welfare and successful administrative management. With her focus aimed at helping health professionals perform at their best, supporting better patient care, and improving the value-based healthcare arena as a whole Hewett is a CNO to watch. About ZeOmega Established in 2001, ZeOmega build and continues to deliver the industry's leading population health management platform, Jiva, including utilization management, case management, and disease management. Our end-to-end, interoperability-enabled platform is rapidly deployable and highly scalable, facilitating collaboration among healthcare stakeholders. Jiva helps healthcare organizations achieve IHI Triple Aim goals with data integration, actionable analytics, workflow automation, patient engagement, clinical quality, provider performance measurement and management, and holistic and personalized assessments to support care planning. Headquartered in Plano, Texas and with offices in Bangalore, India, ZeOmega supports over 30 million lives on the Jiva platform, employs over 500 talented individuals, hosts an extensive partner network, and serves the healthcare industry's leading health plans and other risk-bearing entities. For more information, visit www.zeomega.com or call 214-618-9880. Follow ZeOmega on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. SOURCE ZeOmega LONDON, January 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- ZEDRA, the fast growing independent global specialist in trust, corporate and fund services has announced the opening of its third Swiss office, this time in Zug, to support its other Swiss businesses based in Zurich and Geneva. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/790204/ZEDRA_Logo.jpg ) It is expected that the three offices will work closely together, with company registration, accounting and legal services all eventually available from the new location. Commenting on the new office opening, ZEDRA's Managing Director for Switzerland, Stuart McLuckie, said, "Our new Zug office will give us the additional means to support a range of specialist Swiss corporate business. It is therefore an important strategic step for us." Vadim Neumann, Managing Director of ZEDRA's Zurich operations adds, "Since opening our Geneva and Zurich bases we have seen a rapid growth in new business, much of which requires specialist support. This new office will increase our ability to offer clients an end to end Swiss corporate services product, all from within the ZEDRA network, something which we know our global client base requires." At the end of last year, ZEDRA announced that Corsair Capital LLC, one of the longest-standing private equity firms focused on the financial services industry, had made a majority investment in ZEDRA, a move that was expected to support and encourage new growth opportunities. The deal is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to complete in 2019. For further information, please visit http://www.zedra.com About ZEDRAPleaes click https://www.zedra.com/about/ SOURCE ZEDRA Group PULLMAN, Wash., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. News & World Report ranked online MBA and executive MBA programs from Washington State University's Carson College of Business as No. 13 out of a field of 285 online MBA programs nationwide. "Our online business programs are consistently praised by students throughout the Pacific Northwest and worldwide who seek an affordable, high quality, relevant business education," said Chip Hunter, Carson College dean. "We are especially pleased to be recognized among the top 15 best programs in an increasingly competitive space." U.S. News & World Report also recognized the Carson College as among the best online MBA programs for veterans. WSU has consistently ranked as a military friendly school and has a time-honored tradition of commitment to active-duty military personnel and veterans. "Washington State University is widely recognized for being military friendly. Over the last year, Carson College has implemented new veteran programming and support that better serve our veteran and military students," said Hunter. One of the services the college offers to help WSU military students transition to a four-year college experience is "Rucksacks to Backpacks," a two-credit elective course. In 2018, the college launched extracurricular programs for military and veteran MBA students to support their successful transition into military leadership roles or the civilian workforce. Additionally, the college hired retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Matthew Beer to advise military and veteran students and support their transition from the military to the corporate world. "The Carson College of Business MBA provides opportunities for students to achieve their business aspirations wherever they may live and work worldwide, said Cheryl Oliver, Carson College associate dean for professional programs. "We do not aim for ranking scores but appreciate that we are recognized beyond the Pacific Northwest. Being consistently ranked in the nation's top online MBA programs affirms that our mission to create insights and opportunities through business education is valuable and relevant to today's students." U.S. News & World Report's rankings for Online Graduate MBA Programs were determined by engagement, student excellence, expert opinion, faculty credentials and training, and student services and technologies. For more information about Carson College of Business online business programs, see https://onlinemba.wsu.edu/. SOURCE Washington State University Carson College of Business Related Links https://onlinemba.wsu.edu SEATTLE, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Softwood lumber exports from Brazil have increased 36% from January through November this year as compared to the same period in 2017. In US dollar terms, the export price has only gone up a modest three percent from the 3Q/17 to the 3Q/18, but because of the weakening Brazilian Real, there has been a 26% increase in the export price in the local currency over the past year. This development has led sawmills to expand export sales, which has resulted in higher demand for sawlogs. As a consequence, there has been continued upward pressure on log prices, which reached a new all-time-high in the 3Q/18, according the Wood Resource Quarterly. This increase is a continuation of a trend that started in 2013 when sawlog prices averaged BRL125/m3. In US dollar terms, Brazilian sawlog prices have declined the past year because of the strengthening dollar and in the 3Q/18 were at their lowest levels in over two years. Despite excess regional supplies of both pine and eucalyptus pulplog, prices in the local currency have increased slightly this year. Eucalyptus pulplogs have gone up three percent from the 3Q/17 to the 3Q/18, while average prices for softwood pulplogs have increased 1.3% during the same period, reports the WRQ. However, in the Southern region of Brazil, prices for pine pulplogs have declined somewhat, which was an unwelcome development for the many small independent land owners and timberland investors in the region. The limited price improvements over the past few years, oversupply of pine pulplogs, and potentially more attractive land-use alternatives in the agricultural sector, have led some landowners to choose to plant agricultural crops rather than trees. There is a concern that if many current owners of forest plantations choose this path, there will be insufficient supply of wood raw-material for the forest industry in the southern states in the future. Global lumber, sawlog and pulpwood market reporting is included in the 56-page quarterly publication Wood Resource Quarterly (WRQ). The report, which was established in 1988 and has subscribers in over 30 countries, tracks sawlog, pulpwood, lumber and pellet prices, trade and market developments in most key regions around the world. To subscribe to the WRQ, please go to www.woodprices.com CONTACT: Wood Resources International LLC Hakan Ekstrom [email protected] www.woodprices.com This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com http://news.cision.com/wood-resources-international-llc/r/continued-strength-in-the-brazilian-lumber-export-market-has-pushed-sawlog-prices-to-record-highs-in,c2711722 The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/1902/2711722/972025.pdf Continued strength in the Brazilian lumber export market has pushed sawlog prices to record highs in the local currency, reports the Wood Resource Quarterly SOURCE Wood Resources International LLC Related Links http://www.woodprices.com With the support of a $15 million donation from USAA, CGMA will disburse interest-free loans to Coast Guard personnel with the assistance of the American Red Cross Hero Care Center electronic fund distribution process. Effective 16 January 2019, Coast Guard service members with dependents will be eligible for interest-free loans up to $1,000, while service members without dependents will be eligible for up to $750. The CGMA loan assistance is designed to cover an estimated two weeks of shortfalls due to not being paid, such as housing, essential utilities, food and child care and is available to all Coast Guard service members. Coast Guard service members needing assistance should visit www.cgmahq.org. "USAA's mission is to be there for our members when they need us most," said USAA CEO Stuart Parker. "This initiative, together with our efforts directly supporting members, will help thousands of Coast Guard families." "Since 1924, the mission of CGMA is unchangedto help members of the Coast Guard family in their time of financial need. They are feeling that need now more than ever," said RADM Cari Thomas, USCG (ret) CEO, CGMA. "This incredible gift makes a difference in the lives of Coast Guard men and women. And it will position CGMA to respond during this time of uncertainty for those that rely on Coast Guard paychecks and pensions: active duty, reservists, civilian employees, retirees and annuitants." "The American Red Cross has a long history of providing help during emergencies to members of our military, and we are proud to partner with Coast Guard Mutual Assistance and USAA to administer support to the Coast Guard community during this time of financial stress," said Koby Langley, senior vice president of the Red Cross Service to Armed Forces. In direct support of members, USAA is offering a one-time, low interest loan1 to active Coast Guard, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Corps, Public Health Service Corps personnel whose pay is disrupted. The loan interest is 0.26% APR, but may fall to as low as 0.01% APR with an optional Automatic Payment Plan.2 USAA is also making available additional special offers to help all members affected by the partial government shutdown. Members may be eligible for the following: 60-day payment deferral on consumer loans (auto, personal, etc.) 90-day payment deferral on credit cards, interest will continue to accrue Special payment arrangements on auto/home insurance premiums3 About USAA The USAA family of companies provides insurance, banking, investments, retirement products and advice to more than 12.8 million current and former members of the U.S. military and their families. Known for its legendary commitment to its members, USAA is consistently recognized for outstanding service, employee well-being and financial strength. USAA membership is open to all who are serving our nation in the U.S. military or have received a discharge type of Honorable and their eligible family members. Founded in 1922, USAA is headquartered in San Antonio. For more information about USAA, follow us on Facebook or Twitter (@USAA), or visit usaa.com. About CGMA Serving as the official aid society for the United States Coast Guard, CGMA provides essential financial relief to the entire Coast Guard community. CGMA is one of four congressionally-sanctioned Military Aid Societies that collectively helps 2.5 million service members from each military branch and their families. The charity provides grants and no-interest loans for needs such as disaster relief, education, and family support. Since 1924, CGMA has provided over $187 million in direct assistance to the Coast Guard community. For more information: visit www.cgmahq.org, or find CGMA on Facebook or Twitter (@CGMutualAssist). About the American Red Cross: The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies about 40 percent of the nation's blood; teaches skills that save lives; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit redcross.org or cruzrojaamericana.org, or visit us on Twitter at @RedCross. 1 To be eligible for this loan, you must be a member of the Coast Guard or National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Corps or Public Health Service Corps. Retirees and members separated from the Coast Guard or National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Corps and Public Health Service Corps are not eligible for this special loan. 2 To be eligible you must have a USAA Federal Savings Bank Checking account, Savings account or Certification of deposit as of 01/13/2019. A 12-month personal loan with an annual percentage rate (APR) of 0.01% would have monthly payments of $208.34 per $2,500 borrowed. Loan subject to underwriting standards and credit approval. This advertised rate includes discount of .25% for Automatic Payment Plan. Automatic payment plan is not a requirement for approval of credit. As an example, for an eligible borrower who qualifies, a $2,500 loan, with an Automatic Payment Plan in place, would have an APR of .01%, a monthly payment of $208.34 per month for 12 months, and would pay a total of $.08 in interest over the 12 months, assuming on-time payments. Use of the term "member" or "membership" refers to membership in USAA Membership Services and does not convey any legal or ownership rights in USAA. Restrictions apply and are subject to change. 3 Restrictions apply and are subject to change without notice. Loans provided by USAA Federal Savings Bank, Member FDIC. USAA means United Services Automobile Association and its affiliates. Contact: USAA Media Relations Phone: (210) 498-0940 USAA on Twitter: @usaa SOURCE USAA Related Links http://www.usaa.com WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Leaders with the American Federation of Government Employees are calling out Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie for disparaging a disabled combat veteran who shared his firsthand accounts of veterans who are suffering extreme financial hardships under this unprecedented government shutdown. In a letter to Secretary Wilkie, AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. denounced the secretary for attacking the integrity of union member Edward Canales, a 100 percent disabled veteran and federal correctional officer at the Bureau of Prisons. About 300,000 veterans and their families are without pay as the federal government shutdown stretches into Week 4. Veterans make up one-third of the federal workforce, and many are experiencing tremendous financial hardship, union leaders say. "There are an estimated 300,000 veterans and their families affected by this shutdown who are experiencing tremendous financial hardship and you apparently couldn't care less," Cox wrote. "I can assure you that each one is under unnecessary stress; if they suffer from PTSD, as many do, introducing additional stressors only exacerbates their condition." AFGE Local 3584 President Edward Canales, a Gulf War veteran who represents federal correctional workers at a California prison, spoke to ABC News about concerns he's hearing from veterans who are worried about being able to care for their families during this government shutdown, which is the longest in U.S. history. In response, VA Secretary Wilkie sent a letter to AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. accusing Canales and other AFGE leaders of exploiting veterans to score political points. "Edward Canales fought in the first Gulf War and is a 100 percent service-connected disabled veteran," said fellow Gulf War veteran Eric Young, who represents 33,000 federal correctional workers and staff as president of the AFGE Council of Prison Locals. "Since transitioning from the military to the civil service, Ed has continued to advocate for the needs of veterans inside the Bureau of Prisons as a military liaison. When he discusses the concern many veterans have about continuing to provide for their families as this shutdown drags on, he is speaking from firsthand experience," Young said. "Instead of Secretary Wilkie diverting attention away from the administration for manufacturing this crisis, he should uphold the dignity of federal employees who are veterans in government particularly those veterans continuing to serve on the front lines in our nation's prisons," Young added. "So, there's no apology to provide to an administration that has stripped veterans who work in our VA hospitals of due process rights at work. What Edward says is true we are enduring unnecessary stress in this quagmire that is now the longest ever shutdown in American history." President Cox, who served veterans for more than 20 years a registered nurse at the VA, said Secretary Wilkie's attack on veterans is despicable. "Secretary Wilkie should be ashamed of himself for tarnishing the honorable name and reputation of Edward Canales and accusing him and other AFGE leaders of treating veterans as victims," Cox said. "It is a fact that many veterans are among the 800,000 federal employees who are not getting paid during this shutdown and no amount of shaming Mr. Canales will change that." The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union, representing 700,000 workers in the federal government and the government of the District of Columbia. For the latest AFGE news and information, visit the AFGE Media Center. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. SOURCE American Federation of Government Employees The new plant, which features the latest innovations in textile services technology and automation, was developed to accommodate the rapidly growing customer base in Greater Los Angeles, Long Beach, Newport Beach, Anaheim, and surrounding areas. It provides local businesses with managed service programs for uniforms and workwear, as well as facility service products, including floor mats and mops, wipers and towels, and restroom and ancillary products. UniFirst had previously serviced area customers from its smaller-sized branch facility in Norwalk, Calif., which employed 55 people, most of whom relocated to the new facility. "Our LA plant is an engineering showpiece," says UniFirst president and CEO, Steven Sintros. "The new facility features latest technologies and high-tech processing systems that are among the most advanced in the textile service industry. This will allow us to continually improve our managed uniform programs for our customers' benefit, so they consistently receive the very best services possible." Spanning 3.57 acres, the new plant also has an eye on the "greener" side. The new UniFirst facility supports greater energy efficiency through investments that include heat reclaiming equipment, latest-generation warehouse lighting, and contemporary rooftop HVAC units. All cleaning formulas and detergents are 100% environmentally friendly and natural light throughout the plant offers a positive employee boost to the workday. "We're extremely excited to bring this world-class operation to the Greater Los Angeles market," said the new plant's general manager, Anthony Ortega. "Our L.A. operation is the culmination of all the technological advancements we've made over the years, serving as a model for new UniFirst servicing operations to come, and reinforces our ongoing commitment to quality, efficiency, and industry-leading customer service. It also represents UniFirst's long-term commitment to the local business community, the surrounding regions, and the state of California." About UniFirst: Headquartered in Wilmington, Mass., UniFirst Corporation (NYSE: UNF) is a North American leader in the supply and servicing of uniform and workwear programs, as well as the delivery of facility service programs. Together with its subsidiaries, the company also provides first aid and safety products, and manages specialized garment programs for the cleanroom and nuclear industries. UniFirst manufactures its own branded workwear, protective clothing, and floorcare products; and with more than 250 service locations, over 300,000 customer locations, and 14,000-plus employee Team Partners, the company outfits nearly 2 million workers each business day. For more information, contact UniFirst at 800.455.7654 or visit UniFirst.com. SOURCE UniFirst Corporation Related Links http://www.unifirst.com The design teams from both brands collaborated to create a unified vision, ensuring that the familiarity of Pendleton's aesthetic was woven throughout the fan, while Hunter's trail-blazing designs stand as the backbone and foundation. From the patterns on the reversible blades to the intricate detailing on the fan body, the collection's unparalleled quality and unique visual elevate the concept of a traditional ceiling fan. "Through this partnership with another trusted and well-recognized home brand, our goal is to encourage our customers to reimagine what their home could be," said Hunter CEO, John Alexander. "By utilizing the iconic designs from Pendleton, we aim to inspire our customers to think outside the traditional wheelhouse of fan design and feel empowered to create a space in their home that is not only warm and welcoming but bold and celebrated." Industry professionals from all over the world will be the first to see the Pendleton Collection this week at the Lightovation: Dallas International Lighting Show in Dallas Market Center suite # 4331, January 16 - 20. Interior designers, builders and lighting design professionals looking to incorporate a touch of Southwestern decor will find these fans a unique and fresh approach. From monochromatic tones, to bold reds, the four designs from the collection were created with statement in mind. The fans showcase two body finishes in matte black and silver, and feature four different patterns on their reversible blades; Spider Rock, Canyonlands, Eagle Rock, and Pecos. Retailing at $499, the fans will include an energy-efficient, integrated LED light kit with cased white glass, reversible 3-speed WhisperWind motor, handheld remote, and the Installer's Choice of a three-position mounting system allowing for standard, angled or low-ceiling mounting. To shop and learn more about the new collection, visit Hunterfan.com/Pendleton, or for more design tips and tips from our design team, visit Hunterfan.com. About Hunter Fan Company Keeping homes 'Quietly Cool since 1886', Hunter Fan Company is the world's original ceiling fan manufacturer. As the #1 most installed ceiling fan for over 130 years, Hunter continues to provide a deep heritage of performance, comfort and everyday style for any room, giving consumers confidence, peace-of-mind and ultimately more control over their home environment. The Memphis-based brand is in the midst of an unprecedented new product launchoffering an array of over 100 new models, from rustic and contemporary designs to classic and retro statement pieces. In addition, the brand has recently debuted their exclusive line of WiFi-enabled SIMPLEconnect fans, which are now compatible with Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. As an industry-leader, Hunter's cutting-edge design and quality craftsmanship continues to bring unmatched performance into every space. Hunter ceiling fans are available on Hunterfan.com, as well as in lighting showrooms, home centers and online retailers nationwide. For more information, visit HunterFan.com, and connect with Hunter Fan Company on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube and Twitter. About Pendleton Setting the standard for classic American style, Pendleton is a lifestyle brand recognized worldwide as a symbol of American heritage, authenticity and craftsmanship. With six generations of family ownership, since 1863, the company celebrates 155 years of weaving fabric in the Pacific Northwest in 2018. Known for fabric innovation, Pendleton owns and operates two of America's remaining woolen mills, constantly updating them with state-of-the-art looms and eco-friendly technology. Inspired by its heritage, the company designs and produces apparel for men and women, blankets and accessories, home decor and gifts. Pendleton is available through select retailers in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia as well as Pendleton stores, company catalogs and direct-to-consumer channels, including the Pendleton website: www.pendleton-usa.com Media Contacts: Olivia Abbazia the / zimmerman / agency [email protected] (850) 668-2222 Meghan Browning the / zimmerman / agency [email protected] (850) 668-2222 SOURCE Hunter Fan Company Related Links http://www.hunterfan.com BOSTON, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Trade Hounds, a Boston startup, today announced a mobile app that connects construction workers all over the United States, providing them a digital platform to share their experiences and showcase their work. Trade Hounds empowers construction workers across the skilled trades carpenters, plumbers, electricians, welders, etc. by connecting them with each other to discuss their unique construction experiences. Members can weigh in on projects, share stories, get advice, and proudly showcase work photos, no matter their location. Without any notice or media coverage, over 9,000 workers nationwide have already starting using Trade Hounds, which is available in the Apple and Google Play stores. The workers on the platform span every state in the US. The idea for starting the company originated from entrepreneur David Broomhead, Co-Founder & CEO of Trade Hounds. "I was raised in a small, blue-collar town in Australia, and at an early age I gravitated towards the family construction business. My uncles and cousins were all in the trades. I worked on job sites from the age of 12 and loved working to build something real," said Broomhead. "While earning my MBA at Babson, I realized that construction workers worldwide didn't have a digital home. It was then that I began thinking about launching Trade Hounds, whose mission would be to empower construction workers by creating a digital community just for them." "The Trade Hounds mission is to improve the lives of the workers who are building the world around us by giving them access to their most valuable resource out there: each other," says Peter Maglathlin, Co-Founder & CFO at Trade Hounds. W.T. Rich, Fontaine Brothers, as well as nearly a dozen more contractors and subcontractors have agreed to partner with Trade Hounds and support the Trade Hounds mission. Trade Hounds raised $1.5 million in seed funding in 2018. Hyperplane Venture Capital and New England Development, a national real estate development company, are among Trade Hounds initial investors. For more information, download the app or visit the website: www.tradehounds.com About Trade Hounds: Trade Hounds is a mobile app for the hard-working tradespeople of America. Trade Hounds empowers construction workers across the skilled trades carpenters, plumbers, electricians, welders, etc. by connecting them with each other to discuss their unique construction experiences. Members can weigh in on projects, share stories, get advice, and proudly showcase work photos, no matter their location. David Broomhead, whose family was in the construction industry in Australia, founded the company in 2016. SOURCE Trade Hounds, Inc. Related Links https://www.tradehounds.com/ KENNEBUNK, Maine, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Starting the new year off on the right foot can set the tone for the months to come. Each new year offers the opportunity to revisit your wellness routine and make mindful changes. To start 2019 off strong and healthy, natural personal care leader Tom's of Maine is co-hosting a free 4-Week Wellness Reboot. Each week top mindbodygreen contributors and wellness experts will share their self-care tips, recommended products, meal plans and exercise tips on mindbodygreen and through Facebook Live sessions on January 16 with Betina Gozo and January 23 with Cassandra Bodzak. Visit Facebook.com/MindBodyGreen or Facebook.com/TomsofMaine for details. Tom's of Maine is also partnering with the experts at mindbodygreen to help fans "Nature Up" by entering for a chance to win $600 worth of popular mindbodygreen online video classes on wellness topics, a personal consultation with a mindbodygreen expert, and Tom's of Maine products. To enter, visit TomsofMaine.com/NatureUp between now and February 28. "A key component of 'naturing up' is discovering new practices, ideas and products that bring the best of nature to your health and wellness routine," says Rob Robinson, brand and goodness leader at Tom's of Maine. "In addition to the expert tips from our partners at mindbodygreen, Tom's of Maine will introduce nine new innovations in the coming months that harness the power of nature to deliver premium products." mindbodygreen Founder and CEO Jason Wachob says, "mindbodygreen is thrilled to partner with Tom's of Maine, a natural care pioneer, in creating accessible opportunities for everyone to 'nature up' and further their wellness practice with our 4-Week Wellness Reboot. A new year is an opportunity to reset intentions and habits. Our goal is that together with Tom's of Maine we can encourage readers to consider going natural in 2019." Tom's of Maine gives 10% of its profits back to organizations that support nature and healthy families. As well, employees are encouraged to give 5% of paid time to volunteer. For mindbodygreen sweepstakes terms and conditions visit https://www.tomsofmaine.com/natureup/nature-up-official-rules and to learn more about how the company supports healthy lifestyles, visit www.TomsofMaine.com. About Tom's of Maine Tom's of Maine has been making safe, effective natural personal care products for 49 years. It all began when Tom and Kate Chappell moved to Maine in 1968 looking for a healthier, simpler life for their growing family. And when they couldn't find personal care products that were free from artificial flavors, fragrances, sweeteners, colors and preservatives, they decided to make their own. Tom's of Maine products including toothpaste, deodorant, mouthwash, antiperspirant, bar soap, body wash, dental floss, and toothbrushes are made from naturally sourced and naturally derived ingredients and never tested on animals. The company has a long-standing commitment to caring for people and the planet. Tom's of Maine has supported hundreds of nonprofits by giving back 10% of its profits, and employees are encouraged to use 5% of their paid time (12 days) volunteering for causes they are passionate about. Most Tom's of Maine products are vegan, kosher, halal-certified and gluten-free. All packaging is recyclable through a partnership with upcycling leader TerraCycle or participating municipalities. Visit us online at http://www.tomsofmaine.com/ or at http://www.facebook.com/TomsofMaine. SOURCE Tom's of Maine ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- American Diabetes Association (ADA) Pathway to Stop Diabetes grant recipients Michael L. Stitzel, PhD, of the Jackson Laboratory, Stephen C.J. Parker, PhD, of the University of Michigan, and Praveen Sethupathy, PhD, of Cornell University, recently embarked on a collaborative research initiative empowered by the ADA Pathway to Stop Diabetes program. Bringing together diverse areas of expertise, their collaboration led to today's report that establishes new detail about the genetic signatures of the cells that produce and release insulin, pancreatic beta () cells. The research, detailed in the article, "Multiomic profiling identifies cis-regulatory networks underlying human pancreatic cell identity and function," published online today in the scientific journal Cell Reports (DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.12.083), provides an integrated analysis of EndoC-H1, a genetically engineered human cell line, which is of significant importance to the diabetes research community. Type 2 diabetes develops when pancreatic cells produce an insufficient supply of insulin, often in the setting of a reduced ability to use the insulin that is produced. Risk for developing type 2 diabetes includes both genetic and environmental factors, such as nutrition and physical activity. Because of the central role of insulin-producing cells in development of diabetes, significant research efforts have focused on the genetic links to cell development and function. Dr. Stitzel and his team, in an effort to motivate further functional studies of human cell molecular biology and to guide the development of cellular models, worked to create extensive multi-faceted maps of the EndoC-H1 molecular landscape. By comparing these multilayered genomic maps of EndoC-H1 to those generated from human islets in this and previous studies, the researchers identified shared and unique cis-regulatory elements (cis-RE) and expression features of protein-coding genes and non-coding RNAs. The resulting data, along with a web application created by the team, provide a valuable resource and guide for the design of future experiments to understand and manipulate the genetic programs governing cell identity and (dys)function in diabetes. The researchers hope that making these tools publicly available will both motivate and enable fellow scientists to embrace this human cell line, which potentially offers more direct relevance to this human genetic disease compared to other widely used rodent cell lines. "Our results lay the groundwork for targeted and hypothesis-driven research projects that could ultimately reveal the connections linking a person's genetics, cell failure, and type 2 diabetes," stated Drs. Stitzel, Parker and Sethupathy. The research team for this project includes corresponding author Michael L. Stitzel, PhD, a 2018 recipient of the ADA's Pathway to Stop Diabetes Accelerator grant. Dr. Stitzel is an assistant professor at the Jackson Laboratory, an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution in Farmington, Connecticut. Co-senior author Stephen C.J. Parker, PhD, assistant professor of computational medicine and bioinformatics and assistant professor of human genetics at the University of Michigan, is a 2014 recipient of an ADA Pathway Initiator grant. Praveen Sethupathy, PhD, associate professor of biomedical sciences at Cornell University, is a 2016 recipient of an ADA Pathway Accelerator grant. The Pathway to Stop Diabetes program was launched in 2013 by the American Diabetes Association and has awarded more than $47 million to 29 leading scientists to pursue transformative diabetes-related research. Each awardee is selected from a highly competitive applicant pool of only one nominee per institution, with approximately 100 applications received each year. The Pathway program is supported by contributions from corporate sponsors, individual philanthropists and foundations. Current Pathway corporate sponsors include Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly and Company, Merck, AstraZeneca, Abbott, Dexcom, Janssen, and Pfizer. "Congratulations to Drs. Stitzel, Parker and Sethupathy for this important paper that embodies what we envisioned when we created the Pathway to Stop Diabetes programbringing brilliant minds together to pursue innovative approaches to understanding the full scope and complexity of diabetes. Given that type 2 diabetes is a progressive disorder, and pancreatic dysfunction is one of the major pathophysiologic factors, this research is truly significant and provides essential data supporting the next logical experimental steps in unraveling the interactions of genetics and pancreatic dysfunction," said the ADA's Chief Scientific, Medical and Mission Officer William T. Cefalu, MD. About the American Diabetes Association Approximately every 21 seconds, someone in the United States is diagnosed with diabetes. Nearly half of the American adult population has diabetes or prediabetes, and more than 30 million adults and children are living with the disease. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) is the nation's leading voluntary health organization on a mission to prevent and cure diabetes, as well as improve the lives of all people affected by the disease. For nearly 80 years, the ADA has driven discovery by funding research to treat, manage and prevent all types of diabetes, while working relentlessly for a cure. Magnifying the urgency of this epidemic, the ADA works to safeguard policies and programs that protect people with the illness, those at risk of developing diabetes and the health care professionals who serve them by initiating programs, advocacy and education efforts that can lead to improved health outcomes and quality of life. To learn more or to get involved, call 1-800-DIABETES (1-800-342-2383) or visit us at diabetes.org. Information is available in English and Spanish. Join the conversation with us on Facebook (American Diabetes Association), Twitter (@AmDiabetesAssn) and Instagram (@AmDiabetesAssn). Contact: Michelle Kirkwood, 703-299-2053 [email protected] SOURCE American Diabetes Association Related Links http://www.diabetes.org LOS OLIVOS, Calif., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Fess Parker Winery is pleased to celebrate its 30th year in Santa Barbara County in 2019, a satisfying milestone for the family owned and operated business. In the years since its inception the winery has developed some of the finest vineyard sites in the Santa Rita Hills and Santa Ynez Valley and established itself as a brand popular with wine enthusiasts and critics alike. Says winery President Tim Snider, "We mark this anniversary with equal parts pride and gratitude pride for the quality we have achieved with our wines in national and international markets and gratitude for the opportunity to grow our business while remaining family held. By playing to our strengths and focusing on working with the Rhone and Burgundian varietals that grow so well here, hopefully we have set ourselves up well for the next 30 years. We are fortunate to have a tremendous winemaking team under the direction of Head Winemaker, Blair Fox, who celebrates his 15th anniversary with the winery this year as well." Winery co-owner Ashley Parker Snider says, "Knowing that a career in Hollywood wasn't necessarily a long-term proposition, creating a family business that all of us could participate in for generations was important to my dad. Before he passed in 2010, he was incredibly proud of how far we had come." Eli Parker a founding family member and former head winemaker reflects on the occasion: "Our greatest hope is that people who have enjoyed our wines over the last 30 years will continue to enjoy them as part of their own family traditions and celebrations. Even more so, we hope that people just discovering Fess Parker wines will appreciate them as the finest expression of the beauty and bounty of Santa Barbara wine country. Continuing to work together toward this objective as a family is a real privilege." To mark the date, the winery has produced limited edition magnums of its sparkling Fesstivity 30th Anniversary Cuvee, a blend of 70 percent Chardonnay and 30 percent Pinot Noir sourced from vineyards the winery developed in the highly regarded Sta. Rita Hills AVA. Only 500 magnums were bottled and they are available for direct purchase at the winery. To learn more about the Fess Parker Winery & Vineyard, visit https://www.fessparker.com/. ABOUT THE FESS PARKER FAMILY PORTFOLIO Since the late 1980s, Fess Parker and his family have cultivated a world-class hospitality portfolio around the beauty and bounty of Santa Barbara County. The Fess Parker Winery is focused on the grape varieties best suited to the region's unique growing conditions Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Rhone wines with its vintages consistently earning 90+ point ratings from top critics around the world. In addition to a waterfront hotel in Santa Barbara, the family honors their late patriarch's legacy by hosting guests at the Fess Parker Wine Country Inn in Los Olivos, which also houses The Bear and Star restaurant, featuring refined ranch-to-table cuisine from Chef/Partner John Cox. For more information, please visit www.fessparker.com. SOURCE Fess Parker Winery & Vineyard Related Links http://www.fessparker.com The pioneering collaboration between the UB Center for Integrated Global Biomedical Sciences (CIGBS) and TCFD, a New York State Center of Excellence, will support the growth of translational research and innovation, drawing on TCFD's comprehensive, longitudinal database and new programs. The partnership will also focus on educating students, professionals and parents through hands-on lectures and virtual teaching; global outreach and engagement to forge collaborations through the SUNY Global Health Institute with leading universities and medical institutions around the world; the development of practices and technologies for healthy living across the broad spectrum of complex conditions; and the establishment of new models of care that support interpersonal treatment and successful outcomes for New York State and beyond. "The combination of programs offered by our two centers gives us a major advantage over other known clinical research settings," said Dr. Theresa Hamlin, Associate Executive Director at TCFD. "We have unprecedented individualized data on treatments, responses to interventions as well as new technologies that will lead to innovations and breakthroughs in complex care. The opening of our new Children's Specialty Hospital in 2020, which will include The Research Institute for Brain and Body Health, further positions us to do the kind of research that will truly change lives." "We are confident that there is enormous promise for this collaboration to develop innovative clinical and translational research approaches that utilize health information technology to accelerate the evaluation of biomarkers, drug development and nutritional strategies," said Dr. Gene Morse, CIGBS Director, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the UB School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and co-director of the SUNY Global Health Institute. Dr. Morse also envisions synergy with the Drug Development Core at UB's Clinical and Translational Science Institute, which will support the growing network of UB, SUNY and TCFD researchers focused on autism, cannabinoid sciences research and human genomics. The partnership includes a collaboration between TCFD investigators and Dr. Jeffrey Lombardo, research assistant professor in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and CIGBS project director for global cannabinoid sciences and health information technology for patient safety, to examine new treatments for drug-resistant epilepsies. "Collaborations like this one are vital as we search for breakthroughs to help all those living with complex conditions," said Patrick H. Dollard, President and CEO of TCFD. "We need the thought leaders of many different disciplines to come together so we can achieve our common goal. The UB Center for Integrated Global Biomedical Sciences is the perfect partner for us." The collaboration is effective immediately and will be led by Dr. Hamlin and Dr. Morse. For more information on the collaboration, please contact Michael Rosen, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Strategic Communications at TCFD, [email protected]; and at UB, [email protected] , or Marcene Robinson, news content manager, [email protected]. About The Center for Discovery The Center for Discovery (TCFD) is a leading provider of healthcare and education services for more than 1,200 children and adults with complex conditions, medical frailties and Autism Spectrum Disorders, located 90 miles northwest of New York City. Named a Center of Excellence in 2016, TCFD has long been a leader in developing new models of care for individuals with complex conditions. On 1,500 acres of land in Sullivan County, TCFD houses school campuses, residences, medical and research facilities, organic and biodynamic farmland, and leased private businesses. Deeply focused on an individual's personal potential and possibilities, rather than a disability, TCFD strives to create better care and unique and challenging opportunities for the most vulnerable populations. For more information about TCFD, please visit https://thecenterfordiscovery.org/ About The UB Center for Integrated Global Biomedical Sciences The UB Center for Integrated Global Biomedical Sciences is an international hub for innovation that brings together scientific disciplines in a nontraditional approach to build capacity to address regional as well as global challenges. The center integrates education, training and research to promote novel discovery, maximize technology and foster translation. The center works with international partners to address global health research challenges and recognizes the important connections between health research and sustainable economic development. For more information about CIGBS, please visit https://bit.ly/2Ff3xI1. SOURCE The Center for Discovery Related Links https://thecenterfordiscovery.org/ "Results speak for themselves," said Ruhanen. "Cem has been instrumental in driving innovation and reinvention in key markets across EMEA. He's not a fix-it man, but a builder for sustained success, helping to architect tailored visions for each operation. We've seen his impact from Turkey to Dubai to South Africa to Russia, and we're looking forward to him bringing the same energy to more markets in Western Europe." After founding his own agency in 1993, Topcuoglu partnered with TBWA in 1999 to form TBWA\Istanbul, which today remains the dominant agency in Turkey. He was promoted to President, TBWA\CEE, Middle East and Africa in 2015, and has driven numerous innovation initiatives across the region, including a custom training program with Facebook and scaling TBWA's best data practices across markets. In 2018, TBWA saw creative and business success across all corners of the region, with TBWA\RAAD named Agency of the Year, as well as Network of the Year at Dubai Lynx; TBWA\RAAD ranked the #1 MENA Agency at Cannes 2018; TBWA\Group in South Africa winning 2018 Regional Agency Group of the Year at the Loeries; Grid Worldwide named Specialist Agency of the Year at AdFocus Awards; TBWA\Istanbul recognized as the Most Awarded Agency at the Crystal Apple Ceremony and named Creative Agency of the Year by the MediaCat Cat Report. "One of the best things about TBWA is the collective philosophy of working together to help build our markets," said Topcuoglu. "We have best-in-class digital and data capabilities, innovation initiatives and the best talent in the business. Throughout the region, our creative product has improved and helped our client business grow rapidly. I look forward to working with our agencies to unlock even more success." Originally from Istanbul, Topcuoglu graduated from Marmara University and began his career in advertising at Grey. He spent time working in Grey's New York office, gaining experience in fast-moving consumer goods for clients such as Procter & Gamble and Bristol-Myers, before moving back to Istanbul, where he rose to the position of Executive Vice President. About TBWA\Worldwide TBWA is The Disruption Company: the cultural engine for 21st century business. Named Adweek's 2018 Global Agency of the Year, we create disruptive ideas that locate and involve brands in culture, giving them a larger share of the future. Our collective has 11,300 creative minds across 275 offices in 95 countries and also includes brands such as Auditoire, Digital Arts Network (DAN), eg+ worldwide, GMR, The Integer Group, TBWA\Media Arts Lab, TBWA\WorldHealth and TRO. Global clients include adidas, Apple, Gatorade, Henkel, Hilton Hotels, McDonald's, Michelin, Nissan, and Singapore Airlines. Follow us on Twitter , LinkedIn and Instagram and like us on Facebook . TBWA is part of Omnicom Group (NYSE: OMC). SOURCE TBWA\Worldwide Related Links http://tbwaraad.com STATE COLLEGE, Pa., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Student well-being is one of the most critical issues confronting K-16 educators today. Dr. Henry G. Brzycki, expert in the field of producing well-being outcomes through schooling, is partnering on a new series of articles in eCampus News and eSchool News, the leading K-16 multi-media platforms for education innovation. The series will cover the latest innovations in social-emotional learning (SEL), student success, and student well-being best practices. Best Selling Book on Student Well-being in Higher Education : https://www.amazon.com/Student-Success-Higher-Education-Developing/dp/0988716151/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= New Book with 3 High-Impact Practices: https://www.amazon.com/Mental-Health-All-Toolkit-Teachers/dp/0988716186/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= Ellen Ullman, eSchool Media editorial director, said, "We want to help our audience navigate the growing body of work and best practices in student well-being and social-emotional learning." "These are important topics and we're excited to work with The Brzycki Group. We want to be the central source for our audience and help highlight the great work institutions are doing to address these issues and make well-being a core part of student learning." Dr. Brzycki said, "We can help teachers, school counselors, student affairs leadersand all educatorsincorporate the latest innovations in best practices into their classrooms to not only reach those who suffer from varying degrees of mental health disorders but also help all students become happy, healthy and successful people." Research shows academic outcomes and lifelong accomplishment follow well-being outcomes. Because of its widespread impact on society, well-being needs to be the central purpose of education. By integrating models and policies that span the entire K-16 educational system, educators can help produce psychologically well children, adolescents, and young adults through their schooling. Life for most of us in today's world takes a toll on our emotional, psychological, and physical well-being. Research demonstrates that people are not emerging from our educational system with the mental framework and associated mental capacities to adequately meet the overwhelming demands of modern life. This inadequacy leaves most people with growing levels of anxiety and depression; disconnection from their experiences of joy, love, happiness, and inner peace; and a lack of sense of purpose in life with related personal and professional meaning. The issue of mental health and well-being is becoming more and more acute as life in modern society becomes more and more complex. K-16 students have expanded needs and more mental and physical challenges and illnesses. We are not adequately addressing or measuring these needs and challenges. As a result, we are seeing dire and overwhelming statistics on bullying, hate crimes, trauma, anxiety, depression, sexual assault, substance abuse, suicide, behavior-based physical illnesses, and more. This is why we are calling for a new purpose of education in 2019. Dr. Henry G. Brzycki and Elaine J. Brzycki, co-author of the article series, have more than 30 years of experience providing leadership to the fields of education and psychology. They co-founded The Brzycki Group & The Center for the Self in Schools, an innovative think tank that provides thought leadership on emotional, psychological and physical well-being outcomes through education, with a mission to impact the human condition. Their three academic best-selling books represent the future of integrating well-being into K-16 education: Mental Health for All Toolkit (2019); Student Success in Higher Education: Developing the Whole Person through High-Impact Practices (2016); and The Self in Schooling: Theory and Practice How to Create Happy, Healthy, Flourishing Children in the 21st Century (2013). Your thoughts and ideas are welcome at: [email protected]. Contact: Henry Brzycki 8147532505 [email protected] SOURCE The Brzycki Group & The Center for the Self in Schools Related Links https://www.brzyckigroup.com BRANFORD, Conn., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Stony Creek Brewery is honored to announce the appointment of Catherine McGuinness to lead their Quality Control/Quality Assurance (QA) department. As QA Manager, she is responsible for maintaining and ensuring that the breweries award winning lineup of beers are produced to the highest standards and consistently enjoyed by their guests. Ms. McGuinness comes to Stony Creek Brewery from Yale University where she was a doctoral candidate in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. There she studied the dynamic behaviors of the cytoskeleton, the network of protein structures present in all cells of all domains of life, including brewer's yeast. Apart from summers as a farmhand in Fairfax, VT, Catherine has spent her career working in academic research. After graduating from Smith College with a degree in physics, she returned to her home state of Vermont where she spent a several years working in a biochemistry lab at the University of Vermont. She immediately developed a passion for biochemistry which pointed her to Yale. "We couldn't be more thrilled to have Catherine joining our team," said Andy Schwartz, Brewmaster for Stony Creek Brewery. "She really fits our Stony Creek family perfectly. She really exemplifies our Aggressively Laid Back motto; passionate and driven within the Scientific community, while maintaining a rich life when not on the clock." When not doing beer, Ms. McGuinness volunteers for the Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services in New Haven as a Cultural Companion and enjoys her work for the Yale Swing, Blues, & Fusion, and the New Haven Country Dancers. "I'm excited to be joining the Stony Creek family," says Ms. McGuinness, "Here I have the opportunity to transfer my research skills to a brewery setting, so I can help to continue making delicious and consistently high-quality beer." Stony Creek Brewery is a regional brewery located in Branford, Connecticut that specializes in beers that are a fusion of clean, bold and aggressive west coast flavors and east coast balance and drinkability. They call this "Aggressively Laid-Back Beer." Stony Creek Brewery, LLC, is a member of both the Brewers Association and the Connecticut Craft Beer Guild and is distributed in: Connecticut : Dichello Distributors, Hartford Distributors, Levine Distributing Dichello Distributors, Hartford Distributors, Levine Distributing Maine : Maine Distributors, National Distributors, Valley Distributors Maine Distributors, National Distributors, Valley Distributors Massachusetts : Horizon Beverage, Quality Beverage, Williams Distributing, Girardi Distributors Horizon Beverage, Quality Beverage, Williams Distributing, Girardi Distributors New Hampshire : Amoskeag Beverages Amoskeag Beverages New York : Saratoga Eagle, Try It, Lake Beverage, Dana, Dutchess Beer , Eagle Beverage, Seneca Beverage , Rocco Testani , Sprit and Sanzone Distributors, Boening Brothers and D. Bertoline & Sons Saratoga Eagle, Try It, Lake Beverage, Dana, , Eagle Beverage, , , Sprit and Sanzone Distributors, Boening Brothers and D. Bertoline & Sons Rhode Island : Horizon Beverage Horizon Beverage Vermont : Farrell Distributing For more information on Stony Creek Brewery visit them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/StonyCreekBeer/ or visit the Stony Creek Brewery website at www.stonycreekbeer.com. Media contact: Manuel Rodriguez [email protected] 203.433.4545 SOURCE Stony Creek Brewery Related Links http://www.stonycreekbeer.com NOVI, Mich., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Stoneridge, Inc. (NYSE: SRI), a leader in highly engineered electrical and electronic components for the commercial vehicle and automotive industry, announced today a strategic partnership with Velociti, Inc., a leading provider of technology deployment and support services. Under this agreement, Stoneridge and Velociti will work together with commercial vehicle fleets to install and support the innovative MirrorEyeTM Camera Monitor System (CMS) developed and manufactured by Stoneridge. Recently, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) approved an exemption to federal law allowing MirrorEye to be installed as an alternative to conventional rear-vision mirrors currently required on commercial motor vehicles in the United States. The exemption applies solely to Stoneridge's MirrorEye system making it the only CMS that allows for complete removal of traditional mirrors. Stoneridge has invested heavily in the development and field testing over the past several years and is now entering the launch phase with MirrorEye. "With this agreement we will be able to provide our commercial vehicle fleet customers with installation and post-sale support services from an industry leader in the space. Velociti's technology deployment experience and network will support this need," said Stephen Fox, vice president of business development, Stoneridge, Inc. "Velociti takes pride in partnering with companies that provide innovative solutions for driver safety," said Deryk Powell, president, Velociti, Inc. "Stoneridge has done an extraordinary job of bringing a game-changing technology to the market with MirrorEye, and we look forward to providing our professional services exclusively to Stoneridge's customers to ensure they are able to fully realize the benefits of the solution." "Velociti's commitment to customer service aligns well with Stoneridge's approach to the market," added Jon DeGaynor, president and CEO, Stoneridge, Inc. Its nationwide installation and service coverage will be leveraged to augment Stoneridge's existing implementation and delivery capacity. Velociti's post-implementation support will provide our fleet customers with the reliable service and support they require. In our partnership with Velociti, we expect MirrorEye adoption to accelerate, and our customers to be as satisfied with the installation and post-installation support as they are with the vision and safety advantages of MirrorEye." About Stoneridge, Inc. Stoneridge, Inc., headquartered in Novi, Michigan, is an independent designer and manufacturer of highly engineered electrical and electronic components, modules and systems principally for the automotive, commercial vehicle, motorcycle, agricultural and off-highway vehicle markets. Additional information about Stoneridge can be found at Stoneridge.com. About Velociti, Inc. Velociti, Inc. is a global provider of technology deployment and project management services, specializing in a broad range of technology products. Velociti's experience allows enterprise level technology consumers to maximize return-on-investment as a result of leveraging expert, rapid deployment. Velociti clients include many Fortune 500 companies from a wide variety of market segments including transportation, retail, distribution, manufacturing, healthcare, government, education, food service and public venues. For more information, please visit www.velociti.com. SOURCE Stoneridge, Inc. Related Links http://www.stoneridge.com RALEIGH, N.C., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- StellaPharma, Inc. (Stella) announced today that it has entered into an agreement whereby Stella will acquire the assets of G2B Pharma (G2B) including IP related to a dry powder nasal formulation of epinephrine being developed for anaphylaxis. Recent U.S. FDA product approvals indicate nasal delivery can be an excellent alternative route for delivery of rescue medications during life threatening patient events. Raleigh, North Carolina based StellaPharma was founded in 2018 by three pharmaceutical industry executives that are focused on developing therapeutic products that address unmet patient needs. Nasally delivered dry powder epinephrine, if approved by U.S. FDA, may provide a much needed and much desired alternative to epinephrine auto-injectors. Stella's executives include Steve Stefano, Executive Chairman, Thomas Parker, SVP Operations and Ted Lanpher, SVP Business Strategy. Stefano is a former 29-year GSK executive that led GSK's U.S. Payer Markets and Neurohealth Division by growing top-line revenues from $300 million to $2.5 billion. Parker and Lanpher are experienced industry veterans having developed and commercialized a range of allergy-related pharmaceutical products and services. "A more patient-friendly route for epinephrine delivery is badly needed," said Stefano. "A dry-powder nasal spray product holds out the prospect for improving compliance as an alternative to auto-injectors." G2B Pharma CEO and epinephrine dry powder spray inventor Dr. Nigel Fleming commented, "We are excited to see this important product move forward with the StellaPharma team and are eager to contribute to its development and commercial success." "Epinephrine is the mainstay of treatment for severe allergic reactions," said Tonya Winders, President & CEO, of Allergy & Asthma Network, a leading non-profit organization dedicated to ending needless death and suffering due to asthma, allergies and related conditions. "An easy-to-use dry powder nasal spray product would be a welcome alternative for patients and their families." About anaphylaxis Anaphylaxis is a life-threatening reaction with cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, or cutaneous manifestations resulting from exposure to an offending agent, usually insect sting, food, physical factor, or medication. The World Allergy Organization estimates that as many as 45 million Americans are at risk for anaphylactic reactions to food, insect stings, latex and other triggers and globally, the at-risk population may be in excess of 150 million. Anaphylaxis is a serious, allergic reaction that is to be treated immediately. For more information contact: Tom Parker (561)-558-6908 [email protected] Ted Lanpher (650)-678-1504 [email protected] SOURCE StellaPharma, Inc. INDIANA, Pa., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- S&T Bank, a full-service financial institution with assets of $7.1 billion, and locations in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York, is proud to announce the promotion of five accomplished team members to executive vice president, market president in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the Bank's continued success in each market. The market presidents will be responsible for overseeing the banks sales strategy, operations and strengthening the S&T brand in each of their respective markets. The market presidents are true leaders in the communities they serve and are responsible for ensuring top service for consumer, commercial, and business banking customers. The five individuals include: Steve Drahnak has been promoted to executive vice president, market president for the western Pennsylvania region after serving the Bank in a number of different capacities for more than 20 years. Steve is vice chairman of the Indiana County Chamber of Commerce Board. has been promoted to executive vice president, market president for the western region after serving the Bank in a number of different capacities for more than 20 years. Steve is vice chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Board. Troy Greenwalt has been promoted to executive vice president, market president for the central Ohio region. Troy spearheaded the opening of S&T's loan production office (LPO) in 2014 and will continue to be a key driver of the Bank's expansion into the central Ohio market with the upcoming opening of the Hilliard office. Troy is a service volunteer for the United Way, Madison County Help House, Madison County Kiwanis, and previously served as a board member for the Better Business Bureau of Columbus . has been promoted to executive vice president, market president for the central region. Troy spearheaded the opening of S&T's loan production office (LPO) in 2014 and will continue to be a key driver of the Bank's expansion into the central market with the upcoming opening of the office. Troy is a service volunteer for the United Way, Madison County Help House, Madison County Kiwanis, and previously served as a board member for the Better Business Bureau of . Steve Hendricks has been promoted to executive vice president, market president for the northeast Ohio region. Steve played an integral role in the opening of the S&T LPO in Fairlawn in 2012 and the Independence LPO in 2018. He will continue to support the momentous growth into northeast Ohio through the opening of the Cuyahoga Falls branch early this year. Steve serves on the Akron Area YMCA Board of Trustees, is a committee member for the American Red Cross, and actively volunteers for the United Way of Summit County and Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank. has been promoted to executive vice president, market president for the northeast region. Steve played an integral role in the opening of the S&T LPO in in 2012 and the Independence LPO in 2018. He will continue to support the momentous growth into northeast through the opening of the branch early this year. Steve serves on the Akron Area YMCA Board of Trustees, is a committee member for the American Red Cross, and actively volunteers for the United Way of and Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank. Jordan Space has been promoted to executive vice president, market president for the central Pennsylvania region. After joining the S&T team in 2015 through the acquisition of Integrity Bank, Jordan has led the Bank's vast success in central Pennsylvania . Jordan was most recently appointed to the Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health's Board of Trustees and continues to serve as a finance committee member. In addition, he is a member of the Lancaster City Alliance executive leadership team. has been promoted to executive vice president, market president for the central region. After joining the S&T team in 2015 through the acquisition of Integrity Bank, Jordan has led the Bank's vast success in central . Jordan was most recently appointed to the Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health's Board of Trustees and continues to serve as a finance committee member. In addition, he is a member of the Lancaster City Alliance executive leadership team. Pat Tobin has been promoted to executive vice president, market president for the upstate New York region. Since joining the Bank, Pat has cemented S&T's market presence in New York through the opening of the LPO in Rochester in 2015. He is an active board member for the Rochester Spinal Association, Pathstone Development Corporation, Al Sigl Center, Rochester School for the Deaf, and Rochester Downtown Development Corporation. "It is a privilege to have Steve, Troy, Steve, Jordan, and Pat on our team and we are proud to honor all that they have accomplished and contributed to the Bank over the years," said Dave Antolik, president and chief lending officer of S&T Bank. "Each of these individuals brings an exceptional level of expertise to our team and our customers, and I look forward to seeing all we can accomplish under their leadership in the year ahead." About S&T Bancorp, Inc. S&T Bancorp, Inc. is a $7.1 billion bank holding company that is headquartered in Indiana, Pa. and trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol STBA. Its principal subsidiary, S&T Bank, was established in 1902, and operates locations in Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York. For more information visit www.stbancorp.com, www.stbank.com, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. SOURCE S&T Bank Related Links http://www.stbancorp.com With a theme of "Driving the Transformation of Learning", the symposium consisted of keynote speeches, lectures and workshops. Present at the symposium were well-known education companies such as Clever, Dreambox, FuelEducation, Schoology and Squirrel AI Learning. Many educational experts extensively discussed the application of emerging technology in education, online education, learning evaluation, educational leadership, school redesign, education research and evaluation, equality of education and social emotional learning. Also, they learned from each other's best practices and looked for opportunities for deeper collaboration. Squirrel AI Learning is a committed game changer of traditional teaching modes. Its chief architect Richard Tong gave a keynote speech titled "A Super AI Teacher for Each Student", and shared with the audience the deep applications of Squirrel AI's intelligent adaptive learning system in AI algorithm, content recommendation, data analysis and teaching method. The revolutionary achievements stemming from these innovations, including the accurate diagnosis of students' weaknesses, learning state evaluation and building a personalized learning path for them and optimal learning objective setting, were also shared in the speech. Richard's speech won high praise from Jon Bergmann, the co-founder of the world-renowned "Flipped Classroom", and many other experts and scholars. "Compared with traditional education modes, Squirrel AI is equipped with the latest AI algorithm engine, which can help make the ideal 'individualized' education a reality," Richard Tong pointed out in his speech. In terms of educational theory, teaching activities should be a process of interaction between teachers and students. In the currently popular large-class teaching mode, however, teachers don't teach according to each student's cognitive level, but based on that "most students can easily understand the knowledge". If things continue this way, a knowledge communication barrier will arise between teachers and students. Equipped with an AI algorithm, Squirrel AI supports content recommendation and can combine "teaching content" with "students' knowledge conditions". Just as toutiao.com recommends news to everybody according to the information read by him or her, Squirrel AI can connect students and AI teachers through an interactive channel to communicate with each other. The content recommendation via AI algorithms is supported by Squirrel AI's application of AI and big data technologies, as well as profound understanding of educational contents and processes. Upon its founding, Squirrel AI has established a proprietary AI algorithm and knowledge base. Additionally, Squirrel AI made a heavy investment in building a top-notch R&D team composed of Richard Tong, Dr. Cui Wei and Dr. Dan Bindman, former staff members of Knewton, RealizeIT and ALEKS, the world's top three AI intelligent adaptive education providers. At the global AI Adaptive Education Summit (AIAED) held on November 16, 2018, Professor Tom Mitchell, the global luminary on machine learning, Dean of School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), a fellow at the National Academy of Engineering and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), announced his acceptance of the invitation from Squirrel AI to serve as the Chief AI Officer. Squirrel AI has also gathered a group of Chinese expert teachers, senior teachers and teaching and research experts to generate innovative teaching content in accordance with China's educational policies, teaching content, test content, consumer psychology and social context. On that basis, Squirrel AI succeeded in "decomposing super-Nanoscale knowledge points". Namely, for one knowledge point in the textbook, it is decomposed into 2 or 3 knowledge points by a traditional teacher in the teaching process, while Squirrel AI managed to decompose it into 70 to 80 knowledge points. As every knowledge point is decomposed into fine-grained levels, Squirrel AI can better identify students' levels of learning, so as to recommend specific knowledge points to different students. With its pioneering theory of "the association probability of unassociated knowledge points", Squirrel AI can accurately test the levels of students' mastery of knowledge points with a minimum of questions asked in the shortest time possible, which can greatly improve teaching efficiency. The Squirrel AI's intelligent adaptive learning system is not merely a combination of AI, big data technology and teaching process, but a deep integration of all educational aspects such as teaching, learning, testing and practices. Starting in 2015, Squirrel AI has been collecting first-hand data from the first group of enrolled students. A knowledge portrait has been drawn for every student with the AI algorithm and big data technology. Through autonomous control and full participation, Squirrel AI can acquire a timely understanding of every student's dynamic learning to remedy his or her weaknesses and help him or her set up a personalized learning path. Thus far, Squirrel AI has set up over 1,600 learning centers in about 300 cities from approximately 20 provinces around China, offering services to more than 1 million students altogether. Though inseparable from online education, Squirrel AI is not merely an online educational institution. In terms of teaching services, Squirrel AI has put forward an "online + offline" educational business mode known as new retail education. In respect of online operation, Squirrel AI acquires traffic and then offers one-on-one instructional guidance to students. Among the courses, 70% are taught by AI teachers and 30% are taught by human teachers who are also responsible for locating and making up the deficiencies for the students. As for offline operation, Squirrel AI runs schools around the country in the form of chain operation, cooperation and direct marketing. Moreover, the effect of "AI teaching" has been fully verified in the four "man-machine competitions" held by Squirrel AI. Taking the most recent "man-machine competition", which took place in one hundred cities, for example, in terms of average scoring in the core part of the competition, the students in the AI teaching group had their scores increased by 5.4 on average, while the students in the human teaching group just had their scores increased by 0.7 on average; each student in the AI teaching group learned 42 knowledge points on average, while each student in the human teaching group learned 28 knowledge points on average. Therefore, the AI teachers will go further on the path of self-evolution. However, as pointed by Richard Tong, chief architect of Squirrel AI Intelligent Adaptive Education, "For now, the AI teachers cannot take the place of the human teachers. For instance, only a human teacher can read the students' inner thoughts and feelings, soothe them and relieve their stress, provide psychological counseling and enhance their learning motivation. Yet an AI teacher can only do repetitive "teaching" work, such as lesson preparation, course teaching, test design and scoring. The combination of AI with education will bring better teaching experience." From AI algorithm technology, data analysis and man-machine war over educational and teaching practice, Squirrel AI is practicing the idea of "A Super AI Teacher for Each Student" through its own technology, platform, APP and business mode. It has built a precise and effective AI adaptive education engine, boosting the more intelligent development of the educational industry. SOURCE Squirrel AI Learning PARIS and BOSTON, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Shift Technology, a provider of AI-native solutions for the global insurance industry today announced the company has entered into a long-term agreement with P&V Group, a leading Belgian insurer. As a result, P&V will adopt Shift Technology's FORCE to automate the carrier's fraud detection capabilities. Following an extensive evaluation of available solutions, P&V chose FORCE as the foundation for its automated fraud detection initiatives. According to Pierre Creuven, claims director, P&V Group, "The selection of FORCE was based on a variety of important criteria. We wanted a solution that was AI-driven and backed by extensive data science and insurance industry expertise. At the same time, we needed to work with a company with which we could truly partner and collaborate on implementing the best fraud detection models. In the end, Shift was the natural choice." In addition to core fraud detection capabilities, P&V Group's FORCE deployment features a number of other important capabilities. For example, V-NEO/GFT, a leading IT provider specializing in solutions for the insurance industry, built a number of integrations between FORCE and an existing Guidewire implementation. A key benefit of this project is the ability to seamlessly embed Shift fraud alerts into the insurer's claims workflow, significantly improving efficiency. Further, Shift will incorporate Belgian-specific third-party data to better detect fraud, and Shift and P&V will jointly work on developing capabilities to better detect fraud in the underwriting process. "It's great to be working with a company like P&V Group that shares the same philosophy of collaboration and innovation that we do at Shift," explained Jeremy Jawish, CEO and cofounder, Shift Technology. "Not only do they see the value of AI-native solutions when it comes to claims fraud detection, they see the potential for its use within other areas as well. We look forward to working together with P&V Group to redefine AI's role in the insurance industry." About Shift Technology Shift Technology is reinventing insurance claims processing. Using industry proven artificial intelligence (AI), the company's fraud detection solution FORCE provides insurance fraud handlers with a powerful decision-making platform specically designed to scale their capacity and detect a wide spectrum of fraudulent behaviours. Since its launch in 2014, the company has raised more than $40M, expanded its global footprint and signed contracts with more than 60 insurers throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The company has received industry recognition for its proprietary advances in Artificial Intelligence as it relates to the insurance industry, including being named a global AI Top 100 company for 2018 by CB Insights. Shift's team of talented data scientists, developers, and insurance industry veterans are applying their expertise to not only tackling the insurance fraud problem, but also improving the overall claims automation process. About V-NEO/GFT Founded in 2011, V-NEO/GFT is a Business Advisory & Technology consulting firm focused exclusively on Insurance, headquartered in Canada and having activities in North America and in Europe. V-NEO's primary mission is to add value in organizations through its Global Insurance End-to-end digital & legacy transformation specialist that delivers comprehensive insurance solutions and expert services. v-neo.com Contact: Shift Technology Rob Morton Corporate Communications [email protected] 617-416-9216 SOURCE Shift Technology Related Links https://www.shift-technology.com NEW YORK, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP ("Scott+Scott"), a national securities and consumer rights litigation firm, is investigating whether certain directors and officers of CBS Corporation ("CBS" or the "Company") (NYSE: CBS) breached their fiduciary duties to the Company and its shareholders. If you are a CBS shareholder, you are encouraged to contact Scott+Scott for additional information. Scott+Scott is investigating whether members of the CBS Board made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) CBS executives, including the Company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Leslie "Les" Moonves, had engaged in widespread workplace sexual harassment at CBS; (ii) CBS's enforcement of its own purported policies was inadequate to prevent the foregoing conduct; (iii) the foregoing conduct, when revealed, would foreseeably subject CBS to heightened legal liability and impede the ability of key CBS personnel to execute the Company's business strategy; and (iv) as a result, CBS's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. In July 2018, The New Yorker published an article by Ronan Farrow saying that six women had accused Moonves of harassment and intimidation, and dozens more had described abuse at CBS. In September 2018, The New Yorker reported that six additional women (in addition to the six original women reported in July) had raised accusations against Moonves, going back to the 1980s. After further allegations against Moonves came to light over the ensuing weeks, CBS announced that Moonves would not receive his $120 million severance package. CBS also announced that its anti-harassment and other personnel policies were not as robust as those at other companies. What You Can Do If you are a CBS shareholder, you may have legal claims against the Company's directors and officers. If you wish to discuss this investigation, or have questions about this notice or your legal rights, please contact attorney Joe Pettigrew toll-free at (844) 818-6982 or at [email protected]. About Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP Scott+Scott has significant experience in prosecuting major securities, antitrust, and employee retirement plan actions throughout the United States. The firm represents pension funds, foundations, individuals, and other entities worldwide with offices in New York, London, Connecticut, California, and Ohio. Attorney Advertising CONTACT: Joe Pettigrew Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP 230 Park Ave, 17th Floor, NY, NY 10169 (844) 818-6982 [email protected] SOURCE Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law LLP Related Links http://scott-scott.com/investigation/cbs-corp In the first episode, "Learning from Leaders to Set Your Business Up for Success," Internet marketing veteran Josh Smith talks to Rustin Kretz, CEO of Scorpion, about what it takes to rapidly grow a home services business in the digital age. "Whether you're a plumber, HVAC specialist, or electrician, anything you can do to differentiate yourself from your competition and better position yourself as the number one choice for customers is going to be a game changer for your business," said Kretz. "It could be the difference between just scraping by and getting so much business, you have to hire more techs and add more trucks to your fleet just to keep up with demand. It all starts with being proactive in your marketing." Topics of future episodes include the impact of artificial intelligence on the home services industry, how Google's latest Local Service Ads are impacting search results, branding best practices for home services contractors, the top marketing tactics for generating more business, and more. Listen to the "The Sharpest Tool" by visiting scorpion.co/thesharpesttool as well as on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher. About Scorpion Scorpion is a full-service digital marketing agency that helps home services businesses reach the right types of customers online and acquire more jobs. Plumbers, HVAC specialists, and electricians turn to Scorpion when they want to become customers' first choice in their local communities. Scorpion delivers award-winning website design, digital advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), live chat services, and more. For more information, visit ScorpionHomeServices.com or call 866.622.5648. SOURCE Scorpion Related Links https://www.scorpion.co Opening its doors in 1991, the St. Louis Brewery began its operations in an abandoned building of a printing company in downtown St. Louis. Known as the Schlafly Tap Room, the building is now a local historical landmark as well as a brewery and tap room. And, due to local customer enthusiasm, the business has grown to include another production brewery and tap room in Maplewood, MO, Schlafly Bottleworks. The company proudly offers over 60 unique styles of beer and regularly packages these products for Schlafly loyalists across the 12 states where the products are distributed. Wil Rogers, Head of Marketing, Schlafly Beer, says the company's success is founded on a strict assurance of quality and taste. "We adhere to an intense quality assurance process that ensures a taste experience we think is best-in-class in the craft beer industry," he says. "And we choose our packaging accordingly, where ingredient integrity and preservation is key to delivering the intended taste experience whether the customer is in St. Louis or New York." Claude Marbach, CEO, Ardagh Metal North America, says the Ardagh team is proud to support the Schlafly brand in assuring very specific taste profiles. "The biggest issues for beer is light and oxygen," he says. "Beverage cans provide an ideal light barrier which preserve ingredients and, thus, taste integrity. This integrity extends to the environment as well as cans are the answer in supporting a brand's sustainability objectives." One of Schlafly's core principals revolves around sustainability, and beverage cans are recycled at the highest rate of any beverage package. Cans also deliver optimum filling as well as distribution and retail display economics due to the can's stacking abilities with no space wasted. Schlafly craft beers are now available at select restaurants, retail establishments and liquor and convenience stores across Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, northern Virginia, Washington, D.C., Maryland, Delaware, New York and New Jersey. About St. Louis Brewery Schlafly Beer, Missouri's largest locally owned, independent craft brewery, proudly offers over 60 unique styles of beer. Each is handmade at the Tap Room in Midtown St. Louis or Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood. Utilizing 102 hop varietals, 77 malts and grains, 59 different spices and fruits and 10 separate yeast strains from around the globe, Schlafly also works with local suppliers for everything from farm-fresh food to packaging and labeling. As part of its commitment to sustainability, Schlafly donates spent grain to local farmers to feed their livestock and utilizes 100% renewable energy throughout its operations. The brand continues to define craft across 13 states and throughout countless fine establishments, backyards and basement bars. Join us at either of our locations and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. For a full listing of seasonal and year-round beers and for information on distribution, visit Schlafly.com. About Ardagh Ardagh Group is a global leader in metal and glass packaging solutions, producing packaging for most of the world's leading food, beverage and consumer care brands. We operate more than 100 facilities in 22 countries, employ more than 23,000 people and have global sales of approximately $8.6 billion. For more information, please visit www.ardaghgroup.com. Contact: Caiti Carrow Contact: Jennifer Cumbee [email protected] 773-399-3035 SOURCE Ardagh Group Related Links https://www.ardaghgroup.com WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Accomplished mixed media artist and abstract painter Ruth Sharton is exhibiting her new series Russian Proverbs at Art Synergy / Art Palm Beach 2019, in the Palm Beach Convention Center, January 16, 2019 through January 20, 2019. To see the full Russian Proverbs gallery, visit her Instagram page! He Regards Himself as a Ton of Gold but is Only an Ounce of Brass Ruth States: "While watching the Helsinki Summit this past July and observing the performance by, and dynamic between, our current president and the Russian president, the phrase 'one good turn deserves another' occurred to me as an apt description of the event. Curious about the origin of that phrase, and wondering if by chance it might be Russian (it's not), my research yielded an unexpected and serendipitous treasure trove of Russian proverbs, dozens of which were uncannily relevant to my sentiments about our president and administration. So began the Russian Proverbs series. The Art Synergy exhibition is located in the Palm Beach Convention Center, 650 Okeechobee Blvd. West Palm Beach, FL, Booths 522 and 550. The hours are: Thursday Jan. 17 - Saturday Jan. 19, 12:00pm - 7pm; Sunday January 20, 12:00pm-6:00pm. The opening reception, on Wednesday January 16, 6:00pm 10:00pm, can be attended with purchase of a multi-day ticket to the show. Click here to purchase tickets to the reception and the 4-day fair. Ruth is a native New Yorker who recently relocated to South Florida, where she now lives and creates her art. She has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the North and Southeast, and her art is displayed in corporate and private collections throughout the US and Canada. Corporate collections include the Intercontinental Hotels, AT&T, The Swiss Bank Corp., The Marriott, McDonalds, and Sullivan & Cromwell. The Russian Proverbs, as well as Ruth's other series of works, can be found at www.instagram.com/ruthsharton and www.ruthsharton.com SOURCE Ruth Sharton Related Links http://ruthsharton.com/ MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Tender Offer The Republic of Uruguay (" Uruguay ") announced today the commencement of an offer to purchase for cash (the " Tender Offer ") bonds of each series of Global Bonds listed in the table below (collectively, the " Old Bonds " and each Old Bond, a " series " of Old Bonds) such that the aggregate Purchase Price to be paid for the Old Bonds tendered and accepted for purchase pursuant to the Tender Offer is equal to a maximum purchase amount for each series to be determined by Uruguay in its sole discretion (the " Maximum Purchase Amount "). The terms and conditions of the Tender Offer are set forth in the offer to purchase, dated Tuesday, January 15, 2019 (the " Offer to Purchase "). Capitalized terms used but not defined herein have the meanings assigned to them in the Offer to Purchase. The Tender Offer is not conditioned upon any minimum participation of any series of Old Bonds but is conditioned, among other things, on the pricing, but not the closing, of a new USD bond of Uruguay due 2031 (the " New Bonds ") in an amount, with pricing and on terms and conditions acceptable to Uruguay in its sole discretion, with pricing terms expected to be announced at or around 2:00 p.m. and the final term sheet for the New Bonds Offering expected to be announced at or around 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 15, 2019 (the " New Bonds Offering "). The Tender Offer will commence at or around 8:00 a.m., New York time, on Tuesday, January 15, 2019 and, unless extended or earlier terminated, (i) expire at 12:00 noon, New York time, on Tuesday, January 15, 2019 for Non-Preferred Tenders (the " Non-Preferred Tender Period "), and (ii) expire at 12:00 noon, New York time, on Tuesday, January 15, 2019 for Preferred Tenders (the " Preferred Tender Period "). The settlement of the Tender Offer is scheduled to occur on Tuesday, January 22, 2019 (the " Tender Offer Settlement Date "). The purchase price to be paid for each series of Old Bonds tendered and accepted pursuant to the Tender Offer will be the fixed price indicated in the table below (the " Purchase Price "). Holders whose Old Bonds are accepted in the Tender Offer will also receive any accrued and unpaid interest on the Old Bonds up to (but excluding) the Tender Offer Settlement Date (the " Accrued Interest "). Accrued Interest will be payable in cash. Old Bonds Outstanding Principal Amount as of Monday, January 14, 2019 ISIN CUSIP Common Code Purchase Price (per US$1,000 Principal Amount) Purchase Price (%) 8.000% Global Bonds due 2022 ("2022 Bonds") US$550,576,831 US917288BC52 917288BC5 023617129 US$1,134.01 113.401% 4.500% Global Bonds due 2024 ("2024 Bonds") US$1,292,743,186 US760942AZ58 760942AZ5 096139942 US$1,032.25 103.225% 4.375% Global Bonds due 2027 ("2027 Bonds") US$2,100,000,000 US760942BB71 760942BB7 131158840 US$1,022.75 102.275% During the Non-Preferred Tender Period or Preferred Tender Period, as applicable, a holder of Old Bonds may place orders to tender Old Bonds (" Tender Orders ") only through one of the Dealer Managers (as defined below). Holders will NOT be able to submit tenders through Euroclear Bank SA/NV (" Euroclear "), Clearstream Banking, societe anonyme (" Clearstream ") or the Depository Trust Company (" DTC ") systems. If a holder does not have an account with a Dealer Manager, such holder may place a tender offer through any broker, dealer, commercial bank, trust company, other financial institution or other custodian that it customarily uses that has an account with a Dealer Manager. Your broker must contact one of the Dealer Managers to submit a Tender Order on your behalf. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, as the billing and delivering bank for the Tender Offer (in such capacity, the " Billing and Delivering Bank "), will consolidate all Tender Orders and, upon instruction of Uruguay, accept Old Bonds for purchase pursuant to the Tender Offer, subject to proration as described in the Offer to Purchase, at or around 8:00 a.m., New York time, on Wednesday, January 16, 2019 or as soon as possible thereafter. Each of Uruguay and the Billing and Delivering Bank reserves the right, in the sole discretion of each of them, not to accept any Tender Orders for any reason. Tender Orders by a holder of Old Bonds must be in Permitted Tender Amounts as set forth in the Offer to Purchase. There is no letter of transmittal for the Tender Offer. If you hold Old Bonds through DTC, they must be delivered to the Billing and Delivering Bank for settlement no later than 3:00 p.m., New York time, on the Tender Offer Settlement Date. If you hold Old Bonds through Euroclear or Clearstream, the latest process you can use to deliver your Old Bonds to the Billing and Delivering Bank is the overnight process, one day prior to the Tender Offer Settlement Date; you may not use the optional daylight process. Failure to deliver Old Bonds on time may result (i) in the cancellation of your tender and in you becoming liable for any damages resulting from that failure, (ii) in the case of Preferred Tenders (a) in the cancellation of any allocation of New Bonds in the New Bonds Offering in respect of your related Indication of Interest (as defined below) and/or (b) in the cancellation of your tender and in your remaining obligation to purchase your allocation of New Bonds in respect of your related Indication of Interest and/or (iii) in the delivery of a buy-in notice for the purchase of such Old Bonds, executed in accordance with customary brokerage practices for corporate fixed income securities. Any holder whose tender is cancelled will not receive the Purchase Price or Accrued Interest. Holders will not have withdrawal rights with respect to any tenders of Old Bonds in the Tender Offer. Old Bonds accepted for purchase will be settled on a delivery versus payment basis with the Billing and Delivering Bank on the Tender Offer Settlement Date in accordance with customary brokerage practices for corporate fixed income securities. All Old Bonds that are tendered pursuant to Tender Orders placed through a Dealer Manager and accepted will be purchased by the Billing and Delivering Bank in such amounts as Uruguay shall determine and subject to the terms and conditions of the Offer to Purchase. Only the Billing and Delivering Bank will be liable for the payment of the Purchase Price and Accrued Interest for Old Bonds validly tendered and accepted as instructed by Uruguay. Uruguay will not be liable under any circumstances for any payment of the Purchase Price and Accrued Interest to the holders of Old Bonds tendered in the Tender Offer. The Billing and Delivering Bank shall not be liable for payments to any holder of Old Notes validly tendered and accepted for purchase if such holder fails to deliver such Old Notes on or prior to the settlement of the Tender Offer as described in the Offer to Purchase. Tender Orders that are not for Permitted Tender Amounts will not be accepted. The Tender Offer is subject to Uruguay's right, at its sole discretion and subject to applicable law, to instruct the Billing and Delivering Bank to extend, terminate, withdraw, or amend the Tender Offer at any time. Each of Uruguay, the Billing and Delivering Bank and the Dealer Managers reserve the right, in the sole discretion of each of them, not to accept tenders for any reason. The Offer to Purchase may be downloaded from the Information Agent's website at http://www.gbsc-usa.com/uruguay or obtained from the Information Agent, Global Bondholder Services Corporation, 65 Broadway Suite 404, New York, New York 10006 (Tel. +1 (212) 430 3774, or toll free +1 (866) 4703800) Attention: Corporate Actions, or from any of the Dealer Managers. The Dealer Managers for the Tender Offer are: Itau BBA USA Securities, Inc. 767 Fifth Avenue, 50th Floor New York, New York 10153 United States of America Attention: Liability Management Group Collect: (212) 710-6749 Toll free: (888) 770-4828 J.P. Morgan Securities LLC 383 Madison Avenue New York, New York 10179 United States of America Attention: Latin America Debt Capital Markets Collect: (212) 834-7279 Toll free: (866) 846-2874 Scotia Capital (USA) Inc. 250 Vesey Street New York, New York 10281 United States of America Attention: Debt Capital Markets Collect: (212) 225-5559 Toll free: (800) 372-3930 Questions regarding the Tender Offer may be directed to the Dealer Managers at the above contact. Uruguay has filed a registration statement (including the prospectus supplement and the prospectus) with the SEC for the New Bonds Offering and the issuance of New Bonds. Before you invest, you should read the prospectus in the registration statement and other documents that Uruguay has filed with the SEC for more complete information about Uruguay and such offering. You may get these documents for free by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at http://www.sec.gov . Alternatively, the Dealer Managers or the Information Agent, as the case may be, will arrange to send you the prospectus supplement and the prospectus if you request it by calling any one of them at the numbers specified above. The following additional information of Uruguay is available from the SEC website and also accompanies this free-writing prospectus: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/102385/000119312519009422/0001193125-19-009422-index.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/102385/000119312518286888/0001193125-18-286888-index.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/102385/000119312518072100/d526658dsb.htm Contact information: Global Bondholder Services Corporation Attention: Corporate Actions 65 Broadway Suite 404 New York, New York 10006 Banks and Brokers call: +1 (212) 430-3774 Toll free: +1 (866) 470-3800 website: http://www.gbsc-usa.com/uruguay/ Important Notice This announcement is not an offer to purchase or a solicitation of an offer to sell the Old Bonds. The Tender Offer will be made only by and pursuant to the terms of the Offer to Purchase, as may be amended or supplemented from time to time. The distribution of materials relating to the New Bonds Offering and the Tender Offer, and the transactions contemplated by the New Bonds Offering and Tender Offer, may be restricted by law in certain jurisdictions. Each of the New Bonds Offering and the Tender Offer is made only in those jurisdictions where it is legal to do so. The New Bonds Offering and the Tender are void in all jurisdictions where they are prohibited. If materials relating to the New Bonds Offering or the Tender Offer come into your possession, you are required to inform yourself of and to observe all of these restrictions. The materials relating to the New Bonds Offering and the Tender Offer do not constitute, and may not be used in connection with, an offer or solicitation in any place where offers or solicitations are not permitted by law. If a jurisdiction requires that the New Bonds Offering or the Tender Offer be made by a licensed broker or dealer and a Dealer Manager or any affiliate of a Dealer Manager is a licensed broker or dealer in that jurisdiction, the New Bonds Offering or the Tender Offer, as the case may be, shall be deemed to be made by the Dealer Manager or such affiliate in that jurisdiction. Owners who may lawfully participate in the Tender Offer in accordance with the terms thereof are referred to as "holders." In any EEA Member State this communication is only addressed to and is only directed at qualified investors within the meaning of the Prospectus Directive. The New Bonds have not been registered with the Comision Nacional de Valores and may not be offered publicly in Argentina. The New Bonds may not be publicly distributed in Argentina. Neither the issuer nor the underwriters will solicit the public in Argentina in connection with the New Bonds Offering. The New Bonds have not been and will not be issued nor publicly placed, distributed, offered or negotiated in the Brazilian capital markets. The issuance of the New Bonds has not been nor will be registered with the Securities Commission of Brazil (Comissao de Valores Mobiliarios, or "CVM"). Any public offering or distribution, as defined under Brazilian laws and regulations, of the New Bonds in Brazil is not legal without prior registration under Law No. 6,385/ of December 7, 1976, as amended, and Instruction No. 400, issued by the CVM on December 29, 2003, as amended. Documents relating to the New Bonds Offering, as well as information contained therein, may not be supplied to the public in Brazil (as the New Bonds Offering is not a public offering of securities in Brazil), nor be used in connection with any offer for subscription or sale of the New Bonds to the public in Brazil. Therefore, each of the underwriters has represented, warranted and agreed that it has not offered or sold, and will not offer or sell, the New Bonds in Brazil, except in circumstances which do not constitute a public offering, placement, distribution or negotiation of securities in the Brazilian capital markets regulated by Brazilian laws and regulations. Persons wishing to offer or acquire the New Bonds within Brazil should consult with their own counsel as to the applicability of registration requirements or any exemption therefrom. With respect to persons in Hong Kong, the New Bonds Offering and the Tender Offer are only made to, and are only capable of acceptance by, "professional investors" as defined in the Securities and Futures Ordinance (Cap. 571) of Hong Kong (the " SFO ") and any rules made thereunder. No person or entity may issue or have in its possession for the purposes of issue, whether in Hong Kong or elsewhere, any advertisement, invitation or document relating to the New Bonds, Old Bonds or the Tender Offer, which is directed at, or the contents of which are likely to be accessed or read by, the public of Hong Kong (except if permitted to do so under the securities laws of Hong Kong other than with respect to the Old Bonds which are or are intended to be tendered, or New Bonds which are intended to be purchased, only by persons outside Hong Kong or only by "professional investors" as defined in the SFO and any rules made under thereunder. In the Netherlands, the New Bonds may not be offered or sold, directly or indirectly, other than to qualified investors (gekwalificeerde beleggers) within the meaning of Article 1:1 of the Dutch Financial Supervision Act (Wet op het financieel toezicht). Neither the communication of this announcement nor any other offer material relating to the New Bonds Offering and the Tender Offer has been approved, by an authorized person for the purposes of section 21 of the UK Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (as amended, "the FSMA"). This announcement is only being distributed to and is only directed: at (i) persons who are outside the United Kingdom; or (ii) persons who have professional experience in matters relating to investments falling within Article 19(5) of the Order; persons falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) ("high net worth companies, unincorporated associations etc.) of the Order; or (iii) persons to whom an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity (within the meaning of section 21 of the FSMA) may otherwise lawfully be communicated or caused to be communicated (all such other persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). Any investment or investment activity to which this announcement relates is available only to relevant persons and will be engaged in only with relevant persons. Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on this announcement or any of its contents. * * * ANY DISCLAIMERS OR OTHER NOTICES THAT MAY APPEAR AFTER THIS MESSAGE ARE NOT APPLICABLE TO THIS COMMUNICATION AND SHOULD BE DISREGARDED. SUCH DISCLAIMERS OR OTHER NOTICES WERE AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED AS A RESULT OF THIS COMMUNICATION BEING SENT VIA BLOOMBERG OR ANOTHER EMAIL SYSTEM. SOURCE Republic of Uruguay DENVER, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- RemoteLock is pleased to announce EdgeState - The Cloud for Smart Locks. EdgeState by RemoteLock delivers access management that scales with any enterprise. EdgeState by RemoteLock is the leading cloud-based smart lock management platform, providing complete access control for all your properties and businesses from a single, easy-to-use dashboard. Large enterprises, property owners and management companies can reduce cost, saving time and money with EdgeState's easy-to-use software reducing the need for different software and systems by combining everything under one platform. "RemoteLock is committed to the advanced development and delivery of best in class Cloud-based Access control solutions enabling our customers to use the smart lock of their choice," said Brian Caskey, chief marketing officer at RemoteLock. "With the latest software release, RemoteLock continues to perfect the connected access control experience for property owners, business managers and large enterprises. By enhancing our cloud solution, we are delivering on the commitment of any lock, for any business, controlled and managed from the cloud." Features of EdgeState by RemoteLock include: Access Management for the Enterprise - Remotely schedule and manage credentials for permanent or temporary employees, vendors, guests and tenants. Temporary Guest Codes For rental properties generated through Airbnb, VRBO or other booking software integrations temporary employees, vendors, guests and tenants. Integrations and API - Take advantage of EdgeState's robust integrations and API to customize the software to your business needs. Everything in One Dashboard - Don't waste time managing different software and systems. EdgeState's centralized, easy to use dashboard puts everything in one place. No Lost Keys, No Rekeying - Remove the hassle of rekeying doors and handing off keys to employees and guests. Reduce Equipment and IT Costs - No need for additional gateways or a secondary network in your buildings; Use your existing Wi-Fi networks. The EdgeState software is also easy to use and makes administration easy and efficient. Use the Smart Locks You Want - Manage Wi-Fi, Z-Wave, ACS or any other connected smart lock all from the EdgeState Cloud. For a complete description of RemoteLock solutions, visit www.remotelock.com . About RemoteLock RemoteLock is a SaaS-based Cloud company delivering the ability for any Hospitality, Commercial Enterprise or Multi-Family Property Management organization to remotely control and manage any connected lock, on any property from the cloud. RemoteLock is responsible for more than 50 million door opens annually, delivering access control solutions for companies around the world like Airbnb, VRBO, and HomeAway to name a few. Consolidating numerous connected locks on the Cloud solution enables customers to remotely control access for guests, employees, and support staff, saving time, money and manpower. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado RemoteLock is backed by KKE, Iron Gate Capital, Nelnet, and Service Provider Capital. RemoteLock provides live customer support from the United States of America. RemoteLock, OpenEdge and EdgeState are trademarks of RemoteLock in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks, trade names, service marks and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. FOR MORE INFORMATION: John Cargile RemoteLock [email protected] +1.877.254.5625 x 111 SOURCE RemoteLock Related Links www.remotelock.com The mentor-protege program provides large businesses with incentives to help smaller ones develop technical and operating capabilities to be more competitive with DoD programs. The three-year agreement with PPI marks progress in Raytheon's domestic production of the missile designed by Norway's defense leader Kongsberg. "Raytheon is partnering with small and disadvantaged businesses to help them succeed and contribute to our industry," said Kim Ernzen, Raytheon Air Warfare Systems vice president. "NSM production is bringing jobs and revenue to a growing network of U.S. suppliers, and it is all the more meaningful when the work makes a significant impact in a local community. It's a win for everyone." PPI's experience manufacturing similar containers makes it an ideal fit for Raytheon's latest production needs. "The program will enable PPI to take the next steps to be a fully capable aerospace container and ground support equipment manufacturer," said Tom Wilson, PPI president. "It will help ensure we continue to employ highly capable people and train local residents with significant skill sets for now and in the future." Kentucky Congressman Hal Rogers, a senior member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said the agreement is beneficial for everyone involved. "This partnership demonstrates the continued commitment of the defense industry to reach out to new and innovative suppliers in Kentucky to meet its requirements," Rogers said. "I advocated on behalf of the mentor-protege agreement with the Navy and look forward to the 5th Congressional District being a long-term partner on this advanced cruise missile program." About NSM NSM is a long-range, precision strike missile that can detect and destroy heavily defended land and sea targets at ranges in excess of 100 nautical miles. In May 2018, Raytheon was awarded a U.S. Navy contract to manufacture and deliver the over-the-horizon weapon system for the Navy's littoral combat ships and future frigates. About Raytheon Raytheon Company, with 2017 sales of $25 billion and 64,000 employees, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government and cybersecurity solutions. With a history of innovation spanning 96 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration, C5ITM products and services, sensing, effects, and mission support for customers in more than 80 countries. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Follow us on Twitter. Media Contact Tara Wood 520-247-5630 [email protected] SOURCE Raytheon Company Related Links http://www.raytheon.com CRAIOVA, Romania, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- RationalPlan 5.0 is a major release that comes with new features for the web-based interface and a more powerful project scheduling engine. The product is now able to handle those types of project plans in which certain tasks need to be delayed as much as possible. On the other hand, the web interface of both the Cloud service and the Server product gets improved with several features. Users with licenses older than one year are entitled to upgrade them with a 50% discount. Manage your Projects the Easy Way RationalPlan is a project management software suite that is available either as stand alone products or as a project management cloud service. It is used by individuals and by companies that need a distributed solution with concurrent access from multiple users. Important changes for RationalPlan 5.0 RationalPlan can now handle As Late As Possible (ALAP) constraints for those tasks that need to start as late as possible relative to the project end date. The entire scheduling engine was transformed to support this type of planning. Even the critical path detection algorithm was adjusted to comply with this major change. Since certain parts of the application are depending on Java technology, this major release also added support for Java 9 and Java 10. This is a big step forward to maintain the compatibility with the latest Java versions in order to avoid software vulnerabilities. Starting with this release, the developers of RationalPlan removed the support for the old .xrp files. This file type storage was deprecated and it is no longer being used. For the online and server side segment: Critical path functionality Labels for task bars on Gantt chart A hover icon and a contextual menu for the task tree grid (Gantt & WBS) Project code and Client name within the email notifications Bug fix: do not show the work on tasks in web if the user does not have the rights to see the resources Bug fix: allow negative lags on web Bug fix: guard against non-working constraint dates for dependency driven tasks Bug fix: guard against the case when the project estimated start is non-working For the On-Premise products: Added resource data filter and project status filter for Timesheet view In Timesheet view if a filter is applied for All projects then filter the resources Bug fix for Ukrainian translation Bug fix for budgets on Single version For the web based interface of both the Cloud service and the Server product, new functionality was added. Users are now able to see the critical path of the project within the Gantt chart view. Also, they can customize the information that can be displayed around the task bars. We are talking about details for the tasks like: task name, start and end date, completion percentage, duration, work, assigned resources or even project code. This data can be rendered in custom positions: left, right, top, bottom or center. Each user will have its own custom configuration and this is useful to have a better overview of the project. The WBS and Gantt tables will present a shortcut icon when the user hovers the mouse over a task. This provides a fast access to a set of contextual actions (indent, outdent, move up, move down etc.) related to that task. Within the email notifications that are sent to resources, two new fields were added: the Project code and the Client name. We are talking about the automatic deadlines and late tasks notifications and the My Assignments table. This offers users a better overview of the context in which they are working. For the On-Premise products in the Timesheet view there were added new filters. Users are now able to filter resources by custom data values and by the project status. Sometimes it is useful to focus only on those resources from a given department, or on those resources that are working on projects with the "In progress" status. If a filter is applied for all projects then the application will also filter the resources and not just the assigned tasks. RationalPlan is offered in two flavors: RationalPlan Cloud a monthly payment project management solution offering a centralized place to manage the company's projects while offering collaboration through concurrent access for multiple users; a Free tier is also available RationalPlan On-Premise a suite of products for those that prefer to have the software installed on their machines RationalPlan Single Project an alternative to Microsoft Project and the perfect solution for novice or accidental project managers an alternative to Microsoft Project and the perfect solution for novice or accidental project managers RationalPlan Multi Project project management software for multiple projects, projects that are interconnected through dependencies and share common resource project management software for multiple projects, projects that are interconnected through dependencies and share common resource RationalPlan Project Server the On-Premise version of RationalPlan Cloud that can be installed on users hardware the On-Premise version of RationalPlan Cloud that can be installed on users hardware RationalPlan Project Viewer a free project viewer, the solution for anyone to view projects details About Stand By Soft Stand By Soft was founded in 1997 as a software company specialized in building desktop applications and components. RationalPlan is a project management solution that follows the general recommended guidelines from project management domain. MOOS Project viewer is a Microsoft Project viewer that allows users to open, view in a dynamic way and print any Microsoft Project file. Contact name: Crina Popescu Address: Aleea Parului, Nr.4A, Craiova, Dolj, 200346, Romania Email: [email protected] Phone: +40771610710 Related Links Products About SOURCE RationalPlan Related Links https://www.rationalplan.com ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, rand* Construction Corporationa national construction firm specializing in tenant interiors, building renovations, retail, restaurant and design-build construction services with annual sales in excess of $300 millionannounced the appointment of Bob Milkovich as the company's new Chief Executive Officer. Additional leadership changes include, longtime employees David Fletcher and Tim Schmidt being promoted to Co-managing Principals of the Metro Washington region. Milkovich will replace current CEO, Linda Rabbitt, who founded the company in 1989 and along with a team of dedicated leaders has grown it from a local interiors firm headquartered in the Metro Washington region to a multi-market construction company offering a wide range of services to regional and national clients. "Every successful company must focus on the future and with Bob at the helm, I am confident that rand*'s future is bright. His financial expertise, industry acumen, demonstrated leadership skills, and commitment to rand*'s core values make him well- equipped to build upon our strong foundation," said rand* founder, Linda Rabbitt. "When I look at rand* I not only see a success story, but also a growth story. rand* has an impressive 30-year legacy of excellence and leadership under Linda Rabbitt," said Bob Milkovich, rand*'s new CEO. "Vision alone does not result in success and excellence. It must be coupled with a faithful commitment to superb execution. Linda brought both to rand*, and I am honored to have the opportunity to build upon the strong financial, client, and talent base she has created." Milkovich brings over thirty years of commercial real estate experience and leadership experience to his new role at rand* construction. He most recently served as the CEO and on the Board of Trustees for First Potomac Realty Trust, a Washington, DC based, publicly traded office REIT. Prior to his tenure with First Potomac Realty Trust, Milkovich held key leadership positions at Spaulding & Slye Investments, a division of JLL, as well as at Goldman Sachs, and Carr America. "Bob has worked in all aspects of the commercial real estate industry during his career. His vast knowledge of the industry and active participation in the community over the years have helped him to build deep relationships locally and nationally within the industry. His leadership skills and track record will be helpful in operating and growing rand*'s business in the Metro Washington region as well as other parts of the country," said Rabbitt, who also announced the promotion of Dave Fletcher and Tim Schmidt to the leadership team as Co-managing Principals of the Metro Washington region. David Fletcher and Tim Schmidt have held key positions within rand* construction for 24 and 18 years respectively, and have played an integral part in rand*'s growth and expansion to other cities. Both have deep knowledge of the local economy, the construction industry, and are champions of rand*'s corporate culture and strategic vision for the future. In their new roles as Co-managing Principals they will focus on the enhancement and expansion of rand*'s position in the Metro Washington region. "We are excited to have Bob join the team. At rand* we take a unique approach to delivering construction services that are centered around collaborative partnerships with our clients, design teams, and subcontractors. And, just as we are committed to collaborating externally, we pride ourselves on our collaboration internally," said Fletcher and Schmidt, "Bob's commitment to both rand*'s roots and future align well with our own dedication to advancing rand*'s mission and we look forward to working with him, Linda, and all the creative, innovative, and diversely talent people at rand* in the years to come. We have a great team in place for this exciting next chapter of expansion and growth." Headquartered in Alexandria, VA with offices in Atlanta, GA, Austin, TX and Denver, CO, rand* looks to continue to expand its presence nationally in the coming year. The leaders of rand*'s national offices, Mike Clough (Metro Washington Project Operations), Matt Dausch (Austin), Cullen McGuire (Denver), and Steven Stuart (Atlanta) will continue in their roles and as key members of the leadership team. rand* founder Linda Rabbitt, as Chair of the Board of Directors, will serve as a resource to the new CEO, leadership and management teams as they work to advance the vision and strategies for rand*'s future. rand* Construction Corporation will remain a privately held woman-owned business with founder Linda Rabbitt remaining the majority shareholder. About rand* rand* construction is a general contractor specializing in tenant interiors, building renovations, retail, restaurant and design-build construction services. Founded in 1989 by Linda Rabbitt, rand* has grown from a small interiors firm to a multi-market construction company offering a wide range of services to national and regional clients. Today, rand* has offices in Alexandria, Atlanta, Austin and Denver with annual sales in excess of $300 million. The company's 30-year history of client-oriented, design sensitive construction services has been consistently recognized by our loyal client base and industry organizations. Our long-standing relationships with clients, architects, subcontractors and the culmination of our efforts have translated into award winning work. We are honored to be recognized annually by the Washington Building Congress, the Associated Builders and Contractors, and the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties and to have earned over 200 awards in our industry for our quality of work. rand* is also extremely proud to have been recognized since 2004 as a 'Best Places to Work' by The Washington Business Journal and The Washingtonian. rand* was also one of the first companies to participate in the USGBC Pilot Projects in 2001, and with over 60 LEED professionals, are considered to be an industry leader in best practices and BIM technology. We strive beyond our association and community involvement by being an activist for LEED education and making a difference in our community. For more information on rand*, please visit http://randcc.com/. CONTACT Clare Flannery, MDB Communications [email protected] SOURCE rand* Construction Corporation Related Links http://randcc.com/ FELTON, California, January 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The global Radiation Detection, Monitoring and Safety Market is expected to value at USD 1.6 billion by 2024. The market is subject to witness a substantial growth due to the growing adoption of nuclear medicine and radiation therapy. Rising demand for nuclear medicine and radiation therapy is attributed to growing incidences of cancer-related diseases. Increasing healthcare expenditure and recent enhancements in the existing medical infrastructure, particularly in the North America region are expected to fuel market demand for radiation detection, monitoring and safety services in the upcoming years. Globally, the radiation detection, monitoring & safety industry is predicted to grow at CAGR of 7.3% in the forecast period, providing numerous opportunities for market players to invest for research and development in the market. The rising occurrence of cancer-related diseases and growing awareness among general population are major contributing factors for robust market growth in the last few years. Rising influence of commercialization and digitalization in healthcare sector are driving demand of the radiation detection, monitoring and safety services, in the recent years. Furthermore, recent technological advancement and increasing adoption of digital services in healthcare sector is leading increasing commercialization of next generation diagnostic is expected to fuel market demand for radiation detection, monitoring and safety services over the forecast period. Soaring demand for advanced analytical techniques for treatment of cancer is predicted to favor market growth in the upcoming years. In addition, surging need for fewer intrusive surgeries and introduction of disposable instruments is projected to foster the growth of radiation detection, monitoring & safety market over the forecast period. The recent technological advancement coupled with development of the novel products & techniques such as genetic therapy are expected to provide platform for the sustained market growth of radiation detection, monitoring & safety in the upcoming years. The radiation detection, monitoring and safety industry is broadly categorized into three major segments based on the product type in radiation detection segment such as gas-filled detectors, scintillators and solid-state detectors. The gas-filled detectors is considered as one of the fastest growing segment in the radiation detection, monitoring and safety market with substantial revenue generation in the last few years. Browse 100 page research report with TOC on "Global Radiation Detection, Monitoring and Safety Market" at: https://www.millioninsights.com/industry-reports/radiation-detection-monitoring-safety-market The radiation detection, monitoring & safety industry is divided by region as North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Africa. North America has shown major growth in recent years owing to the rise in the implementation of latest technologies in healthcare sector, increase in the number of research & development activities in the region and existence of well-established medicinal infrastructure. Asia-Pacific region is predicted to hold major market share in the radiation detection, monitoring & safety market with massive growth in forecast period. Countries such as India, China and Singapore are leading the Asia-Pacific market with strong economic growth, rising healthcare infrastructure, increasing per capita income, growing prevalence of cancer related diseases, ever-growing population base, and significant investment by leading industry players considering potential growth opportunities in the region. The key players in the radiation detection, monitoring and safety industry are Landauer Inc., Mirion Technologies, Inc., Ludlum Measurements, Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Co., Radiation Detection Company, Inc., Canberra Industries, Inc., Arrow-Tech, Inc., Centronic Ltd., AmRay Medical Co., Atomtexs.P.e, and RAE Systems, Inc. Global Radiation Detection, Monitoring & Safety Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) Personal Dosimeters Area Process Monitors Environmental Radiation & Surface Contamination Monitors Radioactive Material Monitors Global Radiation Detection, Monitoring & Safety Detection Type Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) Gas-filled Detectors Scintillators Solid-state Detectors Global Radiation Detection, Monitoring & Safety Type Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) Full-body Protection Face & Hand Protection Others Global Radiation Detection, Monitoring & Safety End-use Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) Hospitals Non-hospitals Radiation Detection, Monitoring & Safety Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) - North America U.S. Canada - Europe UK Germany - Asia Pacific Japan China India - Latin America Mexico Brazil - MEA South Africa Browse reports of similar category available with Million Insights: About Million Insights: Million Insights, is a distributor of market research reports, published by premium publishers only. We have a comprehensive market place that will enable you to compare data points, before you make a purchase. Enabling informed buying, is our motto and we strive hard to ensure that our clients get to browse through multiple samples, prior to an investment. Service flexibility & the fastest response time are two pillars, on which our business model is founded. Our market research report store, includes in-depth reports, from across various industry verticals, such as healthcare, technology, chemicals, food & beverages, consumer goods, material science & automotive. Contact: Ryan Manuel Research Support Specialist, USA Million Insights Phone: +1-408-610-2300 Toll Free: 1-866-831-4085 Email: [email protected] Web: https://www.millioninsights.com/ Blog: https://millioninsights.blogspot.com SOURCE Million Insights BOSTON, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Propertybase, a leading provider of real estate technology, caps off a record year by adding strategic executive hires as it continues to position itself for significant growth in 2019. Tim Fessenden and John Komola will join the existing executive team as Vice President of Operations and Chief Financial Officer, respectively. Following the successful launch of a new brand in 2018, the Propertybase real estate platform capped off a record year achieving the following significant milestones: 67% bookings increase year-over-year Record number of customers (>1,700) Record number of agent users (>200,000) Completed the acquisition and integration of Propertybase Australia Completed the acquisition and integration of Back Agent Brokerage Management System "We've seen substantial increases in excitement and customer traction as we continue to enhance the platform, evolve and expand into new business segments," said Vance Loiselle, CEO of Propertybase. "I can't be more thrilled to add these experienced leaders for our next stage of development." The recent additions join Loiselle and industry veterans Steve Simmons (Vice President of Sales), Rocky Rankin (Director of Product) and Cade Madison (Director of Strategic Growth) to accelerate expansion and drive adoption within the real estate industry. Tim Fessenden, hired as Vice President of Operations, brings more than 18 years of SaaS and enterprise software experience to the company. Fessenden will lead Propertybase's operations team, responsible for expanding product features, package options and customer service departments, while also adding his knowledge to streamline future acquisitions. "I'm thrilled to be joining Propertybase and lead the charge in enhancing an already impressive product line," said Fessenden. "I'm excited to bring my experience in eCommerce, cloud and analytics to a real estate industry that is rapidly evolving." Prior to joining Propertybase, Fessenden held the position of Vice President of Products at Yottaa, a SaaS-eCommerce acceleration platform, and previously held positions of General Manager at BMC Software, Inc. and Director of Sales Engineering & Product Management at BladeLogic. Also joining the executive team is John Komola, Chief Financial Officer. Komola brings with him more than 20 years of progressive finance and operations management experience from an array of software industries. With strong qualifications in scaling organizations both organically as well as through acquisitions, Komola will be charged with driving strategic monetary planning, managing compliance, and also advising on acquisitions. He previously held the same role for five years at Sonian Inc. Prior, Komola was Vice President of Finance & Chief Account Officer for six years at Endeca. "Both Tim and John have proven track records and effective leadership experiences at fast-moving, global SaaS-based software companies," said Vance Loiselle. "We have a clear strategy to grow both organically and through key acquisitions, and this team positions us well to execute on all fronts." About Propertybase Propertybase is the leading global cloud platform for real estate brokerages and teams looking to showcase their brand and drive more business through extraordinary digital experiences, collaboration and automation. The Propertybase platform includes IDX and MLS-integrated luxury websites, the leading real estate CRM built on Salesforce, and intelligent transaction management and back-office tools. Our software powers over 200,000 users at 1,700+ real estate businesses in 60 countries worldwide, including Hawai'i Life, Nan and Co. Properties, Harry Norman REALTORS, Pacific Union, Jack Conway REALTOR, and Coldwell Banker Mason Morse. The company is funded by Providence Equity. For more information, visit www.propertybase.com . Media Contact: John Voigt [email protected] 203.856.7331 SOURCE Propertybase Related Links https://www.propertybase.com Advanced practice nurses, functioning in both inpatient and out-patient settings at full scope of practice, can increase accessibility to high quality and cost-effective care. This is particularly true for underserved rural and urban populations. The clinical experts who advise and teach on campus are the same ones who teach our online students. Thus, our highly rated online advanced practice and leadership programs are available to nurses across the country to meet the nation's health care needs. The College of Nursing's reputation for quality programming and nationally recognized faculty, made accessible through online learning, provides strong value for students seeking an advanced nursing degree. College of Nursing faculty credentials and training were ranked 1st nationwide as part of the assessment. These account for 20 percent of the score U.S. News uses to rank online programs. The remaining 80 percent of U.S. News' online program rankings are calculated based on the following categories: Engagement (30 percent): In a quality program, aspiring advanced practice nurses can readily collaborate with fellow students in their classes and clinical settings. In turn, instructors are not only accessible and responsive, but they are also tasked with helping to create an experience rewarding enough for students to stay enrolled and complete their degrees in a reasonable amount of time. In a quality program, aspiring advanced practice nurses can readily collaborate with fellow students in their classes and clinical settings. In turn, instructors are not only accessible and responsive, but they are also tasked with helping to create an experience rewarding enough for students to stay enrolled and complete their degrees in a reasonable amount of time. Expert Opinion (20 percent): A survey of high-ranking academic officials in nursing helps account for intangible factors affecting program quality that statistics do not capture. Also, employers may hold in high regard degrees from programs that academics respect. A survey of high-ranking academic officials in nursing helps account for intangible factors affecting program quality that statistics do not capture. Also, employers may hold in high regard degrees from programs that academics respect. Student Excellence (15 percent): Student bodies entering with proven aptitudes, ambitions and accomplishments can handle the demands of rigorous coursework. Furthermore, online degrees that schools award judiciously will have greater legitimacy in the job market. Student bodies entering with proven aptitudes, ambitions and accomplishments can handle the demands of rigorous coursework. Furthermore, online degrees that schools award judiciously will have greater legitimacy in the job market. Services and Technologies (15 percent): Programs that incorporate diverse online learning technologies allow greater flexibility for students to take classes from a distance. Outside of classes, strong support structures provide learning assistance, career guidance and financial aid resources commensurate with quality campus-based programs. Online programs build on proud history More than 8,000 bachelor's, master's and doctoral students have graduated from Rush University College of Nursing. The college awarded its first bachelor's and master's degrees in 1975, its first doctor of nursing science degree in 1980 and its first practice doctorate in 1990. Nursing programs are offered from the master's through the doctoral (DNP and PhD) levels. The following are the college's degree options available online: Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) Program Nursing Leadership for RNs: Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Programs Advanced Public Health Nursing Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Neonatal Clinical Nurse Specialist Pediatric Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Pediatric Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Pediatric Clinical Nurse Specialist Psychiatric -Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Transformative Leadership: Population Health Transformative leadership: Systems Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Nursing Science BSN-PhD Master's-PhD About Rush University Rush University, with more than 2,500 students, is a health sciences university that comprises Rush Medical College, the College of Nursing, the College of Health Sciences and the Graduate College. Rush is an academic health system whose mission is to improve the health of the patients and the diverse communities it serves with nationally recognized health care, education and research, as well as a commitment to community partnerships. The Rush system comprises Rush University Medical Center, Rush University, Rush Copley Medical Center and Rush Oak Park Hospital, as well as numerous outpatient care facilities. SOURCE Rush University Related Links http://www.rush.edu WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- EarthEcho International launched new teaching tools dubbed EarthEcho Expedition: PlasticSeas to get kids excited about science and propel them into action to prevent the plastics pollution plaguing our oceans. The videos, lesson plans, and design challenges are available free of charge to any teacher worldwide and are the culmination of a recent expedition in Australia, sponsored by the Northrop Grumman Foundation. All classroom materials were developed collaboratively and vetted by the 28 participating Australian and American educators who currently serve as EarthEcho Expedition Fellows. The EarthEcho Expedition: PlasticSeas suite of classroom resources are available beginning January 15, 2019 and will kick off with a virtual field trip. Philippe Cousteau, Jr., EarthEcho International Founder and grandson of the legendary explorer Jacques Yves Cousteau, made the announcement. "We've all seen horrifying pictures of animals stuck in discarded plastic six-pack rings around their necks in the ocean. In Australia, we swam alongside fur seals, cleaned up a beach, discovered a new species of dolphin, learned about 'urban' penguins and most disturbingly, found plastics while dissecting dried bird vomit," said Cousteau. "We need to find better solutions to combat the devastating impact plastic pollution is having on one of our most important resources; the ocean. This is about inspiring children to lead change by giving them tools and guidance along the way because we can't have lasting change without them." Made possible by the Northrop Grumman Foundation, EarthEcho's latest series of teaching tools includes everything teachers need to convey the enormity of the plastics pollution situation, what actions are currently in play, and what students can do to help. "Northrop Grumman is thrilled to support EarthEcho International in their release of expedition related educational materials again this year," said Sandra Evers-Manly, president of the Northrop Grumman Foundation and Northrop Grumman vice president of global corporate responsibility. "We look forward to classrooms around the world using these materials to spark student enthusiasm of STEM concepts and the environment." The Expedition Fellows transformed what they learned into engaging and accessible STEM lesson plans for students. The resources include bright spots of how some community-based organizations have tackled the problem and how-to guides based on principles of behavior science that help people shift toward using alternatives to plastic, engineering new materials to replace plastic, and more. The EarthEcho Expedition: PlasticSeas classroom materials include the following elements: Expedition Videos Explore Australia's breathtaking and fragile coastlines with Philippe Cousteau and leading scientists and experts as they travel to the frontlines of the ocean plastics problem. From the life cycle of plastic products to their impact on marine life and coastal communities, this video series brings the issue of plastic pollution to life for classrooms everywhere. Explore Australia's breathtaking and fragile coastlines with Philippe Cousteau and leading scientists and experts as they travel to the frontlines of the ocean plastics problem. From the life cycle of plastic products to their impact on marine life and coastal communities, this video series brings the issue of plastic pollution to life for classrooms everywhere. Youth in Action Videos Young environmental leaders share their inspiring stories of how they are tackling the issue of ocean plastics and making a positive impact. Young environmental leaders share their inspiring stories of how they are tackling the issue of ocean plastics and making a positive impact. STEM Career Close-ups Videos Students hear from an engaging and diverse group of leading scientists and researchers who are helping to turn the tide on ocean plastics pollution. Students hear from an engaging and diverse group of leading scientists and researchers who are helping to turn the tide on ocean plastics pollution. Classroom Lesson Plans and Design Challenges Utilizing design challenges and science-based approaches, EarthEcho Expedition: PlasticSeas lesson plans aim to inspire and equip students to find solutions to a range of real-world challenges from developing alternatives to single-use plastics to engineering solutions to waste in our schools. Utilizing design challenges and science-based approaches, lesson plans aim to inspire and equip students to find solutions to a range of real-world challenges from developing alternatives to single-use plastics to engineering solutions to waste in our schools. Virtual Field Trip - Eat Less Plastic hosted by Magen Schifiliti , Conservation and Education Director at Trilogy Excursions, provides background information and context about the global plastic problem and why single-use plastics are harmful to the environment. EarthEcho partnered with the following organizations on the expedition: Parks Victoria, Plastic Pollution Solutions, Tangaroa Blue, The Marine Mammal Foundation, Port Phillip EcoCentre, Melbourne Down Under, Sheree Marris, Sustainability Victoria, The Melbourne Zoo, Victoria University, Red Boats, University of Tasmania and The North Face. Please click the link to learn more about EARTHECHO INTERNATIONAL. Please click the links to learn more about NORTHROP GRUMMAN and the NORTHROP GRUMMAN FOUNDATION. Follow us on social media: Facebook: www.Facebook.com/EarthEcho Twitter: @EarthEcho Instagram: @EarthEcho SOURCE EarthEcho International Related Links http://www.earthecho.org VANCOUVER, British Columbia, January 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- ParcelPal Technology Inc. ("ParcelPal" or the "Company"), (CSE: PKG) (FSE: PT0) (OTC: PTNYF) announces that President and CEO Kelly Abbott will present the 5th annual AlphaNorth Capital Conference. The AlphaNorth Capital Conference will feature some of the best companies in the small cap arena across various sectors including technology, biotech & healthcare and connect them with over 140 of the top retail brokers and institutional investors (funds & family offices) in North America through a full day of one-on-one meetings. President and CEO Kelly Abbott States, "In 2019, one of ParcelPal's key objectives is to introduce our story to new Canadian, US and international investors to allow them the opportunity to hear firsthand of our successes to date and the compelling reasons why investment in ParcelPal could prove advantageous, especially as we continue to execute on our strategic and business objectives. This conference allows the opportunity to introduce ParcelPal to numerous institutions that are interested in high growth, innovative technology companies like ParcelPal." The company would like to announce that it has also updated their corporate presentation for 2019. The presentation can be found at: http://www.parcelpal.com/investor. About ParcelPal Technology Inc. ParcelPal is a technology driven logistics company that connects consumers to the goods they love. Customers can shop at partner businesses and through the ParcelPal technology receive their purchased goods within an hour. The Company offers on-demand delivery of merchandise from leading retailers, restaurants, medical marijuana dispensaries and liquor stores in Vancouver and soon in major cities Canada-wide. ParcelPal Website: http://www.parcelpal.com The Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") or any other securities regulatory authority has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release that has been prepared by management. CSE - Symbol: PKG FSE - Symbol: PT0 OTC - Symbol: PTNYF Forward Looking Information This news release contains forward looking statements relating to the Proposed Transaction, and the future potential of ParcelPal. Forward looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "intends", "anticipates", "expects", "plans" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release are forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, the risk that the Proposed Transaction will not be completed due to, among other things, failure to execute definitive documentation, failure to complete satisfactory due diligence, failure to receive the approval of the CSE and the risk that ParcelPal will not be successful due to, among other things, general risks relating to the mobile application industry, failure of ParcelPal to gain market acceptance and potential challenges to the intellectual property utilized in ParcelPal. There can be no assurance that any forward looking statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The Company cannot guarantee that any forward looking statement will materialize and the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company will only update or revise publicly any of the included forward looking statements as expressly required by Canadian securities laws. Contact: Peter Hinam, Director Investor Relations [email protected] +604-401-8700 SOURCE ParcelPal Technology Inc. "The study showed us that there is hardly any area where a business does not collaborate with external service providers. Particularly where SAP applications are concerned, itelligence has extensive expertise that enables it to provide customers with a comprehensive offering, from strategy consulting to transformation to long-term support and the optimization of their applications," stresses Norbert Rotter, CEO of itelligence AG. The current "Application Management in Europe" study provides an overview of the status quo and future development in the field of SAP Application Management. For this study, the market researchers from PAC a teknowlogy Group company questioned IT decision-makers of large companies throughout Europe on behalf of SAP consulting company itelligence. "As is the case for many other areas of IT, traditional application management is also undergoing significant changes and developments. At the same time, internal IT departments are trying to handle the current tremendous challenges with ever more limited resources in terms of headcount and specialist knowledge. This is precisely where we as itelligence can provide support to companies with agile and flexible Managed Services," says Lars Janitz, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Managed Services, itelligence AG. Successful migration into the cloud with SAP For many of the respondents, cloud applications have become ubiquitous. A large number of them (39%) stated that they had implemented the cloud version of SAP's latest ERP suite, SAP S/4HANA. 56% confirmed that they were already using or planning to use SAP Cloud Platform & SAP Leonardo. The figure for SAP Analytics Cloud was 53%. And many companies use solutions to support separate processes, such as Ariba for Purchasing and Procurement (63%) and SuccessFactors for Human Capital Management (77%). PAC analyst Karsten Leclerque too believes that external service providers such as itelligence are enormously important in the era of digitalization: "The digital era demands a new approach to application management; one which helps automate businesses as well as improve agility, speed, and efficiency." Complexity as the dominant challenge 96% of the respondents perceive their own SAP landscape as a challenge due to the high degree of customization and adaptations. As a majority of the companies are using or planning to use a number of different cloud applications and deployment models in parallel, they are also having to deal with the complexity of the integration and the management of these solutions. 91% of the respondents perceive the complexity of hybrid IT landscapes as a challenge. Such hybrid IT landscapes often comprise legacy IT, private and public cloud models, as well as self-operated and (out)sourced infrastructures. All this requires consistent end-to-end governance, compliance, and security across numerous different applications and infrastructure platforms (see Fig. 1). Automation of SAP System Management Over recent years, cost pressures in particular as well as labor shortages within Europe have led to increased demand for services provided from offshore and nearshore locations. This was reflected in a total of 79% of respondents stating that they were using nearshore resources. 69% of the companies are using offshore resources. Experiences with nearshoring appear to be more positive: 46% of the companies that make use of nearshore resources are convinced that this share will increase over coming years. Offshoring and nearshoring will experience increasing competition from rising automation. 41% of respondents are already using or are planning to use automation or technologies based on artificial intelligence (AI) to manage their SAP systems. At the same time, a further 46% professed an interest in using these technologies in their organization (see Fig. 2). Majority of executives advocate use of external service providers 66% of the companies thus prefer involving an external service provider such as itelligence for general tasks such as Application Management or Application Hosting. That said, the requirements relating to the management of an SAP application landscape have changed. In future, the requirement will no longer just be to "keep everything running," as used to be the case for SAP Application Management services in the past. Instead, customers will demand their providers to have greater industry-specific know-how that will facilitate closer integration with the business. Ideally, by collaborating with external providers in implementing and operating their SaaS solutions, companies will have the opportunity to benefit not only from their providers' technical capabilities, but also from their innovativeness, as cloud migration can often be a trigger for business transformation. The study document "Application Management in Europe" is available for download at https://itel.li/ams-study-europe-en. itelligence itelligence is a leading international full-service provider of solutions in support of SAP solutions, employing more than 7,500 highly qualified employees in 25 countries. itelligence is an SAP Hybris Gold Partner and global value-added reseller that has won numerous SAP awards. itelligence is an SAP-certified provider of cloud services and an SAP platinum partne rand realizes complex projects in the SAP solution-based environment worldwide. The company's services in support of SAP solutions range from consulting and licensing to application management services and hosting services to proprietary industry-specific solutions. In 2017, itelligence generated total sales of EUR 872.2 million. Media Relations Silvia Dicke Public Relations itelligence AG Konigsbreede 1 D-33605 Bielefeld e-mail: [email protected] phone: +49(0)521/9-14-48-107 http://itelligencegroup.com/de/ SOURCE itelligence AG Related Links http://itelligencegroup.com/de/ NEW YORK, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM), operator of financial markets for 10,000 U.S. and global securities, today announced MJardin Group, Inc. (CSE: MJAR;OTCQX: MJARF), a global cannabis management platform, has qualified to trade on the OTCQX Best Market. MJardin Group has upgraded to OTCQX from the Pink market. MJardin Group begins trading today on OTCQX under the symbol "MJARF." U.S. investors can find current financial disclosure and Real-Time Level 2 quotes for the company on www.otcmarkets.com. "MJardin joins the OTCQX Best Market, trading alongside cannabis companies that are innovators in the industry," said Jason Paltrowitz, Director of OTC Markets Group International Ltd. and EVP of Corporate Services at OTC Markets Group. "Cross-trading on OTCQX provides MJardin's U.S. investors with greater access to the company's financials, news and research reports. We look forward to supporting MJardin as it expands its footprint in the U.S." MJardin Group was sponsored for quotation on OTCQX by Foley & Lardner LLP, a national law firm that has provided guidance to MJardin on OTCQX requirements and recommended membership. About MJardin Group Inc. MJardin is a global cannabis management platform with extensive experience in cultivation, processing, distribution and retail. For over 10 years, MJardin has refined cultivation methodologies, developed state of the art facilities and implemented vertical integration for and on behalf of license owners. As a well-capitalized organization, MJardin continues to pursue strategic expansion and M&A opportunities across global legal cannabis markets. MJardin is based in Denver, Colorado, with offices in Toronto, Canada and Barcelona, Spain. For more information, please visit www.mjardin.com. About OTC Markets Group Inc. OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM) operates the OTCQX Best Market, the OTCQB Venture Market and the Pink Open Market for 10,000 U.S. and global securities. Through OTC Link ATS and OTC Link ECN, we connect a diverse network of broker-dealers that provide liquidity and execution services. We enable investors to easily trade through the broker of their choice and empower companies to improve the quality of information available for investors. To learn more about how we create better informed and more efficient markets, visit www.otcmarkets.com. OTC Link ATS and OTC Link ECN are SEC regulated ATSs, operated by OTC Link LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. Subscribe to the OTC Markets RSS Feed Media Contact: OTC Markets Group Inc., +1 (212) 896-4428, [email protected] SOURCE OTC Markets Group Inc. Related Links http://www.otcmarkets.com NEW YORK, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM), operator of financial markets for 10,000 U.S. and global securities, today announced Alvopetro Energy Ltd (TSX-V: ALV; OTCQX: ALVOF), an independent upstream and midstream operator in Brazil, has qualified to trade on the OTCQX Best Market. Alvopetro Energy upgraded to OTCQX from the Pink market. Alvopetro Energy begins trading today on OTCQX under the symbol "ALVOF." U.S. investors can find current financial disclosure and Real-Time Level 2 quotes for the company on www.otcmarkets.com. "We are pleased to welcome Alvopetro Energy to the OTCQX Best Market," said Jason Paltrowitz, Director of OTC Markets Group International Ltd. and EVP of Corporate Services at OTC Markets Group. "OTCQX companies must meet high financial standards, demonstrate compliance with U.S. securities laws, and have a professional third-party sponsor introduction. Upgrading to the OTCQX Market from the Pink Market is an important milestone for international issuers and we look forward to supporting Alvopetro Energy as the company seeks to build visibility in the US." Corey C. Ruttan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Alvopetro stated, "Alvopetro has made considerable progress over the last year in the execution of our natural gas project onshore Brazil. This is a transformational time for the Company and we are excited to now be trading on OTCQX to facilitate improved visibility and accessibility for our existing and expanding U.S. shareholder base." Alvopetro Energy was sponsored for OTCQX by J.P. Galda & Co., a qualified third-party firm responsible for providing guidance on OTCQX requirements and recommending membership. About Alvopetro Energy Ltd. Alvopetro Energy Ltd.'s vision is to become a leading independent upstream and midstream operator in Brazil. The company's strategy is to unlock the on-shore natural gas potential in the state of Bahia in Brazil, building off the development of our Cabure and Gomo natural gas projects and the construction of strategic infrastructure assets. About OTC Markets Group Inc. OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM) operates the OTCQX Best Market, the OTCQB Venture Market and the Pink Open Market for 10,000 U.S. and global securities. Through OTC Link ATS and OTC Link ECN, we connect a diverse network of broker-dealers that provide liquidity and execution services. We enable investors to easily trade through the broker of their choice and empower companies to improve the quality of information available for investors. To learn more about how we create better informed and more efficient markets, visit www.otcmarkets.com. OTC Link ATS and OTC Link ECN are SEC regulated ATSs, operated by OTC Link LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. Subscribe to the OTC Markets RSS Feed Media Contact: OTC Markets Group Inc., +1 (212) 896-4428, [email protected] SOURCE OTC Markets Group Inc. Related Links http://www.otcmarkets.com SAN FRANCISCO, January 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The global ophthalmology PACS market size is expected to reach USD 170.96 million by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is projected to witness a CAGR of 6.5% during the forecast period and is driven by rising adoption of Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Electronic Medical Records (EMR) solutions globally. Moreover, rising prevalence of eye diseases, such as cataract, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy, is expected to fuel demand for ophthalmology PACS in near future. The Department of Ophthalmology of National University of Singapore conducted a study in collaboration with National University Health System, Singapore and South Central Asia. According to this study, the number of glaucoma cases diagnosed in 2013 was 17.06 million, which is anticipated to reach around 32.9 million by 2040. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/661327/Grand_View_Research_Logo.jpg ) Product development, geographical expansion and M&A are some sustainability strategies adopted by major companies in this market. For instance, in August 2017, Carl Zeiss Meditec Inc., acquired Veracity Innovations, LLC, a U.S.-based medical software company that delivers cloud-based platforms to maximize clinical performance and work efficiency. These platforms help ophthalmologists in delivering personalized technology-enabled care to their patients. The acquisition is intended to expand the former company's eye care-based digital solutions portfolio. The company is also focusing on expanding the business in Asia Pacific owing to larger patient pool in this region. Browse full research report with TOC on "Ophthalmology PACS Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Type (Integrated, Standalone), By End Use (Hospitals, Specialty Clinics), By Delivery Mode (Cloud-based, On-Premise), And Segment Forecasts, 2018 - 2025" at: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/ophthalmology-picture-archiving-communication-system-pacs-market Further Key Findings From the Report Suggest: Increasing cases of ophthalmic diseases, lack of skilled ophthalmologists, and growing usage of teleophthalmology solutions in developed countries are the factors driving the market According to BrightFocus Foundation's survey, prevalence of Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is anticipated to rise up to 22 million by 2040. This is also likely to boost market growth Cloud-based PACS is anticipated to register lucrative growth during the forecast period owing to features, such as interoperability and mutual performance, privacy and security, reduced errors, and improved quality North America held the major share of the market in 2017 due to increased ophthalmic disease burden and healthcare expenditure by public and private firms in this region held the major share of the market in 2017 due to increased ophthalmic disease burden and healthcare expenditure by public and private firms in this region Asia-Pacific is anticipated to register the highest CAGR during forecast period due to rising prevalence of glaucoma coupled with high demand for an effective diagnostic solution is anticipated to register the highest CAGR during forecast period due to rising prevalence of glaucoma coupled with high demand for an effective diagnostic solution Carl Zeiss Meditec AG; Topcon Corp.; Merge Healthcare, Inc. are the major companies in the global ophthalmology PACS market Most of these companies are focusing on technological advancements, M&A, and R&D as part of their business expansion strategies Connect with our analyst for specific inquiries Browse related reports by Grand View Research: Veterinary Software Market - The global veterinary software market size was valued at USD 322.8 million in 2016 and is expected to grow with a CAGR of 8.9% during the forecast period. ePharmacy Market - The global ePharmacy market size was valued at USD 33.03 billion in 2016 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 14.8% during the forecast period. e-Pharma Market - The global e-Pharma market size was valued at USD 33.03 billion in 2016 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 14.8% during the forecast period. mHealth App Market - The mHealth app market size was valued at USD 4.19 billion in 2016 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 44.2% over the forecast period. Grand View Research has segmented the global ophthalmology PACS market on the basis of type, delivery mode, end-use, and region: Ophthalmology PACS Type Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) Standalone PACS Integrated PACS Ophthalmology PACS Delivery Mode Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) On-Premise System Cloud-Based System Ophthalmology PACS End-use Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) Hospital Specialty Clinics Others Ophthalmology PACS Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) North America U.S. Canada Europe Germany U.K. France Italy Spain Asia Pacific China India Latin America Mexico Brazil Middle East & Africa South Africa Explore the BI enabled intuitive market research database, Grand View Compass, by Grand View Research, Inc. About Grand View Research Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries, from technology to chemicals, materials and healthcare. Contact: Sherry James Corporate Sales Specialist, USA Grand View Research, Inc. Phone: +1-415-349-0058 Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519 Email: [email protected] Web: https://www.grandviewresearch.com Follow Us: LinkedIn | Twitter SOURCE Grand View Research, Inc. SEATTLE and MINNEAPOLIS and CHINO, Calif., Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Camano Capital, LLC ('Camano'), a consumer-focused private equity firm with offices in Seattle and Minneapolis, is pleased to announce the majority recapitalization of Omnia Italian Design, LLC. ('Omnia' or the 'Company'). Omnia, located in Chino, CA, is a leading designer, manufacturer and distributor of leather furniture. For over 30 years, Omnia has manufactured premier leather furnishings entirely in the U.S.A. Omnia's proprietary, U.S. based system of 'personalization,' allows the Company to create premium leather furniture to meet the specific needs of each customer, in a fraction of the time required by other foreign or domestic furniture manufacturers. Tom Newell from Camano stated, "We feel very fortunate to be able to partner with Peter and Louie to grow Omnia to the next level. The future of furniture retail is in both through traditional retail and online channels, and Omnia is uniquely positioned to serve both of those markets in a way no other manufacturer can. We are excited to have the chance to work with Omnia to capitalize on that opportunity." Omnia is led by CEO Peter Zolferino and COO Louie Nastri, the children of the founders, who will continue to manage the business day-to-day. The capital infusion from Camano Capital will allow the Company to focus on significant expansion within both traditional furniture retail and online channels. "Louie and I are excited to partner with Camano to help grow and expand the Omnia brand and product line," said Peter Zolferino, Omnia CEO. "We were focused on finding a partner that would not only inject significant energy and growth potential into the business, but would also be a good steward of our brand, our employees and our family's company. Taylor, Tom and the Camano Capital team are an excellent fit for us in all those areas." About Camano Capital: Camano Capital is a private equity firm with offices in Seattle and Minneapolis that seeks to invest in differentiated, branded consumer companies that appeal to everyday consumers. Camano provides flexible capital solutions to business owners seeking liquidity events or growth equity, structuring each investment to achieve the optimal outcome for our partner businesses. Camano, and our group of advisors, bring financial, marketing and operational expertise to each investment, providing the resources necessary for accelerated growth. www.camanocapital.com About Omnia Italian Design, Inc. Omnia Italian Designs, Inc. ('Omnia' or 'The Company'), based in Chino, California, is the largest designer and manufacturer of premium leather furniture in the Western United States. All of its products are manufactured in the USA and are made to order. Omnia was founded in 1989 and is still family run by the sons of the founders. The Company combines craftsmanship, quality and styling to create a premium product offering and brand recognized by furniture retailers industry-wide. www.omnialeather.com Media Contact: Tom Newell [email protected] 206-295-9746 SOURCE Camano Capital, LLC. Related Links http://www.camanocapital.com Expands Leadership Team Adding Venture Capital Veteran Michael Yang SAN FRANCISCO and TORONTO, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - OMERS Ventures today announced its expansion to the U.S. through the opening of its Silicon Valley office and the hiring of venture capital veteran Michael Yang. OMERS Ventures is a multi-stage, multi-sector venture capital investment arm of OMERS, the defined benefit pension plan for municipal employees in the Province of Ontario, Canada. Michael Yang brings over a dozen years' of venture capital investing with an early stage focus on e-commerce and emerging technologies such as healthtech, IoT, and AR/VR. His track record of success includes the exits of August (sold to Assa Abloy), Automatic (sold to SiriusXM), BodyMedia (sold to Jawbone) and Healthline (sold to Summit Partners). Alongside this experience and expertise, Michael's deep industry relationships with a key network of strategic leaders, ranging from executives with Fortune 500 companies to entrepreneurs, will help further raise the profile of the OMERS Ventures' team and portfolio. "We are thrilled to expand our physical footprint with dedicated resources to deploy additional capital to startups in the U.S.," said Damien Steel, Managing Partner and Head of Ventures. "And we couldn't ask for a better partner than Michael to lead this expansion of the OMERS Ventures portfolio and brand." OMERS, with more than $95 billion in net assets, has developed direct investment strategies which cover a diverse range of assets across the globe. The OMERS Ventures office will be located in the Bay Area and will complement the existing team headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Michelle Killoran, Principal, OMERS Ventures, will be relocating from Toronto to Silicon Valley to provide additional strength to the new office. "OMERS has such a compelling value proposition for startups looking for a strategic partner, with access to patient yet agile venture capital, a strong entrepreneurial network, steadfast resources to support scale and growth, and visibility into technology themes and opportunities spanning both private and public assets," said Michael Yang, Managing Partner, OMERS Ventures. "Michelle and I look forward to building a Bay Area presence." OMERS Ventures' new Silicon Valley presence provides a bi-coastal and international foothold for the firm to identify promising investment opportunities in emerging and leading markets. This supports a multi-year global strategy for OMERS, which just last year saw the pension plan open an office in Singapore. Connect with the OMERS Ventures Silicon Valley team Michael Yang : Linkedin and Twitter : Linkedin and Twitter Michelle Killoran : Linkedin and Twitter : Linkedin and Twitter OMERS Ventures: Linkedin and Twitter About OMERS and OMERS Ventures Founded in 1962, OMERS is one of Canada's largest defined benefit pension plans, with more than $95 billion CAD in net assets, as at December 31, 2017. It invests and administers pensions for almost half a million members from municipalities, school boards, emergency services and local agencies across Ontario. OMERS has employees in Toronto and other major cities across North America, the U.K., Europe, Asia and Australia originating and managing a diversified portfolio of investments in public markets, private equity, infrastructure and real estate. OMERS Ventures, the venture capital investment arm of OMERS, is a multi-stage investor in growth-oriented, disruptive technology companies. OMERS Ventures currently manages $800M CAD across more than 35 investments in North America and Europe. For more information, please visit www.omersventures.com SOURCE OMERS Ventures KEARNY MESA, Calif., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The North San Diego County Association of REALTORS (NSDCAR) has extended an open invitation to the REALTOR community and all others associated with the industry to celebrate the launch of NSDCAR's new Kearny Mesa Service Center. The grand event will include fun, food, raffles, education and festivities for all. New members who join NSDCAR at the event will receive special discounts. Details Date: January 15th, 2019 Time: 10:00 am to 5:00 pm Location: 3914 Murphy Canyon Road, Suite A130, San Diego, CA, 92123 For more information, please contact NSDCAR at 760-734-3971. Media Contact: Blake Morgan Title: Communications Director Address: 906 Sycamore Ave., Ste. 104 Vista, CA 92081 760-734-3971 [email protected] SOURCE NSDCAR JUNO BEACH, Fla., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NEE) has been named to Forbes' list of America's Best Employers for Diversity for the second consecutive year. NextEra Energy, whose principal businesses are Florida Power & Light Company, Gulf Power Company and NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, is one of only 500 employers to receive this honor across the U.S. In collaboration with analytics firm Statista, Forbes selected America's Best Employers for Diversity based on an independent survey of more than 50,000 U.S. employees working for companies employing at least 1,000 people in their U.S. operations. "At NextEra Energy, our people are our greatest asset, and building a great team requires a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion," said Jim Robo, NextEra Energy chairman and chief executive officer. "Our approach to diversity and inclusion reflects all three of NextEra Energy's corporate values. We are committed to excellence. We do the right thing. We treat people with respect. As an industry leader that's creating jobs, generating economic benefits and investing in infrastructure across America, these values drive everything we do at our company." This most recent honor from Forbes is the latest in a long string of third-party recognitions for NextEra Energy. In 2018, NextEra Energy was named No. 1 in its sector on Fortune's list of "Most Admired Companies" for the 11th time in 12 years and also ranked by Fortune among top 25 companies that "Change the World." NextEra Energy was also recognized by Ethisphere Institute as one of its 2018 World's Most Ethical Companies, becoming one of only 20 companies in the world to have achieved this honor 11 or more times. In 2018, NextEra Energy was also recognized by Forbes as one of America's Best Employers and by the U.S. Department of Defense's Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve with the Above and Beyond Award as well as receiving the Gold Medallion for Hire Vets from the Department of Labor. Additionally, NextEra Energy's Women in Energy employee resource group received the 2017 Spotlight Impact Award from the Association of ERGs & Councils. NextEra Energy maintains a strong focus on diversity and inclusion through the following: Encouraging diverse thought creates better business decisions At NextEra Energy, we provide an inclusive work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, color, age, sex, national origin, religion, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetics, disability or protected veteran status. We also appreciate diversity of thought, style, technical and functional capabilities and leadership. When talented employees from varied backgrounds are engaged and contributing to our business success, we all benefit. At NextEra Energy, we provide an inclusive work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, color, age, sex, national origin, religion, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetics, disability or protected veteran status. We also appreciate diversity of thought, style, technical and functional capabilities and leadership. When talented employees from varied backgrounds are engaged and contributing to our business success, we all benefit. Building a balanced team As one of the nation's premier energy companies, we are committed to recruiting, developing and retaining great people at all levels. A key part of that commitment is to attract and maintain a diverse and multi-generational workforce that can help us meet the continually evolving needs of our customers. As one of the nation's premier energy companies, we are committed to recruiting, developing and retaining great people at all levels. A key part of that commitment is to attract and maintain a diverse and multi-generational workforce that can help us meet the continually evolving needs of our customers. Corporate diversity council and employee resource groups NextEra Energy's corporate diversity council provides strategic guidance on corporatewide and business unit-specific diversity and inclusion initiatives, models inclusive behaviors and promotes diverse and inclusive leadership teams. The employee resource groups drive an inclusive work environment and opportunities for engagement. NextEra Energy's corporate diversity council provides strategic guidance on corporatewide and business unit-specific diversity and inclusion initiatives, models inclusive behaviors and promotes diverse and inclusive leadership teams. The employee resource groups drive an inclusive work environment and opportunities for engagement. Encouraging diversity through recruiting practices Our talent acquisition team partners with key veteran and diversity organizations both regional and national targeting diverse groups including women, minorities, veterans and people with disabilities, with a focus on attracting qualified diverse talent to become part of our great company. Our talent acquisition team partners with key veteran and diversity organizations both regional and national targeting diverse groups including women, minorities, veterans and people with disabilities, with a focus on attracting qualified diverse talent to become part of our great company. Offering college recruiting and NEXT Intern Program We're always looking for the best and the brightest college students and graduates to help us shape the future of clean and renewable energy. By affording students relevant work experience, the internship program provides the opportunity to develop a pipeline of new talent and creates an environment where both candidate and company can explore the potential for full-time employment in the future. We're always looking for the best and the brightest college students and graduates to help us shape the future of clean and renewable energy. By affording students relevant work experience, the internship program provides the opportunity to develop a pipeline of new talent and creates an environment where both candidate and company can explore the potential for full-time employment in the future. Professional diversity organizations and events We partner with diverse organizations, including the American Association of Blacks in Energy, the National Black MBA Association, Women in Technology International, Women of Renewable Industries & Sustainable Energy, LGBT-Allies Summit, American Indian Science and Engineering Society, Equal Opportunity Publications (expos) and many others. NextEra Energy, Inc. NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NEE) is a leading clean energy company headquartered in Juno Beach, Florida. NextEra Energy owns two electric companies in Florida: Florida Power & Light Company, which serves more than five million customer accounts in Florida and is one of the largest rate-regulated electric utilities in the United States; and Gulf Power Company, which serves more than 460,000 customers in eight counties throughout northwest Florida. NextEra Energy also owns a competitive energy business, NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, which, together with its affiliated entities, is the world's largest generator of renewable energy from the wind and sun and a world leader in battery storage. Through its subsidiaries, NextEra Energy generates clean, emissions-free electricity from eight commercial nuclear power units in Florida, New Hampshire, Iowa and Wisconsin. A Fortune 200 company and included in the S&P 100 index, NextEra Energy has been recognized often by third parties for its efforts in sustainability, corporate responsibility, ethics and compliance, and diversity. NextEra Energy is ranked No. 1 in the electric and gas utilities industry on Fortune's 2018 list of "World's Most Admired Companies" and ranked among the top 25 on Fortune's 2018 list of companies that "Change the World." For more information about NextEra Energy companies, visit these websites: www.NextEraEnergy.com, www.FPL.com, www.GulfPower.com, www.NextEraEnergyResources.com. SOURCE NextEra Energy, Inc. Related Links http://www.nexteraenergy.com Nonprofit and fully online, WGU Indiana offers more than 60 bachelor's and master's degree programs in business, K-12 teacher education, information technology and health professions, including nursing. WGU's competency-based learning model is ideal for busy adults, allowing them to study and learn on a schedule that fits their lives. Students work through course materials with consistent, one-on-one faculty support, advancing as soon as they demonstrate that they have mastered the subject matter. "Education is the greatest predictor of future success," said WGU Indiana Chancellor Emeritus Allison Barber. "WGU Indiana is committed to helping Hoosiers fulfill their dream of degree completion and career success, by giving them a flexible, affordable online option for their education." Each New Year, New You Scholarship will be awarded at the rate of $500 per six-month term, renewable for up to four terms. Students enrolling in any of WGU Indiana's bachelor's and master's degree programs are eligible to apply for the scholarship. This scholarship is open to new students who have been officially admitted to WGU. While many scholarships are available through the program, applications are competitive. Awards will be based on a candidate's academic record, readiness for online study, current competency and other considerations. About WGU Indiana WGU Indiana offers more than 60 undergraduate and graduate online degree programs in business, education, information technology and healthcare, including nursing. The nonprofit university's competency-based model allows students to accelerate through coursework. According to a 2017 Harris Poll, 96 percent of WGU graduates are employed, 89 percent of them in their degree field. According to a 2017 Gallup study, WGU graduates are more likely than graduates from other U.S. universities to have the jobs they want, to feel that WGU was the perfect school for them, and to feel that their education was worth the cost. WGU Indiana has helped more than 7,100 Hoosiers achieve their dream of completing a college degree. Another 5,600 students are currently enrolled. For information about WGU Indiana's degrees and scholarships, visit wgu.edu/online-degree-programs. Contact: Lisa Abbott 317/525-4924 [email protected] SOURCE WGU Indiana As Edward Xia , Managing Director, JLL Shenzhen points out, "After four decades of economic expansion, Shenzhen is now internationally recognized as South China's technology and innovation epicenter, inevitably drawing comparisons with Silicon Valley. The strong and sustained growth that the city's tech industry is currently experiencing is set to form an important source of office demand in coming years". China's Tech Powerhouse On the 40th anniversary of Reform and Opening, no transformation better exemplifies the growth and modernization of a Chinese city than Shenzhen. From its humble beginning as a rural fishing village, to current status as a tech-centric megacity, four key inter-related factors have driven this remarkable transformation. A combination of economic reform, capital-backed start-ups, agglomeration, and the ability to attract top talent are behind the Shenzhen tech industry's growth to date, and they will continue to propel it rapidly into the future. Between 2011-2015, over 41,000 Patent Cooperation Treaty filings came from the Shenzhen-Hong Kong cluster, the second highest in the world, and firmly ahead of many traditional innovation hubs. Silvia Zeng, Head of Research, JLL South China, said: "Shenzhen offers a unique model in which government initiatives, entrepreneurial spirit, corporate headquarters, talented people, business clusters, and plenty of investment capital, have come together to fuel the technology sector's growth, and a corresponding surge in Chinese innovation." In terms of office leasing demand, the tech industry is the most active player in the Shenzhen office market. It has spurred the city's evolution, with the last 15 years witnessing an eight-fold increase in office stock to 6.4 million square meters by late 2018, making Shenzhen the third largest office market in Mainland China. Demand for office expansion is being supported by both the growth of existing sectors and emergence of new ones. As staff numbers increase, the expansion and relocation of main or regional headquarters of the multinational tech giants and larger firms will lead future demand. The JLL report also points out that many tech firms can now afford higher rents and are also seeking to raise their corporate image, making upgrade demand another important force in the Grade A office market. Nanshan Leads, Suburbs Follow Shenzhen expects a staggering 7.6 million square meters of Grade A office supply to come online in the next five years. Active future demand from tech firms will be focused on Shenzhen High-tech Industrial Park and the surrounding Nanshan business district, which will remain Shenzhen's core submarket for the tech industry, accounting for 60% of future supply. With the predicted acceleration in the tech industry's growth, demand for business park space will rise, driven by expansion and setup. Emerging sectors with large space requirement such as robotics, will find suburban locations such as Bao'an and Longgang ideal for relocation or expansion. A new generation of workforce is calling for upgraded working environments that elevate user experience and promote innovative thinking through the latest technologies. This is particularly true of the innovative and progressive younger workers that the tech industry tends to attract. As Zeng points out, "A significant proportion of Shenzhen's future office supply will consist of corporate headquarters. As more companies begin to recognise the various benefits that Future of Work models can generate, an increasing number of offices in Shenzhen are expected to adopt this concept." Co-working will also become an important channel to meet future office demand. As expanding tech companies begin moving to semi and fully-furnished flexible offices with short-term leasing options, a number of experienced global co-working service providers are weighing up their prospects for entering Shenzhen's highly dynamic market. The Greater Bay Area looks to have a bright future, with Shenzhen as a major driver with a booming office market closely linked to the flourishing tech sector. Both start-ups and established tech enterprises will ensure this surging office demand, while foreign institutional investors continue to pay close attention to assets in the region. As Jex Ng, Managing Director, JLL South China emphasizes, "Due to acute land supply shortages in Shenzhen, a significant amount of manufacturing, including even some from the hi-tech sector, will have to be relocated outside of Shenzhen. As the city's tech industry grows in coming years, such relocations will play an important part in the Greater Bay Area's industry upgrade process, helping many nearby cities replace traditional manufacturing with hi-tech alternatives." Read the whitepaper here: Shenzhen's Tech Prosperity Drives Office Demand About JLL JLL (NYSE: JLL) is a leading professional services firm that specializes in real estate and investment management. Our vision is to reimagine the world of real estate, creating rewarding opportunities and amazing spaces where people can achieve their ambitions. In doing so, we will build a better tomorrow for our clients, our people and our communities. JLL is a Fortune 500 company with operations in over 80 countries and a global workforce of 88,000 as of September 30, 2018. JLL is the brand name, and a registered trademark, of Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated. For further information, visit jll.com SOURCE JLL Related Links http://www.jll.com/ SAN ANTONIO, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Massage Heights, a leader of professional, affordable and convenient therapeutic massage and facial services, announced today it has signed a franchise agreement with new franchisees Amanda Watkins and Ben Heinz of Vanilubeen Limited. The business partners will be developing a new Retreat in the greater Denver area, targeting North Thornton, which is slated to open in Summer 2019. Watkins and Heinz are both Colorado natives, hailing from Fort Collins and Arvada, respectively. Watkins received a bachelor of science in microbiology from Colorado State University and has previous experience in medical device quality assurance. Heinz has his bachelors of science in chemistry from Creighton University In Omaha, Nebraska and worked as a scientific equipment field service engineer. This is the duo's first foray into franchising. "Ben and I have loved the Massage Heights brand for more than a decade. We decided to take the leap and become franchisees because we were both in a pivotal, transformative period in our lives and wanted to do something we could be passionate about while helping others," said Amanda Watkins. "We've wanted to own our own business for years and after researching Massage Heights further and meeting with the corporate team, the choice was obvious to us." Founded in San Antonio in 2004, Massage Heights has grown to more than 145 Retreats nationwide and continues to identify Colorado as a key state for development. The brand currently has five Retreats throughout Colorado Springs, Denver and Longmont, and is aggressively recruiting single- and multi-unit franchisees to continue the growth of the brand. "Our franchisees all share the same passion for helping others, which is the foundation that Massage Heights was built upon, and we feel fortunate to welcome such kind and compassionate people like Amanda and Ben to the Massage Heights family," said Tim Hicks, senior vice president of franchise operations and development for Massage Heights. "Massage Heights as a brand has done extremely well in Colorado, and the state remains a target market for our continued growth. We look forward to Amanda and Ben opening our newest Colorado Retreat, as well as their journey with Massage Heights." Prospective franchisees should have $175,000 in liquid assets and minimum $400,000 net worth per location, as well as experience in sales or retail management and managing hourly wage employees. As part of its growth strategy, Massage Heights is targeting franchise development in Nashville, Chicago, St. Louis, South Florida, and Las Vegas. For more information about franchise opportunities with Massage Heights, visit http://www.massageheightsfranchise.com/ or call 888-810-3940. About Massage Heights Massage Heights is a family-owned, membership-based therapeutic services franchise company that provides Members and Guests convenient, professional, affordable resort-quality massage and facial services that help people achieve a balanced and healthy lifestyle, in an upscale Retreat environment. Regular massage and skin therapy services help people look and feel their best from the inside out by aiding in the reduction of stress, pain management and increased relaxation, all resulting in the ability to tackle daily life with a higher level of vitality and positivity, truly elevating the everyday. MEDIA CONTACT: Fish Consulting Caitlin Willard [email protected] 954-893-9150 SOURCE Massage Heights Related Links http://www.massageheights.com CHICAGO, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Fraight AI , an artificial intelligence-powered freight brokerage, has hired Torie Runzel as COO and Jordan Ho as vice president of product. Runzel previously led global operations for T-REX, a New York-based fintech company. She also co-founded her own logistics startup, DivvyDown, which was acquired by BoozeCarriage in 2014. "In my life I've met six people that I would start a business with tomorrow, and Torie was one of them," said Parker Holcomb, founder and CEO of Fraight AI. "So when the idea for Fraight first came to me, I started to pitch Torie the following week. At the time, she had just helped T-REX raise its Series B financing and said there was still work left to be done. We took that in stride but didn't let up." Ho previously co-founded Table XI, a Chicago-based web development firm, and most recently was vice president of product marketing at Label Insight, which scaled to a $21 million Series C fundraising round in his nearly four years at the company. "When we were considering our move to Chicago, Jordan was one of the first people I reached out to, and he has since served as a friend and mentor," Holcomb said. "With almost 20 years in the Chicago tech community, Jordan brings experience not only building a tech product, but building a high-functioning product team." Fraight AI is building software to automate the match among loads and trucks so it's done in minutes. When such negotiations are done via phone, as is the norm, matching can take hours. That's because the industry is so fragmented: There are more than 500,000 carriers to choose from and more than 450,000 of them operate six trucks or less. Much of this technology operates behind the scenes, allowing the Fraight team to achieve its clients' goals more efficiently. For instance, the company is building a virtual assistant, named Archie, to handle continuous communications with tens of thousands of parties, including drivers, at a time. These communications occur via email, text and even fax, which remains a common tool in the trucking industry, without drivers ever knowing the transaction is automated. "By communicating with drivers the way they want to and in natural language, we achieve this excruciating match between driver and a load in minutes and at lower cost," Holcomb said. "We then pass these cost savings on to our customers." Fraight AI's technology also is being designed to learn and anticipate its customers' shipping needs and even problems. For instance, Fraight's algorithms will be able to digest billions of data points and use them to predict when a city is in short supply of drivers based on pricing and response times, and then warn customers of the crunch. Such insight will not require an app or download. Studies have shown that less than 1 percent of carriers use freight-matching apps. Fraight AI's customers range from Fortune 50 companies to growing startups across the United States. About Fraight AI Fraight AI is a technology-enabled freight brokerage that delivers access to reliable, hard-to-find carriers. By combining deep tech and logistics experience with artificial intelligence, we find the perfect truck in minutes, not hours, a difficult task when there are more than 500,000 options. As a result, we more efficiently move loads on time and save our customers money. SOURCE Fraight AI Related Links http://www.fraight.com MEXICO CITY, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Air France - KLM recently announced that LINKS Travel Trade, Marketing & Public Relations, a global communications agency specializing in the Tourism and Travel sector, has been named as the airline group's agency of record (AOR). With deep knowledge in the Latin American and Caribbean markets, LINKS will develop Air France - KLM's communications strategy specifically for the Mexico market beginning January 2019. "Air France - KLM is committed to the active development of the tourism industry in Mexico, as well as providing its customers with the world's best travel experiences. It's an honor for us to work with them and promote their values through a professional communication and public relations strategy," stated Edward De Valle II, Senior Partner of LINKS Travel Trade, Marketing & Public Relations. "In 2019 we will continue to innovate the country's aviation and tourism industry and we want travelers to know all the advantages of flying with us. As part of our commitment to the Mexican market, at Air France-KLM we take a new step in our communications and public relations strategy with LINKS," added Helvia Gonzalez, head of the Communication Department of Air France-KLM in Mexico. LINKS Travel Trade, Marketing & Public Relations has established itself as one of the leading communication and representation firms in the tourism industry throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. LINKS offers highly competitive solutions for businesses looking to develop global strategies. The agency's portfolio of clients includes, but is not limited to: the Ministry of Tourism of Israel, the Tourism Office of New Zealand, the Department of Tourism of the Cayman Islands and luxury hotels and resorts within the Highgate portfolio, among others. LINKS Travel Trade, Marketing & Public Relations is headquartered in Miami with additional offices throughout Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Los Angeles, Mexico, New York, Panama and Peru. A Member of the Pangaea Network, an international travel public relations and representative network specializing in creating integrated, cohesive campaigns for travel clients in 24 markets across North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia; LINKS is among other distinguished travel PR, marketing, and representation specialists granting clients local insight, contacts, knowledge, and experience in global tourism. SOURCE LINKS Travel Trade, Marketing & Public Relations Related Links http://linksworldgroup.com SAN FRANCISCO, January 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Lightsource BP, a global market leader in the development, acquisition and long-term management of large-scale solar projects and smart energy solutions, is pleased to announce the appointment of Kevin Smith as CEO for the Americas, leading Lightsource BP's expansion across the region. Kevin joins Lightsource BP with over 30 years of experience in the renewable energy sector. Most recently, he was CEO and one of the founding executives at California-based SolarReserve, where he drove the company's global expansion and commercialization of their proprietary solar energy storage technology. Prior to joining SolarReserve, Kevin was Senior Vice President at Invenergy LLC where he led the growth of the business from a start-up in 2004 to one of the largest privately-owned renewable energy businesses in the world just a few years later. Kevin has also previously served as President of Insight Energy, Chief Operating Officer of London-based Rolls-Royce Power Ventures, and Vice President - General Manager of Indeck Energy Services. Over his career, Kevin has actively led the development, financing and construction of privately-owned energy projects in the U.S. and more than a dozen countries across five continents, including solar and wind projects over the last 14 years. He earned his MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago and his Mechanical Engineering degree from Purdue University. Commenting on the announcement, Nick Boyle, Lightsource BP CEO, said: "We are delighted to welcome Kevin to Lightsource BP. As Lightsource BP continues its rapid growth across North, South and Central America, Kevin's knowledge and experience makes him an exciting and valuable addition to the Lightsource BP family." Kevin Smith added, "I'm thrilled to be joining Lightsource BP at this exciting period of the company's expansion. I look forward to applying Lightsource BP's winning formula that has made it such a success story and driving the business forward to support the demand for solar energy in the region." Lightsource BP recently announced two new U.S. collaborations, with California's Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), one of the nation's largest municipal utilities, and with Continental Divide Electric Cooperative (CDEC), a member-owned distribution cooperative in New Mexico. The power purchase agreements (PPAs), comprising 25 megawatts (MWs), will bring locally-generated solar photovoltaic (PV) power to the utilities' customers over 20+ year terms. SOURCE Lightsource BP NEW YORK, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- JetSmarter, the world's largest private aviation community, announced the launch of new routes and services to accommodate travel to the coolest destinations this winter. JetSmarter is now offering crowdfunded flights from 15 new destinations in addition to New York, Los Angeles, and South Florida to ski towns in Colorado and Utah. For those looking to hit the Rocky Mountains for a weekend getaway, JetSmarter is also offering two complimentary nights at Caldera House to enjoy the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort when purchasing a private or shared charter into JAC, with crowdfunded options into JAC on the way. Outside of the U.S., JetSmarter has also expanded its European ski options, allowing travelers to get to the slopes quicker. JetSmarter users can now fly from London and Paris to Sion, Lyon, and Chambery. Coming off the recent launch of its crowdfunded flights, JetSmarter users can now initiate a flight and choose the date and time of the departure, while sharing the cost equally with other flyers. This winter, users can initiate a heavy jet crowdfunded flight from New York to Aspen or Vail starting at $3,995 with seats to Lake Tahoe from LA on a light jet starting at $1,495. For more information on how to fly with JetSmarter, visit www.jetsmarter.com. About JetSmarter JetSmarter is a global community of fliers that prefer an elevated travel experience. We offer an innovative alternative to the dated and overpriced services offered in private aviation today; all while challenging the commercial aviation industry through competitive pricing and an unparalleled flight experience. Using a sharing economy model, JetSmarter gives users the unlimited ability to create flights on-demand or book individual seats on flights created by fellow fliers all while saving thousands compared to traditional private travel. JetSmarter does not own or operate any aircraft. All flights are performed by FAA-licensed and DOT-registered air carriers. JetSmarter offers a number of programs, including private charters, for which JetSmarter acts as your agent in arranging the flight, and public charters for which JetSmarter acts as principal in buying and reselling the air transportation. All reservations are subject to availability. Purchase of private charter or purchase of requisite number of seats required to confirm a shared charter into KJAC is required to redeem complimentary stay at Caldera House. Complimentary Caldera House reservations are subject to availability and limited to Sunday-Wednesday arrivals with the following blackout dates: 1/18-1/22, 1/24-1/27, and 2/15-2/23. Flight must be purchased and performed prior to March 31, 2019. Complimentary Caldera House Reservations must be redeemed prior to March 31, 2019. Additional restrictions may apply. SOURCE JetSmarter Related Links https://jetsmarter.com LONG BEACH, Calif., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Laserfichea leading global provider of enterprise content management (ECM) softwarewill hold its annual Empower Conference Feb. 5-8, 2019, in Long Beach, California. Under the theme The Future of Work, the conference will welcome more than 4,000 attendees from over 30 countries to the Long Beach Convention Center. Attendees will have the opportunity to network, hear about new tools and trends, and learn how to build more digitally driven, connected and intelligent enterprises. "Digital transformation is no longer an option; it's a necessity for organizations to keep pace with customer and employee expectations," said Karl Chan, President at Laserfiche. "Laserfiche provides a framework for the visionary digital initiatives that go beyond IT, enable growth and innovation, and transform lives." Empower will offer more than 250 sessions and hands-on labs that focus on accelerating how business gets done. Conference-goers will learn about: The latest process automation tools including robotic process automation (RPA), decision automation and process intelligence including robotic process automation (RPA), decision automation and process intelligence Updates to Laserfiche software aimed at providing more flexibility for organizations to build solutions catered to their needs, and enhancements to the overall user experience aimed at providing more flexibility for organizations to build solutions catered to their needs, and enhancements to the overall user experience Customer success stories that focus on real-world applications of Laserfiche technology and digital transformation "We are excited to welcome our community of innovators to Empower," said Chris Wacker, CEO of Laserfiche. "This will be our largest Empower conference yet, and we look forward to offering a space for future-minded individuals to learn and network among other leaders. Attendees will gain tools and techniques to help position themselves as change agents within their organization, in their industry and the world." Laserfiche will also provide a live broadcast of select sessions, including: Robotic Process Automation: Leave the Busywork to the Bots Get a sneak peek of Laserfiche's upcoming RPA features while also learning how software robots can work alongside employees to boost productivity. Get a sneak peek of Laserfiche's upcoming RPA features while also learning how software robots can work alongside employees to boost productivity. Machine Learning at Laserfiche: Future Technology Preview Learn how Laserfiche is exploring machine learning to automate and streamline processes and document management. Learn how Laserfiche is exploring machine learning to automate and streamline processes and document management. Getting Women into STEAM CareersJoin Lisa Mae Brunson, founder of Wonder Women Tech, as she discusses workplace inclusivity and how to create a workplace for everyone. To learn more or register for Empower, visit empower.laserfiche.com. About Laserfiche Laserfiche is a leading global provider of enterprise content management software empowering organizations to take control of information and business processes. With intuitive on-premises and cloud solutions for document management and process automation, Laserfiche improves productivity, efficiency and strategic decision-making for organizations looking to transform into a digital workplace. For more than three decades, Laserfiche has fostered an active user community that shares ideas and inspires solutions. To learn more, visit laserfiche.com/about-laserfiche. Connect with Laserfiche: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook Laserfiche is a registered trademark of Compulink Management Center, Inc. SOURCE Laserfiche Related Links http://www.laserfiche.com NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Knock , on a mission to make trading-in your home as easy as trading-in your car, announced the closing of $400 million in Series B equity and debt financing led by Foundry Group with participation from existing investors RRE Ventures, Corazon Capital, WTI, and FJ Labs, and new investor Company Ventures. Foundry Group Partner Seth Levine joined Knock's board of directors. With this additional financing, Knock plans to continue its nationwide expansion and accelerate the development of the proprietary technology behind its unique Home Trade-in platform the first-ever. "At Knock we believe the only way to revolutionize the real estate industry is by addressing both home buying and selling, given 71% of consumers are doing both at the same time, which is why we're creating a marketplace solution with our Home Trade-in platform," said Sean Black, Co-founder and CEO of Knock. "As we celebrate the success of the Trade-in with this latest round of funding, we are excited to have found investors and partners in Foundry Group, which has successfully helped other marketplace companies like Rover and Havenly scale platforms that transform traditional industries for a better, technology-powered consumer experience." Led by founding team members of Trulia like Black and Co-founder and COO Jamie Glenn, Knock launched in 2015 to bring greater certainty, convenience and cost-effectiveness to the home buying and selling process, which it has accomplished through its Home Trade-in platform. This additional funding will enable the company to buy more new homes on its customers' behalf before representing them in the sale of their old ones on the open market. "At Foundry we love working with passionate founders who are on a mission to fundamentally change an industry. The Knock team is exactly that combining years of experience in real estate technology with a fundamental drive to change the way consumers buy and sell homes," said Levine. "This is an unstoppable combination that we believe will transform the outdated real estate industry." Knock has experienced rapid growth since its founding, launching in five markets: Atlanta, GA, Charlotte, NC, Raleigh-Durham, NC, Dallas, TX and Fort Worth, TX. Along with its market expansions, the company's headcount has multiplied in the past two years to 100 full-time employees distributed across 15 states. The engineering, product and data science team comprises one-third of the employee base, demonstrating the company's commitment to developing a truly technology-centric solution. As a result, Knock announced a number of revolutionary product advancements in the past year alone, including its unique predictive home search tool Knock Deals. Fueled by this tool, Knock also released its inaugural National Knock Deals Forecast , a first-ever predictive study of home price outcomes for on-market listings across 45 top U.S. metros, driven by the company's proprietary data science and machine learning-based algorithms. "By combining our platform technology with national machine learning-driven housing insights and the real life, in-home experiences of our team as we grow across the U.S., we're bringing a level of transparency to real estate that will enable a more certain, convenient and cost-effective experience for home buyers and sellers," said Glenn. This latest round of funding brings the total equity and debt raised by Knock to over $600 million. In January 2017, the company announced its Series A round led by RRE Ventures with additional funding from Corazon Capital, Redpoint, Greycroft, Correlation Ventures, Great Oaks Venture Capital and FJ Labs. ABOUT KNOCK Knock ( www.knock.com ) is the first online Home Trade-in platform, a revolutionary new approach to home buying and selling that makes it as easy to trade-in your home as it is to trade-in your car. Launched by founding team members of Trulia.com, the company uses data science to price homes accurately, technology to sell them efficiently and a dedicated team of Licensed Local Experts to guide consumers through every step of the process. Knock's top tier investors include RRE, Foundry Group, Redpoint, Greycroft, Corazon Capital, Correlation Ventures,Great Oaks Venture Capital and FJ Labs. The company has offices in New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Dallas and Fort Worth, with several more on the way. ABOUT FOUNDRY GROUP Foundry Group is a venture capital firm focused on investing in technology companies and the next generation of venture capital fund managers. In addition to providing the necessary venture capital to get a company up and running, Foundry Group is committed to leveraging its experience in starting and growing companies, expertise in the technology industry, and network of relationships to help great entrepreneurs turn great ideas into great companies. Foundry Group is based in Boulder, Colorado, and invests in companies located across the United States and in Canada. For more information, visit www.foundrygroup.com . Media Contact: Rachel Rampino [email protected] SOURCE Knock Related Links http://www.knock.com NEW YORK, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Knewton, the world's leader in AI-driven teaching and learning, today launched Altapass, an all-access pricing offer for Alta, the company's adaptive learning courseware for U.S. higher education. With Altapass, students can access multiple Alta products across a single subject area for up to two years, and for unlimited use, for $79.95. Additionally, Knewton has reduced the price of a single-course Alta subscription from $44 to $39.95. By introducing the new pricing options, Knewton is making Alta even more affordable and accessible, helping to put achievement within reach for the students who need it most. Students wishing to purchase Altapass for Fall 2019 may do so beginning Aug. 1 at Knewton.com . Students may still purchase access to a single Alta course via monthly subscription for $9.95 per month. At launch, Altapass will be available across all 36 Alta products in the following subject areas: Mathematics and Statistics Chemistry Economics Knewton brings Alta to scale with Altapass Knewton's effort to make Alta more accessible and affordable comes one year after the product's successful introduction in the U.S. higher education market. Launched in January 2018, Alta was used by instructors at more than 250 colleges and universities during the Fall 2018 term. "It's clear that we have something special with Alta. Now, we're making it even more affordable and accessible, so that the students who need Alta the most can benefit from its impact on learning outcomes," said Brian Kibby, CEO of Knewton. "We've turned the cost structure of our company into a competitive advantage not just for Knewton, but for students looking for better results at an affordable price." "By keeping Alta's pricing simple and consistent across subject areas, we're taking a lot of the mystery out of the cost of course materials for students. We're also making Alta more affordable for the high number of students who are using Alta in more than one course in a single subject area," said Heather Shelstad, Knewton's VP of Marketing. "We're giving students the power to decide which purchasing plan is right for them, and helping them save money no matter which option they choose." Knewton releases new insights into student usage, engagement and performance with Alta To provide fresh insight into how Alta makes an impact on learning outcomes, Knewton's data science team released a series of findings regarding student usage, engagement and performance during the Fall 2018 term. They include: Students are staying engaged with Alta throughout the semester. The rate of weekly student usage of Alta increased by 25% in Fall 2018. On average, students spend 2.8 hours per week in Alta. The rate of weekly student usage of Alta increased by 25% in Fall 2018. On average, students spend 2.8 hours per week in Alta. Students who use Alta are engaged when they need it most. When students get a question wrong in Alta, 38% of the time, they engage with the personalized instruction Alta provides. When students get a question wrong in Alta, 38% of the time, they engage with the personalized instruction Alta provides. Students who begin Alta assignments go on to complete them. 88% of the time, students who attempted an assignment actually completed it. This rate has remained consistently high over time: during Alta's 2017 beta release, students completed their assignments 87% of the time. 88% of the time, students who attempted an assignment actually completed it. This rate has remained consistently high over time: during Alta's 2017 beta release, students completed their assignments 87% of the time. Alta is associated with higher test scores. Students who completed Alta assignments performed 22% better on tests. Of students completing Alta assignments, those who used Alta's AI-driven Review Center to prepare for an exam performed 9% better on tests. Knewton recently published the results of an independent study of Alta's effectiveness led by the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University. The study's findings drew a link between Alta and improved student performance across student ability levels, classrooms and institutions. "Knewton is an outcomes company," added Kibby. "While access and affordability represent a key part of Alta's value proposition, there's nothing more important than its ability to deliver results for students and instructors. We're going to keep challenging ourselves to set a new standard for transparency regarding those results." About Knewton Knewton puts achievement within reach for everyone through adaptive learning technology and products that deliver personalized and lasting learning experiences. Educators, schools and universities, and education companies around the world use Knewton to power and provide digital courses that dynamically adapt to each student's unique needs. More than 40 million students around the world have used Knewton-powered courses to date. Knewton was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in New York City. Media Contact [email protected] (415) 323-0850 SOURCE Knewton Related Links http://www.knewton.com VANCOUVER, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - INVICTUS MD STRATEGIES CORP. ("Invictus" or the "Company") (TSXV: GENE;OTCQX: IVITF; FRA: 8IS1) is pleased to announce that the Company's Board of Directors (the "Board") has approved the appointment of Keith Stein, Counsel at Dentons Canada LLP ("Dentons"), to serve on the Board effective January 11, 2019. The new appointment follows the resignations of Trevor Dixon, President and Director of Invictus since April 25, 2017, and Josef Hocher, member of the Board since June 26, 2017. Mr. Dixon will remain as President and Director of the Company's wholly-owned subsidiary Acreage Pharms Ltd ("Acreage Pharms"). George E. Kveton, CEO of Invictus will assume the role of President of the Company. Mr. Stein joined Dentons as Counsel in 2014 after serving as Counsel at Heenan Blaikie LLP from 2008 until February 2014. From 1994 to 2008, he was a senior executive with Magna International Inc. ("Magna") reporting to the Chairman, Frank Stronach and continued to act as a consultant reporting to the Executive Vice-Chairman until November 2010. Prior to becoming a consultant, Mr. Stein held the position of Senior Vice-President of Corporate Affairs at Magna. Before joining Magna, he was Senior Corporate Counsel for Toyota Canada and Toyota Credit Canada. Mr. Stein has been a board member of various publicly listed companies. "On behalf of the Invictus, I want to thank Mr. Dixon and Mr. Hocher for their hard work and dedication to the Company. As founder of Acreage Pharms in 2013, Trevor has played an integral role in Invictus' growth strategy and will continue to oversee the expansion of the Acreage Pharms' facility and its EU-GMP certification," said Mr. Kveton. "I am thrilled to welcome Mr. Stein to the Board, his wealth of business acumen and experience across a wide range of industries in Canada and abroad will be a great asset to support the executive team and fellow Directors in executing on the Company's vision." For more information, please visit www.invictus-md.com. On Behalf of the Board, George E. Kveton Chief Executive Officer and Director Jessica Martin Vice President, Public Relations and Regulatory Affairs (833) 879-4363 About Invictus Invictus is a global cannabis company offering a selection of products under a wide range of brands. Our integrated sales approach is defined by five pillars of distribution including medical, adult-use, international, Licensed Producer to Licensed Producer and retail stores. Invictus has partnered with business leaders to convey our corporate vision, including KISS music legend and business mogul Gene Simmons as our Chief Evangelist Officer. To meet growing demand, Invictus is expanding its cultivation footprint, with three cannabis production facilities licensed under the Cannabis Act and Cannabis Regulations in Canada. To accommodate international sales, Invictus' wholly-owned subsidiary, Acreage Pharms Ltd. ("Acreage Pharms"), has designed and is currently building its Phase 3 purpose-built cultivation facility to be European Union Good Manufacturing Practices ("EU-GMP") compliant. The Company is targeting up to 50 percent of production to medical cannabis. To ensure consistency in quality and supply, Invictus maintains all aspects of the growing process through its subsidiary, Future Harvest Development Ltd. ("Future Harvest"), a high-quality fertilizer and nutrients manufacturer. Invictus drives sustainable long-term shareholder value through a diversified product portfolio with over 70 Health Canada approved strains and a multifaceted distribution strategy including medical, adult-use, international, Licensed Producer to Licensed Producer and retail stores. For more information visit www.invictus-md.com. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE Invictus MD Strategies Related Links http://invictus-md.com/ OAKLAND, Calif., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Kaiser Permanente today unveiled several major initiatives that will improve health outcomes by creating stable housing for vulnerable populations. The initiatives including seeding a real estate investment in Oakland, anchoring a $100 million national loan fund for affordable housing and kicking off a plan to end homelessness for more than 500 Oakland-area residents are part of a comprehensive strategy to advance the economic, social and environmental conditions for health in the communities that Kaiser Permanente serves. At a press conference with Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and several partners, Kaiser Permanente Chairman and CEO Bernard J. Tyson announced the first local impact investment from Kaiser Permanente's $200 million Thriving Communities Fund. Through the Housing for Health Fund a new joint-equity fund between Enterprise Community Partners, "Enterprise," and Kaiser Permanente that is for the Bay Area an approximate $5.2 million has been committed to acquire a 41-unit housing complex in East Oakland, near Kaiser Permanente's national headquarters. As part of this real estate investment, Kaiser Permanente is partnering with Enterprise and the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation to ensure the property, located in the San Antonio district of Oakland, gets needed upgrades and is preserved as affordable housing. EBALDC will also provide residents with the opportunity to get supportive social services, applying the organization's Healthy Neighborhoods approach to community development. "Housing security is a crucial health issue for vulnerable populations," said Bernard J. Tyson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente. "Access to affordable housing is a key component to Kaiser Permanente's mission to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve and to advance the economic, social and environmental conditions for health." "We are proud to partner with Kaiser Permanente and Enterprise for the first investment of the Housing for Health Fund," said Joshua Simon, executive director of EBALDC. "Through this partnership, we can maximize positive health outcomes in Oakland by supporting residents' ability to remain in their homes. This couldn't come at a more critical time for San Antonio, a district on the brink of gentrification. To adequately address the urgent housing crisis we are facing in the Bay Area, we must think creatively and collaboratively. Housing is more than a roof over our heads; it is central to our health and well-being. We hope this fruitful partnership can serve as a powerful model for Oakland, California, and the nation." In addition, Tyson joined Enterprise Community Partners President Laurel Blatchford to announce a second fund that will finance the development and preservation of affordable housing. Besides the Housing for Health Fund, Kaiser Permanente and Enterprise will launch a $100 million loan fund to create and preserve multifamily rental homes for low-income residents throughout Kaiser Permanente's service areas. Enterprise matched Kaiser Permanente's $50 million commitment for the total $100 million available for investment. "Enterprise is excited to be a leader in this innovative effort, and we have seen that uniting the housing and health care sectors and making creative use of investment capital will foster healthy homes and communities," said Laurel Blatchford, president of Enterprise. "Collaborating with partners such as Kaiser Permanente and EBALDC, who also understand that home is at the foundation of health and well-being, will improve thousands of lives across the country." Finally, Kaiser Permanente announced a significant effort to end homelessness for more than 500 individuals in Oakland who are over the age of 50 and have at least one chronic condition. The city has been hit particularly hard by the housing crisis; between 2015 and 2017, homelessness in Oakland has increased 25 percent. Kaiser Permanente, working with a community partner, identified 500 particularly vulnerable individuals and are now working with the city, Alameda County and other community partners to secure housing and other vital services for the individuals on this list. "The health and wellness of Oakland is tied to housing in Oakland," said Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf. "I'm grateful for partners like Kaiser Permanente, EBALDC and Enterprise who are taking a new approach to improving the health outcomes of all our residents by improving housing security for our most vulnerable residents. This is a bold investment to improve our city's health and we will continue to innovate and create new pathways until all Oakland residents, in all neighborhoods, feel secure in their housing." "Improving access to affordable housing is one of the most impactful community interventions we can make to eliminate homelessness," said Janet Liang, regional president for Kaiser Permanente of Northern California. "This new investment complements several strategies we have sponsored over the past year to help all Oakland residents thrive." "We know that differences in health are striking in communities with poor social determinants of health such as unstable housing, low income and unsafe neighborhoods," said Richard Isaacs, MD, CEO and executive director of The Permanente Medical Group. "These innovative strategies are critically important steps toward the maintenance of health improvement, consistent health outcomes and California health equity." "As we look to address housing security and homelessness in Alameda County, public-private partnerships are critical, which is why we are glad to see Kaiser Permanente take this step to help those who are most in need," said Wilma Chan, supervisor of Alameda County and president of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. About Kaiser Permanente Kaiser Permanente is committed to helping shape the future of health care. We are recognized as one of America's leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Founded in 1945, Kaiser Permanente has a mission to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. We currently serve more than 12.2 million members in eight states and the District of Columbia. Care for members and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal Permanente Medical Group physicians, specialists and team of caregivers. Our expert and caring medical teams are empowered and supported by industry-leading technology advances and tools for health promotion, disease prevention, state-of-the-art care delivery and world-class chronic disease management. Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education and the support of community health. For more information, go to share.kaiserpermanente.org. About Enterprise Community Partners Inc. Enterprise is a proven and powerful nonprofit that improves communities and people's lives by making well-designed homes affordable. We bring together the nationwide know-how, partners, policy leadership and investments to multiply the impact of local affordable housing development. Over 35 years, Enterprise has created nearly 529,000 homes, invested $36 billion and touched millions of lives. Join us at www.EnterpriseCommunity.org. About East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation is a nonprofit community development organization celebrating over 44 years of building healthy, vibrant and safe neighborhoods in Oakland and the greater East Bay. East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation develops and manages high quality affordable apartments and homes, and commercial spaces for local small businesses and community organizations, while fostering increased economic opportunities for low-income families and individuals. Since 1975, the organization has invested more than $250 million in assets that have had substantial physical and social impact in the community. Its Neighborhood and Economic Development programs serve over 5,000 low-income people annually, through housing, financial education and counseling, youth and senior programming, and free tax preparation. For more information, visit www.ebaldc.org. On Twitter @EBALDC Contact: Marc Brown 510-271-6328 [email protected] SOURCE Kaiser Permanente Related Links http://www.kaiserpermanente.org JERUSALEM, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Hiroshi Otsuka, Japanese industry leader and head of Musashi Seimitsu corporation, partly owned by Honda Motor Co, and Ran Poliakine, Israeli technology pioneer and founder of Poliakine Innovation, are partnering to develop artificial intelligence applications that will enable the future of Industry 4.0. The international partnership will be signed during the Economy summit held today in Jerusalem with the presence of Japan and Israel Governmental ministers of Economy. Earlier today, the Japanese Minister of Commerce and the Israeli Minister of Economy and Industry shook hands on an agreement that will bring together innovators from both nations to develop Artificial Intelligence solutions to further the development of Industry 4.0. Japan-based Musashi and Israeli-based Innovation Center have declared a partnership to develop AI applications that will enable the future of Industry 4.0. Musashi organization, a global leader in powertrain parts manufacturing with more than 30 global manufacturing plants including differential assemblies, transmission gears, camshafts as well as Linkage and suspension parts, has joined forces with Ran Poliakine, head of the Jerusalem-based Innovation Center that brings together great technological minds in the area of Artificial Intelligence, SW engineering, HW engineering, mathematics and physics. "Industry 4.0 represents the fourth technology revolution and introduces the smart factory: a new world of disruptive innovation that is analogous to the internet revolution and driven by AI where machines are communicating and cooperating with each other and humans in real-time," said Mr. Cohen of the Israeli Ministry of Commerce. "Bringing together the very best of technology and innovation from forward-thinking companies in Israel and Japan enables fast acceleration towards the dawn of this very exciting new technological era." The partnership, for example will engage in the mutual development of an Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) for Industrial use. The Innovation Center will develop solutions to disrupt manufacturing and production domains, therefore providing a safer and more efficient environment that will enhance the global value chain. "In a complex and evolving industry, AI is a key component that will lead us into the future," said Hiroshi Otsuka. "I am enthusiastic to engage in a global role, partnering with Ran on the development of artificial intelligence and visual inspection applications." "Our relationship will convene established industrial players with new AI innovators to optimize the opportunities Industry 4.0 will deliver on a global scale," said Ran Poliakine. "It is an honor to work alongside Hiroshi and his capable team, combining the best of both worlds and to underscore values and expertise that define the meaning of collaboration." About Musashi Seimitsu Industry Co., Ltd Musashi Seimitsu Industry Co., Ltd. ("Musashi") is a TSE listed company (TYO: 7220) with $2.3 billion revenue, 80 years of history, and 16,000 employees in 12 different countries. Musashi manufactures Power Train partsincluding differential assemblies, transmission gears, and camshaftsas well as linkage and suspension parts like ball joints and arm assemblies. In 2016, Musashi acquired European base "Hay Holdings" and renamed it by adding the "Musashi" brand to every subsidiary of the company name. this act accelerated the synergies advanced the introduction of Musashi brand to the region. About Poliakine Innovation Serial entrepreneur Ran Poliakine founded successful companies like Illumigyn, Wellsense, nanoX Technologies and Powermat Technologies, the original wireless charging solution. Mr. Poliakine is passionate about "using technology for good," and his Jerusalem-based Innovation Center brings together great technological minds in artificial intelligence, engineering, mathematics, and physics. Media Contact: Amy Farrell, 617-366-7149, [email protected] SOURCE Ran Poliakine CHARLOTTE, N.C., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- iSolved HCM announces that it has agreed to acquire Sage Payroll Solutions ("SPR"), the US-based payroll outsourcing business of The Sage Group plc (LSE: SGE). SPR includes more than 44,000 small- to midsized companies as customers through both direct sales and licensees, which will extend the iSolved technology to more than 145,000 employers once the transaction has completed. The acquisition accelerates iSolved's growth in the human capital management industry, targeted toward the midmarket, and increases its licensee and partner network as well. "SPR has a long-standing reputation of providing small- and medium-sized companies with superior payroll solutions," said Rob Palumbo, managing director at Accel-KKR. "We look forward to adding this business to the iSolved portfolio, thus extending iSolved's market-leading position." iSolved HCM, headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, delivers a unified human capital management platform both directly and through a network of elite service bureau partners. Focused on the mission-critical functions of payroll and HR, as well as cutting-edge, people-centric solutions, the iSolved technology is a robust, cloud-based solution that serves over 3.5 million employees. iSolved HCM also announced the acquisition of AmCheck last year, which provided regional offices in key cities including San Diego, Phoenix, and Schaumburg, Illinois. "iSolved HCM is very excited to be acquiring SPR," stated Dave Dawson, CEO of iSolved HCM. "SPR payroll customers and licensees will now have access to cutting-edge HCM technology that includes employee engagement, performance and collaboration, benefits enrollment, time and attendance, as well as a payroll platform that is ideal for today's employer. iSolved HCM has experienced phenomenal growth over the last few years, and this acquisition dramatically expands the users and businesses who trust iSolved for their workforce management needs." The transaction is expected to be complete within the next three months, subject to customary completion conditions. About iSolved iSolved HCM is an industry-leading human capital management technology company that brings together the key workforce functions in one robust, easy-to-use platform, iSolved. iSolved, now with Mojo, makes it easy for teams to build connections and unleash innovation. The HCM platform manages all mission-critical functions, including payroll, HR, time & attendance, and benefits, delivered from a single application. Built-in tools and features boost engagement, collaboration, and performance. It has achieved rapid market share, with more than 3.5 million employees and growing. iSolved is delivered through elite, regional payroll providers who provide customers with the white-glove service they demand. This unique approach gives employers access to a cutting-edge HCM solution, while retaining the local service relationship they prefer. For more information, visit www.isolvedhcm.com . SOURCE iSolved HCM Related Links http://www.isolvedhcm.com CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that IBM MaaS360 with Watson has been named by Google as an Android Enterprise Recommended solution for company-owned, BYOD, and dedicated devices. Android Enterprise Recommended, a Google-led program, validates Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) product offerings that are built to an elevated set of solution standards using advanced Android Enterprise features that prioritize modern management methods to help business customers utilize the best of Android. Android Enterprise Recommended EMMs stay current with the latest platform features and work closely with Google to offer regularly trained staff, verified resources and trusted guidance to ensure a consistent, successful deployment. Traditionally, information technology and security leaders have implemented mobile device management (MDM) and enterprise mobility management (EMM) solutions in order to help manage and secure mobile devices in the enterprise. With the introduction of laptops, desktops, wearables and Internet of Things (IoT) devices in an ever-changing range of endpoints and enterprise use cases, teams need a platform that offers visibility and control over their endpoint and mobile environment: unified endpoint management (UEM). MaaS360 is the only platform that delivers an AI approach to UEM to enable endpoints, end users, and everything in between including apps, content, and data. MaaS360 provides the visibility and control IT needs to help secure Android smartphones, tablets, IoT, and ruggedized devices in the enterprise. MaaS360 includes support for Android in the enterprise, Samsung Knox and Android version 2.2 and higher. With same-day support for the latest Android OS version, Pie (9.0), users gain instant access to the latest security and productivity functionality available through the platform. "With significant Android Enterprise activations for MaaS360, we've prioritized not only the product roadmap to ensure our clients can adopt the Android Enterprise solution sets, but also training and enablement for the IBM sales and support organizations to best support the platform." said John Nielsen, Offering Manager, MaaS360, IBM Security. "With the consistency that Android Enterprise provides clients across various Android manufacturers, we do not anticipate the adoption trend to slow down any time soon." MaaS360 and Android Integrations MaaS360 was one of the first UEM/EMM solutions to support the Android operating system, starting back in 2010. With the release of Android Enterprise zero-touch enrollment, a range of clients have deployed the solution leveraging Android Enterprise through MaaS360. Android 9 Pie offers new functionality already supported by MaaS360, such as enhanced lock down mode, native support for shared devices, and streamlined QR code enrollment. In addition to working with leading technology vendors to support the latest platform updates, functionality and standards, MaaS360 is dedicated to delivering a best in class AI and analytics experience for IT & Security professionals and their employees. In the past year, MaaS360 has introduced a range of feature enhancements designed to support the ease, speed, and confidence in decision-making pertaining to endpoints and their everyday use in the enterprise. Using the UEM's cognitive capabilities, MaaS360 Policy Recommendation Engine dynamically displays recommendations during configuration to help administrators confirm their inputs are in alignment with that of their peers across passcode, container, restrictions, and more. MaaS360 Assistant, the first-ever AI sidekick for the mobile employee, is designed to help increase mobile productivity while cutting down the volume of common end-user support inquiries. Business Dashboards for Apps helps organizations track ROI on their enterprise app investments, clearing up which have been discovered, which haven't, and which are crashing highlighting the ones that need the most attention and prioritization. IBM MaaS360 with Watson is available for a 30-day free trial: https://www.ibm.com/maas360-trial To find out more about how IBM and Google have partnered for successful Android adoption in the enterprise, join our upcoming January 31st webinar: https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1898869/E41647FDCF214C008DE864A962F1295E?partnerref=PR Google and Android are trademarks of Google LLC. About IBM Security IBM Security offers one of the most advanced and integrated portfolios of enterprise security products and services. The portfolio, supported by world-renowned IBM X-Force research, enables organizations to effectively manage risk and defend against emerging threats. IBM operates one of the world's broadest security research, development and delivery organizations, monitors 60 billion security events per day in more than 130 countries, and has been granted more than 10,000 security patents worldwide. For more information, please check www.ibm.com/security, follow IBMSecurity on Twitter or visit the IBM Security Intelligence blog. CONTACT: Dillon Townsel [email protected] 512-571-3455 SOURCE IBM Related Links http://www.ibm.com SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Hundreds of workers, elected officials and community leaders will rally on the steps of San Francisco City Hall at noon on January 17th to call on the City and County of San Francisco (CCSF) to reinvest in its workforce. The event coincides with the beginning of CCSF's collective bargaining with thousands of public service workers, represented by IFPTE Local 21. "While the City and County of San Francisco are often presented as a strong political voice on the issues of inequality that plague our national economy, it is falling to close the gap as our city's largest employer," said Gus Vallejo, IFPTE Local 21 President. "The City is recouping hundreds of millions of unbudgeted dollars from the state, and its revenues have swelled by more than $3 billion since the recession, yet its employees are being driven out of the city by skyrocketing rents, stagnant wages, and increased outsourcing of what were once middle-class jobs." Details of the rally are below: Who: Hundreds of City Workers represented by IFPTE Local 21 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman , Supervisor Vallie Brown , Supervisor Gordon Mar , and Supervisor Matt Haney . , Supervisor , Supervisor , and Supervisor . Jobs with Justice, SF Rising, Rudy Gonzalez (President, SF Labor Council), other labor organizations When: January 17, 2019 at noon Where: Steps of San Francisco City Hall San Francisco's largest employer, the City's revenue has more than doubled since 2005 and outpaced expenditures by more than $5.2 billion. Since 2007, spending on its labor force has declined from 44% to 41% of its budget, even as the percentage of city residents defined as "middle income" (incomes between $50 and $150K per year) has shrunk by 7%*. Representing more than 5,600 City and County of San Francisco workers, Local 21 represents a highly skilled and diverse workforce comprised mostly of people of color. It includes architects, engineers, scientists, planners, analysts, health care professionals, IT workers, and advocates who perform much of the professional service work in city departments focused on housing, the environment, healthcare, transit systems, public utilities, parks and other critical infrastructure. Since 2012, Local 21 members have seen their wages fall to more than 6.5% below CPI. Now, a small and shrinking minority of these workers are able to live in San Francisco even as the City has dramatically increased its use of outsourcing contractors. "When it comes to combatting economic inequality and creating more livable communities, the City and County of San Francisco must lead by example in both policy and practice," said Supervisor Gordon Mar. "To build the kind of future that is sustainable and inclusive, we cannot afford to shortchange the workforce that will be tasked with modernizing our infrastructure, ensuring its economic competitiveness and meeting its most pressing human needs." "As our community's largest employer, it is not hyperbole to suggest that this next round of bargaining will be a battle for what's left of San Francisco's shrinking middle class," added IFPTE Local 21 Research Specialist Tim Mathews. "It will determine whether this community will continue to be able to attract and retain the talent it needs to meet an ambitious progressive governing agenda. San Francisco's frontline public service professionals love our city, but are falling further behind, commuting longer distances, and facing greater economic uncertainty than ever before." IFPTE Local 21 represents more than 11,000 public workers in the Bay Area * U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates SOURCE IFPTE Local 21 Related Links http://www.ifpte21.org DENVER, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- SmartAcre, Inc., a B2B demand generation agency and technology consultancy, was recognized by HubSpot as a top digital marketing agency in Denver. The award highlight's SmartAcre's dedication to helping clients leverage marketing and sales technology to grow their pipeline and close revenue. HubSpot names SmartAcre a Top Digital Marketing Agency in Denver. Headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, SmartAcre expanded to Denver in 2017 to grow its team of strategists, marketers, designers, and technologists. The expansion allowed the agency to better support its existing west coast client-base. It also addressed the growing demand for marketing technology consulting and services to SaaS and technology clients in the Denver market. "We are honored to be named by HubSpot as a top marketing agency in Denver," said Michael Carroll, president of SmartAcre. "Our team works tirelessly to become an extension of our clients' own marketing teams, focused on helping them hit revenue goals. This recognition from HubSpot reflects that dedication, along with our agency-wide knowledge of the HubSpot platform." As a HubSpot Gold Agency Partner, SmartAcre helps clients to get more from their marketing technology investment. SmartAcre delivers these results by working with clients to recommend tools and processes that align to their business goals and by providing strategic campaign development and management to help them move the needle. SmartAcre's designers and developers are also certified in the HubSpot platform, with experience building full websites in the HubSpot COS. "One of our core focuses at SmartAcre is leveraging marketing and sales technology, like HubSpot, to deliver better customer experiences," said Jenay Sellers, director of marketing and sales technology at SmartAcre. "From initial set up, to complex implementation, to managed support, we help our clients solve their HubSpot challenges. I'm proud that HubSpot recognized SmartAcre for the work we are doing to help clients optimize their marketing technology." SmartAcre helps Denver-based HubSpot clients like CyberGRX and Cloud Elements build full-funnel lead attribution and reporting, develop creative content like pillar pages, and execute multi-touch demand generation campaigns. Read about SmartAcre's client success stories. In addition to supporting clients, SmartAcre hosts quarterly HubSpot User Groups in New York City, Denver, and the Lehigh Valley. These regional meetups bring together a diverse audience of HubSpot customers and marketing professionals, from distinct businesses and industries. The user group meetings include networking, productive discussions on sales and marketing best practices and presentations from expert speakers. If you are looking for a HubSpot partner to help you grow your business more effectively by increasing your HubSpot ROI, contact SmartAcre today. About SmartAcre, Inc. SmartAcre Inc. is a B2B demand generation agency focused on outcomes, powered by technology and optimized by insights. Our dedicated teams help businesses find, connect and engage with customers throughout the buyer's journey so they can close more deals. With clients throughout the U.S., SmartAcre is an agency that serves B2B and technology clients looking to scale and accelerate lead and demand generation marketing results. Our teams of marketers, technologists, consultants, and creatives stimulate real change with lead-to-revenue solutions that provide measurable impact. With locations in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Denver, Colorado, SmartAcre serves B2B and technology clients throughout the U.S. Our people (SmartAcres) are certified and experienced in marketing automation platforms including Pardot, HubSpot, Marketo and Salesforce CRM and use best-in-class marketing tools to scale lead generation. We create and deliver marketing solutions across the entire customer journey with a blend of inbound marketing and targeted account-based marketing, integrating multiple channels from lead to revenue. Learn more at www.getsmartacre.com. Contact Jenay Sellers Phone: 720.799.0750 x7355 Email: [email protected] Related Links Connect with SmartAcre SOURCE SmartAcre Related Links https://www.getsmartacre.com DALLAS, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Hollweg Assessment Partners, LLC, (HAP) is proud to announce that Kevin Impelman, PhD, has joined our firm as Vice President of Consulting and Research & Development. Kevin brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in talent management. Not only does he possess savvy technical skills in building cutting edge talent management systems, he is also exceptionally adept at nurturing relationships with clients and offering innovative solutions. Kevin is a true match with the HAP team culture with his client focus, service orientation and our customized approach to tools that fit within the unique needs of each of our clients. Kevin was a member of the Batrus Hollweg consulting team that included HAP Founder, Ashley Hollweg, PhD, Lori Bierman, MA, and Shrayashi Brown, MBA, all of whom are now the leaders at HAP. Kevin received his BA in Psychology from Southern Methodist University and his PhD in Industrial /Organizational Psychology from the University of North Texas. He is a licensed psychologist in the state of Texas, and he has presented his research around talent management systems and assessment at national conferences and universities. Ashley Hollweg states, "I am thrilled to have snagged Kevin, whom I consider to be a triple threat as a research expert, an astute assessment provider and a truly dynamic individual!" SOURCE Hollweg Assessment Partners Related Links http://www.hollwegpartners.com ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Do you have kids currently in college, or maybe one who is about to graduate high school? Are they interested in a possible real estate-related career? Then find out more about the Student Scholarship Program offered through Florida Realtors Education Foundation Inc., a not-for-profit corporation that provides real estate-related educational scholarships. But act fast: The application deadline for this year's program is March 4, 2019, at noon. "2019 is a milestone for our student scholarship program this year marks its 10th anniversary," says Gia Arvin, chairman of Florida Realtors Education Foundation Inc. "Over the past decade, Florida Realtors has awarded more than $1,500,000 to help young people across Florida realize their college dreams. Our Realtor members feel privileged to be able to invest in their future and provide much-needed financial support. This program is just one way that Florida Realtors and our members give back to our communities." Since its inception, Florida Realtors has awarded a total of $1,506,400 in scholarship funding, which has helped 922 students go to college or university. This student scholarship program is open and available to students whose parents are Realtors or licensed real estate practitioners, or whose parents are employed by any local Realtor board/association or by Florida Realtors, as well as any Florida student currently enrolled at a school (including home-schooled students or those attending a charter school.) It is based on an application form, which can be found on Florida Realtors' website at https://www.floridarealtors.org/AboutFar/Scholarships/index.cfm Who can apply for the scholarships? Any Florida high school senior who will be attending an undergraduate college or university; any student currently enrolled in an undergraduate college or university (any major); or any student pursuing a graduate degree is eligible. There are no limitations as to location of the college or university attended, as long as the applicant indicates the intent to return to work in Florida after graduation. Proof of the student's legal Florida residency is required, however. Scholarships start at $1,000; the number of scholarships and dollar amounts awarded may vary each year and are determined by the Education Foundation's Board of Directors. Criteria to be considered include, but aren't limited to: academic achievements, financial need, relationship to the Realtor family, and contributions to family, school and community. The Foundation's Board of Directors has "sole and absolute discretion" over all decisions as to whether an applicant qualifies. An important reminder to all applicants: The Florida Realtors Education Foundation Scholarship application is only available online at https://floridarealtorsfref.fluidreview.com/. Please note that applications may not be mailed or faxed in for this scholarship. Only the applications submitted through this website will be eligible for review. Remember, you have until March 4 at noon to fill out the online application for the Florida Realtors Education Foundation's student scholarship program. To find the application form and check out FAQs, go to: www.floridarealtors.org/AboutFar/Scholarships/index.cfm Florida Realtors serves as the voice for real estate in Florida. It provides programs, services, continuing education, research and legislative representation to 187,000 members in 52 boards/associations. Florida Realtors Media Center website is available at http://media.floridarealtors.org . SOURCE Florida Realtors Related Links https://www.floridarealtors.org LONG BEACH, Calif., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Halbert Hargrove, a fiduciary investment management and wealth advisory firm headquartered in Long Beach, California, is capping off a celebration of the company's 85th anniversary with the announcement of five new hires and the firm's inclusion in the Los Angeles Business Journal's "Best Places to Work in Los Angeles" list. The "Best Places to Work in Los Angeles" award honors the best employers in Los Angeles, benefiting the county's economy, workforce and businesses. This marks the second consecutive year Halbert Hargrove received the award, which is in its 12th year. "Reaching the milestone of 85 years is remarkable for any organization, but especially in an industry that has undergone so many changes," said Halbert Hargrove COO JC Abusaid. "We honor the legacy that our founders John Halbert and Leonard Hargrove first set out to achieve in 1933 by being gladiators for our clients. Our fantastic, growing team continues to make this possible today, and we look forward to expanding our firm while still maintaining our strong culture for decades to come." Halbert Hargrove also made five strategic new hires in recent months across multiple offices: Cheryl Burgmaier is a regional director in Halbert Hargrove's Houston office, with a dual role as a CPA at Langley O'Grady. She joins the firm with more than 20 years of public and private accounting experience and was previously the owner of a New Mexico CPA firm since 2004. Cheryl has a Bachelor of Science in accounting from the State University of New York, College at Oswego. Samantha Garcia is a wealth advisor in Halbert Hargrove's Long Beach office. She is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER professional and previously worked as a financial advisor at Asset Planning, Inc. Prior to that she was a staff accountant at Soffa Industries, Inc. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Azusa Pacific University and a Master of Business Administration, Finance from California State University, Dominguez Hills. Vincent Birardi is a wealth advisor in the firm's Long Beach office. He previously served as a vice president at PIMCO where he was entrusted with developing client data quality and governance standards to benefit executive office and senior client management teams. Prior to that, he served as a vice president of CRM and enterprise collaboration and product management at Morgan Stanley. He has a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University and an M.B.A. in finance and a Master of Science in information systems from Fordham University Graduate School of Business. Additional hires include: Ariel Bollant is a client service manager in the Long Beach office. He has a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and culture from Bryan College and a Master of Arts in philosophy from Biola University . is a client service manager in the office. He has a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and culture from and a Master of Arts in philosophy from . Katie Clapps is a client service manager in the Long Beach office. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles . Founded in 1933 Halbert Hargrove is headquartered in Long Beach, California and has 44 employees across the country, with offices in San Diego and Costa Mesa, California; Denver, Colorado; Bellevue, Washington; Scottsdale, Arizona; The Woodlands and Houston, Texas. About Halbert Hargrove Halbert Hargrove Global Advisors, LLC, is a fiduciary investment management and wealth advisory firm that provides investment management, wealth advisory, financial planning, and consulting services to individuals, families, charitable organizations, and trusts. Founded in 1933, Halbert Hargrove is headquartered in Long Beach, CA, and has approximately $2.5B assets under management. For more information, please visit: www.halberthargrove.com SOURCE Halbert Hargrove Related Links http://www.halberthargrove.com "We are excited to launch 19 Skymint stores across Michigan within the next 18-24 months," said Joe Neller, executive vice president, Government Affairs & Business Development. "We have carefully selected communities that are searching for a professional, best-in-class organization." The new Skymint stores will feature high quality medical marijuana and marijuana products in a contemporary and inviting setting. The first locations of the 19 Michigan stores will be announced after the licenses are issued by the State of Michigan LARA Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulation Board. The first store is expected to open in March 2019. "We have hired talented people from inside and outside the cannabis industry to produce, process and safeguard our Skymint harvest," said Molly VanSyckle, director of human resources. "We have over 50 team members now and will grow to be more than 270 by the end of 2019." In July 2018, Green Peak Innovations received pre-qualification by the LARA Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulation for a full vertical suite of medical marijuana licenses including 12 class C cultivation licenses, one processor license and 19 provisioning center licenses. GPI was awarded two Class C cultivation licenses in October, ten additional Class C cultivation licenses in December, and anticipates receiving the remainder of the licenses over the next few months. "This month, our 60,000 square foot Windsor Township headquarters in Harvest Park will become fully operational and our first crop will be harvested," added Radway. "We are thrilled to be the first cannabis company to bring large-scale supply to the newly-regulated Michigan market." ABOUT SKYMINT Skymint uses nature, science and agricultural best practices to raise cannabis industry standards. We've built state-of-the-art facilities and are using advanced technology to cultivate high-quality medicine that is safe for our patients, our communities and our state. Parent company Green Peak Innovations is located in Windsor Township, Michigan and is led by CEO Jeff Radway. For more information, visit skymint.com or www.greenpeakinnovations.com MEDIA CONTACT: Colleen Robar, 313-207-5960, [email protected] SOURCE Green Peak Innovations Related Links https://www.greenpeakinnovations.com SAN DIEGO, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- GoodFarms, the consumer-facing, ethical-positioned brand from Andrew & Williamson Fresh Produce, has received recognition for its social responsibility efforts with the 2018 Communitas Award. This award program seeks to honor those special companies, organizations and individuals that are changing the way they do business to benefit their employees, communities and environment. GoodFarms received the 2018 Communitas Award The Communitas Awards is an outgrowth of the pro bono recognition program of the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals. Founded in 1995, AMCP fosters and supports the efforts of its members, who contribute their unique marketing and communication talents to public service and charitable organizations. "We nominated GoodFarms because it is an industry leader in social responsibility that deeply cares about doing the right thing. It works to protect the environment with a wide range of sustainable business practices, and most importantly, it cares about employees, both in and out of the fields," stated LeAnne Ruzzamenti, director of marketing and communications for Equitable Food Initiative. Ten of GoodFarms' growing operations in Mexico and California have been third-party certified by Equitable Food Initiative, a workforce development model that helps farms produce safer food, reduce the use of pesticides and create better and healthier places to work. "What differentiates our product and approach is our focus on people. We train and empower farmworkers to be part of the quality and food safety process to ensure our berries and vegetables are the highest quality while implementing sustainable techniques and creating better work environments," noted Amalia Zimmerman-Lommel, director of social responsibility for GoodFarms. GoodFarms employees are encouraged to submit ideas to improve equipment and processes. The company hosts a clothing closet and food pantry to support workers during the off-season so that they can stay in the area year-round and provide their families with educational opportunities and long-term ties to the community without needing to travel to other growing regions in search of work. The company is also focused on finding alternatives for hazardous pesticides and reducing food waste by using imperfect fruits and vegetables. Just one example of these many efforts is producing cold-pressed organic juice from berries that are not fit for market. The product uses around 20 percent of the strawberries that GoodFarms grows but is unable to sell as fresh because of size or appearance. "We are honored to receive this award based on the work we do for our workers and in our community, but our good work wouldn't have as much impact without the help of our partners, especially Costco Wholesale and Equitable Food Initiative. Their leadership has helped us implement wide changes on our farms and has generated $4.3 million in worker bonuses since 2014," said John Farrington, chief operating officer for GoodFarms. "We applaud the leadership efforts of GoodFarms, and we're glad to see the business community recognize its work with this Communitas Award," stated Ruzzamenti. "With its sustainable growing practices and employee engagement, GoodFarms is improving lives from farm to table and proving that ethical leadership is good for business." About GoodFarms GoodFarms is on a mission to improve lives from farm to table. A portion of each purchase is making a difference by cultivating positive change. Together, GoodFarms and consumers can: Reduce food waste. Protect the environment. Feed a hungry world. Find alternatives for hazardous pesticides. Increase productivity and farm wages. End slavery and forced labor. Get children out of the fields and into schools. About EFI Equitable Food Initiative is a nonprofit certification and skill-building organization that seeks to increase transparency in the food supply chain and improve the lives of farmworkers through a team-based approach to training and continuous improvement practices. EFI brings together growers, farmworkers, retailers and consumers to solve the most pressing issues facing the fresh produce industry. Its unparalleled approach sets standards for labor practices, food safety and pest management while engaging workers at all levels on the farm to produce Responsibly Grown, Farmworker Assured fruits and vegetables. For more information about Equitable Food Initiative, visit www.equitablefood.org. Media Contact: LeAnne Ruzzamenti [email protected] 202-524-0540 SOURCE GoodFarms MILL VALLEY, Calif., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Glassdoor, one of the world's largest job and recruiting sites, today announced its entry into Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand. Glassdoor aims to give job seekers a competitive search advantage through access to all the latest job listings alongside reviews and insights shared by those who know hiring companies best: their employees. Glassdoor welcomes approximately 62 million1 unique monthly visitors worldwide and has 18 localized sites around the world. Glassdoor is on a mission to help people find a job and company they love - each localized site and mobile app is a free resource for job seekers. People can customize their online job search to discover jobs based on job title, location, distance, industry, company size, company rating and more. Job seekers can also set up alerts notifying them of relevant new jobs as soon as they appear online. In addition, before applying for or accepting a job, job seekers can research what it's really like to work at potential employers. Glassdoor currently offers more than 45 million2 company reviews, salary reports, and insights, shared by employees. No other jobs platform combines the latest open jobs with this level of depth and detail into specific jobs at specific companies. "We believe that by pairing together the latest jobs with useful insights into a company's work environment, pay practices and other important facets of employment, we can make the job search and recruiting process better. When job seekers are more informed about a job and company, we know it leads to a better match with the employer," said John Lamphiere, Vice President and Managing Director of Glassdoor International. "Glassdoor has always appealed to a wide global audience and with increased focus on Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand, we are looking to make the Glassdoor experience for people and businesses in these locations even more valuable." Glassdoor uses a 'give-to-get' model, offering free access to all Glassdoor data once someone contributes their own content, such as a company review or salary report. This model helps reduce the likelihood of extremely positive or negative reviews and encourages more neutral and balanced company ratings on Glassdoor. The average company rating on Glassdoor is 3.43 on a five-point scale. Glassdoor also helps employers recruit and hire quality, informed candidates at scale and currently partners with a growing and diverse set of 7,800 employers. In addition, there are 175,000 employers using a Glassdoor Free Employer Account, allowing authorized company representatives to engage on the platform to respond to reviews, post company updates and access basic analytics to make more informed recruiting decisions. Glassdoor is an increasingly influential platform for people to find and apply to jobs and research employers, and nearly four in five (79 percent) Glassdoor users are more likely to apply to an open job if the employer is active on Glassdoor4 (e.g. responds to reviews, updates its profile, shares updates on company culture and work environment). In addition, hires who use Glassdoor have a 30 percent5 higher retention rate. Google Analytics, August 2018 Glassdoor Internal Data, November 2018 Glassdoor Internal Data, September 2018 Glassdoor.com US Site Survey, August 2018 Glassdoor EMI Research (US), November 2017 About Glassdoor Glassdoor combines all the latest jobs with millions of reviews and insights to make it easy for people to find a job that is uniquely right for them. As a result, Glassdoor helps employers hire truly informed candidates at scale through effective recruiting solutions like job advertising and employer branding products. Launched in 2008, Glassdoor now has reviews and insights for over 830,000 companies located in more than 190 countries. For more information, visit glassdoor.com. Glassdoor is a registered trademark of Glassdoor, Inc. SOURCE Glassdoor Related Links http://www.glassdoor.com NEW YORK, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Drawing from a decade of servicing some of the biggest brands in the world, VaynerX is launching The Sasha Group, a company working exclusively with entrepreneurs and small and mid-sized businesses generating between $1M-$100M in revenue. Existing VaynerMedia offerings including VaynerMentors (consulting), VaynerBeta (branding and marketing) and the Daily Digital Deep Dive (4D's education offering) will now be offered through The Sasha Group. The Sasha Group will operate from VaynerX's New York City and Chattanooga, Tennessee offices. "Being an entrepreneur is in my DNA and I got my start in a small family business" said Gary Vaynerchuk, Chairman and CEO of VaynerX. "The Sasha Group is named for my father, Sasha Vaynerchuk, who I worked side by side helping build and expand Wine Library. It is a nod to where I came from and I'm so proud VaynerX now has an offering for those businesses who are looking for explosive growth along with entrepreneurs and startups, which has been the majority of my business interactions over the last decade." James Orsini, VaynerMedia's Chief Operating Officer will now serve as President of The Sasha Group. "Today, it's all about speed and confidence" shared James Orsini. "Businesses need to be confident that they have the tools necessary to drive agility and fuel growth, for today and tomorrow. The Sasha Group has a unique combination of disciplined expertise to fuel future proof business success". About The Sasha Group: The Sasha Group is the latest company launched by Gary Vaynerchuk under the VaynerX holding company. Infused with Gary's entrepreneurial DNA, and drawing from 10 years of experience of servicing some of the largest companies in the world, The Sasha Group is your small business solutions provider. This company is here to educate, mentor, brand and market entrepreneurs, funded startups, and mature small to medium size businesses looking for meaningful and explosive growth. For more information visit http://thesashagroup.com/ For press inquiries reach out to Emily McDonough, [email protected] SOURCE VaynerX VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Frost & Sullivan, the top 25 global market research and analysis firm, just placed Canadian startup Freightera among the leading global freight digitization startups in their new report "Global Digital Freight Brokerage Market Opportunities, Forecast to 2025." Frost & Sullivan research showing Freightera among 'Key Solutions' for freight automation and high growth potential to 2025. According to Frost & Sullivan, global logistics spending is expected to grow from $7.9 trillion in 2017 to $16.9 trillion USD in 2025, with transportation accounting for a majority of the spending at about 70 percent, or $11.8 trillion USD. There is a huge opportunity for firms that can successfully automate and disrupt this market. The new study summarizes opportunities and challenges in the global freight brokerage space, where automation is needed but many new entrants are having a hard time getting market penetration and revenue. Frost & Sullivan estimates that despite massive investment in the digital freight space, with more than $2.3 billion invested globally in 2018 alone, only 0.2 percent of $715 billion per year of these transactions were made via automated platforms in 2017. Despite rapidly growing uptake of technology by freight shippers and transport companies alike, Frost & Sullivan predicts that by 2025, freight digitization will be taking off, with 3.7 percent of the then $944 billion per year market running through "automated on-demand" systems like Freightera, which they project will then have aggregate revenue of $35 billion per year. Frost & Sullivan organizes the global "Key Solutions" in a summary graph, placing Freightera among the top firms globally in automation and growth potential to 2025. Frost & Sullivan highlights Freightera's difference: "It is a unique digital marketplace that aggregates long-tail carrier rates, availability, and low-emission options for business freight shippers." Despite the steadily increasing annual investment in freight digitization, reaching $2.3 billion USD in 2018, an even larger investment ($9.5 billion) has been in the acquisition of key companies in the space and this consolidation is expected to accelerate as the market matures. The exception may be North America, where Frost & Sullivan predicts that it will be shared by several leading solutions. "In a highly fragmented brokerage market such as North America, several brokerage solution providers are expected to share market opportunity rather than domination by a few such as in China, India, and South America where the number of brokerage houses are small and owner-operator population is the main carrier type." Frost & Sullivan identifies the "key automated on-demand brokerage solution providers in North America" likely to share this space as Convoy, Loadsmart, Transfix, NEXT trucking and Freightera. About Freightera Freightera is creating a unified global marketplace for freight shipping. Starting in North America, Freightera is automating freight transportation and increasing operating margins for carriers and businesses shipping freight. Freightera creates partnerships and systems and promotes new technologies that allow businesses to find the best price and lowest-emission transportation options. Over 9,000 manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers in the U.S. and Canada use Freightera for 24/7 online access to billions of all-inclusive freight rates and instant freight booking. For more information, see freightera.com. About Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan is a business consulting firm involved in market research and analysis, growth strategy consulting and corporate training across multiple industries. It is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and has offices in over 40 countries. Global Digital Freight Brokerage Market Opportunities, Forecast to 2025 (K252-01) With Venture Capitalist Funding Stoking Digital Brokerage Solutions That Improve Trucking Efficiency by Minimizing Empty Miles, Truck Brokerage Digitization to Grow at CAGR 33.6% Between 20172025. See full report at http://www.frost.com/sublib/display-report.do?id=K252-01-00-00-00. Freightera Media Contact Zhenya Beck Phone: (800) 886-4870 Email: [email protected] Related Links About Freightera In The News Related Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxkN-_VNRG8 SOURCE Freightera Related Links https://www.freightera.com BOSTON, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- FRESH Communications is proud to announce that Amy Sullivan has joined the company as Chief Marketing Officer. Sullivan has more than 20 years of experience in food marketing, business strategy, media and production. In her new role, Sullivan will lead FRESH Communications' rapid growth in building healthy lifestyle brands through creative public relations, niche nutrition marketing and strategic communications. "Amy's leadership, knowledge and extensive experience will propel FRESH into a whole new stage of growth within the health and wellness category," said Stephanie Ferrari, president of FRESH Communications. "Amy has served on the Board of Directors at FRESH since our inception. We are thrilled that she's bringing her creativity, insight, and incredible talent to a leadership role on our team." Sullivan began her career in brand management working with companies such as Chatham Village Foods and Cape Cod Potato Chips. She subsequently assumed a leadership role in media as the Director of Client Development for WCVB-TV. Most recently, Sullivan served as Director of Strategic Partnerships and Studio25 Executive Producer at WFXT-TV. It is this combined experience in food and media that makes Sullivan a perfect fit for FRESH Communications. "I have spent my career connecting companies with consumers. The FRESH approach combines nutrition marketing with savvy public relations techniques, meeting consumers' demand for more transparency when it comes to their food," said Sullivan. "FRESH has an amazing roster of clients including Swerve, Grateful Burger, Incredible Foods and more. I look forward to helping build our clients' brands and to further establishing FRESH as the premier agency for companies with a focus on a healthy lifestyle." For more information visit FRESHCommunications.com . About FRESH Communications, Inc. FRESH is a marketing and communications agency connecting companies with consumers through creative campaigns that spotlight science, nutrition, and the latest trends. Find out more at FRESHCommunications.com. Media Contact: Samantha Bartholomew, MS, RDN [email protected] 781-775-7101 SOURCE FRESH Communications Related Links http://www.FRESHCommunications.com PORTLAND, Oregon, January 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Surge in prevalence of cancer, increase in preference for minimally invasive devices, and technological advancements related to endoscopic cameras for enhanced visualization drive the growth of the South Asia flexible endoscope market Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "South Asia Flexible Endoscope Market by Application (Bronchoscopy, Arthroscopy, Laparoscopy, Urology Endoscopy, Neuro Endoscopy, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, Obstetrics/Gynecology Endoscopy, ENT Endoscopy, and Others) and End User (Hospitals, Clinics, and Others): Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2017-2025." The report provides extensive analyses of the top winning strategies, driving forces & opportunities, market size & forecasts, major market segments, competitive landscape, and key strategies & developments of market players. According to the report, the South Asia flexible endoscope market contributed $284 million in 2017, and is expected to reach $510 million by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 7.4% from 2018 to 2025. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/636519/Allied_Market_Research_Logo.jpg ) Request Sample Report at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/5133 Increase in the incidence of cancer coupled with rise in preference for minimally invasive devices and technological advancements in endoscopic cameras for improved visualization drives the growth of the market. However, high cost of minimally invasive surgeries and limited awareness about flexible endoscopes restrain the market growth. On the other hand, untapped potential in emerging countries and unmet medical demands in developing nations would create new opportunities in the market in future. Laparoscopy segment to maintain its dominance throughout forecast period Laparoscopy segment contributed more than one-third share of the total market revenue in 2017 and is expected to maintain its dominance throughout the forecast period. This is attributed to the surge in obese population and increase in demand for minimally invasive bariatric surgeries. However, gastrointestinal endoscopy segment is expected to register the highest growth with a CAGR of 8.3% from 2018 to 2025, owing to increase in health awareness, surge in geriatric population, and rise in adoption of minimally invasive procedures. The research also analyzes bronchoscopy, arthroscopy, urology endoscopy, neuro endoscopy, obstetrics/gynecology endoscopy, ENT endoscopy, and others. Hospitals segment to retain lion's share through 2025 Hospitals segment accounted for more than half of the total market revenue in 2017 and would maintain its lead through 2025. This is because hospitals are well-equipped with endoscopy systems for addressing different needs of endoscopic procedures. On the other hand, clinics segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR of 8.9% during the forecast period, 2018-2025 due to increase in applicability of flexible endoscopes in medical settings. The research also analyzes other end users, which comprise standalone diagnostic laboratories and academic research centers. Get Upto 25% Discount (valid till 31 Jan'19) For Purchase Enquiry: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/5133 India to retain its lead throughout forecast period India held the major share in the market in 2017, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the total market revenue. This is due to the significant rise in demand for minimally invasive procedures for treating chronic conditions such as cancer and arthritis. This region is expected to retain its revenue lead throughout the forecast period due to faster growth in medical tourism and low cost of procedures. However, Nepal is projected to grow at the highest CAGR of 11.2% from 2018 to 2025, owing to the growing awareness about medical endoscopes and establishment of new facilities in remote regions of the country. The report also provides a detailed analysis of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and rest of South Asia. Leading market players The key market players analyzed in the report include Boston Scientific Corporation, Fujifilm Holdings Corporation, Conmed Corporation, Johnson & Johnson (Ethicon, Inc.), HOYA Corporation, Olympus Corporation, Karl Storz GmbH & Co Kg, Vimex sp. z.o.o. (Vimex endoscopy), and Stryker Corporation. They have adopted various strategies including partnerships, expansions, mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, collaborations, and others to gain a strong position in the market. Access KNOWLEDGE TREE (Premium on-demand, subscription-based pricing model) at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/knowledgetree Knowledge tree is a cloud-based intelligence platform that offers more than 2,000 selective, off-the-shelf reports on niche markets to enable our clients gain deep insights on the latest trends, dynamic technologies, and emerging application areas. Similar Reports: Endoscope and Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA) Market - Global Analysis & Industry Forecast, 2017-2025 Endoscopy Devices Market - Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecasts, 2014-2022 About Us Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions." AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain. We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry. Contact: David Correa 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States USA/Canada (Toll Free): +1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022, +1-503-446-1141 UK: +44-845-528-1300 Hong Kong: +852-301-84916 India (Pune): +91-20-66346060 Fax: +1(855)550-5975 [email protected] Web: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com SOURCE Allied Market Research "Data insights are a fundamental component of Fishbowl's offerings. Our technology integrates the knowledge of guest behaviors, enabling restaurants to become more engaged with guests, drive sales, increase traffic, and optimize brand loyalty," said Daniel Dreymann , Chief Product & Strategy Officer at Fishbowl. The Segmentation Builder is a marketing engagement tool that creates specific target audiences based on members' behaviors. By analyzing profile and activity data, marketers can create elaborate audiences composed of individuals whose traits match their most imaginative targets. As a result, tailored segments will drive higher campaign response and redemption rates. Fishbowl's Member Profiler allows client users to access an individual guest's complete record of attributable data in the Fishbowl Data Platform. These profiles can be easily searched, to obtain a comprehensive, organized view of each individual member's data, including demographics, campaign responses, and promotions. The feature provides ease and accessibility for one-on-one situations such as customer support. "2018 was an exciting year for Fishbowl as we have transformed our Guest Management Platform with enhancements to Messaging through Enterprise Email and SMS, to Loyalty with Rewards Manager, and now by enhancing our CRM functionality," added Dreymann. By leveraging omni-channel marketing automation, the Guest Management Platform allows restaurant owners to reach guests at their preferred touch points. The open SaaS platform easily integrates with third parties such as the manufacturers of POS systems, online ordering, and data warehouses. Fishbowl's platform combines extensive restaurant experience with powerful data analytics to provide restaurants with valuable insights designed to outperform the competition. Fishbowl is continuously developing new ways to optimize data. About Fishbowl Fishbowl, Inc. empowers restaurants to succeed in a changing digital, data and device environment by delivering unique solutions developed specifically for the food-service industry. Our Fishbowl Guest Management Platform, expert analytic consulting and industry leading agency services utilize data-driven insights gained across thousands of our restaurant clients. Through these solutions, Fishbowl enables restaurants to make enlightened decisions, engage guests, increase brand loyalty and accelerate same-store sales. Relied on by more than 70,000 restaurant locations to effectively engage guests, Fishbowl is headquartered in Alexandria, VA, with offices in Silicon Valley, Dallas, U.K., and India. For more information, please visit our website , or follow us on Facebook , Twitter , and LinkedIn Media Contact: Jessica Chacoff 305-631-2283 [email protected] SOURCE Fishbowl, Inc. Related Links http://www.fishbowl.com "Jeremy, Don and Jeffrey have been an excellent example of the core values of FirstLight Home Care and have set a high standard for home care in southwest Michigan," said Jeff Bevis, FirstLight Home Care co-founder and CEO. "The need for home care is growing, and FirstLight's focus on providing exceptional and compassionate care to those in need has made us a leader in this industry. We are eager for continued expansion in southwest Michigan and to extend FirstLight's culture of care to meet the growing need in the Kalamazoo community." The new FirstLight Home Care will serve the greater Kalamazoo area, including Comstock, Portage, Cooper, and Scotts. Qualified caregivers home health aides and CNAs interested in FirstLight career opportunities are encouraged to email [email protected]. FirstLight serves seniors, adults with disabilities, new mothers, veterans, those recovering from surgery and other adults in need of assistance. Their caregivers help with many needs from personal hygiene and household duties, such as cooking, cleaning and running errands, to mobility assistance and dementia care. Since opening its first franchise location in 2010, FirstLight Home Care has experienced steady growth and is now operating more than 250 locations in 34 states throughout the U.S. About FirstLight Home Care FirstLight Home Care is a top rated non-medical home care provider with a network of offices that provides more than 100,000 hours per week in care for more than 4,900 clients in over 34 states. The company has created a new standard in home care by combining best practices with innovative approaches to make them an emerging market leader in a rapidly-growing industry. Their 4,900 caregivers provide companion and personal care services at private residences, assisted living and retirement communities, nursing homes, adult-family homes and group homes. Clients include seniors, new mothers, and individuals recovering from surgery, veterans, adults with disabilities and anyone 18 and over who might just need a little extra care or assistance. Visit www.firstlighthomecare.com to learn more. MEDIA CONTACT: Heather Ripley Ripley PR 865-977-1973 [email protected] SOURCE FirstLight Home Care Related Links http://www.firstlightfranchise.com ALBANY, New York, January 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The global epichlorohydrin (ECH) market is prognosticated to witness steady growth in the forthcoming years, as reported by Transparency Market Research (TMR). The global epichlorohydrin market comprises of a consolidated business ecosystem. Leading vendors in the global market are anticipated to focus on expanding their production capacities, and offer an innovative product portfolio. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/664869/Transparency_Market_Research_Logo.jpg ) Key vendors in the global ECH market showcase a wide product offering, which caters to a diverse number of end-use industries. The vendors are also seen expanding to different geographies in order to cater to the demand in unexplored regions. Leading players in the global ECH market are seen adopting strategies such as mergers and acquisitions in order to retain their dominance. Epichlorohydrin companies, small or large, are looking for ways to penetrate into the current market and simultaneously expand into new and emerging markets to increase their sales volume. The preferred main strategy followed up by the top players in the epichlorohydrin market is increasing production capacity in the existing and new locations. Request a Sample of Global Epichlorohydrin Market: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=1078 Prominent players operating in the global epichlorohydrin market are the Dow Chemical Company, Solvay, Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd., Aditya Birla Chemicals, and Samsung Fine Chemicals Co. Ltd. As reported by TMR, the global epichlorohydrin (ECH) market is likely to rise at a 3.6% CAGR over the forecast period 2015 to 2023. The market was anticipated to be worth US$ 2.56 Bn in 2014, and is likely to reach a value of US$ 3.52 Bn by 2023. Request For Multiple Chapters: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=MC&rep_id=1078 High Demand for Water Treatment to Propel ECH Market Epoxy resins, pharmaceuticals, water treatment chemicals and synthetic glycerin are the main application areas for epichlorohydrine. Multiple industries, including adhesives, coats and plastics are used to produce epoxy resin made from epichlorohydrine. These resins are also used in various end-use sectors to produce inks and dyes. In the cosmetics industry, synthetic glycerine is widely used in the surfactant, solvent, pharmaceutical, textile and paper sectors as well as in commercialinsecticide sectors. As applications, technological developments, and growing end user segments grow, the global Epichlorohydrin industry is experiencing high growth. ECH is used in a number of applications like such as epoxy resin, synthetic glycerin, pharmaceuticals, water treatment chemicals, and others. Use of Bio-Based Feedstock to Emerge as Key Trend Epichlorohydrin (ECH) has traditionally been produced by petro-driven, i.e. from propylene. But companies have begun to use glycerin, which replaces propylene slowly. Glycerine is a bio-based feedstock that can be easily obtained from the production of biodiesel. With an increase in bio-based glycerin available from biodiesel production, bio-based epichlorohydrine can also be produced. Research and development activities are undertaken to reduce the dangerous health and environmental impacts of ECH. The ECH market is also projected to increase demand from end-user industries such as paints & coatings. Request For Discount On This Report: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=D&rep_id=1078 The study presented here is based on a report by Transparency Market Research (TMR) titled, "Epichlorohydrin (ECH) Market by Raw Materials (Propylene and Glycerin) for Paints & Coatings; Electronics & Electrical; Adhesives; Paper, Inks & Dyes; Textiles; Water Treatment; and Other End-users - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2015 - 2023." The market is segmented for detailed study in the following way: ECH Market - Raw Material Analysis Propylene Glycerin ECH Market - End-user Analysis Paints & Coatings Electronics & Electrical Adhesives Paper, Inks & Dyes Textiles Water Treatment Others (Including agrochemicals, surfactants, etc.) ECH Market - Regional Analysis North America U.S. Rest of North America Europe France U.K. Spain Germany Italy Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China Taiwan South Korea Japan ASEAN Rest of Asia Pacific Latin America Brazil Rest of Latin America Middle East & Africa (MEA) GCC South Africa Rest of MEA & (MEA) Browse Chemicals & Materials Research Reports Popular Research Reports by TMR: Specialty Silica Market : https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/specialty-silica-market.html https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/specialty-silica-market.html Attapulgite Market : https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/attapulgite-market.html https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/attapulgite-market.html Epoxy Resins Market: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/epoxy-resins-market.html About Us Transparency Market Research is a next-generation market intelligence provider, offering fact-based solutions to business leaders, consultants, and strategy professionals. Our reports are single-point solutions for businesses to grow, evolve, and mature. Our real-time data collection methods along with ability to track more than one million high growth niche products are aligned with your aims. The detailed and proprietary statistical models used by our analysts offer insights for making right decision in the shortest span of time. For organizations that require specific but comprehensive information we offer customized solutions through ad hoc reports. These requests are delivered with the perfect combination of right sense of fact-oriented problem solving methodologies and leveraging existing data repositories. TMR believes that unison of solutions for clients-specific problems with right methodology of research is the key to help enterprises reach right decision." Contact Mr Rohit Bhisey Transparency Market Research State Tower, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany NY - 12207 United States Tel: +1-518-618-1030 USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Research Blog: https://cmfenews.com SOURCE Transparency Market Research DELRAY BEACH, Fla., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- DRB Capital, LLC ("DRB Capital") today announced that as part of its continuing efforts to uncover and stop structured settlement fraud, the company has filed a complaint against Rightway Funding LLC, BTG Advisors LLC, Sempra Finance LLC, Greenwood Funding LLC, and JLC Capital Funding LLC in Palm Beach County, Florida. The complaint details the systematic theft of DRB Capital's customers. The allegations include one count of violation of Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, and two counts of tortious interference. In the suit, DRB Capital is seeking compensatory damages and will seek treble damages, attorney's fees and court costs as permitted by FDUPTA, as well as punitive damages, as appropriate. Jim Terlizzi, CEO of DRB Capital, said: "These firms are resorting to unfair and unethical practices in an attempt to gain a competitive advantage. These unlawful practices are detrimental to the fair and ethical players in the industry as well as to the consumers, and we will not tolerate it." DRB Capital recently established the "Stop Structured Settlement Fraud" bounty program and tip line to pay awards totaling up to $100,000 to reward individuals who come forward with information proving violations of various laws in connection with the business of purchasing structured settlement payment rights. Violations include violations of state structured settlement protection acts, improper forum shopping, violations of state and federal deceptive and unfair trade practices act, and federal excise tax evasion. Since the bounty program's launch in August 2018, DRB Capital has awarded one payout and received numerous tips and credible information about these unfair, deceptive and abusive activities. Many of these violations are criminal in nature, including the routine falsification of information submitted to state courts as part of structured settlement transfer petitions. Please visit StopStructuredFraud.com for more details on how to participate in this program and for the full list of eligibility requirements. About DRB Capital, LLC: DRB Capital is a leading purchaser of annuity payments and payments from structured legal settlements. The company offers liquidity and optionality to prospective sellers in need of cash who receive guaranteed and/or life-contingent structured settlements or annuity payments. For further information, visit DRBcapital.com. SOURCE DRB Capital Related Links www.drbcapital.com In an inauguration night rich with symbolism, Gov. Andrew Cuomo shipped his invitees across the dark, wind-whipped waters of New York Harbor past the Statue of Libertys torch. As if in steerage with standing room only, the huddled masses headed for the storied immigration waystation on Ellis Island. As guests shuffled across the swaying gangway toward the brilliantly lit historic hall on shore, the message was clear: Welcome to America. The carefully constructed political theater projected the governors power on the national level, as a force for good opposing an ominous federal foe who manipulates and divides people. Inside the great upstairs hall, American flags outnumbered New York state flags and E Pluribus Unum banners were as numerous as Excelsior ones. Like looters during a blackout, they didnt cause the darkness, but they exploited it, Cuomo said. And this federal government has sought to demonize our differences and make our diversity our greatest weakness, rather than our greatest strength. Aside from the conspicuously presidential overtones at this gubernatorial inauguration he denies hes running in 2020 Cuomos inaugural pageantry conveyed strength and a willingness to confront his ideological opponents. With a Democratic sweep in 2018, Cuomo is empowered in his third term a time often considered cursed, when popular politicians fade away or otherwise fail. But Cuomos uniquely strong position may have set him up to defy the third-term doldrums. Cuomo cruised to re-election, easily dispatching his progressive challenger Cynthia Nixon in the Democratic primary and his Republican rival Marc Molinaro in the general election. Every statewide officer is now a Democrat and both the Assembly and state Senate are solidly blue. Nevertheless, historians and veteran politicos say that third terms are never a charm. Past New York governors who had once been seen as rising national stars in their respective parties, such as Cuomos father, Mario Cuomo, and the elder Cuomos Republican successor, George Pataki, ended their third and final terms with their presidential prospects diminished. The danger for any third-term executive, said George Arzt, who served as third-term press secretary for then-New York City Mayor Ed Koch, is a malaise that settles over the workforce, and you have to keep the workforce energized with new ideas, new projects, creativity, and its going to take a fierce leadership to do that. And while he begins his third term in a strong political position, Cuomo faces many stumbling blocks that have bedeviled past executives in their third terms as well as unique challenges that could harm his coveted legacy as one of New Yorks great governors. cuomo3.jpg Alt Text: cuomo Title Text: cuomo Caption: Governor Andrew Cuomo delivers his Inaugural Address. Description: Governor Andrew Cuomo delivers his Inaugural Address. Image Credit: Office of the Governor Cuomo is set to preside over New York state with an immense partisan advantage. And in that respect, theres little precedent for a third-term New York governor in his position. Anyone who thinks this governor is slowing down doesnt know Andrew Cuomo, Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa said. Hes not capable of slowing down. Hes hard-wired to keep pushing the envelope. Many others City & State spoke to for this article agreed on that point, including New Yorks only surviving three-term New York governor. You keep your energy, at least from my experience, said Pataki, who served from 1995 through 2006. But, he noted, Its easy to have your team run out of gas. Pataki said his best senior staff members were there in the first term and later left for other opportunities. Those who stayed on simply did not have the same fire by his third term. You have people in key positions who are good people, doing their best, but theyre just not able to achieve what you want them to achieve, Pataki said. While one Democratic lawmaker spoke approvingly of Cuomos existing senior staff particularly DeRosa, Budget Director Robert Mujica and Counsel Alphonso David the source said there is broad agreement that the whole team is not as strong as Cuomos incoming first-term team, and there is some concern over the possibility of losing anyone else in Cuomos tight orbit of aides. Anyone who thinks this governor is slowing down doesnt know Andrew Cuomo. Hes not capable of slowing down. Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi rejected those claims. Thats bullshit, Azzopardi said. This team is the one who made sure he got a clear mandate for a third term. The current inner circle has been together for several years and helped pass a $15 minimum wage, paid family leave, new sexual harassment laws and free tuition at SUNY and CUNY colleges, he said. We are battle tested and raring to go for the third term. Thats from the top on down. Yet Pataki cautioned that it can be a challenge for governors to keep their agenda fresh for a third term in office.Youve had eight years to achieve a great many things, so what do you do next? the former governor asked. But obviously, given Sept. 11, I never had that problem. If Pataki found himself preoccupied with abating a sudden humanitarian and economic catastrophe in the state, Cuomo has framed his third term as a bulwark against a political catastrophe in Washington, D.C., from the perspective of mostly liberal and heavily immigrant New York, and its consequences for New Yorkers. Cuomo has framed Trumps policies as attacks on the state. During last years budget presentation, he called the Republican tax cut which will actually raise taxes on many New Yorkers, despite a massive overall reduction in federal revenue an economic missile that says New York on it. Against that backdrop, Cuomo has set out an ambitious agenda for his first 100 days that includes codifying Roe v. Wade into state law, expanding gun control laws, legalizing recreational marijuana, protecting organized labor, strengthening rent regulations and passing voting reforms, campaign finance reforms, criminal justice reforms and a Green New Deal. Democratic lawmakers note that many, if not all, of these initiatives were their priorities before the governor adopted them as his own. With the state Senate Republicans, who Cuomo blamed for blocking liberal initiatives, removed from power, Cuomo and the state Legislature are largely on the same page for the first time in his tenure. So a host of accomplishments may pour forth in the legislative session. The difficult part, said former senior Pataki aide David Catalfamo, comes later, when you face the diminished power of being a prospective lame duck. There are different parts of the third term. When youre first elected, you still got a lot of juice, Catalfamo said. But its really when you get into the second part of it, when people are trying to figure out if youre going to run again, that affects your ability to deal with folks who think you wont be around. Those folks are the 213 state legislators who will dictate how much Cuomo will ultimately accomplish in the coming years. Of all the hazards Albany power brokers past and present noted to City & State, several say the governors own hubris is perhaps the most dangerous. Legislators have complained of high-handed behavior from the governor, in which he thinks he can get away with making and breaking promises, such as when he vowed in 2010 to veto partisan redistricting but ultimately approved it. Cuomo ... wears on people over time. In other words, people catch on to his bullshit. A Democratic lawmaker After eight years in office, Cuomo has a track record of such behavior. Cuomo will need cooperation from some Democrats who feel that he has been an untrustworthy partner in the past. The biggest reason the third term might be a challenge for (Cuomo) is he wears on people over time. In other words, people catch on to his bullshit, said a Democratic lawmaker, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. His strategy, and it works on the first couple of rounds, is that he lies to people and screws them. And once thats happened to you a couple of times, you get wise to it. The governors office chafed at that characterization, arguing that what his critics call bullying is merely assertiveness: Its no secret that this is a hard-charging administration and we will continue to be a hard-charging administration, Azzopardi said. Thats what the people of New York demanded, thats what the people of New York expect and thats what we will keep on doing. Whether Cuomo is hubristic or merely hard-charging, he runs the common risk among third-term executives, such as former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, of becoming imperious. There is already some tension between Cuomo and the state Legislature. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has openly chastised the governor for his attempts to limit lawmakers outside income. Neither Heastie nor state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins attended Cuomos inauguration. Those people who expect single-party control to be nirvana are way off base, said Gerald Benjamin, director of the Benjamin Center at SUNY New Paltz. Beyond personality conflicts, Benjamin said, They dismiss the idea of institutional conflict between the Legislature and the executive. Catalfamo agreed. The institutional tension in Albany is not so much Democrat and Republican, its governor and Legislature, the former Pataki aide said. I walked out the door thinking, Ah, this is great. I hope Eliot Spitzer kicks these guys ass. In response to calls for renewed oversight of the Cuomo administration by the new heads of the Senate and Assembly investigation committees state Sen. James Skoufis and Assemblyman Thomas Abinanti the governor threatened an investigations battle in which he could examine lawmakers spending. Im hoping hes not saying hes bullying us, Abinanti told City & State, explaining that the legislative push for robust oversight is simply a return to the branchs duty to ensure good government. Cuomo insisted he wasnt bullying lawmakers. If theres discord, Abinanti said, it will be created by the governor. He added: Now we have a united Legislature that will work together to make New York state government work for everyday New Yorkers. In the past, it was easy for him to divide and conquer. Abinanti was referring to how the Independent Democratic Conference divided Senate Democrats and empowered Republicans for years. Since the election, however, the party is united across the Legislature, he said. A pledge that Cuomo had Long Island Democratic candidates sign during the campaign first raised suspicions among some Democrats that Cuomo was trying to create another wedge similar to the now-defunct IDC a so-called LIDC, or Long Island Democratic Conference. The governors office denied it. The pact vowed to make New York City pay its fair share of transit costs, an issue that could divide Democrats, although there is no indication such a faction has formed. Other frequent third-term challenges have come from forces outside Albany, in particular a souring economy. As the stock market has repeatedly dipped in recent weeks, there is some concern that an economic downturn could hamstring any hopes for more expensive initiatives as it did in Mario Cuomos administration. Pataki pointed out another area of long-standing concern that he believes could use improvement in Andrew Cuomos third term: the troubled economy of upstate New York. Were already losing population and the upstate economy is struggling horrifically, Pataki said. Defending the Cuomo administration, Azzopardi said that upstate population loss is a decadeslong issue, but that millennials are moving home and jobs are slowly growing. In regard to the troubled upstate economy, he said, The policies of George Pataki did not help. Similarly, the rapid deterioration of the New York City subway system and the accompanying public outcry over mismanagement at the MTA could become a crippling political albatross for Cuomo if he doesnt turn things around. While several political observers said his recent gambit to avoid a shutdown of the L train could be brilliant if it works out, he also has destroyed the illusion that he doesnt control the agency which he does. Obviously, you react to circumstances, but you shouldnt let your agenda be driven by circumstances. You drive the agenda, Pataki said. You not only have to have a good team and an aggressive agenda, you also have to understand where things havent gone the way you like. Nowhere have things gone quite so wrong for Cuomo as they have on questions of ethics and corruption. As The New York Times grudging primary endorsement noted, the governor was elected on a promise to clean up Albany, but instead of confronting the ethical horrors of the state capital, his administration has added to them. In recent months, people closely connected to Cuomo have been convicted of corruption. Joseph Percoco, who the governor called my fathers third son and was Andrew Cuomos most trusted aide, will serve six years in prison for bribery. Alain Kaloyeros was convicted and sentenced to more than three years in prison for rigging bids in the Buffalo Billion initiative to benefit the governors donors. Meanwhile, Dean Skelos and Sheldon Silver, the two powerful legislative leaders who Cuomo once jokingly lumped himself together with as the three amigos, are also likely headed to prison for corruption this year. The ethics in Albany are a disaster, said Joseph Viteritti, chairman of the urban policy and planning department at Hunter College. It will continue to sow deep suspicion as we go forward and more suspicion if people up there dont take it on. cuomo2.jpg Alt Text: cuomo Title Text: cuomo Caption: Governor Andrew Cuomo is sworn in for his third term as New York's Governor. Description: Governor Andrew Cuomo is sworn in for his third term as New York's Governor. Image Credit: Office of the Governor After the inauguration, a former Mario Cuomo aide brushed off virtually all the above concerns about Andrew Cuomos third term, but, given the events national regalia, he noted the one threat to the governors third term he found the most serious. If a leader flirts too much with higher office to create the expectation that he might be a candidate and then is not a candidate, I think that that psychologically takes the bloom off the rose, said the source, who requested anonymity to speak frankly. Ive been there for that. The Albany press corps derided then-Gov. Mario Cuomo as Hamlet on the Hudson for publicly agonizing about whether to run for president in 1992. Thats the only danger I see, the former Mario Cuomo aide said of the younger Cuomo. If he wants to run for president now, then God bless. But if he doesnt, its a very fine line between making yourself more powerful and more prestigious by being a possible candidate or having people talk about your candidacy and then becoming yesterdays news and losing power by not fulfilling that expectation. In 2015, Andrew Cuomo, who also served as his fathers political aide, wholeheartedly agreed with that notion. The protracted expectation, the flirtation, is very harmful, because fundamentally what I have is my relationship with the people in the state. And theyre suspicious of my ego and my ambition, Cuomo told The New Yorker. Theres only one good way to deal with it: Im running for president, Im telling you now, before you ask, that Im running. Goodbye. Others in the political class dont see a downside to Cuomos coyness. Its a great manipulation. He cant lose, Arzt said. You dont say youre running for president, you let the newspapers say youre running for president. While America waits to see who will vie for the White House, skeptical legislative leaders in Albany appear to believe the governor most likely to deliver on Cuomos third-term agenda is the uniter Cuomo framed himself as in his third-term inauguration speech. But taking his fathers onetime advisers warnings in another light, there is a fine line between raising hopes in the leader you promise to be and the political consequences of not fulfilling that promise. The new Legislature will be working to ensure that the new Cuomo keeps the promises that he made, Abinanti said. I dont think there has to be conflict. We should be on the same page. ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Lorraine Beraho, MD, MPH, FAAP, a board-certified pediatrician and Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, has joined The Center for Baby and Adult Hygiene (BAHP) as an expert advisor on issues related to baby care, providing crucial insight for mothers and caregivers. "We are so pleased to have Dr. Beraho join us as an advisor to our BAHP team," said Jane Wishneff, BAHP Executive Director. "Through her daily contact with patients, Dr. Beraho brings a wealth of knowledge about the questions mothers and caregivers are asking and how we can best answer those inquiries and share information with them. Having Dr. Beraho on our team brings another level of insight and knowledge that will be instrumental in meeting the needs of consumers." Dr. Beraho's interest in being a doctor comes from her mother, who is a nurse. She saw first-hand how important it was to have someone who truly cared about their patients, and that was something she also wanted to do in her career. Dr. Beraho believes a physician is a teacher and is always looking to teach her colleagues, nurses, medical assistants and parents. More importantly, Dr. Beraho believes it is imperative to "disseminate accurate information." "It was that same need to inform and care for patients that interested me in this role with BAHP," Dr. Beraho said. "I want to go beyond my day to day and be an advocate. I want to ensure that mothers and caregivers are receiving accurate information in a credible way when it comes to the use of disposable diapers, and in this role, I can help them make informed decisions." A licensed physician in California and the District of Columbia, Dr. Beraho completed her residency at Inova Children's Hospital in Falls Church, VA. Originally from East Africa, Dr. Beraho was raised in South Carolina. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, her Master's in Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and her medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. About BAHP The Center for Baby & Adult Hygiene (BAHP) fosters and advocates for the personal absorbent hygiene products industry in North America by promoting and supporting the safety, sustainability and integrity of its products. www.bahp.com. SOURCE The Center for Baby and Adult Hygiene Products (BAHP) Related Links http://www.bahp.com NEW YORK, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- AUVSI XPONENTIAL, the annual international gathering for leaders in unmanned technology, is pleased to invite nominations for the second annual AUVSI XCELLENCE Humanitarian Awards. Proudly sponsored by DJI, the world's leader in civilian drones and aerial imaging technology, the awards provide an opportunity for the industry to recognize and reward organizations and individuals who have used unmanned technology in innovative ways to serve in humanitarian or philanthropic efforts around the world. "The first-ever Humanitarian Awards in 2018 gave us an opportunity to recognize the accomplishments of truly exceptional leaders with a passion for service and the vision to solve the world's problems in new and innovative ways," shared Brian Wynne, President and CEO of AUVSI. "The world needs to know about these individuals, and with the help of our partner, DJI, we can share their stories to inspire a new generation of incredible humanitarian projects." The Humanitarian Awards is a special category of the annual AUVSI XCELLENCE Awards, taking place at AUVSI XPONENTIAL from April 29 to May 2, 2019 at McCormick Place in Chicago. As an opportunity to recognize outstanding achievements in unmanned technology, the XCELLENCE Awards will announce recipients across 14 categories highlighting technology, solutions and operations that improve our economy, lifestyle and society. Humanitarian Award winners will be recognized with a $25,000 donation divided among the winners' organizations. Last year, the inaugural AUVSI XCELLENCE Humanitarian Awards went to five organizations that flew drones on critical, life-saving missions around the world, including hurricane recovery, search and rescue, hazard mapping and medical deliveries. Honorees said the award inspired them to continue innovating and helped fund their continued operations. "Our company was founded to empower everyone with the gift of flight," said Mario Rebello, Vice President and Country Manager, North America, at DJI. "We are lucky to have seen our technologies embraced by users of every kind, from places all over the world. Our cooperation with AUVSI to introduce these Humanitarian Awards in 2018 let us put the focus on the people that make unmanned technology not just innovative, but also life-changing. We look forward to the incredible cases that this year's awards will reveal." The submission period for the AUVSI XCELLENCE Humanitarian Awards is now open. Those interested can refer to the following information: Registration Site: Official AUVSI XCELLENCE Award 2019 website Official AUVSI XCELLENCE Award 2019 website Application Deadline: February 6, 2019 Application Fee: Free for the Humanitarian Award Free for the Humanitarian Award Announcement of Humanitarian Winners: May 2, 2019 (Day 3 of AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2019) AUVSI XPONENTIAL is the largest trade show for the unmanned systems and robotics industry. The 2019 exhibition will allow visitors access to 8,500 professionals, more than 700 exhibitors, and 150+ sessions of learning about the future of unmanned systems policy, technology, business solutions, and trending topics. For more information and to register, visit xponential.org. About AUVSI The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) the world's largest non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of unmanned systems and robotics represents more than 7,500 members from more than 60 countries involved in the fields of government, industry, and academia. AUVSI members work in the defense, civil, and commercial markets. For more information, visit AUVSI.org. About DJI DJI, the world's leader in civilian drones and aerial imaging technology, was founded and is run by people with a passion for remote-controlled helicopters and experts in flight-control technology and camera stabilization. The company is dedicated to making aerial photography and filmmaking equipment and platforms more accessible, reliable and easier to use for creators and innovators around the world. DJI's global operations currently span across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and its revolutionary products and solutions have been chosen by customers in over 100 countries for applications in filmmaking, construction, inspection, emergency response, agriculture, conservation and other industries. For more information, visit our: Website: www.dji.com Online Store: store.dji.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/DJI Instagram: www.instagram.com/DJIGlobal Twitter: www.twitter.com/DJIGlobal LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/dji Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/DJI For additional information, please contact: Cami Wang, Senior PR Manager [email protected] SOURCE DJI MOBILE, Ala., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Parents and community leaders from across Alabama are hosting a panel discussion about the future of school choice and public education in Alabama. The event will take place on Thursday, Jan. 17 at 11 a.m. at the Moorer/Spring Hill Branch Library: Thomas Hamilton Meeting Room. Distinguished guests such as State Senator Greg Albritton, State Representative Chris Pringle, and Alabama Virtual Head of School Kayleen Marble will join the panel discussion. This celebration coincides with the history-making celebration of National School Choice Week 2019, which will feature more than 40,000 school choice events across all 50 states. "Virtual education has been so helpful for my children and it wouldn't have been possible without a strong school choice voice throughout Alabama. I look forward to discussing virtual education, school choice, and the future of education with PSO and NSCW in Mobile," said Wei Barr, parent. The event is open to media and public. As a nonpartisan, nonpolitical public awareness effort, National School Choice Week shines a positive spotlight on effective education options for students, families, and communities around the country. For more information, visit www.schoolchoiceweek.com , or visit www.facebook.com/schoolchoiceweek . SOURCE National School Choice Week Related Links http://schoolchoiceweek.com SEATTLE, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Diego Pellicer Worldwide, Inc. (OTCQB: DPWW) the premium marijuana brand and management company, today announced that the company's CEO Ron Throgmartin was featured on FOX Business Network on Dec. 21 and on Jane King's Innovator Episode on Jan. 6 for his cannabis expertise. The interviews can be viewed on Diego Pellicer Worldwide, Inc.'s website at www.Diego-Pellicer.com. "We've been ringing in 2019 with more good news for Diego Pellicer. In December, Diego was awarded two CBA Globe awards in the categories of retail and branding. Now, members of business media are taking note of our expertise in the cannabis marketplace," said Ron Throgmartin, CEO of Diego Pellicer Worldwide, Inc. "As the marketplace continues to evolve, Diego management continues to study trends, understand how it affects retail sales and adjust course to ensure a viable, healthy company. It's great to be able to share that expertise with business media so that others may understand the investment opportunities in cannabis." FOX Business Network & Jane King's Innovators During the interviews, Throgmartin discussed Diego Pellicer's breakthrough retail strategy and the evolution of the brand as the cannabis marketplace has matured. He also discussed Diego Pellicer entering directly into the sale and processing of cannabis as part of the company's expanding strategy. View the interviews at www.Diego-Pellicer.com. National Cannabis Business Globe Awards In December, Diego Pellicer was awarded "Most Valuable Brand of the Year" beating out tough national competition including MedMen, The Clinic, Lightshade and Olio. Diego was also honored as the "Best Retail Center" for the second year in a row, defeating other highly regarded names including LiveWell, The Clinic, The Green Solutions, Euflora and Kind Love. About Diego Pellicer Worldwide, Inc. (OTCQB: DPWW) Diego Pellicer Worldwide, Inc. is the premium marijuana brand and management company. In addition to its branded locations in Colorado and Washington, the company actively seeks to develop and manage high-end, turnkey cannabis retail stores. When federally legal, DPWW is positioned to become a national, vertically integrated marijuana company. To learn more about how to become a branded Diego Pellicer retailer, cultivator or investor visit www.Diego-Pellicer.com. Safe Harbor Statement Certain statements contained in this press release may be construed as "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the "Act"). The words "estimate," "project," "intends," "expects," "anticipates," "believes" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management pursuant to the "safe-harbor" provisions of the Act. These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected on the basis of these statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The Company also undertakes no obligation to disclose any revision to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. SOURCE Diego Pellicer Worldwide, Inc. Related Links http://www.Diego-Pellicer.com WAYNE, Pa., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- DecisionOne Corporation, the leader in Workplace IT Managed Services and Full Cycle Asset Management, today announced that it is uniquely positioned to help Retail Industry customers compete. Retail Industry companies face stiff competition with Amazon and one another as well as challenges and dramatic change in the industry these past few years, according to a recent report by IHL Group, a global research and advisory firm specializing in technologies for retail and hospitality industries. While online channels are growing, it is fulfillment at the store level that is seeing the greatest growth. The IHL Group report states that 85% of all retail today (both online and offline) is fulfilled at the store level. "DecisionOne IT support solutions for workplace, back-office, point-of-sale (POS), multi-device and asset management can provide significant improvements in efficiency that allow Retailers to better compete," stated Dan DellaVentura, EVP at DecisionOne. Consumers that say they shop at stores over online state the following reasons for their choice, a) they need it now, b) they want to touch and feel the product, c) they want to avoid a delivery charge, d) they want to support local business, and e) convenience. The IHL group study further stated that Retailers must be prepared to meet these customer needs on the first visit and have a positive experience, or the consumer will go elsewhere in the future. "Our asset management solution, multi-device support and advanced IT services can offer key differentiators and cost savings to the Retailer and help them meet customer demands for both online and brick and mortar scenarios," DellaVentura further stated. DecisionOne is the largest independent provider of IT Infrastructure services and offers a wide range of services that apply to Retail companies ranging from small businesses to the largest enterprise giants. As consumers needs and competitive pressures challenge Retail Industry companies, DecisionOne is uniquely positioned to help Retail focused companies compete. Find additional case studies and information resources at www.decisionone.com or by calling toll free 800-767-2876. About DecisionOne DecisionOne Corporation is the largest global independent technology support organization in the third party support and managed services markets. For more than 60 years, DecisionOne has delivered comprehensive IT solutions to some of the most complex enterprises in the worldincluding retail, healthcare, transportation, financial services, and government. DecisionOne maintains the largest W-2 field workforce of all TPMs and ISOs that provide support and professional services, including Managed Services for the data center and workplace, as well as outsourced remote monitoring solutions, dedicated help/support desks, full cycle asset management, forward/reverse logistics and supply chain management services. For more information, visit us on the web at: www.DecisionOne.com, on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/decisionone/, and on twitter @DecisionOne, or by calling 800-767-2876. Media Contact: Karen Strickler 610-296-6183 [email protected] SOURCE DecisionOne Corporation Related Links http://www.decisionone.com With Choi's recruitment to the agency's new CEO/CCO role, this marks the first time DDB Canada has had a senior level position to lead its total creative product and the agency's overall strategic direction and new business growth. While he will be based in Toronto, Choi will oversee the agency's convergent creative offering across all platforms in Canada including TRACKDDB, Tribal Worldwide Canada, TracyLocke and Twice, bringing a trifecta of strategy, creative and digital to life for clients. Choi's appointment will commence on February 4, 2019, and he will report directly to both Clark and Ari Weiss, chief creative officer, DDB North America. "In this business, it is rare to come across a stand-out leader who is equally wired for both the right and left sides of the brain and with Brent's business mastery of this combination, a new leadership era is on the horizon," said Clark. "With Brent's business degree from Ivey and 25+ Cannes Lions to his name, it is rewarding to see DDB's tradition of having the best creatives in top leadership positions continue." Clark is referring to DDB's legacy leaders who were creatives at heart, including founder Bill Bernbach, chairman emeritus of DDB Worldwide, Keith Reinhard, and DDB Canada's most recent chairman and CEO, Frank Palmer. "Brent is one of the most creative thinkers I've ever met; His creativity is contagious and spreads well beyond his work," added Weiss. "It impacts the very structure of how he looks at the businesses he's led, and we couldn't be more excited to have him at the helm of DDB in Canada." Known as an innovation leader, Choi solves business problems creatively. He is also dedicated to inspiring talented people to produce world-changing ideas. "To follow in the footsteps of trailblazers Bill Bernbach and Frank Palmer is an incredible honour," said Choi. "As I look forward, there's so much for our clients to be excited about with DDB Canada and what our team will be capable of. As our industry changes, we will continue to push boundaries and raise the standard as an agency." Choi joins the agency after a six-year term at JWT holding progressive leadership roles, first as chief creative and integration officer, then as CCO at JWT NY's flagship office, followed by a dual role as president of their Canadian operations, and CCO Global Brands. Choi was responsible for both the agency's operations and their creative product. During Choi's time at JWT, he was credited for winning high profile accounts and exponentially increasing their award count internationally and nationally with a multitude of wins including double Silver AOY titles, and Best in Shows. In addition, under his leadership the agency was ranked the number five Cannes Cyber Global Agency of the Year. Over the course of his career, Choi has consistently been recognized as one of Canada's top ten creative directors and was the number two ranked CCO in the world for his digital work on the Directory Big Won Global Rankings. His work has garnered top honours from Cannes, the CLIOs, and D&AD among others. "We are very excited to welcome Brent to our DDB family. I also want to take this opportunity to thank Lance for the guidance he has given to our team," said Clark. "He is a leader with great heart." Saunders made the decision to depart at this point in his tenure because he felt the time was right for him to pursue new challenges. About DDB Canada DDB Canada is the most creatively acclaimed, internationally recognized marketing communications agency in Canada. Known for advertising that generates significant results for clients, DDB Canada is a "total communications company" whose fundamental belief is that creativity is the most powerful force in business. DDB Canada has offices in Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal. The agency's integrated marketing disciplines include: brand design, decision science and analytics, content marketing, mobile, social, technology, user experience, public relations, shopper marketing, CRM, strategy, transcreation, digital marketing and creative advertising. For further information or interviews, please contact: Martine Levy Managing Director, DDB Public Relations [email protected]om, 416.972.7719 Paige Calvert Director of Corporate Communications, DDB Canada [email protected], 604.608.4421 SOURCE DDB Canada Related Links http://www.ddbcanada.com The new concept, informed by the builder's extensive consumer research, provides Houston homebuyers with the unheard-of opportunity to select from a series of single floor layouts, stacking them to create their ideal home design. The homes come equipped with elevator shafts (elevator optional), outdoor living spaces, generous storage options as well as access to Somerset Green amenities like an on-site pool with entertainment area, dog parks and more. "It's a unique concept for us and one that Houston homebuyers should find appealing," said Amy Rino, division president for both Darling Homes and Taylor Morrison in Houston. "It gives them an opportunity to pair up their favorite layouts into one single family home. And the location is pretty difficult to beat." The location is important for both homebuyers and Darling Homes. It's the first time the builder has built a community within the loop, giving them access to homebuyers who prefer the urban setting and ease with which they can navigate the vibrant downtown Houston area. The community offers quick access to both I-10 and the I-610. That location means Somerset Green is next to some of Houston's most desirable destinations including Memorial Park, Washington Corridor, the Heights, Buffalo Bayou Park, the Galleria and Uptown Park, the Energy Corridor and downtown Houston. "It's close to everything, which is important for homebuyers in our market," Rino said. "Yet even with the urban setting, you get a sense and feel of living in your own private enclave." Part of that feeling is derived from the community's gated layout, with manned access during the day. In addition, the homes are detached, with no shared walls and two, three and four-car garages available. An optional fourth floor, fully covered outdoor space adds to the charm. Expected to start from the low $700,000s, the low-maintenance homes will offer from approximately 2,600 square feet to more than 3,000 square feet of Darling luxury with 2 to 5 bedrooms (including large master suites), up to 3 full baths (with multiple half baths available), 5 elevations and up to 4-car garages with storage. Pre-sales will begin in early 2019, with a model home following in the spring. "We will have homes ready for move-in from the very beginning of this community," Rino said. "Our feeling was why wait to offer buying opportunities when we can create some of the best optioned homes first and offer them immediately." For more information, please call (713) 401-2008 or visit https://www.darlinghomes.com/new-homes/texas/houston/houston/somerset-green-community. About Darling Homes Taylor Morrison Home Corporation (NYSE:TMHC) is a leading national homebuilder and developer that has been recognized as the 2016, 2017 and 2018 America's Most Trusted Home Builder by Lifestory Research. Based in Scottsdale, Ariz., we operate under two well-established brands, Taylor Morrison and Darling Homes. We serve a wide array of consumer groups from coast to coast, including first-time, move-up, luxury, and 55 plus buyers. In Texas, Darling Homes builds communities with a focus on individuality and distinctive detail while delivering on the Taylor Morrison standard of excellence. For more information about Taylor Morrison and Darling Homes please visit www.taylormorrison.com or www.darlinghomes.com . Contact: Al Stevens the spr agency Office: (480) 648-1770 Cell: (480) 235-1770 [email protected] SOURCE Darling Homes Related Links https://www.darlinghomes.com TAMPA, Fla., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Database solutions and management company, Eagle Datagistics, today announced the launch of its rebrand under the moniker Guardian Eagle . Based in St. Petersburg, FL, Guardian Eagle's mission is to secure their client's data from the inside-out. "Historically, most security solutions approach the problem from the 'outside-in,' deploying more firewalls, intrusion detection, active monitoring, AI, and so on," said CEO, Chuck Egerter. "Yet, daily, we see well-known companies have these measures bypassed and shocking amounts of our personal data escaping." Guardian Eagle focuses on securing the data itself with encryption, audit, redaction and masking, redundancies, advanced access controls, and additional solutions that extend out from the data layer. According to Cyber Security Ventures, cyberattacks are the fastest growing crime in the U.S., and they are increasing in size, sophistication and cost. It's this rising trend that prompted Eagle's full shift to data protection and security. This same report cites that by 2021, cyber crime damage costs could hit $6 trillion annually, according to a report by Cybersecurity Ventures. "We've identified a change in the industry and will continue to lead the way in data protection," said Egerter. "Our number one priority is to save companies from data nightmares, and with our team of data experts, we know we'll succeed in our mission." About Guardian Eagle: Guardian Eagle, formerly Eagle Datagistics, is a data protection company that secures data from the inside-out. Since 2003, Eagle has positioned itself as an industry leader, providing security solutions and managed services for businesses all over the country. For more information, visit www.theguardianeagle.com , or call 727.535.3592. SOURCE Guardian Eagle Related Links http://theguardianeagle.com Online Program Offers Store Credit or Cash Value Offered for Pre-Owned High-End Timepieces ATLANTA, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Crown & Caliber the premier platform for buying certified pre-owned luxury watches introduces a new program exclusive to Birks customers in Canada to sell or trade-in their luxury timepiece. Interested Canadian luxury watch owners are welcome to visit their local Birks location to speak with a representative who will guide them through the selling or trading process. After receiving a quote from Crown & Caliber, customers can receive cash value or Birks credit. Those electing a Birks in-store credit will receive a gift card for the Canadian trade value and an additional 20% applicable to all in-store products, valid at any retail location. "The trade-in program provides luxury watch owners an opportunity to receive immediate value in a form of compensation they prefer," says Hamilton Powell, founder and CEO of Crown & Caliber. "Sellers will receive fair-market value with absolute transparency, trust and accuracy based on thousands of real sales and listings from our experienced team and high-quality service with straightforward accessibility from our retail partner, Birks." A seller survey conducted earlier this year by Crown & Caliber, indicated a majority of shoppers would welcome a credit or certificate to a reputable dealer, on top of a cash offer. The survey findings and this first-of-its-kind program signal the beginning of a trend, in which brick and mortar businesses collaborate with online platforms to increase foot traffic to retail stores. "We are thrilled to introduce the Crown & Caliber program into Birks stores across Canada," says Jean-Christophe Bedos, President and CEO of Birks Group. "We believe that through this certified process our customers we will receive an unparalleled experience for those looking to trade or sell their luxury timepieces." Luxury watch brands of consideration include, but are not limited to: Rolex, OMEGA, TAG Heuer, Breitling, Cartier, Panerai, IWC, and Patek Philippe. For more information you can visit: maisonbirks.com/en/crown-caliber. About Crown & Caliber Crown & Caliber was founded in 2013 as an exclusively online marketplace for pre-owned luxury watches, including Rolex, Omega, Breitling, Panerai, Patek Philippe, TAG Heuer, and dozens of others. The company is dedicated to providing a uniquely better way to buy, sell, or trade a pre-owned luxury watch. Crown & Caliber offers the ultimate in customer service and industry expertise. For more information, visit crownandcaliber.com. About Birks Group Inc. Birks Group operates 26 Maison Birks stores in most major metropolitan markets in Canada, one retail location in Calgary under the Brinkhaus brand and two retail locations in Vancouver under the Graff and Patek Philippe brands. The Birks brand is a leading fine jewelry, timepiece and gift brand available at all Maison Birks stores, Mappin & Webb and Goldsmiths in the United Kingdom in addition to other luxury jewelry retailers across North America. Birks was founded in 1879 and has become Canada's premier luxury brand. Additional information can be found on the Birks website, www.birks.com SOURCE Crown & Caliber Related Links http://www.crownandcaliber.com In her partnership with CoolSculpting, Morgan will share her self-care tips and her own personal CoolSculpting story. As the brand's latest spokesperson, Morgan will appear in marketing materials, digital advertising and on CoolSculpting social channels, as well as participate in public relations activities. A U.S. sweepstakes, offering consumers the chance to win a free treatment, and new television ad will coincide with the start of the partnership in January 2019. "I'm thrilled to be partnering with CoolSculpting and to talk honestly about taking the time to care for oneself," said Morgan. "I'm proud of the body I have at my age, and I work hard to stay active and healthy. But sometimes, one may want a little extra help for me, CoolSculpting is the perfect complement to my existing self-care routine! It helps me look good on-and-off camera." Through various media channels and at an in-person event in New York City on March 20, Morgan will share her self-care journey with fans and discuss her top beauty and wellness tips from how she preps for red carpet moments in her own life to how she battles bikini denial. She'll be joined by dermatologist Dr. Daniel Belkin of Laser & Skin Surgery Center of New York to educate attendees on the proven science behind the more than 7 million CoolSculpting treatments worldwide1. "We're incredibly excited to have Sonja Morgan as the face of our 'Let's Get Real About Self-Care' program," said Brent Hauser, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Body Contouring, Allergan. "Patients want to understand every detail of CoolSculpting how the treatment feels, what results to expect, and more. With Sonja's help, CoolSculpting will educate women about freezing away stubborn fat and the value of self-care." References * CoolSculpting is the treatment doctors use most for non-invasive fat removal. 1 Data on File ZELTIQ Aesthetics, Inc., an Allergan affiliate About the CoolSculpting Treatment CoolSculpting is a non-surgical, clinically proven treatment that selectively reduces unwanted fat using a patented cooling technology. Cleared by the FDA, CoolSculpting works by gently cooling targeted fat cells in the body to induce a natural, controlled elimination of fat cells without affecting surrounding tissue, and the treated fat cells are gone for good. In 2018, CoolSculpting was recognized for the fifth consecutive year by NewBeauty as a Choice Award winner. Millions of CoolSculpting treatments have been performed in more than 80 countries. CoolSculpting is available through a network of CoolSculpting Centers worldwide. Dermatologists, plastic surgeons and aesthetic specialists that offer CoolSculpting can be found at www.coolsculpting.com. In the U.S., the CoolSculpting procedure is FDA-cleared for the treatment of visible fat bulges in the submental and submandibular areas, thigh, abdomen and flank, along with bra fat, back fat, underneath the buttocks (also known as banana roll) and upper arm. It is also FDA-cleared to affect the appearance of lax tissue with submental area treatments. During the procedure you may experience sensations of pulling, tugging, mild pinching, intense cold, tingling, stinging, aching, and cramping at the treatment site. These sensations subside as the area becomes numb. Following the procedure, typical side effects include temporary redness, swelling, blanching, bruising, firmness, tingling, stinging, tenderness, cramping, aching, itching, or skin sensitivity, and sensation of fullness in the back of the throat after submental area treatment. Rare side effects may also occur. The CoolSculpting procedure is not for everyone. You should not have the CoolSculpting procedure if you suffer from cryoglobulinemia, cold agglutinin disease, or paroxysmal cold hemoglobinuria. The CoolSculpting procedure is not a treatment for obesity. Please see full Important Safety Information for additional information. Be sure to follow CoolSculpting on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. About Allergan plc Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN), headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is a bold, global pharmaceutical leader. Allergan is focused on developing, manufacturing and commercializing branded pharmaceutical, device, biologic, surgical and regenerative medicine products for patients around the world. Allergan markets a portfolio of leading brands and best-in-class products for the central nervous system, eye care, medical aesthetics and dermatology, gastroenterology, women's health, urology and anti-infective therapeutic categories. Allergan is an industry leader in Open Science, a model of research and development, which defines our approach to identifying and developing game-changing ideas and innovation for better patient care. With this approach, Allergan has built one of the broadest development pipelines in the pharmaceutical industry. Allergan's success is powered by our global colleagues' commitment to being Bold for Life. Together, we build bridges, power ideas, act fast and drive results for our customers and patients around the world by always doing what is right. With commercial operations in approximately 100 countries, Allergan is committed to working with physicians, healthcare providers and patients to deliver innovative and meaningful treatments that help people around the world live longer, healthier lives every day. For more information, visit Allergan's website at www.Allergan.com. Forward-Looking Statement Statements contained in this press release that refer to future events or other non-historical facts are forward-looking statements that reflect Allergan's current perspective on existing trends and information as of the date of this release. Actual results may differ materially from Allergan's current expectations depending upon a number of factors affecting Allergan's business. These factors include, among others, the difficulty of predicting the timing or outcome of FDA approvals or actions, if any; the impact of competitive products and pricing; market acceptance of and continued demand for Allergan's products; the impact of uncertainty around timing of generic entry related to key products, including RESTASIS, on our financial results; risks associated with divestitures, acquisitions, mergers and joint ventures; uncertainty associated with financial projections, projected cost reductions, projected debt reduction, projected synergies, restructurings, increased costs, and adverse tax consequences; difficulties or delays in manufacturing; and other risks and uncertainties detailed in Allergan's periodic public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to Allergan's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017 and Allergan's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended June 30, 2018. Except as expressly required by law, Allergan disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements. CONTACTS: Allergan: Investors: Daphne Karydas (862) 261-8006 Karina Calzadilla (862) 261-7328 Media: Marlo Rodman (925) 918-1190 SOURCE Allergan plc Related Links http://www.Allergan.com Posted Tuesday, January 15, 2019 10:30 am CLARA MAE MARTINEZ, 78, of Centralia, died at her residence on Tuesday, January 8, 2019. Interment will take place at 11 a.m. on Thursday, January 17, at Claquato Cemetery in Chehalis. Arrangements are under the care of Brown Mortuary Service in Chehalis. ROY E. FENSTERMAKER, 82, Winlock, died Saturday, Nov. 17, at Providence Centralia Hospital. A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, at United Methodist Church, Winlock, with a reception to follow. Arrangements are under the care of Cattermole Funeral Home. MICHELLE J. (WEBSTER) LISTER, 52, Montana, died Saturday, Dec. 1, at Sacred Heart Medical Center, Spokane. A Potluck Celebration of life will be held from noon to 5 p.m., Saturday, at the Rebekah Lodge, Napavine. Arrangements are under the care of Cattermole Funeral Home, Winlock. PAUL FLEMING, 66, Castle Rock formerly of Winlock, died Friday, Dec. 21, at his home. A memorial service with military honors will be held 2 p.m., Sunday, at Olequa Senior Center, Winlock, with a potluck reception to follow. Arrangements are under the care of Cattermole Funeral Home, Winlock. OPAL R. MICKELSEN, 100, Winlock, died Tuesday, Jan. 8, at Providence Centralia Hospital, a graveside service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, at Winlock Cemetery. Arrangements are under the care of Cattermole Funeral Home, Winlock. DONNALD JOHNSON III, 41, Kelso, died Friday, Jan. 4, at his home. Services are being planned at this time. Arrangements are under the care of Cattermole Funeral Home, Winlock. DONNA L. TAYLOR, 94, Centralia, died Friday, Jan. 11, at her home. Services are being planned at this time. Arrangements are under the care of Cattermole Funeral Home, Winlock. BALA CYNWYD, Pa., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Context Capital Partners, a leading alternative investment specialist firm, today announced the industry speaker lineup for its Context Leadership Day presented by Jefferies. All speakers will take the stage on January 30 as part of the annual Context Summits Miami event, scheduled for January 30 February 1 at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach, FL. Hundreds of alternative investment managers and allocators representing more than $5 trillion in assets will convene for a full-day of thought leadership programming and networking, which will feature industry executives and leading economists. The event also features Context Summits' unique one-on-one investor meeting format where more than 2,000 attendees from 25 countries will participate in over 11,000 prearranged meetings. Today's volatile markets continue to create strong demand for alternative investment strategies, and the Context Leadership Summit will provide a timely forum for professionals across the alternative asset management industry to discuss the latest trends, the macroeconomic environment, the challenges facing the industry and how to navigate turbulent markets during these uncertain times. Keynote and panel discussions will cover topics such as: The Importance of Corporate Culture in Driving Investment Success Key Issues and Emerging Trends Shaping the Global Economy The Role of Alternative Data and Machine Learning within Fundamental, Quantitative and Quantamental Investing New Investment Strategies Finance, Government and Politics in the Year Ahead "2018 was a challenging year for the markets with nearly every asset class posting negative returns. This year's Miami Summit falls at the perfect time when investors and allocators are digesting the impact of this unprecedented environment, and we are proud to provide a forum and network for the invesmtent community to discuss the important role of alternative investment strategies," said Ron Biscardi, CEO of Context Capital Partners. Among the confirmed featured speakers are: Gary Cohn , Former National Economic Council Director and former President and COO of Goldman Sachs , Former National Economic Council Director and former President and COO of Goldman Sachs Howard Marks , CFA , Co-Chairman, Oaktree Capital , Co-Chairman, Oaktree Capital Eileen Murray , Co-Chief Executive Officer, Bridgewater Associates , Co-Chief Executive Officer, Mohamed A. El-Erian , Chief Economic Advisor, Allianz , Chief Economic Advisor, Allianz Michael Marcus , Partner, Prelude Capital , Partner, Prelude Capital Jon Hansen , Managing Director, Cambridge Associates , Managing Director, Cambridge Associates Chris P. Harvey , Head of Equity Strategy, Wells Fargo Securities , Head of Equity Strategy, Wells Fargo Securities Stephanie Kelton , Professor of Public Policy & Economics, Stony Brook University , Professor of Public Policy & Economics, Stony Brook University Mike Marrale , CEO, M Science , CEO, M Science David Zervos , Chief Market Strategist, Jefferies "We are excited to return to Miami in partnership with Jefferies and their Prime Services group, who have supported us since our first year, for our sold-out sixth annual Summit and to continue to provide a forum for more than 11,000 one-on-one investor meetings. This year's record-breaking number of guests will also have an opportunity to hear from industry thought leaders who will address various aspects of the alternative investment landscape from both the allocator and manager points-of-view," said Kevin Garton, President of Context Summits. For more information on the Context Leadership Summit, please visit: https://contextsummits.com/miami/ or follow on Twitter @ContextSummits and join the discussion with #ContextMiami2019. About Context Summits As the preeminent producer of events for the alternative asset management industry, Context Summits focuses on elevating the conference experience through an innovative format and structure where relationship building leads to unmatched results. A pioneer of the one-on-one 'summit' format, Context Summits utilizes an innovative approach to deliver effective and transparent networking events that elevate the conference experience for managers, allocators and investors. Through its systematic approach, Context Summits is able to attract high quality attendees, making meetings efficient and productive. For more details, please visit: http://www.contextsummits.com. About Context Capital Partners Context Capital Partners, LP is a leading alternative investment specialist firm headquartered in Bala Cynwyd, PA and the parent company of Context Summits. Through direct and indirect partnerships, Context provides acceleration capital, marketing, distribution, operations and infrastructure support to top-tier alternative asset managers. Context's focus is delivering superior investment solutions to institutional investors and family offices by launching and expanding low correlation investment products that deliver clear edge. For more information about Context Capital Partners, please visit: www.contextcp.com. Contact Emily Tracy [email protected] 646-818-9257 SOURCE Context Capital Partners HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Confie, one of the top 20 insurance brokers in the U.S., has completed its second year as national sponsor of Toys for Tots. Confie employees donated more than 2,500 toys for children throughout the United States, topping last year's contributions by 68%. In addition, Confie provided over $2 million in advertising services to promote the annual drive on a national scale. "The Confie family was thrilled to spread holiday cheer to children and their families once again. Toys for Tots is an American institution, and we look forward to continuing our support for this exceptionally worthwhile cause," said Cesar Soriano, Chief Executive Officer at Confie. A program of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Toys for Tots is dedicated to collecting and distributing unwrapped toys to youth during the holiday season. Its mission is to help young people experience the joy of Christmas and receive a message of hope that encourages them to become responsible, productive, and patriotic citizens. The organization consistently earns the highest rating by Charity Navigator and maintains a spot on The Chronicle of Philanthropy's "Philanthropy 400" list. "We are very pleased to partner with Confie, one of our major national corporate sponsors of the 2018 Marine Toys for Tots Campaign," said retired Marine Colonel Ted Silvester, Vice President of the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation. "Their community service goals certainly align with those the Marine Corps has promoted for over 70 years through our Toys for Tots Program." Silvester concluded, "With their generous support we will be able to fulfill the Christmas holiday dreams of thousands of less fortunate children who otherwise might be forgotten." About Confie Established in 2008, Confie is a leading national insurance distribution company primarily focused on personal lines and small commercial insurance. The experienced Confie management team continues to build Confie's portfolio of regional personal lines brokerages. The company has leading market positions in California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, Illinois, Indiana, Alabama, Kansas, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Missouri, Louisiana, Idaho and Tennessee. Confie is a portfolio company of ABRY Partners. For more information about Confie, please visit www.confie.com. SOURCE Confie Related Links http://www.confie.com NEW YORK, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Optima Partners, a leading global regulatory compliance and risk management advisory firm, today announced the appointment of compliance industry veteran Portia Amato to Director at the firm's New York office. Ms. Amato brings nearly two decades of experience in providing compliance services for the investment management industry. In her new role, Ms Amato will be responsible for maintaining client relationships and working with management to drive further growth for the firm, which has more than 500 clients including hedge funds, private equity and venture capital firms, broker dealers, and global banks. Before joining Optima, she was a Compliance Officer at DRA Advisors, a New York-based investment advisory firm specializing in real estate investment and management services. Ms. Amato also served as a Compliance Officer at Compliance Risk Concepts, a New York-based compliance consulting firm. At the firm, she was responsible for providing compliance-related services to primarily registered investment advisors and broker-dealers, as well as managing client relationships and supporting new business development. Earlier, Ms. Amato served as a Vice President-Compliance at New York-based asset management firm Epoch Investment Partners, a wholly owned subsidiary of TD Bank with $42 billion in assets under management, and also worked for several other financial services firm during her career. Donald Babbitt, a Partner at Optima, commented on Ms. Amato's appointment: "We are excited that Portia is joining Optima. As we continue to grow our business, our focus is always on hiring talented compliance professionals who are capable of providing our clients with the highest level of advisory services. Her extensive experience working successfully with a large client base is exactly what we are looking for as we expand our team." Partner Alan Halfenger further commented: "Portia not only brings a strong knowledge of registered investment advisor and broker-dealer regulations, but also a deep understanding of the inner workings of real estate funds. She will be a tremendous asset for our clients." Ms. Amato said: "I am very excited to join the Optima team. I am looking forward to working with Optima's clients in helping them to develop and maintain a strong compliance program and adopt best practices needed to successfully navigate through the ever-changing regulatory landscape." Ms. Amato can be reached at [email protected] or (646) 305- 6400. About Optima Partners Optima Partners is a leading global regulatory compliance and risk management advisory firm providing streamlined and cost-effective services tailored to clients' individual needs.The firm provides a truly global service locally, achieved by ensuring that its industry recognized experts work closely with a diverse group of clients, ranging from hedge funds, private equity firms and investment banks. Optima Partners' unrivalled expertise in the global regulatory landscape, strong relationships with regulators, and a deep commitment to provide clear and practical counsel gives clients the services they need to meet the demands of a complex and dynamic financial regulatory environment. The firm currently advises more than 500 clients across its global offices in New York, San Francisco, London and Hong Kong. For more information on Optima Partners, go to the firm's website at www.optima-partners.com. Media Contact: Marc Weinstein Ascent Communications [email protected] (908) 967-9958 SOURCE Optima Partners Related Links http://www.optima-partners.com NEW YORK, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- As Natural Light showed last year, college loans get you in the door, but college debt can ruin the party. So, Natty Light is not only bringing back its College Debt Relief Program in 2019 but has also pledged to give away $10,000,000 over the next 10 years to help pay down student loans. "Last year, the College Debt Relief Program had a major impact on the Natty community, both financially and emotionally. But, student debt in America continues to rise, so we're coming back with an even stronger commitment that will make an impact well beyond 2019," said Daniel Blake, Senior Director of Value Brands, Anheuser-Busch. "We're making a pledge to give back $10,000,000 over the next decade to help out even more deserving individuals and shine a brighter light on the issue of college debt." The Return of the College Debt Relief Program The college debt issue in America continues to grow in 2019 there are now more than 44 million Americans who collectively have nearly $1.5 trillion in student loan debt*. Natty Light is committed to helping graduates remember college for the good times, not the burden of debt that follows. This year, Natty is returning with more than $1,000,000 back in the pot to help 70 individuals pay down their student loans. Entering for a chance at a slice of the $1,000,000+ is simple: Post a video to social media from now until May 18 with your inspiration for going to college with your inspiration for going to college Include the green dollar-sign tab found on the limited-edition cans in your video Use the hashtags #NattyStories and #Contest Full contest rules and regulations can be found here: www.naturallight.com/rules.html Super Bowl Spot in Cities That Need Our Help Natural Light will bring attention to the country's incomprehensible amount of college debt by airing a 60-second Super Bowl spot in five cities with the some of the highest student loan debt in America. These markets include Columbia, SC; Jackson, MS; Little Rock, AR; Raleigh, NC; and Richmond, VA. The local Super Bowl spot features winners of last year's College Debt Relief Program, highlighting their video submissions and inspiration for going to college. Watch the spot here Big Game Payouts with Cash App SB Sunday is one of the most celebrated days of the year, but your monthly college debt payment might hold you back from throwing a party for the big game. So, Natural Light is teaming up with Cash App, the leading mobile payment app, to cover your next student loan payment. During the fifty-third big game, Natural Light will be paying out $53,000 to 151 lucky fans via Cash App. Each fan will receive $351 (the average monthly student loan payment according to Student Loan Hero) to ensure nothing stops them from throwing that epic party and splurging on the seven-layer dip, an extra order of wings and another rack of Natty. "Teaming up with Cash App is the ideal way to deliver instant debt relief to even more of our fans while also having a little bit of fun along the way," said Blake. "It's our way to give back even more and drum up some extra excitement for our fans on gameday." For a chance to have your next college loan payment covered by Natty Light, anyone over the age of 21 can share their SB party plans on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook from January 22 right through to the big game for a shot at $351. Fans only need to add #NattySB, #Sweepstakes and their Cash App username (or "$Cashtag") to their post to qualify. Natty Light will be accepting entries from Tuesday, January 22 through Sunday, February 3 and start dishing out cold hard cash to select fans on SB Sunday until the final whistle blows. Full contest rules and regulations can be found here: https://www.naturallight.com/natty-sb-rules.html To learn more, follow @naturallight on Twitter and Facebook, @naturallightbeer on Instagram, and visit www.NaturalLight.com. *statistics courtesy of Student Loan Hero; full report on student loan debt is linked here ^Prizing structure: $1,060,000 total. 12 grand prize winners, $40,000 each. 58 first prize winners, $10,000 each. About Natural Light Natural Light was introduced in 1977 as Anheuser-Busch's first reduced-calorie light beer. Currently the sixth best-selling beer in America, Natural Light is brewed with a blend of premium hops and a combination of malt and corn producing a clean flavor, light body and satisfying refreshment. About Anheuser-Busch For more than 166 years, Anheuser-Busch and its world-class brewmasters have carried on a legacy of brewing America's most popular beers. Starting with the finest ingredients sourced from Anheuser-Busch's family of growers, every batch is crafted using the same exacting standards and time-honored traditions passed down through generations of proud Anheuser-Busch brewmasters and employees. Anheuser-Busch owns and operates 21 breweries, 20 distributorships and 22 agricultural and packaging facilities, employing more than 18,000 people across the United States. For more information, visit www.anheuser-busch.com. SOURCE Anheuser-Busch Related Links http://www.anheuser-busch.com WILMINGTON, Del., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Chemours Company (Chemours) (NYSE: CC), a global chemistry company with leading market positions in titanium technologies, flouroproducts and chemical solutions, today reopened its newly renovated corporate headquarters in The DuPont Building, a registered historic landmark in downtown Wilmington, Delaware. Chemours' return to the 106-year old building, now owned and operated by The Buccini/Pollin Group, comes after a 20-month renovation that has transformed its interior into a light-filled, modern, and elegant open workspace environment. "Today we are renewing our commitment to this community as we begin the next chapter of our company's story in our beautifully renovated headquarters," said Chemours President and CEO Mark Vergnano. "This is a place that our team can be proud to call home. Our renovated office is a perfect metaphor for Chemours a company grounded in its legacy, but transforming into an agile, innovative, and collaborative enterprise with a bias for action and growth." Buccini/Pollin Group Co-President Christopher F. Buccini had this to say: "Chemours' decision to be based in this historic building is a fitting tribute to their heritage, while their 21st Century workspace points boldly to their future. We are proud to have been on this journey with them. They had other options, and we are grateful for their commitment to our city and our state." Approximately 850 employees, contractors, and consultants will work in the company's new headquarters, which will occupy 280,000 square feet in 11 stories of the building. The newly renovated headquarters includes 50 tons of reclaimed marble that was kept out of landfills through Chemours' recapture and reclaim efforts. Each floor includes a unique space named "the oasis," including areas equipped with treadmills with laptop docking stations, product showcases, and living room-like lounges. After considering other potential locations in the United States, Chemours chose Delaware, because of the area's highly educated workforce, close proximity to customers, and favorable changes to the state's corporate tax structure. Today's ribbon cutting ceremony was attended by U.S. Senator Tom Carper, Delaware Governor John Carney, Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki, and more than 100 other local business and community leaders. About The Chemours Company The Chemours Company (NYSE: CC) helps create a colorful, capable and cleaner world through the power of chemistry. Chemours is a global leader in titanium technologies, fluoroproducts and chemical solutions, providing its customers with solutions in a wide range of industries with market-defining products, application expertise and chemistry-based innovations. Chemours ingredients are found in plastics and coatings, refrigeration and air conditioning, mining and general industrial manufacturing. Our flagship products include prominent brands such as Teflon, Ti-Pure, Krytox, Viton, Opteon, Freon and Nafion. Chemours has approximately 7,000 employees and 26 manufacturing sites serving approximately 4,000 customers in North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and Europe. Chemours is headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware and is listed on the NYSE under the symbol CC. For more information please visit chemours.com, or follow us on Twitter @Chemours, or LinkedIn. Forward Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements, within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to a historical or current fact. The words "believe," "expect," "will," "anticipate," "plan," "estimate," "target," "project" and similar expressions, among others, generally identify "forward-looking statements," which speak only as of the date such statements were made. These forward-looking statements may address, among other things, the outcome or resolution of any pending or future environmental liabilities, the commencement, outcome or resolution of any regulatory inquiry, investigation or proceeding, the initiation, outcome or settlement of any litigation, changes in environmental regulations in the U.S. or other jurisdictions that affect demand for or adoption of our products, anticipated future operating and financial performance, business plans, prospects, targets, goals and commitments, capital investments and projects, plans for dividends or share repurchases, sufficiency or longevity of intellectual property protection, cost savings targets, plans to increase profitability and growth, our ability to make acquisitions, integrate acquired businesses or assets into our operations, and achieve anticipated synergies or cost savings, and our outlook for net sales, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EPS, Free Cash Flow, and Return on Invested Capital (ROIC), all of which are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions and expectations of future events that may not be accurate or realized. These statements are not guarantees of future performance. Forward-looking statements also involve risks and uncertainties that are beyond Chemours' control. Additionally, there may be other risks and uncertainties that Chemours is unable to identify at this time or that Chemours does not currently expect to have a material impact on its business. Factors that could cause or contribute to these differences include the risks, uncertainties and other factors discussed in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017. Chemours assumes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statement for any reason, except as required by law. CONTACT: NEWS MEDIA David Rosen Executive and Financial Communications Manager +1.302.773.2711 [email protected] INVESTORS Jonathan Lock VP, Corporate Development and Investor Relations +1.302.773.2263 [email protected] SOURCE The Chemours Company Related Links http://www.chemours.com Ensuring quality CBD products are always available for people who rely on "The World's Most Trusted Hemp Extract" BOULDER, CO, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - (CSE: CWEB;OTCQX: CWBHF) Charlotte's Web Holdings, Inc. ("Charlotte's Web" or the "Company"), the market leader in whole-plant hemp extract products with naturally occurring cannabidiol ("CBD"), today reported its 2018 harvested hemp results. The Company reported more than a 10 times growth in harvested hemp compared to its 2017 grow season. The high-quality 100% U.S.-grown hemp will be processed through proprietary extraction methods to create whole plant hemp extract that will be used in Charlotte's Web products for sale in 2019 and 2020. "Charlotte's Web is one of only a few hemp CBD producers capable of supplying large volumes of high-quality hemp extract from its own supply chain that can meet significantly increasing market demand," said Hess Moallem, President and CEO of Charlotte's Web. "As the category and brand leader, our goal is to increase our market share and with this bountiful harvest we are able to satisfy our customer demands for 2019 and beyond. This incredible harvest ensures we can continue to produce our high-quality human nutrition products without being subject to constantly fluctuating market prices as is common with third-party sourced raw material. This allows us to have better control and predictability over our cost of goods sold and thereby our gross margins. In addition, these harvest levels will allow us to explore opportunities to supply future partners with our proprietary hemp extracts." Charlotte's Web cultivates its hemp crops outdoors in various regions across the United States to hedge against potential weather risks and other crop related impacts. The Company planted 300 acres of hemp in 2018, up from 70 acres in 2017. Oregon was added as the third cultivation state during 2018 along with Colorado and Kentucky. Experienced farmers in Oregon, coupled with the Company's agricultural team and optimal growing conditions in the Willamette Valley, produced a robust crop that surpassed management's expectations. The 2018 total harvest far exceeded initial estimates of between 250,000 lbs. and 350,000 lbs. of hemp, producing a total of approximately 675,000 lbs. between the three states combined. This is more than ten times the 63,000 pounds of hemp harvested in 2017. With its vertically integrated model, Charlotte's Web is able to control all aspects of the growing cycle to optimize product quality. "We do our own farming in Colorado and partner with the finest farmers in Kentucky and Oregon. This year's harvest is a testament to our farming excellence and constantly growing agricultural knowledge of hemp," said Mr. Moallem. "We have an internal plant science and genetics department that has made substantial progress in creating healthier, more robust plants that maximize yields by region and provide complete scalability." Charlotte's Web employs an inventory model whereby it grows more hemp than it needs for the subsequent year in order to minimize the risk of product shortfalls against forecasted rapid market growth. Dried hemp can be stored for years, with even more longevity in its extracted form. The 2018 record harvest for the Company provided raw material beyond its highest demand expectations for 2019 and builds inventory for 2020, ensuring product will be available for the growing number of people who use "The World's Most Trusted Hemp Extract". Charlotte's Web maintains stringent quality control from field to final product by growing all of its hemp crops in the United States with high levels of quality oversight. The Company grows several hemp strains all of which contain THC levels less than 0.3%, with high levels of CBD content. The Company employs a whole-plant extract approach to maximize the "entourage effect" which provides improved benefits by including all of the plant's cannabinoids, terpenes and other beneficial botanical elements in the final product. Quality and consistency are top priorities for the Company, including its hemp farming locations. The Company begins with diligent testing of the soils before a field is ever commissioned. By the time customers receive their Charlotte's Web product they have typically been tested more than 20 times through the cultivation and manufacturing processes. "So many of our customers have come to rely on Charlotte's Web products daily," said Charlotte's Web Chairman and co-founder Joel Stanley. "We are changing lives for the better and never want to let our customers down, so in addition to providing the highest quality products, we must also prioritize reliable availability." Charlotte's Web products are sold throughout the U.S. and increasing consumer awareness and education is driving mainstream market demand. The passing of the 2018 Farm Bill in December and the removal of hemp as a controlled substance is expected to result in improved access and distribution as local and national retail channels can now sell hemp-based products without the stigma and fear of federal legal complications. Hemp Industry Certification Charlotte's Web has received certification from the U.S. Hemp Authority. The U.S. Hemp Authority Certification Program is a new initiative to provide high standards, best practices and self-regulation for the hemp industry. The certification requires meeting or exceeding stringent self-regulatory standards for Current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) and passing an annual third-party audit. The U.S. Hemp Authority Certification Program was developed in 2018 for hemp products produced to high standards under best practice protocols. The certification is designed to increase consumer and law enforcement confidence in hemp products being sold in the market today by designating them as safe and legal. Beginning in 2019, Charlotte's Web products will be licensed to use the Certified Seal of the U.S. Hemp Authority on their products. Consumers can learn more about the U.S. Hemp Authority Certification Program by visiting www.USHempAuthority.org. For further information subscribe to Charlotte's Web news. About Charlotte's Web Holdings, Inc. Charlotte's Web Holdings, Inc. is the market leader in the production and distribution of innovative hemp-based cannabidiol ("CBD") wellness products. Founded by the Stanley Brothers, the Company's premium quality products start with proprietary hemp genetics that are responsibly manufactured into whole-plant hemp extracts naturally containing a full spectrum of phytocannabinoids, including CBD, terpenes, flavonoids and other beneficial hemp compounds. Industrial hemp products are non-intoxicating. Charlotte's Web product categories include CBD Oil tinctures (liquid products), CBD capsules, CBD topicals, as well as CBD pet products. Charlotte's Web hemp-based whole plant extracts are sold through select distributors, brick and mortar retailers, and online through the Company's website at www.charlottesweb.com. The rate the Company pays for agricultural products reflects a fair and sustainable rate driving higher quality yield, encouraging good farming practices, and supporting U.S. farming communities. Charlotte's Web is a socially conscious company and is committed to using business as a force for good and a catalyst for innovation. The Company weighs sound business decisions with consideration for how its efforts affect its employees, customers, the environment, and the communities where its employees live and where it does business, while maximizing profits and strengthening its brands. Management believes that socially oriented actions have a positive impact on the Company, its employees and its shareholders. Charlotte's Web donates a portion of its pre-tax earnings to charitable organizations. Shares of Charlotte's Web trade on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol "CWEB" and in the United States on the OTCQX under the symbol "CWBHF". Forward-Looking Information Certain information in this news release constitutes forward-looking information. In some cases, but not necessarily in all cases, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "targets", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "an opportunity exists", "is positioned", "estimates", "intends", "assumes", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate" or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "will" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances contain forward-looking information. Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts but instead represent management's expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events. Forward-looking information is necessarily based on a number of opinions, assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company as of the date of this news release, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to the factors described in greater detail in the public documents of the Company available at www.sedar.com. These factors are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors that could affect the Company; however, these factors should be considered carefully. There can be no assurance that such estimates and assumptions will prove to be correct. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release, and the Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements containing any forward-looking information, or the factors or assumptions underlying them, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. SOURCE Charlottes Web Holdings, Inc. WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Over the course of 2018 the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. (CFP Board) reached several significant milestones that support its mission to benefit the American public with access to competent and ethical financial planning advice. "These milestones and achievements reflect the public's desire for ethical and competent CFP professionals who through financial planning can provide Americans confidence today and a more secure tomorrow," said CFP Board CEO Kevin R. Keller, CAE. "We look forward to seeing even more interest in CFP certification as consumers and firms alike embrace holistic financial planning to produce better outcomes and results." These achievements reflect the financial planning profession's commitment to increasing diversity within its ranks. As of December 31, 2018, these milestones include: Total number of CFP professionals is at an all-time high of 83,106 - one in four financial advisors in the United States holds the CFP certification, according to Cerulli professionals is at an all-time high of The number of women CFP professionals increased to 19,248 , another all-time high , another all-time high The number of black and Latino CFP professionals is now at 2,916, which is 8 percent more than in 2017 and double the rate of growth of all CFP professionals and double the rate of growth of all CFP professionals It is the five-year anniversary of CFP Board's Career Center, which connects firms with qualified job seekers in the profession. During this time the Career Center has seen 1,700 employers post 3,500 jobs that have been promoted to 22,000 job seekers The CFP Board Candidate Forum is connecting candidates for CFP certification in a valuable online community to provide support on their path to certification. Nearly 64,000 subscribers shared 1,300 discussion threads in 2018 related to all stages on the path to CFP certification certification in a valuable online community to provide support on their path to certification. related to all stages on the path to CFP certification The CFP Board Mentor Program has significantly grown over the last year as there are now nearly 1,400 mentors working with more than 2,000 mentees. The CFP Board Mentorship program was expanded in 2018 to allow all candidates on the path to certification to connect with a CFP professional for support and encouragement while on the path to certification. ABOUT CFP BOARD Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. is the professional body for personal financial planners in the U.S. CFP Board sets standards for financial planning and administers the prestigious CFP certification one of the most respected certifications in financial services so that the public has access to and benefits from competent and ethical financial planning. CFP Board, along with its Center for Financial Planning, is committed to increasing the public's awareness of CFP certification and access to a diverse, ethical and competent financial planning workforce. Widely recognized by firms as the standard for financial planning, CFP certification is held by more than 83,000 people in the United States. SOURCE Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. SALT LAKE CITY, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Central Logic , the pioneer and leading innovator in transfer center software solutions, achieved a number of business and strategic goals in 2018, enjoying strong revenue growth, adding new clients to the roster, and growing its experienced leadership team to continue the company's forward momentum into the new year. "In 2018 we executed well on our business goals and look forward to even more success in 2019," said Angie Franks, Central Logic CEO. "At the heart of our vision is the patient. Ensuring that patients get the right care, in the right place, at the right time without delay is our 'North Star,' and the cornerstone of our efforts across Central Logic." Central Logic is a proven innovator in healthcare technology for hospitals. Founded in 2005, the company is the industry leader in web-based Transfer Center and On-Call Scheduling technology that integrates with any EMR system and results in strong, predictable ROI. Its comprehensive operational analytics and real-time reporting ensure accurate data intelligence and improved care coordination and compliance. Highlights from 2018: Central Logic more than doubled its year-over-year revenue growth in 2018 and added new customers that manage a combined total of 90 facilities. The company achieved a 96 percent annual retention rate, a measure of its customers' satisfaction and loyalty, based on the results they have achieved by partnering with Central Logic. In less than 18 months, Central Logic has expanded its leadership team by adding industry-leading marketing and operational executives as well as new board members. Central Logic new hires include: Scott Booher now serves as chief operating officer to oversee several critical areas, including product, engineering, IT infrastructure and client success. Booher joins Central Logic as part of a focus on bringing together product, services and customer success and to accelerate the execution of this strategy. Jim Hughes joined Central Logic as chief marketing officer, bringing with him decades of healthcare and technology experience that will be leveraged to help clients improve their clinical, operational and financial outcomes. Brian Lanier joined as Central Logic chief financial officer. He's a proven operational and financial leader with expertise in M&A and strategic pricing initiatives driving discipline, profit and customer retention at multiple companies. Central Logic new hires include: This year, Central Logic also welcomed two new independent industry experts to its Board of Directors. Jodi Hubler is managing director of Lemhi Ventures, a $385M healthcare services venture capital fund where she leads all phases of the investment cycle encompassing a broad range of companies across the health services ecosystem, including purveyors of health technology. Hubler is widely recognized for her keen insight, direct approach and skillful stewardship of organizations from incubated start-ups to multi-billion-dollar corporations. She has led and held board seats in more than a dozen investments or privately held companies and currently serves on the non-profit boards of Medical Alley Association and Vice Chair of CaringBridge. Dennis Weaver , MD, MBA, is the chief clinical officer at Oscar Health, where he oversees provider integrations, clinical services and customer care. He brings more than 25 years of healthcare and management experience to the table, having served in a variety of other executive and medical positions with numerous organizations, including The Advisory Board. to its Board of Directors. Central Logic CEO Angie Franks was recognized for her industry expertise as one of 20 health IT thought leaders featured in Becker's Hospital Review, sharing her vision of healthcare technology trends. "In 2018, real-time data analysis began making even more of an impact in healthcare, [providing] patients with easier access to the most appropriate level of care while enabling providers to find efficient and less costly ways to manage transfers," she told the publication. In 2019, she predicted, more providers will leverage technology to avert costly ED visits. was recognized for her industry expertise as one of featured in Becker's Hospital Review, sharing her vision of healthcare technology trends. "In 2018, real-time data analysis began making even more of an impact in healthcare, [providing] patients with easier access to the most appropriate level of care while enabling providers to find efficient and less costly ways to manage transfers," she told the publication. In 2019, she predicted, more providers will leverage technology to avert costly ED visits. Central Logic was the title sponsor of the 2018 Patient Flow Summit , which brings together transfer center executives, industry thought leaders and peers to share their experiences, insights and vision for making timely, patient-centric transfer decisions that drive efficiencies, grow revenue and margin, and deliver a superior experience for patients and staff. "These 2018 wins position us for even more progress in 2019," Franks said. "Care coordination is becoming increasingly important to achieving the healthcare industry's goals of providing better, more efficient, cost-effective care. As a pioneer in transfer solutions, our focus is on helping healthcare providers to get their patients to the right care in the right place right now." About Central Logic For health systems, managing patient transfers is a life-saving endeavor. Central Logic is a pioneer in the space and was founded in 2005 solely to support this mission. Our flexible, purpose-built solutions provide superior real-time visibility and unmatched business intelligence to optimize the operations of health system command centers. Clients count on Central Logic to deliver strong growth, find new ways to improve patient outcomes and make their operations more effective, today and into the future. Based in Utah, Central Logic is an industry leader with a 96% customer retention rate. The company has been named a "fastest growing private company" by both Inc. 500 and Utah Business Magazine. For more information, visit www.centrallogic.com . Media Contact: Linda Healan Amendola Communications 404-725-7117 [email protected] SOURCE Central Logic Related Links http://www.centrallogic.com SAN FRANCISCO, January 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The global capillary blood collection devices market size is expected to reach USD 1.75 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc., progressing at a CAGR of 5.4% during the forecast period. Increasing incidence of chronic, infectious and autoimmune diseases are some of the major factors propelling market growth owing to rising number of blood tests globally. Capillary blood draw technique has been most widely used for glucose and hemoglobin testing in clinics and hospitals. Ease of usage and minimally invasive nature also makes it ideal for home care diagnosis and testing, thereby boosting the market's growth potential.The use of this technique in conjugation with PoC diagnostics has become the chosen mode of testing in remote and ambulatory health settings. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/661327/Grand_View_Research_Logo.jpg ) Blood gas detection, leukocyte & metabolite count, biomarker, nucleic acid, blood glucose, ferritin, lactate, effect of vitamin K-antagonist, and heavy metal ions analysis is commonly done using these samples. Thus, with rising adoption of rapid PoC diagnostics, usage of these devices is anticipated to increase in the near future. Chronic diseases are a global healthcare problem with over half of the adult population in the U.S. suffering from chronic diseases, which contribute to over 75% of the total healthcare cost in the nation. Thus, rising number of infectious and chronic diseases creates a huge demand for diagnostic testing, thereby propelling growth of these collection devices. Capillary blood draw technique is most often used in case of pediatric patients as it is difficult to draw venous and arterial blood from infants. Capillary blood draw is preferred in many ICU settings as patients lose large amount of blood during surgeries. Other blood drawing techniques are more invasive and might result in delays in the healing process or pose a risk of contamination. Ease of usage and effectiveness is another factor facilitating the use of these devices for home care diagnosis and testing, typically in case of diabetics. Browse full research report with TOC on "Capillary Blood Collection Devices Market Analysis Report By Material (Plastic, Glass, Stainless Steel), By Product, By Application (Whole Blood, Plasma Tests), By End Use, And Segment Forecasts, 2018 - 2025" at: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/capillary-blood-collection-devices-market Further Key Findings From the Report Suggest: Plastic devices held the largest market share in 2017 owing to their lightweight, cost-effective, and biocompatible nature coupled with extensive usage in medical devices Durability, non-porous nature, and impermeability are boosting the demand for glass devices Plastic and glass based collection devices are anticipated to dominate the market throughout the forecast horizon during the forecast period due to their extensive use in the manufacture of medical devices and other related products. North America will lead the market throughout the forecast period owing to existence of large number of major market players and high incidence of chronic and infectious diseases will lead the market throughout the forecast period owing to existence of large number of major market players and high incidence of chronic and infectious diseases The Asia Pacific market is expected to rise at the highest CAGR during the same period. High population along with rising incidence of chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes are the major factors contributing to the growth of the regional market market is expected to rise at the highest CAGR during the same period. High population along with rising incidence of chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes are the major factors contributing to the growth of the regional market Some of the major players are Becton, Dickinson and Company; NIPRO Europe Corporation; Sarstedt AG & Co; Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.; Terumo Medical Corporation; B Braun Melsungen AG; Kabe Labortechnik GmbH; Greiner Bio One International GmbH; Cardinal Health; and Owen Mumford Ltd. Connect with our analyst for specific inquiries Browse related reports by Grand View Research: Nucleic Acid Amplification Testing Market - The global nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT) market size was valued at USD 1.78 billion in 2015. The global nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT) market size was valued at in 2015. Autoimmune Disease Diagnostics Market - The global Autoimmune Disease Diagnostics Market disease diagnostics market size was valued at USD 3.3 billion in the year 2015. The global Autoimmune Disease Diagnostics Market disease diagnostics market size was valued at in the year 2015. Predictive Genetic Testing And Consumer/Wellness Genomics Market - The global predictive genetic testing & consumer/wellness genomics market was valued at USD 2.24 billion in 2015. The global predictive genetic testing & consumer/wellness genomics market was valued at in 2015. Cervical Cancer Diagnostic Market - The global cervical cancer diagnostic market was valued at USD 7 billion in 2015 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 5.9% over the forecast period. Grand View Research has segmented the global capillary blood collection devices market on the basis of material, product, application, end use, and region: Capillary Blood Collection Devices Material Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) Plastic Glass Stainless Steel Ceramic Others Capillary Blood Collection Devices Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) Lancets Micro-Container Tubes Micro-Hematocrit Tubes Warming Devices Others Capillary Blood Collection Devices Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) Whole Blood Plasma/ Serum Protein Tests Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP) Tests Liver Panel / Liver Profile/ Liver Function Tests Dried Blood Spot Tests Capillary Blood Collection Devices End-Use Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) Hospitals and Clinics Blood Donation Centers Diagnostic Centers Home Diagnosis Pathology Laboratories Capillary Blood Collection Devices Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2014 - 2025) North America U.S. Canada Europe Germany U.K. Asia Pacific Japan China India Latin America Brazil Mexico MEA South Africa Explore the BI enabled intuitive market research database, Grand View Compass, by Grand View Research, Inc. About Grand View Research Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries, from technology to chemicals, materials and healthcare. Contact: Sherry James Corporate Sales Specialist, USA Grand View Research, Inc. Phone: +1-415-349-0058 Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519 Email: [email protected] Web: https://www.grandviewresearch.com Follow Us: LinkedIn | Twitter SOURCE Grand View Research, Inc. VANCOUVER, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - CANNAMERICA BRANDS CORP. ("CannAmerica" or the "Company") (CSE: CANA) (OTCQB: CNNXF) has granted an aggregate of 2,450,000 incentive stock options to purchase common shares to certain officers, directors, and other eligible persons of the Company. The options are exercisable, subject to vesting provisions, over a period of five years at a price of $0.60 per share, the closing price of the Company's first tranche of its brokered private placement announced on January 10, 2019. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to sell any of securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to or for the account or benefit of U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. For more information, please visit www.cannamericabrands.com On Behalf of the Board, Dan Anglin CEO and Director (314) 495-4589 About CannAmerica Brands Corp. CannAmerica Brands is a U.S. marine veteran founded and operated portfolio of cannabis brands with licensing agreements in the states of Colorado, Nevada and Maryland. The Company aims to maximize the value of its brands by employing strong brand management teams, marketing and licensing the brands through various distribution channels, including dispensaries, wholesalers and distributors, in the United States and internationally. The Company's core strategy is to enhance and monetize the global reach of its existing brands, and to pursue additional strategic acquisitions to grow the scope and diversity of its brand portfolio. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE CannAmerica Brands Corp. Posted Tuesday, January 15, 2019 10:24 am Budgets, it has been said, are really value statements, representing the priorities of the people involved. So, as the Legislature convenes this week for a scheduled 105-day session that will include formation of the state government budget for the next two years, we offer some suggestions for delineating those priorities: For Southwest Washington lawmakers, a replacement Interstate 5 Bridge should be top of mind. Talks between local officials and Oregon representatives have cautiously started for the first time in five years, and legislators should work to build momentum for those discussions. Gov. Jay Inslee has recommended funding for an office to oversee the rekindled project, and local lawmakers should find unanimity in supporting that step. Their most important role, however, might be in convincing representatives from throughout the state of the projects importance and the role a new bridge would play in bolstering the economy. This does not mean that anybody has to commit to the details of a new crossing; it simply means that discussion is required and that other lawmakers must be prepared to jump on board when the time is right. Legislators last year thumbed their noses at the public in regard to open government. Rep. Vicki Kraft, R-Vancouver, was the only local lawmaker to oppose a bill that would have kept the public in the dark regarding some legislative emails and schedules; following outcry from citizens and the media, Inslee vetoed the bill. Lawmakers this year must err on the side of transparency and demonstrate that they remember who pays their salaries. They should adopt policies that allow the public to be informed about what their representatives are doing. Although voters in November rejected Initiative 1631, which would have imposed a fee on carbon emissions, climate change remains a pressing issue for Washington residents. The effects of a changing climate are readily apparent, and a vast majority of climate scientists have determined that human activity is contributing to those changes. Claiming that Washington already has low carbon emissions and that the state does not need to take action would amount to a moral failing. The state must take the lead in fighting climate change by reducing emissions and embracing the opportunities provided by a burgeoning green economy. The state should adopt a proposal that has been introduced in Congress tax polluters and return the money to the public to offset price increases that result from that tax. Tweaks will be required for the school funding bill passed last year. Most pressing is that educational leaders say the bill did not adequately fund education for special needs students. But while some changes will be necessary, lawmakers should avoid the temptation to increase the cap placed on local school levies. That cap was part of a grand bargain to protect taxpayers, and it will take several years to accurately assess its impact. The states mental health system is in need of an overhaul. A lack of care likely has contributed to the states homelessness and opioid crises, and persistent problems at Western State Hospital have been unacceptable. Inslee has proposed reconfiguring the system, moving toward decentralization and focusing on local treatment options. That marks a good starting point for the discussion. There undoubtedly will be other issues, as well items we have not thought of or that have yet to come to the forefront. But lawmakers will do well to keep their priorities straight over the next several months. NEW YORK, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, iconic Irish whiskey brand BUSHMILLS debuts RED. SET. GO.", a new high-energy creative campaign in honor of RED BUSH, the latest addition to the brand's award-winning portfolio of malt-rich blended and single malt Irish whiskeys. An Irish whiskey for the American bourbon drinker, RED BUSH, is aged in ex-bourbon barrels to deliver a rich, bold and complex taste profile. BUSHMILLS RED BUSH Presents: Red.Set.Go. Bushmills Red Bush Bushmills Red Bush Red.Set.Go. Created and produced by Virtue, VICE Media's celebrated creative agency, "RED. SET. GO." depicts a fresh, young, real version of Ireland by following a pack of Belfast locals from dusk to dawn on a lively night out, with RED BUSH in hand. The red-hued anthem immerses viewers in the Ireland unseen. Set in Belfast's alleyways, underground raves, tunnels and cobblestone streets, the :60 spot is backdropped against the gritty and intoxicating single "Louder" by Kid Karate. The ad showcases this group en route from one destination to another, because truly great nights are about the moments in-between and the anticipation of what's next. "The next generation of whiskey drinkers craves real experiences and honest brands we made 'RED. SET. GO.' for them," said Jeffrey Schiller, Brand Director of BUSHMILLS Irish Whiskey. "For so long, Irish whiskey has been about tall tales and green plastic hats on St. Patrick's Day, so 'Irish-ness' has almost become corrupted. We want to show America the real Ireland, and what better Irish whiskey than BUSHMILLS Ireland's oldest licensed whiskey distillery to show the way." "With 'RED. SET. GO.' we want to show the raw and electrifying Ireland that sets us apart from the romanticized vision of the country that is far too often portrayed," said Jess Toye, Creative Director at Virtue. "The sounds, the set, the people represent the real Belfast and convey the excitement and energy of the city." In 2019, BUSHMILLS will invest over $77 million to double production capacity over the next five years and meet the increasing demand for the BUSHMILLS portfolio while capitalizing on the continued growth of single malt and premium blended Irish whiskeys in the United States and beyond. RED BUSH is now one of the fastest growing new Irish whiskeys on the market, growing 96% in volume over the past year1. "RED.SET.GO." will be distributed digitally, socially and across TV nationwide beginning in mid-January 2019. As part of "RED.SET.GO.", RED BUSH will launch a live music series in Summer 2019. For more information on BUSHMILLS, please visit www.bushmills.com and @BushmillsUSA on Facebook and Instagram, #REALIRISH. About BUSHMILLS Irish Whiskey Bushmills Irish Whiskey is crafted at The Old Bushmills Distillery, the world's oldest licensed whiskey distillery, at Bushmills, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The brand portfolio includes a range of quality blended and fine single malts. Bushmills is one of few distilleries in Ireland to use malt barley to handcraft triple-distilled whiskey in small batches. This is at the heart of all Bushmills whiskeys and creates a unique combination of smoothness and richness. Visit Bushmills online at www.bushmills.com or at @BushmillsUSA on Facebook and Instagram. About PROXIMO PROXIMO is a global innovator of quality spirits that create excitement with every sip. Its unique portfolio of brands include the world's largest selling tequila Jose Cuervo, Bushmills Irish Whiskey, The Kraken Black Spiced Rum, TINCUP American Whiskey, Boodles British Gin and The Sexton Single Malt Irish Whiskey. www.proximospirits.com About VIRTUE Virtue is a global, full-service creative agency born out of VICE with 26 offices across the globe. Based in Brooklyn, Virtue lives in the heart of culture, helping brands embrace and connect with an audience that sees and navigates the world with more nuance and sophistication than ever before. Virtue develops brand platforms, programs and campaigns that are culturally-rooted and youth-focused for clients such as Asics, AB-InBev, Cazadores, Unilever, Google, Marriott Loyalty Rewards, Netflix and Vega, just to name a few. About Kid Karate Kid Karate formed as a formidable duo in 2013 in Dublin, Ireland. Now expanded to a powerful trio, they released the 5-song EP "Newspeak" in August 2018. They return to basics with RAW rock, recorded live, using mostly analog gear and minimal takes it's the sound of a band having fun in a room together and nothing more. 1 Nielsen P52 weeks ending 12/1/18 all outlets SOURCE BUSHMILLS MARLBOROUGH, Mass. and IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX) and Edwards Lifesciences Corporation (NYSE: EW) today announced that the companies have reached an agreement to settle all outstanding patent disputes between the companies in all venues around the world. All pending cases or appeals in courts and patent offices between the two companies will be dismissed, and the parties will not litigate patent disputes related to current portfolios of transcatheter aortic valves, certain mitral valve repair devices, and left atrial appendage closure devices. Any injunctions currently in place will be lifted. Under the terms of the agreement, Edwards has made a one-time payment to Boston Scientific of $180 million. No further royalties will be owed by either party under the agreement. All other terms remain confidential. About Boston Scientific Boston Scientific transforms lives through innovative medical solutions that improve the health of patients around the world. As a global medical technology leader for more than 35 years, we advance science for life by providing a broad range of high performance solutions that address unmet patient needs and reduce the cost of healthcare. For more information, visit www.bostonscientific.com and connect on Twitter and Facebook. About Edwards Lifesciences Edwards Lifesciences, based in Irvine, Calif., is the global leader in patient-focused medical innovations for structural heart disease, as well as critical care and surgical monitoring. Driven by a passion to help patients, the company collaborates with the world's leading clinicians and researchers to address unmet healthcare needs, working to improve patient outcomes and enhance lives. For more information, visit www.Edwards.com and follow us on Twitter @EdwardsLifesci. Contacts Boston Scientific Trish Backes Media Relations 651-582-5887 (office) [email protected] Susie Lisa, CFA Investor Relations (508) 683-5565 (office) [email protected] Edwards Lifesciences Media Contact: Sarah Huoh, 949-250-5070 Investor Contact: David K. Erickson, 949-250-6826 SOURCE Boston Scientific Corporation; Edwards Lifesciences Corporation Related Links http://www.bostonscientific.com TEWKSBURY, Mass., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- WellPet, LLC, the number-one independent, family-owned natural pet food company, announced that Bill McDonald has been elevated to the role of Chief Financial Officer. In this new position, he'll assist the WellPet family of brands as the company strives to further its global footprint and mission as a pioneer in natural pet food while providing oversight of budgeting, forecasting and strategic growth. Bill McDonald steps into elevated role as Chief Financial Officer of WellPet as the company continues global expansion. McDonald has been with WellPet for nearly a decade and has been instrumental in the company's recent growth. In his tenure, McDonald has contributed to the launch of numerous natural food and treat products for cats and dogs such as the move into raw nutrition and the expansion of Wellness Natural Pet Food to the UK and Asia Pacific markets. McDonald previously served as Senior Director of Financial Planning and Business Development and has been an integral leader of the company's acquisitions of Minneapolis-based Sojos and Netherlands-based WHIMZEES brands, which represent leading capabilities in the raw and freeze-dried pet food sector and the pet dental chews category respectively. His deep roots in finance also include management and financial planning roles for consumer brands and accounting roles for PricewaterhouseCoopers. "Bill has been a tremendous partner throughout his career at WellPet, and we are eager to welcome both his experience and strong passion for our business into the fold of our senior leadership team," said Camelle Kent, CEO of WellPet. "It was immediately clear that Bill was the best choice for the role, and being able to recognize and promote him from within makes this appointment even sweeter for the WellPet family." In his new role, McDonald will have a hand in multiple departments across the company, working closely with corporate controls, information technology, financial planning and manufacturing. "My ten years at WellPet have given me an amazing opportunity to get to know the business and our brands from the inside out. This next step will give me the chance to harness that expertise to help us continue our growth and introduce even more pet parents to the value of national nutrition," said McDonald. "I look forward to building relationships with the full global leadership team as we continue to drive our business forward." McDonald lives with his family in Westborough, MA and is preparing for the arrival of a new puppy. He will continue to operate out of the company's headquarters in Tewksbury, Mass. To learn more about WellPet and its family of brands, visit www.wellpet.com . About WellPet, LLC: WellPet, the number-one, independent, family-owned natural pet food company is home to premium pet food brands Wellness, Old Mother Hubbard, Eagle Pack, Holistic Select, Sojos and WHIMZEES. For more than 100 years, WellPet has delivered on the promise of doing whatever it takes to make the healthiest natural products for the pets that depend on us. Today, our team of animal lovers, nutritionists and vets at WellPet are committed to carrying forth our strong heritage, continuing to find new ways to bring innovation, nutritional excellence and product quality to our family of natural brands, always putting pet health first. For more information, visit www.wellpet.com . SOURCE WellPet, LLC Related Links http://www.wellpet.com "We are excited to have Minoo join our team," comments John Bennett, Chief Underwriting Officer at Preferred Employers Insurance. "Her extensive experience in the California workers' compensation market will serve our broker partners well in the important middle market segment." Preferred Employers Insurance, a Berkley Company, was founded in San Diego, CA in 1998. The company is known for serving its brokers and policyholders with the best combination of price and workers' compensation insurance services available in the state of California. Visit www.peiwc.com for more information. Please contact your insurance broker to access the products and services of Preferred Employers Insurance, a Berkley Company. Further information: peiwc.com SOURCE Preferred Employers Insurance Related Links http://www.peiwc.com LOS ANGELES, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- To inaugurate its 90th year of providing quality apparel for the healthcare, food service and hospitality industries, Barco Uniforms today announced the launch of its "Made to Matter" campaign. The campaign will debut in catalogs mailed to retail partners in mid-January, and will appear on the new corporate website which is set to launch at the end of the month. The "Made to Matter" campaign highlights the company's core belief that people in the healthcare and service industries are multidimensional humans with their own experiences of risk, vulnerability and struggle. Healthcare and service industry professionals come in all sizes, colors, genders and ages, and their work may not be tidy or glamorous, but it is always meaningful. Barco celebrates those whose profession involves serving others, by designing apparel with purposeful innovation to enhance their lives. Since its founding in 1929, Barco has maintained its focus on comfort, performance and quality while continuing to grow and innovate. Whether it's pioneering the use of nylon or creating scrubs infused with health-promoting bio-minerals, Barco has understood that the apparel it makes is more than just a uniform. Every pattern, stitch, pocket, snap, zipper and waistband is designed to make a difference in the lives of those who serve others. Barco's mission is to help those who matter most, matter more. Caring for others has always been the beating heart of Barco's brand, from the products they make, the way they treat their customers, vendors and employees, and the good they do out in the world. "For 90 years, Barco has been guided by values like humility, integrity, respect, compassion, and love," says Barco President and CEO David Murphy. "Our goal of improving more lives in more places continues to inspire us every day, and we feel that this new campaign 'Made to Matter' honors our past as we move into the future." The "Made to Matter" campaign brings Barco's message to stores, catalogs and marketing materials in 2019. About Barco Uniforms Founded in 1929, Barco Uniforms is a leader of design innovation in the premium professional apparel industry, designing award-winning premium uniforms that elevate and honor the individual in the healthcare, food service and hospitality industries. Barco Uniforms is headquartered in Los Angeles with approximately 225+ local employees across multiple disciplines including design, product development, marketing, sales, supply chain, and distribution. For more information, visit www.barcouniforms.com In 2008, Barco's Nightingales Foundation (BNF) was founded by Barcos Chairman of the Board, Michael Donner and his wife Frida in hopes of lifting-up the lives of children around the world, in honor of Healthcare Professionals. http://www.barcosnightingales.org/ For more information on Barco Uniforms or Barco's Nightingales Foundation visit: www.barcouniforms.com . You can follow the company at www.instagram.com/barco.uniforms/ , www.facebook.com/barcouniforms/ , https://twitter.com/BarcoUniforms and www.pinterest.com/barcouniforms/ . SOURCE Barco Uniforms Related Links http://www.barcouniforms.com BOSTON, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- GMO GlobalSign ( www.globalsign.com ), a global Certificate Authority and leading provider of identity and security solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT), today announced that banking software provider, Excubia, is now a Digital Signing Service (DSS) customer. Originally a user of GlobalSign's hosted Hardware Security Module (HSM) solution, Excubia transitioned to the DSS offering earlier this year. With the cloud-based service, Excubia is seeing a decrease in signing times, a substantial reduction in latency and decreased reliance on relay servers all while realizing cost savings and without having to make significant code changes. Excubia is an ESIGN-compliant document exchange, signing and chat platform tailored to the specific needs of financial institutions. The platform facilitates digital interaction between banks and consumers from loan application through origination and beyond. Excubia is taking advantage of DSS' high throughput, enabling signatures to be applied instantly and at multiple times throughout a document. "HSM solutions certainly have their benefits, however the costs to continue on that path were adding up, so a switch to GlobalSign's digital signing service made a lot of sense for us," said Excubia's Chief Technology Officer Bryan Reaves. "With DSS, latency has been reduced by 40 percent and I'm no longer worried about our relay server and the hosted HSM being single points of failure. Overall I am extremely pleased with this solution." DSS is a highly scalable, cloud-based offering that enables users to deploy digital signatures into any application with one simple REST API integration. This means all supporting cryptographic components, including signing certificates, key management, timestamping server, and OCSP or CRL service, are provided in one API call with minimal development or overhead needed and no on-premises hardware to manage. Fintech's growing interest in digital signing solutions From simple banking transactions to loans, mortgages, insurance policies and more, the laws for electronic signatures such as the Fair Lending Act in the U.S. and eIDAS in Europe, GlobalSign's DSS is becoming extremely attractive to financial technology companies as the days of the 'wet signature' continue to wane. Some of the world's largest banks are now implementing digital signatures to reduce friction around document management and contract signing between them and corporate customers. In addition, by not complying with these new laws, businesses could be at risk for tremendous fines making solutions like DSS even more necessary. "We're extremely pleased with how well DSS has been working for Excubia. A feature-rich and collaborative digital signature service, it is an ideal solution that removes serious concerns such as single points of failure all while providing cost savings," said Lila Kee, General Manager, Americas, GlobalSign. She added, "Excubia is just one of a growing number of customers in the Fintech space, and other markets, that have either deployed DSS or are currently testing it. The interest and growth are real, especially in the last several quarters worldwide, and in fact, our DSS sales and inquiries in 2018 increased more than 400 percent across the globe. As a result, we are very bullish about the future of this offering." About Excubia Excubia Solutions is an innovative fintech startup developing solutions to facilitate secure document exchange, digital document signing, electronic workflow management, and automated customer outreach for banks, credit unions, private lenders, and other financial services firms. Through high scalability, strong security, and systems efficiency, our solutions provide a powerful communication channel between financial institutions and end users throughout the world. Learn more about Excubia Solutions at https://www.excubia.com. About GMO GlobalSign GlobalSign is the leading provider of trusted identity and security solutions enabling businesses, large enterprises, cloud-based service providers and IoT innovators around the world to conduct secure online communications, manage millions of verified digital identities and automate authentication and encryption. Its high-scale PKI and identity solutions support the billions of services, devices, people and things comprising the Internet of Everything (IoE). The company has offices in the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit https://www.globalsign.com. About GMO Cloud KK GMO Cloud K.K. (TSE: 3788) is a full-service IT infrastructure provider focused on cloud solutions. Established as a hosting company in 1996, the company has managed servers for more than 130,000 businesses and now has 6,500 sales partners throughout Japan. In February of 2011, the company launched GMO Cloud to enhance its focus on cloud-based solutions. Since 2007, the company has also grown its GlobalSign SSL security brand through offices in Belgium, U.K., U.S., China and Singapore. For more information, visit http://ir.gmocloud.com/english/. About GMO Internet Group GMO Internet Group is an Internet services industry leader, developing and operating Japan's most widely used domain, hosting & cloud, ecommerce, security, and payment solutions. The Group also includes the world's largest online FX trading platform, as well as online advertising, Internet media, and cryptocurrency related services. GMO Internet, Inc. (TSE: 9449) is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. For more information, please visit https://www.gmo.jp/en/. Media Relations Contact: Amy Krigman GlobalSign Public Relations Manager Phone: 603-570-7091 Email: [email protected] SOURCE GlobalSign Related Links https://www.globalsign.com VANCOUVER, Wash., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Banfield Pet Hospital announced that one year after launching its Veterinary Student Debt Relief Pilot Program, the practice has contributed more than $4 million toward helping its veterinarians pay off their student loans, and enabled over $10 million in educational debt refinancing for its associates. Studies suggest U.S. student debt has reached more than $1 trillion, yet recent surveys estimate a mere four percent of companies offer student loan repayment programs to employees.1 Banfield's Veterinary Student Debt Pilot Program was created first and foremost to support the financial health of its doctors, but also to set the bar for the veterinary profession to help begin to address this industry-wide issue. "Our goal with the Veterinary Student Debt Relief Pilot Program and all of our Health and Wellbeing initiatives is to support our veterinary professionals in doing what they do best: delivering high-quality, compassionate care to pets," said Stephanie Neuvirth, Senior Vice President of People & Organization, Banfield Pet Hospital. "We hope to not only alleviate the financial burdens our associates face, but also inspire people to enter the field who might otherwise be discouraged due to the significant educational debt they'll acquire." Designed to help relieve the significant financial burden faced by veterinarians and promote the financial health and wellbeing of its doctors, Banfield is encouraged by the meaningful impact this program has had on thousands of doctors in just one year. "Like many early career veterinarians, I graduated with a significant amount of student debt," says Kirk Breuninger, VMD, Banfield Pet Hospital. "Participating in Banfield's Veterinary Student Debt Relief Pilot Program not only took years off my loan, but more importantly, gave me peace of mind and a new level of financial freedom. Many veterinarians carry a staggering and overwhelming amount of student debt, and I'm incredibly proud to work for a company that listens to its associates and makes investments to help meet their needs." For more information on the Banfield Veterinary Student Debt Relief Pilot Program, visit Banfield.com/about-us/community/wellness-our-people/veterinary-student-debt-relief. About Banfield Pet Hospital Founded in Portland, Ore. in 1955, Banfield is the largest general-veterinary practice in the U.S. In 2007, Banfield joined the Mars, Inc. family of businesses, and today has more than 1,000 hospitals across the United States and Puerto Rico. More than 3,600 Banfield veterinarians are committed to providing high-quality veterinary care for over three million pets annually. In 2018, Banfield, including the work of the Banfield Foundation, was named among Points of Light's The Civic 50 as one of the most community-minded companies in the U.S. for the second consecutive year. Press seeking additional information are invited to call the Media Hotline : (888) 355-0595. 1 Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 2018. Student Loans Owned and Securitized, Outstanding. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SLOAS. Accessed December 2018. SOURCE Banfield Pet Hospital Related Links https://www.banfield.com NEW YORK, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- GPB Capital Holdings, LLC (GPB Capital) congratulates David Rosenberg, CEO of Prime Automotive Group (Prime), for being honored by Automotive News as one of the publication's "2018 All Stars." Mr. Rosenberg was named the Automotive News "2018 All Star, Dealer-Private." The annual Automotive News All Stars listing highlights automotive industry executives who have had the greatest impact on the sector over the previous year. A list of all honorees is available online at: https://www.autonews.com/awards/all-stars. "We could not be more proud of David Rosenberg and the commitment to customers and employees that he and his team demonstrate every day," said David Gentile, Founder and CEO of GPB Capital. "We are glad Automotive News has spotlighted David and Prime Automotive Group for helping consumers throughout New England purchase new and used vehicles that best meet their needsand continuing to serve those consumers with maintenance and repair services long after they've purchased their vehicles." Under Mr. Rosenberg's leadership, Prime launched the Prime Flip vehicle-subscription program in June 2018 for customers in suburban Boston. Prime Flip offers members easy access to premium and luxury sedans, convertibles, coupes, crossovers, pickups, and SUVs, which they can request using the program's smartphone app. Prime has also been working with GPB Capital to develop proprietary customer service software to streamline operations, generate operational efficiencies, and lower costs across all dealerships, as well as open its own body shops to expand and improve the auto maintenance and repair services provided to customers. Prime was formed following GPB Capital's acquisition of a majority equity stake in Westwood, Massachusetts-based Prime Motor Group, which was finalized in October 2017. For more information about Prime, please visit: https://www.driveprime.com/. Mr. Rosenberg and his family have a stellar reputation as automotive retailers in New England built on decades of experience and trust. Mr. Rosenberg's father, Ira, founded Ira Motor Group, one of the most well-known auto dealership groups in Boston. Upon taking over from his father in 1998, Mr. Rosenberg facilitated the sale of Ira Motor Group to Group 1 Automotive (NYSE: GPI) in 2000 and stayed on as Platform President until 2006, when he left to focus on founding and expanding Prime. "Our management team is deeply attuned to ongoing changes in the automotive retail industry, and with operational and financial support from GPB Capital, we have been able to stay one step ahead while continuing to meet the needs of our customers, employees, and communities," said David Rosenberg, CEO of Prime Automotive Group. "We will continue to seek opportunities to grow our market share in New England and expand the suite of vehicles, and parts and services, we can offer customers." About GPB Capital Holdings, LLC GPB Capital is a New York-based alternative asset management firm that seeks to acquire income-producing private companies. GPB Capital seeks to provide its operating companies with the strategic planning, managerial insight, and capital needed to enable strong businesses to achieve the next level of growth and profitability. GPB Capital has raised more than $1.5 billion in capital. For more information, please visit www.gpb-cap.com. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. GPB Capital is an independent registered investment adviser registered under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended. Registration does not imply a specific level of skill or training. More information about GPB capital, including our investment strategies, fees, and objectives, can be found in our ADV Part 2, which is available upon request. Media Contact: Dana Taormina JConnelly for GPB Capital 973.850.7305 [email protected] SOURCE GPB Capital Holdings, LLC CHICAGO, January 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new market research report "Automatic Weapons Market by Product (Automatic Rifle, Machine Gun, Automatic launchers, Automatic Cannon, Gatling Gun), End Use (Land, Airborne, Naval, Handheld & Stationary), Caliber (Small, Medium, Large), Type, and Region - Global Forecast to 2023", published by MarketsandMarkets, the Automatic Weapons Market is projected to grow from USD 6.0 billion to USD 8.7 billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 7.82% from 2018 to 2023. This growth can be attributed to the increasing incidences of armed conflicts, war, and terrorism, which are driving the demand for automatic weapons globally. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/660509/MarketsandMarkets_Logo.jpg ) Ask for PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=197447555 Based on end use, the naval segment is expected to lead the automatic weapons market during the forecast period. Based on end use, the automatic weapons market is estimated to be led by the naval segment from 2018 to 2023. Automatic weapons on naval platforms are multi-configurable and can be mounted on Close-in Weapon System (CIWS), a fully automatic system that can search, detect, and evaluate the threat and track, engage, and destroy targets on its own. Countries such as the US, Russia, and China are investing more in automated technologies and focusing on manufacturing a wide range of offensive weapons systems. For instance, in January 2018, BAE Systems was awarded a contract worth USD 46.8 million by the US Navy to upgrade the existing MK45 naval guns to increase the firepower and extend the range of the weapons. The automatic rifles segment is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The automatic weapons market has been analyzed and segmented based on product into automatic rifles, machine guns, automatic launchers, automatic cannons, and Gatling guns. The automatic weapons market is led by the automatic rifles segment and also projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Fully-automatic automatic rifles allow quick succession of firing of bullets. There have been significant developments in the conventional automatic rifles prototype design. Next Generation Squad Automatic Rifle (NGSAR) are the example of modern automatic rifles. Textron systems, FN America, General Dynamics, Si Bauer and PCP Tactical are developing prototypes for the Armys Next Generation Squad Automatic Rifle to replace the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon currently used. Browse in-depth TOC on "Automatic Weapons Market" 152 - Tables 46 - Figures 186 - Pages Asia Pacific is projected to be the next opportunistic market for automatic weapons. The rapid growth of the automatic weapons market in Asia Pacific can be attributed to the increasing defense budgets to innovate and develop robust precision weapon systems by emerging countries, such as China and India. For instance, India-based companies, such as Mahindra Defense Systems and Bharat Electronics, recently launched their newly developed remote weapon stations for armored vehicles. China is estimated to account for the largest share of the Asia Pacific automatic weapons market in 2018. This rapid growth can be attributed to the increasing research & development activities undertaken in the region for the development of advanced technology-based designs of remote weapon stations. Get 10% Free Customization on this Report: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestCustomizationNew.asp?id=197447555 Companies such as General Dynamics Corporation (US), Northrop Grumman (US), Rheinmetall AG (Germany), ST Engineering (Singapore), KBP Instrument Design Bureau (Russia), Heckler & Koch AG (Germany), FN Herstal (Belgium), Colt's Manufacturing Company LLC (US), Israel Weapon Industries (Israel), NORINCO (China), Denel Land Systems (South Africa), Kalashnikov Concern (Russia), BAE Systems (UK), Barrett Firearms Manufacturing (US), and Ukroboronprom (Ukraine) are some of the leading players have made significant contribution to the global automatic weapons market. Please Explore Relevant Reports: Turret System Market by Platform (Land, Naval, Airborne), Type (Manned, Unmanned), Component (Turret Drive, Turret Control Unit, Stabilization Control), and Region - Global Forecast to 2022 Remote Weapon Station Market by Application (Military, Homeland Security), Platform (Land, Airborne, Naval), Component (Sensors, HMI, Weapons & Armaments), Weapon Type (Lethal, Non-lethal), Mobility, Technology, and Region - Global Forecast to 2023 About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve. MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "Knowledge Store" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. Contact: Mr. Shelly Singh MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA: +1-888-600-6441 Email: [email protected] Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/automatic-weapons-market.asp Visit Our Web Site: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com SOURCE MarketsandMarkets LAS VEGAS, Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - Australis Capital Inc. (CSE: AUSA) ("Australis" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the Company has invested $3,000,000 USD in Folium Biosciences ("Folium"), the largest vertically integrated producer, manufacturer, and distributor of hemp derived phytocannabinoids in the United States. Folium also owns and operates the largest phytocannabinoid extraction and purification facility in the United States, with plans for a new pharmaceutical division and the completion of their Canadian facility in 2019. "With the passing of the 2018 Farm Bill and the floodgates opening for this vibrant and exciting industry, we are poised for strong growth this year," said Kashif Shan, CEO of Folium. "As a global industry leader and authority in PCR hemp oil extraction and product development, we welcome Australis' participation in this private placement as we continue to pave the way and dominate the marketplace." Supplying the market with its own unique 0.0% THC phytocannabinoid-rich hemp oil, Folium is a global leader in non-psychoactive cannabinoids. Folium's chromatographic purification process selectively removes the psychoactive component from the phytocannabinoid-rich hemp oil. Folium is certified by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment as a producer of 0.0% THC products, including CBD hemp oil, CBD gel caps, water soluble CBD, Cannabidiol HYDROPCR, CBD e-liquid, CBD concentrates, CBD for pets, CBD salves and balms, CBD tinctures, CBD face masks, and white-label CBD products. "Our strategic investment in Folium Biosciences provides Australis and our brands access to the leading player in the fast-evolving United States CBD market," said Scott Dowty, CEO of Australis. "Folium's breadth of expertise, spanning production, extraction, branding and commercialization, will greatly benefit Australis as we introduce and expand our CBD product offerings in the United States in the months and years ahead." About Australis Capital Inc. Australis Capital identifies and invests in the cannabis industry predominately in the United States, a highly regulated, fragmented, rapidly expanding and evolving industry. Investments may include and are not limited to equity, debt or other securities of both public and private companies, financings in exchange for royalties or other distribution streams, and control stake acquisitions. Australis Capital adheres to stringent investment criteria and will focus on significant near and mid-term high-quality opportunities with strong return potentials while maintaining a steadfast commitment to governance and community. Australis Capital's Board members and Management have material experience with, and knowledge of, the cannabis space in the U.S., extensive backgrounds in highly regulated industries, adherence to stringent regulatory compliance, public company and operational expertise. In addition to the Company's expertise and strong execution on strategic M&A, which to date includes Rthm Technologies Inc., Body and Mind Inc. and Quality Green Inc., Australis has developed strategic partnerships with companies such as Wagner Dimas. Australis' Common shares trade on the CSE under the symbol "AUSA". For further information about Australis, please visit the website at ausacap.com or contact the Company by e-mail at [email protected]. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS "Scott Dowty" ________________________________ Scott Dowty Chief Executive Officer Forward-Looking Information Statement This news release contains statements and information that, to the extent that they are not historical fact, constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation, including statements in respect of future CBD product offerings. Forward-looking information is based on the reasonable assumptions, estimates, analysis and opinions of management made in light of its experience and its perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances at the date that such statements are made, but which may prove to be incorrect. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking information. Further, any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which such statement is made. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for the Company's management to predict all of such factors and to assess in advance the impact of each such factor on the Company's business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking information to reflect information, events, results, circumstances or otherwise after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law including securities laws. The CSE has in no way passed upon the merits of the Transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE Australis Capital Inc. Posted Tuesday, January 15, 2019 10:25 am We pulled away branches, slogged through wet weeds and tripped over blackberry brambles, all in search of a grave marker on the south side of Spencer Road. A month ago, fellow historian Michele McGeoghegan and I met with Ruth Herren to see the map she owns of the old Cowlitz Farm, which was established by Great Britains Hudsons Bay Co. in the late 1830s to grow supplies for Fort Vancouver and for export. French-Canadians working for the Puget Sound Agricultural Company operated the farm. The map details crops cultivated between 1845 and 1848, with fields of 105 acres each labeled wheat, timothy, grass, clover, oats pease, and turnips. One large portion was listed as manured. During our visit, Herren told us about the headstone on property she owns on the south side of Spencer Road on what used to be Cowlitz Farm property. The property has been in her husbands family since Adonirum Judson A.J. Herren and his family settled there in the late 1880s. A.J. was the grandfather of Ruths late husband, Robert Herren. McGeoghegan and I set out the next day to find the grave. Despite our best efforts tromping and scrambling through the weeds, we never stumbled upon the headstone marking the grave in what was once known as the Roberts Cemetery, or alternatively the Howe Cemetery. The headstone marks the grave of Emma Margaret (Roberts) Phillips, the daughter of Cowlitz Farm overseer George B. Roberts and his wife, Martha, who were both natives of England. They married in 1843 and settled at Fort Vancouver in 1844. Martha (Cable) Roberts was said to be the first white woman to live at Fort Vancouver, according to The Toledo Community Story. She gave birth to a son, George Roberts Jr., in 1845, at the fort. The family moved north to Cowlitz Farm in 1846, and Martha had her first daughter, Frances, in 1848, and Emma on Feb. 15, 1850. But typhoid swept through the farm and Martha died July 27, 1850. She was only 31, and is said to be the first white woman buried in what became Washington. Emma married J.T. Phillips Feb. 12, 1869, but she died March 5 the following year while giving birth to a son, Fred. She was just shy of 20. According to information on files.usgwarchives.net/wa/lewis/cemeteries/roberts.txt, the cemetery also contains a grave without a marker but bound by a handmade picket fence with wooden pegs. Bob Herren, who died in 2005, had said most of the graves were moved to the Winlock Cemetery years ago, but sunken areas of the ground indicate the former location of graves, perhaps some of them those of Native Americans. The information about the cemetery also notes that Frances Roberts was buried there. She died Dec. 10, 1867. In his later years, Roberts lamented having to give up the graves of his wife and children to the American squatters of 54 and 55, namely Jackson Barton, Thomas Pearson, J.L. Finch, Horace Howe, and James Galloway. These men staked out donation land claims on what had been the British-owned Cowlitz Farm after the boundary between the United States and Great Britain was established at the 49th parallel in 1846. Thats not the only place in Lewis County where bodies are buried on private property. The Jackson Cemetery south of North Prairie Road contained about eight graves, including two of the sons of Matilda (Glover) Koontz, who married John R. Jackson. Her 14-year-old son, Felix Grundy Koontz, died Dec. 7, 1855, of what was then called white swelling of the knee. His older brother, Henry, drowned in the Cowlitz River June 1, 1857, at the age of 18, and he is buried nearby. Altogether, according to a findagrave.com write-up, the cemetery on the John Kemp property contained about eight graves. Among those was Schuyler Stuart Saunders, founder of Chehalis and the husband of Eliza (Tynan) Saunders, who fell ill and died at the Jacksons home near present-day Marys Corner Feb. 4, 1861. Vandals destroyed some of markers, and a man in October 1977 took some of the stones and built them into his fireplace. But headstones for the Jackson boys remained. Fortunately, the Lewis County Historical Museum has photos of those headstones, which I was able to include in my book about Matilda Koontz Jackson. Years ago, while searching our property online using the Lewis County Assessors Offices GIS mapping system, I discovered a cemetery district owns land at the corner of Schoolhouse Lane and Tucker Road. What? I wondered if they planned to create a cemetery near our place. It wasnt until a year ago when I interviewed Pauline Sabin that I learned a cemetery already existed at that location, although few traces of it remain. An idiomatic expression referred to the remotest quarter of the old 160-acre homesteads as the back forty. Now I know they truly did bury their bodies on the back forty. Watch your step in the hinterlands of Lewis County. Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at chaptersoflife1999@gmail.com. SPRINGVILLE, Utah, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- ATL Technology, a leader in custom-engineered interconnect and medical devices, has announced its participation and expanded presence at MD&M West, one of the leading trade shows in the medical device and manufacturing space in North America. This three-day event will be held on February 5-7, 2019 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA. Coming off a 2018 with numerous major engineering and manufacturing successes and substantial year-over-year growth, ATLexhibiting in booth 2397has decided to expand its presence at one of the industry's preeminent trade show in hopes of sharing its expertise and advances in chip-on-tip technology, miniaturization/high-density connectors, and fine wire and catheter extrusion. "With more than 19,000 attendees and 2,000 exhibitorsincluding the largest companies in the industryMD&M West presents a unique opportunity to get our best-in-class products and engineering expertise out to the industry," stated ATL Technology's CEO, Brad Brown. "This show brings together OEMs, engineers and other industry personnel looking to discover the latest in medical device technologyincluding the connections that ensure their successand we're excited to share all we've learned." ATL's attendee includes Brad Brown, CEO, Dave Gen, President & COO, Ryan Kunz, VP of Engineering, David Smith, VP of Sales and a highly-specialized team of Medical Device and interconnect sales and engineering consultants. About ATL Technology Based in Utah's "Silicon Slopes" and founded in 1993, ATL Technology combines the industry's best engineering experts and technology to deliver connectivity solutions for market-leading devices. With a domestic development center and offices around the world, ATL uses local teams and wholly owned global execution resources to take devices from concept to prototype and into scalable production. Turnkey interconnect solutions from ATL include connectors, wire design, overmolding, wire harness automation, surface mount technology (SMT) and injection molding. SOURCE ATL Technology Related Links http://atltechnology.com SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- AmeriNat, an industry-leading servicer of economic development loans with approximately 300 clients throughout the United States, today announced its appointment as the exclusive loan servicer with Puerto Rico's GDB Debt Recovery Authority. According to Adrienne Thorson, Chairwoman and CEO of AmeriNat, the 44-year old business recently opened an office in San Juan and is employing local staff dedicated to helping borrowers resolve their financial issues and to maximizing loan portfolio value for bondholders. Adrienne Thorson, CEO of AmeriNat "AmeriNat is trusted as a loan servicer by hundreds of clients in both the private and public sector and that high level of experience will help ensure the most successful resolution of the municipal and public agency debt in Puerto Rico," Thorson said. "The AmeriNat team is looking forward to furthering a successful outcome of the GDB Restructuring Act and to be a critical part of the forward-movement overall of the island's municipal financial capabilities," she added. In addition to its status as a leading servicer of economic development loans, AmeriNat also is a leading servicer of loans for Habitat for Humanity and other affordable housing programs. "AmeriNat brings sensitivity and a diligence to communication with each borrower that translates into success for its clients," Thorson explained. AmeriNat has a long-standing business relationship with Caribbean Investment & Acquisition ("CIAC"), a Puerto Rico-based asset manager. CIAC was instrumental in the DRA contracting process and will assist AmeriNat in servicing the portfolio. About AmeriNat AmeriNat is an industry leader in servicing loan portfolios owned or originated by government, quasi-government, financial institutions, private investors and non-profit entities nationwide. Founded in 1975, AmeriNat manages more than $12 billion in loans and related deposits for approximately 300 city, county, state, PACE and NGO clients (including more than 100 Habitat for Humanity affiliates). AmeriNat is a registered or licensed loan servicer in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico in addition to being approved by HUD and Fannie Mae. Additional information available at www.amerinatls.com Contact: Adrienne Thorson, Chairwoman and CEO (866) 779-5545 [email protected] SOURCE AmeriNat Related Links http://www.amerinatls.com HOUSTON, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- American Surgical Professionals is pleased to announce that Matthew C. French has been named Vice President of Surgical Operations, reporting to Thomas Kirk, Chairman and CEO. In this role he will have responsibility for all surgical assist operating activities specifically, enhancing client satisfaction and relationships; attracting, retaining and developing quality surgical assistants; overseeing case load management and scheduling; ensuring employee technical and clinical competence; identifying new growth opportunities; monitoring payer reimbursement conditions and directing the regulatory affairs efforts. Mr. French brings almost 20 years of hospital, medical group and alternative healthcare delivery venue operations as well as a track record of successful business development to this position. Most recently, French was Vice President of Physician Practice Operations; and before this, he served as Associate Vice President at Memorial Hermann Medical Group in Houston. This Group employs more than 300 providers, 900 administrative and support staff serving patients in 80 locations. Before joining Memorial Hermann in 2012, Matt was Chief Operating Officer for Premier Healthcare in Bloomington, IN, a physician owned multi-specialty group and before this, he was Vice President, Operations, Physician Network and Business Development at Monroe Hospital also in Bloomington. Preceding these roles, he served as Director of Market Development at Kindred Healthcare in Chicago and Marketing Manager at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis, IN. In each of these positions he led a variety of performance improvement projects, implemented management decision support tools and championed growth projects that had profound impacts on these organizations. Tom Kirk stated, "Matt's acceptance of this leadership position will ensure continuity to our ongoing efforts to improve our value to the surgeons, facilities and patients we serve. Also, I am excited that his background includes growing new business opportunities along with his focus on profit improvement both of which will provide great benefit to our company." Matt has a BS degree from Ball State University and an MBA from Indiana Institute of Technology and is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives and the Medical Group Management Association. Contact Jimmy Giles VP Human Resources 832-397-6911 SOURCE American Surgical Professionals Related Links http://www.amerisurg.com AGOURA HILLS, Calif., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- American Homes 4 Rent (NYSE: AMH) (the "Company") today announced that its operating partnership, American Homes 4 Rent, L.P. (the "Operating Partnership"), has priced an offering of $400 million aggregate principal amount of 4.900% Senior Notes due 2029 (the "Notes"). The Notes will be issued at 99.486% of par value with a coupon of 4.900% per annum. Interest on the Notes is payable semi-annually in arrears on February 15 and August 15 of each year, commencing August 15, 2019. The Notes will mature on February 15, 2029. The offering is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close on or about January 23, 2019. The Operating Partnership intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to repay amounts outstanding on its revolving credit facility and any remaining net proceeds for general corporate purposes, including, without limitation, acquisitions of additional properties, the repayment of outstanding indebtedness, capital expenditures, the expansion, redevelopment and/or improvement of properties in its portfolio, working capital and other general purposes, including repurchases of securities. J.P. Morgan, BofA Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any offer or sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful before registration or qualification thereof under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. The offering is being made pursuant to an effective shelf registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") and only by means of a prospectus and prospectus supplement. Copies of the prospectus and the final prospectus supplement, when available, may be obtained by visiting EDGAR on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov or from J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, 383 Madison Avenue, New York, New York, 10179, Attention: Investment Grade Syndicate Desk, 3rd Floor, telephone collect at 1-212-834-4533; Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, Attention: Prospectus Department, 200 North College Street, NC1-004-03-43, Charlotte, North Carolina 28255-0001, telephone toll-free at 1-800-294-1322; and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10014, telephone toll-free at 1-866-718-1649. About American Homes 4 Rent American Homes 4 Rent (NYSE: AMH) is a leader in the single-family home rental industry and "American Homes 4 Rent" is fast becoming a nationally recognized brand for rental homes, known for high quality, good value and tenant satisfaction. We are an internally managed Maryland real estate investment trust, or REIT, focused on acquiring, renovating, leasing, and operating attractive, single-family homes as rental properties. As of September 30, 2018, we owned approximately 52,464 single-family properties, in selected submarkets in 22 states. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking statements." These forward-looking statements relate to beliefs, expectations or intentions and similar statements concerning matters that are not of historical fact and are generally accompanied by words such as "estimate," "project," "predict," "believe," "expect," "intend," "anticipate," "potential," "plan," "goal" or other words that convey the uncertainty of future events or outcomes. These forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, the Operating Partnership's ability to complete the offering and the intended use of net proceeds. The Operating Partnership has based these forward-looking statements on its current expectations and assumptions about future events. While the Operating Partnership's management considers these expectations to be reasonable, they are inherently subject to risks, contingencies and uncertainties, most of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the Operating Partnership's control. These and other important factors, including "Risk Factors" disclosed in, or incorporated by reference into, the prospectus from the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017 and in the Company's and the Operating Partnership's subsequent filings with the SEC, may cause the Operating Partnership's actual results to differ materially from anticipated results expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Contact: American Homes 4 Rent Investor Relations Phone: (855) 794-2447 Email: [email protected] SOURCE American Homes 4 Rent Related Links https://www.americanhomes4rent.com ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Alliance of Museums (AAM), the only organization representing the entire scope of the museum community, today launched an unprecedented national initiative to diversify museum boards and leadership. Backed by $4 million in grants from three foundations (The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Alice L. Walton Foundation, and Ford Foundation), "Facing Change: Advancing Museum Board Diversity & Inclusion," will provide the framework, training, and resources for museum leaders to build inclusive cultures within their institutions that more accurately reflect the communities they serve. The three-year grant is the largest in AAM's 113-year history and will fund diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion work starting this year. The triumvirate collaboration between The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Alice L. Walton Foundation, and Ford Foundation is also the first of its kind for the museum sector. "To make real and lasting change, work needs to be done at the top where the tone and priorities for each museum are established," said Laura Lott, president and CEO of the Alliance. "Museum trustees and leaders can and must do more. Complementing the hard work and investments being made to diversify the talent pool, programming, and collections of museums, AAM aims to drive long-lasting systemic culture change. Thanks to the leadership, courage, and generosity of our three partner foundations, we will work steadfastly to sharpen the focus on museum boards and directors as agents of this vital change." Through a systematic, multi-tiered effort, "Facing Change: Advancing Museum Board Diversity & Inclusion" will catalyze museum leaders to develop and implement measurable plans and practices across the field. The Need For Action AAM's field-wide diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI) initiative responds to extensive and multi-year research that underscores the need and desire for change. In 2017, AAM and BoardSource examined museum board leadership and found a disconnect in the area of diversity and inclusion. The survey revealed that nearly half (46 percent) of museum boards are entirely white, 77 percent of museum directors believe expanding the racial and ethnic diversity of their boards is important to advancing their missions, but only 10 percent of museum boards have developed a plan of action to become more inclusive. A recent survey by the Mellon Foundation demonstrated that employment in the US museum sector does not reflect the makeup of the communities these institutions serve, despite decades of local and national efforts. A Plan For Change AAM's Facing Change report, issued last year by a working group of museum professionals co-chaired by Lott and DEAI champion Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole, asserted that systemic change is vital to long-term genuine progress as is inclusive leadership at all levels of an organization. The funded initiative will ignite systemic change across the museum sector by focusing its efforts on leadership engagement, the most significant predictor of an organization's diversity and inclusion effectiveness. Major program components include: Fieldwide standards and programs to advance excellence in diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion , based on AAM's existing Continuum of Excellenceincluding the field's prestigious accreditation program that has served as a pillar and guidepost for the museum field for nearly 50 years , based on AAM's existing Continuum of Excellenceincluding the field's prestigious accreditation program that has served as a pillar and guidepost for the museum field for nearly 50 years Inclusive leadership development for 50 museums in five to-be-selected cities across the US, supported by senior fellows to be named by the Alliance and culminating in the development and implementation of sustainable inclusion plans tailored to the needs of each museum in five to-be-selected cities across the US, supported by senior fellows to be named by the Alliance and culminating in the development and implementation of sustainable inclusion plans tailored to the needs of each museum Online resource center for inclusive museum governance , with case studies, sample documents, and custom content for thousands of museums , with case studies, sample documents, and custom content for thousands of museums Board matching support to connect individuals interested in serving on museum boards with museums seeking new perspectives and talents on their board "Arts institutions are most effective when they build relationships with the local community that anchors them as well as the global communities that visit them," said Alice Walton, philanthropist and founder of the Alice L. Walton Foundation. "The effort to build community is strengthened when diversity, equity, and inclusion are fully realized within institutional leadership, and this initiative provides the tools and resources necessary to do so." "The future of American museums will depend in large part upon their ability today to implement steadfast commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion in staff and programming in order to serve their constituent audiences and enact their public education missions," said Mellon Foundation Executive Vice President for Programs and Research Mariet Westermann. "In order to create inclusive cultures throughout the sector where museum professionals and visitors of all backgrounds can flourish, attention must be paid to diversifying the demographic composition of senior executives and boards of trustees." "Museums present art, ideas, and history that serve as a window into our humanity and culture," said Margaret Morton, director of the Creativity and Free Expression program at the Ford Foundation. "We welcome this partnership and the opportunity for museums and their leaders to more fully reflect the broad range of identities and diverse stakeholders across all communities and people." About the American Alliance of Museums The American Alliance of Museums has been bringing museums together since 1906, helping to develop standards and best practices, gathering and sharing knowledge, and providing advocacy on issues of concern to the entire museum community. Representing more than 35,000 individual museum professionals and volunteers, institutions, and corporate partners serving the museum field, the Alliance stands for the broad scope of the museum community. For more information, visit www.aam-us.org. About The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Founded in 1969, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation endeavors to strengthen, promote, and, where necessary, defend the contributions of the humanities and the arts to human flourishing and to the well-being of diverse and democratic societies by supporting exemplary institutions of higher education and culture as they renew and provide access to an invaluable heritage of ambitious, path-breaking work. Additional information is available at mellon.org. About The Alice L. Walton Foundation The Alice L. Walton Foundation is a philanthropic organization committed to increasing access to the arts, improving education, enhancing health, and advancing economic opportunity for all. Through this work, the foundation strives to deliver meaningful and lasting change to individuals and communities most in need. About the Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization. For more than 80 years it has worked with courageous people on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. SOURCE American Alliance of Museums Related Links http://www.aam-us.org TRONDHEIM, Norway, Jan. 15, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Aker BP has been offered interests in 21 new production licenses in Norway, of which 11 as operator, through the Awards in pre-defined areas (APA 2018) licensing round. - We are excited about the opportunities in the licenses that Aker BP has been awarded today, says Evy Glrstad-Clark, Senior Vice President Exploration in Aker BP. - These awards increase Aker BP's footprint in areas close to our operated hubs. We have also identified new potential growth opportunities in some of the licenses awarded today. Combined with creativity, a highly skilled exploration team and the adoption of new technologies, these awards will enable us to explore new potential core areas for Aker BP, says Glrstad-Clark. Of the 21 production licenses awarded to Aker BP, 12 are located in the North Sea (5 as operator), 3 in the Norwegian Sea (2 as operator) and 6 in the Barents Sea (4 as operator). The APA 2018 awards were announced by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy on Tuesday 15 January 2019. In total, 83 licenses were offered to a total of 33 companies. For more details on the awards, please see the announcement from the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy at http://oed.dep.no. Contacts: Investor contact: Kjetil Bakken, VP Investor Relations, tel.: +47-918-89-889 Media contact: Ole-Johan Faret, Press Spokesman, tel.: +47-402-24-217 This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com http://news.cision.com/aker-bp-asa/r/aker-bp-awarded-21-licenses-in-apa-2018,c2718858 The following files are available for download: SOURCE Aker BP ASA LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Air Products (NYSE: APD) today announced that it has been honored with the Best Social Responsibility Brand Award 2018 at the 8th China Charity Festival, an influential event co-organized annually by over 30 Chinese mainstream media outlets since 2011 to advocate philanthropic spirit and behaviors. This is the fourth consecutive year that the company has been recognized for its corporate citizenship and outstanding contributions to social development in China. Themed "Public Welfare Creates Beautiful Life", the 8th China Charity Festival held from January 14-15 in Beijing honored over 300 leading companies from a wide range of industries with various awards. Air Products was evaluated according to the comprehensive indicators of sustainability, creativity, adaptability, credibility and level of influence, and finally selected by the judging panel comprising public welfare organizations, consulting firms, institutions, academics and media. "Safely and responsibly caring for our employees, customers, communities and the environment is a core value at Air Products. Receiving the honor for another year is a strong recognition of our long-term commitment and contributions to corporate social responsibility in China," said Saw Choon Seong, China president at Air Products. "The honor goes to all our employees who are passionate about fulfilling Air Products' higher purpose beyond excellent business performance, and proud to innovate and solve challenges as empowered by our inclusive culture. We will continue to help our customers and communities to build a better future with our innovative solutions that benefit the environment and enhance sustainability under the Chinese government's 13th Five-Year Plan and beyond." In 2016, Air Products set new sustainability goals across all aspects of its Grow-Conserve-Care sustainability framework, aiming to grow responsibly with more than 50 percent of its revenues generated by offerings that improve energy efficiency, lower emissions and meet societal needs; conserve resources and reduce environmental footprints; and care for its employees, customers and the communities. In China, the company has been helping manufacturers and industries improve productivity, efficiency, quality and environmental performance with its leading-edge products and technologies for over 30 years. It has been actively driving and participating in a variety of corporate social responsibility initiatives, including a Liquid Nitrogen (LIN) Ambassador Program to foster the next generation's interest in science and innovation, collaboration with leading local universities and other parties on various efforts such as research and development, best practice and knowledge transfer, campaign sponsorships, scholarships and internships to cultivate future talent and advance gas application technology development. About Air Products Air Products (NYSE: APD) is a world-leading industrial gases company in operation for over 75 years. The company provides industrial gases and related equipment to dozens of industries, including refining, chemical, metals, electronics, manufacturing, and food and beverage. Air Products is also the world's leading supplier of liquefied natural gas process technology and equipment. The Company had fiscal 2018 sales of $8.9 billion from operations in 50 countries and has a current market capitalization of about $35 billion. Approximately 16,000 passionate, talented and committed employees from diverse backgrounds are driven by Air Products' higher purpose to create innovative solutions that benefit the environment, enhance sustainability and address the challenges facing customers, communities, and the world. For more information, visit www.airproducts.com. NOTE: This release may contain forward-looking statements within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management's reasonable expectations and assumptions as of the date of this release regarding important risk factors. Actual performance and financial results may differ materially from projections and estimates expressed in the forward-looking statements because of many factors not anticipated by management, including risk factors described in the Company's Form 10K for its fiscal year ended September 30, 2018. SOURCE Air Products Related Links http://www.airproducts.com THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Afilias, the world's second largest domain name registry, has joined the Management Board of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace (GCSC). The GCSC, setup in 2017, helps to promote the peaceful use of cyberspace to facilitate economic growth and the expansion of individual freedoms. Other Board members include the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and France, the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore, Microsoft Corporation, and the Internet Society (ISOC). The GCSC develops proposals for norms and policies to enhance international security and stability and guide responsible state and non-state behavior in cyberspace. The GCSC engages a wide range of stakeholders to develop shared understandings, and its work is designed to advance cyber stability by supporting information exchange and capacity building, basic research, and advocacy. "Afilias is proud to support the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace," said Ram Mohan, EVP and CTO of Afilias. "As the technology provider for some of the internet's most important and highly used top-level domains (TLDs), we deal daily with irresponsible cyber-behavior and use advanced methods to ensure TLDs in our care are safe and reliable. Creating trust on the internet is a collective global responsibility, and we are pleased to advance the work of the GCSC to maintain trust and stability in cyberspace. Afilias' expertise and contributions will help facilitate the work, operations and research of the Commission to achieve a mission of stability in cyberspace. Since 2001, Afilias has provided technical infrastructure to maintain the master databases and publish the addressing information for TLDs, including .info, .org and country code TLDs such as (.in) India and (.au) Australia. Afilias provides several services to protect and secure the internet, and members of the company are involved in established internet security and governance groups. "The GCSC would like to recognize and acknowledge Afilias for its generous support," said Alexander Klimburg of The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS) which has undertaken the GCSC initiative. "Afilias brings important technical and operational experience as well as a commitment to advancing the debate and to putting forward creative solutions to some of the most pressing challenges in the stability of cyberspace. The partnership expands the scope of the GCSC ecosystem to include a crucial stakeholder." About Afilias Afilias is the world's second largest domain registry, with over 23 million domain names under management in over 200 top level domains. Afilias powers a wide variety of top-level domains, including TLDs for countries, cities, brands, communities and generic terms. Afilias' specialized technology makes Internet addresses more accessible and useful through a broad range of applications, including Internet domain registry services , managed DNS , and mobile Web services . Afilias, Inc. is based near Philadelphia offices are also located in Dublin Ireland, Toronto Canada, New Delhi India, Melbourne Australia, Vista California, and Beijing China. Afilias holds a Guinness World Records title for the "Largest migration of an internet top-level domain in a single transition" for its migration of the .au top-level domain in 2018. For more information on Afilias services please visit www.afilias.info . For More Information: Afilias Alan Wallace, Director of Corporate Communications [email protected] +1.425.691.8757 cell SOURCE Afilias Related Links http://www.afilias.info BOSTON, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Acuity Link, a comprehensive non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) communications and logistics management platform provider for all levels of care and modes of transport, and Ensocare, a software solution that automates patient care placements and the discharge process effectively transitioning patients between care settings, today announced a strategic, nation-wide partnership intended to streamline the post-acute discharge process across all healthcare settings. As a result of the new relationship, organizations who choose to rely on the combined applications of both Ensocare and Acuity Link will benefit from advanced communications capabilities that enhance the care experience as patients are graduated to subsequent levels of care. Acuity Link was founded to directly address the mounting inefficiencies related to hospital and healthcare systems' patient discharge workflow challenges head-on. The company's technology platform leverages proprietary algorithms to select the closest appropriate medical transportation vehicle, advanced mapping integrations to track the vehicle in real-time with live ETAs, automatic time stamps at various stages of the transport via geo-fencing technology, and automated medical necessity form authorizations. In addition, the company's advanced reporting and analytics capabilities generate actionable data related to discharge delays, discharge demand analysis and transportation resources, allowing healthcare organizations to identify patient flow bottlenecks and negative trends before they become problems. Acuity Link's suite of features improves overall operations for healthcare systems and medical transportation providers by allowing organizations to align patient admission resources with the arrival of the patient, and align the arrival of the most suitable NEMT provider with the patient discharge. This approach has proven to have a substantial impact on patient flow and ultimately, length of stay. With Ensocare Transition, the company's hospital discharge software solution, case managers and other discharge-focused staff are be able to measurably decrease the time spent on clerical activities, increase the speed at which transfers of care can be achieved, and better match patients with the right post-acute care providers. At the same time that a healthcare provider is being assigned to the patient, Acuity Link's platform will be used to schedule and align in real-time the appropriate transport vehicle and level of care while ensuring for continuous communications with NEMT providers and ambulance crew members. This capability is available for all levels of care and modes of transport. "Many believe that the complexity and interconnectedness of the healthcare system makes waits and delays in the admission and discharge process inevitable, where in actuality, this is a misconception. Acuity Link was founded to solve the mounting inefficiencies and challenges related to hospital and healthcare systems' patient discharge workflow," said Alex Theoharidis, CEO of Acuity Link. "Through this partnership, we are excited to extend the reach and impact of our offering which, when combined with the Ensocare Transition solution, has the potential to profoundly alter how healthcare organizations approach and manage NEMT communications and logistics management, and subsequently, the operational results generated. This is significant for both our current and future customers." The partnership between the two companies will offer healthcare organizations a greater degree of personalization and control of the discharge process. Under the terms of the collaboration, Ensocare customers will now have the option to add the Acuity Link software solution and mobile app to their current suite of discharge solutions. In addition, Acuity Link users can supplement their transportation workflows with Ensocare's Transition tool and mobile app, operating independently as its own tool or embedded or integrated within most mainstream EHRs. "Today's partnership gives healthcare organizations the advanced communications and logistics management tools they can rely on to seamlessly transition their patients to post-acute facilities, in-home care and other settings," said Luis Castillo, president and CEO of Ensocare. "When it came to collaborating with an industry peer on this initiative, Acuity Link was the perfect fit based on the company's experience solving for all modes of transport and all levels of care, unlike traditional rideshare companies which are limited by their models." For healthcare organizations looking to streamline their post-acute discharge process, please reach out to Acuity Link at https://www.acuity-link.net/. About Ensocare Ensocare, a CQuence Health Group company, is a cloud-based solution suite that began as a single care coordination SaaS solution. Today, we are an end-to-end, service-enabled technology platform designed to help hospitals, health systems, physician groups and payers navigate the value-based environment and beyond. Transition, Ensocare's care placement and referral software, automates the discharge process, effectively transitions patients between care settings and enables coordinated care across the continuum. A growing portfolio of services designed to identify and fill gaps in patient care complement Ensocare's overall mission to coordinate care, engage patients and positively influence outcomes. For more information, visit www.ensocare.com. About Acuity Link Acuity Link is a comprehensive communications and logistics management platform that links healthcare systems with non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) providers and ambulance crew members for all levels of care and modes of transportation. With Acuity Link's technology, organizations benefit from instant access to the closest available and most suitable transportation resources, reducing bottlenecks that impact patient flow, leading to shorter discharge times, and in turn, enhanced patient care and experience. The company's HIPAA-compliant, customizable, easy-to-use Software-as-a-Service solution can be implemented into any healthcare setting to streamline NEMT and patient flow processes which provides a new level of data critical to enhancing efficiencies within the healthcare ecosystem. This previously unavailable intelligence generates accurate, actionable insights needed to make more informed operational and clinical decisions. For more information about Acuity Link, please visit https://www.acuity-link.net/. Media Contact: Jill Reeves Ensocare [email protected] 402-758-2617 Jessy Green or Sarah Larrow Acuity Link SVM Public Relations [email protected] 401-490-9700 SOURCE Acuity Link Related Links http://www.acuity-link.net The new AAR EAGLE Career Pathway Program at Rock Valley will expand the college's aviation maintenance technology curriculum to include job shadowing and mentoring opportunities, as well as academic support and monitoring. Students who pursue the FAA-certified aircraft mechanic's license are eligible for up to $15,000 in tuition reimbursements. Rock Valley College leaders joined AAR's Ryan Goertzen, Vice President of Aviation Workforce Development, on Tuesday for the official announcement at the college's Aviation Career Education Center, located at Chicago-Rockford International Airport. AAR and Rock Valley collaborated in 2016 to stand up a 40,000-square-foot wide-body MRO facility at the airport. Afterward, enrollment in the A&P program rose from about 40 to its full capacity at 170 students. "The college has had a great partnership with AAR and the EAGLE Career Pathway program will make that connection even stronger," said Dr. Doug Jensen, President of Rock Valley College. "EAGLE will open up even more opportunities for our students, providing stackable skills and certifications that lead directly to jobs at AAR, and financial assistance to continue their education and advance their careers at AAR." AAR is introducing EAGLE Career Pathway at schools near its five U.S. aircraft repair stations. EAGLE demonstrates how students can earn portable, stackable skills and earn $80,000 or more annually within three to five years. The stackable skills will enable students who are interested to pursue the coveted position of FAA-certified airframe and powerplant (A&P) mechanic. There is a shortage of 189,000 aircraft mechanics in North America, according to a study by Boeing. "The EAGLE Career Pathway Program is a great marketing and admissions tool to help community colleges like Rock Valley bolster student enrollments to reverse the trend of a dwindling aviation maintenance workforce," said Goertzen. "As part of the EAGLE program, Rock Valley College graduates will be guided into a five-year career path showcasing the different career opportunities beyond a technician, including roles in management and quality control." About Rock Valley College Rock Valley College is a comprehensive two-year community college in Rockford, Illinois, offering more than 100 courses for transfer, career programs and certificates. Rock Valley College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Rock Valley College is also recognized by the Illinois Board of Higher Education and by the Illinois Community College Board. About AAR AAR is a global aftermarket solutions company that employs more than 6,000 people in over 20 countries. Based in Wood Dale, Illinois, AAR supports commercial aviation and government customers through two operating segments: Aviation Services and Expeditionary Services. AAR's Aviation Services include parts supply; OEM solutions; integrated solutions; maintenance, repair, overhaul; and engineering. AAR's Expeditionary Services include mobility systems and composite manufacturing operations. Additional information can be found at www.aarcorp.com. Media contact: Daniela Pietsch, Vice President Corporate Marketing & Communications, at [email protected] or +1 630-227-5100. Program Contacts: Rock Valley College, Dave Costello, [email protected], 815-921-4516. AAR, Ryan Goertzen, [email protected], 918-576-9981. Rock Valley College 3301 North Mulford Rd. Rockford, IL 61114 rockvalleycollege.edu Follow us facebook.com/rvcgoldeneagles Twitter & Instagram: @rvcgoldeneagles SOURCE AAR Related Links http://www.aarcorp.com Posted Monday, January 14, 2019 2:20 pm Anne Marie (Hull) Wachtveitl, a cherished wife, mother, daughter and friend, fought courageously for 22 years in her battle against breast cancer. On Christmas day 2018, Anne peacefully passed away at the age of 58, surrounded by her family who will miss her every day. She was a sweet, little miracle from birth, born to Clarence and Patricia Hull in Ventura, Calif., Oct. 7, 1960; after Patricia was on bed rest for 5 and a half months! Anne spent the first five years of her life in California, before relocating to Chehalis, Wash., with her family in 1966. She graduated from W. F. West High School and attended Centralia College before transferring to Washington State University, where she graduated with a bachelors degree in communications. While at WSU, Anne met her husband, Don and they married shortly after their graduation. She worked in advertising early in her marriage, but once children became part of the picture; Anne stayed at home and raised three of the luckiest kids around. For the last few years, with the exception of this last year of her battle, Anne worked full-time as the secretary at Heritage Christian School in Bothell, Wash., and was beloved by staff, students and families alike. Her family and friends find comfort in knowing that for a woman of such strong, profound faith, she was welcomed into Heaven on what is probably the biggest celebration day of the year, the birth of her Savior, Jesus Christ. Anne is survived by her husband, Don; children, Caitlin, Rachel and Drew; mother, Pat Hull; brother, Chuck (Nancy) Hull; maternal aunt, Marie (McPherson) Rogers; as well as many beloved in-laws, nieces, nephews, cousins and extended family, both near and far. In addition to her family, Anne is also survived by friends all over the globe, who loved her and considered her a soul sister and one of the best of friends. She was preceded in death by her father, Clarence Hull, who we know she was so anxious to see again, she left this earth just one day prior to the 10th anniversary of his passing; a couple of siblings lost in childbirth; paternal grandparents, Milla and Elvin Hull; and her maternal grandparents, William and Ernestine McPherson. Though she grew up in a small town, Annes loving energy reached all corners of the world, mostly due to her love of travel and ability to strike up a conversation with just about anyone. She was the definition of, Its not what you say to people, its how you make them feel. It brings her family incredible comfort to know she was so well-loved, near and far and that everyone she met knew, just as they did, how amazingly special she was. The family would like to publicly express thanks to Moms healthcare team: the many amazing nurses we met along the away, Dr. Susan Montgomery, who took over the care of Mom when she was at her most sick/vulnerable and the numerous friends and family members who have been such an amazing support over the last year. From delivering meals, taking Mom to doctor appointments, visits with Mom, taking care of her overwhelmed (at times) ICU nurse daughter, helping with transporting the other, out of state daughter, planting flowers/weeding and the list goes on and on. We were so well taken care of by so many and we will never be able to put into words how thankful we are for our massive support system (almost all of whom were single-handedly recruited by Anne). Thank you for continuing to hold us up during this time of loss and sorrow. A memorial service for Anne will be held at Shoreline Christian Reformed Church in Shoreline, located at 14555 25th Ave. NE, Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019, at 3 p.m. A reception will follow at the same location. There will not be any burial services at this time. Rest in peace, our beautiful wife, mother, friend and guardian angel; until we meet again. You will always be our Wonder Woman and we love you to heaven and back! ROSEMONT, Ill., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS) and the Henry Schein Cares Foundation are supporting the volunteerism of four oral and maxillofacial surgeons (OMSs) through the joint Global Outreach Program. For the fourth consecutive year, AAOMS and the Foundation are presenting $2,500 grants to four doctors to help fund their oral and maxillofacial surgery care in the United States and around the world. The program also offers each recipient $2,000 in healthcare products courtesy of Henry Schein Cares, which aims to increase the delivery of healthcare services and information to at-risk and underserved communities. "Oral and maxillofacial surgeons deliver vital healthcare to patients in underserved communities around the world," said AAOMS President A. Thomas Indresano, DMD, FACS. "Since 2015, the Global Outreach Program has provided grants to help oral and maxillofacial surgeons use their expertise to make a significant difference around the world." The 2018 grant recipients are: Joli Chou , DMD, MD, FACS, of Philadelphia, Pa. Chou plans to use the grant for a two-week surgical mission trip with Africa Mercy to Guinea . She and other healthcare providers from more than 30 countries will conduct approximately 60 major oral and maxillofacial surgeries on patients of all ages. Continuing education also will be provided to local healthcare providers. Chou has received four grants from the program to fund trips with Mercy Ships, a nonprofit that operates a fleet of ships to offer healthcare services in developing countries. Chou plans to use the grant for a two-week surgical mission trip with Africa Mercy to . She and other healthcare providers from more than 30 countries will conduct approximately 60 major oral and maxillofacial surgeries on patients of all ages. Continuing education also will be provided to local healthcare providers. Chou has received four grants from the program to fund trips with Mercy Ships, a nonprofit that operates a fleet of ships to offer healthcare services in developing countries. Clay Van Leeuwen , DMD, MD, of Fairbanks, Alaska The grant will cover licensing, supplies as well as hospitalization, food and travel for patients from remote locations treated by Global Medical and Surgical Teams, a small group of doctors and nurses. Last year, the group partnered with a clinic in Kyotera, Uganda , to perform cleft lip and palate surgeries. The group is scheduled to return for follow-up and to perform additional primary lip and palate repairs. The grant will cover licensing, supplies as well as hospitalization, food and travel for patients from remote locations treated by Global Medical and Surgical Teams, a small group of doctors and nurses. Last year, the group partnered with a clinic in Kyotera, , to perform cleft lip and palate surgeries. The group is scheduled to return for follow-up and to perform additional primary lip and palate repairs. Gary R. Parker , DDS, of Lindale, Texas During approximately nine months in Conakry, Guinea , Parker and his team plan to treat about 250 patients. He also expects to participate in a full-time surgical mentoring program for surgeons. Parker has been a full-time volunteer OMS with Mercy Ships for 31 years. Every year since 2015, he has received a grant from the Global Outreach program for his service with Mercy Ships. During approximately nine months in , Parker and his team plan to treat about 250 patients. He also expects to participate in a full-time surgical mentoring program for surgeons. Parker has been a full-time volunteer OMS with Mercy Ships for 31 years. Every year since 2015, he has received a grant from the Global Outreach program for his service with Mercy Ships. Edward Zebovitz , DDS, of Bowie, Md. The grant will cover supplies and medications for procedures to be performed during Surgeons for Smiles' trip to Eritrea , Africa . The procedures will include prosthetic reconstruction of the TMJ, facial reconstruction, tumor management and cleft lip and palate reconstruction. One mission trip can provide 35 to 50 surgeries, and patients range in age from 8 months to 80 years. The experts in face, mouth and jaw surgery The American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS) is the professional organization representing more than 11,000 oral and maxillofacial surgeons, OMS residents and OMS professional staff in the United States. AAOMS supports its fellows' and members' ability to practice their specialty through education, research and advocacy. AAOMS fellows and members comply with rigorous continuing education requirements and submit to periodic office anesthesia evaluations. For additional information about oral and maxillofacial surgery, visit the AAOMS websites at AAOMS.org and myOMS.org. SOURCE American Association of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons Related Links http://www.aaoms.org "I wish everyone back in the States could see an American boy lying cold on the beach of France, struck down in full stride as he charged forward . . . I hope the story of what the boys did is told." On the morning of June 6, 1944, twenty-two-year-old Lieutenant Frank L. Kennard led his Ranger cannon platoon onto Omaha Beach, losing his equipment and half his men. Kennard and his seven remaining men went on to overcome enormous odds to achieve their objective at Pointe du Hoc. One month later, Kennard became the battalion adjutant and served in that role through every battle until the end of the war. Lieutenant Kennard's journal of the legendary 2nd Ranger Battalion in World War II is the first record of vivid wartime experiences written by a Ranger with Kennard's perspective. D-Day Journal also includes rare oral histories of four other members of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, the first American unit to achieve its mission on D-Day: to take out the big German guns overlooking Normandy beaches. KEY POINTS Commemorates the 75th anniversary of D-Day Previously untold story of heroism on bloody Omaha Beach Previously unpublished stories about the 2nd Ranger Battalion from D-Day to the end of WW2 No other known contemporaneous record of Normandy invasion written by a Ranger with Lt. Kennard's breadth of perspective ADVANCE PRAISE FOR D-DAY JOURNAL "It is a great read. You won't be able to put it down. Very simply ... it is a terrific book on one of the most critical moments in our Country's history." C. Roland (Rollie) Stichweh, West Point graduate; twice Most Valuable Player in the Army-Navy game; Decorated Combat Veteran "Rare insights into one of the most famous fighting formations in our history...the US Army Rangerswe get the candid views of a combat soldier... The story should be told and retold lest we forget, thus causing our children and grandchildren to re-learn ." General Peter J. Schoomaker, USA Ret. 35th Chief of Staff, United States Army "A vivid firsthand account of American Ranger actions in the invasion of Normandy, June 6, 1944a story of battle, hardship, valor and victory." Col. Robert W. Black, author "The Battalion", "The Ranger Force" and "Rangers in World War II" "Just when readers think they have seen the last of authentic first-hand accounts about the D-Day assault on Omaha Beach, along comes a new book based on previously unpublished letters written by a soldier who was there." Thomas M. Hatfield, Ph.D. author "Rudder: From Leader to Legend", Texas A&M University 2011 AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON.COM, ON LINE RETAILERS AND BOOK STORES Website: www.ddayjournal.com Publisher: Koehler Books PUB DATE: 1/20/2019 SOFT COVER: $14.95, 978-1-63393-735-2 HARD COVER: $22.95, 978-1-63393-736-9 EBOOK: $7.99, 978-1-63393-737-6 TRIM: 6"x 9", 122 pages ABOUT THE AUTHOR John V.O. Kennard is the son of 2nd Ranger Battalion Lt. Frank L. Kennard. Commissioned a Lieutenant in the US Army Armor Corps, he rose to Captain and went to Vietnam in 1970 where he was a Special Security Officer (SSO) working for five General Officers managing their backchannel messages also known as "Eyes Only" messages. Kennard earned two degrees from the University of Virginia. Kennard is retired from Brown-Forman Corporation where he was Senior Vice President and global brand director for Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey. Kennard has been Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Owen School of Business at Vanderbilt University and Distinguished Executive in Residence at the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia. He has co-authored case studies and contributed to a leading marketing textbook. Kennard lives on Amelia Island, FL and in Southern Pines, NC with his wife, Linda. SOURCE D-Day Journal Related Links http://www.ddayjournal.com CINCINNATI, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- 80 Acres Farms, a leader in the rapidly growing indoor vertical farming industry, announced it has received a significant investment from Virgo Investment Group, a San Francisco Bay Area based private equity firm that invests in companies transforming and disrupting high-potential industries. Terms of the financing were not disclosed. 80 Acres Farms provides customers with a wide variety of locally grown, just-picked leafy greens, microgreens, and vine crops, including the world's only tomatoes and cucumbers grown completely indoors using just LED lighting. The company has developed its own artificial intelligence-powered growing system, sophisticated data monitoring, and automation technologies to deliver high quality and nutritious products at an affordable price. By locating its indoor farms close to customers, 80 Acres Farms is able to eliminate the costs, time and environmental impact of cross-country transportation, providing customers with a fresher, longer lasting product while drastically reducing food waste. 80 Acres distributes to major national grocers, local retailers, restaurants, and food service companies from its facilities in Ohio, Arkansas, North Carolina and Alabama. "Virgo Investment Group joins our existing notable and experienced food industry investors in supporting the Company to rapidly commercialize the indoor vertical farming technology we have developed over the past three years," said Mike Zelkind, co-founder and chief executive officer of 80 Acres Farms. "We are optimizing every aspect of our production processes and driving down costs, which is crucial to scaling an indoor farming business like ours." "We are excited to partner with highly experienced food industry leaders Mike Zelkind and Tisha Livingston to bring great tasting, freshly picked produce to local markets year round," said Eli Aheto, partner of Virgo Investment Group. "80 Acres Farms has created a unique and automated growing process and has built great relationships with its retail customers. We want to help accelerate the company's growth in this multi-billion-dollar market. The 80 Acres investment is an expression of Virgo's longstanding focus on investing in energy efficiency opportunities driven by reduced equipment costs. Virgo has completed investments in utility-scale wind, community solar, electric vehicle charging and now an LED lighting driven business." The Virgo investment will enable 80 Acres Farms to complete the previously announced facility in Hamilton, Ohio, which will be the first fully automated indoor farm in North America. The first phase of the Hamilton project under construction is expected to be operational in early 2019. It will be automated from seeding to growing to harvesting for the highest quality and food safety standards. The Hamilton facility will feature handling robotics, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and around-the-clock monitoring sensors and control systems to optimize every aspect of growing produce indoors. The facility will allow 80 Acres Farms to begin to service the substantial and growing demand for fresh, locally grown produce year-round from both retailers and restaurants. "Over the past three years we have provided our customers with fresh, flavorful and nutritious produce grown locally in our facilities with no pesticides and highly efficient usage of water and nutrients," Zelkind said. "We are rapidly increasing yields for our produce, while advancing each generation of our grow zone designs to lower capital costs, production costs and reduce the use of natural resources. Our facilities represent the realization of the next generation of farming. Our vision is to prove that indoor farming can be fully-automated, commercially scalable, higher-yielding, and profitable.'' About 80 Acres Farms 80 Acres Farms is an indoor farming pioneer providing customers with flavorful, and nutritious locally grown fruits and vegetables at affordable prices. Utilizing state of the art proprietary technologies, including modular grow zones, customized LED lighting, precisely-tuned climate controls, and an artificial intelligence powered growing system, the Company is able to offer customers a wide variety of pesticide free produce with a longer at home shelf life that exceeds the highest standards in food safety. 80 Acres has demonstrated early success distributing major national retailers and food service distributors. Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, the company was founded in 2015 by veteran food industry executives Mike Zelkind and Tisha Livingston who are supported by a deep team and a board of directors representing executive and leadership experience at leading food, healthcare, and other companies. For more information, please visit www.80acresfarms.com. About Virgo Investment Group Founded in 2009, Virgo is a thematic investor with the mission of building meaningful businesses. Virgo partners with Founder-led or Family-owned businesses where both existing owners and management have a material equity stake in the business. Virgo targets companies undergoing industry or company-specific change, which are executing on an identified inflection point in value. The Firm has invested over $1.1 billion, completing 52 investments to date. Virgo has flexible capital that allows the Firm to provide differentiated solutions to current asset owners and existing shareholders. Virgo is an actively engaged investor. We don't just buy value; we work to create value. The Firm's Spica Alpha Unit drives value-add initiatives post-investment via a focus on human capital transformation, business process enhancement and technology implementation. We find our meaning at Virgo in creating and in reviving the soul of companies. It always starts with and ends with the soul. For more information, please visit www.virgo-llc.com. SOURCE 80 Acres Farms Related Links https://www.eafarms.com/ MENLO PARK, Calif., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Offering relocation benefits to job candidates could be a good move for employers, suggests new research from global staffing firm Robert Half. Sixty-two percent of workers surveyed said they would consider moving for a position. Among professionals in the 28 U.S. cities polled, respondents in Raleigh, Des Moines, Miami and Charlotte are most open to changing locations. According to a new Robert Half survey, 62% of workers would relocate for a job. See the full results here: https://www.roberthalf.com/blog/compensation-and-benefits/would-you-relocate-for-a-job. A separate survey of senior managers found that in the past five years, 34 percent of companies have increased what's offered in the relocation packages they present to top candidates outside their geographic area. In contrast, 30 percent of organizations do not offer any incentives for moving. View an infographic about relocation packages. Data tables with a breakdown of the results by age and gender are also available. Additional findings: Workers identified better pay and perks (44 percent) as the top factor in their decision to move for a job, followed by family or personal reasons (17 percent) and cost of living and career advancement (16 percent each). Professionals ages 18 to 34 (76 percent) are most likely to relocate, compared to those ages 35 to 54 (62 percent) and 55 and older (40 percent). Sixty-seven percent of male employees would move, versus 59 percent of women. Minneapolis (45 percent), Boston and Philadelphia (48 percent each), and Detroit (53 percent) have the fewest number of employees who would consider leaving their current area. (45 percent), and (48 percent each), and (53 percent) have the fewest number of employees who would consider leaving their current area. Miami (53 percent), Houston (48 percent), Los Angeles (45 percent) and Dallas (42 percent) have the most companies that have increased their relocation packages over the past five years. "In today's competitive hiring environment, many employers are finding it challenging to locate skilled professionals in their immediate area," said Paul McDonald, senior executive director for Robert Half. "As a result, organizations are open to considering candidates in other cities and offering attractive relocation packages to secure that talent." McDonald added, "Besides receiving corporate incentives to move, there are a number of professional and personal reasons workers may opt for a change of scenery, including a higher salary, better perks, more affordable cost of living or advanced job title." About the Research The online surveys were developed by Robert Half and conducted by independent research firms. They include responses from more than 2,800 U.S. workers 18 years of age or older and employed in office environments and more than 2,800 senior managers at companies with 20 or more employees in 28 major U.S. cities. About Robert Half Founded in 1948, Robert Half is the world's first and largest specialized staffing firm. The company has more than 300 staffing locations worldwide and offers job search services at roberthalf.com. For additional career and management advice, visit the Robert Half blog at roberthalf.com/blog. SOURCE Robert Half Related Links https://www.roberthalf.com Q4'18 venture capital investment sees second strongest quarter ever TORONTO, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - The final quarter of 2018 saw nearly US$64 billion* in VC investment globally, led by a $12.8 billion funding round to US-based e-cigarette manufacturer Juul. The VC deal, second only to the $14 billion raised by China's Ant Financial in Q2'18, helped propel annual VC investment globally from $175 billion in 2017 to a massive $255 billion in 2018, according to the Q4'18 edition of the KPMG Enterprise Venture Pulse report. While every region identified in the report the US, Americas, Asia and Europe saw a record high level of annual VC investment during 2018, the total number of VC deals globally declined to a 6 year low of 15,299 deals during the year, compared to 17,314 in 2017 and a peak high of 20,172 in 2015. The drop in quarterly deal volume was even more stark, with the 3,048 deals seen in Q4'18 the lowest number in 25 quarters since Q3'12. "The record levels of funding we are seeing around the world highlight the intense focus VC investors are placing on late-stage deals. One billion+ mega-deals alone in Q4'18 accounted for $22 billion in investment approximately a third of the total funding raised this quarter," said Brian Hughes, National Co-Lead Partner, KPMG Venture Capital Practice, and a partner with KPMG in the US. "While the extended decline in the number of deals, particularly at the earliest deal stages, is somewhat concerning, the highest quality companies are still attracting investment and we expect to see a strong IPO market in 2019." Key Q4'18 Highlights Global VC investment rose from $56 billion in Q3'18 to more than $64 billion in Q4'18. The $12.8 billion Juul deal, in tandem with five $1 billion+ megadeals, helped bring the Q4'18 total to the second highest level of funding ever. in Q3'18 to more than in Q4'18. The Juul deal, in tandem with five $1 billion+ megadeals, helped bring the Q4'18 total to the second highest level of funding ever. In Q4'18, both the Americas and the US set a second consecutive record for quarterly VC investment. In the Americas, nearly $43 billion was raised in Q4'18, with the US accounting for $41.8 billion of this total. was raised in Q4'18, with the US accounting for of this total. The $12.8 billion Juul deal also set the record for the largest VC deal ever in both the Americas and the US. In addition to the deal, the US saw one other $1 billion+ funding round: a $1.25 billion raise by Epic Games. Juul deal also set the record for the largest VC deal ever in both the Americas and the US. In addition to the deal, the US saw one other $1 billion+ funding round: a raise by Epic Games. VC in Asia dropped significantly this quarter, from $17.6 billion in Q3'18 to a seven-quarter low of $15 billion during Q4'18. Despite the decline the region saw four $1 billion+ deals, including China -based ByteDance ( $3 billion ), Singapore -based Grab ( $2.85 billion ), Indonesia -based Tokopedia ( $1.1 billion ), and India -based Swiggy ( $1 billion ). dropped significantly this quarter, from in Q3'18 to a seven-quarter low of during Q4'18. Despite the decline the region saw four $1 billion+ deals, including -based ByteDance ( ), -based Grab ( ), -based Tokopedia ( ), and -based Swiggy ( ). European VC investment rose slightly, with $5.9 billion raised in Q4'18 compared to just over $5.6 billion in Q3'18. Europe's largest deal this quarter was a $200 million Series D raised by UK-based Graphcore. 2018 Annual Highlights Every series achieved a new high in median pre-money valuations in 2018, from a staggering $375 million for Series D or later rounds, to $6.7 million at the seed stage. for Series D or later rounds, to at the seed stage. The global median Series A financing was $7.5 million in size in 2018, far outstripping any prior year. in size in 2018, far outstripping any prior year. Global median pre-money valuations rose across all deal stages in 2018, including a staggering $375 million for Series D or later rounds, and $6.7 million for seed stage rounds. for Series D or later rounds, and for seed stage rounds. The global median Series A financing rose dramatically in 2018, reaching $7.5 million . . VC investment in urban mobility skyrocketed from $26 billion in 2017 to close to $45 billion in 2018. in 2017 to close to in 2018. VC investment in artificial intelligence related to healthcare almost doubled, from $1.25 billion in 2017 to $2.34 billion in 2018. in 2017 to in 2018. Agtech continued to rise on the radar of VC investors, with total global investment growing from $1.93 billion in 2017 to $2.15 billion in 2018. Record level of VC investment in Americas in Q4'18, led by funding in US VC investment in the Americas rose from $32.5 billion in Q3'18 to a quarterly record high of $41.8 billion in Q4'18. The US accounted for a large majority of this funding, with $42.9 billion raised in Q4. The $12.8 billion raise by US-based e-cigarette company Juul was by far the largest VC deal in the US to date, and the second largest VC deal ever next to Ant Financial's $14 billion raised in Q2'18. This quarter, Epic Games also raised $1.25 billion. The US also saw several $500 million+ megadeals this quarter, including Instacart ($871 million), Castle Creek Pharma ($560 million), Automation Anywhere ($550 million), and Movile ($525 million). For early stage companies in the US, first-time fundraising surged to an impressive 57 in count for 2018: the highest total seen this decade. VC activity in Canada was strong throughout 2018, with the country attracting $2.9 billion in VC funding over the year to achieve a new annual high. While Mexico had a quiet year on the VC front, it ended the year on a more positive note, attracting more than $60 million in funding during Q4'18. Brazil also saw a very strong Q4'18 to end the year, with close to $350 million raised. Europe sets third consecutive annual record for VC investment with a small increase in Q4'18 Europe set a third straight record for annual VC investment, attracting $24.4 billion in VC investment over 2018. Deals volume in Europe, however, fell considerably over the course of the year from 4,607 deals in 2017 to 3,380 in 2018. Investment quarter-over-quarter was also strong in Europe, with a small increase from $5.6 to $5.9 billion between Q3 and Q4'18. While the UK accounted for four of the quarter's 10 largest deals (Graphcore: $200 million; Nested: $156 million; Moonbug: $145 million; and Monzo: $110 billion), the other largest deals showcased the diversity of Europe's ecosystem with deals in Germany (HomeToGo: $150 million; EuroGo: $150 million), France (BlaBlaCar: $117 million), Ireland (GC Aesthetics: $97 million), Denmark (Galecto: $92 million), Israel (Team8: $85 million), and Switzerland (Nexthink: $85 million). Asia shatters record for annual VC funding, in part due to Q2 raise by Ant Financial Asia-based VC investment reached a massive annual high of $93.5 billion during 2018 up from $65.2 billion in 2017. This increase was driven in no small part by Ant Financial's $14 billion raise in Q2'18. While VC investment in Asia fell from $17.6 billion in Q3'18 to $15 billion in Q4'18, the results remained relatively strong outside of outlier Q2'18. VC investment this quarter in Asia was dominated by massive deals, including $1 billion+ deals to ByteDance, Grab, Tokopedia and Swiggy. Quarterly volume declined to close the year, but volume remained more than healthy on a historical basis, roughly in line with the level seen in 2014; large late-stage deals, meanwhile, propelled 2018 VC invested to a record high of $93.5 billion in Asia-Pacific Future less certain heading into 2019 Given the extraordinarily strong year for VC investment in the US, Asia and Europe, including the two largest VC deals in history, the total level of investment in 2019 will be tough to match. However, there will likely continue to be substantial VC investment globally, particularly in late-stage deals. Autotech whether autonomous vehicles, alternative energy vehicles, or ride hailing - is expected to see strong investment, in addition to healthtech and fintech. On the technology front, artificial intelligence is also expected to see strong growth. The IPO market will be one area to watch as several massive unicorns, including Uber and Lyft, prepare for IPOs despite the unexpected turbulence in the capital markets at the end of 2018. "In 2018, we saw the IPO door swing wide open globally with a number of significant IPOs across the world," said Arik Speier, Head of Technology, KPMG Somekh Chaikin in Israel. "While the last month of 2018 was highly tumultuous for the capital markets, if it settles down quickly in Q1'19, we may see a number of the aging unicorns looking to exit. If those companies do well, others will follow." *All figures are in US dollars. About KPMG Enterprise You know KPMG, you might not know KPMG Enterprise. KPMG Enterprise advisers in member firms around the world are dedicated to working with businesses like yours. Whether you're an entrepreneur looking to get started, an innovative, fast growing company, or an established company looking to an exit, KPMG Enterprise advisers understand what is important to you and can help you navigate your challenges no matter the size or stage of your business. The KPMG Enterprise global network for Innovative start-ups has extensive knowledge and experience working with the start-up ecosystem. From seed to speed, we're here throughout your journey. You gain access to KPMG's global resources through a single point of contacta trusted adviser to your company. It's a local touch with a global reach. About KPMG International KPMG is a global network of professional services firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services. We operate in 153 countries and territories and have 207,000 people working in member firms around the world. The independent member firms of the KPMG network are affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative ("KPMG International"), a Swiss entity. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such. SOURCE KPMG International Related Links www.kpmg.com FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Bahamas is starting the New Year on the right foot with top tier awards, news of additional airlift and resorts and projected growth for Q1 international arrivals. As temperatures continue to plummet in the north, travelers are flocking The Bahamas and there is no shortage of winter deals, activities and events to take advantage of this January. AWARDS AND ACCOLADES Caribbean Travel Awards 2018 The Caribbean Journal recently bestowed on The Bahamas two key awards in its Caribbean Travel Awards 2018, including "Destination of the Year" and "Best Caribbean Tourism Minister" after the destination has seen the most impressive growth in the region last year. KAYAK Top Trending Destinations The Bahamas was named one of the hottest destinations to travel to in 2019 by KAYAK, after flight searches for the destination have increased 45% year-over-year. Coming in at number four on the list, The Bahamas is the only Caribbean island to have made KAYAK's top ten list. DestinationRecommended.com Top Destinations In 2018, The Bahamas was the second most searched Caribbean destination, and Andros the seventh, based solely on traffic to DestinationRecommended.com. NEWS New Seasonal Airlift out of Chicago American Airlines is now offering Chicago residents a new seasonal non-stop service into Nassau. The new flight departs Chicago O'Hare Airport on Saturdays at 8:30 a.m., arriving Nassau in time for lunch on the beach at 12:45 p.m. New Hotel Opening in 2019 Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville hotel brand expands into Nassau with a new resort, Margaritaville Resort Bahamas, opening in 2019. The resort will have 150 guest rooms and 150 oceanfront residences. International Arrivals Increased in Q1 The January Forward Keys survey, which tracks inbound visitor data, reported that forward bookings for the next three months are advanced by 8.9%, thanks to the positive booking situation for January (16.0% ahead) and February (15.0% ahead). EVENTS Stay up-to-date with the latest happenings in The Bahamas: www.bahamas.com/events Wonders of the Sea 3D Film Premiere (January 17) The underwater documentary featuring oceanographic explorer, Jean-Michael Cousteau, will debut at 900 theaters in the U.S. during a one night event on January 17. Nearly forty percent of the film was shot in The Bahamas, revealing oceanic life that cannot be seen by the naked eye and highlighting current threats that are harming our oceans. CONTACT Anita Johnson-Patty Bahamas Ministry of Tourism & Aviation [email protected] SOURCE Bahamas Ministry of Tourism & Aviation TORONTO, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Trindent Consulting is pleased to welcome Bob Baird and Bruce Stroever as the newest members of Trindent's Advisory Board. Mr. Baird and Mr. Stroever will join Shane Kelly, Oscar Zimmerman, Paul Meade-Clift, and Stephan Rajotte in supporting Trindent's management team as the firm continues its path of impressive growth. Trindent Consulting "On behalf of Trindent's management team, we are both honoured and excited to welcome Bob and Bruce to our Advisory Board," says Trindent President Adrian Travis. "Bob and Bruce have been leading executives in their fields and will be a great resource for Trindent." Bob Baird has over 36 years of experience in the oil & gas industry, most recently as Senior Vice President, Downstream at Husky Energy in Calgary, Alberta. "As a former client of Trindent, I know first-hand the results that Trindent has achieved in our industry," says Mr. Baird. "I'm excited to join the Advisory Board and be a part of this Canadian business success story." Bruce Stroever has over 47 years of product development and general management experience in the medical devices and orthobiologics fields, and most recently was President and CEO of the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation in Edison, New Jersey. "Like Bob, I am also a former client of Trindent," says Mr. Stroever. "I look forward to joining the other Advisory Board members and Trindent's management team in continuing to build this firm." Travis states that "our continuing relationship with Bob and Bruce is a testament to Trindent's client-centric approach. As former clients themselves, they have the unique perspective of understanding and experiencing first-hand our passion for solving our clients' most complex business problems. We are fortunate to have Bob and Bruce join our Advisory Board and are fortunate to have their expertise and guidance as we move forward as a firm." For more information, please visit www.trindent.com or contact [email protected]. About Trindent Consulting Trindent Consulting is a global management consulting firm that solves complex business problems and delivers operating efficiencies for the Energy, Healthcare, and Financial Services industries. The firm's unique improvement approach yields between 500 1500% ROI within the first year. Established in 2008 by Adrian Travis, Trindent has quickly garnered a reputation as a firm that Makes It Happen. It is ranked as one of Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies by Canadian Business and PROFIT/Growth 500 in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. Trindent was also named one of the Fastest-Growing Consulting Firms by Consulting Magazine in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. Media contact Andrea Romanczuk Trindent Consulting 416.839.7000 [email protected] www.trindent.com SOURCE Trindent Consulting Related Links http://www.trindent.com READING, Pa., Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE) announced that a Request for Proposal (RFP) will be issued to purchase 120,500 Solar Photovoltaic Alternative Energy Credits (SPAECs) annually over a two-year period on behalf of three FirstEnergy Pennsylvania utilities Pennsylvania Power Company (Penn Power), Pennsylvania Electric Company (Penelec), and Metropolitan Edison Company (Met-Ed). The RFP process will be conducted by The Brattle Group and will take place in January and February, with qualifying applications due by February 5, 2019, and bids due by February 27, 2019. Bidders in this RFP can offer to sell tranches of SPAECs, where each tranche represents a commitment to sell 500 SPAECs annually over a two-year period (with deliveries beginning in 2019). Based on the RFP results, FirstEnergy's Pennsylvania utilities will enter into separate agreement(s) with winning suppliers to purchase the necessary quantities of SPAECs. Further information about the SPAEC RFP is available on FirstEnergy's website at www.firstenergycorp.com/PA2019SPAECRFP . FirstEnergy is dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its 10 electric distribution companies form one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York. The company's transmission subsidiaries operate more than 24,000 miles of transmission lines that connect the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. Follow FirstEnergy on Twitter @FirstEnergyCorp or online at www.firstenergycorp.com. SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp. Related Links http://www.firstenergycorp.com NEW YORK, Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The increasing government initiatives, and rising adoption of connected and smart technologies are major factors expected to drive the growth of the smart cities market Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05009183 The global smart cities market size is expected to grow from USD 308.0 billion in 2018 to USD 717.2 billion by 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 18.4% during the forecast period. There is an upsurge in the adoption rate of advanced technologies across businesses. The development in 5G and NB-IoT technologies is expected to drive the growth of the smart cities market. With advancements, smart governments and other sectors would become highly intelligent and self-governing. For smart transportation, the 5G and NB-IoT technologies-based solutions would collect data from multiple sources and share it with a centralized control center by leveraging the benefits of cloud. Such advanced technologies are not only used to enrich the lives of citizens, but also in other areas such as security, privacy, and environmental sustainability. Among focus areas, the smart citizen services segment is expected to account for the highest market share during the forecast period The smart citizen services segment is expected to account for the highest market share during the forecast period.Under smart citizen services, the smart healthcare segment is expected to hold the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Currently, smart/connected medical devices are driving traffic over the internet across regions.This traffic has considerably affected the growth of the smart healthcare segment, resulting in the increased deployment of smart solutions across the globe. This demand is mainly attributed to the growing IoT deployment in healthcare devices. Among smart transportation, the passenger information management system segment is expected to dominate the market during the forecast period. The rising demand for real-time transit information solutions for passengers, increasing adoption of smartphones, rising penetration of IoT solutions in the transportation sector have boosted the adoption of the passenger information management system for providing easy transport access to citizens. Furthermore, advanced communication infrastructure solutions offered by key players, such as Verizon and Vodafone, are expected to drive the passenger information management system segment Among regions, Asia Pacific (APAC) is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period APAC is expected to hold the highest CAGR among all regions, owing to the increasing adoption rate of IoT and rising demand for intelligent and smart solutions, while North America is expected to be the major contributor to the smart cities market. The increasing citizen empowerment and engagement is the major growth factor expected to drive the growth of the smart cities market. In-depth interviews were conducted with Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), marketing directors, innovation and technology directors, and executives from various key organizations operating in the smart cities market. The breakup of the profiles of the primary participants is given below: By Company: Tier 1 35%, Tier 2 40%, and Tier 3 25% By Designation: C-Level 65% and Director Level 35% By Region: North America 30%, Europe 35%, APAC 25%, and RoW 10% The key vendors profiled in the report are as follows: Cisco Systems (US) IBM (US) Siemens AG (Germany) Schneider Electric (France) Ericsson (Sweden) Vodafone (UK) Itron Inc. (US) Verizon (US) Telensa (England) ABB (Switzerland) Honeywell International Inc. (US) SAP SE (Germany KAPSCH Group (Austria) AGT International (Switzerland) Research Coverage The smart cities market has been segmented based on focus areas (smart transportation, smart buildings, smart utilities, and smart citizen services) and region. A detailed analysis of the key industry players has been undertaken to provide insights into their business overviews; services; key strategies; new service launches; partnerships, agreements, and collaborations; business expansions; and competitive landscape associated with the global smart cities market. Reasons to Buy the Report The report would help the market leaders/new entrants in the following ways: It comprehensively segments the smart cities market and provides the closest approximations of the revenue numbers for the overall market and its subsegments across regions. It would help stakeholders understand the pulse of the market and provide information about the key market drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities. It would help stakeholders understand their competitors better and gain more insights to enhance their positions in the market. The competitive landscape section includes the competitor ecosystem, new service developments, partnerships, and acquisitions. Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05009183 About Reportlinker ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place. __________________________ Contact Clare: [email protected] US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001 SOURCE Reportlinker Related Links http://www.reportlinker.com COSTA MESA, Calif., Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Rich Uncles Real Estate Investment Trust I (the "Company") announced today that its Board of Trust Managers has engaged Cushman & Wakefield ("Cushman") as its real estate financial advisor to evaluate strategic alternatives which will include marketing its entire real estate properties portfolio (the "Portfolio") for disposition by sale, merger or other transaction structure. The Company reported total investments in real estate properties of $140 million as of September 30, 2018 in its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on November 13, 2018. Earlier today, the Company announced that its Net Asset Value ("NAV") per share as of December 31, 2018 is $10.57 compared with its prior NAV per share of $10.66. The Company believes that now is an opportune time to explore a disposition of the Portfolio. If an acceptable acquiror and price are identified, any Portfolio sale or other transaction would initially be subject to approval of the Company's Board, including a majority of its independent Board members who are serving as the Special Committee of the Board in connection with the Portfolio marketing and negotiation of a potential transaction. If the Special Committee and the Board approve a sale or other disposition of the Company or its Portfolio, it will then be subject to the approval of shareholders owning a majority of the Company's outstanding common stock, which the Board would seek to obtain at a meeting of shareholders. Depending on the results of the Portfolio marketing process, the Company believes a shareholders' meeting to approve a Portfolio transaction could occur as early as the second calendar quarter of 2019. There can be no assurance that the Company's marketing efforts will result in a disposition of the Portfolio on the timing set forth herein or at all. The Company's Portfolio includes 21 properties, with four office properties representing 34% of the Portfolio's net operating income, 11 retail properties representing 33% of the Portfolio's net operating income and six industrial properties representing 33% of the Portfolio's net operating income. The Company's Portfolio is concentrated in California, with 18 properties generating approximately 90% of its net operating income. The Company also has two retail properties in Texas and one retail property in Georgia. Investment grade tenants represent 70% of the Portfolio's net operating income. Cushman is a global commercial real estate company with 400 offices in 70 countries employing 48,000 people and 28 offices in California. Aaron Halfacre, the Company's CEO, commented "We selected Cushman due to their deep local knowledge of the Company's real estate properties, top-flight team of professionals, and experience in marketing real estate portfolios and providing strategic advice to commercial real estate companies. We believe they have the expertise required to assist the Company in assessing its Portfolio and maximizing value for our shareholders." In connection with the strategic alternatives review, one (1) of the independent members of the Company's Board has resigned and the three (3) remaining independent Board members, who are also independent directors of RW Holdings NNN REIT, Inc. ("NNN") have resigned from the NNN Board effective upon appointment of their successors. As a result of these resignations, there will no longer be an overlap of independent board members of the Company and NNN. Finally, the Company announced that it has suspended the redemptions of common stock under its Share Repurchase Program during the strategic alternatives review process. Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Forward-looking statements include any statements in this press release that are not historical or current facts and include, but are not limited to, statements relating to the Company's strategic alternatives review process. These forward-looking statements represent management's current expectations and assumptions based on information available as of the date of this report and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those that are expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: the risks and uncertainties set forth above in this press release; disruptions in the financial markets and uncertain economic conditions affecting the Company or its tenants or the geographies or industries in which the Company's properties are concentrated; and other risks and uncertainties as described under "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017, and in other periodic reports and filings submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company does not intend, and undertakes no obligation, to update any forward-looking information to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, unless required by law to do so. Contact: Jennifer Barber Chief of Staff (949)537-2421 [email protected] SOURCE Rich Uncles Posted Monday, January 14, 2019 4:17 pm A Washington State Patrol sergeant climbed down a cliffs edge Friday morning near White Pass to get to a truck that had gone over a cliff the evening before, and helped the driver get to safety. The driver, a 42-year-old Yelm man, has since indicated on social media that his injuries are not life threatening. Trooper Chris Thorson told The Chronicle that WSP was first notified that something might have been amiss by a state Department of Transportation employee driving on U.S. Highway 12 near White Pass. There were markings indicating that a vehicle may have gone off the roadway and down a steep cliff, but Thorson said, at that early morning hour WSP got to the scene at around 4 a.m. the lighting was nonexistent, and any efforts would be ill-advised. Troopers returned to the area when daylight hit, and debris was visible from the road. WSP Sgt. Brian Mulvaney, Thorson said, has rock climbing and mountaineering experience, and also keeps his gear in his patrol car. Mulvaney made the climb down the cliff to the crashed pickup truck. From there, he found footprints in the snow and eventually tracked the driver to a nearby creek. He then helped him walk another mile or so to a forest service road. Thorson said its uncertain just how far down the truck fell. Additionally, WSP is investigating why the truck went over the cliff. Thorson said the driver advised he was run off the road by a swerving motorist, and WSP is investigating. Thorson said WSP gives some basic advice for driving in winter, in case you find yourself stranded in cold weather. Try to keep a fully charged cellphone, blankets, water and something to snack on with you in your vehicle. Its also not a bad rule of thumb, he said, to keep your gas tank topped off. OTTAWA, Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - The Government of Canada is steadfast in its commitment to protect the environment for future generations while growing our economy. Today, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, announced that the proposed Red Mountain Underground Gold Project is not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects when the mitigation measures described in the Environmental Assessment Report are taken into account. The project is an underground gold and silver mine proposed by IDM Mining Ltd. located 15 kilometres northeast of Stewart, British Columbia. According to the proponent, approximately 200 jobs would be created during project operations. The project is also subject to requirements under the Nis g a'a Final Agreement, a modern treaty signed by the governments of Canada, British Columbia, and the Nis g a'a Nation. In accordance with the treaty, the Minister has issued a Project Recommendation that includes a determination regarding the potential effects of the project under the Nis g a'a Final Agreement. In reaching her decision, the Minister considered the Project Recommendation and the Environmental Assessment Report, which includes the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency's conclusions and recommendations on the potential environmental effects of the project, the potential effects on the Nis g a'a Nation, the proposed mitigation measures, the significance of any adverse environmental effects and the follow-up program requirements. The Minister's Decision Statement establishes more than 120 conditions the proponent must fulfill throughout the life of the project. These conditions will reduce or eliminate the potential effects of the project on the environment and include measures to protect fish and fish habitat, migratory birds, species at risk, human health, physical and cultural heritage and the current use of lands and resources for traditional purposes by Indigenous peoples. Today's announcement reflects the Government of Canada's Interim Approach and Principles which ensure project decisions are informed by thorough and science-based environmental assessments, meaningful consultations with Indigenous peoples, public input including Indigenous Traditional Knowledge, and an assessment of greenhouse gas emissions. Quote "The Government of Canada is committed to conducting environmental assessments that ensure the protection of our environment, foster economic growth and create good middle-class jobs. We are confident that with the mitigation measures in place and the legally-binding conditions the proponent must fulfill, this project will move forward in a way that supports sustainable development." The Honourable Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Relevant Links Follow us on Twitter: @CEAA_ACEE SOURCE Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency Related Links http://www.ceaa.gc.ca STATESVILLE, N.C., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- When the untimely passing of 39-year-old Purple Heart Homes' (www.phhusa.org) Co-Founder and former Strategic Development Officer Dale Beatty occurred on February 12, 2018, the organization pledged to honor Dale's memory by building upon and expanding its mission to serve as many Service Connected Disabled and Aging Veterans as possible, ramping up its operations more than ever to help the people that Dale wished to help so fervently. Purple Heart Homes' continued commitment to providing quality housing to these veterans so that they can live and age safely and comfortably in their own homes serves as a tribute to Dale as well as to the millions of Service Connected Disabled and Aging Veterans living in the United States today. Purple Heart Homes is pleased to share some of its most vital accomplishments made in 2018. In August 2018, Purple Heart Homes celebrated 10 years since its establishment. During this significant year, Purple Heart Homes experienced numerous accomplishments, including: 69 veteran projects were completed in 2018, for a total of 484 in the past 10 years. These projects were accomplished through Purple Heart Homes' programs Veterans Aging in Place (VAIP), including Operation Veteran Home Renovation (OVHR), and Veterans Home Ownership Program (VHOP). Wounded Homecoming: The Uphill Journey of Wounded Veterans from Battlefield to Homefront , written by Dale Beatty and John Gallina , Co-Founder and current CEO, was published shortly after Dale's death. The book tells the story of John and Dale, their 22-year friendship, and how providing service to others became a critical aspect of their healing process and identities. , written by and , Co-Founder and current CEO, was published shortly after Dale's death. The book tells the story of John and Dale, their 22-year friendship, and how providing service to others became a critical aspect of their healing process and identities. Operation Veteran Home Renovation (OVHR), a subset of Purple Heart Homes' VAIP, continued its operations and in 2018, Credit Unions and National League of Cities in fifteen cities across the U.S. stepped up to assist with needed veteran home renovations. Purple Heart Homes partnered with The Home Depot Foundation, Housing Assistance Council, and National League of Cities to host the second annual Veterans Aging Summit in Indianapolis, IN. Purple Heart Homes joined forces with two other nonprofit organizations to construct the fourth home in the Lakehaven Estates Community of Denver, NC , for a veteran couple and their young daughter. , for a veteran couple and their young daughter. In partnership with Think Broader Foundation and Wheelhouse Media, Purple Heart Homes' first Virtual Realty Empathy Experience became a reality thanks to financial support from Bank of America and the Arts & Science Council. Purple Heart Homes' partner, Bronze Star Homes, built 10 Dale Beatty Memorial Ramps and two modular additions in 2018. Hearts of Honor Club, Purple Heart Homes' monthly giving club, reached over 200 members in 2018. More than 4 million Service Connected Disabled Veterans live in the United States today (U.S. Census Bureau, https://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2017/veterans-day.html), and over 50 percent of veterans 65 years of age and older live in homes built in the 1950's and 1960's that are often no longer suited to meet their needs because of their ages and disabilities. John Gallina, CEO and Co-founder of Purple Heart Homes, is pleased and proud of what Purple Heart Homes has accomplished in its' 10th year, thanks to a strong and devoted staff, generous and committed partners, and other organizations that share Purple Heart Homes' passion to help Service Connected Disabled and Aging Veterans. "As Purple Heart Homes continues to grow and expand its reach and reputation, our hearts are warmed by the ever-increasing number of individuals, groups, volunteers, and organizations that have joined us in our efforts," said Gallina. "We are so grateful to everyone who has helped us in the past, to those who continue to work with us, and to those we know will join us in 2019 and beyond. On behalf of everyone at Purple Heart Homes, I look forward to all of us working together to continue this important work on behalf of the heroes who are our country's veterans." Please join Purple Heart Homes and its partners in thinking about the value that a safe and accessible home brings to our veterans, who have sacrificed so much for each of us. Please consider donating to Purple Heart Homes, volunteering for a project, or starting a Chapter in your community. There are so many more of these veterans who need our help. Visit www.phhusa.org to learn more about how you can help Purple Heart Homes in its mission to provide housing solutions for Service Connected Disabled and Aging Veterans. About Purple Heart Homes Purple Heart Homes is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded by Dale Beatty and John Gallina, two Iraq combat-wounded veterans on a mission to provide housing solutions for Service Connected Disabled and Aging Veterans that are substantial in function, design and quality. Purple Heart Homes has two programs: Veterans Aging in Place (VAIP), which encompasses the Operation Veterans Home Renovation Project (OVHR), and The Veterans Home Ownership Program (VHOP). From building a ramp for wheelchair-bound veterans to providing home ownership opportunities to veterans with physical as well as invisible injuries, Purple Heart Homes' programs are designed out of necessity and fit the specific needs of veterans of all ages and from all eras, helping them to live and age in place, in their own safe, accessible and sustainable homes. For more information, visit www.phhusa.org. Purple Heart Homes Improving Veterans' Lives One Home at a Time. CONTACT: Debbie Kaufmann, Communications Manager, Purple Heart Homes: 301.252.3582; [email protected] SOURCE Purple Heart Homes Related Links http://www.phhusa.org MIAMI, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- One Park Financial is proud to announce that it has again been named one of the "Best and Brightest Companies to Work for in The Nation" by the National Association for Business Resources. The 2018 Best and Brightest Program honored 512 national winning organizations from across the country, out of 2.400 nominations. The competition identifies and honors companies that deliver exceptional human resource practices and a remarkable commitment to their employees. Organizations are assessed based on categories such as communication, work-life balance, employee education, diversity, recognition, retention and other critical employee-centric issues, according to the Association. All companies are assessed by an independent research firm. "We know that hiring the best smart people who really believe in our mission of making business funding easier and more accessible to smaller companies is the best way to take care of our customers. And we make sure we give our employees the tools and support that they need to win," says One Park Financial's CEO John Lie-Nielsen. One Park Financial's core values played a key role in the company being named as "Best and Brightest." The company focuses on delivering 1: Positive Results, 2: Client Success, 3: Taking Risks and 4: Having Fun. These values encourage employees to strive for success while creating an encouraging environment that supports innovation and camaraderie, along with a healthy work-life balance. "Profitability and stability is essential for businesses in today's economic climate. Companies that recognize that their employees are the key to their success achieve staying power. Our 2018 winners create their human resource standards to ensure employee satisfaction and they set standards for every business to aspire toward," said Jennifer Kluge, President and CEO, National Association for Business Resources. "We are proud to honor this year's winners and can't wait to celebrate them in September." The annual 'Best and Brightest Companies to Work For in the Nation' also celebrates achievement and success in empowering employees' lives through culture, diversity, and community engagement. One Park Financial encourages employees to work with the local community in whatever ways they choose to contribute. As a company, we host community events and collect donations year-round for both the United Way and Nicklaus Children's Hospital, South Florida's only licensed specialty hospital exclusively for children. One Park Financial is located at 3390 Mary Street, Suite 216, Coconut Grove, FL 33133. For more information, you can visit https://www.oneparkfinancial.com/ or call 855.218.8819. ABOUT ONE PARK FINANCIAL Established in 2010, One Park Financial (OPF) is a leading financial technology company committed to make working capital equally accessible to small and medium-sized businesses. OPF has a close relationship with over 20 funders across the nation. This gives One Park Financial clients a unique position in the marketplace when looking for working capital by allowing them to pick and choose and offer that is right for them. At OPF, the mission is to become a business owner's true partner in their success by educating, encouraging, and providing business owners with the resources they need to grow their business. OPF was founded by serial entrepreneurs with over 50 years of cumulative experience in the financial services and technology space. OPF has already helped thousands of business across the nation and is proud to be an A+ rated business with the Better Business Bureau. Photo(s): https://www.prlog.org/12749127 Press release distributed by PRLog SOURCE One Park Financial Related Links https://www.oneparkfinancial.com WILSONVILLE, Ore., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Mentor, a Siemens business, today announced that Chips&Media has successfully deployed Mentor's Catapult HLS Platform to design and verify their c.WAVE computer vision IP for detecting objects in real time, using a deep neural network (DNN) algorithm. Chips&Media is a leading provider of high-performance, high-quality video IP for system-on-chip (SoC) design that is widely deployed in markets such as automotive, surveillance, and consumer electronics. To quickly provide differentiated machine learning IP to customers, Chips&Media needed to increase their productivity dramatically by reducing functional verification time, timing closure, customization, and final optimization so they could spend more time in research and development for their machine algorithms and architecture. To accomplish these goals, they shifted away from their traditional hand-coded register transfer level (RTL) flow and adopted the Catapult HLS Platform to code their algorithms and testbenches using the C language. The HLS design and verification team cut their project time in half when compared to the team using an RTL flow on the same project. "To address the challenges of acceleration for inference-targeted devices, we believe it is key to have a hardware architecture that is focused and highly optimized for power, performance and area (PPA) using a deep neural network," said Mickey Jeon, chief technical officer of Chips&Media. "HLS enabled us to do this extremely efficiently. Our project was an outstanding success, and we plan on deploying an HLS flow using Catapult on our next project." Characteristics of DNN-based computer vision processing include repetitive computations of multiply/add/accumulate operations, with massive data movement through neural network layers. The DNN is developed on a framework such as Caffe or TensorFlow, and then the algorithm can be captured in a C model. Chips&Media refined this algorithmic C model into synthesizable C code and used the Catapult HLS Platform to rapidly explore various architectures and synthesize into RTL to find the optimal solution for this type of design. "In multiple application spaces where the market is rapidly changing, we are seeing adoption of Catapult HLS as the only way to achieve the kind of productivity required to succeed," said Badru Agarwala, general manager of Digital Design and Implementation Solutions at Mentor. "We have been working closely with Chips&Media to ensure a smooth transition to HLS. It has resulted in enabling them to focus their expertise on algorithm/architecture design rather than low-level implementation and debug details, thereby delivering their ideas to market much more quickly." For further detail, refer to the detailed case study: Chips&Media: Design and Verification of Deep Learning Object Detection IP . About Mentor's Catapult HLS Platform The Catapult HLS Platform empowers designers to use industry-standard ANSI C++ and SystemC to describe functional intent and move up to a more productive abstraction level. From these high-level descriptions, Catapult rapidly generates production-quality RTL. The Catapult Platform pairs synthesis with the power of formal C property checking to find bugs early at the C/C++/SystemC level and to comprehensively verify source code before synthesis. The highly-interactive Catapult workflow provides full visibility and control of the synthesis process, enabling designers to rapidly converge upon the best implementation for PPA. Catapult's advanced power optimizations also automatically provide significant reductions in dynamic power consumption. Contact for journalists Jack Taylor Phone: (512) 560-7143; E-mail: [email protected] Mentor Graphics Corporation, a Siemens business, is a world leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products, consulting services, and award-winning support for the world's most successful electronic, semiconductor, and systems companies. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777. Web site: http://www.mentor.com. Mentor Graphics, Mentor and Catapult are registered trademarks of Mentor Graphics Corporation. TensorFlow is a trademark of Google, Inc. All other company or product names are the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owner. SOURCE Mentor, a Siemens business Related Links https://www.mentor.com/ WESTWOOD, Mass., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- MEDITECH , a leading Enterprise Health Record (EHR) vendor and Contributor Member of CommonWell Health Alliance, has successfully deployed CommonWell interoperability services at Northwestern Medical Center (St. Albans, VT), taking another meaningful step forward in the goal of more connected care between healthcare organizations. CommonWell services allow participating provider sites to share patient information seamlessly for improved patient care and quality outcomes, helping to bridge gaps in patient care and deliver the best outcomes possible for the community at large. This transformative functionality is embedded into the MEDITECH EHR, streamlining a truly connected system. To date, more than 11,000 provider sites in all 50 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico have gone live with CommonWell services, with more than 45 million unique individuals' records available to providers connected to the CommonWell network. "CommonWell congratulates MEDITECH for helping to expand the CommonWell footprint across its customer base," said Jitin Asnaani, executive director of CommonWell Health Alliance. "I am proud of the dedication and tenacity CommonWell members have in breaking down data silos to improve the quality and safety of patient care delivery." Northwestern Medical Center (NMC), located just south of the Canadian border, has been an integral part of the St. Albans community, dating back to the original St. Albans Hospital, established in 1883. For over 125 years, this organization has served the people of northwestern Vermont and looks forward to doing so for years to come. As population health is at the heart of interoperability, the CommonWell vision is acutely aligned with NMC's diligent servitude to its community, and its goal of a healthier patient population. "Northwestern Medical Center is excited to partner with MEDITECH and CommonWell to help our medical and clinical staff," says Joel Benware, Chief Information, Innovation and Compliance Officer for Northwestern Medical Center. "We believe that this connection will enable us to have greater access to patients' information, therefore giving us better insight into their care and treatment." Lawrence O'Toole, associate vice president of strategy at MEDITECH and member of the CommonWell Health Alliance Board of Directors, is encouraged to see MEDITECH customers continue to adopt CommonWell services, moving the EHR community closer to being a truly united front. "It's exciting to see a valued partner in Northwestern Medical Center deploy CommonWell services, and to strengthen a flourishing network of healthcare organizations committed to interoperability initiatives," said O'Toole. "Interoperability is a foundational component of MEDITECH's vision for healthcare, and we'll continue to push for a more connected future." Want to hear more about MEDITECH's commitment to interoperability? Come see us at HIMSS19 (booth #3921) or stop by the Interoperability Showcase, Feb 12-14, booth #9100, where we will be participating in a use case with CommonWell Health Alliance. About MEDITECH The next digital transformation of healthcare is underway, and MEDITECH is leading the charge with Expanse, the only full-scale EHR designed specifically for the post-Meaningful Use era. As a leading EHR vendor for 50 years, MEDITECH's solutions have empowered 2,325 customers across 22 different countries to provide higher quality care, with greater efficiency, to more people, at a lower cost. Today, our cutting-edge solutions are helping organizations to see healthcare through a new lens and navigate this virtual landscape with unparalleled vision and clarity. Whether your destination is clinical efficiency, analytical prowess, or financial success, MEDITECH's bold innovation, passion, and expertise will get you where you want to go. Visit ehr.meditech.com , our Newsroom and Blog , and connect with us on Twitter , Facebook and LinkedIn to start your journey today. Contacts Paul Berthiaume Senior Manager, Marketing Communications MEDITECH 781-774-5742 [email protected] Liz Carroll Manager, Public Relations and Media Relations MEDITECH 781-774-3297 [email protected] SOURCE MEDITECH Related Links http://www.meditech.com SEATTLE, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- First Sound Bank (OTCBB:FSWA) today announced that Martin (Marty) A. Steele has agreed to join the bank and assume the role of its president and CEO, pending regulatory approval. Current First Sound Bank President and CEO Jon C. Shelton, who last year indicated his desire to retire in early 2019, has agreed to remain in that capacity until the transition is completed sometime within the next couple months. Steele has served as president and CEO of The Bank of Washington since 2013. This $215 million, locally owned community bank (headquartered in Lynnwood, Washington) entered into a definitive agreement in October, 2018 to sell its assets to Sound Credit Union and is currently waiting for regulatory approval on that transaction. In announcing Steele's confirmation, First Sound Bank Chairman Steven J. Schwartz said, "We are extremely pleased to have Marty Steele join us soon. He brings with him a wealth of experience, having served in executive and senior roles with a number of local banks and financial service companies for nearly forty years." Schwartz added, "And, of course, we wish Jon Shelton well in his much-deserved retirement and thank him for his outstanding service at First Sound Bank." Prior to joining The Bank of Washington, Steele served as president and CEO of Charter Bank in Bellevue, Washington from 2009-2012. Earlier in his career, he held several positions in corporate, business and private banking at Bank of America and Commerce Bank of Washington in Seattle. Steele received a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University in 1978, as well as a master's degree in business from Yale University in 1980. Actively involved in the community, he has held positions on the boards of numerous Seattle non-profits over the past thirty years. Steele currently serves The Rainier Club as vice president of finance and as a member of its Executive Committee. About First Sound Bank Seattle-based First Sound Bank offers customized banking for small- to medium-sized businesses, organizations, not-for-profits and professionals in the Puget Sound region. The bank is committed to delivering personalized service, convenient access, and competitive rates to support the needs of the business community. First Sound Bank offers online banking at www.firstsoundbank.com and an expansive array of cash management services, as well as ATM banking throughout the country and abroad. SOURCE First Sound Bank Related Links http://www.firstsoundbank.com NEW YORK, Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A $19 billion social enterprise is bringing its community investment model to Charlotte as part of a major effort to expand affordable housing, businesses and jobs across the regionespecially in areas that have not benefited from the area's economic growth. The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is launching its 33rd program office in the Queen City and has named Ralphine Caldwell as the executive director. Caldwell is a long-time regional expert on innovative community development strategies, most recently serving as senior vice president in charge of programs for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Housing Partnership (CMHP), a nonprofit housing development and finance organization. "Right now, many of our communities are facing a significant opportunity gap," said Caldwell, "but those challenges don't tell the whole story. They don't speak to the rich culture in our communities or the vibrant energy that runs through our city. LISC will be investing in ways that tap into that strength so we can raise local incomes and improve the overall quality of life for thousands of residents." The launch of LISC Charlotte follows extensive conversations with local nonprofits and civic leaders on strategies to reduce economic disparities and address a worsening shortage of affordable housing. National LISC has committed $25 million to support the first few years of LISC's work in Charlotte. Additionally, LISC will be managing an innovative Housing Opportunity Fund, supported by public and private dollars, to drive affordable and mixed-income housing development. In addition to housing, other priorities include seeding small businesses, revitalizing commercial corridors, and fueling community-based programs that help residents expand their skills so they can take advantage of growth industries and move into living wage jobs. "There is clearly a great deal of innovation and talent in the Charlotte area," said Maurice A. Jones, LISC president and CEO. "And there is work to be done to help everyone to benefit from the city's tremendous growth. We want to help fuel locally driven opportunities that tear down old barriers based on race or zip code so that all of Charlotte's residents have the chance to contribute to, and benefit from, a vibrant local economy." Jones said Caldwell is uniquely suited to spearhead this effort, pointing to her two decades of leadership in raising community investment capital, organizing development projects, collaborating with residents, and advocating for public policies that build stronger neighborhoods. Among her many accomplishments, Caldwell spearheaded the process to have CMHP designated as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), creating new opportunities to attract funding for Charlotte communities. At CMHP, she led a 14-person staff to connect thousands of Charlotte families to rental housing and homeownership opportunities through counseling, down-payment assistance and lending. She managed a variety of federal, state and local housing finance programs to improve the outlook for local residents. Before joining CMHP, Caldwell worked in various positions in mortgage finance and title insurance. Throughout her career, she has also served on a number of advisory boards for banks and nonprofits, including NeighborWorks America, Fifth Third Bank and Housing Partnership Network. "Ralphine knows first-hand what it takes to create quality housing, businesses and jobs in Charlotte communities," Jones said. "She is a great addition to the LISC family." Caldwell will begin work in March, when she will start hiring local staff and reaching out to community partners on strategies for growth. LISC Charlotte's office will be located at 201 South Tryon Street in Uptown. About LISC With residents and partners, LISC forges resilient and inclusive communities of opportunity across America great places to live, work, visit, do business and raise families. Since 1979, LISC has invested $18.6 billion to build or rehab 376,000 affordable homes and apartments and develop 63 million square feet of retail, community and educational space. LISC has been active in North Carolina through its Rural LISC investment program and its affiliates, National Equity Fund and New Markets Support Company, which together have invested nearly $80 million in housing, businesses and jobs across the state. To learn more, visit www.lisc.org. Media contact: Colleen Mulcahy, for LISC 312-342-8244 [email protected] SOURCE LISC Related Links http://www.lisc.org BOSTON, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Life Biosciences has announced the closing of a Series B financing round of $50 million, according to Tristan Edwards, chief executive officer and co-founder. The Company initially targeted a $25 million round but upsized to meet investor demand. The proceeds of the investment will be used to continue Life Biosciences' and its Daughter Companies' research and development activities in potential therapeutics to combat age-related decline, and related purposes. "We are excited by this investor response to our Series B, and the validation it represents," said Edwards. "The range of investors in this round includes individuals, family trusts, and other professional investors. We believe this response recognizes the power of our teams and science, and the progress we are making in addressing the pathways of aging." Life Biosciences Overview Life Biosciences is dedicated to tackling the eight pathways of age-related decline (ARD) as the cause of the systemic breakdown of the body, rather than a series of isolated symptoms, events and conditions. The company brings together the world's leading scientists and researchers to increase healthspans and reduce disease for everyone, including companion animals. Life Biosciences was co-founded in 2017 by renowned scientists and Tristan Edwards, who developed its innovative structure as Chapter Two in his life after a highly successful career as a global institutional investor working across all asset classes. There are six Daughter companies working independently and together within the Life Biosciences research environment. The company also recently announced a significant investment in Prana, a publicly traded Australian biotech company, and the acquisition of Lua, Life Biosciences' HIPAA-compliant medical technology platform. Life Biosciences provides Daughter companies with the resources required to maximize human potential, including Life Lua's data and communications platform, experienced management, drug development experience, and a 24,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art vivarium, robotics and drug screening facility in Cambridge, Mass (USA), in addition to laboratories and offices on four continents. Co-founded in 2017 by Tristan Edwards and renowned scientists, Life Biosciences is a company addressing the eight pathways of age-related decline (ARD) as a systemic breakdown of the body, not a series of isolated symptoms and conditions. It has established Daughter companies around the world to independently and collaboratively attack these pathways through pioneering research and product development. The company provides Daughter companies with the full resources of Life Lua's data and communications platform; LifeLab, its 24,000- square-foot, state-of-the-art research facility that includes a vivarium, robotics, and drug screening capabilities. Life Biosciences seeks to increase healthspans for everyone, including companion animals. For more information on Life Biosciences, please visit www.lifebiosciences.com. Press Contact: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] SOURCE Life Biosciences Related Links lifebiosciences.com NEW YORK, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- From winning the first place Gold in the world's largest consumer tasting competition to its rapid enrollment of its first 300 members, ONE ROQVodka, ( https://oneroqclub.com/ ), is quickly demonstrating a unique approach with a first-mover market position. The initial membership of ONE ROQ VODKA CLUB sets the stage for ONE ROQ to initiate plans to expand its Club where proceeds will be used to develop new partnerships, build inventory, hire talent, and formally introduce ONE ROQ Vodka to the world over the next 12-24 months. With its most recent milestone attained, ONE ROQ is advancing its plan to transform the highly centralized nature of the distilled spirits industry by providing consumers an intoxicating opportunity to experience a beneficial relationship with a world-class luxury brand at the ground level.ONE ROQ is currently accepting members and offering a unique investment opportunity. Please visit their Start Engine page, (https://www.startengine.com/oneroqspirits ), or (www.ONEROQClub.com ) to learn more. From winning the first place Gold in the world's largest consumer tasting competition to its rapid enrollment of its first 300 members, ONE ROQVodka, (https://oneroqclub.com/), is quickly demonstrating a unique approach with a first-mover market position. The initial membership of ONE ROQ VODKA CLUB sets the stage for ONE ROQ to initiate plans to expand its Club where proceeds will be used to develop new partnerships, build inventory, and hire talent. With its most recent milestone attained, ONE ROQ is advancing its plan to transform the highly centralized nature of the distilled spirits industry by providing consumers an intoxicating opportunity to experience a beneficial relationship with a world-class luxury brand at the ground level. "For the last 80 years, financial laws have prevented average citizens from being able to invest in early-stage companies," said Garrett Green, company founder. "ONE ROQ represents a novel opportunity in one of the most lucrative industry's in the world to own what we drink, and drink what we own - and benefit along the way." Green is happy for the founding members of the Club who have contributed to the realization of ONE ROQ's outstanding initial success and validation, as well as their own. Green is now planning to ensure promises are kept as part of ONE ROQ's plan to emerge as the industry's next breakout brand. To facilitate ONE ROQ's expansion efforts, ONEROQClub.com will continue offering a unique membership opportunity, giving consumers the opportunity to align themselves with a brand they can own and guide and reap both the lifestyle and financial benefits of an already award-winning product in an ever-expanding industry. Privileges of being a ONE ROQ Vodka Club member include: Equity: Receive units of stock in the company. Receive units of stock in the company. Distribution: Receive an annual payment as a percentage of company earnings in profitable years. Receive an annual payment as a percentage of company earnings in profitable years. A Vote: Influence company direction by casting votes on future initiatives such as new products, packaging, club privileges, and more. Influence company direction by casting votes on future initiatives such as new products, packaging, club privileges, and more. Online Concierge: Use our on-demand ordering and gifting services for stocking the home bar, or sending gifts to friends, family, and colleagues Use our on-demand ordering and gifting services for stocking the home bar, or sending gifts to friends, family, and colleagues Lifetime Discount: Up to 40 percent off merchandise when ordered through approved partners. Up to 40 percent off merchandise when ordered through approved partners. VIP Events (In Development): Enjoy VIP access to special events sponsored by the company. Enjoy VIP access to special events sponsored by the company. Lifestyle E-Magazine (In Development): Receive the company's quarterly, lifestyle e-magazine currently in development with original content and tips covering: travel, home entertaining, dating & relationships, and more. Receive the company's quarterly, lifestyle e-magazine currently in development with original content and tips covering: travel, home entertaining, dating & relationships, and more. Carry Request (In Development): Will be used to make ONE ROQ available at your favorite neighborhood bars, restaurants or retailer. ONE ROQ is currently accepting members and offering a unique investment opportunity. Please visit their Start Engine page, (https://www.startengine.com/oneroqspirits ), or ( www.ONEROQClub.com ) to learn more about the ONE ROQ Vodka Club and ONE ROQ's iconic spirit. You can also check out the company's video, ( https://youtu.be/VYXizFrr7IE ), to find out more. ABOUT company ONE ROQ Vodka is an American luxury vodka brand owned by ONE ROQ Spirits, LLC. The Company is currently headquartered in Buffalo, NY with manufacturing facilities in Denver, CO., Bend, OR, and Palm Beach, Florida. It is crafted from mid-western, American corn and pristine Colorado mountain water. Media Contact: George Pappas Conservaco / The Ignite Agency 949-339-2002 [email protected] http://ignitecfp.com SOURCE ONE ROQ Related Links https://oneroqclub.com PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Angeion Group today announced the addition of Teri Thompson to its executive leadership team as Vice President of Class Action & Mass Tort Services. Ms. Thompson is a veteran attorney who brings a diverse portfolio of litigation, management, and consultative experience to her role at Angeion Group. Drawing upon her extensive legal services background, Ms. Thompson will play a valuable role in consulting with current and prospective Angeion clients on a broad range of class action and mass tort settlement administration matters. She will work closely with Angeion Group Chief Executive Officer, Christopher Chimicles and Chief Innovation Officer, Steven Weisbrot, Esq. "Teri is a great addition to the Angeion team, and we are excited for the expertise she will bring to our clients' administrative and litigation needs," said Chimicles. "She will play a critical role in helping Angeion to continue to set the standard for innovation, accountability and customer service in class action and mass tort administration." Prior to joining Angeion, Ms. Thompson held a leadership position at Rust Consulting where she worked on and implemented a variety of class action settlement administration matters in antitrust, consumer and labor and employment. She also managed the West Coast business for LexisNexis, comprising the company's entire legal portfolio. She started her career as a litigation associate at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, helping represent a variety of Silicon Valley corporations, including Apple. Her volunteer experience has included serving as a board member of Gifford's Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, as well as working as a reporter at KPFA radio in San Francisco. Ms. Thompson is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of California at Santa Barbara, Summa Cum Laude. ABOUT ANGEION GROUP Angeion Group is an industry-leading provider of comprehensive settlement management and legal noticing services for class actions, mass tort, and bankruptcy administration. Leveraging world-class technology, proven best practices, and expert consulting, Angeion delivers the services and capabilities that increase efficiency, provide accountability and give counsel and the court peace of mind. For more information, visit www.angeiongroup.com. Media Contact: Angeion Group Douglas S. Clauson Director, Communications (215) 563-4116 SOURCE Angeion Group Related Links http://www.angeiongroup.com Posted Monday, January 14, 2019 1:21 pm A regular meeting of the Twin Transit Advisory Board will take place at 9 a.m. Tuesday inside a second-floor meeting room at Centralia City Hall. It will be the second consecutive regular meeting of the board to take place away from the Twin Transit administrative building. Agenda items include nominations for 2019 board positions such as chair and vice-chair and an executive session to discuss both the performance of an employee and receive or evaluate complaints against an employee. Recent reporting by The Chronicle indicates Derrick Wojcik-Damers, general manager of Twin Transit, is party to both lines of discussion as well as letters recently submitted to the board by Twin Transit employees. The advisory board met in executive session for more than 90 minutes Friday at the Lewis County Board of Commissioners offices to consider the performance of an employee. No action was taken at that time. To perform functions such as communicating with ground stations and directing solar cell paddles toward the sun for power and temperature control, satellites use attitude sensors to determine their orientation (attitude). The Tokyo Tech research group led by Assistant Professor Yoichi Yatsu has developed a star tracker and an Earth sensor that uses deep learning to determine attitude in space. With no ground to distinguish directionality, the device constantly tracks multiple fixed stars to achieve high accuracy, while the Earth sensor performs attitude estimation based on images of the Earth. This Deep Learning Attitude Sensor (DLAS) was developed with three goals in mind. The first is to demonstrate that a low-cost star tracker made from inexpensive, high-performance commercially available components can effectively operate in space. The plan is to capture images of stars in orbit under various conditions to calibrate the sensor system and determine attitude based on novel algorithms, and demonstrate long-term operation with a test period of one year. The second goal is to conduct orbital testing of real-time image recognition using deep learning. The Earth is photographed using two compact visible light cameras incorporated in the baffle of the star tracker. The 8-megapixel images taken are processed in about 4 seconds using a specially developed high-speed, lightweight image identification algorithm. Recognition of vegetation and land use is performed over nine categories, including green terrain, deserts, oceans, clouds, and outer space. This will be the first demonstration of real-time image recognition in space using deep learning (See figure). In orbit, more than 1,000 images are taken as learning data and transferred to the ground for use in satellite image application tests. The third goal is the application of this image identification technology, and the evaluation of the technologies for estimating 3-axis attitude using land features obscured by clouds and comparing it with map data prerecorded in the onboard computer (See figure). Hardware development for DLAS completed in April 2018 and was incorporated into the Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration-1 (RAPIS-1) developed by JAXA . After about six months of system environment testing and operation rehearsals, it will be launched from the JAXA Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture using Epsilon-4 on January 17, 2019, and will enter into Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 500 km. DLAS operation is scheduled to start after completion of the RAPIS-1 checkout, and after confirming initial operation, each sensor system will undergo calibration for about one month. Afterwards, it will enter into mission operation for one year. JAXA entrusted development of the RAPIS-1 satellite / control system and satellite operation to Axelspace Corporation, which is a startup company established by people involved in the development of nanosatellites at the University of Tokyo and Tokyo Tech. This marks a major turning point in Japanese space development, which until now had been led by major electronics manufacturers, and will be a memorable flight operation for those related to private space development, which was "palm size" at universities fifteen years ago. Background It has been fifteen years since the world's first CubeSats, CUTE-I and X-XI developed by Tokyo Tech and the University of Tokyo, were launched in 2003. Nanosatellites were initially for education purposes. After 2010, these began to be actively used for commercial space projects. Today, more than 200 are launched annually, establishing a new global 1-billion-USD space industry. Since Engineering Technology Demonstration Satellite CUTE-I, research groups from the Kawai Laboratory and Matsunaga Laboratory at Tokyo Tech are aiming for nanosatellite space science observation, and have been leading the world's development of the nanosatellites, by conducting the development, launch, and operation of three nanosized observation satellites(Note) (Cute-1.7+APD, Cute-1.7+APD Unit 2, and TSUBAME) Research Details In recent years, due to the development of communication networks (Internet) and computer technologies for connecting satellites with the whole Earth, the new field of discovery known as "time domain astronomy" has opened, which involves research on short-term astronomical phenomena that suddenly appear and disappear. The symbolic target is the gravitational wave phenomenon discovered in August 2017, its electromagnetic wave counterpart was discovered through observation of radio/infrared/optical telescopes, observation satellites, and neutrino detectors all over the world observed simultaneously in response to the detection alert of the position of the gravitational wave telescope. Dr. Yatsu's team plans to monitor a super wide field of 100 square degrees with UV light for which there are almost no observation examples, and conduct research with the aim of discovering initial activity of short-term astrophysical phenomena such as gravitational wave sources and unknown astrophysical events. Satellites are needed since most UV light is blocked by the atmosphere, but in order to obtain sharp photographs of faint stars, high attitude stability is required. In addition, it is difficult to instantaneously transfer all image data back to the ground due to limitations in satellite communication speed. Therefore, in order to have detailed observation using a combination of the above-mentioned terrestrial telescopes, practical measures need to be developed including transmitting only analysis results such as the accurate position and brightness of a target astronomical object by having image analysis performed in the satellite. To accomplish such an advanced observation mission, it was necessary to acquire a highly accurate star tracker, a highly advanced on-board computer that can be mounted on a satellite, and an automatic image analysis technique that utilizes these. Astronomical observations from a space telescope require data processing programs such as high-accuracy attitude calculation based on the assumption of cosmic radiation removal, star image detection, star alignment pattern matching, noise contamination, etc., that can also be used as a star tracker, which is an attitude sensor for artificial satellites. Unfortunately, there is currently a lack of attitude system suppliers for nanosatellites in Japan. Therefore, the research team has been developing actual equipment with a view toward commercialization of on-board component development. On the other hand, ground-based image recognition tests were originally inspired by ground-based weather identification tests. Currently, the Kawai Laboratory has set up robotic telescopes with a diameter of 50 cm in Yamanashi Prefecture and Okayama Prefecture to observe gravitational wave phenomena, gamma-ray bursts, etc. However, observation was often suspended because the weather in Japan is unstable. Therefore, research on a cloud identifier based on deep learning was conducted to improve observation efficiency. The cloud identifier developed in cooperation with Tokyo Tech School of Computing professors Koichi Shinoda and Nakamasa Inoue achieved extremely high accuracy even in the initial prototype stage, and it was believed that it could be applied to instantaneous image identification for orbiting satellites, prompting this study. Until now, analysis of satellite images using AI generally referred to carefully analyzing large numbers of images accumulated in data servers on the ground using supercomputers, but real-time image recognition on orbiting satellites, i.e. at the computing "edge", has the potential to greatly change the value and operation of the nanosatellite platform. For example, there is a huge amount of information that quickly loses its value if it cannot be quickly determined, such as that in defense, disaster monitoring, and capturing debris. This research was embarked upon to achieve autonomous detection by satellites, in place of human eyes. Future Development (1) Advancing the state-of-the-art in space science Development of observation satellites aimed at the world's first super wide field ultraviolet survey observation is being carried out through the inheritance of satellite attitude measurement technologies acquired through DLAS and advanced image processing technologies using onboard computers. In cooperation with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, the team plans to employ an ultra-sensitive backside illuminated CMOS imager optimized for ultraviolet color band to achieve required sensitivity. The data processing system, optical system, and satellite bus system will be developed by Tokyo Tech. In parallel with equipment development, discussions of observation strategies are being promoted at Tokyo Tech, Konan University, Tohoku University, the University of Tokyo, California Institute of Technology, Aoyama Gakuin University, and others. According to the current plan, R&D is progressing with a launch goal of 2022. (2) Commercialization by Tokyo Tech Space Startups As work on DLAS progresses, various findings are being obtained that can only be learned through actual equipment development such as the star tracker design method, manufacturing techniques, test techniques, ground calibration tests, star matching algorithms, and embedded software. Commercialization of these findings will be actively promoted. Tokyo Tech venture Amanogi is proceeding with the manufacture and sale of spacecraft mounted devices. This startup has obtained subsidies from NEDO supporting a commercial version of the star tracker, and has also obtained seed financing from the private venture capital companies Innovations and Future Creation Inc. and Darma Tech Labs. Utilizing development knowledge and flight data from DLAS, the goal is to provide inexpensive but reliable satellite-mounted products to the market at an early stage. In the product version, development of a star tracker for CubeSats is being considered to meet demand by private space business operators, and it was decided to install a demo device on Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration-2. The present goal is to start accepting orders in 2020. (3) Forming bases for sharing knowledge and commercializing development technologies and test platforms, etc. Conventional space equipment and system designs rely on computer technologies that are 10 to 20 years behind what is used on the ground in order to ensure high reliability. However, when it comes to nanosatellites where many are released within a short cycle, state-of-the-art IoT technology and computational systems such as DLAS can be applied. It is projected that a combination of variable structures such as computer science, extension, and development are needed to overcome the limitation on payload size, the one drawback of nanosatellites, and realize more advanced space utilization. The research team led by Professor Saburo Matsunaga of Tokyo Tech will promote the formation of a development base for "smarter" space systems with an eye toward such space equipment. In this project, the aim is to realize smart space equipment by 1) carrying out development of attitude/observation sensors that use machine learning based on the application of DLAS information, lightweight and highly rigid contractible booms and arrays, satellite-mounted equipment such as deployable antennas for high-speed communication, and a "HIBARI" nanosatellite with a variable shape function that verifies a new attitude control method capable of achieving both quick change and high orientation stability, and 2) share orbital observation data and processing technology, and provide services such as shared use of test operation facilities such as a cobalt 60 irradiation chamber. Further aims are to support creation and development of new business by 3) creating industry-academia cooperation models and industry-academia networks, and 4) supporting young researchers through hands-on learning. This initiative was adopted as the MEXT commission on the promotion of aerospace science and technology "Research and development center for smart space equipment and systems that create a new space industry" (started August 31, 2018, scheduled for completion at the end of Fiscal 2020), and activities started. As the main executing institution, Tokyo Tech (Saburo Matsunaga (representative), Hiroshi Furuya, Yoichi Yatsu, and Noriyosu Hayashizaki) is promoting the project jointly with Nihon University (Yasuyuki Miyazaki), TechSol (Kazuyuki Nakamura), SAKASE ADTECH (Akihito Watanabe), and Amanogi (Hiroshi Kudo), and technical support and feedback for future direction are received from many other research collaborators (participants being recruited from time to time) consisting of universities, research institutes, and companies. About Tokyo Institute of Technology Tokyo Tech stands at the forefront of research and higher education as the leading university for science and technology in Japan. Tokyo Tech researchers excel in fields ranging from materials science to biology, computer science, and physics. Founded in 1881, Tokyo Tech hosts over 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students per year, who develop into scientific leaders and some of the most sought-after engineers in industry. Embodying the Japanese philosophy of "monotsukuri," meaning "technical ingenuity and innovation," the Tokyo Tech community strives to contribute to society through high-impact research. https://www.titech.ac.jp/english/ SOURCE Tokyo Institute of Technology Related Links https://www.titech.ac.jp/english BURLINGTON, Vt., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Dealer.com, the premier digital marketing solution and partner for auto dealerships, will unveil new capabilities this month at the NADA Show. The new innovations will enable dealers to leverage cutting-edge data and technology to create a more personalized online shopping and buying experience, unlock digital marketing efficiency and cater to emerging consumer needs. The new solutions being launched help dealers deliver a more complete and connected digital storefront, with personalized experiences that reach and engage customers at every step of the shopping process while providing improved flexibility, customization, and Managed Services options. The innovations include: A redesigned Dealer.com website platform delivers personalized shopping and buying experiences tailored to consumer preferences and behaviors. Upgrades include new mobile-first homepage and Vehicle Deal Pages (VDPs) designs that use HomeNet Automotive high-resolution and 360- degree imagery to provide more engaging, customizable inventory content. Integrated with Cox Automotive Digital Retailing, next-generation VDPs provide accelerated deals and immersive inventory merchandising. imagery to provide more engaging, customizable inventory content. Integrated with Cox Automotive Digital Retailing, next-generation VDPs provide accelerated deals and immersive inventory merchandising. New advertising enhancements that drive proven and measurable results by connecting inventory with likely buyers more efficiently across digital channels. Key improvements include integration with vAuto that ensures ads reflect optimally relevant inventory, pricing, and shopper data, and enhanced audience targeting on Facebook that applies Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader data to help target likely in-market buyers. The Dealer.com TotalConnect Advertising package brings dealers a more complete multichannel advertising solution than previously available. and Autotrader data to help target likely in-market buyers. The Dealer.com TotalConnect Advertising package brings dealers a more complete multichannel advertising solution than previously available. Expanded and enhanced Managed Services offerings now provide dealers with more custom content services, including custom video capabilities, social reputation management, and custom fixed operations content and creative that allow dealers to enhance their overall digital marketing performance and attract customers across all lines of business. Secure and integrated digital retailing fosters deal-making on any device and provides a streamlined online to in-store experience. Dealer.com websites integrate the most advanced digital retailing solution available, powered by Cox Automotive Digital Retailing tools, to drive shoppers down the path to purchase, increasing their engagement and creating stronger leads that accelerate dealer sales. Dealers using Cox Automotive Digital Retailing on their Dealer.com websites have a higher close rate and earn higher gross profits compared to traditional online leads.*1 "With more of the car-buying process taking place online, customers expect a digital shopping experience tailored to their specific needs," said Mike Rother, senior vice president and general manager for Dealer.com. "The new Dealer.com capabilities help dealerships build a customized digital marketing strategy that puts the right vehicles and right deals in front of the right customers to drive greater engagement, satisfaction and sales." Dealers can deliver the personalized, mobile digital shopping experience customers now demand. Ninety percent of consumers say they prefer a unique car-buying journey that allows them to shop and buy in a very personalized way, according to the Cox Automotive Future of Digital Retail Study2, and the majority of all traffic to dealership websites (60 percent) now comes from mobile devices.3 Redesigned Website Platform to Engage Shoppers Dealer.com personalized websites are redesigned for the modern shopper. All-new mobile-first site designs differentiate dealerships and immersive VDPs turn browsing activities into buying behaviors. The streamlined design architecture includes homepage templates that focus on imagery, facet search, personalization and clean hero messages to make it easier for customers to find the vehicles and features they want. The updated Vehicle Deal Pages feature enhanced inventory merchandising and available integrations with Cox Automotive's HomeNet Automotive 4K and SnapLot 360 technology, which enables high-resolution imagery and 360-degree spins of vehicle interiors and exteriors. New Advertising Solutions to Target In-Market Buyers More Effectively Dealer.com Advertising solutions help dealers reach more buyers and drive them to relevant inventory, deepening their engagement with the dealer's digital storefront. Integrated ad campaigns use advanced data-targeting capabilities to connect likely in-market buyers across paid search, display, social and video channels, influencing consumer demand at every stage of today's digitally-driven shopping process. An exclusive integration with vAuto allows dealers to automatically match the right car to the right buyer at the right price within their ad campaigns, generating more clicks and engagement for dealers at lower cost. New data and audience targeting integrations from partners Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book and improvements to the Compass strategy tool have also been implemented. These solutions, integrated within the Dealer.com TotalConnect Advertising package save time and increase efficiency for shoppers and dealers alike, creating a more intuitive experience for car shoppers, advertising and website alignment for dealers, and increased traffic and leads. Enhanced Managed Services to Create Custom Content Dealer.com is also expanding the offerings through its Managed Services team of digital marketing experts that provide cutting-edge strategy and execution to bring dealers the SEO, content and creative, and social media services needed to differentiate their dealership, drive more sales and book more services appointments. Managed Services has added content and creative capabilities to support fixed ops campaigns and the creation of custom videos to promote specials and incentive campaigns. Videos can now be embedded within landing pages on the client web site and become an asset to strengthen broader marketing efforts, including social media and search engine optimization. The 2019 NADA Show will be held January 24-27 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA. For more information on NADA 2019 product announcements, visit Dealer.com at the 2019 NADA Convention and Expo, booth # 1721S. About Dealer.com Dealer.com provides an integrated platform of Advertising, Website and Managed Services products which allow OEMs, dealer groups, retailers and agencies to leverage advanced digital technology and data to better engage and connect with their customers. The company practices a deep commitment to its culture of innovation, with a focus on health and wellness, making it one of the most desirable places to work, and a valuable partner for automotive retailers. Based in Burlington, Vermont, Dealer.com is a Cox Automotive brand. For more information, visit www.dealer.com. About Cox Automotive Cox Automotive Inc. makes buying, selling, owning and using cars easier for everyone. The global company's 34,000-plus team members and family of brands, including Autotrader, Clutch Technologies, Dealer.com, Dealertrack, Kelley Blue Book, Manheim, NextGear Capital, VinSolutions, vAuto and Xtime, are passionate about helping millions of car shoppers, 40,000 auto dealer clients across five continents and many others throughout the automotive industry thrive for generations to come. Cox Automotive is a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises Inc., a privately-owned, Atlanta-based company with revenues exceeding $20 billion. www.coxautoinc.com 1 Cox Automotive Product Analytics, Accelerate Dealer Close Rate Product Analysis (September 2018) 2 Cox Automotive 2018 Future of Digital Retail Study 3 Dealer.com 2018 DataView Digital Marketing Index SOURCE Dealer.com Related Links http://www.dealer.com HOUSTON, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Jim Filipowicz & Associates and Cavalry Construction & Restoration merge companies in order to increase their footprint across the entire State of Texas. This merger strategically increases the number of experienced personnel to assist in all types of reconstruction, remediation and consulting projects, as well as increasing their resources to respond to large scale emergencies or catastrophes. Cavalry Construction Cavalry Construction & Restoration, headquartered in Houston, Texas has merged with Jim Filipowicz & Associates headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. This partnership is led by Frank Jones, Sr. and Jim Filipowicz as Co-CEOs. Together the companies' mission remains the same to understand and act in the best interest of the client to meet their needs and goals, and to provide outstanding customer service. JF & A will transition to assume the Cavalry name effective immediately. Cavalry's San Antonio office will join their new team members in the larger JF & A headquarter offices. The newly merged management of Cavalry is committed to a high standard of quality workmanship, a safe work environment, an emphasis on cost-effectiveness and the timely completion of every project. "This merger represents the coming together of two very established and experienced companies. With offices in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, we are well positioned to provide all of our clients throughout the state and region the outstanding customer service we are both known for," said Jim Filipowicz. "After a long tenure of knowing each other and our mutual respect for what we each had built, Jim and I started discussing the possibilities of joining forces to better serve our clients in the region we serve. Our philosophy, morals and ways of conducting business mirror each other. By combining our extremely talented teams under one platform we will now be the most respected leaders in the industry," said Frank Jones, Sr. Headquartered in Houston, Cavalry also has branch offices in Dallas / Fort Worth and San Antonio. Cavalry has been a trusted leader in the restoration and reconstruction industry since 1989 and currently has exposure to over 2000 miles of U.S. coastline. Cavalry specializes in the insurance mitigation and restoration of multi-family, commercial and residential, industrial and religious facility losses due to Fire, Water, Hail, Tornado, Hurricane, Vehicle or any other peril causing property damage. Established in 2007, Jim Filipowicz And Associates (JF&A), LLC is a construction and restoration firm that specializes in commercial and multi-family properties throughout Texas and its surrounding states. Making customer service their top priority, JF&A has earned a reputation for integrity, commitment, and reliability. The team has a wide range of talent and expertise, ensuring that they always perform to the highest professional standards. Media Contact: Lexie Coon Phone: 469.630.0250 Email: [email protected] Website: www.CavalryConstruction.com Related Links Property Restoration Brochure Emergency Services Brochure SOURCE Cavalry Construction Related Links http://www.CavalryConstruction.com PORTOLA VALLEY, Calif., Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a leading sponsor of Lyme disease research in the US, is announcing a call for entries for their 2019 Emerging Leader Awards (ELA), which are designed to encourage promising scientists who embody the future of Lyme disease research leadership in the US. This year, two $100,000 grants will be awarded in May. Recipients will be researchers from academia or the private sector who are currently at the post-doctoral level through the assistant professor level, or equivalent, and who have demonstrated professional and scientific leadership in the biomedical sciences. They should have a defined approach that offers scientific rationale for a research project that can advance diagnostics or treatments for Lyme disease. Proof of concept for the $100,000 awards should be feasible in 1218 months. These awards, along with other Bay Area Lyme Foundation efforts, aim to fill a gap as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for Lyme disease research is insufficient. While there are nearly 10 times as many people diagnosed each year with Lyme than HIV in the US, Lyme disease receives approximately 1% of the public funding that is allocated for HIV/AIDS. "While Lyme is one of the fastest-growing infectious diseases in the country, with 427,430 new cases reported in the US alone in 2017, Lyme research is dramatically underfunded," said Bonnie Crater, chairperson, science committee, Bay Area Lyme Foundation. "Our hope is that these awards will aid in transforming the research landscape by providing the funds necessary to spur incentive for researchers to consider novel approaches to produce reliable diagnostics, and treatments that work." The Emerging Leader Award grant is designed to be a catalyst for future research. Many of the ELA winners have gone on to receive grants from other groups including the NIH, as well as continued support from Bay Area Lyme Foundation and its research partners. Past ELA recipients have come from institutions including Brandeis University, Harvard University/Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Infectious Diseases Diagnostic Laboratory at Boston Children's Hospital, Louisiana State University, North Carolina State University, Stanford University School of Medicine, and University of California, San Francisco, Wyss Institute. Most of these projects were in the early stages of research upon submission for consideration, and the Emerging Leader Award offered a springboard for scientists to explore the concepts that were later recognized with grants from the government and other established entities, increasing the scope of investigation in Lyme disease. Previous Emerging Leader Award recipients include: George Church , PhD, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School , professor of health sciences and technology at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ). He was awarded the Emerging Leader Award in 2018 to launch the Genomic Lyme Disease Research Initiative project at Harvard Medical School . Through this initiative, he and Dr. Wu hope to better understand not only if some people are more susceptible to the disease, but also if those who are exceptionally less susceptible may offer clues that point toward potential therapeutic research. Ting Wu, PhD, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School , director of the Consortium for Space Genetics, and director of the Personal Genetics Education Project. She was awarded the Emerging Leader Award in 2018 to launch the Genomic Lyme Disease Research Initiative project at Harvard Medical School . Through this initiative, she and Dr. Church plan to compare the genetic and immune variations of those who have Lyme disease with those who are unaffected, in an effort to better understand the genetic underpinnings of the disease as well as finding targets for future therapeutics. Michal Caspi Tai , PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow in the lab of Irving Weissman at Stanford University . Known for her work exploring immune response in chronic infection, Dr. Tai will study the bacteria's ability to utilize the CD47 immune escape mechanism which has been observed in other infectious diseases as well as cancer. This understanding could lead to advances in treatment. Steven E. Phillips , MD, a Yale -educated, world-renowned clinician who specializes in treating chronic tick-borne infections including Lyme disease and bartonellosis. Dr. Phillips will perform initial testing of a novel therapeutic strategy aimed at more effectively eliminating difficult-to-treat tick-borne diseases, based on strong evidence that persistent pathogens can evade the current therapies. James J. Collins , PhD, core faculty of Wyss Institute at Harvard University , Termeer professor of medical engineering and science, and professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ). Dr. Collins' work centers around synthetic biology and systems biology, with a particular focus on using network biology approaches to study antibiotic action, bacterial defense mechanisms, and the emergence of resistance. Dr. Collins was awarded the Emerging Leader Award in 2017 to research a direct detection RNA diagnostic for early Lyme disease. Yuko Nakajima , PhD, postdoctoral fellow, Brandeis University . Dr. Nakajima is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of James E. Haber at Brandeis . Dr. Nakajima received the Emerging Leader Award in 2017 to investigate potential treatments to block immune evasion by the bacteria causing Lyme disease. Prior to beginning her Borrelia burgdorferi research, her work investigated the relationship between DNA damage and spindle assembly checkpoints during cell division. Britton J. Grasperge, PhD, Brandeis University Louisiana State University . Dr. Grasperge is working to identify substances within tick saliva that are responsible for attracting the bacteria that causes Lyme disease in an effort to develop a better diagnostic. Chase Beisel , PhD, assistant professor, North Carolina State University . Dr. Beisel is exploring the potential ability of CRISPR-Cas genome targeting to kill the bacteria that causes Lyme. Lisa K. Blum , PhD, postdoctoral fellow, Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Blum is researching an immune response to Lyme disease that has the potential to help elucidate why some people have short-term symptoms from a Lyme infection and why others become chronically ill, as well as the hope of leading to the development of an improved diagnostic and/or therapeutic. Jerome F. M. Bouquet , PhD, postdoctoral fellow, University of California, San Francisco . Dr. Bouquet is researching potential "biomarkers" that will allow for the development of a clinical diagnostic for both acute and post-treatment Lyme disease. John Branda , MD, assistant professor, Harvard Medical School and assistant pathologist, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Dr. Branda's research focuses on improving patient care through the development of new diagnostic strategies and the optimization of laboratory tests and antimicrobial agents, including tick-borne illnesses such as Lyme borreliosis, anaplasmosis, and tularemia. Nira Pollack , MD, PhD, assistant professor, Harvard Medical School , and associate medical director of the Infectious Diseases Diagnostic Laboratory at Boston Children's Hospital. Dr. Pollock's research has a special interest in the development and evaluation of novel diagnostic tests for infectious diseases and related applications. Her Lyme-related work has included the discovery of novel biomarkers of early Lyme borreliosis. Applications will be accepted from researchers throughout the United States through March 1, 2019. Applicants must submit an application, research proposal, and at least one supporting letter from their supervising manager or Principal Investigator. Announcements of Awards will be made during Bay Area Lyme Foundation's annual LymeAid fundraising event in May 2019. The full criteria and application for this award can be found at www.bayarealyme.org/our-research/emerging-leader-award. About Bay Area Lyme Foundation Emerging Leader Awards The Emerging Leader Awards from Bay Area Lyme Foundation are made possible each year by generous donations from the LaureL STEM Fund and the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation. These awards are presented annually and are designed to be awarded to promising scientists who have identified a defined approach to improved diagnostics or therapies for Lyme disease. Researchers interested in applying for the 2019 Emerging Leader Award or learning about the other grants that Bay Area Lyme Foundation offers throughout the year should contact [email protected]. About Lyme disease One of the most common infectious diseases in the country, Lyme disease is a potentially disabling infection caused by bacteria transmitted through the bite of an infected tick to people and pets. If caught early, most cases of Lyme disease can be effectively treated, but it is commonly misdiagnosed due to lack of awareness and unreliable diagnostic tests. There are about 329,000 new cases of Lyme disease each year, according to statistics released in 2015 by the CDC. And, this number is rising annually as 427,430 new Lyme cases are believed to have occurred in the US alone in 2017. As a result of the difficulty in diagnosing and treating Lyme disease, as many as one million Americans may be suffering from the impact of its debilitating long-term symptoms and complications, according to Bay Area Lyme Foundation estimates. About Bay Area Lyme Foundation Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a national organization committed to making Lyme disease easy to diagnose and simple to cure, is the leading public not-for-profit sponsor of innovative Lyme disease research in the US. A 501c3 non-profit organization based in Silicon Valley, Bay Area Lyme Foundation collaborates with world-class scientists and institutions to accelerate medical breakthroughs for Lyme disease. It is also dedicated to providing reliable, fact-based information so that prevention and the importance of early treatment are common knowledge. A pivotal donation from The LaureL Foundation covers overhead costs and allows for 100% of all donor contributions to Bay Area Lyme Foundation to go directly to research and prevention programs. For more information about Lyme disease or to get involved, visit www.bayarealyme.org or call us at 650-530-2439. SOURCE Bay Area Lyme Foundation Related Links https://www.bayarealyme.org FORT WORTH, Texas, Jan. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Mark Lashley, President and CEO of Caregiver, Inc., a leading provider of services to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, has announced the appointment of Beth Landry as President of Operations for Caregiver's recently acquired businesses in Indiana, Tennessee and Ohio. "Caregiver, Inc. has grown significantly outside of Texas in 2018," stated Lashley. "We needed a top executive to lead and integrate our recently and newly acquired businesses, especially as we anticipate acceleration of acquisitions throughout 2019." Beth Landry was most recently a Senior Vice President at Boston-based Seniorlink, an innovative provider of home and community-based adult programs that utilize technology and services to support caregivers and keep loved ones at home. There, Landry was responsible for over $130 million in revenue and 375 employees operating in seven states. During her tenure, she improved employee retention, catalyzed company growth, increased consumer engagement and service quality and inspired and incorporated numerous technological advances. Landry began her career as a Staff Physical Therapist with NovaCare and quickly progressed to executive and leadership roles. After nine years with NovaCare, she led teams for Gentiva, Aegis Therapies and Harden Healthcare. She holds a B.S. in Kinesiology from the University of Colorado, Boulder and a B.S. in Physical Therapy from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. "In Beth we've found an exceptional leader," Lashley added. "We couldn't be more excited about the leadership and skills that she brings to the organization at this exciting time." As Caregiver grows, the company looks forward to expanded business and employment opportunities, according to Gary Nettis, Vice President, Growth & Development. For information, email [email protected] or call (440) 724-3466. To learn more about Caregiver, Inc., visit www.cg-idd.com today. About Caregiver Caregiver, Inc., is a privately-held company with over 3500 employees within the headquarters support group and multiple branded affiliate organizations in four states. The company provides a wide range of intermediate, home and community care services to nearly 2800 individuals who qualify as developmentally or intellectually disabled or are impacted by related conditions. Caregiver, Inc. was formed in 2015. Headquarters are at 4100 International Plaza, Suite 800, Fort Worth, TX 76109. Contact: Anna Todd 682-707-2725 [email protected] SOURCE Caregiver, Inc. Related Links http://www.cg-idd.com CHICAGO, Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Asia Pacific is home to 19 of the top 20 cities, highlighting the continuing shift of fast urban growth from the West to the East, according to the sixth City Momentum Index published by JLL (NYSE: JLL). The absence of European and American cities demonstrates a marked East-West growth divide, reflecting Asia's continued rapid urbanization and economic growth, driven by globalization, innovation and demographic factors. Overall, Indian and Chinese cities dominate the rankings, accounting for three quarters of the top 20. Leading the pack are Indian cities Bengaluru and Hyderabad, followed by Vietnam's Hanoi in third place. The only non-Asian city on the list is Nairobi, in sixth place, which is heavily influenced by significant amounts of infrastructure-focused investment from China. Jeremy Kelly, Director of Global Research at JLL says: "Asia continues to show strong momentum, with cities that are successfully expanding their innovation economy punching above their weight in terms of attracting capital, companies and people. "It's clear that the tech sector is a key driver of both real estate and economic momentumdriven by large technology firms as well as dynamic start-ups in cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ho Chi Minh City and Shenzhen." Although the global economic cycle is in its late stages, there are still many cities in the world where real estate and economic growth continue to be robust. But while strong growth brings opportunities for economic and social development, it also brings challenges that cities must address to ensure short-term growth transitions into long-term momentum. Investing in infrastructure and greater transparency is essential to facilitate this transition. Kelly adds: "These cities need to address the environmental and social impacts of rapid growth such as social inequality, congestion and environmental degradation. The provision of smart, efficient and productive real estate and increased transparency are key factors in driving long-term, sustainable growth." Investment in transformative real estate drives sustainable growth Thoughtful and innovative developmentsuch as regeneration projects with a long-term vision that nurture new businesses and improve livesis essential, as are large-scale infrastructure projects that help combat problems around congestion and improve accessibility, according to Kelly. Manila (ranked 12 in this year's Index), for example, is one of the densest cities in the world, with an expanding population. The government has committed to an extensive infrastructure building program, 'Build Build Build', which includes more than 2,000 projects. These are expected to improve congestion, increase power reliability, reduce the impact of climate change, and redevelop urban areas. Smart infrastructure and sustainable technology create liveable cities Technological innovation in the form of greener and smarter buildings also plays an important role in answering the environmental challenges brought about by rapid growth. The Chinese city of Xi'an, ranked ninth in this year's Index, has installed an innovative 100-metre-tall air purifying tower to reduce smog and improve air quality. Foreign Direct Investment crucial for long-term momentum Sustainable long-term momentum and a maturing economy are often supported by long-term foreign direct investment (FDI) and transparent governance. India's fastest growing cities have been successful over recent years, attracting high levels of FDI, with structural reforms (including the Real Estate Regulation and Development Act), encouraging more real estate investment from foreign buyers. A similar story is playing out in Chinese cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, which are both on the cusp of joining the ranks of the world's transparent real estate markets. "Transparency is vital in securing the long-term investment that leads to sustainable growth. With strong governance and planning, the private sector can work with city governments to drive change and bring benefits to the real estate market and wider commerciality of a city," concludes Kelly. For more information, download the City Momentum Index here: https://www.jll.co.uk/en/trends-and-insights/research/city-momentum-index-2019 Methodology JLL's City Momentum Index measures momentum for 131 of the world's most commercially active cities by tracking a range of socio-economic and commercial real estate indicators over a three-year period to identify the urban economies and real estate markets undergoing the most rapid expansion. The City Momentum Index presents a weighted overall score for the sub-scores of 20 variables. For each variable the model calculates a score based on the city's performance relative to the distribution of all 131 city regions, scaled from zero to one. The top-scoring city for each variable has a value of one, while the lowest-scoring city receives a value of zero. Variables focus on indicators of socio-economic momentum and commercial real estate momentum. All real-estate data is sourced to JLL. Non-real estate data is drawn from a wide range of sources that includes Oxford Economics, United Nations, ACI, GaWC and fDI Markets. The Index also sources data from many national statistical offices. To learn more about cities and real estate, visit www.jll.com/cities-research. About JLL JLL (NYSE: JLL) is a leading professional services firm that specializes in real estate and investment management. Our vision is to reimagine the world of real estate, creating rewarding opportunities and amazing spaces where people can achieve their ambitions. In doing so, we will build a better tomorrow for our clients, our people and our communities. JLL is a Fortune 500 company with operations in over 80 countries and a global workforce of 88,000 as of September 30, 2018. JLL is the brand name, and a registered trademark, of Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated. For further information, visit jll.com. Connect with us https://www.linkedin.com/company/jll https://www.facebook.com/jll https://twitter.com/jll https://plus.google.com/+joneslanglasalle Contact: Gayle Kantro Phone: +1 312 228 2795 Email: [email protected] SOURCE JLL-IR SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Achieving the full societal benefits of curing chronic or life-threatening diseases will remain an elusive goal unless the pharmaceutical industry changes its economic model, according to new report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The report, titled Aligning Economic Incentives to Eradicate Diseases, was recently released. The study recommends that the industry replace its current economic model, which calls for charging by treatment at the time of care, with a licensing model that is based on the entire affected population. BCG's new approach, the payer licensing agreement (PLA), is analogous to models used by major software and media companies. When BCG tested the PLA against the current economic model for cures for the hepatitis C virus (HCV), the analysis showed that the PLA could achieve the following: Triple the number of patients treated and cured within two years Reduce the number of liver-related deaths by some 60% Reduce the total cost to payers by approximately 30%, because patients would be treated much earlierbefore the disease progresses to more costly stages Provide higher and more predictable revenues and profits to pharmaceutical manufacturers "Current economic models in the pharmaceutical industry are well designed to manage diseases, not cure them," said Jean-Manuel Izaret, a BCG senior partner and coauthor of the study. "The solution is to price the cures on the basis of the total population rather than individual patients." BCG's epidemiological and economic modeling of HCV treatment, performed in collaboration with the Center for Disease Analysis, showed that, in every market tested, patients, payers, and pharmaceutical companies would do better under a PLA. The PLA Solves a Frustrating Dilemma The authors chose HCV as their test case because the disease remains a global crisis. Despite the introduction of innovative cures in 2013, more than 90% of the world's infected population (71 million) remains uncured, a far cry from the World Health Organization's target of eradication by 2030. "There are many barriers to curing this population, but the dilemma created by current pricing models is one of the biggest," said Dave Matthews, a BCG principal and study coauthor. The dilemma results because a high price per patient makes treating everyone prohibitively expensive while an affordable price is too low for pharmaceutical companies to earn back their investments. "Switching to a population-based model such as the PLA not only makes the cure affordable, but also creates strong motivation to identify, diagnose, and treat as many patients as possible before the license expires," Matthews explained. Looking Beyond HCV to Curing Other Diseases HCV serves as a robust test case, but BCG views the PLA as an attractive model for other cures as well. "We are convinced that the PLA model could be beneficial from health care, social, and economic standpoints as pharmaceutical companies bring other cures to market," said Mark Lubkeman, a BCG senior partner and one of the study's coauthors. A copy of the article can be downloaded here. To arrange an interview with one of the authors, please contact Eric Gregoire at +1 617 850 3783 or [email protected]. About Boston Consulting Group Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is a global management consulting firm and the world's leading advisor on business strategy. We partner with clients from the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors in all regions to identify their highest-value opportunities, address their most critical challenges, and transform their enterprises. Our customized approach combines deep insight into the dynamics of companies and markets with close collaboration at all levels of the client organization. This ensures that our clients achieve sustainable competitive advantage, build more capable organizations, and secure lasting results. Founded in 1963, BCG is a private company with offices in more than 90 cities in 50 countries. For more information, please visit bcg.com. SOURCE Boston Consulting Group (BCG) NEW YORK, Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Solar Mirror Market By Technology (Parabolic Trough, Linear Fresnel, Power Tower & Dish/Engine System), By End User (Utilities, Industrial & Commercial), By Region, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2013 - 2023 Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05653792 According to "Global Solar Mirror Market By Technology, By End User, By Region, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2013 2023" solar mirror market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 12.5% by 2023, owing to increasing emphasis on solar thermal installations across the globe. Moreover, growing demand for electricity would also aid the global solar mirror market, as solar mirrors are used extensively for power generation. Use of solar mirrors for mass cooking, agriculture and enhanced oil recovery are the other application areas, which would ensure the growth of solar mirror market, globally, during the forecast period. Further, emerging technologies such as self-orienting solar mirrors and aluminum-based reflecting material in solar mirrors are expected to further boost the demand for solar mirrors in the coming years. Some of the major players operating in global solar mirror market are FLABEG FE GmbH, Rioglass Solar Holding S.A., Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A., SkyFuel Inc., AGC Inc., Guardian Industries Corporation, Airlight Energy Manufacturing SA, Pilkington Plc., TG Yueda Solar Mirror Co., Ltd., Replex Mirror Company Inc., etc. "Global Solar Mirror Market By Technology, By End User, By Region, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2013 2023" discusses the following aspects of Solar Mirror market globally: Solar Mirror Market Size, Share & Forecast Segmental Analysis By Technology (Parabolic Trough, Linear Fresnel, Power Tower & Dish/Engine System), By End User (Utilities, Industrial & Commercial), By Region Competitive Analysis Changing Market Trends & Emerging Opportunities Why You Should Buy This Report? To gain an in-depth understanding of Solar Mirror in globally To identify the on-going trends and anticipated growth in the next five years To help industry consultants, Solar Mirror distributors and other stakeholders align their market-centric strategies To obtain research-based business decisions and add weight to presentations and marketing material To gain competitive knowledge of leading market players To avail 10% customization in the report without any extra charges and get the research data or trends added in the report as per the buyer's specific needs Report Methodology The information contained in this report is based upon both primary and secondary research.Primary research included interaction with Solar Mirror distributors and industry experts. Secondary research included an exhaustive search of relevant publications like company annual reports, financial reports and proprietary databases. Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05653792 About Reportlinker ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place. __________________________ Contact Clare: [email protected] US: (339)-368-6001 Intl: +1 339-368-6001 SOURCE Reportlinker Related Links http://www.reportlinker.com (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/808436/Donbass_civilians.jpg ) (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/697992/Rinat_Akhmetov_logo.jpg ) Charles Tannock MEP hosted the exhibition to enable parliamentary colleagues understand the visual impact of the war in the East of Ukraine on the daily life of civilians caught up in the crossfire of the conflict. "The main goal of the exhibition is to draw attention to the tragedy of Donbass, and the excellent work of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation," said Mr Tannock. "The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation began delivering aid 5 years ago and continues to do so today. More than a million people have been saved from the beginning of the conflict in 2014. Over 12 million food packages have been delivered to more than 750 cities and villages in the East of Ukraine. Thanks to these packages people who live along the contact line survive." The conflict is not uppermost in the minds of those dealing with international foreign policy But the residents of Donbass still need humanitarian assistance. 6.5 million people, have had their peaceful lives disrupted by the war; their way of life shattered, families torn apart, homes destroyed, friends and relatives killed and injured. The Exhibition presents a series of black-and-white collages from the photograph album "Donbass and Civilians", colour photographs of the destroyed houses and their inhabitants, and video commentaries by the children who have seen the effects of war with their own eyes. "In today's situation, the only hope that comes to their lives is through empathy, understanding and vital humanitarian assistance. Rinat Akhmetov, a native of Donbass, acutely feels the suffering of his compatriots. From the first days of the war, he has understood their plight, empathised with them and offered a helping hand. In 2014, under the auspices of the Foundation, he created the largest humanitarian aid programme in Ukraine - the Humanitarian Center. More than a million people have been saved from the beginning of the conflict in 2014. According to a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 85% of the region's inhabitants would not have survived without his help. Almost 57% of Ukrainians surveyed are convinced that the work of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation prevented a humanitarian catastrophe in Donbass," said Natalia Yemchenko, a member of the Supervisory Board of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation. This Release has been made on behalf of Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, by The International Foundation for Better Governance www.better-governance.org SOURCE Rinat Akhmetov Foundation CNS News January 15, 2019 In its latest punishment of a conservative, Twitter suspended nationally-syndicated, Portland, Oregon-based radio host Lars Larson for defending a police officer. Larson was responding to a tweet by a former mayoral candidate tweeting a recount of a story about police shooting of a local man, NewsBusters reports: A former Portland mayoral candidate,Sarah Iannarone, tweeted her condemnation of the police after an incident where a man was shot and killed by the police. When conservative radio host Lars Larson, based in Portland, responded in defense of the police, he was suspended from Twitter for 12 hours for hate speech. In her tweet, Iannarone called for the defunding of this deadly paramilitary force (Portlands police): The headline kinda says it all, doesnt it? We know the police kill. Question is whether we will ever stop funding this deadly paramilitary force and start funding things that actually keep the people of Portland safe. In his reply, Larson noted that, as the story she referenced states, the man killed was a paranoid schizophrenic home invader who attacked police with a deadly weapon: Gee @sarahforpdx you think the cops make PDX dangerous? Read the story and you find the dead man was 1) paranoid schizophrenic 2) invaded a strangers home 3) fought with the officer 4) pulled a knife. Whats your millennial snowflake solution to that situation without the cops? Larson isnt the only conservative to be punished by Twitter recently for espousing his values, NewsBusters reports: In the past week, two other accounts were suspended for hate speech. One of them was suspended for referring to Chelsea/Bradley Manning as a guy, while the other was nuked for promoting the border wall. This article was posted: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 7:00 am Print this page. Infowars.com Videos: Comment on this article Posted Monday, January 14, 2019 3:24 pm Local officials, business owners and residents are seeing promise in a plan to bring electric vehicle charging stations to the U.S. Highway 12 corridor, following a meeting Friday that saw more than 25 area leaders show up to discuss the idea. Tourism is a big deal to Lewis County, said commissioner Gary Stamper If you have that connectivity where people know they can come to Lewis County and theres going to be charging stations every 10 or 15 or 20 miles, people are going to come. Stamper was among many who gathered Friday at the Lewis County Public Utility District office in Morton to hear a presentation from Jennifer Harper, business and programs developer with Energy Northwest, an agency made up of 27 public utility districts and municipalities. Last year, Energy Northwest took the lead on a project to bring nine charging stations to central and eastern Washington. This year, its top priorities are Highways 12 and 101. Very strong turnout, lots of enthusiasm, Harper said after the meeting. Its a great project and a great concept, but Im really impressed by the community involvement so far. The project will be largely funded by state grant dollars, and details wont be finalized until the funding available this year is announced. But the early proposal Harper showed attendees would put charging stations in Mossyrock, Morton, Packwood, Ashford and Elbe. Those would be fast-charging stations which can recharge a vehicle in about 20 minutes and come at a cost of about $90,000 apiece, factoring in equipment, infrastructure, ground lease, utilities and operations for the lifetime of the project. While Energy Northwest is leading the project, the Lewis County PUD is serving as the local liaison. Its seeking to build local support that will help in the grant process, as well as offering technical expertise on siting and infrastructure. This is just great participation from a lot of locally concerned citizens, a lot of great elected officials, strong support, said PUD Manager Chris Roden. Having the technical expertise show up as well as the community expertise show up is really neat. The PUD at this point will be well-served to facilitate the conversation within our community and then just offer all of our technical expertise that we bring on a daily basis. Harper said funding for the stations may come from a mix of state grant sources, though primarily from the Department of Transportation. Cost contributions can also come from the station owner, network provider, site host and utility. The stations would be owned by Energy Northwest, which would have lease agreements with the local business owners on whose property they are stationed. Locations for the chargers have not been finalized, but Mary Kay Nelson, marketing consultant for the White Pass Scenic Byway, said theres been strong interest. We have businesses who have thrown their name in the hat to say, Yes, I want this at my business, she said. They recognize that its a business opportunity for them, and they also are serving the public need. Many at the meeting talked about the economic potential of the charging network. Leaders are hopeful the infrastructure will draw electric vehicle owners to and through the area, knowing theyll be able to reach their destination. Harper also noted that host businesses and nearby locations could benefit from the chargers. They do tend to walk around town (while their car is charging) and visit the businesses, she said. They enjoy stopping and smelling the roses. State Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, also attended the meeting, and said he believed in the potential of the proposal. Its a very positive indication that people have interest in getting charging stations out here and drawing in people with electric vehicles, he said. People see that EVs are going to become more and more commonplace, and were going to be left behind if we dont have a place for them to charge. Everyone out here stands to benefit, no matter who puts the EV charging in, because you get those folks coming here or coming through here, and they see what we have to offer. This wont be their only trip. Harper said that the charging stations would be noted by signage, and that EV drivers use apps that show them where nearby stations are located. The PUD is helping Energy Northwest with the grant application, and Harper said she expects to find out about funding availability in March. If the project were to get approved and run on an expected timeline, the stations would be installed by June of 2021 or sooner. While finalizing the application, Harper said she will rely on the expertise of local leaders to show that community support exists for the project and to help identify specific locations for the chargers. Strong community support is imperative, she said. I havent decided yet how the selection process is going to, but Id like to receive as much input as I can. Orcutt noted that Randle should be considered as another charger location, to allow electric vehicle owners to travel to Mount St. Helens. Others noted that the effort to install fast chargers could lead to nearby businesses to provide their own Level 2 chargers, charge slower but are much less expensive. Those supplemental chargers could prove useful to drivers who are staying overnight or find a fast charger already in use. RT January 15, 2019 The Czech-born writer Milan Kundera once wrote an entire book about an atmosphere where one joke made in bad taste can ruin your life. Its no joke now, as denouncing colleagues becomes normal in the US. Recently, the boffins at the American Psychological Association (APA) proclaimed traditional masculinity as toxic. With no apparent shame, here are the exact words they used: Traits of so-called traditional masculinity, like suppressing emotions & masking distress, often start early in life & have been linked to less willingness by boys & men to seek help, more risk-taking & aggression possibly harming themselves & those with whom they interact. What makes this statement really dangerous is the mixture of ideology and ostensibly neutral expertise: a strong ideological gesture of excluding phenomena considered unacceptable is presented as an impartial description of medical facts. How can one not recall here the notorious Serbsky institute in Moscow (thriving even now!) which, in the Soviet years, was well known for categorizing dissidence as a form of mental illness? And exactly the same happens when we designate masculinity as toxic, under the cover of medical expertise. It amounts to the imposition of a new normativity, a fresh figure of the enemy. New Normal A d v e r t i s e m e n t Indeed, if, in the old days of heterosexual normativity, homosexuality was treated as illness, it is now masculinity itself which is medicalized and turned into a sickness to be fought. Thus, all the references to power, patriarchy and oppression of women cannot obfuscate the ideological brutality of the operation. Plus, the fact the APA is involved makes it clear we are not dealing with an excess of Cultural Marxism because the APA is the psychological wing of the medical establishment. So, we are talking about nothing less than a shift in the mainstream ideological hegemony. The contours of this shift become clear the moment we take a closer look at the list of features supposed to characterize toxic masculinity: suppressing emotions and masking distress, unwillingness to seek help, a propensity to take risks even if this involves a danger of self-harm. Which raises the question: what is so specifically masculine about this list? Does it not fit much more as a simple act of courage in a difficult situation where, to do the right thing, you have to suppress emotions because you cannot rely on any help but take the risk and act, even if this means exposing yourself to harm? Obviously, in our age of Politically Correct conformism, such a stance poses a danger. But What is replacing courage? First Hand A recent experience of mine tells a lot in this respect. I was involved in defending a colleague against an accusation from a graduate student that they had solicited unwanted intimacy between the two. What shocked me was the career reference which was evoked to render non-problematic the behavior (of the accuser, in this case). I dont know the accuser, I never met him and didnt read anything written by him except his publicly available emails. My point is: lets suppose all he says is true he was disgusted and oppressed etc. So why did he fully reciprocate her messages and sometimes even heighten their emotional tone? His repeated answer is a reference to his career, as if this were taken as a given. Is this justification by career really so self-evident? When I made this point, I was predictably accused of not understanding how power functions in US academia nothing could be less true: from the 1970s when, after graduating, I was unemployed for years (yes, for NOT being a Marxist) til recent times, when I was almost exiled from the US academia and public media because of my problematic positions (critique of Political Correctness, etc.). As a result, I was able to observe how power works in all its guises. I dont expect people to be heroic, I just think that there are certain limits, both professional (betraying ones theoretical vocation if one has it, that is to say) and private (writing passionate emails to a person one finds disgusting, like the accuser did), that one should not violate. This is how toxic masculinity is left behind in the new Politically Correct atmosphere where one joke made in bad taste can ruin your career but ruthless careerism is considered normal. A new universe of subtle corruption is thus emerging, in which career opportunism and the lowest denouncing of colleagues presents itself as high moralism. This article was posted: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 6:50 am Print this page. Infowars.com Videos: Comment on this article Sputnik January 15, 2019 The body of a teenager, who was allegedly strangled, was found in a park in the Lower Austrian city of Wiener Neustadt over the weekend. The suspect is reportedly her ex-boyfriend, born in Syria in 1999. He had been on the police radar on suspicion of assaulting and sexually harassing the girl, but was able to keep his asylum status. An asylum seeker from Syria, detained over the murder of a 16-year-old girl in Austria, has confessed that he strangled the teenager, the public prosecutors office in Wiener Neustadt, where the murder occurred, has revealed. Its spokesman, cited by the outlet Westfaelischer Anzeiger, said that the suspect had not made any statements about his motives. According to media reports, he was an ex-boyfriend of the victim, whose body was found hidden under leaves and branches in a local park on 13 January. The Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung reports that the mother herself made the gruesome discovery. She went looking for her child when the girl did not return home after a night out. According to the prosecution, the suspect, who is named Yazan A. and born in Syria in 1999, had already been on their radar for allegedly assaulting and sexually harassing the 16-year-old, the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation reported. The prosecution has reportedly pressed charges against him over the allegations, but the process has not begun yet. While the asylum authority has initiated the procedure to revoke the suspects asylum status, a conviction is necessary in order for it to be completed, according to the media outlet. Austrian law stipulates that only serious crimes like rape, homicide, or armed robbery are grounds for revoking asylum status. The citys mayor, Klaus Schneeberger, expressed shock in his statement on the matter. He demanded that asylum seekers who have committed crimes should be deported. He said that if the suspect had been stripped of his asylum status the year before, then the murder could perhaps have been avoided, a fact, he pointed out, that made him sad and angry. This crime occurred just a month after another killing in Austria, allegedly committed by an asylum seeker from Afghanistan. The man is suspected of stabbing his 16-year-old girlfriend to death in the city of Steyr. Notably, although his application had been denied, he was allowed to remain in the country, as he is wanted on murder charges in his home country Afghanistan. This has prompted debate over the European migration crisis, with crime rates being increasingly linked to the drastic influx of migrants all across the continent particularly in Austrias neighbour, Germany. A d v e r t i s e m e n t Thomas Stelzer, of the conservative Austrian Peoples Party, stressed in a statement on Tuesday that the country is witnessing rising crime amongst young asylum seekers, especially among Afghans. At the same time, the Austrian government, formed by the conservative Austrian Peoples Party and the right-wing Freedom Party, has taken a tougher stance on migration, with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz backing out of signing a United Nations agreement on migration and pushing for tightening border controls in the EU. This article was posted: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 6:48 am Print this page. Infowars.com Videos: Comment on this article Fake news strikes again Steve Watson Prison Planet.com January 15, 2019 Several reporters attacked Rand Paul Monday when it emerged the Senator is to visit Canada to have hernia surgery, leveling claims that Paul is a hypocrite for going to a country with socialized medical care. However, a simple Google search or a phone call (remember those?) would have helped the media understand that Paul is actually going to a PRIVATE facility that specializes in hernia care the EXACT OPPOSITE of socialized medicine. Paul is undergoing surgery again following the vicious attack he suffered from a mentally disturbed neighbor last year, who broke six of Pauls ribs and caused damage to his lungs. According to reports, the cost of the surgery will be $5,000 to $8,000 with an additional $4,000 in medical expenses, all of which Paul is suing to recover from Rene Boucher, who was sentenced to just 30 days in prison. Some intrepid journalists got a hold of the lawsuit and found out that Senator Paul will undergo an outpatient surgery in Canada later this month at Shouldice Hernia Hospital, a specialist hernia facility. In a tweet which has since been deleted, kings of fake news, The Daily Beast, declared that Sen. Rand Paul one of the fiercest critics of socialized medicine is heading to Canada for surgery. This caused a wave of lunacy to head Pauls way on Twitter: Rand Paul, enemy of socialized medicine, will go to Canada for surgery https://t.co/8TESKnG0oB pic.twitter.com/w5sdzSkhq1 Talking Points Memo (@TPM) January 14, 2019 brave of rand paul to offer himself up as a guinea pig to showcase the savagery of socialized medicine https://t.co/QXKTNZOyyH Matt Binder (@MattBinder) January 14, 2019 https://twitter.com/aravosis/status/1084900981542961152 Idiots. Pauls chief strategist Doug Stafford put the record straight: Attention fact-challenged media: More fake news on a story that has been reported terribly from day one this is a PRIVATE, world renowned hospital and people come from around the world to PAY CASH for their services. Its literally the opposite of socialized medicine. Doug Stafford (@dougstafford) January 14, 2019 This is a private, world renowned hospital separate from any system and people come from around the world to pay cash for their services, Kelsey Cooper, a spokeswoman for Paul, also told The Hill. This STILL didnt stop idiots from piling on: This isn't really a good "gotcha." This hernia clinic, in my hometown of Thornhill, is one of a very small number of private, for-profit clinics that were grandfathered into Ontario's socialized health system. https://t.co/Z6MmI5ojTV Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 14, 2019 It is one of a handful of private hospitals grandfathered to exist outside of their normal healthcare laws. Try fact checking, its not hard. Doug Stafford (@dougstafford) January 14, 2019 Fair enough. But the gotcha is "he's an enemy of socialized medicine but look he's going to the land of socialized medicine." Shouldice is not socialized medicine it's a little bastion of capitalist medicine Canadian politicians allow to keep existing. https://t.co/0opGvr8nSS Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 14, 2019 Just stop. Please. In a further statement, Stafford said Its an opportunity for the Left to take a cheap shot at Rand for no reason, and without any facts on their side. Its disgusting clickbait for them. Stafford added. This article was posted: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 9:17 am Print this page. Infowars.com Videos: Comment on this article Free Beacon January 15, 2019 New data, released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, attracted attention by showing the wide variation in fertility among states. They also prompted commentators to ask: Are kids getting too expensive for Americans to have? That Americans are having fewer babies is not exactly news. The total fertility rate, a measure demographers use that estimates the number of children a woman can expect to bear in her lifetime, has been declining since the Great Recession. The rate for the whole population has been below replacement2.1, the number needed to keep the population from shrinkingmore or less continuously for decades. Data in fact show that the U.S. fertility rate has hit a 42-year low. The rate has risen above replacement for just a couple of years between 1972 and today. What the most recent CDC report contributes to the conversation is a picture of the way that fertility rates vary among states. TwoSouth Dakota and Utahhave rates above replacement (2.27 and 2.12, respectively). Read more This article was posted: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 7:53 am Print this page. Infowars.com Videos: Comment on this article Breitbart January 15, 2019 Police in the German city of Jena have arrested a 23-year-old asylum seeker from Afghanistan following the discovery of the body of an 87-year-old German woman believed to have been murdered. The body of the German pensioner was discovered on Saturday morning in a cellar in Jena-Winzerla with police believing the woman had been murdered. An arrest warrant was drawn up on Sunday evening with police managing to arrest the 23-year-old Afghan migrant, a neighbour of the woman according to Thuringer Allgemeine. Police spokesman Patrick Martin commented on the case to German tabloid Bild, saying: The way in which the woman died is currently being determined in one section. Also, it must be clarified whether and what involvement the suspect had in the homicidal offence. The 87-year-old had been missing for two days prior to the discovery of her body as her relatives had previously turned to the police for help in finding her. Read more This article was posted: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 6:40 am Print this page. Infowars.com Videos: Comment on this article Chris Menahan Information Liberation January 15, 2019 Former Georgia Governor candidate Stacey Abrams told PBS that dramatic demographic changes in Georgia is giving Democrats a pathway to reclaim more power. Explaining why she thought she could win, Abrams told PBSs Firing Line last week: Georgia [is] changing fairly dramatically and very quickly. And I could see that there was a pathway for Democrats to surge and to start to reclaim more power in the state. I believe that we are a purple state. I like to say were blue and just a little confused. But the notion being that, as we continue to change demographically, our politics are gonna keep changing. You can see how demographics have shifted dramatically in Georgia with this graphic from AJC.com: As AJC reported, A massive demographic shift is happening all over Georgia, with white populations in most counties expected to become the minority fewer than 50 percent of residents within the next decades. Abrams went on to say that she wouldnt oppose allow illegal aliens to vote in local elections: Transcript: MARGARET HOOVER: What is your view about some municipalities, like San Francisco, who have decided that its okay for some non-citizens to vote in local elections? STACEY ABRAMS: I think theres a difference between municipal and state and federal. Part of municipality Im not arguing for it or against it, but I will say, having been deputy city attorney, theres a very the granularity of what cities decide is so specific, as to, I think, allow for people to be participants in the process without it somehow undermining our larger democratic ethic that says that you should be a citizen to be a part of the conversation. MARGARET HOOVER: So, in some cases, you would be supportive of non-citizens voting? STACEY ABRAMS: I wouldnt be I wouldnt oppose it. This article was posted: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 at 6:25 am Print this page. Infowars.com Videos: Comment on this article Ghana hosts ECOWAS Summit this week Ghana will, from today, host the Mid-Year Statutory Meetings of the Economic Stock market report for June 15, 2021 SAS Research has provided the following updates on the stock market activities Black Meteors suffer another defeat to South Korea The Black Meteors have suffered another defeat to South Korea in the second 14 times this year armed robbers heightened fears of insecurity in Ghana A brutal attack on a vehicle transporting cash to a bank on Monday, June 14, GH20,000 placed on the head of Adedenkpo bullion van robbers The Ghana Police Service has placed a GH20,000 bounty on the head of the armed Mats Hummels own goal gives France win over Germany at Euros World champions France started their Euro 2020 campaign with a win over Germany Premier League fixtures for 2021/22 season released Tottenham will host champions Man City on a mouthwatering opening weekend of Black Meteors suffer another defeat to South Korea The Black Meteors have suffered another defeat to South Korea in the second Posted Tuesday, January 15, 2019 10:18 am When Tessa Stidhams older brothers went to events with their Boy Scout troop, she had to stay behind and hear stories of their adventures when they came back. Last spring, she got some good news. My stepdad came home, and he was like, Girls are allowed to be in Scouts now, and I was like Yes! Tessa said. I would be able to get together with my brothers and not stay at my grandmas house when they went out camping and having fun. Following the announcement from Boy Scouts of America that the organizations main program would be renamed Scouts BSA and allow girls, starting this February, Kendra Guyer Tessas mom knew she had to get involved as well. I wanted to be in Scouts my whole life, said Guyer, who like her daughter, had to watch her older brothers participate in the program when she was little. Having the girl program come in, having my daughter in it as well, just seemed like a good idea. Guyer will be the Scoutmaster for Troop 7373, an all-girls unit that will join the existing Troop 373 based out of the Chehalis Scout Lodge. The new troop will be activated Feb. 1, with five girls lined up to join and openings for many more. Guyer believes it will be the first female troop in Lewis County. Just seeing the girls do an open ceremony and lead a group and go on that campout and be able to do all those things that the boys do, its very cool, she said. Two of the founding members of Troop 7373 have already been involved in the BSAs Venture Crew, a co-ed high-adventure program. Elaina Koenig and Allison Hilliker have both enjoyed the activities offered by that program, and theyre eager to be a part of the classic Scouting experience as well. Its being in a place where I can be what I am without being judged, and not worrying about the boys getting something different, Allison said. The girls have grown familiar with all kinds of adventure in the program, from sleeping in an igloo on Mount Rainier to sailing a boat in the Bahamas for a week. One of the best parts about the Scouts is the outings, Elaina said. One of the recent activities we did was an escape room in Olympia. Everyone contributed, and we got it in the last two minutes. Allison added that she had never been camping before she joined a Scout program, and her favorite outings are the ones where she learns new leadership qualities or skills. As a member of a regular Scout troop, shell now have the opportunity to pursue the coveted Eagle Scout rank which shes determined to earn. I was pretty pumped, because I knew that I could get my Eagle Scout now, she said. I was excited to be able to check off the box on a college application that says Im an Eagle Scout.That rank may be a long way off for some of Troop 7373s younger members, but theyre no less excited to join. Emme Prok said shes eager to do survival camps and wilderness training, along with one other event thats caught her interest. The polar bear swim, thats one Ive always wanted to do, she said. Emmes mom Sarah Prok will be the troops committee chair. She, too, had stories of siblings and sons participating in Scouting, while wishing girls could get involved. Prok noted that allowing girls and boys to participate in the same organization will make it easier on families who often find it difficult to coordinate their kids many activities. Many of the girls joining Troop 3737 had been tagging along to their siblings Scout activities already, whenever they got the chance. (Emmes) tagged along for a lot of events and activities and camps, Prok said. As soon as the council released the availability to join, because we have had so much family involvement, we were excited about it. It allows the whole family to go as a unit. Guyer added: Thats a big one, because they can do it together. theres a lot of families out there that the girls do want to do more the outdoors activities. This gives them the opportunity to get out there and learn the survival skills. In addition to the traditional outdoors activities, Scouting offers STEM, science, digital technology, robotics, astronomy and naturalist opportunities through its merit badge program, Prok noted. Anyone interested in those fields could make a good Scout as well. Troop 7373 is open to girls 11 to 18, and its holding open houses at the Chehalis Scout Lodge on Jan. 23 and 30 from 6 to 7 p.m. for anyone who is interested. Further questions can be directed to Guyer at guyerk8@gmail.com. The troop will celebrate its formation with a launch campout in February. The girls will have their own meetings and outings, as well as some combined events with the boys in Troop 373. Were excited because were a very active troop, Guyer said. We want to express to the girls that theres definitely not a shortage of things we do in our troop. GFA begins 2021/22 CAF Inter Club Licensing process The Club Licensing department of the Ghana Football Association will today, Galamsey: John Boadu petitions CID The General Secretary of the NPP, John Boadu has petitioned the Director of the Nato warns of military challenge posed by China Nato leaders meeting for a summit in Brussels have warned of the military Ghana Assoc. of Bankers to hold an emergency meeting The Ghana Association of Bankers is expected to hold an emergency meeting to Plattsburgh, NY (12901) Today Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 51F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 51F. Winds light and variable. White Bear Lake, MN (55110) Today Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 69F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 69F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Kathi Grace Cartoon: Elizabeth Warrens clumsy effort to seem working class by getting a beer We all love what Foles is doing but let us not forget what Wentz was doing prior to his injury. Julio Sanchez via Facebook Weinberg says Eagles should keep Foles, trade Wentz We left 28 years ago for Panama City, Fla., and have never regretted it. New Jersey gets more ridiculous every year. Mike Seiler Then how are they building new houses everywhere and theres more traffic than ever. Rob Cane via Facebook More people leaving New Jersey than arriving, moving company says There will be many taking more than a tour. Sharon Manfredo via Facebook Posted Tuesday, January 15, 2019 10:27 am CENTRALIA POLICE DEPARTMENT Thefts At 2:20 p.m. Friday, a theft of four jackets was reported from a business in the 1400 block of Lum Road. An unknown male suspect was seen fleeing the store, holding the stolen jackets. At 2:30 a.m. Sunday, a theft of a debit card was reported in the 100 block of West Magnolia Street. At 12:22 p.m. Sunday, a man stole a cart full of groceries in the 1100 block of Harrison Avenue. At 3:14 p.m. Sunday, a theft of a cellphone was reported from a business in the 1300 block of Lum Road. At 5:27 p.m. Sunday, a theft of a solar-powered motion light was reported in the 1500 block of Belmont Avenue. Driver Booked for Suspended License At 1:52 p.m. Friday, police responded to the intersection of Centralia College Boulevard and King Street and arrested Blake D. Hanson, 28, of Centralia on suspicion of third-degree driving on a suspended license. Hit and Runs At 9:24 a.m. Friday, a hit and run was reported in the 3200 block of Galvin Road. A vehicle backed into a parked vehicle and then fled the scene. At 6:33 p.m. Saturday, a hit and run was reported at Belmont and Harrison avenues. Man Referred for Assault During Warrant Arrest At 11:28 a.m. Saturday, police responded to the 1100 block of K Street and arrested Michael R. Risling, 48, of Centralia on an outstanding Centralia Municipal Court warrant. During the arrest, he was referred to the prosecutors office on suspicion of fourth-degree assault. Suspect Summoned for Violating Protection Order At 3:46 p.m. Saturday, police issued a summons to a 59-year-old Centralia resident to appear in court for allegedly violating a no contact order. Houses Window Damaged At 5:31 p.m. Saturday, a caller in the 1100 block of Borthwick Street reported damage to a residences window. Police Arrest Assault Suspect At 9:16 p.m. Saturday, police responded to the 2800 block of Russell Road and arrested Richard W. King II, 42, of Centralia on suspicion of fourth-degree assault domestic violence. Suspect Accused of Assaulting Nurse At 12:05 a.m. Sunday, police responded to the 900 block of South Scheuber Road and arrested Brycen A. Friedley, 18, of Chehalis on suspicion of third-degree assault after Friedley allegedly attacked a nurse while being treated. Driver Cited for Suspended License At 1:21 p.m. Sunday, police responded to the 500 block of South Tower Avenue and cited a 22-year-old Kelso resident on suspicion of third-degree driving with a suspended license. DUI Suspect Booked At 12:42 a.m. Monday, police responded to the 1300 block of Lum Road and arrested Jeffrey A. Brooks, 56, of Centralia on suspicion of driving under the influence. Woman Booked for Allegedly Stealing Pepperoni At 3:14 p.m. Sunday, police responded to the 1200 block of Mellen Street and arrested Kimberly R. Terrell, 41, of Chehalis on suspicion of third-degree theft. Terrell allegedly stole a package of pepperoni from a store. CHEHALIS POLICE DEPARTMENT Vehicles Window Shattered At 8:47 a.m. Friday, police responded to the 10 block of Northeast Cascade Avenue where a caller reported someone broke out a vehicles window. Nothing appeared to be stolen. Hit and Runs At 4:43 p.m. Friday, a hit and run was reported in the 1500 block of North National Avenue. At 10:24 p.m. Friday, a hit and run was reported in the 1600 block of Northwest Louisiana Avenue. At 3:30 p.m. Sunday, a hit and run was reported in the 1600 block of Northwest Louisiana Avenue. Police Arrest DUI Suspect At 12:49 a.m. Saturday, police responded to Parkland Drive and Interstate Avenue and arrested Joseph A. Christian, 37, of Cordova, Alaska on suspicion of driving under the influence. Business Finds Fake Bill At 5:23 p.m. Saturday, police were requested in the 1600 block of Northwest Louisiana Avenue, to a business that found a counterfeit $100 bill. They couldnt advise who passed the bill, or where it had come from. Vehicle Prowl At 6:56 p.m. Saturday, a vehicle prowl was reported in the 1500 block of Northwest Louisiana Avenue. Man Refuses to Leave Bathroom At 11:27 p.m. Saturday, police were requested in the 1100 block of South Market Boulevard to remove a man who was refusing to leave a businesss bathroom. The man had been there since 10 p.m., the businesss staff said. Police Book Teen For Malicious Mischief At 12:44 p.m. Sunday, police responded to the 300 block of South Market Boulevard and arrested a 15-year-old boy on suspicion of third-degree malicious mischief domestic violence. Theft At 5:06 p.m. Sunday, a theft of a cellphone was reported in the 200 block of Southwest 13th Street. LEWIS COUNTY SHERIFFS OFFICE At 7:15 p.m. Saturday, deputies responded to the 400 block of Centralia Alpha Road and arrested Jordan T. Conwell, 18, of Centralia on suspicion of third-degree assault domestic violence and second-degree malicious mischief. Conwell allegedly struck a roommate with a portable torch and damaged the victims car and some personal property. LEWIS COUNTY JAIL STATISTICS As of Monday morning, the Lewis County Jail had a total system population of 233 inmates, with 197 in general population, 34 in the work ethic and restitution center and two on work release. Of general population inmates, 165 were male and 32 were female and of WERC inmates, 29 were male and five were female. A total of 24 inmates were booked through contracts outside Lewis County. By The Chronicle Staff Please call news reporter Cody Neuenschwander with news tips. He can be reached at 807-8208 or cneuenschwander@chronline.com BRIDGETON Two Salem County men were sentenced to prison in the death of city resident Juanita (Sease) Holley, according to Cumberland County Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae. Robert Iverson, 45, of Penns Grove, was sentenced Friday by Judge Cristen DArrigo to 17 years in prison, and the No Early Release Act applies, said Webb-McRae in a news release. This came as a result of a verdict returned in October, when a jury found Iverson guilty of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault. The state argued for Iverson to be sentenced to an extended term based on him being a persistent offender, Webb-McRae said. The motion was granted, doubling Iversons possible sentence to up to 20 years in prison, she said. Co-defendant Robert Blake, 23, also from Penns Grove, was sentenced to seven years in prison for the same offense, Webb-McRae said. Gloucester County man indicted in 2011 murder of Vineland woman BRIDGETON A Gloucester County man has been indicted by a grand jury in the 2011 murder of The charges were based on events that occurred Sept. 17, 2016, when an altercation at a baby shower held in Tips Trailer Park escalated. Co-defendant Daiquan Blake returned to the scene later in the evening with a handgun and fatally shot Holley, Webb-McRae said. LOGAN TOWNSHIP An armed man who entered a UPS processing facility Monday morning and held two women hostage for several hours was shot and killed by police as he left the building with the women, authorities said. Several officers fired at William Owens, 39, of Sicklerville, after he and the hostages had left the building, the state Attorney General's Office said in a news release that did not detail the situation or explain why the suspect was shot. Owens had entered the business at about 8:45 a.m. and fired shots, which did not strike anyone, before taking the women to a room and barricading himself inside with them, authorities said. Officials believe that Owens had a prior relationship with one of the hostages, Gloucester County Prosecutor Charles Fiore said. The women escaped without serious injuries after the standoff in Logan Township, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of Philadelphia, Fiore said. "Multiple members of law enforcement fired at the man, who was armed with a handgun. He was pronounced dead at the scene," the news release said. Earlier in the day, Fiore said the suspect had been taken to a hospital after being shot but that his condition was not known. This is an opportunity for us to fight stigma, share new resources and services available in the hopes that one day we can cure this epidemic, said Samantha Kiley, executive director of the AtlantiCare Foundation. There are still not a lot of updated statistics on pregnant users, Malanga said. What research does show is that more than 5 percent of pregnant women are using an illicit drug, with the majority using marijuana and a small percent using opioids, she said. Malanga said many women when they find out they are pregnant, they try to stop, but they cant. It can also be difficult for health professionals to find these women to treat them during pregnancy and before birth. They avoid prenatal care, because of lot of them feel ashamed, she said. They also assume that no help will be given to them by providers and fear that theyve already done damage to the fetus. They also fear that their pain wont be treated. As a result, hospitals have seen problems in birth like pre-term labors and low birthrates. An officer from the Vineland Police Department is under investigation after a call to the parking lot of the Inspira Medical Center Saturday left one man in critical condition, the Cumberland County Prosecutors Office announced Monday. The police officer approached a man who was intoxicated about 4:23 p.m., according to a news release. The man took a step toward a female and a security officer with clenched fists, the Prosecutors Office stated in the release. The Vineland officer then grabbed the subject and took him to the ground to restrain and handcuff him, officials said. The man was taken into Inspira to be cleared medically for arrest. He was examined and transported to Cooper University Hospital in Camden for a head injury. The man was last listed in critical condition as of Sunday. The Prosecutors Office said the man was not being identified to protect his privacy. The Prosecutors Office also declined to release the name of the police officer involved. The investigation was related to the use of force, according to the release. The investigation is ongoing. Contact: 609-272-7239 AAuble@pressofac.com Twitter @AublePressofAC TRENTON Gov. Phil Murphy used his first State of the State address to focus on reform of the states tax incentive programs for businesses, saying much of the $11 billion spent on them so far could have been better used to solve the states fiscal crisis. After reading the audit of New Jerseys corporate tax incentives released last week, this is not a time for business as usual, he said as he opened his speech. Democrat Murphy, 61, is a former Wall Street executive and Obama administration ambassador to Germany who campaigned as a progressive liberal but has run into some opposition within the leadership of his own party particularly from state Senate President Steve Sweeney, whose own gubernatorial aspirations were squashed by Murphy. Murphy ordered an audit of the tax incentive programs days after being sworn in, he said, and the report confirmed his fears the state had rewarded the well-connected rather than create jobs and nurture innovative businesses. He said $8 billion in corporate tax breaks were given away under Gov. Chris Christie between 2010 and 2017, and more than $11 billion has been awarded over the past 13 years to lure companies to come to, or stay in, New Jersey. By the close of 2017, we were handing out tax breaks at a cost of more than $160,000 per job. ATLANTIC CITY Police used surveillance cameras to help them track down and arrest a city man accused of stealing a womans cellphone and purse Monday afternoon. Alexander Olaik, 24, was arrested in the theft reported at 1 p.m. at Brighton and Atlantic avenues, police said. Officer Eilene Shur arrived at the scene and found the victim, a 50-year-old woman from Atlantic City who said that while she was waiting for the bus, a man pushed her and grabbed her phone. The man, Olaik, then attempted to steal the womans purse, but she managed to fight him off, and Olaik fled, police said. The woman chased Olaik, who stopped, assaulted her and stole her purse, police said. Atlantic City man arrested on additional weapons charges ATLANTIC CITY A city man with three pending weapons cases was arrested Monday with a loade Shur obtained a description of Olaik, and the departments surveillance center personnel reviewed camera footage showing him flee and make his way down the Boardwalk, entering and exiting several casinos. Officers were dispatched to each location, but police said Olaik had left prior to their arrival. At 2:54 p.m., Officers Ryan Waddell and Aaron Jones, who police said had searched two casinos looking for Olaik, found him at California and Atlantic avenues. Olaik was found in possession of the victims cellphone and arrested. Olaik was taken to the Atlantic County jail. Are you up to driving and dealing with the cold late in the night? Its a shame to miss telescopic views of the eclipse, but if you stay at home (with all its heat and conveniences) you can certainly enjoy the eclipse immensely even just with your unaided eyes (and binoculars). Eclipse timetable This is New Jerseys first total lunar eclipse in more than three years and not since 2010 have we had one high in a clear, dark sky. The fact it occurs so late would be a problem on most Sundays but, wonderfully, many people will be off from work (and school) the next day (MLK Day). So lets review the different stages of the eclipse and what to look for. 9:35 p.m.: Moon enters penumbra. The penumbra is the outer, much lighter part of Earths shadow. It isnt really visible at the very start or very end of an eclipse. Around 10:10 p.m.: First visibility of penumbra. By about this time you should start seeing a slight shading on the left edge of the moon. 10:34 p.m.: Partial eclipse begins. Within just a few minutes of this time, you should see a first dark bite out of the left side of the moonthe moon entering the umbra, Earths dark central shadow. ADVERTISEMENT Ondo Boys High School, reputed as Nigerias first Community High School, turned 100 years on January 13. As part of events marking the centenary, the school will host a book presentation on Tuesday, January 22, organisers said. The book is titled One Century of Ondo Boys High School: The History of Nigerias First Community High School. It is co-authored by three academic alumni of the school: Ropo Sekoni, Festus Adesanoye, and Orobola Fasehun. The school was founded on January 13, 1919, by Canon Moses Craig Akinpelumi Adeyemi, one of the earliest Ondo town citizens to have travelled overseas. A statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES Monday by one of the authors, Mr Sekoni, said events celebrating the schools 100 years anniversary will take place in Lagos and Ondo States. According to Mr Sekoni, the book presentation in Ondo State will take place at the school at 11 a.m., and the event will be chaired by the Osemawe of Ondo, Oba Victor Kiladejo and supported as co-chair by Chief Reuben Fasoranti, an alumnus of the school and teacher in the school in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The programme in Ondo State includes Jumaat Service on Friday, January 18 at 1 p.m., Jumaat Service in Ondo Central Mosque and Anniversary Lecture on Saturday, January 19 at 1 p.m. at Jubilee Hall, OBHS on General Hospital Road, Mr Sekoni said. He said the awards ceremony will also be on January 26, at the schools Jubilee Hall at 11. a.m. He said there will also a thanksgiving service at St. Andrews Church, Idimoge Street, Ondo State. For the Lagos event on Thursday, January 31, Mr Sekoni said there will be a lecture titled, Values and Rebooting Public Education by Ropo Sekoni, and there will be a book presentation of One Century of OBHS at NECA Building, Plot A2 Hakeem Balogun Street, CBD, Alausa, Ikeja at 11 a.m. Mr Sekoni is a retired professor of Comparative Literature, and chair, Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Reporting. ADVERTISEMENT The Police Command in Rivers said on Tuesday that it killed four kidnap suspects in a shootout with the hoodlums during a rescue operation in the state this month. The Commissioner of Police in the state, Usman Belel, who disclosed this to journalists in Port Harcourt, said five kidnap victims had been rescued since the beginning of January. He said the command also arrested 93 suspects involved various crimes in the state, including armed robbery, kidnapping and cultism within the period. Mr Belel, who had during his maiden news conference promised that the command would smash crimes in Rivers, said 30 of the suspects were involved in armed robbery. According to him, six women were arrested in connection with human trafficking and 17 were arrested for kidnapping while 15 were involved in cultism. The police commissioner said four robbery and three kidnap attempts were foiled during the period under review. Mr Belel said two pump action guns, 23 locally made pistols, 23 rounds of ammunition and two magazines were recovered from the suspects. Others items recovered included two vehicles, one motorbike, assorted mobile telephones, six sets of army uniform, four army boots, navy uniform and N250,000 cash. He appealed to the public to exercise patience with the command over its investigation of the suspects, adding that thorough police investigation took time to conduct and complete. The commissioner of police said the suspects would be arraigned after investigation was concluded. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Mr Belel had during his maiden press briefing warned criminals that their time was up as the state would be made grossly inhabitable for them. (NAN) Posted Tuesday, January 15, 2019 10:32 am The Centralia-Chehalis branch of Soroptimist International has hosted seminars on a variety of topics over the years, all with the aim of educating and empowering women and girls in the Twin Cities and across Lewis County. Wednesday evening, the nonprofit will play host to a pair of Vancouver-based organizations for an event centered around an aspect of society that Soroptimist member Peggy Hammer called uncomfortable, a little bit awkward, but very important: human trafficking. Representatives from the National Womens Coalition Against Violence and Exploitation (NWCAVE) and the Human Trafficking Task Force of Clark County will give presentations beginning at 6:30 p.m. followed by a question and answer session at the V.R. Lee Community Building in Chehalis. A social reception with local resources such as the Human Response Network will take place at 6 p.m. Three members of the local Soroptimist International chapter, including Hammer, are on the board of directors for the HRN. The event is free to attend. We felt this was a topic we wanted our members to be more aware of, Hammer said. I think people would be very surprised, because they tend to attribute it more to very large cities. We tend to think it happens somewhere else, but it can happen even in a rural area. Its important for us to be aware of it in our own communities. Hammer pointed to arrests made during a prostitution sting conducted by the Lewis County Sheriffs Office and Washington State Patrol last April at a truck stop south of Chehalis as an example of localized human trafficking. Operation Human Freight resulted in 10 arrests and identified five female victims of prostitution, according to previous reporting by The Chronicle. Chief Deputy Dusty Breen of the Lewis County Sheriffs Office told The Chronicle in April that previous sting operations conducted on Craigslist received about 70 emails. Michelle Bart, president and co-founder of NWCARE, said Wednesdays presentations are meant to serve as a workshop of sorts for members of the public to receive a basic understanding of what happens along the Interstate 5 corridor. Bart also serves as communications chair for the Human Trafficking Task Force of Clark County. Task force chairperson Kay Vail is expected to be in attendance Wednesday, as are representatives of local law enforcement agencies. The Soroptimist International people in Chehalis wanted a Human Trafficking 101 sort of presentation, Bart said. Well be presenting a couple of case studies where the child was found and had been trafficked, as well as some cold cases where, unfortunately, they havent been found. January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention and Awareness Month, so we felt this would be a good time to do it. Susan Weckesser, president of Soroptimist International of Centralia-Chehalis, said Monday that the event isnt meant to jolt or frighten the public, but to educate Lewis County residents on ways they can be part of the solution. She expects about 50 people to attend the presentations. Were going to be talking about recognizing and preventing (human trafficking) as well as what kind of services are available out there for people who feel they are being exploited, Weckesser said. The goal is to help people be more aware of what happens so we can be positive influences on our community. Anyone who feels they have been the victim of domestic violence, sexual assault or human trafficking is urged to call the Human Response Network at 360-748-6601 or 1-800-244-7414. ADVERTISEMENT The Zamfara State Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday said two major fire incidents, which occurred early this year, destroyed houses worth millions of naira in Gusau. The Executive Secretary of the agency, Sanusi Kwatarkwashi, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Gusau. Mr Kwatarkwashi said the incidents occurred on January 11 and 12, respectively. He said the houses razed by the fire incidents belonged to one Nuhu Anka, Managing Director, Zamfara Radio and Television Services and Hadi Sulaiman, the Executive Secretary of the State Quran and Tajweed Board. We thank Allah, that the fire did not record any death or injury but all the houses were destroyed completely, he said. We visited the houses to assess the level of damage, at Malam Nuhu Ankas house, we valued the loss to about N11 million, while at Malam Hadi Sulaimans house we valued the loss to about N7 million. We have already compiled our reports and submitted to the state government to assist the victims, he said. He described the incidents as unfortunate and urged the victims to consider it as a test from Allah. (NAN). ADVERTISEMENT Gunmen have killed 26 people in Gandhi district Rabah local government of Sokoto State. According to reports, the attack occurred on Sunday evening and the attackers, who arrived the villages of Warwana, Tabkin Kwasa and Dutsi riding motorcycles, opened fire sporadically. Daily Trust quoted the state commissioner of Police, Murtala Mani as confirming the incident. Mr Mani, who briefed the press on Monday, told journalists that additional reinforcement have been deployed to the area to complement the efforts of other security agents in apprehending the attackers. Gandhi district was similarly attacked in July, last year, resulting in the death of several persons. Many of the villages were razed during the July attack. The traditional ruler of Goronyo, one of the villages Muhammadu Aliyu told reporters that many have been forced to leave the area due to the activities of the bandits. He also said some of those killed included the village head of Tabannin Gera and their Chief Imam. Mr Aliyu told the Daily Trust that the attackers were not the usual bandits who used to attack us, kidnap people or rustle animals. He said over two hundred farmers have abandoned farming in his village because of threats by the bandits. He said over 70 people were kidnapped in 17 villages under his district in the past two years and that they paid more than N100 million as ransom. Governor Tambuwal visits Meanwhile, Aminu Tambuwal, the governor, has halted his campaign for the elections, due to the attacks. Mr Tambuwal had arrived Goronyo town for a campaign rally of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but simply told the gathering of the attack and asked for prayers for those who died. He also visited the area on Monday to offer condolences. Bandits attack in Sokoto and Katsina States are seen as a spill over of bandits attacks in nearby Zamfara State. Zamfara have been battling with insecurity for over three years and residents say measures taken by carrying out special operations by the Nigerian military is forcing the bandits to relocate to neighbouring states. ADVERTISEMENT The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says over 2.5 million registered voters would participate in the forthcoming general election in Plateau. Antonia Simbine, INEC National Commissioner in charge of Plateau, Niger, Kaduna and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), said this at an interactive session with religious leaders on Tuesday in Jos. She explained that men constituted 50.6 percent of the total figure, while women were about 47.3 percent. In Plateau, we have over 2.5 million registered voters who will be expected to vote during the forthcoming general election. This is the figures available to the commission and they are the ones that will vote on election days, she said. The commissioner urged voters in the state who are yet to collect their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs), to take advantage of the ongoing collection exercise at various registration areas to get theirs. What is the essence of registering if you wont collect and use it to vote on election day? So, registered voters should go to the designated locations and collect their cards before the collection date elapse, she said. Ms Simbine explained that the commission has put in place stringent measures to ensure that the forthcoming poll is free, fair and credible. Halilu Pai, the state INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), said the session was part of the commissions activities in ensuring a peaceful and transparent election. He explained that the meeting was to acquaint religious leaders with INEC plans and also appeal to them to sensitise their followers on the need to be peaceful before, during and after the poll. You know, religious leaders are key stakeholders when it comes to election, and we have called them today so we can intimate them with our plans for a successful general election in the state, he said. Soja Bewarang, the chairman of the state chapter of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), represented by David Tyos, advised INEC to be transparent and sincere in the conduct of the election. Similarly, Mohammed Abdullahi, chairman of the state chapter of Jamatu Nasril Islam (JNI) represented by his deputy, Garba Abdullahi, pledged to support INEC towards free, fair and peaceful election in the state. ADVERTISEMENT The Bauchi State House of Assembly on Tuesday passed the states 2019 Budget Bill, less than a month after it was presented to it by Governor Muhammed Abubakar. The legislature increased the budget by N2 billion to bring its overall size to N198, 849, 074, 280.00. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the governor presented to the house a budget estimate of N196,722, 411, 436.00, on December 20, 2018. The Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Ibrahim Hassan, said during the passage that the legislature received and considered the report of the committee before passing the budget. As regards the newly established government agencies such as the Health Care Trust Fund and Health Contributory Agency, which have adequately received much attention in the 2019 proposed estimates, the government should release funds for their take-off and other logistics support service in order to achieve the desired objectives. Just as Section 121 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, empowers the governor to lay before this honourable House the income and expenditure estimates of the state for the next financial year by way of an appropriation bill, Section 4 empowers the legislature to make laws for peace, order and good governance of the state. The committee, therefore, in consideration of the observations and recommendations made by various MDAs, this honourable. House resolved to increase the budget size by N2 billion to fund such vital heads in the budget for the betterment of our state. Having thoroughly examined the above, the committee recommended a total budget size of N198, 849, 074, 280.00 only, made up of recurrent expenditure of N82, 654, 333, 859.00 and capital expenditure of N116, 194, 740, 421.00, Mr Hassan said. (NAN) ADVERTISEMENT Members of the United Kingdom Parliament on Tuesday rejected the latest Brexit deal proposed by Prime Minister Theresa May. Lawmakers voted 432-202 to hand Mrs May a defeat that was unprecedented for a ruling party in the countrys history, the BBC reported. The rejected deal had set out the terms of Britains scheduled exit from the European Union on March 29. The defeat could bring an end to Ms Mays government. Already, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has tabled a vote of no confidence in the government, which could trigger a general election, BBC reported. Ms May said she would make time for a debate on the motion on Wednesday. Mr Corbyn said the confidence vote would allow the Commons to give its verdict on the sheer incompetence of this government. The BBC cited a Democratic Unionist Party as saying they will back Ms May in a confidence vote. If lawmakers vote to back a no-confidence motion, the government, or anyone else who can command a majority, would get 14 days to win a further confidence vote. If they cannot win that, a general election will be then held. ADVERTISEMENT The Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) has congratulated Mohammed Adamu on his appointment as the Acting Inspector General of the Nigeria Police Force. The forums secretariat said the governors believe Mr Adamus appointment is well-deserved considering his personal accomplishments. President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday confirmed Mr Adamu as acting IGP and decorated him with his new rank. A statement by the NGF spokesperson, Abdulrazaque Barkindo, quoted the Director-General of the forum, Asishana Okauru, as saying I am absolutely sure that Adamu Mohammed Lafia would bring professionalism and true leadership to policing in our country. It said Mr Okauru, who had worked with several notable police officers during his time as the Director of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) within the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) further said I can attest to his solid pedigree and rich experience. He is arguably the most qualified serving police officer at this time, to occupy the very sensitive office of the Inspector General of Police. The NGF sincerely wishes that the new top cop would harness all his experiences from his previous offices, at home and abroad, with dexterity and a fervent drive to curb crime, ensure peace in the entire country and once again propound the policing principles that will lead Nigerians to believe that the police, is your friend, the statement said. Prior to his appointment as the IGP, Mr Adamu had occupied the office of the Director of Peace Keeping operations, led the Enugu Police Command as Police Commissioner, and was AIG in charge of Zone 5. He was also at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) as a directing staff. ADVERTISEMENT The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed Tuesday declined to give details of what was discussed at an extraordinary meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC). PREMIUM TIMES had earlier reported the meeting which held at the council chambers earlier today. The meeting was chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari. Mr Mohammed, alongside other ministers whose memos were considered, traditionally brief State House correspondents after every meeting of the council. The Nation Newspaper had on Monday reported that the meeting was called to discuss the issue of a new national minimum wage for Nigerian workers. Asked if that was the agenda of the meeting, the information minister said that is correct. Pressed to brief on the outcome, Mr Mohammed said he cannot because the National Economic Council (NEC), will have to also discuss and take a position first after which the government will speak. Nigerian workers under the auspices of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) are agitating for a raise in the minimum wage from current N18,000 to N30, 000. While Mr Buhari had expressed the willingness of the federal government to implement the new wage as demanded, he said he can only do so in consonance with state governors who employ the majority of public service workers. Most of the governors of the 36 states, however, said they cannot afford to pay the new wage without recourse to mass retrenchment. Mr Buhari had already set up a technical committee under the leadership of Bismark Rewane to proffer modalities on how the government can fund the new wage, if approved. NLC had last week held protests across the country over the delay in the implementation of the new wage. The labour union are also threatening an industrial action over the matter. A new national minimum wage must be passed by the National Assembly after a bill to that effect has been sent by the executive arm. The Assembly is, however, billed to go on recess this week and may only return after the general elections in March. The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was conspicuously absent as political parties on Tuesday in Abuja debated how they would tackle corruption and promote public accountability in Nigeria. The debate, organised by Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) with support from MacArthur Foundation, engaged leaders of the political parties on their policy preferences on the two topics. Of the five parties that turned up, only the African Action Congress (AAC) and Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP) were represented by their presidential candidates; Omoyele Sowore and Tope Fasua respectively. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Young Progressive Party (YPP) and Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) sent their party officials. The PDP was represented by a spokesperson of the Atiku campaign, Kassim Afegbua; the ACPN by its national secretary, Paul Osamadi; and YPP by its national publicity secretary, Egbeola Martins. Corruption has been a topical issue in Nigeria over the decades with governments making numerous attempts to reform institutions, develop applicable legal frameworks, formulate and implement policies to promote a corruption-free environment. These attempts had led to the establishment of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices (ICPC) and Related Offences Commission. Despite these efforts, however, evidence and stories indicate corruption is on the rise under the different leaders. According to observers, this can be linked to the inability of successive governments to ensure openness and transparency in their activities, promote accountability and demonstrate the political will to deliver good governance. All the parties at the debate agreed that corruption is a problem that hinders development in the country but advocated different ways to tackle it. However, the parties were not specific on the steps they will take to address the issue. While AAC said corruption comes from the way parties are formed, candidates are picked, and lack of enforcement and consequences; ACPN said it would tackle corruption from the grassroots and ensure punishment for the corrupt and reward for excellence. ANRP and YPP both said corruption can be fought with the use of technology. YPP added that the value system of the nation needs to be strengthened, leadership defined and laws reviewed. We intend to apply a systematic approach. Its centered around the use of ICT to tackle the problem of corruption, the party said. For ANRP, Technology always delivers, one the things that cause corruption in this country is addiction and psychological problems. PDP said fighting corruption is a collective responsibility and not just for the government. It said its government would deny institutions monopoly power, which it believes allows corruption to thrive. The global definition of corruption is monopoly plus discretion minus accountability. Its the monopoly power of an individual that makes him abuse his discretionary power, Mr Afegbua said. On the minimum wage of the country and the pay of members of the National Assembly, the parties agreed the pay of the lawmakers is ridiculous especially when civil servants are not paid enough as minimum wage. ADVERTISEMENT They all noted the need for the increase of the minimum wage. AAC said it would put minimum wage at N100,000 while ANRP suggested N45,000. ADVERTISEMENT The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, on Monday took his campaign to Ondo State, warning that the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its presidential candidate, President Muhammadu Buhari are planning to steal votes. Mr Abubakar, who had at an earlier campaign in Ekiti State promised to create jobs and fight insecurity, said the APC was not campaigning but was instead planning to subvert the will of the people and rig the elections across the country. The former vice president who spoke at a rally in Akure, the Ondo State capital, said voters in the state should go out to vote on election day but must stand to defend their votes. We are here today talking to you, we are communicating with you, but APC and Buhari and not talking to you. They want to steal your votes, that is why they are not campaigning, he said. Dont allow them to do what they did in Ekiti, Osun and even in Ondo states. I want to appeal to you to vote and ensure your vote counts. He said the APC had failed Nigeria as the country has become the world headquarters of poverty, adding that there is no country as poor as Nigeria today, citing reports of international agencies. They promised to restore security, but today we have insecurity in the North-West, North-East, North-Central and everywhere in the country, he said. They promised to create jobs, they have lost more than 10 million jobs. They stole your jobs. Another thing is to restructure this country so that you can be in charge of your resources, you can be in charge of your development, you can be in charge of your education, and be in charge of your health. It is very important. The presidential candidate further said that restructuring is the only solution to the myriad of problems confronting the nation, saying with restructuring Nigerians would take charge of their health and other areas of the economy. Other speakers at the campaign rally were the National Chairman of the party, Uche Secondus, and Senate President and Director-General of the Presidential campaign organisation, Bukola Saraki. They called on the Ondo State voters to ensure a change of government in the coming elections because of the alleged failure of the APC-led government. But the APC has debunked the claims of Mr Abubakar, saying its presidential candidate has already launched his campaign in Akwa Ibom State and would tour other parts of the country. We are not working by the programme of the PDP, the APC has its own programme, Alex Kalejaye, the Publicity Secretary of the APC in Ono State. said. The APC candidate went to Bauchi where he pulled an unprecedented crowd, he is expected in Delta State, so it is not true that we are not campaigning as alleged by the PDP presidential candidate. Mr Kalejaye noted that his party was speaking to the electorate on what it has achieved and what it plans to do, expressing confidence that the people would again vote for the APC in the coming elections. ADVERTISEMENT Obiageli Ezekwesili, the presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), says she would chart a new direction toward making Nigeria great, if elected president in the February 16 election. Mrs Ezekwesili spoke on Tuesday in Akure, Ondo State while flagging off her South West presidential campaign that drew party members from Ekiti, Osun and Ondo states. She said the ruling All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party had failed the country, arguing they lack the capacity take the country to the desired great heights. The former Minister of Education, who described ACPN as a party of the people and committed to restructuring, said it would steer the country out of the woods. This is not a movement of politicians, this is a movement of the citizens. I am not running so that I will answer a title, I will mobilise the Nigerian people for us to do things differently. I will mobilise Nigerian people for us to form a government in the way that matters to the people, not for the politicians and looters but for the people, everyone in Nigeria that is tired of the situation will run with me, I am not running alone. We want a different Nigeria, a system that will make the child of the poor to have access to quality education. We will ensure that the private sector is part of the economic development of the country. Today, three to four million of our young people come out of schools and could not find job, that is horrible. The ACPN is a party that will bring new dawn on the country, Mrs Ezekwesili said. Earlier, Mrs Ezekwesilis running mate, Abdul-Ganiyu Galadima, had said ACPN had always been strong in Ondo State. He advised party members to avoid the pitfall of the past and work hard as a team to ensure victory for the ACPN in the forthcoming general elections. Let us take our destiny in our own hands. With the unity of purpose and hard work, it will be a walkover for ACPN come election time, Mr Galadima said. (NAN) RTHK: Mother-in-law assaults Indian woman in temple row One of the two women who infuriated Hindu traditionalists by entering a revered shrine in south India was attacked by her mother-in-law on Tuesday as soon as she returned home after days on the run, police said. Kanakadurga, 39, had been in hiding since she entered the Sabarimala temple on January 2 along with Bindu Ammini, evading a blockade by protesters furious over a court ruling that allowed all women to pray at the temple in Kerala state. Sabarimala is dedicated to the celibate deity Ayyappa, and followers believe letting in women of menstruating age goes against his wishes. After moving to more than 10 different safe houses, Kanakadurga, returned home on Tuesday morning, only to be attacked by the enraged relative. Local media reports said she was hit with a wooden rod. "A case was registered by Kanakadurga against her mother-in-law who, she said, attacked her when she arrived home this morning at 7.15am," a police official said on condition of anonymity. She was admitted to a hospital in the nearby city of Malappuram, but it was not known immediately how serious her injuries were. In a recent interview while still in hiding, Kanakadurga said she had gone to Sabarimala to exercise her right as a devotee and to reinforce gender equality. She also said her family was angry with her as she had not told them in advance about her temple visit. Their entry sparked days of clashes across Kerala involving enraged Hindu devotees, riot police using tear gas and water cannon, and activists from Kerala's leftist state government which supports the entry of women. The Supreme Court had ruled in September that the decades-old ban on women of menstruating age at Sabarimala was illegal. (AFP) This story has been published on: 2019-01-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. ADVERTISEMENT The management of the News Agency of Nigeria has sacked the agencys correspondent in Benue over a fake report published on December 28. The reporter, Bridget Kyado, filed a report titled, Akume, a great asset to Benue-Ortom, in which she claimed to have witnessed a birthday party for George Akume, a senator and was attended by Governor Samuel Ortom. She quoted Mr Akume, a former governor of the state and Mr Ortom in the report and mentioned Ambassador Steve Ugbah and Terkimbi Ikyange, Speaker of the Benue House of Assembly as some of the dignitaries present at the event in Tarka, Benue State. After an investigation, management found that the entire report was invented by the reporter, who joined the agency in 2010. Mr Akume was actually in Uyo on December 28 to attend the flag-off of the presidential campaign of the All Progressives Congress. Management of the news agency was seriously embarrassed by the fake report and had to impose the maximum punishment by sacking the reporter. Managing Director of the agency, Bayo Onanuga, described the professional misconduct as a capital offence in journalism and hoped other journalists in the agency would learn from Kyados experience and keep faithfully to the tenets of the profession. Truth and integrity matter in our business of reporting. Fiction has no place here. Most important, the reputation of the 40 year-old agency is at stake. We have a duty to continue to sustain the integrity of the News Agency of Nigeria, Mr Onanuga added. Kyado, 34, read Mass Communication at Benue State University, graduating in 2008. Management of the agency hereby urges all our subscribers to delete the report from their portal. (NAN) ADVERTISEMENT The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) registered about 39,074 business names between October and November 2018 under its new Business Incentive Strategy, the agency has said. A statement sent by the commission to PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday said its acting Registrar-General, Azuka Azinge, disclosed this at a customers/stakeholders forum in Lagos. The forum is a periodic interaction between the management of the commission and its partners to enhance service delivery. Under the new strategy, prospective business owners were offered a 50 percent reduction in cost from N10,000 to N5,000 to register their business names for a period of three months between October 1 and December 31, 2018. The BIS was established to create a window for micro, small, and medium enterprises to formalise their businesses to allow them own corporate account with banks, have access to loans, grants and other government supports. During the initial three months of the BIS, registration activities increased tremendously, the Registrar-General said. On the amendment of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, the CAC boss said the commission was confident the bill would be passed by the end of this month. She said work was at an advanced stage to amend the CAMA in collaboration with the National Assembly to enhance the supervisory and regulatory powers of the commission. The ultimate goal of the CAC, Ms Azinge said, was to make it a world-class companies registry, providing excellent registration and regulatory services. She said the commission was working with the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council to improve the business environment and make Nigeria a progressively easier place for business to start and thrive. The CAC boss said the deployment of the user-friendly Company Registration Portal enabled customers to have online access to the services of the commission from the comfort of their offices and homes, using different electronic payment platforms. Other reforms initiated to improve service delivery by the Commission include digitalisation of legacy records, full decentralisation of operations, and integration of the CRP to stamp duty portal of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, among others. She said the objective of the reforms is to support the governments efforts to encourage small businesses to formalise their businesses by registering them with the commission. ADVERTISEMENT The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) said it generated about N3.1 trillion revenue for the country in the last three years. The Public Relations Officer of NCS, Joseph Attah, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday that the revenue was generated between 2016 and 2018. Mr Attah explained that the service realised N898.8 billion revenue in 2016, N1.037 trillion in 2017, and N1.2 trillion in 2018. He said within the period under review, about 16,049 seizures of various commodities were made by NCS commands across the country. Giving a breakdown, the spokesperson said 5,925 items were seized in 2016, 4,889 impounded in 2017 and 5,235 in 2018. The implementation of the presidential mandate to restructure, reform, and raise revenue by the present management of NSC has greatly repositioned the service for better. What is challenging but being gradually achieved is the reform of persons, especially the need for attitudinal change on the part of operatives and stakeholders. Today in the service, there is an increasing disposition to place national interest above self, he said. Mr Attah noted that the establishment of the Customs Police Unit with the responsibility to check acts of indiscipline and other vices was fast turning customs into a national example for service delivery. He said the suppression of smuggling remained the most challenging aspect of Customs functions as anti-smuggling operations were seen differently by many people who still regarded smuggling as a business not crime. The challenges being faced by the Service in addressing smuggling are porous borders, the non-cooperative attitude of some border dwellers and lack of proper implementation of the ECOWAS protocol on transit by people from neighbouring countries. Others are the use of motorcycles and animals to smuggle items through difficult terrains, he said. According to him, the activities of smugglers to some extent have been put on check in the last three years since the assumption of office by Hameed Ali especially with the unprecedented seizures made so far. (NAN) The governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, on Tuesday condemned the trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, describing it as impunity at its highest level. According to THISDAY newspaper, Mr Ortom was addressing journalists during a campaign tour to Tse Agbaragba, headquarters of the Konshisha Local Government Area of the state. The governor, who is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), called on President Muhammadu Buhari to respect the rule of law, adding that nobody should be above the law. Look at what is happening, looking at the issue of arraigning the CJN, this is impunity at its highest level, Mr Ortom said. I always say that we must respect the rule of law, that is the only way we can preserve ourselves and even the positions we hold. Look, nobody should be above the law. We should respect the law, the presidency should respect the law, I should respect the law, everybody should respect the law. That is the only way we can preserve this country because Nigeria belongs to all of us. Mr Onnoghen is being prosecuted by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) for alleged false assets declaration following a petition by a group, the Anti-corruption, Research, and Data-based Initiative. The case was adjourned on Monday till January 22, after Mr Onnoghens lawyers argued that the defendant was not duly served with the court summons. Mr Ortom also spoke on a statement on Monday by a spokesperson to the president, Garba Shehu, via his twitter handle in which he accused Mr Ortom of visiting churches and spreading false news that President Buhari was trying to islamise Benue State. Governor Ortoms campaign is clearly designed to stir division and hatred and to divert the peoples attention from his inability to pay staff salaries and pensions for several months, Mr Shehu had said in the statement. It has been noted that the governor has been visiting churches in the state where he falsely tells congregations about President Buharis so-called plans to islamise Benue State. Mr Ortorm dismissed Mr Shehus allegation as an attempt by a cabal in the presidency to create a conflict between him and Mr Buhari. I have never insulted President Buhari, I have never made any hate speech against him at any given time. If I talk of Miyetti Allah claiming responsibility for the killings in Benue State, it came from them and it was before the media and everybody knew about it, he said. Garba Shehu should go and concentrate on his job and he should stop trying to create hatred between me and the president because I have no issues with the president. I called for the arrest of these people because they were making hate speeches and displaying impunity over this country and I reported them to security agencies. I expected that these people should have been arrested. And I was just repeating that. The governor said he has the right to campaign in the mosque and in the church, adding that he has respect for both religious homes. Garba Shehu cannot tell me where Ill go and do my campaigns. If Im in churches, I will also go to the mosque and I respect the Muslims for who they are and I respect the churches, that is the background I come from, I am a Christian, he added The governor said the presidential spokesperson has no right to poke his nose into his campaign as they belong to different political parties. Can Garba Shehu come and tell me where to campaign? He doesnt have the right, he is from APC and I am of the PDP and I am campaigning to win the election for my party and my presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar because I believe he will not keep a cabal in the villa. ADVERTISEMENT I am a man, I am not a woman, that is why I respect the wife of the president who called all of us to come back that where are the men in this country. Should we allow the cabal in the Villa to ruin this country? I am not a coward, Mr Ortom said. ADVERTISEMENT The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has described as untrue and evil reports that its personnel had invaded the Abuja residence of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen. The spokesman of the commission Tony Orilade told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday that the fake news is being spread by evil men and women to get evil results. There were reports suggesting EFCC operatives had surrounded Mr Onnoghens home on Tuesday. The chief justice is accused of wrongful declaration of assets, and faces six charges at the Code of Conduct Tribunal. Mr Onnoghen was absent from the tribunal on Monday when the case opened. His lawyers challenged the jurisdiction of the tribunal and argued that Mr Onnoghen was not properly served the summons. The matter was adjourned until next week. Later, a federal court issued an injunctions stopping the trial temporarily. A Federal High Court in Abuja asked the federal government to put on hold plans to arraign Mr Onnoghen. On reports about the EFCC raid, Mr Onnoghens spokesperson, Awassam Bassey, also told PREMIUM TIMES they were untrue. (NAN) ADVERTISEMENT President Muhammad Buhari has appointed a new acting police inspector general. He is Mohammed Adamu, a former assistant inspector general of police. Mr Adamu was appointed as the former IG, Ibrahim Idris, retired as he reached age 60. The new IG met with the president earlier Tuesday. A press statement announcing the appointment was sent by the police spokesperson, Jimoh Moshood. Read the statement below: PRESS RELEASE RETIREMENT FROM SERVICE OF THE 19th INDIGENOUS INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE, IGP IBRAHIM KPOTUN IDRIS, NPM, mni AT THE AGE OF 60 YEARS The Inspector General of Police, IGP Ibrahim Kpotun Idris, NPM, mni retires today, 15th January, 2019 from service of the Nigeria Police Force at the age of Sixty (60) Years. 2. The President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria has consequently directed that the outgoing Inspector General of Police, IGP Ibrahim Kpotun Idris, NPM, mni, hand over to the Assistant Inspector General of Police, AIG Mohammed Abubakar Adamu,mni as the Acting Inspector General of Police. 3. The outgoing Inspector General of Police, IGP Ibrahim Kpotun Idris, NPM, mni deeply thank the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria for the opportunity given to him to serve under his administration as Inspector General of Police. He also sincerely expresses gratitude to all Nigerians across the Country for the cooperation and support they accorded him and the entire personnel of the Force during his tenure. He enjoined them to extend the same level of support and assistance to his successor, Ag. IGP Mohammed Abubakar Adamu,mni. 4. The Acting Inspector General of Police, Ag. IGP Mohammed Abubakar Adamu,mni hails from Lafia, Nasarawa State and a holder of BSc. Geography. He enlisted into the Force on 1st February, 1986 as Cadet Assistant Inspector General of Police. 5. Ag. IGP Mohammed Abubakar Adamu,mni is a versatile and seasoned Police Officer, a professional per excellence. He attended several Senior Officer Courses on Law Enforcement, Crime Prevention, Control and Management within and outside Nigeria. Before his appointment as the Acting Inspector General of Police, he was a Directing Staff at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos, Plateau State. He was Commissioner of Police in Ekiti and Enugu States and also Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of Zone 5 Police Command Headquarters, Benin, Edo State. Ag. DCP JIMOH MOSHOOD FORCE PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER FORCE HEADQUARTERS ABUJA ADVERTISEMENT The outgoing Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has taken his possible successor in office, Adamu Mohammed, to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari. The two senior officers who drove in the official vehicle of the IGP, arrived the presidential villa at about 1:35p.m. and headed to the presidents office. It was Mr Mohammeds second visit to the villa on Tuesday. He had earlier met with the presidents chief of staff, Abba Kyari, in the morning. He returned to the state house with the outgoing IG. A source at the villa said it is the tradition for an outgoing IG to bring his successor to the president. The source said after the meeting, expected to be brief, the new IG will be decorated by the president, who would be assisted by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. Mr Osinbajo came out of the presidents office at about 1:44p.m. while the two police officers remained with the president. ADVERTISEMENT The man who is expected to be named the new police inspector general, Mohammed Adamu, on Tuesday visited the presidential villa, Abuja, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports. Officials have told PREMIUM TIMES Mr Mohammed, an Assistant Inspector-General of Police, will be named by President Muhammad Buhari as replacement for the retiring Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris. NAN reports that Mr Adamu arrived the villa at about 10.55 a.m. and moved to the office of Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari. Mr Idris, a controversial officer, is leaving the force after reaching 60 years of age January 15. He was seen performing his last public official duty of wreath laying at the Armed Forces Remembrance Day Celebration in Abuja on Tuesday. The meeting between the presidents chief of staff and Mohmmed Adamu was ongoing as at the time of filing this report, NAN reported. Reports reaching PREMIUM TIMES from credible military sources say that Boko Haram insurgents last night carried out yet another attack on two Borno villages. Damasak and Rann are currently under attack, said the source who would not want his name published. Damasak and Rann are both headquarters of two border local government areas, Abadam and Kala-Balge, both in Borno state. The former is located in northern Borno while the latter is remotely located in the central senatorial district of Borno. The two communities have suffered their fair share of Boko Haram hostilities that led to the displacement of their residents between 2015 and 2017. Rann is the Borno village where a military fighter jet that was sent out to attack an identified gathering of Boko Haram insurgents missed its coordinate and mistakenly dropped warheads on innocent people in an IDP camp killing nearly 200 persons. It was still in Rann that health humanitarian workers were killed, while three other female health workers working for UN agencies were abducted last year. Two of the abductees have so far been killed by the Boko Haram Damasak is one of the border towns of Borno that once fell under the conquest of Boko Haram before it was fully liberated in 2017. Recently, the insurgents had a major confrontation in Damasak during which troops of the Nigerian military gave what the army spokesman, Sani Usman, described as bloody nose. Mr Usman, an a brigadier general, said over 100 Boko Haram fighters were killed during a clearance operation along the border towns of Borno and Yobe States. Last night, sources said the insurgents returned to Damasak for yet another attack. The attack on Damasak went on almost at the same time another gang of Boko Haram gunmen were attacking Rann, the headquarters of Kala Balge local government. Sources had on Sunday said an alert on movement of suspected Boko Haram insurgents along the border communities of Borno and Yobe states was made. An informed non-military source informed PREMIUM TIMES that Boko Haram insurgents were seen moving in large numbers in those axis. Information received confirm movement of BHTs (Boko Haram terrorists) in 10 Gun trucks moving westwards from Kadar Alamba, towards Geidam axis, while another information revealed presence of BHT in 9 Gun trucks at Eastern part of Ajiwango. This was shortly after the attack on Magumeri. Possible areas to be attacked are Geidam, Damasak, kareto and Gubio, said the source who claimed the military were well informed about the movement. Why Magumeri was attacked by Boko Haram on Sunday Meanwhile an update on Sundays attack by Boko Haram in Magumeri, which was earlier reported by PREMIUM TIMES, indicate that the military were able to neutralise the insurgents. Though the military has not issued any statement or made comment on the attack, a top military source informed PREMIUM TIMES that the attack on Magumeri was targeted at two locations. ADVERTISEMENT The military base and the general hospital were the target, said the source. The military were overpowered at the base and had to withdraw, allowing the air force to hit at the Boko Haram. The military base was destroyed but no casualty recorded, meanwhile the second group that went to the hospital packed so much drugs. The source said the looting of the medical store in Magumeri may not be unconnected with the Damasak fight which left several Boko Haram with serious bullet injuries, and now in dire need for medical care. Its most likely that the main aim of the attack was for the drugs in the hospital, which was a success, said the source. Their aim for the drugs may not be unconnected to their recent losses and casualties from operations in Damasak. The Action Alliance (AA), a party formed by Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State 14 years ago, has adopted Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party as its presidential candidate in the February 16 election. The national chairman of the party, Kenneth Udeze, disclosed this at a press conference in Abuja on Monday. We are for Atiku/Obi leadership and we are glad to work with all believers of true federalism and efficient administration of governance at all levels to accomplish this as we approach the forthcoming elections, Mr Udeze said. The National Executives Committee (NEC) of our party are on the same page concerning our support for Atiku, same with all our state chapters in this matter. We hereby restate out position through this medium that AA as a certified and active member of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) have not for a moment reconsidered or wished to alter that position. For your information, AA moved the motion for the adoption of Atiku as the Presidential Candidate of CUPP, and we are on it to the end, he said. The national chairman said the support for Mr Abubakar and his running mate, Peter Obi, was a support for the growth of the countrys democracy and the required restructuring of the country. Mr Okorocha formed the AA in 2005 and planned to run for president on its platform in the 2007 elections. He was a founding member of the PDP on whose platform he ran for the governorship primary in Imo State in 1999 but lost to Achike Udenwa who flew the flag of the party. He later dumped the PDP for the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) where he was a presidential aspirant in 2003. After a few years in ANPP, Mr Okorocha floated the AA where he hoped to actualise his presidential ambition, but in a dramatic move abandoned the new party to return to the PDP. While in PDP, he showed interest in the 2007 presidential race and ran for the primary. He emerged runner up to the winner, former President Umaru YarAdua. In September 2007, Mr Okorocha unsuccessfully aspired to become the national chairman of the then ruling party. He later defected to the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) on whose platform he ran for governor in Imo State in 2011 and won, beating the incumbent, Ikedi Ohakim of the PDP. Ahead of the 2015 election, the governor again dumped APGA for the newly-formed All Progressives Congress (APC) following the successful merger of three other opposition parties and a section of APGA which he led. In APC, he also attempted to become its presidential candidate but was beaten alongside others by President Muhamadu Buhari at the partys primary in Lagos in 2014. Mr Okorocha came a distant fourth having mustered only 624 votes. While Mr Okorocha sojourned in PDP and APGA he managed to keep AA afloat and the party became handy. When APC refused to name his son in-law, Uche Nwosu, its governorship candidate for the March 2 election, Mr Nwosu moved to AA where, without contest, he was accepted and adopted as its flag bearer in the March 2 election. ADVERTISEMENT The APC snub has pitted the governor against the national leadership of the ruling party with both sides often exchanging verbal punches in the past months. Mr Okorocha, who is the candidate of the APC for the Imo West senatorial District, is believed to have facilitated Mr Nwosus defection to AA. While the spat with the leadership of APC lasted, the governor repeatedly said Mr Nwosu would run on the platform of another party if he was not offered the APC ticket. On Saturday, Mr Okorocha, at the APCs South East women and youth rally in Owerri, the state capital, clashed with the First Lady, Aisha Buhari, as both canvassed votes for different governorship candidates. While the governor rooted for his son-in-law, Mrs Buhari, represented by Dolapo Osinbajo, wife of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, canvassed support for the APC candidate, Hope Uzodinma, and other candidates of the party in the general elections. A vote for Buhari is a vote for progress. APC has done well and we must all support all APC candidates, the first lady said. I am happy with the crowd we saw today. It shows that Imo is APC and I want to urge all youth not to fight, avoid any form of crisis because President Buhari is a peaceful man. From what we have seen today President Buhari has won the South East the same way all our APC candidates have won. But when he rose to speak at the rally, which had Mr Uzodinma in attendance, Mr Okorocha vowed that nothing would stop Mr Nwosu from succeeding him as governor, come May 29. He said, Let me say this Madam First Lady, this time around we are not here to ask you to campaign for Buhari. What my wife has done is to tell you that Buhari is on ground. Imo victory for Buhari is designed, sealed. In Imo State, we have 47 political parties and one of the perfect alliances is Action Alliance led by Uche Nwosu. Nwosu is APC in spirit. APC owes Imo an apology because of the injustice meted to Imo people. In Imo State, Nwosu will win Imo State. It is not anti-party. We refused imposition in Imo State, he said. At Mondays press conference, Mr Udeze said Mr Nwosu still remained the governorship candidate of AA in lmo State, adding that he (Nwosu) was the one running for the election under the party, not Mr Okorocha. We shall do our best to deliver him, as he still remains the candidate to beat among all the gubernatorial candidates, he said. On this note, let me warn all our members in Nigeria, and the lmo State Chapter, in particular that we dont need any infraction in our party (and) in fact there is no room for that. It is our unshakable/unfailing resolve to work for the emergence of Atiku/Obi, in the presidential election, and that we must not only be seen to be doing, but to truly do. I will not hesitate to invoke from relevant sections of our Party Constitution to deal with erring members no matter how highly placed, as AA constitution which I swore to protect remains supremely sacrosanct. Please be warned, he said. It is not however clear if it was Mr Okorocha and his supporters, who are backing Mr Buhari for the February election Mr Udeze referred to as erring members. Mr Udeze could not be reached for comments as he did not respond to repeated calls from this reported on Tuesday morning. When contacted, Sam Onwuemedo, media aide to Mr Okorocha, said his principal was now a member of the APC and would not comment on the adoption of Mr Abubakar. When reminded that Mr Okorocha floated the AA in 2005, Mr Onwuemedo said the only link currently between the governor and AA was that his son-in-law was running for governor on the partys platform. That is not important now. The only relationship between him (Okorocha) and AA is that Uche Nwosu is contesting on its platform and we are poised to deliver. We are for Buhari but on the issue of the governorship election, it is Nwosu. They should leave to us, Mr Onwuemedo told PREMIUM TIMES in a telephone interview Tuesday. The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) is set to host the first-ever international Lassa fever conference in Nigeria. This will hold between January 16 and 17 in Abuja. The theme of the conference is; 50 years of Lassa fever: Rising to the challenge. The conference would mark 50 years of discovering the virus in Nigeria. Expected at the conference are health experts, researchers and scientists from all parts of the world who have been working on the Lassa fever disease, especially since its inception. At the conference, researchers from countries with incidences of Lassa fever disease would be able to share knowledge and suggest ways to curb the disease. The Chief Executive Officer, NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, said during a press briefing ahead of the conference that Nigeria is now taking leadership in the control of Lassa fever globally. We will be using the scientific conference to share why we must work together for strong collaboration. We are marking 50 years since this disease was first diagnosed by pushing ourselves to do more. We have agreed that we will work harder to prevent deaths recorded from Lassa fever. This we hope to drop from 26 per cent currently to less than 10 per cent in the next five years, he said. Mr Ihekweazu said with the conference, Nigeria is setting herself on a path to more accountability to the lives that the agency is meant to protect. He said there will also be a discussion around the level of vaccine production for the disease. We have done a lot of work but we know we can do more, and we will do more. At the conference, we will be exchanging ideas, listening to new thoughts, and making new friends. From these, new scientific collaborations will commence. He said the conference will help the Nigeria and health experts in the field define what is known about the disease, the knowledge and the gaps as well as define research priorities for Lassa fever. Other countries in West Africa also experience outbreak of the disease. Nigeria has been recording yearly outbreaks in every part of the country. States like Edo, Ondo, Ebonyi have always topped the chart of states with the most prevalent cases of the disease. Ironically, Borno State, where the disease was first detected, sometimes record little or no case of the disease. In 2018, Nigeria reported the largest Lassa fever outbreak since the history of the disease. 21 states reported at least a suspected case of the disease. Speaking on the aim of the conference, Elsie Ilori, the National Lassa Fever Technical Working Group head and conference co-chair, said the rise in the number of suspected cases of the disease raised several questions and pushed us to think more about the research areas that must be strengthened for us to control Lassa fever. Since then, we have developed a national Lassa fever research plan, carried out genetic sequencing to better understand the virus, increased our diagnostic, surveillance, risk communications, coordination and other capacities, she said. ADVERTISEMENT Ms Ilori said Nigeria has recorded several pockets of Lassa fever outbreaks, most of them going untracked, due to countrys capacity to tackle the disease. The next two days, we hope to join the global community in identifying a profound body of evidence with which we will be able to protect the health of Nigerians better. We also look forward to how this will inspire our scientific community to join us in learning more as we proceed with Lassa fever control, she said. Speaking in similar vein, Emmanuel Agogo, the lead, scientific subcommittee, said after continuous promotions, online and offline, it had over 350 submissions out of which 160 papers were selected. In the coming days, we look forward to efforts and quality work on Lassa fever. We urge our local scientific community to look forward to outcomes of this conference. We also want to join the country to welcome our dear participants from far and wide to the first Lassa Fever International Conference. He said the conference would have nine thematic areas: 1. Epidemiology and Surveillance of Lassa and other VHFs 2. Case management of Lassa and other VHFs 3. Laboratory diagnosis of Lassa and other VHFs 4. Risk communication for Lassa and other VHFs 5. Community engagement for Lassa and other VHFs 6. Infection Prevention Control (IPC) of Lassa and other VHFs 7. Animal and Environmental health response to Lassa and other VHFs 8. Policy and Co-ordination of response to Lassa and other VHFs and 9. Vaccines and Innovations ADVERTISEMENT Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, on Tuesday signed a decree temporarily permitting Brazilians to buy guns, fulfilling a campaign promise to overturn strict regulations that prohibited civilians from bearing arms. Mr Bolsonaro won the presidency by running on a far-right, law-and-order platform. His message resonated with voters in Brazil, which in 2017 had a record 64,000 murders, more than any other country, with 43,000 of those homicides resulting from firearms. A one-time army captain who took office on January 1, Bolsonaro wants to overturn a 2003 law that technically banned civilians from purchasing guns, arguing that Brazilians had the right to bear arms and defend themselves from criminals. The decree, which will expire unless it is ratified within 120 days by Congress, will remove the discretionary role that federal police have played in approving civilians requests to purchase guns. Mr Bolsonaro said the decision on the category of persons permitted to carry weapons, was completely subjective. At the last count in 2017, the last year government data was available; about 330,000 civilians in Brazil have been legally registered to each have a gun. Accurate data on how many illegal firearms are in Brazil is difficult to come by, but previous studies from the Justice Ministry have indicated that nearly eight million illegal weapons are in the country. Brazils heavily armed drug gangs and paramilitary militias easily obtain weapons that are made by domestic manufacturers, or smuggled over the countrys porous borders with its neighbours. Gangs in Rio de Janeiro almost exclusively carry Glock weapons currently, and have illegally obtained an array of AR Rifles that come from American and European manufacturers. (Reuters/NAN) The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday acquitted former Ivorian leader, Laurent Gbagbo, of war crimes and ordered his immediate release from custody. The verdict was to the joy of dancing supporters and the frustration of victims of atrocities. Outside the courthouse, dozens of Gbagbo supporters, many who travelled to The Hague by bus from Paris, broke into cheers and dancing at the verdict. Ooh-la-la!, said Gbagbo supporter Olivier Kipre in Abidjan, where people gathered in Gbagbo shirts to watch the proceedings on big screens. Im so joyful. I will become crazy today because I didnt believe he would be released. Some threw themselves to the ground or burst into tears, while taxis passing through a pro-Gbagbo enclave tooted horns. Mr Gbagbo was the first former head of state tried at the ICC. His freedom and possible return home may shake up the 2020 presidential poll in francophone West Africas largest economy and the worlds biggest cocoa producer. President Alassane Ouattaras camp has said he may reconsider a decision not to run if long-time rivals, Mr Gbagbo and former president Henri Konan Bedie were to stand. In the latest high-profile defeat for ICC prosecutors at the Hague, presiding Judge Cuno Tarfusser said they failed to prove accusations against Mr Gbagbo and co-defendant Charles Ble Goude, a former political youth leader. Messrs Gbagbo, 73, and Goude, 46, hugged when the decision was announced. In custody for seven years after French troops flushed him out of a presidential bunker, Mr Gbagbo could be freed as soon as Wednesday. It is too soon right now to comment on the future and where he will go, but you can imagine he is very attached to Ivory Coast, said defence lawyer, Emmanuel Altit. Rights groups said the verdict denied justice to victims of Ivory Coasts December 2010-April 2011 post-election conflict, when Mr Gbagbo refused to accept defeat by rival, Mr Ouattara. About 3,000 people died in violence. How can you free someone who has killed our children and our husbands? 33-year-old shopkeeper Salimata Cisse said. He was surrounded by a crowd of women in the Ivorian commercial capital Abidjan who were all unhappy at the verdict. Forces loyal to both Gbagbo and Ouattara were responsible for shocking violence, said Jim Wormington, of Human Rights Watch. Stunning Defeat It was another defeat for prosecutors, who also lost cases against Jean-Pierre Bemba, the Congolese ex-vice president released last year after his war crimes conviction was overturned, and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who had charges dropped in 2015. ADVERTISEMENT Prosecutors have only won three war crimes convictions over the past 15 years. This time, they failed to show Mr Gbagbos speeches directly incited crime, judge Tarfusser said. Gambian prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda has held the top job since 2012 but is due to be replaced next year. The acquittal underscores how important it is that the process to select the next prosecutor yields a person of integrity and sound judgment who is highly skilled at criminal investigation, said James A. Goldston, of the Open Society Justice Initiative rights group. Controversial Leader Mr Gbagbo had faced four counts including murder, rape, persecution and other inhumane acts. He rose to prominence as a Marxist firebrand lecturer who challenged the autocratic rule of Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Ivory Coasts first post-independence president. That got him imprisoned for two years in 1971. He took asylum in France during the 1980s but came back and led protests that forced the old ruler to allow multi-party democracy in 1990 with an election that Mr Gbagbo lost. Ten years later, Mr Gbagbo supporters helped oust military coup leader, Robert Guei, and he took the presidency. (Reuters/NAN) ADVERTISEMENT Popularly called, the King of Kannywood, Ali Nuhu on Saturday celebrated his 20 years in the film industry. Ali Nuhu started acting in Kannywood in 1999. He also marked attaining 900,000 followers on Instagram. In the course of his career, he has acted in Nollywood films becoming the first northern actor to appear in more than 150 Nollywood movies. He has acted beside actors like Jim Iyke, Ramsey Noah, RMD, Ini Edo, Genevieve Nnaji and a host of theirs; appearing in movies like Sitanda, Last Flight to Abuja, Blood and Henna. He has also appeared in more that 1000 Hausa movies making him the most consistent Kannywood film actor. According to Hassana Dalhat, a film analyst, in Kaduna, Ali Nuhu has become an authority in the Kannywood. He (Nuhu) has also produced more films from the stable of his FKD records and has recruited stars under his label including famous Rahama Sadau, Nafeesat Abdullahi, Nuhu Abdullahi, Zaharadden Sani, and many others, she said. In a message he posted on his Instagram page, Ali Nuhu thanked his fans and colleagues for all the support he has gotten so far. It hasnt been easy in the last 20 years, but thanks to Allah, it has been possible. I appreciate all my friends, colleagues and family who have been there for me all through. To everyone who celebrates me, you mean a lot to me and may Allah grant me a way to payback, he said. ADVERTISEMENT Nigerias electricity generation companies have threatened to shut down their power plants if the challenges facing them are not addressed. According to the Executive Secretary of the body, Joy Ogaji, the challenges facing the companies included liquidity issues, power rejection by the electricity distribution companies and gas constraints. Ms. Ogaji, speaking on behalf of the Association of Power Generation Companies, said the decline in available generation capability could also be traced to these challenges being faced by Gencos. Few of the thermal power plants were out due to planned maintenance, which is allowed in the sector, the APGC official said. The decline was not an act of rebellion by the Gencos neither was it deliberate but was beyond their control. This should serve as a wake-up call to the Federal Government to the goings-on in the industry with regards to the Gencos and if the actions are not taken by the necessary agencies, Gencos will be forced to shut down business. The official added that, Afam Power Plc (Afam VI Gas/Steam), GT12, 13 and ST10 power plants were shut down for a period of about 16 days due to planned maintenance that was carried out by the gas suppliers on their facilities. Although Afam Power Plc was duly notified about the maintenance, it resulted in a reduction of Afams available generation capability from about 490MW to zero. Ms. Ogaji said that available generation capability plunged to 5,207.57 megawatts last December from 7,238.12MW in November, while average generation rose slightly to 4,162.47MW from 4,093.76MW. She said within the period, most of the plants built under the National Integrated Power Project, including Alaoji, Sapele, Olorunsogo, and Omotosho, suffered from gas constraints. Some of the companies generation capability dropped to zero due to the outage of their power plants which was as a result of gas constraints, she said, adding that Jebba Power Stations generation capability reduced by about 110MW to 360MW due to low load demand. ADVERTISEMENT The Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has approved compensation via loans for over 550,000, rice farmers affected by the 2018 flood disaster. The RIFAN National President, Aminu Goronyo, on Tuesday in Abuja told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the CBN governor had directed the loans should be restructured for a period of four years. Instead of paying the loan three instalments within a year, the loan will be restructured to be paid within four years now and be paid by instalments. Mr Goronyo said only the affected farmers under the RIFAN/CBN/ ABP model programme would benefit from the compensation. He said the resolution was an outcome of a meeting with the Director, Developing Finances of CBN and RIFAN executive. He said that RIFAN only championed the case of affected farmers under its care but expressed the hope that all the registered farmers under the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) that were affected would benefit from it. Mr Goroyo said the bank had also directed that a fresh loan should be given to the affected farmers so that they could go back to the field and recover their losses. RIFAN is working on the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Presidency and the CBN to compensate the victims as promised by President Mohammadu Buhari. RIFAN is also seeking assistance from the CBN to restructure the loans to alleviate the suffering of the affected farmers and make them go back to the field, he said. He said another meeting on adequate compensation to the affected farmers in under the RIFAN/ CBN/ ABP model programme Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) indicated that succour was on the way for farmers negatively impacted by the excessive rains of 2018. NAN recalls that the flood destroyed over 100,000 hectares of rice farms in Jigawa, and affected 19,000 rice farmers across the 23 local government areas of the state. Also, Sokoto State said it lost an estimated 61,197 tonnes of rice valued at N27.5 billion because of the flood during the last cropping season. Also RIFAN, Adamawa chapter, over 5,000 of its members were affected by the flood. (NAN) The Trial Prostheses Market research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 09:41:46 Press Information Future Market Insights U.S. Office 616 Corporate Way Suite 2-9018, Abhishek Budholiya Manager 3479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 740 Words U.S. Office 616 Corporate WaySuite 2-9018,Manager3479183531 Prosthesis is a man-made substitute of missing human body parts. Sometime, particular part of body such hand or leg is amputated due cancer, infection in that particular part. The human body part is also get removed due to trauma or accident. For such people, doctor prescribe them to use trial prosthesis instead of that missing body part, so that people can perform their daily activities with help of trail prosthesis. Leading manufacturer of prostheses produce few trial prostheses to evaluate the efficacy of products. Hospitals, prosthetic clinics and rehabilitation center purchase different types of trial prostheses from the manufacturer. Doctor provide this trial prostheses to their patient according their need. For example, if the patient has lost the lower part of his arm then trial prostheses of similar kind will be provided to the patients. This trial prostheses is provide to the patient for a period of three to six month. After the period of time a feedback is taken from patient who is wearing that trial prostheses. This feedback will include the overall capability, strengths and comfort level of that trial prostheses. Based on the patient feedback manufacturer will decide about the further production of that particular trial prosthesis.Request to View a Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7351 Trial Prostheses Market: Drivers and RestraintsIncreasing incidences of trauma cases or accidental injuries is the primary factor responsible for the robust the growth of trial prostheses market over the forecast period. Additionally, introduction of custom made implant products and rising demand for advanced orthopedic prosthetics will upsurge the growth of trial prostheses market. Moreover, rising healthcare expenditure and prevalence of life-style related diseases and disorders will also results the significant growth of trial prostheses market over the forecast period. In addition rising focus of leading manufacturer to collaborate with hospitals and rehabilitation centers will also propel the growth of trial prostheses market. On other hand, inadequate reimbursement coverage. In addition, lack of awareness among the people about the tracheostomy care procedures will also responsible for sluggish growth of trial prostheses market.Trial Prostheses Market: SegmentationThe global trial prostheses market is classified on the basis of product type, end user, and region.Based on product type trial prostheses market is segmented into following:Upper Extremity Trial ProsthesesHand Trial ProsthesesElbow Trial ProsthesesShoulder Trial ProsthesesLower Extremity Trial ProsthesesFoot & Ankle Trial ProsthesesKnee Trial ProsthesesHip Trial ProsthesesBased on technology trial prostheses market is segmented into following:ConventionalElectric PoweredHybrid Orthopedic ProstheticsBased on end user trial prostheses market is segmented into following:HospitalsProsthetic ClinicsRehabilitation CenterTrial Prostheses Market: OverviewTrial prostheses market is expected to exponential growth due to rising incidences of trauma cases. Manufacturer of trial prostheses is focus to collaborate with hospital, prosthetic clinics and rehabilitation center to upsurge their market share globally. By product type, lower extremity trial prostheses is expected to grow at relatively faster rate than other segment. By technology electric powered trial prostheses is anticipated to dominate the global trial prostheses market over the forecast period. Among all end user, rehabilitation center is projected to be highly lucrative segment for trial prostheses market across all the geographies.Request Report for Table of Contents @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7351 Trial Prostheses Market: Regional OverviewOn the basis of regional presence, global trial prostheses are classified into eight key regions North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific excluding China & Japan, China, Japan, and the Middle East & Africa. North America is the most lucrative market for trial prostheses due to the increasing number of accidental injuries. After North America, trial prostheses market is then followed by Western Europe and Japan due to the increasing adoption of trial prostheses. APECJ and Eastern Europe is the fastest growing region of global trial prostheses market, India and Australia are the major markets for trial prostheses in APECJ due to rising awareness among the people about trial prostheses. The MEA and Latin America are expected to show relatively low adoption trial prostheses owing to due lack of awareness among the patient.Trial Prostheses Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players found across the value chain of trial prostheses market are Ossur, Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc., Hanger Inc., Smith & Nephew plc, Johnson & Johnson Service Inc., B. Braun Melsungen AG, The Ohio Willow Wood Co., Fillauer LLC., Blackford Inc., Otto Bock Healthcare GmbH and others. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-14 12:47:14 HONG KONG, Jan 14, 2019 - (ACN Newswire) - Organised by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), the 12th Asian Financial Forum (AFF) opened this morning and runs for two days (14-15 Jan) at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC). Under the theme "Creating a Sustainable and Inclusive Future," this year's AFF brings together more than 130 policymakers, financial and business leaders and heavyweight investors to survey the current global economic environment and offer insights on the opportunities and challenges that businesses will face in the coming year. A series of topical issues related to innovation and technology will also be examined to encourage the financial sector to leverage new technologies for facilitating sustainable and inclusive development.Challenges and Changes Ahead for the EconomyVincent HS Lo, Chairman of the HKTDC, and Carrie Lam, Chief Executive of the HKSAR, officiated at the opening ceremony. In his welcome remarks, Mr Lo discussed the challenges facing the global economy, including the uncertainty hanging over the United States-China trade negotiations, growing protectionism, populism and geopolitical tensions. He noted there are also deep-seated issues such as the impact of ageing populations and mass migration, the destructive power of climate change and disruption from new technologies."The world therefore needs new ways to stimulate growth and development. To do so, we must work together with a shared vision," said Mr Lo. "One such vision can be found in the Belt and Road Initiative, which was introduced by China five years ago." He explained that the initiative, aimed to drive global development, can provide a framework to connect and create economic and social activities. "Events such as the AFF are all the more important in times of global challenges because they give us the opportunity to share problems, discuss solutions and work together to find a clearer path ahead," Mr Lo added.Creating a Sustainable and Inclusive FutureThe AFF opened with a plenary session titled "Creating a Sustainable and Inclusive Future: Opportunities and Challenges". Chaired by James Lau, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury of the HKSAR, the panel featured heavyweight international speakers including Michael D'Arcy, Minister of State at the Department of Finance with special responsibility for Financial Services and Insurance, Ireland; Pierre Gramegna, Minister of Finance, Luxembourg; Jin Liqun, President and Chairman, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank; Lim Guan Eng, Minister of Finance of Malaysia; and Wang Zhaoxing, Vice President, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission. Together they explored opportunities and challenges to driving growth and building a better future through sustainable and inclusive development.The panel discussion that followed, "Managing Global Financial Risks and Opportunities in 2019", saw financial experts sharing insights on hot-button issues for the global market and financial policymaking, including heightened market volatility, monetary policy normalisation, Brexit, fiscal discipline in the European Union, green finance and fintech. The panel was chaired by Eddie Yue, Deputy Chief Executive, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, with panellists including Burkhard Balz, Member of the Executive Board, Deutsche Bundesbank; Dennis Beau, First Deputy Governor of the Banque de France; Saeb Eigner, Chairman, Dubai Financial Services Authority; and Sergey Shvetsov, First Deputy Governor of the Bank of Russia.Robert Zoellick Shares on Sino-US Trade Dispute and Global Economic TrendsThe keynote luncheons at the AFF are always highly anticipated, and the keynote speaker on the first day this year was former World Bank President Robert Zoellick. As Sino-US trade relations grab attention around the world, Mr Zoellick shared his views on the latest developments in the ongoing trade dispute, examining global economic trends and long-term prospects, and exploring ways for the finance sector to embrace innovation.Debut Panel Discussions Cover New Economy, Fintech and MoreFour new panel discussions were held at the AFF this year. The panel discussion on "Global Investment in the New Economy" examined investment risks and opportunities amid an ever-changing global financial and economic landscape. Speakers included Raja Easa Al Gurg, Managing Director, Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group LLC and President, Dubai Business Women Council; Raymund Chao, Chairman, Asia Pacific and Greater China, PwC; Denis Duverne, Non-Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors, AXA Group; John Flint, Group Chief Executive, HSBC Holdings plc; Nobuyuki Hirano, President and Group CEO, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc; and Michel M Lies, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Zurich Insurance Group Ltd. The panel discussion on fintech trends and regulations featured Chris Church, Chief Business Development Officer, Digital Asset; Eddi Danusaputro, Chief Executive Officer, Mandiri Capital Indonesia; Soul Htite, Chairman and founder of Dianrong; Daisuke Iwase, Group Chief Digital Officer, AIA Group Limited; and Alex Kong, founder and Chairman, TNG FinTech Group.The panel discussion on Start-ups & Entrepreneurship focused on the global and China start-up environment and insights into best practice when it comes to securing investment. The speakers included Justin Gong, co-founder and Vice President, XAG; Nisa Leung, Managing Partner, Qiming Venture Partners; Jonathan Medved, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, OurCrowd Ltd.; and Max Yuen, founder and Chairman, Shanghai Xiaoi Robot Technology. The Risk Management along the Belt and Road panel discussion detailed the linkage between risk management, insurance and the bankability of Belt and Road infrastructure projects, with speakers including Peter Burnett, Managing Director, Regional Head, Corporate Finance, Greater China & North Asia, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited; and Jayne Plunkett, CEO Asia and Member of Group Executive Committee, Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd.As the world's second-largest economy, China's financial and economic policies hold sway over the global economy. A Dialogue Session, chaired by Lawrence Lau, Ralph and Claire Landau Professor of Economics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, examined the economic outlook and investment development in the mainland, featuring Tu Guangshao, Vice Chairman and President, China Investment Corporation, and Zhu Guangyao, former Finance Minister, People's Republic of China.Full press release: http://www.acnnewswire.com/press-release/english/49054/ Event website: www.asianfinancialforum.com International Financial Week Website: http://www.internationalfinancialweek.com Photo download: https://bit.ly/2ST8MjI PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 12:01:09 Sodium nitrate is a type of alkali metal nitrate salt, also popularly known as Chile saltpeter (as large deposits of this salt are found in Chile) to differentiate it from ordinary saltpeter and potassium nitrate. It is a white, crystalline solid and though it is non-combustible, it increases the burning rate of combustible materials. Large quantities of sodium nitrate result in fires, or explosions in cases where the combustible material is finely divided. Sodium nitrate finds important applications in solid propellants, explosives and chemical fertilizers, apart from many other uses. It also finds important applications in several reactions carried out on industrial scales for the manufacture of chemical fertilizers, pyrotechnics and smoke bombs, glass and pottery enamels, preservatives for food applications and in the manufacture of solid rocket propellants.Sodium nitrate is also used as a color fixative in cured meats and poultry. It finds application as an oxidizer in fireworks, thereby substituting potassium nitrate commonly found in black powder, and as a component in instant cold packs. Sodium nitrate is combined with potassium nitrate and calcium nitrate for the purpose of heat storage and, lately, for heat transfer applications in solar power plants.Request For Report Sample @ www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-6548 A mixture of sodium nitrate, calcium nitrate and potassium nitrate finds application as an energy-storage material in prototype plants, such as the Andasol Solar Power Station and the Archimedes projects. Apart from this, sodium nitrate also finds application in wastewater treatment processes for facultative microorganism respiration. Nitrosomonas, a genus of microorganisms, consumes sodium nitrate preferentially vis-a-vis oxygen, enabling it to grow more rapidly in the wastewater to be treated.Considering these important aspects of applications of sodium nitrate, the study of sodium nitrate becomes an important read.Rising demand from the food and beverages industryIn recent times, there has been a rise in the demand for food preservatives from the rapidly growing food & beverage industry. Preservation of processed food has been gaining importance over the past few years. Sodium nitrate is being increasingly used as a preservative in specific processed meats, such as bacon, jerky and luncheon meats. Moreover, the volume of processed food & beverage consumed has been rising exponentially, which can be primarily attributed to the rising population with high income groups, especially in developing economies. These factors have been largely contributing to market growth.Sodium nitrate market Assessment by regionRegional Market OutlookIn terms of geography, the sodium nitrate market can be been divided into seven regions North America, Latin America, Europe, South East Asia (SEA) and Rest of APAC, China, Japan and Middle-East & Africa. China and SEA & the rest of APAC are dominating regions in the sodium nitrate market, due to growing population and increasing demand for sodium nitrate applications across a diverse range of industries.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-6548 North America and Europe are the next most important regional markets for sodium nitrate and Germany, France and the U.K. are key countries in the European region. The sodium nitrate market in Asia is expected to be the most promising market for players during the forecast period, owing to various factors such as developing healthcare facilities, growing chemicals, plastic & rubber and paint & coating industries and the increasing use of sodium nitrate in pharmaceutical & healthcare industries. Sodium Borate Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 09:38:53 Press Information Persistence Market Research (PMR) 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, yogesh sengar Team Lead +1-646-568-7751 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 583 Words 305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Team Lead+1-646-568-7751 Sodium borate also known as borax is a mineral, a boron compound and a salt of boric acid. Sodium borate is available in crystalline form and is water soluble. Sodium borate can also be easily converted to borates and boric acid. Borax decahydrate is the commonly used grade in the market. Some of the countries such as Turkey, the U.S., Chile and Romania have commercially important deposits of borax. Sodom borate is used in variety of end-user industries such as personal care, biochemistry, paints & coatings, metal processing, food processing, mining, paper processing, water treatment and ceramics among others. Sodium borate is also used as buffer solutions in biochemical processes and laboratories. Fire retardant is another major outlet for sodium borate and is likely to grow in years to come.The market for sodium borate was mainly driven by end-user industries such as increasing demand from personal care, water treatment and disinfectant market. Huge demand for sodium borate as antiseptic solution from detergent, disinfectant and water treatment has been the major factor for the growth of sodium borate in past few years. Sodium borate is used in manufacturing of glass, ceramics, paints & coatings and coated paper among others. Sodium borate is also preferred as a flux in metal processing industry as well as in metal welding. In ceramics, sodium borate is used as ingredient in enamel glazes and as ingredient in ceramic slips. In agricultural chemicals, sodium borate is used in micronutrients to correct the boron deficiencies in the soil. In food processing, sodium borate is used as food additive, food preservative or to improve the rubbery texture of the food. Increasing demand for treated water thus driving the water treatment industry is likely to be major opportunity for the sodium borate market in upcoming years. In spite of so many applications, environmental and health regulations associated with sodium borate are anticipated to hider the growth of the market in next few years.In terms of demand, Asia Pacific was the leading region in sodium borate market in 2013. Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing markets for sodium borate due to increasing demand from agricultural chemicals, detergents, ceramics and water treatment in this region. The market for sodium borate in Asia Pacific was led by China. Other Asian countries such as India and Japan are likely to provide better opportunity for sodium borate market owing to increasing consumption from water treatment and agricultural chemicals end-user industries. Asia Pacific was followed by North America. Increasing demand from detergents, agricultural chemicals and water treatment industry is driving the demand for sodium borate in this region. U.S. had the largest demand for sodium borate owing to huge demand from end-user industries such as personal care, water treatment and ceramics among others. Europe had the third-largest demand for sodium borate market in 2013. Increasing demand for sodium borate from personal care industry coupled with chemical industry has been driving the market for sodium borate in Europe. Germany is one of the largest consumers of sodium borate in this region owing to the huge demand from ceramics and paper processing industry. Rest of the World market is anticipated to show positive outlook for the sodium borate market in near future.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4534 The market for sodium borate is highly oligopolistic in nature. Some of the key manufacturers in the sodium borate market are Etimine S.A., Larderello S.p.A., Quiborax S.A. and Rio Tinto Group among others. Silver Amalgam Alloys Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 10:59:54 Press Information Persistence Market Research (PMR) 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, yogesh sengar Team Lead +1-646-568-7751 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 576 Words 305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Team Lead+1-646-568-7751 Silver amalgam is a mixture of mercury, silver, tin and copper and used for dental applications. Amalgams are generally crystalline in structure with the exception of those with high mercury content which are liquid. Some of the important characteristics of an amalgam are dimensional change, compression strength, flow and creep. The dimensional change characteristics deal with an amalgams ability to expand and contract depending on its use. The compression strength characteristic is the ability of amalgams to resist fracture which is an important prerequisite for any restorative materials. The strength of silver amalgam depends on the composition of the alloy.Silver amalgams alloys are also known as dental amalgams and are used for dental fillings. Silver amalgams are popular dental restorative material because of their low cost, strength, durability and ease of application. They are long lasting, have a better performance than other fillings, applicable for broad range of clinical performance and are of better quality. However, its popularity is diminishing today because of concerns of mercury toxicity, allergic potential and inferior aesthetics quality. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recommended labeling of dental amalgam products, which includes a warning against using the product in patients who have an allergy to mercury. In addition, it has a warning that dental professionals follow a proper protocol while handling dental amalgams and a statement mentioning the risks and benefits of dental amalgam so that patients and dentist can make informed decisions.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4604 The continued use of silver amalgam in dental applications will be a major driving factor for silver amalgam industry. The FDI World Dental Federation has reaffirmed the safety of use of silver amalgams in dentistry and hence it is used by dentists all around the world. Majority of dental restorations depend on silver amalgams and hence it has a significant market. However, development of viable substitutes, growth of dental composites market and lack of awareness could hamper the growth of this market.The market for silver amalgam is worldwide as it is recommended by FDI World Dental Federation for use in its dental applications. The use of silver amalgams is quite popular in Asia Pacific, especially the emerging markets such as China and India due to its low cost and wide availability. The American Dental Association has also approved the use of silver amalgam for dental restorative procedures and hence it is used by majority of dentists in the U.S. However, the use of silver amalgam is declining in Europe with Sweden, Norway, Germany, Denmark, Austria and Finland reducing the use of silver amalgam for dental applications.Some of the key players in this market are DPM limited, Sirona, Nobel Biocare, Straumann, Astra Tech, Megagen, Osstem Implant Co. Ltd, Avinent Implant Systems, Zimmer Holdings, Inc, MIS Implants Technologies Ltd, Intra-Lock International and CAMLOG Implant Systems among others. Straumann and Nobel Biocare are leading players in this market with significant global market share. Straumann, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, has collaborated with multiple research institutes, universities and clinics to develop a broad range of dental implant products. The company has presence in major markets of Asia Pacific, South America, Europe and North America. Nobel Biocare, headquartered in Kloten, Switzerland has manufacturing plants for dental implants in Sweden, U.S. and Israel. It offers innovative dental implants and dental prosthetics to its clients and is listed at the SIX Swiss Exchange.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/4604 PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 11:02:23 Press Information Persistence Market Research (PMR) 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, yogesh sengar Team Lead +1-646-568-7751 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 594 Words 305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Team Lead+1-646-568-7751 Silica fiber is a long thin thread made of sodium silicate. Silica fibers are the dominating material in fiber optics due to their excellent properties and characteristics. Silica fibers have superior mechanical strength against bending and pulling, provided that the fiber is not very thick and that the surfaces are well prepared. In addition, cleaving and fusion splicing of silica fibers works fairly well. The mechanical strength of silica fibers can be further improved with a suitable polymer jacket. Silica fibers can be used as reinforcements in polymer, metal and ceramic matrices. The high strength-to-weight and modulus-to-weight (i.e., stiffness-to-weight) ratios of the silica fibers allow the fabrication of composite materials that are superior in physical properties to much heavier homogeneous metal materials. In addition, silica fibers are chemically very stable as compared to other materials.Silica fibers have many applications in automotive, telecommunication, electronics and aerospace industries, due to their superior heat resistance. Silica fibers are used as optical fibers for long distance telecommunications, sensors and fiber optic medical instruments. Huge investments have been made to develop innovative types of silica fibers, which have further increased the performance advantages of silica fibers over fibers based on other materials. Silica fibers can also be used to produce silica acid fibers by a dry spinning method. Silica fibers have properties which make them useful in friction-lining materials. Silica fibers can withstand temperatures of up to 1832 degrees Fahrenheit (1000 C) for long periods or even higher temperatures of 3092 F (1700 C) for short periods of time. Silica fiber heat protection is so effective that silica fiber blankets are used on space shuttles as part of the thermal protection system. The threads are part of the advanced flexible reusable surface insulation. Silica fibers reduce the weight of the insulation and can deal with the heat load encountered upon re-entry. Other applications of fiber optics include imaging for surgical procedures, and as sensors. One surgical application is an endoscope. This tool is made up of bundles of silica fibers and is used to inspect the interior of the body.Request for Report Sample : https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4603 The growth in key end user industries such as telecommunication and electronics industry is expected to drive the demand for the silica fibers. Demand for silica fibers is growing due to their excellent characteristics such as high temperature insulation, low thermal conductivity and energy efficiency. This has resulted in the increased applications of silica fiber products in diverse industries such as iron and steel, metal, petrochemical, and others. However, development of alternatives could hamper the growth of this market.Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region for silica fibers due to growth in telecommunication industry. China is one of the largest market for silica fibers and accounts for majority of the world demand. The demand for silica fiber is growing in North America and other emerging economies of Asia Pacific due their efforts to build Fiber to-the-Node and Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) networks. The Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) consumption of silica fibers is forecast to lag behind.Global prospects for silica fiber companies appear profitable. The key players in this market are mostly fiber optic companies. Some of the companies operating in this market are Corning, Draka, Prysmian, Nexans, Sumitomo Electric, Fujikura, Yangtze Optical Fiber and Cable Company, Sterlite and Prime Optical Fiber Corporation among others. The growth in fiber optics industry is expected to boost the demand for silica fibers and increase the revenue of silica fiber companies over the next few years.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/4603 PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 04:15:56 SINGAPORE, Jan 15, 2019 - (ACN Newswire) - SGX Mainboard-listed Sapphire Corporation Limited ("Sapphire", and together with its subsidiaries, the "Group"), an established infrastructure design and construction group in China, is pleased to announce that the Group's 97.6% owned subsidiary, Ranken Railway Construction Group Co., Ltd ("Ranken"), has secured a EPC contract of RMB 832 million related to its PPP project in Chengdu.On 19 November 2018, the Group announced that Ranken and its consortium partners have secured a PPP project to carry out investment and financing, design, build, operate and transfer works ("DBFOT Works") with the Urban and Rural Coordination Work Bureau of Chengdu Wuhou District for the first phase of Wuhou District, "Liveable River Bank" project in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China.The DBFOT Works period of the PPP project is expected to be 15 years, which comprises 2 years of construction as well as the operational/management rights of the building infrastructures along the river bank for a 13-year period.The scope of work related to the EPC contract includes engineering, procurement and construction works associated with the water environment protection, ecological restoration, flood control measures, building infrastructures and lifestyle amenities of this PPP project.Recently, as announced on 30 December 2018, Ranken, being one of the consortium parties, has injected RMB 25 million in cash for a 25% equity interest in the PPP's project company, Chengdu Derun Jinlong Environmental Management Co., Ltd. ("CDJ Environmental Management Co.") , which is funded through Ranken's internal resources.The other well-known consortium partners in the PPP project includes Chongqing Derun Environment Co., Ltd., Chengdu Wuhou Industrial Development Investment Management Group Co., Ltd. and Beijing Enterprises Water (China) Investment Limited have injected their proportionate share of the registered capital and capital reserve in CDJ Environmental Management Co..Focusing on a broader urban renewal effort to create a greener living environment in Wuhou District, this PPP project involves the design, build, finance and management of ecological restoration, flood control measures and building infrastructures along an 18.68 km embankment along Jiang An River, one of the key waterways in Chengdu.Two-Prong Business Strategy in the PPP Market Bearing FruitsAdopting a two-prong business strategy in the PPP market, the Group targets to be a strategic shareholder with the first mover advantage to secure the EPC contract and operations management contract related to the PPP project.As a testament to the Group's strategy, this EPC contract of RMB 832 million is the largest contract win in recent years. As such, the Group is expected to benefit financially from three components of this PPP project as follows:a. EPC contract of RMB 832 million during the 2-year construction period;b. Potential of recurring dividend income arising from Ranken's 25% shareholding in CDJ Environmental Management Co.; andc. Potential of recurring revenue from the operations management contract of the PPP contract for a 13-year period upon completion of the EPC contractCommenting on winning the EPC contract of its PPP project, Ms Wang Heng, Chief Executive Officer of Sapphire, said, "Recognising that China's burgeoning PPP market presents strong prospects for long term recurring revenue, we have taken the first step as a strategic shareholder with a direct investment into this PPP project in Chengdu together with other well-known consortium partners.Other than being a shareholder in the PPP project, we also set our sights to secure the EPC component and operational management contracts of our own PPP projects so it will be accretive to our revenue, strengthened our track record, deepen our working relationships with leading industry players in the PPP industry and further mitigate our risks.Moreover, working together with these leading industry players will be a positive boost to our reputation and operational experience in the water environmental industry, thereby leading to more working opportunities with major industry players in this field.Besides being a EPC contractor and a strategic shareholder in this PPP project, we also have the opportunity to be the manager of the new recreational amenities, F&B retail and lifestyle concepts along the river bank for a 13-year period, thereby developing our operational experience in this area and creating a new recurring revenue stream for the Group." Ms Wang added, "With this approach, stakeholders' interests are aligned and provides greater assurance that the PPP project can be completed successfully on time and on budget.We have also demonstrated that this two-prong business strategy can present us with larger EPC contracts and long-term recurring revenue related to PPP projects with minimal capital commitment." Established and Well-Known Consortium PartnersA PPP project is generally defined as a long-term contract between a government agency and private organisation(s) for the construction and operation of economic and social infrastructure (such as water treatment facilities, utilities and public transport systems). The PPP model has been utilised for many public infrastructure projects and it has been used in many countries.The consortium partners of this PPP project include Chongqing Derun Environment Co., Ltd., Chengdu Wuhou Industrial Development Investment Management Group Co., Ltd. and Beijing Enterprises Water (China) Investment Limited.Chongqing Derun Environment Co., Ltd. ("Derun Environment") is jointly established in 2015 by SUEZ, NWS and Chongqing Water Assets Management Company and it is the biggest SinoFrench investment platform in China's environment market, as well as the key investment project of SUEZ in China. Derun Environment aims to become provide systematic solutions for urban environmental problems domestically and globally. Derun Environment's total assets value has reached nearly RMB 30 billion.Beijing Enterprises Water (China) Investment Limited is part of Beijing Enterprises Water Group Limited ("BEWG"), a company listed on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (Stock Code: 0371), is a large-scale group which provides a broad range of water services and environmental protection services in China. Currently, BEWG owns and operates a few hundred water supply plants and sewage treatment plants in China, Malaysia, and Portugal, with a total water treatment capacity of over tens of million tons per day.Throughout the years, BEWG was consistently awarded "China Water Service Outstanding New Enterprises", "Best Water Business Enterprises in China", and recently, BEWG has been ranked No.1 of the "Top Ten Water Enterprises with Influence in China" for the eighth consecutive year.This press release is to be read in conjunction with Sapphire's exchange filings on 14 January 2019, which can be downloaded via www.sgx.com For more information, please contact:Yingying ZhaoWaterbrooks Consultants Pte LtdTel: +65-6100-2228 Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC) Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 11:02:56 Press Information Future Market Insights U.S. Office 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Web: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com Abhishek Budholiya Manager +1 03479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 772 Words U.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: https://www.futuremarketinsights.comManager+1 03479183531 Future Market Insights (FMI) recently published a report titled 'Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC) Market Global Industry Analysis 2013-2017 and Opportunity Assessment 2018-2028'. Radio frequency integrated circuits are the elementary units for components that enable long-range connectivity such as LTE networks and short-range connectivity such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi in computing devices. Radio frequency integrated circuits are predominantly used in devices that perform functions that include amplification, frequency conversion and signal filtering.Moreover, Radio frequency integrated circuits have become one of the most integral components in wireless infrastructure owing to their high reliability and operating frequencies.Request to Sample of Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7083 The global radio frequency integrated circuit market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.0% during the forecast period. The radio frequency integrated circuit market was valued at US$ 34,235.0 Mn in 2017, and is projected to grow significantly to reach US$ 72,616.4 Mn by 2028 due to an increase in the demand for next-generation LTE networks across the globe.In this report, FMI has segmented the global radio frequency integrated circuit market on the basis of product type, vertical and region. By product type, the Radio frequency integrated circuit market is sub-segmented into transceivers, power amplifiers, wireless chips, Bluetooth chips and others. The increasing penetration of IoT devices in various industry verticals is encouraging device manufacturers to integrate a larger number of radio frequency integrated circuit with connected devices.Owing to these factors, the power amplifier sub-segment is projected to register 27.1% market share at the end of 2018 in global radio frequency integrated circuit market. In addition, due to increasing wireless communication infrastructure, the wireless chip sub-segment is anticipated to register a high CAGR of 8.4% during the forecast period in global radio frequency integrated circuit market. The wireless chip segment is expected to register a high Y-o-Y growth rate during the forecast period in the global radio frequency integrated circuit market due to advancements in satellite and radio base stations.Based on vertical, the radio frequency integrated circuit market is sub-segmented into consumer electronics, telecommunication, media & broadcasting, automotive, government and others. Due to the increasing demand from the consumer electronics manufacturers, the consumer electronics segment is expected to register a high growth CAGR of 7.1% during the forecast period in the global radio frequency integrate circuit market. In recent years, the telecom industry is expected to witness the first commercial deployment of next-generation 5G networks in 2018. With these advancements, the telecommunication sub-segment is projected to create potential growth in the global radio frequency integrated circuit market. In addition, super-high rate low-latency wireless broadband, machine-to-machine communication and tactile internet are other developments that are positively impacting the growth of the telecommunication segment of the global radio frequency integrated circuit market.Rising advancements in automotive vehicles, such as vehicle-to-vehicle connection, advanced driving experience and next-generation security technologies, are creating potential opportunities for the manufacturers of radio frequency integrated circuit in developed and developing nations. Autonomous vehicles, such as smart cars, connected cars and driverless cars, are emerging in the automotive industry and they are in the testing and deployment stages. To implement these advancements in next-generation automotive vehicles, automotive OEMs are demanding more advanced radio frequency integrated circuits. Due to the penetration of radio frequency integrated circuits in these areas, the automotive sub-segment is projected to grow at a high CAGR during the forecast period.On the basis of geography, the North America radio frequency integrated circuit market is expected to dominate the global radio frequency integrated circuit market due to the advent of next-generation technological advancements in the country. The Radio frequency integrated circuit market has huge potential in China owing to major technological advancements in the telecommunication industry and increasing smart city projects in the country. In recent years, China has witnessed a high growth in radio frequency integrated circuit market. The SEA and Others of APAC radio frequency integrated circuit market will be a target market for market participants. Latin America is estimated to grow with a moderate CAGR over the forecast period in global radio frequency integrated circuit market. Furthermore, Japan is projected to show single digit growth rate during the forecast period.Need more information about Report Methodology @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-7083 According to FMI analysis, long-term contracts with business partners help increase revenue and new innovation strategies enable radio frequency integrated circuit vendors to reach new growth markets. Some of the market participants in the global radio frequency integrated circuit market report are Texas Instruments Incorporated; NXP Semiconductors; STMicroelectronics; Analog Devices, Inc.; Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.; QUALCOMM Incorporated; Skyworks Solutions; SILICON LABORATORIES INC.; Maxim Integrated; Cree, Inc. and TriQuint Semiconductor (Qorvo, Inc.). Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Pulse Width Modulation Controllers Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 2017-2027"report to their offering Pulse Width Modulation Controllers Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 09:37:18 Press Information Future Market Insights Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com Abhishek Budholiya Manager 3479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 482 Words Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comManager3479183531 Pulse Width Modulation controllers are used to provide the control of the power supplied to electrical devices. Pulse Width Modulation controllers support low, medium, and high power non-isolated and isolated DC/DC converters. The Pulse Width Modulation basically is a technique of encoding a message into a pulsing signal. The encoding can also be done to even protect information from hijackers or people who jam the signal.Global Pulse Width Modulation Controllers Market: Market DynamicsPulse Width Modulation Controllers provides various advantages like enabling optimum solutions for systems that utilize distributed power architectures. They also provide point-of-load regulation in networking and industrial power supplies to various devices such as servers, workstations, telecom/datacom, microprocessor-based equipment, portable battery-powered devices and wireless infrastructure products. Pulse Width Modulation Controllers are especially useful for inertial loads such as motors that require control of the power supplied to them. Also Pulse Width Modulation is one of the two principal algorithms used in photovoltaic solar battery chargers. So the rise in demand of all the analog devices is expected to rise the demand for Pulse Width Modulation Controllers, which is bound to happen as analog devices are the backbone of electronics industry.However, high implementation cost and long-term return on investment are some of the factors that can restrain the growth of global Pulse Width Modulation Controllers market.Get Sample Copy of Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-5209 Global Pulse Width Modulation Controllers Market: SegmentationGlobal Pulse Width Modulation Controllers market is segmented on the basis of type, application, and region.On the basis of component, the global Pulse Width Modulation Controllers market can be segmented into Current Mode Pulse Width Modulation Controllers and Voltage Mode Pulse Width Modulation ControllersOn the basis of application, the global Pulse Width Modulation Controllers market can be segmented into Consumer Electronics, Telecommunication, Automotive and Industrial.Global Pulse Width Modulation Controllers Market: Regional OutlookRegionally, the global Pulse Width Modulation Controllers market can be segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa (MEA), Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) and Japan.North America and Europe market are the primary consumer markets for the Pulse Width Modulation Controllers owing to advanced production technology and rapid development of economy and is expected to dominate the market. Asia Pacific can be identified as the fastest growing market for Pulse Width Modulation Controllers due to growing economy, technological advancement, expanding infrastructure and industrialization.Global Pulse Width Modulation Controllers Market: Competition LandscapeThe key vendors in the global Pulse Width Modulation Controllers market are Analog Devices (Linear Technology), Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, ON Semiconductor, Microchip Technology, Maxim Integrated, Infineon Technology, Vishay, Diodes Incorporated, Renesas Electronics, Semtech, Active-Semi. Collaborating with other players and service providers in the building energy management market is the key strategy followed by major market vendors to gain competitive edge.Buy Full Report Now @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/5209 Polymerization Inhibitors Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 09:37:55 Press Information Persistence Market Research (PMR) 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, yogesh sengar Team Lead +1-646-568-7751 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 564 Words 305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Team Lead+1-646-568-7751 Polymerization inhibitors are also known as polymerization retardants, polymerization controllers, polymerization suppressors and polymerization terminators among others. Polymerization inhibitors are specialty chemicals which are required to stabilize reactive monomers and prevent is from spontaneous polymerization process. Polymerization inhibitor slows down or stops the polymerization process by reacting with the growing-chain radicals or initiators. Polymerization inhibitors should be added in controlled amount to the reaction. Polymerization inhibitor is smaller quantities to reaction will lead to polymerization vessels and pipes. The polymerization in pipes and vessels require mechanical removal. In case, the polymerization inhibitor is added in excess amount, there will be difficulty in polymerization stage. Polymerization inhibitors are used for monomers of acrylic and styrene such as methyl methacrylate and styrene monomers among others. Polymerization inhibitors prevents temperature excursion due to exothermic polymerization. In addition, polymerization inhibitors prevent fouling as well as the upsurge of large amounts of polymer in the reaction. Polymerization inhibitors thus enable manufacturing and purification process to run easily. Polymerization inhibitors are classified on the basis of their efficiency and protection length. Compounds such as, hydroquinones, quinines, aromatic nitro compounds, amines, aromatic are used as polymerization inhibitors in the market.The market for polymerization inhibitors was mainly driven by huge demand from manufacturing industries. Uncontrolled polymerization reactions has been major issue in the industry and polymerization inhibitors plays key role in the process. Polymerization inhibitors are used in various end-user industries such as petrochemical, resins, chemical intermediates among others. Polymerization inhibitors are used in manufacturing process of unsaturated polyester resin and epoxy resins in order to control the polymerization reaction. Polymerization inhibitors are used in distillation process with lower vapor pressure. In composites industry, polymerization inhibitors are used for controlling the polymerization process. In chemical industry, polymerization inhibitors are used to suppress monomer reactions of vinyl acetate, ethylene and other chemicals. In spite of several applications, environmental regulations are anticipated to hamper the growth of the market in next few years to come.Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing market for polymerization inhibitors in the next six years. The major reason for the growth is the increasing demand for polymerization inhibitors from emerging countries such as India, China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. China had the highest demand for polymerization inhibitors in Asia Pacific region due to higher demand from unsaturated polyester resin industry. Asia Pacific region was followed by North America. Growing demand from composites and petrochemical industry was the major factor behind driving the demand for polymerization inhibitors in this region. U.S. had the highest production and demand for polymerization inhibitors in North America. Europe had the third largest demand for polymerization inhibitors market in 2013. Countries from Western Europe region such as Spain, Italy, France, Germany and the UK are considered amongst the largest consumers of polymerization inhibitors in this region. Other European countries such as Russia, Sweden and Netherlands are likely to demonstrate optimistic future for the polymerization inhibitors market in foreseeable future. Rest of the World market is estimated to illustrate encouraging outlook for the polymerization inhibitors market in future. Latin America and the Middle East region are anticipated to show signs of higher demand for polymerization inhibitors in near future.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4523 Some of the key manufacturers in the polymerization inhibitors market are Addivant, Chemtura Corporation, Nufarm Limited, Nalco Company, Kawasaki Kasei Chemicals Co. Ltd., among others. Polyamideimide Fibers Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 09:37:46 Press Information Persistence Market Research (PMR) 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, yogesh sengar Team Lead +1-646-568-7751 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 568 Words 305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Team Lead+1-646-568-7751 Polyamideimide fibers are one of the most essential fibers in aramid family. Polyamideimide fibers are thermoplastic or thermosetting polymers which have excellent chemical, thermal and mechanical resistance properties. Polyamideimide fibers have properties of both polyamides and polyimides. Polyamideimide fibers are non flammable due to higher double bonds and aromatic structures. Polyamideimide fibers offer higher resistance to abrasion and fire. Polyamideimide fibers have lower thermal conductivity as compared to other aramid fibers. Due to excellent chemical resistance polyamideimide fibers finds applications in chemical plants where there is regular spillage of chemicals. Polyamideimide fibers offer excellent protection against flame and radiant heat. Polyamideimide fibers will not melt and will not form molten droplets. Polyamideimide fibers can be either manufactured through diisocyantes or acid chloride method.The market for polyamideimide fibers was mainly driven by coatings and molded applications. In coatings industry, polyamideimide fibers are in powder form and half imidized. Polyamideimide fibers are used in magnetic enamels. The wire enamel is manufactured by dissolving it in polyamideimide fibers with solvents. polyamideimide fibers enamel have thermal stability and offer resistance against heat and chemicals. Polyamideimide fibers are used in corrosion resistance and decorative coatings used in industrial applications. Polyamideimide fibers are used in non-stick utensils. In molding industry, polyamideimide fibers are used in manufacturing of gears, bushings, fasteners and seals among others. In gas separation industry, polyamideimide fibers are used in membrane separation technology for gas separation due to its ability to sustain higher temperature levels. In electronics industry, polyamideimide fibers are used in manufacturing of electric motor components and semiconductor fabrications. However, higher prices and environmental regulations is anticipated to hinder the growth of the market in next few years to come.In terms of demand, Asia Pacific was the leading region in polyamideimide fibers market in past few years. Asia Pacific is considered to be one of the fastest growing markets for polyamideimide fibers due to huge demand from molding and coatings industry. China had the highest demand and production for polyamideimide fibers in Asia Pacific region. Southeast Asian countries and Indian subcontinent is expected to have higher demand for polyamideimide fibers in next few years. Asia Pacific was followed by North America. Growing demand from aerospace, electronics and coatings industry has been major factor behind driving the demand for polyamideimide fibers in this region. U.S. had the largest demand and production for polyamideimide fibers in North America. The demand was huge owing to increased molding activities and manufacturing of industrial and water borne coatings. However, regulations regarding polyamideimide fibers are anticipated to hinder the growth in this region. In 2013, Europe had the third largest demand for polyamideimide fibers market. Western European countries such as Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK are one of the largest consumers of polyamideimide fibers in this region. Central Europe and Russia is expected to show positive outlook for the polyamideimide fibers market in near future. Rest of the World market is projected to show encouraging view for the polyamideimide fibers market in foreseeable future. Countries such as Brazil, South Africa, Argentina and the Middle East region is expected to exhibit higher demand for polyamideimide fibers in near future.Request Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4521 The market for polyamideimide fibers is highly oligopolistic in nature and is dominated by two or three major players. Some of the key manufacturers in the polyamideimide fibers market are Swicofil and Solvay S.A. among others. Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the " Petroleum Liquid Feedstock Market is Poised to Exhibit A Moderate 3.9% CAGR through 2027" report to their offering Petroleum Liquid Feedstock PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 13:22:14 In a recently released research intelligence outlook, Future Market Insights forecasts high value-low growth landscape for the global petroleum liquid feedstock market over the course of next few years. The global revenue through consumption of petroleum liquid feedstock will reportedly reach around US$ 270 billion in 2019, demonstrating an estimated yearly revenue growth of 3.6% over that attained in 2018. A steady upsurge in the demand for petroleum liquid feedstock is expected in coming years owing to a positive expansion outlook reflected by the global petrochemicals industry.Growing Feedstock Applications in Chemicals & Automotive IndustriesMounting consumption of motor fuels and other prominently sold end products such as aromatics, olefins, solvents, and gasoline is primarily driving the revenue of petroleum liquid feedstock at a global level. Applications in aromatics currently account for over 50% revenue share, whereas olefins are positioned by the report as an attractive segment in petroleum liquid feedstock landscape. With soaring uptake of aromatics by chemicals industry stakeholders, it is most likely that the demand for petroleum liquid feedstock, the key component used during the manufacturing of aromatics, will also witness a strong hike in the near future. Besides chemicals industry, the automotive industry has also been a creating significant revenue generation opportunities for manufacturers of petroleum liquid feedstock.With a dramatically expanding vehicular fleet and the subsequent demand growth in motor fuels and gasoline, it is most likely that the consumption of petroleum liquid feedstock would experience high growth over upcoming years, states a senior market research analyst at FMI.Request For Report Sample @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/REP-GB-3663 Key Manufacturers Enlarging Naphtha Production CapacitiesRefinery processes tend to produce higher proportions of naphtha compared to that of gas oil, which enables the former to retain top ranking segment in the market on the basis of type of petroleum liquid feedstock. Naphtha consumption currently accounts for a whopping 91% share in the global petroleum liquid feedstock market value; the report however projects that gas oil would gradually emerge as an attractive segment over the years.A majority of industry giants have been concentrating on increasing their naphtha production capacities by strategizing on production plants expansion across multiple geographical markets. Manufacturers based in Middle Eastern countries have been observed to have augmented their naphtha production recently.However, with growing availability of low-priced substitutes for petroleum liquid feedstock such as propane and ethane, the naphtha space has been witnessing an oversupply scenario.China Slated for Maximum Market Attractiveness in Coming YearsWith more than 71% market value share held collectively, petroleum liquid feedstock market in China, Europe, and Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) are likely to demonstrate notable expansion over coming years. Considerable rise in the automotive production and sales across Europe, China, and other Asian economies remains a key driving force pushing the consumption of petroleum liquid feedstock across these regions.China however is forecast to emerge as the most lucrative market for manufacturers of petroleum liquid feedstock, and the report estimates around 4% yearly growth in Chinas market value, in 2019. Moreover, Asian market for petroleum liquid feedstock still continues to face consequences of a severe demand-supply gap that is likely to trigger increased export from Europe and present multiple business opportunities for leading manufacturing companies.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-3663 Fragmented Market Landscape to Witness a Growing Focus on Capacity ExpansionIn a fairly fragmented competitive landscape of the global petroleum liquid feedstock market, the Tier 1 players account a mere revenue share of 25-35%. Prominent companies such as TOTAL S.A., BP p.l.c, Royal Dutch Shell plc, Exxon Mobil Corporation, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, and China National Petroleum Corporation continue to remain top performers. The report indicates that a majority of Tier 1 players are currently focusing on petroleum liquid feedstock production expansion, in addition to the integration of the production of other end products with that of petroleum liquid feedstock. Whereas, the Tier 2 companies, including Idemitsu Kosan Co. Ltd., Flint Hills Resources, and YPF, and other smaller local players collectively hold the lions share in the market in terms of revenue. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 11:55:19 Press Information Future Market Insights U.S. Office 616 Corporate Way Suite 2-9018, Abhishek Budholiya Manager 3479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 806 Words U.S. Office 616 Corporate WaySuite 2-9018,Manager3479183531 According to Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma Classification Project (CDC), peripheral T-cell lymphoma patients constitute 6%-7% of the total non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients in the U.S. Peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) is an aggressive and uncommon type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Peripheral T-cell lymphoma affects lymphocytes, particularly T-cell and natural killer cells and generally affects people over 60 years of age. Peripheral T-cell lymphoma is uncommon in the U.S. and relatively high number of patients are found in Asia, Africa and Caribbean, primarily due to exposure to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and the human T-cell leukemia virus-1 (HTLV-1). Unlike other types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, peripheral T-cell lymphoma is not well understood and thus have limited treatment options.Most of the peripheral T-cell lymphoma patients require salvage treatment and bone marrow transplant. Peripheral T-cell lymphoma treatment outcomes with conventional chemotherapy regimens have been poor. However, new genetic and molecular testing techniques for peripheral T-cell lymphoma have enabled the development of targeted therapies for peripheral T-cell lymphoma treatment. Newly diagnosed peripheral T-cell lymphoma patents are generally treated with anthracycline-based combination chemotherapy, including doxorubicin, hydroxydoxorubicin etc. However, a common standard care for peripheral T-cell lymphoma treatment has not been identified due to heterogeneity of the disease. Recently, some of the biologic treatments such as Beleodaq, Folotyn, Istodax etc. have been approved by the FDA for relapsed or refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma, which are expected to bring considerable change to peripheral T-cell lymphoma treatment space.Request to View a Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7839 Peripheral T-Cell Lymphoma Treatment Market: Drivers and RestraintsGrowing prevalence of peripheral T-cell lymphoma and launch of new treatment are the primary factors driving the growth of peripheral T-cell lymphoma treatment market. Genetic research has led to improving understanding of disease and thus opened huge opportunities in research for peripheral T-cell lymphoma treatment. This is expected to bring better treatment options to the market in the near future. For instance, new classes of therapies that target specific molecular pathways of T-cell lymphomas are being studied in clinical trials. Some of these include histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors (e.g. vorinostat, belinostat etc.), proteasome inhibitors (e.g. bortezomib), immunomodulatory agents (e.g. lenalidomide), monoclonal antibodies (alemtuzumab) etc. However, complexity of a disease is restricting the number of options for peripheral T-cell lymphoma treatment, which may limit the market growth. Patients with peripheral T-cell lymphoma are required to evaluate individually by oncologists, and lack of such resources in under developed or developing countries is another important factor limiting the growth of global peripheral T-cell lymphoma treatment market.Peripheral T-Cell Lymphoma Treatment Market: SegmentationTentatively, the global peripheral T-Cell lymphoma treatment market has been segmented on the basis of treatment type, distribution channel, and geography.Based on treatment regime, the global peripheral T-Cell lymphoma treatment market is divided into following:Chemotherapy for Aggressive PTCLCHOP Regime (cyclophosphamide, hydroxydoxorubicin, Oncovin, prednisone)CHOEP Regime (cyclophosphamide, hydroxydoxorubicin [doxorubicin], Oncovin [vincristine], etoposide, prednisone)EPOCH (etoposide, prednisone, Oncovin [vincristine], cyclophosphamide, hydroxydoxorubicin [doxorubicin])Hyper-CVAD (cyclophosphamide, Oncovin [vincristine], Adriamycin [doxorubicin], dexamethasone)Chemotherapy for Relapsed/Refractory PTCLICE (ifosfamide, carboplatin, etoposide)DHAP (high-dose cytarabine [ara-C], dexamethasone, cisplatin [Platinol-AQ])ESHAP (etoposide, methylprednisolone, cytarabine [ara-C], cisplatin [Platinol-AQ])GND (gemcitabine, navelbine, dexamethasone)Targeted therapy for Relapsed/Refractory PTCLhistone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors (Beleodaq, Istodax)Metabolic inhibitors (Folotyn)Based on distribution channel, the global peripheral T-Cell lymphoma market is segmented as below:HospitalsCancer Specialty ClinicsPeripheral T-Cell Lymphoma Treatment Market: OverviewThe global market for peripheral T-cell lymphoma is expected to experience steady growth due to improving treatment rates and availability of new treatments. The new practice of consolidation therapy, which consists of high-dose chemotherapy followed by stem cell transplant, is expected to improve the treatment paradigm for peripheral T-cell lymphoma and thus would push the market growth. Some of the commonly prescribed chemotherapy brands for peripheral T-cell lymphoma treatment are Oncovin, Adriamycin, Platinol AQ, ara-C etc.Peripheral T-Cell Lymphoma Treatment Market: Regional Wise OutlookGeographically, global peripheral T-cell lymphoma treatment market is classified into regions viz. North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan and the Middle East & Africa (MEA). North America is expected to be the leader in global peripheral T-cell lymphoma treatment market due to better availability of resources. The market in Asia Pacific excluding Japan is expected to expand at below average CAGR due to lack of resources and clear diagnostic pathways for peripheral T-cell lymphoma. Europe is expected to take second largest share in the global for peripheral T-cell lymphoma market throughout the forecast period.Request Report for Table of Contents @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7839 Peripheral T-Cell Lymphoma Treatment Market: Key PlayersSome of the major players identified in the global for peripheral T-cell lymphoma market are Hospira (Pfizer Inc.), Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Sigma-Tau Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Pacira Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Celgene Corporation etc. among others. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 16:28:38 Press Information PMR Contact Us Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Senger Manager 13479183531 email https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 465 Words Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Manager13479183531 The need for aligning resources in healthcare settings has compelled medical organizations towards adoption of technological solutions that help manage & arrange patient care information in orderly fashion. Hospitals from across the globe are installing patient throughput & capacity management solutions to tackle challenges associated with management of increasing capacity & space. Ideal use of added functional capacity through improved patient throughput solutions is also a key trend driving the demand for such solutions. Persistence Market Research estimates that towards the end of 2024, more than US$ 1.2 Bn worth of patient throughput & capacity management solutions will be employed across the globe.The global market for patient throughput & capacity management, according to Persistence Market Researchs report, is presently valued at US$ 834 Mn, and will soar steadily at 5% CAGR during the eight-year forecast period. The report further anticipates that over half of global revenues procured from sales of patient throughput & capacity management solutions will be accounted by the US and Canada.North Americas dominance over the global patient throughput & capacity management market is justified by the regions robust healthcare industry, which is also a proponent to technological advancements and adoption of intelligent solutions. Europes patient throughput & capacity management market will also leave a sizable imprint on the global market, registering a value CAGR of 5.3%.High Demand for Real-Time Locating System (RTLS) SolutionsA sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/13198 The report reveals that an analysis of global sales of patient throughput & capacity management solutions indicates a major upsurge in demand for RTLS solutions. With more than one-third share, RTLS solutions will remain a top-selling product dominating the global market revenues through 2024. Revenues from global sales of workflow management solutions will impose a consistent share on global revenues, while bed management solutions will exhibit revenue growth at 5.2% CAGR during the projected period. A majority of products offered in the global patient throughput & capacity management market will be offered as integrated solutions. Towards the end of 2024, integrated solutions will surpass 65% share on global revenues, while global demand for standalone solutions will register a marginal decline.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/13198 The report also reveals that over 40% of patient throughput & capacity management solutions are delivered through on-premise models. By 2024-end, on-premise delivery of patient throughput & capacity management solutions will net nearly US$ 500 Mn in global revenues. On the other hand, cloud-based delivery is likely to lose out its traction, but will witness a negligible downtrend in terms of revenue growth. The report has also profiled companies such as EPIC Systems Corporation, STANLEY Healthcare, Central Logic, Care Logistics LLC, McKesson Corporation, TeleTracking Technologies, Inc., Sonitor Technologies, Inc., Allscripts, Awarepoint Corporation, and Cerner Corporation as key players of the global patient throughput & capacity management market. Nitric Acid Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 09:37:36 Press Information Persistence Market Research (PMR) 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, yogesh sengar Team Lead +1-646-568-7751 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 586 Words 305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Team Lead+1-646-568-7751 Nitric acid, also known as spirit of niter or aqua fortis, is a corrosive mineral acid. Nitric acid in pure form is colorless and becomes pale yellow due to decomposition of oxides. Commercially sold nitric acid has concentration of around 70%. Nitric acid with more than 85% concentration is known as fuming nitric acid. Depending upon the concentrations of nitrogen dioxide, nitric acid is further classified as red fuming and white fuming depending upon the color of the solution. Nitric acid is used as a reagent in nitration reactions. Few of the nitric acid based compounds are unstable and are generally sued in explosives while the stable compounds are used in manufacturing of paints, dyes and pigments. Commercially, nitric acid is manufactured through Ostwalds process in which there is catalytic oxidation of anhydrous ammonia. The process gives nitric oxide which is again treated with water and then reoxidized to get nitric acid. The aqueous solutions will have concentration of around 65% while further concentration of more than 95% is achieved through dehydration with 98% sulfuric acid.The market for nitric acid was mainly driven by fertilizer industry. Nitric acid is used in manufacturing of ammonium nitrate and calcium ammonium nitrate which finds application in fertilizers. Ammonium nitrate is also used in manufacturing of urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) which is used as fertilizer solution and in explosives. Ammonium nitrate is also used as blasting and explosives agent in various applications. Calcium ammonium nitrate is used in manufacturing of fertilizers solutions. Adipic acid is one of the applications which use nitric acid during manufacturing process. Adipic acid is used in manufacturing of nylon 6,6. Nylon 6,6 is used in various end-user industries such as automotive, textiles and tire among others. Nitric acid is also used as an intermediate in manufacturing of toluene diisocyanate (TDI). Toluene diisocyanate is used in manufacturing of polyurethane foams which are used in automotive, transpiration, carpet and furniture industry. Nitric acid is used as an intermediate in manufacturing of nitrobenzene and nitrochlorobenzenes among others. Nitric acid is also used as oxidizer in rocket propellants. However, the market is likely to hinder in near future owing to environmental and health hazards associated with the nitric acid industry.In terms of demand, Europe was the leading region in nitric acid market in 2013. The demand in the Europe is mainly driven by fertilizer and explosives industry. Western and Eastern Europe had the highest demand for nitric acid in this region. However, central Europe is likely to offer better opportunity for the market in near future. Europe was followed by Asia Pacific. Asia Pacific is considered to be one of the fastest growing regions for the nitric acid market. China had the highest demand for nitric acid in this region. India, Japan and Taiwan are expected to positive outlook for the nitric acid market in upcoming years. North America had the third-largest demand for nitric acid market in 2013. Increasing demand for nitric acid from fertilizer industry coupled other end-user such as explosives, TDI and adipic acid has been driving the market for nitric acid. U.S. had the highest demand for nitric acid in North America. Rest of the World market is anticipated to demonstrate optimistic future for the nitric acid market. Latin America and the Middle East will exhibit higher demand for nitric acid over the forecast period.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4520 Some of the key manufacturers in the nitric acid market are Agrium Inc., BASF SE, Bayer AG, LyondellBasell Industries and The Dow Chemical Company among others. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 11:32:07 Press Information Future Market Insights U.S. Office 616 Corporate Way Suite 2-9018, Abhishek Budholiya Manager 3479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 748 Words U.S. Office 616 Corporate WaySuite 2-9018,Manager3479183531 Lavage is the washing out of a body cavity with water or any medicated solution. Lavage kits are used in common gastric or rectal emergency situations where efficient lavage or flushing of the intestine or rectum has to be done. Cases of self-poisoning are being reported around the world. According to WHO, each year, pesticides lead to more than 250,000 deaths globally. Lavage kits flush out the stomach and prevent self-poisoning. Lavage kits are also used when a person is suffering from alcohol or drug overdose. Lavage kits clear out the digestive tract before surgeries, if required. Lavage kits are considered for the assessment of hematemesis by confirming blood levels from gastrointestinal tracts. Lavage kits act as a cooling technique for patients dealing with hypothermic medical conditions. Lavage kits are also used for the quick & easy evacuation of the digestive tract during a trauma situation such as facial trauma.Request to View a Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7353 Lavage Kits Market: Drivers and Restraints-Gastric conditions are increasing by the day. Medical gastric condition treatments include certain aspects, such as endoscopy, collection of stomach acids and pressure relieving in the intestines. These procedures require lavage kits. With growth in the number of gastric and rectal health conditions across the globe, the market for lavage kits is expanding. Poisoning cases have increased and deliberate self-poisoning has also been reported in several countries. However, alternatives, such as the administration of activated charcoal, are expected to be adopted instead of lavage kits because of better efficacy and reduced risk of complications. Lavage has to be performed 4-5 times for improved and better results. However, this is not required if activated charcoal is used. Sometimes, a combination of activated charcoal and lavage kits is used for better results and improved efficiency. In some cases, the performance of lavage is advised within 60 minutes of ingestion for efficient results, otherwise the procedure is likely to not be of any use.Lavage Kit Market: SegmentationThe lavage kits market has been segmented on the basis of product, end user and geography.On the basis of product type, lavage kit market has been segmented as:Rectal useGastric useOn the basis of end user, lavage kits market has been segmented as:HospitalsClinicsOn the basis of geography, lavage kits market has been segmented as:North AmericaEastern EuropeWestern EuropeAsia Pacific excluding China & JapanChinaJapanMiddle East and AfricaLatin AmericaLavage Kits Market: OverviewThe global lavage kits market has witnessed growth due to growth in the demand for quick and easy treatment methods. The global gastric lavage kits market is expected grow significantly during the forecast period owing to a continuous increase in gastrointestinal infections and diseases. Advanced versions of gastric and rectal lavage kits have a system with a closed packing feature so that the wash out material is not exposed to the patient or the one performing the procedure. These lavage kits prevent the exposure of any infectious microorganisms or charcoal conditions to the patients skin to avoid further complications such as skin allergies. At present, lavage kits are being used only in cases that involve a high-dose ingestion of poison. Thus, trauma centres and emergency departments in hospitals extensively use lavage kits.Request Report for Table of Contents @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7353 Lavage Kit Market: Region-wise OutlookGeographically, the lavage kit market is segmented into eight regions: North-America, Asia- Pacific excluding China & Japan, China, Japan, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Middle-East & Africa. The North America lavage kit market is growing owing to an increase in the prevalence of gastric diseases and surgeries that are required thereafter. The prevalence of obesity in North America a major factor boosting the number of gastric surgeries, which is, in turn, boosting the lavage kits market. The Europe lavage kits market is estimated to increase moderately because of improved healthcare policies by the government and increased health-related awareness.Lavage Kits Market: Key Market ParticipantsSome of the market participants in the global lavage kits market identified across the value chain include: Ambisea Technology, Bakclar, Pacific Hospital, Plasti-Med, Bard Medical, Coloplast, Herrmann Apparatebau, Prime Pacific Health and Pic Solution. Companies, such as Ambisea Technology, are also focusing on improving the compatibility of lavage kits with other lavage devices in the market. The company has also introduced a closed packing feature to make lavage kits more efficient and reduce the risk of complications. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 13:10:44 Press Information Persistence Market Research Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Team Lead 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 538 Words Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Team Lead800-961-0353 As per the report by Persistence Market Research (PMR), the global edible oils market is anticipated to witness steady growth during the forecast period 2017-2024. The global market for edible oils is also estimated to bring in more than US$ 100 Billion revenue.Edible oils are used across the globe for cooking various food items. Meanwhile, increasing demand for fried snacks and food worldwide is resulting in the growing demand for edible oils. Hence, manufacturers are adopting new techniques to increase the production and provide a better quality of edible oils. The increase in health-conscious population across the globe is also resulting in the rising demand for healthy oils such as olive oil and canola oil. The demand for low-fat, low-calorie, and low-cholesterol oils is also increasing with rising health and fitness trends. Vegetable oils including sunflower, peanut, corn, coconut are also witnessing an increase in demand. Increasing demand for organic and natural i.e., unrefined and unprocessed edible oils is changing the way the manufacturers are producing edible oils.Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/11569 Manufacturers are also investing in the research and development to provide a trans-fat free edible oil. Edible oils are also being used in various industries for producing products including mayonnaise, biofuels, fried-foods, bio-fuels, and pharmaceuticals. Vegetable oils are also being widely used in biodiesel industry products. Considering the sustainability, companies are also introducing non-GMO oils, especially in the European countries. Agribusinesses are also considering co-products from the process of oilseed crush to be used in other production processes.Palm Oil to Witness Significant Growth in the Global Edible Oils MarketBased on the type of edible oils, palm oil is expected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period. By the end of 2024, the global market for edible oils is projected to exceed US$ 40 Billion revenue. Meanwhile, soybean oil and sunflower oil are also likely to witness growth in the coming years.On the basis of end user, the retail sector is likely to account for the highest share in the global market for edible oils. The retail sector is also estimated to surpass US$ 60 Billion revenue towards the end of 2024.Asia Pacific to Remain Dominant in the Global Edible Oils MarketRegion-wise, Asia Pacific is likely to remain dominant in the global market for edible oils. Towards 2024 end, Asia Pacific is projected to bring in more than US$ 50 Billion revenue. Growth in food service industry and packaged food products in Asia Pacific is driving the market growth. Production of edible oils is also increasing in the Asia Pacific as the demand from various food processing companies is also increasing. The demand for edible oils is growing in China and India, especially in the food and beverages industry. The demand for canola and soybean edible oil is also increasing in North America.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/11569 Leading Companies in the Global Market for Edible OilsLeading companies operating in the global edible oils market given in the report are Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd, Archer Daniels Midland Company, The Adani Wilmar Ltd., Beidahuang Group, Associated British Foods plc., Bunge Limited, Fuji Vegetable Oil, Inc., Borges Mediterranean Group, Adams Group, and Cargill Incorporated. Future Market Insights has announced the addition of the Hypervisor Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 2017-2027"report to their offering Hypervisor Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 09:40:46 Press Information Future Market Insights Future Market Insights 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, United States T: +1-347-918-3531 F: +1-845-579-5705 Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: www.futuremarketinsights.com Abhishek Budholiya Manager 3479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 466 Words Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: www.futuremarketinsights.comManager3479183531 Hypervisor is a firmware, software or hardware which is synonymously used for the term virtual machine monitor (VMM) that creates and runs machines virtually. Hypervisor is installed on server hardware to control the guest operating systems running on the host machine. The primary function of a hypervisor is to provide the requirements of guest operating system and efficiently be able to manage the process such that the instances of multiple operating systems do not disturb one another. Hypervisor are basically divided into two types: bare-metal hypervisors (Type 1) and hosted hypervisors (Type 2). Recently, most hypervisors are either used for large scale server deployments or try out a different operating system or for end users to run mobile apps. Customers, while choosing hypervisor needs to compare their performance metrics. The metrics include amount of maximum host, CPU overhead, and guest memory, and support for virtual processors.Global Hypervisor Market: Drivers and ChallengesIncreasing application in virtualization technology is incorporated in enterprises for performance and safety applications. Adoption of virtual machines in aerospace and defense sectors is another factor which is expected to have a positive impact on the growth of global hypervisor market. Rapid growth in the usage of smartphones and tablets is among the other factors driving the growth of global hypervisor market.Compliance issues with configurations in hypervisor converged systems and high initial infrastructural costs for the deployment are a few challenges that affect the growth of global hypervisor market negatively.Get Sample Copy of Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-5214 Global Hypervisor Market: SegmentationGlobal hypervisor market can be segmented into component, application, and end-user.On the basis of component, global hypervisor market can be segmented into hardware, software and service.On the basis of application, global hypervisor market can be segmented into consumer electronics, aerospace and defence, automotive, BFSI, medical devices, industrial automation, and others.On the basis of end-user, global hypervisor market can be segmented into small enterprise, medium enterprise and large enterprise.Global Hypervisor Market: Regional OutlookOn the basis of regions, global hypervisor market can be segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, and Middle East and Africa. The market in North America and Europe is expected to have significant market share of the global hypervisor market. Asia Pacific hypervisor market is having maximum potential in the forecast period. Hypervisor markets in Latin America and Middle East and Africa are expected to register positive growth during the forecast period.Buy Full Report Now @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/5214 Global Hypervisor Market: Competition LandscapeSome of the key players for Hypervisor Market include IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Vmware, Inc., NXP Semiconductors N.V., QNX Software Systems Limited, Mentor Graphics, WindRiver Systems, Inc., TenAsys Corporation, Lynx Software Technologies, Inc, and Green Hills Software Hemodynamic Monitoring System Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 09:35:01 Press Information Persistence Market Research Contact Us Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.com Web: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com Yogesh Senger Associate Consultant 800-961-0353 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 560 Words Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comAssociate Consultant800-961-0353 Persistence Market Research (PMR), in a recent report, Global Market Study on Hemodynamic Monitoring System: Growing Demand for Critical Congenital Heart Disease Screening to Drive the Market by 2021 , projected the hemodynamic monitoring systems market to expand at a healthy CAGR of 6.5% during the forecast period. The report offered trends driving the market and delivered analysis and insights on the potential of the hemodynamic monitoring systems market in specific regions.In terms of revenue, the hemodynamic monitoring systems market was valued at US$ 328.7 Mn in 2014 and is projected to reach US$ 508.4 Mn by 2021. Factors driving market growth include government and private sector initiatives to reduce healthcare costs, rising prevalence of lifestyle diseases, growing the geriatric patient population, increasing the incidence of respiratory disorders and growing demand for the screening of critical congenital heart disease (CCHD).In terms of region, North America dominated the hemodynamic monitoring systems market with over 30% share in terms of value in 2014 but is expected to lose its market share to APAC by 2021. Europe accounted for over 20% of the total hemodynamic monitoring systems market share in 2014 and will maintain its dominance through 2021. Among the regions, APAC is projected to register the highest CAGR over 20152021 due to low-cost product offerings by manufacturers in the region. As of 2014, APAC was the third-highest contributor to the overall hemodynamic monitoring systems market, accounting for over 18% market share. By the end of 2021, it is projected to gain 330 BPS.On the basis of device type, the market has been segmented into pulse contour, oesophageal Doppler, volume clamp, hemodynamic monitoring sensors and pulmonary artery catheters.Request Sample Report@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4396 The pulmonary artery catheters segment had a dominant share in the global hemodynamic monitoring systems market in 2014, while the volume clamp segment accounted for over 20% share.Global hemodynamic monitoring systems market is further segmented on the basis of end use into hospitals, clinics, ambulatory surgery centres, home care settings and independent catheterisation laboratories. Revenue contribution of the hospitals segment was over 40% in 2014 and is projected to increase to over 42% by 2021, registering a significant CAGR of 7.3%. Home care settings segment is anticipated to record highest CAGR during the forecast period as hemodynamic monitoring systems are being adopted increasingly in home care settings.By application type, the hemodynamic monitoring systems market is segmented into invasive hemodynamic monitoring, noninvasive hemodynamic monitoring and minimally invasive hemodynamic monitoring segments. Among the three segments, minimally invasive hemodynamic monitoring segment is expected to register the highest CAGR of 8.0% over 2015-2021. The invasive hemodynamic monitoring segment accounted for over 30% market share in 2014 but is projected to lose its share to the other two segments by the end of the forecast period.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/4396 Key players in the global hemodynamic monitoring systems market include Edwards Lifesciences Corporation, ICU Medical, Inc., Teleflex Incorporated, LiDCO Group Plc and PULSION Medical Systems SE. Global players focus on research and development initiatives for introducing innovative products to attain sustainable advantages over their competitors. In addition, they also focus on expanding their regional presence through mergers and acquisitions. In developed regions, hemodynamic monitoring systems manufacturers prefer selling their products directly to the consumer. By contrast, most vendors in countries such as China have tie-ups with suppliers to enhance their customer reach. Globally, medical equipment manufacturers in China account for over 50% market share for exporting noninvasive devices. The Health & Medical Insurance Carriers Market Report includes a comprehensive analysis of the present market. The report starts with the basic Health & Medical Insurance Carriers Market overview and then goes into each and every detail. Health & Medical Insurance Carriers Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 06:37:16 Press Information Research N Reports 10916, Gold Point Dr, Houston, TX, Pin - 77064 Sunny Denis Sales Manager 8886316977 email http://www.researchnreports.com # 412 Words 10916, Gold Point Dr, Houston, TX, Pin - 77064Sales Manager8886316977 The global Health & Medical Insurance Carriers Market is growing due to continued economic growth, expanding healthcare market, positive demographic trends, reforms and initiatives by governments, policies inviting foreign investment, rising pollution, increasing income levels, and rising health awareness. These factors are expected to drive the Health & Medical Insurance Carriers providers market. This research report categorizes the health and medical insurance providers Market by type.The Health & Medical Insurance Carriers Market is estimated to reach $$1.6 trillion in 2025 from $1.2 trillion in 2019 at a CAGR of +8% for 2019-2025.This Market research report underlines on the key players in this market everywhere throughout the world. This segment of the report comprises the organization frameworks, prerequisites, and product outlines, expertise, manufacture, contact data, cost, and income. Likewise, the program assembly, upstream raw materials, and downstream demand analysis are similarly overseen of Health & Medical Insurance Carriers Market.Get Sample Copy of this Report @Top Key Vendors in Market:UnitedHealth Group Inc., Anthem, Allianz, Aetna Inc., Humana, and Centene Corporation among others.Likewise, this examination is very much characterized for the most part remembering the diverse segments of this market. It correspondingly appraises the current landscape and a definitive result of the market by using the perception prospect. The conjecture is analyzed in light of the capacity and revenue of this market. The tools used for examining the Health & Medical Insurance Carriers Market look into report incorporate Porter's five forces analysis and SWOT investigation.Ask for discount@The best thing about this measurable surveying report is that the significance and presentation of this market have been described. Moreover, several market essential experts and purchasing criteria have been upheld in the report. Accordingly, this measurable reviewing report is an incredible breath for sorting out new speculation endeavors, arranging how to deal with the market patterns and so on of the Health & Medical Insurance Carriers Market.For more Information@About Research N Reports:Research N Reports is a new age market research firm where we focus on providing information that can be effectively applied. Where counting on a legitimate board company for your selections will become critical. Research N Reports specializes in enterprise evaluation, marketplace forecasts and as a result getting great reports overlaying all verticals, whether be it gaining angle on modern market situations or being in advance inside the cut throat Global opposition. The global oil and gas project management software market is expected to see significant growth in the near future due to the need to simplify the complexity of the oil and gas industry and the cost-effective benefits of project management software in various activities such as planning, implementation, Monitoring, evaluation and reporting. Oil and Gas Project Management Software Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 22:27:06 Press Information QYReports Pune, India Jones John Sales Manager +91-9764607607 email https://www.qyreports.com # 532 Words Pune, IndiaSales Manager+91-9764607607 Oil and gas project management software is an advanced version of software designed to help oil and gas companies track milestones for optimizing resources and expanding into new markets, capital investments, production activities, or large-scale exploration. The complexity of operations has led to the need for oil and gas companies. Software types integrate with oil and gas asset management, maintenance projects, back-office and accounting solutions to allocate, calculate and manage project costs.The global oil and gas project management software market is expected to see significant growth in the near future due to the need to simplify the complexity of the oil and gas industry and the cost-effective benefits of project management software in various activities such as planning, implementation, Monitoring, evaluation and reporting.Ask for Sample copy: https://www.qyreports.com/request-sample?report-id=86138 Top Key Players Included in This Report: Deltek, EcoSys Management, Oracle Corporation, LiquidFrameworks, SAP, Penta Technologies, Siemens, IBM Corporation, InEight.This report focuses on global oil and gas project management software status, future forecasts, growth opportunities, key markets and key players. The research objective is to present oil and gas project management software development in the US, Europe and China.The global oil and gas project management software market is expected to see significant growth in the near future due to the need to simplify the complexity of the oil and gas industry and the cost-effective benefits of project management software in various activities such as planning, implementation, Monitoring, evaluation and reporting. In addition, the ability to make effective decisions for on-time project delivery has increased in demand worldwide.Get Discount on this Report: https://www.qyreports.com/ask-for-discount?report-id=86138 This report studies global oil and gas project management software market size, industry conditions and forecasts, competitive landscape and growth opportunities. This research report categorizes the global oil and gas project management software market by enterprise, region, type and end use industry.This report finds additional deals on key geographical segments of the Global Oil & Gas Risk Management Software Market and provides details on current and previous stocks. Ongoing trends, future challenges, future regional investment improvements, and many other influences have been considered and presented.Get more information: https://www.qyreports.com/ask-for-discount?report-id=86138 Most important data include the key recommendations and predictions by our analysts, intended to steer a strategic business decision. The company profiles section of this research service is a compilation of the growth strategies, financial status, product portfolio, and recent developments of key market participants. The report provides detailed industry analysis of the global Oil and Gas Project Management Software market with the help of proven research methodologies such as Porters five forces. The forces analyzed are bargaining power of the buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, and the degree of competition.The report also implements primary and secondary research techniques for gathering the most crucial pieces of professional information, and applies a number of industry-best techniques upon the data for projecting the future state of the global Oil and Gas Project Management Software market. Based on current market development, the report includes an analysis of how activities such as mergers and shapes the markets future. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 07:04:03 From High-mix, Low-volume Production to 3D Scanning: Discover the Technologies Revolutionizing Manufacturing at Convertech JAPAN / 3Decotech Expo Converting Technology Exhibition Secretariat (c/o JTB Communication Design) Ayumi Suzuki/Maiko Uchiyama, +81-3-5657-0761 convertech@jtbcom.co.jp The Converting Technical Institute and JTB Communication Design will hold the Converting Technology Exhibition (five exhibitions including Convertech JAPAN and 3Decotech Expo) at Tokyo Big Sight from Wednesday, January 30th to Friday, February 1st, 2019. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190114005 UV Printer LEF-200 (Photo provided by FUJITEX) As market demands become more diverse and complex, manufacturing has entered a major period of transition. Now faced with the need for faster product development and lower costs, the site of manufacturing has come to require equipment and technologies that can respond to the short delivery times and low-volume production that link the prototyping and mass-production stages. As a new exhibitor, FUJITEX will demonstrate low-volume printers (UV-LED printer, latex printer) with the ability to print on various materials. Similarly, FUJIFILM Global Graphic Systems (FFGS) will also exhibit a UV inkjet printer (Jet Press 540WV) designed to print flexible packaging for low-volume, short delivery time orders. With its reduced levels of ink odor and bleed, two challenges for UV inks in the past, FFGS will also promote the machines high quality and safety. Interest is also being focused on 3D forming technologies and measuring devices in terms of improving productivity. In this light, new exhibitors will present 3D scanning and modelling technologies, as well as solutions, under the umbrella of 3 Dimensions Scan Technology Association. Meanwhile, TOYOTEC will demonstrate a 2.5D scanner that can read the texture of leather and wood, as well as roughness information. We hope you take this opportunity to experience the site of the cutting edge of manufacturing. --------------------[Feature Products and Technologies *Including concurrent exhibitions]-------------------------- (random order) FUJITEX [Booth No. 3S-03][NEW]Latex printer, UV Printer LEF-200 Enables direct printing of raised materials, as well as speedy, on-demand low-volume printing of original, commemorative, and novelty goods, and decoration of industrial parts, etc. [Booth No. 3S-03][NEW]Latex printer, UV Printer LEF-200 Enables direct printing of raised materials, as well as speedy, on-demand low-volume printing of original, commemorative, and novelty goods, and decoration of industrial parts, etc. FUJIFILM Global Graphic Systems [2V-01]Jet Press 540WV, FUJIFILM Dimatix Materials Printer DMP-2850 Meets the severe market demands stemming from the rapid transition to low-volume, high-mix, short-delivery production in the flexible packaging field, all the while balancing high-quality and safety, thereby enabling a more strategic packaging printing business. [2V-01]Jet Press 540WV, FUJIFILM Dimatix Materials Printer DMP-2850 Meets the severe market demands stemming from the rapid transition to low-volume, high-mix, short-delivery production in the flexible packaging field, all the while balancing high-quality and safety, thereby enabling a more strategic packaging printing business. Fuji Chemi Trading [3N-28]Test coater press machine KTCP-60 KTCP-60 provides all in line system of Rewinding, Coating, Drying and Winding. This in Line system offers user friendly, work efficiency and high precision of the test result. [3N-28]Test coater press machine KTCP-60 KTCP-60 provides all in line system of Rewinding, Coating, Drying and Winding. This in Line system offers user friendly, work efficiency and high precision of the test result. SOBU MACHINERY [3V-16][NEW]INKING SYSTEM Can be installed close to the doctor chamber, circulating a minimum of ink in a 5-liter tank. [3V-16][NEW]INKING SYSTEM Can be installed close to the doctor chamber, circulating a minimum of ink in a 5-liter tank. MOBITEC [3T-13 (3 Dimensions Scan Technology Association)]Digital engineering, Reverse Engineering [3T-13 (3 Dimensions Scan Technology Association)]Digital engineering, Reverse Engineering TOYOTEC [3Q-13][NEW]2.5D scanner (color+3D) "METIS SURF 3D" This special scanner is suitable for taking a data such as a leather or wood texture. It is not taking only image, always 2.5D (3D) data is also possible to take. We will show the small model named SURF 3D (1 shot: A2 size scan max). *Pre-registration for free admission: http://convertechexpo.com/en/for_visitors.html View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190114005 Customer relationship management is an approach to managing company interactions with current and potential customers. Use data analytics on customer relationships with your company to improve business relationships with your customers, especially focusing on customer retention and ultimately revenue growth. Customer Relationship Management Software Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 22:25:47 Press Information IT Intelligence Markets Survey No-9/4, Flat# 6, Panchshil Park, Ganpati Marg, Nigidi, Pune 411044 Vijay Tanna Sales Manager +91-7400242424 email https://www.itintelligencemarkets.com/ # 661 Words Survey No-9/4,Flat# 6,Panchshil Park,Ganpati Marg,Nigidi, Pune 411044Sales Manager+91-7400242424 Customer relationship management is an approach to managing company interactions with current and potential customers. Use data analytics on customer relationships with your company to improve business relationships with your customers, especially focusing on customer retention and ultimately revenue growth.Customer Relationship Management Software market report includes a business profile and market competition between businesses. It also deals with market price analysis and value chain functions.This study begins with an overview of the structure of the industry chain, analyzes the market size and forecast of customer environmental management by product environment, region and application, and describes the industrial environment in detail.For Sample Copy:This report focuses on the top players in global market, like: Salesforce.com , Microsoft, SAP SE, Oracle, Adobe Systems, SugarCRM, Zoho, Netsuite, Insightly, BpmonlineObjective of Customer Relationship Management Software Market Study:- To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 05 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Customer Relationship Management Software Market.- To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth.- To analyze the Customer Relationship Management Software Market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, porters five force analysis etc.- To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World (ROW).- To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective- To provide country level analysis of the market for segment by technologies, by applications and sub-segments.- To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market- To track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Customer Relationship Management Software Market.Avail Discount at:The report studies the different product segments and end-user applications segment of the Customer Relationship Management Software market. Compiling important data from relevant sources, the report estimates the growth of individual segments of the market.Also, the market size and the growth rate of each of the market segments have been discussed in the report.The report pays very special attention to the growth exhibited by the market in key geographic segments and talks about all the favorable conditions propelling the market growth. Growth trajectory of the market across the key geographic segments is discussed in the report.Major players in the market have been listed down in the report. The report talks about the key players eyeing the development of the market in emerging economies due to the numerous significant efforts taken by the policymakers to transform the economic landscape.Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers United States EU Japan China India Southeast AsiaMarket segment by Type, Customer Relationship Management can be split into On-premise CloudMarket segment by Application, Customer Relationship Management can be split into BFSI Retail Healthcare IT & Telecom Discrete Manufacturing Government & Education OthersFor More Information:The reports help customers make business decisions and understand the strategies of industry leaders. The report also requires market-oriented results that drive the feasibility study of customer needs. It ensures validated and verifiable aspects of market data that operate in real-time scenarios. Analytical research ensures a thorough understanding of market capacity and customer needs in real-time scenarios.Key Points Covered in Table of Content: Market Overview Market Competition by Manufacturers Production, Revenue (Value) by Region Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type Market Analysis by Application Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders Market Effect Factors Analysis Market Forecast Research Findings and Conclusion PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 15:10:03 Press Information PMR Contact Us Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Senger Manager 13479183531 email https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 571 Words Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Manager13479183531 According to a new study by Persistence Market Research (PMR), the competitive landscape prevalent in the global end-point security market is characterized by the rivalry between the leading vendors, such as Symantec, Trend Micro, Sophos, Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Checkpoint Software, Kaspersky Lab, Cisco, Palo Alto Network, Ivanti, AVAST Software, RSA, Longview Solutions, Promisec, Fortinet, G2 Crowd, Lookout, Klogix Security, and Doyen infosolutions. With the increasing number of new entrants, the competition within this market likely to intensify further, states the research report.A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/10900 As per the research study, the global end-point security market will present an opportunity of over US$11.9 bn by 2017 end. Further, the market is expected to report a rise at an exponential CAGR of 11.20% over the period from 2017 to 2025 and attain a value of US$27.83 bn by the end of the period of the forecast.Rising Demand for Advanced Security Solutions to Boost Global End-point Security MarketThe global market for end-point security is witnessing tremendous growth, thanks to the continuous demand for advanced security solutions, says a PMR researcher. The rising requirement to update security solutions regularly is anticipated to boost the demand for end-point security solutions in the years to come.Apart from this, the increasing awareness among consumers pertaining to the ransom-ware attacks is also projected to trigger the need to install efficient end-point security solutions to safeguard their businesses over the next few years. However, the high cost associated with these security solutions and the dearth of awareness among end users in emerging economies pertaining to their benefits may restrict this market from growing smoothly in the near future, notes the study.North America to Lead Global End-point Security MarketThe research report also offers a geographical assessment of the global end-point security market. As per the study, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and North America are the prominent regional markets for end-point cyber security across the world. North America, among all, is anticipated to lead the worldwide market for end-point security in the near future, with revenues increasing to US$12.30 bn by 2025. The government-led initiatives to fight against security threats are likely to promote the usage of end-point security solutions in this region over the next few years, reflecting positively on this market.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/10900 The swift expansion of businesses in Asia Pacific has spiked the usage of end-point devices in enterprises and organizations. With the heavy utilization of these devices and increased uptake of IoT applications has made enterprise networks more complex in this region, creating a significant need for end-point security, which is the main factor behind the rising market for end-point security in Asia Pacific. Europe is also reporting a healthy rise in its market for end-point security, thanks to the progressive adoption of end-point security solutions in order to eradicate spills of critical information in countries, such as U.K. The increasing support from the governments in terms of funds to upgrade their IT infrastructure is anticipated to support the Europe market for end-point security in the near future.Across the world, end-point security solutions are mostly deployed on-premise, owing to which, the on-premise deployment segment is projected to lead the global market throughout the forecast period, with revenue reaching US$17.30 bn by 2025 end, states the market report. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 01:05:59 VANCOUVER, BC /ACCESSWIRE / January 14, 2019 / Dynasty Gold Corp. (TSX-V: DYG)(FWB: D5G) (OTC: DGDCF) ("Dynasty" or the "Company") ispleased to report results of the final mapping and rock sampling program at theThundercloud property, optioned from Teck Resources Limited ("Teck") early lastyear (see press release dated February 1, 2018).The Property is in the central Wabigoongreenstone gold belt, 47 kilometers southwest of Dryden, Ontario.Following the completion of the summer rock chip sampling program,which was centered at the Glatz outcrop in the West Contact zone (Press releaseof August 22, 2018), the recently completed mapping and rock sampling programwas focused on the potential trench and drill-targets areas around the Glatzoutcrop and extended to other parts of the Property where previous IP surveyingidentified high chargeability and resistivity anomalies. The assay results for sixty-fourgrab samples extended the anomalous area. Highlights of the assay resultsincluded a grab sample taken near Trench 3 in the north end of the West Contactzone, a silicified mafic volcanic, that assayed 4.09 g/t Au, indicating goldpotential outside of the younger Temiskaming-like sediments. The typical silverand telluride pathfinder elements characteristic of the Western Contact areawere also elevated, illustrating the potential proximity to an oxidizedintrusion typical of many Archean gold deposits. A sample returning 0.72 g/t Aucame from Trench 8 (between the Pelham zone and the West Contact zone) from asheared felsic unit.A grab sample thatassayed 0.61 g/t Au was taken 30 m west of the Glatz outcrop, confirming it astrenching Target Area 1. A grab sample that assayed 0.54 g/t Au was collectedfrom trenching Target Area 2, where historic samples taken by Glatz had assayed2.10 , 7.27 and 6.09 g/t Au. Further work is planned on the structural controlsto mineralization.Two previously developed drill targets on the Pelham Zone areready for drill testing. Two proposed drill-holes will have the dual purpose ofconfirming the existence of a parallel footwall zone plus testing thedown-plunge potential of the Pelham Zone itself at a vertical depth of 180 and225 meters. These holes are designed to verify the potential for expanding thehistoric (non 43-101 compliant) resource of 5.56 MT at 1.60 g/t.Therock samples were delivered to ALS lab in ThunderBay, Ontario andassayed for 48 elements using the ME-MS61 package. This press release wasreviewed by Andrew Tims P. Geo, a Qualified Person under the definition ofNational Instrument 43-101.Expenditure Schedule Revision and DrillPermit UpdateThe Company has reached an agreement withTeck to revise the Thundercloud property expenditure schedule until all requirementsrelated to the permit application are met.About Dynasty Gold Corp.Dynasty Gold Corp. is a Canadian gold explorationcompany focused on gold exploration in North America. For more information on the Company andits projects, please refer to the website www.dynastygoldcorp.com ONBEHALF OF THE BOARD OFDYNASTYGOLD CORP."IvyChong"___IvyChong, President & CEOFor additional information please contact:Vancouver Office:IvyChongPhone: 604.633.2100. Email: ichong@ dynastygoldcorp.com Thispress release contains certain "forward-looking statements" thatinvolve a number of risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance thatsuch statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future eventscould differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The TSXVenture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for theadequacy or accuracy of this release.SOURCE: DynastyGold Corp. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 11:44:08 Press Information Future Market Insights U.S. Office 616 Corporate Way Suite 2-9018, Abhishek Budholiya Manager 3479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 628 Words U.S. Office 616 Corporate WaySuite 2-9018,Manager3479183531 Chest compressors are used to save lives during medical emergencies. Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) is a process that helps induce rescue breaths at the time of a medical emergency. Chest compressors are life savers for patients suffering from a cardiac arrest, as chest compressors apply a cardiac massage to patient for optimise the flow of blood to the heart. Chest compressors are mostly used by healthcare professionals who handle emergency medical conditions at various places. The CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) method is used for maintaining the blood flow and supply of air to the lungs. Modern chest compressors work automatically at a particular pressure based on the type of emergency and the body mass index of the patient. Hospitals have all types of chest compressors, which include manual and automatic, as pressure applied to the chest should be in a proper ratio for the body to respond appropriately. The traditional method for CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) involves the application of pressure by hand and blowing the air by mouth, however, modern chest compressors apply pressure based on the nature of the medical emergency and taking into consideration other health-related factors of patients.Request to View a Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7361 Chest Compressors Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe chest compressors market is a growing market owing to an increase in the number of emergency cases and the availability of technologically advanced medical devices. Automatic chest compressors, which can be self-operated by patients or by the people near them who need not necessarily be healthcare professionals, is another factor boosting the chest compressors market. However, the high cost of chest compressors and lack of availability in various geographical regions is likely to hamper the growth of the chest compressors market in the coming years. Chest Compressors Market: SegmentationThe chest compressors market is segmented based on the following:Chest compressors based on product types:Mechanical Chest CompressorsElectrical Chest CompressorsAutomated Chest CompressorsOthers Chest CompressorsChest compressors based on end user:HospitalsAmbulatory Surgery CentreEmergency CentreOthersChest Compressors Market: OverviewChest compressors are the first line of treatment for patients suffering from heart attacks and other emergency cases where the heartbeat has stopped. Market players are working to offer technologically advanced chest compressors with enhanced efficiency, which can also be operated by non-healthcare professionals during medical emergencies. The chest compressors market has high growth potential owing to improvements in Internet-connected medical device technology and the availability of remote-operated medical devices.Chest Compressors Market: Region-wise OutlookGeographically, the chest compressors market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, Japan and Middle East & Africa. The North America market is expected to witness major growth owing to the local presence of major players, the high demand for chest compressors for health emergencies and improvements in the healthcare system. Western Europe and Eastern Europe are also registering growth owing to the adoption of chest compressors by healthcare professionals in these regions. Asia Pacific Excluding Japan show the sluggish growth as the improving healthcare system in most of the countries along with increasing adaptation rate of chest compressors for emergencies cases. Japan show moderate growth rate as the product adaptation rate and growth of medical system is stable. Middle East and Africa show slow growth as the awareness about the products is low among the healthcare professional and lack of adaptation rate of chest compressors due to low growth of medical healthcare system as compared to other regions.Request Report for Table of Contents @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7361 Chest Compressors Market: Key PlayersSome of the players in the chest compressors market include Stryker Corporation; SunLife Science; AAT; ZOLL Medical Corporation and Resuscitation International, LLC, among others. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 11:34:33 Press Information Future Market Insights U.S. Office 616 Corporate Way Suite 2-9018, Abhishek Budholiya Manager 3479183531 email https://www.futuremarketinsights.com # 804 Words U.S. Office 616 Corporate WaySuite 2-9018,Manager3479183531 The healthcare industry is strongly acting towards addressing healthcare professionals pain points. For an instance, the central patient monitoring systems addresses once such pain point of monitoring a large set of patients. The central patient monitoring systems are computer systems that are networked with a fixed number of patient monitors. The central patient monitoring system displays the respectively connected monitoring device waveforms on a single or multiple monitors. This allows the healthcare professionals to monitor and keep a check on the number of patients at the same time. Most of the central patient monitoring system allows the monitoring of at least two waveforms. Depending on the configuration, the central patient monitoring system may include modules for various parameters such as ECG, respiratory rate, body temperature, SpO2, cardiac output and others.The receivers of the central patient monitoring systems are connected to the bedside monitors of each patient. Some telemetry devices also allow the central patent monitoring system receiver to be connected. The main monitor of the central patient monitoring system is then placed in the central station. The central patient monitoring systems are used in the general medical area and surgical areas, cardiac rehab centers, they can also be used with telemetry devices. A typical central monitoring system has a life time of about 7-10 and may cost US$ 4,500 - 40,000. The central patient monitoring system has only one major requirement, which is uninterrupted power supply. Furthermore, the central patient monitoring system also has the capacity to save the data for a limited period of time. This allows the healthcare professional to review the data when required.Request to View a Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-7357 Generally, central patient monitoring systems are able to network with a limited number of patient monitoring systems. For an instance, the central patient monitoring system can be connected to 8, 16, 32, 64, 72 and sometimes even up to 240 patient monitors. Most of the central patient monitoring systems are able to identify most kinds of abnormal waveform. When an abnormal waveform is detected the system is programed to trigger a code alarm. This simplifies the need to monitor the central patient monitoring system continuously and closely.However, the use of central patient monitoring systems is still debatable since it is believed that the hospital personals may pay more attention to the equipment more than the patient itself. Many physicians believe that even a functioning reliable central patient monitoring system cannot replace the frequent and direct observations. Also, there is always a risk of false alarms that can alarm fatigue as a result the staff may miss an actually critical patient event. These are some of the factors that may hinder the growth of the central patient monitoring system market.Central Patient Monitoring System Market: DynamicsIncreasing number of hospitals in most developed regions with an increasing number of hospital beds especially in developing regions are demanding the need for centralized systems for better functionality. For an instance, the use of central patient monitoring system for multiple number of patient monitory from a single monitor station. Furthermore, increase in the number of patient hospitalization along with unmet requirement of healthcare professionals is further driving the growth of the central patient monitoring system market. However, the central patient monitoring systems have a limited flexibility in terms on the number of connected bed/monitors and the number of waveforms or data presented for each patient.Central Patient Monitoring System Market: Regional OutlookOn the basis of geography, the global central patient monitoring system market is segmented into seven key regions, namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. North America market is projected to hold large share in the global central patient monitoring system market primarily due to increased adoption of new technology in the field of hospital management. North America market for central patient monitoring system is followed by the European central patient monitoring system market due to the increased demand for centralized monitoring systems. Asia Pacific market for central patient monitoring systems is expected to grow at a substantial rate due to the lack of sufficient healthcare professionals.Central Patient Monitoring System Market: SegmentationThe global central patient monitoring system market is segmented by number of patients/monitors networked, end users and region:By Number of Patients/Monitors NetworkedUpto 1632 patients64 patientsMore than 64 patientsBy End UsersHospitalsAmbulatory Surgical CentersTrauma CentersRequest Report for Table of Contents @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-7357 Central Patient Monitoring System Market: Key PlayersExamples of some of the key players in the global central patient monitoring system market are Philips Healthcare, GE Healthcare, Hipac Healthcare Pty Ltd, Infinium Medical, Universal Medical Instruments, Nihon Kohden, Heyer Medical AG, MindRay, Criticare Systems Inc., Sunray, Mediana, among other key players. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 16:19:06 Press Information PMR Contact Us Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Senger Manager 13479183531 email https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 641 Words Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Manager13479183531 In reference to a new report published by Persistence Market Research, the global building automation systems market will showcase significant growth between 2016 and 2026. Manufacturers of building automation systems are rapidly adopting new regulations set across the globe and they are also lining up new products to meet rising market demand. The Persistence Market Research report titled, Building Automation Systems Market: Global Industry Analysis & Forecast, 2016-2026, talks in detail about the market psyche and also scrutinizes the market drifts which are expected to impact the future of the global building automation systems market. The global building automation systems market was valued more than US$ 43 Bn in 2015 and is expected to mint better revenue by the end of 2016, reaching approximately US$ 48 Bn. The market will continue its journey towards expansion and the market worth will reach US$ 141.1 Bn towards the end of 2026. The global building automation systems market will record a CAGR of 11.1% during the projected period.Global Building Automation Systems Market: Factors and Trends Impacting GrowthA sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/12823 Governments around the globe are rolling out different precautionary measures to cut down the wastage of energy. Different new regulatory methods are adopted to reduce the consumption of energy. This is a massive booster for the global building automation systems market. Several big economies around the globe such as Europe, US and Japan have already curated some restrictive methods to revise the previous trends. This opens a new window of opportunity for the global building automation systems market. A slew of new technologies that are eroding this market are actively affecting the global canvas of the market. Better and more advanced technologies are enhancing the end-user experience and also increasing market outreach. The introduction of smart web-based, cloud-based control networks backed by the Internet of Things (IOT), mobile technologies, integrated building systems and facility management solutions are expanding the periphery of the global building automation systems market. Last but not the least, the urgent need for consolidated security solutions is also pushing ahead the market growth of the global building automation systems market. These key factors will complement the all-round development of the market within the forecast period but there are also certain key factors that might barricade the normal development of the market within the period of forecast. Building automation systems come with a high price tag and this is expected to impact their widespread adoption. The absence of skilled manpower is another market growth deterrent.Global Building Automation Systems Market: Revenue ForecastThe rising incidences of security violations across the globe are likely to impact the growth of the security and surveillance segment in the global building automation systems market. The security and surveillance segment will exhibit a robust growth in terms of revenue and will overshadow the market within the forecast period. The commercial segment will contribute notably to the global building automation systems market. Towards the end of the projected period, the commercial segment will touch a market worth of more than US$ 63 Bn and will record a CAGR of 10.9%. Apart from this the government and residential segments will also project promising growth trends by 2026 end. North America will lure maximum investors, as the building automation systems market in this region will exceed a whopping value of US$ 55 Bn by the close of 2026.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/12823 Global Building Automation Systems Market: Top ContendersThe global market for building automation systems is crowded with several players. The Rheem Manufacturing Company, United Technologies, General Electric, Lennox International, Philips Lighting Holding B.V., Ingersoll-Rand Plc. Honeywell International Inc., Johnson Controls are some of the major players contributing to the growth of the market. They are establishing smart IT backed platforms to provide advanced building automation systems to their customers. PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 15:13:20 Press Information PMR Contact Us Persistence Market Research 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353 Yogesh Senger Manager 13479183531 email https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 388 Words Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Manager13479183531 According to the latest report published by Persistence Market Research, titled Broadcasting Equipment Market: Asia Pacific Industry Analysis and Forecast, 20162024, the broadcasting equipment market in APAC region is expected to be valued at US$ 5,104.8 Mn by 2024.The broadcasting equipment market in APAC region was valued at US$ 2487.5 Mn in 2015 and is expected to register a CAGR of 8.1% from 2016 to 2024. The growth of broadcasting equipment market in APAC region is primarily driven by convergence of high definition technologies such as 4K with IP. As per the report, 4K services are expected to be available on IP networks over the next four to five years via satellite launching and cable platforms.The report has segmented the APAC broadcasting equipment market into traditional TV broadcast, traditional radio broadcast, IP converged broadcasting and asset management systems.A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/11317 Traditional TV broadcast segment was valued at US$ 1123 Mn in 2015 and is anticipated to register a CAGR of 8.1% during the forecast period (20162024). The traditional radio broadcast segment was valued at US$ 544 Mn in 2015 and is anticipated to register a CAGR of 7.5% during the forecast period. The IP converged broadcasting is projected to be the fastest growing segment in APAC broadcasting equipment market, exhibiting a CAGR of 10.0% during the forecast period.Traditional TV broadcast segment accounted for 45.1% share in terms of value of the total APAC broadcasting equipment market in 2015. Consumption of high definition content in APAC region is increasing at a rapid pace, supported by rising sales of HD ready TVs.The traditional TV broadcast equipment market is further segmented into camera, monitors, routers, switchers, cable, transmitter, receiver and other accessories. Routers sub-segment is projected to expand at the highest CAGR of 9.2% during the forecast period. Content creators across the region are shifting towards 4K cameras in order to capture high definition video. This is being supported by sales of 4K UHD television that has gained momentum due to rising disposable income in the region.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/11317 Key players of the APAC Broadcasting Equipment market include Media Excel Inc.(US) , ChyronHego Corporation (US), TVU Networks Corporation (US), XOR Media Inc.(US) , FOR-A Company (Japan), ORACLE Corporation (US), Unlimi-Tech Software Inc. (US), Grass Valley (Canada) and General Dynamics Mediaware (Australia). Andalusite Market PR-Inside.com: 2019-01-15 10:48:16 Press Information Persistence Market Research (PMR) 305 Broadway 7th Floor, New York City, NY 10007, United States, yogesh sengar Team Lead +1-646-568-7751 email http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com # 579 Words 305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Team Lead+1-646-568-7751 Andalusite is an aluminum nesosilicate mineral belonging to the sillimanite family and found in metamorphic rocks. It is a polymorph with two other minerals: kyanite and sillimanite and is named after Andalusia, a province in Spain. Since it is polymorph, it has similar chemical composition but different physical structure as compared to kyanite and sillimanite. Andalusite is commonly used for production of refractory materials and as a precursor for porcelain which is used in spark plugs and other products. Andalusite generally forms under low pressure and high temperature and converts to sillimanite or kyanite at different temperature-pressure regime. It comes in pink, green, yellow, violet and gray colors among others.Andalusite is a precursor for production of refractory materials, which is used in linings for incinerators, furnaces, kilns and reactors. It can also be used for the production of crucibles. A refractory material should be physically and chemically stable at high temperatures, resistant to thermal shock and chemically inert. Andalusite has high purity, stable volume, good creep resistance, a high thermal shock resistance, metal penetration resistance and low porosity that make it suitable for production of refractory. The steel, glass, aluminum and cement industry are the key end users of andalusite.Request Sample Copy of the Report @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4546 The andalusite industry is driven by the growth of refractory industry. The global demand for longer lasting, higher quality and low cost refractories is rising in emerging economies of the Asia Pacific, especially China and India due to rapid economic growth. The refractory industry follows the trend set by the main end user, the steel industry. The steel production makes up the majority of demand for refractories and profitability of the refractories industry is influenced by investment in steel production and steel plants. The continued demand for andalusite by China for its refractive industry will drive the demand of andalusite. Although end users other than the steel industry consume less andalusite, they have a strong impact on the growth of andalusite industry. The ceramic, glass, aluminum and cement industry contribute heavily to the growth of andalusite industry. However, fluctuations of major currency such as Euro and Dollar, rising oil prices and availability of substitutes such as bauxite could hamper the growth of this market.The Asia Pacific is one the biggest consumer of andalusite due to the rapid growth of refractory industry in emerging economies such as China and India. China is the main producer and user of refractories, mainly driven by the steel industry. Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Russia and Turkey are some of the other key markets in this region. The future of the refractories will depend on emerging economies of Asia and Latin America. Brazil remains the most promising end market for andalusite in Latin America. The consumption of refractories will be moderate in the European Union and North America.The production of andalusite is concentrated in the hands of few companies who produce majority of andalusite for the global market. Some of the key players in this market are Andalusite Resources, Rhino Minerals Pty Ltd (IMERYS), Samrec Pty ltd (IMERYS), Damrec (IMERYS), Picobello Andalucita and Andalucita S.A. among others. Damrec, subsidiary of IMERYS, is the largest producer of Andalusite and has operations in China, South Africa, France and Peru. Andalusite Resources (Pty) Ltd is a newcomer to the Andalusite Industry and plans to increase its production capacity due to strong growth potential of andalusite market.Visit For TOC@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/4546 Following a mortar attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad in September by a group linked to Iran, John Bolton reportedly asked the Pentagon to provide the military with options to strike back at Iran. The request reportedly raised concern at the Pentagon. It definitely rattled people, a former senior U.S. administration official told the Wall Street Journal. It was mind-boggling how cavalier they were about hitting Iran. What boggles my mind is that the Pentagon apparently didnt already have contingency plans for striking at Iran. Im not advocating a military strike against Iranian interests, but given the tensions between the two countries and Irans past aggression against U.S. interests and personnel, the military ought to have a plan to strike back at Iran in a worst case scenario. Just last week, Secretary of State Pompeo tweeted: #Iran plans to fire off Space Launch Vehicles with virtually same technology as ICBMs. The launch will advance its missile program. US, France, UK & Germany have already stated this is in defiance of UNSCR 2231. We wont stand by while the regime threatens international security. (Emphasis added) If thats our position, and I think its the correct one, the U.S. should have contingency plans to strike back at Iran. Striking back at Iran wouldnt necessarily mean striking Iran, though there should be a plan to do so. Israel has been striking regularly at Iran in Syria, as Bret Stephens discusses in an article about Gadi Eisenkot, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces. Our Defense and National Security apparatus seems unwilling not just to engage in planning consistent with action President Trump might take regarding Iran, but also with action Trump said he will take regarding Syria. Attacking Iran is just a possibility, perhaps a remote one. But Trump has long said he wants the U.S. out of Syria. Yet, according to the Washington Post, Trumps decision to pull out caught his advisers and the bureaucracy unprepared. One source told the Post: They dont give him the kinds of options that he wants. . .Its not like it came out of thin air that he wanted to leave Syria. He campaigned on that. You can say its a bad decision, you can say its not helping stability, but you cant say youre surprised that he wanted to do it. There seems to be a common thread here. The foreign policy establishment doesnt want to strike at Iran, so (reportedly) we dont have contingency plans to do so, and a request for such plans is deemed mind boggling. The foreign policy establishment doesnt want to withdraw forces from Syria, so (reportedly) Trumps team is caught short when Trump announces a withdrawal, and Trump is accused of being erratic, as the Post puts it. I dont like the Syrian pullout either, but the decision is Trumps to make. Its fine to try to persuade him not to remove our troops. However, its unacceptable for administration officials and bureaucrats to behave as if the pullout is not a genuine option and then have to scramble when the president chooses this option. One official told the Post that our policy towards Syria is re-centering, now that Trump has been assured that U.S. forces will come out eventually. Had Trump been presented long ago with a plan for a gradual pull out, theres a good chance that our Syria policy wouldnt have had to be re-centered and a good chance that the sh*t show weve been witnessing would have been avoided. The Sunday morning gabfests are turning into asylums a la Marat/Sade, without the pathos or human interest. This past Sunday they meditated deeply on President Trumps non-denial denial that he was acting as a foreign agent for Russia. He had been posed the question by Jeanine Pirro on Saturday evening, following up on the New York Times story disclosing that the FBI had opened a counterintelligence investigation on Trump himself in May 2017 after he fired FBI Director James Comey. According to the Daily Beast, Trump would not give a straightforward answer when host Jeanine Pirro pressed him on whether or not hes working as a Russian asset. Are you now or have you ever worked for Russia Mr. President? Pirro asked the President. I think its the most insulting thing Ive ever been asked. I think its the most insulting article Ive ever had written, Trump responded. And if you read the article youd see that they found absolutely nothing. Shrewd observers on the gabfests noted that Trump hadnt denied he was a Russian agent! Hey, maybe there was something to this thing after all. If he werent a Russian agent, surely he would have issued a straightforward denial. On Monday, however, Trump flatly denied that the proposition (video below). I never worked for Russia and you know that answer better than anybody, Trump told reporters as he was leaving the White House for a trip to New Orleans. Not only did I never work for Russia, I think its a disgrace that you even asked that question because its a whole big fat hoax, Trump said. But if Trump were a secret agent man, he would say that too, wouldnt he? Guilty, guilty, guilty. The opioid crisis is a serious problem in Pennsylvania, and officials are taking proactive steps to tackle the problem. @montcocourtnews on Twitter Carl Hessler Jr. is a multi-media reporter who writes about crime and justice from the Montgomery County Courthouse for 21st Century Media Newspapers Greater Philadelphia area publications. Follow Carl on Twitter: @MontcoCourtNews Anti-abortion demonstrators arrive on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday during the March for Life. The march, held each year in the Washington marks the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Janet Colliton, Esq. is a Certified Elder Law Attorney and limits her practice to elder law, retirement and estate planning, Medicaid, Medicare, life care and special needs at 790 East Market St., Suite 250, West Chester, Pa., 19382, 610-436-6674, colliton@collitonlaw.com. She is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and, with Jeffrey Jones, CSA, co-founder of Life Transition Services LLC, a service for families with long term care needs. Tune in on Wednesdays at 4 p.m. to radio WCHE 1520, 50+ Planning Ahead, with Janet Colliton, Colliton Elder Law Associates, and Phil McFadden, Home Instead Senior Care. Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email circulation@postregister.com for help creating one. Remember those old paper customs declaration forms we used to scramble to fill out before we got off the plane on the approach to Guam? Read more The Montana House of Representatives voted on rules that govern its lawmaking process during the first week of the legislative session, and added a few changes on Jan. 10. Political Reporter Caitlin Byrd is a political reporter at The Post and Courier and author of the Palmetto Politics newsletter. Before moving to Charleston in 2016, her byline appeared in the Asheville Citizen-Times. To date, Byrd has won 17 awards for her work. The Post and Courier provides a forum for our readers to share their opinions, and to hold up a mirror to our community. Publication does not imply endorsement by the newspaper; the editorial staff attempts to select a representative sample of letters because we believe its important to let our readers see the range of opinions their neighbors submit for publication. Syndicated and guest columns represent the personal views of the writers, not necessarily those of the editorial staff. The editorial department operates entirely independently of the news department and is not involved in newsroom operations. Hannah Alani is a reporter at The Post and Courier covering race, immigration and rural life across the Palmetto State. Before graduating from Indiana University and moving to Charleston in 2017, her byline appeared in The New York Times. Jamie Lovegrove is a political reporter covering the South Carolina Statehouse, congressional delegation and campaigns. He previously covered Texas politics in Washington for The Dallas Morning News and in Austin for the Texas Tribune. Assistant Columbia bureau chief Adcox returned to The Post and Courier in October 2017 after 12 years covering the Statehouse for The Associated Press. She previously covered education for The P&C. She has also worked for The AP in Albany, N.Y., and for The Herald in Rock Hill. Chloe Johnson covers the coastal environment and climate change for the Post and Courier. She's always looking for a good excuse to hop on a boat. Efforts must ensure that officials 'don't dare' and 'have no desire' to be corrupt, he says China's anti-graft campaign will be stepped up this year as President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has demanded "greater strategic achievements" in Party governance and consolidation of "sweeping victory" in the fight against corruption. Efforts should be made to see that officials "don't dare to, are unable to and have no desire to" commit corruption, Xi said when addressing the third plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. The three-day annual meeting of the Party's top anti-corruption watchdog concluded on Sunday with a communique to announce the nation's drive to exercise full and strict governance over the Party and its strong resolve to fight against corruption. CCDI members agreed that it is an important political task for all Party members to carefully study and implement what Xi called for at the session, the communique said. The communique listed the CCDI's eight priorities for 2019, including making breakthroughs in regular and long-term supervision and addressing corruption and malpractices that occur on people's doorsteps. Stating that governance over the Party must precede the governance of the country and must be strict, Xi said anti-corruption efforts in financial fields should be intensified, particularly in key projects, areas and positions that concern the overall development and security of the country. He urged senior Party and government officials to scrutinize themselves, firmly uphold the authority and centralized, unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee and fully implement the decisions and plans made by the CPC Central Committee. Leading officials of the CPC Central Committee should resolutely hold back attempts by family members, work staff and others with close connections to them seeking benefits by misusing their powers, Xi said. Noting that this year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and is a crucial year for securing a victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, Xi added that the country must continue to advance full and strict Party self-governance and the anti-graft drive. He called for improving intra-Party political culture and firmly fighting against formality for formality's sake and bureaucratism. Officials should also take the lead in establishing a healthy working relationship and not use public resources as a tool for building clout or underhanded connections to seek illicit gains, Xi said. Xi added that reform of the national supervision system must be strengthened, and Party committees at various levels should hold major responsibility in this regard. He also stressed building an "iron army" of disciplinary inspection and supervision officials who are loyal, clean and have a strong sense of responsibility. Last year, the list of "tigers", or senior officials, taken down on corruption charges continued to expand. Fifty-one officials at or above provincial or ministerial level were among a total of 621,000 people punished by the CCDI and the National Supervisory Commission. Xin Ming, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, said that although China's campaign against corruption has made a sweeping victory, it is not the time to lie back. The tough stance against corruption should not and will not ease, he added. At the 19th CPC National Congress in October 2017, Xi vowed to fight graft, saying, "No place has been out of bounds, no ground left unturned and no tolerance shown in the fight against corruption." In March last year, the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, adopted the National Supervision Law. Later, supervisory commissions at the national, provincial, prefectural and county levels were established and work together with the Party's disciplinary inspection commissions as one office to ensure supervision covers everyone who exercises power. China's anti-graft campaign will be conducted in an even stricter manner in 2019, Guo Yong, director of the Center for Anti-Corruption and Governance at Tsinghua University, was quoted by China News Service as saying. The combination of intra-Party supervision and national oversight will be further reinforced with the reform of the national oversight system being pushed forward, Guo said. In 2015, China launched the global anti-corruption manhunt codenamed "Sky Net", focusing mainly on corruption fugitives and the recovery of illegal assets overseas. Sky Net has led to the capture of more than 5,000 fugitives in over 120 countries and regions, including 56 fugitives on Interpol red notices, and the recovery of more than 10 billion yuan ($1.48 billion). President Xi has used head-of-state summits or international meetings to boost international anti-graft cooperation, said Xu Hong, director-general of the Department of Treaty and Law of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a documentary about operation "Sky Net" that was aired by China Central Television on Thursday. In December 2014, the 22nd APEC Economic Leaders' meeting adopted the Beijing Declaration on Fighting Corruption with a view to solving tough problems on overseas recovery of ill-gotten gains. Two years later, the G20 Hangzhou Summit produced a more detailed strategy on anti-corruption and fugitive repatriation cooperation that includes "zero tolerance", "zero loopholes" and "zero obstacles". caodesheng@chinadaily.com.cn (China Daily 01/14/2019 page1) This photo of a sticker by Garbage Humans was taken by a customer of the small Charleston business and shared widely across the internet. The lack of credit for Garbage Humans has been a bit of a sticking point for the creator. Provided The federal government has put important information about hospital costs in the hands of customers, an acknowledgement of the high and unpredictable price of accessing health care. Though it is a step toward transparency, consumers will probably struggle to use it. As of the beginning of this year, hospitals everywhere must now post lists that show how much they charge for services. Newly required by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the rule is born from a part of the Affordable Care Act that asked hospitals to make information about their prices public. Yet the lists each have thousands of entries and don't look the same hospital to hospital. And facilities are interpreting the new rule differently. Matthew Lewis, a health economist and associate professor at Clemson University, said he doubted the information would be useful to the average patient. Hospitals have kept information about prices hard to access for a reason, he said. "If they really had an interest in making this clear for patients, they could have done it a long time ago," Lewis said. What you need to know The newly available lists show charges hospitals bill for thousands of procedures, services and medications. The "charges" patients can now see are likely to be much more than they will ultimately be asked to pay. The figures are what the hospital will bill the patient or their insurance company. But insurers have special rates negotiated with hospitals, Lewis explained. And many patients without insurance will get a discount. Also, the standard hospital prices often do not include physician fees because physicians often operate independently. They also won't factor in any difference in prices for in-network and out-of-network providers. Hospitals have been cautious about publishing the information, expressing concern that it will confuse their customers. One facility in Aiken requires visitors to its website to check eight boxes, each an acknowledgement about the drawbacks of the information, before it allows the user to download the price list. Jana Pye, spokeswoman for Carolina Pines Regional Medical Center in Hartsville, warned in a statement the charge information won't show what a hospital will actually be paid. She recommended patients not try to use it to estimate what their care will cost. Carolina Pines, and many other hospitals, will help customers with a price estimate if they call. Still, Pye said price transparency should be a priority for hospitals. "As patients take on greater responsibility for the cost of their care, hospitals have a responsibility to communicate with patients on what they personally will pay for health care services," Pye said. Two hospitals in the state appear to not be following the rule yet, by The Post and Courier's review. A spokesman for The Regional Medical Center in Orangeburg said patients can call the hospital for an estimate. But he did not address why the list is absent from their website. A representative with Conway Medical Center said, "We're in the process of getting that posted." She also said there was no timeline to share about when they might make the list available. More than two dozen hospitals in the state, including Roper St. Francis, have made their standard charges available on their websites. A handful of the hospital systems in the state also provided a second, even more helpful list of their charges, including the Medical University of South Carolina and Trident Health. A spokeswoman with MUSC said this extra information was also required, though some said the government ruling was more vague. These lists have fewer than 1,000 entries still a lot, but not as many. They are much easier to compare across systems because they average the charges by the kind of diagnosis. Taking a closer look, a savvy consumer can stack hospitals' costs against each other using these lists. But higher charges at one facility won't necessarily equate to lower costs for some consumers. What local hospitals might charge for ... A C-Section MUSC: $27,131 East Cooper Medical Center: $41,198 Trident Medical Center: $34,165 An allergic reaction MUSC: $15,366 East Cooper Medical Center: $15,413 Trident Medical Center: $23,649 A chest pain diagnosis Sign up for our new business newsletter We're starting a weekly newsletter about the business stories that are shaping Charleston and South Carolina. Get ahead with us - it's free. Email Sign Up! MUSC: $13,438 East Cooper Medical Center: $25,254 Trident Medical Center: $29,927 An appendectomy MUSC: $38,538 East Cooper Medical Center: $42,591 Trident Medical Center: $57,917 Treatment for poisoning MUSC: $19,225 East Cooper Medical Center: $24,588 Trident Medical Center: $38,348 Premature birth with major problems MUSC: $97,545 East Cooper Medical Center: $118,220 Trident Medical Center: $40,072 How patients can manage health care costs The S.C. Hospital Association has had a tool for a few years that might be easier for patients to use called PricePoint. Schipp Ames, spokesman for the hospital association, described the charge lists as a window into hospitals' internal pricing. If customers really want to try to use them, Ames suggested making ample use of Google to understand what the charges mean. There might be simpler ways to manage health care costs, however. Making best use of an insurance plan is one of them. Patti Embry-Tautenhan, spokeswoman for BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, said in a statement "we applaud the intent behind this effort." She said most people covered by BlueCross can use their online tool to estimate their cost of care. Embry-Tautenhan pointed out all of this information being available only matters if patients use it before going to the hospital. And they should try to understand their benefits as much as possible. Ensuring professionals you see are in-network and knowing what your co-insurance payment and deductibles are will be key to avoiding surprising out-of-pocket costs. Hospitals also have hotlines and experts on-hand to field customer concerns. Rod Whiting, spokesman for Trident Health, said the company makes financial counselors available to help patients understand what they will need to pay. "The out-of-pocket amount that patients pay most often has more to do with their insurance coverage than the hospitals charges," he said in a statement. "Patients appreciate having this information available early in the process. It may also be easier to choose a hospital by category. There are three basic types of hospitals: government-owned, nonprofit and private. Drilling down on the data available paints a clear picture: Government-owned hospitals in this state are cheaper and care for more patients without insurance. Using a tool developed by the hospital association, The Post and Courier reviewed hospitals' average charges. They show government-owned hospitals in South Carolina tend to be cheapest. They also care for more people without insurance. Yet costs are only one consideration. Most patients want to know they will receive high-quality care, and that may be even harder to estimate. "The value of your health is superseded by nothing," Ames said. Mary Katherine, who also goes by MK, covers health care for The Post and Courier. She is also pursuing a master's degree in data science. She grew up in upstate New York and enjoys playing cards, kayaking and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Get the SC business stories that matter. Our newsletter catches you up with all the business stories that are shaping Charleston and South Carolina every Monday and Thursday at noon. Get ahead with us - it's free. 435 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away a Texas banks constitutional challenge to the structure of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, passing up a case that could have led to more presidential power over an independent agency that President Donald Trumps administration already has weakened. The decision by the justices not to hear an appeal by State National Bank of Big Spring may not be the final word on the matter as three other cases involving the CFPB are heading toward the high court. At issue was whether the CFPBs sole director possesses too much power in violation of the authority the U.S. Constitution gives a president to appoint and remove certain federal officials. A ruling in favor of the bank could have allowed a president to fire the agencys director for any reason. Advertising The CFPB, a consumer watchdog agency often criticized by conservatives and Trumps fellow Republicans, was established in 2011 under legislation signed by former President Barack Obama that was passed by a Congress controlled by Obamas fellow Democrats to crack down on predatory financial practices after the 2007-2009 financial crisis. The case raises constitutional issues of major importance regarding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency that wields massive power over the economic activities of the public and sets a dangerous precedent for unaccountable federal bureaucracy, said Sam Kazman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative group involved in the challenge. Democrats have said the agency plays a critical role in protecting consumers. The Texas banks challenge was delayed in reaching the justices because it was put on hold while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dealt with a case involving mortgage servicer PHH Corp that had raised the same issues. Only eight of the nine justices on the court, which has a 5-4 conservative majority, participated in the decision to hear the case. Trumps appointee Brett Kavanaugh recused himself, most likely because he took part in an earlier ruling in the case before joining the high court last October. The agency was set up under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law. Since then, there have been efforts by Republicans and the financial industry to undercut its authority, driven by concerns about its powers over a wide array of financial products and its structure. The Trump administration has shelved several rules and aggressively curtailed the agencys enforcement. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham) 3.1k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising Before conman Donald Trump sold America on him becoming president, he was conning working-class people who invested hundreds of thousands of dollars with him, and lost all their money. And his three oldest children were helping him do it. At least that is what a lawsuit filed last fall charged. Yesterday lawyers for Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump and the Trump Organization filed a motion to dismiss the class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The original lawsuit sought unspecified money damages for fraud and racketeering violations. It alleged that Donald Trump and his three eldest children spent more than a decade operating their large fraudulent enterprise that was designed to cheat needy middle-class people out of their life savings. These average Americans were conned by Trump and his children into investing with him for their education or to start a business. The lawsuit claimed that the Trump familys racketeering enterprise preyed upon thousands of vulnerable people to get them to invest in get-rich-quick schemes. The plaintiffs were identified only as Jane Doe, Luke Loe, Richard Roe, and Mary Moe. Advertising The original complaint also alleged that Trump, et al. conned each of these victims into giving up hundreds or thousands of dollars while they were down and out to invest in telecoms marketing company American Communications Network (ACN) and become Independent Business Owners (IBOs). Trump attorneys predictably responded to the plaintiffs allegations by trying to get the case tossed out. They said that the plaintiffs were politically motivated, writing: Plaintiffs lawsuit is funded by the Tesseract Research Center, whose president describes herself as [a] long-time progressive strategist and who also runs the Tesseract Group, a boutique consulting firm specialized in developing, promoting and implementing progressive public policy. Plaintiffs counsel includes the author of To End a Presidency The Power of Impeachment (Perseus Books 2018), who also publishes a website that broadcasts Versus Trump, a weekly program about how the Trump administration is breaking the law and what people are doing about it. His attorneys said that For nine years, Mr. Trump served as a paid spokesperson and motivational speaker for ACN, appearing publicly at events across the United States. It was alleged that the Trump family received secret payments to promote opportunities that werent real, and that the plaintiffs experienced the consequences firsthand. The defendants were accused of knowingly making false and misleading statements about these opportunities. The way it worked, the plaintiffs claim, is that Trump used his name (perceived brand success) and the promise of similar success to endorse opportunities with ACN, convincing plaintiffs to invest $499 to sign up to sell [ACN] products, like a videophone and other services, with the promise of additional profits if they recruited others to join. Trump, et al. never revealed that he was being paid millions to endorse ACN. Plaintiff Jane Doe, for example, spent thousands to participate in ACN and learn entrepreneurial secrets, only to earn just $38 in income. In total, plaintiffs alleged eight counts against Trump: negligent misrepresentation, fraud, unfair and deceptive acts or practices in violation of Pennsylvania law, unfair and deceptive trade practices in violation of Maryland law, unfair competition in violation of California law, dissemination of untrue or misleading public statements in violation of California law, conspiracy to conduct the affairs of a racketeering enterprise, and racketeering. Trumps lawyers say that if racketeering claims are dismissed federal jurisdiction over Plaintiffs state claims will be lacking, because no Plaintiff satisfies the $75,000 amount in controversy requirement for diversity jurisdiction, and because Plaintiffs cannot demonstrate class-wide damages of $5,000,000 or more, as required under the Class Action Fairness Act. It is important that Americans are told more about Donald Trumps history as a conman who made money for years by committing fraud. Also, that he included his three oldest children in his criminal activities. Soon we may be having impeachment hearings in the House. And soon we will see Bob Muellers report about Trumps crimes. We may also see more indictments from Mueller, which involve Trump and his children. When these things happen all Americans need to know the character of Donald Trump. We need to keep in mind the kind of criminal personality we are dealing with. There is no reason to feel any sympathy for him. What needs to happen is that Donald Trump and his children all need to finally be held accountable and suffer the consequences for all of their misdeeds. 389 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising Jerry Nadler, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has taken the first steps for his powerful committee to fully investigate crimes committed by Donald Trump and members of his administration connected with the kidnapping of children from their parents at the Mexican border. Trump, along with then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, last spring began a so-called zero tolerance immigration policy that required undocumented immigrants seeking asylum to be immediately arrested and thrown into jail. After the adults were incarcerated, any children with them were taken away and also incarcerated. The practice led to an international outcry from the United Nations, the Pope, Amnesty International and many human rights groups. In letters released Monday, Nadler wrote: There remain many unanswered questions about the development and execution of the Trump Administrations family separation or zero-tolerance policy. Advertising Nadlers letters are some of the first oversight efforts to be begun by the Judiciary Committee since Democrats took control of the House on January 3. They show that investigation of Trumps family separation practices, and the harm done to children, is a top priority for House Democrats. The letters were sent by the chairman to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Nadler wrote to demand that each agency turn over to his committee any and all information the have about the development and execution of the zero tolerance policy, migrant detention, and related policies on the Mexican border. He also demanded that they preserve all of their documents and records concerning these policies. In his letter to HHS Nadler also set forth his questions about how the Trump administration had identified, tracked and reunited family members who were separated during the months the zero-tolerance policy was in effect. Under Trumps program thousands of migrant children were detained by HHS in separate facilities sometimes hundreds of miles from their parents. In addition to zero tolerance, Nadler also noted the recent deaths in U.S. custody of two young Guatemalan migrant children, the first child deaths in Border Patrol Custody in a decade. On December 8, Jakelin Caal Maquin, 7, died in a hospital two days after she was taken to a Border Patrol station. And on Christmas Eve, 8-year-old Felipe Gomez Alonzo died after being hospitalized in New Mexico with flu-like symptoms, high fever and vomiting. He had been hospitalized, released and then returned to the hospital. 3k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising Four Democratic Senators turned up the shutdown pressure on Trump by inviting him to meet with workers who are either currently laid off or working without pay. Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tim Kaine (D-VA), and Mark Warner (D-VA) wrote in a letter to Trump: As the White House rages, because Democrats wont give Trump a lunch photo-op, the Senators turned up the heat on the president by writing, When asked about the situation facing federal workers, you said, I can relate. Im sure the people that are on the receiving end will make adjustments. They always do. Some federal workers like millions of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck. According to the Federal Reserve, 40% of Americans cannot pull together $400 for an emergency, without going into debt or selling something. Speaking with some of the workers who cannot afford to miss a paycheck may help you better relate to the adjustments you expect them to make for your shutdown. Democrats Reinforced That Trump Is Out Of Touch The message behind the Senators offer is that Trump doesnt care about the federal workers who his shutdown is harming. Trump doesnt want to hear stories about how people cant afford food, medicine, or to keep a roof over their heads. Trump thinks that he is winning the shutdown with tweets and lunches, but the Democratic message is that there are no winners. There are only losers and the number of people who are being hurt by Trumps shutdown is growing each day. Advertising 449 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday took steps to kick racist Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King off of all House committees on which he has been serving. King will lose his committee assignments following a media firestorm caused by his most recent outlandish racist remarks. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters after a meeting of the Republican Steering Committee that King would not receive any committee assignments for the new Congress. That is not the party of Lincoln, McCarthy said of Kings comments. It is definitely not American. All people are created equal in America, and we want to take a very strong stance about that. We will not be seating Steve King on any committees in the 116th Congress, McCarthy told reporters. Advertising King immediately fought back, denouncing the GOP leaders move to remove him from committee assignments, calling it a political decision that ignores the truth. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthys (R-Calif.) decision to remove me from committees is a political decision that ignores the truth, King said in a statement after the California congressman made the announcement to reporters that the controversial House member from Iowa would be removed from all of his previous committee assignments. King faced public outrage and bipartisan congressional criticism after telling The New York Times in an interview published last week, White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization how did that language become offensive? King has been a member of the House Judiciary, Agriculture and Small Business committees for many years. He had also previously served as chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice during the last Congress. He would have been its ranking member under the new Democratic majority. The move by GOP leaders severely hinders Kings influence as a member of Congress. For an Iowa congressman the Agriculture Committee is considered an especially important assignment, and losing this will hurt Kings ability to serve his constituents in the heavily rural Iowa congressional district he represents. King insisted that his remarks were taken out of context and criticized McCarthys decision. But King made no indication that he plans to resign, even though many people, including new Utah senator Mitt Romney, have demanded that he do so. Referencing his conversation yesterday with McCarthy, King said: Ultimately, I told him You have to do what you have to do and I will do what I have to do. I will continue to point out the truth and work with all the vigor that I have to represent 4th District Iowans for at least the next two years. When I used the word THAT it was in reference ONLY to Western Civilization and NOT to any previously stated evil ideology ALL of which I have denounced. My record as a vocal advocate for Western Civilization is nearly as full as my record in defense of Freedom of Speech. House Democrats are expected to put a resolution introduced by Majority Whip James Clyburn (S.C.) on the floor for a vote on Tuesday to formally disapprove of Kings remarks. On Saturday the Congressional Black Caucus on condemned King for his comments which they deemed racist and unacceptable. After two other House Democrats introduced resolutions on Monday to censure King, McCarthy said he would be open to possibly supporting a vote on the floor censuring him. McCarthy told reporters: Id read the resolution, but I do not agree with his remarks. I would support something saying that I did not agree with his remarks. McCarthy declined to say if King should step down or be expelled from the House GOP conference, saying that the voters of his district make those decisions. King has a long history of creating controversy with his racist, anti-immigrant statements. Until yesterday Republican leaders had issued statements condemning his remarks but had never taken any action. In 2013, King said in an interview with Newsmax that for every undocumented immigrant who becomes a valedictorian, theres another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds and theyve got calves the size of cantaloupes because theyre hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) at the time called Kings comments deeply offensive and wrong. And in 2016, King questioned the historical contributions of nonwhite subgroups during an MSNBC segment, saying, Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization? King tweeted in 2017 that we cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies. 2.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising Rachel Maddow hinted on Monday night that Democrats could invite special counsel Robert Mueller to the confirmation hearings for Donald Trumps attorney general pick William Barr. The hearings, which are set to begin on Tuesday, will focus heavily on whether Barr will allow Muellers investigation to remain unimpeded and be released to the public when it concludes. In his prepared testimony released on Monday, Barr said, On my watch, Bob will be allowed to complete his work. Maddow hinted on Monday, though, that if Democrats really want to ensure that Mueller and Barr are on the same page, they should invite the special counsel to the hearing like they did when Richard Nixon sought the confirmation of an attorney general during the Watergate era. Advertising Video: Rachel Maddow says Democrats can use a Watergate-era strategy to ensure that Trumps attorney general pick will not undermine the Mueller investigation. #ctl #p2 #maddow pic.twitter.com/fXEGt2jaLn PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) January 15, 2019 Maddow said: With Bill Saxbys nomination in December 1973 specifically, a kind of amazing and singular thing happened, because when Saxby got up there to be the fourth attorney general for Nixon, Democrats on the Senate committee that was considering him, they not only sought assurances from Saxby that he would let the Watergate prosecutor proceed without interference, that he would provide him the sources he needed, hed get out of his way, make sure he was protected. In addition to that, the Democratic senators on that committee considering whether he would be the next attorney general, they also did something kind of nuts. They brought the Watergate special prosecutor into the hearing room and swore him in and made him sit down next to Bill Saxby the attorney general nominee so the two of them were sitting there side by side. They both had to swear under oath that they both understood about the special prosecutors independence. They both had the same understanding of it, they both respected it. I mean, thats weird, right? I mean, the prosecutor was not being confirmed by the Senate in that moment but they made him sit down and get sworn in right there with the guy who was being confirmed. I mean, this attorney general nominee, they made him swear he wouldnt interfere with the Watergate investigation but remarkably, they made the Watergate prosecutor sit down next to him and swear that he understood that as well. We shouldnt take William Barrs word for it While its fine that Barr released a prepared statement claiming he would allow Muellers investigation to be completed and released to the public, we shouldnt take his word for it. After all, as CNN pointed out, Last year, Barr authored a memo to senior Justice Department officials arguing that Trumps interactions with Comey would not constitute obstruction of justice and called Muellers obstruction probe fatally misconceived.' When hearings start on Tuesday, Democrats shouldnt just roll over and accept Barrs recent change of heart. Instead, they should make him swear under oath that he will do nothing to thwart Muellers probe which has taken on increasing importance in recent days and release the findings to the public. And, if they truly want to guarantee that Barr and the special counsel are on the same wavelength, they can pull a page from the Watergate playbook and invite Mueller to the hearings. Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook. 1.1k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising While we now know that the FBI launched an investigation in 2017 into whether Donald Trump worked on behalf of Russia, its unclear exactly how long that inquiry went on or even if its still ongoing. According to Michael Schmidt, who broke The New York Times story about the investigation, Trump has continued to give the FBI reasons to investigate his behavior and language toward Russia. During an interview with MSNBCs Chris Matthews, Schmidt openly wondered, How do you walk away from an investigation like that when the president continues to sound like a Russian puppet? Video: Advertising Schmidt said: If youre a counterintelligence agent at the FBI, and you started this investigation, you worked on it, how do you see the presidents most recent comments? How did you see Helsinki? How did you see the comments about Afghanistan that lined up with the Kremlins talking points about why the USSR invaded Afghanistan? How do you walk away from an investigation like that when the president continues to say things like that? Trump continues to give the FBI reasons to investigate It would be one thing if this was an isolated incident one off-color comment or puzzling policy action taken by the president. But this is a pattern of behavior that weve seen time and again, from the time Trump was a candidate throughout his presidency. Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on Russias involvement in the 2016 election even over our own intelligence community. He shamelessly bowed to Vladimir Putin on the world stage in Helsinki. He continues to strain Americas relationship with NATO allies and take foreign policy cues from Moscow. And, as we learned in the past couple days, he went to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The FBI has every reason in the world to continue its investigation into whether Trump is working on behalf of Russia. After all, he hasnt stopped giving them evidence that thats exactly what hes doing. Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook. Only 20 players remain on Day 4 of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $10,300 Main Event but the stakes are high as many big names remain in contention. Leading the way on Day 4 is Tommy Nguyen, 2018 WSOP Monster Stack winner, with 2,705,000. Nguyen will be looking to add another seven-figure score to his poker resume. He is trailed closely by Lebanese High Stakes PLO grinder, Jeff Hakim, who bagged up 2,640,000 a difference of just 65,000 chips. WPT L.A. Poker Classic Main Event 2017 champ Daniel Strelitz will start the day 3rd is chips with 2,615,000 and is followed by EPT Prague $50,000 High Roller winner Matthias Eibinger (2,485,000). Other notables in the final 20 include Brian Altman (1,785,000), Matt Berkey (1,570,000), Chino Rheem (1,425,000), Mihai Manole (1,325,000), Christoph Vogelsang (1,240,000), Simon Deadman (750,000), Joao Simao (725,000), Ami Barer (570,000), Marc-Andre Ladouceur (300,000), and Danny Tang (245,000). With only 20 players left, everyone remaining is guaranteed a payday of at least $60,840 but of course, that's not what they are eyeing. Those who are lucky enough to advance to the final table are guaranteed a payday of at least $146,840 and up for grabs is a first place prize of $1,567,100 as well as the PCA Main Event trophy. Action is set to kick off at noon local time at 10,000/25,000/25,000 and the field is scheduled to cut down to just six players. Stay tuned to PokerNews as our Live Reporting team provides you with all the updates throughout the day. Day 4 Seat Assignments The 2019 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event has passed the halfway point with three out of five days in the books. A field that started out with 865 hopefuls has been whittled down to the final 20, and each of them is looking to take home the first place prize of $1,567,100 that will be awarded on Wednesday, January 16. Usually, there's a clear chipleader or a select few that stand out from the pack, but not this time. Although WSOP Monster Stack winner Tommy Nguyen claimed the coveted top spot with 2,705,000, there's plenty of others hot on his heels. Jeff Hakim (2,640,000) is only two big blinds away from being top dog, Daniel Strelitz (2,615,000) trails just by another big blind and EPT Prague $50k High Roller champ Matthias Eibinger (2,485,000) is in striking distance as well. Besides these four, each very accomplished players in their own right, there's plenty of star quality still in contention. A clear indication of how stacked the field is is that just out of the top 10 alone, nine players boast over $1 million in lifetime winnings on The Hendon Mob. Elite high stakers Matt Berkey (1,570,000) and Christoph Vogelsang (1,240,000), WPT champ Brian Altman (1,785,000), Mihai Manole (1,325,000), Simon Deadman (750,000), Aussie Millions champ Ami Barer (570,000), and Danny Tang (245,000) are among those still vying for the coveted trophy. David "Chino" Rheem will be back on Day 4 The biggest name left in the field is that of David "Chino" Rheem (1,425,000). Although Rheem's checkered past may has divided the poker world's opinion of him over the years, he's still a force to be reckoned with at the tables. A win in the Main Event would be a career highlight and lift him over the $10 million in lifetime winnings. The American ended the day in the middle of the pack after flirting with elimination earlier in a hand against Eibinger, where Rheem rivered a crucial straight to stay in contention. Between all the heavy hitters, the odd man out is Scott Wellenbach who's likely to have the railbirds rooting for him on the penultimate day. Wellenbach, a 66-year old Buddhist text translator from Halifax, Canada, has vouched to donate all his winnings in this event to charity. In an interview with PokerNews, Wellenbach described his day as a huge rollercoaster, talked about his respect for the competition and about charity. Wellenbach ended the day with 1,135,000 in chips. While all aforementioned players will be back, among those that fell by the wayside on Day 3 is Filipe Oliveira, who was the last player to miss out of Day 4. Just two months ago, the Portuguese won the MILLIONS event in the Bahama's for $1.5M. His second deep run on the Caribbean island ended against Vogelsang with king-jack versus ace-jack and he took home $52,440 this time. The final two Team PokerStars Ambassadors Andre Akkari (24th - $44,060) and Randy Lew (43rd - $28,520) were also eliminated on Day 3. They were joined on the rail by the likes of start-of-the-day Pierre Calamusa, Maria Ho, Scott Clements, Dzmitry Urbanovich, Anthony Zinno, and Claas Segebrecht. Segebrecht was clashing with Deadman at the feature table all day, and lost an unlucky pocket aces versus ace-king hand before getting bluffed off a big hand. Deadman then finished what he started and eliminated Segebrecht just after the dinner break. On Tuesday at noon local time, the 20 remaining players will return for the penultimate day of the Main Event. Each of them has already locked up $60,840 for their efforts but all eyes are on the first place prize of $1,567,100. Blinds will resume in the level 10,000/25,000 with a big blind ante of 25,000. Levels will be 90 minutes throughout the day and play will continue until the final 6 players have been reached. PokerNews is on the floor to cover the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure start to finish so make sure to check back regularly for all the updates from the Atlantis Resort in the Bahama's! The last high roller event of the 2019 PCA kicked off today and has easily surpassed the total number of entries from the previous year. The $25,000 PCA High Roller attracted all of the best players that made the trip to Atlantis Resort in The Bahamas and a very healthy field of 151 has turned up with more still possibly to come before the start of Day 2. After ten levels on the opening day, Lucas Reeves managed to maneuver his way through the field to top the leaderboard of 65 players remaining. Reeves bagged up 247,000 chips, nearly five times the starting stack. Although the $25,000 Single-Day High Roller didn't go his way yesterday, Reeves returned today and found a different outcome. Another familiar name near the top of the leaderboard is Jesus Cortes who is having a fantastic start to the year. Cortes has already accumulated nearly $1.1 million over the past week and with 239,000 chips in his bag, he may be on his way to another cash. Cortes finished third in the $100,000 Super High Roller and second in the $25,000 Single-Day High Roller. He will be looking to improve on those two results and finally lay claim to a title. The day started rather slowly, like all of the high rollers do, and got off to a late start by about 30 minutes. Finally, there were enough players to open up two tables and the players took their seats. It didn't take long for the others to start strolling in as there were nearly 50 entries by the first break. With 60-minute levels and a 250 big blind starting stack, the structure allows for a lot of deep-stack poker to be played throughout. Seth Davies and Sosia Jiang were the first couple of players to be forced to the rail, but with a single reentry option available, both were able to quickly jump back into the action. Unfortunately for both of them, their second bullet wound up with the same result. They joined the list of notables like Igor Kurganov, Scott Seiver, Steve O'Dwyer, Luc Greenwood, and Sylvain Loosli to fire off $50,000 without finding a bag. Among the 65 players that will be returning tomorrow, some of the larger stacks to keep an eye on include Pablo Melogno (243,500), Pedro Marques (241,000), Thomas Boivin (227,000), defending champion Christopher Kruk (214,500), and Davidi Kitai (205,000). Liv Boeree was the only PokerStars Pro to bag up chips with 96,000 since Kurganov and Andre Akkari both went bust. More notably, Daniel Negreanu has not been seen on the tournament floor as of late and it's unsure if he will show up tomorrow. Liv Boeree The action is scheduled to get underway again at 12:30 p.m. local time and another 10 levels will be played. The blinds will resume at Level 11 at 1,000/2,000 and a 2,000 big blind ante. Late registration will remain open until the action gets underway and anyone that wishes to enter tomorrow will begin with 25 big blinds. Keep it locked here as the PokerNews live reporting team will continue to bring you coverage of all the action throughout this three-day event. Aussie Millions Numbers "Way in Front of What I Thought" Says Tournament Director Joel Williams January 15, 2019 Will Shillibier With the Aussie Millions getting underway today, Crown Melbourne Tournament Director Joel Williams says he is optimistic with regard to the numbers of the 2019 event. Not cautiously optimistic, optimistic, he said. Eleven months ago I was really nervous; I thought the PCA was going to decimate the $10k and up crowd. I thought that were never going to be able to replicate 2018, but if we blow the siren right now and look at the Main Event, for example, were way in front of what I thought we would be. We know that the High Roller market has obviously changed, but we know that we continue to have the reputation of arguably the softest $10k field on the planet. If the perception is that its a room full of people who are arguably out of their depth, then why the hell wouldnt you come? Even the locals all go Oh yeah, no one knows how to play I do, of course but no one else does! The Bitcoin Lottery Last years Main Event attracted a field of 800 entries, with the bitcoin lottery in part helping to boost numbers in what was a record field says Williams. We were planning 2019 two weeks after last years tournament finished." The fact that the poker community won the bitcoin lottery mid to late last year certainly helped, but were not gonna replicate that this year, unfortunately! Hayley Breen is in contact with players every day of the year. Last year the day after the Aussie Millions finished she was helping them get out of the country, and the moment they land shell be working to get them to come back! The tournament continues to thrive, despite no shortage of factors seemingly working against them says Williams, including the lack of online poker, the location, competition, and cost of living. We were planning 2019 two weeks after last years tournament finished, and there were seats to this years Aussie Millions locked up in the second or third week in March. Its just good at creating awareness; it keeps the Aussie Millions constantly at the front of players minds. We came to a fork in the road when the online poker legislation changed. That was suddenly 250 seats that we needed to get back just to where we were. And a lot of the satellites back then were already enormous, and the answer was just to run more of them! Joseph Foleti and Karl Symonds are two of many Main Event satellite winners. With the number of satellite winners approaching 250, Williams expects that number to almost double over the course of the next two weeks. We started running the satellites early and mixing up the price points. It was hard to get people to start thinking about the Aussie Millions in February or March. Securing 2019 Aussie Millions seats so early in the year serves to both reward local participation and create awareness, as well as ensuring that the tournament becomes more and more attractive to interstate and international customers." No Big Blind Ante for Main Event This year there are a number of changes to the Aussie Millions including the inclusion of the big blind ante in a few tournaments, but not in the Main Event. We only introduced [big blind ante] in a weekly tournament half-way through the year or so. Its just a lack of exposure. Its got to get to a better level of experience among the players before it can be introduced in the Main Event. But look, last year there was none and this year its in a third of events. Next year, probably in two-thirds of events and who knows, maybe the Main is one of them. The first event, which gets underway tonight, is the AUD$1,000,000 GTD Opening Event which has an added fifth flight which Williams says will make it by far the biggest ever "We know that there is plenty of opposition and bigger prize pools." Another addition to the schedule is the AUD$25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha which starts the day of the Main Event final table. That surprised me, said Williams. Everyones excited about it already. If you run another vanilla Holdem High Roller then you always have names in mind for these kinds of things, but people are coming out of the woodwork already talking about the AUD$25,000 PLO. The inclusion of the PLO High Roller is in part down to player feedback, something that Williams considers of paramount importance if theyre going to keep players coming back to Melbourne for poker. There are so many blockers to get you to come, just geographically and with the hotels and whatever else. We know that there is plenty of opposition and bigger prize pools and that the center of the High Roller universe is not Melbourne anymore. But there are guys like Fedor [Holz] that are retired but then say that theyll always go to Aussie Millions; thats fun, not work. Then you get here and you see him sat next to a guy whos won his seat for pennies. That's pretty special. Follow coverage of the 2019 Aussie Millions right here on PokerNews. Final 20 Reached in 2019 PCA Main Event; Nguyen Leads, Rheem, Berkey & Vogelsang in Contention January 15, 2019 Yori Epskamp The 2019 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event has passed the halfway point with three out of five days in the books. A field that started out with 865 hopefuls has been whittled down to the final 20, and each of them is looking to take home the first place prize of $1,567,100 that will be awarded on Wednesday, January 16. Usually, there's a clear chip leader or a select few that stand out from the pack, but not this time. Although WSOP Monster Stack winner Tommy Nguyen claimed the coveted top spot with 2,705,000, there's plenty of others hot on his heels. Jeff Hakim (2,640,000) is only two big blinds away from being top dog, Daniel Strelitz (2,615,000) trails just by another big blind and EPT Prague $50k High Roller champ Matthias Eibinger (2,485,000) is in striking distance as well. Besides these four, each very accomplished players in their own right, there's plenty of star quality still in contention. A clear indication of how stacked the field is is that just out of the top 10 alone, nine players boast over $1 million in lifetime winnings on The Hendon Mob. Elite high stakers Matt Berkey (1,570,000) and Christoph Vogelsang (1,240,000), WPT champ Brian Altman (1,785,000), Mihai Manole (1,325,000), Simon Deadman (750,000), Aussie Millions champ Ami Barer (570,000), and Danny Tang (245,000) are among those still vying for the coveted trophy. David \"Chino\" Rheem will be back on Day 4. The biggest name left in the field is that of David "Chino" Rheem (1,425,000). Although Rheem's checkered past may has divided the poker world's opinion of him over the years, he's still a force to be reckoned with at the tables. A win in the Main Event would be a career highlight and lift him over the $10 million in lifetime winnings. The American ended the day in the middle of the pack after flirting with elimination earlier in a hand against Eibinger, where Rheem rivered a crucial straight to stay in contention. Between all the heavy hitters, the odd man out is Scott Wellenbach who's likely to have the railbirds rooting for him on the penultimate day. Wellenbach, a 66-year old Buddhist text translator from Halifax, Canada, has vouched to donate all his winnings in this event to charity. In an interview with PokerNews, Wellenbach described his day as a huge rollercoaster, talked about his respect for the competition and about charity. Wellenbach ended the day with 1,135,000 in chips. While all aforementioned players will be back, among those that fell by the wayside on Day 3 is Filipe Oliveira, who was the last player to miss out of Day 4. Just two months ago, the Portuguese won the MILLIONS event in the Bahama's for $1.5M. His second deep run on the Caribbean island ended against Vogelsang with king-jack versus ace-jack and he took home $52,440 this time. The final two Team PokerStars Ambassadors Andre Akkari (24th - $44,060) and Randy Lew (43rd - $28,520) were also eliminated on Day 3. They were joined on the rail by the likes of start-of-the-day Pierre Calamusa, Maria Ho, Scott Clements, Dzmitry Urbanovich, Anthony Zinno, and Claas Segebrecht. Segebrecht was clashing with Deadman at the feature table all day, and lost an unlucky pocket aces versus ace-king hand before getting bluffed off a big hand. Deadman then finished what he started and eliminated Segebrecht just after the dinner break. On Tuesday at noon local time, the 20 remaining players will return for the penultimate day of the Main Event. Each of them has already locked up $60,840 for their efforts but all eyes are on the first place prize of $1,567,100. Blinds will resume in the level 10,000/25,000 with a big blind ante of 25,000. Levels will be 90 minutes throughout the day and play will continue until the final 6 players have been reached. PokerNews is on the floor to cover the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure start to finish so make sure to check back regularly for all the updates from the Atlantis Resort in the Bahama's! The Stars Group owns a majority shareholding in iBus Media. Jaime Lynn Witts as Belle in Stephen Mills' Belle REDUX/A Tale of Beauty & The Beast. Anne Marie Bloodgood, Courtesy Ballet Austin. Making It Against the Odds: How Ballet Austin's Jaime Lynn Witts Went From Underdog to Leading Lady Staff reports The Petoskey News-Review Emmet County The following cases were heard recently in Emmet Countys 90th District Court: Andrew Dean Ditta, 36, of Levering; driving while visibly impaired; serve 93 days in jail with credit for one day served and 92 days held in abeyance; nine months probation; pay $1,275 in fines and costs Brian Lee-Anthony Starr, 33, of Harbor Springs; driving while visibly impaired; serve 93 days in jail with credit for one day served, three days community service work in lieu of jail time and 89 days held in abeyance; 12 months probation; pay $1,575 in fines and costs Robert Benjamin Reynolds, 37, of Petoskey; improper possession of a firearm; serve 90 days in jail with credit for 17 days served and 63 days held in abeyance; nine months probation; pay $850 in fines and costs Jordan Lewis Marihugh, 23, of Petoskey; driving without a license; pay $350 in fines and costs Craig Ryan Darwent, 45 of Fenton; reckless driving; serve 93 days in jail with credit for one day served and 92 days held in abeyance; six months probation; pay $775 in fines and costs Marshall Conroy Stevens, 35, of Wolverine, driving a vehicle without insurance; pay $365 in fines and costs Charlevoix County The following cases were heard recently in Charlevoix Countys 90th District Court: Roger Bertram Barnes Jr., 50, of Ellsworth; domestic violence; serve 93 days in jail with 45 days credit and 48 days held in abeyance Michael Walter Pfander, 49, of Charlevoix; open intoxicants in motor vehicle and driving while intoxicated; serve 365 days in jail with one day credit, 30 days community service work in lieu of 30 days jail time and 334 days held in abeyance; 24 months probation; pay $1,575 in fines and costs Andrew Victor Kantola, 31, of Charlevoix; assault and battery; serve 93 days in jail with 49 days credit and 44 days held in abeyance Alexander Jonathon Macksey, 25, of Boyne City; impaired driving; serve 93 days in jail with credit for one day served, three days community serve work in lieu of three days jail time and 89 days held in abeyance; six months probation; pay $985 in fines and costs Bradley Daniel Sweet, 35, of Boyne Falls; third-degree retail fraud; pay $498.50 in fines and costs Kekaiona Koich Abrashiro-Motta, 35, of Boyne City; driving while intoxicated; serve 365 days in jail with credit for one day served, 30 days community service work in lieu of 30 days jail time and 334 days held in abeyance; 24 months probation; pay $1,575 in fines and costs Jarred Richard Dwyer, 22, of East Jordan; impaired driving and driving while license suspended; serve 93 days in jail with 73 days credit and 20 days held in abeyance John Joseph Sutherland, 34, of East Jordan; larceny $200-$1,000; serve 365 days in jail with credit for one day served and 364 days held in abeyance; 24 months probation; pay $38,951 in fines and costs James Franklin Nanegos II, 27, of Petoskey; operating motor vehicle with high alcohol content and attempted fleeing and eluding police-fourth degree, serve 365 days in jail with one day credit and 15 days work release with 349 days held in abeyance; 24 months probation; pay $1,275 in fines and costs Steve Foley (231) 439-9397 Andrea Simard has always enjoyed watching peoples reaction when they first sample her mustard. Over the years, shes dished out many samples and some three years ago began selling, marketing and distributing Mabs Atomic Mustard on her own. I didnt go into it thinking itd be a worldwide product, Simard said. I do the marketing, distributing, and Im making it myself. Being in a small town with people that know me, that name recognition is a big deal. It also helps that Mabs Atomic Mustard which uses only premium, fine ground mustard flour and pure cane sugar to ensure the best and most consistent taste possible goes well on a number of sandwiches, crunchy snacks or in various sauces. Its fun, I like it, Simard said of her product. Its really fun to have people try it and be so surprised. Usually someone tries it and says oh my gosh, so-and-so would love this. The name Mabs Atomic Mustard is in honor of Simards Swedish grandmother Mabel, who was known simply as Mabs by her sister-in-law and a couple of her close friends. Her recipe was a staple condiment and on hand every Christmas Eve for a smorgasbord of ham, meatballs, potato sausage and a plethora of other traditional dishes. Simard said her grandmother rarely gave out her recipe, but loved having people sample it or would send some of the treat home with them. Right after World War II, when my dad was 10, he said someone tried it and they said it was atomic, jokingly, Simard said. That just kind of stuck. Simards friend, Christine Webster, helped design the packaging logo, which includes a photo of Mabs from her early 20s. I had an idea in mind of the colors and the photo, Simard said. Its been trademarked now for two years. Now in its third year of being sold around Northern Michigan, it was first offered at Petoskey Cheese after Simard was introduced to store owner Katie Potts. She (Potts) was the first person to take it, Simard said. She was just opening and a mutual friend said she might take it and she (Potts) said shed carry it. Shes been just awesome. Now, Simards product can also be found at retailers across the state as well as cafes across Northern Michigan. Shes also hoping to do a pop-up shop kitchen coupled with products from Petoskey Cheese at the stores location on Mitchell Street. I love giving out samples, and usually people buy it after tasting it, Simard said. For more information regarding Mabs Atomic Mustard, visit mabsatomicmustard.com. Staff reports The Petoskey News-Review Starting a Business workshop coming up PETOSKEY Individuals in the beginning stages of starting a business, in need of accessing capital, or simply considering self-employment, will soon have the opportunity to attend a Starting a Business workshop in Petoskey. The workshop is being offered by the Northwest Michigan Small Business Development Center and will take place from 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 22, at the Petoskey Michigan Works! Center, 2240 Mitchell Park Drive, Suite B. The workshop will be facilitated by Samantha Reis, a Small Business Development Center Certified Small Business Consultant, who will help aspiring entrepreneurs assess their abilities to lead and manage a company and evaluate market and sales potential for their products or services. This comprehensive, 2.5-hour workshop also incorporates the Small Business Development Centers fundamental Writing a Business Plan workshop and fully covers topics such as determining concept feasibility, startup costs, financing options, the basics of business planning, along with other necessary resources to launch. This workshop is a requirement prior to meeting with an Small Business Development Center consultant one-on-one. There is no charge to attend the workshop, but pre-registration is required. To sign up, go to SBDCMichigan.org or call (231) 929-5060. Law firm welcomes attorney PETOSKEY The Law Offices of Daniel J. Harris recently announced the addition of Jonathan Steffy to its roster of attorneys. In his new role, Steffy will work primarily from the firms Petoskey office and focus mainly on matters involving criminal law. Prior to joining the Harris firm, Steffy spent about six years in assistant public defender roles with the Law Office of the Cook County (Illinois) Public Defender. His legal work background also includes stints with the Illinois Office of the State Appellate Defender from 2009-2012, and as a law clerk in the Office of the Illinois Attorney General in fall 2007. Steffy earned a bachelors degree from The College of the Holy Cross and a law degree from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. For more information about The Law Offices of Daniel J. Harris, see www.lawofficeofdanharris.com. The firms Petoskey office can be reached by phone at (231) 347-4444. Steve Zucker (231) 439-9346 BOYNE CITY In what could be a harbinger of whats to come for Northern Michigan this flu season, one area elementary school was hit by a bug Monday. Boyne City Public School Superintendent Patrick Little said higher-than-normal absences were first noted by school bus drivers and food service staff at the start of the day. He said by midmorning on Monday, attendance figures showed that just 45 percent of the elementary school students were in attendance. Little did not have exact numbers, but said several staff members were out sick as well. He said the illness seemed to be mostly limited to the elementary school, noting that the middle school was around its usual attendance level for January and the high school was actually above normal in attendance. Little noted that this week is exam week at the high school, which could be playing a factor in the attendance numbers there. He said attendance was at or above average for the district early learners program as well. Little said even with the large number of absences at the elementary school, the district as a whole would still be about 2 percent above the necessary 75 percent attendance level for Monday to count toward the state-required number of school days for the district. Little said the anecdotal reports are of a mixed bag of illness symptoms, however, Dr. Joshua Meyerson, medical director for the Health Department of Northwest Michigan, said a health department nurse stationed at the school reports many children exhibiting flu-like symptoms including respiratory issues and fever. From what weve been told, at least several of them had the flu, Meyerson said. He said in recent days there has been a gradual increase in flu-like illness reported in the state, but this is the first high incidence rate in a school setting that has that has come to the health departments attention. A check with several other area school district superintendents, including those in Charlevoix, East Jordan, and Petoskey, confirmed Meyersons information as none of those districts were reporting any increase in student absences. Meyerson said outbreaks such as the one in Boyne City are unfortunate, but not completely unexpected given how contagious many of these illnesses tend to be. He noted that some of the illness could also be connected to a recent uptick in cases of norovirus-like illnesses a gastrointestinal illness not related to influenza, that many people also mistakenly refer to as the stomach flu. Meyerson said the situation in Boyne City is a good reason to remind people about the best ways to avoid getting or spreading the flu. He said the best advice is: Get a flu vaccine. Meyerson said its still not too late to get the vaccine. Even though the vaccine typically takes up to two weeks to provide maximum immunity, he said there are still several months left in the typical influenza season. Regular and vigorous hand-washing especially before and after eating Covering coughs and sneezes to reduce the chance of spreading any illnesses If you are sick, stay home from work or school to avoid further spreading the illness and to speed your recovery. If you are sick, get plenty of rest and drink plenty of fluids. Fevers may be treated with typical over-the-counter medications such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen. If you have a fever that last more than four or five days or if you hare having trouble breathing, seek medical attention. Although norovirus-like illnesses usually dont involve respiratory issues, many of the same recommendations apply to preventing the spread of that disease as well. Little said school custodial and other staff members have being doing increased sanitizing of school facilities including commonly touched surfaces since classes resumed on Jan. 2. He said in addition to increased cleaning and disinfecting efforts, the school staff are increasing and revisiting discussing good health practices with students. A message from the district to parents posted late Monday morning read, in part, Our custodial crew, bus drivers, and other staff are re-doubling efforts to kill germs and keep surfaces clean. Thank you to the staff for covering for absent co-workers and making today productive for learning. Little said district officials will continue monitoring the attendance and illness situation on a daily basis. Jillian Fellows (231) 439-9389 jfellows@petoskeynews.com The Petoskey News-Review HARBOR SPRINGS A proposed floodplain reduction project that would involve multiple Harbor Springs property owners was a topic of continued discussion for Harbor Springs Public Schools board members on Monday. The project is the result of a new and expanded floodplain map from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The map was redrawn last spring for the first time since the 1980s and would now impact more than 100 residential and commercial buildings within the city. In order to mitigate the impact of the new map, city officials are working on ways to reduce the floodplain in a project that would require the cooperation of multiple entities. For the portion of the project below the bluff, that means coordinating with the Michigan Department of Transportation, as the work would include M-119. For the portion of the project above the bluff near Fairview Street and east of State Street the city has proposed that Irish Boat Shop and Harbor Springs Public Schools pay for the portions of the project that would occur on their properties in the affected area. The city and Irish Boat Shop have already signed on for the project. The school district is still debating whether spending an estimated $64,000 to reduce the floodplain on property near the middle school would be a wise use of taxpayer dollars. During Mondays school board meeting, superintendent Michael Behrmann said a conversation with a FEMA contractor has been scheduled for Friday in order to discuss the project and ask questions about the districts options. School board members said they were interested in finding out more about the timeline for the work and what would happen if they did not participate in the project. What is the guarantee that the floodplain then gets reduced in the final published documents? Behrmann said. Thats certainly on everybodys mind. Its a lot of money to put forward. Board member Gary Morse said the district does have flood insurance, adding that $64,000 is a lot of money, and if we are going to spend it then I want to make sure were spending it to the best interest of our clientele. Representatives from both the city and Irish Boat Shop were also in attendance at Mondays meeting. Michael Esposito, president of Irish Boat Shop, noted during the meetings public comments section that the school districts bus garage and driveway are built on the floodplain. Theres additional layers to this issue that I think everyone is aware of, but I want to state them again, he said. Thats the fact that a portion of this issue exists because the school district, back in I believe the 80s, built the bus garage and driveway that enters from Fairview to the bus garage in the floodplain. That probably shouldnt have happened in those days, but it was allowed to. By the city regulations, youre not allowed to build in the floodplain. Esposito said the garage and driveway then created a dam effect that he has previously brought to school officials attention. Back in 14, I had this conversation with (former school superintendent Mark Tompkins) and members of the school board and at that time the school district chose to not do anything, which is fine. It was your choice, Esposito said. Now we have the federal government coming in and saying theres an issue, so again Im saying theres a problem that needs to be addressed, whether its purely for the schools benefit and protecting the school buildings, but youre creating a problem upstream and were a part of that problem. HARRISBURG -- Saying Pennsylvania had gone from a Commonwealth at a crossroads to a Commonwealth on a comeback, Democratic Tom Wolf began his second term Tuesday by striking a bipartisan note, asking Pennsylvanians to help move the state even further forward. So, let us have faith in each other, Wolf, 70, of York County said, wrapped in an overcoat against the pervasive chill of a January day. Let us have faith in what we can fix together, what we can achieve together -- what we can build together. It wont be easy work. Wolf begins his second, and final four-year term, with the state facing a $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion deficit for the fiscal year that starts July 1; with smaller and more conservative majorities in the General Assembly; and with a stock of political capital that he must expend both wisely and quickly to preserve his long-term legacy. Flanked by state legislators; two, former Republican governors, Mark Schweiker and Tom Ridge, and a trio of Democrats who have been widely mentioned as potential successors in 2022 - Attorney General Josh Shapiro; Auditor General Eugene DePasquale and state Treasurer Joe Torsella -- recalled the challenges the state faced when he took office in 2014. We were still proud of our storied past, but the future had never looked more uncertain, he said, adding later that, the state was mired in a crisis of confidence brought on by a struggling economy, stagnating wages, a growing budget deficit and a shortfall in funding for public education. The result? The citizens of this great Commonwealth no longer trusted that our leaders could find common ground, he said. Frankly, after so many failures, we no longer trusted them to do much of anything. The fault wasnt a Democratic or Republican thing ... it was a simple lack of faith in Harrisburgs ability to solve problems in a way that put people first. Wolf, admittedly, didnt do much initially to better that situation. He spent much of his first year in office mired in a months-long budget standoff with Republicans in the General Assembly. It was only after the administration dropped its demands for a higher state sales and personal income taxes that relations began to thaw. Wolf kept up his demands for a severance tax on natural gas drillers, coming close when the Senate included it in a compromise revenue package in 2017. But, he said, working together, Democrats and Republicans were able to right the states ship, reinvigorating the economy and funneling more money into public education. The proof of that effort was in an election year 2018 budget that ducked any major tax increases and sailed swiftly through the General Assembly, netting the first gubernatorial signature of Wolfs tenure. Gov. Tom Wolf is sworn in and begins his second term as Pennsylvania's governor. "The accomplishments of the last four years arent my accomplishments, Wolf said. These are our accomplishments. Pennsylvanians have earned the right to feel optimistic about our future. And as we look forward to the next four years, I want us to be ambitious in imagining the Pennsylvania we can build together. It was, in its way, the ... Wolfiest ... of speeches, shot through with the professorial governors lecture hall reminders of Pennsylvanias prominent role in helping to create a new nation. There were proud references to his daughters; shameless homerism for the champion Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Penguins and Villanova Wildcats. And, of course, an inevitable dad joke about new Lt. Gov. John Fetterman finally wearing a tie in public. Wolfs address, coming in the midst of the longest government shutdown in American history, made only elliptical reference of the partisan paralysis currently gripping Congress and President Donald Trumps White House. But the Democrats evocation of a divided in government in Pennsylvania, that had nonetheless found common ground in the most explicitly partisan circumstances, made comparisons impossible to avoid. Look, we all come to public service with convictions that we know we cant compromise. I certainly do," he said. "Any I know my friends in the Legislature do as well. So sometimes well disagree. And sometimes, well have to agree to disagree. But, he continued, that doesnt have to stop us from working together to make progress for Pennsylvania where we have common ground. As [Senate Majority Leader Jake] Corman said, were not like Washington. We can work together here in Harrisburg. We can get things done." He urged the assembled crowd to keep pressing forward, to continue the holy experiment and William Penns commitment to tolerance; the Founders' "civic spirit, and Abraham Lincolns political courage, as they sought to close geographic, economic, racial and religious divides. Our ability to come together, again and again, across whatever boundaries may divide us and renew this great political experiment for another generation - thats what made Pennsylvania the place Im so proud to be from, he said. Building on past achievements and keeping the state pointed in the direction of progress might be a lot to ask of a divided Harrisburg, Wolf said, added that he was ready to do my part. But today, Im asking you, the people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to do your part as well, he continued, acknowledging that it would take a leap of faith. Still, by [choosing] hope over hopelessness, empathy over apathy, and action over passivity, Pennsylvanians and their elected leaders can get the job done, he said. Let us have faith in each other, he said. In these tough times, its a bit of an ask, to be sure. The next four years will tell the tale. Forecasters continue to monitor a storm that is expected to pass through central Pennsylvania into the weekend. Though its still several days away, the storms effects are expected to be substantial. As of Tuesday morning, the storm was in the Pacific Ocean south of Alaska, according to WGAL meteorologist Ethan Houston. The storm is expected to make landfall along the Pacific coast on Thursday before tracking east toward Pennsylvania. Houston explained that once the storm makes landfall, meteorologists will be able to get a better idea as to what the weekend will look like. I will say, it does look like its going to be an impactful storm for most of the mid-Atlantic, the Susquehanna Valley, he said. Houston expects conditions will begin to deteriorate in central Pennsylvania by midday Saturday, and the worst of the storm will be in the region by Saturday night. Weather stays dry & seasonable for Tuesday and Wednesday. A more active, wintry weather pattern returns Thursday. We could be dealing with a large storm system this coming weekend! FORECAST: https://t.co/KDMhbIsVtD Ethan Huston (@EthanWGAL) January 14, 2019 Joe Ceru, a meteorologist with National Weather Service in State College, said his agency has looked at several models of the storms track. Those models have all shown some variety, and he said where the storm moves will ultimately determine where precipitation falls across the region. We are looking for a significant event to move through this weekend, he said, adding that forecast comes with medium to medium-high confidence." Ceru also explained colder temperatures will result in the storms effects primarily bring snowfall - warmer temperatures, however, will mean snow and mixed precipitation. There is a potential for heavy precipitation. The question is what type it could be," Ceru said. 1/15/19|7AM Potential major winter storm for the holiday weekend followed by arctic cold snap and sub-zero wind chills. Details on snow/ice accumulations are still uncertain. Be prepared for significant disruptions to travel and daily activities. Continue to monitor the forecast at weather.gov/ctp. Posted by US National Weather Service State College PA on Tuesday, January 15, 2019 A 3 - to 8-year prison sentence isnt too harsh a punishment for a passenger convicted of attacking an elderly bus driver with a hammer, a state Superior Court panel ruled Tuesday. The court upheld the punishment of Kesely Epps, 43, in an opinion by Judge Deborah A. Kunselman. A Delaware County judge imposed the penalty after a jury convicted Epps of reckless endangerment, simple assault and resisting arrest for the October 2016 incident on a SEPTA bus in Brookhaven. Epps was acquitted of robbery and assault charges. The hammer attack was filmed by surveillance cameras on the bus. Investigators said the assault lasted several minutes and the bus was moving at the time. Epps only claim on appeal to the state court was that his sentence is manifestly excessive. He filed that challenge after county Judge Mary Alice Brennan refused to reconsider his punishment. In backing Brennans decision, Kunselman cited the countys judges finding that the attack was particularly violent and aggressive. She also referred to Brennans finding that Epps had showed great indifference to the lives of the bus driver, the passenger on the bus, the responding police officers and passing motorists and pedestrians. Its a slow process, but the former Patriot-News building is coming down. The demolition project started in October and is taking place over the course of a few months as crews wrap up asbestos abatement and tear down the building at 812 Market St., Harrisburg. Much of the roof and brick wall has been stripped away from the third floor. Holes throughout expose caverns in what was once office space, overhead lights dangling like ancient stalactites. The sidewalk is blocked off with caution tape, and a large first-floor window is broken out. On one side, the loading dock is stripped away, leaving a peek into the building, where for more than 50 years, reporters broke news and editors burned the midnight oil to get the newspaper onto doorsteps. The building is now owned by the Public School Employees Retirement System, which was conducting a study of what should go in its place. It was purchased first by a New York commercial real estate company, Twenty Lake Holdings in June 2017 for $644,286. L & B Realty Advisers LLP, a Dallas-based real estate investment advisor, then purchased the building from Twenty Lake Holdings for $1.6 million on Dec. 20, 2017, according to Dauphin County records. PSERS announced in January 2017 that L & B Realty Advisers LLP made the purchase on its behalf. John M. Barber got arrested at age 16 after he participated in the attack and robbery of a motorist in 2007 in Harrisburg. He spent the bulk of the next 11 years behind bars for additional crimes: a gun possession charge and series of small-time drug arrests. As of last May 31, Barber had been free from incarceration. But he violated his parole for not checking in as required, officials said, and a warrant was issued for his arrest on Dec. 18. On Saturday morning, a Harrisburg police officer stopped his car. The parole violation could have sent Barber back to prison, but only for three months. Thats when Barber would hit his parole max date," and all supervision would end. Harrisburg police say John M. Barber fled from police and caused a horrific crash Jan. 12, 2019 that left the driver fighting for his life. But police say Barber fled from that traffic stop, nearly dragging an officer alongside him. What happened next forever maimed an innocent Adams County family trying to make it to the Farm Show and could send Barber to prison for many years. An officer pulled over Barbers Honda Civic at Sixth and Woodbine streets shortly after 8 a.m. after noticing his vehicle had expired registration, according to police. Barber handed over a PennDOT identification card to the officer, police said, but then stomped on his accelerator and sped away down Sixth Street instead of turning off his ignition as the officer requested. Police followed Barber for two blocks until a supervisor called off the chase. Officers already knew who he was from his ID card and could arrest him later. But Barber continued speeding down Sixth Street, drawing the attention of firefighters at the fire station. At Commonwealth and Forster streets, about a mile from the traffic stop, police say Barber ran a red light and slammed into a pickup truck carrying two adults and three children. The 48-year-old driver of the pickup truck suffered critical, life-threatening injuries. The other occupants, including a woman, 3-year-old twins, and a 13-year-old, suffered injuries ranging from minor to moderate, police said. Police said Barber had a small amount of marijuana in his car, but that crime was reduced to the same level as a traffic ticket in 2017 by city council. At most, Barber faced the possibility of a $75 fine. The drugs would have represented another parole violation, but Barber was up against his max date on April 10, and that date would not get extended for technical parole violations. Barbers choice to flee police, however, now subjects him to a heap of new charges, prosecutors say. They are waiting until Barber is released from a hospital to file any charges. Barbers Honda Civic struck the pickup truck in the drivers side door area with such force it knocked the truck onto its roof, police say. The crash was recorded on surveillance cameras maintained by Capitol Police. Barbers criminal history began in December 2007, when was adjudicated as a juvenile delinquent for his participation in the robbery of a motorist Nov. 30, 2007. He was one of six teens arrested for robbery, robbery of a motor vehicle and conspiracy. Police said the six attacked the motorist after he left his car and robbed him of several hundred dollars and his car keys before fleeing in the victims car. Shortly after turning 18, Barber was again arrested, this time for selling $100 of crack cocaine to an undercover officer in the 200 block of Hummel Street. He had two baggies of marijuana in his pocket, according to court records. Three months later, while out on bond, police again arrested Barber for selling crack cocaine to a confidential informant in the presence of an undercover officer, according to court records. While awaiting trial on both drug arrests, Barber was again arrested on Jan. 2, 2010 after police say he tried to hide a stolen gun behind a door as officers investigated possible drug sales in the area. Officers from the Street Crimes Unit stopped near Kittatinny and Hummel streets about 9:20 p.m. after seeing a group of people gathered in front of an apartment building, according to court records. The officers parked around the corner, and when they emerged from around the corner walking toward the apartment building, a man leaving the building shouted to them: Theyre out of weed! When the officers got into the foyer, a wide-eyed man tried to close the door on them and fled into an apartment. As officers talked with others in the hallway, including Barber, thats when they said they found a .38-caliber revolver reported stolen out of Philadelphia tucked behind a door. A member of the Street Crimes Unit said he saw Barber put something behind the door and try to leave the building when officers arrived. Because of Barbers juvenile history, he is forbidden from possessing a firearm. Barber pleaded guilty to the drug charges and gun charge in June 2010, drawing a prison sentence of up to eight years. After serving three years, Barber was released on parole in 2013. Three months later, police again arrested Barber for selling $80 of crack cocaine at 20th and Derry streets. That conviction resulted in a prison sentence and parole violation that kept him behind bars until last year. Barber also picked up a new drug charge in 2016 while incarcerated at the state prison in Forest County. That means he found a way to obtain drugs while behind bars. Details of that charge werent immediately available. Barbers alias, according to court records, was John B. Addict. Barbers parole violation warrant issued last month was one of 1,676 active arrest warrants for state parolees. In addition, there are 263 other court arrest warrants for special probation cases. BARRON, Wis. (AP) A Wisconsin man suspected of abducting a 13-year-old girl made up his mind to take the teen when he spotted her getting on a school bus, and he made two aborted trips to her familys home before finally carrying out an attack in which he killed Jayme Closs' mother in front of her, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday. Jake Thomas Patterson, 21, told investigators he was driving to his job at a cheese factory one day when he stopped behind a school bus and watched Jayme get on. At that moment, he said, "he knew that was the girl he was going to take," the complaint said. Police have said the two did not know each other. Prosecutors charged Patterson on Monday with kidnapping Jayme and killing her parents Oct. 15 near Barron, about 90 miles northeast of Minneapolis. He was also charged with a count of armed robbery and was scheduled to make his first court appearance later in the day. Investigators believe Patterson hid Jayme in a remote cabin before she escaped on Thursday. The criminal complaint said Patterson had gone to the home twice intending to kidnap Jayme, but broke off one attempt because too many cars were in the driveway and called off another because the house was too active. On the night she was abducted, Jayme told police, she was asleep in her room when the family dog started barking. She woke her parents as a car came up the driveway. She and her mother, Denise, hid in the bathroom, clutching each other in the bathtub with the shower curtain pulled shut. Her father, James, went to the front door. They heard a gunshot, and Jayme knew that James had just been killed, according to the complaint. Denise Closs started to call 911. Patterson broke down the bathroom door. Jayme said he was dressed in black, wearing a face mask and gloves and carrying a shotgun. Patterson told her mother to hang up and ordered her to tape Jayme's mouth shut. Patterson told detectives that Denise Closs struggled with the tape so he wrapped the tape himself around Jayme's mouth and head. He then taped her hands behind her back and taped her ankles together, pulled her out of the bathtub and shot her mother in the head. He dragged Jayme outside, nearly slipping in blood pooled on the floor. He threw her in the trunk and drove off, pausing to yield to three squad cars speeding toward the house with flashing lights. Patterson took her to a cabin that he said was his, ordered her into a bedroom and told her to take off her clothes and get dressed in his sister's pajamas. He then threw her clothes into a fireplace in the cabin's basement. Whenever he had friends over, he made clear that no one could know she was there or "bad things could happen to her," so she had to hide under the bed. He sealed her under the bed with tote boxes and weights so she could not crawl out, according to the complaint. She had to stay under the bed whenever he left the house, sometimes going for hours without food, water or bathroom breaks. Patterson told investigators that he kept Jayme under the bed when his father often visited him on Saturdays, turning up the radio in his room to cover any noise she might make. He said he assumed he had gotten away with the slayings and kidnappings after the first two weeks went by. He told detectives that on the night he kidnapped her he put stolen license plates on his car, disabled the dome light and removed an anti-kidnapping release cord from his trunk. He also shaved his head so he would not leave any hair behind and chose his father's Mossberg shotgun because he thought it was a common model that would be hard to trace. Patterson, who has no criminal history in Wisconsin, was described by people who knew him as a quiet and good student who participated in quiz bowl in high school. He wrote in his high school yearbook of wanting to join the Marines. On Monday, a spokeswoman for the Marines said Patterson lasted just a little more than month before washing out in October 2015. The spokeswoman, Yvonne Carlock, said by email that Patterson's early discharge indicated "the character of his service was incongruent with Marine Corps' expectations and standards." The criminal complaint says Patterson told detectives he worked at the Saputo Cheese Factory near Almena for just two days before quitting. The company did not immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press. Patterson's defense attorneys, Charles Glynn and Richard Jones, said they believe Patterson can get a fair trial, but they are not sure where. "It's been an emotional time for this community and a difficult time for this community. We don't take that lightly. But we have a job to do in protecting our client," Jones said. Police collected more than 3,500 tips following Jayme's disappearance, but no hard leads emerged. Then on Thursday, a woman walking her dog spotted Jayme along a road near Gordon, a town about an hour's drive north of Barron. The woman said the girl begged her for help, saying Patterson had been hiding her in a nearby cabin and that she had escaped when he left her alone. Neighbors called 911, and officers arrested Patterson within minutes. The New York Post published photos of the cabin Monday. The images showed a shabby living area with a couch, refrigerator, an old television set and an unfinished ceiling. Exterior photographs show a lean-to loaded with firewood, a three-car garage and an empty box of adult female diapers in a trash can. A sign over the cabin's front door reads "Patterson's Retreat." Authorities have not said whether Jayme was sexually assaulted. The complaint does not charge Patterson with any form of sexual assault. The narrative in the document does not say what Patterson did with her. Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said he met Jayme for the first time Sunday, and that she had an "awesome" smile on her face. He said she showed him her room at her aunt's home in Barron. "It was a moment I'll never forget," he said. ___ By Amy Forliti and Todd Richmond, Associated Press; Associated Press investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report. ___ For the latest updates on the story: https://bit.ly/2D9VEkM ___ For more stories on Jayme's abduction and her parents' deaths: https://apnews.com/JaymeCloss ___ Richmond reported from Madison, Wisconsin. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trichmond1 A juvenile was arrested and charged with aggravated assault on a police officer after a brawl at Harrisburg High Schools John Harris Campus that police used pepper spray to control. Seven other students will be cited for disorderly conduct, police said. Police said the single student who was arrested will also be charged with simple assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. A non-emergency lockdown was put in place about 12:05 p.m. when police from three departments Harrisburg, Swatara Township and Capitol Police responded to the school to handle a lunchroom brawl. One officer was punched during the melee. All available officers responded to the scene and as students continued to fight police officers, several were sprayed with mace to gain control and detained those responsible, Harrisburg police said in a news release. The non-emergency lockdown was lifted within an hour, and the school resumed a normal class schedule, said district officials. Officials said they werent sure what started the fight, but it appeared to pit a group of Hispanic students against some African-American students. Charleicia Thompson, 16, who was walking to her next class, said she didnt know why the students were throwing punches, but she said she heard it was a black versus Puerto Rican fight. She said it spilled out into the hallway, where it looked like a riot. Security guards were very good they were on the scene already but they werent enough," Thompson said. They couldnt handle all of it. Police had to come in, too. Jazmine Padua, 15, said she was thankful for not being affected by pepper spray. There were 10 to 20 students who were fighting, but there were students watching the fight, and it seemed like there were 100 people involved, Padua said. The police pushed us out of the building and they started using pepper spray. While the fight was disruptive, Thompson said, it was over quickly. Parents and guardians were notified of the situation via the School Messenger notification. The campus resumed its regular class schedule within an hour" of the event, the district said in a statement. I just didnt want anything to happen to anybody, Thompson said. I wanted it to get done and over with, so I could get back to class. It was an over the top fight that didnt need to escalate. As he kicked off his second term today, Gov. Tom Wolf hailed Pennsylvanias progress and promise in his inaugural speech. The Democratic governor didnt delineate specific policies or a legislative agenda for his second term. He will lay out more specifics in his budget address next month. But his speech revealed much about his vision for Pennsylvania as he begins another four years as governor. Here are seven takeaways from Wolfs speech. 1. Teamwork makes the dream work In his speech, Wolf acknowledges a divided Harrisburg. But he hailed a host of bipartisan accomplishments in an early excerpt of his speech. Wolf cited criminal justice reform, the medical marijuana law, new protections for domestic violence victims and a more modern liquor system. He urged Republican and Democratic lawmakers to work together. Rather than thumping his chest, Wolf sought to share the credit with the Legislature. The accomplishments of the last four years arent my accomplishments, Wolf said. These are our accomplishments. Republicans control the General Assembly. The GOP holds a smaller majority than it did in the last legislative session but its members are more conservative. Wolf probably wont find his second term to be easier than his first. Still, Wolf is aware of the challenges he faces, which is why he aimed to extend a hand in friendship as opposed to raising a fist. Were not like Washington, Wolf said. We can work together here in Harrisburg. We can get things done. 2. Crossroads to comeback As Wolf ticked off the accomplishments of his first term, he aimed to change the perception that the Capitol - and Pennsylvania - is stuck in the mud. Weve gone from a Commonwealth at a crossroads to a commonwealth on a comeback, Wolf said. He noted that more people are graduating high school, more kids are in pre-K programs and more Pennsylvanias have health insurance. Pennsylvania has created more than 200,000 new jobs good jobs that support families, Wolf said. Weve improved more than 20,000 miles of roadways and restored more than 1,900 bridges. He also noted the stronger fiscal footing of Pennsylvanias state government, turning a $2.5 billion deficit into a surplus. 3. Building the next Amazon Wolf said he wants Pennsylvania to be a place where we dont wait around for Amazon to move here, because were building the next Amazon. To that end, Wolf pledged to continue to invest in schools. He noted that under his administration, the state has poured an additional $1 billion into schools. He also talked about continuing to invest in infrastructure and positioning Pennsylvania as a hotbed for research and development. It should be noted that Pennsylvania tried - and failed - to woo Amazon to the Keystone State. 4. His toughest day The governor reflected on what he said was unquestionably the toughest day Ive had in this office." Wolf referred to the mass shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue on Oct. 27. A gunman shot and killed 11 people in the Tree of Life synagogue. Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers attended the inauguration, delivering the invocation. Even in the overwhelming grief of the shooting, Wolf said, the people of Pennsylvania lifted us all up. He hailed the grace and courage of police, the high school students who organized a vigil that drew 3,000 people, and members of the Islamic community who offered to guard synagogues. We all came together. We all did what we could. We all leaned on each other. We all found the strength to carry on, Wolf said. Thats who we are. Thats the Pennsylvania I grew up in; the Pennsylvania Frances and I raised our family in; and thats the Pennsylvania we should all want. 5. A vision of inclusion Wolf repeatedly emphasized his vision of Pennsylvania as a place of inclusion. We are not like any other state, Wolf said early in his remarks. We began as a Holy Experiment in tolerance and inclusion, and for more than 300 years, history has chosen us as its crucible. He said we shouldnt just appreciate William Penns spirit of tolerance; we should emulate it. He also recalled how Benjamin Franklin once worried about whether Pennsylvania could survive the arrival of so many German immigrants. Ben Franklin was right about a lot of things, but not about this, Wolf said. He should have had more faith in Pennsylvania. And Im not just saying that because he was talking about my ancestors. Throughout its history, Pennsylvania has never been defined by one ethnicity, or one religion, or one ideology, or one region. Weve always been diverse. And weve always been at the epicenter of change. 6. A thank you to Mike Stack Wolf didnt exactly have the coziest relationship with Mike Stack, the outgoing lieutenant governor. But Wolf offered some gratitude in his remarks. Id like to say a special thank-you to Mike Stack for his hard work over the last four years, Wolf said. Wolf welcomed new Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, thanking him for his commitment to public service, and for his friendship. He also noted the more traditional suit on the famously casual Fetterman, saying, Dont you think the necktie looks pretty good on John? 7. Voting is just the beginning Wolf thanked the voters who gave him a second term and noted upticks in voting across the commonwealth. But he said Pennsylvanians need to understand their work doesnt end in the voting booth. He urged voters to be engaged and involved with their government. I ask you to choose hope over hopelessness, empathy over apathy, Wolf said. I ask you to choose action over passivity. I ask you to take the future of our Commonwealth into your own hands and help lead us forward. Optimism, hope and a feeling of bipartisanship filled the air at the state Capitol following Gov. Tom Wolfs second inauguration Tuesday. In his address, Wolf cited accomplishments made during his first four-year term through compromise with the GOP-controlled General Assembly. The governor said he wanted that bipartisanship to continue. Republican legislative leaders and others in attendance said they came away inspired and hopeful. It was a good speech. It was a positive speech, said Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre County. Well have our differences as time goes on. How we handle those differences will define us. Whether we compromise as we did the last two years and get significant things passed as the governor mentioned that we all get a little bit of something, thatll be positive for Pennsylvania. He added: So todays a day of hope and a positive feeling. Well see where it goes from here. In his speech, Wolf mentioned continuing to build on his investment in education as a priority. That is an area where House Majority Leader Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster County, suggested he sees as an opportunity for common ground with the Democratic governor. Cutler, who became majority leader following the retirement of Rep. Dave Reed, is particularly interested in career and technical training and workforce development. I was very hopeful to hear that. Ive had a good working relationship with the governor on other issues as well and I expect that to continue, Cutler said. I want to congratulate him on his reelection and being sworn-in. I look forward to working with him. Senate Democratic Leader Jay Costa of Allegheny County said he will look to the governor to help the Democrats advance other issues beyond education and workforce development, such as reasonable and responsible gun control measures and increasing the states minimum wage. All those type of things are really ripe for a conversation as we go forward, Costa said. Wolf made a point in his speech of acknowledging what he said was unquestionably the toughest day he experienced in office. That was the October day when the mass shooting occurred at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. He noted that on that day, Costa and House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny County, all turned out to share in the grief caused by that tragedy. We all came together. We all did what we could. We all leaned on each other. We all found the strength to carry on. Thats who we are, Wolf said. Thats the Pennsylvania we should all want. It was that spirit of unification that Wolf expressed that left Pennsylvania Chamber of Business & Industry President and CEO Gene Barr feeling hopeful. We have work to do. We acknowledged we have work to do, Barr said. Wolf said there are going to be things were not going to agree on, maybe never agree on. So lets figure out how we can make, as he said, make government work for people. How we can create a civil process for engagement here that unfortunately were not seeing at the federal level. Can we do better here in Pennsylvania? I think we have to make every effort to do that. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Stan Saylor, R-York County, said he and Wolf have had conversations that leave him feeling hopeful about where Pennsylvania is heading. Pennsylvania is moving in the direction where we really do become the Keystone State again. I really do believe that, Saylor said. I do think the governor is serious about working together. Apparently, Saylor is convinced of that. He said despite their policy differences and what is said to be a $1.5 billion deficit that will have to be closed in the upcoming budget negotiations, Im still expecting an on-time budget this year, believe it or not. In 2009, U.S. Airways Flight 1549 took off just before 3:30 p.m. Jan. 15 from LaGuardia Airport in New York City bound for Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The plane never even left New York airspace. Minutes after striking a flock of geese, the Airbus 320 was expertly guided to landing on the Hudson River. The collision with the geese crippled both of the planes engines. Capt. Chesley Burnett Sullenberger and co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles safely landed the airplane in the river and evacuated all of the 150 passengers before the plane sank. It has been 10 years since the stunning event that in 2016 was the subject of the movie Sully starring Tom Hanks and directed by Clint Eastwood. Sullenberger and the rest of the crew received multiple awards and accolades for their feat. Former New York City Gov. David Paterson at the time called it the miracle on the Hudson. Pa. state police say a female school employee who hit three young siblings, killing one of them, at a school bus stop near their Butler County home did not see the children due to sun glare. WPXI-TV and TribLive in Pittsburgh report the driver, identified as Gina Kibbie, 38, of Butler, who told WPXI she is an employee of the Butler Area School District, where the children attend. Police says she was traveling westbound on Pine Drive around 9 a.m. Monday when her car hit the three children along the roadway. State Trooper Dan Kesten told WPXI Kibbie had completely stopped for a nearby stop sign and wasnt even going very fast, just never saw the children. Kibbie told police she did not see the children due to sun glare. Mark Fife, 11, was rushed by ambulance to Butler Memorial Hospital, but he died a short time later due to his injuries. His 9-year-old sister, Lyssa, suffered a broken ankle, and their 6-year-old brother, Ryan, remains in the hospital with more severe injuries, according to police. Officials said they were not yet sure whether the children were sitting or standing when they were hit. There is no sidewalk separating the snow-blanketed field bordering the bus stop from the sloped roadway at the curved intersection. The childrens front door is about 50 feet from the site of the crash. The investigation continues, but no charges were filed as of yet. One hundred and four years ago on this day, the 6th of January, 1915 Alan Wilson Watts was born in a village that is now a part of London. Searching my blog I note I referenced him in fifty-five different postings over the past decade. This becomes my fifty-sixth revisit. No doubt Mr Watts is an important figure in my life. And, more important I think he stands as a significant figure in the meeting of psychology and Eastern religions, as well as the introduction specifically of Zen to our popular Western imagination. For a lot of good and a lot of bad Alan Watts cannot be ignored. In Zen Master Who? my history of Zen Buddhism come west I describe the first of the several times I met Alan Watts. It was sometime, I believe, in 1969. I was on the guest staff of the Zen monastery in Oakland led by Roshi Jiyu Kennett. I was enormously excited to actually meet this famous man, the great interpreter of the Zen way. Wearing my very best robes, I waited for him to show up; and waited and waited. Nearly an hour later, Watts arrived dressed in a kimono, accompanied by a fawning young woman and an equally fawning young man. It was hard not to notice his interest in the young woman who, as a monk, I was embarrassed to observe seemed not to be wearing any underwear. I was also awkwardly aware that Watts seemed intoxicated. What follows Ive mostly cobbled together from earlier reflections stitched together with a few new thoughts here and there Alan Watts was the first person to write popular books about Zen in the West, beginning in 1937 with the Spirit of Zen, and more importantly in 1957 with his best selling Way of Zen. He drew mainly on the scholarly volumes just being written by D. T. Suzuki, the first person to write authentically about Zen in European languages, through Watts engaging style made enormously readable and genuinely compelling. As I summarized in my history, An erstwhile Episcopal priest, engaging raconteur, and scandalous libertine, Alan Watts was also a prolific author whose books created an inviting sense of Zen-as-pure-experience and a do-what-you-want spirituality. These qualities both led many people to Zen while also profoundly misrepresenting what the tradition actually taught. On that last note, some years later I attended a talk by an American Zen priest. At the end, during the question and answer period, someone asked about Watts. The priest sighed, and then said, I know theres a lot of controversy about Alan Watts and what he really understood about Zen. He paused. And then, added, But, you know, without Alan Watts, I wouldnt be standing here on this platform. I have to say, in large part, thats true for me as well. In the 1960s and 70s, Alan Watts opened some important doors for many of us looking for a new way. Im not really sure another version, a more accurate version of Zen would have caught the popular imagination. So, messy. Kind of like life. Over these passing years Ive come to feel the title of his biography In My Own Way and the title of the English edition of Monica Furlongs biography of him, Genuine Fake, taken together points to the complexities of this intriguing Anglo-American Zen trickster/ancestor of our contemporary spiritual scene. In a relentless critique of Alan Watts, Lou Nordstrom and Richard Pilgrim point out how an authentic spirituality must encompass practice, discipline, and effort, features completely lacking in Alan Watts Zen. In large part I agree. But not completely. There is absolutely a place of falling away of practice, discipline, and effort. As we open our hearts we find the way is in fact broad and forgiving. And it seems he tasted that freedom and joy. I really believe he did. But, the authentic spiritual is also in that delightful conundrum of a real life, totally bound up with practice, discipline, and effort. The way is also, without a doubt, harsh and demands everything. And here Watts missed what Zen actually offers. Its my belief that Alan Watts was at his very best during a brief period when he tried at practice, discipline, and effort. Or, at least stood in their general neighborhood. Raised in England, his natal tradition was Anglicanism. Although he formally abandoned it by sixteen for the eclectic Buddhism of the London Buddhist Society. In his late twenties, having come to America and desperate for an occupation that paid something, he decided to become an Episcopal priest. However, he had not attended college. For most this would be an insurmountable barrier. But by providing a very long list of the books he had read and then showing a suspicious faculty he had not only read them, but profoundly absorbed them, Watts was admitted into the divinity program at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. Watts graduated with a masters degree in divinity and was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1945. He was immediately engaged as the Episcopal chaplain at Northwestern University. He was thirty years old. It appears to have been an amazing moment. He was wildly popular on campus, and his books were received in progressive religious circles as challenging and compelling. Out of this period he wrote what I consider his most interesting contribution, a meeting of Christianity and the wisdoms of the East, especially Buddhism, Behold the Spirit: A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion. And then within five years Watts was out of the ministry, for many reasons not least of which was when his wife sued for an annulment on grounds of adultery. This part would become something of a pattern for his life. Another area where he did pioneering writing, and for which he gets less attention is within the meeting of Western psychology and Eastern religions, particularly Buddhism. Looking at Psychotherapy East and West, I not only found myself reading that I thought Id discovered on my own, but that in fact Watts had pointed me toward pushing on to fifty years ago. Today for those wanting to explore the depths found within the meeting of psychology and Eastern perspectives, specifically, most specifically Buddhism, there are a host of authors whove continued and deepened this exploration. That said, Alan Watts is still worth reading, or, for some of us, re-reading. He is lucid, he is inviting, possibly he is seductive. Alan Watts vision of a spiritual psychology is an invitation into a world at play, where God is playing peek a boo with himself, herself, itself. Here were invited into that play in the fields of the Lord. Me, I think theres more to the project. But, for the parts he goes for, there are few as good as Alan Watts in presenting it. I published this article in the Deseret News back on 13 May 2010: The earliest Christians didnt believe in the New Testament. They couldnt. It didnt exist yet. When Paul praises young Timothy because from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3:15), the only holy scriptures to which he can be referring are those contained in what Christians today call the Old Testament. When Paul proceeds to explain, in the following two verses, that All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works, hes speaking of the Hebrew Bible. Or, if not, hes referring to contemporary, ongoing revelation. More than once, zealous Bible-believing Protestants have told me that, since Timothy already had enough scriptural material to make (him) wise unto salvation and to render him perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works, the Book of Mormon and modern revelation are unnecessary, redundant. They mistakenly assume that Paul was referring to the Bible as they know it. But, by their reasoning, the New Testament itself would seem to be superfluous, as well. (I generally congratulate such people on their apparent conversion to Judaism.) 2 Timothy was probably written about A.D. 64, at the end of Pauls life. Most, if not all, of his other letters, obviously, had already been written and sent by then. But they hadnt yet been gathered together, and the vast majority of Christian congregations in an age without printing, modern transportation and easy communications were probably unaware of them. (Its virtually certain that they didnt know of them all.) Moreover, the four gospels, the Revelation of John and many of the other New Testament epistles were very likely yet to be written. Nearly 20 years elapsed between the crucifixion of Christ and Pauls first letter (1 Thessalonians, written in A.D. 52 or 53), and as many as 60 years or more may have passed before the last New Testament book was composed. (Some scholars would extend that interval to as much as 120 years.) And, then, even more time was still required to gather up the various books, copy them and establish a canon of scripture. In fact, complete texts of the New Testament were still relatively rare until Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the mid-15th century. Individuals seldom, if ever, owned their own copies; very few elite congregations possessed a complete set of the biblical writings. Moreover, most people were illiterate anyway. Given the rarity of books, illiteracy wasnt a crippling liability, and the incentive to learn to read was relatively small. (Medieval European stained glass windows served a vital teaching function.) What this tells us is that many generations of Christians lived and died without access to the New Testament in anything like the sense we know (and take for granted). So there must be something else that made them Christians, something prior to acceptance of the New Testament. What was it? Plainly, it was the acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Master. In the very earliest days of the Christian movement, such acceptance came via personal acquaintance with him, through hearing and receiving his teachings. Subsequently, it came through accepting the teachings of his apostles and other missionariesstill transmitted orally in almost all cases. Then, as the apostles and the earliest Christian disciples departed the scene, the task of passing on the doctrine of Jesus and the facts about his ministry, crucifixion and resurrection fell to those of the next generations. Sometimes they may have been equipped with a gospel or with an epistle or two, but, probably most often, they relied solely on oral tradition and memory. This is another clue to what made people Christians in the earliest period: fellowship with the church and the disciples of Christ. As St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. ca. A.D. 108) put it in his post-apostolic time, in order to be a Christian, one had to be in fellowship with ones Christian bishop. The church existed prior to the New Testament. It wrote the New Testament books and defined the canon. The Bible doesnt establish the church; the church established the Bible. A patent lawsuit filed by Qualcomm Inc against Apple Inc was thrown out by a German court on Tuesday, in a reversal for the U.S. chipmaker after it won a recent court ban on the sale of some iPhones in the country. Reuters is reporting that the regional court in the city of Mannheim dismissed the Qualcomm suit as groundless in an initial verbal decision, saying the patent in question was not violated by the installation of its chips in Apples smartphones. Qualcomm, waging a worldwide patent battle with Apple, said it would appeal after winning a separate case before a court in Munich in December that enabled it to enforce a ban on the sale of older iPhones in Germany. Whiny Don Rosenberg, Qualcomms executive vice president and general counsel said that "Apple has a history of infringing our patents," even though a Munich Court Threw out another Qualcomm patent infringement lawsuit against Apple in October. While we disagree with the Mannheim courts decision and will appeal, we will continue to enforce our (intellectual property) rights against Apple worldwide. In respect to the FTC vs Qualcomm case now in progress in California, if the government prevails in the trial Qualcomm could be forced to change its practices for licensing a trove of patents to device makers like Apple. Apple is closely watching the FTC case, as it has its own pending lawsuit making similar claims against Qualcomm later this year. CNBC's Jim Cramer was in San Francisco last week to talk to a lot of Silicon Valley players about China and President Trump's hard line on China. Cramer interviewed Apple's CEO Tim Cook over many issues including China that is now a trouble spot for many tech companies including Samsung and even Alibaba which tells you how serious the situation in China is getting. While the other CEO's that Cramer spoke with did not want to go on record, Cramer made it crystal clear that there are more tech companies behind Trump on China even though they personally don't like him. On the trade-war, many Valley CEO's are cheering Trump on. CNBC's Jim Cramer stated on his show last night that "When I went out to San Francisco last week, I heard the same thing from a surprising number of people in the tech industry who do not like President [Donald] Trump one bit," the "Mad Money" host said Monday. "What they said was 'If we're going to take on China, now's the time to do it,'" he said. "They may not be fans of the president, but they're on board with the trade war." Cramer added that "Part of the reason could be tied to the pain points emerging in China's economy, Cramer said. On Sunday, Chinese government data revealed that China's overall December exports fell by 4.4 percent and imports sank by 7.6 percent year over year. The data also showed the largest trade surplus with the United States in more than a decade. This harsher-than-expected view ... may be more realistic than you think when it comes to how tech leaders feel about China's unfair trade practices, Cramer said. View the video for more on this. In 2010, the former Democratic nominee for Vice President/speaker at the 2008 Republican National Convention/Iraq War cheerleader/Independent Senator signed a letter from congress stating that: We are very concerned that these companies [like ZTE] are being financed by the Chinese government and are potentially subject to significant influence by the Chinese military which may create an opportunity for manipulation of switches, routers, or software embedded in American telecommunications network so that communications can be disrupted, intercepted, tampered with, or purposely misrouted. This would pose a real threat to our national security. In December 2018, Joe Lieberman signed on to lobby on behalf of ZTE (who Trump also advocated for against the wishes of his own party last year), and here is how he described his upcoming work to Politico: There are obviously still concerns about the safety of their products or the extent to which their products could be used to compromise American security in any way or even individual security, Lieberman said in an interview, adding that ZTE has decided to really try to get ahead of those concerns and be in a position to answer them. So when he was a United States Senator, ZTE was supposedly a national security threat, but afterwards, as a lobbyist, ZTE is now apparently really try[ing] to get ahead of concerns of being a national security threat. There could not be a starker example of how so many of our politicians are nothing more than corporate mercenaries who wont hesitate to sell out their countrymen for a few extra bucks and a pat on the head. The point of becoming a congressperson for the Joe Liebermans of the world isnt to gain serious power and wield it to improve peoples lives, but to make the connections he needs so he can get the job he really wants: being a well-paid lap dog for the globes corporate overlords. Russell Berman has more in The Atlantic about the revolving door between congress and K Street: Of the nearly four dozen lawmakers who left office after the 2016 election, one-fourth stayed in Washington, and one in six became lobbyists, according to an analysis by The Atlantic. The numbers were even higher for those who departed after the 2014 midterms: About half of those former members stuck around, and around one in four became lobbyists. Lobbying remains the single most popular post-Congress career choice for retiring members. Members point out that lobbying allows them to use the experience and issue expertise theyve built over many years in Congress to continue to advocate for causes they believe in. But while that might attract ex-lawmakers to lobbying, its not what draws high-paying companies to them: They want the relationships. Policy wonks and knowledgeable people are out there, said former Representative Jack Kingston of Georgia, a Republican lawmaker-turned-lobbyist who left in 2015 after 24 years in the House. The question is, can you get a door opened, and are you going to work? Lobbyists are a popular target these days, for good reason. Professors at Georgia State University and the University of Exeter in the UK, tracked congressmembers from 1976 to 2012, and found that roughly a quarter of politicians in each party become lobbyists, and the commonality between them is that the most powerful congressmen benefit from this pipeline to K Street. Its an unimpeachable fact that the United States government works on behalf of the most wealthy and powerfuloften against the interests of the vast majority of the populace. Thats thanks to the influence exercised by the most wealthy in our nations capital. Jack Kingstons framing of the job as can you get a door opened is exactly right. D.C. lanyards dress all this up in language like policy wonks, but at the end of the day, the gig is just doing whatever you can to push your bosss interestseven if theyre a national security threat like ZTE. Not every lobbyist is bad. Without the basic act of lobbying, government could not get things done. Certain subject matters do need experts pushing for their implementation, as not every policy is obvious on its face. That said, we are way through the looking glass here. Lobbying and campaign donations are nice little fairy tales that Americans tell themselves about corruption. We are largely nothing more than a kleptocracy who cloaks it under an avalanche of arcane tax rules and the opacity of LLCs and real estate. The joke about America being an insurance company with an army is true when you look at total government spending, and that gives you a good idea of what special interests are most powerful on both sides of the aisle in D.C. The only expansive bill that the Republican Party passed while in complete control of the government the last two years was a massive and massively unpopular tax cut for the richest in this country (and outside it). Now, spineless husks like Marco Rubio are decrying the reality which everyone knew they were bringing upon us. Thats the product of lobbying. It doesnt matter what the Republican voters want, the Republican Partys first priority was to give their donors a return on their investment. The Democrats arent much better. They did something similar when they last had major power, as Nancy Pelosi passed a PAYGO law in 2010 that requires any rise in the deficit to be offset with proportionate spending cuts or tax increases. She is now arguing that Democrats need to pass a PAYGO rule that allows her to bypass the law, otherwise the Trump administration would have the power to overrule pretty much any liberal legislation. Restraints like this on government spending only have one major constituency: the donor class. No one in the Democratic grassroots was clamoring for PAYGO (raise your hand if youve even heard of it before), and tax cuts in general are always popular with Republicans, but support for this latest round of cuts dipped among all voters, and the GOP barely ran onand mostly ran away fromtheir signature legislative accomplishment in the 2018 midterms. Regardless of who is in power, our political system largely does not exist for us, but for our oligarchs, and no one embodies that spirit better than Joe Lieberman. Upon leaving office in 2012, he said Im not going to lobby. For sure. In 2013, Lieberman registered to be a lobbyist and joined the white collar crime group at Kasowitz, Benson & Torres. That name may sound familiar, and thats because that law firm has represented Donald Trump since 2001. Lieberman also joined revolving doors (per OpenSecrets) Victory Park Capital and the American Enterprise Institute. Last year, Lieberman went back to Capitol Hill to implore his former peers to support Betsy DeVos, and he did not disclose that his employer represents the man who nominated the woman he was sent to sell to the American people. While giving his eulogy, Joe Lieberman spoke fondly of John McCain needling him over becoming a lobbyist, quoting McCain as saying, Joey, have you made enough money yet to buy that place in Jerusalem? and Lieberman supposedly replied Not yet, Johnny, but Im getting closer. Corruption is so rampant in our nations capital that a former vice-presidential nominee/current lobbyist can joke about enriching himself at a funeral and no one even notices. The second that Lieberman left congress, he signed on as a lobbyist, after using his time in the Senate to do things like take $5 from health care-related interests for every $1 from labor interests and eliminate the public option in the Democratic presidents signature health care plan. This is how D.C. really works. When The Daily Beast reached out to Lieberman for comment on his ZTE 180, he said that his past criticism of his new employer was actually an asset: ZTE asked me to lead this independent inquiry precisely because ofnot in spite ofthe fact that I share many of the concerns of the Senators and others in the U.S.G. whose views ZTE wants to understand and address. Because I have demonstrated that I share their concerns, ZTE believes my inquiry can engender candid and constructive dialogue that could lead to effective solutions. Lieberman has not registered as a foreign agent, despite working on behalf of a company that everyone agrees is an arm of Chinese intelligence and a serious national security threat to the United States. While this is like business as usual in Washington D.C.its a step above the typical corruption given the explicit threat that ZTE poses to our national security. Part of what makes the Michael Flynn situation so extraordinary is that for once, the Department of Justice is going after Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) violations, and with any hope, Lieberman will one day face similar scrutiny over ZTE, and any other employers in the shadows that we may not yet know about. Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling. The (Carbondale) Southern Illinoisan With the election of J.B. Pritzker as governor, Democrats will control the governor's mansion, the Senate and the House for the first time in four years. While Illinois remains a blue state, southern Illinois' congressional contingent got a bit redder in November when Republican Patrick Windhorst unseated Natalie Phelps Finnie in the 118th District. While divided government can sometimes lead to compromise necessity is the mother of invention that wasn't the case during Bruce Rauner's tenure as governor. Rauner's name will forever be inextricably linked to the two-year budget impasse that brought an already unstable state economy to its knees. The state has taken some important steps back toward financial stability, notably paying down a significant amount of backlogged bills, but if the Illinois economy were a hospital patient, it would still be in ICU. If the past four years proved anything, it's that such lofty ideals of bipartisanship and compromise are easily lost in the political clamor of Springfield. One needs to look no further than the ill-considered budget impasse. As long as there is a central Illinois government, as long as there is a party system, there will always philosophical disagreements in Springfield. However, it is also important to realize that no one party has a monopoly on good ideas. The important thing to every citizen of Illinois is that these tough decisions be based on something more than party fealty. That is unacceptable. That is something the state can no longer afford. The only way this state can move forward is by Republicans and Democrats finding common ground. To Gov. Pritzker and members of the legislature we offer this request, no, a command, "Do it." The (Champaign) News-Gazette Illinois has sworn in six Democratic statewide officeholders and a host of new Democratic lawmakers, but the star of a new 30-second TV spot is the party's wildly unpopular chairman, House Speaker Michael Madigan. The blue wave that swamped Illinois politics in November will translate into a bigger Democratic majority in the General Assembly. And on Jan. 14, six Democrats will be inaugurated as statewide officeholders, occupying every one of the constitutional offices from governor to treasurer. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. But who's the star of a 30-second TV commercial that is running statewide through Tuesday? Why it's Michael Madigan, the 76-year-old chairman of the Democratic Party, a fixture in the Statehouse since 1971. The only Democratic officeholder featured in the spot is Madigan (the only Republican is Trump), who closes with this line: "In the fights that lie ahead, Democrats are on your side." But those efforts apparently don't include stabilizing Illinois' economy, its horribly out of balance budget or fixing the government pension mess, but instead focus on a Madigan favorite: ensuring the wealthy "pay their fair share, so we can get a break," as a narrator says. If only it was that easy. Chicago Sun-Times At a time when America is struggling with spiking rates of deadly drug abuse, we'd like to call attention to a new and more compassionate approach to the problem that is being tried in Lake and Kane counties. Addicts are being encouraged to walk into the nearest participating police station to seek help, without fear of being charged with a crime. The cops will even take and dispose of whatever drugs the person might be holding, no questions asked. Many drug abusers never seek help because they simply don't know where to turn. Or they fear they will be drug-tested and arrested. Or they don't know how they would pay for rehab. But everyone knows where the closest police station is. North suburban Lake County launched the program in 2016, and a third of all police departments now participate. Kane County will launch its own program this year. Police departments work out arrangements with drug treatment providers in advance to ensure care is available around the clock. They then drive addicts seeking help to the front door of a treatment facility and ensure in advance that insurance questions or the ability to pay are not obstacles. Police in Lake County have placed 516 people into treatment since June 1, 2016, said Mundelein Police Chief Eric J. Guenther, who hopes that the program will continue to expand across the county. Communities in the program , he said, also have seen a decline in the number of retail thefts, burglaries to motor vehicles and domestic violence all crimes that often revolve around substance abuse. Countering addiction with treatment instead of jail time could save thousands of lives. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 That he will be seems likely as Democrats take control of the House of Representatives, the chamber where impeachment proceedings begin. That he deserves to be is similarly self-evident. President Andrew Johnson was impeached after firing a member of his Cabinet without congressional approval. President Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about a sexual affair with an intern. If those men merited impeachment, how much more deserving is Trump, who stands credibly accused of felonies for directing hush money payoffs to a porn star and a Playboy centerfold? To say nothing of charges that his campaign coordinated with Russia to get him elected. Or the fact that he seems to have obstructed justice in plain sight. Not to mention that he gave away state secrets in the Oval Office. Surely Trump hurdles the bar "high crimes and misdemeanors" set by the Constitution with room to spare. So, yes, he may well be impeached and surely deserves to be. But should he be? That's a trickier question. As you may recall from civics class, removal by impeachment is a two-step process: The House produces articles of impeachment, the Senate conducts a trial to determine if a president should be kicked out of office. Given that the Republican-dominated Senate has heretofore shown all the moral fiber of algae, there is little prospect it will dismiss Trump. Even assuming for the sake of argument that it did, there's no reason to believe his removal would be a panacea for the disunion, disharmony and dyspepsia that afflict this country. Indeed, it could easily make matters worse. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Remember: 63 million people voted for this guy, even knowing what he is. Remember, too, that his latest Gallup approval rating stands at 39 percent. Though no elected president since Eisenhower has polled that low at a similar point in his term, that figure still seems stunningly high. As flagrantly awful a president as Trump has been, four in 10 Americans think he's doing a bang-up job. To overturn the will of that many people, especially in today's charged environment, is to fracture an already fractured union. None of which is to say it shouldn't be done, but only to point out the consequences thereof. But again, the argument is academic. As noted, Trump will probably be impeached (though not removed). And the six in 10 of us who see his awfulness for what it is surely will exult. Which is fine so long as we realize that impeachment will very likely change very little of what actually ails America. Perhaps that's as it should be. One gets the sense sometimes that people think of impeachment as a magic trick. Abracadabra and presto! Trump disappears in a cloud of Cheetos dust, America is saved. It's a great fantasy, but only that. Because Trump is not the problem, only a symptom. And America doesn't need to be saved. No, for its own mental and moral health, America needs to save itself, needs to clearly and emphatically reject what it has become. Impeachment does not do that. Voting the awfulness out does. Consider this new Congress, with its record number of women, including its first Native American women, its first Muslim women and its youngest woman ever, this Congress that looks so much more like the country it serves. Consider the organizing, the canvassing, the fundraising, the putting lives on hold, the stop-complaining-about-it-and-getting-involved it took to produce this result. Then roll up your sleeves and forget about magic. That's not what got us into this mess. It's not what will get us out. Pitts writes for the Miami Herald. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 For all his talk about a supposed national security crisis on the border with Mexico, President Donald Trump is ignoring the potential crisis the federal shutdown is creating elsewhere in the country. Trump has essentially taken nine federal departments and dozens of federal agencies hostage in an effort to coerce Congress into spending $5.7 billion on the bigger, longer border wall he promised on the campaign trail to build (supposedly at Mexicos expense, but now on the U.S. taxpayers tab). Vital government services and responsibilities are being sacrificed in the political standoff, and theres no end in sight. In some cases, the shutdown is making communities less safe. The western United States has experienced a series of catastrophic fires in recent years, yet much of the prevention work needed to reduce the risk is on hold during the shutdown. Firefighter hiring and training is frozen, as are contracts for equipment and aircraft. The U.S. Forest Service has suspended controlled burns of dead timber and dry brush, steps that are designed to reduce the fuel and intensity of future wildfires. This is all essential work that can be done only during the increasingly short off-season, and stopping those efforts leaves both firefighting agencies and wildland communities less prepared. There are similar problems across federal agencies, as the lengthy shutdown exacerbates existing challenges. Theres already a shortage of air traffic controllers across the aviation system, and the shutdown has suspended training of new ones. Controllers currently on the job are required to work without pay, adding another anxiety to an already stressful job of managing the nations airspace. National parks are being trashed and trampled by visitors while park service employees are furloughed. Security lines at airports are getting longer as Transportation Security Administration workers, who are required to work without pay, have begun calling in sick in large numbers. And some low-income renters who rely on federal housing could face eviction after rental assistance contracts expired on Jan. 1, because the Department of Housing and Urban Development cant renew them until the government reopens. These are basic functions of government protecting residents and public assets. They should not be chips in a high-stakes political poker game. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. There were surely be personal crises when more than 800,000 federal workers at shuttered agencies did not get paid. That includes the workers who idled by furloughs and essential employees required even though theres no money to pay them. Also losing out are a slew of contractors that provide goods and services to federal agencies and the agencies customers. Many Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and federal workers are no exception. One missed paycheck forgoing wages for half the month can be devastating for families in financially precarious positions. How are these people supposed to pay the rent, their utility bills or their car payments? Even those who do have a financial cushion could be in for trouble, especially if the shutdown drags on for months or years, as Trump has warned could happen if Democrats do not agree to his demands to fund a bigger border wall. For some federal workers, financial troubles triggered by missed paychecks could imperil their careers. The union for Federal Bureau of Investigation agents warned in a letter to Congress that agents undergo routine financial background checks to ensure that they are financially stable and responsible. Missing a payment could slow or block an agents clearance. Trump has been dismissive of federal workers concerns, although he did pledge Thursday to sign a bill providing them back pay should the shutdown ever end. Im sure that the people that are on the receiving end will make adjustments, he said when asked if he could relate to workers who couldnt pay their bills. The longer the shutdown drags on, federal workers and the people who rely on their services will have to make adjustments. Federal employees will have to manage their own financial panic, while the broader public will watch as the national parks deteriorate, air travel slows, federal forests go unmaintained and the federal safety net for the nations most vulnerable frays. All this for a wall that is rich in exclusionary symbolism but unlikely to have much effect on the problems Trump says hes trying to solve, such as human trafficking and drug smuggling. There is most certainly a crisis underway. Its a crisis of confidence in the presidency of the United States. Love 1 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 SPRINGFIELD Midway through his inaugural address, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker repeated a sentiment that Southern Illinois lawmakers have long expressed. The downstate region, he said, deserves more attention. "We must bring a renaissance to downstate Illinois, which has been deprived of some basic resources for education and business-building that are taken for granted elsewhere in our state," Pritzker said, also calling for expanded high-speed internet access, and statewide improvements to railroads, highways and other transportation infrastructure. Pritzker's words were received with cheers Monday afternoon in the packed Springfield arena where he was sworn in. And although many sit across the political aisle from Illinois' new Democrat governor, Southern Illinois lawmakers echoed that positivity. "Tone-wise it was a great address," said Sen. Paul Schimpf, R-Waterloo. "I think we all owe him an open mind." Bipartisan cooperation, Pritzker emphasized, will be essential to resolving the challenges facing the state: mounting bills that exceed revenues year after year, a poor credit rating, and a population exodus that saw Illinois lose more than 45,000 citizens between July 2017 and July 2018, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. "With all the challenges Illinois faces, Democrats and Republicans must work together, and we must begin with our most basic responsibilities," Pritzker said -- first and foremost, passing a balanced budget. As Pritzker begins that process, Sen. Dale Fowler, R-Harrisburg, is confident he'll keep Southern Illinois in mind. "I've had numerous conversations with the governor about Southern Illinois," said Fowler, who's been named to Pritzker's job creation and economic opportunity transition committee. "Projects in my district, like the Cairo river port terminal, I know he's got that on his radar." The phone calls from Pritzker and his transition team have been frequent, Fowler said, and the governor has suggested he'll tour Southern Illinois in March. "There's going to be tough votes coming up, but I know compromise is part of the equation," Fowler said. "I'm very encouraged by the ways he's reached across party lines." Still, big policy differences between Pritzker and the majority-Republican Southern Illinois caucus remain. "Almost all of the policy proposals that he outlined are things I'll probably be on the opposite side of," Schimpf said, "But when he talks about listening to everybody, as long as you come to the table with good faith, I think that's the way the process is supposed to work." Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Pritzker remains committed to campaign promises to legalize and tax cannabis, implement a progressive income tax, tighten gun control and bring Illinois into the U.S. Climate Alliance, upholding the goals of the Paris Climate Accord. He also hopes to raise the minimum wage, gradually, to $15 an hour. "We have different worldviews," said Rep. Terri Bryant, R-Murphysboro. "I'm looking to find areas we can agree, and not focus on the areas we don't agree. After all, those will come up naturally, and I'm in a superminority." Democrats will outnumber Republicans this year by a count of 40 to 19 in the Illinois Senate, and 74 to 44 in the House of Representatives, a "veto-proof" majority, if lawmakers vote along party lines. To Bryant, Pritzker's pro-Southern Illinois rhetoric is nothing new. "I've heard the last four governors make statements like that," Bryant said. "Thinking about a capital bill and transportation infrastructure, that's when the rubber is really going to hit the road." No pun intended. "We're going to have to see some money," she said, for the interstate highways that crisscross downstate Illinois, and the crumbling bridges and roadways that provide access to local small towns. Fowler agreed on the importance of infrastructure upgrades, and suggested Republicans might find compromise with the governor on making Illinois state government cheaper to run and more efficient. "I think that's first and foremost," Fowler said. "We have got to streamline." There's also agreement on the importance of vocational training, said Rep. Dave Severin, R-Benton. "The success of Southern Illinois, in my opinion, is going to depend on getting vocational training back in schools," Severin said. "There's no doubt the governor is in tune with that. I know during the campaign he met with union leaders in Marion." Another positive sign, Bryant said, has been Pritzker's regular presence in Southern Illinois. He was in Marion and West Frankfort in early December, and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton participated in a statewide day of service at the Carbondale Boys & Girls Club this past Saturday. "For legislators, the last four years have been a struggle," Bryant said, punctuated by a multiyear budget impasse, which ended when Bryant and 14 other Republicans voted to help override Governor Bruce Rauner's budget veto. "I think we're all hoping for someone who is not immovable on issues." Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 HOPEDALE Hopedale Medical Complex has joined Peoria-area hospitals in enacting voluntary visitor restrictions as seasonal influenza activity increases in Central Illinois. Visitor restrictions went into effect on Monday at Hopedale; OSF HealthCare Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria; Kindred Hospital in Peoria; and UnityPoint Health's Methodist and Proctor campuses in Peoria and its Pekin campus. "We are posting our visitor restrictions now," Hopedale Medical Complex Chief Operating Officer Mark Rossi said Monday afternoon. The action follows OSF HealthCare St. Joseph Medical Center in Bloomington enacting voluntary visitor restrictions on Jan. 2 following an increase in people with seasonal influenza in Bloomington-Normal. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Advocate BroMenn Medical Center in Normal and other Central Illinois hospitals had not announced visitor restrictions because of flu as of Monday night. Hopedale and the Peoria-area hospitals jointly announced limiting hospital visitors on Monday to protect patients, visitors and staff. Data gathered by the Tazewell County Health Department and Peoria City/County Health Department found that 48 people have tested positive for flu at the Hopedale, Pekin and Peoria hospitals, the health departments reported Monday. The Hopedale, Peoria and Pekin hospitals are requesting that hospital visitors be at least 18 years old to minimize patient exposure to children, who are known to be at high risk for transmission of viral illnesses, and to protect children from getting sick. Individuals who are not feeling well or have had flu-like symptoms in the previous week should not visit hospitalized patients, according to the restrictions. Flu symptoms include a fever of 100 degrees or higher, cough or sore throat. People who do visit are asked to wash their hands or use alcohol-based hand gel before entering a patient's room and when leaving. People also should cough and sneeze into their sleeve. Contact Paul Swiech at (309) 820-3275. Follow him on Twitter: @pg_swiech Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. SPRINGFIELD As the Bank of Springfield Center filled with celebration Monday, Shayna Watchinski felt something more. "It felt like we were all able to exhale, finally, after the last few years and the tension," she said. "It's really refreshing to hear such a positive, uplifting, uniting message. ... It was really encouraging for the future." The event marked the end of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's turbulent term, including a two-year budget standoff with House Speaker Mike Madigan. "The speeches were mostly forward-looking and weren't focused on the past," said Erik Rankin, chair of the McLean County Democratic Party. "I liked how it was generally pretty positive about the outlook of Illinois, (saying) this is a great state and there are things we can do to make it better." Mike Matejka, government affairs director for Great Plains Laborers District Council and a longtime Twin City resident, said he felt that tonal shift in Pritzker's address, the event's centerpiece. Rankin, an Illinois State University professor, said he looks forward to hearing more on plans to improve higher education that Pritzker mentioned in the address. Watchinski hopes to hear more about his plan to fight opioid abuse. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} "I was impressed there's not one (significant issue) that someone didn't touch base on," said Matejka, including infrastructure, education, services for senior citizens, opioids and gun violence. Matejka said he also liked the "real openness to the tone (Pritzker has) created so far." "I think he's making a real effort to say here's an agenda, but at the same time, I want input," said Matejka. "I really appreciate his outreach to Republicans and his inclusion of former Gov. (Jim) Edgar. ... I get the impression both sides of the aisle are ready to work with him." Rankin said he appreciated how the Republicans present conducted themselves on Monday, particularly Rauner. "It's a difficult thing to do to sit there by a person who beat you pretty badly in an election and have speeches talking about moving the state forward. It's obvious what you're moving it forward from," said Rankin. "I'm impressed with the civility that, even after a contentious election, individuals can show." Also sworn in were Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, Attorney General Kwame Raoul and returning statewide officials Secretary of State Jesse White, Comptroller Susanna Mendoza and Treasurer Mike Frerichs. All are Democrats. "To see the first African-American lieutenant governor in Illinois history; the first African-American secretary of state; having Susana Mendoza and Kwame Raoul, who's the son of Haitian refugees, it's a pretty amazing story of the diversity Illinois has in our elected offices," said Rankin. Rankin, who was appointed to the Illinois Democratic County Chairs' Association executive committee last month, said he looks forward to "a much smoother process" with a Democratic governor and Democratic super majorities in both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly. "It's a very exciting time. The whole 'blue wave' thing has been very exciting, and the momentum is just continuing," said Watchinski. "Everybody is on board and ready to continue." Contact Derek Beigh at (309) 820-3234. Follow him on Twitter: @pg_beigh Love 2 Funny 5 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. LINCOLN Outgoing Gov. Bruce Rauner reduced the 75-year prison sentence of a man who confessed as a 14-year-old in 1995 to fatally shooting his maternal grandparents with whom he lived in Lincoln. Jon Morgan, who was tried as an adult, was convicted in 1996 and sentenced to 58 years in prison for the first-degree murder of Lila Cearlock, 59, and an additional 17 years for the second-degree murder of her 61-year-old husband, Keith. Morgan allegedly killed them because of a dispute over a school detention, but he said during his trial that he was emotionally and physically abused during much of the decade he had lived with the Cearlocks. Judge Gerald Dehner ruled at the time that the terms would be served consecutively, but Rauners decision means the terms instead will run concurrently, which would significantly reduce the total sentence. The case was tried before the states truth-in-sentencing law took effect, meaning he remains eligible for day-for-day credit for good behavior to reduce his time behind bars. If sentenced today, he would have to serve 85 percent of the sentence. The Illinois Department of Corrections website still said Monday that Morgan, who is serving his time at Shawnee Correctional Center, would be eligible for parole in September 2032. That date reflects the consecutive sentences before Rauner's change. If sentenced today, a person must serve 100 percent of a first degree murder conviction but day-for-day credit is available on second degree murder charges. On the evening of April 27, 1995, police responded to a report of gunfire at Seventh and Washington streets in Lincoln. They found Lila Cearlock lying face down in the front yard with a gunshot wound to her back. Inside, they found her husband, Keith, with a gunshot wound in his left temple. Both later died from their injuries. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. According to court documents, a police officer noticed Morgan walking across the grass and through the crime scene tape used to cordon off the crime scene. He approached the officer, handed him a gun and a box of bullets and said: I did it. I killed them. Later, when he was asked why he did it, he told officers: They pissed me off. I couldnt take it anymore so I shot them. The argument was over a school detention, according to court testimony. Prior to his sentencing, Morgan apologized to his family for killing the Cearlocks. Im very sorry for what I did, he said. I hurt my Uncle Doug (the slain couples son) and his family. I hurt myself and my family. And I want to apologize for the people Ive hurt. Morgan, now 38, has appealed unsuccessfully a number of times to have his sentence reduced. William Workman, now an associate judge for the 11th Judicial Circuit, was the Logan County State's Attorney who handled several of Morgan's appeals. Efforts to reach Workman Monday were not successful. In 2001, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the convictions and sentence. It reversed an appellate-court ruling that Morgan should get a new trial for the killing of his grandmother because the trial judge had excluded testimony from Morgans mother. The appellate court had upheld his second-degree murder conviction for the slaying of his grandfather. A Logan County judge denied another request for a new trial in 2005. Contact Kevin Barlow at (309) 820-3238. Follow him on Twitter: @pg_barlow Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. BLOOMINGTON Winter Storm Gia is over but the pain it caused continues. More Central Illinoisans have been falling on ice and snow during the past two days after many stayed inside on Saturday. "Staff in the emergency department at Advocate BroMenn Medical Center (in Normal) are seeing an increase in fall-related injuries as individuals are getting out and about more," Lynn Hutley, BroMenn public affairs coordinator, said Monday. "It's important to be extra careful when walking on snow and ice," said Mark Lareau, nurse manager for the emergency department at Advocate Eureka Hospital in Eureka. "Give yourself extra time to get where you are going, wear shoes or boots that provide good traction, keep your hands out of your pockets, take short steps or shuffle for stability and try to avoid bracing yourself with your arms if you are falling," Lareau advised. At Eureka, one-fourth of the patients in the emergency department during the weekend were treated for weather-related injuries, he said. Falls are increasing after most people stayed inside on Saturday when Winter Storm Gia dumped most of its snow on Central Illinois. From late Friday through Sunday, the storm dumped anywhere from 5.5 to 16 inches on Central Illinois, including 10 inches in Bloomington-Normal and Pontiac and 12 inches in Lincoln, the National Weather Service in Lincoln reported Monday. Central Illinoisans should brace themselves for more bad weather later in the week. Snow and freezing rain are expected on Thursday, and there is a chance for more snow Friday and Saturday, the weather service said. Meanwhile, freezing drizzle and patchy fog are expected Tuesday morning, the weather service said. McLean County Emergency Management Agency issued a freezing rain alert. There also is a chance of freezing rain Wednesday night. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Injuries from Winter Storm Gia would have been a lot worse if so many people hadn't stayed in during the weekend. At BroMenn during the weekend, a few people were treated for shoveling-related injuries and one from a sledding accident, Hutley said. Meanwhile, Advocate Immediate Care clinics in Bloomington-Normal weren't as busy as usual on Saturday as people stayed in, but they treated people injured by weather-related falls and from shoveling injuries on Sunday, she said. At OSF HealthCare St. Joseph Medical Center in Bloomington, as of mid-afternoon Monday, 22 people had been treated in the emergency department as a result of the weather, emergency department manager Kyle Steidinger said. Eighteen were injured in falls, three from motor vehicle collisions and one from a sledding accident, he said. OSF PromptCare numbers were low on Saturday but picked up on Sunday and included five injuries related to the snowfall, said Jaime Neill, PromptCare manager for Bloomington-Normal. At OSF HealthCare Saint James-John W. Albrecht Medical Center in Pontiac, three patients were treated in the emergency department two from motor vehicle accidents and one from using a snow blower, said Community Relations Coordinator Pam Meiner. All were treated and released. At Hopedale Medical Complex, one patient was treated for a fractured wrist from a fall on ice and another for a minor tailbone injury in a sledding mishap, Chief Operating Officer Mark Rossi said. Downtown snow removal From 11 p.m. Tuesday to 6 a.m. Wednesday, city crews will remove excess snow from the downtown Bloomington area. All vehicles need to be off the streets during those hours. Downtown residents are encouraged to park in the parking garages. Photos: Drivers find icy commute across Bloomington-Normal Tuesday Contact Paul Swiech at (309) 820-3275. Follow him on Twitter: @pg_swiech Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. BLOOMINGTON Attorneys for John Y. Butler are seeking more financial records from the city as part of his defense against indictments accusing him and three others of mishandling money during the decade he managed the city-owned arena. Butler and three other former management-level staff of what was then known as U.S. Cellular Coliseum face allegations of theft, wire fraud, money laundering and tax-related offenses. A fifth person reached a plea agreement with the state that requires him to cooperate in the pending cases. On Tuesday, city of Bloomington lawyer Greg Moredock handed Butler's attorney Tristan Bullington a flash drive with arena records sought under a defense subpoena. Records covering 2016 financial transactions will be provided in the next few weeks, said Moredock. The defense filed a new subpoena in December seeking records for Micros, the system used by Butler's firm, Central Illinois Arena Management, to track food and drink sales. In a recently released transcript of Sept. 20, 2017, McLean County grand jury proceedings involving the arena defendants, a state police agent laid out the state's case against Butler's team, including how staff allegedly bypassed the Micros system for cash sales. The transcript was filed by Peoria lawyer Joel Brown with former CIAM finance manager Kelly Klein's motion to dismiss charges. According to the transcript, Special Agent Dan Rossiter testified that CIAM became the target of an investigation after city officials began to scrutinize financial records in late 2016 after CIAM's 10-year management agreement with the city was not renewed. Indicted along with Butler in September 2017 were CIAM general manager Bart Rogers; Klein, Paul Grazar, general manager of BMI, the food and beverage arm of CIAM; and Jay Laesch, finance manager of BMI. Laesch pleaded guilty in November to money laundering and filing a false tax return in November. He was sentenced to 30 months on probation and fined $1. The city's oversight of the arena's finances was limited to what Butler provided to the city in financial reports, said the special agent. The agreement between the city and CIAM limited access to the arena's bank accounts to CIAM staff. "The city did attempt to receive access to those accounts on multiple occasions, which were denied by CIAM personnel," Rossiter told the grand jury. Butler's attorney Steven Beckett disputes the state's accusation regarding the city's access to financial records. "That is not true. The city refused to come to the Coliseum to look at the records," said Beckett. Beckett also denied allegations against Butler related to "cash skimming," in which employees manipulated cash sales records in order to use cash for other purposes, such as staff bonuses. "John Butler and CIAM didn't know anything about cash skimming," said Beckett. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The arena was obligated to keep certain information, including what booking agents and performers were paid, confidential, said Beckett, but city officials were permitted to see any records they requested. Handing records over to the city would have made them public records subject to the Freedom of Information Act, said Beckett. City officials questioned a February 2016 request from Klein for a cash infusion of $247,000, needed in part to cover over $100,000 in past-due utility bills. CIAM had received shut-off notices, Klein told the city, according to the grand jury report. The city initially denied CIAM's request for the money but agreed to the transfer after Butler met with then-City Manager David Hales. Klein's request included $191,000 in fees and commissions the city owed to Butler. Butler has filed a lawsuit against the city seeking unpaid commissions. The same day the city's money was deposited in the Coliseum fund, a check for $162,000 was written to the CIAM corporate account and later moved to the arena's savings account, according to state police. A check was then written to Butler for $100,000 and deposited in his account, said the court filing. Later in March, Butler received another $52,000. The utility bills were not paid, according to the state. In Rossiter's responses to questions from Adam Ghrist, then the McLean County first assistant state's attorney, grand jurors learned the state's theory of the so-called "Kelly discount," a procedure that allegedly bilked the city out of more than $34,000 in commissions. The scheme was a way for CIAM to reimburse itself for $37,000 in what it determined were invoices that should have been paid from the Coliseum fund rather than the CIAM account. "So in order to pay themselves back several years later, they decided to create a Kelly discount. And each event, approximately 51 events, were identified with this Kelly discount. ... And what they were doing is they were subtracting the amount of 32 percent commissions to the city equal to the $37,000 in what they believed the city was paying back," Rossiter explained to the grand jury. The city was never told about the reimbursement, said Rossiter. The alleged mismanagement cost taxpayers about $750,000, according to the state. In comments to The Pantagraph on Tuesday, Beckett renewed his contention that the case belongs in civil court as a contract dispute. The actions taken by CIAM were within the terms of the contract drafted by the city, he said. The release of the grand jury transcript provides the public with a one-sided view of the accusations against the Coliseum managers, said Beckett, adding that he would have preferred the document had been filed under seal to keep the confidential proceedings from becoming public. Klein's attorney Joel Brown has filed a motion to dismiss the charges against her. Arguments on that motion are set for March 22. Photos: CIAM managers plead not guilty to charges Contact Edith Brady-Lunny at (309) 820-3276. Follow her on Twitter: @pg_blunny Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. NORMAL Advocate BroMenn Medical Center in Normal and Advocate Eureka Hospital in Eureka have joined other Central Illinois hospitals in enacting visitor restrictions because of an increase in seasonal flu. Visitor restrictions were announced Tuesday and are effective immediately, said Lynn Hutley, public affairs coordinator for the two hospitals. BroMenn and Eureka are part of Advocate Aurora Health and all Advocate Aurora hospitals implemented visitor restrictions on Tuesday, Hutley said. "We have been closely monitoring influenza activity and have seen an increase in cases across the region," Linda Stein, Advocate Aurora vice president of infection prevention, said in a statement. "In an effort to keep our patients safe, we are taking proactive measures to limit the spread of the flu by implementing certain visitor restrictions. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. "Children under the age of 18 and those experiencing flu-like symptoms will not be permitted to visit and only two visitors will be allowed at a time," Stein said. BroMenn and Eureka follow Hopedale Medical Complex in Hopedale and Peoria-area hospitals that announced voluntary visitor restrictions on Monday after 48 people tested positive for flu at the Hopedale and Peoria-area hospitals. On Jan. 2, OSF HealthCare St. Joseph Medical Center in Bloomington announced voluntary visitor restrictions when the number of people with flu in Bloomington-Normal began to increase. Stein added, "As a reminder, it is never too late to get a flu vaccine during flu season and we encourage anyone 6 months or older, including pregnant mothers, to get a shot." Hospital visitor restrictions are common this time of year as more people get sick with the flu, which is highly contagious. Generally, visitor restrictions are lifted in the spring when flu activity declines. Contact Paul Swiech at (309) 820-3275. Follow him on Twitter: @pg_swiech Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Ricky E. Griffin, 59, is charged with unlawful possession of meth with the intent to deliver and unlawful possession of less than 5 grams of meth. The following list includes recent reports from the Midland County Sheriff's Office and the Midland Police Department. Compiled by reporter Mitchell Kukulka. Sunday, Jan. 13 10:15 p.m. -- A 39-year-old Ingersoll Township woman reported her ex-husband, a 37-year-old Midland Township man, told her she was going to go to jail if she did not return his firearms. A deputy requested the man go through his attorney and the courts if he feels there is a violation taking place, and to stop calling the woman, which the man agreed to do. 9:15 p.m. -- Deputies were dispatched to Lee Township for car/dog crash, though the dog was not located. 5:39 p.m. -- A 41-year-old Larkin Township woman and her 42-year-old husband are in the process of getting a divorce and were having an argument about items that were in the household. The man left the residence while the woman waited for a ride so she could leave for the remainder of the night. 3:54 p.m. -- Officers responded to the 5900 Block of Leeway Drive for the violation of a personal protection order. 1:15 p.m. -- A 54-year-old Edenville Township woman reported that her grandson, 16, was not following rules and was acting out. Deputies contacted the boy and mediated a resolution between the two. All parties involved were calm when the deputies arrived. 12:12 p.m. -- A 35-year-old Ithaca man was arrested in Mount Haley Township on an outstanding warrant from the Michigan State Police out of Gratiot County for delivery of narcotics. The man was the driver and lone occupant of a vehicle stopped for a traffic violation. The subject was transported and turned over to Gratiot County authorities. The vehicle was towed by Mid-State Towing. 11:57 a.m. -- Officers were dispatched to the intersection of Airport Road and Eastman Avenue for a vehicle crash resulting in property damage. 11:25 a.m. -- Officers were dispatched to the 4500 Block of Wild Pine Court for a vehicle crash. Saturday, Jan. 12 10:31 p.m. -- A 48-year-old Homer Township woman had questions about how to get her 26-year-old son out of her house. She told she could file for an eviction. The 26-year-old arrived home and the two were told to stay in their respective rooms if they could not get along. 10:14 p.m. -- Officers were dispatched to the 2300 Block of Eastman Avenue for a report of trespassing. 8:38 p.m. -- A 29-year-old Warren Township resident asked a deputy to issue a no trespass order to his 54-year-old neighbor, who the younger man said came onto on his land to complain about him target shooting. The deputy spoke with the 54-year-old and told him not the return or he will risk charges of trespassing. 8:20 p.m. -- Officers were dispatched to the 2800 Block of Highbrook Drive for juvenile trouble. 6:10 p.m. -- Officers were dispatched to the intersection of Washington and East Ashman streets for a traffic hazard. 4:55 p.m. -- Deputies were dispatched to a possible road rage incident between two vehicles in Greendale Township. The deputies found the vehicles and conducted traffic stops on them. The male drivers, one from Holly and one from Davisburg, said there was no road rage between them. The drivers were issued citations for speeding, no proof of insurance and excessive tint. 12:49 p.m. -- Officers were dispatched to the 4800 Block of E. Patrick Road for a civil complaint. 11:15 a.m. -- A deputy was sent to a Geneva Township park for a report of a suspect possibly living in his vehicle. The deputy located a 39-year-old homeless man and his dog. The man was offered several options but declined them. He is currently working on finding employment and a place to stay. There was no crime. 10:54 a.m. -- Officers were dispatched to the intersection of Ashman and Mertz streets for a vehicle crash resulting in property damage. 1:57 a.m. -- A deputy responded to Mills Township residence for a report of a deceased 75-year-old man. Deputies conducted an investigation and the death appeared to be natural. Friday, Jan. 11 11:54 p.m. -- Officers responded to the intersection of Eastman Avenue and Sylvan Lane for a traffic offense. 10:14 p.m. -- A deputy was dispatched to a Lee Township residence in reference to a complaint involving possible inappropriate touching between two juveniles. A man said his 4-year-old son made allegations that he had been touched inappropriately by his 7-year-old half-brother. The parents, who do not live together, were going to discuss a safety plan to address the matter and the complaint was referred to Child Protective Services. 9:09 p.m. -- A deputy responded to a Mount Haley Township residence for a report of a 16-year-old girl who ran away from home. The complaint is under investigation. 9:05 p.m. -- A deputy was dispatched to a Lincoln Township residence for a 15-year-old boy being disorderly toward his parents. The parents said their son was throwing insulation around the room because he was upset. The deputy made contact with the juvenile, who said he was neither upset nor throwing things. Both parents and the 15-year-old agreed to clean up the mess and be civil to each other. 7:50 p.m. -- A deputy was dispatched to an Ingersoll Township apartment for a verbal argument between a 36-year-old woman and her 59-year-old live-in boyfriend. The man left the residence for the evening. 7:41 p.m. -- Officers responded to the 6800 Block of Eastman Ave. for a vehicle crash with injuries. 7:35 p.m. -- A 28-year-old Lee Township woman reported that she either lost her prescription medication or it was stolen in Jerome Township. There are no suspects. 6:31 p.m. -- Officers responded to the 1400 Block of Rodd Street for a vehicle crash on private property. 1:19 p.m. - A deputy and Emergency Medical Services team were dispatched to a Jerome Township residence for a deceased 85-year-old man. He appears to have died of natural causes. 11:19 a.m. -- Officers were dispatched to the intersection of Chippewa River and Isabella roads for a vehicle crash on private property. 4:41 a.m. -- Officers responded to the intersection of East Wheeler Street and Birchwood Drive for a warrant arrest and traffic offenses. Temple Grandin will visit to Delta College Feb. 14 to present as part of the school's President's Speaker Series. "Dr. Grandin is the most prominent name in the field of autism," Speaker Series Coordinator David Baskind said. "The fact that Delta College is able to bring a speaker of this caliber to our area is a great gift to the community." Grandin is a professor of animal science at Colorado State University; consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior, welfare and handling equipment design; as well a distinguished author and speaker on autism. For 30 years, Grandin has been playing a lead role in the push for animal welfare reform in the cattle industry, and her work in this field has led to two inventions used throughout the industry today. Grandin obtained her Bachelor of Arts from Franklin Pierce College and her Master of Science in animal science from Arizona State University. After these accomplishments, she continued her education receiving her Ph.D. in animal science in 1989 from the University of Illinois. She also is the most accomplished and well-known author with autism in the world. In 2010, Time Magazine listed her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. She has been featured in NPR, People, 20/20, and gave a TED Lecture called, "The World Needs ALL Kinds of Minds." Grandin has authored more than 400 articles and six books, including two national bestsellers. She was the subject of an HBO movie called "Temple Grandin" that starred actress Claire Danes as Temple Grandin. The 2010 movie won seven Emmy awards and the Golden Globe award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Miniseries or a Motion Picture Made for Television. The movie chronicled her life story as a teenager and how she began her career. In 2017, Grandin was inducted into The Women's Hall of Fame and was made a fellow in 2018 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Today, Grandin is a professor at Colorado State University where she teaches courses focused on livestock behavior and facility design. "Dr. Grandin's appearance has generated greater advance interest than any other speaker we have ever had," Baskind said. "Her first-hand knowledge of autism as both a scientist and someone diagnosed with it gives her a truly unique perspective." On Thursday, February 14, Grandin will give two talks, one at 10 a.m. in the Pioneer Gym and one at 7 p.m. in the Lecture Theater (G-160). Both presentations are free and open to the public. "We welcome all people interested in hearing her, and we encourage people to arrive early to ensure seating," Baskind said. To learn more about the event, disability-related accommodations or RSVP that you will bring a class or group of 10 or more people, contact Series Coordinators David Baskind at 989-686-9374 or debaskin@delta.edu or Kim Klein at 989-686-9192 or kimberlyklein@delta.edu. Stacey Gannon, a longtime banking executive now leading the Saginaw Art Museum and Temple Theatre Foundation, is Midland County's new representative on the Delta College Board of Trustees. Gannon took her oath of office on Tuesday, Jan. 8. "I'm very excited," Gannon said. "I'm open-minded and want people in Midland County to reach out to me with any issues or concerns they may have." Gannon ran unopposed in the November election and replaces Mary Morrissey on the board. She will serve a six-year term. "Number one is that I'm a huge supporter of education in overall, especially community college education," Gannon said of her decision to run for a Delta board seat. "Community colleges are one of the most valuable forums to get relevant training and education that leads to jobs and careers." Gannon speaks from first-hand experience when she praises Delta's prominent role in the region. "I went to Delta. Two of my three sons attended Delta," Gannon said. "I'm so impressed with the college and how responsive it is to employers. It is so important to this region." Gannon, a University of Michigan-Dearborn graduate (School of Education), is a certified performance technologist who understands Delta's need to "get creative with its course delivery" to attract more students. "We need to continue to listen to the community," she said. "Every community college faces challenges involving technology and the numerous choices students have. The new centers Delta is establishing in Saginaw and Midland reflect its commitment to being more accessible. We need to deliver what students want and need." President Jean Goodnow, in an email to the Delta community, said, "The Board and administration have begun to examine ways to meet the needs of students through scheduling efficiencies, meaning different course times, locations and modalities, to appeal to a wider range of students. We have heard some concern that this may mean increasing class capacity." Goodnow said the college is continuing to explore why its class capacities, when compared to other Michigan community colleges with similar courses and instructional methods, may be lower. "The Board and administration are concerned about meeting the needs of students in an environment of declining enrollment and increased competition," she wrote. In addition to Gannon, recently elected Delta Board of Trustee members Mike Rowley (Bay County) and Marcia Thomas (Saginaw County) took their oath of office. Board officers also were named. They are: Chair Diane Middleton, Vice Chair Mary Lou Benecke, Treasurer Sarah DuFresne and Secretary Andrea Ursuy. Talisa Brown is assistant secretary. Two of Midland's neighboring communities -- Auburn and Williams Township -- are not fans of marijuana establishments and are moving towards banning them. In a 5-1 vote (with one member absent) at its first meeting of 2019, the Williams Township Board has decided to opt out of allowing recreational marijuana facilities in its community. The vote follows the statewide passage of Proposal 1 in November which made Michigan the first state in the Midwest to legalize the possession and use of recreational marijuana for adults age 21 or older. The measure created an excise tax of 10 percent to be levied on marijuana sales at retailers and micro businesses. Revenue is earmarked for local governments, K-12 education and road and bridge maintenance. Cash-strapped municipalities welcome the idea of additional revenue, but both leaders of Auburn and Williams Township say it's not worth the potential problems marijuana facilities pose. About 25 residents showed up to voice their opinion on the issue at the Williams Township Board meeting. All were opposed to allowing marijuana stores to set up shop in their community, said Paul Wasek, township supervisor, noting that residents voted down Proposal 1 by a 55 percent to 44.5 percent margin. "There is a lot of misconception concerning the amount of revenue that would be generated," Wasek said. "The ultimate decision anyway is up to Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, a state agency. They are still working on the process and there is no guarantee it would grant licenses to applicants." City of Auburn voters also rejected Proposal 1, "so we know how they feel," said Lee Kilbourn, Auburn mayor. "The new laws set up a process to establish the rules we have to follow and we don't know what they are yet. Until we do, many communities are adopting a wait and see policy by adopting out. I believe over 60 communities have done this so far." Kilbourn said cities need the money, but at what cost? "Many communities are actively engaging in it for the money," he said. "An annual permit fee of $5,000 for each license and a portion of some yet to be determined percentage of the tax make some cheer in joy. It's a sad commentary on the broken municipal financial system we have in Michigan. " Kilbourn plans to bring the issue to the Auburn City Commission at its next meeting, where he will ask commissioners to opt Auburn out. "Do cities need the money? Yes, but this isn't the cure we need," Kilbourn said. Like Wasek, Kilbourn questions whether marijuana facilities would, in fact, generate the revenue as billed. "There is a law in Michigan that basically says you can't profit from a fee," he said. "In order to do so, it has to offset a legitimate cost. So where's the profit?" Distances from schools, parks and churches are a concern, officials said. In the small town of Auburn, finding a location that would legally allow marijuana facilities may prove to be quite challenging, if not impossible. "Federal law has a 1,000-foot distance established for a drug-free zone," Kilbourn said. "With Western High, Western Middle and Auburn Elementary schools here, that covers most of the city. Zoning requirements will be another issue to see what these new rules will state. You wouldn't join a poker game if you didn't know the rules, would you?" Now that Williams Township has elected to opt out of allowing marijuana stores, its next move is to adopt an ordinance prohibiting marijuana-related facilities in its jurisdiction. It'll take about two months, Wasek said, for the ordinance to officially be enacted. "That's the normal process for any ordinance," he said, adding that the state has until December of this year to accept applications for marijuana stores. Ottumwa, IA (52501) Today Scattered clouds with the possibility of an isolated thunderstorm developing late. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low 66F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%.. Tonight Scattered clouds with the possibility of an isolated thunderstorm developing late. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low 66F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%. HP Inc. says it wont allow people to use its 3D printers to manufacture guns, unless they are a licensed firearms manufacturer and are making guns that can be detected by airport security. But the companys stance is unlikely to have significant impact on the supply of homemade guns. Thats because HPs 3D printers are primarily for the commercial market, not hobbyists. And printing experts say determined people could probably find their way around HPs restrictions. Gun safety advocates have worried for years that people could use 3D printers to produce ghost guns, which are untraceable and not subject to legal restrictions over gun ownership. The printers could also use plastic or other materials to make guns that dont set off metal detectors and other security. Last fall, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan led more than 30 other mayors including Portlands Ted Wheeler in calling on 3D printer manufacturers to prevent their products from making the unregulated firearms. HP chief executive Dion Weisler responded that his company wont allow its printers to be used that way. HP is against ghost guns being produced on our 3D printers, Weisler wrote in the November letter, obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive. Its unclear whether other printer manufacturers responded to the Seattle mayors call. Her office did not respond to an inquiry seeking comment. HP has a new responsible use policy, according to Weisler, which precludes its printers from being used to make guns unless the manufacturer is licensed and regulated, the firearms are detectable by security screeners, and the firearms are traceable. Though HPs headquarters are in Silicon Valley, the company has advanced 3D printer research in Corvallis and in Vancouver, Washington. HPs letter did not explain how it would stop people from using its printers to make guns and did not respond to an inquiry seeking details. Other companies have installed software to stop their printers from making guns, a step printing experts have previously decried as ineffective. Dogan Yirmibesoglu, an Oregon State University researcher studying 3D printers, agreed that HPs stance wont thwart people who want to print their own guns. Companies might install software that identifies known gun schematics and prevents printers from manufacturing them. But Yirmibesoglu said its easy to get around that by modifying a guns blueprints so the printer doesnt recognize it as a weapon. With small changes you can probably trick it, and the printer will think, Oh, then its OK, he said. Though HPs 3D printers are expensive they range from $50,000 to $300,000 and are meant for commercial use, cheaper printers are readily available. And Yirmibesoglu said some run on open-source software that can be readily modified to print anything. Last summer, a federal judge in Seattle banned the distribution of 3D gun blueprints online. However, a Texas entrepreneur began mailing gun blueprints instead. Sill, Yirmibesoglu said restricting gun blueprints online might be the most effective way of limiting 3D gun production even if that doesnt totally prevent the practice. Its a problematic issue, he said. But if theres no blueprints of the weapons online, out there for free, nobody can print those unless theyre gun specialists. -- Oregonian staff writer Gordon Friedman contributed to this article. -- Mike Rogoway | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699 SALEM Oregon Gov. Kate Brown hit on many familiar themes Monday during her second inaugural address, touching on the states robust economy and the need to shore up schools. She noted that her swearing in marked my final four years as governor, since she cannot run again in 2022. Brown was first elected to lead the state in 2016 to serve the remaining two years of former Gov. John Kitzhabers term. Citing an unemployment rate that is the lowest on record and one of the fastest job growth rates in the country, Brown said lawmakers must act now to prepare for Oregons future. As Brown outlined in her budget proposal and agenda soon after the November election, she wants them to do that by raising at least $2 billion in business taxes to pour more money into the education system. Now is the time to put our state on a better path forward, Brown said. We have not significantly increased per pupil spending since the early 1990s. While other states were able to invest in schools and take advantage of economic recoveries, Oregon has had to rely on state funds to backfill local property taxes. Brown said Oregons public schools need unspecified reforms in addition to more money, and she wants to audit how schools spend any new money to ensure that new dollars are used to improve graduation rates, reduce class sizes, and provide a full school year. The governor raised the topic of government spending repeatedly during Mondays speech at the Capitol, saying for example that her mother raised her to squeeze every bit of toothpaste from the tube and that she takes the same approach as Oregons top elected official. During my entire time as governor, I have focused on spending every taxpayer dollar wisely, Brown said. We worked together on this last session. Were not going to get credit for that work, but thats not the point. We still have to do it. She highlighted the following priorities in her agenda: Pass a cap-and-spend plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions Pass legislation to provide prepaid postage on election ballots Expand Oregons automatic voter registration program beyond the Department of Motor Vehicles Pass a $700 million tax package to fund Oregons expanded Medicaid program early in the legislative session, since the governors office already negotiated a plan with input from the health care industry Spend $400 million on housing, including to help veterans and people who are homeless Pass a mandate for employers to provide paid family leave Hire more internal auditors, after a state audit found Oregon government agencies had been leaving many of the positions unfilled, thereby missing chances to improve services and save money Give schools more money to offset their increasingly painful mandatory contributions to the public pension system. Brown proposed giving schools $100 million for that purpose in her budget plan, although schools need much more to fend off rate increases. Brown also said shell push for lawmakers to pass some type of campaign finance reform in the session that begins Jan. 22. She has previously committed to push lawmakers to refer a measure to voters that would amend the state Constitution to allow contribution limits. A group of activists already has an effort underway to get a similar initiative on the ballot in 2020. No one should be able to buy a megaphone so loud that it drowns out all the other voices, Brown said. A trio of audience members briefly interrupted Brown near the end of her speech, shouting stop the pipeline. The protesters were from the group Southern Oregon Rising Tide, which opposes the proposed liquified natural gas pipeline and Jordan Cove export terminal in Southern Oregon. Brown has declined to take a position on the proposal, but accepted $150,000 from a group that supports the project. Climate leadership is about more than big words, its about action, the group wrote in a tweet. The Portland Democrat decisively beat Rep. Knute Buehler, a Bend Republican, in the November election. It was the most expensive gubernatorial race in state history, with the two sides spending a collective $37 million. Hillary Borrud | hborrud@oregonian.com | 503-294-4034 | @hborrud Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. LA PINE Authorities say a 66-year-old La Pine-area man who slipped and fell on his icy driveway after returning home Sunday evening was unable to get inside and apparently died of cold exposure. KTVZ-TV reports deputies were called around 11:45 a.m. Monday about a man found lying in a driveway northeast of La Pine, Deschutes County Sheriff's Sgt. William Bailey said. Bailey says a deputy arrived nine minutes later and found Larry Campbell cold to the touch and beyond medical help. Bailey says an initial investigation determined Campbell likely arrived home Sunday evening and that he slipped on the ice and fell after getting out of his vehicle. Campbell apparently was unable to get to his feet, Bailey said, and tried unsuccessfully to move toward an area of the driveway with less ice. The Associated Press A child was seriously hurt Monday night in a crash on Oregon 22E in Marion County, troopers say. The Oregon State Police said the 9-year-old was ejected from a Honda Pilot and eventually flown to a Portland hospital. No one else needed to be hospitalized. An early investigation shows Brandy Doudna, 42, of Mill City was driving the Pilot east on the highway when she swerved to avoid a deer, according to the state police. She hit a guardrail and stopped perpendicular in the road, troopers said. She tried to move the car but wasnt able to do so, according to troopers. Kitaira Harvey, 21, of Bend hit the SUV as its occupants were leaving the vehicle, troopers said. The 9-year-old was ejected. KATU (2) reports the child, a boy, suffered broken facial bones and that his 2-year-old brother was also hurt. Jim Ryan; jryan@oregonian.com; 503-221-8005; @Jimryan015 Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. A judge on Monday dismissed an appeal by two government lawyers who wanted to operate a short-term rental property but got in trouble with the city of Dayton. The couple, Jenny and Stephen Madkour, are attorneys for two of Oregons largest counties. They were fined $500 last fall by the city of Dayton after being warned that they were violating city codes. Jenny Madkour is Multnomah County counsel; her husband, Stephen Madkour, holds the same position in Clackamas County. In their appeal to the Yamhill County Circuit Court, the couple argued that Daytons restrictions on how they use their property are an affront to fundamental fairness and due process. Restricted use of the property results in significant economic losses for past investment and future losses, lost opportunity and emotional distress, Jenny Madkour argued in her court filing. A lawyer for the city of Dayton asked Circuit Judge John Collins to dismiss the Madkours' appeal. At the time the Madkours bought the home, short-term rentals werent allowed in that zone, according to city officials. Since then, the city has made some changes, including allowing short-term rentals in zones in and near the downtown area and allowing them in owner-occupied properties. In letters and court filings, the couple said they discussed their plans for the property with city staff. They said they got permission from the city manager last year to use the home as a short-term rental, even though it conflicted with local codes. The city manager, however, made clear in a subsequent email to Jenny Madkour that he didnt have the authority to make such an exception. A municipal judge also concluded that such rentals were not allowed. -- Noelle Crombie 503-276-7184 ncrombie@oregonian.com @noellecrombie Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. Researchers at Oregon State University have found that natural variability in the weather patterns of the Pacific Ocean have largely offset the effects of climate change on snow in the Cascades. That variability is probably going to change soon, the researchers said, and snowpacks in western mountain ranges could be decimated. The western U.S. has received a big assist from natural variability over the past 35 years, Nick Siler, an OSU atmospheric scientist and lead author on the study, said in a statement. Thats been great for us so far, but its bad news for the future. Silers findings were published Monday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Despite the fact that western states have seen about one degree of warming since the early 80s, snowpacks have remained largely robust in many places, according to the study. At first glance, this result might appear to indicate that the snowpack is quite resilient to warming, the authors wrote. The contribution of global warming to western U.S. snowpack loss has in reality been large and widespread since the 1980s, but mostly offset by natural variability in the climate system. That natural variability looks a lot like the El Nino/La Nina phenomenon that most Pacific Northwesterners are familiar with, but on a much longer timescale. Whereas El Nino/La Nina changes year-to-year, Siler looked at discrepancies in sea-surface temperature over 35 years or longer. That variability has trended toward more snow for western mountains for the last three decades, but it isnt likely to last. There has to be a reversion to the mean, Siler said. Were not sure how long it will last, but we know it cant last forever. To isolate the impacts of natural variability, Siler and his co-authors identified natural-occurring circulation patterns that affect fluctuations in winter snowpack on a yearly basis. They then removed the contribution of the variables to snowpack trends since the early 1980s, when reliable monthly snowpack observations began in the west. In Oregon specifically, the authors, which included researchers from the University of Washington and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, found that Cascade snowpack measured annually on April 1 would have declined by 18 to 54 percent since the 80s without the help of natural variability. Once that variability goes away, if sea surface temperatures change so that the west isnt blanketed in extra snow, water managers in the region will be left with even less of an important and dwindling resource. There also remains the chance, Siler said, that when the variability changes, it wont simply go to neutral, but instead could serve to exacerbate the impacts of climate change. But in the next few decades, I think were more likely to see natural variability amplify, rather than offset, the loss of snowpack due to global warming. -- Kale Williams kwilliams@oregonian.com 503-294-4048 @sfkale Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden wants federal law enforcement to turn over potential travel records on a number of Saudi college students who vanished while facing criminal charges in Oregon. In a letter Monday, Wyden asked the head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection for documents related to the outbound travel of suspects at the center of an Oregonian/OregonLive investigation. The news organization has revealed criminal cases involving at least five Saudi nationals who disappeared before they faced trial or completed their jail sentence in Oregon. They include two accused rapists, a pair of suspected hit-and-run drivers and one man with a trove of child pornography on his computer. All were young men studying at a public college or university in Oregon with assistance from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the time of their arrest. In four of the cases, the Saudi government stepped in to help, posting large sums of money for bail and possibly underwriting legal fees, according to court records and interviews with prosecutors. Three had turned over their passports court or law enforcement officials to prevent their travel at the time of their disappearance. It is unclear how these students were able to leave the country and travel internationally, since they had surrendered their passports, Wyden, a Democrat, wrote to Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan. Given the similarities in these cases, a thorough investigation is needed to better understand the involvement of (the) Saudi government. Wyden last month asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker for explanations about the disappearance of one of the defendants, Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah, a Portland Community College student. Noorah was charged in the fatal hit-and-run death of 15-year-old Fallon Smart in August 2016. He vanished two weeks before his June 2017 manslaughter trial. Federal law enforcement officials told The Oregonian/OregonLive last month they believe the Saudis helped orchestrate Noorahs remarkable escape and that the young man arrived back in Saudi Arabia 18 months ago. Officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Marshals Service believe Noorah left his Southeast Portland neighborhood in a black SUV and later used an illicit passport and private plane likely provided by the Saudi government to flee the country. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for comment. Read Wydens full letter here. -- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh; 503-294-7632 Two winter storms last month tore off the basement walls of the Rockaway Beach home that Tai Dang has been trying to save for the past four years. But the Portland area man appears to have finally reached a major turning point in his fight to install riprap to protect the Tuscan-style villa, estimated to be worth $1.8 million in better days. With the states blessing, Dang can put up a rock barrier along 81 feet of his beachfront property, said Dangs attorney, Wendie Kellington. Hell need to reapply for another permit to leave the riprap there permanently, but Kellington is optimistic that Dang will get it. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, which oversees the states beaches, agreed last week that because the house is in imminent peril and because the property where it sits was developed before 1977 with a pair of long-gone houses, its entitled to an immediate, one-year riprap permit. Thats even though the city of Rockaway Beach doesnt agree and since 2015 has refused to sign off on the project. Attorneys for the city, Gerald Warren and John Putman, declined to comment on the details of the citys position. Dang and two business partners -- Hue Le and Tue Nguyen -- own the 10-year-old, six-bedroom house. The trio once used the home as a place for their families to gather, but as their children have grown older, theyve turned to renting it out to cover their expenses. The front of the home. The once-immaculate vacation home stands out in a town filled with many older, more modest homes. It has granite countertops, a wrought-iron banister, three glass chandeliers, a dolphin tile mosaic and a hot tub to soak in the view of the beachs signature landmark, Twin Rocks, off in the distance. Dang also won another substantial victory in December. Tillamook County Circuit Judge Jonathan Hill ruled that the city of Rockaway Beach was wrong to at first grant Dang permission to build the house in that precise spot, then come back later and say the house was illegally positioned because it was too close to the ocean. The judge ruled the city must allow Dang to repair the back decks -- which are in danger of collapsing from a January 2018 storm -- because city officials originally signed off on the project, stating the home complied with all city standards and regulations. Two weeks after the judges ruling, waves washed out the basement walls and sent seaweed and sand flooding onto the floors. The decision should mean Dang also can repair that damage, too. The city, however, is appealing that ruling. This photo shows a part of the basement walls missing from Tai Dang's Rockaway Beach vacation home, after two storms in December 2018 battered the home. *** Riprap is a controversial solution to coastal erosion. Conservationists say riprap in one place can cause erosion elsewhere as it changes how waves hit nearby beaches. It also can scrape away the beach in front of it. But even if it doesn't, its mere presence consumes precious public beach by narrowing already thin stretches of sand, they say. But owners of longtime developed beachfront properties say they should be able to protect their properties. In 1973, state lawmakers set out to limit the use of riprap by allowing only landowners on beachfront properties developed with homes, businesses or utility lines before Jan. 1, 1977, to install riprap if no other viable alternatives exist. Dang presented evidence to the city that his land was developed at least three decades earlier, but the city wouldnt agree he was entitled to riprap. Neighboring property owners also gave Dangs riprap proposal an icy reception at a community hearing in 2015. Eleven people testified against his proposal and none for it. Some said Dang should have known he was taking a big risk building on beachfront property. The bluff in front of the home had been disappearing since at least the early 1980s and has eroded roughly 60 feet in the past quarter century. A geologist wrote in a 2014 report that the erosion has rapidly accelerated in the years after Dang built the house -- carving away as much as 10 feet of shorefront per year for three consecutive years. One of Dangs lawyer, Jonathan Radmacher, said part of the problem appears to be the city dumping rocks without a permit onto the beach next to a road just south of Dangs house. Radmacher contends that may have caused the wave power to deflect onto Dangs beachfront. *** 16 Rockaway Beach vacation home, on the brink Now hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and housing repair costs in the hole, Dang also is suing Rockaway Beach in U.S. District Court for the value of his property, claiming the city denied him the right to protect his house based on racial animus. Dang, an electrical engineer in his 50s, immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam when he was 14. He speaks with an accent. Dang told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the years-long battle with the city has left him deeply shaken. Early on in the process, he said some people in a neighboring town told him they thought he was being targeted because of his ethnicity. They told me Welcome to Birmingham, Ala., 1963,' Dang recalled. I said No. This is Oregon. Ive never been discriminated against. But after years of fighting the city and seeing the power it wields, he's come to believe there's no other explanation for being treated the way he has been treated, other than racial discrimination. Now I believe them, said Dang, an Oregonian of more than 30 years. Im so upset. I dont go out there. Radmacher, who is representing Dang in the discrimination lawsuit, said he has no evidence that city planners or leaders used racial epithets to describe his client. But it sure feels like hes being treated in a way that no other citizen of that city has been treated, Radmacher said. Radmacher noted that a significant portion of Rockaway Beach is covered in riprap. In 1999, 50 waterfront property owners in the mostly white town were allowed to erect a 4,000-foot-long protective barrier after as much as 100 feet of protective dune washed away in a single winter, according to past news stories. -- Aimee Green agreen@oregonian.com o_aimee Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. Odd in Oregon Oregon Gov. Kate Brown was sworn into office for her first full-term in office. In her address, she proposed raising at least $2 billion in business taxes to pour more money into education. Read more Sen. Ron Wyden wants the feds to turn over any travel records on a number of Saudi college students who vanished while facing criminal charges in Oregon. Read more A 19-year-old hunting with his family along the Columbia River disappeared after paddling away in a small boat. Read more $1 million in public money goes to fund Portland shelter billed as privately funded. Read more A grad student filed a discrimination suit accusing George Fox University of failing to provide her with reasonable accommodations for her disability. Read more A Lake Oswego school principal was arrested Friday on suspicion of drunken driving. Read more A Bowlero bowling alley, including arcade and bar and restaurant, could be coming to the Lloyd Center mall. Read more Adults with brain injuries make and sell cupcakes at Sarah Bellums Bakery. Read more About three dozen pant-less people gathered at the Skidmore Fountain in downtown Portland Sunday for the No Pants Subway (Max) ride. See more photos. (Mark Graves/Staff) More news Today's obituaries Today in history On Jan. 15, 1929, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta. In 1892, the original rules of basketball, devised by James Naismith, were published for the first time in Springfield, Massachusetts, where the game originated. An animal welfare group has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture after the death of a primate at Oregon Health and Science University and other alleged violations. Stop Animal Exploitation Now, based in Ohio, called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fine the university the maximum of $10,000 per animal and infraction, the total of which would exceed $100,000. The group has filed complaints against OHSU previously. "OHSU's death toll continues to climb without pause," Michael Budkie, executive director of the animal welfare group, said in a statement. "This laboratory has reached new heights of fatal incompetence. In October, the animal rights group PETA asked the USDA to shut down animal testing at OHSU. Nancy Haigwood, director of the Oregon National Primate Research Center at the university said her staff, which includes 18 veterinarians and 11 animal behaviorists, is committed to the humane, respectful treatment of every animal in our care. For this reason, any accidental death or injury to an animal is distressing to us all. She also noted that many of the issues referenced in Budkies complaint were addressed months or years ago, when the original incidents took place, and that the university complies with stringent standards according to the Health Research Extension Act and the Animal Welfare act. The federal agency conducted an inspection of the universitys primate facility in Beaverton in August and found that, in May, a primate had been found in its enclosure constrained by PVC pipes of a resting perch, according to the inspection report. A veterinarian immediately began treatment, to which the animal initially responded, but later developed neurological signs. The (animal) was euthanized based upon the follow-up veterinary evaluation, according to the inspection report. In a letter to the USDA, officials from the university said a necropsy of the animal revealed swelling in its neck, which suggested pressure, but not strangulation. The university inspected all of its primate perches and installed safeguards to prevent a similar incident from occurring. In February, another primate wasnt given the proper medications after a minor surgical procedure in violation of federal animal welfare protocols. Budkie noted a number of other violations during the past two years, including two guinea pigs that died after surgery because anesthetic monitoring was inadequate. Another primate had its tail amputated after it got stuck between two enclosures, and some animals were found to without water for up to 24 hours at a time. In 2016, the university was issued a warning by the USDA after a monkey died in an enclosure. In that case, and in each of the other cases, the university made changes, either in training or protocol, to try to prevent further incidents. Haigwood said the university posted all of its inspection reports online as soon as they are available. The university keeps roughly a half-million animals for research, mostly rodents and fish. Nearly 5,000 primates are housed at the research center in Beaverton, where researchers conduct a wide range of animal research, including treatment for alcoholism, cardiovascular disease, new cancer therapies and vaccines against HIV, human papillomavirus and tuberculosis. -- Kale Williams kwilliams@oregonian.com 503-294-4048 @sfkale Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. The dagger-type knife that detectives recovered after a Portland police officer fatally shot an intruder inside a Southeast Portland home is similar to a knife that officers commonly carry on the job. Police officials and prosecutors on Monday declined to say if the knife belonged to Officer Consider Vosu, who shot Andre Gladen, 36, on Jan. 6. The DA has requested that (the Portland Police Bureau) not release further details at this time to avoid tainting an open and active investigation, spokeswoman Lt. Tina Jones said in an email. Brent Weisberg, Multnomah County District Attorneys Office spokesman, also declined comment, saying in an email, This remains an on-going investigation and no additional information about the knife, which was recovered at the scene, can be released. Police released a photo of the knife two days after the fatal encounter. It shows a double-sided 3/12-inch blade with finger rings. It costs about $100, according to retail postings. The officers lawyer, Michael Staropoli, declined to say whether the knife was Vosus, saying he had an ethical obligation not to violate attorney-client privilege and discuss the facts of the case while it remains under investigation. Deputy Police Chief Bob Day said Vosu was interviewed by internal affairs investigators last week. He said the knife is similar to a type that officers often carry. Day said he didnt know if it was Vosus. One witness said Gladen was holding it at one point. It was the only knife found at the scene. Officer Daryl Turner, president of the Portland Police Association, said officers arent issued knives but frequently carry their own as a tool to cut everything from seat belts or ropes on the job. Gladens cousin, Diamond Randolph, said she had seen Gladen carrying a knife in the past, but it was a kitchen-type knife. She saw the photo of the knife police released as the one recovered from the scene but said she never saw Gladen have anything like that before. The encounter began when Desmond Pescaia called 911 about a stranger sleeping on his front stoop. When the officer arrived, the stranger, later identified as Gladen, burst into Pescaias home through the open front door, he said. Vosu followed Gladen inside the home in the 9600 block of Southeast Market Street. Gladen slipped and fell on the living room floor and the officer tried to turn Gladen onto his stomach to put handcuffs on him, Pescaia said. Gladen then kicked the officer off and into a rear bedroom. When Gladen reached the entry to the bedroom, the officer ordered Gladen to stand down several times before firing his Taser at him, Pescaia told The Oregonian/OregonLive. Gladen fell but got back up and Vosu, cornered in the rear bedroom, continued to order Gladen to stand down before firing three shots at Gladen with his handgun, Pescaia said. As Gladen fell down on his back, Pescaia said he saw a knife fall from Gladens right hand and land beside him. Pescaia said he didnt see Gladen with a knife till then. Andre Catrel Gladen, 36, of California, most recently had been staying with a cousin in Portland since December. Gladen, who is legally blind and suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, had been at Portland Adventist Medical Center less than half a mile away before he showed up on Pescaias doorstep, his family confirmed. Gladen told Pescaia that he was blind, had been released from the hospital and thought someone was coming after him to kill him, Pescaia said. Disability Rights Oregon has called for an independent inquiry into Gladens death. We express our deepest sympathies to the family of Andre Gladen who was shot and killed by a Portland police officer on Sunday. Media reports indicate that Mr. Gladen experienced a mental illness and was in a mental health crisis at the time of the shooting. Many facts remain unknown, Disability Rights Oregon said in a statement. -- Maxine Bernstein Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian http://twitter.com/maxoregonian I never loved anyone like I did JonBenet and yet I let her slip and her head bashed in half and I watched her die. It was an accident. Please believe me. She was not like the other kids. So writes Gary Oliva from prison in Colorado, where he is serving time for sexual exploitation of a child. The 54-year-old convict made the confession in letters to a former high-school friend, according to Britains Daily Mail, which published an extensive report last week. JonBenet Ramsey was found in the basement of her Boulder, Colo., home on Dec. 26, 1996. She had a fractured skull and had been strangled. The 6-year-old beauty queens violent death rocked the community and became a tabloid sensation around the world. The case remains unsolved and an open investigation. Oliva has a long criminal history. Nearly 30 years ago, while on probation for assaulting a 7-year-old girl in Oregon, he reportedly attempted to kill his mother at his parents Grants Pass home. But the Boulder Police Department does not appear to take Olivas JonBenet Ramsey confession seriously. He has confessed to the crime before. On January 10, shortly after the Daily Mail story published, the department issued a terse statement that it is aware of Gary Oliva and has investigated his potential involvement in this case, including several previous confessions. ... There are no new updates in this investigation and the department will not comment further. DNA recovered at the scene of JonBenets death reportedly does not match Olivas. Ramseys parents and brother long have been the subject of wild speculation about JonBenets death. A 1999 grand jury indicted John and Patsy Ramsey, JonBenets mother and father, for child abuse. The charges alleged, The Denver Post reported, the parents permitted JonBenet to be placed in a dangerous situation that led to her death and it accused them of helping whoever killed the girl. But the Boulder district attorney refused to sign the indictment or prosecute the couple. In 2008, the district attorneys office publicly exonerated the Ramseys and apologized. (Patsy Ramsey died in 2006 of cancer.) JonBenets brother Burke recently settled a defamation lawsuit against CBS over a 2016 documentary that included a theory that Burke killed his sister. The suit claimed the network perpetrated a fraud upon the public. -- Douglas Perry @douglasmperry When Lynn Jones applied to graduate school at George Fox University to get a masters degree in clinical mental health counseling, she wrote an essay about her personal spiral into psychosis and her stay at the Oregon State Hospital after pleading guilty-except-for-insanity in a stalking and burglary case. She wrote that she wanted to help others experiencing mental health challenges, as a result of her own experiences. The director of the universitys program called Jones, citing concerns that she might not be up to the task. So Jones gave him the clearance to talk to her case manager and therapist, and she was accepted into the program. But when Jones failed to obtain a clinical internship through the program, a requirement for the degree, she filed a grievance with the university, alleging discrimination. This month, she followed up with a federal lawsuit, accusing George Fox University of failing to provide her with reasonable accommodations for her disability and preventing her from pursuing her clinical counseling degree. Jones said she was forced to switch to a non-clinical graduate program. Shes due to graduate from the Newberg school in May with a masters of arts degree in social behavioral sciences. The 58-year-old Dayton woman is seeking $600,000 in damages for curtailed wages and $70,000 to cover student debt from the clinical program she initially enrolled in. Jones lawyers, Holly M. Lloyd and Judy D. Snyder, filed the suit this month in U.S. District Court in Portland. Rob Felton, a spokesman for George Fox University, said the university doesnt comment on ongoing litigation and he couldnt share information on a students educational records. The universitys website says the masters program for clinical mental health counseling is to prepare students to become a licensed professional counselor. Among the requirements is completion of clinical internships. Counselors, the website says, need to be able to understand and articulate clients' presenting problems and provide treatment from sound psychological and theological principles and be equipped to work with a variety of clients of diverse backgrounds and needs. Jones had been committed to the care of the states Psychiatric Security Review Board on Jan. 25, 2010, after she entered a guilty-except-for-insanity plea in Yamhill County Circuit Court to charges of first-degree burglary, criminal mischief, attempted arson, two counts of stalking and contempt of court for violating a restraining order. Jones had broken into her ex-husbands home through a window on Aug. 17, 2009, and trashed the place, breaking a computer, flat screen TV, pictures, mirrors, dishes, porcelain figures and other belongings. Her ex-husband came home to the mess and found Jones asleep in his master bedroom. He had obtained a restraining order against her months earlier, on Dec. 3, 2008, according to court records. She was given a conditional release from the state psychiatric hospital on June 24, 2014, according to the Psychiatric Security Review Board. She is currently allowed to live in a semi-independent residence in Southeast Portland while receiving continued treatment by Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare for bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders. According to her suit, once Jones filed a grievance with the university in early February 2018 after not being selected for a clinical internship, she was given a student remediation plan requiring her to undergo a psychological assessment at her own expense. The university responded that Jones didnt display minimum performance skills to make her eligible for an internship and that faculty cited red flags raised by how she dealt with stress and anxiety, according to the suit. Jones countered that she had earned a 3.9 grade-point average and hadnt received any negative or critical feedback from faculty or staff before she filed her grievance, the suit says. -- Maxine Bernstein Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian Unemployment claims by federal workers in Oregon increased fourfold after the government shutdown began last month, according to data from the Oregon Employment Department. Between Dec. 21 -- the last day before the shutdown started -- and Jan. 10, some 1,900 Oregon workers filed unemployment claims. That compares with 450 in the same period a year earlier. The shutdown affects about 9,600 federal workers in Oregon, according to the employment department. But only some of those are eligible for unemployment benefits. Some federal employees whose work is deemed essential must keep working during the shutdown, even though theyre not getting paid. Those workers arent eligible for jobless benefits because the legal definition of unemployment excludes people working full time, whether or not they are being paid. Oregon has 28,000 federal employees altogether, most of whom work for funded agencies like the Postal Service unaffected by the shutdown. The federal workers filing for unemployment were less than 10 percent of the total jobless claims during that period, according to the employment department. The late-year shutdown didnt affect Oregons December employment numbers, issued Tuesday, because federal workers were still on the job during the week economists collected state data. The states jobless rate was 4.1 percent last month, up slightly from 3.9 percent at December but still near an all-time low. Oregon job growth was essentially flat in both November and December following rapid growth from July through October. -- Mike Rogoway | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699 Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. Oregon-based Columbia Helicopters says it still wants to sell itself to a Texas company, even though the buyers share price has plunged by more than two-thirds since announcing the $559 million deal. Bristow Groups investors began unloading shares almost as soon as the company announced its plan to buy privately held Columbia last November, driving Bristows stock down from $10.04 to just $3.16. Bristows deteriorating position on Wall Street has produced calls for the Texas company to scuttle the deal. But Columbia Helicopters insists it intends to sell. Theres a lot of talk, obviously, but the facts are the facts. Theres an agreement, said Santiago Crespo, Columbias vice president of business development and strategy. Most of the purchase price, $492 million, is to be paid in cash, much of which Bristow intends to borrow. So the precipitous decline in Bristow stock has only diminished what Columbias owners would receive by $43 million, about 8 percent. It has devastated Bristow, though. The deal currently values Columbia at $516 million, 4.5 times Bristows diminished market capitalization. Bristow did not respond to messages Tuesday seeking comment on the deals status. Columbia Helicopters was founded in 1957 and the family of its late founder, Wes Lematta, still owns the business. When it announced the deal in November, Columbia said it would continue to be run from its existing headquarters in Aurora after Bristow takes over. Columbia says its sales totaled $281 million in the 12 months ended in September; it did not disclose profitability. Bristows sales totaled $1.4 billion in its last fiscal year, which ended in March. The Texas company lost $196 million in that period. When they announced the deal in November, the two companies said Columbias operations in defense, firefighting and natural resource exploration would complement Bristows focus on offshore oil exploration and search-and-rescue aircraft. They said that would create a stronger, more diversified company. Investors arent buying it. A Wisconsin firm called Global Value Investment Corp., which owns less than 5 percent of Bristows stock, sent a letter to the Texas company last week denouncing the deal for Columbia. Global Value said $360 million in debt coupled with newly issued stock to finance the acquisition is too expensive to existing shareholders. If the deal does come apart, the sale agreement requires Bristow to pay a $20 million termination fee. But Crespo said the companies are trying to move forward together. We know both parties are working hard to meet the obligations of the agreement, he said. Oregonian reporter Jeff Manning contributed to this article. -- Mike Rogoway | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699 2019 2025 Large-size TFT-LCD Market with Major Eminent Key Players Like - LG, Samsung, Sharp, Tianma, Truly Semiconductors, Innolux Etc. https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/requested_sample/42822 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/enquiry_before_buying/42822 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/buy/large-size-tft-lcd-market-research https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/request_for_discount/42822 www.upmarketresearch.com UpMarketResearch offers a latest published report on Global Large-size TFT-LCD Market Analysis and Forecast 2019-2025 delivering key insights and providing a competitive advantage to clients through a detailed report. 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The tire manufacturing segment holding the largest market share, as of 2016 and is growing at a highest CAGR of 5.31% during the forecast period. During the years to follow, this segment is anticipated to remain dominant due to the rise in demand from automotive industry. Regionally, Asia Pacific held the largest market share in 2016, and is growing at the highest CAGR of 5.34% to reach USD 1,483.2 million by the end of 2023.Global Key Players and Competition AnalysisThe prominent players in the Global Liquid Polybutadiene Market are Kuraray Co. Ltd (Japan), SIBUR International GmbH (Austria), Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd. (Japan), Versalis S.p.A (Italy), Evonik Industries AG (Germany), Cray Valley (France), and NIPPON SODA CO., LTD (Japan), among others.Get a Sample of this Report @Segmentation AnalysisThe Global Liquid Polybutadiene Market is segmented on the basis application, end use, and region. Based on application, the market is divided into tire manufacturing, industrial rubber, polymer modification, protective films, chemicals, coatings, adhesives & sealants, and others. Based on end use, the market is segmented transportation, construction, industrial, and others. Geographically, the Global Liquid Polybutadiene Market is spanned across: Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa.Regional AnalysisThe Global Liquid Polybutadiene Market is segmented into five key regions Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa. Among them, Asia Pacific accounted for the largest market share in 2016, and is projected to grow at the highest CAGR of 5.34% to reach USD 1,483.2 million by the end of 2023. As of 2016, Germany accounted the largest market share of 29.70% in Europe and expected to remain dominance throughout the forecast period owing to greater penetration of end user industries in the country.Check Discount @Market ScopeGlobal Liquid Polybutadiene Market is characterized into tire manufacturing, industrial rubber, polymer modification, protective films, chemicals, coatings, adhesives & sealants, and others. Among these applications, the tire manufacturing accounts for the largest market share as of 2016 and is estimated to grow at the highest CAGR of 5.31% during the forecast period. In the coming years, the tire manufacturing segment is anticipated to retain its dominance due to the constantly rising demand from the automotive industry. Apart from tire manufacturing industry, industrial rubber is another substantial application of the Liquid Polybutadiene and is holding 19% share of the market.Browse the market data and information spread across 123 pages with 148 data tables and 15 figures of the report Liquid Polybutadiene Market Research Report- Forecast to 2023 in-depth alongside table of content (TOC) at:Industry NewsFebruary 20, 2017- Kuraray Co., Ltd. has developed liquid farnesene rubber for tire manufacturing. Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. has adopted liquid farnesene rubber (LFR) as performance enhancing additive in studless tire WINTER MAXX 02. This LFR is developed by Kuraray using bio-technology derived monomer called Farnesene with help of Amyris, Inc.June 29, 2017- Total Cray Valley introduced a new PolyFarnesene diol in line of Krasol- brand and Ricon-brand which is liquid polybutadiene resin. It is based on trans--farnesene, a renewable alternative to petroleum-based feedstocks like butadiene. Krasol F 3000 can replace polyether and polyester diols.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), & Consulting Services.To stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 524/528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Mobile Music Streaming Market is Booming Worldwide 2019-2026: Global Companies like Apple Music, Deezer, Google Play Music, Microsoft, Pandora Media Mobile Music Streaming market https://www.researchnreports.com/request_sample.php?id=72892 https://www.researchnreports.com/ask_for_discount.php?id=72892 www.researchnreports.com The Mobile Music Streaming market size is expected to reach at a CAGR of +14% during the forecast period according to new report. The research report Mobile Music Streaming offers a detailed evaluation of the market situation within a specific geographic region. This Mobile Music Streaming study contains relevant data on market shifts owing to social, economic, cultural and technological changes worldwide. Cloud computing is rapidly being adopted by music companies because it provides users legal access to online music even from remote servers.Mobile advertising is currently one of the most popular methods of advertising and is mainly driven by the increased penetration of tablets, smartphones, increasing Internet penetration, and the development of various mobile apps. Around 49% of the total global population had access to the Internet.For Sample Copy of this report@The Key Companies include: Apple Music, Deezer, Google Play Music, Microsoft, Pandora Media, Rdio, Spotify, Amazon Prime Music, CBS , Clear Channel Radio etc.The app also attracts more customers by providing easy payment options for premium service subscribers. Users are required to enter personal information, which allows vendors to maintain a larger customer base through targeted advertising. As a result, mobile advertising spending has led to a worldwide music on demand music market.Across the globe, different regions such as North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, and Africa have been examined to get better market penetration. This report sheds light on different terminologies such as, Mobile Music Streaming It has been examined in terms of different parameters such as applications, size, and end-users. This research report shows the qualitative and quantitative investigation of the market. Moreover, the different risks and challenges faced by numerous stakeholders have been listed in this report.Avail Discount on this report@Top level industries have been profiled to get right direction to the business by referring to the successful strategies which have been applied by top companies. It gives more focus on recent trends and developments to understand the updated and recent knowledge about the Mobile Music Streaming market. The main objective of this research report is to provide deep insights into the businesses. Different dynamic aspects of businesses such as Mobile Music Streaming have been listed in the report.Different internal and external factors are examined which are responsible for driving or hampering the market. In addition to this, numerous effective strategies have been used to explore the global opportunities for the Mobile Music Streaming market.Key Questions Answered in Report:1. What are factor which lead this market to next level?2. What will the market Demand and what will be Growth?3. What are the opportunities to Mobile Music Streaming market in future?4. What are the strengths of the key players?5. What are the key of Mobile Music Streaming market?About usResearch N Reports is a new age market research firm where we focus on providing information that can be effectively applied. Today being a consumer driven market, companies require information to deal with the complex and dynamic world of choices. Where relying on a sound board firm for your decisions becomes crucial. Research N Reports specializes in industry analysis, market forecasts and as a result getting quality reports covering all verticals, whether be it gaining perspective on current market conditions or being ahead in the cut throat Global competition. Since we excel at business research to help businesses grow, we also offer consulting as an extended arm to our services which only helps us gain more insight into current trends and problems. Consequently, we keep evolving as an all-rounder provider of viable information under one roof.Contact UsSunny Denis(Sales Manager),Research N Reports10916, Gold Point Dr, Houston, TX, Pin - 77064,8886316977sales@researchnreports.com Global Glycinates Market Analysis By Product Type, Top Key Players, Applications, and Industry Size - Forecast from 2018-2025 Global Glycinates Market Outlook and Forecast https://bit.ly/2FnyA3x https://bit.ly/2CmS8Sm https://bit.ly/2HcPnJc www.blueweaveconsulting.com Global Glycinates Market by Product Type (Magnesium Glycinate, Zinc Glycinate, Calcium Glycinate, Copper Glycinate, Iron Glycinate, Manganese Glycinate, Sodium Glycinate & Others), by Application (Pharmaceuticals, Food Additives, Feed Additives, Personal Care & Others), by Region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa); Size and Forecast, 2018-2025According to BlueWeave Consulting report, the global glycinates market was valued at USD 984.10 million in 2017 and is projected to expand at a CAGR of 5.15% from 2018 to 2024, by value, reaching around USD 1488.10 million by the end of the forecast period. According to the report, North America was the largest contributor in terms of revenue to global glycinates market in 2017.Growing demand from supplements & healthcare products is driving the global glycinates market.Request for Sample Copy of Study Report on Global Glycinates Market:Magnesium glycinates are often used in health supplement products over other magnesium form, as the body finds it easier to absorb this form. It is also one of the gentlest supplements, unlike other forms of magnesium. It does not cause as many side effects, such as an upset stomach or loose stools. This characteristic makes magnesium glycinates a good supplement for people recovering from bariatric surgery or anyone who might be at risk for magnesium levels which is stimulating the demand for magnesium glycinates over the forecast period.With the rising opportunities in meat & dairy sector, there has been a shift in the focus of manufacturers towards animal feed. This is also anticipated to increase the consumption of glycinates in livestock feed. Glycinates is used in farming and agriculture industries to feed chicken and cattle in order to provide important nutrients for their growth. The government authorities are implementing strict regulation in Europe and United States, which has banned the use of certain antibiotics as growth promoters in animals. Thus, stringent regulations against antibiotics in livestock feed industry will promote glycinates market by 2025.Global Glycinates Market: Scope of the ReportThe global market for glycinates is segmented by product, by application, and by region. The product is further segmented into magnesium glycinates, zinc glycinates, calcium glycinates, copper glycinates, manganese glycinates, iron glycinates, sodium glycinates, and others. The application further segmented into pharmaceuticals, calcium glycinates, feed additives, personal care, and sodium glycinates. Thus, the demands for glycinates products, like magnesium glycinates and zinc glycinates, will generate higher revenue returns over the forecast period.Get Complete Table of Content Having Unique Analysis on Several Factors:Global Glycinates Market: Competitive DynamicsThe global glycinates market is dominated by a number of players, amongst them the major players BASF SE, Solvay, Ajinomoto, Clariant, Albion Laboratories, Shijiazhuang Donghua Jinlong Chemical, Galaxy Surfactants, Novotech Nutraceuticals, Schaumann, Dunstan Nutrition, Aliphos and Chaitanya Chemicals in this industry are following different strategies to strengthen their market position. For instance, In November 2017 BASF SE signed an agreement with Avitech Nutrition Pvt. Ltd., who is the leader in the animal nutrition field in India. They have special expertise in feed additives that will help BASF to expand their organic trace element product market in South Asia.Global Glycinates Market: Competitive DynamicsMajor industry players in global glycinates market are adopting different strategic initiatives such as mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, and collaborations for strategic expansion in the glycinates market. For instance, in November 2017, BASF SE entered into a partnership with Avitech Nutrition to expand organically-bound trace elements for animal feed manufacturers. Product contains high-quality glycinates by BASF which will enhance nutritional value of feed additive, improving poultry vitality in South Asia.Global Glycinates Market: Key Findings of the ReportAccording to BlueWeave Consulting, the key findings of the report Global Glycinates Market Size, Share, Development, Growth and Demand Forecast, 2025 are: Global Glycinates market is projected to expand with a growth rate of 5.15% during 2018 to 2025. Increasing demand for mineral supplements and healthcare products among the consumers is driving the global glycinates market with the rising opportunities in meat & dairy sector; there has been a shift in the focus of manufacturers towards animal feed. This is also projected to increase the consumption of glycinates in livestock feed. Magnesium Glycinates has dominated the market and accounted for the highest market share of 30.26% of the total market in 2017, which is projected to reach over 33.83% by 2025 owing to its usage in pharmaceutical industry. Magnesium glycinates is an essential nutrient which is easier to absorb and is among the gentlest supplement on the stomach. Pharmaceutical application is expected to reach around USD 312.26 million by the end of 2025, which is driven by the factors like used in heavy amount, for the production of various mineral enriched medicines and oral care products which drove the market. Growing concern towards the healthcare products and mineral supplements is driving this segment. North America is the largest market for glycinates across the globe. The demand for Glycinates in the region is expected to rise with a CAGR of 6.11%, in terms of value, generating revenue of around USD 633.04 million by 2025. China dominates the region with a CAGR of 6.39% during 2018-2025, anticipated to expand owing to increasing demand for glycinates in the emerging economies like India and others due to its usage in livestock feed additives.Browse Full Study Report on Global Glycinates Market:About UsBlueWeave Consulting is a one-stop solution for market intelligence regarding various products and services online & offline. We offer worldwide market research reports by analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data to boost up the performance of your business solution. BlueWeave has built its reputation from the scratches by delivering quality performance and nourishing the long-lasting relationships with its clients. We are one of the promising digital market intelligence generation company delivering unique solutions for blooming your business and making the morning, more rising & shining.Contact Us:Email: info@blueweaveconsulting.comWebsite:Phone: +1 8666586826 Online Payment Gateway Market 2019: PayPal, Stripe, Amazon Payments, Authorize.net, WorldPay, Adyen, CCBill, 2Checkout, FirstData, SecurePay, PayU, MOLPay, Paymill, GMO, Alipay. Online Payment Gateway Market https://www.orbisresearch.com/contacts/request-sample/2434175?utm_source=Atish https://www.orbisresearch.com/contacts/enquiry-before-buying/2434175?utm_source=Atish Online payment gateways are the merchant service which assists in carrying out a smooth transaction at the time of online shopping. The transaction is carried out by processing credit card, debit cards and direct payment process for various online business such as e- retailers, online websites. The payment gateways services can be provided by any financial service provider of by any commercialized bank.The global Online Payment Gateway market will reach xxx Million USD in 2017 with CAGR xx% 2018-2023. The objective of report is to define, segment, and project the market on the basis of product type, application, and region, and to describe the content about the factors influencing market dynamics, policy, economic, technology and market entry etc.Request Sample Report @Leading vendors in the market are included based on profile, business performance etc. Vendors mentioned as follows: PayPal Stripe Amazon Payments Authorize.net WorldPay Adyen CCBill 2Checkout FirstData SecurePay PayU MOLPay Paymill GMO Alipay Tenpay Ping++ Boleto Bancario CashU OneCard Wirecard WebMoney RealexBased on products type, the report describes major products type share of regional market. Products mentioned as follows: Pro/Self-Hosted Payment Gateways Local Bank Integrates Platform Based Payment Gateway Solution OthersBased on Application, the report describes major application share of regional market. Application mentioned as follows: Micro and Small Enterprise Large Enterprise Mid- Sized EnterpriseEnquiry Before Buying@Table of Contents:1 Market Overview2 Industry Chain3 Environmental Analysis4 Market Segmentation by Type5 Market Segmentation by Application6 Market Segmentation by Region7 Market Competitive8 Major Vendors8.1 PayPal8.1.2 Profile8.1.2 Business Performance (Sales Revenue, Cost, Gross Margin)8.2 Stripe8.2.1 Profile8.2.2 Business Performance (Sales Revenue, Cost, Gross Margin)8.3 Amazon Payments8.3.1 Profile8.3.2 Business Performance (Sales Revenue, Cost, Gross Margin)8.4 Authorize.net8.4.1 Profile8.4.2 Business Performance (Sales Revenue, Cost, Gross Margin)8.5 WorldPay8.5.1 Profile8.5.2 Business Performance (Sales Revenue, Cost, Gross Margin)8.6 Adyen8.6.1 Profile8.6.2 Business Performance (Sales Revenue, Cost, Gross Margin)8.7 CCBill8.7.1 Profile8.7.2 Business Performance (Sales Revenue, Cost, Gross Margin)ContinuedAbout Us:Orbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customized reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Contact Us:Hector CostelloSenior Manager Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +9120641 01019Email id: sales@orbisresearch.com Retail Automation Market by Type, Component and End User, 2017-2023 : Datalogic S.p.A., First Data Corporation, Fujitsu Limited, Honeywell International Inc., NRC Corp., Pricer, Posiflex Technology Inc. Retail Automation https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-toc-and-sample/4430?utm_source=as_opr https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/4430?utm_source=as_opr https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-for-customization/4430?utm_source=as_opr https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com Retail automation provides an integrated tool to manage the retail activities such as product handling, time & attendance, workforce management, task management, store audit, and others. The software increases workforce productivity and enhances store productivity. Changes in customer behavior and increase in product measurements drive the market.The global retail automation market is expected to register substantial growth in the near future, attributed to growth in need of business automation and insights, increase in need of centralized monitoring & controlling platform, and rise in demand of business process optimization. However, factors such as the requirement of high initial investment and the increase in need to monitor self-service kiosk are expected to restrain the growth of the market.Download report sample at:The report segments the retail automation market based on the type, component, end user, and geography. Based on type, the market is divided into the barcode, self-checkout system, vending machine, and others. As per component, the market is bifurcated into hardware and software. On the basis of the end user, the market is segmented as hypermarket, supermarket, shopping mall, and others. By region, it is analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA.Comprehensive competitive analysis and profiles of major market players such as Datalogic S.p.A., First Data Corporation, Fujitsu Limited, Honeywell International Inc., NRC Corp., Pricer, Posiflex Technology Inc., Toshiba Corp., Wincor Nixdorf International, Zebra Technologies Corp. are also provided in this report.For purchase enquiry at:Key Benefits:This report provides an extensive analysis of the current and emerging market trends and dynamics in the global retail automation market.In-depth analysis is conducted by constructing market estimations for the key market segments between 2016 and 2023.This study evaluating competitive landscape and value chain is taken into account to elucidate the competitive environment across the geographies.This report entails the detailed quantitative analysis of the current market and estimations through 2016-2023, which assists in identifying the prevailing market opportunities.Comprehensive analysis of factors that drive and restrict the growth of the market is provided.Request For Report Customization at:Retail Automation Market Key Segments:By TypeBarcodeSelf -Checkout SystemVending MachineOthersBy ComponentHardwareSoftwareBy End UserHypermarketSupermarketShopping MallOthersBy RegionNorth AmericaoU.S.oCanadaoMexicoEuropeoUKoGermanyoFranceoRest of EuropeAsia-PacificoIndiaoChinaoJapanoRest of Asia-PacificLAMEAoLatin AmericaoMiddle EastoAfricaAbout Us:Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions. AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.Contact:David Correa5933 NE Win Sivers Drive#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesToll Free: +1-800-792-5285UK: +44-845-528-1300Hong Kong: +852-301-84916India (Pune): +91-20-66346060Fax: +1?855?550-5975help@alliedmarketresearch.comWeb: Augmented Expansion to be Registered by Web Based e-Detailing Market by 2026 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1645 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/1645 www.futuremarketinsights.com Web based E-detailing is an interacting media platform wherein the pharmaceutical companies display their products sales presentation and brochures. Web based E-detailing allows the doctor or physician to look up to the medicines as per their requirement. The web based E-detailing is comparatively cost effective than the traditional methods such as sales representatives. Web based E-detailing gives high return on investment to pharmaceutical companies in terms of sales, previously the medical representatives used to meet with the physicians detailing about the product. The technological advances and internet penetration in every sector has changed the scenario for the conventional method of detailing. Moreover, the web based E-detailing eliminates the long waiting hours of sales representatives to meet doctors and web based E-detailing is found to be more effective than the conventional way of detailing. Web based E-detailing provides more profound details about the pharmaceutical drugs to the physicians which the sales representatives fail to do so in many cases thus affecting the sales of the company. Considering the above factors the global web based e-detailing market will highlight significant growth rate over the forecast period.Global Web Based e-Detailing Market: Drivers & RestraintsThe drivers identified in the global web based e-detailing market are the increasing adaptability of internet among the doctors. The efficiency of web based E-detailing to provide in depth details about the pharmaceutical drugs to the doctors without any error is increasing the sales ratio of the pharmaceutical companies compared to that of the traditional sales method. Thus, the return on investment for sales of the pharmaceutical companies is attributing to the growth of the global web based E-detailing market. The web based E-detailing provides the physicians to check out the details of the drugs as per their convenient time. The initial cost associated with the web based E- detailing are high and non-linear which might pose as a restraint to its adaptability among the medium and small pharmaceutical players globally.Get Sample Copy of Report @Global Web Based e-Detailing Market: Market SegmentationBased on the E-detailing formats, the global web based E-detailing market can be segmented into:Virtual Live E-detailingScripted E-detailingE-detailing websitesBased on the applications, the web based E-detailing market is segmented into:PharmaceuticalsBiotechnologyGlobal Web Based e-Detailing Market: Regional OutlookBased on the geographic regions, global web based E-detailing market is segmented into seven key market segments namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. The North American region dominates the market for web based E-detailing market. According to survey, the physicians in the region prefer web based E-detailing rather than interacting with medical representatives due to their busy schedules and web based E-detailing provides the exact informations as per physicians preference. The Western Europe market for web based E-detailing market is followed by the North American market and the adaptability in the region for web based E-detailing is increasing. Over the course of time and growth of pharmaceutical industries in the countries like China and India, the web based E-detailing market in the APEJ region will show considerable growth.Buy Full Report Now @Global Web Based e-Detailing Market: Key PlayersSome of the major players identified in the global enterprise laboratory informatics market includes, AstraZeneca, Plc., Abbott Health care, Inc., Pfizer, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, Plc., Boston Scientific, Johnson and Johnson and Merck & Co. among others.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: Global Claims Management Solutions Market 2019 Top Key Players: DXC Technology, Hexaware Technologies, Pegasystems, International Business Machines(IBM), Cognizant Technology Solutions Claims Management Solutions Market https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/3663546-global-claims-management-solutions-market-size-status-and-forecast-2019-2025 https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/3663546-global-claims-management-solutions-market-size-status-and-forecast-2019-2025 https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=3663546 SummaryWiseGuyReports.com adds Claims Management Solutions Market 2019 Global Analysis, Growth, Trends and Opportunities Research Report Forecasting to 2024 reports to its database.This report provides in depth study of Claims Management Solutions Market using SWOT analysis i.e. Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threat to the organization. The Claims Management Solutions Market report also provides an in-depth survey of key players in the market which is based on the various objectives of an organization such as profiling, the product outline, the quantity of production, required raw material, and the financial health of the organization.The term Claims Management Solutions refers to a collection of funds for any venture or project through various sources like equity and non-equity, the platform for collecting funds can be the internet and other social media. These Claims Management Solutions platforms help investors to meet entrepreneurs in need of funds for their ventures. Mostly, none- equity sector can be considered as the main source of Claims Management Solutions rather than equity sector. The Claims Management Solutions market had started in the early or mid of 2000s, and since then it has noticed an enormous growth owing to the increase of Start-Ups and many new projects globally.The increase in a number of Start-Ups and many new small projects are responsible for the growth of Claims Management Solutions market for their capital needs. Moreover, Real Estate sector is growing with a significant rate in developing regions like North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Hence, increasing fund requirement in Real Estate sector is a driving force for Claims Management Solutions market. In addition, this sector is having a good market share in Claims Management Solutions market.Claims management software offers management services to healthcare providers and insurance companies enabling them to investigate and act on claims by an insured person. Multiple services offered by claims management software includes investigation, review, payment release or denial of the claim. Modules offered by claims management software includes billing, claims processing, business process management, contracting and reimbursement, customer services, reporting, collaborative and integration tools, and more.Prominent factors driving the demand of claims management software includes an increase in chronic diseases incidents, increase in aging population, adoption of digital and cloud services, initiatives for improving insurance claims services, the government push to increase insurance coverage among its citizens, etc. Insurance companies are also looking to invest in claims management solutions to optimize their value chain and internal processes, reduction in their operational cost through automation which can be achieved through claims management software, and reduction in the leakages through operational efficiency.This report focuses on the global Claims Management Solutions status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the Claims Management Solutions development in United States, Europe and China.The key players covered in this studyDXC TechnologySoftwareHexaware TechnologiesHCL TechnologiesPegasystemsInternational Business Machines(IBM)Cognizant Technology SolutionsRequest a Sample Report @Market segment by Type, the product can be split intoOn-PremiseCloud BasedMarket segment by Application, split intoHospitalsOffice based PhysiciansInsurance CompaniesEmergency Healthcare Service providersOthersMarket segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaCentral & South AmericaAt any Query @Major Key Points in Table of Content1 Report Overview1.1 Study Scope1.2 Key Market Segments1.3 Players Covered1.4 Market Analysis by Type1.4.1 Global Claims Management Solutions Market Size Growth Rate by Type (2014-2025)1.4.2 On-Premise1.4.3 Cloud Based1.5 Market by Application1.5.1 Global Claims Management Solutions Market Share by Application (2014-2025)1.5.2 Hospitals1.5.3 Office based Physicians1.5.4 Insurance Companies1.5.5 Emergency Healthcare Service providers1.5.6 Others1.6 Study Objectives1.7 Years Considered2 Global Growth Trends2.1 Claims Management Solutions Market Size2.2 Claims Management Solutions Growth Trends by Regions2.2.1 Claims Management Solutions Market Size by Regions (2014-2025)2.2.2 Claims Management Solutions Market Share by Regions (2014-2019)2.3 Industry Trends2.3.1 Market Top Trends2.3.2 Market Drivers2.3.3 Market Opportunities.12 International Players Profiles12.1 DXC Technology12.1.1 DXC Technology Company Details12.1.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.1.3 Claims Management Solutions Introduction12.1.4 DXC Technology Revenue in Claims Management Solutions Business (2014-2019)12.1.5 DXC Technology Recent Development12.2 Software12.2.1 Software Company Details12.2.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.2.3 Claims Management Solutions Introduction12.2.4 Software Revenue in Claims Management Solutions Business (2014-2019)12.2.5 Software Recent Development12.3 Hexaware Technologies12.3.1 Hexaware Technologies Company Details12.3.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.3.3 Claims Management Solutions Introduction12.3.4 Hexaware Technologies Revenue in Claims Management Solutions Business (2014-2019)12.3.5 Hexaware Technologies Recent Development12.4 HCL Technologies12.4.1 HCL Technologies Company Details12.4.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.4.3 Claims Management Solutions Introduction12.4.4 HCL Technologies Revenue in Claims Management Solutions Business (2014-2019)12.4.5 HCL Technologies Recent Development12.5 Pegasystems12.5.1 Pegasystems Company Details12.5.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.5.3 Claims Management Solutions Introduction12.5.4 Pegasystems Revenue in Claims Management Solutions Business (2014-2019)12.5.5 Pegasystems Recent Development12.6 International Business Machines(IBM)12.6.1 International Business Machines(IBM) Company Details12.6.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.6.3 Claims Management Solutions Introduction12.6.4 International Business Machines(IBM) Revenue in Claims Management Solutions Business (2014-2019)12.6.5 International Business Machines(IBM) Recent Development12.7 Cognizant Technology Solutions12.7.1 Cognizant Technology Solutions Company Details12.7.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.7.3 Claims Management Solutions Introduction12.7.4 Cognizant Technology Solutions Revenue in Claims Management Solutions Business (2014-2019)12.7.5 Cognizant Technology Solutions Recent DevelopmentBuy NOW @Continued....Contact Us: sales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US); Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)About Us:Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Address:Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt LtdPune 411028Maharashtra,+91 841 198 5042 Global Building Information Modeling (BIM) Extraction Software Market Forecast and Opportunity Assessment by Future Market Insights Building Information Modeling (BIM) Extraction Software https://www.researchreportsinc.com/check-discount?id=110329 https://researchreportsinc.com/enquiry?id=110329 https://www.researchreportsinc.com/sample-request?id=110329 https://researchreportsinc.com/checkout/?add-to-cart=110329&&attribute_pa_choose-license=single-user&&quantity=1 A fresh report titled Building Energy Management Service Market By Component, By Type, By Enterprise, By End-users and Global Region Market Size, Share, Trends & Forecast 2018-2023 has been presented by Research Reports Inc.. It evaluates the key market trends, advantages, and factors that are pushing the overall growth of the market. The report also analyzes the different segments along with major geographies that have more demand for Building Energy Management Service Market.Grab Discount Now :The global market size of Building Energy Management Service is $$$ million in 2017 with $$ CAGR from 2013 to 2017, and it is expected to reach $$$ million by the end of 2023 with a CAGR of $$% from 2018 to 2023.There are 3 key segments covered in this report: geography segment, end use/application segment and competitor segment.For geography segment, regional supply, application-wise and type-wise demand, major players, price is presented from 2013 to 2023.Make An Enquiry Now:This report coverss following regions:North AmericaSouth AmericaAsia & PacificEuropeMEA (Middle East and Africa)Download Sample Report Now:The key countries in each region are taken into consideration as well, such as United States, China, Japan, India, Korea, ASEAN, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, CIS, and Brazil etc.For end use/application segment, this report focuses on the status and outlook for key applications. End users also can be listed.For competitor segment, the report includes global key players of Building Energy Management Service as well as some small players.The Compnaies Include:Autodesk, AVEVA Group, Bentley Systems, FARO Technologies, Tekla Corporation, Safe Software, Vectorworks, Microsoft Corporation, Synchro Software, Nemetschek Group, PointCab, Gexcel, Assemble Systems, et al.Purchase Now:The information for each competitor includes:Company ProfileMain Business InformationSWOT AnalysisSales, Revenue, Price and Gross MarginMarket ShareWe also can offer customized report to fulfill special requirements of our clients.TABLE OF CONTENTSChapter 1 Executive SummaryChapter 2 Abbreviation and AcronymsChapter 3 PrefaceChapter 4 Market LandscapeChapter 5 Market Trend AnalysisChapter 6 Industry Chain AnalysisChapter 7 Latest Market DynamicsChapter 8 Trading AnalysisChapter 9 Historical and Current Building Energy Management Service Market inChapter 10 Historical and Current Building Energy Management Service Market in South America (2013-2018)Chapter 11 Historical and Current Building Energy Management Service Market in Asia & Pacific (2013-2018)Chapter 12 Historical and Current Building Energy Management Service Market in Europe (2013-2018)Chapter 13 Historical and Current Building Energy Management Service Market in MEA (2013-2018)Chapter 14 Summary for Global Building Energy Management Service Market (2013-2018)Chapter 15 Global Building Energy Management Service Market Forecast (2019-2023)Chapter 16 Company ProfileResearch Reports Inc. is one of the leading destinations for market research reports across all industries, companies, and technologies. Our repository features an exhaustive list of market research reports from thousands of publishers worldwide. We take pride in curating a database covering virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories. We are one of the premier sources for such reports & report customization services.Research Reports Inc.#766, 99 Wall Street, New YorkNY 10005, United StatesUS / Canada Toll Free: +18554192424,UK :+4403308087757Email: info@researchreportsinc.com Award Winning Author Gina Iafrate Announces New Romantic Fiction Novel, 'Bestowed By Love And Splendour' Cover http://www.ginaiafrate.com Author Gina Iafrate has announced the release of a new romantic fiction novel, 'Bestowed by Love and Splendour'. Gina Iafrate writes sweeping family sagas that allow readers to travel the globe without leaving home. Like fine pieces of music, her books are layered, providing readers with intricately formed mental images, punctuated by dramatic movements. Gina's extraordinary story lines reveal the richness of the human experience told through the eyes of finely drawn characters.The new romance novel is the breath-taking story of a broken-hearted wife and mother who is taken away from a tormented life. On the exotic island of Sardinia, she becomes hypnotized by nature's beauty; the cloudless sky, the emerald blue hues of the sea and the gentleness of the people.But fate strikes once more. Destiny takes over and transports her to a world beyond her imagination, allowing her to find peace, love, and splendour.In 'The Girl From The Cornfield', it is 1950 and Giuliana Ferrante is growing up in a sleepy town deep in the Italian mountains. Her young life is rocked to its core by a vicious attack that shatters the peaceful existence that she and many around her have always taken for granted. Giuliana, determined to make a future for herself, flourishes by working tirelessly toward her education, securing a legal degree and ultimately a successful position in the business world. She conquers all with kindness and love, managing to rise above the painful memories of her youth. This sweeping, inspirational tale hurdles across time, countries, and characters as it explores how love can heal, reconcile, and restore.Iafrate is also the author of 'The English Professor'. In that book, Andrew Robertson, an introverted, middle-aged professor leaves his unremarkable London life to embark on a journey to Sicily where strangers welcome him kindly. In this Mediterranean setting, he develops a burning infatuation for another mans wife. Falling into each others arms, Andrew and Francesca both satisfy the longings they have felt all their adult lives. Their union results in a child. But Andrew must go back to London and Francesca must protect herself, Andrew and their child from the violent reach of her husband.'The English Professor' was a finalist in the Book Excellence Awards'. Gina has received praise from readers and reviewers alike. One stated, "A fascinating tale of victory of over injustice where love , grit and determination conquers all." Another said, "A captivating story, hooked after the first chapter and I couldn't put it down." Another stated, "All men and women should read this author to understand their own relationships. 3rd book I read by this author. I enjoy the imaginative way that she has captured the realities of women's life experiences and yet made the adventures understandable rather than scandalous."Gina's upcoming books include 'Releases From my Soul: A Collection of Anthologies' scheduled for release is 2019Gina Iafrate is available for media interviews and can be reached using the information below or by email at delsan06@sympatico.ca. Her books are available at online retailers and traditional brick and mortar bookstores. More information is available at her website.Gina Iafrate is bilingual. She writes in both Italian and English. Originally from Italy, Gina Iafrate now divides her time between Hollywood, Florida; Niagara, Ontario; and Europe. Ginas works have been exhibited at The Pier 21 Museum in Halifax, and in Phoenix Magazine, The Horizon, and Authors Voice. She is a 2016 Book Excellence Award Finalist. She has appeared in the annual Writers Forum and Niagara Area Artists.She lives with her husband in Hollywood, Florida, and Niagara, Ontario, Canada.PO Box 1613Shallotte, NC, 28459 Microgrid As A Service Market to peak demand by 2025 at a CAGR of 15.93% - Eaton, Xelon, Spirae, Green Energy, Solar City, General Electric Microgrid As A Service Market https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/1559823-global-microgrid-as-a-service-market https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/1559823-global-microgrid-as-a-service-market https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=1559823 https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1559823-global-microgrid-as-a-service-market https://www.linkedin.com/company/13388569/ https://www.facebook.com/htfmarketintelligence/ https://twitter.com/htfmarketreport https://plus.google.com/u/0/+NidhiBhawsar-SEO_Expert?rel=author HTF MI released a new market study on Global Microgrid As A Service Market with 100+ market data Tables, Pie Chat, Graphs & Figures spread through Pages and easy to understand detailed analysis. At present, the market is developing its presence. The Research report presents a complete assessment of the Market and contains a future trend, current growth factors, attentive opinions, facts, and industry validated market data. The research study provides estimates for Global Microgrid As A Service Forecast till 2025*. Some are the key players taken under coverage for this study are General Electric (United States), Eaton Corp. PLC (Ireland), Siemens AG (Germany), Pareto Energy (United States), Spirae, Inc. (United States), Green Energy Corporation (United States), Northern Power Systems Corp. (United States), Xelon Corporation (United States), NRG Energy, Inc. (United States), Anbaric Transmission, LLC (United States), Solar City Inc. (United States).The article cited HTF's "Global Microgrid as a Service Market Study" explored substantial growth in and CAGR of 15.93%.Click to get Global Microgrid As A Service Market Research Sample PDF Copy Here @:Market Snapshot:A Microgrid efficiently incorporate numerous sources of distributed energy generation and manages transition between stand-alone modes and in grid- connected. Globally microcredit as a service market is expected to mark significant growth owing to surging demand from remote areas, increasing need of renewable energy sources and continuous & reliable source of power and electrical energy.Market TrendIncreasing Adoption of Customer Owned MicrogridsMarket DriversDeclining Operational Cost, Increasing Demand from Defense, Hospitals, and Remote Regions and Increasing Government Investment in Microgrid InfrastructureOpportunitiesRising Usage of Behind the Meter Microgrid Virtual BatteriesEnquire for customization in Report @The Manufacturers Covered in the Study are: General Electric (United States) Eaton Corp. PLC (Ireland) Siemens AG (Germany) Pareto Energy (United States) Spirae, Inc. (United States) Green Energy Corporation (United States) Northern Power Systems Corp. (United States) Xelon Corporation (United States) NRG Energy, Inc. (United States) Anbaric Transmission, LLC (United States) Solar City Inc. (United States) OtherAvailable Customization:List of players that can be included in the study on immediate basis are ABB Ltd. (Switzerland).Buy Full Copy Global Microgrid As A Service Report 2018 @Table of Contents1 Market Overview1.1 Microgrid As A Service Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.4 Market Analysis by Regions1.4.1 North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)1.4.1.1 United States Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.3.3 Korea Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.3.4 India Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.3.5 Southeast Asia Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.4 South America, Middle East and Africa1.4.4.1 Brazil Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.4.2 Egypt Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.4.3 Saudi Arabia Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.4.4 South Africa Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.4.4.5 Nigeria Market States and Outlook (2013-2023)1.5 Market Dynamics1.5.1 Market Opportunities1.5.2 Market Risk1.5.3 Market Driving Force2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1.1 Business Overview2.1.2 Microgrid As A Service Type and Applications2.1.3 Microgrid As A Service Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)3 Global Microgrid As A Service Market Competition, by Manufacturer3.1 Global Microgrid As A Service Sales and Market Share by Manufacturer (2016-017)3.2 Global Microgrid As A Service Revenue and Market Share by Manufacturer (2016-2017)3.3 Global Microgrid As A Service Price by Manufacturer (2016-2017)3.4 Market Concentration Rate3.4.1 Top 3 Microgrid As A Service Manufacturer Market Share in 20173.4.2 Top 5 Microgrid As A Service Manufacturer Market Share in 20173.5 Market Competition Trend.. ContinuedBrowse for Full Report at @:Actual Numbers & In-Depth Analysis, Business opportunities, Market Size Estimation Available in Full Report.Thanks for reading this article, you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.About Author:HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact US :Craig Francis (PR & Marketing Manager)HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA 08837Phone: +1 (206) 317 1218sales@htfmarketreport.comConnect with us at Acetyl Tributyl Citrate Market Key Players Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation,Vertellus LLC,KLJ Group,Hefei TNJ Chemical Industry Co.,Ltd.,ASAHI KASEI FINECHEM CO.,LTD https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-8276 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-8276 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com Introduction:Acetyl tributyl citrate, CAS: 77-90-7, is a colorless, organic chemical compound. Acetyl tributyl citrate has herbal, and sweet taste. Acetyl tributyl citrate is nontoxic chemical compound which is soluble in organic as well as inorganic chemical compound owing to which it is prevalently used as a plasticizer in PVC application. As, plasticized PVC film is used in medical equipment, and food packaging because of its characteristic properties such as transparency, softness, temperature resistance, scratch resistance and water vapor permeability, among others. Among the several plasticizers used in PVC application, dioctyl phthalate (DOP) was widely used owing to its comprehensive properties. However, Europe and North America government prohibited the use of six phthalate plasticizers, namely DINP, DOP, DBP, DIDP, DONP, and BBP, due to its carcinogenic nature. Thereby, demand for Acetyl tributyl citrate as a non-toxic plasticizer was increased and was recognized as a safest plasticizer for medical and health packing application. Along with this, Acetyl tributyl citrate is used as plasticizer of toy making, latex adhesives, chewing gum and dairy packaging, among others. Acetyl tributyl citrate is available in two grade; Pharma grade and technical grade.Market Dynamics:Across the globe, the increasing demand for plasticized PVC in several end use industries such as packaging, automotive, and construction, among other, which in turn is expected to drive the demand for plasticizers i.e. Acetyl tributyl citrate market. Also, prompt growth of pharmaceutical industry and growing production of personal care products will help to drive the Acetyl tributyl citrate market over the forecast period. Apart from the plasticizer application, Acetyl tributyl citrate is used as lubricating oil for surface treatment, emollient in personal care & cosmetic products, and as solvent in paint and coating industry. Along with this, stringent government regulation and rising demand for ecofriendly chemicals in developed region have provided impetus for the growth of Acetyl tributyl citrate marketRequest Sample Report @Acetyl Tributyl Citrate Market: SegmentationOn the basis of grade, global Acetyl Tributyl Citrate Market is bifurcated into;Technical GradePharma gradeOn the basis of function, global Acetyl Tributyl Citrate Market is bifurcated intoPlasticizerEmollientCoatingsLubricantsOn the basis of Application, global Acetyl Tributyl Citrate Market is bifurcated into;Polymer & plasticsPersonal careCosmeticsPharmaceuticalsPaints and CoatingsAcetyl Tributyl Citrate Market: Regional OutlookIn terms of supply and demand, the global acetyl tributyl citrate market is dominated by the Asia Pacific region, especially by China and India. Substantial growth in demand for acetyl tributyl citrate from various end-use industries such as cosmetics, personal care, Polymer & plastics textiles, and paints & coatings, among other that provides impetus for growth of the market in Asia Pacific region. Moreover, increasing per capita income and spending in developing countries such as India, ASEAN countries and China, has translated into growing demand for acetyl tributyl citrate market. In APAC region, India and China are key market for acetyl tributyl citrate in terms of volume and value. The APAC acetyl tributyl citrate market is expected that register a significant CAGR over the forecast period. Europe followed by North America, collectively hold a noteworthy share in acetyl tributyl citrate market. Growing demand for acetyl tributyl citrate as an emollient, and plasticizer in Europe and North America are expected to fuel the demand for acetyl tributyl citrate over the forecast period. In Europe, EU-5 countries dominates the acetyl tributyl citrate market in term of consumption. However, stringent regulation in North America and Europe may effect on the growth of acetyl tributyl citrate markets. North America and Europe Acetyl Tributyl Citrate market are anticipated to grow with steady CAGR over the forecast period. The Middle East & Africa and Latin America Acetyl Tributyl Citrate market are expected to register slow growth over the forecast periodAcetyl Tributyl Citrate Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players identified across the value chain of Acetyl Tributyl Citrate market are listed below;Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation,Vertellus LLCKLJ GroupHefei TNJ Chemical Industry Co.,Ltd.ASAHI KASEI FINECHEM CO.,LTDDongying Wei Aien Chemical Co., Ltd.Shandong Kexing Chemical Co., Ltd.Shanghai Jinyue Chemical Co., Ltd.,Wuhan Yitai Technology Co., Ltd.Shanghai Miner Chemical Technology Co., Ltd.,TCI (Shanghai) Chemical Industry Development Co., Ltd., among other Acetyl Tributyl Citrate manufacturerRequest to View TOC @Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centres in the U.S. and India.Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: Bacterial Cell Culture Market 2019 Analysis - Research Covers Top 10 Players as ScienCell Research Laboratories, Inc. Becton, Dickinson and Company, bioMerieux S.A., Hi-Media Laboratories Pvt. Ltd. Bacterial Cell Culture Market https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/696 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/bacterial-cell-culture-market-696 MRFR is the Leading Brand in The Research Company who Recently Published Bacterial Cell Culture Market Research Reports which includes Study of growth, Regional Analysis, Top Industry Players Formation, Major Drivers, Upcoming Trends and Forecast to 2023.Overview:Fast transforming economies have led to a search for a better lifestyle that involves the efficient exploration of alternatives. One such is the bacterial cell culture market that can provide not just drugs for better treatment procedures but can substitute traditional fossil fuel as well. The global bacterial cell culture market is banking heavily on these drivers and is expecting significant growth during the forecast period (2018-2023), reports Market Research Future (MRFR) in a detailed study. Researches in life science and advanced antibiotics are proving impressive determinants for the global market and are aptly backed by demand for renewable energy from biological waste. Bacterial cell culture has also started infiltrating other sectors such as cosmetics, and food & beverage as well which ensures its future prospects.Get Sample Copy @However, bacterial cell culture setup requires aseptic setting which can incur huge cost. Associated elements such as media, reagent, and instruments come at a high price as well which can bottleneck the market for a significant period. The scarcity of trained professionals and high chances of contamination can pull back the market from its expected trajectory during the forecast period.Competitive Dashboard:Globally, the market is very competitive. Presence of a number of well-established companies, all vying for a significant share of the market, has made it so. This has spurred a growth in investment and is taking the market forward.Some of the key players for the Global Bacterial Cell Culture Market are ScienCell Research Laboratories, Inc. Becton, Dickinson and Company, bioMerieux S.A., Hi-Media Laboratories Pvt. Ltd., Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Neogen Corporation, Eiken Chemical Co, Ltd., EMD (Merck) Millipore, Scharlab S.L., and Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., and Culture Media & Supplies, Inc., and others.Industry News:Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) reveal that a new enzyme has been discovered which can ensure production of a renewable alternative to toluene, an octane booster. This can enable researchers to produce first of its kind aromatic hydrocarbon fuel.Scientists from the Rockefeller University have recently found a new class of antibiotics, malacidins, from previously unknown microorganisms which can kill several superbugs including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).Segmentation:The Global Bacterial Cell Culture Market can be segmented by consumable, instruments, application, and end-user.Consumable-based segmentation includes media, reagents, and others.Instrument-wise, the market segmentation comprises incubator, centrifuge, spectrophotometer and biosafety cabinet.Based on application, the market is segmented into food testing, water testing, animal feed testing, bioenergy production, agricultural research, and others.On the basis of end-users, the market consists hospital & clinics, diagnostic centers, the pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology companies and academic and research institutes.Regional Analysis:Region-specific analysis of the bacterial cell culture market girdles namely the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), and the Middle East & Africa (MEA).The Americas is dominating the global market. Regionally, North America, at present, is spearheading the market with its well-structured biopharmaceuticals and life science industries that are continually putting in efforts to develop new products. Life science sector alone, as per the published report of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation 2018, invested around USD 96.5 billion in 2013.Europe assumes the second position. The region is witnessing growing demands from the food & beverage sector as the region has a disturbing experience in getting affected by food allergies.The APAC has the potential to become the largest market for bacterial cell culture in countries such as China, Japan, and India are investing heavily in researches to get favorable results.Poor economies and stringent government policies are affecting the market in the MEA region, and they are contributing the least to the market growth.Access Report @Table of ContentChapter 1. Report PrologueChapter 2. Market Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope of The Study2.2.1 Research Objective2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 LimitationsChapter 3. Research Methodology3.1 Introduction3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research3.4 Market Size EstimationChapter 4. Market Dynamics4.1 Drivers4.2 Restraints4.3 Opportunities4.4 Challenges4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators4.6 Technology Trends & AssessmentChapter 5. Market Factor AnalysisAbout US:Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Contact Us:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Diamond Wire Market Key Participants Asahi Diamond, Diamond Pauber, DIAT New Material, Nakamura Choukou, Sino-Crystal Diamond, Nanjing Sanchao, Henan Yicheng, https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-8273 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-8273 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com Diamond Wire Market: IntroductionDiamond wire is a recent technological development in the field of diamond cutting. Diamond Wire is mainly used in single or multi-wire cutting machines to cut metals, minerals, rocks along with other materials with high precision. Diamond wire technology is introduced to provide enhanced surface finish, with extraordinary precision, with high speed to achieve the desired outcomes in less time duration with less the vibrations along with minimum noise. Diamond wire is available in different types with different advantages for diverse applications. Diamond wire is available in different bead shapes and in different diamond types. Diamond wire is manufactured by numerous ways such as electroplating, vacuum brazing, sintering and molding. Among the manufacturing techniques electroplating is more common way, and molding process is new and less popular method. Diamond cutting provide high speed cutting in comparison with conventional cutting techniques. As compared with conventional cutting materials diamond wire is more aggressive and comparatively a gentle technique cutting of composite materials. Diamond wire are used for clean cutting process. Water with small amount of surfactants are preferred choice of coolant, therefore there is no need for special coolant for diamond wire which is a big plus. Due to its many advantages diamond wire are widely used for mass production in sapphire, silicon, building & construction along with other industries.Diamond Wire Market: DynamicsThe up surge in demand from end use industries such as sapphire and PV silicon wafer are the main factors in driving the growth of diamond wire market. The growing urbanization especially in developing countries has given rise to building & construction activities, thus owing in turn to an increasing demand for diamond wires. Increasing consumptions of electronic appliances along with up surged electronic & semiconductor demand is also propelling the growth of diamond wire market. Furthermore, the increasing potential application and end-use along with continuous research & development and advancement technology will fuel the growth of diamond wire market in upcoming years. However the inefficiency of diamond wire after few number of cuts is holding back the market growth as compared to consumption of substitute materials. Also the high price of diamond wire & diamond wire cutting tools has been identified in restraining the growth of market in price sensitive regions.Diamond Wire Market: SegmentationThe global diamond wire market can be segmented on the basis of bead shapes, bonding techniques, diamond types and by application.Request Sample Report @The global diamond wire market is segmented on the basis of bead shapes:CylindricalBi-ConicalConicalThe global diamond wire market is segmented on the basis of bonding techniques:ElectroplatingMoldingVacuum BrazingSinteredThe global diamond wire market is segmented on the basis of diamond types:NaturalSyntheticThe global diamond wire market is segmented on the basis of application:Diamond CuttingSapphire CuttingSilicon CuttingConcrete CuttingQuartz CuttingMetal CuttingDiamond Wire Market: Regional OutlookFrom the regional perspective there is predominance of the electronic & semiconductor industry in Asia Pacific region, also the increasing population and growing urbanization has increased the building and construction activities especially in the countries such as China & India. Owing to the enlisted factors Asia Pacific is estimated to be prominent market for diamond wire. Europe and North America are expected to be promising market regions for diamond wire, owing to the increasing construction activities and increasing demand from other key applications. Growing application and increasing demand across key end-use industries is propelling the demand for diamond wire in regions such as Latin America, which makes Latin America a potential market for diamond wire. There is rise in building & construction activities along with rising applications across the key industries in Middle East & Africa is also contributing for the growth of the market. However the price sensitive countries in the regions such as Africa is a drawback for the market.Diamond Wire Market: Key ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants operating in the global diamond wire market are:Asahi Diamond, Diamond Pauber, DIAT New Material, Nakamura Choukou, Sino-Crystal Diamond, Nanjing Sanchao, Henan Yicheng, Zhejiang Ruiyi and SCHMID among others.Request to View TOC @Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centres in the U.S. and India.Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: Smart Weapons Market 2024 Top Manufacturers - Rheinmetall Defence, Raytheon, Orbital ATK, MBDA, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, General Atomics, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, AeroVironment Smart Weapons Market https://www.gminsights.com/request-toc/upcoming/3048 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/3048 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/smart-weapons-market www.gminsights.com/ Smart Weapons Market is set to register significant CAGR in the projected timeframe impelled by increasing demand for smart weapons by the military along with the growing conflicts in the border regions. The lightweight weapons with higher efficiency, precision, and long shooting range will further support the business proliferation till 2024.Request For Table Of Content @Based on product type, the smart weapons market is classified into projectiles, missiles, guns, and rockets. Advancements in technologies along with lightweight materials and small-sized weapons are boosting the smart weapons market share. Increasing adoption of smart weapons including small bombs with the capability to be equipped in UAVs with the fusion of high-precision sensors & cameras is providing a positive outlook for industry expansion.Based on technology, the smart weapons market size is divided into radar-guided, laser-guided, and satellite-guided. Advancements in radar technologies including improvements in range detection and communication capabilities are supporting the segment growth over the forecast timeframe. The proliferation of laser-guided smart weapons owing to high precision and advanced target acquisition capabilities is further strengthening the industry expansion till 2024.North America will contribute significantly toward the smart weapons market. This growth is attributed to the continuous research & testing activities by government organizations across the region. For instance, in 2016, the U.S. government tested the first 350kg smart nuclear bomb designed to penetrate underground structures that will hit targets with precision and limited damage elsewhere.Make an Inquiry for purchasing this Report @However, risks and bugs associated with electronics technology along with reliability concerns are hampering the market growth over the forecast timeframe. Moreover, higher costs associated with the acquisition of these weapons along with complex design requirements are further limiting the industry growth till 2024. However, industry participants along with defense organizations are continuously investing in the R&D to develop advanced smart weapons that pass stringent military tests, providing a positive outlook for the smart weapons market expansion. For instance, in 2018, Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) successfully tested a 1kW laser weapon system with a range of 250 meters.Industry participants are continuously investing in R&D to develop innovative solutions for differentiating their products from the competition. For instance, in 2016, Identilock introduced a smart gun that features a gun lock operating on fingerprint scanners. The gun allowed the user to store up to three biometric fingerprints for preventing any unauthorized usage, thereby supporting the industry proliferation till 2024.Browse Report Summery @Few players in the smart weapons market include Rheinmetall AG, Raytheon Company, Orbital ATK, MBDA, Inc., General Dynamics Corporation, Lockheed Martin, General Atomics, Northrop Grumman, AeroVironment, and Boeing. Joint ventures and partnerships are among the major strategies adopted by industry participants to increase their market share. For instance, in 2016, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) and BAE Systems entered into a strategic partnership for developing smart weapons targeting the defense sector.About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone:1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb: Global Centrifuge Extractors Market 2019 intelligence by Players: Humboldt Mfg, Matest, Controls Group, Cooper Technology, Tinius Olsen, Gilson, Geneq & More... Centrifuge Extractors Market https://www.reportsmonitor.com/request_sample/292979 https://www.reportsmonitor.com/check_discount/292979 https://www.reportsmonitor.com/report/292979/Centrifuge-Extractors-Market www.reportsmonitor.com Centrifuge Extractors MarketA centrifugal extractoralso known as a centrifugal contactor or annular centrifugal contactoruses the rotation of the rotor inside a centrifuge to mix two immiscible liquids outside the rotor and to separate the liquids in the field of gravity inside the rotor. This way, a centrifugal extractor generates a continuous extraction from one liquid phase (fermentation broth) into another liquid phase (organic solvent).The study on the Global Centrifuge Extractors Market strives to offer significant and profound insights into the present market scenario and the emerging growth dynamics. The report on Centrifuge Extractors Market also provides the market players as well as the new contenders a complete view of the market landscape. The comprehensive research will enable the well-established as well as the emerging players to establish their business strategies and achieve their short-term and long-term goals. The report also presents a significant evaluation of the scope of the regions and where the key participants might find potential growth opportunities in future.To Access PDF Sample Report, With 30 mins free consultation! Click Here:Scope of the Report:The report is designed to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the Centrifuge Extractors Market with respect to each of the regions and countries involved in the study. Furthermore, the report also caters the detailed information about the crucial aspects such as major drivers & restraining factors which will define the future growth of the market. Also covered segments company profile, type, and applications.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers:Humboldt MfgMatestControls GroupCooper TechnologyTinius OlsenGilsonGeneq & More...Market Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers:North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, covers:Monostage Centrifuge ExtractorMultistage Centrifuge ExtractorMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into:Chemical IndustryPharmaceutical IndustryFoodsMetal RefiningOtherManufacturing cost structureThe Centrifuge Extractors Market report also studies the manufacturing cost structure and presents the various details such as raw material, overall production process, and the industry chain structure. Every region key factors are provided which is attracting this market towards growth. The report also elaborates on the opportunities the emerging markets of Asia Pacific and Latin America offer and Globally.Technological Advancements:The latest and advanced technologies used in the Centrifuge Extractors Market can be helpful for collaborative seminars, meetings, lectures, and training for industry professionals. Furthermore, in order to introduce advanced products or solutions, leading competitors are expected to concentrate on product innovation through continuous investments in product development.Grab Your Report at an Impressive Discount ! Please click Here@The Objective of the Study:To study and forecast the market size of Centrifuge Extractors in GlobalTo analyze the Global key players, SWOT analysis, value and Global Centrifuge Extractors market share for top players.To identify significant trends and factors driving or constraining the growth of the market.To analyze competitive developments such as extensions, contracts, new product launches, mergers, and acquisitions in the marketTo strategically analyze each sub-market in regards to the individual growth trends and their influence in the Centrifuge Extractors market.Reasons to Purchase this ReportAnalyzing viewpoint of the market with the on-going trends and Porter's five forces analysis.Market flow which basically considers the factors inducing the present market scenario alongside development prospects of the market in the years to come.Centrifuge Extractors Market segmentation analysis including qualitative and quantitative research including the effect of the market aspects.Competitive developments such as extensions, contracts, new product launches, mergers, and acquisitions in the market.Some of the major questions are answered:What are the different types of Centrifuge Extractors Market?What are the market trends and major developments patterns equipments and products?Who are the key industry pioneers and what is their overall share in the global Centrifuge Extractors market?What are the multiple used case scenarios considered under various end-users and applications for the market?What are the different sales, marketing, and distribution channels in the global industry?Browse Detailed TOC, Tables, Figures, Charts and Companies :-In the end, Centrifuge Extractors Industry report details the major regions, market scenarios with the product price, revenue, volume, production, supply, demand, market growth rate, and forecast etc. This report also presents SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis.About Us:Reports Monitor is a market research and consulting company that provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries including Healthcare, Technology, Chemicals, Materials, and Energy. With an intrinsic understanding of many business environments, Reports Monitor provides strategic objective insights.Contact UsJay MatthewsDirect: +1 513 549-591481 (U.S.)+44 203 318 2846 (U.K.)Email: sales@reportsmonitor.comWebsite: Behenyl Alcohol Key market BASF SE, Kao Corporation, VVF Chemicals Limited, Godrej Industries Ltd., Sasol Ltd. https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/6976 https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/6976 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com According to the latest market report published by Persistence Market Research titled Global Market Study on Behenyl Alcohol: Asia Pacific to Witness Highest Growth by 2021, the global behenyl alcohol market to expand at a CAGR of 4.5% during the forecast period, 2015 - 2021.Behenyl alcohol (CAS: 661-19-8), often referred to as docosanol, is a saturated fatty alcohol used to thicken and stabilise formulations. It is categorised on the basis of purity level. Behenyl alcohol with the purity level of 70% is most commonly used. However, behenyl alcohol with purity over 80% is very rarely used. Behenyl alcohol accounted for a mere 1.4% share of the overall fatty alcohols market, and for 14% share of the overall C16+ fatty alcohols market in 2014.Request Report TOC @Global behenyl alcohol market is projected to account for 54,200.9 metric tons by the end of 2021. In terms of value, the global behenyl alcohol market accounted for US$ 119.4 Mn in 2014. It is projected to witness the increase in volume due to rising demand from end-use segments.The report analyses the global behenyl alcohol market in terms of market value (US$ Mn) and market volume (metric tons), by end-use segment, region and application; and provides information regarding market dynamics, value chain, competitive landscape, current trends, market estimations and forecast.Globally, Asia-Pacific is expected to dominate the market throughout the forecast period and is projected to witness a 1.4X increase in its volume production by the end of 2021. While Japan and India are two major exporters of behenyl alcohol chemicals globally, South Korea is one of the key importers of behenyl alcohol in Asia Pacific. In Asia Pacific, India is the largest producer of rapeseed and behenyl alcohol. A large number of companies based in the country export rapeseed to North America, Europe and other parts of Asia. Sun care products are widely used in Asia Pacific. It accounted for nearly US$ 2.2 Bn in 2014. The increase in demand for sun care products, in turn, is expected to boost overall demand for behenyl alcohol globally. Though the market is gaining traction in Asia-Pacific, low presence of Chinese players in the behenyl alcohol market has significantly reduced price competitiveness among the companies based in Japan, India and Europe. As a result, manufacturers are expected to generate high-profit margins in the Asia Pacific region. Europe is the next lucrative destination for behenyl alcohol manufacturers.Request for sample report:Among the end-use segments, behenyl alcohol finds the largest application in the cosmetics industry, followed by pharmaceuticals and others. The pharmaceuticals end-use segment is expected to gain traction in the near future due to increasing demand for behenyl alcohol in ointments. Increasing demand for high-quality cosmetic products is influencing manufacturers to opt for high-quality ingredients such as behenyl alcohol, which has a relatively non-sticky property as compared to other ingredients.Globally, per capita consumption of cosmetics is increasing at a rate of 3.4% per year. Per capita consumption of cosmetics is expected to grow exponentially in the near future due to a significant rise in geriatric population, especially in Japan and China.By application type, the behenyl alcohol market is segmented into emollients, emulsifiers, thickeners and others. The emollients segment is expected to dominate the overall behenyl alcohol market by the end of the forecast period, i.e. by 2021. The segment is projected to register an above average growth rate over the forecast period. Global consumption of emollients stood at 130,000 metric tons in 2014. Consumption of behenyl alcohol as an ingredient in emollients accounted for a significant proportion of the total emollients consumed globally.Key market participants covered in the report include BASF SE, Kao Corporation, VVF Chemicals Limited, Godrej Industries Ltd., Sasol Ltd. and Nikko Chemicals Co., Ltd.Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance. To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: Global High Purity Quartz Market Featuring Key Vendors - Unimin Corporation, The Quartz Corp., Russian Quartz LLC and Jiangsu Pacific Quartz Co., Ltd. ResearchMoz https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1869288 https://www.researchmoz.us/global-market-study-on-high-purity-quartz-grade-ii-and-grade-iii-to-witness-highest-growth-during-2017-2024-report.html/toc http://www.researchmoz.us/ http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG http://summaryofmarketresearchreports.blogspot.in/ Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global High Purity Quartz Market Featuring Key Vendors - Unimin Corporation, The Quartz Corp., Russian Quartz LLC and Jiangsu Pacific Quartz Co., Ltd." to its huge collection of research reports.Persistence Market Research (PMR) provides in-depth analysis and forecast on the global high purity quartz market from 2017 and 2024. The report has considered 2016 as the base year to provide data on the following years. The report also offers analysis on the global market for high purity quartz. The report also helps in identifying all the factors that are playing an important role in the market growth. The report also focuses on all the market dynamics including market trends, drivers, opportunities, and challenges. Details on the regional market as well as stakeholders contributing to the current future market growth in the global high purity quartz market is given in the report.The report also offers analysis of various factors of high purity quartz and details on the demand and sales along with forecast. The market is segmented on the basis of grade, application, and region. These key segments are further divided into sub-segments and key regions are further segmented into countries.The report also offers insights on the use of high purity quartz across the various application. The report also includes a brief analysis on how manufacturers are using advanced technology and what new developments are taking place in the global market for high purity quartz.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The high purity quartz is used in various application and hence the report also provides an analysis of prices based on various application, grades and estimated value and volume. Moreover, the report provides SWOT analysis, Porters five force analysis in the global high purity quartz market.The last section in the report provides detail on all the leading companies along with the comparison of these companies including market share, key developments in the global market for high purity quartz. The report also identifies key companies based on their success in the market, and other parameters such as financial overview, product portfolio and business overview.Research MethodologyThe report also offers details on the revenue generated by manufacturers in the global high purity quartz market. The forecast also includes details on the estimated revenue to be generated during 2017-2024 in the global market for high purity quartz. Current market size is also provided in the report to see how the market will perform in the coming years. The outcome of the market is evaluated on the basis of the demand side, supply side, and based on micro and macro-economic factors across various regions.Browse TOC @The report provides a forecast in terms of CAGR, year-on-year growth this helps to identify all the growth opportunities in the global high purity quartz market. The report also includes an incremental opportunity for all the key segments. This is the most important part of the market as along with the opportunities it also helps in identifying all the potential resources in the global market for high purity quartz.For a better understanding of the overall market, the report by Persistence Market Research has also developed market attractiveness Index with the help of market attractiveness analysis. This is also helping in identifying real opportunities in the global high purity quartz market.About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @Follow us on Blogger @ Digital Map Market 2019: Top Key Players are ESRI, Google , Tomtom, Mapbox, Digitalglobe, Digital Map Products , Here , Mapmyindia, Microsoft , Navinfo, Nearmap, Magellan, Apple, Mapquest , Autonavi etc. Digital Map Market https://www.researchreportsworld.com/enquiry/request-sample/13718489 https://www.researchreportsworld.com/enquiry/pre-order-enquiry/13718489 https://www.researchreportsworld.com/purchase/13718489 Digital Map Market 2019 Report analyses the industry status, size, share, trends, growth opportunity, competition landscape and forecast to 2025. This report also provides data on patterns, improvements, target business sectors, limits and advancements. Furthermore, this research report categorizes the market by companies, region, type and end-use industry.Get Sample Copy of this Report@Global Digital Map market 2019 research provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The Global Digital Map market analysis is provided for the international markets including development trends, competitive landscape analysis, and key regions development status. Development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures are also analysed. This report also states import/export consumption, supply and demand Figures, cost, price, revenue and gross margins.Digital Map Market research report spread across 108 pages with top key manufacturers and list of tables and figures.Inquire more or share questions if any before the purchase on this report @Global Digital Map market competition by TOP MANUFACTURERS, with production, price, revenue (value) and each manufacturer including ESRI Google Tomtom Mapbox Digitalglobe Digital Map Products Here Mapmyindia Microsoft ..This report studies the top producers and consumers, focuses on product capacity, production, value, consumption, market share and growth opportunity in these key regions, covering North America Europe China Japan Southeast Asia IndiaGlobal Digital Map Market providing information such as company profiles, product picture and specification, capacity, production, price, cost, revenue and contact information. Upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also carried out. The Global Digital Map market development trends and marketing channels are analysed. Finally, the feasibility of new investment projects is assessed and overall research conclusions offered.With tables and figures helping analyse worldwide Global Digital Map market, this research provides key statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.Order a copy of Global Digital Map Market Report 2019 @Market segment by Type, the product can be split into Type I Type IIMarket segment by Application, split into Consulting and advisory services Deployment and integration services Support and maintenance servicesThe study objectives of this report are: To analyse global Digital Map status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. To present the Digital Map development in United States, Europe and China. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyse their development plan and strategies. To define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market and key regions.There are 14 Chapters to deeply display the global Digital Map marketChapter 1: To describe Digital Map Market Overview, Introduction, product scope, market opportunities, Application.Chapter 2: To analyse the Top Manufacturers of Digital Map, with sales, capacity, production, revenue, and price of Digital Map, in 2014 and 2019.Chapter 3: Digital Map, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers with capacity, production, share by region, sales, revenue, gross margin and market share in 2014 and 2019.Chapter 4: To show the global market by regions, supply, consumption, with sales, export-import, revenue and market share of Digital Map, for each region, from 2014 Digital Map to 2019.Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 To analyse the market by countries, by type, by application and by manufacturers, with sales, analysis by application, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions.Chapter 10 and 11 To show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, strategy analysis and factor analysis from 2014 Digital Map to 2019.Chapter 12 Digital Map market forecast, by regions, type, with sales and revenue, growth rate, price Forecast from 2019 to 2025 Digital Map.Chapter 13: Connected Digital Map.Chapter 14: To describe Digital Map sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.About Us:Research Reports World is the credible source for gaining the market reports that will provide you with the lead your business needs. At Research Reports World, our objective is providing a platform for many top-notch market research firms worldwide to publish their research reports, as well as helping the decision makers in finding most suitable market research solutions under one roof. Our aim is to provide the best solution that matches the exact customer requirements. This drives us to provide you with custom or syndicated research reports.Contact Us:Name: Mr. Ajay MoreEmail: sales@researchreportsworld.comOrganization: Research Reports WorldPhone: +1 408 520 9750/+44 203 239 8187 Photo Sharing Market Advanced Technologies and Innovations 2015-2025 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-701 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-701 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com Social media is a networking tool which helps any individual to exchange, create, and share information photos, videos and others. In the current scenario social media tool has become the best mode for marketing, promotion and building social relationship across the globe. Photo sharing tool helps in storing, organising and sharing ones photo collections. Increasing internet penetration coupled with adoption of photo sharing tool as a marketing strategy among the social media platforms is fuelling the growth of photo sharing market across the globe.Photo Sharing Market SegmentationPhoto sharing market is segmented on the basis of platform which includes paid services membership and free services membership. Among both these segments free services membership segment is expected to account for the major market share as compared to paid services membership. However, services provider are offering increased features and add on services in paid services membership which is expected to support the demand of paid services membership during the forecast period.Request to Sample of Report @Photo sharing market is also segmented on the basis of application, which includes personal computers and mobile devices. Personal computers can be further sub segmented as desktop and laptop. Among both of these sub segments laptop is expected to be the major contributor on the pie for photo sharing market as compared to desktop. Increased in number of usage of laptop across the globe is expected to support its growth in photo sharing market during the forecast period. Mobile devices sub-segments include smart phone, tablets and notebook. Among all of these sub-segments smart phones is expected to account for the major share in photo sharing market as compared to other sub-segments. This growth has been supported by the increased usage of smart phone across the developing countries. Moreover, contribution of tablets in terms of share in photo sharing market is also expected show a substantial increase during the forecast period.On the basis of end user, the photo sharing market segmentation includes enterprises and individual. Enterprises can further be sub segmented as large scale enterprise, medium scale enterprise and small scale enterprise. Among all these sub segment large scale enterprise is expected to account for the major share in photo sharing market. Increased adoption of online marketing among the product manufacturers and service providers is expected to support the growth of enterprises in photo sharing market during the forecast period.Globally, photo sharing market is expected to reflect a double digit growth during the forecast period. North America is expected to account for major share followed by Europe in the near future. Moreover developing regions such as Asia Pacific and Latin America are expected to show a substantial growth in photo sharing market during the forecast period. Countries such as Singapore and Japan are expected to be the major contributor in terms of revenue in photo sharing market. Increased penetration of internet in developing regions is expected to support the growth of photo sharing market.Photo Sharing MarketDriversAvailability of wide features for creating and sharing or collections of photos with one and another coupled with increasing connectivity medium is expected to drive the growth of photo sharing market in the near future. Moreover, increased adoption of social media for generating awareness and promotion of the product and services is predicted to fuel the growth of photo sharing market during the forecast period.Request Report for TOC @Photo Sharing Market Key PlayersKey players operating in photo sharing market includes Yahoo Inc., Cooliris Path Inc., Photobucket Corporation, Phonezoo Communications Inc., Trover, Facebook Inc., Bump Technologies LLC., and Hewlett Packard among others.About UsFuture Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centres in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customised and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.U.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia: The L/S Equity strategy outperformed last week, mostly from their beta, said Lyxor in its Weekly Brief. According to Lyxor's Cross Asset Research team, funds' returns were homogeneously red in December, and green in January. Yet, a number of funds, trading oriented, stood out in December, giving back some gains in January. "We observe only few alterations in L/S Equity portfolios at the start of 2019," it said. Most managers steadily reduced their net and gross exposures since the summer 2018, both brought near to their historical lows. Their de-risking came to an end in December. Since then, very few funds bought stocks back over the last two weeks. Similarly, sector allocations were not substantially turned since December lows. L/S Equity managers stand in wait and see L/S Equity managers stand in wait and see ahead of several key pending catalysts. The Brexit vote in Parliament is likely to take place on January 15. Odds look grim, the plan B could lead to try and delay the March 29 deadline. The earning season will also kick off next week with some of the banking majors. While reports for Q4 might still look decent, investors will scrutinize companies' guidance. U.S. and Chinese early trade talks ended on January 9 on a positive tone. Chinese concessions remain far from U.S. initial requests, but plunging financial markets are probably pushing Mr. Trump to advance its timing ahead of the 2020 elections. More ...................... To view our full article Click here Covid-19 origin: Was right about China virus coming from Wuhan lab, says Donald Trump Trump's letter reaches Kim Jong-un as talks progress towards 2nd summit International oi-Shubham Ghosh Pyongyang, Jan 15: The Donald Trump-Kim Jong-Un romance resumes in the new year. Last weekend, a letter from the US president reached the North Korean leader, CNN reported citing a source familiar with the current denuclearisation talks between Washington and Pyongyang. The letter was delivered amid the talks between the two sides to organise a second meeting of the two leaders. Trump and Kim met in a historic first meeting in Singapore on June 12 last year. As per the report, the source said that North Korea's former spy chief Kim Yong Chol - one of Kim's top negotiators - could visit Washington this week to finalise the details of the upcoming meeting. Good to have tied with India, Russia and China: Trump According to a previous report by CNN, teams from the US have already visited Bangkok, Hanoi and Hawaii to search for a venue for the summit. South Korean President Moon Jae-in backed the second Trump-Kim meeting last week, saying the event, along with Kim's visit to Seoul, would be a turning point towards solidifying peace on the Korean Peninsula. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 10:02 [IST] Indian killed in Afghan bomb attack: MEA International oi-PTI New Delhi/Kabul: An Indian national was among those killed in the terror attack in Afghanistan's capital on Monday, the Ministry of External Affairs said and called for the perpetrators of the assault as well as those who provide them shelter to be brought to justice expeditiously. A bomb exploded near a heavily-fortified foreign compound in Kabul, killing at least four people and wounding over 100. The Taliban on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attack in Kabul that ripped through surrounding neighbourhoods. "India strongly condemns the horrific terror attack in Kabul yesterday in which an Indian national and many others lost their lives," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement Tuesday. The Indian Embassy in Kabul is taking steps for repatriation of the mortal remains of the Indian national, the MEA said. "We express our sincere condolences to the families of the victims of this cowardly attack and wish early recovery to the injured," it said.India calls for the perpetrators of this heinous attack and those who provide them shelter to be brought to justice expeditiously, the ministry said. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 16:24 [IST] PM lauds mother for following Covid norms, isolating from 6-year-old boy to protect him from coronavirus India is adaptable, agile even during pandemic: PM Modi at fifth edition of VivaTech Will woman IAS officer become Cabinet Secretary? India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P New Delhi, Jan 16: The Government of India has seen only four Cabinet Secretaries in 14 years from 2004 to June 2018. B K Chaturvedi, K M Chandrashekhar, Ajit Seth and P K Sinha. Three were Cabinet Secretary for four years while P K Sinha will also complete the fourth year in June 2019. With one-year extension to PK Sinha, Cabinet Secretary has closed the doors for two batches of IAS officers. IAS officers of 1981 and 1982 batches will retire by June 2019. Secretary in the PM Office Bhaskar Khulbe may be the dark horse for the post. Khulbe, 1983 batch IAS officer of the West Bengal cadre, is scheduled to retire on March 31,2019. Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra,1982 batch IAS officer of West Bengal cadre, may also be considered for the post. Mitra is to retire in May. He was Chief Secretary in West Bengal Government. 10 per cent quota to be implemented from academic year 2019: Javadekar If all goes well, Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba will be new Cabinet Secretary. Gauba, 1982 batch Jharkhand cadre IAS officer, will be senior-most IAS officer in the Government of India. Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan is said to be a strong contender for the post. 1982 batch IAS officer Sundararajan is also next in seniority to Rajiv Gauba. According to reports, in view of the next Lok Sabha elections, Modi Government may appoint new Cabinet Secretary in March before the imposition of the Code of conduct. In that case present Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha may be given another assignment. Vehicle-mounted laser dazzler: An effective replacement of infamous pellet guns India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, Jan 15: When massive protests broke out in Kashmir in 2016 after the killing of terrorist Burhan Wani, the security forces, among many other means, used the infamous pellet guns to control the crowd. While pellet guns are considered non lethal, the injuries inflicted by them can be quite serious if the pellets hit vulnerable parts of the body. Security forces were given strict instruction to fire pellet guns only at the lower parts of the body, but what actually transpired on the streets of Kashmir was different. Protesters in Kashmir were resorting to pelting stones at the security forces, and what happened was when they bent down to pick the stones, the vulnerable parts like eyes, face, ears came in the path of pellets. This led to many injuries. Pellets are loaded with lead and once fired they disperse in huge numbers. They don't follow a definite path. Pellets penetrate the skin's soft tissues, and eye being the delicate structure is the most vulnerable to damage. Once the pellet goes inside an eye it shatters tissues and causes multiple damages to all parts of the eye. In May 2017, the Supreme Court asked the Centre to consider effective means other than use of pellet guns to quell stone pelting mobs in Jammu and Kashmir. Know how pellet guns killed and blinded people in Jammu and Kashmir This forced the armed to forces to think aboput other means to control a rampaging mob. And what now seems like a viable replacement of pellet guns, is vehicle-mounted laser dazzler (VMLD). Developed by the DRDO in collaboration with Mahindra, this riot control mechanism is a "non-lethal anti-personnel weapon system for crowd control applications and configured around a light armoured vehicle to provide closer and quicker reach towards target. VMLD can immobilise crowds of thousands by blinding their eyes for few seconds without causing permanent damage. The system employs an intense green laser and illuminates a large swathe with a diameter of 24 mt at the target to cover a large section of crowds, with a set of mirrors oscillating at fast repetition rate. The intense bright radiation causes credible glare in subject eyes leading to immediate but temporary functional capability degradation, said reports. DRDO is said to have given demonstration to Northern Command of the Army. DRDO Chairman G Satheesh Reddy told The Indian Express that the vehicle was waiting to be deployed. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 5:00 [IST] Uttar Pradesh Congress leaders miffed over leadership for its complete unpreparedness India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Jan 15: The Congress leaders from Uttar Pradesh are opposing political leniency towards Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati and Samajwadi party chief Akhilesh Yadav in view of these political leaders ignoring the Congress for the alliance in Uttar Pradesh. The party leaders have made it clear that the Congress now must not hesitate to say that they forged an alliance to benefit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state. Many Congress leaders are of the view that the Congress must not hesitate to tell people of the state that alliance was done to help the BJP. Alliance works only if Akhilesh Yadav bows down to Mayawati, says SP lawmaker Party leaders and workers in the state are also questioning the lackadaisical approach of the top strategist of the party in Delhi. They are of the view that incompetent strategists of the party had kept on waiting for the invitation of the SP and the BSP leadership to join the alliance. They did not take any initiative themselves to talk to Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati. The party leadership also did not work on Plan B with the idea if alliance of the Congress with SP-BSP does not happen. The Congress does not have any strategy except announcing contesting all 80 seats in the state alone. Attitude of the Congress leaders in the state is becoming a big challenge for the party after the claim of the Congress to make foolproof strategy to corner the BJP stands demolished with they left stranded in the state. This is the reason that Congress president Rahul Gandhi will discuss the matter with senior leaders of the party after he returns to India from his tour to Abu Dhabi and Dubai on January 15, 2019. Party sources said that it is correct that the Congress did not contemplate over the issue of Plan B if the Congress is left out of the SP-BSP alliance. So there is unrest in the party that the way BSP chief is attacking the Congress, the party does not have any answer to it. The Congress leaders are questioning that these parties are attacking the BJP on corruption but they are silent on Rafale issue. The Congress is saying that it is just not embroiling the BJP rather helping the BJP in a way. Congress to fight all 80 seats in UP alone, says SP-BSP "closed the chapter" The Congress leaders are accusing that the SP and the BSP have helped the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and now they want to benefit the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 9:48 [IST] Unemployment rate among women engineers in India is five times that of men: Study India pti-PTI New Delhi, Jan 15: Unemployment among women engineers in India is five times that of men and the rate has been increasing in many parts of the country, according to a study. The study, which presented insights on the gender bias experiences of Indian women and men working for 'Western engineering companies' in India, suggested that both genders in the country experience high levels of bias, in different forms. "Women are more likely to experience gender bias, while men face bias based on where they come from and their language spoken," said the report by The Society of Women Engineers in partnership with the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. According to the study titled 'Walking the Tightrope', 44 per cent of men and 30 per cent of women engineers said they faced bias due to the state or region they are from. The nationwide survey was conducted online beginning Fall 2017 among a cross section of 693 engineers across a variety of disciplines, engineering sectors and employment levels. 7th Pay Commission: Why only lower rung employees will have something to cheer about "The report underlines the bias problems that India's engineering workplace experiences. This is the tipping point. It is a call to action for organisations to address these pressing issues," said Neeti Sanan, faculty, Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur, and consultant to the SWE study. According to the study, 76 per cent of engineers reported that they have to prove themselves over and over to get the same level of respect as their colleagues. On the tug-of-war bias, it said 45 per cent of women reported that they have to compete with their female colleagues to get the one "woman's spot" available. "We need to start thinking of women engineers as an integral part of organisations and treat them the way their male counterparts are treated," said Joan C Williams, founding director, Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. The study said 11 per cent of women engineers and 6 per cent of men engineers reported unwanted romantic or sexual attention or touching in the workplace. It further said despite the high level of bias that men tended to report, some significant gender differences emerged where women experienced higher levels of bias than men. It said 45 per cent of women but only 28 per cent of men reported that it was perceived as inappropriate when women argued at work, even when it was work-related. A higher percentage of women (45 per cent) than men (30 per cent) reported feeling pressured to play submissive roles at work. Also, 40 per cent of men and women reported that women should work less after having children, while 27 per cent of men and women reported that men should work more after having children. In contrast, sometimes men reported more bias than women, it said, adding that out of engineers without kids, a higher percentage of men (50 per cent) than women (39 per cent) reported that they are perceived as having "no life" so they end up working overtime. Also, 54 per cent of men but only 44 per cent of women reported bias in hiring. PTI Karnataka coalition shaky: Two independents withdraw support India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Bengaluru, Jan 15: Trouble seems to be brewing for the JD(S)-Congress coalition government in Karnataka. Amidst the threat of some of its MLAs quitting, two independent MLAs have withdrawn support from the government. The two independent MLAs, H Nagesh and R Shankar have withdrawn support to the government, thus bringing the number of the coalition down to 117. In the 224 member Karnataka Assembly the Congress has 80 MLAs, while the JD(S) has 37. The coalition also had the support of two MLAs before the resignations. The BJP on the other hand has 104 MLAs and in order to bring down the government, at least another 14 would have to resign to bring the house strength down to ensure that the BJP comes to power. The MLAs, while tendering their resignation said that they had decided to withdraw power since the coalition had failed. I decided to withdraw support as there was no understanding between the coalition partners. I decided to go with the BJP for a stable government, Nagesh said. It may be recalled that the BJP had moved its MLAs to a resort in Gurgaon. The BJP has accused the JD(S) and Congress of trying to poach its MLAs. On the other hand the BJP has been accused of trying to enforce another Operation Lotus. There are reports that five Congress MLAs are in Mumbai and are believed to be in touch with the BJP leadership. The BJP also said that its lawmakers who are lodged in Gurgaon would also hold talks with regard to the Lok Sabha elections. The party also says that the coalition would collapse on its own and it did not need to anything to enforce that. There is a tussle between the Congress and JD(S) and they are trying to blame us for that mess, a party leader also informed. Currently in the 224 member assembly, the Congress and JD(S) together have 118 MLAs as opposed to the 104 that the BJP has. In order to form the government, the BJP would need another 9 MLAs. While all eyes would be on Delhi, there is also some action expected in Mumbai. Among the missing lawmakers, who are suspected to be in Mumbai are Ramesh Jarkiholi, Anand Singh, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and B C Patil. While Jarkiholi is upset that he as dropped from the Cabinet, the others are angry about not being included in it. In a bid to pacify these MLAs, Shivakumar is expected to travel to Mumbai today. Prior to attending the two day international conference on micro-irrigation in Aurangabad, he would be travel to Mumbai and is expected to hold talks with the MLAs. TN: With Pongal round the corner, bulls and bull tamers get ready for Jallikattu TN: On Pongal day, traditional bull-taming event 'Jallikattu' begins in Madurai India oi-Madhuri Adnal Chennai, Jan 15: After worldwide protests by the people in the state in 2017 to lift the ban against Jallikattu, Tamil Nadu is set to host the event on 15-17 January on the occasion of Pongal. On the first day of Jallikattu (the bull-taming sport), held in Tamil Nadu's Pudukottai district, 13 people were injured on Monday. Four people have, reportedly, suffered major injuries. Safety arrangements including water, fire service, ambulance and medical facilities are also done keeping in mind the turnout for the event. Wooden baffles near Vadivaasal where the bulls will come out and fences on the corners of the galleries where the audience sit around and watch the event are safely prepared. SC refers Jallikattu matter to Constitution Bench A total of 453 bulls participated in the event compared to last year when 600 bulls took part in the annual sport. This year, the state government had formulated stricter norms and many bulls were disqualified to avoid any accidents. In Tamil Nadu, Pudukottai hosts the highest number of Jallikattu every year. In 2018, there were over 72 such events. The number has, however, gone down to 60 this year. From January 18 to 20, three Jallikatu events will be held. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 9:03 [IST] Indias massive build up will deter Chinese from indulging in misadventure Unless trust deficit is removed, we will be very weary says Army Chief Ladakh standoff: No de-escalation without complete disengagement at all friction points, says Army Chief 'Strong action against terror activities along India-Pakistan border', warns Bipin Rawat on Army day India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Jan 15: Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Tuesday issued a veiled warning to India's adversaries and said the Indian Army will not hesitate to take strong action to deal with terror activities along the border with Pakistan. The country along India's western border is providing support to terror groups and the Indian Army is dealing with them effectively, Gen Rawat said in an obvious reference to Pakistan. "We are ensuring moral dominance along border in Jammu and Kashmir," he said while addressing Army personnel on the occasion of Army Day in Delhi. Bipin Rawat suggests SC order on decriminalising gay sex may not be implemented in Army The Indian Army will not hesitate to take strong action to deal with terror activities along the western border, Gen Rawat said. He said new guidelines are being followed to maintain peace and tranquillity along the border in the eastern sector. "We will keep reviewing the situation along the eastern border," he said, referring to the border with China. "Our soldiers will not allow any compromise in guarding the border in the eastern sector," he said. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 13:24 [IST] Sabarimala order review: Hearing in SC to be delayed India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 15: The hearing of the review petition with regard to the Sabarimala verdict will be further delayed. A Constitution Bench had been set up to hear the review petitions and the matter was to come up on January 22. However, since Justice Indu Malhotra is on medical leave, the hearing will not take place on January 22. There are at least 19 review petitions pending in connection with this case. The Bench while agreeing to hear the review petitions in open court made it clear that the earlier order that had lifted the ban would remain in force. Woman who entered Sabarimala attacked by relatives, hospitalised On September 28, a five-judge Constitution bench headed by then Chief Justice Dipak Misra, in its 4:1 verdict, had paved the way for entry of women of all ages into the Sabarimala temple saying the ban amounted to gender discrimination. A plea filed by the National Ayyappa Devotees Association (NADA), which has sought review of the verdict, had said, "the notion that the judgment under review is revolutionary, one which removes the stigma or the concept of dirt or pollution associated with menstruation, is unfounded." "It is a judgment welcomed by hypocrites who were aspiring for media headlines. On the merits of the case, as well, the said judgment is absolutely untenable and irrational, if not perverse," the petition had also said. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 11:01 [IST] Rajasthan government to felicitate people adopting cows on Independent Day and Republic Day India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Jan 15: After Madhya Pradesh Congress promised to provide shelter to cow, now the Congress government in Rajasthan and the state is known for many mob lynching incidents has taken a new initiative for take care of cows in the state with the help of participation of people of the state. Actually, the Rajasthan government has decided to felicitate such people on Independence Day and Republic Day who will adopt street cows and cows living at cow shelters. This facilitation will be done at the level of district by collectors. Directorate of Gopalan has written a letter to collectors of every district that this activity should be encouraged. During the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state, a ministry and department for cows was constituted. There was a minister for this department. Still mob lynching had happened in Rajasthan and entire state was defamed across the country and even internationally. Survey being done on NaMo App is costing sleep of the night to many BJP MPs There are around 2570 registered Goshala (cow heard) in the state. The state government helps these Goshala for 180 days with Rs 32 per day for grown up animals and Rs 16 for calfs. The government has asked district collectors to encourage the model of Jhalawar and Alwar. Actually, the district administration has encouraged donors for this purpose. They have encouraged people to adopt one or two cow progenies for their food and all and it is getting support from the entire district. This campaign is being run for the past one year. With Jhalawar, Alwar too too has started adopting cows and directorate of the concerned department has asked every district to adopt this model. The letter sent to the district says, "Looking at the dismal condition of cows in the state officers, donors and social workers must be encouraged to adopt cow progenies." By deciding to felicitate such people, the Ashok Gehlot government is not only trying to save the government but also ensuring the participation of common people. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 20:10 [IST] Punjab Bumper Lohri Lottery Results 2019: When, how, where to check results India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa The Punjab Bumper Lohri Lottery Results 2019 is all set to be tomorrow. The results once declared will be available on the official website. This bumper lottery is known by two names - Punjab state New Year bumper lottery and Punjab State Lohri bumper lottery 2019. The Punjab State Lottery ticket is prize at Rs 200 plus Rs 90 extra for postal and packaging charges. Be warned that due to the number of visitors once the draw is held the website may be slow. Be patient, as the website would speed up once the traffic reduces. The first prize of Rs 2 crore is guaranteed from the sold ticket. The second prize is Rs 1 crore. The third and fourth prizes are Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 1 lakh respectively. While there is only 1, first and second prizes, there are 10 and 20, third and fourth prizes respectively. The first, second and third prizes will be drawn only out of the sold tickets. The Punjab State Lohri Bumper Lottery 2019 is available for sale. The results would be declared on January 16 2019 and the winning numbers would be available at 5.30 pm. For more details about how to purchase the ticket and also to check the results you can go to https://www.gandhibrotherslottery.com/punjab-state-lottery/. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 6:43 [IST] MP: BJP Yuva Morcha leader fined Rs 10,000 for flouting COVID-19 norms but no case as he expresses 'remorse' Ayodhya land deal: Rahul Gandhi slams BJP, says betrayal in name of Lord Ram is unrighteous 'Our aim is to teach BJP a lesson in 2019', says BSP chief Mayawati India oi-Madhuri Adnal Lucknow, Jan 15: On her 63rd birthday, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati held a press conference at 11 am and released the 14th volume of her book 'A Travelogue of My Struggle Ridden Life and BSP movement". While addressing in Lucknow, Mayawati said,"SP-BSP alliance are giving sleepless nights to BJP leaders. SP-BSP alliance se BJP ki neend ud gayee hai.'' ''Congress has ruled the country for the longest time. No development took place under the Congress party. Our [SP-BSP] aim is to teach the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a lesson in 2019,'' she said. Uttar Pradesh Congress leaders miffed over leadership for its complete unpreparedness "National policy should be made for the welfare of farmers. Most people will not get the benefit of farm loan waiver. Loan amount of every farmer should be waived off," says Mayawati. She further said,''We have always worked for the poor and the down trodden. The government should give 100% farm loan waiver else farmer suicides will continue. A strong farm loan waiver policy should be made.'' The first female chief minister from the Scheduled Caste, Mayawati is seen as a Dalit icon by millions and fondly referred to as Behenji. Her birthdays have been widely celebrated by her supporters until recently. In 2003, her birthday, during her third term as chief minister, was celebrated with a 51kg cake on a massive stage and 5,000 bouquets of flowers. On BJP's fortunes in UP, Bihar, Tejashwi Yadav makes these predictions Mayawati's first solo press conference that comes just days after the big announcement of her party's alliance with the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 11:40 [IST] On BJPs fortunes in UP, Bihar, Tejashwi Yadav makes these predictions India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, Jan 15: Stressing the message of BSP-SP alliance has gone down well throughout the country, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav said Uttar Pradesh and Bihar will decide who will be in power at the Centre after the Lok Sabha polls. "It is not just UP but the entire country where the message of alliance has gone ... (now) the people of UP and Bihar will decide as to who will come to power at the Centre," Tejashwi told reporters in Lucknow after meeting SP president Akhilesh Yadav. The RJD leader had met BSP supremo Mayawati here last night. Alliance works only if Akhilesh Yadav bows down to Mayawati, says SP lawmaker "In UP there are 80 seats while Bihar has 40 Lok Sabha seats ... along with Jharkhand which has 14 seats a major chunk of 134 seats are in these states ... The BJP has around 115 seats of these ... with alliance in these states, the BJP will lose 100 seats," Tejashwi claimed. Asserting that people are not happy with the saffron party, he said they had also come to "cheat" Bihar, with the Prime Minister promising special package. He also referred to "CM chacha" (Nitesh Kumar) going with the BJP after breaking the alliance with RJD. "This step of the BSP and the SP is going to be hailed in later stages," he said, adding that it will prevent the country from going into the "clutches" of the RSS. Tejashwi said his visit to congratulate the BSP and the SP was in fact realisation of the dream visualised by RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav. Claiming there is undeclared Emergency in the country, he said all constitutional institutions are being damaged to serve personal interests and there is also an effort to replace the Constitution by MS Golwalkar's (RSS leader) "Bunch of Thoughts" and the "Nagpuri law". Tejashwi also referred to the CBI and the ED saying that his family and he himself, even when he was 13 years old, have been facing cases but stressed there was no need to compromise and instead fight against them. "There is a move to tarnish and sully the image by giving negative publicity ... after elections all will come to know who is dishonest and how the 'chowkidar' has tricked the people of the country and only indulged in jumlebaazi," he said. "Our organisation in Uttar Pradesh will lend support to the alliance," he said. Speaking on the occasion, Akhilesh said Tejashwi's move will further cement the alliance. The people of the country are today unhappy with the BJP and want to remove it, he said, adding alliance in UP has been received well. Tejashwi Yadav meets Akhilesh, pledges support to SP-BSP alliance " ... from Delhi to Kolkata, people are against the BJP as all have been deceived by them," he said. "I can assure the BJP that we samajwadis will not change our language even if they try," Akhilesh added. The RJD leader, who arrived in the state capital last night, hoped that the alliance formed in Uttar Pradesh will be extended to Bihar and that all parties will work together to defeat the BJP. Sources said that despite the alliance being announced in Uttar Pradesh, parties like the RJD could be accommodated on isolated seats on the lines of Kairana, where Tabassum Hasan won on RLD ticket in a Lok Sabha by-election though she had close links with the Samajwadi Party. In return, the RJD, which already has its alliance with the Congress in Bihar, could accommodate some candidates of the BSP and the Samajwadi Party, sources said. Speaking to reporters, Tejashwi had said, "I am the youngest. I have come to wish her (Mayawati) on her birthday in advance and take blessings ... she is a mature leader and we should keep getting her guidance in future." For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 9:12 [IST] Dont you have confidence in the state you served for 30 years: SC to Param Bir Singh No BJP rath yatra says SC, party can conduct meetings and rallies India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 15: The Supreme Court has refused to give the go ahead for the BJP's rath yatra in West Bengal. The court however said that the party could conduct meetings and rallies. The court further said that if the BJP comes out with a revised plan, it could be considered later. The BJP had challenged the decision of the Calcutta High Court which had refused permission for the yatra. The Calcutta High Court had reviewed its own decision, while putting the yatras on hold. A Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court had said that it would review the order of the single judge, who had permitted the BJP to undertake the yatras in West Bengal. The matter came up for hearing before a larger bench headed by Chief Justice Kargupta last week, and the case was sent back to the single-judge bench with instructions that it consider 36 intelligence inputs provided by the state administration before taking a decision on the BJP's "rath yatra" in West Bengal. The earlier order of the single judge stands quashed. Following the order of the single judge, the West Bengal government had approached the Calcutta High Court. It had challenged the order of the single judge which permitted the BJP to hold Rath Yatra rallies across the state as part of its 2019 Lok Sabha campaign. The State Advocate General Kishore Dutta moved a petition opposing the single bench order before a division bench of the chief justice on Friday morning. The state government has roped in senior counsel and veteran Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi to plead the case on behalf of the West Bengal Police. The single judge had said that any threat to public order must be real and not imaginary or likely possibility. "Without providing for reasonable restrictions, the authorities have passed an order for total exclusion," the judge had also said. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 15:37 [IST] Next Congress chief: Wasnik could be in charge, Kharge likely interim boss Kharge hits out at those 'weakening' Congress from within by attacking leadership Make CVC report on Alok Verma, minutes of Jan 10 meet public: Kharge writes to PM Modi India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Jan 15: Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him to bring in the public domain key documents related to sacked CBI chief Alok Verma, including the Central Vigilance Commission report. In his letter, Kharge further demanded that the PMO also release the report of Justice (retd) AK Patnaik's report and minutes of the January 10 Selection Committee meeting during which it was decided to remove CBI director Alok Verma from the job was taken. Kharge has said this should be done "so the public can draw its own conclusions in this matter." No end in sight: Now Rao's appointment as interim CBI chief challenged Kharge was the sole dissenter in the selection meeting held on January 10 to decide on the fate of Alok Verma. Calling the appointment of M Nageshwar Rao as interim director of the agency "illegal", Kharge has asked for an immediate convening of the selection committee to appoint a new CBI Director without further delay. The selection committee is headed by Prime Minister and comprises Leader of Opposition and the Chief Justice of India or a Justice nominated by him Justice A K Sikri had attended the January 10 meeting. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 13:02 [IST] Dont you have confidence in the state you served for 30 years: SC to Param Bir Singh Let it die says Justice Sikri on post-retirement assignment controversy India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa New Delhi, Jan 15: Justice A K Sikri of the Supreme Court wants the controversy, over his proposed post-retirement assignment and nomination on the PM-led panel which removed Alok Verma as CBI chief, to "die" even as some senior advocates termed the incident mischievous and aimed at targeting him. "See I don't want the controversy to be dragged. I want it to die," Justice Sikri told PTI on the sidelines of a private function relating to the release of a book on the life of former Chief Justice of India Y K Sabharwal. He refrained from making any further comments on the episode. A controversy broke out on Sunday over Justice Sikri getting a government offer last year for a post-retirement assignment at the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat Arbitral Tribunal (CSAT), three days after his vote, as a representative of CJI Ranjan Gogoi on the panel, helped decide the removal of Verma as CBI director. CVC set to probe corruption allegations against ousted CBI chief, Verma Apparently stung by the controversy, Justice Sikri withdrew his consent to the government offer. On Monday, Justice Sikri, the senior-most judge after Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, maintained a safe distance from scribes but former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said he has been "unfairly targeted" by some political leaders and activist-lawyers. "There is no connection between the two issues and people who don't know the facts and circumstances under which the two things happened - giving consent for assignment at London-based Commonwealth Secretariat Arbitral Tribunal and his nomination by the CJI in the Prime Minister-led panel on the former CBI chief issue - are instrumental in making allegations which are utterly false and malicious," Rohatgi said. Criticising some activist-lawyers who had used social media to allegedly "malign" the judge, Rohatgi said, "such people only want publicity without knowing the facts about the person whom they are speaking." "The issue was raised completely with mischievous intent to malign the judge. It is scandalous," he said. His view was shared by former high court judge Ajit Kumar Sinha and senior advocate Vikas Singh, who said it was "unfortunate" that some persons and activist-lawyers "mischievously" linked the two incidents. They said Justice Sikri had given oral consent in December 2018 to the government offer to nominate him for president/member of the CSAT and the CJI nominated him in the PM-led panel after judgment in the Verma case in January 2019. Singh said the lawyers have to make comments sensibly but these activist-lawyers are "loose cannon" and "I think it was mischievous on part of the activist-lawyers to create an unnecessary controversy". Sinha said creating controversy like this only denigrate an institution from where both the bar and the bench derive privilege. CBI mess to get messier: Two more officers likely to approach SC He also said people who have created the controversy have been earlier praising the CJI but now criticising him for nominating Justice Sikri on the high-level panel. A senior advocate, who recently resigned as Additional Solicitor General, and knows Justice Sikri for three decades, said "some people are only trying to malign the judge". He said it has become a routine for some activist-lawyers to target judges who take a decision contrary to their wishes. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 6:12 [IST] Kumbh Mela 2019: Devotees take holy dip on Day 1; over 12 crore people to attend India oi-Madhuri Adnal Prayagraj, Jan 15: Kumbh Mela 2019 commenced with first Shahi Snan on Tuesday as sadhus belonging to various akharas took a holy dip in the confluence of three rivers - Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati in the world's biggest gatherings of human beings, being held at Prayagraj. Kumbh is one of the most important pilgrimages for Hindus in India and across the world. The Kumbh Mela is held every six years, while the Maha Kumbh takes place every 12 years. The holy dip for Kumbh Mela 2019 began on Monday midnight with the Shahi Snan on the auspicious day of Makar Sankranti. As a part of the Shahi Snan, sadhus belonging to 13 akhadas take a dip in the holy rivers along the banks of River Ganga where the Kumbh Mela takes place. The order in which the akhadas perform the holy ritual by taking a dip in the river - the Ganges in case of the Prayagraj Kumbh Mela - is predetermined and according to the norms, no one is allowed to enter the holy river before the akhadas finish their Shahi Snans. Cylinder explosion triggers blaze at Kumbh mela camp, no casualties Over 12 crore people expected to visit Prayagraj between now and March, when the festival will come to a close, for a holy dip at the Sangam. Due to the huge number of people expected, the Uttar Pradesh administration has restricted the entry of vehicles, other than those required for essential services, near the Kumbh Nagari, sprawling over 32,000 hectare. Elaborate security arrangements are in place and pontoon bridges have been constructed to lead the visitors to the five-kilometre bathing ghat at Sangam. Prayagraj is all decked up for the upcoming Kumbh Mela that began on January 15. From street art to top-of-the-line tents to over 1.22 lakh toilets, the Uttar Pradesh government has not left any stone unturned in order to make the religious event a big success. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 9:57 [IST] BPL families which lost earning member to COVID to get Rs one lakh relief in Karnataka Karnataka: CM Kumaraswamy relaxed as 2 exits jolt Congress-JD(S) coalition India oi-Deepika S Bengaluru, Jan 15: In a blow to the Congress-JDS coalition in Karnataka, two MLAs on Tuesday withdrew support to the government headed by H D Kumaraswamy. H Nagesh (Independent) and R Shankar (KPJP) have written to governor Vajubhai Vala conveying their decision. In separate identical letters, available to the media here, the lawmakers said they were withdrawing support extended to the coalition government of the Congress and the JDS with immediate effect. The MLAs, who are now staying in a Mumbai hotel, requested the governor to take "necessary action." Shankar, while speaking to news agency ANI, said he had done his best as a cabinet minister but the government did not let him continue his service. Karnataka coalition shaky: Two independents withdraw support Another MLA Nagesh said that he decided to withdraw support as there was "no understanding between coalition partners". "Hence, I decided to go with the BJP for a stable government," he said. Both the Congress and the BJP have been accusing each other of trying to lure legislators. The BJP MLAs are presently camping in Gurgaon, amid reports that some Congress and Independent MLAs are staying at a hotel in Mumbai. CM HD Kumaraswamy also expressed confidence that his government is stable. "I am totally relaxed, I know my strength. I am enjoying what is going on," he said. Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy on 2 Independent MLAs withdraw support from Karnataka government: If 2 MLAs withdraw their support, what will be the numbers? I'm totally relaxed. I know my strength. Whatever is going on in media in the past week, I am enjoying pic.twitter.com/vsmmbdBXSY ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 "We have been saying that BJP is luring our MLAs through money and power but their attempts to destabilise the government will fail," Deputy CM G Parameshwara said, adding that their government is stable. In the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, the Congress has 80 MLAs, the JD(S) has 37, BSP one and two are Independents, who together constitute the ruling coalition. The BJP has 104 MLAs. At least 14 MLAs will have to resign to bring the House strength down to ensure BJP's elevation to power. The BJP has shifted at least 99 out of the total 104 BJP MLAs in the state to a resort in Gurgaon near Delhi, fearing "poaching attempts by JDS and Congress". For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 17:00 [IST] Karnataka: Four from Congress may resign, but BJPs dream still a far cry India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Bengaluru, Jan 15: The drama in Karnataka will continue in Karnataka for a couple of days more. The resignation of two independent MLAs gave a minor jolt to the JD(S)-Congress coalition, but for the BJP to install its government the task ahead is huge. In the 224 member assembly, the Congress has 80 MLAs and the JD(S), 37. One BSP MLA and two independents also constituted the coalition. The BJP, on the other hand, has 104 MLAs. In order to bring the government down, at least 14 MLAs will need to resign to bring the house strength down to ensure that the BJP forms the government. Sources say that the BJP central and state leadership are not on the same page on this issue. The Central leadership wants the BJP to prepare for the 2019 leadership. However, in the state level, BS Yeddyurappa would want his government installed before fighting the 2019 elections. Karnataka coalition shaky: Two independents withdraw support However, going by the numbers, it appears to be a very difficult task for the BJP. Sources tell OneIndia that four disgruntled Congress MLAs are likely to resign by tomorrow. However one of the independent MLAs who quit today is likely to return. This means that the BJP would need to enforce the resignation of at least 11 more MLAs in order to form the government. Following the resignations, Kumaraswamy said that he is as relaxed as ever. The Congress JD(S) has indicated that if the BJP tries to ruffle its feathers, then they will poach five from the saffron party. The BJP it may be recalled had moved its MLAs to a resort in Gurgaon. Karnataka: CM Kumaraswamy 'relaxed' as 2 exits jolt Congress-JD(S) coalition Yeddyurappa had said that the intention behind the move was to avoid poaching by the Congress and JD(S). However, others point out that the MLAs were summoned for a meeting with Central leadership to prepare for the polls. While it was said that the BJP legislators from Karnataka would meet with Amit Shah, the meeting never took place. When asked if the meeting would take place tomorrow, sources said that it was highly unlikely. The legislators are expected to return by Thursday. On the other hand, Congress strongman, D K Shivakumar would make a final attempt to pacify the five Congress MLAs believed to be in Mumbai. Shivakumar would be on an official visit and would attend a programme at Aurangabad before which he is likely to meet the MLAs. The disgruntled MLAs have been sulking after being left out of the Cabinet. A source said that Shivakumar would try and pacify them and if nothing works out then he would use a couple of tricks that he has up his sleeve. The source said that four Congress ministers have been told to step down in case the five MLAs are not pacified. However, it is not clear if the five MLAs would bite the bait. Four of them are unlikely to stay on in the Congress and could resign if talks with Shivakumar fail. Even if the four resign, then the road ahead is tough for the BJP as the numbers are not in its favour. The BJP, on the other hand, is hoping that the resignations continue over the next couple of days. This would make the government shaky and then a recommendation could be made to keep the House under suspended animation until the 2019 Lok Sabha elections are over. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 19:24 [IST] Kanhaiya Kumar led a procession and supported seditious slogans at JNU India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 15: The Delhi Police in its chargesheet against former student union leaders Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid has stated that the footage was genuine. There was a question mark raised over the footage that showed students at the JNU raising anti India slogans while condemning the hanging of Parliament attack convict, Afzal Guru. We have video clips to prove the offence which has been corroborated by the statements of the witnesses and that Kumar was leading a procession and allegedly supported seditious slogans raised on the JNU campus in February 2016, the police also said. Kanhaiya Kumar incited mob to chant anti-India slogans says 1,200 page chargesheet All the footage was genuine and the presence of students belonging to Kashmir was also established through mobile clips and videos. The Kashmiri students had masks on during the procession, but did not cover their faces while returning the police also said. Further there was no permission granted to organise the event and every member was part of the unlawful assembly the police further said. The police said that it had evidence to proceed against the accused, which also included seven students from Jammu and Kashmir. The police has accused them of organising the event against the hanging of Afzal Guru, who was hanged in connection with the Parliament attack. The police alleged that Kumar had incited and was part of the mob that shouted anti India slogans. The police said there is no direct evidence against 36 other accused, including Communist Party of India leader D Raja's daughter Aprajita, but they can be summoned for questioning. The chargesheet has been filed under IPC section 124A (sedition), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 465 (forgery), 471 (using as genuine, forged document), 143 (punishment for unlawful assembly), 149 (unlawful assembly with common object), 147(rioting), & 120B (criminal conspiracy). Kanhaiya Kumar's convoy attacked in Bihar's Begusarai, 6 injured The others charged in the 1,200 page chargesheet are Aquib Hussain, Mujeeb Hussain, Muneeb Hussain, Umar Gul, Rayeea Rassol, Bashir Bhat and Basharat. The police said there is no direct evidence against 36 other accused, including Communist Party of India leader D Raja's daughter Aprajita, but they can be summoned for questioning. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 9:38 [IST] J&K: BSF officer killed in sniper fire from Pakistan in Samba sector India oi-Deepika S Srinagar, Jan 15: A BSF officer was killed on Tuesday in sniper fire from across the border in the Samba sector of Jammu and Kashmir, officials of the border guarding force said. They said Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad was hit by a sniper shot around 10:50 am when he and his patrol party were out for "carrying out border domination" along the International Border. "Pakistani snipers opened fire at them, leading to grievous injuries to the officer. Prasad was rushed to a medical facility in Satwari in Jammu where he later succumbed to his injuries," an official said. The Border Security Force (BSF) is tasked to guard the India-Pakistan International Border in the Jammu region of the state. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 15:28 [IST] 'If Pizza can be delivered, why not ration?': Kejriwal after doorstep delivery of ration scheme stalled Delhi unlock 2.0: Kejriwal appeals to people to follow Covid guidelines as Metro, markets reopen No laxity please says Kejriwal as Delhi opens up following 7-week lockdown Chances of 3rd wave quite real, Delhi govt preparing on war-footing: CM Arvind Kejriwal Delhi unlock: Restaurants to reopen with 50 pc capacity; malls, markets to open daily, says Kejriwal IAS aspirant held over email threat to kidnap Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal's daughter India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Jan 15: The Cyber unit of Delhi Police's Special Cell has held one person in connection with the anonymous email threatening to kidnap Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kerjiwal's daughter. An email from an anonymous account threatening to kidnap Kejriwal's daughter - Harshita Kejriwal - was sent to Delhi Chief Minister's Office on January 9, 2019. Kejriwal had lodged a formal complaint following which an investigation was launched. Harshita Kejriwal, the chief minster's daughter, was given a personal security officer after the threat. Kejriwal's family normally keeps a low profile. He has mostly shielded his two children -- daughter Harshita and son Pulkit - from public glare. His daughter, however, was in news when she cleared the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) entrance test in 2014. She pursued an engineering course there. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 13:05 [IST] PM lauds mother for following Covid norms, isolating from 6-year-old boy to protect him from coronavirus India is adaptable, agile even during pandemic: PM Modi at fifth edition of VivaTech Gujarat riots: SC to hear after 4 weeks Zakia Jafri's plea against clean chit to Modi India oi-PTI New Delhi, Jan 15: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would hear after four weeks a plea by Zakia Jafri challenging the clean chit by the SIT to then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in connection with the 2002 Godhra riots. Zakia, the wife of Ehsan Jafri, an ex-MP who was killed in one of the worst incidents during the riots, has challenged the Gujarat High Court's October 5, 2017, order rejecting her plea against the SIT's decision. Know why Modi was criticised over Gujarat riots, Manmohan praised for apologising for Sikh riots The matter came up for hearing before a bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Ajay Rastogi, and the counsel appearing for the petitioner said they have circulated a letter seeking an adjournment of the hearing. "You are asking for four weeks and we are giving your four weeks. List the matter after four weeks," the bench said. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 11:44 [IST] Diplomatic victory in sight: How India is ensuring 26/11 accused Rana is extradited India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 15: While at first it was being stated that India would have to wait a while longer before it could extradite Tahawwur Rana, news coming in now suggests that the process would be completed sooner. Rana is an important link in the 26/11 attack mystery. He has been accused by India of helping David Headley, who under the reconnaissance of targets at Mumbai which were attacked by ten terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba. Rana was convicted in the United States and sentenced to 14 years in jail. His term ends in 2021, but India has been making all efforts to ensure that he is brought to India sooner. Bringing Headley to India would not be possible as he has entered into a plea bargain deal with the US, as a result of which he cannot be extradited or awarded a death sentence. India, US authorities working frantically to expedite Tahawwur Rana's extradition Rana, 58, a resident of Chicago, was arrested in 2009 on the charges of plotting the 26/11 terror attack. According to the US officials, he is set to be released in December 2021. The Indian government, with "full co-operation" from the Trump administration, is currently working on completing the necessary paperwork to ensure the extradition before his current jail term ends in December 2021. Earlier this month government had told the Lok Sabha that the Centre had engaged with the US authorities under terms of the India-US Extradition Treaty of 1997 for the extradition of US based individuals for their role in the 26/11 attacks. In the US the double jeopardy clause prevents a punishment for the crime twice. Due to this, India renewed its bid to secure Rana's custody on the ground that he was involved in the planning of an attack on the National Defence College in New Delhi. There is also forgery case registered against him in India. India's Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Law and Justice and the US' State Department and the Department of Justice, each of them has their own extradition procedure in place. Following a recent visit to the US by India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) team, officials from both sides have agreed to cut down on the bureaucratic procedures so that all the necessary paperwork is ready before the current jail term of Rana ends in December 2021. The NIA is expected to have direct communication with their US counterparts to cut short the timeframe and bureaucratic formalities. In case, the US government in co-operation with the Indian government is unable to complete the necessary paperwork before that, officials here said it would become very tough to ensure a smooth extradition of Rana once he is released from the jail in Chicago, where he is currently serving his sentence. As per the existing US law, Rana, a Pakistan-born Canadian national, would most probably be deported to Canada if India and the US are unable to complete the cumbersome extradition process before his release. However, people familiar with the matter told PTI that there is a "desire" so there is an assurance from the highest level in the Trump administration that all necessary steps would be taken in timely manner to ensure extradition of Rana before his release. According to the US officials, the extradition of Rana would help in cementing the relationship between the two countries, boost up the counter-terrorism co-operation and enhance America's image among Indians. During their recent visit, the NIA team also received guidance from their US counterparts on the paperwork which India needs to complete to meet the requirements of the American judiciary system and their standards. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 14:51 [IST] COMEDK UGET 2019 eligibility criteria for architecture exam India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Bengaluru, Jan 15: The COMEDK UGET 2019 eligibility criteria for architecture exam has changed. More details would also be available on the official website. As per the notification, the candidates now have to secure a minimum 50 per cent marks in physics, chemistry and mathematics and also 50 per cent marks in aggregate of the 10+2 level examination. "No candidate shall be admitted to architecture program unless she/he has passed an examination at the end of the 10+2 scheme of examination with 50% marks in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics and also 50% marks in aggregate of the 10+2 level examination," the notification said. The COMEDK UGET will be conducted on May 12, 2019. The exam is held for admission to engineering courses in member institutions. The computer-based test which will be conducted on all India basis across the country to facilitate the students to appear in the test closer to their homes and is aimed at minimising the cost of travel and other logistics. This engineering entrance exam is held for candidates seeking admission to 150 engineering colleges in Karnataka under the Karnataka Unaided Private Engineering Colleges Association (KUPECA). COMEDK 2019: Eligibility Engineering Candidates are required to have cleared II PUC, their 10+2 higher secondary or equivalent exam from a recognised Board. Candidates should have scored at least 45 per cent (40 per cent for reserved categories) in their plus two exams with physics and maths as compulsory subjects and chemistry or bio-technology or biology or electronics or computer as one of the optional subjects. However, changes, if any, in the eligibility criteria by the AICTE will be adopted. More details about the schedule will be available on comedk.org. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 6:57 [IST] As Karnataka drama shifts to Delhi, Mumbai, who is trying to poach whom India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Bengaluru, Jan 15: Karnataka never fails to be in the news. The BJP which fell short of the majority mark in the elections conducted last year has moved 104 of its MLAs to New Delhi, in a bid to avoid poaching by the JD(S). The legislators were moved to a resort win Gurgaon in a bid to avoid any poaching bid by the Janata Dal (S), which is in a coalition with the Congress in Karnataka. Over the past few days there have been confusing signals being sent out by all parties in Karnataka regarding the fate of the government. It all began with Congress strongman, D K Shivakumar claiming that five of its lawmakers are in Mumbai and could be in touch with the BJP. This claim was however rejected by Karnataka Chief Minister, H D Kumaraswamy, who said that the lawmakers had informed him about their visit to Mumbai. Karnataka: 'We don't need to poach BJP MLAs', says Kumaraswamy Shivakumar's statement set tongues wagging and there was once talk of a possible Operation Lotus that the BJP could be undertaking to topple the government. The BJP however rubbished this claim and said that it is the JD(S)-Congress which is in fact trying to poach its MLAs. The question now is who is trying to topple whom? Top BJP sources tell OneIndia that the party would not want to get into any kind of adventure ahead of the 2019 elections. It would not try and force a split in the JD(S)-Congress camp. If there has to be any move, it should be by the MLAs from the other side, the source also said. Moreover the central leadership is not keen on any major move and would want the party to focus on the upcoming elections. The BJP's best chance in south India is Karnataka and it would not want to squander its chances by getting into some kind of adventure, which has every chance of backfiring. The source also added that all this drama is also a result of the seat sharing talks between the JD(S) and Congress. Both are trying to create a situation of instability so that they have the upper hand over each other. The JD(S) has been demanding 12 out of the 28 Lok Sabha seats, but the Congress has refused. The Congress feels that the JD(S) has a realistic chance of winning in around 4 to 6 seats and hence the number should be restricted to just that. In the 2014 elections, the BJP had won 17, Congress 9 and the JD(S), 2. Moreover the Congress has taken a more aggressive stand with its coalition partner after its impressive performance in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Drama outside Karnataka: The Karnataka drama is now playing out in Delhi and Mumbai. After moving 104 MLAs to Gurgaon, former chief minster and BJP's Karnataka chief, B S Yeddyurappa said that the JD(S) wants to break us. We will be in Delhi for a day or two. He also denied that the BJP was trying to poach MLAs from the Congress or JD(S). The BJP also said that its lawmakers who are lodged in Gurgaon would also hold talks with regard to the Lok Sabha elections. The party also says that the coalition would collapse on its own and it did not need to anything to enforce that. There is a tussle between the Congress and JD(S) and they are trying to blame us for that mess, a party leader also informed. Operation Lotus: 'No threat to govt,' says Kumaraswamy, BJP rubbishes reports Currently in the 224 member assembly, the Congress and JD(S) together have 118 MLAs as opposed to the 104 that the BJP has. In order to form the government, the BJP would need another 9 MLAs. While all eyes would be on Delhi, there is also some action expected in Mumbai. Among the missing lawmakers, who are suspected to be in Mumbai are Ramesh Jarkiholi, Anand Singh, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and B C Patil. While Jarkiholi is upset that he as dropped from the Cabinet, the others are angry about not being included in it. In a bid to pacify these MLAs, Shivakumar is expected to travel to Mumbai today. Prior to attending the two day international conference on micro-irrigation in Aurangabad, he would be travel to Mumbai and is expected to hold talks with the MLAs. Anna University UG, PG November Results: List of websites which are working India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Chennai, Jan 15: The Anna University UG, PG November Results 2018 have been declared. The results are available on the official website. However the result declaration has been mired in controversy as the website crashed. Many students took to Twitter to complain that there were technical glitches. Students said that all the three websites of the Anna University are down. The officials however said that they are working on the issue. Please remain patient, the officials also told the students. Although there continues to some technical issue, one of the websites seemed to be working when we checked. Below we will provide you the list of websites from where the results can be checked. The results are available on annauniv.edu. How to check Anna University UG, PG November Results 2018: Go to annauniv.edu Click on the results tab A list of websites would be provided Click on http://coe1.annauniv.edu/home/ (this links seems to be working) (this links seems to be working) Click on http://coe2.annauniv.edu (this site is down) (this site is down) Enter required details Submit View results Download results Take a printout For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 6:52 [IST] UP elections 2014 & 2017: Looking at vote-shares of BJP and its opponents India oi-Shubham Ghosh Lucknow, Jan 15: The decision by two key regional parties from Uttar Pradesh, politically India's biggest state - Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) - to leave out the Congress from their alliance for the upcoming Lok Sabha election has been seen by pundits as a key pre-electoral development. BSP supremo Mayawati, who has attacked the Congress earlier as well, has virtually concluded that there is no electoral gain in tying up with the Grand Old Party saying its votes never get transferred. The Congress later decided to contest in all 80 seats of UP in the Lok Sabha election alone. Whether the absence of the Congress, which won just two seats in UP in Lok Sabha election 2014, and seven seats in the Assembly election in 2017, hurts the anti-BJP platform or not is for time to tell. We can, however, take a look at the vote shares of each of the main players in UP from the immediate past Lok Sabha and Assembly elections: 'Our aim is to teach BJP a lesson in 2019', says BSP chief Mayawati Lok Sabha election 2014 in UP: BSP-SP-RLD-Congress combined vote-share 50.5%; BJP-AD 43.6% In this election, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance had swept the state like never before. While the BJP won 71 out of 80 seats, its ally Apna Dal won two. The SP won five and Congress two seats (the two Gandhi strongholds) while the BSP drew a blank. In terms of vote-share though, the differences were less telling. The BJP's vote-share in UP in 2014 was 42.6 per cent while Apna Dal had one per cent. The SP's vote-share was 22.3 per cent and the BSP's 19.8 per cent (total they made 42.1 per cent which is just 0.5 per cent less than the BJP). The Congress's vote-share was 7.5 per cent which if added to the BSP-SP alliance, would see the anti-BJP platform's vote-share rise to 49.6 per cent. The Rashtriya Lok Dal of Ajit Singh also got no seats and polled 0.9 per cent vote share which if added to the anti-saffron front, would see its total share go beyond 50 per cent at 50.5. UP Assembly election 2017: BSP-SP-Congress-RLD combine vote share 52.5%; BJP-AD 41% In 2017, the BJP replicated its overwhelming show in UP again, winning 312 out of 403 seats (40 per cent vote share). The SP was a distant second with 47 seats, BSP third with 19 seats, followed by Apna Dal's nine. The Congress finished with just seven seats and RLD with one. In terms of vote-share, an alliance between the BJP's opponents could see a big change in the scenario. The BSP finished second with 22.4 per cent vote share while the SP got 22 per cent. The Congress got 6.3 per cent (it had an alliance with the SP) while the RLD got 1.8 per cent. A combination of the opponents' vote share would take the figure to 52.5 per cent. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 15:53 [IST] 7th Pay Commission: Why only lower rung employees will have something to cheer about India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 15: All eyes would be on the next Cabinet meeting, where a decision relating to the 7th Pay Commission is expected. With there being no chance of any major announcement in the interim budget, Central Government employees would keenly hope that some good news regarding a hike in basic minimum pay and fitment factor would come their way following the Cabinet meeting. The question is will some sops be doled out to all the CG employees? It is highly unlikely that the government would extend the benefits to all the employees. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is keen on doling out sops to the lower rung employees. 7th Pay Commission: Why the next Cabinet meeting is very crucial for CG employees This would mean that the government would leave out the middle rung employees. The pay panel had fixed Rs 18,000 as the basic minimum pay. This would mean that there would be some tinkering made to this figure. The employees have been demanding that the basic minimum pay be fixed at 26,000, a demand that the government has so far rejected. Meanwhile there could be some good news on its way where the pension and tax exemptions are concerned. The government is likely to issue a new notification announcing new features in the pension scheme. The government is likely to increase its contribution to employee pension to 14 per cent of basic salary from the existing 10 per cent. Reports also suggest that the employees would get over 50 per cent of the last drawn salary as pension under the New Pension Scheme after retirement. However this would happen only if the employee does not commute any portion of the accumulated fund in the new pension scheme at the time of retirement and transfers 100 per cent to the annuity scheme. While these tweaks are expected in another week or so, the big question still remains regarding the basic minimum pay. This is a major issue that has been haunting the CG employees and they would hope that the next Cabinet meeting would take into account their demands and increase the basic minimum pay, beyond what the 7th Pay Commission had recommended. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 6:32 [IST] 7th Pay Commission: No word on DA arrears, here is how you can calculate from July 1 7th Pay Commission: Centre announces bonanza for teachers India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 15: In some good news, the Central Government has decided to extend the benefits of the 7th Pay Commission to teachers. This would be applicable to teachers and other academic staff of state government, government aided degree level institutions. The decision would cost the Centre Rs 1,241.78 crore. The government will reimburse 50% of the total addition expenditure (from 1.1.2016 to 31.3.2019) to be incurred by these institutes for payment of arrears on account of 7th Pay Commission. 7th Pay Commission: Why only lower rung employees will have something to cheer about It may be recalled that last week the Delhi High Court sought response of the city government on a plea by 89 employees, including teachers, of a private school here, seeking implementation of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations. Justice Suresh Kait also sought reply of DAV College Managing Committee and DAV Public School, Rohini, on the petition filed by the employees, including teachers, instructors, librarians and maids, seeking payment of revised allowance and other benefits as per the 7th Pay Commission with effect from January 1, 2016. The court listed the matter for further hearing on April 23. The petition, filed through advocates Ashok Agarwal and Kumar Utkarsh, sought directions to the school to pay the employees allowances and other benefits including arrears of Dearness Allowance in terms of 6th Pay Commission with effect from January 1, 2006 and all the consequential benefits thereof on a par with their counterparts in schools of Delhi government. The plea also sought implementation of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations with effect from January 1, 2016, and to pay consequent arrears of wages and benefits along with interest at the market rate. It also sought directions to Delhi government's Directorate of Education to take action against the school in accordance with the provisions of the Delhi School Education Act for alleged failure on its part to implement the recommendations. According to the petitioners, the school was legally bound to implement the provisions of the 6th and 7th pay commissions from 2006 and 2016 respectively on a par with their counterparts serving in other state-run schools. They also submitted that they are presently drawing pay in terms of the 6th Pay Commission except for that pay, allowances and other benefits including DA have not been given to them at the rates corresponding to what are given to their counterparts in Delhi government schools. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 18:54 [IST] Omaha-based Baxter Auto Group has been selling cars, trucks and vans for 61 years and giving back every step of the way. From education and the arts to poverty and breast cancer, we are proud to support the communities that have supported Baxter for so long, said Baxter co-owner Mickey Anderson. Were entrenched in so many community needs. And all of us here at Baxter come from the communities in which we operate (so) were very close to those needs. Anderson and his sister, Angie Quinn, run the family-owned, homegrown business. They took over after their father, Talton Tal Anderson, died in 2009. Tal Andersons start in auto sales dated back to 1957 when he pumped gas part time at Johnny Baxters car dealership and gas station. By Baxters retirement in 1984, Tal Anderson had owned part of the business; he contracted to purchase the remaining stake, kept the Baxter name and began expanding. Today the company operates 20 dealerships in Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado and dedicates resources to nonprofits in all three states every year in an effort to build stronger communities. The truth of what happens in those meetings needs to be revealed to the American people. Stop letting the politicians who lie get away with it. Mark Nekonchuk, Omaha Weber brilliant, honest, kind I had the pleasure and privilege of working with Del Weber on a variety of occasions while I served in the Omaha Public Power Districts Corporate Communications Division and he served as a member of OPPDs board of directors. He was brilliant, kind, energetic, conscientious, committed, honest a role model and a true class act. In everything he did, he served with grace and distinction, and he set an example all of us would do well to emulate. It was a pleasure to have known him even just a little, and our community is much better for having had him as a member. Rest in peace, Dr. Weber. Gary Williams, Omaha Dundee Del The following editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune. One day in August 2003, much of the northeastern United States and the Canadian province of Ontario suffered the biggest blackout North America has ever seen. A sudden power surge crippled hundreds of power plants and knocked out service to some 50 million people darkening homes and businesses, halting trains and subway cars, snarling airline service and trapping people in elevators. Most of the affected places didnt get the lights back on for two days. It was a sobering lesson in the vulnerability of modern communications networks and electrical grids, which are crucial to modern life. This blackout was an accident, traced to a computer problem. But the next one might be a deliberate act by a foreign adversary. Americans have long experience worrying about airline hijackings, truck bombs and mass shootings by terrorists. The Russian hacking of Democratic National Committee networks and use of social media to influence the 2016 presidential election are well-known. The broader danger of the power grid being sabotaged causing our economy and society to grind to a halt is easy to forget. Its a real-life possibility that Russian hackers have already explored with disturbing success. WASHINGTON Republican Rep. Steve King will be blocked from committee assignments for the next two years after lamenting that white supremacy and white nationalism have become offensive terms. King, in his ninth term representing Iowa, will not be given committee assignments in the Congress that began this month, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Monday night. King served on the Agriculture, Small Business and Judiciary Committees in the last Congress, and he chaired Judiciarys subcommittee on the Constitution and civil justice. McCarthy, R-Calif., called Kings remarks beneath the dignity of the Party of Lincoln and the United States of America. Kings comments call into question whether he will treat all Americans equally, without regard for race and ethnicity, McCarthy said, adding: House Republicans are clear: We are all in this together, as fellow citizens equal before God and the law. The action by the GOP steering committee came after King and McCarthy met Monday to discuss the remarks on white supremacy. The high turnover has caused training costs to rise and record overtime expenses, and raised concerns about tired and overworked staff. State Corrections Director Scott Frakes said that reversing course on that trend has been a top priority since he was hired four years ago but that 24 percent turnover is still about twice as high as is ideal. He attributed the decrease in turnover to pay increases with additional raises for certain jobs, bonuses for referrals, commuting and training, and a major push for staff safety, which led to an 87 percent reduction in assaults on staff that resulted in serious injury. We need to celebrate our progress and double down on our efforts in 2019, Frakes said in a press release, while commending the dedication of his employees. But Chipman questioned the figures. The tax rate most likely would go up after that, but there are too many uncertainties such as how much the tax base will increase, and what the new buildings operating and maintenance costs will be to say how much the increase will be, Lorenz said. Lorenz had previously estimated a tax increase of 2 to 3 cents per $100 in valuation would be needed to pay for the project. Doug Kagan, of the Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom anti-tax group, urged the board to oppose the resolution. He noted that the county doesnt know how much its going to cost to renovate MUDs headquarters building, which is now proposed to be part of the project. Kagan said the county should put the bond issue to voters, and the construction to 100 percent public bidding. He said the board should also explore alternatives. At this time we simply do not know if there exist less-costly alternatives, Kagan said. She had a great number of medical problems, which were going to take a toll on her and were taking a toll on her, Hinrichs said. The Office of Public Guardian has 17 associate guardians scattered across the state who are assigned cases after judges determine that people cannot handle their own affairs and have no other choice but to be cared for by a public guardian. But the 2018 report said the office has exceeded its limit of 20 cases per associate guardian. Because of that, 40 people were placed on a waiting list in 2018, the report said, and six people died while waiting for help. The problem is worst in the eastern and southeastern parts of the state, according to the report. It definitely indicates that theres more need than we have the ability to serve, said Chaffee. High staff turnover is partly to blame for the waiting lists, she said. Its a stressful job, Chaffee said, that has staff on call 24/7 to confront emergencies involving multiple problems like mental illness, developmental disabilities, dementia, substance abuse and exploitation. The right kind of care facility isnt always readily available, Chaffee said. Hospitals and other existing care facilities sometimes refuse to take on complicated cases involving mental illness, the report said. Speaker of the Legislature Jim Scheer of Norfolk said he had a fairly positive reaction to the governors plans. Hes trying to accomplish a lot of things with existing revenue, he said. Scheer said that the property tax proposal may not be big enough to satisfy some senators but that he believes we need to start taking something instead of ending up with nothing. The governor wants to add $51 million annually to the states Property Tax Credit fund, bringing the total to $275 million per year, and to see the tax credits become set in state law at a minimum of $275 million annually. Ricketts said a law would give more certainty to the tax refund. Currently, the credit program is part of the state budget, which can be changed every two years. The governors budget plan would cover the increases in salaries and health care costs for the University of Nebraska and the state colleges. He is also earmarking new funds for 2,500 talent scholarships, an initiative aimed at training college students for high-need, high-paying jobs in the state in fields like engineering, health care and math. A program that introduces middle school kids to careers in manufacturing and technology would also be expanded under the governors budget. The Elkhorn principal who prohibited Christmas-related symbols at her school has agreed to not return to that position, the district said in a statement to staff and families Monday evening. Jennifer Sinclair had come under fire when a detailed memo that she had written about prohibited Christmas symbols caused an uproar among parents and teachers, some of whom got in touch with a Florida-based First Amendment group, Liberty Counsel. Due to the level of attention that Dr. Sinclairs memo received, Dr. Sinclair and the District stand united that it is in the best interest of Manchester Elementary that she not resume the Principal position, Dr. Bary Habrock, superintendent of the Elkhorn Public Schools, wrote in the email sent to parents and staff. Habrock said Sinclair stepped down as principal with a heavy heart and sadness. She will move into a curriculum position with the district for the rest of the school year. The email made it clear that the district remained supportive of Sinclair. LINCOLN University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Ronnie Greens speech Tuesday covered 200 years, going back to 1869 and looking ahead to 2069. It lasted 68 minutes and consumed 45 pages of copy. Speculation is inaccurate, however, that Greens new beard came in entirely during his State of the University address, which won him a standing ovation from the 637-person crowd in attendance at the Lied Center for Performing Arts. Many in the audience also went onto the stage afterward to try out the Dairy Stores new Nifty 150 flavor of ice cream. The popular UNL Dairy Store set up a temporary soda fountain shop onstage, complete with servers in uniform. The ice cream flavor and the speech celebrated the 150 years of university progress since it was founded as a land-grant college in 1869. And Green looked ahead 50 years, suggesting that faculty, students and administrators should be as bold today as leaders were long ago when they envisioned a university for all Nebraskans, not just the privileged or the young. Here are some key observations from Greens speech: He discussed some wicked problems. The Scottsbluff mother and son who were arrested a day after their CBD store opened no longer face criminal charges. Heather Kaufman Beguin, who turns 46 on Tuesday, and Dreyson Beguin, 23, were each charged in mid-December with one count of possession of a controlled substance. Scotts Bluff County Attorney David Eubanks said he filed paperwork Monday to dismiss the charges, citing various reasons. The Nebraska Legislature, he said, needs to clarify the law. He agrees with other county attorneys in the state that other crimes are a higher priority than this one. And he said it would be hard to get a guilty verdict from a jury because an increasing number of people support medical marijuana. The statute is poorly worded, its out of date and the Legislature needs to change it, Eubanks said. CBD oil, or cannabidiol oil, is found in hemp, a version of the marijuana plant that is low in THC, the chemical in cannabis that gives users a high. State and federal law define hemp as being less than 0.3 percent THC. Some of the defendants also face immigration violations, Palm said, though he didnt know exactly how many. Authorities arrested the group in November at a farm near Louisville, Nebraska, and confiscated 186 roosters. Eleven roosters were found dead and one had to be euthanized at the farm. The Nebraska Humane Society found homes for some of the birds, but others had to be euthanized. Palm said it was the first cockfighting case in Cass County, although he said there have been others across the state. The cases of the 11 people who didnt take plea deals are pending, Palm said. An Omaha woman had been charged with writing bad checks a month before she was hired to work for the Ralston Chamber of Commerce in 2017. She then wrote bad checks to herself over the next nine months this time using the chambers checkbook to steal $41,286 from the organization. For that, Douglas County District Judge Greg Schatz sentenced Michelle I. McElligott, 43, on Tuesday to five years of probation. McElligotts attorney, Teri Vukonich-Mikkelsen, told the judge that McElligott has paid restitution to both the chamber and the insurance company that reimbursed the theft. Vukonich-Mikkelsen said McElligott, who was fired from the chamber, is remorseful and is undergoing counseling to determine the underlying reason she did this. According to court records, McElligott wrote more than 60 three-figure checks to herself in 2017 and 2018 without the permission of the chambers president, Amy Roeder. The scheme was uncovered when Great Western Bank officials notified Roeder that the chambers account was near $1,000 an unusually low sum. A bypass has been in the works since about 2006, after Fremont residents rejected a proposal to widen U.S. 77 to five lanes through the city, according to Tim Weander, a district engineer with the Nebraska Department of Transportation. Allegiant Airlines will begin flying from Omaha to the Florida Panhandle. The budget airline announced Tuesday a new nonstop flight from Omahas Eppley Airfield to the Destin/Fort Walton Beach Airport. The flight will begin June 7 and will operate seasonally. With the addition of the new twice-weekly flight, Allegiant will fly nonstop to six destinations from Omaha: to the Orlando, Phoenix and Tampa areas; to Fort Myers, Florida; and to Las Vegas. Were pleased that Allegiant has recognized the strong travel demand from Omaha to the Florida Panhandle, said Steve McCoy, the Omaha airports manager for airline affairs. The white sand beaches of the Destin and Fort Walton Beach area represent a part of the popular Gulf Coast previously unserved by nonstop flights from Omaha. How true was this depiction of a Nebraska farmers life? You could replace Hammond with Rasmussen very easily, and its my family, said Jordan Rasmussen, whose husband is a sixth-generation farmer in Saunders County. This is our story. Rasmussen, like many farmers, has a day job. Hers is working in policy for the nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska. She said that she hears from farmers driven to the brink by property taxes, market fluctuations and tricky succession timelines and that she read the book soon after it came out in 2017. In it, she could see herself. Im not out every day feeding cattle and driving the combine. But Ive built fence. Ive helped replace irrigation pivot sprinklers. Ive come home and seen my husband banged up and bruised, said Rasmussen. I would say yes, (the book) is very much a reflection, and I very much identified with the challenges the Hammonds were talking about. Chris Clayton, an Iowabased journalist for the ag publication DTN The Progressive Farmer and a former World-Herald reporter, said the book was so true to life that he wished that he had written it. Despite reports recently suggesting that there are no GPs providing abortion services in Offaly, local abortion rights group ARC Offaly are confident that delivery is achievable. The number of doctors providing abortion services as of today is 217, up from 165 on New Years Day when services were introduced. We expect more doctors to come on board every single day, said Charlene Delaney, spokesperson for ARC Offaly. "We have excellent doctors here in Offaly who are committed to providing quality service and we expect that to continue," she said. We are more concerned with provider refusal and the three-day waiting period which will not only cause unnecessary delays but will impact the most marginalised in our society. Waiting periods serve no medical purpose and make an already difficult situation more stressful." Abortion services were rolled out on January 1, almost eight months after a historic vote to remove the 8th Amendment from the Irish constitution which had placed a constitutional ban on abortion. We do know that in some counties doctors are providing abortion care to patients in their own practice. They have chosen not to sign up to the MyOptions helpline for various reasons and we respect that, Ms Delaney said. The MyOptions helpline was set up by the HSE to support people experiencing crisis pregnancies and to refer people seeking abortion services to their nearest provider. It is staffed by trained professional counsellors. A fake MyOptions website and telephone number appeared online last week which was slammed by the HSE for not being upfront about its intentions. We are of course concerned about these rogues crisis counsellors, Ms Delaney said. They deliberately mislead people facing crisis pregnancies and invade people's privacy. We would hope that the Minister for Health will bring in legislation to regulate these agencies as soon as possible. The safety and privacy of people seeking healthcare must be a priority and we have full confidence that Simon Harris will outlaw these rogue agencies." Following an anti-abortion protest outside Drogheda Hospital last week, Minister Harris has now committed to bringing forward legislation for safe access zones to prevent anti-abortion protests close to facilities. We welcome the Minister for Health's commitment to legislate for safe access zones," Ms Delaney added. Abortion is a private matter between a patient, their GP and whomever else they choose to tell. If you are experiencing a crisis pregnancy you can contact the HSEs MyOptions helpline on 1800 828 010. Birr GAA have led tributes following the death of former club hurler Paddy Wycks who died in Canada last week. "We would like to offer our deepest sympathy to the Wycks family on the death of Paddy who died in Ontario, Canada last week," the club said. Paddy represented Birr at senior level winning an Offaly SHC medal in 1946 before moving to Canada in the 1960s. He died on Monday, January 7 at the age of 93. PICTURED: The late Paddy Wycks who is fondly remembered in Canada and his native Offaly Patrick is survived by his wife Anne (Quinn) of 59 years, sons Brendan, Desmond and Michael, daughters Gerri and Bernadette, grandsons Ryan and Kevin Wycks, granddaughter Phoebe Dupuy-Wycks and extended family. After living in Toronto having left Birr, Patrick and Anne settled in London, Ontario in 1966, where they spent their lives. Patrick worked for 20 years at St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital as a Rehabilitation Officer, assisting discharged patients to transition back to life in the community. Enjoyed retirement for 35 years and remained sharp-witted into his 90s. Paddy will be buried in London, Ontario on Tuesday, January 15. Nine Offaly Men's Shed groups are set to benefit from a total of almost 9,000 in funding making its way to the county under the Community Enhancement Programme. The Minister for Rural and Community Development, Michael Ring TD, confirmed that 310 Mens Sheds across the country have been approved to receive funding from the Department of Rural and Community Development. In July 2018, Minister Ring announced the allocation of 500,000 under the Mens Sheds stream of the Community Enhancement Programme. This will enable individual Mens Sheds to upgrade their facilities by purchasing equipment or by carrying out minor works to improve their shed. The initiative was developed in association with the Irish Mens Sheds Association. In Offaly, nine groups will receive funding for facilities upgrades. Ballycumber Mens Shed has been given 1,200; Banagher Men's Shed received 1,000; Belmont Men's Shed received 700; Birr Men's Shed received 1,200; Clara Men's Shed received 1,200; Edenderry Men's Shed received 1,200; Kilcormac Men's Shed received 1,200; Pullough Men's Shed received 1,200; Tullamore Men's Shed received 1,206.42. Speaking in relation to the announcement, Minister Ring said: Im delighted that 310 Mens Sheds across the country have been allocated funding. This will help them to improve their premises or add to the range of equipment they have." Its really heartening to hear what the individual Sheds are doing with the money and it shows that modest investments in good community organisations can go a long way. The emergence of the Mens Sheds in recent years has been an extremely positive development for communities across Ireland and Im delighted to be able to support the Sheds in these early stages." Their members possess great experience and know-how and they make a massive contribution to their local communities. They provide invaluable support to important local initiatives such as Tidy Towns groups, local festivals and important charity events." I would like to thank the Irish Mens Shed Association for working with me on this initiative and making it such a success. Mens sheds are a great initiative and Im happy to help in this way. I want to also thank everyone involved in Mens Sheds across the country. Barry Sheridan, CEO of the Irish Mens Sheds Association (ISMA) welcomed the funding stating: The IMSA is extremely heartened by the take-up and response to the Mens Shed Fund amongst our member sheds. We were delighted to be able to work with the Department of Rural and Community Development to bring this fund to fruition, and I know that the support of Minister Ring and his Department means a lot to our members." The projects and improvements facilitated by this funding are going to have an immense impact on individual Sheds and their communities. But beyond the funding itself, the Departments support is also a signal that the social benefits of Mens Sheds are being recognised, acknowledged and fostered at governmental level. What was the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey thinking? Following a firestorm of protest, the Port Authority has agreed to relocate the "Candy Nations" art installation, which features the flags of the G20 nations as a series of colorful candy sculptures, from the site of the World Trade Center. At issue: the nine-foot sculpture of the flag of Saudi Arabia, the nation that provided 15 of the 19 hijackers that crashed their planes into the WTC towers nearly 18 years ago and killed 2,977 people. The travesty of displaying the Saudi flag at the WTC is akin to raising the Japanese flag over the Pearl Harbor memorial. The apparently clueless Port Authority should have known better. It lost 37 police officers in the 9/11 attacks, including its chief James Romito, and superintendent Ferdinand Morrone. A coalition of family members of the 9/11 victims spoke for all New Yorkers in its statement: "The sculpture's presence at this site, depicting the KSA [Kingdom of Saudi of Arabia] flag, is an outrageous affront to the 9/11 community and all other Americans who seek justice for the attacks on our nation of September 11, 2001." The Port Authority will now relocate (e.g., banish) Candy Nations to JFK Airport's AirTrain systems miles away in Queens. The original plan was to blanket the 16-acre WTC complex with the flags. The sites include the Oculus, the PATH Fare Zone, 2WTC Transit Lobby, 4WTC Transit Lobby, Oculus Plaza, West Plaza (outside of the One World Observatory), Liberty Park, and the Millennium Hilton New York Downtown. They were to remain in place until Feb. 4. French sculptor Laurence Jenkell, who created Candy Nations, said she thought about removing the Saudi flag from the WTC exhibit, but decided against it because the country is part of the G20. She could have saved the Port Authority a lot of grief. The Port Authority says it's moving the flags because it "respects the unique sensitivities of the site." Unique sensitivities? Spare me. There is nothing unique about the desire to ban an entity responsible for the second bloodiest day on American soil, after the Battle of Antietam, from a mass gravesite of its victims. Raj Shah Federal lobbying powerhouse Ballard Partners, which has close ties with the Trump administration, has opened a strategic communications unit. Raj Shah, who spearheaded the White House's communications push to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, helms the group with Jamie Rubin, ex-State Dept. official during the Clinton administration who joined Ballard in 2018. Prior to his White House principal deputy press secretary posting, Shah was research director at the Republican National Committee. Brian Ballard, who led the Trump Victory organization in Florida during the 2016 presidential campaign, launched the stratcomm arm because his lobbying clients asked for "sophisticated media relations and PR affairs counsel." Melissa Golden Melissa Golden, a 25-year marketing communications pro, has joined Weber Shandwick to oversee its Atlanta outpost as executive VP/GM. Most recently, she did a more than six-year stint at Ketchum/Atlanta, where she handled key accounts such as Wendy's and launched its Purpose Practice. Golden also served as chief external affairs officer at the Points of Light Institute, senior managing director at Teach for All Network and VP-marketing at Teach for America. Earlier in her career, Golden worked as publicist for Simon & Schuster and English teacher in the New York City public school system. Joy Farber Kolo, president of Weber Shandwick East, said Golden will help her firm " play a meaningful role in the citys thriving business community and cultivate great careers for some of the best and brightest practitioners in Atlanta. November 19, 1962-January 9, 2019 Douglas Milton Chamblee, 56, of Beulah, Alabama passed away at his home on January 9, 2019 after an extended battle with cancer. Doug was born November 19th, 1962 in Lee County, AL. He was an Auburn High School graduate, class of 1981. He was employed by and made many lifelong friends at Diversified Products, then went on to pursue his passion for stained glass art with his mother at GlassDesigns. He had a passion for life, art, friends, and family. He was a beloved son, cherished brother, devoted husband, supportive father, an adored grandfather, a "Knuckle Doug", a faithful companion and loyal friend of so many. He spent his days as we all should: surrounded by community, celebrating other's victories, and empathizing with them in their grief. He truly showed us the best version of humanity. "The Idea Is Not To Live Forever, But To Create Something That Will." Andy Warhol He was preceded in death by his wife of 18 years, Sheri Ward Chamblee. He is survived by his father, Milton (Brenda) Chamblee, and mother, Alice Fincher Chamblee. A beloved son, Milton (Amber) Chamblee, grandsons Cooper, Reid, and Everett Chamblee. His best friend and companion, Beth Watkins. Two siblings, Phillip (Beth) Chamblee, Joy (Joseph) Young, niece and nephews: Allison Chamblee, JP Chamblee, and Colton, Andrew, Tyler and Garrett Young. Great-nephews Will and Troy Tillery. "When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: Death has been swallowed up in victory!" 1 Cor 15:54 A celebration of life will be held at Jeffcoat-Trant Funeral Home on Saturday, January 12th at 11:00 cst with a gathering to follow at The Bottling Plant in Opelika, AL. The family respectfully declines the gift of flowers. Memorials or volunteering may be directed to Compassus Hospice Angels, 665 Opelika Rd. Auburn, AL 36830. Jeffcoat-Trant Funeral Home is directing. www.jeffcoattrant.com The city council has a good plan. The narrower lanes will slow traffic. Narrower vehicle lanes will make it too difficult for larger vehicles. A separate pedestrian solution should be constructed away from any vehicular traffic. Widening the sidewalk could work best if a barrier is put up between the sidewalk and vehicular traffic. Vote View Results You never want a serious crisis to go to waste, Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obamas chief of staff, said in 2008, referring to Mr. Obamas proposals for stricter regulations in response to the financial crisis. This crisis provides the opportunity for us, he said, to do things that you could not before. There is, of course, no central authority or accepted checklist for determining when a crisis is real, and severe enough to merit drastic action. Its a matter of subjective public perception. But there is growing research into what leads people to support drastic steps from their leaders. Take Mr. Trumps push for a border wall. Whatever his intentions to win the wall, to rally the base, to distract from setbacks or merely out of impulse during his election campaign, and again during the midterm elections, he has hit squarely on two psychological triggers that can make people want a strong leader to take control. The first is a sense of demographic and cultural change, particularly when that change feels uncontrolled. Among some white Americans, the growing prominence of minority groups in politics and popular culture has created a sense of demographic threat, according to researchers, leading those voters to desire a strong leader who would impose control. Mr. Trump used warnings about unauthorized immigration to cultivate a sense of crisis though unauthorized immigration has been declining for a decade (and the migrants traveling to make asylum applications are exercising a basic legal right) that hit on those fears. And he used promises of a border wall to reassure frightened voters that he would protect them. The second trigger is fear of a specific kind of violence. People feel a sense of acute crisis if they believe that they may be attacked for their membership in a demographic group, such as race or religion, according to research by Daphna Canetti-Nisim, a University of Maryland political psychologist. They become more supportive of harsh policies to control outsiders, such as torture or extrajudicial detention, and more supportive of a strong leader who will go outside the law. Mr. Trump tapped into this as well, warning that Hispanic and Muslim migrants posed a grave danger, though the threat was almost entirely invented. In Britain, proponents of withdrawal from the European Union, or Brexit, followed a similar playbook. TEHRAN Iranian officials said on Tuesday that a satellite launch that had been condemned by the Trump administration failed when the carrier rocket could not reach orbit. I would have liked to make you happy with some good news, but sometimes life does not go as expected, Irans minister of telecommunications, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, said in a Twitter post. He said the rocket, a Safir, long used for satellite launches, had failed in the final stage, falling short of placing its payload into the correct orbit. He did not offer any explanation. The United States, Israel and some European countries have criticized Iranian missile tests in the past, saying the launches pose a threat to the region. One reason President Trump gave for withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal was its failure to address the threat of Irans ballistic missiles. PARIS After weeks of national turmoil spurred by the Yellow Vest protests, President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday kicked off what he intended as a peacemaking exercise, and what the French government billed as the Great National Debate. In a sort of two-month talkfest, the French are supposed to air their grievances, all shepherded by the government and local mayors. A cultural fondness for talk, and more talk, will get its consecration, with the hope that calm will follow. For the moment, however, France is anything but calm. Apart from the random violence and vandalism in the streets of Paris and other French cities, there have also been less evident and more targeted threats, and violence, in an atmosphere of increasing menace. Mr. Macrons deputies in parliament have become the front-line proxies for Yellow Vest hatred of the president. Dozens of parliamentarians representing his political movement La Republique en Marche, or Republic on the Move, have been threatened, their houses and offices vandalized, and anti-Semitic and racist insults hurled at them. Britains big vote finally arrived Tuesday, and as expected, Parliament handed Prime Minister Theresa May a crushing defeat, rejecting her deal for exiting the European Union by a vote of 432 to 202. [Read our full article on the vote and its consequences for Britain.] The opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn, promptly made a motion of no confidence in Mrs. May, in the hope of forcing early parliamentary elections. The prime minister said the motion would be debated on Wednesday. After two and a half years of negotiation, argument, predictions and posturing, lawmakers at last cast what is likely to be one of the most important votes in their careers, throwing Brexit into limbo with just 73 days until it is scheduled to take effect. No one knows what will come next, as Britain enters uncharted territory, and various factions make contradictory demands. LONDON Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday suffered a humiliating defeat over her plan to withdraw Britain from the European Union, thrusting the country further into political chaos with only 10 weeks to go until it is scheduled to leave the bloc. The 432-to-202 vote to reject her proposal was the biggest defeat in the House of Commons for a prime minister in recent British history. And it underscores how comprehensively Mrs. May has failed to build consensus behind any single vision of how to exit the European Union. Now factions in Parliament will offer their own proposals setting off a new, unpredictable stage in Brexit, the process of withdrawing from the bloc. She has completely lost control of the process, and her version of Brexit must now be dead, if she loses by 230 votes, said John Springford, deputy director of the Center for European Reform, a London-based research institute. SANTA ROSA DE COPAN, Honduras Hundreds of Hondurans traveling in vehicles and on foot converged on the Guatemalan border on Tuesday, part of a new migrant caravan bound for the United States which President Trump has already used as fresh ammunition in his fight for border wall funding. The caravan began departing from the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on Monday night. Others set off throughout the day on Tuesday. Honduran authorities estimated that between 800 and 1,000 people were in the caravan, while officials from Honduras National Human Rights Commission put the range between 1,500 and 2,000. Mr. Trump, whose dispute with Congress over his demand for $5.7 billion for a border wall between Mexico and the United States has led to a partial shutdown of the federal government since Dec. 22, warned on Twitter on Tuesday about the new mass migration. A big new Caravan is heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras, he wrote. Only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe! Stop playing political games and end the Shutdown! SAO PAULO, Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil signed a decree on Tuesday making it easier to buy guns and signaling he will follow through on his campaign promise to tackle the countrys epidemic of violence by arming the good guys and crushing violent drug gangs. Mr. Bolsonaro was sworn in on Jan. 1 after a decisive electoral victory last year that was bolstered by his vows to combat crime with an iron fist and reduce Brazils record-high murder rate. Simulating guns with his fingers at campaign rallies, he pledged to make it easier for the police to shoot suspects and to relax the countrys restrictive firearms law. Two weeks into his term, he took what he called a first step to those ends, to be followed by further congressional measures. I signed this decree, created by many upstanding people, so that at this first moment, upstanding citizens can have peace inside their homes, Mr. Bolsonaro said at a signing ceremony in the capital, Brasilia. I can now report that we have secured all the buildings that have been affected by these events, Interior Minister Fred Matiangi said in a statement broadcast on national television. I can also now report that the country is now secure, that the nation remains calm and that Kenyans and all our visitors are safe and should feel free to continue going about their normal business. Mr. Matiangi also said we are now in the final stages of mopping up the area and securing evidence and documenting the consequences of this unfortunate event, but said nothing about fatalities or injuries. The assault by the Shabab, an Islamist extremist group with ties to Al Qaeda that has carried out many attacks in eastern Africa, came on the eve of a verdict in the trial of three men accused of helping the Shabab orchestrate a deadly assault on a the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi five years ago. DAKAR, Senegal The International Criminal Court in The Hague said on Tuesday that it had acquitted the former president of Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo, and one of his aides of crimes against humanity and a litany of other charges related to months of violence that followed the countrys presidential election in 2010. The decision was a severe blow to the prosecution in the case of the 73-year-old Mr. Gbagbo, the first former head of state to reach trial at the court, and raises new questions about the effectiveness of the court to pursue its mandate of dealing with war crimes and genocide, among other crimes. Prosecutors had built a largely circumstantial case against Mr. Gbagbo for charges stemming from the violence that followed his refusal to give up power after being ousted from office during a 2010 election. The events gave rise to a bloody civil war and left a nation deeply divided to this day. In The Hague on Tuesday, the public gallery erupted in loud cheers and screams as the presiding judge read out the decision acquitting Mr. Gbagbo and his aide, Charles Ble Goude. Outside the court, supporters of Mr. Gbagbo gathered with Champagne. In Ivory Coasts economic capital, Abidjan, shirtless men ran through the streets toasting the former president. But victims of the civil war who had testified against him were devastated. Stella Blaylock has not been sleeping well since before Christmas, when her father was furloughed in the partial government shutdown and unexpectedly extended his holiday vacation. Days later, her mother was laid off from her job as a federal contractor. A sixth grader at Williamsburg Middle School in Arlington, Va. a Washington, D.C., suburb home to thousands of government workers Stella now worries whether her parents will be able to scrape together enough money for her braces, or whether a planned overnight camp in June will have to be deleted from the familys calendar. The shutdown makes me nervous, said Stella, 11, whose father, a foreign service officer, was furloughed for a week but is now working without pay. Now in its fourth week, the government impasse that has upended the daily lives of thousands of federal employees has also affected young people across America, from children who are agonizing alongside their parents over lost jobs and wages to college students unable to pay tuition or file financial aid forms. The last vestiges of the Silent Sam statue were removed from a park on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill early Tuesday morning at the direction of the schools chancellor, prompting an apparent backlash from the university systems top administrators. The chancellor, Carol L. Folt, said on Monday she had authorized the removal of the statues base, which bore plaques commemorating university students who fought for the Confederacy. She simultaneously made a surprise announcement that she would be resigning at the end of the academic year. But on Tuesday afternoon, her departure was hastened to the end of this month, after a vote by the board of governors, which oversees the statewide university system. Harry L. Smith Jr., the chairman of the board, called Dr. Folts action stunning and draconian. Its probably in the best interest to go ahead and allow a change in leadership so we can move to a healing process, said Mr. Smith, who on Monday evening complained that the board had not been properly consulted. Unfortunately, no Democrats will attend, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in a statement about the lunch. She added, Its time for the Democrats to come to the table and make a deal. Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, have refused to negotiate over border security until the government reopens, but Mr. Trump has ruled out separating the two issues. While the Democratic-led House has passed several bills to end the shutdown, Mr. McConnell has said he will not advance the legislation knowing that the president will not sign it. In a situation like this, where the president, in my view, is in the right place, trying to get the right outcome, as all of us have expressed, with regard to border security, of course not, Mr. McConnell said. Ms. Slotkin would not say whether she agreed with Ms. Pelosis stance that no negotiation was possible until the government reopened, citing a confidentiality pledge she said members of the group had taken about their discussion. But she said she and her colleagues were walking around with copies of legislation co-written by Representative Will Hurd, Republican of Texas, and Representative Pete Aguilar, Democrat of California, that drew bipartisan support last year. The measure paired border security improvements with legal status for some undocumented immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children, sometimes called Dreamers. Theres a lot of people who believe its important to work across the aisle, that we need a practical way forward, and they believe in figuring out practical solutions, Ms. Slotkin said. We know were not in charge, but we want to get caught trying to help. She said she had called Ms. Pelosi on Monday to relay complaints by her constituents over the weekend about the shutdown, and has also been talking quietly with Republicans whom she would not name about how to find a way out of the stalemate. Yet Democratic leaders expressed confidence that their members would not break from their leaders strategy, notwithstanding Mr. Trumps attempts to entice them. WASHINGTON Purse snatching and pickpocketing can amount to violent felonies for purposes of a federal law, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday in a 5-to-4 decision featuring unusual alliances. The case concerned the Armed Career Criminal Act, a federal law that is a kind of three-strikes statute. It requires mandatory 15-year sentences for people convicted of possessing firearms if they have earlier been found guilty of three violent felonies or serious drug charges. Figuring out what qualifies as one of those earlier offenses is not always easy. Tuesdays decision considered a part of the law that defined violent felonies to include offenses involving the use or threat of physical force. The question in the case was whether minimal force, as in a purse snatching, is enough. In analyzing whether given crimes qualify as violent felonies under the federal law, the Supreme Court does not look to what the defendant actually did. Rather, it considers whether the crime in this case, robbery under Florida law covers conduct that does not qualify as a violent felony. Good Tuesday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. _____________________ House Republican leaders removed Representative Steve King of Iowa from powerful committee posts on Monday, after Mitch McConnell suggested he find another line of work and Mitt Romney said he should resign. The punishment came after Mr. King, who has a long history of racist remarks, made comments to The Times last week questioning why white supremacy was considered offensive. Several times last year, President Trump said privately that he wanted to withdraw from NATO, senior officials told The Times. A former under secretary of defense said an American pullout from NATO would be the wildest success that Vladimir Putin could dream of. Mr. Trump rejected a proposal from the Republican senator Lindsey Graham to temporarily reopen the government in an effort to jump-start talks with Democrats on funding a border wall. WASHINGTON William P. Barr, President Trumps nominee for attorney general, assured senators at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday that he would permit the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to complete the Russia investigation and said he was determined to resist any pressure from Mr. Trump to use law enforcement for political purposes. Mr. Barr, whose confirmation seems virtually assured, pointed to his age and background he served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993 as buffers to potential intrusions on the Justice Departments traditional independence. He suggested he had no further political aspirations that might cloud his judgment, the way that future ambitions might give pause to a younger nominee, as well as the experience to fight political interference. I am in a position in life where I can provide the leadership necessary to protect the independence and reputation of the department, Mr. Barr, 68, told the Senate Judiciary Committee, adding that he would not hesitate to resign if Mr. Trump pushed him to act improperly. I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong by anybody, whether it be editorial boards or Congress or the president, Mr. Barr said. Im going to do what I think is right. The 14th Amendment requires the House to be apportioned based on the whole number of persons in each state, and the Supreme Court has long ruled that the whole number includes noncitizens. This ruling is a forceful rebuke of the Trump administrations attempt to weaponize the census for an attack on immigrant communities, said Dale Ho, director of the A.C.L.U.s Voting Rights Project, adding that evidence at the trial exposed how adding a citizenship question would wreck the once-in-a-decade count of the nations population. Mr. Ross, whose department oversees the Census Bureau, stated initially that he first examined the need for the citizenship question after getting a request from the Justice Department. In a letter to the Commerce Department, a senior Justice Department official stated that census data on citizenship would help the agency more precisely determine whether the racial or ethnic composition of political districts met the mandates of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Mr. Ross said his review of whether to add the question did not support warnings that it would lead to an undercount of noncitizens and minorities who feared disclosing their citizenship status to the government. Judge Furman, who was nominated to the federal bench by President Barack Obama in 2011, all but demolished that explanation in his ruling. Mr. Ross materially mischaracterized a conversation with a polling expert to make it appear that she did not object to adding the question to the census, Judge Furman said, and he kept Census Bureau officials in the dark about his desire for a citizenship question for nearly a year, forgoing any chance for a detailed study of its ramifications. The judge also rejected a sworn deposition on aspects of the question by Mr. Rosss chief aide, Earl Comstock, calling it misleading, if not false. But while Mr. Rosss violations were egregious, Judge Furman said, there was not sufficient evidence to prove, as plaintiffs in the lawsuit had claimed, that he had deliberately sought to discriminate against noncitizens and minorities who were most likely to be affected by the citizenship question. In part, he said, that was because the Supreme Court had blocked the plaintiffs from taking sworn testimony from Mr. Ross about his actions. The late afternoon sunlight in Western Australias Margaret River region is deeply golden, casting its buttery hue across vineyards and filtering through the forests of giant karri trees. Sometimes the landscape looks almost European, with roads tunneled by groves of old trees next to fields of baled hay. Then you spot a herd of Western Gray kangaroos lounging beneath the trees, or turn a bend in the road and there it is: the shocking aqua blue of the Indian Ocean. Its not hard to see the appeal. But given its remoteness, it is somewhat surprising that the area to the south of Perth, Western Australias capital city, has become a popular destination for food and wine tourists. There is no doubt that the region has all the elements needed to draw hungry (and thirsty) tourists. It is stunningly beautiful, and while it is one of the youngest established wine regions in the world (at around 50 years old) it is quite robust, with close to 100 wineries. But it is hardly the only naturally stunning wine-producing region in Australia, and many are older and easier to access. And yet tourism to Margaret River and the surrounding area has exploded, with the number of international visitors up by 37 percent in just the last three years. Carol Channing, who died on Tuesday at 97, was a Broadway legend, an actress who toured well into her 70s and remained a cultural fixture long after that. Those who knew her remembered her as both a larger-than-life presence and a woman who was delightfully unpretentious, a tireless performer who would ignore doctors orders to go onstage and a tireless promoter of her shows, even in front of a crowd of Brownie scouts. A rave review was her best medicine Lee Roy Reams performed with Ms. Channing in several shows, including Hello, Dolly! Ms. Channing originated the role of Dolly Gallagher Levi on Broadway and reprised it several times. Mr. Reams said she was a performer who tried to never never, ever miss a show. When she injured her arm on a tour of Dolly in the 1990s, Mr. Reams said, she performed in a sling, switched out periodically to coordinate with her costume. When that tour went through Reno, Nev., he said, both of them lost their voices, so they went on anyway and talked through their songs. And when the show was in Denver, she hurt the ball of her right foot. A doctor said she could not go on for at least two to three weeks. That night, Ms. Channing went onstage in a pair of flats, which had been covered in spats to match her costume. No one seemed to mind: The reviews were raves. For most of its existence, Huawei was opaque to people in China, too. It was founded in 1987, but it did not begin publishing the names and biographies of its board members until its 2010 annual report. Mr. Ren spoke to the news media for the first time in 2013. The next year, he told The Independent of London that he had no hobbies, prompting a colleague to lean in and suggest that he enjoyed reading and drinking tea. Mr. Ren was born in 1944, in the mountainous southwestern province of Guizhou. His parents were teachers; he was one of seven children. His father, Ren Moxun, was the son of a master ham maker in Zhejiang Province. When he was growing up, Mr. Ren wrote in a 2001 article, the family was so poor that he did not own a proper shirt until after high school. According to an official company biography, he studied engineering in college and joined the Chinese militarys infrastructure engineering corps in 1974 to help build and run a factory manufacturing synthetic fibers for textiles. At a time when China had no private-sector economy to speak of, it was not unusual for college graduates to join the military. The infrastructure engineering corps was disbanded in 1983, according to the official biography. A few years later, Mr. Ren and business partners founded Huawei in what he called, in a 2016 interview with the official news agency Xinhua, a run-down shack. The company started as a reseller of telephone equipment imported from Hong Kong, but later started developing its own technology. As it expanded around China and then across the world, Huawei inculcated a die-hard competitive spirit in its employees, pushing them to work harder and move faster than the companys rivals. Huawei still speaks proudly of its wolf culture. We will always have wolf culture, Mr. Ren said in an interview last year with Xinhua. Catching prey might be difficult. But the wolf is unrelenting. Mr. Ren has a reputation for being blunt in conversation. In 2010, Rick Perry, then the governor of Texas, spoke at the ribbon-cutting for Huaweis new American headquarters in Plano. Most Important Photo Ever Neither of us wanted to be at our high school reunion. I was worried I would have to retell the story of my high school sweethearts death to pancreatic cancer over and over. He was recently separated after years of being in an unhappy marriage. We didnt know each other in high school, but 30 years later there we were, two lonely souls circling each other in a crowded room for hours until he took a photograph of me. We talked for two minutes, and it turned into a second lifetime. The most important photo Ive ever taken, he said. Stacey Paterson-Korynkiewicz The era of the lavish book party, like the golden age of glossy magazines, is mostly in the past. Like fading neutron stars, both collided last week at the Waverly Inn, the clubby restaurant in the West Village. Graydon Carter, an owner of the Waverly and the former editor of Vanity Fair, hosted a cocktail party for Lili Anoliks book Hollywoods Eve, a biography of Eve Babitz, a keen observer and pop-culture tyro of 1960s and 70s Los Angeles who is enjoying a publishing revival. The gathering looked like an early-bird special for aging bons vivants. In one corner were Debbie Harry, the Blondie singer; Victor Garber, the actor; Christie Brinkley, a former model; and Baby Jane Holzer, the onetime Warhol superstar. Also spotted were the writers Sloane Crosley and Brad Gooch, the journalists James Wolcott and Ken Auletta, and several recently dislodged editors, including Tonne Goodman of Vogue, Linda Wells of Allure and Robbie Myers of Elle. It soon became clear that the party was as much a boozy wake for bygone magazine jobs as it was a book celebration. Sex positivity is a scam, Ms. Pham said. She said the movement tends to embrace people who are having sex, whereas not being sexually active is considered not liberating. As for me, Im now in my sophomore year and Im still not having sex, the way I define it. At this point in my life, the act of exposing my body in any way makes me feel vulnerable. My anxiety often stops me from continuing intimate conversations that might lead to sex, and like many students, my schedule makes me feel like I dont have the time to work through these issues, either. Im comfortable with my choice, but its still tough to see sex come so naturally to other people. I always want to ask how they do it. Obviously not how, but I want to know if they had to overcome the kind of barriers that are stopping me. Maybe Ill understand it one day, maybe I wont. For now, Im cool with spending my nights alone. What Were Reading How to Actually, Truly Focus on What Youre Doing Tired: Shallow work. Wired: Deep work. Why It Could Be Hard to Mute R. Kelly Many people have called for repercussions against the R&B star following a documentary about his treatment of women, but legal and commercial hurdles stand in the way. How We Apologize Now The iPhone app Notes has become the medium of choice for celebrity mea culpas. The Shutdown Makes Me Nervous: Young People Caught in Cross Hairs of Impasse Now in its fourth week, the shutdowns effects have cascaded across generations, from children worried about their parents to college students unable to pay tuition. 52 Places to Go in 2019 A starter kit for escaping into the world. Redefining Representation: The Women of the 116th Congress Just over 100 years ago, the first woman was sworn into Congress. Now a record 131 women are serving in the Legislature. WASHINGTON Pound for pound, the deadliest arms of all time are not nuclear but biological. A single gallon of anthrax, if suitably distributed, could end human life on Earth. Even so, the Trump administration has given scant attention to North Koreas pursuit of living weapons a threat that analysts describe as more immediate than its nuclear arms, which Pyongyang and Washington have been discussing for more than six months. According to an analysis issued by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey last month, North Korea is collaborating with foreign researchers to learn biotechnology skills and build machinery. As a result, the countrys capabilities are increasing rapidly. North Korea is far more likely to use biological weapons than nuclear ones, said Andrew C. Weber, a Pentagon official in charge of nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs under President Obama. The program is advanced, underestimated and highly lethal. The idea of a sick day as a day of rest, recovery and no email has become increasingly alien. We reported last week that the phrase sick day is fast disappearing from the office vocabulary, as many workers fear making themselves unavailable, even to rest. Steven Kurutz, a reporter for the Style section, wrote that for remote workers and those in the gig economy, the shifting definition of the office is also making the sick day somewhat passe. Moreover, 45 percent of Americans have no paid sick leave at all, according to a 2016 study published in the journal Health Services Research.In the more than 100 comments on Mr. Kurutzs article, readers talked about what its like to work while passing a kidney stone, undergoing cancer treatment and coping with other illnesses. Some managers described their insistence that sick employees stay home and rest. Here is a selection of readers responses. They have been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. Please use the comments to tell us what the sick policy is like at your job and how it affects your choices when youre sick. The other day I issued a warning about the Chinese economy. It is, I wrote, emerging as a danger spot in a world economy that really, really doesnt need this right now. Unfortunately, the other day was more than 6 years ago. And its not just me. Many people have been predicting a China crisis for a long time, and it has kept on not happening. But now China seems to be stumbling again. Is this the moment when all the prophecies of big trouble in big China finally come true? Honestly, I have no idea. On one side, Chinas problems are real. On the other, the Chinese government hindered neither by rigid ideology nor by anything resembling a democratic political process has repeatedly shown its ability and willingness to do whatever it takes to prop up its economy. Its really anyones guess whether this time will be different, or whether Xi-who-must-be-obeyed can pull out another recovery. ESTES PARK, Colo The winter winds roar off the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park relent lessly, blasting our little town with such ferocity that sometimes I fear we might blow away. Its as if the mountains are finally exhaling now that the peak of the tourist season has passed. For most of its history, Estes Park, the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park, has been a ghost town in winter. Over the last several years, however, with the population boom along the Front Range of the Rockies and the growing popularity of our national parks, Estes has nudged itself toward a sustainable year-round economy. Barely. Precariously. But now, with so many locals having banked on a small but steady stream of income tied in various ways to the park the fourth most visited national park in 2017, with 4.4 million visitors the government shutdown has upended the economy of this town and created apprehension and uncertainty. Its crazy that one guy gets to do this to us all, said Dustin Dyer, director and co-owner of Kent Mountain Adventure Center, a guide service thats been here for decades, referring to President Trump. Although Rocky Mountain National Park officially remains open, its main roads had been closed until this week, because there wasnt enough money to run the snowplows. Well over half of Mr. Dyers trips (he offers snowshoeing, backcountry ski touring, ice climbing and avalanche courses) had to be canceled, but hes trying to be optimistic. We will survive, but it is crazy to be hit by the noise on the TV, he told me. It is usually just noise. Iowas other Republican senator, Joni Ernst, ducked into an elevator as she was being asked about what King had tweeted, saying that she wasnt up to speed on the situation and shrugging her shoulders as the elevator doors closed, Stolberg wrote. Shrugging their shoulders: That sums it up. Republicans shrugged last autumn when King endorsed a white nationalist running for mayor of Toronto and also when he did an interview with a far-right Austrian website and said that America must defend Western civilization against immigrants or be subjugated by the people who are the enemies of faith. One of the few senior Republican officials who emphatically rebuked this behavior was Steve Stivers of Ohio, then the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee . It could have been a pile-on moment when Republican leaders finally came out and denounced the guy, Jonathan Weisman, who edits The Timess congressional coverage, recalled. But that didnt happen. We were weeks before the election. Were now months after the election, and Republicans have already identified a primary challenger for King in 2020, someone who they believe can keep his seat in the partys hands. Hence the blossoming of conscience in McConnell, McCarthy and others. I lied before. I do get it. Pragmatism, expedience and the maintenance of power are the real monarchs of politics and not just among Republicans. But theres even more than that behind the partys sudden turn against King. As with most everything else in Washington at this cursed juncture, this is largely about Donald Trump. Trumps own racist behavior and remarks including, in the run-up to the midterm elections, his proud embrace of the term nationalist have emboldened the Steve Kings of the world. Many Republicans recognize that. And despite all the pride that they have swallowed since Trumps ascent and all the principles that they have betrayed, many of them yearn to make a stand or at least a statement against white nationalism, for the sake of their partys long-term survival and, yes, for the country. They also want to say and do something right at a moment of so much wrong wrong that they have abetted and must answer for. The government is shut down. The president fields understandable questions about whether hes a Russian agent. With his ignorance and arrogance, he seems to be hauling the country to the brink of a disastrous international crisis. He degrades his office daily. And most of them mutely watch. They quiver in the face of the presidents wrath. I think when I think about discovery, I think about unfairness. We are blind. Were in the dark. We have no idea what the facts are. Witnesses disappear. Surveillance tape gets taped over. We dont have the opportunity as the defense to learn the truth. Peoples lives are affected. [music] So what is discovery? Discovery is evidence. What is evidence? Evidence is police reports. Witness statements, photos, videotape, a little slip of paper with what might seem like a note that isnt relevant but can be. Discovery is really the heart and soul of a case. Its the meat of a case. Its all the evidence that the prosecution has relating to a criminal case. And they have an obligation to turn it over to the defense attorney. Its just, when are we going to get it? The prosecutor does not have to give you that information until the eve of trial, the day of trial. Thats too late. You head into a trial representing someone, and you dont have any evidence. A case file that, for a year, was this thick suddenly now becomes this thick. And unfortunately, sometimes the piece of paper that may convince a prosecutor to drop a case isnt revealed until 12 or 14 months down the road. Our client was charged with having committed an armed robbery. This was an innocent person that was held for 18 months before his trial. We didnt have any of those police reports earlier on, and thats because New York State law says that the D.A.s office doesnt need to turn that over. And so theyre not going to. They claim that there was a gun in the bag. When they tested the bag for fingerprints, there were 13 fingerprints on that bag, none of which matched my clients. We ultimately won this trial, but my client was this close to going to prison. Had we gotten this evidence before Had the prosecutors disclosed that information We might have been able to negotiate something where my client didnt have to go through the stress and the emotional turmoil of trial. We could have made an application for release of our client pending the outcome of the case. It could have saved an innocent person from being held for 18 months on Rikers Island. Its a tragedy because it happens every day across New York State. Most cases end up as some type of plea bargain or some type of resolution short of trial. The vast majority of what were talking about with discovery reform is allowing individuals to make informed decisions. You want them to understand what is the evidence before them. You want them to understand what the consequences are. And I think its really difficult for them to understand why the system is set up this way. And oftentimes, Ill have clients say, well, that doesnt seem right. What do they have on me? I want to know. Or, I didnt do it. I want to see that video, because its not me. If they had the strong evidence against him, why not show it? The lawyer response is, well, thats what the law says. And the client response, understandably, says, well, then the law is unfair. When youre actually able to present this evidence good, bad or indifferent to our clients, it really just changes the whole trajectory of the case. You really realize how arcane our system is when you go to a national conference or you speak to the lawyers of other jurisdictions, and you tell them about your discovery laws, and they look at you like you have three heads. I guess were a progressive state as New York. You would be shocked to know that almost every state has better discovery laws than us. States in the South Texas is number one with discovery. Texas. I think New York state, if were going to be the progressive state, we ought to be No.1. We should probably have a discovery law that just says, the district attorney shall, within five days of arrest, turn over everything. And anything that comes in after that, theyll turn over. All they have to do is walk to a copy machine, make a copy and hand it over. If we create a system whereby everyone is forced to get the discovery early It would help both sides, really. Overall, everyone gets to learn more about the case. Early discovery is about fundamental fairness. And I think that is something that, as New Yorkers, as public defenders, as prosecutors, we could all come together and agree that fundamental fairness should drive our criminal justice system. [music] To the Editor: Re Saudi Teenager Who Fled Home Embraces Canada (news article, Jan. 15): The story of the Saudi teenager granted asylum in Canada was a refreshing bit of good news in a sea of international meanness. Thank you, Canada, for yet again (remember its granting asylum to Vietnam draft dodgers) providing a moral compass for your southern neighbor. Anthony D. Pellegrini Bloomington, Minn. To the Editor: Re The War of Words on Abortion (Op-Ed, Jan. 10): Charles C. Camosy is wrong in throwing up a smokescreen to pretend that the abortion debate is a struggle over lan guage. Pro-choice victories in Ireland, Chile and likely soon in Argentina clearly demonstrate that increasingly, on a global scale, people in Catholic-majority countries are taking a stand for the values, morals and ethics of defending a womans right to choose. Those who favor womens rights are not running away from fundamental principles like conscience; they are embracing the reality that womens rights are human rights. They understand the challenges to womens health and well-being when we deny their right to make free choices over their bodies. In the United States, 6 in 10 Catholic voters say abortion can be a moral choice, and in my home country of Ireland 66 percent of voters said yes to legal abortion. In the face of an increasingly educated and sophisticated electorate, Mr. Camosy and other anti-abortion advocates are reduced to running away from ethical arguments they used in the past and relying on red-herring arguments as a fallback position. With greater attention on the part of the engineer to the needs of the musician, Mr. Pearlman wrote in the accompanying paper, the day may not be too remote when the electronic instrument may take its place as a versatile, powerful and expressive instrument. Mr. Pearlman, who lived in Newton, married Buena Alcalay in 1958. She and his daughter survive him. Mr. Pearlman worked for NASA designing amplifiers for Gemini and Apollo spacecraft, then helped found Nexus Research Laboratory, which built precision solid-state analog modules, including operational amplifiers. Nexus was sold to Teledyne in 1967, the year Morton Subotnicks Silver Apples of the Moon, an album-length electronic composition made on a Buchla synthesizer, was released. Mr. Pearlman was impressed, and in 1968, after hearing Switched-On Bach by Wendy (known at the time as Walter) Carlos a hit album of Bach pieces recorded on a Moog via overdubbing and editing he decided to work again on electronic instruments. I went into the basement and did some playing around, Mr. Pearlman told Inc. magazine in 1982. Mr. Pearlman founded ARP, initially named Tonus Inc., in 1969. Early synthesizers tended to go rapidly out of tune. Mr. Pearlman solved that problem by placing two functions on the same chip, and that stability became a major selling point. The companys first instrument was the ARP 2500, a large console-size synthesizer introduced in 1970; it was acquired by many universities for electronic-music laboratories. The 2500 used a matrix of switches to connect its modules instead of patch cords, which the Moog used. The slightly less bulky ARP 2600, using patch cords but also including built-in preset connections, arrived in 1971. Like other early synthesizers, they were monophonic, playing just one note at a time. Some board members have criticized Mr. Cuomos secrecy in announcing the new approach without their input. The board must eventually approve the new plan, though no vote was taken on Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the governor, Dani Lever, said in a statement: The same consultant studied both options and said again today at a public hearing that this is a different design than the first option they studied, and hence they have a different opinion, just like an apple is not an orange. At the board meeting, Polly Trottenberg, the citys transportation commissioner, asked how the agency would handle silica dust and how long the construction work would last. Leaders on the project said efforts to contain the silica dust would depend on how much concrete is removed. The work could last 15 to 20 months, though the schedule is still being determined. Ms. Trottenberg, who is also a board member, criticized the agencys decision to announce shutdown averted before talking to the board. Is the decision made? she asked. Do we have any actual role here? The authoritys chairman, Fernando Ferrer, dared board members to express support for a full shutdown an option that has outraged L-train riders. Look, if youre for inconveniencing 275,000 people, say so! Mr. Ferrer said. The M.T.A. has become a punching bag over the last two weeks. Mr. Cuomo, complaining of its stodgy bureaucracy, said he wanted to blow up the M.T.A. A piece on New York Magazines website asked: Is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority staffed by idiots? The message was that Mr. Guzman didnt have to stay in hiding? Mr. Lichtman asked. Yes, Mr. Cifuentes said, that very thing is what Joaquin said to me. Mr. Lichtman, quoting Mr. Cifuentess notes from an interview he gave to American authorities in 2016, asked whether Felipe Calderon, who preceded Mr. Pena Nieto as Mexicos president, took a bribe in 2008 from one of Mr. Guzmans rivals, the Beltran-Leyva brothers. I dont recall this incident very well, Mr. Cifuentes answered. He added moments later, Right now, I do not remember that. Mr. Pena Nieto and Mr. Calderon could not yet be reached for comment. While other witnesses at Mr. Guzmans trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn have testified about huge payoffs from traffickers to the Mexican police and public officials, the testimony about Mr. Pena Nieto was the most egregious allegation yet. If true, it suggests that corruption by drug cartels had reached into the highest level of Mexicos political establishment. After testifying about the two presidents, Mr. Cifuentes rattled off other bribes that Mr. Guzman and his allies had paid to Mexican officials. On at least two occasions, he said, the kingpin gave the Mexican military between $10 million and $12 million to launch operations to either kill or capture associates of the Beltran-Leyva brothers during his war with them. Mr. Cifuentes also said the Mexican federal police not only turned a blind eye to drug trafficking, but occasionally took part in it. Once, he told jurors, traffickers gave the police photographs of several suitcases packed with cocaine that were sent by the cartel on an airplane from Argentina to Mexico. The police picked up the suitcases from the baggage claim, Mr. Cifuentes said, and sold the drugs themselves. All of this came on Mr. Cifuentess exhausting second day as a witness at Mr. Guzmans trial. He has already confessed to a staggering array of crimes. [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] The schools are among the most recognizable Catholic institutions in New York, with reputations extending far beyond the churchs followers and the citys borders: Xavier, Regis, Brooklyn Prep, Fordham Prep. They educated many in the citys Catholic elite, producing politicians, authors, academics and at least one Supreme Court justice. They regularly appear on lists of New Yorks best Catholic schools. But on Tuesday, the schools names popped up again and again on a different kind of list: One naming Jesuit priests who were identified by the Society of Jesus as having a history of sexual abuse found to be more likely true than not after investigation. In some cases, the priests passed through the schools in careers that spanned as many as 30 years. The lists of accused priests were published by the Jesuit order one after the other in recent weeks, creating rosters of several hundred names. The Society of Jesus, as the Jesuit order is known, is an influential force in the global church; it has more than 16,000 members, including Pope Francis. The latest list names priests who served in the orders province covering the Northeastern United States, most of whom served in Jesuit schools. Access to dental service is our top need, the No. 1 service people call us for, said Diane Spicer, supervising attorney of the Community Health Advocates program. Many health insurance policies in New York State do not cover a wide array of dental services, or they will cover services only if a patient is in extreme need. Benefits are often capped at $1,000 or $2,000 each year, but fairly common procedures, such as root canals, crowns and dental implants, cost upward of $5,000. So many people who cannot afford these costs neglect problems with their teeth, only to wind up in terrible pain or with missing teeth, leading to shame and stigma. If youre missing a tooth, it doesnt even matter if your job is in the hospitality service industry, Ms. Davis said. If youre working where you have to meet people or anything that has to do with presentation, you still have to have teeth. Ms. Daviss cancer has been in remission since 2016, and she has a new job in Atlanta. For Robert Walker, a retired truck driver in the Bronx, an urbane appearance was less important than pain relief once he began having an issue with his teeth. Mr. Walker, 73, has diabetes, asthma and a heart condition, and he is on Medicaid. And in the birthplace of democracy, Taylor traces how the debt crisis put Greece in a bind between the national will and the meta-democracy of the European Union, which itself, the movie suggests, was beholden to the decidedly undemocratic whims of finance. Some of the past-present dialectics bear fruit. Its instructive to see the concept of oligarchy enshrined in a 14th-century fresco in Siena, Italy, or to learn how the Athenian reformer Cleistheness ideas for the organization of civic space facilitated mingling that would foster a sense of the common good. Yet the movie has a tendency to take arguments to overbroad ends (should grade school be a democracy?) and is inevitably unwieldy. Its easy to imagine a more cogent film that weighted either philosophy or reportage more heavily. But Im willing to put it to a vote. The threats began at the strike of noon, when Aleksey Krasovskiy, a Russian film director, started getting phone calls and messages about Holiday, a movie he was working on. Some men were waiting in the entrance to my old apartment building, he said in a telephone interview. Luckily, I had moved. That saved me. He said that one tidbit that he was planning to make a comedy about the siege of Leningrad, a 900-day blockade of the city during World War II that led to the deaths of about one million civilians was popping up repeatedly in calls and messages, as well as on blogs, in newspapers and on political television shows. Without having seen the movie, media outlets accused Holiday and Mr. Krasovskiy of mocking Russian history and dishonoring veterans. Mr. Krasovskiy expected the harassment, which began in mid-October, to last only a couple of days, but it continued for more than a month. One Russian lawmaker said on Twitter that he hoped the film would never see the light of day and that he would do everything in his power to shut it down. A top official in United Russia, the party of President Vladimir V. Putin, said he would ask the culture minister not to grant the film a distribution license, according to Tass, a state news agency. When M. Night Shyamalan was asked what the biggest plot twist in his own life was, he paused and thought carefully. The answer, said Shyamalan, whose name has been synonymous with twists since his 1999 breakthrough, The Sixth Sense, was having come full circle: back to making films in his native Philadelphia, back to the kinds of thrillers that in 2002 led Newsweek to label him the Next Spielberg. All I want to do is make thrillers, Shyamalan, 48, said in a phone interview last week. After years spent making other kinds of films, he added, coming back to what he loved most had prompted a realization: Wow, I had everything I wanted in the first place. Its appropriate, then, that Glass, which debuts this weekend, completes another kind of circle. Riding high on the success of its predecessor, Split (2017), the film concludes an original superhero trilogy that began in 2000 with Unbreakable a grim and deliberate origin story that arrived, perhaps, just a little too soon. Have you ever told another person I love you? Do you ever want to say those words but find it too hard to express? In Why We Struggle to Say I Love You, Viet Thanh Nguyen writes: Is it true that Asian-Americans cannot say I love you? The striking title of the writer Lac Sus memoir is I Love Yous Are for White People, which explores the emotional devastation wreaked on one Vietnamese family by its refugee experiences. I share some of Lac Sus background, and it has been a lifelong effort to learn how to say, without awkwardness, I love you. I can do this for my son, and it is heartfelt, but it comes with an effort born of the self-consciousness I still feel when I say it to my father or brother. Thus, when the actress Sandra Oh won a Golden Globe for best actress in a television drama, Killing Eve, perhaps the most powerful part of her acceptance speech for many of us who are Asian-Americans was when she thanked her parents. Gazing at them in the audience, she said, in Korean, I love you. She was emotional, her parents were proud, and I could not help but project onto them one of the central dramas of Asian immigrant and refugee life: the silent sacrifice of the parents, the difficult gratitude of the children, revolving around the garbled expression of love. So many of our Asian parents have struggled, suffered and endured in ways that are completely beyond the imaginations of their children born or raised in North American comfort. This struggle and sacrifice was how Asian parents say I love you without having to say it. And so many of us children are not expected to say it either, but instead are expected to express love through gratitude, which means obeying our parents and following their wishes for how we should live our lives. The article continues: When it came to mass medias representations of us film and television, morning radio disc jockey jokes, journalistic punditry we got only the bad. We were collectively the villains, the servants, the enemies, the mistresses, the houseboys, the invaders. As a result, so many of us who watched these distorted images and heard the stupid jokes learned to be ashamed of ourselves. We learned to be ashamed of our parents. And the shame compounded the inability to say I love you, a phrase that belonged to the wonderful world of white people we saw in the movies and television. We had to learn better, but the truth is that Asian parents have to learn better, too. You cannot be proud of your artist and storyteller children only when they win Golden Globes. We honor your sacrifice for us, but you have to encourage your children to speak up as well, to claim their voices, to risk mediocrity and failure, to tell their stories and your stories. At the very least, you cannot stand in their way. Students, read the entire article, then tell us: Do you find it hard to say I love you? If so, what makes it hard? Do you feel too self-conscious? Too vulnerable? Something else? Would you be willing to tell us about a specific time when you wanted to say those words, but struggled? How important to you is it to say or hear the actual three words: I love you? Are there other equally important ways to express love? What are some cultural factors that affect why some people feel it is hard to verbally express their love? Why was it so important for some Asians-Americans to hear Sandra Ohs words at the Golden Globes? Do you think Ms. Ohs public expression of love toward her parents will make it easier for some people to say those three words? Headliner Empellon Al Pastor There is a taco turnaround in the Pod 39 Hotel. What was Salvation Taco is now under the management of Alex Stupak of Empellon, Taqueria and Al Pastor. (Mr. Stupak took over Salvation Taco last year after April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman, who ran the restaurant, left amid a sexual harassment scandal over Mr. Friedmans treatment of employees.) Though Mr. Stupak has a casual Al Pastor taqueria in the East Village, he says this latest restaurant is not merely a spinoff. Its an evolution, he said. Its bar food inspired by Mexico and also by fun lowbrow American food like corn dogs. Theres also waiter service here. Mr. Stupak said that he had resisted offers to turn Al Pastor into a fast-casual place in airports and food halls, and that he felt this project suited him better. The sprawling space, designed by Glen Coben in conjunction with Mr. Stupak, has a long bar, high-top tables and a pub atmosphere, with dark green walls, vintage photos and tufted leather in one area, with another bar and a game room beyond. Its now less fiesta and more tavern, Mr. Stupak said. The menu will feature tacos, as well as fried-chicken sandwiches, broiled oysters with hoja santa and bacon, Chihuahua cheese sticks, pork fried rice and crunchy corn masa ice cream bars. Breakfast will be served. (Opens Friday) Pod 39 Hotel, 145 East 39th Street (Lexington Avenue), 212-865-5800, empellon.com. Opening Rodos What are friends for? Yiannis Chatiris and Eleni Vareli have called upon their buddy, the marquee New Orleans chef Emeril Lagasse, to lend a hand in their spacious Greek restaurant named for the island of Rhodes. (The name of their former restaurant in the same space, Mykonos Blue Grill, paid homage to a different island.) Mr. Lagasse, who does not have a New York restaurant, is helping to shape the menu and has his team in the kitchen. His take on Greek cuisine results in dishes like crisp duck wings, octopus beignets, New Orleans-style barbecued shrimp, clams stuffed with crawfish, and lacquered Long Island duck, all of which coexist with typical Greek dips like taramosalata, black linguine with seafood, a Greek salad, and grilled branzino. 39 West 24th Street, 212-989-8811, rodosnyc.com. MAVSoho Mulino a Vino on West 14th Street, which closed in June, has been resurrected by the owner Paolo Meregalli and the chef Massimiliano Eandi, with similarly unusual, colorful food and a wine-oriented menu. Lasagna made from tomato-infused pasta and folded to resemble a rose, black spaghetti with sea urchin and a black carbonara sauce, and a blue risotto tinted with flowers and paired with caviar are some of the menu offerings. There are also Milanese-style short ribs, and roasted salmon wrapped in lemon leaves and served with a limoncello sauce. The wine list is categorized according to texture and flavor. Decorated in Art Deco style, the restaurant has a lounge and bar, with a salumeria station, in front and a dining room with splashes of color and brass accents. (Wednesday) Hotel Hugo, 525 Greenwich Street (Spring Street), 212-608-1211, mavsoho.com. Philippe Downtown The chef Philippe Chow has a following for the particular style of Chinese food at his Upper East Side flagship. Satays slathered in sauce are a signature, and he also specializes in Peking duck and Peking duck spring rolls. Now hes serving them in a Chelsea version of his restaurant. Theres a D.J. booth in the rear, lending the space a nightlife atmosphere. Dream Hotel, 355 West 16th Street, 212-644-8203, philippechow.com. Companies use the Securities and Exchange Commissions corporate filing system to share market-moving news with investors and the public. Getting an early peek at those filings would be very helpful to a thief. That was the motivation for two computer hackers who tried to penetrate the system, known as Edgar, according to an indictment unsealed on Tuesday by federal prosecutors in New Jersey. The authorities charged two men, both of whom are believed to be Ukrainian nationals, in a scheme to hack into the commissions database and steal secret information that they could either trade on or sell to others. Prosecutors said that by hacking into the Edgar system, the men, Artem Radchenko and Oleksandr Ieremenko, had stolen annual, quarterly and current reports of publicly traded companies before the reports were disseminated to the investing public. TOKYO A Tokyo court on Tuesday denied bail to Carlos Ghosn, the former Nissan chairman detained since November on allegations of financial misconduct. The embattled auto chief now faces two more months in a jail cell and possibly longer as his case heads to court. Mr. Ghosn, until recently the head of the carmaking alliance of Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi, is accused by Japanese prosecutors of understating his income for years and of improperly transferring personal losses to Nissans books in 2008. He has denied all charges. His lawyers said later Tuesday that they had appealed the courts ruling. A top aide to Mr. Ghosn, Greg Kelly, was arrested on a related charge and released on bail on Christmas Day after more than a month in jail. Now that Mr. Ghosns application for bail has been rejected, he can legally be held until at least March 10, and prosecutors are entitled to request one-month extensions. Motonari Otsuru, Mr. Ghosns lead lawyer in Tokyo and a former top prosecutor, has speculated that the executives detention could stretch for many months. Heres what else is happening El Chapo trial: In an incendiary accusation at the crime lords trial, a former cartel leader accused the former Mexican president President Pena Nieto of taking a $100 million bribe from drug traffickers. NATO: President Trump privately suggested several times last year that he wanted to withdraw the U.S. from the military alliance with Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years. North Korea: The country is pursuing biological weapons that could present a more immediate threat to the world than its nuclear weapons program, according to new military analysis. Carlos Ghosn: The former Nissan chairman was denied bail in Tokyo and faces at least two more months in jail. His wife criticized Japans criminal justice system, writing that no human being should be detained under conditions so harsh that their only plausible purpose is to coerce a confession. Netflix: The company said it would raise prices by 13 to 18 percent for U.S. subscribers to help pay for original content, its biggest rate increase since it introduced streaming services 12 years ago. Saudi woman: Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, who fled her home and was granted refugee status in Canada, is starting to adjust to her newfound freedom. I want to do crazy things Ive never done before, she told us in an interview. New this week: THE ANNOTATED MEMOIRS OF ULYSSES S. GRANT Edited by Elizabeth S. Samet. (Liveright, $45.) If you liked Ron Chernows recent biography of the 18th president, this annotated version of Grants memoirs provides the context necessary to appreciate one of the most celebrated pieces of presidential writing. TEAM HUMAN By Douglas Rushkoff. (Norton, $23.95.) A professor of media theory, Rushkoff files field notes from the war between man and machine, arguing gloomily that technology is currently winning, quickly chipping away at our humanity. BOOKENDS By Michael Chabon. (Harper Perennial, paper, $16.99.) Chabon offers a glimpse at his influences in this compilation of previously published odds and ends. Much of the book is made up of introductions to eclectic cult classics. THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS By Salka Viertel. (New York Review Books, paper, $17.95.) Born in a remote province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Viertel made her way in the 1920s to Hollywood, where she had a career as a screenwriter and became a confidante of Greta Garbo. Her memoir captures both the intellectual world she had to leave behind one peopled by the likes of Kafka, Musil and Einstein and the home and refuge she made for herself in Los Angeles. DIDEROT AND THE ART OF THINKING FREELY By Andrew S. Curran. (Other Press, $26.95.) In this new biography, Curran looks to remind us just what a radical Diderot was in his time. & Noteworthy In which we ask colleagues at The Times what theyre reading now. I read a lot of contemporary fiction, but the books I keep coming back to in recent months are American noir novels from the 40s and 50s. Ive recently read more Raymond Chandler than I have at any time and cant quite figure out why except that the dark underworld he brings to life, a boozy and beautiful Los Angeles, is one I can get completely lost in. The latest novel of his I can recommend is THE LADY IN THE LAKE, about two missing wives, one rich and one poor, and the men who want them back, and not always for the right reasons. People often forget how extremely funny Chandler is, particularly when it comes to painting a room: The whole place was full to overflowing with males in leisure jackets and liquor breaths and females in high-pitched laughs, oxblood fingernails and dirty knuckles. And I especially enjoy how he describes female characters: She was smart, smooth and no good. She had a way with men. She could make them crawl over her shoes. He also evokes California landscapes better than just about any writer, making it easy to smell the jasmine and feel the heat from the Santa Anas, air, he writes, hot enough to blister my tongue. Julie Bloom, Deputy Editor, National Desk Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous nights highlights that lets you sleep and lets us get paid to watch comedy. If youre interested in hearing from The Times regularly about great TV, sign up for our Watching newsletter and get recommendations straight to your inbox. Late Night Isnt Surprised When President Trump fired James Comey in 2017, the F.B.I. was spooked enough that it opened an investigation to determine if the president was working on behalf of the Russian government, The New York Times reported on Friday. Late-night hosts have been wondering aloud about the same question for years. Stephen Colbert, for one, said on Monday that he doesnt know what all the fuss was about this weekend. He introduced a new mock game show evaluating the president, called Evil or Stupid? DAKAR, Senegal The 19th-century sword rests in a glass case alongside a frail Quran in a spacious gallery where scrolls hang from the wall and soft religious chanting is piped in. The sabers etched copper handle is shaped like a swans beak, with a ring at the end. Its leather sheath rests nearby. The sword belonged to Omar Saidou Tall, a prominent Muslim spiritual leader in the 1800s in what is now modern-day Senegal. His quest to conquer nearby territories put him in armed conflict with France, which had its own takeover ambitions. The French colonialists eventually won and seized not just large swaths of West Africa but also the regions treasures, including the sword. Like most artifacts from Frances African colonies, it wound up in a French museum. But the sword is now back in Senegal and the Senegalese would like to keep it here. It is one of the most important pieces on display at Senegals new Museum of Black Civilizations, which has opened its doors amid a heated discussion about Africa reclaiming art that was looted during the colonial era. The scale of artifacts in question is staggering. Up to 95 percent of Africas cultural heritage is held outside Africa by major museums. France alone holds 90,000 sub-Saharan African objects in its museums. LONDON Contemporary art dealers, like pretty much everyone else involved in bricks and mortar retail, are struggling to attract customers through their doors. A collaborative event is one way of coaxing them back. It might not be the art worlds equivalent of Black Friday, but the Condo group exhibition, whose fourth London edition opened on Saturday, has given smaller dealerships a chance to see new faces in their galleries. It makes a change from seeing them at art fairs. In todays time poor, digitally dominated world, convention centers and tents have increasingly become the places where collectors and the public directly engage with gallerists. This year, new destination fairs in Los Angeles, Taiwan and Singapore have been added to an ever more crowded calendar. There are too many fairs. The ones that work are fantastic and we cant do without them, said Vanessa Carlos, co-founder of the east London gallery Carlos/Ishikawa, which in December sold out its booth at the Art Basel Miami Beach fair. But, Ms. Carlos added, the proliferation of art fairs creates a culture of not going to galleries, of not seeing shows and having a higher quality interaction with gallerists and artists. This is why Ms. Carlos came up with Condo. The idea (inspired by the multiple occupancy of a condominium) is simple: For a month, local dealers share their spaces and, equally importantly, their client lists with visiting international gallerists. Each guest dealer pays a flat fee of 650 pounds, or about $830. RIYADH, Saudi Arabia In a barnstorming tour that took him to eight countries in one week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo burned with one central message: The need to counter the greatest threat of all in the Middle East, the Iranian regime and its campaigns of terrorism and destruction, as he put it in Cairo on Thursday. Jetting from capital to capital, meeting with kings, princes and presidents, his goal was to get Arab countries to work together to roll back Iranian influence in the region and take on the militias Iran is backing. But as the trip drew to a close on Monday, it was unclear whether he had made any notable progress on that front. The obstacles toward building such a coalition are formidable. In practice, it will be difficult for the Arab nations to work closely together on anti-Iran policies because of the complexity of relationships in the region, officials and analysts from those countries say. The Iranian-backed militias Mr. Pompeo wants to rein in vary widely and would resist a one-size-fits all solution: Hezbollah is a major force in the government of Lebanon, the groups in Syria work mostly apart from one another in the war zone, and those in Iraq have great influence in the oil-rich south. TORONTO She wants to go to college to study architecture. She would like to take English classes. She is wondering about how to harness her newfound media stardom. But mostly, the celebrated Saudi-turned-Canadian-refugee Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun just wants to experience what it is like to be a teenager, free to do what she wants and dress how she wants. I want to do crazy things Ive never done before, she said in an interview Monday evening, sitting in a classroom at a refugee center in downtown Toronto. On just her third day in Canada, Ms. Alqunun, 18, seemed to be still a bit stunned. In less than two weeks, she has gone from the cloistered life of a Saudi woman in Hail, a city in the northwestern part of the country, to the life of an independent woman on the other side of the world. BEIJING One of Chinas most prominent human rights activists, the blogger Huang Qi, went on trial on Monday on charges of leaking state secrets, and American diplomats seeking to attend the proceedings said they had been denied access. The trial has drawn intense international attention, in part because Mr. Huang, 55, has nephritis, a potentially fatal kidney disease. In addition, Mr. Huangs 85-year-old mother recently traveled from their home in Sichuan Province to Beijing to ask foreign embassies there for help in obtaining his release, but she was reportedly beaten and is now detained in a hospital. American diplomats seeking to attend the trial in the western Chinese city of Mianyang were denied access to the courtroom, a press officer for the United States Embassy said on Monday. Mr. Huang founded the website 64 Tianwang, which relied on a nationwide network of volunteers to report on land expropriations, corruption and labor disputes. The name refers to the June 4, 1989, crackdown on protesters around Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The sites core mission, it says, is to stand in solidarity with those who have no power, no money and no influence. Congress apologized to the victims 100 years later in a resolution that expressed deep regret but did not provide any reparations to the descendants or declare the remote site a national monument. What was the Battle of Little Bighorn? Mr. Trump also referenced Bighorn, the Battle of Little Bighorn, which was fought on June 25, 1876, in what is now Montana. At the time, the federal government was forcing tribes to move to reservations. When several tribes did not leave their land, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and his troops were dispatched to attack. During the battle, General Custers troops were outnumbered by Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors in what became known as Custers Last Stand. In the book The Killing of Crazy Horse, the reporter Thomas Powers wrote: The fighting was intense, bloody, at times hand to hand. Men died by knife and club as well as by gunfire. More than 200 of Custers troops died. Why is Ms. Warrens ancestry in the news? Ms. Warren and Mr. Trump have a history of trading barbs, particularly during the 2016 election but his references to her ethnic heritage, especially his taunts labeling her as Pocahontas, have drawn the most attention. Last year Ms. Warren released the results of a DNA test that she said provided proof of her ancestry. It found that she most likely had one Native American ancestor six to 10 generations ago. Instead of neutralizing her critics, the test further inflamed criticism that she was trying to equate DNA results with cultural kinship. In October, a member of the Cherokee Nation condemned Ms. Warrens analysis in a statement. But not all Native American leaders were upset about Ms. Warrens DNA test. Greg Jenkins, the executive director of Mr. Bushs second inaugural, said, I have never heard anybody getting that kind of fee associated with any inaugural, ever. Ms. Winston Wolkoff often fought with other top aides, according to people with direct knowledge of events. She was known to threaten to have senior officials fired, at times brandishing a cellphone and saying she would text Mrs. Trump or Ivanka Trump, the presidents elder daughter, conveying a sense of authority that people later came to realize she did not have, three people with direct knowledge of the events said. A lawyer for Ms. Winston Wolkoff declined to comment. A spokesman for WIS Media Partners said all of the firms charges were vetted, authorized and signed off on by the committees top officials, including Thomas J. Barrack Jr., the committees chairman; Rick Gates, the deputy chairman; and Sara Armstrong, the chief executive. He said the firms fees were significantly below the customary charges for equivalent productions, and that officials provided the inaugural committee with all its audited records and receipts. He said the company could not reveal more because it is legally barred by the inaugural committee from discussing its work on the inaugural events. In a statement, Mr. Barrack said he continues to be proud of the incredible work of all those that were part of the committee and that it complied with all laws and regulations, and its finances were fully audited internally and independently. The donors were fully vetted and disclosed to the Federal Election Commission as required. Mr. Trumps inaugural committee has come under scrutiny in the past for its high administrative and logistical costs. The new details help flesh out how the inaugural spent the money. Among the payments was more than $2 million spent on the firm of the Trump campaign official Brad Parscale for online advertisements to drum up inaugural crowds. Another $2.7 million was spent on flying in a performance group working with Steve Wynn, the casino magnate and friend of Mr. Trump. But first, he must navigate through a committee full of supporters of the law he has called an abomination. Besides Mr. Grassley, the whistle-blower law has been backed strongly by Senators Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, both Democrats. Another member of the panel, Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California, used her states False Claims Act to pursue fraud in Medicaid and the mortgage industry when she was attorney general of California. Mr. Barrs objections to the False Claims Act were consistent with his expansive view of presidential power. The Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the authority to enforce the laws is a core power vested in the Executive, Mr. Barr wrote. The False Claims Act effectively strips this power away from the Executive and vests it in private individuals, depriving the Executive of sufficient supervision and control over the exercise of these sovereign powers. The False Claims Act, also known as Lincolns law, was adopted in 1863 in response to rampant fraud by contractors who cheated the government by selling the Union Army sick mules, lame horses and sawdust instead of gunpowder. In 1986, Congress strengthened the law by increasing incentives for whistle-blowers to file lawsuits alleging false claims. As a reward, a whistle-blower can receive up to 30 percent of any amounts recovered, with the balance going to the Treasury. In the three decades since adoption of that law, championed by Mr. Grassley, the government has recovered more than $59 billion. Last year, for example, the Justice Department obtained more than $2.8 billion in settlements and judgments from civil cases involving fraud and false claims against the government. Of that amount, $2.5 billion came from the health care industry, including drug and medical device manufacturers, hospitals, doctors and home health care companies. And it looked like this: 10 feet wide, 13 and 1/2 feet tall. Itd construct itself to be a 12-foot finished wall, just like that. Thats Representative Steve King We do that with livestock all the time. pitching the idea of building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, more than a decade before it became President Donald Trumps central immigration policy. The walls going to get built folks, just in case anybody has any question. The walls going to get built. King has been a Republican member of Congress from Iowa for the past 16 years. The gentleman from Iowa is recognized. Hes made a name for himself as a hard-line opponent of illegal immigration and for his inflammatory, sometimes racist, statements We are the immigrants! like when he disparaged so-called Dreamers, children brought by their parents as undocumented immigrants, in 2013. For every one whos a valedictorian, theres another hundred out there that they weigh 130 pounds and theyve got calves the size of cantaloupes because theyre hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. King was an early and fervent supporter of Donald Trump. Hes a quick study. Hes an astute study. And if you explain something to Donald Trump, hes listening carefully, and you need to get it right. And the feeling has been mutual. He may be the worlds most conservative human being. [cheering] Trumps election in 2016 gave King a staunch ally in the White House. These days, the presidents statements sound like echoes of things King said years earlier. Its our job, here in this Congress, to decide who will be citizens, not someone in a foreign country that can sneak into the United States and have a baby and then go home with a birth certificate. Kings ideas and public statements, which once seemed fringe, now appear in the national discourse. His views are central to the white identity politics that heavily influence the Trump administration. The Iowa congressmans ultra-conservative ideas have been a long time in the making. Preventing babies to be from being born is not medicine. Thats not constructive to our culture and our civilization. If we let our birth rate get down below the replacement rate, were a dying civilization. And right now King has denied that his statements are racist and often invokes the idea of protecting our civilization. Its a concept of national identity and racial superiority thats a common talking point among white nationalists. In an interview on MSNBC, King himself explained. Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization? Than white people? Than Western civilization itself, thats rooted in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the United States of America and every place where the footprint of Christianity What about Africa? settled the world. What about Asia? Thats all of Western civilization. But what about Africa? And what about Asia? Hes even gotten close to white nationalists outside of the U.S., appearing with far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders. King has also been to Austria several times since 2013, where hes cozied up to the far-right Freedom Party. Back at home, King has been re-elected eight times and is considered a party kingmaker in Iowa. But the 2018 midterms were his toughest contest yet. He won by just three points. And days before the election, a member of his own party called King out as a white supremacist. After more than a decade in Congress, his rhetoric may be finally catching up with him. PARKERSBURG, W.Va. On Day 20 of the partial government shutdown last week, a small band of federal workers, shivering in 25-degree weather, staged a rally to send what their organizer, Eric Engle, said was a message to Senator Shelley Moore Capito: We need to end this shutdown. If it takes overriding the president, thats what it takes. But here in the heart of Trump country, that message is decidedly muffled, even in Parkersburg, where the federal government is one of the two largest employers. So strong is support for President Trump, who remains dug in on his demand for $5.7 billion to build a border wall, that even some furloughed workers insist Ms. Capito must stick with him. We need the wall, Jessica Lemasters, 29, an accountant on furlough from the Treasury Department, said over lunch at the Corner Cafe, a few blocks from the rally. I dont like being furloughed, but it happens. Mr. Shah will lead the Media Group, the press wing of Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm with offices in Florida and Washington. He will work with Jamie Rubin, a Democrat who was a spokesman for Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state, officials said. Mr. Shah, a former researcher at the Republican National Committee, had been in the administration since Mr. Trump took office. His portfolio recently included helping prepare Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh for his Senate confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court. Castro: I have a track record of getting things done as mayor of San Antonio and as secretary of housing. I have a strong vision for the countrys future. And Ive lived a life that I believe lets me understand people all along the scale of experience in our country. I had a modest upbringing and I can understand people that are striving to reach their dreams. Ive also reached my dreams and can understand folks who have had a lot of success. Youre in Puerto Rico right now. Thats pretty far from Iowa. Why start your campaign there? I want everybody to understand that everybody counts in this country. The most basic tenet of government is protection. And this administration failed our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico by not protecting them after Hurricane Maria. Im going to highlight that, and then well let folks know that in the years to come everybody is going to count in this country, including the people of Puerto Rico. President Trump has said theres a massive crisis on the border. Do you agree? Not at all. The crisis that exists is a crisis of leadership. This president has failed. He promised all of us that if Americans could just be cruel enough to separate babies from their parents at the border, that it would deter more families from coming over there. Now weve seen that more families are coming over. So he has failed with his policies, and hes failed in trying to convince the American people that hes not to blame for this shutdown. And the best thing that he can do now is to set aside his political ploy of the wall. You may be the only Latino in a crowded race. How do you think that will impact the contest? Ive got to be myself, and Im confident that I can appeal to a broad cross-section of Americans. At the same time, of course, theres significance to the Latino community because I believe a lot of Latinos feel targeted right now by this administration. For me, personally, I can relate to many of todays immigrants because my grandmother that I grew up with came over from Mexico, and I grew up in San Antonio, just a few hours away from the border. So Ive seen the positive value that immigrants add to this country in a very direct way. And I know that these cities along the border are some of the safest cities in the United States. But Mr. Trump upended the proceedings anyway. One meeting, on July 12, was ostensibly supposed to be about Ukraine and Georgia two non-NATO members with aspirations to join the alliance. Accepted protocol dictates that alliance members do not discuss internal business in front of nonmembers. But as is frequently the case, Mr. Trump did not adhere to the established norms, according to several American and European officials who were in the room. He complained that European governments were not spending enough on the shared costs of defense, leaving the United States to carry an outsize burden. He expressed frustration that European leaders would not, on the spot, pledge to spend more. And he appeared not to grasp the details when several tried to explain to him that spending levels were set by parliaments in individual countries, the American and European officials said. Then, at another leaders gathering at the same summit meeting, Mr. Trump appeared to be taken by surprise by Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general. Backing Mr. Trumps position, Mr. Stoltenberg pushed allies to increase their spending and praised the United States for leading by example including by increasing its military spending in Europe. At that, according to one official who was in the room, Mr. Trump whipped his head around and glared at American officials behind him, surprised by Mr. Stoltenbergs remarks and betraying ignorance of his administrations own spending plans. Mr. Trump appeared especially annoyed, officials in the meeting said, with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and her countrys military spending of 1 percent of its gross domestic product. By comparison, the United States military spending is about 4 percent of G.D.P., and Mr. Trump has railed against allies for not meeting the NATO spending goal of 2 percent of economic output. At the summit meeting, he surprised the leaders by demanding 4 percent a move that would essentially put the goal out of reach for many alliance members. He also threatened that the United States would go its own way in 2019 if military spending from other NATO countries did not rise. WASHINGTON Ivanka Trump, the presidents eldest daughter and senior adviser, will play a role in helping to select the next head of the World Bank, the White House said Monday. Ms. Trump, who had been rumored to be a contender for the position herself, will not be a candidate, a Trump administration official said. But she will assist the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, in choosing a successor to Jim Yong Kim, the current president of the World Bank who announced last week he would be stepping down. Mr. Mnuchin called Ms. Trump last week and asked her if she would be involved, an administration official said. Jessica Ditto, a White House spokeswoman, said Ms. Trump was asked because shes worked closely with the World Banks leadership for the past two years. WASHINGTON A federal court issued a nationwide injunction on Monday that prevents the Trump administration from interfering with womens access to free birth control guaranteed under the Affordable Care Act. The decision, by Judge Wendy Beetlestone of the Federal District Court in Philadelphia, extends a losing streak for President Trump, who has repeatedly been set back in his efforts to allow employers to deny insurance coverage of contraceptives to which the employers object on religious or moral grounds. The rules were scheduled to take effect on Monday. The states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey challenged the rules before Judge Beetlestone, saying they would have to shoulder much of the burden of providing contraceptives to women who lost coverage under the Trump administrations rules. The states harm is not merely speculative; it is actual and imminent, Judge Beetlestone wrote. The final rules estimate that at least 70,500 women will lose coverage. The crime scene was grisly. Three people, tied up with plastic zip ties, were shot execution style and set on fire inside a barn in a small town in rural Pennsylvania on a summer day two and a half years ago. One clung to life, but died the next day. Now, the authorities say they have found the culprits behind the gangland-style killings. In an indictment unsealed last week, 11 people who federal prosecutors said were members of the Black Guerrilla Family, a nationwide gang active in drug trafficking, murder and other crimes, were indicted in connection with the killings. The authorities said the deaths began as part of a plot to silence a police informant that grew to include the killing of two others. The defendants have been charged with a range of crimes including murder, attempted murder, witness tampering, robbery, drug trafficking and illegal possession of a firearm by a felon. One of the defendants, Jerell Adgebesan, was tied up one year after the killings by several other defendants who wanted to kill him because they suspected he was cooperating with law enforcement, according to the indictment. He has been charged with murder, witness tampering and drug trafficking. The opioid crisis in the United States has become so grim that Americans are now likelier to die of an overdose than in a vehicle crash. Thats according to a new report by the National Safety Council that analyzed the causes of preventable deaths in the country in 2017. The probability of dying from an opioid overdose, according to the report, is one in 96. The chances of dying in a vehicle crash? One in 103. Most Americans are still most likely to die of natural causes, chiefly heart disease (a one in six chance) or cancer (one in seven). But the report shows, in stark numbers, that everyday events such as falling down might be effectively more dangerous than rare ones, such as getting hit by lightning. Human beings, we just are not good at estimating our own risk, said Ken Kolosh, manager of statistics at the National Safety Council, who oversaw the report. We tend to fixate or focus on the rare, startling event, like a plane crash or a major flood or a natural disaster, but in reality, when you look at the numbers, the everyday risks that we face and have become so accustomed to form a much greater hazard. There are a lot of other problems than Iran, but they are obsessed with Iran. If two fish fight in the Tigris River, it is because of Iran. MOWAFFAK AL-RUBAIE, a former Iraqi national security adviser, describing what he views as a weakness in United States policy. The problem with plays based on the biographies of artists is that, with rare exceptions, the creation of art cannot be credibly dramatized. Instead, you get anecdotes. Since 2001, Ensemble for the Romantic Century has been exploring workarounds for the problem in a series that began as a way of innovating the presentation of chamber music. Over the years, as its offerings have evolved from theatrical concerts to plays with music, its subjects have branched out as well: from composers (The Other Chopin) to poets (Because I Could Not Stop: An Encounter With Emily Dickinson) to painters (Van Goghs Ear) to political figures (The Dreyfus Affair) all of them romantic, if not exactly Romantic. Now, in Maestro, which opened on Monday at the Duke on 42nd Street, the company takes on a more difficult subject in Arturo Toscanini. The great Italian conductor is neither a Chopin, whose life can be illustrated, however contrivedly, by his own compositions, nor a Dickinson, whose cultural outlook can be suggested by the works of a contemporary (in her case, Amy Beach). Toscanini, an interpretive artist, is neither one nor the other and so Maestro lands with a thud in the gap. Not that Toscanini, as a person, wasnt dramatic, especially in the slice of his life that the author, Eve Wolf, focuses on. From his long career, which encompassed the premiere of Verdis Otello in 1887 (he played cello in the pit) and the Golden Age of television (he conducted Gershwin on NBC), she has selected two decades and one theme. Even uncoerced foreign investment in technology can strengthen the Chinese military-industrial complex, especially since the Communist Party has moved, since President Xi Jinping took office in 2012, to a defense industrial policy that translates in English to civil-military fusion. In practice, many Chinese and foreign civilian companies serve as de facto suppliers for the Chinese Army and its technological-industrial base. Residents and visitors are subject to constant visual surveillance, and a nascent social credit program in which disobedience to party dictates is reflected in credit scores, which could affect everything from home purchases to job opportunities . These forms of social control often use technology developed by Western companies. The United States should make major adjustments to its economic relationship with China. Comprehensive tariffs, which harm American consumers and workers unnecessarily, are not the right reaction. But neither are admonishments to just let the market work. The scale of Chinas industrial-policy distortions, technology thievery and efforts to modernize its army are too significant for such superficial responses. The American government must intervene in the market when it comes to China, although that intervention should be limited to areas that are genuinely vital to national security, prosperity and democratic values. For example, the United States government should impose sanctions on the Chinese beneficiaries of intellectual property theft and coercion, in cooperation with our allies. This was the legitimate target of the United States trade representatives original inquiry in August 2017 under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, but the policy steps chosen tariffs focus on the trade deficit instead of loss of intellectual property. Rather than across-the-board tariffs, Chinese companies receiving stolen or coerced intellectual property should not be allowed to do business with firms in America or, with our allies cooperation, in Europe and Japan. The United States should also intervene to halt foreign investment in any technology that assists the Chinese Army or contributes to internal repression and limit the access to global markets of any Chinese company that is tied to human rights abuses and army modernization. Theres no permanent attorney general or secretary of defense. (The acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, is alleged to have helped a company currently under federal investigation for fraud intimidate its critics.) The national security adviser is John Bolton, and he seems to be trying to provoke a war with Iran. An Associated Press story contains this deadpan line: White House aides expressed regret that the president did not more clearly and forcefully deny being a Russian agent when asked by the usually friendly Fox News host. To be clear, were very far from a worst-case scenario version of a Trump administration. Last year the president sent nearly 6,000 active-duty American troops to the border based on racist propaganda about a migrant caravan, but there havent been tanks in the streets. The administration winks at foreign governments who kill journalists, but its own threats against the media are mostly empty. I feared, at the beginning of this administration, that Trump would try to exploit American intelligence capabilities against his personal enemies, but instead he gets his intelligence from Fox News. The fact that so many high-level Trump associates have pleaded guilty to crimes is a sign of his corruption, but it also shows he hasnt corrupted our entire system. Trump has turned out to be the Norma Desmond of authoritarians, a senescent has-been whose delusions are propped up by obsequious retainers. From his fantasy world in the White House, he barks dictatorial and often illegal orders, floats conspiracy theories, tweets insults and lies unceasingly. But much of the time hes not fully in charge. He has the instincts of a fascist but lacks both the discipline and the loyal lieutenants hed need to create true autocracy. That doesnt mean, however, that the country isnt coming undone. Trumps bumbling incoherence, coupled with his declining political fortunes since the midterms, makes him seem less frightening than he once did. But, two years in, the jaded weariness many of us have developed might obscure how bad things are. Were living through an unprecedented breakdown in Americas ability to function like a normal country. The shutdown throws our crisis into high relief. For the first two years, Trump destroyed American norms, standards and conventions. Now hes cavalierly destroying American lives. There have been many policy disasters over the course of U.S. history. Its hard, however, to think of a calamity as gratuitous, an error as unforced, as the current federal shutdown. Nor can I think of another disaster as thoroughly personal, as completely owned by one man. When Donald Trump told Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, I will be the one to shut it down, he was being completely accurate although he went on to promise that Im not going to blame you for it, which was a lie. Still, no man is an island, although Trump comes closer than most. You cant fully make sense of his policy pratfalls without acknowledging the extraordinary quality of the people with whom he has surrounded himself. And by extraordinary, of course, I mean extraordinarily low quality. Lincoln had a team of rivals; Trump has a team of morons. If this sounds too harsh, consider recent economic pronouncements by two members of his administration. Predictably, these pronouncements involve bad economics; thats pretty much a given. Whats striking, instead, is the inability of either man to stay on script; they cant even get their right-wing mendacity right. If, beleaguered or bemused by the onrush of scandal and political antics, youre searching for some index of just how truly not-normal American governance has become, you might consider this: Standing on the White House lawn on Monday morning, his own government shut down around him, the president of the United States was asked by reporters if he was working for Russia. He said that he was not. Not only did I never work for Russia, I think it's a disgrace that you even asked that question, because it's a whole big fat hoax, President Trump said. Yet the reporters were right to ask, given Mr. Trumps bizarre pattern of behavior t oward a Russian regime that the Republican Party quite recently regarded as Americas chief rival . Indeed, its unnerving that more people particularly in the leadership of the Republican Party arent alarmed by Mr. Trumps secretive communications with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and reliance on his word over the conclusions of American intelligence agencies. The Times reported last week that the F.B.I. started a counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Trump in 2017 after he fired James Comey, the bureaus director, to determine whether Russia had influenced him. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the president has concealed details about his meetings with Mr. Putin even from officials of his own administration going so far, on at least one occasion, as to confiscate his interpreter's notes. Sheikh Hasina has done marvels for Bangladesh over nearly 10 consecutive years as prime minister. Per-capita income in what was one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world has grown by nearly 150 percent, and the proportion of the population living in extreme poverty has dropped from 19 percent to about 9 percent. All the greater the pity that her achievements have been offset by a precipitous slide toward authoritarianism and an election in which Mrs. Hasinas party won 288 of the 300 contested seats in Parliament, a preposterous 96 percent rate of victory. In the weeks and months before the Dec. 30 vote, local and international human rights organizations chronicled a relentless campaign of intimidation, ranging from violence and arrests of opposition candidates and protesters to surveillance and a draconian digital security law that includes prison terms for posting aggressive or frightening content. At least 17 people died in campaign violence. A Human Rights Watch report described a climate of fear extending from prominent voices in society to ordinary citizens, without any interference by an intimidated judiciary or election commission. In an interview with The Times in December, the prime minister appeared to share the delusion of autocrats everywhere that human rights concerns were peripheral to a developing countrys economic growth. If I can provide food, jobs and health care, that is human rights, she said. What the opposition is saying, or civil society or your NGOs I dont bother with that. I know my country, and I know how to develop my country. No one would question that Mrs. Hasina, who is 71, knows her country. Her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was the first president of Bangladesh. She was abroad when he was assassinated in 1975, and she returned in 1981 to take over the leadership of the Awami League, which she has held ever since. Her party and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by another powerful woman, Khaleda Zia, took turns in power until the last election, in 2014, which the opposition party boycotted to protest changes to electoral procedures, giving Mrs. Hasina an uncontested new term . Mrs. Zia was jailed for corruption last year, and Mrs. Hasina is back for another term at the head of what has effectively become a one-party state, ready to further tighten control. A number of months ago, I listened to a podcast that has haunted me since because it captures something essential about our culture warrior moment. It was from NPRs always excellent Invisibilia series and it was about a woman named Emily. Emily was a member of the hard-core punk music scene in Richmond, Va. One day, when she was nearly 30, she was in a van with her best friend, who was part of a prominent band. They were heading to a gig in Florida when the venue called to cancel their appearance. A woman had accused Emilys best friend of sending her an unwelcome sexually explicit photograph. His bandmates immediately dismissed her allegations. But inwardly Emily seethed. Upon returning to Richmond, she wrote a Facebook post denouncing her best friend as an abuser. I disown everything he has done. I do not think its O.K. I believe women. The post worked. He ended up leaving the band and disappeared from the punk scene. Emily heard rumors that hed been fired from his job, kicked out of his apartment, had moved to a new city and was not doing well. Emily never spoke with him again. The government shutdown is causing turmoil at the high-security federal jail in Manhattan, where some prisoners went on a hunger strike on Monday after family visits were canceled for a second week because of staffing shortages, defense lawyers said. The jail, known as the Metropolitan Correctional Center or M.C.C., is one of the most important detention centers in the federal prison system, housing about 800 detainees. At times the inmates have included accused terrorists, prominent white-collar criminals and organized crime figures like the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo. Still, the majority are anonymous defendants awaiting trial in obscure cases. They have already refused a meal I believe they refused breakfast and lunch, said Sarah Baumgartel, a federal public defender, who said she learned of the hunger strike from a detained prisoner whom she represents. My client is in the unit, hes participating, she added. She declined to identify the client, out of concern he would be singled out. The shutdown has also affected the dispensing of medication to some prisoners in the jail. Last week, a prosecutor said at a federal court hearing in Manhattan that his office had been informed we dont have any reason to dispute this that because of the shutdown, there are issues with prescribing medication. [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] The first time Vienna Rye noticed her cellphone acting up was at a 2014 protest march against the police killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. The device shut down abruptly as she was filming, even though the battery was fully charged. She and other activists who had similar experiences at subsequent Black Lives Matter protests cellphones suddenly switching off or losing reception, messaging apps going haywire began to suspect the police were monitoring their telephones with Stingrays, devices that mimic cell towers and intercept communications. Ms. Vienna and two other activists filed a public records request for information about police surveillance of the Millions March, a local group affiliated with the Movement for Black Lives. The Police Department rejected the request with a blanket statement that it could neither confirm nor deny whether the records existed, relying on what is known as the Glomar response, which is usually invoked only by defense or intelligence agencies in cases of national security. The activists sued the department with the help of the New York Civil Liberties Union. On Monday, a state judge ruled the police had to acknowledge whether or not they had used devices to monitor or interfere with the protesters cellphones, rejecting the Police Departments argument that releasing the information would compromise its counterterrorism and criminal investigations. Portly, bald and a recipient of a double corneal transplant, Mr. Cifuentes was so close to the kingpin, he testified last week, that Mr. Guzman liked to call him both his right-hand and left-hand man. The two men lived together at several mountain hide-outs, conducting their business and playing cat and mouse with the Mexican army, from 2007 until Mr. Cifuentes was arrested in 2013. Though Mr. Guzman lived and worked in several different cities at the start of his career, he fled to the mountains outside Culiacan in 2002 or so after he escaped from prison (the first time) in the bottom of a laundry cart. For more than a decade, Mr. Cifuentes said, Mr. Guzman shuttled back and forth between seven different properties, all of them in a rural region called the Golden Triangle, where most of Mexicos pot and poppy plants are grown. The accommodations at the compounds were rustic, mostly composed of humble pine huts, Mr. Cifuentes said, with barracks for the drug lords 50-man security team. But behind their tinted windows, Mr. Guzmans personal houses had all of the amenities: a washer/drier, a satellite dish and a DVD player hooked up to a plasma-screen TV. Aside from his bodyguards, Mr. Guzman was tended to in the mountains by a pair of maids and a small staff of assistants who would write down tasks in hand-held notebooks, Mr. Cifuentes said, and manage the accounts for the $200,000 the kingpin spent monthly on payroll, provisions and as petty cash. The assistants also kept track of Mr. Guzmans appointments, scheduling visits from his wife, his business partners and several of his mistresses. Mr. Cifuentes was working as one of these assistants in late 2007 when he received an unusual assignment: He was asked to help make a film about his boss. The idea, he said, had come from his own former wife, who thought it was unfair that the media was profiting from the kingpins cinematic story. The plan, Mr. Cifuentes said, was to have Mr. Guzman write a book. This literary property would then be turned into a movie, he explained, so the crime lord could make the money. ALBANY [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] After years of lagging behind other states, New York radically overhauled its system of voting and elections on Monday, passing several bills that would allow early voting, preregistration of minors, voting by mail and sharp limits on the influence of money. The bills, which were passed by the State Legislature on Monday evening, bring New York in line with policies in other liberal bastions like California and Washington, and they would quiet, at least for a day, complaints about the states antiquated approach to suffrage. Their swift passage marked a new era in the State Capitol. Democrats, who assumed full control this month after decades in which the Legislature was split, say they will soon push through more of their priorities, from strengthening abortion rights to approving the Child Victims Act, which would make it easier for victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue their assailants. Today we are saying to New York that we are about tearing barriers down, Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the leader of the Senate Democrats, said earlier on Monday. DETROIT A decade ago, Chrysler was the weakest of the three Detroit automakers and staved off collapse with the help of a government-backed bankruptcy. Today, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles appears to be the sturdiest by many measures, in large part because it stopped making sedans well before its competitors. The companys chief executive, Mike Manley, said Monday that Fiat Chrysler was strong enough that it no longer needed a merger or an alliance options it was pursuing as recently as a year ago. We went from survival mode in 2009 to a level of stability with a balance sheet and resources that we have never enjoyed in the past, Mr. Manley told reporters at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. We are now in a position where we can deliver on our next five years as an independent company. By leaving the car business, where many companies are losing money, Fiat Chrysler was able to pour resources into higher-margin and better-selling sport utility vehicles and trucks. In 2018, Fiat Chryslers sales in the United States increased 9 percent, powered by its Jeep brand, while the overall market was flat and domestic sales fell at General Motors, Ford Motor, Toyota and other big producers. By Saturday, Aurelie Dupont, the artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet announced that Mr. Polunin would not appear with the company. A press representative confirmed that Ms. Dupont had written in an internal email that while she recognized Mr. Polunins talent, she had discovered public statements that had shocked her, and which didnt correspond to her values or to those of the institution she represents. In response to a request for further comment from Ms. Dupont, a Paris Opera Ballet press representative said she has already responded and clearly stated her position. Other social media commenters were critical of Ms. Duponts decision. A renouncement that puts in question her authority and confirms political correctness, wrote one, while another wrote on Facebook that Mr. Polunin merely expressed things any rapper band has been bawling with impunity for decades. Mr. Polunins public unraveling is dismaying to the many who consider him a huge talent whose best dance years have been largely lost to the ballet world. Many of his followers have expressed concern for his mental health; others have defended his right to hold whatever political views he pleases. Mr. Polunin did not respond to a request for comment. His story is well known to ballet fans, and was the subject of a 2016 documentary, Dancer. The film shows his passage from an impoverished childhood in Kherson, Ukraine, to his arrival at the Royal Ballet School, speaking no English, at 13, and on to his meteoric success at the Royal Ballet, where he became the companys youngest-ever principal dancer at 19. Two years later, he abruptly resigned, declaring he was bored with ballet, its punishing physical regimen and meager financial rewards. He tweeted about taking drugs, drinking and going to parties, and about the tattoo parlor he co-owned. The British media wrote endlessly about him, calling him the bad boy of ballet, and bemoaning the loss of his talent. Mr. Polunin has since pursued a film career, appearing in small roles in Murder on the Orient Express, Red Sparrow and The White Crow. But his dance career has faltered. After leaving the Royal Ballet, he danced with the Stanislavsky Company in Moscow and he has been a permanent guest artist with the Bayerisches Staatsballett in Munich. (Igor Zelensky, the director of the Munich Ballet, was unavailable for comment.) But Mr. Polunins own venture, Project Polunin, and a joint program with his former girlfriend, the ballerina Natalia Osipova, have met with a tepid critical reception. He is currently scheduled to appear at the London Palladium at the end of May in what is described as a new mixed program. Some Democrats are pushing for a slower march toward single-payer. The Medicare-X Choice Act would make Medicare plans available to all consumers through Obamacares insurance exchanges. The Choose Medicare Act would allow individuals and employers to buy into Medicare. And the State Public Option Act would enable people to buy into state Medicaid plans. Some state legislators are not waiting for Congress to act. For the last four years, the New York Assembly has passed the New York Health Act, which would install single-payer in the Empire State. Now that Democrats have taken control of the state Senate for the first time in eight years, that bill could advance. In 2017, the California state Senate passed a measure that would establish single-payer within the Golden State. The assembly shelved the proposal over concerns about its cost. But the state's newly elected governor, Democrat Gavin Newsom, is on record in favor of the approach. So dont expect the issue to go away anytime soon. Promising state-funded health care to everyone is easy. Paying for it is a lot harder. Many feminist scholars are challenging the rightfulness of long-standing patriarchal traditions in Christianity, Judaism and Islam, calling into question time-honored translations of verses in the Bible, Torah and Quran that have been used to justify a male-dominated hierarchy. Social media is seen as a big catalyst in boosting activism and forging solidarity among women of faith who seek more equality. The #MeToo movement has been evoked even in the ranks of conservative U.S. denominations as a reason why women should expect more respectful treatment from male clergy, and a greater share of leadership roles. "Women are looking for opportunities to have their voices heard and be more effective in their religious traditions," said Gina Messina, a religion professor at Ursuline College in Ohio who describes herself as both a feminist and a Catholic theologian. "Using social media is an opportunity to say what they think." She co-founded a blog called Feminism and Religion that has scores of contributors around the world and followers in more than 180 countries. She also co-edited a collection of essays by Christian, Jewish and Muslim women explaining why they haven't abandoned their patriarchal-leaning faiths. INDIANAPOLIS There is no need for the U.S. Supreme Court to wade into a dispute over who owns the Lake Michigan shoreline, since the Indiana Supreme Court already has clearly resolved the question in favor of the state. That's the argument recently forwarded by the Indiana attorney general's office to the nation's highest court, in response to a final effort by Bobbie and Don Gunderson, of Long Beach, to claim ownership and exclusive control of the beach to the water's edge. As a preliminary matter, the state urges the Supreme Court not even to consider the Gunderson petition for review, because the Gundersons sold their lake-adjacent Long Beach property in 2015 and no longer have a direct interest in the outcome of the case. Solicitor General Thomas Fisher, who represents Indiana at the Supreme Court, pointed out that under federal court precedents, "An actual controversy must be extant at all stages of review, not merely at the time the complaint is filed." The Gundersons' sale of their property, its subdivision into two lots and the second sale of the two properties to individuals living in Chicago and England, means there is no reason for the Supreme Court to look at the Gundersons' appeal, Fisher said. INDIANAPOLIS Gov. Eric Holcomb isn't providing many specific details about what will be in his third "State of the State" address Tuesday night. But the Republican said Hoosiers definitely will want to watch or listen to it. "I've got a few cards up my sleeve that no one knows about yet," Holcomb said. The 30-minute speech, delivered to a joint session of the Indiana General Assembly, is expected to largely focus on Holcomb's "Next Level" agenda, which he said is all about "leaning-in to the future and embracing it." That generally includes reorienting Indiana's education system to focus on career training, investing in infrastructure, combating the opioid epidemic and delivering great government service at the lowest possible cost. Holcomb told reporters Monday that he also will advocate for a strong bias crime statute, so Indiana no longer is one of just five states that does not enhance criminal penalties for crimes motivated by bias or hate toward particular characteristics. The governor also hinted that he'll be making an education-related policy announcement: "I would ask that any teacher, superintendent or student tune in as well," he said. LAPORTE A woman is in stable condition at an Indianapolis hospital after being shot Monday during an argument with a man she knows, according to police. The man, who was not identified by police, reportedly fled the scene. Police said they were called out at 9:30 p.m. Monday to a residence in the 1100 block of Clay Street in LaPorte where the shooting took place. They found a woman inside the residence with at least one gunshot wound. The shooting appears to be an isolated incident, police said. Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call Detective Bowman or Detective Sgt. Airy at the LaPorte Police Department 219-362-9446. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Germann said the group envisioned, "what a good case is going to look like." Reynolds said he traveled to Indianapolis twice to testify on behalf of the new law when it was being debated by the Indiana General Assembly. It took effect July 1. Proponents said the measure will give them a needed tool in the growing battle against illegal opiate drug use. But Larry Landis, executive director with the Indiana Public Defender Council, warned during the debate it is a misguided reaction that could over penalize many drug offenders and potentially cost taxpayers a lot more money. Then-state Rep. Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, who was a co-author of the legislation, said the war against drugs demands toughness and tenderness. "This is the toughness part," he said. Former Porter County Superior Court Judge Nancy Vaidik, who now serves as chief judge on the Indiana Court of Appeals, referenced the new law a few weeks ago in a ruling from another county that tossed out a felony murder charge against a man accused of selling what he believed to be heroin, which resulted in the death of another person. He forced the woman into her trunk and drove her to several ATMs, including one in Munster where he used her PIN to withdraw $140 from her bank account, court records state. Clay then drove the woman to a vacant commercial business in Burns Harbor, where he sexually assaulted her. She resisted when he attempted to force her back into the car's trunk, so he strangled her until she fell unconscious and used lighter fluid to set her on fire in an attempt to kill her, the plea agreement states. Surveillance video showed it took the woman five minutes to extinguish the flames on her body. She then walked half a mile with much of her clothing burned off and only one shoe to seek help at a McDonald's restaurant, records state. She was in a hospital for months, where she underwent numerous surgeries and had multiple organ failures, records state. Her past medical bills total more than $2.4 million. The lives of the woman and her family members, who care for her, were forever changed, records state. Clay later claimed the attack on the prison caseworker was a suicide attempt, but the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago didn't buy his argument. CROWN POINT A Markham man threw a brick through his ex-girlfriend's window, broke into her home and began swinging a bat at her and her current boyfriend as they slept, court records allege. Michael Scott, 33, is accused of carrying out the attack while the woman's 10-year-old daughter was in the Gary home. Scott was charged Friday in Lake Criminal Court with burglary, six counts of battery, residential entry and two counts of criminal mischief. The woman told police she and her current boyfriend were sleeping about 5:30 a.m. Dec. 9 when she awoke and saw Scott, her ex-boyfriend, swing a black metal bat at them, records say. Scott pushed the woman and hit the man with the bat, causing him to drop to his knees, records say. The woman was hit in the elbow and hip with the bat as she continued to fight, and Scott allegedly punched the man in the head. Scott is accused of leaving the house, returning to break the man's headphones and leaving again, records state. At some point, he allegedly broke out the windows to the woman's SUV. The woman told police Scott called after he left and said he broke her boyfriend's windows, records say. When she told him he broke her car windows, he allegedly apologized. The new "Blackout" exhibit at BESS Art Exposure in Merrillville highlights contemporary African-American art. "BESS Art Exposure has a mandate to engage the public in open dialogue about issues and ideas that affect African-American communities," owner Jesse Johnson said. "'Blackout' is the theme of the exhibition in which artists speak on the culture and controversy that surrounds them. Every African-American may not feel the same way on all issues as you will see in their individual works. The issue of 'am I black enough' or 'am I too black' often play on the minds of some artists as well as African-Americans in general." Johnson said he wanted, with this exhibit, to create a space for African-American artists to introduce viewers to their perspectives. "Although our experiences may vary, you're going to know everyone is black by their work," he said. "We are all connected by our collective blackness. However, as individuals, we have a unique narrative to share through our respective pieces of art. The foundation or our artistry is that we are all black. Some artists might follow a trend of their favorite artists, while other artists speak on issues of race, discrimination, or an appreciation for those who fought for justice and equal rights." Northwest Indiana Forum President and CEO Heather Ennis will talk to the Society for Human Resource Management of Northwest Indiana about who's hiring, how to find the talent and the overall local workforce climate Wednesday. "We are kicking the new year off with an exceptional program with regard to the workforce climate here in Northwest Indiana," NWI SHRM President Cyndi M. Harbin said. Ennis will address the professional organization for local human resources professionals from 12 to 1 p.m. Wednesday at the Avalon Manor at 3550 E. Lincoln Highway in Hobart. Registration and networking starts at 11 a.m. and lunch is served at 11:30 a.m. Ennis oversees the Portage-based NWI Forum, a nonprofit that pursues economic development and job creation throughout the seven-county region. Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. Securing our borders whether through the construction of a wall along the whole or part of our border, the use of advanced technology such as surveillance drones, or the deployment of additional border patrol agents is necessary to maintain respect for our laws. The border between the United States and Mexico stretches 1,951 miles with roughly 650 miles of it reinforced by permanent border fencing. In 2018 alone, Customs and Border Patrol apprehended 396,579 individuals attempting to cross our southern border between legal ports of entry. Homeland Security estimates our ability to stop illegal entry at 50 percent, meaning as many as 400,000 people entered our country and we have no record of who they are, how long they will stay or what their intentions are in the United States. In addition to the national security risk, open stretches of border encourage gangs and human traffickers to exploit potential migrants, charging thousands of dollars to guide them dangerously unprepared across remote stretches of the border. Securing our southern border would make it significantly harder for human traffickers and drug smugglers to cross into the United States, potentially saving thousands of lives while also increasing our ability to detect and deter threats to our national security. Commissioners also heard from Lincoln County Sheriff Jerome Kramer. He said the Sheriffs Office solicited bids for new pickups but received bids from only one dealership, and those bids were are not acceptable. Kramer said the Sheriffs Office would like to trade in three Dodge Durango SUVs, each with about 145,000 to 150,000 miles on it, for the pickups. Lee Janssen offered a trade-in value of $1,000 for one of the Durangos and $1,500 for each of the other two toward the purchase of three 2019 Dodge Ram trucks at about $26,000 each. Kramer said the Durangos no longer meet the needs of the Sheriffs Office, but can provide good service for another owner, and he said he believed the trade-in values are too low. At his recommendation, commissioners voted not to accept the bid. The sheriff's office will be setting a date to accept new bids. Flash French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Monday that his government granted one billion euros (1.15 billion U.S. dollars) loan to Iraq to support reconstruction and stability efforts in the areas destroyed by the war against the extremist Islamic State (IS) militants. "France has decided to allocate a loan of one billion euros to Iraq to contribute to the reconstruction and stabilization efforts in the country," Le Drian told a joint news conference with his Iraqi counterpart Mohammed al-Hakim. "France has always been on the side of Iraq in war and peace, and now in reconstruction of the country," he said, adding that France has to continue its humanitarian assistance in areas that were under control of IS group. For his part, al-Hakim said that "many political and economic issues have been discussed (with Le Drian), including the entry of French companies into Iraq to participate in reconstruction efforts, as well as cooperation in cultural, educational fields." Al-Hakim also said that the two sides discussed the situation in Syria and stressed that it should stabilize and that all the areas in Syria must return to government control. The French chief of diplomacy arrived in Baghdad earlier in the day on an official visit and held a meeting with al-Hakim as well as the Iraqi President Barham Salih, Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi and the Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi. A statement by Abdul Mahdi's office said that the premier received the French minister and the two held a meeting, during which Abdul Mahdi hailed France's support to Iraq "in its war against Daesh (IS group), and its coordination in supporting security and stability in the (Middle East) region." Le Drian said that "Iraq has become a key player in stability and France will go forward with the partnership and cooperation with Iraq," the statement said. France is part of a U.S.-led international coalition tasked with helping the Iraqi security forces in the fight against IS militants by carrying out airstrikes against the IS in Iraq and Syria and providing military equipment and training to Iraqi forces. The Redmi Note 7 was released for sale today (January 15, 2019) in its home country, China. The Snapdragon 660 phone with the 48MP camera sensor reportedly took only 9 minutes to sell out completely. Redmi sources are quoted as claiming that "hundreds of thousands" of units were sold in this time. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 5G , Accessory , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Rumor , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker Redmi appears to have had a very successful first day as a commercial smartphone brand. This term had had a previous life as a Xiaomi smartphone line. However, it now sells its own devices under its own name. It released its first device, the Note 7, today in China. It is also the first device to feature a 48MP Samsung sensor among its main triple-camera set-up. Redmi representatives claim that all units earmarked for this event have gone, and that this took only 9 minutes. This is a potentially impressive chunk that has been taken out of the million devices Redmi reportedly plans to sell in January. On the other hand, the brand has not released official, accurate figures for this inaugural sales event yet. Should their initial claims be proven true, they may well become dwarfed by the Note 7's rumored sister device in any case. This device is also thought to feature a 48MP sensor, but one that is Sony IMX rather than Samsung. In addition, the 'Note 7 Pro' may also be powered by a superior SoC. Nevertheless, Lu Weibing, who is the brand's general manager, and also a Xiaomi executive, stated that Redmi had "won its first battle" as a brand. He also thanked workers and fans of the new sub-OEM on social media, for their hard work and support respectively. It will be interesting to see if Redmi can keep the pace set by its apparent initial achievement going in the future. Caleb Slinkard was hired as the editor of the Norman Transcript in August of 2015. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University-Commerce and previously was in charge of several newspapers in northeast Texas. Follow Caleb Slinkard Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today A 66-year-old man sustained serious injuries Sunday in a one-vehicle crash Sunday night in Mineola. Kenneth J. Kleffman, 66, of Glenwood, was taken by ambulance to Methodist Jennie Edmundson Hospital in Council Bluffs. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} He was later transported to the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha for further treatment. Investigators from the Iowa State Patrol determined that just before 6 p.m., Kleffman was southbound on Fourth Street near the Maple Street intersection in a 1994 Ford Explorer. He lost control of the Explorer, which crashed into the south ditch on Maple Street. The incident remains under investigation. The Mills County Sheriffs Office assisted at the scene. Belt noted during the forum, Council Bluffs wasnt complaining when there were five rural representatives on the board. Its ebb and flow. At the forum, Supervisor Justin Schultz said he is not in favor of districts, expressing his concern it would be used as a tool for a political party to gain seats. Schultz acknowledged the county is large and that supervisors work to represent everyone. Were the second largest county in Iowa. Its not easy to represent everyone out there but theres five of us and we do our best, he said. On Monday, Drake said shed have to be persuaded to support a change. Ive never been convinced its the way for Pottawattamie County, she said, noting the downside to districts is it can limit the candidate pool. One of the biggest reasons I support the current system is everyone is free to run for an office every two years. Thats a huge plus in my view, she said. You wouldnt have to wait four years until your district had an opening. Drake noted that the district system does provide the benefit of each area having a representative. A message left for Wichman on Monday wasnt immediately returned. The name of a Council Bluffs man found dead after an apartment fire Jan. 8 has been released by officials. The body of Charles Ruckman, 59, was found after a fire at 221 N. 30th St., Council Bluffs Fire Department officials announced Monday. The autopsy, performed by the Iowa State Medical Examiners Office, ruled the preliminary cause of Ruckmans death was smoke inhalation. Ruckman lived at the apartment, the department said. Firefighters responded to the scene Jan. 8 at about 3 p.m. for the fire. Ruckman was the only resident who lived in one of the four units at the complex, the department said. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. A Council Bluffs man pleaded guilty and was sentenced in court Monday for attacking a man in October, according to court records. Joshua Kane Cannon, 28, pleaded guilty to amended charges of robbery and willful injury causing serious injury. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, of which he must serve at least seven years before being eligible for parole. According to Council Bluffs Police, officers met with the alleged victim on Oct. 31 who reported Cannon and another man came to his home near 24th Street and Avenue G at 10 p.m. The man opened the door and let Cannon and the other man inside, thinking they wanted to borrow money, the report states. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Cannon reportedly told the man, Im gonna take it all, and then threatened to kill him, the report reads. Cannon was holding a metal object in his hand at the time, the man told officers, and stated he told Cannon there were cameras inside his home. Cannon then hit, the man with the metal object, and the man did not remember anything after that including going to the hospital, police stated. Police received video recorded at the mans house showing Cannon and the unidentified man on the porch, then leaving the house with several items, police said. Massachusetts laws restrict debt collectors actions and govern collection lawsuits. If you live in Massachusetts and you're dealing with a debt collector or facing a collection lawsuit, it's important to know what debt collectors canand what they can'tdo. Similar to the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, Massachusetts has a debt collection statute. Under Massachusetts law, some collection tactics are illegal. And, if you do get sued, the creditor often has to provide you with specific information about the debt before it can get a money judgment against you. If the collector doesn't comply with the law, you can raise this noncompliance as a defense to the suit. Illegal Debt Collection Practices in Massachusetts Under Massachusetts law, collectors are prohibited from communicating with debtors in such a manner as to harass or embarrass the alleged debtor. Prohibited actions include, but are not limited to, communicating with the debtor at an unreasonable hour or unreasonable frequency, and using threats of violence, offensive language, or making threats to take some action which the creditor doesn't take in the usual course of business. (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93 49). Also, the Massachusetts Attorney General has issued debt collection regulations that establish standards defining unfair and deceptive acts and practices in debt collections. These regulations prohibit unfair, deceptive, and unreasonable debt collection practices such as: Calling you at home more than twice for each debt in any seven-day period, or more than twice for each debt in any 30-day period somewhere other than your home, like your workplace. (See Armata v. Target Corporation, 480 Mass. 14 (2018)). Calling you at work if you've requested that they don't call you there. An oral request is valid for only ten days, while a written request is valid until you remove the restriction. Calling you without identifying themselves. Contacting you directly if you're represented by a lawyer. Calling you at times other than your regular waking hours. (Waking hours are presumed to be between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Though if your waking hours are different than these hours and you tell the debt collector that, then they can't contact you outside of your actual normal waking hours.) Going to your home at times other than your normal waking hours, and visiting you more than once in any 30-day period for each debtunless you give permission for additional visits. Threatening that nonpayment will result in arrest or imprisonment, or any action that it can't legally take or that the collector doesn't intend to take. Using profane or obscene language. (940 Code Mass. Regs. 7.04). Failing to comply with these regulations constitutes a violation of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93. Massachusetts' Debt Collection Laws Apply to Original Creditors and Others Different from federal law, Massachusetts' restrictions on debt collection activity apply to all of the following: original creditors (including their lawyers), third-party debt collection agencies, and buyers of delinquent debt who hire third parties, including lawyers, to collect debt on their behalf. (940 Code Mass. Regs. 7.03). How Debt Collection Lawsuits Work in Massachusetts When collection tactics don't workmeaning, you don't pay upthe creditor might file a collection lawsuit against you. If you don't file an answer to the suit within the response period, the plaintiff (the creditor) can get a default judgment (an automatic win) against you. Once the plaintiff gets its judgment, it can use all sorts of collection methods against you, like wage garnishment or a bank levy, to get paid. Creditors typically find it easy to get default judgments because debtors often don't respond to collection lawsuits. But in these kinds of suits, the plaintiff's evidence is frequently flawed. Credit card companies and other creditors sell bad debts to debt purchasers, and paperwork tends to get lost along the way. The new owner of the debt might have trouble proving it owns the debt, calculating exactly how much you owe, or proving some other important aspect of its case. Massachusetts, unlike some other states, requires the plaintiff to provide specific evidence in collection suits. Special Requirements In Collection Lawsuits in Massachusetts Massachusetts Rule of Civil Procedure 8.1 requires a creditor that's filing a collection lawsuit to: file a detailed affidavit providing specific information about the debt, like the name of the original creditor, the name of the current debt owner, the date of the last payment, and the chain of ownership from the creditor to the current owner of the debt file an affidavit providing documentation of the debt, including legible copies of documents establishing the existence, amount, terms and conditions applicable to the debt, as well as other documentation about the debt verify the defendant's address before starting the suit (to ensure you get all of this information about the debt and notice about the legal action), and certify that the statute of limitations has not expired. By requiring the plaintiff to include this information along with the complaint, Massachusetts law ensures that consumers get critical information when facing a collection lawsuit. If any of this information is inaccurate or missing, you likely have grounds to fight the lawsuit. Arguably the most arduous requirement for the plaintiff is showing the chain of ownership, especially when the debt has been transferred multiple times. Under the rule, the plaintiff must show each bill of sale, assignment, or other document evidencing the transfer of ownership of the debt, beginning with the original creditor, and including a specific reference to your account number. If you're getting sued, you should review the complaint and accompanying documentation carefully to ensure the plaintiff has included proof of every transfer and that each transfer refers specifically to your account. If a complete chain of ownership leading up to the plaintiff who's suing you isn't present, then the plaintiff doesn't have the right (called "standing") to sue you. Applicability of Massachusetts Rules of Civil Procedure 8.1 and 55.1 These rules apply to any action in which the plaintiff seeks to collect a debt relative to a transaction primarily for personal, family, or household purposes pursuant to a revolving credit agreement, like credit card debt, that's not secured by real property. If you have any questions or doubts about whether the rules apply to your case, talk to a local lawyer. Protections Against Default Judgments Under Massachusetts Rule of Civil Procedure 55.1, the plaintiff can't get a default judgment unless its lawyer files an affidavit stating: the lawyer has personally reviewed the documentation required under Rule 8.1 the documentation meets all of the requirements of Rule 8.1, and the plaintiff is entitled to judgment in the amount the plaintiff claims. The plaintiff must serve its request for a default judgment to you. If the plaintiff serves you the information by mailing it to your residential address, it must re-verify your address within three months before asking for the default judgment. Talk to a Lawyer If you're having trouble with an abusive debt collector or facing a collection lawsuit in Massachusetts and you think the plaintiff has failed to meet the requirements discussed in this article, consider talking to a lawyer. A lawyer can advise you what to do in your specific circumstances. Flash With the "yellow vest" social rebellion showing no sign of abating, French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed to build a "new contract" for the nation with which he hopes to "transform anger into solutions" and defuse the month-long street protests that had shaken his leadership. In a long letter addressed to the French people and published by his office late on Sunday, Macron invited discontented people to participate in a three-month consultation, which he called "an unprecedented initiative", and of which he would "draw all the conclusions". Widely criticized for his top-down governing style and "arrogance problem", Macron now called for an open debate with "no banned issue". "We won't agree on everything, which is normal in a democracy. But at least we'll show we're a people which is not afraid of talking, exchanging, debating," the president wrote. "However, we must ask ourselves questions to go further." Accordingly, he raises a series of questions over taxes, green energy, institutional reform and citizenship -- the national debate's main themes to be discussed during meetings in town halls across French cities. Struggling to win back his authority, the head of state expects the French themselves to come up with adequate alternative responses to their own complaints, which they had already expressed in "grievance books" opened up by mayors of 5,000 communes. "Your proposals will therefore make it possible to build a new contract for the nation, to structure the action of the government and Parliament, but also France's positions at European and international level," he pledged. The 41-year-old ex-investment banker stressed that the debate "is neither an election nor a referendum", telling the French "I have not forgotten that I was elected with a project, with major objectives to which I remain faithful. "We will not go back on the measures we have taken to correct this in order to encourage investment and make work pay more," he stressed, referring to pro-business economic reforms, including the wealth tax, known as ISF. "They have just been voted on and are just beginning to take effect. Parliament will assess them in a transparent manner," he said, as protests continue to mount against his policy, which critics say favors the rich. With an eye on this spring's European election -- a crucial contest for the pro-European Macron to defend his political craftiness -- he is betting on the proposed three-month debate and face-to-face meetings with people to quell social unrest and help him regain the initiative. He pledged to make the consultation's conclusions public within a month of the end of the debate on March 15. However, doubts linger as to whether these conclusions would be directly translated into more participatory democracy to shape the government's policy as promised by Macron. To Jean-Michel Aphatie, a political analyst, "Undoubtedly, it is a good debate ... but full of surprises. "This debate was decided without much thought to respond to 'yellow vest' crisis. Emmanuel Macron decided to do it but has he measured all the implications, especially regarding his legitimacy to solve the crisis? It's not sure," he told the local broadcaster Europe1. "Can he apply solutions that he does not believe in? No, it's stupid ... But does he have the means to refuse what could emerge from the majority following the debate?" he asked. Macron, who came to power in May 2017 on promises of a new and fair recipe for the eurozone's leading power, has witnessed tough months marked mainly by the "yellow vest" movement, a nationwide protest against his way of governing, which started as a campaign against a surge in fuel prices and high living costs. Despite capitulating over plans for fuel taxes and offering 10-billion-euro (11.46 billion U.S. dollars) concessions to improve the French people's daily life, the president is still struggling to defuse the anger. The 9th weekend action in row lured more than 80,000 people on Saturday, a turnout higher than a week earlier. One of the "yellow vest" representatives, Benjamin Cauchy, wrote on Twitter, "The letter (is about) a debate whose outcome is already known. Emmanuel Macron is letting us know this will serve no real purpose. What a lack of respect." Speaking to BFMTV news channel, Jordan Bardella, head of the far-right National Rally's list for the European election, said "it's a lot for nothing." "Emmanuel Macron is very disconnected from everyday realities. People are asking for more dignity, more democracy, fiscal peace and a significant decrease in taxes ... The French want an end to massive immigration. And again, Macron does not take that into account," he said. In the northern French commune of Bourgtheroulde, Macron will officially kick off the national debate on Tuesday. This will be the first meeting of his planned tour of town halls around the country. An Elabe poll, released last Wednesday, found that only 40 percent of citizens intend to take part in the debate. Another poll conducted by Odoxa found that 70 percent of French people believed that the debate would not be useful. Netflix has acquired the rights to the Paramount Pictures horror film Eli, which was shot in New Orleans but -- thanks to the magic of digital filmmaking -- was set in Beauregard Parishs Gothic Hanging Jail in the west Louisiana town of DeRidder, according to The Associated Press. Directed by "Sinister 2" filmmaker Ciaran Foy, the film tells the story of a boy (played by Charlie Shotwell) with a mysterious illness who is being treated at a secluded clinic that becomes a haunted prison. That prison: the Gothic Hanging Jail in DeRidder, the building and grounds of which are being re-created digitally for the film. Those digital images will be stitched together with scenes shot in New Orleans for the final cut, according to a 2018 Associated Press report. Built in 1914 in the Collegiate Gothic style, the jail became known as the "Hanging Jail" after the 1928 execution there of two men convicted of murdering a cab driver. It recently underwent extensive renovation and opened for tours in November 2016, the AP reported. Netflix prices are going up: report In addition to Shotwell, Eli stars Sadie Sink (Stranger Things), Kelly Reilly (Sherlock Holmes ), Max Martini (Fifty Shades of Grey) and Lili Taylor (The Nun). Before its sale from Paramount to Netflix, it had been scheduled for a January 2019 release. It is now scheduled for release on an unspecified 2019 date. Eli was shot in spring 2018 from a Black List script penned by David Chirchirillo. According to paperwork filed by the production with the state, it was shot on a total budget of $14.1 million. Of that, $10 million was spent in-state, including $7.3 million earmarked for Louisiana payroll. Twice during the current legislative session, Senate President Page Cortez has taken extraordinary steps to help certain gambling companies that are represented by a former colleague who is close to Cortez. SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) recipients in Louisiana will receive their February benefits early, according to a press release issued by the Department of Children & Family Services on Monday (Jan. 14). Most recipients should expect to receive benefits either on or before January 20. The agency stressed that these are not additional benefits but an advance on February benefits. Recipients should make sure to carefully budget their SNAP benefits to last them through the entire month of February, the agency advised in the press release. After concerns were raised that the shutdown of parts of the federal government could affect SNAP benefits USDA secretary Sonny Perdue asked states to issue February benefits by Jan. 20, The Associated Press reported on Jan. 8. The program, along with school lunches, food distributions and child nutrition programs will also be funded through February. DCFS said that Louisiana will continue to accept and process SNAP applications through the shutdown. They warned however that any benefits approved after federal funding runs out will be in a suspended status. For more information visit www.dcfs.la.gov. The New Orleans Film Society is feeling the beat. The local group behind the annual New Orleans Film Festival has announced a new documentary series featuring screenings of films "by and about New Orleans musicians." Titled "Seeing Music," the series kicks off Feb. 5 with a screening of "Closeup: Tank and the Bangas," about the rise to national prominence of the popular local band. It will be followed by a panel discussion featuring band members in conversation with director Charlie Steiner. Local actor and musician Derrick Freeman will moderate. As with all screenings in the series, it will start at 7:30 p.m. at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts' Lupin Hall, 2800 Chartres St. Doors open at 7 p.m. The event will feature a cash bar. Put your Saints fandom to the test with our Who Dat crossword That will be followed on March 14 by "Buckjumping," local director Lily Keber's award-winning documentary about the role of dance in New Orleans culture, from second-lines to marching bands to Mardi Gras Indians. Keber will lead a discussion of the film afterward with some of the subjects who appear in it. A third screening has been scheduled for April 11, although the title and participants for that event have yet to be announced. Tickets are $10 per screening (free for New Orleans Film Society members and NOCCA students) and can be purchased through the New Orleans Film Society website. Seeing Music is presented by the New Orleans Film Society in partnership with The NOCCA Institute, WWOZ and Offbeat magazine. Most of us saw the Rolling Stones comin'. But Katy Perry for Weekend 1 of New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival? You surprised us with that one, Jazz Fest. At the Jazz Fest 2019 headliner announcement news conference on Tuesday, Jan. 15, Jazz Fest producer Quint Davis said Perry would perform the first Saturday, April 27. In 2017, Perry visited New Orleans along with Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan as judges for the American Idol television talent hunt. And she seems to like us. I love New Orleans, Perry told NOLA.com at the time. "I came here two years ago for Halloween. Ive spent time here, Ive been on one of those air boats, Ive seen some gators. I mean, I love the culture here, she continued. Its so hard to find culture that still exists in America sometimes. Especially (for) me, being from California. Its really nice to see authenticity in a city. Perry performed in New Orleans almost exactly a year ago, at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. If her Jazz Fest show is anything like that show, were in for a treat. NOLA.com reporter Doug MacCash wrote in January 2018 that Perry appeared as the ringmaster of a surrealistic space-age circus. Forget the lasers and big-screen projections of your ordinary arena rock show. Perry provided the sort of psychedelic extravaganza last seen when Alice slipped down the rabbit hole. Imagine two-story-tall, insect-eating plants, a chorus line of dancers with television screens where their heads should be and a pair of gargantuan inflated lips, so huge and eerily authentic that they would have made Salvador Dali gasp. Those amazing lips literally consumed Perry at the climax of her romping recital of I Kissed a Girl. Katy Perry's surrealistic circus of song wows New Orleans MacCash wrote that Perry performed the relatively sedate Thinking of You while gorgeously costumed as a diamond-encrusted Art Deco goddess hovering over the audience on the planet Saturn, as a blizzard of confetti fell from the rafters. Absolutely everything was a spectacle. And beneath the stagecraft phantasmagoria was a steady stream of Perrys snappy, unpretentious, apolitical, anti-angsty pop anthems that had the older members of the audience dancing. Rolling Stones will headline 2019 New Orleans Jazz Fest: Its true! Tickets to Jazz Fest go on sale Friday, Jan 18. But on Thursday, Jan. 17, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, Plaza Level, a limited number of tickets for Louisianians only will go on sale for the Rolling Stones show, for $185 each, the Jazz Fest website says. Day-specific tickets will be required for May 2. Actress and Broadway legend Carol Channing has died at age 97, her publicist confirmed, The Associated Press reported. She died Tuesday, Jan. 15, NPR reported. Times-Picayune theater critic David Cuthbert spoke to Channing in 2008, who told him that I have my honorary doctorate and I make house calls to classrooms, where I actually teach what Ive learned in the theater.'' Cuthbert noted that when Channing played the Saenger Theatre in Hello, Dolly! she spoke to classes of high school students after every performance. She visited the New Orleans Recreation Department Theatre and allowed its longtime program director Ty Tracy to bring up a gang of his theater kids to her hotel room after one of her performances in the Blue Room. She answered every one of their questions and told theater stories until 2 a.m., Cuthbert wrote. For decades, the Blue Room at the Roosevelt Hotel was where you saw the stars. Musicians who performed there also include Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Tina Turner. Cuthbert said she was the first big star he interviewed. I told her, You taught me what makes a good theater photograph -- life in facial expressions, reactions, something happening within the frame. Channing performed with trumpeter Al Hirt and Ella Fitzgerald at Super Bowl VI in 1972 in Tulane Stadium, which doubled as a tribute to then-recently-deceased Louis Armstrong. She performed at a game between the Saints and the Philadelphia Eagles in 1969 at Tulane Stadium, riding in on a camel. (The Saints won). Chefs Shawn Hanlin, Allison Vines-Rushing and Zak Miller have joined the staff at the New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute, which welcomed its first class of 21 students on Jan. 7. New cooking institute welcomes first students, begins enthusiast classes Hanlin will be culinary education director. Vines-Rushing will be a culinary arts instructor and Miller will be a baking and pastry arts instructor. Together, these chefs bring decades of culinary experience steeped in New Orleans culture to the institute, Carol Markowitz, NOCHI executive director, said in a press release. We are excited to have them at the helm of the new program. Hanlin has more than 30 years of experience working in the field and teaching. He was executive director of the Oregon Coast Culinary Institute at Southwestern Oregon Community College for 11 years. Vines-Rushing, who was born in West Monroe, Louisiana, worked in New Orleans restaurants before moving to New York, where she earned national recognition in 2004 when she was named a James Beard Rising Star Chef Award while executive chef at Jacks Luxury Oyster Bar. She also worked for chef Terrance Brennan of Picholine and chef Alain Ducasse at Essex House Hotel while in New York. She and her husband, Slade Rushing, who is now executive chef at Brennans, returned to New Orleans in 2005. They opened Longbranch restaurant in Abita Springs. It closed in 2007. The couple then ran MiLa in the Renaissance Pere Marquette hotel for seven years. MiLA was named a top 10 restaurant by Brett Anderson in 2013; it closed in 2014. Miller, a New Orleans native, has been a lecturing instructor at the Culinary Institute of Americas Hyde Park (N.Y.) campus since 2015. He began his career as first cook, fine dining pastry with Victors Restaurant at The Ritz-Carlton New Orleans before moving on to the New Orleans Grill at the Windsor Court Hotel. He worked as pastry chef at Coquette in New Orleans and has worked at restaurants throughout the country, including Asiate, Picholine, Blue Hill at Stone Barns, D&M, Citronelle and PS7s. New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute offers culinary arts, and the baking and pastry arts certificate programs in a $32-million, five-story, 90,000-square-foot building at 725 Howard Ave., which also features the NOCHI Cafe by Gracious, run by Gracious Bakery, rental space for events and enthusiasts classes. The nonprofit school offers a fast-track, five-month program that includes culinary and hospitality training, with technical classes in cooking and baking as well as instruction on health and safety, restaurant planning and career development. Three mid-career educators were named teachers of the year by the Jefferson Parish public school system Tuesday (Jan. 15). They are: Jamie Staes of Congetta Trippe Janet Elementary in Marrero We expect excellence every single day in Jefferson Parish schools, and these teachers model that for their students and colleagues, Superintendent Cade Brumley said. Were proud to have these professionals represent the over 3,000 teachers in Jefferson, and wish them the best in their consideration for Louisiana Teacher of the Year. Heres the Jefferson Parish public schools calendar for 2019-2020 Staes, an educator for five years, teaches second grade at Janet Elementary. The school system said she teaches students to think about their growth and the power of yet, a way of encouraging them to envision what they can know. I begin to hear the student speak differently, and the students themselves begin to take notice in how they have grown and how they have become much better in a particular subject, Staes said. Students realize they are allowed to make mistakes, and they begin to try more and they feel more confident asking questions. Allen, a teacher for six years, teaches sixth-grade technology and science at Riverdale Middle. The school system said she thinks her job is to appreciate students for who they are and always to look beyond their background or abilities. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up When I look into my classroom, I dont see a group of students who need to pass a state test or must master every skill," she said. "I see individual students who all need love, respect and guidance. Termine, a teacher for six years, teaches English and Advanced Placement language and composition at Thomas Jefferson High. The school system said she tries to connect her classroom lessons to the outside world. It is important that my students see the importance of a work and are able to relate it back to their lives in some way, Termine said. Having them relate to the texts we are reading has made my lessons more engaging. Two taxes too much, Jefferson Parish School Board decides . . . . . . . Drew Broach covers Jefferson Parish politics and education, plus other odds and ends, for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Email: dbroach@nola.com. Facebook: Drew Broach TP. Twitter: drewbroach1. Google+: Drew Broach. You are here: Travel Flash Nadam celebrations showcase Inner Mongolia's ethnic culture and offer an ideal opportunity for travelers to explore more of what makes Hulunbuir a winter wonderland. Travelers bundle up so that only their eyes are exposed to the frigid winds-but their eyelashes quickly freeze. Not even hot water stays liquid at these temperatures. Visitors splash hot water into the air and watch it fall as snow and tiny icicles. This is what makes Inner Mongolia autonomous region's Hulunbuir city a winter wonderland for about seven months a year. The celebrated summer retreat is luring more visitors during the cold season. Travelers explore its snowy landscapes, activities and ethnic culture. Many are from the south, where snow is rare. They brave the chilly weather to build snowmen and stage snowball fights. Over 17.4 million tourists visited Hulunbuir from January to October last year. They generated about 60 billion yuan ($8.83 billion) in revenue. Hulunbuir recently celebrated the Winter Nadam Festival with performances of such ethnic traditions as horse riding. A man awaiting trial in a first-degree rape case rejected an offer from prosecutors Monday (Jan. 14) to plead guilty to a reduced charge and avoid a possible enhanced sentence if hes found to be a multiple offender. A jury last April unanimously convicted Seandell Kelly, 27, of second-degree kidnaping after watching a video prosecutors said showed him dragging a woman into an alleyway in the 2800 block of Florida Avenue in St. Roch on Nov. 30, 2016. Kelly is accused of beating and choking the woman unconscious before raping her in the alleyway. Jurors could not reach a verdict on the rape charge, and prosecutors said they intended to take him to trial again. Assistant District Attorney Angad Ghai said in court Monday that in lieu of another trial, the state was offering Kelly the chance to plead guilty to an amended charge of sexual battery for a 10-year sentence. That sentence would run consecutive to the 30 years hes already serving for kidnapping, Ghai said. Kelly also could plead guilty to two pending cases in criminal court simple criminal damage to property and domestic abuse battery and the sentences in those cases would run concurrent to his other sentences, Ghai said. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Also per the deal, Ghai said the state would not file a bill charging Kelly as a multiple offender. If hes found guilty under the states habitual offender statute, Ghai said Kellys sentence on the kidnaping charge could be enhanced to a maximum of 80 years. Kellys previous convictions in Orleans Parish include illegal carrying of a weapon and marijuana possession, and unauthorized use of a movable, disturbing the peace, resisting an officer and battery on a police officer in Jefferson Parish, according to court records. Kelly told Criminal Distirct Judge Robin Pittman Monday he was rejecting the states offer. Pittman set a multiple bill hearing for Jan. 24, and the second trial on the first-degree rape charge for April 8. The victim in the rape case, who testified at Kellys trial, died in May while in custody at the Orleans Justice Center. Jail officials said she was detoxing from opioids and alcohol. New Orleans Police announced that a person of interest in the fatal shooting of Young Greatness is now wanted for crimes related to the homicide, which occurred outside Waffle House in October. Police first named Donald Reaux, 38, as a person of interest wanted for questioning in the Oct. 29 homicide on Dec. 11 and issued an update Jan. 2, saying detectives were still seeking to question him as part of their investigation. On Tuesday (Jan. 15), police officially named Reaux as a suspect in crimes related to the shooting and accused him of interfering with the homicide investigation. He is now wanted on charges of obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice and accessory to second degree murder. A sweet, kind person: Family mourns slain rapper Young Greatness The rapper, whose real name is Theodore Jones, was shot dead at age 34 outside a Waffle House restaurant in the 2900 block of Elysian Fields. Police recovered Jones car that was stolen after the fatal shooting, and had previously released images of a person of interest. It was not clear if the person in those images was Reaux. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Police also released surveillance video Friday (Jan. 11) showing a different man wanted for questioning in the case. That man has not been named a suspect in the shooting, however. Young Greatness is best known for his 2015 song, Moolah," which made it to the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Jones was reared in the St. Bernard area of New Orleans, but moved to Houston after Hurricane Katrina, according to media reports. He often mentioned the influence of his hometown on his songs. The video for Moolah was set in New Orleans. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Donald Reaux or with any additional information on the case is asked to contact NOPD Homicide Detective Brett Mathes at 504-658-5300, or to call anonymously to Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111 or toll-free at 1-877-903-STOP. Reporters Emily Lane and Laura McKnight contributed to this report. Holding small white candles and bracing against the low-40s cold, the sister of Nanette Krentel and a group of friends and supporters gathered Monday night (Jan. 14) outside the St. Tammany Parish courthouse in Covington. There -- 18 months after the former pre-school teacher was found slain in her burned-out home north of Lacombe -- the group recalled Krentels loving spirit and vowed to keep her name alive as they seek justice in the unsolved case. We come here to give thanks for her life and to comfort one another because we are still even after 18 months grieving her death, said Bonnie Poirier, pastor of the Ministry of St. Francis of Assisi. We stand one-and-a-half years later with no answers, she said. "Nothing. Thats why were all here. We must keep Nanettes name alive. Thats our job. Thats our duty. Thats our commitment. The killing of Nanette Krentel - unsolved one year later The body of Krentel, 49, was found July 14, 2017, after fire destroyed her home north of Lacombe where she lived with husband Stephen Krentel, who at the time was fire chief of St. Tammany Parishs Fire District 12. An autopsy later determined she died of a bullet wound to the head in what the coroners office ruled a homicide. Two months later, the St. Tammany Parish Sheriffs Office ruled out Stephen Krentel as a suspect in the case. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up The Sheriffs Office and State Fire Marshals Office continue to investigate the slaying. Nanette Krentels sister, Kim Watson of Sioux City, Iowa, attended Mondays ceremony. Watson said she and her boyfriend, Randy Groetken, met with Sheriffs Office investigators earlier in the day but said they shared no new information with them. Theyre still out working the case, she said. Nothing new. Poirier, a friend of Nanette Krentels, spoke of Krentels love for teaching young children, her love of animals, her goofy laugh and of her beauty. Nanette was stunningly beautiful, Poirier said. Without even trying she was just gorgeous. And the thing is, I dont know if she ever recognized that. Thats just how down to earth she truly was. With the lighting of each candle, each of the 30 or so people in attendance said Krentels name. Krentel made a difference, touching the lives of those she met, Poirier said. I believe with all my heart that Nanettes spirit is amongst us. She lives as an angel on our shoulders. Attorneys in federal court Monday (Jan. 14) delivered their opening arguments in the trial involving a former principal of the William J. Fischer Academy in Algiers who is accused of sexually harassing a former social studies teacher. Stanley Green appeared in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana after Lindsay Garcia claimed in a lawsuit that Green caused her intentional infliction of emotional distress through unwanted sexual advances beginning in August 2016. Opening statements were given Monday following a jury selection of four men and three women. Garcias attorney Harry Ward gave jurors a synopsis of the events Garcia has experienced since August 2016 in relation to her contact with Green. Garcia initially struggled to come forward with the harassment she experienced out of fear of losing her job because Green had strong ties with the leadership at the Fischer school and Fischers management organization the Algiers Charter Schools Association, Ward said. Greens clasped hands touched his chin in court as Ward said the evidence would show jurors how Green fell in love with [Garcias] body. Green also rocked back and forth in his chair on several occasions, including in one instance when Ward claimed Green asked Garcia why she doesnt just give him her genitalia through sexual favors. The evidence will show that Principal Green, her supervisor, is dominating her emotionally and doing anything and everything he can do to prevent her from doing her job, Ward said. This is also sexual harassment. Former Fischer charter school principal sued, accused of sexual harassment Defense attorney Ted Le Clercq told jurors Green is a product of hard-knocks upbringing in the Lower 9th Ward and born to an 11th grader. He stressed the trial is about mistakes on both sides from what he described as a workplace dispute between two adults involving examples of flirtatious behavior going both ways. Le Clercq also stressed to jurors the case is about whether Green caused intentional infliction of emotional distress upon Garcia. Le Clercq pointed out that Garcias attorney didnt have a doctor present to testify about Garcias condition. Green used a poor choice of language to show interest in Garcia, but Le Clercq said jurors must ask themselves if Green wanted to hurt her. The evidence will show [Green] called [Garcia] baby, although witnesses will say that he called everybody baby sometimes, Le Clercq said. Garcia provided emotional testimony about her experience to the jurors that was sometimes interrupted by her efforts to fight back tears. She stressed that she initially gave him excuses for why she couldnt date him rather than rejecting him outright because she feared he would make my life hell. Green nonetheless called Garcia and sent her text messages repeatedly even though she wasnt into him like that, Garcia said. She recorded one of their interactions because she didnt think anyone would believe her if she said he told her he wanted to kidnap and subdue someone, she said. Greens favorite phrase to her was why you make me beg for it, Garcia said. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Garcia told jurors she wanted to quit after the incident in Greens office when he asked her about her private parts after he spent minutes staring at them while she asked about her teachers evaluation. She nonetheless continued to work to support her two children and to teach her students who were taking standardized tests, she told jurors. Jurors also heard about Garcias experience with Algiers Charter after they initiated an investigation into Greens behavior. She questioned if the charter network actually took the investigation seriously because Green remained at work after she told the networks leadership about Greens behavior. She described the way the network handled the situation as cold and disconnected. 2 Algiers charter schools will close in 2019 amid failing grades, low enrollment Garcia told jurors she began to visit clinical social worker Sharon Kirkpatrick in the course of her extremely overwhelming experience at Fischer. She said she was eventually let go at Fischer in May 2018. She also chose to stop seeing Kirkpatrick in July 2018, but she last spoke with the social worker by phone last December. Le Clercq sought to have Garcia admit Green actually did a number of good things for her. Even so, she stressed Green could have been grooming her for sexual favors. Le Clercq also tried to show jurors how Garcia was experiencing relationship issues with her ex-husband during this period, as well other issues related to her mental health. Social worker Kirkpatrick told jurors Garcia experienced a pretty tough childhood and that her interactions with Green brought up a lot of the abuse she experienced in her youth. It disrupted her coworker relationships, Kirkpatrick said. It brought up the family stuff. Kirkpatrick stressed she believes Garcias testimony after they had several sessions together. Kirkpatrick told jurors Garcia suffered from adjustment disorder with mixed depression and anxiety in response to Greens behavior and the actions of Algiers Charter. It triggered a lot for her, Kirkpatrick added, that feeling of being between a rock and a hard place with someone who she should be able to count on but at the same time is not treating her correctly. Judge Vance told the court their next hearing will occur Tuesday morning. Resources for sexual assault survivors in the New Orleans area Wilborn P. Nobles III is an education reporter based in New Orleans. He can be reached at wnobles@nola.com or on Twitter at @WilNobles. WASHINGTON Even after a primetime address from the White House and a visit to the southern border, Amercian voters continue to pin the blame of the government shutdown on President Donald Trump. Twice as many voters sided with congressional Democrats in the current stalemate over border security that has led to a record-long government shutdown, according to a poll released Monday. The Quinnipiac University survey was the third in two days where a majority of Americans both blamed the shutdown on Trump and opposed his signature call for spending taxpayer money on a southern border wall that he had promised Mexico would pay for. More than half of registered voters, 56 percent, blamed Trump and congressional Republicans for the partial shutdown, while 36 percent said Democrats were responsible. Mr. President, its on you, voters say about the government shutdown, blaming President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans more than Democrats, said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll. And while they believe there is both a humanitarian and a security crisis along the southern border, they absolutely dont think a wall will solve the problem. Trump wasnt backing down. He rejected a suggestion from U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a foe turned friend, to temporarily reopen the government while continuing to negotiate, and then declare an emergency and fund the wall that way if talks fall through. I did reject it, Trump told reporters at the White House. Nancy and Cryin Chuck can end the Shutdown in 15 minutes. At this point it has become their, and the Democrats, fault! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2019 Despite Trumps claims, U.S. voters backed the new House Democratic majority over Trump on every border security issue in the Quinnipiac poll after giving Democrats control of the House for the first time in eight years. By better than 2 to 1, 63 percent to 30 percent, registered voters backed Democratic proposals to fund the rest of the government while they negotiate how much to spend on border security. By similar margins, they opposed shutting down the government to force Congress to vote for wall funding, 63 percent to 24 percent; and supported stronger border security measures that do not include a wall, 61 percent to 32 percent. In other Quinnipiac poll results released Tuesday, a majority of American voters, 56 percent, said they disapproved of the way Trump was handing immigration, with 42 percent in favor. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said his chamber would vote this week on new measures to reopen the government. By contrast, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has rejected bills virtually identical to those that he and the GOP passed in December, only to find the Republicans who then controlled the House refusing to consider them. The poll of 1,209 voters was conducted Jan. 913 and had a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points. Trumps speech was Jan. 8 and his trip to the southern border was Jan. 10. Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. WASHINGTON For two years, Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. has sought to force Donald Trump to do what every president before him had done for more than four decades: Release his income tax returns. The Republicans who controlled the House repeatedly said no. Pascrell said they rejected efforts to get the presidents tax returns 18 different times. Now with Democrats in control, Pascrell has introduced legislation that would require presidents and vice presidents, and major party candidates who are running for those offices, to release their most recent 10 tax returns. Being able to scrutinize the tax returns of a man or woman seeking to occupy the most powerful position on earth is a low bar, and one that candidates long abided by until 2016," said Pascrell, D-9th Dist. "Americans have a right to know if their president is a crook. Imposing this requirement will ensure that transparency and ethical behavior are minimum requirements for any presidential candidate. Trump has said he could not release his tax returns because they were being audited. Pascrell is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, whose chairman has the right to request an individuals tax return under a 1924 federal law enacted after the Teapot Dome scandal. The new chair, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., said he would use that power, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said last month that there was popular demand for the Congress to request the presidents tax returns. The Presidential Tax Transparency Act was co-sponsored by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. She was the lawmaker that Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-6th Dist., defeated in 2014 in a House Democratic Caucus vote to become the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Pallone now chairs the panel. Pascrell has said that Trumps tax returns could reveal any possible conflicts of interest, such as investments in Russia and Saudi Arabia. In addition, they could show how much he personally benefitted from the tax law he and congressional Republicans pushed through in 2017. Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. An ex-governor who has done admirable work helping people who get out of prison find jobs and reacclimate suddenly gets fired, and nobody can figure out why. But somewhere behind it all is Steven Fulop. The Jersey City mayor won't answer our questions. As usual when he gets into hot water, he's hiding under his desk. All he'll say is that former Gov. Jim McGreevey was canned over accusations of "misappropriating funds." What funds? How? He won't explain. McGreevey alleges he is victim of Fulop retaliation And there's plenty of reason for skepticism here. The backstory is that Fulop has been stacking the board that oversees this re-entry and unemployment center, called the Jersey City Employment and Training Program (JCETP), with his political minions, including one of the mayor's drivers. Now they've canned its famous executive director, McGreevey. The program they're messing with is well-renowned, with bipartisan support. It's left us scratching our heads. Why pick a fight with this guy? McGreevey says he's being retaliated against for firing Fulop's political operative last year, who was caught shaking down ex-offenders. Maybe. Perhaps it's a clash of egos. Regardless, crucial services are now in jeopardy, for no substantive reason. The new head of the board, Sudhan Thomas - a Fulop ally who is also president of the school board, and just abruptly fired the superintendent - won't give any justification for canning McGreevey. "New Jersey is an at-will employment state," was all he'd say on the record. "The board hired him, and the board fired him." Jersey City police chief: Fulop devised 'illegal' operation to snarl traffic at Holland Tunnel Please. This is a public program, funded by our tax dollars. If you can present evidence of a real problem, fine. But they've given no tangible, remotely credible reason for McGreevey's firing, either on or off the record. It makes this look like nothing more than a turf patronage war. We have no cause to think Fulop is above that. Remember when he was accused of plotting a Bridgegate-style payback on the Port Authority, as part of a legal tiff? The mayor ordered cops to do traffic stops that created gridlock, to cause problems for the Port Authority, the police chief claimed. Fulop denied it all, but stops did happen, and did snarl traffic. The program targeted now is especially sympathetic: a one-stop center in which people coming out of prison aren't just hooked up with job training, but all kinds of other services, like drug treatment, mental health counseling or housing. It's audited regularly because it receives public funding, McGreevey says. The state and federal money decreased over the years, because it's tied to a falling unemployment rate. But it's not hard to see why, as a former governor, he was known as an able fundraiser. McGreevey says he's raised more than 4 million for JCEPT in his nearly six years as executive director and tapped into other grant money as part of his statewide nonprofit, The New Jersey Reentry Corporation, which also benefits clients in Jersey City. Why should we feel confident that Thomas, a first-time board member who just appointed himself to McGreevey's job, and another board newcomer as his deputy, can be as effective? A board once made up of independent members is now stacked with city officials tied to Fulop; it fired an executive director and gave no cause. For donors, this is politically rancid. Why give money? We have no reason to believe they're going to come close to the success McGreevey has achieved. In jeopardy are vital services for people released with little more than a bus ticket, who genuinely want to turn their lives around. They deserve better. We all do. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. This border fight is dumb and dumber. I will concede that Donald Trump said something really stupid when he promised during the campaign that he was going to get Mexico to pay for a border wall. But so what? If we didnt elect people who say stupid things to office, thered be no one to run the country. After you discard that unkeepable promise, the question of what to do about our porous southern border remains. And when you cut through the nonsense, the fact is that what President Trump is proposing is a continuation of the program enacted in 2006 by bipartisan majorities that included, among others, Chuck Schumer. In 2009, the New York senator who is now the leading opponent of Trumps plan boasted of construction of 630 miles of border fence that create a significant barrier to illegal immigration on our southern land border. If stupidity is a sin, what about hypocrisy? Schumer is breaking new ground there. The plan he now frames as a crime against humanity would add a mere 215 miles of fence to that 630 miles already constructed. Those numbers may sound abstract. But photographer Andre Malok and I got a concrete look at the wall over the last week literally as we drove the easternmost section of the wall from Laredo, Texas, to the mouth of the Rio Grande in Brownsville. That stretch happens to be almost exactly 215 miles long and most of it has no barriers other than the river itself, which is not much of a barrier. At one point we saw a group of migrants in an inflatable boat cross it in a mere 45 seconds. An exception is in McAllen, where Trump visited last week. There, the program Schumer once supported built a massive wall consisting of a 12-foot metal fence over a 20-foot wall of concrete. If even a smaller version of that wall were to be extended to the Gulf, that would take up every cent of the $5 billion Trump has requested. And it would cover just a tenth of the 2,000-mile border. So forget Trumps other not-so-bright campaign promise, the one about building the wall along the entire border. Thats not what hes proposing. What he is proposing is a much smaller construction program that makes perfect sense to the local officials and Border Patrol agents I interviewed. His plan would fence off the trouble spots in populated areas like Laredo. Thats a city of 250,000 that fronts the even-more-populous Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo. At the moment there is no barrier whatsoever between the two cities. The same is true of other cities along the border. That means the Border Patrol must maintain continuous and expensive patrols around the clock trying to stop intruders who can cross and disappear among the urban population in minutes. The fence/wall makes the Border Patrols job a lot simpler. The fence channels the illegal crossers to unpopulated areas on either side of the city. There the agents can employ such technologies as infrared cameras to get a good look at any humans moving around. And there, of course, the crossers are not endangering the local population. Among those crossers are two types of people, the agents say. The migrants are generally harmless. They know theyll just be returned to Mexico, so they generally surrender peaceably. But the drug smugglers know theyre going to prison if caught. Collaring them is risky business, the agents say. The wall makes the smugglers task more difficult. So perhaps theyll just try to sneak through an entry port, where they can be more easily arrested if caught. In other words, Schumer had it right the first time. The current wall covers the entire border in some border towns such as Brownsville and McAllen, where it works quite well. But if it works there, why not extend it to the much bigger town of Laredo? If the Democrats dont want to build Trumps wall, then perhaps they should knock down Schumers walls. Theyll never do that, of course. They dont seem to want to do anything except of course try to embarrass Trump. Hes perfectly capable of that on his own. So perhaps they should get together with him and forge a compromise. Schumer has shown them the way. But he seems to have forgotten it. A major carmaker has been hit with big penalties for an alleged emissions cheating operation, and that means money in the bank for New Jersey. New Jersey will receive $5.3 million from two separate settlements of lawsuits against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Robert Bosch, according to a recent announcement from the state. Fiat Chrysler will pay New Jersey $1.94 million, and Bosch will pay the state $3.39 million The settlement against Fiat Chrysler resolves allegations that Ram 1500 diesel trucks, model year 2014-2016, and diesel Jeep Grand Cherokees, also model year 2014-2016, were equipped with defeat devices --- software that allowed the vehicles to release unlawful amounts of emissions while passing state tests. The Bosch settlement, meanwhile, resolves claims that the company developed, marketed and sold defective devices for both Fiat Chrysler and Volkswagen diesel vehicles. New Jersey has previously been awarded $72.2 million as part of a massive settlement with Volkswagen over the companys extensive emissions cheating scandal. Its not just the state cashing in: New Jereyans who are current or former owners of those cars, or those who lease, are eligible for money. Current owners who take their vehicles in to an authorized dealer to have the defeat device software removed are eligible for an average of $2,908 in restitution. Lessees and former owners are eligible for about $990 in restitution. In an effort to boost its vehicle sales, Fiat Chrysler deceived New Jersey consumers and put our air quality and the health of New Jersey residents at risk, said New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. Nearly 1,500 of the vehicles in question were sold in New Jersey, according to the state Attorney Generals office, and nearly 1,300 of those were registered in the state. Motor vehicle emissions remain the largest threat to air quality in New Jersey, as well as the states largest source of greenhouse gases. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Catherine McCabe called the alleged actions by Fiat Chrysler and Bosch egregious. No matter if it is done by a manufacturer or an individual, tampering with any emissions control device on a vehicle threatens the health of New Jerseys residents, contributes to global warming and is against the law, McCabe said. The settlements with Fiat Chrysler and Bosch resolve a nearly two-year-long multi-state investigation, according to the state. The investigation was two-fold: Fiat Chrysler was investigated for the development and promotion of the vehicles in question, while Bosch was investigated for supplying the emissions control software known as defeat devices for use in those vehicles. The Attorney Generals office said that the investigation showed that high, dangerous levels of nitrogen oxides, or NOx, were released by the vehicles because of the alleged devices. NOx has been linked to a variety of health concerns, particularly respiratory problems. New Jersey is not the only state getting paid here. Fiat Chrysler is paying a total of $72.5 million to 49 states. We acknowledge that this has created uncertainty for our customers, and we believe this resolution will maintain their trust in us, said Mark Chernoby, Fiat Chrylsers head of North American safety and regulatory compliance. Bosch, meanwhile, is paying a total of $98.7 million to New Jersey and 49 other jurisdictions. In press releases for each settlement, both Fiat Chrysler and Bosch maintained that the companies were not admitting to any wrong-doing and neither company was accepting liability. Michael Sol Warren may be reached at mwarren@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MSolDub. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Flash Overseas tourists will find it easier and faster to apply for a travel permit to Tibet this year as the regional government makes efforts to boost tourism. Tibet Autonomous Region plans to cut the time for issuing travel permits to overseas tourists by half in 2019, Qi Zhala, chairman of the regional government, said on Thursday. Now, it takes typically at least 15 days to receive the permits after they submit the requested documents. Tibet plans to brand itself as the world's "Third Pole" and hopes to attract 40 million visits from tourists this year by providing more convenient and friendly services as well as significantly improving accessibility for visitors, Qi Zhala said in a government work report to the annual session of the regional people's congress, which started on Thursday in Lhasa. The region received 33.68 million visits from tourists in 2018, an increase of 31.5 percent year-on-year, according to the report. Hong Wei, an official with the regional tourist development bureau, said the region received more than 270,000 visits from overseas travelers in 2018. "The number of overseas tourists in Tibet has been increasing steadily in recent years as the region has been more open to overseas tourists," he said. Overseas travelers need Tibet travel permits to visit in addition to a Chinese visa. This extra requirement is based on Tibet's unique ethnic traditions, cultural heritage, reception capacity and ecological protection needs, officials said. Hong Wei said Tibet started drafting measures to simplify the application procedure last year, and they will be introduced as soon as possible. Also, instead of having to send all application materials to Tibet, overseas tourists in the future will be able to apply for permits in other cities like Beijing, Xi'an and Chengdu, he added. Tibet also plans to build an international tourism cooperation zone in the Gangdise Mountain range, according to the government work report. The zone includes the sacred religious destinations of Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar. Pilgrims from the autonomous region and neighboring countries such as India and Nepal believe that walking a full circle around Kailash can bring prosperity and purify one of the sins of a lifetime. Tibet will strive to increase the number of overseas pilgrims visiting the region by 50 percent in 2019, Qi Zhala said. The Force Report is a continuing investigation of police use of force in New Jersey. Read more from the series or search your local police department and officers in the full the database. MAPLEWOOD Township officials revealed a slew of changes to policing Monday, weeks after an NJ Advance Media investigation revealed the municipality used force during arrests more than any department in the state. Maplewood Police Chief Jimmy DeVaul said his department is in need of a culture change, and has been working to curb the arrest of minors, better scrutinize use of force and to overhaul how his department and its officers interact with the public. The data speaks for itself. Its irrefutable, DeVaul said. We are going to correct these things and if not put them on a different path. DeVaul made the statements at a public hearing following the publication of The Force Report, an NJ Advance Media investigation into police use of force that revealed a broken and unwatched system marked by widespread disparities in how police in the state apply force, particularly along racial lines. The data shows Maplewood used force in more than 11 percent of their arrests from 2012 to 2016 more than three times the state average and also applied force disproportionately on black people and, in particular, black youths. When we saw The Force Report, we experienced a range of emotions from surprised to shocked to embarrassed, said Mayor Vic DeLuca. This is a painful conversation for us because it shows things were not very proud of. Were going to move forward. The Force Report resurfaced a pain point for the township, which has been struggling to move past an incident from July 2016. That day, a group of officers were caught on video punching and kicking a group of largely black teens as they allegedly attempted to push them across the town border into Irvington, a predominantly black community. That incident led to the dismissal of the prior chief, Robert Ciminio, and a department captain. Ten officers were disciplined as a result of the incident, though not named publicly. The Essex County prosecutor cleared the officers of any criminal wrongdoing. NJ Advance Media found that no officer involved in the incident filled out a use-of-force report. In some cases that is what (the officers) were disciplined for, said Greg Lembrich, a township committee member and public safety director. That was a problem in the system that we had in Maplewood. The data is only as good as the source. At the meeting, several township residents specifically asked about the targeting of black youths, who represented more than 20 percent of uses of force from 2012 to 2016. DeVaul and other members of the five-person panel tip-toed around the issue of race, but noted that the police department had abolished its street crimes unit, created a program that could help minors avoid criminal charges after interactions with police and devoted a group of officers solely to interacting with the public as a means limiting the number of youth arrests in the municipality. I want you to know that our interaction with youth is a priority of mine, I want you to know that, DeVaul said. Erin Scherzer, a member of a newly formed citizen group to monitor policing in the township, said the training budget, though doubled this year, has long been neglected. We should be ashamed as a community, as taxpayers, for the lack of support we have given our officers to allow them to do their job well, she said. The Maplewood Community Board on Police, created in the aftermath of the July 2016 incident, began meeting for the first time late last year. Scherzer said Monday the citizen watchdog group plans to use data as the backbone of their efforts to improve policing in the community. The board is so new right now, but one of our top objectives that overrides everything is to address racial disparities in policing, Scherzer said after the meeting. DeVaul also said he is looking forward to working with State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal to acquire the tools his department needs to track trends in police use of force more closely. Tom Eicher, head of the Attorney Generals Office of Public Integrity and Accountability, said police use-of-force reform must begin at the top and his office has cast a wide net to analyze and reform current practices for tracking force. Were committed to setting up a system that every use of force is put into it, that is able to be analyzed by us, thats able to be analyzed by the police department thats involved, by the county thats involved and then made available to the public, Eicher said. Stephen Stirling may be reached at sstirling@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @sstirling. Find him on Facebook. Two Ukrainian men have been criminally charged with hacking into U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission computers to steal yet-to-be-published earnings reports of publicly traded companies to enrich themselves. The indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in Newark, accuses Artem Radchenko, 27, and Oleksandr Ieremenko, 26, of conspiring to commit securities fraud, computer fraud and wire fraud in their alleged hack of the SECs Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval system, or EDGAR. Ieremenko is one of seven people and two business entities also named in a civil complaint filed by the SECs Enforcement Division, which claims the conspirators made more than $4.1 million in gross profits off stock market trades illegally informed by the stolen information. The charges mark the second time federal prosecutors in the Garden State have implicated Ieremenko in a scheme to steal non-public business information. In 2015, then-U.S. Attorney Paul Fishmans office charged Ieremenko and others with hacking the computers of business newswire services to steal press releases on earnings reports that had yet to be publicly announced. Ieremenko was never arrested, and is believed to be at large in Ukraine, according to the SECs civil complaint. Radchenko also remains at large, according to prosecutors. According to the indictment, Radchenko and Ieremenko hacked into the SEC computer system housed on servers in Middlesex County, according to the agency from 2016 to 2017 to steal so-called test filings" submitted by companies in advance of public filings. These test filings, prosecutors said, often contained the same earnings information as that found in the final public filings. The defendants and others sought to profit illegally from their scheme by selling access to the material non-public information contained in these as-yet undisclosed reports and by trading in the securities of the companies before the investing public learned the information, the indictment says. U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito, addressing reporters at his office Tuesday, said investigators from the Secret Service and the FBI were able to identify Ieremenko as a suspect in the EDGAR hack in part because he used some of same infrastructure involved in the 2015 newswire case. That infrastructure, prosecutors said, included a Romanian IP address previously linked to a server associated with Ieremenko in the earlier case. The two men are accused of accessing the SEC servers in Middlesex County 16 times. The names of the publicly-traded companies were not disclosed in the indictment, but officials at the press conference Tuesday said the conspirators made approximately 508 trades based on the stolen earnings information. Also named in the civil complaint, and accused of trading on the hacked information, are: Sungjin Cho, Los Angeles, California David Kwon, Los Angeles, California Igor Sabodakha, Ukraine Victoria Vorochek, Ukraine Ivan Olefir, Ukraine Andrey Sarafanov, Russia Capyield Systems, Ltd. (owned by Olefir) Spirit Trade Ltd. Investigators said most of the civil defendants had also traded on information obtained through the earlier newswire scheme. It was not immediately clear from court records whether any of the civil defendants had attorneys who could comment on the SECs allegations. In addition to the two criminal defendants and nine civil defendants, the SEC is also seeking restitution from four people regulators said indirectly profited from the scheme when the conspirators used their brokerage accounts to make the illegal trades. Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Ten priests who spent part of their careers in New Jersey are on a new list of 50 Jesuits who have been accused of child sexual abuse. The USA Northeast Province Jesuits, an organization representing the Roman Catholic order of priests in north Jersey and several other states, released its list Tuesday. The order is the last of the regional Jesuit organizations to publicly name all priests credibly accused of abuse. The list includes the names of priests accused since 1950. In some cases, the priests were convicted of crimes. In many cases, the priests are dead or have left the Jesuit order. Nine of the ten Jesuits on the list with New Jersey ties served at either St. Peters Prep, St. Peters University or in St. Peters Parish in Jersey City -- one of the centers of Jesuit life and training in New Jersey. Most were at St. Peters briefly early in their careers. Many Jesuits on this list have not been found guilty of a crime or liable for any civil claim, the organization said in a statement accompanying the list. Many accusations were made decades after the abuse allegedly took place, and often after the accused Jesuit had died. Jesuits with allegations currently under investigation are not included on this list. The list does not include details about what the priests were accused of doing or who made the accusations. Among the Jesuits with New Jersey ties on the list: Cornelius Carr: He served at St. Peters Prep in Jersey City from 1954 to 1959 before moving on to parishes and schools in New York, Florida and other states. In a complaint made in 2005, he was accused of abusing minors from 1989 to 1990. He was impeded," or removed from ministry, in 2006. He died in 2013. Thomas Denny: He served at St. Peters Prep in Jersey City from 1986 to 1992 and again from 1995 to 1997. He was accused in 2002 and 2012 of sexual abuse of minors in the 1960s and 1970s. The allegations were found to be credible. He was impeded," or removed from ministry, in 2002. Andrew Dittrich: He served at Rutgers University from 1970 to 1977 and at Rider University from 1977 to 1989. He was accused of abuse in 2002 and 2018 of sexual abuse of minors in between 1966 and 1976. The allegations were found to be credible. He died in 1990. Joseph Fitzpatrick: He served at St. Peters Prep in Jersey City from 1967 to 1969 before moving to parishes in New York and Pennsylvania. He was accused in 1999 of sexual abuse of a minor in the 1980s. The allegations were found to be credible. He was impeded, or removed from ministry, in 2002. Raymond Fullam: He served in the parish at St. Peters Church in Jersey City from 1964 to 1965 before moving on to parishes and retreats in New York. He was accused in 2009 of sexual abuse of minors in both 1954 and 1965. He died in 1987. James Gould: He served at St. Peters Prep in Jersey City from 1969 to 1971 before moving on to a parish in New York and an assignment in the Marshall Islands. He was accused in 2011 of sexually abusing a minor from 1977 to 1978. He admitted to the abuse, according to the list. He was impeded, or removed from ministry, in 2012. James Kuntz: He served at St. Peters Prep in Jersey City from 1984 to 1988 and at St. Peters University from 2004 to 2007. He pleaded guilty to child pornography charges and was sentenced to prison in 2008. He left the Jesuits in 2012. Eugene OBrien: He served at St. Peters Prep in Jersey City from 1959 to 1960, then moved on to schools in Connecticut and New York. He was later the president of the Gregorian Foundation in New York. He was accused in 1993 of abuse of minors in the 1960s. He admitted to the abuse, the list said. He was impeded, or removed from ministry in 2002. Anthony Paone: He served at St. Peters Prep in Jersey City from 1939 to 1942, then went on to teach in Catholic schools in New York. He was accused in 2002 of abusing a minor in 1953. The allegations was found to be credible. He died in 1990. William Scanlon: He served at St. Peters University in Jersey City from 1974 to 1976 before moving on to Canisius College in New York and a parish in Nigeria. He was accused in 1994 of abuse of minors from 1985 to 1994. He admitted to the abuse, the list said. He was restricted from ministry in 1994 and impeded, or removed from ministry, in 2011. The Northeast Province includes Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and northern New Jersey. The release of the Jesuits' list comes as the Catholic dioceses in New Jersey are preparing their own list of all priests and deacons who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. Church officials said the list is expected to be released by the Archdiocese of Newark and the four other dioceses -- Metuchen, Paterson, Camden and Trenton -- early this year. It is unclear how many names will be on it. New Jerseys attorney general set up a task force last year to investigate priest sexual abuse and whether the Catholic Church covered up the crimes. The investigation is modeled on a similar two-year probe in Pennsylvania that used subpoenas to gather decades of church files that revealed more than 1,000 children were sexually abused by at least 300 priests in that state. The New Jersey attorney generals task force set up a hotline -- (855) 363-6548 -- for people to report allegations of sexual abuse by members of the clergy. Some critics have said the voluntary release of names of accused priests does not go far enough and the Catholic Church needs to be independently investigated. Mitchell Garabedian, a prominent Boston attorney who represents alleged victims of priest sex abuse, said he does not believe the Jesuit list is complete. Given that the Jesuits have actively practiced the cover up of clergy sexual abuse for decades upon decades, victims question whether the criteria used by the Jesuits in determining if a pedophile priest has been credibly accused is fair or is just a means to name as few pedophile priests as possible, Garabedian said. Certainly, given the kangaroo court nature of the Catholic Church, there is a need for a truly independent investigation to determine what the Jesuits are hiding and why. Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyHeyboer. Find her at KellyHeyboerReporter on Facebook. A 25-year-old New Jersey woman was killed and another driver was seriously injured in a fiery three-vehicle crash Monday night in Morris County. Katelynn Campbell, of the Highland Lakes section of Vernon, was pronounced dead after being flown to Hackettstown Medical Center, Jefferson police said in a statement Campbell was driving south on Green Pond Road around 9:15 p.m. when her vehicle crossed over the center line and struck a northbound vehicle head-on, according to police. Campbells car then started to roll over and hit a third vehicle. The car Campbells vehicle initially hit ended up in an embankment, seriously injuring the 36-year-old Budd Lake woman driving. She was flown to Morristown Medical Center with serious injuries. Neither the 51-year-old woman driving the third vehicle, nor the 19-year-old passenger were hurt. A police officer extinguished the fire in Campbells car before she was removed and placed in a helicopter. Jefferson police and the Morris County Prosecutors Office are investigating the crash. Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook. EDITORS NOTE: Interested in the marijuana business industry? NJ Cannabis Insider is a new premium intelligence briefing that features exclusive weekly content geared toward entrepreneurs, lawyers and realtors. View a sample issue. WASHINGTON Willliam Barr, President Donald Trumps nominee for U.S. attorney general, said he wont go after businesses and individuals in states that have legalized marijuana. Barr said he did not support former Attorney General Jeff Sessions' decision last January to reverse policy and tell federal prosecutors that they once again could enforce federal marijuana laws in states that had legalized the drug for medical or recreational use. New Jersey allows medical marijuana and Gov. Phil Murphy has been negotiating with legislative leaders on a bill that would legalize weed for recreational use. My approach to this would be not to upset settled expectations, Barr said during his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing. Investments have been made. There has been reliance on it. I dont think its appropriate to upset those interests. His comment was in response to a question from U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who is the sponsor of bill that would legalize marijuana under federal law. Barr, who served as U.S. attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, made his position even clearer during later questioning by U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. To the extent people are complying with the state laws in distribution and production and so forth, were not goin to go after that, Barr said. However, he said he was troubled by states deciding on their own to legalize cannabis despite the federal ban. Its almost like a back-door nullification of federal law, Barr told Booker. We either should have a federal law that prohibits marijuana everywhere, which I would support, myself, because I think its a mistake to back off on marijuana. However, we want a federal approach. If we want states to have their own laws, then lets get there and lets get there the right way. Later, Barr told Harris that Congress needed to take action. Legislation introduced in the last Congress by Booker would remove the federal ban on marijuana, while the bipartisan Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States, or STATES, Act, which would leave it up to individual states to decide whether marijuana should be legal. We cant stay in the current situation, Barr said. Its incumbent on the Congress to make a decision as to whether were going to have a federal system or whether its going to be a central federal law. This is breeding disrespect for the federal law. Congress repeatedly has blocked the Justice Department from spending money to enforce the law in states that have legalized cannabis for medical use, including New Jersey. Are you interested in the N.J. cannabis industry? Subscribe here for exclusive insider information from NJ Cannabis Insider. Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. JERSEY CITY A West Side Avenue supermarket was shut down by the city last week after health inspectors say they compiled the longest list of health code violations they have seen in recent memory. The operators of Fine Fare are accused of selling expired baby formula and nearly three blocks of cheese that expired in 2017, using a deli slicer that appeared not to have been cleaned regularly, not removing black mold and more. Its not clear when the grocery store will be allowed to open again, but health officials say they plan to reinspect it on Wednesday and want it reopened as soon as possible. Fine Fares owners, meanwhile, fear they are the victims of retaliation for opposing a new commercial tax approved by the council in December, a claim the city denies. The complaint that led the city to close the market came on Thursday afternoon, city officials told The Jersey Journal. A woman tried to return bologna that was green but was rebuffed by a store worker who told her the pack of meat may still be good, according to Happy Boor, director of inspections for the city health department. A health inspector visited the supermarket Friday We did the store from top to bottom, Boor said and then filed a report that includes eight pages of comments. The city ordered the market shut down that day. Reached by phone on Monday, Fine Fare co-owner Ali Ayesh downplayed the closure and said he hoped to reopen on Tuesday. "Just a water leak downstairs that weve got to fix, Ayesh said. Ayesh called later to say he wondered whether his and his brothers opposition to the new West Side special improvement district paid for a by a new tax on commercial properties led to the closure. Stacey Lea Flanagan, the citys health director, told The Jersey Journal the shopper complaint led to the shutdown. We believe that every person deserves the highest quality food possible, she said. Some people look at this as punitive but its really a protective measure to protect the health and safety of a lot of our residents." Fine Fare was last inspected by health officials last year, Boor said. An earlier version of this story should have said the last health inspection at Fine Fare was last year. Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. The gunman who held two women hostage inside a UPS warehouse in New Jersey on Monday morning died following a standoff with police, authorities said. William Owens, 39, of Sicklerville, was shot by multiple officers after he exited the building with the hostages. He was armed with a gun, according to the state Attorney Generals Office. Owens allegedly walked into the UPS warehouse in Logan Township before 9 a.m. and ultimately fired a gun, but did not injure anyone, according to the attorney generals office. Thirty-two employees, not including the two hostages, were safely evacuated and taken to a nearby Holiday Inn in buses, it was previously reported. People gather at the intersection of Center Square Road and Pedricktown Road near the standoff at the UPS facility in Logan Township, Gloucester County, on Monday. (Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) During a press conference Monday morning, Gloucester County Prosecutor Charles Fiore said said the gunman did not surrender, leading the SWAT team to intervene. The attorney generals office said multiple members of law enforcement fired at Owens, who was pronounced dead at the scene. The two women were taken from the scene and were not seriously injured. Owens had a relationship with one of the women, Fiore said. Records show Owens has a criminal record dating back to 2001, when he was found guilty of aggravated assault. He did jail time on that offense, and was sentenced again to up to five years in 2006 for an aggravated assault attempt. Other incidents in 2005 and 2014 list aggravated assault and weapons charges. His latest court activity came in April of 2017 for violating a domestic violence order. He was sentenced to three years probation. Gloucester County Prosecutor Charles Fiore gives an update on the police standoff at the UPS facility in Logan Township, Gloucester County, on Monday (Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) Paris Thomas, who said she was Owenss girlfriend of two years, told reporters at the Holiday Inn that she had heard nothing at all from police about her boyfriend or his whereabouts. Its hard. Its hurtful, she said. She said she did not know what altercation had occurred between Owens and his former girlfriend. Nobody in our family seen it coming, a woman who would not give her name but identified herself as a niece of Owens told reporters Monday afternoon. It came out of nowhere. This isnt my uncle. He was never like this." The Attorney Generals Shooting Response Team is investigating because of the involvement of the Gloucester County SWAT Team, according to a news release. NJ Advance Media reporters Chris Franklin and Sophie Nieto-Munoz contributed information to this report. Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Q. Is it true that if you're a student and make $10,000 or more in working income, you won't be able to use the FAFSA anymore? -- Student A. Absolutely not! The amount of money a student earns has no impact on their ability to file the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) form, said David Slater, co-founder of College Benefits Research Group (CBRG) in Roseland. He said the aid that comes from the federal government through the colleges that use the information from the form can be impacted, but there is no threshold of $10,000 to be concerned about. Slater said the FAFSA algorithm uses a sliding scale, which approaches 25 percent of income. And the lower the income, the less you are deemed able to pay. Here's how it works. The form is completed by undergraduate students and their custodial parent(s) each year. This generates a SAR - Student Aid Report - which calculates the family's EFC - Expected Family Contribution. "The calculation of the EFC takes into consideration both parent and student incomes," Slater said. "It also counts all of the parent and student assets except the value of the home that you live in, the value of life insurance and retirement plans." Colleges utilize this EFC to calculate "need" when distributing federal loans and grants, Slater said. He said there is no income limit on the FAFSA for the student to qualify for direct Stafford loans. "While schools might not offer them the interest-free, subsidized portions because their family EFC is too high, all qualified students are guaranteed the option of securing $5,500 year one, $6,500 year two, $7,500 year three and $7,500 year four for a total of $27,000," he said. While having a lower EFC can be advantageous, Slater said the greatest impact on financial awards is the way that the student positions at the schools that they are applying nto. "Think of it in terms of what the schools want and you will maximize your returns," he said. Everyone should complete the FAFSA, no matter their income levels. You can learn more here. Email your questions to Ask@NJMoneyHelp.com. Karin Price Mueller writes the Bamboozled column for NJ Advance Media and is the founder of NJMoneyHelp.com. Follow NJMoneyHelp on Twitter @NJMoneyHelp. Find NJMoneyHelp on Facebook. Sign up for NJMoneyHelp.com's weekly e-newsletter. Steven Spielberg has found his Maria, and its a 17-year-old girl from New Jersey. Rachel Zegler, of Clifton, was announced Monday as the new star of Spielbergs highly anticipated West Side Story reboot, which plans to revamp the classic 1957 Broadway musical and 1961 film. According to Deadline, Zegler was selected from an audition pool of more than 30,000 actors from across the globe. Shooting for the film reportedly begins this summer, though no release date has been set. Zegler took to social media to express her gratitude in the selection, which will place her alongside Baby Driver star Ansel Algort, who is set to play her star-crossed love interest, Tony. When I played Maria on stage a few summers ago, I never could have imagined that id be taking on the role again in Steven Spielbergs "West Side Story, Zegler wrote on Instagram (she is bottom-right in the photo). I send a huge thank you to everyone who helped make this incredible dream a reality i never couldve done it alone. i am so honored to join the legendary ... As a Colombian-American woman growing up in this day and age, strong roles like Maria are so important. To be able to bring that role to life a role that means so much to the hispanic community is so humbling. i hope youre all as excited as i am. Zegler first played Maria in a Performing Arts School presentation of West Side Story at BergenPAC in Englewood in 2017. She was nominated in 2016 for a Metropolitan High School Theater Award for her role in Beauty And The Beast at Immaculate Conception High School in Lodi, NorthJersey.com reports. She submitted videos of her singing Tonight and Me Siento Hermosa (I Feel Pretty) as part of her West Side audition, Deadline says. Deadline writes that Spielbergs team search far and wide to find the best actors within the Puerto Rican and Latinx community, and spoke to Hispanic heritage and advocacy groups while looking for the right fit. Rita Moreno, who played Anita in the original film, will reportedly appear in Spielbergs version as Valentina, a revamped version of the character of Doc (owner of the store where Tony works). The screenplay is being written by Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner, with whom Spielberg previously collaborated on Lincoln. Bobby Olivier may be reached at bolivier@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BobbyOlivier and Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Jersey Shore star Mike The Situation Sorrentino headed to federal prison in Otisville, New York on Tuesday, promising fans that he would be back, even as his sentence ensured he would be gone for the better part of a year. The prison, located in Orange County, New York, is 123 miles from Sorrentinos Long Branch home, about two hours and 20 minutes by car. On Monday night, the eve of his voluntary surrender, Sorrentino tweeted his new address for those who want to send him letters. Sorrentinos publicist, Robyn Matarazzo, said he entered the prison at 11:45 a.m. In October, Sorrentino, 37, was sentenced to eight months in prison just shy of a decade after he rose to fame on the MTV reality series, which was filmed in Seaside Heights and debuted in 2009. Sorrentino pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion in January 2018. In federal court in Newark, Sorrentino said he did not pay the full amount of taxes he owed for 2011. Sorrentino, who admitted to making multiple deposits of $10,000 in order to evade detection by the Internal Revenue Service, was ordered to pay $123,000 in restitution. The reality star appeared in a video that his wife, Lauren Pesce Sorrentino, livestreamed from his Instagram account as he was driven to Otisville. In the video, Sorrentino used a GoodFellas reference. He had shared the same quote from Ray Liottas character, Henry Hill, on Twitter earlier Tuesday morning, via a GIF of the gangster: Now take me to jail." The comeback is always greater than the Setback pic.twitter.com/TVTJyAsrlu Mike The Situation (@ItsTheSituation) January 15, 2019 The comeback is always greater than the setback, Sorrentino posted, prefacing the quote. According to an indictment, from 2010 to 2012, Sorrentino and his older brother, Marc, earned approximately $8.9 million. Prosecutors said the money came from club and TV appearances Mike made as well as endorsement deals and products the brothers sold off the strength of Mikes fame. At his online store, Sorrentino has been selling Free Sitch T-shirts featuring his likeness and the colors of the Italian flag for $24.99. Though the original run of Jersey Shore ended in 2012, Sorrentino can be seen in the MTV series revival, Jersey Shore Family Vacation, which debuted in April of 2018 and filmed its most recent season in Manalapan. The show is the No. 1 unscripted series on cable in the 18-to-49 demographic. Sorrentino was born on Staten Island and grew up in Monmouth County, graduating from Manalapan High School. He was cast in Jersey Shore as he pursued a fitness modeling career in his 20s. His Situation" nickname referred to his washboard abdominals, which he owed to his daily trips to the first part of the sacred Jersey Shore triumvirate gym, tanning, laundry, or GTL. Sorrentino once struggled with an addiction to prescription painkillers. He is now an advocate for those coping with addiction, working with Discovery Institute, a rehab facility in Marlboro where he previously sought treatment for his addiction. Sorrentino had been celebrating three years of sobriety when he married Pesce, his longtime girlfriend, in November at the Legacy Castle in Pompton Plains. He proposed on Valentines Day during the first season of Jersey Shore Family Vacation" in Miami, though his legal troubles scuttled their initial plans for a destination wedding in Italy. We are very happy to put this behind us, Sorrentino said in an Instagram post in the wake of his sentencing. Thank you so much for all the love and support." The couple honeymooned in December at the Miraval resort in Tucson, Arizona. Pesce and Sorrentino have talked about starting a family. On Jan. 11, they released the first installment in their Sorrentinos YouTube channel, in which they tell the story of how they met, in a math class at community college (they would later break up when Sorrentino joined the Jersey Shore cast). On Jan. 10, the couple celebrated Pesces 34th birthday. Thank you everyone for your love and support, Pesce Sorrentino said in a statement after dropping her husband off at prison. Today Mike and I begin to put this chapter of our lives behind us. I couldnt be more proud to call him my husband. As he says, the comeback is always greater than the setback! In 2014, Sorrentino parlayed his Jersey Shore fame into The Sorrentinos," a reality show that featured his family and aired for one season on what was then the TV Guide Network. In October, Marc Sorrentino, 39, who appeared on the show as a manager of the family tanning business, Middletowns Boca Tanning Club, was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to a count of aiding in the preparation of false tax returns for income earned in 2010, 2011 and 2012. The elder Sorrentino, who works as a real estate broker, is also reporting to prison. On Monday, he tweeted the location of his incarceration Fort Dix. The younger Sorrentino agreed to attend a 12-week anger management program at an appearance in Middletown Municipal Court after a 2014 fight with Marc at the tanning salon. On Jersey Shore Family Vacation, The Situations then-pending sentencing made him the butt of jokes from his castmates, which he took in stride. Sending love to my brother today!!! his fellow Jersey Shore star, Florham Parks Nicole Snooki Polizzi, posted on Instagram Tuesday morning, alongside a photo with Sorrentino. We love you!!!! Jacksons Jenni JWoww Farley commented on a post Sorrentino shared about his Free Sitch T-shirts. Love you Mike," she said, with a sad face emoji. Strongest man I know, Pesce Sorrentino commented on the same post. Love you honeys, see you soon. Ahead of Sorrentinos sentencing, the reality shows cast made an appearance outside federal court in Newark as the cameras rolled for MTV. Drama surrounding Sorrentinos legal woes will likely continue to be a storyline in the coming third season of Jersey Shore Family Vacation. Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook. Flash Chinese have become the second-largest tourist force in Antarctica. The polar region received 8,273 Chinese visitors during the 2017-2018 season, accounting for 16 percent of all, only second to the United States, according to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators. This figure is nearly 3,000 more than the 2016-2017 Antarctic tourism seasons, while 100 times as much as it was in 2008, when fewer than 100 Chinese visited. The 2018-2019 season is likely to see the number rise over 10,000, says China's biggest online travel agency Ctrip. "The demand from Chinese tourists increases sharply every year," says Wang Nan, who manages Ctrip's Antarctic tours. "Bookings for Antarctic routes are growing rapidly." Judging from the current booking situation, 100 percent growth is expected in visitor numbers to Antarctica, Ctrip says. That would make one out of every five tourists to Antarctica Chinese, Wang adds. At the moment, there are only a few slots up for grabs at Ctrip for January and February. November to March is the Antarctic summer, which makes for good travel season. The agency increased 30 percent of its Antarctic products this year to meet the increasing demand for Antarctic experiences. Ctrip has nearly 200 products from major suppliers with more than 20 ships available for selection for travelers to the region. Chinese travelers have spent an average of 23 days on their Antarctic tours, and costs ranged from 50,000 yuan ($7,241.1) to 110,000 yuan, in 2018. Costs depend on a traveler's means and routes. Those who take cruises across Drake Passage to polar destinations are looking at 50,000-200,000 yuan, while those who take planes from Chile or Argentina before switching to cruises on the Antarctic Peninsula would likely have to pay 120,000-160,000 yuan. The most expensive way would be taking flights from Chile to the Antarctic region, which usually costs above 500,000 yuan. Nearly 90 percent of Chinese tourists choose to take cruises to Antarctica, while only 1 percent fly directly to the South Pole, Wang says. Group travelers are in the majority, and most of them come from big Chinese cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Smaller cities in the country have witnessed tourism growth, too. The top 10 departure cities for Antarctica are Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Chongqing, Xi'an and Wuhan. In particular, Hangzhou and Nanjing have each seen more than 200 percent growth in the number of locals leaving for the Antarctic region. Did HBOs recent 20th anniversary Sopranos celebration reignite your passion for all things Tony, Carmela, Paulie, Silvio, Christopher, Adriana, Meadow and A.J.? Youre in luck, because every day seems to bring more casting news about the Sopranos prequel film, The Many Saints of Newark. The film, set in the 1960s, will cover Tony Sopranos childhood. Variety reports that actors Corey Stoll and Billy Magnussen are the latest additions to the cast. The lineup already includes Alessandro Nivola, who is confirmed to play Dickey/Dickie Moltisanti, Christophers father, who is a mentor to young Tony. While we dont know plot details, Nivola seems to have a key role in the film, since Moltisanti translates to the titles many saints. Sopranos creator David Chase co-wrote the script with frequent collaborator Lawrence Konner and Alan Taylor, who has directed episodes of The Sopranos and Game of Thrones, is set to direct the movie, with New Line producing. The nature of the roles that Stoll, Magnussen or any of the other people cast for the film (apart from Nivola) will play is unknown. Stoll, 42, recently played a famous New Jersey figure Buzz Aldrin in the movie First Man, directed by Damien Chazelle (La La Land), who grew up in Princeton. He is also known for his roles in the Netflix series House of Cards, and Amazons The Romanoffs," created by Matthew Weiner, the Sopranos writer and producer who became the showrunner of Mad Men." Stoll can also be seen in the upcoming Netflix series Ratched," based on One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. Magnussen, 33, who played Jed Milgrim in the Netflix miniseries Maniac, will play Prince Anders in the upcoming Aladdin movie and will also appear in the film Velvet Buzzsaw alongside John Malkovich and Jake Gyllenhaal. Monday brought news from Deadline that New Jersey native Vera Farmiga and actor Jon Bernthal were in final talks to join the project (Variety had linked them to the film earlier this month). Farmiga, 45, who grew up in a Ukrainian enclave in Irvington and graduated from Hunterdon Central Regional High School, is known for her roles in The Departed," Up in the Air and The Conjuring" films as well as playing Norma Bates in the A&E series Bates Motel. Shell also appear in the upcoming film Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Ava DuVernays Netflix miniseries Central Park Five." Bernthal, 42, who stars in Marvel series The Punisher on Netflix, also appeared in The Wolf of Wall Street" and played Shane Walsh on The Walking Dead. Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook. A judge has sided with a New Jersey teenager accused of cheating on the ACT exams, saying a clause test-takers must sign giving up their rights to sue the testing company is unconscionable and void as against public policy." The ruling from Somerset County Judge Michael Rogers means Readington Township teenager Brendan Clare can seek damages from ACT Inc., the company that runs the test and threatened to invalidate his scores. It also opens the door for teenagers across the country to attempt to sue the testing company citing Rogers' ruling. This is a huge victory for everyone who believes in due process and the fundamental principle that individuals should be treated as innocent unless proven guilty, said Bob Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest, a national nonprofit group critical of standardized tests. ACT Inc. does not agree with the judges reasoning or conclusions on his recent order, spokesman Ed Colby said. Its considering its options on how best to move forward. The company has vigorously defended its score review process in the past, calling it fair to students and denying labeling students as cheaters. Clare, now a freshman at Penn State University, first took the ACT during his junior year at Hunterdon Central Regional High School. He spent little time prepping, figuring he would set a baseline for his expectations, his father said. Unhappy with his initial score, a 21 out of 36, he spent dozens of hours studying with a tutor and taking practice exams, which helped him score a 26 on his second try and a 25 on his third. Clare used the scores to get accepted to Penn State, Syracuse and the University of Delaware, among other colleges, his father said. Then, a day after the college admissions deadline, the Clare family got a letter saying his second and third scores (from tests taken eight and 10 months before) could be wiped out because of identical responses and identical incorrect responses to other students. He could either agree to have his scores canceled, retake the exam to confirm his score, or provide information to defend his performance. His family sent a letter back explaining his extra preparation, but ACT Inc. rejected that response, setting the stage for a high-stakes retest in July, weeks after Clare graduated. Clare worried he would lose his spot at Penn State if he didnt score high enough, he said. He scored a 23, good enough to satisfy the testing company, but the story didnt end there. Clares father, Patrick, a Bernards Township attorney, wanted to file a lawsuit for damages. ACT Inc. said Brendan Clare had signed those rights away. The clause all students must sign limits them to binding arbitration. But the judges decision voided that agreement. In ruling against ACT, Rogers said teenage students cannot be expected to knowingly and willingly waive their constitutional right to a jury trial without parent input or supervision. The ruling levels the playing field for students whose scores have come under review or been invalidated, Patrick Clare said. The flaws of ACTs score review practices can be scrutinized through litigation, something that could never be accomplished in arbitration because of limited discovery rules, he said. Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook. The party is back on at Monmouth University. For students who can get decent grades, that is. The private university in West Long Branch reinstated its fraternity and sorority system on Monday, four months after imposing an indefinite suspension over concerns about hazing, alcohol, drug use and poor academic performance. In lifting the ban, the university announced a series of reforms, including raising the minimum GPA for to 2.75, up from 2.5 for students rushing a fraternity or sorority and 2.25 for active members, beginning next fall. The decision, which affects about 700 students in 15 Greek organizations, comes after university officials had described a negative culture casting a long shadow over Greek life at Monmouth. We needed a reset so that they could take this time to kind of reevaluate who they are and what they want to be, said Mary Anne Nagy, the university vice president for student life and leadership engagement Though university officials cited serious conduct violations involving hazing and drugs and alcohol, they never offered specific examples of the problems. The university denied some students suggestion that a fatal car crash after an underground fraternity party was a deciding factor in the suspension. The reforms were developed by Greek students, administrators, alumni and the campus community because the university insisted that any changes should be driven in-part by students, rather than a top-down mandate. Though drugs and alcohol arent directly referenced, its clear the reforms are meant to improve the quality of student who gets into Greek life and ensure rules are enforced when theyre broken. One of key changes, hiking the GPA requirement, will force fraternities and sororities to reconsider who they recruit, Nagy said. Are you just going after a body? Or are you going after somebody who is serious about being a student as well as being a leader, Nagy said. Along with the GPA requirement, the reforms include shortening the Greek life recruitment period, creating new student boards to review recruitment violations and a new report card to track chapters performances. The overarching theme of the changes is strengthening accountability for a Greek system that too often let its members off with a slap on the wrist, Nagy said. The system of really holding each other accountable had completely broken down, Nagy said. The university will more strictly apply its student code of conduct in cases involving fraternities and sororities instead of allowing the Greek Senate to handle the cases independently, she said. Monmouth will also reorganize positions in its administration to provide better oversight of fraternity and sorority life, according to the university. Campus officials are satisfied with the reforms and optimistic about the future, Nagy said. I want a fraternity and sorority system, Nagy said. I think it adds a lot to campus Correction: A previous version of this headline incorrectly stated the grade needed to participate in Greek life. Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook. If craft beer is your thing, you might want to head to Vineland. The Brass Tap Craft Beer Bar, a Tampa-based franchise, opened its first New Jersey bar on South Delsea Drive. This will be Brass Taps 50th bar. Others are in Maryland, Wisconsin and the Carolinas, among other places. The bars franchisee, Gary Singh, is a Vineland resident, so he chose the location. It seems very underserved for great craft beer bars, said Jamie Cecil, vice president of franchise development for Brass Tap. I think the demographics will compliment Brass Tap very well. Cecil said the bar will be about 3,500 square feet and have 60 taps serving local and regional craft beers. Thats what Brass Tap does, he said -- relies on local breweries to make each location unique. It is Official!!! These Taps will be pumping out beer for all of our community to enjoy on January 14th, 2019!!!! Check our website to see more details about our wonderful offerings!! Posted by The Brass Tap - Vineland on Tuesday, January 8, 2019 The Brass Tap in Florida will be different than the one in Vineland, he said. We team up with local brewers and highlight and showcase their beers. But the selection doesnt end with local beers. The bar will serve a total of more than 300 craft beers from around the world, according to its website. And for those who arent fans of beer, Brass Tap also has wine and liquor options and a food menu that includes burgers, wings and other shareable appetizers, Cecil said. Among its signature dishes are Boom Boom Shrimp (a dozen tempura beer-battered), the Brass Tap Salad (romaine, goat cheese, fire roasted red bell peppers, tomatoes, red onions, dried cranberries and ranch dressing), and a Prime Rib Sandwich (with a horseradish cream cheese schmear & smoked Gouda cheese on toasted Ciabatta bread with au jus). The Brass Tap Vineland opened Monday at 2738 S. Delsea Drive. Allison Pries may be reached at apries@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AllisonPries. Find NJ.com on Facebook. A Highland Park councilwoman is accused of beating her husband over the head with a broomstick and a cookbook. Susan Welkovits, 57, who was appointed to the borough council in January 2012, was charged Friday with possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes. She also was charged with simple assault after biting her husband on his forearm, which left visible signs of abuse, police said. When officers arrived, the husband refused treatment for his injuries, police said. During their investigation, police also found text messages the husband wrote to co-workers saying that his wife had abused him. The police report noted that children were present at the time of the incident. Welkovits already appeared before a judge and was released, police said. Its unclear when she is scheduled to appear back in court. Her bio says that she and her husband are graduates of Highland Park High School, and about 10 years ago she returned to Highland Park from New York City to raise a family. Welkovits was reached by phone Monday afternoon but declined to comment. Highland Park Mayor Gayle Brill Mittler also declined to comment on the matter. Spencer Kent may be reached atskent@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerMKent. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have information about this story or something else we should be covering? Tell us. nj.com/tips Ricardo Carrillo-Santiago is either a cold-blooded killer who choked the life out of his estranged wife and killed her infant child, or he was a devoted spouse whose ex pushed him into a blind rage with taunts about his manhood. Those were the two narratives presented to jurors during opening arguments in his murder trial Tuesday in Cumberland County. Santiago, 37, of Millville, is accused of strangling Neidy Ramirez at her Vineland apartment, then suffocating 3-month-old Genesis in 2015. The issues are clear and the testimony will be compelling, Assistant Prosecutor Lesley Snock promised the jury. Nov. 26, 2015, was Thanksgiving Day and on this day, Neidy and her three children ... were all together and all spent that day with their family like most of us would do on Thanksgiving Day, Snock said. No one knew at the time that that day would be the very last time that anybody that knew Neidy, that new Genesis, in that family would ever see them alive. Their bodies were found near a nature preserve in Fairfield Township, Cumberland County. Ramirez was buried in a shallow grave under a pile of leaves. Genesis was found 100 yards away in a trash bag. According to past accounts, Santiago was accused of crushing the childs chest with his knee, which caused her to go into convulsions, then putting his hand over her mouth and nose to suffocate the child. Assistant Prosecutor Lesley Snock addresses the jury during opening arguments in the trial of Ricardo Carrillo-Santiago, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. Carrillo-Santiago, of Millville, is charged with killing his ex-wife Neidy Ramirez, of Vineland, and her 3-month-old daughter, Genesis. (Al Amrhein | For NJ Advance Media)Al Amrhein | For NJ Advance Medi During Tuesdays hearing, Snock said Genesis died of chest compression asphyxiation, which would have resulted from a squeezing of the childs chest for a significant period of time. Santiago is the father of one of Ramirezs other two children and had visitation/custody rights with the two older kids, which allowed him to take them overnight or for a few days at a time. Ramirez had obtained a temporary no-contact order against Santiago following an incident months earlier in which Santiago allegedly threatened her, according to reports at the time. The restraining order expired a week before the killings. Family and friends became alarmed when Ramirez and her daughter dropped out of sight after Thanksgiving. She didnt show up for work at Contes Pasta in Buena. The womans 2005 Chevrolet Trailblazer was found abandoned on the side of Route 55, and prosecutors allege Santiago left the vehicle there to divert suspicion that he had anything to do with their disappearance. Neidy Ramirez and her infant daughter, Genesis, were killed in 2015. (Submitted photos) During questioning about the disappearances, Santiago allegedly changed his story several times, prosecutors alleged. He talked about Ramirez saying she wanted to stay with him, then saying she wanted to be with Genesis father. The defendant goes on and he ultimately admits to killing Neidy and Genesis and he agrees to take investigators out to the location where he disposed of the bodies, Snock said. He told the investigators that he killed the victims the day after Thanksgiving. Defense attorney Dinaz Akhtar described her client as a devoted father who had gone to his ex-wifes apartment to try and reconcile and get his family back. Instead, she threw a dirty diaper at him and cut him down with words expressing her preference for another man. You dont satisfy me like he does. His is bigger than yours. The words cut him like a knife, Akhtar told jurors. This was the woman he loved. This was the woman he married. This was the woman he supported. Santiago was consumed by a red fog of humiliation, shame and rage, she said. He snapped and lost control. It wasnt supposed to happen. As she held Genesis, Ramirez began hitting her client, Akhtar said, and in their struggle the baby fell to the floor. Defense attorney, Dinaz Akhtar, and her client, via an interpreter, listen during opening arguments in the trial of Ricardo Carrillo-Santiago, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. Carrillo-Santiago, of Millville, is charged with killing his ex-wife Neidy Ramirez, of Vineland, and her 3-month-old daughter, Genesis. (Al Amrhein | For NJ Advance Media)Al Amrhein | For NJ Advance Medi Akhtar called the babys death an unfortunate accident and accused the prosecution of a rush to judgement. The states theory to fit their neat story is flawed, she said. It doesnt make sense. She also called on the jury to pay special attention to medical examiner Gerald Feigins testimony and reminded them of his role in the Boston Nanny case from 1997, in which Feigin changed his testimony about the death of a baby between the grand jury hearing and trial of an au pair charged with killing the child. He ended up resigning from his medical examiner post in Boston after concerns were raised about errors in that and another case. Santiago showed little emotion as he listened to the attorneys lay out their cases, listening through earbuds as an interpreter translated for him. Snock stressed that Santiago knew what he was doing. I want you to keep two words in the back of your mind, Snock told the jury. Those words are vengeance and revenge. The evidence you are going to hear will show to you beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant murdered Neidy Ramirez, that the defendant murdered Genesis Ramirez and that there is absolutely, positively no justification in the law that will excuse the defendants conduct on the day in question and that the defendant knew full well before, during and after the murders were committed what he was doing, Snock said. At the end of the day, it is not complicated and your decision should not be complicated. U.S. Coast Guard employees in Cape May grappling with not getting paid during the federal government shutdown will be getting guidance from county social workers. A small delegation from Cape May Countys social services division will visit the Coast Guard later this week to provide information on programs offering financial assistance, Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton said. The Coast Guards training center is in Cape May and Thornton said approximately 1,000 federal employees are at the base. Thornton said the county workers will provide Coast Guard employees with information on several programs, from SNAP - the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program - to Work First New Jersey, which provides temporary cash assistance. Its very important that we take care of them and protect them, said Thornton, a U.S. Air Force veteran. There are nearly 6,700 New Jersey federal workers not being paid during the federal government shutdown, now its 23rd day. Coast Guard employees were last paid Dec. 31 and would have been paid Tuesday, but for the shutdown. This could be a long-term issue here. Were very concerned about them as a community, Thornton said of the Coast Guard. The shutdown stems from President Donald Trumps insistence on federal funding, opposed by Democrats, for a wall along the Mexican border. Multiple efforts are underway to assist Coast Guard employees in Cape May. The Jersey Cape Military Spouses Club is collecting donations such as canned food, cereal, bread, diapers and detergent, with the VFW, American Legion in Wildwood, Kiwanis Club, Seaville Fire Department, and others offering assistance. Cape May officials advised anyone interested in applying for government benefits to go to http://oneapp.dhs.state.nj.us, or apply in person at the Cape May County Division of Social Services at 4005 Route 9 South, Rio Grande, NJ 08242. For information, contact (609) 886-6200 or email socialservices@cmcbss.com. Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RobJenningsNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook A trucker from New York has been indicted on charges he caused a fatal highway crash in Burlington County last year. Sean Cole, 46, was indicted Jan. 8 on counts of vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. Both are second-degree offenses. Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina announced the indictment in a news release Monday. He said Cole was the driver who was headed north on I-295 on Jan. 21 last year who, around milepost 46 in Westampton, struck the rear of a Dodge Grand Caravan minivan, sending it off the road and onto grass, where it struck trees and flipping over. The crash occurred at about 5 a.m. The driver, 60-year-old John Farino of Cinnaminson, was pronounced dead at the scene. About 10 minutes after the collision, Cole pulled over and dialed 911, telling a dispatcher he hit something, but didnt know what it was. U.S. Marshals arrested Cole Monday at J.F.K. International Airport in New York City. He was returning from a trip to Jamaica, Coffina said. Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JBrandt_NJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Police seized 46 marijuana plants and charged a Bergen County man with running a drug production facility after police officers were called to a residence for a report of a suicidal person. Victor A. Collado, 48, was charged after police entered a New Milford house for a welfare check about 1:30 p.m. Thursday. The officers found Collado in the basement and smelled raw marijuana, Det. Lt. Kevin Van Saders said in a statement. Collado admitted smoking marijuana and showed them marijuana plants growing in his room, Van Saders said. Police obtained a warrant to search the house with a K-9 from the Bergen County Sheriffs Department, Van Saders said. Officers said they found 46 marijuana plants of various stages of growth, several packaged bags of marijuana, candies with marijuana wax, liquid THC, cocaine, steroids and materials used to grow and distribute marijuana. Police photo of 46 marijuana plants they said they found in the New Milford home of Victor A. Collado. Collado was charged with maintaining a drug manufacturing facility, distribution of marijuana over 1 ounce and other drug possession charges. He was taken to the Bergen County Jail and later released. Police on Tuesday said a woman who first came to the door to meet the officers turned out to be the person who had threatened to harm herself. Officers responding were not given much information about the victim, Van Sader said. The (woman) did not advise the officers that she was the one had made the (suicidal) statements. Evidence seized at the New Milford home of Victor A. Collado includes materials used to grow marijuana, police said. Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook. The Greek coalition government composed of the leftist SYRIZA and the right-wing Independent Greeks party has proven resilient for four years. This is a new record for a government staying in power during the ongoing economic crisis in the country. To recap events of recent years, the center-left PASOK government came into power in October 2009, but then collapsed in October 2011 with then Prime Minister George Papandreou's resignation. coalition cabinet stepped in to govern until the twin elections of May and June 2012, after which the conservative New Democracy cooperated with PASOK until December 2014. That month, parliament was dissolved, being unable to elect the new Greek president. In January 2015, the SYRIZA-Independent Greeks administration started, and their mandate was renewed in the national election of September 2015. Now, at the beginning of 2019, a serious disagreement has arisen over the Prespes agreement, with Prime Minister and SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras on one side, and Defense Minister and Leader of Independent Greeks Panos Kammenos on the other. Signed in July 2018, the agreement paves the way for resolution of the name issue between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The two countries have agreed on an erga omnes usage of "North Macedonia." The parliament of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has already voted in favor of certain constitutional changes that will allow it to join NATO and the European Union under the new name North Macedonia. It is now the turn of Greek MPs to approve the Prespes accord, but Defense Minister Kammenos decided to resign because he opposes the naming compromise. As a result of this conflict, the cohesion of the coalition government has been shaken. In response to Kammenos' resignation, Premier Tsipras is asking for a confidence vote in parliament in an attempt to prevent an early election. The outlook from here is not clear. Although Kammenos is publicly encouraging all Independent Greeks MPs to follow the party line, some do seem unprepared to vote "No" in the confidence vote. Therefore, the possibility that SYRIZA will not reach the necessary threshold of 151 MPs must not be excluded. It is currently in search of six MPs who can join the 145 in its parliamentary group. These six may include former Independent Greeks members or other MPs who do not want an early election. If SYRIZA hits the number, Tsipras will continue as prime minister and will be able to bring the Prespes agreement for parliamentary approval. Soon enough, however, Greece will have its national election. Four years from the last election, as stipulated in the Constitution, would mean summer of this year. Of course, timing matters. Should SYRIZA survive the confidence vote, the national election might be organized in parallel with the European Parliament election in May, unexpectedly, or towards the end of the governmental term in September. Tsipras is well aware that SYRIZA's popularity is lagging behind the opposition New Democracy party in the polls, but he will passionately try to re-attract disenchanted supporters of his party and rally a raft of voters belonging to the center-left political spectrum. Meanwhile, the New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis has failed to inspire undecided voters, so the election results cannot be presumed. Past experience from the Greek crisis suggests that political developments like these have a serious impact on the economy. Being a national election year, it is hard to make a sure prognosis about the course of the economy in 2019. During a pre-election period, Greek politicians tend to overlook fiscal targets and obligations, which means the possibility of some backpedaling. In the first days of the year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Greece and publicly praised the economic achievements of recent years. However, this does not mean efforts should cease. The enhanced surveillance of the Greek economy by its creditors aims to prevent deviations and guarantee that economic policies remain in line with agreed-upon goals. In short, if this year's pre-election period is prolonged, that will be bad news for Greece and its national economy. On the other hand, if the election takes place early, the winner party will need partners to form a government. Ten years after the outbreak of the crisis, when the country's economic program is largely being imposed by creditors, politicians still lack the maturity to seek broader coalitions. It seems the one thing that is certain is that disagreements between the government and the main opposition can be expected to continue. George N. Tzogopoulos is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/GeorgeNTzogopoulos.htm Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn. In the throes of the Great Depression, President Roosevelt established the New Deal, a visionary plan that put millions of people to work, built enduring public infrastructure, and set the stage for long-term economic prosperity. Now Gov.-elect Ned Lamont and the General Assembly have a historic opportunity: Put our people to work creating a new climate-safe economy a Green New Deal. Whats a Green New Deal? Put simply, it is a comprehensive plan to tackle climate change, revitalize our economy, and address economic and racial inequity at the same time. Immediately after the 2018 elections, a group of young people called the Sunrise Movement began urging Congressional leaders to support a plan to create millions of jobs by putting Americans to work making a rapid transition to a fossil-free economy. The Green New Deal is fast becoming a new touchstone of American political discourse, gaining support from a diverse coalition of Congressional representatives, young activists and advocacy organizations. It appears bound to be a factor in the 2020 elections. But theres a problem: Both climate protection and public job creation are blocked at the national level by a president and Senate who are more interested in enriching fossil fuel interests than in creating millions of jobs for American workers protecting the climate. So states, including Connecticut, are beginning to take the lead. Ned Lamonts campaign platform could become the foundation for a Connecticut Green New Deal: I will commit Connecticut to a further reduction in carbon emissions from current levels of 35 percent by 2030, 70 percent by 2040, and carbon neutral by 2050. Our transition to a sustainable energy future will create thousands of new jobs in the green economyWe have already seen good-paying jobs created in the fuel cell, solar installation, and home weatherization industries, and I am proud that New London will become a new manufacturing and assembling base for offshore wind turbines. As the sustainable energy transition continues, I will make sure that many more green jobs are created. In The Land of Steady Habits, it may be comforting to know that there is historical precedent for such an ambitious state-level program. Gov. Wilbur Cross, who entered office in 1930 a fiscal conservative, recognized the need for a more active state role in helping the destitute and submitted a Little New Deal to the legislature in his second term. New programs assisted the elderly, modernized state hospitals, prisons and universities, and provided jobs for the unemployed. During his tenure, the General Assembly eliminated sweatshops, outlawed child labor, established fair labor practices, and passed unemployment insurance programs. The federal New Deal also had a major impact in Connecticut. The Civilian Conservation Corps put 30,000 people to work in Connecticut, including supporting environmental initiatives like planting millions of trees. More than 44,000 state residents were employed by the Civil Works Administration, building or repairing schools, roads and bridges. Much of this infrastructure is still in use today. Connecticut also has a long history of bipartisan leadership on climate. The Governors Council on Climate Change unanimously recommended one of the most aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets in the nation cutting emissions 45 percent below 2001 levels by 2030 and that target was incorporated into state law with bipartisan support from the legislature in May 2018. In December, the GC3 released a report with an extensive list of recommended actions that, if implemented, would put the state on track to meet the 2030 target. But there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done, and recent international and federal climate assessments make clear that we must double down on all strategies to transition to a clean energy economy, including strengthening our longer-term climate pollution reduction targets and renewable energy mandates. Lamont has outlined a bold vision that would strengthen Connecticuts national leadership on climate action. He has also embraced the need for strategic investments to bring economic revitalization to our state. A Connecticut Green New Deal could help accomplish both goals, putting people to work building thriving local economies that are not only more sustainable but also more just and equitable. John Harrity is chair of the board for the Connecticut Roundtable on Climate and Jobs and retired president of the Connecticut State Council of Machinists. Claire Coleman is the climate and energy attorney for Connecticut Fund for the Environment and serves on the Governors Council on Climate Change. Matt Nemerson has a somewhat longer commute these days and his daily agenda is more streamlined as he works with a team of people who provide energy savings for corporate clients who are happy to leave the logistics to the experts. As New Havens economic development administrator under New Haven Mayor Toni Harp for five years, he and his staff were dealing with a firehose of projects constantly coming at them, with the added feature of satisfying layers of constituencies. At the city, we were overseeing things that were going to happen and helping developers and others get them done more quickly or in ways that would be most advantageous to the city, Nemerson said in a phone conversation. He described the job as putting together a large jigsaw puzzle . Here we are the ones trying to do the one thing very well. Its much more focused on refining the business model and figuring out our unique role in the $300 billion energy industry. My old job was trying to verse 199 things in different categories. This is trying to do a few things well and better than someone else who may be a competitor, Nemerson said of being named vice president of Budderfly. He assumed his new positive Jan. 2 after taking a month off. Budderflys Energy as a Service, or EaaS, company assumes the utility bill of the corporate client, takes on the capital risk of installing improvements to reduce its energy consumption and then shares in the savings, according to its website. Nemerson said the company, located in Shelton, has grown from $417,000 in sales in 2017 to $3.5 million last year and is projecting to have close to $50 million in sales by the end 2019. The posting on Nemersons new job reads: Budderfly is the future of Energy Management and is on track to become one of the countrys leading energy efficiency as a service firms. Started by Al Subbloie of Tangoe fame, the company now has over 20 employees and is raising about $25 million in equity and debt. Nemerson said he has known Subbloie, who is CEO and a board member at Budderfly, for decades. He said they first met in 1985 when Subbloie was renting office space at Science Park in Building 25 for one of his early startups. Subbloie then started Tangoe, a telecommunications expense management company, in space on Court Street before moving to Orange. Nemerson said just before Subbloie left Tangoe as its chief executive officer two years ago, they were talking about bringing the company to the Armstrong/Pirelli building on Sargent Drive in New Haven. That never happened and Ikea has now gotten zoning approval for a hotel to locate there. Nemerson and Subbloie also have connections through the Connecticut Technology Council as he was a board member there when Nemerson was the chief executive officer. Nemerson said Tangoe was a perennial winner in the CTC Marcum Tech Top 40 program. One real pleasure is seeing Al work so closely with the team he put together for Tangoe, Nemerson said of personnel from Tangoe, and other companies associated with Subbloie, who are now at Budderfly. The focus is very much on growth and maintaining an understandable model and narrative for his financial investors, Nemerson said. One challenge is how to still be able to share the knowledge and perspectives I have picked up from many years decades of looking at the big picture of economic development at the state and local level, Nemerson said. In September, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Tangoe, Inc. with allegedly using fraudulent accounting practices between 2013 and 2015, according to a release from the SEC. Four former members of the companys former senior management team, including Subbloie, also were charged for their roles in the alleged misconduct, the release said. They agreed to pay fines, if the settlement is approved by the court, but did not admit or deny the allegations. During Nemersons tenure in New Haven there was an explosion of residential apartment construction, as well as tech startups moving downtown. mary.oleary@hearstmediact.com; 203-641-2577 The state Medical Examining Board fined a Greenwich doctor $3,000 Tuesday for failing to justify prescribing high doses of opioids for patients in 2015 and 2016. The board also reprimanded the license of Dr. Francis X. Walsh, placed his license on probation for six months and ordered him to take courses in medical documentation and controlled substance prescribing, a consent order he agreed to said. In prescribing the drugs in his office practice, Walsh failed to properly document that he had examined the patients and failed to justify potentially dangerous dosing and combinations of medications, the order said. During the probation, Walsh must hire a doctor to review his office practice. Walsh has surrendered his state registration to prescribe controlled substances in that practice, state records show. He can still prescribe drugs at the Nathaniel Witherell nursing home in Greenwich, where he is the medical director, records show. In signing the consent order, Walsh chose not to contest the allegations against him. Board members Jean Rexford and Michele Jacklin voted against the consent order, saying the fine was not high enough given the serious nature of the allegations. At what point do we take a bigger action against the over-prescribing of opioids, Rexford said. This is unacceptable. David Tilles, a staff attorney for the state Department of Public Health, responded that the department believes the penalty is sufficient because Walsh has made substantial improvements in his prescribing practices and because he is only prescribing controlled substances now at the nursing home, where there is oversight. Dr. Andrew Yuan, a board member, agreed with Tilles. I think the public is protected, he said. The board also ordered David Landi of Bristol to cease the practice of medicine without a license after DPH alleged that in April 2016, he administered a penile injection to a patient to treat erectile dysfunction, records show. Landi administered the drug at a mens health clinic in Cromwell, records show. Landi was the owner and operator of the clinic, which has since closed, Tilles said. Landi showed a physician who was affiliated with the clinic how to inject the medication, but the doctor cut all ties with the clinic after one day or so, Tilles told the board. Landi agreed in a consent order with the board to stop practicing medicine without a license. This story was reported under a partnership with the Connecticut Health I-Team, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to health reporting. (c-hit.org) NEW HAVEN In its 49 consecutive years, Shiloh Missionary Baptist Churchs Martin Luther King Jr. Love March is a generational legacy. The Rev. George W. Hampton Sr., the churchs late pastor and founder, started the march nearly 50 years ago to honor the birthday of the assassinated civil rights leader, several years before Martin Luther King Jr. Day was signed into law in 1983. Tuesday would have been Kings 90th birthday. Were celebrating (Kings) birthday the same way you would celebrate yours, said Wanda Faison, 55, who was present for the churchs first march. Faison led the march, holding the banner. On the other end was Cherish Bell, 19, at her eighth Love March. Its just a part of my church, Bell said, although she said she reveres King as well. Students from Wexler-Grant, who sang for the congregation, joined a crowd of about 50 marchers as they walked on Whitney Avenue and State Street between Lawrence and Humphrey Streets. Since Martin Luther King is not here with us today, stuff like this still goes on, said Ariana Williams, 12. People dont always appreciate what they have. Alanis Morales, 13, said the march is a testament to how much respect people have for the slain movement leader. He still lives on in the world, she said. In honor of the youth presence, the Rev. Kennedy Hampton, senior pastor of the church, highlighted several members of the community to shake hands with the children, including Probate Judge Clifton Graves, state Sen. Gary Winfield and former Superintendent of Schools Reginald Mayo. We dont need to talk about it; we need to let them see it, Hampton said. When I was growing up, I dont recall a judge I could shake hands with. Mayor Toni Harp said in her own youth she remembered the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing as a pivotal moment, and she remembered King calling for love in that moment. If we are going to live in a just world, there is something we have got to do about it, she said. What he called for was a beloved community. The Rev. Lindsey Curtis, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Norwalk and president of the Connecticut State Missionary Baptist Convention, said the congregation must not be silent in the face of present injustices. This is not a time for us to be silent, he said. Why do we act like this is commonplace? brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com ALBANY Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday revealed the details of his long-awaited proposal to legalize marijuana in New York, which would restrict access to anyone under 21, automatically seal marijuana offenses on a person's criminal record, and generate roughly $300 million in new tax revenues. During a budget address Tuesday afternoon, he said regulation in the industry would help protect public health and safety by subjecting the products to stringent quality and testing regulations. It would also promote social equality, he argued, by reducing racial disparities in criminalization and incarceration rates. "Let's stop the disproportionate impact on communities of color," he said. "Let's create an industry that empowers the poor communities that paid the price and not the rich corporations that come in to make a profit." Taxes The proposed Cannabis Regulation and Taxation Act would impose three taxes on the adult-use of marijuana, which together would generate roughly $300 million in new revenues for the state by the program's third year. The first tax would be on the cultivation of cannabis at a rate of $1 per dry weight gram of cannabis flower and $0.25 per dry weight gram of cannabis trim. The second would be on the sale by a wholesaler to a retail dispensary at a rate of 20 percent of the invoice price. The third would be imposed on the same sale at 2 percent of the invoice price, but collected in trust for the county in which the retail dispensary is located. Counties and large cities would be allowed to "opt out" of the retail industry, Cuomo said, by passing local laws that prohibit marijuana shops from opening within their jurisdictions. "So we're not telling them what to do, but they have to affirmatively opt out of the program," he said. Revenues from the state taxes would go toward administering a regulated cannabis program; data gathering, monitoring and reporting; a traffic safety committee; small business development and loans; substance abuse, harm reduction and mental health treatment and prevention; public health education and intervention; research on cannabis uses and applications; and program evaluation and improvements. Regulatory structure The bill would create a new Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) that centralizes all the licensing, enforcement and economic development functions into one entity. The OCM would administer all licensing, production, and distribution of cannabis products in the adult-use, industrial and medical cannabis markets. Perhaps of most interest to industry insiders was the governor's proposal of a three-tier distribution model for the recreational market, in which the state would issue separate licenses for producers, distributors and retailers, and bar producers from also owning retail outlets. While similar to the market for alcohol, it differs from the vertical integration model currently used by the state's medical marijuana industry, in which a registered organization is allowed to control the process from seed to sale. Small business advocates say this is a good thing, as it gives more space for new companies to enter the market. But the state's medical marijuana industry said Tuesday that it hopes the proposed legislation will allow existing medical providers to participate fully in the recreational market, as "that is the only way to keep prices low enough to ensure patients continue to receive the care they need and to protect against an illicit market." Ari Hoffnung, CEO of Vireo Health of New York, a medical marijuana organization with a grow facility in Johnstown and a dispensary in Albany, acknowledged marijuana legalization as a huge step forward for New York, but said he's wary, too, of the proposed distribution model. "I think the question that we have is what happens in an environment in which vertical integration is not mandated, but prohibited? That's one of the many reasons we're going to be studying this legislation very carefully." The proposed program would limit the number of producers and retail dispensaries to guard against a market collapse, encourage equity through craft growers and cooperatives, and provide technical assistance, training and incubators to enable communities hit hard by the war on drugs to participate. The governor's plan will not allow New Yorkers to grow their own marijuana for recreational use. It will, however, allow home grow for medical use a provision many advocates say is necessary to ensure access given the high cost of products in stores and lack of insurance coverage. The governor's proposal now heads to the Senate and Assembly for debate. Hamden Police Department photo HAMDEN - An ex-WB Mason worker is accused of twice breaking into the companys business last December. The first time, on Dec. 1, Darren Bowman, 24, of Hamden, is accused of forcibly entered the business through a rear door and stole keys to a company truck. HAMDEN A temporary contract employee at Hamden High School is facing charges after allegedly sending threatening emails to staff, police said Tuesday. Police responded to Hamden High School on Dixwell Avenue on a threatening complaint just before 10 a.m. Monday. Initial investigation revealed that a threatening email had been sent to three school staff members. School officials immediately implemented their emergency operation plan and contacted the Hamden Police Department, police said. Approximately one hour later, a second threatening email was received by the Hamden High School administration, police said. Detective Mark Sheppard assumed the investigation, working with the school administration, according to the release. Along with Detective Brian Stewart and Officer Shawn Nutcher, Sheppard was able to identify 21-year-old Ajaunna Laudat as a suspect. Laudat is a temporary contracted employee, police said. Detective Joseph Liguori interviewed Laudat Tuesday morning at Hamden Police Headquarters, and she confessed to sending the threatening emails, police said. She said she wanted the students to leave early, according to police. Laudat, of Pardee Place, New Haven, was charged with first-degree threatening, falsely reporting an incident and second-degree breach of peace. She was held in lieu of $100,000 bail and is to appear in Superior Court in Meriden Jan. 25. This incident was resolved quickly through the efforts and collegial cooperation between Hamden Public Schools and the Hamden Police Department, Capt. Ronald Smith said in the release. Hamden Police would like to commend the efforts displayed by Hamden High School students and staff for their cooperation during this incident. A Milford police officer charged with hitting a North Haven woman with her Nissan Pathfinder last summer in Hamden was arraigned Monday and had her case continued. Courtney Bothwell, 28, was arraigned in Superior Court in Meriden and had her case continued to Feb. 20. She was arrested Jan. 2 and charged with negligent homicide, failure to exercise due care to avoid colliding with a pedestrian and distracted driving after hitting Kristin Wilczynski while driving her sport-utility vehicle on July 20, 2018. Wilczynski was on Dixwell Avenue near the Hamden police station when she was hit, according to police. Bothwell told police the incident occurred when she looked away from the road to grab a puppy that was riding with her in the vehicle, according to the arrest warrant police in the case. Bothwell was not on duty at the time of the incident, police said. Police found the sport-utility vehicle stopped near the scene of the collision . Bothwell was pacing back and forth and looked visibly shaken, according to the arrest warrant in the case. Officer Kevin Hall asked Bothwell whether she was OK and she responded, Physically, yes. There was no evidence of her being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, Hall said in the warrant. Witnesses told police Bothwells vehicle appeared to going faster than the posted 35 mph speed limit. It also was determined Bothwell never applied the brakes before the right-front side of the Pathfinder hit Wilczynski at the intersection of Dixwell and Old Dixwell avenues, according to the warrant. A forensic analysis of security videos that captured images of Wilczynski being hit by the vehicle was unable determine how fast Bothwells Nissan was traveling at the time , police said. Wilczynski was married and had three children. After her death, community members came together to raise money for the Wilczynski family. More than $20,000 was raised through a crowdfunding campaign. luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com Editor's note: This story has been updated since it was first posted as Wilczynski was not in a crosswalk when the accident occurred, according to police. WASHINGTON - Jose Andres, chef, restaurateur and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, will focus his humanitarian efforts on his hometown this week, when his nonprofit launches a relief kitchen to feed furloughed federal workers in Washington, D.C. The decision to open a food kitchen only steps away from the White House and the U.S. Capitol is both practical and symbolic, Andres said during a phone interview from Puerto Rico today. Practically, the free #ChefsforFeds kitchen will feed federal workers and their families during the partial government shutdown, now in its fourth week. In this sense, the operation in downtown Washington will not be too far removed from the food relief that World Central Kitchen - the nonprofit that Andres launched after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti - has offered in Puerto Rico, Houston, Florida, North Carolina, Tijuana, Guatemala and other locales where people have suffered after natural or man-made disasters. "I believe it's an emergency," Andres told The Washington Post about the partial federal shutdown. "I believe these people are going to be suffering, and we are a food relief organization." But on another level, the relief kitchen -- the site is currently a test kitchen for the chef's ThinkFoodGroup, which is donating the space for the cause -- is a symbolic display designed to spark political dialogue to end the shutdown, which is in its 24th day. In a Twitter video announcing the initiative, Andres said he hoped the kitchen would motivate the government to act. "I hope it will be a call to action to our senators and congressmen, and especially President Trump, to make sure that we end this moment in the history of America, where families are about to go hungry," Andres said. "We should always come together as we the people, as Americans, bipartisan." In the interview with The Washington Post, Andres said his relief kitchen "sends a message that we're here for the people. It sends a message that our leaders should come together and find common ground." As such, Andres said, he will institute a policy for any politician who tries to turn the #ChefsforFeds kitchen into a grandstanding opportunity. World Central Kitchen, he said, will warmly accept any politico who wants to volunteer at the temporary kitchen, but only if he or she brings along someone from the opposite party. The other person must be someone "who doesn't think like them," Andres emphasized. Then again, some critics have accused Andres of being the grandstander in this scenario. "Sorry but I talk to many many one parent mothers with children and they are having a hard time already!" Andres responded to one critic on Twitter. The #ChefsforFeds kitchen will debut on Wednesday at 701 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, and it will run from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. The volunteer chefs will hot meals available for federal workers who show a government ID as well as ingredients and recipes for workers to take home to feed their families. The latter component is important to Andres; he still remembers being a child back in Spain when his own family was living paycheck to paycheck. The days near the end of the month could be tough, he recalled. They forced his mother to come up with creative way to reuse leftovers. "We've all been there," Andres said. The #ChefsforFeds kitchen will not affect the sandwich giveaway for federal employees from 2 to 5 p.m. daily at Andres'restaurants, including Jaleo, Zaytinya and Oyamel. ThinkFoodGroup has been handing out 200 to 300 free sandwiches a day at each restaurant, Andres said. He estimates that between food costs and labor, his restaurant group has so far spent more than $50,000 feeding government employees. "I've been in business 25 years because of federal workers," Andres said. "The least I can do is be there for them when they need us." --- Video Embed: Journalist Bob Woodward has a couple of Pulitzer Prizes, and his Watergate coverage with Carl Bernstein helped bring down a lying and conniving president. His latest book, Fear: Trump in the White House, is a brisk read about another president who has issues with the truth. Cut to New Haven, where Woodward will appear on stage Jan. 22 at the College Street Music Hall to talk about the chief executive who dominates most news cycles in America. But it was not at Yale in New Haven, where Woodward graduated in 1965, that Bob Woodward first was inspired to expose the secrets of the rich and powerful. When I was in high school, I was a janitor in my fathers law office, Woodward said via phone from a vacation recently. And I started looking at the papers on his desk and his partners desk and realized there were lots of things that were not known publicly about people in this town, Wheaton, Illinois. Eventually, as kids will do, he went up to the attic and read through disposed files looking up the family names of classmates, and discovered there were tax cases and assault cases and so forth. And this was (a town) where Billy Graham went to college, Wheaton College. There was that veneer that everyones good and there are no secrets and, of course, when you looked at the disposed files you discover that almost everyone has a secret. Woodward spent five years in the Navy after college, including his final year in the Pentagon from 1969 to 1970 and saw the top-secret bombing reports showing that it wasnt really working, to say the least in Southeast Asia, while military and political leaders were saying it was effective. There was a disconnect between perception ... what people are seeing, and a harder reality, said Woodward, who went on to work in journalism at the Washington Post, where he still has the title of associate editor. Asked if President Trump has righted the White House ship since Woodwards meticulous reporting on the book, he said, Actually, I think you could argue its consistent. What the book shows thematically is: Trump makes lots of his decisions based on untruth. For instance: Trade deficits are really bad, and ... as Gary Cohn and others tried to show him, theyre not bad, and the money is not being lost. And a lot of this trade is good for the American economy, even with China. The president tweeted in November that were losing hundreds of billions in helping the military in other countries and in trade deficits, and thats just not true, said Woodward. Woodward has written 18 books, including All the Presidents Men (which Time magazine called Perhaps the most influential piece of journalism in history), Bush at War, Wired (about John Belushi), and Obamas Wars. All are examples of solid reporting in book form published not so long after the newspapers daily first draft of history. While Trump critics get hyperbolic about him, Woodward said its important for people in our business to be as unemotional as possible about him and try to report factually. And I had the luxury of time and could take a year and a half and just withdraw and not do stories for the Post. Stay off television mostly... Woodward agreed that with a few key turns, Trump could win a second term. He said the scandals of Stormy Daniels and the Playboy model are unsavory, to say the least. Almost unbelievable, but I doubt if theyre illegal. And if theyre illegal, they may be campaign violations, which arent going to drive him from office or get him impeached, as lots of his critics and detractors are hoping for. Will lawyer Michael Cohens testimony get to the president? Wait and see, Woodward said. People in our business, people in the country have become emotionally unhinged about Trump, and jump to conclusions. And every little thing is a bombshell in peoples minds, he said. But with a predecessor of the Nixon case, the lesson is you need a lot of time and you need evidence thats incontrovertible. The Nixon tapes show Nixon regularly ordering criminal activity. We havent seen that yet with Trump. Maybe we will; maybe we wont. Woodward, speaking with the Register during the holidays, said as hes looked at the Trump news since the book came out in September, its so much more of the same and Ive come to the view that Trump doesnt even know what his own self-interest is. Hell contradict himself; he will say things and do things that dont help the Republicans or dont help him. Some have described the Trump White House as chaotic, but Woodward said Chaos is not the right word; its just inconsistency, incoherence, contradictions and ... I think its a governing crisis. I think maybe (Robert) Mueller is gonna find information that will create a constitutional crisis. But in the meantime, we have a governing crisis. And that was before the recent government shutdown over a border wall. Woodward said hes been traveling around a lot doing talks about the book, such as the one in New Haven, and its stunning the divisions in the country. I mean, there are just people, somebody told me in a bookstore, (who) would come in and take my book and turn the display around, he chuckled. In the book Fear, Woodward quotes top officials calling the commander-in-chief a moron and a professional liar. We asked Woodward if anything similar happened in the Obama book. Not to my knowledge; it (such a comment) didnt get to me. But what I found was, the closer somebody was to Trump, the more important job they had, people who dealt with him regularly like (James) Mattis or Gary Cohn, formed an alliance and when they went over to the Pentagon and tried to educate him, he said, Its all bull. And Gen. (John) Kelly said ... Its crazytown and he wont listen to anyone. Woodward was able to get documents and notes to corroborate his information, he pointed out. Asked about the Russian meddling, Woodward said, As people have pointed out, they have been doing that for years. The question is, did Trump do something actively, not passively...? The answer, for now, is patience, said Woodward. In the meantime, Trump still controls the executive branch, has great influence in the Supreme Court and the Senate. And the House of Representatives typically doesnt distinguish itself conducting investigations. The interesting thing, I think the important thing, about the mid-term elections is what it foreshadowed. Ten percent of the congressional districts shifted. Thats monumental and its also a perfect poll. Its not just somebody talking to a couple of thousand people. ... Its gonna be a really hard time for Trump (in 2020). In the meantime, the author of Fear is fearful of whats been called The Donald Risk. Its giant. Its something to really worry about. And because the economy seems to be going along, because theres not been a new war, thank God, he has the opportunity to do what presidents need to do figure out the next stage of good for the people in the country. And develop a plan and do that. But he wont do it because hes angry and impulsive. College Street Musical Hall, 238 College St., New Haven. Tuesday, Jan. 22, 7:30 p.m. $55-$30. 877-435-9849. collegestreetmusichall.com. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a neutrino observatory constructed at the AmundsenScott South Pole Station in Antarctica. Its thousands of sensors are located under the Antarctic ice, distributed over a cubic kilometer. IceCube consists of spherical optical sensors called Digital Optical Modules (DOMs), each with a photomultiplier tube (PMT) and a single-board data acquisition computer which sends digital data to the counting house on the surface above the array. IceCube was completed on 18 December 2010. DOMs are deployed on strings of 60 modules each at depths between 1,450 to 2,450 meters into holes melted in the ice using a hot water drill. IceCube is designed to look for point sources of neutrinos in the TeV range to explore the highest-energy astrophysical processes. In November 2013 it was announced that IceCube had detected 28 neutrinos that likely originated outside the Solar System. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is composed of several sub-detectors in addition to the main in-ice array. * AMANDA, the Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array, was the first part built, and it served as a proof-of-concept for IceCube. AMANDA was turned off in May 2009. * The IceTop array is a series of Cherenkov detectors on the surface of the glacier, with two detectors approximately above each IceCube string. IceTop is used as a cosmic ray shower detector, for cosmic ray composition studies and coincident event tests: if a muon is observed going through IceTop, it cannot be from a neutrino interacting in the ice. * The Deep Core Low-Energy Extension is a densely instrumented region of the IceCube array which extends the observable energies below 100 GeV. The Deep Core strings are deployed at the center (in the surface plane) of the larger array, deep in the clearest ice at the bottom of the array (between 1760 and 2450 m deep). There are no Deep Core DOMs between 1850 m and 2107 m depth, as the ice is not as clear in those layers. PINGU (Precision IceCube Next Generation Upgrade) is a proposed extension that will allow detection of low energy neutrinos (GeV energy scale), with uses including determining the neutrino mass hierarchy, precision measurement of atmospheric neutrino oscillation (both tau neutrino appearance and muon neutrino disappearance), and searching for WIMP annihilation in the Sun. PINGU, proposed as a low-energy infill extension to the IceCube observatory, will feature the worlds largest effective volume for neutrinos at an energy threshold of a few GeV, enabling it to reach its chief goal of determining the neutrino mass hierarchy (NMH) quickly and at modest cost. PINGU will deploy 40 new strings at the center of IceCube. A vision has been presented for a larger observatory called IceCube-Gen2. IceCube measured 10 to 100 GeV atmospheric muon neutrino disappearance in 2014 using 3 years of data from 2011 to 2014. In July 2018, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory announced that they have traced an extremely-high-energy neutrino that hit their detector in September 2017 back to its point of origin 3.7 billion light-years away in the direction of the constellation Orion. This was the first time that a neutrino detector had been used to locate an object in space. A source of cosmic rays was identified. Ten Cubic Kilometer Generation 2 Detector An in-depth exploration of the neutrino universe requires a next-generation IceCube detector. Named IceCube-Gen2 and based upon the robust design of the current detector, the goal for the new observatory is to deliver statistically significant samples of very high energy astrophysical neutrinos, in the PeV to EeV range, and yield hundreds of neutrinos across all flavors at energies above 100 TeV. This will enable detailed spectral studies, significant point source detections, and new discoveries. Members of the recently formed IceCube-Gen2 Collaboration are working to develop a detailed proposal that will also include the PINGU sub-array. PINGU, the Precision IceCube Next Generation Upgrade, targets precision measurements of the atmospheric oscillation parameters and the determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy as well as the search for dark matter. The facilitys reach will be further enhanced by exploiting the air-shower measurement and vetoing capabilities of an extended surface array. A radio array, the proposed Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) experiment, will also help achieve improved sensitivity to neutrinos in the 10^16-10^19 eV energy range. The unique properties of the Antarctic glacier, revealed by the construction and operation of IceCube, allow the spacing between light sensors to exceed 250 meters, instead of the current 125 meters in IceCube. The deployment of sensors in strings with larger spacings will enable the IceCube-Gen2 instrumented volume to rapidly grow at modest costs. IceCube-Gen2 will benefit from the successful designs of the hot water drill systems and the digital optical modules in the original IceCube project. Minimal modifications will target improvements focused on modernization, efficiency, and cost savings. Because of its digital architecture, the next generation facility can be operated without a significant increase in costs. By roughly doubling the instrumentation already deployed, the telescope will achieve a tenfold increase in volume to about 10 cubic kilometers, aiming at an order of magnitude increase in neutrino detection rates. The instrument will provide an unprecedented view of the high-energy universe, taking neutrino astronomy to new levels of discovery. Antares Detector ANTARES is the name of a neutrino detector residing 2.5 km under the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Toulon, France. It is designed to be used as a directional neutrino telescope to locate and observe neutrino flux from cosmic origins in the direction of the Southern Hemisphere of the Earth, a complement to the South Pole neutrino detector IceCube that detects neutrinos from both hemispheres. KM3NeT the next generation neutrino telescopes The full KM3NeT neutrino telescope will contain on the order of 12000 pressure-resistant glass spheres attached to about 600 strings. The strings hold 18 sensor spheres each, anchored to the sea floor and supported by floats. Each sphere, called a digital optical module (DOM), is about 17 inches (43 cm) in diameter, contains 31 3-inch (7.6 cm) photomultiplier tubes with supporting electronics, and is connected to shore via a high-bandwidth optical network. The KM3NeT-It site, at a depth of 3400 m, hosts the ARCA (Astroparticle Research with Cosmics in the Abyss) detector, with more widely spaced DOMs optimised for detecting high-energy cosmic neutrinos in the TeVPeV range. Its strings are 650 m long, spaced 90 m apart. The KM3NeT-Fr site, at a depth of 2475 m, hosts the ORCA (Oscillation Research with Cosmics in the Abyss) detector, a more compact array with more closely spaced sensors optimised for atmospheric neutrinos in the GeV range. This will consist of 115 strings in a 20 m triangular grid, with a 9 m spacing between the DOMs in a string. Overall, the array is about 210 m in diameter, and the strings are 200 m long. KM3NeT is a research infrastructure housing the next generation neutrino telescopes. Once completed, the telescopes will have detector volumes between megaton and several cubic kilometers of clear sea water. Located in the deepest seas of the Mediterranean, KM3NeT will open a new window on our Universe, but also contribute to the research of the properties of the elusive neutrino particles. With the ARCA telescope, KM3NeT scientists will search for neutrinos from distant astrophysical sources such as supernovae, gamma ray bursters or colliding stars. The ORCA telescope is the instrument for KM3NeT scientists studying neutrino properties exploiting neutrinos generated in the Earths atmosphere. Arrays of thousands of optical sensors will detect the faint light in the deep sea from charged particles originating from collisions of the neutrinos and the Earth. The facility will also house instrumentation for Earth and Sea sciences for long-term and on-line monitoring of the deep sea environment and the sea bottom at depth of several kilometers. Chinas Belt and Road Initiative is replicating Chinas fossil fuel-based climb from poverty in two-thirds of the world. These countries have two-thirds of the worlds population, 30 percent of global GDP, and an estimated 75 percent of known energy reserves. Those countries have an average per capita GDP of one-third of Chinas per capita GDP. China is funding coal, oil, natural gas, ports, airports, mines, factories and industry to build up those countries. Chinese companies are involved in over 240 coal projects in 25 of the Belt and Road countries, including in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Serbia, Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. China is financing about half of proposed new coal capacity in Egypt, Tanzania, and Zambia. Since 2000, Chinese-led policy banks have invested $160 billion in overseas energy projects. This is almost as much as the World Bank and regional development banks. 80 percent of Chinas overseas energy investments went to fossil fuels $54.6 billion to oil, $43.5 billion to coal, and $18.8 billion to natural gas. Steel, Energy and Ports Syracuse, N.Y. -- Meteorologists are growing more confident that a major winter storm is likely this weekend in Upstate New York. The storm could bring heavy snow, high winds and brutal cold, forecasters say. It looks pretty bad, said Accuweather meteorologist Dave Samuhel. Were looking at the potential for very heavy snow because this system will have a lot of moisture with it. Folks should prepare for upwards of a foot of snow. Snow is likely to start falling Saturday afternoon, with the most intense snow falling Saturday night into Sunday morning. Central New York could be the bulls-eye for the heaviest snow, Samuhel said. National Weather Service forecasters -- working without pay during the federal government shutdown -- are painting a similar picture. The likelihood is increasing that Central New York will be impacted by a large winter storm Saturday into Sunday, said Dave Nicosia, the warning coordinator meteorologist in the Binghamton office. "Since it is four to five days out, there is still considerably uncertainty as to which areas receive the heaviest snow and/or mixed precipitation." Roads could become hazardous, too, especially because wind gusts of up to 30 mph are expected as the storm moves through. If the storm plays out as the consensus of the models are suggesting, travel on Sunday will be difficult if not impossible in some areas, the weather service office in Buffalo said. That office said a foot of snow could fall in some areas. Travel to the west and east could also be a problem, Samuhel said. The low pressure system spawning this storm is still in the Pacific Ocean, but its expected to start dumping heavy rain on California Wednesday and Thursday. The storm will lose some energy as it crosses the Rockies, he said, but it will pick up intensity and dump heavy snow in the Plains Friday and the Ohio Valley by Saturday before reaching New York and then passing into New England. Theres still plenty of time for the track to change, but its pretty obvious there is going to be a significant storm, Samuhel said. Theres also a question of what type of precipitation will fall where. Mark Wysocki, New York state climatologist, says it looks like the heaviest snow will be through the eastern Southern Tier, upper Hudson Valley and the Capital Region. He foresees a thin band of mixed snow and freezing rain just south of that, and then all rain in Virginia and southern New Jersey. Mark Wyslocki, New York state climatologist and Cornell University meteorology professor, predicts heavy snow for much of Upstate New York this weekend. As the storm passes, temperatures will plummet. The high temperatures on Sunday wont get out of the teens across much of Upstate, and could fall below zero Monday morning. That could be the beginning of a very cold stretch lasting into early February. Wysocki said the picture will become clearer Thursday as the storm makes landfall on the West Coast. Thats typical for storms moving in from the Pacific because there are many more weather observation devices on land than in the ocean, giving forecasters a clearer picture of the storms characteristics. OTTAWA, Jan. 15, 2019 /CNW/ - CannaRoyalty Corp. d/b/a Origin House (CSE: OH) (OTCQX: ORHOF), ("Origin House" or the "Company") a leading North American cannabis products and brands company, today announced that it has signed a binding term sheet (the "Agreement") with Alternative Medical Enterprises, LLC ("AltMed") to convert the Company's 3.5% royalty interest on the sale of AltMed's MUV branded products ("MUV") into a combination of cash and 125 units of AltMed's equity raising Origin House's aggregate equity position in AltMed to 5.1%. Marc Lustig, Chairman and CEO of Origin House said, "AltMed has established itself as a successful cannabis business in the key markets of Florida and Arizona. Based on our discussions with AltMed, we believe eliminating the royalty will facilitate the multi-jurisdictional expansion of MUV products and also furthers our strategic aim of converting non-core assets like the MUV royalty. We are confident in AltMed's prospects and believe that our increased equity position will continue to lead to significant value creation for Origin House shareholders." Transaction Details: Origin House currently owns a 4.8% equity interest in AltMed and a 3.5% gross product royalty on the sale of certain MUV products. Pursuant to the Agreement, AltMed will issue 125 units to Origin House in addition to cash, as consideration for the Company's royalty interest. Upon conversion of the royalty interest, Origin House will own an aggregate of 5.1% of AltMed. Based on the valuation ascribed to AltMed for the conversion of the royalty, this 5.1% equity position has an equity value of US$10.3 million. The anticipated closing date is on or before February 15, 2019. About Origin House Origin House is a growing cannabis products and brands company operating across key markets in the U.S. and Canada, with a strategic focus on becoming a preeminent global house of cannabis brands. The Company's foundation is in California, the world's largest regulated cannabis market, where it delivers over 130 branded cannabis products to the majority of licensed dispensaries. Origin House's brand development platform is operated out of five licensed facilities located across California, and provides distribution, manufacturing, cultivation and marketing services for its brand partners. The Company is actively developing infrastructure to support the proliferation of its brands internationally, initially through its acquisition of Canadian retailer 180 Smoke. Origin House's shares trade on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) under the symbol "OH" and on the OTCQX under the symbol "ORHOF". Origin House is the registered business name of CannaRoyalty Corp. For more information, visit www.originhouse.com. Forward Looking Statements Statements in this news release that are forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning the specific factors disclosed here and elsewhere in Origin House's periodic filings with Canadian securities regulators. When used in this news release, words such as "will, could, plan, estimate, expect, intend, may, potential, believe, should," and similar expressions, are forward- looking statements. Forward-looking statements may include, without limitation, statements relating to the closing of the transaction and the future performance of the Company's investment in AltMed. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, there can be other factors that cause results, performance or achievements not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended, including, but not limited to: dependence on obtaining regulatory approvals; investing in target companies or projects that are engaged in activities currently considered illegal under US federal law; changes in laws; limited operating history; reliance on management; requirements for additional financing; competition; hindering market growth and state adoption due to inconsistent public opinion and perception of the medical-use and adult-use marijuana industry and; regulatory or political change. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate or that management's expectations or estimates of future developments, circumstances or results will materialize. As a result of these risks and uncertainties, the results or events predicted in these forward-looking statements may differ materially from actual results or events. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this news release are made as of the date of this release. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise such information, except as required by applicable law, and the Company does not assume any liability for disclosure relating to any other company mentioned herein. SOURCE Origin House For further information: Marc Lustig, Chairman and CEO, [email protected], 1-844-556-5070, www.originhouse.com; Jonathan Ross, CFA, LodeRock Advisors Inc., [email protected], 416-283-0178 The goal of this landmark report is twofold. First, better understand the pathways of opportunity and/or barriers facing Indigenous students interested in studying journalism or media at a post-secondary level in Ontario. Secondly, the report examined what journalism and media program across Ontario are doing to develop and implement curriculum on coverage of Indigenous stories as called for in the TRC Call to Action #86. It is meant to serve as a starting point for further conversation and research. Says Executive Director Rachel Pulfer, "JHR exists to ensure everyone in the world is aware of their rights. Where better to do that work than right here at home in Ontario? JHR is proud of the work of Rebecca Lyon and Hannah Clifford and grateful to all the students, community members, experts, journalists and journalism faculty who participated wholeheartedly in this study, which provides a timely benchmark for how Ontario is doing when it comes to TRC #86." As research began, the scope of the study expanded to analyze how Indigenous students were able to access post secondary education more generally. JHR Researcher Rebecca Lyon spoke with 150 students from 14 different First Nation schools across Ontario, and engaged with all 21 post-secondary Journalism or Media Programs in the province. Rebecca Lyon says, "This is a call to action that we cannot ignore, as we have done time and time again in the past. To those who have never been to an on-reserve school, or spoken to an Indigenous student or journalist, the information is here and it is clear. There is a need and there are things that can be done to make education more accessible to students and the media better staffed, more informed and more diverse." Highlights from the contributors to the report include: "The Emerging Voices report by Journalists for Human Rights prompts a lot of important questions which I hope leads to discussions and action when it comes to improving access to post-secondary education in journalism for Indigenous youth in this province." Willow Fiddler, contributor "In this report, Journalists for Human Rights captures the experiences of aspiring Indigenous journalists at Ontario universities with numbers and data. In many ways, I saw myself in this analysis. First Nations youth yearn for the same opportunities as other Canadians; they believe they shouldn't have to move away from home for secondary school, and, in more egregious cases, for elementary." - Kyle Edwards, contributor "There is still a long way to go, but this report shows that the work is happening and it hints at what an exciting future lies ahead. Imagine what this country will look like 5-10 years from now, if we heed reports like this and establish an informed and healthy pathway for Indigenous youth, giving them the unconditional support they need for success." - Martha Troian, contributor "If journalism schools and media programs don't devote proper resources to delivering Indigenous content in the curriculum, recruiting Indigenous students and instructors, or developing strategic, long-term plans, there's a danger of paying lipservice to reconciliation, when there's an urgent need for change. It's time to walk the talk" - Duncan McCue, contributor "Although advances are being made, this report articulates an all too common frustration felt by those of us attempting to Indigenize post-secondary institutions, programs, and courses. While most institutions are aware of, and have developed a policy or a framework to respond to the TRC recommendations, a lack of funding, and the resulting lack of faculty, staff, and resources means many institutions have yet to fully implement the necessary curriculum (a situation which will only get worse as a result of the Ford government cancellation of funding for curriculum revisions)" Dr. Dawn Lavell Harvard, Ph.D, contributor Contributors to this report include: Duncan McCue, an Anishinaabe, a member of the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation in southern Ontario, Duncan teaches journalism at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism and Ryerson University. His book "The Shoe Boy: A Trapline Memoir" recounts a season he spent in a hunting camp with a Cree family in northern Quebec as a teenager. Willow Fiddler, an Anishinabekwe and proud member of Sandy Lake First Nation. Willow worked as video journalist for APTN National News in Thunder Bay since 2016 where she focuses her coverage on the stories of First Nations and issues affecting them. Dr. Dawn Lavell-Harvard Ph.D., is a proud member of the Wikwemikong First Nation, the first Aboriginal Trudeau Scholar, and has worked to advance the rights of Aboriginal women as the President of the Ontario Native Women's Association. Dawn has recently taken on the role as Director for First Peoples House of Learning at Trent University since October 2016. Martha Troian, an Anishinaabe from Obishikokaang (Lac Seul) First Nation in northwestern Ontario, Martha's work can be read and heard on CBC News, APTN Investigates, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, CBC Radio, Vice News and Today's Parent to name but a few. Kyle Edwards, grew up on the Lake Manitoba First Nation, and is a proud member of the Ebb and Flow First Nation. He is a Staff Writer at Maclean's magazine in Toronto and a recent graduate of Ryerson School of Journalism. In 2017, he was a finalist for Best New Magazine Writer at the National Magazine Awards. JHR thanks all contributors, communities, and students who helped in making of this report. The study is funded by the government of Ontario. The study is non-partisan and JHR maintained full control over the research, development and implementation of the study. The views of this publication are the views of JHR and do not necessarily reflect the views of the province. Our thanks to CNW for sponsoring this announcement -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes for Editors About the Indigenous Reporters Program: JHR's Indigenous Reporters Program, was established in 2014. It is JHR's first development program focusing its activities in Canada. The goal of the program is to increase the quality and quantity of Indigenous stories and voices in Canadian media. The program seeks to build opportunities for Indigenous people to pursue careers in journalism, ultimately strengthening Indigenous voices in Canadian media, and to ensure that non-Indigenous journalists are trained in best practices for reporting on Indigenous peoples, cultures and issues. About JHR: Canada's leading media development organization, JHR helps journalists build their capacity to report ethically and effectively on human rights and governance issues in their communities and across the world. Since 2002, JHR has trained over 15,600 journalists across 28 countries whose stories have reached over 64 million people worldwide. JHR currently operates projects in Jordan, South Sudan, Syria, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Canada. SOURCE Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) For further information: Rebecca Lyon, Indigenous Reporters Program Research Coordinator [email protected] or 416-413-0240 Ext. 201, www.jhr.ca Related Links www.jhr.ca On Sept 10, 2001, I published a column about Belarus, the former Soviet republic squeezed between Russia and Europe. It described how the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko was stealing elections, keeping tight control over the media and the economy, harassing political opponents and occasionally murdering them. Lukashenko, I wrote, was Europe's longest-standing dictator. Yet only a few months earlier, President George W. Bush had given a rousing speech on the need for Europe, whole and free. "No more Yaltas," he had said - meaning no more agreements like the one Roosevelt and Stalin signed in 1945, dividing Europe in half. Belarus loomed large as an obstacle blocking that dream. The day after that column was published - Sept. 11, 2001 - two airplanes hit the World Trade Center, a third hit the Pentagon, a fourth crashed into a Pennsylvania field, and the U.S. president abandoned the quest for Europe, whole and free. In the nearly two decades that have passed since then, nothing in Belarus has fundamentally changed at all. Lukashenko is still Europe's longest-standing dictator. He is still harassing the opposition, manipulating the media and keeping the economy under careful control. He still stays in charge partly with the help of his large eastern neighbor, which provides him with generous energy subsidies. But while Belarus stays the same, its large eastern neighbor is changing. In particular, the ambitions of Lukashenko's fellow de facto dictator, Russian President Vladimir Putin, are growing. With his economy still weak and his popularity wavering, Putin has acquired a need for spectacular foreign policy successes. The warm glow that followed his occupation of Crimea has faded, his intervention in Syria is complicated, and it would take a real military effort to occupy more of Ukraine. Though he may eventually decide to make that effort, it's also possible, in the meantime, that Russia will swallow Belarus. The two countries are already, theoretically, part of something called the "Union State of Belarus and Russia," and the two countries conduct joint military exercises. But in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Lukashenko has sought to protect his independence and project a different image, occasionally defying Russian requests, pursuing a somewhat independent foreign policy and even, as a gesture toward the West, releasing his political opponents from jail, though they still get detained on the way to demonstrations. Now Moscow seems intent on removing the fig leaf. In the past few weeks, Lukashenko and Putin have met at least twice. The Russian finance minister has announced the "further integration" of the two countries. The Belarusian defense minister has declared that U.S. troops in Poland could perhaps constitute a "military threat," which is not language that Lukashenko's government has used before. The Russian government has raised energy prices in Belarus. There is talk of Russia taking over a whole suite of Belarusian government operations, including customs, visas, and monetary and tax policies. And that's the "moderate" takeover model: A more extreme version could include the declaration of a new political entity, ruled by a single president, presumably one whose first name starts with V. Lukashenkohas already publicly dismissed Russian pressure as "blackmail," and a Belarusian dissident told me that independent economists there believe Belarus could hold out, even if Russia uses its gas pipelines as a form of pressure. But she also agreed that a future Russian-Belarusian state can't be ruled out: Lukashenko has stayed in power all of these decades because he is good at understanding which way the wind is blowing. If Russia makes him an offer he can't refuse, then he won't resist. I can't argue now, any more than I could have done in 2001, that Americans or Europeans can do much - or will do much - to affect this unfolding saga either way. If anything, the West has less influence now in Minsk than it once did, as well as less interest. More to the point, we have now have an American president who has not only abandoned the dream of Europe, whole and free, but is also inclined to see Russia's point of view on most issues. He began his term in office, curiously, with an odd interest in non-existent Polish incursions into Belarus, and hehas continued to echo Russian propaganda on subjects as varied as Montenegro and Afghanistan. But our apathy has a price. It's not just that Belarusians may be on the cusp of losing their independence; in addition, Moscow may be on the cusp of becoming, once again, a full-fledged imperial capital, absorbing and ruling over multiple countries. That will shape the Russian political elite's thinking about itself, about its neighbors, about its place in the world. Putin once described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest political catastrophe of the 20th century; it stands to reason that, in the 21st century, he would try to put it together again. With a few candidates having entered the 2020 Democratic contest for president and several more on the brink, it will be worth watching which, if any candidates, will have something affirmative and original to say versus those who will just follow a rote script, reciting talking points meant to placate the fashionable leftist activists. Part of the answer will come from what Democrats think it will take to win the party's nomination and whether they believe President Donald Trump will be easy to beat in the 2020 general election. In recent years, presidential primaries have resembled a horse race with multiple candidates trying to carve out and occupy a certain "lane" for themselves within the party. But in 2020, Democrats will have too many racers on the track, resembling the chariot race from "Ben-Hur." If Trump turns out to have a low ceiling and can't approach 50 percent, how far left the primaries take his opponent may not matter. But if the possibility of a close race remains, Democrats will have to be mindful of how enthusiastically they adopt a new left agenda that could alienate voters who are otherwise turned off by the president's behavior. However, to be viable as a presidential contender in today's Democratic Party means it is essential to properly check certain boxes - no exception will be tolerated. How far left a candidate moves and, therefore, how difficult it will be to return to the center in the general election will be determined by a few issues. The easier agenda items for Democrats involve signing onto the latest round of giveaways - free college tuition, free health care, etc. Add to that, opposition to anything that inhibits illegal immigration and pledging to do for the nation what they've done for Baltimore by adopting Black Lives Matter's policies. Next, impeachment. While many Democrats in Washington will continue to see the limits and downsides of an impeachment fight, Democrats on the campaign trail will hear the call for Trump to be impeached. It will be easier in 2020 to be a Democrat who supports impeachment than one who is trying to explain why they do not. Then there is the embrace of green socialism, also known as socialism. While Trump may have his deplorables, there is nothing like the liberal insufferables rallying behind the green socialist movement. They are the left's condescending "experts," the smug elites whom a Hillary Clinton presidency would have empowered, fully knowing their dictates could never pass a vote in Congress. On foreign policy, most of the Democrat candidates are amateurs even more so than candidate Trump was in 2016. They really have nothing to say except to maybe pander to the anti-Israel movement. They will be fearful of the radical left's vengeance if they don't. They may claim to care about restoring America's traditional alliances, etc. But let's face it, during the Obama presidency, Democrats thought foreign policy was all about the Paris climate accord, a giveaway to Iran and helping Castro's Cuba. And today, there is no indication that they have a fresh thinker for 2020. Finally, Democrats running for president will have to be comfortable with unleashing the politically correct thought police. And the PC police want to become the real police. At the University of Illinois, for instance, students are being encouraged by the campus police to report "acts of intolerance" to the school's Bias Assessment and Response Team (BART). (I can't wait to see a BART member's uniform. Are BART members armed?) Anyway, as Illini Republicans President Jack Johnson has noted, "BART is a politicized tool mainly utilized by upset leftists in a childish last-ditch attempt to press those they find politically unsavory." Rather than engage in debate, liberals would prefer to shut down conversation altogether under the banner of preventing "offensive" language from entering the public space. Then-Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., was onto something when she released an ad last year saying she is "not one of those crazy Democrats." She sensed that the Democrats' lurch to the left was becoming untenable, but it was too little too late. She had been cozy with the crazies for too long. She could not come back to the center. She lost reelection by six percentage points. But maybe it won't matter. Maybe Trump has done so much to alienate voters that anyone could beat him in 2020. And yet, in an era where the Democrats find themselves with plenty of candidates but no particular foreign policy and an economic message that promises to snuff out the current wave of prosperity, it is easy to see how the Democrats could produce a nominee who is frightening to those in the center of American politics. This is exactly what Trump wants and needs. If the Democrats follow their emotions and get swept up and allow themselves to become committed to a crackpot agenda, the choice may be between the lesser of the two crackpots. And that is a race President Trump could win. On the day after the killing of Jo Cox in 2016, stunned politicians on both sides of the Brexit referendum campaign fell silent. Cox was a member of the British parliament who favored remaining inside the European Union and campaigned about Syria; her assassin was both mentally ill and an extremist who scoured the internet for white supremacist material. He shouted "Britain first" as he shot and stabbed her. Feelings were riding high, the referendum debate had been emotional and, everyone agreed, in honor of Cox, to stop campaigning for three days. Much later, we learned that one group of people did not, in fact, remain silent. Within hours of Cox's death, the operatives of the Brexit campaign quietly resumed their Facebook advertising efforts. Targeted ads promoting Brexit were sent to voters, as planned, even during the period of alleged silence. Politics did not stop. Politics did not stop in the wake of another political slaying, either. On Sunday night, a man with a criminal record, both mentally ill and politically motivated, stabbed Pawel Adamowicz, the mayor of Gdansk; afterward, the assassin shouted that he had been "tortured" by Poland's main opposition party during its previous years in government. The attack had been carefully planned: It took place precisely at the climax of a charity concert, just as fireworks were about to begin. The concert is part of a series organized by Jerzy Owsiak, an outspoken liberal music promoter who has, for years, been the subject of a virulent hate campaign promoted by Poland's nativist ruling party and, since it won the 2015 election, by state television. One recent satirical program depicted him hoarding bank notes marked with the star of David. Adamowicz, who I am happy to declare was a political colleague of my husband and an old friend, has also been the subject of a virulent hate campaign promoted by Poland's nativist ruling party, first in their party press and, since the 2015 election, repeatedly on state television. Mayor for 16 years, recently re-elected and very popular in his city, Adamowicz was also an outspoken liberal - he created a shelter for refugees and supported gay rights. As a result, he was threatened, hounded and falsely prosecuted by the state for corruption. The same satirical state television program that smeared Owsiak has recently depicted him as a thief, surrounded by stolen money. Infamously, one far-right group wrote his "obituary," along with the "obituaries" of several other liberal mayors; Polish police refused to investigate. A quick internet search produces dozens of attacks on him as a traitor or as "un-Polish." Even in a country where social media heaves with nasty commentary, including some apparently posted by Russian trolls, the demonization of Adamowicz was exceptional. Adamowicz died of his wounds Monday. His family, like Cox's family, asked that the killing not be politicized any further. The president and prime minister seemed to comply and issued condolences. But within hours of his death, the state television station that they control was already politicizing it, even deliberately distorting the story of his slaying. The assassin's shouted comments about the opposition party were left out of the program; the far right's death threats against Adamowicz were not mentioned. Instead, blame was heaped on the security firm that worked at the concert, on Owsiak, again - and on Adamowicz's liberal colleagues. There was no apology for the dozens and dozens of past news episodes vilifying Adamowicz and the charity concerts, no reflection whatsoever. This was far beyond the cynicism of the Brexit campaigners, who carried on with their stealth Facebook advertising plans: This was a coldblooded attempt to manipulate the story. Of course, the political roots of this killing, like the Cox slaying, are murky: I've written before that it is impossible to pick apart the strands of psychopathy, irrationality, fanaticism, cold calculation and ideology that go into an assassination. Each case is different; the "causes" are always multiple. But it is also not possible to separate these crimes from the environment in which they take place. Madmen choose their targets based on what they read and hear. Why would they not? And if the political roots are murky, the political impact is not. Just a few moments of reflection from government media could have helped calm emotions in Poland. On the other side of the political spectrum, after all, there were marches, candles and some self-examination. But it seems those who are producing the most hateful stories cannot afford to stop: If they do, they will lose momentum, they will give people time to think - and then they will be blamed. It also seems that those who are conducting campaigns of lies and vilification cannot afford to show an instant's self-doubt or sorrow, either. If they do, there might be questions, the spell will be broken and the false pictures they have constructed will fall apart. That's why there won't be any apologies in Poland for the smears of Adamowicz and Owsiak, not for the next few days, not for the next few months, not for the next few years. Latin American leaders have been famously demure about calling out the transgressions of their peers. Leave it to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to rile up the club of diffident caballeros. Only three regional heads of state showed up in Caracas for Maduro's inauguration last Thursday. Paraguay broke off diplomatic relations with Venezuela, Peru placed Maduro on a list of personae non gratae and, in a rare display of neighborly resolve, 19 member nations of the Organization of American States (OAS) agreed not to recognize Maduro's new mandate due to his government's "negligence to meet the fundamental Inter-American standards of human rights and democracy." So, score one for hemispheric diplomacy and the clout of the international liberal order? Not quite yet. Eschewing Maduro, whose calamitous mismanagement and repression have left electoral democracy, the rule of law and the oil-rich economy in shambles, is important. And autocratic Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega could be the OAS's next target for reprimand. Yet galvanizing the Americas to cooperate through cross-border institutions and hew to international agreements looks to be a steeper challenge in the coming years. Undoubtedly, global governance and multilateralism have sunk to new lows, thanks in large part to the unilateral navel-gazing of U.S. President Donald Trump. But stakes are high in Latin America, where chronic economic under-performance and a sudden diplomatic solipsism have diminished the region's international cachet just when it's most needed. "We're at a low point for Latin American integration. The region is more fragmented than ever," Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, told me. "It's not that countries are going to the left or to the right. They're just going the wrong way. The problem is, as multilateralism weakens, so does Latin America." Consider its two biggest economic powers, Brazil and Mexico. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has toned down his nationalist campaign rhetoric, and he opted to renegotiate instead of junk the North American Free Trade Agreement. Yet he's no internationalist. In an abrupt shift, Mexico broke with its neighbors and abstained from the OAS resolution on Venezuela, earning Lopez Obrador the sobriquet of Maduro's "enabler." Not that Lopez Obrador shares affinities with Maduro: his diffidence seemed calibrated more to keep leftist factions of his ruling coalition at heel and to protect against eventual diplomatic blowback. "There's a familiar complicity in play," said former Mexican diplomat Jorge Guajardo. "The idea is: I'll overlook your human rights issues and I expect you to do the same." Mexico's inward turn is a throwback to another era when national governments minded their own business and expected others to return the favor. Too often the region's strongmen and autocrats have invoked similar doctrine to lend a legal sheen to fiat and excess. Look no further than Guatemala, where President Jimmy Morales has announced his country will withdraw from a United Nations anti-corruption commission rather than continue hosting its panel of investigators. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's recoil from world affairs is more ideologically explicit. In his first few days in office, he canceled plans for Brazil to host the 2019 United Nations Conference on climate change - a "Marxist hoax," according to Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo - and downgraded the foreign ministry's environmental authority. Nor will Brazil have anything more to do with "globalism," the candied term Araujo employs for the institutions of global governance and multilateral oversight he abhors. So, even as Venezuelan refugees stream into northern Brazil, the government announced its withdrawal from a 160-nation U.N. compact on international migration. In that sense, Brazil's laudable reprimand of Venezuela at the OAS looked less like a vote for regional solidarity than a wink not so much at the United States but at Trump, whose "America First" exhortations Bolsonaro has lavishly praised and sought to replicate. How else to explain that even as he quit the U.N. migration compact, purportedly to safeguard national sovereignty, Bolsonaro also floated hosting a U.S. military base, a suggestion that goes down like ipecac among the country's military brass ? Foreign policy experts caution that such moves don't necessarily spell a retreat from the world stage. "New governments have the right to err," said former Brazilian diplomat Marcos Azambuja. Yet hyper-nationalism brings risks in a region with little to show for its global ambitions. For all the current disdain, Brazil, Mexico and its neighbors have been beneficiaries and occasionally protagonists of multilateral institutions. Latin American diplomats and jurists contributed to creating the United Nations, influenced the Bretton Woods monetary system and helped modernize human rights after the military dictators fell. Brazilians head up the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Trade Organization. Latin American nations have been some of the most vigorous participants in the WTO's dispute filings from 1995 to 2017, led by Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. Brazil is recognized as one of the most successful users of the WTO's settlement mechanism. True, Latin leaders often grouse about being junior partners at the global policy table, but they are arguably far better off with a back seat than having none. "International law has provided Latin Americans some shield to more powerful states, whether it's creditors in gunboats or at the U.N.," said Tom Long, a scholar of international relations at the University of Warwick. "In all, the post-Cold War system has served Latin America well, helping the transition to democracy and to turn back some threats." The regions sweeping crackdown on corruption would have been much harder to prosecute without global cooperation and wide ranging anti-graft measures, such as the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. "The global order was not imposed on us. We helped create and shape it," said Azambuja. "I hope Brazil continues to respect its commitments and avoid foreign policy adventures." Whats more, there's more work to be done to shape the system to Latin America's advantage. "No doubt, the multilateral system today is flawed and incomplete, starting with the WTO. Agriculture subsidies were left out of the Doha Round of talks, and Brazil is an agricultural power," said Jose Alfredo Graca Lima, of Brazils Center for International Relations. "Trade is a crucial instrument to help us grow, fight poverty and correct our historical inequalities." That lacuna ought to be a reason for reforming multilateralism and not abandoning it. "The U.S. might be able to afford going it alone, but Brazil has never gained through isolation," Graca Lima said. Bolsonaro would do well to keep that in mind later this month when he debuts at the World Economic Forum, the signature summit of globalists in Davos, Switzerland - where Trump will not show. - - - Margolis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin and South America. He was a reporter for Newsweek and is the author of "The Last New World: The Conquest of the Amazon Frontier." There isnt a day when a specific food is not celebrated. National Bagel Day is coming sooner than expected this year thanks to Thomas Bagels, the largest producer of grocery store bagels in the U.S. Of course, Thomas is synonymous with English Muffins. After years of watching National Bagel Day share the spotlight with National Pizza Day, the company ran a poll in which hundreds of bagel lovers across the country voted in favor of changing the date and giving the iconic breakfast staple its own day of appreciation. Now, there wont be competition on Jan. 15, the new day for the bagel celebration. After all, bagels date back to 1610. Pizza, as we know it, is younger, invented in 1889. According to Thomas: In Hartford, Conn. the top five flavors of grocery store bagels include plain, cinnamon raisin, everything, onion and blueberry. The 10 most popular bagel toppings nationwide are cream cheese, butter, flavored cream cheese, cheese, jelly/jam, eggs, lunch meat, margarine, peanut butter or other nut butter and bacon. Thomas is the leading brand of packaged grocery store bagels in the U.S., with more than 150 million bagels sold in 2018. The average person eats more than 11 bagels per year. (I guess I am way above average; remember: I am originally from Brooklyn, N.Y.) There is a New Haven tie to bagels, too. Lenders, established in 1927, introduced frozen and packaged bagels and was the worlds largest bagel maker. It is said that they transformed the bread traditionally eaten by Jewish people into a cross-culturally enjoyed sandwich bread substitution. The Oxford Companion to Food says, the bagel is a Jewish bread, apparently originating in South Germany, migrating to Poland and then to North America, where it has become the most famous and archetypal Jewish food. Its name derives from Yiddish beygel which stems from the German dialect word beugel, meaning ring or bracelet. Why is there a hole in the middle? One theory: in the past, vendors threaded the hole-shaped bread onto dowels and hawked them on street corners. All bagels are not created equal, I say. There is still something about New York bagels baked in the mom and pop bagel bakeries that make them my favorite. There is the myth, the New York City water used in preparation makes the difference. A real New York style bagel is poached in boiling water before being baked . Growing up in Brooklyn, when I had the urge for a bagel lox and cream cheese, my parents went to the bagel bakery (frozen and packaged bagels and bagel chains didnt exist back then, at least, not in Brooklyn) to buy a dozen, making sure my pumpernickel was included. I liked a slice of ripe tomato on mine, dad had to have a big slice of red onion on his, and he still does. A bagel lox and cream cheese is a go-to comfort food for me, breakfast, lunch or dinner. Historian Maria Balinska traces the bagels history in The Bagel: The Surprising History of a Modest Bread (2009, Yale University Press), weaving a rich, quirky, and evocative history of East European Jewry and the unassuming ring-shaped roll the world has taken to its heart. I must agree with this excerpt from The Artisan Jewish Deli at Home by Nick Zukin and Michael Zusman (2013, Andrews McMeel, $27.99): Seemingly any round-shaped bread that holds a sandwich filling suffices as a bagel these days. A few recipes for bagels and another one of my favorites, bialys are provided. After reading the complexity of the process, I will continue to purchase bagels at the bagel bakery. In a bind, I will purchase packaged bagels. New Yorkers argue only fresh bagels are real bagels. Your imagination is the limit on your bagel sandwich fillings. A schmear, the Yiddish word for grease, was originally slang for a bribe, as in greasing someones palm, Zurkin and Zusman write. Today, a schmear in the bagel arena, is anything that can be spread, most often cream cheese, on a bagel. Celebrate National Bagel Day with these recipes from Thomas Courtesy of Thomas / Texas Truffle: Bacon & egg bagel sandwich 1 Thomas Bagel Thins bagel 4 pieces cooked bacon 2 large organic eggs ounce thinly sliced fresh black truffle or canned black truffle 2 slices Muenster cheese Toast bagel and set aside. Cook four pieces of bacon to desired crispness and let cool. Scramble eggs and place on one side of bagel. Add black truffle and cheese and top with bacon. Courtesy of Thomas / Caramel apple bagel bread pudding One bag Thomas cinnamon raisin bagels 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter 1 cup packed dark brown sugar 3 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and sliced 6 large eggs 1 quart (4 cups) half-and-half cup granulated white sugar 2 tablespoons vanilla extract teaspoon salt Jarred caramel sauce, warmed Spray a 9- by 13-inch dish with nonstick spray. Slice the bagels into small chunks and scatter on the bottom of the pan. In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat, and add the brown sugar. Stir until the butter and sugar are bubblingcontinue to stir and cook for an additional 2 minutes. Add the apples and continue to stir until apples are well-coated with the caramel mixture. Cook and stir for an additional 2 minutes. Spoon the apples on top of the bagel pieces in the pan. Scrape the sugary juices evenly on top. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, half-and-half, sugar, vanilla and salt until the sugar is dissolved. Pour over the bagel/apple mixture in the pan. Cover the pan loosely with plastic wrap, and place another pan on top to submerge the bagels in the liquid. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Make sure there is a rack in the middle and another rack on the bottom of the oven. Place a rimmed baking sheet lined with foil on the bottom rack to catch any potential drips. Remove the plastic wrap, cover the bread pudding with foil, and bake for 45 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Let cool for at least a few minutes before servings. Serve slices warm with a drizzle of caramel sauce. Serves 8. CULINARY CALENDAR Consiglios Murder Mystery Dinner: Pajama Jam Jan. 11, 7 p.m., doors open at 6 p.m., Consiglios Restaurant, 165 Wooster St., New Haven, reservations at 203-865-4489 https://bit.ly/2O3TQzQ, $65 includes dinner and show (beverages, tax and gratuity not included). An interactive comedy show that goes on throughout the evening during a 3-course meal. Cast mingles table to table, dropping clues for a mystery only you can solve. Wear your jammies to compete for a prize. Mohegan Suns Sun Wine & Food Fest, Jan. 24-27. Celebrity-chef appearances, tastings of fine wines, bourbons and beers and cuisine from a variety of regional restaurants. On Jan. 24, Boston Brews and Bites, features top Boston chefs teamed up with Boston pro athletes. Theyll cook their favorite tailgate dishes. Dont miss Saturdays Grand Tasting, with 1,000 varieties of wine, beer and spirits and Saturday nights Celebrity Chef Dine Around, with more than 20 top chefs, including Bobby Flay, Todd English, Alex Guarnaschelli, Marcus Samuelsson and Rocco DiSpirito. For schedule of events and prices, visit sunwinefest.com. What chef would you like me to interview? Which restaurant recipes or other recipes would you like to have? Which food products do you have difficulty finding? Do you have cooking questions? Send them to me: Stephen Fries, professor and coordinator of the Hospitality Management Programs at Gateway Community College, at gw-stephen.fries@gwcc.commnet.edu or Dept. FC, Gateway Community College, 20 Church St., New Haven, 06510. Include your full name, address and phone number. Due to volume, I might not be able to publish every request. For more, go to stephenfries.com. BRIDGEPORT-A year and a day is the cost to a Danbury federal inmate for making a shank. Chief U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill Jan. 14, 2019 imposed an additional sentence of a year and a day on John Faucher, 41 of New Hampshire. Already Faucher is serving a 46-month term after pleading guilty to two charges stemming from a bank robbery. The sentence comes as a result of his guilty plea in July to possessing contraband in a federal prison. Assistant U.S. Attorney Anastasia King told Underhill that Faucher had fashioned a weapon from a 7 and a half inch metal rod which was bent at one end for a handle and sharpened into a point at the other end. A cord was attached to the middle to serve as a grip handle. Federal investigators determined that Faucher made the weapon while working in the prisons facilities department. He told them he intended to trade it for drugs. Assistant U.S. Public Defender Tracy Hayes told Underhill Faucher has a history of drug and alcohol abuse dating back to his teen years as well as a learning disability as a child. NEW MILFORD The Town Council on Monday approved fines for residents who have repeated false alarms and for those who refuse or ignore the town notices to allow officials to inspect their properties The fines would take effect in about a month. Councilwoman Katy Francis originally opposed the alarm ordinance based on comments from Mondays public hearing, where Jim Corbett, who works at an alarm company and sits on the fire alarm appeals board, made a few suggestions. She then changed to a yes vote because the ordinance can be amended to include some of Corbetts ideas. Among those suggestions, he said the time an alarm could sound should be 15 minutes, not 30, which is too long and would annoy neighbors. He also said the registration should be voluntary and the list shouldnt be maintained by the town because changes would be too hard to keep up with. Its going to be a burden, he said. He also suggested having two free false alarms and then keeping the suggested fee structure. The adopted fine schedule has a $50 penalty for two false alarms, $100 for three and $150 for four or more. The alarm tally applies for a 12-month period and the fire and police alarms are counted separately. The biggest change made in the process was removing the proposed suspension-of-response penalty if a fine isnt paid in 30 days. First responders and council members were worried this would be dangerous in the event of an actual emergency. Instead, the draft was revised so those who dont pay may have a lien placed on their property similar to Ridgefields ordinance. New Milford established a burglar alarm ordinance in July 1981, but repealed it a few months later. A fire alarm ordinance was created in 2003. Corbett said that hes served on the fire alarm appeals board for years, but it hasnt met because people dont appeal the false alarms. He said a false alarm often happens because the system isnt maintained, so the fine structure should lead to better care. The request for the burglar alarm ordinance came from the police department as a way to decrease the number of false calls. In 2016, the department received about 1,380 burglary alarms, of which two were actual burglaries. In 2017 those figures were about 1,510 and four, respectively, and about 780 burglary alarms by the first presentation in fall 2018, of which two were actual burglaries, Town Attorney Matt Grimes has said. Under the approved ordinance, the mayor will appoint two administrators: one to oversee the fire false alarms and another to oversee the burglar false alarms. Each administrator will use input from the reports compiled by officials on the scene and have discretion on issuing a fines. The inspection ordinance now adds a $200 fine and associated costs for employees if any property forces the town to go to Superior Court to obtain a search warrant so the fire marshal can inspect it. The fire marshal inspects properties in town for numerous reasons, including new construction or a routine inspection of other buildings, such as businesses and hospitals. This process requires a phone call, then a letter, followed by a certified letter and if there is still no response, the town can file for a search warrant. Staff requested the $200 fee because town officials have to spend half a day to get the warrants at court in Torrington. New Delhi: Google Doodle is celebrating Sake Dean Mahomed --- the man of many talents, the Anglo-Indian traveller, surgeon and entrepreneur who built important cultural connections between India and England during the course of his life. He is credited for introducing shampoo baths to Europe. He also opened the first Indian restaurant in Britain, the Hindostanee Coffee House, in 1810. In 1794, Mahomed published The Travels of Dean Mahomed, an autobiographical narrative about his adventures in India. It's for his writings that Google honoured him with a Doodle. It was on this date in 1794 that Mahomed became the first Indian author to write and publish a book in English, as reported by CNET. He was born in Patna, in the erstwhile Bengal Presidency --- the largest subdivision of British India. He was taken under the wing of a British Army officer at the age of 10 after his father died. He then emigrated to Cork in Ireland in 1784. He studied there at a local school to improve his English language skills. It was in Cork that he fell in love with Jane Daly. He eloped with her in 1786. Mahomed converted to Anglicanism to marry Jane and they moved to Brighton, England, at the turn of the 19th century where he began to make his mark on Britain. According to a report, he served as a trainee surgeon in the army of the British East India Company and remained with the unit until 1782, when he resigned from the army and accompanied his benefactor to Britain. After moving to London in 1810, Mahomed opened the Hindostanee Coffee House in London's Portman Square. The luxurious restaurant gave Georgian Brits their first taste of curry and the hookah, but financial pressures forced the establishment to close two years later, as reported by CNET. In 1814, Mahomed moved to Brighton and opened the first commercial "shampooing" bath in England, providing a combination of a steam bath and an Indian therapeutic massage. His business flourished, promising to cure diseases and provide relief from various physical pains. He was so successful that soon he became known as "Dr. Brighton," with hospitals referring patients to his care. He was also appointed shampooing surgeon to British kings George IV and William IV, the CNet report further stated. He died in 1851 in Brighton and was buried at the town's St Nicholas Church. New Delhi: A woman in China has been diagnosed with a rare hearing problem that lets her hear only female voices. This might sound like selective hearing or a trick to brush aside the banters of her boyfriend, but it is not. In what could be considered as one of the rarest of the rare conditions, a woman who has been diagnosed with a hearing problem woke up to find that she was completely tone-deaf to what her boyfriend was telling her. According to Mail Online, the patient, who has only been identified by her surname, Chen, woke up to find she was unable to hear her boyfriend. On heading to the hospital for the bizarre symptoms, a specialist diagnosed her with reverse-slope hearing loss, in which she could only hear high frequencies. Read | Asha Bhosles sarcastic tweet on addicts is an 'eye-opener' According to figures, the condition is believed to affect only one in nearly 13,000 patients with hearing problems, according to figures. And doctors now suggest that stress may have contributed to the condition. Local reports report that Chen reportedly had been suffering from nausea and ringing in her ears the night before her ordeal. But the next morning, she was shocked to find she was unable to hear her partner talk. Reports state Chen was able to hear every word, according to Dr Lin Xiaoqing, who treated her. She was able to hear me when I spoke to her, but when a young male patient walked in, she couldnt hear him at all, Dr Xiaoqing said. Dr Xiaoqing also believes that fatigue and the added stress of long days may have contributed to the condition. The doctor added that the patient was diagnosed with low-frequency hearing loss, or reverse-slope hearing loss, explaining why she was unable to hear deeper sounds. This condition is normally difficult to diagnose because both medics and patients may be unaware it exists. Also Read | After Pakistans chai-walla, 'Afghan Justin Trudeau doppelganger finds fame on TV talent show Chen, however, has made a full recovery and should be able to hear her boyfriends voice once again. News of the unusual case, when circulated on social media, has not gone unnoticed and many have also taken the opportunity to awaken the trolling-dragon. One user tweeted, Doctors will call it a hearing loss, I call it evolution while another wrote, A blessing. Check out some of the tweets here: Doctors will call it hearing loss, I call it evolution. pic.twitter.com/Tv8AnMnEO0 Dened Rey Moreno (@Hajabeg) January 11, 2019 Not going to lie, kind of jealous of this woman due to her reverse-slope hearing loss.#UnableToHearMen #StressIsReal LADbible: Woman Can't Hear Men's Voices Because Of Rare Condition.https://t.co/Fr2IRFrj6Y via @GoogleNews SHP (@Medusaforever) January 10, 2019 A blessing valerie complex (@ValerieComplex) January 10, 2019 For all the Latest Offbeat News News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Hours after Congress president Rahul Gandhi took a swipe at Narendra Modi for being awarded the Philip Kotler award, the American marketing author and professor congratulated the Indian prime minister for the honour and hailed his "selfless service towards India". "I congratulate PM @narendramodi for being conferred the first ever Philip Kotler Presidential Award. He has been selected for his outstanding leadership & selfless service towards India, combined with his tireless energy," Kotler said on Twitter on Tuesday. He said Modi's efforts in India have resulted in "extraordinary economic, social and technological advances". I congratulate PM @narendramodi for being conferred the first ever Philip Kotler Presidential Award. He has been selected for his outstanding leadership & selfless service towards India, combined with his tireless energy. (1/2) Philip Kotler (@kotl) January 15, 2019 "His winning the first Philip Kotler Presidential award raises the bar for future recipients," the marketing guru said. 2/2 @narendramodi's efforts have resulted in extraordinary economic, social and technological advances in India. His winning the first award raises the bar for future recipients. Philip Kotler (@kotl) January 15, 2019 Earlier in the day, Gandhi took to the micro-blogging site, and said he wanted to "congratulate" the PM on winning the "world famous" Philip Kotler Presidential award. "In fact it's so famous it has no jury, has never been given out before & is backed by an unheard of Aligarh company. Event Partners: Patanjali & Republic TV :)," he said on Twitter. I want to congratulate our PM, on winning the world famous Kotler Presidential Award! In fact it's so famous it has no jury, has never been given out before & is backed by an unheard of Aligarh company. Event Partners: Patanjali & Republic TV :)https://t.co/449Vk9Ybmz Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 15, 2019 However, the Congress presidents tweet didnt go down well the with the BJP. Its leader and Union Minister Smriti Irani, while tagging Gandhi's tweet, suggested that unlike Prime Minister Modi, who was awarded by someone else, the Gandhi family members had conferred themselves the country's top civilian honour --Bharat Ratna. "Rich !!! Coming from a person whose illustrious family decided to confer the Bharat Ratna' on themselves," she tweeted. Rich !!! Coming from a person whose illustrious family decided to confer the Bharat Ratna on themselves. https://t.co/ipzyRrXNiX Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) January 15, 2019 Also Read | Gandhi family conferred Bharat Ratna on themselves, Smriti Iranis dig at Rahul On Monday, Modi received the first-ever Philip Kotler Presidential award in New Delhi. The award focuses on the triple bottom-line of 'people, profit and planet'. It will be offered annually to the leader of a nation, a statement from the Prime Minister's office said. According to the award citation, Modi was selected for his "outstanding leadership for the nation". "His selfless service towards India, combined with his tireless energy has resulted in extraordinary economic, social and technological advances in the country," it read. Also Read | PM Narendra Modi receives first-ever Philip Kotler Presidential Award The citation also states that under his leadership, India is now identified as the centre for innovation and value added manufacturing (Make in India), as well as a global hub for professional services such as information technology, accounting and finance. The statement quoted the citation as saying Modi's visionary leadership has also resulted in the digital revolution (Digital India), including the Unique Identification Number, Aadhaar, for social benefits and financial inclusion. Philip Kotler is a professor of marketing at Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management. Owing to his ill health, Jagdish Sheth of EMORY University, Georgia was deputed to confer the award on Modi. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday met the parents of Doordarshan's cameraperson Achyutanand Sahu, who was killed in a Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh on October 30 last year, in Odisha's Balangir. Sahu and his two colleagues were in Maoist-affected Dantewada to cover the Chhattisgarh election when they were attacked. They were accompanied by a patrolling team. Three policemen were also killed in the Maoist attack which took place in the forests in Aranpur village in Dantewada. . Another police personnel who was critically injured in the attack succumbed to injuries. Addressing a public gathering in the district, Modi said Sahu, who was targeted by "cowardly" Maoists, was performing his duty of presenting to the world the democratic picture of the country through Doordarshan. He also said sacrifices such as his have only strengthened India's resolve to end this cycle of violence, reported news agency ANI. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the parents of Doordarshan cameraman Achutyanand Sahu, in Odisha's Balangir today. Sahu was killed in a naxal attack in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada on 30 October 2018. pic.twitter.com/BdAeO3a70d ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 Dantewada district is a Maoist hotbed in the heavily forested central state of Chhattisgarh DD News had deployed a team to cover the elections in Bastar. The team, accompanied by the police forces, was videotaping a notice put up by Maoists to boycott the elections and stop development works. Subsequently, Maoists attacked the team, which was accompanied by a dozen security personnel. Sahu was caught in the crossfire before rebels snatched his camera. Modi, who is in Odisha for a day, launched a number of projects worth over Rs 1,550 crore for the state's development. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: In his third visit to the state in a months time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a slew of centrally funded projects worth as much as Rs 1,545 crore in Odisha on Tuesday, according to official sources. PM Modi visited Balangir, besides inaugurating and laying the foundation of the development projects, mostly in the railway sector, they said. He had toured Bhubaneswar and Khurda on December 24 and Baripada in the first week of January. On December 24, the prime minister had launched projects worth Rs 14,523 crore for Odisha, while on January 5, he unveiled programmes worth Rs 4,733 crore, taking the total value to Rs 20,801 crore in the past month, officials said. Here are the LIVE updates: 11.35 am: The government is committed to preserving the country's ancient identity, blend it with modernity: PM Modi 11.32 am: Past governments ruled like Sultanate, neglected rich cultural heritage: PM Modi at BJP rally in Balangir. 11.31 am: Projects worth more than Rs. 1,500 crore in sectors like education, connectivity, culture and tourism, that have been kickstarted today, will not only spur the growth of Odisha but also of eastern India: PM 11.29 am: In a month, more than Rs 20,000 crore of development projects have been either inaugurated or initiated in Odisha, says PM Modi in Balangir. 11.24 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Bolangir-Bichhupali railway line in Odisha today. 10.24 am: PM lays foundation stone and inaugurates multiple development projects in Odisha. LIVE: PM Shri @narendramodi lays foundation stone and inaugurates multiple development projects in Odisha. #ModiAsuchanti https://t.co/homKK9AqK9 BJP (@BJP4India) January 15, 2019 For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: In a major setback for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Supreme Court has today said that the West Bengal government's concerns over its planned Rath Yatra were "not unfounded", asking the party to seek fresh approval from the state. The court has however asked the state government to allow BJP's proposed public meetings and rallies under its "Ganatantra Bachao Yatra". The three-bench judge headed by Justice Chief Justice Ranjan has asked the West Bengal government to consider the revised schedule of BJP for 'Rath Yatra' keeping in mind the fundamental right of speech and expression under the Constitution. The bench said the apprehension of the state government of possible law and order situation cannot be called "unfounded" and BJP will have to take all possible steps to address the apprehension in reasonable manner. The top court had earlier sought response from the state government on BJP's plea seeking permission to take out 'Rath Yatra' in the state. The BJP's Bengal unit challenged the December 21 order of a division bench of the Calcutta High Court, which had set aside the order of a single-judge bench allowing the procession. It had also asked the BJP state unit to submit a revised plan for its 'save democracy rally' for consideration by the state government. The BJP has now decided to cut short its 40-day programme to 20 and the fresh 'Yatras' would start from Baharampur in Murshidabad district, Diamond Harbour in South 24 Parganas district, Medinipur and the Lok Sabha constituency of Kolkata North, a lawyer associated with the matter said, adding that the decision was taken in view of the upcoming school examinations and the general elections. Earlier, the BJP's West Bengal unit had approached the apex court seeking permission to take out the rally, which would cover 42 parliamentary constituencies in the state. In its plea, the BJP has said that their fundamental right to hold a peaceful 'Yatra' cannot be withheld. The high court's division bench had sent the case back to a single-judge bench to hear it afresh and also to consider the intelligence inputs by state agencies. The order of the division bench had come after hearing an appeal moved by the West Bengal government challenging the order of the single-judge bench. The rallies, according to the original schedule, were supposed to be flagged off by BJP president Amit Shah from Cooch Behar district on December 7, Kakdwip in South 24 Parganas on December 9, and from Tarapith temple in Birbhum on December 14. In the plea filed in the top court, the BJP's West Bengal unit contended that authorities cannot abridge their right and they have a duty to facilitate them in exercising their democratic right. The BJP alleged in the plea that the state government was repeatedly "attacking" the fundamental right of citizens due to which different petitions have been filed challenging the activities of the state government in denying permission to different organisations. It has claimed that earlier too, permission was denied several times at the last moment to "harass the BJP" which later moved the high court and that the party "is facing such political vendetta since 2014 in West Bengal". For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Delhi: The Mumbai airport has introduced a new technology called Digi-Yatra that eliminates 'boarding pass stamping' for all domestic airlines operating out of Terminal 2, an official said on Monday. This makes the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport the first airport in the country to introduce this latest technology. Passengers travelling within the country from T2 can now authenticate their boarding pass at pre-embarkation security check point by scanning the boarding pass barcode or QR code on their mobile phones at the E-gate Reader, using the Live Passenger Dataset. This process will eliminate the need of CISF personnel to stamp the boarding pass, therefore saving their time and improving the overall throughput of security check procedure. This initiative by CSMIA is a step towards adopting new technology and digitizing the travel experience of passengers, making it hassle-free. The pilot feature introduced by CSMIA at reducing time involved in completing the many pre-flight boarding checks, a forward-looking technology-driven service offering seamless digital experience to passengers. The GVK Mumbai Airport also has equipped Terminals with various self-service check-in facilities and pioneered facilities like check-in kiosks, generating boarding pass and baggage tags through CUSS, and use of self-baggage drop facility for a faster check-in experience. (With IANS and PTI inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati celebrated her 63rd birthday on Tuesday. Former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav met Mayawati on the occasion and greeted her at her resident in Lucknow. According to sources, their meeting lasted an hour. On January 12, Mayawati and Mayawati announced their alliance for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh. Both Akhileshs SP and Mayawatis BSP decided on a 50-50 seat-sharing deal under which each party will contest 38 seats. Addressing a joint press conference with Mayawati in Lucknow, Akhilesh Yadav had said that the alliance was necessary to defeat the arrogant BJP and rid the state from the saffron party's "religion and caste politics". Both the parties have decided not to contest in Amethi and Rae Bareli, represented by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi respectively. However, Congress has been kept out of the alliance. Two seats have been left for the smaller parties. Read More | BJP should learn lesson from drubbing in Hindi heartland: Mayawati "We have come together to rid the state and country of BJPs religion and caste politics. This alliance was a must to destroy BJP, to defeat their arrogance. BJP can go to any extent to create differences in our workers, we must be united and counter any such tactic, Akhilesh Yadav. He further said the SP and the BSP are now together and any insult to Mayawati will be his also. I want to say to BJP that they should know that we (SP-BSP) are in this together. I am grateful to Mayawati for giving me equal status. They should know any insult to Mayawati is my insult, he said. Earlier in the day, Mayawati had addressed a press conference on the occasion of her birthday where she targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) saying that it should learn a lesson from the drubbing in the recently held Assembly Elections in the Hindi heartland states. The BSP chief also accused the BJP-led central government of betraying the people of the country by not fulfilling any of the promises. "PM Modi makes tall promises in his rallies, but just like every other time, we believe that this time too, all the promises will be shelved," she said. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: With the worlds largest human congregation beginning today, security has been beefed up in Prayagraj as thousands of visitors have flocked the city for Ardh Kumbh 2019. Also, in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is slated to make his third visit to Odisha in less than three weeks and launch a slew of government projects worth Rs 1,545 crore. In other news, Delhis Patiala House Court will hear the sedition case against former JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya and others in the three-year-old case. Google Doodle celebrates the man who set up UKs first Indian restaurant. 23:59 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In "This alliance will promote anarchy and insecurity only. It was done due to the fear (of the BJP government returning to power) and the people will not accept it," the chief minister said. 20:14 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Two security personnel injured in ceasefire violation by Pakistan in Rajouri. 20:11 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh: If someone accepts a religion on their own there shouldn't be objections but mass conversion is a matter of concern for any country. If youre Hindu be Hindu, Muslim be Muslim, Christian be Christian. Why do you want to convert the whole world? 19:47 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Rameswaram: 2 Sri Lankan refugees apprehended by Indian Coast Guard near Pamban Kunnathukal seashore, this evening. Interrogation going on at Mandapam Coast Guard Station. 19:11 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Union Human Resource Development Minister, Prakash Javadekar: 10% reservation quota for economically-weaker sections will be implemented in all educational institutions from the academic year 2019. 18:45 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In The Central government has approved the proposal to extend the 7th Central Pay Commission to the teachers and other academic staff of the state government and government-aided degree level technical institutions in the country, which will have additional government liability of Rs 1241.78 crore. 18:40 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Both the accused women have been arrested in connection with the incident where 16 dead puppies were found in the garbage beside Gynaecology Dept of NRS Hospital (Entally PS area) in Kolkata on January 13. 18:29 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Kerala: Left and Congress make tall claims about respect to gender justice and social justice but their actions are exactly the opposite.NDA Government has been working towards abolishing Triple Talaq. Who is opposing us on this? Communists and the Congress pic.twitter.com/hzIrBzS65K ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 18:29 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Kerala government's conduct on Sabarimala will go down in history as one of the most shameful, says Prime Minister Narendra Modi. PM in Kerala: The conduct of Kerala LDF govt on Sabarimala issue will go down in history as one of the most shameful behaviour by any party & govt. We knew that communists do not respect Indian history, culture and spirituality but nobody imagined that they will have such hatred. pic.twitter.com/rlQtRbVyMI ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 18:23 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Ajit Jogi, former Chhattisgarh chief minister, reaches BSP chief Mayawati's residence to meet her. 17:15 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In BREAKING: 6 dead after boat capsizes in Narmada river in Maharashtra's Nandurbar district. 17:12 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Pinarayi Vijayan felicitates Prime Minister Narendra Modi Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan felicitates Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Kollam. 17:11 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In UPSC aspirants stage protest at Jantar Mantar demanding compensatory attempts in UPSC Civil Services Exam for those who suffered due to the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) exam pattern. 16:20 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Manu Sawhney has been named as the ICC's new chief executive. He will join the organisation next month before formally taking over from David Richardson following Cricket World Cup 2019: International Cricket Council. 15:41 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In INX media case: Delhi High Court has extended the interim protection of former Union minister P Chidambaram and fixed January 24 as next date in the case. 15:27 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In No BJP Rath Yatra in Bengal as Supreme Court denies permission. The top court said that state government's concerns not unfounded. 14:12 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Army Chief General Bipin Rawat in Delhi: On Line of Control, India Army has given befitting reply to our enemy and caused them heavy loss. We warn them that any attempt to infiltrate would be dealt strongly. pic.twitter.com/hGUwyhAhdS ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 14:08 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the parents of Doordarshan cameraman Achutyanand Sahu, in Odisha's Balangir today. Sahu was killed in a Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada on 30 October 2018. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the parents of Doordarshan cameraman Achutyanand Sahu, in Odisha's Balangir today. Sahu was killed in a naxal attack in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada on 30 October 2018. pic.twitter.com/BdAeO3a70d ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 12:33 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Jammu and Kashmir: One BSF personnel has been injured in a firing from across the border in Hiranagar sector, Kathua. 12:33 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Pakistan violates ceasefire in J-K's Sunderbani sector, Indian Army retaliates. 12:15 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Supreme Court to hear Zakia Jafri's plea against clean chit to PM Modi in Gujarat riots after 4 weeks. 11:59 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Khar Gymkhana in Mumbai revokes Hardik Pandya's honorary membership. 10:23 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Delhiites woke up to a cold morning with the minimum temperature settling at 7 degrees Celsius, two notches below normal. 10:07 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In PM Modi in Chhattisgarh Prime Minister Modi is visiting the state for the first time after the new government was formed, so I came to welcome him. He congratulated me on becoming the CM, said Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel. Visual of PM Modi's arrival at Raipur, welcomed by CM and former CM Raman Singh. Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel: Prime Minister Modi is visiting the state for the first time after the new government was formed, so I came to welcome him. He congratulated me on becoming the CM; Visual of PM Modi's arrival at Raipur, welcomed by CM and former CM Raman Singh pic.twitter.com/yoNCN76JRO ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 09:57 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Service temporarily disrupted on Delhi Metro's Yellow Line from Rajiv Chowk towards HUDA City Centre due to a person on the track, reports news agency ANI. 07:45 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Pentagon agrees to an extended role on US-Mexico border mission. 07:42 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Sake Dean Mahomed: Google Doodle celebrates the man who set up UKs first Indian restaurant. 07:38 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In As many as 13 trains to Delhi running late due to fog and low visibility on Tuesday. 07:36 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Fuel prices rise again Petrol and diesel prices at Rs. 70.41/litre (increase by Rs 0.28) and Rs. 64.47/litre (increase by Rs. 0.29), respectively in Delhi. 07:35 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Maharashtra: A massive fire broke out in six godowns around 01:45 am at the AK Industrial Estate near the Shilphata-Mahape Road in Shilphata, Mumbra. Three fire tenders are present at the spot as fire-fighting operations are underway. #Maharashtra : Fire broke out in six godowns today at around 01:45 am at AK Industrial Estate near Shilphata-Mahape Road in Shilphata, Mumbra. Three fire tenders present at the spot. Fire-fighting operation underway. pic.twitter.com/kSdbZgpifo ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 07:34 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Security beeped up in Prayagraj ahead of first Shahi Snan at the Kumbh Mela. Prayagraj: Early morning visuals of security deployed at Sangam Ghat before the arrival of devotees for a holy dip in river Ganga on the occasion of first Shahi Snan at #KumbhMela2019 pic.twitter.com/Xd5M4D3jH4 ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 14, 2019 07:32 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Kumbh Mela 2019 begins Prayagraj: Devotees throng Panchayati Akhara to participate in the first 'Shahi Snan' and take a holy dip in river Ganga. Prayagraj: Devotees throng Panchayati Akhara at #KumbhaMela2019 to participate in the first 'Shahi Snan' & take a holy dip in river Ganga. pic.twitter.com/VEsdBrSvO0 ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 14, 2019 For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Kumbh Mela 2019, the worlds largest human congregation, began on Tuesday with thousands of devotees taking a holy dip in the river Ganga for the Shashi Snan in Prayagraj. The city has been engulfed in a massive security cover. Due to the huge number of people expected to take part in the mela, the administration has restricted the entry of all types of vehicles -- other than those required for essential services -- in the vicinity of Kumbh Nagari, the sprawling 32,000-hectare township that has come up on the banks of the river. As many as 12 crore visitors are expected in Prayagraj. "Anand aa raha hai (I am feeling real contentment)," said 55-year-old Pramod Prakash from Kannauj as he made his way inside the Kumbh Nagari after walking from Allahabad Railway station with three heavy bags on his head. "Don't think of comfort, devote yourself to Ganga 'maiyan' completely and you'll feel light yourself," he said, pointing to many in the crowd doing the same as him. Posters with the slogan 'Chalo Kumbh Chale' were up in all public areas of the state and the city and many thousands walked their way through the Nagari to the river. But no one was complaining. For most, it was a walk to remember. Here are the Live updates from Prayagraj: 8.35 am: Naga Sadhus gather at Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj. /span> 8 am: #WATCH Hindu seers and saints head towards Sangam Ghat for a holy dip in river Ganga on the occasion of first Shahi Snan at #KumbhMela2019 in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj. #WATCH Hindu seers and saints head towards Sangam Ghat for a holy dip in river Ganga on the occasion of first Shahi Snan at #KumbhMela2019 in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj (Early morning visuals) pic.twitter.com/9PBx4yBODE ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 6.30 am: Latest visuals from Sangam Ghat in Prayagraj. #KumbhMela2019: Latest visuals from Sangam Ghat in Prayagraj. pic.twitter.com/svXqYKbR3J ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 15, 2019 4.02 am: Early morning visuals of security deployed at Sangam Ghat in Prayagraj before the arrival of devotees for a holy dip in river Ganga on the occasion of first Shahi Snan. Prayagraj: Early morning visuals of security deployed at Sangam Ghat before the arrival of devotees for a holy dip in river Ganga on the occasion of first Shahi Snan at #KumbhMela2019 pic.twitter.com/Xd5M4D3jH4 ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 14, 2019 4 am: Devotees throng Panchayati Akhara at #KumbhaMela2019 to participate in the first 'Shahi Snan' & take a holy dip in river Ganga. Prayagraj: Devotees throng Panchayati Akhara at #KumbhaMela2019 to participate in the first 'Shahi Snan' & take a holy dip in river Ganga. pic.twitter.com/VEsdBrSvO0 ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 14, 2019 For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Kanakadurga, 44, one of the two women who had entered the Sabarimala temple in Kerala defying tradition earlier this month, was rushed to a hospital after being thrashed by her mother-in-law following an altercation on the issue. Kanakadurga had been in hiding for the last two weeks after the darshan of Lord Ayyappa at the Sabarimala shrine due to security reasons. When she reached home in Perinthalmanna on Tuesday morning, she had a verbal duel with her in-laws who opposed her entry at the temple. Kanakadurga alleged that her mother-in-law allegedly beat her up with a wooden plank and she was taken to the hospital. Kanakadurga suffered head injuries and is admitted to a government hospital at Perinthalmanna in northern Malappuram district, the police said. "My mother-in-law beat me up severely with the wooden plank," Kanakadurga told TV channels from the hospital. Reports also suggest her mother-in-law also got admitted to the hospital later alleging that Kanakadurga had assaulted her. Both Kanakadurga's in-laws and her own family had opposed her decision to enter the Sabarimala temple taken in view of the landmark September 28 Supreme Court verdict permitting women of all age groups into the shrine. Kanakadurga and Bindhu, 42, had entered the hill shrine on January 3, breaking a centuries-old tradition and defying dire threats from right-wing groups. As the news spread like wildfire from the hill shrine, protests erupted at several places, with Hindu right-wing activists blocking highways and forcing closure of shops and markets. The violence rocked parts of the state during the January 3 hartal with several houses and shops of rival leaders and workers being attacked over the women's entry into the temple. BJP and CPI(M) workers clashed in front of the Secretariat for over five hours as police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse them. A 55-year-old man, who was seriously injured in stone throwing at Pandalam, died later. Various universities, including Kerala, Mahatma Gandhi, Calicut and Kannur postponed their examinations. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has unexpectedly left for the US for a medical check-up relating to his kidney ailment, sources said on Tuesday. Jaitley, who had undergone a renal transplant surgery on May 14, 2018, had not travelled abroad in last nine months. He was scheduled to attend 10th India-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue in London in April last year, but had cancelled his visit due to his kidney ailment. Sources said, he left for the US on Sunday night for a medical check-up. Jaitley is to present his sixth and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments last Budget on February 1. Though it is supposed to be an Interim Budget, it is widely expected that his speech would have been full-length Budget speech. Jaitley was admitted to AIIMS last year in early April following which he underwent dialysis. He had a renal transplant surgery on May 14, 2018. Jaitleys post-operative recovery was being closely monitored by a team of transplant surgeons, pulmonologist, nephrologist, endocrinologist, cardiologist and critical care experts among others. The 65-year-old political leader received a kidney from a distant relative, a middle-aged woman, according to sources at AIIMS. The donation fell under the category of live unrelated donation. Living, unrelated donor could be anyone who is emotionally attached to the recipient, such as a friend, a relative, a neighbour or an in-law. The authorisation committee had given its approval before the procedure, the source had told PTI. During transplant surgeries, the patient is put on immunosuppressants so as to lower his/her bodys ability to reject a transplanted organ. The patient is thus kept in isolation in order to avoid any infection. A team of 20 personnel, including transplant anesthesiologists and transplant surgeons, conducted the surgery at the cardio-thoracic centre. In his absence, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal was given the additional charge of Finance Ministry on May 14. Jaitley, 66, who had stopped attending office at the beginning of April, and was back in North Block - the seat of Finance Ministry - on August 23. Jaitley had in September 2014, undergone a bariatric surgery to treat weight gain that he suffered because of a long-standing diabetic condition. That surgery was first performed at Max Hospital, but Jaitley was later shifted to AIIMS because of complications. He had a heart surgery several years ago. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of Congress Party in the Lok Sabha, on Tuesday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him to come clean on the removal of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) chief Alok Verma from the post over corruption charges. He asked the prime minister to make the minutes of the January 10 meeting and Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) report by Justice (retired) AK Patnaik public. He was a member of the high-powered committee that removed Verma as the director of the investigative agency. On January 10, a high-powered Select Committee, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, decided that Verma should be removed as CBI director and be given charge of fire service. The Congress leader also wrote that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should call a fresh meeting of the Selection Committee at the earliest to select the new director of the central investigative agency. On January 10, the Selection Committee comprising the prime minister, Justice AK Sikri and Congress leader Malikarjun Kharge, decided on Vermas removal with a 2:1 majority. The Selection Committee generally PM, Chief Justice of India (or his nominee) and the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha (or leader of the single largest party). In this case, Justice Sikri was the nominee of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi. Read More | Justice AK Sikri was reluctant to be part of selection panel that removed Alok Verma as CBI chief: Report Mallikarjun Kharge was the only person in the three-member Selection Committee to have submitted a dissent note over the action against Verma. He had also said that most of the charges levelled against Verma by the Central Vigilance Commission had not been substantiated. On October 23 last year, Verma and Special Director of the CBI, Rakesh Asthana were divested of all powers by the Centre amid a public feud between the two over alleged corruption. CBI additional director M Nageshwar Rao was made the interim chief. However, on January 8 this year, the Supreme Court had reinstated Verma to the top post of the CBI and removed Rao from the post. However, the Centre brought back Rao as interim chief following the decision was taken by the Selection Panel to remove Verma as CBI chief. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Newly built Fuxing bullet trains going 160 kilometers per hour have no excessive formaldehyde problem and will be scheduled to be put in service in batches, according to a statement from China Railway Beijing Group Co Ltd. The Beijing company released a statement on its official account on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like service, Monday evening to refute a mistaken report from China Business Journal from earlier that day. According to the report, some sources close to the Beijing company said at least two branches of China Railway Corp, China's railroad operator, have received newly built Fuxing trains of 160 kilometers per hour with excessive formaldehyde problems and stopped running them. The Beijing company said in the statement there was no such situation, and the reason that have not been used so far is due to long-term debugging and waiting for the "new car smell" release period to pass. It said the trains will be arranged to be put into operation in batches. Railway authorities pay high attention to passengers' health and environmental issues, trains deemed unfit for operation will not run, and they will request manufacturers to renovate and ensure quality, the report said. Bengaluru: In a big setback to HD Kumaraswamy-led coalition government in Karnataka, two MLAs have withdrawn their support to the state government. The lawmakers who have withdrawn their support are H Nagesh (Independent) and R Shankar (Karnataka Pragnyavanta Janata Paksha). The development comes amid reports of some Congress MLAs go missing. Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy on 2 Independent MLAs withdraw support from Karnataka government: If 2 MLAs withdraw their support, what will be the numbers? I'm totally relaxed. I know my strength. Whatever is going on in media in the past week, I am enjoying pic.twitter.com/vsmmbdBXSY ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 However, Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy said that he is totally relaxed as his government has the required numbers in the Karnataka Assembly. If 2 MLAs withdraw their support, what will be the numbers? I'm totally relaxed. I know my strength. Whatever is going on in media in the past week, I am enjoying, he was quoted as saying by ANI. Commenting on the development, Deputy Karnataka CM G Parameshwara said that it proves our accusations. "We have been saying that BJP is luring our MLAs through money and power but their attempts to destabilise the govt will fail. Our govt is stable," he said. "My support to coalition government was to provide a good and stable government which utterly failed. There's is no understanding among coalition partners. So, I decided to go with BJP to install a stable government and see that government performs better than the coalition," Independent MLA H Nagesh said. 2 Independent MLAs, H Nagesh and R Shankar, withdraw their support from Karnataka govt. pic.twitter.com/C34u3BNFOb ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 Today is Makar Sankranti, on this day we want a change in the government. The govt should be efficient, so I am withdrawing my support (to the Karnataka govt) today, R Shankar of KPJP. Both the MLAs have written to Governor Vajubhai Vala conveying their decision. In separate identical letters, available to the media, they said they were withdrawing support extended to the coalition government of the Congress and the JDS with immediate effect. The MLAs, who are now staying in a Mumbai hotel, requested the governor to take "necessary action." Congress leader Siddaramaiah said that BJP wants to topple the government and its high command is also involved in this. However, he clarified that the Congress-JD (S) government is completely safe. In the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, the BJP has 104 members, Congress 80 (including Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar), Kumaraswamys JD (S) has 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each. BSP is supporting the coalition government. Meanwhile, BJP's Ram Shinde has claimed hes got a feeling that Operation Lotus will be successful in the coming days. They must have thought that they should join that BJP that received the mandate instead of those who formed an unnatural alliance. I'm getting a feeling that Operation Lotus will be successful in the coming days, said Ram Shinde, Cabinet Minister in Maharashtra government. BJP's Ram Shinde on 2 Independent MLAs withdraw support from Karnataka govt: They must have thought that they should join BJP that received the mandate instead of those who formed unnatural alliance. I'm getting a feeling that Operation Lotus will be successful in the coming days pic.twitter.com/5D9P1DlrUH ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 Earlier, Water Resource Minister D K Shivakumar's claimed that three Congress MLAs were camping at a hotel in Mumbai in the company of some BJP leaders but the chief minister said that they are in constant touch with him. Not revealing their names, he had said "They are my friends. Those MLAs in Mumbai or 104 BJP MLAs who are in Delhi are all my people, so there is no question of instability to this government." In a related development, BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa said the party legislators of Karnataka would be in New Delhi for one or two days and would later go to their constituencies and begin preparations for the Lok Sabha polls in all the 28 constituencies. Reports suggest that BJP legislators in Delhi were likely to be shifted to Gurgaon, to keep its numbers intact, with Congress and JD(S) allegedly planning to poach BJP MLAs as a retaliatory measure to Operation Lotus. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Army Day is celebrated on January 15, every year to commemorate the day when Lieutenant General KM Cariappa took over as Commander-in-Chief of India on January 1949. He took over the position from General Sir Francis Butcher. Army Day is celebrated at every Army Command headquarters situated in the country and in the national capital. The celebrations in Delhi begin by paying tributes to the martyred soldiers at the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate. Here are 6 facts to know about the Indian Army Day: Army Day is celebrated on January 15 every year in India in recognition of Lieutenant General KM Cariappa taking over as the first Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army from General Sir Francis Butcher, the last British Commander-in-Chief of India, on January 15, 1949. Army Day is also celebrated to salute the valiant soldiers who sacrificed their lives to protect the country and its citizens. At the Army Day celebration in Jammu and Kashmir, serving army personnel get the bravery and famed service awards (Sena medals, Vishist Seva medals, among others). For the first time in the history of Indian Army, Lieutenant Bhavana Kasturi lead the Indian Armys Service Corps (ASC) contingent and Captain Shikha Surabhi, a female officer, will be leading the Armys Daredevils Motorcycle Display team comprising 33 men riding nine bikes in a pyramid. Army Day parade is carried out by the Indian army soldiers (Indian army bands) which involves the exhibition of BLT T-72, T-90 tanks, Brahmos Missile, carrier Mortar Tracked Vehicle, 155 MM Soltum Gun, Advanced Light Helicopters of the Army Aviation Corps and etc. Serving Indian Army personnel take a pledge to maintain their service and protect the nation from enemies whether they are foreign or domestic. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Ankita Lokhande is winning hearts after her look as Jhalkari Bai in her upcoming movie, Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, which stars Kangana Ranaut in the lead role, unveiled. Ankita Lokhande shot to fame with her long stint in the television soap Pavitra Rishta. While Ankita's professional life is taking a sweet turn, her personal life is also adding up to the flavour. According to a rumour in Bombay Times, the actor might get hitched in 2019 with her rumoured beau Vikas Jain. Although, the actress, who is reportedly dating a Mumbai based businessman, Vicky Jain has chosen to remain silent on her wedding speculations. Speaking of her rumoured Boyfriend, Ankita accepted that she is in love. She told Bombay Times, He is a very nice guy. He is a businessman from Bilaspur. Yes, I am in love and you will get to know about it when the time is right. On her wedding plans, Ankita responded, If it happens, I will let you know and invite you for the wedding. I cant say anything right now, but there are no such plans, yet. I am just focussing on work at the moment. Love is really important for me, because I believe in it. I believe in giving love to everyone, including my family, dogs and myself, and not just the person I get married to. Relationships are very important, because thats the bond you share with someone and thats how love grows between people. Marriage has always been my dream. I have always wanted to get married. But at this point, my priorities have changed. I am really looking forward to more films., said the actress. According to a report in Mid-Day earlier this year, the two met through common friends and soon fell in love. The source revealed, "They have known each other from the past few years. They met through common friends from the telly world. But recently, the two have got close. That they are more than just friends was evident from their body language at a Holi bash last month. Vicky and Ankita often hang out together with common friends." Ankita Lokhande was earlier dating her Pavitra Rishta co-star, Sushant Singh Rajput, who is a known name in Bollywood now. She ended her six-years-of-relationship with him after things took an ugly turn between them. Looks like 2019 is going to be a great year for her, both professionally and personally. Ankita will be next seen in Kangana Ranauts Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, which is slated to release on January 25. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: In one of the sharpest attacks on the Kerala government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the state government's conduct on the Sabarimala temple will go down in history as one of the most shameful. Hitting out at the CPI-M-led LDF and the opposition spearheaded by the UDF in the state, he said both the fronts were two sides of the same coin and accused them of neglecting people of the state. The conduct of Kerala LDF government on the Sabarimala issue will go down in history as one of the most shameful behaviour by any party and government. We knew that communists do not respect Indian history, culture and spirituality, but nobody imagined that they will have such hatred, Modi, while addresing a rally in Kollam, said. The UDF is no better The UDF and the LDF are two sides of the same old coin. Different in name, but in corruption, casteism and communalism, they are same. Different in name, but in damaging Kerala's cultural fabric, they are same. Different in name, but in political violence, they are same. The UDF and the LDF are different in name, but in neglecting Kerala's yuva shakti, they are same. The UDF and the LDF are different in name, but in ignoring the poor, they are same. The UDF and the LDF are different in name, but in cheating the people of Kerala, they are same, Modi added. Thank you Kollam for the warm welcome and support. Addressing a rally. Watch. https://t.co/YfPSctMGEb Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 15, 2019 Hitting Modi back, the CPI (M) tweeted: "Shameful that Modi attacked the LDF Govt for implementing Supreme Court's order on Sabarimala while inaugurating a project in Kollam in Kerala.Modi should read the Indian constitution which he is sworn to uphold rather than Manusmriti or RSS oath!" Shameful that Modi attacked the LDF Govt for implementing Supreme Court's order on #Sabarimala while inaugurating a project in Kollam in Kerala. Modi should read the Indian constitution which he is sworn to uphold rather than Manusmriti or RSS oath! https://t.co/eCMsvDIAH7 CPI (M) (@cpimspeak) January 15, 2019 The prime minister didnt spare as the Congress as well. Modi said the Congress party has multiple stands on the Sabarimala issue. "They say one thing in Parliament and another in Pathanamthitta (where the Lord Ayyappa shrine is located). Our stand on this issue has always been clear. And, the actions of our party match our words, Modi said. Speaking on the 10 per cent reservation for the economically weaker section in upper castes, Modi said the government had the historic opportunity to pass a legislation that gives quota to poor people from the general category. We believe that every Indian, irrespective of caste, creed or community deserves equal opportunity, he said. The PM also attacked the Congress and the Left on the Triple Talaq issue. The Left and the Congress make tall claims about respect to gender justice and social justice but their actions are exactly the opposite. The NDA government has been working towards abolishing Triple Talaq. Who is opposing us on this? Communists and the Congress, Modi said. New Delhi: Attempts by mediapersons to sneak in a luxury hotel where some Congress MLAs from Karnataka were staying proved futile, amid talk of BJP's 'Operation Lotus' to topple the coalition government in the neighbouring state. Security was beefed up at the five-star resort in suburban Mumbai where two independent MLAs and reportedly four Congress MLAs from Karnataka are staying. The Congress suspects that some of its MLAs are lodged in the Powai-based hotel, kept secretly by BJP leaders. Many journalists and Congress workers were seen in the vicinity of the hotel, searching for the "missing" Congress MLAs. There was a large media presence outside the hotel Tuesday after the two independent MLAs announced they were withdrawing support to the Congress-JDS coalition government in Karnataka. Earlier on Tuesday, some mediapersons managed to sneak in the hotel but could not progress beyond the hotel lobby. The hotel security and local police were at the main gate to monitor those entering the premises. There were speculations that Karnataka Water Resources Minister DK Shivakumar may visit the hotel but that did not materialise. Shivakumar had on Sunday claimed that three Congress MLAs were camping at the hotel in the "company of some BJP leaders". "We are aware of what has transpired there and how much has been offered to them," Shivakumar had said. Earlier in the day, in a big setback to HD Kumaraswamy-led coalition government, two MLAs have withdrawn their support to the state government. The lawmakers who have withdrawn their support are H Nagesh (Independent) and R Shankar (Karnataka Pragnyavanta Janata Paksha). The development comes amid reports of some Congress MLAs go missing. However, Kumaraswamy said that he is totally relaxed as his government has the required numbers in the Karnataka Assembly. If two MLAs withdraw their support, what will be the numbers? I'm totally relaxed. I know my strength. Whatever is going on in media in the past week, I am enjoying, he was quoted as saying by ANI. Commenting on the development, Deputy Karnataka CM G Parameshwara said it proves our accusations. "We have been saying that BJP is luring our MLAs through money and power but their attempts to destabilise the govt will fail. Our government is stable," he said. "My support to coalition government was to provide a good and stable government which utterly failed. There's is no understanding among coalition partners. So, I decided to go with BJP to install a stable government and see that government performs better than the coalition," Independent MLA H Nagesh said. Today is Makar Sankranti, on this day we want a change in the government. The govt should be efficient, so I am withdrawing my support (to the Karnataka govt) today, R Shankar of KPJP. Both the MLAs have written to Governor Vajubhai Vala conveying their decision. In separate identical letters, available to the media, they said they were withdrawing support extended to the coalition government of the Congress and the JDS with immediate effect. The MLAs, who are now staying in a Mumbai hotel, requested the governor to take "necessary action." In the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, the BJP has 104 members, the Congress 80 (including Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar), Kumaraswamys JD (S) has 37, the BSP, the KPJP and Independent one each. The BSP is supporting the coalition government. (With PTI inputs) Please purchase a subscription read this premium content. If you have a subscription, please sign up for a digital website account or log in. Three young children have died at a Florida property after becoming trapped in a freezer. A one-year-old girl, a four-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy were playing on a trampoline outside a house in Suwannee County on Sunday (local time). The mother of the four-year-old was supervising the children but went inside to use the bathroom for 10 to 15 minutes, the Suwannee County Sheriff told local station WCTV. When she came back outside she couldn't find them, and woke up another woman (the grandmother of the other two children) who had been resting inside in preparation for a night shift. The two adults searched the property and the house next door for the next 30 to 45 minutes. Eventually they checked inside a chest freezer, which had been recently purchased and was still sitting outside the house. It was unplugged and was not cold. Inside was a gruesome sight. The children had climbed into the freezer and been unable to get back out. The women called paramedics and administered CPR on the youngsters, none of whom were breathing. After arriving at hospital all three were pronounced dead. Authorities have inspected the freezer, which they say had a hasp (a hinged fastening) installed on the lid. "It is believed at this time, that when the children entered the freezer, and the lid closed, the hasp fell shut, trapping the children inside," the sheriff's office said in a statement. The triple tragedy has hit the community hard, with neighbour Bob Biggs telling WCTV he'd seen the women frantically searching for the children before making the grisly discovery. "That's tough to take because I have four grandkids of my own. That was a shock. That was just unbelievable." No foul play is suspected, but the sheriff's office says the investigation is ongoing. Newshub. A stowaway bird managed to sneak its way onto a plane and travel all the way from Singapore to London. The myna bird made its first appearance known 12 hours into the 14 hour Singapore Airlines flight. In a video posted on Facebook, the bird can be seen perched on the headrest of a business class seat, before a flight attendant tried unsuccessfully to catch it. Its not known how the bird, a native to southern Asia, managed to board the flight at Changi Airport. If the myna was to fly Singapore and London with its own wings, the trip would take 10 non-stop days; so it's easy to see the appeal of choosing 14 hours in business class instead. A spokesperson for the airline told the Strait Times newspaper the bird was safe and well. "It was subsequently caught by cabin crew with the assistance of some of the passengers," they said. The bird managed to avoid the long queues at London's Heathrow Airport and was handed over to quarantine authorities. Newshub. By Mike Chapman, CEO of Horticulture NZ OPINION: Australia and New Zealand are facing the same problem: we are both very short of workers for harvesting fruit and vegetables. This issue will not go away in the immediate or medium-term future and it will require some assistance from Government. Low unemployment and, in many parts of the country where there are no New Zealanders available for this work, means reliance on offshore labour to harvest. What is Australia doing? With the Australian equivalent of our RSE scheme - that enables Pacific Island workers to come for harvest and pruning - more than 8000 visas were granted in 2017/18, with the number of Pacific workers in Australia increasing by 40 percent. The growth is based on need, as there is no cap on the number of Pacific workers that can work in Australia under their scheme. In addition, the workers can work in Australia for up to nine months and have the ability to come and go. In New Zealand, if a worker returns to New Zealand, their re-entry is counted against that years cap and the total number of RSE workers permitted in New Zealand has a cap which industry negotiates with the government each year. A new scheme that started on September 8, 2018, permits Pacific workers to work in Australia for up to three years. This will assist those industries that are short of permanent workers. Under the Australian scheme these workers are not eligible to do seasonal work. Australia has also recognised the importance backpackers and working holiday makers. Backpackers have been an important worker supplement for harvest, helping to meet peak requirements. Last November, the Australian Government expanded the ability for these workers to get a second year visa work extension and they can now work for up to 12 months with one employer. For working holiday makers from Canada and Ireland, the age limit has been increased to 35. These enhancements will dramatically increase the number of backpackers that can be available for seasonal harvest and related work in Australia. These changes combine to increase the Australian workforce available at harvest time, and mean they will pick the best possible fruit and vegetables. In New Zealand, there are reviews underway that will consider similar changes, but the results of these reviews will not be known until later in the year. The immediate shortage of labour for the New Zealand fruit harvest this season will not be addressed with Immigration law and policy changes in 2019. We are making submissions for changes to be made here similar to those in Australia, with start dates as early as possible. But this season, Australia will likely be a more favoured country to work in and this will take possible workers away from the New Zealand harvest. Ultimately this may result in New Zealand produce being less competitive in our international markets, as fruit and vegetables harvested at less than optimal times do not have the same quality, freshness and flavour compared with fruit and vegetables harvested at the right time. Finally, some myth busting. The comment is often made that if you paid more, then there would not be a worker shortage. Where harvest piece rates are paid, the more productive you are, the more you get paid. Those that are most productive get paid very well. If you are not productive, your pay reflects that. Regardless, if there are no unemployed workers available it does not matter what they are paid. More attractive pay rates will only attract workers away from other industries, and transfer the problem to another sector. Aside from that, productive harvest workers are paid well and above the living wage. Even taking exchange rates into account, the Australian Horticulture Award base and penal rates means productive harvest workers in New Zealand can earn more than they would in Australia. The amount they earn is literally in their hands. Mike Chapman is CEO of Horticulture NZ. China's top drug authority said it has been accelerating approval of new drugs researched and developed overseas, and a number of such new drugs will be available for patient use on the Chinese mainland this year. The National Medial Products Administration released a list at the end of last year of 48 overseas new drugs, including 12 cancer drugs, for priority approval, and eight have been available in the domestic market, the administration said, China Central Television reported on Monday. All these drugs are already available in overseas markets, and they are urgently needed by domestic patients, it said. The administration will recognize research data conducted by developers of the drugs overseas, and give approval to the drugs as long as their applicants believe the drugs will not cause different safety risks and effects to peoples of different races, the administration said. Meanwhile, the administration also is improving information exchanges with drug researchers and developers, which has facilitated drug research and development, it said. The administration accepted more than 1,500 requests for exchanges from drug developers, including more than 600 requests from developers of cancer drugs, by Dec 10, it said. China has been simplifying inspection and approval procedures of overseas new drugs so they can be available in China more quickly. The administration would recognize data of clinical trials conducted outside China in the approval of new drugs, according to a guideline released by the administration last year. Previously, such data was not recognized by the administration, so lengthy clinical trials had to be conducted in China again before drugs could be approved, even though they had been available for use overseas for years. This was a cause for delay in the availability of many new drugs in the Chinese market. The rowdy tourists who allegedly abused Takapuna beachgoers and ripped off restaurants have been served with a deportation liability notice and may not be allowed back into New Zealand for at least five years, according to a leading immigration lawyer. The group, who hit the headlines after littering at the North Shore beach, were at a Hamilton Burger King on Tuesday when staff phoned police when the tourists began causing trouble. When officers arrived at the scene, immigration officers were with them, ready to serve the tourists with a Deportation Liability Notice (DLN) "You have 14 days to appeal to Immigration NZ on why you should remain in New Zealand or 28 to appeal to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal," they were told. Peter Devoy, Assistant General Manager for Immigration New Zealand, told Newshub that Section 157(5) of the Immigration Act 2009 meant temporary visa holders could be issued with a DLN on several grounds, including for matters relating to character. Simon Laurent, principal for Laurent Law, told Newshub the section of the Act referring to "other matters relating to character" could be applied if complaints had been raised about the visitors. "It's open door for [Immigration NZ] to say 'they haven't been charged with anything but they are undesirables, we think they might have committed offences, they might have been disturbing the peace' even if they haven't been taken to court," said Mr Laurent. Temporary visa holders could also be served a notice under a "criminal offending" provision. "That means they say that 'we feel there has been criminal offending, the courts haven't decided that finally, but we believe this offending has taken place because there is a weight of evidence behind it' or whatever it might be." If individuals served with a DLN were deported "there would be a prohibition on them coming back into the country, there is a five year ban," said Mr Laurent. "Whenever they apply for a visa for anywhere else, or they try to enter some other country and they're asked if they have ever been deported, well they're going to have to say yes, and they could be stopped at the border," he said. Mr Laurent said technically the Minister of Immigration was the individual empowered to deport someone, but decisions of this nature were often delegated out to appropriate level immigration staff. A 26-year-old connected to the rowdy tourists who caused destruction across New Zealand has been arrested and charged with theft in Hamilton. Police told Newshub the woman would appear in Hamilton District Court on Wednesday. It comes after members of the group were served with deportation liability notices at a Hamilton Burger King on Tuesday. The fast food outlet's staff rung police when the group began to make trouble, including walking through the drive through. Six police officers responded, as well as two uniformed immigrations officers. NZME report the group of tourists, who sparked outrage for littering at Takapuna Beach and allegedly abusing a woman, were pulled over for police and warned about inappropriate child restraints. Two of three children aged under five in the car were reportedly not in the correct restraints. The Irish travellers accused of causing chaos across the country have reportedly been involved in an incident with staff at a Hamilton Burger King. The group, who sparked outrage after allegedly littering at an Auckland beach and abusing beachgoers, have made their way to Hamilton, where they tried to trade in their vehicles. While in the Waikato, the group reportedly made trouble at a local Burger King. Six police staff and two uniformed immigration officers were apparently sent to the scene at 3pm on Tuesday. Police told Newshub they were liaising with other government departments and speaking with a number of members of the group. Do you have more information about the group? Contact news@newshub.co.nz. The manager of the fast food outlet told Stuff the group were causing problems and walking through the drive through, although police wouldn't confirm it was the same group that caused issues in Auckland. The man accused of murdering British backpacker Grace Millane will face the Auckland High Court on Wednesday in his second court appearance since her death. Ms Millane, 22, arrived in New Zealand in late November in the second leg of a year spent backpacking around the world. She went missing on December 2, and her body was found a week later in a bush area of west Auckland. A 27-year-old man was arrested over Ms Millane's death and he appeared at the Auckland District Court on December 10, where he was granted interim name suppression after his lawyer Ian Brookie signalled an appeal. At least one overseas media outlet published the 26-year-old's name after his court appearance, and while the name was later removed from the New Zealand version online article, it spread via social media. It prompted Justice Minister Andrew Little to speak out, saying the accused's defence team "will be looking for every opportunity" to say their client's fair trial rights have been compromised. It is expected that the murder-accused's interim name suppression will continue unless it times out or if Mr Brookie files an appeal. If the accused pleads guilty, he will be given a sentencing date and the judge will be given resources to decide what his sentence should be. If he pleads not guilty, a date will be set for a prospective trial at the High Court, and could take place this year. Newshub. The man accused of murdering British backpacker Grace Millane has pleaded not guilty. The 27-year-old has name suppression and appeared at the Auckland High Court on Wednesday in his second court appearance since Ms Millane's death. Ms Millane, 22, arrived in New Zealand in late November in the second leg of a year spent backpacking around the world. She went missing on December 2, and her body was found a week later in a bush area of west Auckland. The accused has been remanded in custody and a trial date has been set for November 4. The British backpacker was last seen on CCTV on Saturday, December 1, entering CityLife Hotel in Auckland with the 27-year-old accused of her murder. The accused was arrested and charged over Ms Millane's death on December 8 last year and appeared at the Auckland District Court on December 10, where he was granted interim name suppression after his lawyer Ian Brookie signalled an appeal. At least one overseas media outlet published the 27-year-old's name after his first court appearance, and while the name was later removed from the New Zealand version online article, it spread via social media. It prompted Justice Minister Andrew Little to speak out, saying the accused's defence team "will be looking for every opportunity" to say their client's fair trial rights have been compromised. Newshub. GamesRadar+ is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more Rents finally stopped rising in Beijing in August, falling by 0.28 percent from July, and they have continued to drop in the months since. Apartment rental app Ziroom reported month-on-month falls in average rents of between 3 and 5 percent in September and October, according to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. But they rose by nearly 9 percent in the first seven months of last year, according to a report released in September by Housing Big Data Research, a data laboratory formed by real estate experts and researchers from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Caixin reported they were up almost 22 percent year-on-year in July. The Housing Big Data Research report attributed the drop in August to direct intervention by Beijing's municipal housing watchdog, which ordered real estate agencies not to use bank loans to buy apartments, and to release more apartments from stock to the market. The rental market was thrust into the spotlight again in early September when news broke that a man had died of leukemia allegedly caused by excessive formaldehyde levels in his rented apartment in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. The man's wife sued Ziroom, through which her husband rented the apartment, and a court hearing was scheduled for Sept 27. But it was postponed after the court granted Ziroom's request for a judicial appraisal, The Mirror reported on Sept 21. A slew of test results showing high levels of formaldehyde in rented homes - from major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, both in Guangdong province, and elsewhere - soon sprang up on social media platforms. That added safety concerns to renters' earlier anxieties about affordability. Among the 8.6 million renters in Beijing experiencing such feelings are college graduates looking to make ends meet. "Thanks to my rented apartment, I turned from a penniless college graduate to a patient swamped in debt," a micro-blogger said in a post tagged "Heartbreaking moments in housing rental." A report published on Sept 19 by ExpressIn, a research and marketing firm, tracked the changes in fresh graduates' rental preferences between June and September. It showed that more attention - an increase of 24 percentage points to 65 percent - was being paid to shared apartments, with the popularity of renting whole apartments dropping 17 percentage points to 52 percent. Meanwhile, cheaper rooms in the Beijing suburban districts of Changping and Tongzhou, especially those priced around 2,500 yuan ($370) a month, were finding favor with fresh graduates who initially hoped to live in more centrally located neighborhoods. The report concluded that the changes reflected "a gap between the ideal and the reality" for young college graduates. At the outset of their careers, college graduates in Beijing are faced with having to make compromises to find the spot they believe they deserve in the city. Silver lining Yang Huanhuan,25, junior manager at a telecommunication company Occupies one room (40 square meters) in a seven-room dormitory in Xicheng district (shares one bathroom with six other people), with rent covered by company Earns 8,000 yuan a month Yang Huanhuan waved farewell to her boyfriend at the Beijing South Railway Station on Sept 5. It was the first time the couple had parted ways since they met while studying at Sichuan University in Chendgu, the capital of southwestern China's Sichuan province. After graduation, they moved to Hangzhou, the capital of eastern China's Zhejiang province, in August. An abrupt transfer notice ordering Yang, 25, to Beijing, thousands of kilometers away from the humid climate she is used to, sent her on an apartment search in a city she described as "stifling, dry and cruel". "It's a one-year relocation," she said. "My company offered me a free room in a dormitory, but I wanted to stay with my boyfriend who is preparing for his doctorate application." They were optimistic about finding a one-bedroom apartment on a budget of 4,000 yuan a month until a few apartment inspections shattered their hopes. Their targeted rooms, a promising list culled from online searches, were invariably glossed over with manipulated pictures that covered up dripping taps, cramped toilets and greasy stovetops. On a scorching day in September, the couple visited a one-story, tiled-roof house nestled in an alley in Dongcheng district. "The kitchen and bathroom were attached. When we stepped in, a sewer-like odor, mixed with the pungent cooking smells emitted from the shared ventilation tubes, made me feel nauseous," Yang said, frowning. "Now, thinking about it, that visit was the last straw for us. "We realize the higher pay and glittering opportunities in Beijing come at a price. I can't afford it, but nor could I resist the city's temptations, so I found a way out." Yang eventually moved into the dormitory and bade farewell to her boyfriend, who returned to his hometown. "I am not a wailing baby or a teenager wallowing in self-pity," she said. "The silver lining is that we saw each other's commitment to this relationship during the room-hunting process in Beijing, and that alone will buoy me through difficult times." Tug of war Fu Yao,25, English teacher at the TAL Education Group Rents one room (13 sq m) in a two-bedroom apartment in Chaoyang district for 3,500 yuan a month Earns 5,000 yuan a month Four months before Fu Yao finished graduate school in Beijing, she put down a hefty deposit of about 12,000 yuan with her boyfriend to secure a one-year lease of a two-bedroom apartment in southeastern Beijing's Panjiayuan neighborhood, draining their savings from previous internships. "I don't regret renting the apartment though I was under great financial pressure during the first few months," she said. "But it was the only way I could to give Mili a home." Mili is a cat she adopted in December, one month after she moved into the new apartment. "When I was in college, I was crazy enough to bring a stray kitten to my dormitory, which of course startled my roommates," Fu said, adding that she came to regret her recklessness after learning that cats prefer a quiet place where they can cuddle up to acquaintances. "Cats can also be a disturbance because they tend to howl and scratch a lot," she said. "It would have been irresponsible of me to adopt a cat if I would not offer a suitable environment and it's inconsiderate to put others in the position of having to put up with cats." Fu began looking for a pet-friendly apartment when she was given the opportunity to adopt a 6-month-old kitten for free. "The room-hunting felt like a tug of war between two sides of me," she said. "I am an inexperienced college girl on a tight budget, looking to save money. On the flip side, I am an 'expectant mother' driven to build a warm home for my 'kid'." Fu's budget edged up bit by bit as her desire to raise a pet ruled out most inexpensive options. Even though she had to sublet the smaller bedroom in February to make ends meet, she feels blessed to have found an apartment where her cat is free to roam around. "At least I got to choose a roommate who likes cats, and they get along pretty well," she said. "I don't see Mili as a burden. In a big city like Beijing, life gets hard, especially for young people like me. And the reassurance and warmth Mili gives me when she curls up in my arms are priceless." Darkest moments Chang Jinjin, 23, entry-level job at a real estate company Rents one room (12 sq m) in a three-bedroom apartment in Chaoyang district for 2,600 yuan a month Earns 5,000 yuan a month Chang Jinjin has moved about seven times in Beijing since graduating from a college in Shijiazhuang, the capital of northern China's Hebei province, in the middle of 2017. During her most desperate moments, she braved biting gusts of wind on several evenings in December to look for a new place to live. The partitioned room where she had been staying was demolished after 19 people died in a blaze in Daxing district that prompted a citywide inspection to eliminate fire hazards in apartment buildings. "The rental company delivered an ultimatum in a text message, saying that my room would be 'smashed down' in two days," Chang said. She was one of many who had to move out and find a new room at short notice. "I deposited my suitcase at my friend's home, and got off at each stop on Subway Line 10 to inquire at agencies in different locations," Chang said. "No rooms were available. All the agency staff flatly turned me down. "A staff member told me that he himself was scrambling for a room at that time. Newly listed rooms on the rental app were leased out in a split second." Chang had no choice but to try her luck by visiting every bricks-and-mortar agency she could find while constantly refreshing the pages of rental apps and forums. Before December, she had already moved several times. She squeezed into a bunk bed in a room shared with three strangers, was cheated by illegitimate agents and fake loan plans, and for one month spent five hours commuting each day. But at least she had a place to stay and sleep at night. "I was ambitious and keen to advance my career when I first arrived here," Chang said. "Months of moving around wore out my spirit and body." The desperate episode in December ended with a sudden call from an agent who said a landlord had just posted a room online. Chang didn't hesitate for a second before accepting the offer. "I am proud to say I never complained to my parents, even in the darkest moments," she said. "I take the responsibility for my decision to stay in Beijing, and honestly, my family is unable to lend a helping hand as they're miles away." Her financial prospects have now improved, with a year's hard work at her foreign-funded employer leading to a pay rise. "Despite all the hardship, I am feeling upbeat now," Chang said. "Pessimism doesn't lead to a solution. I will be working hard to tackle any issues standing in my way." Toxic chemicals Zhang Yuedong, 24, new media editor for Caijing.com Rents one room (11 sq m) in a three-bedroom apartment in Chaoyang district with 3,100 yuan a month Earns 7,000 yuan a month The weight of a monthslong lawsuit was the last thing Zhang Yuedong was thinking about when he signed a contract with apartment rental app Ziroom in July for an apartment he has since left. But then he began coughing repeatedly and his nose wouldn't stop bleeding during staff meetings. And then Ziroom accused him of faking air inspection records. Four months later, he is among a group of about 100 people across China who have filed, or are planning to file, lawsuits against Ziroom. Zhang and the others found themselves developing rashes, nosebleeds and sore throats after moving into apartments rented through Ziroom. Tests of the indoor air quality in their dwellings indicated unhealthy levels of toxic chemicals, including formaldehyde, a potential carcinogen. Zhang finished his bachelor's degree in Shenyang, capital of northeastern China's Liaoning province, in 2017, and then worked briefly in Shanghai before moving to Beijing in July. "The agent from Ziroom told me the room had been recently refurbished, and all construction work conformed to the national standards," he said. "But the testing paper I used - showing three times more toxic chemicals accumulated in the room than normal - told a different story." Later tests from professional air inspection companies also indicated high levels of formaldehyde. Zhang contacted Ziroom in early September, asking for an official apology, a refund of the deposit and rent he had paid, and compensation for his removal costs. "They proposed to conduct another round of air inspection in mid-September," he said. "And they stood me up after making an appointment with me. "On Sept 26, two regional managers showed up holding an agreement with a liability waiver attached. No way in the world would I sign such a shameless document." In response to the wider air quality controversy, Ziroom said on Sept 11 that newly refurbished apartments would be left vacant for at least 30 days and would have to pass tests for indoor air quality before being listed, beginning from Sept 24. Zhang studied winemaking in college, and is now working for a media company as an editor focused on wine-related topics. A lack of a background in law didn't stop him from confronting a successful startup company in the rental business. "I am running a micro blog account, posting and forwarding posts related to air safety issues in rental apartments," Zhang said. He is also providing advice to renters who encounter high levels of toxic chemicals in their apartments. Together, they have hired a few lawyers to handle their cases. "It is daunting work, in addition to my daily job assignments, but it's urgent and important to draw attention to the harmful operations of rental companies," Zhang said. Jefferson Forests Cavalier Theatre has taken on a biggie with its latest Shakespearean production, Richard III, which begins its four-day run on Thursday. The tragedy/history happens to be the Bards second longest play and features an action-packed plot, along with a character list thats Game of Thrones-level complicated. I dont think Ive ever heard of a high school doing it, says Spence White, JFs theater director. Ive certainly not even heard anywhere around here of somebody doing Richard III. Taking on this challenging play has given Whites students a chance to delve into one of Shakespeares most fascinating characters, and Central Virginia audiences now have the same opportunity. Its unique or rare in that the antagonist is also the protagonist, says White. The bad guy is the main character, and he's the guy the audience gets behind in spite of themselves. They kind of love to hate him, and Richard is great fun to watch. To help you manage this beast of a play, The Burg graciously gifts you with Richard III: the plot, the peeps, the point. Youre welcome. The plot in just over 40 words Schumer, Pelosi and the 'hustle' Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been attending the Congressional dance for 38 and 32 years, respectively. Can you believe it? Thats a total of 70 years in Congress. Donald Trump has three years of government service as president. Chuck and Nancy own Congress and have perfected the Hustle while the president is still looking for dance shoes. Chuck and Nancy are wondering how the president even got to their dance and are hoping he will leave soon. We all know the Hustle, or do we? Many elite Republicans in Congress were getting very comfortable with the Hustle, and then this Trump guy shows up to their dance. The Hustle is a two-step. First you tell the voters everything they want to hear, making promises you know the voters will soon forget. Then, when you get to Washington you ignore those promises and focus on how to get re-elected. Hey, its not easy getting re-elected to the congressional dance for 30 or even 40 years! That became the basis for Virginias fateful decision to close all but one of the states residential institutions. The plan was to use proceeds from the sale of the sites and savings from the closed facilities to fund additional Medicaid waivers to pay for the community-based care. CVTC would be the last to close in 2020. Today, there are just 60 or so individuals still living at CVTC, along with about 300 staff employed to care for them. These individuals are the most profoundly challenged physically, developmentally and intellectually and require highly specialized care around-the-clock. The one residential facility in Tidewater the state proposes to keep open to house them, according to family members and advocates, simply is unable to provide the same level of care they receive at CVTC. After Tyler Bryant, a lifelong resident of CVTC was transferred against his familys wishes to the Petersburg facility in January 2017, he soon developed medical complications and died. Most Chinese employees are expected to receive a year-end bonus, but more companies are holding back on the amount, according to a report released last week by one of the country's leading human resources companies. The 2018 Corporate Annual Bonus Payment Plan Report, released by CIIC HR Management Consulting, was based on a nationwide survey of 674 enterprises in late November. Two-thirds of them were based in big cities - Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Ninety-three percent of enterprises responding to the survey said they would give employees year-end bonuses before the Chinese New Year holiday in early February. That was slightly less than the 96 percent who said so last year. Moreover, the amount of money given as bonuses - previously equivalent to one or two months' salary in most cases - is unlikely to go up for many. This year, 46 percent of the enterprises said they will increase the amount of the bonuses over last year - adding up to 10 percent. But last year, about 57 percent of the enterprises surveyed said they would increase the payouts, the report said. Roughly 40 percent of enterprises said they would pay the same amount in year-end bonuses as they did the previous year. The remaining 15 percent will cut their year-end bonus budget. Enterprises saying they would not give employees a year-end bonus said the decision was based on failure to reach annual performance targets, and some said they wanted to reduce costs, the report said. Among various industries, the average year-end bonus in finance is the highest - more than 40,000 yuan ($5,850) - followed by the real estate, high technology, internet, sales/trade and auto sectors. Those ranged between 24,000 yuan and 31,000 yuan. But the report said the amount of year-end bonuses in finance, real estate, internet, auto and manufacturing is generally down this year because of declining industry performance. A human resources manager from a foreign-funded auto parts maker based in Shanghai said the year-end bonus at the company will be equivalent to about one month's salary, half what it was last year. "It was estimated that the performance of the industry as a whole would decline in 2018 and 2019, so employees generally expected the cut," said the manager, who asked not to be named. "However, some top performers in such industries can still offer employees a high year-end bonus - as high as 10 months' salary, or more than 100,000 yuan," said Yang Alan, vice-general manager of the Human Capital Survey and Data solution Center at CIIC. US-based networking website LinkedIn published rankings of people's outlooks on opportunities and the economy in nine Asia-Pacific countries and regions in December. The Chinese mainland was ranked third most-favorable, behind Indonesia and India. The survey, which got responses from more than 11,000 people in September and October, included questions about people's confidence in prospects for the market economy in the upcoming 12 months, confidence in individual success in acquiring opportunities, outlook on personal finance and overall life satisfaction. A Lynchburg man will serve five years behind bars after pleading guilty Tuesday to soliciting sex from a 12-year-old girl in Connecticut. Ryan Alexander Mullin, 21, was charged with taking indecent liberties with a child younger than 15 years old and soliciting a minor for sex via computer. Clad in an orange jail jumpsuit, he entered guilty pleas to both counts Tuesday in Lynchburg Circuit Court. Connecticut State Police reached out to the Lynchburg Police Department in early February 2018, notifying them Mullin was in contact with a 12-year-old girl living there, according to Senior Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Jennifer Bennett. Relaying a proffer of evidence in the case, Bennett said Connecticut law enforcement informed LPD that Mullin had sent the girl nude photos of himself and shipped her a package with his Lynchburg return address on it. Law enforcement obtained the girls phone soon after and received permission from her parents to respond to messages Mullin sent to the phone. Bennett said he sent her cellphone pictures and videos of himself, requested inappropriate photos of her and exchanged messages that mentioned her age. Genworth Financial Inc. said Monday that it has received approval from the New York State Department of Financial Services for its proposed acquisition by a China-based investment company. It was the final clearance needed from state regulatory agencies in the U.S. for Henrico County-based Genworth to complete the $2.7 billion deal, which was first announced in October 2016. Under the proposed deal, Genworth, a seller of home mortgage insurance and long-term care insurance, would become a subsidiary of China Oceanwide Holdings Group Co. Ltd. The companies have delayed closing the deal six times because of regulatory reviews. They are now aiming to complete the deal by Jan. 31. In the U.S., the deal still must get approval from the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA, which is reviewing the transaction because Genworths broker-dealer subsidiary, Capital Brokerage Corp., is a FINRA member entity. The acquisition also still must get approval from regulators in Canada and from regulators in China, including Chinas State Administration for Foreign Exchange. This is one of the most important stories I covered in 2018 and will stay near the top of my list this year. Parks employees have said the extensive damages to the trail system will require rerouting in some areas, among other changes. As the department tries to make resourceful use of its limited budget to address the vast needs across all areas, I will be there and will share those details. Another story Im ready to dig into is how the city will finagle its way around a multi-million-dollar budget shortfall. With flat revenues and escalating expenses, city officials must get creative to meet citizen needs. In addition to the dam removal and bridge construction costs, the city also has several other large capital improvement projects on its plate including $34.5 million for a new public safety complex, more than $20 million for replacement of Sandusky Elementary School, $10 million in renovations to Linkhorne Elementary School and more than $8 million for renovations to Paul Munro Elementary School. One prospect for the Lynchburg Regional Airport in 2019 has many travelers on the edge of their seats. Airport Director Mark Courtney has said there is potential for United Airlines to offer service from Lynchburg to Dulles beginning this summer. Brexit Vote: Theresa May's Last Pleas and What Happens After Brexit Vote Jan 15, 2019 06:54 PM IST India India Share British PM Theresa May addressed factory workers in Stoke-on-trent ahead of the Brexit vote in the parliament. The historic vote can have several major ramifications like : - No deal Brexit - A new deal - A second referendum - General elections - A no-confidence vote Watch the video to know more. A team of scientists from Beijing and Taipei have shed light on how cancer cell populations avoid genetic meltdown, despite the rapid accumulation of harmful mutations. Ustyna Shevchuk | Shutterstock The team explored cancer vulnerability from a mutational perspective to help them understand how cancer cells could be further targeted with breakthrough drugs. For the study, Xuemei Lu and colleagues probed the most well-known cultured cancer cells HeLa cells as a model for investigating underlying evolutionary forces: We examined variation in growth rate among individual HeLa cells by monitoring clones from a common ancestral HeLa cell population. Xuemei Lu, Lead Author Using the ancestral cells, the team established a HeLa cell line called E6. Once the E6 population size reached around 5 x 104 cells (approximately 15 to 16 cell divisions), the team generated five single-cell clones that they established in culture. They then used DNA sequencing to catalog mutations in the clones, focusing on copy number variation (CNV) rather than single-nucleotide mutations, which would have arisen too slowly to generate significant sequence variation, given the short duration of the experiments. "We then estimated the deleterious mutation rate and the average fitness decrease per mutation by performing computer simulations of cell growth," explains study author Hurng-Yi Wang. As reported by Oxford University Press, the team found that the main mutations affected the copy number of genes. An average of 0.29 deleterious mutations arose with each cell division, with each deleterious event reducing cell fitness by 18%. This finding shows just how quickly cell growth heterogeneity can be generated in cancer cells. The results indicated that HeLa cells undergo a 5% reduction in fitness for every generation. For human cells to be able to generate deleterious mutations in the form of CNVs at such a high rate and intensity, a genetic meltdown may be plausible, suggests the team. For instance, 23% of cells isolated from a fast growing-clone called B8 and 50% of cells isolated from a slow-growing clone called E3, died out within seven days. Overall, only 60% of B8 and 27% of E3 cells survived longer than two months. Next, the team counted the chromosomal number in around 20 cells picked from each of the single-cell-originated clones from B8. Chromosomal number varied significantly from the usual 46 found in human cells and instead ranged from 38 up to 113. Therefore, despite the progenys single-cell origin, it developed an abnormal chromosomal number within just 20 to 30 cell divisions. Wang and team, therefore, asked how HeLa cancer cell lines manage to survive despite such a high mutation rate, reduced growth rate, and abnormal chromosomal number. High deleterious mutation rate would raise an impression that the HeLa cell lines may have gone extinct long ago." Xuemei Lu, Lead Author The teams simulations suggested that despite most of the cells accumulating deletions and being worse off than ancestral cells, 13.1% were still mutation-free. "These mutation-free cells can avoid the population from extinction," says Lu. This also explains why chemotherapy that destroys 90% of a cancer cell population may still not be effective enough. In the future, the researchers hope to use the findings to explore how breakthroughs recently made with checkpoint inhibitor drugs could be used to target cancer cell vulnerability. Brazilian researchers are the first to demonstrate the action of PRIMA-1 against amyloid aggregates of mutant p53 protein, structure found in more than half of malignant tumors Cancer is a multidisciplinary disease, with different mutations leading to different prognoses and treatment necessities. Among the most important mutation targets in cancers, affecting more than 50% of all cancer cases, is TP53. This gene gives rise to a protein that is a key regulator in the cell, called p53. When mutated, this protein forms amyloid structures that accumulate in the cell, causing cancers that tend to have a worse prognosis. A group of Brazilian researchers has shown that a synthetic compound, PRIMA-1, reverses mutant p53 aggregate accumulation. The novel study is the first to demonstrate the action of PRIMA-1 on the inhibition of aggregates of the mutant p53 protein. The results are published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Mutations in the TP53 gene will kill hundreds of million people alive today if new therapies are not developed. Mutant p53 not only undergoes misfolding but also aggregation, similar to that observed with amyloids, playing a crucial role in the development of cancer through loss of function, negative dominance and gain of function. In earlier studies, researchers led by Jerson Silva at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) have pointed out that mutant p53 aggregation is an excellent target for development of therapeutic drugs against cancer. Now, the same group shows that PRIMA-1 (p53 reactivation with induction of massive apoptosis-1) and its primary active metabolite, 2-methylene-3-quinuclidinone (MQ), can restore aggregated mutant p53 to a native form. PRIMA-1 and MQ had been previously shown to convert unfolded p53 mutants to a native conformation that induces apoptosis and activates several p53 target genes. This study provides the first demonstration that PRIMA-1 can rescue amyloid-state p53 mutants, a strategy that could be further explored as a cancer treatment. Its derivative PRIMA-1MET is now in Phase II clinical trials and the Brazilian results may contribute to the development of a new anticancer drug. The research was conducted in vitro and in tumor cell lines of breast cancer and ovarian carcinoma. "The findings are crucial in establishing the mutant p53 aggregation as a highly promising target for cancer therapy and we are working hard on this subject", states Luciana P. Rangel, first author of the study, from the Faculty of Pharmacy of UFRJ and a member of the National Institute of Science and Technology of Structural Biology and Bioimaging (INBEB). While many high-level business executives may seem out-of-touch to most people, Alibaba founder Jack Ma took time out from his schedule to surprise a group of young students in rural Hubei by video-bombing their teacher. Cai Mingjing was in Sanya on Monday, January 14, 2019, to receive a Jack Ma Rural Teacher Initiative award. Following the award ceremony, the young woman - who teaches at a primary school in the rural city of Shiyan in Hubei - decided to fulfill an earlier promise to her students by showing them the ocean off the coast of Sanya in southern Hainan. While live-streaming the tropical environment, which many of her younger students may never end up seeing, the entire class - and their teacher - got a surprise they're unlikely to forget: an impromptu audience with China's richest man. Jack Ma, a former educator himself, decided to insert himself into Cai Mingjing's live-chat as he was walking by, offering encouragement to the students and wishing them a happy Spring Festival. "I never thought Jack Ma would just appear and start talking with the kids," said Cai Mingjing. 54-year old Jack Ma intends to retire completely from Alibaba on his 55th birthday this coming September 10th to devote his time and some of his 40 billion U.S. dollar fortune toward philanthropy, with a focus on education. RIKILT Wageningen University & Research and the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA)'s Laboratory for Food and Feed Safety will merge into a new institute effective 1 June 2019. This institute will be called Wageningen Food Safety Research (WFSR) and will be part of Wageningen University & Research. All required documents were signed in Wageningen on 14 January 2019. Unique knowledge institute With the merger of the two organisations, the Netherlands will be welcoming a unique knowledge institute for food and feed safety. The new institute can carry out lab work for the NVWA and the Dutch central government in a more effective and knowledge intensive manner. This merger will benefit our knowledge in the area of food and feed safety, as well as our knowledge of food fraud. Wageningen Food Safety Research is to act as an important resource during incidents and crises that affect the NVWA, the ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (MZS), as well as play a role during environmental, poisoning and food contamination incidents. WFSR will also function as an international and European reference laboratory. Owing to this joining of forces, the new institute will be able to further enhance its reputation as a world-class research center. Close collaboration RIKILT (230 employees) and the Laboratory for Food and Feed Safety (130 employees) are located in the same building and have been working closely together for some time already. The merger was effected after a long and laborious process, part of which was the political decision made in June 2018. Microbes offer an untapped potential and could be the key to a better and healthier living. Yet, research and innovation developments on microbiomes remain scarce. To challenge the state of play, the European Union has made the development of innovative applications on microbiomes a priority. Between 2018 and 2023, the EU is providing four consortia more than 40 million to develop new applications which could enhance the sustainability of our food systems and our health. CIRCLES is one these four projects Microbes, microbiota, microbiomes? Plants, animals and humans live in a mutually beneficial (symbiotic) relationships with hundreds of billions of microbes. This population of symbiont micro-organisms comprising bacteria, viruses, fungi, single-cell organisms and microbes living in and around living things is called the microbiota. The genetic material present in all these micro-organisms forms the microbiome. In other words, microbiomes are used to deduce the composition and function of the microbiota. Enhancing our understanding of microbiomes and developing new food and feed applications stemming from microbiomes research could be instrumental to reaching sustainable food systems and improving our health. CIRCLES kicks-off On 4-5 December 2018, more than 90 delegates from 30 organizations, coming from fourteen European countries, gathered in Bologna, Italy, for the kick-off meeting of CIRCLES. At this occasion, project partners met with a view to discussing the project objectives and planning its implementation in seven food farming sectors (tomatoes, spinach, poultry, swine, marine fishes, Atlantic salmon, sea breams). The event offered partners the occasion to grasp the ambitions of the European Union on microbiomes research while discussing key aspects of the activities in the seven food sectors such as the development of standardized protocols and sampling procedures. The project is expected to last until 2023 and receives the strong commitment of its consortium, and a supporting Coordination and Support Action project, MicrobiomeSupport. Future updates will be shared on the project website as of March 2019 on http://circlesproject.eu. In the meantime, stay tuned via the twitter hashtag #CIRCLESEU. Marco Candela, the project coordinator based at the University of Bologna, Italy, said: "Our key objective is to develop more sustainable food production system. To achieve this goal, we will exploit the extraordinary probiotic potential of the microbiomes that live in all the ecosystems of our planet such as soil, waters, air, as well as, all complex organisms such as plants, animals and human beings. By means of a rational and concrete actions, food system microbiomes will be optimised for providing future generation with healthier and sustainable foods. Indeed, we strongly believe that the planet's microbiomes represent strategic allies for a sustainable growth to lower the pressures on natural resources with an increasing planet population." House Speaker Dennis Bonnen is seen presiding over his first votes as speaker of the house Wednesday in Austin. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account to continue reading. To subscribe, click here. Already a subscriber? Click here. Free access for current print subscribers As a home delivery subscriber, you get free unlimited digital access to news-daily.com including stories, photos, obituaries, e-edition and more on your computer, tablet or phone. All you need is your print subscription account number and your last name. Don't know your subscription number? Email access@news-daily.com with your delivery address. Activate your account now. A new full-service cafe on Bank Street in New Milford has caught the attention of townspeople. River & Rail Cafe at 21 Bank St., formerly the home of Dagwoods, opened on Jan. 4. I love the ambiance, the coziness, said resident Rachelle Goldberg of New Milford, who has been to the cafe four times. She praised the cafes savory food and described the owners as welcoming and caring. Customer Tracey Ruscil agreed. The food is artfully plated and delicious, said Ruscil, who works on Bank Street. Im still thinking about the perfectly cooked bacon. Ethan and Nicky Grievous purchased the building that houses the cafe in August. With the help of family, including her contractor-father and her designer-mother, they transformed the space into their vision a space for the community to relax with friends and enjoy a meal. We both wanted to open a business together and incorporate all the elements we believe people deserve when they go out, Nicky Grievous said. She works the front end of the cafe, where she can focus on her passions coffee and community. Ethan Grievous showcases his culinary skills creating dishes in the kitchen. We are bringing people together over food and drinks, Nicky Grievous said, smiling at a customer. Its about the connections, the storytelling. Ethan Grievous agrees. I like to see people hang out talking, having coffee and having a good time, he said. The cafes breakfast menu includes ham and cheese on a croissant, Brioche French toast, and apple cinnamon crepes. The lunch menu includes Gruyere and Fontina grilled cheese on Pullman bread, roasted turkey club, and a trio of roasted vegetables on rosemary focaccia. Soup and salad options, and childrens menu are also available. The owners expect to add snacks such as cheese boards and flat breads. Everything on the menu is thoughtfully planned, seasoned, and made with care, said Ethan Grievous, who began working in a kitchen as a teenager. Food is something you can put a lot of passion into. Theres nothing else I would rather do than get up at 4 a.m. and make pastries, he added. The couple hopes to make their own breads in the future. In addition to food, the cafe plans to offer live music and open mic poetry events. The couple, who celebrated their first wedding anniversary in September, initially thought theyd find a space in New Yorks Hudson Valley, but after exploring western Connecticut, the charm of New Milford spoke to their hearts. We knew right away, Nicky Grievous said of their decision to open a business in town. The sense of community and spirit here is like nothing Ive experienced. The business features five small round tables with chairs, two counters that overlook Bank Street. A counter along one wall boasts River & Rail Cafe hats and T-shirts, coffee cozies, and chocolates. Customers can order at the counter, then sit and be served, or they can sit and order. Takeout and catering is available. Ruscil described the cafe as having a high end feel with reasonable prices. The owners said pursuing their dream together is fulfilling. We go to bed with a smile and wake up with a smile, Nicky Grevious said. This is so much more than about my husband and I, she added. Its about being a place in the community, where theres no rush to leave. Ruscil, who described the cafe as beautifully decorated, with great attention to detail, said she appreciated how accommodating the owners are to allergies. They assured me that if anything I ordered wasnt what I expected, they would be happy to let me have something else, she said. Ruscil also praised the cafes coffee, which the owners get from Ethan Grievous native Virginia. River & Rail Cafe at 21 Bank St. in New Milford is open daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. For more information, call 860-799-7272. A Chinese court on Monday sentenced Canadian citizen Robert Lloyd Schellenberg to death for smuggling more than 222 kilograms of drugs. All property and assets of Schellenberg were also confiscated, according to the ruling made by the Intermediate People's Court in Dalian city, Liaoning province, in Northeast China. He could appeal to the Liaoning High People's Court within 10 days, according to the court release. The court affirmed that the Schellenberg took part in organized transnational drug smuggling and acted as a ringleader in a methamphetamine trafficking case in 2014. Three other suspects were named by the court as important figures in the transnational drug smuggling group: Stephen, Kem and "Mr Zhou" (translated from Chinese release). China Daily could not immediately verify their English names. According to the release, in October 2014, Kem asked a man in Dalian surnamed Xu, who was hired as a translator, to rent a warehouse in Dalian and receive 222 packages of methamphetamine that "Mr Zhou" and another man named Jian Xiangrong smuggled from Guangdong province to Dalian. On Nov 19, 2014, Kem sent Schellenberg to meet with Xu in Dalian to try to stuff the drugs into tires and smuggle it to Australia. Schellenberg required Xu to lead him to purchase tools and asked Xu to order tires. Later he changed the shipment date from November to December. On Nov 27, 2014, Schellenberg called another man named Mai Qingxiang, asking him to find another warehouse to store the drugs. Two days later, Xu reported the case to police. Realizing the case was exposed, Schellenberg went to Dalian airport and boarded a flight to Thailand. When the flight had a stopover in Guangdong, he was caught by local police, according to the court. Dalian police seized the 222 packages of drugs - 222.03 kilograms of methamphetamine. Jian has been given a life imprisonment for holding and transporting drugs, while Mai has been suspended death sentence for drug transportation in earlier trials, the court said. The other three suspects in the transnational drug smuggling group are still at large. The court said Schellenberg should be considered as a ringleader in the smuggling case, as he fully took part in the crime and was a key part of the case. "The conviction and death penalty of the defendant were based on clear facts and sufficient evidence," it said. China's Criminal Law states people who smuggle, sell, transport, produce drugs in China will face a sentence of up to death if they participate in organized international drug smuggling activities or the amount of methamphetamine is over 50 grams. "The conviction and penalty to Schellenberg is reasonable," said Lin Wei, a law professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who attended Monday's hearing. "From the facts, the defendant should be identified as a ringleader, as he played a key role and the smuggling in Dalian was just a part in their cross-national crime," he said. In China, all capital punishment must be submitted to the Supreme People's Court, the top court, for final review before being carried out. Monday's hearing was not the first trial of the case. On Nov 20, the Intermediate People's Court in Dalian sentenced Schellenberg to 15 years in prison for the same charge and seized $21,800 worth of his assets. But Schellenberg disputed and appealed to higher court. On Dec 29, the Liaoning High People's Court publicly heard the case, and the provincial prosecutors protested the original penalty, saying it was lenient. The high court sent the case back to the court in Dalian for a retrial. Later, Dalian prosecutors provided new facts of the case, and the Intermediate People's Court in Dalian rebuilt a panel for the rehearing. During Monday's trial, the defense rights of Schellenberg were fully protected and a translator was provided for him, according to the court. Representatives from the Canadian embassy in Beijing, and domestic and overseas media organizations attended the hearing. Nacogdoches, TX (75965) Today Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Hot. Low 72F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Hot. Low 72F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Reopening the federal government is her top priority, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-11, told constituents at the opening of her district office in Pa As of Monday, 10 of China's provinces and municipalities released their local gross domestic product data for last year. East China's Jiangsu province witnessed its GDP top more than nine trillion yuan for the first time, marking its formal entry to the "nine-trillion-yuan club", chinanews.com reported. Wu Zhenglong, governor of Jiangsu, said while delivering the annual government work report the province's GDP is predicted to rise 6.7 percent to 9.2 trillion yuan, exceeding the GDP of Australia, the 13th-largest economy in the world. Meanwhile, the nine-trillion-yuan club is expected to soon welcome another new member, Guangdong province, whose GDP totaled 8.99 trillion yuan in 2017, ranking first for 29 consecutive years. There is no doubt Guangdong's GDP would exceed 9 trillion yuan last year, and the only suspense left is if the figure could surpass the 10 trillion yuan mark, the website said. Sichuan province is a newcomer to the four-trillion-yuan GDP club. Yin Li, governor of Sichuan, said in the annual government work report the province's GDP is expected to exceed four trillion yuan, with a growth rate of 8 percent. Shanghai, which recorded a 3.06 trillion yuan GDP in 2017, is the first city with a GDP topping three trillion yuan in China. Now, Beijing, the capital of China, is expected to become a new city to join the three-trillion-yuan club. The annual government work report, delivered by Beijing Mayor Chen Jining at the opening meeting of the annual session of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress, set the GDP growth target at 6-6.5 percent in 2019, compared with last year's target of about 6.5 percent. Meanwhile, 17 Chinese cities are expected to join the one-trillion-yuan club. Apart from three newcomers, Ningbo, Foshan and Zhengzhou, 14 cities Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Tianjin, Suzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Qingdao, Wuxi and Changsha have already entered the ranks. Help support your local hometown newspaper/website. Independent local news reporting matters. Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription, for as little as $3, so we can continue to provide independent local reporting on our communities. STAMFORD A California marijuana grower caught manufacturing 72 pounds of pot in a North Stamford home last year will avoid jail, but he wont be driving his $70,000 Bentley home. Delroy Anderson, 51, pleaded guilty Monday to a reduced felony charge of possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell. Anderson received a seven-year suspended jail sentenced and a three-year conditional release. He was ordered to pay a $15,000 fine and surrender his 2007 Bentley Continental, which police say was purchased with proceeds from the drug operation. Growing may be legal in California, but it is not legal here, Judge Gary White told Anderson during Mondays court hearing. Andersons attorney, Darnell Crosland, said the plea agreement was fair and equitable under the circumstances. The medicinal purposes of marijuana are quite clear. States across the country are moving toward legalizing marijuana and Mr. Anderson is an outstanding citizen and has complied with all the growing regulations in California, and once it comes to Connecticut, he plans to grow that way, Crosland said. Two other men arrested with Anderson during the March raid also avoided more jail time. Kyle Robert Levy, 30, of Bronx, N.Y., was allowed to participate in a court diversionary program for first-time offenders. He was charged with possession of an illegal assault weapon, possession of a high-capacity magazine, possession of more than a kilo of marijuana, operating a drug factory and sale of a controlled substance. Levy spent 10 months in jail in lieu of bond. Ricardo Dempster, 34, of Queens, N.Y., pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell and was given a suspended sentence with two years probation. Dempster faced the same charges as Levy and has also been jailed since his arrest. The men were arrested during the height of a noreaster last March when police said they were informed of the drug operation at a Briar Brae Road home that Anderson was renting. Police found the marijuana, 200 THC vape cartridges, $6,572 in cash, and a Tech9 illegal assault weapon with a high-capacity magazine. Police said Anderson had the graphic materials and parts needed to assemble the vape cartridges inside the home. The 2007 Bentley was also confiscated during the raid. We are happy to receive those assets, Stamford police Capt. Richard Conklin said. Unfortunately, the car will stick out a little too much, but probably the money obtained from the auction of the car will toward a number of useful purposes. Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Delroy Anderson was sentenced to seven years of probation. He received a seven-year suspended jail sentence. jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com Newburyport - Paul James Matthews, 95, a resident of Newburyport, died Monday morning June 14, 2021 at Port Healthcare Center in Newburyport. He was born on January 26, 1926, in Newburyport, Mass., to the late James and Mary Matthews. Paul was raised in Newburyport and was a graduate of Newb Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer has bought a house in Rhode Island, and his new neighbor is a familiar face from their days together in the Trump administration: former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The Newport Daily News, citing public records, reported that the sale closed Jan. 2, and Spicer paid $795,000 for the 1,800-square-foot Middletown home, which has four bedrooms and three bathrooms. Representatives for Spicer did not immediately return messages seeking comment. The house is across the street and three doors down from Flynn's home, in a neighborhood that's a short walk to the beach. Flynn is awaiting sentencing on his guilty plea to lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts. Spicer grew up in nearby Barrington. Sen. Elizabeth Warren will be hosting an organizing event in Claremont, New Hampshire on Friday, according to her website. The event is for her 2020 presidential exploratory committee and will focus on "having a real conversation about how to level the playing field for working families and who is best to lead that fight," according to event details. This will be her second event in New Hampshire this week, after an event Saturday at Manchester Community College. The event will be held at The Common Man Restaurant at 16 Mill Road. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. and the event will begin at 6:30 p.m. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Monday called for efforts to ensure economic growth within a reasonable range. Chairing a plenary meeting of the State Council, which discussed a draft version of the government work report and analyzed economic work in the first quarter of 2019, Li said the country faces a more complicated development environment this year, with growing challenges and downward pressure on the economy, creating arduous tasks for the government. He urged efforts to strike a balance among stabilizing growth, promoting reforms, restructuring, improving people's well-being and preventing risks. The government will strive to innovate and improve its macro-regulation but not resort to massive economic stimulus, Li said. He said the country will keep economic growth within a reasonable range through range-based, targeted and precise regulation, and resist downward pressure with market vitality unleashed by reform and opening-up. The government will continue to improve the business environment, foster new momentums, improve weak links, expand the domestic market, and promote coordinated development among different industries and regions. Efforts will be made to extend the country's advantage of having sufficient maneuver room for economic development, improve people's living standards, promote high-quality development, and lay a solid foundation for securing a victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, Li said. He urged relevant authorities to better implement policies aimed at supporting enterprises and improving people's livelihood, stabilize and boost market confidence, and strive for a good start to the economy in the first quarter to create conditions favorable to achieving major economic and social development targets set for 2019. The country achieved its key economic and social targets in 2018, which Li said were "hard-won." The draft version of the government work report, which will be submitted for deliberation at the annual session of the National People's Congress in March, will be distributed to provincial governments and central government departments to solicit opinions, according to a decision made at the meeting. Confiscated beer left two Vermont police officers the subjects of an internal affairs investigation, the Burlington Police Department announced Tuesday. The chief of police in Burlington said two of his officers took beer away from minors last month, issuing them civil tickets for underage alcohol possession. Now those officers are under investigation for possibly drinking some of the beer off-duty, and privately disposing of the rest of it, department leadership said. Department policy would be to have officers document the beer and dispose of itnot drink it, Chief Brandon del Pozo wrote in a news release. Del Pozo said other officers reported the alleged activity up the chain of command, and department leadership immediately launched an investigation, briefed the citys police commission, and consulted with attorneys and other city leaders. Officers who do not process seized property in accordance with procedure are subject to serious discipline, del Pozo wrote in the news release. The officers have been reassigned to administrative duty for the remainder of the investigation, and the department said appropriate discipline will be determined shortly. The officers were not identified in the announcement of the internal affairs probe. Vowing "I will not be bullied," President Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general asserted independence from the White House on Tuesday, saying he believed that Russia had tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, that the special counsel investigation shadowing Trump is not a witch hunt and that his predecessor was right to recuse himself from the probe. The comments by William Barr at his Senate confirmation hearing pointedly departed from Trump's own views and underscored Barr's efforts to reassure Democrats that he will not be a loyalist to a president who has appeared to demand it from law enforcement. He also repeatedly sought to assuage concerns that he might disturb or upend special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation as it reaches its final stages. Some Democrats are concerned about that very possibility, citing a memo Barr wrote to the Justice Department before his nomination in which he criticized Mueller's investigation for the way it was presumably looking into whether Trump had obstructed justice. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Barr the memo showed "a determined effort, I thought, to undermine Bob Mueller." The nominee told senators he was merely trying to advise Justice Department officials against "stretching the statute beyond what was intended" to conclude that the president had obstructed justice. Though Barr said an attorney general should work in concert with an administration's policy goals, he broke from some Trump talking points, including the mantra that the Russia probe is a witch hunt, and said he frowned on "Lock Her Up" calls for Hillary Clinton. Trump has equivocated on Russian meddling in the 2016 election and assailed and pushed out his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for recusing because of his work with the Trump campaign. Barr stated without hesitation that it was in the public interest for Mueller to finish his investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin to sway the presidential election. He said he would resist any order by Trump to fire Mueller without cause and called it "unimaginable" that Mueller would do anything to require his termination. "I believe the Russians interfered or attempted to interfere with the election, and I think we have to get to the bottom of it," Barr said during the nine-hour hearing. He said that, at 68 and partially retired, he felt emboldened to "do the right thing and not really care about the consequences." If a president directs an attorney general to do something illegal, he said, an attorney general must resign. "I will not be bullied into doing anything that I think is wrong by anybody, whether it be editorial boards or Congress or the president," Barr told the hearing. Consumed by the partial government shutdown, Trump remained out of sight at the White House but also kept an eye on the news coverage of the hearing and told aides he was pleased with how Barr was handling himself, said two White House officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal conversations. On other topics, Barr echoed in part the president's hardline immigration stance and said the Justice Department would not go after marijuana companies in states where the drug is legal. He also would not rule out jailing reporters for doing their jobs, saying he could envision circumstances where a journalist could be held in contempt "as a last resort." Barr's hearing continues Wednesday with a lineup of character witnesses, including former Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Barr's confirmation is likely, given that Republicans control the Senate. Even some Democrats have been looking to move on from acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, who declined to remove himself the Russia probe and has faced scrutiny over his private dealings. But he nonetheless faced skeptical questions from Democrats over whether he could oversee without bias or interference the remainder of Mueller's probe. Feinstein said the nominee's past rhetoric in support of expansive presidential powers "raises a number of serious questions about your views on executive authority and whether the president is, in fact, above the law." Under questioning, Barr voiced a more moderate view, saying a president who ordered an attorney general to halt an investigation would clearly be committing an "abuse of power" if not necessarily a crime. Barr said under questioning from Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, that he wouldn't interfere with a Mueller request to subpoena Trump for his testimony "if there was a factual basis." But he also said he saw no reason to change Justice Department legal opinions that have held that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Barr called Mueller a friend of 30 years and said "it is vitally important" that Mueller be allowed to complete his investigation. "I don't believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt," he said when asked by the panel's Republican chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The special counsel is required to report his findings confidentially to the Justice Department. Barr said he expected to produce his own report to Congress and said it was his goal to release as much information as possible to the public, though he stopped short of a direct pledge. He also noted the Justice Department does not typically disclose information about people it investigates but does not prosecute. He also disclosed having discussed Mueller with Trump during a meeting in 2017 when Barr declined to join his legal team. He said he and his wife had been "sort of looking forward to a bit of respite and I didn't want to stick my head into that meat grinder." Trump wanted to know what Mueller, who worked for Barr when he led the Justice Department between 1991 and 1993, was like. "He was interested in that, wanted to know what I thought about Mueller's integrity and so forth and so on," Barr said. "I said Bob is a straight shooter and should be dealt with as such." He also defended his decision to send an unsolicited memo to the Justice Department in which he criticized as "fatally misconceived" the theory of obstruction that Mueller appeared to be pursuing with regard to Trump, including the special counsel's investigation into president's firing of former FBI director James Comey. He said he raised his concerns at a lunch with the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller and has overseen his work. Rosenstein didn't respond and was "sphinx-like," Barr recalled. He followed up with the memo in June. Barr also sent the document to White House lawyers and discussed it with Trump's personal attorneys and a lawyer representing Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, among others. Barr said the memo was narrowly focused on a single theory of obstruction that media reports suggested Mueller might be considering. He said he would consult with ethics officials on whether he would need to recuse because of the memo but the decision would be ultimately his. For the last three months, Jayme Closs was held captive, beaten, threatened and forced to hide under a bed for hours with no food or water, in a remote home by the man who allegedly killed her parents. On Oct. 15, Closs was dragged from her home, her ankles and hands taped together, and placed into the trunk of a vehicle after a man she had never met shot and killed her parents, a criminal complaint filed in Barron County Circuit Court Monday stated. After sitting in the trunk of the car for about two hours, she told authorities arrived at a home where she was placed in a bedroom and told to remove her clothing. Her captor placed her clothes in a bag while making a comment about not having any evidence, the complaint states. In the following months, Closs was kept hidden from the outside world, told to hide under a bed and stay hidden or "bad things would happen to her," according to the complaint. The bed, which was in the corner of a room, was barricaded with totes and laundry bins filled with weights. Her captor would play loud music to keep her from being heard and to keep her from hearing if anyone else was in the home. Closs was kept under the bed for as many as 12 hours at a time without food, water or bathroom breaks, officials alleged. The teen told police that, on at least one occassion, her alleged captor Jake Thomas Patterson "got mad" and hit her "really hard" on her back with something she described as a handle for an item used to clean blinds. She told authorities she didn't remember what she did to anger Patterson, but that he told her if it happened again, the punishment would be worse next time. The New York Post published photos of the cabin on Monday. They show a shabby living area with a couch, refrigerator and old television set. The ceiling is unfinished. Exterior photographs show a lean-to loaded with firewood, a three-car garage and an empty box of adult female diapers in a trash can. A sign over the cabin's front door reads "Patterson's Retreat." Closs escaped after Patterson told her "he was going to be gone for five or six hours," according to the complaint. She told police she was able to push the bins and weights away from the bed and crawl out before putting on a pair of Patterson's shoes and fleeing the house. Closs was finally found Thursday, when a woman walking her dog spotted the teen along a road near Gordon, a town about an hour's drive north of Barron. The woman says the girl begged her for help, saying Patterson had been hiding her in a nearby cabin and that she had escaped when he left her alone. Neighbors called 911, and officers arrested Patterson within minutes. He has no criminal history in Wisconsin. When police stopped his vehicle, Patterson told authorities he knew why he was being stopped and said, "I did it," the complaint states. Patterson told police while allegedly confessing to killing Closs' parents, James and Denise Closs, and kidnapping the 13-year-old girl that he didn't know the family and had only seen Jayme Closs when he witnessed her boarding her school bus on his way to work one day. "[Patterson] stated he had no idea who she was nor did he know who lived at the house or how many people lived at the house," the criminal complaint read. "The defendant stated, when he saw [Closs], he knew that was the girl he was going to take." The charging documents are the first to shed light on why he targeted the teen girl and what happened to her in the months she was held captive. Patterson made his first court appearance Monday afternoon. Prosecutors formally charged the 21-year-old with two counts of intentional homicide and one count of kidnapping before his afternoon court hearing in Barron County Circuit Court. His bail was set at $5 million. Patterson told police he put "quite a bit of thought into the details" of how he would abduct Closs, according to the complaint, stealing license plates from another vehicle and modifying his Ford Taurus, disconnecting the dome light and trunk light and removing "what he described as the glow in the dark kidnapping cord" from inside the trunk. Patterson's defense attorneys, Charles Glynn and Richard Jones, said they believe Patterson can get a fair trial, but they're not sure where. The public defenders didn't reveal many specifics about what they expect from Monday's court hearing, but they acknowledged the case was "a tragic situation from every perspective." Glynn and Jones issued a statement Saturday saying they were relying on the court system to treat Patterson fairly. "It's been an emotional time for this community and a difficult time for this community. We don't take that lightly. But we have a job to do in protecting our client," Jones said. Closs has spent every day since her escape with extended family, according to her aunt. Her family has decorated her room with butterflies, bought her a new bed, pillows and clothing and showed the girl messages sent to her from far and wide. Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said he met Closs for the first time Sunday, and that she had an "awesome" smile on her face. He said she showed him her room at her aunt's home in Barron. "It was a moment I'll never forget," Fitzgerald said. You may face longer security lines at Dulles. The Transportation Security Administration closed some security checkpoints at Washington Dulles International Airport on Monday after more employees than usual failed to show up for work. The west mezzanine and employee checkpoints were closed by the TSA federal security director at Dulles, airport leadership and airline leadership, TSA spokesman Michael Bilello said on Twitter. Bilello attributed the employee absences to the snowstorm that hit the D.C. area hard on Saturday and Sunday. Nearly a foot of snow fell in the region, leaving roads slick and prompting school closures on Monday. The employee absences coincide with the partial government shutdown, which is now in its 24th day. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport also is seeing higher-than-usual unscheduled absences by TSA employees, Bilello said. Unspecified "adjustments" were planned there. On Monday, TSA saw a nationwide unscheduled absence rate of 7.6 percent, Bilello said. That's more than double the 3.2 percent of employees who were absent on Jan. 15, 2018. Information on the absence rate only at Dulles was not released. Over the weekend, a concourse was closed at Miami International Airport after high call-outs by TSA workers. The airport said the decision was "a precautionary measure due to uncertainties created by the lapse in federal government funding," NBC Miami reported. Despite the changes, Bilello said it's business as usual at the nation's airports. "Security standards remain in place and have not been compromised," he wrote. Stay with News4 for more details on this developing story. After dozens of women rallied at the Capitol on Monday, a legislative committee passed one of their key priorities a bill to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour in Virginia. SB 1200 would take effect July 1, initially raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour, then to $13 an hour in 2020 and $15 an hour in 2021. The bill, which passed the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee on a 6-4 vote, will advance to the full Senate for a vote. Currently, the minimum wage in Virginia is the federal minimum $7.25 an hour. Raising the minimum wage was one of a number of legislative items including access to reproductive health and paid family and medical leave supported by the women's advocacy groups at the rally. Tara Gibson, Virginia director of the Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, said at the rally that raising the minimum wage would benefit women and their families. "How many of you work multiple jobs just to provide for your families, or worry whether you can afford to put food on the table or make next month's rent?" Gibson asked. "We're all better off when everyone has the tools to build a good life." In most states, including Virginia, women make up more than half of minimum wage workers. Nationally, women consist of 47 percent of the workforce as of 2017. Across all races, women make up a larger portion of minimum wage workers than men. To Anna Scholl, executive director of Progress Virginia one of the groups present at the rally supporting an increase in the minimum wage contributes to a "holistic" approach to gender equality. "We know all of those things are important for women and families to thrive," Scholl said. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam spoke briefly at the rally in favor of paid medical and family leave. SB 1639 would allow state employees 12 weeks of family and medical leave per year. The benefit amounts to 70 percent of the employee's wage, capped at $850 per week. Last year, a bill passed in Virginia granting state employees two months of parental leave. "We want to make sure all Virginians have access to parental leave," Northam said. "There is nothing more important than for a mother and father to be able to stay home with their new baby, or if there is an adoption or a foster child involved." Advocates also supported two bills that would prevent insurance companies from discriminating based on gender identity or transgender status. SB 1287 and HB 1864 are awaiting a vote at the legislative committee level. Rebecca Barwick, a transgender woman who attended the rally, said the bills would help her get both prostate care and breast care. Currently, she said, her gender is listed as male on her insurance because if it were changed, she might be denied prostate care if she needed it in the future. "However, having this marker set to male puts me at risk of being denied breast health if I ever need that," Barwick said. Barwick also discussed the difficulties she experienced when undergoing hormone treatments in 2015. There weren't any nearby health centers offering hormone therapy that accepted her insurance, requiring her to make a three-hour trip to Washington, D.C. every three months. Then, the Planned Parenthood location in her city began offering hormone treatments. "This changed my travel for health care from three hours to 10 minutes," Barwick said. This story was produced by the Virginia Commonwealth University's Capital News Service. Multiple airlines are departing their previous terminals and arriving in new locations at the San Diego International Airport in a major switch-up set to take effect later this month. Alaska Airlines, Spirit Airlines, Allegiant Airlines, and Sun Country Airlines will be moved around the Midway District airport in order to better accommodate and support future growth, SAN said. Alaska Airlines will be moved from both Terminals 1 and 2 and consolidated entirely in Terminal 2 East, the airport announced Monday. It's the largest carrier affected with 45 daily departures from SAN. Alaska Airlines has grown 37 percent in 2018, compared to 2017, according to Rebecca Bloomfield with SAN. This made it number one in growth for the airport in 2018, which comes after Alaska Airlines merged with Virgin America, Bloomfield said. Before the switch, Alaska Airlines had its check-in in Terminal 1, with arriving and departing flights in both terminals. Its not an optimal experience, Bloomfield told NBC 7. Alaska Airlines ticketing area will soon be in Terminal 2 East also, taking over some space once occupied by the airports old Federal Inspection Station. The airport said the switch will streamline the passenger experience. These relocations help all of our airlines, not just Alaska, Bloomfield said. Spirit Airlines, Allegiant Airlines, and Sun Country Airlines will all move from Terminal 2 into Terminal 1. These carriers will use gates 11 through 18. Signs for these airlines will be changed the night before the big switch. Up until then, we encourage travelers to check in with their airlines, Bloomfield told NBC 7. Checking the status of your flight and double-checking your gate numbers may help during this transition time. The terminal switch will happen on Jan. 29. To look at an interactive map of SAN, visit its website. California Gov. Gavin Newsom was sworn in Monday and immediately drew sharp battle lines with President Donald Trump, pledging to enact "progressive, principled" policies as the antidote to the White House's "corruption and incompetence." "People's lives, freedom, security, the water we drink, the air we breathe they all hang in the balance," Newsom, 51, declared to a crowd of hundreds packed into a tent outside the Capitol.[[504014192, C]] Newsom took the helm as California's 40th governor with a speech laced with bold pronouncements about California's values and the direction he envisions for the nation's most populous state. But there were few specifics on how he'll get there. He never mentioned Trump by name, but said the president's administration is "hostile to California's values and interests" and blasted plans to build a wall along the nation's border with Mexico. "The country is watching us, the world is watching us. The future depends on us, and we will seize this moment" he said. PHOTOS: Gavin Newsom Sworn-In as California's 40th Governor Newly installed U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, was among those in attendance for the inaugural address. She got a standing ovation when she entered, an affirmation of the strong backing her opposition to Trump has in California's Democrat-controlled capital. A church choir from Compton got the crowd on its feet with upbeat renditions of popular songs to kick off the event, reflecting the younger, flashier style Newsom will bring compared to his 80-year-old predecessor, Jerry Brown. In another sign of the generational shift, Newsom's 2-year-old son Dutch wandered on stage during the speech. Newsom, who has four children, picked him up and continued delivering his speech. The boy then walked around stage dragging a blanket, drawing laughs from the crowd until Newsom's wife took him off stage. Even as he needled Trump, Newsom offered an overture to voters in rural California, millions of whom voted for Trump and John Cox, Newsom's Republican rival in November. "I recognize that many in our rural communities believe that Sacramento doesn't care about them doesn't even really see them," he said. "I see you. I care about you. And I will represent you with pride." While touting the California Dream and strong economy, Newsom also acknowledged the state has problems, from a homelessness crisis to a gulf between the state's wealthiest and poorest residents to failing schools, all of which he called "moral imperatives." Beyond Trump, he pledged to take on drug companies, the gun lobby, polluters and payday lenders. Newsom praised Brown, a longtime family friend, but indicated he would strike out a separate path from the fiscal restraint Brown made a hallmark of his last eight years in office. Brown sometimes angered legislative Democrats by rejecting big-ticket social spending items. Newsom, meanwhile, already has pledged to expand access to early childhood education, reduce the cost of community college and extend family leave. He suggested Brown's method of resisting more spending in favor of saving needed rethinking. "For eight years, California has built a foundation of rock," he said. "Our job now is not to rest on that foundation. It is to build our house upon it he said. More specifics on Newsom's plans including a "Marshall plan" for affordable housing, a reduction in drug prices and criminal justice reforms will be outlined in the coming days. When he introduces his first budget on Thursday the public will get a chance to see how he plans to pay for his plans while keeping his promise to maintain the state's healthy reserves. Newsom's inaugural address and celebration highlighted California's diversity. His wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, delivered opening remarks in Spanish and a Mexican-American band from Richmond, California, performed. Throughout his speech, Newsom sharply contrasted Trump's rhetoric on immigrants, saying California will not have "one house for the rich and one for the poor, or one for the native-born and one for the rest." Associated Press writers Don Thompson and Jonathan J. Cooper in Sacramento contributed to this report. Read Gavin Newsom's inaugural speech in full below: The story of our state is the story of a dream one that has drawn strivers and seekers here forever. Its what brought my family to California three generations ago the promise not just of a better life, but a bigger one, with opportunities they couldnt find anywhere else in the world. So deep does the California Dream run in the history and character of our state that it can feel as enduring as our primeval forests or our majestic mountain ranges. But there is nothing inevitable about it. Every dream depends on the dreamers. It is up to us to renew the California Dream for a new generation. And now more than ever, it is up to us to defend it. And thankfully we have our champion Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But there is an administration in Washington hostile to Californias values and interests. California has always helped write Americas future. And we know the decisions we make, would be important at any time. But what we do today is even more consequential, because of whats happening in our country. Peoples lives, freedom, security, the water we drink, the air we breathe they all hang in the balance. The country is watching us. The world is waiting on us. The future depends on us. And we will seize this moment. California is a giant engine of commerce the most creative and entrepreneurial in the world. We have the resources to ensure a decent standard of living for all. Its not a question of whether we can do this, but whether we will. At a time when so much of America is divided, we are united. Our people are big-hearted and fair-minded, when those qualities are more vital than ever. Ive seen that again in just the past few weeks. I visited Paradise after the fires swept through, and met people who literally lost everything they owned but were still reaching out to help others. I went to San Diego and met volunteers providing relief to desperate migrants who others treat like criminals like the 3-year old girl, just a year older than my youngest, at a shelter who captured my heart. I spent time with farmers in Fresno who rise and grind before the sun comes up to feed the world. There are everyday heroes all over our state who work hard, then come home and care for aging parents or new-born children, or who open their homes to foster kids, like my mother Tessa did. She was a single mom raising two children and working three jobs, and she still had room in her heart for more. Thats the California I know. Thats the California I love. And thats why I am so confident in our future. Make no mistake, there are powerful forces arrayed against us. Not just politicians in Washington but drug companies that gouge Californians with sky-high prices. A gun lobby willing to sacrifice the lives of our children to line their pockets. Polluters who threaten our coastline and pay-day lenders who target our most vulnerable. In other places, interests like these still have a tight grip on power. But here in California, we have the power to stand up to them and we will. We face serious challenges some that have been deferred for too long. Even in a booming economy, there is a disquieting sense that things are not as predictable as they once were. That we must now run faster just to stay in place. Stagnant wages. Costs that keep rising rent, utilities, visiting the doctor the basics are increasingly out of reach. We face a gulf between the rich and everyone else and its not just inequality of wealth, its inequality of opportunity. A homeless epidemic that should keep each and every one of us up at night. An achievement gap in our schools and a readiness gap that holds back millions of our kids. And too many of our children know the ache of chronic hunger. Ive met families across the state who have to improvise where to tuck their babies in at night making nests out of blankets on the floor, or turning dresser drawers into makeshift cradles because they cannot afford a crib. These arent merely policy problems. They are moral imperatives. So long as they persist, we are all diminished. We are all touched by the human condition whether we ourselves are homeless or jobless, whether we ourselves can pay the bills or have safe drinking water at home. We all have our own frailties and vulnerabilities were all susceptible to suffering and disaster. So let us resolve to follow the example of rescuers and rebuilders in Paradise and Malibu and Santa Rosa and Ventura and make sure our fellow Californians share in the compassion and empathy that connect us and make our burdens and anxieties easier to bear. Our politics doesn't always reward taking on the hardest problems. The results of our work may not be evident for a long time. But that cannot be our concern. We will prepare for uncertain times ahead. We will be prudent stewards of taxpayer dollars, pay down debt, and meet our future obligations. And we will build and safeguard the largest fiscal reserve of any state in American history. But let me be clear: We will be bold. We will aim high and we will work like hell to get there. Here in California, we will prove that people of good faith, and firm will can still come together to achieve big things. We will offer an alternative to the corruption and incompetence in the White House. Our government will be progressive, principled, and always on the side of the people. This will take courage. Thats a word that means different things to different people. To me, courage means doing what is right even when it is hard. That will be the mission of our Administration. We will be a "California for all." We will not be divided between rural and urban or north and south or coastal and inland. We will strive for solidarity, and face our most threatening problems together. It is with deep faith in our state and our future that I ask you to join me in the work ahead. Let us be pioneering optimists who look to the future not with trepidation but with creativity and boundless energy. This is a time for courage and we will rise to meet it. Our state has been on a journey together since the worst of the Great Recession. Back then, we were $27 billion in debt. Unemployment above 12 percent. The worst credit rating of any state in our nation. Today, our economy is larger than all but four nations in the world. Weve created nearly 3 million jobs and put away billions for a rainy day. Where Washington failed on the epochal challenge of climate change, California led, extending our cap-and-trade system and setting bold targets for lowering greenhouse gas emissions, then beating them. So much of this progress has happened under the leadership of Governor Jerry Brown. It has been an honor to serve with him these past eight years and to learn from him, not just as his Lieutenant Governor, but throughout my lifetime. When Jerry last took the oath of office, he reflected on a parable from the Sermon on the Mount. It tells of a foolish man who built his house on sand. A storm washed it away. But a wise man sought a sounder foundation. And when the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on the house he built, it did not fall. For it was founded upon a rock. For eight years, California has built a foundation of rock. Our job now is not to rest on that foundation. It is to build our house upon it. Now more than ever, we Californians know how much a house matters as so many of our neighbors have lost theirs. Together, let us build a house stronger than the coming storms, yet open to the world. A house that provides shelter to all who need it and sanctuary to all who seek it -- where opportunity abounds for all who will work for it. A true California house, sun-kissed, dream-soaked, and built with the sweat of honest work. We will not have one house for the rich and one for the poor, or one for the native-born and one for the rest. We will build one house for one California. Because what is a house but a home. And California is our home. In our home, every child should be loved, fed, and safe. My wife Jennifer and I have four children, and there is nothing more important to us than giving them a good and happy life. But all kids not just the children of a governor and a filmmaker should have a good life in California. Not ripped away from their parents at the border Not left hungry while politicians seek to pour billions into a wall that should never be built. We will support parents so they can give their kids the love and care they need, especially in those critical early years when so much development occurs. In our home, no one should live in constant fear of eviction or spend their whole paycheck to keep a roof overhead. We will launch a Marshall Plan for affordable housing and lift up the fight against homelessness from a local matter to a state-wide mission. In our home, every person should have access to quality, affordable health care. Far-away judges and politicians may try to turn back our progress. But we will never waver in our pursuit of guaranteed health care for all Californians. We will use both our market power and our moral power to demand fairer prices for prescription drugs. We will stop stigmatizing mental health and start supporting it. And in California we will always protect a woman's right to choose. In our home, we believe in justice for all. We will defend the progress weve made to reform our criminal justice system. We will continue the fight against over-incarceration and over-crowding in our prisons. And we will end the outrage of private prisons once and for all. In our home, working people deserve fair pay, the right to join a union, and the chance at a middle-class life for themselves and their families. We will fight not just for growth at any cost but for inclusive, sustainable growth. We will shape the future of work and connect higher education and skills training to the next generation of middle-class jobs because in this time of swift and unsettling change, all Californians should be able to count on a measure of security and a real shot at opportunity. And those who dream of building something of their own a restaurant, a bookstore, a family farm they will get our support. Our small businesses help explain why we have one of the biggest economies on Earth. For me this is personal. I will never forget the day I got a $20 tip bussing tables at Ramona's restaurant in San Rafael. I was 16 years old. Trust me, busboys don't get tips like that. I know it sounds strange, but it changed my life. It meant that my hard work mattered and it motivated me to keep going. Eight years later, I started my own business. So I know how much hard work and sacrifice is behind every small business in this state and how good it feels when that hard work pays off. California must never turn its back on the entrepreneurial spirit that has always defined us. And in our home, when trouble comes, we will stand together. When fires strike or the earth shakes, we will be there for each other. As a former mayor, I learned the wisdom of the African proverb: If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. To my friends in the legislature, Democrats and Republicans alike, I promise you an open door and an open mind. Californians didnt send us here to bicker or sulk they get enough of that from Washington. And lets not forget that it is not only in the corridors of the Capitol that change is being forged. I will partner with mayors, sheriffs, and supervisors all over this state, I know the pressures you face. Ive been there. The only way to fix our problems is if you are empowered to lead the way. I intend to represent all Californians, not only those who voted for me. I will be a governor for the dock worker in Long Beach, and the farm worker in Lost Hills, the small business owner in Corona, and the teacher in Compton. I recognize that many in our rural communities believe that Sacramento doesnt care about them doesnt even really see them. Well, I see you. I care about you. And I will represent you with pride. That notion that were all in this together is a powerful one. Its also how I was raised. Some of you may know that I lost my father just before Christmas. He was a judge. Justice Bill Newsom. For him, Justice was more than a title. It was in his bones. He believed to his core that all people should be treated fairly and with respect. Thats always been a bedrock California value to me. So 15 years ago, when I was a new mayor and I heard politicians in Washington sneering at California values and attacking our LGBT community, I remembered what my father taught me: Its never the wrong time to do the right thing. And thats what we did. In San Francisco, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, two women who had been in love for nearly 50 years, had the courage to stand up and say those two powerful words: I do. Thousands more followed in their footsteps. It took a long time, but love won. Just like fifteen years ago, this is a time for courage. We will stand up for whats right, and we will defend our people. My pledge to every Californian is this: no matter what comes at us, I will have your back! If we do this right, the progress we make will never be unmade. As Cesar Chavez said, You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. There is a story we tell about our history, from Sutters Mill to Steve Jobss garage, about how this is the place where anything is possible. This is the coast of dreams. And thats true. But you shouldnt have to find gold or make it in the movies or create a billion-dollar start-up to live the California Dream. It is for everyone. Everyone in California should have a good job with fair pay. Every child should have a great school and a teacher who is supported and respected. Every young person should be able to go to college without crushing debt or to get the training they need to compete and succeed. And every senior should be able to retire with security and live at home with dignity. That is the California Dream. Not to get rich quick or star on the big screen, but to work hard and share in the rewards. To leave a better future for our kids. The work we have spoken of today cannot be the job of a governor alone, or a legislature, or even the entire government. It will only be achieved if all of us share the spirit of the young DREAMer from Los Angeles I heard recently. She said: I wasnt born in California, but California was born in me. Theres a spark of California hope and California courage born in all of us. Its up to us, what we do with it. The eyes of the world are upon us. Now more than ever, America needs California. It needs the guiding light of our values and the progress they make possible. This is where Americas future is made. This is our charge. That is our calling. Lets get to work. Thank you and may God bless California. Sign up to get breaking news, weather forecasts, and more in your email inbox. Sign Up Now Gov. Tom Wolf kicked off his second term Tuesday with a call for Pennsylvanians to work together to build a stronger, fairer and more prosperous future. Read Wolf's full address below. Battle-tested and perhaps more pragmatic than the politician who endured first-term budget fights to regain voters' confidence, Wolf swept to an easy re-election win in November. "I ask you to choose hope over hopelessness, empathy over apathy," Wolf said in his inaugural address. "I ask you to choose action over passivity. I ask you to take the future of our commonwealth into your own hands and help lead us forward." The Democrat, no longer the outsider who spent $10 million of his own money in winning his first run for the governor's office, still faces substantial Republican majorities in the Legislature that have proven hostile to large elements of his agenda. Still, the election left him with more Democratic allies in the Legislature than before, and he seems happy with his new lieutenant governor, John Fetterman, after a first term spent barely speaking with outgoing Lt. Gov. Mike Stack. Fetterman was sworn in about two hours before Wolf, in the Senate chambers. Wolf plans to push for policies to fight climate change, improve public education, fix inequities in Pennsylvania's criminal justice system and make voting easier and more secure. In near-freezing temperatures outside and a crowd of a thousand or more, Chief Justice Thomas Saylor of the state Supreme Court administered Wolf's oath of office, using a 19th century Bible from Wolf's family. Later, in the speech outside the Capitol's East Wing, Wolf said his toughest day in office during his first term was Oct. 27, when a gunman killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue. A survivor of that attack, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, delivered an invocation before Wolf's swearing-in. "We all came together," Wolf said. "We all did what we could. We all leaned on each other. We all found the strength to carry on." Myers, who said he has stopped using the word "hate" in the wake of the attack, asked that God grant Wolf "the recognition that the vast majority of people are good people, and that their goodness will always overcome others who use the h-word in speech and deed." From all appearances, Wolf has emerged from his first term as a changed policy strategist. In his first year, he fought and lost a record nine-month budget stalemate over his proposal for a multibillion-dollar tax increase. He has since emphasized the benefits of fiscal austerity, restoring trust in government, and achieving bipartisan agreement. Flush with more than $32 million in campaign contributions, Wolf trounced Republican Scott Wagner in November's election by 17 points after leading polls by double digits the whole way. He was backed by a unified Democratic Party and aided by a grassroots backlash to President Donald Trump. In his speech, Wolf said Ben Franklin was wrong to worry in 1749 that too many German immigrants were streaming into the state including Wolf's own ancestors. "Throughout its history, Pennsylvania has never been defined by one ethnicity, or one religion, or one ideology, or one region," Wolf said. "We have always been diverse. And we've always been at the epicenter of change." Wolf, 70, spent most of his adulthood running a family building supply company in York County and was prominent in civic affairs in York. He was a longtime donor to Democratic political causes and served as then-Gov. Ed Rendell's revenue secretary during 2007-08. The mild-mannered Wolf attended Dartmouth College before earning a doctorate in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He lives in Mount Wolf, a town named for his forebears about 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of the Capitol. He has continued to live there while serving as governor, rather than in the state's official gubernatorial residence along the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg. Fetterman, 49, made his name as the mayor of the down-on-its-luck steel town of Braddock, near Pittsburgh, and became a minor media darling for his efforts to help revive it. Fetterman beat Stack in the Democratic primary last year and was elected along with Wolf in November. In remarks before Wolf's swearing-in, Fetterman called him "a man who has always served with the utmost integrity, dignity and honor." An inauguration night celebration will follow at the Farm Show Complex, featuring music by The Roots and Pennsylvania-made food and drinks. You can also watch that event on this page starting at 7 p.m. Text of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's speech Tuesday at his second inaugural ceremony, as prepared for delivery: Thank you! First - always first - I want to thank Frances, and our two wonderful daughters: Sarah and Katie. I love you, and I wouldn't be here without you. I also want to thank Sarah and Katie's husbands, our sons-in-law, Joe and Jamie. Thank you, Govs. Ridge and Schweiker, for being here, and for your service and commitment to Pennsylvania. I'd also like to thank Chief Justice Saylor, Speaker Turzai, President Scarnati, Leader Cutler, Leader Dermody, Leader Corman, Leader Costa, and the members of our judiciary and general assembly for being here, as well as all of the family, friends, and invited guests who have made today so special. I'd like to say a special thank-you to Mike Stack for his hard work over the last four years. And I'd like to thank Lt. Gov. John Fetterman for his commitment to public service, and for his friendship, as we tackle the next four years as partners. The tie looks good on you, John. Most of all, I want to thank the people of Pennsylvania. Thank you for the honor you have given me of serving as your governor. Thank you for the inspiration you provide to me every day. Not too long ago, Frances and I got a call from our daughter Sarah. She had really good news. After years and years of what she'd probably call "hectoring" but we'd call "gentle encouraging" she and her husband, Joe, were finally moving back to Pennsylvania. When you have talented kids and we do: Sarah's an architect, Joe is a graphic designer and Katie's a geologist and Jamie is running his own business you always run the risk that they're going to run off and do something great somewhere else. When I first took this oath four years ago, far too many parents across our state were worried that their kids would wind up moving away that they would have to move away, if they were going to find the quality of life they desired. That anxiety cuts to the core. That's not who we should be. We are not like any other state. We began as a holy experiment in tolerance and inclusion, and for more than 300 years, history has chosen us as its crucible. Pennsylvania is where America declared her independence. Pennsylvania is where our founders wrote not one, but two constitutions, and sparked our nation's evolving political experiment with those truths we hold to be self-evident but still seek to fully realize. Pennsylvania is where Lincoln came at America's most vulnerable moment to eulogize the heroes of Gettysburg and call for a new birth of freedom that we still seek to fully implement for all Americans. And history is still being written right here in Pennsylvania. You see it when you visit the world-class universities and teaching hospitals where innovation is happening every day. You see on the farms and in the steel plants where our great work ethic is on display. You see it when you trace our evolution from dirt tracks to canals to rivers to railroads to highways Pennsylvania continues to be a place where history is made. So, a big part of who we are as Pennsylvanians is the pride we have in where we're from. And we want to pass that pride down to our kids, so they can instill it in their children the way our parents instilled it in us. But when I spoke to you for the first time as Pennsylvania's governor, I spoke of a commonwealth at a crossroads. We were still proud of our storied past, but the future had never looked more uncertain. You could look around and see the causes of that anxiety: an economy struggling to keep pace with rapid change, workers' wages not keeping up with the skyrocketing cost of living, a budget deficit that threatened our fiscal future, a billion-dollar shortfall in education funding that was crippling our public schools. We were mired in a crisis of confidence, and for good reason: Parents no longer felt like they could promise their kids that Pennsylvania had opportunities to offer them that their lives would be better than their own. Business owners no longer felt sure that the soil from which great companies had long grown was still fertile. And citizens of this great commonwealth no longer trusted that our leaders could find common ground. Frankly, after so many failures, we no longer trusted them to do much of anything. It wasn't a Republican or Democratic thing. It was a simple lack of faith in Harrisburg's ability to solve problems in a way that put people first. Here, in the birthplace of American democracy, many of us had come to the conclusion that, no matter who we voted for, our government was simply broken beyond repair. Our continuous experiment in representative government embarked on by our founders became subject to doubt by far too many. That too many felt their promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness had become out of reach. And because of that, the challenges that we faced seemed insurmountable. Four years later, those challenges haven't disappeared. But we've proven that those problems really aren't insurmountable. Pennsylvania has created more than 200,000 new jobs good jobs that support families. We've improved more than 20,000 miles of roadways and restored more than 1,900 bridges. We've restored $1 billion to our schools and enacted a fair funding formula to make sure that our children's opportunities are not restricted by his or her ZIP code. We've turned a $2.5 billion deficit into a surplus and made the first deposit to our rainy day fund in over a decade. We've expanded Medicaid to cover an additional 720,000 Pennsylvanians, and increased enrollment in the CHIP program so it now serves nearly 180,000 children. We've gotten more than 4,200 homeless veterans off the streets and into permanent housing and we've helped tens of thousands of seniors and people with disabilities get care in their homes. The graduation rate is up. The uninsured rate is down. Pre-K enrollment is up. Crime is down. We've got more people working and fewer people in prison. And while we've had plenty of fierce arguments in Harrisburg, that hasn't stopped Democrats and Republicans from working together to legalize medical marijuana, modernize our liquor system, make our pets safer, and pass comprehensive pension reform that puts our fiscal future on sounder footing. Our differences haven't stopped us from putting a down payment on criminal justice reform with the clean slate bill, instituting new protections against domestic violence, and passing our first gun safety law in decades. Look: we all come to public service with convictions that we know we can't compromise. I certainly do. And I know my friends in the Legislature do, as well. So sometimes we'll disagree. And sometimes we'll have to agree to disagree. But that doesn't have to stop us from working together to make progress for Pennsylvania where we have common ground. As Leader Corman said, we're not like Washington. We can work together here in Harrisburg. We can get things done. My fellow Pennsylvanians: We've gone from a commonwealth at a crossroads to a commonwealth on a comeback. And today, even as we reflect on our pride in the Pennsylvania we inherited from our parents, we can look forward to the future with renewed hope that we'll leave an even better Pennsylvania for our children. Now, I'd love to take credit for all of that. Heck, while we're at it, I'd love to take credit for the Eagles winning the Super Bowl, Villanova winning the Final Four twice, and the Penguins bringing home the Stanley Cup twice. But the accomplishments of the last four years aren't my accomplishments. These are our accomplishments. Pennsylvanians have earned the right to feel optimistic about our future. And as we look forward to the next four years, I want us to be ambitious in imagining the Pennsylvania we can build together. A Pennsylvania where we continue to invest in our schools, where we continue to rebuild our infrastructure, where we continue to lead in research and development, where we continue to prioritize opportunity and prosperity for all of our communities and all of our children. Where we don't wait around for Amazon to move here, because we're building the next Amazon. A Pennsylvania where we don't just have enough to take care of our own, but enough to take care of each other. Where people living in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh understand the importance of our agricultural sector and the needs of our rural communities. Where people living in McKean County appreciate the power of our world class cities. Where the business community recognizes the value of an energy policy that protects our environment and creates good jobs. Where we attack the opioid crisis that has taken so much from so many families. A Pennsylvania where we don't just fondly recall William Penn's commitment to tolerance, and the founders' civic spirit, and Lincoln's political courage, but seek to emulate these heroes and reflect their values in our own time. Where we reform a criminal justice system that treats African-Americans and the poor unjustly; where we stand as one to stop discrimination against the LGBTQ community, and where we commit to a process that makes our elections fairer and, where we give every Pennsylvanian the same chance to determine our shared future. I know this sounds like a lot to ask of a divided Harrisburg. And, the truth is, none of it is possible without trust. That's why I've made transparency and ethics reform a top priority: implementing the gift ban, refusing to take a salary, cutting waste and red tape from state government, and saving billions in taxpayer money. But while I will continue this fight to make Harrisburg work for you, I'm not going to stand up here and ask you to forget about the lack of trust that came before. Some stains do take a long time to wash away. So I'm not asking Pennsylvanians to trust me, or any other politician in Harrisburg. I'm asking them to trust in themselves. Because that's where I put my faith every day I wake up with the privilege of holding this office. Last October, on what was unquestionably the toughest day I've had in this office, Frances and I were in Beaver County when we got the news about the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. We raced the 45 minutes to the scene, but all I could do was share in the grief and agony of that horrible day. I remember seeing Mike Turzai and Jay Costa there, and in that moment, we weren't Republicans or Democrats. And, for that matter, they weren't legislative leaders and I wasn't the governor. We were just like everyone else, feeling helpless and heartbroken. But in the days that followed, the people of Pennsylvania lifted us all up. Law enforcement officers who had responded to the scene continued to do their jobs with the courage and grace and professionalism that makes them heroes. High school students from Taylor Allderdice organized an interfaith vigil that night, and more than 3,000 people showed up. The head of the local Islamic Society offered to provide guards to stand watch, so people could feel safe while they grieved the dead at memorial services in their synagogues. Thousands came from all across Pennsylvania to lay stones and show solidarity. I'm so grateful that you, Rabbi Myers, could be with us today. Your leadership and strength, along with so many others, showed us the way to move forward. We all came together. We all did what we could. We all leaned on each other. We all found the strength to carry on. That's who we are. That's the Pennsylvania I grew up in; the Pennsylvania Frances and I raised our family in; and that's the Pennsylvania we should all want. Way back in 1749, Ben Franklin was sitting on the dock in Philadelphia, watching thousands of people stream off ships from Europe, most from Germany. Franklin wrote that he was worried about whether Pennsylvania could survive the arrival of so many German immigrants. Ben Franklin was right about a lot of things, but not about this. He should have had more faith in Pennsylvania. And I'm not just saying that because he was talking about my ancestors. Throughout its history, Pennsylvania has never been defined by one ethnicity, or one religion, or one ideology, or one region. We've always been diverse. And we've always been at the epicenter of change. From the American Revolution to the Civil War to the Industrial Revolution, from the days of steel and coal to the days of innovation and technology, Pennsylvania has been asked to adapt to change and respond to challenges, time and time again. That isn't our curse. It's our blessing. Our ability to come together again and again, across whatever boundaries may divide us, and renew this great political experiment for another generation that's what made Pennsylvania the place I'm so proud to be from. And now, we are challenged again. Challenged to re-imagine our workforce for a new century so that more of our children can find opportunity right here in Pennsylvania. Challenged to protect the progress we've made in restoring our schools and our fiscal security. Challenged to keep making our state stronger, and fairer, and more prosperous. I'm ready to do my part. But, today, I'm asking you, the people of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to do your part, as well. In this last election, we saw increased voter turnout in all 67 counties. But voting isn't the end of your responsibility in helping to shape our shared future. It's just the beginning. It's long past time we re-discover democracy together because if we're going to build the kind of trust we need to make progress in Harrisburg ... if we're going to renew our faith in Pennsylvania's future ... it won't come from me or anyone else on this stage. It'll come from you, the people of this great commonwealth. So, today, I ask you to choose hope over hopelessness, empathy over apathy. I ask you to choose action over passivity. I ask you to take the future of our commonwealth into your own hands and help lead us forward. My fellow Pennsylvanians, no longer are we stuck at a crossroads. We have chosen a path of progress. We have earned the right to feel not just proud of our past, but hopeful for our future. So, let us have faith in each other. Let us have faith in what we can fix together, what we can achieve together - what we can build together. Thank you, and God bless you! And God bless the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. China is positioned to be a hot spot for world investment in electric vehicles, with about 45 percent of the total $300 billion in spending, estimated by Reuters, targeting China in the next five to 10 years. The news agency also said that $67.8 billion of the investment in China comes from Germany, and China's market players will invest $57 billion in its EV industry. "The future of Volkswagen will be decided in the Chinese market," said Herbert Diess, chief executive of German automaker Volkswagen in the report. "Policymakers and regulators are requiring a shift to electric vehicles." Last October, SAIC Volkswagen broke ground for its first-ever electric vehicle plant in Shanghai, with a total investment of 17 billion yuan ($2.45 billion). China's new energy vehicle industry has boosted investment, employment and tax revenue, and the total investment in the whole auto industry chain has exceeded 2 trillion yuan, Miao Wei, minister of Industry and Information Technology, introduced at a forum held on Saturday. In 2018, production and sales volume for China's new energy vehicle sector was 1.27 million units and 1.26 million units respectively, an increase of 59.9 percent and 61.7 percent year-on-year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. A system of electric vehicle quotas, credits and incentives are the country's measures to promote the production and sale of electric vehicles, Reuters reported. According to Miao, relevant departments are working on the new energy vehicle subsidy policy for 2019, and the general principle is to make sure the industry does not experience major fluctuations, when all subsidies are phased out by the end of 2020. Miao also said that in the future, the fiscal and taxation policies will be optimized to ensure the steady growth of the industry, including making and publishing credit proportion requirements for new energy vehicles for 2021-2023, improving the duel-credit policy, and preparing for the post-subsidy era. Li Ye, executive director general for regulation from the National Energy Administration of China, said the department will promote the construction of charging infrastructure, including innovative charging business models and advanced technology research and development. What to Know Jenna Burleigh disappeared in 2017 after leaving a bar near Temple's campus in North Philadelphia. Monday, a state police officer described finding her body inside a blue bin in a shed in rural Pennsylvania Josh Hupperterz has pleaded guilty to abuse of a corpse for putting Burleigh's body in the shed, but not guilty to her murder. A state police investigator Monday described finding the body of a murdered Temple University student crumpled inside a blue bin in a small metal shed in rural Wayne County, Pennsylvania. Jenna Burleigh was killed in August 2017. Her body was found in the shed on a wooded property owned by defendant Josh Hupperterz's grandparents. After a step-by-step account of the property, shown through photographs taken as evidence, photos of Burleighs body inside the tub showed the beaten, bloody state in which police found her. Hupperterz has already pleaded guilty to abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence for moving Burleigh's body to his grandparents' house. But he has pleaded not guilty to murder and using an instrument of a crime. Prosecutors claim that Hupperterz attacked and killed Burleigh after having sex with her. But Hupperterz's defense attorney, David Nenner, has claimed that his roommate is the real killer. Following the testimony of DNA and forensics experts Monday, Nenner asked Judge Glenn Bronson that he be allowed to call a toxicology expert to the stand to weigh in on testimony given by that roommate, Jack Miley, earlier in the trial. Miley had testified that he was too intoxicated and high from a mix of beers, whiskey and Xanax to wake up from any fight between his roommate and Burleigh. Nenner argued that Miley is prone to blackouts and that during blackouts from the toxic mix of booze and drugs could have done something he doesnt remember. Bronson said Nenner would have to provide some evidence of previous blackouts by Miley before being allowed to call a toxicologist to weigh in on Mileys condition on the night Burleigh was killed. That evidence could possibly include Hupperterz taking the stand in his own defense. It remains uncertain if the defendant will do that. A DNA forensic expert with the Philadelphia police department will resume his testimony Tuesday morning. For much of the afternoon Monday, the scientist, Benjamin Levine, testified that DNA at the scene of the crime inside Hupperterzs apartment linked the defendant and Burleigh to blood and skin particles on evidence. None of the DNA evidence linked Miley to the violence that preceded Burleighs killing, Levine testified. Prosecutors have said that Hupperterz - after having oral, vaginal and anal intercourse with Burleigh - took her down to the ground and strangled her, naked, on the kitchen floor. Hupperterz punched the film student 38 times, broke a cereal bowl over her head, stabbed her repeatedly after wrestling a knife from her, then strangled her so severely that he broke her larynx, according to Assistant District Attorney Jason Grenell. Miley testified that he awoke the following afternoon to find Hupperterz "sweating profusely and really nervous." Photos: The Life of Jenna Burleigh Miley is not charged with a crime. Hupperterz's lawyer has challenged in court Miley's testimony of a booze-fueled night that ended with Miley drunkenly asleep in his bed and Burleigh murdered in their North Philadelphia apartment. You cant hear people screaming as if its a horror movie? David Nenner, Hupperterzs lawyer, asked Miley last week. No, Miley answered, adding that a combination of booze, cannabis, Xanax and white noise from a floor fan prevented him from hearing Burleigh's cries. STXfilms Throughout much of Fridays testimony, Hupperterzs lawyer challenged Mileys recollection, going through several pages of phone records showing that Miley and Hupperterz contacted each other after leaving Pub Webb and several times throughout the following afternoon. Miley said at least a few of the calls were to get the WiFi password for his sisters. One of his sisters testified Friday that she sat in blood splattered on the living room futon. Blood was also found in the kitchen and bathroom and sprinkled on a broom, gauze and bits of broken ceramic, investigators said. A corporal with Pennsylvania State Police also took the stand Friday, telling the jury that Hupperterz never mentioned Burleighs name during three hours of interrogation. He told officials that scratches on his neck were the result of rough sex with a woman named Vicky. During questioning, Hupperterz appeared calm and conversational, according to state police, according to state police. Josh Hupperterz, who is on trial for the 2017 murder of Temple Student Jenna Burleigh, claimed that it was his roommate who murdered her. He has pleaded not guilty to murder and use of an instrument of a crime, but guilty to abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. Its every parents worst nightmare. You stare at the phone waiting for the call, Grenell said during his opening argument. The Burleighs would never have that. They would never hear from their daughter again. Earlier last week, Hupperterzs cousin testified that he unknowingly helped transport Burleighs body out of the city in a blue tote bag. Wednesday was day two of the trial for Josh Hupperterz. He was accused of beating and strangling Jenna Burleigh, a Temple student, after he met her at a bar. Jurors heard from witnesses, including Hupperterzs cousin, who claimed he unknowingly helped move Burleighs body. The cousin, Erick Carlson, has not been charged in connection with the murder. The 30-year-old steel mill worker from Philadelphia said he found Hupperterz cleaning up blood in his apartment. Hupperterz turned down a plea offer in December from the Philadelphia District Attorney's office, which had offered 30-to-60 years in prison in exchange for a guilty plea. Hupperterz could face up to life in prison if convicted at trial. Correction (Jan. 14 2019, 3:20 p.m.): An earlier version of this article had an incorrect month for Burleigh's murder. She was killed in August 2017. What to Know Businessman Raymond Perelman died at the age of 101. Perelman built a fortune buying and selling factories before becoming one of the Philadelphia regions greatest philanthropists. Perelmans son Ronald Perelman says in a statement his father passed away Monday night. Businessman Raymond Perelman, who built a fortune buying and selling factories before becoming one of the Philadelphia regions greatest philanthropists, has died. He was 101. Perelmans son Ronald Perelman says in a statement his father passed away Monday night. In 2011, Perelman donated $225 million to the University of Pennsylvania medical school, which was renamed the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine. The money, Penn said, sped up research, increased student aid and helped recruit faculty. Other Perelman gifts include $15 million to what is now the Philadelphia Museum of Arts Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building; $6 million to the Center for Jewish Life at Drexel University, $5 million for the Raymond G. Perelman Plaza at Drexel, and $5 million for the Kimmel Centers Perelman Theater. We have lost one of Philadelphias great citizens," Amy Gutmann, the President of the University of Pennsylvania, wrote. "I considered Ray a dear friendboth to me and the Universityand I am so gratified to know he will be remembered for the countless lives he has touched through his philanthropy." What to Know The Tappan Zee Bridge was demolished Tuesday morning; it's been replaced by the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge The original span, which opened in 1955, was a poster child for America's crumbling infrastructure There are plans to dismantle the western portion without explosives sometime this year The Tappan Zee Bridge was demolished Tuesday morning, sending a chunk of the old span into the annals of New York history. The bridge's demolition had been set for Saturday but it was postponed due to high winds. Workers used explosive charges to demolish the remains of the old bridge, which spans the Hudson River between Tarrytown in Westchester County and Nyack in Rockland County. The demolition took place around 10:50 a.m., sending smoke billowing into the air where a portion of the bridge had stood. Traffic was expected to be stopped for about 45 minutes, with crews temporarily closing entrance ramps to the northbound/westbound Thruway at exit 9 (Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow-Route 9), Route 119 in Elmsford and Saw Mill Parkway (exit 22). Entrance ramps to the southbound/eastbound Thruway were also closed at exit 10 (Nyack-South Nyack-Route 9W) and exit 11 in Nyack (Nyack-South Nyack-US Route 9W). State police were expected to stop traffic in both directions on Interstate 87/287 between exit 11 in Nyack (Nyack - South Nyack US Route 9W) and exit 9 (Tarrytown Sleepy Hollow Route 9) in Tarrytown for approximately 45 minutes. State police will reopen the ramps and release traffic after TZC has determined that the area is safe. Motorists were strongly advised to avoid travel in this area during that time. Those traveling in the area at the time were expected to face severe delays. The new Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge replaced the Tappan Zee. The original bridge, which opened in 1955, was a poster child for America's crumbling infrastructure. Shifting steel plates gave drivers unnerving glimpses through road cracks of the chasm below. There are plans to dismantle the western portion without explosives sometime this year. What to Know A man who allegedly stabbed a woman to death and wounded another in an apparent domestic dispute has been taken into custody Authorities received a call reporting a stabbing at a home on 69th Avenue in Fresh Meadows around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, the FDNY said One of the women was pronounced dead, police said, the other woman was in serious but stable condition, according to police A man who allegedly stabbed his 44-year-old wife to death and wounded their 18-year-old daughter in an apparent domestic dispute has been taken into custody, police say. Authorities received a call reporting a stabbing at a home on 69th Avenue in Fresh Meadows around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, the FDNY said. The 44-year-old woman, later identified as Fatima Jawad, who was stabbed in the stomach, was pronounced dead at an area hospital, police said. The couple's daughter received slash wounds to her wrist and hands when she tried to intervene, according to police. She was hospitalized in serious but stable condition. The 57-year-old man, identified as Hussain Jawad, was taken into custody at the scene. He had a slash wound to the hand and was taken to Queens General Hospital for treatment. He is charged with murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon. Attorney information for Jawad wasn't immediately available. Police said the woman who died was the man's wife and the other woman was his daughter. What to Know Laura Ulin was arrested Monday afternoon after the incident at the Hair Cuttery in Cape Coral. A Southwest Florida woman found herself behind bars after police say she pulled out a gun and threatened another person because it was past her appointment time at a local hair salon. Laura Ulin was arrested Monday afternoon after the incident at the Hair Cuttery in Cape Coral, with the 40-year-old being charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without the intent to kill and carrying a concealed weapon without a license. According to NBC affiliate WBBH-TV, Ulin when into the location upset and swearing because it was past her scheduled time and claimed stylists were not working. When a customer got up in an attempt to calm her down, Ulin pulled a gun out of her purse and pointed it at the customers stomach before leaving. Ulin was arrested at her home several hours later and was released on $35,000 bond. Her next court appearance is scheduled for February 11th. What to Know Anabelle Lima-Taub posted a petition calling for the removal of Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib saying she proudly signed it. A South Florida commissioner has come under fire with some groups calling for her resignation after posting comments on social media alleging that one of two Muslim congresswomen elected this year might blow up Capitol Hill." Anabelle Lima-Taub, who was elected to the Hallandale Beach commission in 2016, posted a petition calling for the removal of Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib saying she proudly signed it and called Tlaib an anti-Semite with no place in government." "She is a danger and (I) would not put it past her to become a martyr and blow up Capitol Hill, Lima-Taub added in the post, which was removed sometime Monday. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that several members of the citys commission condemned the post, but did not ask for an apology or for Lima-Taub, who is Jewish, to be disciplined. The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling for an apology and the commissioner to resign. "Holding a public office comes with great responsibilities. Xenophobic stereotypes shall not be embraced by any elected official," communications director Wilfredo Ruiz wrote in a statement. "Her un-American, xenophobic statements establish that she is unfit to hold the Commissioners seat." In a phone interview with NBC 6 on Tuesday, Lima-Taub said she was standing by her words. "I urge anyone that was offended by it, especially some of the self-righteous colleagues that I have, to research and Google BDS, Google Hamas, Google Hezbollah, Look up CAIR and look up Rashida Tlaibs affiliations with these groups," Lima-Taub said. Tlaib has been a lightning rod for conservatives after the Democrat made a comment the night of her inauguration in which she said she would help the party "impeach the motherf---er" in referring to President Donald Trump. Lima-Taub was in the spotlight earlier this year for a heated argument with former Hallandale Beach Mayor Keith London involving her familys business with London later apologizing for comments about "sphincter bleaching directed toward Lima-Taub. A Florida lawmaker has filed a new bill that would ban abortions in the state if a fetal heartbeat is detected. The bill, HB-235, would make it a third-degree felony for a doctor to perform such abortions, and would also redefine an "unborn fetus" as an "unborn human being." "Consider the rights of that unborn baby," Republican Rep. Mike Hill, who sponsored the bill, told WFLA. Florida currently allows abortions up to 24 weeks. Hill says a fetal heartbeat can usually be detected after 18 days, but Planned Parenthood says it's six weeks. Planned Parenthood's Kimberly Scott called the heartbeat bill "the most dangerous bill that we have seen for reproductive health in the Florida legislature." The bill would give limited exceptions if the pregnant woman's life is in danger. "My oath said that I would protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Life being the first one," Hill said. Almost a dozen Senate Republicans broke with the White House Tuesday on Russia, voting to move forward on a resolution that would maintain sanctions on companies linked to oligarch Oleg Deripaska. The Democratic resolution would stop the Treasury Department from lifting penalties against the Russian aluminum manufacturing giant Rusal and two other companies connected to Deripaska. Senators took two procedural votes to proceed to the resolution, with 11 Republicans voting with Democrats. While Democrats are unlikely to get the 60 votes they will eventually need to pass the resolution, the strong GOP showing which came hours after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin came to Capitol Hill and urged Republicans to vote against the resolution is yet another signal that Senate Republicans are willing to oppose the White House and President Donald Trump on national security matters. "I'll vote to disapprove Treasury's easing of sanctions on Russian businesses involving oligarch & Putin ally Oleg Deripaska," Republican Sen. Susan Collins tweeted after the vote. "He still would maintain significant control given his ties to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. Easing the sanctions sends the wrong message to Russia & to Deripaska." At issue is a December announcement from the Treasury Department that the U.S. would lift sanctions on the three companies Rusal, EN+ Group and the Russian power company JSC EuroSibEnergo. EN+ Group is a holding company that owns nearly 50 percent of Rusal. The Treasury Department says the Russian companies have committed to separating from Deripaska, who will remain blacklisted as part of an array of measures announced in early April that targeted tycoons close to the Kremlin. Treasury maintains that the companies have committed to diminish Deripaska's ownership and sever his control. In a statement last week, Mnuchin said Deripaska remains under sanctions, "his property and interests remain blocked, and any companies he controls are also sanctioned." Treasury has warned that the sanctions could upset global aluminum markets or even prompt the Russian government to nationalize the company, thus shutting it out from any outside control. Mnuchin said after his closed-door meeting with Republican senators that the sanctions "shouldn't be a political issue." Echoing Trump, Mnuchin said, "we have been tougher on Russia with more sanctions than any other administration." But 11 Republicans still voted to move forward on the resolution, which was sponsored by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. The vote came less than a month after a similar scenario played out in votes to end U.S. assistance to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen and blame Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. While the Trump administration sent Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis to Capitol Hill to encourage Republicans to continue the U.S. assistance, several Republicans defected, angered by what they said was Trump's lackluster response to Khashoggi's killing. The two measures were never considered by the House and expired at the end of the congressional session. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell encouraged Republicans on Tuesday to vote against the sanctions resolution, noting that Deripaska's influence over the companies would be limited and calling the vote a "Democratic stunt." McConnell said Republicans are "hardly strangers" to the need for strong policies on Russia. He added that they have "long seen Vladimir Putin for the KGB thug that he is," referencing the former Russian secret police and intelligence agency. Schumer said that if senators agree with McConnell that Putin is a thug, "they'll vote yes" on the resolution. "We're only a few Republican votes short of the U.S. Senate telling Putin he can't run the show no matter what President Trump and his administration try to do," he said. The Senate is expected to hold another procedural vote to move forward on the resolution Wednesday, and this time supporters will need 60 votes. If Tuesday's tallies are any indication, they will be just short 57 senators voted in support of proceeding to the resolution. The House could also hold a vote soon, as Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., has introduced a similar resolution to Schumer's. Congress has 30 days from the Dec. 19 announcement to block the sanctions decision. Last week, House Democratic chairmen from seven committees called Mnuchin in for a classified briefing on the easing of the sanctions. But many Democrats left frustrated, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying she was "unimpressed." In a letter asking Mnuchin for a briefing, the committee chairmen said the sanctions deal appears to allow Deripaska to keep "significant ownership" of one of the companies. They did not elaborate. Democrats have asked for an extension of the 30-day timeline because the sanctions announcement came just before a holiday recess and the start of the government shutdown. Mnuchin said after his Senate meeting that Treasury will see how the Senate vote goes. "Our view is that we have great responsibility in managing the sanctions programs all over the world, and we take those responsibilities very seriously at Treasury," Mnuchin said. In addition to Collins, of Maine, the Republican senators voting with Democrats were John Boozman of Arkansas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Steve Daines of Montana, Cory Gardner of Colorado, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Martha McSally of Arizona, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Marco Rubio of Florida, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Jerry Moran of Kansas. What to Know Tristan Beaudette, 35, was hit with a single shot while his young daughters slept beside him June 22 at a Malibu campground. Anthony Rauda was carrying the gun and two loaded magazines when he was arrested in October near the park, officials said. A detective familiar with the case who was not authorized to speak publicly called it part of a 10-year crime spree. The widow of a father shot to death while camping at Malibu Creek State Park has taken legal action against Los Angeles County and the state of California, alleging numerous agencies failed to warn the public about a series of mysterious shootings in and around the park in the months before her husband, Tristan Beaudette, was shot to death. Erica Wu, who now lives in Northern California, has filed a government claim for damages on behalf of herself and her 2 and 4-year-old daughters demanding at least $90 million in compensation for Beaudette's death. "The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, California State Park Police, Department of Parks and Recreation, and California State Parks and Recreation Commission have confirmed they were aware of at least seven unsolved shootings in Malibu Creek State Park," the claim said. "[The agencies] ... negligently failed to care and provide a safe space for Beaudette and his children, instead causing his death." Wu could not be reached for comment. Her attorney did not immediately return messages. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said in a statement, "we reserve comment on pending litigation." Beaudette, 35, was shot to death before dawn on June 22, 2018 while he slept alongside his daughters inside a closed tent. Beaudette's brother in law and his brother in law's two sons were in another tent nearby, according to the claim. There had been at least seven other unsolved shooting incidents in or near the park between November 2016 and Beaudette's death, according to the complaint. Last week prosecutors charged a parolee with murdering Beaudette and 10 attempted murders. Anthony Rauda, 42, was also charged with burglarizing several buildings near the park. The attempted murder allegations include two counts for Beaudette's daughters, one count for another shooting four days earlier, and several counts for shootings in 2017. Rauda made an initial appearance in court Jan. 7. He is expected back in court Jan. 22 to enter pleas to the charges. He was being held on $1.1 million bail. In a statement the California State Parks department said it, "does not comment on potential or pending claims." What to Know A winter storm warning will be in effect in the San Gabriel Mountains from noon Monday until 10 a.m. Tuesday Evacuations were ordered early Tuesday for some Malibu residents below wildfire burn areas More rain is the forecast before what looks like a dry weekend A second day of heavy rain was expected Tuesday in Southern California, leading to evacuation orders in hillside communities in Malibu, Burbank and other locations, but the storm was milder than expected and evacuation orders in most Southern California locations were lifted by Tuesday night. Mandatory evacuations were issued for Tuesday morning in the Woolsey Fire burn scar areas in Malibu. Evacuations began at 8 a.m. See List of Mandatory Evacuations Here In Burbank, a mandatory evacuation order was scheduled for noon along Country Club Drive, an hillside vulnerable to flooding and debris flows, with voluntary evacuation orders issued for other areas. The evacuation orders for Burbank were lifted for Tuesday as of 9 p.m. Send us your pics by uploading them here or emailing them to isee@nbcla.com. A flash flood watch was in effect for all burn scars Tuesday with .5 to 1 inches of rain in the forecast. Tuesday started out dry, but showers and heavy rain moved in during the afternoon, adding to moisture on already soaked hillsides. "The chances for rain go up into the afternoon," said NBC4 forecaster Shanna Mendiola. "It's going to add to everything that was falling yesterday." Wildfire burn areas are more susceptible to flooding because water bounces off the soil, which would normally absorb moisture if the hillside was covered in brush and other vegetation. Hillsides with a high degree of slope are especially dangerous because the rate of water and debris flowing down toward homes and roads increases. The Woolsey Fire area in Ventura County and in the Malibu area in LA County are the most vulnerable of the region's burn areas, with mandatory evacuations announced for Tuesday morning. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department emphasized the risks in a statement. "Authorities warn that all residents who live in or near the Woolsey Fire burn area should remain aware of their surroundings and weather conditions during these storms. Even small amounts of rainfall rates may result in significant mud and debris flow, so we strongly encourage residents who live in or near Woolsey Fire burn areas to be ready to evacuate at a moment's notice," said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Capt. Darren Harris. "If you feel unsafe or think that hazardous conditions near your home may develop, do not hesitate to leave. Elderly residents, individuals who have medical conditions and residents who own large animals should make plans now to leave their homes as a precaution." LA County public safety officials said communities in low-lying areas or next to steep slopes or waterways are particularly at-risk of falling debris and mud flow. Residents living in homes with limited roadway access or that can become isolated for an extended period due to the storm should consider leaving before storms arrive, and homes or neighborhoods with gates should consider leaving them open to avoid being trapped due to mud flow accumulation; even one-inch of mud can restrict gate operations. "If your property becomes unsafe and there is no time to evacuate, seek safe high-ground," urged the sheriff department statement. In Santa Barbara County on the central coast, evacuation orders were in effect for areas hit by the Sherpa, Whittier and Thomas fires Tuesday morning but were lifted Tuesday evening. "Gather family members, pets, and essential items," a county statement warned Tuesday morning. The warning came a year, nearly to the day, after debris flow from a storm killed 23 people in the seaside community of Montecito. In Ventura County, several neighborhoods were under mandatory evacuation, including communities near the Thomas and Woolsey fire burn zones Tuesday. However, the majority of the mandatory evacuations were lifted by Tuesday evening. Two more storms are expected to roll through the area this week, generating between 3 and 6 inches of rain in coastal valleys and 7 to 9 inches in mountains and foothills. Mountain Snow Totals Climb Heavy snow is expected, with snow accumulation of 6-12 inches anticipated above 5,000 feet and 1-3 inches between 4,000 and 5,000 feet, forecasters said. There also could be light slow accumulation down to 3,500 feet, which could affect Interstate 5 through The Grapevine. At the same time, "damaging" winds of 25-35 mph gusting at up to 60 mph will buffet the northwest San Gabriels, including the Interstate 5 corridor. Officials suggested to plan on difficult travel conditions during the morning commute and to be prepared for significant reductions and invisibility at times. A Winter Storm Warning for snow means severe winter weather conditions will make travel very hazardous or impossible. The latest road conditions from CalTrans are available by calling (800) 427-7623. The first-ever China-Russia co-production, a comedy titled "How I Became Russian," will open in Chinese theaters this week. Co-director Xia Hao told China.org.cn that the film will allow the people of both countries to get to know each other better. The movie, directed by Xia Hao and Akaki Sakhelashvili, is a big-screen adaptation of a popular Russian TV series of the same title. The TV version is about the experiences of an American journalist sent to contemporary Moscow on a long-term work assignment. The movie, on the other hand, focuses on a young man from Shanghai and his relationship with his Russian girlfriend's strong-minded father perhaps a sort of Chinese-Russian take on the popular American comedy "Meet the Parents." In 2017, China and Russia signed a joint statement on deepening the two countries' strategic partnership, which created a fertile environment for collaboration among filmmakers. "How I Became Russian" is the first film born under the framework of this cooperation. As a significant milestone, the film has received prominent attention in its promotion in China, including an advanced screening at the Embassy of Russia in Beijing, which was attended and supported by Russian ambassador to China Andrey Denisov on Friday. At the embassy event, producer George Shabanov said that the intention of this film is to further strengthen the friendship between the two peoples. Director Xia added, "This is the first film co-produced by China and Russia, but it will definitely not be the last one. I hope to have the opportunity to discover more stories and have more cooperation with Russia." Young actor Dong Chang, who has a starring role in the film, said the funniest part lies in the cultural differences between China and Russia, "but the father and daughter's relationship is universal. Every father in the world loves his daughter in this way." Xia told China.org.cn that he personally admires Russian and former Soviet film, but that in the new millennium Russian film in China has stagnated, while Hollywood continues to expand its influence. So he decided to take on the project to challenge the status quo and to show that Russian film doesn't only mean magnificent war epics, as many Chinese people believe. Xia added that the cooperative project represents the genuine participation of both parties from script development to on-site instruction to actors' performances: "There was mutual coordination, discussion and effort, 50-50 percent involvement," he said, praising the professionalism of Russia's film industry and claiming he had learned a lot from his Russian collaborators. "This film can promote more mutual understanding between the Chinese and Russian people. For example, we always regard the Russians as a fighting nation, being able to drink lots of alcohol and fight bears, etc., we have many stereotypes for them. Russians look at Chinese people in the same way, and many ordinary people think China is still in the state of something like the 1960s and 1970s. As a result, when the Russian crew came to China to make this film, they saw a lot of new things, such as Chinese people using WeChat, and they were shocked. They didn't expect China to be like this," Xia laughed. "How I Became Russian" stars Chinese actor Dong Chang, as well as original cast members from the Russian TV series Elizaveta Kononova, Vitaliy Khaev and Sergey Chirkov. The film will hit Chinese theaters on Jan. 25, following its release in Russia on Jan. 17. Los Angeles County prosecutors, in a newly filed motion, are pushing for jurors in New York real estate scion Robert Durst's murder trial to hear about the 2001 killing and dismemberment of a Texas neighbor for which he was acquitted. Durst -- whose past was detailed in an HBO documentary series -- is awaiting trial in connection with the killing of Susan Berman, 55, who was found dead in her home in Los Angeles' Benedict Canyon on Christmas Eve 2000. In their latest court filing, submitted Friday and scheduled to be argued before a judge on Tuesday, prosecutors allege that the defense -- which has moved to exclude evidence about Morris Black's killing -- is seeking to "blindfold jurors in their search for the truth.'' District Attorney Jackie Lacey and the deputy district attorneys trying the case contend that Black's killing is "directly applicable to the witness-killing special circumstance allegation'' facing Durst. Prosecutors allege that the defendant killed Berman to be certain that she couldn't talk to authorities about his involvement in the 1982 disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen "Katie'' Durst, who has never been found. Similarly, "(Durst) killed Morris because Morris knew defendant's true identity and defendant was afraid that Morris was going to reveal his whereabouts to ... New York authorities,'' the latest motion alleges. Durst's attorneys argue that the prosecutors are engaged in character assassination by linking Durst to as many homicides as possible, without sufficient proof. They contend that "unduly gruesome and inflammatory'' evidence about Black's killing should be barred because the now 75-year-old defendant was acquitted by the jury in his murder trial in Galveston. Defense attorneys say no evidence exists that Black knew anything about the disappearance of Durst's wife. "There is not even a scintilla of evidence that Morris knew anything about Kathie's disappearance,'' a defense motion states. Prosecutors say circumstantial evidence indicates he was aware. "(Durst's) involvement in Kathie's death was the impetus for all of the tragic events that happened afterward,'' the newest motion alleges. "The defendant devised and carried out a diabolical plan to cover up the killing of his wife which ultimately cost two other people their lives.'' Prosecutors said the facts of Black's killing were also important in helping jurors understand why many witnesses were reluctant to come forward, something the defense has used to try to discredit their testimony. The prosecution claims other similarities, including an inference that Black was shot "execution-style'' in the back of the head, like Berman. Durst testified at his Texas trial that the gun went off accidentally and Black was struck in the face. Black's head was never found. To make the case that they are not simply trying to tie several suspicious deaths to Durst to prejudice the jury, prosecutors mentioned another possible victim in their motion. Karen Marie Mitchell, 16, disappeared from Eureka, California in 1997. Prosecutors said a witness who saw the teenager getting into a car that same day identified Durst as the driver, and a co-worker said Durst came dressed as a women into the store where the girl worked at least twice afterward. But because there is no direct link to Durst's first wife's disappearance or Berman's murder, the prosecution isn't seeking to mention Mitchell at trial. "Karen's case is just one example of several missing-persons' investigations in which defendant has either been labeled as a person of interest or a named suspect,'' according to the motion. Durst was ordered to stand trial for Berman's killing following a hearing that wrapped up Oct. 25 after several weeks of testimony. One of Durst's attorneys, David Chesnoff, said then that there were no fingerprints, DNA, blood, eyewitnesses or hair samples linking his client to the crime. Deputy District Attorney John Lewin argued that Durst was "responsible'' for his wife's death in 1982 and got Berman to help him cover his tracks -- in part by having Berman pretend to be his wife in a telephone call to the dean of the New York medical school his wife was attending at the time of her disappearance. The prosecutor contends that Durst killed his friend because he was "afraid she was going to talk.'' Durst has been behind bars since March 14, 2015. He was taken into custody in a New Orleans hotel room hours before the airing of the final episode of HBO's documentary series "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst,'' which examined the disappearance of his wife, and the killings of Berman and Black. Durst went on trial for Black's death and dismemberment after a nationwide manhunt in which he was located in Pennsylvania, but a jury acquitted him of murder after agreeing with Durst's contention that he had killed his neighbor in self-defense. In the finale of HBO's "The Jinx,'' Durst is caught on microphone muttering to himself, "Killed them all, of course,'' and "There it is, you're caught.'' At the end of the preliminary hearing last fall, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark E. Windham called Durst's comment in the documentary "cryptic.'' The judge also described Berman's murder as "an execution-style killing.'' The judge said then that the evidence suggested that Durst killed his wife, supporting the argument that Berman's death was an effort to eliminate a witness to a crime. Durst has been long estranged from his real estate-rich family, which is known for ownership of a series of New York City skyscrapers -- including an investment in the World Trade Center. He split with the family when his younger brother was placed in charge of the family business, leading to a drawn-out legal battle. According to various media reports, Durst ultimately reached a settlement under which the family paid him $60 million to $65 million. What to Know San Pedro Opening in three phases First phase debut set for 2023 Finding a museum located inside another museum? It can definitely happen, especially if the two places are related in theme and history. It also goes without saying, and yet we shall, that the first museum should be on the larger side, if another institution, dedicated to a more specialized or specific topic, is to be housed within the initial museum's hallowed halls and walls. The "larger side" isn't an issue for the Battleship IOWA, in San Pedro, as anyone who has visited the massive vessel, which arrived Southern California in 2011, knows. And every visitor knows that the "Battleship of Presidents" served in World War II, and has quite the story to share, which it does through exhibits and events. Now the battleship's story will grow, thanks to the upcoming National Museum of the Surface Navy, which will find a home on the ship. Three phases of work are ahead for the "First National Museum Dedicated to the Surface Navy," with the first set to debut in 2023. The project will be completed in 2030. A few early must-knows about the $19 million expansion, which was officially announced on Tuesday, Jan. 15? The 15,000-square-foot refurbishment will happen by "removing unneeded berths," while a "large outdoor amphitheater" will rise next to the battleship, on land. Several other construction projects will take place over the next several years, including "an additional 20,000 square feet" of below-deck exhibit space. The museum's mission? It will seek "... to raise awareness of the United States Navy Surface Fleet's important role in international relations, free trade, humanitarian assistance and technological innovation." For more on the upcoming National Museum of the Surface Navy, and the renovation aboard the Battleship IOWA, and what's happening ashore, too, keep a watch on this site. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick were sworn-in Tuesday for their second term in office. The 11 a.m. inaugural ceremony for the Republican lawmakers took place on the steps of the state Capitol. On Sunday's edition of Lone Star Politics, Abbott said Texans should expect big results out of his second term. "We had a press conference earlier this week with myself, the lieutenant governor and the speaker, where we wanted to make very clear that we're gonna step up and tackle some of these enormous issues that have been facing the state of Texas stretching back into the last decade, including property tax reform as well as school finance reform. We are intent on getting these problems fixed." During his speech, which you can read and hear here, Abbott pledged to make that happen. "The eyes of Texas are upon us. We have the opportunity and the obligation to get this right. We can and we will better fund education in Texas," said Abbott. He also said in the speech,"Our students deserve better, our teachers deserve better, our taxpayers deserve better." Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick had a message for lawmakers. "The people who elected the House members here, or the Senate members here, they did not elect you whether you are an incumbent coming back, or a freshman, to come here and focus on the small things. They had hopes and dreams, and your actions over the next 140 days will determine whether their hopes and dreams become reality," said Patrick. The formal swearing-in ceremony was followed by a barbecue lunch and the Texas Inaugural Ball later Tuesday night. Keep up with the latest in Austin with NBC 5's Julie Fine as she tweets live from the inauguration.[[284363921,R]] The speech below was delivered by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott during his second inauguration on Jan. 15, 2019. ** Abbott often deviates from prepared remarks. Its an honor to take the oath as Governor of the greatest state in America. We gather today for far more than just an inauguration. Today is the dawn of a transformative session that will usher in a new era. A new era for children, teachers, and taxpayers. This will happen because of my partners here today: Speaker Bonnen, Lieutenant Governor Patrick, and all the members of the house and senate. It is a blessing to embark upon this mission with Cecilia by my side. A fabulous mother to our wonderful daughter Audrey. She's a powerful advocate for Texas. And she made history by being the first Hispanic First Lady of Texas. I cant let this moment pass without thanking our large and diverse family, especially my father-in-law Bill Phalen. Unfortunately, health prevents the most famous mother-in-law in Texas, mi suegra, Maria de la luz Segura Phalen, from being here today. I also want to thank my brother Gary and his wife Denise. Gary is a retired Commander in the U.S. Navy. He served our nation for 20 years. We must never forget we have the freedom to build a better Texas only because of the men and women who served in the U.S. military. If theres anyone whos worn the uniform of the U.S. Military, will you please stand or wave your hand so we can thank you for your service. Now, some people say Texas is at an apex. They rightfully point to the fact that more Texans have jobs today than ever before. In fact, Texans created almost a million new jobs over the past 4 years and we set record lows for unemployment. Texas remains the unrivaled national leader in agriculture, energy, and exports, and we dominate fields like healthcare, finance, and technology. The Texas brand of opportunity attracts more of our fellow Americans to our state than any other state. Despite the exceptional heights to which Texas has climbed, I believe we have only risen to the foothills of what we can become. I know we can do even more for our fellow Texans. We can do more to educate the next generation and keep them safe at school. More to advance our universities to meet the changes sweeping the 21st century. More to rein in the property tax burden on our citizens. More to help our coastal region become resilient to catastrophic storms. More to crack down on human trafficking and the dangerous gangs promoting it. All of this we can do. All of this we must do, because we live in the greatest state in America and we have an obligation to make it even better. No doubt Texas has reached an unrivaled economic summit. But from that perch, it is clear that too many young Texans have difficulty on their own journey to prosperity. Holding them back is an education system thats not adequate to put our students on the path to excellence that they deserve. Yes, we are graduating more students from high school than ever before. At the same time, more students are graduating unprepared for college or a career. Our students deserve better. Our teachers deserve better. Our taxpayers deserve better. It is time for Texas to deliver real education reform. We dont have to look far for solutions. Two years ago, Titche Elementary was one of the worst schools in Dallas. A year later, all that changed. Out of 145 elementary schools, Titche rose from being 132nd to the 2nd best elementary school in Dallas. Five years ago, Dallas Independent School District had 43 failing campuses. Today, they have just four. And behavior is better. At Titche Elementary, school suspensions dropped by almost 90%. What changed? A new principal was hired. He brought in highly rated teachers and set clear standards for students. He added people and policies that improved student success. Know this: Titche Elementary is not an isolated example. Other districts in Texas like in San Antonio, Lubbock, and Pharr-San Juan have achieved similar results using similar strategies. These achievements were possible because of bold leadership by superintendents and school boards who broke the mold making tough decisions to prioritize student achievement. We must ensure destiny is not determined by zip code. Students from the most challenging circumstances can perform at the highest levels. But we have to give them the opportunity to succeed. Success like this will not be achieved just by spending more money. It will be achieved by recruiting and retaining educators who deliver better outcomes for our students. Today, we must dedicate ourselves to making our schools better than they have ever been. This session, we must act to pay our best teachers more. We must reward teachers and school districts that achieve results. We must prioritize spending in the classroom, shore up the Teacher Retirement System, and yes, the state will invest more in public education. The eyes of Texas are upon us. We have the opportunity and the obligation to get this right. We can and we will better fund education. We will pay our teachers more and reward achievement in the classroom. We will reform a school finance system that robs one district to pay another. We will put our schools on a pathway to having all 3rd graders reading at grade level. We will prepare our high school students for college or a career. And we will do this without a court order. I want to make this very clear. We will do what no one thought possible. We will finally fix school finance. While one generation is struggling to climb the ladder of success, others have a ceiling on how high they can go. A ceiling imposed by an archaic property tax system. A system that punishes families and businesses and prevents younger Texans from achieving their dream of homeownership. Just a few blocks from here you see cranes operating above sprouting skyscrapers. In the shadow of those giant cranes, businesses are shuttering, unable to keep up with skyrocketing property taxes. Go a few blocks further and youll find residents forced out of their homes. Victims of unaffordable housing. A by-product of those same skyrocketing property taxes. That is not what Texas is about. Texas is a place of hope and opportunity where anyone can achieve their dreams if theyre willing to put in the work. But the promise that Texas offers is threatened by out of control property taxes. As you know, the property tax burden is not unique to Austin. Ive talked to Texans from Amarillo to Laredo, Texans in suburbs and inner cities, and they all demand property tax relief. As one woman from Waco recently told me: Governor, something has to be done. Some homeowners here in the poorest areas of Waco had their home values doubled by the appraisal district. How is that honest or fair? Its not. This session, we must finally rein in skyrocketing property taxes in Texas. Some people say we cant afford property tax reform. I say we cant afford not to reform a system that punishes homeowners, crushes businesses, and cripples our schools. A state as prosperous as Texas should not punish seniors who have worked their entire lives to retire in a home they have already paid off. And it shouldnt force middle and low income Texans out of their neighborhoods. To fix this, Texas must limit the ability of taxing authorities to raise your property taxes. At the same time, Texas must end unfunded mandates on cities and counties. And taxpayers should be given the power to fire their property tax appraiser. Some cynics say we cant solve these intractable problems. They are too complex. Too political. Too hard. The cynics forget the legendary Texan resolve. The resolve of heroes who fought for Texas liberty while remembering the Alamo. That resolve has been passed from one generation of Texans to another. Through oil booms and busts, through Dust Bowls and devastating floods, through wind storms and billowing fires. From moments of triumph to horrors of tragedy, generation after generation, Texans have been tested. And Texans have prevailed. We live in a state where Texans have always tapped into our trademark resilience and ingenuity to rise above our challenges. We live in a state where the grandson of a slave who was sold on the courthouse steps in Waco rose up to be Chief Justice of our highest court. A state where a little girl shuffled from foster home to foster home drew strength from her grandparents in Houston. She went on to become the first American woman gymnast to win 4 Gold Medals in a single Olympics. And yes, we live in a state where a young man can have his back broken in half and still rise up and be Governor of this great state. We will muster that same resolve, that same ingenuity, to tackle the challenges of our time. And we will prevail. Together, we will pay our teachers more. We will provide a better education for our students. We will make our schools safer. We will tackle skyrocketing property taxes. We will help Texans recover from storms that have ravaged our communities. We will do all this and more. Together, we will ensure every generation reaches their mountaintop. And together, we will keep Texas the greatest state in America. Thank you. God bless you all, and God bless Texas. Twenty-two-year-old Alexandra Black, a college intern who had been employed at a North Carolina zoo for approximately two weeks, was killed Sunday after a lion escaped a locked space. The Conservators Center in Burlington between Greensboro and Durham announced that the intern was killed during a routine cleaning of an animal enclosure at about 11:30 a.m. ET. "While a husbandry team led by a professionally trained animal keeper was carrying out a routine enclosure cleaning, one of the lions somehow left a locked space and entered the space the humans were in and quickly killed one person," the zoo said in a statement. The partial government shutdown is in Day 24 and federal workers across North Texas are going without pay. Many are struggling to afford basic necessities, so companies, churches and nonprofits are stepping up in a big way. During Sunday's service at Friendship West Baptist Church senior pastor Frederick Haynes offered prayers, words of comfort and a call to action. "Our message yesterday was that we wanted to make a difference in the lives of the people who are suffering, who are being held hostage and it's not their fault," Haynes said. "They are experiencing an emergency and in an emergency, God's people should step up." A special offering yielded about $16,000 to be distributed among 22 federal workers in attendance. "As it stands right now, they're going to be receiving at least $800 a piece from the church," he said. As North Texas churches feed the soul, other groups are helping put food on the table. Mission Central is among the food banks expanding their service. "If a family is coming from anywhere in the DFW area we will serve them," executive director Charles Wolford III said. Mission Central is a faith-based nonprofit that feeds the Mid-Cities, but is now choosing to open its doors to any federal worker in need. Workers are asked to present federal identification in order to receive aid. "We believe we are to help our neighbor and those families, those are our neighbors," Wolford said. Basic necessities will be available at Mission Central's Food Bank in Hurst every day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. until the shutdown ends, according to Wolford. "We're going to try and give as much meat as we can, milk, bread, all the basic necessities," he said. Area organizations and schools have contacted the nonprofit offering to hold food drives in order to help with the expected increased need. The YMCAs of Metropolitan Dallas and Fort Worth are waiving a month of membership dues for current members impacted by the shutdown through January, according to the organization's spokesperson. The YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas will also offer free workouts to non-members who are federal workers. "For more than 130 years the YMCA has worked to strengthen our community by supporting families and our neighbors. During this time, we hope the Y can help ease stress for individuals and families affected by the shutdown," the YMCA said in a statement. Alamo Drafthouse is offering free movie tickets for federal employees at all DFW locations, including Cedars, Lake Highlands, Richardson, Las Colinas and Denton, according to the company's spokesperson. Those interested are asked to present a valid federal identification card. "You have Americans from various walks of life saying this is unfair, this is unjust and we're going to step up and be a blessing to persons who are suffering, struggling and who are in a real emergency," Haynes said. Dallas police failed to reach the goal of an eight-minute response time for more than a third of 2018 calls. Police officials responded to the figures after they discussed a new approach to juvenile curfew enforcement with Dallas City Council members Monday. Dallas police dispatched 31,251 calls categorized as Priority 1 in 2018 with the goal of eight-minute response times. Of those, 11,815, or 37 percent, exceeded that time. The Priority 2 goal is 12 minutes -- 273,399 calls were dispatched at that level with a 12-minute response time goal. Around 65 percent of Priority 2 calls exceeded the goal. "We're short 800 cops," Dallas Police Association President Mike Mata said. "There's no replacing bodies." Some delays are exceptionally long, including the response to a December armed robbery on Cabell Drive near Lemmon Avenue. Residents said it took police around three hours to respond to that call. The chief blamed a dispatcher for posting the call as Priority 2 by mistake, but the delay was also far beyond the 12-minute goal for Priority 2 calls. The Priority 3 goal is 30 minutes. Priority 4 is 60 minutes, and both of the lower category of calls were exceeded on about half of those dispatched. Assistant police chief David Pughes said he was not surprised by the numbers. "I monitor it on a daily basis and we are constantly trying to improve the response time because that is really at the core of what we do," he said. A six-month efficiency study by hired consultants has just started at the Dallas Police Department. It could lead to further reshuffling of existing manpower. "They're starting with that patrol, understanding that response times are one of our biggest concerns in the department right now," Pughes said. Starting pay for Dallas police officers increased to $60,000 a year starting this month with the goal of attracting more recruits. But it takes more than a year to get new recruits on the street. A change in rules is also in the works to make it easier to hire certified Texas Peace Officers directly from other cities. They could start patrol faster with training time only on Dallas police procedures. "What my constituents are constantly saying is, 'We don't have enough patrol, we're worried about response times, we never see officers anymore,'" council member Jennifer Gates said. She was concerned that the Dallas Juvenile Curfew Ordinance will expire Friday before the city holds public hearings that are required to put a new curfew plan in place. Gates pushed back against suggestions that the curfew is an example of "over policing." City officials Monday suggested a new approach instead. "I'm just expressing my extreme frustration," Gates said. "What I'm hearing is, 'We could do better, we could have a better policy.' But now we're not going to have a policy at all." The curfew forbids kids on the street during school hours and overnight. Critics claim it unfairly targets African-American and Hispanic teens who may wind up with a criminal record for a minor infraction. "There could be youth that are homeless, that are facing abuse and neglect, that have some kind of other challenges in their home, which is why they are out at night," councilman Omar Narvaez said. Community leader Edna Pemberton, who pushed for a juvenile curfew years ago, told the city council that the original goal was to protect children. "This is not police driven. This is community driven," she said. "We want to protect our kids one way or the other." Police officials suggested an alternative program that could involve counseling and diversion to the city's community courts, instead of criminal citations and fines. Mata said doing away with the curfew entirely would be a mistake. "We need a tool that allows us to detain them, to talk to them, to find out what their needs are," Mata said. But the diversion program could cost money the city has not budgeted. "We need to continue to use this to help make our neighborhoods safe and to protect the kids who shouldn't be out late at night or running from school," committee chairman Adam McGough said. The committee voted unanimously to support a motion by councilman Casey Thomas to pursue a new curfew ordinance that would remove criminal penalties. Required hearings will be scheduled soon, but the current ordinance will expire before a new one is in place. Staring down the next deadline to pay federal workers, the White House shifted tactics Tuesday, trying to bypass House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to negotiate with rank-and-file lawmakers even as President Donald Trump dug in for a prolonged shutdown. The House and Senate announced they would stay in session, canceling an upcoming recess week at home if the shutdown continued, which seemed likely. On the shutdown's 25th day, Trump did not move off his demand to have Congress provide $5.7 billion to build his promised border wall with Mexico. Democrats say they will discuss border security once the government has reopened, but Pelosi is refusing money for the wall they view as ineffective and immoral. The president, on a conference call with supporters, showed no signs of backing down. "We're going to stay out for a long time, if we have to," Trump said. "We'll be out for a long time." With some 800,000 federal employees furloughed or working without pay, Trump suggested the partial shutdown that has clogged airport security lines and shuttered federal agencies was going smoothly. "People are very impressed with how well government is working with the circumstances that we're under," Trump said. Behind the scenes, though, the administration and its allies on Capitol Hill are warily eyeing the next payday, hoping to reach a resolution before next week's Tuesday deadline when they'll need to prepare the next round of paychecks for workers who have been seeing zeros on their pay slips. "There is definitely a sense that there is a deadline approaching, which would be next Tuesday, to make sure that we're able to solve this problem," said Mercedes Schlapp, a White House spokeswoman. Tuesday brought another day of high theatrics, but low substance, as the shutdown dragged into its fourth week. The president, who a week ago seemed intent on declaring a national emergency in order to build the wall, has turned his attention back to Congress as polling shows he is taking much of the blame for the standoff. The White House invited rank-and-file lawmakers to lunch with Trump at the White House as part of a strategy to build support from centrist Democrats and newly elected freshmen, including those from areas where the president is popular with voters. But the White House quickly learned the limits of that approach. None of the House Democrats took Trump up on the offer. One, Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., "welcomes the opportunity to talk with the President about border security," his spokesman said, "as soon as the government is reopened." Trump ended up lunching with a handful of lesser-known House Republicans. The White House will try again later this week, inviting a bipartisan group of lawmakers known as the Problem Solvers caucus to talks. Trump urged his supporters to call the offices of Democratic lawmakers to press them to support the wall to reopen the government A short time later, a group of House Democrats made its way to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office demanding that he consider House-passed bills to fund the government. McConnell was not in his office at the time, so the Democrats left a note. McConnell says he doesn't want to waste the Senate's time and will only bring up measures that Trump will sign into law. Democrats, he said, have turned Trump's wall into "something evil" and it's time to get the country off the "political carousel" of the shutdown fight. Republicans complain that Democrats are the ones who are refusing to budge, and they say it's up to Pelosi to bring Trump a new offer. "The president who is not well-known for flexibility has been more flexible than the other side," said Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, a member of GOP leadership. Meanwhile, the effects of the 25-day partial government closure intensified around the country, with workers facing deepening anxieties about mortgage payments and unpaid bills. Some lawmakers are reluctant to return home for next week's planned recess some were planning their first town halls of the new year as the standoff deepens. JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon told reporters Tuesday that he expects U.S. economic growth to slow to nothing this quarter if the government shutdown continues. "I hope it doesn't go to the end of the week," said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Senate Republican. "I'd like to see us have a breakthrough here." But hopes of side deals being cut by the White House seemed unlikely, as did the prospect of groups of senators meeting privately to forge a compromise. Said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., "The shutdown will eventually take us to a place where the average American is angry at and sick of all of us." Even though Trump is focused on pushing Democrats to return to the negotiating table, it was the president who walked out of the most recent talks last week after Pelosi told him she would not yield to his demands. As the White House invited lawmakers to lunch Tuesday, Pelosi gave her blessing for lawmakers to attend. She told her team that the group can see what she and others have been dealing with in trying to negotiate with Trump. Pelosi predicted that after meeting with Trump, the lawmakers would want to make a "citizen's arrest," according to an aide, who wasn't authorized to publicly discuss the meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity. Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, another centrist Democrat, said the White House is "grasping at straws." Associated Press writers Darlene Superville, Matthew Daly, Jonathan Lemire, Alan Fram, Lisa Mascaro, Andrew Taylor, Laurie Kellman, Elana Schor and Ken Sweet contributed to this report. A 2-year-old girl was pronounced dead after being found outside a New Hampshire apartment building Monday morning in below-freezing temperatures. Newport police are investigating whether the girl might have left the Maple Street apartment through a back door overnight and then couldn't get back in. A neighbor told the Valley News that he heard crying around 4 a.m. but didn't see anything. He said he and his girlfriend later found the child just after 7 a.m. Police said the girl was found wearing her pajamas near the building's back steps. Temperatures overnight in Newport were below zero. The girl's grandfather, Lindsay Van Schoick, identified her as Sofia Van Schoick. He told NBC10 Boston that his daughter and two grandchildren had just moved in with him over the weekend. Van Schoick said Sofia wasn't familiar with the house and that might be why she wandered down the stairs and ended up getting trapped outside. Sofia had a twin brother, who was inside the home at the time. Police said the death appears to be "a bad accident." Newport Police Chief Jim Burroughs said it's unclear whether anyone will face charges in connection with the girl's death. Preliminary autopsy results show that the girl likely died from exposure to the elements. "It was 8 below zero overnight here in Newport at the scene," said Burroughs. "The investigation is very much ongoing at this time and cause of death has not been determined. Right now everything appears to be consistent with exposure." Burroughs said this is one of the most tragic cases he's ever investigated in his decades in law enforcement. He said the death has had an impact on the first responders. "A very unfortunate set of circumstances that involves a 2-1/2-year-old young girl who left the residence apparently by her own accord and just wasn't able to regain entry," Burroughs said. The investigation is ongoing. Federal employees in Connecticut working without pay during the government shutdown are eligible for interest-free loans through Webster Bank thanks to a public-private partnership, Gov. Ned Lamont announced Tuesday. There are about 800,00 federal employees feeling the financial pinch as they remain furloughed or are working without pay. Some have taken second or third jobs to make ends meet. Approximately 1,500 federal employees in Connecticut are impacted by the shutdown. The state Department of Labor has already been offering some of them employment benefits, but only furloughed employees who are not allowed to work can file for unemployment. That means those working without pay were considered ineligible for benefits. Lamont said approximately 80 percent of those federal employees in Connecticut are considered essential and continue to work without pay. The state is working with Webster Bank and the Connecticut Bankers Association to offer interest-free loans to those workers. The state will backstop the loans to guarantee payments. From food pantries to free admission to some museums, the community in southeastern Connecticut is pitching in to help federal workers affected by the government shutdown. "I think Connecticut is a leader here and I want to be a leader here. I want to show how we can work collaboratively with the private sector to make this work and Id like to think that other states across the country will use this as a model," Lamont said. Specific details about how long the loans will run and repayment plans are still being developed, Webster Bank CEO John Ciulla said. Ciulla added that they expect a high rate of repayment once workers receive their back pay from the federal government. The loan amount being provided amounts to $5 million, said Lamont, but the loans are being provided at minimal risk to both the State of Connecticut and the banking community. Federal workers will have to prove that they are in fact part of the partial shutdown and working without pay. The loans will be equivalent to the worker's pay, and Ciulla said payment schedules would be determined once loans are distributed. Lamont said he is optimistic that other banks will get involved. The plan is in the early stages and he hopes to work further with labor leaders and the legislature to get the loans out to those in need. The shutdown is now in its 25th day, making it the longest shutdown in history with no resolution in sight. This shutdown is the result of the ongoing fight between President Donald Trump and Democratic lawmakers over funds for a U.S.-Mexico border wall. Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano (R- North Haven) released the following statement on the governor's plan: I appreciate Gov. Lamonts efforts to create a public private partnership between government and business leaders to quickly solve a problem impacting state residents. All our hearts go out to the federal employees who are struggling to support their families at this time. The proposed temporary support is a clever and unique way to leverage a partnership to help those in need. I look forward to reviewing the details of this proposal and am hopeful that we will see necessary protections to ensure taxpayer funds are protected at the same time assistance is provided to the workers who are most in need. The state DOL said they are doing what they can within federal guidelines to help, but even those furloughed employees who can file for unemployment may not see any. The department still needs to be able to request information on those employees, which may be impossible due to the shutdown. Music is widely regarded as a universal language, but the reality of translating lyrics is another matter. Compared with literature and speech, translating song lyrics places unique demands on the translator, who must try to retain not only the original meaning but also the rhythm and rhyme. Economist Benjamin Chiao sat down with China.org.cn on Jan. 8 to discuss the translation of song lyrics and his attempts to bring Chinese music to Western audiences. According to Chiao, one notable Chinese song translated into English was "Rose, Rose, I Love You," originally composed by Chen Gexin and later re-recorded in English in 1951 by Frankie Laine. Despite the similarity of the musical elements, the English text bears little resemblance to the original Chinese. Sadly, this song remains one of the few examples of popular Chinese music in translation. However, Chiao is now looking to reverse this trend. His website, Chinesesongs.org, is a valuable resource of Chinese lyrics translated into English. Since penning his first translations ten years ago, Chiao has translated lyrics from across the musical spectrum, with a diverse catalog covering an array of genres from ancient poetry to a Teresa Deng collection, from 1930s Shanghai jazz to Hong Kong rock music. His work has been performed by musicians across China and Europe, including "Shanghai Diva" BaoBao Lin, on numerous occasions. One of his most recent translations was sung by Emily O'Hana at a breakout session during the Shanghai International Film Festival. At first glance, Chiao is an unassuming lyrist: he has a PhD in Information Economics from the University of Michigan; makes regular appearances on China Global Television Network (CGTN) and China Central Television Station (CCTV) to discuss economics; and has published several papers, including one with renowned French economist, 2014 Nobel Laureate Jean Tirole. He credits his interest in lyrical translation to his musical mentor, erhu virtuoso Wang Guowei, who Chiao said helped foster his interest in music, eventually leading him to play over ten instruments and even develop his own synthesizer, which he calls the "ten-key piano." Chiao's interest in translation is driven by his international connections paired with his belief that music is an important medium for bridging divides and sharing ideas between different cultures. "I really want to share the good stuff of China with my international friends. Despite being from different countries, we as human beings share much in common." Historically, according to Chiao, the moments when Chinese and Western cultures have fused have created some of the most exciting periods of music. At the start of the 20th century, Shanghai was a multicultural metropolis and the main conduit between China and the rest of the world. Venues such as the iconic Paramount dancehall hosted musicians from all across the world, spawning unique crossover genres. In this spirit, Chiao takes a lot of influence from the progressive atmosphere of 1930s Shanghai. New forms of music combining both Western and Eastern styles emerged, which, he said, fostered a culture of "tolerance and acceptance, derived but distinct from the traditional Chinese culture." As a result, "At the time, Shanghai pop music was the predominant music in China and Asia," he said. At the center of this culture was the Paramount dancehall. Zheng Xiaolin, the Paramount's Executive Director, said, "The Paramount was known as the best ballroom in the Far East. It was a center of Chinese jazz music. It attracted people like Charlie Chaplin who danced there both times he visited Shanghai." Chiao has translated an entire album's worth of Old Shanghai music. As an ode to the cultural transfusion of 1930s Shanghai, Chiao even took inspiration from Shakespeare. In his "Sonnet 43," Shakespeare used the word "bright" as a verb: "nights bright days when dreams do show thee to me." Thus, in his translation of "Ye, Shanghai," Chiao employed the same wordplay to describe the Shanghai night scene: "when the lights bright the night, the time has come." Ultimately, said Chiao, he sees translation as a creative pursuit. But how does he balance lyrical accuracy with the need to keep the piece within the bounds of the original melody and rhythm? "There is always a fine balance." He accepts that a translation will never be a replica of the original, but nor would he want that. Chiao describes his process as "part translation, part innovation." "The Chinese language, being terse, has a flexible meaning. Sometimes when there's no exact translation I will try my best to understand the song and find the best words to retain the overall mood and meaning." Chiao shared that he plans to build on his website and find more musicians to perform his music in the future. Chiao said he wants to form an open initiative to attract collaborators, and to systematically translate each genre of Chinese music. He is currently seeking professional musicians to produce the songs. Chiao is confident that Western audiences will appreciate his work: "These Chinese songs, especially the Old Shanghai songs, are tested by an audience of 1.4 billion people. They are good!" You can find examples of Chiao's work at his website: http://chinesesongs.org/index.php/en-us/ Garbo Lobster will close the doors to its Groton headquarters on Thursday, according to parent company East Coast Seafood Group. According to Garbo Lobsters website, the company supplies lobsters around the world and has been a presence in southeastern Connecticut since it was founded about 35 years ago. Its been headquartered at the Groton site on Thames Street since the early 2000s. East Coast Seafood Group said in an emailed statement that theyre working with impacted employees at the packing facility, though they did not disclose how many. To assist, the company will be absorbing benefit costs of covered employees for a period of time, offering severance to each employee affected, and providing recommendation letters and other support requested by employees during their transition to other employment opportunities, the company wrote, adding the company will also work with employees if theyre matched with open positions on one of its other facilities. According to its website, Garbo Lobster also has facilities in Maine and Nova Scotia, Canada. The lobster packing operation will be absorbed into the companys other facilities throughout the northeast, according to the statement. The companys service quality commitment to its customer will not be impacted by the closure in any way. East Coast Seafood Group and Garbo Lobster thank the hardworking employees at the facility and the Groton, CT community for the support over the many years, the statement continued. We used them every day that we were open throughout the summer for 35 years, said Chelsea Mears, owner of Abbotts Lobster in the Rough located in the Noank section of Groton. Amazing to have them just down the street but at the same time, as a business woman, were never putting all of our eggs in one basket, Mears said. Shell be reaching out to her other distributors before Abbotts opens in May. There could be a silver lining in this cloud, said City of Groton Mayor Keith Hedrick, who would like Thames Street to get a face lift. Neighboring Electric Boat could expand into the space or an EB supplier could move into the 35,000-square foot building, Hedrick said. A restaurant could move in to the adjacent building, which is vacant. Hedrick said he also plans to take a developer to the site whos interested in Thames Street overall. This could be the driver, this could be the spark that changes the whole face of Thames Street, Hedrick said. East Coast Seafood Group and Garbo Lobster did not respond to emails no calls about why theyre shutting down the facility. However back in August, Garbo Lobster General Manager Chris Brown, who oversees day-to-day operations, told NBC Connecticut they lost a significant portion of business due a Chinese tariff on American products that includes live seafood. "We experienced an immediate shut off of business, Brown said to NBC Connecticut in August. We were shipping anywhere 100- to 150,000 pounds a week on a given timeframe to China, however now that has dropped down to nothing, he continued. Garbo Lobster falls under the jurisdiction of Congressman Joe Courtney. In an emailed statement to NBC Connecticut Monday Courtney said in part: As was predicted during our August visit to Garbo, local lobster consumers and restaurants in our region, as well as lobstermen throughout the northeast, will now be moving their business with Garbo to wholesalers in Canada. This trade war is causing real-life harm to American workers and our Administration needs a much more measured approach to advocate for real reform of unfair trade arrangements. Courtney also said he spoke with the Connecticut Department of Labor Commissioner about initiating Trade Adjustment Assistance to cushion the blow for these employees and will work with the Commissioner to help ramp up federal programs as soon as possible. Connecticut is behind most of the country when it comes to access to voting and flexibility in casting ballots. There are 38 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, that offer some kind of early voting, but Connecticut is not one of them. We have a perfect election system for about 75 years ago for a much different age and time, said Rep. Matt Ritter, (D Hartford), the majority leader in the Connecticut House of Representatives. Its not reality for 2019. The things you can do from your phone is pretty remarkable, yet we make people from six to eight, squish into this weird statutory scheme that just doesnt work anymore. Connecticuts Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, the states top election official, announced a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow the General Assembly to make changes to voting, which could include more days to vote, and more methods like expanded absentee ballots. Merrill has proposed this amendment in the past and it has either been turned down by voters or it hasnt been called by lawmakers for a vote. This issue for me has been a long time coming, and I think its time has come, Merrill said. Connecticut, like many other states, saw record turnout for the November 2018 election, and with that turnout there were lines that led to some people standing for hours before they could cast their ballots. Early voting periods or no-excuse absentee balloting is allowed in states all over the country. In the northeast, Vermont allows 45 days for early voting, Maine provides between 30 and 45 days depending on when absentee ballots are available, and Massachusetts provides 11 days for voters to cast ballots before an election. Recently, in New York, the General Assembly approved multiple new voting reforms including a 10-day window for early voting, which is now sitting on Gov. Andrew Cuomos desk. In order to make a change to the way the state votes, a change to the constitution is required. If 75 percent of lawmakers in both the House and Senate approve the proposed constitutional amendment then it will automatically be placed on the November 2020 ballot, the same ballot voters will use to vote for president of the United States. If the proposal passes both the House and Senate by margins of less than 75 percent, then a second vote in the House and Senate would be required in 2021, and the question would then be posed to voters in 2022. Nothing would change immediately but it simply allows Connecticut to move forward with some of these reforms that youve already seen in so many other states, Merrill said. Republicans were not present at the press conference rolling out the effort, but Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, (R North Haven), said in a statement, I have concerns about changing the constitution without having a full vision to implement early voting in a way that guarantees fraud cannot occur. I look forward to discussing these concerns with the Secretary of the State and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The authorities of the city of Guadalajara, considered to be one of the most conservative cities in Mexico, approved a law that allows sexual relations in public view, unless there's a public complaint. With the legal reforms, the police will no longer have the authority to sanction public sex acts, so long as there isn't a complaint from a third party. "Having sexual relations or committing acts of exhibitionism of a sexual nature in public places, vacant lots, inside vehicles or in private locations in public view will be considered administrative offenses, as long as a citizen requests police intervention," details the modification to article 14 of the Bylaws of Good Government. The changes were issued in the capital of the state of Jalisco under the argument that the police should focus on combatting crime and not bother those who might be lacking funds to pay for a hotel. That change has caused indignation among many citizens who label it as a moral issue, and also warn that it makes it easier for rapists and pedophiles to abuse their victims. Once these changes go into effect, the police will only be able to detain and fine those who have intimate encounters in public view if there is an expressed complaint from other citizens. This initiative has a history in the world, now that Vondelpark in Amsterdam, one of the most popular public parks in the capital of the Netherlands, has allowed sex in the open air spanning over a decade. The only rules in Amsterdam are to keep the space clean, the activities should be conducted in areas away from dedicated child zones, and if there's too much noise, police can ask the lovers to leave. Its their job to keep the nations skies safe: the air traffic controllers at Aurora Center. But like others affected by the government shutdown, these highly trained federal employees are now doing so without pay. "Last Friday we received paychecks with all zeroes on them," Toby Hauck, of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said. "Its a distraction into the workplace and its a very complex job to have another distraction added to that." At OHare Monday morning, Illinois Democratic congressional delegation called for an end to what is now the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. "This is a crisis that doesnt need to be," Rep. Jan Schakowsky said. "We can discuss border security. We want to discuss even the wall. We can discuss immigration. But in the meantime, we have to get government going again." So far OHare has only seen minimal impact from TSA workers calling in sick, but other airports are suffering. Traveler Ben Taylor was arriving Monday from Atlanta. "It was pretty much a zoo," Taylor said. "Security was backed up all the way to the baggage claim on the north and south side. I have never seen it that long even at the holidays." And passengers Monday were looking for an end to the shutdown even if they support the reasons behind it--like traveler Jeff Webster who said he's "all for" the shutdown. "This country needs to move forward and the only way to move forward is to progress," he said. "Both of them fighting and trying to shut things down doesnt make any sense." And some in Congress say it will take public pressure to force the shutdown to end. "I think that the pressure is growing on moderate Republicans in particular," Rep. Jesus Chuy Garcia said. "I think that will spread." Massachusetts' first woman of color to serve as a district attorney will speak at Roger Williams University to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Suffolk County DA Rachael Rollins will deliver the annual MLK Jr. lecture at the Rhode Island university's law school on Jan. 23. Rollins was elected in November as the first female top prosecutor in Suffolk County, which includes Boston, and the first woman of color to be elected to that role anywhere in Massachusetts. The former state and federal prosecutor ran on a platform of criminal justice reform. The Rhode Island appearance will be one of Rollins' first major speaking engagements since being sworn in earlier this month. The university says Rollins also will take questions from students, faculty, staff and alumni. Six demonstrators have been arrested and cited for unlawfully camping at People's Park in Berkeley in a protest of UC Berkeley's removal of damaged trees. The University planned to remove dozens of trees which aborists say are in poor condition and health from the park on Dec. 28 but were met with protesters from the People's Park Committee and had to defer completion of the maintenance, according to UC Berkeley. A group of around 10 to 50 protesters established a camp in People's Park to further delay the process, but camping on university property is illegal, the school said. The school says it routinely evaluates the condition and health of the trees on its property. "Based on guidance from certified arborists, prunes, removes and replaces trees to reduce the risk of physical injury associated with dropped limbs and tree falls and/or for aesthetic reasons," UC Berkeley said in a statement. Demonstrators say that the tents are not an emcampment but a protest. Police cleared the protest camp on Tuesday and the rest of the trees will be cut down, according to the People's Park Committee and the University. "Three People's Park defenders have been arrested -- Adam Ziegler, Michelle Lot, and James Cartmill," the People's Park Committee said on Facebook. Police have not released the names of the individuals arrested. Protesters say they are standing up against the University's plan to build new residential facility for students and for the construction of permanent supportive housing for the citys homeless population. While the University says that the removal of trees have nothing to do with the proposed construction, which is expected to start in the summer of 2020, protesters say that the People's Park is relative to civil rights and free speech. The People's Park currently has civic landmark status with the city but it will end in April. The Peoples Park Committee says it is applying for civic landmark status, state and national. "2019 will mark the 50th anniversary of People's Park and it would be a horrific shame on the community if the park would be destroyed simply for the sake of student housing, which can be built anywhere," the protesters said in an online petition, calling for a National Civic Landmark status for the park. "UCB used eminent domain illegally to displace the original neighborhood and, lacking funds to create yet another student housing unit, created the blight in the first place," the petition read. The San Jose Police Department is failing to meet its own goal of responding to life and death emergencies within six minutes, according to a new report from the city auditor. Officers themselves are troubled by the report but concede the results are unacceptable, and the citizens of San Jose deserve better. The report shows officers on average are taking 9 minutes to respond to Priority 1 calls; those are life-and-death calls, with imminent danger. The target is 6 minutes. Priority 2 calls include injuries or property damage or a suspect might still be at the scene. The response time target for those calls is 11 minutes, but its taking San Jose officers more than 22 minutes. Sean Pritchard, vice president of the police union, says the audit is a huge eye opener for the department and the city. "Thats a huge concern for us," Pritchard said. "It's just unacceptable to us. The citizens and businesses, they demand, they deserve better." Police officials say its a supply and demand issue: more calls and fewer officers. San Jose covers 180 square miles, and its police department has 1,100 officers. By comparison, San Francisco encompasses nearly 47 square miles and has more than 2,000 officers on its force. "Our officers are trying to do the best job we can," Pritchard said. "But theres only so many of us." Police Chief Eddie Garcia was in meetings all day Monday but shares the unions belief that the numbers are unacceptable. Police are searching for three armed home invasion suspects who pushed their way into a Piedmont home last week. At about 9:30 a.m. Thursday, the suspects rang the doorbell of a home in the 500 block of Scenic Avenue. When a 9-year-old answered the door, they pushed the child to the ground and entered the home, police said. An adult was home at the time and the trio quickly fled. No injuries were reported. A detailed description of the suspects was not available, but they were described as teens, and one was armed with a silver semi-automatic handgun, according to police. No arrests have been made. Piedmont police released surveillance photos of the suspects on their Facebook page. Anyone with information is asked to call Piedmont police Detective Spranza at (510) 420-3000. A man who was a suspect in a double stabbing and home arson on Monday evening, and was shot by a Fairfield police officer later Monday night, has died from his injuries, according to Vacaville police. Police said the suspect, Nathaniel Holland, 38, of Vacaville, was found hiding in a heavily wooded creek area in the 1000 block of Mason Street around 10:45 p.m. by a Fairfield police K-9 unit. The suspect then attacked the dog with a knife and was shot, Vacaville police said. Vacaville police said the K-9 was taken to a veterinary hospital and is expected to survive. Police didn't say if Holland died at the scene or at a local hospital. The first call came in at 6:40 p.m. Monday. Officers responded to a home in the 1200 block of Alderwood Way for a report of a stabbing as well as a house fire. Police said officers found out that Holland was seen running from the scene, and later investigation determined an argument with a 43-year-old woman led to the stabbing and fire. According to police, Holland then allegedly stabbed the woman and a 16-year-old girl who tried to intervene. Police said Holland then doused the inside of the home with gasoline with two teenage boys - ages 12 and 15 - and a four-year-old girl inside, started a fire and fled. Police said the woman and a few of the kids were initially trapped inside as flames blocked the front of the home, but then climbed out a back window to escape. One of the teenage boys and a neighbor then saved the 4-year-old girl. The girl who was transported to a Sacramento hospital for treatment of burn injuries. Vacaville and Fairfield police, along with the Solano County District Attorney's Office, will investigate the officer-involved shooting and the officer who shot Holland has been placed on administrative leave, police said. Anyone with information about the incident is being asked to contact Vacaville police Det. Yetter at (707) 469-4846. One former regulator views PG&Es bankruptcy announcement as an opportunity to bolster its safety culture while another worries that all the financial turmoil may imperil needed improvements. Given all its recent troubles, though, both agree the company leadership needed to change. "I think we've got a comprehensive vegetation management program, and I believe our employees executed it effectively," was how then-CEO Geisha Williams described PG&Es vegetation management program in the months before the 2017 North Bay firestorm. As state prosecutors consider criminal charges in as many as a dozen fires and a federal judge is threatening mass inspections to prevent more, Williams has resigned. And with between $10 billion and $30 billion in liability looming from last years Camp fire in Butte County, the company is headed to court to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors. With all the bad news, critics are looking for solace during a Jan. 30 hearing before Judge William Alsup, who is overseeing PG&ES probation in the case that grew out of the 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion. Citing falsified safety records related to its 811 Mark and Locate program, Alsup has said he wants the utility to shut off any part of its electrical system during fire season that it cant vouch for after a new round of inspections across its massive electrical grid. State Sen. Jerry Hill says the good side of bankruptcy is that it could foster a change in the companys long troubled safety culture. We could get safety in the end, said Hill, who stressed that could only happen if fire victims and workers arent forgotten in the process. If we can make sure they are protected, the ratepayers are protected, I think there may be some positives that can come out of bankruptcy. One way to assure that, says Loretta Lynch, former head of the state Public Utilities Commission, is for Judge Alsup to exercise his legal right to intervene in the bankruptcy process. In federal district court, clearly, the judge who is overseeing PG&Es probation for their felony convictions has been very clear that he cares about the ratepayers, the victims and the workers as well, said Lynch, who is a critic of the utility from her time on the commission. But another former public utilities commissioner, Catherine Sandoval, worries that in the meantime, the company could have trouble hiring and getting financing given two financial firms have given it a junk rating. This is a situation where we have to maintain the airplane while in flight, right?, Sandoval said. We cant get to the point where we sacrifice safety of the very system that has caused these fires, because of the credit issues. Mongolia will hold a traditional festival called "The Spring Golden Eagle Festival" on March 3-4 near the capital city of Ulan Bator, a senior Mongolian official said Monday. "The festival aims to promote the ethnic Kazakh tradition of hunting with eagles internationally and boost the country's tourism," Tsend Enkhtuvshin, deputy head of Ulan Bator's tourism department, told Xinhua. More than 20 eagle hunters are expected to compete in the 12th edition of the festival to catch small animals, such as foxes and hares, with specially trained golden eagles, showing off the skills of both the birds and their trainers. "The festival is one of the most popular tourism activities in our country. The number of domestic and foreign tourists who visit the festival has been rising year after year," Enkhtuvshin said, expressing his hope for more tourists in this year's festival. Last year's Spring Golden Eagle Festival attracted around 4,000 domestic and foreign tourists, he said. Mongolia is home to the thousand year-old tradition of hunting with trained Golden Eagles. This unique tradition has been passed from generation to generation among the Kazakh nomads. The Golden Eagle Festival is held twice a year in the spring and autumn season in Mongolia. The autumn festival is held in western Bayan-Ulgii Province. I think one of the really helpful takeaways was to allow a person with a disability to first ask for assistance, which can be hard for people like me, who are trained to help others as much as we can, Braiman said. We learned that in some situations, you need to sit back and wait first to see if the individual wants or needs your help. (Natural News) If youre worried about pesticides and want to make sure all the fruits and vegetables you eat are truly local and organic, the only way to be completely sure is to grow them yourself. It may be extra work, but the peace of mind it provides is worth it for many people. But how can you be completely sure the meat youre eating is local and sustainable? For an increasing number of health-conscious individuals, especially younger people, the answer is hunting. Although hunting is dropping dramatically in popularity the number of Americans engaging in the pastime is down 18 percent from 20 years ago its fortunes could soon turn around as young people take the notion of clean eating to the extreme. The Georgia Wildlife Federations Charles Evans, a hunter recruiter, told the Wall Street Journal: Earthy crunchy aligns very well with deer hunting. There is even a national hunting group looking to capitalize on the trend, the Quality Deer Management Association. The 60,000-member group has established Field to Fork, a project that organizes group hunts and finds recruits at places like farmers markets, where representatives offer samples of venison and try to stir up interest in the hobby among those who are already showing a preference for local food sources. They make it easy for young people to get involved. Trainees use crossbows, skirting any reservations some young people have about guns and vastly increasing the places they can carry out their hunts. The program uses slogans such as, Hunters are the original conservationists and Harvest your own local meat and young hipsters are buying what theyre selling. Being proactive about clean eating Quality Deer Management Association Hunting Programs Manager Hank Forester said that its hard to do better than a white-tailed deer when it comes to local and sustainable food. His program offers classes on hunting and cooking venison, and it has attracted a slew of new young hunters. They pair newbies with mentors and train them to use crossbows before taking them out to practice their new skill. One new hunter, Jennifer DeMoss, had been a vegetarian in the past before reaching the conclusion that humans can eat meat ethically. After eating roadkill meat, the anthropology grad student decided that taking up hunting was the way to go, describing the feeling she got after her first kill as being comfortable and exhilarating while expressing gratitude that an animal sacrificed its life to feed her. She says hunting is now all she can think about, and she goes to the forest in search of her next kill as often as possible. Another young hunter profiled by the Wall Street Journal, Edwin Pierre-Louis, is a grad student studying parasites who grew up in Haiti. He was interested in learning how to hunt big game, so he signed up for Field to Fork. Meanwhile, Athens Farmers Market Manager Sarah Thurman joined Field to Fork in search of self-reliance, saying that hunting enables individuals to opt out of the systems of mass production for food. Changing the face of hunting Millennials are starting to change the stereotypical image of hunters, and while the more experienced hunters out there might be rolling their eyes a bit at the idea of hipsters running through the woods and scaring off their deer, many will concede that this growing interest will give the sport the jolt it needed to overcome its dwindling numbers and negative reputation. Moreover, given many hipsters liberal political leanings, the idea of having support for hunting across the political spectrum is also considered a win for the sport and wildlife conservation in general. Whether you agree with hunting from an ethical standpoint or not, its certainly good to see that so many people are demanding clean meat that is free from additives and steroids and taking a very proactive stance against meat from factory farms. Sources for this article include: WSJ.com SportingClassicsDaily.com (Natural News) As health conscious consumers, avid readers of Natural News are always looking for new ways to improve our lifestyle, extend our longevity, and eliminate toxins from our daily intake. Its all part of the bigger picture, where we dont want to get the wool pulled over our eyes, or our rights as Americans taken away, or our lives shortened by some corporate melee. Its all about awareness, education, diligence, self-sufficiency, and thriving in the face of adversity, but the Left doesnt see it that way, so were all forced to get smart fast and snuff out their hatred of our success every day. One way to accomplish this is to recognize the hypocrisy of what they define as hate speech, so as not to become frustrated, confused, or worse yet, a pawn in their game for control. Yes, politics and political correctness all spills over into health including the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual realms. For example, the Left-wing tech giants love to censor everyone for hate speech when anyone criticizes any illegal immigrants that are diseased and violent (and not that all of them are, but certainly many), but when Leftists murder babies and praise abortion, somehow thats called love instead of hate. And whats the Leftist answer to illegal immigration? Let in all the adults so they can vote for Socialist-Communism (Democrats) in 2020, but make sure they abort all their unborn babies and learn to call it love. Hate Speech is cognitive dissonance with a Communist agenda that UNDERMINES democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of press, and human rights The goal of the leading Democrats (Clinton, Pelosi, Schumer, etc.) is to reduce the population while crippling the living, working clones by taxing them into poverty and obedience. The only way to get everyone to vote for this tyranny is to promise that everything will soon be free, including healthcare, food, college, and even income, as long as you keep voting for Socialism. Of course, the promises of today will never come tomorrow, but the zombies dont know that. They cant even remember what they had for breakfast. The common bond and formula for this brainwashing includes perpetuating extreme, violent hatred (through mass media messages) for anyone who doesnt agree that Socialism rules, including aborting all pregnancies and censoring all conservative voices, while supporting gender fluidity, open borders, no police, no prisons, total gun confiscation, and forced medication. According to the Left, its proper to beat up an old lady in the street who wears a MAGA hat, but its wrong to say that theres a biological difference between a male and a female. According to the Left, its normal and proper to form a violent mob and scream at Republican politicians at restaurants until they have to leave for fear of their lives, but its wrong to love a baby thats still in the womb, call it human, and look forward to its birth and life. According to the Left, its normal and proper for a perverted, rapist, male pedophile to put on a wig and a little makeup and use the womens restroom at any store (or even at a school), but its wrong for independent media to publish reports on that same person committing crimes or being a danger to society. According to the Left, its perfectly normal to drug up children and have them parade around as drag queens on a talk show runway or on stage at a strip club, but its wrong and immoral to criticize Planned Parenthood for murdering more black babies every week than the KKK killed in its entire history. According to the Left, its basic curriculum to teach children that babies in the mothers womb are worthless, have no thought, no senses, and no value. Preschoolers are literally being taught right now to Shout Your Abortion the new way that all humans should crudely brag about murdering unborn human life. Anyone who disagrees with this sick and demented education prerogative is branded as anti-science! You see, its all one huge mind control program intended to create hatred, dissonance, emotional trauma, and distract all Americans from appreciating and defending their inherent rights. Why are leftists so obsessed about saving MIGRANT children who cross the border, but have ZERO compassion toward American children damaged by vaccines? The current narrative runs like this: Let every single illegal immigrant come into America because not even one of them has any diseases, any violent tendencies, and can only help our country prosper. Anyone who feels any different, according to the Left, should be stoned to death in the street and their extermination celebrated as an event that supports the greater good. Mainstream media currently has Democrats so brainwashed that they want our POTUS murdered along with anyone who wears MAGA paraphernalia or who argues (this includes simply disagreeing) with them about their political dogma. These same Democratic-Socialist-Communists believe 100 percent in all biggest lies purported by the Leftist Marxists and Globalists: that the humans are causing the world to boil and dry up, that all vaccines are 100 percent safe and 100 percent effective, that all prescription medications work and save you from sickness, and that all conventional food is good for you. These drugged up, dumbed down Democrat zombies have ZERO compassion for anyone who is injured (or suffering from autism) by toxic vaccines, dying of cancer from GMOs, or who is missing arms or legs from fighting in the endless, purposeless wars in the Middle East. Leftists want more war, more hate speech regulation, more nanny-state policing, more free stuff from their government, more gun control, more taxes, and more addictive, debilitating drugs for their pain and anguish. According to the Left, hate speech only applies to people who disagree with their beliefs. The Left, in other words, can kill unborn babies and brag about it, terrorize Trump supporters, and speak openly about murdering our President, but the Right should be censored and bankrupted for peacefully objecting to this tyranny. Never before has the media controlled more minds and ruined more lives than right here, right now. Dont fall for the fallacy of hate speech. Decode it. Be able to identify the hypocrisy so it wont get the better of you and turn you into one of them. Tune into Trump.news for updates on the deranged, insane Left as the world keeps spinning, hopefully. Sources for this article include: NaturalNews.com Trump.news Vaccines.news NaturalNews.com TruthWiki.org NaturalNews.com ZeroHedge.com (Natural News) The benefits of drinking water are immense. From flushing out toxins to increasing energy and boosting immunity, water truly is the cornerstone of good health. But what if every drop of the water we conscientiously drink to stay healthy is actually poisoned? Despite waters many health benefits, no sensible person would knowingly drink water from a contaminated source. Most of us would be shocked to realize, therefore, that the water we drink every day in this country is purposely poisoned in harmony with public healthcare policy. What is this poison, you might ask? Fluoride. You may have been told that fluoride is simply a chemical added to water and oral hygiene products to strengthen teeth and prevent tooth decay. The truth is that it is nothing more than unprocessed toxic waste dumped into drinking water despite contamination by arsenic and heavy metals. There is no real proof that adding fluoride to water improves the strength of teeth. There is plenty of science-backed evidence, however, that it carries serious health risks. Even government-sponsored studies have confirmed that fluoride causes long-term harm. This begs the question: Why do state and local governments continue to knowingly pollute the public water supply with poison? (Related: Nearly all conventional food crops grown with fluoride-laced water, then sprayed with more fluoride.) The facts about fluoride While only about five percent of the worlds population drinks fluoridated water, in the United States more than 70 percent of local water supplies are fluoridated. This does not reflect some kind of superior U.S. scientific understanding, and it isnt about western water supplies being fluoridated while the water in developing countries is not. In fact, many advanced countries have chosen not to fluoridate their water after considering the evidence. The Fluoride Action Network reports that in western Europe, for example, only three percent of the population drinks fluoridated water. Interestingly, despite this lack of extra fluoride, the tooth decay rates in western Europe are no higher than those in countries that do add fluoride to drinking water. Fluoride isnt just ineffective at preventing tooth decay. Multiple studies by respected scientists have confirmed that it is a dangerous toxin. Natural News previously reported: A developmental neurotoxin A recent study published in the journal The Lancet recommended that fluoride be classified as a developmental neurotoxin a substance which is destructive to the brain, nervous system and/or spinal cord before birth and during infancy along with arsenic, mercury, toluene and lead. Lowers IQ More than 50 peer-reviewed studies have linked the consumption of fluoridated water to lower IQ in children. A joint meta-analysis by Harvard School of Public Health and China Medical University, which examined 27 studies on the subject, found strong indications that fluoride may adversely affect cognitive development in children. Linked to the development of Alzheimers disease The body has a natural protective membrane called the blood-brain barrier which prevents dangerous substances like aluminum from entering the brain. However, when aluminum comes into contact with fluoride it is able to cross that barrier in the form of aluminum fluoride. Numerous studies have linked the presence of aluminum fluoride to the development of Alzheimers disease. In addition, fluoride is associated with hypothyroidism and ADHD, along with several other serious health issues. (Related: Scientists STUNNED as first-of-its-kind study reveals strong link between fluoridated water and ADHD.) The murky history of water fluoridation So, why did the government decide to start adding fluoride to water if it has no discernible benefits and carries so many risks? As reported by Childrens Health Defense, during World War II, fluoride began to be produced on a large scale as part of the Manhattan Project which was responsible for the development of the first nuclear weapons. Declassified government documents reveal that scientists on the project quickly determined that fluoride posed a serious health threat to bomb program workers and communities in the area. In a bid to prevent wholescale panic about this toxic chemical, the government embarked on a propaganda program to convince the public of its ability to prevent tooth decay. The government backed its own propaganda with a series of flawed scientific trials to confirm what it had already been declaring as fact. Then, in 1950, the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) announced that water fluoridation was official public health policy, and advised communities across the country to start fluoridating water to prevent tooth decay. Though the government has continued to insist that fluoride is safe and effective, the science is conclusive: Fluoride is dangerous and ineffective, and the government urgently needs to stop mandating its addition to our water supply. Learn more about the dangers of fluoride and how to protect yourself and your family at Fluoride.news. Sources include: ChildrensHealthDefense.org FluorideAlert.org EHP.NIEHS.NIH.gov NaturalNews.com MindBodyGreen.com (Natural News) Fiveclouds Tap & Bottle, a bar and brewery in Macclesfield, United Kingdom, recently kicked out a feminist mother whos been a regular customer there for more than three years after a homosexual patron complained about her t-shirt, which had printed on the front of it the dictionary definition of a woman. In yet another display of far-left freaks eating their own, 34-year-old Rebeka Wershbale, whos a proud supporter of the feminist group Fair Play for Women, was told by Fiveclouds staff that her t-shirt was deemed offensive because it expresses transphobic sentiments, in that it defines a woman as a biological female. A homosexual who identifies as Mika Johnson reportedly complained to staff at the bar after spotting Wershbales shirt, which apparently made him cry and become very upset so much so that he later went home and whined about it all over Twitter. A female staff member at the bar named Heather told me that the T-shirt I was wearing was upsetting people because it was transphobic and not inclusive so I was barred, Wershbale is quoted as saying to the Daily Mail, explaining that she was asked to leave and not come back. What she meant was that I was somehow offending men who say they are women because my T-shirt did not include them in the definition of a woman. For more related news, be sure to check out Gender.news. Is the Cult of LGBT finally self-destructing? Wershbale contends that true feminism supports actual women, not men who want to pretend to be women hence why she was wearing the shirt in the first place. In Wershbales view, changing the definition of what a woman is in order to cater to transgenders which is exactly what radical LGBT extremists are right now trying to do in the U.K. with recent proposals to alter the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) puts biological women at harm, especially when biological men insist upon using womens restrooms. According to Wershbale, she wasnt hostile to anyone in the bar, and there were no transgenders present at the time. She also says she simply tried to talk to Johnson when he had a meltdown, telling her that he didnt want to talk to her and to please leave me alone. Just a half hour later, Wershbale was told to leave the establishment because of Johnsons complaint, demonstrating once again that liberalism really is a mental disorder that triggers its adherents to do ridiculous things. It is a very sad day when a woman is barred from her pub for wearing a T-shirt that states the obvious because it might offend transgender people, David Davies, a Tory MP, said in a statement following the incident. Terrifyingly, this insidious creep of open debate no longer being tolerated and freedom of speech being suppressed is now spreading from our university campuses to the streets of our historic market towns. As you may recall, there was a similar internal battle of left-versus-left in the U.K. back in the summer during London Pride, when transgenders accused a lesbian group present at the march of being being transphobic, simply because it exclusively defines lesbians as female homosexuals. A man who says hes a lesbian is a rapist, one of the accused lesbians reportedly shouted as she angrily marched down the street during London Pride as she was being hauled away by law enforcement officers who were called to deal with the offense. Only women can be lesbians shouted another. A man who has surgery can never be a lesbian, she added, sparking more outrage from the trans activists who were also present at the annual march. Sources for this article include: PJMedia.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) In recent days, a federal court granted a six-month extension to the grand jury convened by Robert Mueller, ending speculation that the special counsel ordained by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to investigate alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Mother Russia was ending soon. The Hill confirmed the report, and CNN claimed that the extension was for six months. If Mueller ends his probe then, it will have lasted roughly two years. To this point, Mueller has indicted some Russians and Russian firms for alleged election meddling in 2016; gotten convictions on two Trump associates that had nothing to do with collusion or Moscow; and a confession from former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn whom Mueller has recommended serve no jail time. Nothing on POTUS Trump and nothing else on Russia. And yet, it isnt as though there hasnt been any election meddling whatsoever. Its just that it hasnt all come from Russia. There has been plenty right here in our own country, and yet Mueller seems oblivious to it or simply doesnt care. In recent weeks The New York Times has actually done some good reporting for a change. The paper reported Dec. 19 that a small tech firm ran a Russian-style false flag operation as an experiment in a special election for U.S. Senate in Alabama between GOP candidate Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones. The tech firm, New Knowledge, just happens to be the same one that wrote a highly critical report of Russian meddling for the Senate Intelligence Committee. Jones wound up beating Moore in an extremely red state; in fact, the seat used to belong to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And while one of the project participants, Jonathon Morgan, claimed the operation was too small (costing $100,000) to affect the outcome, that belies the purpose of the project. (Related: Alabama AG probing whether Dem disinfo campaign cost Roy Moore U.S. Senate race in 2017.) The Alabama project was funded by Left-wing billionaire Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, The Daily Caller reported. Thats important because the news site noted in a separate report that Democratic operatives funded by Hoffman also ran a similar false flag operation during the 2018 midterms in which they worked to suppress GOP voter turnout (Republicans lost the House to Democrats, as you recall, though they increased their majority in the Senate). Why isnt Democratic election meddling wrong? According to the report, American Engagement Technologies (AET), which was founded by Mikey Dickerson, a former Obama administration official, purchased ads for a pair of Facebook pages, The Daily Real, and Todays Nation, in which posts on both pages sought to encourage GOP voters to sit out the midterms by staying away from the polls. The Daily Caller noted: Both pages appear to be designed to give the impression that they were operated by frustrated conservatives rather than by Democratic operatives. The American flag-adorned pages encouraged conservative voters to either stay home in November or vote for Democrats to punish Republicans for being insufficiently conservative. Other ads called polls predicting a blue wave in the 2018 elections unreliable and downplayed the elections importance. How effective were the ads? Its difficult to say, but they did collect millions of impressions, according to a review of Facebooks archives by the news site. As for Hoffman, who was an early investor in Facebook, he has admitted to funding AET after he and the firm were discovered to have taken part in the false flag operation involving the Moore-Jones race in Alabama. Muellers Trump-Russian collusion witch hunt has been given an extension, though no one from the Trump campaign has been identified as having meddled in the 2016 election. But there is plenty of evidence Democratic operatives have been meddling in our elections since then. Why havent they been indicted by the special counsel? Read more about Robert Muellers ongoing witch hunt against POTUS Trump at RobertMueller.news. Sources include: TheHill.com NYTimes.com DailyCaller.com NewsTarget.com (Natural News) Did you know that air pollution and poor air quality affects not only humans but also plants life and insects? According to a study, high levels of pollution found in several major cities worldwide can negatively impact both insects and plants. Researchers from the University of Sheffield conducted the study, and the findings were published in the journal Nature Communications. Nitrogen dioxides (NO 2 ) adverse effects on plant life Data from the study revealed that when plants are exposed to high levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), such as levels recorded in major urban centers, they are able to better defend themselves against herbivorous insects. Dr. Stuart Campbell from the University of Sheffields Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, who also led the study, said that their research showed that plants exposed to high levels of NO 2 are capable of producing more defensive chemicals in their leaves. The insects feeding on these leaves grew poorly, which implies that high levels of air pollution could have cascading negative effects on communities of herbivorous creatures. Dr. Campbell, who also belongs to the P3 Centre (a center of excellence for translational plant science at the University of Sheffield), explained that while NO 2 is a pollutant that is linked to severe health problems in humans, the study has also confirmed that it could also have a significant impact on plants and insects. When exposed to nitrogen oxide, humans can suffer from negative side effects such as: An increased likelihood of respiratory problems. It can trigger more frequent and more intense asthma attacks. Children with asthma and older people diagnosed with heart diseases are at high risk. Reduced immunity to lung infections (NO 2 inflames the lining of the lungs). This can result in bronchitis, colds, coughing, flu, and wheezing. The role of insects in ecosystems Insects are essential to the healthy functioning of ecosystems. Aside from being important factors in food production, insect pollinators, like thousands of species of bees, butterflies, flies, and moths, are also necessary for the long-term survival of shrubs, trees, and wildflowers. (Related: Environmental pollution affects the scent of flowers, explaining the decline of various plant species and insect populations.) Herbivorous insects that feed on plants also help return plant nutrients to the soil. These insects are also consumed by other insects, mammals, reptiles, and wild birds. Additionally, insects are needed for decomposing decaying organic matter and maintaining healthy soils. Scientists cautioned that massive declines in insect numbers are alarming, especially for those who value nature and sources of food. Dr. Campbell warned that NO 2 is a major component of smog and that NO 2 levels are still very high in cities. The study findings illustrate some of the hazards of pollution on the environment, and it also emphasizes the need to resolve this issue and prevent further damage. The international research team, which includes a researcher who is currently working at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), also examined if insects can affect the ability of plants to absorb NO 2 from the environment. The study determined that plants that had been fed on by insects absorbed much less NO 2 . The researchers reported that this could be due to insects possibly influencing the amount of pollution removed from the air by urban green spaces. While urban trees can absorb gaseous pollutants such as NO 2 , the effects may vary depending on the species and location. This could also be influenced by the actions of herbivorous insects. Dr. Campbell pointed out that something must be done to protect these plant-eating insects and that continued study can help determine an effective method to do so. She concluded, Research suggests that urban vegetation plays a modest role in taking up NO 2 . More work is needed, because many factors may influence the effect of urban plants on air quality, including herbivory. [Plant-feeding] insects, however, face a number of different human threats, potentially including air pollution. Make an effort to preserve the world today so your children can have a better tomorrow. To read articles with tips on how to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle, visit GreenLivingNews.com. Sources include: ScienceDaily.com Environment.gov.au (Natural News) Researchers from Huazhong University of Science and Technology have found that using Jiao-Tai-Wan a herbal decoction used in traditional Chinese medicine can promote better sleep. The finding, published in BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, supports the traditional use of the plant as a therapeutic agent for insomnia and its accompanying complications. In the study, the team explored how Jiao-Tai-Wan affects sleep using animal models that have been subjected to sleep deprivation. We established a rat model of chronic partial sleep deprivation (PSD) and investigated the effects and mechanisms of JTW [Jiao-Tai-Wan] on sleep structure, inflammation, and IR [insulin resistance], the researchers wrote in their report. The result showed that JTW could significantly improve sleep quality [as well as] attenuate sleep loss-related inflammation and metabolic disorders. For the study, the team first studied the primary components of Jiao-Tai-Wan. In traditional Chinese medicine, Jiao-Tai-Wan is also known as the Communicating and Tranquilizing Pill. It has two main ingredients: goldthread rhizome and cassia bark. The herbal medicine is used to treat conditions like irritability, insomnia, and symptoms brought about by menopause. In the study, they noted that the medicine has been prescribed for treating insomnia since the ancient times because of its two ingredients. Goldthread (Huanglian in Chinese) clears away heart fire, while cassia bark (Rougui in Chinese) warms kidney water both of which are essential for addressing insomnia and its other sleep deprivation symptoms. Earlier studies on the efficacy of Jiao-Tai-Wan have found that it is one of the most prescribed formulas for insomnia. It has also exhibited the ability to lower blood sugar by inhibiting glucose production. To test the efficacy of Jiao-Tai-Wan, the team subjected rats to constant environmental noise, which resulted in chronic partial sleep deprivation. The rats in the experimental group were then treated with Jiao-Tai-Wan for four weeks, with the researchers taking note of biological markers for sleep deprivation, as well as inflammation and insulin resistance. The link between sleep and insulin resistance (a precursor for Type 2 diabetes), in particular, is established: Poor sleep habits, the most common cause of sleep loss, can lead to hormonal imbalance. This means that the body releases less insulin, which can make regulating blood sugar difficult. It also increases the amount of cortisol (or the stress hormone) in the body, which makes it difficult for insulin to do its job properly. Aside from the damage that it does to the hormones, sleep deprivation also increases a persons appetite, while reducing his level of satiety (that is, feeling full after a meal) which can lead to overeating or indulging in cravings. If sleep loss is chronic, increased appetite can cause obesity which is another factor for Type 2 diabetes. The effects may look serious; however, if sleep deprivation is addressed immediately, these symptoms can be reversed. The researchers measured whether Jiao-Tai-Wan was effective in improving symptoms of insomnia using biological markers for sleep, inflammation, and insulin sensitivity. They found that Jiao-Tai-Wan increased sleep time for rats in the experimental group and reversed inflammation and insulin resistance from sleep loss. According to the researchers, the ability of the decoction to manage sleep comes from modulating circadian clock, that is, the bodys sleep/wake cycle, and regulating inflammation gene expressions. (Related: Research: Sleep loss degrades the blood-brain barrier, allowing toxins to invade and kill neurons. Here are three things to do immediately.) Natural ways to sleep soundly Aside from Jiao-Tai-Wan, there are other ways to get a good nights rest without relying on potentially dangerous drugs. The first thing a person should consider is his bedtime routine. Most times, adjusting seemingly minor habits or things can help the person achieve better sleep. Check your bed. Oftentimes, a worn-out mattress is the culprit behind a sleepless night. Are you physically uncomfortable when you sleep? Is your mattress too firm or too soft? Are your pillows making it difficult to rest your head? Considering these questions can prove to be useful for improving sleep in the long run. Oftentimes, a worn-out mattress is the culprit behind a sleepless night. Are you physically uncomfortable when you sleep? Is your mattress too firm or too soft? Are your pillows making it difficult to rest your head? Considering these questions can prove to be useful for improving sleep in the long run. Drown out the noise. For a bedroom to be noisy, it doesnt have to be loud. In most cases, a jangling sound is all it takes to keep a person from sleeping soundly at night. To mask these disruptive noises, consider purchasing a white noise generator for calming sounds that help you sleep better. For a bedroom to be noisy, it doesnt have to be loud. In most cases, a jangling sound is all it takes to keep a person from sleeping soundly at night. To mask these disruptive noises, consider purchasing a white noise generator for calming sounds that help you sleep better. Stay away from your phones. Turning off the phone an hour before sleep (or better yet, keeping them out of the bedroom) is one of the best ways to treat the worst offender when it comes to sleep habits. Learn more on how traditional Chinese medicine helps manage chronic conditions at ChineseMedicine.news. Sources include: Science.news BMCComplementAlternMed.BioMedCentral.com Shen-nong.com SleepFoundation.org DrWeil.com (Natural News) Without question, the Leftist social media behemoths have been working in concert to remove or downgrade conservatives from their platforms in the hope of dominating the political landscape, but a new bill, if passed, would make it much harder for them to continue their censorship. Last week, GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas introduced legislation aimed at removing current liability protections from Big Tech while forcing them to pay a price literally for their bias. It is time for social media companies to be liable for any biased and unethical impropriety of their employees as any other media company, Gohmert noted in a statement. If these companies want to continue to act like a biased medium and publish their own agendas to the detriment of others, they need to be held accountable. The Texas Republicans bill, H.R.7363, amends Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934 to prevent the social media platforms from hindering the display of user-generated content by censorship or other means. If platforms are found to be hiding or downgrading certain content, they could be held legally and financially liable. Studies have found that conservative content especially has been purposely hidden or otherwise banned from news feeds and other displays on sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Google. As reported by The Gateway Pundit, one site The Western Journal, a conservative site has lost some 75 percent of its Facebook traffic since 2016. Another site, 100PercentFedUp, owned by Klicked Media, has lost similar amounts of traffic from social media, especially Facebook. We lost 70 percent to 80 percent of our traffic if you compare January to May 2017 vs Jan to May 2018, said Klicked Media owner Jared Vallorani, in an interview with The Gateway Pundit. Also, several notable conservative figures and websites have been banned completely from these platforms, though Left-leaning sites and figures have not, despite committing violations of the platforms community standards. Treat them like Fox News TGP noted: Facebook has also deleted prominent conservatives completely from their platform. Alex Jones, Infowars, Laura Loomer, Gavin McInnes, triple-amputee veteran Brian Kolfage and Roger Stone have lost their pages in the last year. Gohmert noted that social media platforms like Twitter, Google, and Facebook are now among the largest and most powerful companies in the world. He also said that more and more people are getting their news from those social media platforms, which has made them even more influential and powerful than traditional media outlets. (Related: WOW: Louie Gohmert says watchdog found that Hillarys emails went to FOREIGN ENTITY and Strzok did nothing.) And yet, he continued, social media companies enjoy special legal protections under the Communications Act of 1934, which traditional press outlets do not have. Instead of acting like the neutral platforms they claim to be in order to obtain their immunity, these companies have turned [the law] into a license to potentially defraud and defame with impunity, Gohmert added. The Texas lawmaker said that representatives of social media companies have appeared before Congress claiming that their platforms do not discriminate against conservative figures or voices. And yet, right-leaning news and information sources continue to report declines in social media traffic, though Left-leaning sites do not. In addition, employees from some of these companies have communicated their digits for conservatives and discussed ways to use social media platforms and algorithms to silence and prevent income to conservatives, Gohmert added. In January, NewsTarget reported that Twitter employees were busted by James OKeefe and his undercover media sting operation Project Veritas discussing the development of algorithms that use machine learning, keywords and other techniques to perform shadow bans on conservative sites. In one hearing, one of the internet social media executives indicated a desire to be treated like Fox News. Fox News does not have their immunity and this bill will fulfill that unwitting request, Gohmert said. Read more about social media censorship at Censorship.news. Sources include: Congress.gov NewsTarget.com TheGatewayPundit.com (Natural News) Two years into his administration, POTUS Donald Trump remains under siege by special counsel Robert Mueller and the Deep State as establishment politicians, the intelligence community, and the mainstream media put up relentless, unprecedented resistance to his policies on a daily basis. While the president has so far managed to hold his own, replacing several Washington insiders who were hand-picked to undermine his White House with people he trusts, new details have emerged providing a glimpse into the powerful forces aligned against him. Late last week The New York Times published a bombshell report that implicates the FBI in what can only reasonably be defined as a blatant act of treason and an attempt to overthrow a duly-elected president simply for performing a constitutionally permissible act against one of their own. Following the presidents firing of then-FBI Director James Comey, which, you recall, came at the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, federal law enforcement officials claim to have become so concerned about POTUS behavior that they actually opened an investigation into whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, sources told the Times. The paper noted further: The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the presidents own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscows influence. The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice. The Times reported that days after FBI officials opened the investigation it was turned over to Mueller, which in and of itself makes the timing suspicious. In addition to that, the Times report never mentions who actually authorized the FBIs probe whether it came from the Justice Department, as is customary, or whether rogue agents opposed to POTUS Trumps presidency took it upon themselves to launch an investigation. (Related: The deep state is real and its moving against Trump, says former CIA officer who is exposing the attempted coup.) This investigation centered around a constitutional act by the president Something else that is odd: The Times reported that the investigation was on a dual track both criminal and counterintelligence, when usually such probes are either one or the other. The paper said that officials within the FBI and other federal entities not named (such as the Justice Department and the intelligence community) were allegedly concerned that the firing of Comey was both a criminal act and a sop to Russia, a national security issue. Nearly two years later, we find that nothing substantiates either of those suspicions. The convictions that Mueller has gotten have been for crimes not related to POTUS Trumps 2016 campaign and Russia. Whats more, weve since learned that Comey had a major role in assuring that Trumps opponent, Hillary Clinton, did not suffer legal fallout (as in, she wasnt charged) for criminal mishandling of classified information. Also, the fact that Muellers investigation has proceeded is prima facie evidence that the president did not obstruct it. And, as the Times reports deep into its story, No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials. The Constitution grants the president the authority to dismiss anyone in his employ which is everyone who falls under the Executive Branch. As head of that branch of government, POTUS doesnt need a reason to fire anyone, though Comey through his politically motivated mishandling of Clintons investigation surely provided Trump with cause. The presidents legal team has dismissed the investigation as pointless and it turns out thats certainly true. But thats the right answer to the wrong question, which should be: Who authorized the probe in the first place? Because whoever did it was obviously trying to undermine the president in such a way as to cause his removal from office a coup, in other words and thats blatant treason. Read more about the Deep States acts of treason against President Trump at Treason.news. Sources include: TheNationalSentinel.com NewsTarget.com NYTimes.com (Natural News) Most mothers would do anything to make sure that their children get to enjoy healthy lives once theyre born. According to a recent study published in BMJ Open, one of the ways mothers can ensure their childs health is by reducing their caffeine intake during pregnancy. This is because moderate to high caffeine levels in the body increase the risk of excessive weight gain during early childhood. Caffeine is a widely used stimulant found in coffee, soda, energy drinks, and even tea. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), an average American consumes approximately 300 milligrams of caffeine per day, which is equivalent to almost four cups of coffee. There are many health benefits associated with caffeine, such as reduced cancer risk, better memory, and protection against cardiovascular diseases. But as many people say too much of anything is bad for you. Excessive caffeine intake has been associated with many health problems, including sleep disorders, rapid heartbeat, upset stomach, irritability, nervousness, and restlessness. Effects of fetal exposure to caffeine on child health Expectant mothers should be more careful about getting their daily cup of joe since even unborn children arent safe from the harmful effects of caffeine. This is because caffeine is easily absorbed into the placenta where it is then acquired by the fetus, which does not have the necessary enzymes to metabolize this compound. Previous studies have shown that a daily intake of 300 mg of caffeine during pregnancy leads to limited growth and low birth weight babies. These consequently increase the risk of early death and chronic diseases in adulthood. Moreover, caffeine intake makes it more possible for a miscarriage to occur. Recently, researchers from various institutions in Europe found that caffeine intake during pregnancy also contributes to excess weight gain during childhood. This was determined through an observational study involving 51,000 mother and infant pairs in Norway. Through a food frequency questionnaire, the team found that 44 percent of expecting mothers had moderate caffeine intake (50-199 mg) while seven and three percent have high (200-299 mg) and very high caffeine intake (300 mg and above), respectively. The sources of caffeine considered in this study included coffee, black tea, caffeinated soft/energy drinks, chocolate, chocolate milk, sandwich spreads, desserts, cakes, and sweets. The researchers proceeded to measure the weight, height, and body length of the children at 11 different time points, starting from when they were only six weeks old until they reached eight years old. Results showed that average, high, and very high caffeine intake increased the risk of excess weight by 15, 30, and 66 percent respectively. Based on these results, the researchers concluded that moderate to high caffeine intake during pregnancy leads to excess weight gain and possibly obesity during childhood. This supports the existing advice that expectant mothers should reduce or completely avoid caffeine. (Related: Researchers conclude that drinking soda during pregnancy causes obesity in offspring.) Other foods to avoid during pregnancy Since expecting mothers are eating for someone other than themselves, they have to be extra careful of what theyre eating. Even foods that are normally safe can cause health problems for unborn babies. Some examples of foods that should be avoided during pregnancy include the following: Smoked seafood Raw shellfish Undercooked eggs Deli meats Unpasteurized milk Soft cheeses Unwashed fruits and vegetables Canned foods For more articles on the harmful effects of excessive caffeine consumption, visit Food.news. Sources include: Blogs.BMJ.com MedicalNewsToday.com MomJunction.com By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at DownWithTyranny! The Praetorian Guard declares a cowering Claudius emperor after murdering Caligula (from a painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema) Id argue that under Trump, the national security establishment not only hasnt missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism. William Arkin, former NBC war reporter File this under Praetorian Guard Watch. William Arkin is a longtime NBC reporter, primarily covering war and national security news. He recently quit NBC, offering his reasons in an online departure letter. There he castigated the medias coverage of the president, calling them at one point prisoners of Donald Trump. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor, Arkin wrote. And yet Im alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We shouldnt get out Syria? We shouldnt go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really earn for the Cold War? And dont even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution? Please notice the last sentences above, about the growth in reputation and irreproachability of the national security state: And dont even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution? Then he gave an interview to Democracy Nows Amy Goodman. Part of that interview went this way (emphasis mine throughout): AMY GOODMAN: So, you talked about the people who populate the networks as pundits, and youve been a fierce critic of the national security state, or at least understanding who it is who is explaining things to us. Reading from Politico, Former CIA Director John Brennan the latest superspook, they said, to be reborn as a TV newsie. He just cashed in at NBC News as a senior national security and intelligence analyst and served his first expert views on Meet the Press. The Brennan acquisition seeks to elevate NBC to spook parity with CNN, which employs former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIADirector Michael Hayden in a similar capacity. Other, lesser-known national security veterans thrive under TVs grow lights. Almost too numerous to list, they include Chuck Rosenberg, former acting DEA administrator, chief of staff for FBIDirector James Comey, and counselor to former FBI Director Robert Mueller; Frank Figliuzzi, former chief of FBIcounterintelligence; Juan Zarate, deputy national security adviser under Bush, at NBC; and Fran Townsend, homeland security adviser under Bush. And it goes on and on and on. These are now the pundits. And so, when you have a situation like President Trump announcing he will immediately withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and halve the troops that are in Afghanistan, you have this massive attack on him thats actually led by the permanent national security state under the guise of pundits on television. At this point Arkin is selling the idea, with which I agree, that the security state has become so powerful that its able to use the news networks, who compete for spook parity, as their sales platforms. But in doing so, hes making another point as well, if not mindfully that the national security state is approaching (or has approached) the status of a latter-day Praetorian Guard, a military organization without whose approval no one can become or remain president. He gets there in stages. First, this: WILLIAM ARKIN: Well, I think that youveI mean, what you said stands for itself, Amy. But I would add to it that I think the real crisis is that when we have a panel discussion on television, in the mainstream press, and even in the mainstream newspapers, we dont populate that panel with people who are in opposition. We have a single war party in the United States, and its the only one that is given voice. And I think that probably because of the phenomenon of Donald Trumplets just be honest about itreally what we see on TV now is former Obama administration officials masquerading as analysts who are nonpartisan, when in fact they are partisan. Brennan, Clapper (he who lied to Congress but, as an approved insider, was forgiven), and a number of other former Obama administration officials are not just partisan, pro-endless war advocates masquerading as analysts; they are analysts working to delegitimize Donald Trump. Whether not Trump is a legitimate president, that partisan superspooks are uncritically accepted as part of the takedown operation should be concerning. Arkin seems to recognize this. Later in the interview hes asked to explain his comment about the FBI, which I noted above. AMY GOODMAN: And, William Arkin, you also write, dont [even] get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution? WILLIAM ARKIN: Well, theres a crazy collateral damage of Donald Trump. And that is that there are a lot of liberals in America who believe that the CIA and the FBI is going to somehow save the country from Donald Trump. Well, Im sorry, Im not a particular fan of either the CIA or the FBI. And the FBI, in particular, has a deplorable record in American society, from Martin Luther King and the peace movements of the 1960s all the way up through Wen Ho Lee and others who have been persecuted by the FBI. And theres no real evidence that the FBI is eitheris that competent of an institution, to begin with, in terms of even pursuing the prosecutions that its pursuing. But yet we lionize them. We hold them up on a pedestal, that somehow they are the truth tellers, that theyre the ones who are getting to the bottom of things, when theres just no evidence that thats the case. AMY GOODMAN: And what do you mean by the creeping fascism of homeland security? WILLIAM ARKIN: You know, I was against the creation of the Homeland Security Department in 2003, to begin with. First of all, dont like the word. Homeland security sounds a little bit brown-shirty to me. But, second of all, it was created to be a counterterrorist organization, a domestic counterterrorist organization. And all during the Obama administration, we heard Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, saying, You know, we are counterterrorism. But since then, weve seen theyre creeping into cybersecurity. Weve seen them creeping into election security. Weve seen ICE and TSA become the second and third largest federal law enforcement agencies in the country. And so, now homeland security sort of has become a domestic intelligence agency with really an unclear remit, really with broad powers that we dont fully understand. And we tend, again, to say Donald Trumps Homeland Security Department. Donald Trump couldnt find the Department of Homeland Security if somebody set him on the streets of New Yorkof Washington, D.C. So its not Donald Trumps Homeland Security Department. Its our Homeland Security Department. And I think its important for us to recognize that this is a department that is really operating on its own behalf and out of control. Id like you to ask yourself this. If a President Bernie Sanders wanted better relations with Russia and North Korea, and went about it in a smart, safe way; wanted to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. by smartly but radically renegotiating our billionaire- and corporate-friendly trade deals; wanted to radically reduce spending on the national security apparatus, on our endless wars, and spend instead on government-provided services like Medicare for All (which, by the way, would devastate several powerful, well-funded industries and bipartisan donor constituencies) and for good measure, started jailing bankers again if a President Sanders attempted to do all that, what would be the response of the national security apparatus, guardians of the status quo? Whom would they serve, the billionaire owners of the established, corrupt-but-lucrative bipartisan state, or the Sanders-led revolutionary FDR-style government theyre constitutionally sworn to defend? As a reminder: The Praetorian Guard was an elite unit of the Imperial Roman army whose members served as personal bodyguards to the Roman emperors. [T]he Guard became notable for its intrigue and interference in Roman politics, to the point of overthrowing emperors and proclaiming their successors. In 312, the Guard was disbanded by Constantine the Great [after defeating them and their latest declared emperor at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge]. The Guard murdered Caligula insane, incompetent and dangerous and declared Claudius emperor, the first of its many interferences. After Claudius was poisoned, they transferred allegiance to Nero. It went like this for centuries (of which we have none, by the way). The Guard had the power to make or break emperors. Are we growing our own Praetorian Guard, or giving them leave to grow, under cover of their anti-Trump resistance? If I were one of the national security superspooks, Id want nothing better than to be welcomed and washed clean by acceptance into that well-praised effort. Doors would open publicly that before were open only in secret. In that sense, Trump may be even more dangerous than hes now considered to be. What he may do while still with us may be frightful to consider. But the form of government he leaves behind may be worse, especially if he cements in the public mind the rightness of superspooks acting as new-minted kingmakers. Sanders supporters, take note. So it has happened. If you are on Econet or TelOne, you cant even use a VPN to access social media anymore. You cant access the internet at all in fact. The service providers have thrown the switch. It seems the interruptions started shortly after midnight with a number of service providers having flipped the switch and internet access now being limited. Other providers such as NetOne and ZOL havent completely turned off the access but they have blocked WhatsApp and Facebook. Econet being the biggest provider of connectivity effectively means at least 65% of all Zimbabweans cant access the internet anymore. This happened at around 0845 hours (CAT) today 15th January. So far other mobile network providers have blocked WhatsApp and Facebook but Econet has blocked the whole internet from being accessible. TelOne is the government-owned fixed telephone service provider. They are the biggest providers of fixed internet to the home in Zimbabwe right now and therefore their block is quite significant. TechZim Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News The government of Zimbabwe has blocked access to WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter across all the mobile and fixed telecoms networks in the country. Several reports of tests by individuals show that they could not access WhatsApp and Facebook anymore since morning. Some networks like Econet, have reportedly blocked the entire internet. Pindula Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News MDC headquarters Morgan Tsvangirai House has been set on fire Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition(CiZC) has reported that they have received reports indicating that the that the MDC Party headquarters(Morgan Tsvangirai House) in Harare is on fire . Sources claim its an act of retribution by ZANU PF supporters. CiZC said in a statement. Our government source in Harare is however wondering how Zanu PF militants could have bombed the building right under the noses of riot police, CIOs and soldiers who are patrolling the capital. Our source who refused to be named suspects that authorities might have cast a blind eye in this incident. A number of MDC officials including their party spokesperson have also confirmed that their offices were bombed by elements linked to the ruling Zanu PF and state security forces. https://twitter.com/hwende/status/1084897306430849024 HARVEST HOUSE MDC HQ V11 of state sponsored arson and thuggery, the coup class! pic.twitter.com/wAeWnZcVfK Pedzisai Ruhanya (@PedzisaiRuhanya) January 14, 2019 MDC Youth Assembly Statement Zanu PF provoking a response from the people The MDC Youth Assembly has received news from our security personnel at Morgan Tsvangirai house that the party Headquarters was set on fire by armed individuals riding unmarked vehicles. This is not the first time that Zanu PF has deployed its militia to bring down our party building. Today, citizens and various civic groups demonstrated, angered by continued price hikes, particularly following the ridiculous announcement of new fuel prices by Mnangagwa, demanding action on his failed leadership. The MDC YA position is very clear, citizens have a right to demonstrate peacefully as enshrined in section 59 of the Zimbabwean constitution. We note with concern that the Mnangagwa government, whenever it is faced with citizens concerns it apportions blame on the MDC. As a social democratic party whose values are freedom, justice and solidarity, we will stand in solidarity with the people and we will not shy away from that revolutionary task bestowed on our shoulders. We however, want to warn Zanu PF youths that our silence does not mean weakness, neither does exercising restraint mean we cannot defend ourselves. Be warned! Do not provoke us! We remain unshaken, firm and resolute. Cde Leader Bvondo Hon. Happymore Chidziva MDC Youth Assembly Chairperson Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News The bathroom bill was unlikely to resurface in 2019. Nevertheless, we were pleased to see newly minted House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, give the idea of a bathroom bill 2.0 the big flush. I would be very discouraged if a distraction of that type derailed the opportunity of significant school finance reform or property tax reform, he said. Notice he said distraction of that type. He didnt simply single out the bathroom bill, which sought to dictate the bathrooms transgender people use and was as unnecessary as it was discriminatory. It put Texas in a bad light. It potentially would have led to an economic boycott. But because the bathroom bill was deemed a priority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott, it distracted lawmakers from dealing with real issues last legislative session. Instead of making headway on school finance, state lawmakers were arguing about policing potties. Patrick has previously said the bathroom bill fight is over, and Abbott said it was not a priority while campaigning for re-election last year. So, the bathroom bill was likely never coming back, even if certain groups still support it. But that doesnt preclude other potentially discriminatory or unnecessarily controversial legislation from rearing its ugly head this session. And thats why Bonnens broad choice of words is welcome. Distraction of that type is bigger than the bathroom bill. It means legislation that is inherently divisive, corrosive and unnecessary. Flush it all and focus on school finance, property taxes, criminal justice reforms and other real Texas issues. Its the right tone from the new House Speaker. Walls have been shown to be effective in California and El Paso, and the Israeli wall has stopped up to 99 percent of its illegal immigration. More than 76 countries now have walls or other types of barriers to reduce illegal immigration. The problem is that the California wall is a short length. If it were longer, itd stop more illegal immigration. A 131-mile fence bordering El Paso cut illegal immigration there by almost 90 percent. Many, including U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-San Antonio, believe that a physical wall/fence is ineffective, and illegal immigration can be controlled more effectively with high-tech devices like drones and sensors. While the high-tech approach may lead to the capture of most or even all the illegals, it doesnt solve the problem. Once illegals step foot onto U.S. soil, given the state of current legislation and court rulings, theyre here to stay. We cant hold them long enough to determine if they have justification to stay, and once released, a high percentage never show up for their immigration hearings. Then the American citizens/taxpayers get the bill for the welfare and other support that the illegals qualify for (e.g., multilingual schools and citizenship for their children born here.) We need a physical wall/fence every place where its probable that they can make it onto U.S. soil, and then use the high-tech equipment to catch the relatively few that can get in despite the physical obstacles. The argument that illegals break the law (other than by illegal entry) at a lower rate than our citizens isnt justification for allowing illegal immigration to continue if they werent here, wed at least have that much less crime, some of which is deadly. And stopping drug trafficking has to be very high on the priority list. Drug entry though the El Paso area was cut in half once the fence there was built. Remotely controlled sensors capable of detecting tunnels used by traffickers is becoming available and could shut down the majority of the drugs coming in when used with a wall/fence that would stop the relatively small amount brought in by drug mules. Walls/fences alone may not solve all the problem, but as Confucius said, Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without. Al Koppen lives in Fair Oaks Ranch. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the freshman congresswoman from New York, will be a featured speaker at this year's SXSW festival, Austin's annual extravaganza of music, film, culture and tech. The 29-year-old Democratic legislator -- known for her progressive policy ideas and fiery social media presence -- will be interviewed by Briahna Gray, a columnist and senior politics editor at The Intercept. The person that posted to Trump supporters on January 15th using all of those slurs and name-calling says more about him or herself than the president. When you have nothing else to say except name-calling, it just shows how in apt you are yourself. I can think of a name to call you but then I would be lowering myself to your level. 3 1 of 3 Bexar County Jail Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Kin Man Hui /Staff file photo Show More Show Less 3 of 3 A man being held on an immigration detainer at the Bexar County Jail was "inadvertently" released from custody Tuesday, according to the sheriff. Ricardo Mujica had been arrested on a state domestic violence charge, convicted and sentenced to four years of probation, but he was being held in the jail on the immigration detainer. A suspect turned himself in to San Antonio police Monday in connection with the fatal shooting of a 19-year-old man on the Northeast Side, authorities said. Devon Slaughter, 18, was arrested on suspicion of murder, jail records showed. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox Slaughter is accused of killing Hezekiah Williams, who was dropping two teen girls off in the 7800 block of Mesquite Farm on Jan. 5. The girls were exiting Williams' Toyota Avalon when shots began to ring out. Williams was shot in the head and crashed into another car, according to Slaughter's arrest affidavit. Officers recovered multiple shell casings from the scene and identified Slaughter as a suspect after interviewing witnesses, the affidavit says. The witnesses told police that they saw Slaughter shooting at Williams from the back seat of a car while another man was driving, according to the affidavit. The witnesses also provided a positive identification of Slaughter, police said. READ MORE: 19-year-old fatally shot in head while dropping girls off at NE side home is ID'd The affidavit does not detail the motive behind the shooting. Slaughter also faces a prior deadly conduct with a firearm charge, court records showed. His bail was set at $215,000, according to jail records. Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | fsabawi@mysa.com|@FaresInSA A six-month, multi-agency fraud investigation led to the arrest of 12 suspects in the San Antonio area during operation "Dirty Dozen," according to a news release. The Tri-County Fraud Task Force consisting of investigators from Bexar, Guadalupe and Comal counties discovered the ID theft ring when they began investigating reports of stolen mail and checks in the spring of 2018, officials said. The American Legion Hall on the Southeast Side is available to rent for family or class reunions, baby showers and other celebrations. American Legion Post 375 is at 9608 S. Presa St., and offers air and heat, a kitchen and ample parking in the back of building. For information, contact Richard Holloway, post commander, 210-260-7317. Mixed martial arts classes 6-8 p.m. Mondays, St. Michael Catholic Church hall, 418 Indiana St. Taught by Mike Ortiz, a mixed martial arts champion. Contact: 210-264-5291. Masonic Anchor Lodge 424 meets 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays, 700 Hot Wells Blvd. Bilingual Baby Time/La Hora del bebe bilingue 10:15-10:45 a.m. Wednesdays, Cortez Branch Library, 2803 Hunter Blvd. Rhythm, rhyme, and repetition of songs and stories. El ritmo, la rima y la repeticion de las canciones y los cuentos. For babies up to 18 months with their caregivers. Para bebes recien nacido hasta 18 meses con sus cuidadores. 12-step recovery group for compulsive overeaters Noon-1 p.m. Thursdays, Cresholme Presbyterian Church, 1602 Goliad Road (inside small building behind church). Free. Contact: 210-977-8379. City Base Cancer Support Group 7 p.m. Thursdays, Brookhill Baptist Church, 631 Utopia Lane. Contact: Brenda Fox, 210-415-2830. Cortez Chess Club 3:30-5:30 p.m. Fridays, Cortez Branch Library, 2803 Hunter Blvd. For beginners and experts. Chess sets provided, or bring your own. Free. Contact: 210-207-9130. Celebrate Recovery Fridays, Mayfield Park Church, 700 W. Hutchins Place. Free 12-step program for people struggling with hurts, hang-ups and habits. Meetings with meal 6:30 p.m. in Fellowship Hall. Large group time 7:15 p.m.; smaller groups 8:15 p.m. Child care available. Contact: 210-923-2241. Monthly Adult Computer Classes 6-7 p.m. second and fourth Tuesdays of month, Cortez Branch Library, 2803 Hunter Blvd. Classes cover computer and internet basics. Contact: 210-207-9130. Free clothes closet 9 a.m.-noon, first Saturday of month Brookhill Baptist Church, 631 Utopia Lane. Free clothing distributed. Contact: 210-333-4947. Trunk of Treasures 9 a.m.-2 p.m. first Saturday of month, St. Benedict Catholic Church, 4535 Lord Road. Cars with trunks open to sell garage-sale-type items line parking lot. $10 for parking slot to sell items; free admission to shop. Thursday, Jan. 17 Stroke Support Group meets the third Thursday of every month at Southwest General Hospital, Classroom A, 7400 Barlite Blvd. Meetings are 2-3 p.m. Light refreshments served. The new group aims to support stroke survivors, and their families and caregivers through educational sessions and interaction with other survivors and caregivers. Guest speakers will present sessions related to stroke recovery during each meeting. To learn more or RSVP, call 1-877-215-9355 or visit southwestgeneralhospital.org and select Events and Classes from the main menu. Saturday, Jan. 19 San Antonio Four presentation 1-3 p.m. Las Palmas Library, 515 Castroville Road. Anna Vasquez of the San Antonio Four will talk about her experience, and the film Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four will be screened. Reception follows. Free; open to the public. Contact: 210-207-9200. Upcoming St. Peter Prince of Apostles School will hold its open house Jan. 27 from 12:30-2:30 p.m. at 112 Marcia Place. The schools rigorous curriculum is for grades pre-K through eighth. The Learning Center serves children from 18 months to 3 years and offers full or part-time enrollment. For more information, contact the school office at 210-824-3171 or visit the school. MO Music concert featuring Louie Carrington and guest artist Carolyn Thompson returns by popular demand. The concert will be held Jan. 27 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Continental Cafe, 6390 Fairdale Drive. Tickets cost $35. To purchase tickets, call 210-648-5675 or 210-802-8502. Checks, money orders and cash accepted. Make payable to SA HT Alumni. Men in Mission Annual Sausage Dinner/Supper Jan. 30 Highland Park Lutheran Church, 705 Hammond Ave. Serving hours are 11 a.m.-1 p.m. and 4:30-7 p.m. Menu includes sausage, sauerkraut, green beans, potatoes and applesauce. Dessert and to-go plates available. Tickets cost $9 for adults; $5 for children younger than 10. Harlandale High School Class of 1969 plans its 50th reunion Oct. 19 at Embassy Suites, Brooks City Base. Organizers are updating their address books. Contact: Frank Garza, figarza@satx.rr.com, or Ann Franz (Fisher), cdcfranz@yahoo.com, with your information. Burbank High School Class of 1969 is planning its 50th class reunion for Oct. 19. Contact: Pearl (Reyes) Montez, 210-422-0761 (cell), or Helen (Martinez) Aguirre, 210-885-7302 (cell). Harlandale High School Class of 1970 will hold its 50th class reunion on Oct. 10, 2020 at the Hilton San Antonio Hill Country. Contact Robert Ramirez, 210-496-7687, or Jesus C. Vega at 210-428-0307 (jesuscvega@gmail.com.), or Yolanda Vasquez Vega at 210-383-0613. Compiled by Melissa Renteria Send details and a phone number to mrenteria@express-news.net. Deadline is 5 p.m. Thursday before publication. A 16-year-old who previously lived in San Antonio was killed after a car accident near Lubbock while on his way to the Alamo City to visit his ailing grandfather, according to an article in the Colorado Springs Gazette. The crash occurred at U.S. Highway 87, about five miles north of Lamesa, just after 7 a.m. on Jan. 6. Rudy Martinez, who was living in Colorado Springs, Colorado, was taken to Covenant Hospital in Lubbock where he was pronounced dead. The six others in the car, including the 16-year-old driver, were all taken to University Medical Center Hospital in Lubbock with incapacitating injuries, according to Department of public safety spokeswoman Elizabeth Carter. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox The department is continuing to investigate what caused the accident. The weather conditions were clear and the roads were dry, but the driver was the only person in the 2003 Nissan Pathfinder wearing a seat belt, authorities said. All of the passengers except one were minors. Two were 8 years old, one was 10, another was 11 and the only adult was 50. A GoFundMe was created the day after the crash to help cover the costs of Martinez's funeral. (Rudy) was always smiling running around making people laugh. He lived his life to the fullest, the GoFundMe reads. Before moving to Colorado Springs, Martinez spent his elementary and middle school years in Austin and San Antonio, according to his middle school friend Jenni Garcia. He loved playing video games and making jokes, Garcia said. When they were both in middle school, he once teased her about her cat costume on the bus on Halloween. When she got annoyed, he told her he'd join her, and she got to draw cat whiskers on his face using eyeliner. RELATED: 19-year-old fatally shot in head while dropping girls off at NE side home is ID'd "He was just so goofy, he was free-spirited," Garcia said. "You could tell him anything and he would give you advice and tell you want not to do and give you a good idea. He was like my brother that I never really had." Martinez was survived by both his parents, one brother, four sisters, two brothers-in-law, seven nephews, five nieces, grandparents and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins, according to his obituary. S. M. Chavey is a breaking news and general assignment writer. Read her on our breaking news site, mySA.com and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | sarah.chavey@express-news.net | @smchavey A Navasota ISD teacher is accused of having an improper relationship with a student, officials said. Jennifer Drushel worked at Navasota High School and is on administrative leave, according to the school district. Drushel became the target of Navasota ISD and Navasota Police Department investigators after allegations surfaced that she was providing alcohol to minors, according to the district. It is unclear if those minors were students. During that investigation, detectives discovered inappropriate messages between Drushel and a student at Navasota High School, officials said. She's accused of having an improper relationship with that student during at least one off-campus encounter, according to the district. Drushel turned herself into authorities after being charged. "Navasota ISD believes that the safety, care, and well-being of all of our students is our utmost priority and concern," the district said in a statement. "No matter the age of the student, a teacher or staff member, as an adult, is held to a higher standard of accountability by both the law and the Educator Code of Ethics." The results of an internal investigation will be delivered to the Texas Education Agency and State Board for Educator Certification. Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message Leonard Pike, a renowned Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientist who invented one of the nations most popular and sweetest onions, has died. He was 78. Pike, who died Saturday, was known for his 1015 onion as well as developing the Aggie maroon Beta Sweet carrot and multiple other vegetables. The supersweet onion has brought in around $350 million per year to Texas economy, and has been the official state vegetable since 1997, Texas Monthly reported in 2013. Dr. Pikes achievements are distinctive among the Texas vegetable industry and worldwide, Dr. Patrick Stover, vice chancellor and dean of agriculture and life sciences at Texas A&M, stated in the press release. His pioneering work in onions, carrots and a host of other vegetables benefitted not only Texas vegetable industry, but are enjoyed by consumers everywhere. We are deeply saddened by his passing, but his legendary mark on vegetable research continues. Pike received his B.S. in 1962, MS in 1964 from the University of Arkansas, and his Ph.D. in 1967 from Michigan State University. He joined Texas A&M University where he spent his career impacting the Texas onion, carrot and cucumber industries in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Soon after joining Texas A&M in 1967, Pike established a breeding program for cucumbers, carrots and onions. He bred cucumbers to grow at the same speed and grow stronger, so they could handle more pressure during the pickling process. In the 1970s, he took on the task producing onions more resilient to disease, which he achieved in the 1980s. My dad was a loving man and he taught me many valuable life lessons, Pikes son, Gary Pike, wrote on Facebook Saturday. His dedication to teaching and research continues beyond his time on this Earth as he has donated his body to science so that other Doctors can continue learning. A statement accompanying one of his many awards stated Pike received his B.S. in 1962, MS in 1964 from the University of Arkansas, and his Ph.D. in 1967 from Michigan State University. He joined Texas A&M University where he spent his career impacting the Texas onion, carrot and cucumber industries in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Pike retired from his post as a horticulture professor and vegetable breeder in 2006. In 2005, Bhimu Patil was hired as director of the Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center at Texas A&M University. My mentor, friend, great leader, visionary and true friend of #producers #LeonardPike, passed away at age of 78 on Jan. 12, 2019, Patil tweeted on Saturday. A date for a memorial service is to be determined. Google Maps No one was injured when several vehicles crashed with a Klein ISD school bus Monday afternoon in northwest Harris County. The bus was carrying about 30 students when it crashed in the 5800 block of Louetta Road, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Defense attorney Jackie Bennett Jr. said an attorney who once represented a witness in the case alleged that the FBI agent demanded attorney-client privileged material and even screamed at the attorney for not providing the records. Bennett said the attorney also alleged that the agent had been disciplined and transferred to another office because of his reported conduct. Prime Minister Morrisons First Visit to the South Pacific: Fiji Is it Advisable at this Time? You've heard of Westworld? Welcome to Weedworld. Planet 13 is a sprawling 40,000 square-foot weed complex in Las Vegas, minutes away from the famed Strip. It's the largest dispensary in the world with 50-plus retail vendors, 70-plus cannabis strains and 42 registers. The superstore, which opened last November, serves 1,430 customers per day. The store got its celestial name because of its massive size and because the letter M (for "marijuana") is the 13th letter in the alphabet. Far out, man. During a recent visit to Vegas, I was given a tour of Planet 13 by David Farris, the Director of Marketing. Farris is only 24 but has been given a ton of responsibility. "I've been lucky enough to develop and design all of our branding for the company, which is awesome. Whether it's designing the Planet 13 logo to designing the brands within our packaging," he says. Related: How MedMen Became the Starbucks of Pot Redefining normal Our tour begins at the front entrance, which boasts an LCD floor that moves around when you step on it. The images change, but during my visit, I walked on a Japanese-style koi pond that made little water ripples under my feet. This was pretty cool but I wondered what the experience would be like if I was high. "Whoa, dude. These giant fish are, like, freaking me out." Inside the dispensary itself, a laser shoots 3-D images onto the ceiling as techno music throbs. The experience is more akin to walking into one of Vegas's cavernous nightclubs than a pot shop, but that's sort of the point, says Farris. "We're looking to redefine what's normal. We're not necessarily building a 7-Eleven where you go in and do a quick transaction and you leave right away. We want you to hang out, enjoy, spend some time here." As he says this, glowing orbs float over our heads pulsating in different colors to the rhythm. He explains the aerial orb show was imported from Germany, which somehow doesn't surprise me. This, along with the 15-foot tall acrylic lotus flowers on the roof and an interactive wall in which customers can us laser-tipped spray paint cans to write messages at night, is all part of the Planet 13 "experience." Related: 5 Things You Need to Know Before Opening a Dispensary Catering to tourists Harris says one of the goals of Planet 13 is to be a tourist destination, like, say, the Bellagio Fountain Show or The Thunder from Down Under male revue. Like most of Las Vegas, Planet 13 is open 24/7. "More people that you would think love shopping for cannabis in the late hours," he says. With its wood-paneled dispensary cases and sleek design, the aesthetic seems more targeted at the housewives staying at the Wynn than those staying at the Desert Hills Motel on Fremont Street. There is also a sensory station in the center of the store, where customers can smell the terpenes, educate themselves on the product, and ask the budtenders questions. Sort of Genius Bar for the ganja set. Planet 13 recently introduced their own brand Trendi that caters to the out-of-town crowd. The most popular product in their line is a disposable vape pen. "Everybody's looking for the grab-and-go item," Harris says, "especially in Las Vegas. It's all about what can I use on the go because I can't take it on a plane." Unfortunately, tourists aren't legally allowed to take it back to their hotels either without fear of getting ticketed or arrested. Las Vegas law prohibits public consumption of cannabis anywhere but in private residences. Planet 13 hopes to alleviate this problem by expanding their 112,000 square feet of property into a coffee shop, restaurant, and consumption lounge, but there is still some work to do on changing Vegas's laws. In the meantime, the orbs will continue to throb every half hour and tourists from all over the world will stream into the doors, looking to buy anything from glass pipes to grinders, pre-rolls to vape pens and everything in between. Related: 5 Steps for Dispensary Owners Thinking of Partnering With a Franchisor or Licensor Related: Copyright 2019 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved ANDREW BUCKLEY The Humble Police Department is getting ready to start their annual Citizens Police Academy for residents in the Lake Houston area eager to learn about the different aspects of law enforcement. The free 12-week course will start on Feb. 21 at the Humble Police Department location on 310 Bender Ave. Residents living in Humble, Atascocita, Kingwood and Spring are welcome to sign up. I would like to thank Jeff for all of his hard work and commitment to the sheriffs office as my chief. I have no doubt that will continue with his new assignment to the detective bureau, Reynolds said in the release. The smoke in the San Antonio barbecue scene is about to heat up with an acclaimed Houston joint expanding here. Pinkertons Barbecue will open a second location downtown. According to Weston Urban CEO Randy Smith, it will be part of a 1.2-acre park being developed by the company at the northeast corner of Houston and Flores streets, across from the new Frost Tower. On Tuesday, Pinkertons posted on Twitter: Hey Texas, lets do this! Pinkertons Barbecue opening in Downtown San Antonio. We are SO excited about this unique opportunity and new challenge. Lets spread the BBQ love! Nine weeks ago, Fat Tummy Empanadas excitedly announced Guy Fieri had visited and planned to feature the tiny San Antonio eatery on "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives." On Sunday, the restaurant took to Facebook to ask for patience from customers amid its sudden uptick in business. We were very lucky that a very popular food network celebrity, Guy Fieri chose our empanadas to be featured in his famous show. We did our best to be prepared for such an increase of business, the restaurant posted to Facebook Sunday. But we dont have the means to grow in a heartbeat. The mom-and-pop business has both a brick-and-mortar location at 2922 West Commerce Street and a food truck, which is primarily used for events and catering. The eatery serves a variety of Argentinian-style menu items, but it's best known for its empanadas. RELATED: San Antonio's 2M Smokehouse offering free pulled pork tacos to employees furloughed by the government shutdown The crust of the family recipe consists of flour, water, salt, milk, butter and eggs, the owner said on Food Network. The savory filling includes oil, onion, green and red bell peppers, several different seasonings, corn, parmesan cheese and mozzarella. Fat Tummy Empanadas offers several different flavors, all of them large and many of them cheesy. "The filling is fantastic, like a commercial," Fieri said in the show. Fieri helped the small business achieve one of its goals: to make its product known. Now, the company is relying on the patience of its customers to further its growth and success. It recently hired staff and is working to train the new employees, the Facebook post said, and in the meantime, management asked customers to understand if the food takes a bit longer to prepare. The quality, however, will never be compromised, Fat Tummy Empanadas added. "Our small restaurant is growing and even though we would love that each one of you is served fast and efficiently, we still have many things to brush up," the post said. "We are giving our (heart) to this dream so rest assured that we are going to try our best to achieve another goal: to provide the best dining experience ever." RELATED: S.A. burger place apologizes, pledges to add staff after being inundated following national ranking In June, another local eatery posted a similar message after Money Magazine named its burgers fourth best in the country. Papa's Burgers seats only 41 customers, so the national attention was more than it could immediately handle. "In an effort to keep up with the overwhelming response, we were short staffed, we didn't spend time getting to know each of those that came for the first time and we weren't as neat and tidy as we are known for based on our health department scores," Owner Robert Walker posted on Facebook at the time. "I want everyone to know that who we are isn't who we were this week." His apology was a hit, once again bringing in droves of customers. He is now in the process of opening a second location. S. M. Chavey is a breaking news and general assignment writer. Read her on our breaking news site, mySA.com and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | sarah.chavey@express-news.net | @smchavey The government shutdown is a bitter situation for furloughed employees. San Antonios Bakery Lorraine is looking to sweeten their outlook. Starting Jan. 15 and going until the shutdown ends, the bakerys giving away a free brewed coffee and a free breakfast pastry to furloughed employees who present a government ID. Grameen America, a nonprofit that issues small loans to low-income women entrepreneurs, has opened a Houston location. Located at 6260 Westpark Drive, the organization will provide these entrepreneurs with microloans, training and support to help them rebuild after Hurricane Harvey. According to a Grameen news release, more than 20 percent of Houston residents live below the federal poverty line. Of those, 56 percent are single mothers with children, and the majority are people of color. RELATED: SBA in Houston guaranteed $1.1B in loans to small businesses in FY18 "Women are keen to start their own businesses and take control over their lives and livelihoods," Andrea Jung, president and CEO of Grameen America, said in the news release. "With a little capital, they can succeed." Grameen America was founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, who established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983 believing credit a fundamental human right. Replicas of the Grameen Bank model now operate in more than 100 countries. The Houston branch marks Grameen America's 21st branch in the U.S. and its 14th city. Grameen America expects to serve 500 women and invest over $1 million during its first year in Houston. In five years, the organization aims to assist 5,000 low-income women and invest more than $38 million. WASHINGTON - The Trump administration on Tuesday said it has called back tens of thousands of federal workers to fulfill key government tasks, including disbursing tax refunds, overseeing flight safety and inspecting the nation's food and drug supply, as it seeks to blunt the impact of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The nearly 50,000 furloughed federal employees are being brought back to work without pay - part of a group of about 800,000 federal workers who are not receiving paychecks during the shutdown, which is affecting dozens of federal agencies large and small. A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a bid by unions representing air traffic controllers and other federal workers to force the government to pay them if they are required to work. The efforts by the Trump administration to keep the government operating during the partial shutdown came as the White House and Congress made no progress toward resolving their underlying dispute. President Donald Trump extended an unusual lunch invitation to a handful of rank-and-file House Democrats in an attempt to woo them and create a divide within the Democratic camp over the shutdown. But the lawmakers rebuffed the outreach as Democratic leaders voiced concerns the meeting would prove little more than a photo opportunity bolstering Trump. With Democrats in the House pushing forward with bills to reopen the government, Trump seesawing from one strategy to another to win funding for his border wall and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., largely sitting out the battle, there appeared to be no path toward opening the government as the partial shutdown ground through its 25th day. The differing developments left a discordant image of Washington. As political leaders were paralyzed over a way to end the impasse, the federal government itself was looking for ways to show flexibility in determining who can and cannot work. The president struck a defiant tone in a call Tuesday afternoon with supporters, according to audio of the call obtained by The Washington Post, urging them to call Democrats and voice support for the border wall and pledging, "We're going to win." "They're not being paid right now because of the Democrats," Trump said of the federal workforce. "People are impressed with how well government is working with the circumstances we're under," the president added. But lawmakers from both parties were getting increasingly anxious for the shutdown to be over, even as an endgame looked as remote as ever. The contours of the standoff have not changed since the shutdown began Dec. 22, with Trump repeating his demands for $5.7 billion to build more than 200 new miles of walls along the U.S.-Mexico border and Democrats refusing to budge from offering $1.3 billion to extend existing funding levels for border barriers and fencing. Democrats are calling on Trump to reopen the portions of the government that have nothing to do with the wall before they negotiate with him on that issue. Trump has refused, but increasing numbers of Republicans have been issuing calls for Trump to reopen the government, even if just on a short-term basis as negotiations continue. On Tuesday afternoon, members of a bipartisan Senate group that had met Monday evening gathered on the Senate floor and decided their best step forward was to release a letter to Trump and leadership detailing, in broad strokes, support for reopening the government and providing a boost in funding for border security while negotiations continue, according to a person familiar with the deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said, "I'm confident we're never going to get a deal with the government shut down, but if we had an opportunity to negotiate without the government shut down I think it'd fall pretty quickly in place." Trump on Monday rebuffed that proposal from Graham, but the senator indicated Tuesday he was not prepared to abandon the idea yet. "Stay tuned," Graham said. Others were less sanguine. "I'm an optimistic person, I'm not seeing the blue sky here as yet," said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. "There's obviously going to be a pressure point at which it's no longer sustainable, but at this point it doesn't look like anybody's blinking." The depth of the impasse was underscored Tuesday when a small group of rank-and-file House Democrats, including centrist-leaning freshmen and sophomores, turned down an offer to join Trump and House Republicans at a White House lunch to discuss the issue. Invited lawmakers included Reps. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., J. Luis Correa, D-Calif., both leaders of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition; Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., a freshman lawmaker who is also a Blue Dog member; and another group member, Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla. Crist and Murphy both cited previous obligations as their reasons for snubbing the president's invite. But all the lawmakers had faced widespread opposition from fellow Democrats, including party leaders, toward attending an event where some feared they could turn into props for Trump. "The question that I think everyone can reasonably ask is, is he inviting people to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to really try to resolve this problem or to create a photo op so he can project a false sense of bipartisanship?" said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who chairs the House Democratic Caucus. "That is a question that I think every individual member will have to entertain for themselves." White House press secretary Sarah Sanders called the Democrats' decision unfortunate and said, "It's time for the Democrats to come to the table and make a deal." Trump's GOP allies in Congress criticized Democrats for the Tuesday snub. "In case you needed MORE proof that Democrats are more interested in stopping the President than helping the country," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote on Twitter. "They rejected President Trump's invitation to meet at the White House. They refuse to come to a compromise to secure the border and end the shutdown." The White House's strategy for weeks has been to splinter the Democrats, but that has failed repeatedly as Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has aligned himself closely with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The newest iteration of this approach for the White House has been to try to pry loose rank-and-file members from Schumer and Pelosi's side, but that appeared to be unsuccessful as of Tuesday. It was a test for both Democratic leaders and also freshman Democrats, many of whom had sent mixed signals about abiding leadership during their campaigns. As Tuesday's meeting collapsed, the White House sought to organize a meeting with a different group of House Democrats for Wednesday, sending out an invitation to bipartisan members of the Problem Solvers Caucus, according to two Democrats familiar with the invitation. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential communications. At least one invited lawmaker, Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., quickly rejected the invitation for Wednesday, leaving it uncertain whether that meeting would take place, either. "I'm not interested in a photo op while Americans are hurting from the longest shutdown in our nation's history," Peters said in a statement. The House, newly under Democratic control, has passed spending bills to reopen portions of the government unrelated to the border wall, and this week the House is taking up short-term spending bills to reopen the government into various points in February. But Trump has refused to support the House Democrats' legislation, and McConnell has said repeatedly that he will not put any legislation on the Senate floor without Trump's support. Asked whether the Senate might potentially try to override a Trump veto to end the shutdown, McConnell on Tuesday replied "Of course not," saying that he and other Republicans supported the policy goals the president was seeking to achieve. Freshman House Democrats sought to increase pressure on McConnell with a staged visit to his office in the Capitol to try to meet with him. They were turned away by staffers who told them McConnell was busy on the Senate floor but said they left a note asking him to get in touch for a meeting at another time. "We're here to remind Mitch McConnell that he works for the people, not for this administration, and he needs to make sure to free the American people from the current hostage that they're being held by this administration," said Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. Earlier, Pelosi began a closed-door meeting of the House Democratic Caucus by reading results of the latest Quinnipiac University poll, showing voters blame Trump more than Democrats for the shutdown, according to an aide in the room who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private gathering. The aide said Pelosi went on to tell her caucus: "We want to talk about our values in terms of immigration and how that's always been bipartisan, including George Herbert Walker Bush, Ronald Reagan and the rest. Not to go into that, but to just say that I understand you all want to know what's the next step, but just the message of 'Open up government so we can have this discussion' is a very important message." The House and Senate canceled recesses that had been scheduled for next week, with leaders saying they would stay in town to work through the shutdown. The shutdown has begun seriously complicating the government's ability to perform duties millions of Americans depend on, leading to decisions by the administration aimed at lessening such impacts. The Internal Revenue Service plans to end furloughs for more than half of its workforce to prepare for tax-filing season, union officials said, meaning as many as 46,000 IRS employees could be forced to go to work with no pay while the shutdown continues. Up to 2,200 aviation safety inspectors with the Federal Aviation Administration are expected to be recalled by the end of the week, and 500 Food and Drug Administration workers have been recalled to work and will be unpaid until the shutdown ends, among others. That has led to lawsuits from federal workers' unions arguing that unpaid work violates labor laws and the Constitution. But a federal judge in Washington on Tuesday refused to force the government to pay federal employees who have been working without compensation during the partial government shutdown. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said it would be "profoundly irresponsible" for him to issue an order that would result in thousands of federal employees staying home from work and not doing their jobs. "At best it would create chaos and confusion," Leon said. "At worst it could be catastrophic. . . . I'm not going to put people's lives at risk." Molly A. Elkin, an attorney representing the air traffic controllers union, had implored the judge to tell the government and the president to "get their hands out of the pockets of the air traffic controllers." "We need you, judge, to give this workforce hope that at least one branch of the American government has their back," Elkin said. Workers showed up to the hearing wearing red pins demanding "Back Pay Now" and blue stickers with the message "RESPECT." They were asked to remove those accessories before entering the courtroom. Other shutdown impacts still threatened. White House officials warned earlier this month that the nation's food stamp program was at risk of running out of funding in March if the shutdown is not resolved. And White House officials were continuing to be caught unprepared for major problems with how the shutdown is unfolding. For example, the initial notification they gave 800,000 federal employees that they would not be paid was set to expire Monday, and all of those employees must be notified again. But agency officials do not know how to notify all the employees, some of whom are working in outposts around the globe. They cannot email these workers - the employees are not allowed to check their work email during a shutdown. The White House Office of Management and Budget held a conference call with a number of agencies Tuesday to discuss how to proceed but could not come up with a solution. One idea was to send a certified letter to all 800,000 employees, but because of the shutdown, the agencies lack the money to pay for the postage. The departments and agencies affected by the shutdown make up about a quarter of the parts of the federal government that are funded by Congress. The Pentagon is mostly unaffected, since a spending bill for the military was passed by Congress and signed by Trump in 2018. Congress and the president also passed legislation to fund the Labor Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and others before Trump's demands for wall money ground negotiations on other spending bills to a halt. Programs such as Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid also are unaffected, because their budgets proceed automatically, without the need for annual congressional appropriations. Special counsel Robert Mueller III's Russia investigation also is unaffected; it is paid for by a permanent, dedicated funding stream. - - - The Washington Post's Jeff Stein, Josh Dawsey, Robert Costa, Paul Kane, Mike DeBonis, Damian Paletta and Jenna Portnoy contributed to this report. --- Video Embed Code Video: As the longest government shutdown in history continues, President Trump's options for reopening the government are becoming limited. Here are a few paths he could take.(Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post) Embed code: Airbnb hosts in the greater San Antonio region housed about 420,000 guests in 2018, according to a report released by the California-based company Thursday. Nearly two-thirds of those were in Bexar County, where hosts raked in a combined $27.6 million, or an average of $105 per guest. Gillespie and Comal counties also hosted more than 50,000 guests each. Airbnb determined the region based on media and TV markets, according to the report. Uvalde Airbnbs were the priciest a whopping $218 per guest on average. In comparison, Bandera and Medina hosts only charged $98 and $96 respectively per guest. RELATED: How a San Antonio cat was taken by an Airbnb guest and then returned to his owner Statewide, more than 30,000 Texas residents open their homes to Airbnb guests. In San Antonio, that typically equates to about $8,800 in additional income, the report said. The short-term housing rental company said its continued growth in the Alamo City accompanies gains in the San Antonio hotel industry. "This suggests that Airbnb is opening up the region to a new slice of prospective tourists by catering to travelers less able to afford hotels, those who desire to stay in neighborhoods or cities that lack hotels, and families who prefer to be together under one roof," the report said. This year's report comes just months after the City of San Antonio passed regulations regarding companies like Airbnb and HomeAway. The new legislation, pushed through in November, requires owners to register with the city and limits the density of short-term rentals that are operated remotely. Airbnb and HomeAway both supported the rules, holding them up as a possible template for other Texas cities, according to previous Express-News reporting. Click through the slideshow to see some of the most popular Airbnbs in San Antonio. S. M. Chavey is a breaking news and general assignment writer. Read her on our breaking news site, mySA.com and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | sarah.chavey@express-news.net | @smchavey The Indiana Secretary of States Office also has reached out to a couple of other entities about the election, Bailey said, but she doesnt know more about that yet. In the wake of the problems with the elections, officials called for the Indiana State Police and the FBI to consider looking into the election. The audit comes after Porter Countys general election in November, in which preliminary results came in three days late after 12 polls remained stayed late because they didnt open on time, and almost 19,000 absentee and early-cast ballots were never delivered to precincts for counting because they hadnt been sorted, among other woes. Microphone and US Flag View Photos During the Democratic Weekly Address, Representative Scott Peters (D-CA) stated that President Trump has created a humanitarian crisis at the border and that the wall is never going to get built. Peters was Tuesdays KVML Newsmaker of the Day. Here are his words: Hi, Im Scott Peters and I represent San Diego, California in the United States Congress. When I first came to Congress in 2013, I asked the president of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce in San Diego who also happens to be the citys Republican former Mayor and Police Chief whats the number one thing the federal government could do to promote job growth in our region. He said we needed to make a federal investment in critical infrastructure at our border with Mexico. But this former Police Chief wasnt asking for a wall. He was asking for a gateway a bridge, and improved customs facilities at the San Ysidro Port of Entry because long delays at the vehicle crossing were costing our region billions of dollars in economic activity and 60,000 jobs per year. Working together, San Diegos Congressional delegation, Republicans and Democrats, secured the additional $442-million in federal investment to modernize the San Ysidro Port of Entry. It is the busiest land border crossing in the Western Hemisphere, where commercial trade between San Diego and Tijuana is valued at $2.1 million per day. Our nations investments in Ports of Entry support a thriving international economy. They also provide critical border security. Customs agents inspect, weigh and x-ray vehicles and bags. They make sure travelers have proper identification and valid visas that they are properly vetted and screened before entering the United States. 215,000 tons of hard drugs were intercepted at ports of entry from 2012 to 2016. Agents at our ports everyday arrest criminals, seize narcotics and guns and deny admission to people they identify as a threat to national security. Thats what real border security looks like, and I can tell you that San Diegans want that border security. But we do not want a wall. In the last Congress, my colleagues Pete Aguilar of California, a Democrat, and Will Hurd of Texas, a Republican, proposed legislation with wide bipartisan support that included border security measures we could all agree on. It would have directed Homeland Security to perform a mile-by-mile assessment of our entire southern border to determine the most practical and effective way to secure it, and to offer Congress a strategy for each section of the border. It might be state-of-the-art technologies to detect tunnels, because even in places where we have a fence, as we do in San Diego, its easy to dig tunnels underneath. It might be sensors and radar to spot moving people and objects in any weather or time of day. It might be cameras mounted on drones to surveil places where the terrain is tough to monitor. Or, it might be, a physical barrier, such as a levee or fence if that makes sense in some places. But if Homeland Security wanted to recommend something as expensive as a wall in a particular place, theyd have to justify the extra expense against other less costly tools. In the last Congress, 193 Congressional Democrats and 23 Republicans acted to force a vote on these smart approaches to border security. But unfortunately, Republican leadership did not allow a vote on our bipartisan bill, but I bet most Democrats would support these measures in this Congress this year. So, when President Trump says Democrats are against border security and for open borders, hes lying. We do not support a multi-billion dollar wall that will destroy sensitive lands, take private property, and can be tunneled under, climbed over or cut through, all while illegal border crossings have steadily declined over the past two decades. No. Thats not border security. Thats borderline crazy. The one truth the President did state is that there is a crisis at the border. There is a humanitarian crisis created by him. Its a crisis when the President threatens to shut down the nations legal immigration and asylum process over a border wall that is really just a campaign gimmick. It a crisis when the President spends 72 million of your tax dollars to send our military to the border to confront a threat that didnt exist, like he did in November, as a political stunt to rally the base. Its a crisis when this Administration is allowing women and children babies to be dumped on American streets in the middle of the night with nothing more than the clothes on their back, without food, money, health screenings, or plans to get them to their destinations. And there is a crisis, when a government shutdown means that 800,000 federal workers are denied a paycheck this week, and now cant pay their mortgage or rent, student loans, or medical expenses, hurting their credit rating because our President wont budge on his impossible wall. And by the way, this shutdown includes the Coast Guard, which is a cornerstone of our border security. How stupid is that? Mr. President, Senator McConnell Democrats have laid out for you several border security measures we can all get behind. Lets re-open the government and talk about these ideas and quit holding the paychecks of 800,000 federal workers hostage to a wall that is never going to get built. The Newsmaker of the Day is heard every weekday morning at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45 on AM 1450 and FM 102.7 KVML. While the students would ultimately be transported by bus to a reunification center where they would meet up with parents or legal guardians, the EMA building would serve as a temporary way station until that happened, Bella said, adding they could walk across a nearby field to the building, which also is on Ind. 2. We have a lot of issues facing us right now, McDermott said. If you are signing up for another four years be ready for the next four years. It is going to be rough. If you have ideas about cutting government, Im all ears. But if we dont cut, dont complain to me in July when you see the numbers. Resource the technical universities to do ... The superintendent said he was concerned that Jeremy Seabolt was carrying a firearm on school property and is concerned for the students and staff and administration members of the school corporation and the River Forest High School as a result of this incident, according to the affidavit. Jacksonville Police ARRESTS, CITATIONS Eric J. Davis, 30, homeless, was booked into the Morgan County jail at 12:36 a.m. Sunday on a disorderly conduct charge. Mondre J. White, 29, of 809 Prairie St. was booked into the Morgan County jail at 12:06 p.m. Sunday on a domestic battery charge. Sonya D. Holmes, 44, of 201 E. Carey Lane, Ashland, was booked into the Morgan County jail at 2:05 p.m. Monday on charges of driving while license is revoked or suspended, operating a vehicle with suspended registration and operating an uninsured motor vehicle. Shannan D. Miller, 42, of 605 Locust St. was booked into the Morgan County jail at 6:58 p.m. Monday on a charge of criminal trespass to land. ACCIDENTS Christopher S. M. Allen, 22, of Franklin was cited on a charge of driving too fast for conditions after police say he turned north on South Diamond Street from West Morton Avenue and the vehicle he was driving struck a pole about 7:56 p.m. Saturday. South Jacksonville Police ARRESTS, CITATIONS Jesse J. L. Commer, 36, of 15 E. Sherwood Eddy Drive was booked into the Morgan County jail at 9:35 p.m. Sunday on charges of driving while license is revoked or suspended and illegal possession/transportation of liquor. Erika M. Brown, 29, of 1708 S. Main St. was booked into the Morgan County jail at 9:43 a.m. Monday on charges of domestic battery and disorderly conduct. Brown County Sheriff ARRESTS, CITATIONS Harold K. Root III, 48, of Timewell was arrested at 1:53 a.m. Sunday on a domestic battery charge after an incident in the 100 block of East Main Cross Street in Timewell. Pike County Sheriff ARRESTS, CITATIONS Sarah L. Holman, 38, of Ashburn, Missouri, was arrested at 12:25 a.m. Jan. 8 on a charge of driving while license is revoked or suspended and on an Adams County contempt of court warrant. Crystal L. Crawford, 34, of Griggsville was arrested at 4:33 p.m. Jan. 8 on a felony contempt of court charge. Lakisha L. Robbins, 39, of Barry was arrested at 4:33 p.m. Jan. 8 on a felony contempt of court charge. John J. Bridgewater, 34, of Pittsfield was arrested at 8:12 p.m. Jan. 7 on charges of possession of a controlled substance and driving while license is revoked or suspended, a Pike County warrant accusing him of failing to appear in court and a petition to revoke probation. Correction Because of incorrect information provided to the Journal-Courier, Cary M. Lovekamp, 40, of 203 Capps Road, Murrayville, was reported as being arrested Friday on a retail theft charge. The charge was from one year ago. Compiled by Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree, Nick Draper, David C.L. Bauer I got a lot of complaints that she wasnt effective, Buggs said of Housing. Dr. Morikis has been actively assessing some of the issues we tried to tell the former emergency manager about and she wouldnt listen. Facebook on Friday announced that it may allow former President Donald Trumps Facebook and Instagram accounts to be reinstated in January 2023. At that time, the social media company will re-evaluate whether the risk to public safety of allowing Trump back onto its services has receded. This two-year suspension will prevent Trump from using Facebook or Instagram to broadcast to his followers until after the 2022 U.S. midterm elections. Do you think tech giants like Facebook are using their power to censor political speech and manipulate U.S. politics? Choices are: You voted: Discuss this article with your neighbors or join the community conversation. Click here to get access I have 32 years with the FBI. This is very unusual, then-East Chicago Police Chief Mark Becker said at the time. The robbery, first of all, was armed and then to have shots fired makes it elevated. But to stop the vehicle and get out like you want to engage the police, that is very brazen, very unusual. I have never heard of that in my 32 years. CHESTERTOWN The vote happened so quickly and quietly March 19, that the county attorney felt the need to clarify for the record that the Ken We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Contact us We'll keep you connected to all the updated local news and information about what's happening in Murfreesboro and Rutherford County! Click Here to Subscribe! ODESSA -- Three Ector County deputies were treated and released from Medical Center Hospital early Tuesday after being shot Monday night while serving a narcotics search warrant in North Odessa, Ector County Sheriff Mike Griffis said during a Facebook Live press conference. The deputies were identified as Josh Pool, Special Investigative Unit; Cody Smith, CID Investigator; and Ricky Rodriguez, reserve officer. The shooting occurred at about 9:30 p.m. at the 7300 block of Kentucky Avenue after officers entered the residence. The suspect opened fire, striking two of the deputies in the leg and grazing one in the lip, according to an ECSO Facebook post. ODESSA CRIME: Driver allegedly tries to run over OPD officers The ECSO confirmed that the gunman was killed during the incident and a second person is being held at Ector County jail on a charge of failure to identify. K-9 units were deployed Monday in efforts to search for a possible third suspect, but there is not third suspect, according to ECSO. The names of the person who was killed and the person in custody are being withheld at this time. The Texas Rangers are investigating the incident. HAHIRA [mdash] Michael Brandon Lodge, 35 of Moultrie passed away Saturday, June 12, 2021 at his residence. Mr. Lodge was born June 3, 1986 in Albany, Ga. Survivors include his parents, Gary and Carolyn Lodge of Moultrie; brother, Jonathan (Shayla) Lodge of Richmond Hill; and one niece, Rylei Real estate brokerage firm Redfin announced plans to launch a national Canadian real estate search site and brokerage service in Toronto and Vancouver by March. In its first expansion outside the United States, Redfin plans to launch mobile apps and a Canadian version of its industry-leading website, allowing consumers to search for homes for sale across most of Canada. "Our goal is to make buying and selling Canadian homes more affordable, with Redfin agents who always put customers first," said Glenn Kelman, CEO at Redfin. "We believe Canadians will love our local full-service agents, low fees and on-demand home showings. Our website and mobile apps will show all the homes for sale via the local Multiple Listing Services used by brokerages. And Redfin will show sale prices for Toronto and Vancouver homes that for years had been unavailable to consumers." Blair Anderson, a Toronto native with more than a decade of experience in real estate, will lead Redfin's operations in the greater Toronto area. "I was attracted to Redfin's mission to redefine real estate in the consumer's favor and have experienced firsthand that it isn't just a nice sound bite, it's truly a mindset that is woven into the fabric of who we are as a company," said Anderson. "I'm proud to introduce Redfin to Canada. Canadian consumers are discerning and tech-savvy and I believe they will be blown away by Redfin's unmatched combination of agent service, technology and value. Not only will we provide full real estate services for a lower fee, the Redfin model rewards customer service, so our agents are accountable to deliver the best outcome for their clients." Family-sized condo units in Toronto have shrunk in the last 12 months, and according to one developer the reason is because of the B-20 mortgage stress test. Room count begins to really control the end price, said Plaza Corp.s Senior Vice President Scott McLellan. But the size is not where it was two years ago because the stress test has made us come up with smaller product to make it more affordable, and if we didnt do that there simply wouldnt be buyers for that product. Family-sized units are designed with at least two-bedrooms and usually have an accompanying den, but up until last January they were larger. In fact, cramming three bedrooms into 850 square feet is becoming common practice in new builds. Young families are a powerful force in the market, as recognized by developers and architects who deftly design units that can accommodate them at a lower price. McLellan notes that their target for an 850 square foot unit is $700,000. Your living space will get smaller but it will help with the affordability factor, he said. The mortgage stress test now makes it much more difficult for younger couples once you get into that two- and three-bedroom unit over $850,000. A thousand square feet around Midtown Toronto is somewhat out of reach for young couples, so the trick for developers is to have the same room counts with small units so that you have a more affordable end price. In the past year, Daniel Johanis, a mortgage broker with Rock Capital Investments, has seen more preconstruction units advertised to families than he has in the past, although they arent necessarily as large as they once were. The supply of family-sized units is definitely going up and developers are dedicating more of the floor space on the plans to them, but something we would have considered a one-plus den five years ago is being marketed as a two-bedroom these days. Ive seen some floorplans with walk-in closets, and you question how its possible because we even see smaller family rooms. That could explain why todays condo amenities are unlike anything from years past. Developers could be compensating for dwindling square footage with enticements elsewhere in the building. Some buildings have cinemas, sky loungesand, of course, daycaresand so many other types of common areas you didnt see a decade ago, said Johanis. Part of that is because you might not have the best floor plan, as far as space goes, but if you have other amenities that you can use at your disposal, it makes it easier to cram a larger family into a smaller unit. Burr Ridge has made progress on meeting the requirements, but still falls short. It updated an affordable housing plan in 2014, when 82 of the 3,803 housing units in Burr Ridge, or 2.2 percent, qualified as affordable. In the five years since then, its housing stock has grown to 4,338 units, of which 144 meet the states definition of affordable, for a 3.3 percent share. Id say the majority of complaints I ever receive from my constituents really relates to the appearance of the city. So, any ordinance that we look at that would improve the appearance of the city, I would be in favor of." Lorain Councilman-at-Large Mitch Fallis Pull Quote A Lorain educator is recovering from a heart attack thanks to the quick efforts of three colleagues who saved her life at Longfellow Middle School. Lorain Monstars Recreational Flag Football team will be making a first appearance Jan. 18-20 at the Battle Orlando National Championship in Or It needs to be something they can redo make it artsy, folksy, or whatever their flair is, Black said. Theres an agreement that they will fill out, and theres no cost to the flipper. Theyre responsible for all of the supplies used to make the new project, and the transportation to get the item from the ReStore, take it home or wherever they want to work on it, and then deliver it back to CoMMA. Jones and Black wanted the fundraiser to be held at a neutral location to reiterate the idea that the project was a team effort. They approached Dr. Jim Smith, executive director of CoMMA, who agreed to host the event, which will take place from 5-8 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 31. CoMMA staff was anxious to jump right in and participate, and CoMMA is just the perfect venue, Jones said. Flipped items must be dropped off at CoMMA from noon to 4 p.m. on either Monday, Jan 28 or Tuesday, Jan. 29. You dont have to be an artist, Black said. You just have to be willing to pick the item up, do something to it and then deliver it back before the day of the event. If this is something you just want to start trying, or if you have an idea, come. Well be so excited that youre participating. All you need is a little imagination. January 15, 2019 Putin Asks And Trump Delivers - A List Of All The Good Things Trump Did For Russia Slate's Fred Kaplan writes: The Washington Posts Greg Miller reported Sunday that President Donald Trumps confiscation of the translators notes from a one-on-one conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2017 was unusual. This is incorrect. It was unprecedented. There is nothing like it in the annals of presidential history. Not really. Other U.S. leaders held long private meetings with their counterparts without notes being taken. When Richard Nixon met Leonid Brezhnev he did not even bring his own interpreter: George Szamuely @GeorgeSzamuely - 20:57 utc - 14 Jan 2019 Nixon would meet Brezhnev alone, the only other person in attendance being Viktor Sukhodrev, the Soviet interpreter. "Our first meeting in the Oval Office was private, except for Viktor Sukhodrev, who, as in 1972, acted as translator." Nixon on Brezhnev's 1973 visit. RN, p.878 . Therefore, the only "notes" that would exist would be those of the Soviet interpreter. Not sure he would have time to make notes and translate and, even if he did so, whether those notes would be housed in any US archive. Nixon's White House office was bugged. There are probably tape recordings of the talks. There might also be recordings of the Trump-Putin talks. At their 1986 Reykjavik summit Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev talked without their notetakers: Mr. Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev began their second day of talks with a private meeting that had been scheduled to last 15 minutes but ran for nearly 70 minutes, with only interpreters present. They met in a small room in the Soviet Mission, with the Soviet leader seated in a small armchair and Mr. Reagan on a sofa. In the afternoon, they meet alone for a little over 20 minutes and then again for 90 minutes. All told, the two leaders have spent 4 hours and 51 minutes alone, except for interpreters, over the two days here. The archives of the Reykjavik talks do not include any notes of those private talks. But, who knows, maybe Nixon and Reagan where also on the Russian payroll, just like Donald Trump is today. Only that Trump is controlled by Putin can explain why the FBI opened a counter-intelligence investigation against Trump (see section three). That the FBI agents involved in the decision were avid haters of Russia and of Trump has surely nothing to do with it. That the opening of a counter-intelligence investigation gave them the legal ability under Obama's EO12333 to use NSA signal intelligence against Trump is surely irrelevant. What the FBI people really were concerned about is Trump's public record of favoring Russia at each and every corner. Trump obviously wants better diplomatic relations with Russia. He is reluctant to counter its military might. He is doing his best to make it richer. Just consider the headlines below. With all those good things Trump did for Putin, intense suspicions of Russian influence over him is surely justified. Trump deploys TANKS to Estonia as NATO builds up HUGE army on Russian border - Express, Feb 7 2017 Trump launches attack on Syria with 59 Tomahawk missiles - CNBC, Apr 6 2017 U.S. Rejects Exxon Mobil Bid for Waiver on Russia Sanctions - NYT, Apr 21 2017 Trump to promote U.S. natgas exports in Russia's backyard - Reuters, Jul 3 2017 Trump Urges East Europe to Loosen Russia's Grip With U.S. Gas - Bloomberg, Jul 6 2017 Trump signs bill approving new sanctions against Russia - CNN, Aug 3, 2017 Justice Dept Asks Russia's RT to Register as Foreign Agent - Newsmax, Sep 13 2017 US 'to restrict Russian military flights over America' - Independent, Sep 26 2017 Trump signs into law U.S. government ban on Kaspersky Lab software - Reuters, Dec 12 2017 Trump gives green light to selling lethal arms to Ukraine - The Hill, Dec 20 2017 U.S. Punishes Chechen Leader in New Sanctions Against Russians - NYT, Dec 20 2017 Sputnik Partner 'Required To Register' Under U.S. Foreign-Agent Law - RFERL, Jan 10 2018 Trump says Russia is helping North Korea avoid sanctions - CBSNews, Jan 17 2018 Trump's 'energy dominance' strategy is undercutting Russia's influence and business in Europe - Reuters, Feb 9 2018 Trump looks to deter Russia, China with $686B ask for Pentagon - The Hill, Feb 12 2018 American General In Syria Confirms US Forces Killed Hundreds Of Russians In Massive Battle - The Drive, Mar 16 2018 Trump orders expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats, closure of Seattle consulate - CBS, Mar 26 2018 Trump vows periodical dispatch of US troops to Baltic states, step up air defense - Lithuania Tribune, Apr 3 2018 Trump opposes Nord Stream II, questions Germany - AA, Apr 4 2018 Trump just hit Russian oligarchs with the most aggressive sanctions yet - Vice, Apr 6 2018 Trump orders missile strike on Syria military targets - CBSNews, Apr 9 2018 Aluminum Stocks Jump As Trump Sanctions Target Putin Pal - Investors, Apr 9 2018 Russia deeply disappointed at Trumps withdrawal from Iran deal - Times of Israel, May 9 2018 Trump to NATO allies: Raise military spending to 4 percent of GDP - AlJazeerah, Jul 12 2018 Trump says U.S. ties to NATO very strong - Politico, Jul 12 2018 U.S. to sanction Turkey for receiving S-400 missiles - Ahval, Jul 27 2018 Trump administration to hit Russia with new sanctions for Skripal poisoning - NBC News Aug 8 2018 Space Force Is Trumps Answer to New Russian and Chinese Weapons - FP, Aug 10 2018 US Sanctions Chinese Entity Over Purchase of Russian Fighters, S-400s Treasury - Sputnik, Sep 20 2018 Trump hints at punitive action against India for buying S-400 from Russia - India Today, Oct 11 2018 Trump Agrees to Boost Pentagon's Budget to $750 Bln in 2019 - Reports - Sputnik, Oct 12 2018 Trump says US will withdraw from nuclear arms treaty with Russia - Guardian, Oct 21 2018 Haley Condemns Outrageous Russian Firing on Ukrainian Ships - Bloomberg, Nov 26 2018 2 Trump Moves Cost This Russian-American CEO $2.3B - Forbes, Jan 14 2019 When one adds up all those actions one can only find that Trump cares more about Russia, than about the U.S. and its NATO allies. Only with Trump being under Putin's influence, knowingly or unwittingly, could he end up doing Russia so many favors. Not. --- (Thanks to Erelis in comments for additions to the list.) Posted by b on January 15, 2019 at 19:12 UTC | Permalink Comments next page A pet peeve of mine is food delivery. Think Deliveroo and Uber Eats. These young kids are too lazy to get up off their rear end and make themselves food. Instead, they spend their earnings on cravings and pay a delivery fee on top of that. Dont these kids have cars? Arent there shops within a few minutes of them? If youre going to eat out, why not save on the $5 delivery at least? I just dont get it. On that note, lets do a little survey. This is a call to all Money Morning readers. Do you find yourself eating out and ordering food more often? If so I want to know why. If not, Id also like to know why. You can email your answers to cs@portphillippublishing.com.au. Make sure you include Money Morning food delivery in the subject line so that I see it. I know a lot of people who love food delivery, though. The convenience of fewer meals to cook and fewer plates to clean, how could you say no? Food delivery is now so popular there are warehouses filled with dark kitchens. These are restaurants set-up for the sole purpose of online orders. There are six dark kitchens stacked together off a lane way in inner-city Melbourne. Were building kitchens around Australia, around the globe, general manager of Deliveroo Australia, Levi Aron said. [We] use our data to find where those gaps are whether thats a cuisine gap, a pricing gap get a property and build kitchens fit for delivery. Welcome to the service economy, I guess Free report: Aussie stock picker, Sam Volkering (with gains as high as 1,431% in the last 18 months) reveals what he believes are his next four big potential winners. Food delivery is about to get a whole lot bigger Youve probably heard me bang on about a localised world before. If not, you can read about it here, here and here. This world is about to get a whole lot more local. Not only is manufacturing dying, efficiency gains are outstripping demandwere also moving towards a service economy. And by definition, most service businesses are local businesses. Food delivery is one example. Youre not going to order food from China are you? Chances are youre going to order food in your local area. And its this move to local economies that will be the biggest change in the next decade. But back to food delivery In 2017, Aussies ordered $1.5 billion worth of food from apps. And its likely to get much bigger from here on. According to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Aussies are consuming much more food on the go than they were before. From 2012 to 2016, on the go food grew by 55%. The same is true for Americans. Authors of a 2013 paper found a long-term trend of people eating out more and cooking at home less. You can probably guess what this means for businesses like Deliveroo and Uber Eats? Their market is about to get a whole lot bigger. And depending upon the loyalty of customers, industry profits might either be temporary or permanent. From The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH): Investment bank UBS in 2018 estimated the global food-delivery sales market will grow from about $US35 billion to $US365 billion by 2030. If UBS is right, there will be a tenfold increase in the value of home-delivered food in a little over a decade. UBS hypothesised that most meals currently cooked at home will instead be ordered online and delivered from restaurants or centralised, industrial kitchens by 2030. Imagine if millions of Australians had their meals delivered to their home. Of course, you might want to take that figure with a grain of salt. Trends are moving that way. But anyone talking 10 years into the future is guessing at best. SMH then asked what fewer home-cooked meals might mean for society. I wonder what the food-ordering boom will do to social connections. Families cooking a meal and eating together at the table builds relationships. Its far healthier than people ordering food online and eating it from containers in front of a screen. Will there be less family dinners around the table? Will mothers and fathers lose precious time with their kids because family meals are few and far between? Potentially. But I hope not. Strong family units are the backbone of our society. Without them, societies grow weak, as Cardinal Sean Brady puts it. But not only are their social implications. This food delivery movement also has stock market implications too. Have you heard of Marley Spoon AG [ASX:MMM]? Millennials are now used to extreme convenience Marley Spoon is a recent addition to the ASX. The service is also a recent addition to a couple of Aussie households. Marley Spoon is the latest and greatest home delivery meal prep service. They focus on healthy home-cooked meals. They send you all the ingredients and a recipe to make a meal in 30 minutes. All users have to do is turn on the pan or oven. Yet here in lies the first road block for many millennials. Theres a growing number of Aussies heading to the door (because their delivery arrived or because theyre eating out) and not the kitchen. One fund manager that has steered clear of Marley Spoon is Dean Fergie. Millennials and even the older generations now are used to extreme convenience, he said. Why are you going to spend $12 for the ingredients when you can go a step further and have a quality meal delivered straight to you for $12? Thats the sort of thought process. I know a few people whove signed up to Marley Spoon. Theyve since cancelled their subscriptions, though. Maybe a gym-style membership is in order. Who really wants to go to the gym day after day? Definitely not the majority of people who sign up. They find out its hard to lift weights, run and sweat. So they give up after a few visits, but continue paying for the next 12 months. Could Marley Spoon subscribers feel the same way? I think so. The first week might be fun. Maybe the second week is ok. But the third, fourth and tenth week might be too much. Sometimes people dont want to cook. They just want someone to take care of it for them. So maybe Marley Spoon should start locking in customers. Or maybe Im wrong about the whole cooking experience. There are probably plenty of people out there that love to cook. They might enjoy cooking new and interesting dishes each week. But are these the people Marley Spoon targets? I dont think so. Marley Spoon is for the person that wants convenience, the person that doesnt want to go to the supermarket and think about the meals they need to make. And if theyre in it for convenience, why not pay a similar amount to get something even more convenient (food delivery)? Well have to wait and see how things pan out. Bring back family dinners, Harje Ronngard, Editor, Money Morning PS: In this just released report, Matt Hibbard shows you his top five dividend picks for 2019. Click here to claim your copy today. Today GWR Group Ltd [ASX:GWR] received its final drilling results at its Wiluna West Gold Project in Western Australia. It seems investors have gained some confidence in the gold exploration company as GWRs share price is trading 13.64% higher today, after continuing high grade drilling results. Commodities can be tricky and thats why gold expert and Money Morning contributor Greg Canavan has put together a guide to help you decide whether gold has a place in your portfolio this year. Read more about it here for free. GWRs drill results are a game changer In GWRs transition from gold explorer to producer the drilling results have been an important game changer. GWRs General Manager Adrian Costello spoke positively about the results: GWR Group is in the process of transitioning from an explorer to a Gold Producer and the results of this recent drilling adds more support to GWRs strategy of moving the Company into production. Investors will also be pleased to know that the latest results provide Wiluna Mill with a potential extra feed source. The Wiluna West Gold Project has a combined mineral resource estimate of 3.5 million tonnes, with updated resources models being prepared across all three deposits. These results are exciting for shareholders because they help underpin studies into the viability of all three deposits and expanding processing strategies. Of its deposits, the Golden Monarch has a combined mineral resource estimate of 747,000 tonnes as reported in announcement, with its Emu prospect having an Inferred Mineral Resource (IMR) estimate of 371,000 tonnes, and its Eagle mine having an IMR estimate of 489,000 tonnes. This, along continuing its feasibility studies and plans to complete permitting and mining approvals, is a step in the right direction. Next Steps for GWRs share price GWRs prospect looks promising bridging into 2019, with a number of activities across its Wiluna West Gold project already planned out. GWR will also look to gather data from its Eagle and Emu prospects, update resource models, and is undertaking a comprehensive review of the entire project to highlight targets for future work. Todays rise in share price is no small feat, but if its last five days of trading are anything to go by, we might see a bit of a correction tomorrow after news settles. Regards, Ryan Clarkson-Ledward, For Money Morning PS: Thinking of investing in gold? Heres three reasons you should watch gold carefully. Read Greg Canavans report Three Reasons to Add Gold to Your Portfolio Today for free. In 1972, Dr John Calhoun set out to build a utopia. The world he created, in a rural area in Maryland, offered everything you could need or want. There was plenty of food and water. The apartments were beautiful, there were loads of resources. Disease was non-existent, the weather was good and there were no natural enemies. It was paradise. This wasnt Calhouns first stab at it. In fact, it was attempt number 25. Dubbed Universe 25, Calhouns creation was a utopian worldfor mice. Yep, the enclosure he created was designed as an experiment. This was at the time when people had started to move into cities. Calhoun tried to replicate human society as much as possible to study the effects of overcrowding. He started with eight mice; half male, half female. The population then initially doubled every sixty days. Family clans appeared, who started to take the best spots in the enclosure. But while there was enough room for well over 3,800 mice, the population levelled off at 2,200 on day 560. The last birth happened on day 600and then the mice went berserk. As younger mice developed, most of the space had been claimed. They struggled to find a mate or a place in their society. So, they started showing unusual behaviour. They first became violent. Then they started to withdraw, and lost interest in reproducing. Females had miscarriages and expelled their young too early from the nest. They moved nests often, sometimes abandoning their offspring mid-move. And then there were the beautiful ones. As a video of the experiment described them: Other young mice going into adulthood exhibited an even different type of behaviour. Dr. Calhoun called these individuals the beautiful ones. Their time was devoted solely to grooming, eating, and sleeping. They never involved themselves with others, engaged in sex or would they fight. All appeared as a beautiful exhibit of the species with keen alert eyes and a healthy well-kept body. The beautiful ones were happy to be alone, and soon lost touch with reality. In only two years, mouse paradise turned into mouse hell. The population started to decline until eventually they all died. Free report: Aussie stock picker, Sam Volkering (with gains as high as 1,431% in the last 18 months) reveals what he believes are his next four big potential winners. Are FAANGs falling out of favour? Dr Calhoun coined the term behavioural sinks to describe the unusual behaviour that he saw from overcrowding. He thought that humans could suffer a similar fate. Many at this time took Calhouns experiment as proof that overcrowding would exterminate humanity. But psychologist Jonathan Freedman, who conducted his own experiments with humans, came to a different conclusion. As the National Institute of Health explained (emphasis mine): The psychologist Jonathan Freedman recruited high school and university students to carry out a series of experiments that measured the effects of density on behavior. He measured their stress, discomfort, aggression, competitiveness and general unpleasantness. When he declared to have found no appreciative negative effects in 1975, the tide began to turn on Calhouns utopia[] Freedman suggested a different conclusion, though. Moral decay resulted not from density, but from excessive social interaction, Ramsden explained. Not all of Calhouns rats had gone berserk. Those who managed to control space led relatively normal lives. Striking the right balance between privacy and community, Freedman argued, would reduce social pathology. It was the unwanted unavoidable social interaction that drove even fairly social creatures mad, he believed. Culture and upbringing also play key roles in adapting to environment, others suggested. We are no mice, but decades on this is still an unsettling experiment. Mainly because you would be hard pressed not to see the similarities to our society back thenand even today. We are living in an overcrowded world. In just the last century, the worlds population grew from 1.65 billion to six billion. And its still growing fast, now at 7.7 billion. We have no natural predators, we are living longer, and we live like we have plenty of resources. We have never been more connectedand at the same time more socially isolated. In fact, the problem is becoming so large that Britain has already instituted a minister of loneliness. And, of course, the beautiful ones also ring a bell. The rise of social media has meant we spend more time looking at ourselves. According to a study, 90% of people log into Facebook to look at their own profile instead of others. Technology has brought more interconnection and made our lives easier. But it has also brought in less privacy. What we are trying to say (in a very roundabout way) is that technology companies like the FAANGs acronym for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google have become very successful because they cater to our nature and needs. In fact, it is hard to believe how much the FAANG have infiltrated our lives in such a short period. We order stuff from Amazon. Instead of watching regular TV, we tune into Netflix or Amazon Prime. We have Apple smartphones, and buy apps, music and movies through iTunes. We use Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram to communicate. We use Google all the time to search foranything. In fact, according to Statcounter, Google has 92.25% of the search share market. The second place goes to Bing, with a mere 2.41%. I mean, I am guilty of all of this. Dont get me wrong, we dont think that the FAANGs will lead humanity to extinction. But the FAANGs have been so successful they are becoming quasi monopolies. At the same time, they are falling out of favour. As they infiltrate our lives and our homes, there are more concerns about our privacy, and about getting nudged in different directions. The FAANGs have been driving the markets up in recent years. Now we are hearing that after market turmoil, the FAANGs are cheap, that it is not too late to invest in the FAANGs. We think they may have peaked. They are falling out of favour because of privacy. Like Calhouns utopia, theyve overstepped the fine line between community and privacy. There is even talk about the government breaking them up. They are already quite large companies, but we think the tide is turning. We may not see much of a market rally unless the FAANGs keep growing. But can they? Or will they continue to increase social interaction to the point we become beautiful ones who are so removed from society, no one uses them anymore? So, my question is, would you still invest in the FAANGs? I would love to know what you think. Send me a note at cs@portphillippublishing.com.au. Best, Selva Freigedo, Editor, Global Investor PS: Options trading is one of the most overlooked investment strategies that you can take advantage of right now. Get started with expert help free! More than 3,000 leaders from across the world, including Swiss President Ueli Maurer, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will attend the high-profile WEF Annual Meeting next week to discuss how globalisation can work and to identify new models for peace, inclusiveness and sustainability. At the five-day jamboree of the global elite in the Swiss resort town Davos, beginning January 21, the top agenda would include climate change, inclusiveness and international governance, Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) said while announcing the programme. The theme of the meeting this year would be 'Globalisation 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution', said the WEF, which describes itself as an international organisation for public-private partnership. The meeting will be attended by more than 3,000 participants from over 110 countries and more than 65 heads of state/government and top international organisations. These would include leaders from business, government, civil society, academia, arts and culture and media. Over 100 participants from India are also expected to be present, including union ministers, chief ministers and CEOs. These include Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu. Earlier, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis were among registered participants, but their names do not figure in the latest list. The WEF said the meeting's purpose is to identify new models for peace, inclusiveness and sustainability to suit a world where further global integration is inevitable and where existing models of global governance struggle to foster concerted action among the world's powers. "This fourth wave of globalisation needs to be human-centred, inclusive and sustainable. We are entering a period of profound global instability brought on by the technological disruption of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the realignment of geo-economics and geopolitical forces," WEF's Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab said. "We need principals from all stakeholder groups in Davos to summon the imagination and commitment necessary to tackle it," he added. There would be more than 350 official sessions during the five-day event. These would include a global dialogue on geopolitics in a multi-conceptual world to enable candid and constructive discussion on how to drive future cooperation along with a global dialogue on peace, the WEF said. The sessions would also focus on future of the economy to better reflect the structural changes inherent in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and achieve sustainable growth and long-term societal well-being. Another global dialogue would focus on industry systems and technology policy to define the principles for new and emerging technologies to ensure that they are underpinned by a values-based framework. Besides, the annual summit would also tackle issues like environmental issues, cyber security, human capital and institutional reforms. Besides Maurer, Abe and Merkel, top political leaders taking part are Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro, China Vice-President Wang Qishan, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Italy Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Spain Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Iraq President Barham Salih, Afghanistan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and Austria Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Besides the top leaders from Colombia, Ethiopia, Ireland, Libya, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Palestine, Peru, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Viet Nam and Zimbabwe would also be present. Earlier, US President Donald Trump was also expected to attend the meeting, but he is unlikely to come due to the shutdown-related issues in his country. The leaders from international organisations would include UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, WTO chief Roberto Azevedo, OECD chief Angel Gurria, IMF chief Christine Lagarde and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The meeting will host over 900 civil society leaders including International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General Secretary Sharan Burrow, Oxfam International Executive Director Winnie Byanyima, Greenpeace International Executive Director Jennifer Morgan and Transparency International Chair Delia Ferreira Rubio. The co-chairs of the annual meeting are Microsoft's Indian-origin CEO Satya Nadella. In addition to a record participation from the public sector, the private sector will be represented by more than 1,700 leaders, the WEF said. Kim Jong Un_North Korea The United States and North Korea plan to hold high-level talks in Washington this week to discuss a second meeting between their leaders, South Korean media said on Tuesday, as the old enemies seek an "interim" deal to revitalise nuclear talks. The meeting, led by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol, is due on Thursday or Friday, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported, citing an unidentified diplomatic source familiar with the issue. They are expected to finalise the date and venue of a second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the newspaper said. The U.S. embassy in Seoul referred questions to the White House. The White House offered no immediate comment on the Chosun Ilbo report, while a State Department official said: "We don't have any meetings to announce." South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted an unidentified diplomatic source as saying Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol could meet this week. The North Korean delegation could visit the United States "as soon as this week" but plans have not been finalised, a CNN reporter, citing an unidentified source, said on Twitter. Trump wrote Kim Jong Un a letter, which was flown to Pyongyang and hand delivered over the weekend, the CNN reporter added, citing the source. South Korea's foreign ministry spokesman told reporters the North and the United States were "in contact" but it was "inappropriate" to comment on plans for talks. A meeting this week could mean the two sides are nearing a compromise after months of standoff over how to move forward in ending North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes. Trump and Kim pledged at their first summit, in Singapore in June, to work towards denuclearisation "of the Korean peninsula". But there has been little significant progress. Pompeo, who made several trips to Pyongyang last year, sought to meet his counterpart last November, but the talks were called off at the last minute. Contact was resumed after Kim's New Year's speech, in which he said he was willing to meet Trump "at any time," South Korea's ambassador to the United States, Cho Yoon-je, told reporters last week. In Seoul, South Korea deleted a description of North Korea as an "enemy" in its defence white paper released on Tuesday, though it said its weapons of mass destruction posed a threat to peace and stability. INTERIM MEASURES The United States and South Korea have been discussing how to respond to any North Korean steps toward denuclearisation, South Korean officials told Reuters. The United States is considering easing sanctions in exchange for the North's discarding and sending abroad its intercontinental ballistic missiles, in addition to freezing its nuclear programme, the Chosun Ilbo said, citing its source. U.S. responses could include exemptions from sanctions for inter-Korean business and opening a liaison office, Seoul officials said. "Those ideas are being discussed as interim measures, not as an end state, in order to expedite the denuclearisation process, because the North wouldn't respond to any demand for a declaration of facilities and weapons," said a senior South Korean official, who declined to be identified. "The end goal remains unchanged, whether it be complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation, or final, fully verified denuclearisation." The official said a Trump and Kim meeting could happen by early March, though added: "No one knows what Trump is thinking." Kim reiterated his resolve to meet Trump during a meeting last week with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump said this month he had received a "great" letter from Kim and would probably meet him again soon. "At the second summit, they'll probably focus on reaching a possible interim deal, rather than a comprehensive roadmap for denuclearisation," said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at South Korea's Sejong Institute. Sri Lanka is considering an offer from Bank of China for a loan of $300 million, which could be raised to $1 billion, to help it meet repayments in coming months, junior finance minister Eran Wickramaratne told Reuters on Tuesday. He also confirmed that Sri Lanka had started negotiations to increase the amount of a swap deal with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to $1 billion, up from a previously negotiated $400 million. A series of credit rating downgrades amid a political crisis have made it harder for Sri Lanka to borrow as it faces record high repayments of $5.9 billion this year, $2.6 billion of which fall due in the first three months. "It's extremely difficult to tap the international market due to tight conditions and rating downgrades," said Wickramaratne, who is the state minister of finance. "A government subcommittee will assess and negotiate on the tenure, size, and the price of this loan (with Bank of China). The cost of political crisis is high." Investor confidence took a hit when President Maithripala Sirisena abruptly sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in October and replaced him with pro-China former president Mahinda Rajapaksa and dissolved parliament. Sri Lanka's top court then ruled the dissolution of parliament illegal and Wickremesinghe was restored to power in December - but the seven-week-long crisis hurt the rupee and drove sovereign bond yields higher, straining state finances. As of the end of 2018, nearly a quarter of Sri Lanka's total foreign debt was owed to China, which has lent some $8 billion while building ports and highways and planning other major investments in the island state as part of its drive to build a 21st century 'Silk Road' across nations and shipping lanes. Calls to the Bank of China in Colombo went unanswered. A source with knowledge of the Bank of China offer told Reuters earlier on Tuesday that Sri Lanka's cabinet had already asked Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera to negotiate the loan, which has been offered at 6-month LIBOR plus 260 basis points. It has to be repaid within three years, the source said. The 6-month LIBOR was at 2.865 percent on Tuesday. A display of sculptures is being pulled from the World Trade Center after critics objected to the presence of one that represents Saudi Arabia at the site of the 9/11 attacks. The two-meter polyester resin artwork depicting a giant candy wrapped in the green Saudi flag is part of an exhibit entitled "Candy Nations," representing the G20 nations. Put together in 2011, the installation has already been shown in several countries, as well as elsewhere in New York. But some observers have been critical of the Saudi flag's presence in the WTC, home to a memorial for the 3,000 Americans killed in the 9/11 strikes. Of the 19 hijackers who commandeered four jetliners and crashed into the twin towers in New York, a Pennsylvania field and the Pentagon in Virginia -- 15 were Saudi nationals. A US congressional report on the September 11 attacks laid some blame with the US ally, but those passages were never made public, according to Bob Graham, the former senator who co-chaired the commission that produced the report. "We have been in contact with the 9/11 Memorial and various stakeholders, and in full collaboration with the artist will relocate the exhibit from its current location," the Port Authority, which manages the site, said in a statement. The entire exhibit is being sent to JFK International Airport, the group added. "We believe this solution respects the unique sensitivities of the site and preserves the artistic integrity of the exhibit," it added. The move will take place this week. Facebook Inc will invest $300 million over three years in local news globally as it faces blistering criticism over its role in the erosion of the news business worldwide. The investment in time and money is a significant expansion of a plan to help newsrooms in the U.S. and abroad create and sustain viable business models to survive, the company said on Tuesday. Unlike earlier investments in the news business, this latest round is distinguished by how it is not tied to Facebook-related products, recipients of the investments say. Earlier rounds of investments in the news business were designed to encourage publishers to rely on delivering its products over Facebook, which eventually hurt many news organizations when Facebook's strategies shifted. "We're going to continue fighting fake news, misinformation, and low quality news on Facebook," Campbell Brown, Facebook's vice president of Global News Partnerships said in a statement. "But we also have an opportunity, and a responsibility, to help local news organizations grow and thrive." Critics have slammed Facebook for its role in providing a platform for hate speech, misinformation and political meddling. The first round of investments in the U.S. will help bolster resources for local reporting, help research how to use technology to improve news gathering and create new products, recruit "trainee community journalists" and place them in local newsrooms and also help fund a program modeled after the Peace Corp, which will place 1,000 journalists in local newsrooms over five years. The recipients of the investments include the Pulitzer Center, Report for America, Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund, the Local Media Association and Local Media Consortium, the American Journalism Project and the Community News Project. Fran Wills, CEO of the Local Media Consortium, an alliance of 80 news companies representing 2,200 outlets, said Facebook is helping the group create a branded content program aimed at attracting new advertisers. "Facebook is making this investment to help support local media companies ... open up new revenue streams that will support local journalism," she said. Last December, it announced a $6 million investment in local publishers in Britain. It also plans to expand an "Accelerator" program it launched last year to help local newsrooms such as the San Francisco Chronicle and the Denver Post improve its ability to attract subscribers and membership donations. "It's in their best interest to have as much credible content as they can have on their platform and that's a direct benefit to consumers," Wills said. Accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was interested in directing a movie about his life story as early as 2007, long before his well-known meeting with US actor Sean Penn and Mexican actress Kate Del Castillo in 2015, jurors in Guzman's US trial heard on Monday. Alex Cifuentes, Guzman's self-described one-time "right hand man," said he learned about a planned movie project while living with Guzman in the mountains of his boss' home state of Sinaloa from 2007 to 2009. Colombian-born Cifuentes is one of about a dozen witnesses who have so far testified against Guzman after striking deals with US prosecutors, in a trial that has provided a window into the secretive world of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the world's most powerful drug trafficking organization. On trial in federal court in Brooklyn since November, Guzman, 61, was extradited to the United States in 2017 to face charges of trafficking cocaine, heroin and other drugs into the country as leader of the cartel. The alleged kingpin's silver screen dreams first surfaced after Penn wrote a story for Rolling Stone magazine in 2016 about traveling with Del Castillo to meet Guzman at a forest hideout, not long after Guzman had escaped from a Mexican prison through a tunnel. Del Castillo, who once played a drug trafficker in a well-known Mexican TV soap, revealed soon after the article was published that the meeting came about because Guzman's lawyers had reached out to her about a possible movie. When Guzman was eventually recaptured in 2016, Mexico's then-Attorney General Arely Gomez said his contact with "actresses and producers" was an "important aspect that helped locate him." Cifuentes' own wife first urged Guzman to make a biopic around 2007, Cifuentes said on Monday. Cifuentes said Guzman hired a Colombian producer and planned a book tie-in, and the project got as far as a draft that was shown to his lawyers. In his testimony, Cifuentes also offered jurors a glimpse of Guzman's life as a fugitive in the mountains. On a typical day, Cifuentes said, Guzman got up at noon, received messages from his personal secretary and then made calls while strolling under the trees. Cifuentes said that Guzman ordered him to kill the cartel's communications expert, Christian Rodriguez, after learning that he was cooperating with the FBI. Cifuentes said he was unable to track down Rodriguez, who now lives in the United States and testified at the trial last week, because he did not know his last name. China blasted Canada for "irresponsible" remarks on January 15 after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the country of "arbitrarily" sentencing a Canadian to death for drug smuggling, aggravating already icy relations. Beijing and Ottawa have been at odds since early December, when Canadian police arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. Days later, China detained two Canadians on suspicion of endangering state security - former diplomat Michael Kovrig and business consultant Michael Spavor. January 14 death sentence by a Chinese court on Canadian Robert Schellenberg for allegedly smuggling 222 kg of methamphetamines has become the latest strain on ties. Trudeau said it should be of "extreme concern" to Canada's friends and allies, as it was to Canada's government, that China had chosen to "arbitrarily apply" the death penalty. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying expressed "strong dissatisfaction" with the comments at a regular news briefing. "The remarks by the relevant Canadian person lack the most basic awareness of the legal system," Hua said. She also took Canada to task for issuing an updated travel advisory for China, warning its citizens about the risk of arbitrary enforcement of laws in the country. Hua said that Canada should instead remind its people to not engage in drug smuggling in China. "We urge the Canadian side to respect the rule of law, respect China's legal sovereignty, correct its mistakes, and stop making irresponsible remarks," Hua said. NO NEW EVIDENCE Zhang Dongshuo, a lawyer for Schellenberg, said on January 15 that his client would appeal, arguing that the court should not have increased his sentence given no new evidence had been introduced. Schellenberg had appealed against an original 15-year prison sentence issued in November, but the Dalian Intermediate People's Court in the northeastern province of Liaoning sided with prosecutors at the retrial that the punishment was too light. Zhang said there was insufficient evidence to prove Schellenberg was part of a drug syndicate, or that he was involved in the smuggling of methamphetamines. Even if the court accepted all of the charges, it should not have increased his sentence, given that facts the prosecution presented as new evidence had already been heard in court, Zhang told Reuters. "Chinese law stipulates that during an appeal, only if new evidence is discovered and retried can there be an increase in the severity of a sentence," Zhang said. China has not linked any of the three Canadians' cases to Meng's arrest, which was made at the behest of US authorities as part of an investigation into alleged violations of US trade sanctions. But Beijing had warned of severe consequences if she was not immediately released. "POLITICISING LAW" A Chinese state-run newspaper rejected any suggestion that China was putting pressure on Canada with the sentence, saying it was "unreasonable speculation". "Public opinion in Canada has claimed recently that China is 'politicising' Schellenberg's case, but what Canada is doing is actually politicising law," the nationalist Global Times said in an editorial late on Monday. Though Schellenberg was arrested in 2014, state media has played up coverage of his case following the deterioration in relations with Canada. The court invited media to cover the retrial, and state television aired a five-minute segment on the proceedings. Drug smuggling is routinely punished severely in China, and foreigners convicted of drug crimes have been executed before, including a Briton in 2009. Schellenberg had faced a number of charges in Canada related to drug possession and drug trafficking, according to Canadian court records. But international rights groups condemned Schellenberg's sentence, with some saying it was too severe and may have been politically motivated. "China is going to face lots of questions about why this particular person, of this particular nationality, had to be retried at this particular time," Human Rights Watch's Washington-based China director Sophie Richardson told Reuters. British Prime Minister Theresa May faced the prospect of defeat in a historic vote in parliament on her Brexit deal on Tuesday, leaving the country in limbo about its membership of the world's biggest trading bloc, which has shaped its economy for decades. May urged lawmakers on Monday to take a second look at her deal but parliament appeared set to reject the agreement in a voting session due to start at 1900 GMT. May's hopes of saving the plan will hinge on the scale of her loss: if she limits the size of the expected defeat, May will probably ask Brussels for more concessions in the hope of getting her plan through parliament in another vote. But a humiliating outcome could force May to delay Britain's scheduled departure from the EU on March 29 and potentially open up other options ranging from a second referendum to leaving the EU with no deal. Dominic Raab, who resigned as May's Brexit minister in November in protest at her plans, said it was time to prepare for a no-deal Brexit, something many employers fear could mean chaos for their businesses. "It's time for us, through this vote, to make clear not just that the current terms are unacceptable, but that we are not just throwing our hands up in the air," he told BBC radio. "We are going to leave on March 29." In Britain's deepest political crisis for at least half a century, May and EU leaders swapped assurances on the withdrawal deal on Monday, but there was little sign of a change of heart among rebel lawmakers. Many members of May's own Conservative Party say her plan would give Brussels too much power, chiefly an agreed insurance policy to avoid the return of a hard border in Ireland. The EU told May that it stood by commitments to find ways to avoid triggering the Irish "backstop". The Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party, which props up May's minority government, has said it will not back the deal. May has warned that without her deal, no Brexit at all would be more likely than Britain leaving without a deal. She has also said that a break-up of the United Kingdom could be the result of parliament voting against the agreement and warned her Conservative Party against allowing the left-wing opposition Labour Party to seize the initiative. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is expected to call a parliamentary vote of no confidence in May if she loses Tuesday's vote. May has refused to budge over her deal despite criticism from all quarters. The agreement, which envisages close economic ties with the EU, has united the opposing sides of the debate -- pro-EU lawmakers who see it as the worst of all worlds and Brexit supporters who say it will make Britain a vassal state. With a 'no deal' Brexit the default option if May's deal is defeated, some lawmakers are planning to try to pull control of Brexit from the government. But though May is weakened, the executive has significant powers, especially during times of crisis, so it was unclear how parliament would be able to take control of Brexit. A British lawmaker has postponed giving birth in order to vote on Britain's divorce deal with the EU on January 15. Tulip Siddiq, 36, was due to have a Caesarian section on January 15 but medics have agreed to delay the operation until January 17 so that she can vote on the withdrawal agreement struck between London and Brussels. She plans to be pushed through the division lobby in parliament in a wheelchair. Colleagues in the main opposition Labour Party asked John Bercow, the speaker of the lower House of Commons, if Siddiq could have a proxy vote. Bercow said he would like the procedure known as "nodding through" -- where an MP who is on the parliamentary estate but physically unable to cast their ballot has their vote counted -- extended to Siddiq's hospital bed. But he said while he was happy for her to be nodded through, it was not in his gift to extend a proxy vote. Siddiq said she asked medics at the Royal Free Hospital in her north London constituency if she could change the procedure date to January 17, which they agreed to. "If my son enters the world even one day later than the doctors advised, but it's a world with a better chance of a strong relationship between Britain and Europe, then that's worth fighting for," she told the London Evening Standard newspaper. The boy will be a great-grandson of the founding father of Bangladesh. Siddiq is the grand-daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first president of Bangladesh. Her aunt is Sheikh Hasina, who was sworn in as Bangladesh's prime minister for a record fourth term last week after a crushing election victory marred by deadly violence and claims of widespread rigging. For a gourmet breakfast, the scouts make a dish known as Mountain Man. It's like a big omelet the size of the Dutch oven, Jacob said. Everything goes into the Dutch oven and then you just stir it once in awhile. It gets kind of spongy and the cheese bubbles on top and then you know its done if you smell it burning, you also know its done. google doodle,sake dean mahomed Sake Dean Mahomed, one of the first Indians to take tastes and cultures of his homeland to England, was honoured with a doodle by Google on January 15. The technology giant created a Google Doodle with herbs and a medicinal bottle along with a picture of Mahomed in the middle of it. Born in Bihars capital Patna in 1759, Mahomed is credited with introducing Indian cuisine and Indian therapeutic massages known as shampoo baths to Europe, in the early 19th century. Also a writer, Mahomed is the first Indian author to write and publish a book in English. According to a report, the date to honour him was chosen as January 15, as the book was published on this date. Mahomed has been named among the very early migrants to England from India. He was taken under the wing of a British Army officer at the age of 10 after his father died. He reportedly served as a trainee surgeon in the army of the British East India Company and remained with the unit until 1782, when he resigned from the army and accompanied his benefactor to Britain. In 1794, he published his travel book titled The Travels of Dean Mahomed. In the book, he subbed an autobiographical narrative about his adventures in India. The book described several important cities in India and a series of military conflicts with local Indian principalities. He further opened first Indian restaurant in Britain -- Hindostanee Coffee House. But the venture did not last long as Mahomed declared bankruptcy two years later. Later, he reportedly moved to the beachside town of Brighton and opened the first commercial "shampooing" vapour masseur bath in England, providing a combination of a steam bath and an Indian therapeutic massage. His business flourished, promising to cure diseases and provide relief from various physical pains. This made him popular as Dr Brighton. In June 2018, a handwritten cookery manuscript containing a glimpse of the menu from his restaurant containing exclusive dishes like Pineapple Pullaoo and Chicken Currey was sold for $11,344 (around Rs 7.6 lakh) at a London book fair. In a fresh political war in Karnataka, the ruling Congress-JD(S) coalition has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of attempting 'Operation Lotus' to topple the state government. Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls 2019, Karnatakas ruling government and the BJP have traded allegations of making a renewed bid to poach MLAs. The ruling coalition has accused the BJP of luring its MLAs with ludicrous bribes under Operation Lotus. 'Operation Lotus' is a reference to BJP's alleged bid to lure several opposition MLAs to ensure stability of its then government headed by BS Yeddyurappa in 2008. Congress reportedly said Yeddyurappa was making "futile attempts" to destabilise the state government. In the 224-member Assembly, BJP has 104 members, Congress 79, JD(S) 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each, besides the Speaker. BSP, KPJP and an Independent are supporting the coalition. Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy said he enjoyed the support of 120 MLAs and alleged that Yeddyurappa was making "futile attempts" to destabilise his government. However, current BJP state chief Yeddyurappa rubbished reports of his party making any such attempt. He said there was no truth in the charge and instead alleged that the Congress-JD(S) combine was trying to woo his party MLAs. "It is not us, but them; they have started horse-trading. We will stay in Delhi for one or two days because Kumaraswamy is trying his level best to contact our MLAs," Yeddyurappa told reporters after meeting state BJP MLAs and MPs in Delhi. The BJP is "alert and careful" as the chief minister is trying to lure our MLAs using "power and money", he said. "Kumaraswamy is trying to contact BJP MLAs and has offered a ministerial post to a Kalburgi MLA," Yeddyurappa alleged and said the ruling combine is luring BJP state legislators despite having majority numbers. Asked about it, Kumaraswamy said, "I have sufficient numbers for a stable government here, it is not necessary for Congress or JD(S) to poach MLAs from BJP. He also said, "I have noticed reports in sections of the media (about 'Operation Lotus'). Today too, I saw a media report stating that on January 17, President's Rule will be imposed in the state. I don't know who is feeding such reports to the media... I was surprised to see the report." Asked about Water Resource Minister D K Shivakumar's claim that three Congress MLAs were camping at a hotel in Mumbai in the "company of some BJP leaders", Kumaraswamy said they were in constant touch with him. Not revealing their names, he said, "They are my friends. Those MLAs in Mumbai or 104 BJP MLAs who are in Delhi are all my people, so there is no question of instability in this government." "(The Congress) MLAs have gone to Mumbai after bringing it to my notice; they are in constant touch with me," the chief minister said. "I spoke to them at 7:30 am. They have gone for personal reasons, and there is no need to add politics to it," he added. "If my government is facing instability, is it possible for me to be at ease?" he asked. Shivakumar on January 13 said the BJP's 'Operation Lotus' was for real, alleging that three Congress MLAs were camping in a Mumbai hotel. He had said the chief minister was being "lenient" towards the BJP by not exposing it. "BJP members have gone for their executive meeting and to plan a strategy for Lok Sabha polls to win more seats. What should I do if their meeting is being seen as a threat to this government?" the chief minister asked. He expressed confidence that no MLA from the ruling coalition would defect to the saffron party. (With PTI inputs) Telangana Chief Minister and TRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao - YSRCP chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) chief YS Jaganmohan Reddy completed a 3,650-kilometre padayatra (foot march) earlier this month. Interestingly, such a march was earlier taken up by his late father YS Rajasekhara Reddy and rival Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N Chandrababu Naidu. According to reports, Jaganmohan Reddy has reached an understanding with Telangana Chief Minister and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief K Chandrashekar Rao. Jaganmohan has reportedly said he would be working with KCR to bring special status for Andhra Pradesh. KCR has been meeting political leaders including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to cobble up a non-BJP, non-Congress Federal Front. However, with no commitments so far, response to the proposed front has been lukewarm. YSRCPs resurgence Political observers have highlighted YSRCPs rapid resurgence in the state. Some have also suggested that Naidus decision to tie up with TDPs arch-rival Congress was part of an effort to counter YSRCP. According to an opinion survey by India Today-Axis My India, 43 percent respondents think Jaganmohan Reddy should become the next chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. Naidu was opted by 38 percent respondents. In Naidu, Jaganmohan Reddy and KCR have a common political rival. KCRs son KT Rama Rao had said TRS would will enter Andhra Pradesh if necessary, to "politically finish off Naidu". According to an opinion poll by Republic TV-CVoter released in December, YSRCP could win 14 out of the 25 seats in Andhra Pradesh. The Congress-TDP would settle for 11 seats (TDP and Congress winning eight and three, respectively). The BJP would fail to win a single seat in the state. YSRCPs vote share of 41.6 percent will surpass TDP-Congress 38.2 percent, the survey found. In the 2014 general election, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 17 out of the 25 seats in Andhra Pradesh (TDP and BJP winning 15 and two, respectively). YSRCP had won eight seats while the Congress was wiped out. In Telangana, banking on a successful campaign to attain statehood, TRS won 11 out of the states 17 parliamentary seats. TDP, BJP, YSRCP and AIMIM won one seat, each. Congress had won two seats. Telangana, Andhra Pradesh 2014 Lok Sabha result King makers In December 2018, KCR retained power in Indias newest state. His party won 88 out of the 119 seats in the assembly. The Congress-TDP alliance ended up with 21 seats. KCR is hoping that the election win would propel his candidate to win in the Lok Sabha elections too. Claiming that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress would not get majority in the parliamentary elections, TRS Working President KT Rama Rao said the interests of the state would be well-served if the party is in a 'decisive position' by winning substantial Lok Sabha seats. KTR, as he is commonly known, said TRS could win 16 out of the total 17 Lok Sabha seats, excluding Hyderabad represented by Asaduddin Owaisis All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM). "If we give 16 seats to KCR, he will bend Delhi's neck and we can get the funds for our state, the interests due to Hyderabad and schemes from the Centre to our people," he said. KCR is hoping to play a kingmaker in an event that the Lok Sabha election yields a hung House. Multiple opinion polls have also hinted towards a hung Lok Sabha. With YSRCPs 14 and TRSs hope of winning 16, the trans-Telugu partnership could form a bloc of 30 seats. With 30 seats, TRS-YSRCP could bargain hard at the Centre. Mayawati-akhilesh-sp-bsp Days after the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) announced their decision to contest the Lok Sabha polls together from Uttar Pradesh, BSP satrap Mayawati, on her 63rd birthday, appealed to members and workers of both parties to forget their past differences. As the leader was greeted by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav at her residence in Lucknow on her birthday on January 15, she said, Forget past differences and ensure the victory of all joint candidates of SP and BSP. This will be my ideal birthday gift. The parties, which have decided to contest general elections on a 50-50 seat-sharing deal, are itching to bury the hatchet in an attempt to make a formidable alliance to beat the BJP, which had won 71 out of 80 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. While the SP had managed to win a meagre five seats, the BSP won none. But it wont be easy for the bitter rivals to forget and forgive, especially after witnessing a dark past in the history of Indian politics. Also Read | Mayawati in the west, Akhilesh in the east: SP-BSP alliance's formula for UP in 2019 One incident that is bound to haunt Mayawati is the 1995 guest-house episode. In 1993, the BSP had entered into an alliance with SP for the first time, after Kanshi Ram shook hands with Mulayam Singh Yadav, and the former was appointed chief minister. However, one fine morning in the year 1995, Kanshi Ram and Mayawati decided to pull the rug from under Mulayam Singhs feet. The BSP withdrew their support and joined the BJP, which led to the fall of the SP government. The move did not go well with Mulayam Singh. What ensued has been etched in the history of Indian politics as the Hidden Black Day. On June 2, 1995, enraged members and workers of the SP, including a few MLAs as well as MPs, marched to Guest House in Mirabai Marg in Lucknow where Mayawati was staying. What started as ferocious anti-sloganeering soon became violent. Mayawati was locked inside the guest house, while SP workers broke the door, barged into Mayawatis room and attacked her. After that day, Mayawati told media persons that she feared that she will be raped. In response, the then SP chief Mulayam Singh, calling her a parkati aurat [taking a jibe at her bob-cut hairstyle] had said, Is she so beautiful that anyone would want to rape her? While this could be the ugliest it could ever get, admonitions from either side never stopped there. Both parties have engaged in hideous mudslinging and name-calling. In fact, in January 2017, Akhilesh launched a rather tasteless and sexist jibe at Mayawati by saying Jagah kaise de dete unhe?Kitni jagah leti hain vo, unka toh chunav chinh hathi hai." Also Read | Opinion: BSP-SP alliance is good news for Congress, but bad news for BJP The BSP supremo too had launched a scathing attack at SP, slamming both Akhilesh and Mulayam Singh for the lawlessness in the state and inefficacy of their policies. Addressing a public gathering in June 2016, she had said,Once the BSP comes to power in Uttar Pradesh in the 2017 Assembly elections, its special agenda will be to put all the goondas, mafia and communal forces getting patronage under the Samajwadi Party government behind bars, which is their rightful place. Through the years, whenever either of the parties were asked about the prospects of an alliance, not only have they responded with a cold NO; at one time there was so much bad blood between the two parties that Mayawati wrote a letter to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2012, seeking special protection as she claimed she had threat to her life from SP office bearers. Since 1995, whenever the SP has made overtures to the BSP, Mayawati has always declined with disdain. Except, last year when there was a realization between the parties that pooling in resources could be the only way to hold off the BJP in the state. Mayawati, who has been out of power for almost six years and has a shrinking footprint in the rest of the country, agreed to support the SP for the Lok Sabha bypolls in Gorakhpur and Phulpur. Also Read | How an SP-BSP alliance can impact the BJP arithmetic in Uttar Pradesh The SP won the bypolls that were held on March 11, 2018, wresting the high-stake seats from the BJP. After the spectacular win, Akhilesh thanked Mayawati for the only fruitful alliance strategy the two parties have witnessed. This had also raised conjectures of an alliance for the bigger battle in 2019. Now that the two parties have come together 24 years after the Guest House episode only to defeat the BJP, both want to paint the picture of a daunting alternative, but the cracks of the past seem difficult to fill. Congress President Rahul Gandhi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, NCP leader Praful Patel and Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge during a meeting on January 9, 2019. File image: Twitter/Sharad Pawar (@PawarSpeaks) The Indian National Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on January 14 agreed to share 45 out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, according to reports. The alliance is yet to reach an agreement on three seats. Two out of these three seats are Nandurbar and Aurangabad, where the Congress had contested in the 2014 general elections. The NCP has staked claim to contest from Nandurbar even though it has traditional been a Congress stronghold. This has led to speculation that former minister Vijaykumar Gavit, who had switched from NCP to the BJP in the run-up to the 2014 elections, may be heading back to the party, according to a report by The Indian Express. Also read | BJP will win Lok Sabha, Maharashtra polls on organisational strength: Raosaheb Danve Talks on with Prakash Ambedkars BBM The opposition alliance is also in talks with Prakash Ambedkars Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM). Sources in the BBM had earlier confirmed to Moneycontrol that the party was negotiating a seat-sharing formula with the Congress. BBM has put forward a demand of contesting 12 parliamentary seats, sources said, adding that all of these seats were those lost by the Congress in the last three general elections. It is unclear as to how the Congress has reacted to the proposal. Some reports suggest that BBM may be offered Akola constituency. Although BBM is in talks with the Congress, it has already announced an alliance with Asaduddin Owaisis All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM). AIMIM is, however, not expected to contest any seat in Maharashtra, a person aware of the development told Moneycontrol. Talks with other allies Former National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partner Raju Shettis Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana (SSS) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) are also reportedly a constituent of the alliance. Shetti would be given one seat to contest and would be accommodated within NCPs quota, party chief Sharad Pawar told News18. The CPM would be accommodated within Congress quota, on the other hand. The Left party could be given the Dindori seat. The Congress-NCP alliance is also likely to include Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA), which has a strong presence in Palghar district. By taking the smaller parties along, Congress and NCP are hoping to consolidate the anti-BJP votes in the state. The alliances seat-sharing arrangement in the Lok Sabha polls could also form the basis of the formula for the assembly elections expected to happen in September-October. BJP's bickering ally Shiv Sena had announced in early 2018 that it would contest the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections separately. However, the Sena has shown signs of rapprochement with BJP in recent months. Both BJP and the Sena have internally agreed that fighting the polls is inevitable. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had earlier expressed that both parties (BJP and Shiv Sena) would suffer if the alliance ends. Ramdas Athawales Republican Party of India - Athawale (RPI-A) is also their ally. What makes Maharashtra important Maharashtra has the second largest pool of Lok Sabha seats at 48. Winning a significant chunk of seats in the state would improve chances of either the BJP-led NDA or the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) of forming the government at the Centre. Maharashtra: Seats won by major parties in Lok Sabha polls (1999-2014) In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the NDA won 42 out of the 48 seats in the state. BJP and Shiv Sena won 23 and 18 seats respectively. Their then ally Raju Shetti-led Swabhimani Paksha won one. In terms of vote share, BJP and Shiv Sena bagged 27.56 and 20.82 percent of the votes, respectively. Congress and NCP polled 18.29 and 16.12 percent of the votes, respectively. Narendra Modi The Congress on Tuesday accused the Modi government of systematic decimation of the economy and jeopardising the future of youths, farmers and the marginalised through its decisions. Congress spokesperson Gaurav Vallabh demanded the government come out with a white paper on Mudra loans to ascertain in which sector there was default. He accused the government of unleashing anarchy in the country's economy, destroying the unorganised sector and worsening the agrarian crisis. The government has "ill-treated" the farmers, who are getting less prices for their produce and are paying more for their daily needs, he said. "As the Narendra Modi government enters its last lap, it is crystal clear that it has unleashed an economic anarchy of 'jumlanomics' and wreaked havoc in the lives of the people. It is high time that PM Modi reflect on his unwitting decisions and apologise to the people. Ninety days are now left, and the people have already made up their mind to vote out the BJP," he told reporters here. He said the falling farm-produce prices and rising non-farm prices was causing rural distress, frauds, fake news. "The Narendra Modi government is single-handedly responsible for destroying, damaging and demolishing the Indian economy, thereby severely jeopardising the future of youths, farmers and the marginalised. There is no doubt that the twin assaults on the economy -- demonetisation and a flawed GST -- finished jobs and completely decimated the unorganised sector," he said. Vallabh alleged the Modi government's gross financial mismanagement was killing consumption and purchasing power, encouraging deflation, hurting exports, stagnating investments, terminating manufacturing growth and lowered the faith of the people in the banking sector. "There are no jobs. Farmers are in extreme distress. The rural sector is anguished. The poor are suffering. The countdown for Modi government's exit has begun, even though it is trying to clutch at straws by announcing one 'jumla' after another," he said. Charging the government with dealing a severe blow to the socio-economics of the country, he said there are no jobs, the unemployment rate has increased to a 27-month high of 7.38 per cent in December 2018. In the last one year, 1.1 crore people have lost their jobs, 3 crore people are looking for jobs and unemployment rose to a four-year high post-demonetisation. Taking on the government over joblessness, he said while the prime minister claims there is no 'data on jobs', a report prepared by the former Niti Aayog's VC Arvind Panagariya on 'jobs data' has been "deliberately kept in the cold storage by the Modi Government" which is said to have painted a "grim picture" for job creation. The government has also held back labour bureau's employment/unemployment report for 2016-17, he alleged, noting that HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar made an "obnoxiously bizarre remark" on the unemployment crisis where he allegedly said "people who don't work out of choice, cannot be considered unemployed". "This comment not only mocks our youth, but also rubs salt on their wounds inflicted by the Modi government. Earlier, we have heard horribly repulsive comments by PM Modi himself on how opening a 'pakoda' stall is also job creation," he alleged. He said the wholesale price index (WPI) for December revealed that the WPI for the sub-component for primary food articles has been negative for six consecutive months beginning July 2018 which means the price at which farmers are selling their products are falling. Fall in nominal rural incomes due to falling prices and low rural wage growth are bound to put a squeeze on consumption demand in the economy, Vallabh said. He said the worst agrarian crisis in 20 years created due to "the demonetisation scam and Gabbar Singh Tax" has forced the government "to bandage the situation" by giving interest-free loans and income support schemes ahead of the general elections. "Like all other schemes, this is a hurried scheme prepared by a panic-stricken Modi government. This will only turn out to be an electoral 'jumla'," he said. He also said that India's foreign direct investment (FDI) outflows more than doubled in 2017 to USD 11.3 billion while FDI inflows fell 9 per cent to USD 40 billion during the year, according to the latest World Investment Report, 2018, released by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). "Which means even though ease of doing business ranking is getting better, economic conditions created by the Modi government are not conducive for private investment," he said. Congress President Rahul Gandhi (3) After deciding to contest alone in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress is now mulling over fighting solo in West Bengal for the Lok Sabha polls 2019, according to The Economic Times. The Congress was snubbed by the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, which are contesting together for the upcoming general elections from Uttar Pradesh. Following this, the party announced to go solo in the state. According to the report, a majority of senior state Congress leaders are in favour of the party going on its own in the state which is currently ruled by the Trinamool Congress (TMC). The leaders, who are in talks with Congress President Rahul Gandhi and other All India Congress Committee (AICC) representatives on the partys election strategy, have argued that any alliance with the TMC will be disastrous for the state Congress due to the in-built incompatibility of both. The Congress leaders in West Bengal have specified three arguments against considering an alliance with the TMC in the state, the report stated. First, they are angry with Banerjees act of intruding into the traditional Congress bases of Murshidabad, North Dinajpur and Malda districts, and think that the party should make efforts to protect its bastions. Secondly, the leaders feel that any TMC-Congress alliance in West Bengal would place the BJP in the position of occupying the Opposition in the state, wresting that position from the battered CPM-led Left Front. And thirdly, a soft attitude of the Congress towards the TMC will decline the enthusiasm of the party workers, who are facing tough times due to TMCs expansionist drive. Considering the views of the state party leaders, the AICC has decided to go slow on the alliance talks in the West Bengal, the report suggested. The government has decided to add 200 rain gauges in Mumbai and install 100 new automated weather stations in Kerala, Union Earth Sciences Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Monday. Kerala had witnessed unprecedented rains last year resulting in large-scale flooding and loss of lives and property. On a specific request from the Kerala government, the India Meteorological Department will install new automated weather stations, including rain gauges, to monitor weather activities in the state, the minister said. Vardhan said the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) and the IMD are developing prediction tools for thunderstorm lightning. The IITM has also developed a mobile App called 'Damini' to give alerts on impending lightning activity over the area. He said the IITM has already installed 48 lightning sensors around the country which can locate the thunderstorm activities on real-time. Last year, over 200 people had died across the north Indian plains due to thunderstorm. He said work to further develop the application is in progress and the advanced version will be unveiled when "our new government takes charge", Vardhan said. The minister said, "The IITM, with the help of the India Meteorology Department (IMD) and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is installing a new dense rain gauge network over Mumbai city with 200 rain gauges. "In addition 3 X-band and one S-Band radar will be also installed so that a merged rainfall data set at 2 km resolution will be prepared and made available to public on real-time. This facility will help the city administration and general public to know the prevailing rainfall situation in the city on real-time basis. For this purpose, already a mobile App has been developed," Vardhan added. The financial capital of the country is known for flooding due to heavy rains. The city currently has 25 rain gauges and only one S-Band radar. The IMD is strengthening the observational network and by the end of this year, 10 new X-band weather radars will be installed over northwest Himalayan states, namely Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. He said 11 more C-band radars will be installed by the IMD by 2020 over the plains of India, including one over Andaman Nicobar Islands and one over Lakshadweep Islands. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia lashed out at the BJP on Monday and accused it of "exploiting" traders through the goods and services tax (GST). Sisodia's reaction came in response to a tweet by Delhi BJP where it posted a video of Assam's minister Himanta Biswa Sarma accusing the AAP and the Congress of opposing a proposal to keep traders with turnover less than Rs 75 lakh, out of the ambit of the GST. The video of Sarma's address at the recently-concluded national convention of the BJP showed him charging in a meeting of GST Council that there was a proposal to keep traders with turnover less than 75 lakh out of the goods and services tax ambit, but the finance ministers of the Congress, AAP and the CPM government in Kerala opposed it, insisting the limit should be Rs 20 lakh. "In this struggle between Rs 75 lakh and Rs 20 lakh, we could manage the relief only to the traders having turnover less than Rs 40 lakh," he said. Sisodia retaliated to the charge accusing the BJP of "exploiting" the traders. "Who can be the biggest enemy of traders in the country! BJP wanted to bring traders with a turnover of Rs 5 lakh under the GST but it was fixed at Rs 20 lakh after the opposition of AAP," Sisodia tweeted. Despite the "repressive policies" of the BJP, the Delhi government has ensured that traders in Delhi have least losses, and it will continue to do so, he asserted. After the constitutionality of Aadhaar and the government's ability to store data safely were challenged, Indian citizens are on the fence about anything that requires the input of personal information including biometrics. Therefore, it is somewhat concerning that WhatsApp, the most used messaging application in India, may rollout fingerprint authentication for its Android 2.19.3 update. The Facebook-owned app has over 200 million daily users in India. This update would allow WhatsApp to use your fingerprint credentials stored in the phone with your consent if the app cannot detect your fingerprint. The messaging app on its own has worked a lot to protect data of its users. Recently, the Centre had asked the app to enable tracking of fake and provocative messages shared on its platform that led to violent incidents across India. WhatsApp stood up to the Centre and refused to break the end-to-end encryption it provides and share the information, saying that it would invade users' privacy. However, its parent company, Facebook, has had a bad track record when it comes to data protection and privacy. The Mark Zuckerberg-owned company was involved in a major political scandal when it was revealed that it exposed personal data of nearly 87 million Facebook users to political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which was working on US President Donald Trump's campaign. Zuckerberg also had to face a Congressional hearing. Facebook had also admitted to the data breach of 50 million Indian users and said that 90 million are at risk in September 2018. The social media website also shared users' information with advertisers to help them understand their audience better. But after a point, the data was being taken away without the consent of users. This feature is supposed to add a layer of extra protection, which it does in an amateur way. But, after the year Indian users have had with the way their their data was handled, many are sure to wonder if it is a safe process. Chirico received two contributions of $2,500 the largest amounts he got this quarter. One of the $2,500 donations came from former Naperville City Council hopeful and owner of Third Party Pet, Mike Isaac. The other came from Indsoft, whose president and CEO Vinoz Chanamolu is part owner of the forthcoming Mall of India project on Route 59. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Share price of Jammu and Kashmir Bank (J&K Bank) rose 12.5 percent intraday Tuesday after CLSA maintained buy call with a target of Rs 50 per share. According to CLSA, the bank reported steady results outside IL&FS. The December quarter, albeit on a low base, was ahead of the estimate which is a positive sign. The bank also enjoys a strong deposit franchise which is highest among the PSU space. The global investment bank has lifted earnings estimates for J&K Bank to factor in banks provisioning for on IL&FS. The bank has reported a 43 percent year-on-year increase in December quarter profit at Rs 103.75 crore against profit of Rs 72.47 crore. Net interest income increased 13 percent year-on-year to Rs 881.63 crore in quarter ended December 2018. Asset quality weakened as gross non-performing assets were higher at 9.94 percent as of December 2018 against 9 percent as of September 2018. Net NPA were also higher at 4.69 percent against 3.91 percent, QoQ. At 09:38 hrs Jammu and Kashmir Bank was quoting at Rs 40.50, up Rs 3.10, or 8.29 percent on the BSE. For more market news, click here The Supreme Court Monday extended till July 31 the deadline for house owners, whose buildings were ordered to be demolished due to illegal constructions in the forest area of Aravalli hills, to vacate their premises subject to furnishing of undertaking in this regard. A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta said the house owners, who were earlier directed by the apex court to vacate their premises by March 31, would get time till July 31 if they file undertaking that they would vacate the properties by then. The bench said this after the counsel appearing for some of the house owners urged that the time should be extended as the owners were senior citizens and they needed some more time to look for another accommodation. "We extend the time till July 31, 2019 to vacate the premises subject to furnishing of an undertaking within four weeks from today," the bench said. The court made it clear that if the undertaking would not be filed, the already fixed time till March 31 would remain in force. There are 33 house owners in Faridabad's Kant Enclave and they were earlier asked by the court to vacate their premises by March 31 this year. On September 11 last year, the apex court had termed "frightening" the illegal construction in the forest area of Aravalli hills and directed the Haryana government to demolish the unauthorised structures built there after August 18, 1992. During the hearing on Monday, senior lawyer Ranjit Kumar, assisting the court as an amicus curiae in the matter, told the bench that a committee set up by the court earlier has filed a report with regard to the valuation of properties at Kant Enclave. He said the court had formed a committee, comprising the chief secretary and principal secretary of Town and Country Planning Department of Haryana, to look into the documents regarding ownership and valuation of the properties. The counsel representing Haryana said they have deposited Rs 16.5 crore in the apex court registry in pursuance to the earlier order. The bench said the money deposited in the registry be distributed among the house owners as per the valuation report of the committee. It made it clear that in case any house owner is aggrieved by the valuation report, he or she has the remedy to approach the competent civil court. The Haryana government had earlier informed the court that there were 19 plots having two-storeyed building there while houses having ground and first floor were made in eight plots. He said in several other plots, only boundary walls with perhaps one or two rooms were made there. In its September 11 last year order, the apex court had lashed out at Haryana government and said the construction activity carried out by R Kant and Company, a private realtor who was a party to the case, was clearly in violation of the August 18, 1992 notification and also in blatant defiance of the court's orders. The 1992 notification issued under the provisions of the Punjab Land Preservation (PLP) Act had prohibited clearing or breaking up of land not ordinarily under cultivation. Permission to break the land for cultivation could be permitted by the Divisional Forest Officer of Faridabad Forest Division, the notification had said, adding that in any event construction activity could not be permitted even by the Divisional Forest Officer. Xi Jinping President for life: Chinese President Xi Jinping in March secured the possibility of ruling the Peoples Republic of China indefinitely. The Communist Party abolished the presidential term limit. The 'Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese characteristics for a New Era' was also inserted into the Party constitution, confirming Xi as the most powerful Chinese leader since Deng Xiaoping. (Image: Reuters) Highlights - Weak China trade data confirms concerns highlighted by WTO- Trade data lumpiness impacted by the US-China negotiations- China domestic slowdown gets concerning; further stimulus expected- Trade data can compel speedy negotiations for trade - China plenum (19-22 Jan19) & next round of trade talks (end of Jan19) key The steep decline in Chinas trade numbers corroborates a story which leading indicators (in this case PMIs) and WTOs trade outlook had been pointing towards a global growth drag on account of the Sino-US trade war and a China domestic slowdown. Chinas export dropped 4.4 percent year-on-year (YoY) compared to 5.4 percent rise in the previous month. Interestingly, previous readings (September-November 2018) brought out near double-digit export growth for China but this was mainly aided by higher exports to the US. This apparent early purchase by the US companies was to avoid higher tariffs later on. Latest data suggests exports to the US have declined by 3.7 percent YoY. Chart: China export-import growth (YoY) Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China Chinas imports declined even more severely i.e. -7.6 percent YoY conveying a mix of an impact of trade war (pre-purchase) and domestic slowdown. Imports from the US to China dropped by -35.8 percent YoY. Chart: China PMI trajectory Source: Markit Economics, tradingeconomics.com What does it imply? Chinese authorities are expected to target a revival in consumption, improve the credit situation and offer a calibrated approach to reduction in debt so that growth in minimally hampered. Recently, the Chinese authorities have tried to tweak personal income tax slabs to increase disposable income. At the same time, incentives for the SME sector have been targeted so that employee layoff is avoided. PBoC (the central bank) has taken steps to reduce the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) for banks by 100 bps, this month, to provide liquidity support. But these steps may not be enough and more is expected before domestic growth shows signs of improvement. Chart: China Industrial production Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China, tradingeconomics.com This may act as a catalyst for the US-China trade talks so that reprieve in external sector partially offsets the domestic slowdown. In fact, the factor that can push both China and the US to the negotiation table for a solution is global growth moderation. Global central banks have recently highlighted this and the last being the Federal Reserve. From Chinas perspective, its noteworthy that Chinas industrial profit cycle has largely been, aided by firming global demand and China's supply-side reforms. And hence, any weakness in global demand may moderate the profit trajectory further. What next to look up to? On trade negotiations, the detailed outcome of the first round of trade talks is still not out but the US statement suggests China has agreed to substantial purchases of agriculture, energy, manufactured goods from the US. Such initial outcome was widely expected and had been highlighted in the Xi-Trump truce in the backdrop of G-20 meet in November 2018. Its noteworthy that Chinas surplus with the US is at a record high of $323 billion in 2018. Further, progress on contentious issues like technology transfer, intellectual property protection, non-tariff barriers and cyber theft are eagerly awaited and can potentially emerge as the Achilles heel for the entire negotiation. It is no secret that the US considers its technological prowess under threat due to Chinas endeavour to leapfrog in the high technology areas. China in its Made in China 2025 plan has kept domestic technology as the cornerstone of the strategic plan. Next round of trade negotiation is expected to happen later this month wherein the Chinese side would be led by Vice Premier Liu He. The sequence of events gets interesting as Chinas communist party plenum (19-22 Jan19) is also around the corner. This is important as traditionally major reforms are announced in such events which may point towards more opening of the Chinese economy. John Chambers, Executive Chairman of Cisco, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 1, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake - RC15D2A77540 Global technology industry veteran John Chambers said governments are resorting to data localisation because companies are not serving the "legitimate need" of sharing data. Storing data within a particular geography does not make it more secure, he clarified, adding that everybody in the tech world knows that virtual is the future and not physical. "If...companies were not willing to share the data for legitimate needs, then governments use this as one way to perhaps address it," Chambers, the chairman emeritus of Cisco, told reporters here. He said the onus is on the tech industry, especially the large companies, that deliver on both job creation and help meet the "legitimate needs of countries and government". "If you (companies) don't, governments will regulate...I would encourage our peers to think carefully about how you address the very legitimate needs and to realise that part of the legitimate needs is to create more jobs than you are destroying," he added. The comments come amid a greater focus on data localisation wherein governments and regulators both in India as well as other regions such as the European Union, are insisting on data being stored locally. The RBI has asked financial companies and intermediaries to have their data stored locally, and capital markets watchdog Sebi is also mulling a similar move for entities it regulates according to reports. Chambers, who has two early stage investments in the country, lauded the growth in Indian startup ecosystem, predicting that it will "outrival" the US famed Silicon Valley in few years. Credit for this is to the government, which has implemented the right policies under the "visionary" prime minister Narendra Modi who has the ability and courage to take tough decisions, he said. Stating that the demonetisation was a controversial yet powerful decision, he lauded other initiatives including the introduction of GST and bankruptcy code, and the work on ease of doing business. Chambers said even though he has taken over a ten per cent interest in the two Indian startups, Lucideus and Uniphore, he typically likes to take a 3-5 per cent stake by paying between USD 1-5 million. Lucideus on January 15 entered into an agreement with BSE to secure the stock bourse's over 1,000 brokers from cybersecurity risks. Answer: Etihad Airways (Image: Reuters) live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Even as talks to infuse liquidity into the struggling Jet Airways enters the final stage, Etihad Airways -- the critical player in the whole deal -- is being held back by some trying circumstances the airline itself is facing. Many of Etihad Airways' troubles mirror that of its Indian peer, in which it holds 24 percent stake. The international airline has now gone two years without profits, and this may extend to one more year. Many of its investments have turned sour, and it may have to end up paying two billion euro in fines for one of them. And in the latest sign of tough times, Etihad Airways may layoff up to 50 of its 2,065 pilots. This has surprised many. "Airlines usually don't lay off of their pilots. This reflects the position it is in," said a senior executive from the industry. One more of Etihad Airways' investments could go bad. And that is the Rs 2,069 crore it invested in Jet Airways in 2013 for a 24 percent stake. Jet Airways has now gone through three consecutive quarters, incurring over Rs 1,000 crore in losses in each. Reports suggest the airline's lessors and MRO (maintenance, repair, overhaul) partners are losing patience over non-payment of dues. And its lenders are now wary of a Kingfisher-like situation after Jet Airways defaulted on loan repayments in December. Kingfisher, whose founder Vijay Mallya is fighting extradition in London courts, owes over Rs 9,000 crore to banks. Jet Airways dues are almost as big, with a total debt of Rs 8,000 crore. The airline also faces stiff repayment schedule and needs to make a payment of Rs 1,700 crore to banks by March. The lenders, led by State Bank of India, have now sat down with Etihad Airways officials. The three sides, including Jet Airways, are now trying to come to a deal that will meet each of their conditions. Etihad Airways is not taking any chance now. It had invested in seven airlines globally. Two of them - Alitalia and Air Berlin - have filed for bankruptcy. Its investment in Jet Airways has also seen a considerable loss in value. Despite the spurt in its stock in the last two days, on news of its fund raising talks with Etihad Airways, Jet Airways' share price at Rs 306 is still trading 50 percent lower from the Rs 750-level last seen in 2013. That was the year when Etihad Airways bought stake in Jet Airways. Sources tell Moneycontrol that Etihad Airways has agreed to increase its stake in Jet Airways. But with capital now scarce, the conditions it has put are tough. The toughest being the role of Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal. Etihad Airways now wants operation control over its Indian partner, and that can only happen once Goyal lets go. The founder holds 51 percent stake in Jet Airways. Reports say he may dilute his shareholding to 25 percent, but may retain a seat on the board. The final word may come on January 16, when Jet Airways meets its lenders. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Supriya Sule on December 28 presented a private member bill that will allow employees to refuse work-related calls and emails beyond office hours and on holidays. While this may sound like the ideal concept for working professionals, human resource officials said its implementation wouldnt be practical. Sule who is a Member of Parliament said the Right to Disconnect Bill mandates companies to detail out-of-work demands as a way to reduce stress and ease tension between an employees personal and professional life. Among other countries, France is the only one to have a law making it illegal for employers to contact employees after work hours (usually 6 pm). Companies will be subject to fines if they break the law. The Bill The Bill envisages the establishment of an Employees' Welfare Authority to confer the right on every employee to disconnect from work-related telephone calls and emails beyond work hours and holidays. Here, the right to disconnect means that while the employer may contact the worker after work hours, the employee is not obliged to reply or shall have the right to refuse to answer such calls. Also, in case an employee refuses to reply to any call during out-of-work hours, such employee shall not be subject to any disciplinary action by the employer. Is it viable? Human resource officials said even if the law is introduced, it will be a huge challenge to implement it. The head of human resources at a Mumbai-based manufacturing firm said they have a strict deadline of 6 pm and do not contact employees across the sector unless there is an emergency. If this is made a law, any mishaps at the plant cannot be addressed immediately since the concerned person can say that this is beyond their work hours, he added. Further, HR experts also said it is a reality in India that there is a backlog of work in most companies, due to which disconnecting cannot be possible. Sunil Goel, Managing Director, GlobalHunt said, In India, how many people meet the deadline for completion of work? When you dont complete the work within the deadline, how can you enjoy the benefits? He added that to adapt work-life balance of this sort, the basics need to be corrected first. Another human resource official working in a mid-sized IT services firm said even though it is a reality that employees carry work home, nobody is penalised for not answering calls or emails. He said considering a lot of Indian IT firms work with global companies where there is a time difference, completely switching off is not practical. Also, HR professionals said companies blatantly violating human rights by making employees work through digital means beyond work hours can be exposed on social media very easily. Rituparna Chakraborty, Executive Vice President, TeamLease Services said the right to disconnect is a utopian thought. World of work is changing and there is no concept of fixed work hours. Companies can also no longer get away with dictatorial practices in the workplaces, she added. Sectors where it cannot be implemented The bill does not specify the sectors where these rules will not apply. However, there are areas like public transport, medical industry, law enforcement as well as media where having fixed hours cannot be viable. Chakraborty said a doctor cannot refuse to treat a patient saying it is beyond his/her work hours. Making it law will be detrimental, she added. Having such a law will be counter-productive because no company has this as a rampant practice, she added. The government is considering raising import duty on iron ore, a key raw material used in steel making, with a view to protecting the domestic industry, sources said. "The matter is under discussion among different ministries including steel," they added. The development assumes significance as recently Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding issues of the sector in the state and sought a hike in the import duty on the mineral. The chief minister had stated that steel companies are importing a huge quantity of iron ore at a time when the country is facing the problem of large trade deficit. Seeking the prime minister's intervention, Kumaraswamy had requested to suitably raise the import duty on iron ore and pellets. The low import duty of 2.5 per cent encourages steel players to go for import rather than utilising the local ore, he had said. Earlier, apex mineral body Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI) too had urged the government to take immediate steps to encourage export of iron ore from Karanataka and increase import duty on iron ore and its pellets to 30 per cent to check imports. The government is also considering to cut export duty on iron ore and the commerce and industry ministry has sought views of steel and mines ministry on the issue. Iron ore exports in 2017-18 dipped to USD 1.47 billion from USD 1.53 billion in the previous fiscal. Karnataka is the largest iron ore producing state in the country. The other major producers include Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Goa and Jharkhand. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said delayed salary payments at Jet Airways could pose a potential safety risk, reports The Economic Times. The aviation regulator flagged off these concerns to the Naresh Goyal-promoted airline as part of its audit of the carrier. Non-payment of salaries is a concern and DGCAs audit flags it as a type 2 concern (sic), a government official told the newspaper. Sources said the airline is yet to send its response. As per the report, type 2 concerns dont impact the safety of the airline directly but could potential do so. In September last year, several passengers on a Jet Airways flight from Mumbai to Jaipur suffered nose and ear bleeding after the crew forgot to turn on a switch that controls cabin air pressure An airline spokesperson told the newspaper it hadnt received any report, adding: The company continues to run normal operations as per schedule and with appropriate safety approvals as per DGCA. The airline is current in terms of payments as per the disbursement schedule that has been shared with the specific employee group. The cash-strapped airline has been struggling to pay staff salaries for the past two-months. On December 6, 2018, media reports said the company will pay salaries to its senior staff, including pilots, in instalments till April To trim costs, the management had sought to impose a pay cut up to 25 percent for senior management but had to retract the same following protest by staff, including pilots. On January 14, Indias second-biggest airline by market share, landed in a spot of trouble in Singapore as maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) unit held back 18 of its CFM56 engines that power the bulk of its fleet of Boeing 737 aircraft because of unpaid dues, Business Standard reported Jet Airways total debt obligations hover over Rs 8,000 crore. In a recent report, rating agency ICRA pegged its total loan repayments until FY21 at Rs 6,312 crore. The company is in talks with a consortium of domestic lenders led by State Bank of India (SBI) to agree to a proposal to convert debt to equity. On January 14, CNBC-TV18 reported that Etihad Airways, which owns 24 percent in the debt-laden company, plans to increase its stake in the Indian airline. As per the report, Goyal would trim his 51 percent stake to 20-25 percent and agree to voting rights on his stake being capped at 10 percent. Ad Wall Street Rebel New this week - 476 interested Investors Search for the Next Big Medical Cannabis Winner - This Is It Medical cannabis stocks have rewarded investors with astonishing profits over the last three years and investors are now looking for the next big winner in a market thats expected to quintuple by 2026. Tao Xu, who says she is the owner of Tao Foot Relax, said the arrest was a set up and entrapment by police. She said Hu had just moved from China a few months prior and doesnt know enough English to say or understand the alleged dialogue in the police report. When he came back from the war people said to him, Youre a Jew. Im surprised you didnt shoot them. And he said, It never entered my mind, Michael Sitrick recalled. It was foreign to him to think that somebody would do that, just kill someone in cold blood. He said some people might be that way, but he never thought about it. As investigators search for the careless driver responsible, the senseless death is a tragic example of the fact that while older Americans make up only 13 percent of the population, they represent a significantly higher percentage of pedestrian fatalities. One-fifth of people 65 and older do not drive, which often leaves walking as the main way of getting around. Yet almost half of respondents to an AARP survey of people 50 and older said that they cannot safely cross the main roads in their neighborhoods. I am humbled and excited for this great opportunity to serve the Village of Lincolnwood, Gaura said in a statement. I look forward to assisting the Mayor and Village Board on a number of significant economic development projects and serving with an extremely professional and dedicated staff. This is about the government shutdown. How dare they shut the government down? That should never, ever be allowed to happen no matter what the circumstances are. I mean, youre talking about shutting our country down. That is stupid. If they cant get over their little fights, then they should all be kicked out. Its as simple as that. Theres innocent people who are paying the price because of their little fights. Youve got an idiot president and the Senate and everybody else. Its like little kids fighting over they want it their way. This is ridiculous. Its a disgrace to our country and were probably the joke of all the other countries. Wake up. Get your act together. The Middle Eastern restaurant which also serves American grub, such as hot dogs, subs and burgers has a steady stream of regulars who say they go there for not just the food at a reasonable price, but also the service and even the friendship thats provided by owners Michel Mike Marcos and his wife, Marlene Azzo, along with their small staff of four. A Lake County Circuit Court judge in November found Randy Swopes, 48, unfit after he had made remarks in court about his daughter being the subject of a ritual in their house, and being made to drink blood. Swopes also claimed in court he had baptized her to cleanse her of a spirit and that he has the ability to do the same for others. In just a few short weeks, Queen guitarist Brian May and Astronomy Editor-in-Chief David Eicher will travel to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands to discuss their latest book: Mission Moon 3-D. by Dave Eicher In February, Brian May and David Eicher will deliver talks in support of their book MISSION MOON 3-D, published in October by the London Stereoscopic Company and MIT Press. The book features a unique set of 150 stereoscopic images of the Apollo Moon missions and the space race from its beginnings. It has succeeded admirably with great critical acclaim. Three public talks will take place in February in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands. On February 6, David Eicher will address a crowd at the John Adams Institute in Amsterdam, speaking about the Mission Moon book, Astronomy Magazine, his career in science and journalism, and other book projects. He will also conduct a moderated interview with Andre Kuipers, the second Dutch astronaut in space, a veteran of the International Space Station. For more on this event and to book tickets, see https://www.john-adams.nl/david-eicher-andre-kuipers/ On February 8, Brian May and David Eicher will address the crowd at European Astrofest, Kensington Conference and Events Center, London, presenting a 3-D talk on the Mission Moon book with special viewing glasses handed out to the audience. On February 9, David Eicher will speak again, this time on galaxies, previewing his book GALAXIES, to be published in 2020 by Penguin Random House. European Astrofest, the largest astronomy conference in England, is sponsored by Astronomy Now magazine, under the guidance of Steve Young. For more on this event and to book tickets, see: https://europeanastrofest.com/ On February 11, Brian May and David Eicher will speak on the Mission Moon book again, this time in Bath, the historic hometown of William Herschel. The event will be sponsored by Topping & Company Booksellers. More information on this event will be forthcoming soon. To purchase a copy of Mission Moon 3-D, see: https://myscienceshop.com/product/book/81192 Michigan may be without one of its backup offensive lineman next season. Nolan Ulizio, who played in four games during the 2018 season, has elected to place his name in the NCAAs new transfer portal, giving other schools the opportunity to contact him. Michigan spokesman Dave Ablauf confirmed the decision to MLive on Monday night. Under the NCAAs new transfer rules, a student-athlete may no longer seek permission from their institution to transfer to another school. Once informed of the decision, a school has two business days to place the name of the athlete in the portal. Ulizio, a redshirt junior, would be eligible to play immediately in 2019 if he graduates from Michigan this spring. He redshirted in 2015 before playing in four games at both offensive tackle positions in 2016. The 6-foot-5, 305-pounder started the 2017 season at right tackle, but he lost his spot six games in to Juwann Bushell-Beatty. Ulizio, who played in a total of eight games last season, never started another game again. He saw playing time briefly in 2018 as a reserve guard, tackle and on special teams. Ulizio, of West Chester, Ohio, was a consensus three-star prospect in Michigans 2015 recruiting class. If Ulizio follows through with his plan to transfer, he would be the seventh of that 14-player class to transfer from Michigan. Four other players have elected to transfer from Michigan since the start of the 2018 season: linebacker Drew Singleton, offensive lineman James Hudson, running back Kurt Taylor and defensive tackle Aubrey Solomon. Michigan expects to return four of its five starting offensive linemen next season: left tackle Jon Runyan, Jr., left guard Ben Bredeson, center Cesar Ruiz and right guard Michael Onwenu. SAGINAW, MI Officials in the Saginaw Public School District are again asking parents, guardians and residents to pay attention to students who are at bus stops after a second incident occurred involving a person approaching students. On the morning of Monday, Jan 14, two students reported to school security they were at the bus stop in the area of Wadsworth and Veterans Memorial Parkway when an unknown man in all black clothing exited a white SUV and approached them. The SUV had tinted windows. The students told school security that they ran in the opposite direction away from the man. The incident was reported to police, said Cynthia Brackett, spokeswoman for the district. On Friday, Jan. 11, another student reported being grabbed by a man in all black clothing and that the man also pulled his pants down. The student ran away from the man in the direction where her brother was walking. That incident occurred at a bus stop near Bond and Madison streets. Police also were made aware of the incident. Brackett said that district officials do not know if the same person is responsible in both incidents. BAY CITY, MI A Tennessee man is heading to prison for then drunken crash that killed a U.S. Army veteran and mother of two, who had recently relocated to Bay County from Tennessee. Bay County Circuit Judge Joseph K. Sheeran on Monday, Jan. 14, sentenced David L. Denman, 47, to nine to 15 years in prison. The judge gave him credit for 443 days already served in the county jail. Sheeran also ordered Denman to pay $220,156.35 in restitution to an insurance company in regard to what the company spent on the surviving driver Denman injured in his drunken crash. David L. Denman Denman in December pleaded guilty to single counts of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated causing death and operating while license suspended, denied, or revoked causing death. In exchange, the prosecution dismissed a count of failing to stop at the scene of an accident when at fault causing death. The crash occurred the night of Oct. 27, 2017, or early the next morning and resulted in the death of 27-year-old Heather D. Clark. I would like to say that I do feel that I got justice today, said Clarks mother, Loree Ditgen, who made the trip to the sentencing from her Florida home. I also want to say that Im sorry to Davids family. I know how hard this was on them. My daughter will be forever missed, and I hope that people realize not to drink and drive. My granddaughters are still suffering, she continued, but with this said, maybe this will bring some closure. Denmans attorney, Jason P. Gower, expressed his condolences to Clarks loved ones on behalf of his client. Mr. Denman and his entire family morn and pray for Heather Clark and her entire family, in particular her two daughters, he said. Clark, a mother of two daughters, would have turned 28 on Nov. 8, 2017. She retired from the U.S. Army with an honorable discharge in September 2015 at the rank of private first class (E-3), family previously said. She later lived with a boyfriend in Knoxville, Tennessee, before moving to Michigan in October 2016 to live with her father and stepmother in Sanford. She had plans to open a hair salon and was also slated to audition on NBCs Americas Got Talent. Shortly after the crash happened, Bay County Sheriff's deputies responded to the scene in the 600 block of North Garfield Road in Garfield Township and found a black Chevrolet Silverado on its roof, blocking a driveway. Medical personnel were treating its driver, 25-year-old Caleb A. Lapan, but were unable to find his passenger, Clark. Deputies also spotted a black 2004 Mercedes-Benz in a field on the opposite side of the road. It had sustained heavy front-end damage and its driver's side airbag had been deployed, court records show. The car was unoccupied, with deputies noting footprints leaving from the driver's side door and heading toward the road. Heather D. Clark Deputies found a pill bottle bearing Denman's name, an electronic cigarette and a cellphone. The car was registered to another man in Tennessee. Speaking with deputies, Lapan said he had been driving his truck south on North Garfield. He was talking with Clark when he was suddenly rear-ended, he said. The next thing he knew, he was climbing out of the wreckage, he said. After an extensive search, Garfield Township firefighters found Clark still pinned inside the truck. They used the Jaws of Life to open the vehicle and extract Clark. Medical personnel pronounced her dead at the scene. Northern Bay Ambulance transported Lapan to an area hospital. Meanwhile, the Michigan State Police Trooper 3 helicopter and the Arenac County Sheriffs K9 Unit responded to the scene to help find the Mercedes-Benz driver. More than an hour later, Bay County Central Dispatch received calls from two residences on West Anderson Road. Both callers said a man was pounding on their doors, screaming that his vehicle was in a ditch. The helicopter responded to the area and detected a heat signature under a small pine tree. Deputies went to this spot and found a sopping wet, mud-caked Denman lying under the tree. Denman told deputies he had been drinking at several places but refused to submit to a preliminary Breathalyzer test. He told deputies he had not been driving, encouraging them to look for a friend to whom the car was registered. When deputies told him there was no evidence anyone other than he had been in the car, Denman replied, Well, I dont know. They later visited Denmans mothers house in Linwood. She told them he had arrived in Bay County on Monday from Clarksville, Tennessee, and that he had been driving his friends Mercedes-Benz. She said he left her house about 7 p.m. on Oct. 27 and that he was alone. During a portion of Willie Jacksons statement to police played in court previously, he had told police he had gone with his uncle to the home, which is where a friend lived, and that he had not seen Dayviontay Jackson before that evening. FRANKENMUTH, MI Greta Van Fleet is a group of young Michigan rockers whose sound is reminiscent of Led Zeppelin. Gretna VanFleet is the 88-year-old bluegrass musician who inspired the bands name. As Greta Van Fleet prepares to perform on Saturday Night Live this Saturday, Jan. 19, Gretna VanFleet said their popularity is getting her more recognition as well. At least in Frankenmuth, the bands hometown where she also lives. I get a lot of response. I rarely go anyplace, but when someone recognizes the name or the band ... sometimes people react, said VanFleet, while sitting in her favorite chair in the living room of her house. Whats in a name? VanFleets name is of Dutch origin. Its now known worldwide, thanks to the band, which decided to adopt a variation of it. There wasnt a formal ceremony, written or verbal consent given, the band just went with it. However, they did decide to take the n out of Gretna because they thought it flowed better. Former band member Kyle Hauck proposed the name to the group several years ago after hearing his grandfather, who is good friends with VanFleet, mention the name one day. I think they checked out my background to make sure I wasnt on the 10 most wanted list or something and they went ahead with it, VanFleet said. But later, when I met the boys, I said thats OK. But, no, they did not approach me to begin with. VanFleet said her first name came from a book that her grandfather got in the 1880s when he was a little boy. She said it was a story about a little girl named Gretna Berg. She never expected Greta Van Fleet to become so famous. They first played in a garage and at local events. They didnt tell me they were going to be on TV or up for Grammys, VanFleet said with a chuckle. The band consisting of guitarist Jake Kiszka, bassist Sam Kiszka, vocalist Josh Kiszka, and drummer Danny Wagner formed in 2012. Since then, they have signed with Lava Records, released their first full-length studio album, performed on tour and are now headed for airtime on the national comedy show. Gretna VanFleet, who took her first piano lesson at age 5, is also in a band with her husband Dale VanFleet. Its a bluegrass band called Holy Jeans. The band only plays a handful of times throughout the year, she said. Shes a musician who plays piano, organ, dulcimer and violin, as well as an active member of her church and the Frankenmuth Womens Club. Gretna meets Greta VanFleet first met the group that adopted her name in 2013 when they performed at the Zehnders Snowfest in Frankenmuth. It was kinda fun to meet them. I got to go up on stage and have my picture taken with them, VanFleet said. Two photos of VanFleet and the band sit on a side table in the living room. A white rose that was given to her at the Snowfest performance also is on display. Her second encounter with group was at the Fillmore in Detroit. She was given five tickets and was able to see all the behind the scenes work of the concert. She added that her favorite song the band plays is Flower Power. I do like that song. Theres a couple others that I like, but thats not really my style. Its not my era that theyre making popular come back, VanFleet said. She said some of her own favorite songs to play include church hymns and Christmas music, giving MLive a demonstration while playing her piano. Since the band has blown up, so has attention on her. She was hard to live with before, joked Jonilyn VanFleet, VanFleets youngest of four daughters. She said the one thing that stands out to her is how the group researched her mom and found out she was a pillar in the community. They found that she was credible and she does get a lot of attention at doctors offices and what not, Jonilyn VanFlett said. Dale VanFleet said the doctors even requested to see photos of VanFleet and the band. Ive got more friends than I ever had. Everybody wants to be a friend because they know my name, VanFleet said. Its still my name, Dale VanFleet responds playfully. Greta Van Fleet is scheduled to perform two songs on Saturday Night Live on NBC. VanFleet said she will probably watch. BAY CITY, MI A financial adviser who embezzled more than a half-million from a trust fund is heading to prison after a judge exceeded the recommended guidelines. Bay County Circuit Judge Harry P. Gill on Monday, Jan. 14, sentenced David J. Homan, 68, to two to 15 years in prison. The judge gave Homan credit for three days already served in the county jail. Homans sentencing guideline range was 10 to 19 months. Guidelines are advisory and judges are not bound to adhere to them. Gill also ordered Homan to pay restitution in the amount he stole $513,211.56. Homan in November pleaded guilty to the lone charged he faced, that of embezzlement between $50,000 and $100,000. Police had begun investigating Homan in March 2015 after being contacted by attorney Joseph Weiler of Midland-based law firm of Chalgian & Tripp. Weiler told police that Homan, previously employed by Wells Fargo in Bay City as a financial adviser, had stolen more than $500,000 from a trust fund. The trust fund had been in the name of Elizabeth N. Stafford, a Saginaw resident who died in April 2009 at the age of 93. Her sister Frances I. Stafford was named as the beneficiary, but she died in October 2013 at 84, with sister Louise J. Larsen named as successor. Larsen too died in September 2014 at 92, leaving her three daughters as subsequent beneficiaries. After Larsen died, Weiler notified police as he was representing the trust's beneficiaries. Homan had been named co-trustee of the fund in September 2003 and became the fund's sole trustee after Elizabeth Stafford's death, at which time the fund reportedly contained about $516,000, court records state. During their investigation, police said they obtained a letter written by Homan on April 18, 2014, and sent to the fund's beneficiaries. "On occasion, I see things that help me to know how to do things better, and even at times, I learn things that help me to know that I may have done things in a way that others could perceive as inappropriate," Homan wrote in the letter, as noted in police reports contained in court files. Homan on April 28, 2014, resigned from Wells Fargo during an internal compliance review, court records state. Yeo & Yeo later conducted a forensic audit of the trust fund, which indicated money had been taken from it via electric fund transfers and checks written by Homan. The money was transferred to Homan's Chase Sapphire credit card, U.S. Bank credit card, and American Express account, court files state. One check was written Oct. 24, 2013, to a Bay City car dealership for $34,963.68 for a 2014 Chrysler Town & Country, which was then registered to Homan's wife, police reports state. An audit revealed the sum of $513,211.57 had been misappropriated from the account between 2009 and 2014, the report states. EAST LANSING, MI - A Michigan State University student died Tuesday when the moped the person was driving collided with a salt truck on campus, authorities said. The crash occurred about 7:50 a.m. at the intersection of Shaw Lane and Chestnut Road, police said. That area was closed for about three hours following the incident. MSU Police Capt. Doug Monette said the crash remains under investigation, according to the Associated Press. The MSU community is grieving the loss of a student killed in a traffic crash involving an MSU salt truck early this morning," MSU spokesperson Emily Guerrant said in a statement, according to the Lansing State Journal. The students name has not yet been released. KENT COUNTY, MI Police and firefighters are responding to multiple crashes throughout West Michigan, including a crash that closed eastbound I-96 at Fruitridge Avenue NW. Just as the eastbound lanes opened around 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 15, westbound lanes were shut by multiple crashes. Westbound I-96 has been shut down at U.S. 131. The ramps from northbound U.S. 131 to westbound I-96 and southbound U.S. 131 to westbound I-96 have also been closed by multiple crashes, the state Department of Transportation said. Police report slippery roads conditions with light snow and freezing rain falling and temperatures just below freezing. An officer reported being rear-ended by another vehicle. Road conditions have deteriorated throughout the morning, with police calling for salt trucks on expressways and ramps. Good morning GR! We've heard some roads, and driveways, are a sheet of ice this morning...The salt trucks are hard at work but please reduce your speeds during your commute. #SafeTravelsGR pic.twitter.com/0XerLI2jva Grand Rapids Police (@GrandRapidsPD) January 15, 2019 Dispatchers were told that glare ice made travel impossible in some spots. Several jack-knifed semi-trucks have been reported, too. The National Weather Service in Grand Rapids re-issued a canceled winter-weather advisory after receiving calls about vehicles sliding off the road. Light snow and freezing drizzle are expected to continue in some areas. ADA TOWNSHIP, MI Nearly 18 months after opening, Kingmas Market is closing its Ada grocery store. The store, 444 Ada Dr SE, is starting the closure process with special prices on its remaining inventory, and a full departure is expected in the weeks ahead, according to a statement from owner Alan Hartline. Although we believe that Kingmas Market is still scalable for other neighborhoods, we learned that our niche in todays dynamic retail environment is to serve customers in a smaller, more dense and walkable area, in a scaled-down site, more like our original market, Hartline said. Kingmas original location is located at 2225 Plainfield Ave. NE in Grand Rapids. The Ada store was about 40 percent larger than the Plainfield location. The 13,000-square-foot Ada location opened in September 2017. It specialized in products grown or made in Michigan, and included Fish Lads a fish market that also serves food and Rowster Coffee. It is located amid the Ada Village redevelopment, which is bringing retail and residential projects to the area. Following the closure of the Ada location, Hartline said he has plans to improve the Kingmas Market on Plainfield. We will bring much of the recent learning that took place in Ada to strengthen our Plainfield Market, Hartline said, adding that Kingmas on Plainfield will add grab-and-go meals, and an expanded deli, bakery and seafood. Kingmas, was founded over 80 years ago, and was first located in the Boston Square neighborhood. In 1994, it moved to 2225 Plainfield Ave. NE. It offers a neighborhood market experience, with local, Michigan-made products, produce and meat. Third-generation owners Ed Kingma, 60, and his cousin, Bob Kingma, announced in 2014 that they were selling the business. It was purchased by Hartline, a former executive with Spartan Stores. ALPENA, MI A 38-year-old former Alpena Public Schools employee was arrested and charged with multiple counts of criminal sexual conduct involving a child and other offenses, the Alpena County Prosecuting Attorneys Office reports. On Friday, Jan. 11, the Michigan State Police arrested Heather Winfield of Alpena following an investigation that began during her tenure with Alpena Public Schools, according to a news release from Alpena County Prosecuting Attorney K. Edward Black. The investigation was a joint endeavor between the Michigan State Police and the Alpena City Police regarding allegations from 2016 through July of 2018, Black said in the news release. Winfield is charged with two counts of criminal sexual conduct 1st degree (involving a child under 13), one count of criminal sexual conduct 1st degree (during the commission of a felony), criminal sexual conduct 3rd degree (child 13-15), criminal sexual conduct 2nd degree (child under 13), accosting a minor for immoral purposes, and using a computer to commit a crime, according to the news release. If convicted, she faces a possible punishment of life in prison. Winfield was arraigned before Judge Thomas J. LaCross arraigned on Jan. 14. A preliminary exam conference and preliminary examination date have yet to be determined, the news release states. KALAMAZOO, MI A man who acted as a Big Brother and foster parent was sentenced in federal court Monday to 90 years in prison for convincing teenage boys to produce child pornography. William John Easterling Jr., 53, was sentenced to three consecutive, 30-year prison terms by U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Maloney Monday, Jan. 14, in Kalamazoo. Easterling, who lived near Grand Haven, was previously convicted by a federal jury of three counts of sexual exploitation of a child or attempted sexual exploitation and possession of child pornography. Federal prosecutors said at trial that Easterling mentored and befriended a boy and had him, at the age of 16, take a sexual explicit video of himself. Another teen, who was mentored by Easterling through Big Brothers, made a similar video, assistant U.S. Attorney Alexis Sanford said in court documents. Easterling, once a candidate for the state House of Representatives and a former member of the Robinson Township Zoning Board of Appeals, has denied any inappropriate conduct with children, court records said. Family members of Easterlings victims read statements to the judge during Mondays sentencing hearing. Those speaking identified themselves by initials to protect the identity of the victims. The father of a victim said he saw a change in his son after the incident; that he was angry, embarrassed, confused and anxious. I know this will be something he will have to deal with for a very long long time, the father said. The mother of a victim said Easterling used weakness in his victims for his own gain. Before ending her statement, she told Easterling to look at her. I have to forgive, she said. "But I will never -- look at me -- I will never forget what you did to my children. Easterling gave a statement that went on for several minutes. He spoke about his experience as a foster parent, and said he thought some of the children were doing satanic rituals and using Ouija boards. They came to me and said, Bill please save my boys, he said. I had no frickin' training. Dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, Easterling faced the judge while giving his statement. The family members of his victims looked on. I guess I am sorry, but you gave me no support, Easterling said. The judge said Easterlings statement could only be described as bizarre," and said it was part of the reason he ordered mental health services for Easterling. Its quite apparent by Easterlings statement that he just doesnt get it, the judge said. GENESEE TWP., MI Police are investigating the death of an 11-year-old girl that occurred last week. Genesee Township police were called at 11:36 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 11 for a medical call involving an unresponsive 11-year-old child at 10528 Hembera St. in Dutch Village, police said in a statement. Police at the scene were told by medical personnel that the girl was deceased, according to the statement. Investigators later identified the girl as Alyssa Gonzalez, the statement said. Mt. Morris Schools Superintendent Renae Galsterer sent a letter to parents on Friday about Gonzalezs death. The letter included links for parents to help their students work through grief and also said there would be professionals available to help students at the school. This loss is sure to raise many emotions, concerns and questions for our entire school especially our students, the letter said. At our school, we have social workers and counselors available for any student who may need any type of assistance surrounding this loss. MLive-The Flint Journal could not reach Galsterer for comment on Tuesday, Jan. 15, but someone in her office confirmed the letter was about Gonzalez. The Michigan State Police crime lab was called in to aid detectives and the incident remains under investigation. An autopsy is pending and is expected to determine the cause of death, according to the statement. Police have not released any information about how the girl died. Attempts to reach Gonzalezs family were unsuccessful Tuesday. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call Detective Randy Young at 810-640-2000. FLINT, MI The preliminary exam for a police chief charged with two felonies in connection with a surplus military equipment program was delayed until March on Tuesday, Jan. 15. Thetford Township police Chief Robert Kenny is on unpaid leave after allegations arose last year that he kept thousands of dollars earned from scrapping surplus military equipment for personal use rather than turn it over to Thetford Township officials. As were going through discovery, weve found were missing things, said Kennys attorney Frank J. Manley during a court hearing Tuesday. Were asking for the court to continue to allow us to look through the materials. These are things that we think were entitled to, that we think are necessary to defend Chief Kenny. My clients life is at stake. Genesee County Assistant Prosecutor Lia Perryman said the investigation is ongoing and items are getting turned over to Manley as they become available. Perryman referred additional comment to Prosecutor David Leyton. We turn over evidence as we receive it, Leyton said. Thats what we always do. My understanding is Mr. Manley is complaining that he received some disks that have interviews that werent transcribed. We have no obligation to transcribe them for him." Genesee District Judge Vikki Bayeh Haley said discovery sometimes takes longer in embezzlement cases because of the amount of documents. Bayh Haley scheduled Kennys preliminary exam for March 1. The Thetford Township chief faces felony charges of embezzlement and obstruction. Kenny has been under investigation by the Genesee County Sheriffs office because of missing surplus equipment Kenny obtained for the Thetford Police Department through the federal Law Enforcement Support Office program. Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell previously said Kenny received almost 4,000 items that had a retail value of more than $2.7 million since 2012. Items included parachutes, mine-detecting devices, excavators, hydroseeders and other equipment. Pickell said Kenny took several heavy-duty metal storage containers obtained through the support program to a Vienna Township scrapyard in 2012 and 2013. Kenny allegedly received more than $5,000 in three different checks and deposited the money in his own account or took it in cash, Pickell previously said. Kenny was arrested on Wednesday, Aug. 22, when his personal vehicle was stopped by Genesee County officers, Pickell said. ANN ARBOR, MI - A University of Michigan student is in critical condition after being struck by a car in a crosswalk last night. Police were called about 10 p.m. Monday, Jan. 14, to the crash on East Huron Street between Thayer and Ingalls streets, said Ann Arbor police Sgt. Bill Clock. Preliminary investigation shows a westbound vehicle, driven by a 17-year-old Ann Arbor man, failed to yield at the crosswalk, Clock said. The incident remains under investigation and police appeared to be blocking the westbound lanes for further review about 10 a.m. Tuesday. The 21-year-old Ann Arbor man was walking north in the crosswalk when he was struck, Clock said. He was taken to Michigan Medicine in critical condition, Huron Valley Ambulance spokesman Matt Rose confirmed. Drugs, alcohol and distracted driving are not believed to be factors in the crash, Clock said. The crosswalk where the crash occurred has a streetlight nearby, but no flashing lights specifically for pedestrians, he said. The road was closed for several hours Monday night for investigation. The driver has been cooperative, but police are seeking anyone with information to come forward. Those with information on the crash can contact Clock at 734-794-6940 ext. 49403. Fix had said Monday that jury selection would begin Tuesday morning and that the trial would not be delayed again for the defense witness, who she said is reluctant to return to the Lake County area from Iowa out of concerns for his safety. ANN ARBOR, MI A former University of Michigan doctor has pleaded no contest to two counts of criminal sexual conduct stemming from sexual relationships he had with two patients. Mark Hoeltzel 47, of Ann Arbor, was convicted on two counts of criminal sexual conduct second and fourth degree - in a no contest plea on Jan. 7 in Washtenaw County Circuit Court, Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Steven Hiller said. The second-degree charge has an agreed sentence of 5 to 15 years, while the fourth-degree charge is for 13 months to 2 years, Hiller said. Four other counts will be dismissed at sentencing by Judge David Swartz on Feb. 25, as part of the plea agreement. The former UM pediatric rheumatologist was sentenced to 10 years in prison in December for online enticement of a minor as part of an FBI probe opened in February 2018. The states sentence will run concurrently with his federal sentence as part of the plea agreement terms, Hoeltzels attorney Joseph A. Simon said. UM police were initially notified of Hoeltzels conduct when the State of Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs called the hospital he worked at to speak with him in December 2017. A search warrant of Hoeltzels Ann Arbor home was executed by UMPD on Dec. 8, 2017, UM Police Deputy Chief Melissa Overton said. Police seized several items, including a flash drive that was later found to contain more than 100 images of child pornography. LARAs professional licensing bureau suspended Hoeltzels license on Dec. 21. Michigan Medicine immediately took steps to protect its patients by removing Hoeltzel from patient care duties the day it was alerted of the investigation, UM Executive Vice President of Medical Affairs Marschall Runge said. UMPDs investigation was later turned over to the FBI and Hoeltzel was jailed on child pornography charges in February 2018, Overton said. LARA sent out an email to Hoeltzels patients, which led to another victim coming forward in June 2018, Overton said. The federal complaint alleged Hoeltzel began texting the 17-year-old patient wishing her a Merry Christmas in early December 2015 after seeing her at the clinic when she was receiving treatment from another physician. Hoeltzel and the patient subsequently began texting and emailing and the doctor had her treatment transferred to his care, according to the federal complaint. Hoeltzel treated the patient from Dec. 24, 2015, until November 2017, according to the federal complaint. The two continued communicating via text, email and Google hangout, state investigators allege, with the messages becoming personal and sexual in nature, according to the federal complaint. In 2016, Hoeltzel and the patient began engaging in a physical, sexual relationship - some of which took place in the clinic and the patient's apartment, the federal complaint alleged. Hoeltzel would often bring alcohol in their encounters, which he would share with the patient despite the fact that she was not 21 and taking a number of medications, the complaint alleged. Hoeltzel had another sexual relationship with a patient who was 19 years old beginning in November 2014 through November 2017, Overton said, leading to the other CSC charge. LANSING, MI Democrats have reintroduced a bill to give Michigan the nations strictest limit on toxic PFAS chemicals in drinking water after Republicans let the measure die in committee last year. Sen. Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, introduced a new version of her legislation that would set a legally-enforceable limit of 5 parts-per-trillion (ppt) for two individual PFAS chemicals, PFOS and PFOA, in public drinking water distributed by utilities. Brinks said the new PFAS bill mirrors the previous version, which aims to amend the state Safe Drinking Water Act and set a maximum contaminant level (MCL) thats about 14 times lower than the existing federal health advisory level for the two chemicals. Her previous bill died without a markup in the House Natural Resources Committee, which held a one-hour PFAS 101 information session in December but did not consider any legislation. The new bill comes as the Michigan Legislature gets back to work. Both chambers began session last week. Brinks, who won a Senate seat in November after serving in the state House, was assigned to the Senate Environmental Quality and the Health Policy committees. Her bill has not been routed to a committee. Brinks said that despite opposition from Republicans last year, greater public awareness about the chemicals in Michigans environment coupled with newly-elected Democrats in the state administration could help advance talks around a drinking water standard. Im hoping the fact that its not an election year might help us have a real conversation about this," she said. "I think that caused this to not really get the attention it deserved as a policy issue last year. If nothing else, this sends a message to all legislators: If you want to work on PFAS, I do too. Lets talk, Brinks said. The legislation follows a calendar year in which PFAS became a household term for many in Michigan. To date, the chemicals have been found at some level in the municipal drinking water serving more than 2 million people about 20 percent of the state population. High profile examples include an elementary school in Ottawa County and the municipal water supply in the city of Parchment both of which tested far above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency health advisory level of 70-ppt for PFOS and PFOA. Public health advocates in Michigan and elsewhere say the EPA level doesnt adequately reflect the health risk posed by PFAS exposure. Many point to lower screening levels from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry as a better benchmark that accounts for newer studies that show exposure to PFAS can cause illness at levels lower than the EPA threshold. Last January, Michigan adopted the EPA level when setting enforceable groundwater cleanup standards for PFOS and PFOA. In December, a panel of scientists convened by former Gov. Rick Snyder concluded that the 70-ppt benchmark may not provide a sufficient margin of safety" and, in their report, noted that, while there is still some uncertainty about health effects of exposure, the scientific evidence is sufficient enough to justify regulatory efforts to manage exposure for projecting human health. Presently, the nations strictest MCL for PFAS chemicals in public supply drinking water is the 13-ppt limit on PFNA, a lesser-known PFAS compound, set last year by New Jersey. The state is poised to set similarly low standards for PFOS and PFOA. In New York, the state Drinking Water Quality Council just recommended setting state drinking water standards for PFOS and PFOA at 10-ppt. Other states are proposing standards more in line with the EPA advisory level. New Hampshire this month proposed drinking water standards of 38-ppt for PFOS, 70-ppt for PFOA, 23-ppt for PFNA and 85-ppt for another lesser-known compound called PFHxS. The EPA has not set enforceable drinking water standards for PFAS despite many calls for that by states and nonprofit groups. In Michigan, the lack of federal standards complicates the issue. Two lame duck bills signed by Snyder, HB 4205 and SB 1244, are undergoing review by new state attorney general Dana Nessel. Together, the bills limit the science that regulators could use to set toxic cleanup standards and prohibit state regulations from being stricter than federal ones. During their passage, Democrats warned about the possibility that one or both of the bills could hamper the states ability to set a strict PFAS drinking water standard. Brinks said the bills make it tougher to regulate PFAS, but hopefully not impossible. Upon signing HB 4205, Snyder issued a justification statement, stating that state regulations can still be more stringent when accompanied by the appropriate explanation and support. Brinks said that if thats what it takes, then thats what well work on. Either way, we need to protect people from harmful chemicals in their drinking water. UPDATE: Michigan medical marijuana shops can reopen unlicensed Medical marijuana shops forced to close their doors Jan. 1 may be able to re-open temporarily as Michigan officials respond to a medical marijuana shortage. Wednesday the Medical Marihuana Licensing Board will consider a resolution put forward by regulators to allow 72 unlicensed provisioning centers to reopen, and for licensed facilities to buy medical marijuana from caregivers without fear of retribution. We have heard from Michiganders closely affected by the ongoing transition to licensed marijuana facilities, said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in a statement. It is important that we ensure that patients have access to their medicine while the medical marijuana industry continues to develop. The announcement comes as medical marijuana patients are struggling to find their medicine this month, as the industry faces its first true test. State officials shut down 72 unlicensed provisioning centers Jan. 1 at the same time they restricted the ability of caregivers to further supply the industry. The result: medical marijuana prices have risen, supply has dropped and the variety of medicinal products has plummeted. Patients and industry insiders are now appealing to the new Democratic administration for help. A phone call to Cannaseur, a newly licensed provisioning center in Lansing, returns a voicemail message with news that it is closed. We are unable to find licensed products for our patients, the voice message says, urging patients to contact their state representative, Gov. Whitmer or the Bureau of Marijuana Regulation. Ida Chinonis took her young daughter, Bella, to Lansing in 2016 to watch a bill become law that would reform and regulate the states medical marijuana program. The mother and daughter from Grand Blanc had advocated for its passage, as Bella relies on medical marijuana to treat her daily seizures. Tuesday, Ida and Bella Chinonis were back in Lansing, with a different message. "Two long years later, patient access to medicine is worse than it's ever been and there's no relief in sight," Ida Chinonis said, speaking at the launch of the Michigan Cannabis Industry Association. The association announced that addressing the supply shortage for medical marijuana patients as its top priority. With almost no access left to medicine for patients and empty shelves in our members facilities, solutions need to be put in place immediately that allow patients to obtain their medicine, said Robin Schneider, the association's executive director. We look forward to working with state regulators and Governor Whitmers administration to ensure a successful medical marijuana program and to develop long term strategies that will improve and expedite the business licensing process moving forward. Monday, some of the cannabis advocacy groups behind marijuana legalization in Michigan sent a letter to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel, urging them to take action to address "this crisis for patient access." The letter urges Whitmer to extend emergency rules to allow provisioning centers to remain open until they receive a license, and to allow them to continue to purchase marijuana from caregivers. As of Jan. 15, there are 50 medical marijuana provisioning centers in Michigan. For the newly licensed shops, finding marijuana to buy is a problem. Aim High Meds, a brand new provisioning center in Tekonsha, was licensed in December. But owner Steve Roberts said the store will stay closed until he can buy reasonably priced product -- which he believes might not be until April. The product that we have found -- theyre taking bids on February product. Its twice the price of anything going on the black market, Roberts said of growers. For a few of them that have product, theyre doing it on a list. If you dont already have that connection built in, and that relationship, youre going to have issues. Rick Thompson, a board member of Michigan NORML and MILegalize, said medical marijuana from licensed growers has been more expensive and of lesser quality than what caregivers have been growing. The supply chain is certainly broken, Thompson said. Its limited in two aspects: limited in selection and limited in quantity. For patients who are used to a broad assortment of different solutions for their ailments, to be reduced to a few choices it means many people have had their treatments interrupted. To bridge the gap in patient access, Thompson said it was critical for caregivers to continue to have a role in supplying licensed medical marijuana provisioning centers. The Medical Marihuana Licensing Board meets 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 16. -- Amy Biolchini is the marijuana beat reporter for MLive. Contact her with questions, tips or comments at abiolch1@mlive.com. Read more from MLive about medical marijuana. MONROE COUNTY, MI A 34-year-old man was killed when he was ejected from his vehicle during a rollover-crash in Monroe County. Michigan State Police troopers from the Monroe Post were dispatched to the scene on Hoffman Road near Palmer Road around 7:20 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 14. Upon arrival, it was determined that Kristofer Rzepa had been traveling north on Palmer Road when he lost control near the intersection of Hoffman Road. The vehicle then ran off the west side of Palmer Road and continued north onto Hoffman Road where it struck the ditch and rolled over. Rzepa was then ejected from the vehicle, police said. He was transported to St Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor where he later died from injuries sustained in the crash. The Michigan State Police were assisted by the London-Maybee-Raisinville (LMR) Fire Department and Monroe Community Ambulance. At the time of the investigation, there were no witnesses. The Michigan State Police are asking anyone who may have additional information or witnessed the crash to contact Tpr. Alexis Adams at 734-242-3500. MUSKEGON, MI Former Younkers locations near Muskegon and Grand Rapids will be sold at auction this month. The stores at The Lakes Mall and RiverTown Crossings were among 256 to be liquidated after parent company Bon-Ton Stores, Inc., filed for bankruptcy and was sold to a liquidation firm in April 2018. The two Michigan stores are among 10 in six states that are included in this months bankruptcy auction, according to a news release. The auction will begin at 10 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 28. Bids must be entered by Jan. 25. New ownership could breathe new life into the massive - both more than 100,000 square feet - empty stores. In May 2018, A&G Realty Partners was retained to dispose all real estate assets of The Bon-Ton. To date, 13 properties have been sold to developers and investors, fitness centers, a casino, home furnishings retailers and healthcare companies, according to the release. The anchors are the largest and most important stores in any mall. At The Lakes Mall, opened in 2001, it's been JCPenney; Bed, Bath and Beyond; Sears and Younkers. In 2004, an addition was built for Dick's Sporting Goods. The 106,000-square-foot former Younkers is the only empty anchor store. However, Sears is expected to close by March. A&G is using the planned nearby casino as a selling point for the Muskegon store. The casino by the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians received overwhelming support from the community at a recent hearing. Federal and state approval of plans are still needed. The majority of local residents are reportedly in favor of a $180 million casino thats been proposed for this area, said Michael Jerbich, a principal at A&G. That addition could really boost the local economy and benefit The Lakes Mall in the process. Since it came under new ownership in 2016, The Lakes Mall has been reinventing itself. We look at it as more of an opportunity to continue to evolve The Lakes Mall, said Jonathon Pittman, manager of The Lakes Mall, in April. It's always a setback when an anchor closes, but we feel this mall can bounce back. Anchors at RiverTown Crossings in Grandville include JCPenney, Macys, Kohls, Dicks Sporting Goods, Sears and Celebration Cinema. The 150,000-square-foot, two-story former Younkers is the only empty anchor location. RiverTown is a popular destination in the Grand Rapids area thanks to a diverse mix that includes Macys, JCPenney, Kohls, a 20-screen cinema, a variety of higher-end specialty retailers, seven sit-down restaurants, a childrens play area and an antique-style carousel, Jerbich said. To submit bids or request additional information, contact Jerbich at michael@AGRealtyPartners.com, Jim Terrell at jim@AGRealtyPartners.com, Chris Draper at cdraper@AGRealtyPartners.com or Emilio Amendola at emilio@AGRealtyPartners.com. DETROIT Former Fiat Chrysler chairman Sergio Marchionne headlines the 2019 class of influential auto industry figures set to be inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame during a special ceremony July 18 at the MGM Grand Detroit. Marchionne, who died in July, will be posthumously inducted along with Indycar driver Janet Guthrie, American Axle Manufacturing co-founder Richard E. Dauch and auto dealership finance and insurance innovator Patrick Ryan. Hall of Fame board chairman Ramzi Hermiz said each of the inductees are deserving of the honor because of the tremendous contributions theyve made to the industry. This years inductees are innovators, entrepreneurs, trail blazers and visionaries of our industry, Hermiz said in a Monday announcement at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Marchionne is recognized for spearheading the dramatic turn around by Fiat and Chrysler following Chryslers emergence from bankruptcy in 2009. The two companies eventually merged to form Fiat Chrysler. Marchionne is regarded one of the boldest business leaders of his generation thanks to his business acumen as well as his outspoken and often frank approach to dealing with difficult and complicated problems, Hermiz said. The Automotive Hall of Fame is located at 21400 Oakwood Blvd., Dearborn. Keep up with the ongoing Detroit auto show coverage here. Related: Here are 2019's North American car, utility, truck of the year See photos of the Detroit auto show from 40 years ago Early 1900s photos show early years of the Detroit auto show Where to eat if you're visiting the 2019 Detroit auto show Where to stay if you're headed to Detroit for the 2019 auto show Where to park in Detroit for the 2019 auto show Moments after she began smashing the windows of a late-model Chrysler Town & Country minivan outside the 2019 Detroit auto show, police had the white, floppy-eared dog in handcuffs. In a move reminiscent of a Scooby-Doo" episode, an officer lifted the costumed dog head -- after throwing her white-gloved paws to the glass-covered concrete -- revealing an animal rights activist beneath. The Detroit woman joined more than a dozen others, some from out of state, during a PETA protest of a Chrysler dealership outside the 2019 North American International Auto Show. The activists condemned the Alaska dealerships sponsorship of the 1,000-mile Iditarod dog sled race. BREAKING: This "dog" was handcuffed by police while protesting @Chrysler's sponsorship of the Iditarod a deadly race where dogs are forced to run for hundreds of miles in extreme weather at the #DetroitAutoShow pic.twitter.com/0FiE1CEaCJ PETA (@peta) January 14, 2019 While Fiat Chrysler has a presence at the Detroit auto show, spokesman Jeff Bennett says the Alaskan dealership made the independent decision to sponsor the Iditarod. Any sponsorship may be through a local independent dealer in Anchorage, Bennett said. "FCA cannot tell its dealers which events they can or cannot sponsor as our dealerships are independently owned and operated. While FCA might not want its name attached to the race, we cannot tell our dealers otherwise. MLive left requests for comment with representatives at the Alaskan dealer and Iditarod race organization. Protesters lined the road outside Cobo Center in Detroit, shouting Chrysler has blood on their hands when a battered silver minivan pulled up. Chrysler sponsors deadly Iditarod, was crudely scrawled on the vehicle. Dear @chrysler, stop sponsoring this death race! PETA supporters "chained" up to plastic barrels show #DetroitAutoShow how dogs suffer in the #Iditarod. #NAIAS pic.twitter.com/ZpGL0e5QYB PETA (@peta) January 20, 2018 The dog-costumed activist then began raising and slamming a sledgehammer against the windows and passenger-side mirror. Police quickly grabbed the womans faux-fur-covered arms and handcuffed her. Well, at least the Detroit cop didnt shoot the dog, one protester joked. Detroit police have become the target of lawsuits and criticism for liberally shooting dogs in the past. The dog-dressed woman was later released, but was issued a citation for disorderly conduct. No reputable company should want their name associated or uttered in the same breath as the Iditarod, said Tricia Lebkuecher, a spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Chrysler should be ashamed to have its name listed among the sponsors. Two other major sponsors, Jack Daniels and Wells Fargo Bank, have cut ties with the dog-sled race since 2017. According to PETA, more than 150 dogs have died in competition since the race began in 1973. DETROIT When Japanese tech and communications giant NTT Data sponsored IndyCar driver Tony Kanaan, the partnership went beyond cash and branding. To give the 2013 Indianapolis 500 winner an edge, NTT developed a high-tech shirt for Kanaan to wear under his fireproof racing suit. The Hitoe shirt gathered hundreds of data points per second, including body heat, muscle strength, hydration levels and heart rate. The shirt sent race engineers data on elevated heart rates during pit stops, restarts and passes, Kanaan said. He used the data to develop a more effective workout in the gym tailoring the conditions to that of the cockpit. NTT is taking its partnership with IndyCar a step further, becoming title sponsor for the sport. IndyCar announced the deal at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Tuesday, Jan. 15. We take 50 million data records off the cars in an average two-hour race, said Mark Miles, CEO of Hulman & Company, which owns IndyCar. To me, thats content. With NTT, we can make that usable, compelling content for fans and continue to grow the sport and attract new fans. Specifics of the deal werent announced, but its reportedly comparable to Verizons previous sponsorship deal worth $10 million per year, per SportsBusiness Journals Adam Stern. NTT earns more than $106 billion in annual revenue. One of the first tasks for NTT is to rebuild the IndyCar mobile application, officials said Tuesday. Driver data, like the information gleaned from Kanaans high-tech shirt, could eventually be available for fans to track live during races, Kanaan said. "I hope they can introduce that in the future for the fans," Kanaan said. "It'd be cool to have an in-car camera and not just the engine rev, but the 'driver revs' and see what's going on with me while I'm making a pass for the lead." The 2018 IndyCar champ, Scott Dixon, and team owners Bobby Rahal and Chip Ganassi were among other leaders in the sport to welcome NTT during Tuesdays announcement. The 110-pound Borg-Warner Trophy, awarded to Indianapolis 500 winners, was also on stage for the event. The NTT IndyCar Series rolls through Michigan on June 1 and June 2 for the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix at Belle Isle. The doubleheader is one week after the 103rd running of the Indianapolis 500. DETROIT - Gov. Gretchen Whitmer toured the Detroit auto show Tuesday, promising to protect Michigan jobs and support advanced vehicle technology. Whitmer and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist spent nearly two hours walking the showroom floor at the Cobo Center, where auto executives emphasized investment in Michigans infrastructure. Connected vehicles require that we fix the damn roads, too, Whitmer said in a post-tour press scrum. General Motors recently announced plans to close three assembly plants and two propulsion plants in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland and Ontario by the end of 2019. Whitmer said she has not been in touch with GM CEO Mary Barra, but said the Detroit automaker told employees there will be options elsewhere. Were going to get everyone around the table and were going to do what is always in the best interest of the taxpayer and the person who lives in Michigan to make sure that we protect the jobs, Whitmer said. Michigan jobs are first and foremost on my mind ... making sure that the investment is here and that people who are at threat of being displaced or without a job are relocated as quickly as possible and that we want them to continue to make their investment in Michigan." Whitmer on Tuesday also announced winners of more than $4 million in mobility grants to go toward addressing transit gaps in four Michigan communities. I am walking this floor today, marveling at so much of the work that produces the amazing vehicles on this floor ... this is where mobility of the future is going to continue to be led from. Any company in the mobility space should continue to make a big investment here, Whitmer said. Auto executives just want to know that Michigan is open for business, that Michigan is going to continue to lead in the mobility space, that we are gonna be aggressive on that front," the governor said. "... Were the people that built the finest machines and mobility products in the world. They need a governor to show up and acknowledge that. DETROIT Elon Musk and Tesla are absent from the North American International Auto Show once again, but the CEO didnt stay out of the spotlight. Musk was named Disruptor of the Year at the CNET Roadshow Shift Awards on Monday, Jan. 14. He beat out the CEOs of McLaren Automotive and the electric scooter company Bird. "We're not necessarily judging tremendous accomplishments," said Chris Paukert, executive editor of Roadshow. "We're just looking at who stirred the pot the most this year." Musk won the award in part for his tunnel building in Los Angeles and Teslas new Model 3. While other companies had officials on hand to accept Mondays awards, Roadshow Editor in Chief Tim Stevens said to keep an eye on Musks Twitter account for a potential comment on the award. "He of course couldn't be with us today," Stevens said. "He's somewhere between here and Mars right now." Teslas arent for sale in Michigan, as Teslas method of direct-to-consumer sales is banned under state law. Here's a look at the other Roadshow Shift Awards presented Monday at the auto show. Vehicle of the Year: Genesis G70 The luxury Hyundai brand is one of the most decorated vehicles of the year. It also earned the North American Car of the Year award and MotorTrend Car of the Year award. Other finalists for the Roadshow award were the Jaguar I-Pace and Volvo S60/V60. Driveline Tech of the Year: Nissan and Infiniti's variable compression turbo Finalists: Hyundai's Kona electric powertrain and Tesla's all-wheel drive performance powertrain Safety Tech of the Year: Audi's drive-assistance package Finalists: General Motors' advance trailering system with apps and Tesla's navigate on autopilot update Cabin Tech of the Year: Audi's MMI touch response system Finalists: Mercedes-Benz' MBUX infotainment system and Rams Uconnect 12 technology The city of East Grand Rapids has selected Emmanuel Toribio as its next city manager. Toribio was one of five finalists interviewed for the position on Friday, Jan. 11. According to city officials, 28 municipal leaders from around the country applied for the position. We were particularly impressed by Mannys organization and preparedness, which included actionable goals as he begins his tenure here, Mayor Amna Seibold said. We are fortunate to have in place a management staff who are experienced, dedicated and at the top of their field. Mannys fresh perspective will truly complement our team. Prior to interviews on Jan. 11, finalists participated in an open house event with community members on Thursday, Jan. 10. Toribio has 10 years of municipal and managerial experience. He is currently serving as the assistant director of facilities planning and management at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Prior to working for Drake, Toribio spent three years as a city administrator for Prairie City, Iowa and also worked as a planning technician for the city of Des Moines, Iowa. Toribio graduated with a degree in community and regional planning from Iowa State University in 2006. He then attended Drake University for graduate school and received a masters degree in public administration in 2010. According to City Clerk Karen Brower, the City Commission spent much of the day on Jan. 11 interviewing the candidates. Following the interviews, commissioners discussed the candidates at length before coming to a decision. Brower said the city has made a conditional offer contingent on a background check, a leadership test and negotiation of his contract. Toribio succeeds current City Manager Brian Donovan, who announced in May that he would retire this winter after nearly 25 years on the job. Donovan has agreed to stay on until Toribio can officially start and is working with the city on a transition plan. As we look to the future of our community, the commission and myself are confident in Mannys ability to collaborate with our staff, commissions, community partners and residents to keep East on a strong path that continues to make our community such a wonderful place to live, work and play, Seibold said. We look forward to having him at the helm as we embark on the next chapter in our city. Navy Symposium Visits Hawaii The MyNavy Career Development Symposium (CDS), hosted by Navy Personnel Command, will be visiting Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam Jan. 16-17 to showcase Sailor 2025 career and personnel management initiatives to Sailors in the region. The symposium is scheduled for two days at Sharkey Theater with two sessions each day. The E1-E6 sessions are Wednesday, Jan. 16 starting at 7:30 a.m. and 12:45 p.m. The CPO and Officer sessions are Thursday, Jan. 17 starting at 7:30 a.m. and 12 p.m. For more Navy news and information, visit Military.com. Army Offers Female Soldier Mentorship Program The U.S. Army provides female Soldiers the opportunity for mentorship and support. The Sisters in Arms program is specifically designed to support women and helps women in the Army with mentorship, career progression, and camaraderie. The program is open to women of all ranks and provides an open forum where Soldiers can share their own experiences for everyone's benefit. Having annual meetings along with activities and lessons, helps with bonding, growth, and career progression. For more information, read the article on the U.S. Army website. For more Army news and information, visit Military.com. While the United States has on numerous occasions accused Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), Russia believes the U.S. is undermining another one: the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. In a recent letter to U.S. lawmakers, Russian officials listed a number of alleged problems, which Moscow says could hurt negotiations to extend the New START pact in 2021. The Wall Street Journal first reported the letter's contents. The unsigned letter asserts two main issues: Russia claims it has not been able to verify the conversion of some B-52H Stratofortress bombers that were slated to be changed to a conventional-only role. Another treaty provision requires the conversion of some Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers, something Russia says it has not been able to corroborate since 2015, according to the translated letter verified by the Journal. "We believe it would be helpful to inform the U.S. Congress about the Russian stands on outstanding issues on the basis of assessments previously communicated to the U.S.," the document states. Related content: New START limits the number of nuclear warheads Russia and U.S. can have to 1,550 each. The treaty is due for recertification in 2021, but the Trump administration has said the U.S. may ditch arms control treaties it disagrees with, notably the INF Treaty. It remains unclear whether New START is one of the treaties the administration plans to end. But Russia wants to resolve these existing obligations before talks occur, according to the letter. The issues "shape the current situation around the New START. They also have notable effect on the overall atmosphere of political relationship between our countries and on further prospects of Russian-U.S. strategic dialogue, the need for full-scale resumption of which is becoming more and more apparent," the letter states. According to the treaty, the U.S. Air Force was required to modify 41 B-52H bombers to a conventional-only role by 2018. Additionally, four Trident missile-launch tubes per Ohio-class submarine were to be removed or altered in order to comply with a 240-missile limit in launch tubes at any given time. The Air Force said its first B-52 was denuclearized in 2015. According to State Department data released last year, the remaining heavy bombers were converted by 2017, with five extra bombers converted to non-nuclear status. The Federation of American Scientists, citing the data, said the U.S. has deactivated 56 strategic missile submarine launch tubes since the agreement. Russian officials said they hope to resolve the points in question and are open to additional inspections before negotiations on revising New START begin, the letter states. "The Russian side is committed to implementation of its international obligations, including within the framework of the New START Treaty," it says. "If Russia acquires new types of strategic offensive arms, the United States will be informed in accordance with the provisions of the treaty." -- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214. The Department of Veterans Affairs pushed back Monday at a New York Times report suggesting that expanded community-care options under the VA Mission Act would lead to the "privatization" of VA health care and the eventual shutdown of some VA medical centers. "Privatization is a myth and to suggest otherwise is completely false and a red herring designed to distract and avoid honest debate on the real issues surrounding veterans' health care," Curt Cashour, a VA spokesman, said in a statement. The Mission Act, passed last year by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump with the support of veterans service organizations (VSOs), was intended to overhaul and continue funding for the VA Choice program on private-care options. That program was riddled with inefficiencies, both for veterans and the community-care providers. Under the act, about $5.2 billion in mandatory funding was appropriated for the Veterans Choice Fund. The new Veterans Community Care Program was designed to include new standards for access to care. Cashour said that the Mission Act now "gives the VA secretary the authority to set access standards that provide veterans the best and most timely care possible -- whether at VA or with community providers -- and the department is committed to doing just that." The statement was in response to a New York Times report Sunday that said billions of dollars could be diverted under the Mission Act from the VA's hospitals and clinics -- the nation's largest health care system -- into the private sector, and could eventually lead to the closure of some VA medical centers. VA Secretary Robert Wilkie has repeatedly given assurances that he has no intention of "privatizing" the VA, but he has yet to give public guidance on the new access standards on expanding community care. Rep. Julia Brownley, D-California, a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said, "Congress provided clear guidance to the VA when it passed the bipartisan Mission Act" to protect the VA's existing health care system while making it "simpler for veterans to access the care they need." In a statement to Military.com, Brownley said she is concerned about "White House insistence that private medical care be 'paid for' through cuts to VA programs." "The administration should know that I will hold them accountable to pursue the best care for our veterans, not inferior care driven by political ideology," Brownley said. Major veterans service organizations said they expect Wilkie to honor his pledge against privatization, but also said they are waiting on the new access standards before making a final judgment. "There are no indications that the VA is going to be privatized," said Chanin Nuntavong, director of the American Legion's National Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation Division, but "we're waiting for the president to decide what the access standards are going to look like." "We don't believe privatization is the intent here" under the reforms of the Mission Act, said Carlos Fuentes, director of National Legislative Services for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. But "specifically, we want to see the access standards." In a statement, Randy Reese, executive director of the Washington headquarters of Disabled American Veterans, said the organization remains "optimistic that Secretary Wilkie will honor his commitment to improve care for our nation's veterans not just by expanding access, but also by focusing on long overdue modernization of the VA health care system, filling employee vacancies and rebuilding infrastructure." "We've learned from the experience of Choice that providing additional access outside of VA actually leads to increased demand for health care inside VA as well," Reese said. "We also know that the private sector has neither the expertise nor the capacity to absorb such a large and complex patient population." Late last month, the VA began awarding the first of several regional contracts under the Mission Act for the new Community Care Network that will replace various private-sector care programs for veterans. The contracts could cost a total of $55.2 billion through 2026, if all the options are exercised, the department said. The VA announced Dec. 28 that it awarded management contracts for three regions covering 36 states, plus Washington, D.C.; Puerto Rico; and the U.S. Virgin Islands, to Optum Public Sector Solutions Inc., a government-services arm of Optum, the health services arm of United Healthcare. -- Patricia Kime contributed to this report. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at richard.sisk@military.com. MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, California -- During the Korean War, Marine Corps prisoners of war (POW) in captivity spent time devising ways to let the outside world know their status and situation, but it proved a difficult task to relay information from their imprisonment. As Marines, each had to be creative. These POW Marines used cigarette paper and ink made of vegetable oil drained from food to scribble lists that documented the status of all the Marines imprisoned. They would then proceed to shove the information into shaving cream cans, which they then found a way to deliver outside the prison camp. Today, these cigarette paper accountability lists, among various other artifacts preserved for decades by the Camp Pendleton History Museum Branch, trace the people and times of the horrible history least we forget. For the past several decades however, these historical artifacts resided in the Camp Pendleton area, but soon will travel east and allow their stories to be told to a wider audience at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. The National Museum of the Marine Corps recently visited Camp Pendleton to analyze and inspect historical artifacts of interest, which they will take back with them to show them at galleries opening later in 2019 and 2020 at the museums location in Quantico, Virginia. "What it says when the National Museum of the Marine Corps wants to come over here to recover items of significant history to continue telling the story of the Marine Corps is that we have been a good repository did a good job of collecting significant items," said Faye Jonason, director, Marine Corps Base (MCB) Camp Pendleton History Museum Branch. Owen Conner, uniforms and heraldry curator at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, said that their vision at the National Museum of the Marine Corps is a unified one that wants to showcase and represent all cultures in the Marine Corps whether East Coast or West Coast. The items they attained from Camp Pendleton will help further to expand upon that. "We are just trying to be the best stewards for the Marine Corps history that we can be by saving as much of these items that tell the stories of Marines and their role in the legacy of the Marine Corps," said Owen. Some of these historic artifacts were uniform items. Through the name tapes on these uniforms, which some have been damaged and weathered, historians from the National Museum of the Marine Corps have been able to identify names of the Marines that owed these uniform items and tracked the service records. Through these findings they are able to tell the personal service career stories of these Marines. "What it says when the National Museum of the Marine Corps wants to come over here to recover items of significant history to continue telling the story of the Marine Corps is that we at the Camp Pendleton History Museum Branch have been a good repository did a good job of collecting significant items," said Jonason. The Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security have reached a deal to continue U.S. military support of operations at the U.S.-Mexico border through the end of September, officials announced Monday night. A DHS request made Dec. 27 to extend the presence of troops at the border was approved by Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan, the Pentagon said in a brief released statement. But while service members will remain in support roles, their mission will change. "DOD is transitioning its support at the southwestern border from hardening ports of entry to mobile surveillance and detection, as well as concertina wire emplacement between ports of entry. DOD will continue to provide aviation support," officials said in the statement. An official told the Associated Press the work planned for the troops includes laying an additional 150 miles of concertina wire between official ports of entry. The roughly 2,350 U.S. troops currently deployed to the border have already overstayed the original planned conclusion of their mission. The mission, begun at the end of October, put active-duty troops in support roles, backing up U.S. Customs and Border Patrol personnel as they braced for what was described as a "caravan" of migrants approaching the border from the south. At its peak, the military mission saw more than 5,700 troops deployed across the southwest border in Texas, Arizona and California. In December, the Pentagon agreed to an extension of the border mission through the end of January, but Defense Secretary Jim Mattis ordered a reduction in troop presence to below 4,000. While many of the troops at the border were allowed to carry weapons for protection, they were not tasked with crowd control or defense. Rather, they have been in support and infrastructure roles. One of the chief accomplishments of the deployment to date has been the installation of more than 150 miles of razor wire along the border. The first leg of the active-duty border deployment was estimated to cost $210 million; it's not clear how much this newly approved seven-month extension will cost. -- The Associated Press contributed to this report. -- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck. Because we are the level of government that is closet to the people, someone can literally just walk in our front door and we will help them, said Alyson Feiger, supervisor of West Deerfield Township, which covers most of Deerfield, all of Bannockburn, and portions of Lake Forest, Highland Park and Riverwoods. CLINTON The Connecticut Construction Industry Association has awarded its prestigious Community Service and Safety awards to Connecticut Water. The award recognizes the companys emergency potable water program for private well owners, according to a press release. Through the program, Connecticut Water and its employees make potable water available free of charge to private well owners when there are extended power outages in affected nearby communities. Most private well owners have no water when they have no power, the release said. We are proud to be recognized by CCIA for our emergency potable water program, but I am even more proud of our people who saw the need to create this program in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene in 2011. Since then, we have provided this service during extended power outages across the state, most recently this spring in the communities of Southbury and Oxford, Craig Patla, Connecticut Waters vice president of service delivery said in a prepared statement. Our program provides life-sustaining clean drinking water for private well owners, their families, pets and livestock, as well as for sanitation and hygiene needs, he added. Connecticut Waters critical facilities are all equipped with backup generators, and their customers have very rarely had their water service interrupted when the company experienced by power outages, Patla said. Getting a community service award takes an extra effort on behalf of a business to really get out there in their community and make a difference. We think the potable water system that Connecticut Water has set up is just a perfect example of what everybody should be doing to contribute to their communities and well-being of everyone around them, said Donald Schubert, company president. The association also recognized Connecticut Water with its Safety Recognition Award for the 15th consecutive year, the release said. Companies recognized have demonstrated solid construction safety and health programs. The organization evaluated Connecticut Water in 17 safety categories, including management involvement, employee training, safety hazard analysis, noncompliance and correction of violations. Connecticut Water, Avon Water and Heritage Village Water serve more than 350,000 people in 59 towns in Connecticut. For information, visit ctwater.com. A dispute pitting two groups of nations led respectively by Germany and Brazil is holding up work on creating a global market for trading carbon pollution, one of the pillars of the Paris Agreement on climate change. After bruising talks at a United Nations climate conference last month, the two groups remain at odds on how to structure the system. New carbon markets could allow developing countries to sell emissions credits generated from programs that cut greenhouse gases. The theory is that richer nations could buy those securities, gaining a cheaper option for reaching their own targets. Germany along with the European Union and industrial countries say that developing nations may "create too many loopholes" with Brazil's proposal for the market's rules. An envoy from the South American nation said its position has been misrepresented. The comments, made in response to questions from Bloomberg, follow a decision at the UN talks involving 200 countries to shelve for at least a year efforts to write the part of the a rulebook that might have expanded carbon trading. At issue is who would be able to sell carbon credits in the new system, which envoys are hoping will spur emissions cuts before the Paris Agreement comes into force next year. The question is contentious because Europe has been working to clear up a glut in its own carbon market, which is the biggest in of its kind in the world. Adding a new source of credits could undo that effort and depress prices, eroding the value of carbon trading as a tool to aid the environment. "The biggest question is always who's going to buy the offsets," said Trevor Sikorski, head of natural gas, coal and carbon at Energy Aspects Ltd., an industry consultant in London. While countries hold back on tighter emission targets that would generate demand, the current debate about increasing supply doesn't demonstrate a "great understanding of the use of markets." Markets under the Paris deal are one of the policy tools that countries can use to reduce fossil fuel pollution. While the world as a whole will need to reduce those emissions, lawmakers in the U.S. and Europe have sought to guarantee ways to use financial markets to make those cuts in the most efficient way. The UN's first effort at a global carbon trading system had mixed results. Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the UN built up a Clean Development Mechanism that spurred emissions-reducing projects in exchange for credits that could be sold to places with cap-and-trade systems. Those CDM credits have tracked near zero for six years because countries mostly aren't using them to meet emission targets any longer - and the EU has declined to extend rules that allowed those participating in the continent's cap-and-trade system to use CDM credits for compliance through 2020. The debate at the UN talks is about how to either revive that market or create an alternative, which would be known as the Sustainable Development Mechanism. The new system has vast potential. A report from the UN Environment Program suggests that demand for emission reductions could reach 32 billion tons by the year 2030, more than 17 times the total yearly supply in the EU's existing market. While only part of that might come from the new programs, it indicates why tight rules are needed to govern how credits flow across borders. Brazil's PositionBrazil wants a new system to boost investment in projects that reduce emissions - and to generate revenue from selling credits. It says the voluntary and "bottom up" nature of the Paris climate deal means not all countries will take on a target that covers their whole economy. In those cases, private industry should be able to sell credits from "additional" projects to those parts of the system that are covered by targets. Germany is resisting that idea, signalling that only countries and companies covered by the targets should be able to participate in trading. If Brazil had its way, nations or companies could buy credits in one of the new markets that would cover their responsibilities. Sellers of those credits could benefit as long as the emissions cuts are beyond the targets logged with the UN by the nation generating the credits. Thiago Mendes, secretary of climate and forests at Brazil's Ministry of Environment, said developing nations should for a while be allowed to have emission limits that cover only some sectors of their economy. Those countries would still limit emissions under the Paris deal. Even projects outside the industries facing restrictions would be able to sell into the new system - so long as the investments are green enough. "Those reductions should be counted only towards the national targets of the purchasing country, with no impact on the targets of the country that hosted the project," Mendes said. He rejected accusations from pressure groups and industrial nations that Brazil's measures would allow double counting of permits, saying the charge "doesn't make sense -- if the reductions have not been counted a first time, how can they be double counted?" Some European nations including Germany are refusing to back Brazil's plan, saying it gives emerging-market countries too much of an advantage. Germany wants a completely new system with a "clean and uniform" design, the nation's Deputy Environment Minister Jochen Flasbarth, said in an interview in Berlin. He's focused on eliminating the possibility of double counting the emissions reductions made by countries. For example, if a country generates credits by preserving a carbon-absorbing forest, it shouldn't be able to both take credit for that decrease in its own emissions and sell a credit to another country that will do the same. Germany says Brazil's stance isn't strict enough, because it might allow some nations selling emission credits to fudge that accounting. At the same time, Flasbarth insists stricter measures would benefit developing countries like Brazil by creating ``enormous demand'' for securities offsetting emissions. The airline industry is already planning its own global carbon market. Under that program, pollution allowed from industry worldwide would be frozen. Flasbarth sees that system creating a ``huge market'' by requiring airlines that want to expand to buy carbon credits that offset their increased emissions. "This isn't about rich countries benefiting from poorer ones," Flasbarth said. "This is an opportunity to create a big new market. They will have buyers of certificates which will pay for climate protection. There are a lot of airlines in Third World countries. A huge market will be created. I'm sure of that.'' At the same time, he won't sign up to any program that would make the carbon market leaky in terms of its ability to clamp down on emissions. He sees the UN's existing CDM program as an example of a poorly designed system that doesn't work well. The CDM ran out of demand for its credits because countries didn't take on tight enough targets for cutting pollution and didn't use the credits generated for that system for compliance. "We must be able to look at the transaction -- it has to be a transparent inventory and one that's free of corruption," Flasbarth said. "We saw that with the clean development mechanism, where we set the wrong incentives, any reform of the rules has been blocked by the developing countries. We need something new under the Paris Agreement. You have to really set up something that's credible," Flasbarth said.Outlook for Talks Ultimately, envoys will probably compromise and transition from the existing system, potentially over 10 years, and allow a little of what each side wants, said Richard Saines, a partner and climate policy specialist at Baker & McKenzie LLP in Chicago who received an award from France for his contribution to the Paris agreement. "It'll be an amalgam of all the various pieces that will hopefully strike the right balance," Saines said by phone. "This is the messy sausage-making collective, consensus, individual-bottom-up approach that we live in and we need to figure out a way to create incentives to race to the highest level of ambition." - - - With assistance from Jeremy Hodges. The people that put your car back together after a crash are investing in the future of the auto repair industry. The Auto Body Association of Connecticut donated $10,000 to the automotive collision repair and refinishing program at the Connecticut Technical Education and Career System which is offered at eight technical high schools in Connecticut. The donation allows technical schools throughout the state to purchase supplies and training materials for their students, according to organization representatives. We believe that our future technicians are going to come from the trade (schools) and if they are being trained with the equipment and material that we are using, it will be an easier transition into the shops, said Antony Ferraiolo, former president of the ABAC. The funds were split between eight technical high school programs across the state: Platt Technical High School in Milford; A.I. Prince Technical High School in Hartford; Ella T. Grasso Southeastern Technical High School in Groton; H C Wilcox Technical High School in Meriden; Oliver Wolcott Technical High School in Torrington; Vinal Technical High School in Middletown; and W.F. Kaynor Technical High School in Waterbury. Cuts in program funding have created challenges for the CTECs program in recent years, according to Ferraiolo, who said instructors often struggle to get the quality materials needed for their students to train on par with industry expectations. A lot of the schools have very tight budgets and a lot of their money for supplies and stuff like that come from them working on customers cars, he said, adding that students regularly work on vehicles and use proceeds to fund programs. Each school received $1,250 from the donation, which program representatives said makes a difference. More for you Business Court overturns $35 million auto-repair award Whatever they gave, it benefits immensely, because then you can buy the things you wouldnt normally buy, said Dan Thibault, Department Head of Automotive Collision Repair and Refinishing program ar Wolcott Tech High School. We all have budgets that are kind of small because of the economy and the way that the money is divvied out to the tech schools and the material and paint and stuff to have the kids practice with is very expensive. A gallon of red single-stage paint, according to Thibault, could cost as much as $600. The ABAC features around 150 members from shop and business owners in the automotive industry looking to try and improve the industry by educating members and consumers statewide To that end, the organization regularly works with technical schools to prepare students to enter the workforce. The ABAC works with collision repair instructors on the programs curriculum, hosting department heads and teachers at ABAC membership meetings and attending school career nights to provide students and parents with insight on industry opportunities. Friday marks the organizations second donation to the program. In 2016, the Association matched $1,000 donations from Kemperle Auto Body Paint and Equipment, Auto Body Supplies and Paint, Paint World, Paul Francis and Co. and West Springfield Auto Parts Plus. Each company once again agreed to participate in this years donation. Jordan.grice@hearstmediact.com Most churches when they get to that point, they want to close down and be done, but Resurrection was dedicated to the community, dedicated to being in Franklin Park, said Darryl Thompson Powell, the churchs interim pastor. They did what needed to happen to be open. Being able to celebrate their 75th this year in a new building that they own, not in a place that theyre renting, is a powerful thing. UPPER THUMB Although there is funding available for blight elimination funding for land banks, Tuscola County doesnt qualify even though it is in the process of setting up its own a land bank. The Michigan Land Bank Fast Track Authoritys Michigan Rural Community Demolition grants are designed to help communities remove vacant and abandoned structures from neighborhoods to prepare the areas for developments that spark business investment and provide good jobs. The funding can be used toward dealing with vacant and abandoned, blighted commercial or residential structures. Unfortunately, we have a population of more than 50,000, explained Tuscola County Controller Mike Hoagland on why the county doesnt qualify. According to Hoagland, there are several steps that have to be completed before Tuscolas land bank is officially formed. Part of the process is drafting to be by-laws, creating a board, and public hearings. Blight elimination funding is available for land banks and governmental units in Michigan counties with fewer than 50,000 people. All three of the Thumbs counties have lost population over the last few years. The countys estimated population in 2017 was 52,764 which is 2,764 too many residents to qualify, even though it has lost population over the last few years, explained Hoagland, noting in, 2000, the countys population was estimated at 58,273. Huron County has also seen a decline in population over the last few years. In 2017, Huron Countys population was estimated at 31,280. In 2000, the countys population was 36,024. In November 2018, Huron County commissioners approved the process to start creation of a land bank. Sanilac Countys population in 2017 was estimated at 41,269. In 2000, the population was estimated at 44,530. Sanilac has a land bank. The maximum award grant per proposal is $50,000 and can be used toward dealing with vacant and abandoned, blighted commercial or residential structures, which were the reasons why Tuscola approved forming a land bank. Proposals will be evaluated based on their anticipated impact in promoting public safety, enhancing economic development, public and private investment in the project and alignment with the community vision or other place-making efforts. Applications will be accepted until 2 p.m. Feb. 15. The Michigan Land Bank Fast Track Authority was created by the Michigan Land Bank Fast Track Act, Public Act 258 of 2003. WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP A 37-year-old Applegate man was injured after losing control of his minivan on icy roads and striking a utility pole. According to the Sanilac County Sheriff's Office, deputies were called to the scene around 9:15 a.m. to Applegate Road west of Rowe Road, Tuesday morning. Miami, FL (33127) Today Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 73F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%. Locally heavy rainfall possible.. Tonight Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 73F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%. Locally heavy rainfall possible. Evanstons Emergency Assistance program can help furloughed federal workers with financial assistance to pay for housing, utilities and food, according to a City of Evanston press release. To qualify, federal employees must live in Evanston and provide a pay stub or letter from their employer stating they are furloughed. Build wall, stop immigrants: Well, the government has been shut down for over a week now in my city and Ive seen absolutely nothing changed (because of it). Ive got water. Ive got electricity. Ive got gas. My street gets plowed. Everything is just fine. The only thing that has affected me personally over the years is I had a relative killed by an illegal immigrant who fled the country and was never found. One of my friends was hit by an illegal immigrant in his car. Over 10 years ago, his brother was hit and still has the effects today and walks with a limp. If the government shuts down, the only thing it can do for me is build the wall. Illegal immigrants are the only thing affecting my life. Hong Kong: HK anthem law no cause for concern Chief Executive Carrie Lam today said people do not need to worry about the local national anthem law, as long as they respect the song. Mrs Lam told reporters the anthem law aims to help the public respect the song and that penalties will only apply to those who publicly and intentionally insult or belittle it. She also said it is difficult to detail what constitutes an act of insulting the anthem, adding it is a matter of common sense. The Chief Executive hopes no one will purposely test the boundary of the local national anthem law when it is implemented. The National Anthem Bill will be tabled in the Legislative Council next week. This story has been published on: 2019-01-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. As a district, we are very proud of our play-based approach to kindergarten because we know that young children learn best through an active exploration of their environment, Ondera said. Our kindergarten students are allowed the time to be young children and to develop their knowledge and physical, academic, and social skills through play and appropriate activities. JOURNALIST: The parliament of the fYROM has concluded the process of voting on the constitutional changes based on the Prespa Agreement. What does approval of the Agreement by the neighbouring country mean for Greece? G. KATROUGALOS: This is a historic moment. Following its approval also by the Greek parliament, a difference will have been resolved that has poisoned the political scene in the two countries for almost three decades. The Prespa Agreement does not pertain only to these two countries, but it sends a strong message to the rest of the countries of South-eastern Europe on the possibility of peaceful resolution in a region which has been Europe's powder keg. It also confirms, yet again, the key role that Greece can play in the wider region. For both countries, a period of friendship and economic cooperation is commencing, from which our Macedonia shall especially benefit, as well as Northern Greece in general. JOURNALIST: Can you describe to us the exact process that will be followed, in our country, for ratification of the Prespa Agreement? When is the government prepared to bring the Agreement to the Hellenic parliament, in what form, and when is it expected to be ratified? G. KATROUGALOS: The next steps result directly either from our Constitution or from the Prespa Agreement itself. After being informed by the neighbouring country that the relevant procedure has been completed, the Agreement will be submitted to Parliament for ratification. Either way, we have discussed it in detail, in the context of the censure motion which New Democracy had submitted. In any case, the possibility will again exist for comprehensive and exhaustive debate on the subject by all sides, because this is exactly what Greek society lacks, familiarity with what the Agreement provides for. I am certain that many of our fellow citizens who are reacting would not have the same objections if they knew the exact contents of the agreement, or at least their reactions would not be to the same extent and of the same level of intensity. Following ratification of the Agreement, the process can begin for the Agreement for accession of the neighbouring country to NATO. A condition for this is for the relevant protocol of accession to come to our country, which again must be ratified through a law by the Hellenic Parliament, despite the many things that are disseminated by the opposition on supposed automatic entry of fYROM following signature of the Prespa Agreement. In this context, the Prime Minister, in conjunction with the President of the Parliament, will set the exact dates for discussion. JOURNALIST: Is ratification also required by the UN Security Council? G. KATROUGALOS: No, ratification is not required by the UN Security Council. The Agreement will of course be notified to the Secretary General of the UN because the Security Council had set, through its resolutions 817(1993) and 845(1993), the framework within which the matter had to be resolved, which is fully in line with the content of the Prespa Agreement. JOURNALIST: The constitutional changes that were approved by the Parliament of fYROM, as well as the statements of the Zaev government, are these in line with the letter and spirit of the Prespa Agreement? G. KATROUGALOS: The constitutional changes are in line with the framework set by the Agreement, and the statements by the Zaev government have at this point left no room for doubt, especially with regard to the non-existent issue of supposed recognition of nationality, which was constructed by New Democracy. As regards the specific issue, amendment XXXIII expressly states that citizenship does not define, nor does it predetermine, the nationality of citizens. JOURNALIST: Which safeguards does the Prespa Agreement contain so that, on the one hand, there is no arbitrary or irredentist interpretation of it and, on the other hand, its unilateral amendment does not take place in the future. G. KATROUGALOS: First of all, the main safeguard was precisely to incorporate everything agreed upon at Prespa into the Constitution, so that returning to the previous situation would not be possible, even if the government were to change. Indeed, the same Agreement expressly provides for full prohibition of returning to the previous name situation etc., even though a new constitutional amendment. Beyond this, Article 19 of the Agreement also provides for a mechanism to resolve differences in the event that one side should feel that the other side is not living up to its obligations, which covers all potential situations efficiently, and without leaving gaps. JOURNALIST: Do you believe that a parliamentary majority exists for its ratification by the Hellenic Parliament? G. KATROUGALOS: I am absolutely certain that the Prespa Agreement will be passed with an absolute majority of MPs, and even more. JOURNALIST: What is the situation to date related to the coalition government composed of SYRIZA and ANEL? How do you interpret the statement by Minister of Defence Panos Kammenos that no issue of trust exists unless this is linked to the Prespa Agreement? Is the possibility of withdrawing the ANELs support of the government and the vote of confidence no longer on the horizon? G. KATROUGALOS: We fully respect the political autonomy of the other parties, much more so that of our junior partner, our ally in the coalition government. The decisions on the questions that you posed with regard to their remaining in the government shall be made exclusively by them. The Prime Minister made it clear in his recent interview that, should they leave the coalition government on their own accord, he will request a vote of confidence despite the fact that something like that is not required by the constitution. Indeed, I remind that, in 2013 when the Democratic Left abandoned the Samaras government, at that time, Mr Samaras had not requested a similar renewal of the government's confidence. All of this, in my opinion, shows that the Prime Minister is fully in control of the political match. He respects both the Constitution and democratic and parliamentary order, as well as the internal autonomy of the other parties. JOURNALIST: You participated in the Prime Minister's meeting with Germanys Chancellor. What is your assessment of Merkels visit, and what is its importance for further bolstering of Greek-German cooperation? G. KATROUGALOS: First of all, the visit by Ms. Merkel confirms the upgrading of our countrys international standing during our four-year term. All great leaders have passed through Greece, and indeed two of these, President Obama and President Macron, chose our country to send a greatly symbolic message: President Obama with his final speech where he conveyed his thoughts on Democracy to the whole world; President Macron with his first speech in which he laid down his ideas for the future of Europe. This visit also confirms a full return to normalcy. Ms Merkel visited a Greece that was different to the one she had visited in 2014. And thirdly, though of no less importance, Germany is our countrys largest economic partner, with 7.5 billion in recent direct investment, and the Chancellor's visit also marks the even more significant prospects that exist for improvement of the bilateral economic cooperation, something which was apparent also in her meetings with business people. JOURNALIST: The process of Constitutional Revision is under way in Parliament. Do points of convergence exist? G. KATROUGALOS: Our desire is for the constitutional revision to have the broadest possible consensus. Clearly, where agreement exists, where convergence can exist, because significant ideological differences exist on certain defining issues, for example tackling extreme neoliberalism, where we cannot have particular chances of agreement. What makes the final consensus problematic is that New Democracy does not appear with one voice. While its general rapporteur adheres to a generally productive stance, similar to our own, and he would be amenable to a consensus, many times representatives of the far-right wing of New Democracy have come with precisely the opposite message: "if you dont vote to change Article 16, you can forget about the revision. It is clear that such institutional ultimatums are completely outside of the logic of the Constitution. As I mentioned earlier, convergence may exist on points on which we agree, not where we disagree. We shall continue to insist along the lines of the greatest possible agreement, because that is what the Constitution requires, and because we truly want a revision that is dual in nature: strengthening of Democracy and tackling neoliberalism. We dont expect New Democracy's response on everything, but it will be irreparably exposed if it rejects the need to revise overripe provisions, such as the unacceptable provisions on the immunity of politicians. JOURNALIST: What are the expectations for the Prime Ministers upcoming visit to Turkey? G. KATROUGALOS: We want this trip to contribute to reducing tension in the Aegean and to re-establish the foundations for restarting Greek-Turkish dialogue. We believe that only in this manner can differences between countries be resolved, and because we have faith in the ability to resolve differences with respect to International Law, as we have proven in particular with the Prespa Agreement. JOURNALIST: How is the Strategic Dialogue between Greece and the US evolving? What are the initial tangible results? G. KATROUGALOS: As regards the geopolitical, the geostrategic importance of the dialogue, its effect is obvious. The positions of the American officials are now in line with the corresponding formal statements of the European Union on the need for International Law to be fully respected by all sides, even by those that dispute it. It therefore represents additional strengthening of the geopolitical power of our country and its position as a factor of stability in the region. On an economic level, both sides have decided for our collaboration to have a structured nature, and for it to be stable and regular in frequency. In January, a new Interministerial Meeting is due to take place of all the ministries that participated in the Strategic Dialogue, in order to systematically promote issues related to investment and finance. JOURNALIST: What are the basic principles and priorities of Greek foreign policy for 2019? G. KATROUGALOS: Our priorities are standard and stable, because our foreign policy possesses fixed characteristics. Its first characteristic is complete respect of International Law, and our effort is for Greece to be a provider of security, a factor of stability. The second characteristic of our foreign policy is its multidimensional nature, also due to our countrys position as a natural bridge linking Africa, Asia, and Europe, and because historically our country has always adhered to a peace-loving policy. We wish to play the role of a just intermediary between our own home, Europe, and the other countries in the wider region. Thirdly, and finally, in the region of South-eastern Europe and the Middle East, we wish to confirm the role for confirming a climate of security and stability, as well as for strengthening the European perspectives of those countries. Within the framework of these general guidelines, in the past we have undertaken a series of important multilateral initiatives, many bearing the seal of Nikos Kotzias, which we shall continue to serve. The challenges, as well as the opportunities, are not few. I would like to believe that we shall have similar progress with the issue related to our relations with Albania as we do with fYROM, with the understood condition of re-examination of every measure that infringes upon the rights of our minority there. And with regard to the Cyprus issue, we shall insist that the negotiations begin where they ended at Crans-Montana, with recognition, in other words, of the international dimension of the issue and termination of the anachronistic system of guarantees as well as the gradual withdrawal of occupation troops. The fronts in Europe are also significant, where in May we shall have the European elections, the clash of two fundamentally different views for Europe: on the one hand the marriage of the far right with neoliberalism and, on the other hand, the powers of social Europe, a Europe of rights and open societies. MINNESOTA SECRETARY OF STATE CERTIFICATE OF ASSUMED NAME Minnesota Statutes, 333 The filing of an assumed name does not provide a user with exclusive rights to that name. The filing is required for consumer protection in order to enable customers to be able to identify the true owner of a business. ASSUMED NAME: CENTURY 21 Atwood-Mille Lacs PRINCIPAL PLACE OF BUSINESS: 225 West Main Street Isle, MN 56342 NAMEHOLDER(S): Atwood Mille Lacs, LLC 209 South Second Street Suite 200 Mankato, MN 56001 I, the undersigned, certify that I am signing this document as the person whose signature is required, or as agent of the person(s) whose signature would be required who has authorized me to sign this document on his/her behalf, or in both capacities. I further certify that I have completed all required fields, and that the information in this document is true and correct and in compliance with the applicable chapter of Minnesota Statutes. I understand that by signing this document I am subject to the penalties of perjury as set forth in Section 609.48 as if I had signed this document under oath. DATE FILED: December 10, 2018 SIGNED BY: Matthew Atwood Published in the Mille Lacs Messenger December 19, 26, 2018 889758 Ad details MINNESOTA SECRETARY OF STATE CERTIFICATE OF ASSUMED NAME Minnesota Statutes, 333 The filing of an assumed name does not provide a user with exclusive rights to that name. The filing is required for consumer protection in order to enable customers to be able to identify the true owner of a business. ASSUMED NAME: CENTURY 21 Atwood-Mille Lacs PRINCIPAL PLACE OF BUSINESS: 225 West Main Street Isle, MN 56342 NAMEHOLDER(S): Atwood Mille Lacs, LLC 209 South Second Street Suite 200 Mankato, MN 56001 I, the undersigned, certify that I am signing this document as the person whose signature is required, or as agent of the person(s) whose signature would be required who has authorized me to sign this document on his/her behalf, or in both capacities. I further certify that I have completed all required fields, and that the information in this document is true and correct and in compliance with the applicable chapter of Minnesota Statutes. I understand that by signing this document I am subject to the penalties of perjury as set forth in Section 609.48 as if I had signed this document under oath. DATE FILED: December 10, 2018 SIGNED BY: Matthew Atwood Published in the Mille Lacs Messenger December 19, 26, 2018 889758 After supporting these causes for the past decade, we decided to create a foundation to better serve the Fox Valley, said McNamee, who will serve as the executive director. We trust the community will help support these causes, too. TOWN OF ATHENS COUNTY OF ISANTI STATE OF MINNESOTA ORDINANCE NO. 2018-07 THROUGH 2018-10 AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE ATHENS ZONING ORDINANCE RELATED TO home occupations, portable toilets, and temporary structures The Town Board of the Town of Athens, Minnesota Ordains: SECTION 1. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-33 (g) home occupations is amended. SECTION 2. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-35 (b) extended home occupations is amended. SECTION 3. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-3 definitions is amended. SECTION 4. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-9 (k) is added. SECTION 5. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-33 is amended. SECTION 6. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-43 is amended. SECTION 7. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-130 is amended. SECTION 8. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-9 (t) is added. SECTION 9. Effective Date. This ordinance shall be effective upon approval and publication. Adopted by the Athens Town Board on September 10, 2018. Anyone who would like additional information should contact Ryan Grittman, Zoning Administrator at (651) 726-7296 Published in the Isanti County News September 27, 2018 860147 Ad details TOWN OF ATHENS COUNTY OF ISANTI STATE OF MINNESOTA ORDINANCE NO. 2018-07 THROUGH 2018-10 AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE ATHENS ZONING ORDINANCE RELATED TO home occupations, portable toilets, and temporary structures The Town Board of the Town of Athens, Minnesota Ordains: SECTION 1. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-33 (g) home occupations is amended. SECTION 2. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-35 (b) extended home occupations is amended. SECTION 3. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-3 definitions is amended. SECTION 4. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-9 (k) is added. SECTION 5. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-33 is amended. SECTION 6. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-43 is amended. SECTION 7. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-130 is amended. SECTION 8. Zoning District Amendment. Section 20-9 (t) is added. SECTION 9. Effective Date. This ordinance shall be effective upon approval and publication. Adopted by the Athens Town Board on September 10, 2018. Anyone who would like additional information should contact Ryan Grittman, Zoning Administrator at (651) 726-7296 Published in the Isanti County News September 27, 2018 860147 CITY OF NORWOOD YOUNG AMERICA NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING AMEND CHAPTER 2 OF THE CITY CODE Notice is hereby given that the Norwood Young America City Council will hold a public hearing on October 8, 2018 at 6:00 p.m. or soon thereafter in the Council Chamber, 310 Elm Street West, Norwood Young America. The purpose of the hearing is to consider amending Chapter 2 of the City Code regarding an increase in the mayor and city council salaries. If you have any questions regarding this matter or wish to make comment prior to the hearing, please contact the City Office at 952-467-1800 or in writing to: City of Norwood Young America, 310 Elm Street West, PO Box 59, NYA, MN 55368. Submitted by: Kelly Hayes City Clerk Published in the Norwood Young America Times September 20, 2018 857751 Ad details CITY OF NORWOOD YOUNG AMERICA NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING AMEND CHAPTER 2 OF THE CITY CODE Notice is hereby given that the Norwood Young America City Council will hold a public hearing on October 8, 2018 at 6:00 p.m. or soon thereafter in the Council Chamber, 310 Elm Street West, Norwood Young America. The purpose of the hearing is to consider amending Chapter 2 of the City Code regarding an increase in the mayor and city council salaries. If you have any questions regarding this matter or wish to make comment prior to the hearing, please contact the City Office at 952-467-1800 or in writing to: City of Norwood Young America, 310 Elm Street West, PO Box 59, NYA, MN 55368. Submitted by: Kelly Hayes City Clerk Published in the Norwood Young America Times September 20, 2018 857751 Services for Ricky Everett Roberson are Friday, 11 a.m., at Stephens Funeral Home. Burial will follow in First Baptist Collinsville cemetery. Mr. Roberson, 68, of Meridian, passed away Sunday. Friends may sign the online register at www.stephensfunerals.com. 5G smartphones are around the corner even though 5G networks are a rare sight at the moment. OnePlus hinted at a 5G smartphone but it will be costlier thanks to the new technology. Samsung is the other company looking to beat OnePlus to the punch and may launch its first 5G smartphone alongside the Galaxy S10. In fact, it will be one of the three models that will be announced next month. Twitter Having said that, Korean websites have reported that the device will be called the Galaxy S10 X and that Samsung is going to throw everything at the upcoming device. It's obvious that the 5G functionally adds to the cost of the smartphone, however, it's the other specs that are getting us excited. Basically, whatever you have heard about the Galaxy S10, multiply it by tenfold. Twitter The 5G smartphone is also expected to be called the Galaxy S10 X is rumoured to have at least 10 GB of RAM or even 12 GB of RAM. In terms of storage, the smartphone is expected to have 1TB storage and that's without a microSD. In terms of cameras, the Galaxy S10 X is expected to have a quad camera setup and will be backed by two selfie cameras. The smartphone in question is also expected to have a larger battery than ever before i.e. 5,000 mAh battery. Twitter In terms of display, the smartphone will sport a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED screen and will have an in-display fingerprint sensor. All of these specifications are expected to drive up the price and will probably cost a bomb. However, Samsung will be launching other models across different price tiers with the Galaxy S10 Lite, Galaxy S10, and Galaxy S10+. These devices are expected to cost anywhere from $715 (Rs 50,689) to $1,400 (Rs 99,000). As for the launch dates, Samsung will announce these smartphones on February 20th and the launch will follow shortly after. The 4G devices are expected to go on sale by March 8th while the exclusive 5G Galaxy S10 X will launch on March 29. 'PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' or PUBG will hold a PUBG Mobile tournament called 'PUBG Mobile India Series 2019' with a total prize pool of Rs 1 crore for the Indian gamers. It is the first official open-to-all PUBG Mobile tournament hosted in India and the 1 crore prize pool will consist of cash prizes and phones sponsored by OPPO. Nodwin (for representational purposes only) After registrations, players will have to compete against other squads and there are no limits on the number of teams participating. The qualifier rounds begin from 21st January followed by an online play-off of more than 2000 teams. The grand finale will be held on 10th March with a final of 20 teams. Twitter There are multiple awards up for grabs, including an MVP Award, The Exterminators, The Healers, and a lot more. While the winning team will go home with the 1 crore rupee prize, this will be India's first ever gaming competition at such a large scale. Amid the ongoing excitement about the competition, NewsByte has compiled a list of top ranking PUBG players from India who have an edge at winning the tournament. 1. MADDOG: Currently leading the ETG Clan, this player is known to be fierce. With a solid fanbase and dedicated PUBG forums, he has led his team to win multiple tournaments in the past. He is currently a favourite of many, and with the upcoming tournament, all eyes are on him. 2. 8bit-Thuglife: Animesh Agarwal is the real name behind the username and he's from Guwahati. He established the 8-bit clan and they've gone on to make a name for themselves in the PUBG eSports community. Thanks to thousands of hours of training, he has mastered the Third Person and First Person perspective genres. YouTube 3. iMaZik: A member of the GodL clan, he is actually an emulator player. Even though he has made a name for himself via an emulator, he is equally on mobile as well. His most recent achievement includes having the most kills at India Crew League PUBG tournament. 4. Experiment: A part of the SOUL clan, one of India's best PUBG eSports clan. He has mastered the First Person Perspective mode and his achievements include 100 Royal points. Not only does he belong to Ace tier, but also boats an impressive kill to death ratio. 5. MORTAL: Even he is a part of the SOUL Clan, and this makes the clan even more lethal. Naman Mathur is the real name behind the username and he's from Mumbai. The 23-year old is also known for his deadly encounters on Mini Militia. He has accurate headshots leading to over 10 kill-to-death ratio in PUBG Mobile. When it comes to quirky outfits, no one does it better than Ranveer Singh - except Karan Johar. KJo has been giving Baba a run for his money every day, and he casually steps out wearing stuff that are legit head-turners. For example, he just stepped out wearing a sweatshirt that reminds us of 'Scribble Day' - the last day of school when your buddies would leave you notes on your shirt. Remember? Viral Bhayani Now, we like everything he's wearing here, but what we couldn't help but notice is the 'To-Do' list on his sweatshirt. This list is so on point, it might as well be KJo's actual 'To-Do' list, the one that he follows (and we wish we could). Viral Bhayani It says: Get haircut, Buy socks, Laundry (well true because do you know how many clothes he owns?), Mani-pedi (which men should start doing regularly, please), and, well, who doesn't want to 'get trashed' after a long hard day? Viral Bhayani We thought the sweatshirt is the most interesting part of the outfit, till we really noticed his sneakers. He's wearing the Versace Chain Reaction sneakers - a pair that's a must have for every sneakerhead. Viral Bhayani Versace The red shoes cost a whopping Rs 70K. (blinks) All we can say is, if you have that To-Do List, nothing is too extra. We're J, KJo. Tom Cruise is a man of unparalleled and unmatched talent and is one of those few actors who are ready to go to extreme levels to give their 100% to any movie. Honestly, sometimes I feel that living like Cruise, for even a day, is like walking on live landmines (with safety measures though, if that helps!) via GIPHY After crashing into a wall in London and getting badly injured during the shoot, performing high-octane stunts like HALO jump despite an injury, dangling from a plane, jumping 25000 feet over 100 times to get one stunt right for 'Mission: Impossible - Fallout', Tom Cruise is back in action once again as Ethan Hunt. Summer 2021 and Summer 2022 pic.twitter.com/V6SNvZx2La Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) January 15, 2019 Tom Cruise aka Agent Ethan Hunt has accepted two new impossible missions, which are expected to hit the theatres in the summer of 2021 and 2022. Both the movies will be shot back to back. Christopher McQuarrie, who directed 2018's 'Mission Impossible: Fallout' and 2015's 'Mission: Imossible - Rogue Nation', will wear the Director's hat for MI 7 and MI 8 as well. McQuarrie tweeted saying "Missions: Accepted #MissionImpossible". Every time I talk about Tom Cruise and MI series, I can't help but brag about how much respect this man commands, for pulling off life-risking stunts. If there's anyone who can ever beat Tom Cruise in pulling off difficult scenes, it's probably Tom Cruise himself. In its second year at Kipling, Wilmot and Walden, Jump Rope for Heart is a program where students raise money in a variety of ways on their own, according to Bradley Greenberg, a physical education teacher at Kipling who runs the program there. He said they reach out to friends and family, in some cases with the help of parents social media networks. STAMFORD, Conn. Jan. 15, 2019 Connecticut Thursday, January 24th 6 PM Stamford, CT Ilana Ressler Christina Dias, RN Connecticut's Connecticut Connecticut Connecticut Connecticut Connecticut Fairfield County's Connecticut's Connecticut Connecticut Connecticut Mark P. Leondires Spencer S. Richlin Joshua M. Hurwitz Cynthia M. Murdock Shaun C. Williams Ilana B. Ressler Connecticut's Connecticut Danbury Norwalk Stamford Trumbull Poughkeepsie, New York /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- RMA of, a leading fertility practice whose exceptional quality and care helps couples and individuals grow their family, will host a free informational event that will demystify fertility age-related issues and will include complimentary fertility testing on site for the first fifty registrants. The event, "What's Your Real Fertility Age," will take place onatand will be held at the RMA of Connecticut Stamford office located at 260 Long Ridge Road, Suite A in"What's Your Real Fertility Age" will be hosted by one of RMA's expert fertility specialists, Dr., as well as, RMA ofDirector of Nursing. Dr. Ressler and Christina will discuss ways to discover your reproductive health and potential for having a family later in life, and will answer such questions as: Does your calendar age relate to your fertility? What's your ovarian reserve? How fertile are you right now?The first fifty registrants will receive a free fertility test. You can register for the event through the following link. Light refreshments will be served.For more information on RMA of, visit http://www.rmact.com.About Reproductive Medicine Associates of(RMA ofRMA ofis a leader in fertility care, specializing in a range of infertility treatments. Our assisted reproductive technologies (ART) include intrauterine insemination (IUI), in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and pre-implantation genetic testing (PGT). RMA ofislargest fertility clinic and egg donation center. Through RMA ofIntegrated Fertility and Wellness Center, we offer nutrition counseling, individual and couples psychological counseling, acupuncture and yoga, as well as financing and support services for our patients going through infertility treatment.Our internationally recognized Gay Parents To Be program at RMA ofspecializes in LGBTQ family building. In 2017 and 2018, RMA ofwas recognized as a Leader in Healthcare Equality by the Human Rights Campaign.The RMA ofteam includes lead physicians Drs., as well as fertility specialist, Dr.. All six physicians are Board-Certified Reproductive Endocrinologists and are members of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). Our team of doctors are named as Castle Connolly "Top Doctors" and are members of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART). RMA ofIVF laboratory is accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP), and CLIA. Other accreditations include the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC). RMA ofhas offices inand. For more information visit http://www.RMACT.com or find us on Facebook.SOURCE Reproductive Medicine Associates of CT (RMACT) ROLLING MEADOWS, Ill. Jan. 14, 2019 Illinois John Connor Tom Cullerton Illinois Illinois Murad Alam /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ --has become the 18th state to allow children to possess and apply sunscreen at school, an important step in preventing skin cancer.The legislation known as SUNucate was introduced by Representativeand carried through the Senate by Senator. It is designed to eliminate barriers that prohibit students from possessing and using over-the-counter sunscreen in school. Sunscreen often falls under broad reaching "medication bans" that require a physician's note or prescription to utilize in school.is only the second state to allow students to wear sun-safe clothing, including hats, and the first to encourage sun-safe behavior in school curricula."I am proud of my home state offor taking this great step in bringing awareness to skin cancer and ensuring that from a young age students know applying sunscreen while outdoors is key to combatting this epidemic. Allowing children to use sun-protective clothing provides an additional layer of prevention, and teaching kids about how best to protect themselves from the sun will have a lifelong, positive influence," said American Society for Dermatologic Surgery Association (ASDSA) President, MD, MBA. "If we are serious about lowering the incidence of skin cancer, then SUNucate is a common-sense, budget-neutral way for states and schools to become involved."The need for such legislation arose after concerns were raised by dermatologists and reports in the national media about students being required to bring a note or prescription from a physician in order to possess or use sunscreen, which is classified as an over-the-counter drug by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United States Preventive Services Task Force both believe that children should have access to sunscreen and other sun-protective measures in order to reduce the risk of skin cancer.ASDSA worked with the Illinois Dermatological Society, Pediatric Sun Protection Foundation, Illinois State Medical Society and other coalition partners to advocate for the passage of this law. To learn more about SUNucate, visit asds.net/SUNucate.# # #About ASDSA With a membership of 6,400+ physicians, ASDSA is a 501(c) (6) association, dedicated to education and advocacy on behalf of dermatologic surgeons and their patients. For more information, visit asds.net/ASDSA.Follow @ASDSAdvocacy on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!SOURCE American Society For Dermatologic Surgery, Inc. SAN FRANCISCO Jan. 14, 2019 California California Brian Maas California California John Connell $400 million the United States /PRNewswire/ -- EPIC Insurance Brokers and Consultants, a retail property, casualty insurance brokerage and employee benefits consultant, announced today a marketing and distribution agreement with HR Hotlink. Both firms are longtime valued partners of the California New Car Dealers Association (CNCDA).EPIC serves as the statewide exclusive licensed broker for Health and Welfare Insurance Consulting and Workers Compensation Insurance for CNCDA members. EPIC also brokers Property & Casualty insurance to new car dealers throughoutHR Hotlink was conceived from a vision to simplify the entire world of employment, legal, compliance, and human resources functions forautomobile dealerships. The platform is an employee management solution that ensures dealerships are in compliance with state and federal regulations. While compliance is the main focus of HR Hotlink, it also includes robust solutions for recruiting, on-boarding, training and performance management.According to, CNCDA's President, "Both EPIC and HR Hotlink have consistently provided outstanding service and value to our members and demonstrated a strong commitment to the association since we began working together. As the CNCDA-licensed broker in- now in partnership with HR Hotlink - EPIC will continue to provide dealers with the help they need to navigate the increasing complexity of thehealth insurance market."Added, EPIC's Regional President, Employee Benefits West, "We are very excited about our collaboration with HR Hotlink to offer best in class employment management software and risk management resources to CNCDA members. The EPIC/HR Hotlink partnership provides a turnkey process to identify and mitigate risk, save money, and ensure legal and regulatory compliance."EPIC is a unique and innovative retail property & casualty and employee benefits insurance brokerage and consulting firm. EPIC has created a values-based, client-focused culture that attracts and retains top talent, fosters employee satisfaction and loyalty and sustains a high level of customer service excellence.EPIC team members have consistently recognized their company as a "Best Place to Work" in multiple regions and as a "Best Place to Work in the Insurance Industry" nationally.EPIC now has more than 1,400 team members operating from 50 offices across the U.S., providing Property & Casualty, Employee Benefits, Specialty Programs and Private Client solutions to more than 20,000 clients.With run rate revenues of more than, EPIC ranks among the top 15 retail insurance brokers in. Backed by Oak Hill Capital Partners, the company continues to expand organically and through strategic acquisitions across the country. For additional information, please visit https://www.epicbrokers.com/.HR Hotlink does not merely automate human resource tasks, it "forces process" to assist compliance with federal and state labor regulations. HR Hotlink automates the required procedures in a step-by-step method that guides the correct process. The platform is regularly updated in response to legislative and regulatory changes. HR Hotlink provides online employment applications, a step-by-step automated rejection and acceptance process, automated drug and background reporting, auto-populated new hire packets, online employee handbooks, electronically tracked employee training, an information security program and much more. Please visit http://www.HRHotlink.comThe California New Car Dealers Association is the country's largest state association of franchised new car and truck dealers representing over 1,100 dealer members. CNCDA members are primarily engaged in the retail sale and lease of new vehicles, and also engage in automotive service, repair and part sales. CNCDA promotes fair and ethical business practices through a wide range of educational programs, services and industry publications. Learn more about CNCDA at http://www.cncda.org*LOGO Links for media: Send2Press.com/300dpi/19-0107-epic-insurance-300dpi.jpg Send2Press.com/300dpi/19-0115-hr-hotlink-300dpi.jpgThis release was issued through Send2Press, a unit of Neotrope. For more information, visit Send2Press Newswire at https://www.Send2Press.com View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/epic-insurance-brokers-and-hr-hotlink-join-forces-for-the-benefit-of-california-new-car-dealers-300777157.html SOURCE EPIC Insurance Brokers and Consultants Scientists have developed a novel drug combination that makes invasive breast cancer cells transform into fat cells. The treatment prevented metastasis in mice. Share on Pinterest New research in mice finds a way to stop breast cancer from spreading. Metastasis is the process through which cancer cells escape from primary tumors and grow new tumors, or metastases, in other parts of the body. It is the leading cause of death from cancer. An enabler of metastasis is the innate ability of cancer cells to take on the properties of other cell types. This plasticity allows them to transform from anchored cells into ones that can travel and invade other tissues. Now, researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland have found a way to use cell plasticity to stop metastasis in breast cancer. Instead of allowing the breast cancer cells to grow and migrate, they forced them to become fat cells that do not divide or travel. The journal Cancer Cell has recently published a paper about the research. In future, says senior study author Gerhard Christofori, who is a professor in the Department of Biomedicine, this innovative therapeutic approach could be used in combination with conventional chemotherapy to suppress both primary tumor growth and the formation of deadly metastases. Researchers have devised a new technology that may soon enable women to self-administer long-acting contraceptives in a matter of seconds. Share on Pinterest Women may soon benefit from self-administered contraception with long-acting effects. More than 60 percent of women of reproductive age in the United States are using contraception, according to the latest estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The most popular contraceptive methods are the pill, with 28 percent of women using it, and female sterilization, with 27 percent. The birth control pill is effective in the short term, but more and more women are opting for long-acting methods, such as intrauterine devices and implants. Currently, such long-acting means of contraception require a healthcare professional to administer them, but new research may bring the benefits of long-acting contraception in a much more accessible form. Researchers led by Wei Li, a postdoctoral researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, devised an innovative technology that would deliver the contraceptive levonorgestrel through a microneedle skin patch. Mark Prausnitz, a Regents Professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech, is the corresponding author of the paper, which they have published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering. Creating the patch and how it works For their contraceptive method, Li and colleagues used microneedle skin patch technology, which scientists have already developed for administering vaccines. The patch has drug-containing microscopic needles that break off after a person applies the patch for a few seconds. The tiny needles then remain just under the skin, releasing the drug. Li and colleagues molded microscopic air bubbles into the top of the needles to enable them to break. The microneedles, after this modification, are strong enough for an individual to push under the skin but remain weak enough to break when they shift the patch to one side. After the tiny needles are under the skin, they release the hormone levonorgestrel, which disrupts womens cycles. The fact that the needles consist of biodegradable polymers helps the release of the hormone. Specifically, Li and colleagues designed the tiny needles from a mix of biodegradable polymers, such as polylactic-co-glycolic acid and polylactic acid. These acids naturally occur in the body, explain the researchers, and doctors routinely use the polymers in absorbable surgical sutures. Study co-author Steven Schwendeman, the Ara Paul Professor, and chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, explains the polymer selection process. We select polymer materials to meet specific design objectives, such as microneedle strength, biocompatibility, biodegradation and drug release time, and formulation stability, he says. Our team then processes the polymer into microneedles by dissolving the polymer and drug in an organic solvent, molding the shape, and then drying off the solvent to create the microneedles. The polymer matrix, when formed in this way, can slowly and safely release contraceptive hormone for weeks or months when placed in the body, concludes Prof. Schwendeman. by Tanya Gazdik , January 15, 2019 A new report from JetBlue and The Nature Conservancy uses artificial intelligence to evaluate what impact natural resources have on tourism. The Caribbean, which depends heavily on tourism, relies on healthy coral reefs to attract visitors. The Caribbean and Latin America account for one-third of JetBlues destinations, says Sophia Mendelsohn, head of sustainability and environmental, social governance, JetBlue. Coral reef health is diminishing from the impact of such factors as pollution and climate change, according to the airline. This report, also supported by Microsoft and the World Travel & Tourism Council, used machine learning and artificial intelligence to quantify the significant value that reefs contribute to the Caribbean economy through reef-adjacent activities, such as sailing, diving and snorkeling, and the direct connection on tourism. advertisement advertisement More than 86,000 social images and nearly 6.7 million text posts were studied for identifiers that indicated reef-adjacent activities. The social media metrics were layered with traditionally sourced data from government agencies and the tourism industry, such as surveys from visitor centers, sales figures reported by travel-associated businesses and economic data from government accounting systems. The value of reef-associated tourism is estimated at more than $7.9 billion annually from over 11 million visitors. This accounts for 23% of all tourism spending and is equivalent to more than 10% of the regions gross domestic product. This marks the second study funded by JetBlue to measure Caribbean ecosystems and correlate it to travel industry revenue. Estimating Reef-Adjacent Tourism Value in the Caribbean follows 2015s EcoEarnings: A Shore Thing. The updated report analyzes the component of the travel sector that depends on coral reefs but does not make direct use of them in the way that diving or snorkeling does. The countries most dependent on reef-adjacent tourism include many small island nations and JetBlue destinations, like Antigua and Barbuda, Bermuda and St. Maarten, where there may be relatively few alternative sources of income outside of reef-associated tourism. JetBlue also is donating 50 flights to The Nature Conservancy for scientists to travel to the Caribbean to further research and advance coral reef health. by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, January 15, 2019 The Association of National Advertisers is asking California's attorney general to clarify several aspects of the state's new privacy law by issuing regulations that would make the measure more marketer-friendly. The law, passed last year, allows consumers to learn what personal information about them is held by businesses, and to opt out of the sale of that information. The measure defines personal information broadly, as including data that could be linked to particular consumers or households. State Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who is tasked with developing regulations, is currently holding forums about the law. This week, the ANA's Christopher Oswald, senior vice president of government relations, testified at a forum in San Diego -- the second of six statewide meetings devoted to the law. advertisement advertisement Oswald urged Becerra's office to address several aspects of the law, including its definition of personal information -- which the ANA says is too broad. Any data theoretically is 'capable of being associated with' a particular consumer, which means that there is no reasonable limitation on the scope of the law, Oswald stated. Without more clarity, businesses may end up deleting or sharing more information than is necessary. He specifically asked Becerra's office to narrow the definition of personal information to data that is actually or reasonably related to a particular consumer or household. The ANA also says it is concerned that ad companies may not have realistic ways to notify consumers of the personal information held about them, or allow them to opt out of the sale of that data. The organization says a company should be able to rely on assurances from the data providers that consumers were notified. If not, the online advertising ecosystem, which involves multiple parties that may not have direct relationships with consumers in order to deliver advertisements, will fall apart, Oswald stated. California's new law also prohibits companies from charging higher prices to consumers who opt out of data collection and selling. But the measure contains another provision that allows businesses to offer "financial incentives," including cheaper prices, to consumers who allow their data to be collected and sold. The ANA says those provisions are ambiguous enough to pose a threat to loyalty programs -- which typically involve companies giving discounts to consumers who agree to share their data. The ANA is asking Becerra to specify that California's law still allows business to offer loyalty programs. by Alex Weprin , January 15, 2019 Viamedia, the local and video and digital advertising platform, has signed an expanded deal with measurement firm Comscore, making it the exclusive TV currency in 72 out of 73 of the companys local markets. Viamedia has exclusive cable TV ad inventory from more than 60 distributors spread across 34 states, along with OTT, mobile, and display ad options. The deal is a notable one for Comscore, which has been trying to seize TV market share from Nielsen in recent years. Over the past few months, Comscore has signed deals with Nexstar, Gray Television and E.W. Scripps Company to serve as a currency in their local markets. The Viamedia deal builds on those deals, expanding Comscores local reach. At the heart of these deals -- and of the friction between Nielsen and many TV companies -- is cross-platform measurement. Measuring TV viewership across platforms has been a significant technical challenge. Both Comscore -- through its Campaign Ratings beta -- and Nielsen -- through its Total Ad Ratings -- are hoping to solve those problems and become a true cross-platform currency. by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, January 15, 2019 DoubleVerify has acquired Helsinki, Finland-based artificial intelligence expert Leiki in an all-cash-and-stock offer completed on December 27, 2018. The deal, announced Monday, gives the company a foothold to build a business to support publishers with a variety of technology. Brand safety is one major focus. The technology can monitor even premium editorial content and prevent a programmatic ad from serving nearby, which might pose a challenge for advertisers. DoubleVerifys customers today are primarily brand advertisers, as well as companies that support media transactions through programmatic trading. The company supports publishers, but mainly with digital advertising campaigns running on publisher sites. The acquisition -- announced Monday for an undisclosed sum -- is the first in a series of steps that DoubleVerify will make to support publishers, DoubleVerify CEO Wayne Gattinella told Digital News Daily. The acquisition is the first step to build stronger support for publishers, he said. advertisement advertisement Its a combination of this acquisition and other publisher-focused products being developed inside the company, he said. There are several initiatives within the company that are designed to develop and deliver a very powerful service to help publishers better compete. Gattinella, who previously was CEO at WebMD for 10 years, appreciates how difficult it is to compete as a stand-alone publisher. He said DoubleVerify will introduce ways to help digital publishers better compete. The product should be released late in the second quarter of 2019. Leiki uses artificial intelligence to analyze text in more than 40 languages, such as complex news articles or contextual video data. DoubleVerify can then use the translations to classify content and filter an advertisers bid on certain media placements. In addition to adding new customers -- mostly publishers -- it also gives DoubleVerify a stronger foothold in Eastern Europe, the Nordics and Russian markets. Leiki CEO and Founder Petrus Pennanen will remain with DoubleVerify, playing a senior role in the development of new products. He will spearhead a specialized business unit in Helsinki, Finland, where the company is based. Leikis technology also will be integrated into the DoubleVerify Content Analysis platform. Along with the intellectual property, DoubleVerify will also acquire the ability to work with talented Ontologists. It has not been decided whether or not DoubleVerify will keep the Leiki brand name. by Richard Whitman , Columnist, January 14, 2019 Well, I guess this was to be expected. Interpublic Group will be eliminating more than 200 positions in its Birmingham, Michigan, office in the wake of last months announcement that Fiat Chrysler is shifting its media business to Publicis Groupes Starcom. UM and Reprise were the incumbents. No one has been laid off yet as the target date set for the job cuts isnt until early March, per the so-called Department of Labor WARN notices filed Jan. 9. And theres a bit more good news. The company is trying to find other positions within the Mediabrands network to place affected staffers. Thus, the net number of people leaving the firm could be less than the positions eliminated, due to the account loss. Its too early in the process to know how many staffers might be placed elsewhere by the company. advertisement advertisement Heres the companys statement: In compliance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act), we have filed the required documentation regarding potential layoffs at our Birmingham office in connection with the loss of the Fiat Chrysler account. "We are working to find positions for these employees at other agencies within our network and remain committed to an increased footprint in downtown Detroit. We continue to serve a number of key clients out of our Detroit locations. Part of the challenge, is a lack of exposure at an early age, not realizing when in high school its a viable career option, Hudson said of the low representation of blacks in the profession. Drafting has also been pulled out of a lot of public schools around the country. The other part of the problem is the educational system. Students find themselves ill prepared when they get to college to deal with the architecture curriculum, and again that comes from exposure in high school where a lot of times our kids arent exposed to higher level math or science classes. You could be the best draftsman, but if you dont have science or math, its hard to pursue as a profession. by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, January 14, 2019 Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has refused a lawmaker's request for an emergency briefing on the sale of location data by wireless carriers. Pai's staff said the location-data sales weren't the kind of safety threat that the FCC is addressing during the ongoing government shutdown, according to Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-New Jersey). Theres nothing in the law that should stop the Chairman personally from meeting about this serious threat that could allow criminals to track the location of police officers on patrol, victims of domestic abuse, or foreign adversaries to track military personnel on American soil, Pallone stated Monday. The Committee will continue to press the FCC to prioritize public safety, national security, and protecting consumers. advertisement advertisement Late last week, Pallone urged the agency to provide Congress with an emergency briefing, and to take immediate action to stop wireless carriers from selling their customers' location data. While some carriers have now recommitted to stopping such unauthorized disclosure, the public can no longer rely on their voluntary promises to protect this extremely sensitive information, Pallone wrote to Pai Friday. The FCC must take immediate action to ensure no wireless carrier is allowing the rampant disclosure of real-time location data. Pallone added that failing to address the sale of location data could compromise the privacy and security of all wireless users, including government officials, military personnel, domestic violence victims, and law enforcement officials. Pallone's letter came in response to an article in Motherboard, which reported last week that some of the largest carriers, including AT&T and T-Mobile, are selling customers' location data to third parties. Motherboard's article detailed how a reporter paid a bounty hunter $300 to track a phone's location to a neighborhood in Queens, New York. AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon said last week that they plan to stop selling location data. But Pallone noted in his letter that the major carriers made similar promises last June. Yet new reports indicate this unfortunate practice continues, Pallone wrote. The FCC once again appears to have dragged its feet in protecting consumers. by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, January 14, 2019 The Pinterest Insights team has discovered a way to help marketers better understand the behavior and the attitude of people who build pin boards. They developed five personas ranging from group travelers to foodies. One of the top asks we get from Pinners is to seamlessly connect them to actionable websites, wrote Nicolette Harper, global head of vertical strategy for travel, tech and telecom at Pinterest, in an email to Search Marketing Daily. The Group Vacationer, for example, values spending time with friends, family or fellow travelers. The Culture Chaser values learning about local culture and history. The Spa Sojourner values rest and relaxation. The Adventure Lover values being active. The Eating Explorer values a good dining experience. The personas were identified via a comScore study commissioned by Pinterest. A list of questions were asked in an online survey. About 2,000 respondents participated, who were between the ages of 18 and 64. They were pinners in the U.S. who viewed travel content on Pinterest in the past three months and traveled for leisure in the past two 2 years or are planning to take a leisure trip in the next 12 months. advertisement advertisement We measure Pinterest interactions via searches, saves and clicks, Harper wrote. We also analyze search terms as well as board and pin descriptions as part of our insights development process. People come to Pinterest to map out their entire trip. Data shows that 69% of those who pin on Pinterest use the site to discover travel services before booking with a business. About 76% of travelers search on Pinterest after seeing travel content from brands on Pinterest before making a purchase. Travel-related searches for less traveled islands rose 179% YoY, while small town travel rose 276% YoY, and surprise destination rose 192% YoY. These phrases are among top travel-related searches on Pinterest. Some of the other numbers that Pinterest released include the search for abandoned castle, for example, which rose 142% YoY. The search for less traveled islands rose 179% YoY, and bike tours rose 64% YoY. Carnival used a keyword campaign to reach a new cruise audience and lowered their cost-per-click by 71%, and The Four Seasons used Pinterest to change their guests experiences and get a 1000% increase in daily average visitors from Pinterest. The Oakland-based alt-weekly newspaperlaid off six people a third of its staff and nearly its entire editorial team -on Friday. The only editorial staffer left is editor Robert Gammon. The paper will continue to publish with freelance writers. Publisher Stephen Buel has returned from a hiatus to run the publication. The 40-year-old East Bay Express had been running a deficit as print advertising revenue declined, Gammon told The New York Times. It didnt help that the Express lost a lawsuit last week filed by Terry Furry, a former sales and marketing director who claimed he was illegally denied overtime pay. Around the same time as the lawsuit, Buel was trying to sell the Express. He had announced in July he was stepping down as publisher after admitting to taking down blog posts and using a racial slur during a staff meeting. advertisement advertisement Furry is demanding about $750,000 from the Express, which includes legal fees. Azucena Rasilla, who was associate editor of East Bay Express until Friday, told The New York Times: "We knew the paper has been having financial issues for a while now, and we thought eventually were probably going to lose our jobs." Alternative weekly newspapers have had a rough time in the digital age of editorial content and declining print advertising revenue. New Yorks iconic The Village Voiceshutt ered in August after more than six decades in print. L.A. Weekly's new ownership let go of most of its staff in 2017, and Montana's Missoula Independent shuttered abruptly last year. Last year, Pew Research Center found the average circulation for the top 20 U.S. alt-weekly newspapers in 2017 was just over 55,000, a 10% decline from 2016, according to data from AAM, Verified Audit Circulation, Circulation Verification Council and independently produced reports. Two years ago, the East Bay Express won a George Polk Award for local reporting for a series on the Oakland Police Department that resulted in the firing of three police chiefs. There are tremendous benefits offered by the telehealth solutions. Some of these include improved access to the patients; telehealth can allow us to provide healthcare services to the patients situated in distant locations. It also allows physicians & doctors to expand their reach and services beyond their clinics. Telehealth services have also proved to be cost effective with increased efficiency through better management of chronic diseases. And also it reduces the travel time for the patients which further reduced costs for the patients. All these advantages have attracted healthcare services providers to adopt telehealth technologies and the demand for the same has been on the rise ever since. Get Sample Copy @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/900 The Global Telehealth Market is driven by increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, rising geriatric population, and continuous development in the healthcare technology; as per statistics, more than 50% of the total globe population have some or other chronic disease. Moreover, rapid development in the technology, increasing healthcare expenditure, and increasing need for the home based devices have fuelled the market growth. However, lack of awareness and unavailability or less availability of the required infrastructure in many parts of the world including the underdeveloped Asian and African regions may slow the growth of the market. Telehealth or telemedicine is a mode of delivering health care services to patients by using communication technologies to facilitate the diagnosis, treatment, consultation, education care management, and others. Telehealth acts as a bridge to improve the relationship between patient and healthcare providers as well as for improving patient satisfaction & behavioural changes by providing healthcare guidance and treatment. It provides self-management and caregivers support to the patients. Telehealth is used to monitor the chronic diseases as well as to monitor disease from home. The Global Teleheatlh Market is expected to grow at a healthy CAGR of 29.8% during the forecasted period. Key players Some of the major players in the global telehealth market are Koninklijke Philips N.V. (the Netherlands), Medtronic (Ireland), General Electric Company (UK), McKesson Corporation (US), Care Innovations, LLC. (US), Cerner Corporation (US), GlobalMedia Group, LLC (US), Siemens Healthcare Private Limited (US), AMD Global Telemedicine, Inc. (US), InTouch Technologies, Inc. (US). Segmentation The global telehealth market is segmented on the basis of components, types, and end users. On the basis of component, the market is segmented into hardware, software, and others. Hardware is further segmented into monitors, medical devices, and others. Monitors are further segmented into blood glucose monitors, blood pressure monitors, ECG monitors, and others. On the basis of types, the market is segmented into web based, on-premises, and cloud based. On the basis of end users the market is segmented into hospitals & clinics, pharmaceutical companies, and others. Regional Analysis On the regional basis the global telehealth market is dominated by America owing to the presence of huge geriatric population and large number of people suffering from diabetes and other chronic respiratory diseases. Among all the regions in the world, the U.S. has been the first choice for the deployment of telehealth solutions due to established healthcare systems and technology advancement. It has gained a significant position in the global market with the increase in large numbers of telehealth services which target at wellness and fitness. Thus, these telehealth solutions help in cost reduction, saves time by reducing visits to physicians, and provides better healthcare systems. In Addition to this, well developed healthcare sector and high healthcare spending has contributed in the growth of the market. Europe accounts for the second largest market for the global telehealth market which is followed by Asia Pacific. The Germany is dominating the connected healthcare deployments in Europe, with different kinds of solutions being offered and services being delivered through varied means, from simple messages to much more complex apps. Asia pacific has the fastest growth market due to the presence of rapidly developing economies like China and India. However, the Middle East and Africa has the least share in the market. Browse Complete 80 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with 64 Respective Tables and Figures @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/telehealth-market-900 Detailed Table of Contents: Chapter 1. Report Prologue Chapter 2. Market Introduction 2.1 Definition 2.2 Scope Of The Study 2.2.1 Research Objective 2.2.2 Assumptions 2.2.3 Limitations Chapter 3. Research Methodology 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Primary Research 3.3 Secondary Research 3.4 Market Size Estimation Chapter 4. Market Dynamics 4.1 Drivers 4.2 Restrains 4.3 Opportunities 4.4 Challenges 4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators 4.6 Technology Trends & Assessment Chapter 5. Market Factor Analysis 5.1 Porters Five Forces Analysis 5.1.1 Bargaining Power Of Suppliers 5.1.2 Bargaining Power Of Buyers 5.1.3 Threat Of New Entrants 5.1.4 Threat Of Substitutes 5.1.5 Intensity Of Rivalry Continued! Send an Enquiry @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/900 About US: Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. Contact Us: Market Research Future Office No. 528, Amanora Chambers Magarpatta Road, Hadapsar, Pune 411028 Maharashtra, India Phone: +1 646 845 9312 Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com The latest trend gaining momentum in the market is the advent of online counseling. With the growing influence of the internet, the physicians are providing treatments with the help of mobile applications and online video calling for behavioral disorders. The physicians indulge in therapy sessions in person, and this method has proved to be beneficial for people suffering from behavioral disorders. The physicians consult with the patients and accordingly determines the type of treatment. The growing prevalence of behavioral disorders and increasing awareness of the available therapeutic options are major driving factors for the market. Rising government initiatives, such as Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Association grants and The Affordable Care Act is expected to boost the market growth during the forecast period. Rapid urbanization and technological modernization have resulted in a significant increase in behavioral disorders. Individuals aging between 16-25 are more vulnerable to additions such as drugs, alcohol, and food and become socially dysfunctional. North America is dominating behavioral rehabilitation market as rising incidences of mental disorders and availability of treatment, which are driving factors responsible for the high market share. The global Behavioral Rehabilitation market set to grow with healthy CAGR during 2019-2025. This report focuses on the global Behavioral Rehabilitation status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the Behavioral Rehabilitation development in United States, Europe and China. The key players covered in this study Acadia Healthcare American Addiction Centers Baxter Regional Medical Center Universal Health Services Market segment by Type, the product can be split into Outpatient behavioral rehabilitation Inpatient behavioral rehabilitation Residential behavioral rehabilitation Market segment by Application, split into Anxiety Mood Substance Abuse Personality Attention Deficit Disorders Request Sample Report at https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/3661740-global-behavioral-rehabilitation-market-size-status-and-forecast-2019-2025 Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers United States Europe China Japan Southeast Asia India Central & South America The study objectives of this report are: To analyze global Behavioral Rehabilitation status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. To present the Behavioral Rehabilitation development in United States, Europe and China. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their development plan and strategies. To define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market and key regions. In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Behavioral Rehabilitation are as follows: History Year: 2014-2018 Base Year: 2018 Estimated Year: 2019 Forecast Year 2019 to 2025 For the data information by region, company, type and application, 2018 is considered as the base year. Whenever data information was unavailable for the base year, the prior year has been considered. Table of Contents 1 Report Overview 2 Global Growth Trends 3 Market Share by Key Players 4 Breakdown Data by Type and Application 5 United States 6 Europe 7 China 8 Japan 9 Southeast Asia 10 India 11 Central & South America 12 International Players Profiles 13 Market Forecast 2019-2025 14 Analysts Viewpoints/Conclusions About Us: Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Contact Us: NORAH TRENT sales@wiseguyreports.com Ph: +1-646-845-9349 (US) Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK) St. Michael Parish: 14327 Highland Ave. The Prayer Shawl Ministry Hooks and Needles, will meet from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month to knit or crochet prayer shawls, hats and scarves. The items will be donated to hospitals, hospice units, food pantry, cancer units, the American Red Cross and individuals. There are also six evening meetings a year. Information: call Donna at 708-403-2122. Major Vincent August Knapp age 48 of Canton, GA passed away at his home June 3, 2021. The family will receive friends at Darby Funeral Home on Monday, June 21st from 3-8pm. The funeral will be on Tuesday, June 22nd at 11am at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church with Lt. Colonel David B Note: We have changed our commenting system. If you do not have an mdjonline.com account, you will need to create one in order to comment. Submit A Press Release $25.00 / for 2 days Ensure your press release runs prominently on our website and in our E-mail Newsletter. Gauranteed placement on these platforms is $25. Note: All submissions will go through our editorial approval process before being posted. Two Tennessee men are behind bars in Cobb County after fleeing from Georgia State Troopers, who ran them off the road and found over 15 pounds Images Sorry, there are no recent results for popular images. Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. Whether it was in Washington at the National League of Cities (NLC) Conference with federally elected officials or at the state capital with t Get Cobb County news and local guidance about the coronavirus outbreak. Sign up for our Email News Alerts. SPRINGFIELD - James J. Martin, a Western Massachusetts lawyer, must serve six months in the Hampden County Correctional Center in Ludlow after being convicted of three counts of indecent assault and battery. Hampden Superior Court Judge J. Gavin Reardon Jr. sentenced Martin, 41, of Amherst, to 18 months in the Ludlow jail and ordered that six months be served. The rest is suspended with two years probation. As conditions of probation he must wear a GPS monitoring device, have no contact with the victim, have sex offender treatment and have mental health evaluation and treatment. Martin will have to provide a DNA sample and register as a sex offender. The woman who accused him was talking with him in November 2015 because she faced foreclosure of her house from the bank Martin was representing. The incident happened when Martin followed her to her car outside Westfield District Court. Reardon delivered his verdict Monday in the jury-waived trial. Martin chose not to take the stand in his own defense. Defense lawyer Alan J. Black asked Reardon to sentence Martin to only probation and no jail time. Assistant District Attorney Eileen Sears asked for a sentence of a year in the Ludlow jail plus three years probation. The three counts of which he was convicted charged that Martin touched the womens breasts and between her legs and put his tongue in her mouth while trying to kiss her. Reardon found Martin not guilty of a charge assault and battery that alleged he pushed her into the drivers seat in her car. The victim told Reardon at the sentencing she now feels afraid all the time. Before the incident she had enough worries, she said, with one ill child and another with a disability. She said while Martin is sitting there thinking about how hard it is for you, he should understand his own actions landed him in jail. Sears said Martin exploited his position as a lawyer, casting aside legal and ethical responsibilities. She said although the victim expressed some sympathy for the position Martin put himself in, I dont feel any sympathy for him. Black said Martin, who has no criminal record, has two daughters ages two and four and his divorce has just finished. He said the children live with their mother. Martin has been on disability and receiving $900 a month, which he is using to help the children, Black said. You lose disability when you go to jail, Black said. He said Martin will be punished a lot, jail or no jail. Black said the state Board of Bar Overseers has been waiting for the trial and will probably take action so Martin probably wont be able to practice law for a very, very long time. Black said Martin has been seeing a therapist for two years. Since this all happened I think re realized he has some issues, Black said of Martin. Martin faces two more trials, one in February and one in March. He is accused of indecent assault and battery against two women, and in the case of one of those women he is charged with rape. Hampden District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni issued a statement saying, I thank the victim for her courageousness in coming forward and working with my office to ensure justice can be served. Regardless of ones profession or position in the community, this type of behavior is unacceptable, unlawful, and will continue to be treated with the utmost seriousness by my office. I would like to thank Assistant District Attorney Eileen Sears, who worked hard over several years with this case and did an excellent job securing the convictions," he said. SPRINGFIELD A 26-year-old city man on Monday pleaded guilty to stalking, gun possession and other charges involving his ex-girlfriend. Tre Watson was sentenced by Hampden Superior Court Judge Karen Goodwin to two and one half years in the Hampden County Correctional Center in Ludlow plus two years probation. Assistant District Attorney Katharine Johnston asked for a sentence of three to five years in state prison. Defense lawyer Tracy E. Duncan wanted the two and one half year jail sentence, but wanted Watson to only have to serve 18 months with the rest suspended with two years probation. Watson has credit for 318 days spent in jail awaiting trial. He also pleaded guilty to two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, one count of stalking and one count of malicious damage to a motor vehicle. Watson was arrested on warrants June 8, 2017, by the Massachusetts State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section, Johnston said. Watson pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm without a firearms identification card for a gun found in the car in which he was riding when arrested. Johnston said beginning in late April 2017 Watson sent the woman threatening texts, including one that said, Im not going nowhere till I get you or shoot s--- up. Another sent while she was in a church service said, Youre going to get a whole 30 round when you get out, Johnston said. Watson said he would plead guilty to the charges but did not mean the texts the way they were taken. Johnston said when the woman was driving at an intersection he threw a glass bottle at her car door. The woman said as she drove off she saw him with his hand outstretched and heard shots. Watson told Goodwin he did point a gun at the car when the woman was driving off but he didnt fire it. HAMPDEN An East Longmeadow man faces several charges after his vehicle collided with a school bus Monday on South Monson Road and he attempted to flee, police said. Hampden police and fire personnel, assisted by Massachusetts State Police airwing and K-9 units and Monson and Springfield police, apprehended Logan Martin in woods near where the accident occurred at approximately 2:35 p.m. Martin was charged with operating under the influence-liquor, operating to endanger, leaving the scene of an accident with personal injury, speeding and a marked lanes violation, according to a Hampden Police Department press release. Martin was transported to Bay State Medical Center in Springfield for treatment of unspecified injuries. The school bus had several children on board. No injuries were reported by police. According to the Hampden police release, Martins car crashed through a guard rail and landed upside down. The accident remains under investigation, police said. As of this evening, Springfield is officially a welcoming city. With the current administration in D.C. marked by xenophobia, cities throughout Massachusetts have been faced with a choice: to side with families and public safety, or bow to bigotry and division. The Springfield City Councils vote in support of the Welcoming Community Trust Ordinance shows what America looks like at its best: a place that values the lives and well-being of all people. The truth is, welcoming ordinances help communities function at a much greater capacity. When any resident fears that an interaction with law enforcement or other city officials could put them or their loved ones in jeopardy, they sink into the shadows and dont engage with local government. But when more residents feel comfortable calling city departments the Code Enforcement Department to flag a code violation in their apartment, the School Department to inquire about summer programs, and the Police Department when witness to a crime more residents participate more fully in their community. Cities thrive when officials protect the safety of all residents. On behalf of our organizations and our coalition of community partners, we are grateful and proud that the Springfield City Council chose to send a powerful message: The dignity and safety of all of Springfields residents are the top concern, not carrying out and footing the bill for the White Houses agenda of criminalizing immigrants and stoking fear and ignorance. The ordinance maintains the division of powers between city, state, and federal governments. Heres what else the ordinance will do: It prevents city officials from making immigration inquiries unless its required by state or federal law. Immigration status is simply not relevant when a resident interacts with a municipal department. The ordinance also prevents officials from discriminating against medical, educational, or faith institutions that provide refuge to immigrants. Together, these function to foster trust between local officials and immigrants. Springfields new ordinance is constitutional, just, and right. In fact, a number of Massachusetts municipalities have passed policies like it, designed to build trust between city government and immigrant communities. From Lexington to Medford and from Boston to Holyoke, cities and towns are stepping up to acknowledge the humanity of immigrants and their families. These communities have made a choice not to be subservient to the federal governments discriminatory and unconstitutional immigration priorities. Cities and towns have a big role to play in shaping the future of freedom for our generation and those to come and in Massachusetts, the future of freedom is welcoming. Were proud of what Springfield accomplished. Now, we call on other communities throughout the Commonwealth to act in solidarity with our immigrant neighbors. Javier Luengo-Garrido is the project coordinator for the ACLU of Massachusetts Immigrant Protection Project. Jeff Napolitano is the executive director of The Resistance Center For Peace And Justice. Tara Parrish is the director and lead organizer for Pioneer Valley Project. We cant say George Washington didnt warn us. As part of his legendary 1796 Farewell Address, the nations first president cautioned the young country against aligning with political parties. A Federalist at heart but officially independent, Washington predicted that organized parties would divide the country and impede the pursuit of its goals. What would Washington think about Washington (D.C., not the man) today? Political parties are here to stay, and the two-party system looks too entrenched to make room for a third. Adding new, viable parties would give centrists a voice now lacking in either party, but it would also produce high risk of Electoral College deadlocks - sending elections to the House of Representatives if none of the three or more candidates wins a majority. But, as partisans on each side move farther left and farther right - applying political dogma and party affiliation in place of independent, intelligent thinking - its difficult not to find truth in Washingtons words. Regardless of his warning, parties had begun forming before he even left office, so his plea was an unrealistic in 1796 as it is today. Even Washington himself could have been categorized as a member of the Federalist Party (which favored a strong central government over states' rights), whether he admitted it or not. Responsibility for the partial government shutdown falls squarely on President Trumps lap, regardless of his finger-pointing, but the insidious damage done by party-over-country dogma preceded him and has grown over decades. Republicans are not allowed to voice concern over climate change. Democrats have only lately begun to concede that our immigration and visa policies need a review, though not a wall, and very few have openly conceded even that. If any good is to come from this shutdown, it is that people are finally getting fed up with the entire process of shallow thinking by members of two parties who trade in their intellect and analytical thought to act like a herd of sheep. Safe from the voters for another 22 months, some Republicans refuse to budge but others are pulling back from Trump and calling to end the shutdown. Among the Democrats, the division is equally crippling as some prepare to work with the president on some plateaus if not others, while others aim for Trumps jugular, regardless of the issues and with tactics that match or surpass the presidents crass vulgarity. Votes for Supreme Court nominees should not be predictable based purely on party lines. Neither should votes on modification of immigration policy (sans the wall) or other budget issues. But arent they? Even the question of whether to begin impeachment proceedings is not so much about the legal and constitutional merits, but as a math equation of Republican and Democratic numbers. Political parties form in every democracy. In their best times, they lend collective voice to improvement movements that could not gain traction without such organization behind it. But these are not the best of times for partisan politics, these are the worst of times. The nation is frozen at the top with no assurance that once the shutdown ends, cooler heads and more reasonable thought and dialogue will prevail. The country does not need Democrats or Republicans nearly as much as they need political leaders with foresight, compassion, an ability to listen and a decent amount of political courage. What we have instead are two opposing armies. America is the loser, just as George Washington had feared. I agree with the opinion of Adam Minter in his Jan. 15, page C4 commentary, Flight attendants are not waitresses in the sky. My experience as an airline passenger on commercial flights span fifty years. My most recent was over sixteen hours of round-trip inflight time a few days ago between Hartford and Los Angeles on Delta Airlines. I have always appreciated the important role of flight attendants in providing safety, security and food and beverage service to the passengers. Minters commentary raised objection and caution about a new practice started Jan. 1 by low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines Inc. He writes, Henceforth, fight attendants on Frontier flights will be allowed to solicit tips directly from passengers. Frontier argues that the change in policy will reward flight attendants for offering excellent customer service. In reality, tipping on planes-like tipping in restaurants-will bear little relationship to service quality. More importantly, itll make passengers and flight attendants less safe. I agree with the actual results of research on tipping which have reported little relationship between good service and tipping amounts and that people tend to tip based on factors other than actual performance. And I support the factual statistics that the restaurant industry is the source of more sexual harassment complaints than any other U.S. industry- and tipped workers are harassed by customers at a higher rate than untipped ones. I agree with Minters conclusion The Department of Transportation ought to take a more rigorous look at how tipping impacts airplane cabins. Todays flight attendants...are there to keep passengers safe-and employers ought to reward them properly for doing so. This means the airline companies and not the customers or passengers should be rewarding the flight attendants. Robert Loesch, Springfield BOSTON Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker on Tuesday re-filed a bill that would make it easier for judges to keep someone in jail on the grounds that they are dangerous. Public safety is a fundamental responsibility of government and in order to fulfill that duty, we must allow local police and district attorneys to effectively deal with people who repeatedly break the law, Baker said in a statement. The bill is the same one Baker filed last September. But that was after formal legislative sessions had wrapped up for the year, so there was no time for lawmakers to consider the bill. Now, the new legislative session is just starting, so the bill will go through the legislative process. Baker initially unveiled the bill after the killings of three police officers Auburn Officer Ronald Tarentino, Weymouth Sgt. Michael Chesna and Yarmouth Sgt. Sean Gannon all allegedly by men with criminal histories. Currently, a judge can hold a "dangerousness hearing" and incarcerate someone pre-trial if they are charged with specific crimes and under specific circumstances. Baker's bill would broaden those circumstances. For example, today a judge can only consider the crime a person has been charged with in deciding whether to hold them as dangerous. Bakers bill would let a judge consider their past criminal history. Under Bakers bill, a judge would be allowed for the first time to revoke a persons release solely because the offender violated a court-ordered condition, such as an order to stay away from a victim. The bill also includes a provision championed by Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno and Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni that would let prosecutors, rather than just defense attorneys, appeal a judges ruling on bail. The bill also expands the list of offenses that can lead to a dangerousness hearing an issue raised by an SJC ruling released in two related cases on Thursday. In Commonwealth vs. David Barnes, the 43-year-old Barnes had sex with a 15-year-old girl he met through social media. The court held that he cannot be held for dangerousness because statutory rape is not one of the offenses that makes someone eligible for a dangerousness hearing. In William Scione vs. Commonwealth, the court ruled that Scione could be held for dangerousness for setting off a homemade bomb, but only because it was tied to domestic abuse. Bakers bill would make both statutory rape and using an incendiary device, along with other sex offenses and crimes of violence, qualifying offenses for a dangerousness hearing. The bill would require the police to fingerprint everyone who is arrested, rather than just someone arrested for a felony. It would require someone who is considered dangerous to be held until the case is resolved. A person who is so dangerous that his or her release threatens the safety of a specific victim or of the community at large does not become safe to release merely because three or four months have passed since the time of arrest, Baker wrote in his filing letter to the Legislature. Other provisions include: Creating a new felony crime of cutting off a court-ordered GPS device. Letting bail commissioners and bail magistrates consider dangerousness when deciding whether to release someone when court is out of session. Allowing a dangerousness hearing at any point during a criminal proceeding. Improving the system for notifying victims when an offender is about to be released. Requiring the courts to develop a text message service to remind defendants of upcoming court dates. Baker announced his intention to refile the bill at a meeting of the Massachusetts Major City Chiefs of Police Association in Everett. ATHOL A 26-year-old man, wanted by law enforcement authorities in Iowa for eight counts of sexual abuse on a minor, was arrested at a residence early Monday night by police. Joshua G. Chapalonis was arrested for being a fugitive from justice, according to a post on the departments Facebook page Chapalonis was held in lieu of $500,000 cash bail pending his appearance in Orange District Court. Police arrested the suspect at approximately 6 p.m. Police did not give the address where he was arrested. This is an update of a story posted at 2:07 p.m. SPRINGFIELD Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni said he found it shocking that a suspect arrested last week for drug trafficking had already put up $200,000 bail to be released as he awaited trial in two other drug trafficking cases. For a person to be out on that bail and to be continuing to do what he is known to do is, to me, shocking, Gulluni said. He was speaking of David Class, 41, of Chicopee, one of three people arrested in raids Friday by the state police, Hampden County Drug Task Force, the Drug Enforcement Agency and Chicopee and Springfield police. While out on bail and under very significant cases, Mr. Class was operating a very significant drug distribution ring that came to a screeching halt, Gulluni said. Details of the arrests were disclosed Tuesday in an afternoon press conference at the DAs office in Tower Square. Class, and Jonathan Faust, 34, and Karla Santana, 30, of Springfield are facing a variety of trafficking and unlawful weapons charges. The raids at Class residence at 13 Lauzier Terrace, Chicopee, and Fausts address at 136 Melha Ave. in Springfield netted 87 grams and 67 packets of heroin, 650 grams of cocaine, some oxycodone pills, nine firearms and nearly $39,000 in cash, officials said. Three of the firearms had been reported stolen from Georgia, Texas, and New Hampshire. Gulluni spent several moments talking in particular about Class in particular, his arrest for drug trafficking while he is awaiting trial for two other significant drug trafficking charges. In each case of the two previous cases he is free on $100,00 bail $200,000 total. In January 2015, he was charged with trafficking after he and another man were allegedly found with 2 kilos of cocaine. In July 2013, he was arrested in Springfield for trafficking after he was allegedly found with a backpack full of drugs following a car accident. Class is scheduled to be arraigned on this latest case on Friday in Chicopee District Court. Gulluni said his office will petition the courts have Class held without the right to bail, and to have Class forfeit the $200,000 he has already posted for bail in the two other cases. Faust and Santana were arraigned Friday in Springfield District Court. Each pleaded not guilty. Santana was held in lieu of $1,000 cash. Faust was held pending a dangerousness hearing that was conducted Tuesday prior to the press conference. A dangerousness hearing determines the degree of danger a suspect presents, and if bail is suitable. Gulluni said the judge agreed Faust was dangerous, but then ordered him to serve house arrest pending his trial. He is to remain at his residence and is to be fitted with a GPS monitoring device. Prosecutors had requested that Faust be held without the right to bail. Gulluni expressed criticism of the ruling. Its inconsistent with the facts of the case, inconsistent with the judges finding of dangerousness, and most notably, its inconsistent with what we are seeing in the community, which is ongoing destruction, devastation and death from the distribution of these products," he said. On the table before him were plastic evidence bags containing the cocaine and heroin seized in the two raids. Also laid out were nine handgun and rifles, and related large-capacity magazines. Gulluni called them the tools of the drug trade. Loaded guns, unsecure guns, unlicensed guns, (and) illegal guns. Very serious firearms designed to inflict serious damage and that is part of what makes the drug trade a very violent industry, he said. Gov. Charlie Baker on Tuesday praised Hampshire Colleges approach to trying to find a merger partner, after the college announced that due to financial pressures, it may not be able to continue as an independent school. I think the fact that Hampshire has come out and said theyre looking for a partner, and have been proactive about the approach theyre taking to deal with this, is the right one, Baker said. In April, Mount Ida College in Newton said it was closing and selling its campus to the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The abrupt closure caused anger among students and parents, created a public outcry and led to litigation and an investigation by Attorney General Maura Healey. In December, Newbury College in Brookline announced plans to close after the 2019 spring semester. Hampshire College, with 1,400 students, said Tuesday that it is seeking a long-term partner to help it weather financial difficulties and may not admit a freshman class in 2019. Baker said he has said for some time that changing demographics will hurt some higher education institutions. There just werent going to be as many kids as there were, for example, when my kids were going to college, Baker said. Baker filed legislation last year that would require colleges to notify the state Department of Higher Education of any known financial liabilities or risks to their financial health. This would allow state officials to intervene sooner to try to help schools. Baker introduced that bill in July, in the final month of formal legislative sessions, and it never became law. The governor said he intends to file it again this year. MassLive.com reporter Dan Glaun contributed to this story. A federal judge has blocked the U.S. government from placing a question about citizenship on the 2020 census. U.S. District Court Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York wrote in his 277-page ruling, issued Tuesday, that adding a citizenship question will cause a decline in response rates among Hispanic and noncitizen households. This will result in an inaccurate count that will affect things like congressional apportionment and federal funding, the ruling said. The U.S. government could appeal the ruling to a U.S. Appeals Court, then potentially to the U.S. Supreme Court. The cases were State of New York vs. U.S. Department of Commerce and New York Immigration Coalition vs. U.S. Department of Commerce. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin had joined the multi-state lawsuit against the federal government. Galvin has accused President Donald Trumps administration of trying to sabotage the census by discouraging immigrants from participating. I am delighted that the Court acted to block this question from the 2020 Census, Galvin said in a statement. The census is meant to count every person residing in the United States, and attempting to frighten immigrant communities into not responding was a clear and deliberate effort to depress the count in states like Massachusetts. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross had said he decided to add the question in order to get more accurate data on citizen voting age population. But advocates for immigrants argued that this was an attempt to undercount immigrant populations, which would hurt the states where they live by jeopardizing federal funding and political representation. The census, which takes place every 10 years, asked a question about citizenship until 1950. Since then, the question has only been included on the long-form survey, which is sent to a smaller sample of people to collect demographic data. Healey said in a statement, The people of Massachusetts deserve to be fully counted in the census all of us. Finding that U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross broke federal law and violated the public trust in an attempt to sabotage the accuracy of the census, the courts decision to strike the citizenship question is a victory for all Americans and the rule of law. This story was updated with Healeys comment. SPRINGFIELD The City Council on Monday overrode Mayor Domenic J. Sarnos veto of an order to establish Springfield as a welcoming community for all immigrants regardless of their legal status. The 10-1 vote was applauded and cheered by supporters of the ordinance during a meeting at City Hall. Supporters criticized and denied Sarnos claims that the ordinance will make Springfield a sanctuary city, threaten federal funding and trigger financial and legal challenges. Tonights vote will certainly make Springfield a safer community for everyone, said Tara Parrish, director of the Pioneer Valley Project. Were just happy that folks responded to facts on our City Council, knowing that we have thousands of immigrant residents every day living here, and as part of our community. This allows them to more fully participate in keeping all of us safe. Councilors including Adam Gomez and Jesse Lederman also said that safety was a key accomplishment, believing that immigrants will feel more safe when encountering and seeking help from police and other city officials. Some people when filing a report with the city, such as a complaint about a landlord or a crime, are fearful they will be questioned about their immigration status and face retaliation, Gomez and other councilors said. Im excited, Im happy, Gomez said after the vote. Tonight people feel a lot better about being a resident of Springfield. Springfield is a great place to live. This is something I think should have been done a long time ago. The ordinance states in part that city officials, including police and other city employees, shall not question persons they encounter about their immigration status unless such inquiry is required by state or federal law or to provide a public benefit. The council added that nothing in that section of the ordinance prevents police from using other investigatory tools to establish information about a suspect of a crime. Other provisions include that city officials shall not target with legal action or discriminate against a medical, educational, or faith institution in their mission of providing refuge to immigrants and their families. Sarno, in vetoing the ordinance Dec. 18, said he has always supported legal immigration, but the ordinance could create unanticipated and unbudgeted financial and legal challenges to our schools, health, housing and police departments. The ordinance states its mission to promote trust between employees of the city and all members of our community, and to facilitate effective law enforcement and public safety." The 13-member council needed at least nine votes, or a two-thirds majority, to override Sarnos veto. Councilor Timothy Allen cast the sole no" vote on Monday. Councilors Kenneth Shea and Kateri Walsh were absent from the meeting. They voted against the ordinance when it initially passed the council Dec. 17. In a statement after the vote, Sarno said, while I continue to stand in support of our taxpayers and legal immigrations, unfortunately, our city council with the passage of their Sanctuary City Ordinance, stand with supporting illegals on our taxpayer dollars. The Boss made his way to a popular Irish pub in Boston this week for a quick drink and taste of local Celtic music. The Bebop, a vibrant Irish pub on Boylston Street that offers food, drink and live music every day, announced on Facebook that legendary rock musician Bruce Springsteen stopped in on Friday for a quick drink. Very impressed with the place unfortunately didnt have time for a song! the restaurants Facebook page said alongside a photo of Springsteen walking through the pub. Bruce Springsteen popped into the Bebop this evening for a quick drink! Very impressed with the place unfortunately didnt have time for a song! Posted by The Bebop on Friday, January 11, 2019 Owners of The Bebop, Irish natives who also own the buzzing Somerville pub and restaurant The Burren, told the Boston Globe that Springsteen came in with his wife and one other woman to have a few drinks and listen to the local musician who was performing that evening. It is unclear why Springsteen was in town. The performer announced in December he and the E Street Band would not go on tour in 2019. He also surprised the local community in West Long Branch, New Jersey when he attended a free screening of the film version of Bruce Springsteens Broadway show at Monmouth Universitys Pollak Theatre. HOLYOKE - Dr. Evan Lau, interventional cardiologist and director of the cardiogenic shock program at Baystate Medical Center, will present the first of four free seminars Feb. 3 in the hospital's popular Heart & Vascular Health Lecture series during American Heart Month. Designed by Baystate physicians and held on the four Sundays in February from noon to 2 p.m. at the Baystate Health Education Center, 361 Whitney Ave., the series focuses on the latest advances in heart and vascular care and how heart and vascular health can be maintained. Some 2,300 Americans die of cardiovascular disease each day, an average of 1 death every 38 seconds, according to the American Heart Association. Lau's talk, "Acute Chest Pain and Heart Attack," will focus on the warning signs of a heart attack, different types of heart attacks, as well as the latest treatments, prognosis and recovery after heart attack. Other lectures in the series are as follows: The lectures include time for questions and educational materials will be available as well as "heart healthy" life refreshments. Registration is required for each session and can be done online or call (413) 794-5200. The lecture series is sponsored by Health New England. Jacqueline Tempera | MassLive By Jacqueline Tempera | MassLive.com Boston Mayor Marty Walsh will lay out a 2019 road map during his annual State of the City address Tuesday night. The Democratic mayor will deliver his fifth State of the City address 6 p.m. at Symphony Hall. "What you want to do, for me anyway, in those speeches is you want to be able to inform the Boston resident of what we're doing, inform the Boston resident of where we're going and lay out a little bit of a plan," Walsh told reporters Thursday. Last week, the mayor announced his legislative priorities for his sixth year in office, including a focus on health care, education, housing, transportation, the environment, and public safety. Walsh said he plans to discuss some of these bills broadly during the address Tuesday night. "I want to be creative and try to do something different," Walsh told reporters. "You know, people you don't want the same old, same old. People want to see different stuff." Here are eight bills the mayor plans to promote on Beacon Hill in 2019 that we can expect he'll discuss in his Tuesday night address. Don't Edit 1. An Act to Protect Elderly Tenants This would ban no-fault evictions of people ages 75 and older. This means evictions would only be permitted when the resident has done something wrong like failed to pay rent, damaged the property, or used the space for illegal activities. Landlords that own properties with six or more rental units would be required to provide notice to the local community at the same time a eviction notice is served to an elderly tenant. Don't Edit Wikimedia Commons 2. An Act to Increase Access to Affordable Community College This bill would replicate Boston's Tuition-Free Community College initiative launched in June 2016 across the state. Currently, 295 students attend Bunker Hill Community College, Roxbury Community College, and MassBay Community College through the program, according to the mayor's office. Don't Edit Wikimedia Commons 3. An Act to Create Economic Vitality in Boston Neighborhoods This would increase the number of liquor licenses available in Boston and target them to neighborhoods that would benefit from "an influx of restaurants to drive economic activity," according to the mayor's office. "Restaurants are the lifeblood of neighborhood business districts, providing jobs and gathering spaces, and spurring other businesses to locate nearby, and this balanced approach to licensing ensures neighborhoods historically disadvantaged by the liquor license process will receive their fair share," the mayor's office wrote in a statement. Don't Edit Michael Dwyer | AP Photo 4. An Act to Establish a Commission for a Climate Ready Commonwealth This bill would develop a regional commission aimed at figuring out which group should lead major coastal and resiliency projects. The commission would also identify how these projects should be funded and prioritized. "Boston is not alone in facing the threat of climate change, and all communities are experiencing the reality of extreme heat, snow, rain, and flooding. As the impacts increase and intensify, it's more important now than ever before to coordinate investments to adapt infrastructure and our natural and built environment to future climate conditions," the mayor's office said in a statement. Don't Edit Don't Edit AP Photo 5. An Act to Modernize our Natural Gas Infrastructure Following the natural gas disaster in the Merrimack Valley, safety has been on the forefront of many Boston officials' minds. Walsh is no different. The bill would impose a fine on natural gas providers for the "total volume of all gas leaks," according to the mayor's office. This would incentivize utility companies to update infrastructure, according to the mayor's office. Don't Edit AP Photo 6. An Act to Better Prepare the Commonwealth for Climate and Disaster Refugees The commission established through this bill would study Massachusetts' response to the displacement of people from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. It would aim to improve the commonwealth's response protocols for connecting evacuees with social services and housing. The commission would also look into establishing a state fund or trust for supplement aid to future evacuees. Don't Edit 7. An Act Relative to Diversion to Substance Abuse Treatment for Non-Violent Drug Offenders Through this bill, the state would allow people facing first and second non-violent drug offenses an opportunity to be evaluated by a licensed addiction specialist. The specialist would determine if the person is dependant on drugs and whether they would benefit from treatment. If the person is deemed to be addicted to drugs, he or she would be offered an assignment to a drug treatment facility. Court proceedings would be halted until completion of the treatment program. Don't Edit Seth Wenig | AP Photo 8. An Act to Prevent Gun Violence This bill would require medical professionals to ask patients about guns in their home. This would, ideally, help doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals identify red flags that could indicated risks of suicide, domestic violence and a child's access to guns. HOLYOKE The Eureka Ruling & Binding building, a hulking red brick mill at 110 Winter St. in the citys industrial Flats neighborhood, recently was sold to new owners with plans to create a marijuana business in the Paper City. The 129-year-old Eureka now known as Eureka Lab Book now makes its line of notebooks for laboratory, engineering and professional use at 207 Hendee St. in Springfield, according to its website. Eureka built the mill at 110 Winter in 1890, according to an online historical preservation plan for city of Holyoke. It was part of a wave of industrial expansion coinciding with the construction of the final portions of Holyoke's hydropower canal system from 1888 to 1893. Today, only a few paper-related companies are left in Holyoke. And city hall wants to attract the new marijuana industry to locate there and make use of hydroelectricity from that same canal system and of the large mill buildings from the industrial age. The Hapgood family, owner of Eureka Lab Book, sold 110 Winter St. in November to High End Management Co. for $299,000, according to documents on file at the Hampden County Registry of Deeds. The building had been for sale since at least 2017, according to online announcements. Online directories list 110 Winter St. as Eurekas business address as recently as that year. The four-story mill totals 44,000 square feet, according to real estate listings. Helen Gomez Andrews is the executive who signed High End Management's $330,000 mortgage on the property with Private Capital Funding LLC of Queens Village, New York. Andrews, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, spoke in February to the Holyoke City Council about her plans for High End Chocolate. She said she wants to sell artisanal, wellness-oriented, cannabis-infused chocolate. High end would grow and manufacture at 110 Winter, Andrews told the city at the time. High End Chocolate would buy milk from area dairy farms, she told the council. She couldnt be reached Monday. High End doesnt appear on an 11-page list provided by the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission of marijuana companies that have either received licenses, applied for licenses or are someplace in the middle of the process. Marcos A. Marrero, Holyokes director of planning and economic development, said Monday that High End has not submitted anything to the city, either. One company GTI, or Green Thumb Industries is already manufacturing in Holyoke in a factory at 28 Appleton St., near the Eureka Building. Six other companies are also in the application process, and another six to 12 have expressed interest in applying, Marrero said. Holyoke changed its zoning in 2017 to allow recreational marijuana businesses in the industrial district, Marrero said. That zoning, he said, is why it makes more sense for a book company that can be anywhere to move out and a cannabis business to move in. Whats happened is that the real estate has become hot, Marrero said. ENFIELD, Conn. Enfield Square Mall sold at auction in December to Namdar Realty Group of Long Island, New York, for $11.4 million. Namdar, owner of 223 properties, has a history of buying underperforming malls around the country and attracting nontraditional tenants like gyms and senior centers to the unused space, according to published reports in towns where it already does business. Enfield Square is 57 percent occupied. As of Tuesday, its website was not working. It was most recently appraised at $27.5 million. Details of the foreclosure auction were revealed in deed documents filed Friday at the Enfield town clerks office. The buyer information and the full selling price were not publicly available when the auction ended Dec. 12. The deal includes 66 acres of land. The sale did not include the vacant Macys store that is still owned by Macys. Banker J.P. Morgan Chase has owned the mall since foreclosing last year on former owner Centro Enfield, which defaulted on a $240 million loan secured on a number of properties. Centro bought the property in 2006 for $82 million, according to Enfield records. Namdar, which confirmed the purchase Tuesday, owns and manages more than 36 million square feet of commercial real estate throughout the United States, according to its website. Its holdings include 43 enclosed malls like Enfield, 64 open-air retail centers, eight office buildings, 13 mixed-use buildings, 73-single tenant retail locations and 22 residential properties in New York City. In Massachusetts, Namdar owns Webster Plaza at 70 Worcester Road, which includes a Kmart, and a vacant 56,000-square-foot former Shaws next door at 82 Worcester Road. Namdar also owns a 15,000-square-foot Rite Aid in Winchendon. Namdar also owns a 56,000-square-foot plaza in Menands, New York, near Albany, which has a Rite Aid and vacant Price Chopper Supermarket, and the Steeplegate Mall in Concord, New Hampshire, which still has a Sears and a JCPenney but lost its Bon-Ton when the chain went bankrupt earlier this year, according to stories in the Concord Monitor. Namdar bought the Steeplegate Mall in 2016. Enfield Square has been hit hard by the relentless contraction of brick-and-mortar retail over the past decade or so. The mall lost its Sears in 2017 and its Macys in 2016. But Enfield Square still has a Target, and its lease with eight more years left to run was touted as a major selling point leading up to the auction. It also has the Cinemark Enfield Square 12 theaters, a Victorias Secret and other shops. The 677,000-square-foot mall was built in 1971. In those days it had G. Fox of Hartford, Steigers of Springfield and JCPenney as anchors. Over the past few years, Enfield economic development boosters pitched the property as a possible location for a casino or for an Amazon headquarters. Neither proposal worked. East Windsor got the casino project, which still has not begun construction. Amazon is building headquarters in Virginia, Tennessee and Queens, New York. Police identified the man stabbed to death in Boston over the weekend as 70-year-old Edward Mowring of Roxbury. Boston police were called to the area of 49 Blue Hill Ave. in Roxbury around 9:57 p.m. Saturday for a report of an unknown medical emergency. Mowring was found by police. He had several stab wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities continue to investigate the killing, the third in Boston this year. Thomas Auker, who represents the Blackberry District, recently was re-elected vice chairman of the school board. This is his sixth year on the board. Security still is an important job that we will continue to work on, Auker said. Our security is very good. Another priority is accreditation of all schools, he said. There is one that is not [fully] accredited. Were working on that. According to the Virginia Department of Education website and a previous Martinsville Bulletin article, in September 2018 Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School was accredited with conditions. School board member Joe DeVault, the immediate past chairman of the school board, said the Virginia Department of Education has an in-depth program that schools that are not fully accredited go through, including closely monitoring academic success, behavior, attendance and other factors. Auker said other priorities include trying to get salaries where they need to be, and we need to keep schools in good shape [physically]. DeVault said priorities include offering competitive salaries, and completing physical repairs and upgrades at Bassett High School. When funding becomes available, he said, Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School needs to be made totally handicapped accessible (it is only partially handicapped accessible now), and media centers at some schools need to be upgraded for technology, he said. He added that the cafeteria is not adequate at G.W. Carver Elementary School, which needs to be addressed when funding is available. Paul Collins reports for the Martinsville Bulletin. He can be reached at paul.collins@martinsvillebulletin.com Virginia might owe you money, and you could come to one of two local free information sessions to find out about it. Representatives from the Virginia Department of the Treasury will be at the Martinsville Treasurers Office from 1-5 p.m. Tuesday and from 8:30 a.m. to noon Wednesday, said City Treasurer Cindy Dickerson. The representatives are from the Virginia Unclaimed Property Program, a free service of the Treasury. In fiscal year 2018, the program returned $79 million to citizens, according to the programs flyer. The state department has been calling people who get really big refunds, Dickerson said, but otherwise, people have to look into it for themselves. There are many reasons people may be entitled to money from the state, she said. They include being recipients of bequests they didnt know about; unclaimed property turned over, by law, to the state; or dormant bank accounts turned over to the state, she said. The programs representatives will help people fill out the necessary forms to claim their refunds. More information is available at vamoneysearch.org and you can use that site to look up your name and, if applicable, apply for any funds to which you may be entitled. Holly Kozelsky reports for the Martinsville Bulletin. She can be reached at holly.kozelsky@martinsvillebulletin.com Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Ensure you get a print copy of the Loudoun Times-Mirror delivered weekly to your home or business! Complete online access is included with all print subscriptions purchased online. Plus, up to four other members of your household can share online access through this subscription with their own, individual linked accounts at no additional charge. (Are you a current advertiser? Ask your sales rep for our special advertiser rate code!) Local News, Crime, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: January 15 2019 Suspects fled from the Michaels parking lot in a tan 2001 Malibu, NY license plate JAB 2763, according to authorities. Shirley, NY - January 15, 2019 - Suffolk County Crime Stoppers and Suffolk County Police Seventh Precinct Crime Section officers are seeking the publics help to identify and locate two people who stole a Christmas tree from a Suffolk County Crime Stoppers and Suffolk County Police Seventh Precinct Crime Section officers are seeking the publics help to identify and locate two people who stole a Christmas tree from a Shirley store. Two women attempted to steal two artificial Christmas trees from Michaels, located at 1019 Montauk Highway, on December 11 at approximately 10:20 a.m. An employee was able to reclaim one of the trees before the women fled the parking lot in a tan 2001 Malibu with New York license plate JAB 2763. School & Education, Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Arts & Culture, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: January 15 2019 Lupinacci: "Allowing the Town to host such an event is something that will bring more awareness to the benefits of art therapy." Huntington, NY - January 15, 2019 - Supervisor Chad A. Lupinacci hosted Family Residences and Essential Enterprises, Inc. (FREE) to honor special needs artists participating in FREEs Fine Art and Art Therapy Programs at a Meet the Artists Reception, joined by Town Clerk Jo-Ann Raia, Supervisor Chad A. Lupinacci hosted Family Residences and Essential Enterprises, Inc. (FREE) to honor special needs artists participating in FREEs Fine Art and Art Therapy Programs at a Meet the Artists Reception, joined by Town Clerk Jo-Ann Raia, Heckscher Museum of Art Executive Director Michael Schantz and Huntington Arts Council Executive Director Marc Courtade at Huntington Town Hall on Wednesday, December 12. Allowing the Town to host such an event and share it with the greater community is something that will bring more awareness to the benefits of art therapy and help more individuals with Autism and other special needs express themselves through the hidden language of images, colors and symbols, said Supervisor Lupinacci. We have had quite the positive reception to the art exhibition in the weeks since it has been installed. The pieces bring life and warmth to the walls of this building, so thank you to FREE and to the artists for sharing yourselves with us through your art. Heckscher Museum of Art Executive Director Michael Schantz and Huntington Arts Council Executive Director Marc Courtade delivered remarks on the importance of art in the community and our culture. Ed Regensburg, Director of Art Therapy at FREE, discussed the art therapy process FREEs programs undertake and the importance of art therapy. At the ceremony, Supervisor Lupinacci presented proclamations to the artists in attendance, after which FREE and the artists presented the Supervisor with a Partnership Award. The collection, entitled Revelations, were created by individuals with Autism and other Special Needs who participate in Fine Art and Art Therapy programs at FREE. The artists works were on exhibit and for sale, with proceeds benefitting the artists and their programs, at Huntington Town Hall from November 27 through January 8, 2019. Several pieces from the exhibition were sold, including one sold to Joshua Price, Chief of Staff to Supervisor Chad A. Lupinacci, who donated the piece to the Town. The piece now hangs in the reception area of the Supervisors office. Supervisor Chad A. Lupinacci and Town Attorney Nicholas Ciappetta purchased one of the pieces together as a gift for Deputy Supervisor Pat Del Col, who had expressed her admiration for the piece before the end of the exhibition and is retiring in late January after 25 years of government service to the Town. Family Residences and Essential Enterprises, Inc. (FREE), founded in 1977, benefits and proudly supports more than 4,000 individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities, mental illness and traumatic brain injury. FREE provides a diverse array of supports and services including: housing; recovery services; transition to work; employment; day, community and family services; respite; crisis services; education and after school support; specialty health services; and advocacy. Local News, Crime, Press Releases, Politics By Long Island News & PR Published: January 15 2019 Bellone: "This law will safeguard our most vulnerable and ensure the procedures in place for these types of establishments are crystal clear." Suffolk County, NY - January 15, 2019 - Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone today signed legislation into law that requires amusement parks and water parks operating in Suffolk County to immediately report any criminal conduct, including sex offenses, that occurs on their property to the appropriate law enforcement agency. The bill, which was sponsored by Suffolk County Legislator Susan A. Berland and was passed unanimously at the December 4th meeting of the Suffolk County Legislature, is designed to strengthen enforcement of criminal complaints by ensuring authorities are promptly notified. Children and families should not have to worry about their safety when trying to enjoy a day of fun at an amusement or water park, said Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone. This law will safeguard our most vulnerable and ensure the procedures in place for these types of establishments are crystal clear. The safety of our public, and especially that of our children, is of utmost importance, said Legislator Susan A. Berland. I want to thank my colleagues on the Legislature for their unanimous support of this resolution and for recognizing that as elected officials we owe it to our children to protect them from harm, especially when they are simply spending the day having fun. The operators of water and amusement parks now need to notify the appropriate authorities when they are told of an alleged criminal act. I was troubled by the water park incident and introduced this legislation to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. The passage of this resolution is a step in the right direction. Laura Ahearn, Esq., LMSW, Executive Director of the Crime Victims Center and Parents for Megans Law said: Amusement and water parks in Suffolk County are family friendly but sexual predators can use that safe environment to prey upon our most vulnerable. When signed into law, this legislation will send a powerful message of intolerance to owners and operators of amusement and water parks and to those who would seek to harm our most vulnerable. Mike Bengtson, General Manager of Splish Splash said: Splish Splash complies with all applicable laws and regulations. We are absolutely supportive of any new legislation which may improve guest safety and security at theme parks." The legislation follows an incident that occurred last summer at a waterpark where young girls were reportedly groped by a group of men in the wave pool and the park failed to immediately notify local law enforcement agencies of the incident or obtain identifying information from the alleged perpetrators. Local News, Press Releases, Politics By Long Island News & PR Published: January 15 2019 The bills, sponsored by Senator Brad Hoylman, are the first significant LGBTQ bills passed by the State Senate since Marriage Equality in 2011. Albany, NY - January 15, 2019 - The Senate Majority Conference today passed the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) ( The Senate Majority Conference today passed the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) ( S.1047 ) that prohibits discrimination based on gender identity or expression and adds transgender New Yorkers to those protected by the states Hate Crimes Law. The Senate also passed legislation ( S.1046 ) prohibiting mental health professionals from engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with a patient under the age of eighteen years. Both bills were introduced by New York State Senator Brad Hoylman and have been blocked by the previous Republican Majority. One of my proudest moments as a Senator was when we passed the Marriage Equality Act. But that was eight years ago now, and since then the former Senate Republican Majority refused to pass any real protections for the LGBTQ community, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said. Now, under the Democratic Majority, this Senate chamber is affirming that we stand with our LGBTQ community. I commend Senator Hoylman for his leadership on these bills and this important issue. I am proud that the Senate Majority has passed these historic bills, and we will continue to move ahead with our ambitious, progressive agenda. Bills Sponsor, Senator Brad Hoylman said, The passage of GENDA--16 years in the making--and legislation to end so-called conversion therapy will codify our progressive reputation and ensure that all New Yorkers, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation are treated with dignity and respect under the law. As the Trump administration continues to rollback protections for LGBTQ Americans, todays victory sends a strong message to LGBTQ New Yorkers across the state: you are loved, understood, and protected by your state government. We will not let you down. After years of Republican opposition, I am proud to be part of a Democratic Majority that works to safeguard the rights of all New Yorkers, Senator Hoylman continued. Thank you Senate Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins, Deputy Leader Gianaris, and my colleagues in the Democratic Majority for leading the charge to protect our LGBTQ community. I am also deeply grateful to my colleagues in the Assembly, Richard Gottfried and Deborah Glick for their persistence and determination over the years. While the State Assembly has passed GENDA 10 consecutive times and Governor Cuomo has stated his support, the former Senate Republican Majority refused to allow this legislation for a vote. New York has been the only state in the Northeast without statutory protections for its transgender citizens. A 2016 National Transgender Discrimination Survey showed that 26% of transgender individuals lost a job due to bias, 50% were harassed on the job, 20% were evicted or denied housing, and 78% of transgender students were harassed or assaulted. The legislation to ban conversion therapy on minors also provides that any sexual orientation change efforts attempted on a patient under the age of 18 by a licensed mental health professional shall be considered unprofessional conduct and shall subject the provider to discipline by the provider's licensing entity. The Assembly has consistently passed this legislation since 2013, but the former Republican-controlled State Senate had blocked it. Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris said, Eight years ago I was honored to cast my vote in favor of marriage equality, but have been disappointed we have not considered any legislation since then to combat discrimination against the LGBTQ community. By passing GENDA and banning conversion therapy, the new Senate majority is making the protection of all New Yorkers a priority. Senator Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr. said, I am a long-time advocate and co-sponsor of these important proposals, which will rightly recognize and better protect the civil rights of even more members of our states LGBT community. Transgender New Yorkers will now enjoy necessary legal safeguards against discrimination in housing, employment, education and other areas, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth will receive protection from callous and potentially dangerous sexual orientation conversion therapy. I am proud to be a part of this effort and to stand up for the diversity of the Empire State. Senator Jamaal Bailey said, The passage of GENDA in the New York State legislature is monumental. With GENDA, gender expression and identity will become a protected class in the state's human right laws. This will finally allow for the prosecution of some of the abhorrent crimes that are committed against the LGBTQ community as a hate crime or human right violation. I'd like to thank Senator Hoylman for his leadership on this crucial issue. Senator Alessandra Biaggi said, Equal treatment is the core of a real democratic society. I am proud that in our first week of passing legislation we are taking on the long overdue task of expanding full rights and equal treatment to the LGBTQ community by passing GENDA. Additionally, by outlawing the outrageous conversion therapy of minors, New York is finally making it clear that being gay is not and never should be treated as anything but normal. Senator Brian Benjamin said, For transgender and gender non-conforming New Yorkers, things many of us take for granted can be a challenge. Finding employment or housing, safely riding public transit or seeing a movie, or even something as simple as comfortably using your name can be a daily struggle, particularly in communities of color, where resources are sometimes scarce. Today, were taking an important step in righting that wrong by passing GENDA, which will add gender identity and expression to the New York Human Rights law. I look forward to working with my Democratic colleagues to fighting for the LGBTQ community to ensure that every New Yorker can live a complete, proud life free of discrimination. Senator Neil Breslin said, Passing the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) is long overdue here in New York State. This legislation is a significant step forward to protecting the rights of the transgender community. It is imperative that transgender and gender non-conforming individuals have the same rights and justice as other New Yorkers. Additionally, banning conversion therapy on minors here in New York is another long overdue measure. The harm this type of therapy can have on minors is well-documented which is why it is critical we prohibit this practice. Senator David Carlucci said, Hate crimes are on the rise against our LGBTQ+ community, and more and more members are taking their own lives due to discrimination. We have a responsibility to protect transgender and gender non-conforming New Yorkers. Everyone deserves to feel safe, and the passage of GENDA and banning conversion therapy ensures significant LGBTQ+ rights are protected. Senator Jim Gaughran said, Years of dysfunction in Albany have blocked the passage of critical legislation like GENDA. This week we broke the logjam and passed historic protections to root out discrimination with passage of GENDA and end cruel, barbaric practices like conversion therapy. As a conference, weve promised one of the most productive sessions in decades, were just getting started. Senator Andrew Gounardes said, No one should ever face discrimination because of who they are or who they love and I could not be more proud to co-sponsor these two historic bills today. The archaic and fraudulent practice known as conversion therapy of minors will now be banned in New York, andafter the Assembly passed it for 10 consecutive yearsGENDA will finally become law. Ensuring full and equal protections for all people must be a top priority. Senator Pete Harckham said, Every citizen in New York State deserves to be treated fairly, equally and with dignity. Its time to extend the same protections from hate crimes and discrimination that we have extended to other groups, to our transgender and gender non-conforming communities. Senator Todd Kaminsky said, All New Yorkers regardless of their sexual orientation deserve equal treatment under the law. I was proud to cosponsor and vote for these two critical pieces of legislation today, which will ensure that all New Yorkers have the same legal protections. Senator Anna M. Kaplan said, At a time when the rights of LGBTQ people are under assault, we need to stand together as New Yorkers and say there is no place for hate in our state. Passing GENDA is a long-overdue first step toward ensuring that transgender people are safe, affirmed, and protected in NY. Additionally, banning conversion therapy is critical to ensuring that LGBTQ youth will no longer be subject to barbaric treatment at the hands of mental health professionals. Senator Brian Kavanagh said, It is long past time for our state to protect New Yorkers from violence, harassment, and discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, and education and to protect minors from harmful efforts to 'convert' them. I was happy to have the opportunity to vote for these bills as an Assemblymember, and I joined Senator Hoylman and our Democratic Senate colleagues in being dismayed that they have never gotten a vote in the Senate. This is a great day for justice and decency, and I applaud Senator Hoylman for his tireless leadership and advocacy. Senator Liz Krueger said, Since the time of the first Dutch settlers, New York has been a place that celebrates and protects diversity and difference. New York is the birthplace of the LGBTQ rights movement, but in recent years we have allowed the freedom of LGBTQ people to fall by the wayside. Today we make clear that New York is once again taking the lead in ensuring that all people are protected by the laws of our state, regardless of who they love or how they identify their gender. I am so proud of the work of my Senate Democratic colleagues to bring these bills to the floor. Senator John Liu said, The new Senate Democratic majority has taken swift and necessary action to pass two crucial protections for our LGBTQIA community. These two bills, GENDA and a ban on so-called conversion therapy, are the first such civil rights measures to be passed into law in 8 years, since the Marriage Equality Act in 2011. Our state had fallen abysmally far behind the times with its safeguards for our LGBTQIA New Yorkers. Today is a victory for human rights. Senator Robert Jackson said, I'm proud to support the inclusion of gender identity and expression as protected classes against discrimination in New York to make our state safer for trans* and gender non-binary members of our community. As legislators, we need to take a hard look at the question of who benefits from hate crime laws in light of the concerns raised by advocates for the minority communities these laws are intended to protect. I look forward to joining Senators Ramos and Hoylman and others in that work over this session. Prohibiting conversion therapy for minors marks an important step toward making New York a state where all are free to love whom they choose. Senator Rachel May said, I proudly cast my vote today to pass GENDA in order to protect transgender New Yorkers from discrimination and violence. This year is the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, when LGBTQ New Yorkers, including trans women of color, joined together to demand better, safer lives. We honor that demand today by making our protections permanent. So much progress has been made, but it has been eight years since New York passed marriage equality. Our votes today to enact GENDA and to outlaw conversion therapy bring New York back into its proper place as a leader on LGBTQ rights. Senator Shelley Mayer said, I am proud to co-sponsor and vote for the Gender Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), which will expand protections for transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals in New York States anti-discrimination laws. I was a co-sponsor of the bill for many years in the Assembly as it passed the chamber, year after year, but the bill was defeated along party lines in the State Senate. Under the new leadership of Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and bill sponsor State Senator Brad Hoylman, this is one of the first bills the State Senate passed during this legislative session. Every New Yorker deserves the opportunity to live free of discrimination in their workplace, housing, and daily life. With this bill, the state meets its responsibility to guarantee transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals the protections provided to other protected classes in New York State. Senator Zellnor Myrie said, All too many New Yorkers are denied employment, housing, and safety because of their gender identity. GENDA helps ensure that all New Yorkers, no matter their gender identity or expression, will enjoy equal rights and equal opportunity under the law. Senator Kevin Parker said, On this second historic day of the legislative session, I am proud that my colleagues in the legislature voted to pass the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) to add gender identity and gender expression as a protected classes in our state's human rights and hate crimes laws. The Senate Democratic Conference and the Assembly Democrats have long advocated for prohibiting discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, and for enhanced penalties for bias-motivated crimes. Finally today under the poised leadership of Leader Stewart-Cousins and the legislation's prime sponsor, Senator Brad Hoylman, individuals in New York State no longer have to live in fear that there is no recourse for discrimination based on their gender identity or expression. Senator Jessica Ramos said, Transgender rights are human rights. I am proud to represent the largest trans Latinx population in the country and the second largest LGBTQ population in New York, hardworking New Yorkers who deserve nothing more than equality. Their identities must be recognized and protected. Im also proud to vote in favor of banning conversion therapy in our state, which will ensure every LGBTQ child can be their true selves and reach their full potential. Passing these bills means enshrining into New York State law the protections my community has long waited for. Senator Gustavo Rivera said, Today is a historic day in Albany for New York's LGBTQ+ community as we finally pass GENDA and ban conversion therapy. After 16 long years since GENDA was introduced, every New Yorker will be finally protected by New York State law from the scourge of discrimination because of their gender identity or expression. Further, by banning conversion therapy, we are eradicating an often torturous experience for people who have the right to love in good health just like anyone else. I am proudly standing in support of those New Yorkers who have faced undue challenges because of who they are. Senator Diane Savino said, Thank you to Leader Stewart-Cousins for her leadership in bringing this long overdue bill to the floor. I want to congratulate Senator Hoylman for his steadfast leadership through the years. As someone who has long supported this bill, I am thrilled that we are taking yet another step forward as a State to ensure equal protections for all our neighbors, especially my friend Bryan from Staten Island who has been one of the leading advocates in the entire City. Senator Luis Sepulveda said, Through the tireless efforts of advocates combined with the hard work of Democratic legislators, New York made history by passing GENDA and banning the cruel anti-science practice of conversion therapy on minors. These human rights reforms mark important milestones in the march for full LGBT equality. I'm proud to stand with the LGBT community and look forward to continuing our party's work as allies in the New York Senate. Senator Jose Serrano said, Todays votes send a strong message that New York will not stop until everyone in the LGBTQ community is treated with dignity and respect. By officially including gender identity and expression under our human rights laws, we have taken the long overdue step of protecting transgender and gender non-conforming individuals from harassment and discrimination when it comes to all essential services. In addition, I am heartened that we passed legislation prohibiting so called conversion therapy, ensuring that no minor in New York will be exposed to this dangerous, cruel, and discredited practice. I commend Senator Hoylman and for his steadfast commitment to fighting for the rights of all New Yorkers. Senator James Skoufis said, As Chair of the Senate Investigations and Government Operations Committee, Im proud that the first bill we reported in the new session was GENDA. We know that members of the transgender community are increasingly targeted for hate crimes, and its time we fully protect their right to safety and pursuit of happiness under state law. This Senate Majority is going to do right by all New Yorkers, and this bill is just the beginning. Senator Toby Ann Stavisky said, The passage of GENDA and banning conversion therapy marks the beginning of a new day in Albany. The passage of these bills is long overdue. It has been almost 8 years since we passed a major piece of legislation concerning equal rights. I am proud that New Yorkers will be able to express their individuality without fear of discrimination based upon their gender identity or expression. Additionally, we will no longer allow children to be forced into efforts to change who they are. Conversion therapy is a dishonest practice that harms the well-being of our youth. In our country we believe that all people are created equal and today in New York State we took a step forward to ensuring that reality. Local News, Business & Finance, Press Releases, Politics By Long Island News & PR Published: January 15 2019 Reforms Follow Horrific Tragedy Involving Modified Stretched Limousine in Schoharie County in 2018. Albany, NY - January 15, 2019 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced comprehensive safety reforms for limousines and large passenger vehicles will be included in the 2019 executive budget. Following the horrific tragedy involving a modified stretched limousine in Schoharie County in 2018, the Governor has committed to enacting essential safety reforms into law. "This crash was a horrific tragedy that shocked this state to its very core," Governor Cuomo said. "We are advancing reforms that will give aggressive new powers that will allow authorities to take dangerous vehicles off the roads without delay, hold unscrupulous businesses accountable and increase public safety in every corner of New York." Governor Cuomo proposes a number of statutory reforms to both protect passengers and hold those accountable who seek to defy the law, including: Local News, Crime, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: January 15 2019 SCPD: Cristhian Villavicencio, 25, was already on probation for a smiliar 2016 offence. Bay Shore, NY - January 15, 2019 - Suffolk County Police on Monday, January 14 arrested a Suffolk County Police on Monday, January 14 arrested a Bay Shore man for possessing child pornography. Computer Crimes Section detectives arrested Cristhian Villavicencio for possessing child pornography on his cell phone at approximately 5:30 p.m. Villavicencio, 25, of Bay Shore, was charged with one count of Possessing Sexual Performance by a child less than 16-years-old, an E Felony. Special Victims Section detectives also charged Villavicencio, who was on probation for a 2016 conviction for Possessing Sexual Performance by a child less than 16-years-old, with three counts of failing to register the social media accounts found on his cell phone. Failing to register the accounts is a violation of the New York State corrections law, an E Felony. Villavicencio was held overnight at the Fourth Precinct and is scheduled to be arraigned at First District Court in Central Islip on January 15. Local News, Crime, Health & Wellness, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: January 15 2019 Agreement Ensures Compliance with New York State False Claims Act and Education Laws. New York, NY - January 15, 2019 - Attorney General Letitia James announced today a $9 million settlement with Diamond Braces for allowing uncertified employees to perform orthodontic procedures and then improperly billing Medicaid for payment for such procedures. Diamond Braces is a chain of dental offices operating in twelve locations in New York State, including dental offices in all five boroughs and in Nassau and Rockland Counties. It is unacceptable that uncertified individuals would ever perform orthodontic work in New York, said Attorney General Letitia James. Diamond Braces falsely billed Medicaid for these services, cheating our state out of millions of dollars. We will never tolerate these deceptive business practices that break the laws designed to keep patients safe. In the settlement, Oleg Drut, DDS, and Diamond Braces admitted that Diamond Braces employees who were uncertified by the New York State Education Department (NYSED) performed some intraoral procedures. Drut and Diamond Braces also admitted to certifying to the Medicaid program that the individuals who performed services patients had the necessary certifications to perform the claimed services. New York State laws, including the Education Law and its implementing regulations, prohibit employees who are not properly certified from performing intraoral orthodontic procedures. In order to ensure future regulatory compliance, the settlement agreement requires Drut and Diamond Braces to enter into a corporate integrity agreement or retain an independent monitor, who will report to the State and confirm that Diamond Braces complies with the law. The settlement agreement also requires Drut and Diamond Braces to pay $9 million to the Medicaid program, of which $4.5 million is restitution for the underlying conduct and an additional $4.5 million in penalties. The New York State Education Law and supporting regulations set forth education, clinical experience, and testing requirements for dental assistants to be certified by the NYSED. The law also identifies specific procedures that certified dental assistants may perform, known as scope of practice rules. Laypeople who are not certified by the NYSED may not perform any of these tasks or any other tasks falling within the scope of practice of other licensed professionals such as hygienists and dentists. These limitations prohibit uncertified laypeople from performing any work inside patients mouths. MFCUs investigation did not uncover any evidence that patients were injured from the violations. The investigation was investigated by Supervising Investigator Ronald Lynch, Investigators Shavaun Clawson and Timothy Connolly with assistance from Deputy Chief Investigator Kenneth Morgan. Senior Auditor-Investigator Kizzy-Ann Waldropt and Auditor-Investigators Brian Gonell and Corinne Rondina conducted financial analysis under the supervision of NYC Regional Chief Auditor Thomasina Smith. Investigative support was provided by Confidential Legal Analyst Victoria L. Sepe. Mairead McGuinness MEP for Longford and first Vice-President of the European Parliament recently welcomed students from Ireland to the European Parliament in Brussels. Participating in the Graduate.ie schools competition, an online competition to win a trip to the European Parliament to participate in Euroscola, the students aged between 16 to 18 from across the EU have the chance to become an MEP for a day. They debate, negotiate, amend, vote and adopt resolutions on real European issues. Here the MEP is pictured with (l-r): Marie Moran, group leader and Emily Hand, Cnoc Mhuire Secondary School, Granard, Co. Longford They visited the Parliament in Brussels before travelling to Strasbourg. MEP McGuinness explained the functioning of the EU institutions to the students, Ireland's role in the EU and current issues. Snow is looking increasingly likely in the second half of the winter, according to Midland Weather Channel's Cathal Nolan, who has been keeping an eye on severe weather conditions in Europe. Mr Nolan posted an update on his Midland Weather Channel Facebook page saying that the effects of "a strong sudden stratospheric warming event" is likely to provide "a change in patterns that could result in outbreaks of much colder easterly air flows and increased snowfall". "Meanwhile in Austria and in much of Central Europe record snowfall has already be recorded," said Mr Nolan, posting the video of snowfall in the Austrian Alps below. Speaking on Midlands 103 yesterday morning, Mr Nolan confirmed that we're about to see a drop in temperatures, after a considerably mild start to the year. Also read: Beast from the East 2? weather forecaster expects Siberian blocking high "The picture this week is that we are likely to experience a change, certainly towards the mid-week period and on to the weekend," he said. "We do see a transition towards much cooler conditions as to what we would have expected over the past while - certainly over the past number of weeks even, we've seen temperatures pretty much above average for the time of year, typically between about nine to twelve degrees celcius. "That is set to change, particularly as we go through Wednesday onwards. We are likely to see temperatures fall back towards around average for the time of year - typically between about five to seven degrees celcius." Yesterday, on his Facebook page, Mr Nolan commented on the amount of speculation over the past couple of weeks regarding "an imminent return to Siberian-like conditions in the same vain as those experienced during the infamous Storm Emma last winter". "The short answer is that in all likelihood our weather is likely to become much colder during the second half of January and into February. The main culprit behind this transition is the development of a Sudden Stratospheric Warming event which has occurred over the past ten days or so, fuelling the speculation about such a prolonged cold snap," he said. "Sudden Stratospheric Warming events essentially change the flow of winds in the highest levels of the atmosphere before gradually this change from westerly to easterly winds becomes established through all levels of the atmosphere, resulting in very cold air from and already frigid continent and Siberia being drawn westwards across Ireland." At present, he added, it looks as though our winds will remain predominantly from a northwesterly direction over the coming week, resulting in lower temperatures and nighttime frosts, though snow wont be an issue. Also read: Could this winter be Longford's coldest yet? "Its not until later in the month and through February that the risk of a more prolonged and severe cold spell becomes established, leading to a risk of some heavy snow and disruption. "Given that this particular scenario is still some weeks away its almost impossible to quantify how severe such an event would be, however during similar events its the east and Midlands which typically bear the brunt of the snowfall and freezing temperatures, with perhaps the best example of such an event occurring was the winter of 2010. "My advice would be to stay tuned over the coming week for further updates on this developing story in the weather world, changes are likely and as always Ill do my upmost to be the first to let you know of any potentially disruptive winter weather on the horizon." Also read: Caregiver honoured for heroic efforts during Beast from the East The Minister for Rural and Community Development, Michael Ring TD, has today (Monday, January 14) confirmed that six Mens Sheds in Longford have been approved to receive funding from the Department of Rural and Community Development. In July 2018, Minister Ring announced the allocation of 500,000 under the Mens Sheds stream of the Community Enhancement Programme. This will enable individual Mens Sheds to upgrade their facilities by purchasing equipment or by carrying out minor works to improve their shed. The initiative was developed in association with the Irish Mens Sheds Association. Also read: Over 225,000 allocated to Longford through the Community Enhancement Programme Following the allocation of the funding to each Local Authority area last July, applications were then overseen by Local Community Development Committees around the country. Following this process, Minister Ring can now confirm that funding has been allocated to 310 Mens Sheds across every county in Ireland. More than 7,000 has been allocated to Men's Sheds in Longford today: Dromard Men's Shed has been granted 650 to build a glasshouse Drumlish/Ballinamuck Men's Shed will be renovating and upgrading its workspace with funding of 600 A total of 1,200 has been awarded to Granard Men's Shed for a lock-up unit/shed Killoe Men's Shed has received a total of 2,500 for the installation of a new heating system Longford Men's Shed will be using a grant of 2,000 for wiring, heating and equipment North Longford Men's Group have received funding of 296 for new shelving unites Speaking in relation to todays announcement, Minister Ring said: Im delighted that 310 Mens Sheds across the country have been allocated funding. This will help them to improve their premises or add to the range of equipment they have. Its really heartening to hear what the individual Sheds are doing with the money and it shows that modest investments in good community organisations can go a long way. The emergence of the Mens Sheds in recent years has been an extremely positive development for communities across Ireland and Im delighted to be able to support the Sheds in these early stages. Their members possess great experience and know-how and they make a massive contribution to their local communities. They provide invaluable support to important local initiatives such as Tidy Towns groups, local festivals and important charity events. Also read: 6.6m for Longford roads under 2019 National Roads Programme I would like to thank the Irish Mens Shed Association for working with me on this initiative and making it such a success. Mens sheds are a great initiative and Im happy to help in this way. I want to also thank everyone involved in Mens Sheds across the country. Barry Sheridan, CEO of the Irish Mens Sheds Association (ISMA) welcomed the funding stating: The IMSA is extremely heartened by the take-up and response to the Mens Shed Fund amongst our member sheds. We were delighted to be able to work with the Department of Rural and Community Development to bring this fund to fruition, and I know that the support of Minister Ring and his Department means a lot to our members. The projects and improvements facilitated by this funding are going to have an immense impact on individual Sheds and their communities. But beyond the funding itself, the Departments support is also a signal that the social benefits of Mens Sheds are being recognised, acknowledged and fostered at governmental level. The Miller-Gully house has sat vacant for the last 10 years, said Gibbons, 43. It had been sitting on steel beams in recent weeks in preparation for the move, which required getting a series of permits from Geneva and the Illinois Department of Transportation to close the roads to traffic. While a new micro-blading service in Orewa offers women an easy-care beauty regime, owner Tristine Sauvat says it is a procedure that has wide ranging benefits. She says it is perfect for women who have busy lifestyles or play a lot of sport, but is also a solution for women with failing eyesight or who wear contact lenses, who have injured or arthritic hands, who have alopecia or who have had chemotherapy. The advances in the treatment mean that the results are natural looking, she says. You can wake up in the morning knowing your make-up is already done. Tristine specialises in micropigmentation and has had more than 30 years experience as a beauty therapist. She has run her own businesses, and has spent many years teaching and demonstrating procedures and products for Elle International. When I was on my OE, I lived in a kibbutz, learned Hebrew and studied at a beauty college in Tel Aviv, she says. I returned to the Hibiscus Coast 35 years ago and more recently, I have been very involved with my four lovely grandchildren. They are nearly all at school now, so I felt I was ready to return to work, albeit in a semi-retired capacity. For the uninitiated, micro-blading and machine shading are semi-permanent cosmetic tattoo procedures. By implanting pigment into the upper dermal layer of the skin, it can create upper and lower eye-lining, eyebrows, lip lines, beauty spots and nipple reconstruction. Tristine says the microbladed eyebrow treatment involves drawing fine, hair-like strokes to mimic eyebrow hair using colours that best match the clients own colour scheme, for a very natural look. Microbladed eyebrows normally last around a year, while machine shaded eyebrows and eyeliners can last three to five years. She says the treatments are suitable for women of all ages, from 20 to 80. When women come to me they are in safe, professional hands. Micro-pigmentation is my passion and my service is delivered using all disposal products with the highest standard of hygiene. Eight East Aurora students this semester will spend their mornings out at Waubonsee in Sugar Grove before returning to East Aurora High School. These students are each taking two classes that will gain them both high school and college credit. East Aurora and Waubonsee Community College officials both said they are hopeful the dual-credit program expands and becomes a regular option for students to consider. WASHINGTON Texas Gov. Greg Abbott joined a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers Tuesday urging President Donald Trump not to use recovery money for Hurricane Harvey to end the partial government shutdown over a border wall. In a letter signed by both Republican U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, the lawmakers expressed unanimous support for border security, but made no mention of Trump's $5.7 billion border wall demand, which has divided Democrats and most Republicans. "We strongly support securing the border with additional federal resources including tactical infrastructure, technology, ports of entry improvements and personnel," they wrote. "However, we are strongly opposed to using funds appropriated by Congress for disaster relief and mitigation for Texas for any unintended purpose. As Texans continue to rebuild and prepare for future disasters, these funds, appropriated by Congress to be spent directly on rebuilding and mitigation, are critical to helping our communities recover, preventing future flooding and protecting our constituents." The letter cited recent reports that the administration is considering using unspent U.S. Army Corps of Engineers funds intended to mitigate natural disaster in Puerto Rico, California, Texas and other areas hit by storms. Since Harvey struck the Gulf Coast in 2017, Congress has passed three separate disaster funding bills, including a 2018 spending bill with more than $15 billion dollars for Army Corps civil works projects. Administration officials have not specified what Army Corps funds might be targeted, but they have said that disaster relief funds are off the table. "The President met with leadership of the Army Corps of Engineers to discuss methods of construction for the barriers along the southern border," White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement Saturday. "But they did not discuss, and there are no plans to take money from disaster relief funding to pay for any potential projects." Concerns about disaster relief funds came to a head last week after Trump threatened to declare a national emergency and go around Congress to get the border wall money he wants. He has also said he might use military construction funds. Among the members of Congress who signed the letter were Houston-area Democrats Lizzie Fletcher, Sheila Jackson Lee and Sylvia Garcia, along with Republicans Randy Weber, Kevin Brady, Pete Olson, Brian Babin, Michael McCaul and Dan Crenshaw. The Bexar County Medical Examiners Office has released the causes of death for two of three people found fatally shot at an upscale home in far Northwest Bexar County last week. Nichol Leila Olsen, 37, a hairstylist, died of a gunshot wound to the head. The medical examiners office ruled her death a suicide. Olsens older daughter, Alexa Montez, 16, also died of a gunshot wound to the head. Her death has been ruled a homicide. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news sent directly to your inbox The cause of death for a 10-year-old child also found shot at the home has not been released because the medical examiners office is still trying to positively identify her. That child is presumed to be Olsens younger daughter, London Sophia Bribiescas. The younger childs death also was ruled a homicide, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said. Authorities could not locate any fingerprints to help identify the 10-year-old girl so they are consulting dental records to make a positive identification, Salazar said. Olsen and the two children were found fatally shot at the residence where they lived in the 11300 block of Anaqua Springs when the homeowner, who also lived there with them, returned and found them around 9 a.m. Thursday. That man told investigators he had stayed elsewhere the night before. Despite the medical examiners ruling that Olsens death was suicide, Salazar said his office will continue its investigation into the shootings at the home near Leon Springs. He said his agencys probe wont be swayed solely by the medical examiners findings. On ExpressNews.com: Autopsy rules mother's shooting death a suicide Olsens close friend Nicole Baptiste, 35, of San Antonio, said Olsen would not commit suicide and would not harm her children. Baptiste also told the San Antonio Express-News that Olsen was not sad or depressed and never voiced suicidal thoughts. Many of Olsens friends have echoed Baptistes comments on social media. Autopsy reports have not yet been released due to the ongoing investigation. Peggy OHare is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | pohare@express-news.net | Twitter: @Peggy_OHare The murder trial for a man accused of killing his girlfriend and dumping her burning body on the side of a road in 2015 opened Tuesday with the defense alleging the victim was a snitch whose slaying could be tied to the Aryan Brotherhood. Prosecutor Leo Gonzalez told the San Antonio jury in his opening statement that evidence would show Antonio Nunez Jr., 63, killed Lisa R. Carter, 47. Defense attorney John Economidy said jurors would find that witnesses were coerced into making their statements. The victim, Economidy said, was a snitch, a Bexar County Sheriffs Office informant, which could have caused her death. He also suggested the involvement of a person whom he described as a known member of the Aryan Brotherhood who lived near the site of the body dump. On Aug. 17, 2015, authorities were called around 4:45 a.m. to the 8200 block of South W.W. White Road in Southeast Bexar County, where a man on his way to work saw a burning body on the side of the road. The case went cold until Dec. 19, 2016, when authorities positively identified the woman as Carter. BCSO officials said Carter was identified via DNA testing, a partial fingerprint and jewelry recovered from the body and at the scene. Nunez was arrested in January 2017, about a year and a half after authorities found Carters body. The arrest occurred after a witness and a relative both told BCSO investigators that Nunez admitted killing his ex-girlfriend, dumping her body, dousing it with gasoline and setting it on fire. An affidavit said the relative told investigators Nunez asked for help in disposing the body. Evidence presented to jurors showed the charred remains were found covered with a tarp; the hands and feet had wire wrapped around them, although they were not bound together; and a metal clamp was around her neck. The Bexar County Medical Examiners Office determined that Carters death likely was caused by a head injury and possible asphyxia. Carter and Nunez allegedly had an abusive relationship. Records indicate Nunez was arrested April 6, 2015, for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly assaulting Carter, but the case was dismissed in July 2015, the affidavit said. Judge Laura Parker is presiding over the case in Felony Impact Court. If convicted, Nunez faces five to 99 years or life in prison. Elizabeth Zavala is a courts and crime reporter in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ezavala@express-news.net | Twitter: @elizabeth2863 The nonprofit organization ROPE Youth partnered with individuals from the community to help fund more than $8,000 of lunch debt across 10 Midland ISD schools after students went without lunch one day over a small mistake. ROPE -- Redirection Outreach Program Efforts Youth -- works with at-risk students and often provides food with its lunchtime program, according to Executive Director Karl Boroski. He said the idea of paying off lunch debt was sparked when he mixed up dates. "One day I forgot to bring food, and one of the schools was left without food," Boroski said. "My wife told the girls to go ahead and order their lunch since we didn't have food, and we'll bring it next week instead. But some girls said they couldn't get food because of their lunch debt." From there, he asked how much the girls in the program owed, and he said it was a simple number to pay. Then, he decided to go further and find out how much the school owed, and he would pay off that debt, too. At the time, Alamo Junior High students had around $1,600 in lunch debt. He collected money from friends and people in the community, and in a 10-day period during the last two weeks of the fall semester, the donations multiplied to $8,000. "I did find out afterwards, the school district does give kids food," Boroski said. "However, they are more shamed and embarrassed when the cafeteria lady will tell them in front of other students that they have lunch debt." He said the school district is really doing its part ensuring students are being fed. It turned out, a lot of the lunch debt had been caused by parents who qualify for free lunch but never filled out the paperwork, he said. "The schools' hands are tied," Boroski said. "Since the new superintendent changed things, kids are always going to get food. We just want to give back to the schools in a way like that. I planned on raising $1,600 and raised $8,000 just from people passing on. I was just the middle man. The people really responded to the need. Next year, we're going to make a better effort. If we could make $8,000 in 10 days, who knows what we can do in a whole month?" Gary Dodds, director of MISD Child Nutrition Services, said lunch debt typically fluctuates from month-to-month because of the policy of not allowing students to go hungry and the various methods of payment they use to ensure that. "We'll receive donations from different schools, parents and the community to pay for the lunch debt," Dodds said. "Sometimes, it will go up a few thousand and will get paid off. Then, next month, the same." Contrary to what most local taxpayers believe, none of their taxes funds the school lunches. MISD's food program is self-supported in its equipment, food and salary, he said. The budget begins at zero dollars, and the funds made from meals, along with some of the reimbursements from the state, will be able to pay for the department's needs. He said during the last few months, principals have done a good job at spreading the word, and there have been more donors paying off a lot of the lunch debt. However, if there is any lunch debt at the end of the year, the school will have to pay for it out of its funding. "This is my fifth district, and I like the way they handle the charges over here," Dodds said. "It's not like the old days when lunches were taken away from children like in a lot of other districts. When they didn't have money, they'd have to have a substitute meal, but that's not happening here. So, the whole thing of lunch shaming does not really exist here in Midland." PORT AUSTIN Chris Roth enjoys diving around the Great Lakes because of the preservation of the wrecks one can see. The clear, clean, cold, Great Lakes water preserves these shipwrecks, said Roth, following a presentation about shipwrecks around the Thumb. In the ocean, theyve got parasites that will eat away the wood. We dont have that problem, so, weve got 150-year-old ships out here that still have the original paint on them. Thats part of the appeal. Theres nowhere else that youre going to find an intact example of every era of Great Lakes shipping from the beginning. From the earliest propeller-driven ships to a modern-day freighter. The presentation, "Under the Thumb" was a shipwreck history dinner hosted by The Farm Restaurant, near Port Austin. We created a menu with recipes that were on previous ships running the Great Lakes, said Roth, who put the event together. All of the recipes came from Great Lakes cookbooks or chefs that were on the ships. We incorporated that with a historical presentation based on marine history in the area. The dinner featured four courses, which included foods such as pork with sauerkraut and warm German potato salad, chicken paprikash and spatzels, yankee pot roast, and blackened whitefish. After the meal, Roth, along with Mike and Cindy Lynch, owners of Michigan Diver in Port Austin, did a presentation which featured videos from some of their latest dives around the Thumb. Roth has been a diver for 26 years. I actually got into it because I needed a phys ed credit in college and diving was offered, Roth said. Next thing you know, Im a diver. It was kind of a roundabout way, but I helped pay for my college tuition by working as a salvage diver and a tow boat operator. Since becoming a diver, the Thumb has become his favorite space to dive. Mike and Cindy do some diving down south, where 95 percent of my diving is done around here, Roth said. I like the Great Lakes. Its hard to beat the shipwrecks we have around here. The Lynchs opened Michigan Diver in February of last year, after seeing success with their first Michigan Diver shop in Attica in Lapeer County. Weve had a lot of business, Mike Lynch said. There is a lot of interest, lots of people stopping in, lots of people interested in whats out there. Its a beautiful area and theres so much more underwater for people to see. Mike has been a diver for just over 10 years, while Cindy has been a diver for 15. There are so many different facets to diving, Mike Lynch said. You can do just very basic 20-foot diving where you can look at the fish, its nice and warm, and theres beautiful sunlight, to what were doing, which is deep, technical dives. So, theres a little bit of everything for everyone, as well as the camaraderie. You build great relationships with some lifelong friends by scuba diving. Saturday nights event was sold out, which Roth said speaks to the interest in local shipwrecks. There is a lot of interest in local history, Roth said. We exposed something tonight to this whole crowd that had no idea what they have right off the shore. Sometimes you do these in some areas and there are all divers in the crowd. Tonight, there were very few divers. It was all local residents that have no idea what we really have. The next shipwreck dinner hosted by The Farm Restaurant will be on March 16. It will feature special guest, marine artist and historian Robert McGreevy. AL-ULA, Saudi Arabia - The treasures are strewn over a swath of Saudi Arabia bigger than Lake Ontario, rising from the desert: a rambling Nabataean necropolis, a field of soaring stone pillars, a lonely Ottoman railway station, and graffiti, lots of it, inscribed over millennia on honey-colored boulders and red mountain rock. It is a unique and unruly mix of natural beauty and ruins that trace thousands of years of human settlement and the caravan routes of incense traders and pilgrims. But the site has struggled to find an audience beyond this cosseted kingdom, apart from the locals, intrepid tourists and archaeologists who have been sifting through the area's civilizational silt for years. Now, Saudi Arabia's leaders say they have finally decided to let the world in. The attractions, around the city of Al-Ula, are the cornerstone of a planned effort to invite foreign tourists to the kingdom, beyond the millions of religious pilgrims who visit Saudi Arabia's holy sites every year. Like many changes underway in the country, the plan is mostly aimed at boosting the economy by tapping sources of revenue beyond oil. The ambitious initiative, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, would be challenging in the best of times - relying on the government to abandon its wariness of foreign visitors and on the outside world to revise its perceptions of Saudi Arabia as a forbiddingly conservative society. But recently, the challenge has only become more acute. The government's crackdown on dissidents and perceived enemies has undermined its own aspirations for greater openness. The killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul in October led to international criticism of the crackdown and of the crown prince, who was widely blamed for ordering the killing. Saudi Arabia says Mohammed did not know about the plot, although it involved his most senior aides. After the killing, some foreign companies and organizations distanced themselves from Mohammed's initiatives, including projects promoting the arts, tourism and culture that have been embraced by thousands of Saudis. "Tourism has great potential in the kingdom because it is so underdeveloped," said Kristin Smith Diwan, a scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. "Saudis are especially hungry for more public spaces and cultural growth. But there are social barriers and fears to overcome in attracting an international clientele." "Jailing women activists doesn't help," she said, referring to the nearly eight-month detention without trial of Saudi Arabia's most prominent women's rights advocates. "Brutally killing a prominent journalist doesn't help." Saudi officials are pressing ahead with the crown prince's initiatives and hoping that high-profile cultural events might temper the criticism from abroad. The government recently introduced an electronic visa system that allowed hundreds of foreign visitors in December to attend a motor-sports event in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, that included concerts by Western and Arab musicians. The plans to develop Al-Ula are the centerpiece of the tourism initiative. Officials leading the development effort believe that they can lure a mix of cultural tourists and eco-travelers from the West, visitors from the Persian Gulf, and Saudis eager to broaden their view of national heritage to include a pre-Islamic history suppressed for decades by the country's leaders and religious conservatives. "We always knew we had an important historical site. But nobody knows about us," said Ahmed al-Imam, a tour guide from Al-Ula whose family has lived for generations in the area, a place rich with culture but struggling with high unemployment. "We are hoping for more opportunities," he said. A royal commission created by the crown prince is working quickly to prepare the site to receive visitors within the next few years. Resorts are being planned, residents are receiving training to work with tourists, and teams of archaeologists and researchers are conducting surveys of historical sites and environmental features over roughly 9,000 square miles. A winter festival, currently underway, is a soft opening of sorts for the site, with appearances by international musicians and artists. Amr al-Madani is the chief executive of the commission and is Al-Ula's tireless booster, shuttling back and forth to the remote site several times a month with an army of assistants and prospective developers. The first visitors he hopes to lure are Saudi citizens, resident expatriates and regional visitors. Within four years, the aim is for half of the site's visitors to live within a six-hour flight from Saudi Arabia, he said. The best-known attraction is the Nabataean necropolis Madain Saleh, a sister city to Petra, in neighboring Jordan, consisting of more than 130 tombs with columned facades carved into rock. But fewer people are aware that the area around Madain Saleh contains Bronze Age tombs, the ancient capital city of Dedan or evidence of the southernmost outpost of the Roman Empire. "We can be excited about heritage and nature, but the real deal is economic diversification," Madani said, repeating a government mantra. He mentioned the possibility that the region could produce dates or natural plant-based oils. The government is also providing scholarships for more than 160 students to study tourism and the hospitality industry in an effort to create local jobs, he said. Despite the obvious potential of Al-Ula and other historical sites around Saudi Arabia, the government, which tightly restricts travel to the kingdom, has not traditionally regarded tourism as important for the economy, Madani said. Saudi Arabia's pre-Islamic heritage was also "marginalized," he said. For decades, the kingdom's dominant historical narrative has focused almost exclusively on the rise of Islam in the 7th century, as well as the history of the ruling family. Saudi Arabia's strictly conservative religious ideology regards any reverence for pre-Islamic sites as idolatry, leading to the destruction or neglect of artifacts and architecture from the pre-Islamic and early Islamic eras. The government has won praise for taking greater measures over the past decade to protect pre-Islamic history, a heritage it highlighted in the landmark Roads of Arabia exhibition. At Al-Ula, "we are being encouraged to find what we find," said Rebecca Foote, the commission's director of archaeology and cultural heritage preservation. "Wanting to know everything about a period in a place and having the resources and the backing to do it on this scale, I believe is unparalleled. When Laila Nehme, a senior research fellow at the French National Center for Scientific Research, began working at the site 16 years ago, "there was nobody there," she said. "The site was almost virgin. It's a dream for an archaeologist." Over that time, she and other archaeologists established that the area was the southernmost outpost of the Roman Empire, extending the empire's boundaries by almost 200 miles. By studying 150 inscriptions in the area dating to the 3rd century, they found evidence of the transition of Nabataean script into Arabic. People in Saudi Arabia were already well aware of the site, which is mentioned in the Koran. "What is new to them is this idea that it is part of their history, part of their national heritage," Nehme said. "It will take a little more time." David and Ashley Roberts, who welcomed their new daughter Hannah Joy Roberts and the Thumbs first baby of 2019. The Chase Plastics Giving Card Campaign, and help from local company Gemini Plastics, which helped the Thumb Area Helping Hands bolster its holiday budget for families in need. The hundreds of visitors who attended the 28th annual Toy Tractor Show at Laker High School. Jailyn Campbell, who was named the Huron Area Technical Centers Student of the Month recipient for December. Ublys Katelyn Sweeney, who was named the Agri-Valley Communications Athlete of the Week. The junior scored a career-high 28 points in a victory against Memphis. Jason Osantowski and Willie Hale, who both recently bowled a perfect game at Longshot Lanes in Bad Axe. Jody Blaszczyk, formerly of Pigeon, who will opening Aloha Tiki Tours at two Michigan locations. Blaszczyk is already the owner of Detroit Rolling Pub and Detroit Cycle Boat. The Kinde Seniors group, which recently met to handle its business. Members of the Caseville Historical Society, who recently gathered for their recent meeting. McKenzie Stomack, a senior at Ubly High, who became one of the youngest EMTs to join Central Huron Ambulance. Rylan Tenbusch, who was the first place winner for Tuscola County and second place winner for the state of Michigan in the Conservation District Employees of Michigan Watersheds: Our Water, Our Home poster contest. Tenbusch is a second grade student at USA Elementary and won a total of $75 for his efforts. There are thousands of supermarkets and grocery stores in America, meaning competition between chains is fierce. With the competitive landscape more crowded than a Costco on the weekend, its a great time to sift through inventory and rank the top 20 supermarket chains in the country. For the purposes of this list, The Daily Meal defined supermarkets as brick-and-mortar grocers, membership-only warehouse clubs and nationwide department stores that have supermarkets. In addition, The Daily Meal considered only supermarkets that have outposts in multiple states and that have at least five locations. The stores were judged on stock, departments, innovation, customer service, and contribution to the community. PORT AUSTIN The Greater Port Austin Chamber of Commerce recently announced the naming of Tom Fisher as its new executive director. Fisher will take over for former Executive Director Cameron Schwanitz. Fisher is a 1978 graduate of Central Michigan University with a bachelor of science degree in chemistry and math. He has had a long career as an environmental scientist and teacher, with additional experience in the retail industry. He is currently in the process of relocating to the area with his wife, Joan, to be near their children residing in the Caseville area. "My wife, Joan, and I are very much looking forward to our transition to the greater Port Austin area," said Fisher. "I am excited to begin facilitating all the wonderful events in Port Austin." As executive director, Fishers responsibilities include developing and fulfilling the chamber's short- and long-term strategic goals; operations of the chamber of commerce, farmers market and village green; management of all aspects of member services, including growth and retention of new members; and various marketing and programming activities supporting the chambers mission and strategies. In addition, a focus of his activities will be to develop community programs in coordination with the village, township and downtown development authority to attract new residents, businesses and entrepreneurs. According to Port Austin Chamber of Commerce President Chris Boyle, the greater Port Austin business community has been experiencing a growth surge. The expansion has occurred as the village becomes an increasingly popular travel destination. Tom is joining the Chamber of Commerce team at an important time of growth within the local business community, said Boyle. His experience, energy and enthusiasm, combined with his long time connection with the local area will be great assets in helping our business and residential community to continue to flourish." The Greater Port Austin Area Chamber of Commerce actively promotes the community and tourism in the Port Austin area. A member of the Discover the Blue tourist consortium, the chamber strives to support businesses, individuals and activities throughout the Thumb. The chamber office is located in the Port Austin Welcome Center at 2 West Spring St. in downtown Port Austin. For more information, visit www.portaustinarea.com. A toddler in Michigan died after ingesting an "extraordinary level" of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that's far more potent than heroin, authorities say. Ava Floyd, 18 months old, died on Dec. 25. The prosecutor's office in the Detroit suburb of Macomb County said that the child's parents had been producing and packing fentanyl in their home, and that the girl ingested the narcotic. Antonio Floyd, 28, and Shantanice Barksdale, 27, were charged Monday with second-degree murder, manslaughter, second-degree child abuse and delivering or manufacturing of a controlled substance, among other charges. "The nation is experiencing an opioid epidemic," Macomb County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Smith said in a news release. "However, to see an infant experience such a tragic death on Christmas morning as a result of ingesting a large quantity of her parents' Fentanyl is truly gut-wrenching." Smith was not available for comment Tuesday. But he told the Detroit Free Press that investigators think the child overdosed after drinking something that contained the drug, and that an autopsy showed she had ingested the highest dose of fentanyl officials have seen in 871,000-person Macomb County. Smith said an autopsy showed that the child had ingested up to 15 times the amount of fentanyl officials have seen in recent overdose deaths in the county. Fentanyl is up to 100 times more powerful than morphine, is far deadlier than heroin, and is often added to heroin to increase its potency. Two milligrams of fentanyl is fatal for most adults. The prosecutor's office said the couple and their three children were at home Christmas morning and went to the children's grandmother's afterward. A short time later, Ava was found unresponsive. She died at a hospital that afternoon. Smith told the Free Press that officers found scales, grinders, baggies, guns and drug residue in the couple's home. Officials also searched the children's grandmother's home, though it's unclear what, if anything, they found. The grandmother isn't facing charges. Floyd and Barksdale are being held without bond. It was not immediately clear whether they have attorneys. Floyd, who has a felony record, faces additional firearms charges after weapons were found in the home. Fentanyl fueled a significant rise in overdose deaths in the county, as reported by local media outlets that cited a 2017 report by the Macomb County Medical Examiner's Office. Fentanyl-related deaths rose by nearly 40 percent, from 144 in 2016 to 199 in 2017. The past several years saw a significant rise in fentanyl-related deaths nationwide: a 264 percent jump from 2012 to 2015. In Macomb County, the number of fentanyl-related deaths went from zero in 2011 to 144 in 2016, according to the county's health department. Kenyan forces hunted for gunmen who stormed an upmarket hotel and office complex in the capital, reportedly killing at least three people in the first apparent major attack by an al-Qaida affiliate in the East African nation in almost four years. The attack on 14 Riverside Drive in Nairobi began with an explosion targeting three vehicles in the parking lot and then a suicide-bombing in the foyer of a Dusit Hotels & Resorts Co. outlet, police Inspector-General Joseph Boinnet said Tuesday in a televised briefing. "Six out of the seven floors of the hotel building have been secured," Boinnet said. "Operations continue to secure the remaining buildings in the complex." He added that "a number of guests suffered severe injuries." Al-Shabaab, an affiliate of al-Qaida based in neighboring Somalia, claimed responsibility on Radio Andalus, a broadcaster that supports its insurgency. If confirmed, it would be the group's first significant assault in Kenya since it raided a university campus in Garissa county in April 2015, killing at least 147 people. The Star, a Nairobi-based newspaper, reported three people were killed. Live TV footage showed vehicles on fire near the entrance to the complex and police officers evacuating people from the scene. Boinnet said there'd been considerable progress in containing the situation. The 14 Riverside complex, located on the outskirts of central Nairobi and popular with business travelers and Kenya's elite, hosts restaurants, banking facilities and offices for companies including LG Electronics Africa, Pernod Ricard SA and Dow Chemicals East Africa Ltd. The country, which has East Africa's largest economy, is a regional hub for international commerce. Tuesday's incident evokes memories of a raid by al-Shabaab on an upmarket Nairobi shopping mall in September 2013 in which at least 67 people died. On Monday, a Kenyan court ordered three suspects to be tried for their involvement in the attack, the Standard newspaper reported. Al-Shabaab has been fighting in war-torn Somalia since about 2006 in a bid to impose its version of Islamic law. For a time it controlled much of the capital, Mogadishu, until it was ousted by Somali and African Union forces in 2011. Tuesday marks the third anniversary of an al-Shabaab attack on an African Union base in Somalia in which the extremists said dozens of Kenyan soldiers were killed. Kenya's government has never given a death toll for the raid. --With assistance from Bloomberg's Bella Genga, Ramah Nyang and David Herbling. RICHMOND, Va. - House Republican leaders on Tuesday endorsed a bill to expand insurance coverage for children with autism, breaking a budget impasse that had killed a similar measure last year. Virginia law currently requires health insurers to cover treatment for autism only from ages 2 through 10. House Bill 2577, sponsored by Del. Bob Thomas, R-Stafford, would lift that cap. The change would boost costs for state insurance plans covering state workers by an estimated $237,000, according to House Republicans. Last year, a similar measure sponsored by state Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Fauquier, passed the Senate unanimously but died in the House because the state's cost had not been budgeted. Del. S. Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said that after last year's outcome he ran into Mark Llobell, founder of the nonprofit Virginia Autism Project. "Mark was not pleased that we didn't fund the bill last year," Jones said at a news conference. He said the two of them worked it out, leading to this year's change of heart. "It's a minimal cost, in our opinion, for the benefit they'll be gaining," Jones said. House Speaker Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, endorsed the measure at the news conference, citing statistics that autism affects one in 59 children in the U.S., with the number of cases rising by 15 percent a year. "This announcement has been a long time coming in Virginia," Cox said. Several families joined the legislators in making the announcement, including Gary and Kate Fletcher of suburban Richmond, who have three sons with autism. Their oldest is 11 and is no longer covered for behavior therapy, Kate Fletcher said. "This would be game-changing for our family to be able to continue those services," she said. Such therapy can help autistic children learn how to manage their condition and develop valuable social skills, she said. The family maxes out its $8,000 out-of-pocket insurance limit every year, she said. "If it weren't for the behavior therapy that we receive we would not be able to go out in public like this today," Fletcher said, alongside two of her sons. Jones has signed on as a co-sponsor of Thomas's bill, which has bipartisan support. Del. Chris Hurst, D-Montgomery, is also a sponsor. WASHINGTON - When 12-year-old Batya Sperling-Milner stood before her community at her bat mitzvah, a key coming-of-age ritual for Jews, she read from the Torah, just like any other Jewish kid. At the same time, the Saturday service at Ohev Sholom synagogue on a snowy Washington Sabbath morning was absolutely unique to the little girl with the brown bob and the elaborate henna on her left hand. The third of four children in a devout Modern Orthodox family, the daughter of a mother who is a Jewish educator and a father who is a lay cantor, Sperling-Milner never considered she'd not have a bat mitzvah, the ceremony marking the time when a Jew becomes responsible for keeping Jewish law. For kids in her crew, it's also a key party, when you get showered with candy and gifts and receive a turn at the pulpit. For Sperling-Milner, who is blind, and her family, it was just a question of how it would all happen. It turned out that reading Torah in a service - and reading from the holy book for your community is a central ritual of a bat mitzvah - presents challenges for a blind person. The NW Washington family thought innovations might be needed, so they went on a journey to find them. By the end, Sperling-Milner's mother, Aliza Sperling, wound up writing a 40-page paper that made the case for blind Torah readers and lectured from it in synagogue, launching a new conversation in the Washington area's Modern Orthodox community. And a software engineer created encoding and a computer program that may wind up transforming the Torah-reading experience for visually-impaired people. It started last year, when Sperling-Milner, then 11, began to study the prayers and Torah section connected with the date of her bat mitzvah. She is already accustomed to often needing to get special school materials created - on topics from Judaics to math, because they aren't always available for the visually impaired. And in order to learn the nearly one hour of services she'd be leading in Hebrew, an organization called the Jewish Braille Institute was creating for her big fat, wide books of braille Hebrew scripture. But her family hadn't known that there was no braille system for the "trop," the symbols that are above and below the Hebrew letters of the text that instruct the reader to sing the specific ritual chants, or sounds, to make at each word. There are about 20 trops and each has several notes and sounds like a short tune. Once Sperling-Milner started to practice last spring, she and her family realized they had a problem. "How far did we get, Bat?" Joshua Milner, 45, a National Insitutes of Health researcher of pediatric allergies and immunology, asked earlier this month of his second daughter during a practice session at Ohev Sholom. "Not very far," she laughed. Memorizing nearly an hour of the trops without being able to read them in practice ("read" in braille) while learning the long Torah section seemed daunting. Forging ahead was the only option, they recalled. "I didn't think about it. I just knew I was going to do it," she said. The number of people in this situation is tiny. According to the National Federation of the Blind, there are about 62,000 blind children in the United States. Jews make up a little less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, according to Pew Research. But Sperling-Milner comes from a segment of the Jewish population that is even smaller - the segment that works to live very deliberately in decisions small and large by Jewish law. It's not that there aren't Jewish kids - sighted or blind - who never really learn the trops. Some may listen to a cantor singing on a tape and try to memorize them. Sperling-Milner happened to get assigned a day with a longer-than-usual segment of scripture - called a "Torah portion" by Jews - and wanted to read the full thing herself, along with additional prayers that less devout children sometimes don't learn. That led a family friend in Israel, Danny Sadinoff, who is a software engineer, to passionately take up the question of how to quickly create a system she could use to study. Over time Sadinoff created first two things. He made a braille character to stick in the middle of a Hebrew braille word that signals: "A trop is coming," and then new braille characters for all the trops. Then he wrote a computer program that translates the trop and combines it with existing braille Bibles so that a reader can select any Bible verse and have the text with trop. Then a printer can spit out the corresponding braille on paper. The key challenge for the family is that they are Modern Orthodox - a group within Orthodoxy wishing to live completely according to the rules of the Torah, while also living and adapting to the modern world. For such Jews, messing up a single letter of the Torah or a single note of the chants would render her service problematic. For liberal Jews - which is the vast majority of American Jews - meeting every detail of the law wouldn't matter as much. But there were bigger issues for the family, that that went well beyond Batya's access to materials and the difficulty of the task for her. The family also wanted the girl and her community to fully accept her reading. And in Orthodox Judaism, faith means religious practice, and there are rules and debates that go back millennia about who qualifies to carry out practices. In preparing Batya for her bat mitzvah, the family confronted the reality that there has long been a rabbinic debate about whether blind people - along with illiterate people - under Jewish law qualify to "read" the Torah before the community as public leaders. The debate began centuries ago, before publishing, and when many were illiterate. The rabbis banned public readers who memorized rather than read the Torah. God's mandate was so important that nothing could be left to error. "The rabbis felt there was a deep importance in seeing and reading the scroll. After all, [reading publicly] is reenacting God giving [Jews] the Torah at Mt. Sinai. Every time we read, we are liturgically reenacting Matan Torah," Lauren Tuchman, a blind Conservative rabbi from the District of Columbia, said of the Hebrew term for the Biblical story of the Jews receiving scripture. "We want to honor the Torah, giving honor as we read it." This issue set Sperling, Batya's mother, on a quest that resulted on Jan. 1 in a 2 -hour weeknight lecture at the synagogue on the topic. She argued that blind Jews should be allowed to read from a braille Torah. As a respected Jewish educator in the synagogue, Sperling's case convinced some in the congregation that a blind person can count as a reader. For others, it simply opened up a topic they'd never considered. "Every single person in the synagogue showed up to hear her read, and we all felt we were in the presence of greatness," said Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, the rabbi at the family's synagogue. Her paper argues that, in part, some of the older arguments against blind people reading have been rendered null by the creation of Hebrew braille in the 1940s. She also argues for the pain felt by Jews who are kept from full access to the Torah. Tuchman, who is part of the more liberal Conservative Movement and works with young Jews, said she can relate. "When we say: 'You can't because of who you are,' we are sending a very alienating message. And there is no question people are told they are spiritual outsiders," she said. "If we are going to be in the highest degree of spiritual leadership, we have to know every Jew is part of the Jewish community." Traditional Jews who care about following the law closely, she said, are balancing how to honor tradition along with being pragmatic. Sperling-Milner, who grew up being read Torah stories at bedtime by her mom - who didn't read from the Torah at her own bat mitzvah because she was raised in an Orthodox community in which women weren't allowed - said it was important to her to do what her friends could do, but also to do it by the book. Holding close the thick text of white braille papers created for her to practice, Sperling-Milner said during one weekday rehearsal that "when I stand up here, I think about people who read before me and I want to do what they did," she said. "I want to do what you're supposed to according to Jewish law. If this could become my Torah it would mean a lot." On her special day, friends painted her left hand - she uses both hands to read braille but is a lefty - with henna to look like a 'yad,' or pointer device sighted people use to read from an actual Torah without touching the sacred page. She gave an analysis in English about her segment, which included God plunging the Egyptians into darkness as one of the plagues set upon them as the Jews fled. Of all the sections in the Torah on which her day could have been, Saturday was about darkness, she said with a sense of humor in her voice. It must be a sign from God! At her party, at night, she asked her parents to create a special slideshow of photos from her life. It's a popular choice for such parties, even though Sperling-Milner can't fully enjoy herself. Even so, she wanted to show her community the different parts of her life just like any other bat mitzvah girl would. And Saturday, she did. --- Video Embed Code Video: Batya Sperling Milner, who is blind, spent months preparing for her orthodox Jewish bat mitzvah. Parents of the 12-year-old discovered technology that allowed their blind daughter to recite the Torah chant.(Amber Ferguson/The Washington Post) Embed code: BEIJING - Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, the Canadian man found guilty of drug trafficking in China, said he will appeal the death sentence ordered by a Chinese court this week, the law firm representing him said Tuesday, as the strained relationship between Canada and China spiraled deeper into crisis. The appeal would launch a legal process that could take months. After an appeals judge made a ruling, China's highest court would still need to make a final decision before Schellenberg were put to death. "Of course we're going to appeal," said Shang Baojun, a lawyer at the Mo Shaoping firm, which represents Schellenberg and other high-profile figures in political cases. "How can we accept the death penalty?" A protracted appeal process could loom over the tense China-Canada relationship, which has rapidly deteriorated since Canada detained Chinese technology executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver last month at the behest of the United States. Shortly after Meng's seizure, which Beijing views as unlawful, China detained two Canadians on national security charges and retried Schellenberg in unusually public fashion. Western analysts said the moves amounted to a retaliatory pressure campaign, which Beijing staunchly denies. Speaking for the first time about the case, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau implied Monday that Schellenberg's death sentence was politically motivated and "arbitrarily applied." Hours later, Canada issued a travel advisory for China, warning Canadians that they could face "arbitrary enforcement of laws" in that country. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying shot back Tuesday, likening the Canadian travel warning to "a thief calling out another thief." "It's actually Canada, not China, that has arbitrarily detained a foreign citizen based on so-called legal reasons," Hua said, referring to Meng, who is out on bail in Vancouver, awaiting the outcome of her extradition hearings. The Huawei CFO is wanted in the United States to face fraud charges related to Huawei's business dealings with Iran. Through weeks of mutual recriminations and allegations of hostage-taking, the tangled strands of the dispute have focused on the Shenzhen-based telecommunications equipment maker, which has long been a source of pride for China - as well as a source of concern for Western cybersecurity and defense officials, who warn that Huawei is inextricably beholden to China's ruling Communist Party. Though U.S. officials and legal experts say Meng's extradition warrant was legally justified, China has viewed the detention of its star executive as symbolic of a broad, U.S.-led conspiracy against its growing tech industry - and against China's very rise. After Poland arrested a Chinese Huawei executive last week on espionage charges, many Chinese social media users rallied to the company's cause, with some joking that China should find a Polish drug trafficker to sentence, much like it did a Canadian. As the sniping between Beijing and Ottawa continued Tuesday, Meng's father, reclusive Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, made a rare public appeal for her freedom as he distanced Huawei from the Chinese government. It was the first time he has spoken to foreign media in years. "I love my country," he told a small group of reporters in southern China, according to Bloomberg. "I support the Communist Party. But I will not do anything to harm the world. I don't see a close connection between my personal political beliefs and the businesses of Huawei." Huawei's travails, Ren said, were a "sesame seed" in China's broader trade conflict with the United States. He appeared to strike a conciliatory note as he praised President Donald Trump's tax agenda. Ren offered that Huawei could pull back from its aggressive global expansion if that would make it seem like less of a threat to Washington. "If they don't want Huawei to be in some markets, we can scale down a bit," he was quoted as saying, referring to the United States. "As long as we can survive and feed our employees, there's a future for us." The turnout surprised both Bill Fowler and Bob Rehak. Even the venue had to be expanded to accommodate every attendee. At 6 p.m. Monday, Fowler, the vice-chair of Lake Houston Area Grassroots Flood Prevention Initiative, and Rehak, a former businessman, along with others hosted a meeting with residents in the Kingwood Community Centers event room to inform residents of and answer questions about the proposed development The Herons Kingwood Marina. The project, which features mixed-use high rises, boat docks and a road expansion, has garnered much concern as some residents say it can worsen the condition of a flood-prone area and affect the Kingwoods identity. This is Kingwood, the Livable Forest this is not Kingwood, the Dubai high rise area, said Barbara Hilburn, who has lived in the area since 1988. She added that she loved the availability of greenery and the feeling of relaxation she gets whenever she drives through Kingwood. Romerica Investments, LLC, an urban-planning firm based in Houston, is The Herons Kingwood Marinas developer. Italian company Torrisi & Procopio Architetti supplies the design, and one half of its namesake, designer Giuseppe Torrisi, uploaded two videos previewing the project onto his YouTube channel. My website, reduceflooding.com, has increased its readership by 25,000 people in the two weeks or so since I posted about this thing, Rehak said. There is some beautiful, beautiful architecture associated with this project, and if there werent so many problems associated with it itd be a great asset to the community. Among the issues Rehak raised was how the project will be built right on the edge of the floodway, a river channel purposed to take floodwaters, making it vulnerable to extreme flooding should another Hurricane Harvey-like event occur. He also pointed out the projects intention to build an underground parking garage for 8,000-plus vehicles, which will increase traffic and the possibility of pollution to water bodies in the area. Increased flooding is also one of the points raised in a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, dated Jan. 1, from Brandt Mannchen, chair of the forestry subcommittee of the Sierra Clubs Houston Regional Group. Throughout the meeting, Rehak and Fowler emphasized that residents should submit their comments, both positive and negative, about the project to the Corps before the Jan. 29 due date. There is strength in numbers, Fowler said. Dont not do this. District E Council Member Dave Martin was also present at the gathering, sharing that The Herons Kingwood Marina was presented at a BizCom event three years ago with the developer and engineers in attendance. He suggested the crowd to also notify U.S. senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, Congressman Dan Crenshaw and his recently appointed office representative Kaaren Cambio. Another microphone was available for residents to line up and deliver questions or comments about the project. Barrington resident Jeff Hemmer said his doctors told him that, due to the stress brought on by Hurricane Harvey, he had developed diseases. Lest this development goes through and flood again, maybe youll all be healthy now or maybe youll carry this around with you, he said, momentarily waving his quad cane in the air. Hemmer moved to Kingwood in 1992. Rehak said that currently the Corps is working on the 25 or 50 comments given to them last week. He hopes new ones from tonights gathering will prompt them to talk with residents. We want to make sure that any letters we send in contain a request for a public hearing whether to the TCEQ or the Corps, he said. Along with Fowler, he gave attendees tips emphasize the loss of wetlands and dont mention traffic, for example and a reference permit number SWG-2016-00384 to include in the write-ups. nguyen.le@chron.com The Liberty ISD Education Foundation announced an endowed gift in the amount of $50,000 in support of Liberty ISD teachers and students in honor and memory of Ellison Miles. Kate Wisniewski, director of programs for the Miles Foundation, said that they were thrilled to be in the position to help through this grant. The Miles Foundation is based in Ft. Worth and has previously supported the creation and goal of the Liberty ISD Education Foundation since its inception in 2007. Ellison Miles was born on May 6, 1918 in Liberty, Texas. He is fondly remembered as a World War II pilot, Texas wildcatter, and respected philanthropist. Miles loved his hometown of Liberty and was pleased to support education and learning through his own Miles Foundation created in 1997. Liberty is blessed to have support from alumni, citizens, companies and other foundations to help us provide the best educational opportunities for our students, said Executive Director Bruce Wright of the LISD Education Foundation. The LISDEF works to fund Innovative Teaching Grants that impact all students in the district. Grants awarded in 2018 funded six projects on three campuses. These projects are not included in a campus normal budget. The Liberty ISD Education Foundation, which is a 501 c (3) non-profit organization, has provided just shy of $200,000 in teacher grants since 2007. All donations to the Liberty ISD Education Foundation are tax deductible. Visit the Foundations website at www.libertyeducationfoundation.com to see what the LISD Education Foundation is doing to help support teachers and students. Laredo police are investigating two unrelated shootings that occurred about 30 minutes apart from each other on Sunday. The first shooting was reported at about 1:30 a.m. at Club Vibe on 6408 Crescent Loop. Responding officers learned that a 23-year-old man had been taken to Doctors Hospital to be treated for a gunshot wound. READ ALSO: Laredo man on 'most wanted' list arrested for assault with a deadly weapon Police said that a fight involving several people broke out in the parking lot of the club. As security guards dispersed the crowd, a man displayed a handgun and shot the 23-year-old in the right leg, according to LPD. No arrest has been made. The second shooting happened at about 2 a.m. in the intersection of Pitaya Drive and Organo Boulevard in south Laredo. Officers said they found a 21-year-old man with an apparent gunshot wound to his upper leg. He was taken to Laredo Medical Center and later airlifted to a San Antonio hospital. RELATED: LPD: 18-year-old arrested after allegedly shooting person in the foot Police said they learned that he and a passenger were traveling in a vehicle when someone began shooting at them. After being shot, he pulled over at the intersection. No arrests have been made connection with the case. Detectives from LPD's crimes against persons unit are investigating both shootings. To provide information on either case, call police at 795-2800 or Laredo Crime Stoppers at 727-TIPS (8477). Information provided through Crime Stoppers may be eligible for a cash reward. Authorities in Vacaville shot and killed a man they suspected of stabbing two people and setting a home on fire Monday evening. Police and firefighters arrived on the 1200 block of Alderwood Way around 6:40 p.m. and found a house on fire, a 4-year-old girl suffering from burn injuries and two people with multiple stab wounds. The girl was transported to a burn unit in Sacramento, while a 43-year-old woman and 16-year-old girl were taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Nathaniel Holland, 38, of Vacaville, had been arguing with the woman when he stabbed her and the 16-year-old when she tried to intervene, according to police. Holland allegedly poured gasoline around the home and set it ablaze while the woman and the children, including a 12-year-old boy and a 15-year-old boy, were still inside. As he fled, police said, the woman and most of the children escaped the home through a back window, but the 4-year-old had to be rescued by one of the boys and a neighbor. Police believe Holland and the woman are parents to the children. Fairfield police and California Highway Patrol officers assisted the Vacaville Police Department in searching for Holland. Around 10:45 p.m., the agencies located him in a creek area near 1021 Mason St. A Fairfield police officer shot and killed Holland as they were apprehending him, authorities said. Holland was holding a knife and stabbed a police dog, officials said. The dog is expected to survive. The Solano County district attorneys office and the Fairfield and Vacaville police departments are investigating the shooting. The officer who opened fire has been placed on administrative leave. "Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night." Pictured: Romeo. For 10 long years, a bachelor lived out his days alone, calling out for a mate but hearing only the clicks of cameras and clacks of human shoes at the Museo de Historia Natural Alcide dOrbigny in Bolivia. The lonely bachelor, named Romeo, is a sehuencas water frog (Telmatobius yuracare) and he was the last known frog of his kind. That is, until scientists found his Juliet. After a decade of coming up empty-handed, scientists with the Global Wildlife Conservation and the Museo de Historia Natural Alcide dOrbigny finally discovered wild sehuencas water frogs on an expedition to the Bolivian cloud forest, according to a statement from the scientists released today (Jan. 15). They found five of the frogs in total, two of which are females one the perfect age for Romeo... or so the scientists hope. [Image Gallery: Cute & Colorful Frogs] All of this comes after Romeo received global attention last year from his Match.com profile (yes, really), which proclaimed, "I'm literally the last of my species...that's why I'm on here - in hopes of finding my perfect match so we can save our own kind." Scientists used funds that they collected from that online dating profile to go on a mission to Bolivia during its rainy season, the only time of year when these frogs have ever been spotted before. After talking to locals and looking through historical records, scientists homed in on specific areas to look for these frogs and then searched for the elusive critters beneath rocks and in the water. Sure enough, after a long day and nearly giving up the search for love they found them. Pictured: Juliet. "My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite." (Image credit: Robin Moore, Global Wildlife Conservation) Quarantined for love Juliet and the other water frogs are being quarantined in a breeding facility so that they can become accustomed to the "wild" environment of a non-wild facility. The frogs are also being treated for possible deadly infections such as the chytrid fungal infection, which is partly the reason why this species and many other amphibians are on the decline. But Romeo knows none of this. Losing hope, the lonely frog had stopped calling for his Juliet at the end of 2017. Romeo now spends his days swimming and hiding in the shadows of his newly-furnished space from the pressed-up faces of curious tourists. Romeo has not yet met Juliet and there is still the chance that they won't like each other. If they dont click, "We down a tub of ice cream, watch The Notebook, and then get back to it," the researchers said in the statement. They have a number of different options for pairing among the six frogs, they added. In case everything fails, they will collect sperm and eggs from the frogs so that they can try to fertilize the eggs in vitro. But if Romeo is anything like his dating profile claims, he's "not picky. I just need another Sehuencas like myself." Indeed, there's no reason why the two frogs shouldn't hit it off. Still, the scientists will continue to search for more Romeos and Juliets in the wild. They are hopeful that their efforts will eventually raise the frogs' numbers enough that they can one day be reintroduced into the wild because there once was a day where Romeo's kind used to thrive at the bottom of small streams, rivers and ponds. Their story can either end here, ravaged by the chytrid infection, climate change, habitat destruction, pollution and the jaws of invasive trout, or continue on anew from the meeting of Romeo and Juliet. Originally published on Live Science. When Tony Harrison with Gold Coast and Brisbane Snake Catcher attempted to retrieve the snake from a swimming pool, he noticed that the partly submerged serpent was blanketed in more ticks than Harrison could count, he said on Jan. 9 in a post shared on Facebook. "I figured it to be at least a couple hundred," he said on Jan. 10 in a Facebook video. Harrison brought the snake to Currumbin Wildlife Hospital Foundation in Queensland, where 511 ticks were removed from the python's body. The snake, dubbed Nike, was finally pronounced tick-free on Jan. 12, but was still "very unwell" with anemia, hospital representatives wrote on Facebook. [8 Awful Parasite Infections That Will Make Your Skin Crawl] Here are about half of the ticks that Nike was carrying on his head and body. (Image credit: Gold Coast and Brisbane Snake Catcher) Before his visit to the hospital, Nike was in a bad way. Clusters of ticks studded the python's head and body; some were small and flattened, while others were swollen and bloated with blood. It was a parasitic infestation the likes of which Harrison had never seen in 26 years of snake catching, according to the Facebook post. Ticks are often associated with mammals; but snakes and other reptiles are frequently parasitized by these bloodsucking arthropods, Rebecca Trout Fryxell, an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, told Live Science in an email. In fact, a recent survey of nearly 2,000 wild Australian snakes found that 30 percent of them carried ticks, and that ticks were more common in woodland habitats, researchers reported in February 2018 in the journal Austral Ecology. Size differences in the ticks infesting Nike represented different sexes and life stages, "and the amount of blood consumed by the tick," Fryxell explained. For example, a well-fed adult female tick is substantially bigger than a larval tick that has yet to consume a blood meal, she said. That's...a lot of ticks. (Image credit: Gold Coast and Brisbane Snake Catcher) An extreme infestation such as this likely happened because the snake was already sick, likely with a compromised immune system, Emily Taylor, a professor of biological sciences at California Polytechnic State University, told Live Science. When a tick bites an animal and injects anticoagulants from its saliva, the animal sets off an immune response that can kill the tick or slow down its feeding. However, if an animal's immune response is dampened, "you may see a greater number of ticks feeding or concluding their feeding," Taylor said. And sated female ticks can lay thousands of eggs. If the eggs are fertilized, this can blanket the host with more hungry mouths to feed, Fryxell said. Though bites from a few ticks usually won't hurt an animal too much, blood loss caused by hundreds of them at a time could be fatal especially if an animal is already sick, Taylor explained. "It's a bad sign in general when an animal has that many parasites on it," she said. Found partly submerged in a swimming pool, a tick-infested python may have been seeking relief in the cool water. (Image credit: Gold Coast and Brisbane Snake Catcher) Because Nike was found in a pool, Harrison speculated on Facebook that the snake was trying to drown the ticks; however, this behavior has never been documented in snakes, Taylor said. Then again, "nature works in weird ways," she added. "It could be that, having all those ticks on it kind of instinctively activated the animal to go and seek water," Taylor said. "Or it could have just been a coincidence. We have no real way of knowing." For now, Nike is still resting at the wildlife facility, while doctors work to clear up "a nasty infection" that may have immobilized him and allowed the ticks to make their move, hospital representatives reported on Facebook. They are hopeful that he will recover completely and return to the wild in the coming months. Images: Human Parasites Under the Microscope The 10 Most Diabolical and Disgusting Parasites Bloodsuckers! Michigan Ticks and Larvae, In Photos Originally published on Live Science. The wreckage of a German submarine, which ran aground off the coast of Wissant, France, in July 1917. It recently resurfaced due to sand movements on the beach. More than 100 years ago, a German crew aboard a submarine during World War I mistakenly ran aground in northern France. The 26 Germans promptly surrendered and abandoned the submarine, which completely sank into the sandy muck by the 1930s. But now, shifting sands are slowly revealing the submarine, officially known as UC-61, and turning it into a tourist attraction, according to the BBC. Since December 2018, two sections of the submarine have been visible at low tide on a beach in Wissant, a city near Calais. But this isn't the first time beachgoers have gotten a glimpse of the submarine, which sank in July 1917. [Photos: WWI-Era German Submarine Wreck Discovered Off Scotland Coast] "The wreck is visible briefly every two to three years, depending on the tides and the wind that leads to sand movements," Bernard Bracq, the mayor of Wissant, told the BBC. "But [get] a good gust of wind, and the wreck will disappear again." Others, however, remain more optimistic. Vincent Schmitt, a local tour guide, said that strong winds and tides could reveal even more of the WWI sub. "All the residents of Wissant knew there was a submarine here, but the wreck is mostly silted and therefore invisible," Schmitt told the BBC. "Pieces reappear from time to time, but this is the first time we [have] discover[ed] so much." During World War I, German submarines called U-boats sank hundreds of Allied vessels. Before it ran ashore, UC-61 is thought to have sunk at least 11 ships, either by laying mines or shooting torpedoes, the BBC reported. On its last mission, UC-61 left Zeebrugge, Belgium, with the intention of laying mines in Boulogne-sur-Mer and Le Havre, France. But the sub never got a chance to do that. Instead, its crew flooded and scuttled the sub before they waved the white flag to the French. Originally published on Live Science. In On the border, Trump builds a wall of lies (Jan. 10), Tribune columnist Steve Chapman says, There is no epidemic of unauthorized entry from Mexico. Twenty years ago, most of those coming across the border illegally were men who wanted work and then returned to Mexico and beyond. How things have changed. Now there are women and children by the hundreds, if not thousands. They come in caravans organized by groups in countries south of Mexico. It is they who create the new humanitarian crisis on the border. Also, the amount of drugs and criminals even if only a relative few who come across the border illegally now create an emergency that needs to be stopped. A SIGNIFICANT number of jobs at a high-tech manufacturing plant in Limerick are at risk, the Limerick Leader can reveal. The Canadian-headquartered organisation Optel Vision has confirmed this Tuesday morning that the company is subject to a global strategic reorganisation and that it has an overcapacity of production at its Limerick facility in Raheen. In a meeting this Monday at the Raheen plant, Optel informed employees about a possible 39 layoffs. It is understood that around 100 staff work for the company in the Raheen Industrial Estate. Desmond OSullivan, Optels director of customer service in Europe, Middle East and Africa, told the Limerick Leader that the Quebec owner and one of its vice presidents made the announcement directly to staff. The HR director and an Irish consultant were also present to take questions during Mondays meeting. Yesterday, due to reorganisation of the Optel Group, a number of staff have been put at risk on the site here. It means there is a consultation process that will start now, according to the legislation, for the next 30 days. And at that stage, after 30 days, a decision is made how many of the employees that are at risk will be given redundancy notice, Mr OSullivan said. The company, which is based in Quebec, said that most employees working in the professional services and customers experience departments that serve European clientele will not be impacted. Optel Group president, Louis Roy said in a statement that they very much regret having to make this decision and wish to pay tribute to the affected staff who have contributed to our success in Limerick through their diligence and commitment. We recognize that this is a difficult time for them and assure them of our full support and engagement in the redundancy process. We would also like to assure our staff, clients and the public that we are very much engaged in our Irish and European activities and are working towards further development with recruitment planned in those areas in the coming months. We are still convinced that our traceability technologies in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, food and beverage and mining industries meet a European as well as a global growing need. It is understood that around 80 jobs are at risk globally, at Optel bases in Ireland, Canada, Brazil and India. We're sorry that the ministry you were looking for is no longer available on LightSource.com. However, below are some great ministries that offer related content. Enjoy the inspiration, encouragement, and Biblical challenge from these LightSource.com ministry partners! Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin is one of three Irish gin producers which are to be listed this week for sale by LCBO, which retails and distributes alcoholic beverages in Ontario, as the Irish gin category begins to make a splash in the Canadian market. LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) has a monopoly of alcohol off-trade sales in Ontario, the province where 40 per cent of the Canadian population lives. Ontario is the largest controlled market for alcohol sales in the world and LCBO is the largest buyer of alcohol in the world. The news follows a successful trade mission to Canada last year, led by Michael Creed TD, Minister for Agriculture, Food & The Marine. The Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland (ABFI) joined the trade mission which focused on increasing exports of Irish drinks categories to Canada following the completion of the new trade deal between the EU and Canada, known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). The CETA agreement removed the remaining tariffs on Irish gin entering Canada. It also reformed provincial liquor board levels on imported spirits, which has helped the pricing of premium Irish gins in Canada. During the trade mission, Minister Creed, at the request of ABFI, asked the President of LCBO to consider listing Irish gin. This request by the Minister and follow-up lobbying by ABFI resulted in the decision by LCBO to run the first-ever competitive process to select Irish gin for listing in their stores. The three Irish Gins to be listed in LCBO are: - Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin - Galway Gin - Glendalough Gin Patricia Callan, Director of Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland (ABFI) said: Last year, Irish gin became increasingly popular among international consumers. The latest figures from the CSO show that the value of exports of Irish gin from the Republic of Ireland was up 213 per cent to 4.2 million in the first nine months of 2018. Following last years successful trade mission to Canada and significant engagement by ABFI, the listing of Irish gin by LCBO will see Canada opening up as another key market for Irish gin producers. On behalf of the Irish gin industry, I would like to particularly thank Minister Creed for his support in opening-up the worlds largest controlled market to Irish Gin. Last Wednesday night, rushing to catch a Pace bus from Evanstons Davis Street CTA station, I tripped on a curb, hitting the sidewalk facedown. Somewhat disoriented, I got on the bus, realized that I was bleeding copiously and got back off. A young man came over, led me into the station and alerted the ticket agent. She brought me paper towels, summoned a custodian to mop up the blood and asked me if I wanted her to call an ambulance. I said it wasnt that serious. She replied, I can see that your face is cut and your nose is bleeding badly. Are you sure you dont want me to call the paramedics to at least examine you? I agreed, and ended up being taken to the Evanston Hospital ER. I found out I had broken my nose in three places. I want to celebrate first the kindness, and second the highly competent helpfulness, of the CTA ticket agent and other passers-by who stopped to help and commiserate. After alerting paramedics, the agent found out whether I would require further treatment and where I would be taken. She called my wife, who was touched by the agents tact and professionalism. Another young woman stopped and advised me to steady myself and hold my head forward lest I choke on my own blood. She stayed with me until help arrived. Since 1972 Irish Contract Seating (ICS Furniture) nestled in the heart of the little village of Dromod in County Leitrim, has been quietly designing and crafting beautiful bespoke furniture for places of worship right across Ireland, the UK, Italy, France, the US and Australia. The niche market that the company caters for has meant that ICS have stayed off the radar for many years but 2018 saw the company name and designs being broadcast into sitting rooms across Ireland and the rest of the world during the Popes visit to Knock. As Pope Francis entered the Apparition Chapel in Knock on that historic morning back in August 2018, he took his seat for a moment of silent prayer and the nation sat in silence to watch. The Pope was seated on a specially commissioned chair designed by Gavin Duignan of ICS Furniture. For many weeks the project was quietly worked on by the skilled craftsmen on the production floor in Dromod. Gavin delivered the chair himself to Knock in the days leading up to the visit, calling it One of the proudest moments of my career to date The company was started by Gavins father Charlie Duignan and still operates out of the same premises. Now employing 18 staff members the company have completed over 3000 projects to date including the complete seating refurbishment of Knock Basilica in 2016, St Patricks Cathedral, Christchurch Cathedral, as well as bespoke pieces for St Patricks Cathedral and Ground Zero in New York, and Notre Dame in Paris. Gavin commented Just before Christmas we completed our first bespoke seating project in Rome and we are also in the process of finalising a project for 200 bespoke chairs and an altar, which will be going out to Washington in March Seating design has remained at the very heart of the business and designs have changed to meet the changing needs of their current customers and their new customer base as the company diversifies into seating for public places, schools and conference facilities. It is one such design that has just been named as a finalist for the Irish Design Institute Awards 2018. The ICON 40 chair was picked from over 350 entries to the competition. Its a great achievement to have been chosen as finalist amongst your peers. For 2 years we researched, prototyped and tested the ICON 40 chair. It has recently achieved the FIRA BS which is an industry standard so that the final customer knows that the chair is fit for purpose and will be able to withstand the general abuse that seating can get in public places. For the chair to be also nominated for an Irish Design Institute award means that the ICON 40 now ticks all the boxes for both functionality and aesthetic appeal. So for now Irish Contract Seating (ICS Furniture) must sit tight (pardon the pun!) The best is yet to come for this small family owned business in Leitrim in many ways over the course of 2019 and beyond. The growing pace of housing construction in Naas has come under fire. A local politician has claimed that children cannot get school places in the town at the same time as planning permission is being given for more houses and apartments. Cllr Darren Scully told a Naas Municipal District meeting today that the provision of schools, play parks, roads and community is not keeping pace with the increasing population. I know parents who cant get children into Naas CBS or Pipers Hill College, he added. He was commenting on a proposal to build 136 residential units at Kill. This application is being made under relatively new legislation which permits developers to go directly to An Bord Pleanala, the Dublin-based planning appeals board. The legislation was brought in to speed up the delivery of houses. Another application for houses and apartments at Kilcullen Road, Naas, came before the Naas area councilors a month ago, having been sent to ABP. Councillors expressed reservations about this too. And while ABP inform Kildare County Council of each application and seeks opinions, APB makes the decision. A number of separate housing developments are underway in Naas and more are planned. Were making terrible mistakes, I dont agree these applications should go to An Bord Pleanala. We are making the same mistakes as were made in 2003 and onwards. All we are doing here is throwing petrol on the fire, said Cllr Scully. Referring to the new population increases in the Naas area he asked: Where will these children go to school ? READ ALSO RTE's Prime Time to focus on missing teenager Deirdre Jacob from Newbridge READ ALSO Nearly 700 seeking social houses Naas A man who gave his partner a merciless beating before abducting her infant child has had his prison sentence increased by the Court of Appeal. Patrick Lynch (38), with an address at Lady's Place, Naas, Co Kildare pleaded not (NOT) guilty to assaulting his partner as well as the abduction of a child at locations in the county on November 7, 2016. He was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to two years imprisonment with the final six months suspended by Judge Sean O Donnabhain on April 17, 2018. The Director of Public Prosecutions successfully sought a review of Lynchs sentence on grounds that it was unduly lenient. He was accordingly resentenced today/yesterday(MONDAY) to three years imprisonment with the final nine months suspended. Giving judgment in the three-judge court, President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice George Birmingham said Lynch had spent much of the day drinking outside a dwelling while his partner and her two year old son were inside with the hostess. Lynch was neither the father nor a guardian of the child. At some stage, Lynch attacked the injured party with a brush handle and punched her in the face while she was still holding the infant. The injured party retreated to a toilet and Lynch rammed the door with his shoulder. He then assaulted her as she sat on the toilet. The sentencing judge said he gave her a merciless beating. Lynch later drove off with the infant in a car. He subsequently agreed to meet the injured party at or near Naas Courthouse. Gardai observed the handover of the unharmed infant and moved in to arrest Lynch after the handover had occurred. Mr Justice Birmingham said Lynch, a separated father-of-five, had 148 previous convictions including three for obstructing a peace officer and single convictions for violent disorder, burglary and robbery. He had more than 100 road traffic convictions and was disqaulified from driving at the time. Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Seoirse O Dunlaing BL, submitted that the sentencing judge failed to take sufficient account of the unprovoked nature of the assault, the circumstances involved in the taking of the infant and the return of the infant only after the passage of time. Counsel for Lynch, Willie Hughes BL, acknowledged that the mitigating factors were few and far between but that his client had issues which were recognised by the sentencing judge. Mr Justice Birmingham said it was a serious and disturbing incident involving an assault with the use of a weapon. The case was contested by a man with a poor record of previous criminality. In the Court of Appeals view, the sentence did not reflect the gravity of the offending conduct and must be regarded as unduly lenient. Mr Justice Birmingham, who sat with Mr Justice John Edwards and Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy, resentenced Lynch to three years imprisonment with the final nine months suspended. The court noted that there was ongoing contact between Lynch and the injured party. He was required to enter into a good behaviour bond for the suspended period and undertook to be so bound. Students from three Kildare schools scooped awards at this year's BT Young Scientist Exhibition at the RDS, Dublin. The 55th annual event took place from January 9-12 last. Two students of Cross and Passion College, Kilcullen sealed gold in the Junior group of the Chemical, Physical & Mathematical Sciences category. Matthew English and Hugo Langan's project titled 'How efficient is algae as a fuel compared to other fuels?' caught the judges eye at the Exhibition. A student of Maynooth Education Campus won individual 1st place in the Junior group of the Technology category. Ethan Walker designed an app called NIF. NIF is an app that will use deep learning algorithms to turn student's school notes into flashcards to make them easier to learn. Ruth Murphy, Legal Director, BT presents the Technology Junior Individual Category 1st place award to Ethan Walker, Maynooth Education Campus Three students from Colaiste Lorcain in Castldermot won an award for best display. Cassie Cullen, Mary Lawler and Ellen Cleaver examined the ability of different indigestion tablets and traditional remedies to neutralise stomach acid for their project. They tested which ones work best for heart burn. The girls took part in the Junior group of the Chemical, Physical & Mathematical Sciences category. Adam Kelly (15), a student of Skerries Community College, in Dublin, was the overall winner of the competition. For a full look at all the Kildare projects and pictures, see pages 36-39 of tomorrow's Leinster Leader. SEE ALSO: WATCH: Kildare students put heartburn remedies to the test at BT Young Scientist Exhibition A man has appeared at Naas District Court on charge with stealing a watch valued at over seven thousand euros from Kildare Village. At the Janaury 10 sitting of Naas District Court, Judge Desmond Zaidan said he would reluctantly put reporting restrictions on the case after he was told that the defendant was facing a very serious criminal charge in a higher Court. The man, from Dublin, who is in his late thirties is charged with stealing a Breitling Navitimer watch, priced at 7,315 from Signet Jewellery in the Village on September 25 2016. Awaiting directions Garda Sgt Brian Jacob, for the prosecution, said that they had not yet received directions from the Director of Public Prosecutions on how to proceed with the watch trial. But he said the defendant was facing a major trial later this year for a very serious offence. Sgt Jacob said the watch was not recovered. The Court was told there were also a number of other shoplifting charges in the pipeline involving the defendant. Judge Zaidan said he would adjourn the case until May 23 coming. He said he was reluctant to impose reporting restrictions for the moment but did not want to cause a trial error for the very serious charge in the higher court. Kildare gardai have arrested a man in connection with an assault of a security man in Newbridge at the Eyre Powell Direct Provision centre this morning at 10am. According to gardai the security man was assaulted by one of the residents, including being beaten around the head. He was taken to Naas General Hospital. The suspect, a male in his thirties, was arrested and is detained at Naas Garda station under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984. Read also: Enhanced CCTV images being reviewed from the day Deirdre Jacob disappeared in Newbridge Community groups from Laois donned their walking and running shoes over Christmas and raised almost 3,000 for GOAL to support its overseas development programmes. The 2018 edition marked the 37th year of the GOAL Mile, which is one of the countrys largest and longest-running annual fundraising events. The campaign encourages people across Ireland to walk, jog or run a mile over Christmas and donate what they can towards the aid efforts of the charity. The two events that took place in the county were at Oakvale Woods, Stradbally and Portarlington GAA Grounds and raised almost 2,000 and over 1,000, respectively, for the Irish aid agency. Both events took place on Christmas Day and were coordinated and supported by local community groups. This year, over 240,000 was raised for GOAL through the festive fundraisers, which highlights the enduring support of Irish families towards the aid efforts of the charity. Speaking about the GOAL Mile and the funds raised, CEO Siobhan Walsh thanked all involved. "We are so thankful to all our organisers and participants throughout the country for their dedication to the GOAL Mile 2018. GOAL staff work tirelessly to make a difference to the lives of people in the developing world, so to have such passion and commitment from volunteers back here in Ireland is truly inspiring," he said. All funds raised from the 2018 GOAL Mile will go towards GOALs most pressing work in the developing world. GOAL is currently implementing food, water, healthcare, emergency response and other programmes across 13 countries in Africa, the Middle East and The Caribbean. The GOAL Mile was established in 1982 when GOAL's late chairperson and international athlete, Noel Carroll, came up with the idea to encourage people and their families to run a mile at The Phoenix Park on Christmas morning for GOAL. More than 250 people turned up to that first event and from there, it has flourished to become one of the most popular and longstanding annual fundraising events in the country. Since that first Mile in 1982, those organising, running or walking a GOAL Mile have helped raise millions of euro for GOAL's various humanitarian programmes across the developing world. Apparently concerned about potential problems, township officials hired an armed security guard for a meeting to discuss a proposed municipal sewer plan. A flier placed in mailboxes warning township residents that plans are underway to develop the township and raise taxes prompted Upper Mount Bethel Township officials to hire an armed guard to attend the Board of Supervisors' regular business meeting Monday. The "Alert" notice placed in multiple mailboxes throughout the township around Jan. 4 urged residents to attend the Jan. 14 supervisors' meeting. "Our supervisors are paving the way for rapid unchecked development in Upper Mount Bethel Township," the notice reads. "A $6-10 million dollar sewer project is in the final planning stages RIGHT NOW. OUR TAXES WILL GO UP!" More than 50 people packed the municipal office Monday, many of whom said they were attending in response to the flier. Several supervisors said the flier was misleading and cautioned that it violated federal postal laws. Though multiple people spoke and expressed concerns about the proposed sewer plan, the overall tone was calm and the meeting occurred without incident. Supervisors hired Carroll Engineering Corp. about 18 months ago to update the township's Act 537 sewage facilities plan. The state requires municipalities to periodically update the plan. Upper Mount Bethel Township last updated its plan in 1992. The township currently does not have a public sewer system. Residents and businesses use septic systems, cesspools or other private sewage systems. The updated draft plan designates nine "areas of concern" in the township regarding sewage problems. Most of the areas were identified in 1992 as areas of concern, as well. Carroll engineers have recommended continuing to use on-lot septic systems for six of those areas but recommend installing sewers from the northern section of the Route 611 corridor running several hundred feet south of Route 512. The other two areas of concern include sections of Shooktown Road and Lake Minsi Drive. Engineers said plans would be to tap into neighboring sewer lines in Roseto that connect to Bangor's sewage treatment plant. The engineers said studies indicate there are multiple septic systems in the designated areas that are failing. Past studies have indicated high fecal coliform levels in well water and local streams in the area. Supervisors' Chairman John Bermingham said concerns about failing septic systems and contaminated water require the township to consider sewers as an option to address those issues. "We are doing this for the health and safety of our residents," Bermingham said. Several audience members expressed concern that sewers would lead to unwanted development. Charles Cole noted that once sewers are placed in a commercial and industrial zoning district, the township cannot control what types of businesses come to the area. "You get this suburban sprawl phenomenon," Cole said. Bermingham said he does not believe any of the supervisors are interested in raising taxes to pay for new sewers. Cole said the term "taxes" used in the flier may not be specifically accurate but property owners in the designated areas would have to pay several thousand dollars to tap into the new sewers and would thereafter have to pay monthly water and sewer bills. Multiple people complained that the public has not been adequately informed about the proposed plan. A few people said they would welcome sewers in the 611 corridor, which occasionally smells of sewage when it rains. Bermingham said the planning process is in the initial stages but he agrees that more can be done to inform the public and gather opinions and ideas. A special public meeting regarding the revised plan is tentatively scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Feb. 6 at the Mount Bethel Volunteer Fire Co. building at 2341 N. Delaware Drive, depending on the building's availability. John Best is a freelance writer. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. A former Bethlehem Township man is seeking a potential resolution to allegations he abused dozens of animals on his former sanctuary. Jahjah Melhem was charged Dec. 18 with 47 counts related to his alleged abuse of animals. The Pennsylvania SPCA says his neglect led to the death of a cat and a goat in his care. His animals suffered from flea infestations, matted hair, malnourishment, viral illnesses, broken teeth and scabs inside his home on Bethman Road in the former Heaven on Earth sanctuary, according to court records. One cat was missing an eye, records say. The home reeked of urine and feces was smeared on the floor, records say. Jahjah Melhem, left, heads to district court in Bethlehem (Rudy Miller | For lehighvalleylive.com)Rudy Miller Melhem couldnt afford the upkeep and has since lost the sanctuary. He has consistently maintained that he provides a safe, loving home for animals that are left in his care. He says he takes in sick and neglected animals when no one else will. Melhem has yet to admit he abused a single animal. In a previous case he pleaded no contest to eight cruelty counts. By pleading no contest he admitted prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him of the crimes but he did not admit to abusing animals. He agreed after that plea deal in August to forfeit about 200 animals the SPCA claimed he could not provide with adequate care. Instead of relinquishing them, however, he moved them to a new farm in Centre County, Pennsylvania, where they were seized last month by the SPCA. An investigation is underway into whether he failed to care for the animals in Centre County. Melhem waived his right to a preliminary hearing Monday on the 47 charges filed Dec. 18, according to his attorney, Don Souders. Negotiations are ongoing with the SPCA and district attorneys office regarding a potential resolution, Souders said. If there is a plea, it will likely occur at his arraignment which is scheduled for the end of March. If Melhem takes a deal, he wont be allowed to plead no contest this time, according to Nicole Wilson. Shes the Pennsylvania SPCAs Director of Humane Law Enforcement. We are in negotiations, Wilson said. Part of those negotiations would require him to plead guilty to multiple charges and would provide for other conditions as well. We will know in March at the arraignment whether an agreement can be made. READ MORE Heaven on Earth? More like hell, animal sanctuary volunteers say Controversial animal sanctuary agrees to cut population by two thirds Feces-smeared walls and flea infestation alleged at beleaugered Bethlehem Twp. animal sanctuary Despite 2 animal deaths, ex-sanctuary owner plans to keep hundreds of animals SPCA seizes 118 animals moved from troubled Bethlehem Township animal sanctuary Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook. The Force Report is a continuing investigation of police use of force in New Jersey. Read more from the series or search your local police department and officers in the full the database. MAPLEWOOD A high-ranking official said the state Attorney Generals Office is planning wide-ranging reform of how it tracks every punch, kick and pepper spray by police officers across New Jersey. Tom Eicher, the head of the Attorney Generals Office of Public Integrity and Accountability, told an audience Monday evening that his office is seeking to upend how the states top law enforcement agency tracks and presents police data to the public, weeks after The Force Report, a 16-month investigation by NJ Advance Media, unearthed myriad flaws in the system. Eicher called the current system, through which the attorney general only receives threadbare summaries on use of force from county prosecutors, inadequate. The (Force Report) made it clear that it was not sufficient because there were all sorts of trends and outliers that werent being picked up under that system, Eicher said at a hearing to review the Force Reports findings. NJ Advance Media collected, digitized and analyzed five years of use-of-force data for The Force Report, creating the largest state database of its kind in the United States. The data revealed scores of unchecked outliers, both at the departmental and officer level, showed widespread gaps in data collection and widespread racial disparities. Attorney General Gurbir Grewal called it nothing short of incredible shortly after its publication. Eicher said his office is reviewing practices for data collection across the country, including police departments such as Los Angeles, Chicago and Cincinnati, to assess how to better and more completely track use of force. You need data," he said. "Because if youre just guessing, youre going to get it wrong. Eicher said the state wants to begin tracking use of force on people of Hispanic descent and add more detail on what led to a use of force, all under a digital and centralized system that would allow every level of law enforcement to review officer and department performance in real time. Theres a lot of data we want to add to that form, but its a bit of a balance, because if you make the form 20 pages, then compliance is going to go way down, he said. Separately, Eicher also said the Attorney Generals Office is working on making an officers disciplinary history open to other departments if an officer loses a job in one jurisdiction and applies in another. Though he said the data collected on use of force would largely be made public, Eicher said police officer names may be stripped from future reporting. Residents bristled at this. Those names, unless Im mistaken, are part of the public record, said Maplewood resident Jonah Wolff. Let me urge you to make sure that that is part of the searchable records. Stephen Stirling may be reached at sstirling@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @sstirling. Find him on Facebook. With one hand on the Bible and surrounded by his family, Gov. J.B. Pritzker took the oath of office Monday afternoon during an upbeat ceremony in Springfield. Pritzker once a behind-the-scenes player who spent more than $160 million of his own money to win the Governors Mansion leaped from the background to center stage. He became the states 43rd governor and its latest experimentation in leadership. (CNN) The mayor of the Polish city of Gdansk, a well-known critic of his country's right-wing government, died on Monday, one day after he was stabbed by a man who rushed on stage during an open-air charity event. Thousands of people witnessed Sunday's attack on Pawel Adamowicz, 53, who was rushed to hospital where he underwent a five-hour long operation before succumbing to his injuries. He was stabbed in the heart and stomach. The brazen attack took place during the finale of a children's hospital charity event, known as the Great Orchestra of Christmas, when Adamowicz was thanking everyone who had helped raise funds for medical equipment. The 27-year-old suspect, who was arrested, is a Gdansk resident with convictions for bank robbery and had spent time in prison. Gdansk city press officer Dariusz Woodzko said the suspect came onstage shouting, and blamed the mayor and his party for his conviction and imprisonment. Born and raised in Gdansk, Adamowicz had long been a fixture of public life in the city. He entered local politics in 1990 as a local councilor before serving as Gdansk's mayor, a position he held for more than 20 years. He was known as a progressive voice in a country ruled by a populist, staunchly rightwing government. He was a staunch supporter of LGBT rights, immigrants, and minority groups. Silent demonstrations in solidarity with the slain mayor, and against the toxic nature of rhetoric in Polish politics, are expected to take place across Poland Monday evening. Poland's Interior Minister, Joachim Brudzinski, described the attack in a tweet as an "act of inexplicable barbarity." European Council President Donald Tusk had posted a message of support on Facebook, saying, "let's pray for Mayor Adamowicz. Pawel, we are with you." The World Jewish Congress said Adamowicz was a leading voice against right-wing extremism. "He was a true friend of the Jewish community, speaking loudly and clearly against antisemitism in Poland," WJC President Ronald S. Lauder said in a statement. "This was an attack not just on the mayor, but on the very value of tolerance." Photos shared on social media showed people lining up to give blood for Adamowicz on Sunday. Hundreds of people responded to Gdansk's regional center's Facebook post appealing for blood group O RhD negative, or universal donors. "In connection with the attack on the Mayor of the City of Gdansk and the need to make sure that blood is protected, we are asking you to give this precious medicine," the center said in the post. Just moments before the attack, Adamowicz shared a photo on Instagram showing a crowd of people holding white lights during "Lights to Heaven" fundraiser, organized by the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity. Hundreds of people have since commented on the post with messages of remembrance. "In my heart, Gdansk occupies the first place. I want a modern, fair, friendly and open Gdansk. Gdansk, where everyone lives well, works, develops and brings up children," Adamowicz wrote of himself on his Facebook account. The head of the charity, Jerzy Owsiak, resigned from his post in the wake of the attack. "Let's be Poles who love one another. Let's be Poles who are friends to one another. Let's be Poles who have no violence towards one another," said Owsiak during a press conference in Warsaw. "To think that this act of violence took place in my hometown. ... I am shaken." This story was first published on CNN.com "Gdansk mayor Pawel Adamowicz dies after being stabbed in heart on stage" A federal grand jury has said three people were tied up, shot and set on fire in a central Pennsylvania barn more than two years ago in an effort to silence a police informant. An indictment unsealed Friday said eight men were involved in the June 2016 slaying of Wendy Chaney, Brandon Cole and Phillip Jackson. In all, 11 people are charged in the indictment. All 11 are behind bars. The Dec. 20 indictment said two of the defendants, Kevin Coles and Devin Dickerson, were being investigated by the DEA and police in June 2016. They began to suspect Chaney, who faced pending criminal charges, was helping law enforcement with that probe. Lawyers for all the defendants either declined comment or did not return messages Monday. One of the defendants was in a romantic relationship with Chaney at the time and persuaded her to go to Jackson's farm near Mercersburg, according to the indictment. There, the victims' hands were bound with plastic ties, and they were shot in the head or back before being set on fire, the grand jury alleged. Chaney and Cole were dead when police arrived, and Jackson later died at a hospital. Five of the defendants are also charged with plotting to kill one of the other defendants, whom they believed had begun cooperating with investigators looking into the triple homicide, the indictment said. All five are alleged to be members of the Black Guerrilla Family, described as a national criminal gang. The five "located and restrained" the other defendant in Baltimore on about May 9, 2017, but he escaped, the indictment said. Federal prosecutors declined to elaborate. Police said they planned to discuss the case in greater detail after the federal government shutdown is over. Freedom High School student Kyle Miceli doesnt feel like the Bethlehem Area School Board is focused on the right things, so hes running for the board to change its agenda. Miceli, 18, of Bethlehem Township, Pa., plans to crossfile in February to run for one of the five four-year terms up for grabs in 2019. Miceli is the first in his family to take an interest in politics, but he says he has been following the district closely for the last few years. He noted he met with school director Craig Neiman over his concerns about the understaffed transportation department. I dont know what 18-year-old looks over school budgets, but I am one of those people," Miceli, who plans to study computer science at Northampton Community College next year, said. He was inspired to run when he read in the newspaper that director Eugene McKeon questioned whether the district should prohibit students with lunch debt from participating in graduation. Superintendent Joseph Roy said the district wouldnt entertain that option but the comment pushed Miceli to jump into the race. I just think that is disgusting a school board director would ever consider that, Miceli said. The teenager is running on a students first platform. He believes the board is focusing on and spending money on the wrong issues rather than funneling money into academic programs. He questions the boards decision to spend $660,000 on an artificial turf field at the new Nitschmann Middle School and spending $100,000 to hire the marketing and branding firm Imagevolution. A student at the vo-tech could have designed a new school logo for free, Miceli said. The district hired Imagevolution because much of its marketing materials dated back to 1992. Yet, the charter schools it competes against have glossy promotional materials. Bethlehem is projected to send about $30 million of tuition to charter schools this year. Miceli thinks the district should stop focusing on charter schools and look inward at its own programs and test scores. What we need is better academic scores in our schools, he said. We dont meet state requirements. We need improvements there. Thats how we get parents to bring students to our schools. He points to the districts PSSA and Keystone Exam scores as clear indicators of the districts issues. Miceli believes they can be improved by prioritizing money for students, not these terrible ideas, he said. We keep hiking tax rates but I dont see the return coming for parents' investments, Miceli said. In recent years, the district has invested millions to expand full-day kindergarten into all of its elementary schools and to overhaul its elementary reading program with the goal of having all students reading on grade by third grade, a key indicator of future academic success. At the high school level, Bethlehems created career pathways and new courses to support those paths, like Project Lead the Way, a STEM and biomedical series of courses. When speaking to administrators about test scores, theyve pointed to the socioeconomics and diversity in the student body and the achievement gap as challenges in standardized testing, Miceli said. I believe that the diversity in our school district should be our strength, he said. Instead, they use that as an excuse as to why we cant succeed. The districts roadmap lays out its commitment to excellence through equity; its pledge to eliminate race and family income as predictors of school success by guaranteeing equitable access to opportunities for personalized learning and growth. There are three at-large seats available and two regional seats. Region 2 includes West and Center City Bethlehem and Hanover Township, Northampton County. Incumbent School Directors Karen Beck-Pooley, Dean Donaher and Neiman all plan to run. Miceli is crossfiling for the Region 3 seat held by McKeon, which covers northeast Bethlehem and Bethlehem Township. McKeon said he has not yet decided if he plans to run. When he graduates from NCC, Miceli said he is interested in transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, Temple or Rutgers universities. He might commute or live on campus, he said. I would 100 percent maintain all of my board duties. I am not going to let the students down, Miceli said. I am going to make sure I get the job done for them. Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. A longtime Bethlehem resident and Easton Area High School counselor is running for Bethlehem City Council. Grace Crampsie Smith has called the city home for the last 28 years and says that now her three children are in college, law school and medical school, she has time to devote to the many challenges and changes that face the city as it grows and continues to be a vital part of the Lehigh Valley. I want to contribute to the city that I have called home and ensure that smart growth is achieved for the benefit of residents, employees, and visitors, the Democrat said in a news release. It is important to maintain a balance between preserving the citys past, honoring the people and businesses that built this city and achieving progress in our diverse community. Bethlehem is a city that has never been stagnant but has constantly re-invented itself in the arts, education, and business while never losing sight of its heritage. Crampsie Smith has a masters degree in education and school counseling from Lehigh University and a bachelors degree in sociology and social welfare from Bloomsburg University. The daughter of a nurse and a former Summit Hill, Pa., police chief, Crampsie Smith said, her parents taught her the importance of both discipline and compassion. I was raised in a family that took its civic responsibilities very seriously, she said. I want to continue the legacy of my parents who instilled in me and my six siblings the desire to contribute to the communities where we lived, worked, and played. They fostered in me a strong sense of duty to use my skills and education for the betterment of not only my family but our neighbors. Crampsie Smith was an adjunct faculty member at Lehigh Carbon Community College and also worked as addictions counselor and coordinator of community and early intervention services for the Lehigh County Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities office. Her career has allowed her to hone advocacy skills that will translate into fighting for residents of Bethlehem, she said. Her top priorities include the health, safety and welfare of residents and employees, budget efficacy and socially responsible economic development, she said. Council members must be mindful that our community is made up of people from all walks of life who have varied incomes, educations, and skills but all want the same things to provide for their families and have a good quality of life," Crampsie-Smith said. Shes completed the Bethlehem Police Citizens Academy to have a better understanding of police department operations. Crampsie Smith believes it is crucial for council members to understand the jobs of city employees and the challenges they face. Crampsie Smith is a member of the Bethlehem City Democratic Committee and committee person for Precinct 14-1, Northampton County Democratic Committee, Lehigh Valley Democratic Progressive Coalition, Lehigh Valley ROAR, Lehigh Valley 4 ALL, and the University of Pennsylvania and Haverford College Parent Alumni Association. Her volunteer work has included Ryans Tree for Grieving Children, Musikfest, OLPH School, LV Pediatric Cancer Foundation and the American Heart Association. She is a member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church. This year, four council seats are up for grabs. Councilman Shawn Martell, a Democrat, has announced he does not plan to run for another term. Martell was first elected to council in 2015 along with Councilman Michael Colon, newcomers who edged out Councilman Michael Recchiuti by seven votes in the May primary. He was the second-highest vote getter behind longtime Councilman J. William Reynolds. Dr. Paige Van Wirts two-year seat is also up for re-election. Van Wirt was appointed to fill the final two years of Eric Evans term when he stepped down to become city business administrator. Van Wirt, who waged an unsuccessful write-in campaign in the general election, intends to run to fill the seat. Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatulloand Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. A Philadelphia Eagles' fan accused of attacking her girlfriend following the teams loss is also accused of putting the couples dog into a hotel room microwave. Colonial regional police were called Sunday night to the Best Western hotel in Hanover Township, Northampton County, for an attack and found two injured women. The victim had blood on her left ear from her earring being ripped out, and cuts on her nose and left cheek, according to police. Kirsten J. Gaskins, of Philadelphia, had several bleeding scratches on her face, officers said. The accuser told officers they came to the hotel for a getaway, but that night Gaskins got drunk and began yelling at the victim about the Eagles' loss to the New Orleans Saints. The 31-year-old Gaskins allegedly began to push the woman and, when the woman pushed Gaskins to get away, Gaskins allegedly pushed her to the floor. Gaskins began hitting the victim in the face, and the woman reported she scratched Gaskins on the face to escape. Gaskins told the woman that if she left the room, Gaskins would kill her dog and that she had already put the dog in the microwave, police said. The woman fled her room and got into her car, while Gaskins allegedly fled before police arrived. While police were talking to the victim, Gaskins returned and told the accuser to collect her things because they were leaving. Gaskins did not talk to police and did not provide ID, and she was arrested. After the arrest, the woman reported Gaskins comments about putting the dog in the microwave, and an officer opened the microwave door to find a white Pomeranian inside. The microwave was too small for the dog to move around, and was very limited ventilation inside, according to police. Gaskins was charged with simple assault, harassment, cruelty to animals, and possession of drug paraphernalia for a marijuana grinder found her her. She was released on $20,000 unsecured bail. An attorney has not yet entered an appearance for Gaskins in the case. Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. The Bethlehem Area School District is starting its 2019-20 budget process with an $11 million deficit, but district officials remain hopeful any tax increase will stay at or below the 2.8 percent cap on annual property tax hikes. After years of deficit spending, the sixth-largest school district is on solid financial footing with $33 million in the bank, but it is at the same time facing the skyrocketing cost of charter school tuition payments and employee pension obligations while receiving fairly flat state funding. In our world, this is a much better starting place than it was a few years ago, Superintendent Joseph Roy said. Monday night the school board got its first glimpse at next years $296.2 million spending plan and, for the first time in recent memory, found itself debating whether it needed to even apply to the state for exceptions to exceed its Act 1 index. Ultimately, the board opted to apply for permission to exceed the cap due to rising special education costs, but directors expressed hope they would not have to use them this year. Board President Michael Faccinetto said he had hoped to not even apply for them. Faced with an $11 million starting budget hole, he felt it was best to err on the side of caution and not tie the administrations hands so early in the budget process. Id like to be under that 2.8 number and I think we can. There are so many uncertainties, he said. If we were at $10 (million) or less (of a starting deficit) Id say lets go. 2018-19 biggest budget cost drivers Salaries $5,507,734 PSERS (employee pensions) $2,899,827 Academic initiatives $2,635,095 Charter school tuition $992,747 Student tuition $177,357 Cut to general operations -$1,130,796 Net deficit as of January 2019 $11,081,964 The district has not used the exceptions in recent years, said Stacy M. Gober, district chief financial officer. Since 2006-07, the districts spending on employee pensions and charter schools have jumped by $58.7 million or 592 percent in the last 14 years. The district is projected to spend $30.7 million on charter schools next year and $37.8 million on mandated employee pension contributions. Thats the answer to where did all the money go," Gober said. "Thats it. During the budget presentation, Gober delved into the historical state funding figures for the district following former Gov. Tom Corbett cutting his charter school tuition reimbursement for districts. The basic education funding has essentially just become a charter school tuition offset in the absence of the partial reimbursement, Gober said. Roy noted that students from about 25 of Pennsylvanias 500 school districts make up 75 percent of the charter school enrollment. If the district still got that charter subsidy, it would make all the difference A small number of the 500 districts bear the burden of the funding system, Roy said. Local taxpayers fund 70 percent of the districts budget. The effort that the local taxpayer has picked up is a huge amount compared to what the state has picked up, Faccinetto said. If that charter school reimbursement still existed, the district would be in a totally different boat and could have avoided tax increases, he said. The current $281 million budget began with a $10.7 million deficit and in the end carried an almost 2.5 percent average tax hike. Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. The Alabama-based Indian tribe buying the Sands casino for $1.3 billion plans to immediately invest $190 million into a 300-room hotel expansion and development of the No. 2 Machine Shop, possibly into an indoor water park. Executives from Wind Creek Hospitality sat down with lehighvalleylive.com Tuesday afternoon at the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem as part of a series of meetings with local news media outlets. It is the first time the affiliate of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians has publicly spoken about its plans for the site since it was announced March 8, 2018 that Wind Creek plans to buy one of Pennsylvanias most lucrative gaming halls. The sale is still going through the state gaming boards regulatory vetting process. The Sands' gaming success paired with the high-quality development of the property attracted Wind Creek as its sought to diversify its assets, a process it began in 2014, said Jay Dorris, president and CEO of Wind Creek. When we start looking around the world for quality properties that are in good shape, that are established, that are very successful, theres not that many of them. And this property certainly checks all those boxes, he said. We looked into it. The Lehigh Valley is growing, its doing quite well. The property has done quite well and like I said we checked all the boxes that were important to us. Once the sale is approved by Pennsylvania gaming regulators, Wind Creek is ready to start pouring $190 million into the 124-acre former Bethlehem Steel plant, which has sat in a perpetual state of limbo in recent years as two potential sales fell apart. Las Vegas Sands Corp. has long made it clear that its smallest -- but very profitable -- holding in Bethlehem could be had for the right price. Jay Dorris, president and CEO of Wind Creek Hospitality, discusses Jan. 15, 2019, inside the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem hotel plans to purchase and rebrand the 124-acre casino property. First, Wind Creek plans to spend $90 million to construct another 300-room hotel tower with event space that it hopes to have open in two years, Dorris said. The new tower would be built perpendicular to the existing hotel in the parking lot. This property as it is we dont think needs a lot of work. Obviously the rebrand, changing name, that is something thatll have to happen, Dorris said. The other thing that attracted us to this property and this region is we think theres expansion opportunity and so out of the gate, our desire is to add another hotel tower. There are no plans to follow through on a $90 million gaming floor expansion Sands began and then stopped. Tweaks the Sands already made to the gaming floor -- consisting of about 3,000 slot machines and 254 table games -- have met that demand, said Sands Bethlehem President and COO Brian Carr, who plans to stay on with Wind Creek following the sale. Brian Carr, president and COO of Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, discusses Jan. 15, 2019, inside the casino hotel plans by Wind Creek Hospitality to purchase and rebrand the facility. The hotel is consistently at 95 percent occupancy, so it makes sense to invest the money there, Carr said. With 300-more rooms and extra meeting space, Wind Creek Bethlehem will be able to attract larger conventions and meetings, he said. I think were all excited that weve got new owners coming in who first thing that they want to do is start realizing some of that potential and we know that development breeds more development and so I think what thats going to do for Bethlehem and for the Lehigh Valley and for this part of Pennsylvania is going to be an awful lot of really great news for all of us, Carr said. Sands employs about 2,500 people, who will all keep their jobs, and the hotel expansion is expected to add another 400 workers, plus an unknown number of construction workers. All of the existing restaurants, including Chef Emeril Lagasses eateries, will remain, Carr said. Theres good staff here and we want them to stay, Dorris said. Wind Creek has earmarked another $100 million to start reimagining the No. 2 Machine Shop into a non-gaming amenity, Dorris said. He acknowledged that an indoor waterpark is one of the ideas under consideration, but emphasized it is still under study. Were working with various architects, engineers, feasibility consultants to see what makes sense., Dorris said. ...We think we can diversify the appeal of the property in the area. So were looking for what we could add that would be appealing to people who may not be coming today but would be interested if we could give them the right thing. Bethlehem Mayor Bob Donchez said Monday he is hopeful Wind Creek can move forward quickly. I have been very impressed with the leadership of Wind Creek and impressed in our private discussions about what they would like to do with the site, Donchez said. The famed No. 2 Machine Shop stretches from the Sands outlet mall down to the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks. At one time, plans called for a Bass Pro Shops, hotel and convention center in the building, but they never materialized. When asked if Wind Creek planned to preserve the cavernous building where naval ammunition was once made, Dorris said, Theres a lot of study and planning that has to go into that. But thats a very significant structure and if theres a way to utilize that structure, I think that would be preferable. The future owners are committed to working to preserve the iconic Bethlehem Steel blast furnaces and left open the possibility of finishing the Hoover Mason Trestle, the elevated linear park that offers close views of the stacks. The Bethlehem Redevelopment Authority always intended to continue the walkway with potential tie-ins to the machine shop and hotel. No plans are finished for what Machine Shop No. 2 could be, Dorris said. What I would point out though: If it becomes a major attraction, it certainly makes sense for us to make ease of access between that facility and this facility as easy as it can be. What that ultimately looks like we dont know yet. With growing gaming competition from surrounding states, it is clear Wind Creek is looking to diversify the propertys entertainment offerings while also holding on to the strong customer base the Sands has built. The affiliate of the Alabama Indian tribe has more options to diversify gaming than Las Vegas Sands, whose leader opposes online gaming. The Sands obtained approvals for Internet-gaming on behalf of Wind Creek earlier this fall. It also won a bid for one of Pennsylvanias mini-casino licenses, but the bid was invalidated when it was discovered the approved Mercer County satellite location infringed upon the territory claimed by another license. The new owners found the potential location along the Ohio border interesting, Carr said, and it is up to him to identify similar unique opportunities if they arise. Executives on Tuesday were hesitant to discuss the future of iGaming or sports betting in light of the release of a Department of Justice memo on Monday that calls into question the viability of online gaming that crosses state lines. An Obama-era opinion found that the federal Wire Act, which bans interstate wagering, only applied to sports gambling. The 23-page opinion released Monday interprets the law to apply to any form of betting that crosses state lines. The 2011 opinion opened the door for cash-strapped states and their lotteries to bring online gambling to their residents, as long as it did not involve interstate sports betting. Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware legalized online gambling after that opinion was issued, and the three states have agreements allowing poker players to compete online across the states. Pennsylvania became the fourth state to legalize online casino gambling in 2017. Officials declined to address any details of the pending deal, such as who is buying what. Well control the site, said Arthur Mothershed, vice president of business development for Wind Creek. Today, Las Vegas Sands is the majority owner of Sands BethWorks Gaming LLC, which owns the events center, casino and surrounding land totaling about 56 acres. Local attorney and developer Michael Perrucci, New York real estate developer Barry Gosin and their business partners have about a 10 percent share in BethWorks Gaming. The rest of the land, almost 61 acres, is owned by Sands BethWorks Retail LLC, and ownership is split 50/50 between the Sands and Perrucci and his partners. BethWorks Retails holdings include the outlet mall, the blast furnaces, the Steel General Office building, No. 2 Machine Shop and several parking lots. Carr, who has been with Las Vegas Sands for four years, is excited to have a hand in crafting the future of the former flagship Bethlehem Steel plant after spending time staring out at the land and thinking of what could be, he said. Wind Creek Hospitality announced plans Jan. 15, 2019, to expand the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem hotel with a second 300-room tower, upon its purchase and rebranding of the 124-acre casino property. The expansion would occur perpendicular to the north side of the existing hotel, seen here with the iconic blast furnaces of the former Bethlehem Steel Corp. visible in the background. It could be months until the sale is finalized. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board background investigation and approval of Wind Creek and tribe principals is ongoing, board spokesman Doug Harbach said Monday. No formal request for a change of ownership of the gaming license has been filed, he said. Once it is submitted, we would have a hearing (in) Harrisburg and our staff would look at the financial aspects of the deal. The board would then vote on the change of control," Harbach said. "Since we are already doing a good deal of the individuals backgrounds, it is safe to say that the process could be shortened a bit, but will still likely be a number of months after a petition is submitted. Wind Creek and the Sands see the change of ownership as the last step in the sale process and hope to tackle the background vetting and transfer of the property in one meeting, Carr said. Once the sale is complete, the 159,000-square-foot Bethlehem casino would become one of Wind Creeks largest holdings. Until recently, Wind Creek owned only three casinos on tribal land in Alabama featuring over 2,600 games, but no table games. Today, Wind Creek operates nine gaming properties, in Alabama, Nevada, Florida and the Caribbean. A five-member board of directors oversees Wind Creek, reporting directly to the nine-member Tribal Council. The 3,000-member tribe is the only federally-recognized tribe in the state of Alabama, operating as a sovereign nation. Wind Creek wants the Lehigh Valley to know that it is not just a corporate figurehead, Mothershed said. Its track record in Alabama shows that Wind Creek invests in schools, nonprofits, civic groups and local hospitals in Alabama, said Brent Pinkston, Wind Creek COO. We see ourselves as a partner in the community, not just a business, Mothershed said. If the sale goes through, the city and Bethlehem Area School District stand to receive a cash windfall. Assuming everything is for sale, the real estate transfer tax could net the district and city each up to $6.5 million. The Associated Press contributed to this story. Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) on Tuesday, January 15, cut a cake to celebrate the retirement of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris. The Punch reports that the coalitions spokesman, Imo Ugochinyere, told journalists in Abuja that the cutting of the cake was meant to symbolise the end of Idris era of shame and inglorious past. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Legit.ng gathered that Ugochinyere said a portion would be sent to Idris and President Muhammadu Buhari. He thereafter set agenda for whoever succeeds the IG. The agenda included the call for the release of all political detainees including Dino Melaye and Deji Adeyanju. Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that the federal government would announce a replacement for the retiring Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris. It was gathered that the proposed new police boss was identified as Abubakar Adamu Mohammed. Mohammed, born on November 9, 1961, is from Nasarawa state and an assistant inspector-general of police. He joined the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) in 1986 and was once a director of peacekeeping operations. A former police commissioner in Enugu, Mohammed was an AIG in charge Zone 5 and is currently a directing staff member at the National Institute of policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, near Jos, Plateau state. READ ALSO: 2019 election: Opposition parties will suffer defeat in Enugu despite burning our campaign vehicles - PDP The report said his appointment would cause the retirement of some police chiefs just like it happened during the appointment of Idris. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have upgraded to serve you better. Lagos Police Commissioner gives important update on MC Oluomo| - on Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - Nigerian students have called on the new acting IG of Police to focus on restructuring the Nigeria Police Force - The students said Nigerians at this period of elections, are counting on police officers not to compromise security at the polling centres - NANS also congratulated Abubakar Mohammed on his recent appointment by President Muhammadu Buhari as acting IGP The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has congratulated the new acting Inspector-General of Police, Abubakar Mohammed, on his appointment by President Muhammadu Buhari. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Adeyemi Amoo, NANS public relations officer, in a statement issued on Tuesday, January 15, in Abuja, urged the acting IGP, to embark on general restructuring of the police. He said that Nigerians at this period of elections, are counting on police officers not to compromise security at the polling centres. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda He said: NANS equally commend President Muhammadu Buhari for respecting the voice and yearnings of Nigerians, against possible tenure elongation of former IGP, Ibrahim Idris." The presidents action is a demonstration that he remains cautious of his integrity. NANS, therefore, calls on all officers of the Nigerian Police Force to cooperate with the new IGP," Amoo said. Amoo further assured Nigerians that the students body would continue to keep its monitoring eyes on the activities of relevant agencies ahead of the general elections. READ ALSO: 2019 election: Opposition parties will suffer defeat in Enugu despite burning our campaign vehicles - PDP The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mohammed, who served as the commissioner of police in Enugu state and currently the Assistant Inspector General of Police, Zone 5, was born on November 9, 1961. He enlisted in the police in 1986 and has a Bachelor Degree in Geography. Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) on Tuesday, January 15, cut a cake to celebrate the retirement of Idris. The coalitions spokesman, Imo Ugochinyere, told journalists in Abuja that the cutting of the cake was meant to symbolise the end of Idris era of shame and inglorious past. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Ugochinyere said a portion would be sent to Idris and President Muhammadu Buhari. He thereafter set agenda for whoever succeeds the IGP. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have upgraded to serve you better. Lagos Police Commissioner gives important update on MC Oluomo| - on Legit TV Source: Legit - At least, 10,000 Nigerians benefited from President Muhammadu Buhari's Restore Vision project in 12 months - Ibrahim Kana, the programme coordinator disclosed that the project had been on for the past 12 months - Kana said the surgery was sponsored by President Muhammadu Buhari in partnership with Federal Ministry of Health At least, 10,000 Nigerians benefited from the free cataract surgery by the President Muhammadu Buhari Restore Vision project in 12 months. Ibrahim Kana, the programme coordinator of the project, who disclosed this in a statement on Tuesday, January 15, in Abuja, said the project had been on for the past 12 months, NAN reports. Kana said the surgery was sponsored by President Muhammadu Buhari, the presidency and Federal Ministry of Health in conjunction with other funding partners. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda He said: The free surgery, carried out by the PMB Restores Vision Project was done under the supervision of the health minister, Isaac Adewole for 12 months. The project was done to restore the sight of those affected by cataract and unable to undergo surgeries independently due to financial challenge. The surgeries were done across the 36 states of the federation, including the FCT and on a first-come-first-serve basis. The beneficiaries of the surgery include cataract patients with visual acuity, brisk pupillary, reaction to light, no ocular infection, controlled hypertension, no diabetes, among other conditions." The programme coordinator said that as a result of the successes recorded in the first batch of the project, the exercise continued in some states of the federation. He recalled that that Governor Nasir El-rufai of Kaduna state recently launched the project in Markarfi local government area of the state. The project is also in partnership with the Ophthalmological Society of Nigeria, state eye health committees representing the state Ministries of Health and other care partners across the country. PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news update Meanwhile, Nigerian traders had benefited immensely from the nationwide Trader moni loan initiative of the federal government as more than N15 billion was reportedly disbursed to over 1.5 million petty traders. TraderMoni is a N10,000 collateral-free loan initiative for petty traders under the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programmes (GEEP), one of the Social Investment Programmes (SIPs) of the Buhari administration. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) upgrades to Legit.ng to serve its readers better. Great journalism! How Federal Government is Giving Hope to Old Nigerians Via Monthly Salary Scheme | Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - Electricity generation companies call on the federal government to address the challenges facing the power sector to avoid shutdown of power plants - The Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC) says the recent decline in power generation can be traced to the various challenges experienced by the electricity firms - APGC identifies some of the challenges in the power sector to include liquidity issues, power rejection by the electricity distribution companies and gas constraints due to the sorry state of the market Electricity generation companies (Gencos) in the country have called on the federal government to address the challenges facing them or they will be forced to shut down their power plants. The Punch reports that the threat was issued by the Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC), the umbrella body for the Gencos, on Monday, January 14. The executive secretary, APGC, Joy Ogaji, in a statement said the recent decline in power generation could be traced to the various challenges experienced by the Gencos in the electricity market. READ ALSO: Atiku, Saraki are threatening stability of Nigeria - Aisha Buharis campaign team She identified the challenges in the sector to include liquidity issues, power rejection by the electricity distribution companies and gas constraints due to the sorry state of the market. Few of the thermal power plants were out due to planned maintenance, which is allowed in the sector. The decline was not an act of rebellion by the Gencos neither was it deliberate but was beyond their control, Ogaji said. This should serve as a wake-up call to the Federal Government to the goings-on in the industry with regards to the Gencos and if the actions are not taken by the necessary agencies, Gencos will be forced to shut down business. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Ogaji said power generation capability plunged to 5,207.57 megawatts in December from 7,238.12MW in November, while average generation rose slightly to 4,162.47MW from 4,093.76MW. Available generation capability experienced a drop due to various factors such as gas constraints, ongoing maintenance by some gas suppliers and low load demand by distribution companies, which resulted in reduced generation or outage of some power plants, she stated. Afam Power Plc (Afam VI Gas/Steam), GT12, 13 and ST10 power plants were shut down for a period of about 16 days due to planned maintenance that was carried out by the gas suppliers on their facilities. Although Afam Power Plc was duly notified about the maintenance, it resulted in a reduction of Afams available generation capability from about 490MW to zero. Meanwhile, the federal ministry of power works and housing has reportedly proposed a budget of N167.96m in 2019 for the purchase, maintenance and fuelling of generators at its headquarters and various agencies. Giving a break down on how the sum is to be spent, The Punch, citing analysis of the 2019 budget proposal of the ministry, reports that the headquarters of the power ministry, set aside N26.6m for the maintenance of plants/generators, while plant/generator fuel cost was put at N16.3m. The ministry also made a budget proposal of N50m for the purchase of generators while its national rural electrification agency proposed to spend N488, 000 on the maintenance of plants and generators, while N1.55m was budgeted as fuel cost for its plants and generators. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We keep evolving to serve our readers better. Fashola EXCLUSIVE Interview: How Nigeria Can Have Uninterrupted Power Supply | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng The good news is that so far no other airline has publicly announced plans to follow Frontiers lead on tipping. But, that could easily change. Frontier is in the midst of a two-year contract dispute with its flight attendants and like restaurants the airline might view tips as a way of pushing compensation costs onto customers and off its balance sheet; other airlines may soon feel the same. Before they adopt the practice too, the Department of Transportation ought to take a more rigorous look at how tipping impacts airline cabins. Todays flight attendants, just like their forebears, are there to keep passengers safe and employers ought to reward them properly for doing so. - The NDLEA has asked a Federal High Court in Lagos to ignore the suit by Senator Buruji Kashamu to stop his extradition to the United States - The senator had filed a suit to stop security agencies from tampering with his freedom of movement - In an affidavit, NDLEA said that the US authorities had in 2015 sought for Kashamus extradition on charges relating to drug trafficking The National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has asked a Federal High Court (FHC) in Lagos to throw out the suit filed by Senator Buruji Kashamu to stop security agencies from extraditing him to the United States (US) for drug related offences. The senator in the suit tagged FHC/L/CS/930/2018 sued the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Lagos state commissioner of police (CP), NDLEA and Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), as he asked the court to stop them from investigating him or tampering with his personal freedom, The Guardian reports. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Kashamu said this to protest the invitation the NDLEA sent to the US to ask for his extradition, while also asking the judge, Chukwujekwu Aneke, to put a stop to any attempt by all the respondents to restrict his movement and declare such attempt as a breach of his personal freedom as contained in the section 35 of the constitution and article 14 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR). NDLEA, through its lawyers, J N Sunday and Ichakpa Ogoga, filed an objection to declare Kashamus suit as insufficient as it does not show how its personal rights and freedom were threatened. Also, in an affidavit, NDLEA said that the US authorities had in 2015 sought for Kashamus extradition on charges relating to drug trafficking. NDLEA also stated that the senator had filed several lawsuits since he knew about the extradition so he could stop it. The suits were under the case tags of FHC/L/CS/508/14, FHC/L/CS 508/2015, FHC/L/CS/763/2015 and FHC/L/CS/479/2015. The case was therefore postponed till Tuesday, March 5, following NDLEAs objection to stop Kashamu's suit. However, the IGP, CP and AGF were not represented because they were not served any hearing notice. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that Kashamu had been appointed as the chairman of the 42-man Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign committee of the PDP in Ogun state. Bayo Dayo, who was named as vice chairman of the committee, charged the party members to work hard in every ward to ensure victory for PDP. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! Two Ex-Govs Bag Jail Terms; Good Fight Against Corruption or Political Move? | Legit TV Source: Legit Popular on-air-personality (OAP), Daddy Freeze, has built a reputation for himself as someone who comments on social issues and criticises practices he does not agree with. The broadcaster who is known for calling out questionable church practices recently branched out of his routine to weigh into the Jeff Bezos and wife divorce saga. In the recent past, it was reported that the richest man in the world Jeff Bezos, and his wife of 25 years, MacKenzie, are set to get divorced. This raised a lot of reactions on social media seeing as their divorce can have an effect on his fortune. Another thing that got the interest of social media users is the claim that their decision to part ways is as a result of Jeff cheating on his wife with another woman. The OAP, Daddy Freeze, took to his Instagram page to explain that most Nigerian men are a lot like Bezos with a little difference. Daddy Freeze Source: UGC PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android and read the best news about Nigeria He further warned people not to attack Bezos for allegedly cheating because many of them have been cheated on. Finally, he wrote that he does not condone cheating but he hates hypocrisy more. He wrote: "In my opinion, 90 percent of Nigerian men are like Jeff Bezos. The only problem is they pray a lot more and earn substantially less. Many of the married women bashing Bezos, including wives of pastors, are probably being cheated upon right now as we speak. The sad thing is that if their husbands leave them, most wont smell 140,000 naira let alone half of a $140 billion fortune. Some of you husbands forming holy holy. Im fasting for 40days with my G Hoe while your wives and girlfriends are enjoying the taste of #Asiwaju, God himself will expose you all. I NEVER support cheating in a relationship and I dont cheat, but worse than cheating is hypocrisy, I have zero tolerance for that. So, if your husband has never cheated on you, or you have never cheated on your wife before, feel free to cast the first stone at Bezos, if not, please do the world a favor and ST*U! ~FRZ" Meanwhile Legit.ng previously reported that Daddy Freeze recently called on popular man of God, Pastor Adeboye, to explain the mandatory 40 days fasting for his church members. In a clip shared on his Instagram page, the self-proclaimed leader of the Free Nation in Christ questioned why Pastor Adeboye asked his church members to fast for 40 days when in the bible, Jesus only did so at the point he was to be tempted by the devil. He claimed that such practice is against the teachings of the scriptures which states that Jesus has overcome temptation on our behalf and suffering again is time wasting and energy zapping. READ ALSO: Personal letter from the Editor-in-Chief of Legit.ng (formerly NAIJ.com) HELLO! NAIJ.com (naija.ng) upgrades to Legit.ng We keep evolving to serve our readers better. Daddy Freeze on Nigerian Pastors and British Royals | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng New bike stations in and around downtown Chicago were far more likely to be sited where suggested than those in outlying areas: 12 percent versus 6 percent. This could be because stations on the outskirts of a system generally are used less, and so are not built as densely as cyclists might like. Albany County Attorney Peggy Trent spoke before news cameras Monday afternoon. Trent discussed the results of a grand jury investigation convened last week into the fatal shooting of 39-year-old Laramie man by a sheriffs deputy. Tel Aviv, January 3 - Three Italian security men have taken refuge in the United Nations office in Gaza, which is surrounded by Hamas security forces, Israeli military radio said Tuesday. The radio said Hamas has "doubts on their identity and suspects they are Israeli special forces in disguise". It said "they were sent by the Italian consulate in Jerusalem and while tyhey were in Gaza they refused to stop at a Hamas road block, then finding refuge in the UN office". Niamey, January 15 - Premier Giuseppe Conte said Tuesday he ws "pleased" that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had admitted "mistakes" in subjecting the EU to "hasty" austerity. "I don't change my mind according to the statements of others," Conte said, stressing that "our budget was born because we became immediately aware of the ineffectiveness of austerity policies." He said "persevering when there are adverse economic cycles means completely compressing economic systems. "Some mistakes were made, I'm pleased if they are admitted but I don't want to go into the merits of Juncker's statements". Rome, January 15 - Carabinieri police on Tuesday seized 25 lorries in an operation linked to a probe into the illegal burning of waste in Lazio, the region around Rome, in which 57 people are under investigation, sources said. The officers executed jail warrants for six of the suspects, while nine people were put under house arrest, the sources said. UPDATE: Police say they've found the child. They did not provide additional details on the incident. BUTTE - Police are concerned about a young girl's welfare. Anyone who knows Adelaide Boldt or her mother, Christina Sorensen, is asked to contact officials. From the release: "We are asking for any assistance in locating, Adelaide Boldt. Adelaide should be with her mother, Christina Sorensen. If you know Christina or her whereabouts, please contact this agency, 497-1120. We need to speak with Christina and check on the welfare of Adelaide. Thank You." Police did not provide the age or description of Adelaide or her mother. It's unclear if Sorensen is the custodial parent, or if Adelaide might be in danger. McConnell, in his statement, said he has "no tolerance" for the positions offered by King, and said "those who espouse these views are not supporters of American ideals and freedoms. Rep. King's statements are unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position. If he doesn't understand why 'white supremacy' is offensive, he should find another line of work." Erin Lambert with YWCA says 1 in 3 women in the Billings region will become victims of domestic violence, stalking, or sexual assault in their lifetime. On Monday night, the Billings City Council will decide whether or not to approve a grant for Billings Police Department's domestic violence investigation program. Lambert says domestic violence cases in Billings are more common than you would maybe believe. "People who choose to be abusive don't select just one victim. you know if that's in their pattern behavior, likely whoever comes in their path is likely to become a victim of that as well," Lambert said. Lambert says YWCA Billings has a great menu of services for anybody suffering from domestic violence. These services include counseling and therapy.They also have an attorney to help with any orders of protection or other legal matters. If you need to get away from the dangerous situation, emergency shelters and affordable housing options are also available. "It gets better. you don't deserve to be treated like that and there's help out there, you know there is a way out. I think a lot of times when victims are in that position when somebody they love is hurting them. It can be really hard to walk away," said Lambert. Lambert says 50% to 60% of women at YWCA Billings are Native American. She adds, research shows Native American women are 2.5x more likely to experience domestic violence than other women. YWCA had an advocate in Hardin to service Big Horn County. A grant for BPD to fund domestic violence investigation resources will be discussed Monday night. Lambert says BPD's domestic violence team does a fantastic job of keeping offenders accountable. "That's a great partnership and I"m really excited that they continue to receive that funding because without that piece of the puzzle we wouldn't be able to do what we do. We need the criminal justice system to help us," Lambert said. YWCA Billings also a 24-hour Help Line. That number is 406.245.4472. You can also reach their 24-hour Text Line at 406.702.545. Big Horn County YWCA can be reached at 406.679.5145. For more information you can visit YWCA at 909 Wyoming Ave or visit their website at ywcabillings.org. A man in Florida has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after he threatened to kill his neighbor with "kindness." "Kindness" is apparently what he calls his machete, according to authorities. A police report shows Stewart wrote the word "kindness" on his machete and tried to stab his neighbor with it last week. A neighbor went over to Stewart's house to tell him to keep the noise down. That neighbor said they heard Stewart yell he was going "to kill 'em with kindness," according to the report. Court documents say Stewart came out of the house with a large knife raised in an upward motion. By this time, another neighbor had shown up and stepped in front of the other to block Stewart's attempted strike. That neighbor reportedly suffered a half-inch cut on his left hand. Responding officers reported Stewart reeked of alcohol and became belligerent during his arrest, even banging his head on the police car. Stewart was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated battery of a person with a deadly weapon. He is currently being held at Santa Rosa County Jail on $10,000 bond. A structure fire in Downtown Billings more than one month ago has temporarily halted business at the offices of Habitat for Humanity. The executive director said they are stationed at temporary administrative offices in Billings and due to the amount of community support they've been receiving, they're spirits are high and it won't be long until they're back on their feet again. Jim Woolyhand said they have been receiving numerous calls asking about when the store will re-open and when the organization can start taking donations again. Woolyhand simply wants to thank the community and for their continued support throughout the last 30 days as they figure things out. He also asks that people continue to hold onto their donations because they will be asking for those donations very soon. "We're going to need to replace practically our entire inventory of items," Woolyhand said. "The majority of it was lost in the fire so we're really going to need folks to think of us when they're donating cabinets, furniture, appliances, those sorts of things. The restore is going to come back. It's going to come back bigger and stronger than ever and of course we're going to continue to do what we do best and that is raise families out of poverty housing one at a time." So the big question is when will Habitat for Humanity reopen? Woolyhand said they're hoping to have a new location by the beginning of spring, if not, sooner. The government shutdown has left nearly 800,000 federal workers without pay. Some local credit unions are offering special initiatives to help these furloughed workers during a financial strain. Billings Federal Credit Union is offering special loan programs to help their members during the shutdown. President and CEO of Billings Federal Credit Union, Tom Boos, said they have a couple hundred federal worker members who have already taken advantage of the special offers. He said the most popular initiatives are the option to skip a payment on a consumer loan, and the option for federal workers to take out a 60-day interest free loan. The government shutdown has highlighted a problem in american society. According to a 2017 survey from CareerBuilder, 78% of U.S. workers say they live paycheck to paycheck. "There's a tremendous number of people in our society that live paycheck to paycheck. It's important to help provide them with the tools when that paycheck disappears we want to be around for our members so we created the programs to help them you know, like I said keep the wolves at the door,' said Boos. Boos added, so far workers have only missed one paycheck. If the shutdown continues on to a second paycheck, the credit union will need to reevaluate some of their initiatives to help their members. Several leaders of the university's board of trustees praised Folt's decision and her tenure, and said she was acting properly to ensure security. Three board members - Vice Chairman Charles "Chuck" Duckett, Secretary Julia Grumbles and Lowry Caudill, a past chairman who is a member of the board - wrote that "nothing is more important than keeping our campus community and visitors as safe as possible. We are sincerely grateful to Chancellor Folt for her dedicated service to our great University and the State of North Carolina. When she arrived in July 2013, she brought remarkable energy and deep passion to countless initiatives that have made Carolina stronger and poised to inspire future generations of students, faculty, staff and alumni." (CNN) Australians are sweltering in temperatures as much as 12 degrees Celsius (21.6 Fahrenheit) above average after another extreme heatwave swept across the country Monday, the second in under a month. Temperatures rose above 40 C (104 F) at the weekend and the extreme weather is expected to last the week. Forecasts show all of Australia's eight states and territories are expected to be affected by the extended heatwave. "Plan to keep yourself cool, check in on family and friends and follow the advice from your local health authorities," the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said on social media. Just over two weeks ago, a brutal post-Christmas heatwave led to extreme or severe fire warnings across at least three states and intensified severe droughts across the country. One town in northwestern Australia, Marble Bar, has now had 22 consecutive days of temperatures above 40 C, at one point almost reaching 50 C (122 F). The high temperatures are taking an increasing toll on wildlife. In the Murray-Darling River Basin across the southeast, more than a million dead fish have been washed up on the banks. Niall Blair, Primary Industries Minister in New South Wales state, said more deaths of marine life are expected in coming days as temperatures continue to rise, according to local media. But environmental activists have blamed the mass deaths on poor management of the river system by state and federal governments, alleging mass consumption of water by farmers was leaving too little for fish to survive. "A lack of water in the Darling River and the Menindee Lakes means that authorities were unable to flush the system before millions of fish suffocated through a lack of oxygen in water," independent New South Wales lawmaker Jeremy Buckingham said in a statement. "This mass fish kill should be a wake up call for Australia." Australian Open competitors swelter The heatwave is forecast to continue to hit southeastern Australia, including Sydney and the rest of New South Wales, in coming days. By Friday it should have mostly eased, according to Bureau of Meteorology forecasts. It comes as the Australian Open kicked off in Melbourne at the Rod Laver Arena, in temperatures which topped 30 C (86 F). It is the second year in a row of extreme temperatures at the Grand Slam event, with some competitors collapsing or complaining of heatstroke in the 2018 event. Temperatures across the board have been higher in Australia in recent years. A report released by the Bureau of Meteorology on Thursday revealed 2018 was the country's third hottest year on record, with rainfall 11% below average. This story was first published on CNN.com, "New extreme heat wave hits Australia causing temperatures to soar." "We are going to be running at just about full capacity again this year after the pandemic last year," said Director of Idaho Falls Parks and Recreation PJ Holm. Read more Police: Man shot by security guard during disturbance outside Dream On Saloon dies at hospital "Regardless of the reason the actions were taken, we take responsibility for the fact that the processes in place were not sufficient to prevent these actions from happening," Mount Carmel President and CEO Ed Lamb said in a video statement . "We're doing everything to understand how this happened and what we need to do to ensure that it never happens again." KB Securities CEO Kim Seong-hyun, second from right, applauds during an opening ceremony for the company's Vietnam arm KB Securities Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh, Jan. 8. / Courtesy of KB Securities By Jhoo Dong-chan Vietnam has become the most favorable destination for the nation's securities firms. Five out of the top 10 domestic brokerages entered the Southeast Asian country to diversify their business portfolios as part of their efforts to overcome Korea's saturated financial market. They are not only establishing footholds in the country but also widening their business areas. Korea Investment & Securities introduced derivative products for the first time as a foreign brokerage in Vietnam. Of Korea's brokerages, Mirae Asset Daewoo is the first securities firm to have established a corporate body in Vietnam. And the securities firm has since raised capital by issuing new stocks twice. But Brown also called again on Preckwinkle to stop trying to get her off the ballot. I want to say to the Preckwinkle campaign, now is the time to step up, to do the right thing, to let the people decid and be able to vote for me or whoever they so desire to vote for, to have my name appear on the ballot, Brown said. KIRKWOOD, Mo. (KMOV.com) -- Yelp has rolled out its list of top bakeries in the United States, and one in the St. Louis area has made the top 10. (Meredith) A South Carolina lawmaker is proposing a new bill that would require high school students in the state to take a personal finance class. Under the legislation from Sen. Luke Rankin (R-Conway), the students would also need to pass a course-related exam at the end of the school year in order to graduate. The bill is currently sitting in the state Senate Education Committee. If it passes the statehouse, the South Carolina Department of Education would be tasked with developing a new curriculum for the course by July 1, 2020. The requirement would then take effect at the start of the 2020-2021 school year. According to the St. Joseph Seminary website, the archdioceses undergraduate seminary program has been located at Loyola since 1994, though the academic affiliation dates back to 1968 when the program was in Niles. After being located in a former dormitory for many years, the seminary moved into a new building in June 2012. The Herald reports: A 26-year-old woman connected to the troublesome English tourists who have left a trail of destruction in Auckland has been arrested and charged with theft in Hamilton. A police spokeswoman said the woman will be appearing in Hamilton District Court tomorrow. The group were pulled over by police in Hamilton and warned about inappropriate child restraints just hours after being served a deportation notice. What the arsehole tourists should do is claim that the English Police are corrupt and they fear for their lives if they are deported and no doubt the Minister of Immigration will grant them all permanent residency. Then they can join the lottery for a Kiwibuild house. Share this: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn More Reddit Pinterest Print Tumblr Farah Hancock at Newsroom reports: The red-fleshed apples developed by Plant and Food Researchs scientist Professor Andrew Allan and his team are so contentious theyre not allowed to eat them in New Zealand. In the end we had to take them to America. The cores were removed from the apples so no seeds were present. They were triple-bagged and sealed. Phytosanitary certificates were gained to get approval to move the apples from their glasshouse in Aucklands Mount Albert to the airport, and then on to the United States. Allan and the science team flew the precious cargo to San Francisco where a taste-testing panel of 50 people waited. Plant and Food Researchs Mount Albert glasshouse is a contained facility, with regulatory and logistical hurdles, because Allans apples are genetically modified. After six years of working on the apple he was keen to understand whether the apple was a winner or a fizzer. We had measured everything on a machine. We measured volatiles, we measured compounds and we measured vitamin C levels. We measured everything we could. Eating is banned within the glasshouse even sipping a cup of coffee is a no-no. So taking a bite of the apples within the greenhouse was out of the question. Two years spent trying to gain approval to taste-test them outside the glasshouse were unsuccessful. The only solution was to take the apples to a country where eating fresh genetically modified foods was permissible. The apples have high levels of anthocyanin in them which causes the red-flesh, and Allan wanted to know if this might make the apples bitter. The best way to test that is to eat it. The apples tasted like winners, according to Allan. The blind-folded taste-testers identified them as Royal Gala apples and rated them favourably on flavour. They took the blindfold off and they went, Wow, thats amazing. They were absolutely shocked by how wonderful it looked. One of them said, You must be rich, and one said, Where can we get these from? We want them. The Government goes on about trusting the science on climate change (which I do) but when it comes to the science on genetic engineering we have such an anti-science framework that you cant even taste a GE apple within New Zealand. In New Zealand, Sir Peter Gluckman, the former chief science advisor to the Prime Minister, finished his term with a discussion about genetic modification onTVNZs Q+A show. The science is as settled as it will be. That is, its safe, that there are no significant ecological or health concerns associated with the use of advanced genetic technologies. Note the phase the science is settled. The Greens use that phrase as holy mantra with climate change yet refuse to accept it with genetic modification. Share this: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn More Reddit Pinterest Print Tumblr (Reuters) - CVS Health Corp (CVS.N) said on Tuesday Walmart Inc (WMT.N) is leaving its network for commercial and Medicaid prescription drug plans after the two companies failed to agree on pricing. CVS said the dispute would not impact Walmarts presence in its Medicare Part D pharmacy network, which according to Cowen & Co analyst Charles Rhyee was a bright spot as it represented a larger chunk of CVS scripts. "At a time when everyone is working hard to find ways to reduce healthcare costs, Walmart's requested rates would ultimately result in higher costs for our clients and consumers," Derica Rice, president of CVS Caremark, said in a statement here However, CVS said Walmarts Sams Club division would remain within its pharmacy networks. Walmart spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said the retailer was continuing discussions with CVS Caremark, the companys pharmacy benefits unit. We are committed to providing value to our customers across our business, including our pharmacy, but we do not want to give that value to the middleman, the retailer said in emailed statement. Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) have been in the crosshairs of the U.S. administration, which in July proposed a rule that would scale back protections that allow rebates between drug manufacturers, insurers and PBMs. Since then, details of the rule have not been released. Evercore ISI analyst Ross Muken said the separation indicates continuing consolidation across the complex sector and a greater push toward narrow networks. As the dust settles, we expect further tension among the various players and large integrated players to continue to exert economic pressure on competitors, Muken wrote in a client note. Currently, less than 5 percent of affected CVS Caremark members use Walmart exclusively to fill their prescriptions, CVS said. The drug store retailer, which completed its $69 billion acquisition of health insurer Aetna last year, said it has requested Walmart to remain in its networks through April 30 and did not expect the split to impact its 2019 financial results. Shares of CVS Health fell nearly 2 percent to $63.95, while those of Walmart rose 1 percent to $95.96. Photo courtsey of shutterstock.com (Kitco News) - While Newmont Mining's (NYSE: NEM) announced mega-merger with Goldcorp (NYSE: GG, TSX: G) is once again putting the mining sector in the investment spotlight, some market heavy weights including The Streets Jim Cramer are not cheering on the deal. As news of the merger broke, Cramer, said that he preferred the Barrick-Rand (NYSE: Gold, TSX: ABX) gold deal, which closed at the end of the year, because Goldcorp has been a horrible stock to own. Its really poorly run, he said on CNBCs Squawk on the Street. Im surprised Newmont bought this stock deal. Cramer added that Goldcorp is an example of why investors are buying the physical metal or gold-backed exchange-traded funds. I dont think people realize the execution risk at a gold company is incredible, he said. You see why people on own gold. Companies seem to have a very hard time keeping their costs down. Cramer said that he liked the Barrick Gold-Randgold merger because Randgold is a growth company that is dividend-orientated and has a proven record for making deals in jurisdictions that are seen as unstable. Brent Cook, the creator of the investment newsletter Exploration Insights, described the deal as Newmont buying a used car. NEM is buying a junker in the hopes it can sell off an old transmission and tires, but there is still some gas in the tank, he said in a Twitter post. The comments came after Newmont Mining announced that it would merge with Goldcorp in a deal valued at $10 billion. The deal represents a 17% premium for Goldcorp, based on the companies 20-day volume-weighted average share prices, officials said. With the merger, Newmont is expected to regain its title as the worlds largest gold producer, which was briefly given to Barrick gold after taking over Randgold. While some analysts have said that mega-mergers like the Barrick-Randgold deal and Newmont-Goldcorp deal create some optimism for precious metals prices and the mining sector, others have said they are worried about the impact these deal with have on Canadas long mining history. At the start of the year, Pierre Lassonde, former Newmont vice chairman, said in an interview with the Canadian Newspaper, Globe and Mail that Peter Munk, the founder of Barrick Gold, would be rolling over in his grave at the turn of events. In a comment to Kitco News, Frank Holmes, CEO of U.S. Global Investors echoed Lassondes sentiment. These two deals are not good for Canada, said Holmes. They are net flows out. First Randgold then Newmont. The offices in Toronto and Vancouver will shrink. The 16-year-old boy is charged with felony aggravated battery and mob action, according to police. Hes the fifth person charged in the attack about 7:15 p.m. Dec. 29 at the Chicago Avenue station on the Red Line, according to police. At least one adult, Michael Sardin, 18, and three other teenage boys, two age 15 and one age 16, have been charged in connection with the incident, according to authorities. (Kitco News) - Gold prices are mildly lower in early U.S. trading Tuesday, as higher world stock markets have traders and investors in upbeat moods. A firmer U.S. dollar index today is also working against the precious metals market bulls. February gold futures were last down $1.70 an ounce at $1,289.70. March Comex silver was down $0.061 at $15.625 an ounce. European and Asian stock markets were mostly firmer overnight. U.S. stock indexes are pointed to just slightly higher openings when the New York day session begins. The global equities markets were boosted overnight in part on news Chinas central bank said it will act to stimulate the worlds second-largest economy via tax cuts, more credit availability to smaller companies and infrastructure spending. This news follows some very weak import and export data reported by China on Monday. However, weak economic numbers coming from Germany, the work horse of the European Union, did dampen enthusiasm among traders and investors in Europe. Germanys gross domestic product in 2018 was today reported up 1.5% versus up 2.2% in 2017. The 2018 GDP reading was the lowest in five years. China is Germanys biggest trading partner. U.S. stock indexes backed down from their overnight highs when JP Morgan early this morning announced disappointing earnings results. Brexit is back on the front burner of the marketplace this week. Voters in the U.K. later today are likely to reject Prime Minister Theresa Mays latest Brexit plan, which could put the entire Brexit situation into serious turmoil. Such would likely prompt Europeans to seek out safe-haven assets such as gold. The U.S. government partial shutdown is the longest on record. The matter is not a serious drag on the marketplace, but many markets are lacking normal economic reports to drive their daily price action, which is causing uncertainty and some anxiety amid the dearth of news, which is generally bearish for those impacted markets. The important outside markets today see the U.S. dollar index higher. The index remains in a near-term price downtrend. Meantime, Nymex crude oil prices are higher and trading just above $51.00 a barrel. U.S. economic data due for release Tuesday includes the weekly Johnson Redbook and Goldman Sachs retail sales reports, the producer price index, the Empire State manufacturing survey, and the IDB/TIPP economic optimism index. There are also several Federal Reserve officials slated to give speeches today. Technically, the gold bulls have the overall near-term technical advantage. Prices are in a two-month-old uptrend on the daily bar chart. Bulls next upside price objective is to produce a close in February futures above solid resistance at $1,300.00. Bears' next near-term downside price breakout objective is pushing prices below solid technical support at $1,260.00. First resistance is seen at Mondays high of $1,296.60 and then at the January high of $1,300.40. First support is seen at the overnight low of $1,286.50 and then at last weeks low of $1,280.20. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.5 March silver futures bulls have the overall near-term technical advantage. A two-month-old uptrend is in place on the daily bar chart. Silver bulls' next upside price breakout objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at $16.00 an ounce. The next downside price breakout objective for the bears is closing prices below solid support at $15.00. First resistance is seen at last weeks high of $15.88 and then at the January high of $15.955. Next support is seen at last weeks low of $15.56 and then at $15.385. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.0. The amount of gold held by global exchange-traded funds is up so far in 2019, while silver ETFs have posted outflows, says BMO Capital Markets. Gold held in physically backed ETFs has now risen by 1.1% YTD [year to date], reflecting the ongoing portfolio rotation towards gold, BMO says. This represents 805,000 ounces of metal. In contrast, the year to date has seen 4.57 million ounces of silver ETF outflows, including an 887koz outflow yesterday. With silver prices outperforming YTD, this does point to the potential return of retail buyers to the silver market. By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com David Morgan: Gold Will Do OK This Year David Morgan, publisher of the Morgan Report, looks for gold to fare well in 2019. It should be a pretty good year for us, but not spectacular, Morgan says. There are a lot more favorable aspects to the gold market than the last several years because of the stock market falling off, more uncertainty onwhere were going, and the debt problems. Gold will do OK this year. By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com Commerzbank: Brexit Vote Fueling U.K. Demand For Gold Gold demand in the U.K. is picking up ahead of a vote in Parliament later Tuesday that is expected to result in a defeat for Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal, says Commerzbank. A large majority is expected to reject the deal, which should benefit gold as a safe haven, Commerzbank says. Because of the vote, the Royal Mint in Great Britain envisages high demand for gold coins in January, for example, reporting that coin sales since the start of the year are already 73% up year-on-year. Sales apparently soared the day after the vote was postponed in December. However, the bank adds, the expected defeat of the Brexit deal does not necessarily mean that sterling will depreciate or that gold in sterling terms will rise. Considerable price fluctuations will presumably ensue if the deal is either rejected with a very significant majority or if it is unexpectedly approved after all, Commerzbank says. By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com TDS: Commodities May Move Higher Later In Year TD Securities looks for gold and industrial precious metals to eventually do better, along with the commodity complex as a whole. Analysts note that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has hinted at a more patient approach to any further monetary tightening. Further, China may become more aggressive in stimulus. Still, with further weakness in global economic data likely, TDS says it is cautious on commodities for now. However, with the Fed turning pragmatic, the additional Chinese stimulus on the horizon and the wild card of a potential U.S.-China trade deal, we think the balance of risks have shifted to the upside, TDS says. The market may be shifting to an approach of buying the dips in commodities, TDS continues. Indeed, our general view that markets are overreacting to global growth worries leads us to favor commodities that have been beaten down, TDS says. Crude oil, copper, zinc and platinum all have good prospects given that they possess a strong underlying fundamental outlook. Gold could pull back on easing of pessimistic global growth worries, TDS says. However, we think the Fed will remain on pause, with only one or two hikes for 2019, as the U.S. continues to slow with the fiscal stimulus boost in the rearview, TDS says. A more accommodative Fed, flatter yield curve and deteriorating U.S. economic data later in the year should all conspire to see the yellow metal join the commodities complex on an upward trajectory later in the year. BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The only positive solution after the British parliament decisively rejected an agreement on withdrawal from the EU negotiated by Prime Minister Theresa May is for Britain to stay in the EU, the chairman of EU leaders Donald Tusk said on Tuesday. Lawmakers defeated Mays Brexit divorce deal by a crushing margin, triggering political upheaval that could lead to a disorderly exit from the EU or even to a reversal of the 2016 decision to leave. If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is? Tusk tweeted after the vote. (Reuters) - All the banks under the European Central Banks oversight will receive a target date by when they will have to fully cover their stock of impaired loans, a source familiar with the situation said on Tuesday. The target date will be over the medium term and differ from lender to lender, the source said. Writing by Francesca Landini, editing by Silvia Aloisi Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication. LONDON (Reuters) - British lawmakers defeated Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit divorce deal by a crushing margin on Tuesday, triggering political upheaval that could lead to a disorderly exit from the EU or even to a reversal of the 2016 decision to leave. Parliament voted 432-202 against her deal, the worst parliamentary defeat for a government in recent British history. Scores of her own lawmakers - both Brexiteers and supporters of EU membership - joined forces to vote down the deal. With the clock ticking down to March 29, the date set in law for Brexit, the United Kingdom is now ensnared in the deepest political crisis in half a century as it grapples with how, or even whether, to exit the European project that it joined in 1973. Mays crushing loss, the first British parliamentary defeat of a treaty since 1864, marks the collapse of her two-year strategy of forging an amicable divorce with close ties to the EU after the March 29 exit. The Brexit deal is basically dead, said Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs at Kings College London. The EU and British lawmakers will consider the deal dead, so the UK will have no Brexit policy and no viable alternative to the Brexit policy, Menon said. After repeatedly refusing to resign or to countenance another referendum, May will make a statement shortly. Her options include setting course for a no-deal exit, brinkmanship to try to secure concessions from the EU, a delay to Brexit, resignation, an election or a referendum. CROSSROADS Ever since Britain voted by 52-48 percent to leave the EU in a referendum in June 2016, the political class has been debating how to leave the European project forged by France and Germany after the devastation of World War Two. While the country is divided over EU membership, most agree that the worlds fifth largest economy is at a crossroads and that its choices over Brexit will shape the prosperity of future generations. Before the vote, May had warned pro-Brexit lawmakers that if her plan was rejected, it was more likely that Britain would not leave the EU at all than that it would leave without a deal. She has also warned fellow Conservatives not to let the opposition Labour Party seize control of Brexit. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, hoping to force an election, is expected to call a parliamentary vote of no confidence in Mays government. Supporters of EU membership cast Brexit as a gigantic mistake that will undermine the West, smash Britains reputation as a stable destination for investment and slowly weaken Londons position as a global capital. Many opponents of Brexit hope Mays defeat will ultimately lead to another referendum on EU membership, though Brexiteers say that thwarting the will of the 17.4 million who voted for Brexit could radicalize much of the electorate. Brexit supporters cast leaving as a way to break free from a Union they see as overly bureaucratic and fast falling behind the leading economic powers of the 21st century, the United States and China. TORONTO, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Two recent large M&A deals in the gold sector have prompted speculation that Newcrest Mining, Kinross Gold Corp and B2Gold Corp may be among the next gold companies to combine with a rival, bankers and analysts said. On Monday, Newmont Mining announced a $10 billion takeover of Goldcorp Inc, close on the heels of Barrick Gold's purchase of Randgold Resources. Deal-making had largely been dormant in the gold sector in recent years, as companies focused on cutting costs amid investor criticism of inadequate management of capital. But the need to bolster shrinking gold reserves to boost growth and take advantage of rising gold prices are now providing the impetus for consolidation. "There are potential benefits to consolidation and gold miners that can generate returns above cost of capital will likely be rewarded over time," Chris LaFemina, an equity analyst at Jefferies, wrote in a note on Monday. Gold producers who have good assets but face stagnant growth are seeking to partner with well-run companies, according to bankers and analysts. Eyes are on Australia's Newcrest, capitalised at around 18 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion), a banker close to the Newmont-Goldcorp deal said. A buyout of a North American miner could improve Newcrest's valuation by offering a dual listing, said Andy Forster, portfolio manager at Argo Investments in Sydney. "They have got some organic growth, but ... being listed out here they are probably overlooked a little bit by North American (investors)." Brenton Saunders, an analyst with Sydney-based fund manager Pendal Group, said Newcrest was more likely a buyer than a target. "My sense is they want to buy something - not small, but manageable - more of a single asset somewhere in the Americas." Newcrest spokesman Chris Maitland told Reuters, "If we can see an asset where we can ... use one of our competitive advantages to increase the value of that asset, that's how we'd approach M&A." Newcrest, which has expertise in a type of mining called blockcaving, is vying with BHP Group as major stakeholders in Ecuador's SolGold. TIE-UP POTENTIAL Canadian miner Kinross and AngloGold Ashanti, based in South Africa, are among the gold producers that could combine with other companies, analysts and bankers said. "If you do a list of who has high-cost assets, those are the guys who have to make deals," another person close to the Newmont-Goldcorp deal said. Kinross did not immediately respond to a request for comment. AngloGold Ashanti could not be reached outside business hours. Kinross needs to focus on replacing depleted assets, and would likely hone in on North America if it were to do a deal, analysts at Scotiabank wrote in November. Vancouver-based B2Gold, which has operations in Africa, South America and the Philippines, could be a target because of its strong growth profile, said sector watchers, including PI Financial's Chris Thompson, who has a "buy" rating on the stock. B2Gold did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The acquirer would likely be a company that has operational expertise in the jurisdictions B2Gold operates in, particularly West Africa, which offers the best growth prospects for the company, Thompson said. ($1 = 1.3875 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Nichola Saminather; additional reporting by Clara Denina in LONDON John Tilak in TORONTO, Harry Brumpton in NEW YORK and Melanie Burton in MELBOURNE; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Richard Pullin) Nearly five years ago came our 24 May 2014 piece entitled "Gold in Neverland" wherein we bemoaned that for "...26 of the last 28 trading days (better than a month), Gold has traded in the 1290s...", its never having been able to materially escape said 10-point zone -- hence the name Neverland -- and its then being nicknamed The Whiny 1290s. Thus far for 2019 with eight trading days in the books, Gold's settle yesterday (Friday) at 1288 finds price up 3 points for the year, just less than one quarter of one percent. The good news is that Gold is at least trading (barely) above The Box (1240-1280), albeit still not sufficiently so (as stated a week ago) to morph that 40-point swath from resistance to support. The bad news is that -- save for trading (barely) in the 1300s for 16 minutes early in the 04 January session, Gold for the most part has thus far made its New Year's home back in The Whiny 1290s, indeed having therein traded at some point for all eight days year-to-date. Great. Wake me up when we leave this state. And the above Gold Scoreboard which always "tells it like it is" --(Howard Cosell) in citing price rather than change puts it stark in our face: Gold's price is above where 'twas at this time both two and three years ago and is below where 'twas one year ago. Nuthin' but status quo. And yet throughout, the driver of debasement -- our M2 money supply -- continues its ascent such that Gold by all rights today "ought be" priced at 2876 "...tick...tick...tick...tick...tick..." To be sure the 3Ds of Debasement, Debt and Derivatives ain't givin' back any ground. At an impromptu locker room gathering this past Thursday with a few of our Investors Roundtable members, one whilst lumbering past poised for a moment and with towel in hand adroitly pointed a firm finger at an image on the big screen television of Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Powell and said: "How dare they talk about the debt when they created it!" Brings to mind that Dire Straits lyric from back in '85: "...easy money for nothin'...". But today, $20 trillion in unrepayable debt is sompthin'. Pointing a finger as well is the global head of sovereign ratings over at Fitch, James McCormack, essentially telling the U.S. government to get fully back to work by February's end, else the rating of AAA may lose an A. Okay. As for Gold's revisiting Neverland, 'tis not altering our conservative forecast high for this year of 1434. Moreover, Jeffrey Currie's gang over at Goldman Sachs is predicting a high only nine points shy of ours at 1425: Goldman being Goldman, they just want to be right first, (although a valued reader wrote in that Goldman being Goldman carries a 50% chance that they'll be wrong). As long as the fees keep a-churnin', eh? Still with respect to The Whiny 1290s, 'tis the overall 1200 "handle" (trader talk for all prices in the 1200s) that has been a-churnin'. To wit: we've updated the following animated chart of Gold's 100-handle closing prices as grouped by the number of days per handle. Last presented as of 18 August 2017, look via the animation at how the 1200 handle days have increased from both then and overall from Gold's All-Time Closing High: More importantly, we again emphasize how little trading there has been in the 1400 and 1500 handles. That is why we've a conservative forecast for reaching a resistance structure at 1434, but if price can bust up through it, the door then opens to aggressively fly up to the next resistance area at 1526. 'Course, that's all moot if Gold can't first recapture Base Camp 1377 for which the last two material attempts were failures. As for Gold's weekly bars, the parabolic Long trend of ascending blue dots is accelerating higher, the flip point for the Short trend now nearly centered in The Box at 1255. With 18 weeks of duration, this Long trend stands alone as the seventh "longest" millennium-to-date; (the record is 26 weeks). The rightmost bar is referred to by technicians as an "inside week" per its having a higher low and a lower high: such hesitation is a sign of the trend running out of puff. After all, 'tis The Whiny 1290s: Meanwhile as we return to the still-declining Economic Barometer -- which was not helped this past week by slowing in the Institute for Supply Management's Services reading for December, nor by the month's Consumer Price Index actually going backward -- we nonetheless therein see a bouncing S&P. We're still seeking the full 27% correction for the Index of the mighty 500 stocks ultimately down to 2154 from the 22 September all-time high of 2940, (and as previously noted, reaching thus far as low as 2347 marks 75% of that journey). But as for the bounce, for you Fibonacci Freaks out there, your 62.8% Golden Ratio retracement (off that recent 2347 low) would bring up the Index (presently 2596) to 2713, right about at kitty's mouth: In fact, we put on a wry smile this past week when we heard of the rather antiquated "January Effect" (for rising stock prices) being dragged out of the closet. Back in L.A. during '76 at U$C (The University of $poiled Children) and armed with our trusty HP-22 financial calculator, we did enough extensive research on the "January Effect" such that the resulting term paper carried us through three classes, the "get rich quick" scheme amazing students and professors alike. 'Course someone else then published a book on it and the whole thing fizzled. As my dear "founding reader" (J.G.S.) of The Gold Update once quipped: "I don't invest in trading systems because they only work for a while." May the S&P's correction thus continue. As for the balance of other economies, on the heels of slowing growth for the United Kingdom's Gross Domestic Product, Parliamentarians are on their toes for Tuesday's Big Brexit Vote. Germany's economy shows slowing as well, as China's waning persists. But for those of you at the top, fear not: the automobile analysts in the pits at Bank of America Merrill Lynch have put Ferrari on pole position. Order yours today and arrive in style in a week's time at Davos. Speaking of an alpine clime is the climb of the precious metals' "Baby Blues" from some two months ago-to-date. Below for both Gold on the left and Silver on the right their respective blue dot tracks both extended above the +80% axes several weeks ago in thus confirming consistent uptrends, with prices having since further risen. Indeed from Gold's low of 1197 two months ago, price's run up to 1300 marks an 8.6% increase and Silver's run from 13.86 up to 15.95 a 15.1% increase. Practically double-the-pleasure with Sister Silver and yet the Gold/Silver ratio today remains at an extremely high reading of 82.3x. As for you Equities Enthusiasts out there, across the same stretch the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners exchange-traded fund (GDX) and the Global X Silver Miners exchange-traded fund (SIL) both rose 17%. Mind those Baby Blues (you can see 'em updated each day on the website) for should they accelerate near-term below the +80% level, there's really not much built-in structure support for Gold down to 1257 nor for Silver down to 14.90: You can see near-term underlying support falling away as well in the 10-day Market Profiles for Gold ( below left ) and Silver ( below right ), prices in both cases having departed from the top of their respective Profiles to now sit just below their most dominate resistors, those being 1290 for the yellow metal and 15.70 for the white metal: Still, The Whiny 1290s notwithstanding, Gold's move up from its November depths has in turn placed current price a bit higher in the stack: The Gold Stack Gold's Value per Dollar Debasement, (from our opening "Scoreboard"): 2876 Golds All-Time High: 1923 (06 September 2011) The Gateway to 2000: 1900+ Golds All-Time Closing High: 1900 (22 August 2011) The Final Frontier: 1800-1900 The Northern Front: 1750-1800 On Maneuvers: 1579-1750 The Floor: 1466-1579 Le Sous-sol: Sub-1466 Base Camp: 1377 The 1360s Double-Top: (1362 in Sep '17 and 1369 in Apr '18) 2019's High: 1300 (04 January) 10-Session directional range: up to 1300 (from 1277) = +23 points or +1.8% Neverland: The Whiny 1290s Trading Resistance: 1290 / 1297 Gold Currently: 1288, (expected daily trading range ["EDTR"]: 12 points) 10-Session volume-weighted average price magnet: 1288 Trading Support: 1286 / 1282 2019's Low: 1278 (also on 04 January) The 300-Day Moving Average: 1272 and rising The Weekly Parabolic Price to flip Short: 1255 The Box: 1240-1280 Neverland indeed. Recall the title for the 1983 remake of the original 1965 film "Thunderball"? "It was 'Never Say Never Again', mmb." Exactly right Squire. And 'twas one of the very few film remakes that used the same fine actor (i.e. Sean Connery) in the starring role. When Gold's price broke above Neverland (The Whiny 1290s) during 2016, we'd hoped that 'twould never be in Neverland again. We'd again hoped for same during 2017's upside price breakout. And yet again during same in 2018. But in all three material instances price instead came back down below Neverland, each time with the same bad actors (i.e. the "shorts") milling about. Now through these first two weeks of 2019, price again is dawdling about in Neverland. But even with potential near-term price weakness aside, a retake then of Base Camp 1377 followed by the scoot up to our 1434 forecast high and we'll hope for Gold that 'twill never be in Neverland again ! Cheers! Kingstree, SC (29556) Today Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 62F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 62F. Winds light and variable. WASHINGTON (AP) Republicans are dialing up the pressure on Rep. Steve King, with one GOP leader suggesting Tuesday that the nine-term Iowan leave Congress after the latest in a string of what she called his "racist" comments. "I'd like to see him find another line of work," Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-highest Republican in the House, told reporters. It was the most explicit call from a senior Republican for King to leave and the latest GOP effort to inspire him to quit over his quote in The New York Times last week questioning how white nationalism and white supremacy became offensive terms. Republicans looking to avoid worsening the party's relationship with blacks and minorities quickly condemned King's remarks as racist. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., wrote an op-ed saying that any GOP silence in the face of King's remarks would be a blemish on the party and the nation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky condemned King. And tellingly, Republicans refused to say whether they support King's re-election effort. On Monday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced that King would not be given any committee assignments, the prized seats at the policy table where lawmakers represent their constituents. King served on the Agriculture, Small Business and Judiciary committees in the last Congress, and he chaired Judiciary's subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice. King vowed to "continue to point out the truth and work with all the vigor that I have to represent 4th District Iowans for at least the next two years." House Democrats moved to formally punish King. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the third-ranking House Democrat and the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, introduced a formal resolution of disapproval late Monday. Addressing what he called "a tale of two kings," Clyburn said the Iowa lawmaker's remarks were offensive because they embraced evil concepts. Invoking the memory of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. whose 90th birthday is Tuesday Clyburn called on colleagues from both parties "to join me in breaking the deafening silence and letting our resounding condemnation be heard." But other Democrats were pushing for a stronger punishment, censure. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., said he will not vote for Clyburn's resolution because it's not strong enough. Rush said his own censure resolution would announce to the world that Congress has no home for "repugnant and racist behavior." "As with any animal that is rabid, Steve King should be set aside and isolated," Rush said Monday in a statement that also called on Republicans to strip King of his committee memberships until he apologizes. A third Democrat, Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, introduced a separate censure resolution against King. "It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican, we all have a responsibility to call out Rep. King's hateful and racist comments," Ryan said, noting that the white supremacy comments were not the first time King has made headlines for inappropriate language. They all returned to a long string of King's remarks that have drawn rebukes. The text of Rush's censure resolution lists more than a dozen examples of King's remarks, beginning with comments in 2006 in which he compared immigrants to livestock and ending with his lamentation in the New York Times last week that white supremacy and white nationalism have become offensive terms. McConnell, in his statement, said he has "no tolerance" for the positions offered by King, and said "those who espouse these views are not supporters of American ideals and freedoms. Rep. King's statements are unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position. If he doesn't understand why 'white supremacy' is offensive, he should find another line of work." One Republican did not join the chorus of criticism. Asked about King's remarks Monday, President Donald Trump said, "I haven't been following it." King on Friday suggested he's been misunderstood. He said on the House floor that the interview with the Times was in part a "discussion of other terms that have been used, almost always unjustly labeling otherwise innocent people. The word racist, the word Nazi, the word fascist, the phrase white nationalists, the phrase white supremacists." King said he was only wondering aloud: "How did that offensive language get injected into our political dialogue? Who does that, how does it get done, how do they get by with laying labels like this on people?" King's position in the GOP had been imperiled even before his remarks about white supremacy. Shortly before the 2018 midterm elections, in which King was running, Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, then the head of the GOP campaign committee, issued an extraordinary public denunciation of him. King has already drawn a primary challenger for the 2020 election: Randy Feenstra, a GOP state senator. Feenstar said Monday, "Sadly, today, the voters and conservative values of our district have lost their seat at the table because of Congressman King's caustic behavior." ___ Follow Kellman and Daly on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/APLaurieKellman and http://twitter.com/MatthewDalyWDC MASON CITY, Iowa Prosecutors reach a plea deal with a man accused of asking two people if they wanted to get shot. McKinley Dudley Jr., 60 of Mason City, was arrested after police say he threatened a male and female in September 2018 with what appeared to be a gun. Officers say Dudley demanded the two empty their pockets and bags and then took cigarettes from them. After taking his victims to an apartment complex where he lived, police say Dudley let them go. He was charged with 2nd degree robbery but pleaded guilty to 1st degree harassment. Dudley has been sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to get a substance abuse and mental health evaluation. In his mind, he thought he was going to be a good swimmer and swim across the river, said Officer Alejandro Rosiles, one of the officers who pulled the man to safety. ASHLAND TOWNSHIP, Minn. A two-vehicle accident in Dodge County sends one person to the hospital. It took place Monday at the interchange of Highway 14 and Highway 56 around 4:18 pm. The Minnesota State Patrol says Michael Andrew Ingalls, 52 of Rochester, was driving north on Highway 56 and struck the minivan driven by Harry Charles Marquardt, 89 of Dodge Center, as it left Highway 14 and tried to turn south onto 56. A passenger in Marquardts vehicle, Arlinda Julie Marquardt, 65 of Dodge Center, suffered what is described as a non-life threatening injury and was taken to St. Marys Hospital. The drivers were not harmed. All three were wearing their seat belts. The Dodge County Sheriffs Office and Kasson Police Department assisted at the scene. The State Patrol says conditions were icy when the crash occurred. FOREST CITY, Iowa A North Iowa trial is set in the theft of some pigs. David Cortez Jr., 35 of Lake Mills, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 1st degree theft and 3rd degree burglary. Hes accused of working with Robert Lee Morales, 20 of San Benito, Texas, to steal 150 pigs from Christensen Farms in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, in early November 2017. Robert Morales Robert Morales The Winnebago County Sheriffs Office says it found about 50 pigs in a snowmobile trailer in Thompson on November 5, 2017. When law enforcement returned to the scene, the pigs and two other vehicles were gone. Authorities says one of the vehicles belonged to Cortez and he was borrowing the other. Court documents say there is video of a vehicle belonging to Morales and a trailer belonging to Cortez at the site where the pigs were stolen. Cortez trial is scheduled to begin on April 10 in Winnebago County District Court. Morales has already pleaded guilty to 1st degree theft. His sentencing is set for January 29. DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) Iowa would no longer bar former felons from voting after they complete their sentences and would ensure that crime victims be told of major status changes involving prisoners who wronged them under constitutional amendments proposed Tuesday by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. Reynolds used her first Condition of the State speech since being elected to a full term to outline some major policy goals, including several that would affect current and former prisoners. Iowa and Kentucky are the only two states that bar former felons from voting unless the governor grants their requests to restore their rights. Florida voters removed a similar ban in November. Reynolds said she has restored the voting rights of 88 felons since taking office in May 2017, when Republican Terry Branstad left office to be ambassador to China, and that she wants to lift the state constitution's automatic ban on ex-felons voting. "I don't believe that voting rights should be forever stripped, and I don't believe restoration should be in the hands of a single person," she said. "I believe Iowans recognize the power of redemption; let's put this issue in their hands." House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Steven Holt said his committee is willing to consider the proposal. "I actually respect the governor for wanting to do this right," he said. "It's one of the governor's priorities, so obviously we'll take a really good hard look at it when it gets to us." Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack restored voting rights automatically through an executive order in 2005, but Branstad reversed that order with his own in 2011. Holt said those orders wrongly circumvented the state constitution. Reynolds, who will work with a Republican-led Legislature, also proposed a new program in which inmates at the Newton Correctional Facility will build homes that can be moved to rural Iowa communities that need them. The inmates will receive training they can use to get jobs after they're freed, she said. "There are few things as powerful as the joy of someone who got a second chance and found their purpose," she said. Reynolds also called for a constitutional amendment that would protect crime victims' rights, including ensuring they be notified if a prisoner who victimized them escapes or is due for release. "Like 36 other states have done, let's send victims a loud and clear message: We will protect you," she said. To amend the Iowa Constitution, the Legislature must pass a bill in consecutive two-year sessions before voters back it in a referendum. Reynolds' budget request includes $93 million more in funding for education, $20 million for her Future Ready Iowa job-training program and $20 million over two years for faster rural broadband internet service. She also called for the creation of a Center for Rural Revitalization within the Iowa Economic Development Authority that would focus on renovating buildings and improving infrastructure in small towns' business districts. Reynolds is asking for more money from lawmakers for home- and community-based children's mental health services and plans to introduce a bill that would create a children's mental health care system that will work in tandem with the adult system. She also proposed funding for four additional psychiatric residencies for doctors committed to practicing in rural Iowa. Senate Democratic Leader Janet Petersen said she agrees with Reynolds that it's time for the governor and others to deliver on their promises to fully fund mental health, rural revitalization and job training programs. "When we can work with Republicans, we will. Our goal this session is to keep focused on improving the lives of everyday Iowans," she said. ROCHESTER, Minn. It wasnt long ago over 100 Samoyeds were rescued from unhealthy living conditions in Manly, Iowa. According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, an inspection and rescue like this cant happen while the government is shutdown. It means puppy mills cant be investigated or inspected, and basic needs like access to food and water are in jeopardy for dogs at breeding facilities. It's sad, it's just sad all the way around. Everything they have to investigate that's a potential issue is just sitting, Brooke Rice, a former veterinarian technician and now dog groomer, said. And her feelings are not far off. The rescue of the Samoyeds in Iowa was after a year of investigation, so any similar situations havent been worked on during the 25 days of the shutdown. The government shutdown is also impacting horse soring, wild horses, and luckily will not have too much of an impact to the humane treatment of farm animals heading to get slaughtered. To learn more on how animals are impacted, click here. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa A federal trial is set for a North Iowa man arrested with drugs and a gun. Frank Salvador Alvarado, 47 of Mason City, was arrested in September 2018 after a search of his home on North Jersey Avenue. Law enforcement says Alvarado was found with 30 grams of methamphetamine and a loaded handgun. State charges against him were dismissed when Alvarado was accused in Cedar Rapids Federal Court with conspiracy to distribute meth, possession with intent to distribute meth, two counts of distributing meth, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. Federal prosecutors say Alvarado, who has a prior felony drug conviction in Illinois, operated as a drug dealer in north Iowa from the spring of 2018 until his arrest. His trial is due to begin on March 25. DES MOINES, Iowa - Education is a top issue during this 88th General Assembly at the Iowa State Capitol. Sharon Meyer is a former teacher, and was most recently a teacher at Mason City High School. She's seen a decrease in funding for education, as well as seeing educated people leaving the state for more work opportunities, and is glad to see education on the front burner. "I don't think it's really kept pace with the cost that has been incurred by school districts, so that's a big issue with me." "If we want to retain a skilled citizenship in the state of Iowa rather than having people leave the state to go to larger cities and other parts of the country, we're going to have to demonstrate that we care about the state of education." State Representative Sharon Steckman is clear about what she wants to see happen. "The SAVE, the sales tax for schools, to get that extended. They need that for building and their long term planning. School funding is another issue I'd like to see dealt with right away." In Ireland it is predicted that there will be 1.4 million people aged 65 and over by 2041, with this age group making up 22 per cent of the total population. With this in mind, Age Friendly Ireland are at the forefront of building Age Friendly societies and Kilkenny has been involved in the process of becoming an Age Friendly county since 2010. This has involved consulting with older adults and developing a countywide strategy and action plan in response to needs identified in areas linked to social inclusion, transportation, housing, employment, community supports, health services and communications amongst others. This week, a new programme was launched which will specifically focus on encouraging all Kilkenny city and county based retailers and service businesses to become accredited Age Friendly businesses. Kilkenny Chamber of Commerce President, Marion Acreman, explains that becoming an Age Friendly business isn't just the right thing to do - it's also good for business. She went on to say that there are over 1 million people aged 55 plus living and shopping in Ireland and older customers often have more time to shop, show greater loyalty towards local businesses and typically outspend younger customers. All customer facing businesses across Kilkenny city and county are invited to sign up to the Age Friendly Business Recognition Programme for free. Participating businesses are required to nominate an Age Friendly Champion to undergo a short online training course, attend an Age Friendly Workshop, consult with customers, and implement three Age Friendly actions. Research shows that many simple, and often zero or low cost practices, can make shopping and doing business generally much easier for older customers. Examples include making your business easier to find, enter and move around within, using larger fonts on print materials and signage or having designated Age Friendly parking. Having successfully completed the programme, Age Friendly accredited businesses can display their certification and accreditation window sticker at their business premises and will also be listed on agefriendlyireland.ie Sign up before Thursday January 31 by contacting Kilkenny Chamber of Commerce on 056 7752767 or by emailing admin@kilkennychamber.ie Saturday, January 26 in The Clubhouse Hotel are a date and venue to remember for traditional music lovers. The 12th annual concert run by the Kilkenny Uilleann Pipers Club sees a mix of the best local and national traditional musicians take to the stage. Presenter of RTEs Rolling Wave programme, Peter Browne is one of Irelands finest uilleann pipers, he has played with The Bothy Band, Paul Brady, Mary Black, The Dubliners, Maura OConnell and the RTE Concert Orchestra. In 2004, Edel Fox was awarded one of the highest honours for a traditional musician in Ireland the TG4 Young Musician of the Year award. She is a regular performer on Irish National Radio and the BBC. In 2015 Edel partnered with renowned Waterford fiddle player Neill Byrnes to release their first CD The Sunny Banks. The two will be joined by legendary Cork born Fiddle player John Dwyer. A measure of the esteem in which John is held is that for the last four years Waterford has hosted the John Dwyer Trad Weekend, the only traditional music festival in Ireland named after a living musician. Kilkenny musicians: Tommy Lanigan (bodhran and vocals) and Paddy Cleere banjo and bazouki will play along with Colm OCuiv (guitar and vocals) and local piping legends John Touhey and Mick Foley. Rounding up the line-up will be local band Reel to Reel who play a mix of traditional and contemporary music. Two of the original line-up, Dave Prim (RIP) and Michael Mog OGrady are no longer with the band while Martin Coughlan, Billy Carrigan, Billy Barron, James Rice, Adrian Jackson, Frank OBrien and Frank Salmon will take to the stage. The concert is on in the Clubhouse Hotel on Saturday January 26 at 9pm. Tickets at 15 at The Clubhouse Hotel, all proceeds go to Kilkenny Uilleann Pipers Club. FERNDALE, Wash. - Logan, a German Shepard puppy who went viral for his bucket list after being diagnosed with Pulmonic Valve Dysplasia, has died. The request was filed hours after Burke waived his right to a preliminary hearing to determine whether there was probable cause for the criminal complaint unveiled against him Jan. 3. The procedural move canceled a hearing that had been set for Friday and means there is no current court date for Burkes case. EUGENE, Ore. -- A Eugene man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to three counts of second-degree robbery. Police said Eamonn Isaiah Martinez-Wenzl, 36, was involved in five robberies. He will pay restitution on all the charges. RELATED: Eugene police arrest U.S. Bank robbery suspect Martinez-Wenzl was arrested after a robbery at the U.S. Bank on Royal Avenue on July 16. Police identified Martinez-Wenzl as a suspect in the crime and contacted him near his residence, where they took him into custody. EUGENE, Ore. -- With marijuana still illegal on the federal level, some businesses cant take their money to the bank. KEZI 9 News talked to Oregon Pacific Bank President and CEO Ron Green to learn more. Why cant I deposit money from my marijuana business? In Oregon, the relationship between the banking and marijuana industries is often on the minds of people in local banking organizations. As banks that offer federal deposited insurance have to abide by federal laws, most are waiting until the federal government takes a stance on the legality of marijuana, Green said. So even though marijuana is legal in the state, most banks will not accept deposits from marijuana businesses because of the current federal position. Green said the farm bill that was passed recently will provide the hemp industry with access to banking very soon. He said he expects the state of Oregon to pass laws and provide guidance on how to do that. However, the direct marijuana industry will remain prohibited. If you have a banking or finance question from Green, click here. The 37-year-old driver of the truck suffered minor injuries and was taken to Elmhurst Hospital. No other injuries were reported, but the crash closed down lanes in both directions of the tollway near Berkeley, state police said. 212 Shares Share We are writing as a parent and a dentist to spread a message to parents and dental health care providers across Canada: there are alternatives to prescribing opioids after wisdom tooth removal. Removing wisdom teeth is considered by many as a rite of passage for teenagers. It is one of the most common surgical procedures done in young people aged 16 to 24. Amys 16-year-old son, Felix recently had his wisdom teeth removed. After surgery, the surgeons assistant advised that to stay on top of the pain, Felix should take a Percocet right away. Percocet is a combination of the pain reliever, acetaminophen, and an opioid, oxycodone. She provided him with enough Percocet to take every three hours for the next day. Thankfully, Amy knew of the possible harms associated with powerful opioid medications, such as Percocet, especially for young people. Abuse of opioids is a national public health emergency, with growing numbers of opioid overdoses and deaths. So, she asked the surgeons assistant whether there was another pain management option for Felix instead. Tylenol #3 was suggested (acetaminophen with the opioid, codeine), which still seemed too powerful. How did Amy know to question the advice she was given? Amy serves as the patient advisor for the national campaign, Choosing Wisely Canada, which partners with national clinician societies to develop lists of tests, treatments and procedures that may cause harm. So she knew that the Canadian Association of Hospital Dentists recommends non-opioid based pain medications to be prioritized following dental surgery and to resort to opioids only if the pain cannot be managed. Amy chose to ask for Naproxen for Felix an over the counter pain reliever in the same drug class as Aspirin and Ibuprofen. Felix took the Naproxen as directed when the anesthesia wore off, and he did not require anything stronger, and was in fact, quite comfortable. We need to think twice about whether an opioid prescription is needed after wisdom teeth removal. After having her wisdom teeth removed, Lady Gaga posted pictures of her puffy face and tweeted out to her millions of followers: Wisdom teeth out. P-p-Percocet p-p-Percocet. Percocet after minor oral surgery should not be an expectation of teenaged patients. Whats at stake? Persistent opioid use after elective surgery, like wisdom teeth removal, is a risk, especially in young people whose brains are developing and are highly susceptible to the effects of opioids. Leftover opioids are equally dangerous for teens that might be tempted to experiment or share with friends and family members. Dentists and oral surgeons have a critical role to play here, as one of the leading prescribers of opioids to young people. An study published this month found that dentists are the leading source of opioid prescriptions for children and adolescents aged 10 to 19 years in the United States. Dental prescriptions account for over 30 percent of all opioid prescriptions in this age group. This study also found that young people who received opioid prescriptions after wisdom tooth extraction were more likely to be using opioids three months and one year later, as compared to their peers who did not get an opioid. The evidence is clear: A short prescription for opioids poses a real risk of ongoing opioid use to our teenagers. Many patients experience pain and swelling lasting three to four days and sometimes up to a week after wisdom teeth surgery. The intensity and duration of these symptoms varies considerably depending on the position of the teeth, how deeply they are buried in bone and the surgical difficulty in removing them. While many oral surgeons and dentists prescribe opioids routinely after dental surgery, pain management for all patients should be handled individually. In most cases, post-surgical dental pain can be controlled without opioids, and through anti-inflammatory drug such as ibuprofen, in combination with the non-opioid pain relievers, such as acetaminophen. For some oral surgery procedures, such as such deeply impacted wisdom teeth or jaw reconstruction, an opioid may be needed for pain control for a short time. Its time oral surgeons and dentists move away from a one size fits all pain management strategy. Avoiding unnecessary opioid prescriptions for teenagers is critical part of staving off the harm of the opioid epidemic. Amy Ma is co-chair, Family Advisor Forum, Montreal Childrens Hospital and patient advisor, Choosing Wisely Canada. Susan Sutherland is chief of dentistry, Sunnybrook Health Sciences, Toronto, Canada and president, Canadian Association of Hospital Dentists. Image credit: Shutterstock.com A former Oakbrook Terrace man was found guilty Tuesday of a murder 28 years ago, two decades after the man originally convicted of the crime died in prison. A Knox County, Ind., jury convicted Wayne Gulley, 62, of Peoria of the 1975 murder of Sherry Lee Gibson, 23, who was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death in an abandoned farmhouse in rural southwestern Indiana. The jury deliberated about 11 hours Monday and early Tuesday before reaching the verdict around 1 a.m. Gulley had never been a suspect until his ex-wife, Ella Mae Dicks, told police in 2001 that they had been involved in the murder. Gulley's attorney argued that Dicks has a history of mental illness, alcoholism and hallucinations, and falsely accused Gulley because she resented his educational and professional successes. The couple were divorced at the time of the murder, said Jessie Cook, Gulley's attorney. "He is just another in a line of people that the state has falsely accused," Cook said, adding that her client had no police record before or since the 1975 murder. John Jeffers, a teenager and high school dropout, pleaded guilty to the killing in 1977. He served five years of a 30-year sentence before dying of a drug overdose in 1983. Investigators now say that they are convinced that Jeffers had nothing to do with the killing, and that he pleaded guilty to get attention. He was in a juvenile detention facility when he confessed to the crime. "My brother was a liar, but he was not a murderer," said Jeffers' brother, Mark. Gulley will be sentenced Sept. 17 and faces 45 to 65 years in prison. Dicks, 47, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder earlier this month and will be sentenced Sept. 5. "I'm glad they finally got him. It feels better, but you never can forget," said Gibson's mother, Annabell. "It's my son's birthday today. He thought that was a good birthday present." But Cook said the conviction is the latest injustice in a gruesome case that shocked the quiet farming community. There were many troubling aspects of Dicks' testimony, Cook said, pointing to testimony that Dicks was unconscious during part of the crime, didn't remember seeing blood and witnessed the stabbing by the light of the moon. Dicks, who admitted stabbing the victim three times, claimed they killed the woman for thrills. "It seemed like she was recounting a dream sequence," said Cook, who contends that Dicks knew details of the murder from media coverage. "I do not understand how the jury could have overlooked the bizarre aspects of her statements." Other than photos from the crime scene and witness statements, there was no physical evidence presented at trial. Evidence from the scene had either been lost or destroyed, Cook said. Indiana State Police 1st Sgt. Larry Eck, the lead investigator on the reopened case, said Dicks recounted events that had never been made public. "It has been a long time coming," Eck said. "Now the family can go on with their lives." Eck said that on the night of the murder, Gibson was on a date with Lindy Alton. They had parked their car off a rural county road and into a path cut through cornfields when they were approached by a man and a woman. Alton had said the man pulled a gun and ordered him into the trunk. The woman ordered Gibson into another car, Eck said. They then took Gibson to an abandoned farmhouse outside Monroe City, Ind., where she was assaulted and stabbed and the home was set on fire. The next morning, a farmer heard Alton yelling from inside the trunk, which was covered with snow, and helped him out. Alton died three years ago when he accidentally set himself on fire when burning cornstalks on his property, Eck said. Eck said Dicks surrendered to police in November 2001 because she was racked with guilt. "She wanted to clear her own soul and heart and mind," he said. "She wanted to get it straight for herself and the victim's family." She and Gulley, a construction supervisor, were indicted in August 2002. Gulley's wife and two children live in Illinois. Cook said her client plans to appeal. "There are numerous grounds for appeal, but most significant is the unbelievability of the sole witness," she said. "There are more questions now than ever." Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 15) A Davao court on Tuesday rejected the motion to issue a hold departure order against Senator Antonio Trillanes IV. The Davao Regional Court Branch 54 junked it after the senator attended his arraignment for the libel case filed against him by presidential son and former Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte. Trillanes pleaded not guilty to the four libel cases filed against him by Duterte and his brother-in-law Mans Carpio filed separate libel complaints against the senator after he accused them of alleged corruption linked to ride-hailing firms in September 2017. "Nag-plea ako ng not guilty sa apat. Mga harrassment cases lang ito talaga just to inconvenience me, para ma-distract ako," he said in an interview after the arraingnment. Although there is no hold departure order, the court has not yet approved Trillanes' out of the country travel from January 27 to February 10. The court asked for his itinerary and trip details. This is the first time Trillanes visited the hometown of the presidential family a year after he was declared persona non grata for describing the city as "the most dangerous city in the Philippines." Trillanes, a staunch critic of President Rodrigo Duterte, said he was "suprised" that he was welcomed warmly in Davao City. CNN Philippines correspondent Joyce Ilas contributed to this report. In a Jan. 3 editorial, the Kearney Hub took me to task for supporting voter ID. Voter ID is not controversial. I campaigned all over the state for a year and a half. The issue on which I received the greatest positive response on a bipartisan basis was voter ID. Why the strong support? Because properly registered voters want their votes to count. They do not want their vote canceled out by those who are not entitled to cast a ballot. According to a Gallup poll about two years ago, 81 percent of Americans support voter ID, including 77 percent of minorities. Thirty-four states have voter ID laws on the books. Every state bordering Nebraska has a voter ID law except Wyoming. I intend to take this year studying the issue carefully, looking deeply into what has and has not worked for other states, and then bringing forward voter ID legislation that does not disenfranchise properly registered voters. The Hub editorial seems to suggest that we ought to wait until we have a problem to address this. I dont agree. All over the country we have seen that once a voting system is corrupted, it is almost impossible to clean it up. The time to address voting security is before there is a problem. After a voting system is corrupted its too late. GRAND ISLAND Residents of the Grand Island Veterans' Home will head for Kearney in three waves Wednesday. Theyll have breakfast in their longtime Grand Island home and, if things go according to plan, theyll be in their new Kearney home for lunch. Ninety-two members, or residents, are making the move. At 8:30 a.m. the first group will load up for the trip to the new Central Nebraska Veterans' Home in Kearney. The other two waves are tentatively scheduled to load up at 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. For the members, much of the work has already been done. Volunteers known as moving buddies and families started helping residents pack their items on Wednesday. We called it Wacky Packy Wednesday, said Activity Manager Nancy Klimek. Last week, everybody was getting very excited about getting their stuff packed and getting it ready, Klimek said. That work was a good example of teamwork between the staff, volunteers, members and their families, Klimek said. The members really enjoyed interacting with the volunteers and seeing their families, she said. By Sunday, Klimek was happy to see a group of members sitting, relaxing and watching TV. Years ago, with her conscience weighing on her, Ella Mae Dicks tried confessing to a church group, telling them about the grisly slaying in rural Indiana 27 years ago. But it wasn't until late last fall that she walked into a police station and admitted her involvement in the killing of Sherry Lee Gibson, 23, on March 1, 1975, in a farmhouse outside Monroe City, Ind. She also implicated her former husband, Wayne G. Gulley of Peoria, according to investigators. The two were indicted Friday, almost two decades after another man, John Jeffers, died in prison after serving five years for the killing. Investigators now say they are convinced Jeffers had nothing to do with the killing, confirming what many in the community believed all along--that the troubled teen had pleaded guilty simply to get attention. Dicks turned herself in to police Friday. Gulley surrendered Tuesday, saying he is innocent. He has not yet entered a formal plea. "I'm just glad," said Gibson's mother, Annabelle. "We had a feeling [Jeffers] didn't do it." The horrific crime has for decades confounded townspeople in nearby Vincennes, the Knox County, Ind., seat, both because of its brutal nature--Gibson was stabbed dozens of times--and because the killing seemed so random. Investigators say Gibson and her boyfriend, Lindy G. Alton, had pulled to the side of a rural country road when two people approached them. The road, a sort of lovers' lane, was dark, but Alton gave police a description of the suspects. One, a man, pulled a gun and ordered Alton into the trunk of the car. Another, a woman, took Gibson from the passenger's side and put her in another car. The suspects drove Gibson to an abandoned farmhouse about 7 miles away, where she was raped and stabbed. The suspects then set fire to the home. Alton was later found by a passerby at the scene of the abduction. Troubled teen confesses Investigators in Vincennes, about 300 miles south of Chicago, spent the next two years pursuing dozens of leads, questioning friends and potential suspects. In 1977, Jeffers, a 17-year-old junior high school dropout, told guards at a juvenile detention facility that he had committed the crime. Jeffers, already incarcerated for stealing a car, was a slight child who family members say was constantly in trouble. His mother sent him to an orphanage because she could no longer deal with him. Jeffers told investigators he and a teenage boy he had met in the orphanage had killed Gibson and locked Alton in the car's trunk. Almost immediately, there were inconsistencies in his story. Knox County 1st Sgt. Larry Eck, who has been with the Sheriff's Department for 34 years, said neither teen matched the description given by Alton, who said the man he saw was 25 to 30 years old and much larger. Alton, who died three years ago, said the second suspect was a woman with long hair and wire-rim glasses. "[Jeffers] had no idea what he was talking about concerning the crime scene," Eck said. But as time went on, his story improved, apparently feeding off news accounts and clues dropped by interrogators, Eck said. Soon, prosecutors believed the confession was enough to get a conviction. The other teen, who was 18 and serving in the military in Germany when he was arrested, spent 9 months in prison before Jeffers recanted his confession during trial. The charges were dropped against the other teen. But Jeffers still faced the murder charge. His court-appointed attorney told him that if convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison, Eck said. Jeffers pleaded guilty and received a 30-year sentence. He died in prison in 1983. "He had a need to feel important," said his brother, Mark, a truck driver from Washington, Ind. "They had an unsolved murder case, and he knew if he said something, they were going to sit up and pay attention." Mark Jeffers said his family is relieved that someone else has come forward to confess to the slaying. Still, some in the family remain angry that police accepted his brother's confession despite its apparent holes. "When he said he did it, they quit trying to solve it," Mark Jeffers said. Dormant search revived Investigators did not begin looking at Dicks and Gulley until Dicks confessed last year. When they did, the pieces appeared to fit. The two grew up in Christopher, Ill., and were married briefly. In the 1970s they moved to Petersburg, Ind., where Gulley worked as an electronics technician at construction sites around nearby coal mines. The two were divorced but living together in 1975, when the slaying occurred, Eck said. Gulley and Dicks parted ways several years later, investigators say. Gulley stayed in the area until sometime after 1980, when he moved to Pennsylvania. Later, he moved to Mt. Prospect, Oakbrook Terrace and, most recently, Peoria. Dicks went back to her hometown of Christopher before remarrying and moving to Georgia. Police and her attorney said that while in Illinois, Dicks had once gone into a church and told parishioners her story. Last fall, Dicks, 47, walked into the Athens Police Department in Georgia and made her confession again, this time to an investigator. Police there began calling detectives in southern Indiana, asking if they remembered such a case. Almost everyone did. On Dec. 3, Eck interviewed Dicks in Athens. "She had just lived with it for so many years," Eck said. "She lived with it every day and she wanted to get it right." Eck said Dicks told investigators details that only the culprits could have known. She then implicated Gulley, 60, who has maintained he is innocent. "It was a total shock," said Gulley's attorney, Jessie Cook. "I'm absolutely positive that there is no evidence that links my client." Cook said she will work to get the case dismissed. "Basically, what the state is saying is, `We convicted somebody and let him languish in prison and die and we don't think we got it right so we're going to turn around and try someone else,'" Cook said. "It's totally outrageous." `For a thrill' Christopher Ramsey, who represents Dicks, said she has described the killing as "her co-defendant's idea" and has told investigators that it was done "for a thrill." "As little sense as it makes, that's the way I interpret it," Ramsey said. "It was very, very random." Gibson's father died in 1998. His wife said he was convinced that Jeffers was not responsible for his daughter's death and that the real killer would be found. "It's never out of your mind," said Annabelle Gibson. "I'm glad they found [Dicks], but it doesn't bring my daughter back." State Sen. John Stinner of Gering, the Appropriations Committee chairman, said the committee will take a hard look at the governor's cash reserve fund proposal as members work to craft the state budget. He noted the governor's budget recommendations are a only starting point on the budget but that lawmakers generally incorporate about 95 percent of those recommendations into their final package. Speaker of the Legislature Jim Scheer of Norfolk said he had a "fairly positive" reaction to the governor's plans. "He's trying to accomplish a lot of things with existing revenue," he said. Scheer said the property tax proposal may not be big enough to satisfy some senators but he believes "we need to start taking something instead of ending up with nothing." The governor wants to add $51 million annually to the state's Property Tax Credit fund, bringing the total to $275 million per year, and to see the tax credits become set in state law at a minimum of $275 million annually. Ricketts said a law would give more "certainty" to the tax refund. Currently, the credit program is part of the state budget, which can be changed every two years. Office: The initial mailing address of the initial agent for service 8470 2nd Ave, Kearney, NE 68847. Agent: The name of the initial agent for service of the Company at such address is Jessica Gala- ska. The undersigned, being the Or- ganizer of the Company, hereby adopts and signs the foregoing Certificate of Organization for the purposes of forming the Company SALEM, Ore. Due to the ongoing partial government shutdown, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has decided to release food assistance funds early for the month of February, according to the Oregon Dept. of Human Services (DHS). These benefits are commonly known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), though the name sometimes differs by state. We want to be clear that these are not additional funds that SNAP recipients are receiving, but an early issuance of February benefits, stated Self-Sufficiency Director Kim Fredlund. Those who typically see additional funds added to their EBT card the first week of each month will see their February money by January 20, rather than at the beginning of next month. There are currently more than 615,000 Oregonians enrolled in SNAP. According to officials, SNAP recipients should see their February assistance issued by January 20th. DHS said that a notification letter is being sent to current SNAP recipients this week. Officials are asking those recipients to budget carefully despite the early release, the funds are intended to cover food benefits through February, and do not reflect extra assistance. "DHS is awaiting further direction regarding benefit issuance for January recertification that is completed or processed after January 15," the agency said. "The early issuance will proceed, even if the federal government shutdown ends prior to January 20." Although Congress approved a Farm Bill by the end of 2018 that promised SNAP funding, those funds will not be approved until the partial government shutdown ends meaning that there is a chance, however unlikely, that SNAP will be affected if the shutdown continues through February. Currently the SNAP program is only funded through these early-release payments for February. A press release from the Trump Administration's USDA on January 8 implied that the early release of funds for February stemmed from an effort to push out hastily-acquired funding for SNAP before it could be allocated elsewhere as a funding-starved federal government continues to grind through the shutdown. At President Trumps direction, we have been working with the Administration on this solution. It works and is legally sound. And we want to assure states, and SNAP recipients, that the benefits for February will be provided, said Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue in a statement. Our motto here at USDA has been to Do Right and Feed Everyone. With this solution, weve got the Feed Everyone part handled. And I believe that the plan weve constructed takes care of the Do Right part as well. If people are concerned about running out of SNAP benefits, they can contact 211Info to seek local food resources. By MARC LEVY , Associated Press HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) Trump administration rules that allow more employers to opt out of providing women with no-cost birth control cannot be enforced anywhere in the nation, a federal judge wrote Monday in a decision blocking the rules from taking effect. U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Philadelphia agreed with a lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania, citing the potential harm to states should the rules be enforced. Numerous citizens could lose contraceptive coverage, Beetlestone wrote, resulting in the increased use of state-funded contraceptive services, as well as increased costs associated with unintended pregnancies. The rules would have allowed more employers, including publicly traded companies, to opt out of providing no-cost contraceptive coverage to women by claiming religious objections. Some private employers could also object on moral grounds. The rules had been scheduled to take effect Monday. Pennsylvania's attorney general, Josh Shapiro, called the ruling a "victory for the health and economic independence of women." "Women need contraception for their health because contraception is medicine, pure and simple," Shapiro said in a statement. On Sunday, a federal judge in California blocked the rules from taking effect in the jurisdictions in the lawsuit before him. Those included California, New York and 11 other states along with Washington, D.C. At issue is a requirement under Democratic President Barack Obama's health care law that birth control services be covered at no additional cost. Obama officials included exemptions for religious organizations. But administration of Republican President Donald Trump expanded those exemptions and added "moral convictions" as a basis to opt out of providing birth control services. The Department of Justice has argued that the new rules "protect a narrow class of sincere religious and moral objectors from being forced to facilitate practices that conflict with their beliefs." Beetlestone had previously blocked an interim version of the rules in a December 2017 ruling. MEDFORD, Ore. Dutch Bros Coffee plans to share the love on Valentine's Day by donating a big chunk of their sales to local food banks in order to feed the hungry, according to a statement from ACCESS. The campaign is called "Dutch Luv," and includes a pledge to donate $1 of every drink sold on Valentine's Day (Thursday, February 14) to the ACCESS Food Share Pantry Network, which covers 21 pantries. Donations in Josephine County go to the Josephine County Food Bank, ACCESS said. If youve ever participated, you know that Dutch Bros. baristas really get into the days events and have a lot of fun encouraging people to donate. Its a genuinely caring company and Dutch Luv is a significant campaign that helps countless families right here in our community, said ACCESS Nutrition Director Rachael Ward. Last year, the "Dutch Luv" event brought in more than $14,800 in Jackson County alone. According to ACCESS, every dollar donated can provide four or five nutritious meals for the hungry. We cant think of a better way to spread Dutch Luv on Valentines Day than to help those who need it the most in our communities, said Travis Boersma, co-founder and CEO of Dutch Bros. According to Dutch Bros, this is the 13th year that the company and its customers have supported organizations feeding the hungry. The tradition began in 2007 with a canned food drive, but in 2016 Dutch Bros transitioned to donating $1 per drink instead saying that the change allows organizations to "address specific needs in their communities." People can also make a secure financial donation to ACCESS online at by visiting their website here. Askew, who lived in New Jersey at the time, was on her way to Nevada to visit friends, according to the sheriff's report and her attorney. Authorities said she told them she had taken prescription medication but she "struggled to give a time" when asked when she ingested the pills, the arrest report said. Deputies said they found "several bottles of prescription medications" in her car. The lawsuit and sheriff's office arrest report did not indicate the types of medication. FILE - In this Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018 file photo, Missouri state Sen. Dave Schatz speaks to reporters, at the state Capitol in Jefferson City, Mo. Missouri will have new faces in many places when the General Assembly convenes Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2019, for its annual session. Rep. Elijah Haahr and Sen. Schatz are expected to be elected by colleagues to take over the top positions in the House and Senate after their predecessors were prohibited by term limits from seeking re-election. KCTV5.com is now with you on the go! Get the latest news updates and video, StormTrack5 weather forecast, weather radar, special investigative reports, sports headlines and much more from KCTV5 News. >> Click/tap here to download our free mobile app. << Copyright 2019 KCTV (Meredith Corp.) All rights reserved. The Kansas City Police Department is investigating if impairment was a factor in a head-on, wrong-way, rollover crash that happened this morning. One driver died and the other has minor injuries. Its the GOP that has attempted to take sole credit for reducing the unemployment rate for African-Americans when blacks know full well that the downward trend began under President Barack Obama. Its the GOP that has fought against police reforms, affirmative action and policies that protect consumers from predatory lending. A recent study out of Oregon suggests emergency medical responders EMTs and paramedics may be treating minority patients differently from the way they treat white patients. Specifically, the scientists found that black patients in their study were 40 percent less likely to get pain medication than their white peers. Jamie Kennel, head of emergency medical services programs at Oregon Health and Science University and the Oregon Institute of Technology, led the research, which was presented in December at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Scientific Symposium in Orlando, Fla. The researchers received a grant to produce the internal report for the Oregon Emergency Medical Services department and the Oregon Office of Rural Health. Outright discrimination by paramedics is rare, the researchers say, and illegal; in these cases, unconscious bias may be at work. A few years ago, Leslie Gregory was one of a very few black female emergency medical technicians working in Lenawee County, Mich. She said the study's findings ring true based on her experience. She remembered one particular call the patient was down and in pain. As the EMTs arrived at the scene, Gregory could see the patient was black. And that's when one of her colleagues groaned. "I think it was something like: 'Oh, my God. Here we go again,'" Gregory said. She worried then, as now that because the patient was black, her colleague assumed he was acting out to get pain medication. "I am absolutely sure this was unconscious," added Gregory, who now lives and works in Portland, Ore., where she founded a nonprofit to spread awareness about racial disparities in health care. "At the time, I remember, it increased my stress as we rode up on this person. Because I thought, 'Now am I going to have to fight my colleague for more pain medication, should that arise?'" Unconscious bias can be subtle but, as this new report shows, it may be one of the factors behind race-linked health disparities seen across the U.S. The study looked at 104,000 medical charts of ambulance patients from 2015 to 2017. It found that minority patients were less likely to receive morphine and other pain medication compared with white patients regardless of socioeconomic factors, such as health insurance status. During a shift change at American Medical Response headquarters in Portland, EMTs and paramedics discussed the issue with a reporter as they got their rigs ready for the next shift. Jennifer Sanders, who has been a paramedic for 30 years, was adamant that her work is not affected by race. "I've never treated anybody different regardless," said Sanders. Most of the emergency responders interviewed, including Jason Dahlke, said race doesn't affect the treatment they give. But Dahlke also said he and some of his co-workers are thinking deeply about unconscious bias. "Historically it's the way this country has been," Dahlke said. "In the beginning, we had slavery and Jim Crow and redlining and all of that stuff you can get lost in on a large, macro scale. Yeah. It's there." Asked where he thinks unconscious bias could slip in, Dahlke talked about a patient he just treated. The man was black and around 60 years old. Dahlke is white and in his 30s. The patient has diabetes and called 911 from home, complaining of extreme pain in his hands and feet. When Dahlke arrived at the patient's house, he followed standard procedure and gave the patient a blood glucose test. The results showed that the man's blood sugar level was low. "So it's my decision to treat this blood sugar first. Make sure that number comes up," Dahlke said. He gave the patient glucose but no pain medicine. Dahlke said he did not address the man's pain in this case because by the time he had stabilized the patient they had arrived at the hospital where it was the responsibility of the emergency department staff to take over. "When people are acutely sick or injured, pain medication is important," Dahlke said. "But it's not the first thing we're going to worry about. We're going to worry about life threats. You're not necessarily going to die from pain, and we're going to do what satisfies the need in the moment to get you into the ambulance and to the hospital and to a higher level of care." Dahlke said he is not sure whether, if the patient had been white, he would have administered pain medicine, though he doesn't think so. "Is it something that I think about when I come across a patient that does not look like me? I don't know that it changes my treatment," he said Asked whether treatment disparities might sometimes be a result of white people being more likely to ask for more medications, Dahlke smiled. "I wonder that if, in this study, if we're talking about people of color being denied or not given narcotic medicines as much as white people, then maybe we're overtreating white people with narcotic medicines." Research has found African-Americans more likely to be deeply distrustful of the medical community, and that might play a role in diminished care, too. Such distrust is understandable and goes back generations, said Gregory. "How can a person of color not disrespect a system that is constantly studying and talking about these disparities, but does nothing to fix it?" she asked. Gregory wrote an open letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2015, asking it to declare racism a threat to public health. Past declarations of crisis such as those focusing attention on problems such as smoking or HIV have had significant results, Gregory noted. But the CDC told Gregory, in its emailed response, that while it supports government policies to combat racial discrimination and acknowledges the role of racism in health disparities, "racism and racial discrimination in health is a societal issue as well as a public health one, and one that requires a broad-based societal strategy to effectively dismantle racism and its negative impacts in the U.S." Kennel said false stereotypes about race-based differences in physiology that date to slavery also play a role in health care disparities. For example, despite a lack of any supporting science, some medical professionals still think the blood of African-Americans coagulates faster, Kennel said, citing a recent study of medical students at the University of Virginia. Another question in the survey asked the students whether they thought African-Americans have fewer pain receptors than whites. "An uncomfortably large percentage of medical students said, 'Yes, that's true,'" said Kennel. On top of that, he said, EMTs and paramedics often work in time-pressured situations, where they are limited to ambiguous clinical information and scarce resources. "In these situations, providers are much more likely to default to making decisions (based) on stereotypes," he said. Disparities in health care are well-documented. Whites tend to get better care and experience better outcomes, whether they're in a doctor's office or the ER. But before Kennel's study, nobody knew whether the same was true in the back of an ambulance. And they nearly didn't get to know, because the research required ambulance companies to release highly sensitive data. "We were prepared to maybe not look that great," said Robert McDonald, the operations manager at American Medical Response in Portland. AMR is one of the nation's largest ambulance organizations, and it shared its data from more than 100,000 charts with Kennel. Some people chalk up the disparities he found to differences in demography and health insurance status, but Kennel said he controlled for those variables. So now that AMR knows about disparities in its care, what can the company do? "My feeling is we're probably going to put some education and training out to our folks in the field," McDonald said. In addition, he said, AMR is going to hire more people of color. "We want to see more ethnicities represented in EMS which has historically been a white, male-dominated workforce," McDonald said. AMR's policies must change, too, he added. The company has purchased software that will enable patients to read medical permission forms in any of 17 different languages. And the firm is planning an outreach effort to communities of color to explain the role of EMS workers. We wanted to create the resource we wish we had when we were trying to figure out how to be doctors, said Jackson-James. There are so few of us, and were spread so thin. We understand the value of seeing oneself reflected in the career you pursue and the impact that can have on you. So me and my sister said we have to do this. Public hearings on emblematic cases of violations in Mali should be held in March in all the regions where there are branches of the Commission, Commission chairman Ousmane Oumarou Sidibe announced at the December 20 opening of a branch in Kidal, northeast Mali. He thus recognized that his commission, now near the end of its mandate, is far from having completed its work. He also seems sure that the Commission will obtain from the government an extension of its mandate, so as to make up for delays due mainly to the climate of insecurity. Creating a commission in the middle of an armed conflict generates additional challenges linked to how the national and regional political and security situations develop, said the Commission chairman. The Commission was set up after the signing of a peace accord that was seen at that time as historic, but fighting has not stopped. Bloody clashes have continued and there has been a rise in terrorist attacks, especially in the north and centre of the country. This is the case in the extreme northern region of Kidal, considered the epicentre of the separatist rebellion launched in 2012. Worsening security there has delayed the setting up of an interim administration as provided by the peace deal, and thus also of the regional branch of the Commission. A vast mandate The other constraint stems from the vast temporal mandate of the Commission. When we talk of the truth commission, it is the crisis sparked in 2012 that comes to mind. But the mandate of this commission is much wider. It is charged with shedding light on the crises, conflicts and violent events in Mali between 1960 and the present day, with the aim of establishing the truth and contributing to justice and reconciliation. Its mission includes investigating cases of grave violations of human rights committed in the country especially those committed against women and children , attacks on individual and/or collective remembrance and cultural heritage, and promoting dialogue within and between communities. In the regions of Bamako, Gao, Tombouctou, Mopti and Segou, where the Commission has been able to launch its activities, there are also problems linked to the reticence of victims, according to Khalifa Yaro, a lawyer specialized on transitional justice. The victims do not have the necessary assurances, there is no network allowing them to express themselves freely, whereas a transitional justice process requires reaching the maximum number of victims possible, he said in an interview with JusticeInfo. 10,223 statements gathered The Commission has nevertheless gathered some 10,223 from witnesses and victims since January 2017. Most of the victims have come in person to the regional offices to file their statements, the Commission chairman explained at a recent press conference in Bamako. Members of the Commission have also been to Malian refugee camps abroad to take statements. Ousmane Oumarou Sidibe says most of them relate to the crisis of 2012. The Commission says it has also held hearings of important witnesses in order to establish the nature, causes and circumstances of the conflict in the north of the country and put them in the overall historical, social, economic and cultural context of Mali. According to Sidibe, these witnesses have been invited to discuss several issues, including the coups dEtat, rebellions, droughts and human rights violations, the aim being not so much to identify or sanction those responsible but to know the roots of the recurring crises the country has suffered. We do not judge the perpetrators, our mission is to establish the truth on what has happened, he explained. As well as filing statements to the Commission, victims can file complaints to the judicial authorities, for each has a role to play in the process. The sensitive issue of reparations Since January 2018, consultations have also been under way as part of preparing a policy document on reparations, another aspect of the Commissions mandate. Once the consultations are completed, the Commission is to draft a proposed law on reparations policy, which will be submitted to the government. This policy is to be implemented by another body to be set up for this purpose. But the victims are getting impatient. What we regret is that no victims have yet obtained compensation, said Mody Samba Toure, honorary president of the National Coordination of Victims Associations (CNAV), quoted in early December by the Malian online newspaper Bamada.net. Pending the establishment of the reparations mechanism, the Commission ensures that victims in need of urgent psycho-medical care are referred to the relevant services to receive treatment. According to Ibrahim Coulibaly, one of the Commissions 25 members, the Commission should be able to file its end-of-mandate report in the coming days whilst also requesting an extension that many observers believe is essential. Only then would the major phase of the public hearings begin. Khalifa Yaro thinks it is therefore premature to say whether the Commission has fulfilled its mandate, or to judge its contribution to the process of unity and reconciliation. Because, says the lawyer, it will all depend on how the Commissions final report and recommendations are used. In a packed hall at a local hotel in Senegambia, a middle-class neighborhood in Kololi about 25-minute drive from Banjul, the capital city of the Gambia, people sit to hear witnesses and victims of the dictatorship of former president Yahya Jammeh. Gambias former strongman may have evaded effective media scrutiny during his 22-year rule but details of how he came to power and presided over a dreaded government are now coming to light. On January 7, the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission (TRRC) established to probe human rights violations under Jammehs rule after he lost elections and left the country, exactly two years ago has begun to hear publicly the often emotional narrations of witnesses. We never wanted to hurt a fly, that is why no one died during the coup, Jammeh would often say, referring to the July 22, 1994 military takeover that brought him to power. Revelations before the TRRC, however, tell a different story. Major Gomezs painful memories Sheriff Gomez, a former major in the Gambian army until 1996, broke into tears and bend his head on the table before him. Would you like to take a break, asked the deputy lead counsel of the Commission, Horeja Bala Gaye. Gomez was recounting how he had to leave his bed and sleep on the floor of his house because of prolonged detention. Jailed for 27 months without a single court appearance, he had to sleep on a plank of wood during his imprisonment at the notorious Mile 2 prison. For a long time after I was released I only slept on my right side and on one side of my bed, he added with spatters of tears in his eyes. His crime was his disagreement with the coup. Gomez was a senior administrator in the army, holding the keys of the countrys armory. That position, which made him a person of interest for Jammeh and his collaborators, also made him their enemy when he did not agree with the military takeover. Gomez explained the treatment he had to endure from fellow officers he had previously commanded in the army. The day of the coup, upon arrival at work the day, Gomez was arrested and locked in a military cell at the Yundum barracks, an encampment about 45-minute drive from Banjul. As he explained how the soldiers took the armory keys from him, the hall went quiet and Gomez was in tears again. Edward [Singhateh] deliberately missed me with a bullet from a nine millimeter pistol. And he told me: next time I will not miss, Gomez said, after a minute silence. Edward Singhateh, a former vice-president of the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States, was one of the leaders of the coup. At the Denton bridge, on 22 July 1994 In July 1994, Yahya Jammeh was a 29-year old lieutenant in the army. For the next 22 years, he was revered as much as he was feared. Having declared Gambia an Islamic state, he was a cult-like figure who walked around with prayer beads and a Quran. But his life before the coup was a mystery to most Gambians. The three first witnesses before the TRRC, all of whom have commanded and interacted with Jammeh, said the former ruler had attitudinal problems. Yahya was a trouble for the Gambia from the beginning, said the first witness Ebrima Chongan. Chongan trained Jammeh while he was a gendarme, a military police. Then the gendarmerie was disbanded and some of its members went to the police while others went to the army. Jammeh was taken to the army. Chongan said Jammeh had difficulty following orders from the beginning. He recalled how he saved him from punishment after he fought with a civilian while on a presidential security detail as a gendarme. As a commander of the armed wing of the Gambian Police Force called the Tactical Support Group, Chongan was a strong opponent of the coup. When he learned of the soldiers action, he deployed armed police at Denton Bridge, a small river at the outskirt of Banjul. I told them to shoot on sight any army officer who try to cross the bridge, he told the Commission. But the police did not engage Jammeh and his men. The third Commission witness, former major Amadou Suwareh, was the leader of the team deployed to the bridge. As instructed, Suwareh had laid an ambush from the bridge to the capital, a land mass of about 6.2 kilometers. They were armed to teeth with hand grenades, anti-aircraft guns and heavy machine guns. We only had AK47s. We [couldnt] stop them, Suwareh testified. Though he did not agree with the coup, his decision to join was dictated by conscience, he said. According to him, the coup leaders, including Jammeh, were under the influence of alcohol and they were ready to kill anyone who gets on their way. He eventually joined them and led the way to dismantle his own traps. There would be a bloodbath, he explained. Torture and mock executions Unlike Suwareh, Chongan refused to give in until he was overwhelmed. Immediately after the coup, he was among the first 29 senior security officials who were detained by the junta for over 45 days incommunicado. He and the Inspector General of Police Pa Sallah Jagne were taken to the Mile 2 Prison. There he joined Gomez and dozens other people, both civilians and security forces. As the first victims of Jammeh, Gomez and Chongan told how they were tortured and subjected to mock execution in September 1994. They took some of our colleagues out. After some minutes we heard them crying. And after some minutes again, you hear volleys of gunfire You think they were killing them, said Gomez. The Truth commission is conducting its hearings in chronological order. The first part of the sessions is looking into the chain of events that led to the 1994 coup. The lead counsel of the Commission, Essa Faal, said they have listed 27 witnesses for this part. The fourth witness was scheduled to begin his testimony on January 14. It is a victory for justice and a victory for the ICC, which has now helped to build its legitimacy, commented Laurent Gbagbos lead counsel Emmanuel Altit after the hearing. The former president of Cote dIvoire has just been acquitted by the judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC), along with his co-accused, the former Minister of Youth, Charles Ble Goude. After three years of trial and presentation of prosecution evidence, the majority of Trial Chamber judges (two out of three) deemed that it was not necessary for the two defence teams to present their arguments. Presiding judge Judge Cuno Tarfusser said that the Prosecutor has failed to demonstrate the existence of a common plan as well as the existence of a policy to attack civilians, elements that constitute a crime against humanity. Moreover, it failed to show that the speeches of Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Ble Goude before and during the Ivorian political crisis had led to the commission of the crimes. A humiliation for the Prosecutor This decision is a new blow for the ICC. And not everyone will share lawyer Altits optimism about the impact of this decision on the Courts reputation. After the collapse of the charges against several Kenyan leaders and the acquittal on appeal seven months ago of former Congolese Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, it is above all a huge blow to ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, who has failed once again to convict people holding power when atrocities were being committed. In more than fifteen years of existence, the ICC has handed down only three convictions for international crimes against former rebel leaders or mid-level actors. In just a few months, it has pronounced as many acquittals, including of two people who held top posts. It is extremely rare for judges to pronounce an acquittal in the middle of a trial before even hearing the defence. This adds to the bitterness of the setback for the international prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. The Gbagbo case was certainly inherited from former Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, and it is undermined by inadequate investigations. But this can only tarnish Ocampos successor Fatou Bensouda, who was his deputy for eight years and has been at the head of the prosecution office for six years now six years during which she has clearly failed to address the serious shortcomings of her office in terms of investigations and trials. The failure of the Prosecutors office is aggravated by the humiliating nature of the procedural circumstances in which the two Ivorians were acquitted. It is extremely rare for judges to pronounce an acquittal in the middle of a trial before even hearing the defence. This adds to the bitterness of the setback for the international prosecutor. Suspended release order Following the acquittal of the two Ivorian politicians, the judges ordered their immediate release. However, this release was quickly suspended for 24 hours, at the request of Eric MacDonald, representative of the Prosecutors office, who seems to be seeking a conditional release pending the delivery of the judges full decision at a later date. A hearing will be held in the morning of January 16 to debate the matter. We will do everything in our power, our legal power, to obtain immediate release, said Charles Ble Goudes senior lawyer Geert-Jan Alexander Knoops after the hearing. And so the two detainees could remain in detention, be released, or be released under conditions. The Prosecutors office faces a significant challenge for its future strategy in this case. The judges have not yet made public the precise reasons for the acquittal. For Justice Tarfusser, it was preferable to make an oral decision pending the written decision, in order to protect the rights of the accused. The detailed arguments should be available as soon as possible. Dissenting opinion In a dissenting opinion to the majoritys oral decision which was made public shortly after the hearing Judge Olga Herrera Carbuccia pointed out that there has not been a detailed single decision, as provided for in the Rome Statute, allowing all parties to know the reasons for the ruling when handed down. She also considers that many of the decisions taken in this case have taken far too long. As a result, writes Olga Herrera Carbuccia, I believe that the judges have violated the fundamental rights of a fair trial. The dissenting judge then comments on the substance of the case. Over more than three pages she explains why, after analysing the evidence, she considers that there is evidence on which a reasonable Trial Chamber could convict the accused. Olga Herrera Carbuccia is also expected to publish a detailed dissenting opinion in response to the acquittal decision when its details have been published in written form. In a press release issued at the end of the day, Paolina Massidda, lawyer for the victims in this trial, expressed their deep disappointment. Stressing that these victims had participated in the trial in the hope that an impartial tribunal will one day be able to do them justice, she added drily that this hope is now in vain and that no words were spoken to recall their suffering. The International Criminal Court acquitted former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo on Tuesday over a wave of post-electoral violence, in a stunning blow to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Judges ordered the immediate release of the 73-year-old deposed strongman, the first head of state to stand trial at the troubled ICC, and his former youth leader Charles Ble Goude, 47. Gbagbo faced charges of crimes against humanity after 3,000 people were killed in months of clashes in the west African nation when he refused to accept defeat after elections in late 2010. Prosecutors said Gbagbo clung to power by all means after he was narrowly beaten by his bitter rival now president Alassane Ouattara in elections in the worlds largest cocoa producer. But head judge Cuno Tarfusser said that the ICC by majority hereby decides that the prosecution has failed to satisfy the burden of proof to the requisite standard. He added that the court grants the defence motions for acquittal for all charges for Mr Laurent Gbagbo and Mr Charles Ble Goude and orders the immediate release of both accused. Gbagbo, who has spent seven years in detention, and Ble Goude hugged each other after the decision was handed down. Supporters started cheering, clapping and crying in the courts public gallery, prompting the judge to order them to sit down and behave. Victory for justice I am very, very happy. Finally there is some justice, Gragbayou Yves, 45, a Gbagbo supporter from Paris, told AFP in the public gallery moments after the judgment was passed. Wild scenes also erupted in Gbagbos home town in the Ivory Coast, Gagnoa, with hundreds of supporters shouting free, free and dancing in the streets after watching the decision live on television. Im happy. He did nothing wrong yet hes spent seven years in prison. Its important that he should be free, hes our leader, said supporter Bertin Sery. In Abidjan, Assoa Adou, secretary general of Gbagbos party the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), predicted the acquittal would ease political tensions rather than exacerbate them. We have just made a big step towards reconciliation, Adou said, amid a jubilant crowd at party headquarters. Ivory Coast will soon be in peace. Gbagbo was captured by Ouattaras troops, who were being aided by UN and French forces, and sent to The Hague in November 2011. His trial started in January 2016. But the judges on Tuesday said prosecutors had failed to show there was evidence of a common plan to keep Gbagbo in power, a policy of attacking civilians, or that speeches by Gbagbo and Ble Goude incited violence. Their release was suspended until a fresh hearing on Wednesday to give the prosecution time to respond to the shock judgment. The office of ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said the decision was disappointing and unexpected, adding that the prosecution had the right to appeal. Gbagbos lawyers last year argued that his case had descended into fake reality and should be dismissed, adding that he was now elderly and fragile. This is a victory for justice, Gbagbos lawyer Emmanuel Altit told a press conference after Tuesdays decision. Bitterly bruised But the highly divisive case has tested the courts avowed aim of delivering justice to the victims of the worlds worst crimes since its establishment in 2002. The ICC has faced serious difficulties over attempts to try top politicians for crimes committed by subordinates or followers most of them in Africa. Last year, former DR Congo warlord and ex-vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba was acquitted on appeal for crimes allegedly committed by his militia in the Central African Republic in 2002-2003. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta also saw charges of crimes against humanity over electoral bloodshed dropped by the ICC prosecutor in 2014. The Gbagbo result leaves the court bitterly bruised, said international law expert Mark Kersten of the University of Toronto. It leaves serious questions about the ability of the ICC to successfully target and prosecute state actors, he told AFP. It must learn from these trials and errors to be better and meet expectations in the very near future. Gbagbos acquittal also means he follows in the footsteps of his wife Simone Gbagbo. The so-called Iron Lady walked away from a 20-year jail term in Ivory Coast in August when she was granted an amnesty by Ouattara after seven years in detention. Gbagbo however still faces a 20-year jail sentence for economic crimes imposed by an Ivorian court in 2018. Whether he serves it or not is expected to be part of negotiations about any eventual homecoming. burs-jhe-dk/bp Consider, too, that much of the drama associated with the words doesnt fit the facts. Rodgers points out that the essay might have been written in 1629 or 1630 and that there is no contemporary evidence that it was given as a sermon on shipboard. And, even if it had been, it would have been heard only by a small percentage of the communitys nearly 1,000 members since they were spread out in 16 ships. Indeed, there is no proof that Winthrop ever publicly read the sermon to his followers. An award-winning investigative reporter was sentenced to 1.5 years in prison in Montenegro on drug trafficking charges on Tuesday, in a ruling slammed by media watchdog RSF as a disturbing set-back for press freedom. Jovo Martinovic, who has reported widely on crime with both local and foreign outlets, was arrested in October 2015 on accusations of links to a drug smuggling ring. He was held in prison for 15 months ahead of the trial before being released one year ago. Reporters Without Borders condemned the verdict as a disturbing setback for press freedom in a country that says it wants to join the European Union. Martinovic has denied the accusations and said that his contacts with criminal circles were strictly professional in the context of reporting. Trafficking in marijuana would have made no sense to me. I just dont have any motivation to do it, I have an international career, he said at the last hearing in December. Before his arrest he had worked on stories about the notorious Pink Panther international jewel thieves gang whose members are mainly from the former Yugoslavia. A member of the gang, Dusko Matrinovic, was also sentenced to six years and three months in the trial. Six others were also convicted. Martinovics lawyer said the journalist would appeal. Markovic will not go to jail as long as this sentence is not final, defence lawyer Mitar Mugosa told AFP. Last September Martinovic won the 2018 Peter Mackler Award for his investigations, including work that exposed war crimes during and after Serbias 1999 conflict with Kosovo. His reporting with US-based American RadioWorks led to the arrest and conviction of Serbian and Albanian paramilitaries and the creation of a new war crimes court in The Hague, organisers of the award said. The journalist has worked for top outlets including National Public Radio, BBC, Vice, and The Financial Times among others. Montenegro, home to 650,000 people, hopes to join the European Union by 2025 and is under growing pressure to tackle organised crime and safeguard media freedom. After a journalist was shot by an unknown assailant in May 2018, Brussels warned that the accession process would be hampered if there was no progress in protecting journalists and press freedom. The International Criminal Court on Tuesday acquitted former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo over a wave of post-electoral violence, in a stunning blow to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Judges ordered the immediate release of the 73-year-old deposed strongman, the first head of state to stand trial at the troubled ICC, and his right-hand man Charles Ble Goude, 47. Gbagbo faced charges of crimes against humanity over the 2010-2011 bloodshed following a disputed vote the West African nation in which around 3,000 people were killed. Prosecutors said Gbagbo clung to power by all means after he was narrowly defeated by his bitter rival now president Alassane Ouattara in elections in the worlds largest cocoa producer. Gbagbo and Ble Goude hugged each other after the decision was handed down while supporters started cheering wildly and clapping in the public gallery of the court, prompting head judge Cuno Tarfusser to order them to sit down and behave. The chamber by majority hereby decides that the prosecution has failed to satisfy the burden of proof to the requisite standard, Tarfusser told the court. He added that the court grants the defence motions for acquittal for all charges for Mr Laurent Gbagbo and Mr Charles Ble Goude and orders the immediate release of both accused. Finally some justice I am very, very happy. Finally there is some justice, Gragbayou Yves, 45, a Gbagbo supporter from Paris, told AFP in the public gallery moments after the judgment was passed. Gbagbo was captured by Ouattaras troops, who were being aided by UN and French forces, and sent to The Hague November 2011. He trial started in January 2016, which means he has spent more than seven years in detention. But the judges on Tuesday said prosecutors had failed to show there was evidence of a common plan to foment violence and ruled that there was no case to answer. Their release was suspended until Wednesday to give the prosecution time to respond to the shock judgment. The highly divisive case has tested the courts avowed aim of delivering justice to the victims of the worlds worst crimes. It comes after a series of setbacks for the tribunal, which began life more than 16 years ago. Victims in Ivory Coast had previously appealed to the court not to free Gbagbo. If Laurent Gbagbo is released, we victims will not see justice, added Karim Coulibaly, 43, whose arm was amputated after he was shot during the violence. I was a driver but now I am unemployed. Im not against reconciliation but first you have to look after the victims. Serious difficulties Gbagbos lawyers last year argued that his case had descended into fake reality and should be dismissed, adding that he was now elderly and fragile. The ICC has faced serious difficulties over attempts at to try top politicians for crimes committed by subordinates or followers most of them in Africa. Last year, former DR Congo warlord and ex-vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba was acquitted on appeal for crimes allegedly committed by his militia in the Central African Republic in 2002-2003. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta also saw charges of crimes against humanity over electoral bloodshed dropped by the ICCs prosecutor in 2014. If Gbagbo walks out free, the ICC should rethink what it could possibly achieve, Thijs Bouwknegt, an international law specialist, told AFP. The ICC was set up in 2002 to try the worlds worst crimes including war crimes and crimes against humanity. Gbagbo acquittal means he follows in the footsteps of his wife Simone Gbagbo. The so-called Iron Lady walked away from a 20-year jail term in Ivory Coast in August when she was granted an amnesty by Ouattara after seven years in detention. Visible gold now recovered from multiple zones New sample highlights include 17.6 g/t Au , and 11.1 g/t Au Five of 25 samples taken to date returned values in excess of 11 g/t Au Strike length of new zone extends 400 meters VANCOUVER, CA / ACCESSWIRE / January 15, 2019 / Nexus Gold Corp. (''Nexus'' or the ''Company'') (TSX-V: NXS, OTCQB: NXXGF, FSE: N6E) is pleased to report additional sample results from the recently acquired, 100% -owned, 98-sq km Dakouli 2 Gold Project, located on the Goren Greenstone Belt, central Burkina Faso, West Africa. A total of 13 samples were taken in the second round of prospecting on the Dakouli 2 property, with five returning values between 1.74 grams-per-tonne (''g/t'') gold (''Au''), and 17.6 g/t Au, and eight returning values from 0.052 to 0.864 g/t Au. Samples were collected from orpaillage dumps and from depths of 15 to 40 meters below surface within active artisanal pits and shafts. Of the first 25 samples now collected on the property, 11 have returned values greater than 1 g/t Au. Five samples so far have exhibited various concentrations of coarse, nuggety, visible gold, returning assay values greater than 11 g/t Au. All 25 samples taken to date at Dakouli 2 have tested positive, with several returning significant gold values (see Table 1). Ground reconnaissance recently completed by the Company has identified two new mineralized zones and a secondary vein structure just south of the primary Northeast Zone described in the Company's January 8, 2019, news release. The secondary vein structure identified is located 70 meters south of the primary Northeast Zone. The new workings are parallel to the primary orpaillage being worked and three samples taken 17 to 40 meters below depth returned gold values of 1.74 g/t Au, 3.68 Au and 17.6 g/t Au, respectively. The 17.6 g/t sample exhibited coarse visible gold. The workings of the Northeast Zone on the Dakouli 2 property now cover an area measuring 400 meters along strike enclosing two parallel gold bearing structures 150 meters wide. An additional new zone, located on the western boundary of the Dakouli 2 permit, has returned two samples from workings located there of 2.72 g/t Au and 11.1 g/t Au. This second orpaillage, termed the Boken Vein Zone, consists of gold in quartz veins located proximal to a granitic plug. The samples were taken from workings at 25-meter depths. ''The secondary structure identified in the north east and the Boken Vein showings are revealing just how robust the Sabce fault zone is,'' said Vice President of Exploration, Warren Robb, P.Geo. ''The amount of coarse visible gold we have seen thus far makes this a very exciting exploration program,'' continued Mr. Robb. ''These are positive early indicators at Dakouli,'' said Alex Klenman, president & CEO. ''We have already confirmed multiple mineralized zones on the property and are currently mapping out these zones to determine their relationship to known structural faults and trends. It is a prolific area in terms of gold mineralization and we are encouraged by both the abundance of visible gold at Dakouli and the sample grades so far. We have lots of similar ground to cover, I'm looking forward to a deeper and more extensive exploration program, including a maiden drill program, in the coming months,'' continued Mr. Klenman. Dakouli Samples to date Sample-ID Easting Northing Comment Au g/t DKL-001 636687 1445630 Qtz from orpaillage pit, about 8m depth, light grey to smoky qtz, looks like flat vein 3.15 DKL-004 636763 1445627 Milky qtz vein from orpaillage pit, about 8m depth, several pieces of VG show from panning 27.5 DKL-009 636828 1445661 Milky qtz vein from orpaillage pit, 18m depth 2.90 DKL-010 636767 1445652 Light grey qtz vein from orpaillage pit 4.93 DKL-011 636738 1445670 Qtz from orpaillage pit, VG show in panning and on a piece of quartz coming from the same shaft, about 10m depth 29.5 DKL-012 636677 1445642 Qtz from orpaillage pit, about 8m depth, VG show in panning 12.4 DKL-021 625232 1441439 Qtz from orpaillage pit, 15m depth, white to light grey 2.72 DKL-022 625269 1441469 Qtz from orpaillage pit, 25m depth 11.1 DKL-023 636901 1445515 Qtz + VG from orpaillage pit, 40m depth 17.6 DKL-024 636903 1445514 Qtz from orpaillage pit, 40m depth 1.74 DKL-025 636967 1445530 Qtz from orpaillage pit, 17m depth 3.68 Figure 1: Rock sample with visible gold in quartz, recovered at the Dakouli 2 concession Prospecting along the southern boundary of the property has now identified a third area of active artisanal workings. Shafts and workings in this area have targeted a black quartz vein which has returned anomalous gold values ranging from 0.312 to 0.864 g/t Au. This southern series of showings is termed the Black Vein Zone and is located along the southern Sabce Sud lineament. This lineament is defined by the Gougre satellite open pit currently being exploited by Nordgold, a major orpaillage occurring on the adjacent eastern permit, and the orpaillage at the Black Vein Zone. Figure 2: Close up of visible gold in quartz sample recovered at the Dakouli 2 concession The Dakouli 2 exploration permit is located approximately 100 kilometers due north of the capital city Ouagadougou. The 98-square kilometer permit lies immediately south of the Company's Niangouela property (see figures 3 and 4) which has been explored over the past two years. Drilling at Niangouela has returned significant intercepts, including 26.69 g/t Au over 4.85m (including 1m of 132 g/t Au), and 4 g/t Au over 6m (including 20.5 g/t Au over 1m). The Dakouli 2 property is located on the Goren Greenstone belt and is bordered to the north by granitic rocks. It is also bisected by the Sabce Shear, a major structural fault zone proximal to multiple gold deposits, which trends southwest northeast and bisects the entire long axis of the property. Figure 3: Nexus project locations with known structural faults in red The Sabce Nord (see Figure 4) trend starts at Nordgold's Bissa mine continues through the Northeast Zone on the Dakouli 2 permit, and the southeastern corner of the Niangouela permit. It proceeds to Boken Vein Zone on the western boundary of Dakouli 2 and is approximately 12 kilometers in length. The Sabce Sud (see Figure 4) hosts Nordgold's Gougre satellite pit, east of Dakouli 2, and runs approximately four kilometers across the property's southern section, bisecting the Black Vein Zone. The Black Vein Zone, an active orpaillage featuring a series of deep shafts that trend sub parallel to the Sabce Sud, features hard, black siliceous rock, similar to what is being mind at the Gourgre satellite pit. Figure 4: Dakouli 2 mineralized zones and bisecting Sabce faults/lineaments in red About the Company Nexus Gold is a Vancouver-based gold exploration and development company operating primarily in Burkina Faso, West Africa. The company is currently concentrating its efforts on establishing a compliant resource at one or more of it's four current Burkina-based projects which total over 560-sq kms (56,000+ hectares) of land located on proven gold belts and active mineralized trends. Warren Robb P.Geo., Vice-President, Exploration, is the designated Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and is responsible for the technical information contained in this release. On behalf of the Board of Directors of NEXUS GOLD CORP. Alex Klenman President & CEO 604-558-1920 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.nexusgoldcorp.com Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially because of factors discussed in the management discussion and analysis section of our interim and most recent annual financial statement or other reports and filings with the TSX Venture Exchange and applicable Canadian securities regulations. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable laws. TORONTO, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Eastmain Resources Inc. (Eastmain or the Company - TSX:ER, OTCQX:EANRF) reports results for the final three drill holes (887 metres) (m) completed in late 2018 at the Percival discovery (Percival) on the 100%-owned Clearwater Property (the Property) in James Bay, Quebec. A total of 3,599 m of drilling was completed at both Percival (see PRs dated Nov. 13, 2018, and Dec. 20, 2018) and the Serendipity Prospect (see PR dated Dec. 21, 2018) during the fall 2018 program. The previously announced Winter 2019 exploration program (20-holes for 5,500 m) will focus on testing the extent and continuity of Percival, beyond the 200 m strike and 250 dip extent tested in 2018. Using a recently completed VTEM survey (final survey results pending), in addition to the Fall 2018 drill results, the program will also follow up on potential prospects along the 14 kilometre (km) long Knight-Serendipity volcano-sedimentary horizon (KS Horizon). Drilling Highlights include (see TABLE 1 below): ER18-830: 5.77 grams per tonne (g/t Au) over 11.0 m (vertical depth of 122 m), including 12.0 g/t Au over 4.5 m (silicified breccia) ER18-830: 1.01 g/t Au over 10.9 m (vertical depth of 294 m), including 1.99 g/t Au over 2.8 m zone (silicified breccia) ER18-831: 1.09 g/t Au over 10.0 m (vertical depth of 51 m) (silicified breccia) ER18-829: Targeted and identified previously inferred fault, 15 m west of holes ER18-822 and ER18-823 (the Discovery Holes) which will assist with targeting the extension of mineralization on either side of the fault Claude Lemasson, Eastmain President and CEO commented: Our exploration team is eager and ready to test the district potential of the underexplored 21,000 ha Clearwater Property. At the Percival discovery, we are beginning to better understand the stratigraphic and structural controls of the new discovery, giving us greater clarity and focus for continued exploration. The Winter program will benefit from an additional layer of VTEM geophysics for targeting Percival mineralization and the 14 km long KS Horizon. Furthermore, while we continue to explore our Clearwater Property, our engineering team continues pre-development activities to advance the Eau Claire Project. Percival is located 14 km ESE of the Companys million-ounce Eau Claire gold deposit1, within the 20-km long Cannard Deformation Zone (see FIGURE 1) and within the southern segment of the KS Horizon. Percival is a hydrothermal gold system hosted in a thick metasedimentary sequence with locally interbedded intermediate to felsic volcaniclastic rocks. Results from the latest drilling provide further understanding of the mineralization controls, namely by defining lithological and structural settings, within the host stratigraphy while identifying at least two gold mineralized zones within the metasedimentary package (see FIGURES 2-4). Table 1: Significant Intercepts Location Drill Hole From (m) To (m) Length (m) Grade (Au g/t) Vertical Depth (m) Host Lithology Percival ER18-829 144.5 146.0 1.5 1.74 97 Silicified Breccia Percival ER18-830 102.1 108.0 5.9 0.69 99 Silicified Mudstone Breccia 124.0 135.0 11.0 5.77 122 Silicified Breccia incl. 129.5 134.0 4.5 12.0 187.2 220.2 33.0 0.59 191 Silicified Breccia + Siltstone incl. 192.5 196.2 3.7 2.84 Silicified Breccia 228.5 230.0 1.5 2.34 215 Mudstone Breccia 276.0 280.5 4.5 0.77 259 Siltstone incl. 276.0 277.0 1.0 1.29 310.9 321.8 10.9 1.01 294 Silicified Breccia + Mudstone Breccia incl. 312.0 313.2 1.2 3.85 incl. 319.0 321.8 2.8 1.99 Percival ER18-831 59.0 69.0 10.0 1.09 51 Silicified Breccia 126.0 138.0 12.0 0.60 102 Silicified Siltstone 178.7 179.7 1.0 1.38 137 Mudstone Breccia 251.5 252.5 1.0 1.52 191 Mudstone 263.5 296.5 33.0 0.21 211 Graphitic Mudstone + Greywacke incl. 263.5 265.0 1.5 1.29 Biotitized Greywacke Intervals are presented in core length; holes are generally planned to intersect mineralization as close to perpendicular to strike as possible; true widths are estimated to be 75% of downhole length when hole and dips of the mineralized horizons are considered. Assays presented are not capped. Intercepts occur within geological confines of major zones but have not been correlated to individual structures/horizons within these zones at this time. Vertical depth is measured from the surface to the mid-point of the reported interval. Drilling Results Drill hole ER18-829 (FIGURE 3) drilled ESE, successfully intersected an 18 m wide fault structure 15 m east of the Discovery Holes. The fault continues to be interpreted as NNW trending, roughly parallel to the trend of these drill holes. The Winter 2019 program will further test for orientation of the fault and potential displacement of stratigraphy and mineralization on the west side of the fault structure. In addition to targeting the fault structure, the drill hole also returned an interval of 1.74 g/t Au over 1.5 m within a 7.7 m intercept (vertical depth 97 m) of silicified breccia with anomalous gold values, east of the fault. Drill holes ER18-830 and ER18-831 (FIGURE 4) were collared 23 m west of the newly identified fault structure and 38 m west of the Discovery Holes. The previously mentioned fault is interpreted to trend between these two sets of holes and may offset the mineralization. The holes were drilled in a more northwesterly direction than previous holes and undercut hole ER18-828. The holes were targeting a potential steep westerly plunge to mineralization. Several strongly silicified breccia intervals in mudstone were intersected in these holes. ER18-830 returned two intervals of mineralized, silicified mudstone breccia, from 102.1 m to 108.0 m (0.69 g/t Au over 5.9 m) and from 124.0 m to 135.0 m (5.77 g/t Au over 11.0 m). The shallower intercept may be a continuation at depth of the same breccia intersected in hole ES18-828 from 52.5 m to 70.8 m (1.17 g/t Au over 18.3 m). The lower interval is similar in appearance to the strongly silicified breccias seen in the Discovery Holes. At the end of hole ER18-830, a deep intercept of silicified mudstone breccia was obtained (1.01 g/t Au over 10.9 m (vertical depth of 294 m). This breccia unit occurs at greater relative depth than others intersected in the fall drill program and is interpreted as a new stratigraphic horizon. ER18-831 intersected a broad interval of low-grade mineralization returning 0.21 g/t over 33 m (vertical depth of 211 m) near the end of hole in silicified, interbedded graphitic mudstone and greywacke. The mineralization is interpreted to be hosted along the same stratigraphic horizon as similar mineralization as intercepts in holes ER18-825 (0.16 g/t Au over 51.0 m at a vertical depth of 144 m) and ER18-827 (0.71 g/t Au over 51.7 m at a vertical depth of 177 m). Both previously reported intervals are located above (hanging wall) a feldspar porphyry dyke. Hole ES18-831 was not drilled deep enough to intersect the dyke. 2019 Project Objectives: 2019 Winter Drill Program: A three-month, 20-hole (5,500 m), focused drilling campaign is to begin in January. The program is designed to expand Percival while identifying new gold mineralization within the argillite-mudstone sedimentary package. Building on the winter program results, a second extensive campaign will be planned for the second half of 2019 and will include additional drilling at the discovery area and test targets delineated along the KS Horizon using newly acquired geophysical and soil geochemistry information. Improved interpretation at Percival: Focused drill testing of the Percival gold bearing zone along the KS Horizon, using stratigraphic and structural interpretation, to identify and improve predictability of potential mineralization offsets; detailed mineralogy and petrology to define the gold association as a further vector for drilling. Geophysics Airborne Survey Targeting: Use results from the completed Helicopter-borne VTEM and Horizontal Magnetic Gradiometer Geophysical Survey (VTEM Plus), performed by Geotech along the KS Horizon, to help focus future work at Percival and on other prospective targets along the KS Horizon (see FIGURE 1). Improved infrastructure: Complete the 14 km winter trail connecting the road-accessible Eau Claire Project and camp to the Knight showing and the Percival discovery to provide improved access and cost efficiency for the winter campaign. The Percival Discovery Percival is located 14 km ESE of the Eau Claire deposit (see FIGURE 1) in the Knight sector of the KS Horizon, on the Clearwater Property. The KS Horizon is characterized by an extensive package of metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks metamorphosed from upper greenschist to lower amphibolite facies. The horizon is also affected by deformation related to major crustal scale structures specifically, the Cannard Deformation zone, at the Percival discovery. The stratigraphy at Percival comprises foliated, predominantly south facing metasedimentary rocks underlain by marine mafic metavolcanics. The Knight sector is interpreted to be at the south-western end of the prospective volcano-sedimentary sequence. Discovery Holes ER18-822 and ER18-823 were drilled on a single section to undercut gold mineralization exposed in a sequence of silicified metavolcanics and metasediments during the Companys summer surface exploration program. These two holes intersected a silicified, sulfide rich, and gold mineralized brecciated interval of approximately 50 m in true thickness which extends from surface to a minimum vertical depth of approximately 100 m. Holes ER18-824 to ER18-831 were drilled to flank Percival discovery holes ER18-822 and ER18-823, testing for the extension of the brecciated units over a NE strike length of 200 m and across stratigraphy over 250 m. Table 2: Drill Hole Information Target Zone Drill Hole UTM Coordinates Zone 18 Azimuth Dip Total Length Elevation Number Easting Northing Degrees Degrees (m) (m) Percival ER18-829 457600 5781768 115 -45 234 334 Percival ER18-830 457620 5781710 342 -70 333 335 Percival ER18-831 457620 5781710 342 -50 310 335 For additional information on the Geology of the Percival Discovery and the KS Horizon, please visit: http://www.eastmain.com/projects/clearwaterexploration/. To view Figures 1-4, please click on the following link: http://www.eastmain.com/_resources/news/Images/ER-190115-Percival.pdf. This press release was compiled and reviewed by William McGuinty, P.Geo., Eastmains VP Exploration and Carl Corriveau, P.Geo., Eastmains Exploration Manager, both Qualified Persons under National Instrument 43-101. 1 A total of 1,001,200 oz of contained gold in the combined open pit and underground diluted production schedule, as defined in Eastmains Technical Report: Updated Mineral Resource Estimate and Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Eau Claire Gold Deposit, Clearwater Property, Quebec, Canada. Effective date, February 4, 2018 and issued July 4, 2018. Contained ounces are derived from a combined open pit and underground mineral resource estimate of 853,000 oz Au (4.29 Mt at an average grade of 6.18 g/t Au) Measured & Indicated, and 500,000 oz Au (2.38 Mt at an average grade of 6.53 g/t Au) Inferred. Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) The design of the Eastmain Resources drilling programs, Quality Assurance/Quality Control and interpretation of results is under the control of Eastmains geological staff, including qualified persons employing a strict QA/QC program consistent with NI 43-101 and industry best practices. The Clearwater project is supervised by Eastmains Project Geologist, Michel Leblanc P. Geo. Drill core is logged and split with half-core samples packaged and delivered to ALS Minerals laboratory. Samples are dried and subsequently crushed to 70% passing a 2 mm mesh screen. A 1,000 grams subsample is pulverized to a nominal 85% passing 75 micron mesh screen. The remaining crushed sample (reject) and pulverized sample (pulp) are retained for further analysis and quality control. All samples are analysed by Fire Assay with an Atomic Absorption (AA) finish using a 50 g aliquot of pulverized material. Assays exceeding 5 g/t Au are reassayed by Fire Assay with a Gravimetric Finish. Eastmain regularly inserts 3rd party reference control samples and blank samples in the sample stream to monitor assay performance and performs duplicate sampling at a second certified laboratory. Approximately 10% of samples submitted are part of the Companys laboratory sample control protocols. About Eastmain Resources Inc. (TSX:ER) www.eastmain.com Eastmain is a Canadian exploration company advancing three high-grade gold assets in the emerging James Bay gold camp in Quebec. The Company holds a 100% interest in the Eau Claire Project, for which it recently issued a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA), and the Eastmain Mine Project where the Company prepared a NI 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate in 2018. Eastmain is also the manager of the Eleonore South Joint Venture, located immediately south of Goldcorp Inc.'s Eleonore Mine, which hosts a new high-grade gold discovery found in late 2017. In addition, the Company has a pipeline of exploration projects in this favourable mining jurisdiction with nearby infrastructure. For more information: Claude Lemasson, President and CEO +1 647-347-3765 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Alison Dwoskin, Manager, Investor Relations +1 647-347-3735 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Forward-Looking Statements Certain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements consist of statements that are not purely historical, including statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or timing of future plans, and include, but not limited to, statements with respect to the potential success of the Companys future exploration and development strategies. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of Eastmain, including, but not limited to the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions, dependence upon regulatory approvals, the availability of financing, timely completion of proposed studies and technical reports, and risks associated with the exploration, development and mining industry generally such as economic factors as they affect exploration, future commodity prices, changes in interest rates, safety and security, political, social or economic developments, environmental risks, insurance risks, capital expenditures, operating or technical difficulties in connection with development activities, personnel relations, the speculative nature of gold exploration and development, including the risks of diminishing quantities of grades of Mineral Resources, contests over property title, and changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The Company assumes no obligation to update such information, except as may be required by law. New and expanded M&I mineral resources rank the Project as the largest permitted, pre-construction in-situ recovery ("ISR") uranium project in the U.S. First time that the major mineralized trends of the Reno Creek ISR Project have been consolidated within the Eastern Pumpkin Buttes District of the Powder River Basin. Considerable ISR exploration and expansion potential within open mineralized trends based on available historical drilling. Added resources benefit from existing production permits in place. CORPUS CHRISTI, TX, Jan. 15, 2019 /CNW/ - Uranium Energy Corp (NYSE American: UEC, the "Company" or "UEC") is pleased to announce the Company has completed an updated National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Properties ("NI 43-101") resource estimate for its Reno Creek ISR Project ("Reno Creek" or the "Project"). The Project is in the Powder River Basin, Wyoming, and now includes the consolidation and inclusion of the former North Reno Creek project ("North Reno Creek") into the Company's Reno Creek Project. * The report is entitled "Technical Report and Audit of Resources of the Reno Creek ISR Project, Campbell County, Wyoming, USA" dated December 31, 2018 as prepared for the Company by Behre Dolbear, an internationally recognized mining consulting firm (the "Report"). The Report estimates a Measured and Indicated ("M&I") mineral resource of 26 million pounds of uranium ("U 3 O 8 ") at a weighted average grade of 0.041% U 3 O 8 contained within 32 million tons, and an Inferred mineral resource of 1.49 million pounds U 3 O 8 at a weighted average grade of 0.039% U 3 O 8 contained within 1.92 million tons. * Amir Adnani, President and CEO, stated, "For decades, the Reno Creek uranium district has been unable to reach its full potential due to fractured ownership. Through a string of accretive acquisitions over the past 24 months, UEC has successfully consolidated the key project areas, clearing the path for this substantial new resource, with the benefit of being covered under our existing production permit. We're executing on contrarian acquisitions during difficult years in the uranium market and have amassed a production profile of low-cost and fully permitted ISR projects. Combining Reno Creek with the Company's South Texas ISR projects, positions UEC to lead a renaissance in U.S. uranium production via the ISR mining method, which is globally recognized for being low cost and environmentally friendly." The Company completed the acquisition of the North Reno Creek project in May 2018 (press release dated May 3, 2018), and since that time has been focused on updating resources, consolidating permits, merging databases and locating all Project related information into a newly opened office in Glenrock, Wyoming, near the Project. The Company contracted Behre Dolbear, an internationally recognized mining consulting firm, to complete the Report on the Project. The Report will be filed on SEDAR within 45 days of the date of this press release. Henceforth, Reno Creek and North Reno Creek will be considered as one project in terms of resource reporting, permitting and pre-production planning. The M&I resource estimate for the Project is presented in Table 1: * Table 1: Summary of M&I Resource Estimate for the Reno Creek ISR Project Reno Creek ISR Project Summary of Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources In-place1 Unit Tons2 (millions) Weighted Average Thickness (feet) Weighted Average Grade (%U 3 O 8 ) Pounds U 3 O 8 2 (millions) North Reno Creek3 Measured 7.12 14.3 0.041 5.92 Indicated 8.05 11.7 0.036 5.76 Total 15.2 13.0 0.039 11.68 Southwest Reno Creek Measured 4.68 12.9 0.043 3.94 Indicated 4.08 10.4 0.038 3.08 Total 8.77 11.6 0.040 7.03 Moore Measured 2.32 10.3 0.048 2.20 Indicated 2.31 9.0 0.042 1.92 Total 4.63 9.6 0.044 4.12 Bing Measured 0.30 14.6 0.038 0.23 Indicated 0.71 12.4 0.032 0.45 Total 1.02 13.0 0.033 0.67 Pine Tree Measured 0.57 14.0 0.056 0.63 Indicated 1.83 12.2 0.051 1.87 Total 2.40 12.6 0.053 2.51 Reno Creek Project Measured 14.99 13.2 0.043 12.92 Indicated 16.98 11.1 0.039 13.07 M + I Total 32.0 12.1 0.041 26.0 1Cutoff 0.20 GT (grade thickness per intercept) 2Columns may not add due to rounding 3Includes North Reno Creek acquisition Figure 1 shows the location of the entire 19,769-acre Reno Creek property area. Figure 2 shows the 6,053-acre permit area covered by Permit 824, Reno Creek ISR Project Permit to Mine, issued by the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality ("WDEQ") on July 17, 2015 (the "Permit"), and associated mineralized trends. A Source and By Product Materials License for Reno Creek was issued in February 2017 from the U.S Nuclear Regulatory Commission ("NRC"), supported by a Final Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision, to permit production of up to 2 million pounds U 3 O 8 per year. On September 30, 2018, the State of Wyoming became an NRC Agreement State, which gives the State the authority to regulate in-situ recovery facilities in Wyoming. From this date forward, UEC will only be required to work with the State WDEQ for Permit revisions, which will streamline the process to include the North Reno Creek resources under the existing Permit. About Reno Creek The Reno Creek Project is in the Powder River Basin of northeast Wyoming, one of the most prolific uranium producing regions in the U.S. and the home of five ISR uranium mining operations: Cameco's Smith Ranch/Highland and North Butte, Uranium One's Willow Creek, Energy Fuels' Nichols Ranch and Strata's Lance project. The Project is less than 10 miles from the nearest town of Wright, Wyoming with a population of 1,800. Substantial historical exploration, development and permitting work has been completed on the Reno Creek property, beginning in the late 1960s and continuing to present. Approximately 10,000 uranium exploration drill holes have been completed within and near the Project area by various operators over this time. Currently, Company geologists are reviewing the historical data to assess the development of additional resources along 12 miles of partially defined mineralized trends within the currently held acreage. Development of a conceptual mining plan to support a revised Preliminary Feasibility Study is underway and the Company is planning on completing this document in 2019. The technical information in this news release has been prepared in accordance with the Canadian regulatory requirements set out in NI 43-101 and was reviewed by Robert D. Maxwell, CPG, a consultant for the Company and a Qualified Person under NI 43-101. About Uranium Energy Corp Uranium Energy Corp is a U.S.-based uranium mining and exploration company with additional titanium and vanadium assets. The Company's fully-licensed Hobson Processing Facility is central to all its uranium projects in South Texas, including the Palangana ISR mine, the permitted Goliad ISR project and the development-stage Burke Hollow ISR project. In Wyoming, UEC controls the permitted Reno Creek ISR uranium project. Additionally, the Company controls a pipeline of advanced-stage uranium projects in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Paraguay. The Company also controls a large high-grade titanium project in Paraguay and significant vanadium resources in combination with its Slick Rock uranium project in Colorado. The Company's operations are managed by professionals with a recognized profile for excellence in their industry, a profile based on many decades of hands-on experience in the key facets of uranium exploration, development and mining. Stock Exchange Information: NYSE American: UEC, WKN: AJDRR ISN: US916896103 *Notice to U.S. Investors The mineral resources referred to herein have been estimated in accordance with the definition standards on mineral resources of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum referred to in NI 43-101 and are not compliant with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") Industry Guide 7 guidelines. In addition, measured mineral resources, indicated mineral resources and inferred mineral resources, while recognized and required by Canadian regulations, are not defined terms under SEC Industry Guide 7 and are normally not permitted to be used in reports and registration statements filed with the SEC. Accordingly, we have not reported them in the United States. Investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of the mineral resources in these categories will ever be converted into mineral reserves. These terms have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence, and great uncertainty as to their economic and legal feasibility. It should be noted that mineral resources which are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of measured mineral resources, indicated mineral resources or inferred mineral resources will ever be upgraded to a higher category. In accordance with Canadian rules, estimates of inferred mineral resources cannot form the basis of feasibility or other economic studies. Investors are cautioned not to assume that any part of the reported measured mineral resources, indicated mineral resources or inferred mineral resources referred to herein are economically or legally mineable. Safe Harbor Statement Except for the statements of historical fact contained herein, the information presented in this news release and oral statements made from time to time by representatives of the Company are or may constitute "forward-looking statements" as such term is used in applicable United States and Canadian laws and including, without limitation, within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, for which the Company claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements. These statements relate to analyses and other information that are based on forecasts of future results, estimates of amounts not yet determinable and assumptions of management. Any other statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, using words or phrases such as "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans, "estimates" or "intends", or stating that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and should be viewed as forward-looking statements. Such forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks and other factors include, among others, the actual results of exploration activities, variations in the underlying assumptions associated with the estimation or realization of mineral resources, the availability of capital to fund programs and the resulting dilution caused by the raising of capital through the sale of shares, accidents, labor disputes and other risks of the mining industry including, without limitation, those associated with the environment, delays in obtaining governmental approvals, permits or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities, title disputes or claims limitations on insurance coverage. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be achieved. Forward-looking information is subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Many of these factors are beyond the Company's ability to control or predict. Important factors that may cause actual results to differ materially and that could impact the Company and the statements contained in this news release can be found in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company assumes no obligation to update or supplement any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements contained in this news release and in any document referred to in this news release. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy securities. Few places in America are as evocative as New Orleans, a feast of music, food and timeless street scenes where streetcars with names like Desire rumble past. To celebrate the 300th anniversary of the citys founding, JPMorgan Chase & Co. is honoring 12 icons who have helped shape NOLA. They come from all backgrounds, but share a devotion to their hometown. We caught up with each hometown hero to get their thoughts on what makes New Orleans so inspirational and what is necessary to ensure its future is even brighter. What inspires you about New Orleans? Summerville, SC (29483) Today Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low near 65F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low near 65F. Winds light and variable. Ma said Kafka and his grim diaries how he is interested in power, how you cant see power even when its prevalent everywhere, and how he worked at an insurance firm by day but was writing at night became a major influence on Severance. Though as predictable as it may be to read the details of an authors life into their fiction, the book is remarkably autobiographical: Ma, who is 35, came to the United States from China as a child; she grew up in Utah, Nebraska and Kansas, her father taught economics, her mother is an accountant. After attending the University of Chicago, she worked for a book-production firm in Chicago, but was transferred to the New York office, where she oversaw the Bible. She returned eventually to Chicago, and now teaches writing at UC. Harris filed a lawsuit, claiming that since the disbanded elections board was unconstitutional, its investigation into the alleged ballot fraud was invalid and he should be declared the winner. But even if the court did so, Democratic leaders in the U.S. House have said they wont allow Harris to take office because of the ongoing investigation. And last week, the head of the House Administration Committee sent a letter to N.C. elections officials asking them to preserve all original notes, recordings or documents used in investigating the allegations of ballot fraud. As if all this werent enough, weve learned that the state elections board alerted the U.S. Justice Department to suspected efforts to manipulate elections results through absentee ballots back in 2016. Its unclear how the Justice Department responded. But this shows that the alleged corruption reaches further than one man in one election. This is a nasty vine that needs to be rooted out. It also shouldnt be forgotten that Republicans have enthusiastically pushed their unsubstantiated myth of rampant voter fraud at the polls though they were less enthusiastic when evidence of election fraud by absentee ballot surfaced. - Trump has a long financial history with Russia. As summarized by Jonathan Chait in an invaluable New York magazine article: "From 2003 to 2017, people from the former USSR made 86 all-cash purchases -- a red flag of potential money laundering -- of Trump properties, totaling $109 million. In 2010, the private-wealth division of Deutsche Bank also loaned him hundreds of millions of dollars during the same period it was laundering billions in Russian money. 'Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,' said Donald Jr. in 2008. 'We don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia,' boasted Eric Trump in 2014." According to Trump attorney Michael Cohen's guilty plea of lying to Congress, Trump was even pursuing his dream of building a Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign with the help of a Vladimir Putin aide. These are the kind of financial entanglements that intelligence services such as the FSB typically use to ensnare foreigners, and they could leave Trump vulnerable to blackmail. But since we have already commenced withdrawal with none of that in place, Pompeo hastened to add it doesn't matter that we have/had troops there. ("The United States of America can project military power from lots of places in the world. The absence of a couple thousand soldiers on the ground in Syria in no way materially diminishes the capacity of the United States of America and our amazing armed forces to deliver American power to accomplish our objectives anywhere in the world.") Hmmm. Ask the Kurds, the Syrians, Iran and just about every other power in the region whether that makes sense. (If so, Pompeo and other Republicans owe President Barack Obama an apology for pulling troops out of Iraq.) So what about the Kurds? Hey, Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan chatted! "The Turks have made clear that they understand that there are folks down in Syria that have their rights." Uh-huh. The worst part of his interview, however, was Pompeo's double talk on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi -- which the administration refused to connect to the Saudi crown prince and about which Pompeo disingenuously denied conclusive proof of such to members of Congress. Here's his response in full (so you can fully appreciate the abject dishonesty): CHAPEL HILL Chancellor Carol Folt announced Monday that she will resign from UNC-Chapel Hill after commencement in May. Folt also said the university will remove the base of the Confederate statue known as Silent Sam. In a statement, Folt said it has been the "privilege of my life" to lead the university and that she is "deeply proud of what youve accomplished and what weve accomplished together" since she came to UNC-Chapel Hill from Dartmouth College in 2013. The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that Folt had given no indication before Monday that she planned to resign. Folt in that same statement said she has ordered the removal of Silent Sam's nine-foot-tall pedestal and attached commemorative plaques from the McCorkle Place quad on campus. It's unclear when this will happen or if she has the legal authority to do so. He bound Jayme with duct tape around her wrists and ankles and pulled her from the tub, shooting Denise as he started turning away, according to the complaint. He dragged Jayme to the car and put her in the trunk, locked it and drove away. He told deputies that he was no more than 20 seconds from the house when squad cars passed him with their emergency lights and sirens on, having been alerted by a 911 call made by Denise. The deputies arrived to find James and Denise both dead from gunshot wounds to their heads. Little is known about Jayme's time as a captive. The girl told police that Patterson would have her hide under his twin bed, stacking the area around it with tote bags, laundry bins and weights so that he would be able to hear or see if she moved. Police said she told them that "Patterson made it clear that nobody was to know she was there or bad things would happen to her." Guests had apparently come and gone to his house while she was under the bed, the complaint said. And he made her stay under the bed when he left the house, sometimes as long as 12 hours with no food, water or bathroom break, the complaint said. He struck her with a hard household object one time when she upset him, threatening that the punishment would be worse if it happened again. A one-act play by a local playwright has local activist groups asking why the local arts community is presenting and promoting the play now. Hate Out of Winston and Winston-Salem Democratic Socialists of America say the play Our Time: A Conversation in Black and White whitewashes local history surrounding the removal of a Confederate statue and promotes white supremacy. But Lynn Felder said her play is not about the statue and doesnt defend white supremacy. The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County will begin today its renovation of the Rhodes Center for the Arts and will close a section of the building during construction. Reynolds Place, a community-events venue, will be converted into a 240-seat black box theater and become the primary performance venue for the N.C. Black Repertory Co. and the Little Theater of Winston-Salem, the council said in a statement. The renovation is set to be completed by July. The existing separated gallery, lobby and conference room at the Spruce Street entrance will be used to create a space containing an expanded arts gallery, a patrons-services center and an arts-gift shop featuring works by local artisans, the council said. Christine Jones, the organizations senior vice president for facilities and chief operating officer, said that the Rhodes Center will remain open during renovation. Crews will try to minimize the inconvenience to Rhodes Centers occupants and visitors, she said. The Sawtooth School, which occupies much of the second floor, will not be significantly affected by the renovation, the council said. The first-floor offices of the Associated Artists and the Hispanic League will be moved to other offices within the building. Jones estimates that construction will be completed by mid to late July. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. According to The Washington Post, rip-off artists have started stealing actual photographs of real people women mostly and then superimposing images of their faces onto the bodies of actresses in adult films. Once thats done, the crooks try and blackmail potential victims. Pay up or Ill send this to your families. Its a nasty, hateful business. Electronic bluff The first time I read the weekends e-mail from Christian, I thought that was the scam with which I was dealing. Bifocals and a small screen were playing tricks on my mind. Thats what happens when they give a smart phone to a dumb guy. So I told the wife. She didnt say so it out loud, but its possible she was thinking it: Maybe theyll take 10 pounds and 20 years off of you. Then I read it again and realized what the scammer was proposing. If you want evidence, reply with Yes! and I will send your video recording to your 5 friends. It was a bluff, and an impossible one at that. As she traversed from sea to shining sea, always atop the bill, she made friends of journalists of at least four generations Tribune columnist Rick Kogan told me that Channing once had changed his diapers, somewhere in the early 1950s, and one could only hope she took sufficient care. Reporters and critics at this newspaper interviewed her scores of times. She was described as a survivor for at least 40 years. When a writer needed a bit of variety, they usually threw in an original. Rarely did they note she was a teen intellectual prodigy who enrolled at Bennington College in Vermont when she was just 16 years old. Q: Does the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools nutrition department have regulations about the temperatures of beverages served at meals? My son has attended two different schools since kindergarten and at both, they had milk and water out in small coolers. We were worried that they were at room temperature and not fit to drink. C.A. Answer: According to Lauren Richards, the director of Child Nutrition for the school system, school cafeterias are inspected two to four times a year by the county health department. School cafes are held to the same and in some cases greater sanitation and safety standards as other eating establishments because they serve a large population and one that is considered highly susceptible, she said in an email response to SAM. Milk should never be left at room temperature, she said, and we would never serve it that way intentionally. If this is taking place, those that are aware are encouraged to reach out to me (at alrichards@wsfcs.k12.nc.us) so that I can address with my team and ensure student safety and product quality. In an industry increasingly taken with cans, the squat 8-ouncer provides a unique thrill. Not only is it eye-catching, but it can be an ideal amount of beer a nip when a nip is all you want. (If you havent tried to slug down 16 ounces of 10-percent-alcohol hazy IPA lately, give it a try and get back to me.) Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 15) Senator Grace Poe wants the Senate to look into the planned two-year closure and rehabilitation of the Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge, commonly known as the Rockwell Bridge, which would be undertaken by a Chinese firm previously blacklisted by the World Bank. "There is a need to closely scrutinize the plan of our government agencies with respect to public infrastructure to give due consideration to the motorists and residents in the affected area," Poe said in filing Senate Resolution No. 984 on Monday. The Rockwell Bridge would be closed for 30 months beginning January 19, 4 a.m. This would give way to repairs and the widening of the bridge connecting Estrella Street in Makati and Barangka Drive in Mandaluyong. Construction would last until the first quarter of 2021. The project is funded by a grant from China and would be undertaken by state-owned firm Chinese Communications Construction Company (CCCC) Limited, which, together with all of its subsidiaries, was banned from July 29, 2011 to January 12, 2017 by the World Bank from engaging in any of road and bridge projects it funded. The World Bank said in 2011 the CCCC was blacklisted for fraudulent practices under the first phase of the Philippines National Roads Improvement and Management Project. CCCC is the designated successor entity to the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), which the World Bank blacklisted for eight years for allegedly rigging the bidding of the project. Poe noted that CRBC was reported having been used in land reclamation and dredging activities in the West Philippine Sea. She said she doubts that the grant from China for the ?1.4 billion Rockwell Bridge restoration project has no strings attached and believes that the Philippines may be used as a reference for the CCCC to regain its reputation. She added that the government should look closely into the Chinese workers that will be employed once the project starts. The senator also said there is no reason for a "perfectly working bridge" to be reconstructed, especially since there were no studies to check if the bridge is structurally sound, while the traffic mitigation plan for its closure and the impact of the widening of the bridge on traffic remains unclear. "The government should ensure that the interest of the public, first and foremost, is safeguarded and protected, and as such should exercise due diligence, conduct viability studies and exhaust all possible alternatives prior to the development of any infrastructure project that will paralyze traffic and business in high-density areas," Poe said. Metro Manila Development Authority General Manager Jojo Garcia said Friday the repair of the bridge is necessary as it is "not designed for [a] highly-urbanized city," even if it is still sturdy. The government eyes widening the bridge from two to four lanes and strengthen it to withstand a strong earthquake. While under construction, Garcia said motorists can expect their usual nine-minute trip through the bridge will lengthen to 30 minutes to an hour. Evelyn "Berniece" Anderson, age 89, of Pierce City, Missouri, passed away following an illness on June 12, 2021. Berniece was born on April 22, 1932, in Neosho, Missouri, to Truman and Louella (Ball) Patrick. At 21 years old, Berniece married her best friend, Millard Anderson. Before his pas Joe Hadsall is the digital editor for The Joplin Globe. He has been the editor of the former Nixa News-Enterprise and has worked for the Christian County Headliner News and 417 Magazine. Follow Joe Hadsall Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today Allie Gross covers Teton County government. Originally from the Chicago area, she joined the News&Guide in 2017 after studying politics and Spanish at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Mike has reported on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem's wildlife, wildlands and the agencies that manage them since 2012. A native Minnesotan, he arrived in the West to study environmental journalism at the University of Colorado. Scene Editor Billy Arnold covers arts and entertainment. He apprenticed as a sound engineer at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, Ohio before making his way to Jackson, where he has become a low-key fan of country music. The airline expects to begin growing again in 2020 and could return to Chicago, Romano said. Anyone who purchased a ticket for a flight that has since been cancelled should have been notified and given a refund or a chance to switch their departure to another airport Wow still serves, she said. The indictment, filed in September 2016, charged Lindstrom with buying hundreds of thousands of worthless options on U.S. Treasury note futures, options that would temporarily appear profitable. He covered up the realized losses by continuously acquiring larger out-of-the-money positions and sent Rock Capital false reports to further conceal the scheme, according to the indictment. This Week in Review A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more. After failing to meet its own shipping timeline in 2018, Apple is now thought to have two manufacturers ramping up production of its AirPower wireless charging pad, according to a Hong Kong-based website that specializes in device charging news. As first reported by MacRumors, the website ChargerLAB tweeted out this morning that it had "just learned from credible source in supply chain" that Chinese manufacturer Luxshare Precision has begun manufacturing the AirPower multi-device wireless charger. ChargerLAB followed its initial tweet with another claiming a second Apple supplier, Pegatron, will begin manufacturing AirPower chargers on Jan. 21. ChargerLab cited a Pegatron employee who said AirPower will have three layers of copper wireless charging coils, in an "8-7-7" configuration from bottom to top, which will enable it to charge an an iPhone 8 or iPhone X, an Apple Watch Series 3 or 4 and AirPods via the charging case. Zens A multi-device wireless charger from Holland-based Zens. Its Dual+Watch Fast Wireless Charger can charge two smartphones and an Apple Watch at the same time. "Unfortunately, I think it will be at least $150," ChargerLab tweeted. While there may be more than a dozen multi-device wireless chargers technically available now, most do not charge both smart watches and smartphones. The accuracy of ChargerLAB's past tweeted rumors has been hit or miss. MacRumors noted ChargerLAB accurately reported that third-party Apple-certified Lightning to USB-C cables would be available in early 2019, and in fact they were introduced at CES last week. Conversely, in December, ChargerLAB reported the entire iPhone X lineup would come with a faster 18-watt USB-C power adapter. The charger shown on the ChargerLab website was, in fact, for a 2018 iPad Pro. If ChargerLAB's latest tweets prove correct, are there still users prepared to spend top dollar for an Apple-stamped wireless charger? Jack Gold, principal analyst with J. Gold Associates, doesn't believe the delayed AirPower release will affect sales. "Apple makes a ton of money on accessories, so anything it can do to offer popular accessories that it can sell is a good thing," Gold said via email. "If it's designed well (very likely) and works well (Apple doesn't usually offer shoddy products) then there will be a ready market for the product." Belkin/IDG Belkin's BoosUp wireless charging pad is similar to others; it contains a copper transmitter charging coil, a chipset to control the power delivered to a device, and foreign object detection tech to ensure objects that shouldn't receive a charge don't. In September, 2017, Apple announced it would ship its AirPower product by the end of 2018. Expectations grew with each passing quarter last year that the charging pad would finally arrive. But Apple missed its own deadline and pundits surmised the company was struggling with technical issues, such as how to regulate different charging requirements on a single pad using the Qi wireless charging specification. Industry pundits also noted Apple had purged the AirPower image from virtually all of its webpages. Apple The only image currently available of AirPower on Apple's webpages. Broadly speaking, there are three types of wireless charging, according to David Green, a research manager with IHS Markit. There are charging pads that use tightly-coupled electromagnetic inductive or non-radiative charging; charging bowls or through-surface type chargers that use loosely-coupled or radiative electromagnetic resonant charging that can transmit a charge a few centimeters; and uncoupled radio frequency (RF) wireless charging that allows a trickle charging capability at distances of many feet. Both tightly coupled inductive and loosely-coupled resonant charging operate on the same principle of physics: a time-varying magnetic field induces a current in a closed loop of wire. Developed under the Wireless Power Consortium, Qi is the most popular wireless charging specification and is supported by more than 230 companies, including Samsung, Sony, Delphi Automotive and Energizer. Apple became a WPC member last year. The Qi standard supports both tightly coupled, or inductive, wireless charging and loosely coupled, or resonant, wireless charging, which allows an enabled mobile device to be up to 1.75 inches away from a charging pad and still receive power. That distance allows mobile devices to be more loosely placed around pads in order to charge rather than needing to be placed in an exact spot to receive power. But the leeway is still tight. When Apple first announced the iPhone 8 in 2017, it recommended wireless charging products from third-party providers Mophie and Belkin. Belkin An exploded image of a Belkin wireless charging pad shows the copper coil in the center responsible for transmitting electromagnetic power to enabled mobile devices. Since that time, a variety of third-party providers have introduced wireless chargers that can power up both an iPhone and an Apple Watch. But none have introduced a product that can handle all three of Apple's products: smartphone, watch and earbuds. In December, Computerworld reviewed four multi-device chargers capable of powering up smartphones and smart watches. "The market has moved on and there now are a lot of vendors offering wireless charging, including for Apple products, so the market is much more crowded and competitive now than it would have been if they brought the product to market a year ago," Gold said. "But the share of wireless charging compared to wired is still pretty small, so there is a very large potential for Apple (and others) to sell to." A year from today, Microsoft will issue the final public security update for Windows 7, ending the operating system's 10-year run. Here are some of the important numbers related to Windows 7's final 12 months. 10 The label for the version of Windows slated to replace Windows 7 as the default OS in the enterprise. Currently, Windows 10's adoption rate lags behind Windows 7's at the same point in its post-launch timeline. In March 2013, 41 months after its debut, Windows 7 powered approximately 49% of all Windows PCs. 12 The number of Patch Tuesday security releases remaining for Windows 7. These updates, issued on the second Tuesday of each month, are the primary patch collections for newly reported or discovered vulnerabilities. 30 The number of months Microsoft will support the final Windows 10 feature upgrade available prior to Windows 7's retirement. The feature upgrade, likely carrying the labels "Windows 10 October 2019 Update" and "1909," will probably begin reaching users in October. Last year, Microsoft extended support for individual feature upgrades from 18 to 30 months when those upgrades were issued in the fall for the Enterprise and Education editions only. Windows 10's spring feature upgrades continue to receive only 18 months of security and non-security updates. 36 The percentage of all Windows PCs that will run Windows 7 at its retirement, based on a rolling 12-month average of change tracked by Net Applications; that average was then projected into the future. The number has fluctuated significantly over the last two years, from a low of 29% to nearly 40%. It's also the maximum number of months Microsoft will offer corporate customers "Windows 7 Extended Security Updates" (ESU) after the January 2020 support retirement. The extended support will be available only for PCs running Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Enterprise, and then only if those operating systems were obtained via a volume licensing deal. Microsoft will discount ESU for customers who also have Software Assurance plans in place for Windows or have subscriptions to Windows 10 Enterprise or Windows 10 Education, including the Microsoft 365 subscription. Windows 7 ESU will be sold in 12-month increments, with as many as two extensions of the additional-support plan. Unlike the per-user licensing model Microsoft has taken to for Windows 10, ESU will be sold on a per-device basis. 43 The percentage of all Windows personal computers currently running Windows 7, according to U.S. analytics company Net Applications. Windows 7 slipped to second place on the Windows list - finally bested by the newer Windows 10 - only last month. 67 The percentage of all Windows PCs that ran Windows 7 at the operating system's peak, which was in June 2015, the month before the launch of Windows 10. 200 Amount, in dollars, of a single license to Windows 10 Pro for upgrading a compatible Windows 7 personal computer. An upgrade from Windows 7 to the less expensive, but also less capable, Windows 10 Home costs $140. 515 Additional amount, in dollars, that Microsoft claimed it cost enterprises to continue to run Windows 7 for three years, compared to the costs of Windows 10. The assertion was made in April 2017, when Windows 7 had less than three years of remaining support. Microsoft's claim was based on analysis done by Forrester Research but paid for by the Redmond, Wash. developer of Windows. 642,000,000 The approximate number of personal computers worldwide that currently rely on Windows 7. This number was calculated by multiplying the current Windows 7 share of all Windows personal computers by 1.5 billion, the number Microsoft regularly cites as the global Windows installed base. In comparison, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 account for about 93 million PCs, and Windows 10 powers around 682 million machines. Huawei chief executive and founder Ren Zhengfei says the company will under no circumstances allow the Chinese Government to access customer data. During a media conference in Shenzhen on Tuesday, Ren sought to address concerns raised by the US that has repeatedly claimed the Chinese telecommunications equipment giant could allow the government a backdoor into a country's communication systems. (Full transcript here.) Ren said: "The first point I want to make is that over the past 30 years, our products have been used in more than 170 countries and regions, serving more than three billion users in total. "We have maintained a solid track record in security. Huawei is an independent business organisation. When it comes to cyber security and privacy protection, we are committed to siding with our customers. We will never harm any nation or any individual. "Secondly, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has officially clarified that no law in China requires any company to install backdoors. Neither Huawei, nor I personally, have ever received any requests from any government to provide improper information." The US has banned the use of Huawei equipment in its 5G networks, claiming that the company can be a conduit for spying by Beijing.andhave both followed the US lead and banned the company from roles in their respective 5G rollouts. Apart from the pressure on the company over 5G, its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, Ren's daughter, was arrested in Canada last month following on a request from the US, which claims she has been involved in breaking American sanctions on shipping US-made equipment to Iran. Asked about the arrest of his daughter, Ren said: "As you must be aware, the case... right now is in legal proceedings. So, we'd rather leave it to legal proceedings." He offered a similar response when asked about an employee in the company's Poland office who had been arrested for allegedly spying and subsequently dismissed by Huawei. When he was further asked whether the arrest of Meng was because she was part of his family, Ren responded: "You know, I certainly do not have access to the email correspondences between the American Department of Justice and the Canadian Department of Justice. Maybe in the future when they make this evidence public, I will see whether it is because Meng is my daughter that she is being targeted. We will wait to see more evidence that is made public in the proceedings that follow." Asked whether Huawei had an channels for communicating with the US Government, Ren replied in the negative. "We don't have any channels for communicating with the US Government, and, honestly, we don't know much about each other." Regarding the structure of Huawei, Ren was asked why he did not take the company public so that the share holdings were made public. He said: "Our shareholding employees are currently working at Huawei or are retired former employees who have worked at Huawei for years. There is no single individual that owns even one cent of Huawei's shares without working at Huawei. There is no external institution or government department that owns our shares, not even one cent's worth. We have a shareholding registry that lists the shares held by our shareholding employees. Journalists who are interested are welcome to take a look at it. "I, myself, am the founder of this company. At the time when I wanted to found Huawei, I did not have enough money. When I got demobilised from the military, my wife and I received a total of 3000 yuan (US$444) as compensation from the military. At the time, a minimum of 20,000 yuan was required as registered capital to start a company in Shenzhen. By pooling funds from different people, I managed to get 21,000 yuan to register Huawei. "Today, the total number of shares that I personally have within Huawei is 1.14%, and the stake that Steve Jobs had in Apple was 0.58%. That means there is still potential for my stake to be further diluted. I should learn from Steve Jobs." He foresaw a difficult year ahead for the company, with revenue growth falling below 20%, adding that it was targeting US$125 billion for the year. In 2019 we might face challenges and difficulties in international markets. That is why I said ... our growth next year would be less than 20%," he added. Fledgling Australian digital bank Xinja says a capital raise, which has opened early to existing investors, customers and people who had registered interest, has passed the minimum of $500,000 in less than nine hours. Xinja, which describes itself as a digital neobank designed entirely for mobile, says last month it received unprecedented expressions of interest when its second equity crowdfund was announced on Equitise. With shares available from Tuesday on the Equitise platform, Xinja chief executive and founder, Eric Wilson, said he was confident there would be early and consistent interest from investors who want to help shake up Australias banking system. The raise opened early to existing investors, customers and people who had registered interest had passed the minimum, Xinja announced. Under the new capital raising Xinja offers shares at $2.04 each, with a minimum investment of $255. And, Xinja claims its first equity crowdfund, launched in Jan 2018, is still the most successful retail raise since equity crowdfunding legislation was passed in Australia. The capital raise follows APRA granting Xinja a restricted banking licence and, according to Xinja, more than 23,000 people have signed up to the Xinja app, and it has issued more than 9000 cards, currently in use in 17 countries a day on average. A year ago, when Xinja was the first company to launch an equity crowdfunding campaign, we raised more than half a million dollars in less than 18 hours," Wilson said. "A lot has happened since then. We can now call ourselves a bank: we have a restricted banking licence,more products in development, and we have the momentum to become partners with thousands more Australians. We are now working towards a full banking license from APRA (in 2019, subject to regulatory approval) [and] we have ambitious plans in place for the years ahead. Were all about making banking easy. We're about banking technology that more closely resembles what people expect from innovators and disruptors, like Netflix or Uber, as opposed to old-style, bricks and mortar-based banking." We know from our work in the community that a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck, and we anticipated there would be a need if folks suddenly lost their income due to the federal shutdown, OConnell said. We wanted to be a resource during this difficult time for the federal employees. Like the Ithaca Times? Please help support local journalism by whitelisting this site in your ad blocker. Thank you! Irene Jaehne Mouser beloved mother, grandmother, and friend went home to be with her Lord and Savior at the age of 93, in Huntsville, Tx. on June 9, 2021. Irene met her husband Leroy Mouser while working at the Houston Police Department. In 1947, Leroy and Irene were married, had three sons, January 15, 2019 Idaho Gov. Brad Little proclaimed January 15 Idaho State University Day in Idaho to celebrate the universitys positive and enduring impact on the Gem State. Idaho Gov. Brad Little proclaimed January 15 Idaho State University Day in Idaho to celebrate the universitys positive and enduring impact on the Gem State. Flanked by ISU President Kevin Satterlee and university mascot Benny the Bengal, Little signed the proclamation Tuesday morning at the Capitol building. He applauded ISU s commitment to advanced knowledge and community service as he highlighted the universitys 250 programs that drive the states economy, foster innovation and shape the leaders of tomorrow. The event was also an opportunity for students to visit with elected officials, policy makers and the public about ISU programs. The universitys 11 colleges, student government and graduate school were represented. Tuesday, January 15th, 2019 (12:01 am) - Score 1,724 Swedish fibre optic builder VXFIBER, which is working to deploy a new 1Gbps open access FTTP broadband ISP network in Stoke-on-Trent (here), has appointed Steven Drake as its Senior Project Manager for the Midlands and North of England to help with their UK expansion plans. Steven previously worked at T-Systems, where he held positions as a Senior Project Manager, and Programme and People Manager, involved in business development strategy and diversity programmes. Overall he has around 30 years of experience working within the telecommunications industry, holding several senior project management roles at companies including KTL Telecommunications, KCOM and Greenwoods Communications. In his new role, Steven will focus on VXFIBERs business and operational development, while working collaboratively with local councils on projects to deliver greater connectivity to the Midlands and the North of England. Richard Watts, VXFIBERs Sales and Marketing Director, said: We believe that the UKs local authorities along with new build developers are in an ideal position to deliver critical full-fibre connectivity, to people and businesses across the UK. As such, we are working closely with local councils and property developers on projects to help pull towns and cities across the UK into the future. Were delighted to welcome an experienced telecoms industry professional who will support the delivery of our projects in the Midlands and North of England, allowing many to realise the benefits of connectivity as an enabler. End. Tuesday, January 15th, 2019 (10:20 am) - Score 2,053 Urban focused fibre optic broadband ISP Hyperoptic has today continued to build its new executive team by appointing Moray Falconer, an experienced civil engineer, to be its new Managing Director (MD) of Infrastructure. Falconer will report directly to CEO Dana Tobak. At present Hyperoptics 1Gbps capable ultrafast full fibre (FTTP/B) network is said to cover well over 500,000 UK premises in parts of multiple UK Hyper Cities (due to reach 50+ cities and towns by Q1 2019). The network typically targets large residential or office buildings in dense urban areas (e.g. Multi-Dwelling Units with at least 50 units), which are very cost effective to upgrade. However over the past couple of years the provider has managed to raise an investment pot of 500m, which will be used to help expand their 1Gbps capable broadband network to cover 2 million homes by the end of 2021 (here) and then possibly 5 million by 2024 (more investment will probably be needed to hit the 5 million aspiration). In keeping with that theyve also been busy building a new executive team to oversee this work and Moray, who has some 20 years of experience in delivering major infrastructure projects, is the latest addition. Dana Tobak, CEO of Hyperoptic, said: Moray joins our new Exec team because of his record in infrastructure delivery. His experience will be invaluable to support us to successfully fast-track the build of our premier full fibre national network. Moray Falconer, Hyperoptics MD of Infrastructure, said: Delivering the next generation of broadband across the UK is a huge opportunity to create a lasting legacy, so I couldnt turn it down. I will be looking to lead the company in the national expansion of our capacity to ensure the efficient and effective delivery of our network. Its a huge undertaking but one that I am confident we can deliver and set industry best practice. Moray will also be responsible for leading the ISPs plan to extend their deployment via over 5,000 kilometres metro fibre network using Duct and Pole Access (DPA) by 2021. This is the regulated name that Ofcom has given to the process of allowing rival ISPs to access Openreachs (BT) existing cable ducts and telegraph poles in order to run their own fibres (aka Physical Infrastructure Access). The initial cities to benefit from this DPA approach include Greater London, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Leeds in 2019. A further 10 cities to be covered in 2020 will be announced in the second half of 2019. Hyperoptic hopes that this work will broaden their reach to include smaller apartment blocks / buildings, housing and businesses. Guest Column Why Is China In a Hurry to Revive the Myitsone Dam Projects? People protest against the Myitsone dam project at the construction site north of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, in 2015. / Nan Lwin Hnin Pwint / The Irrawaddy A statement from the Chinese government on Sunday has renewed concerns among ethnic Kachin over the stalled Myitsone dam project. In the statement, the Chinese Embassy in Yangon claimed that Kachin political leaders and social organizations had a positive attitude toward the dam. It added that local people of Kachin State do not oppose the Myitsone hydropower project; it is some individuals and social organizations from outside that oppose the project. Three Kachin political parties and community leader Rev. Hkalam Samson immediately issued a statement of their own to insist that Chinas claims were false and misleading. It is obvious that the people of Myanmar, and the Kachin in particular, have been opposed to the Myitsone dam projects even before it forced thousands of Kachin villagers to relocate. Myitsone is hardly Chinas only planned dam in Myanmar. It also hopes to build dams in Lasa on the Mali River and in Khaunglanghpu, Phizaw, Lakin and Pashe on the Nmai River. A dam on the Nmai in Chiphwi is already finished. The people of Myanmar are strongly opposed to the seven dams on the Irrawaddy and its tributaries because of the irreparable environmental damage they may cause, the potential for water shortages and unpredictable surges, and the knock-on social and economic damage facing the millions who depend on the waterways. The sudden flurry of activity over the Myitsone begs the question: Why is China so keen to revive the project? The reasons are many. First, China wants to push the project forward in order to help meet the power demands of its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). As noted in the embassys statement, China is planning to establish three economic cooperation zones on its borders with Kachin and Shan state as part of the BRI. Moreover, China is expanding road and rail links with the country as part of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC). It is also speeding up construction of an industrial park in Namjim, in northern Kachin. The Myitsone dam would go far in providing them all with a ready supply of electricity. Second, with bilateral relations on the upswing, China wants to seize the moment. There is a saying: Strike while the iron is hot. In a recent column, I wrote that State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi could make a bargaining chip of the steering committee she has just formed to coordinate BRI projects. China, on the other hand, is using its support for Myanmar in the face of mounding international pressure over the Rohingya crisis to try to revive the Myitsone project and push forward with others. Beijing also promised to strengthen cooperation with the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, improve border management and control, and maintain border stability when Vice Senior General Soe Win paid an official visit to China in mid-November. China always protects Myanmar from scrutiny or punishment at the UN Security Council in accordance with its paukphaw brotherhood. It appears that China wants to seize this moment to restart the dams, while Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the Tatmadaw need its help. Third, China may be trying to draw attention to the Myitsone dam to distract from other investment opportunities it is pursuing. For example, Myanmar Yang Tse Copper, a subsidiary of Beijing-based Wanbao Mining, has reportedly sought permission to carry out ground inspections for a possible copper mine in a 100,000-acre area in Monywa, in Sagaing Region. China is also continuing to pursue the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone in Rakhine State despite warnings in Myanmar that it could pose a debt trap for the country. While implementing the CMEC, China may also have to confiscate land from locals and come in for complaints of paying insufficient compensation, as it did when it built the Shwe gas pipeline connecting Rakhine and Chinas Yunnan Province. Fourth, China wants to reduce its dependence on coal for its electricity supply. As the figures below show, China currently gets 64.7 percent of its electricity from coal and only 18.6 percent from hydropower. China is the worlds second largest coal importer after Japan. Its coal imports hit a record high in the summer of 2018. However, China is aware of the importance of reducing its dependence on coal, having faced protests by miners, average citizens and environmental activists both at home and abroad. For example, thousands of coal miners protested in China over unpaid wages in 2016 and thousands of locals have protested against coal mining in the Letpadaung region of Sagaing in recent years. China will never give up on the Myitsone dam. It is currently building dams on the Namtu and Nam Teng rivers despite local opposition. China may have yet more reasons for wanting to revive the Myitsone dam project than the ones listed here. Whatever they are, the people of Kachin State should not be made the scapegoats. Joe Kumbun is the pseudonym of an analyst based in Kachin State. News UN Calls for 'Rapid and Unimpeded' Aid Access to Myanmar's Rakhine A recently displaced family, residents of Wa Taung, camp out in northern Rakhine States Kyauktaw Township. / Kyaw Kha / The Irrawaddy YANGONThe United Nations called on the Myanmar government on Monday to allow rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access to Rakhine State, where fighting between government troops and autonomy-seeking rebels has displaced thousands of people. The Rakhine State government issued a notice last week blocking non-governmental organizations and UN agencies from travelling to rural areas in five townships in the northern and central parts of the state affected by the conflict. The International Committee of the Red Cross and UN World Food Programme were exempted from the ban, it said. Myanmars president urged the military to crush the rebels of the Arakan Army during a rare meeting with the commander-in-chief last week. The president, U Win Myint, is a loyalist of the de facto government leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Fighting has forced about 5,000 people to flee from their homes and take shelter in monasteries and communal areas across the region since early January, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. We are seriously concerned about new restrictions on humanitarian access which leave thousands of women, children and men in affected areas of Rakhine without access to adequate assistance and protection, said Pierre Peron, a spokesman for UN office. We hope the government responds positively to our call for rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access, and to ensure the protection of civilians in accordance with international humanitarian and human rights law, he said in an email. The Rakhine State municipal affairs minister, whose name is also U Win Myint, told Reuters the restrictions on humanitarian access were put in place for security reasons. We dont know how long it will last, he said, Access will be granted again if there is no security concern. Rakhine state has been roiled by successive rounds of violence in recent years. In 2017, the region was the site of an extensive military crackdown, following attacks by Rohingya Muslim insurgents, that prompted about 730,000 Rohingya to flee westwards into neighboring Bangladesh. The Arakan Army, the group behind the recent fighting, is demanding greater autonomy from the central government for Rakhine State, where the mostly Buddhist ethnic Rakhine people form the majority of the population. Arakan Army fighters killed 13 policemen and wounded nine in attacks on four police posts in early January, state media reported. An Arakan Army spokesman outside Myanmar told Reuters last week the group attacked the security forces in response to a broad military offensive in the north of Rakhine State that also targeted civilians. Myanmar governments have battled various autonomy-seeking ethnic minority insurgent groups since shortly after independence from Britain in 1948, though some have struck ceasefire agreements. Burma Three Villagers Shot Dead in Fighting Between Govt, AA Troops in Rakhine A government soldier on sentry duty at an outpost in Rakhine States Buthidaung Township. / Kyaw Kha / The Irrawaddy YANGONAt least three villagers were reportedly killed in armed clashes between the Myanmar Army and the Arakan Army (AA) near Hpon Nyo Leik village in northern Rakhines Buthidaung Township on Sunday, Muslim and Rakhine villagers said. The village is home to nearly 8,000 Rohingya and several dozen Arakanese homes. The village with a mixed population of Rohingya and Arakanese was spared during the militarys clearance operations in 2017, which drove more than 700,000 Muslims into neighboring Bangladesh. Hpon Nyo Leik resident Nrul Islam told The Irrawaddy on Monday afternoon that Muslim villagers found three bodies on Monday morning near the site of Sundays fighting. He said they were killed by gunfire. One of the victims was a 19-year-old Rohingya boy and the other two are believed to be Arakanese villagers from the Rakhine community. Villagers wanted to perform funeral services for the victims, but Army (or Tatmadaw) troops claimed the three bodies on Monday afternoon. They later returned the Muslim boys body. According to Nrul Islam, the two dead Arakanese were clad in plain clothes and had a black backpack each. Neither firearms nor ammunition were found among their belongings. An Arakanese resident of the same village who asked not to be identified due to fears for his safety confirmed that some civilians had been killed, and that Muslim villagers had found some bodies in the morning. He said that about 15 Arakanese residents of various villages were detained by Army officers on Sunday, the same day as the fighting between the AA and the Tatmadaw broke out. Thirteen of these villagers were released from Buthidaung-based Border Police Headquarters No. 13 on Tuesday morning. The detainees included seven Arakanese civilians from Pyin Chaung village; a villager from Tha Yet Pyin and an administratoridentified as U Maung Than Hlaingfrom the same village; two villagers from Yae Kaung Chaung and one from Oo Yin Thar village. Cases against the villager and administrative official from Tha Yet Pyin are being opened under the Unlawful Association Laws Section 17 (a). Tha Yet Pyin is a neighboring village of Hpon Nyo Leik. Video footage uploaded by Mayu Rashid on Facebook at 5:30 p.m. on Monday shows the dead body of a Rohingya man. A brief statement accompanying the post in Burmese says that one Rohingya man was shot dead by Army troops. The video includes a narration in the Rohingya language. The Irrawaddy had the narration translated. It says that at least three Rohingya were believed to be missing following the clash. Both the translated narration and what can be gleaned from the footage suggest that the man killed was a resident of Hpon Nyo Leik village. According to the translator, the narrator adds that Rohingya villagers were asking Rohingya netizens to spread the video clip to show that Rohingya are being caught in the crossfire of two armed groups. This video posted on Facebook on Monday evening shows the body of a dead Rohingya man from Hpon Nyo Leik village in northern Rakhines Buthidaung Township, according to the Rohingya-language narration. According to The Irrawaddys translation, the narrator also claims that at least another three Rohingya were believed to be missing following a clash between Tatmadaw and AA forces near the village. Nrul Islam elaborated that as this month is paddy-harvesting season, many Rohingya villagers are working as casual labors in the region. But since armed fighting erupted between AA and government troops unexpectedly on Sunday, more than 30 villagers have gone missing. The Irrawaddy was not able to independently verify his claims. Brigadier-General Zaw Min Tun of the Commander-in-Chiefs Office confirmed Sundays clash to The Irrawaddy on Monday morning, acknowledging that there were fatalities on both sides. Weve got five AA deaths; at the same time, there are some on our side, he said. He refused to give the exact number. When The Irrawaddy called him on Monday and Tuesday afternoon to confirm the civilian deaths and arrests, he didnt answer the phone. The AAs vice chief of staff, Major-General Nyo Tun Aung, denied to The Irrawaddy that anyone from his armed group was killed in the clash, and claimed that five Muslim villagers were reportedly killed by government troops. The Irrawaddy contacted some Muslim and Rakhine villagers from Hpon Nyo Leik and they said at least three were killed. Early on Monday morning, armed skirmishes occurred in Rathedaung Townships Kyein Pyin village, which is about 6 miles from downtown. A Rathedaung resident said that even in the town, some residents were digging reinforced trenches as shelters from incoming artillery shells, in case the armed conflict reached downtown. When I was washing my face in the morning, a number of shells exploded on the outskirts of town. At first I thought it might be thunder, he said. The recent fighting between the AA and government troops has prompted local people to flee their villages. The conflict area has broadened into five townships, and on Monday the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the number of IDPs had risen to 5,000 on Monday. Burma KNPP Raises Tatmadaw Troop Movements in Karenni State with Peace Commission From right to left, KNPP vice chairman Khu Oo Reh, U Zaw Htay, U Khin Zaw Oo and U Hla Maung Shwe chat before their informal talks in Chiang Mai, Thailand on Jan. 14, 2019. / Nyein Nyein / The Irrawaddy CHIANG MAI, ThailandThe Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) raised the issue of the Myanmar militarys recent deployment of troops in areas under the partys control in Karenni State with the governments Peace Commission (PC) during informal talks in this northern Thai city on Monday. The KNPP sees the deployments by the Myanmar military (or Tatmadaw) since late 2018 as being of concern not just to itself, but also to the security of the public. The KNPP has held five rounds of informal talks with the government since last year. The talks are aimed at finding a path for the group to eventually sign the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). KNPP vice chairman Khu Oo Reh headed the partys delegation to the negotiations, which were led by PC secretary U Khin Zaw Oo. KNPP spokesman Nei Neh Plo, who took part in the negotiations, said the KNPP discussed the situation on the ground, which has seen increased deployments of Tatmadaw troops in Karenni-controlled areas. Delegates also discussed ways of overcoming this obstacle to the KNPPs joining the path to the NCA. Only when the disputes on the ground are solved and mutual trust improves will the two sides be able to move forward with negotiations, Nei Neh Plo said. Many incidents in late 2017 and in 2018 hindered the KNPP from moving forward to [enter] bilateral negotiations on the NCA. For instance, the case of the murders of four Karenni soldiers [in December 2017] and clashes with Tatmadaw troops, after they failed to inform us in advance of their movements in our areas. Thus, negotiations were set back and didnt advance, he said. He added that recent decisions by NCA signatories had slowed the progress of the KNPPs efforts to join the NCA process. He cited the Karen National Unions temporary suspension of its participation in the formal peace process in October, and the Restoration Council of Shan States decision to put off its participation in the mechanisms of the Joint Ceasefire Monitoring Committee. Thus for the KNPP, signing the NCA seems to getting more distant, even if we wanted to join, Nei Neh Plo said. The KNPP entered bilateral talks with the government after peace negotiations with the United Nationalities Federal Councils Delegation for Political Negotiation ended in early 2018. U Zaw Htay, the director general of the Myanmar State Counselors Office, told reporters on Monday after the informal talks that negotiations are ongoing to settle the problems on the ground in Karenni State, and to get the KNPP on the NCA path. He said the talks were a positive development. We still have to negotiate the date [for further talks] and how we move the process forward step by step. Our discussions were constructive and it was a good meeting. We hope the KNPP will sign the NCA soon, and we are moving forward based on that expectation, he said. Burma Home-Grown Tech Startup Taking on International Competitors Neh Thit CEO Conor Smith and Head of Operations Ko So Phay Oo attend Seedstars Asia Summit in Bangkok in November 2018. / Seedstars / Facebook YANGONAs recently as 2012, the internet in Myanmar was strictly censored, slow and very expensive. From 2013, the telecommunications market began to open up leading to a huge spike in the number of internet users, most of whom access the internet via their smartphone and primarily use Facebook. Since then, Yangons tech scene has gone from strength to strength and diversified with successes in travel (GoP), accommodation (Ezstay) and employment (Chate Sat) startups exciting observers of the regions startup environment. Considering that less than a decade ago only about 1% of the population had access to the internet, this is significant. Neh Thit, also known by its English name New Day, is a local tech startup honing in on this proliferation of smartphone users and fast internet connectivity to provide easy-to-use technology that connects non-executive job seekers with employers. There are currently 50,000 job seekers and over 40 employers using the platform. In its first year, the startup won an award for innovation from MIT and soon after, was given a vital six-digit grant under GSMAs Ecosystem Accelerator Innovation Fund. In early November 2018, the entrepreneurs behind Neh Thit pitched their startup alongside eight competitors at the Yangon chapter of Seedstars, an international startup competition, and came out winners, going on to attend the Seedstars Asia Summit held in Bangkok in late November. They have been invited to compete at the Seedstars Summit in Switzerland this April where the competition will be fierce with the global winner taking $500,000 for their company. Based out of Phandeeyar co-working space in downtown Yangon, the first version of Neh Thit was rolled out in 2017 by a team put together by US-native Conor Smith who, after a number of years living in Yangon, decided to act on complaints he often heard from employers on the difficulties of finding and keeping quality staff. Now a team of 12 permanent staff, and a number of freelancers and advisors who pitch in along the way, run Neh Thit. We are trying to help the community and generate income for low-level or entry-level workers, said Ko So Phay Oo, Neh Thits head of operations who returned from Singapore after seven years to join the Neh Thit team. The team work on creating a win-win situation for both employee and workers. The Neh Thit team have developed chatbot technology which allows job seekers to start a conversation through Facebooks Messenger or Viber. The conversation is automated and details are acquired from the user, including what field of work they are hoping to find employment in. The chatbot technology automatically creates a resume for them and presents a list of job opportunities suited to their experience and skills. They then choose and apply for whichever jobs they are most interested in. We are collecting hundreds of data points, both demographic and behavioral, on our job seekers, which enables us to build full profiles that go beyond traditional CVs. We then apply a matching algorithm to best offer job opportunities to job seekers, and optimally pre-select and pre-interview our candidates to deliver a win-win for both employers and candidates, CEO Conor Smith told The Irrawaddy via email. Ko So Phay Oo says a strength of Neh Thit is how easy it is to use; that there is no training necessary in using the technologyeveryone knows how to use Facebook Messenger. In terms of internet connection, Myanmar is one of the fastest in Southeast Asia. We found that there are a lot of users who are really familiar with Facebook. But we found that only 5% of users are willing to download an application so we decided not to create an app just yet, he said. Despite the high number of smartphone users and fast internet, introducing a non-traditional method of job-seeking was one of the challenges for the startup. We are not only trying to build a product, we are also introducing a new culture of using a web portal and chat technology to find a job or employee which is quite difficult to implement in a short time, he said. Employers register on the Neh Thit website, choose a pricing plan and list the details of the jobs vacancies they have in their company. Our backend system uses HR technology that will automatically match resumes using our systems and inform the employer, said Ko So Phay Oo. We have found that we cant just offer matches without additional assistances. To increase success rates of our job seekers throughout the process, we also offer recruiting guidance tools via chat-based online course curriculum. This includes application readiness, interview prep, onboarding prep, etc. So far, we have had over 1,200 candidates successfully complete these modules, said Smith. The companys first year was all about research, market observation and feasibility studies. The beta version of Neh Thit was launched in August 2018 andas with all good startupsthe team is constantly improving, modifying and adjusting their product while sticking to the concept. The company is proud of their office structure where everyone is on the same levelcustomer service, digital marketing, business development, management and finance and accountingall work together and the equal respect and responsibility among team members fosters a positive team spirit and plenty of motivation. Neh Thit targets the entry- and mid-level workforce which is the mass market in Myanmar and includes non-executive jobs such as customer services, hospitality and sales and marketing. So far, they operate only in Yangon but they have plans to move to other urban centers in the future. The Seedstars summit in April is set to be an exciting opportunity to network with other startups and will provide a chance to meet potential investors as well as to attend seminars and conferences alongside their counterparts from international emerging and established markets. Going forward, Ko So Phay Oo says the companys ultimate goal is to have full coverage of employers and employees in Myanmar. We have made strong progress so far and we are excited about the momentum we have created, but there is still a very long way to go. We are still at the start of our journey, and we are driven to reach our long-term goal of creating an efficient jobs marketplace for non-executive employment opportunities across Myanmar, said Smith. Burma Four Arakanese Facing Charges for Murder of Army Intelligence The four accused Arakanese are escorted by police to the court hearing in Sittwe on January 14, 2019. / Min Aung Khine / The Irrawaddy YANGONFour Arakanese men are being officially sued under Article 302 of the Penal Code in connection with the killing of a member of a military affairs unit Corp. Win Htike in Rakhine States capital of Sittwe last September. Defense lawyer for the four suspects, U Tun Aung Kyaw, confirmed that the court accepted the lawsuit on Monday. He explained that the victims wife will act as a plaintiff in the case. Two of the accused, Ko Aung Zaw Lin and Ko Khine Thaw, are Arakanese activists who are members of the Arakan Youth Conference (AYC), while Ko May Yu Tun is a member of the Arakan National Party (ANP). The three were arrested in October 2018 in different locations in Rakhine State but later granted bail, with police saying they hadnt found enough solid evidence to construct a case against them. In November, the police arrested the fourth suspect in Yangon on suspicion of gunning down the military-affiliated officer who was a fellow member of the ANP. After a series of interrogations by Sittwe police over the course of two weeks, the suspect was beaten and allegedly forced to confess to the police accusations. The suspect Ko Ye Zaw received medical treatment in Sittwe General Hospital in December following the interrogations. According to U Tun Aung Kyaw, the investigation officer has submitted evidence to the court which contains clothing worn by the victim, an empty bullet round and a handbag as well as some group photos of the three Arakanese activists. The police handed a list of 30 plaintiff witness names to the court. Well, I am pretty sure that all three Arakanese have nothing to do with this murder case. We truly believe that they are innocent and that they are being unfairly treated, said U Tun Aung Kyaw. The lawyer claimed that Ko May Yu Tun was not even in the capital when military intelligence official was shot down at close range. Ko May Yu Tun was helping the 2018 by-election candidate for the ANP alongside an Arakanese Union lawmaker Daw Khin Saw Wai on the day of the incident. The other two suspects, Ko Aung Zaw Lin and Ko Khin Thaw were socializing with friends at Sittwe strand on the night in question. U Tun Aung Kyaw claimed that the fourth suspect Ko Ye Zaw was also not in Sittwe, as he had already returned from Sittwe to Yangon on Sept. 19. He said that they have already provided travel itinerary to the authorities as a proof. I cant imagine how they are going to examine some group photos of three Arakanese as evidence in the court, said U Tun Aung Kyaw. An Arakanese activist and Sittwe resident Ko Min Bar Chay who attended the initial court hearing of the four detainees on Monday also said that the process of the authorities is very questionable at this point as they granted bail for three of the suspects and then re-arrested them without further explanation. Another defense lawyer Daw Aye Nu Sein confirmed that the three Arakanese were re-arrested on Monday and the next court sitting will take place on Wednesday. Burma Calls Grow for Probe of Civil Service Board Following Fake Universities Scandal Akamai University of Hawaii bestows a Doctor of Philosophy Honoris Causa in Educational Leadership on U Win Thein on Oct. 11, 2014 at the Summit Parkview Hotel in Yangon. / Global New Light of Myanmar YANGONCalls are mounting for an investigation into Myanmars Union Civil Service Board (UCSB) in the wake of disclosures that it provided training and a masters degree program for high-ranking government officials via two unaccredited foreign universities. The scandal broke last month after a Myanmar scholar doing a degree at Oxford University in England revealed on Facebook that Hawaii-based Akamai University and an affiliated institution, Malaysias EDS Business School, were working with the UCSB, a government agency responsible for recruiting and training civil servants. Neither university is recognized by the government of its home country. The scholar, Ko Nay Yan Oo, posted videos of Akamai University showing two small rooms in a two-story building he described as being no bigger than a grocery store. On a door of one of the rooms, a sheet of A4-sized paper could be seen bearing the name of the purported university. The posts were widely shared and many netizens questioned the motivation for the UCSBs decision to partner with the institutions. Initially, the UCSB defended its relationships with the universities. It posted on its website on Dec. 30 that both were accredited by the U.K.-based Accreditation Service for International Colleges (ASIC)an organization that has faced allegations of accrediting degree mills. Following heavy criticism from the public on social media, the UCSB said on Jan. 9 that after a review, it had ended its partnerships with the two institutions on Jan. 4, and vowed to collaborate with worthier universities in the future. But no further details, nor any explanation of how the relationships were formed, have yet emerged. The move failed to satisfy the public and has led to demands for accountability and transparency from the board. Meanwhile, EDS Business Schools official Facebook page, which once actively touted its partnership with the UCSB, has disappeared. The schools website is under maintenance. Ko Nay Yan Oo told The Irrawaddy that simply ending the cooperation was not enough. They must explain to people why they worked with those institutions. How much [public] money has been spent on those two universities? Public funds spent on those two universities have been wasted, he said. Under their partnerships with the board, Akamai University and EDS Business School conducted several courses starting in 2017, according to data from UCSB. They offered courses like Strategic and Corporate Planning for a Public Sector Organization, Competencies for Transformational Leadership for Civil Service, Developing a Good to Great Culture for Civil Service and Effective Supervision and Team Leadership Methods for Civil Service to directors of government departments, lecturers from the countys central institutes of civil service, and officials from the Civil Service Affairs Department and the Civil Service Selection and Training Department. From May 8-13, 2017, leadership training was also given to officials from Union-level institutions and permanent secretaries from Union ministries. In 2018, a Master of Leadership in Civil Service program was launched. Daw Cho Mar Myint, UCSB spokesperson and assistant secretary, told The Irrawaddy on Jan. 10: The decision to stop collaborating with them was made by the chairman, referring to Dr. Win Theinwho himself received an honorary doctorate from Akamai University in 2014. She added that the two-year masters program, which was attended by around two dozen directors and deputy director-generals, would also be scrapped. Asked if the decision to end the collaboration was prompted by the ongoing public criticism of the bogus university, the UCSB spokeswoman declined to comment. Who is Dr Win Thein? Before assuming the leadership of the UCSB, ex-military man Dr. Win Thein served as the principal of the Myanmar Mercantile Marine College. His Army background began with the Defense Services Academy (DSA)s Intake 11, the same class as ex-general U Shwe Mann, considered the third most powerful man in Myanmars former military regime. U Win Thein also served as a member of the Union Parliaments Legal Affairs and Special Cases Assessment Commission in 2012. The UCSB has requested several budget increases in recent years. Under the 2017 Budget Law (for April 1, 2017 to March 30, 2018), it sought 9.3 billion kyats. For the six-month interim budget from April 1 to Sept. 30, 2018, it asked for 4.6 billion kyats. In the latest budget law for fiscal 2018-19, it asked for 39 billion kyatsan amount larger than the requests from some ministries, including those of the State Counselors Office, Hotels and Tourism, Religious Affairs and Culture, Commerce, Industry and Ethnic Affairs. Regarding financial issues, including how much the UCSB spent on the two institutions training courses, Daw Cho Mar Myint told The Irrawaddy that, I have no authority to discuss the issue. Ko Myo Min, founder of PS Business School, said it was shocking that a government agency would work with unaccredited foreign universities to offer training to government officials. The problem of fake degrees and degree mills happens all over the world But here, [the government] has neglected to address it. If they are at fault, they need to admit and provide an explanation to the public. Just saying We have cut ties is so reckless, he said. Conflicts of Interest Accreditation aside, Ko Nay Yan Oo saw a possible conflict of interest in UCSBs partnerships with the two bogus universities. UCSB chairman Dr. Win Thein and his nephew Dr. Win Min Thein have longstanding ties with Akamai University and EDS Business School. Dr. Win Min Thein founded a business institute, Yangon City Training Center, in 2012. In 2017 it was renamed Nanyeng International College. He also works as a visiting professor at the UCSBs central institutes of civil service. His father, U Min Thein, is a member of the Naypyitaw Development Committee. Ko Nay Yan Oo said he had discovered that Dr. Win Min Thein first held discussions with Akamai University and EDS Business School about offering business management training in Myanmar in late 2013. Akamai University appointed Dr. Win Min Thein an assistant professor in its Asia Program. In October 2014, Akamai University bestowed U Win Thein, who was then a member of the Legal Affairs and Special Cases Assessment Commission, with a Doctor of Philosophy Honoris Causa in Educational Leadership in Yangon. According to Ko Nay Yan Oo, Dr. Win Min Thein and EDS Business School held discussions on the training programs in late 2016 in Yangon. U Win Thein was appointed as UCSB chair in April 2016. He later approved the two universities to offer training with the UCSB. In 2017, EDS Business School awarded Dr. Win Min Thein the Presidential Award for Distinguished Achievement. Contacted by The Irrawaddy for comment on this story on Sunday, Dr. Win Min Thein initially agreed to be interviewed on Tuesday afternoon. However, his assistant canceled the interview at the last minute, saying Dr. Win Min Thein was on a tight schedule. Calling for an investigation into the scandal, Ko Nay Yan Oo said, With the country transitioning to a democratic system in which good governance, people-centered administration and transparency are required, what the Union Civil Service Board has done is unacceptable. He said he would submit complaints to the Presidents Office, State Counselors Office and Anti-Corruption Commission calling for an investigation of the UCSB. Upper House Lawmaker U Myo Win, a National League for Democracy member from Mon State who has a record of calling for civil service reform in Parliament, agreed with Ko Nay Yan Oo. Personally, I believe there must be responsibility and accountability for the [UCSBs] cooperation with unaccredited universities, he said. The Presidents Office and Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) are aware of the case. Responding to a reporters question on the scandal at a press briefing in Naypyitaw last week, Presidents Office Spokesperson Zaw Htay said the UCSB had ended its partnerships with Akamai University and EDS Business School. Contacted by The Irrawaddy last Friday, an ACC member said there was no immediate plan to launch an investigation into the case for the time being. If there is a complaint over the case, we will have to review it first, commission spokesperson U Kyaw Soe told The Irrawaddy. Asia China Court Sentences Canadian to Death as Diplomatic Row Deepens A police officer gestures at the photographer outside the Embassy of Canada in Beijing, China, on Dec. 12. / Reuters BEIJING/OTTAWA A Chinese court on Monday sentenced a Canadian man to be executed for drug smuggling, prompting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to accuse China of using the death penalty arbitrarily. The ruling, and Trudeaus reaction, could aggravate already sour relations between Beijing and Ottawa following the arrest of a Chinese executive in Canada and Chinas subsequent detention of two Canadians. The Dalian Intermediate Peoples Court in Chinas Liaoning Province re-tried Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who had appealed his original 15-year prison sentence, and decided on execution, the court said in a statement. Schellenberg was told in court he had the right to appeal to Liaoning High Court within 10 days upon receiving the ruling, the intermediate court said in a second statement. It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply [the] death penalty as in this case, Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa. Late on Monday, Canadas Foreign Ministry updated its travel advisory for China to warn citizens about the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws. It added: We continue to advise all Canadians travelling to China to exercise a high degree of caution. Schellenbergs aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones, said the familys worst fears had been confirmed. Our thoughts are with Robert at this time. It is rather unimaginable what he must be feeling and thinking, she said in a statement to Reuters. It is a horrific, unfortunate, heartbreaking situation. In a second statement sent hours later, she said the Schellenberg family requests that all Canadians stand with us and pray for the safe return of our loved one. China-Canada ties turned icy in early December after Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, was arrested in Vancouver on a U.S. extradition warrant. China warned of unspecified consequences unless Meng was released, and detained Michael Kovrig, a Canadian diplomat on unpaid leave from the embassy in Beijing, and Michael Spavor, a Canadian consultant, on suspicion of endangering state security. Beijing has not drawn a direct link between the detentions and the arrest of Meng, wanted by U.S. authorities for allegedly misleading multinational banks about Iran-linked transactions. Western diplomats say the cases are a tit-for-tat reprisal. Lu Shaye, Chinas ambassador to Canada, suggested in a newspaper article last week the arrest of Kovrig and Spavor was Chinas self-defense, but gave no details. Earlier on Monday, Beijing dismissed Trudeaus statement that Kovrig enjoyed some form of diplomatic immunity. A foreign ministry spokeswoman said Trudeau should earnestly study the Vienna Convention governing diplomatic ties so as to not become a laughing stock. Trudeau said Ottawa will continue to engage strongly with Beijing over Kovrigs status and what he called Chinas arbitrary use of justice. 222 kg of methamphetamine Rights groups condemned the Schellenberg sentence while Guy St-Jacques, who was Canadas ambassador in Beijing when Kovrig worked there, expressed concern at how quickly the courts had acted. The Canadian government will make representations in Beijing, but based on past experience I am not sure whether this will work, he told the CBC. We are in a very difficult place. William Nee of Amnesty International noted drug-related offences did not meet the threshold of the most serious crimes to which the death penalty must be restricted under international law. Drug smuggling is routinely punished severely in China. Beijing has previously executed foreign nationals convicted of drug-related crimes. A Briton was executed in 2009. The court said Schellenberg had conspired with others in an attempt to smuggle 222 kg of methamphetamine from China to Australia in 2014. Chinese state television said in an earlier report that Schellenberg argued he was a tourist visiting China and was framed by criminals. A lawyer for Schellenberg, Zhang Dongshuo, told Reuters his client would probably appeal against the death sentence. Beijing considers the number of people executed in China to be a state secret. International human rights organizations estimate the annual figure at around 2,000. Business 120 Projects Worth $3B to Showcase at Invest Myanmar Summit 2019 Workers are seen among the shipping containers at Asia World port in Yangon on July 2, 2014. / Reuters YANGONMore than 120 regional and private business projects worth a total of over $3 billion will be showcased at the upcoming Invest Myanmar Summit 2019 which aims to attract major investment from East Asia countries. The summit is part of the governments effort to counteract a significant decline in foreign direct investment (FDI) seen in Myanmar over the last two fiscal years and it will be held on Jan. 28 and 29 at Myanmar Convention Centre 2 in Naypyitaw. With the projects on showcase, local and international investors at the summit will have a very clear picture of the prospects they can look forward to when investing in Myanmar, the industries they can invest in and types of projects open to them in each state and region, said U Zaw Min Win, president of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI). Invest Myanmar Summit 2019 is a collaboration between the Myanmar government, region and states governments and the business community and aims to create a platform for businesses to meet. The summit will provide international and local investors with the opportunity to discover the investment potential in the country and potential investors will be supplied with relevant information. The countries targeted during the summit will be China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, India, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. I expect the summit will help our investment figures to increase this year. From initial discussions with international investors, Japan and Hong Kong investors are quite interested in investing more here, U Maung Maung Lay, vice president of UMFCCI, told The Irrawaddy. According to the official summit website, ten states and regions will participate in the eventKaren, Chin, Mon, Rakhine, Shan, Yangon, Sagaing, Mandalay, Irrawaddy and Tanintharyi. Industries to be targeted will be the manufacturing, garment, electricity and energy, tourism, education, food processing and fisheries, heath care, infrastructure and property. During the summit, a centralized database of key projects called Project Bank will be launched. The database is expected to enable effective implementation of the Myanmar Sustainable Development Programme (MSDP) was drawn up with an ambition to align the countrys numerous policies and institutions in order to achieve inclusive and transformational economic growth. According to the event press release, one of the projects with good prospects is the development of Myotha Industrial Park City (MIPC) in Mandalay Region which currently holds the highest value in the Project Data Bank which is expected to create up to 33,700 jobs and target infrastructure, labor intensive-industries like food and wood processing, capital-intensive industries like pharmaceutical and renewable energy production, consumer services and producer services like banking and finance. The key speakers at the summit will include State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, newly-appointed Union Minister of Investment and Foreign Economic Relations U Thaung Tun, Deputy Minister of Planning and Finance U Set Aung and a member of the National Economic Coordination Committee (NECC) U Min Ye Paing Hein. Myanmar experienced a significant decline in FDI, from $9.5 billion in the 2015-2016 fiscal year to $6.6 billion in 2016-2017, after the 2017 Rohingya crisis in Rakhine State which tarnished the countrys image and caused caution among western investors. In October 2018, the Myanmar Investment commission (MIC) launched the Myanmar Investment Promotion Plan (MIPP), a major investment plan that aims to attract more than $200 billion in investment from responsible and quality businesses over the next 20 years. According to U Aung Naing Oo, director general of the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA), the governments first priority in 2019 is to focus on the implementation of the MIPP. Through the MIPP, the government aims for Myanmar to become a middle-income country by 2030 and will make economic reforms to ensure fair and transparent investment systems and institutional development for investment promotion. They intend to oversee infrastructure development, supportive business-associated systems, competitive industrial links and a higher quality of human resources. European Council president Donald Tusk has goaded British MPs to push for a second referendum or cancel Brexit entirely, asking "who will have the courage to say what the only positive solution is" to the crisis. In an historic landslide vote on Tuesday evening, the House of Commons tore British prime minister Theresa May's existing Brexit deal to shreds by 432 to 202 votes. The landslide 230 vote loss is the worst House of Commons defeat in modern history, beating the 166 vote loss by a minority Labour government on October 8, 1924. It is also likely to be on a par with the largest British parliamentary government rebellion in modern history, when 139 Labour MPs voted against then prime minister Tony Blair during a March 12, 2003, vote on declaring war on Iraq. In an immediate reaction on Tuesday evening to the vote, European Council president Donald Tusk said the emphatic vote result makes it clear in his opinion what must happen next. Noting the sheer scale of the outcome, he referenced growing suggestions of a second referendum or cancelling Brexit entirely, saying on social media website Twitter: "If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?". If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is? Charles Michel (@eucopresident) January 15, 2019 In a separate message on Twitter, European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker - who has cancelled scheduled meetings in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday and will remain in Brussels in case urgent talks are needed - repeated the view. "I take note with regret of the outcome of the vote in the House of Commons this evening. I urge the UK to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. Time is almost up." I take note with regret of the outcome of the vote in the @HouseofCommons this evening. I urge the #UK to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. Time is almost up #Brexit https://t.co/SMmps5kexn Jean-Claude Juncker (@JunckerEU) January 15, 2019 In Dublin, the director general of the British Irish Chamber of Commerce John McGrane said: Companies of all sizes are now reaching the point of no return, with many now implementing contingency plans that are a large drain on time and money. "All this stems from the lingering prospect of a no deal Brexit that will be highly damaging for UK-Ireland trade and must be avoided. "With 70bn worth of trade sustaining 400,000 jobs hanging in the balance, the chamber urges parliamentarians on all sides to come together to find a way forward that avoids this outcome. In the language of conflicted, unsettled politics, the phrase as short as possible all too easily falls into the category of a believe-what-you-want comfort. It is not precise, it is even nebulous and is not a reliable stepping stone towards making lasting, well-founded progress. In the context of an EU gesture to embattled British prime minister trying to find a way, almost any way, out of the Brexit maze such a concession on the infamous backstop, contained in a three-page letter from Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, and Donald Tusk, European Council president, may have seemed manna from heaven to Ms May but she quickly realised its limitations and that it was unlikely to sway trenchant MPs from their march towards splendid isolation. My reply to @theresa_may, together with @eucopresident, providing clarifications to the #Brexit Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration. pic.twitter.com/f0PalJkRVu Jean-Claude Juncker (@JunckerEU) January 14, 2019 However, from an Irish perspective, and were no strangers to the possibilities of constructive ambiguities, it must be a sit-up-and-take-notice moment especially as the two leaders emphasised that they expect any use of the backstop would be temporary and replaced as quickly as possible. Mr Junckers and Mr Tusks assurances fall short of British requests to agree a new target date for both sides to make efforts to ensure that the backstop would only be used for a year, if it is to be triggered at all. This brings us back to simple but disheartening realities. A temporary backstop is not a backstop, it is a passing inconvenience. The suggestion brings us back too, unfortunately, to that point where those who dismiss the idea of a hard border flounder around trying to confound physics and geography and culture and describe what sort of international frontier arrangement might transpire along that once-bloodied border. The only known options are as unattractive as they are limited. If there is an Irish diplomat working whose sangfroid was undisturbed by backstop tweaking, then Mr Junkers declarations yesterday on proposals to end national tax independence must have been a smell-the-coffee intrusion. This week, Brussels intends to propose extending majority voting to all EU tax policies by the end of 2020, a fundamental and divisive move to scrap national vetoes long fiercely guarded by many member states, especially smaller, more vulnerable ones. Suggesting EU tax policy is failing to deliver to its full potential, the commission will issue a paper arguing the demands of the global economy meant it was time to reconsider... traditional views on sovereignty. This is, despite Brexit, a case of business as usual for the EU and it would have been naive to imagine this agenda is not active. It would more than naive, possibly even stupid, to imagine that the opportunities afforded to transnational, tax-shy corporations by countries who march to a different drum on tax would not be challenged. From an Irish perspective,Luxembourg, Holland, and Malta too, this may be a bitter pill to contemplate. Just as we have ignored climate change for far too long we have wished this moment away for far too long as well. Change will come and it is time we recognised we have the skills needed to deal with it successfully. The UKs debate on leaving the EU is becoming so multi-faceted that all outcomes are likely to leave everyone unhappy, writes Andrew Hammond. In one of the most important UK political moments in the post-war era, the House of Commons will vote today on the Brexit withdrawal deal. The ballot begins perhaps the most decisive few weeks in modern UK political history as Parliament now takes much more control of the fraught process after a series of dramatic legislative amendments last week. With the scheduled deadline for Britain to leave the EU at the end of March fast approaching, and the exceptionally weak UK government potentially on the verge of collapse, the House of Commons raised the odds last Wednesday by passing what may appear an obscure procedural amendment. In fact, it is a significant political setback for UK prime minister Theresa May inasmuch as she must present a new Brexit plan within three days if the vote is lost today. This latest twist in the long Brexit tale adds to the political uncertainty in the country over the outcome of the UKs scheduled EU exit. And much is likely now to hinge, politically, and for financial markets, on what the scale of Mays expected loss today will be. At the most catastrophic end of the spectrum for May, some pundits have forecast the government could lose by around 200 votes. Such a bracing defeat could trigger the political end-game for May who hasnt ruled out resigning if she loses. Even if she decides to stay and fight, there will be new impetus behind a House of Commons vote of no confidence in her; new calls for a General Election; suspending the Article 50 process; and/or a referendum on the Brexit withdrawal deal. Yet, after a very heavy loss today, it is also possible that any significant financial market volatility could sway the minds of more MPs to support her plan in a second vote. (PA Graphics) A parallel here might be the Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP) legislation in the United States in 2008 which was a key component of the-then Bush administrations measures to address the US sub-prime mortgage crisis. The legislation was initially defeated in a vote in Congress. However, it was passed on the second attempt soon afterward after markets tanked. A rosier scenario for May, which would not just bolster her position, but potentially move markets, would be a significantly narrower than anticipated loss, or the extremely narrow possibility of a win. The latter currently appears most unlikely, but nothing can be ruled out in the febrile environment of Westminster politics. If May does lose, and chooses to stay to fight, she may well urgently seek to reach out to fellow European presidents and prime ministers to get further Brexit withdrawal concessions. While EU leaders have said there is no scope for further negotiation on the deal, there could yet be overwhelming incentives for both sides to try to get the agreement over the line. One further consequence of a government defeat, which is driving parliaments move to take back control in the face of the May teams incompetence, will be for both sides to expedite no-deal preparations. It is that no-deal scenario that particularly worries many MPs who are now seeking to tie the governments hands to try to prevent that outcome. The government suffered a significant defeat on the finance bill. WATCH LIVE: PM @Theresa_May makes a statement to @HouseofCommons on the Brexit deal https://t.co/56AuYuAPLJ UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) January 14, 2019 Here a cross-party group of MPs passed another key amendment limiting the governments tax administration powers in the event of the United Kingdom leaving the EU without a deal. In the maelstrom of this vote, one of the few certainties is the continuing disagreement within UK political elites over Brexit, more than two years after the referendum. As the debate over Mays withdrawal deal versus other harder and softer variants of Brexit shows, this is not just a Leave versus Remain debate. This is because even those who voted to exit the EU in 2016 did so for diverse and sometimes divergent reasons which makes fashioning support for a withdrawal agreement very difficult. Some Leave voters, for instance, of an isolationist bent focused on perceived costs and constraints of EU membership perceived to limit UK sovereignty on issues like migration. Meanwhile, a significant slice of the electorate voted to exit as a protest against non-EU issues such as the domestic austerity measures implemented by UK Governments since the 2008-09 financial crisis. However, other Leavers voted in 2016 for an alternative vision of a buccaneering global United Kingdom that could, post-Brexit, allow the nation to secure enhanced political and economic ties with countries outside of the EU. It is many of these people - who favour more, not less - international engagement, that now want to see, for instance, new trade deals with key Asian markets like China and India; the Gulf Cooperation states; and mature markets such as the United States, Canada, and Australia. And the continuing divisions within the wider electorate on these issues are underlined in polls too. These now generally show more people favouring EU membership than not, and the country split over whether maintaining access to the European Single Market, or being able to limit migration, should be the key objective of Brexit. Taken overall, May is now besieged on multiple fronts, and it would be a sensational result were she to win today. With the UK still divided on Brexit, a heavy defeat will inject a new element of uncertainty into UK politics which, with Parliament now becoming centre stage in the process, could yet see her ousted from power; a suspension of the Article 50 process; an EU withdrawal deal referendum, and/or a General Election in short order. Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics. The ugliness was writ large in news bulletins last Friday morning. A fire had occurred another one at the proposed location of a direct provision centre. The incident happened the previous night at the Shannon Key West hotel in Rooskey on the Leitrim-Roscommon border. Garda forensics specialists examine the scene at the fire-damaged former Shannon Key West Hotel in Rooskey on the Leitrim/Roscommon border. Picture: Brian Farrell The presence of a security guard who alerted gardai and the fire authorities ensured that the damage was relatively minor. In different circumstances, the building might have been destroyed, and quite possibly the security guards life endangered. Eighty refugees had been scheduled to take up residence at the hotel within the next month. The news that the hotel was to accommodate a direct provision centre was the subject of major controversy locally when it was announced last December. There has been a legal dispute between various parties over the property, and locals believed that one side was pledging to revitalise the premises as a hotel, providing a boost to the economy. Then on Thursday two individuals entered the premises and resorted to arson. A similar scenario pertained in Moville, Co Donegal, where 100 refugees are to be housed in a centre in the towns Caiseal Mara Hotel. On November 30, in the dead of night, the hotel was set alight. The scene of the fire at the Caiseal Mara Hotel in Moville . Picture: North West Newspix In both these instances, the reaction locally was emphatic from anybody who engaged with the media. Voices condemned the violent intervention and reassured both the outside world and refugees that some of the most vulnerable people in the world would indeed be welcomed to their locale. The attacks were attributed to a small and entirely unrepresentative group of racists. Racism is alive in Ireland as it is elsewhere. There is undoubtedly a small section of the population who would find common cause with the virulent racist and anti-refugee strain that is current in parts of the USA and Europe. But the arson attacks should be seen in a wider context. Across the developed world at the moment, violence is creeping into politics. In the USA, Donald Trump arguably whips up his supporters to dangerous level of hatred, just short of violence. He tells them that they have been left behind, abandoned and discarded by the elites. They lap it up and roar in anger. Last week outside Westminster, Conservative MP Anna Soubry was set upon by a snarling mob of Brexit supporters, who called her a Nazi and intimidated her as she went about her business. In France, the Gilets Jaunes protests have in many cases toppled over into rioting and angry violence. In these and other cases, there is now a growing atmosphere in which acts of violence are chipping away at what were once accepted norms. As such, it is a time to recognise that any form of violence or attack must be met with an unequivocal response. Some responses to recent acts of aggression have sought to put the violence in context, which could be read in some quarters as a form of qualification. Following the Rooskey fire, local Fianna Fail TD Eugene Murphy told the Longford Leader that if the fire was started deliberately I would condemn such action out of hand, it is not representative of the Rooskey area and the people are outraged. He went on to condemn the Government. The Governments approach of pushing refugees and asylum seekers into small towns around rural Ireland is simply not working many of these small rural towns are already on their knees and the necessary infrastructure from a transport, educational and health aspect are just not in place and the Government needs to take responsibility for the lack of judgment in relation to this whole approach. All of which is grounded in fact but was it appropriate to make such points when the overriding immediate issue was a violent attack on a facility earmarked to provide shelter for some of the worlds most vulnerable? Is it possible that some who are angry about the Governments approach may interpret from Mr Murphys remarks a certain equivocation between the violence and the treatment of rural Ireland from central government? That is not his intention but at a time when violence is being increasingly deployed on public issues, should he speak with greater care in the aftermath of an attack? Last month there was another incident of violence in which a group of security men who had evicted a family three days previously were attacked at the site of the eviction in Strokestown, Co Roscommon. Sinn Fein MEP Matt Carthy condemned the violence, but he referenced the actions of the security men as brutality meted out by black clad nameless men and called it bullyboy tactics. All of which was fine and condemnatory but there was no specific reference to the subsequent attack on them by men who were also masked and in which a dog was killed and three individuals hospitalised. Mr Carthys abhorrence of all violence is not in doubt. But we live in a dangerous time when certain individuals take solace from anything that might leave itself open to interpretation that some incidents of violence are not as bad as others. The Strokestown incident most likely prompted subsequent attacks of KBC bank outlets which again illustrates how some of a thuggish bent believe that certain violence today can be justified. There are serious problems in rural Ireland, including how the banks conduct themselves and how the Government fails to engage communities about plans to locate refugee centres, particularly in small towns or villages. But when violence raises its head it dwarfs all else. In todays febrile world that requires a response that simply cannot be left open to be interpreted as equivocation. Ireland has changed for the better over the past years and referenda. And yet the gossip about ones life choices endures. Why do we accept this? asks Anna O'Donoghue. They say that the millennials are the most open-minded and accepting of all the generations, so why does it feel like Im being pointed at? How do you house-share? Hows that love life of yours? Youre pushing on. Sure, youre always out. If I had a euro for the number of times I had to put on a face to answer these questions, I wouldnt still be writing to Eoghan Murphy with my housing crisis horror stories. These are questions asked by the very same people who preach about how this generation has shifted the norm, bent the rules, and opened peoples minds. This little country of ours has come a long way in the last few years. We now have the choice to marry whomever we choose and, most recently, women have gained power over their own bodies, so why cant I just simply live my life the way I want to without feeling like Im on 20 Questions? Theres still an expectation that by a certain age you will couple up, buy a house, get married, and have kids. Although the age range of this expectancy has extended greatly, its still classed as the norm and the fairytale ending of every life story. But what would be so wrong with an alternative ending? It could be as dramatic as someone living the fairytale wedding but choosing not to have kids, or having two kids, never get married and using the wedding fund to homeschool their kids while travelling the world. Or as little as never marrying, never settling down, and embracing a life with no ties. Unless peoples choices involve hurting themselves or others, it doesnt make sense for anyone to be bothered by the fact that other people take different life paths than we do; and yet *insert Countdown theme tune here*. According to studies in human societies, the phenomenon is called normative idealisation. The tendency to idealise a persons own lifestyle and believe that others would benefit others. Do you hear that? No. Its your biological clock, my dear. You know my life didnt begin until I had my kids So, mine didnt begin when I spent a few years backpacking around Australia or when I graduated with my 1.1 masters degree? The idea seems very innocent at first. Just kind-hearted people who like their lives and want to share that sentiment with others. According to 'The What I Am Is The Way You Ought To Be', a paper published by researchers at Stanford University and University of Waterloo, its much more than that. They found people tend to look down on other lifestyles to make themselves feel better about their own. But sure, dont mind that blackguarding, Irish people would never do that hush, will you Sound familiar? In most cases, yes, but what if these people are well and truly happy with what theyve worked to achieve and dont intend to set out to make you feel inferior. Lets face it, not everyone asks you about your struggles with the renting crisis and your single status to try and make them happier about their four-bedroom bungalow and canvas-printed wedding photos. But why do the questions make you feel like youve been life-shamed? Because you have. They are just fully unaware that theyre doing it. Did you see Mary wearing that skirt the other day? No girlfriend by Paul yet, hed want to cop on to himself, I know. Did you see Martins son is bringing his kids off to Dubai Dubai, of all places. Now THESE phrases sound familiar, dont they? Weve grown up with it. During our childhood, these questions popped up everywhere, from our school halls to our local shops and the GAA sidelines. Ireland has been obsessed with the normative for as long as anyone can remember. If you didnt partake in the standard Mass-pub-local shop' routine on a Sunday morning, everyone in a 10-mile radius would have heard a different side of the story. Our need for acceptance and fear of not being accepted (also known as being talked about) has been a powerful influence on our thoughts and feelings from very early days Group inclusion has been seen as necessary for survival in all areas of life and with todays addition of social media, you have created a generation of anxious people-pleasers. While anxiety is a brain disorder and not a choice, self-acceptance can quieten those local gossips in an anxious mind. If youre constantly judging yourself based on the schoolyard chatter, how can you see your self-worth? In the words of RuPaul: If you cant love yourself, how in the hell can you love somebody else? The strive for self-acceptance differs from person to person but proves difficult when the soundtrack to Countdown continuously plays in the background. It looks like the only way to stop the music is to marry the first person you vaguely enjoy the company of, book the church wedding, pay a down-payment on the house and have the kids. Even then the pop quiz murmurs in the background: Did you see their little boy plays with Barbie? Make. It. Stop. Why do we take one giant step forward and scream from the rooftops that we believe, in this day and age, a man can marry a man in this country, but tut at the heterosexual married couple who choose not to have kids? As well as being the generation to stand up and speak about change, lets be the people to actually follow through with it. Lets applaud the people outside of the norm box instead of gossiping about why they are out there. In the West, having a breakdown is a medical condition, but in other societies, it can be regarded as a spiritual experience. A documentary showing in Cork this week wonders which is truer, writes Ellie OByrne. In many indigenous cultures, when a young person has what in industrialised countries would be considered a mental breakdown, they are hailed as seers or shamans. When they start to hear voices or hallucinate, they are taken under the wing of an older healer who has gone through the same thing. What is happening is explained in terms of spirituality or mysticism; their community may gather around them for ceremonies or they will be brought to a place reserved for such experiences. In the developed world, young people experiencing the same symptoms will be hospitalised, drugged, told they are incurably sick, isolated, and stigmatised. People with mental illness are disproportionate among the homeless and in prisons. US photographer and documentarian Phil Borges is, he says, not the first to have drawn parallels between what anthropologists have dubbed the shamanic sickness and the experience of people in Westernised countries undergoing their first encounter with mental illness. Borges gave up his orthodontic dentistry career and spent over 30 years documenting life in indigenous, tribal communities, everywhere from Tibet to the Amazon. I ended up meeting the healers and visionaries in those communities, he says. I watched them go into trance states, and I was able to interview many of them. "Many told me they were chosen essentially by having a crisis as a young person, most often a mental-emotional crisis, where they had personality changes, heard voices, and had visions no-one else could see. At home in Seattle, eight years ago, Borges was shooting a documentary on meditation, when he met Adam Gentry, a young man who was attempting to find new ways to live with his bipolar disorder. Borges connected Gentrys description of his own first psychological crisis which began with feelings of elation, connectedness and ego loss, before spiralling into darker and more terrifying territory and the experiences that shamans and healers had described. Crazywise, the resulting documentary, follows Gentrys path, as well as that of a young woman, Ekhaya Esima. Their stories are interwoven with interviews with controversial addiction expert Gabor Mate, as well as psychologists, Buddhist nuns, shamanic practitioners and others. Some are conventional psychiatrists, who believe there are deep flaws in our medicalised mental healthcare system, while some say there is a spiritual aspect to mental health conditions thats overlooked in our society. Unfortunately, what happens in our culture is that we are very afraid of non-ordinary states, Borges says. I definitely think that our western, industrial, highly technological culture has lost touch with some of the basic human needs, and has lost touch with the variety of human experience that we have. Since Crazywises release in 2016, Borges has screened the film at festivals and at the American Psychiatric Societys annual convention. Although the documentary is careful to highlight that medication can help some people, it also takes aim at the so-called chemical imbalance theory of psychiatry. Its a fractious debate. Have I been accused of romanticising mental health issues? Not often, but sometimes, Borges says. At a recent London screening, someone said, You havent been around schizophrenics. Its not a spiritual thing, its dangerous and horrible. "I tried to explain that individuals that first go into this state do have a spiritual aspect to their first episode, and its the fact that we dont know how to frame it that is harmful. Whats certainly not romanticised is Gentrys life story. The film charts his heartbreaking course from a happy, sporty teenager to losing his family, his job, and his home. He spends periods of time living in a car, while suffering intense bouts of hallucinations and hearing increasingly violent voices, and eventually suffers a horrific attack at the hands of other homeless people. The healing path of community, agency, family and acceptance is not disputed: for the films central subjects, salvation comes through connection. For Gentry, it comes through an alternative cafe, where he feels accepted, and, ultimately, through being reunited with his father, while for Esima, being taken under the wing of a South African spiritual healer and reuniting with her children are the foundations of recovery. Crazywise, with panel discussion, will be screened as part of First Fortnight Festival, at the Triskel Arts Centre, in Cork, at 7.30pm on Thursday, January 17 A 36-year-old woman has been ordered to write a letter of apology for a tirade of abuse against a garda outside a courtroom. After hearing evidence of the tirade which occurred moments after the womans 15-year-old son had been remanded in detention, Judge Olann Kelleher said he would not proceed directly to penalty. He said he was putting the case back for a week so that the accused could write a letter of apology to the member of An Garda Siochana. I will put it back for one week. She has to write a letter to the guard retracting everything she said, Judge Kelleher said at Cork District Court. Frank Buttimer, solicitor, said she would do so. The woman pleaded guilty to a charge of engaging in threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour. She is not identified as it would lead to the identification of her 15-year-old son. Sgt John Kelleher said Cork District Court that on July 16, 2018 a member of An Garda Siochana was attending a court to give evidence against the 15-year-old. He was remanded in custody to Oberstown. When leaving the courtroom the juveniles mother got extremely abusive and aggressive towards the guard. In the lobby outside the ccourtroom she shouted, Fuck off, you are only a c***. She followed this with: Go away and snort some cocaine for yourself. You were fucking suspended for using cocaine you fucking c***, werent you. The guard tried to calm her down but to no avail. She remained aggressive and threatening in the presence of the public. She had no previous convictions but it was not considered in the public interest for an adult caution. Mr Buttimer said it was a distressing event for her to have her son remanded in detention centre that day. Mr Buttimer said the mother intervened between the guard and the son who was not in custody. He said she was never in trouble with the law in her life. Judge Kelleher accepted that it would have been traumatic for the woman to have her young son brought into custody but he said she could not behave in this manner. The Taoiseach has ordered ministers to lead by example and switch to electric cars but has admitted to doing little himself apart from cutting back on meat. While Climate Change Minister Richard Bruton has made the change to a hybrid car, the majority of his ministerial colleagues continue to drive diesel vehicles. Asked what he has personally done to reduce his carbon footprint, Leo Varadkar said: I am trying to eat less meat, both for health reasons and for reasons of climate change. But I imagine given the amount of travel I do I am probably not the best example. Mr Varadkars comments came as the Fine Gael party gathered in Dublin for a special parliamentary party meeting before the return of the Dail. Climate change and carbon taxes were top of the agenda. Since May 2011, Cabinet ministers with the exception of the Taoiseach, Tanaiste and minister for justice and equality, have been using their own cars for official business on the same basis as ministers of state. While ministers provide their own private car for official purposes, they are entitled to two civilian drivers working week on week off, and can claim back mileage. When questioned by the Irish Examiner, eight cabinet ministers said they drive diesel cars, while one drives a petrol vehicle. Mr Bruton has a Hyundai hybrid, while the two remaining ministers did not respond. Mr Varadkar said ministers must now lead by example by changing to a more eco-friendly option when trading in their cars. In terms of ministers, perhaps when they change their cars, they should purchase a hybrid or electric, whichever is more appropriate for them. But bear in mind a huge amount of the carbon that is produced from vehicles is in their production, so actually buying a new car in itself contributes to climate change even before you drive it so you would have to bear that in mind. Something needs to change, we need more of the public fleet the Government owns a lot of vehicles, the gardai, the HSE, you name it so I think the Government [could] lead by example by having more low-emissions vehicles, more electric vehicles, he said. Meanwhile, Mr Bruton said the purpose of introducing a carbon tax is not to raise revenue but to nudge people to change their behaviour. The Government was criticised for failing to introduce carbon tax in Budget 2019, but the Taoiseach has already indicated that it will form part of next years budget. Mr Bruton said: The really important thing is that that money would be recycled back so people will be either getting a cheque in the post or getting a rebate through the social welfare and tax systems that compensates them so it will encourage people to change the way they behave. Plans for a large budget hotel in Cork city centre have been put on hold following an objection by a local resident. An appeal has been lodged with An Bord Pleanala against the recent decision of Cork City Council to grant planning permission to a Dublin-based development firm, Tetrarch Capital, for a 162-bedroom hotel on a site bounded by Parnell Place, Deane St, and Lower Oliver Plunkett St. The buildings near the city bus station were previously occupied by Flor Griffins Electrical Superstore and Mahers Outdoor Shop. The decision is being appealed by Kathleen Carroll who has expressed concern about the impact of the proposed seven-storey development on local residents. Consultants acting for Ms Carroll emphasised that she isnt opposed to the development of the site in principle as she recognises that intensive development of the location is inevitable. They claim that evidence of her bona fides is demonstrated by her support, together with that of other locals, for the proposed development of the 20m high-rise Prism office block in the area. Ms Carroll said a relatively minimal reduction in the overall area of the hotel to address the concern of residents could hardly be considered onerous if it would result in the loss of only three bedrooms. She claims residents in the area are living in some of the oldest continually occupied homes in Cork. It surely makes sense that every reasonable effort be made to ensure that these buildings remain fully viable residences; otherwise the mix which does much to make a city attractive for all will be lost, she said. Tetrarch claims the project, which it described as a significant planning gain for Cork city, will result in 100 full and part-time jobs as well as 200 jobs during the construction phase. By Fiachra O Cionnaith, Daniel McConnell and Juno McEnroe British prime minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal will be torn to shreds in a crucial Westminster vote tonight, just hours after Taoiseach Leo Varadkar admitted Ireland may not be fully prepared for a no deal crisis. MPs will finally get to vote on the EU divorce in the House of Commons this evening after a month of delays in a ballot predicted to see the deal lose by more than 200 votes. Should this happen, the result will be one of the most crushing defeats in British history, leave the current UK-EU Brexit deal in tatters and put Ireland in the direct firing line of a no-deal Brexit fallout. With just 10 weeks until the UK-EU March 29 divorce date, Ms May last night urged MPs to back her deal, saying to do anything else will risk the break-up of Britain, an article 50 delay until July, a general election or even cause a second referendum. In a speech at a factory in Stoke on Trent, Ms May warned voting down her deal will make it more likely Brexit will be scrapped entirely than a no deal Brexit being allowed to happen. However, her pleas which were supported by a letter from Brussels again outlining the Brexit backstop is temporary fell on deaf ears, with Brexiteers and DUP members vowing to scrap her deal, and British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn threatening a no confidence motion that could force her to resign. With the risk of a damaging no deal Brexit set to increase dramatically due to tonights vote, Irelands Cabinet will today formally begin fast-tracking worst case scenario emergency plans in a bid to protect the country from the fallout. Speaking at Fine Gaels think-in yesterday before the return of the Dail after its winter break today, Mr Varadkar said his Government is doing all it can to protect Ireland from the worst effects of a no deal Brexit. However, asked specifically about Dublin and Rosslare ports both of which were highlighted in a cabinet memo before Christmas as being ill-equipped to cope with a no deal Brexit onslaught Mr Varadkar admitted: The ports will be Brexit ready as will Dublin Airport, but I shouldnt pretend to anyone there can be any country fully prepared for Brexit, there is no good Brexit... We will be prepared, but Im not going to pretend everything will be fine. At a Cabinet meeting this morning overseen by Mr Varadkar and Tanaiste Simon Coveney, the Irish Examiner understands ministers will also be told that while Brexit could still be reversed, it is time to prepare for the worst. In four detailed memos on health, transport, the common travel area, and emergency legislation, the cabinet will be told: Hospital access to breast milk for premature babies could be hampered in a no deal Brexit as current supplies come from Fermanagh in the North; Access to up to 45 drugs for vulnerable patients could be delayed, although stockpiling of drugs may be ruled out as existing Irish supplies can last eight to 10 weeks And that extra land may have to be purchased at Rosslare and Dublin ports to cope with increased customs checks, an issue that could take months to resolve. During the same meeting, Government chief whip Sean Kyne will also say 45 law changes will be needed in 17 areas including cross-border train services, electricity, immigration rules and employment if a no deal Brexit strikes. The alterations will be rolled into a single omnibus bill which a Government source said will be so there will be no time for the [Oireachtas] drafters to draft anything else. However, despite the preparations which Mr Coveney will brief opposition leaders on today at 5pm concerns are growing Ireland will still not be fully prepared for a no deal Brexit in just two months time. Health Minister Simon Harris has urged people not to panic buy drugs in the weeks before Brexit, warning secret stockpiling could cause an "unintended" medicines access crisis that will put vulnerable patients at risk. Mr Harris insisted the public, hospitals and pharmacists must not "hamper the supply of medicines" despite admitting drugs linked to feeding seriously ill people in hospitals and nursing homes, x-rays and some surgeries are on an unofficial 24-drug "watch list". Speaking to reporters at a detailed no deal Brexit emergency planning briefing to outline the Department of Health plans signed off on by cabinet, Mr Harris said the Government believes drugs will still be accessed come March 29. While noting the fact almost two thirds of all 4,000 drugs marketed in Ireland currently travel through Britain before arriving in this country, Mr Harris said only a "small number of these products may be vulnerable" to Brexit. Mr Harris said although he has not been told by officials of any medicine that will be immediately unavailable in a no deal Brexit scenario, issues such as shelf-life, special storage and transportation difficulties mean 24 medicines are on a "watch list". On four separate occasions the Minister refused to reveal the exact identities of the medicines other than to say they relate to intravenous foods and radiographers. These types of medications are used for a wide variety of conditions in hospitals, including feeding seriously ill people in hospital and nursing homes, x-ray and surgery work. However, stressing the Department of Health, HSE and the Health Products Regulatory Authority have already taken steps to "minimise and address any risks to continuity of supply", Mr Harris urged people not to panic buy or stockpile drugs. "If people take it upon themselves [to stockpile], there will be unintended consequences," Mr Harris said when asked to clarify that people should not panic buy medicines in the run-up to Brexit. In a Government briefing document provided during the meeting, the message was reiterated, stating: "There are already additional stocks of medicines routinely built into the Irish medicine supply chain, and these additional stocks, together with planning by Revenue to allow the fast-tracking of essential drugs into Ireland, will help deal with any delays and shortages that may arise. It is important to note there is no need for hospitals, pharmacists or patients to order extra quantities of medicines, as doing so could disrupt existing stock levels and hamper the supply of medicines for other patients. While Mr Harris and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar have acknowledged in recent days dozens of medicines could be affected in some way by Brexit, they have repeatedly refused to clarify the exact list of drugs involved. It is believed this is because of a desire among officials to avoid panicking the public when access to stocks could be in shorter than usual supply. In a memo to cabinet yesterday, Mr Harris said 24 medicines could be at some form of potential risk, despite stressing he has not been officially notified of any problems in terms of access to date. The memo also ruled out the need for patient, pharmacist, GP or hospital stockpiling for now as Ireland has enough supplies of potentially affected medicines to last for eight to 10 weeks after any hard Brexit. During last night's briefing to reporters, Mr Harris initially confirmed there is a 24-medicines "watch list" before later rowing back when asked to release the list of drugs, saying there is no official list in place. However, the fact there is no definitive list available is likely to lead to concerns among some medics over the scale of the potential problem facing the sector - an issue raised by the Irish Pharmacy Union last Friday. Meanwhile, Mr Harris also confirmed last night that almost two thirds of the 4,000 medicines marketed in Ireland currently travel through Britain to reach this country. Mr Harris said the HSE and the Health Products Regulatory Authority have advised that the supply of "a small number" of these medicines may be at risk of a Brexit impact due to issues relating to short shelf life, special storage requirements and transportation difficulties. However, he said that to date he has not been officially notified of any immediate concerns over access to specific drugs needed in Ireland. The general secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), Phil Ni Sheaghdha says that figures being quoted by the Government in relation to pay for nurses have been exaggerated. She also told RTEs Today with Sean ORourke show that the money currently being spent within the health service is being spent in the wrong places. Ms Ni Sheaghdha said that the INMO had already piloted a programme in relation to staffing on wards and in community services that had been independently reviewed and proven to actually save money and improve morbidity rates by 50%. We wont be found lacking if they talk to us, she added. We want to engage in talks to show how the HSE can save money. Were there (at talks) to do business. Ms Ni Sheaghdha said that the INMO was disputing figures quoted by the Government as the average wage for nurses. Most nurses have a modest salary with a basic starting rate of 29,000 rising to a maximum 45,000 after 15 years, she said. Were giving the actual figures. Nurses have been posting their pay slips on social media. The public can see what nurses are earning. There isnt a nurse working on an average pay of 50,000 if there was Id love to meet them. It was a cheap shot. She said that the INMO wants real engagement. If the HSE and the Departments of Health and Public Service come to the table with the right demeanour, then that will help to avoid a dispute. Gardai in Dublin are investigating an alleged sexual assault on a woman. The alleged assault took place on the Lower Kilmacud Road last Thursday at 7pm. The extradition of a Cork man who acted as the controlling mind in a multimillion-euro fraud perpetrated against the UK is of very significant public interest, the High Court has heard. Daniel OConnell (65), with an address at Ballybrack, Clonlara, Co Clare and Roseneath, Corbally, Co Limerick was arrested in 2017 on foot of a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) issued by UK authorities. A sentence of imprisonment was imposed on Mr OConnell for non-payment of a confiscation order imposed as an integral part of a sentence for five offences of being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of Value Added Tax, contrary to Section 72(1) of the Value Added Tax Act 1994, in August 2000 at the Crown Court sitting at Middlesex Guildhall. A confiscation order may be made when the defendant is found to have benefited from his criminal conduct. The warrant which was issued by Westminister Magistrates Court in London in 2016 outlined Mr O'Connell involvement with five companies all of which became missing traders and for all of which he was acting as the controlling mind. The warrant states that the five companies all failed to submit a VAT return and/or failed to account for any VAT to Her Majestys Customs & Excise during periods when their respective trading was substantial. The five missing trader companies made sales of over 119m on which the VAT due would have been over 20m from 1997 to 1999. However, the companies accounted for only 17,086.00 in VAT during the relevant period. Mr OConnell was sentenced to eight years imprisonment for these offences in August 2000 but was released on licence in March 2003. However, as part of his overall sentence, Mr OConnell was also made subject to a confiscation order for almost 6m for which an additional sentence of 7 years imprisonment in default of payment was imposed in January 2003. To date 354,407.41 has been paid towards Mr O'Connell's confiscation order. By September 2016 this confiscation order had a balance outstanding of nearly 6m plus accrued interest of more than 5.8m. The High Court heard today that under English law, this sentence is an integral part of the overall sentence imposed upon Mr OConnell in respect of these offences, and it runs consecutively to the original sentence because the confiscation order remained outstanding. The arrest warrant states that because Mr OConnell failed to pay the confiscation order in full by May 2004, his default sentence was activated and his extradition is sought so that he can be returned to prison in order to serve this part of the overall sentence. Dr Michael Forde SC, for Mr OConnell, has today been outlining to the court objections to the surrender of his client to the UK. The barrister submitted there was a 17-year gap between his clients conviction and arrest and therefore the confiscation order was invalid because of undue delay. This breached Article 6.1 Article 8 and in particular Article 49.3 of the European Convention on Human Rights which required penalties not to be disproportionate, said Dr Forde. The lawyer called it inexplicable why the UK authorities with the assistance of Irish authorities could not locate his client when his licence expired in 2007 as his client had lived openly in Clare during this time and had made no attempt to hide his identity. Dr Forde called this bureaucratic inertia at its worse. There was not a snowballs chance on the evidence that his client could make any payment on the confiscation amount, he said. The 13m that he is now expected to pay and the detention for failure to pay it is grossly disproportionate, he said. Mr OConnell was being imprisoned because he did not have money, Dr Forde said, adding that it was discrimination on the basis of wealth and his surrender should be refused in these circumstances. At today's hearing, Ronan Kennedy BL, Counsel for the Minister for Justice, said that the High Court as an executing court cannot refuse to execute the EAW and the respondent had not identified a right he was at risk of being deprived of if he was surrendered. Mr OConnell was being sought by the UK for the purpose of a custodial sentence and was not facing trial. He emphasised that there was a huge public interest that people who had benefited from financial crime should be brought to justice and be required to serve the sentences lawfully imposed upon them under the law of other member states. Mr Kennedy submitted that this was a multimillion-euro fraud perpetrated against another member state where Mr OConnell was the controlling mind behind that fraud. Even though this was not a crime of violence, there was still a very significant public interest in Mr O'Connell been extradited back to the UK, he said. In conclusion, Mr Kennedy said it must have been obvious to the respondent that the UK authorities had a strong interest in bringing him to justice and questioned whether it was really acceptable that he thought the proceedings had come to a conclusion. The hearing continues on Friday before Ms Justice Aileen Donnelly who remanded Mr OConnell on continuing bail until then. Efforts to avert a strike by the countrys nurses have ended without a resolution. Talks took place earlier between The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, the Psychiatric Nurses Association and the HSE, to try and reach agreement on issues surrounding pay and conditions. The unions say they werent presented with concrete proposals and the strike action goes ahead. Another meeting between the sides is planned for next Monday. The INMO will hold the first of six nationwide 24-hour strikes on January 30, while the PNA is planning a three-day stoppage from February 12. Peter Hughes, general secretary of the PNA, said he is very disappointed. "It's another six days before we're meeting so the timeline is getting shorter and certainly we were disappointed at this meeting... "We'll go to our executive on Friday and I don't think our membership will be very happy today at what's been put forward." Speaking on her way out of todays talks, Phil Ni Sheaghdha, general secretary of the INMO, says, as it stands, the strike will go ahead. "We will continue to make every effort to avert a dispute but for the moment nothing we've heard here today brings us to that space so preparations for strike continue." Bid to prevent nurses' strike underway as sides meet for talks Earlier: The two sides in the nursing dispute meet this morning in Dublin. The talks between the INMO, the Psychiatric Nurses Association and HSE officials are aimed at averting a series of strikes scheduled to start at the end of the month. Emergency cover to be provided in the event of the strikes going ahead will also be discussed The INMO has scheduled the first of six nationwide strike days for January 30 while the PNA is planning a three-day stoppage from February 12. Health Minister Simon Harris says nurses have responsibilities after signing up to the public sector pay agreement. He said: "I think it's really important that everyone puts their shoulder to the wheel and tries to find a solution. "Let's remember that in the case of the INMO they have signed up to a public sector pay agreement - they are a member of the Irish Congress of Trade Union and with public sector pay agreements comes benefits to your members, but also comes responsibilities of not causing industrial unrest." Digital Desk This is despite repeated calls from the IMF and other international oversight agencies for the Government to increase the rate as a way of broadening the countrys tax base. Mr Donohoe said he understood mounting public anxiety around the local property tax rates as current rates are due for review this year. Were the same criteria to be reapplied, houseowners across the country would face substantial increases in their bills. However, Mr Donohoe, speaking at Fine Gaels party meeting in Dublin yesterday, said no such spikes to bills will occur. I am well aware the effect higher house values could have on future local property tax liability. It is obvious while peoples incomes have grown, they have not grown in line with the rise in house prices. So any change to the local property tax will be moderate, understandable and affordable, he said. Mr Donohoe is due to receive a review on the local property tax by the end of March, which will form the basis of his decision to be sent to Cabinet for approval thereafter. There is a review of the operation of the local property tax under way, that has been under way for a number of months. The timetable for that was that I would receive that report by the end of the first quarter which I will do. That will inform decisions which I will then bring to Government about the operation of the local property tax for next year, he said. This is a matter I have to take to Cabinet and get agreement. Any change will be ones that are affordable and understandable. I understand the anxiety felt by people and I will bring proposals forward which will deliver the clarity on this issue, he said. I will be bringing proposals in a timely manner. I will put in place changes which will make the local property tax affordable in a way that is fair to everybody, he said. Meanwhile, chief whip Sean Kyne said it is his intention to introduce a Brexit omnibus bill to the Dail by the end of February and to have it passed through the Oireachtas by the middle of March. He said should extra late night sittings will be needed to pass the bill in time for the Brexit deadline, then he will make the necessary contact with the business committee to ensure it happens. We anticipate the Brexit omnibus bill, which will encompass 17 separate pieces of legislation. That bill would be published by the end of February and debated in the Dail and Seanad and have it passed by the middle of March, said Mr Kyne. Mobile phone use among young children may cause significant educational costs, with those who own a phone at nine years old faring less well in academic development as they get older, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). The ESRI found the negative association between early smartphone use and academic development persisted across socio-economic groups, regardless of a childs background. It used data on 8,500 nine-year-old children in Ireland from the Growing Up in Ireland study, to examine how children with longer or shorter periods of mobile phone ownership performed on standardised reading and maths tests. It found that children who owned a mobile phone at nine years-old scored 4% less on average in standardised reading and maths tests by the time they were 13. Parents and policymakers should consider whether the benefits of phone availability for children are sufficiently large to justify such costs, the report warns. Selina McCoy, Associate Research Professor at the ESRI said the study is the first time the ESRI has looked at the impact of mobile phone ownership on childrens academic development. She said: It is important to keep monitoring this going forward in order to provide evidence for the growing debate about the potential effects of screen time and mobile phone use of young people in Ireland." The study reveals that childrens access to mobile phones is influenced by their family and school characteristics. Children with more highly educated parents and those with higher incomes are less likely to own a phone at a young age, while children attending more socially disadvantaged schools are more likely to have phones. However the studys authors said such factors were considered when assessing the outcomes for their research, and the negative association between early smartphone use and academic development was consistent regardless of background. The findings may inform the ongoing debate about the benefits and pitfalls surrounding the use of smartphones by young people. Last year the then-Education Minister Richard Bruton issued a circular calling for consultation between parents, teachers, and students about the use of devices in schools. "New technologies are fundamentally transforming the world we live in. While these changes offer fantastic opportunities for our young people they are also associated with potential risks, which we as a Government are responding to," Mr Bruton said at the time. Last summer Independent Senator Gerard Craughwell introduced a Bill that would prohibit the use of smartphones in schools by students. The proposal would operate a three strikes system that would see a childs phone confiscated for a day, a week, or an entire school term depending on the number of times they are caught using the device during class. A specialist in emergency medicine has said that the escalating cost of the National Childrens Hospital is going to have an impact on the health system for years to come. Dr Fergal Hickey, a consultant in emergency medicine in Sligo University Hospital, says that the over expenditure on the childrens hospital will have a knock on effect elsewhere in the health system. Our current spending is high, but capital spending is low he told RTEs Morning Ireland. Increases in capital spending are now less likely, he added, when the best part of 2billion is being spent on the childrens hospital. But that cannot be at the cost of other necessary investments, he warned. Capital funding is urgently needed for more hospital beds, he said, as Ireland has 2.8 beds per 1,000 population while the OECD average is 4.3. The large amount of money being spent in the Irish health service is not being spent on the right things, added Dr Hickey. Increasing bed capacity makes economic sense, he said, as it will mean better outcomes for patients which will cost less in the long run. Overcrowding in Emergency Departments leads to delays which will cost more eventually in terms of longer hospital stays. We are wasting money. Dr Hickey also warned that the current trolley crisis is effectively warehousing patients. Emergency Departments function well, but hospitals are not able to then deal with patients who need to be hospitalised, but for whom there are not enough beds. This is a system-wide bed capacity problem. He pointed out that of the 606 people on trolleys on Monday, 439 were in emergency departments. Dr Hickey called for urgency capital funding for hospital beds, but said that the over expenditure on the National Childrens Hospital was going to have a knock-on effect for years to come. Sterling rose yesterday on tentative hopes that this evenings vote by MPs will help prevent the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal. The UK currency rose about 0.3% against the euro to over 89 pence. However, the Ftse-100 fell almost 1% as stockmarkets continued to worry about the US-China trade wars and world economic growth. Last week, sterling had also rallied on the belief that the majority in the Commons who oppose a no-deal because of the potential economic damage it would entail will find ways in the coming days to avoid a hard Brexit This rally in sterling will either be a gift for sellers later in the week or the start of something bigger if a no- deal Brexit recedes further into the distance, said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at online broker IG. The market has begun to sense that the sands are shifting in support of the deal. After the twists and turns of the past year, nothing would surprise markets, he said. Capital Economics in London said the probability of a soft Brexit was increasingly likely but there was only a 25% chance MPs will approve Theresa Mays withdrawal deal. With time running out, an extension of the Article 50 negotiating process and a shift to a sofer Brexit outcome seems increasingly likely, wed put the chances at 50%, the economics firm said. Irish exporters have already had to cope with a 15% drop in the value of the sterling since the summer of 2016, making it less profitable to sell across the Irish Sea. The two main business groups here stepped up their warnings to UK politicians about the fallout of a no-deal. There would be devastating economic consequences if the UK crashed out which would immediately put jobs and businesses at risk and jeopardise years of positive economic development and integration across the island, said Ibec and the Confederation of British Industrys office in the North in a joint statement. A no-deal outcome would profoundly exacerbate, rather than resolve the many difficult challenges that Brexit presents. These challenges would remain but would have to be addressed in a climate of political chaos and economic upheaval. It is not a prospect that any responsible politician should countenance, said Ibec director of policy and public affairs Fergal OBrien. CBI NI director Angela McGowan said: Many firms across Northern Ireland simply could not cope with a no-deal Brexit. Not only would it do significant harm to jobs, investment and living standards but it would put at risk the all-island economic model that has been an important factor in driving local prosperity. Moreover, it brings with it unnecessary risk to the Good Friday Agreement, which has been the foundation of social, economic and political progress, she said. In November, almost all the business groups in the North, including the Federation of Small Businesses, the Institute of Directors, and the NI Chamber of Commerce, had also put their support behind the Withdrawal Agreement signed between Mays government and EU chief negotiator Michael Barnier. As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information January 15, 2019 (Investorideas.com Newswire) In a scene awfully familiar to those who follow the rare earths market, China is once again threatening to hatchet production of the valuable minerals used in high-tech, renewable energy and military applications. Last week it was reported that the Chinese government published new guidelines designed to eliminate illegal mining and encourage more high-end processing. Those sterile words are code for "less polluting". Shutting down illegal rare earth mines is nothing new to the Chinese, who have found that the process of extracting rare earth oxides from ore and refining them into useable products has come at a high price to the environment. (For more about the poisoned lake and rare earth mining near Baotou, Inner Mongolia, read this excellent story by the BBC.) Breaking Free from China. "Dependency on one country or source for rare earths is dangerous. Right now the situation is fairly dire in the industry because we are being held captive by the Chinese for these materials." BravoSolution's Paul Martyn What is news, is the effect that limiting Chinese production will have on rare earth oxide prices; we only need take a look back to know this to be true. China controls about 90% of the rare earth market so any export restrictions will be felt in countries that buy them, including the United States and Canada. The only REE mine in the United States, Molycorp's Mountain Pass, went bankrupt in 2015 - although it is making a comeback, having been purchased by a US-led consortium. In 2009 China launched a crackdown on illegal REE mining. At the time authorities said the unregulated industry was driving down global prices, making it impossible to cover the huge environmental clean-up costs. The Chinese government imposed export controls on its rare earths, meaning a 40% drop in exports. Beijing said it had to implement quotas to protect the environment, but critics saw them as naked protectionism. A year later, an international incident sent rare earth oxide prices into the stratosphere. In September 2010 a Japanese naval vessel interdicted a Chinese fishing boat near the Senkaku Islands, which Japan and China both claim ownership of, and detained the captain. The response hardly seems balanced in retrospect, but the Chinese decided to ban all rare earth exports to Japan, then an industrial powerhouse and China's largest REE customer. The rare earths market panicked, and within months, all of the rare earth oxides gained in price. While the spike in rare earths prices was good for miners like Molycorp and the numerous exploration companies that sprang up in search for them, buyers of products made from rare earths balked and pressured governments to do something about it. The US, European Union and Japan brought a case to the World Trade Organization to try and settle the dispute and get China to lift the restrictions. In 2015 it did, resulting in a torrent of Chinese rare earth exports into the market and the inevitable collapse in prices. While rare earth prices have never taken off to the extent they did between 2010 and 2015, intermittent crackdowns by China have seen price rises. We saw it happen in 2013 and in 2017. Could this latest crackdown be China's attempt to manipulate the REE market again? We can almost certainly bet on it. But we have another factor that could play into a rare earth revival, and that is a new high-tech arms race that is developing between the superpowers. Donald Trump's threat to withdraw from the 1987 INF Treaty with Russia may be the catalyst that starts a new arms race between the United States, Russia and China as each projects military power in defense of spheres of influence outside their borders. If the US Military deploys missiles to places like Guam and Japan, it would deter China from a first strike against US ships and bases in the region, and also force Beijing into a costly arms race. Not being party to the INF Treaty would also allow the United States to counter Russian aggression in Eastern Europe. Why is this important? Because an arms race requires rare earths - something the US is in very short supply of. Not only that, the United States is wholly dependent on China for the mining and refining of rare earths it needs to expand and modernize its military. China Is Beating the US in the Rare-Earths Game The need for a North American rare earths industry, complete with a "mine to magnet" (as in permanent magnets made from rare earths) supply chain, has never been more crucial - considering the aforementioned arms race and the continuing trade tensions between the US and China. The first step is finding the elements, and that's where exploration comes in. While the US has some deposits, for example in Alaska and Wyoming, none are yet mineable. Same with Canada. At Ahead of the Herd, we are focused on finding early-stage companies with the potential for adding shareholder value in growing sectors like rare earth mining. Richard (Rick) Mills aheadoftheherd.com Ahead of the Herd on Twitter Ahead of the Herd now on FaceBook Ahead of the Herd now on YouTube Legal Notice / Disclaimer This document is not and should not be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for any investment. Richard Mills has based this document on information obtained from sources he believes to be reliable but which has not been independently verified. Richard Mills makes no guarantee, representation or warranty and accepts no responsibility or liability as to its accuracy or completeness. Expressions of opinion are those of Richard Mills only and are subject to change without notice. Richard Mills assumes no warranty, liability or guarantee for the current relevance, correctness or completeness of any information provided within this Report and will not be held liable for the consequence of reliance upon any opinion or statement contained herein or any omission. Furthermore, I, Richard Mills, assume no liability for any direct or indirect loss or damage or, in particular, for lost profit, which you may incur as a result of the use and existence of the information provided within this Report. More Info: This news is published on the Investorideas.com Newswire - a global digital news source for investors and business leaders Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions. More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ and tickertagstocknews.com Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp TORONTO - January 15, 2019 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Pure Global Cannabis Inc. (TSX.V:PURE) (OTC: PRCNF) ( FRA:1QS) an integrated, growth-oriented life sciences and consumer products cannabis company, through its subsidiary PureSinse Inc. ("PureSinse"), reports that Health Canada has issued PureSinse a Sales License under the Cannabis Act. Eligible and pre-registered Canadian medical patients can soon select from two dozen premium cannabis products offered by PureSinse, via its newly launched eCommerce website at PureSinse.com. The Company is committed to supporting medical cannabis patients by emphasizing the quality of and access to the products they need. The Company anticipates growing to 70 SKUs (stock-keeping units) by mid-2019, including adding extracted oil products, and vape pens. PureSinse continues to demonstrate commitment to the medical community by leading one of the largest real-world evidence-based clinical studies in conjunction with the Appletree Medical Group and one of the largest Clinical Research Organizations in the world. The clinical data, which will be collected from thousands of patients, will provide necessary data points for guidance in the therapeutic benefits of specific cannabis strains for commonly reported medical symptoms. This evidence will guide PureSinse's future pharmaceutical product and consumer product development plans and provide the medical community with published peer reviewed observational data on the efficacy of medical cannabis for a range of conditions. As part of the Sales Licence, the Company can also sell products into the adult-legal consumer market through provincially licensed retailers, for which it is launching uniquely curated lines of consumer products tailored to specific market segments. "This is a significant milestone for us and something we have been vigorously preparing for over the last several months," said Malay Panchal, CEO of Pure Global. "We feel the medical community has been hugely underserviced with poor patient and physician education, and product offerings, areas we hope to be trail blazers in and make a significant contribution to in 2019," added Mr. Panchal. About Pure Global Cannabis Pure Global Cannabis Inc. (TSX.V:PURE; OTC:PRCNF; FRA:1QS) is an innovation-based cannabis Company led by experienced pharma, biotechnology, horticultural, and consumer packaged goods (CPG) experts. The Company's wholly owned subsidiary, PureSinse Inc., is a licensed producer under the Cannabis Act. The Company's Brampton campus houses facilities for vertically farmed cultivation, R&D, extraction, manufacturing, and distribution. PURE will produce branded and white-labeled cannabis products for the medical, pharmaceutical, wellness, health & beauty, natural health, food & beverage, and recreational legal markets with uniquely formulated and purified concentrates. The Company is using the Canadian market as a springboard to develop and manufacture GMP-compliant cannabis products for international sale and distribution with a goal to become one of the most trusted premium international cannabis brands. To register to Pure Global's mailing list, please visit www.pureglobal.com. Follow @pureglobalcanna on Twitter and Facebook and @pureglobalcannabis on Instagram. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements about Pure Global's future plans and intentions. Wherever possible, words such as "may", "will", "should", "could", "expect", "plan", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "predict" or "potential" or the negative or other variations of these words, or similar words or phrases, have been used to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management as at the date hereof. Forward-looking statements involve significant risk, uncertainties and assumptions. Many factors could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results discussed or implied in the forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully and readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management believes to be reasonable assumptions, Pure Global cannot assure readers that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and Pure Global assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. To register to Pure Global's mailing list, please visit www.pureglobal.com . Follow @pureglobalcanna on Twitter and Facebook and @pureglobalcannabis on Instagram. SOURCE Pure Global Cannabis Inc. Disclosure: Investorideas. does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investment involves risk and possible loss of investment. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Contact each company directly regarding content and press release questions. 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Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp Investor Ideas does not condone the use of cannabis except where permissible by law. Our site does not possess, distribute, or sell cannabis products. An Alabama-based chiropractor, who was accused in a scheme to conduct fraudulent physical examinations on prospective long-haul truckers and submit false documents to federal transportation regulators, has been sentenced to more than three years in prison. Chief U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins of the Middle District of Alabama sentenced Dr. Kenneth G. Edwards, of Columbus, Georgia, to 37 months on Thursday, The Ledger-Enquirer reported. Watkins said the 65-year-old physician, who practiced in Phenix City, had abused the trust placed in him by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The offense netted Edwards about $224,000. U.S. Attorney Louis V. Franklin Sr. said the doctor was willing to risk putting physically unqualified individuals behind the wheels of large commercial vehicles to make a few easy dollars. Our regions roadways became more dangerous as a result of Dr. Edwards greed, Franklin said in a news release. It is my hope that Dr. Edwards case will send a message to other health care providers who might take shortcuts like the ones that led Dr. Edwards to spending 37 months in federal prison. My office will not tolerate the placing of profit over the well-being of society. Edwards was registered with the USDOT to conduct physical exams on people seeking commercial drivers licenses. Anyone who holds a CDL is required to undergo a thorough physical examination at least every two years. The regulations ensure that commercial drivers are physically capable of operating 18-wheel tractor trailers without putting motorists at risk. Edwards didnt examine applicants who came to him for USDOT required physicals. He collected cash payments from the applicants and signed forms indicating that the applicants were physically capable of driving commercial vehicles. Some applicants were certified without ever getting a partial physical. Office staff, in many instances, was allowed to conduct physical examinations and stamp the doctors signature on the USDOT forms. Conditions that would have disqualified an applicant from obtaining a CDL were not reported by Edwards. On one occasion, Edwards reported that an applicant had 20/20 vision in both eyes but one of the applicants eyes was a prosthetic. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics USA Fraud Alabama Trucking Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 15) The Department of Transportation (DoTr) will further study the proposal to allow motorcycle taxis to operate. However, the DoTr, in a statement, said it cannot unilaterally declare the operation of these vehicles as legal. "Naninindigan ang DOTr na ang pag-convert ng mga motorsiklo bilang public transport service ay nangangailangan ng masusing diskusyon at paninimbang," the DoTr said. (Translation: The DoTr stands firm in its opinion that allowing motorcycles to operate as public transport services needs thorough discussion.) Instead, the department said it will support the bills pending in Congress for the legalization of motorcycle taxis. The department will also hold a technical working group (TWG) meeting on January 18 to craft its stance in preparation for the pending House committee meetings on the proposed legislation. "Pakikinggan natin ang lahat ng partido sa isyung ito at pag-aaralan kung sa huli't huli ay ito ang pinakamabuting paraan para sa nakararami," the DoTr said. (Translation: We will listen to all parties and study whether or not motorcycle taxis would be good for the public.) The TWG will include representatives from the DoTr, the Land Transportation Office, Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, Metro Manila Development Authority, the police, key legislators, motorcycle manufacturers, motorcycle organizations, law schools and civil society groups. The federal government has unveiled a long-awaited set of proposals to dramatically expand civilian drone flights while also tightening security, critical steps for an industry seeking to expand into robot aerial deliveries and scores of other commercial uses in populated areas. A proposed regulation released Monday by the U.S. Department of Transportation would for the first time allow routine flights over people and at night, provided the remote-control operators take safety precautions. The new regulatory framework was announced by Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao in a speech in Washington. This will help communities reap the considerable economic benefits of this growing industry and help our country remain a global technology leader, Chao said in remarks to the nonprofit Transportation Research Board. Under current Federal Aviation Administration regulations, civilian drones cant operate directly over peoples heads out of fear they could plunge from the sky, injuring or killing someone. That effectively makes it impossible to use them legally for scores of purposes, including surveying urban construction sites, delivering defibrillators to highway crash scenes and photographing densely populated areas. The FAA also announced it is asking for input from the public and industry on how to devise the next wave of restrictions on drones, such as how to build a specialized new air-traffic control system for them. The standards are seen by industry as a way unleash the commercial potential for small civilian drones, providing a launching pad for expanded uses ranging from package deliveries by companies like Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.s Wing to TV network news photography. The proposal isnt likely to transform unmanned flight immediately, however. The FAA had been planning on issuing the proposal by the end of 2016, but was forced to hold off as U.S. law enforcement and anti-terrorist officials sought assurances that expanded flights near crowds wouldnt create new hazards. The governments response to those concerns a separate set of proposed regulations that would require small drones to broadcast their identity and position so authorities can track them isnt expected until May, according to the FAA. It could take a year or longer to finalize those rules after they are proposed, meaning widespread flights over crowds probably wont be permitted until 2020 or later. Such security concerns were spotlighted last month when hundreds of flights were canceled and thousands of travelers stranded at Londons Gatwick Airport after one or more drones were spotted buzzing the airport dozens of times over three days. Londons Heathrow suffered a shorter halt of flights weeks later after drones were spotted nearby. The airport resumed flights after about an hour. Recent events overseas have underscored concerns about the potential for drones to disrupt aviation and the national airspace, Chao said. The government is seeking input and suggestions on how to address these threats, she said. In another announcement, the government said it had awarded three contracts to companies to develop technology to provide flight planning, communications, safe flight routes and weather services specifically for drones. The FAA has granted growing numbers of waivers allowing flights over people, such as for a drone-delivery tests by Wing and to Time Warner Inc.s CNN for news photography. As of Nov. 30, the agency had given 23 such waivers. Once complete, the regulations would create a routine way for such flights to occur. The proposals are just a part of a multi-pronged effort to allow expansion of commercial use of drones while protecting public safety, security and privacy. The FAA is also planning to release a notice seeking public input on how best to make drones more identifiable. It is drafting drone-identification and tracking requirements and another effort is underway to draw up better standards for marking drones. At the same time, the Transportation Department earlier this year granted permission to 10 state, local and tribal governments to test far-flung uses of drones as well as to gauge public acceptance of the remote devices. The winners included a whos who of U.S. technology, telecommunication and transportation companies, including FedEx Corp., Intel Corp., Uber Technologies Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. The FAA said Monday that the purpose of the proposed new rules was to set flexible standards that are technologically neutral to allow the rapidly changing unmanned industry to continue innovating. The FAAs challenge in developing this proposal, therefore, is to balance the need to mitigate the risk small unmanned aircraft pose to other aircraft and to people and property on the ground without inhibiting innovation, the agency said in the proposed regulation. For flights over people, the FAA is proposing three categories of flights depending on the level of risk. The smallest drones weighing just over a half pound, or one-quarter of a kilogram, pose such a low risk that users would be able to fly them over crowds with no restrictions, according to the proposal. The largest selling civilian drone models, such as those by Chinas SZ DJI Technology Co. Ltd., weigh roughly two to three pounds. Drones weighing more than a half pound would have to be designed not to cause significant injuries to people if they struck them. Manufacturers could reach that threshold in numerous ways, such as making the craft light, restricting its speed or padding its exterior, the FAA said. The possibilities for designing an unmanned aircraft to meet this standard are too vast to create an exhaustive list, the FAA said. The drones in this category must also have rotor blades that are shielded or designed so they cant lacerate people on impact. They also would barred from flying if theres a known safety defect. Under a third category, drones capable of causing greater injury could fly over people in limited circumstances that prohibit flights above open-air assemblies and hovering above individuals. While the changes could dramatically expand some drone operations, it largely keeps in place the current restrictions requiring most flights to be kept within sight of an operator, away from airports and other critical sites, and below 400 feet (122 meters). The FAA expects all operators to continue to comply with the existing provisions, the agency said in the proposal. Night flights would be permitted under the regulation provided operators have completed special knowledge testing or training, and that the devices are equipped with special lighting thats visible for at least three miles. In addition, the FAA is proposing that licensed civilian drone operators have to receive recurrent training every two years. Related: Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. Topics USA Legislation Tech Aviation Lansing, Michigan-based AF Group has promoted five in key leadership positions across the organization. Abel Travis has been promoted to vice president, Underwriting & Product Innovation. Prior to joining AF Group in April 2018, Travis was assistant vice president and head of commercial lines product management for Hanover Insurance Group. He earned a masters in Business Administration from Long Island University and Pragmatic Product Management Certification and Strategic Leadership Certification from MIT, along with a bachelors degree in Finance from Clarkson University. Keri Kittmann is now vice president, Servicing Carrier Operations. Kittmann joined AF Group in 200, and has held various management positions within the organization. In 2009, she was named AF Groups Leader of the Year. Prior to joining AF Group, she held several finance and accounting roles for Citizens/Hanover Insurance and Blue Care Network. Kittmann earned a bachelors degree in Accounting from Michigan State University. In 2018, she was appointed to the Cristo Rey Community Center Board of Directors in Lansing. Mitch Walsh has been named vice president, Business Transformation. Walsh joined AF Group in 2015 as director of Strategy and Operations. Prior to joining AF Group, he served as vice president of Insurance Services at Texas Mutual Insurance Co. and previously held several executive-level positions including vice president of Loss Prevention & Underwriting Systems. Walsh earned a bachelors degree in Computer Science from Michigan State University. Becky Holnagel has been appointed chief actuary. Holnagel has held several management positions since joining AF Group in 2006 and now leads the companys Actuarial and Predictive Modeling teams and data strategy initiatives. Prior to joining AF Group, Holnagel served as a senior actuarial analyst for MEEMIC Insurance Co. and as an actuarial analyst and commercial lines underwriter for Citizens Insurance Co. Holnagel received her bachelors degree in Mathematics from the University of Michigan and is a member of the American Academy of Actuaries. She has earned the FCAS, MAAA and CPCU professional designations. Jacob Geyer has been promoted to vice president, AF Specialty; and vice president, Business Analytics and Underwriting Operations. Geyer joined Accident Fund in June 2008 as a senior actuarial analyst. Prior to this, he worked at Liberty Mutual in an actuarial role for pricing and ratemaking. Geyer earned a bachelors degree in Mathematics from Michigan State University and he serves on the Michigan State University Actuarial Science Board of Advisors. He holds the CPCU and CAWC professional designations. AF Group offers property/casualty insurance through the following AF Group companies: Accident Fund Insurance Company of America; Accident Fund National Insurance Company; Accident Fund General Insurance Company; United Wisconsin Insurance Company; Third Coast Insurance Company and CompWest Insurance Company. Source: AF Group Topics Carriers Michigan Education Leadership Universities Danske Bank A/Ss money-laundering scandal threatens to undermine its growth engine. The lenders Nordic banking operation, which encompasses Norway, Sweden and Finland, was the only core unit of five to report higher profit in the third quarter. But now, some customers in the biggest Nordic economy may be reconsidering their loyalty to the bank, according to Berit Behring, head of Swedish operations at Danske. The Nordic business plan was a brainchild of former Chief Executive Officer Thomas Borgen, who wanted to make expansion in the region a cornerstone of Danskes overall growth strategy. As recently as November, Danske proudly pointed to a 13 percent increase in lending in the Swedish retail market in the first nine months of last year. But Behring says clients are now expressing concerns as they await the outcome of multiple criminal investigations into Danske amid a $230 billion dirty money scandal. The result of those probes may determine how willing clients are to stick with the bank, she said in an interview in Stockholm. Unfortunately it has damaged the confidence in the market for us even here in Sweden, Behring said. Whats more, the scandal has triggered a cut in Danskes sustainability ratings, which has affected behavior among institutional clients that make decisions based on those ratings, she said. Credit Suisse analyst Marcell Houben on Friday cut his 12-month price target for Danske by more than 7 percent, citing in part the laundering case. The franchise could take a hit, he said by phone. Though the effect so far as been minimal, Houben warns that it may just be a question of time before the fallout of the scandal makes itself felt in the business area. And with the franchise risk, the sanctions risk, the risk-reward isnt attractive enough without the buybacks, he said. Danske abandoned a share buyback program last year to make sure it had enough capital to deal with risks stemming from the laundering case. It remains unclear whether the bank would be able to get regulatory approval to purchase its own shares this year. Waiting for Details Behring declined to elaborate, and said markets will have to wait until Danske reports its fourth-quarter results on Feb. 1 to learn more. Danske has admitted that vast amounts of money from suspicious clients in the former Soviet republics flowed through a branch in Estonia and into the West until as recently as 2015. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating the case, while Danish authorities have already brought preliminary charges against the bank. In Estonia, 10 former Danske employees have been apprehended. The bank said on Friday that it may again become the subject of a formal probe in France, where authorities are reconsidering its assisted-witness status amid allegations of lying made by Bill Browder, the co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management and a driving force behind criminal money laundering complaints against banks. Danske said its been summoned to an interview by the investigating judge in the case. Analyst estimates for fines range from below $1 billion to more than $8 billion. Meanwhile, the bank is still looking for a permanent CEO to replace Borgen, after he was removed in October for his role in the laundering scandal. Against that backdrop, investors are wondering how well Danskes basic operations will fare, so the notion that its Nordic banking business might be affected comes at a particularly bad time. Danske also has to deal with the same turbulent markets that all other banks are struggling with. It cut its 2018 forecast last month, pointing to volatile financial markets. Economic growth in Sweden is slowing as well, while Brexit has brought new competition to Sweden as many London-based banks make Stockholm their Nordic hub. Sweden is the Nordic market where we have the largest domestic banks, but we also have most international banks here, Behring said. We see a tendency right now, with Brexit coming up, that more of the international banks are moving more staff into Stockholm, and they chose Stockholm as their headquarters in the Nordics. Market Share Investors and analysts will be scrutinizing Danskes fourth-quarter results for any traces of weakness in its important Nordic operations. The bank has taught the market to focus on the business area, after highlighting its expansion in Sweden and Norway in recent quarters. Annual growth in Danskes Swedish business averages just under 10 percent, Behring said. The bank has increased its share of lending in the country to 5.8 percent, the highest in more than eight years. Its market share in Norway is 5.9 percent. Ultimately, Behring said she thinks Danske will keep its momentum in Sweden. The banks efforts to be transparent with regard to the laundering case and update customers via its website have restored some confidence, she said. Behring says history is a good guide in terms of how Danske copes with headwinds. During the 2008 financial crisis, the bank went through a tough time, but in Sweden, the upshot was that that business saw little more than a flattening out, after which we took off again, she said. I dont say that we need to flatten out this time, because I dont think we will have to do that, Behring said. But the message is that we have every year moved a little bit more forward and we will continue to do that. Related: Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. Prime Minister Theresa May is set to see her Brexit deal rejected in the biggest Parliamentary defeat for a British government in 95 years after her last minute pleas for support appeared to fall on deaf ears. The battle now is over not whether May loses, but how badly. At least 70 of her Conservative Party, as well as sometime allies in the Democratic Unionist Party, are publicly pledged to join opposition Members of Parliament in voting against her agreement Tuesday. That would translate into a defeat by a margin of 150 or more, the largest in over a century. Even if some abstain, a defeat by more than 100 would be the worst since 1924. May postponed a vote before Christmas in the hope of winning over Parliament with new concessions from Brussels over the so-called backstop intended to ensure the post-Brexit Irish border stays open, but EU leaders letters of reassurance were treated with scorn in the House of Commons Monday. I will be continuing to encourage members of this House to vote for what I believe to be a good deal, May said as she faced down criticism from all sides Monday afternoon. We asked the people what their view was and said we would do what they decided, and we should now do it. Markets and the EU will be watching Tuesdays results, scheduled to start at 7 p.m., and the margin of a government defeat will affect how they both respond. A defeat by more than 220 votes could see sterling fall to $1.225, according to Neil Jones, head of hedge-fund currency sales at Mizuho Bank. Meanwhile, a margin of less than 60 would leave some room for hope, several EU officials said last week, and the bloc may look at fresh ways of making the agreement more palatable to get it across the line. As May appealed to her party in a closed-door meeting Monday night in Parliament, it looked like even getting the margin of defeat below 100 votes would be a significant achievement. Instead, the prime ministers opponents, both those who want a harder Brexit, and those who want a softer Brexit or none at all were eager for the next phase of battle. Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson welcomed the imminent demise of the deal and said he would support a no-deal divorce with zeal and enthusiasm once it has failed. We can flunk it, we can vote for this deal, and we would thereby confirm the worst suspicions of the British public about the cynicism of the elite, or we can get it right and seize the opportunities before us, he told lawmakers Monday night. If and when this deal is voted down let us not continue to flog this dead horse. Vote No to Everything Former minister Nick Boles, meanwhile, set out a plan by which senior MPs would take control of the Brexit process if the government couldnt get anything through Parliament. And he said that if they couldnt agree, Britains departure from the EU, currently set for March 29, should be delayed. In October government ministers had talked about winning a large majority for the deal, but by December, when May postponed the vote hoping time to think would change MPs minds, it was clear she was looking down the barrel of a heavy defeat. Government whips worked Monday to try to find ways to minimize the scale of the defeat. Mays office was said to be considering backing an amendment that would put a time limit on the controversial Irish backstop clause even though she told lawmakers such a move would not be accepted by EU negotiators. By Tuesday morning, some 30 lawmakers had signed up to that amendment, tabled by the Tory lawmaker Andrew Murrison including Graham Brady, the influential head of the 1922 Committee of rank-and-file Tories. But Steve Baker, a lead organizer in the pro-Brexit European Research Group of Tory MPs, angrily rejected overtures from government whips and denied reports that his members were softening their line. We plan to vote no to everything: All amendments and the main motion, whether or not amended, he said on Twitter. Moving Debate Ahead At the same time, opponents of Mays deal looked to ways to maximize the scale of her defeat in an effort to move the debate on. Hilary Benn, a Labour lawmaker and chairman of the Brexit Committee, on Tuesday withdrew an amendment he proposed last year which had been designed to show a Parliamentary majority against a no-deal divorce. With that already proved by votes last week, opponents of the deal had said it risked May being defeated by too small a margin. I was persuaded by the argument that it would be best to have an absolutely clear single vote on the prime ministers vote today, Benn told BBC radio on Tuesday. Its also now much clearer that there is a route to ruling out no deal, he said. The Sun newspaper reported that May is planning to force a second vote on her deal if she is defeated as expected on Tuesday after a call with Angela Merkel on Sunday. The German chancellor promised to help win concessions from the bloc, the newspaper reported without saying where it got the information. Germany denied the report. There was a blow for people campaigning for Britain to stay in the EU when Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour Party, used a meeting of his lawmakers to criticize the EUs commitment to the neo-liberal economic model. His spokesman also told reporters that if the party fails to force a general election through a vote of no confidence in the government after Tuesdays vote, calling for a second referendum is only one option it might pursue and not necessarily its next step. There was one sliver of hope for May during Monday nights debate. Desmond Swayne, one of those pledged on to vote down the deal, said he might back it to ensure Britain leaves the bloc. He wanted to avoid voting alongside those who are there because their strategy is actually to prevent Brexit at all, he told lawmakers. While he dislikes the deal, it is better than staying in the EU, he said. With assistance from Alex Morales. Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. Topics Legislation Europe Uk Brexit Cyber insurance is trending upward, the industry is growing, and the technology around it is evolving at a very quick pace. While predictions are always hard to make, here are five trends that are likely to catapult the cyber insurance industry forward, creating fertile ground for growth in 2019. (See the graphic below, compiled by Munich Re, which highlights the escalating threats from cyber risks). 1. Regulation, Regulation, Regulation. When it comes to regulation and cyber insurance, we need to think of indirect and direct regulation that may affect the market. Additionally, we need to consider how regulation affects insurers and insureds both from an affirmative and silent risk perspective. Silent cyber risk refers to potential cyber related losses due to inadvertent coverage within other P/C insurance policy wording which excludes cyber risk. Just look at the rapid increase in data privacy laws, such as those for personally identifiable information (PII) in the U.S., the HIPAA Privacy Rule (covering medical records and personal health information in the U.S.), the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which is a global standard, and the EUs General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to name a few. One of the ways businesses deal with risk hedging for these laws is via cyber insurance. While they actively try to focus on reducing the chances that leaks of this type of data may occur, they ultimately know that in the cyber landscape, anything can happen and thus insurance is key for their risk management strategy. Additionally, there is direct regulation that specifically targets cyber insurers. For example, the EUs largest insurers are to be assessed for their exposure to, and way in which they deal with cyber risks in any insurance book they own. Most recently, on Nov. 10, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), together with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and the Federal Insurance Office (FIO) of the U.S. Department of Treasury hosted the sixth EU-U.S. Forum in Luxembourg and discussed challenges and opportunities related to cyber risks, the use of big data, artificial intelligence and intra-group transactions in multinational insurance groups. Its fair to predict that EIOPAs stress test for insurers may be something that U.S. regulators may be looking to implement as well. 2. Development of Cyber Insurance Linked Securities (ILS) Market and Cyber Risk Pools Insurance professionals are looking for innovative ways to expand the availability of cyber insurance and creative ways to enter the market. Cyber pools can potentially offer a facility for providing cyber insurance to corporate buyers and the use of capital markets funding, to back the risk, can allow for larger policy limits for specific use-cases. It can also be a safer way for professionals to learn the cyber risk landscape and become a part of the market. While property catastrophe risks are the prominent line of business across the ILS sector, both investors and sponsors are increasingly looking at other emerging risks, such as cyber, according to Willis Tower Watsons ILS survey report, published in October 2018, Indeed, the Singaporean government announced in October 2018 that it plans to launch the worlds first commercial cyber risk pool. This facility will provide cyber insurance to corporate buyers in the Asia region and will be backed by insurance-linked securities and reinsurance. It is a great foreshadowing of similar moves soon expected in the European and American markets. In order for these initiatives to develop, theyll need to work with vendors that can provide advanced cyber threats intelligence, risk modeling and rating services to properly assess cyber risk within a diverse set of policies. As these vendors better predict cyber catastrophes that may affect policies, their track records will increase insurers confidence in these products and thus reinforce the growth of the cyber insurance market. 3. Awareness Around Silent Cyber Risk Awareness about silent cyber, also referred to as non-affirmative cyber will increase. Insurers are gradually realizing they have unquantified exposures and are looking for solutions to quantify their exposures as well as give them the option to amend or exclude coverages in other lines that may leave them overly exposed. For example, were still seeing the effects of the NotPetya ransomware attack in 2017 on Maersk, FedEx and other companies. The insurance industry loss from this attack has been estimated by RMS at up to $3 billion. Of course, regulations set by EIOPA (as discussed above), will also help promote this trend of quantifying cyber risk, while rating agencies are likely to demand that insurers quantify their silent exposure. For example, in November, Moodys announced it will soon start using its credit-rating expertise to evaluate organizations on their risk to a major impact from a cyber attack. As awareness around non-affirmative cyber grows, insurers will be making larger strides to make changes to overcome coverage ambiguity. 4. Growth of Cyber MGAs/MGUs Across the Globe Reinsurers currently seek specialized entities to distribute specific lines of product. The increase of cyber focused MGAs is most likely due to the need for deep expertise on the risks faced with providing cyber insurance and the need for dedicated efforts to best address the needs of cyber insurance purchasers. The trends in growth of MGAs and MGUs are being driven by both traditional and new companies. For example, Aon recently launched a new unit, Carrier Solutions, to grow their MGA and MGU network. Further, insurtech MGAs, such as Coalition, At Bay and Zeugro, have seen success. The combination of these two types of efforts will spearhead the MGA/MGU industry as traditional insurers vie for ways to grow their business and insurtechs find new creative ways to competitively enter the market with technological advancements. Specialized cyber MGAs will be a significant part of the future and start to form worldwide. 5. More Involvement from Board of Directors The role of the board of directors surrounding cyber security continue to grow. Cyber security breaches can affect an entire organization and have proven to have a growing impact on business operations. Recent high-profile data breaches at Quora and Marriott highlight to boards of directors that cyber security should be approached as an enterprise-wide risk management issue with wide legal and regulatory implications. This means theyre extremely invested in the types of cyber insurance policies their companies take out and the type of coverage they will receive, particularly in order to use it as a form of risk transfer. The insurance industry will go through major developments in the next year surrounding regulation, awareness of silent cyber risk and involvement from boards of directors. Additionally, we will see development of cyber pools worldwide and more MGAs sprouting up across the globe. These changes will propel the cyber insurance industry into the spotlight and force insurance professionals to become more educated about cyber risk and become more open to solutions that can help them control their exposure such as advanced risk modeling. Topics Carriers USA Legislation Trends Cyber Europe Personal Auto Market Insurance Wholesale Risk Management A Connecticut judge has dismissed lawsuits against Purdue Pharma and two dozen other drug companies brought by 37 cities and towns in the state, which blame them for the opioid crisis and seek to recoup millions of dollars spent on emergency response and other services. Judge Thomas Moukawsher in Hartford Superior Court ruled that the lawsuits were not allowed because they were not government enforcement actions, such as those filed under consumer protection and public health laws. Instead, the judge said the lawsuits were filed as ordinary civil cases seeking money damages for the indirect harm from the opioid crisis. Their lawsuits cant survive without proof that the people they are suing directly caused them the financial losses they seek to recoup, Moukawsher wrote. This puts the cities in the same position in claiming money as the brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors, and co-workers of addicts who say they have also indirectly suffered losses by the opioid crisis. That is to say under long-established law they have no claims at all. Lawyers for several cities and towns said they were still reviewing the judges ruling and appeals are being considered. Bridgeport, New Haven and Waterbury are among the plaintiffs. I dont think he reached the correct decision, said New York lawyer Judith Scolnick, who is representing New Haven and New Britain. Its disappointing. Were considering every option. The ruling is believed to be the first to dismiss government lawsuits in recent rounds of litigation against opioid manufacturers. Last month, a federal judge in Ohio overseeing more than 1,400 lawsuits against drugmakers by local governments and other groups rejected requests by the companies to dismiss the claims. Purdue Pharma, the Stamford, Connecticut-based maker of the opioid painkiller OxyContin, said in a statement that Moukawsher made the right decision. We commend the judge for applying the law and concluding that opioid manufacturers cannot be legally responsible to cities for the indirect harms they claim they experienced as a result of the opioid crisis, the statement said. We share these communities concerns about the opioid crisis, and we remain committed to working collaboratively, bringing meaningful solutions forward to help address this public health challenge. Like other drugmakers, Purdue Pharma has denied allegations in lawsuits that it used deceptive marketing to boost sales of its opioid painkiller, deceiving patients and doctors about the risks of opioids. Manufacturers are being blamed for helping fuel addiction and opioid overdose deaths. About 47,600 Americans died from drug overdoses involving opioids in 2017, a toll that has been rising for two decades, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Local, state and federal governments say they have been forced to pay for opioid addicts social and medical needs, including emergency response services, doses of overdose-reversal drugs and medical care for government employees. As a result of Defendants false and misleading marketing, one of the Connecticut lawsuits said, the United States in general, and Connecticut municipalities in particular, are now experiencing an opioid-fueled public health epidemic of crisis proportions that is swamping the public health, safety, and administrative infrastructures of Connecticut municipalities. The dismissal does not apply to a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma filed recently by the state of Connecticut in connection with the opioid crisis. Purdue Pharma has faced legal challenges before. The company, along with three of its executives, pleaded guilty in 2007 to federal charges and was ordered to pay more than $600 million in fines related to what was called intentional misrepresentations as to the addictiveness of OxyContin. The plea deal came only two days after the company agreed to pay $19.5 million to 26 states and the District of Columbia to settle complaints that it encouraged doctors to overprescribe OxyContin. The company did not admit wrongdoing in that settlement. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits Legislation Connecticut The Colemans have been charged with defrauding customers who paid the pair for workers compensation insurance as well as other lines of insurance, the state workers compensation board said in a news release. The indictment handed down includes 10 separate victims. The case is still under active investigation and there is the possibility of additional victims and charges. Bob Coleman is serving his third term on the Glynn County Commission, according to The Brunswick News. He is also the former owner of Coleman Insurance Agency, which he sold to Family First Insurance in August. Family First owner Jeff Guest said he was unaware of the investigation into the Colemans when he purchased the agency. Because they did not disclose this to me, when I was made aware of this, I severed my relationship personally and professionally with them, Guest told The Brunswick News. Guest said he wasnt made aware of the investigation until October but that he now believes the Colemans knew they were being investigated when they sold him the agency. Because it was not disclosed to me, I am in the middle of this mess, Guest said. According to police, Jones who was in an ongoing claims dispute with Erie Insurance entered the insurers Silver Spring, Md., offices on December 14 and threatened to burn the building. Jones stated that this building would be on the news in the near future because Jones planned to return to the building and set the building on fire, which would kill everyone inside, investigators said in court records relating to the case. Jones further stated he was being serious about returning to burn the building down. Jones reportedly said that he had pancreatic cancer and had recently lost both his parents, according to WJLA. While he did not tell Erie Insurance staff when he would return to burn the building, he allegedly promised that he was serious about doing so. Jones also tweeted about his plan, according to police. After a pancreatic cancer diagnosis, many people make huge life decisions, Jones tweeted in the days after the alleged threat. My decision is to become a martyr for those who are abused by the insurance industry. I plan to light up the lawn of @erie_insurance on Tech Drive in Silver Spring on Wednesday add (sic) noon. All are welcome. In another tweet, Jones claimed that in January of 2018, his car was hit at a stoplight by a driver covered by Erie Insurance. He claimed that it took three months for his car to be repaired, and that Erie only moved on the matter after he went to a local office and made a scene about lost Rideshare wages. As a precaution, Erie Insurance closed its Silver Spring office on the day Jones specified in his tweet, according to WJLA. Jones was arrested January 03. He is currently being held without bond. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. Kaplansky Insurance has been named one of the best entrepreneurial companies in the nation by Entrepreneur Magazines Entrepreneur 360 List. This is the second straight year that the company has received the honor. We are honored to be recognized for the second consecutive year as one of the best entrepreneurial companies in America, amidst an incredible list of honorees, said Ely Kaplansky, president and CEO of Kaplansky Insurance. Philipsz previously worked for Willis Towers Watson Securities in London but relocated to Australia in 2016 after the firms Sydney office was first launched and he was appointed co-head of Asia Pacific. Philipsz has over 20 years of investment banking experience, primarily covering the insurance sector, and has also held various roles at Merrill Lynch and Bank of America in London, New York and Tokyo. Karl Jones, head of catastrophe analytics for Willis Re International, is also set to join the Syndey office, relocating from London in the first quarter of 2019. Despite the major relocation, Jones is already well-known to the Australian market, having previously been based in Sydney with Willis Re up to 2015. While Jones will continue in his global role, Willis Re said his return to Australia will strengthen the firms ability to provide clients in the region with world-class catastrophe analytics capabilities. Commenting on the leadership changes, Willis Re CEO Cameron Green said the role of the reinsurance broker has evolved in recent years. Willis Re in Australia and throughout the world has been at the forefront of driving innovation in its service offering, to deliver meaningful value and insight for its clients, he said. The addition of John and Karl to the Willis Re team in Australia will strengthen our operations in the Australian market to drive our next phase of growth. A release said that that as part of the NYDFS approval, both Genworth and Oceanwide entered into a letter agreement with the regulator which acknowledged certain additional requirements pertaining to cybersecurity concerns. These requirements are consistent with the Enhanced Data Security Program that both companies previously agreed to when the transaction was cleared by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. NYDFSs approval was the last insurance regulatory approval needed for the deal to close. However, the transaction is still subject to other conditions, such as the receipt of other required non-insurance regulatory approvals in China, Canada and by the US-based Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Penningtons Manches acts for over 80 people who lost more than 3 million in deposits for the Jewel of the Sea holiday development in Calabria. Giambrone, which first opened in London and Palermo in 2004, was found to be negligent and in breach of trust in the advice it gave investors but at the time said there was no money left for outstanding claimants. The next step for the team at Penningtons Manches is to pursue AIG and argue that each client has a separate entitlement to the 3 million indemnity insurance, the minimum amount which solicitors are required to hold, asserted Penningtons Manches then. Now the firms group action professional negligence lawyers, led by partner David Niven, have secured a High Court non-party costs order under section 51 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 against Giambrones insurer. Mr Justice Foskett, exercising the courts discretion to award non-party costs in exceptional circumstances, found that the buyers spent twice as much on pursuing their claims than they would have done if AIG had not funded the defence of the claims in the way it did. Delighted with the decision, Niven commented: As Mr Justice Foskett acknowledges in his judgment, this litigation has been fiercely contested, even though our clients succeeded on substantively all points at trial. I am confident that this will result in a substantial payment of my clients costs. Local Twin Cities artists Enzyrose, Eyenga Bokamba, Noah Lawrence-Holder, LeShon Lee, and Meadow Gillispie, talk about their reaction to the murder of George Floyd, the trial of Derek Chauvin, and life as a black artist during this time. Real-time social media posts from local businesses and organizations across Northern Virginia, powered by Friends2Follow. To add your business to the stream, email cfields@insidenova.com or click on the green button below. The Barchart Chart of the Day belongs to the motorsports equipment company Leatt ( OTCQB:LEAT ). Readers are always asking me how to find stocks that are just beginning to trend before everyone else discovers them. One of the best ways is to look at Barchart's Strong Volume Gains preformatted screener. It identifies stocks... Read More Givaudan opens flavours centre in Morocco Givaudan has inaugurated a new flavours technical and commercial centre in Casablanca, Morocco. The CHF1.2 million investment is said to be part of the companys 2020 high growth markets strategy. Givaudan has inaugurated a new flavours technical and commercial centre in Casablanca, Morocco. The CHF1.2 million investment is said to be part of the companys 2020 high growth markets strategy and to demonstrate its ongoing commitment to the Maghreb and West Africa regions. Louie DAmico, President of Givaudans Flavour Division, said: Our new centre in Casablanca will enable Givaudan to meet the evolving needs of our food and beverage customers for innovative taste and flavour solutions. Through our local presence, customers will benefit from a faster response as well as access to a wider range of Givaudans global capabilities in flavours and extracts. For the first time in Morocco, the company will offer in one location a full range of flavour application capabilities serving customers in the savoury, beverages, sweet goods, dairy and snacks segments. The 600-square-metre facility integrates application labs with specialised technologies along with commercial spaces for customer taste and smell experiences. It will serve customers in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Malta, Ivory Coast and Guinea, with additional support for creation from Givaudans Flavour Development Centre in Dubai and the companys Regional Innovation Centres in the Netherlands and Switzerland. Speaking at the event, Henning Hartnacke, EAME Commercial Head, said: By bringing innovation capabilities, consumer understanding and advanced flavour technology to Morocco, Givaudan is demonstrating our commitment to be closer to our customers and strengthening our presence in Africa and the Middle East. St. Louis (Missouri) County doctor Abhishek Jain has been sentenced to 30 days in jail and five years of probation for sexually abusing two patients. He will voluntarily leave the U.S. rather than being deported. (St. Louis County Police photo) There is a good reason for you to feel jealous of this bird because it enjoyed a privileged trip and that too for free! A Singapore Airlines flight going to Londons Heathrow Airport saw a unique passenger in the business class. The bird got sat there for a good 12 hours before someone noticed it! A video was posted and since then it is going viral. In the video, you can see the bird sitting on the top of a passengers seat. A steward tries to catch it but fails. The poor bird, however, gets caught with the help of passengers onboard. After getting captured, the bird was handed over to the animal quarantine authorities once the aircraft landed in London. Remember the professor who compared virgin brides with sealed bottles? Kanak Sarkar, a professor at Kolkatas Jadavpur University is again in the soup and this time for passing lewd comments to a student. A student took her ordeal to Facebook and wrote "I was giving a presentation in class one day and this man interrupted me in the middle, and I thought it was to ask me a question. However, to my absolute dismay, he asked me if I want to grow up and become a model since my 'figure' is very model like. He also asked me if I have a lot of male friends because according to him, I'm what men would 'enjoy'. My HOD, in front of a class of 52 students, at that moment, reduced me to nothing. How are we allowing such professors to carry on?" It is very disturbing that a teacher felt no qualms about objectifying a female student in front of the entire class. Instead of paying attention to what she had to say, he was, in fact, thinking about her as a thing men would 'enjoy'. Days before, Sarkar also uploaded a Facebook post - Virgin Bride- Why Not? in which he compared virgin brides to sealed bottles. He claimed that boys were fools if they were not aware of the benefit of having a virgin girl as a wife. Calling it his right to freedom of expression on social media, Sarkar said "It's everybody's right to express his/her thoughts. I have given many posts for and in favour of women. Can verify them in my timeline." Later, he removed all his posts following the controversy. To nobodys surprise, Sarkar was also accused of sexual harassment in 2017. The Consumer Forum has directed GoAir to refund a passenger the amount for 25 seats on a flight it cancelled 'without any reason'. Jayesh Pandya booked 25 tickets on a GoAir flight in 2015 for the guests from Ahmedabad to attend his daughter's wedding. Jayesh Pandya in May 2014 spent Rs 50,000 on the tickets to fly in his guests to Mumbai on February 17, 2015. I had made the wedding pooja arrangements based on the flight timings. In January 2015, I contacted the airlines to submit the passengers names. They, then, informed me the flight was cancelled. They offered no reasons, Pandya told the forum. Twitter Pandya then bought tickets for 24 passengers on another airline worth Rs 88,816. In February 2015, he wrote to GoAir twice, seeking reimbursement for his expenses. In his response, they gave him a Rs 3,000 voucher and informed him the refund was being processed and after that, he did not hear from GoAir. Pandya then filed an RTI query and went to the Consumer Forum. The airline claimed that it contacted Pandya through email about the cancellation, but they did not produce any proof in the court. The forum then directed GoAir to refund Pandya Rs 50,000 for the tickets and Rs 38,816 for the excess amount Pandya paid for Vistara airlines and Rs 10,000 as additional compensation. Army Major Shashi Dharan V Nair was martyred in an IED explosion in Rajouri, Jammu and Kashmir last week. Major Nair lost his life along with another soldier in the explosion that is suspected to have been triggered by Pakistans Border Action Team (BAT). ANI Major Nair is survived by his wife Trupti, who is suffering from multiple arterioscleroses and is paralysed below the waist. When Major Nair got engaged to her, she was doing fine but before the two were about to get married she was paralysed. This, however, did not stop Major Nair from marrying her. Times Now Read More: Major Shashidharan, Martyred In IED Blast Remembered As A Disciplined Student & A Loyal Soldier He would carry her everywhere he went - to parties or restaurants. As per a report in PTI, the martyred Major was passionate about joining the armed forces since he was a child. A friend of his said that Nair was in National Cadet Corps (NCC) and used to travel to his college riding a cycle covering 15 km every day. Being a hero on the field did not stop him from being a compassionate human being. That's what real heroes are about. In Santa Clara County in Silicon Valley, two tenants are living THE life in their apartment. They have more space than they need, never have to work, and people serve them food everyday. That's because the two tenants in this $1,500 per month studio apartment are cats. That's right, just two cats. No humans. Callisch, in the apartment he rents to the two cats - Anda Chua/Bay Area News Group The landlord, David Callisch, is happy to rent to the owner of the two felines, his friend Troy Good. Good had adopted the cats as kittens for his now 18-year-old daughter. She's just gone off to college and had to leave them behind. Good meanwhile had just moved into a new apartment with his wife and dog, and was worried the pets wouldn't all get along. So instead he spoke to Callisch and began renting the studio apartment for a steep $1,500 a month. Anda Chua/Bay Area News Group Peak Silicon Valley It's pretty much the epitome of what's called the Silicon Valley effect, with the family pets of a software industry employee living a better life than most people in the area. And that apartment is actually a pretty sweet deal for Good, considering it would have rented for closer to $1950 if it didn't lack a kitchen. Stanford campus in Silicon Valley - Reuters To convert that, it's about Rs 1.06 lakh a month in rent, for a second house inhabited by just two cats. And that price is about average for Silicon Vallety, which is the reason natives of the area are now broke, destitute, in debt, or some combination of the three. There's a tremendous financial divide between the inhabitants of the region. The Googlers, Facebookers, and other tech company employees are paid big bucks to move to and settle in Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, because of the massively high gentrification thanks to the tech companies headquarters there, people that have lived there for generations are being priced out. Reuters Thousands are scattered in the cities in trailers, tents, and on the streets, trying to eke out enough of a living to deal with skyrocketing rents and prices. You see when the tech companies set up shop, they brought in hundreds and then thousands of employees. The housing sector couldn't keep up with the demand though, and prices starting shooting up exponentially. Eventually, people who had rented for years just couldn't afford it anymore, but they couldn't afford to up and move either. Silicon Valley locals demonstrating against the gentrification - Reuters The situation has gotten so bad that last year the angry native residents even began pelting tech company shuttle buses with stones, lashing out desperately at the situation they're powerless to control. After all, the companies that set up with big promises of "giving back to the community" never ended up delivering. It's a hidden cost to the modern goods and services we see coming out of the industry in the US. People on different continents benefit from convenient products, and employees draw ridiculously high salary. Meanwhile, the locals left out of the chain are on the street across from the house they once lived in. Last year, Apple took a giant tumble in sales across the world. Most of that dip was thanks to China and India, which have boatloads of cheaper Android competitors. And here in India specifically, OnePlus is the brand that rang Apple's death knell. Reuters According to Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research, iPhone sales in India fell almost 50 percent this past year, with only 1.7 million devices making it off the racks compared to 3.2 million in 2017. Of course, part of the reason here is possibly that iPhone's are more expensive than ever. But another exacerbating factor, Counterpoint associate director Tarun Pathak told Quartz, is that OnePlus has emerged as a strong competitor. Also Read: If Youre Like Me, The OnePlus 6T Is Great Because You're Not Spending 50K On a Smartphone The Chinese brand has played it incredibly smart since its entry into the market in 2014. By starting out with an incredibly cheap flagship level device, and then slowly scaling up the price but keeping it within reason, the company has built up a strong fan following. In addition, it's devices are pretty damn good, news of which has spread by word of mouth better than any advertising could. So when you have the option of an iPhone for around Rs 1 lakh and a flagship level Android (already the more popular OS in India) for half that price, most would take the latter. Particularly, Apple lost market share in the Rs 28,000 and up bracket, while OnePlus meanwhile shipped more devices than ever before in 2018. The Shenzhen brand now hold more than 37 percent of the premium smartphone market share in India. Gwyn D'Mello ALSO READ: The OnePlus 6T Has Some Great Features, But Heres Why You Should Try It Offline First Apple couldn't compete in that price segment, and most iPhone fans don't necessarily want to buy and older device, particularly if it seems outdated compared to a OnePlus in the same price range. So not only were the previously strong sales of previous generation Apple phones flagging, the new iPhones weren't taking off either because they were too expensive. CEO Tim Cook talked about this in Apple's investor briefing in January (though he blamed customers for the dip in sales) and the company's stock plummeted as a result. At the very least, hopefully it all means Apple is now taking cognizance of the issue at hand and making efforts to price their devices lower in India, possibly by manufacturing locally more. Delhi-NCR's very first electric vehicle (EV) taxi service has kicked off, with Gensol Mobility launching its Blu-Smart initiative in the Delhi-NCR region. A new frontier in the EV adoption, Blu-Smart has appointed around 70 cars for kick-starting the service, with an aim to increase the fleet to 400 by the end of March this year. The company is in talks with several car companies including Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra and Nissan for procuring EVs. In addition, it claims to have invested over Rs 50 crore to set up the required charging infrastructure in various parts of the city. As per a statement, the company claims to be a green alternative to the existing players like Ola and Uber and its expansion plans will be fuelled by USD 10 million (Rs 70.92 crore) investment by its promoters. Representative Image (Comyan) Also read: No More Modified Cars In India As Supreme Court Bans Motor Vehicle Alterations As of now, Blu-Smart has 70 Mahindra Verito EVs in its fleet, with ongoing negotiations with Tata Motors (for Tigor EV), Mahindra for more offerings and also with Nissan for the Nissan Leaf. Initiating with web-bookings, the company aims to put its app in place within the week. Charges specified by Blu-Smart range from Rs 14 to Rs 16 per km for compact sedans (eVeritos), while it says that it wont charge a surge pricing during peak hours. Mahindra E-Verito (Comyan) Also read: Leading By Example! Finance Ministry Deploys 15 Mahindra e-Verito Electric Cars In Its Fleet The Rs 50 crore investment is aimed to help set up 65 stations across the NCR, with each having up to 20 charging points. Blu-Smart claims to have already set up 18 such charging stations. Earlier, a similar initiative was announced by Mahindra Electric Mobility Ltd. and SmartE as the companies signed an MoU to bring 1000 electric three wheelers in the Delhi-NCR region in the form of Mahindra Treo and Mahindra Treo Yaari by March this year. The final count is supposed to reach 10,000 of such vehicles by 2020, boosting the electric mobility for the last-connectivity in the region. Such EV taxi services can bring around a huge boost to Indias EV adoption. While private vehicles will contribute to a shift towards EVs singularly, deploying a fleet of such vehicles at once for mobility solutions can act as a leap instead. While the service is exclusive to Blu-Smart for now, the idea can easily be adopted by the major ride-hailing services for a greener transport scenario within the country. To note, Ola did try its hands on a similar service in Nagpur earlier but it could not hail a long run due to some complications. Indias electric vehicle (EV) dream set for 2030 is already on roll and in the latest move to propel it further, the country is now inviting Chinese industries participation and investment. As per a recent statement by NITI Aayog Principal Advisor Anil Srivatsava, the Chinese EV players will play a substantial role in Indias goal to go fully electric with its mobility. The statement came after Srivastava met Chen Qingtai, President of China EV100 and invited Chinas participation in Indias EV plans. For those unaware, China EV100 is a private electric vehicle association of top 200 plus electric mobility industries of China. China EV Charging Station (Comyan) Srivastava further mentioned that the market size of both India and China is huge and there is a correspondingly large potential for cooperation between the countries EV industries as well. To make the best of this scenario, he proposed that the EV industries of both the nations, including the China EV100 and NITI Aayog supported EV industry in India, should have more interaction through a formal interaction mechanism that needs to be set in place. To initiate this, Srivastava proposed an industry meet for both the nations in the first half of this year in Beijing in order to explore cooperation possibilities. Chen had a favourable response to this, stating India is an important country for Chinese EV players and welcoming the Chinese industries participation and investment in Indian EV market. Reuters China is currently the largest producer as well as the largest consumer base of the EV market. While the overall automobile sales in the country declined for the first time ever in the last two decades, one particular section that saw substantial growth is that of the New Energy Vehicles (NEVs). NEVs include electric and hybrid vehicles, that basically reduce the dependence on fossil fuels. Chinas strict regulations to bring the vehicle emissions under control has led to the sharp shift in the Chinese market towards the NEV culture, both in terms of production as well as adoption of these vehicles. This is not the first time that India has aimed to learn from China on how to propagate the EV culture. Earlier, Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot and a delegation of senior officials visited China in order to understand the working of electric buses in the country. The idea was to replicate the working here in Delhi to bring down the ever-rising pollution levels. India, however, is not too far behind when it comes to EV adoption. While China leads in the sheer diversity of these EVs, India's total tally of EVs on roads beats that of any other country in the world. The count, however, is mostly made of electric two-wheelers and largely ignores any other category of EVs present. Humanitarian aid to refugees of Syrian civil war is very scarce. It is provided by international bodies, organizations and states and is transported via border crossings that are not controlled by the Syrian government. People displaced by a decade of war were forced to find shelter elsewhere. They are living in miserable conditions that denies them the fundamental right to live with basic amenities. In a very disturbing incident, a Syrian refugee woman put herself on fire along with her three children because they were dying of hunger for weeks. The incident took place at al-Rikban camp near the Jordanian border. Photo: Twitter 28 year old Sundus Fathallah set her tent on fire as she could no longer bear the sight of her starving children. Other refugees at the camp later put the fire out and evacuated the woman and her children. She was later taken to a hospital where the doctors informed that the woman and her infant suffered severe burns. International media reported that the woman has now been transferred to a hospital in Jordan. Though, there were many differing accounts about the tent catching fire, the womans husband appeared in a video where he said that his wife had committed suicide due to poverty and hunger. ALSO READ: Men Are Not Needed, Our Lives Are Good, Say Self-Reliant Women Of Jinwar Village In Syria Photo: Twitter Omar al-Homsi, a spokesman for the civil defense agency at the camp told a Turkish government newspaper, Daily Sabah "Our information shows that the woman's family is very poor and they had nothing to eat for the past two weeks. However, this is not the first time that refugees have suffered due to the ongoing Syrian crisis. Last year, at least 20 people due to lack of medical services inside the camp. The Syrian war started in 2011 though the country is slowly reviving, U.S President Donald Trumps hasty decision of withdrawing troops might make the country susceptible to the return of ISIS and other militant organizations. The newly elected Ashok Gehlot government in Rajasthan has decided to honour those who adopt stray cows on Independence Day and Republic Day. Rajasthan's Cow Welfare Department, Directorate of Go-Palan has issued a letter to all district collectors asking them to motivate donors, NGOs, social workers and cow lovers to adopt stray cows and felicitate them on August 15 and January 26. BCCL/ REPRESENTATIONAL IMAGE The order also mentions that whoever wants to adopt cows can deposit the amount decided by the local cow shelter and can visit the cows anytime. Those who want to keep the stray cows at their houses can also do so, it added. The idea behind the step is to conserve cows with cooperation from people. Those who adopt stray cows and undertake welfare activities will be felicitated by district collectors on the occasion of Independence day and Republic day, Vishram Meena, director, Gopalan directorate, said. The directorate issued a letter to all district collectors on December 28 with details of the campaign for the conservation of stray cows. There are people who adopt stray animals in cow shelter homes. They celebrate their birthdays, wedding anniversaries and such occasions by spending time with their adopted cows. We have asked the collectors to push such initiatives, he said. BCCL Meena said the interested parties can give their proposal to the respective district collectors. After verification of the claims, the collectors will felicitate such people with a certificate at the district level, he said. Deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot said the previous Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government in the state had tried to create hatred on such issues. The previous government had tried to create hatred on such issues, but this government is working differently by bringing everyone together (on the issue), he said. Just a few months ago the fishermen from Alapad village in Kollam district of Kerala were in the forefront of the rescue efforts during the massive floods that submerged almost the entire state. Their selfless efforts turned out to be the difference between life and death for thousands of flood victims who were trapped inside flooding houses. BCCL/ FILE Not only they saved thousands of lives, the fishermen who volunteered to help even turned down the cash rewards offered by the government. The fishermen were hailed Kerala's own navy by the state chief minister. But now some of the heroes are staring at an uncertain future - their home is vanishing in front of their own eyes - eaten up by the Arabian sea inch-by-inch. BCCL Alappad, a coastal village in Kollam is facing the brunt of mining. Mining activities in region dates back to 1968 when two government-owned companies, Indian Rare Earth, and Kerala Minerals and Metals Limited began mining beach sand in the region. According to locals, the years of unregulated mining Alappad which had an area of 89.5 square kilometre has been reduced to just 8 square kilometres by 2019. They say that it wasn't always like this. The 2004 tsunami, which claimed 29 lives in Alappad was the trigger. While the tsunami left behind a massive deposit of uranium-rich black sand it also began eating into village, which is home to maily fisherfolk. It has become so bad, they say that if you stand on one end of the land you can see the other end. It is on this narrow stretch of land some 5000 families are living. The extent of the erosion was also highlighted in a study by the Institute for Ocean Management in 2008, which stated that Alappad along with neraryby Arattupuzha, Thrikkunnapuzha, and Purakkad panchayats have reported the highest coastal erosion in the state. With the constant threat of their homes being washed away by the approaching sea looming over their head, the residents of Alappad have be on a relay hunger strike for more than two weeks. BCCL The localised protests only gathered moment recently after two hashtags #SaveAlappad and #StopMining became viral on social media in Kerala. The two hashtags helped build momentum and support for the people of Alappad. They are demanding an immediate ban on all mining activity in the region. The companies claim that they have mining permission till 2020. But, at this scale, by then, there will be no Alappad left," a local resident said. They say that the Ponmana village in the area is the best example of what happens as the result of unregulated mining. BCCL According to Kartik Sasi, a local resident who is in the forefront of the protest, Ponmana, a village which once had a population of 1500 has now reduced to just three families. The remaining had to flee after sea waters submerged their homes. Vellanathuruthu, another mining site, too, is facing existential threat after sea waters entered the backwaters there. A few kilometres away in Chavara, residents have to walk several kilometres to source their drinking water as the mining companies have used open wells in the region to dump their industrial waste. Even at the face of the mounting protest, IRE is defiant, claiming the company was following all mining norms. "Since ours being a public sector company with strategic importance, there are several monitoring agencies and both the state and the central governments are aware about processes followed by us," an unnamed IRE official told PTI. The government too has taken the side of the mining company. Kerala Fisheries minister J Mercykutty Amma said, being a public sector enterprise, the IRE should engage in responsible mining without affecting the erosion of shoreline in the area. "Being a public sector undertaking, the IRE must do the mining in a responsible manner. They should engage in mining by protecting the shore. This is what the people want and the government stands by the people." Kerala Minister for industries EP Jayarajan said that there are no plans to stop the mining in Alappad and the coastal erosion was caused by the tsunami and not mining. The #MeToo allegations on Rajkumar Hirani have evoked contrasting opinions. A few people are defending the filmmaker and others are still silent. "Raj Kumar Hirani is too good a man to do something like this," said Indian film producer Boney Kapoor while reacting on recent sexual harassment allegations leveled against the Bollywood director. Twitter "I don't believe this allegation. He can never do something like this," Kapoor asserted. Just to join the dots for you, a HuffPost India article reported that a woman (Who was assisting Hirani on Sanju) said that on April 9, 2018, the director first passed a sexually suggestive remark to her and later sexually assaulted her at his home office. (Also read: Arshad Warsi & Sharman Joshi React To Sexual Harassment Charges Pressed Against Rajkumar Hirani) Commenting on the same, Emraan Hashmi stated that it's just an allegation and till the time it is proved correct, he thinks it would not be right to comment on the matter. "I don't want to comment on this. It's just an allegation. Nothing has been proved as of yet. The director has already dismissed the allegations. Till the time something is not proven, I don't think it right to comment on this," Hashmi said. While a few of the Bollywood actors who have worked with Hirani have expressed their opinion, a few others are still waiting for the impending legal procedure to prove something. (Also read: Twitter Stands Divided After Rajkumar Hirani Gets Accused Of Sexually Harassing A Female Assistant!) The news of sexual harassment charges pressed against Rajkumar Hirani has shaken the faith of a lot of people. While fans are disjointed with the news, a few people have strongly reacted to it. After a prolonged deafening silence of people over the issues, a very few have actually come out and spoken about it. Dia Mirza, a close friend of Hirani who's worked with him in Lage Raho Munnabhai and Sanju , reacted with stupefied confusion. Twitter "I am deeply distressed by this news. As someone who has known and respects Raju sir for 15 years, I can only hope that a due official inquiry is conducted. He is one of the most decent human beings I have ever worked with and I think it would be grossly unjust on my part to speak on this as I do not know the details," Dia said. After Sanju actress Dia Mirza called it 'deeply depressing', actor Sharman Joshi, who has worked with Hirani in the epic hit 3 Idiots, has spoken out on the issue. Hdfinewallpapers Apart from Sharman Joshi, Arshi Warsi too has reacted over the matter. Arshad Warsi, who played Circuit in Hirani's Munna Bhai franchise, said, Twitter "If you talk to me about Raju Hirani as a person, as a personality and how he is, I think he is a wonderful person and a thorough gentleman. So, for me, Its a shocker as it is for everybody else who has heard this news." Everyone is questioning Bollywood's silence over the accusations. By Acee Agoyo WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As the shutdown of the federal government continues with no end in sight, Indian Country is bringing their stories to Capitol Hill to show how the impasse impacts the first Americans. Tribes and their citizens rely on federal funding for everything from health care to law enforcement. The programs and services are delivered as part of the United States' trust and treaty responsibilities to Indian nations. But these obligations have been thrown out the window as the shutdown has turned into the longest in history. Besides the thousands of Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service employees -- most of whom are Native American -- who are going without paychecks, tribes and urban Indian organizations are facing a bleak future without the funds promised to them through contracts, compacts and other government-to-government agreements. "The shutdown is destabilizing Native health delivery and health care provider access; as well as destabilizing tribal governments, families, children and individuals," National Indian Health Board Chief Executive Officer Stacy A. Bohlen, a citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians , said in a joint Indian Country statement on Friday . "Services will be cut, and loss of life will be the result if this shutdown is not ended soon. The leader of Bohlen's tribe will be among those airing their #ShutdownStories at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday morning. Chairperson Aaron Payment of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe and two other Indian Country representatives are scheduled to testify at the hearing. But just like the shutdown, which has its roots in President Donald Trump's controversial campaign promise for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, the proceeding is a partisan affair. Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives organized it as they try to pressure more of their Republicans colleagues into reopening the government by passing stand-alone appropriations bills. The effort has had limited success. Only 10 Republicans, for example, joined Democrats in passing H.R.266 , which reopens the BIA and the IHS and infuses both agencies with more than $6 billion in funds, on Friday. The Republicans on the roll call did not include Rep. Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma), a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation , and Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma), who hails from the Cherokee Nation . They have refused to vote for bills that they say have no future in a divided and divisive atmosphere. "So the bill is an embarrassment, and the outcome is going to be predictable," Cole, who is a key Republican on the House Committee on Appropriations , said on Friday during debate on H.R.266. "The Senate is not going to pick it up," Cole continued, referring to the chamber that has so far refused to take up any of the Democratic bills, although a bipartisan group is looking for ways to reach a compromise "The president would not sign it if it were sent to him," Cole concluded. BREAKING: Chairman @RepRaulGrijalva, @TheDemocrats leaders holding hearing on #TrumpShutdown impacts to Indian Country, natural resources on Tuesday, Jan. 15, at 11 a.m. Eastern Nat Resources Dems (@NRDems) January 14, 2019 The other two tribal citizens in the House, who have made history as the first Native women in Congress , do not feel the same way. Rep. Deb Haaland (D-New Mexico), who hails from the Pueblo of Laguna , and Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kansas), a citizen of the Ho-Chunk Nation have been voting for the bills "On the Navajo Nation in my state, people have been trapped in their homes without food, water, and medicine because the government has failed to fund the federal maintenance to plow snow from the roads," Haaland said in her first speech on the House floor last Wednesday. "The Department of Agriculture's Food Distribution Program on Indian reservations runs out of funding at the end of this month," she added. "This program provides nutrition assistance to nearly 90,000 Native Americans," she said of a program that will be discussed at the hearing. Haaland, who took part in a shutdown forum in New Mexico that drew tribal representatives on Saturday, has confirmed that she will join the Democratic hearing on Tuesday. It will be her first since joining the 116th Congress earlier this month. The Democratic Steering and Policy Committee hearing will be chaired by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona). He's the new leader of the House Committee on Natural Resources , whose Subcommittee on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs deals with Indian Country issues. The hearing takes place at 11am Eastern in Room HC-05 in the U.S. Capitol. It will be webcast by the Democrats on Facebook Panel One Chairman Aaron Payment (Sault Ste. Marie Tribe), Chairman, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe and Board Member, National Congress of American Indians Mary Greene Trottier (Spirit Lake Nation), President, National Association of Food Distribution Programs on Indian Reservations Board Kerry Hawk Lessard (Shawnee), Executive Director, Native American Lifelines Panel Two Jon Jarvis, Executive Director, Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity (UC Berkeley); Former Director, National Park Service Richard Ring, Executive Council Member, Coalition to Protect Americas National Parks Dan Ashe, Former Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service The full witness list follows: Join the Conversation Related Stories Statement on the President of the United States comments By Harold FrazierChairman, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe The President of the United States has decided to make comments regarding Pocahontas, Big Horn and Wounded Knee in an attempt to denigrate someone else . I ask you America, when are you going to come to your senses regarding this president? To say that the President of the United States Tweet is thoughtless would be giving you too much credit. I do believe he put some thought into his Tweet, which is obvious as he has once again taken a racist jab, and in doing so, brought up Pocahontas. Pocahontas was only a child when she became a victim of rape, kidnapping, imprisonment, and her forced conversion to Christianity. What happened to Pocahontas is still happening today to our women. Native American women continue to be victims of rape and exploitation by white men. The President of the United States is practicing that by exploiting native women as an insult for political machismo. Pocahontas is beloved by native people and is recognized as a victim of European colonialism. To use her name in that manner is disgusting and reflective of the President of the United States ignorance. If Elizabeth Warren, often referred to by me as Pocahontas, did this commercial from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen, with her husband dressed in full Indian garb, it would have been a smash! pic.twitter.com/D5KWr8EPan Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2019 The Massacre at Wounded Knee is a tragic time for the Lakota people. It is an incident in which soldiers of the United States hunted down and murdered hundreds of Lakota men, women and children in the middle of winter. On December 28th our tribe observed a day of mourning for our relatives murdered at the hands of the United States. This was just over two weeks ago! This coming from the same type of person who will tell us to get over it in the same breath. Of course, Wounded Knee happened when a Republican was president of the United States. To the President of the United States, Wounded Knee may just be a pop culture reference, a phrase he casually and quickly uses any time Native American topics are brought up; but to us, Wounded Knee is a reality that he will never understand. Not only is it one of the largest mass graves in the United States, it is a reminder of what the government, that he are in charge of, is capable of and continues to do indigenous people throughout the U.S. and across the world. Wounded Knee is the extinction of family bloodlines, the mass murder of children and elderly, and the sum of white hatred, bigotry, and racism. But Wounded Knee is also something that he has clearly missed- it is a reminder that we are still here. Just as the Takini (survivors) of Wounded Knee did, we continue to fight for our inherit right to live in a world that has rapidly forgotten what it means to be human. I would like to educate the President of the United States that the Big Horn mountain range was a site of multiple wars in which the United States repeatedly trespassed and suffered multiple military defeats. The Lakota people, along with our Arapahoe and Cheyenne allies, defeated Fetterman in one fight and Custer in another fight. It was a dark time in our shared history that is better left in reverent memory of the sacrifices our warriors undertook to ensure our survival. I will remind you that we have treaties that need to be honored as a result of your military losses. The President of the United States has once again utilized racism and ignorance to attack the natives of this land. I will not remain silent when the Lakota people and our accomplishments are used in this manner. Harold Frazier is serving his third term as chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, based in South Dakota. He also serves as president of the Great Plains Tribal Chairmens Association. He previously served as vice chair of his tribe and previously as an area vice president for the National Congress of American Indians. Join the Conversation Law enforcement seeks the publics help identifying a suspect in an identity theft investigation. On Nov. 25, 2018, the Rowan County Sheriffs Office received a report for identity theft for a male suspect compromising the victims personal information, drivers license information and credit card information. The suspect in question has used the victims personal information to open numerous credit card accounts and has also opened a bank account with FSNB Bank in Spring Lake, N.C. The suspect in question also rented and stole a U-HAUL Truck/Van from a location in Salisbury City using the victims information. The suspect has used the U-HAUL to transport items purchased using the victims information including the fraudulent N.C. drivers license. The suspect has also gone to the SAMS Club, located at 646 River Highway in Mooresville, and purchased electronic devices using the victims information. The suspect has used the U-HAUL to transport a lawn mower he purchased from the Bobcat Company in Fayetteville, and the suspect used the fraudulent N.C. drivers license at this location, as well. The suspect was accompanied by a black female passenger in the U-HAUL at the time of the lawn mower purchase in Fayetteville. Anyone with information on this case should contact Detective Kyle Youngo with the Rowan County Sheriffs Office at 704-216-8683. Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun was accepted as a refugee in Canada (Australian Broadcasting Corporation via AP) A Saudi woman accepted as a refugee in Canada has said in an Australian television interview that she expected her experience would inspire other women to flee her homeland. Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, 18, told Australian Broadcasting Corp in an interview recorded in Toronto and broadcast in Australia on Tuesday that she hoped that the international attention on her flight from oppression in Saudi Arabia will be a catalyst for change. I think the number of women fleeing from the Saudi administration and abuse will increase, especially since there is no system to stop them, Ms Alqunun said. Im sure that there will be a lot more women running away. I hope my story encourages other women to be brave and free. I hope my story prompts a change to the law, especially as its been exposed to the world. This might be the agent for change, she added. Expand Close Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun being interviewed in Toronto (Australian Broadcasting Corporation via AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun being interviewed in Toronto (Australian Broadcasting Corporation via AP) Ms Alqunun fled her family while visiting Kuwait before flying to Bangkok. Once there, she barricaded herself in an airport hotel to avoid deportation and tweeted about her situation. On Friday, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would accept Ms Alqunun as a refugee. Her situation has highlighted the cause of womens rights in Saudi Arabia, where several women fleeing abuse by their families have been caught trying to seek asylum abroad in recent years and returned home. Expand Close Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, 18, as she arrived at Toronto Pearson International Airport (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, 18, as she arrived at Toronto Pearson International Airport (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP) Ms Alqunun said she felt like I was born again when she was met at Toronto airport on Saturday by Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland. It was something amazing. There was a lot of love and hospitality, especially when the minister welcomed me and told me I was in a safe country and had all my rights, Ms Alqunun said. Ms Alqunun said she was upset by news that her family had issued a statement saying they disowned her. How could my family disown me simply because I wanted to be independent and escape their abuse? It really upset me, Ms Alqunun said. When asked why she had fled her homeland, Ms Alqunun replied: I wanted to be free from abuse and depression. I wanted to be independent. I wouldnt be able to marry the person I wanted to. I couldnt get a job without permission. Several other countries, including Australia, had been in talks with the UNs refugee agency to accept Ms Alqunun before she flew to Canada. Australian media reported that UNHCR had withdrawn its referral for Ms Alqunun to be resettled in Australia because Canberra was taking too long to decide on her asylum. A Chinese court has sentenced a Canadian man to death for drug smuggling, which will aggravate sour relations between Beijing and Ottawa following the arrest of a senior Chinese executive in Canada. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the decision. "It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply [the] death penalty," he said. The Dalian Intermediate People's Court in the northeast province of Liaoning re-tried Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who had appealed against his original 15-year sentence, and decided on execution, the court stated. The ruling will further strain the tense relationship following the arrest last month in Vancouver of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd at the request of the United States. China denounced her arrest, warning of unspecified consequences unless she was released. Two Canadians have been detained on suspicion of endangering state security. William Nee, a Hong Kong-based China researcher with Amnesty International, said it was "horrified". Schellenberg was told he had the right to appeal within 10 days. Drug smuggling is routinely punished severely in China. Beijing has executed foreign nationals convicted of drug-related crimes - a Briton caught smuggling heroin was executed in 2009, prompting a British outcry over what it said was the lack of any mental health assessment. Erdogan: Reacted angrily to suggestions US troop withdrawals were conditional on safeguards for Kurdish fighters Donald Trump has warned Turkey of economic devastation if it attacks Kurdish forces in the wake of the US troop pullout from Syria. The US President also urged the Kurds not to "provoke" Ankara. His top diplomat, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is on a whirlwind regional tour aimed at reassuring allies amid rising tensions between the US and Turkey over the fate of Washington's Syrian Kurdish allies in the fight against Islamic State (Isil). Mr Pompeo also sought to reassure Washington's Kurdish allies, who fear the departure of American troops will allow Turkey to attack them. Turkey had reacted angrily to suggestions Mr Trump's plan to withdraw troops was conditional on the safety of the US-backed Kurdish fighters, seen by the Turkish government as terrorists. "Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds," Mr Trump tweeted, while pushing for the creation of a 20-mile (32km) "safe zone." Mr Trump did not detail who would create, enforce or pay for the safe zone, or where it would be located. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Twitter there was "no difference" between Isil and the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia. "We will continue to fight against them all," he tweeted. US-led operations against Isil in Syria have been spearheaded on the ground by the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces. Ankara sees the backbone of that alliance, the YPG, as a terrorist group linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has fought a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state. More than 600 people were evacuated from the last Isil enclave in eastern Syria it was reported as US-backed fighters prepared to launch a final assault. Recruitment firm Hays posted solid international fee growth in the second quarter, but its UK arm continues to be held back by Brexit uncertainty. The firm saw like for like fees in Germany jump 15% in the quarter ending December 31, while rest of the world income shot up 10%. International overall was up 11%. This was in contrast to the UK, where Hays recorded just a 3% rise in comparable sales, citing economic uncertainties. Scotland and the South East fared worst, with fee income down 15% and 8% respectively. Brexit uncertainty has dragged on recruitment in the UK as many firms put hiring decisions on hold until a clearer picture of trade relations emerge. Our diverse and balanced global business, together with our highly experienced management teams, mean we look to the future with confidence Alistair Cox, Hays Hays boss Alistair Cox said: While activity levels at the start of the New Year will be an important driver of the groups second half performance, and we remain mindful of macroeconomic conditions, the outlook is good across most international markets. We continue to invest in key structural growth markets like Germany, the USA and Asia, capitalising on the clear opportunities we are seeing. Our diverse and balanced global business, together with our highly experienced management teams, mean we look to the future with confidence. Total fees rose 9% on a like for like basis in the period, with Australia and New Zealand up 8%. Shares were trading over 2.5% higher in morning trade at 145.4p. Rahim Karim, analyst at Liberum, said: We believe that the continued investment in the business is a positive sign of managements confidence and comes despite the macroeconomic uncertainties. At this stage we expect limited changes to consensus profit expectations, with all eyes on the return to work profile over the next two months. Nick Mackenzie, who will join Greene King as CEO in May 2019 (Greene King) Greene King has named a Merlin Entertainments executive as the successor to its longstanding chief executive. Nick Mackenzie will take over from Rooney Anand at the pub company from the beginning of May. Mr Mackenzie has been head of Merlins midway unit, which comprises over 100 business including Madame Tussauds and the London eye, since 2015. He is also currently a non-executive director at pub company Daniel Thwaites, though will step down from this role before joining Greene King. The groups chairman Philip Yea said: After a comprehensive search we feel that Nicks broad experience and track record at one of the worlds leading leisure businesses as well as his knowledge of the pub business, both early in his career and more recently as a non-executive, make him the best candidate to lead Greene King through its next phase. We are looking forward to Nick taking up his role when Rooney steps down at the end of the current financial year. Expand Close Outgoing CEO Rooney Anand (PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Outgoing CEO Rooney Anand (PA) Mr Mackenzie said: Greene King is a very strong business with a great portfolio of pubs and beer brands and a real commitment to its customers, staff and shareholders. The appointment marks an end to months of speculation over who would succeed Mr Anand, who has been in his post since 2005. His departure was announced in November last year. Tuesdays announcement came a week after the group unveiled a 10.9% jump in like-for-like sales over Christmas. It notched up another record on Christmas Day, with sales of 7.7 million, up from 7.6 million in 2017, as more Britons chose to eat out for their festive lunch. The Virgin Atlantic and Stobart Group consortium buying troubled regional airline Flybe has overhauled its takeover after the carrier failed crucial financing terms. Flybe said it had failed to meet the conditions for receiving a promised 20 million bridge loan under the takeover deal announced on Friday as credit card banks clamped down amid fears over the airlines financial security. Shares, which have crashed in value as the airlines woes have become apparent, nearly halved to 2.2p. But the consortium of bidders, which also includes investment firm Cyrus Capital Partners, has overhauled its takeover in a bid to speed up the deal and offer immediate financial support to Flybe. It will now pay 2.8 million to take control of the main trading company Flybe and the online arm Flybe.com in a deal set to complete by February 22, while later completing the purchase of the wider holding company. The buyers have also offered a revised bridge loan of up to 20 million, with 10 million released on Tuesday to support the business. Shareholders will still receive just 1p a share for the holding company of Flybe, as agreed on Friday. Flybe said the revised funding plan provides the security that the business needs to continue to trade successfully and that the takeover offer will continue as planned. Under the plans, the airline will be combined with Stobart Air in a joint venture called Connect Airways. Cyrus will own 40% of the new company, while Virgin and Stobart will take 30% apiece. Flybe chief executive Christine Ourmieres-Widener said last week the firm had been forced to seek a buyer due to higher fuel costs, currency fluctuations and Brexit uncertainty. Flybe also announced on Friday that it had agreed with Vueling Airlines to sell its slots at London Gatwick Airport for 4.5 million. Vueling is a subsidiary of British Airways owner IAG. The funds will be paid in two tranches, one due in the next few days for slots to be used this summer, and the second due in June for slots to be used during winter. The regional airline put itself up for sale in November after warning over profits in 2018. The Exeter-based carrier is battling challenging conditions in the airline industry and has suffered with falling demand and a 29 million hit from rising fuel costs and the weak pound. Flybe has 78 planes operating from smaller airports including London City, Southampton and Norwich, and flies to destinations across the UK and Europe. It carries around eight million passengers a year. Trade unions have already raised concerns over the impact of Flybes sale on the carriers 2,300 employees. Theresa May will be expected to stand down if she loses tonight's vote on her Brexit deal as heavily as predicted, UK Cabinet sources have said. More than 100 Conservative MPs have insisted they will oppose the deal, putting the UK prime minister on course to break a series of unwelcome parliamentary records. She made a last-ditch attempt to win over the rebels yesterday, producing a letter from Brussels promising the Northern Ireland backstop would be temporary and was "not a threat or a trap". Tonight Mrs May will make one final bid to change MPs' minds when she closes the five-day debate on the Brexit deal, having already warned the Commons that "when the history books are written", MPs would be judged on whether they had "let the British people down". If Mrs May loses the vote - expected between 7.30-9.30pm depending on how many amendments are chosen - she is expected to make an immediate statement on her next move. Last night Labour said leader Jeremy Corbyn would call a no-confidence vote in the Government "within minutes" of a defeat for Mrs May, with such a vote likely to go ahead tomorrow. If the Government lost a confidence vote, a general election could follow. The prime minister, however, could be gone even before a no-confidence vote could be held in the event that she suffered a record-breaking defeat this evening. Downing Street declined to deny that Mrs May would resign if she suffered a defeat by a margin well into triple figures and cabinet sources said a defeat by a majority of more than 100 would put Mrs May's future in peril. Gareth Johnson, a junior whip, resigned from the Government yesterday in order to vote against the EU Withdrawal Agreement, taking the total number of declared Tory rebels to 112. Excluding the Speaker, that would leave a maximum of just 204 Tory MPs backing the deal, plus one Liberal Democrat and one Labour defector. The DUP has already said its 10 MPs will vote against the Government, and if they are joined by all Labour, Lib Dem, Scottish Nationalist, Green, Plaid Cymru and independent MPs, that would make 435 votes against the Government, a defeat of 229. Mrs May is on course to outstrip the current record of a 166-vote defeat, suffered by Ramsay MacDonald in 1924. Labour whips have told MPs to be ready for a no confidence vote with Mr Corbyn preparing to raise a point of order within minutes of the result being confirmed tonight. The censure motion would take place after Prime Minister's Questions and could be limited to just 90 minutes of debate before MPs are asked to vote, according to a senior Labour source. Should the censure motion secure the backing of a simple majority of MPs, it would almost certainly force Mrs May to resign and give the Conservative Party just two weeks to form an administration. On Thursday, Mr Corbyn will then travel to Hastings, Work and Pensions Minister Amber Rudd's constituency, where he will speak at an event that will seen by many as a potential springboard from which to launch an election campaign. The constituency is likely to become one of Labour's key target seats with Ms Rudd, a potential successor to Mrs May, wielding a wafer-thin majority of just 346. This makes Ms Rudd vulnerable to a "decapitation" strategy that could see Labour throw vast resources at the constituency to unseat a possible future Tory leader. Twice a year, Ireland's fashion insiders - editors, influencers and stylists - gather on the second floor of Brown Thomas' Grafton Street store, hours before the store opens to the public, for one of the most anticipated events on the Irish style calendar. This year, the upscale department store put 112 looks on show from its best-selling designers, a mix of well tailored pieces by muted Roksanda pieces and floral silk dresses by London-Irish designer Richard Quinn. This season, however, all eyes were downcast as the focus lay at the models' feet, whether it be in mules or a pair of leather platforms. Heavy soled shoes like the chunky wooden wedges and leather platforms by Miu Miu reigned supreme, mixed among Balenciaga's Triple S runners and Prada's athleisure take on the gladiator sandal, a black nylon ankle length sandal with logo on display. Headwear, including a double flap Prada hat, introduced the show, while a silk hairband, also by the Italian fashion house, was in keeping with Kate Middleton's new favourite accessory. This year's collections are a combination of colour, texture and print, with each presentation, comprised of an average of six looks, staying true to its respective label's core. Expand Close Brown Thomas' SS19 Designer Collections Fashion Show / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Brown Thomas' SS19 Designer Collections Fashion Show Models like Laura O'Grady, one of YSL's preferred faces in Paris, fresh from a stint in Hong Kong, joined Aine O'Gorman, who is taking a break from the international catwalkss, joined Sarah Morrissey, a stalwart of the show, alongside relative newcomers like Paula Pancer for a myriad looks to take inspiration from over the coming months. Cynthia Nixon is among the cast announced for Ryan Murphys latest TV drama (Tim Ireland/PA) Sharon Stone, Cynthia Nixon and Sarah Paulson are among the star-studded cast for Ryan Murphys latest TV drama. Ratched is Glee co-creator Murphys first major project with Netflix and features Paulson in the title role as the nurse from One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. Murphy has now announced she will be joined by Sex And The City star Nixon, Basic Instinct actress Stone and Australian actress Judy Davis. Also starring are Amanda Plummer, Hunter Parrish, Corey Stoll, Jon Jon Briones, Harriet Harris, Charlie Carver, and Finn Wittrock. Writing on Instagram, Murphy said filming will begin in a couple of weeks. He described the cast as a true murderers row of talent, adding so many of these actors are supremely talented folks who Sarah and I have both longed to work with. Murphy said: More to come, but come onSarah, Cynthia, Judy, Amanda and Sharon, all doing scenes together? I cannot WAIT. Ratched is an origin story for Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, following her transformation from medical professional to full-fledged monster. Frequent collaborators Murphy and Paulson are listed as executive producers while Michael Douglas, who worked on the 1975 film starring Jack Nicholson, is also down to produce. Murphy is one of the most successful television producers of the last 20 years, having worked on medical drama Nip/Tuck, musical comedy Glee and anthology series American Crime Story. He signed a five-year deal with Netflix last year. His second show for the streaming giant will be The Politician, starring Jessica Lange, Ben Platt, Gwyneth Paltrow and Zoey Deutch. Apparently, one of the problems in dealing with emergency situations is that many people tend to freeze. Some are in denial about how bad the situation is. For others, fear and panic simply overcome their ability to take decisions. The result is that they end up rooted to the spot, unwilling or unable to take the actions necessary to escape, such as fleeing a burning building or sinking ship. A similar phenomenon may be at work among British Remainer politicians. With Westminster in chaos and the clock counting down to a potentially chaotic no-deal Brexit at the end of March, leading pro-EU political figures appear rooted to the spot, unable to act decisively to avoid the no-deal outcome they most fear. The last weeks have seen several Remain politicians pass votes in the House of Commons that restrict the UK government's ability to raise taxes if there is a no-deal outcome and to force Theresa May to come back to parliament with a new plan within three days if her plan is rejected by MPs today. Leading Remain figures such as former prime minister John Major and influential academic and commentator Timothy Garton Ash have also joined the fray calling for the UK to pause the Brexit process in order to convene a kind of constitutional convention to decide what the UK wants from Brexit and how to achieve it. Behind both of these proposals is the hope that the defeat of Mrs May's deal will lead the UK to think again and, ultimately, to abandon Brexit. I share their view that Brexit is a historic mistake but worry that, at this late stage it may be too late to reverse. A no-deal outcome happens automatically under EU law on March 29 unless one of three things happens. The first would be for the UK to ratify the Withdrawal Agreement. The second would be for the UK to revoke the decision to pursue Brexit entirely. This would require a second referendum, an outcome currently rejected by a large majority of MPs. The third option is for the other 27 members unanimously to agree to extend the deadline beyond March 29. Might the EU27 agree to extend Article 50 to allow the kind of constitutional convention on Brexit suggested by John Major, to take place? That is highly uncertain. Many member states will not be significantly affected by Brexit and already resent the vast amount of time and energy that Brexit has taken up over the past two years. While the EU27 would almost certainly agree to extend Article 50 for a few months to allow the UK to pass legislation to implement the Withdrawal Agreement, agreeing to a pause for a constitutional convention would involve adding months, maybe years, to the process. Furthermore, there is no sign of any emerging consensus on Brexit in the UK, meaning that the UK may be as divided at the end of a convention process as it is now. In these circumstances, it is hard to see all 27 states agreeing to a lengthy extension of a process that many of them see as having dragged on far too long already. Looking back, the British political system's utter failure to manage the Brexit process is striking. Unlike Ireland, the UK has very limited experience of referendums, and this lack of experience has shown. Ireland's written Constitution means that in advance of a referendum the precise legal consequences of it passing have to be spelled out. In contrast in the UK, no detail on what form Brexit would take was given. Unbelievably, Theresa May, and a huge majority in the House of Commons, voted to trigger Article 50 knowing that it had a strict two-year time limit when the UK had yet to work out what it wanted out of the Brexit process. John Major is right that there was a strong case for a constitutional convention to work out a form of Brexit that could command widespread support, but the time for that was before Article 50 was triggered, not 11 weeks before Brexit day. Shocking as the mistakes have been, they cannot be undone. The problem for Remainers is that there is insufficient time for them to take the steps necessary to reverse Brexit and they are unlikely to succeed in extending that time without much more political support than they currently have. Deciding to change your political position is difficult at the best of times. Doing it under the current fraught conditions in the UK may be almost impossible. The danger for Remainers is that if they 'freeze', refuse to compromise and reject Mrs May's deal, they risk bringing about the hardest Brexit possible. They are right that the decision to vote Leave was misguided but digging in and wishing the Brexit vote had not happened may leave them in a position akin to refusing to flee a burning building because if people had only listened to you, the fire would not have broken out in the first place. Ronan McCrea is Professor of Constitutional and European Law at University College London Inspirational quotes go hand and hand with the new year, so we expected to find a few in Leo Varadkar's speech to his party at their 'winter think-in' yesterday. There weren't many but his message was still pretty clear. He believes Fine Gael is fit and battle ready, but members need to be deeply aware of their own flaws. In the months ahead, Mr Varadkar wants his Government to focus on "preparing for all eventualities in relation to Brexit"; "improving the availability and affordability of housing"; and ensuring all citizens "can share in our national prosperity". He has even identified a new drum to beat in the form of climate change. "Fine Gael must become the party of the environment," he told the troops. Mr Varadkar suggested that in the "same way that we led on marriage equality and repeal of the Eighth Amendment, we should take leadership of this next progressive cause". It's worth recalling that Fine Gael was late to grasp public opinion on marriage equality and abortion, but ultimately deserves some credit for its efforts in bringing forward referendums. However, it has never exactly been climate change deniers, just didn't see any votes in forcing people to alter the habits of a lifetime. But climate change is now in vogue and Mr Varadkar loves to be on trend. Sinn Fein also had a new year gathering over the weekend, when the party marked the 100th anniversary of the first Dail. It loves to exploit the confusion over the fact a Sinn Fein party won 73 of the 105 seats in that parliament. The fact the party was led by one Eamon de Valera is rarely mentioned. But there'll be plenty of time to debate that in the weeks ahead. On this occasion, though, Mary Lou McDonald faced questions over why two Sinn Fein representatives were at the inauguration of Nicolas Maduro as president of Venezuela. She argued Mr Maduro's election was "open and democratic", before drawing comparisons between poverty levels in Ireland and Venezuela. So, it seems her priorities remain unchanged for 2019. Toe the party line even when faced with the indefensible. More than 80pc of Venezuelans live below the poverty line. The EU has said Mr Maduro's re-election "lacked credibility" and the US said it was a "sham" election. Then there is Fianna Fail. Micheal Martin's party has not had any get-together to prepare for the months ahead. It's an ongoing bone of contention among some in the party that there isn't enough consultation with the lower ranks - but that doesn't seem to bother the leadership. Mr Martin is confident in his own skin and definitely doesn't feel the need to be either 'on trend' or to 'toe anybody's line'. Instead, he will be busy laying traps for the two other party leaders, especially Mr Varadkar. Fianna Fail has a list of legislation it wants fast-tracked before the summer. It includes bills dealing with mortgage rates, social media and bail laws. Mr Martin also plans to ratchet up his attacks on Eoghan Murphy and Simon Harris for their handling of the crises in housing and health. But as he said when agreeing to extend the lifespan of the Government, Brexit "overshadows" everything - and until those clouds clear who knows what the term ahead will bring us. In the meantime, we can expect a personality-driven jockeying for position by the three main party leaders. 'Leo versus Micheal versus Mary Lou' will be the story of this Dail term. Ireland is about to see personality politics on a whole new level as they put their reputations on the line for the local elections. A narrow defeat in the 650-seat House of Commons could embolden Mrs May to press MPs to reconsider the issue in a second vote. Photo: AFP/Getty Images Please forgive the strained GAA comparison. But this is somehow reminiscent of talk about the Kildare footballers keeping the losing margin against the Dubs to single digits - as in nine points or fewer. If Theresa May can go down by a tonne - or less - this evening, it might be deemed 'a result'. But we have already moved on to talk about what happens next with the scale of this evening's defeat deemed a factor. Mrs May has a record of sticking to her task in the face of major setbacks, and she will be difficult to dislodge against her will. Labour's expected effort to topple the government through a no-confidence vote is unlikely to win sufficient support. It's unlikely that Sinn Fein's party motto is 'when in a hole, stop digging'. But it probably should be. After being anointed as the new, acceptable face of post-terror, post-IRA Sinn Fein, Mary Lou McDonald has enjoyed a rather turbulent 12 months. She successfully positioned herself as part of the Repeal axis, and landed some undeniably impressive blows during her combative Dail performances. But she has also had to carry much of the blame for her party's humiliating and disastrous Presidential campaign, its ever-decreasing approval ratings in the opinion polls, numerous high-profile resignations and, as always, the usual internecine feuding and claims of bullying between members. Of course, all of that is grist to the mill of domestic party politics. But her decision to defend an official Sinn Fein delegation of MLA Conor Murphy and general secretary Dawn Doyle attending Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro's inauguration in Caracas last week provided yet another example of just how far to the left Sinn Fein has drifted. Venezuela is a basket case; a failed state that has managed to transform itself from the most oil-rich country in South America to a place where, famously, citizens can no longer even buy toilet roll. Even more important than the vexed issue of a shortage of loo paper, the Maduro regime, which seems even more chaotic and corrupt than that of his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, is one of the worst human rights offenders in South America. Currently, 80-90pc of the population live sbelow the poverty line. Three million people have left the country in the last three years. Arbitrary arrests and torture of dissidents are now commonplace, the old South American party-trick of 'disappearances' has made a strong comeback, there are an estimated 12,000 opposition activists locked up. Fourteen protesters were killed on election day in May. Then, for good measure, Maduro's forces arrested the last opposition leader on Sunday. The election in May was denounced as a sham before the polls had even closed - neutral observers had witnessed massive voter intimidation, voter fraud and there were countless examples of members of Maduro's United Socialist Party of Venezuela paying people to vote for their guy - as if there was ever any doubt about the outcome in the first place. That election, which was condemned by the EU, the US (well, no surprise there) and all independent monitors, was a grisly throwback to the dark South American days of sham-polls rigged from the beginning and designed only to add a veneer of respectability to a despotic regime. Yet according to McDonald: "We believe that the Venezuelan election was open and democratic and the president has been elected. Let me tell you this, it is for the people of Venezuela and for them alone to decide who leads them...It's the only democratic position you can have. The important thing is that countries freely select their political leadership and freely elect their governments." Stirring words, indeed. But they also show that McDonald seems to have a rather unusual, indeed even innovative, interpretation of what 'democracy' and 'free elections' actually mean. Of course the people of Venezuela wanted free elections and democracy. The problem is that they didn't get it and they won't get it any time soon as long as Maduro and his ilk have control, which is why so many opposition parties refused to legitimise the farcical event last May. Inevitably, whenever a left-wing government goes off the rails in South America, the blame is immediately placed at America's door and plenty of Sinn Fein's well orchestrated social-media supporters have been quick to blame 'Yanqui' imperialism for the parlous state of that country. But while the USA has hardly covered itself in glory with its history of disastrous interventions in the region, it is too trite and simplistic to reflexively blame the Great Satan to the north for all the ills of Venezuela. After all, even Canada, which has now under the Trudeau government become perhaps the most liberal and 'progressive' nation in the West, condemned the election, with its foreign minister stating on the day of the inauguration that: "Today, Nicolas Maduro's regime loses any remaining appearance of legitimacy...Having seized power through fraudulent and anti-democratic elections, the Maduro regime is now fully entrenched as a dictatorship. We call on him to cede power immediately." It is also interesting to look at who joined the Sinn Fein delegation in celebrating Maduro's 'victory'. While the rest of the democratic world shunned the celebrations, Murphy and Doyle shared the experience with representatives from China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Turkey and Syria. Lovely company to be keeping. In a free society, every party has the right to send delegations to whatever tin pot dictatorship it chooses, but McDonald's comparison between Maduro and Leo Varadkar, arguing that: "There are people in this country who would not endorse Leo Varadkar on the basis that they have endured poverty, we also have to accept that he is Taoiseach," was simply fatuous. We have plenty of problems in this country, for sure. It is also true that the current Taoiseach has his fair share of detractors - but they are not dragged out of bed, or off the streets, by masked goons never to be seen again, as happens in Venezuela. You can say what you like about the failings of this Government and that is precisely the point - we can all say what we like without fear of becoming a missing dissident. Of course, the Taoiseach will probably have welcomed her remarks, because it briefly took the spotlight away from both his Ethiopian misadventures (really, Leo? Leaving women outside?) and Vicky Phelan's scathing attack on his handling of the CervicalCheck scandal, when she accused him of being "all talk and no action". But why do Irish leftists love to endorse and glamorise despots? The Shinners are hardly alone in that. After all, many of us still haven't forgotten or forgiven Michael D Higgins for his praise of Castro on that monster's death. It seems that all you have to do to win the approval of the 'progressives' in this country is to say that you hate America, want to return power to the peasants and then you have carte blanche to do whatever you want. It's juvenile and devoid of rational analysis and the political equivalent of a student wandering around in their favourite Che Guevara T-shirt. The decision to send, and then defend, was a sign of either chronic naivety or fairly monstrous cynicism. Say what you like about Sinn Fein, but you'd never accuse them of being naive... Has any prime minister in history relied so heavily on desperation as a force to mobilise or motivate to the extent as Theresa May? She first struck the despatch box after calling her ill-judged election back in 2017, insisting: "No deal was better than a bad deal." She spent the next two years repeating it. Closer to the precipice in recent weeks, the script changed to: "It's my deal or no deal." Now with one foot over the ledge yesterday the message is: "It's my deal or no Brexit." By turn, members of her Conservative Party have misinformed, conspired, barracked and bad-mouthed every idea put to the House of Commons. At no point did they produce anything but bile and dissent. Mrs May went to Brussels and got a sympathetic hearing from the 27. But when asked what she wanted she was non-specific. In any event, whatever deal she returned with would have been rejected once she brought it back "home" to her warring confreres. Yet the abiding memory of the last European Council gathering was of Mrs May filmed rowing with the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, whom she thought had accused her of being "nebulous". The very notion. Relying on the DUP was just one of several miscalculations made. Betting all on changing the legal text of the withdrawal agreement, without a viable alternative, was a busted flush. While blaming all on recalcitrance in Brussels or Dublin doesn't wash. Seeking "clarifications" and "assurances" on what was impossible was also futile. Mrs May began her premiership endorsing the slogans of the right wing of her party; all along they have insisted the EU "will give us everything we want". Boris Johnston, Michael Gove and Liam Fox said it would be a push-over to get all the benefits of the EU club outside it, without having to abide by EU rules inside, or even pay a subscription fee. Tone deaf to the warnings of John Major or Tony Blair, they blundered on. The civil war within the Conservative Party mangled any chance of consensus. Jeremy Corbyn's side-lining of Labour has been as shameful. Even on the eve of today's historic vote, Mrs May warned reversing the result of the referendum would do "catastrophic harm". At the same time her trade secretary, Mr Fox, was arguing the government could shift to a full no-deal footing should it lose the vote. Nothing to worry about, then. Yet it is hard to believe there is a majority in the Commons for leaving the EU without a deal for all the bravado. Time will soon tell. But one way or another, the UK parliament must get beyond rancour and blame and look at what is best for the country. It was the late US congressman Thomas 'Tip' O'Neill who said "all politics is local". And Minister Josepha Madigan's intervention on property tax is perhaps a classic example of this. Ms Madigan's call for lower Local Property Tax (LPT) rates for places with higher property values, such as her Dublin Rathdown constituency, has predictably sparked Opposition criticism. It also shows how Ireland's parish-pump style of politics continues, even at Cabinet level. And while Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe were cautious in their response to their Fine Gael colleague's proposals, they did not shoot it down amid an ongoing review of the LPT system. The Culture Minister's Dublin Rathdown constituency has some of the highest house prices in the country. Older people on fixed incomes are concerned about the impact of possible changes to the LPT regime. The current LPT system is based on valuations of prices during the economic crash, but prices have risen considerably since then. Unless the system is changed, people in south Dublin will be hit with potentially massive LPT hikes next year. The system is being reviewed by the Department of Finance. Fianna Fail has criticised Ms Madigan's proposals and has said it will be seeking further clarity from the Government on plans for the LPT. Last night, Sinn Fein finance spokesman Pearse Doherty accused Fine Gael of a push to "shield the wealthiest in society from paying their fair share" and argued that the LPT should be abolished outright. Mr Varadkar did not say if he supports Ms Madigan's proposal, though he acknowledged there's concern over the tax in his own Dublin West constituency. He said the Government is examining changes and it's not the intention to dramatically increase the LPT yield. He said: "We'll have to make changes in the bands and in the rate as well so that people see no increase or perhaps only a modest increase or a modest decrease in 2020 after the revaluation." Mr Donohoe restated his position that any changes will be "affordable and predictable". He said there are "many different options" when asked if he supported Ms Madigan's suggestion, but said he is not in a position to comment on any particular proposal. He said he would discuss the issue with Ms Madigan and other Cabinet colleagues in the coming weeks. Ms Madigan is not the only Dublin Rathdown TD to make proposals on LPT. Independent Alliance Minister Shane Ross has demanded LPT exemptions for pensioners. Ms Madigan and Mr Ross also have form in terms of local rivalry in a tight, three-seat constituency. Both welcomed the decision to reopen Stepaside garda station amid heavy Opposition criticism of the plan. Ms Madigan told the Irish Independent recently that she tries to strike a balance, saying: "You have to be re-elected by your constituency, but you shouldn't forget the national issues as well." It's not the only case of Cabinet ministers getting caught up in local issues, even in recent times. It emerged last week that Independent Alliance Super Junior Minister Finian McGrath opposes a development of more than 370 apartments in Marino in his Dublin Bay North constituency. Mr McGrath insisted he's "very much aware" of the housing shortage and isn't opposed to development at the site, but argued the project's size is "totally out of kilter" with the area. He previously made no apologies for pushing for what he himself described as "local parish pump stuff", including improvements for Beaumont Hospital - which he says will help benefit patients from other areas too. The debate over the LPT is just the latest case of how Cabinet is not immune to the parish pump. The Galway Food Festival will not take place this year. In a statement, festival organisers said they were taking a break "to reflect on its position and impact in the food community in Galway, and to look into funding opportunities for expanding and developing the future of the festival". The festival, which has been running since 2012, was attended by more than 70,000 people last year. JP McMahon, chairperson of the Galway Food Festival, said: Over the past seven years the Galway Food Festival has been crucial in establishing Galway as a food destination. Its legacy has been continued in various ways, such as through Food On The Edge which grew out of the Galway Food Festival and will be returning this year. Over the years, the Galway Food Festival has provided opportunities for local food and drink producers to develop their businesses. Eugene Greaney, Co-Owner of The Dough Bros said, We first took part in the Galway Food Festival in 2014 when we had been trading for nine months, and it was a real landmark moment for us in our journey. We were set up in the Spanish Arch and for three days people queued for up to an hour for our pizza - you cant imagine the confidence that gave us. At that point we knew we had something that people wanted, and needed to take our business to a bigger audience which led to our pop-up shop. The rest as they say is history but the Galway Food Festival really was the springboard for this. The Young Scientist exhibition is a wonderful event on our nation's calendar. It's a time when we come together to marvel at the brilliance of the next generation, feel shame at our own intellectual failings, and then reassure ourselves that whoever won probably had biochemists for parents, grew up in a lab and had a mind that was more CPU than brain. I struggled with all the sciences in school, which made my daughter making it to the Young Scientist exhibit all the more unusual. My enormous swell of pride deflated slightly when I started to ask her what her exhibit was about and it became clear that she was really just a roadie for the brainiacs in her group. She mumbled something about gender identity, then trailed off before asking me if we had any jaffa cakes. Albert Einstein once ate a grasshopper, I told her, maybe she should eat that instead of those orange sugar discs. "Who's Albert Einstein?" was her reply. I won't hold my breath on that Nobel Prize. My daughter is not unlike me, and it would appear that she may be about to become even more like me. A report that came out over the festive season brought some great science news - thanks to me, my daughter may also end up with crippling depression. According to a study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry and co-authored by Professor Paul Ramchandani of the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, there's a link between post-natal depression in men and depression in their daughters as they reached adulthood. Good old science, publishing depressing reports in the middle of Christmas, the time of year when we all resent our families the most. This is just what my daughter needed, another reason to resent me, as if being cursed with my oily skin, unruly hair and general sloth wasn't enough. The research, based on a sample of more than 3,000 families in the UK, identified a link between post-natal depression in men and depression in their daughters as they reached adulthood. Given that her mum and I were only together a mere 15 months when my daughter was born, and that I was still in college and had zero prospects, I wasn't so much post-natally depressed as I was just depressed-depressed. I've grown quite philosophical about my mental health as I've gotten older - I saw it as a source of torment in my youth, but I realise now that it is also the source of many of my gifts. I don't want to romanticise self destruction, or suggest that you have to suffer to create, but I can see that many of the things I like about myself come from the same place as the things I do not like. As time has gone on, it has simply become a matter of working on the parts I dislike and working with the parts I like. I'm now at the point where I can say that the decades-old scars on my arms are as much a part of my professional and personal success as anything I did in college. This isn't to say that 'ability to be deeply unhappy' is now worthy of inclusion in your LinkedIn skills cloud, but it doesn't hurt to hurt a little once in a while, especially now the robots are coming for us. Science, apart from ruining Christmas with poorly timed reports, is also planning on taking all our jobs. Every day there is a new headline about how our job will be done by a tin can and some circuits in a few years. All our interactions will be with robots, they warn. It seems unlikely, given that even my fridge beeping to tell me I left the door open makes me want to take it outside and batter it until its HFC-134a seeps into the tarmac. I think if it had actual sentience enough to explain to me in a HAL 9000-style monotone that the milk was going off, I would burn the house to the ground to get away from it. But the one consolation is that the robots may take many millennia before they finally become as human as us, to feel as we do, to suffer and to struggle, and to create beautiful things. And thanks to chancers like my daughter holding science back with spectacular aplomb, it looks to be some time before my fridge goes from irritating beeps to writing a column for a newspaper about its own ennui. Paschal Donohoe, Minister for Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, pictured speaking to the media at the Fine Gael Think in at the Alex Hotel, Dublin. Photo: Frank McGrath Fine Gael's water charges nightmare has influenced how the party is approaching plans to increase the carbon tax. Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said he believes carbon tax increases can be "mostly revenue neutral". Fine Gael's parliamentary party discussed tackling climate change at a meeting ahead of the resumption of the Dail today. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar revealed he is cutting back on meat in a bid to reduce his own carbon footprint. He admitted he's probably not the best example given the amount of travel he is doing. Mr Varadkar said tackling climate change is the "next big progressive cause" that the party wants to champion. The Government has signalled increases in the carbon tax are on the cards in the coming years in a bid to switch people away from fossil fuels as Ireland struggles to meet its targets to cut CO2 emissions. Mr Varadkar has floated a possible 'carbon cheque' for households or, alternatively, hikes in welfare payments or tax credits to offset increased tax on petrol, diesel and solid fuels. The Government is to seek cross-party support for such proposals. Mr Donohoe said: "My experience of water charges was one of the reasons why (we) have taken such great care in relation to this... which is the right approach to take." He said that before committing to what a higher level of carbon tax could be he wants to ensure the Government and citizens are "clear on the mechanics for ensuring that this is mostly revenue neutral". Earlier, Communications and Climate Action Minister Richard Bruton said the purpose of the carbon tax is not to raise revenue, but rather to "nudge people to change their behaviour". He said the Government doesn't want people making decisions about their home or cars that lock themselves into a high-carbon lifestyle. He added: "This isn't a money grab to take money out of your pocket. This is trying to help people to make decisions that are for the long term." Separately, Mr Bruton said he hopes to bring recommendations to Cabinet on the National Broadband Plan (NBP) soon, but is not setting timelines as "we have to make sure that we have this right". Peadar Toibins new political party has grown to 1,400 members and consists of nine elected representatives, according to the former Sinn Fein TD. Mr Toibin began the process of starting a new political party after he quit Sinn Fein in the aftermath of the abortion referendum last year. Since his departure, he has held meetings across the country with the aim of establishing a new political party. In an email sent to members, Mr Toibin said a yet to be revealed party name has been selected and he is in the process of registering it. He said the party consists of nine serving politicians who previously represented Fianna Fail, the SDLP and Sinn Fein. The party is speaking to a further 20 elected representatives, The party founded 20 cummans with six of them based in Northern Ireland. Meath, Cork, Dublin and Donegal also have functioning cummans. Mr Toibin said he expects the party to have established 100 cummans by the end of February. He asked to cummans to organise church gate collections, local draws, fund raisers and to tap interested people for a donations. The level of anger in Irish society is a sight to behold. There is a demand and a need for a new movement of people. We are this movement. There is no one coming after us, he added. A large garda armed presence is in situ in Longford town this afternoon amid fears of an outbreak of violence at a Traveller funeral. A graveyard was searched for weapons and bombs ahead of a funeral in the Midlands yesterday over an escalating Traveller feud. More than 50 gardai were involved in the operation ahead of the funeral of Maureen Stokes (93) at St Mel's Cathedral in Co Longford. The special policing plan was put in place after an outbreak of violence linked to an ongoing feud between two families in a different county the previous day. At a removal in Mervue, Co Galway, on Sunday three men were injured following a shooting, an assault with a hatchet and a suspected acid attack. The spate of violent attacks occurred outside the Holy Family Church at around 3pm at a removal. A man in his 30s was shot in the leg and brought to University Hospital Galway, while a second man in his late teens was taken to the same hospital with a stab wound to the back. Gardai believe he was attacked with a hatchet. A third man received minor injuries in an assault on Walter Macken Road, and gardai are investigating if a corrosive substance was used. Shortly after 3.30pm a male youth was arrested nearby with an offensive weapon. He has since been released and has cautioned under the Juvenile Diversion Programme. The shooting and assaults are all linked to a feud in the Midlands which has seen a number of attacks. Following Sunday's violence, Garda management moved to put a special policing plan in place to prevent any further incidents at the funeral of Maureen Stokes. As part of the operation, the graveyard was searched for bombs and weapons, but nothing was found and the service passed off without incident. A separate funeral not linked to the feuding families was also taking place at the time. Many of Ms Stokes' relatives returned to their homes in UK last night on ferries after attending the funeral in Longford. Pictured: Some of the victims of the deadly Carrickmines fire A man told how he made desperate attempts to rescue his 10 family members who died in the Carrickmines halting site fire. Jim Connors Junior told gardai he was woken by his wife Katie's screams in the early hours of October 10, 2015, and saw his brother Thomas's portacabin ablaze. "I could see the flames from my back door. The flames were in the kitchen of Thomas and Sylvia's cabin," the inquest in Dublin heard. "I went to the front door and kicked it in. Expand Close Devastation: The scene of the fire at Carrickmines in 2015. Photo: David Conachy / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Devastation: The scene of the fire at Carrickmines in 2015. Photo: David Conachy "I could feel myself burning and I had to go back out." He said he broke a window of a bedroom to try and let the smoke out and reached in to try and grab someone out. "I reached into the bed that I knew was there. I couldn't see anything with the smoke. It was all smoke then. "I grabbed a child by the clothes and just reached backwards." Expand Close Scene of the fire in which 10 people lost their lives / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Scene of the fire in which 10 people lost their lives Dublin coroner's court heard this was baby Mary, the youngest victims of the tragedy. Earlier, a taxi driver who came upon the fire at the Carrickmines halting site said the flames were the height of a two-storey house. Christopher Cleary said the blaze had already taken hold when he was flagged down by a man as he drove along the Glenamuck Road at around 4.30am on October 10, 2015. He told Dublin Coroner's Court that the man, who had no top on and appeared to be wearing pyjama bottoms, said: "You have to stop and help us." "I could see large flames. The fire had well taken hold at that stage," he told the inquest. "The flames were around the height of a two-storey house." Mr Cleary used his mobile phone to ring 999. Five adults and five children died after the blaze broke out at the temporary halting site at Glenamuck Road, Carrickmines, Dublin. The fire claimed the lives of Thomas Connors (28), his wife Sylvia (30), and their children Jim (5), Christy (3), and five-month-old Mary. Willie Lynch (25), who was visiting the site that night, died alongside his pregnant partner Tara Gilbert (27), and their daughters Jodie (9) and Kelsey (4). Jimmy Lynch (39), a brother of Sylvia and Willie who was also a visitor to the site, also perished in the blaze. The inquest into the 10 deaths has previously heard that gardai believe a chip pan left on a hot plate was the cause of the fire. The blaze spread rapidly from the portacabin belonging to Thomas and Sylvia to a neighbouring unit that was one metre away. All 10 victims died from acute carbon monoxide poisoning due to smoke inhalation. Mr Cleary told Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane he couldn't be sure what was on fire. "By the time I got there the flames were very high. I assumed it was a dwelling or a building of some sort," he said. A 14-year-old boy has also told how he bravely climbed into a burning portacabin to try and rescue his family. John Keith Connors rescued Thomas Connors (who was then four-years-old) but was unable to lift Thomas's unconscious parents, Thomas Senior and Sylvia, from the floor. John Keith was giving evidence at the inquests into the deaths of 10 people in the Carrickmines halting site tragedy. He climbed in through a broken bedroom window but was unable to see due to the thick black smoke. He felt around and said he identified his brother, Thomas Snr, from the texture of his t-shirt, and Sylvia from her leggings. The teenager then found Thomas Jnr and passed him out the window to waiting family members. A fire extinguisher was passed into him but he said he couldn't get it to work. By this stage the fire was so bad he was forced to retreat outside. He said Thomas Jnr was still alive when he brought him out. "I had Tom in my arms. He was trying to breath. He was making choking noises." He carried the little down the road where he met arriving emergency services who took him off him and put an oxygen mask on his face. In a statement to gardai, Jim Connors Senior, told how his 14-year-old son John Keith got in through a window of the burning cabin and "handed me out Thomas". Thomas Connors, now age seven, miraculously survived the blaze. Jim Snr said he then told John Keith to come back out as he knew the teenager would die if he stayed in the blazing cabin any longer. The inquest before a jury of eight men and four women continues. Women are still waiting 20 weeks for smear test results with a backlog of more than 80,000 to be processed. The HSE has found it difficult to get laboratories to take on extra work because more are moving to advanced HPV screening with fewer cytology staff. Health Minister Simon Harris yesterday promised to implement all the recommendations of the Scally inquiry report into the CervicalCheck scandal. Meanwhile, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who was accused of being "all talk and no action" by campaigner Vicky Phelan, defended his response to the scandal. "One of the things that I respect and admire most about Vicky Phelan is that she has said she would like something good to come of the tragedy that affected her. "I share that objective. That means reforming our health service so it becomes more open and more honest. That's what we're going to do." Referring to the promised tribunal of compensation for women caught up in the scandal, he said: "Judge Mary Irvine has been appointed to chair it by Government. "The legislation needed to set it up will be one of a small number of bills to be prioritised for new Dail session. "I have asked the Minister for Health and the [Attorney General] to ensure that the legislation in drafted, published and enacted in the first half of this year." THE government is set to table proposals to bring nurses pay in line with other professionals on Monday in a last ditch bid to avoid strikes, a union has claimed. Speaking after a meeting with health sector management, General Secretary of the Psychiatric Nurses Association, Peter Hughes, said that overtime and spending on agency staff will be used too offset the cost of the measures. But Mr Hughes said he was very disappointed that no meaningful proposals were tabled at talks with health department officials today to avert industrial action. Nurses plan a 24-hour strike on January 30, to be followed by five other dates next month. The want wage hikes in the region of 12pc to put their pay on a par with other healthcare staff including radiographers, and claim there is a recruitment and retention crisis. But the Taoiseach and government ministers are adamant an increase would breach the current public sector pay deal. They have warned they will not improve on a 20m offer for nurses in specialised grades but the nursing unions indicated that there may soon be a better proposal on the table. At the outset the employer acknowledged the seriousness of the situation, said Mr Hughes. However, were very disappointed that there were no meaningful proposals. The employers are going off and coming back to us on Monday and they have promised that they will come with proposals in relation to parity with therapy grades using overtime and agency costs, the extreme cost of overtime and agency, to offset any parity. General Secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, Phil Ni Sheaghdha, said that the HSE and Department of Health has confirmed that they will have firm proposals on Monday. However, she said strike preparations will continue. We keep reminding them that the clock is ticking, she said. There is a national dispute pending in 14 days times. She said there is general agreement that the cost savings that are required are very visible from agency spend, the costs associated with incorrectly staffing wards, and overtime costs. And they have agreed that these matters must be addressed and are now going back to their principals to have further discussions, she said. We will be here on Monday and firm proposals will be required. I think it is very disappointing that 14 days out from a strike that we have to once again point out where the employer can save money and they agree with us, that there are massive savings to be made within the health service, but now they have to go back to their principals. The unions are due to meet HSE officials to discuss contingency plans to be adopted during the strikes tomorrow. Public health officials are investigating another possible victim of meningitis following the recent deaths of three people from the deadly bug. Eleven people were diagnosed with meningitis during a spike in cases since Christmas Eve. The HSE revealed yesterday a possible 12th case is now being probed. It comes as Health Minister Simon Harris and the HSE defended not extending the scheme to give a free vaccine, to protect against the lethal B strain of meningitis, to older children. This is despite confirmation by the HSE that meningitis B was among the strains involved in the recent serious cases. It is currently only available to children born since October 2016, forcing parents whose youngsters lost out to pay 280 for the jab. Mr Harris said the HSE was guided by the recommendations of the expert group that advises on the roll-out of vaccines. "I and the Government have implemented in full the advice of the National Immunisation Advisory Committee and I will be taking advice from nobody else in relation to vaccinations other than that committee," he said. HSE public health specialist Dr John Cuddihy said yesterday that meningitis B mainly affects children under one year of age and they are now covered. None of the recent deaths were from the B or C strains. The HSE said the surge in cases in recent weeks did not amount to an outbreak and there is no evidence one person was infected by another. The cases happened in different counties among various age groups. Different strains of meningitis were detected in the 11 cases diagnosed in recent weeks, including meningitis B, C, W and Y. There were 12 cases of meningitis W reported in 2017 and 11 last year. It can spread rapidly and cause serious illness in otherwise-healthy children and adults. In the UK, young people starting university or college are offered the Meningitis ACWY vaccine, which protects against meningitis W and other strains. However, this vaccine to protect against the W strain is not provided routinely by the HSE. Parents who want increased protection for their adolescents must go to their GP to get it privately. Dr Cuddihy said he is advising parents to ensure they are up to date with all the vaccines offered under the regular immunisation schedule. "It is important that parents ensure their child completes all five sessions of the primary childhood immunisation programme," he said. Dr Cuddihy said the cases of meningitis were relatively low. "We were notified of 11 cases compared to five cases for the same period last year. "The strains that have caused this meningitis are very varied." He said there has been a dramatic decrease in meningItis C strain notifications and meningitis B cases over the years. The expert advisory committee on vaccines looks at the numbers and they come up with the recommendations, he said. There is no indication that older children should be vaccinated for the B strain at the moment . He said the meningitis W strain is very uncommon. The experts review vaccine guidelines on a regular basis. Overall he said the uptake of meningitis vaccines offered to infants could be a little better, particularly at the 12th and 13th month. Last year, 89 cases of meningococcal disease were notified. The speed of the disease makes it among the most frightening for parents. Early diagnosis is essential and parents are urged to be familiar with symptoms, seeking urgent medical attention. Symptoms include fever, joint or muscle pain, rapid breathing, severe headaches, drowsiness, discomfort from bright light, neck stiffness, vomiting, stomach cramps and diarrhoea. The Meningitis Research Foundation helpline is 1800 41 33 44. Encouraged to consider options: Peter Lennon, Molley Vesey, Kamil Podgajny, Harald Timma, Sam Convery and Anouk Hochstrasser from St Bricins College, Belturbet, Co Cavan, at the launch of the apprentice scheme. Photo: Philip Fitzpatrick One of Ireland's most successful businessmen says apprenticeships need to be seen in a different light by students and teachers, and not as a "fall-back option" to the CAO. Martin McVicar, co-founder and managing director of the world-leading Co Monaghan company Combilift, says the perception around apprenticeships needs to change. Mr McVicar was speaking at the launch of the first Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) apprenticeship in Ireland, a three-year 'earn-and-learn' programme starting in March. Combilift, which manufactures forklifts, has 600 employees and a turnover of more than 235m a year, exporting 98pc of its output to 85 countries. The company is one of a number of major equipment manufacturers heading up the apprenticeship initiative. This year, the employers involved are offering 24 apprenticeship positions, but it will grow in future years and about 30 companies are now interested in embracing it. It is aimed at school leavers who have completed their Leaving Certificate, or mature applicants. The apprenticeship, which is backed by Enterprise Ireland, is designed to fill the skills gap faced by Irish equipment manufacturers. It was launched yesterday by Enterprise Minister Heather Humphreys and Education Minister Joe McHugh. "It is time that we promote the apprenticeship route with the same enthusiasm which we do for degrees," Mr McVicar said. There are many options for those with 400-plus Leaving Cert points, he said, but added "this apprenticeship also offers a rewarding and challenging career path from the day the apprentice starts". "When employers are hiring, they don't advertise for someone with knowledge, they specifically state that they are seeking someone with skills and this apprenticeship combines knowledge, skills and industry experience. "The brightest and best of our students should be encouraged to consider this option. Career advice and decisions that are driven by school league tables are not serving our children or our country well. The pressure to get a third-level degree with the hope of a good job at the end is not always beneficial." A mother-of-two has been spared jail but was given a life-time pet ban after her two dogs were found in emaciated and starving conditions. Kelly Bennett, with an address at Glenshane Grove, Tallaght, Dublin wept in court as she was prosecuted for neglecting her three-old Jack Russell terrier named Buddy and Jessie a now 12-year-old boxer, who have since been placed in new homes. In addition to an order preventing her from owning any type of animal again, Judge Anthony Halpin fined her 100 and handed her a three-month suspended sentence. She pleaded guilty at Dublin District Court to five charges under the Animal Health and Welfare Act. Dublin Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (DSPCA) chief inspector Liam Kinsella told the court the dogs were emaciated and starved, and he feared they would have died if it had gone on longer. He confirmed to Jim Benson BL, prosecuting, that on February 12, 2018 he received a call from a member of the public who had concerns for the dogs. He went to the house and met the accused who allowed him entry, he said. The Jack Russell terrier was in the back yard and was seriously under-weight, he recalled. The boxer was in a shed, which was not locked, but the DSPCA inspector who has more than 20 years experience said he was shocked at the state it was in. He admitted, I have to say the sight of the boxer, I was not prepared for. I was quite surprised this animal was alive, there was no sign of food or water, he said. He and colleagues immediately brought the dogs to a vet. Both were deemed to be emaciated and blood samples were taken and sent to a laboratory at UCD to ascertain if there was an underlying medical problem. There was no underlying problem, the diagnosis was starvation, the inspector said. The boxer was dehydrated and after she was removed from the house she drank two litres of water without stopping. The environment was unsuitable for them and the accused was not suited to have a pet, the inspector said. A vets report and photos of the two dogs at the time of rescue as well as recent ones were handed in to court for the judge to inspect. Describing the pictures of the dogs, he said they were majestic creatures reduced to having their ribs barely covered, the boxer in particular. He said the dogs were reliant on the accused to feed, water and shelter them but the accused had been cruel and had very little charity in her heart. The distraught defendant was crying during the hearing, but Judge Halpin told her tears dont work on me. She replied that she had baby blues and she pleaded she had asked a family member to help with her pets. She claimed she was staying at different addresses and didnt know they were starving. She also said they were not always in that condition. Mr Kinsella agreed with defence counsel Beatrice Vance that her client had co-operated and pleaded guilty at an early stage in the proceedings. Ms Vance asked the court to note the woman suffered from post-partum depression and had looked for help. Her client was embarrassed and very remorseful, counsel said. The judge had the power to disqualify her from being an animal owner and he noted the accused was not objecting to this being done. He banned her from being a pet owner for life and fined her 100, explaining that he she should be getting the maximum fine for each charge, however, he had to take her circumstances into consideration. He also said that at any point she could have got help from a welfare agency to look after the dogs. Legal aid was granted to the accused who was in receipt of social welfare. The DSPCA found new owners for Buddy and Jessie who have made full recovery. One of the Kinahan cartel's most senior associates faces a minimum of five years in jail after appearing in court in England on a firearms charge following an international investigation into drug-trafficking and money-laundering. Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh (51) appeared at North Staffordshire Magistrates Court after a combination torch and stun gun was discovered during a search targeting his alleged trafficking network in Britain. He was initially granted conditional bail on the charge but the prosecution appealed that decision and it will now be heard by the Crown Court today. Exiting court, Mr Kavanagh was photographed carrying a book written by 'The Godfather' author Mario Puzo, entitled 'The Dark Arena'. Mr Kavanagh has been a long-term target of several national Garda units and is suspected of controlling a lucrative drugs patch in the British Midlands. Sources have described the operation between UK police and gardai as one of the most significant joint criminal investigations between the two countries. On Saturday, members of the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA), helped by gardai, searched Mr Kavanagh's mansion in the affluent Staffordshire neighbourhood of Tamworth. Evidence given by Diane MacKriel, of the Crown Prosecution Service, was that it took police "nine to 10 minutes to gain access to the house because it was heavily fortified". She said the minimum sentence for possessing the stun gun was five years. She also said that the house contained CCTV screens showing 360-degree footage of the house. Ms MacKriel outlined a number of other weapons that were found and showed photographs of them to the magistrates' bench. These included an extendable baton, a device called a skull crusher, and a knife that, when held in the hand, had blades extended out between the fingers. She objected to bail on the basis that the prosecution felt Mr Kavanagh was a flight risk. John Greenwood, Mr Kavanagh's legal representative, said the stun gun that his client was charged with being in possession of was brought into the country by his then 16-year-old son from a school tour to China. He said that Mr Kavanagh had taken it and put it up on top of cupboards in the kitchen for safekeeping when his eight-year-old son came into the room with it. Mr Greenwood said that when Mr Kavanagh asked the older son how he got the stun gun, and two others, into the country he said the school teachers had known about them and "turned a blind eye". Mr Greenwood said his client also stood to lose his home, as well as the family business, if not granted bail. He said Mr Kavanagh was prepared to obey bail conditions if necessary. Magistrates decided to allow bail on condition that Mr Kavanagh wear an electronic tag and adhere to a curfew and sign on regularly at a police station. But the prosecution immediately appealed and the bail hearing will go forward to the Crown Court today. The NCA has said Mr Kavanagh was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to import and supply drugs, firearms and ammunition, as well as money-laundering offences. While he has not yet been charged over the long-running investigation into his alleged trafficking enterprise, UK police discovered the stun gun during the searches on Saturday. The weapon is illegal to own and possess in the UK. Originally from Drimnagh in Dublin, Mr Kavanagh has been a long-time associate of the Kinahan cartel. Kavanagh is related to top cartel lieutenant Liam Byrne through marriage. A radiographer registered with the Health and Social Care professionals regulatory body (CORU) in Ireland has been found guilty of professional misconduct following a public inquiry. An inquiry held at the Dublin office of CORU, which regulates health and social care professionals, heard of allegations brought against Filipino national William Santos (43) while practicing at a hospital in the United Kingdom. Mr Santos did not attend either day of the two-day inquiry despite efforts to notify him via both email and postal mail. The committee heard from Eoghan OSullivan, legal counsel for CORU, that Mr Santos asked a female patient, referred to as Patient A: "Can I tell you a secret? I want to have sex with an English girl, if I had sex with an English girl I would die." The incident happened while the woman attended hospital for an MRI scan of her bowel. Mr Santos contacted patient A via a private Facebook message following her appointment, writing: "Hi Patient A I apologise for what happened today I hope you arent going to hate me,'" the inquiry heard. The allegations of professional misconduct relating to the comments made to patient A during her visit, and the subsequent Facebook messages amounted to professional misconduct, the inquiring committee found. It also found the failure of Mr Santos to notify CORU that he was the subject of an inquiry and suspension order in the United Kingdom was a serious contravention of the act governing the profession here. A report will now be produced and brought before the board of CORU with recommendations following the outcome of the inquiry. Ahead of the committee's deliberating, Mr OSullivan told the committee that the dignity of patient A was paramount to the issues at hand and should be taken into account before delivering a verdict. "She attended for an MRI on her small bowel and she was in a hospital gown when these comments were alleged to have been made to her," he said. "Any sanction imposed has to be proportionate to the wrongdoing but it also must afford as much leniency as is possible [to the registrant]" Mr OSullivan also said the failure on the part of Mr Santos to notify CORU that he had been suspended and subsequently struck off the register in the UK following a public inquiry called into question his "honesty and integrity". Mr Santos in order to behave honestly should have acted actively. He should have brought this information to CORUs attention and his failure to do so gives rise to a question of honesty and integrity," he added. Family grief: Doris ONeill (back, centre), the mother of murder victim Alan ONeill, and his step-daughter Chantelle Usher (front right) leave court yesterday. Photo: Collins Courts The mother of a man shot dead in the front garden of his home by a teenager has said she will never understand why her "gentle giant" of a son was murdered. Doris O'Neill made a statement during the sentencing hearing for Warren Nolan (22), who was aged 18 when he shot Alan O'Neill (35) at Kiltalown Road in Tallaght, Dublin, on May 27, 2015. Nolan was found guilty of Mr O'Neill's murder by a majority jury verdict in December. He was also found guilty by a unanimous verdict of setting fire to the car he used in the "hit". Mr Justice Paul McDermott sentenced Nolan to the mandatory term of life imprisonment for murder and six years for setting the car on fire. Both sentences were backdated to September 2017. Before sentencing, Ms O'Neill told the court that losing her son the way she did was "too horrific, so traumatising, so devastating, so unbearable and so unforgettable". Her family, she said, fell apart and were made shells of themselves by their sadness and pain. Alan, she said, was her firstborn and helped her to bring up his siblings. "He was always there for family, a shoulder to cry on, a hug, advice, chat, even for hours if needed. We were all close-knit, happy, lucky and blessed to have each other," she added. He loved music and dance and was known to his friends and family as a gentle giant. "I will never understand why anyone would want to hurt him, and maybe I will never know," she said. "Heaven has gained an Earth angel that gained his wings. We will forever be heartbroken." Mr O'Neill's stepdaughter, Chantelle Usher, said the shooting happened 10 days before she began her Leaving Certificate exams. "The hardest thing I had to do was to leave the funeral home and sit my exams, when all I wanted was to spend every moment available saying my goodbyes," she said. "But I felt I owed it to Alan, as he spent the last year of his life dropping and collecting me from grinds, helping me study and ensuring I got all the rest and good food I needed in the lead-up to my orals and exams." Michael Bowman SC, counsel for Nolan, said his client had a difficult background, having seen his mother die from an asthma attack as a young child. He was brought up by his grandmother, who Mr Bowman said was the only positive influence in his life. He had become a drug user, taking cannabis and tablets, and was in the low range of intellectual ability. Detective Garda Conor Harrison told the court Nolan has 24 previous convictions, including one for possession of a firearm in suspicious circumstances, for which he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in June 2015, two weeks after Mr O'Neill's murder. Devastation: The scene of the fire at Carrickmines in 2015. Photo: David Conachy Harrowing images of the charred remains of a portacabin where an extended family perished in a halting site blaze have been shown to an inquest jury. Gardai believe the fire which claimed the lives of five adults and five children in the early hours of October 10, 2015, was probably started by a chip pan being left on a hot plate. The blaze claimed the lives of Thomas Connors (28), his wife Sylvia (30), and their children Jim (5), Christy (3) and five-month-old Mary. Also killed were Willie Lynch (25), his partner Tara Gilbert (27) who was pregnant, and their daughters, Jodie (9) and Kelsey (4). Jimmy Lynch (39), a brother of Sylvia and Willie, also lost his life. The jury at Dublin Coroner's Court was shown a poignant diagram with the locations where the victims' remains were found. Four members of the family were found grouped together in each of the two bedrooms while another was recovered from the kitchen. Baby Mary, the youngest victim, was initially rescued from her parents' cabin and brought to the apparent safety of a neighbouring unit - however the inferno spread rapidly to that unit. The jury was shown a photograph of the heavily smoke-damaged bedroom from which Mary was recovered. Expand Close Garda teams at the scene. Photo: Collins / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Garda teams at the scene. Photo: Collins Like the rest of the victims, her cause of death was given as carbon monoxide poisoning due to smoke inhalation. Detective Inspector Martin Creighton told the inquest the fire probably started due to a chip pan being left on a hot plate at full power. Conor Peoples, a senior staff officer at the Traveller Accommodation Unit at Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, told how the temporary halting site was extended to accommodate Thomas and Sylvia Connors. He said the original plan had been for the family's cabin to be placed perpendicular to the Glenamuck Road, however it ended up being craned in to a parallel position due to the gradient of the land. Expand Close Conor Peoples of the Traveller Unit with Dun Laoghaire Rathdown council / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Conor Peoples of the Traveller Unit with Dun Laoghaire Rathdown council It meant the Connors' cabin was placed a metre away from the neighbouring unit, which also caught fire as the blaze spread. Asked by Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane if there were regulations about distances between units, Mr Peoples said: "My understanding now is the optimum distance was six metres." Niamh Foley, barrister for the Lynch family, put it to Mr Peoples that an expert commissioned by An Garda Siochana to carry out a report on the fire found there were no fire blankets, fire extinguishers or smoke alarms. Mr Peoples said he was "surprised" to hear that as all these items had been supplied at the halting site and there were documents to show this. Expand Close Locals look at floral tributes to the 10 who died. Photo: Collins / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Locals look at floral tributes to the 10 who died. Photo: Collins Brian Kennedy, a senior caretaker with the council, said a fire extinguisher was put in the bay occupied by the Connors' cabin and a smoke alarm was fitted inside the cabin. He said Thomas Connors "insisted" that his cabin be in that position as he wanted to be able to see his children from the front door as they walked to the toilet at night. Electrical contractor Carl Fortune said his company carried out a substantial refit of the electrics at the halting site in May 2015 and said they were "100pc safe" after this. Meanwhile, an engineer who installed fire extinguishers at the site said he was shown three extinguishers after the tragedy and found them to be in perfect condition. The inquest will hear from a family member who said the fire extinguishers did not work on the night of the tragedy. However, service engineer Michael O'Driscoll said he was shown three extinguishers recovered by gardai and all were in "perfect condition". "They had never been used. If they had been used, the pressure gauge would have been reading in the red," he explained. He said a pin has to be removed from the extinguisher lever before it activates. The inquest continues. Former INLA man Dessie O'Hare, who was known as 'The Border Fox', has pleaded guilty at the non-jury Special Criminal Court to assault and false imprisonment in Dublin. O'Hare (62), of Slate Rock Road, Newtownhamilton, Co Armagh, admitted to assaulting John Roche, causing him harm, at The Towers, Garter Lane, Saggart, Co Dublin, on June 9, 2015. He also pleaded guilty to falsely imprisoning Martin Byrne at Rathcoole and Saggart on the same date. Sean Guerin SC, defending, told the three-judge court a trial would not be required and Mr O'Hare could be arraigned on two of the counts. Dressed in a shirt and tie, O'Hare stood up and faced the court. When the registrar read the two counts on the indictment to O'Hare and asked him how he was pleading, he replied "guilty" to both. Shane Costelloe SC, prosecuting, said Mr Guerin had informed him there were some outstanding matters on his side of the house. Following this, Mr Guerin said his client had had some engagement with "professionals" and the defence wanted to have up-to-date professional assistance for the sentence hearing. Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding, sitting with Judge Patricia Ryan and Judge Ann Ryan, remanded the defendant on continuing bail with the same terms and conditions until April 3, when he will be sentenced. O'Hare was previously linked to at least 26 IRA murders by gardai and the RUC in Armagh - even before he had reached his 20th birthday. But O'Hare is most infamous for the kidnap and imprisonment of dentist Dr John O'Grady in 1987. He has served 16 years of a 40-year sentence for the kidnap, carried out along with the INLA. The terrorists went on the run with Dr O'Grady for three weeks, during which time O'Hare removed the tips of two of Dr O'Grady's fingers with a chisel. Their intended target was Dr Austin Darragh whose firm, which tested pharmaceuticals, was reputed to have made him one of the richest men in Ireland. The gang had his old address and were not aware he had passed on his former home in Brennanstown Road, Foxrock, Co Dublin, to his daughter Marise, her husband Dr O'Grady and their three children, when he moved to another house in Ballsbridge. Dr O'Grady was reunited with his family on November 5, 1987, and able to resume his career at his Ballsbridge surgery. He died in September 2016 at the age of 67. Eight months before the kidnapping, O'Hare and associates kidnapped and tortured Monaghan man Tony McCluskey, who they suspected of siding with another republican faction against them. O'Hare used bolt cutters to slice off parts of McCluskey's anatomy before finally shooting him dead. Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on her Brexit deal in the House of Commons, London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday January 15, 2019. See PA story POLITICS Brexit. Photo credit should read: House of Commons/PA Wire British Prime Minister Theresa May appears to be heading for one of the heaviest UK Parliamentary defeats in modern history after a last-gasp appeal to Tory rebels over her Brexit deal fell on deaf ears. Mrs May urged lawmakers to back her deal on Tuesday, saying it was a historic decision that the country would live with for generations. "The responsibility on each and every one of us at this moment is profound, for this is a historic decision that will set the future of our country for generations," May said ahead of the vote. She said that the government had to do more to work with parliament on a way forward on Brexit but that it would not support an amendment to put a time-limit on the thorny issue of a backstop arrangement on the Irish border. Expand Close Effigies of Prime Minister Theresa May, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, current Environment Secretary Michael Gove and former Brexit secretary David Davis, are driven past the Houses of Parliament, London, ahead of the House of Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal. Yui Mok/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Effigies of Prime Minister Theresa May, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, current Environment Secretary Michael Gove and former Brexit secretary David Davis, are driven past the Houses of Parliament, London, ahead of the House of Commons vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal. Yui Mok/PA Wire More than 100 of her MPs - around a third of those who sit on the green benches for the Conservatives - are thought to oppose the Prime Minister's Withdrawal Agreement ahead of tonight's meaningful vote. Mrs May made clear she would not back away from Brexit in response, telling her Cabinet the British Government is "the servant of the people" and must deliver on the result of the 2016 referendum in which voters opted to Leave by 52-48pc. She told colleagues at the weekly meeting in 10 Downing Street that she will respond "quickly" if her deal is rejected by MPs. With just hours to go, there seems little sign that opponents within her party - let alone her parliamentary foes - will swing behind the deal hammered out with Brussels when they enter the voting lobbies. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close 'People's Vote' supporters dance and listen to speeches during a demonstration in Parliament Square on January 15, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) British MPs pack the chamber at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the UK Prime Minister's Brexit deal in the House of Commons, London Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire Britain's opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn attends the debate in Parliament ahead of the vote on British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via REUTERS Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on her Brexit deal in the House of Commons Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire Caricatures of Conservative politicians are driven past the Houses of Parliament on January 15, 2019 in London (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament on January 15, 2019 in London, England (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) A placard with Chairman of the European Research Group Jacob Rees-Mogg's face (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) Protesters demonstrate on the day that MP's vote on Theresa May's Brexit deal, in Parliament Square (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Pro-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) Prime Minister Theresa May is congratulated by a Conservative MP at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on her Brexit deal Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire Britain's Attorney General Geoffrey Cox addresses Parliament ahead of the vote on May's Brexit deal UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via REUTERS Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn listens at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal in the House of Commons Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire British Prime Minister Theresa May is seen in Parliament ahead of the vote on May's Brexit deal, in London UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via REUTERS SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford speaks at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire Sir Edward Leigh MP asks a question about his amendment at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal in the House of Commons Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire House of Commons Speaker John Bercow speaks at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire John Baron MP begs to move his amendment at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp 'People's Vote' supporters dance and listen to speeches during a demonstration in Parliament Square on January 15, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Environment Secretary Michael Gove would not predict a win for Mrs May, telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he did not know how the vote would go. He reiterated the warning made by several ministers that remaining in the EU was worse than leaving without a deal and suggested there were "people in the House of Commons and outside who have never made their peace with this decision" to leave. He also defended the Northern Ireland border backstop, the most divisive part of the deal, saying it was "deeply uncomfortable for the EU". He continued: "If it is a trap for anyone, it's a trap for the EU. Why? Because the European Union said at the very beginning of this process that there would be no cherry-picking, the four freedoms of the single market were indivisible. "But we have picked a whole bowl of glistening cherries, we have free access to the European market with no tariffs and no quotas but at the same time we say that European citizens have no freedom of movement." The Prime Minister has insisted she is focused on winning the vote - telling Conservative rebels on Monday evening that they risked handing the keys of No 10 to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. However the Daily Telegraph quoted one Cabinet source as saying it would be "hard for her to carry on" if she lost by more than 100 votes. The deal suffered its first official parliamentary defeat in the House of Lords on Monday night as peers voted by 321 votes to 152 - a majority of 169 - to reject it. Mr Corbyn indicated he was finally ready to table a vote of no-confidence in the UK government if it loses in the House of Commons. "Don't be concerned, it's coming soon," he told a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer offered no more clarity on Tuesday morning, telling the Today show: "The timing will be down to Jeremy Corbyn but he has already indicated that it will be soon." It would appear unlikely that Labour can muster enough votes to force a general election, with both Tory rebels and the DUP indicating they would continue to back the Government in a confidence vote. However Downing Street has given little indication as to how the Prime Minister intends to proceed if she is defeated. Under the terms of an amendment passed last week, she must table a motion on her Plan B by Monday - although in practice she is unlikely to want to wait that long. Some reports have suggested she could fly to Brussels - possibly as early as Wednesday - in an attempt to obtain further concessions on the crucial issue of the backstop. But that could prove problematic if she has suffered a massive defeat, with EU leaders reluctant to give ground if they believe it is simply impossible for her to get the deal through the Commons. Alternatively, she could opt to bring back the deal for a second - or possibly even a third - time in an attempt to wear down the opposition. Some MPs claimed to have detected some movement towards her position after she addressed a private meeting of Conservatives MPs at Westminster on Monday evening. So far, however, the numbers contemplating backing the deal would appear to fall far short of what is needed to affect the final outcome. Dominic Raab said Brexiteers like him could back a deal if aspects such as the backstop were dealt with. The former Brexit secretary told Today: "I made clear when I resigned that there were three aspects that needed to be addressed. "The backstop is clearly one of them and I want to see very clearly the Withdrawal Agreement linked to a best-in-class free trade agreement. "If we could do those two things, someone like me would say that, actually, we could vote for it." Mrs May will make her final appeal when she winds up five days of debate in the Commons before MPs head to the division lobbies. Voting is due to begin at 7pm and could continue for around two hours, depending on how many amendments Speaker John Bercow calls before the final meaningful vote on the deal. Labour MP Hilary Benn has pulled his amendment to the Government's Withdrawal Agreement motion which would have rejected both the PM's deal and leaving the EU with no deal. Mr Benn, who is chairman of the Commons Exiting the European Union Committee, had Tory support for his proposal but tweeted that he had decided to act because "it's vital that we now get the clearest expression of view from the House on the Government's deal". Taoiseach Leo Varadkar pictured speaking to the media at the Fine Gael Think in at the Alex Hotel, Dublin. Frank McGrath It's all about Brexit, Brexit and Brexit as TDs land back in Leinster House today after the Christmas break. But new laws to cover the risk of a no-deal EU-UK divorce has pushed important draft laws off the agenda. The Government today discussed at the biggest piece of legislation in many years. Its all about preparing for Brexit and the continued risk of a catastrophic no-deal Brexit. A so-called omnibus bill comprising 17 separate draft laws is being readied to be speeded through the Dail and Seanad if needs be. Just a handful of other measures, which are close to being fully drafted, will be shoehorned on to the law-making agenda. These include new laws necessary for referendums on divorce and presidential voting rights for emigrants due later this year, and a law setting up compensation tribunals for women stricken in the cervical cancer test debacle. But heres a flavour of important promised laws which have effectively been bumped off the list: One of the problems, in some peoples minds, with season two of True Detective was that a lot of the time it didnt feel like True Detective. It felt like an entirely different show. **WARNING: SOME SPOILERS FOR PREMIERE** In retrospect, it was courageous of creator/writer Nic Pizzolatto to try to take it in a different direction, even if that direction sometimes led to frustrating dead ends. I havent changed my opinion that season two had some good things going for it, including strong performances by Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams, or that some of the most hostile reviews (which put the future of the series in genuine doubt) went way over the top. Expand Close Mahershala Ali in the first trailer for HBO's third season of True Detective / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mahershala Ali in the first trailer for HBO's third season of True Detective At the same time, though, juggling four lead characters meant that Pizzolattos scripts never succeeded in pulling the various strands into an entirely cohesive whole. True Detective 2 was sometimes as tangled and confusing as the LA freeways that featured in multiple overhead shots. Last nights double-episode opener of season three initially suggests Pizzolatto, stung by the criticism, may have back-pedalled a little too far in the direction of the original. Once again, the protagonists are two cops with very different personalities. Detective Wayne Hays (Oscar and Golden Globe winner Mahershala Ali), nicknamed Purple Hays during his army days in Vietnam, is the quieter, more introspective one. His partner Roland West (Stephen Dorff) is the brash, gravelly good ol boy type although he doesnt have the same toxically reductive view of women as Woody Harrelsons Marty Hart in season one. Once again, the setting, Arkansas, allows for plenty of muggy Southern Gothic atmosphere. And once again, the story unfolds over multiple timelines three this time. In 1980, Hays and West investigate, with the help of schoolteacher Amelia Reardon (Carmen Ejogo), the disappearance of 12-year-old Will Purcell and his 10-year-old sister Julie, who went riding their bikes to the playground and never returned. Hays discovers Wills dead body, his hands folded as though in prayer, in a cave. In another nod to season one, hes surrounded by what appear to be occult symbols straw-faced dolls rather than stick figures. Later, the Purcell childrens parents Tom and Lucy (Scoot McNairy and Mamie Gummer), who have been drifting apart for years and are constantly at one anothers throat, receive a cut-up letter from the kidnapper/killer saying that Julie is in a good place, and that theyre not to go looking for her. Flash forward to 1990 and Hays, now in a desk job, is married to Amelia. They have two children of their own a boy and a girl. Amelia has just written a book about the Purcell case thats about to be published and will become an acclaimed bestseller. Hays is deposed by the feds, who suggest the wrong person may have been convicted of Wills murder and make him run through his recollections of 1980. They eventually reveal that Julie, missing for a decade, is alive. Her fingerprints have turned up at the scene of a robbery. In 2015, we learn Hays is now a widower and is being interviewed for a true-crime documentary about the Purcell case. The structural similarities with season one are overwhelming at this point. But Pizzolatto has a trick up his sleeve. The final moments of episode two deliver a real kick-in-the-teeth surprise with the sudden revelation that Hays is suffering from Alzheimers, which throws his account of everything thats happened since 1980 into doubt. If you need a sign that True Detective is back on track, theres none surer than the poignant final shot of the elderly, confused Hays suddenly finding himself in the middle of the street in the middle of the night, dressed in his pyjamas and dressing gown. A riveting return. To fund his latest movie Glass, cult director M Night Shyamalan re-mortgaged his own house. A daring move, by any standards. And perhaps perplexing when you consider that he is a veteran filmmaker whose most recent project grossed almost $300m at the box office. And that both Universal and Disney (the two studios which, in an unprecedented move, collaborated to co-produce) were both essentially waving blank cheques in his face. But working to a tight, limited budget, and creating an acute sense of jeopardy around the project was quite deliberate. Shyamalan has learned through experience that those are the conditions he finds optimum for creative work. "It's probably not healthy," he admits with a wry smile. "This thing that has to be ignited only by jeopardy. This no-safety-net kind of thing. I don't know moving forward what that means... It might seem crazy. Both Disney and Universal were happy to pay for the movie. And both, they said, you could make it for a lot more than (the budget he set) and I said, no. We're not doing it that way. I am paying for it, and it's going to cost this amount of money. "I prefer discipline," he explains. "I prefer enforcing all of us as artists at the table to have those parameters. You are constantly choosing your containment things. A painter chooses a canvas, chooses a colour palette. And that starts the creative process." Shyamalan is long, lean and powerfully charismatic. He has the caffeinated speaking style of someone whose mind works constantly at high speed. He shot to prominence in his 20s when he wrote and directed The Sixth Sense, establishing him in the Hollywood firmament. But after his early success, his career took a nosedive in the mid-noughties when he helmed a series of flops. Recently, however, he has been enjoying a run of success so impressive it's been dubbed a "the Shyamalanaissance" Glass, which sees James McAvoy and Bruce Willis reprise much-loved roles from previous collaborations with the director, is one of the most eagerly awaited films of 2019. His philosophy as a filmmaker is the direct result of his experiences as a Hollywood wunderkind who, after precocious success, spent a good few years in the wilderness. But it's also - and this is important for Shyamalan - a theory that is backed up by scientific evidence from the field of psychology. "There are so many studies that show that with an unlimited amount of choice you don't choose well. We need limits so that we can bounce who we are off those limits. So how to keep creating those limits is the thing." At just 48, he's already had a career spanning over 20 years. Plenty of time to reflect on the experiences of both success and failure. Shyamalan is a keen student of human psychology, anyway. It forms a running theme in his imaginative universe. In recent films, including Glass, an eclectic mash-up which is a sequel to two of his biggest movies, Split and Unbreakable, he explores phenomena of the mind such as the placebo effect and multiple personality disorder, blending them with superhero mythology. In conversation, he weaves psychological theories smoothly into his discourse about film, about the art of creating suspense, and about what lies at the heart of his drive to tell stories. It's perhaps not surprising then, that his wife or 25 years, Dr Bhavna Shyamalan, is a clinical psychologist. The couple met in university and now have three daughters. "It started with me chasing her in college," he says. "She was on the psychology programme, so I had to take all her classes to be with her. So I did my film classes and then I ran to her psychology classes, and, even though I was sitting there staring at her, I'd be like, 'wait a minute, that's really interesting, what you just say?' And so that built into a love of the mind and all that stuff. And you know again, in many ways you could say Hitchcock and even Kubrick, these are all very psychological filmmakers. "And the art of filmmaking is really a manipulation of our emotions. What is it when a lens is dropping in a wide shot what are you feeling? You're not feeling positive. Why is the lens going down making you not feel positive? Why is that? Why do I know something bad is going to happen just from that? Everything has a meaning... it's a very psychologically motivated medium." These days it's not fear of failure that concerns him. On the contrary, his modus operandi in recent years has been to go to great lengths to offset the pitfalls of success. To avoid complacency at all costs. Hence why he insisted on paying for Glass himself. He detests the risk-aversion that characterises the movie industry today. "You should maintain your muscle - it's a psychological term called negative capability, your ability to be OK in a space where you are not sure what the outcome is. And all of us try to avoid that constantly. I don't want to try that relationship, I don't want to get the new job, I don't want to move no, no, no, no. Whatever it is. We're always avoiding that." The key, he says, is "don't let being afraid shrink you back to the known elements". That's why, in latter years, he's gone to some lengths to work exclusively with new, relatively untested talent on his films. Young people at the start of their careers. "Their negative capability is so strong. They're 30, 28 years old. They just did one movie, two movies. They're just like 'let's go for it, let's do this, or do that. How about black and white and you entertain it for a second. They're building my negative capability back up again." To do that, he has to stay in touch with his vulnerability. The best compliment he's ever received, he says was when a fan told him: "My favourite artists are you and Thom Yorke. Because I feel like he and Radiohead are very spiritual for me. Almost like Indian Raga - the way they sing. He's so vulnerable. So incredibly vulnerable... He's, for me, an example of an ultimate artist. It's hard because your art makes you famous, makes expectations. "You have a one-way relationship with everyone in the world after that, which makes you feel very isolated there's all this weird f**ked up cycle that happens to every artist after that." 'Glass' is in cinemas on January 18 With the world set for its slowest economic growth since the financial crisis, the European Union will start to look more vulnerable once again due to its heavy dependence on trade. Data released yesterday showed the size of the EU's current account surpluses and it revealed that most of the EU-28 have surpluses, in many cases substantial ones that may make the bloc vulnerable to protectionism. The country with the most substantial deficit is, of course, the UK - and it wants to leave the EU. Although US President Donald Trump has targeted imports from China with his tariffs, aimed he says at stopping US workers being undercut, he has also threatened Europe. Germany's current account surplus relative to the size of its economy is the largest in the world. Estimates are that it will hit 7.8pc of gross domestic product this year, according to the Munich-based Ifo Institute. This will be the third year in a row that it has emerged as the biggest surplus in the world. The International Monetary Fund has urged Germany to do more to bolster domestic demand and imports, but it has gone the other way, embedding strict deficit rules in its budget process. The huge current account surplus is why Mr Trump has frequently targeted German car exports to America. Read more: China under pressure to strike US trade deal after exports fall China, which has attracted most of Mr Trump's ire, saw its current account surplus peak a long time ago, at 9.9 pc of GDP in 2007 and by 2017, it was just 1.3pc of GDP. However, it now looks as if the President wants a deal with China, something he could sell to voters as he seeks a second term in office. That means he may need to look elsewhere for an external enemy on trade, and Germany and Europe may look inviting. When he went to Washington DC last year, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker appeared as surprised as anyone that he walked out of the White House with a trade truce rather than the declaration of a trade war. But there is still no firm deal and a bump in imports of US soybeans that has been delivered by the EU is unlikely to appease Mr Trump. Even the US-China trade war has not emerged as a boon for Europe. With the world's two largest economies now slowing, that means there will be less demand for luxury German cars or the kind of high-quality industrial machinery it sells overseas. While the United States is one of the least dependent major economies on external trade - thanks to its huge internal market - the EU and Germany, in particular, are among the most exposed. Data from the German-American Chambers of Industry and Commerce shows that a million jobs in Germany are dependent, directly or indirectly, on exports to the United States. THE EU's executive arm will today propose abolishing national vetoes on tax policy - plans which EU governments are almost certain to reject and which could trigger a backlash from populists protesting the encroachment on the sovereignty of member states. EU decisions on taxation require unanimity among governments, which is often hard to achieve as advocates of low taxation - such as Ireland - oppose policies seen as undermining their economic competitiveness. The latest victim of the bloc's inability to reach consensus was the so-called 'digital tax' - a plan to introduce a 3pc levy on the European revenue on tech giants such as Amazon and Facebook. "Unanimity has hampered progress on important tax initiatives needed to strengthen the single market and boost EU competitiveness" while also having a "damaging effect" on wider policies, the European Commission, the bloc's executive arm in Brussels, will say in the draft of a policy document to be unveiled today. Unanimity "is self-defeating", according to the document obtained by Bloomberg, which cites the tech tax and the financial transactions tax as examples of collective failures to act at a cost of billions for state coffers. The Commission will propose that EU governments agree to gradually relinquish their national vetoes starting this year with policies that do not have an impact on national taxing rights, such as measures to combat fraud, according to the document. Member states should agree to take decisions by supermajority in more sensitive areas by the end of 2020, said according to the paper. "The only contribution to tax policy by member states like Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands consists of systematically blocking any sort of progress," said Markus Ferber, a German conservative lawmaker in the European Parliament. Majority voting would be most helpful in closing loopholes and improving the cooperation of tax authorities, he said. Replacing the so-called qualified-majority vote would need the approval of all EU national governments, and no objections from national parliaments, under Article 48 of the Treaty of the EU, according to the commission document. Such consensus is unlikely to be reached. Even though the plan is unlikely to make it into law, it could hand ammunition to nationalist leaders seeking to make inroads in upcoming European Parliament elections and "command by negation", blocking initiatives that could expand the EU's powers. A Department of Finance spokesman said: "We are yet to see any formal proposal from the Commission. Taxation is a sovereign Member State competence... Ireland does not support any change being made to how tax issues are agreed at EU level." Bloomberg Youre likely to find a much broader branded range of products in Dunnes. Stock image Demand for premium products helped Irish grocers enjoy a record Christmas in 2018. Some 1bn was spent on groceries in December as Irish shoppers showed an appetite for splashing out on more expensive items. Sales of branded goods rose 3.2pc year-on-year, while sales of premium private label ranges were up 11.2pc. Dunnes Stores stretched its lead as Ireland's number one supermarket by market share, the new statistics by market researchers Kantar Worldpanel show. "For most shoppers, when it comes to Christmas they have a higher preference for branded products than they would at other times of the year," said Douglas Faughnan, consumer insight director at Kantar Worldpanel. "It's a time to indulge, it's a time to treat yourself, and Dunnes are synonymous with brands. "If you take any given Dunnes store ... you're likely to find a much broader branded range of products in Dunnes than you would in some of the other retailers. "They've put a real emphasis on positioning themselves as a premium food retailer. Over the last couple of years they've acquired Whelan's Butchers, some of the stores have a Sheridan's cheesemonger, and all that lends itself to a more premium food and drink retailing experience." Sales of traditional Christmas treats were also strong in 2018 - with mince pie sales up 10pc, and seasonal biscuits growing 11pc. Shoppers spent 2m on Christmas puddings alone, Kantar said. Dunnes retained its position as top supermarket by market share, coming in at 23pc. Tesco, which reported relatively anaemic Irish figures last week (including the festive period but also stretching back well before that), was in second at 22.3pc. Kantar said the British retailer's premium ranges did well. SuperValu was third on 21.8pc, while Lidl and Aldi were ahead of the same period last year on 10.5pc and 10.8pc respectively. Kantar said it would have done well from last minute 'top-up' shops because of a "convenient store network and strong fresh food offering". All of the five main supermarkets saw the value of their sales increase on last year. Aldi had the biggest growth on 8.6pc, while SuperValu was the lowest on 1pc. "From a macro perspective then if you look at the Irish economy, unemployment is still falling. Consumers are pretty confident though there's maybe a little uncertainty around things like Brexit coming down the tracks. "At this point in time that concern doesn't seem to be filtering through into shoppers' plans for groceries," Mr Faughnan said. Kantar said Aldi and Lidl had achieved record market share for a Christmas period. "The impact Aldi and Lidl have made on the ultra-competitive Irish grocery landscape is evidenced by the fact that more than 70pc of households visited each retailer in the 12 weeks to 30 December," Mr Faughnan said. "Own-label products still account for the majority of both retailers' sales, but it was the premium end of these lines which recorded the strongest growth. Similarly, sales of branded goods accounted for more than 40pc of the growth achieved for both Aldi and Lidl - testament to the popularity of their ever-expanding ranges." Datalex, the Dublin-based travel software firm, has revised its earnings guidance for 2018 and now expects to report a loss of between $1m - $4m (872,000 - 3.5m). The revision in guidance is largely due to changes in the timing of its recognition of certain revenue, the company said. Most of this revenue that is not recognised in 2018 will be recognised in 2019 and 2020. Shares in the company were down over 60pc in early morning trading on the Irish Stock Exchange. In a statement Datalex added that revenue, adjusted EBITDA and profit for the half year ended 30 June 2018 may have been "misstated" mainly due to the accelerated recognition of revenue associated with a customer, because negotiations regarding the recovery of this revenue shortfall have not concluded but are ongoing. "Todays announcement is extremely disappointing for me personally, for the team at Datalex and for our supportive shareholders," Aidan Brogan, CEO of Datalex, said. "For my part, I can assure all our stakeholders that we have already identified certain key areas that require improvement and are taking corrective action. The fundamentals of the business remain strong. We are confident this is a once off and we will return to profitability in 2019." The company, which confirmed it had net cash of $8.8m at year-end, added that it has asked a leading accountancy firm to undertake an independent review of this issue. It will review its financial tear 2019 guidance and will update the market in early February. Datalexs software platforms are used by airlines and travel groups around the world to help boost ancillary revenues. Clients include Lufthansa, Air China and American airline JetBlue. Shareholders in the group include billionaire financier Dermot Desmond. Shares in Aughinish Alumina parent Rusal fell almost 3pc in Hong Kong in Monday trading. The drop came as more US politicians sought to re-evaluate a plan to lift sanctions on the business. The sanctions have raised fears over the future of Limerick-based Aughinish. US Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, minority leader in the Senate, said he would force a vote next week on a measure to block the US Treasury Department's plans to lift sanctions on Rusal. The sanctions were imposed because of the company's links to oligarch Oleg Deripaska, an ally of US President Vladimir Putin. Mr Putin has been accused of meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. Yesterday a number of influential Democrats in the House of Representatives demanded a meeting with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on the issue. Additional reporting Bloomberg Comments by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar regarding consuming less meat to mitigate climate change has been described as reckless in the extreme. That's according to Irish Cattle and Sheep Association president Patrick Kent who said Mr Varadkar would be better served putting his efforts in preventing vast quantities of inferior meat products entering the EU from the other side of the world. Mr Kent called upon Mr Varadkar to clarify that he wasnt suggesting that people should eat less sustainably produced Irish beef and lamb. As one of the most important beef exporters in the northern hemisphere, it is very unfortunate indeed that our Taoiseach should be calling into question the sustainability of Irish beef production. In 2018 agri-food sector exports amounted to 13.6bn with the value of meat and livestock exports comprising 3.97bn of that total. Surely the onus is on Mr Varadkar to protect such a vital industry; his cavalier comments however will do nothing but undermine it. The president of the IFA, Joe Healy has said the comments are "disappointing" and his organisation will be seeking clarification from Mr Varadkar on the matter and he defended Irish farmers' record on cutting emissions. Rural TD Michael Collins said he was astonished at what Mr Varadkar and claimed it was "against farmers and the meat industry" at a time they are struggling. Mattie McGrath claimed it shows Mr Varadkar "knows little about rural Ireland and cares less". Mr Varadkar had made his comments in response to a question as to what he was doing personally to reduce his own carbon footprint. He said: I am trying to eat less meat both for health reasons and for reasons of climate change. But I'd imagine given the amount of travel I do... I'm probably not the best example. He also encouraged government ministers to choose a hybrid or electric vehicle when they are changing their cars. His comments come as the beef sector is at crisis point due to the continuing slump in factory prices and the threat of a no-deal Brexit, farm leaders are warning. Beef farmers will be directly in the firing line of a no-deal Brexit. The Government will be looking for a "mega-money" aid package from the EU to offset the damage. The pre-Christmas slump in cattle prices carried over into the new year, with factory quotes unchanged and farmers struggling to get stock killed. The second GDT (Global Dairy Trade) event of the year has seen prices rise for the fourth time in succession and has signalled a positive start to 2019 as Irish co-ops hold their milk price quotes. The latest event saw the price index rise by 4.2pc, with Skim Milk Powder (SMP) and Lactose driving the lift in price this week. SMP prices were up 10.3pc and Lactose was up 7.9pc. Butter prices increased by 4.6pc while Cheddar and Anhydrous Milk Fat lifted by 4.3pc and 3.2pc respectively. Whole Milk powder increased by 3pc. Just over 27,909 tonnes of product was sold at the auction. Stronger demand for skim milk powder (SMP) has steadied global dairy markets ahead of Europe's spring calving season. Spot market prices for SMP topped 1,800/t last week and stocks are expected to break the 2,000/t threshold over the next month on the back of lively buying of dairy proteins by traders. The improved market outlook was reflected in the decision of both Glanbia and Lakeland Dairies to hold milk prices for December supplies at 32c/l and 32.06c/l (including VAT) respectively. Lakeland Dairies will also pay an extra 5c/l Voluntary December Bonus to qualifying suppliers, based on peak to trough supply ratios. The co-op reported that milk supplies for December were up 17pc compared to 2017. Glanbia's returns include a 2c/l support payment from Glanbia Co-op, on top of a base price of 30c/l from Glanbia Ireland. The farm organisations welcomed the processors' decision to hold December milk prices. Tom Phelan of the IFA said it was "the right thing to do in the current market context" given the challenging cashflow situation facing many dairy farmers. He urged all co-ops to follow the lead of Glanbia and Lakelands and called on those that had cut their October or November milk prices to carefully review the situation. Confidence Ger Quain of ICMSA said the decision by Lakelands and Glanbia was reflective of improved confidence in global dairy markets. Last week's increase of the Ornua PPI index to 107.5 for December - up 2.6 points on November and equating to a VAT-inclusive milk price of 32.2c/l - and the latest lift in the GDT were indicative of a major shift in market sentiment, the farm representatives claimed. This was confirmed by the recent sale of more than 80,000t of SMP from EU intervention stocks, leaving just 22,000t to be sold. Sinn Fein Agricultural spokesperson Martin Kenny TD has described the news that Turkey has suspended live exports of cattle as "a further setback for Irish beef farmers." Deputy Kenny said Live exports is a very important part of the Irish beef sector and it will be a huge loss to farmers bringing cattle to market. "There will be a noticeable loss of buyers for the export market around rings in markets up and down the country. He said he has previously called on the Minister to develop more export markets to ensure there is some competition for Irish meat factories. "I will be raising this again with the Minister as action needs to be taken to ensure Irish beef farmers are protected especially with Brexit coming down the tracks." During 1 January to 1 December 2018 live exports totalled 235,000 head of cattle, up 32pc from 179,000 for the same period in 2017. This change was driven by a significant increase in exports to other EU countries. Exports to third countries decreased in 2018 due in part to currency fluctuations in the Turkish Lira. Nevertheless, nearly 13, 000 head of cattle were exported to Turkey to date this year. Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed has said the on-going search for new markets is a priority for his Department. In November the Department reached agreement with the Libyan authorities on veterinary health certificates for the export of breeding, fattening and slaughter cattle. There are armies of people employed all over Europe focused on food safety. Stock Image The EUs system for protecting consumers from chemical hazards in food is overstretched, according to a new report from the European Court of Auditors. The European Commission and the Member States do not have the capacity to implement the system fully, the auditors say. EU food safety policy aims to guarantee a high level of protection for human life and health, and to protect EU citizens from three types of hazards in food: physical, biological and chemical. This audit concentrated on chemical hazards. The Auditors said the legal framework governing chemicals in food, feed, and plants and live animals remains a work in progress, they say, and has not yet been implemented to the level envisaged in EU laws governing food production. In addition, the European Food Safety Authority, which provides scientific advice to inform European policymaking, suffers backlogs in its work in connection with chemicals. This, the Auditors said affects the proper functioning of parts of the system and the sustainability of the model as a whole. Food safety is a high priority for the EU; it affects all citizens and is closely linked to trade, said Janusz Wojciechowski, the Member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the report. But the current EU system faces a number of inconsistencies and challenges. Some Member States controls cover certain chemicals more frequently than others, and their legal frameworks are so extensive that public authorities find it difficult to fulfil all their responsibilities. Checks by public bodies can only ever make up a small proportion of all checks carried out, say the auditors, and the EU model can best remain credible if public- and private-sector control systems complement each other. However, synergies between the two have only just started to be explored. Pesticides Despite, the EU having limited the use of certain pesticides based on hazard criteria, the auditors say that residues of such pesticides may be tolerated in products imported into the EU if a risk assessment has shown that there is no risk to consumers. The auditors also identified limitations in the control system as Member States face difficulties in determining the nature of enforcement action in cases of noncompliance. The auditors recommend that the European Commission should assess potential changes to the legislation governing chemical hazards in the light of the capacity to apply it consistently. They also want the EU to explain what action it will take on pesticide residues in food to maintain the same level of assurance for both EU produced and imported food while remaining compliant with WTO rules. Central thinking: Twilfit House is close to OConnell Street, Temple Bar, Trinity College and other tourist attractions Whitbread, which owns the Premier Inn hotel chain, has purchased the landmark Twilfit House site in Dublin 1 for a figure in excess of 15m, the Irish Independent can reveal. The group intends to build a 180-bedroom hotel on the land. Located close to O'Connell Street, Temple Bar, Trinity College and other tourist attractions, the site is Whitbread's first freehold acquisition in Dublin. In a statement yesterday, Whitbread said the Twilfit site purchase represented a "significant" step in its expansion into Ireland, as it looks to fulfil a requirement for 2,000-2,500 bedrooms in Dublin. While Whitbread did not disclose the price it had paid for the site, industry sources said they understood the figure to be in excess of 15m. Whitbread's acquisition of the property was brokered by Dan O'Connor, senior vice -president of JLL's hotel division. "This acquisition is an excellent fit for the company's first freehold purchase in Dublin, given its prime location and expertly-designed hotel scheme," he said. "The hunt is very much on for further Dublin opportunities for the business." Kevin Murray, head of acquisitions (North & Ireland) for Whitbread said: "Securing Twilfit House is an important landmark in Premier Inn's expansion into Ireland and builds strong momentum to our acquisition drive in Dublin." "Being close to many major tourist attractions and transport links makes it an excellent location for a Premier Inn hotel and we expect it to trade very well on opening." The group is also "actively pursuing" other freehold and leasehold opportunities, including potential office-to-hotel conversions and going concern purchases, as it seeks to expand in the capital. This is the second Premier Inn hotel to be secured in the capital after Whitbread secured planning permission for a 97-bedroom Premier Inn on South Great Georges Street last autumn. Dublin City Council has given the green light to developer, Harry Crosbie for a new eight storey 185 bedroom hotel at Vicar Street in the Dublin Liberties in spite of some local opposition. A spokesman for Mr Crosbie said on Tuesday that it is hoped that construction work on the Vicar St Hotel will commence on the project in the next number of weeks and that the hotel will be open for business in 2020. The spokesman said that the hotel will add to the growing restoration of the Liberties. The spokesman also confirmed that Mr Crosbie is also working on a Vicar Street South in conjunction with Wexford County Council. The new venture in Dublin, when operational will create 80 jobs and the spokesman said that the hotel development will create a new way for the public to enjoy a live show. He said: We will create a new 'rock and room' concept with our exclusive promoter Peter Aiken. We will upgrade the venue to ensure its continued status as Dublin's premier mid-size venue. Walls Construction, which worked with Mr Crosbie on the original Point Depot and when it was transformed into an area, are to construct the hotel. One of the conditions of planning is that the hotel firm pay Dublin City Council 487,407 towards public infrastructure for the area. A report accompanying the planning application stated that the development will contribute significantly towards the implementation of a Core Strategy of the City Development Plan in respect of regeneration, urban design and economic and tourism development. The report also stated that the development can provide a catalyst and dynamic for the regeneration and redevelopment of the Liberties area and will enhance the attractiveness and diversification of the citys tourist accommodation offer. Failte Ireland also made a submission with the City Council in support of the application. However, a number of local residents - supported by People Before Profit TD, Brid Smith - lodged objections against the plan. In total, twelve objections have been lodged against the plan. The residents of Catherine Street told the City Council that the development would cause much distress to the residents of the area - an area, they say, that has had continuous development for the past two years. Many of the residents of Michael Mallin House are opposing the plan and in an objection, they stated we, the residents of Michael Mallin house believe the height of the proposed development is not in proportion with the surrounding structures being twice the height of our flats as well as towering over houses located on Catherine St and Ash Street. In her objection, Ms Smith stated that the application does not represent development sympathetic to an urban residential community bound by new student accommodation, a public house/music venue, a homeless hostel and two new hotels in the immediate vicinity. In the joint objection with Cllr Tina McVeigh, Mr Smith pointed out that we are in the depths of a housing crisis that is having a catastrophic effect on our society. She stated: Rather than more hotels, apart hotels or luxury student accommodation, we urge our city planners to exercise their duty of care and refuse planning permission to any further developments that do not positively contribute to the stock of residential housing. Objectors now have the option of appealing the Council decision to An Bord Pleanala. Flagging: The EU and the UK flags fly outside Westminster in London. Tuesday will see a crunch Brexit vote in the UKs House of Commons. Photo: PA British politicians are set to vote on Theresa May's Brexit deal, but several amendments have been tabled. Speaker John Bercow will reveal which ones he has selected for a vote as the final day of debate starts on Tuesday. It is also possible that MPs could decide to drop their amendments and new ones may emerge. So what are the notable amendments tabled so far? Galway-based nutritional supplements business Revive Active has opened a manufacturing plant in Ireland to reduce its exposure to Brexit. The company, which is majority owned by former banker Daithi O'Connor and backed by Supermac's founder Pat McDonagh, has used a manufacturer in Wales for a number of years. With Brexit looming, O'Connor took action last year by securing a 10,000 sq ft facility in Mullingar, which has just begun to manufacture for the Irish market. The company's products, which include supplements designed specifically for children and teenagers, are sold in 1,000 stores across the island of Ireland, constituting 75pc of the company's turnover. Sales were 5m in 2018, a 25pc increase on the previous year. "Our plan for this year is to grow turnover by 35pc, which will bring us in excess of 7m," said O'Connor. The Irish company has been making an impact in the competitive supplements market due to its all natural ingredients. These include Wellmune, a product from Kerry Group which is derived from yeast and is clinically proven to naturally strengthen immune cells. The UK is a strong market for the company, with products stocked in a small number of stores such as Selfridges, but sold mostly online. Speaking about Brexit-proofing the business, O'Connor said: "I have looked at insulating ourselves. First of all, we have Ireland covered. If there is a hard Border, which I hope never happens, we'll have to supply Northern Ireland from Wales. And we are avoiding all cross-border trade. "We can see this as an opportunity because other companies importing into the UK will have to pay duties. Whereas we will be making it over there and supplying the market." O'Connor hopes to launch in the US within the next six months. "It is highly competitive and we are doing competitive analysis and have taken on Ogilvy as our marketing partners," he said. "The opportunity for us in the States is endless. It's just a matter of how we go about it and being clever." The company plans to launch in New York and 'prove' the product before rolling it in the rest of the States. It has hired a number of former senior staff members from Lifes2Good, which sold its hair supplements business Viviscal to Dwight & Church in 2017 for 150m. Tom Tierney, ex-CFO of Lifes2Good, is a consultant to Revive Active, for example. The company is expanding its range and has just launched Zest Active, aimed at 20- to 35-year-olds. O'Connor, who has a background in finance services, said that he became involved in the supplements business 'by accident'. After working for a number of banks, he set up his own financial services business in 2005 but his interest in supplements was piqued at a time when he was seeking a career change. "I was looking for something new to do, I wanted a change out of banking." O'Connor pulled together a team of health and nutrition experts, launching the business in 2011. "I said 'let's try and make the best product possible." Pharmacies and health food shops were supportive from an early stage and customers reacted well to the product, with demand growing steadily. "It was really small beginnings but the confidence grew from there." He raised 1m in 2013 from private investors through an EIIS scheme, all of which has since been bought out. When the company launched in 2011, it employed two people and that number will hit 35 by the end of this month. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 15) House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. on Tuesday presented more evidence that allegedly prove that the construction firm owned by the in-laws of Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno is involved in anomalous transactions. He said several contractors approached him after the House panel hearing in Naga City to expose Aremar Construction Corporation, the firm owned by the Hamors of Sorsogon. The solon presented five alleged bank deposit slips from Landbank amounting to over P81 million paid to the firm by supposed dummy contractors. "A total of P81 million deposited to the bank account of Aremar. Payment for DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) projects, payment made by Aremar's dummy corporation," Andaya said during the House Committee on Rules hearing into the alleged anomalies in the Budget Department. The biggest amount among the bank deposit slips he showed was P22.3 million and he noted the total amount breaches the P50 million plunder point. Under Philippine law, plunder is committed when a public officer, by himself or in connivance with other persons, pockets from government coffers an amount totalling at least P50 million. He said winning contractors, such as CT Leoncio, only receive the royalty fee worth 3-5 percent of the project cost, while the rest goes to Aremar. "Hindi si CT Leoncio ang gumagawa nito. Dummy lamang siya ng ibang contractor na may kapit sa matataas na tao sa DBM (Department of Budget and Management) at DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways)... Ang bulto talaga ng mga proyekto napupunta sa mga contractor sa ibaba na may kapit sa itaas," he said. [Translation: It's not CT Leoncio that's doing this. It's only a dummy of other contractors who has strong connections with high officials at the DBM and DPWH. The bulk of the projects actually go to these contractors which have connections.] Andaya said Aremar only paid P15,000 worth of taxes despite all the projects it has bagged. 'Not an in-law' of the Budget chief The biggest shareholder of Aremar is Casiguran Mayor Edwin Hamor. Andaya earlier questioned Diokno's allocation of P385 million to Casiguran for flood-control projects. During the House hearing, Hamor denied being an in-law of Diokno, and that his town was being favored by the Budget Department in terms of project funding. Rep. Andaya previously questioned how Aremar was allowed to corner billions of pesos worth of infrastructure projects despite being a small company. "Di ko po alam ang tawag diyan pero gaya ng sinabi mo kanina, kung kaano-ano ko, wala po," Hamor addressed the House Majority leader. [Translation: I do not know what to call it, but like you said earlier, if we're related, we're not.] The mayor told lawmakers he's not related to the Budget Chief since Diokno's son-in-law, Romeo "Jojo" Sicat Jr. is not his biological child. Sicat is the son of Hamor's wife, Sorsogon Vice Governor Ester Hamor, from a previous marriage. Hamor said he is not close to Diokno nor any of his wife's children from her previous marriage. He added he only named Sicat as an Aremar incorporator for legal purposes, and due to the insistency of his partner. "Bago po ito naitayo, dumaaan po ito sa away naming mag-asawa dahil ang gusto niya isama kahit ang isa sa mga anak na hindi lumaki sa poder ko. Kaya po napasama diyan si Jojo Sicat para walang gulo. Pero kinausap ko si Jojo pati yung mga kapatid na hindi ka talaga dito kasali," Hamor told lawmakers. [Translation: Before the company was established, this went through a quarrel between me and my wife because she wanted me to include one her children. That's why Jojo Sicat was included there. But I already talked to Jojo and his siblings that they were not really part of this.] CNN Philippines Correspondent Xianne Arcangel contributed to this report. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has been urged to "stand firm" over the backstop after British MPs voted down the proposed withdrawal deal. British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plans were rejected by 432 votes to 202 by the House of Commons on Tuesday night. Amid the resulting uncertainty over how the United Kingdom will leave the European Union, Sinn Fein president Mary-Lou McDonald pressed the Taoiseach to stand firm on the backstop. "Ireland's people, Ireland's economy and Ireland's peace process all need to be protected as we go forward now," she said. "The Taoiseach and the Tanaiste and our partners at a European level need to stand firm and not move away from or attempt to dilute the backstop. "We need to say clearly to the British that if they wish to Brexit then that's a matter for themselves but any Brexit agreement needs to recognise, understand and protect the people, the economy and the peace process on this island." Speaking earlier on Tuesday, Mr Varadkar said he hoped MPs in the Hose of Commons would vote in favour of the Withdrawal Agreement, but emphasised "it is a matter for them". He added: "I don't think it would be in Ireland's interest for me to be interfering in their internal politics." Meanwhile, the DUP said welcomed the result of tonight's vote, saying it is "in the best interests of the entire United Kingdom." DUP Leader Arlene Foster backed the decision to reject the Withdrawal Agreement. She said: "The House of Commons has sent an unmistakable message to the Prime Minister and the European Union that this deal is rejected. "Mrs May will now be able to demonstrate to the Brussels negotiators that changes are required if any deal is to command the support of Parliament. "We will work with the Government constructively to achieve a better deal. That is our focus. Whilst some may wish to use this defeat to boost their political ambitions, we will give the Government the space to set out a plan to secure a better deal. "Reassurances whether in the form of letters or warm words, will not be enough. The Prime Minister must now go back to the European Union and seek fundamental change to the Withdrawal Agreement. "We want an orderly exit from the European Union with a sensible deal which works for Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom." Ireland's credit rating looks secure thanks to the economys very robust fundamentals, credit ratings agency Moodys believes - even with the risk of a "hard Brexit". The unknowns from Brexit have risen, with Prime Minister Theresa May looking set for a heavy defeat in a vote on her proposals to leave the European Union later on Tuesday. Despite the enhanced risks, we see Ireland in a pretty strong and stable situation, sovereign risk analyst Sarah Carlson told a presentation in Dublin. Carlson said that Ireland did need to build up budget reserves to offset the risks from being a small open economy. Moodys rates Ireland A2 and believes that a no deal Brexit would knock 4pc points off UK growth over the longer term, although its central case is not for a cliff edge exit. It did not model the impact of a no-deal exit on Irelands growth. British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyns plan to try force a general election is doomed to failure, his Irish counterpart has said. But Brendan Howlin has said that a failed attempt to collapse the UK government could result in Mr Corbyn finally backing a second referendum. Speaking ahead of what is likely to be an intense day of activity in both the House of Commons and Leinster House, Mr Howlin said his UK colleagues are set to push for a general election in the coming hours. He said that based on current predications that power grab is likely to fail. After that what will the British Labour Party do? According to the resolution that was agreed at conference, they will then be in a position to support a second referendum and I certainly would that is what they will do. Ultimately though, Mr Howlin said it is anybodys guess as to what will emerge in the next 24 hours. He said the Irish Government needs to up the ante in terms of its no-deal preparations. Ministers are meeting in Dublin to discuss a range of contingency areas including medical supplies and transport. Mr Howlin said the Government must not attempt to keep any of the plans secret. Meanwhile Fianna Fail has indicated the party will support any emergency legislation required to mitigate against the worst of Brexit. The partys finance spokesman Michael McGrath said they will give whatever time is required in the Dail and Seanad. The Irish Independent revealed this morning that the Governments legislative plan for the next three months includes just six pieces of priority law that are not directly related to Brexit. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will propose a Brexit omnibus to the Dail in March, consisting of at least 17 pieces of legislation. Mr McGrath said: From our perspective in Fianna Fail, we have been crystal clear that we will support the national interest, we will support legislation in this House that is designed to protect Ireland insofar as we can from the worst affects of Brexit. However, he added that there can be no suggestions of rushing critical, emergency legislation through at the last moment. Expansion: Combilift managing director Martin McVicar aims to double the size of the company over the next five years Combilift managing director Martin McVicar said he is confident about dealing with the Brexit challenge, but warned the UK's departure from the EU will cost Irish business and industry money. The Co Monaghan-based, forklift manufacturer, which had a turnover of 235m in 2017, is a classic example of a company fully exposed to a Brexit fall-out. "The biggest problem at the moment is uncertainty," said Mr McVicar. "The sooner any business has clarity, the better. When we know the outcome, we will figure out a solution," he added. Mr McVicar warned of the negative consequences of a hard Brexit on the Irish economy, because so many companies rely on business with the UK. However, he said he was confident that Combilift products would still be in demand there. But he said UK companies also would be hit hard, potentially facing World Trade Organisation (WTO) tariffs of 4.5pc for his products "and that is only one example". Combilift exports 98pc of its products - 25pc to the UK. It made 6,000 forklifts last year, and the raw materials used in their manufacture originate either in the UK or transit through the country. The company relies heavily on trucks, which are a cheaper mode of transport than containers, for both its imports and exports. But Mr McVicar told the Irish Independent that in a Brexit scenario, filling containers with goods exclusively for Combilift would make more sense, but that they would be more costly. To ease out some of the red-tape associated with Brexit, Combilift has applied to become an Authorised Economic Operator (AEO), a status that will give the company authority to transit its own goods through customs more freely At current output level, they would need about 47 containers a week to import raw materials and another 47 leaving the country with the finished product, destined either for the UK or an EU port such as a Rotterdam for onward transit. "It is going to cost more," he said. "We can only absorb so much; it is going to cost the client more in the longer term." Despite Brexit uncertainty, the company - which has more than 600 staff - remains in expansion mode. It expects to recruit about 100 more employees over the next year. However, Mr McVicar acknowledged that there was no way of anticipating the Brexit repercussions on his markets. Combilift, which is 20 years old, has more than doubled in five years. Mr McVicar, who has ruled out an IPO, plans to double it again over the next five years, based on a strategy of innovation and new markets. Funding that ambition will come from ploughing profits back into the business. Prime Minister Theresa May listens to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn speaking after losing a vote on her Brexit deal in the House of Commons, London. Tuesday January 15, 2019. Photo: PA Wire British Prime Minister Theresa May has suffered one of the heaviest UK Parliamentary defeats in modern history as her Brexit deal was unanimously rejected this evening. Barely two-and-a-half months before Britain is due to leave the European Union, May's defeat now paves the way for a range of outcomes, to leaving the EU with no deal or holding another referendum that could halt Brexit. She now has until January 21 to set out a Plan B - expected to involve going back to Brussels to seek further concessions, with the clock ticking on the scheduled date of Brexit in just 73 days on March 29 . 432 MPs voted against Theresa May's withdrawal agreement, while 202 voted yes, resulting in a majority of 230. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tabled a motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister which is to be debated tomorrow. Mr Corbyn told the House of Commons that Mrs Mays catastrophic defeat represented an absolutely decisive verdict on her Brexit negotiations. Mr Corbyn said the confidence vote would allow the House of Commons to give its verdict on the sheer incompetence of this Government. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close 'People's Vote' supporters dance and listen to speeches during a demonstration in Parliament Square on January 15, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) British MPs pack the chamber at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the UK Prime Minister's Brexit deal in the House of Commons, London Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire Britain's opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn attends the debate in Parliament ahead of the vote on British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via REUTERS Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on her Brexit deal in the House of Commons Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire Caricatures of Conservative politicians are driven past the Houses of Parliament on January 15, 2019 in London (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament on January 15, 2019 in London, England (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) A placard with Chairman of the European Research Group Jacob Rees-Mogg's face (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) Protesters demonstrate on the day that MP's vote on Theresa May's Brexit deal, in Parliament Square (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Pro-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) Prime Minister Theresa May is congratulated by a Conservative MP at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on her Brexit deal Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire Britain's Attorney General Geoffrey Cox addresses Parliament ahead of the vote on May's Brexit deal UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via REUTERS Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn listens at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal in the House of Commons Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire British Prime Minister Theresa May is seen in Parliament ahead of the vote on May's Brexit deal, in London UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via REUTERS SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford speaks at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire Sir Edward Leigh MP asks a question about his amendment at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal in the House of Commons Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire House of Commons Speaker John Bercow speaks at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire John Baron MP begs to move his amendment at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp 'People's Vote' supporters dance and listen to speeches during a demonstration in Parliament Square on January 15, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) In Dublin, the Irish government urged the UK to set out its next steps following the humiliating defeat suffered in the House of Commons tonight, saying it heightens the risk of a no-deal Brexit. The government said it regrets the outcome of the vote in Westminster, which it says will add to uncertainty about the nature of Brexit and also ruled out again any idea that the withdrawal agreement could be re-opened. The Irish Government recognises, however, that a disorderly Brexit is a bad outcome for everyone, not least in Northern Ireland. It is not too late to avoid this outcome and we call on the UK to set out how it proposes to resolve this impasse as a matter of urgency, the statement reads. Seconds after the UK government's defeat was announced, European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted: "If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?" Following the vote, Theresa May said: "The House has spoken and the government will listen." She offered cross-party talks with MPs across the House to determine a way forward. DUP Leader Arlene Foster MLA said the outcome was in the "best interests of the entire United Kingdom". "The House of Commons has sent an unmistakable message to the Prime Minister and the European Union that this deal is rejected," she said. "Mrs May will now be able to demonstrate to the Brussels negotiators that changes are required if any deal is to command the support of Parliament. "We will work with the Government constructively to achieve a better deal. That is our focus. Whilst some may wish to use this defeat to boost their political ambitions, we will give the Government the space to set out a plan to secure a better deal. "We want an orderly exit from the European Union with a sensible deal which works for Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. The European Union will now intensify its preparations for a scenario in which Britain leaves the bloc without a withdrawal agreement, the bloc's chief executive and Belgium's prime minister said on Tuesday. "The risk of a disorderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom has increased with this evening's vote," Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in a statement following the British parliament's rejection of a Brexit deal with the EU. "While we do not want this to happen, the European Commission will continue its contingency work to help ensure the EU is fully prepared," he said. Belgium's Prime Minister Charles Michel said on Twitter his country was also stepping up its planning for a Brexit no-deal. Moments before the crunch vote, Mrs May told MPs: "Parliament gave the people a choice, we set the clock ticking on our departure and tonight we will determine whether we move forward with a Withdrawal Agreement that honours the vote and sets us on course for a better future. "The responsibility of each and every one of us at this moment is profound, for this is a historic decision that will set the future of our country for generations." May reached the agreement with EU leaders in November, envisioning continued close ties with the bloc. The EU has repeatedly said it is not up for meaningful renegotiation. Meanwhile, the DUP said welcomed the result of tonight's vote, saying it is "in the best interests of the entire United Kingdom." DUP Leader Arlene Foster backed the decision to reject the Withdrawal Agreement. She said: "The House of Commons has sent an unmistakable message to the Prime Minister and the European Union that this deal is rejected. "Mrs May will now be able to demonstrate to the Brussels negotiators that changes are required if any deal is to command the support of Parliament. "We will work with the Government constructively to achieve a better deal. That is our focus. Whilst some may wish to use this defeat to boost their political ambitions, we will give the Government the space to set out a plan to secure a better deal. "Reassurances whether in the form of letters or warm words, will not be enough. The Prime Minister must now go back to the European Union and seek fundamental change to the Withdrawal Agreement. "We want an orderly exit from the European Union with a sensible deal which works for Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom." British finance minister Philip Hammond, business minister Greg Clark and Brexit minister Stephen Barclay are due to hold a conference call with business leaders at 9pm. The pound swung wildly on the back of the defeat of Theresa Mays Brexit deal in the House of Commons. The currency dropped to its lowest level versus the euro all day, before recovering those losses in minutes and jumping further upward after Mrs May spoke in the House of Commons. 1 hovered around the 89p level, breaking through to a 0.4pc gain for the day as a whole just after 8.20pm. The seeming indifference to the vote being lost is an indication that investors were expecting Mrs Mays defeat. Analysts expect the currency to be volatile given the uncertainty that lies ahead. As MPs voted, noisy crowds of pro- and anti-Brexit protesters in Parliament Square could be heard inside the Palace of Westminster. With additional reporting from the Press Association and Reuters PEOPLE have been warned not to stock up on their medicines in order to avoid shortages in the case of a no deal Brexit. According to the Health Minister the government is not anticipating an "immediate impact" on medicines in the event the UK crash out in March. Additional stocks are already in place and planning is underway with Revenue to allow the fast-tracking of essential drugs into Ireland post-Brexit, according to the Government. An official statement from the Department of Foreign Affairs, who are taking the lead on Brexit, has warned: "It is important to note that there is no need for hospitals, pharmacists or patients to order extra quantities of medicines, as doing so could disrupt existing stock levels and hamper the supply of medicines for other patients." Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close 'People's Vote' supporters dance and listen to speeches during a demonstration in Parliament Square on January 15, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) British MPs pack the chamber at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the UK Prime Minister's Brexit deal in the House of Commons, London Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire Britain's opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn attends the debate in Parliament ahead of the vote on British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via REUTERS Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on her Brexit deal in the House of Commons Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire Caricatures of Conservative politicians are driven past the Houses of Parliament on January 15, 2019 in London (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament on January 15, 2019 in London, England (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) A placard with Chairman of the European Research Group Jacob Rees-Mogg's face (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) Protesters demonstrate on the day that MP's vote on Theresa May's Brexit deal, in Parliament Square (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Pro-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images) Prime Minister Theresa May is congratulated by a Conservative MP at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on her Brexit deal Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire Britain's Attorney General Geoffrey Cox addresses Parliament ahead of the vote on May's Brexit deal UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via REUTERS Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn listens at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal in the House of Commons Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire British Prime Minister Theresa May is seen in Parliament ahead of the vote on May's Brexit deal, in London UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via REUTERS SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford speaks at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire Sir Edward Leigh MP asks a question about his amendment at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal in the House of Commons Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire House of Commons Speaker John Bercow speaks at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire John Baron MP begs to move his amendment at the conclusion of the debate ahead of a vote on the Prime Minister's Brexit deal Photo credit: House of Commons/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp 'People's Vote' supporters dance and listen to speeches during a demonstration in Parliament Square on January 15, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Taxation, the single electricity market and healthcare are all areas that will be addressed in a so-called omnibus bill. Cabinet agreed a bill which comprises of 17 parts covering a broad selection of sectors today. It will be brought to the Houses in March if a no-deal Brexit looms at that point. The Tanaiste Simon Coveney is meeting with Opposition leaders this afternoon to brief them on the latest contingency plans and the legislation needed. Special procedures may be used to get the bill through on time before the March 29 deadline. There will be 14 legal acts at EU level that will need to be adopted by the EU Commission if there is a cliff edge Brexit. Mr Coveney and Health Minister Simon Harris said work is being done to maintain the Common Travel Area with the UK. New bilateral arrangements with the UK to ensure the maintenance of the Common Travel Area have been agreed and are "ready to go". The CTA allows free movement of citizens between the two countries and provides for social protection and the ability of students to study in both Ireland and the UK at the minute. A bilateral agreement between UK and the EU is needed as Brexit will disrupt the way the it operates with new arrangements needed to ensure it continues as before when the UK leaves the European Union. Agreements have been reached on how to do this including including a Memorandum of Association on education and an international treaty on social protection, and a separate agreement on health care. These will maintain the CTA "deal or no deal" the Tanaiste Simon Coveney said. He said the CTA provides for more than free movement and operates as almost a mutual recognition of citizenship in many ways. Mr Coveney said a 'mega-bill' providing for the contingency legislation will require the co-operation of all Opposition parties, and said "politics will be tested here". He also reiterated that he does not believe a no-deal is a likely outcome. Mr Coveney said he would be surprised if the Opposition did not work with the Government on getting the contingency legislation through and said the Government will be "open and fair" with them. Areas such as fisheries need to be teased out further in order for no deal preparation. He declined to be drawn on plans to avoid a hard border in the event of no deal and said commentary by opponents to the backstop came from people who had no solution as to how to avoid one in the absence of a backstop. He said problems cannot be wished away and that British Prime Minister Theresa May has issued a strong defence of the backstop on that basis. Meanwhile, in relation to transport preparedness Minister Ross could not confirm if there are plans to hold a test similar to what was done near Dover to assess the potential tailbacks in the event of a no deal Brexit. However, he said he would be surprised if the inter-departmental working group on Brexit had not considered it. He also said he was "absolutely confident" normal services will continue between Ireland and the UK after March 29. But work is ongoing to identify products which may be affected by disruption to Ireland's transport links. Meanwhile, shipments of goods between the UK landbridge and Europe are likely be delayed under a hard Brexit. The Government says while plans are being developed to provide additional customs and agriculture checks at Dublin and Rosslare ports, the scale of the checks required will likely result in delays for goods moving through the ports. In an update published this evening, the Government says it discussed connectivity with the UK and on Ireland's reliance on the UK landbridge at this morning's cabinet meeting. It says some 21bn of trade with the EU crosses from Irish ports to the UK and then into EU ports, and vice versa. This trade is largely in time-sensitive products such as agri-food, where the shorter journey times and high frequency of sailings allow a quicker and more viable route to market than direct sailings to the continental ports, it says. It adds that trade is currently frictionless as it is all within the single market. But with the UK potentially leaving the EU on March 29, "substantial additional customs, agriculture health controls will be required at ports and airports that involve trade with the UK." The main pinch points are expected to arise in Dublin, Rosslare and Dover-Calais. Work is underway to provide the physical infrastructure needed to complete these checks, but it adds that delays are likely. There is a focus on preventing congestion through the provision of appropriate measures, it adds. Following consultation with shipping companies, Transport Minister Shane Ross said he believed there is sufficient capacity available on direct routes to the EU from the end of March, and that additional demand can be provided at short notice. The minister will however keep this under review and report back to Government with a further assessment before end February, the note adds. Ministers will today agree to essentially freeze work on all new laws as they bid to get ahead of a chaotic no-deal Brexit. Just six pieces of non-Brexit related legislation have made it to the Government's priority list for the new term, the Irish Independent understands. This is an acknowledgement that British Prime Minister Theresa May faces a crushing defeat when the Withdrawal Agreement is put to a vote in the House of Commons today. In a last-ditch bid to win support for the deal, Mrs May warned a no-deal Brexit would make a united Ireland, Scottish independence and the break-up of the UK more likely. "And to those who think we should reject this deal in favour of no deal, because we cannot get every assurance we want, I ask what would a no-deal Brexit do to strengthen the hand of those campaigning for Scottish independence - or indeed those demanding a border poll in Northern Ireland? Surely this is the real threat to our union," she said. But her career is now on the line yet again as the Labour Party prepares to table a no-confidence motion in her government. Expand Close Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at the Fine Gael think in last night. Photo: Frank McGrath / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at the Fine Gael think in last night. Photo: Frank McGrath The Government will today discuss "one of the biggest pieces of legislation" ever produced in this country. A decision will be taken to severely curtail all new legislative plans. Among the tiny number of exceptions will be bills to allow for referendums on divorce and granting votes to Irish citizens overseas next May. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar also confirmed to the Irish Independent last night that legislation to establish a tribunal as an alternative to court for women affected by the CervicalCheck scandal will be prioritised in the weeks ahead. The current plan is to build an agenda based around Brexit until the end of March. The outlook beyond that is uncertain. Mr Kyne indicated ministers would have to accept that individual plans within their departments will have to be sidelined in order to facilitate Brexit contingencies. "Other legislation will not be possible except some bills that are perhaps very near final drafting," he said. The plan is to have a "single omnibus bill" which will cover all the legislative aspects required for Brexit. Mr Varadkar insisted yesterday that a no-deal Brexit remains "unlikely" but admitted "we need to be prepared for it nonetheless". "I shouldn't pretend to anyone that any country can be fully prepared for Brexit, there is no good Brexit and a no-deal Brexit will have a very significant impact on Ireland, Britain and Europe. "We will be prepared, but I'm not going to say to you that everything is going to be fine, of course there will be interruptions and negative impact but we'll be as prepared as we possibly can be." The so-called omnibus will include 17 pieces of legislation that will be wrapped in together for debates in the Dail and Seanad. It will be published at the end of February and the Oireachtas may hold late-night sittings if required "in the national interest". Four separate Brexit memos will be brought to Cabinet. Tanaiste Simon Coveney will have two looking at overall preparations and the continuation of the Common Travel Area between Ireland and the UK. Transport Minister Shane Ross will update colleagues on work at ports and airports. Sources say the greatest concern now centres on Rosslare, where at least 13 inspection bays are needed for trucks coming off ships. A dedicated border control point for live animals is also planned, while public offices will also be needed. Health Minister Simon Harris will deliver an update on the HSE's efforts to ensure there is no disruption to medical supplies. The HSE and the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), which regulates medicines, have been holding weekly planning meetings for the best part of two years. Speaking yesterday, Mr Harris said a "huge amount of contingency work has been undertaken". "I want to reassure patients there are plans in place and we will be able to continue to supply medicines. This country is doing everything it possibly can to be prepared for a no-deal Brexit." A spokesman for the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association, representing large branded drug companies, said: "The industry is investing heavily in ensuring that we are prepared, as best we can, for every eventuality. That means reorganising supply chains and revising regulatory approvals so that delays getting medicines to patients are avoided." However, Medicines for Ireland, the representative group for the largest suppliers of medicines to the HSE, called on the Government to establish a medicines contingency stakeholder group to mitigate the risk of medicines shortages both now and in a post-Brexit scenario. It comes after the EU issued a clarification of how it sees the backstop working. In a letter, EU chiefs Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker stressed they were "not in a position" to rewrite or amend the Withdrawal Agreement which was secured by Mrs May last year. But they assured the prime minister that the EU "does not wish to see the backstop enter into force". The EU presidents said they want negotiations on a close future relationship between the EU and UK "to start as soon as possible". They said the Brexit deal "represents a fair compromise and aims to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, thereby limiting the negative consequences of Brexit". The German government has denied reports Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested the EU could offer extra concessions - including a time limit on the backstop - if British Prime Minister's Brexit deal is voted down in Westminister. The Sun reported that Mrs Merkel suggested that the EU could offer more concessions if, as expected, the Withdrawal Agreement fails to get through the House of Commons. The report said this could include persuading Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to agree an end date to the backstop to avoid a hard border in Ireland. According to the Bloomberg news agency the German government has denied the report. On Twitter its political correspondent in Berlin, Patrick Donahue, quoted a German government spokeperson as saying: "The Chancellor in no way offered guarantees beyond what was discussed at the December European Council". There was also said to be no guarantees beyond what was contained in Tuesday's letter from Donald Tusk and Jean Claude Juncker. A mother-of-three who was seriously injured in a collision last Friday has tragically passed away. Anne Grogan, who was in her early 30s and from Ballinlough, Co Roscommon, died at University College Hospital Galway on Monday evening. Her car was involved in a crash with a lorry and van. Ballyhaunis Community School, where Anne worked as a teacher, paid tribute to their "much loved" member of staff. "It was with great sadness that we learnt of the tragic passing of our dear friend and colleague Anne Grogan," the school said in a statement on its website. "Anne was a much loved member of the school community, admired and respected by both students and staff alike. We will miss Annes dedication and professionalism as a teacher but above all we will miss her kindness and her warmth as a good friend." She is survived by her husband and three children. Her funeral Mass will take place on Friday in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Ballinlough. The funeral of Dawn Croke (inset) took place in Dungloe in Donegal. Photo: Colin O'Riordan Brother Kevin Crowley has told how heroic Donegal teacher Dawn Croke made a lasting impression when she visited the Capuchin Centre with her students. Dawn was with her students from the Rosses Community School, who visited the centre before Christmas to hand over a 1,000 donation which they had fundraised. From Dungloe, Dawn (32) was struck by a pick-up truck in the schoolyard of St Cronas National School last Thursday evening, and was buried on Monday. Her last act was to push the six-year-old daughter of her partner Patrick McHugh away from the vehicle. Expand Close Pat The Cope Gallagher and his wife Ann pictured at the funeral of Dawn Croke at Dungloe, Co. Donegal today. PIC COLIN ORIORDAN / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Pat The Cope Gallagher and his wife Ann pictured at the funeral of Dawn Croke at Dungloe, Co. Donegal today. PIC COLIN ORIORDAN Br Kevin said he had met Dawn and the students, and "it was a great occasion.". "She was full of life and full of joy, and so were all the kids with her, and the other teachers," Br Kevin recalled. They had rung up in advance to organise the visit, having been visiting Deputy Pat "The Cope" Gallagher in the Dail first. "He met them there, and then they came here and made a donation. It was a very pleasant occasion," he said. Expand Close Tragedy: Dawn Croke saved the life of her partners daughter but was killed when she had to step into the path of the 4x4 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Tragedy: Dawn Croke saved the life of her partners daughter but was killed when she had to step into the path of the 4x4 Br Kevin said that he talked to Dawn about the work they do at the centre. "She was a lovely person, full of life, full of chat, full of cheer." "We were very saddened when we heard of the news. Pat "The Cope" phoned us the morning after the accident to tell us," he said. Read More "Our prayers and wishes go to her family, and her little children and her partner and her parents," he said. He paid tribute to the great work that had gone into the fundraising by the group, and the effort that was put in by the teachers, including Dawn, to bring the kids along to the centre for the visit that lasted about three quarters of an hour. The teenagers were very dignified and respectful and were a great credit to their teachers, he said. "We talked to them and told them about the plight of the homeless people, and the difficulties that they were experiencing and what we do here for them, and how we try to help them. " Meanwhile, the current Mary from Dungloe has spoken of how she was inspired and privileged to have known Dawn. Caroline ODonnell was one of hundreds of people who crammed into St Cronas Church to say a final farewell to the mum-of-two yesterday. Ms ODonnell, who is also from Dungloe, won the overall title of Mary from Dungloe last year, ten years after Dawn was chosen to be the Dungloe Mary. Caroline posted on social media: "She was indeed one of the most beautiful people Ive ever met, and even more beautiful on the inside. I dont think Ive ever met Dawn and she hadnt a smile on her face. "She was taken far, far too soon. She was so humble and never boastful about how accomplished she was, or how truly amazing and inspiring she actually was. "But she was amazing, inspiring and she accomplished so, so, much." Growing up in Dungloe, Caroline revealed how she watched in awe as Dawn inspired so many young girls in so many ways. Caroline marvelled at how Dawn was a lifeguard, a member of the local GAA team, a model, a teacher and how she even swam the English Channel. She added that above all else, Dawn was cool. "Being good friends with her brother, Ive always noticed the way he talked about her, he adored the ground she walked on. Obviously the most amazing sister anyone could ask for. "She was ridiculously cool! I always remember thinking that as her younger brothers friend, she was always the coolest person in my eyes, and always treated me so kind, no matter how annoying I was." And she revealed how Dawn had helped her to become the Mary from Dungloe winner. "She was so, so, kind. She gave everything to every single thing she done and was involved in. I was chatting to Dawn after I was picked as the Dungloe Mary last year, exactly 10 years after she was the Dungloe Mary. "She was never boastful, and so humble. Neither of us wouldve been "the girliest" of girls, we laughed, how the hell were we picked as Marys. "But I honestly couldnt think of a better person than Dawn to have ever represented our town. I feel so privileged and lucky to have known Dawn." There was disappointment in Dublin city centre after a planned protest against the Irish leader was called off early due to low turnout. The protest, under the slogan Not My Taoiseach, was organised on social media as a planned demonstration against Leo Varadkars policies. The organising page on social media stated: Come and stand in solidarity with those affected by his bad management and poor decisionscome stand with those affected by his words and his complete lack of compassion for the people of Ireland. Expand Close Gardai on duty outside Leinster House (Niall Carson/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Gardai on duty outside Leinster House (Niall Carson/PA) The demonstration, which had more than 2,000 respondents say they were attending on Facebook, saw around 30 people gather outside Leinster House. Despite the small turnout, a large number of Gardai blocked off the roads surrounding the main gates to Leinster House, and erected barricades along Kildare Street. Lisa Breslin, 33, from Brittas, said: Im a little bit disappointed at the low turnout but what we have to take from today is the fact that the government heard the guards have blocked every road and we made an impact. It would be much better if there were more people on the street. People are very upset and concerned but thats the problem in Ireland, we can all be angry and upset but we dont get out and put our faces in front of the Dail. I feel its been slightly successful. The van that was carrying the sound equipment was stopped and its not here so Im not sure what happened. We have no sound equipment or signage now for this protest. Expand Close A woman holds a sign saying Leo Out in Irish during a protest outside Leinster House (Niall Carson/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A woman holds a sign saying Leo Out in Irish during a protest outside Leinster House (Niall Carson/PA) Christi, who didnt want to give his surname, is a 47-year-old from Dublin, and claimed Mr Varadkar only cares about one section of society. This is about fighting for the rights of the Irish people and I came here to stand up for our rights, my rights and my daughters rights, he said. The Taoiseach just looks after the rich people, he doesnt care about us and the lower class people. Its getting out of hand. We need new people in government there must be another solution to this. James Redmond, 61, who travelled from Wicklow, said: I dont like the way things are going on in this country, and the way the Taoiseach is running the government. Id like to see them get rid of the government and bring in someone new. After the protest, organisers online thanked those who had turned out, and noted that many of those who said they would attend may have had work or other commitments on a Tuesday afternoon. The Taoiseachs office has been approached for comment. After the sun sets in Westminster, MPs filed through parliaments division lobbies and voted down Theresa Mays proposed deal with the European Union. It has become conventional wisdom to imagine that this situation was inevitable that the contradictions inherent within Brexit caused it to collapse under the strain of its impossible promises. But this calamity was not destiny: it has, in fact, mark one of the gravest failures of statecraft since the creation of the British state in 1707. Mays premiership has been characterised by almost unprecedented errors of diplomacy, negotiating strategy with the EU, governing style and domestic political strategy at home. In the immediate aftermath of Britains vote to leave, there was a profound feeling of shock, sorrow and regret among European leaders. There was a determination to limit the damage to the unification project and a desire to keep Britain close. Before long the mood began to change: European capitals were aghast at the appointment of Boris Johnson as foreign secretary, a role that he was manifestly ill-suited for. He quickly launched a British diplomatic effort to divide and conquer European capitals in the summer of 2016 seeking to identify and play to narrow national interests but it failed and only served to further damage trust. But the real turning point came with Mays now infamous citizens of nowhere speech to Conservative Party conference. It marked the starting point of British politicians speaking to domestic audiences in nationalistic rhetoric without understanding the damage they were doing to relationships with their European counterparts. Within a few short months, almost all the goodwill towards the UK had evaporated. Rather than seeking to rebuild trust, May and her ministers doubled-down on alienating other EU countries. In addition to antagonising other heads of government in public, she proved incapable of building rapport in private. She simply repeated the same hackneyed soundbites, unable to offer the reassurances that Britain would be a reliable partner in the future. After her Florence speech, May toured European capitals with nothing more to say and nothing more to offer. But perhaps the most decisive intervention came not from May but from her chancellor. In January 2017 Philip Hammond threatened aggressive tax cuts and deregulation if Britain were not given what it wanted in the negotiations. This threat was a costly mistake: Britains historic allies in northern Europe suddenly saw the UK as a future threat rather than a partner that they hoped to keep engaged in the arena of European diplomacy. By their actions, the UK government had reframed Brexit from continuing our close relationship on a different basis to a matter of containment of the British threat to the European project. Once it was clear that the objective was divergence, the stringent provisions of the withdrawal agreement became a near-inevitable outcome. Despite the rhetoric, more astute British politicians recognised that the UK would enter the negotiating period without much leverage. What little leverage we had was rapidly squandered in perhaps the single most destructive decision of the whole process. The UK government agreed that the negotiations would be divided into a negotiation about the withdrawal first, and that the future partnership would only be negotiated once we had left. Perhaps without realising it, May had signed up to a blank Brexit we would leave the EU with no certainty about our future relationship with our largest trading partner. This was a catastrophic error that will send the UK into purgatory. If the withdrawal agreement were to pass, at the end of 2021 the UK will face the choice of accepting the EUs terms for a trade deal, extending the transition at the cost of 22bn for a further two years, or entering the backstop. Commentators on both sides of the Brexit divide claim that the UK triggered Article 50 without having a plan. This is simple untrue: Mays Lancaster House speech of January 2017 set out the governments negotiating position clearly. The problem was not that there was no plan. The problem was that it was a bad plan, based on ignorance of economic reality especially surrounding the complex supply chains that criss-cross the channel with a heavy dose of arrogance and jingoism. Mays vision was for the hardest Brexit imaginable, setting red lines that would create a distant relationship. A year later, May and her team were doing everything imaginable to try and unpick Lancaster House: the Chequers proposal to stay in the single market for goods and in a de facto customs union was a messy attempt to undo this catastrophic error. But it was too little, too late, and immediately rejected by the EU. By this stage, Brussels had lost patience with the May government the political declaration on the future partnership offers very little. Its merely a scrap of paper with no legal force. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The same weaknesses that exposed May in Europe fatally undermined her premiership at home. Her secretive and controlling governing style antagonised her ministers and backbench MPs just as it did her European counterparts. With a small majority, she behaved like a prime minister who was unassailable, contemptuous of all before her. Her rebuke came not from her colleagues but from the public through the 2017 general election, where she watched an enormous poll lead slip away. Just as May failed to build rapport with her European counterparts, she failed to develop a relationship with the British people, refusing to listen to their concerns about austerity or seek the losers consent by negotiating a Brexit deal that worked for the whole country. Despite constant claims of commitment to the union, she showed almost no respect for the devolved governments nor indeed for the trades union movement or wider civil society. Astonishingly, May proved as contemptuous of parliament having lost her majority as she was when she had one. There was no attempt to reach out to opposition parties, even though it was predictable that she might need their votes to get her deal through the Commons. Instead, Downing Street has attempted to threaten MPs on all sides, simultaneously warning of no Brexit or no deal. It is rare that any people respond well to threats, especially those that involve self-harm. By all accounts, the Cabinet were not treated much better, kept in the dark about the negotiations. And so, when May finally pulled a dead rabbit out the hat in November it was little surprise that it was received so poorly. Moreover, almost nothing was done to attempt to persuade anyone of its merits. Shockingly, the withdrawal agreement was published at 8pm on a wet November evening with no explanation of what was in it, what it might achieve, what compromises had been made or why. It later emerged that the business groups who had been briefed in advance had been misled. It was as if May sincerely believes that she alone is the arbiter of the national interest and that it should be self-evident that she is right. Looking back, it is not hard to imagine a very different path. A more skilled prime minister would have accepted the referendum decision but recognised that the result was close. Brexit could have been defined as a political departure that need not be an economic rupture. Rather than amplifying division, she could have sought to have healed a divided nation. Our relationship with the EU would be on a different basis, she would have said, but we would remain friends and allies. If the objective had been set as alignment and partnership, negotiating capital could have been focused on securing Britains voice in European decision-making, while recognising that it would not be able to carry the same weight as full members of the EU. A less divisive and more strategic prime minister would have invested in building trust across all sides, and negotiated an agreement that reflected the priorities of those who voted for Remain as well as Leave and voted for other political parties too. Instead, we are confronted by multiple crises political, economic and social that could have been avoided. Tom Kibasi is director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and founder of the IPPR Commission on Economic Justice Judging by the polling evidence, a small but consistent majority of people favour a second referendum to resolve the current crisis over Britains relationship with Europe. The divergence between this and the house views of most traditional media outlets is quite striking. Of the national titles, only The Independent has given its unequivocal support to such an outcome, although The Guardian has come close with its call for peoples assemblies that it admitted could very well lead to a fresh poll. The remainder have either backed Mays deal, with more or less tepidity, or a no deal with the exception of the Daily Mirror, which is in tune with the Labour leaderships desire for a general election that probably wont resolve anything and, as things stand, is unlikely to happen. The London-centric media is often said to be out of touch with the world outside the M25. Id suggest that the gulf has seldom been as wide as it is today, at least on this issue. Whichever way you look at it, the views of such a substantial portion of the British population have one only one, or perhaps two, outlets in what one might describe as the mainstream media. Brexit Withdrawal Agreement: How might MPs vote That could be considered worrying. It surely cant be a good thing at such a polarised time that such a substantial portion of the population is being ignored by the majority of Her Majestys press even though it is probably true that many if not most readers of the right-leaning titles (including The Sun, the Daily Express, the Daily Mail and the The Daily Telegraph) would, on balance, reject a Final Say referendum on Theresa Mays Brexit deal. It might, for example, help to explain why the prime minister feels she can refer to what the British people want when a little over half of them clearly dont want what she wants. In fact its substantially more than half when people are specifically asked about her dismal deal. Or maybe the PM is simply, as the wonderful Captain Ska accused in its chart smash, a Liar Liar? Her last-ditch attempt to persuade MPs to back her deal certainly gave weight to that accusation. It backfired after a pre-briefed extract of her speech contained a false claim about a previous referendum. More than two decades ago, the public vote held on the creation of a Welsh Assembly was backed by a small majority. After being elected to parliament in 1997, she nonetheless voted against a bill that sought to implement the result. On the other hand, you could consider the situation as rather refreshing. Despite or perhaps even because of a relentless stream of hysterical headlines railing against the EU, accusing MPs of plotting coups when exercising the parliamentary sovereignty this was all supposed to be about, and declaring judges who insist ministers follow the law to be enemies of the people, the people seem unmoved. They certainly have a rather better understanding of democracy than the fourth estate, whose job it is to defend it. That theyve proved willing and able to formulate their own views, even though they conflict with a sizeable majority of those found within the non-broadcast media, is welcome. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events But perhaps the traditional media just isnt as influential as it thinks. Its worth noting the latest Pindex video on Brexit voiced by Stephen Fry, another supporter of a peoples vote, went live today. The first went viral with more than 1.3 million views and counting. The aforementioned Captain Ska is set to join in with a follow up to Liar Liar advocating a referendum on Wednesday. Dont like what you see in the papers (or on their websites)? There are alternatives. Being employed by the one outlet to consistently go against the grain over a second referendum certainly feels good to me. Whether enough MPs will be swayed remains to be seen. They are mostly from generations that still take the views of the traditional media rather more seriously than their children do. They should have a care, though. If the polls, and The Independent are right, theyll be at odds with the electorate if they dont give it a Final Say. Theyll not be thanked if they pay heed to the media over it and it all ends it tears, as looks all too likely. Brexit is dead. It is time to read the last rites. We have lived with it for so long, argued about it so vociferously, loved it, hated it, grown bored by it, been scared by it, we can hardly believe it has gone, slipped away into the political afterlife. But parliament killed it stone dead. Whatever fragments of the Monty Python sketch come to mind, you can recite them on the Brexit cadaver, lying lifeless beneath its perch. Its over. Theresa Mays deal was, in essence, a version of soft Brexit. It has entered the history books as the deadest of dead potential legislation. It is beyond resuscitation. She doughty and resilient and persistent as she is has recognised as much. She now wants to reach out to the previously untouchables in order to concoct some new deal. It wont be the so-called no-deal Brexit, trading on World Trade Organisation terms. As MPs have already indicated, with a warning shot over an obscure vote on the finance bill, there is no majority for this idea. It is confined to the 40 to 100 hard Brexiteers hanging around Jacob Rees-Mogg, Dominic Raab and John Redwood. All honourable and patriotic people, all limited in their House of Commons appeal. They might even be right, with their vision of Britain as the low tax, high enterprise Singapore of Europe. But it lacks parliamentary support, to say the least. Indeed there is an overwhelming majority against it. It will be ruled out in due course. That Brexit, despite what Boris Johnson might have told you, has never been truly alive. Which leaves few remaining options, if youll pardon the pun. One is the Norway of Norway plus idea. This means staying in all the EU's economic structures including the single market and customs union. It leaves Britain technically outside the EU, but a vassal state, a sort of colony with no votes in the council of ministers or the European parliament. Nominally we honour the result of the 2016 referendum because we technically leave the EU. It is Brexit in name only. The EU would not let us use it as a departure lounge until we worked out how to do proper Brexit. Utterly pointless. Recommended Theresa May should have resigned after her crushing Brexit defeat Er, so that leaves Remain, so to speak. Or, more fairly to all, Remain versus Leave in a proper referendum. Now we know that Leave really would mean Leave, it is a perfectly respectable option, though economically damaging. Remain also means Remain, as the EU says the UK can cancel Article 50 and stay in on the old terms. There are no more versions of Brexit left, except the ones MPs trot out that the EU have said, many times, they will not accept, such as the variations on Canada and the like. Indeed, Theresa May, Geoffrey Cox and many others with direct knowledge have said that all such alternatives to her now deceased Brexit plan are unicorn ideas, fit only for dreaming swingers. Correct. Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters All that is left is to give Brexit, RIP, a decent burial, and for Britain to realise that it isnt big enough to get what it wants. This was not a betrayal of Brexit, a personal failure by May, or an establishment plot. Brexit failed because the EU was ten times bigger than we were and was never going to give the UK under May, under Boris, under Corbyn, under Farage for that matter anything like an acceptable Brexit that wouldnt wreck the economy. Maybe they are big fat bullies; but, as Ricky Gervais once observed, the best way to deal with a bully is not to stand up to them, but to try to be in their gang. Turkeys president announced his country had won US approval to establish a 30-kilometre safe zone in Syria along its border to keep groups it regards as terrorists away from its frontier, a plan that could put Ankara into armed conflict with Americas Kurdish partners. A safe zone that will be created in Syria by us alongside the Turkish border, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech before parliament, saying he had won American co-operation for the deal during a 14 January phone call with US president Donald Trump. Mr Trump in a tweet on Sunday threatened to devastate Turkey economically if it struck Kurdish militias that had fought alongside US forces in the four-year battle against Isis in Syria, but also called vaguely for a 20-mile safe zone. The cities of Qamishli and Kobani and several other key population centres controlled by Syrian Kurdish forces lie within 20 miles of the Turkish border, and it remains unclear how the US or Turkey would convince them to vacate territories they won from Isis and the Damascus regime of Bashar al-Assad and want as part of their autonomous Kurdish homeland in Syria. The US presidents tweets prompted angry responses from senior Turkish officials. But Mr Trump and Mr Erdogan were apparently friendly during a phone call the following day. Recommended The US should understand that the real threat to peace is Erdogan Some messages given from Mr Trumps social media account have upset me and my friends, Mr Erdogan said on Tuesday. We immediately acted and we discussed those issues with him on the phone again last night. It was a quite positive conversation. The two leaders exchanged views on the creation of a terror-free safe zone in northern Syria on the basis of Syrias territorial integrity, said a Turkish readout of the conversation provided to international journalists. Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Khaled Alawi stands with his daughters in front of his home in an informal settlement for Syrian refugees in Akkar, northern Lebanon Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A Syrian refugee child looks from his makeshift shelter at Qab Elias Syrian refugee camp in the Bekaa valley EPA Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Children play in front of a shelter in Akkar Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Syrian refugees Jose Ahmad al-Jessi, a mother of eight in her 50s, and her daughter Raghad, stand in the doorway of a shop warehouse, where they fled to when their tent flooded on Tuesday Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Khaled Alawi surveys the damage to his shelter in Akkar Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Syrian refugees sit inside their makeshift shelter in the Bekaa valley EPA Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A young boy stands in front of his shelter in Akkar Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A Syrian refugee child plays with snow outside their makeshift shelter in the Bekaa valley EPA Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A Syrian refugee shovels mud in front of a makeshift shelter follwoing rain storms in the Bekaa valley AFP/Getty Images Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A shelter in Akkar Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Syrian refugee children play with snow outside their makeshift shelter in the Bekaa valley EPA Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A Syrian refugee family pumps water after heavy rain in the Bekaa Valley AP Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Syrian refugee children play outside their family tents after a heavy rain at a refugee camp in the town of Bar Elias, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley AP Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A flooded road leads to an informal settlement for Syrian refugees in Akkar Richard Hall/The Independent Following a 14 December phone call with Mr Erdogan, Mr Trump stunned Washington, the world and close US allies, including the UK and France, by declaring a withdrawal of 2,200 or so American troops and hundreds of private contractors from northeastern Syria. But his aides, including the hawkish national security adviser John Bolton, have been trying to add conditions to the US withdrawal, including safety for the Peoples Protection Units, or YPG, a Syrian Kurdish armed force loyal to Abdullah Ocalan, founder of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, that Ankara, Washington and the EU consider a terrorist group. Erik Prince suggests private army to replace US troops in Syria According to the Turkish readout of Mondays phone conversation, Mr Trump and Mr Erdogan agreed to deny opportunities to all elements that seek to stop the withdrawal decision from being implemented. Turkish officials were uncharacteristically understated in response to Mr Trumps bellicose threat against their economy, perhaps growing immune to the US presidents Twitter eruptions. The phone diplomacy between Erdogan and Trump seems to have softened the air, journalist Murat Takan wrote on Twitter. Trump is like a bull in a china shop. Because Erdogan is aware of this, he immediately activated phone diplomacy. Mr Trump had numerous business dealings with key Turkish figures before he became president. After the threat to devastate Turkeys economy, Mr Erdogan said Mr Trump agreed to triple trade between the two countries from $22.4bn (17.5bn) to $75bn (59bn), the official Anatolia news agency reported. At least eight children have died at a refugee camp in southern Syria due to a lack of access to medical care and freezing temperatures. Rukban camp, a sprawling mass of tents on the border with Jordan, has been largely cut off from essential food and supplies for a year amid a struggle for control over the strategic area between rival powers in Syrias civil war. The United Nations childrens agency said the manmade crisis that has blocked the camps 45,000 residents from receiving medical care has contributed to the death of at least eight children in the past month, most of them under four months old. Extreme cold and the lack of medical care, for mothers before and during birth and for new infants, have exacerbated already dire conditions for children and their families, said Geert Cappelaere, Unicef regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. The lives of babies continue to be cut short by health conditions that are preventable or treatable. There are no excuses for this in the 21st century. This tragic manmade loss of life must end now, he added. Recommended Hundreds at risk of starvation in besieged Syrian border camp Meanwhile, in eastern Syria, another seven children have died while fleeing fighting in the last Isis-held area of the country. The UN said families escaping heavy violence in the Hajin area of Deir Ez-Zor are forced to wait in the cold for days without shelter or basic supplies. Rukban camp lies in an area ostensibly controlled by the US military, which operates a base nearby. But access on the ground is blocked by Jordan on one side and Syrian government forces on the other. Complicating things even further are a number of armed factions operating inside, which has made securing aid deliveries extremely difficult. Jordan closed access to aid deliveries in 2016 following a deadly cross-border attack launched from the camp, and suspects Isis sleeper cells are still present there. The camps residents 80 percent of whom are women and children, according to the UN had only been surviving on food smuggled in overground from other parts of Syria, but the Syrian army closed off those routes in October, making an already dire situation worse. Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Khaled Alawi stands with his daughters in front of his home in an informal settlement for Syrian refugees in Akkar, northern Lebanon Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A Syrian refugee child looks from his makeshift shelter at Qab Elias Syrian refugee camp in the Bekaa valley EPA Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Children play in front of a shelter in Akkar Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Syrian refugees Jose Ahmad al-Jessi, a mother of eight in her 50s, and her daughter Raghad, stand in the doorway of a shop warehouse, where they fled to when their tent flooded on Tuesday Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Khaled Alawi surveys the damage to his shelter in Akkar Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Syrian refugees sit inside their makeshift shelter in the Bekaa valley EPA Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A young boy stands in front of his shelter in Akkar Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A Syrian refugee child plays with snow outside their makeshift shelter in the Bekaa valley EPA Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A Syrian refugee shovels mud in front of a makeshift shelter follwoing rain storms in the Bekaa valley AFP/Getty Images Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A shelter in Akkar Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Syrian refugee children play with snow outside their makeshift shelter in the Bekaa valley EPA Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A Syrian refugee family pumps water after heavy rain in the Bekaa Valley AP Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Syrian refugee children play outside their family tents after a heavy rain at a refugee camp in the town of Bar Elias, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley AP Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A flooded road leads to an informal settlement for Syrian refugees in Akkar Richard Hall/The Independent In the past year, only two aid deliveries have made their way through to the camp, the last of which was in November. As well as closing the border to aid deliveries, Jordan only allows the most serious medical cases to cross for treatment, which has caused preventable health issues to become critical. More than a dozen people have died of malnutrition and lack of access to healthcare in a year. Among the victims were a five-day-old boy and a four-month-old girl who were unable to enter Jordan to reach a hospital, according to Unicef. The difficulties faced at Rukban are being felt elsewhere, too. Devastating winter weather has made life unbearable for the millions of Syrians living in camps and tents inside and outside of the country. In northern Syria and across the border in Lebanon, rains have flooded camps and snow has blanketed tents. An estimated 5.6 million Syrians have fled the country as refugees, and 6.2 million are displaced within Syria. Half of that number are children. Unicefs Mr Cappelaere said that more deaths are inevitable if nothing is done. Without reliable and accessible healthcare, protection and shelter, more children will die day in, day out in Rukban, Deir Ez-Zor and elsewhere in Syria. History will judge us for these entirely avoidable deaths, he said. Private military contractors could replace US troops withdrawing from Syria, Blackwater founder Erik Prince has suggested. The former security firm chief said contractors could protect US allies and counter Iranian influence after the US leaves the country. The United States doesnt have a long-term strategic obligation to stay in Syria. But, I also think its not a good idea to abandon our allies, he told Fox Business. The allies to which Mr Prince refers are the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a mostly Kurdish militia that has been a key partner of the US in the fight against Isis in Syria. President Donald Trump abruptly announced that the US would withdraw troops from Syria last month, prompting many in his own administration to express concern that a quick exit would endanger those allies, and threaten to derail the fight against Isis. The decision caused Mr Trumps defence secretary, Jim Mattis, to resign. The SDF said a US withdrawal would leave it open to attack from Turkey, who views it as a terror organisation. Mr Prince said using contractors would allow Mr Trump to keep his campaign promise to end forever wars, and still leave behind some protection. But the former navy Seal suggested that the danger to the SDF came from Syrian and Iranian forces, rather than Turkey. American history is filled with public and private partnerships, of places that the private sector can fill those gaps, where a very expensive military probably shouldnt be, Mr Prince said. If there is not some kind of robust capability to defend from a ground invasions from the very conventional power that the Iranians and the Syrians have, our allies will be smashed, Mr Prince said. 14 Iraqi civilians were killed in an incident in Baghdad involving Blackwater contractors in 2007 (AP) His comments suggest some confusion over the shifting alliances of the Syrian battlefield as the US prepares to exit. The SDF view Turkey as a much greater threat than Damascus. As the US withdrawal comes closer to reality, the group has sought negotiations with the Syrian government to allow the return of the Syrian army to some areas in order to prevent a Turkish incursion. Blackwater, the company founded by Mr Prince in 1997, received hundreds of millions of dollars in US government contracts during the Iraq and Afghan wars, providing support for US forces and guarding officials and installations. But the company found notoriety for a 2007 incident in which four of its guards killed 14 Iraq civilians in Nisour Square, Baghdad. Three of the men were convicted of manslaughter in 2014, and another of murder. The case brought intense scrutiny to the use of American private military contractors in Iraq. Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Khaled Alawi stands with his daughters in front of his home in an informal settlement for Syrian refugees in Akkar, northern Lebanon Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A Syrian refugee child looks from his makeshift shelter at Qab Elias Syrian refugee camp in the Bekaa valley EPA Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Children play in front of a shelter in Akkar Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Syrian refugees Jose Ahmad al-Jessi, a mother of eight in her 50s, and her daughter Raghad, stand in the doorway of a shop warehouse, where they fled to when their tent flooded on Tuesday Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Khaled Alawi surveys the damage to his shelter in Akkar Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Syrian refugees sit inside their makeshift shelter in the Bekaa valley EPA Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A young boy stands in front of his shelter in Akkar Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A Syrian refugee child plays with snow outside their makeshift shelter in the Bekaa valley EPA Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A Syrian refugee shovels mud in front of a makeshift shelter follwoing rain storms in the Bekaa valley AFP/Getty Images Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A shelter in Akkar Richard Hall/The Independent Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Syrian refugee children play with snow outside their makeshift shelter in the Bekaa valley EPA Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A Syrian refugee family pumps water after heavy rain in the Bekaa Valley AP Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures Syrian refugee children play outside their family tents after a heavy rain at a refugee camp in the town of Bar Elias, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley AP Lebanon storm hits Syrian refugee camps in pictures A flooded road leads to an informal settlement for Syrian refugees in Akkar Richard Hall/The Independent In the years after, the company underwent several name changes and Mr Prince eventually sold its assets to a group of private investors. Mr Princes pitch for a mercenary force in Syria follows a similar proposal to privatise the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan. In 2017, The New York Times reported that Mr Prince had been tasked by then advisor to Mr Trump, Steve Bannon, to come up with an alternative to sending more troops to the country. Mr Prince had donated $250,000 to Mr Trumps presidential campaign the year before. His plan involved a force of 6,000 private contractors, made up of former US and European special forces, and training for Afghan troops, running to a cost of around $5bn a year. The plan reportedly found a receptive audience in Mr Trump, who has grown frustrated with the spiralling costs of the 17-year conflict. Irans attempt to launch a satellite failed to reach orbit, the countrys telecommunications minister has said. The rocket carrying the Payam satellite failed to reach the necessary speed in the third stage of its launch, Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi told Iranian state television. Mr Jahromi said the rocket had successfully passed its first and second stages before developing problems in the third. He did not elaborate on what caused the failure, but promised that Iranian scientists would continue their work. It came after Iran ignored US warnings to avoid undertaking three planned rocket launches Washington said would violate a UN Security Council resolution because they use ballistic missile technology. The US is concerned the long-range ballistic technology used to put satellites into orbit can also be used to launch missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Payam failed to reach necessary speed in third stage of its launch (Reuters) In Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu promptly condemned the launch, accusing Tehran of lying and alleging that the innocent satellite was actually the first stage of an intercontinental missile Iran is developing in violation of international agreements. Iran, which considers its space programme a matter of national pride, has said the launches and missile tests were not violations and would continue. Payam was intended to be used for imaging and communications purposes and was mounted with four cameras, according to a report on the telecommunications ministrys website. It was intended to stay at an altitude of 500km for approximately three years. The Payam satellite was seen in the sky after it was launched, and had successfully passed its first and second stages before developing problems in the third (Reuters) (REUTERS) It is one of two satellites Iran plans to send into orbit, the other named Doosti. Payam means message in Farsi, while Doosti means friendship. Over the past decade, Iran has sent several short-lived satellites into orbit and in 2013 launched a monkey into space. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Iran usually displays space achievements in February during the anniversary of its 1979 Islamic Revolution. This year marks the Middle East nations 40th anniversary of the revolution amid increasing pressure from the US under Donald Trumps administration. Additional reporting by agencies On a narrow back street in Barcelona, locals and African asylum seekers laugh over shared plates of steaming chicken and rice as Afro-beat and Hispanic soundscapes fill the air. They are celebrating outside La Teixidora, a squat dubbed Casa Africa, on Carrer Maria Aguilo in the neighbourhood of Poblenou, known as the Manchester of Catalonia for its historic industrial past. Warehouse parties, underground raves, graffiti artists and squatters have given the district a new lease of life over the past couple of decades and Casa Africa itself is a symbolic pillar of social solidarity in the area. The Independent visited during a celebration lunch after members of the citys many solidarity networks helped prevent the eviction of the squat by a landlord who allegedly planned to build tourist apartments there. Three people have been arrested in Poland after calling for more killings in light of the assassination of the mayor of Gdansk. The countrys interior ministry says police made the arrests on Monday after Pawel Adamowicz was stabbed and killed. Mr Adamowicz, a popular liberal figure who had been elected for six terms, was murdered while on stage during a charity event. Joachim Brudzinski, Polands interior minister, described those arrested as unbalanced and said they were internet trolls. He did not elaborate on whose murder the people were calling for. Flags flew at half-mast across Poland, and mourners attended public vigils, signed condolence books and laid tributes, including at the spot the politician was stabbed in Gdansks old town. Recommended Poland mayor stabbed on stage in attempted assassination Mateusz Morawiecki, the countrys prime minister, and his cabinet reportedly stood for a moment of silence before their weekly meeting. Mr Adamowicz was an independent mayor, who was previously a member of the centre-right Civic Platform party. Civic Platform is the main opposition to the right-wing populist governing party Law and Justice. The mayors assailant has been identified by Polish authorities as 27-year-old Stefan W from Gdansk. He left prison in December, where he served over five years for bank robberies. The killing has sparked political controversy in Poland, with some blaming the governing Law and Justice party for the killing because of its history of using polarising rhetoric, including against the victim. Others have pointed to claims Stefan W had mental health problems and a criminal record. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Public broadcaster TVP caused controversy on Monday after it ran a report on its main evening news programme that selectively showed clips of Civic Platform politicians using harsh language against their Law and Justice opponents. Critics noted that the report omitted many examples of similar aggressive language by Law and Justice officials. Germanys domestic spy agency will investigate the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to determine the extent to which it has right-wing extremist motives, it has been reported. The AfD, Germanys main opposition party, has been flagged as a case to investigate by the spy agency BfV, due to their suspected ties to extremists. The anti-Europe party stands on a nationalist platform and has been repeatedly accused of antisemitism and Islamophobia. Germany's constitution contains strict safeguards against extremism, allowing for the close monitoring and even the outlawing of far-left or far-right parties. The BfV will look at public statements made by AfD members and their emerging links to the far-right right identitarian movement, which says it wants to prevent cultural assimilation in Europe, according to a 450-page report seen by German newspaper Der Tagespiegel. The investigation is unlikely to involve full-on surveillance of the AfD. A BfV spokesman said he could not confirm the report, but did say the agency would hold a news conference on the matter. German foreign minister Heiko Maas alluded to the report on Twitter. "Whoever discriminates against people on the basis of their origins is being racist and nationalist. Parts of the AfD are a case for the domestic intelligence office," he tweeted. "But observing them won't solve the problems. Above all we need to deal with the AfD objectively and politically." World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty In September, the German state of Thuringia said it would examine whether a regional group of the AfD was pursuing unconstitutional goals. This followed comments by Bjoern Hoecke, a state AfD leader, in which he decried Germany's main memorial to Holocaust victims as a "monument of shame". The states of Lower Saxony and Bremen have also said their own security services will look into the party due to suspected ties to extremists. The European Commission has proposed scrapping member states veto on tax policy, in a move that could see levies imposed on EU countries against their will. Brussels says the requirement of unanimity for tax policy is out-dated and that moving to a system of qualified majority voting would help speed up the legislative process. The bloc has struggled to agree ambitious policies such as a tax on US tech giants because of opposition from low-tax countries such as Luxembourg and Ireland. The idea was immediately rejected the Irish government, with a spokesperson saying it does not support any change being made to how tax issues are agreed at EU level. Launching the policy in Strasbourg on Tuesday, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said he was strongly in favour of moving to qualified majority voting and a stronger voice for the European Parliament on the common future of taxation in our Union. EU budget commissioner Pierre Moscovici said: The EU has had a role in taxation policy since the origins of the Community six decades ago. Yet if unanimity in this area made sense in the 1950s, with six Member States, it no longer makes sense today. The unanimity rule in taxation increasingly appears as politically anachronistic, legally problematic and economically counterproductive. I am fully aware of how sensitive an issue this is, but that cannot mean that the discussion is off limits. So lets begin this debate today. As well as broader tax policies, the Commission wants to be able to react more quickly to scandals such as Luxleaks, and also end the practice of member states giving sweetheart deals to multinationals. The proposal would need to get past the European Parliament and European Council, where it is expected to face opposition. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty To make the move more palatable the Commission has suggested a gradual move, with policies on tax fraud and evasion moving to qualified majority first. The veto would the be ended on tax policies linked to other goals such as fighting climate change or improving public health. Other policy areas, such rules governing corporation tax and VAT, would follow - with final implementation expected to be around 2025. The official reason more than a million fish have died in a river in Australia is the hot dry weather, which has caused drought in New South Wales among other areas. Amid the arid conditions, large algal blooms have drawn the oxygen out of the water, killing all the fish in stretches of the Darling River. Tides of dead fish are now lining the banks where they are rotting quickly in record breaking temperatures which have seen parts of New South Wales facing an entire week over 40C, and highs of 46C in the area where the fish died. A clean-up operation is underway, but water experts have warned that more fish are likely to die as the heatwave conditions continue. Critics of the local government argue the impacts of the drought have been significantly exacerbated by management decisions in the river basin, in which numerous dams, locks and weirs control the flow of water through the river. Irrigation systems also draw water from the river for agricultural use. Recommended Mysterious mass fish deaths spark alarm in Australia In response to the crisis, the New South Wales government has said it is planning to mechanically pump oxygen into lakes and rivers with solar-powered aerators. Minister for regional water, Niall Blair, conceded the aerators are a quick-fix for a bigger problem. They are a Band-Aid solution we admit that, Mr Blair told reporters. Nothing will stop this fish kill unless we get proper river flows and water levels in our dams back up to normal. We are doing everything we can to try and limit the damage, he said. But it has emerged that the New South Wales government reduced funding for the river management system by 60 per cent in 2013. The basin-wide programme monitored the health of fish in the river and included a strategy for sustained commitment of 50 years with a goal of restoring fish-stocks to 60 per cent of what it was before the arrival of Europeans on the continent, according to The Guardian. Since the cuts, the native fish strategy has been abandoned, maintenance has been delayed and audits of the environment have not been carried out. This has meant local governments have had less information with which to make policy decisions regarding the health of the basin. Murray cod at least 70 years old are among the native species which have died. The New South Wales opposition government has said it will set up a special commission of enquiry the equivalent of a royal commission in the UK to examine what happened and how to prevent it occurring again in future. Australian National University water expert Dr Daniel Connell said irrigation of crops had played a role in the deaths. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Its a very predictable crisis, Dr Connell said. He said taking water from the system for irrigation had likely contributed to the poor water quality in rivers as well as the drought which is impacting most of New South Wales. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events By massively reducing the amount of water in the system, you produce much hotter water you produce conditions that are much more conducive to algal blooms, he said. Sake Dean Mahomed was just 25-years-old when he brought the tastes and cultures of his homeland to England, effectively creating a centuries-long love affair for Indian cuisine across Great Britain. The entrepreneur had a life filled with firsts, becoming the first Indian author to publish a book in English, as well as the first person to open an Indian restaurant in London. He called it the Hindoostane Coffee House. Located in Portman Square, London, the restaurant was billed as a high-quality dining experience in 1810 by The Epicures Almanack, then one of the most popular British restaurant guides. Mr Mahomeds Hindoostane Coffee House was perfect for the nobility and Gentry, according to the guide, where they might enjoy the Hookha with real Chilm tobacco and Indian dishes of the highest perfection. Mr Mahomed's plan had been to serve Indianised British food which would appeal to the Indian aristocracy in London as well as British people who had returned from India, he said. The Indian aristocracy however would not come out to eat in the restaurant because they had chefs at home cooking more authentic food. However, the entrepreneurs unprecedented success did not stop when his restaurant was forced to declare bankruptcy just two years after opening. Mr Mahomed then opened a luxury bathhouse called Mahomeds Baths, catering to an elite clientele while offering revolutionary services for the British. He launched the bathhouse in Brighton, providing therapeutic massages he nicknamed shampooing, deriving from a Hindi word that translates to head massage. The herbal steam baths and therapeutic massage techniques became a regular part of life for Englands royalty, including the Prince of Wales, George IV and later William IV. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Mr Mahomed would eventually be referred to as The Shampooing Surgeon of Brighton, releasing a book in 1822 titled, Shampooing or Benefits Resulting from the use of Indian Medical Vapour Bath. The book became a bestseller. Mr Mahomed would go on to have his portrait hang in the Brighton Museum and was credited with merging Indian and British culture in the early 1800s. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events On Tuesday, Google celebrated Mr Mahomed for his first book penned in English exactly 225 years after its release. A man of many talents, Sake Dean Mahomed was an entrepreneur who made a name for himself by building cultural connections between India and England, Google wrote in a blog post announcing its latest Doodle appearing at the top of international search results. On this day in 1794, he became the first Indian author to publish a book in English and later, to open an Indian restaurant in Englandushering in what would become one of Great Britains most popular cuisines. An Indian woman who made history by entering an ancient Hindu temple has allegedly been beaten with a wooden plank by relatives, for breaching its ban on female worshippers. Kanaka Durga claims that she was assaulted by her mother-in-law after she returned home following a period in hiding. She was admitted to hospital with minor head injuries after the attack, according to The Times of India. A police investigation into the assault has been opened. The 39-year-old became one of the first two women to enter the Sabarimala temple, which is among India's holiest Hindu sites, on 2 January. Temple staff maintain that women of menstruating age - defined as between the ages of 10 and 50 - are banned from praying at Sabarimala. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty But the south Indian state of Kerala, where the temple is located, was thrown into uproar after India's Supreme Court overturned the ban in September 2018. Kerala's left-wing government has supported the ruling, which has been welcomed by feminists, but temple officials have resisted it. In January police officers escorted Kanaka Durga and another woman, Bindu Ammini, into the site under the cover of darkness. They are the first women in history to enter Sabarimala. As the news broke, violent protests swept Kerala and a state-wide strike was called. One person was killed and 15 injured in the unrest. The demonstrations have become a point of contention between the state's political parties, with India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporting the temple's ban on women. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Ms Durga, who works for a company owned by Kerala's state government, did not tell her family about her visit to Sabarimala. She has remained in hiding since the trip, fearing retribution from extremists, but returned to her husband's home as her holiday leave ended. Her family was previously unaware of her whereabouts. A Pakistani university is attempting to rebrand Valentines Day as Sisters Day by distributing headscarves and shawls to female students. The University of Agriculture in Faisalabad (UAF), in central Punjab province, said the move was an attempt to encourage Eastern culture and Islamic traditions among the youth. Valentines Day has become increasingly popular in many cities in Pakistan in recent years, but religious groups have denounced it. In 2017, the country prohibited all public celebrations and any media coverage of the event, saying the celebration was not part of Muslim traditions. In our culture, women are more empowered and earn their due respect as sisters, mothers, daughters and wives, the institutions vice-chancellor, Zafar Iqbal, said on the universitys website. We were forgetting our culture, and Western culture was taking root in our society, he continued. Recommended Pakistan International Airlines tells cabin crew to lose weight UAF was mulling a plan to distribute scarves, shawls and gowns printed with the UAF insignia among female students on February 14, the statement on the site added. The vice-chancellor said Sisters Day has been conceived with the aim of promoting respect for women. Unlike in the West, our religious values encourage respect for women and guarantee protection of their rights, Mr Iqbal said at a university event last week. He said that although some Muslims have turned Valentines Day into a threat, his thinking is that if there is a threat, convert it into an opportunity. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The attempt to relaunch Valentines Day as Sisters Day has been criticised by some on social media. Faisalabad University, if you are so concerned about your sisters well being, why dont you pledge to allow them to inherit equally. I bet that would mean more to them than this monkeys tail of a day, tweeted one critic. This is completely irrational. Like celebrating Sisters Day wont stop people from doing what they want to do, creating an opposite event to the existing one will only increase its value. If your purpose is to stop it, it wont, added another user. Last year, Pakistans media regulator warned TV and radio stations against promoting the holiday which is celebrated annually on 14 February. Qandeel Baloch, a Pakistani social media celebrity, reacted by posing in a plunging scarlet dress and posting a video message rebuting his call. Baloch was brutally murdered by her brother later that year. Recommended Valentines Day sees huge increase in dating and romance scams There have been localised bans of the festival by councils in previous years but these are said to have been largely ignored. Although street vendors sell flowers and balloons and restaurants offer special deals for two on Valentines Day, conservative religious groups fear the day could encourage obscene behaviour and see it as a festival of immorality, detriment to the tradition of the marriage and an assault on Muslim values. The largest gathering of people anywhere in the world began in India on Tuesday, as thousands of pilgrims bathed in waters at the confluence of the countrys most sacred rivers the Ganges, the Yamuna and the dried-up Sarasvati. Over the course of the 55 days of the Kumbh Mela festival, organisers estimate that the number of bathers will surpass the record attendance of 120 million set in 2013. Such a gathering has been a major undertaking for both local and central governments, and with a general election looming in a few months time has received particular attention from the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP party of Narendra Modi. The festival sees Hindus renew themselves with a dip in the Sangam, the confluence a site which rotates between four locations every three years. This year, the main gathering is taking place in Prayagraj, a city that was renamed recently from Allahabad by a state government keen to emphasise the countrys Hindu heritage over its period of Muslim rule under the Mughal emperors. And the states religious affairs minister, Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary, claimed that it was the first time since independence that all the holy men and pilgrims attending Kumbh Mela had been properly catered for. For though this years Kumbh is less religiously significant than the one which occurs every twelfth year, the government has shelled out an estimated 43 billion rupees (500m), hoping to impress and energise Hindu voters as well as draw visitors from around the world. Thousands of portable toilets lined roads that were constantly swept clean on Tuesday, drinking water flowed from newly installed taps and electric substations powered a massive tent city as the festival area spread to a sprawling 45km diameter. The spectacle began in earnest before dawn, with the first in a series of holy baths led by the iconic naga sadhus holy men who made their way down to the river naked, their bodies covered in ash Statista The Kumbh Mela is yet to draw tourists or international attention in the same way as some other Hindu festivals. Nonetheless, there were foreign visitors among the gathered crowds. It is surreal, said Manuel Matthaus, from Germany, of the ash-covered holy men. I had always heard about them, he told the Hindu newspaper, describing them as one of the reasons we wanted to come to the Kumbh. I did plan to take the bath, he added. But I guess the water now is too freezing for my linking. Maybe later in the evening. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events One concern for international visitors will be the environmental conditions at the festival site. A thick haze of toxic dust hung over Prayagraj for the start of festivities, according to the Associated Press, and PM 2.5 levels were measured at more than six times the World Health Organisations safe limit. The dust plumes encompassing the camp came from the sandy riverbanks, said city commissioner Ashish Goel, and not from construction, which has been banned for the duration of the seven-week festival. Nonetheless, they highlight the struggle the central government faces in tackling Indias air pollution crisis. Also this week, Mr Modis government has unveiled its plan to clean up the countrys air but allocated just 3 billion rupees (33m) to the cause over the next two years, less than a tenth of the cost of the festival itself. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Kumbh Mela draws pilgrims from across the socio-economic spectrum, with accommodation options stretching up to luxury glamping tents costing some 400 a night. But with the scale of expenditure, this year's public provisions were at an unprecedented level. "I go to holy sites very often, but I'm used to them being very dirty. I have never seen this level of cleanliness measures at any other holy city," said Gita Mishra, 58, one of the guests at a public tent near the banks of the river. Mili Mishra, a teacher from Prayagraj who was with her husband and two sons, said: "We are not earning a livelihood. We think that if we bathe here, God can change our life. A scientist has been eaten by a 16-foot crocodile after she reportedly slipped and fell into the giant predators enclosure. Deasy Tuwo, 44, is thought to have died on Friday while attempting to feed the animal at the CV Yosiki Laboratory in the village of Ranowangko on Indonesias North Sulawesi Island. Police said the scientist had fallen into a breeding pool at the site, where the crocodile proceeded to pounce on her. Only half of her remains were recovered. One of Tuwos colleagues, Erling Rumengan, 37, said he had been shocked to discover her body when he arrived at the laboratory on Friday morning. We were curious when we looked at the crocodile pool, there was a floating object, it was Deasy's body, he told the local Tribun Manado newspaper. We were afraid to touch it and reported the incident at the police station. Another laboratory worker, Nasran, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name, described Tuwo as a quiet and meticulous person. He expressed confusion as to how the experienced scientist, who he had often allowed his son to accompany as she fed the crocodiles, had fallen victim to such an accident. Local media reported the crocodile, which was named Merry, measured more than five metres (16 feet 5 inches) from head to tail and had been a pet of the laboratorys Japanese owner. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Raswin Sirait, police chief in the nearby city of Tomohon, said the animal had been anaesthetised before being removed from the enclosure. He added authorities were trying to locate the owner of the crocodile and determine whether he had a licence to keep the giant reptile as a pet. We are still looking for the owner of the crocodile, he told reporters. Headbands that monitor concentration by reading brain signals have been trialled on thousands of Chinese schoolchildren. The devices could soon be used on millions of students across China, according to the US tech company which designed them. Massachusetts-based start-up BrainCo says its Focus 1 headbands can help teachers identify pupils who need extra assistance. However, neuroscientists have questioned the devices effectiveness and the technology has also raised privacy concerns. The headbands use electroencephalography (EEG) sensors to detect brain activity when the wearer is engaged in a task. Recommended Device that can literally read your mind invented by scientists The devices were worn by 10,000 schoolchildren aged between 10 and 17 during a recent trial in China, according to New Scientist. Teachers monitored pupils attention using an app which received information from the headbands. Lights on the front of the devices also show different colours for varying concentration levels, flagging to staff if students are not paying attention. Students also played a smartphone game aimed at improving their concentration for 25 minutes at home each day. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty BrainCo founder and chief executive Bicheng Han said the trial led to improved grades among participants, who also needed to spend less time on homework. The company has signed a deal to provide 20,000 headbands to a Chinese distributor. "Our goal with the first 20,000 devices, each of which will be used by multiple students in schools, is to capture data from 1.2 million people," Mr Han. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events However, the China study's results have not been published in an academic journal and scientists have voiced doubts about the technology. Russell Barkley, clinical professor of psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University, said any improvements were likely to be caused by the placebo effect. "Its from parents expectation, not the products, he said. William Barr has told Congress that he would protect Special Counsel Robert Muellers probe of Russian election meddling from political pressure, despite his past criticism of the inquiry. Donald Trumps nominee to become the next attorney general was grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday during his first day of confirmation hearings. He faced questions about his sweeping views on executive powers, prison sentencing, antitrust enforcement and other issues he would encounter as head of the Justice Department. Mr Barr, who was attorney general under President George Bush in the 1990s, also faced questions about an unsolicited, 19-page memo he wrote last year that called Mr Muellers probe fatally misconceived for examining whether the president obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey in 2017. It does raise questions about your willingness to reach conclusions before knowing the facts, and whether you prejudge the Mueller investigation, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the committees top Democrat, said as the hearing began. The nominee said his memo from last year did not question the legitimacy of the probe as a whole, but only expressed concerns that the special counsel might be improperly interpreting one aspect of the law. I think it was entirely proper, Mr Barr said, saying it was not unusual for former Justice Department officials to share their views of legal matters. He said he had written a similar memo criticizing the departments corruption case against Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, which ended in a mistrial in 2017. "One of the reasons why I ultimately decided I would accept this position if offered is because I'm in a position where I can be independent," Mr Barr added later in the hearings. "I'm not going to do anything that I think is wrong. I will not be bullied into doing anything that I think is wrong by anybody, whether it be editorial boards, Congress or the president. I'm going to do what I think is right." Mr Trump frequently criticizes the probe as a witch hunt and has denied any collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice. Meanwhile, Russia has denied US intelligence agencies findings that it interfered in the 2016 election. I dont believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt, Mr Barr said Tuesday. Responding to a question from Democrat Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, Mr Barr said he would not carry out any order to fire Mr Mueller without cause. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Mr Mueller is due to submit his findings to the attorney general, prompting concern from some Democrats that the Trump administration will try to quash the report. Mr Barr vowed that he would make as much of special counsels findings public as legally possible. He also said former Attorney General Jeff Sessions did the right thing by recusing himself from the Russia probe after it emerged that he had met with Russian officials while working with the Trump election campaign. Mr Barr also addressed Mr Trumps campaign promise of a border wall stretching the entirety of the US-Mexico border, suggesting the president could somehow allocate federal funding through means besides a spending bill, without having to ask for support from Congress. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Mr Barrs two-day confirmation hearing is likely to be more contentious than in 1991, when he was approved in a unanimous vote to become the next attorney general. However, his nomination is expected to win approval in the Senate, where he has broad support among Republicans who control the chamber. Mr Barr could also benefit from the fact that some Democrats view him as a better option the man who took over the job after Mr Trump forced out Mr Sessions last year, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. Additional reporting by Reuters How much of Special Counsel Robert Muellers highly-anticipated report into Russian interference in the 2016 election will be seen by Congressional lawmakers and the public Thursday largely depends on one man William Barr. The attorney general under Donald Trump has vowed to release the report this week with redactions that fall under four colour-coded classifications: classified information, grand jury information, information pertaining to ongoing investigations and information that may infringe on the privacy of peripheral third parties. Mr Barr, who was confirmed earlier this year after being appointed to lead the Justice Department under Mr Trump, stopped short of vowing to release the full findings of the special counsel during his Congressional hearings. He released a statement to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees prior to his testimony confirming he received the report. I am reviewing the report and anticipate that I may be in a position to advise you of the special counsels principal conclusions as soon as this weekend, the attorney general wrote. The Senate voted 54-45 to confirm Mr Barr, mostly along party lines in February. Mr Barr, who previously served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993, succeeded Jeff Sessions after the former head of the Justice Department and Mr Trump became entrenched in a public feud over Mr Sessions decision to recuse himself from overseeing the Russia probe. Democrats, who largely voted against Mr Barr, said they were concerned about his non-committal stance on making Mr Muellers report public. Mr Barr promised to be as transparent as possible, but said he takes seriously the Justice Department regulations that dictate the report should be treated as confidential. Opponents of Mr Barr also pointed to a memo he wrote to Justice officials before his nomination. In it, he criticised the Russia investigation for the way it was presumably looking into whether Mr Trump had obstructed justice. Mueller investigation: The key figures Show all 12 1 /12 Mueller investigation: The key figures Mueller investigation: The key figures Robert Mueller is the special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election, and potential obstruction of justice by the president. Mr Mueller has a pristine reputation in Washington, where he was previously in charge of the FBI. Throughout his investigation, he and his team have been notoriously tight lipped about what they know and where their investigation has led. REUTERS Mueller investigation: The key figures Former FBI director James Comey was the catalyst that led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. Mr Comey was fired by the president after Mr Trump reportedly asked him to drop his own Russia investigation. Mr Trump has long maintained that the investigation is a "witch hunt". AFP/Getty Images Mueller investigation: The key figures Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein had authority over the special counsel investigation for much of the two years it has been active. Mr Rosenstein found himself with that responsibility after then-attorney general Jeff Sessions recused himself from that oversight. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Attorney general Jeff Sessions's decision to recuse himself from oversight of the special counsel investigation may have cost him his job in the end. Mr Sessions resigned last year, after weathering a contentious relationship with Donald Trump who vocally criticised his attorney general for taking a step back. Mr Sessions recused himself from the oversight citing longstanding Justice Department rules to not be involved in investigations overseeing campaigns that officials were apart of. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Attorney General William Barr is currently responsible for oversight of the special counsel investigation. Mr Barr's office will be the first to receive the Mueller report when it is finished. His office will then determine what portion or version of that report should be delivered to Congress, and also made public. EPA Mueller investigation: The key figures Michal Cohn is the president's former personal lawyer, who has been helping the special counsel investigation as a part of a plea deal over financial crimes, and campaign finance crimes, he has pleaded guilty to. Among those crimes, Cohen admitted to facilitating $130,000 in hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign. Cohen has said he did so at the direction of Mr Trump. Cohen has also admitted that he maintained contacts with Russian officials about a potential Trump real estate project in Moscow for months longer than Mr Trump and others admitted. The talks continued well into 2016 during the campaign, he has said. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Stormy Daniels has alleged that she had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006, soon after Melania Trump gave birth to Baron Trump. The accusation is of particular importance as a result of the $130,000 hush money payment she received to keep quiet about the affair during the 2016 campaign. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Paul Manafort was Donald Trump's former campaign chairman. Manafort was charged alongside Rick Gates for a slew of financial crimes, and was convicted on several counts in a Virginia court. He then pleaded guilty to separate charges filed in a Washington court. Manafort has been sentenced to just 7.5 years in prison for his crimes in spite of recommendations from the special counsel's office for a much harsher sentence. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures George Papadopoulos was one of the first individuals associated with the Trump campaign to be charged by the Mueller probe. He ultimately received a 14 day prison sentence for lying to investigators about contacts he had with Russian officials. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Roger Stone is a well known political fixer and operative, who has made a name for himself for some dirty tactics. He has been charged by the Mueller probe earlier this year, and he has been said to have had prior knowledge that WikiLeaks planned on publishing stolen emails from the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. Getty Images Mueller investigation: The key figures Rick Gates was charged alongside former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for a range of crimes. Gates, who worked alongside Manafort for a pro-Russia Ukrainian political party. The two were charged with conspiracy and financial crimes. Gates pleaded guilty. AP Mueller investigation: The key figures Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was one of the first casualties of the Russia scandal, and was forced out of his position in the White House weeks after Donald Trump took office. Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to "willfully" making fraudulent statements about contacts he had with Russian officials including former Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Flynn then lied to Vice President Mike Pence about that contact. REUTERS Mr Barr wrote that the president could not have obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey since it was an action the president was constitutionally entitled to take. That view has alarmed Democrats, especially since the obstruction inquiry has been central to Mr Muellers investigation. Mr Barr vowed that he would not be bullied, said Mr Muellers investigation is not a witch hunt and agreed that Mr Sessions was right to recuse himself from the probe. He said he was a friend of Mr Muellers and repeatedly sought to assuage concerns that he might disturb or upend the investigation as it reaches its final stages. When the president nominated Mr Barr, he called him a terrific man and one of the most respected jurists in the country. I think he will serve with great distinction, Mr Trump said. The position catapults him from Justice Department outsider free to theorise and speculate on the special counsels investigation, to the man at the centre of the legal and political firestorm that will accompany its conclusion. Friends say Mr Barr is accustomed to pressure-cooker situations by virtue of his experience as attorney general under President George HW Bush and other senior Justice Department jobs. He oversaw the departments response when Los Angeles erupted in riots after the Rodney King verdict and when Cuban inmates took hostages at a federal prison in Alabama. He blessed Bush administration pardons in the Iran-Contra scandal and offered legal advice on the White Houses ability to invade Panama. Lawmakers in both parties said a permanent replacement for Mr Sessions was urgently needed when Mr Barr was nominated by the president. All I can say is if America ever needed a steady hand at the Department of Justice, it is now, Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said on the Senate floor in February. [Matthew] Whitaker has done a good job as interim attorney general, but we are looking for a new person to bring stability, improve morale, and be a steady hand and mature leadership at a time when our country is very much divided. Mr Graham said Mr Barr stood out head and shoulders above others who could have been nominated. To the American people, you can go to bed here soon knowing that the Department of Justice is in good hands, he added. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The Associated Press contributed to this report A federal judge has blocked the Trump administrations attempt to add a citizenship question to the upcoming 2020 census, which opponents argue could scare minority and non-citizens from participating. US District Judge Jesse Furman ordered a stop to the plans to add the question to the form, unless the government can cure the legal defects laid out in the opinion. In Mr Furmans opinion, released on Tuesday, the judge states that it is unlikely he will be the last judge to weigh in on the census question. The ruling is likely to be appealed to the US Second Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court has said it is poise up the question on 19 February. The administration is fighting five other lawsuits in courts across the country filed on behalf of dozens of states. This ruling is a forceful rebuke of the Trump administrations attempt to weaponize the census for an attack on immigrant communities, Dale Hoe, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Voting Rights Project said in a statement. Recommended Canada to add third gender option to next census The ACLU filed its challenge to the census question alongside the New York Civil Liberties Union, Arnold & Porter, and others on behalf of immigrants rights groups. The evidence at trial, including from the government's own witness, exposed how adding a citizenship question would wreck the once-in-a-decade count of the nation's population, Mr Hoe continued. The inevitable result would have been and the administrations clear intent was to strip federal resources and political representation from those needing it most. The specific question at issue was: Is this person a citizen of the United States? That question has not been asked in the US census since at least 1950. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The Trump administration has argued that the question would be used to help the Justice Department to better force Voting Rights Act provisions, which protect against discrimination toward racial and language minorities in voting. Among those other cases challenging the question, a separate trial began this month in California, and another in Maryland is scheduled for 22 January. It is not clear if plaintiffs challenging the question will be able to depose US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who has overseen the attempt to add the citizenship question to the forms. Donald Trump has dismissed a proposal from a key Republican ally in congress that would end the longest US government shutdown in American history, declaring that he would never ever back down over border security. Twenty-four days into the partial shutdown, Lindsey Graham indicated he discussed the option of reopening the government temporarily as negotiations continue with Democrats. They have refused to sanction a demand from the president for $5.7bn to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. Mr Grahams idea had seen some support from Democrats, but the president declined to bite. Im not interested, Mr Trump said on Monday as he made his way to New Orleans, where he gave a speech to a farming convention. I want it solved. I dont want to just delay it. I want to get it solved. The comment came just hours after the president tweeted that he had been waiting all weekend to negotiate with congressional Democrats to reopen the government and that he believed an end could be negotiated in 15 minutes. Mr Trump last week reportedly stormed out of a White House conference room after asking Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi if she would sanction border wall funding if he approved legislation to reopen the government. Ms Pelosi refused the offer. Mr Graham had made his suggestion during an appearance on Fox News on Sunday, when he appeared to try to steer the president away from declaring a state of emergency to build the wall. He said: Before he pulls the plug on the legislative option, and I think were almost there, I would urge him to open up the government for a short period of time, like three weeks, before he pulls the plug, see if we can get a deal. If we cant at the end of three weeks, all bets are off. Having dismissed that option while leaving the White House, Mr Trump used his speech in New Orleans to say there was no substitute for a physical barrier along the southern border with Mexico. He also accused Democrats of playing politics in refusing to negotiate on the issue. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty They think if they stop me, itll be good for 2020, Mr Trump said of Democrats in congress. We need that barrier. If you dont have that barrier there, there is not a thing you can do. However, with the shutdown having left 800,000 federal workers without pay, there are signs that Mr Trump is beginning to lose the battle for public opinion. A Quinnipiac University poll released on Monday found that 63 per cent of voters agree with the longstanding Democrat proposal to reopen parts of the government that do not involve border security, with 30 per cent opposed. The same poll found 63 per cent of respondents also oppose using the shutdown to force wall funding, with 32 per cent supporting Mr Trumps stance. The poll also found that 56 per cent of American voters blame Mr Trump and Republicans in congress for the partial shutdown. Frustrations are beginning to build across the country, with families worried about rent and unpaid bills, while a number of services and agencies have been deeply affected. Air travellers endured long waits to get through domestic checkpoints at the worlds busiest airport, HartsfieldJackson Atlanta International, on Monday, as the number of security screeners not showing up for work continued to rise. Most Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers are required to report to work but are not being paid, meaning an absentee rate of 7.6 per cent across airports nationally. There are also signs that other Republicans have also grown weary of watching Mr Trump continue his charge for wall funding at the expense of the federal government, and some notable defections have been registered. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, for instance, raised concerns about the indefinite state of impasse. Ms Murkowski is among three Senate Republicans who have called on Mr Trump to reopen the government. Its just not good for any of us, she said during an appearance on CNN. When asked about Mr Trumps rejection of the three week offer, Ms Murkowski responded: Well, then Mr President, when are you going to help us open the government? Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Perhaps aware of a shifting in the mood of the nation, Mr Trump backed further away from the idea of declaring a national emergency over immigration on the border in order to appropriate funds for the wall without congressional approval. It is something Mr Trump has said he would do if required, despite Democrats calling it unnecessary and a possible overreach of executive powers. Im not looking to call a national emergency, Mr Trump said on Monday. This is so simple, we shouldnt have to. In the House of Representatives, Democrats are looking to keep the pressure up on Mr Trump by holding votes on two more bills aimed at re-opening the government. One bill would do so until 1 February, and a second would reopen it until 28 February. Neither bill, one of six having gone through the Democrat-controlled House, would provide funding for the wall. Representative Nita Lowey of New York said the bills offer additional options to end the shutdown and would give time for negotiations on border security and immigration. However, the leading Republican in the GOP-controlled Senate, Mitch McConnell, has said the upper chamber will not take up a vote on anything Mr Trump would not sign. Associated Press contributed to this report Donald Trumps judicial nominee for a lifelong appointment to one of the nations most powerful courts, has stirred controversy over her apparent views surrounding sexual assault victims, among other legal issues. Neomi Rao, who would replace Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the US Circuity Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, has never been a judge, though she previously worked for the Senate Judiciary Committee and currently serves the White House as the administrator of the office of information and regulatory affairs at the office of management and budget. A series of writings the conservative penned while attending Yale University, have since revealed her apparent attitudes towards issues such as rape, race and LGBTQ equality after being unearthed in a BuzzFeed News report published on Monday. In one of her more controversial columns from 1994 published in the Yale Herald, Ms Rao argued against the defence that a woman could become too inebriated to consent to sex. A good way to avoid a potential date rape is to stay reasonably sober," she wrote. And if she drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice. Recommended Trump judicial nominee pulled at last minute over racist articles Implying that a drunk woman has no control of her actions, but that a drunk man does strips women of all moral responsibility, she continued. The conservative legal scholar also appeared to undermine the need for LGBTQ protections, writing in a separate 1994 column: Trendy political movements have only recently added sexuality to the standard checklist of traits requiring tolerance. She has also referred to the issue of race as a hot, money-making issue, and claimed multiculturalists were seeking to undermine American culture. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The Justice Department defended the presidents choice to replace Mr Kavanaugh on whats seen as the second most powerful court in the country, saying in a statement Ms Raos writings were intentional provocative. Neomi Rao is a renowned constitutional and administrative law expert. That is why the president nominated her to the DC Circuit. The views she expressed a quarter century ago as a college student writing for her student newspaper were intentionally provocative, designed to raise questions and push back against liberal elitism that dominated her campus at the time, a spokesperson for the department said. More than two decades later, her views can be found in her numerous academic articles and speeches. We are confident Ms. Rao will make an exemplary judge on the D.C Circuit. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Ms Rao, who has reportedly been considered for a potential Supreme Court nominee if another seat were to open under Mr Trumps presidency, has been a key official in the White Houses deregulations efforts. She was selected by the president to fill Mr Kavanaughs role in November, though her official nomination was returned to the White House with the close of the last Congress in early January. Ms Rao is hardly the first of Mr Trump's judicial nominees to stir controversy; a slate of his picks have withdrawn after questions arose surrounding their compotency and stances on issues like race and equality. The president is expected to re-nominate her and dozens of other judicial nominees in the coming weeks, setting the stage for a contentious confirmation battle. Close President Donald Trump names William Barr as Attorney General nominee Donald Trumps nominee to become attorney general has said that special counsel Robert Mueller will be allowed to complete his Russia probe as his confirmation hearing opened in Washington. William Barr, who is facing questions from the Senate, has said he doees not believe Mr Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt and that his predecessor Jeff Sessions did the right thing in recusing himself from overseeing the investigation. Mr Barr will have to navigate his confirmation hearing skillfully, emphasising his support for Mr Trumps hardline immigration policies while assuring Democrats he will not respect mr Muellers independence. Follow live updates below Please allow a moment for the liveblog to load The chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has resigned while at the same time approving the removal of a contentious Confederate monument that many view as celebrating Americas ugly history of slavery. Chancellor Carol Folt announced in a letter that she had authorized the removal of the remains of the Silent Sam monument on the schools upper quad, and that she would step down from her post after the school year. The remains of the monument which included just the base after the main portion of the statue was toppled by protesters in August were removed overnight on Monday. They have been taken to an undisclosed secure location, according to the university. The presence of the remaining parts of the monument on campus poses a continuing threat both to the personal safety and well-being of our community and to our ability to provide a stable, productive educational environment, Ms Folts said in her letter on Monday. The letter continued: No one learns at their best when they feel unsafe. Ms Folt has been the universitys chancellor since 2013, and said in her letter that the controversy over the monument had caused too much disruption. Carolinas leadership needs to return its full attention to helping our university achieve its vision and to live its values, Ms Folt wrote. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The removal of the statue is a part of a larger debate in the United States over the presence of Confederate monuments on public lands, a subject that has been intensely discussed in recent years after the Charleston, South Carolina church shooting in 2015, and the white nationalist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events After the Silent Sam statue was torn down in August, the schools board of trustees proposed a $5.3m building to store the monument safely, but the plan was ultimately rejected last month. The statue was built on the school grounds at the request of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The name of the statue is a general nickname for Confederate soldiers. Ivanka Trump, the presidents eldest daughter and senior adviser, will play a role in helping to select the next head of the World Bank, the White House said Monday. Ms Trump, who had been rumoured to be a contender for the position herself, will not be a candidate, a Trump administration official said. But she will assist Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney in choosing a successor to Jim Yong Kim, the current president of the World Bank who announced last week he would be stepping down. Mr Mnuchin called Ms Trump last week and asked her if she would be involved, an administration official said. Jessica Ditto, a White House spokeswoman, said Trump was asked because shes worked closely with the World Banks leadership for the past two years. Administration officials are expected to begin the interview process for the job, which has always gone to an American, on Tuesday. The White House did not provide any names of contenders, but the official noted that one person whose name has been floated Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador was not a candidate. Ms Trump, Mr Mnuchin and Mr Mulvaney will make recommendations to President Donald Trump, who will nominate a candidate for the position. Member countries of the World Bank will then vote on the nominee. Samantha Bee calls Ivanka Trump a 'feckless c***' on Full Frontal Traditionally, the US presidents pick is accepted and Europe chooses the leader of the International Monetary Fund because both institutions were founded during World War II. Kim, for instance, a former Dartmouth College president and a global health expert, was selected for the post by President Barack Obama in 2012. In explaining Ivanka Trumps qualifications for participating in the selection process, the administration official cited both Trumps close relationship with Mnuchin as well as her work with Kim. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Last year, for instance, she helped start the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, a fund administered by the World Bank and branded We-Fi, at the Group of 20 conference in Hamburg, Germany. The goal of the fund, which Ms Trump is credited with envisioning, is to generate $1.6 billion in capital for female entrepreneurs in developing countries. The New York Times Supermodel Gisele Bundchen has been criticised by Brazils agriculture minister after she accused the country's new far-right government of gutting environmental protections. The 38-year-old supermodel attacked new president, Jair Bolsonaro and his plans to roll back safeguards which seek to preserve Brazils environment. Shortly after Mr Bolsonaro a populist nationalist who claimed the presidency on a deeply-conservative and divisive platform won the election in October, Ms Bundchen attacked plans to merge the environment and agriculture ministries. Combining the two departments would be potentially disastrous and a path with no return, she tweeted, although both currently remain separate. Activists feared Mr Bolsonaro, who ran on promises to boost economic activity in the Amazon and reduce reserves for indigenous people, would allow Brazils powerful agri-business lobby to strip away regulations preventing further deforestation and damage to the environment. Recommended How Jair Bolsonaro can be stopped from trashing the Amazon rainforest Agriculture minister Tereza Cristina Dias, who was sworn in earlier this month, has hit out at Ms Bundchen and said she was damaging the image of Brazil around the world. Speaking to a Sao Paolo radio station, Ms Dias said, contrary to the models claims, Brazil in fact was a world leader in protecting the environment. Sorry, Gisele Bundchen, you should be our ambassador, to say that your country preserves, that your country is on the global vanguard of preservation, and dont come here saying bad things about Brazil without knowledge of the facts, Ms Dias said. Its absurd what they do today with the image of Brazil. For some reason they go out and paint a picture of Brazil and its industries that is not true. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Ms Bundchen has also criticised previous Brazilian administrations over attempts to shrink the protected areas of the Amazon. In 2017 she shamed the then-president Michel Temer on Twitter into abandoning plans to reduce the size of a national forest. In a tweet after the radio interview, Ms Dias who was previously head of the farmers caucus in Congress said she would soon invite Ms Bundchen to become an ambassador for the agriculture sector. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Rather than criticising, the model should show other countries how Brazil supposedly managed to produce agriculture for the world while preserving the environment, she said. Ms Bundchen, who is already a United Nations environment goodwill ambassador and been given a Global Environmental Citizen award from Harvard, did not respond to requests for comment. Canada has issued a warning to its citizens about travelling to China after a Canadian man was sentenced to death on drug charges amid worsening diplomatic tensions. The Canadian government told travellers to exercise a high degree of caution in the country, highlighting Chinese authorities arbitrary enforcement of local laws and the death penalty. The foreign ministry issued the updated advisory hours after Robert Lloyd Schellenburg was sentenced to execution in a sudden retrial, two months after he was jailed for 15 years for drug smuggling. An appeals court in the northeast province of Liaoning had ordered the retrial within weeks of Canadas arrest of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. The court ruled Schellenburgs initial jail term was too lenient, but Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau suggested Beijing was using its judicial system to apply pressure over the executives detention. It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply a death penalty, Mr Trudeau said. Canadas updated travel advisory noted that Chinas penalties for possession, use, production or trafficking of illegal drugs are strict and include the death penalty. Penalties can be assigned arbitrarily, it added. China comments on Huawei arrest in Canada Schellenburg, 36, was arrested more than four years ago and first went on trial in 2016. He was convicted of involvement in an international drug-trafficking operation that planned to smuggling 220kg of methamphetamine from a warehouse in the Chinese city of Dalian to Australia. The Canadians lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo, said prosecutors had introduced no new evidence to justify a heavier sentence during Mondays retrial, during which Schellenberg maintained his innocence. His client would appeal, he added. Mr Zhang described the case as unique and said the one-day proceedings had been unusually swift, but he declined to comment on any connections to Ms Mengs arrest. Schellenbergs aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones, said her familys worst fears had been realised. Our thoughts are with Robert at this time. It is rather unimaginable what he must be feeling and thinking, she added. It is a horrific, unfortunate, heartbreaking situation. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Chinas foreign ministry rejected criticism of the sentence, telling Mr Trudeau to respect the country's sovereignty. The state-run Global Times newspaper dismissed suggestions that Beijing was attempting to pressure Canada over Ms Mengs case, complaining of unreasonable speculation that showed rude contempt for Chinese law. Public opinion in Canada has claimed recently that China is politicisng Schellenbergs case, but what Canada is doing is actually politicising law, said an editorial published on Monday. Human Rights Watch accused China of playing hostage politics. Executive director Kenneth Roth said Schellenbergs rushed retrial and death penalty was a fairly transparent attempt to pressure Canada into releasing Ms Meng. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The executive, who is the daughter of Huaweis founder, was arrested at Vancouver airport on 1 December at the request of the US. American authorities have accused Ms Meng of using a subsidiary company to circumvent sanctions against Iran and have requested her extradition to face fraud charges. Her arrest outraged China and has caused tensions between Beijing, the US and Canada. Schellenberg is the third Canadian to run afoul of Chinese law since Ms Mengs arrest. Former diplomat Michael Kovrig and business consultant Michael Spavor are both held on suspicion of endangering state security. On Monday, Chinas foreign ministry said authorities had determined Mr Kovrig was not entitled to diplomatic immunity, rejecting a complaint from Canada that Beijing was flouting longstanding protocols. Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has signed a decree easing restrictions on civilians buying guns, the first step of a campaign promise to overturn the country's strict firearms laws. The temporrary measure is part of a plan to overturn a 2003 law that the leader has said is tantamount to banning civilians from purchasing guns. Mr Bolsonaro ran on a law-and-order platform, which resonated with voters in a country which logged a record 64,000 murders in 2017, with with 43,000 of those the result of firearms.. Having portrayed himself as a tough-on-crime candidate - his trademark gesture is his fingers pointng two imaginary guns - he scored well with voters frustrated with violence across the country. Fourty-one per cent of Brazilians think gun possession should be allowed for a citizen to defend himself, a recent poll found. Recommended Jair Bolsonaro pulls Brazil from UN pact designed to protect migrants To guarantee citizens their legitimate right to defense, I, as president, will use this weapon, Mr Bolsonaro said, holding up the pen he then used to sign the decree. To own a gun, citizens in Brazil currently have a jump through a number of hoops. Only strictly defined groups, including police and security officials, are able to obtain a gun license and proof of residence, employment and technical and psychological capacity are required. The measure rural areas, towns and cities where the murder rate is particularly high and to collectors and hunters. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Brazilians will be allowed to keep up to four guns in their homes or places of business. Any home with a child, or someone suffering from certain mental illnesses, must store the weapons in a safe. The decree, which will expire unless it is ratified within 120 days by Congress, will remove the discretionary role that federal police have played in approving civilians' requests to buy guns. Mr Bolsonaro has claimed decisions on who or who may not carry weapons are completely subjective. In 2017, the last year government data was available, about 330,000 civilians in Brazil were legally registered to have a gun. Previous studies from the Justice Ministry have indicated that around 8 million weapons are in the country illegally, although accurate numbers are hard to come by. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The 63,880 homicides in Brazil in 2017 - equivalent to 175 a day - was a 2.9 per cent increase on the year before. Impoverished parts of northeast Brazil in particular has seen a large increase in the murder rate in recent years. Over the past decade the rate in Rio Grande do Norte state has soared by more than 250 per cent, according to the government-affiliated IPEA research body. Reuters contributed to this report At least eight people, including one police officer, have been killed in Zimbabwe, where violent protests are continuing in the capital of Harare for a second day, according to Amnesty. A further 200 people have been detained, Amnesty added, and a miltary helicopter was seen on Tuesday firing tear gas at demonstrators. The unrest broke out after the country's government hiked the price of fuel by 150 per cent. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions had called for a three-day national shutdown to protest the price hike. Demonstrators filled the streets of Harare, where they burned tires and blocked a road at a busy intersection. People run with loot as protests continue in Zimbabwe (AFP/Getty) Soldiers attempted to disperse the crowd, as confrontations with angry civilians threatened to escalate. Among Monday's fatalities was a police officer, who was stoned to death by protesters in the city of Bulawayo, a police spokesperson said. She said that three people had been killed in the protests, a lower figure than that given by activists and human rights groups in Zimbabwe. Security forces have faced numerous accusations of heavy-handedness. Social media across Zimbabwe, including WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook, has reportedly been blocked as the unrest continues. Monica Mutsvangwa, the country's information minister, said she was not aware of an internet shutdown and Zimbabwe's three mobile telecoms firms had no immediate comment on the outage. Critics have accused Emmerson Mnangagwa of resorting to Mugabe style tactics to control the protests. Recommended What I learnt as I watched the violence unfold in Zimbabwe "We are suffering. Mnangagwa has failed this country. Enough is enough, we no longer want this," Takura Gomba, a protester in Harare, said. Amnesty International expressed alarm about reports of protesters being shot by police officers. The police must use force only when strictly necessary," Muleya Mwananyanda, Amnestys Deputy Director for Southern Africa, said. "Even then, they must exercise restraint at all times and use the lowest level of force needed. Firearms may only be used as a last resort, and when strictly unavoidable, to protect life. Millions of Zimbabweans are terrified about the knock-on effects that the fuel increases will have on their daily lives, including for food and healthcare. The Zimbabwean authorities must ensure that people are able to express their views freely and safely and must promptly investigate in an independent and impartial manner allegations of police shootings of protesters." The human rights group said that a boy had been shot in the stomach in the suburb of Mbare. A woman in Harare is also believed to have been shot in the face while on her way to work. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Officials are beginning to engage with the demonstrators and government officials have entered negotiations with union representatives. Labour Minister Sekai Nzenza also promised that public workers would get a monthly supplement, of between 5 and 23 per cent of their salaries, from January to March. The opposition and other groups supporting the shutdown urged people to stay indoors rather than engage in street action. Additional reporting by agencies At least 14 people have died in an apparent terrorist attack in Nairobi, Kenya. The al-Shabaab Islamist group claimed its fighters were responsible for explosions and gunfire at the DusitD2 hotel complex on Tuesday. Police said the attack had begun with an explosion in the hotel car park and a suicide bombing in the foyer leaving a number of guests with severe injuries. Kenya's interior minister said shortly before 11pm local time that all buildings affected by the attack had been cleared by security forces. Police chiefs first suspected a robbery at the hotel in the capitals Westlands neighbourhood, commander Philip Ndolo said, before a spokesman admitted the force could not rule out a terror attack. Officers later blew up a car they believed contained explosives and several other vehicles were feared to pose a danger. Armed, plainsclothes security service members were also seen at the site. Kenya police chief Joseph Boinnet said that the incident was a suspected militant attack. A group of unknown armed assailants attacked the Dusit complex in what we suspect could be a terror attack, he told reporters at a briefing at about 6pm local time. Witnesses described hearing gunshots and seeing people in the hotel and office complex running away raising their hands up and ... entering the bank to hide for their lives during the assault about 4pm local time. One said he had seen attackers wearing green clothes and carriying ammunition. We are under attack, a person in an office inside a complex in the DusitD2 hotel told the Reuters news agency amid the early chaos, before hanging up as thick black smoke billowed from the site where several vehicles were set ablaze. What I have seen is terrible. I have seen a human as I ran out and there is what looks like minced meat all over, said one man who claimed he had been caught up in the suspected attack. Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Show all 23 1 /23 Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Cars are seen on fire at the scene where explosions and gunshots were heard at the Dusit hotel compound, in Nairobi, Kenya Reuters Nairobi hotel attack in pictures An injured man is evacuated from the scene of an explosion at a hotel complex in Nairobi's Westlands suburb AFP/Getty Nairobi hotel attack in pictures A soldier takes cover next to a bullet ridden window EPA Nairobi hotel attack in pictures People run for cover during gunfire and explosions in Nairobi EPA Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Kenyan security forces take position following an explosion at a hotel complex in Nairobi's Westlands suburb AFP/Getty Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Security forces on the scene of an explosion in Nairobi AP Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Cars burn at the scene of an explosion in Nairobi AP Nairobi hotel attack in pictures People are led away from the scene of an explosion at a hotel complex in Nairobi AFP/Getty Nairobi hotel attack in pictures A soldier takes cover as gunfire continues at the scene of a suspected terror attack in Nairobi EPA Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Armed plain clothes officials secure the damaged entrance of a hotel during ongoing gunfire and explosions in Nairobi EPA Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Members of security forces take cover at the scene Reuters Nairobi hotel attack in pictures People are evacuated from the scene of a suspected terror attack in Nairobi Reuters Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Cars burn after an explosion in Nairobi AP Nairobi hotel attack in pictures A member of security forces holds a weapon at the scene Reuters Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Security forces advance at the scene of a suspected terror attack in Nairobi Reuters Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Cars burn at the scene of an explosion in Nairobi Reuters Nairobi hotel attack in pictures A glass damaged by bullets at the scene Reuters Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Security personnel on the scene of a suspected terror attack in Nairobi Reuters Nairobi hotel attack in pictures A woman is helped at the scene of an explosion in Nairobi Reuters Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Security forces advance at the scene of a suspected terror attack in Nairobi Reuters Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Security personnel on the scene of a suspected terror attack in Nairobi Reuters Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Undercover police are on the scene of a blast in Nairobi AP Nairobi hotel attack in pictures Security personnel on the scene of a suspected terror attack in Nairobi AP Local television reports described a confusing scene with paramedics having to wind their way through the area to reach the wounded. Soldiers were later seen marshalling crowds and reporters at the complex in Riverside Drive. The Somali militant group al-Shabaab claimed via its radio arm, Andalus, that it was behind the attack, but did not give details. In 2013, al-Shabab extremists killed dozens of people during a days-long siege at Nairobis Westgate shopping centre, which is just over a mile away from the DusitD2 hotel. A total of 67 people died in that attack. Kenyan troops were among the African Union alliance forces that drove al-Shabaab out of Mogadishu, Somalias capital, in 2011. The group, thought to have between 7,000 and 9,000 fighters, has been affiliated with al-Qaeda since 2012 and subscribes to the ultra-conservative Wahhabi Islamic creed. Tuesdays apparent attack took place three years to the day after al-Shabaab attacked a Kenyan military base in Somalia, killing scores of people. The group objects to the presence of Kenyan troops in the turbulent Horn of Africa nation. Additional reporting by agencies Theresa May is facing mounting pressure to resign after Commons leader Andrea Leadsom quit the cabinet over the prime ministers Brexit plan. Ms Leadsom resigned with a heavy heart on the eve of the European elections, saying she no longer believed the governments approach would deliver the referendum result the people voted for. The prime minister continued to cling on to power on Wednesday after Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee, failed to agree a rule change which would allow a fresh bid to topple her. Following the failed bid to oust her in 2018, Ms May would be safe from another confidence motion until December under the existing rules. She is expected to meet Sir Graham on Friday the day after the EU elections, which are expected to be disastrous for the Conservatives. The leadership race looks likely to be a crowded field, with former foreign secretary Boris Johnson the bookmakers favourite. His closest rivals on the Eurosceptic wing of the party are former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab and environment secretary Michael Gove, who scuppered Mr Johnsons leadership bid in 2016. Senior ministers are refusing to confirm whether they will stand until after Ms May announces her departure date, but international development secretary Rory Stewart has confirmed his ambitions for the top job. Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, home secretary Sajid Javid, health secretary Matt Hancock, treasury chief secretary Liz Truss and former Commons leader Andrea Leadsom are all thought to be considering a run at the leadership. Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Show all 9 1 /9 Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Boris Johnson Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson has long been hopeful, he previously stood in the leadership contest that followed the Brexit vote and has at many times since been thought to be maneuvering himself towards the goal. He remains a darling of the party's right wing, particularly those in the ERG, and is the most popular choice among Tory voters but his leadership bid would be fiercely opposed by many MPs PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Michael Gove Environment secretary Michael Gove is another member who has long wanted to be leader. He has lately been known for rousing his party in the commons, his recent speeches on the Brexit deal and Labour's no confidence motion have overshadowed the Prime Minister's. He has been loyal to the Prime Minister, partly to shed his reputation as a backstabber who abandoned Boris Johnson to stand against him in the 2016 leadership election Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Dominic Raab Former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has emerged as a favourite to be the Brexiteer candidate in a contest to succeed to Ms May. He displayed a grip on detail in his role as Brexit secretary. When asked recently if he would like to become prime minister he replied "never say never" Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Rory Stewart International development secretary Rory Stewart is pitching himself as the sensible candidate, promising to rule out both a second referendum and a no-deal Brexit. He was only recently promoted to the cabinet, previously serving as prisons minister, where he caught headlines with a pledge to resign if he could not reduce levels of violence within a year PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Esther McVey The former work and pensions secretary announced that she will be standing for the leadership when May leaves. McVey is the first to explicitly state that she intends to stand. She resigned from the cabinet in protest over May's Brexit deal AFP/Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Sajid Javid Home secretary Sajid Javid is said to have a plan in place for a leadership race. He made headlines over Christmas when he declared that people smuggling over the English channel was a "major incident" and more recently when he revoked the citizenship of ISIS bride Shamima Begum. Son of a bus driver, he wants the Conservatives to be seen as the party of social mobility PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Jeremy Hunt Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt was recently thought to be the favourite in the event of a leadership race as he could sell himself as the man to unite the party. Critics worry that his long stint as health secretary could return to haunt him at a general election. He has reportedly been holding meetings with Tory MPs over breakfast to promote his leadership PA Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Andrea Leadsom Following the Prime Minister's second defeat over her Brexit deal, Leader of the house Andrea Leadsom hosted a dinner party at which "leadership was the only topic of conversation", The Times heard. Leadsom ran against Theresa May in the 2016 leadership election before dropping out, allowing May to become Prime Minister AFP/Getty Who could succeed Theresa May as Conservative leader? Priti Patel Former international development secretary Priti Patel is thought to be positioning herself as a contender. One MP told The Independent "she knows she's from the right of the party, the part which is going to choose the next leader, so she's reminding everyone she's there." Patel left the government late in 2017 after it emerged that she had held undisclosed meetings with Israeli officials PA Here are Mays most likely successors: Johnson resigned from the cabinet in July (PA) Boris Johnson, former foreign secretary Resigned from the cabinet over Mays Chequers plan last July. Has argued that a no-deal exit would reflect the result of the 2016 referendum. The former mayor of London was once seen as the Heineken candidate capable of reaching voters other Tories could not. But his star has waned among Tory MPs left unimpressed by his two years as foreign secretary. His popularity among Tory activists would give him a strong chance of winning if he made the final shortlist, but he might be blocked by a determined stop Boris campaign already being planned by his critics. If successful, the move would anger many Tory activists. Leadsoms leadership hopes have been revived (Getty) (Getty Images) Andrea Leadsom, former Commons leader Resigned from the cabinet on the eve of the European elections, saying she no longer believed the governments approach would deliver the Brexit referendum result the people voted for. She showed her inexperience in the 2016 leadership election, withdrawing to leave May as the last candidate standing after making comments appearing to suggest she would make a better leader because she had children. The former Commons leader has strong support among Brexiteers. Javid is one of the frontrunners to replace Theresa May (Jack Taylor/Getty) Sajid Javid, home secretary Backed Remain in 2016 referendum despite his Eurosceptic instincts. Now a keen Brexiteer, and prepared to keep a no-deal exit on the table. Has consistently challenged May in cabinet meetings. Ambitious and has a brilliant backstory as the son of Pakistani bus driver who came to the UK with 1 in his pocket. But appears to be suffering from the curse of being one of the frontrunners in the Tory race. His stock has fallen recently after what some MPs see as unforced errors such as his handling of migrants crossing the English channel and his decision to strip Isis schoolgirl Shamima Begum of her UK citizenship. Hunt would pitch himself as a unifier (PA) Jeremy Hunt, foreign secretary Remainer who briefly supported a Final Say referendum on the Brexit deal after the 2016 vote. Now rejects the idea, and is seen as a born-again Brexiteer who also wants to keep a no-deal departure on the table. His pitch would be as the candidate who could unite the Tories warring factions. Tory members might judge him too much of a Remainer. Critics worry that his long stint as health secretary could return to haunt him at a general election. Could benefit from a slide in Javids fortunes, but will not want to overtake him to become the frontrunner. Gove headed the Vote Leave campaign alongside Boris Johnson (PA) Michael Gove, environment secretary Along with Johnson, headed the victorious Vote Leave campaign in the 2016 referendum. Even his critics admit he is one of the few successful departmental ministers since his surprise return to Mays cabinet in 2017, a year after she sacked him. Has been a loyal and articulate promoter of the withdrawal agreement. Critics see this as in part an attempt to shed his reputation as an assassin who turned on Johnson to run for the leadership in 2016. Goves refusal to join other Brexiteers in resigning from the cabinet might count against him among Eurosceptics. However, many of them are now coming round to his strategy of getting the deal over the line to save Brexit. Raab could be a dark horse in the contest (PA) Dominic Raab, former Brexit secretary Eurosceptic former chief of staff to David Davis, and followed his path by becoming and then resigning as Brexit secretary, complaining he was kept out of the loop by May and her civil service negotiator Olly Robbins. Displayed a grip on the detail while in the job, and impressed May allies in the 2016 referendum when he campaigned for Leave. But did not impress Brussels officials. A fresh face, although his relative lack of cabinet experience could count against him. But a dark horse to watch in a leadership race. Has a big decision to make: will he back Mays deal if Johnson does, or decide to have clean hands and oppose it to the end, and potentially be on the losing side? Hancock is a survivor from the Cameron regime (PA) Matt Hancock, health secretary A new entrant in the leadership race and, at 40, could be the youngest candidate. A rare breed in the May government as a survivor of David Camerons regime: before becoming an MP in 2010, he was chief of staff to George Osborne. Impressed as culture secretary, as one of the few UK politicians to understand the digital era and power of the internet giants. Has also shown grip in a testing job since his promotion to health and social care secretary. Smooth media performer who does not lack ambition. Described by some MPs as a better version of Jeremy Hunt, he is Remainer-turned-Leaver who could unite his fractious party. Has gone into bat for Mays deal when others kept their head down. Could be part of a stop Boris drive in which Johnsons rivals try to share out MPs votes to keep him off the shortlist. Seen by some Tories as the leader after next. Theresa May has suffered a devastating defeat after MPs threw out her Brexit deal by a record majority of 230 in the long-awaited meaningful vote. A total of 118 Tory backbenchers deserted the prime minister ignoring her last-ditch appeal, in the Commons, to avoid uncertainty, division and the very real risk of no-deal. Ms May announced immediately that she would make time for a vote of no confidence in her government on Wednesday, to confirm that MPs wanted her to continue in office. And she pledged she would open talks on a way forward with senior parliamentarians from across the House while insisting Brexit would still go ahead. The prime minister said she wanted to test what ideas had sufficient support, before returning to Brussels for further negotiations with the EU. The offer of cross-party talks came despite a cabinet meeting confirming a deep split between ministers urging her to fight on and others insisting she must pursue a compromise, to solve the crisis. Minutes before the vote, Ms May made an impassioned plea for MPs to turn back from defeating her in the most significant vote that any of us will ever be part of. The margin is greater than the record dating all the way back to 1924, when a Labour minority government suffered three defeats with majorities of 166, 161 and 140. Just 202 MPs backed the government, which suggests fewer than 50 not on the payroll vote of ministers, unpaid aides, or those with other official jobs. Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters Outside, rival pro and EU campaigners staged mostly good-natured demonstrations, while supporters of a Final Say referendum watched the landmark vote on giant screens in Parliament Square. The Democratic Unionist Party, which is propping up the Tories in power but voted against the deal issued a brief statement confirming it would support Ms May in the confidence vote, making victory for her highly likely. Speaking at the despatch box, the prime minister promised to hold the Brexit talks with MPs in a constructive spirit. But she added: Given the urgent need to make progress, we must focus on ideas that are genuinely negotiable and have sufficient support in this House. If these meetings yield such ideas, the government will then explore them with the European Union. The prime minister also reassured MPs that she did intend to run down the clock to 29 March and a no-deal Brexit, saying: That is not our strategy. I have always believed that the best way forward is to leave in an orderly way with a good deal and have devoted much of the last two years negotiating such a deal. She promised to table an amendable motion by Monday, in line with the rebel amendment passed last week, to force the government to react quickly to the expected defeat. And she added: The second reassurance is to the British people, who voted to leave the European Union in the referendum two and a half years ago. I became prime minister immediately after that referendum. I believe it is my duty to deliver on their instruction and I intend to do so. The president of the European Council has dared British politicians to back remaining in the EU after Theresa Mays Brexit deal was voted down by the House of Commons by a historic margin of failure. After MPs rejected the plan by 432 to 202 Donald Tusk said: If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is? His European Commission counterpart Jean-Claude Juncker also warned that time is almost up in Brexit talks, telling Theresa May: I urge the United Kingdom to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliaments Brexit coordinator, said it was the time to find out what UK parliamentarians want. The EUs legislature will debate the result early Wednesday morning. The prime minister lost the vote by a larger than expected margin on Tuesday night after her MPs deserted her and plunged her into the worst Commons defeat for a government for practically a century. Recommended Jeremy Corbyn launches bid to topple Theresa May Michael Barnier, the EUs chief Brexit negotiator told reporters in Strasbourg: Now it is time for the UK to tell us the next steps. On our side we will remain united and determined to reach an agreement. He did not answer when asked whether he had faith in Theresa May. Mr Barnier met with MEPs from the European parliaments Brexit steering group immediately following the vote. In a statement Mr Juncker said the European Commission had invested enormous time and effort to negotiate the withdrawal agreement, adding that the EU had shown creativity and flexibility throughout the process. The risk of a disorderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom has increased with this evenings vote, he said. While we do not want this to happen, the European Commission will continue its contingency work to help ensure the EU is fully prepared. In a separate statement, a spokesperson for council president Mr Tusk said: We regret the outcome of the vote, and urge the UK government to clarify its intentions with respect to its next steps as soon as possible. Other EU leaders weighed in with their views following the defeat with most warning that the UK would have to spell out what it wanted from Brexit. Sebastian Kurz, the Austrian chancellor, said: I regret the outcome Brexit of the vote. After the vote, the ball is now with the House of Commons in London. In any case, there will be no renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement. Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, said: I regret, yet respect the result of the vote in House of Commons on current Brexit deal. The Netherlands and EU are still behind the agreement, but will keep preparing for all scenarios. Despite this setback, it does not mean we are in a no-deal situation. The next step is up to the UK. Xavier Bettel, the prime minister of Luxembourg added: I deeply regret the outcome of the vote as I regret Brexit as such. Now we need a fast and clear plan on how to proceed. Because thats what we need to do: finding solutions, not problems. He added: Our internal preparations to limit the damage in case of a no deal shall go ahead in full steam. Ahead of the vote on Tuesday afternoon German foreign minister Heiko Maas said that though he doubted the withdrawal agreement could be fundamentally reopened he believed that if it goes wrong tonight, there could be further talks. Such talks could be focused on the so-called political declaration which spells out the future relationship between the UK and EU. Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters Berlin has struck a noticably more concilatory tone than other EU member states in the last 24 hours. German European affairs minister Michael Roth said following the vote: A disaster. Too bad. But EUs door remains open. After the result, French president Emmanuel Macron laid out the options for the UK as he saw them. First option, they go towards a no deal. They say: there is no deal. Thats scary for everybody. The first losers in this would be the British, he told a meeting of French mayors in Normandy. Second option, they tell us in my view, thats what theyll do, I know them a bit well try to improve what we can get from the Europeans and well get back for a vote. In that case, well look into it, maybe well make improvements on one or two things, but I dont really think so because weve reached the maximum of what we could do with the deal and we wont, just to solve Britains domestic political issues, stop defending European interests. He continued: Theres a third option, which is to say and in my view theyll start with the second option and then well eventually end up with the third actually, were going to take more time to renegotiate something. It creates a great deal of uncertainty and worries. A spokesperson for the Irish government, which has been at the forefront of talks because of the Irish border issue, said it regrets the outcome of the vote in Westminster and that it would add to uncertainty about the nature of the UK withdrawal from the EU. The spokesperson recalled the EU position that the withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation and said the Irish government would intensify preparations for such an outcome. A Conservative MP has been accused of making a "scurrilous slur" after claiming a pregnant Labour politician had delayed giving birth to "make a point" about Brexit. Labour's Tulip Siddiq defied doctors' advice and postponed her caesarean section by two days to vote down Theresa May's deal on Tuesday, when she was spotted being pushed through the voting lobbies in a wheelchair. The Hampstead and Kilburn MP said she did not trust the government to honour pairing arrangements, after Tory chairman Brandon Lewis accidentally broke a pact with new mother Jo Swinson in knife-edge Brexit vote last year. Recommended Labour MP to delay birth of child to vote against Brexit deal However Tory MP Kemi Badenoch accused Ms Siddiq of making a point to her pro-Remain constituents that was "irrespective of pairing", a system where an MP from a rival party also abstains so they cancel eachother out. It comes after senior MPs have been campaigning for months to bring an end to "18th Century" rules by implementing a proxy voting system in the Commons. Ms Badenoch told the BBC's Politics Live: "I have heard her [Ms Siddiq] speak on this issue privately before, and I think irrespective of pairing, I think she wants to make a point that she is doing this for her constituents. "She represents a very strong Remain constituency and she wants to show that she did everything she could to stop Brexit. I think that is what this is about." Her comments were condemned from Labour MPs, who described it as an "outright lie" and a "scurrilous slur" against Ms Siddiq. Labour MP Stella Creasy tweeted: "Genuinely shocked Kemi Badenoch would choose to smear a colleague in this way - whatever the merits of Brexit or her desire to win the argument, impugning Tulip Siddiq on live tv with an outright lie is a new low even for this place." Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said: "Sad that Kemi Badenoch attacks fellow woman MP in this way, at a very vulnerable time for Tulip. Kemi can have no idea about the progress of Tulips pregnancy, so should not challenge Tulips good faith." Shadow public health minister Sharon Hodgson added: "Exactly, the govt whips should pair her and count her through! That is the point she is making! How dare Kemi Badenoch make such a scurrilous slur!" Ms Siddiq, who had a difficult first pregnancy with her daughter Azalea, now two, had been due to have an elective caesarean on Monday after developing gestational diabetes. Doctors at the Royal Free Hospital in North London agreed she could shift the date back to Thursday to allow her to take part in the Commons vote. She posted on Twitter: "My decision to delay my baby's birth is not one I take lightly. "Let me be clear, I have no faith in the pairing system - in July the governmentt stole the vote of a new mother. It's my duty to represent Hampstead & Kilburn, and I will do just that." Plans for a proxy voting system where MPs can nominate colleagues to vote on their behalf were unanimously approved in February 2018 but progress to introduce the measure has stalled. MPs will finally vote on Theresa Mays proposed Brexit deal tonight after almost two years of negotiations, months of parliamentary debates and a five-week delay. The meaningful vote was delayed in December after the prime minister admitted she was on course to lose, prompting another month of frantic wrangling with the EU. Having secured few new concessions, Ms May is still expected to suffer a crushing defeat in the Commons, with attention likely to turn immediately to what she does next. Here is how the historic day will play out... 9.30am The cabinet will hold its regular weekly meeting in Downing Street. It is likely to go on for several hours, with ministers set to once again discuss how they think the government should respond if the deal is voted down. Members of the cabinet have previously expressed frustration that Ms May remains tight-lipped about her plan B, and there is no reason to think todays meeting will be any different. Recommended Theresa May faces huge defeat and vote of no confidence in government 12.50pm The fifth and final day of Commons debate on the proposed Brexit deal will begin. It will be opened by Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, who is likely to re-iterate his view that the proposed agreement is the best available. He will seek to reassure Tory MPs by outlining his expert opinion on why a permanent Northern Ireland backstop would be legally difficult for the EU to justify. 6.30pm Theresa May will close the debate and make a final last-ditch plea to MPs to back her deal. She is likely to again warn that her agreement is the only one on offer, and that voting it down puts Brexit at risk. She will remind MPs that the country is watching and that voters want them to get on with the job of implementing the result of the 2016 referendum. The prime minister is expected to also repeat her rhetoric about there being better times ahead and emphaise her desire to focus on other matters once Brexit is completed. 7.00pm Voting on the Brexit deal will begin. 14 amendments have been tabled, and it will be for Commons Speaker John Bercow to decide which ones are put to a vote. Each vote takes around 15 minutes, so the timing of the final vote on the deal itself will depend entirely on how many amendments are called. Assuming Mr Bercow opts for between six and eight, were expecting the big vote to take place around... Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters 9.00pm Give or take a few minutes, this is likely to be when MPs divide in one of the most historic votes in living memory. The result will be announced around 15 minutes later. 9.15pm Ms May is likely to give a statement immediately after the expected defeat. She will probably announce her intention to return to Brussels and seek further compromises from the EU. 9.30pm Labour is expected to raise a point of order to announce its intention to table a formal vote of no confidence in the government, with the vote to be held on Thursday. Follow live updates on the Brexit vote. MPs are set to vote to demand the UK has the power to pull out of the Irish border backstop, ahead of the landmark clash on Theresa Mays Brexit deal. An amendment to secure a unilateral right to terminate potentially putting the UK on a fresh collision course with the EU has been selected by the Commons speaker. However, John Bercow did not select an even more controversial attempt to impose a strict sunset clause for the backstop, of the end of December 2021. Although not formally backed by the government, the second amendment was favoured by many Tories who hoped it could win support and prevent the expected humiliation of a heavy defeat. They also believed the prime minister would have been able to show the EU what concession was required to eventually pass her deal, in the weeks to come. It was suggested Mr Bercow had rejected the sunset clause amendment because it had, in reality, been tabled by the government but disguised under the name of a backbencher, Andrew Murrison. The Speakers decisions mean there are now likely to be five votes on total tonight, suggesting the clash on the so-called meaningful vote will take place around 8.30pm However, the Democratic Unionist Party scotched rumours that it would support any last-gasp attempt to make the backstop demanded by the EU, to prevent the return of a hard border more palatable. Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters Amendments tabled in parliament will have no bearing on the legal status of what has been negotiated. What is required is for the prime minister to go and secure legally-binding changes as she promised, a spokesman said. Today's very belated amendments are part of the internal parliamentary games and do not change the need to secure legally-binding changes. The four amendments selected were tabled by Labour, the Scottish Nationalist Party and two Tory backbenchers - Edward Leigh and John Barron, which aims to secure the right to terminate. Labours amendment rejects the prime ministers deal and demands a customs union, a closer single market deal, plus protections on the environmental and workers' rights. The SNP wants the government to request an extension to the period of negotiation under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. Sir Edwards amendment also concerns the Irish backstop, seeking for the UK to use prior international law to ensure there can be no indefinite continuation of the backstop. Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, said the government would not accept it because it would fall foul of the UKs international law obligations and be viewed, by the EU, as not ratifying the divorce deal. Brexit negotiations between the UK and EU could be re-opened if MPs reject the deal negotiated by Theresa May this evening, Germanys foreign minister has said. Heiko Maas told reporters at the European Parliament: The agreement stands, as it is. I doubt very much that the agreement can be fundamentally reopened. If there were a better solution, it would already have been put forward. He expressed hope that the withdrawal agreement could still pass, but added: If it goes wrong tonight, there could be further talks. EU leaders and top officials in Brussels have previously rejected any suggestion that discussions could be re-opened. Commission officials have stated since December that they do not forsee any further meetings between the UK and EU. The intervention by Mr Maas is likely to give succor to Tory MPs who hope to box the EU into offering more concessions by rejecting the agreement. Though the EU has been emphatic that it will not drop the controversial Northern Ireland backstop, further talks could see changes to the political declaration on the future relationship. The prime minister is heading for a significant defeat this evening on her plan, with projections suggesting that the margin of victory for the opposition could hit a new historic record. Ms May spoke to Angela Merkel over the telephone at the weekend, leading to unsubstantiated reports in the UK press that Germany might ride to the rescue of the beleagured UK. But a German government spokesperson told reporters in Berlin on Tuesday: The Chancellor has made no assurances beyond what was discussed in the European Council in December and what is laid down in the letter by Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk. "Brexit betrayal" march in London Show all 43 1 /43 "Brexit betrayal" march in London "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester holds an anti-BBC sign Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator holds a sign in the picket line Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester carrying a noose at the "Brexit betrayal" march. The man carrying it told a reporter: "That's what the traitor May deserves." AP "Brexit betrayal" march in London Pro-brexit supporters hold a sign opposed to Nigel Farage Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Protesters carry a defaced British flag on the march Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Tommy Robinson addresses a rally after taking part in a Brexit 'betrayal' march in central London PA "Brexit betrayal" march in London Police officers attempts to keep rival protesters from clashing at the Brexit 'betrayal' march in London Victoria Jones/PA "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester holds an anti-Theresa May sign Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator and his dog Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator at the protest Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit sign at the rally Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Pro-brexit demonstrators endorse UKIP Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A Brexit 'betrayal' march protester wearing a Make Britain Great Again hat in London on 9 December 2018 Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty "Brexit betrayal" march in London Brexit 'betrayal' marchers gathering on Park Lane ahead of a protest Angela Christofilou/ The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London The "Brexit Betrayal" march passes through Central London Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Tommy Robinson tells protesters to join Ukip via their mobile phones on stage next to leader Gerard Batten (right) at the Brexit 'betrayal' march Gareth Fuller/PA "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester speaks thorugh a megaphone on the march Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator walks in the picket line Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit anti-May sign at the rally Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester carries a Union Jack on the march Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator wrapped in the Union Jack Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit anti-May sign at the rally Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Pro brexit demonstrators move through Central London Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator marches with sign Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A pro-brexit demonstrator holds a rude sign in the rally Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London The march passes down Victoria Street near Parliament Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A festive protester marches near Parliament Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester holds a mock noose as the march passes down Victoria Street towards Parliament Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester wrapped in the Union Jack marches down Victoria Street towards Parliament Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester makes some noise on the march Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester dressed as a dinosaur holds a sign rallying against "Davocracy" - in reference to the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester holds a pro-brexit sign on the march Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London The march approaches parliament Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A protester distributes pro-brexit lapel badges Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A demonstrator wears an anti-EU poster and holds an anti-BBC sign Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A smoke bomb is deployed in Parliament Square as the march comes across the counter-demonstration Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London A flag bearing the Arms of Plantagenet flies in theprot Angela Christofilou/The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Protesters on the Brexit 'betrayal' march in London on 9 December 2018 Angela Christofilou/ The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Protesters on the Brexit 'betrayal' march in London on 9 December 2018 Angela Christofilou/ The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Brexit 'betrayal' marchers gathering on Park Lane ahead of a protest on 9 December 2018 Angela Christofilou/ The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Brexit 'betrayal' marchers gathering on Park Lane ahead of a protest on 9 December 2018 Angela Christofilou/ The Independent "Brexit betrayal" march in London Angela Christofilou/The Independent The spokesperson added that an account of the phone call reported by The Sun newspaper and apparently sourced from UK government officials had been incorrectly reproduced. The EU on Monday released a letter to the prime minister aimed at reassuring her MPs to vote for the deal, without changing its content. The bloc says it wants to conclude a trade agreement by 2020 and that its reassurances have "legal value". It however explicitly rejected calls to add binding get-out clauses or expiary dates for the backstop, as demanded by Tory MPs. Theresa May faces humiliation in a critical vote this evening on her Brexit deal after an amendment that could have reduced the size of a rebellion was withdrawn at the eleventh-hour. Labour MP Hilary Benn, who chairs parliaments Brexit Committee, had tabled his motion that would have rejected the UK leaving the European Union without a deal and, crucially, the prime ministers deal. If the amendment had passed, it would have prevented MPs from voting on the main motion - whether to simply accept or reject Ms Mays deal reached with the bloc. Following concerns this move could have reduced the scale of a any potential defeat for the prime minister - as many Brexiteers opposed to the deal would not vote to rule out a no-deal scenario - Mr Benn said he was withdrawing his amendment. The former shadow foreign secretary said it is now vital that we get the clearest expression of the view from the House on the government's deal, which is expected to be voted on after 7pm on Tuesday. Mr Benn added that since he had originally tabled his amendment in December, MPs had voted for a no deal amendment to the Finance Bill "which is a clear and very welcome indication of MPs' opposition to no deal". He said Dominic Grieve's amendment and the Speaker's ruling that a business motion can be amended "are also very important and there is now a proposal for a Bill that would allow the Commons in effect to rule out a no deal Brexit by seeking an extension to Article 50 if necessary". "All these developments mean that the House will soon have the opportunity to make it clear that it rejects no deal and so offer reassurance to the many businesses and their workers who are very anxious about the disaster that a no deal Brexit would represent. "If the prime minister loses tonight the government must reach out across the House to try and find a way forward. If this doesn't happen, then Parliament will have to take the lead." It comes on a historic day at Westminster, with the prime minister facing an all but certain defeat on the Brexit deal she has spent the last 19 months negotiating and countless hours attempting to defend at the despatch box. Brexit Withdrawal Agreement: How might MPs vote But with more than 100 Conservative MP having expressed their opposition to Ms Mays deal in recent weeks - and her supply and confidence partners, the DUP, vehemently opposed - there is speculation the government could be facing one of the heaviest defeats in modern British political history. Former Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald suffered the greatest defeat in the last century when he lost a vote by 166 votes in 1924, according to the political academic Philip Cowley. Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Show all 11 1 /11 Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Anti-Brexit protester Steve Bray (left) and a pro-Brexit protester argue as they demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament Getty Images Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament A pro-Brexit protester argues Getty Images Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Police surround the pro-Brexit protester after he confronted Steve Bray, a pro-European protester Getty Images Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament A leave supporter is spoken to by a police officer as he argues with a remain supporter, Steve Bray, outside Parliament PA Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament MPs in Parliament are to vote on Theresa May's Brexit deal next week after her December vote was called off in the face of a major defeat Getty Images Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament A leave supporter is spoken to by a police officer PA Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Police look on as anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament. Getty Images Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Police hold back a leave supporter PA Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament A police officer speaks with anti-Brexit protester Steve Bray Getty Images Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Police surround a pro-Brexit protester after he confronted a pro-European protester Getty Images Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Conservative MP David Davies, wearing a gopro camera, speaks to anti-Brexit protester Steve Bray Getty Images Appearing on BBC Radio 4s Today programme, however, Michael Gove, the environment secretary channelled the popular fantasy drama Game of Thrones as he issued a warning to MPs wanting to vote down the deal. If we dont vote for the deal tonight, in the words of Jon Snow, winter is coming, he said using the phrase from the drama where cold weather heralds the arrival an army of the undead on the borders of the fictional land of Westeros. Close MPs reject Theresa May's Brexit deal in overwhelming 432-202 majority MPs overwhelmingly rejected Theresa Mays divorce deal with the EU on Tuesday evening, plunging the Brexit process into chaos. The defeat was widely expected, but the scale of the House of Commons vote 432 votes against the government and 202 in support was devastating for Ms Mays fragile leadership. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn put forward a confidence motion in the aftermath of the crushing loss, which made history as the biggest ever government defeat on the floor of the House of Commons. The defeat by 230 votes easily beat the previous record of 166 votes, set in 1924 by the minority Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald. Parliament finally delivered its verdict on the prime ministers withdrawal agreement after months of debate, as crowds of both Leave and Remain protesters gathered outside parliament to express their anger. Ms May insisted she intended to stay on, setting out plans for talks with senior parliamentarians in the hope of finding genuinely negotiable solutions which she can take to Brussels. But she faces another crucial vote on Wednesday after the Labour leader moved to table a formal motion of no confidence in her government. Senior ministers reportedly told top business leaders that a motion to delay the Article 50 process of leaving the EU is being prepared in a conference call following the vote defeat. To follow events as they unfolded, see our live coverage below: There is no doubt in the British car industry among manufacturers, competent suppliers and the retail trade that Brexit is bad, at best a matter of damage limitation. They welcome Theresa Mays deal, but only because it is better than the existential threat that no deal, trading on Word Trade Organisation terms, would involve. This, for example, is what Mike Hawes, the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said on the eve of the meaningful vote: As MPs prepare to vote on the governments Brexit deal, we urge them to remember they hold the future of the British automotive industry and the hundreds and thousands of jobs it supports in their hands. Brexit is already causing us damage in output, costs and jobs but this does not compare with the catastrophic consequences of being cut adrift from our biggest trading partner overnight. A managed no deal is a fantasy, Hawes concluded. A man with a massive machete was tasered by police at a south London train station and arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. The suspect, aged 59, was caught by officerson Monday evening on the platform while terrified commuters looked on. Videos posted on social media show the man, who was wearing camouflage trousers and a hoodie, waving a foot-long blade. He was then shot with a taser and fell to the ground, dropping the machete. At least five officers then pinned him to the floor. British Transport Police said there were no reported injuries and the incident was not thought to be terror-related. The man was also arrested on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon, the force added. Witnesses described being told by their trains conductor not to get off at Tulse Hill because there was a dangerous man on the platform. Conor Fortune, 39, said he was on a Thameslink train heading out of central London through Tulse Hill when he heard a mans voice shouting loudly. After several minutes of being sat on the platform, the driver announced that we were being held and she shut the doors as a precaution, and advised nobody to get off as there was 'a dangerous man on the platform'. One witness posted a video of the moment police tasered the man on Twitter and said they had seen him running around chasing people with a machete. Another person reported they had seen at least 12 police cars and 30 officers at the station, which is five miles south of the city centre. British Transport Police said anyone with information about the incident should contact them by texting 61016 or calling 0800 40 50 40 and quoting reference 478 of 14/01/2019. A murder investigation has been launched after a British man living on the Caribbean island of St Lucia was found dead at his home. The victim has been named by local news reports and friends as marina owner and manager Robert Hathaway. It is understood he was found by a neighbour over the weekend. A police spokesman in Gros Islet said investigators were awaiting the outcome of a post-mortem examination. The body of a British national was found where he lived in Grand Riviere, Gros Islet. We are treating his death as a homicide. He said the post-mortem was due to be carried out on Monday afternoon. We will be getting in touch with his family in the UK. We dont yet know if he has any next of kin on St Lucia, he said. Keats Compton, president of the Marine Industries Association of Saint Lucia and a close friend of Mr Hathaway, called his death horrific. Apart from anything else, Bob was a pal of mine. He was on the executive committee of the (Marine Industries) Association and he was an integral part of it. Im also concerned because the yachting fraternity is very close-knit, and the fact that this kind of thing can happen if its not reported properly it can do the industry quite a lot of damage. Mr Compton said he had known M Hathaway for more than 10 years and he would be following the police investigation closely. Asked about a possible motive for the murder, he said: It was a big shock to me but its a bit early to make any speculation. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Mr Hathaway, 66, founded the Marigot Sunshine marina catering for smaller sailing yachts and superyachts. His business website says he studied engineering at the University of Cambridge before going on to a career in local government. At 37, he spent a sabbatical year cruising the Mediterranean, prompting him to change careers and become operations director of a yacht building and repair company in Southampton. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events It says he sailed to St Lucia in 2001 and bought land in Marigot Bay, going on to found his business five years later. A CV posted on the site gave his marital status as divorced and says he was vice-president of the Caribbean Marine Association. His Facebook page says he was originally from the village of Codford St Peter in Wiltshire. A spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: Our staff are supporting the family of a British man following his death in St Lucia, and are in contact with the St Lucian police. Press Association A no-deal Brexit would be an economic and social catastrophe, a senior banking industry leader has warned. Stephen Jones said leaving the European Union (EU) without an agreement could lead to a 1930s-style economic depression, with widespread job losses, homeowners unable to afford their mortgages, and mass defaults on loans. A no-deal Brexit on 29 March, where we crash out of European Union, is a catastrophe, the head of the UK Finance trade body told Channel 4 News. Its a social catastrophe, its an economic catastrophe. The devastation caused by a disorderly exit would not just hurt the banks bottom lines, but hit ordinary people, he warned. I dont wish to be labelled a doom mongerer but if our economy contracts by 10 per cent thats 1930s-style contraction," he said. "That is a massive increase in credit card losses, mortgage losses, vehicle loan losses. This is about jobs, this is about people not being able to pay their mortgages, not being able to pay back their loans, and thats really bad news and its an outcome we can avoid. Mr Jones, who leads the British banking sector's lobby group, added: I think there is a real risk of No Deal happening by accident if the prime ministers deal is voted down, we are in totally uncharted territory. Asked if he backed Mrs Mays deal to prevent a no-deal scenario, Mr Jones would only say he backed a solution that avoids a no-deal Brexit. He added: Its not a great deal, theres an awful lot of money being paid for a political declaration, which quite frankly is not worth the paper it is written on. Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Show all 16 1 /16 Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Britain Before Brexit: Greater London West Croydon A police vans speed and siren bring people to shop windows, keen to watch the drama of the public space, curious to know if a crime has been committed and lining up like townsfolk in a western movie Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Trafalgar Square Morning light illuminates a typical scene outside the National Gallery. Everyone interacts with a phone, held in hands and gazed at, or held in the hands of others and posed for. The figure in the background is on another level, an exception, an anomaly Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London East Croydon A dispute about shoplifting outside a stores entrance, conducted in French, revolving around a gold watch Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Bank The Chinese flag hangs over the centre of British finance, its red blush bringing luck to the morning. St Pauls Cathedral occupies the blue distance Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Bond Street Three pairs of legs and feet in different states, playing different roles in the heart of British commerce: one clothed, striding purposefully; another of white plastic, made to model and convince; the last barefoot, not standing Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Upton Park Plastic bags dress naked trees, only partially, flaying in the wind, torn and damp, leaving most of the branches exposed, like black cracks spreading across thin ice, across the tower block of civilisation Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Westminster A pro-Brexit protester walks past the Houses of Parliament and the anti-Brexit protesters camped opposite. Both have appropriated the Union Jack, claim to be acting in the national interest and to be patriotic. Caught in between are child and mother, who photographs the home of democracy, or herself Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Islington A new tube map is put up outside the station, hands reaching high, stretching upwards, as if in worship of the security camera, in awe of surveillance itself, one of Londons most valued currencies Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Tooting Broadway A huge bingo hall hidden away from the high street, populated sparsely by a few players. Theres so much concentration and focus. I cant decide if theyre there to play, to win, to hide, to escape, or to kill time Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London The Mall Horses are tourist attractions in certain parts of London, especially when theyre dressed in military regal attire and carrying a soldier or a guard. Tourists pose alongside them for selfies and generic holiday snaps, which when taken daily in their millions, re-enforce a global image of London as a hub of ceremonial pomp and ritual Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Tooting Bec An anonymous critique of an adverts imagery, wheeling out the age-old distinction between lust and love, sex and companionship, surface and interior, shallowness and depth, superficial and real Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Wandsworth A declaration of the existence of community is damaged and broken. A sign portraying strength and solidarity looks weak and sad and lonely when it begins to crumble and fall apart Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Buckingham Palace I watch a lineup of paparazzi photographers outside the palace. They wait to pounce upon blacked out windows concealing guests to the Queens Christmas lunch. They appear bored and unenthusiastic, as if photography were for them but a chore that flashes light on celebrity faces Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London St Pauls The city is reflected by its values: a relentless list of imperative commands to become something else, some better version, upgraded; a message that says we need to acquire to improve; a hard-hitting reminder of your inadequacy and incompleteness Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Colliers Wood A laundrette on the peripheries, zone 3, where a man sits below another London Piccadilly Circus with its giddy movements and interactions, its colours and vibrancy, where life is shaken up and spun, as if in one of the washing machines below, rotating and loud, everything inside blurred Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Uxbridge A building site concealed with an image of what will be. A common way to cover up the messy process of (de)construction. The housing development claims to be affecting time and space, moving people into new places and better futures, fundamentally altering their existence Richard Morgan/The Independent The political declaration is the second part of the withdrawal agreement which sketches out how Britain and the EU will build their new future relationship after the UK has formally left the 27 nation bloc. Unlike the rest of the document which deals with how Britain disentangles itself from the EU and will pay 39bn in the so-called divorce bill the political declaration is not legally binding nor does it go into significant detail. Londons position as the centre of the financial world will end after Brexit, Mr Jones also bemoaned, and the Brexit process had diminished the capitals status in the world. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events London as the European financial centre appears to most us to be frankly, quietly over. Well do our best to retain what we can, within the context of whats negotiated, no deal or a deal, but Frankfurt and Paris will become much more important financial centres in a European context. The government has been ramping up preparations for a no-deal Brexit in recent weeks. A Treasury minister was photographed with a briefing note which warned it could cause no food and no Channel tunnel after leaving a meeting with officials. Suppliers have been urged to stockpile food in the event of the prime ministers Brexit deal being rejected, and some people have also been hoarding food and essential supplies themselves in case Mr Joness dire warnings come true. Britons may have to get used to eating less Danish bacon and butter after Brexit, with food imports from the Nordic country expected to drop as much as 24 per cent. Denmark is the largest exporter of pork to the UK but that position is under threat if no deal is struck with the EU, research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) suggests. Food entering the UK from Denmark is not currently subject to any tariffs but imports of pork and dairy into the EU from non-EU countries attract hefty charges. A move to World Trade Organisation (WTO) tariffs after Brexit would mean the UK charging the same import duty to all countries under most-favoured nation rules. That would be to the advantage of other countries such as China, the US, Canada and Brazil where production costs are lower. US pork costs just 0.98 (88p) per kilogram to produce compared to 1.35 (1.21) per kg in Denmark and 1.56 (1.40) in the UK, according to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB). But US pig farmers are allowed to follow practices banned in the EU including treating animals with the controversial growth stimulant ractopamine. Studies have linked ractopamine with adverse effects in pigs, especially hyperactivity, trembling, and broken limbs. WTO rules could cut Denmarks total imports to the UK by 17 per cent, the OECD found, resulting in a 1.3 per cent fall in GDP in the medium term. The UK is Denmarks fourth largest market, accounting for 7.8 per cent of exports in 2017. Britains parliament is widely expected to vote against Theresa Mays Brexit deal on Tuesday, opening up outcomes ranging from a disorderly divorce to a reversal of Brexit. Many people in the UK are losing their virginity before they are ready, which can have serious effects on their health and wellbeing, researchers claim. According to a study published in the BMJ Sexual and Reproductive Health, nearly 52 per cent of women and 44 per cent of men were not ready when they lost their virginity. In addition, more than one in six women reported an unequal willingness to have sex, which equated to almost double the number of men who reported the same. The team say that the age of consent which is 16 in the UK is not an indicator that an individual is ready to become sexually active, adding the research found willingness, peer pressure and contraceptive use can all affect whether the experience of losing ones virginity is positive. Melissa Palmer, first author of the research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine described age as quite a simplistic indicator of a persons readiness for sex. Two 16 years olds can be very different, so age doesnt account for the individual differences between people, she tells the Independent. When young people talk about their first sexual intercourse, many of them discuss their experiences, rather than the age in which it happened. Palmer says it is important to look at the circumstances of first sexual intercourse, not only protection against STIs and unplanned pregnancy, but an individuals broader well-being ensuring it was mutually wanted, didnt involve peer pressure of drunkenness, for example alongside age. For the study, Palmer and her colleagues examined the responses of more than 2,800 sexually active Britons, between the ages of 17 and 24, to face-to-face questions about the conditions in which they first had heterosexual intercourse. Participants were classified as "sexually competent" at first intercourse if they reported that the event involved contraceptive protection, autonomy of decision, equal willingness of both partners, and that it had occurred at the right time. Related video: Sex Education star says she thought masturbation was only a boy thing (iStock) From their findings, the researchers claim that negative experiences of first sexual intercourse were also associated with socioeconomic status, educational level, source of sex education, relationship with, and virginity status of the first partner. Particularly among young men, we found that those living in more deprived areas, as indicated in the Index of Multiple Deprivation, were more likely to report negative conditions of first sex, says Palmer. Meanwhile, the study found signs that young women who said they learned about sex in school were more likely to have positive conditions. Of course, we cant say anything about causality as we used observational data for the study, but this result could serve as evidence of the positive effect of sex education in school, she adds. Ammanda Major, sex therapist and head of clinical practice relationship counselling service Relate agrees with the findings. The first experience of sex can have a different meaning for males and females," she tells the Independent. She adds: "It's not always the case but very broadly speaking, young men are pleased to have sex perhaps in part as they think this means they will be viewed more like men as opposed to boys. As for females, their first time is sometimes more about wanting to be recognised as part of a relationship and feeling accepted by their peers and sexual partner. Recommended This is how sex education is failing children While the team said that 90 per cent of participants reported using reliable contraception was a positive finding, they say more needs to be done. Palmer explains: To increase that figure up to 100, we still need to improve services and access to contraception, and continue providing sexual and relationship education that not only focusses on STIs and unwanted pregnancies but also on improving communication skills to protect and individuals broader well-being." Major argues young people should be taught to step back and consider what is making them think they have to have sex, rather than the act itself. We should be helping young people to understand that sex is about them and how important it is to feel able to engage with it at their own pace and assess theyre doing it for the right reasons," she says. Gillette has come under fire from Piers Morgan and mens rights activists for a new advertisement that challenges toxic masculinity and sexual harassment. The advert plays on the brands 30-year tagline The Best A Man Can Get, asking instead: Is this the best a man can get? in a bid to tackle sexism. However, the campaign which features news clips of reporting on the #MeToo movement as well as sexism in boardrooms, and violence between boys, has prompted an angry backlash, in part, by TV contrarian Piers Morgan. The Good Morning Britain presenter tweeted: I've used Gillette razors my entire adult life but this absurd virtue-signalling PC guff may drive me away to a company less eager to fuel the current pathetic global assault on masculinity. Let boys be damn boys. Let men be damn men. Morgan, continued to berate the progressive ad on live TV where he claimed it suggested all men were evil. What Gillette is now saying, everything we told you to be, men, for the last 30 years is evil, he fumed. Now youre all evil people, youre all toxic with your masculinity. The 53-year-olds rant ended with him labelling the ad as repulsive and telling Gillette to shut up. If we did this to women, if I did a commercial tomorrow that showed the worst of women, all hell would break loose he said. I think its repulsivethe implication we all have something to apologise for? Shut up, Gillette. The advert has also enraged many mens rights activists who have interpreted it as anti men. Among the objections circling on social media are that the video is emasculating, virtue-signalling and that it implies most men are harassers. What a f***ing emasculating, humiliating ad. Talk about being bullied...most offensive thing I've seen in a long time, one person wrote. Another added: Spare me your virtue signalling. I am NOT part of the problem. That ad IS offensive because the underlying message is that ALL men behave like this. WRONG!! The comments which insist that not all men are harassers call to mind the viral hashtag #YesAllWomen, which seeks to highlight that sexual harassment is a problem that all women encounter, whether or not all men are responsible for it, and encourages people to realise that sexism is not an isolated problem. The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Show all 12 1 /12 The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Anne Hathaway The 32-year-old actress said she has already experiences job rejections because of her age. Now I'm in my early thirties and I'm like, 'Why did that 24-year-old get that part? I was that 24-year-old once. I can't be upset about it, it's the way things are, she told Glamour. EPA The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Helen Mirren On news that Maggie Gyllenhaal had been turned down for being too old, aged 37, to play a 55-year-old mans partner: Its f***ing outrageous. Its ridiculous. Honestly, its so annoying. And twas ever thus. We all watched James Bond as he got more and more geriatric, and his girlfriends got younger and younger. Its so annoying. Getty The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Maggie Gyllenhaal Gyllenhaal revealed she was told by a Hollywood producer that she was too old, aged 37, to play the love interest of a 55-year-old man. It was astonishing to me. It made me feel bad, and then it made feel angry, and then it made me laugh, she said at the time. Getty Images The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Meryl Streep Meryl Streep has helped fund an all-female screenwriters group called The Writers Lab to encourage more women to pen Hollywood scripts. She previously told Vogue in 2011: Once women pass childbearing age they could only be seen as grotesque on some level. Getty The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Emma Thompson The actress said she thought Hollywood is still completely s*** when it comes to treating women equally to men. When I was younger, I really did think we were on our way to a better world. And when I look at it now, it is in a worse state than I have known it, particularly for women, and I find that very disturbing and sad. EPA The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Elizabeth Banks Banks said she was driven from acting to directing due to the lack of roles for older women in Hollywood. "[Industry sexism] drove me to direct for sure. I definitely was feeling that I was unfulfilled and a little bit bored by the things that were coming across my desk. I mean look at Gwyneth Paltrow who has her Oscar [for Shakespeare in Love] and played fifth banana to Iron Man, she told Deadline. PA The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Viola Davis I had never seen a 49-year-old, dark-skinned woman who is not a size 2 be a sexualised role in TV or film. I'm a sexual woman, but nothing in my career has ever identified me as a sexualised woman. I was the prototype of the mommified role, she told The Hollywood Reporter. Getty The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Liv Tyler The Lord of the Rings actress said she only get cast in roles where she is treated as a second class citizen at the age of 38. When youre in your teens or twenties, there is an abundance of ingenue parts which are exciting to play. But at [my age], youre usually the wife or the girlfriend - a sort of second-class citizen. There are more interesting roles for women when they get a bit older, she told More magazine. Getty Images The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Cate Blanchett The actress famously called out sexism on the red carpet at the 2014 Screen Actors Guild Awards. When a camera operator scanned her up and down, she said: Do you do this to the guys? In her Oscar acceptance speech for Blue Jasmine, she reminded the film industry that movies with leading women can still be successful. And thank you to... those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films, with women at the centre, are niche experiences. They are not -- audiences want to see them and, in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people. Gareth Cattermole/Getty The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Ellen Page Asked if she had ever encountered sexism in Hollywood, Page told The Guardian: Oh my God, yeah! It's constant! It's how you're treated, it's how you're looked at, how you're expected to look in a photoshoot, it's how you're expected to shut up and not have an opinion, it's how you... If you're a girl and you don't fit the very specific vision of what a girl should be, which is always from a man's perspective, then you're a little bit at a loss. Getty Images The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Zoe Saldana The actress says she refuses roles where she has to play the generic girlfriend, wife or sexy bombshell. "It's very hard being a woman in a man's world, and I recognised it was a man's world even when I was a kid. It's an inequality and injustice that drove me crazy, and which I always spoke out against and I've always been outspoken, she told Manhattan magazine. Getty The actors fighting against sexism in Hollywood Charlize Theron The actress spoke to ELLE about negotiating equal pay for the Snow White and the Huntsman sequel: "This is a good time for us to bring this to a place of fairness, and girls need to know that being a feminist is a good thing. It doesn't mean that you hate men. It means equal rights. If you're doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way." Andreas Rentz/Getty Images The New American also attacked the advertisement saying it reflects many false suppositions, adding that: Men are the wilder sex, which accounts for their dangerousness but also their dynamism. Released on Sunday, the films YouTube page has already had 252,000 dislikes and 36,000 likes. While some reactions see the advert as jumping on the bandwagon to sell razors, others have praised the intention of the advert. Responses to comments that the campaign is 'emasculating' have argued that these negative comments only serve to show just how necessary its campaign against toxic masculinity is. Any man who thinks the Gillette #MeToo ad is emasculating is proving the point, one person tweeted. A recent report from the American Psychological Association (APA) argued that men were being damaged by what has been labelled toxic masculinity. Developed by several experts between 2005-2018, its guidelines defined traditional masculinity as a particular constellation of standards . . . including anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence. The APA said this was linked to higher rates of suicide, drug abuse and violence. Lana Del Rey, Jared Leto and Courtney Love have joined forces to star in a new vintage-inspired campaign for the new Gucci Forever Guilty fragrance. In the campaign, shot by British film director Glen Luchford, Del Rey and Leto undertake menial tasks surrounded by an menagerie of animals including ostriches, tigers, owls, and snakes. During their day running errands, the pair are seen folding laundry and dancing together in a laundromat. At other points, Del Rey is seen wheeling Leto around a supermarket and joining him to get her nails and hair done at a salon. The pair are later united with Love who makes a cameo as a waitress in a diner they visit during their day out. In the caption of the promotional video, posted to the Italian luxury brand's Instagram on Monday, Del Rey and Letos characters are described as individuals who live and love outside of social conformism. Gucci Beauty also shared a photo of Del Rey- who will release her sixth studio album, Norman F*cking Rockwell in March - on its Instagram page. In the caption of the photo, which sees Del Rey sitting in a hair salon chair wearing a bright green Gucci jumpsuit, the 33-year-old is described as playing a "glamourous and quirky" individual in the visual for the new campaign. Del Rey and Leto were announced as the faces of the campaign in November and attended the Met Gala together last year dressed in Gucci, styled by the brands creative director, Alessandro Michele. On Monday, Michele posted a behind-the-scenes photograph of the pair on the set of the campaign on his Instagram page. Los Angeles, he captioned the shot. The trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home has just been released, giving a glimpse of the developments to come when the film hits cinemas in July. The video, unveiled on Tuesday, gives a first answer to the question many Marvel fans have pondered since the release of Avengers: Infinity War: did Thanos really wipe out half of the galaxy, killing off several beloved MCU characters? Based on the Far From Home trailer, the answer appears to be no. Jake Gyllenhaal also makes his debut as Mysterio. Fans suspected Gyllenhaal would step in as the villain when it was announced he was joining the cast of Far From Home in October 2018 a news confirmed by Gyllenhaal on his Instagram account in December. Tom Holland, who plays Spider-Man, prompted speculation that the trailer would be released on Tuesday after tweeting on Monday: "So I spoke to Sony..." Click through the gallery below to find out what we learned from the first trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home. Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Show all 11 1 /11 Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer shot-by-shot breakdown A new suit The trailer begins with Spider-Man in a black and red suit, which resembles the one featured in the Superior Spider-Man series between 2013 and 2014. Youtube / Sony Pictures Releasing Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Happy and May Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) and May Parker (Marisa Tomei) connect during a brief encounter in the trailer, and they clearly have chemistry. Youtube / Sony Pictures Releasing Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer shot-by-shot breakdown First Easter egg Peter Parker's date of birth is listed on his passport as 10 August. This matches the date on which Spider-Man first appeared in a Marvel Comic Book, back on 10 August, 1962. Youtube / Sony Pictures Releasing Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Young love Peter and MJ (Zendaya), his classmate, seem to be growing closer to each other. In the trailer, MJ teases Peter for telling her she looks pretty, asking sarcastically: "And therefore I have value?" She then clarifies she's kidding, and tells him: "You look pretty too." Youtube / Sony Pictures Releasing Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Hello again, Nick Fury Nick Fury's back! If you'll recall, the former SHIELD director was among the characters zapped by Thanos at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. His presence suggests as plenty of fans have speculated that being disintegrated by Thanos didn't equate a permanent death. Youtube / Sony Pictures Releasing Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Enter the villains It looks like this time around, Peter Parker will be fending off the Elementals, a group of villains based on the four elements, during his school trip to London. Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) also appears to be making her return at Nick Fury's side in this still, though her hair seems lighter than usual. Youtube / Sony Pictures Releasing Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer shot-by-shot breakdown A closer look at the Elementals Several of the group's villains appear in the Far From Home trailer. There are four in total: Hydron (water), Magnum (earth), Zephyr (wind), and Hellfire (fire). Youtube / Sony Pictures Releasing Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer shot-by-shot breakdown New suit number two Peter Parker is also seen wearing what appears to be Spider-Man's all-black stealth suit. Youtube / Sony Pictures Releasing Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Jake Gyllenhaal's debut The actor is seen for the first time as Mysterio in the Far From Home trailer. Youtube / Sony Pictures Releasing Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer shot-by-shot breakdown All in the details Fans may be pleased to learn that Gyllenhaal's Mysterio costume includes the character's classic fishbowl helmet. Youtube / Sony Pictures Releasing Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer shot-by-shot breakdown Something familiar? Mysterio's powers in the trailer seem awfully familiar to Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange. Are the two characters somehow related? Youtube / Sony Pictures Releasing Spider-Man: Far From Home reaches cinemas 19 July 2019. Machine Learning Join students worldwide in learning one of the hottest tech skills around from some of Stanford's brightest minds. "Machine learning has given us self-driving cars, practical speech recognition, effective web search, and a vastly improved understanding of the human genome," explains Coursera. Master the subject and it will certainly get you a high-paying, in-demand job. Learning How to Learn: Powerful Mental Tools to Help You Master Tough Subjects Whatever you want learn this year, this course offered by McMaster University, University of California San Diego will help you master that subject faster and more efficiently. The Science of Well-Being What's the point of being smart if you're still unhappy at the end of the day? This wildly popular Yale course will help you understand the science of well-being both for intellectual interest and practical application. Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies The price of bitcoin may be way down but interest in the subject of the underlying technology is still sky high, if participation in this Princeton course is anything to go by. Algorithms, Part I Another tech course from Princeton. This one promises to teach "the essential information that every serious programmer needs to know about algorithms and data structures, with emphasis on applications and scientific performance analysis of Java implementations." English for Career Development A little shaky in your grasp of professional English? You're not alone. This class from the University of Pennsylvania designed for non-native speakers of English attracted a ton of students in 2018. Financial Markets What's going on when the markets go up and down, what is the social function underlying all the craziness on CNBC, and what does that have to do with your career? This Yale class promises answers. Introduction to Psychology For those curious about the human mind, this University of Toronto course highlights "the most interesting experiments within the field of psychology, discussing the implications of those studies for our understanding of the human mind and human behavior." Last year I traveled 40 weeks out of the year. I met amazing entrepreneurs and wrote about the best startup scenes from Columbus to Pittsburgh to the entire state of South Dakota. But that meant I didn't spend much time in Grand Rapids, my hometown. It's a growing city named the best city in America for craft beer and ranked in the Top 10 nationally in Fastest Growing Economies, third in the nation for First-Time Home Buyers and has America's Hottest Zip Code. Like top startup city Columbus, Ohio, Grand Rapids has a diverse economy not dependent on any one industry. The city's roots are in office furniture. Steelcase, Herman Miller and Haworth are all within thirty minutes of downtown Grand Rapids. It's home to regional grocery giant Meijer And Amway as well. Entrepreneurs have thrived here for over 100 years. It's a city never content with where it is seen among the hierarchy of American cities, constantly reinventing, always with something to prove. Here's why you should take a look at Grand Rapids. 1. Grand Rapids tackles big ideas. When I toured Steelcase we barely talked about furniture. Instead we talked about AI, their partnership with Microsoft and how their customers see them now as workplace consultants rather than just a furniture maker. The future of work is a hot topic for the Fortune 500. Steelcase leading in this space for some of the largest companies in the world brings strategic partnerships to Grand Rapids. Craft beer is also pulling strong international companies and interest. Kalamazoo-based Bell's and Founders have been named the top two craft breweries in America for the past two years. Founders, a brewery located in the heart of downtown Grand Rapids, grew by 34 percent and outproduced Bell's for the first year in its history. Craft beer makes up 15 percent of the overall beer market but Founders has its sight set beyond that. Co-Founder and CEO Mike Stevens said, "The American consumer is ready for new beer brands that they can believe in and are authentic to its core. Now more than ever, the American beer landscape is poised for change." Tackling future offices and the other 85% of the beer market, like Steelcase and Founders, elevates a city nationally. 2. Grand Rapids isn't afraid to fail. It starts with its city leaders. The DeVos family co-founded Amway and own the Orlando Magic. "Creativity and innovation many times means being unafraid to try things and fail. That's often how you get the best ideas." said Dick DeVos. His father Richard DeVos created Amway, Dick has made his impact through philanthropy and growing Grand Rapids' infrastructure. And the third generation is focused on creating more opportunities for entrepreneurs and artists. "We're obviously proud of our son, Rick, for following his vision and creating ArtPrize, 5X5 nights and other initiatives, which has played a role in unlocking some of the creative culture in the area over the last 10 years." This culture of risk-taking is seen everywhere. Rosalynn Bliss, the city's first female mayor, has lead a charge to restore the rapids. That five-year project will make Grand Rapids a tourist destination for outdoor adventurers. Cities like Richmond and Chattanooga have already seen strong investment from similar efforts. Birgit Klohs, President and CEO of The Right Place, Inc has led public/private partnerships to grow the profile of the city. She has secured investment in large arenas, convention centers, manufacturing and the airport-keeping Grand Rapids one step ahead, continuing with current pushes in healthcare. The Grand Rapids Chamber created a new open collaboration center, similar to what Capital One has done with cafes, to make it "a benefit of membership versus an overhead expense for the organization," said Rick Baker, President and CEO. 3. Generations of philanthropists continue to elevate the city. The first month I lived in Grand Rapids, Peter Secchia told me there were literal tumbleweeds in the downtown in the 1970's. The DeVos and Van Andel families (co-founders of Amway), Secchia, the former CEO of Universal Forest Products, and other leaders took on the challenge of changing the perception of Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids now has two national medical research facilities, the Van Andel Institute and Secchia Center. And if you are wondering how real this love of city and influence is, this group convinced Michigan State University to move their entire College of Medicine from East Lansing to Grand Rapids. That's over an hour away but Grand Rapids has a top-ten health system in Spectrum Health, the state-of-the art Helen DeVos Children's Hospital and a rapid expansion of jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities in its Medical Mile. Dr. Roger Jansen, Spectrum Health's Chief Strategy Officer, is leading a $6 billion company's innovation efforts. The newly formed Spectrum Health Ventures manages a $100 million dollar investment fund that is already making investments (unfortunately I can't disclose yet) that will continue to elevate Spectrum Health and Grand Rapids as a destination for healthcare. This is now the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, a threshold that was officially crossed on Saturday. As I write this, day 24 is coming to a close. Thousands of furloughed public workers have already missed one or more paychecks. The uncertainty about how long the shutdown will go on can make it difficult to impossible to find stopgap employment, as few employers are excited about taking on and potentially having to train a new worker who could be called back by Uncle Sam any day. As a result, a number of federal agencies and even the Coast Guard have posted sad survival "tip sheets" for furloughed workers that suggest taking on babysitting gigs or having a garage sale, among other potential humiliations. So much for all the great benefits of a government job. As my colleague Bill Murphy, Jr. mentioned last week, the dire situation has led thousands of workers to turn to crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe to solicit donations in order to pay their bills. As of Monday, searching for "shutdown" on the platform will bring up over ten thousand results. The endless scroll is a catalog of furlough horror stories and public servants basically engaging in digital panhandling. Most have raised from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars and come from all across the country. Ironically, a crowdfunding campaign to fund President Trump's proposed new southern border wall also got started and went viral on GoFundMe. Funding for the wall is a central part of the legislative impasse over appropriations to re-open the government, as you may have heard. Defending your business against an outbreak of the Ebola virus might seem like an unlikely scenario, but that's exactly what happened to the founders of clothing company Uniform. Appearing on Sunday's episode of Shark Tank, Uniform co-founders Chid Liberty and Adam Butlein also founded Liberty & Justice, a New York City-based textile company that bills itself as the first Fair Trade-certified apparel-manufacturing company in Africa. The business was generating $40 million in annual sales when, in 2014, the Ebola virus outbreak struck West Africa, killing more than 11,000 people and forcing the company to cease operations for more than a year. "We went from figuring out how quickly we would grow to how to save all of our workers' lives," Liberty told the Sharks. After the health crisis ended in 2016, the co-founders were left with hundreds of thousands of dollars in clothing fabric. They decided to make school uniforms with the leftover inventory--since many parents in Africa can't afford uniforms for their children--and launched Uniform. The company makes clothing with a minimalist aesthetic, ranging from T-shirts and oxford shirts to bomber jackets and jumpsuits, and donates one school uniform for every item sold. Liberty and Butlein went on Shark Tank seeking $300,000 for 10 percent of the company, which is headquartered in New York City but produces garments in Liberia and Ghana, where it employs local women. The founders generated $300,000 in annual sales in 2017, having funded their first production run by raising $400,000 in a crowdfunding campaign in 2015. Uniform sells its products online and at Bloomingdale's and will soon have a children's apparel line at Target, Liberty told the Sharks. "It looks like in all areas you're covered," Daymond John said. "What do you think we can do for you besides money?" Liberty and Butlein admitted that they needed a mentor to help them grow, explaining how each of the Sharks could help them achieve that goal. Robert Herjavec, Mark Cuban, Lori Greiner, and guest Shark Bethenny Frankel weren't interested in investing in a clothing company, however. John, who built the successful streetwear brand FUBU and has invested in clothing-related startups on the show, said he admired their mission and one-for-one business model but was concerned that the founders weren't focused enough on one product. He told them he wasn't interested in investing, but would make himself available should they need a mentor, similar to the way he mentored Shark Tank's Moziah Bridges, the 12-year-old founder of bow tie company Mo's Bows. Uniform's founders left the tank without a deal, but optimistic about the future of their company. Early in her career, Anu Duggal founded two businesses in India, and helped to raise millions of dollars in venture-capital funding. But after she moved to New York City in 2011, she witnessed female entrepreneurs struggling to find backing, community, and support. She vowed to do something about the situation, starting Female Founders Fund to prove that women make excellent founders. Realizing that goal, though, would prove to be a long, difficult slog. --As told to Christine Lagorio-Chafkin I was living in India from 2009 to 2011, having co-founded an e-commerce company called Exclusively.in. It was the first to apply the flash-sale model to Indian retail. We ended up raising about $20 million. Through that fundraising experience, I saw this pretty blatant disparity between the people we were pitching to invest in our company and our team itself, which was very much 50-50 male-female. We had two female and two male co-founders. Also the male investors didn't understand the business. They had to go home and ask their wives or their girlfriends, "Is this something that you would use?" Still, investors knew who I was. I'd previously started India's first wine bar, so the respect was there. It was only after we ended up getting acquired and I moved back to New York and started doing some angel investing that I noticed women were really having trouble getting access to funding. It didn't really make sense. I think part of it was because historically you just haven't seen that many cases of large technology companies being built by women. Female founders were--this was 2013--sort of a novelty. At the same time, a lot of macrofactors had changed. You had more women working at large technology companies like Google and Facebook. The cost of capital to start a company had come down, and there was a difference in even just the basic structural hardware that was in place and the platforms that were accessible. These factors made it much easier to build a brand or consumer product than say, 10 or 20 years ago. I felt like we were at a pretty interesting point in time when you were definitely going to start seeing great companies being started by women. That was really the genesis for Female Founders Fund: to build a brand that offered not just access to capital but also to a base of other operators and founders who could really help women who were starting companies. I was really facing two major challenges. As a first-time fund manager, it's incredibly difficult to raise capital, particularly without venture capital experience. That's because you're asking investors basically to invest in both your ability to get access to great deals, and then your ability to pick well. Plus, this whole concept of "female founders being back-able" didn't exist at that point. I did 700 meetings over two years just to get the first fund going. There were definitely days where I was wondering, "Is this actually going to go anywhere, given how long the journey has been even to just raise capital?" Women-run companies didn't have the national awareness--there hadn't been the Stitch Fix IPO or Eventbrite IPO yet. Anyone whom I met who said no, I would ask them just to introduce me to one additional person who might be interested. That resulted in a ton of introductions, which eventually got me to people who really understood the concept and were excited about it. The first fund, $6 million, closed in 2014. Some of the companies in that fund include Zola, Tala, and Maven Clinic. Our big moment was actually this year when one of our first investments out of this first fund, a company called Eloquii, was acquired by Walmart. [The deal reportedly was for roughly $100 million.] For all of the folks who doubted the idea, the first time where you're actually returning capital to your investors is incredibly powerful. We want to be able to prove to the investment community that they can generate great returns with a portfolio that is 100 percent female-founded. For those male investors who still have a hard time believing that, the results will be something they can't argue with. By early 2016, we were starting to see a lot more awareness around the fact that female founders are a thing and the amount of capital that they're getting is a ridiculously small percentage of the whole: 2 percent. Being first to market in terms of building a brand that focused on this was suddenly very appealing. The timing was great. Fast forward to today, the landscape has, as we know, changed dramatically, and an ecosystem for funding female entrepreneurs is continuing to develop. Several of our own investors have gone on to start funds that have a similar focus to invest in female founders. We launched our second fund, this one $27 million, in 2018. (The Center Square) Fingerprints wouldnt be mandatory for Firearm Owners Identification card applicants with a Senate Bill the Illinois House is expected to take up when they return to Springfield Wednesday. If you are old enough to remember the hit comedy movie of 1980, Caddy Shack, then you will recall that a gopher infestation was threatening a golf course in Nebraska. The somewhat deranged groundskeeper was tasked with getting rid of the pest. His efforts at eradication include shooting, f Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email circulation2@journalnet.com for help creating one. Community Information If you would like to submit an upcoming event or community announcement, please contact our staff at 208-232-4161 or send an email to cjohnson@journalnet.com. We will also accept news from local clubs and engagement, wedding and anniversary announcements. You can post your community or club events on our calendar. Obituaries Submit an obituary/notice All obituaries must be placed by your mortuary or onlineDeadline is 3 p.m. for publication the next day. The ISJ is not responsible for spelling, grammar, or basic mistakes. Katrina Evans says she has resumed selling hemp CBD oil at her wedding and event store in Pocatello after learning that Walmart and WinCo sell similar products. Police had previously told her to stop selling it. Photo: CCTV Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he's very concerned to see China "acting arbitrarily" by applying the death penalty to a Canadian convicted of drug trafficking. Canada will do all it can to intervene on Robert Lloyd Schellenberg's behalf and Beijing's actions should be worrisome for "all our international friends and allies," Trudeau said Monday. The development further strained already tense relations between Canada and China over the treatment of each other's citizens by their respective justice systems. And rights organizations said it raises serious questions about possible political interference in China. A court in Dalian in northeastern Liaoning province announced Monday evening that it had given Schellenberg the death penalty after reconsidering his case. Schellenberg was detained in 2014 and sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2016 on charges of being an accessory to drug smuggling. His new sentence comes after China detained two Canadians on national security grounds in December in apparent retaliation for Canada's arrest of a Chinese technology executive. Canada detained Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei, on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States, angering Beijing. The Chinese media began publicizing Schellenberg's case after Canada detained Meng, who faces extradition to the U.S. on fraud charges. Fifty people, including Canadian diplomats and foreign and domestic media, attended Monday's trial, the court said in an online statement. Canada's federal government intercedes on behalf of any Canadian facing execution abroad, Trudeau said in Ottawa. "This is very much a concern to see that China is acting arbitrarily and applying the death penalty to a Canadian," he said, adding the government "will continue to talk to our allies and to China about this." Schellenberg's aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones, said the family is awaiting any news regarding an appeal. "All I can really say at this moment is, it is our worst case fear confirmed. Our thoughts are with Robert at this time," she said in an email to The Canadian Press. "It is rather unimaginable what he must be feeling and thinking. It is a horrific, unfortunate, heartbreaking situation." The family also issued a short statement late Monday that said they are working with their MP, Ed Fast, who they said is "working hard on our behalf to ensure that the Trudeau government makes every effort to secure fair treatment for Robert." "The Schellenberg family requests that all Canadians stand with us and pray for the safe return of our loved one," the statement said. Canada updated its travel advice on Monday for citizens visiting China, the first change since before tensions between the countries increased last month. Global Affairs says on its website that Canadians are still advised to "exercise a high degree of caution" when visiting China which is unchanged but it now explains the warning is "due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws." It also now warns of the death penalty, as well as penalties for drug-related offences. Schellenberg's lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo, said his client has 10 days to contest the latest sentence. Photo: The Canadian Press A United Nations committee has warned Canada that continued construction of the Site C hydro dam in northeastern B.C. may violate international agreements. The UN's Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination says Canada may have already violated an agreement it signed 50 years ago. That agreement commits Canada to prevent development on Indigenous land without adequate consultation. Read more Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 15) A local court on Tuesday dismissed charges against a consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) for lack of evidence. The Quezon City Regional Trial Court ruled that the arrest of Rafael Baylosis on Jan. 31, 2018 was "illegal." It also cleared Baylosis of illegal possession of firearms and explosives. His companion, Guillermo Roque, was also acquitted and the P120,000 bail he had posted was ordered returned to him. "The arrest of accused being illegal, the subsequent search on the persons of accused and the purported confiscated items cannot be used as evidence against them," the court said in its 27-page decision signed by Presiding Judge Editha Mina Aguba. The ruling granted the accused's demurrer to evidence, a motion that sought to junk charges for lack of evidence. READ: Police arrest NDFP consultant Rafael Baylosis The court said the arresting police officers admitted that the accused "were just chatting, standing, and waiting for their ride at the side of the road" when they were apprehended. Under the Rules of Court, they could not be arrested without warrant since they we're not committing, attempting to commit, or just committed an offense at that time. The court also noted inconsistencies in the police officers' testimonies, making them "unreliable." Baylosis' camp said they will file counter-charges against those involved in the unlawful arrest. "For false implication and faulty prosecution, Baylosis will press counter-charges against the errant policemen and military men and all other participants in the fabrication of criminal charges," the Public Interest Law Center said in a statement. The court also ordered the release of Baylosis "unless confined for some other causes." Baylosis is facing murder raps over the 1985 Inopacan, Leyte massacre but was granted bail in August 2016, along with other consultants, to attend the peace talks in Norway. Baylosis was the first NDFP consultant to be re-arrested since President Rodrigo Duterte canceled peace talks with communist rebels in November 2017. The NDFP said this was illegal, citing the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), a 1995 document that provides a safe pass for all participants in the peace talks. Malacanang, however, said the JASIG is not in effect now that peace negoatations have been terminated. The NDFP represents the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in peace talks with the government. Roque is an alleged member of the New People's Army, the armed wing of the CPP which has waged nearly five decades of insurgency, the longest running in Asia. We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email circulation@idahopress.com for help creating one. iciHaiti - Jeremie : Aid distribution for prisoners Thursday, January 10, 2019, a delegation from the main office of the Office of Citizen Protection (OPC) composed of Me Wladimir Gassant (Chief of Staff of the Protector of Citizens,), Me Cadet Junior Roberto (Head of the Service of the Citizen Protection of the detainees), of Me Fleurant Edelide (Head of the Complaints and Investigations Department) accompanied by members of the Departmental Direction of the Grand'Anse OPC, distributed 200 food kits, 200 hygiene kits and 40 mattresses to the detainees of the Jeremie Civil prison. On Friday 11 January, the delegation and the departmental director visited the detainees and met with the Commissioner of the Government at the Court of First Instance of Jeremie Me Bergemane Sylvain and the Dean of the Tribunal Me Kesner Jean Numa around the issue of prolonged detention. The latter promised the delegation and the Director to work to reduce the lengthy pre-trial detention in the Department. It was also an opportunity for the delegation and the Departmental Director to attend the release of John Peter Morose, arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned since December 14, also victim of violence by the agents of the National Police of Haiti (PNH) who had incarcerated him. IH/ iciHaiti Photo: CMHA The Penticton Hospital Auxiliary has given the local chapter of the Canadian Mental Health Association a shot in the arm with a $1,000 donation for new winter tires. The CMHA van transports mental health clients on a variety of psychosocial rehabilitation activities such as bowling, skating, swimming and hiking. It also allows the charity to take clients on educational excursions to museums and art galleries, which contribute to enhanced social connections and improved mental health. CMHA also uses the van for weekly grocery shopping trips and transportation of staff to teach mental health workshops throughout the entire South Okanagan Similkameen. We are thrilled with the support we have received from the Penticton Hospital Auxiliary, said Leah Schulting, Executive Director. This donation gives us peace of mind when driving in winter conditions. Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print. Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition. 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OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those. In October, as Damien Chazelles Neil Armstrong biopic First Man arrived in theaters, the movie provoked an uproar over what it didnt show: The moment when Americans planted a flag on the moon. But in trying to affirm American greatness, the movies critics only illustrated how far behind the United States has fallen in the space race. While they were squabbling over First Man, China was preparing to launch Change 4, a lunar mission that achieved landing on the far side of the moon on Jan. 2. China aims to be the leading space power by 2045, and the countrys vision significantly differs from the imperatives that drove the United States and U.S.S.R during the Cold War. What mattered then was planting a flag and then moving on to some other show-off stunt. By contrast, China is focused on establishing a permanent presence in space. China views space, especially the area of space including Earths moon, as directly connected to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Last week, China established an important foothold toward resource exploitation by landing on the far side; the United States needs two to three years before its first robotic missions touch down on the moon. The relative lead on space resources could determine who is the dominant power in the years to come. The stakes are high: Who will be able to obtain the vast resources in space, for example, water/ice, iron, titanium, platinum and nickel; secure the routes of trade; and write the rules of space commerce such as trade in energy propellant and precious metals; who will benefit from the military power that flows from that industrial might? Most people think about space exploration; what matters to the future of power is space exploitation. In the United States, the discussion on space exploitation is led by a disorganized commercial sector; within China, the discourse on space resources is led by the Communist Party of China and President Xi Jinping. Chinas space strategy involves building a lunar industrial infrastructure for cost-effective access to deep space. The Change 4 is the first step: demonstrating the ability to communicate, land, survey and surveil the location for a future industrial and logistical base. This mission secures Chinas access to the resource rich lunar south pole and establishes first presence to exploit space resources, industrialize the moon to build a solar power satellite, and mine the moon and asteroids for their vast wealth. It is the first step toward colonizing the moon. Chinese officials see the lunar south pole as a future base, very similar to how navies viewed coaling stations in the mid-1800s. In the age of steamships, the reach of a nations navies and merchant ships were determined by where they could stop and refuel with coal. Nations competed to gain key coaling stations such as Hawaii. Today, nations are limited in the reach of their space power by the unavailability of in-orbit rocket fuel. It takes about 19 tons of propellant just to get a single ton of payload into space. That makes it very difficult to do ambitious things beyond Earths surface. But getting a ton of payload off the moon requires only one ton of propellant. Thats a tremendous logistical advantage. The most powerful chemical rocket fuel is made by combining hydrogen and oxygen, by separating the elements of water. It is estimated that there are hundreds of millions of tons of water at the lunar poles enough to fuel countless missions to the farthest reaches of the solar system; to access the wealth of the asteroid belt; to extend logistics to enable massive industrialization; to develop military logistics in the space near Earth. By 2030, China aims to send robotic probes to the north and south poles of the moon. The race to watch is not Chinas manned lunar landing but the race between Chinas robotic prospectors and NASAs Commercial Lunar Payload Services, as this will determine each nations relative advantage in accessing and exploiting lunar resources. China is best placed to win a space race, given its well-coordinated, disciplined, technocratic system, able to set and maintain long-term goals, with a vast population and talent base. The United States is disorganized regarding space and cannot offer a serious challenge to the long-term plans China is setting in this domain. Neither the American people nor the U.S. military seems to perceive the significance of what China is doing strategically in the Earth-moon space. They see it through the lens of their own Cold War experience, assuming the motivations China harbors are akin to that of the erstwhile U.S.S.R. for global prestige and simply ticking of boxes when they are not. At stake isnt simply prestige here on Earth: Its whether the future of space exploration, resource development and colonization will be democratic or dominated by the Communist Party of China and the Peoples Liberation Army of China. The American people should think hard about whether they want to cede the next century and the next frontier to a different government with a very different set of values. Goswami is an independent senior analyst and author of Outer Space and Great Powers. Two new blockbuster scoops about President Donald Trump's relations with Russia -- combined with fresh signs that Trump will drag out the government shutdown indefinitely -- should renew our focus on the quiet but critical role that Mitch McConnell has played in enabling the damage that Trump is doing to the country on so many fronts. As the shutdown drags into its fourth week, causing cascading impacts around the country, The Post reports that pressure is now likely to intensify on the Senate majority leader to allow votes on measures reopening the government. Three Senate Republicans have already called for a reopening, and as one GOP strategist puts it, a few more coming out "changes the calculus" for McConnell. Meanwhile, thanks to new reporting over the weekend, the basic question of whether Trump has at pivotal moments acted in Russia's interests, to the detriment of U.S. interests -- is being thrust to the forefront with new urgency. This should cause us to revisit the role that McConnell played during the campaign in preventing members of Congress from showing a united public front against Russian sabotage of the election. The New York Times reports that after Trump fired former FBI director James Comey, FBI officials began an investigation into whether he'd been working for Russian interests. The concern was that, in obstructing the FBI's inquiry, Trump might have made it harder to determine what Russia had done during the election -- thus helping Russia skirt accountability for an attack on U.S. democracy. As the FBI general counsel at the time bluntly put it, a crucial theoretical question was whether "the president of the United States fired Jim Comey at the behest of Russia," impairing an effort to determine the scope of a "threat to national security." Meanwhile, The Post reports that Trump has gone to great lengths to conceal his private discussions with Russian president Vladimir Putin from even his own advisers. The result: "there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump's face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years." Revisiting McConnell's role during the campaign One shadow narrative unfolding in the background over the last two years has been the gradual discovery of just how broad the scope of Russian sabotage of the 2016 election really was. This has made certain events during the campaign appear more serious in retrospect. In September of 2016, as The Post has reported, top Obama administration officials privately asked senior congressional leaders in both parties to go public with a united front against Russian interference. But McConnell refused, claiming (in The Post's words) that "he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics." McConnell also questioned the intelligence demonstrating Russian sabotage. We have since learned a great deal about the Russian interference that McConnell raised doubts about. Special counsel Robert Mueller's indictments of Russian nationals laid out a very detailed plot to corruptly swing the election. More recently, Senate Intelligence Committee reports demonstrated the extraordinary reach of the Russian disinformation campaign, which included elaborate efforts to divide the country on racial and cultural lines. Remember, it was widely known during the election that some sort of Russian interference efforts were taking place. Candidate Trump was downplaying the seriousness of these efforts, or dismissing them altogether. It's hard to know how much of a difference it would have made if congressional leaders went public with bipartisan acknowledgment and condemnation of the Russian interference effort. But it certainly could have helped educate the public and shed light on just how indefensible Trump's downplaying of Russian sabotage really was. Of course, that might have hurt Trump's candidacy, so for McConnell, it was apparently a nonstarter. Now we discover that there is fresh reason to wonder just how deep Trump's loyalties to Putin and Russia ran throughout that whole period. What we still do not know is how detailed and convincing a briefing McConnell and other officials received on what was happening. We should revisit this. What's more, we're also learning that in the view of intelligence officials, Trump's obstruction of justice efforts were potentially more damaging to the country than we thought. They concluded that by firing Comey, Trump was making it harder to learn the truth about Russian sabotage of our democracy irrespective of whether there was any collusion. In retrospect, failure to protect Mueller looks worse This raises new questions about another McConnell action: The refusal to hold votes on legislation protecting the special counsel. In fairness, Trump has still not moved successfully against Mueller. But McConnell scuttled efforts to protect Mueller even though Trump privately tried to fire him twice. There's still time for Trump to act, and passing such protections - which the Democratic House would support - would plainly make any such action, and the damage it would cause, less likely. There's also a forward-looking dimension here. As the Lawfare podcast notes, if FBI officials opened a separate investigation into whether Trump was obstructing the probe to help Russia, it's plausible McConnell and other congressional officials were briefed on this. That would make the failure to act to shield Mueller worse. We need to know more about this, too. On the shutdown front, McConnell continues to refuse votes on bills reopening the government that have already passed the House. McConnell claims there's no point, because Trump wouldn't sign them. But this actively shields Trump from having to veto bills funding the government, which would make it much harder for him to keep holding out. Worse, McConnell privately told Trump in December he has no leverage and no endgame here, meaning McConnell knows full well that not forcing Trump's hand leaves us adrift with no exit in sight. Meanwhile, what happens if Trump declares a national emergency to build his wall, a nakedly autocratic act that will further damage our institutions? Under the National Emergencies Act, both chambers of Congress have the authority to reverse such a declaration. Will McConnell's Senate take such a step, or will he allow Trump to rampage forward on this, too? In much discussion of all these matters, there is a terrible rhetorical habit of treating GOP conduct towards Trump as mere passive acquiescence. In fact, this is better seen as an active enabling, on one front after another. And we are likely to learn much more about just how damaging this has been soon enough. Sargent writes The Plum Line blog. Will President Donald Trump really use disaster-relief funds to build the border wall? He might, and if he does, hell be following a path traveled by another Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt. When Roosevelt wanted to send the U.S. Navy on a goodwill world tour in 1907, in what would become known as the voyage of the Great White Fleet, he couldnt persuade Congress to appropriate the required funds. So Roosevelt used what available presidential discretionary money he had to send them halfway around the world; he then told Congress that, for the Navy to return home safely, it would have to appropriate the needed funds a clear example of whats known as a fait accompli, a situation in which the result has already been determined and everyone else simply has to accept it. Its a rhetorical tool that President Trump is likely to use in his current predicament. He might notify Congress that, since disaster relief funds were diverted to build the wall, Congress would have to appropriate the necessary money to replace the funds intended to help the states which likely it would. I make this observation as someone who has studied and taught political communication and argument for more than 40 years. It is clear to me that Trump is not an ideological president. Nor is he a public policy wonk with a vested interest in specific policies. He is someone who has spent his life operating from the assumption that all disputes are zero-sum games in which there is by definition one winner and one loser, and where his primary goal is to be the victor. Nowhere is this more evident than Trumps current thinking about and planning for how to win the battle over the wall and the government shutdown. Thats likely why President Trump has contemplated declaring a national emergency as a way of extricating himself from his current political predicament. Doing so would give him the ability rhetorically to fulfill his campaign promise to his base to build a wall while simultaneously ending the government shutdown. Admittedly, such an option is not without legal challenges; it would also create a troublesome precedent, one increasing the likelihood that future presidents Democrats and Republicans will use the national emergency strategy as a way to circumvent Congress, thus undermining our nations checks and balances. That it might also mean taking money Congress has appropriated for relief to states such as California and Texas, where post-Hurricane Harvey relief projects are sorely needed, is especially troubling. Doing that could risk alienating voters in these states and elsewhere who might see Trumps actions as callous. But thats where the use of the rhetoric to create a fait accompli would come in handy. Like Roosevelt before him, Trump could essentially dare Congress to call his bluff counting on members sensitivities to storm-ravaged communities to lead them to appropriate more funding to cover what he has funneled to the wall project. Not a pretty picture, to say the least but, sadly, one indicative of the unfortunate polarized political climate in which we live. Cherwitz is the Ernest S. Sharpe Centennial Professor in the Moody College of Communication and founder of the Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium (IE), University of Texas at Austin. At times of great global upheaval, policymakers often reach for familiar historical analogies to help them make sense of an uncertain future. Consider the debate over whether the deepening confrontation between the U.S. and China constitutes a "new Cold War." RELATED: Who is X? U.S. lacks a foreign policy fit for the 21st century. It is a marker of how quickly the U.S.-China relationship has deteriorated that commentators are invoking the analogy. Only three years ago, President Barack Obama observed that the U.S. had more to fear from a weak, failing China than a strong, confident China. Now, the critical question is not whether that relationship is fated for rivalry, but how deep, enduring and dangerous the rivalry will be. Analysts such as Robert Kaplan argue that the U.S.-China struggle to shape the 21st century will resemble the all-consuming U.S.-Soviet competition for dominance in the decades after 1945. Other observers - including leading Cold War historians - have warned that the Cold War analogy is flawed and even dangerous. Such thinking "is a kind of terminological laziness that equates the conflicts of yesteryear . . . with what takes place today," writes Harvard University's Odd Arne Westad. Misunderstanding the threat China poses, they warn, will push the U.S. toward excessively confrontational policies. The skeptics are not wrong to note the myriad differences between the U.S.-Soviet confrontation and today, or to warn that efforts to re-run the Cold War playbook are likely to fail. Yet simply rejecting the Cold War analogy is also unwise, because that conflict provides useful insights about handling the China challenge. Let's begin with the misleading aspects of the analogy. China is not the Soviet Union - it is not a revolutionary state that is ideologically committed to the destruction of the capitalist world. Rather, China is deeply integrated into the global economy, to the point of being the primary trading partner of all of America's treaty allies in the Asia-Pacific. Although the U.S.-China relationship is worsening before our eyes, there remain areas with some degree of common interest: Preserving the stability of the international economy, for instance, or combating climate change. Finally, the current distribution of global power is not nearly as bipolar as it was during the Cold War. For these and other reasons, the U.S.-China competition may bear more resemblance to the competition during the late 19th and early 20th centuries between the U.K. and Germany -increasingly fierce rivals despite being deeply interlinked economically. The U.S. will not be able to contain a globally connected China in the same way it contained a relatively autarkic Soviet Union. Yet the U.S. will need to limit China's malign influence just as it limited destabilizing Soviet activities during the Cold War. Here the history of that conflict does provide some helpful ideas. First, the Cold War analogy shows that multidimensional challenges require multidimensional responses. What made the Soviet menace so potent was that it combined a military threat to areas that were critical to the global balance of power with an ideological threat to the supremacy - perhaps even the survival - of liberal ideas. As a result, the U.S. and its allies responded not just with military and geopolitical containment of Soviet power, but with policies - from the Marshall Plan to public diplomacy initiatives - meant to fortify the democratic core of the Western bloc and demonstrate that communism offered a false answer to the world's political and economic problems. Today, the China challenge is commonly seen to be primarily geopolitical and economic, and there is indeed growing evidence that Beijing seeks to replace Washington as the leading power not just in the Asia-Pacific but globally. Yet China has also thrown down the ideological gauntlet. Chinese leaders have declared that Beijing's model of authoritarian capitalism is superior to America's model of liberal democracy. They are supporting authoritarian regimes from Cambodia to Zimbabwe, using corruption and other influence operations to impair the functioning of democracies in the Asia-Pacific and beyond, and constructing a high-tech police state at home. Any strategy for competing with China will therefore require efforts to fortify the balance of ideas - by strengthening democracies under pressure and making the case that liberal political systems can deliver the goods - and to fortify the balance of power. The Trump administration's formal policy statements, particularly the National Security Strategy, offer a good start, but the president himself has shown scant interest in this dimension of the competition. Second, the history of the Cold War reminds us that the U.S. needs a theory of victory that can be sustained over a generation or more. The value of George Kennan's concept of containment was that it identified what the U.S. sought to achieve - containing Soviet influence until the Kremlin regime mellowed or crumbled - and how it would do so, by denying Moscow the fruits of expansion and increasing the pressure under which it operated. That strategy was simple enough that it could be replicated across presidential administrations, but flexible enough that it could be adapted as political and geopolitical circumstances changed. The U.S. today finds itself in search of such a concept. There is broad consensus that engagement has failed to tame a rising China, and that a more competitive approach is required. Yet U.S. officials have not really clarified America's long-term strategic goal. Is it regime change? Holding the line against further expansion of Chinese geopolitical and ideological influence? Cutting a comprehensive deal that will resolve U.S.-China tensions? Nor have they explained how Washington will get there. And while the Trump administration deserves credit for raising public awareness of the challenge, it has also politicized the debate in unhelpful ways. In October, for instance, Vice President Mike Pence argued (rather dubiously) that China was interfering in America's midterm elections because it "wants a different American president" - the sort of partisan rhetoric that is unlikely to solidify long-term support for any U.S. strategy. Finally, the Cold War analogy reminds us that a decisive factor in competition with China will be how well America tends to its alliances and partnerships. Those relationships were critical to what Secretary of State Dean Acheson called "situations of strength" in the competition with Moscow. They bound some of the world's most important and dynamic nations to Washington and ensured that the communist world could never outstrip the collective strength of the free world. Alliances and partnerships will play a similarly critical role in the coming years. If the U.S. remains tightly linked to countries ringing China's periphery, it will be devilishly difficult for Beijing to dominate its geopolitical neighborhood. If the U.S. maintains solidarity with the world's democracies - particularly in Europe and the Asia-Pacific - it will find it far easier to cope with the economic, ideological and geopolitical threat China poses. If, however, Washington rends these relationships through its own actions, or fails to prevent China from weakening them through intimidation and coercion, its competitiveness will erode as its isolation increases. The Cold War may not be a perfect analogy for the U.S.-China rivalry, but American policymakers would nonetheless do well to keep these lessons in mind. Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Most recently, he is the co-author of "The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order." Photo: Nevada Highway Patrol An elderly Osoyoos woman was killed in a crash Saturday morning on a highway in Nevada. The Nevada Highway Patrol has named Maryann Vandenbossche, 81 as the victim of a fatal collision on U.S. Highway 93 north of Wells. Her husband, Oscar Vandenbossche, 82, was flown to hospital in critical condition. Mr. Vandenbossche attempted to pass a slower vehicle in the dense fog and collided head on with a Dodge truck traveling northbound on U.S. 93 pulling a horse trailer with three horses, Trooper Jim Stewart told the Elko Daily News. The driver of the truck sustained minor injuries while the horses in the trailer were unharmed. Maryann was in the front passenger seat of the Toyota SUV and died at the scene. Both occupants were wearing seat belts. The crash occurred in foggy and freezing conditions. Its an annual rite of winter in Houston that each Martin Luther King Jr. Day, people must decide which parade to attend. The day may pay tribute to an icon for unity, but it has also provided a backdrop for the two parades founders to show very little of the brotherly love King promoted. This editorial board last summer asked the city to consider producing its own official parade, coordinated by its special events staff with the two feuding parade directors hired as consultants after they shut down their events. Its clear now that isnt going to happen. The Original MLK Jr. Birthday Parade was started in 1978 by Ovide Duncantell, a local civil rights activist and founder of the Houston Black Heritage Society. Duncantell helped lead the campaign to have South Park Boulevard renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. He died Oct. 25 at age 82. The MLK Grande Parade was started 25 years ago by a former Black Heritage Society volunteer, Charles Stamps. He has used his entrepreneurial skill to build an event that this year boasts more than 50 partners, including Boeing, Navy Federal Credit Union, Southwest Airlines and Sheraton hotels. The Original MLK Parade has fewer sponsors, but it has an important one the city of Houston. Mayor Sylvester Turner announced in July that the dueling parades were not a reflection of Dr. Kings legacy and that the older event would be the one officially recognized by the city. That decision couldnt have been easy for Turner, who may be risking support from voters who dont agree with his parade choice. Any question that the decision would have political implications seemed to be answered when two expected mayoral candidates attorney Tony Buzbee and Bill King, who lost to Turner in 2015 were named MLK Grande Parade grand marshals. Firefighters union president Marty Lancton, who has clashed with Turner over pay parity, is also a Grande Parade honoree this year. Stamps says Lanctons selection wasnt a jab at Turner. Marty has been an active participant for years, Stamps said. For his part, King says he has had a relationship with the MLK Grande Parade ever since he was asked to give a speech to its organizers 10 years ago. Regarding Buzbee, Stamps says its not unusual for politicians, including Turner, to be involved with the parades. Leaving politics out of it, there will still be two King Day parades this year. People trying to choose which one to attend may find some guidance in Kings own words: Unity has never meant uniformity. Choose whichever parade works best for you and have a good time. Baylor St. Lukes Medical Center has ousted its president, its chief nursing officer and a top physician following numerous reports of substandard care, including a recent mistake that led to a patients death, the Houston hospital announced Monday. The departures come in the wake of a yearlong investigation by the Houston Chronicle and ProPublica that documented an outsized number of deaths and unusual complications following heart transplants at St. Lukes. In August, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services terminated federal funding for heart transplants at the hospital, citing its failure to make changes needed to improve outcomes. The news organizations also reported on poor outcomes following heart bypass surgery, repeated complaints about inadequate nursing care, a recent rise in the number of deaths after liver and lung transplants, and a physicians allegation that he was retaliated against after raising concerns that some of his patients had received unnecessary medical treatments in intensive care units. The hospital boards decision to replace top management comes in direct response to a recent error in which an emergency room patient died after receiving a blood transfusion with the wrong blood type, the hospital said in a news release announcing the changes. Bob Moos, a spokesman for CMS, said that a team of 11 federal and state inspectors visited St. Lukes last week to complete a comprehensive investigation. The next steps will be determined from that review, Moos said. Marc Shapiro, chairman of the St. Lukes board of directors, said in a statement that the nonprofit hospital has faced significant challenges over the last year, and in light of the most recent incident, the board determined aggressive action was needed. The latest Medicare review raises concerns that are simply unacceptable to the Board, Shapiro said. Doug Lawson, a regional executive with Catholic Health Initiatives, which owns the hospital, will replace Gay Nord as president, the hospital said in the news release. Lawson will continue in his role as CEO of CHIs Texas Division, which oversees St. Lukes and 15 other hospitals across the state. CHI St. Luke's Health / Courtesy photo A hospital spokesman said Lawson was not available for an interview and referred reporters to the hospitals news release. In a statement, Lawson said the hospital is developing a 90-day plan that will include new initiatives in the areas of clinical excellence, patient experience, and workplace culture. We are committed to taking all steps necessary to keep us on the path of excellence and to earn the trust of our patients. Jennifer Nitschmann, the hospitals chief nursing officer, and Dr. David Berger, the hospitals senior vice president of operations, also have left their roles, the hospital announced. Berger declined to comment for this story; Nord and Nitschmann could not be reached. Make a statement Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of Harvards Global Health Institute and an expert in hospital quality measures, said hospitals nationwide have set up robust systems to prevent patients from receiving transfusions of the wrong blood type, a deadly and rare mistake. About this story This story is the result of a collaboration between the Chronicle and ProPublica, an independent nonprofit newsroom based in New York. Mike Hixenbaugh is an investigative reporter for the Chronicle. Charles Ornstein is a senior editor at ProPublica. 'Significant challenges' Here's a look at the chain of events that Marc Shapiro, chair of St. Luke's board of directors, referred to on Monday as "significant challenges": May 2018: The Houston Chronicle and ProPublica publish a joint investigation into problems that led to a high rate of patient deaths following heart transplants at Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center. The hospital launches a website to rebut the reporting and defend the quality of the heart program. June 1, 2018: St. Luke's announces it is suspending heart transplants for two weeks after the deaths of two additional heart recipients. June 22, 2018: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announces it is cutting off funding for heart transplant at St. Luke's after concluding the hospital had not done enough to improve outcomes. Aug. 17, 2018: CMS formally terminates funding to the program, barring the hospital from billing Medicare or Medicaid for heart transplants, a decision the hospital would later appeal. Oct. 3, 2018: The federal government cites St. Luke's for not having working defibrillator paddles in the operating room during a January heart transplant, as first reported by the Chronicle and ProPublica. The transplant ultimately failed, and the patient died two months later. Oct. 19, 2018: The hospital announces it has hired two new surgeons to lead its heart program, replacing the surgeon who'd led the program since 2016, and had also hired an executive to oversee all of the hospital's transplant programs. Jan. 14, 2019: The hospital announces it is replacing its president, its chief nursing officer and a top physician following a serious mistake that led to a patient's death in the emergency room. See More Collapse So for that to fall apart really does say to me, in the context of everything else going on, that there was really a deeper systemic problem, Jha said, emphasizing that such an error is even more remarkable at a major teaching hospital such as St. Lukes. Whether changing leadership is going to fix it, I dont know ... but, of course, holding people to account is critically important. The sudden departures are a stunning turn for a hospital renowned for its pioneering heart research, conducted with its partners, Texas Heart Institute and Baylor College of Medicine. It was where Dr. Denton Cooley performed some of the worlds first heart transplants and where Dr. O.H. Bud Frazier has worked to develop a mechanical replacement for the human heart. St. Lukes, founded in 1954 by the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, is a behemoth in the Texas Medical Center, with 850 licensed beds, nearly 4,000 employees and 7,500 physicians. For months, St. Lukes leaders had steadfastly defended the quality of care provided at the hospital. Following news reports last year about problems within the heart transplant program and other patient care concerns, the hospital launched a website and purchased full-page newspaper advertisements challenging the reporting and defending its medical care. In an interview in August, Berger acknowledged that St. Lukes had struggled to meet national quality benchmarks in the years immediately after CHI purchased the hospital in 2013, but he said those issues were in the past. After Nords arrival in 2016, Berger said, administrators had invested additional resources in the hospitals quality department, strengthened its physician-leadership structure and worked with doctors and nurses to find ways to improve outcomes. The issues that youre bringing to light focus on a period of time in the institution when there were some challenges, Berger told reporters. But I think our current data, which shows really excellent outcomes both from patient safety and from quality, would show that those issues are no longer pertinent. ... Those are historical issues. In an interview Monday, Baylor College of Medicine President and CEO Paul Klotman said St. Lukes has made significant progress in improving care in the five years since it entered a joint-operating agreement with the medical school. But he said a mistake as serious as giving a patient a transfusion with the wrong blood type should never happen. There are certain things that reach a threshold where youve got to make a statement, where youve got to change the leadership and direction to get everyones attention, said Klotman, who also sits on the St. Lukes hospital board. This is one of those things. Klotman said he does not believe Medicares decision to cut off funding for heart transplants last year factored in the boards decision to change hospital leadership. He said the problems that triggered federal scrutiny were limited to a string of heart transplant patient deaths in 2015 and had since been corrected. I cant get over it However, the Chronicle and ProPublica investigation documented unusual complications and deaths following heart transplants in 2016 and 2017, prompting some doctors to bring their concerns to Nord and other hospital leaders. At least two cardiologists grew so troubled, they said they began referring some patients to competing hospitals for transplants. Two weeks after the news organizations published those findings in May, a federal appeals court judge stepped down from the hospitals board of directors, and the hospital announced it was temporarily suspending the heart program following two additional patient deaths in 2018. The program reopened 14 days later, but within weeks, the federal government stepped in. Medicare announced in June that it would cut off funding for heart transplants at St. Lukes after the agency concluded the hospital had not done enough to improve care. Starting in mid-August, St. Lukes was barred from billing federal health programs for heart transplants. The hospital is appealing that decision. Later, CMS issued a separate citation for an operating room equipment failure that occurred during a failed heart transplant in January 2018. That patient died following a separate and unrelated error nearly three months later, the Chronicle and ProPublica reported in May. The problems led more than 100 patients, family members, physicians and other medical professionals to contact the news organizations to report concerns about care at St. Lukes. In October, after repeatedly defending the quality of the program and its physicians, St. Lukes announced it had hired two doctors to replace its lead heart transplant surgeon and hired a new executive to oversee all of its transplant programs. Marilyn Chambers, whose husband, John, died at St. Lukes in April, more than three months after receiving a double-lung transplant, said she believes the hospital needs to do more than change leaders. Chambers filed several complaints about the care provided to her husband, including incidents in which she said she found medication intended for another patient in her husbands room. In a pair of meetings with Marilyn Chambers last year, Nord acknowledged that her staff could have done a better job caring for Chambers husband and said the hospital had educated staff based on some of her complaints. It wasnt enough, Chambers said. I cant get over it, she said. Its been eight months, and Im still crying like its yesterday. Everything is just so unresolved, and I cant get anybody to do anything. Chronicle staff writer Todd Ackerman contributed to this report. mike.hixenbaugh@chron.com Twitter.com/Mike_Hixenbaugh A former Texas corrections officer is suing the prison system after he was allegedly forced to resign for not writing up disciplinary cases on inmates who asked him personal questions and inquired about whether he had ever brought in contraband. In a legal claim filed last month in federal court, Estevan Cervantez argues that, even though he disputed investigators allegations that hed done wrong, he agreed to resign from the Luther Unit when officials promised not to give him a disciplinary case and leave him eligible for rehire. But unit brass allegedly broke that promise, leaving the young officer jobless, with a black mark on his record. Its a fundamental disagreement about what happened at his termination, his attorney, Scott Poerschke told the Houston Chronicle. Its like theyre intentionally misrepresenting facts. A Texas prison spokesman declined to comment on the pending litigation. In January 2018, a few months after Cervantez started working at the Luther Unit in Navasota, the rookie officer was one of four guards targeted for a vehicle search, according to the lawsuit. The Office of Inspector General investigators came up empty-handed from the hunt, but afterward officials still pulled Cervantez aside for questioning, asking whether hed ever been approached about bringing in contraband. Cervantez said that he had been, and named two prisoners who had vaguely asked whether hed ever considered smuggling in banned goods. Officer Cervantez immediately ordered these two offenders to stop asking him these questions and explained if they did it again they would be issued a disciplinary infraction, the suit says. Both of the offenders complied and Officer Cervantez was not approached again. Because the men didnt make specific requests and only spoke in generalities, Cervantez thought it didnt seem to rise to the level of a solicitation charge which is correct under policy and procedure, Poerschke said. He did exactly what he was supposed to do. But when Cervantez recounted the exchange to his supervisors, they accused him of handling it the street way, saying that inmates even asking the question was a rules violation because it counted as attempting to establish a relationship. They went on to ask if he had a personal relationship with and a third inmate and Cervantez said no, but that the man had once asked his age. Again, the higher-ups viewed that as a rules violation, and accused him of being the inmates homeboy and claimed they had a folder of evidence showing that. The whole line of questioning came amid an investigation into K2 also known as synthetic marijuana smuggling on the unit, and officials accused Cervantez of taking part, along with another officer. I dont trust you, so either way youre going to resign or youre going to face disciplinary and be separated from the agency, a unit major told him, according to the lawsuit. I dont want you working here. Cervantez said hed rather go through the formal disciplinary process, but the officials told him theyd hit him with multiple disciplinary cases. They promised him that if he just resigned instead they wouldnt discipline him and hed still be able to work in law enforcement elsewhere. So the young officer agreed to pen a succinct letter of resignation - only to file a grievance over it a week later, saying the resignation wasnt really voluntary. In response, officials did write him up, and claimed that Cervantez had confessed that multiple inmates had explicitly asked him to smuggle in K2 and hed failed to report it. The disciplinary charges brought against Officer Cervantez are false, the lawsuit says, adding that its all made worse by the fact that the warden deliberately waited to hold a disciplinary hearing until after Cervantez no longer worked for the prison system. In the days that followed, Cervantez filed nine grievances, which officials refused to even accept because he didnt work there anymore. Not long after that, he learned that hed been terminated during an investigation and when he applied for rehire, was denied due to his disciplinary history. And, given the termination code used, he likely wont be eligible to work in law enforcement jobs elsewhere, the suit claims. It was all basically a conspiracy against him, Poerschke said, to make it like what hed done was a serious violation when it was not. Now, hes asking to have his name cleared, the grievances investigated and his attorneys fees paid. keri.blakinger@chron.com The Houston Police Department announced Monday that it is joining Rings mobile app, Neighbors, in a move officials hope will reduce crime and improve safety in neighborhoods across the city, even as department officials complain of low staffing levels. The HPD partnership with Ring, a rapidly growing home surveillance company that sells video doorbells and similar products, would help the police department communicate more effectively in real time with residents as crimes occur, Houston Police Burglary and Theft Division Commander Glenn Yorek said. HPD will be able to send alerts to neighbors of crime and safety incidents in real time, request information about local crime and safety from neighbors who opt in to sharing for a particular request, and work with the local community to build trust and to make the community safer, Yorek said, announcing the partnership at the departments downtown headquarters Monday morning. The joint venture is the latest for Ring, a seven-year-old tech startup purchased by Amazon for more than $1 billion in February that has grown exponentially in recent years even as it has weathered criticism over its privacy practices and disputes over claims that its products reduce crime. Now Playing: The Houston Police Department announced that it is joining Ring's mobile app, Neighbors, in a move officials hope will reduce crime and improve safety in neighborhoods across the city. Video: Houston Police Department The company sells doorbells equipped with digital cameras that link to owners smartphones. Video captured by the devices of porch pirates and package thieves are popular online. Tens of thousands of Ring devices with hundreds of thousands of app users operate across the Houston region, but officials would not provide specific numbers about how many are in Houston. The app, available on Android and Apple devices, provides residents with information on local crime within a five-mile radius of where they live. Residents can view videos shared by other app users and communicate with each other via text-based messages. Neighbors General Manager Eric Kuhn said HPD was the largest law enforcement agency the company has partnered with yet, though Ring has similar partnerships with 16 other police departments and sheriffs offices in Texas. The company has partnerships with numerous other departments across the nation, including across much of Florida and in Los Angeles, where Ring boasted of reducing burglaries in one neighborhood in 2015 by 55 percent over a six-month period. We strongly believe when communities and law enforcement come together and work together, you can not only reduce crime, but you can build much better, safer places to live, Kuhn said. Mixed results Criminologists and government officials, however, have raised questions about the impact Rings cameras actually have on reducing crime. An article in MIT Technology Review reviewed Rings findings in the Los Angeles neighborhood and found that burglaries in subsequent years rose to levels higher than in any of the previous seven years. And In West Valley City, Utah, officials performed a test in two neighborhoods of similar size and levels of crime. Both neighborhoods saw a drop in crime, according to the MIT Technology Review story, but the results were surprising: the neighborhood without the devices saw a more significant drop. Maria Cuellar, an assistant professor of criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, said there is not sufficient evidence to say whether Ring devices really reduce crime. Rings study in Los Angeles was problematic because it relied on small sample sizes, Cuellar said, adding that a properly designed study, or more data and analysis, is needed to tell if Ring cameras are really effective at reducing crime. All the help we can get Houston police officials said the partnership would provide better understanding of activity playing out in neighborhoods in real time, even as they repeated past complaints of low staffing levels. We need all the help we can get to understand whats going on with crime, where it is, and how we can address it, said Diana Poor, HPDs deputy director of planning. Houston Police Officers Union President Joe Gamaldi said he hoped the partnership would act as a force multiplier for HPD. Considering the limited resources we have, and the fact were 1,500 officers short, were open to any idea that can reduce crime in our communities, he said. Rings partnership with HPD comes as one of the regions other largest law enforcement agencies, the Harris County Sheriffs Office, decided against a similar arrangement. Harris County had originally agreed to a partnership with Ring in June shortly after the company launched the Neighbors platform but pulled out of the deal over concerns about residents privacy and other issues. HCSO Spokesman Jason Spencer said at the time the HCSO rarely partners with for-profit companies because the department wants to avoid the impression it is endorsing a particular product or business. He also questioned how much of a benefit a partnership with Ring would be, saying the majority of residents whom deputies ask to share surveillance footage comply. The department also can seek search warrants to secure access to cameras that may have captured video. Privacy questions As Ring has grown, it also has weathered criticism over its handling of consumer privacy. According to a recent report in The Intercept, Ring gave U.S.-based executives and engineers highly privileged access to the companys technical support video portal, allowing unfiltered, round-the-clock live feeds from some customer cameras, regardless of whether they needed access to that data to do their jobs. At Mondays news conference, Kuhn said company employees dont have access to private videos. When asked by the Houston Chronicle about the discrepancy Monday, a Ring spokeswoman also disputed the Intercepts story. We take the privacy and security of our customers personal information extremely seriously, the company said in a written statement. In order to improve our service, we view and annotate certain Ring video recordings. These recordings are sourced exclusively from publicly shared Ring videos from the Neighbors app (in accordance with our terms of service), and from a small fraction of Ring users who have provided their explicit written consent to allow us to access and utilize their videos for such purposes. Ring employees do not have access to livestreams from Ring products. We hold our team members to a high ethical standard and anyone in violation of our policies faces discipline, including termination and potential legal and criminal penalties. In addition, we have zero tolerance for abuse of our systems and if we find bad actors who have engaged in this behavior, we will take swift action against them. Online, users of the Neighbors app had other observations. In my area, the videos are mostly porch pirates, wrote one user identified only as Garbanzito, in a review left online. But also a few innocent-looking trashpickers and even someone looking for their AirBnB at a wrong address; along with the captions and comments, i think you learn more about your neighbors than you do about crime in the area. st.john.smith@chron.com Twitter.com/stjbs WASHINGTON There are few things that President Vladimir Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years. Last year, President Donald Trump suggested a move tantamount to destroying NATO: the withdrawal of the United States. Senior administration officials told The New York Times that several times over the course of 2018, Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Current and former officials who support the alliance said they feared Trump could return to his threat as allied military spending continued to lag behind the goals the president had set. In the days around a tumultuous NATO summit last summer, they said, Trump told his top national security officials that he did not see the point of the military alliance, which he presented as a drain on the United States. At the time, Trumps national security team, including Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary, and John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, scrambled to keep U.S. strategy on track without mention of a withdrawal that would drastically reduce Washingtons influence in Europe and could embolden Russia for decades. Now, the presidents repeatedly stated desire to withdraw from NATO is raising new worries among national security officials amid growing concern about Trumps efforts to keep his meetings with Putin secret from even his own aides, and an FBI investigation into the administrations Russia ties. A move to withdraw from the alliance, in place since 1949, would be one of the most damaging things that any president could do to U.S. interests, said Michele A. Flournoy, an undersecretary of defense under President Barack Obama. It would destroy 70-plus years of painstaking work across multiple administrations, Republican and Democratic, to create perhaps the most powerful and advantageous alliance in history, Flournoy said in an interview. And it would be the wildest success that Vladimir Putin could dream of. Retired Adm. James G. Stavridis, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, said a U.S. withdrawal from the alliance would be a geopolitical mistake of epic proportion. Even discussing the idea of leaving NATO let alone actually doing so would be the gift of the century for Putin, Stavridis said. Senior Trump administration officials discussed the internal and highly sensitive efforts to preserve the military alliance on the condition of anonymity. After the White House was asked for comment Monday, a senior administration official pointed to Trumps remarks in July when he called the United States commitment to NATO very strong and the alliance very important. The official declined to comment further. U.S. national security officials believe that Russia has largely focused on undermining solidarity between the United States and Europe after it annexed Crimea in 2014. Its goal was to upend NATO, which Moscow views as a threat. Russias meddling in American elections and its efforts to prevent former satellite states from joining the alliance have aimed to weaken what it views as an enemy next door, the U.S. officials said. With a weakened NATO, they said, Putin would have more freedom to behave as he wishes, setting up Russia as a counterweight to Europe and the United States. An American withdrawal from the alliance would accomplish all that Putin has been trying to put into motion, the officials said essentially, doing the Russian leaders hardest and most critical work for him. When Trump first raised the possibility of leaving the alliance, senior administration officials were unsure if he was serious. He has returned to the idea several times, officials said increasing their worries. Trumps dislike of alliances abroad and American commitments to international organizations is no secret. The president has repeatedly and publicly challenged or withdrawn from a number of military and economic partnerships, from the Paris climate accord to an Asia-Pacific trade pact. He has questioned the U.S. military alliance with South Korea and Japan, and he has announced a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria without first consulting allies in the U.S.-led coalition to defeat the Islamic State. NATO had planned to hold a leaders meeting in Washington to mark its 70th anniversary in April, akin to the 50-year celebration that was hosted by President Bill Clinton in 1999. But this years meeting has been downgraded to a foreign ministers gathering, as some diplomats feared that Trump could use a Washington summit to renew his attacks on the alliance. Leaders are now scheduled to meet at the end of 2019, but not in Washington. Trumps threats to withdraw had sent officials scrambling to prevent the annual gathering of NATO leaders in Brussels in July from turning into a disaster. Senior national security officials had already pushed the military alliances ambassadors to complete a formal agreement on several NATO goals including shared defenses against Russia before the summit even began, to shield it from Trump. But Trump upended the proceedings anyway. One meeting, on July 12, was ostensibly supposed to be about Ukraine and Georgia two non-NATO members with aspirations to join the alliance. Accepted protocol dictates that alliance members do not discuss internal business in front of nonmembers. But as is frequently the case, Trump did not adhere to the established norms, according to several American and European officials who were in the room. He complained that European governments were not spending enough on the shared costs of defense, leaving the United States to carry an outsize burden. He expressed frustration that European leaders would not, on the spot, pledge to spend more. And he appeared not to grasp the details when several tried to explain to him that spending levels were set by parliaments in individual countries, the American and European officials said. Then, at another leaders gathering at the same summit, Trump appeared to be taken by surprise by Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general. Backing Trumps position, Stoltenberg pushed allies to increase their spending and praised the United States for leading by example including by increasing its military spending in Europe. At that, according to one official who was in the room, Trump whipped his head around and glared at U.S. officials behind him, surprised by Stoltenbergs remarks and betraying ignorance of his administrations own spending plans. Trump appeared especially annoyed, officials in the meeting said, with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and her countrys military spending of 1 percent of its gross domestic product. By comparison, the U.S. military spending is about 4 percent of GDP, and Trump has railed against allies for not meeting the NATO spending goal of 2 percent of economic output. At the summit meeting, he surprised the leaders by demanding 4 percent a move that would essentially put the goal out of reach for many alliance members. He also threatened that the United States would go its own way in 2019 if military spending from other NATO countries did not rise. During the middle of a speech by Merkel, Trump again broke protocol by getting up and leaving, sending ripples of shock across the room, according to American and European officials who were there. But before he left, the president walked behind Merkel and interrupted her speech to call her a great leader. Startled and relieved that Trump had not continued his berating of the leaders, the people in the room clapped. In the end, the NATO leaders publicly papered over their differences to present a unified front. But both European leaders and American officials emerged from the two days in Brussels shaken and worried that Trump would renew his threat to withdraw from the alliance. Trumps skepticism of NATO appears to be a core belief, administration officials said, akin to his desire to expropriate Iraqs oil. While officials have explained multiple times why the United States cannot take Iraqs oil, Trump returns to the issue every few months. Similarly, just when officials think the issue of NATO membership has been settled, Trump again brings up his desire to leave the alliance. Any move by Trump against NATO would most likely invite a response by Congress. U.S. policy toward Russia is the one area where congressional Republicans have consistently bucked Trump, including with new sanctions on Moscow and by criticizing his warm July 16 news conference with Putin in Helsinki. Members of NATO may withdraw after a notification period of a year, under Article 13 of the Washington Treaty. Such a delay would give Congress time to try blocking any attempt by Trump to leave. Its alarming that the president continues to falsely assert that NATO does not contribute to the overall safety of the United States or the international community, said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who is among the lawmakers who support legislation to stop Trump from withdrawing from the military alliance. The Senate knows better and stands ready to defend NATO. NATOs popularity with the public continues to be strong. But the alliance has become a more partisan issue, with Democrats showing strong enthusiasm and Republican support softening, according to a survey by the Ronald Reagan Institute. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Washingtons ambassador to NATO and a former Republican senator, has sought to build support for the alliance in Congress, including helping to organize a bipartisan group of backers. But even if Congress moved to block a withdrawal, a statement by Trump that he wanted to leave would greatly damage NATO. Allies feeling threatened by Russia already have extreme doubts about whether Trump would order troops to come to their aid. In his resignation letter last month, Mattis specifically cited his own commitment to U.S. alliances in an implicit criticism of Trumps principles. Mattis originally said he would stay through the next NATO meeting at the end of February, but Trump pushed him out before the new year. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan is believed to support the alliance. But he has also pointedly said he thinks that the Pentagon should not be the Department of No to the president. European and American officials said the presence of Mattis, a former top NATO commander, had reassured allies that a senior Trump administration official had their back. His exit from the Pentagon has increased worries among some European diplomats that the safety blanket has now been lost. This article originally appeared in The New York Times It's 6:30 p.m., and the line for beer at Eureka Heights Brewing Co. has grown so long that people are bringing growlers to be filled, so they won't have to return. Not exactly what you'd expect on a Wednesday. To be fair, this isn't a typical Wednesday at the brewery. Eureka Heights is hosting a themed trivia night, centering around the must-see-TV juggernaut "Friends." And oh, how the millennials have filed in to battle it out. "Usually, if we get 100 people for trivia, we're absolutely stoked," brewery owner Casey Motes says. "Tonight, though, I think it's going to be about 500 people." Trivia has become a regular thing for Eureka Heights on Wednesdays. Sometimes it's general knowledge; other times it's more specific. In the past, the brewery had success with a "Seinfeld" theme and another with questions about the actor Will Ferrell. But nothing like this. "We've done trivia for three to four months now. Maybe not even that long," Motes says. "It's been slow to build, for sure, but this is absolutely crazy." Crazy, sure. But Houston breweries are growing in popularity so rapidly that crazy is beginning to seem normal. "I think about four to five years ago is when you started to see this trend of people really wanting to spend time at breweries," Motes says. "Before 2013, it was illegal to sell beer at a brewery. So that really changed things. You could have someone buy a tour and give away beer - and some breweries still do that. But that provides a really limited window." When the rules changed, the number of breweries in Houston began to skyrocket. And so did the amount of time Houstonians spent at them. Rather than popping in for a one-hour tour, open tap rooms meant a new place to hang out. And breweries have quickly become millennial playgrounds - a place to spend a whole afternoon. "I like that when you're at a brewery, it's relaxed," says Lexi Vitucci, as she waits in line for her turn to order a pint. "They're not trying to kick you out. You can hang out for a while, which is nice." That's by design. "We know what we are. We're not a $14-cocktail bar downtown," Motes says. "We wanted to have a place where our friends would want to come and hang out, and that's what we've become." They're not the only ones. "In the last year, breweries have really been embracing this model of running more like a bar," Motes says. "You run in, you buy one bottle or 10. It's a little different than the traditional Texas brewery tour, and that leads to people hanging out." At 11 Below Brewing Co., you can kill an afternoon playing cornhole. At Spindle Tap, there's Jenga. At Under the Radar, you can sit beneath the shade of an umbrella and challenge your drinking partner to a Connect Four tournament. If you want to amp things up, you can join the bike team at Saint Arnold, tag into the running club at Karbach and meet the ladies of Yoga & Hops for a night of yoga at an ever-growing list of local breweries. As the number of breweries has ballooned in recent years, there has been some skepticism about whether Houston can support them all. But the folks waiting in line at Eureka Heights have a glass-half-full mentality on that. "People are saying there are too many breweries opening," Will Speer says as he waits for a glass of Eureka Heights' Saint Arnold tribute beer, Chop Shop. "It's not that there are too many breweries opening up. It's just that we were so far behind that now we're catching up." After drinking the cheap stuff in college, Speer, 31, was introduced to craft beer by a friend in his early 20s and began trying local brews in Oregon and Colorado, waiting impatiently for Houston to have a beer explosion of its own. "After college, it's an evolution of taste. The reason college beer is popular is affordability: You're looking for quantity, not quality," Speer says. "Getting older, I would try a new beer and be like, 'OK. There's a new flavor to that.' And it takes your palate a while to adjust to things like hops. It can be really overwhelming, so it's like, you start with a pale ale, which tip-toes you into it, and pretty soon, you're a hop head." Once you find what you like, you can spend months in a scavenger hunt across the city's breweries trying to choose the pint you like best. And the best part, he says, is that with all the events and games going on at each place, you'll have fun doing it. The taps, they are a-changin at Town in City Brewery, where owner Justin Engle has decided to pause beer brewing and focus instead on creating hard cider. The folks at Town in City began building their reputation in cider about a year ago, when they launched Houston Cider Co., in a shared space with the beer-brewing operation. But this month, Engle said he decided not to renew his brewers permit when it expires. We were given legal advice that if we were to renew our brewers permit prior to the TABC Sunset hearings, that we may be stuck for two years in old TABC rules, Engle said of the current fight between brewers and legislators to modernize state laws for alcohol sales. If the new rules are passed, it would still take us two years to get to the next rules. So we decided not to take that gamble, and so were not going to renew right now. But that doesnt mean things at the brewery on Cavalcade near the Heights are going quiet. On Dec. 18, Houston Cider Co. took a leap that Town in City never attempted: It began canning. Now, three of the ciderys mainstays Dry, Cherry and Rose are available at Whole Foods and a few other shops across the city. Cider production began outpacing beer production at the Heights brewery back in August, Engle said. Still, cider isnt exactly a sure thing especially not when compared with the ever-growing popularity of craft beer. According to Drizly, an eCommerce marketplace for alcoholic beverages, only 7.1 percent of sales in the beer market went to cider in October, the most recent month for which data are available. At that same time, 26.7 percent of sales were for craft beer. But theres another way to read that: Cider isnt as crowded a space. With beer, theres a lot of breweries, and a lot of products out on the shelves at stores. So a lot of places are very hesitant to pick up cans of new beer because theyre not sure how fast its going to move, Engle said. With ciders, they move faster because there really arent as many especially locally. So a lot of grocery stores are more apt to get rid of a national cider to get the local ciders in. And theres plenty of room for growth in Texas. According to The Cider Guide, 712 cider makers operate across the nation, but only eight in Texas, including just two local options: Houston Cider Co. and Duo Winery & Cider Co. in Dickinson. As a result, Engles cidery easily cornered the local market. In terms of the Houston market, typically a bar has one cider line on their draft wall, he said. So while Houston Cider Co. currently offers eight flavors, its typically able to sell only one at any of the roughly 30 bars and breweries where theyre on the tap list. But canning can widen horizons. Now bars can have one of our ciders on tap and have cans of the others available. Engle maintains that hes ready and willing to relaunch Town in City in the near future if the fight in Austin goes in favor of the states breweries. But that would likely mean finding a new location, as his Cavalcade facility space is tapped out. We have two 120-barrel tanks that are coming in, and theyre going to pretty much touch the roof. And thats four times our current tank capacity just in those two tanks, just for cider alone, he said. So if cider takes off, then were really going to need a different facility to do both cider and beer. But thats a problem for another month. Right now, Engle says hes enjoying the success of cider. What were trying to go after is the hometown price, that this is a Houston cider, he said. We make it here. We employ people here. And you should drink it here. maggie.gordon@chron.com twitter.com/MagEGordon Madison Erhardt Don't expect to see the sunshine this week unless you're headed up to one of the Okanagan's ski hills. "This time of the year, we have valley cloud. If you are looking to get sunshine, all you have to do is go up in elevation and it will be glorious," says Environment Canada meteorologist Matt MacDonald. Temperatures should be fairly constant tonight through Wednesday, with daytime highs of -3 C under overcast skies. Scattered flurries are in the forecast Thursday and Friday with highs of -2 C. The weekend will warm up slightly. Saturday will sit at zero with a chance of more flurries. Sunday will see a chance of flurries or rain showers and a high of 2 C. Agent Sasco released his project, Hope River this past summer. The project featured the single, "Bank Of The Hope" which caught waves over the past few months. To kick off the year, Sasco delivers the remix to the track featuring Popcaan. Popcaan delivers two new verses on his latest collaboration with Agent Sasco on the remix of "Bank of The Hope." Sasco holds down the hook and adds a new verse to the mix while giving Popcaan the chance to shine on the record. This serves as their third collaboration in the past few years. Sasco and Popcaan teamed up on Gorillaz "Saturnz Barz" and also appeared together on Dre Skull's remix of Jamie XX's I Know Theres Gonna Be (Good Times)." This also serves as Popcaan's first offering since Drake announced that the Jamaican artist will officially be signed to OVO this year. Drake and Poppy have formed a great bond over the years, although we haven't heard any official collaborations between them. Hopefully, that'll change this year. Quotable Lyrics When dem want fi stress mi is a spliff mi get When mi make money the money none a dem nuh have a hint a get Man a suffer long time, man want famous long, long, long before the internet Ted Bundy was one of the most despicable men to ever live in America. In the 1970's, Bundy kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and murdered over 30 women and children. He was known to have sex with his dead victims until they reached the point of decomposing. The psycho murderer would sometimes decapitate his enemies as well. Bundy may have committed a larger number of murders, but after years of denials and two insane escapes from custody, he finally admitted to a string of crimes. His grisly past, and never before seen or heard interviews will come to life in Netflix's Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes. In the days leading up to his execution in 1989, Bundy admitted to a long list of murders and assaults. Prior to modern day DNA testing, Bundy was able to get away with heinous crimes and clean the crime scene with ease. In the Netflix docuseries Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, director Joe Berlinger uses never before heard interviews, new confessions, footage, and photos to revisit the killer's horrendous tale. Bundy got away with all of his murders by being a handsome, wealthy looking, older white male that would pretend to be in need of assistance before lashing out and kidnapping women. Check out the trailer for the series below. Kanye West spent a good amount of time in the wilderness in 2018. He was stationed up in Jackson Hole, Wyoming for months while he worked on new music. The gorgeous mountains and scarcely populated communities of the wilderness were an escape for 'Ye, and he also visited Arizona during his adventures. Yeezy stopped by the Roden Crater, and was amazed by what he saw. According to The Wall Street Journal, Kanye West donated $10 million to the Turrell Art Foundation in support of a display at the Roden Crater. West was most impressed by artist James Turrell, who has been embedding art into the extinct volcano crater. The G.O.O.D. Music creator is a known fan of art, and Turrell started working on the crater in 1977. On Monday (January 14), West said he would donate the funds to the Turrell Art Foundation to help fund Roden Crater Project. Mr. Turrell has been embedding works for more than four decades. He's been carving tunnels into the crater that lead to temple-like rooms. Oval ceiling openings paint the rooms in different colors depending on the time of day and temperature. Turrell is 75 years old, and has had issues funding the project for years. Each week, we bring you a freestyle session from somebody that you may consider placing on your radar. In the past, we've featured Lil Baby, K Camp, Yung Bans and others in the ongoing series. This week, we move into Quality Control's loaded roster to get some bars from Jordan Hollywood. The Florida native is one of the newest additions to the QC team but he's already branding himself as the label's resident "savage." During his Freestyle Session, Hollywood rhymes over production by SkipOnTheBeat, proudly showing off his Super Bowl ring and flaunting his growth over the years. From making $30K off of one song in 2015 to now being worth over $1 million, Jordan Hollywood is still rocking his "dirty Vans" throughout it all. Check out the latest episode of HNHH Freestyle Sessions and let us know your thoughts. Quotable Lyrics: You can check my bank average Ballin' like it's March Madness So like scouts can't see me practice Like I'm really tryna get drafted That's what I did I made it happen I'm a QC savage Dragon Ball became a hit in America in the 90s, reaching the pinnacle of anime success alongside Pokemon. Both animes were able to hold onto their aging audiences; you can easily find 30 to 40-year-old fans of each series casually catching up with the latest story. In the last two years, Dragon Ball Super revitalized the popularity of the anime, and thrust Goku and the Z-Fighters back into the spotlight. Goku and Vegeta, two of the show's main protagonists, are recognizable to groups who have never even seen the show. Still, there's a vital supporting cast that doesn't get the same mainstream spotlight. For example, if you ask someone who isn't into anime if they've heard of Goku, there's a good chance his name has popped up in their life at one point or another. Ask the same person about Trunks or Shenron, and they might be lost. We've compiled a quick list of essential Dragon Ball characters. There are Z-Fighters such as Tien and Yamcha that can be counted among the supporting cast, but for the sake of succinctly explaining the characters to newcomers, they are irrelevant. We only kept in mind those with important narratives that help push the overall story, and the villains that made the biggest iconic splash. For those who are less familiar with the popular anime, here is a beginners guide to the characters of Dragon Ball. Goku The main hero in the Dragon Ball series. Goku started off a just a young boy who was supposedly the lone survivor of an alien race called the Saiyans. In the original Dragon Ball series, Goku battled the evil King Piccolo and was taught the ways of martial arts by Master Roshi. When Dragon Ball Z premiered, Gokus history was expanded. His family history was explored and Goku became the deadliest fighter in the entire galaxy. He reached the coveted Super Saiyan form before his peers, was instrumental in the destruction of almost every villain, and fathered Gohan and Goten, two of the most powerful Z-Fighters. Although he dies fairly often, Goku is hands down the most important character in the series. Vegeta Gokus biggest rival started out as an enemy. When Dragon Ball Z started, Vegeta was introduced as a Saiyan Prince that arrived on Earth after Raditzs death in order to find the Dragon Balls. He was the son of King Vegeta, who was the leader of the Saiyan race. Frieza eliminated Planet Vegeta and King Vegeta, leaving young Vegeta scarred for life. His original search for the Dragon Balls led him into conflict with Goku. Vegeta wanted to attain the mystical wish-granting entities to become immortal and kill Frieza once and for all. After battling with Goku, the two teamed up to take down Frieza together. Since then, Vegeta has been a main member of the Z-fighters and is the father of Trunks. Trunks Trunks is the son of Vegeta and Bulma. He first appeared as a savior from the future that kills Frieza. Future Trunks stays around to help the Z Fighters clean up the Androids and Cell before returning to his own timeline. Then, time corrects itself and baby Trunk is born. From a young age, Trunks is ready for battle. By the time Majin Bu shows up, Trunks is ready to fuse with Goten (Gokus youngest son) and becomes a major force in the battle against the pink monster. Future Trunks weapon of choice is his sword, but he can throw hands just a good as his father. Gohan The son of Goku has proved time and time again that hes just as formidable as his father. Gohan made his first appearance at the beginning of the Raditz Saga. Goku was training young Gohan until he sacrificed his life while fighting Raditz. Piccolo killed Goku in a plan that also took out the villain, so the Namekian was obligated to finish training Gohan. Piccolo raised the young Saiyan until his father returned, and steadily leveled up along with the rest of the Saiyans. Gohans defining moment was when he defeated Cell, making him one of the only Z Fighters to destroy a supervillain other than his father. Piccolo Jr . Piccolo Jr., more commonly called just Piccolo, can be considered Gokus left-hand man. He helped raise Gohan and is the cool, calculated, meticulous fighter in the crew. His father was one of Gokus biggest enemies in the Dragon Ball series, but Piccolo decided to join the forces of good. Although the Saiyans continue to level up around him, Piccolo holds his own and fights alongside the team using his smarts as well as his Namekian skill. Krillin If Piccolo is Gokus left-hand man, Krillin is on his right side. Krillin is constantly used as troll bait by anime fans, due to his penchant for being useless in battle. Krillin is one of the least powerful Z Fighters, and he hasnt been useful since the beginning of Dragon Ball Z. Krillin did win over the heart of Android 18 after aiding her in an attempted escape from Cell. Once all the life that Cell destroyed is brought back into existence, Krillin settles down with the Android and lives the family man life. As he should. Frieza Frieza is one of the main antagonists in Dragon Ball Z. Depending on who you talk to, he is considered the best villain in the series. Frieza and his legion of minions first enslaved and then destroyed Planet Vegeta, the home of the Saiyans. Frieza is killed by Goku after he achieves the Super Saiyan form, but he is resurrected not long after. He returns much stronger to challenge the Z Fighters again, but Future Trunks slices him down before he can destroy Earth. Even after his second death, Frieza has been featured in Dragon Ball Super content in his afterlife form. He was monumental in saving the galaxy at the conclusion of Super, and he will be featured in the upcoming Dragon Ball Super: Broly movie. The Androids There were several Androids throughout the Dragon Ball series but 16,17,18,19, and 20 were the most important to the overall plot. Dr. Gero creates the Androids and programs them to carry out a personal grudge against Goku that stems back to his childhood. Android 19 was the most troublesome for the Z Fighters, while Androids 16,17, and 18 ended up abandoning their evil ways. A clone of Dr. Gero, Android 20, helped orchestrate the robots plan to kill Goku and his allies but Vegeta, Trunks, and Gohan protect the planet from the menaces. In Future Trunks timeline, the Androids succeed in killing off the Z Fighters, and wreak havoc on the Earth until the purple-haired hero finally kills them decades later. Cell Dr. Geros (Android 20) perfect creation was a plight upon the planet. Cell touches down and feeds off life until he levels up to his perfect form. After devouring all the Androids, Cell sets up his own competition and challenges fighters to defeat him for the sake of the Earths survival. Cell defeats the Z Fighters easily before facing Gohan who levels up to Super Saiyan 2 and takes down the green foe. The Cell saga is widely regarded as the peak of Dragon Ball Z, with the following Majin Buu saga feeling like a knock off version of Cells story. Majin Buu Majin Buus terror marked the end of Dragon Ball Z. The pink villain was created before life existed on Earth by a sorcerer called Bibbidi. Once Buu became so powerful that he slaughtered millions across the galaxy, Bibbidi locked him up on Earth. While Buu was locked up, Bibbidi was killed, trapping Buu for centuries before he was awakened by Bibbidis son Babidi. Once reawoken, Buu followed a similar path as Cell and slowly levels up before reaching his final form. The final form of Buu, Kid Buu, is finally destroyed by Goku after a lengthy battle that progresses through Fat Buu, Evil Buu, Super Buu, and more after absorbing several Z-Fighters. Shenron Shenron is the mystical dragon that appears when the seven Dragon Balls are assembled. He doesnt appear often, but he is crucial to the entire series. The whole show is named after the entities that bring Shenron to life, and his purpose of granting wishes helps reset and restructure the universe whenever enemies achieve their goals of murder and destruction. Master Roshi Master Roshi trained Goku, Gohan, Ox-King, Krillin, and Yamcha. He is the paternal figure to all the Z-Fighters and is the main source of moral support. Roshi is too old to be useful in battle by the time Dragon Ball Z rolls around, but his comedic appearances are a staple in the series and keeps the family connection strong between the heroes. 50 Cent has no problem airing out his dirty laundry for everybody to see. In fact, he seems to get a kick out of it all. Earlier today, the iconic New York rapper went after Wendy Williams, comparing her to E.T. and now, he's switched his target to throw some more shots at Teairra Mari. The drama between Mari and Curtis dates back to a few months ago. If you haven't been keeping up, 50 Cent was sued after he posted a still from Mari's sex tape. He ended up victorious in the lawsuit, winning $30K, but ever since the win, he hasn't seen his money. For the last few days, he's been nagging Teairra on social media for his cash and today, he added a new element to it all. Even though it's only been a few days since he won the lawsuit, Fif has been all over Teairra on his social accounts, practically begging her to come through with the bank transfer. Yesterday, he pressed her publically and today, he took things a little further. The rapper wrote, "Look Tiearria if you dont pay me the money. Im gonna get paid directly from Love & hiphop. The Lawyers are now watching your social media post so this could lead to you having tax issues for unreported income. ai I know you took the 9k out your chase account." If Teairra doesn't get 50 his money soon, the man might just implode. Knowing him though, he'll probably still be throwing shots when he gets paid. MENA Chain Hotels Market Review - November 2018 Profit levels at hotels in the Middle East & North Africa remained under pressure in November, as revenues were hit by declines in both price and volume in the normally reliable commercial segment, according to the latest data tracking full-service hotels from HotStats. Profit per room continued along a downward trend, as year-over-year GOPPAR fell 8.8 percent to $92.74. Though the number was 33 percent higher than the profit per room recorded in the region for year-to-date 2018, it represented a third consecutive month of profit decline. Falling profit levels were hit by declining revenues across all departments this month, including Rooms (down 4.6 percent), Food & Beverage (down 5.7 percent), Conference & Banqueting (down 2.6 percent) and Leisure (down 4.4 percent), on a per-available-room basis. As a result of the movement in departmental revenues, TRevPAR at hotels in MENA fell by 4.6 percent YOY in November to $227.36. Once again, the drop in revenue was impacted by rising costs, which included a 0.9-percentage-point increase in payroll to 25.4 percent of total revenue, as well as a 1.0-percentage-point increase in overheads, which grew to 24.1 percent of total revenue. Profit & Loss Key Performance Indicators Middle East & North Africa (in USD) November 2018 v. November 2017 RevPAR: -4.6% to $131.61 TRevPAR: -4.6% to $227.36 Payroll: +0.9 pts. to 25.4% GOPPAR: -8.8% to $92.74 While top- and bottom-line revenue at hotels in the region were ahead of the YTD performance due to the typical uplift in activity from the commercial segment, there was a distinct weakening in the sector as rates fell in both the Residential Conference (down 11.7 percent) and Corporate (down 15.9 percent) segments. The Middle East & North Africa hotel market continues to be challenged and, unfortunately, it is the base business that is now being hit the hardest, with crippling rate decline in the commercial segment over the last 36 months, including a drop of $50 in the corporate segment and more than $35 in the residential conference segment, said Michael Grove, Director of Intelligence and Customer Solutions, EMEA, HotStats. One outlier is Abu Dhabi, which fared well in November, recording a 1.8-percent increase in profit per room, in spite of a 2.2-percent decrease in TRevPAR. November is typically a strong month of top- and bottom-line performance for hotels in Abu Dhabi, which is fuelled by demand from the Formula One Grand Prix. This month was no exception, with GOPPAR peaking for the year at $145.76, almost 200 percent above the profit per room recorded in the UAE capital for YTD 2018, at $49.78. This month also provided some respite from a fairly challenging year for Abu Dhabi hotels, which have recorded five months of YOY profit decline so far in 2018, leaving YTD GOPPAR levels 5.5-percent lower than during the same period in 2017. And whilst TRevPAR levels peaked for 2018 this month, at $289.95, the YOY decline in this measure was as a result of falling revenue across all departments including Rooms (down 3.0 percent), Food & Beverage (down 3.8 percent), Conference & Banqueting (down 8.1 per cent) and Leisure (down 9.4 percent), on a per-available-room basis. However, cost savings, which included a 0.9-percentage-point drop in payroll, to 20.2 percent of total revenue, managed to offset the negative revenue performance and helped hotels in the UAE capital to record a YOY increase in profit. Profit & Loss Key Performance Indicators Abu Dhabi (in USD) November 2018 v. November 2017 RevPAR: -3.0% to $170.55 TRevPAR: -2.2% to $289.95 Payroll: -0.9 pts. to 20.2% GOPPAR: +1.8% to $145.76 The growth in profit in Abu Dhabi this month was all the more impressive considering the 3.0-percent YOY drop in RevPAR to $170.55, which was as a result of a softening in rate across the entire market mix, but primarily the commercial sector, including the Residential Conference (down 12.3 percent) and Corporate (down 9.4 percent) segments. In stark contrast to the performance of hotels in Abu Dhabi, properties in Amman recorded a 13.1-percent YOY decline in profit per room in November, in spite of a 0.2-percent increase in RevPAR. In addition to the growth in rooms revenue being outpaced by declines in non-rooms revenues, hotels in Amman also suffered an increase in costs, which was led by a 3.1-percentage-point increase in overheads, which grew to 38.4 percent of total revenue. The uplift in overheads was as a result of YOY increases in expenses in Admin. & General (up 14.9 percent), Sales and Marketing (up 13.8 percent) and utility costs, which grew by 9.8 percent to $12.90 on per-available-room basis. The GOPPAR drop in November contributed to the 17.7-percent decline in profit per room for hotels in Amman for YTD 2018, equivalent to a profit conversion of 21.9 percent of total revenue. Profit & Loss Key Performance Indicators Amman (in USD) November 2018 v. November 2017 RevPAR: +0.2% to $80.33 TRevPAR: -2.0% to $125.78 Payroll: -0.1 pts to 33.7% GOPPAR: -13.1% to $29.04 HotStats provides two reporting tools to hoteliers: Our unique profit and loss benchmarking service which enables monthly comparison of hotels performance against their competitors. It is distinguished by the fact that it provides in excess of 100 performance metric comparisons covering 70 areas of hotel revenue, cost, profit and statistics providing far deeper insight into the hotel operation than any other tool. Our latest innovation in daily revenue intelligence, MORSE. Amongst its reporting are daily and highly granular market segmentation metrics as well as distribution channel and source of booking analysis. It takes daily market intelligence to a whole new level. For more information contact: Enquiries +44 (0) 20 7892 2241 enquiries@hotstats.com Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. You should upgrade or use an You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.You should upgrade or use an alternative browser Photo: The Canadian Press Site C Dam construction site on the Peace River near Fort St. John. A United Nations committee has warned Canada that continued construction of the Site C hydro dam in northeastern B.C. may violate international agreements. The UN's Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination says Canada may have already violated an agreement it signed 50 years ago. That agreement commits Canada to prevent development on Indigenous land without adequate consultation. Canada has also promised to block destructive development, allow Indigenous people to conduct their own impact studies and stop forcing First Nations to go to court. "The committee is concerned about the alleged lack of measures taken to ensure the right to consultation and free, prior and informed consent with regard to the Site C dam," reads a Dec. 14 letter addressed to Rosemary McCarney, Canada's ambassador to the UN. "(Site C) would infringe Indigenous Peoples rights protected under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination." Critics have long complained the dam will add to the impacts from the larger Bennett Dam on the Peace River watershed. Scientists suspect that dam has played a significant role in the long-term drying out of that watershed. First Nations in Alberta say that has cut off their access to much of their traditional territory and altered wildlife and hunting patterns. Site C is currently subject to two civil lawsuits from First Nations. B.C. Hydro says the dam is crucial to the province's energy future and will have minimal environmental impact. The committee has asked the Canadian government to reply by April 8. A government spokesman was not immediately available for comment. It's the second time the UN has warned Canada over environmental issues. A federal report into Wood Buffalo National Park done in response to UNESCO concerns found that almost every aspect of the park on the Alberta-Northwest Territories boundary is deteriorating although some scientists say climate change is more to blame than dams or energy development. Together with Alberta, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and First Nations, Ottawa is developing plans to address issues raised in the report. Opinion Article 15 January 2019 Gregg Rockett, Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Masters in Global Hospitality, contributed to this article Advertisements Imagine walking into a hotel room designed by your favorite fashion brand, everything from the curtains to the bed linens emulates the brand perfectly. How much would you pay to sleep with your favorite brand? Leaders of luxury including Coco Chanel, Diane Von Furstenberg, and Bottega Veneta are now partnering with luxury hotels around the world to co-design fashion-forward hotel suites. Much like the hefty price-tag of a fresh-off-the runway design, "branded" designer suites can cost up to $21,000 a night[1]. Ultra-affluent guests are willing to pay a hefty sum for a hotel aligning with their self-identity in terms of look and feel, amenities, and service standards. They have seemingly limitless wallets and endless options, which may create a burden for luxury hotels wishing to capture this guest. A co-designed suite presents an opportunity for a hotel to leverage the designer's image to gain exposure and loyalty. However, the rise of luxury for the masses creates a precarious situation for luxury hotels wishing to select the right co-branding partner. A carefully crafted partner selection process is a luxury hotels best defense to avoid the pitfalls associated with mass luxury. To explain, numerous designer brands have extended beyond their traditional luxury offerings into a new market called affordable luxury goods. In 2018 alone, Alexander Wang released a line of winter basics with Uniqlo while Victoria Beckham launched a collection for Reebok. Consider how haute-couture designer Karl Lagerfeld collaborated with bargain retailer H&M in 2004 to bring an affordable clothing line to market. Average consumers, with a tight budget, were able to buy pieces for as little as $50. The fashion collaboration with H&M benefited Karl Lagerfeld due to increased sales as the affordable line sold out in hours. By extending his luxury line to the mass market, he potentially lost his affluent loyal customers and eroded the perception of his couture brand in the pursuit of quick sales. Previous studies have demonstrated that providing the general public accessibility to luxury brands can decrease the designer's quality perception among luxury buyers. Compare this to a designer creating a limited edition, fresh-off-the-runway design costing thousands of dollars. The designer cultivates loyalty by selling the concept of exclusivity and personalization. Compare this to the average consumer who purchases brands based on fitting in with the crowd. Imagery of Ugg boots, knock-off Louis Vuitton purses, and faux-leather boots anywhere and everywhere exemplify the average consumer's obsession with affordable luxury. Social psychology coined the term the "Rarity Principle" to explain how the perception of a hard to acquire good will result in an increased motivation to buy and pay more for the good. Simply put, people want what they cannot have, while luxury buyers want what nobody can have. The luxury market exists solely on the precept that by buying goods unattainable to most people, the buyers create their own exclusive niche segment. Therefore, a luxury hotel partnering with brands such as Karl Lagerfeld could potentially be causing more harm than good by co-creating designer suites. So what does this mean for hotels wishing to find a co-branding partner in the future to appeal to high net-worth individuals? The likely success or failure to this partnership lies in the level of exclusivity associated with the fashion designer. This seemingly over-simplified answer can be justified when considering the iconic St. Regis hotel in New York City who partnered with Bentley, Dior, and Tiffany & Co. to bring three signature suites to the hotel. Welcome to St. Regis New York, situated in the historic neighborhood between Fifth Avenue and 55th street. Walking into the lobby resembles stepping back into the Gilded Age with opulent marble floors, artistic murals on the ceiling, crystal chandeliers, and antique Louis XV furniture. St. Regis brought fashion-forward suites to the forefront through partnering with Tiffany & Co. and Dior in 2011, then later with Bentley in 2013. For guestrooms, the average price varies from $700 to $1,000 per night, while the Bentley, Dior, and Tiffany Suites average $10,500 per night. Therefore, even the typical well-to-do St. Regis guest can only envy the guests that can afford to frequent these fashion-forward suites. When speaking to Suzanne Cohen, vice president of luxury brands for Marriott International, she discussed how these signature suites attract well-traveled, culture enthusiasts, who have an appreciation for the arts and design. Their professions vary from entrepreneurs, to politicians and diplomats. They tend to be older, past middle age. These guests fall into the category of the ultra-affluent consumer, without the burdens of a budget but the necessity to feel catered to through a personalized and lavish stay. In other words, these guests are the top of the elite, the one percenters of the world. Each co-designed suite includes a VIP experience. For instance, the Tiffany Suite includes a private shopping experience called "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Guests are taken into the flagship Tiffany & Co. store where they have an exclusive shopping experience. After staying at the Bentley Suite, guests experience invitation-only driving programs and events. St Regis Bentley Suite Marriott St. Regis Bentley Suite Marriott The question becomes whether St. Regis selected the right partners for their co-designed suites. Both Dior and Tiffany & Co., have experimented in the affordable luxury market with multiple brand extensions, think about Dior's multiple perfumes and Tiffany's affordable eyewear selection. And while both Dior and Tiffany & Co. have increased their brand visibility and accessibility to the masses, above all they have largely remained an aspirational brand. On the other hand, the Bentley brand is still by nature belonging to the true luxury market due to their upscale brand extensions and niche marketing efforts. When considering the varying levels of exclusivity of all three brands, perhaps St. Regis missed the mark in selection of their partners. By examining the profitability of each suite, the answer is possibly. Photo taken from St-Regis.marriott.com Marriott Photos taken from St-Regis.marriott.com Marriott Carl Menkes, Director of Revenue Management for St. Regis New York, hinted at the yearly financial metrics of each co-branded suite. He indicated that the Bentley Suite was the most successful overall in terms of financial metrics. The Dior Suite came in second place, and the Tiffany Suite came in third place. These results seem to mirror each brand's level of exclusivity. The Bentley Suite had a 58 percent premium in profit compared to the Tiffany Suite and a 24 percent premium in profit compared to the Dior Suite. When compared to a non co-designed suite similar in price, expense, and amenities all co-designed suites were more profitable, yet only the Bentley Suite had a significant difference in profitability at 59 percent. Tiffany Suite only had a 2 percent premium. Suffice to say, the Bentley Suite is overwhelmingly more profitable when compared to the other suites in the hotel. Photos taken from St-Regis.marriott.com Marriott Photos taken from St-Regis.marriott.com Marriott Undoubtedly fashion collaborations can create enormous value. From price premiums, to generating loyalty and publicity, the benefits can be significant and far reaching. Nonetheless, an inappropriate co-branding partner can potentially minimize profitability per co-designed suite and therefore should not be overlooked. In the case of St. Regis, all three fashion suites would appear successful if simply using profit premium as an indicator. In addition, each suite's design and VIP experience cater to differences in niche psychographics among the hotel's guest. For instance, the Tiffany Suite appears to cater to guests who love diamonds, shopping, and a more whimsical design. St. Regis could not emotionally cater to this certain lifestyle without partnering with Tiffany & Co. It essentially united its guests by co-branding with a designer that differs on intricate personality dimensions. On the other hand, the Bentley Suite garnered a greater premium suggesting that a more exclusive perception increases how much a guest is willing to pay per suite. The question becomes if there are varying perceptions of exclusivity depending on who is the guest. Recall that the loyal St. Regis guest is traditionally older, well-travelled, and a design enthusiast. Yet, it is not recommended to categorize all potential St. Regis guests in this manner. What is considered luxury to one guest, might be considered too common for another. Perhaps St. Regis picked all three partners by examining varying psychographics of each guest, by determining what brands their guests are loyal to and what seemed like a cohesive brand fit. St. Regis demonstrated intentional levels of segmentation with three distinct co-branding partners. All three partners differ on intricate branding characteristics yet largely present a cohesive brand fit with St. Regis. However, while all three co-designed suites allow St. Regis to emotionally cater to differences in lifestyle among their guests, the results clearly show that the Bentley Suite was significantly more exclusive when compared to Dior and Tiffany, as demonstrated by the profit premium. So one could question whether a more exclusive brand may have been a better partner for St. Regis than Tiffany or Dior? Imagine a co-designed suite by Van Cleef & Arpels or Breguet. Would one of these brands cultivate greater appeal among the same one-percenters loyal to the St Regis and still allow St. Regis to cater to differences in lifestyle? In this co-design case study the highly selective brand, not that brand available to the mass market, seems to have a greater propensity to generate awe and envy. By evaluating St. Regis based on their partnerships, it seems to be that the designer's brand awareness impacted the price guest are willing to pay per suite. Hotels wishing to pursue co-designed suites must question their loyal guest's perception of the said designer. Such as, is the designer viewed as a prestigious brand and worthy of their patronage. The more exclusive the brand, the more desirable and coveted it becomes. Is the grass greener on the other side for luxury guests? Yes, if the other side is by invitation only. [1] Coco Chanel Suite at the Hotel Ritz Paris Press Release 15 January 2019 Demand from the commercial segment accounted for more than 40 percent of accommodated roomnights in November and helped fuel a 5.2-percent year-on-year increase in profit per room for hotels across Europe, according to the latest data tracking full-service hotels from HotStats. Advertisements November was another month of robust profit growth for hotels in the region, with year-to-date GOPPAR at 9.5 percent above the same period in 2017. This was the 10th month of profit growth in 2018, with the only blip suffered in May, and, absent a complete collapse in December, hotels in Europe are set to record another huge profit increase in 2018, following the 8.9-percent increase in 2017. Profit per room at hotels in Europe has now grown by almost 20 percent over the last 24 months to 64.57 in the rolling 12 months to November 2018, from 53.99 during the same period in 2015/2016. Profit growth in the month was led by significant YOY increases in revenue, which included an uplift in Rooms (up 5.6 percent) and Food & Beverage (up 1.4 percent) revenue, on a per-available-room basis; in spite of a decline in Conference & Banqueting (down 0.1 percent) and Leisure (down 6.1 percent) revenue. As a result, TRevPAR increased by 3.9 percent in November to 168.83. Growth in rooms revenue in the month was led by a 4.7-percent increase in achieved average room rate and supported by a 0.6-percentage-point increase in room occupancy. In addition to accounting for more than 40 percent of demand, the commercial segment fuelled the increase in average room rate and included a YOY uplift in both the Residential Conference (up 3.8 percent) and Corporate (up 0.8 percent) segments. Profit & Loss Key Performance Indicators - Europe (in EUR) November 2018 v. November 2017 RevPAR: +5.6% to 106.22 TRevPAR: +3.9% to 168.83 Payroll: -0.2 pts. to 35.5% GOPPAR: +5.2% to 52.56 Once again, the growth in revenue in Europe this month was supported by cost savings, which included a 0.2-percentage-point reduction in payroll to 35.5 percent of total revenue. Profit conversion was recorded at a healthy 31.1 percent of total revenue. "2018 has been a hugely positive story for hotels in Europe with record revenue and profit levels being driven by volume, which continues to reach new heights," said Michael Grove, Director of Intelligence and Customer Solutions, EMEA, at HotStats. "And this is all in spite of an increasingly challenging economic picture in the region." For hotels in Brussels, November was another month of excellent top- and bottom-line performance, as profit per room grew by 25.1 percent YOY and hit a high for 2018 at 71.16. This was 47 percent above the GOPPAR levels for year-to-date 2018 at 48.51. Profit growth at hotels in the Belgian capital has now maintained an upward trajectory for the last 24 months. Year-over-year increase in RevPAR at hotels in Brussels was led by growth in room occupancy levels, which grew by a healthy 5.7 percentage points to 81.6 percent, and a 3.7-percent increase in achieved average room rate to 161.68. Since Brexit negotiations began 24 months ago, RevPAR levels at hotels in Brussels have increased by almost 30 to 110.13 in the rolling 12 months to November 2018. During the same period, profit per room has almost doubled to 46.71. Whilst the ongoing revenue growth has enabled hotels in Brussels to reduce payroll levels, which month fell by 3.5 percentage points in November, they remain relatively high at 35.1 percent of total revenue. Despite this, profit conversion this month remained strong at 38.2 percent of total revenue. Profit & Loss Key Performance Indicators - Brussels (in EUR) November 2018 v. November 2017 RevPAR: +11.5% to 131.91 TrevPAR: +5.5% to 186.40 Payroll: -3.5 pts. to 35.1% GOPPAR: +25.1% to 71.16 In line with the growth in Brussels, profit increases in Dublin continue unabated, with GOPPAR growth now recorded at 68.4 percent over the last 36 months, hitting 96.51 in the 12 months to November 2018. For the month of November, profit per room grew by 9.8 percent year-on-year to 83.13 and was the ninth consecutive month of profit growth for hotels in the Irish capital. The growth in profit this month was driven by revenue increases across all departments, but led by growth in RevPAR, which increased by 9.2 percent YOY to 139.95, as room occupancy hit a lofty 83.3 percent and achieved average room rate grew to 167.95. Increasing revenues were complemented by falling costs, which included a 0.9-percentage-point decrease in payroll to 30.8 percent of total revenue and contributed to the ongoing positive story for Dublin hoteliers in the month. Profit & Loss Key Performance Indicators - Dublin (in EUR) Press Release 15 January 2019 The Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) is pleased to announce the Gold Winners of the 2018 Adrian Awards, which honor outstanding advertising, digital marketing, and public relations in hospitality. Platinum and Best of Show winners will be unveiled at the HSMAI Adrian Awards Dinner Reception and Gala on January 22 at the New York Marriott Marquis. Advertisements After receiving close to 1,200 entries, HSMAI will present Gold Awards to one of the largest groups of winners in the Awards' history, including 104 awards in Public Relations, 25 in Integrated Marketing, 89 in Digital Marketing, and 48 in Advertising. The 200 judges for this year's awards are prominent members of the travel industry and subject-matter experts in advertising, digital marketing, media, and public relations. View the complete list of Gold Award winners on the Adrian Awards website. "The Adrian Awards are a rare opportunity to recognize the exceptional work being done in travel marketing," said Fran Brasseux, executive vice president of HSMAI. "But just as importantly, we are also putting a well-deserved spotlight on the exceptional people behind that outstanding work." At the Adrian Awards Dinner Reception, co-sponsored by HSMAI, Google, and TravelClick, Gold winners' submissions will be showcased on digital displays and honored during the dinner reception. Winners of the Gold Adrian Awards are considered for Platinum Adrian Awards and the "Best of Show" Awards, the Adrian Awards' highest honor, which will be announced at the Adrian Awards Gala. All winning work will be showcased in the Winners Gallery on www.adrianawards.com following the Gala. Two new awards will also take center stage at the Adrians this year. The first Facebook Mobile Video Award will be handed out as well as HSMAI honors for Leaders in Corporate Social Responsibility. The Adrian Awards also celebrate lifetime achievements in hospitality sales, marketing, and public relations. Harris Rosen, President and CEO, Rosen Hotels & Resorts, will be honored with the Albert E. Koehl Award for Hospitality Marketing. Steve Bartolin, Chairman of The Broadmoor, has been selected as the recipient of the 2018 Winthrop W. Grice Award for Public Relations. Stephen Powell, most recently SVP Worldwide Sales for IHG prior to retirement, is the recipient of the inaugural HSMAI Award for Lifetime Achievement in Hospitality Sales. In addition to celebrating outstanding travel advertising, digital marketing, and public relations campaigns, HSMAI's Adrian Awards Dinner Reception and Gala offers hospitality professionals an opportunity to connect for an evening of celebration with nearly 1,000 peers from their industry. Tickets can be purchased at www.adrianawards.com. HSMAI will also host the 2019 Digital Marketing Strategy Conference at the New York Marriott Marquis, January 23. For more information, visit www.hsmai.org/digitalconference. For more information and to inquire about a media pass to the HSMAI Adrian Awards Gala, please contact Andrea Bomar at [email protected]. Press Release 15 January 2019 The Global Wellness Summit (GWS), the foremost gathering of international leaders in the $4.2 trillion global wellness economy, today named Catherine Feliciano-Chon, a leading brand development and communications expert with offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai, and Tokyo-based spa/wellness investor and entrepreneur Yoriko Soma to co-chair the leading conference on the business of wellness. The Summit returns to Asia for the third time in its thirteen-year history and will take place at Grand Hyatt Hong Kong from October 15-17, 2019. Advertisements "Hong Kong is a vibrant, exciting, business-centric destination, offering a gateway to the Asian marketplace, and we are thrilled to be bringing the Summit here," said Nancy Davis, Chief Creative Officer & Executive Director of the GWS. "From the world-class hospitality of the renowned Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, to top-rated local restaurants led by some of the world's best young chefs, to the unique wellness scene in this exciting city, GWS delegates are in for an immersive experience of ancient culture and modern innovation that is the hallmark of Hong Kong." According to the Global Wellness Institute's recently released 2018 Global Wellness Economy Monitor, Asia is the biggest growth leader in key wellness markets. The region lays claim to being the fastest-growing wellness tourism market in the world, with China and India ranking first and second in growth worldwide. In addition, Asia boasts the largest number of spas and thermal/mineral springs in the world and has a fast-growing wellness real estate market. "Having the Summit in Hong Kong underscores Asia's importance to the wellness economy," said Feliciano-Chon, a GWS advisory board member. "With China at our doorstep, Hong Kong bridges East and West, the ancient and modern, and sits at the crossroads of many industries shaping the business of wellness. It's an honor to be part of the leadership team for the GWS 2019." Feliciano-Chon founded CatchOn, a strategic marketing communications consultancy with offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai in 2001. Under her direction, the agency has become known for its insights on the Asian consumer and has developed significant industry resources and trend studies, including the "China Spa Consumer Study"; the annual "Future of Food" report; "10+10 Made In China"; and "Raise The Red Lantern or Fly The White Flag: Understanding and Embracing Chinese Travellers." The Global Wellness Summit is always a sold-out event. First-time delegates must apply to attend, while previous delegates and invitees who register prior to February 28, 2019, can take advantage of a preferred registration rate. Industry Update Appointment 15 January 2019 Emmanuel Pauliat Appointed Executive Chef At InterContinental Muscat, Oman InterContinental Muscat welcomes back Executive Chef Emmanuel Pauliat. Chef Emmanuel is bringing with him over 28 years of international culinary experiences from various five-star hotels and a Michelin-starred restaurant across Middle East, Europe, and East Africa. He will be at the helm of all culinary aspects of InterContinental Muscat, from menu enhancements to efficient kitchen operations including six bars and restaurants, room service, large banquets, outside catering events together with his dynamic kitchen team. IHG Hotels & Resorts IHG Hotels & Resorts is a global organization with a broad portfolio of hotel brands, including InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, Hotel Indigo, EVEN Hotels, HUALUXE Hotels and Resorts, Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Holiday Inn Club Vacations, Holiday Inn Resort, avid hotels, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites. more information Recent Appointments at IHG Ben Hislop - Director of Sales & Marketing 19 May 2021 Crowne Plaza Terrigal Pacific has appointed Ben Hislop as Director of Sales & Marketing, joining the team in Terrigal in April 2021. Hislop's return to his native Central Coast follows more than a decade of work for parent company IHG Hotels & Resorts across a number of Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn hotels in Australia. read more Rikhsibay Tursunov - Operations Director 12 May 2021 Crowne Plaza Dubai Marina has promoted its EAM to the position of operations director after exceling in his role for almost two years. Rikhsibay Tursunov has been with the property since its pre-opening phase and has been described by the GM at "pivotal" for the hotel's operations and F&B success. read more Industry Update Appointment 15 January 2019 Sunny Saha Appointed Director of Food and Beverage At InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown - CA, USA Leading the hotel's food and beverage programs and concepts is Director of Food and Beverage Sunny Saha. Saha oversees the hotel banquet operations as well as six impressive dining outlets: La Boucherie, an opulent high-end American steakhouse with a French twist; Spire 73, the tallest open-air bar and lounge in the Western Hemisphere; Dekkadance, an international marketplace and eatery;Sora, a sushi bar and Omakase experience; No Dive Bar, a seventh-floor pool deck; and the Lobby Lounge vodka bar and lounge. Within his role, Saha's focus is to further strengthen business and revenue goals - from leisure guests to large groups and conventions. Saha has years of hospitality experience and joins the hotel most recently from the Monarch Beach Resort as the senior director of food and beverage, where he successfully opened "Bourbon Steak Orange County", which was nominated as the number one restaurant in Orange County. Previously, he was the senior director of food and beverage at Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles. Saha is fluent in four languages: English, German, Italian, and French. IHG Hotels & Resorts IHG Hotels & Resorts is a global organization with a broad portfolio of hotel brands, including InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, Hotel Indigo, EVEN Hotels, HUALUXE Hotels and Resorts, Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Holiday Inn Club Vacations, Holiday Inn Resort, avid hotels, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites. more information Recent Appointments at IHG Ben Hislop - Director of Sales & Marketing 19 May 2021 Crowne Plaza Terrigal Pacific has appointed Ben Hislop as Director of Sales & Marketing, joining the team in Terrigal in April 2021. Hislop's return to his native Central Coast follows more than a decade of work for parent company IHG Hotels & Resorts across a number of Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn hotels in Australia. read more Rikhsibay Tursunov - Operations Director 12 May 2021 Crowne Plaza Dubai Marina has promoted its EAM to the position of operations director after exceling in his role for almost two years. Rikhsibay Tursunov has been with the property since its pre-opening phase and has been described by the GM at "pivotal" for the hotel's operations and F&B success. read more Appointment 15 January 2019 TheFour Seasons Hotel Riyadh has appointed Alvaro Acebal as food and beverage director to oversee the hotel's kitchens and dining facilities. Acebal brings to the Four Seasons Riyadh years of global experience, working with global luxury brands such as Ritz Carlton, Beau Rivage, Cavalli Club, The Datai, InterContinental and Fairmont before joining the Four Seasons family. Previously, he worked as the executive assistant manager, F&B for Fairmont Jakarta in Indonesia and South-east Asia. There he has excelled in a large and varied operation and extensive banquet facilities. In his new role, Acebal will be overseeing all kitchens, in-room dining, banquet events, in addition to the food and beverage operations for the hotel's three outlets that include Elements, The Grill and The Lobby Lounge. He holds a degree in business administration from Universitas Nebrisenssis, Madrid, a Bachelor of Science in International Hospitality Management Business Administration from Les Roches in Switzerland, and a Master's in Business Finance from The European University, Madrid. Pipeline 15 January 2019 Twilfit House purchase marks Premier Inn's first freehold acquisition in Dublin city centre as the UK's leading hotel brand searches for up to 2,500 bedrooms in the city Whitbread, the owner of the Premier Inn hotel chain, has completed a freehold deal to purchase the Twilfit House development site in Dublin 1 for a new build 180-bedroom Premier Inn hotel. The purchase is Whitbread's first freehold acquisition in Dublin and represents a significant step in Premier Inn's expansion into Ireland as the business looks to fulfil a requirement for 2,000-2,500 bedrooms in Dublin. Situated in a prime location in Dublin 1, Twilfit House is close to O'Connell Street, Temple Bar, Trinity College and many other major tourist attractions. Its proximity next to the Jervis Street Luas stop also makes it a highly accessible location from across the city. Whitbread has acquired the freehold on the Twilfit House site from Abarta Investments ICAV. The investment fund had previously secured full planning permission from Dublin City Council to build a 180-bedroom hotel on the site. The planning consent was upheld by An Bord Pleanala in late December 2018 and, upon expiration of the existing tenancies, Whitbread will demolish the existing three-storey Twilfit House building and construct a new seven-storey Premier Inn hotel on the site. Photo: RCMP Garry Handlen A judge has told jurors they will have to decide whether a man who confessed to killing a 12-year-old Merritt girl could have obtained details about the crime from police or media reports. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Austin Cullen is instructing a jury that is expected to start deliberations later today in the trial of Garry Handlen, who confessed to the 1978 murder during a police undercover operation. Monica Jack was last seen in Merritt while riding her bike, and her remains were discovered in the area 17 years later. Handlen became the subject of a so-called Mr. Big sting in early 2014 and provided an alleged confession recorded on a hidden camera and shown to the jury during the first-degree murder trial. Defence lawyer Patrick Angly has argued Handlen was provided information about the crime by the RCMP in 1978 when he was interviewed and also by a supposed crime boss asking leading questions. Angly has said the crime boss was referring to a newspaper article about the crime while trying to extract a confession in 2014, and Handlen could have read some information he parroted back and may also have known details about Jacks murder from a television documentary. Enter the Once Upon A Child Spring Style Sweepstakes today for the chance to WIN! Refresh your child's wardrobe! You could be the LUCKY WINNER of $200 in Store Cash! Click here to find out where to get a COVID-19 vaccine or test. To find out how many local residents have been vaccinated for COVID-19, click here. Use the map to find numbers for individual counties. Find detailed statistics about COVID-19 tests, cases and deaths by county and for the state as a whole on the Indiana State Department of Health's online dashboard. Lima, OH (45805) Today Mostly sunny. High 77F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Mainly clear. Low 54F. Winds SE at 3 to 6 mph. Photo: The Canadian Press Britain's Prince Harry at sculpture unveiling in Birkenhead, England, on Monday. Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have apparently chosen not to learn the gender of the baby they are expecting this spring. Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, told schoolchildren during a visit to Birkenhead on Monday that she doesn't know whether she is carrying a boy or a girl. Kitty Dudley, 9, said after meeting the couple: "I asked her if she was having a girl or a boy and she said she didn't know." The meeting happened when Meghan talked to a number of children at St. Anne's Catholic Primary School in the town, which is 210 miles (340 kilometres) northwest of London. Meghan also told one of the children that she is six months pregnant and expects to give birth at the end of April or in early May. Support local journalism Now, more than ever, the world needs trustworthy reportingbut good journalism isnt free. Please support us by making a contribution. Contribute Copyright 2019 at Sun Newspapers. Digital dissemination of this content without prior written consent is a violation of federal law and may be subject to legal action. C ranes swing over the Lisbon skyline as the Portuguese capital experiences a dramatic building boom. The world has discovered Lisbon, appreciating its mix of affordability, bespoke craftsmanship and blue skies and pushing up property prices last year by 9.2 per cent. Its a hugely decorative city. Light bounces off the River Tagus, reflecting on the glossy azulejo tiles of historic facades and patterned mosaic pavements. Alongside the beauty, there are solid financial reasons for buying homes there. Lisbons property boom started at the end of 2012 helped by the introduction of Portugals Golden Visa which gave anyone spending over 444,000 on property the right to residency, says Diogo Lopes Alves of Cluttons. Initially Chinese buyers were the main Golden Visa purchasers but theyve been joined by Brazilian, South African and Turkish investors. A second scheme, the Non-Habitual Residency Scheme, allows EU residents, including Britons, who buy a home and spend 183 days or more in Portugal to pay no tax on pension or investment income for 10 years. Together these schemes have helped property prices in Lisbon double since 2013. People are buying in Lisbon for both investment and lifestyle reasons, says Lopes Alves. The market is on fire. The most expensive areas in Lisbon Property prices peak in elegant Principe Real and central Chiado. Cluttons is selling Edificio Leonel in Chiado, 10 flats in a classic building directly opposite Lisbons famous Santa Justa lift. Originally renovated 10 years ago by Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza Vieira, the one-and two-bedroom flats start from 633,000 for 968sq ft including a parking space. From 448,500: studios and apartments at Principe Real Residence, in the elegant "Mayfair of Lisbon" (cluttons.com) Principe Real Residence is under refurbishment to create 22 studios, one- and two-bedroom flats, for completion this summer, with high-end finishes and good city views. Prices are 448,500 to 976,000 through Cluttons, with a rental guarantee of three per cent net over three years. In buzzing Bairro Alto, popular for its nightlife, The Lumiares operates as a five-star hotel and spa with 53 flats in a restored 16th-century palace. The final two flats for sale start from 761,000 for a two-bedroom home of 1,410sq ft with parking. Owners get four per cent gross rental return guaranteed for three years and six weeks personal use. Through Cluttons. Further west among the grand embassies in Lapa, a modernised two-bedroom duplex apartment of 1,001sq ft, a potentially good rental property, is 310,000. New homes in Lisbon When Lisbon hosted World Trade Fair Expo in 1998 it transformed a desolate waterfront area to the east. Today Parque das Nacoes has a similar feel to Londons Docklands with modern high-rise blocks, international company HQs, outdoor restaurants and a maritime theme. So pretty: blossoming jacaranda trees in historic Carmo square / Alamy Stock Photo Theres a marina, an aquarium, a casino and a cable car that runs along the tree-filled riverside towards the magnificent Vasco da Gama Bridge. Parque das Nacoes is close to the airport and the main motorways north and south, has good cultural and shopping facilities, excellent transport links and is only 15 minutes from the city centre, says Chitra Stern of family-friendly hotel developer and operator Martinhal. Here, Martinhal is about to start building Martinhal Residences, with 160 flats in a 14-storey tower, operating as a family-focused hotel with branded residences. Prices for the one- to five-bedroom homes, with balconies and sharing indoor and outdoor pools, restaurants and childrens playrooms, start from 222,000 for a 409sq ft studio and 533,000 for two bedrooms. Owners can take a rental guarantee of four per cent net for six years and have all furnishings, utilities and service charges paid by the developers. Martinhal is creating an international school nearby, due to open next year with 850 pupils. We expect about two thirds of apartments to be bought by owner-occupiers and one third by investors, says Stern. Living the Lisbon lifestyle Husband-and-wife restaurateurs Agnes and Alexis Bourrat worked in stellar London restaurants including Zuma, Chiltern Firehouse and at the Mandarin Oriental before moving to Lisbon in 2017. A chance online search uncovered a restaurant for sale in Principe Real the Mayfair of Lisbon. Restaurateurs Agnes and Alexis Bourrat moved to the Mayfair of Lisbon / Francisco Nogueira The couple fell in love with the building, bought it and in July this year opened their own restaurant, BouBous. The Lisbon lifestyle is amazing with beaches and great nature nearby and wonder fresh food, says Agnes, 30. However, the boom of recent years has brought many new residents and property prices have gone through the roof. BouBous can cater for 64, with tables inside and also in the covered courtyard. It aims for casual fine dining with crispy squid, seared gambas, whole octopus, Galician steak and sea bass among typical dishes. BouBous: Rua Monte Olivete 32A, Lisbon (boubous.com; +351 213470804). Allow 35 per person. Where to stay in Lisbon In an ideal location beside the City Hall, steps from the Tagus river and an easy walk to Lisbons most popular tourist sites and shops, the AlmaLusa Baixa/Chiado hotel opened its doors in March 2016. The 28-room independent hotel is comfortable and quiet, and stands on the site of Lisbons former arsenal. Original design features include wooden beams, large fireplaces and a well-worn stone floor in the entrance hall dating to the 16th century. Photo: pixabay Its going to cost more to run a farm this year in B.C. Piece rate minimum wages rose 11.5 per cent on Jan. 1, the first pay bump for farm workers since 2017. BC Fruit Growers President Pinder Dhaliwal says farmers will most likely have to eat that increase, unlike other sectors that can pass on minimum wage increases to consumers. We compete on a global market. We have a very large neighbour to the south, they operate on a larger scale, he said. Unlike other businesses that are able to pass it on in a quicker manner, the agriculture community, we are price takers on the global market. Dhaliwal says it's unlikely the pay bump will make fruit picker jobs any more attractive to local residents, as the positions have traditionally been filled by legions of youth from Quebec and Ontario who have travelled here for generations for the lifestyle. We will see what happens this year, but that attraction is always there on piece-rate they are making good money and able to move up the Valley, starting in Osoyoos and as the crop ripens up to the north. The eastern Canadians travel to live and work outdoors with nature, he said. The sector also heavily relies on temporary foreign workers, with more than 3,500 brought in to fill vacancies on farms in the Okanagan. The BC Poverty Reduction Coalition, meanwhile, wants to see the piece-rate pay structure completely abolished, arguing some farm workers are making less than minimum wage. Im glad that they will see a much-needed raise but these are some of our most marginalized workers and they deserve at least the same basic floor as any other worker in our province. We will continue to call for no exemptions to the minimum wage, said Trish Garner, Coalition community organizer, in an April 2018 press release. Dhaliwal, however, says thats not true. He maintains most fruit pickers are making between $17 and $35 an hour on piece rate over the course of a season. A Maryland family helped nurse wounded Rutherford B. Hayes N o historical markers can be found on the circa-1840, red-brick house in Middletown, Md., where 23rd Ohio lieutenant colonel and future U.S. president Rutherford B. Hayes recovered from his South Mountain battlefield wounds. And, according to the residences longtime current owners, few people inquire with them about its Civil War significance. Several years ago, a man from West Virginia came and took some pictures of the place, said 86-year-old Donald Shank, who has lived in the small, unassuming house at 504 West Main Street with his wife, Lois, since they were married in 1960. But thats about it. In 2016, visitors from the Hayes Presidential Libraryincluding some of the former Union officers descendantsvisited Middletown, where they posed on the steps of the wartime Zion Lutheran Church with near-life-sized, cardboard cutouts of Rutherford and Lucy Hayes. The group viewed the Shanks house from the outside only. In the late 19th or early 20th century, one of Hayes sons visited the house where his father convalesced during the Civil War. He presented to its owner, Shanks grandfather, an 1865 image of his father in uniform. During my visit, Shank proudly posed with that photograph, which shows Hayes as a general, a rank he attained in the fall of 1864. In period writing on the reverse, an unknown individual wrote: Of the presidents of the United States, from Washington to Wilson, fifteen served as officers in battle; but with the exception of James Monroe, when serving as a lieutenant in Trenton, none other than General Hayes was wounded in battle. Donald Shanks ties to the house are especially strong: He and his three sisters were born in an upstairs bedroom, perhaps the same room where Hayes was tended to by Lemonade Lucy, his doting wife, so nicknamed for her staunch support of the temperance movement. Although he has an interest in history, Donald doesnt give much thought to his familys connection to the story of the 19th president of the United States. Neither does Lois, 80. To us, said Donald, a lifetime Maryland resident who served in the U.S. Army from 1953-55, Hayes is just another person. But, oh, if the walls of Shanks house could talk. What a story it could tell about Hayes. Its a love story, really. On September 14, 1862, while leading his troops at Foxs Gap during the Battle of South Mountain, Rutherford Birchard Hayes was seriously wounded. Just as I gave the command to charge, the 39-year-old officer wrote in his diary, I felt a stunning blow and found a musket ball had struck my left arm just above the elbow. Fearing that an artery might be cut, I asked a soldier near me to tie my handkerchief above the wound. I soon felt weak, faint and sick at the stomach. While he lay in the field, Hayes had a considerable talk with a wounded Confederate. I gave him messages for my wife and friends in case I should not get up, he wrote. We were right jolly and friendly; it was by no means an unpleasant experience. Finally, Hayes was carried out of range of Rebel fire, placed behind a big log and given a canteen of water. After his wound was dressed, Hayes staggered a half-mile down the mountain to the small house of a widow named Elizabeth Koogle, remaining there for two or three hours. Still faint from loss of blood, he was taken by ambulance three or four miles or so into Middletown, called Little Massachusetts because of its pro-Union sentiment. Churches, private homes, barns, and other buildings there were thrown open for Union wounded. Hayes association with local merchant Jacob Rudy, his wife Elizabeth, and their two sons and five daughters began that night. So, too, did a mutual admiration society. While he recovered, Hayes grew quite fond of the Rudyshe felt as snug as a bug in a rug while he lay in an upstairs room in their house. I am comfortably at home, he wrote his mother the day after he was wounded, with a very kind and attentive family here named Rudy. Two days after he was wounded, Hayes was free of pain when he lay still. He delighted in sampling Elizabeth Rudys currant jellies, and the familys youngest son, 8-year-old Charlie, enjoyed describing for Hayes the troops as they passed their house on the busy National Pike. Charlie, you live on a street that is much traveled, Hayes said. Oh, it isnt always so, the youngster replied. Its only when the war comes. In April 1877, a lengthy, and remarkably detailed, account of Hayes stay with the Rudys was published in the New York Herald. Under the headlines Reminiscences of His Treatment With A Friendly Family and A Real Love Story, Rudys wife and daughters Kate and Ella recounted their experiences with Hayes, sworn in as 19th president the previous month. When the ambulance carrying Hayes and army surgeon Joseph Webb, his brother-in-law, arrived about sunset at the Rudy house on the National Pike, near the western edge of town, the family was in the midst of their own health crisis. Twenty-one-year-old Daniel Webster Rudy, the couples eldest son, was seriously ill with smallpox, and daughters Laura, 11, and Ella, 9, had scarlet fever. Still, the Rudys welcomed the disheveled and badly wounded Hayes, whose uniform was spattered with dust and mud. The officer was carried up the narrow staircase and placed in a bed in a room next to the one where Daniel lay ill. Webb and his brother, James, also an army surgeon, tended to Hayes wounded arm. A highly respected local physician named Charles Baer aided them. Two black servants, who accompanied Hayes and Joseph Webb in the ambulance to Middletown, slept on the floor of Daniels room. When Lucy Hayes, the lieutenant colonels 31-year-old wife, arrived from Ohio more than a week after the Battle of South Mountain, Elizabeth Rudy made an instant connection with the mother of five young sons. The moment she crossed our threshold, she told the reporter, I knew she was a good woman and a natural lady.She was relieved to know that his wound was not so dangerous as she had imagined it. Rutherford Hayes never had a cross word to say about the Rebels. Though he suffered constantly and got little sleep for a week and longer, Ella Rudy said, he was always cheerful. He not only wouldnt be crosshe wouldnt allow any extra trouble to be taken on his account. Mother used to ask him if she could not do something for him. He always thanked her, but said no. In late September, Hayes was well enough to walk about Middletown. He preferred the unpaved south side of the street, sometimes sloshing through shoe-deep mud, instead of the paved north side, causing the towns tongues to wag. In early October, he and his wife visited the Lutheran Church cemetery, where they could watch the sun set and admire gorgeous fall foliage. On his 40th birthday on October 4, Hayes and Lucy traveled with Jacob Rudy and two other men to the South Mountain battlefield. Hunted up the graves of our gallant boys, he wrote in his diary. Later that month, Hayes finally returned to his home in Cincinnati with his wife. Weeks after Hayes departure, every member of the Rudy family contracted smallpox. Charlie died from the disease on November 4. In the summer of 1864, with the Union army in western Maryland to check Jubal Earlys advance into the state, Hayes found time to visit with the Rudys. They were so kind and cordial, he wrote in a letter to Lucy. They all inquired after you. The girls have grown prettyquite pretty. Captain Rudy, who would die on Christmas Day in 1876, had not forgotten about the soldier he took into his home in 1862. Mr. Rudy said if I was wounded, Hayes told his wife, he would come a hundred miles to get me. Clearly, Hayes remained close to the hearts of Elizabeth, Kate, and Ella Rudy, too. So you all fell in love with the patient Colonel? the reporter asked Elizabeth Rudy during his 1877 visit. We fell in love with him directly, she replied. John Banks is author of Connecticut Yankees at Antietam and Hidden History of Connecticut Union Soldiers, both by The History Press. He also is author of a popular Civil War blog (john-banks.blogspot.com). Banks lives in Nashville, Tenn. The Gatling gun, precursor to the fearsome modern machine guns that have wrought gruesome havoc on global battlefields since World War I, was invented by Richard Gatling in 1861. The introduction of a rapid-firing marvel like the Gatling early in the war should have given Union officials plenty of time to acquire and deploy it in combat. But, despite the lethal potential of what Gatling called his Revolving Battery-Gun, it is possible only a handful were ever used during the conflict. To his credit, Gatling energetically promoted his revolutionary weapon, even appealing directly to President Abraham Lincoln, but he was largely ignored. Union armies would continue to fight without this groundbreaking devicewhat may well have become the Civil Wars deadliest weapon. R ichard Jordan Gatling was born September 12, 1818, in Hertford County in northeastern North Carolina, near the Virginia line. Although he received a medical degree in 1850, Gatling never practiced medicine. Instead, he worked at a variety of jobs, including schoolteacher, county clerks assistant, dry goods store merchant and self-employed businessman. Yet Gatlings consuming, lifelong passion was inventing, and he proved to be prodigious. From his first known invention at age 21 (a steamboat screw propeller) until his death on February 26, 1903, at age 84, Gatling churned out dozens of ingenious inventions for improving daily life in the home and on the farm. These ranged from more efficient toilets to rapid planting devices (notably a rice-sowing machine and a wheat drill) to steam-powered farm implements. In 1854, at age 36, he moved to St. Louis, and by 1861 was living in Indianapolis. The wars outbreak turned the inventors attention from farm fields to battlefields. In a postwar letter, Gatling revealed: It occurred to me if I could invent a machinea gunwhich could by its rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a great extent, supersede the necessity of large armies. By the end of 1861, he had designed his Revolving Battery-Gun prototype. W hen Gatling received U.S. government Patent No. 36,836 for his gun on November 4, 1862, it was not the Civil Wars first rapid-firing weapon. The most notable of the Gatlings competitors was inventor Wilson Agars Union Repeating Gunnicknamed the Coffee Mill Gun because its top-mounted hopper-loader and hand-crank firing mechanism resembled that kitchen utensil. After Agar (sometimes spelled Ager) demonstrated his single-barreled, two-wheeled carriage-mounted weapon to Lincoln in 1861, the president advised its purchaseseveral dozen Coffee Mill Guns (capable of firing 120 rounds per minute) were obtained, a few of those eventually used in combat. Rapid firing, however, tended to overheat the guns single barrel, and its hopper and breech often jammed. In fact, the Civil War Gatling had several common features with Agars gun: Both had similarly style top-mounted hopper-loaders (what Gatling called reservoirs) for feeding loose rounds of ammunition into the weapon; each was mounted on a two-wheel gun carriage; and firing was by a hand-crank. But Gatlings innovation was to use six ordinary rifle-musket barrels, each with its own breech, revolving around a central horizontal axis. A brief interval between firing rounds through each barrel prevented overheating, allowing a remarkable rate of fire of 150 rounds per minute. Like the hopper-loader, carriage, and hand-crank it shared with Agars gun, the Civil War Gatling fired the same ammunitionstandard .58-caliber rifle-musket paper-wrapped cartridges containing bullet and black powder charge. Each cartridge was placed inside its own specially constructed cartridge chambera steel tube, open on one end (to load the cartridge), and closed on the other end with a rifle-musket nipple for a standard percussion cap. After firing, each empty cartridge chamber fell to the ground by gravity when the fired barrel rotated to the bottommost position. Empty cartridge chambers were collected and subsequently reloaded with new paper cartridges and percussion capsa laborious, time-consuming process. Gatlings innovation allowed for a 150-round-per-minute rate of fire that could be sustained indefinitely Although patented in November 1862, the Gatling already had been successfully demonstrated, notably on July 14, 1862. On that day, T.A. Morris, A. Ballweg, and D.G. Rose tested the gun at Indiana Governor Oliver P. Mortons direction. Their enthusiastic report: The discharge can be made with all desirable accuracy as rapidly as 150 times a minute, and may be continued for hours without danger, as we think, from over-heating. Unfortunately for Gatling, Morton declined to buy the weapon, a pattern of refusals to be repeated throughout the war. Gatlings innovative firearm faced a firmly entrenched roadblock: Brig. Gen. James Wolfe Ripley, Union Army chief of ordnance. Ripley (born in 1794) considered repeating weapons unnecessarily expensive inventions that encouraged ammunition waste, thereby overburdening the Army supply system. Ripley stubbornly resisted all rapid-fire weapons (in addition to Gatling and Agar guns, blocking or delaying Sharps, Spencer, and Henry rifles), claiming single-shot, muzzle-loading, rifle-muskets good enough. Gatling called Ripley an old fogey who believed flintlock muskets were on the whole the best weapons for warfare. In an 1863 meeting, Gatling recalled, Ripley received [Gatlings agent] coldly, told him he had no faith in the [Gatling] gun and that he would have nothing to do with him. Gatling persevered, going straight to the top. Since Lincoln had championed repeating weaponsnotably, the Spencer repeater and Agars Coffee Mill GunGatling appealed directly to the president. In a February 18, 1864, letter to Lincoln, Gatling pleaded his case (with a swipe at his competition): [My gun] is regarded by all who have seen it operate, as the most effective implement of warfare invented during the war.[I]t is just the thing needed to aid in crushing the present rebellion [emphasis in original].I assure you my invention is no coffee mill gunbut is entirely a different arm, and is entirely free from the accidents and objections raised against that arm. Lincoln ignored himmost likely for politics than for doubts about the guns capabilities. Gatlings Southern roots raised doubts about his loyalty, and his name was linked with Northern Copperhead politician Clement L. Vallandighama whispering campaign probably promulgated by competitors alleging Gatling held membership in a Southern-sympathizing secret society, the Order of American Knights. Always pragmatic and facing reelection, Lincoln feared Gatling being in league with Copperheads. Already the creator of innovative home and farm implements, Gatling turned his prodigious creative talents to warfare in 1861. (PF-USNA/Alamy Stock Photo) A direct appeal by Gatling produced no U.S. government contract during the war. Still, it remains widely claimed that at least some Gatlings saw combat use. Publications mentioning Gatling guns typically insist they were first used in combat in the Civil War. The mostly anecdotal evidence offered to substantiate this, however, is suspiciously thin and undatedhardly conclusive proof. It is asserted that Union Army of the James commander Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler personally bought 12 Gatlings (for $1,000 each, though Gatlings agent embezzled the money) and that he briefly used a few to fire on enemy forces near Richmond during the siege of Petersburg. Butler allegedly mounted up to eight on Union James River gunboats. Even then, no claim has been made that those gunboat Gatlings were fired in anger during combat. After the war, Gatling would boast: Ben Butler took the guns he had with him to the Battle of Petersburg and fired them himself upon the rebels. They created great consternation and slaughter. Obviously, Gatling was not a disinterested party. He, of course, had a financial stake in promoting his weapon as vigorously as possible. Tellingly, Civil War firearms historian William B. Edwards points out that Butler, a notoriously self-promoting individual who seldom missed a chance to brag of his accomplishments, neglects to mention this colorful use of an important novel weapon of war. The failure by Butler to mention Gatlings is conspicuous by its absence, Edwards concludes. No verifiable proof exists that gatlings were ever used in combat during the war Edwards also explains revealingly that in February 1864 Butler officially obtained 10 Agar Coffee Mill Guns from the Washington Arsenal (Ripley, by then, no longer around to block their issue) and concludes that the confirmed possession of those Agar guns must be assumed [the] Gatlings that Butler placed on the James River gunboats. Further muddying the water regarding the possibility of Gatling gun Civil War combat use is the fact that few soldiers in the Union Army had ever laid eyes on either Agar or Gatling guns. This unfamiliarity with the weapons led to, as Edwards points out, the contemporary [i.e., Civil War] confusionthat made soldiers and commanders interchange [Agars] Union Repeater and the Gatling Battery Gun when referring to the rapid-fire weapons. Even if soldiers at the one alleged Petersburg/Richmond combat use had seen a rapid-fire weapon being fired against Confederate troops, they likely would not have known if it was a Gatling or one of the Agar guns Butler certainly had. Although Admiral David Dixon Porter purchased a small number of Gatlings (likely only one) to mount on Navy river gunboats in the West, there is no record of any combat use. Another claim, that Gatlings were used to suppress the July 13-16, 1863, New York City Draft Riots, seems based on Gatling having sent three of the guns to newspaper publisher Horace Greeley (presumably to display as a publicity stunt) and that during the riots the guns were ensconced in the windows of [Greeleys] New York Tribune, their mere presence having turned away a serious threat of attack by the mobs on one occasion, Gatling would later claim. The bottom line is that no verifiable proof exists that Gatlings made it into combat during the war beyond the unsupported claims of Gatling himself and some postwar books written by his friends and publicists. Indeed, even Gatlings grandson admitted in 1957: No one seems to know any anecdotes on the Civil War use of the gun. Yet the tantalizing what if? vision of Union armies armed with dozens of Gatlings sweeping the battlefields clean of Confederate troops and, thereby, shortening the war, fades upon closely and critically examining the weapons mechanical and tactical limitations. The Civil Warera Gatling differed significantly in several key aspects from Richard Gatlings much-improved postwar models, whose substantially greater reliability and efficiency provided armies around the world with a significant source of firepower for nearly half a century. Gatlings Revolving Battery-Gun Patented November 4, 1862 | Era 1862-1865 Caliber .58 (standard rifle-musket paper cartridge with percussion cap) Ammunition Feed System Gravity fed via hopper-loader Firing System 6 rotating barrels Firing Mechanism Hand-crank Rate of Fire 150 rounds per minute Barrel Length 32 inches Overall Length 60 inches Weight of Gun (minus carriage) About 400 pounds Weight of Carriage 350550 pounds Transportation Horse-drawn, moved short distances by gun crew Crew 4-6 (Gunner, Loader, Ammunition handlers) Mechanically, the top-mounted, gravity-fed hopper-loader into which loose rounds of ammunition were placed was, like those on Agar guns, inefficient and subject to jamming if the ammunition failed to drop smoothly into the barrels breeches. Moreover, the steel cartridge chambers loaded with .58-caliber paper cartridges primed with percussion caps were clumsy, time-consuming to collect and reload, and added burnt paper residue to the ever-present barrel-fouling black powder residue. The weapon also lacked a swivel mechanism on its carriage mount that would allow it to be fired quickly right or leftin other words, a horizontal sweep of the battlefield. Only gun crews physically manhandling the weapons carriage right and left could accomplish that. Even moving the weapons fire vertically was possible only via the primitive elevating screw it shared with standard field cannons. Tactically, the Gatling had a potentially fatal deficiency in that when the enemy was within range, the gun, as well as its crew and horses, could be struck by enemy infantry firethe same problem all field artillery crews faced. Although the Gatlings firing rate could have unleashed a blizzard of bullets at any force attacking directly along a narrow route, that made it suitable only for firing from protected defensive positions. The Gatling did notindeed, could not havebecome warfares wonder weapon until postCivil War models that fired self-contained, metallic cartridges appeared. It was a killing machine of great future potentialit just wasnt quite ready for prime time. Jerry Morelock is Americas Civil War senior editor. In the early morning of April 23, 1972, a North Vietnamese anti-tank missile company ambushed South Vietnamese tanks from the 20th Armored Squadron outside Dong Ha, in northern South Vietnam near the Demilitarized Zone. The 10-minute engagement destroyed three of the squadrons M48A2 Patton tanks and several M113 armored personnel carriers. It was the Army of the Republic of Vietnams first encounter with the Soviet-built missile, the 9M14 Malyutka, meaning little one, and designated by NATO as the AT-3 Sagger. The North Vietnamese Army received the missiles the previous year and had just enough for three Sagger companies, which were used sparingly. All three were sent to the DMZ as a precaution against a U.S. armored intervention (that never came). In spring 1972, the NVAs anti-tank missile teams blocked several poorly supported ARVN armored counterattacks, destroying or disabling more than a dozen tanks. The ARVN was forced back, causing Quang Tri, in South Vietnams northernmost province, to fall on May 2, 1972. Entering Soviet service in late 1963, the 9M14 Malyutka had a manually controlled wire guided system, in which a human operator used wires attached to the missile to transmit signals that guide it. The missile and launch cradle came in a fiberglass suitcase with a detachable lid that was a launch mount for the missile. The control unit could be connected to four launchers. The operator tracked the missile via a periscope sight on the controller, using a joystick to guide it to the target. The missile spooled its control wires behind it as it flew. The anti-tank companies normally deployed in three-man teams, each carrying four Sagger missiles. They were supported by a two-man team with RPG-7 shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenades and an infantry squad. Although the Dong Ha engagements significance was not appreciated at the time, that battle and later the American success with the tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided (TOW) missile introduced in 1970 brought guided anti-tank missiles to the modern battlefield. Crew: 2 or 3 2 or 3 System weight: 67 lbs. Missile weight: 24 lbs. Missile length: 3ft. Finspan: 1 ft. Warhead: High-explosive anti-tank round Guidance: Manual control, line-of-sight wire-guided Speed: 254 yds. per second Max. range: 2 miles Min. range: 328 yds. Optimal range: 1,000 yds. This article was published in the April 2019 issue of Vietnam magazine. Justices set high bar for public figures claiming press defamation SCOTUS 101 LAYPERSONS TEND TO VIEW Supreme Court decisions in terms of winners and losers. However, the justices often find the most contentious aspects of a case to involve explaining the reasons for favoring the victor and devising a formula that will tell lower court judges how to handle similar cases. No case illustrates this better than New York Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 decision that, the Times editorialized on its 50th anniversary, instantly changed libel law in the United States and still represents the clearest and most forceful defense of press freedom in American history. Sullivan arose over two principles in conflict: the right of the press to publish without government interference and the right of individuals to use the governmentthat is, the courtsto obtain recompense when defamed. It was obvious from the moment that the justices agreed to review an Alabama Supreme Court decision ordering that the Times pay an astonishing libel judgment of $500,000 that the High Court was going to give the publication some relief. The question was how broad that relief was going to be. The politicians who brought the case claimed to have been libeled not in a news story or an opinion piece, but by a paid advertisement run in the paper on March 29. 1960. The full-page ad lauded the nonviolent civil rights demonstrations Negro students, in the ads language, were staging around the South. The copy in the ad decried the unprecedented wave of terror meeting those demonstrators, and solicited donations to support the students, assist in aiding blacks to vote, and provide legal help to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The ad was signed by 20 Southern clergymen and 80 celebrities ranging from Eleanor Roosevelt to Jackie Robinson and including such show business luminaries as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Shelley Winters. One paragraph of the ad copy focused on actions against protesting students in Montgomery, Alabama. The ad named no individual official. However, L.B. Sullivan, the Montgomery city commissioner who oversaw the municipalitys police department, claimed that the mention unfairly cast aspersions on his job performance. Sullivan sued the Times and local ministers who had signed the ad. Alabama Governor John Patterson and other elected officials later joined Sullivans action. The ad did contain misstatements, bolstering the plaintiffs case. For example, the ad said protesting students had gathered at the Alabama statehouse and sung My Country, Tis of Thee when in fact they had sung the National Anthem. The ad claimed that Dr. King had been arrested seven times on such minor charges as loitering; in fact, police had arrested him four times. The errors substance stopped mattering when the trial judge ruled that the standard libelous per se would applythat is, that any factual errors, no matter how trivial, are presumed to harm a subjects reputation. In setting damages jurors could assume plaintiffs had been injured, without requiring proof. The justices had not heard a libel case in 20 years, but they knew this judgment could not stand. After the Alabama high court OKed the $500,000 judgment against the Times, so many Southern politicians sued the press for libel that state courts had $300 million in claims pending. These kinds of cases provide a method to put newspapers out of business, Hugo Black said as he and colleagues privately discussed the case. Yet justices hesitated simply to say the trial judge was wrong to call the contested ad libelous per se. States make the rules for libel litigation, and in Alabama that harsh standard was the rule. The justices were not about to impose an overall national standard on run-of-the-mill libel suits. Those who sat through oral arguments in the case expected the justices to dispose of the case by the easiest means. That would have been to limit their opinion to this particular dispute, holding that no jury reasonably could conclude that the ads authors had aimed their statements on police actions directly at the officials claiming to have been libeled. But afterwards, conferring privately on the case, the justices saw the need for a broader ruling. Justice John Harlan cut to the core. This case presents a classic illustration of how the First Amendments protection of the public interest in discussion must be accommodated against private rightsincluding the private right not to be defamed, Harlan said. We must lay down new constitutional rules for state libel laws. The justices felt that, rather than send the case back to lower courts to be tried under any new standard, the court had to apply those new rules to the Times case. All thought returning the case to Alabama would be disastrous. Jurors there were likely to be hostile to the Times and disinclined to parse any instructions legal niceties, especially since the original judge consistently had ruled against antisegregation efforts and in his courtroom made blacks and whites sit separately. The solution for balancing the rights of the pressand the publics need to be informed about governments workingsagainst the rights of those claiming to have been libeled first was enunciated in the justices conference by Justice Tom Clark. I would separate private libels from those on groups or in public affairs or government, Clark said. In private libels, I would allow a less onerous burden of proof. That was not a radical idea. Courts in 16 states had narrowed public officials right to bring libel cases even when stories about them were false, as long as those publishing the stories had a reasonable belief that the articles contents were true and had acted without malice. The justices had no trouble embracing a two-tier approach, but did struggle over criteria for lower courts to apply in assessing public officials claims of libel. Clark suggested that the writing under challenge had to relate directly to the official claiming injury, not merely to a policy that that official was pursuing. Chief Justice Earl Warren wanted the standard to be whether the contested article in its totality amounted to fair comment on a topic of public interest. Justice Harlan wanted a very high bar for any plaintiff; namely, to present clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidencethe standard in denaturalization cases involving efforts to revoke the citizenship of an immigrant who had been granted it. Justice William Brennan suggested plaintiffs should have to prove actual malice. Brennan was assigned to write the opinion for the court. Seeking a middle ground among his brethrens divergent views, he wrote six drafts before producing an opinion that most would acceptthat to win a libel case, a public official had to prove either that the publisher had made the false statements knowing them to be untrue or had done so with a reckless disregard to gauging their accuracy. The ruling was a green light for the press to report aggressively on any public figure, since the Court in 1967 extended the Times standard to such persons. However, while agreeing on the need to void the judgment against the Times Justices Black, William O. Douglas, and Arthur Goldberg wanted a more absolutist rule. They read the Constitution as barring any libel action by a public officialagainst the press or citizensbecause even the threat of such action could inhibit the robust debate vital to democracy. Prosecutors will seek a life sentence for a suburban Chicago man accused of beating a 4-year-old girl to death after she spilled juice on an Xbox video console. Prosecutors said heinous circumstances justify the sentence for 19-year-old Johnathan Fair, of Waukegan, if he is eventually convicted of first-degree murder in the death of his girlfriends daughter, Skylar Mendez, the Chicago Tribune reported. Fair was babysitting Skylar on December 13 at a Waukegan apartment when she was fatally injured. He brought her to a hospital after she lost consciousness and initially claimed shed fallen. She died a few days later at a Chicago hospital following surgery doctors had hoped would relieve swelling of her brain, the Lake County States Attorneys Office said. Skylars mother was not at home at the time of the alleged beating, Waukegan police have said. Fairs attorney, Sam Amirante, told The Associated Press Sunday his client deserves the presumption of innocence accorded to anyone accused of a crime. When the real facts come out, he will be acquitted, said Amirante, who declined to comment specifically on the allegation that juice spilled on the Xbox triggered a beating. A grand jury handed down an indictment Wednesday that charges Fair with four counts of first-degree murder. After his arrest last month, he was initially charged with aggravated battery. Prosecutors announced their intentions on sentencing Thursday. Fair remains jailed after bail was set at $5 million. His arraignment is scheduled for Feb. 17. The Trump White House is considering Indra Nooyi, the former Indian American CEO of Pepsi, to head the World Bank as president to succeed Jim Yong Kim, who has announced he is stepping down in February. The New York Times, which first reported this move, said Ivanka Trump, the presidents daughter and adviser, had floated Nooyis name for the position and that it was not yet clear if the former Pepsi CEO will accept,if offered. Ivanka Trump is among the three people conducting the search for a successor to Kim, who resigned earlier this month. The other two are Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. Others in the race include David Malpass, the under secretary of treasury, and Ray Washburne, who is heading the Oversea Private Investment Corporation. Both of them had served as advisers to President Donald Trumps campaign. With Ivanka Trumps backing her, however, Nooyi could stand the best chance, given how close the president is to his first daughter, who has called Nooyi a mentor. She wrote in a tweet last August, The great @IndraNooyi is stepping down as PepsiCo CEO, after 12 yrs. Indra, you are a mentor + inspiration to so many, myself included. I am deeply grateful for your friendship. Thank you for your passionate engagement on issues that benefit the people of this country, and beyond. It wasnt clear yet if Nooyi will take the nomination. She had faced criticism for joining the presidents business advisory council that was disbanded later. And there had been no statement from the White House confirming the report, or denying it. A nominee of the United States is guaranteed to get the position. The World Bank has been headed always by an American Kim, the outgoing president is Korean-American in an informal arrangement that leaves the sister world body, the International Monetary Fund to Europeans, the current managing director Christine Lagarde is French and succeeded another French, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Exhortations and appeals of support by British Prime Minister Theresa May and clarifications by EU failed to change minds of her allies and critics, making it unlikely that the controversial withdrawal agreement will be passed in the House of Commons on Tuesday. Senior cabinet minister and leading Brexiteer Liam Fox admitted that the agreement is unlikely to be passed when it is put to vote later in the evening. As currency markets and others monitored developments closely, there was another ministerial resignation over the Brexit deal. Gareth Johnson, the minister in the Whips Office, stepped down taking the total number of ministers resigning to 13 since the agreement was published in November. Over the last few weeks, I have tried to reconcile my duties as a Whip to assist the government to implement the European withdrawal agreement with my own personal objections to the agreement, Johnson wrote in his resignation letter as May continued last-ditch efforts to persuade critics to vote for the agreement. I have concluded that I cannot, in all conscience, support the governments position when it is clear this deal would be detrimental to our nations interests, Johnson said. A five-page letter by European Union leaders Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, which May hoped would assuage concerns of MPs on the key issue of backstop for Northern Ireland, was rejected by her allies and critics alike for containing little more than warm words and good intention. May was told categorically in the letter that we (the EU) are not in a position to agree to anything that changes or is inconsistent with the withdrawal agreement, riling the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which is propping up the minority May government. Despite a letter of supposed reassurance from the EU, there are no legally-binding assurances as the prime minister talked about in December. In fact, there is nothing new. Nothing has changed, Nigel Dodds, DUP leader in Westminster, said. Instead of meaningless letters, the prime minister should now ask for and deliver changes to the withdrawal agreement, Dodds said. Added Labours shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer: The prime minister has once again failed to deliver. This is a long way from the significant and legally effective commitment the prime minister promised. It is a reiteration of the EUs existing position. Once again, nothing has changed. Westminster was busy discussing various scenarios in the event of the government losing the vote. According to May, the country will move into uncharted territory if the agreement is not endorsed by a majority in the House of Commons. Possible scenarios include a no-deal Brexit on March 29, renegotiating the current agreement with Brussels, another mid-term election, another referendum and a vote of no-confidence moved by the opposition Labour. Labour insisted that there are several precedents in British political history from 1807 to 1974 of holding elections when the country faced parliamentary stagnation and national crisis. Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry wrote: That is how our country works when we have a government that cannot govern; that is the way it has always worked going back to the Duke of Portland in 1807, and that is the situation Theresa May will find herself in after she loses the vote on her Brexit deal. Recalling Mays words that the UK will go into uncharted territory if the agreement is voted down, Thornberry added that May is under a constitutional obligation of following the only course of action of holding elections when parliamentary authority fell away. But if she refuses, if Labours no-confidence motion fails, and if we have to move to other options, including campaigning for a public vote, we will take no lectures from her about respecting our countrys democracy, Thornberry said. Because she will be the one who has forced us into that position by ignoring every historical precedent on which that democracy is based. Most infants and toddlers can wave or point before they know how to speak. Providing them with signs allows them to communicate before they speak, stated Knight. Babies and toddlers who can communicate using basic signs often feel less frustration as they are able to express themselves and be understood. This boosts communication skills, helps create a bond between caregiver and child, leads to more self-confidence, and increase understanding of language. The Taliban on Tuesday claimed responsibility for a powerful truck bomb in Kabul that ripped through surrounding neighbourhoods, killing at least four people including an Indian national, and wounding more than 100 in the latest assault on the Afghan capital. In a grim message, the militants also vowed to carry out more attacks in the city in direct response to the recent appointment of former spymaster and anti-Taliban veteran Amrullah Saleh as interior minister. Monday evenings explosion near the heavily fortified Green Village foreign compound shook Kabul and comes as diplomats ramp up efforts to end the 17-year war in Afghanistan, which by some estimates was the worlds deadliest conflict in 2018. The force of the blast was felt across the sprawling city, initially causing confusion about the exact location of the attack. It shattered the windows of surrounding houses and shops. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told journalists on WhatsApp that four attackers blew up an explosives-packed truck before entering Green Village and killing many foreigners. Read: Indian among 4 killed in Afghan car bomb blast on Monday Four people, including three guards and one civilian, have been confirmed dead and 113 wounded, the health ministry said. An Indian national was among those killed, Indias foreign ministry said in a statement. Kabul police spokesman Basir Mujahid told AFP that most of the victims were Afghan civilians. Seven or eight people have been injured in every house around here including myself, said resident Mohammad Aref. When I came out, the street was full of bodies of the dead and injured. Until recently some UN staff had lived and worked at Green Village, which is heavily protected by cement blast walls. But interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said earlier the compound was now largely empty and only a number of guards were left. A much bigger UN compound along with Afghanistans customs office and headquarters for the Independent Election Commission are also nearby. It is the second Taliban-claimed attack on a foreign compound in Kabul in recent months. In late November a vehicle bomb exploded outside the compound of British security firm G4S, killing at least 10 people. Five G4S employees were among the dead. That was followed by a suicide and gun attack on a government compound in Kabul on December 24 that killed at least 43 people, making it one of the deadliest assaults on the city last year. The latest bombing comes as US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad visits the region for further meetings aimed at bringing an end to the war in Afghanistan. Khalilzad, who met Taliban representatives last month in Abu Dhabi, is travelling to Afghanistan as well as China, India and Pakistan on the trip lasting through January 21. Also read: Four killed, 44 wounded in Kabul car bomb attack: Officials Afghan officials suggested the latest attack appeared to be an attempt to derail the burgeoning peace process, vowing the bombing would not go unanswered. As we are trying to reach a regional consensus on peace, the enemy is trying to sabotage it, said National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib on social media. I strongly condemn this attack and promise I will seriously investigate and avenge it, he added. Last months leaking of US President Donald Trumps plan to slash troop numbers in Afghanistan, however, has threatened to derail the efforts and alarmed many Afghans who fear a return to oppressive Taliban rule. Diplomats in Kabul have long said any negotiations with the militants would likely happen as fighting continued on the battlefield -- cold comfort for Afghan civilians who have long borne the brunt of the war. Ohio police officers were politically motivated when they arrested Stormy Daniels, the porn star who has described having an affair with President Donald Trump, at a strip club last year, the actress said in a lawsuit on Monday. The Columbus vice unit officers who arrested Daniels on July 12, 2018, were registered Republicans as is the president, Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, said in her lawsuit filed in federal court in Ohio. Defendant officers believed that Ms. Clifford was damaging President Trump and they thereafter entered into a conspiracy to arrest her during her performance in Columbus in retaliation for the public statements she had made regarding (Trump), the suit said. The legal action against the officers could bring to light further details about the circumstances of Daniels arrest, which made headlines at the time. Columbus police had accused Daniels of committing a misdemeanour sex offence while performing at the club Sirens by touching three customers who were undercover vice detectives. The charge was dropped hours later. Daniels had committed no crime because she did not perform regularly at the club, as required under the law, a city attorney said at the time. The Columbus Division of Police launched an internal investigation soon after the incident. The Columbus Division of Police internal affairs bureau continues its investigation, therefore it would be inappropriate for us to comment on this matter at this time, the division said in a statement about the lawsuit. The division, in Ohios state capital, was not named as a defendant in Daniels lawsuit, which accused the officers of violating her civil rights. A representative for the police union for the officers could not immediately be reached for comment. Daniels sued Trump for defamation in March 2018, before her arrest, and was seeking release from a non-disclosure agreement she signed before the 2016 presidential election to remain silent about the affair she said she had with Trump. Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels, saying she was paid to stop false and extortionist accusations. A federal judge in Los Angeles dismissed Daniels defamation lawsuit last year. Daniels attorney, Michael Avenatti, has described her arrest as a politically motivated set-up since the day it happened. Here in America, unlike in Russia, we dont arrest citizens for political purposes in order to silence them, Avenatti said in a statement on Monday. A cross-Europe investigation into men entering into bogus marriages for immigration purposes has led to the arrest of 17 Pakistan citizens, officials of European agencies Europol and Eurojust announced on Tuesday. The men belonged to what officials called an organised crime group that recruited dozens of European women into sham marriages. The arrests were carried out following the investigation by Belgian authorities and the Portuguese Immigration and Borders Service. The criminal group was involved in the facilitation of illegal immigration by organising sham marriages, predominately between Portuguese and Pakistani nationals. Portuguese women were recruited to marry Pakistani men they had never met, Europol said. In return, the women received a cash payment of thousands of euros. The couples then travelled to Belgium, where the wives were soon employed by (allegedly bogus) Belgian companies. By purchasing shares in the companies, the husbands were permitted to stay in the European Union, obtain resident permits and then illegally profit from social and other benefits. The shares were later transferred between the wives, allowing new recruits to become partners of the companies. The women usually travelled back to Portugal, and would occasionally return to Belgium for police and immigration checks, European officials said. The investigation started in Belgium in 2015 when authorities discovered a suspicious increase in the number of mixed marriage certificates in Ieper, Belgium. Criminal groups chose small municipalities to commit their crimes in, making perpetrators difficult to detect and prosecute, the officials added. With U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May set to lose Tuesdays key Parliament vote on her Brexit deal, European Union nations are bracing for the chaos that is expected if Britain crashes out of the bloc without a deal in just 73 days time. In the weeks ahead, May will be scrambling for a way to get her agreement approved, but many Brexit-watchers will be focusing on the prospect of a disorderly divorce. The European Commission has published its no-deal contingency plans, with 14 essential and urgent policies for EU member states to adopt. The measures focus on areas from air traffic to derivatives clearing to data sharing. But the member states arent equal when it comes to no-deal planning. Below are the highlights of what individual governments are doing. Germany Germany has budgeted for an extra 900 customs officials to help handle goods traffic after Brexit. The governments no-deal preparations also include provisions so that insurance products and some derivatives traded in euros can still be covered under the current passporting regime. The negative economic impact of a hard Brexit cannot be fully offset, German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier told Handelsblatt newspaper in a Jan. 11 interview. We are already seeing that the weakness of the British pound is hitting Germanys export industry hard, he said. France The French Parliament in December passed a law to keep passenger traffic, road transport and trade operating between France and the U.K. in case of a no-deal scenario. The package of measures also allows the government to use executive orders to smooth out travel, residence permits, work issues and access to welfare for British citizens in France. French European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau said the measures would allow a stable situation for people and fluid communications between France, the EU and the U.K. Spain The Spanish government plans to enact a decree by February on contingency plans in the event of a hard Brexit, Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said on Monday. The government also is setting up a page with Brexit advice for citizens and companies on the prime ministers website. The three main areas of concern for Spain are aviation, financial services and agriculture/fishing. The government has been encouraging companies to improve their Brexit planning, including measures to avert damage from a cliff-edge scenario, Economy Minister Nadia Calvino said last week. Netherlands The Netherlands, home to Europes biggest port at Rotterdam, will hire 928 extra customs officials by the end of 2019, increasing its 5,000-strong customs force by 18 percent. At least 300 of the new hires will be in place by March 29. The focus of the boost in staff will be on the ferry traffic to Britain, which transports fresh flowers and produce daily. The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority will hire 143 additional staff, the bulk of which will be veterinarians for examining animal shipments for import and export. Two-thirds of the extra staff will be on board by Brexit day. Sweden Sweden is focusing on about 10 areas where consequences could be immediate and serious if there is a no-deal Brexit, including border issues, financial services, citizens rights and pharmaceuticals supplies, Swedish EU Minister Ann Linde said last week. The government in Stockholm is preparing measures needed to soften the negative consequences in these areas, she said. The government has passed measures on settlement of financial transactions and proposals on derivatives contracts are due to become effective in March. Belgium The Port of Antwerp, Belgium. (Bloomberg) The Belgian government has warned companies and citizens that a no-deal Brexit could lead to additional tariffs of 2.2 billion euros ($2.5 billion) for Belgian businesses and a loss of more than 40,000 jobs. The government in September made available an online tool called the Brexit Impact Scan to help businesses assess their preparedness for the U.K.s exit. More than 5,000 companies have taken advantage of the tool, three-quarters of them in the countrys northern region of Flanders; about 85 percent of Belgian firms exporting to Britain are Flemish. With Europes second-biggest port at Antwerp, Belgium is increasing its 3,400-strong customs force with a first wave of 141 new staff, who will be operational as of April 2019. It also is investing in drones and underwater scanners for surveillance of its coastline and the North Sea, according to the Finance Ministry. Austria The Austrian government has prepared an omnibus law for all the legal changes a hard Brexit would require, from civil rights to transport to customs. Austria also has developed two versions of a website to explain the impact of Brexit to the general public - one for a deal and one for no-deal. The website isnt live yet, as the government is waiting for clarity on the Brexit process before launching the site in order to avoid confusing the public and undermining the efforts to ratify the Withdrawal Agreement. The Austrian Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile, has already set up a website telling businesses what to do to cope with Brexit risks. It includes help in dealing with more-complicated customs procedures and trademark issues. The government also is considering letting Austrians living in the U.K. keep their Austrian passport even if they take U.K. citizenship after Brexit, an exemption to the standard rule. Denmark A hard Brexit could cost Denmark as much as 1 percent in lost gross domestic product, the government in Copenhagen said last month. A hard Brexit would mean 4,300 kroner ($660) in lost GDP per capita, according to a report by the Economy Ministry. The Danish government has hired more customs officers and asked banks to prepare contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit. The Danes are particularly worried about food and energy exports, fisheries and the future of derivatives clearing out of London. Finland Finland expects delays in processing shipments as volumes of imported goods that need to be declared are estimated to increase by a quarter in the case of a no-deal divorce. As many as 60 new staff will be needed for processing the declarations and shipments, according to Finnish Customs. The Finnish Medicines Agency is mapping out pharmaceuticals that might face supply constraints from a hard Brexit and expects to have a full list of such drugs by early February. The Interior Ministry is still considering how to handle the 5,000 Britons currently in Finland in case of a no-deal. The Tax Authority has set up a Brexit website and made changes to its computer systems, in particular related to the value-added tax paid by companies importing and exporting goods. Portugal Portugal wont require British citizens to have a visa even if there is a no-deal Brexit. It wants reciprocal treatment on this and other measures from the U.K. government. Tourism represents about 14 percent of Portugals gross domestic product, and the British rank as its biggest group of visitors. In addition, the government estimates that there are more than 22,000 Britons who are permanent residents in Portugal, and 22 percent of all passengers who arrive at Portuguese airports are British. The government will make 50 million euros available for loans to help companies adapt to a no-deal divorce. Sines and Lisbon, two of Portugals main ports, are already well-equipped to handle non-EU trade, so a Britain outside the bloc wont be a problem. A study sponsored by the Business Confederation of Portugal showed that exports to the U.K. could drop as much as one-quarter in the medium to long term with Brexit, and that Portugals economic growth could be hit to the tune of 0.5 percent to 1 percent. Latvia The Latvian customs agency plans to hire 48 additional people in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The Foreign Ministry in Riga estimates that customs-processing costs will increase by about 10 million euros over the next three years, with the biggest component of that being additional customs and veterinary checks. The Foreign Ministry has created the email address brexit@mfa.gov.lv for Brexit-related inquiries; and every government ministry is to have a special webpage on Brexit. A federal judge on Monday put a nationwide hold on Trump administration rules that allow more employers to opt out of providing women with no-cost birth control. US District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Philadelphia agreed with a lawsuit originally filed by Pennsylvania, citing the potential harm to states should the rules be enforced. Numerous citizens could lose contraceptive coverage, Beetlestone wrote, resulting in the increased use of state-funded contraceptive services, as well as increased costs to state services from unintended pregnancies. The rules, scheduled to take effect Monday, would change a mandate under 2010s Affordable Care Act by allowing more employers, including publicly traded companies, to opt out of providing no-cost contraceptive coverage to women by claiming religious objections. Some private employers could also now object on moral grounds. Pennsylvanias attorney general, Josh Shapiro, called the court ruling a victory for the health and economic independence of women and the rejection of a Trump administration move to violate a federal law that requires insurers to cover the services. Congress hasnt changed that law, and the president cant simply ignore it with an illegal rule, Shapiro said. New Jersey later joined Pennsylvania in suing. In issuing the injunction, Beetlestone wrote in her opinion that the states were likely to win their lawsuits claims that Trumps administration violated procedural requirements for how regulations must be created and that the rules exceed the scope of authority under the Affordable Care Act. The Department of Justice did not say whether it would appeal, saying only that it will continue to vigorously defend religious liberty. The Department of Health and Human Services said the rules affirm the administrations commitment to upholding constitutional freedoms. No American should be forced to violate his or her own conscience in order to abide by the laws and regulations governing our health care system, Health and Human Services Department spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said in a statement. On Sunday, a federal judge in California blocked the rules from taking effect in the jurisdictions in the lawsuit before him. Those included California, New York and 11 other states along with Washington, DC. At issue is a requirement under former Democratic President Barack Obamas health care law that birth control services be covered at no additional cost. Obama officials included exemptions for religious organizations. But the administration of President Donald Trump, a Republican, sought to expand those exemptions and added moral convictions as a basis to opt out of providing birth control services. The Justice Department has argued that the new rules protect a narrow class of sincere religious and moral objectors from being forced to facilitate practices that conflict with their beliefs. Beetlestone had previously blocked an interim version of the rules in a December 2017 ruling. In November, the Trump administration rolled out a final version of the rule, prompting another challenge by states. China on Tuesday defended the death sentence handed out to a Canadian for smuggling drugs and warned Canadas Prime Minister Justin Trudeau against making irresponsible remarks about Chinese law. A Chinese court in the northeastern city of Dalian on Monday gave the death penalty to Robert Lloyd Schellenberg for smuggling drugs, aggravating tensions between Beijing and Ottawa who are locked in a dispute over Canadas arrest of telecom giant Huaweis chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou. The evidence against Schellenberg is compelling and ample, and the criminal charges are well founded, the court said. Reacting to the death sentence, Trudeau said: China chose to arbitrarily apply the death penalty on Schellenberg. Late on Monday, Canadas foreign ministry updated its travel advisory for China to warn citizens about the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws. It added: We continue to advise all Canadians travelling to China to exercise a high degree of caution. Schellenbergs aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones, was quoted by foreign news agencies as saying the familys worst fears had been confirmed. Our thoughts are with Robert at this time. It is rather unimaginable what he must be feeling and thinking, she said in a statement, adding: It is a horrific, unfortunate, heartbreaking situation. The Chinese foreign ministry on Tuesday, in turn, strongly criticised Trudeaus remarks, calling it irresponsible. I think this is wrong. I dont know if the relevant person has carefully read the notice issued by the Dalians Intermediate Peoples Court and Chinese law, foreign ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying said at the regular ministry briefing. Hua added that there was enough evidence against the 36-year-old Canadian who was part of an international syndicate and smuggled 222 kg of methamphetamine into China. Drugs smuggling is a grave crime in other countries of the world... and it is the same in China. All people are equal before the law, she said. The relevant remarks made by the Canadian side are full of double standard and lack the spirit of rule of law. We are highly dissatisfied with the remarks and we urge the Canadian side to respect Chinas rule of law and sovereignty and stop making such kind of irresponsible remarks, Hua added. Schellenberg was detained in China in 2014 and sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2016 for drug peddling in China. However, the court deemed the quantum of punishment for Schellenberg was lenient given the nature of his crime and ordered a retrial of the case. Schellenbergs case was the most recent in a series of incidents between Canada and Beijing, which began with Mengs arrest at the request of the US. Washington had sought her extradition late last year for fraud and violating the US sanctions on Iran. The tension between the two countries was heightened when two Canadian citizens, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, were arrested in China, suspected of activities that Beijing said put the countrys national security at risk. From the shock Brexit referendum result to Tuesdays momentous vote on Theresa Mays unpopular divorce deal with the European Union, here are the milestones on Britains rocky road out of the bloc after 46 years. Britons vote to leave In a referendum on June 23, 2016, Britons choose to end their membership of the 28-nation EU by 52 per cent to 48 per cent. It prompts the resignation the next day of Conservative prime minister David Cameron, who had called the referendum and led the campaign to remain in the EU. Also read: Theresa May stares at Brexit defeat, pleads for support for countrys sake Theresa May becomes prime minister In a race to replace Cameron, key Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson does not put himself forward as expected and Theresa May, the interior minister who had backed remaining in the bloc, becomes prime minister on July 13. On January 17, 2017, May gives a speech setting out her Brexit strategy, saying Britain will also leave Europes single market in order to control immigration. She warns she would be willing to walk away from negotiations with the EU, saying: No deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain. Also read: British MP Tulip Siddiq delays giving birth for Brexit vote Exit process triggered On March 13, Britains parliament gives final approval to a bill empowering May to trigger Article 50 of the EU treaty which lays out the process for leaving the union. With a letter to EU President Donald Tusk on March 29 formally announcing the intention to leave, the government sets Article 50 in motion. Its two-year timetable for withdrawal puts Britain on course to exit on March 29, 2019. Lost majority To capitalise on the perceived weakness of the opposition Labour party and strengthen her hand in Brexit negotiations, May calls a snap election for June 8, 2017. Her gamble backfires as the Conservatives lose their parliamentary majority. They are forced to strike a deal with Northern Irelands Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to govern. The issue of British guarantees to keep an open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after Brexit becomes a key sticking point in negotiations. First terms agreed Britain and the EU reach an outline agreement on December 8 on three key areas of the divorce: Britains financial settlement to the union, citizens rights and the Irish border. EU leaders give the go-ahead for the next stage of Brexit talks, including on how Britain will continue to trade with the bloc after the split. A bill enacting the decision to leave the EU becomes law on June 26, 2018. Top ministers quit On July 6, 2018, May wins agreement from her warring cabinet to pursue a UK-EU free trade area that would retain a strong alignment with the EU after Brexit. But two days later David Davis, the eurosceptic Brexit minister, quits saying May is giving too much away too easily. Johnson, now foreign secretary, resigns on July 9, becoming a leading critic of Mays plans. EU leaders meeting in Salzburg on September 19 and 20 tell May that her Brexit proposals are unacceptable and need to be reworked. Draft deal agreed The European Union on November 13 publishes contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit. But a few hours later, Mays office says negotiating teams have reached a draft agreement for the divorce. On November 14, her cabinet backs the agreement. However the following day four ministers, including new Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, quit in protest. EU leaders approve the accord on November 25. This is the only deal possible, says European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. Confidence vote Mays deal faces intense criticism in parliament over the backstop provision designed to prevent border checks in Ireland. On December 10, May postpones a House of Commons vote on the deal due the following day, acknowledging she faced a heavy defeat. She heads off to Europe for further talks, but EU leaders reject any substantive renegotiation. On December 12, Mays Conservative party announces that enough MPs are unhappy with her leadership to trigger a confidence vote. But the embattled leader survives the challenge, securing the backing of 200 Tory colleagues, while 117 voted against her. The result meant May is immune from further internal party challenges for a year. Parliament vote The House of Commons, Britains lower house, finally gets its chance Tuesday to vote on the draft withdrawal agreement that May struck with EU leaders in December. With opposition parties and dozens of Conservative MPs all rejecting it for their own reason, it appears to be heading for certain defeat. May has warned that Britain would then be entering unchartered territory, with the fate of Brexit itself up in the air. Tuesdays vote is expected from 1900 GMT. The Muzaffarpur range police authority on Monday suspended the SHO and an ASI of Motipur police station while removing and replacing the entire staff -- there were 20 police personnel including the station house officer (SHO) for failing to curb the rampant trade and smuggling of liquor in the police station area since prohibition was enforced in Bihar in 2016. Worse: The staffs, especially the suspended SHO, Amitabh Kumar and ASI America Prasad, have been found indulging in selling the banned fluid from their official residences and even police station premises. Senior officials who raided the police station and SHOs official residence on Monday, recovered a huge stock of more than 300 cartons of Indian made foreign liquor (IMFL) bottles. Value of the bottles is yet to be ascertained. The entire team, from SHO to constables, was asked to report to the police lines after preliminary investigation revealed their links with illegal liquor traders. The order means that the punished personnel were unlikely to get active policing duty in the near future. Officials said that the personnel posted at the police station had allowed to let go a huge consignment of liquor recently. A probe into the allegations found complicity of the entire station staffs. In last few months, the senior authority had been receiving several complaints against the police station staffs for allegedly hobnobbing with the liquor mafia and giving them ample leeway to carry on the illegal trade. While other police stations were doing a better job acting on tip offs and seizing the smuggled liquor, the Motipur police recorded negligible seizure in the recent past despite getting concrete tip offs from spies and senior officials. Muzaffarpur zonal IG Sunil Kumar, who personally visited the police station along with range DIG and SSP after excise department officials raided the SHOs house, said that unaccounted Indian made foreign liquor (IMFL) bottles have been recovered from Kumars officials residence, which seems the largest recovery from the house of any police officer so far. IG said that the SHO had a nexus with liquor Mafiosi and had been going soft with them. We have found that he was indulging in sale of liquor from the police station and home. Continued dip in recovery of liquor also laid credence to the charges on him, IG added. The SHO of Motipur police station Amitabh Kumar and ASI Amerika Prasad will now be face departmental proceedings and might face thee harshest of actions. According to reports, the excise department officials have also recovered cash and incriminating documents, which could reveal how deep the nexus was between him and the liquor smugglers. The SHO , who had fled the scene during the raids, still remains absconding. A case under section of Bihar excise act would be lodged against him, excise officials said. The Bihar police have been under fire for tardy implementation of the prohibition law following regular seizures of truckloads of alcohol coming from other states and allegations of its easy availability in the black market in many parts of the state. Highlights: February 3, 2017 All cops at Beur police station were transferred following complaints they were shielding bootleggers. June 7, 2017 Entire staff of Jakkanpur police station were removed for their alleged complicity with bootleggers after four men were caught drinking at a private nursing home under the stations jurisdiction. October 3, 2018 Gopalganj police arrested Baikunthpur SHO L N Mahto and SI Sudhir Kumar for allegedly smuggling liquor from the police station premises. The strike of Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) staff will continue into its eighth day on Tuesday as no solution could be worked out on Monday. Unions remained adamant as the state governments high-power three-member panel headed by chief secretary DK Jain failed to work out a solution acceptable to the BEST Sayukt Kamgar Kruti Samiti (BSKKS), a joint action committee of workers unions. The Bombay high court on Monday directed the state committee to meet union leaders and the administration on Tuesday morning and submit a report to the court in a sealed envelope. The division bench of chief justice Naresh Patil and justice Nitin Jamdar said it will take up the PIL by advocate Datta Mane on Tuesday. We have stuck to our stance in court. We submitted our demands in front of the three- member panel. But we will continue our strike as our demands are not met, said Shashank Rao, leader of BSKKS. (see box) Following the directives from the high court, the three-member committee will be meeting tomorrow (Tuesday), Jain said, refusing to divulge any details of the meet held on Monday. The state government will also submit its report along with the minutes of the meeting by Tuesday afternoon to the court, said a senior official. Later in the evening, Jain also held a meeting with advocate general Ashutosh Kumbhkoni . Meanwhile, commuters continue to be forced to travel by alternative modes of transport, including taxis and autos. Daily I am spending at least 20 to 25 minutes in a queue for share taxis outside Dadar station to reach my office at Worli, said Mandar Parab, resident of Thane. Commuters faced further hassles as harbour-line services were delayed by at least 15-20 minutes owing to a rail fracture. Earlier in the high court, the bench sought the high-powered committees views on the week-long strike after the BMC and the BEST insisted that the BEST workers union withdraw the strike and participate in the negotiations process through the state-appointed committee. The labour union, however, maintained that it cannot withdraw the strike unless BEST and the BMC declare some interim relief to about 14,000 BEST employees who were getting less than Rs 15,000 per month salary since 2012. The unions lawyer, advocate Neeta Karnik, said even the lowest rung municipal employees get a take-home salary of Rs 21,000. She stated that the union will submit a proposal regarding these employees to the state panel on Tuesday. The bench recorded this statement , but with a rider. It said the committee can look into the proposal, subject to the condition that the strike is withdrawn. Calling a number that came up as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) helpline after a web search cost a 74-year-old Malad resident Rs 48,000. Last month, while cleaning his home, Vijaykumar Marwa found Rs 7,000 in demonetised currency. Wanting to know how to get it exchanged, Marwa searched for the RBI helpline number on his mobile phone and called one of the fake numbers that showed up. Promising to deposit the notes in the RBI office, the fraudster asked Marwa for his bank details to deposit the money to the account. The man obtained the credit card details, along with the one-time password (OTP), and within minutes transferred Rs 48,000 from Marwas bank account. Realising that he had been duped, Marwa approached the Malad police station. An FIR was filed on January 6. This, according to experts, is vishing, where fraudsters, posing as financial institutions, put up their numbers online. Also Watch: Demonetisation, a key step in formalising economy: Arun Jaitley Balsing Rajput, superintendent, cyber, Maharashtra, said, Cyber fraudsters have adopted this new technique lately. The search engine should verify if the numbers are genuine or not. They need to correct it. We have written to them once and we will remind them again. People, too, should be cautious and only call on numbers displayed on the official websites. We plan to set up a new anti-phishing cell to tackle all types of phishing, vishing and spam cases across the state. The consumer forum last week directed low-cost carrier GoAir to pay more than Rs 98,000 in compensation to a Vile Parle resident for cancelling, without reason, a 2015 flight on which he had booked 25 tickets for guests from Ahmedabad to attend his daughters wedding in Mumbai. GoAir, when contacted, did not comment on the issue, saying the verdict was already out in the case. Jayesh Pandya in May 2014 had spent Rs 50,000 on these tickets to fly in his guests to Mumbai on February 17, 2015. I had made the wedding pooja arrangements based on the flight timings. In January 2015, I contacted the airlines to submit the passengers names. They, then, informed me the flight was cancelled. They offered no reasons, Pandya told the forum. Pandya then bought tickets for 24 passengers on another airline for Rs 88,816. In February 2015, he wrote to GoAir twice, seeking reimbursement for his expenses. In response, they gave him a Rs 3,000-worth credit voucher and informed him the refund was being processed. However, he did not hear from GoAir. Pandya then filed a RTI query with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation about GoAirs change in schedule on February 17, 2015. He found there were no changes in timings. Pandya approached the forum in November 2016. GoAir told the forum that flight timings had been changed on September 6, 2014, as per DGCAs winter schedule. However, the forum noted the RTI response from DGCA was contrary to GoAirs claim and held that the airline made a false submission. The airline also claimed it contacted Pandya through email about the cancellation, but the forum noted they did not produce any proof. GoAir, however, submitted copies of emails from March 2015 reflecting refund discussion. The forum directed the airline to refund Pandya Rs 50,000 for the tickets, and Rs 38,816 for the excess amount Pandya paid for Vistara airlines and Rs 10,000 as additional compensation. University of Lucknow has decided that in the ongoing PhD admissions, a 5% relaxation in marks (from 50% to 45%) in the entrance test shall be allowed for SC/ST/OBC/non-creamy layer/differently-abled candidates. The decision was taken at the academic council meeting of the university held on Monday. The decision is in sync with the Gazette of India: Extraordinary notification from ministry of human resource development (University Grants Commission) dated August 27, 2018 regarding Minimum Standards and Procedure for Award of M Phil/PhD Degrees (first amendment) Regulations, 2018. Another decision taken in the meeting was that the unfilled seats after admission from these SC/ST/OBC/Non creamy layer/Differently-abled categories will be transferred to the next year for admission in the same respective categories, informed NK Pandey, LU spokesperson. These resolutions were also passed in the executive council meeting held on Monday. LU has become the first state university to adopt this Gazette notification in the interest of the society. BSP chief Mayawati, who has struck an alliance pact with Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, on Tuesday asked her party workers to ensure victory for the alliance, saying it will be a gift for her birthday, which she and her party workers are celebrating today. I appeal BSP and SP workers to forget their differences and ensure victory of alliance. It will be gift on my birthday, she said at a press conference in Lucknow. Alliance partner and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav called on Mayawati with senior party leaders to greet her. Invoking her core vote bank, the Dalits, BSP chief Mayawati asked her party workers to mark it as Jankalyankari Diwas (public welfare day) and help the needy. Watch: Akhilesh Yadav meets Mayawati on her 63rd birthday Hitting out at Congress and the BJP, she said due to their wrong policies, people are suffering. She also said that ever since BSP and SP had tied up, the BJP was having sleepless nights. The people have taught BJP a lesson in the recently concluded five states. Its a lesson for Congress as well. People are raising question over Congress government in the three states since it has not fulfilled its promises, she said. Farm loan waiver wrong She said the loan waiver policy, which has been launched by the Congress in states, for farmers was wrong. The relief provided to the farmers who have taken loan from bank is inadequate. Majority of the farmers take loan from money lenders. The central and state governments should make policy to provide them a relief. She also said that BSP supports farmers demand for implementation of Swaminathan Commission report for hiking crop prices. Marginal and landless farmers have also taken loan, but there is no policy to provide them relief. Demonetization and GST has added to their woes, she said. She said the government must do an absolute farm loan waiver, in entirety, without any cut off dates or slabs and this absolute waiver should be backed up with farm policies that farmers need not need any loans. The government should give 100% farm loan waiver else farmer suicides will continue. Hitting out at the BJP, she said the rich are benefitting from their policies. To make arms deal transparent, the central government should take opposition into confidence and make long term policy. Watch: On birthday, Mayawati slams BJP for mixing politics and religion The BJPs communal policy has led to discontentment among people. Saffron leaders are dividing Gods along caste lines. The minority community are not allowed to offer Friday prayer, she said. The BJP government has failed to fulfill promises made to the people. The farmers,youths and trades are feeling cheated. These days BJP leaders are busy giving clarifications. To create an atmosphere in their favour, PM Narendra Modi is making several promises in the rallies, she said. It had announced 10% reservation for upper caste. BSP welcomes it. The minorities should be also given benefit of reservation, she said, urging the people to vote for SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh and other states. Celebration plan Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leaders and workers are celebrating her 63rd birthday as Jan Kalyankari Diwas (public welfare day). The workers will cut 63 kg cake, distribute sweets, fruits and pledge to make Mayawati the next PM in the programme organised by the district units in all the 75 districts of the state. The main birthday celebration programme was organised in the state unit office on Mall Avenue. Mayawati released the fourteenth volume of A Travelogue of My Struggle-Ridden Life and BSP movement. A BSP spokesperson said the party supporters would assist the poor on the occasion. In Lucknow, the partys district unit will celebrate the birthday at Gandhi Bhawan. She will leave for Delhi in the evening for celebrations with leaders of other political parties, party office-bearers and family members. Announcing her partys alliance with the SP on Saturday, Mayawati had said the BSP and SP had finalized 38 seats each on which both the parties will field candidates from Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha elections. She might release the 38 candidates list on Tuesday or do so after another round of meetings with SP leaders in Delhi on January 16-17, he said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on Keralas Left Democratic Front government on its handling of the Sabarimala controversy, saying the Communists didnt respect Indias culture and spiritual traditions. He also slammed the Congress for taking multiple stands on the issue. Hitting out at the LDF led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Opposition spearheaded by the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) in the state, Modi said both the fronts were two sides of the same coin. We know that the Communists do not respect Indias culture, history, and spirituality, Modi said at a public meeting in Kollam. Turning to the Congress, he said: They say one thing in Parliament and another in Pathanamthitta [where the Lord Ayyappa shrine is located]. He added that they are only different in name but are similar when it comes to corruption, casteism, communalism and in damaging the cultural fabric of Kerala. Watch: Kerala hostage to LDF-UDF alliance: PM Modi The Supreme Court in September last threw open the doors of the Sabarimala shrine to women of all ages, overturning a traditional ban on women of childbearing age from entering the temple. Female devotees aged between 10 and 50 had for decades been barred from the shrine on grounds that the presiding deity is a celibate, and the court ruling enraged traditionalists in Kerala. The LDF government of chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said it was determined to uphold the court verdict. On January 2, two women in their 40s became the first to worship at the shrine on Wednesday, breaking the taboo and triggering unrest in many parts of Kerala. At a public rally his first in south India with barely three months left for the crucial general election organised by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Modi said the state governments conduct on Sabarimala will go down in the history as one of the most shameful. Both the CPI(M) and Opposition Congress criticised the PMs utterances on Sabarimala. Also read: Woman who made history by entering Sabarimala attacked by relatives, hospitalised The CPI(M) said that by criticising the state government, which had implemented the top court verdict, Modi was inciting more violence by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers whom it has blamed for violent protests. By supporting violence unleashed by Sangh Parivar outfits, the PM proved beyond any doubt he has no statesmanship, said senior CPI(M) leader Anathalavattom Anandan. The BJP is trying to exploit the emotional issue eying some votes. Initially it hailed the verdict but later retracted sensing an opportunity. The Congress always stood with believers and its government gave an affidavit in the Supreme Court to maintain status quo at the temple, said state Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala. Modi arrived in the state capital on Tuesday evening and inaugurated the 13-km-long Kollam bypass road. He then addressed a political rally at the Cantonment grounds. The bypass, which cost ~352 crore, will cut travel time between Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram districts of Kerala and is expected to decongest traffic in Kollam town. Earlier, the Prime Minister launched a slew of projects worth ~1,550 crore in Odisha and said that the Centre was striving for the development of eastern India. Affirming the Centres resolve to expand connectivity in Odisha, he said in addition to education, connectivity would lead to speedy development and overall progress. I am happy to unveil projects worth ~1,550 crore in areas like education, connectivity, tourism and culture, Modi said while inaugurating and laying the foundation stone for a series of projects, mainly in the railway sector, at a function in Balangir. Describing connectivity as a catalyst for progress, Modi said it would boost trade, commerce, and tourism, besides helping farmers in taking their produce to agricultural markets. Strong connectivity would also propel industrialisation, which in turn would create enormous opportunities for employment generation, he said. Several industries, such as cement, paper, aluminum, refractory, pig iron, sponge iron and steel pipes, located in and around the area would benefit from the projects, Modi said. The Prime Minister, en route to Odisha, made a stopover in Chhattisgarh, where he was welcomed by newly elected chief minister Bhupesh Baghel of the Congress and state BJP leaders at the Raipur airport. The Congress termed Modis speech as disappointing and said there was little for Odisha. Thank you, Prof. Modi, for your history lessons, but we Odias are very well aware of our history & culture. We wanted you to speak on agricultural distress, unemployment, and western Odisha. But you disappointed again, tweeted Niranjan Patnaik, the Congresss Odisha unit chief. The states ruling Biju Janata Dal said that under the Modi regime, Odisha had gained little. Earlier the Central share for the post-matriculation scholarship for SC [Scheduled Caste] and ST [Scheduled Tribe] students was 90%. But now the ministry of social justice and empowerment recently slashed Centres contribution to 20%. BJP government at the Centre talks big, but gives very little to Odisha, said senior BJD leader and minister Suryo Patro. The PM also met the parents of Doordarshan (DD) cameraman Achyutanand Sahu, who was killed by Maoist rebels in Chhattisgarhs Dantewada district in October last year, and offered condolences on his visit to Balangir. Modi said Sahu was only performing his duty of presenting to the world a democratic picture of the country through Doordarshan. He also said that sacrifices such as his had only strengthened Indias resolve to end the cycle of violence. Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Tuesday appealed to workers of her party and the Samajwadi Party to forget their past differences to fight the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. On Saturday, the BSP and the SP announced an alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections to unitedly fight the BJP. Forget past differences and ensure victory of all joint candidates of the SP and the BSP. This will be my ideal birthday gift, Mayawati said at a press conference here on the occasion of her 63rd birthday. SP president Akhilesh Yadav later visited the BSP chief and presented her with a bouquet and a shawl on her birthday. Mayawati said Uttar Pradesh, which is Indias largest state, will decide who will be the next prime minister. UP decides who will come to power at the Centre and who will be the prime minister. The BSP and the SP must fight together, setting aside their differences and ensure the victory of all gathbandhan (alliance) candidates, she said, apparently hinting at her prime ministerial ambitions. The BSP president, who had spelt out the reasons of keeping the Congress out of the alliance on Saturday, did not spare it, asking the party to understand that popular declarations will not help them anymore. Watch: Mayawatis birthday cake looted during an event in Amroha Fingers have already been raised at the Congress government over the loan waiver scheme in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, and people are asking as to why the cut off dates for it has been fixed for March 31 when it should have been December 17, 2018, when the new government took over, she said. Also, these governments are only waiving loans up to Rs 2 lakh and this will not help farmers in any manner, Mayawati said. She called for one-time waiver of the entire loan which would check farmers suicides as well as resolve all their problems. Asking the state and central governments to prepare a long-term plan for resolving the problems of farmers, she said the farmers believe that implementation of the Swaminathan Commissions recommendations will help overcome their plight. Favouring 10 per cent reservation for the poor among the upper castes, Mayawati said Muslims and other religious minorities will not have much benefit till the narrow-minded thinking continues. She said at the time of Independence, the representation of Muslims in government jobs was about 33 per cent, which she claimed has now come down to two to three per cent. The BSP supremo said her party has been demanding 10 per cent for Muslims. Mayawati said the BJP governments alleged failure to fulfill poll promises has become the real election issue which is working against it. Referring to the demonetisation, she alleged that this aggravated the problems of the common people and had adverse impact on the economy. Mayawati also spoke about the problems arising over defence deals such as Bofors and Rafale. She called for a proper mechanism in consultation with the opposition parties for all defence purchases to avoid fiascos which have not only harmed the image of the country but has also been dragged in the courts. Mayawati termed as unfortunate the controversy over the caste of Lord Hanuman. The BJP and the RSS people are not only indulging in politics over religion but are also encouraging those who are using gods to serve their political interests as a result of which the BJP people are in a race to assign caste to the gods. This is unfortunate, she said. The BSP supremo alleged that the BJP is misusing the CBI and other investigating agencies for its political interests and the latest example of this is SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, who may face a CBI probe in a case of illegal mining. The SP and the BSP had formed an alliance in 1993 to stop the BJPs winning spree after the Ram temple movement. But the alliance ended in 1995 after the infamous Meera Bai Marg guest house incident wherein SP workers misbehaved with Mayawati. An unruly mob of SP workers had stormed into the Meerabai Guest House here where Mayawati was huddled in a meeting with her MLAs. (This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.) RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav Tuesday clarified Congress was as an old ally and a major political party with nationwide presence, rubbishing claims that he had snubbed his coalition partner by coming out in support of the SP-BSP alliance in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh. The RJD heir apparent also remarked that during his Lucknow visit on Monday, the media there kept prying as to whether I had come to UP holding a brief for the Congress. It seems the media in Bihar and UP is clueless about my feelings for the Congress. My support to the SP-BSP alliance has evoked diametrically opposite views in the two states, he told reporters on the sideline of a dahi chura (curd and flattened rice) feast organised at Sadaqat Ashram, the Bihar Congress headquarters. The feast, organised to celebrate the festival of Makar Sankranti, was also attended by other leaders of the opposition Grand alliance like RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha and Vikasheel Insaan Party (VIP) founder Mukesh Sahni. Presenting a picture of bonhomie, Tejashwi, Kushwaha and state Congress president Madan Mohan Jha fed each other tilkut - a sweet dish made of jaggery and sesame - consumption of which is considered auspicious on Sankranti. The NDA had on Monday wondered whether Tejashwis UP trip was part of strong arm tactics against the Congress, its ally in the Mahagathbandhan. The NDAs reaction was based on Tejashwi greeting Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav for forging an alliance sans Congress. The RJD leader had asserted that the SP-BSP alliance was another step in the direction of opposition unity which was envisaged by his father and party supremo Lalu Prasad. I chose to go to Lucknow myself and pay courtesy visits to Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav since I am younger to them. I wonder why it has become such a big issue. Congress-RJD ties date back to the excellent rapport that my father and Madam Sonia Gandhi shared. Rahul Gandhi and I are also on very good terms. Congress is a major political party with a nationwide presence....an old and valuable ally, he asserted. Tejashwi, however, distanced himself from BSP supremo Mayawatis assertion that the Congress was inconsequential in Uttar Pradesh and hence, kept out of the pre-poll alliance. I do not know in what context she said that, he said. Asked about the charge sheet filed against former JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar in a sedition case, Tejashwi - who is the leader of the opposition in the state assembly - said, Whoever speaks against the Narendra Modi government is faced with similar coercion. Just look at how CBI, ED and IT department have been unleashed on my entire family. It is not confined to those involved in politics. Even journalists and artists taking a stand against the current dispensation are hounded out, the RJD leader alleged. Following the BJPs recent electoral losses in three Hindi heartland states, nearly all election experts expect that the BJP will struggle to equal its 2014 election performance, in which it bagged a majority of Lok Sabha seats. If the recent state elections are any guide, the BJP is set to lose a considerable clutch of seats in north and central India, which disproportionately powered its rise in 2014. Five years ago, the BJP eviscerated opposition parties in the heartland. In Uttar Pradesh, the partys alliance won 73 out of 80 seats. In Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, the BJP won a combined 78 out of 80 seats on offer. Whether due to lacklustre job creation, rural economic anxiety, a newly collaborative opposition, or anti-incumbency sentiment, the number of BJP seats in this electorally crucial region will come down. This means that the BJP is on the hunt for new seats it can pick up to offset the losses it will likely sustain in its core areas. Priority number one is making inroads along Indias eastern seaboard. Together, the five states on this seaboardAndhra Pradesh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and West Bengalaccount for one-quarter of the Indian population and 144 of 543 parliamentary seats. In 2014, the BJP was virtually shut out along this corridor . Whether, and to what extent, the BJP is able to improve its performance on Indias eastern coast could make or break its 2019 chances. Regional Versus Regionalist Parties Political scientist KK Kailash classifies Indian political parties as either polity-wide (national), regional, or regionalist. The BJP and the Congress Party each have a national footprint. Other parties, like the BSP, SP, and JD(U), are regional: while they may have national ambitions, they are only relevant in a particular geographic region. Kailash distinguishes these regional parties from regionalist parties, which expressly cater to the interests of their particular states. Regionalist parties mobilise voters by frequently appealing to their states regional pride, culture, language, and customs. How the BJP fared in 2014 depended greatly on which type of party it faced. When the BJP and Congress were the top two finishers, the saffron party won 166 of 189 seats, or 88%. Against regional parties, the BJP had an even more impressive strike rate of 91%. But the party only won one-third of head-to-head contests against regionalist opponents. By and large, regionalist parties dominate politics in the eastern seaboard. The BJP, with a pan-Indian platform and a predominately northern Indian leadership and base, struggled to make much of a dent when facing these parties in 2014. All told, the BJP won just seven of the regions 144 seats in 2014, up from one seat in 2009 and only tied with the partys 2004 performance. The BJP has typically done best on the eastern seaboard when working with local alliance partners. But electorally relevant parties have not always been willing to ally for the simple fact that their own brands might get tarnished in the process. In 2014, the BJP was able to leverage eventual Prime Minister Narendra Modis popularity to win over the TDP in Andhra Pradesh and the DMDK in Tamil Nadu. In Odisha, Telangana, and West Bengal, the party contested the election on its own. The BJPs Look East Challenge As the 2019 elections approach, the BJP faces a mixed picture when it comes to improving its prospects on the eastern seaboard. Odisha arguably represents the BJPs best chance on the eastern coast. The BJD, led by chief minister Naveen Patnaik, has ruled in Odisha for 18 years. But the BJP is on track to eclipse the Congress as the principal opposition party in the state. The BJP won just one Lok Sabha seat in 2014, losing the remaining 20 to the BJD, but the party placed second in another nine seats concentrated in western Odisha. In 2016, the BJP put in a very strong showing in Odishas local body elections, winning 297 of the states 849 Zilla Parishad seats up for contest and eight of 30 council chairperson positions trailing only the BJD. The Congress finished a distant third. As the race for 2019 heats up (the state will host simultaneous state and national elections), the BJP machinery has swung into action. It was no coincidence that Modi chose Cuttack to make a major address that kicked off his fourth year in office, in an attempt to enthuse the partys local cadre. And, in November, a senior BJP functionary let slip that the party had chosen popular Union minister of petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan, a member of parliament from Odisha, to face off with Patnaik as the BJPs chief ministerial candidate in 2019. After Odisha, the BJP thinks that West Bengal offers the next best opportunity for potential growth. While the Trinamool Congress, led by chief minister Mamata Banerjee, dominates the political space in West Bengal, the BJP is gaining ground against the Congress Party as well as the once-dominant Communists. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won almost 17% of the vote nearly tripling its 2009 share . And, as with Odisha, the BJP made inroads in the local body elections held in mid-2018. While the party remained a distant second to the Trinamool winning 22 Zilla Parishad seats to the latters 590 it bagged more seats in each of the three levels of rural local government than did all other opposition parties combined (including independents). Despite these hard-fought gains, the BJPs march remains an uphill one: it lacks a prominent Bengali leader, possesses a relatively weak organisational base, and must come to grips with the fact that Muslims make up 27% of the states population. But in both Odisha and West Bengal, the BJPs objective is clear: project itself as the principal opposition and expand its steadily growing presence. In both states, it will go its own way as there are no plausible coalition allies with which it can join forces. In the remaining three states Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana the BJPs path forward is less clear. In Andhra Pradesh, the alliance between the BJP and the ruling TDP which helped lift the formers performance in 2014 collapsed in March 2018. The TDP pulled out of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance after the central government refused to accede to the Andhra Pradesh governments request for special status. As a result, no Andhra party is likely to strike a pre-election agreement with the BJP, which has been branded as anti-Andhra. With this stigma, it is unlikely the BJP can pick up a sizable number of seats in the state. The BJP was decisively trounced in Telanganas December 2018 assembly elections. The state had been due to hold state elections concurrently with this springs Lok Sabha polls. In an effort to delink his partys electoral fortunes from a potential pro-Modi wave, K Chandrasekhar Rao, Telanganas chief minister and the TRS party president, abruptly dissolved the state assembly and called early elections. The wily manoeuvre paid rich dividends: the TRS captured 88 of 119 seats on offer an increase of 25 seats over its previous tally. The BJP, already a marginal player in the state with just five seats in the assembly, was nearly wiped out; it boasts just a single seat now. Tamil Nadu is the hardest state to forecast as the current political situation is in flux. It is also the state where the BJP is arguably on its weakest footing. The incumbent AIADMK has been in disarray since Jayalalithaas December 2016 death divided the party. For now, the two party factions have put aside their differences (allegedly with the support of the BJP), but the cracks are plainly visible. The party must also contend with its rival, the DMK, which stands poised to fill the gap presented by the AIADMKs fracture. The BJP, for its part, hopes to exploit this power vacuum, but it would need allies given its limited reach: the party retains a lone parliamentary seat in Tamil Nadu and earned just 5% of the states vote share in 2014. The best it seems the party could hope for is a postelection alliance with the remnants of the AIADMK, as the DMK has been a regular Congress ally. Implications for 2019 Whether the BJP will be able to make up ground on Indias east coast to compensate for losses it sustains in former strongholds will hinge on a few crucial factors. First, while the BJP is unlikely to find a coalition ally in Andhra Pradesh before the 2019 polls, it could stitch together an alliance following the general election. At present, there are rumblings that the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), which currently leads the opposition in the Andhra state assembly, would be open to a postelection alliance with the BJP. Both parties are opposed to the TDP, which recently left the NDA. Furthermore, the leader of the YSRCP, Jaganmohan Reddy, might have incentive to curry favour with the Modi government because he faces federal corruption charges that the central government could ramp up or ramp down as it sees fit. Second, the BJP must walk a fine line in the state of Odisha. Despite the fact that it is targeting BJD seats, the party also understands that it might have to bring the BJD on-board as a postelection ally. It is this delicate balance that explains why the BJP and BJD have seen a burst of cooperation, such as the latters decision to break from the opposition and support the BJPs candidate for deputy chairman in the Rajya Sabha. Because the BJD had previously been a part of the NDA, some within the BJP are optimistic that they can patch up old divisions. The catch is that this rapprochement is hard to envision if the two parties are waging bitter partisan battles in Odisha while cooperating in New Delhi. Third, the BJP must find a way to make the 2019 elections a national referendum on Modi in some states but a state-by-state fight in others. In states where the BJP and Congress are facing off or where regionalist parties hold less sway, the BJP stands to gain if it can make the election about Modis clean image, record of public service delivery, and strong leadership. But in east coast states, where regionalist parties prevail, the BJP will have to contest elections on the basis of state-specific agendas. Getting this balance right will not be an easy task, and it is potentially an existential one. In 2019, the east coast could well be the gateway to the BJPs second term in office. Milan Vaishnav (@MilanV) and Jamie Hintson are with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This article is part of the India Elects 2019 series, a collaboration between Carnegie and the Hindustan Times. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 15) Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno wants the controversial 75 billion adjustment to the Public Works department in its 2019 budget to remain, counter to the Senate's plan to scrap it altogether. "That is about half a percent of GDP (gross domestic product). That has employment impact. Less people will get employed, it will increase poverty. Those who cannot find jobs will get poor," Diokno told CNN Philippines' The Source on Tuesday. Senators Ping Lacson and Loren Legarda agreed during the Senate's deliberation on the Public Works budget yesterday to scrap the 75 billion allocation placed by the Department of Budget and Management to meet its target infrastructure spending of five percent of the GDP. At the Senate session today, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon and Senator JV Ejercito agreed to realign to the Department of Health portions of the 75 billion allocation to the DPWH and the 27.7 billion additional budget to the Department of the Interior and Local Government. That is to augment funding for its Health Facilities Enhancement Program and the Human Resource for Health program totalling 24.2 billion. "I hope the good sponsor can push this on the Committee on Finance amendments so that we can respond to the health needs of our people rather than the flood control projects," Drilon told Ejercito. Even if the Senate is poised to slash the 75 billion added budget of the Public Works department, Malacanang does not see its impending deletion affecting the administration's infrastructure program. Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a Palace press briefing that a supplemental budget may be asked from Congress. Following Lacson's revelations on the alleged existence of "pork" in the budget, House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya flagged what he called "insertions" in the Public Works budget. He said the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Mark Villar claims to know nothing about this. READ: Senator confirms insertions in 2019 budget Lacson said yesterday that the DPWH admitted that it was "clueless" about the additional 75 billion allocation until it was included in the National Expenditure Program, or the draft budget bill submitted by the executive to Congress. While unaware, Villar said, as quoted by Legarda, that there is "nothing wrong" with the added budget. But Panelo said Villar may have been misquoted, as the Public Works chief knows about the budget, which was presented in a Cabinet meeting months ago. "Hindi lang [He's just not] informed. He was present in the Cabinet [meeting,]" Panelo said in a Palace press briefing. Diokno also said it is not possible that the Public Works chief was unaware of the additional budget given to the agency, as he supposedly signed to acknowledge the added 75 billion to their budget. "We have on record his signature that he acknowledges that there is that 75 billion," the Budget chief said. Diokno and the Palace insist that the additional budget is not an insertion, as Andaya asserts. 'Andaya is lying' The Budget chief again dismissed Andaya's claims that he maneuvered the budget to favor his in-laws who are running for posts in the midterm polls by pouring funds for flood control projects in their bailiwick. "All these are allegations, unfounded allegations. I will show you he keeps on telling lies," Diokno said. His daughter, Charlotte, is married to Rogelio "Jojo" Sicat, the son of Sorsogon Vice Governor Ester Hamor, whose second husband is Casiguran, Sorsogon Mayor Edwin Hamor. Andaya has said that the Hamors and Sicat are majority shareholders of Aremar Construction Corporation, which supposedly received kickbacks from infrastructure projects in Sorsogon province. READ: Andaya sees plunder in flood control 'scam' linked to Budget chief However, Diokno denied that the Hamors are his in-laws and also dismissed allegations of conflict of interest. "I mean that's their legitimate business, why should I get in their way? Saan sila mabubuhay kung [where would they earn their living,] if I have to say, 'Uy, 'wag kayong mag-invest sa construction kasi narito ako [Hey, don't invest in construction because I am here.]' That's unfair, 'di ba [right?]" he said, adding that he could not confirm whether the Hamors do own Aremar. Diokno added that he "rarely sees" the Hamors, and have only met them "twice or three times" during special occasions in the past three years. He also pointed out that Sorsogon province was not the biggest recipient of flood control projects in the past two years. DBM data shows that Sorsogon ranked 11th among the provinces and cities with the biggest funding for flood control projects, while eighth in 2018. But lawmakers are not putting a stop to their pounding on Diokno, with the House rules committee continuing its probe on the alleged flood control project "scam" and senators bringing the issue up in plenary. "In the province of Sorsogon alone, flood control projects amounted to 3 billion. Eh hindi naman ganun ang baha sa Sorsogon. [Sorsogon is not flood prone,]" Drilon said. But Diokno still has no plans to show up at any of the congressional probes, after he felt that he was "ambushed" when he was invited to the House's Question Hour on the 2019 budget. The Budget chief, however, is open to heading to the Senate to clarify details in the proposed budget. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)?chief Mayawati, who formed an alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh last week, asked her party workers to ensure victory for the combines candidates in the Lok Sabha elections, saying it would be a belated gift for her birthday, which she and her party workers celebrated on Tuesday. She marked the occasion with a tirade against both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress. I appeal to BSP and SP workers to forget their differences and ensure victory of the alliance. It will be gift for my birthday, Mayawati, who turned 63, said at a press conference in Lucknow. During the day, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav called on Mayawati at her residence, along with senior party leaders, to greet her on her birthday. In an hour-long meeting, the leaders discussed the election campaign strategy and candidates for the seats allotted to their parties. Read: BJP divides people on religion, caste: Mayawati on her birthday On Saturday, the two parties said they will contest 38 seats each, leaving two to the Congress and two for smaller allies. Uttar Pradesh sends 80 parliamentarians to the Lok Sabha seats. Kept out of the alliance, the Congress has said it will fight all 80 seats in the upcoming polls. Read: Forget past differences, work for victory of all SP-BSP candidates in LS polls: Mayawati The BSP chief used the occasion to hit out at the Congress and the BJP, saying that people were suffering because of the wrong policies followed by the two parties. She also said that ever since the BSP and SP had tied up, the BJP was spending sleepless nights. The people have taught BJP a lesson in the recently concluded elections in five states. Its a lesson for Congress as well. Leaders of both the parties should understand that they cannot take the people for a ride by making tempting and false promises. The parties that are anti-poor and pro-rich cannot continue in power for long, she said. Also read: Mayawati birthday cake looted by party workers in UPs Amroha Kanaka Durga, one of the two women who made history by becoming the first in centuries to enter the Sabarimala hill temple in Kerala, was attacked by relatives on her return home on Monday. She is admitted in a hospital at Perinthalmanna in Malappuram district. Earlier her husband had filed a missing person report and his family had disowned her following her Januray 2 entry into the hill shrine dedicated to Lord Ayyappa, considered to be a celibate deity. Following threats by hardline groups Bindu Ammini, 40, a law lecturer at Keralas Kannur University and Kanaka Durga, 39, a civil servant, had gone into hiding after entering the hill shrine. Their entry sparked widespread protests and a day-long strike in Kerala. Watch: Row after two women entered Sabarimala Temple The women - speaking in an undisclosed location on the outskirts of Kochi had said they were facing threats from protesters, but that they trusted the authorities to keep them safe and planned to return home soon. I always say that I trust the police persons, the state government of Kerala and also our democratic society of Kerala, Bindu had said. The temple has been the site of tension since the Supreme Court ruled in late September to end a ban on women of menstruating age entering it. There have since been outbreaks of violence between the authorities and protesters attempting to prevent women from entering. Collecting information covertly, multiple visits to different states and many sessions of questioning these were the reasons why it took almost three years to submit the charge sheet in the sedition case, said police. Delhi Police said they had their young officers pose as students and enter the campus in order to get information about the February 9, 2016 event. Police said the investigation required multiple visits to Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh to track down people other than Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, the three prime accused who the police have charged with sedition. Police said that in many instances, students known to the seven suspects were secretly photographed and their details were obtained by their men who were placed on campus. A senior officer from the Delhi Polices special cell said that their nine-member team paid 13 visits to J&K in last two years after identifying seven of the participants who were suspected to have allegedly shouted anti-India slogans with masks. We formed a team of young police officers who posed as students and spent time in the campus. They also used to go in groups at events in campus and eavesdrop on conversations related to the protests. It helped us in tracing links related to the seven suspects, the officer said. We traced their call details and once their links with the suspects were confirmed, they were called in for questioning. This is how we identified and tracked them Police said five months after registering the case, their investigations were delayed by almost seven to eight months as the support from the J&K police weakened. This was due to violence following Burhan Wanis killing . Our investigators obtained a video clip of the protest, in which we could spot one Kashmiris, removing his mask while leaving the protest venue. We identified him as Aqueeb Hussain, who was then a student of a medical college in Ghaziabad, the officer said. The police said they questioned Hussain, but he initially claimed innocence. After he was confronted with footage and electronic evidence, he admitted to have participated in the event. We also found that Hussain raised anti-India slogans. Police said it was on Hussains instance, and based on statements of other participants and electronic evidence, they identified six other Kashmiris who were then asked to join the probe. We gave them a questionnaire to ascertain the sequence of events on February 9. All of them denied their presence. But we confronted them with the evidence after which they admitted, said the officer. Police also said that because the accused were on bail there was no time limit for them to file the charge sheet. Read | JNU sedition case: Witnesses, videos, posters listed as evidence by Delhi police Police on Tuesday arrested two nursing students for clobbering of 16 puppies to death on January 13 even as the city struggled to emerge from the shock triggered by a video that caught two women in the gruesome act. One of those arrested, Moutusi Mondal, is a first-year student, while the other, Soma Barman, is in the second year. Soma Barman and Moutusi Mondal have been arrested. They admitted to the crime, said Dwaipayan Biswas, the deputy superintendent of the three-member probe committee of the state-run N R S Medical College and Hospital, who submitted his initial report on Tuesday morning. It is a serious offence and I think they will face punishment, he said before the arrest. Deputy commissioner, eastern suburban division, Debasmita Das told us that Barman and Mondal will be produced at Seladah court at 2pm on Wednesday. They were slapped IPC sections 429 (mischief by killing or maiming cattle or any animal), 291 (continuance of nuisance after injunction to discontinue) and 11l (treating animals cruelly), said Tathagata Mukherjee, who along with two other animal rights activists Susmita Chatterjee and actor Srilekha Mitra, was briefed by the police to quell the growing protests of the agitators outside the police station. If the prosecution can prove section 429, it can put the accused in jail for a maximum of five years. Mukherjee said that they will appoint a lawyer who will be present in the court on Wednesday to plead so that the accused are not given bail. We, on behalf of the animal rights activists of the city, will appeal to the lawyers not to take up the brief of the accused, said Mukherjee, who is a TV serial actor.B Also read: These puppies lost their mother in accident. Then a cow adopted them Later in the evening, West Bengal Nurses Unity demanded the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to take immediate steps to rid all government hospitals of stray dogs in the next two days. Unless that is done we will be forced to resort to agitation, said the Unity joint secretary, Bhaswati Mukherjee. The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up the Meghalaya government for continued illegal mining in the state while refusing to extend a window that allowed the transportation of coal already extracted from various sites in the state. The recent incident shows that illegal mining is going on in the state. You may not support it but you have failed to contain it, the court told the Meghalaya governments lawyer. Also read: Absence of blueprint hindering in rescue of trapped Meghalaya miners: Centre tells Supreme Court The court was referring to the miners trapped in a coal mine for over a month in the state. Rescuers have failed to evacuate or even locate the miners. Authorities have admitted that the mine is illegal and there is no blueprint to help them work out a rescue operation. The lawyer defended the governments role saying it had taken adequate measures to rescue the miners. And still illegal mining is happening. Do not say adequate. The word you are using is wrong. If that was so this would not have happened. Have you ever checked areas where illegal mining is going on and ordered a clampdown? Justice A K Sikri said in response to the lawyer. Also read: Workers must not suffer, says Supreme Court on trapped Meghalaya miners A justice Sikri-led bench also refused to grant another extension to the state government and coal miners to transport the coal that has been already extracted for sale. The court had on December 5 allowed the transportation of coal until January 31. Meghalaya chief minister Conrad Sangma said that various procedures have been implemented since the court last extended the time to transport coal. He added that the state government would appeal to the court to let this [transportation of coal] continue. Also read: Just want the bodies: 21 days on, families of trapped Meghalaya miners lose hope But in the interim, we will abide by the courts ruling and no transportation of coal will be allowed once we receive the order, Sangma said. The Supreme Court court also asked Meghalaya to give a report on whether any survey has been carried out in the state to identify areas, where illegal mining is on and what steps have been taken to curb it. It said that it might ask a panel to auction the extracted coal instead of letting the private miners sell it. Also read: Curse of the black gold: How Meghalaya depends on coal Thirty nine-year-old Kanaka Durga, one of the two women who made history by becoming the first to enter the Sabarimala temple in Kerala after the Supreme Court lifted a ban on womens entry last September, probably had no idea about the hostility the trek would breed in her family. The hostility eventually landed her in hospital on Tuesday after a a fight with her mother-in-law. Not much is know about her expect that she is a civil servant and mother of two and had made an abortive attempt to enter Sabarimala temple in December. In an interview to The News Minute last week Kanaka Durga, who hails from Angadipuram in Mallapuram district, had said that her family had no clue that she had left home to go to Sabarimala and they would have opposed if they had known. The two womens daring trek to the temple had riled right wingers also who launched violent protests that raged for days and led to the arrest of over 3000 people. She and Bindu Ammini (40) a lecturer from lecturer from Kozhikode district shunted through more than 10 safe houses to escape angry traditionalists. Both Kanaka Durga and Bindu had decided to return home two weeks after their Sabarimala entry, believing that the situation had calmed down. But Kanakas daring trek into the Sabarimala temple despite stiff opposition has triggered a spilt in her own family and led to a violent showdown with her mother-in-law. Earlier, her brother Bharath Bhushan had accused the CPI(M) and Kerala police of hatching a conspiracy to enable Kanaka Durga and Bindu enter the temple. He had told The Times of India that the police did not allow Kanaka Durgas husband and relatives to contact her for days and hid her in an unknown location after their first attempt to visit Sabarimala in December failed. Hitting out at Tejashwi Yadav, UP BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey said Monday that the statements made by the RJD leader him against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party were a result of his mental bankruptcy (maansik diwaaliyaapan). A person, who has been unable to save his base and goodwill in his state, is speaking big in Uttar Pradesh. The statements made by Tejashwi Yadav against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP (during his Lucknow visit) are a result of his mental bankruptcy, Pandey said in a statement. On one hand his father is in jail on charges of corruption, on the other hand he is tensed over his brother. Hence, he is unable to understand the reality of not only UP and Bihar, but the entire country. RJD has been uprooted in Bihar, hence in order to create some attraction among his supporters, he is making nonsensical remarks in UP. Earlier Monday, Yadav had targeted Modi at his press conference in Lucknow after meeting SP leader Akhilesh Yadav. The BJP leader said after the general election everybody will come to know who is dishonest. How the chowkidar has tricked the people of the country and only indulged in jumlebaazi. Pandey said, Both these yuvraaj had inherited power. The people of both the states know that both of these political families were responsible for backwardness of UP and Bihar. The UP BJP chief said, These people (pointing to SP and RJD) have forgotten that this is 2019, and not 1993. People have risen above casteist politics. BJP workers have reached virtually every household, and are working to integrate people from different sections of the society for nation building. For Vikas Choudhary and Manohar Lal, the response to their RTI query came as a rude shock. The residents of Chani Badi in Bhadra tehsil of Rajasthans Hanumangarh district got used condoms wrapped in old newspaper allegedly posted by the gram panchayat on the directions of State Information Commission. Choudhary and Lal had filed two separate applications under the right to information act (RTI) with the gram panchayat on April 16 seeking details of the development projects undertaken since 2001. After opening the first envelope with used condoms folded in an old newspaper, we were quite apprehensive about the stuff in the second one so we called the block development officer (BDO) and requested his presence while opening the other, Choudhary, who is preparing for state civil services examination in Delhi, said while speaking to the Hindustan Times over the phone. When the BDO refused our request, we decided to open it in the presence of some prominent persons of our village and filmed the whole episode. The material in the second envelope was the same as the first one, he said. Lal was also stunned when he received the same answer when he opened the envelope to check the reply. Is this how the panchayat runs its business? I cannot believe the civic body can reply in such a foul manner. I have been in constant mental agony and depression since I received the RTI reply, Lal said. When contacted, chief executive officer (CEO) of Hanumangarh Jila Parishad Navneet Kumar said it was a mischievous act after the condoms were posted in the reply. The regrettable and illegal act has been done by some unknown person who appears to have access in the official system, Kumar said. The CEO assured that all necessary steps will be taken to avert recurrence of such incidents and an investigation will be launched to bring the culprit to book. Congress president Rahul Gandhi today took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi who received the Philip Kotler Presidential award on Monday saying he wanted to congratulate him on winning the world famous prize that has no jury and has never been given out before. The award focuses on the triple bottom-line of people, profit and planet. It will be offered annually to the leader of a nation, a statement from the Prime Ministers Office said. According to the award citation, Modi was selected for his outstanding leadership for the nation. I want to congratulate our PM, on winning the world famous "Kotler Presidential Award"! In fact it's so famous it has no jury, has never been given out before & is backed by an unheard of Aligarh company. Event Partners: Patanjali & Republic TV :)https://t.co/449Vk9Ybmz Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 15, 2019 The Congress chiefs dig at the PM evoked a sharp response from Union textiles minister Smriti Irani who accused the Gandhi family of conferring Bharat Ratna awards on its members. Rich !!! Coming from a person whose illustrious family decided to confer the Bharat Ratna on themselves. https://t.co/ipzyRrXNiX Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) January 15, 2019 Earlier on Monday, Irani and other senior BJP leaders including Union minister Piyush Goyal , chief minister of Manipur N. Biren Singh, and former chief ministers Raman Singh and Vasundhara Raje were swift to congratulate the prime minister on social media for winning the newly instituted award. Shri Narendra Modi is selected for his outstanding leadership for the nation. His selfless service towards India, combined with his tireless energy has resulted in extraordinary economic, social and technological advances in the country, the Kotler award citation said. The citation added: Under his leadership, India is now identified as the Centre for Innovation and Value Added Manufacturing (Make in India), as well as a global hub for professional services such as Information Technology, Accounting and Finance. Former judge of the Delhi high court justice Kailash Gambhir on Tuesday wrote to the President of India terming the recent decision of the Supreme Court collegium recommending elevation of Karnataka high court Chief Justice Dinesh Maheswari and Delhi high court judge Sanjeev Khanna as judges to the Supreme Court, a black day for the Indian judiciary and requested the President to review the recommendations and not let another historical blunder be committed. In his letter, the retired judge wrote: The news has sent shockwaves to the entire legal and judicial fraternity. This is appalling and outrageous that such a earth-shattering decision has been taken to supersede as many as 32 judges which include many chief justices, casting aspersion on their intellect, merit and integrity. On January 10, the top court collegium of five judges passed a resolution recommending names of justice Maheshwari and justice Khanna saying: The Collegium is of the considered view that at present the following persons are more deserving and suitable in all respects than other Chief Justices and senior puisne Judges of High Courts, for being appointed as Judges of the Supreme Court. The recommendations created a flutter in the legal fraternity as the name of justice Dinesh Maheshwari was overlooked recently for elevation and justice Sanjeev Khanna is junior to many sitting Chief Justices and puisne judges of the high courts. Objecting to the elevation of justice Maheshwari, Gambhir said: It cannot be forgotten that just one-and-a-half months back the then collegiums members superseded Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and now, out of the blue, he becomes more deserving and suitable in such a short gap. Justice Maheshwari hit headlines last year when now retired judge of the Supreme Court, justice J Chelameswar, criticised him for initiating an enquiry against a judge recommended twice by the Supreme Court collegium for elevation to the high court without informing the collegium of the same. On the elevation of justice Khanna, Gambhir wrote: We all know that Justice Sanjeev Khanna, son of late Justice D R Khanna also happens to be the nephew of the highly respected man in the legal world, late Justice H R Khanna. The talk in legal corridors is that the elevation of Justice Sanjeev Khanna is with a view to pay respect to the legacy left behind by his great uncle.and the courageous stand taken by him in Habeas Corpus case. His reference is to the 1976 case (during the Emergency) when Khanna was the only dissenting opinion in a judgment by five judges, and upheld that fundamental rights could not be abrogated by the executive during Emergency. For his pains, he was superseded for the post of Chief Justice of India in 1977. It will be another black day when there will be supersession of 32 judges who are senior to justice Sanjeev Khanna and many of them may not be less meritorious and men of intergrity than him. The legacy that we all are so proud of and which the collegium so scrupulously wants to preserve will become nothing but an unfortunate irony, justice Gambhir added in his letter. In addition, the county executive has some influence over the person who leads this agency. County Executive Steuart Pittman knows Neall personally, they are both from Davidsonville, and has said a selection may be coming soon. At least 200 students of the National Law Institute University (NLIU) , Bhopal, are suspected to have fraudulently obtained their degrees with the help of some staff members of the institute over the years, a probe report by a retired high court judge has revealed. NLUI is recognised as one of the top law colleges of central India. The judicial probe was initiated last year following allegations that degrees were being sold for lakhs of rupees in NLIU, in 2016. According to university officials familiar with the matter, the malpractices took place between 1999 and 2016. Many students have got jobs on the basis of their degrees, which, according to the report, were allegedly obtained fraudulently. The probe report also says that 12 staff members, including a few professors of NLIU, were involved in these malpractices. The one-member inquiry committee headed by justice (retd) Abhay Gohil submitted the report to the director of the institute last month, said institute officials. The panel conducted the inquiry from June 2018 to December 2018. Of the 200 students, 80 were allegedly involved in a criminal conspiracy to get their mark-sheets as successful candidates although they failed in the final examinations, the probe report said. The report that recommends criminal action against the guilty will be tabled in the meeting of NLIU executive council on January 19, university officials familiar with the matter said. The difference of marks between the marks mentioned in the tabulation sheet and the same in the mark sheets was noticed during the inquiry. Professors concerned should have flagged the matter but they supported the students and staff members [sic], said the report Justice (retd) Abhay Gohil said, The report will be made public only in the meeting so I cant comment on the same right now. This is true that I found certain malpractices and criminal conspiracy. During the inquiry, Justice Gohil handed over the list of students to NLIU registrar Giribala Singh in October last year to give them a chance to present their side. Most of the students denied the allegations and said they didnt know anything. They said the institute had issued degrees and they accepted it. Its obvious that no one accepts his/her crime so easily. Thats why I have recommended a criminal action, said Gohil. The institutes registrar Giribala Singh said, In the probe, some of the students who had failed sought to justify the difference between the marks mentioned in the tabulation chart and the same in their mark sheets citing grace marks rule. Ten years ago, a letter had been issued by the institute administration that if a student got pass marks in all the examination papers except one, then he or she could be declared successful with the help of grace marks. Following this order, the authorities issued mark sheets to such students which showed that they had passed but the authorities didnt do the required changes in the tabulation sheet. We are checking the facts. But most of students couldnt explain well vis-a-vis the charges against them. I am still preparing the agenda for the meeting. It is a sensitive matter so I cant say anything more, she added. Requesting anonymity, two students, who appeared before the inquiry committee said they had not done anything wrong. We presented our views in front of the probe committee and hope that justice will be done to us, said one of them. Law and legislative affair minister of Madhya Pradesh, PC Sharma, said, This is a serious matter like Vyapam scam. We will take strict action to save the sanctity of the institute once it comes to our notice formally. The malpractice came to light two years ago, when some students lodged a complaint to Chief Justice of MP High Court, who heads the general council of the institute, alleging that the degrees were being sold for lakhs of rupees in NLIU, in 2016. In March, 2018, a probe committee, which was also headed by justice (retd) Gohil, found students guilty of manipulation of result as they had either failed or were absent during their examination but they were awarded law degrees. A man preparing for the civil services examination has been detained for allegedly sending an email last week to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwals office threatening to kidnap the AAP leaders daughter. The man in his mid-twenties was detained from Uttar Pradesh and is being brought to Delhi from Rae Bareilly, a senior police officer said on the condition of anonymity. He is yet to be arrested. The officer said the man, a graduate, has been living in Delhi for the last one-and-a-half years and preparing for the UPSC examination. The chief ministers office received two to three emails last Wednesday, in which the anonymous sender had threatened to kidnap and harm Kejriwals daughter, Harshita. In the email, the unknown sender has claimed that they will harm the chief ministers daughter and have challenged him to do whatever he can do to protect her, a senior officer had said. A Delhi Police constable was temporarily deployed for the security of Kejriwals daughter and to shadow her whenever she goes out, the senior official had said on condition of anonymity. Despite the threat e-mails, Kejriwal or his family members did not ask for any security cover themselves. The constable assigned for Kejriwals daughters security accompanied her to her office in Gurugram on Friday. He went to the CMs house on Saturday as well, an officer privy to the investigation said. Harshita, a chemical engineering graduate from Indian Institute Technology (IIT) Delhi, works for a multinational company in Gurugram. Kejriwal has been attacked in the past. In November last year, a man had thrown chilli powder at the chief minister inside the Delhi Secretariat, one of the most protected buildings in the national capital. The incident drew condemnation from the AAP, which accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of orchestrating these attacks. The BJP denied the allegations. Also read: You are my only hope, says man before throwing chilli powder at Arvind Kejriwal Before that, he has had ink, shoes, slippers and fists thrown at him. The resignation of Shah Faesal the outspoken 2010 IAS topper whose success inspired many young Kashmiris to join the civil services from bureaucracy recently, has kicked up a storm. Talking to Hindustan Times, Faesal, who quit over unabated killings in Kashmir and absence of credible political initiative from the Centre, speaks about his future plans and how he will be different from the Hurriyat when he wants to own the vocabulary of azadi. You stated your reasons for resigning included killings in Kashmir and other things. Is there something more to it? I think fundamentally it was about making a statement about Kashmir. I have been preparing my mind to resign for the last two years. I was waiting for the right moment which finally came after I went to Harvard. The reasons include what has been happening in Kashmir for so many years, more so in last four-five years when we witnessed an escalation in killings and a huge confrontation between the Indian state and the people of Kashmir, without any political initiative from the central government to cool down the tempers. You talked about joining politics. What will it be all about? I am somebody who has worked in administration for almost a decade. We operate in a political environment. I have seen how our electoral politics neither responds to the political issues around us nor does it do anything about the bloodshed. Fundamentally, I am trained in governance and would like to join electoral politics for developmental issue. At the same time I wish to bring a little bit of honesty into electoral politics. We will have to tell people that electoral politics in the current format is an obstacle to the resolution. Electoral politicians get vote and that vote is being presented to Delhi as an endorsement of status quo. We will be very honest with the mandate that we get, that look although we have got the vote which is fundamentally for governance and there is Hurriyat which is custodian of the sentiment and you will have to talk them. Watch: Kashmirs Shah Faesal reveals his future plans after quitting IAS Where will the difference lie between you and Hurriyat, who you say talk about the sentiment? The difference lies in what the electoral politics stands for. Elected people dont tell truth to the rest of the people about who they are. We will tell the people that we are here for governance and the Hurriyat is the representative of that sentiment. We will be truthful in this representation. What is the sentiment you are talking about? The sentiment is that here people dont relate to the idea of India. You criticised central government for failing to bring back Kashmiri Pandits. Do you have a road map for their return? What I have said is that amid the escalation of the situation here, nothing was done to bring back Kashmiri pandits. They have been an important aspect of composite Kashmiri culture. My kids have no idea of Kashmiri Pandits. I have a great desire that they come back and we need to work on that. You want to own the vocabulary of Azadi, plebiscite and now even talk about sentiment. Separatists face jails and cases for the same. Will you be spared of sedition cases? We need to add these words in the vocabulary of (mainstream) politics. Kashmir is a unique place and what qualifies sedition in other parts of India, we need to be tolerant here. We should be accommodative and listen to the youth. You cant dictate the language to youth if you want the resolution of the issue. You talked about killings. Many people say as deputy commissioner, Bandipora, you signed dossiers booking youth under PSA. Any regrets? I think I have been very careful as the deputy commissioner and observed due diligence in PSA cases. There are many instances when I did not simply sign the order. However, as an officer I had to do my job and bring back order and peace. While doing my duty, my immediate concern was whether the person did it or not. Why he did it was not immediately my part of the job. But I think then I did not take any more assignments as DC of any other district to avoid such situations. In your first press conference after resignation, an angry youth accused you of being a projection of deep state. How do you respond. This apprehension is quite normal because the youth have no trust on the political setup here. I completely empathise with the youth. As an IAS officer you know the system. The J&K governor also remarked that you could have helped the state more as an officer than a politician. Will politician Shah Faesal make any difference when there are already some senior and articulate politicians from J&K in the parliament and assembly? I am not claiming for being the sole voice. I am saying that we need correct representation for Kashmir. We need to bridge the gap to represent the people truthfully. You hailed Imran Khan and Arvind Kejriwal. Any plans to follow their path and start a new party? These two people have been amazing. They have struggled a lot. They are certainly an inspiration but it will be a long term plan to reach what they have achieved. Which politician here impresses you the most? I wont be naming him. Watch : Shah Faesal reveals his future plans after quitting IAS As China expands its infrastructure along the border at a rapid pace, Himachal Pradesh government has pushed forward construction of an airfield in the cold desert areas of tribal Lahaul and Spiti district, for both civilian and defence purpose. The state government has directed the district administration to shortlist sites for the construction of the airfield in the area. Confirming the development, Himachal tourism and civil aviation joint director Anil Sharma said,We have sought a fresh proposal for airport construction from the district administration of Lahaul and Spiti. Sharma mentioned that the administration had earlier proposed five sites for constructing the airfield which included Sumnam in Tandi village, Patseo near the army camp on Manali-Darcha road, a site near Thanpatan in Udaipur sub -division and another one located near Phaldar in Losar. Earlier, as per the directive of previous government, Airport Authority of India (AAI) along with airforce officials had surveyed a site near Rangrik village, 80km away from the border point Kaurik. However, in 2018, the site was rejected on technical grounds by AAI. According to the report, the areas was not suitable for landing and take-off of fighter jets and big cargo planes. The civil aviation department has asked the district administration to suggest new sites where 2 to 3km long runway could be constructed, Sharma said. The decision to set-up an airfield in the district was undertaken by the Union defence ministry in 1990. Himachal Pradesh shares a 260km long porous border with China. Of the total border length,140km lies along tribal Kinnaur district, while 80km of border is along Lahaul and Spiti district. China has build an airfield at Lupsuk, 190km away from the sugar point in Kaurik. In the absence of an army air base in the state, the Indian Army uses a ground in Annandale in Shimla in case of emergency. The air force had earlier planned to construct an airport in Bithal near Rampur Bushar. The plan was later shelved due to construction of a power project close to it. The timing of Delhi Polices chargesheet, which was filed in a Delhi court on Monday, was questioned by former JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, former research scholars Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, all of whom were charged by the police for allegedly raising anti-national slogans at a campus event almost three years ago. Kumar, who completed his PhD from the universitys School of International Studies last year, said the chargesheet was politically motivated. The timing of filing of chargesheet ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections clearly shows it to be politically motivated. But we are happy that the chargesheet is finally filed. We demand a speedy trial now so that the truth comes out. I trust the judiciary of my country, he said. Khalid said, A chargesheet should ideally be filed within 90 days after the FIR and not 90 days before the next election. In a joint statement with Anirban Bhattacharya, Khalid added, As the people of this country have prepared their own chargesheet against this anti-people, anti-poor and communal government, it has once again tried to deflect attention from its failures by raking up this issue just before elections, they said. Seven Kashmiri students have also been charged with sedition by the Delhi Police. At an event held on JNU campus on February 9, 2016, it was alleged that anti-national slogans were raised by some students to protest the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. The incident snowballed into a national controversy following which the Delhi Police arrested three students Kumar, Khalid and Bhattacharya. Former JNUSU vice-president Shehla Rashid called it a bogus case. Rashid is also named in the chargesheet but not charged with sedition because police said they are still gathering evidence against her. I was not even on the campus on the day of the incident. It is a bogus chargesheet that has been filed ahead of the Lok Sabha elections to reap political benefits, she said. Aparajitha Raja, a PhD student and daughter of Rajya Sabha MP and CPI leader D Raja, said the chargesheet is an assault on students activism. The name of Raja, like Rashids, has been put in column 12 of the chargesheet, which means police are gathering evidence against her. The fact that it has taken them three years to put together a chargesheet clearly shows that it has no grounds. It is a cooked up matter to silence the voices of students who speak against the power. No seditious activity has ever taken place on the JNU campus, she said. Meanwhile, Saurabh Sharma, the main complainant in the case and member of RSS-affiliated ABVP, termed the chargesheet a national victory. This is also the victory of all those students who put their life in danger by showing courage to raise their voice against the urban naxals who had raised the anti-national slogans. We believe in judiciary and wish that it will act hard on those who attacked on the pride and dignity of this nation, he said. JNUSU president N Sai Balaji also questioned the timing of the chargesheet. What took Delhi police three years to file a so-called open-and-shut case? Just before 2019 elections, on the orders of current government, Delhi Police is doing what it does best; punish students fighting for jobs and their rights, he said. Frances Dassault Aviation said on Monday it had received a contract from the French government to upgrade the Rafale fighter jet. The so-called F4 version of the multi-role Rafale, which is being developed for a reported investment of 2 billion, will include greater connectivity to allow networked combat, Dassault said in a statement.The company added that the validation of the F4 standard is planned for 2024 and that some features will be available from 2022. The French government inked the contract with the aircraft maker on January 14. However, news of the order, and the fact that Dassault will deliver Rafale aircraft to the French government under an older order resulted in some confusion with some websites reporting that the 28 aircraft were being bought by France for 2 billion. The Congress was quick to react. India is paying 7.8 billion for 36 Rafale aircraft. France is paying 2 billion for 28 upgraded Rafale aircraft. Can the person with Entire Political Science degree do the math? #ChowkidarChorHai, the Congress tweeted from its twitter handle. The government and the Congress have been trading charges over the controversial ?59,000-crore purchase. Top defence ministry officials said a deal to buy aircraft could not be compared with another to just develop a new model. Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government had already given out all details on the Rafale deal and it was a closed chapter now. Defence ministry officials rued the fact that every new development related to Rafale in any part of the world sparks a fresh debate in India. The National Democratic Alliance governments decision to enter into a government-to-government deal with France to buy 36 Rafale warplanes was announced in April 2015 with the deal signed a little over a year later. This replaced the United Progressive Alliance regimes decision to buy 126 Rafale aircraft, 108 of which were to be made in India by HAL using parts imported from France. The deal has become contentious and controversial with opposition parties, including the Congress, saying the new deal cost more, that due process wasnt followed in its signing, and that it was done to benefit Anil Ambanis Reliance Defence which has signed an offset deal with Dassault. The government has maintained that the price is actually lower than the one in the old deal, and that offset deals do not involve the government. Dassault and Reliance have also insisted there is no wrongdoing in the case. The Supreme Court has said, while ruling on petitions seeking an investigation into the deal, that it was convinced that due process was followed and that it did not want to get into the issue of pricing. Aam Aadmi Party member of Parliament and petitioner in the Rafale case, Sanjay Singh, on Monday filed a review petition in the Supreme Court asking it to review the December 14, 2018 judgment dismissing pleas demanding a court-monitored CBI probe into the alleged irregularities in the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets. Seeking an open court hearing and a re-look at its judgment which was based on misinformation by the government, Sanjay Singh in his petition asked the apex court to initiate contempt proceedings against officials responsible for it. This is the second review petition to be filed in the matter. Earlier, former BJP minister Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and advocate Prashant Bhushan filed a review petition saying the judgment relied upon patently incorrect claims made by the government in a sealed cover to the SC. Separately, the Comptroller and Auditor General has refused to disclose details about its audit in the controversial Rafale aircraft deal, saying the process is not yet complete and any disclosure at this stage will amount to breach of the Parliaments privilege, an RTI reply said. In its response to Pune-based activist Vihar Durve who had sought the report from CAG, the countrys auditor said, The audit is under progress and the report is yet to be finalised. The information cannot be given under Section 8(1)(C) of the RTI Act as the disclosure would cause breach of Parliament. The RTI act exempts information the disclosure of which would cause a breach of privilege of Parliament or the state legislatures. (Reuters and PTI contributed to this story) An officer of the Border Security Force (BSF) was killed on Tuesday in a sniper attack from across border in Samba sector of Jammu and Kashmir, news agency PTI reported. BSF officials said Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad was hit by a bullet around 10:50 am when he and his party were patrolling along the International Border. Pakistani snipers opened fire at them, leading to grievous injuries to the officer. Prasad was rushed to a medical facility in Satwari in Jammu where he later succumbed to his injuries, an official said. According to a PTI report, Jammu and Kashmir recorded 2,936 instances of ceasefire violations by Pakistan in 2018the highest in the past 15 years with an average of eight cases dailyin which 61 people were killed and over 250 injured. Indias Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat on Tuesday said that the security forces will not hesitate to take strong action to deal with terror activities along the border with Pakistan. Addressing troops on the occasion of Army Day, Rawat said the country along Indias western border is providing support to terror groups. We are ensuring moral dominance along border in Jammu and Kashmir, he said. A Pakistani sniper shot and killed a Border Security Force (BSF) officer patrolling the border in Jammus Kathua district on Tuesday, the fourth deadly attack carried out by the neighbour in less than a week. Tuesdays attack was along the formal border between the two countries, which makes it a violation of international conventions, while Fridays when an army major, a soldier and a porter were killed took place along the Line of Control. On Tuesday at about 1050hrs (10.50 am), BSF troops while carrying out border domination were fired upon by Pakistan snipers resulting in grievous injuries to assistant commandant Vinay Prasad. The injured officer was evacuated to Military Hospital at Satwari in Jammu where he succumbed to his injuries and attained martyrdom, said a BSF spokeserson. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Vijaypur in the border district of Samba, adjoining Kathua, on February 3 to kick-start his partys campaign for the state and general elections expected later this year. According to BSF, officer Prasad was 35 years old and he came from Chapra, Bihar. He is survived by his wife and a five-month-old daughter, Vaanya. We retaliated soon after the incident. We have also lodged a strong protest with the Pak Rangers, said Inspector general of the BSF Jammu Frontier, NS Jamwal. An intelligence official based in Jammu, asking not to be named, said the sniper fire took place near Pansar border outpost in Hiranagar sector where undulating terrain and thick growth of Sarkanda plant cover provide sufficient cover for Pakistani gunmen. Pakistani forces also opened heavy fire on Indian posts and forward villages in the Sunderbani sector, in Rajouri district. At 2,936, the year 2018 recorded the highest number of ceasefire violations by Pakistan troops in the past 15 years along the Indo-Pakistan border. The attacks come even as the Pakistani establishment signalled it was open to peace talks, though people in the Indian defence establishment army chief Bipin Rawat being the most recent have seen such attempts as being hollow. On January 8, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan in an interview to Turkish news agency TRT World, accused India of not responding to his peace overtures and said that any war between two nuclear-armed nations would be suicidal for both. Last week, army chief Rawat said there has been little change in the Pakistani militarys approach. Pakistan has been making a lot of noise about better relations with India but on the ground we do not see any difference, he said. On Tuesday, referring to the action taken in the wake of firing by Pakistani troops, the Army chief said: We have been giving befitting reply to the enemies on the Line of Control (LoC) that has led to heavy loss of lives and logistics. Two murder victims, including a minor girl, have been found within three days inside Anjuman Islamia Committees 32-acre burial ground at Ratu Road in the heart of the capital city, sending shock waves through residents. According to the investigations so far, the two murders are related. On Monday, around 8am, the body of a 17-year-old girl she had been missing since December 25 was dug out at an isolated spot in the burial ground. Before this, on Saturday morning, workers at the burial ground had informed police about finding a freshly dug grave, from which the bodys toes were protruding. The police later identified the victim as Anurag Vishwakarma alias Sonu alias China (20) of Badhai Mohalla under Sukhdeo Nagar police station limits. Ranchi superintendent of police Sujata Kumari Veenapani said that Vishwakarma was hacked to death. Investigations revealed the involvement of a minor boy, who was questioned. The minor revealed the whereabouts of the main accused, Anmol Varma alais Kanti alias Sunny (19) of Dhobi Mohalla in Suryapuri under Pandra police station limits. Anmol was arrested on Sunday. In his confession, the accused said that he had a love affair with a woman for the past five years. He killed both [the victims] as he suspected they were driving a wedge into his relationship with the woman, said the SP. This is how the police have reconstructed the murders: On December 26, around 8pm, Anmol asked the minor girl to accompany him for meeting someone. After reaching Pahari Mandir area, the accused and his two friends asked the girl to accompany them inside the graveyard. The trio later stabbed her with knives and buried the body, the SP said. She said that Anmol then brought his friend Vishwakarma to the burial ground on January 9, where he and his friend hacked the victim to death. Weve found several bottles of alcohol at the blood-splattered spot where Vishwakarma was killed. It appears that the accused and his friends frequented the graveyard for drinking alcohol, the SP said. According to the officer, Anmols love interest was not talking to him, as the woman suspected that he was having another affair with the minor girl. Anmol, in turn, suspected that his acquaintance Vishwakarma and the girl had conveyed false information to his lover. To take revenge for the rift with his love interest, the accused killed both, said the SP. Three people are absconding two involved in the murder of the minor girl, and one person named Amar involved in the killing of Vishwakarma. The police were conducting raids to arrest them, said the SP. While the minor was missing from her home since December 25, a missing report was registered only on January 8, she said. The girl frequently stayed away from home for days at a stretch, so her family was initially not worried, according to the police. When this correspondent visited the spot, blood-splattered leaves and several bottles of alcohol along with oil-soaked paper packets used for wrapping snacks were seen at the spot. Shahid Akhtar, member of the Anjuman Islamia Committee, said that the burial grounds 10ft-high boundary walls were equipped with LED lighting, but that the small gate near Pahari Temple was a weak spot for security. Akhtar added that the burial ground was the largest in Jharkhand, and workers were present on the premises round-the-clock, but the accused had chosen isolated spots for the crimes. The SP said that the security system of the burial ground was being analysed, and steps would be taken to prevent the entry of miscreants. A protected antelope species habitat with about 150 to 200 blackbucks, of which there was no official record, has been found in Gautam Budh Nagar districts Rabupura village, according to the state forest department. This new habitat, which is around 70 km from Delhi in the National Capital Region (NCR), was discovered after residents reported two poached blackbucks in October and November. These blackbucks are in addition to the 122 recorded at 10 spots across the district by the last forest department census in 2011. Divisional forest officer PK Srivastava said the habitation remained undiscovered until now since it is located in a deserted rural area surrounded by fields. The forest department had not received any information of [blackbuck] sightings from there previously, he said. He called the discovery a huge gain and confirmed that the total number of blackbucks in the district would be well over 250 now. We are now monitoring it [the habitat] regularly, trying to conduct a census soon and see what can be done for the [blackbuck] conversation, Srivastava added. Komal Nai, a farmer from Rabupura, said the habitat may be news to the authorities but not for the residents. Blackbucks have always roamed in our grassy and sugarcane fields where they can remain hidden, said Nai, who added that residents of the village had no idea about the significance of the animals. According to Nai, the authorities were called in October for the first time when one of the animals was found injured. The blackbuck could not be saved, and this was followed by a similar incident in November. Another farmer, Pyare Lal, said he was the first to spot the injured blackbuck in October. He said the killing shocked residents as they never hurt blackbucks and deer even when they destroy crops. Lal said harming animals is not considered good in the village. They can just be scared away easily, he added. Blackbucks are one of the 48 mammal species listed in the Wildlife (Protection) Acts Schedule 1 and enjoy the highest protection among animals in the country since 1972. Hunting blackbucks can lead to three- to seven-year imprisonment. Srivastava said the department regularly monitors existing habitats, but there has not been any official count since 2011. He added that officials have now increased patrolling in the area and are in touch with the residents after the first-ever blackbuck poaching in the region. The forest department plans to get protected status for the habitat as commercial activity is set to increase around it with the Jewar airport coming up about 20km away. Dhirendra Singh, who represents Jewar in Uttar Pradesh assembly, said several places in Greater Noida and Jewar have wild animals. We will soon ask for a thorough examination so that steps for conservation can be taken for wild animals and protected zones can be created. The entire NCR is turning into a concrete jungle with increasing pollution levels. We have to urgently take steps for a better environment. Wildlife Protection Society of India executive director Belinda Wright underlined that nothing can be or should be done without a thorough analysis of the region and the habitat. Intervention in the area may be difficult if most of it [the habitat] is [located on] private land. For now, there should not be increased interference. That is how these animals seem to have lived there for so long. The Civiletti rule has resulted in agencies declaring hundreds of thousands of federal jobs to be essential, therefore requiring employees to work, yet still subject to the Antideficiency Act, and so requiring them to work without pay indefinitely. These two results are incompatible and illogical. In short, shutdown agencies either should be shut down completely, which would force the public to share in and understand the full implications of a shutdown, or they should only be prohibited from incurring new obligations: no new hires, no new contracts, etc. Gujarat is all set to be the first state to implement 10% reservation for the economically backward classes (EBC) in general category (GC) in educational institutions and government jobs; but a government report says in 2009, the then chief minister Narendra Modi had raised concerns over the legal implications if the reservation crossed the cap of 50% and said, there was a race today for inclusion in backward classes which is was not proper. The Bill to reserve 10% quotas for EBCs in GC was passed by Parliament and received President Ram Nath Kovinds assent on Saturday. The states response has been recorded in the report of the Sinho Committee panel formed by the Congress-led UPA government to consider reservation for EBCs in GC. The panel report quotes Prime Minister Modi who was then the chief minister of Gujarat having suggested different parameters to be laid down to identify the EBCs. In his response to the panel during consultations held between January 19 and 26, 2009; Modi had said parameters must be decided beforehand and debated in the open forum involving, state government. He had also said, it must be known beforehand how much population came under the criteria [of quota], thereafter, a suitable strategy could be worked out for providing support and assistance. On January 9, after the Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha, the PM had tweeted, By passing The Constitution (One Hundred And Twenty-Fourth Amendment) Bill, 2019, we pay tributes to the makers of our Constitution and the great freedom fighters, who envisioned an India that is strong and inclusivePassage of Bill, in both Houses of Parliament is a victory for social justice. It ensures a wider canvas for our Yuva Shakti to showcase their prowess and contribute towards Indias transformation. However, in 2009 he had stressed that the requirement of all states could not be judged with the same yardstick and it had to be different keeping in view the ground reality. The Gujarat government was also recorded to have said that if a higher criterion for EBCs was fixed, it would be injustice to the BPL families as their size itself was very large, about i/3rd of the states then population. The state then had a GC population of 5.7%. BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao said the decision taken to give quotas was based on the recommendations of the Sinho committee as well as developments after 2010 (when the report was submitted). The Congress slept over the report that clearly recommended affirmative action even though they talked about the reservation in their manifesto. They showed lack of seriousness about commitment to the poor, Rao said. Even though, the Bill was supported by several opposition parties, questions have been raised on the rationale in setting Rs 8 lakh as the annual income limit for eligible EBCs. The cut off Rs 8 lakh would lead to resentment said Prof Anand Kumar of the Jawaharlal Nehru University. The change in BJPs stance on the issue of EBC reservation, itself, he said was based on three considerations. The first being the all round revolt by dominant castes such as the Patels, Marathas and the Jats over lack of constitutional support for them; the impression since the Mandal Commission report that there has to be some accommodation for the economically deprived particularly in the upper castes and the immediate backlash that the BJP faced in Madhay Pradesh and Rajasthan elections, Prof. Kumar said. D Shyam Babu a Dalit academic at the Centre for Policy Research, said though he is not against breaching the 50% cap on reservation, the Bill introduced by the government can be legally challenged. In electoral politics parties have the right to impress people to get votes, but with this bill we are headed into a long period of litigation. Some people are likely to challenge this [quota] in court. Babu said some states such as Tamil Nadu had been questioning the relevance of capping the quotas at 50%, pointing out how OBCs were not given representation as per their population. The Indian Army will not hesitate to take strong action to deal with terror activities along the border with Pakistan, Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat said on Tuesday. The country along Indias western border is providing support to terror groups and the Indian Army is dealing with them effectively, Gen Rawat said in an obvious reference to Pakistan, We are ensuring moral dominance along border in Jammu and Kashmir, he said while addressing Army personnel on the occasion of Army Day in New Delhi. The Indian Army will not hesitate to take strong action to deal with terror activities along the western border, Gen Rawat said. Watch: Army will ensure that J&K becomes a peaceful place, says General Bipin Rawat Read | Woman shouts pro-Pakistan slogans at India Gate, disrupts Army day rehearsal He said new guidelines are being followed to maintain peace and tranquillity along the border in the eastern sector. We will keep reviewing the situation along the eastern border, he said, referring to the border with China. Our soldiers will not allow any compromise in guarding the border in the eastern sector, he said. After Maratha and Dhangars, Brahmins have now demanded reservations for their community in Maharashtra. The Samast Brahmin Samaj, an organisation of Brahmins has decided to demonstrate at Azad Maidan, Mumbai on January 22, to press for various demands. Vishwajeet Deshpande, convenor of Samast Brahmin Samaj said in a press note that the 10 per cent reservation for upper castes approved by Parliament was unlikely to materialise as it would face legal hurdles. Hence, the Brahmin community requires separate reservations. We will gather in large numbers at Azad Maidan to protest in a peaceful manner, said Deshpande. The Samast Brahmin Samaj, Maharashtra has maintained that a huge section of the Brahmins in the state is still backward and does not earn enough through their employment as priests. Hence, the association has put forth 15 demands, including monthly pension of Rs 5,000 for those performing religious duties. They have also demanded formation of a separate Financial Developmental Board for the community, student hostels at every district and free education till post-graduation for the children. The Maharashtra government in December 2018 had sanctioned 16 per cent reservation for Marathas after a violent agitation in the state. The total reservation in the state has now gone up to 68%. There is no immediate possibility of extradition of Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Hussain Rana, accused of plotting the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, to India until he completes his 14-year jail term in the US in December 2021, Indian officials with knowledge of the matter said on Monday. Rana (58) was convicted by a US federal court in 2013 on charges of participating in a conspiracy to attack a Danish newspaper and providing material support to Pakistani terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) for carrying out the Mumbai attacks in which 166 people, including six US nationals, were killed. The NIA [National Investigation Agency], which probed the larger conspiracy to carry out a series of strikes in India beginning from the Mumbai attacks, is in regular touch with its American counterparts to complete the paperwork with regard to his extradition ahead of his release in 2021. We dont want any delay in his extradition. There have been numerous video conferences between the officials of the two countries and a visit by a team of NIA officials to US in this regard, a central counter-terror official said on condition of anonymity. The NIA team was provided with guidance to complete paperwork over Ranas extradition by the Americans according to their judicial system, the official added. There are a few things that cannot be discussed in a video conference, therefore a team of officials was sent there, said the official. Another person familiar with the developments said NIA was the lead agency for dealing with all matters related to Ranas extradition and the external affairs ministry will intervene only if necessary. An official in the US said while two countries continue to discuss Ranas possible extradition, an early resolution is not expected as the process is cumbersome and time-consuming. A request sent to US department of justice for comments remained unanswered as of press time. The official added there were no recent developments in the process. The Indian and American officials want to complete paperwork before Ranas release in order to avoid his deportation to Canada, as he is Canadian national. The first official said that the Americans have always been willing to look at the possibility of Ranas extradition to India. The official said in order to circumvent the clause of double jeopardy, which bars a person to be punished twice for the same crime, India has sought Ranas extradition on the charge of being involved in conspiracy to carry out a series of strikes on installations such as Delhi-based National Defence College and Chabad Houses in several cities and committing forgery to facilitate Indian visa for his co-accused, David Coleman Headley. Minister of state for external affairs VK Singh said in a written reply in Parliament in its last session that the government was engaged with the relevant US authorities to bring back individuals to face trial in India under the provisions of the 1997 India-US extradition treaty. Most recently, a team from the National Investigation Agency visited the US on December 13-15, 2018 for a discussion with the US authorities, said Singh. The political situation in Karnataka, where the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have accused each other of trying to poach their members, appeared fluid on Tuesday night just eight months after assembly elections although the government of chief minister HD Kumaraswamy said it was confident of staying in power. Two independent legislators withdrew support to the government and some Congress politicians were untraceable, a senior politician said, as the BJP kept its own MLAs in Gurugram to protect them from being wooed by the ruling dispensation. R Shankar, member of the legislative assembly from Ranebennur in Haveri district, who was dropped from the state Cabinet last month, and H Nagesh, MLA from Mulbagal in Kolar district, announced their decisions to withdraw support at a press conference in Mumbai and sent a letter to that effect to governor Vajubhai Vala. I worked as a minister for 6-7 months thanks to the blessings of my constituents. But I wanted to do more work and since I did not get the governments backing I am taking back my support to the government, Shankar said. Since Monday, there was speculation that the BJP has been in touch with some Congress MLAs. Some leaders of the Congress are reported to be in a hotel in Mumbai. HT could not verify this independently. With the departure of the two independent MLAs, the strength of the coalition is down to 118 in a house of 224 members 80 of the Congress, including speaker KR Ramesh Kumar, 37 of the JD(S), and a lone legislator of the Bahujan Samaj Party. With 104 MLAs, even if the two independent legislators extend their support, the BJP is still short of the majority mark of 113 by seven MLAs. What makes the task of toppling the government harder is that any MLA who defects from the Congress or the JD(S) to the other side will have to resign from the assembly because of the anti-defection law, under which two-thirds members of a party must leave en mass to form a new group. That effectively means that even if the two independents switch to the BJP, for a total of 106, it will need 13 MLAs from the government to quit to bring the strength of the house down to 211 to gain a simple majority. I have not taken any responsibilities for the Independent MLAs, I have formed the government with the support of the Congress, not those two Independents... If two MLAs have withdrawn support what will be the numbers? I am totally relaxed, Kumaraswamy told reporters. Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge also expressed confidence that the government was stable.Let BJP try as much as they want, but the government is stable. All people have been elected on ideology and they are not going to leave. However, BJP keeps on trying [to poach] because they are habitual, Kharge told ANI. Deputy chief minister G Parameshwara confirmed that some leaders of the Congress were not traceable, but said he was confident they would not switch sides. The two [who withdrew support] won as independents and want to remain as such. They have even said they will support the BJP; thats their wish. But one thing is true, the BJP is trying very hard to destabilise this government, and they have even got some Congress MLAs to go to Mumbai. The whole country is watching what is happening. Congress leader Zameer Ahmed said four to five party MLAs were in Mumbai and warned that the party will not sit silently if attempts of poaching are made; even we are in touch with some BJP MLAs. All 104 MLAs of the BJP were in a resort in Gurugram for the second day amid allegations that the coalition government was trying to poach the partys members in a bid to counter similar moves by the BJP. Repeated attempts to reach MLAs in the resort were unsuccessful. We are staying in the resort. We dont know how long we are going to be here, former chief minister Jagdish Shettar told PTI. A senior Congress leader said on condition of anonymity the party was considering measures to ensure its MLAs were not lured by the BJP. We can call a legislature party meeting and those who absent themselves against the partys directive, we can approach the speaker to disqualify them. We are looking at all legal and constitutional measures. When election results to the Karnataka assembly were declared in May, the BJP, with 104 members, emerged as the single largest party in the House, but the Congress quickly sewed up an alliance with JD (S) and formed the government. Senior BJP leader and the partys in-charge for Karnataka P Muralidhar Rao on Tuesday said the JD(S)-Congress government in the state cannot survive its full five-year term and will fall on its own because of internal conflicts. Congress leader DK Shivakumar said that all its MLAs were still with the Congress. (With inputs from Agencies) Two Independent MLAs on Tuesday withdrew support to JD(S)-Congress government in Karnataka amid charges of poaching by both the opposition BJP and the ruling combine. One of the two, R Shankar had been dropped from HD Kumaraswamys cabinet last month. He represents Ranebennur constituency in Haveri district. The second, H Nagesh is a legislator from Kolar districts Mulbagal seat. They announced their decision to pull out of the ruling coalition at a press conference in Mumbai and released letters to the Governor. I worked as a minister for 6-7 months thanks to the blessings of my constituents. But I wanted to do more work and since I did not get the governments backing I am taking back my support to the government, Shankar said. Responding to the development, deputy chief minister G Parameshwara said he would not comment on the two independent MLAs, but confirmed that the BJP was also in touch five Congress MLAs. They won as independents and want to remain as such. They have even said they will support the BJP. That is their wish and we cannot comment on that. But one thing is true, the BJP is trying very hard to destabilise this government, and they have even got some Congress MLAs to go to Mumbai. The whole country is watching what is happening, he said. With the exit of the two independent MLAs, the numbers for the coalition government reduced to 118 80 MLAs of the Congress, 37 of the JD(S) and 1 MLA from the Bahujan Samaj Party. The BJP, which emerged as the single largest party after the state assembly elections in May by winning 104 seats, is still 7 MLAs short of the majority mark of 113. The state has been abuzz with allegations of horse-trading that were triggered after some Karnataka Congress MLAs visited Mumbai on Monday, reportedly along with some BJP MLAs. This was followed by the Congress alleging that the BJP was trying to poach the ruling partys MLAs to destabilise the JD(S)-Congress alliance government in the state. Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy has played down the danger to his government and at one point, suggested that some BJP legislators were also in touch with him. In television interviews, BS Yeddyurappa had pointed to these remarks when the BJP sequestered its 104 MLAs to a resort in Gurugram on the outskirts of national capital Delhi. They have not been allowed to come back home to the southern state to celebrate the states harvest festival Sankranti. Earlier in the day Congress MLA Anand Singh, who was rumoured to have been one of the Congress leaders the BJP was looking to poach, met irrigation minister DK Shivakumar at his residence in the city. Addressing the press, Singh said he had not been contacted by any BJP leaders and that he would remain loyal to the Congress. All the MLAs are in touch with us, they will not go anywhere, Shivakumar told reporters. Meanwhile, senior Congress leaders have gathered at the Kumar Krupa Guest House here and are holding a meeting on the issue with KC Venugopal, AICC general secretary in charge of the state. Among those present at the meeting are former chief minister and Congress Legislature Party chief Siddaramaiah, state Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao, and home minister MB Patil. The JDS and Congress had fought a bitter contest during the elections in May 2018, but had come together after the election results threw up a hung assembly with no party winning a clear majority. The first trailer for Marvels new movie Spider-Man: Far From Home is out. Films lead star Tom Holland shared the teaser on Twitter on Tuesday. While Tom reprises his role as Spider-Man/Peter Parker, Jake Gyllenhaal will join the franchise as Mysterio. The film will release on May 7. The trailer begins with Happy eyeing up Aunt May in front of Peter as he grows visibly uncomfortable. Peter is planning a school trip to Europe where he aims to woo MJ. He is not taking his Spider suit along because Europe doesnt really need a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. However, the trips gets hijacked by Nick Fury who recruits him for a mission. Towards the end of the trailer, we see Jake as Mysterio as he fights a water monster (Hydroman?). You dont want any part of this, he says as he shoot green lasers from his hands. Watch the trailer here: Spider-Man: Far From Home is a sequel to hit 2017 movie Spider-Man: Homecoming. Whether it takes place before or after the events of Avengers: Infinity War, in which Peter Parker and several other heroes were decimated by Thanos deadly finger snap, is not known. Tom shared a picture on Instagram on Tuesday that detailed the time and date for the trailer launch. He confirmed that the teaser would drop during a live feed on his Instagram page beginning at 5:45 am Pacific Time (7.45 IST). Jake Gyllenhall also shared a clip of what seems like fans cheering after watch the trailer at the Comic Con Experience (CCXP) 2018 in December where it was shown to an audience for the first time. Get ready...Somethings comin, he captioned the video with a spider emoji. Speaking about the film, Marvel Kevin Feige had previously told Comicbook.com that the movie will carry forward the theme of home that was introduced in the first film. We like [the title] of course because it ties into Homecoming, not just keeping that word going, which we like and we liked it more than Homecoming 2, but that notion of home is a word that has dual meanings wed like to continue with this version of Spider-Man. So, Far From Home has multiple meanings, he said. The film will release after Avengers: Endgame (April 24, 2019). There is a big chance that audiences will see Tom Holland in Endgame before Far From Home. Follow @htshowbiz for more Uttar Pradesh has been placed 20th in providing quality education by a recently released Niti Aayog report. The report throws light on Indias performance in meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UP scored 53 out of 100 against the national score of 58 in quality education (SDG -- 4). Kerala was the top performer with a score of 87, Himachal Pradesh was placed second with a score of 82, and Andhra Pradesh third with a score of 77, closely followed by Karnataka (score -- 76) and Tamil Nadu (75) in fourth and fifth places respectively. Among union territories (UTs), Chandigarh bagged the top slot with a score of 85. States or UTs with a score of 100 come under the achiever category. Those with scores between 65 and 99 are rated as front-runners, between 50 and 64 as performers and from 0 to 49 as aspirants. No states or UTs from India qualified for the top category. However, 13 states figured in the front-runner category. Uttar Pradesh and eight other states fell in the performer category, while the last category, aspirants, had seven states in it. The nine states that fared poorly in comparison to UP were: Jammu and Kashmir (score of 51), West Bengal (51), Madhya Pradesh (49), Sikkim (47), Odisha (46), Nagaland (45), Arunachal Pradesh (44), Meghalaya (38) and Bihar (36). For UP, the adjusted net enrolment ratio at elementary and secondary level was recorded as 68.71%. However, percentage of learning outcomes was a key area of concern -- 50.67% for Class 5 students and 44.25% for Class 8 students. The UN defines SDGs as the blueprint for achieving a better and more sustainable future for everyone. The goals, across 17 verticals, address challenges related to poverty, inequality, climate and peace and justice. The quality education goal aims to ensure inclusive, equitable and quality education for all, including technical and vocational training, by providing lifelong learning opportunities, so as to achieve substantial adult literacy and numeracy. When contacted, director basic education, Sarvendra Vikram Bahadur Singh, said, The SDG has several parameters in which they evaluate and assess the performance of states in education. We will analyse these parameters before making any comment in the matter. Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) on Tuesday conducted General Studies Paper 2 of the 63rd Mains Combined Competitive Examination. According to expert Dr M Rahman of Rahmans Gurukool, Patna, the special feature of this examination was that the question asked on Indian Constitution, Indian economy, Indian geography and environmental sciences were all connected to the recent developments. In his opinion candidates who have studies on the the basis of the NCERT pattern and connected what they studies to the present context are expected to have performed well. He further said that candidates who studies the current affairs of the last one year in the field of economics, politics, geography and science must have done well. BPSC prelims examination was held on July 1 at 271 examination centres in 19 district headquarters of the state. A total of 90,697 candidates appeared in the exam out of which 4,257 were declared successful. Here is the question paper for BPSC main General Studies Paper 2: The percentage of all children in standard 3 who can read at standard 2 level has climbed up slowly over the past few years, according to the governments Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), a biennial nationwide survey of childrens ability to read simple text and do basic arithmetic. This figure has increased from 21.6% in 2013 to 23.6% in 2014 to 25.1% in 2016, and finally to 27.2% in 2018. From 2014, the survey is carried out every alternate year. Among children enrolled in standard 3 in government schools, six states (Punjab, Haryana, Mizoram, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Kerala) have shown an improvement of more than 5 percentage points over 2016 levels. These were the findings of the 13th annual report of ASER 2018 that was released in New Delhi on Monday. In 2018, ASER officials visited 15,998 government schools in 596 districts in rural India. A total of 354,944 households and 546,527 children in the age group 3 to 16 were surveyed. According to ASER 2018 report, slightly more than half of all children enrolled in class 5 can read at least a standard 2 level text. This figure has inched up from 47.9% in 2016 to 50.3% in 2018. For government school children enrolled in standard 5, states showing an increase of 5 percentage points or more from 2016 to 2018 are Himachal Pradesh, UP, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh, and Mizoram; with Punjab and Andhra Pradesh close behind. ASER 2018 data indicates that of all children enrolled in standard 8 in India, about 73% can read at least a standard II level text. This number is unchanged from 2016. The ASER arithmetic test indicates that all India figure for children in class 3 who are able to do at least subtraction has not changed much, from 27.6% in 2016 to 28.1% in 2018. For government school children, this figure was 20.3% in 2016 and 20.9% in 2018. However, government school children in some states are doing significantly better, with an increase of 3 percentage points or more over 2016. These include Punjab, Haryana, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Kerala. The proportion of children in standard 5 across India who are able to do division has inched up slightly, from 26% in 2016 to 27.8% in 2018. But among government school children, some states have shown significant improvements of 5 percentage points or more over 2016 levels. These include Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. The overall performance of standard 8 in basic arithmetic has not changed much over time. Currently about 44% of all children in standard 8 can solve a 3-digit by 1-digit numerical division problem correctly. While this figure has gone down from 2016 to 2018 in many states, government school children in some states show substantial improvements in the last two years: for example, Punjab (from 48% to 58.4%), Uttar Pradesh (from 25.5% to 32%), Maharashtra (from 32.4% to 41.4%), and Tamil Nadu (from 42.6% to 49.6%). Gender differences in reading and arithmetic the 14-16 age group: For the age group 14 to 16, the all India figure for the proportion of girls who can read at least a Std II level text is very similar to that of boys. Both are around 77%. However, girls outperform boys in many states like Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, West Bengal, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. In basic arithmetic, boys seem to hold an advantage. Nationally, 50% of all boys in the age group 14 to 16 can correctly solve a division problem as compared to 44% of all girls. But in states like Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, girls in this age group are doing better than boys in arithmetic. Girls out of school: In 2006, the all India proportion of girls in the age group 11 to 14 who were out of school stood at 10.3%. In that year, 9 major states had out of school figures for girls (age 11-14) above 10%. In 2018, the overall proportion of girls in the 11 to 14 age group out of school has fallen to 4.1%. This figure is more than 5% in only 4 states. Further, ten years ago in 2008, nationally, more than 20% of girls in the 15 to 16 age group were not enrolled in school. In 2018, this figure has decreased to 13.5%. The House of Representatives will keep passing bills to reopen government as long as it takes for the Senate to act on them. We are serious about ending the Trump shutdown, and we believe that the issues of funding the government and reaching agreement on border security ought to be treated separately. Nearly three years ago, a crowd in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) was heard protesting what it called the judicial killing of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhatt two terrorists executed by the Indian State upon being handed the death sentence after full hearing by the courts of law. The chants in support of terrorists and against the Indian Union were condemnable but the question for the Indian authorities was: How should a liberal democracy react to such events? Unfortunately, India decided to unleash the repressive might of the State against the accused. The Delhi police has filed a charge sheet on Monday, slapping sedition, among other charges, on 10 protesters, including three student activists Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya. Whether these students were indeed chanting those slogans is for the courts to adjudicate on, but the use of a colonial-era sedition law on free citizens of the Indian republic is disconcerting. Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code was an instrument used by the colonial administration to repress the voices in the freedom movement. Recognising the potential for its misuse, the Supreme Court in 1962 had restricted its usage to cases in which there was a clear incitement to violence. However, police forces across India continue to use this law to arrest hapless citizens. In 2016, there were 33 cases reported under Section 124A, 12 of these in Haryana alone. In 2015, 73 were arrested on the charge of sedition, 40 in Bihar alone. The number of people arrested under this section in 2014 was 55, with Bihar and Jharkhand accounting for 46 of them. Clearly, the dilution introduced by the Supreme Court in 1962 has not deterred the administration and police forces from arresting citizens. This law now needs to go. A mature, liberal democracy cannot fight its own citizens. If there is a bona fide conspiracy against the Indian State, there are enough laws in the statute book to look into them. In 1989, a landmark case, Texas v. Johnson, was decided by the US Supreme Court. The court ruled that Gregory Lee Johnsons act of burning the US flag was protected under freedom of speech. Most notably, Justice Anthony Kennedy said: It is poignant but fundamental that the flag protects those who hold it in contempt. It is high time the Indian police, judiciary and legislature learnt from Justice Kennedy. Priyanka Chopra on Monday returned home to Los Angeles, and posted a picture from her swanky new mansion that she purchased with husband Nick Jonas before their wedding. According to TMZ, the house is located in the sought-after Beverly Hills city in LA County, and comes with a 90210 pin code. Priyanka and Nicks home has five bedrooms, four bathrooms, an ungated pool that overlooks the hills and is made on a total area of 4,129 square feet. The TMZ report also says that Nick made the purchase a few months before he proposed to Priyanka in July. Priyanka is currently based out of LA, New York and Mumbai, and was until recently on an extended vacation honeymoon with Nick, which took them first to Switzerland with their family and then to the Caribbean, all alone. Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas home in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. (redfin.com) Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas home in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. (redfin.com) Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas home in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. (redfin.com) Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas home in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. (redfin.com) Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas home in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. (redfin.com) Priyanka and Nick tied the knot in a multiple day event and in accordance with both Christian and Hindu traditions, in early December. They followed their wedding with three reception parties, the first of which was held in New Delhi and was attended by PM Narendra Modi. The second and third receptions were hosted in Mumbai, for close family and industry friends. Priyanka will now return to finish up her work on Shonali Boses upcoming film, The Sky is Pink, which also stars Farhan Akhtar and Zaira Wasim. She will also promote her latest Hollywood film, Isnt it Romantic, starring Rebel Wilson and Liam Hemsworth. Follow @htshowbiz for more Actor Kangana Ranaut has said that 2018 was a horrible year for her, and hopes that 2019 changes her fortunes for the better. She recently spoke about her experiences in a DNA interview. Recalling her many bad experiences, she said, People were trying to put me behind bars, can you believe that? They should make a film on my life also (laughs uncontrollably). She added, I have had a really horrible time and I hope it changes this year. My films werent working, cases were filed against me; it was going really downhill, till a point, it couldnt go any further down. But you never know; life has a way of surprising you. The actor is now gearing up for the release of her pet project Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi and has some more films in her kitty. She will also be seen in Mental Hai Kya and Panga this year. Watch | If I had a daughter she would have been like Kangana: Rekha The actor said that despite being single, she doesnt feel lonely at all, as she gets support from all quarters. Kangana, however, added, At times I did feel cornered, especially after Simrans failure. Script writer Apurva Asrani, filmmakers Ketan Mehta, Karan Johar and Rakesh Roshan and some others singled me out for criticism. The industry was having these intense meetings to make sure I was put in my place. Probably that was the only phase when I felt suffocated. Calling herself the lone target, she said, It makes me feel suffocated even now when I think about it. Ketan went to the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Aditya Pancholi filed a case and Rakesh Roshan continued to say he would reveal something. However, all of this didnt go anywhere. The EOW withdrew the case. Nothing came out of that propaganda they did. As for nepotism, Karan had to apologise. Follow @htshowbiz for more Director Sujoy Ghosh has shared the first image from his upcoming film, Badla, starring Amitabh Bachchan. The Kahaani filmmaker also announced that the film would be released on March 8. Taking to Twitter, Ghosh shared the picture, which shows Amitabh walking with his back to the camera, holding a briefcase in his hand. He is wearing a dark suit, and appears to be in a foreign location. Badla is reportedly a remake of the 2016 Spanish thriller, The Invisible Guest. It is the director-actor duos fourth collaboration, after Jhankaar Beats, Aladin, and TE3N, which Sujoy produced. Badla, which translates to revenge in English, also stars Taapsee Pannu, who previously worked with Amitabh in the runaway hit, Pink. I am very excited about this film. People wait to work with him and I got to work with him twice in two years. It gives me lot of excitement and I hope the magic gets repeated. When people say, Bachchan sir and I are a hit pair, it excites me, Taapsee told PTI about their collaboration in Badla. Sujoy, who found critical acclaim after his 2012 thriller, Kahaani, is also directing an upcoming Netflix original series. It is a haunted house story set in Goa, said Netflixs creative executive in charge of Indian content, Simran Sethi, at a recent event. Right now were shooting six originals in India, from Leh to Kerala, he said referring to another Indian original, Bard of Blood, starring Emraan Hashmi and produced by Shah Rukh Khan. Amitabh most recently starred in the critical and commercial dud, Thugs of Hindostan, and will next be seen in another big-budget film, Brahmastra, directed by Ayan Mukerji and starring Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt. Follow @htshowbiz for more Last Friday, thousands of federal employees received a paycheck worth $0. With what is now the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, many federal employees are in need of assistance. Eastern Catawba Cooperative Christian Ministry Inc. in Newton is offering assistance to the families of federal employees, according to a press release. This assistance includes food and financial help with paying a bill. To receive assistance with food, people simply need to come to the ministry and show their government ID. They will receive a 30-day supply of food for their entire household. To receive financial assistance with a bill, people will need their government ID plus the documents required for any financial assistance as detailed in the application here: https://www.ecccm.org/crisis-programs/. The ministry is located behind the Catawba County Agricultural Center at 245 East N Street in Newton. For more information, contact the ministry at 828-465-1702 or www.ecccm.org. Services are available from Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. He argues that ICE already knows who is in custody within an hour of a person being arrested. According to ICEs website, jurisdictions already send fingerprints of arrested individuals to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Through the Secure Communities program, which was reinstituted in January of 2017 through an executive order by President Donald Trump, the FBI automatically sends those fingerprints to the Department of Homeland Security to check against immigration databases. Introduced as a resolution, the measure is little more than a declaration of intent, but it carries the power to significantly change the way developers do business in Annapolis. City stormwater engineer Matt Waters has said the measure will likely cause staff to apply the new standards universally rather than vary the rules property by property. Staff reports The Herald-Mail Visa overstays a huge problem: The president keeps screaming for a wall, while the biggest illegal immigrant problem is easily visa overstays. Illegal immigration numbers are less than 20 percent of what they were in 2000/2001. Yet, hes making a mountain out of a mole hill. Over 600,000 people overstayed their visas in 2016 and still the biggest problem, yet nothing from the White House. Could it be because most of them are Canadian? Lets see, what is the difference between the countries? Could it be race? Im all for border security, but a wall is just a waste of money unless Mexico pays. Also, 15 of the 19 terrorists involved in 9/11 flew in from Saudi Arabia, a country Trump loves and defends. George C. Weagly, Hagerstown More digging into wall issue: No. 1: Does Trump not know how many known tunnels drug cartels have dug under the existing wall? No. 2: Does Trump know how many military and civilian Israelis have been murdered by Palestinians digging under their walls? No. 3: If only 60 refugees can be processed at a legal point of entry, and we have 48 legitimate ports of entry, why arent almost 3,000 refugees being processed a day? And No. 4: When is Mexico going to kick in with what Trump promised they would pay for the wall? Su Carroll, Martinsburg, W.Va. Questioning Pelosi about border wall: I had to laugh when I read the comments in the paper about Nancy Pelosi saying that she is going to make Congress work for all Americans. I have a question for her: What about the southern border wall? Are you more interested in protecting illegal aliens or American citizens? Its only 0.1 percent of our budget. Michael Karn, Halfway Regarding gas line: Go back to previous records of Chuck Schumer and Miss Nancy Pelosi talking about being supportive of a wall between the United States and Mexico. And, as for the gas line to be placed under the Potomac River west of Hancock, if the river stays a depth of 10 feet, then this line could be placed at least 50 feet beneath that portion of the bottom of the river. A tunnel could be drilled across with a large enough pipe that a person could either walk through or crawl through to see if there are any leaks in the transmission. Each side would not be in the flood plain. That way, the larger pipe that the transmission line goes through will not be flooded. Barry Lautenslager, Hagerstown Cape Coral voters will again elect city council members on the same ballots that also contain federal, state and county races. The Cape Coral City Council on Monday approved an ordinance that will change when municipal elections are held, a measure that will save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars while increasing voter turnout. The 7-1 decision will move city elections from odd-numbered back to even-numbered years, when presidential and gubernatorial elections also take place. The ordinance will take effect for the 2020 presidential election for Council seats 2, 3, 5 and 7. The elections for the seats for Districts 1, 4, and 6, and the mayoral seat will be moved to fall of 2022. The ordinance provides for a one-time, one-year extension of terms of current council members and mayor to accommodate the change. All council seats, including the mayoral, are elected citywide. By state law, terms cannot be shortened, only extended when election cycles are changed. Tom Hart, legal counsel, and Bernie Feliciano, assistant supervisor for the Lee Elections Office, addressed the benefits of having even-numbered-year elections, which have the approval of Lee County Supervisor of Elections Tommy Doyle. Doyle, who could not attend Mondays meeting, has stated he is in approval of the change, provided only one general referendum be placed on the general election ballot, with the exception of bond referendums. Any additional city referenda would be placed on the primary ballot. Before the election ordinance was heard, the citys Charter Review Commission said in its presentation of recommended changes to the city charter that it also recommended even-year elections, something the city had before a previous supervisor of elections required Lee municipalities change to their schedules due to too crowded ballots. The proposed change was a problem for Councilmember Rick Williams, who said a change in the election cycle should be brought to referendum and so a public vote. We are taking the vote away from the people and they should have the right to vote on it. We were elected for four years, not five, said Williams, who is in his last term. We need to follow the charter review process. I will not support this. Councilmember Marilyn Stout pointed out there was precedence city elections were moved to odd-numbered years in 2007 via ordinance. Florida Statutes provide that municipalities can exercise home rule powers to amend their charter to change election dates and terms of office changes without referendum. Councilmember David Stokes added that a poll conducted by the Cape Coral Breeze showed 75 percent of participants approved the move. Last time we had 17 percent turnout for the local election and 80 percent for the presidential election, Stokes said. Saving $400,000 and increasing turnout 400 percent is a no-brainer. During public comment, former city council member Kevin McGrail told a story of how he tried to convince former Supervisor of Elections Sharon Harrington to move elections back to even-numbered years. Harrington took office after her predecessor mandated the change. She hung up on me. Im all for this. Its a home run for the city, McGrail said. With the GO Bonds and all the money youll be saving, put sidewalks in to help kids get to the parks safely. Mayor Joe Coviello said ultimately, Council was elected to make decisions like this, not the residents. This is one of those decisions that we cant just push on the voters. Some people might see this and see the extra year, Coviello said. Some might not turn down the extra year, some might. Well cross that bridge when we get to it. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf speaks with members of the media in December 2014 at the Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. Wolf will be sworn in to a second term Tuesday, giving the Democrat another four years after a first term sharing power with the Republican-controlled legislature. Dan Dearth ddearth@herald-mail.com Two Hagerstown youths were charged after authorities found drugs and a handgun during a raid last week on Church Street. Nishaya Campher and Demond Lynn Williams Jr., both 17, are charged with firearm use in a crime of violence, distributing a controlled dangerous substance and multiple other counts. During a hearing Monday in Washington County District Court, Judge Terry A. Myers ordered that Campher be transferred to a juvenile detention facility, where she will continue to be held without bond. Willams bond hearing was delayed until Tuesday, so he could confer with his attorney. Judge Mark D. Thomas on Tuesday ordered that Williams continue to be held without bond at the Washington County Detention Center. Hagerstown police wrote in court documents that they used a warrant Friday to search a home at 603 W. Church St. in connection with an investigation that involved nine shootings in the city over the past two months. When authorities entered the home, they allegedly found Campher and Williams lying in bed together. Police said a .45-caliber handgun was found between a mattress and the boxspring. The weapon was cocked with a round in the chamber, and the serial number had been scratched off. The search also produced at least 24 grams of suspected marijuana and $440 in cash. Police said Williams refused to provide any information about the drugs or the handgun when he was questioned at the police station. Campher allegedly told police that she didnt know the handgun was in the bedroom and never saw Williams carrying it. A background check showed Williams has a juvenile record and cannot possess a handgun until he turns 30. Details about his criminal record were not provided. Mike Lewis mlewis@herald-mail.com Participants will be able to apply for jobs, have resumes reviewed and get information about education at a job fair on Friday. The third New Year, New Career job fair will be co-sponsored by Herald-Mail Media, Purdue University Global, Washington County American Job Center and Western Maryland Consortium. The event is free to job-seekers. Nearly 30 organizations have registered for the event, which is scheduled for 10 am. to 2 p.m. at Hagerstown Elks Lodge at 11063 Robinwood Drive. If the event is postponed by inclement weather, the fair will be held on Jan. 25. Employers from a variety of fields will be looking to hire people, said Gertrude Mata, recruitment specialist for Herald-Mail Media. Those employers range from organizations such as Procter & Gamble and Menno Haven to Washington County Public Schools and the Frederick Police Department. Some area colleges will be represented, such as Hagerstown Community College, Blue Ridge Community and Technical College and Valley College. About 500 people came to the first January job fair in 2017, and more than 700 attended last year. As at other job fairs, participants can fill out online applications at the event. Experts will be on hand to review resumes and other career resources will be available. Dan Dearth dan.dearth@herald-mail.com A Hagerstown woman was released on her own recognizance after she allegedly pulled a knife on another woman over the weekend. Shaela Mosley, 40, is charged with first-degree assault, second-degree assault and reckless endangerment. Hagerstown police allege in court documents that Mosley pulled a knife on Shanequa Adams during an argument Saturday afternoon in the 100 block of Randolph Avenue. Witnesses said the knife was 4 to 6 inches long. Police said Mosley was angry because Adams was seeing a man behind her back. Police arrested Mosley a short time after the incident at her home on Fairground Avenue. During a hearing Monday, attorneys on both sides told Washington County District Court Judge Terry A. Myers that Mosley has no criminal record. Myers ruled that Mosley would be released on her own recognizance. Dan Dearth Don Aines daines@herald-mail.com Although Clarence Broussard has repeatedly denied that he fatally shot a Hagerstown man in 2017, a police detective who interviewed him revealed eyewitness, cellphone and other evidence against him. Broussard, 37, of Main Avenue, Hagerstown, is charged with first- and second-degree murder and other offenses in the Sept. 24, 2017, shooting of Anthony Wayne Mozingo on Salem Avenue. Mozingo died of his injuries two days later. Broussard was in Washington County Circuit Court on Monday for a defense motion to suppress his statement to Detective Tony Fleegal when he was arrested on Oct. 25, 2017. Defense attorney Andrea Cheeatow told Circuit Judge Brett R. Wilson that police failed to determine if Broussard was under the influence of drugs or alcohol when he was interviewed. Broussard said in the video that he is an alcoholic and was drinking earlier on the day of his arrest. If Broussard was impaired, he could not voluntarily have waived his Miranda rights to remain silent and have an attorney present, as well as his right to a prompt presentment of the charges before a district court commissioner, Cheeatow said. Hagerstown police violated the prompt presentment right by taking Broussard to the police station to elicit a statement before taking him before a commissioner, she said. Fleegal testified during the hearing that he saw no signs before the interview that Broussard was impaired, Assistant States Attorney Christopher McCormack told Wilson. Broussard was arrested on a valid warrant and voluntarily waived his Miranda and prompt presentment rights, he said. Fleegal told Broussard during the 74-minute interview played at the hearing that a woman and her daughter told police that he admitted to shooting Mozingo when she drove her car to pick him up a few minutes after 10 p.m. Broussard allegedly told them he had shot Tony two times in the head. No one knows about his being shot in the head except the shooter, Fleegal tells Broussard in the video. Broussard is scheduled for trial in June. Wilson said he would issue a written ruling on the motions within a month. Members of Mozingos family were present for the hearing. During the interview, the detective revealed that police tracked Broussards cellphone to a point near the shooting and the time it occurred, and downloaded information from the womans cellphone. Fleegal also showed Broussard a security camera photo of the womans car taken near the time and place of the shooting. Fleegal told Broussard that another man, referred to in the video as J-Mac, talked to police about calling Broussard and telling him where Mozingo could be found. The detective told Broussard that DNA testing would be done on a sweatshirt found at the scene, but results of tests were not discussed on Monday. During the interview, Broussard changed parts of his story about what he was did that night, but kept denying he killed Mozingo. Charging documents said Broussard was upset about the drowning death of a cousin, and believed the 48-year-old Mozingo was somehow involved. Dan Dearth ddearth@herald-mail.com A Hagerstown man is accused of assaulting his wife last week in the front yard of a Lanvale Street home. Sirage Ekwan Carter Delaney, 37, is charged with false imprisonment and three counts of second-degree assault. But after listening to pleas of leniency from Delaneys wife Monday in Washington County District Court, Judge Terry A. Myers released Delaney on his own recognizance. Sharounda Delaney told Myers that she felt safe and asked him to let her husband come home. He never held me prisoner, she said. Hagerstown police wrote in court documents that officers were called at 2 p.m. Wednesday for a domestic dispute in the 900 block of West Washington Street. Sharounda Delaney was on the phone telling 911 call takers that she was running down alleys trying to evade her husband. She said Sirage Delaney just assaulted her in front of her house at 948 Lanvale St. Sharounda Delaney told police that her husband pushed her down on the sidewalk during an argument. As she was trying to go back inside, Delaney grabbed the hood of her sweatshirt and began to choke her. She said she broke free and ran through alleys to get away. Sirage Delaney got in his car and caught up with her in the 800 block of West Washington Street. At one point, the documents said, he claimed he was going to shoot her and appeared to reach for a gun in his pocket. Sirage Delaney drove away when two strangers showed up. Online court records show Sirage Delaney was taken into custody Saturday. On Monday morning, Florida Southwestern State College opened its fifth location in Southwest Florida. The brand new Bonita Springs location will host a Corporate Training Center, providing a centralized location for FSWs corporate training initiatives that are funded through Florida workforce grants. Were very excited, said FSW President, Dr. Jeffery Allbritten. This is the fifth location to be able to provide more opportunities for this region. This location specifically is focused on working in with our business industry partners to be able to provide not only training, but also Just in Time Training the things they might need, to be a real resource. You come in. You have a question. Were going to dig and try and help you find solutions. Were going to help find resources. Thats what this is all about. Several local business leaders came out to speak on how the training center will help them prepare new employees, as well as existing ones. For all of our employees, talent, talent development and talent retention is very key for us to not only sustain what weve currently achieved, but to help our growth plans for the region as we build forward. So we are very, very pleased with the relationship weve had (with FSW). This facility, this initiative, on top of the efforts weve already had, we certainly think will continue to help us, said Michael Boose, Director of HR & Organizational Development for ARTHREX. Tiffany Esposito, president of the Bonita Springs Area Chamber of Commerce was in attendance to welcome FSW to the Bonita community. We are thrilled to welcome FSW to the Bonita Springs community, said Esposito in a prepared statement. While we have benefited from a regional partnership with FSW for many years, this new, central location will give the business community access to unique education and training opportunities. The corporate training center adds to the economic development incentives we offer in the region and will allow us to continue to grow and strengthen the business community throughout Southwest Florida. The facility is located in the Riverview Corporate Center on U.S. 41. With a majority of businesses we serve being located within 20-30 miles of Bonita Springs, the new location provides easy access to meeting space in a corporate setting, and allows for more Southwest Florida businesses to take advantage of our corporate training programs, Dr. Robert R. Jones, vice president for Economic Development and External Affairs said in a statement. FSW has provided $11 million in training funds for over 6,000 new employees at local businesses. Through a partnership with CareerSource Florida and administered by FSW, the Florida Flex Quick Response Training (QRT) grant lasts for 12 months and is targeted on the high-customized training programs that companies need to improve the skill base of new hires in high-wage full-time jobs. FSW is the largest facilitator of the QRT grant. Online classes are also available through Ed2Go, provided at the training center or at a business location. Currently, FSW partnerships include Hertz, HERC, ARTHREX, Cheney Brothers and various other businesses of all scales to help provide QRT training. We live here. This is our community. Were proud of it and we want to help this area grow, said Allbritten. Everyone benefits. This training facility, in turn, will help local businesses create new jobs for their enterprises, with the confidence that new employees will be better prepared for whichever environment they take on. I see this not only helping the companies grow, but when they can find it easier to find better skilled employees, then their company bottom line is enhanced, Allbritten said. FSW, in addition to the new facility, also has Lee, Collier, Charlotte and Hendry/Glades campuses. The FSW Corporate Training Center, developed by Curran Young Construction, is at 27400 Riverview Center Boulevard, suite 2 in Bonita. For more information, visit www.fsw.edu/corporatetraining. -Connect with this reporter on Twitter: @haddad_cj When RockinghamNow asked if the business uses jamming equipment, the sole worker there said, I cant tell you what were using in here, and shut her office door, declining to give her name or title, or to share the business owners name. Further explaining how a jammer could handicap vehicles, Levitan said, When you listen to the radio, youre tuned in to a certain frequency. There are a couple thousand channels allocated to different things like cell phones and key fobs. Generally, these signals are very sensitive. These (jamming) devices create static so these radio waves are interrupted. Zapped, one car at a time Jennifer W. Griffin of Eden said she has grappled with the car crippling issue four times since the fall after parking near Lucky Day. El Parral is a Wednesday night dining tradition for Griffin, and on repeated visits shes seen her key fob and car locks malfunction. And whatever the disruptive signal is, it blitzed her entire family over the holidays, one car at a time, Griffin said. Indeed, just before Christmas, Griffins mother Martha J. Wright had to resort to a towing service when she was unable to start her Cadillac in the El Parral lot. BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. Two new vice presidents have been named at Northeast State Community College, and they will begin on Feb. 1, according to a news release from the college. Sam Rowell, who is currently vice president for academic affairs, has been appointed as vice president for economic and workforce development, and Connie Marshall, who is currently dean of health professions, succeeds Rowell as interim vice president for academic affairs. Rowell succeeds Jeff McCord, who recently joined Gov.-elect Bill Lees cabinet. Rowell will also resume duties as dean of advanced technologies with Keith Tittle continuing to serve as assistant dean of advanced technologies. Rowell has worked at Northeast State since 1996 in several positions, including associate professor, interim dean of advanced technologies, dean of advanced technologies and interim vice president for academic affairs. Marshall, who began working at the college in 1999, was the first director and instructor of Northeast States cardiovascular technology program. As dean of health professions, she has directed six academic programs at the Regional Center for Health Professions in Kingsport. Northeast State President Bethany Flora said a decision on filling Marshalls current position will be forthcoming WISE, Va. A Central High School student was taken into custody and charged with two counts of possession of a weapon on school property after officials said they discovered a knife in his backpack and a toy gun in his waistband. Wise County Sheriffs Office Sgt. Neal Addington investigated the student after receiving a call from the Norton Police Department on Friday about a social media post made by the student, according to a news release from the sheriffs office. The student was taken to the school administrators office to discuss the social media post. Following a search, he was committed to a juvenile detention facility, the release states. There were no threats made, no one was harmed, and the incident is being handled in accordance with all Wise County Schools policies, said Wise County School Superintendent Greg Mullins in the release. We are working with the Wise County Sheriffs Office daily to ensure the safety of all students and staff at Wise County Schools. BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. The Tri-Cities Airport Authority has received a $1.69 million grant from the Tennessee Department of Transportations Aeronautics Economic Development Fund for the development of Aerospace Park, according to a news release from the airport. The 160-acre park is adjacent to Tri-Cities Airport in Blountville and will be a build-ready development designed to attract aviation-related industries and high-paying jobs. TDOTs grant funding should allow the authority to complete the final phase of the project, which will include grading and construction of access roads and utilities, according to the release. The purpose of the TDOT fund is to advance job creation and investment opportunities in aerospace industry, which helps Tennessees airports continue to be important economic development engines for their regions and the state, according to the release. Anderson, IN (46016) Today Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 58F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 58F. Winds light and variable. A Quinlan girls service dog has died after being shot and rushed to an animal hospital in Mesquite on Sunday morning, and the community is raising funds and support to help the family and find answers. The Westmoreland family was starting their Sunday morning with breakfast, and Tina Westmoreland, a single mother of three children and teacher at Quinlan ISD, finished watering the indoor plants and went outside to dump excess water. She noticed that her daughter Hannahs service dog, Journey, and the familys other two dogs were in the front yard and must have escaped through an open gate, and she called to them to come back in. It was then that she realized something was very wrong: Journey was lying in the front yard of their Quinlan home and wasnt moving. Journey was laying right outside here and when I called him he reached one leg up, but he didnt pick his head up, and I think I just screamed Oh God, something is wrong with Journey, Westmoreland told the Herald-Banner Monday. We ran out, he was (lying) there, and we called for help. He wasnt moving his legs, he didnt wimper. After Westmoreland called her father, Ed French of Quinlan, the family rushed to Lake Ray Hubbard Emergency Pet Care in Mesquite while Hannah, 15, put pressure on the bleeding wound. We had no idea what was the matter with him, French explained Monday. And when we went to pick him up and put him in the car he had been bleeding pretty bad on the ground-side of him, and we didnt know that. At the pet hospital, veterinarians informed the family that Journey had sustained internal injuries to multiple organs and would require stabilization and immediate surgery. The doctor urged the family to say their goodbyes just in case, but tragically, Journey didnt make it to surgery and passed away at the pet hospital Sunday. Hannah Westmoreland, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 8, has had Journey since the age of 12 after the community helped raise about $10,000 so the family could adopt the service dog from an assistance-dog organization in Ohio. It was the first time he had gotten out [from the fenced area]; hes never gotten out before, Hannah said. The gate door was just open. We dont go out that door. Her mother called the Hunt County Sheriffs Office to file a report and was told that the office would need to conduct more research before taking action, family members said. At the very least Id like for (the person who shot Journey) to know what he took from us, whoever did it, Tina Westmoreland said. I would love to see him prosecuted for something; I honestly dont know what or how. Neighbors and friends have set up a GoFundMe account and Facebook page to help raise funds to offer as a reward for information leading to the shooter, to cover the veterinary costs for Journey, and potentially to help Hannah get a new service dog. Find the GoFundMe page at http://bit.ly/2SVRHFB, and the Facebook page can be found at http://bit.ly/2SSUfV1. Journey was trained as a diabetes service dog and would alert those around if his owners blood sugar reached abnormal, dangerous levels. He was specifically trained to detect Hannahs blood-sugar levels and would travel to school with her. Journey accompanied Hannah to summer camp and as a beloved fixture at her school in Quinlan he even had his own class photo taken and was included in school yearbooks in recent years. Journey wasnt just Hannahs, he was ours, but the community gave him to us, Tina explained. Im just a teacher and Im a single mom so I dont have $10,000. The community did it. They raised the money and they did it for her. Its almost like the same community took him away. | BY Ricki Green | Ogilvy has announced a new creative leadership team in the Asia Pacific region with Aussie expat Reed Collins and Sonal Dabral to lead the agencys creative efforts throughout Asia Pacific, with Collins (pictured right) continuing his focus on North Asia while Dabral (left) will take on the role of leading the agencys South East and South Asia offices. Eugene Cheong, who has served as Ogilvys Chief Creative Officer in Asia Pacific for the past decade, will be transitioning to a new role that is being finalized in joint conversations with Ogilvy and WPP. Piyush Pandey, Worldwide Chief Creative Officer said, I would like to thank Eugene for his invaluable contributions throughout his tenure. He is a fantastic Creative champion, who has helped Ogilvy shine around the world. On the appointment of Dabral and Collins, Pandey added I have great confidence in our next generation of leadership with Reed and Sonal to continue to deliver great creative solutions to all our clients. Reed and Sonal are true Ogilvy giants with modern marketing skills and the right experiences to take the agency into the future. They are both dynamic, inspirational creative talents whose energy and ambition are infectious, said Ogilvy co-Chief Executives Kent Wertime and Chris Reitermann. Collins joined Ogilvy in 2013, has since served as Chief Creative Officer in Hong Kong and was announced as Chief Creative Officer, North Asia in 2018. Dabral will remain based in India, where he has held the positions of Chief Creative Officer and Vice Chairman of South Asia. Collins and Dabral will work closely with Reitermann and Wertime in their business leadership roles, and with Piyush Pandey, as Ogilvys Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide. A mural by Charlie Bullock situated on the west wall of Terrell City Hall was completed this past November. It is a recreation of the oil painting, Approaching the Heard by Frank Reaugh. As a tribute, Bullocks mural depicts Reaugh under an umbrella, painting the scene. Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email customercare@heraldandnews.com for help creating one. | BY Ricki Green | VMLY&R has been appointed to the prestigious Australian Defence Force Recruiting (DFR) creative and digital account following a detailed evaluation process. The incumbent was Host/Havas, who had held the account for four and a half years, taking the business away from Y&R back in 2013. As the creative agency, VMLY&R will provide all creative communications and digital services under the government contract from 1 April 2019. Says Sue McGready, director general, Defence Force Recruiting, Air Commodore: VMLY&R bring experience and expertise that will enable DFR to recruit Australian Defence Force members into the future. We look forward to developing a strong partnership with the team at VMLY&R over the coming months to set us up for the years to come. I would also like to thank Host/Havas for their achievements with DFR over the past four and a half years in an industry that has seen rapid expansion and change. VMLY&Rs executive leadership team of Paul Nagy, Aden Hepburn and Peter Bosilkovski said: Were honoured and delighted to be partnering with the Australian Defence Force (ADF) a modern, innovative, people-focused organisation and one of Australias largest employers. This is both a new business win and a homecoming for our agency group, with Y&R previously having held the account for more than a decade. Were thrilled to be once again partnering with the ADF and of course, very proud to be entrusted to provide our services to support the recruitment of members for all three Services of the ADF. The win showcases the full-service power of the newly merged VML and Y&R agencies who jointly tendered for the business, bringing world class digital experience and innovation together with one of the most famous brand experience agencies of all time. The newly formed VMLY&R will flex its full-service offering through creativity, technology, data and culture to deliver communications across the entire connected customer experience. VMLY&R executive creative director, Jake Barrow, is looking forward to working with DFR again. Says Barrow: To say Im proud to be working with DFR again is an understatement. Our previous years with DFR produced many career highlights for our staff and I can now call this moment another. Id like to give a huge thanks to the passionate and talented team at VMLY&R who are all raring to start. Says Laura Aldington, CEO, Host/Havas: Whilst this is obviously a disappointing outcome for us, we wish the Defence Force Recruiting team all the best. I want to thank the incredibly talented, dedicated team at Host/Havas, who helped deliver DFR the two most successful years in their history, guiding them through a period of significant digital transformation. They should feel justly proud of the last five years and the amazing contribution they have made, in particular the recent awarding of the Australian Grand Effie. We will now take some time to recalibrate, adjust and set ourselves up to continue delivering great work for our clients in 2019 and beyond. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 15) Contrary to the claims of House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya, the plebiscite for the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) is fully funded, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno and the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said Tuesday. "It's a lie. There's 111.7 million in the 2018 budget for the BOL exercise. That's why it's ongoing right now. And in addition, there's a continuing appropriation with the Comelec (Commission on Elections) for similar activities of about 1.8 billion," Diokno told CNN Philippines' The Source. Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez also told CNN Philippines that the poll body would use its unobligated balances from the 2018 budget to fund the 857 million BOL plebiscite. In a statement yesterday, Andaya said that the budget department had failed to allocate the 857 million requested by Comelec for the plebiscite in its 10 billion budget for 2019. He said Diokno also "forgot to include" funding for the implementation of the BOL, which is estimated to cost more than 100 billion for the first year. "Kung hindi mapopondohan ang BOL, paano natin mapapaniwala ang mga kapatid natin sa Mindanao na seryoso tayo sa usaping pangkapayapaan? Malayo na ang narating ng usaping ito. Huwag naman sanang mabale-wala dahil sa kapabayaan ng isang tao," Andaya said. [Translation: If the BOL would not be funded, then how do we convince our brothers and sisters in Mindanao that we are serious in talking peace? This has come so far. Let's not waste it over the carelessness of one person.] The House Appropriations Committee allotted in August an 854 million budget for the plebiscite to ratify the BOL and determine the territory it will cover. The Comelec is now gearing up for the January 21 and February 6 plebiscites. READ: Comelec introduces changes to ballot for upcoming Bangsamoro plebiscite CNN Philippines Correspondent Xianne Arcangel contributed to this report. Hong Kong: CE to attend bay area talks Chief Executive Carrie Lam says she will visit Guangzhou this afternoon to meet senior Guangdong officials to discuss collaboration on the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area development. Speaking ahead of todays Executive Council meeting, Mrs Lam said she will meet Secretary of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee Li Xi and Guangdong Governor Ma Xingrui. They will follow up on the matters discussed during Mr Lis November visit to Hong Kong, and make preparations for the second plenary meeting of the leading group for the development of the Greater Bay Area. The meeting will also cover this years plan to jointly promote the bay area overseas. Mrs Lam added the outline for the bay areas development is expected to be endorsed by the Central Government in a month or two and that it will be announced upon approval. She also hopes the community will give its feedback on the direction of the development for the overall benefit of the plan. This story has been published on: 2019-01-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. A promise from the EU to begin negotiations on a trade deal with the UK as soon as the Withdrawal Agreement is signed off will not be enough to save Theresa May from a crushing defeat in the House of Commons today. The British prime minister is once again fighting for her political survival after begging MPs not to behave with the "height of recklessness". The margin by which her Brexit deal, including the Northern Ireland backstop, is defeated is the only thing in question. While MPs engage in the final stages of the Brexit deal debate, the Irish Government will be discussing "one of the biggest pieces of legislation" ever produced in this country. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he hopes to have a "single omnibus bill", which will cover all the legislative aspects required for Brexit. "I still think a no-deal Brexit is unlikely, but we need to be prepared for it nonetheless," Mr Varadkar said. "I shouldn't pretend to anyone that any country can be fully prepared for Brexit. There is no good Brexit and a no-deal Brexit will have a very significant impact on Ireland, Britain and Europe. "We will be prepared, but I'm not going to say to you that everything is going to be fine. Of course, there will be interruptions and negative impact but we'll be as prepared as we possibly can be." The Government plans to split the new Dail term, which begins today, into a "pre-Brexit session" and a "post-Brexit session". The so-called omnibus will include 17 pieces of legislation wrapped in together for debates in the Dail and Seanad. Memos It will be published at the end of February and the Oireachtas may hold late-night sittings if required "in the national interest". Four separate Brexit memos will be brought to Cabinet. Tanaiste Simon Coveney will have two looking at overall preparations and the continuation of the Common Travel Area between Ireland and the UK. Mr Coveney said yesterday that Ireland should "hold our nerve" over the coming days. Transport Minister Shane Ross will update colleagues on work at ports and airports. Sources say the greatest concern now centres on Rosslare where at least 13 inspection bays are needed for trucks coming off ships. A dedicated Border control point for live animals is also planned, while public offices will also be needed. Health Minister Simon Harris will deliver an update on the HSE's efforts to ensure there is no disruption to medical supplies. The HSE and the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), which regulates medicines, have been holding weekly planning meetings for the best part of two years. Mr Harris said a "huge amount of contingency work" had been done, adding: "I want to reassure patients there are plans in place and we will be able to continue to supply medicines. This country is doing everything it possibly can to be prepared for a no-deal Brexit." Hospitals are struggling to cope with a big increase in the influx of patients attending emergency departments in recent days, pushing up trolley figures to their worst level since last March. The cracks in the HSE's winter plan began to show yesterday as 606 patients were on trolleys waiting for a bed. The worst-hit hospitals were University Hospital Limerick, with 59 on trolleys, and South Tipperary General Hospital, where 50 were without a bed. Cork University Hospital endured another day of severe overcrowding, with 48 people on trolleys. The HSE said hospitals were seeing a surge in patients attending EDs and more were having to be admitted. The rise in patients struck by the flu, many of whom are ending up in hospitals and need to be put in isolation, is also fuelling the congestion. The number of bed-blockers - patients fit for discharge who cannot be discharged without support - has climbed to 526, up from 469 on Christmas Day. The figures come from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), which counts patients on trolleys waiting for a bed. These patients are often being treated on trolleys in corridors, but they may also be on chairs, in waiting rooms, or "simply wherever there's space", said the union. It comes as the INMO prepared to meet health officials today to discuss its threatened all-out strike on January 30 in pursuit of increased pay, which it says is needed to address recruitment and retention of nurses. Hospitals still have more than 300 homecare packages to offer to patients in a bid to free up beds in the coming weeks. Health Minister Simon Harris said he acknowledged the numbers on trolleys were very high, but insisted he always knew the surge would come. Focus "The surge was always going to come, and we have seen a surge in relation to attendances in the health service, in particular in recent days," he said. He said that because hospitals were so busy, the focus period of two weeks was now being extended for another fortnight. This means the extra funding allocated for the winter plan will be concentrated into relieving pressures over the next two weeks. However, it will also mean that more waiting-list surgeries will be cancelled as efforts to tackle overcrowding take priority. The widow of a man killed in a traffic collision held up a photo of her husband in court and shouted that she wanted the man responsible for his death to see how young he had been. Michael Jones (25), a roofer from Whitestown Drive, Dublin, had pleaded not guilty to dangerous driving, causing the death of Hong Qing Qu (33) at Blanchardstown Road South on November 17, 2015. The jury returned a guilty verdict on day nine of his trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court last December 19. In her victim impact statement, which she read aloud in court, Mr Qu's widow said that her two children always asked her "where's papa?" She said because they were too young to understand death, she has told them that he is a "hero". "If the driver slowed down just a little bit, I wouldn't have lost my husband and my children wouldn't have lost their father," she said. She said that her husband's parents had not seen their son in 10 years by the time they saw him lying dead in the hospital. She asked the court to picture an old man shouting and screaming at his son to wake up. She said she wanted justice and "to let my children know that the law in Ireland is truthful and that the person who made the mistake has to take responsibility". She held up a photo of her husband to Jones and shouted that she wanted him to see how young Mr Qu had been at the time. Struck Sergeant Stephen Byrne told Dominic McGinn SC, prosecuting, that Mr Qu was driving home when his car was struck by an Audi A3 driven by Jones. Mr Qu sustained serious injuries and was taken to Connolly Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Sgt Byrne said that gardai were able to determine that Jones had driven through a red light and had been travelling between 115kph and 137kph at the point of collision. The speed limit of roads in the area was 60kph, the court heard. Jones was taken from the scene by men who drove him to a hospital, where Jones gave a false name and said he had injured his leg in a fall. Padraig Dwyer SC, defending, said his client wished to express his remorse for his actions. Mr Dwyer submitted that this case fell in the medium range of offending and that a term of imprisonment of four or five years would be appropriate. Judge Patricia Ryan adjourned the matter for finalisation on Thursday. Former INLA man Dessie O'Hare, who was known as the 'Border Fox', has pleaded guilty at the non-jury Special Criminal Court to assault and false imprisonment in Dublin. O'Hare (62), of Slate Rock Road, Newtownhamilton, Co Armagh, yesterday admitted assaulting John Roche, causing him harm, at The Towers, Garter Lane, Saggart, Co Dublin, on June 9, 2015. He also pleaded guilty to falsely imprisoning Martin Byrne at Rathcoole and Saggart on the same date. Guilty Sean Guerin SC, defending, told the three-judge court that a trial would not be required and O'Hare could be arraigned on two of the counts. The barrister said he would ask the court to take two other counts into consideration at the appropriate time. Dressed in a shirt and tie, O'Hare stood up and faced the court. When the registrar read the two counts on the indictment to O'Hare and asked him how he was pleading, he replied "guilty" to both. Shane Costelloe SC, prosecuting, said Mr Guerin had informed him that there were some outstanding matters on his side of the house. Following this, Mr Guerin said his client has had some engagement with "professionals" and the defence wanted to have up-to-date professional assistance for the sentence hearing. Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding, sitting with Judge Patricia Ryan and Judge Ann Ryan, remanded the defendant on continuing bail with the same terms and conditions until April 3, when he will be sentenced. As part of this investigation, gardai were searching for O'Hare who had fled to a bolthole in Co Armagh. O'Hare was one of the most notorious criminals involved in The Troubles in the North and has been suspected of being involved in extortion activities more recently. He was released under the Good Friday Agreement after being given a 40-year sentence for kidnapping and mutilating Dublin dentist John O'Grady in 1987 and was linked to multiple murders during The Troubles. Gardai rescued Dr O'Grady, but O'Hare escaped. He was eventually caught after a shoot-out in Co Kilkenny. O'Hare previously claimed that he had reformed, taken up yoga and attended a reconciliation centre in Co Wicklow. Comment Policy Calaveras Enterprise does not actively monitor comments. However, staff does read through to assess reader interest. When abusive or foul language is used or directed toward other commenters, those comments will be deleted. If a commenter continues to use such language, that person will be blocked from commenting. We wish to foster a community of communication and a sharing of ideas, and we truly value readers' input. Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. IAM offers to help furloughed federal employees Interfaith Assistance Ministry, the largest provider of crisis services in Henderson County, is extending its food pantry and basic emergency services to Henderson County federal government employees who are being impacted by the partial government shutdown. Affected workers will need to provide their federal government ID to receive food from IAMs pantry. The ongoing partial government shutdown has officially become the longest running shut-down in history. Approximately 800,000 of the 2.1 million federal workers in the United States have been furloughed or deemed as an essential employee and are required to work without pay. Over one-third of the federal government workforce did not receive paychecks last week and have been out of work for 25 days. The lack of a paycheck is placing many federal workers in dire financial situations. Interfaith Assistance Ministry wants to assist our struggling residents who work for the federal government during this unprecedented time of need, said Elizabeth Willson Moss, IAMs executive director. Please share this information with any federal employees you may know. We will give them a hand-up to help them survive this financial crisis. In Henderson County, federal workers are employed at the Carl Sandburg National Historic Site, the Social Security Administration office, as federal marshals, airport security and others. IAM, located at 310 Freeman St., just past the Blue Ridge Mall, provides services from 9 to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays. AVL celebrates 1 million passengers in '18 For the first time in its 58-year history, Asheville Regional Airport passed the 1 million mark in annual passengers. In 2018, 1,134,568 passengers utilized a commercial flight at AVL, on one of six airlines: Allegiant, American, Delta, Elite, Spirit and United. Passenger numbers grew by 18.6 percent compared to 2017, making 2018 the second consecutive year of double-digit growth and fifth consecutive record year overall. The number of passengers has grown by 67 percent since 2013, when AVL served 678,023 passengers. Additionally, the airport on the Henderson-Buncombe county line is the fourth largest commercial service airport in North Carolina, and one of the fastest-growing small hub airports in the country. A recent economic impact study showed that the airport contributes nearly $1.5 billion annually to the local economy. "One million is a milestone," Lew Bleiweis, Greater Asheville Regional Airport Authority executive director, said in a news release. "The unprecedented growth we have experienced in the past few years reflects the vitality of our region as a whole. We thank our airline partners, our dedicated airport staff and tenant organizations, and we especially thank our local community for choosing to 'fly local.'" To celebrate the "one million" milestone, the airport is kicking off 2019 with a 58th birthday party with a regional Chamber of Commerce networking event, followed by a week of surprises in the terminal. "We want to surprise and appreciate travelers, and thank them for choosing AVL," said Bleiweis. "They are all truly 'One in a Million,' and that's our theme this week. We have some amazing surprises in store - and this week will only be the beginning. To celebrate our 58th year - and the amazing one million milestone - we plan to provide at least 58 random acts of kindness for our travelers in 2019. This airport continues to grow with and for our region, and it's because our local travelers embrace Asheville Regional Airport. It is our pleasure to thank them all." Last year new or expanded routes announced included: - Denver (Allegiant) - Dallas/Ft. Worth (American) - Ft. Lauderdale (Spirit) - New York (American - starts May 2019) - Orlando (Spirit) - Philadelphia (American - starts May 2019) - Sarasota (Allegiant - starts February 2019) - Tampa (Spirit) - Washington, D.C. (United - starts February 2019) - Year-round daily service to five international hubs A new study finds that evolution used the same genetic formula to turn animals monogamous Why are some animals committed to their mates and others are not? A team of international scientists, including researchers from the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, have discovered that evolution has used a kind of universal formula for turning non-monogamous species into monogamous species turning up the activity of some genes and turning down others in the brain. A new study, led by The University of Texas at Austin, looked at the genetics of 10 species of vertebrates spanning 450 million years of evolution. It is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers studied five pairs of closely related species four mammals, two birds, two frogs and two fish each with one monogamous and one non-monogamous member. These five pairs represent five times in the evolution of vertebrates that monogamy independently arose, such as when the non-monogamous meadow voles and their close relatives the monogamous prairie voles diverged into two separate species. The authors define monogamy in animals as forming a pair bond with one mate for at least one mating season, sharing at least some of the work of raising offspring and defending young together from predators and other hazards. Researchers still consider animals monogamous if they occasionally mate with another. The researchers compared gene expression in male brains of all 10 species to determine what changes occurred in each of the evolutionary transitions linked to the closely related animals. Despite the complexity of monogamy as a behaviour, they found that the same changes in gene expression occurred each time. The finding suggests a level of order in how complex social behaviours come about through the way that genes are expressed in the brain. Arranging genes from distantly related species such as a fish and a mammal into groups based on sequence similarities, the team was able to identify a common evolutionary formula that led to pair bonds and co-parenting in the five species that behave monogamously. This study covers a broader span of evolutionary time than had been explored previously. Other studies have looked at genetic differences related to evolutionary transitions to new traits, but they typically focus on animals separated by, at most, tens of millions of years of evolution, as opposed to the hundreds of millions of years examined with this study. Most people wouldnt expect that across 450 million years, transitions to such complex behaviours would happen the same way every time, said Rebecca Young, research associate in UT Austins Department of Integrative Biology and first author of the study. Dr Araxi Urrutia, Senior Lecturer in Evolution at the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, said: This study shows that there is a set of genes which have repeatedly changed in their activity levels in the male brain in lineages which have evolved a monogamous mating system Other authors on the paper from the Milner Centre for Evolution were Professor Tamas Szekely and Dr Nina Ockendon-Powell (currently at the University of Bristol). Additional authors at other institutions are Hans Hofmann and Steven Phelps (The University of Texas at Austin) Michael Ferkin (University of Memphis), Veronica Orr (University of California, Davis), Akos Pogany (Eotvos Lorand University), Corinne Richards-Zawacki (University of Pittsburgh), Kyle Summers (East Carolina University), Brian Trainor (University of California, Davis), Gergely Zachar (Semmelweis University) and Lauren OConnell, a former UT Austin graduate student (Stanford University). This work was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund. University of Bath A rapid, non-invasive eye exam that uses innovative imaging technology effectively measures the severity of disease in patients with a rare neurodegenerative disease called Friedrich ataxia, according to a study by Weill Cornell Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar and NewYork-Presbyterian researchers. The results suggest that the exam, known as corneal confocal microscopy (CCM), could be a rapid and sensitive tool for assessing patients in the clinic and act as a biomarker in clinical trials testing new therapies for the disease. The paper, published in the Dec. 21 issue of the Annals of Neurology and online Oct. 7, provides compelling evidence for using CCM to assess the degeneration of corneal nerves in patients with Friedrich ataxia, a disease that affects the nervous system and causes increasing muscle movement problems, immobility and premature death. CCM produces high-resolution images of thin layers of corneal tissue, allowing investigators to measure nerve fiber density, length and branch density. The test takes a few minutes and requires a couple of drops of anesthetic in each eye before the pictures are taken. By contrast, current clinical assessments involve a series of evaluations to assess muscle movement and neurological performance and take much longer to complete. The corneal nerves are a window into the health of the nervous system, said senior author Dr. Ronald Crystal, chairman of the Department of Genetic Medicine and the Bruce Webster Professor of Internal Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Crystal is a paid consultant for Adverum, a biotechnology company that partially supported this study. The fact that our results align so well with the gold standard clinical evaluation tools, the Friedrichs Ataxia Rating Scale (FARS) and the Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (SARA) and the underlying genetics provides strong evidence that CCM is an efficient and accurate tool we should add to our diagnostic techniques. Friedrich ataxia affects an estimated 1 in 50,000 people in the Caucasian population, with onset typically beginning between the ages of 10 and 15. It is an inherited autosomal recessive disorder, meaning that a person must inherit two abnormal frataxin genes, one from each parent, to develop the disease. This genetic abnormality causes increasingly impaired muscle coordination over time. Those diagnosed with the disorder typically require a wheelchair about 10 years after signs and symptoms appear, and most die in their late 30s. The symptoms include the loss of coordination of gait, hand, and eye movements, slurred speech, uneven weakness in muscles of the limbs, sensory loss, wasting of the optic nerve, abnormal thickening of the heart muscle, and diabetes. The disease is diagnosed through clinical and neurologic evaluations, followed by genetic testing. For the study, Dr. Crystal, who is also a pulmonologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, and colleagues at Weill Cornell Medicine, including lead author Dr. Odelya Pagovich in New York and co-senior investigator Dr. Rayaz Malik in Qatar, a pioneer of CCM, used the technology to examine the corneal nerves of 23 patients with Friedrich ataxia and 16 people without the disease. Patients with Friedrich ataxia had a significantly lower number of nerve fibers and shorter nerve lengths compared with people without the disorder. The researchers compared the CCM test results with data from the current clinical assessment tools and genetic testing. The CCM results correlated with disease severity, age of disease onset and diagnosis, FARS and SARA scores, and genetic test results. For six of the 23 patients with Friedrich ataxia who were still ambulatory, the CCM results also correlated with gait abnormalities observed in walking tests. The strong correlation with existing assessment tools suggests that CCM could act as an accurate biomarker for the disease. Currently, there are no available treatments for Friedrich ataxia. Recently, however, biotechnology companies have been testing experimental therapies in early-stage clinical trials and evaluating patients responses with standard clinical assessments. Integrating CCM as a biomarker into future clinical trials could help researchers identify responders more quickly, optimize doses, and save valuable time in the drug development pipeline. As a rapid, non-invasive diagnostic test, CCM may serve as an effective therapeutic endpoint for measuring outcomes in future studies for Friedrich ataxia and potentially other neurological diseases such as Alzheimers disease, Dr. Crystal said. Weill Cornell Medicine Llewellyn said he found an indexed Amazon S3 bucket that contained more than 6,000 CVs and covering letters. First National denied responsibility for the breach and said it was dependent upon Sales Inventory Profile to follow necessary security protocols. We are working with our affected offices, and more importantly, any applicants that have been affected, said Ray Ellis, CEO at First National. The company said it has notified the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. HRD has reached out to Sales Inventory Profile for comment. PageUp, another talent management software company based in Australia, also suffered a data breach last year when malicious activity was discovered on its IT system. A sign points to Rotary Falls in Beaver Creek Park. Havre Trails, which built a new trail starting near the falls, received a grant it will use to build signs for and improve the trail and to print brochures about local trails. Some new signs will be going up in Beaver Creek Park. Havre Trails was awarded a $5,020 grant from Montana Department of Commerce Tourism Grants program and will be using the funds to help highlight their newest trail. The Rotary Canyon Loop is the newest trail to be constructed in Beaver Creek Park and Havre Trails Secretary Sammie Chagnon said the funds from the grant will be used to help create signs for the trail and new brochures for trails in the area. Chagnon added some finishing touches that are needed on the Rotary Canyon trail such as a small, gravel parking lot at the trailhead and a big kiosk that will have maps of the trail. "Yeah, we're pretty excited about it," she said. Havre Trails has one year to use the funds. Chagnon said they started the application process back in September and, as part of the process, Havre Trails needed to show that this new trail would help to bring tourists to Havre. "The application process wasn't that bad, but we just had to wait a little while to get the notification," she added. The kiosk doesn't have a start date, but Chagnon said the parking lot for the Rotary Canyon Loop likely will begin in the summer when the ground isn't frozen. She added that they have begun work on the signs for the trail and for the brochures, as well. Chagnon said at the meeting with Jody Olson, also Havre Area Chamber of Commerce executive director, Olson commented on how it would be nice to have a flier she could show people regarding the new trail. "So she had kind of requested, 'Can you guys put together something that I could hand out at the Chamber so that people know kind of where to find you, your Facebook page, so that they could see where the events are and things like that,'" Chagnon added. "And we thought maybe we can combine it and just do a Havre Trails brochure slash local trails brochure." A map of the trails in Beaver Creek Park is printed, Chagnon said, but it is outdated and doesn't include the Rotary Canyon Loop. She said she hopes to upgrade the map to include the new trail so more people will know about it. Chagnon said the representative from the Montana Department of Commerce commented on how most of these grants go to bigger cities like Missoula and that it was nice to see smaller cities like Havre apply for them. Chagnon added that it is important for small cities to try and apply for grants because outdoor recreation brings in a large amount of revenue and it's "at least worth a try." Chagnon said Havre Trails would like to thank the Hill County government, the Hill County Park Board, the Beaver Creek Park staff, the Havre Area Chamber of Commerce and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks for their support throughout the grant process. Editor: I have to offer my rebuttal to Bonnie Jean Francois letter in response to As President Donald Trump mulls a comprehensive response to what he says was an Iranian attack on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf last week, h We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Submit Haiti - News : Zapping... Haiti's vote for the Venezuelan people Pascal Adrien Spokesman for Prime Minister Ceant defended Haiti's vote at the Organization of American States (OAS) https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26627-haiti-flash-haiti-votes-against-the-legitimacy-of-the-regime-of-president-nicolas-maduro.html , stating on a radio of the capital, that Haiti had voted in all sovereignty and not under the influence of the United States, against the legitimacy of President Maduro and not against the Venezuelan people. He affirms that in Caracas (the capital of Venezuela) the population understands it well and appreciates the vote of Haiti which is at his side to defend the democracy. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26642-haiti-venezuela-nicolas-maduro-threat-of-reprisals-the-countries-of-the-lima-group.html Electrical rationing in the Capital... For more than a week, the Government has been saying that there is no fuel shortage. https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26608-haiti-politic-towards-the-end-of-fuel-scarcity-in-gas-stations.html the capital knows an almost general rationing that plunges several neighborhoods in the dark. This is due, among other things, to Sogener's reduced electricity production, which is only 50% inefficient due to a scarcity of diesel, said Dimitri Vorbes, Executive Director of the Power Plant. 5 people arrested in the Levy fire The Commissioner Raymond Bergeot of the city of Les Cayes confirmed the arrest of 5 people in the investigation of the arson in Levy, First communal section of Camp-Perrin (South Dept) which caused the death of owner couple and their 5 children aged 9 to 25 https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-26604-icihaiti-social-a-family-perishes-in-a-fire-at-camp-perrin.html . These people who would be the alleged perpetrators of this criminal act, were brought before the courts. Entrepreneurship Contest "AntreprizPaw" On Tuesday, January 15th, the National Support Program for Haitian Entrepreneurship (PANSEH) will officially launch the 2nd edition of the entrepreneurship contest "AntreprizPaw" realized in collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the South, the Chamber of Trade and Industry of Artibonite, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Grand'Anse, the Chamber of Commerce of Women Entrepreneurs of Haiti (CCFEH), the company KPMS and Caisses partners of the project. Release of 33 juveniles on preventive dentention On Monday, at the instruction of the Port-au-Prince Government Commissioner, Eronce Paul Villard, 33 juveniles in prolonged pretrial detention were released. Akoustik at PAP JAZZ 2019 Founded in 2014, the group Akoustik has earned a place in the hearts of its fans through its eclectic repertoire that merges different trends, jazz to rock, konpa mizik rasin. Akoustik performs public performances in Haiti and has performed on several occasions in Florida and New York and has shared the stage with great international artists such as Collie Budz, Machel Montano, Allison Hinds, Admiral T and Ayo. The group had the privilege to have been noticed, recognized and even to have collaborated with legends of the Haitian music like Joel Widmaier, Fabrice Rouzier, Keke Belizaire or even BelO. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26666-haiti-music-d-4-13th-edition-of-the-international-jazz-festival-of-port-au-prince.html HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Politic : Towards an unblocking of 16.5 million for education projects At the invitation of the Global Partnership in Education (GPE), Pierre Josue Agenor Cadet, the Minister of National Education, at the head of a delegation participate from 14 to 16 January 2019 in Washington to a high-level Technical Workshop. This activity is part of the finalization of the 10-year Education and Training Plan (PDEF) and the financing of education projects in Haiti by the GPE. This is an essential step in the partnership between the GPE and Haiti, which should include a fundinf access of $16.5 million to support educational projects. Other technical and financial partners, particularly the European Union, UNICEF, UNESCO and the World Bank are taking part in these exchanges, which should ultimately lead to the release of funds for Haiti in the field of education and a consensus on the possible adjustments for the finalization of the final document of the PDEF https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25804-haiti-politic-last-line-for-the-education-and-training-ten-year-plan2018-2028.html Among other things, it will be necessary to identify and adjust certain elements of the 10-year plan, according to the GPE's prescriptions for drawing up sectoral education plans and conditions for access to the partnership fund. The GPE quality assurance process, funding model, comments and feedback on the PDEF document, the development of a road map on the next steps in GPE-MENFP cooperation, the support of the World Bank and the GPE in support of the Education Management Information System of the Ministry are the main themes that will be addressed during these 3 days of work. Monday at the launch of the workshop, Alice P. Albright, the Director General of the GPE, was delighted to welcome the Haitian delegation. She said her institution is sensitive to Haiti's problems and wants to contribute to the country's development effort in education. But the procedures for obtaining funds from the GPE have changed a lot, hence the importance of this meeting. Let's remember that the Global Partnership for Education supports more than 65 developing countries in the field of education. It is a multi-stakeholder partnership and funding platform aimed at strengthening education systems in developing countries, to significantly increase the number of school children engaged in effective learning. It brings together developing countries, donors, international organizations, civil society, teachers' organizations, the private sector and foundations. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26655-haiti-education-minister-cadet-s-important-mission-to-washington-dc.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25804-haiti-politic-last-line-for-the-education-and-training-ten-year-plan2018-2028.html HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Petit-Goave : Lycee Faustin Soulouque closed, angry students demand reopening On Monday, a group of teachers demanding the payment of salary arrears and the appointment of some of them, closed the main barrier as well as the doors of the Lycee Faustin Soulouque of Petit-Goave posting on the wall of the Lycee their claims. Very frustrated, the students forcibly opened the barrier and spontaneously organized a violent demonstration to demand the resumption of classes. The situation was really tense while benches on the public road prevented any traffic of vehicles. Angry high school students threw stones at police officers who responded with throwing tear gas grenades. Barricades of burning tires were erected in front of the Lycee. Following this tense situation and the climate of urban violence, some schools have preferred to send their students home for security reasons. To be continued... See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25191-haiti-petit-goave-promise-of-a-school-year-without-strike-at-lycee-faustin-soulouque.html HL/ HaitiLibre / Guyto Mathieu (Correspondant Petit-Goave) Haiti - FLASH : Speech on the state of the Nation of President Moise Monday, January 14, the day of the return to parliament, it is around 3:00 pm with more than 5 hours late, that the secretaries of the two rooms was able to proceeds to the roll call for the opening of the 1st ordinary session of the 4th and last legislative year... However, some opposition Deputies led by Deputy Printemps Belizaire (Famni Lavalas) with a megaphone in siren mode, prevented the opening of the session for nearly 30 minutes demanding apologies from Senator Lambert, for having done allusion to the name of the Deputy Belizaire in the escape of gang leader Arnel Joseph during the police operation, November 3 at the Village of Dieu https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-26338-haiti-politics-opposition-deputies-demand-apologies-from-senator-lambert.html . In addition, these deputies wanted that Gary Bodeau chair this National Assembly in place of Senator Lambert. Finally, an agreement was found during a closed session between the offices of the two chambers, which finally allowed the resumption of the session, chaired by Senator Lambert. State of the Nation Address to the National Assembly by President Moise : "This annual meeting, which marks the solemn opening of Parliament's return, demonstrates the irreversibility and sustainability of our democratic process. As required by the Constitution, this Republican exercise is an excellent opportunity to report to the Nation of public actions, undertaken on behalf of the people, during the year 2018. This is also the occasion to present the outlook for the year 2019. First of all, I would like to invite the Nation to a minute of meditation for the victims of the October 6th earthquake, which mourned the National Family, in the North, Northwest and Artibonite Departments. This disaster caused significant material damage that affected the national economy. I also take this opportunity to salute the memory of the country's girls and sons who tragically and revoltingly lost their lives, especially the police who made the ultimate sacrifice in the performance of their duties during the year. 2018. Dear fellow citizens, Ladies and gentlemen, In this decisive period for the Nation, the fourth and last year of the Fiftieth (50th) Legislature, I have the opportunity to reiterate my personal attachment as Head of State, to democracy, to institutional continuity and Republican, as well as our loyalty to the founding principles of the Republic of Haiti that are Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. If the year 2018 has been characterized by economic, political and social challenges, the year 2019 should allow us to be more concerned about the respect of the constitutional prescriptions, to strive, in the patriotic spirit, to overcome crises that threaten the survival of the Nation. Our motto, the Union is strength, should not be a simple expression but a guide for our daily actions. 2019 is the year of major Republican meetings. It's a historic year. We must achieve credible, honest, democratic and transparent elections. To carry out the latter, my Administration and the Government will make all necessary arrangements. It is a constitutional and republican requirement! Moreover, to respond to the demands of the people, the Government must intensify its actions with the required sense of urgency and determination. At the same time, this year my Administration intends to strengthen its structural recovery program. We will continue to work to make the State more efficient and effective in meeting the population's expectations for road infrastructure, reliable electricity, water and sanitation. The need for educational infrastructure, vocational training and health care is staggering. We must pursue institutional reforms to improve the functioning of the state. 2019 is also the year when Parliament will have to decide on the principle of amending the Constitution. On the economic front, our political turbulence has had a negative impact on the domestic industry, leading to unemployment that is likely to continue. Also, all of us: State authorities, civil society, the private sector, we are obliged to undertake more initiatives that will enable the country to attract domestic and foreign direct investment, create jobs and increase agricultural production and industrial national. It is with the aim of achieving these objectives that the Government urgently undertakes these four essential tasks which are: Strengthen measures to combat corruption and impunity, reduce the State's lifestyle and clean up public accounts; To fight smuggling on our land borders, airports and ports; Foster a climate conducive to improving the business environment and creating jobs; To carry out elections, as the Constitution requires. These are the major institutional and structural challenges that await us this year. However, ladies and gentlemen, we are all aware that only stability and unity can lead the Republic of Haiti to Equity, Equality, Social Justice, which is the bedrock of any democratic regime. Dear compatriots, women and politicians, 2019 is the year of dialogue and understanding. We must break with the institutional blindness that is gangrenous in the public domain, which further fractures the social fabric. It is this political, institutional, economic and social challenge that we must meet. So, today, in 2019, we must continue more with initiatives that bring change and generate wealth, correct the mistakes of the past and adopt the necessary innovations [...]" For his part, Prime Minister Jean-Henry Ceant presented, the report of the 119 days of his Government, a rather abstract record, without precise information or concrete achievements. Explaining that these 119 days took place in a climate of instability, organized by political groups, which limited the actions of his government... HL/ HaitiLibre Duluth, MN (55816) Today A few clouds with an isolated thunderstorm possible after midnight. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low around 60F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight A few clouds with an isolated thunderstorm possible after midnight. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low around 60F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%. Have any questions? Please give us a call at 520-625-5511 PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- A shooting at a Pascagoula apartment complex left one man dead, another in police custody according to Capt. Doug Adams with the Pascagoula Police Department. The shooting occurred Tuesday morning just after 8 a.m. after police received a call of shots being fired at the Lodge Apartment complex near Colmer Middle School. When officers arrived to the scene, they located a deceased male and believe the altercation was the result of a domestic incident. Investigators are not releasing the victims name pending notification of next to kin, however, the alleged suspect, 25-year-old Joseph Edward Buckley Jr. is in custody. Charges have yet to be filed as of 12 p.m. This story will be updated as more information becomes available. Apple and Qualcomm have a turbulent relationship to say the least. They are locked in multiple court battles around the world and its becoming clear that this fight is responsible for Apples slow adoption of 5G insider sources claim that the first iPhones with 5G will come out in 2020. A testimony by Apple COO Jeff Williams in front of the FTC revealed that Qualcomm has refused to supply Apple with modems for the newest iPhones since the legal dispute by the two companies began. Also, Williams claims that Qualcomm is charging too much royalty $7.50 per iPhone. Apple wanted to pay $1.50 per phone. Note that this is just royalty for Qualcomm-owned patents, the modem itself costs $30. Anyway, the trial revealed that Apple had considered Intel, MediaTek and Samsung as potential suppliers of 5G modems for its 2019 iPhones. The testimonies did not make it clear if Apple settled on a supplier (or multiple) or if any 5G iPhones will be released this year. What is clear is that Apple prefers to have at least two modem suppliers. Starting with the iPhone 7 generation Apple started switching to Intel modems. At first just for the Verizon and Sprint models, then for the entire 2018 range. And Intels modems are slower than Qualcomms (though Apple handicapped the Qualcomm modems so all phones perform the same). The FTC is investigating Qualcomm for monopoly practices, something that Intel has been alleging since 2017. Last year the EU fined Qualcomm 1 billion for paying Apple to use its modems exclusively, shunning Intel. Source No matter how long this government shutdown lasts or how many more follow, 2020 will be a national security election. We cannot ignore the world no matter how much some wish we could. In the wake of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's trip to the Middle East and national security adviser John Bolton's visit to Israel and Turkey, we have to focus on what former NATO supreme allied commander and retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis told me Friday: Conditions in the Middle East right now echo the combustibility in the Balkans in the run-up to World War I. In Asia, China is embarked upon the new millennium's version of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. And, yes, there's a new nuclear arms race. In the 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States traveled a path from euphoria through catastrophe into confusion, one which ultimately led President Barack Obama into the fantastical view that he could remake the world by ignoring its truths. The "Nixon Trap" - the attempt to turn the world upside down via a deft diplomatic move - ensnared Obama and led him to abandon realities around the world. He gave away the store to Iran's mullahs. He offered a reset button to Vladimir Putin (which when pushed gave Moscow Crimea) and legitimacy to the remnants of Castroism, while turning a cold shoulder to Israel and a blind eye to the misery in Venezuela. The chaos of Libya that followed our intervention there was swept under the rhetorical rug. The Syrian genocide was met with shrugged shoulders and erased red lines. Our troops were abruptly pulled from Iraq in 2011, while the president deemed the then-fledgling Islamic State a "JV team." North Korea's sprint to a 60-weapon nuclear arsenal was hidden from public view. China was emboldened to militarize the South China Sea even as its "Belt and Road" strategy indebted many countries' rulers to Beijing's agenda. President Donald Trump inherited a set of national security perils unlike any since Ronald Reagan walked into the Oval Office in 1981. And Team Obama had simultaneously spent eight years clearing out the pantry of Pentagon assets. Trump has found in Pompeo and Bolton two long-standing advocates of Reagan's core strategic doctrine: peace through overwhelming military strength, backed by the assistance of reliable, powerful allies. NATO, of course, is the key alliance, but it needed the kick in the rear Trump administered. And China needed the confrontation with us and the world engineered by Trump on many fronts. On my radio show Friday, Bolton spoke of Israel's right of self-defense but in a way unmistakably connected to America's as well. "Article 51 in the U.N. Charter embodies what the text of the charter calls the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense," he explained. "And that's something we have stressed over and over again for Israel." People "would like to criticize Israel or constrain Israel's options both for its own sake and because they know ultimately it's the same argument to limit America's ability to defend itself," Bolton continued. "So we're very interested in maintaining the unfettered right Israel has of, and as the U.N. Charter itself calls it the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense." We are back in the era many thought we'd left forever in 1989: Superpower competition at every level, often just under the "kinetic" phase. It turns out that ship counts and strategic bombers, a new generation of ballistic-missile-carrying submarines and a new group of offensive capabilities such as hypersonic missiles and cybersleuths are critical to not just prosperity but also survival. Trump has Pompeo and Bolton to help him navigate this course, and perhaps the Pentagon will soon deliver an actual plan on how to achieve Trump's promise of a 355-ship Navy, as well as the details on the new nuclear arsenal. So 2020 is going to be a national security election: More of Trump and his policies and people or back to Obama-era make-believe? The inherent right of self-defense. A much larger Navy. A rapid growth in defense outlays. A rebuilt nuclear arsenal. The Reagan Doctrine is back, fully embraced by Trump. Just in time to define the Democratic presidential primaries and the 2020 election. - - - Hewitt, a Post contributing columnist, hosts a nationally syndicated radio show and is a professor of law at Chapman University's Fowler School of Law. President Donald Trump's dismissals of his own party's calls for compromise and his seeming indifference to shuttered federal agencies left the snowbound capital paralyzed Monday, with lawmakers in both parties scrambling to jump-start talks but increasingly uncertain about Trump's interest in ending the longest government shutdown in history. "I did reject it," Trump told reporters, when asked about a suggestion by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to temporarily reopen the government while continuing negotiations over money for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. "I'm not interested." Trump's unyielding stance and lack of an evident plan to broker an end to the 24-day impasse comes at a fragile moment for his presidency, following a weekend at the White House in which he lashed out at critics large and small on Twitter and faced deeper scrutiny of his relationship with Russian leaders. The standstill also underscored the dysfunction that has gripped Washington since divided government began this month. Overtures to Trump's core voters have dominated the White House's strategy as Democrats have looked on in confusion, after the last round of talks between Trump and congressional leaders collapsed last week when Trump walked out. "This is a crisis of Trump's creation," Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., said as she returned to the Capitol on Monday. "I hope my colleagues think about all of the people living paycheck to paycheck." The political cost of the shutdown is mounting as more than 800,000 federal workers miss their paychecks and as a new nonpartisan poll shows that nearly 2 in 3 American voters support reopening the government and do not back Trump's hard-line demand of $5.7 billion for a portion of the border wall. Worries were on the rise Monday. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, for example, said he is concerned about the operation of fisheries in his state and is "focused on minimizing the impact of the shutdown" - a message that was echoed by other GOP senators as they returned to Washington. The acrimony between Trump and congressional leaders prompted a bipartisan group of rank-and-file senators - including Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Cory Gardner, R-Colo. - to meet late Monday afternoon in fresh pursuit of an agreement. But allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., were skeptical about the group's chances of crafting a deal that could win the president's support and pass the GOP-controlled Senate. And they said McConnell does not yet feel pressure to break from Trump's position, despite the growing cracks in Republican ranks, particularly among more-centrist lawmakers. "He's right where he has always been," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., said as he left a private lunch Monday with McConnell. "As soon as the president tells him there is something he'd be willing to sign, he'll bring it to the floor. But the president's signature isn't a given on anything, and the leader isn't going to go through with some futile act on something in the meantime." "Maybe this is all one big political game," McConnell said of the Democrats' position Monday in his floor remarks, which revealed no signs of progress in the standoff. "What's happening here is that federal workers are paying for this far-left ideological crusade." A group led by Graham worked last week to stitch together a bipartisan immigration deal that would trade wall funding for protections for unauthorized immigrants brought to the United States as children. But the group disbanded after Vice President Mike Pence announced that Trump wasn't interested in such a deal. Graham, speaking later on "Fox News Sunday," urged Trump to "open up the government for a short period of time, like three weeks before he pulls the plug, see if we can get a deal" on the wall. Cornyn, who is up for re-election in 2020, said Monday that many Republicans are eager to see a truce emerge this week. He has proposed his own potential path forward: tying together a boost in funding for security projects at ports of entry with an updated version of the Secure Fence Act of 2006. That law, which was backed by several Senate Democrats, triggered the construction of barriers and fences along 548 miles of the border between 2007 and 2010. "Both sides are going to have to have something they can show they got out of a deal," Cornyn said. "The president, of course, takes his own counsel, and it's going to be hard to convince him." Other Senate Republicans floated their own plans to end the deadlock, but few won much attention as Trump traveled to the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention in New Orleans. "We do need to have a Plan B," said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis. "It looks like both sides are pretty well dug in. I don't like the dysfunction in Washington, D.C., so I'm trying to alleviate that dysfunction." Johnson is one of many GOP senators straining to balance their alliance with Trump with their desire to end the impasse. His plan involves "opening up the essential parts of government and making sure that people who are working are being paid," while keeping some agencies shut down. "Maybe doing this would force the Democrats to negotiate in good faith on border security," he said. Graham attended Monday's meeting of the bipartisan negotiation group. Other attendees included Sens. Christopher Coons, D-Del., Ben Cardin, D-Md., Doug Jones, D-Ala., Mark Warner, D-Va., Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Tim Kaine, D-Va. After the meeting, however, Manchin offered a downbeat assessment: "I sat there for an hour and didn't know what the hell it was about." White House officials said Monday that the president would invite some House Democrats to meet with him this week to discuss border security, in an attempt to see whether any Democrats would be willing to work directly with him. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., joked in a closed-door meeting of top House Democrats on Monday that they were fine with Trump's invites and did not expect their members to break away, according to an aide who was present. Pelosi told Hoyer: "They can see what we've been dealing with. And they'll want to make a citizen's arrest," according to the aide, who described a private discussion on the condition of anonymity. Democrats say they're open to negotiating on border security, but only after Trump agrees to reopen the government. The House has spent the past two weeks passing spending bills to reopen portions of the government that have nothing to do with funding for a border wall, an effort that will continue this week. "Why won't President Trump open the government while we continue to negotiate? Because he thinks it's okay to use Americans' lives, livelihoods, paychecks, and families as 'leverage' for his wall," Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N. Y., wrote on Twitter on Monday. Leaders in both parties are watching to see whether moderate Republicans grow nervous about the shutdown grow this week and pressure McConnell to act. "Everyone's eyes are on Mitch," said one senior Democratic aide, who was not authorized to talk publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Will there be more Lisas or Susans?" Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, pleaded with Trump on Wednesday to reopen the government, according to lawmakers present at the president's meeting with GOP senators, but so far their position is not widely shared within the Senate Republican conference. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Monday that he was on a flight with a "fairly leading senior member of the House" who "made absolutely clear that he and others in the House, and most prominently Speaker Pelosi, have no intention of relenting." Recent polling shows that Trump and Republicans are in a more tenuous position as the shutdown drags on. A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday shows that 63 percent of American voters oppose shutting down the government to force funding for a border wall, with 56 percent saying Trump and Republicans are responsible for the shutdown, while 36 percent say Democrats are responsible. A majority of voters, the polling memo adds, remain opposed to a border wall. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released Sunday also showed that more Americans blame Trump and Republicans in Congress than congressional Democrats for the shutdown, and most reject the president's assertion that there is an illegal-immigration crisis on the border. Trump's weekend included a deluge of developments that have rattled his administration, bringing a rush of headlines related to the investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. The president has often been isolated in his residence in recent days and prone to flashes of frustration about his inability to get Democrats to buckle and provide him with funds, two Trump advisers said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private exchanges. "He isn't in love with this shutdown, but he needs the wall," one adviser said, describing his views. A national-emergency declaration had appeared a possible route to ending the shutdown last week, before Trump backed off the idea Friday. "The Democrats should say: 'We want border security. We have to build a wall, otherwise you can't have border security.' And we should get on with our lives," Trump told reporters outside the White House on Monday. Trump continued his pitch hours later in his speech in New Orleans. "When it comes to keeping the American people safe, I will never ever back down," he said. - - - The Post's John Wagner, Damian Paletta and Heather Long contributed to this report. A Quinnipiac University poll of 1,209 American voters found 63 percent oppose shutting down the government to force funding of a wall along the southern border. At least 63 percent of voters also support a Democratic proposal to reopen parts of the government that do not involve border security while negotiating funding for the wall. Republicans voters oppose the idea and are the only group that supports the shutdown, according to the poll. The Republican Party, based on the poll results, seems to be losing the public relations battle over the shutdown because 56 percent of American voters polled between Jan. 9 and Jan. 13 say President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are responsible for the shutdown. Only 36 percent of voters say Democrats are responsible. The survey found that 55 percent of voters remain opposed to a wall on the Mexican border. Fifty-nine percent say its not a good use of taxpayer dollars, 55 percent say the wall would not make the U.S. safer, 59 percent say the wall is not necessary to protect the border and 52 percent say the wall is against American values. Fifty-four percent say there is a security crisis along the Mexican border while 68 percent say its a humanitarian crisis. Mr. President, its on you, voters say about the government shutdown, blaming President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans more than Democrats, Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said. And while they believe there is both a humanitarian and a security crisis along the southern border, they absolutely dont think a wall will solve the problem, Malloy added. What did voters make of Trumps national televised address? Forty-nine percent said it was mostly misleading, while 32 percent said it was mostly accurate. Voters were divided on the Democratic response to Trump by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Thirty-eight percent found it mostly accurate while 39 percent found it mostly misleading. Only 2 percent of voters say the televised address changed their mind, while 89 percent say it did not change their mind about building the wall. When it comes to the televised arguments for and against the need for a border wall, President Donald Trump flunks the fact meter, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer dont fare much better, Malloy said. The survey, which has a 3.3 percent margin of error, also found that 65 percent of voters disapprove of Trump using emergency executive powers to fund the wall. Also 73 percent of voters say that immigration is good for the country and 63 percent dont believe undocumented immigrants are more likely than American citizens to commit crimes. The poll also saw support for stricter gun controls measures drop slightly from a high in February 2018, the same month as the Parkland shooting. The poll found 56 percent of voters support stricter gun laws, while 40 percent oppose them. Support in February 2018 for stricter gun laws was at 66 percent. Still, 92 percent of voters support background checks for all purchases, which is down from 97 percent in February 2018. GREENWICH A clergyman with deep roots in the Emerald Isle will lead the St. Patricks Day Parade in March. From the Greenwich Hibernian Association: Monsignor J. Peter Cullen will be installed as the Grand Marshal of the 45th annual Greenwich St. Patricks Parade by the Greenwich Hibernian Association on Saturday evening, March 2, at the organizations annual St. Patricks dinner dance. The Parade will be held on Sunday March 24th at 2 p.m. Monsignor Cullen was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the third of five children. His family moved to Greenwich in 1958 when he was in college. Monsignor received both his B.A. and Masters Degree in Theology from St. Marys Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland. In addition, he received a Doctorate of Ministry from Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California and a Certificate of Intercultural Communication from the Catholic University of Puerto Rico. Monsignor Cullen was ordained a priest in 1967 and was assigned initially to Puerto Rico and later to St. Mary and St. Peter Parish in Bridgeport, Connecticut where he worked for many years in the Hispanic Apostolate. While in Bridgeport he served on the Affirmative Action Agency of Bridgeport and the City Board of Fire Commissioners. Monsignor was then transferred to St. Aloysius Parish in New Canaan where he was pastor for 17 years. From there, he was transferred in 2007 to St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Greenwich where he served as pastor until his retirement. While at St. Michaels, Monsignor served as Chairman of Greenwich Catholic School. In addition to his parish duties, Monsignor, in 2002, was named by Bishop William Lori as Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia in the Diocese of Bridgeport. As Vicar General, Monsignor assisted the Bishop in governance of the Diocese and as Moderator of the Curia he assisted in coordination of the work of the Diocesan staff. Monsignor Cullen is a dedicated member of the Knights of Columbus for more than 30 years. In 1998 he was awarded the honors of a Fourth Degree Knight. He is also a member of the Fr. Myron V. Miller Assembly 1794 in Stamford.. He has been a dedicated Chaplain to Orinoco Council 39 in Greenwich and is also Connecticut State Chaplain Monsignor has very strong Irish roots. His Irish ancestors include the Cullen, Collins, Nawn and Curley families. His Cullen ancestors came from Ireland to Boston in the 1850s. His ancestors came from counties Roscommon and Cork. Metro-North has installed speed control on its commuter line that can slow a speeding train and avoid derailing on a curve or bridge. But full Positive Train Control is still not operational despite years of work, a $1 billion taxpayer funded loan and pressure from politicians and train riders. "They have failed to fully implement PTC despite promises that they would have it operational for the whole system," said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, referring to the deadline for PTC that passed as 2018 faded into history. "They project another year, and applied for an extension." They make promises and excuses, but they are behind schedule and thats because everyone failed to insist on a stronger deadline," he said. Despite missing the deadline, the railroad technically complied with federal law mandating installation of PTC, a high-tech safety system that can take control of trains. The legislation required completion of a series of steps training workers, acquiring radio spectrum and other details toward full implementation of PTC. Metro-North met that criteria and was eligible to seek an "alternative schedule" or extension until the end of 2020. PTC uses a series of transponders and radio frequencies to report the speed, location and operation of a train to a central computer, which can take control in an emergency, stopping the train, slowing it down or rerouting it to other tracks. Metro-North is not alone in seeking an extension. In all, 37 of the country's 41 railroads required to have PTC also didnt fully install the system in 2018 and have sought an extension. Neal Zuckerman, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board member, said he was disappointed Metro-North and the Long Island Railroad did not fully install PTC last year. "We are poised to get PTC implemented by the end of 2020, but it will be impossible to not burn the candle at both ends," Zuckerman said. Speed control Commuters can take some comfort in the fact that speed control began operating last summer throughout the Metro-North and Long Island Railroad system. A component of PTC, speed control can slow a train thats traveling too fast for conditions or a section of track. That ability likely would have prevented the 2013 derailment in the Bronx that killed four people and injured 61 others when an engineer fell asleep and rounded a curve so fast the train rolled over. A Bridgeport derailment the same year that injured over 70 passengers would not have been prevented by PTC. The crash was the result of a faulty section of track that derailed the train and hurled it into an oncoming train. Still, speed control is an important piece of the enhanced safety PTC offers. "There were high profile train crashes over last five years, one in Bronx, one in Washington State and in Philadelphia, where the trains were exceeding the speed limit," said Rich Andreski, public transportation bureau chief for the Connecticut Department of Transportation. "Now we have speed control if an engineer exceeds the speed limit," Andreski said. "The system will apply the brakes." Still to be completed is extensive testing of the PTC system, installing software and other interconnected pieces, Andreski said. "What remains is making sure all the carriers are working on the system," Andreski said. "Its basically a testing period." "Virtually all railroads applied for an extension and it was allowed under federal legislation," Andreski said. "They had to meet conditions, hardware had to be installed, employees trained and demonstration segments made operable. We have met all that criteria." Software installation Zuckerman said the biggest challenge is writing and installing the software that controls PTC and allows it to operate seamlessly. "This requires that every single station and mile of track to be coded," Zuckerman explained. "The cars are not self-aware; it has to be tied to the geometry of the land. The software is very buggy." Zuckerman said PTC does not eliminate all potential hazards, pointing out it will not prevent derailments caused by defective track or stop trains from striking cars or other objects on the tracks. "Its not an autonomous vehicle," Zuckerman said. "The biggest problem we have had is software. We are going to ask our software vendors to come here and talk to us about getting to the 2020 deadline. We are not done." Still, Blumenthal said that while Metro-North complied with federal law, thats not good enough. "They are not operational, despite a billion dollar loan," Blumenthal said. bcummings@ctpost.com GREENWICH A Brunswick graduate will be making a homecoming visit to attend a special screening of his acclaimed new film A Private War as a benefit for the Greenwich International Film Festival. Matthew Heineman directed and produced the film, which stars Rosamund Pike as journalist Marie Colvin, who was killed while covering the war in Syria in 2012. The film received two Golden Globe nominations and is expected to be a contender when the Oscar nods are announced next week. Its really exciting, said Heineman, a member of the Class of 2001. Brunswick School helped make me into the person that I am, and Im excited to come back to the area to see some friends and family and colleagues and teachers. He will be on hand for the screening of the film at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Bow Tie Cinemas on Railroad Avenue and then take part in a question-and-answer session afterward. A Private War is the latest success for Heineman, who won an Emmy and was nominated for an Oscar in 2016 for Cartel Land, a documentary about vigilantes going up against powerful and dangerous Mexican drug cartels. He also directed the acclaimed documentary City of Ghosts about citizen journalists covering the atrocities of ISIS. He has twice won a Directors Guild of America award for best director for his documentaries. Heineman, who grew up in Darien and New Canaan, also received a nomination from the group for A Private War in the category of Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First Time Feature Film Director. After making his mark in the world of documentaries, A Private War is Heinemans first narrative film. I never planned on making narrative films per say. I love documentaries, Heineman said in an interview. I was just really taken by the story. I felt a real kinship to Marie Colvin. Similar to her, Ive tried in my work to put a human face on conflicts around the world. I also know the feeling of going from conflict zone and then coming back to New York City. I felt like this was a story I had to tell. The film is more relevant than ever after the torture and murder last year of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, which intelligence officials have said is linked to the highest levels of the Saudi Arabian government. After Colvin was killed in Syria, her family filed a civil lawsuit against the government of the Syrian Arab Republic and said it had ordered her assassination. Right now in the world that were living in today with journalists and journalism under attack, I felt it was incredibly important to make a film about journalism, Heineman said. Its both an homage to true journalism. and its an homage to Marie and people like her who are risking their lives to shed light on dark corners of the world. He is now at work on the next season of the critically acclaimed documentary series on Showtime called The Trade. The first season focused on the opioid crisis; the second season will examine human trafficking. But Heineman said he will make both narrative and documentary films in the future, saying there are challenges to making both kinds of films. He says he wanted to make his documentaries feel like narrative films and he sought to make A Private War feel like a documentary. The Greenwich International Film Festival is happy to welcome Heineman back to town. His documentary City of Ghosts won the Best Social Impact Film Award at the 2017 festival. He exemplifies the type of director that we like to showcase at GIFF, said Ginger Stickel, the film festivals executive director. He uses his artistic platform to shed light on important issues facing the world. We are thrilled to welcome him back to screen his first narrative feature. Tickets ($15) can be purchased for Wednesday nights screening at www.greenwichfilm.org. The Greenwich International Film Festival is slated to return May 29 for its fifth year. The featured movies and other details will be announced in the spring. kborsuk@greenwichtime.com Support local journalism We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story. A residential break-in was reported in the 400 block of Lawrence Street in Eden, during which a 36-inch television was stolen. There is a suspect in the case. The investigation continues. Johnnys Produce, located at 117 S. Oakland Ave., Eden, reported a break-in, during which food and cash were stolen. There are no suspects at this time. The investigation continues. A resident in the 1000 block of Knott Street in Eden reported that someone known to the victim took the victims vehicle to repair, and did not return it. The investigation continues. Eden Radiator Shop, located at 117 S. Hamilton St., Eden, reported a break-in, during which cash was stolen. There are no suspects at this time. The investigation continues. Jan. 3 A resident in the 200 block of Ray Street in Eden reported an attempted break-in. There are no suspects at this time. The investigation continues. Carlos Porto of 8231 NW 8th St., Miami, Florida, was arrested on a warrant for leaving the scene of an accident. Porto was placed under a $2,500 unsecured bond. He is scheduled to appear in Wentworth District Court on Feb. 1. Jan. 4 If government cant be fair, then at least it shouldnt waste money. Historically, funding for the court system was provided by taxes collected from all North Carolinians. In recent decades, however, the legislature has shifted the cost of running the judicial system from taxpayers to court system users. The majority of criminal court system users are poor defendants with no ability to pay. This cost shift results in more people in jail and less money for court operations. The issue arises from the cost to incarcerate individuals between $64 and $94 per day. This cost is supposed to be paid by fees from defendants. However, about three-quarters of criminal cases involve defendants deemed too poor to contribute to their representation. In fact, the cost of collecting outstanding fees is often greater than the amount of money collected. In 2009 Mecklenburg County found itself with a significant budget deficit. The decision was made to aggressively collect outstanding court debt. Those who couldnt pay were held in jail for an average of four days at a total cost in excess of $40,000. Meanwhile, the county managed to collect a little more than $33,000 from all of the individuals who were arrested, resulting in a loss to the county of about $7,000. LONDON (AP) British lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's divorce deal with the European Union, plunging the Brexit process into chaos. The 432-202 vote in the House of Commons was widely expected but still devastating for May, whose fragile leadership is now under siege. Lawmakers finally got their chance to say yes or no to May's deal after more than two years of political upheaval and said no. It was the biggest defeat for a government in the House of Commons in more than a century. The vote means further turmoil for British politics only 10 weeks before the country is due to leave the EU on March 29. It is not clear if it will push the government toward an abrupt "no-deal" break with the EU, nudge it toward a softer departure, trigger a new election or pave the way for a second referendum that could reverse Britain's decision to leave. May, who leads a fragile Conservative minority government, has made delivering Brexit her main task since taking office in 2016 after the country's decision to leave the EU. GREENSBORO Dissatisfied with the leadership of Bennett College, some graduates want a change. A petition posted Sunday night on the website Change.org demands that Gladys Robinson resign from the colleges Board of Trustees. Robinson, a Bennett graduate who represents Greensboro in the N.C. Senate, said she has no plans to step down from the board or as the boards chairwoman. The petition, posted by an anonymous Bennett graduate, blames Robinson for failing to raise enough money and says she doesnt comply with college bylaws that require the board leader, among other things, to have enough time for the job and be willing and able to lead fundraising efforts. (T)he fact that she has failed to lead and galvanize the Board of Trustees to fundraise ... is cause for a vote of NO CONFIDENCE, the petition reads. We are respectfully requesting the Board replace her with someone that can vigorously and urgently meet the 4 requirements cited above as well as the other responsibilities required of the chair. The petition had been signed by 127 people by 6 p.m. Monday. DURHAM Authorities say a North Carolina man accused of killing his father sent text messages about it to his co-workers and also sent photos of a man lying face down in blood. The Durham County Sheriff's Office told news sources 33-year-old Chivalry Alexander Moore of Kinston was shot by a sheriff's deputy during a standoff at a Durham home last Tuesday. Moore was arrested and charged with murder after he was released from the hospital. He's being held without bond. According to warrants, Moore sent a photo of what appears to be a decomposing body with multiple sharp force injuries. The body of 60-year-old Willie Moore was found at the end of a five-hour standoff. Deputies had been called to the home for a welfare check. Folt told a conference call of reporters Tuesday that threats have increased recently, putting the campus at what she called "serious risk." Board of Governors Chairman Harry Smith criticized the decision and said he was "incredibly disappointed at this intentional action." Gov. Roy Cooper put out a statement Tuesday saying that "I appreciate the Chancellor's actions to keep students and the public safe. North Carolina is welcoming to all, and our public university should reflect that." Folt was interim president of Dartmouth College in 2013 when she left the New Hampshire college after 30 years to take the UNC-CH job. She replaced Holden Thorp to become the first woman in more than two centuries to lead the state's flagship university. A scientist, Folt earned her doctorate in ecology at the University of California, Davis, and later became a full professor of biological sciences at Dartmouth. Almost 7,000 Duke Energy customers remained without power in the Triad and Northwest North Carolina on Monday evening following this weekends ice storm that toppled trees and utility lines. The company reported on its website that 5,290 customers in Forsyth County didnt have electricity as late Monday night. Stokes County had 1,548 outages, Guilford County had 110 outages, Yadkin County had 27 outages and Wilkes County had 11 outages, Duke Energy reported. About 1,600 line and tree-crew employees are working to restore power to all of the companys customers by 11:45 p.m. Tuesday, said Jeff Brooks, a Duke Energy spokesman. We will try to have the power restored to our customers before then, Brooks said. A storm that rolled through North Carolina and Virginia brought freezing rain to Forsyth County Saturday night into Sunday, creating an ice build-up of one-quarter to one-third of an inch affecting trees and power lines. Power outages across the state reached about 158,000 early Sunday, state officials say. A state of emergency, which Gov. Roy Cooper declared Sunday, remains in effect. Volcy credits Fund for Democratic Communities for helping fill in the gaps with subsidies to help the store pay employees and technical support. By the end of 2017, F4DC had provided $990,000 in grants and investments since the organization had begun working to open the co-op in 2013. Last year F4DC offered over $1 million more if the co-op met certain benchmarks. Since then, RCC has almost completely exhausted the additional money. Volcy said what little is left will be used to cover the cost of closing down the store. One by one, board members stood and spoke to the crowd, sometimes holding back tears. Board member Deb Harris Richardson said they saw the red flags that the store was in trouble and started alerting co-op owners with financial reports and other notices of the stores desperate situation. She said only 50 of the co-ops 1,300 members showed up to one meeting after the call for help went out. But even the full support of members could not have saved the store. Volcy said even if all of the debt were wiped clear, the stores inability to turn a profit would soon leave it in debt again. A project site plan was submitted to the town May 9 by HPC Seefried NC 1 LLC on behalf of Amazon. Landscaping of the property began in August. The center is not likely to open until 2020. John H. Boyd, a national site-selection expert based in New Jersey, has projected the Kernersville fulfillment center could represent a $150 million capital investment. Amazon recognized, under its new growth strategy, that it is shy of distribution centers in North Carolina, Boyd said. The site is near the FedEx Ground operations in Kernersville, as well as within 10 miles of the FedEx sorting hub at Piedmont Triad International Airport. On July 26, Amazon affiliate Amazon DEDC LLC signed a memorandum of lease agreement for up to 40 years for the site. The initial lease would run for 15 years. The agreement allows Amazon to extend the lease five times for five years each. The memorandum also gives the Amazon affiliate the rights of first offer and first refusal to buy the property during the terms of the lease. The memorandum was signed by Jonathan Levy, a vice president for the Amazon affiliate. Amazon has not made a public request for local or state economic incentives, according to Hatling. High said the initiative represents a fundamental redesign of the patient care model in terms of redeploying resources. High and other officials acknowledge the initiative represents a cultural change for all parties in how services are delivered. Its not just going to happen overnight even with best practices, said Terry Akin, president of Cone Health. Conway said reducing healthcare costs in a way that works for all parties involved has been keeping me up at night ... because we know there are individuals not getting the care they need, either because they dont have access to it or cant afford it even with insurance coverage. We want to build a system that not only would have the ability to lower costs, but also be financially sustainable for all involved. Akin expressed his satisfaction that Blue Premier is going down the path Cone Health has plowed with its accountable-care organization since 2012. It fits our structure that incentivizes and supports the right care, at the right time, in the right place for those we are privileged to serve, Akin said. Thank you for reading! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content. In 2018, 912 opioid calls that Guilford County paramedics responded to ended in 79 deaths. That's 35 fewer than the previous year, though the number of overdoses increased by 217 calls. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 15) House Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Tuesday vouched for the effectiveness of medical marijuana, saying it relieves her neck pain whenever she is in a country where it is legal. "I really believe in medical cannabis. As you know I have my problem here (cervical spine) and when I'm in a country that allows it, I put a pain patch but here in the Philippines I cannot do it," Arroyo told reporters in Quezon City. The former President has multilevel cervical spondylosis, an aging-associated condition characterized by neck pain. She is one of the authors of House Bill 6517 or the Philippine Compassionate Medical Cannabis Bill, which seeks to legalize the use of marijuana or cannabis for medical purposes. "I authored that bill because I believe that it can help me and many other people but there was a lot of objection to the bill from the House and from the Senate," Arroyo said. "That's why we are just letting the legislative process take its course." The bill is pending at the House of Representatives even as some of its authors are hoping it will be passed before the end of the 17th Congress this year. READ: Solon: Medical marijuana bill has safeguards to prevent abuse Malacanang earlier said President Rodrigo Duterte favors the use of medical marijuana and will support any legislative measure consistent with his stand. Medical marijuana is legal in some countries including Uruguay, Canada, Thailand, Germany, Australia, Ireland, and some states in the U.S.. It is also allowed in Britain with prescription. Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email circulation@skagitpublishing.com for help creating one. JOHN KLINE | THE GOSHEN NEWSGoshen Mayor Jeremy Stutsman, left, conducts the swearing-in ceremony for Christopher C. Juroff following his promotion from the rank of sergeant to the rank of captain with the Goshen Police Department during the Goshen Board of Public Works and Safety meeting Monday afternoon. He discovered that this areas red clay is high in iron oxide, and thought that the science aspect of using it as a natural dye was cool. But he wasnt sold until he ran across a quote that he found by noted American historian and magazine editor Richard M. Ketchum. If any land in America deserves to be called hallowed ground, Ketchum said, it is the red clay soil of Virginia on which so much of this nations past is preserved. Using some of that hallowed ground as dye, Pearson and Conrath, realized, would add a historical dimension to the new apparel line. Figuring out exactly how to do that took some trial and error. The first batches were made using a five-gallon bucket in Pearsons kitchen. We had to find the right blend of material, Pearson said. Every thread absorbs the dye a different way. His wife eventually told him he had to get the operation out of their house. He and Conrath, who also has a day job working for the federal government, have a setup in an office building off Warrenton Road. They plan to look for a large space and more washing machines once their lease is up. A casino shouldn't be our future To the editor: I cannot help but laugh at the idea of a casino coming to our city. The funniest thing is how City Council acts like they have hit the jackpots themselves by voting to support casinos without any sense of due diligence. How many times have we seen council spend money on studies or send themselves to retreats when tackling legislation that may be controversial? No studies needed for casinos and its impact on crime? Their greed is disgustingly evident, and they make no apologies for it. If you want to see greed in action, take a look at something that is currently illegal and immoral. Please note that these same illegal things become legal only when the government wants to make money from the illegal activity. How sad is it that the government will legalize gambling, prostitution and drugs to make money off of their legalization? City Council will have fat pockets and receive all the benefits that the average person will never see. Ask yourself this question: Under our current City Council, how has the city improved? As Danville continues to decline. how can we justify selling our souls for the greed and the poor decisions of our civic leaders. When Danville Circuit Judge Joseph W. Milam looked at the documentary evidence a court clerk handed him, his face tightened into a slight frown and his eyes narrowed. Shortly thereafter, assistant commonwealths attorney Benjamin White requested the documents the judge held be sealed; they contained 100 verified pornographic pictures of children. Donald Augusta Burnette, 50, of Danville, pleaded guilty to 100 counts of possession of child pornography on Monday. He could serve a maximum of 995 years in prison on the 100 counts five years for the first offense and 10 years for each subsequent infraction. Only 100 of the photos found in a 2015 search of his house led to charges, but there were many more that were not brought to court. There was a significantly higher number of images [that were found], White said in the courtroom. Defense attorney Lee Smallwood said he and White had reviewed the pictures and, with one exception, agreed they were statutorily child pornography. According to Virginia law, a person who is depicted as or presents the appearance of being less than 18 years of age in sexually explicit visual material is less than 18 years of age. Despite a snowy start to the 2018 Community Holiday Light Show, the 17-night event attracted an estimated 10,500 people to historic Ballou Park. After that first weekend, we didnt really know what to expect, said Danville Parks and Recreations Taylor Roberts. Once the show got rolling, we had nights where we had 3-400 cars. As always, the community support for this event is amazing. On opening night, the show got off to a record-breaking start with over 200 vehicles; however, an early December snowstorm forced staff to close the event for the next three days. Organizers were concerned opening later than usual, and an unprecedented rainy two weeks, attendance numbers would be down; however, after the final tally, 2,523 cars and 24 buses drove through the show. Our staff and team of volunteers worked incredibly hard to keep the show going this year, said Parks and Recreation Department Director Bill Sgrinia. Unfortunately, clear and dry nights were few and far between this year, but the wet weather could not dampen the spirits of the Light Show crew or the community who helped make our fifth year another one for the books. LEXUS has taken to the Detroit motor show to reveal the Track Edition version of its RC F, which headlines a broader update that will reduce weight, refine dynamics, improve acceleration and tweak styling for the sportscar when it enters Australian showrooms in May. The RC Fs weight reduction comes courtesy of hollow rear-axle shafts replacing solid units, a smaller intake manifold and air-conditioning compressor, and the adoption of aluminium for the toe-control and upper suspension-support brackets. Dynamically, stiffer bushings for the rear suspension arms and steering rack mounts hone feel, while more rigid engine mounts more efficiently transfer outputs from the RC Fs 5.0-litre naturally aspirated V8. The engine has been upgraded with revised intake routing and a lower engine-speed trigger point for the secondary intake opening, down 800rpm to 2800rpm. However, the Japanese brand is yet to quote power and torque figures for the Australian-market model that currently produces 351kW at 7100rpm and 530Nm from 4800 to 5600rpm. While an eight-speed torque-convertor automatic transmission carries over, albeit with a higher final drive ratio (3.13) for better off-the-line responsiveness, launch control is new for the rear-wheel-drive RC F, which can sprint from standstill to 100km/h in just over four seconds, according to Lexus. Meanwhile, the BMW M4 CS-baiting Track Edition ups the ante with its extensive use of carbon-fibre that contributes to an overall weight loss of about 65kg, compared to the pre-facelift RC F. The lightweight material features on the Track Editions unique front air dam, bonnet, roof, boot partition, bumper reinforcement and fixed rear wing, which reduces drag and increases downforce by up to 26kg. Furthermore, the standard carbon-ceramic brake discs with Brembo callipers and BBS 19-inch forged alloy wheels decrease the Track Editions unsprung weight by 25kg. The inclusion of a titanium muffler and tailpipes generate a bespoke sound and create a polished look while further shedding weight. As a result, the marque is targeting a zero-to-100km/h time of about four seconds for the Track Edition, which uses the same engine, transmission and drivetrain combination as the regular RC F. Inside, the Track Edition set itself apart with red leather upholstery, Alcantara-accented seats and Red Carbon trim on the doors and dashboard. Four paintwork options White Nova, Sonic Titanium, Graphite Black and Matte Grey are available. Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres are now fitted to either variant as standard, featuring a profile shape, tread pattern and rubber compound that are unique to the RC F, with the aim of reducing understeer, improving overall lateral grip and increasing durability in extreme conditions. Styling-wise, the RC F follows the precedent set by its RC counterpart, with new stacked LED headlights with integrated daytime running lights, a lower lip opening that stretches across the bottom of the signature spindle grille, and redesigned tail-lights that complement the reshaped rear bumper. While Lexus Australia will confirm pricing closer to the facelifted RC F ranges launch, the Track Edition is likely to attract a premium over its regular sibling, which currently costs $137,729 before on-road costs. The new RC F and the Track Edition, in particular, benefit from constant development, Lexus International executive vice-president Koji Sato said. With the latest improvements, these models help further distinguish the F brand by offering fast, durable, highly capable performance cars that rely on a range of technologies to help make their performance accessible to drivers of all skill levels. Sales of the RC took a hit last year, with 334 examples sold a 9.7 per cent decrease over the 370 deliveries made during 2017. Nonetheless, the RC remained the fifth best-selling sportscar in the $80,000-plus segment, trailing Mercedes-Benzs C-Class (1520 units) and E-Class (751) Coupes and Cabriolets, BMWs 4 Series Coupe and Convertible (645) and Audis A5 Coupe and Cabriolet (594). The Road to Recovery podcast series What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 814-368-3173 or email nfinnerty@oleantimesherald.com. A portion of the 1040 U.S. Individual Income Tax Return form for 2018. The new tax code has lots of changes, but those with questions are out of luck, at least while the government shutdown is continuing. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File) You asked. We listened. Your daily crossword, Sudoku and dozens of other puzzles are now available online. Play them or print them here. Play now SEAN HORGAN/Staff file photo/The Phyllis A. Association is seeking to collect information and stories about the "Michigan Bears," one of whom built Gloucester's oldest former fishing vessel when it hosts an open house Saturday at the Gloucester Fraternity Club. Work to restore the Phyllis A. continues at the Gloucester Marine Railways on Rocky Neck. Russian Court Leaves Jailed Ukrainian Sailors In Pretrial Detention By Crimea Desk, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service January 15, 2019 MOSCOW -- A Moscow court has prolonged the pretrial detention for 12 of 24 Ukrainian sailors detained by Russian forces who attacked three Ukrainian Navy vessels in the Black Sea in November. In a series of rulings on January 15, the Lefortovo district court granted requests by the Russian Investigative Committee to keep commander Denys Hrytsenko, Security Service (SBU) officer Andriy Drach, and 10 sailors in jail until April 24. As Russian security officers escorted some of the sailors from the courtroom during a break in the proceedings for lunch, some spectators chanted "Glory to Ukraine!" The court was expected to issue identical rulings for the other 12 sailors later in the day. All 24 said they considered themselves prisoners of war. Russia has held the Ukrainian sailors since its forces fired on, boarded, and seized their vessels near the Kerch Strait, which links the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, on November 25. Moscow claims the Ukrainian vessels illegally entered Russian territorial waters near Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia occupied and took over in 2014. The sailors have been charged with illegal border crossing and face up to six years in prison if convicted. The court rulings come five days the European Union reiterated its call on Moscow to release the sailors and all other Ukrainians whom Brussels says have been "illegally detained" in Russia and Crimea. The United States and other Western countries have also called for their release. U.S. national-security adviser John Bolton said in December that there will be no substantial meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin while Moscow still holds the Ukrainian ships and sailors. Russia moved swiftly to seize control over Crimea after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was pushed from power in Kyiv by the pro-European Maidan protest movement in February 2014. Putin's government sent troops without insignia to the peninsula, seized key buildings, took control of the regional legislature, and staged a referendum denounced as illegitimate by at least 100 countries at the UN. Russia also fomented unrest and backed opponents of Kyiv in eastern Ukraine, where more than 10,300 people have been killed in the ensuing conflict since April 2014. The International Criminal Court ruled in November 2016 that the fighting in eastern Ukraine was "an international armed conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation." Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-court-leaves-jailed-ukrainian- sailors-in-pretrial-detention/29711363.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Britain Heads for Constitutional Fight Between Parliament, Government By Jamie Dettmer January 14, 2019 Britain appears set for a full-blown constitutional crisis, with a cross-party group of senior lawmakers conspiring to sideline embattled Prime Minister Theresa May by seizing control of Brexit negotiations. They want to reduce the power of the government to control legislative business in parliament, boosting the chances of lawmakers being able to table a series of motions to stop Britain from leaving the European Union without a deal, or even offering legislation for a second referendum on British membership in the EU that could lead to the country not leaving at all. Ahead of Tuesday's crucial vote in the House of Commons on her highly contentious Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, the result of two years of ill-tempered haggling with Brussels, May warned that if her draft deal with the EU is voted down, the most likely outcome would be Britain remaining an EU member. Speaking to factory workers in Wales on Monday, May said if she loses the vote, "it is now my judgment that the more likely outcome is a paralysis in parliament that risks there being no Brexit." She added, "There are some in Westminster who would wish to delay or even stop Brexit and who will use every device available to them to do so." Most observers even ministers in her own divided cabinet expect her to lose the vote on the withdrawal agreement, despite EU officials offering assurances Monday designed to diminish parliament's opposition to the 585-page deal. The big question is over the scale of the defeat, with some commentators predicting it could be the biggest rebuff a government has endured since 1924, when then-Labor Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald lost a vote by 166, triggering the collapse of his government and a general election he lost. Transition deal With the deal, May has tried to square the circle between Britons who want to remain in the EU, or closely tied to it, and Brexiters. The withdrawal agreement would see Britain locked in a customs union with the EU for several years while it negotiates a more permanent, but vaguely defined, free-trade settlement with its largest trading partner. In the temporary customs union, Britain would be unable to influence EU laws, regulations and product standards it would have to observe. It would not be able to implement free-trade deals with non-EU countries. The transition was agreed to avoid customs checks on the border separating Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, but British lawmakers fear Britain could be shackled indefinitely to the bloc, even if a final free-trade deal isn't negotiated. Brexiters claim the Brexit agreement May negotiated turns Britain into a "vassal state, a rule-taker and not a rule-maker." On Monday, EU leaders sought to assuage lawmakers' fears by saying it wouldn't lock Britain in an indefinite transition. But opponents both Brexiters and Remainers appear unconvinced, calling assurances "meaningless," as they don't have the force of law, while the agreement, if passed by the British parliament, would. Government vs. parliament In readiness for May losing a key vote on the highly contentious Brexit Withdrawal Agreement in the House of Commons Tuesday, veteran lawmakers, including former ministers from her cabinet, are laying the groundwork to upend the centuries-old relationship between Britain's government and parliament. That relationship is built on No. 10 Downing Street being able to control the legislative agenda, with government business taking precedence over that of individual lawmakers or the opposition parties. The shift would set the stage for a constitutional showdown that could have significant consequences for how Britain is governed, as Brexit itself would, said analysts. "We may now be witnessing one of the most fundamental shifts in (the) relationship between the government and parliament since William Lenthall, the speaker, defied King Charles I in 1642," according to Philip Cowley, a political scientist at London's Queen Mary University. That defiance came on the eve of the English Civil War, when the king entered the Commons to arrest five rebellious lawmakers. Charles demanded to know where the lawmakers were, and Lenthall replied, "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here." Role of John Bercow While the current behind-the-scenes parliamentary maneuvering is unlikely to trigger a clash of arms, it has thrust the spotlight on current Speaker John Bercow, who when he was elected to the post in 2009, made no secret of his determination to strengthen the powers of parliament and lessen the dominance of the government. Last week Bercow, a moderate Conservative but ardent Remainer, outraged No. 10 Downing Street and Brexiters by allowing an amendment to the government's business motion for the vote on May's Brexit deal. The amendment was in breach of standard practice. Under standard parliamentary rules, government motions can't be amended. But Bercow accepted it, announcing that if precedence was always followed, nothing would ever change. Two groups of Brexit opponents are planning to use Bercow's ruling last week to try to pull away from government control of the parliamentary timetable. One group wants to suspend the Brexit schedule, allowing them to postpone Britain's earmarked EU departure date of March 29, and for more efforts to be made to shape a national consensus. Other lawmakers are looking at ways to force a second referendum. On Sunday, one of May's predecessors, former Conservative Prime Minister John Major, called for Britain's exit from the EU to be delayed and control of future negotiations with the EU be controlled by parliament. He also called for another referendum. "In the midst of chaos, it is always sensible to pause and think," he said. According to recent polls, a majority of Britons now want a second plebiscite. May has adamantly ruled out that option to break the parliamentary deadlock. With this week shaping up to be one of the most tumultuous in the modern history of the House of Commons, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labor Party, has said that if May loses the vote on Tuesday, he will table a motion of no-confidence in the government. 'Fatal Mistake': Turkey Slams Trump Over Warning on 'Economic Devastation' Sputnik News 09:11 14.01.2019(updated 13:58 14.01.2019) Tensions between Ankara and Washington have further escalated over the Kurdish issue as Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced last week that Ankara would launch a military operation east of the Euphrates River if the US failed to withdraw its troops from the Arab Republic in time. "Cooperation with terrorists will lead nowhere. May we remain hungry, without food and water, but we will do everything that is necessary. The United States and all other countries should show sufficient respect for Turkey", Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlet Cavusoglu said, addressing the US president's warning of "economic devastation" should Ankara target US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria. "We see that Trump is under great pressure so that he does not withdraw troops from Syria, and he is in a difficult situation, but, nevertheless, it is impossible to discuss such topics via social networks", Cavusoglu added. Earlier in the day, Ibrahim Kalin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's spokesperson has taken to Twitter to respond to the recent comment by the US president. "It is a fatal mistake to equate Syrian Kurds with the PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party], which is on the US terrorists list, and its Syria branch PYD [Kurdish Democratic Union Party]/YPG [Kurdish People's Protection Units]. Turkey fights against terrorists, not Kurds. We will protect Kurds and other Syrians against all terrorist threats", he stressed. The Turkish official's remarks follow President Trump's statement on Twitter in which he threatened to "devastate Turkey economically" if Ankara hits Kurdish forces in Syria. He noted, however, that Washington doesn't want the Kurds to provoke Turkey as well. The US support for Kurdish militants, who have been fighting Daesh* in Syria, has been a major sticking point in relations between the two NATO allies. Turkey considers the YPG to be affiliated with the PKK, which is banned by Ankara as a terrorist organisation. The issue has intensified since Trump declared victory over Daesh, claiming that he would withdraw some 2,000 US troops from Syria. When addressing the matter, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned that the US would ensure that the Turkish military does not massacre the Kurdish militants. Additionally, the Syrian Foreign Ministry confirmed that Damascus has intensified negotiations with the Kurds amid threats of a Turkish operation. * Daesh (ISIL/ISIS/IS/Islamic State) is a terrorist organisation banned in Russia Sputnik Trump to 'devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds' in Syria Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 02:23AM US President Donald Trump has threatened to "devastate Turkey economically" if it attacks US backed Kurdish militants in Syria after US withdrawal. "Starting the long overdue pullout from Syria while hitting the little remaining ISIS territorial caliphate hard, and from many directions. Will attack again from existing nearby base if it reforms," the president said on Twitter Sunday. He further warned that he "will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds," adding in a second tweet, "Likewise, do not want the Kurds to provoke Turkey." The US president also overstated the Washington's alleged role in fighting the ISIL Takfiri terrorists in Syria. "Russia, Iran and Syria have been the biggest beneficiaries of the long term U.S. policy of destroying ISIS in Syria - natural enemies. We also benefit but it is now time to bring our troops back home. Stop the ENDLESS WARS!" Trump said. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly lashed out at US national security adviser John Bolton last week. US presence in Syria has had no approval from the Syrian government or a mandate from the United Nations. Trump announced via Twitter on December 19 that all American troops in Syria would be withdrawn from the Arab country. He initially indicated that the withdrawal would be quick but has since stated that it would be "slow and coordinated" with allies. Russia and Iran have been both assisting Syria in its counter-terrorism offensive and mediating, together with Turkey, a diplomatic process to help restore calm to the Arab country. Turkey says 'not intimated' after Trump threatens economic devastation Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:48AM Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says Turkey will not be intimidated by US President Donald Trump's threat to "devastate" its economy if Ankara attacked Kurdish militants in Syria. "We have said repeatedly we are not scared of and will not be intimidated by any threats," Cavusoglu said Monday, adding: "Economic threats against Turkey will get nowhere." Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is known for his tough stand on policy matters, has yet to comment on the issue but his spokesman Ibrahim Kalin vowed the fight against Kurdish forces will continue. Kalin likened the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) to Daesh, saying there was "no difference" between them. "We will continue to fight against them all," he said in a post on Twitter. His remarks came a day after Trump threatened to "devastate Turkey economically" if it attacks US-backed Kurdish militants in Syria after the US withdrawal. "Mr @realDonaldTrump Terrorists can't be your partners & allies. Turkey expects the US to honor our strategic partnership and doesn't want it to be shadowed by terrorist propaganda," the Turkish spokesman said in a tweet. Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist organization and an extension of the outlawed PKK, which has been fighting for an autonomous region inside Turkey since 1984. The YPG forms the backbone of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an anti-Damascus alliance of predominantly Kurdish militants supported by the United States. Kalin wrote in another tweet that it was "a fatal mistake to equate Syrian Kurds with the PKK," saying his country fought against terrorists, not Syrian Kurds. US support for Kurdish militants has raised tensions between Washington and Ankara. White House National Security adviser John Bolton's preconditions after Trump decided to pull out all 2,000 American troops from Syria have angered Turkish officials. Those "conditions" appeared to contradict Trump's insistence that the withdrawal would be immediate and without conditions. One of those provisions is that the government of Turkey guarantee the safety of YPG forces in Syria. Cavusoglu said on Thursday that his country will launch an offensive against the Kurdish militants in case the US delays the planned withdrawal of its troops. Trump "at least wants to assure that Turkey doesn't see this as an opportunity to wipe out or to take revenge against the largely Kurdish forces," Paul Larudee, a senior member of the Syria Solidarity Movement, told Press TV. He touched on the arrival of Syrian forces in the key northern city of Manbij last week, saying "actually Turkey may want to seize the territory." "The Syrians and the Russians are perfectly capable of stopping the Turks and in essence assuring the Turks that the Kurds will not cause undue concern for them," he said. "Russia is very good at diplomacy with the Turks and the Turks really don't want a problem with the Russians," Larudee added. A brand new music group, Khoisan hopes to revive Setswana music without necessarily sticking to a particular genre. A group of five artistes, whose new song, Marabele has just been released early this week, tells BG Style that they believe in original work, hence they cannot really specify the genre of their first single release. They share that their aim is to assimilate the continent of Africa and make sure that their music penetrates well in the continent. How the vivid group met is quiet interesting, given the chance to listen to what they have just recently released. The energetic artistes met sometime last year at the local auditions in Gaborone. They explain that they wrote and composed their first song to try and sympathize with anyone going through a relationship problem. They narrate that there are always those people who like meddling in other peoples relationships, as the name of the song implies marabele. Therefore, the song in its beautiful rich contemporary rhythm advises people that there is always time to move on. The song carries a strong message compiled from the lovely Setswana phrases such as Se sa feleng se a tlhola, loosely translated to, there is always an end to anything. We want people to enjoy this song while at the back of their minds they remember that it was meant to empower those in difficult situations such as dealing with abusive partners, cheating and playing the single mother role; to have hope and let go of what could have transpired to lend them into such situations, said one of the members. The producer of the work, Suffocate of Roc Lefatshe says that this unique work is quiet impressive for the music industry of Botswana. He says that for the fact that the group is made up of the first timers, it just shows that there is talent that still needs to be tapped in this industry. I am also impressed by the fact that the group is willing to sell the country through authentic local sounds, he said. Some fans compare the group with the popular South African group, Mafikizolo. We want to sell the country internationally through infusing local elements, reiterated Khoisan. They also surprised their audience with their made up super dance moves and the eloquent Acapella songs. Turkey's Erdogan Announces Creation of Safe Zone in Syria Suggested by Trump Sputnik News 12:52 15.01.2019(updated 19:33 15.01.2019) US-Turkish relations have been strained amid Ankara's plans to launch an offensive against Syrian Kurds following Washington's announcement that it would withdraw its troops from the Arab Republic. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that he and US President Donald Trump have reached a "historic understanding" on Syria in their latest telephone conversation. Erdogan, speaking to the country's parliament, said that Trump had reassured him that US troops will be withdrawing from Syria. He also added that Turkey will create a 32-kilometre safe zone, earlier suggested by the US. In addition, Erdogan added that this zone can be expanded. The Turkish president's spokesman later explained that the security zone in northern Syria will be controlled by Ankara. He added that the Turkish military would coordinate their actions with locals. According to an earlier explanation by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the zone will act as a buffer between Turkey and Syria that will ensure the safety of America's Kurdish allies and will prevent terrorists from attacking Turkey. The idea was initially suggested by Trump, who threatened to "devastate" Turkey's economy if Ankara attacks Kurdish forces in Syria that helped the US to fight Daesh*. Ankara has slammed Trump over his threats, demanding the US show respect. Turkey added that it may "remain hungry, without food and water", but will still fight terrorists. Turkey announced a military operation targeting terrorists and Kurdish forces in Manbij, Syria east of the Euphrates River in the wake of US President Trump declaring the withdrawal of American troops from the Arab Republic in the coming months. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan later said that the operation would be postponed to avoid friendly fire from US troops. Turkey believes that some of the Kurdish groups in Syria are affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organisation by Ankara. Turkey has stressed that it is not fighting against Syrian Kurds in general, but only against affiliates of the terrorist PKK, such as Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). *Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist organization banned in Russia Sputnik Kurds Continue Fighting Daesh in Syria, Capture 1,000 Militants - Official Sputnik News 14:20 14.01.2019(updated 14:29 14.01.2019) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Syrian Kurds continue to fight the Daesh terrorist group with the help of the US-led international coalition in Syria and are currently storming the city of Hajin, an official representative of the Syrian Kurds in Moscow, Rshad Bienaf, told Sputnik on Monday. "The latest site where the fighting is in progress is the neighbourhood of the city of Hajin in Deir ez-Zor province. The most professional Daesh fighters remain there, with the heaviest fighting taking place in the area. The movement forward through the territory is slow. The militants send women and children to fight", Bienaf said. According to Bienaf, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Kurdish militia are fighting in the streets, while the international coalition assists them by conducting airstrikes. Some parts of Hajin have already been liberated, and over 1,000 jihadists are now being held captive by the SDF, according to Bienaf. "The SDF are holding prisoner Daesh terrorists who came to Syria from nearly 40 countries around the world. Over a thousand militants, who fought in the Daesh ranks, are in our hands", Bienaf stated. He added that the SDF had approached the countries where Daesh militants hold citizenship so that the relevant authorities could repatriate their own people and bring them to justice. Only several African countries have quietly let individuals who had left to fight for the Daesh terrorist group return, while Russia has repatriated militants' wives and children. The northeastern regions of Syria are currently controlled by the US-backed SDF. While the SDF is one of the parties engaged in the conflict with the Syrian government Damascus considers it to be illegal it is determined to fight off the remaining strongholds of terrorism in the country, just as the central government is. * Daesh (ISIL/ISIS/IS/Islamic State) is a terrorist organisation banned in Russia Sputnik Syrian Minister Reveals Damage Done in Israeli Airstrike on Damascus Sputnik News 17:30 14.01.2019 Israel claims that the air raid, which took place on the night of 11-12 January, was aimed at alleged Iranian military targets situated in Syria. Damascus has condemned Tel Aviv's strike and urged the UN to respond in light of repeated Israeli attacks. Syrian Minister of Transport Ali Hamud said on 14 January that the latest airstrike by Israeli jets in the Arab Republic damaged not only service buildings at Damascus International Airport, but also several planes, rendering them useless. "The shrapnel damaged wings of several jets. As you know, fuel tanks are situated in the wings. Due to this, the use of several planes has been stopped", he said. Ali Hamud also noted that the remaining fleet of air planes is ageing and currently in dire need of spare parts. The minister said that apart from planes, several buildings at the airport were also damaged in the airstrike. He added that an aircraft repair hangar was among them. It had already been damaged in an earlier Israeli strike and hadn't been repaired by the time of the last one. Israeli jets conducted an air raid on the night of 11-12 January, hitting targets in the suburbs of Damascus. Syrian air defences downed most of the missiles. Damascus condemned the strike and urged the UN to take steps to prevent further Israeli air raids. Tel Aviv claims that the jets were targeting Iranian military objects, allegedly located in the Arab Republic. Israel has made similar claims in the past to justify its numerous airstrikes on Syrian territory. Tehran has repeatedly denied the Israeli claims, stating that it only has military advisers present in the Arab state at the request of Damascus. Sputnik Trump Tells Turkey: 'Don't Mistreat The Kurds' By RFE/RL January 14, 2019 U.S. President Donald Trump has warned his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a telephone conversation against attacking Kurdish military units that have been closely allied to U.S. forces in Syria. "The president expressed the desire to work together to address Turkey's security concerns in northeast Syria while stressing the importance to the United States that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian Democratic Forces with whom we have fought to defeat ISIS," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement on January 14, referring to the Islamic State (IS) group. Trump and Erdogan also discussed "ongoing cooperation" in Syria, Sanders said. U.S. forces are set to depart from Syria where they worked closely with the Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, which Turkey considers to have terrorism links. Earlier on January 14, Trump threatened to "devastate Turkey economically" if Ankara attacks the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces. In a tweet on January 14, Trump also warned the Kurdish forces not to "provoke Turkey." Trump said the United States has started what he called the "long, overdue pullout" from Syria while going after IS militants in the remaining territory they hold. AP quotes unnamed U.S. defense officials as saying they have begun withdrawing shipments of military equipment. In the coming weeks, the contingent of about 2,000 troops is expected to depart, AP reported. Trump's decision to leave Syria shocked U.S. allies and angered the Kurds in Syria. It also prompted the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and drew criticism in Congress. With reporting by AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa, and the BBC Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-turkey-syria -kurds-/29708230.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Damascus welcomes Kurds' call for talks, seeks to reunite Syria Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 08:06AM The Syrian government has welcomed talks with Kurdish groups aimed at maintaining the country's unity after the Kurds called for a Russian-mediated deal with Damascus. Syrian Kurdish leaders have sought a Russian-mediated deal with President Bashar al-Assad's government after US President Donald Trump decided to withdraw American troops from the war-ravaged Arab country. "We hope for the intensification of the dialogue. Many of the Kurdish statements were positive regarding their concern for the unity of Syria," Syria's Assistant Foreign Minister Ayman Sousan told reporters in Damascus on Sunday. "We are confident that through dialogue we can deal with some of the demands ... and this dialogue guarantees that, as long as it is based on a commitment to Syria's unity," he added. Syrian Kurds are rattled by Turkey's threats of an invasion to eliminate US-backed YPG militants whom Ankara regards as terrorists. The deal would mark perhaps the most important milestone because the two biggest chunks of Syria splintered by eight years of war would be rejoined, leaving only a corner in the northwest in the hands of militants. Senior Kurdish official Badran Jia Kurd told Reuters earlier this month that the Kurdish-led administration that runs much of northern Syria presented a roadmap for an agreement with Assad during recent meetings in Russia, and would pursue one regardless of US plans. The Syrian minister said intensified dialogue was significant when set against challenges, "especially the expansionist ambitions that lead the policies of the Turkish regime." On Friday, Moscow said it was important for Syria's Kurds and the Damascus government to begin talking in light of US plans. Trump said last month that he was bringing home the American troops deployed in Syria -- some 2,000 -- alleging that they had succeeded in their mission to defeat the Daesh terrorist group. The US said on Friday that it had begun the pullout process, but officials later clarified that the Pentagon was withdrawing only equipment, not forces. Baghdad govt. supports Syria's return to Arab League: Iraqi FM Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 02:27PM Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammad al-Hakim says the Baghdad government supports the restoration of Syria's membership in the Arab League, amid promising signs that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government is being admitted back into the Arab world after nearly eight years of foreign-sponsored militancy. "We discussed solutions to eliminate terrorism in Syria and support the Syrian government, its territorial integrity and sovereignty," Hakim said at a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is on an official visit to Baghdad. "We also discussed supporting Iraq's efforts to restore Syria's (membership) to the Arab League," he added. On January 8, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said the incumbent Damascus government needs to implement a number of measures toward the political settlement of the ongoing Syrian crisis in order for the conflict-plagued country to reinstate its membership in the Arab League. Speaking at a joint press conference with his Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita in Cairo, Shoukry said such measures are required "in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolution 2254," which endorses a road map for a peace process in Syria, and sets out the outlines of a nationwide ceasefire. "There's a need to get out of the current crisis in Syria within the political framework sponsored by the UN envoy in Geneva," the top Egyptian diplomat pointed out. The Arab League suspended Syria's membership in November 2011, citing alleged crackdown by Damascus on opposition protests. Syria has denounced the move as "illegal and a violation of the organization's charter." Qatar sees no need to re-open diplomatic mission in Syria In a related development, Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani has taken a belligerent stance toward the incumbent Syrian government, which is at odds with the reconciliatory tone of most Arab states, saying that he sees no need to re-open his country's embassy in the capital Damascus. Thani added that Doha still objects to Syria's return to the Arab League. "Since day one, Qatar had reasons for which it supported suspending [Arab League] membership [of Syria] and those reasons are still there, so we do not see any encouraging factor," he said at a news conference on Monday. In contrast to Qatar's hostile approach to Syria, Bahrain's Foreign Ministry announced in a statement on December 28, 2018 that work at the kingdom's embassy "in the Syrian Arab Republic was going on whilst the Embassy of the Syrian Arab Republic to the Kingdom of Bahrain was carrying out its duties and flights connecting the two countries were operational without interruption." The statement also affirmed "the Kingdom's keenness on the continuity of its relations with the Syrian Arab Republic" and stressed the significance of enhancing and activating the Arab role in order to maintain Syria's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity and avert the hazards of regional interference in its internal affairs and progress. It came a day after the United Arab Emirates officially reopened its embassy in Damascus. The Emirati Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said the reopening of its embassy "reaffirms the keenness of the United Arab Emirates to restore relations between the two friendly countries to their normal course." The move "will strengthen and activate the Arab role in supporting the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and to prevent the dangers of regional interference in Syrian Arab affairs," the ministry pointed out. On December 16, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir became the first Arab League leader to visit Damascus. Syria's official news agency SANA said Bashir was greeted by his Syrian counterpart upon arrival at Damascus International Airport, before they both headed to the presidential palace. The two leaders discussed bilateral ties and the "situations and crises faced by many Arab countries," the Syrian presidency said in a statement. SANA quoted the Sudanese leader as saying during the meeting that he hoped Syria will recover its important role in the region as soon as possible. He also affirmed Khartoum's readiness to provide all it can to support Syria's territorial integrity. Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The Syrian government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies have been aiding Takfiri terrorist groups wreaking havoc in the country. Iran MP, Syria president: Tehran, Damascus resolute on strengthening strategic relations Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 05:40PM The Syrian president and a senior Iranian lawmaker have expressed the two countries' firm determination to continue developing decades-long strategic relations in order to serve the two nations' interests in various fields. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad held talks on Monday with the Chairman of the Iranian Parliament's Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh and his accompanying delegation, Syria's official news agency SANA reported. During the meeting, Assad said relations between Damascus and Tehran have always been based on moral principles and respect for the two nations' will to determine their own fate and build their future without any foreign interference. He added that such an approach has contributed to the independence of the two nations. The Syrian president also stressed the need to take Tehran-Damascus ties as the basis for creating a bigger network of relations, especially with countries that agree with Syria and Iran in this approach. For his part, Falahatpisheh said Iran and Syria have a strong position in the region thanks to their deep-rooted cultural heritage. However, some countries are standing on shaky ground, because they have adopted immoral policies in violation of international law, whether by using terrorism as an instrument to serve their interests, or by imposing sanctions on countries, which disagree with them, the senior Iranian lawmaker added. Assad and Falahatpisheh also agreed on a host of various issues pertaining to the regional and international developments and the need for continuing coordination between the two countries. During a previous meeting between Hossein Jaberi Ansari, the senior assistant to the Iranian foreign minister on special political affairs, and President Assad in Damascus in November, the two sides pledged to keep counterterrorism cooperation and to counter US bids to revive terrorists and create obstacles to prolong the war in the Arab country. Stressing the importance of Syrian-Iranian relations as a factor of stability, the two sides reaffirmed both nations' determination to continue combating terrorist groups operating across the region. Syrian Army stops terrorists' breaches in Hama IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Jan 14, IRNA -- Units of the Syrian Arab Army conducted on Sunday artillery strikes against terrorists' positions and their movements in surroundings of a number of villages and towns in Hama northern countryside hitting back their violations of the demilitarized zone agreement. Syria News Agency (SANA) reporter said that army units detected a terrorist group affiliated with "al-Izza Brigades" that were trying to sneak from the surroundings of the Hasraya, al-Sakhir, and Kafar Zeita villages in Mharde northern countryside towards military points in the surroundings of the safe villages. The army units dealt with them using concentrated artillery strikes, inflicting losses upon them. About 30 km north of Hama city near the administrative border of Idleb southern countryside , an army unit also foiled an infiltration attempt by a terrorist group from Jabhat al-Nusra in the surroundings of Morek village, inflicting heavy losses upon them, the reporter added. 8072**1771 Pompeo: Saudi Leaders Committed to Accountability in Khashoggi Killing By VOA News January 14, 2019 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman acknowledge "accountability needs to take place" in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Pompeo spoke Monday after meeting with the Saudi leaders in Riyadh. The top U.S. diplomat said both the king and crown prince "reiterated their commitment" to hold responsible those who killed Khashoggi after he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey in October. Initially Saudi Arabia said he safely left the site on his own, but later admitted he was killed there in what Saudi officials called a rogue operation. Turkey said the order to kill the Washington Post journalist came from the highest levels of the Saudi government but Saudi officials maintain it was not ordered by the Saudi crown prince. In December, the U.S. Senate rebuked Saudi Arabia, blaming the crown prince for Khashoggi's killing and calling for an end to U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen. Pompeo and Mohammed bin Salman agreed Monday on the need to continue de-escalation in Yemen, including a cease-fire in the key port city of Hodeida. The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia tweeted images showing the Pompeo and the crown prince together and said, "A comprehensive political solution is the only way to end the conflict." Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has been leading a coalition conducting airstrikes and other military efforts in support of Yemen's government in its fight against Houthi rebels who took control of the capital and many other areas. The United States has provided its support to the Saudi-led campaign, including aerial refueling and logistical support. Pompeo is near the end of a trip to the Middle East in which he has been seeking to reassure allies about the pullout of U.S. troops from Syria and to seek support for U.S. efforts to get Iran to change what the Trump administration calls its malign behavior. From Saudi Arabia Pompeo is traveling to Oman on Monday, but then cutting short the rest of his trip due to a family funeral. A spokesman said he would go to Kuwait at a later date. UN calls for 'rapid and unimpeded' aid access to Myanmar's Rakhine Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 06:34PM The United Nations has expressed grave concerns about the condition of civilians in Myanmar's state of Rakhine, calling on the government to allow "rapid and unimpeded" humanitarian access to the region. The plea on Monday came after officials in Rakhine issued a notice last week that banned non-governmental organizations and UN agencies from traveling to rural areas in five townships in the northern and central parts of the state affected by the conflict in recent years. "We are seriously concerned about new restrictions on humanitarian access which leave thousands of women, children and men in affected areas of Rakhine without access to adequate assistance and protection," said Pierre Peron, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. "We hope the government responds positively to our call for rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access, and to ensure the protection of civilians in accordance with international humanitarian and human rights law," he added. Rakhine state -- once home to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims -- has been the scene of successive rounds of violence against the Rohingya following a military crackdown in recent years. The Rohingya, the world's most persecuted ethnic minority, have been attacked and driven out of their native Rakhine State in what the UN investigators as well as international rights groups have denounced as "an ongoing genocide." Rohingya Muslims were subjected to a campaign of killings, rape, arbitrary arrests, and arson attacks by the military and Buddhist mobs in Rakhine mainly between late 2016 and August 2017. The brutal campaign forced some 700,000 Rohingya to flee their homeland since August 2017 and seek refuge in neighboring Bangladesh. There, they are confined to squalid, overcrowded camps and face forced return back to Myanmar. Rohingya Muslims, who have lived in Myanmar for generations, are denied citizenship and are branded illegal emigrants from Bangladesh, which likewise denies them citizenship. Their former communities in Myanmar have been razed. Report say Buddhists have been shuttled and settled there in newly-built structures to repopulate the area. In late October, Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed to begin to return hundreds of thousands of the Rohingya refugees who fled last year. But the refugees are not willing to return because of serious security concerns. Jordan monarch visits Iraq for first time since 2008 Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 11:44AM Jordanian King Abdullah II has made his first trip to Baghdad in more than a decade, meeting Iraqi President Barham Saleh. The Jordanian monarch's last trip to Iraq was in 2008, when he became the first Arab leader to visit Baghdad after former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. The Iraqi leader traveled to Amman in November. The two states share a 179-kilometer (111-mile) border, and Jordan is a major importer of Iraqi crude oil. Jordan had its best special ties with Iraq under former dictator Saddam Hussein who provided the kingdom with cheap oil in return for access to Aqaba which became a lifeline for Iraq's oil revenues as the war with Iran rendered shipping through the Persian Gulf impossible. Relations between Iraq and Jordan deteriorated after Jordan had given sanctuary to Saddam's eldest daughter, Raghad. Raghad has been living in Jordan under the protection of King Abdullah II since leaving Iraq in 2003, when US and British forces invaded Iraq and ousted Saddam. The Jordanian royal family has already rejected the Iraqi government's demand to extradite the 47-year-old Raghad. Baghdad wants the former Iraqi dictator's daughter to be tried for financing terror movements and supporting militant groups fighting to topple the Iraqi government. Raghad, who is also known as Little Saddam for her similarities to her father, has openly pledged her support for the Daesh terror group. In 2010, international police body Interpol issued an arrest warrant for Raghad for funding terrorism in Iraq. She reportedly has an extravagant lifestyle in Jordan and established a jewelry line, which she said is inspired by her father and her husband Hussein Kamel al-Majid who was murdered by Saddam. The Iraqi government also accused veterans of Saddam's Ba'athist party who live in Jordan of supporting terrorist groups and being involved in money laundering. In 2018, Jordan approved a framework to revive a 1,700-kilometer pipeline linking Iraq's oil-rich Basra province to Jordan's Aqaba port that has been halted after Daesh began a terror campaign in Iraq in 2014, overrunning vast swathes in lightning attacks. Amman, however, did not give a time-frame for the line's construction. The two countries have also discussed plans for Iraq to import about 300 megawatts of electricity from Jordan to cope with widespread power shortages. Iraq has been importing electricity from Iran for many years after its power infrastructure was destroyed by decades of war and blockade following the US invasion. The country needs more than 23,000 megawatts of additional electricity to meet domestic demand. Rouhani: US attempts to undermine Iran's regional role will fail Iran Press TV Tue Jan 15, 2019 11:39AM President Hassan Rouhani says the United States has been seeking to push Iran aside and take the matters of this region in its own hands, but that its attempts to undermine the Islamic Republic's regional role will certainly fail. Speaking at a meeting of the administrative council of Golestan Province on Tuesday, Rouhani said the US has been trying to prevent the Islamic Republic from acting as a "frontrunner" and an influential player in the region. Rouhani cited the US-backed Saudi war against Yemen as an example. The Americans, he said, have spent money and used advanced military equipment to achieve their objectives there, but today they admit to their defeat and acknowledge that this conflict has no military solution. "In Syria, they imagine that they are the absolute winner. That is also the case with Iraq. The Americans should be held responsible for the calamity they have caused in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere," he said. "The US wants Iran to leave the scene so that it can take charge of everything. This is not achievable. No matter how long the US secretary of state tours this region, it [Washington] would not be successful," referring to Mike Pompeo's recent visits to a number of Middle Eastern states. Among the other American goals, he said, was detaching the Iranian people from the Islamic establishment in Iran. The US will likewise fail in this attempt because the Iranian people will continue on the path of the Islamic Revolution, he added. The president further highlighted Washington's campaign of pressure and sanctions against Iran, which he said is aimed at obtaining concessions from the country in its nuclear and missile programs as well as its anti-terror role in the region. The Islamic Republic, however, will never give up its rights, Rouhani emphasized. Iran Moves Toward New Uranium Enrichment Iranian Nuclear Chief Sputnik News 07:49 14.01.2019 The head of Iran's nuclear program, Ali Akbar Salehi, told Iranian state television that the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) is about to create new types of nuclear fuel on its own. "Initial steps have been taken to create modern 20 percent [enriched uranium] fuel and we are on the verge [of producing it]," Salehi said, cited by the Associated Press, noting that Iran no longer needs to rely on reverse-engineering of foreign technologies. Salehi made clear that the steps taken by AEOI are preliminary and that the "modern fuel" Iran seeks to produce would increase the efficiency of Tehran's 50-year-old research reactor that consumes 20-percent enriched fuel. "We have made such progress in nuclear science and industry that, instead of reverse-engineering and the use of designs by others, we can design new fuel ourselves," Salehi said. Iran is permitted to produce nuclear fuel under certain conditions that must be approved by a working group convened by the signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The JCPOA was agreed to with the condition that Iran wouldn't enrich uranium above 3.67 percent. Iran had been reaching 20 percent before the deal. Washington withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the landmark 2015 agreement on Iran's nuclear program, last May, and has reintroduced a series of tough sanctions against the Islamic Republic since then. The withdrawal was criticised by the JCPOA's other signatories, including Russia, China, and several European powers, who have scrambled to save the agreement. Sputnik Iranian Army Boeing-707 Crashes Near Tehran, 15 Killed Sputnik News 08:54 14.01.2019(updated 13:01 14.01.2019) Fars has reported that the pilots lost control of the aircraft during landing, resulting in the plane crashing in a residential area. According to the news agency, the plane was meant to arrive at Payam International Airport in Karaj but accidentally went to Fath Airport. A Boeing-707 cargo aircraft crashed in a residential area of Karaj on the outskirts of Tehran, the Iranian news agency ILNA reported on Monday. According to media reports, some 16 people were on board the aircraft that was flying from the city of Bishkek. The news agency Fars stated, citing the Iranian Army that only a flight engineer was found alive following the catastrophe. Additionally, the news agency ISNA reported that a flight recorder had been found among the debris of the plane. Following the crash, the Iranian military announced the aircraft belonged to them, despite initial reports suggesting it was a Kyrgyzstan Airlines plane. "A Boeing cargo 707 place carrying meat from Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan had an emergency landing at Fath airport today the flight engineer has been dispatched to the hospital", the army said. The reason for the incident has yet to be clarified by the authorities. In the meantime, local media reports are also suggesting that the catastrophe was caused by severe weather conditions. Sputnik No military aspect to Iran's satellite activity: Ministry Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 08:22AM Iran's Foreign Ministry has strongly countered claims ascribing military aspects to the country's ongoing satellite projects. "The structure of our satellites and the launch pads used for them are different from those used for launching military missiles. This [satellite] activity is civilian, and we need this technology for weather forecast," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi told a news conference on Monday. The official insisted that Iran will certainly not wait for agreement from foreign parties to launch its satellites, saying, "As an independent country, Iran is entitled to make use of all technologies that facilitate its progress. For that matter, the country does not wait for anyone's opinion or consent." Just recently, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed that Iran's planned launch of space rockets and missiles were in breach of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231. The document endorses the Islamic Republic's 2015 nuclear agreement with world countries. Later, the French Foreign Ministry echoed those comments about Iran's ballistic missile program. Tehran maintains that its missile tests are not banned under the nuclear agreement nor the UNSC resolution, because the missiles are not designed or manufactured in a way to deliver nuclear warheads. Qassemi refuted the remarks made by Pompeo and French officials as "wrongful and inapt." Separately, he complained about Europe's slow progress introducing the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), a payment mechanism aimed at facilitating business with Iran in the face of US sanctions. "Our perception is that this issue is facing much delay. We are not going to await Europe's decision in this regard," Qassemi added. A note of warning to Poland The spokesman has also advised Poland against compromising mutual ties by hosting a US summit against Iran in the hope of currying favors with Washington. "The great human heritage and relations between Iran and Poland should not be ignored and destroyed through a short-term and futile political measure," Qassemi told IRNA. "It looks like Poland has ended up on the path of the White House's anti-Iranian behavior and policies as a result of the United States' promises and pressures," he noted. The official reminded that the countries' relations date back more than five centuries and that Iran hosted upwards of 120,000 Poles during World War II. Warsaw hosts Iran-Poland Friendship Symbol, Qassemi said, advising Polish officials to pay a visit to the stone slate, which has been set up to honor the two countries' shared past. Qassemi warned that Poland's decision will certainly be followed by Iran's "serious and uncompromising response," and hoped that Warsaw will still reconsider hosting the event. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday that the summit was to go underway on February 13-14. He said it would focus on stability and security in the Middle East, including the "important element of making sure that Iran is not a destabilizing influence." Qassemi said the summit represented US efforts to divide the European Union over Iran. He said the current antagonism on the part of American officials towards Iranians is no secret and that the gathering has been organized against the background of such animosity. Warsaw's decision contradicts the EU's policies on Iran, the spokesman said, calling it "wrong and unacceptable." The EU has been trying to set up a mechanism to avoid US sanctions against Iran that came back into force after Washington quit a 2015 nuclear agreement with the Islamic Republic. 'US to betray Poland' Qassemi said that Polish officials are definitely wrong by assuming that hosting the US summit will help them gain special advantages. "There has been no shortage of countries and leaders, who have committed such miscalculations concerning Iran. Eventually, however, they have been left with nothing beyond a bad and dark precedent in the annals of their relations with the Iranian nation," the official said. Rouhani: US, allies' schemes will be frustrated Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 11:36AM President Hassan Rouhani has assured the Iranian nation that Iran is the party that will eventually emerge victorious from the ongoing campaign of sanctions and pressure that the country has been subjected to by the United States and its allies. Addressing a large crowd of people during his visit to Gonbad-e Kavous in the northern Iranian Golestan Province on Monday, President Rouhani said that "we have no fear of the enemy plots and are sure to weather all problems." The president noted that Washington should know that it will "never be able to bring this great nation and its courageous leadership to its knees." Rouhani gave assurances that all Zionist schemes "to see us overpowered" by their ploys shall be frustrated. "Are you planning on depriving our people of food, medicine, and equipment?" Rouhani exclaimed, noting, "We are standing in the face of the enemies with all our might." The president added that it is tough, but possible, to surpass the US sanctions, which have targeted Iran's banking, oil, and shipping sectors. "Our nation should know that these problems will not persist," he noted. Ties with neighbors Rouhani hailed the level of relations between Iran and its neighbors which are "at their best," and even confirmed Tehran's preparedness to resolve certain standing issues with "one or two" neighboring countries. Pending satellite launch Separately, President Rouhani lauded Iran's top rank in terms of its scientific standing, particularly in genetics, in the Middle East region. He also pointed out that the country will be placing two satellites -- namely Payam (Message) and Doosti (Friendship) -- into orbit in the coming days. Payam is the first operational satellite to be launched by the Islamic Republic, which has so far only launched research satellites into space. The satellite, the president said, is to be placed into Earth orbit at a height of 600 kilometers above the surface and would overpass the country six times each day. "Using its sensors and cameras, [Payam] will monitor the country's entire expanse and will relay its information to us on a daily basis," he concluded. Pompeo in Mideast to corner Iran but Tehran not cowed Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 11:40AM US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been touring the Middle East to rally support against Iran, but Tehran is not impressed. The top US diplomat set out on his much-anticipated trip last week, with a declared goal of forging a unified Arab front against Iran, a dream that has brought together even Saudi Arabia and Israel. Before landing in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh on Monday morning, Pompeo made important stops in Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Perhaps the most important objective of the 9-country tour became clear during his rambling speech in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, where he spoke extensively of the US "campaign to stop Iran's malevolent influence and actions against this region and the world." He said US economic sanctions against Iran were "the strongest in history, and will keep getting tougher until Iran starts behaving like a normal country." But the hostile rhetoric didn't end there as he once again repeated longtime US threats of military actions against Iran if all else failed. In a wide-ranging interview with the CBS News on Sunday, the top US diplomat pointed to President Donald Trump's decision to evacuate Syria from US military personnel. Asked whether Washington would end up regretting the decision to exit one of the most important conflicts in the region, Pompeo took a rather boastful tone, bragging about how the US military could return to the region in no time. "Margaret, the United States of America can project military power from lots of places in the world," he told CBS anchor Margaret Brennan. Pompeo further gloated over the ability of "our amazing armed forces" to accomplish US objectives anywhere in the world. "That certainly includes in Syria. It certainly includes into Iran if need be," he said. Pompeo's remarks came at a time that all US military adventures in the region have turned into quagmires which have haunted several US administrations. Years of US-led war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan have only strengthened militants and terrorist groups, requiring local governments to ask for help from Iran and other neighbors to help end the crises. It has been the same story in Syria, where the US has been openly targeting Syrian military forces fighting foreign-backed militancy. And now, after Syria's great victories with help from Iran and Russia, the US has decided to withdraw. It is no secret that American officials cannot stand Iran's regional influence. On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported that John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser, had even sought military plans from the Pentagon for a possible strike against Iran last year. How Iran is reacting to all that? Iran foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an interview published Monday that it was only the US and its allies who kept speaking of war. "We are not looking for conflict, war and tension," Zarif told the official government daily, Iran. "It is the US and some countries in our region who have pursued policies that escalate tensions." Pointing to Trump's decision last year to pull out form the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Zarif said "it was them [Americans] who abandoned the talks." One of Pompeo's main objective in the tour was laying the groundwork for the Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA), a concept similar to an Arab NATO. Trump first floated the idea of forging MESA during his visit to Saudi Arabia in 2017. Zarif, however, brushed off the threat, advising Arab governments in the region to stop "cozying up" to Washington. "The Islamic Republic's strategy is one of basing policies on cooperation with neighbors," he said. "It seems like some Arab countries, regardless of what policies Iran is pursuing, are trying to let the world know that they have issues with Tehran," Zarif said, noting that they have been insisting on their "failed policies" against the Islamic Revolution throughout the past 40 years. "The fact that a few small countries or a number of rulers in this region like to cause tension doesn't mean that we have to change our policies," he said. "As the region's major power, we determine our policies ourselves and according to our national interests and not others' reactions," Zarif added. Dialog must replace war to strengthen region: Iran FM Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 02:58PM Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says if regional countries want a strong region, they must substitute dialog for war as well as cooperation for arms race. Zarif made the remarks while addressing a gathering of representatives from hundreds of Iranian and Iraqi companies in the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad on Monday. "In a secure and powerful region, dialog takes the place of war, and cooperation replaces arms race while brotherly relations replace trust in foreigners," Iran's top diplomat said. Zarif noted that in a strong region, all countries can trust one another and make a better future for themselves, adding, "In this case, bilateral and multilateral relations among countries in this region would be stronger than their relations with other countries." The Iranian foreign minister stated that in order to achieve this goal, the Islamic Republic of Iran welcomes the expansion of cooperation with all regional countries and knows no limit for the development of relations and cooperation with Iraq. "The blood of Iranian and Iraqi youths has been spilled in the fight against terrorism and profound ties between the two nations are such that no power is able to draw a wedge between them," Zarif said. The trade meeting between the economic agents of the two countries' private sectors kicked off on Monday in the presence of the Iranian foreign minister and his accompanying delegation, Iran's Ambassador to Baghdad Iraj Masjedi and six Iraqi ministers. The meeting was held with the purpose of discussing opportunities for investment in Iraq, the participation of Iran's private sector in the reconstruction of Iraq after the defeat of Daesh terrorists and enhancement of trade cooperation. Zarif meets with Iraqi lawmakers in Baghdad In a meeting with a number of Iraqi lawmakers earlier in the day, Zarif said Baghdad has turned into a key venue in the region for meetings among various political and economic delegations. He expressed the Islamic Republic's support for Iraq's stance on regional developments. "Those who spent seven trillion dollars in the region did not spend it for regional security and stability, but did that to meet their own interests," the Iranian foreign minister said. Heading a high-ranking politico-economic delegation, Zarif arrived in Baghdad on Sunday on a four-day visit. Speaking to reporters upon his arrival in Baghdad, Zarif commended Iraq's positive stance on the promotion of ties with Iran, saying the two countries have managed to foil US bids to sabotage mutual relations. "After [achieving] victory against Daesh, some countries, including the US, have created certain problems in the way of the two countries' cooperation, but fortunately, they were defused thanks to the wisdom of the two countries' officials," he said. The visit comes a few days after the Iranian foreign minister traveled to India, where he exchanged views with the country's officials on financial and banking cooperation, energy and transit. Iraq's president calls for stronger ties with Iran Later on Monday, Zarif met with Iraq's President Barham Salih at the presidential palace in Baghdad. During the meeting, the two sides discussed Iran-Iraq relations as well as major developments in the world and the region. Salih emphasized the importance of bolstering his country's relations with Iran, noting that this issue will not only serve the two nation's interests, but also benefit security and stability of the entire region. "The existing difficult conditions in the region call on us to join hands and restore security to the region through inclusive and constructive dialog with all involved parties," the Iraqi president said. The Iranian foreign minister, for his part, underlined Tehran's willingness to expand bilateral relations with Iraq in all fields. "In the process of reconstructing Iraq, the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue to support the Iraqi government and nation in all areas of interest," Zarif noted. US must learn lessons from consecutive defeats in Mideast: Iran Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 06:11PM Iran Foreign Ministry has lashed out at US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for making fresh remarks against the Islamic Republic, urging the United States to learn lessons from its consecutive defeats in the Middle East. "The US must learn lessons from the defeat of its numerous warmongering policies in the region over the past decades and know that the Islamic Republic of Iran does not value such US threats and will not be swayed by them," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Monday. He added that American officials think that they can achieve their "illegitimate" goals, which are nothing but spreading insecurity in the region and creating new tensions among regional countries, by taking actions in violation of international principles and the United Nations Charter. "This is while the warmongers in Washington are ignorant of the fact that Iran will strongly continue its principled and strategic policy, which is based on peaceful interaction and coexistence with neighbors," Qassemi pointed out. He emphasized that Iran through its vigilance and wisdom would not allow US officials to fulfill their spiteful dreams. Speaking in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, on Saturday, Pompeo said the US withdrawal from Syria is merely a "tactical change" that will not alter its military capacity to fight Daesh terrorist group or Iran. Last month, US President Donald Trump made an abrupt announcement to withdraw about 2,000 American troops from Syria, claiming that Washington had accomplished its goal of defeating Daesh. Speaking on Thursday at a joint press conference in Cairo, Egypt, with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shukry, the US secretary of state vowed that President Trump's decision to pull American troops out of Syria will go ahead despite criticism from some US and Arab officials. "President Trump's decision to withdraw our troops has been made. We will do that," Pompeo said. Iran's security chief said earlier this month that the US has been forced to leave Syria, because it has suffered a strategic defeat there and that Washington will ultimately have no choice but to leave the whole region. Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani, however, said, "The US has had no role in defeating Daesh in Syria and has suffered defeat in its strategy there." Elsewhere in his anti-Iran claims in the UAE, Pompeo claimed that a coming Iranian satellite launch was "another step in their understanding of how it is you can launch" an intercontinental ballistic missile. Addressing a large crowd of people during his visit to Gonbad-e Kavous in the northern Iranian Golestan Province earlier on Monday, President Hassan Rouhani pointed out that the country will be placing two satellites into orbit in the coming days. An official at the Iranian Space Agency (ISA) said on Monday that the Islamic Republic is the sole country in the region actively producing satellite launchers as Tehran is getting ready to put two new satellites into orbit. Speaking in a televised interview with the Iranian television, Seyyed Hossein Mousavi, an advisor to head of the ISA said the country will soon put Payam (Message) and Doosti (Friendship) satellites into orbit to prove its groundbreaking progress in the field of satellite technology and science. US' policy to continue animosity towards Iran IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Jan 14, IRNA -- The White House rulers have begun to pursue certain policies in the global context, including hostility towards Iran, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said. Bahram Qasemi reiterated at a news conference on Monday that the Americans are trying to create problems in Iran's foreign relations with other states and their attempt was to create a huge rift among the Europeans, so that Europe cannot get into a united voice that followed in the past and cannot move forward. The spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry highlighted, 'Therefore, the Americans have emphasized some of the new European countries, such as Poland, and with the help of these countries and arranging such meetings, they want to have an anti-Iranian movement." 'In this regard, Poland's charge d'affaires has been summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and we have not reacted passively and announced our protest and will be summed up in the next few days, and we will announce the outcome,' the official added. He emphasized Iran does not allow others to work on false pretexts and under the claim of legitimate titles try to undermine Iran. The spokesman specified, 'Poland definitely has the right to hold a conference in its own country, but it has no right to hold its conference in a way that is against an independent state (Iran) that has longstanding relations with. The existence of more than 120,000 Poles in the Second World War in Iran who were displaced by war and the Iranian people sheltered them a sign of the humanity of the Iranian people, requires that Polish authorities should note behave like this." He added, "The question is why they want to raise the issue of Iran at the conference, but they do not want to refer to the issue of Palestine. Why does not this meeting come up against the brutal behavior of some countries and the massive crimes that have taken place in recent years?" Qasemi stated, 'Poland has the right, but this right does not mean that it selectively meets the goals of the powers and other countries that seek hostility towards others.' 9455**2050 Iran stresses talks with Europe limited to SPV, JCPOA IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Jan 14, IRNA -- Iran reiterated that the discussions with the Europeans were merely related to special purpose vehicle (SPV) and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and they are not linked to other issues. 'Of course, we have been discussing different issues with Europe since past, but the JCPOA and SPV are separate issues and not related to other subjects,' Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi said at his weekly conference on Monday. Answering a question that some university professors from the European countries stated that Iran was seeking High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Federica Mogherini's guarantees, Qasemi said, 'These are academic comments. Our officials and negotiators have the necessary intelligence and the ability to use all opportunities." 'There may be various comments globally, but their veracity cannot be verified; of course many of these are political comments." the Iranian official added. Asked about the number of visits by the Iranian foreign minister to the region as compared with his other visits, Qasemi highlighted, 'The number of our travels to the regional countries have been the highest.' Most of the president's trips have been made in Asia, which has been around over 20 trips. The spokesman said that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has always tried to work with regional and neighboring countries as his recent visits were to India and Iraq. 'The travel by some officials to these countries was carried out overnight and not done in the daylight, but the trip by the foreign minister has been done in daylight, and other regional travels is on the agenda of the foreign ministry,' he emphasized. 9455**2050 France's Macron launches 3-month national debate to calm unrest Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 08:11AM French President Emmanuel Macron has, in a lengthy letter to the nation, asked people to express their views on government policies as part of a "national debate" aimed at calming public anger and ending almost two months of "yellow vest" protests that have shaken the administration. Macron put forward the initiative in a 2,330-word open letter to the nation to "turn anger into solutions." His office published the letter late on Sunday, nine weeks after the protests initially erupted in rural France over a planned hike in fuel prices. The French president later backed off and suspended the plan, but his policy shift failed to ease the anger. The demonstrations then transformed into a broader rebuke of Macron's policies, and they took on a name of their own, the "yellow vest" movement, which is a reference to the vests worn by people active in the transportation industry, who have been at the forefront of the protests. During the debate, the French citizens would be asked to discuss issues such as cutting taxes and public spending, the use of referendums and immigration quotas in town hall meetings across the country or in online questionnaires "For me, there is no banned issue," said Macron in the letter. "We won't agree on everything, which is normal in a democracy. But at least we'll show we're a people which is not afraid of talking, exchanging, debating." "When taxes are too high, our economy is starved of the resources that could be usefully invested in companies, creating jobs and growth," he added. Among the questions are "Which taxes do you think we should cut?" and "What kind of public spending savings do you think we should make a priority?" The president would also give his own conclusions within a month of the end of the debate on March 15. The president said that his government "will not undo the measures we have introduced to put this right, encourage investment and ensure that work pays more." Macron, who is described by his opponents as "president of the rich," initially acknowledged the protesters' anger was "deep, and in many ways legitimate," promising a minimum wage rise and tax concessions. The 41-year-old leader, however, hardened his stance on the movement earlier this month and dismissed "yellow vest" protesters as "agitators," whose only aim is to topple his government. Le Pen riding on yellow wave of discontent In the meantime, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen launched her party's campaign for the May 2019 European Parliament election by seeking support from the anti-Macron "yellow vest" movement. Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally, formally known as the National Front, told an election rally on Sunday to make the EU vote a referendum on Macron's policies. "In the context of the healthy popular revolt of the yellow vests, this European election on May 26, 2019 (..) offers the opportunity to unravel the political crisis born out of blindness, intransigence, class contempt, economic despoliation, and the human disconnect of a president," she said. "If Macron does not have the wisdom to go back to the people by dissolving parliament, then let the political arbitrage come from European elections," Le Pen said, while her supporters were chanting for Macron to resign. Since she intended to remain in the French parliament, Le Pen is not running in the European elections. She, instead, presented 23-year-old Jordan Bardella as her party's leading candidate for the upcoming vote. Since the start of the unrest in France, Le Pen's National Rally has gained in opinion polls. A mid-December 2018 Ifop poll gave her party 24 percent support against 18 percent for Macron's LREM. Upgraded J-20 fighter jet 'overwhelmingly superior' to US F-35: analysts Global Times By Liu Xuanzun Source:Global Times Published: 2019/1/15 18:12:49 As South Korea became the latest country to buy and deploy US F-35 stealth fighter jets, Chinese military observers asserted that an upgraded Chinese J-20 fighter will gain overwhelming superiority over the F-35 in future and that China can fend off all potential threats from what media dubs the "US F-35 friends circle" in the Asia-Pacific region. Yonhap News Agency reported on Monday that two F-35As will be assigned to South Korean combat units starting in April or May. The delivery is a part of South Korea's procurement of 40 F-35As in 2014 at a cost of more than $100 million each. South Korea is not the only US ally that has purchased the stealth aircraft. Japan operates 10 F-35As, with 32 more due from a previous order, CNN reported in November 2018. Japan is also preparing to order an additional 100 F-35 fighter jets. These aircraft include F-35Bs which are capable of short takeoffs and vertical landings, which will be deployed on the revamped Izumo-class helicopter destroyers, essentially making them aircraft carriers, Nikkei reported in November 2018. Australia also received two F-35As in December 2018, local news site news.com.au reported. The country will eventually receive 100 of the jets, said the website of Australian Air Force. Under the US' Joint Strike Fighter program, the F-35 has three variations: the F-35A for the air force, the F-35B for marines and the F-35C for the navy. By selling the stealth fighter jets to its allies in the West Pacific region, the US is building an "F-35 friend circle," Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military analyst, told the Global Times on Tuesday. The US, Japan and South Korea may conduct more joint exercises near China using the F-35, making it easy for coordination, Wei said. The stealth capability makes the F-35 more difficult to detect and will impact China's national defense needs, he said. Equipped with an advanced weapon system and capable of stealth and supersonic cruising, the F-35 is regarded as one of the most advanced fighter jets in the world. But China is no sitting duck in a potential clash with the US fighter jet. China's fifth generation fighter jet J-20, which has been in service under the People's Liberation Army Air Force since early 2018, is endowed with state-of-the-art aviation and electronic technologies. Its range and weapons payload are widely considered to be better than the F-35's, enabling it to achieve its main mission of gaining aerial superiority in a 21st Century battlefield. Moreover, the J-20 has room for improvement. An upgraded version of the J-20 will have "overwhelming superiority" to the F-35 in the future, Wei said. China's passive radars and meter wave radars can also detect stealth aircraft, and can guide anti-aircraft missiles such as the HQ-9 and HQ-16 to destroy them, Wei noted. Meanwhile, the F-35 has its share of problems. The F-35's stealth capability, one of the most important features that set it apart from previous generations of fighter jets, requires very high maintenance cost, as the radar wave-absorbing coating wears off and needs to be replaced after every flight, the news.com.au report said. In September 2018, an F-35B under the US Marine Corps crashed due to faulty fuel-lines. F-35 jets have in the past made emergency landings, experienced in-flight incidents, including oxygen deprivation among crews, and suffered from engine fires and other failures on the ground, the Washington Post reported. The Chinese military has not make public any reports of malfunctions of the J-20. CCDI communique vows new progress in Party governance People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 07:12, January 14, 2019 BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- The 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the Communist Party of China (CPC) adopted a communique at its third plenary session held from Friday to Sunday. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addressed the session, while other Party and state leaders, including Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, and Han Zheng, attended the meeting. A work report of CCDI, delivered by Zhao Leji, head of the CCDI, was passed at the session, according to the communique. CCDI members agreed that it is an important political task for all the Party members to carefully study and implement Xi's speech delivered at the session, the communique said. The top priority of the CCDI's work in 2019 remains firmly safeguarding Xi's status as the core of the CPC Central Committee and the whole Party, as well as the authority and centralized, unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee, the communique said. CCDI will work to make "greater strategic achievements" in full and strict governance over the Party and consolidate the "sweeping victory" of the campaign against corruption, according to the communique. The communique listed eight priorities for 2019. -- CCDI will continue to study and implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and upgrade the education campaign with the theme "staying true to our founding mission." -- It will take up resolute actions against the practice of formalities for formalities' sake and bureaucratism. -- The institution of disciplinary inspection and supervision will be innovated to enhance the effectiveness of governance. -- It aims to make breakthroughs in regular and long-term supervision. -- Inspection on the implementation of political rules will be intensified, and the strategic structure of disciplinary inspections improved. -- CCDI will direct its anti-graft actions to key projects, fields and posts, particularly departments and sectors where power is centralized and money and resources are intensive. -- The efforts to address corruption and malpractices that occur on people's doorsteps will be continued so the people will have a stronger sense of fulfillment, happiness and security. -- CCDI will develop an "iron army" of disciplinary inspection and supervision officials who are loyal, clean and have a strong sense of responsibility. US plays Taiwan card to contain China: experts Global Times By Zhang Han Source:Global Times Published: 2019/1/14 21:03:39 A top US Navy officer's visit to China includes a stop in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province, which Chinese analysts believe is a sign that the US is highlighting the island of Taiwan in its military talks with China. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson began his visit on Sunday. After meeting Chinese navy commander Shen Jinlong and leaders of China's Central Military Commission in Beijing, Richardson will also visit Nanjing, which is the headquarters of China's Eastern Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army. Richardson tweeted on Monday that he and Shen "completed a constructive and candid discussion, an ongoing dialogue we are both committed to continuing. Our two countries have many aligned interests and all countries benefit from a free, open and secure Indo-Pacific." Richardson's visit to Nanjing is seen by many Chinese experts as a sign that the South China Sea issue and Taiwan Island are significant points that the US wants to discuss in this round of military talks, as most military frictions between China and the US happened at sea. Ni Feng, a deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of American Studies, told the Global Times that the US has been using the island of Taiwan as a strategic leverage to contain China. "Since the US considers China a strategic competitor, the military has been one of its measures to contain China," Ni said. The US Navy's Pacific Fleet drew a classified proposal to carry out a series of operations in the Taiwan Straits as well as the South China Sea, US media reported in October. "Although this did not happen after negotiations between the two sides, the US continues testing China's bottom line by provocative actions," Ni noted. China should not assume that the US would reduce its activities in the South China Sea and stop selling weapons to Taiwan, experts warned, noting that China should clarify its bottom line in case the US misjudged it. Peng Guangqian, a major general and strategist at China's Academy of Military Sciences, noted that the Taiwan Straits is China's strategic interest and "we have made this point clear at previous bilateral talks." "Both the Taiwan Straits and South China Sea will be covered during Richardson's visit, and the important thing is finding out whether the US is serious about the talks," Peng said. US President Donald Trump on December 31 signed into law the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, which reaffirms US commitment to Taiwan, including arms sales. Dragon Cargo Spacecraft Undocked From ISS, Returns to Earth Sputnik News 05:22 14.01.2019(updated 06:38 14.01.2019) WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US cargo spacecraft Dragon left the International Space Station (ISS) after a month in the orbit and is expected to land in the Pacific later on Monday, the spacecraft's manufacturer SpaceX reported late on Sunday. "Dragon has been released from the @Space_Station!" SpaceX said on Twitter. NASA broadcast the undocking of the ship, but due to the temporary suspension of the agency's work caused by the lack of a budget, the broadcast is not commented. Earth-based specialists gave a command to undock the ship from the Canadian manipulator Canadarm2 at 23.30 GMT on Sunday. The spacecraft is expected to land west of the Mexican state of Baja California at 05.10 GMT on Monday. Dragon should have left the station earlier this week, but due to adverse weather conditions in the area of its landing, undocking was postponed. The cargo spacecraft, which conducted its second flight to the ISS, returns materials of scientific experiments and waste from the station to Earth. Earlier, SpaceX Falcon 9 Booster landed on the Just Read the Instructions droneship after delivering 10 Iridium satellites to low Earth orbit and returned to the Port of Los Angeles. Sputnik Payam Satellite to be launched into space in coming days: Iranian President ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency Mon / 14 January 2019 / 14:58 Tehran (ISNA) Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani announced that Iran will launch two satellites into the space in coming days. He made the remarks during a visit to Golestan Province on Monday. "In the coming days, we will launch two satellites into space," President Rouhani said. "Payam Satellite will be released into an orbit of 600 kilometres above the Earth by a domestic carrier rocket made by our scientists in Amir Kabir University," he added. He also said, "Payam Satellite is Iran's first operational satellite with the mission of sending territorial information on a daily basis". End Item China, US work on moon Global Times By Deng Xiaoci Source:Global Times Published: 2019/1/14 23:46:05 Plan to bring moon rock back by 2019, probe Mars by 2020 NASA has cooperated on lunar research with China's Chang'e -4 probe, a Chinese space official told the Global Times at a press conference in Beijing on Monday. The two sides have never ceased to talk about cooperation in lunar and deep space exploration, Wu Yanhua, deputy director of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), said at a press conference organized by the State Council Information Office that outlined China's latest timetable for lunar and deep space exploration. NASA was particularly interested in knowing how dust would move when the Chinese probe landed on the moon, Wu noted. "In response, we immediately offered our moon-landing schedule and location to the US Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in lunar orbit," Wu said. Due to a fuel shortage, the US orbiter could not change its orbit in time for the landing, but NASA observed the situation later when its satellite passed above the Chinese probe, he said. Such cooperation was in line with humanity's shared interests, Wu said. China and the US should cooperate more in the human exploration of space, he said. China will conduct a Mars mission by 2020 and bring a sample back from the moon in 2019, Wu said. Thanks to the Chang'e-4 lunar probe, China has realized the first-ever soft landing on and "cruise exploration" of the far side of the moon in human history as well as the first-ever telemetry, track and command (TT&C) and data transmission between the Earth and the dark side of the moon, Wu said. The lander and rover Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, were in good condition and had achieved their preset engineering goals, said Wu, also the deputy chief commander of the China Lunar Exploration Program. "The Chang'e-4 lunar probe program has achieved a complete success," he said. Data collected by domestic and international scientific payloads were downloaded normally and the Queqiao, or Magpie Bridge, relay satellite provided effective TT&C support. The mission has moved onto its "scientific exploration phase," Wu Yanhua said. The scientific phase has three goals, according to Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's lunar probe program. "The primary goal is to study the geographic and geomorphic conditions of the moon," he said. China has achieved the first cutaway view of the moon which monitors up to 200 meters underground, Wu Weiren noted. Such a view would significantly help understanding of the origin and evolution of the moon, he explained, perhaps even reveal its true age. The second goal is to study the space around the moon including cosmic and solar radiation and its impact on the moon, Wu Weiren said. Finally, scientists will assess the "matter composition of the moon," he said. "These all are firsts in human history," Wu Weiren said. "Any achievements made in these research areas will be original and have a massive influence both at home and abroad." International efforts International payload cooperation and joint exploration has been realized by China for the first time during the Chang'e-4 mission, Wu Yanhua said on Monday. The Chang'e-4 probe is equipped with 13 payloads including Longjiang, a lunar microsatellite, and four scientific projects in cooperation with Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia, according to CNSA. The four were selected in April 2015 from applications for cooperation on 20 payloads developed by more than 10 countries to be loaded on the lander, rover, relay satellite and the lunar microsatellite, Wu Yanhua said. A station located in Argentina has also participated in providing TT&C for the mission and the radioisotope heater units (RHUs) in cooperation with Russia, which guarantees the safety of the Chang'e-4 probe during the long, freezing lunar night. CNSA was willing to share data collected by all payloads on Chang'e-4 with space agencies, research institutes as well as space exploration enthusiasts from all over the world, the CNSA deputy head said. More missions China still has unmanned Chang'e-5, -6, -7, -8 missions coming up until 2030, Wu Yanhua disclosed to the media on Monday. Chang'e-5 will return samples from the moon in a mission scheduled for the end of this year. Chang'e-6 will conduct a similar sample return mission, but from the south pole of the moon, he told the Global Times. Whether the Chang'e-6 probe will land also on the far side will depend on the Chang'e-5 sample. Chang'e-7 will comprehensively explore the moon, whereas Chang'e-8 will explore the possibility of building an international lunar research base, the CNSA deputy head said. Chang'e-8 will test 3D printer technology in hopes of assisting future lunar residents. As for putting humans on the moon, China is thinking about that, but no decisions have been made, Wu Yanhua said. "China's space station is currently under construction and slated to be completed around 2022," said Li Guoping, CNSA spokesperson, at the conference. China is inviting the international community to join in the process, enhance communication and cooperation in areas such as development of devices, space applications and astronaut training. China also welcomes scientists from all over the globe to conduct scientific experiments at the Chinese space station, Li said. Pentagon Extends Military Mission Along US-Mexico Border Through September Sputnik News 04:35 15.01.2019(updated 04:44 15.01.2019) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The US Department of Defense has extended until the end of September its support mission along the border with Mexico. "Acting Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan approved Department of Defense assistance to DHS through Sept. 30, 2019. DOD is transitioning its support at the southwestern border from hardening ports of entry to mobile surveillance and detection, as well as concertina wire emplacement between ports of entry," the statement read. Several thousands of people from a migrant caravan are currently staying at the border between Mexico and the United States. According to different estimates, from 6,000 to 9,000 migrants from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador can be staying in the cities of Tijuana and Mexicali. The US authorities have deployed scores of servicemen at the border over security concerns. In late November, US law enforcement and members of a Central American caravan clashed on the border after a group of around 500 of the migrants attempted to storm into the United States, but were thwarted by US authorities with tear gas and rubber bullets. Trump said during his first address from the Oval Office last week that the United States was facing a humanitarian and security crisis on the border with Mexico. In a tweet on Saturday, he claimed arrests on the border had gone up 240 percent, with 292,000 crimes in Texas in 2011-2018 committed by undocumented migrants. The United States currently has physical barriers in place along about 30 percent of its 1,954-mile border with Mexico. At present, these 600 miles worth of barrier largely consist of multi-layered vehicle and pedestrian fences ranging in height from 15 to 20 feet tall. Trump has asked for an additional $5.7 billion to erect steel walls across 234 miles of the border. Current prototypes range in height from 18 to more than 30 feet tall, according to the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency. On Monday, the US government shutdown entered day 24 as congressional Democrats and President Donald Trump continue to be at odds on a new spending bill. Trump is asking Congress to approve more than $5 billion for constructing a wall on the border with Mexico as part of the spending bill, while Democrats refuse to provide the funds for a border wall. Sputnik 3 to Stand Trial for Alleged Role in Kenya's Westgate Mall Attack By Mohammed Yusuf January 14, 2019 A Kenyan court says three men must stand trial for their alleged role in the 2013 terrorist attack on Nairobi's Westgate Mall. The suspects are accused of aiding the Somalia-based militant group al-Shabab. The suspects were in the Nairobi courtroom Monday as Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi read the ruling. "The accused persons are charged with 12 counts, some jointly others separately. They are jointly charged with counts one and two with a commission of a terrorist act and conspiracy to commit a terrorist act respectively, contrary to the Prevention of Terrorism Act," said Andayi. The suspects -- Liban Abdullahi, Hussein Mustafa and Ahmed Abdi are also charged with giving support to a terrorist group, aiding a terrorist group and being in the country illegally. A fourth suspect was set free. Gunmen opened fire on shoppers in the busy Westgate Mall on a Saturday in September 2013, killing at least 67 people and injuring more than 150 others. The gunmen are believed to have died when the Kenyan army retook the mall. Abdullahi, Mustafa and Abdi were arrested in the weeks following the attack. Thirty-one-year-old John Wangombe survived the attack. He welcomed the news that finally, someone is going to be put on trial. "I feel good. I am joyful because of the way the court has ruled we expect justice for us for what we went through, the whole scenario and I give thanks to the court. Sometimes they take time to check on cases but this one was definitely a good part for me. Definitely, we expect justice. The court has reformed these days and expect those suspects to go to jail," he said. Prosecutors spent more than five years gathering evidence against the men, in part because more than 145 witnesses offered testimony. Only two suspects brought before Kenyan courts on terrorism-related charges have been convicted, and many Kenyans fear this case may also fall apart. But lawyer Danstan Omari says it will be difficult for the suspects for these suspects to walk free. "The state has proved a water-tight case. It's their story the court is going to listen. Rarely do people who reach that stage get acquitted. Most of them they end up getting convicted," said the lawyer. The three defendants will appear in court again next week, as the defense begins to present its case. Trump Mulls Border Emergency to Fund Wall By Jim Malone January 14, 2019 With the partial shutdown of the U.S. federal government now in its fourth week, President Donald Trump continues to hold out the possibility that he will declare a national emergency along the southern border with Mexico. Trump could use the declaration to fund his long sought border wall, but Democrats in Congress firmly oppose the barrier, and even some Republicans object to the idea, calling it an overreach of executive authority. "I have the absolute legal right to call it," Trump told reporters Monday at the White House. "But I am not looking to do that because this is too simple. The Democrats should say we want border security. We have to build a wall, otherwise you can't have border security, and we should get on with our lives." Holding back Trump seemed to back away a bit from the emergency route Monday, especially after he told reporters last week that he might issue a declaration if congressional negotiations reached a dead end. "If this does not work out, probably I will do it. I would say almost definitely." Some Republicans say that point may be fast approaching. "It seems to me the only way left is for him to exercise that authority," said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. "I don't see any action in the Congress." On Sunday, Graham suggested on TV that Trump reopen the government for three weeks to allow border negotiations to continue. The president rejected that idea Monday. Bipartisan pushback Democrats oppose the emergency declaration, including Maryland Congressman Anthony Brown. "The use of these authorities, like the deployment of our troops to the border, is irresponsible, unnecessary and misguided," Brown said in a speech on the House floor last week. "Mr. Speaker, we don't have a crisis on the border. We have a crisis in the Oval Office." Trump is meeting resistance not just from Democrats but from some Republicans. Politico reported that members of the House Freedom Caucus have been urging Trump not to issue a declaration, fearful that future Democratic presidents could cite the move as precedent to declare an emergency on climate change or some other policy priority. Presidential leeway Presidents have frequently declared national emergencies since Congress passed the National Emergencies Act in 1976. Analysts say that generally speaking, presidents have a lot of leeway when it comes to deciding what constitutes such an emergency. "The president has fairly broad power to declare a national emergency," said Brookings Institution scholar John Hudak. "According to a pretty firm reading of that law, it is hard to see where there is an exception to the president's ability to do it." Hudak says there are constitutional limits on the president's power, either through Congress or the courts. "Presidents have tried to go around Congress in terms of spending money in the past," noted Hudak. "And frequently presidents are stopped because the spending power in the Constitution rests with the Congress." Polling hit Several recent polls show the public is blaming Trump for the impasse more than congressional Democrats. A new Quinnipiac poll on Monday found that 56 percent hold Trump and Republicans responsible for the shutdown, compared to 36 percent who blame Democrats. That survey is similar to others by CNN, The Washington Post/ABC News and CBS News, which all reported that voters blamed Trump more than Democrats by significant margins. Trump remains focused on his political base and may be encouraged by surveys that show Republicans generally standing with him on the shutdown. "This is not going to end until at least parts of Trump's base agree to go along, or say, Well, you tried your best and those darn Democrats just won't give in,'" said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, via Skype. But focusing on his political base does carry risks for the president, said Hudak. "President Trump is playing to his base here. But unfortunately, his base is a small percentage of the population and most of the rest of the population is not with him on this issue of the wall." Monday's Quinnipiac poll found that voters oppose a wall along the Mexico border by a margin of 55 percent to 43 percent. Other recent surveys also show more Americans oppose a wall than support it, although some polls have shown a slight bump in support for the wall of late. Quinnipiac also found that 65 percent of those surveyed in the latest poll oppose Trump using executive powers to build the wall, while 32 percent support it. Trump is hoping that his unwavering commitment to building the wall will shore up support from his base for his re-election bid next year. Many analysts, however, caution that his singular focus on delivering a wall for his supporters appears to be doing little to expand his base of support and may have contributed to a weakening of his public approval numbers in recent weeks. Trump Vows to 'Never Back Down' on Border Wall Demand By Steve Herman January 14, 2019 Although a majority of Americans blame the U.S. president for the prolonged partial government shutdown, Donald Trump on Monday told farmers that the opposition Democrats in Congress are squarely responsible. "They will not approve the measures we need to keep American safe," Trump told a national convention of farmers in New Orleans where he defended his demand for billions of dollars for a border wall with Mexico. Drones and sensors are not adequate for border security, Trump added, contending only a "strong steel or concrete barrier" can prevent illegal immigrants from entering the United States. "I will never ever back down" from efforts to keep America safe, Trump vowed in the speech to the 100th annual convention of the American Farm Bureau. He accused Democrats of refusing to approve money for a wall because they want to use it as an issue for next year's presidential campaign when Trump faces re-election. Six major polls show that half or more Americans hold the president and his Republican Party responsible for the shutdown. And 63 percent of American voters support a Democratic proposal to reopen parts of the government that do not involve border security while negotiating funding for a border wall, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released Monday. Earlier in the day, Trump told White House reporters he would not, at least for the moment, declare a national emergency to build the wall. "I'm not going to do that," Trump said as he left the White House to speak to farmers in New Orleans. About 800,000 federal workers are furloughed or working without pay during the record-long partial government shutdown which stretched into its 24th day Monday. "We are open to resolution and negotiation," White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway told VOA News on Monday, indicating that communication is under way between the executive branch and Democrats, but she provided no details. Trump has rejected a call by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of his staunchest congressional supporters, to reopen shuttered agencies for three weeks while he holds more talks with Democratic leaders about his plan for a wall along the 3,200-kilometer southern U.S. border. Graham told the Fox News Sunday television program he would still support a presidential emergency declaration to build the border wall without congressional authorization after giving talks another chance. "I would urge him to open up the government for a short period of time, like three weeks, before he pulls the plug, see if we can get a deal. If we can't at the end of three weeks, all bets are off," Graham said. "I'm not interested," Trump replied to a reporter's query Monday about Graham's suggestion, contending that top Democrats in Congress could quickly end the shutdown. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Monday used Twitter to blame Republicans for starting the shutdown, and called for Trump to allow the Senate to vote to end it, arguing furloughed federal workers, who have already missed one paycheck, "are facing a life or death situations" just so the president "can try to force taxpayers to fund a border wall he promised Mexico would pay for." In a speech on the Senate floor Monday, Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to allow a vote on legislation already approved by the House of Representatives to end the shutdown. "How much more suffering must the president cause before leader McConnell realizes it's time to move ahead without him? It seems clear to everybody but leader McConnell that Congress needs to move forward without the president," Schumer said. "It's time for leader McConnell to realize he has the power to break this impasse, passing the House legislation to reopen the government." Jan. 14, 2019 News Release Press Operations Release No. NR-009-19 DOD Statement on Support to DHS In response to the December 27, 2018 request from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Acting Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan approved Department of Defense assistance to DHS through Sept. 30, 2019. DOD is transitioning its support at the southwestern border from hardening ports of entry to mobile surveillance and detection, as well as concertina wire emplacement between ports of entry. DOD will continue to provide aviation support. https://dod.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1731752/ Trump Mulls Recognising Venezuela's Opposition Leader as President - Reports Sputnik News 20:39 15.01.2019(updated 21:19 15.01.2019) Previously, the United States, namely Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, slammed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's new presidential term, calling it illegitimate and vowing that Washington will do its best to "restore real democracy to that country". According to the CNN's Spanish language website citing three unnamed sources, US President Donald Trump is considering recognizing Venezuelan opposition leader and Congress chief Juan Guaido as the country's president. The White House hasn't yet issued a statement with this regard. Last week, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was sworn in for his second presidential term, which will last until 2025. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted the development at the time, saying "the Maduro regime is illegitimate" and adding that the United States will persist in its efforts, using its economic and diplomatic power to the fullest, to "restore a real democracy to that country." Maduro has drawn much criticism recently since his re-election in May, with some countries claiming that the vote was illegitimate, despite Caracas's vehement denial of the claims. As it was made clear right after the meeting of the Lima Group foreign ministers earlier in January, the union, specially established in the Peruvian capital in 2017 to work out a peaceful resolution to the Venezuelan crisis, is against Maduro's second term and roots for a new presidential election. In a parallel move, the OAS has said it does not recognize Maduro's second term, while Paraguay cut off diplomatic ties with Venezuela altogether. In response, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry delivered protest notes to the diplomatic representatives of the Lima group countries. Separately, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza stated that the Lima Group encouraged a government overthrow in the South American country, having secured the US' backing. Sputnik Zimbabweans Rally Against Rising Cost of Living By Columbus Mavhunga January 14, 2019 Growing tired of chronic economic hardships, hundreds of Zimbabweans took to the streets of Harare Monday, protesting an increase in the price of fuel. The protesters said they wanted to force the government to address Zimbabwe's moribund economy. Simbai Rice, one of the demonstrators, said the administration has failed to address increasing shortages of cash and basic food items. He said President Emmerson Mnangagwa had promised to rescue the situation when he took over from Robert Mugabe in November 2017. "The economy is off the rails. I wish the leaders would address the economy, especially fuel prices and for basic commodities, they should come down. People are not happy. My bus fare is now $5 from $1. I am now going on foot. If there is a way, he must return today and solve this," Rice said. President Mnangagwa left Zimbabwe Monday to visit Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Azerbaijan. He is expected to return home after attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The forum takes place January 22-25. On Monday, the army and police were deployed in Harare after protesters started blocking roads. Other protests took place in the country's second-largest city, Bulawayo. Police in both cities fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators. The government says it is aware that prices have been rising, forcing many people to slide into poverty. Energy Mutodi, Zimbabwe's junior information minister, said the government is doing all it can. "We are equally worried, just like any other citizen. There is nothing which the government can do to stop fuel price increases. In actual fact, we have been the country selling fuel at lowest price in the region. So what we are trying as the government is: the fuel prices have been adjusted upwards, we intend to ensure that the fuel supply is normalized," Mutodi said. He also said the government cannot increase salaries for public workers like doctors and school teachers. Over the past weeks, some government workers have said they want to be paid in U.S. dollars or have their salaries match price increases. They say the depreciating local currency called bond notes is leaving them without disposable income. Election Drama Builds in DRC By Anita Powell January 14, 2019 This is new territory for the Democratic Republic of Congo: the presidential election is over, and the nation appears poised to see its first-ever opposition president take power. But after a poll that has been widely criticized for irregularities and delays, tensions are running high. Several African bodies are calling for a recount, and the candidate who says he was cheated out of victory has challenged the official results in court. On Saturday, opposition coalition leader Martin Fayulu, who was favored by polls to win the December 30 vote, asked the Constitutional Court to order a recount. On Sunday, Fayulu attended church in the capital, Kinshasa, with his family and a bevy of enthusiastic followers. "We have faith, and our faith is intact," Fayulu said, holding his Bible. "Undaunted. Because the people have decided, and the will of the people will be realized. I am a man of faith." Fayulu's choice of venue was no accident. For many Congolese citizens, the Catholic Church is the sole provider of schooling, health care and basic services. And so, when the church said vote tallies collected by its 40,000 election observers show Fayulu won the election, citizens listened. Then, last week, the electoral commission declared that another opposition leader, Felix Tshisekedi, was the winner. That announcement sparked surprise and outrage -- and not just from the usual quarters. The Southern African Development Community, SADC, called for a recount of the vote and a government of national unity. Their call was supported late Sunday by another African bloc, the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region. Analyst Stephanie Wolters of the Institute for Security Studies says these statements from regional mediators are surprising. "It is a departure from how they've handled electoral crises in other states," she told VOA. "It's also certainly a departure from some of the weaker statements that SADC has made on the DRC, it's really taken a very hands-off approach to this electoral crisis over the last three years, so it's a surprise. In terms of how effective it can be, I think we have some doubts." That's because, she says, the body in charge of declaring a recount - the Constitutional Court - is loyal to longtime President Joseph Kabila. In the election, Kabila backed his former interior minister, Emmanuel Shadary. But Shadary finished third in the voting, and analysts say that he was so obviously unpopular that it would have provoked serious outrage had the electoral commission anointed him the winner. Although Kabila is stepping down, analysts think he aims to play a dominant role behind the scenes when or if -- Tshisekedi takes office. The Constitutional Court has 10 days from Fayulu's filing to rule. Meanwhile, the electoral commission also announced that Kabila's ruling Common Front for Congo (FCC) party led the parliamentary vote. That means the president-elect, who heads the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) party, may have some political struggles ahead, says analyst Claude Kabemba, director of Southern Africa Resource Watch. "I foresee, if there is marriage between the FCC and UDPS, it not to last very long," he told VOA. "It's not a marriage by conviction, and that's a problem. And they will have serious, serious tension." Remote Military Outpost will Help Indonesia Resist Chinese Maritime Expansion By Ralph Jennings January 14, 2019 Indonesia's new military base on a remote island chain near the embattled South China Sea will help it deter Chinese fishing boats and their coast guard escorts from entering territorial waters as Beijing expands its maritime claims. The Southeast Asian country, which has burned Chinese fishing boats in the past, opened its base last month in the Natuna Islands with more 1,000 personnel, Asian media outlets reported in December. The base near the existing port of Selat Lama has a hangar for drones and supports personnel trained for any kind of operation. Indonesia's House of Representatives budgeted for the base in 2016, with the house's deputy chairman saying at the time that the construction should "ensure the country's sovereign right to exploit the area's natural resources," the Jakarta Globe news website reported. Indonesian officials, particularly keen to protect their waters since 2014, built the base to stop Chinese boats from fishing inside their exclusive economic zone and help prove effective control of the Natuna chain itself in any international court in case of a future legal dispute, scholars say. They expect China to reduce its fishing activities. "If you don't put an outpost there, some hostile power might stage an island grab," said Alan Chong, associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. "There's every possibility that the Chinese, by building artificial islands, might in the distant future claim the Natunas as well." Edge of the South China Sea dispute China today claims most of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea that reaches from the Natuna chain to the Chinese mainland. Beijing doesn't claim the Natuna Islands, but in 2016 the Chinese foreign ministry cited historic rights for its fishing boats to use waters near the chain. Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam vie directly with Beijing's government over sovereignty to the South China Sea. China has irked the others by using its economic muscle to landfill small disputed islets for military infrastructure. Indonesia, long frustrated by a lack of naval power despite its sovereignty over 13,000 islands, publicly burned foreign-registered fishing boats in 2017 to warn against intrusions and caught China's attention. Most of the burned boats were Chinese, and Chinese coast guard vessels would sometimes escort them, said Jay Batongbacal, an international maritime affairs professor at University of the Philippines. In 2016, Indonesian and Chinese vessels clashed three times over Chinese fishing vessels. The two sides entered one standoff that year when Indonesian authorities tried to arrest a Chinese fishing boat but a Chinese coast guard vessel intervened. "Indonesia, I think, has realized this needs to be addressed, and an outpost on the Natuna Islands makes sense because it is the place furthest up north in that area, so from there they could have a better vantage point in monitoring Chinese fishing activity and responding to them," Batongbacal said. Last year Indonesia renamed part of the disputed ocean tract the North Natuna Sea, drawing an angry response from China. Beijing still calls that tract near Borneo the South China Sea. Before opening the base, Indonesia operated just an airstrip and a small naval base as military installations in the Natuna Islands. Fishing boats from other countries have ventured into Indonesian-claimed waters and been caught. But Indonesia has no major ongoing dispute with the other South China Sea claimant countries. Experts believe no outside power, for example Australia or the United States, pushed Indonesia to open the base as a way to contain China's maritime expansion. Those countries, along with Japan, have tapped Vietnam and the Philippines to help check China, a Cold War foe that still resents Western-backed global influence. Indonesia's exclusive economic zone overlaps the nine-dash line that Beijing uses to mark its South China Sea claim. The two sides get along otherwise. China seen relenting China may be put off by the risk of confrontation with Indonesia, said Enrico Cau, associate researcher at the Taiwan Center for International Strategic Studies, though it covets the fisheries and possible energy reserves under the seabed in question. Competition for those resources has underpinned the broader South China Sea dispute since the 1960s. "Basically, what China does is send its fishing boats in that region, and Indonesia is always forced to intervene," Cau said. Sino-Philippine and Sino-Vietnamese spats show that stronger defenses can help curtail Chinese activity, he said. "If they are not stopped immediately, they tend to keep encroaching," Cau said. In 2012 China took control of Scarborough Shoal, a prime fishing spot in the Philippine exclusive economic zone of the contested sea, by occupying its waters and defying vessels from Manila that tried to make it leave. China could try to take islets in the Natuna chain if not stopped, Chong said. If Indonesia ever goes to the world arbitration court over the Natuna Islands, Chong added, its physical presence there would help establish "effective control." Indonesia's base in the Natuna Islands also falls in line with President Joko Widodo's goal since taking office in 2014 to step up enforcement against illegal fishing and sea piracy. Taliban Official Tells VOA Peace Talks With US Stalled By Ayaz Gul January 14, 2019 The fledgling U.S.-initiated dialogue with the Taliban, aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan, has come to a halt, an insurgent spokesperson said Monday, apparently dealing a blow to renewed hopes for a much-needed Afghan peace. The disclosure comes as the chief U.S. negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, is visiting regional countries, including China, India and Pakistan, to work toward a negotiated political settlement to the 17-year-old conflict. "The (dialogue) process has halted for now so the venue and the date for a future meeting are not known," a senior Taliban official privy to the developments confirmed to VOA when asked whether their peace talks with the U.S. are still on track. The insurgent official, speaking on condition of anonymity, declined to share reasons behind the suspension of negotiations. The U.S. State Department had no immediate response. When contacted Monday, a spokesperson said the department press office is operating on a reduced status due to the partial U.S. government shutdown. Afghan government primary issue The Afghan government is currently not participating in the peace talks, but American officials are eager to bring them to the table. It is widely perceived that the current deadlock is primarily over the Taliban's rejection of the U.S. insistence to speak directly with the Afghan government. Afghan chief executive Abdullah Abdullah cautioned again Monday that while Kabul welcomes Khalilzad's ongoing peace efforts, its involvement in talks is key to achieving the objective. "The people of Afghanistan will consider these efforts seriously when they see representatives of the Afghan government and Taliban at the negotiation table," Abdullah told a weekly meeting of Cabinet ministers in Kabul. Others involved in the negotiations warn they could fall apart unless both sides show some flexibility. "If not supported by real give and take even some initial give and take a doubt may soon set in about the dialogue process itself. This is what we are eager to prevent at all costs. If it happened, a more severe type of stalemate will take over," warned a diplomat whose country was represented at the meeting in Abu Dhabi. 'Puppets' The Taliban maintain the United States is their primary adversary in the conflict and accuse Afghan leaders as well as security forces of being American "puppets." Initial signs of tension amid the talks had emerged last week when a Taliban statement alleged the U.S. approach to the dialogue was "non-serious" and "superficial." In a Pashto language statement circulated through its social media accounts, the insurgent group asserted that in talks with Taliban envoys, U.S. negotiators were focusing on issues that Afghans themselves have to resolve without foreign interference. The Taliban also accused Washington of pressuring the group through Islamic countries and leaking details of discussions to the news media for the sake of propaganda. "We cannot agree on any other issues as long as the independence of Afghanistan is in the occupation of foreigners," the Taliban statement warned. Nearly a month since last round of talks The last round of substantial U.S.-Taliban talks occurred on December 17 in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. Pakistan took credit for arranging the two-day meeting several months after U.S. officials directly engaged Taliban political envoys based in Qatar to explore Afghan peace possibilities. Both Khalilzad and the Taliban described as "productive" their interaction in Abu Dhabi, where representatives of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and UAE were also in attendance. The Taliban had announced at the end of the meeting that the negotiating sides agreed to reconvene "after deliberations and consultations by both sides with their respective leaderships." Insurgents maintain that their representatives in talks with the U.S. team have focused on seeking a timeline for withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan and assuring American interlocutors that Afghan soil will never again be used for terrorism against the United States. Khalilzad in China Khalilzad visited China on Monday after holding talks with officials in India as part of his current four-nation trip that includes Afghanistan. The Afghan-born U.S. envoy is due to arrive in Islamabad on Tuesday to further his discussions with Pakistani leaders and push his Afghan peace mission, although the latest insurgent assertions have raised doubts about the future of the U.S.-led efforts to end the war in Afghanistan. Afghanistan was by far the deadliest country in 2018, with nearly as many reported fatalities as Syria and Yemen combined, says the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). The non-governmental organization collates and analyzes data on political violence and protests around the world. The number of reported deaths in Afghanistan stood at 43,574 last year, accounting for 30 percent of all fatalities recorded by ACLED during 2018. The war in Afghanistan is America's longest overseas military intervention. It has cost Washington nearly $1 trillion and killed tens of thousands of people. Qatar Makes 'Generous Offer' Amid US Base Expansion Sputnik News 09:50 14.01.2019(updated 13:02 14.01.2019) US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Sunday that he had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Qatar regarding the expansion and renovation of al-Udeid Air Base, which hosts thousands of US military personnel and the forward headquarters of the US military's Central Command. Qatar has offered the United States to cover capital expenses for the expansion of the largest US military base in the Middle East al-Udeid. "The US and Qatar signed an MOU enabling deeper coordination on potential expansion at Al Udeid Air Base. Qatar's offers to fund capital expenditures and sustainment affords the possibility of a more enduring US presence", the joint statement issued following the second US-Qatar Strategic Dialogue read. Washington has also welcomed "Qatar's generous offer to expand critical facilities at bases used by US forces in the country and to align operating procedures at these bases with NATO standards, thereby increasing the operational capability of US and coalition forces based in Qatar". In addition, the two countries have agreed to boost cooperation in areas of mutual interest, such as combating terrorism, consolidating state-of-the-art defence facilities, expanding trade and investment partnership, as well as enhancing educational and cultural cooperation. According to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who signed the MOU with Qatar as part of his Mideast tour, al-Udeid is home to 13,000 US coalition personnel engaged in the fight against Daesh* in Syria and Iraq. Speaking at the press conference, Pompeo urged the Gulf State to end the ongoing boycott of Qatar, saying that it "has dragged on too long". "We're more powerful when we're working together. Disputes between countries that have a shared objective are never helpful". In 2017, the so-called Arab Quartet Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt severed diplomatic ties with Qatar, including imposing travel and trade bans, over Doha's alleged support for terrorism. The four countries also issued several demands, insisting that Qatar must shut down the Al-Jazeera TV Channel, reduce ties with Iran and close a Turkish military base in the country. *Daesh, also known as IS/ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State, is a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries. Sputnik At Least 4 Killed, 90 Injured in Kabul Bomb Blast - Interior Ministry Sputnik News 18:46 14.01.2019(updated 20:09 14.01.2019) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - At least four people were killed and another 44 were wounded in a bomb explosion in the Green Village area of the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Monday, a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, Najib Danish, said. Earlier reports indicated at least four people were killed and another 44 were wounded. The official also described the bomb blast near the high-security area, hosting an international company and offices of several foreign NGOs, as a terrorist attack with the use of a vehicle packed with explosives. "A terrorist attack was carried out near Green Village in the ninth police district," Danish said in his Facebook blog, noting that the police had arrived at the scene, and the situation was under control. Afghan Public Health Ministry spokesperson Wahidullah Mayar earlier said that more than 40 people were injured in the blast. Sputnik Spearfish, SD (57783) Today A few passing clouds. Low around 60F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight A few passing clouds. Low around 60F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. US Discusses Possibility of Keeping Bases in Afghanistan With Taliban Report Sputnik News 21:57 14.01.2019 Negotiations between the Taliban and Washington have been conducted behind closed doors and without representatives of the government in Kabul, which has led to rumours about what provisions in the deal might contain. US and Taliban negotiators have found themselves stuck in a deadlock over the issue of American military bases in Afghanistan, Pakistani newspaper The Express Tribune reported. According to the outlet, Washington is trying to negotiate a deal that would allow it to keep long-term military bases in Afghanistan and that would guarantee their security in exchange for "substantial financial assistance" in rebuilding the ravaged country. The Taliban, on the other hand, demands the full withdrawal of the US from the country. However, the group has not walked away from the negotiations with Washington, but agreed in December to discuss the issue in the talks. The negotiations in the UAE became possible after Pakistan brokered them following a request from US President Donald Trump, who asked the Pakistani PM for assistance in bringing the conflict, which has been ongoing for nearly two decades, to an end. Sputnik US Navy Probe Into Deadly 2017 Crash Found 'Numerous, Almost Routine' Violations Sputnik News 23:51 14.01.2019(updated 23:54 14.01.2019) The US Navy's internal probe of the June 2017 crash between the destroyer USS Fitzgerald and a civilian container cargo vessel near Japan that killed seven sailors found "routine, almost casual, violations of standing orders" by bridge crew who failed "rules of the road" tests given by investigators, a Navy Times exclusive has revealed. In the waters off Yokosuka, Japan, on the night of June 17, 2017, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with the container vessel ACX Crystal, which flew under a Filipino flag, and seven US sailors died. While public statements by the Navy have subsequently confirmed that the destroyer crew was at fault and that the crew was remarkably unqualified for its tasks, the service's internal probe was all the more scathing, reported the Navy Times, which obtained a copy of the report for a Sunday article. The report was completed 11 days after the accident and was overseen by Rear Adm. Brian Fort, but was kept secret at the time to protect the service from lawsuits, the publication noted. Fort's investigation describes a nightmare scenario: unqualified, understaffed crew performing dangerous transits of busy waterways unsupervised, often using defective equipment and that's when they knew how to use it, which wasn't often the case. Not only were skippers and executive officers often absent from the bridge during dangerous voyages, the ship lacked a quartermaster chief petty officer, who the Times notes is a "crucial leader who helps safely navigate a warship and train its sailors." Junior officers were found to be in the habit of not reporting or notifying superiors of dangerous instances, such as near-misses with other ships. What's worse, the Navy knew about all of this. Fort's report also underscores the failure of the Fitzgerald's crew to learn valuable lessons from both their own near-misses at sea prior to the June 2017 accident as well as other similar incidents elsewhere in the Navy. Just weeks earlier, the Fitzgerald was involved in an incident near the Japanese city of Sasebo in which a junior officer "became confused by the surface contact picture" of ships near the Fitzgerald, requesting help from the destroyer's then-commanding officer, Cmdr. Robert Shu, who was absent from the bridge at the time, the report notes. After setting a correct course for the ship to sail behind a vessel in front of the Fitzgerald, Shu then left the bridge, and moments later, a brand new crisis revealed itself: another ship was immediately in front of the destroyer, just on the other side of the first ship! Fortunately the Fitzgerald avoided that collision, although it took throwing the engines into full reverse and sounding the nautical danger signal five short blasts on the horn in order to escape the situation. "[Fitzgerald's] command leadership was unaware of just how far below standards their command had drifted," Fort's report said. "Had the [commanding officer] and [executive officer] critiqued the near-collision, they may have identified the root causes uncovered by this investigation." Instead, on the fateful June night five weeks later, the Fitzgerald made no attempt to avoid the collision at all, Sputnik reported. A frightfully similar situation was at hand: a junior officer commanded the ship, her superiors distracted by paperwork and failing to oversee the inept crew's transiting of a very dangerous waterway. That officer, Lt. junior-grade Sarah Coppock, pleaded guilty to a dereliction of duty charge at court-martial last year. The ship's commanding officer, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, and Lt. Natalie Combs, who ran the combat information center (CIC) on the ship's bridge, are fighting similar charges. The CIC was a mess, Fort's report notes. He describes kettlebells on the floor and bottles filled with urine, noting some radar controls that didn't work and crew members who didn't know how to use them even if they did. "Procedural compliance by Bridge watchstanders is not the norm onboard [the Fitzgerald], as evidenced by numerous, almost routine, violations of the [commanding officer's] standing orders," not to mention radio transmissions laced with profanity and "unprofessional humor," Fort's report found. A test administered to the crew by Fort's team about three weeks after the disaster on "rules of the road" for sailing found an average score of 59 percent among the crew, and only three of the ship's 22 officers scored over 80 percent; seven scored below 50 percent. Further, Sputnik reported that 15 of the Fitzgerald's 22 certifications had expired by the time of collision, with some of its qualifications not having being renewed for almost a year. Sputnik Pashinian Reappointed Armenian PM After Securing Parliament Majority By RFE/RL's Armenian Service January 14, 2019 YEREVAN -- Nikol Pashinian has been appointed to a second term as prime minister of Armenia after his political alliance scored a landslide victory in snap parliamentary elections. President Armen Sarkisian signed the relevant decree on January 14 as the new 132-seat parliament convened for its first session. "Congratulations, Mr. prime minister," Sarkisian told Pashinian at the presidential palace, adding: "Your success is our country's success, our people's, everyone's success -- including my own." "The main political change expected in Armenia has already happened: Power has been returned to the people and democracy has been established in Armenia," Pashinian said. Pashinian, a former anticorruption journalist and opposition lawmaker, was elected to the prime minister's post in May after spearheading weeks of mass protests that forced his predecessor, long-entrenched leader Serzh Sarkisian, to resign. But the former ruling Republican Party (HHK) maintained its majority in parliament, so Pashinian announced in October that he was resigning as prime minister in order to dissolve parliament and force early elections. Pashinian's My Step alliance won more than 70 percent of the vote in the December 9 election and now holds 88 seats in the legislature. Holding a majority in the single-chamber parliament has increased Pashinian's power to pursue stated goals such as tackling corruption and reforming the economy of the South Caucasus country of 3 million. The Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) holds 26 seats and Bright Armenia holds 18 seats, while the HHK failed to clear the 5 percent threshold needed to secure parliamentary seats. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/pashinian -reappointed-armenian-pm-after-securing- parliament-majority/29708811.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Lavrov Talks Tough At Meeting With Japan On Disputed Islands By RFE/RL January 14, 2019 Moscow has warned Tokyo not to expect progress toward an agreement over the disputed Kurile Islands unless Japan first recognizes Russian sovereignty over the Pacific island chain claimed by both countries since World War II. Meeting with his Japanese counterpart in Moscow on January 14, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the countries still had "substantial disagreements" despite some progress in bringing their positions closer. The Soviet Union seized the four islands north of Hokkaido at the end of the war, and the dispute has prevented the countries form signing a peace treaty to formally end the hostilities. Japan calls the islands the Northern Territories. Lavrov's talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Tara Kono came ahead of a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Foreign Minister Shinzo Abe, which the Kremlin said will be held on January 22 in Moscow. Putin and Abe agreed in November to accelerate negotiations based on a 1956 Soviet proposal to return the two less populated islands, Shikotan and a group of islets called Habomai. But Lavrov set a tough tone in remarks both before and after the meeting with Kono, criticizing recent statements by Japanese officials and saying that Tokyo must not try to force an agreement. "Today we confirmed our readiness to work on the basis of the 1956 declaration, which means above all the immutability -- as the very first step -- of recognition by our Japanese neighbors of the outcome of the Second World War," Lavrov said. That includes "the sovereignty of the Russian Federation over all the islands of the Southern Kuriles," Lavrov said. "This is our fundamental position, and without a step in this direction it is very hard to count on any movement forward on other issues." "Russia's sovereignty over the islands is not subject to discussion. They are part of the territory of the Russian Federation," Lavrov told reporters. He said the UN Charter supports Moscow's ownership of the islands. Recognition of the outcome of the war, and of Russian sovereignty over the islands, could potentially rule out any further dispute or claims by Tokyo on the two larger and more populated islands, Iturup and Kunashir. Abe, who has been prime minister since 2012 and also held the post earlier, has met repeatedly with Putin and voiced hope of ending the dispute while gaining control over at least some of the four islands. Moscow has often suggested that increased Japanese investment and trade would help create favorable conditions for a deal, but Lavrov said business cooperation on the islands was being implemented "on a very modest, unimpressive scale." Speaking at the start of the talks, Kono seemed to try to turn the tables on Russia on that score, saying that the two countries need to solve the territorial problem to set the stage for expanding economic and other ties. Following upbeat statements by Japanese officials in recent weeks, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the Japanese ambassador on January 9 to warn Tokyo not to "artificially incite the atmosphere regarding the peace treaty problem and [not to] try to enforce its own scenario of settling the issue." Lavrov was similarly stern as he sat down for the talks with Kono, saying that "once again, I would like to ask our Japanese colleagues to strictly follow agreements by our leaders, both regarding the format of talks and, naturally, the substance of work on a peace treaty." After the talks, Lavrov dismissed as "unacceptable" what he said was a recent statement by Abe that "Russian citizens will be able to remain on the islands after [they] come under Japanese sovereignty." Lavrov also said that a statement by an aide to Abe suggesting that resolving the dispute would help Japan and the United States deter China was "outrageous," and claimed it raised questions about the independence of Japanese foreign policy. "We wondered whether Japan could be independent given such reliance on the U.S., and we were told that Japan would act proceeding from its national interests," Lavrov said. "We would like to hope it will indeed be so." He also said that Russia is concerned about the U.S. military presence in the region, including the deployment of U.S. missile-defense components which he said create security risks for Russia and China. With reporting by AP, Reuters, RIA Novosti, TASS, and Interfax Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/lavrov- talks-tough-at-meeting-with-japan-on- disputed-islands/29709170.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Former Kosovar War Commander Questioned At Hague Court By RFE/RL's Balkan Service January 14, 2019 A former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) has been interviewed at a controversial special court in the Netherlands about his role during Kosovo's 1998-99 war of independence from Serbia. Rrustem Mustafa and his attorneys met with members of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and the Specialist Prosecutor's Office at The Hague on January 14 for a round of questioning. Mustafa told journalists as he entered the court building that "he will answer all the prosecutor's questions." He is expected to meet with court officials on January 15 as well. Sami Lushtaku, another UCK commander, was due to be interviewed by the court on January 16. Mustafa and Lushtaku were important figures during the uprising against Serbian forces and have been politically active in the Democratic Party of Kosovo during the last 20 years. Kosovar Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, who was acquitted in a UN court of war crimes and crimes against humanity, met with Mustafa and Lushtaku on January 13 ahead of their visit to The Hague. Haradinaj proclaimed the UCK's role during the 1998-99 war to be "clean and sacred." Kosovar President Hashim Thaci, who also fought with the UCK, wrote on Facebook that the two men are "national war heroes" who will "always remain as such for the Kosovar institutions and the people." Many Serbs say UCK fighters committed atrocities against the minority Serbian community of Kosovo, which has about 2 million citizens. "This tribunal presents the last chance to shed light on the assassinations in Kosovo," said Beriana Mustafa, a journalist who lives in Pristina and whose father was killed near his home after he criticized UCK commanders. "Hope is always the last to die," said Natasa Scepanovic, the leader of an association of Serbian victims that is hoping for prosecutions against UCK members they say committed crimes. The body of Scepanovic's father was discovered in 2003, several years after he was killed. Her mother is one of about 1,700 people still listed as missing from the Kosovar war. The court, which is funded by the European Union, was made possible by a law passed by Kosovo's parliament in 2015 under pressure from the EU, the United States, and international organizations. But it only became operational two years later when rules for procedure and evidence were adopted by the parliament. Although the judges, prosecutors, and other court officials are from various countries, the court is being administered under the laws of Kosovo. The court's establishment led to great opposition within Kosovo and particularly among UCK veterans, who believe that Serbs who are alleged to have committed crimes in Kosovo in 1998-99 should also be interviewed by prosecutors. But many leaders of Serbian forces have been tried and sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). A group of Kosovar legislators organized a petition to abolish the court that was signed by several thousand citizens. At least 2,800 people were killed and hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes during the Kosovo war, which ended after NATO warplanes forced Yugoslav forces to pull out of Kosovo. The former Serbian-ruled region declared independence in 2008 and has been recognized by more than 110 countries, but not by Belgrade. With reporting by AP and AFP Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/former -kosovar-war-commander-questioned- at-hague-court/29709599.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Four Killed, 90 Wounded In Kabul Car-Bomb Attack By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan January 14, 2019 KABUL -- At least four people were killed and more than 90 were wounded when a car bomb exploded near a foreign compound in the east of Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, on January 14, officials said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said the blast had targeted Green Village, where some foreign NGOs and workers used to be based. Twenty-three children are among the injured, the ministry's deputy spokesman, Nasrat Rahimi, said. Until recently, some UN staff lived and worked at the compound, but Danish said the area was now largely empty and "only a number of guards" were left. "Residential buildings nearby have sustained heavy damage," he said. "Special police force units have been deployed to the site to check if there are more attackers." The latest attack comes as U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is touring the region for meetings aimed at bringing an end to the 17-year war in Afghanistan. Khalilzad, who met Taliban representatives last month in Abu Dhabi, is traveling to Afghanistan as well as China, India, and Pakistan on a trip lasting through January 21. Last month's leaking of U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to reduce troop numbers in Afghanistan, however, has threatened to derail peace efforts and alarmed many Afghans. The Taliban controls or contests nearly half of Afghanistan, where it is waging a deadly insurgency against the Western-backed Kabul government and government security forces. Last week, Taliban leaders called off a fourth round of talks with U.S. officials in the Arab Gulf state of Qatar due to an "agenda disagreement" and refused to allow what they called "puppet" Afghan government officials to join the talks. With reporting by AFP, Reuters, and AP Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/huge -blast-rocks-foreign-compound- in-kabul/29709334.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. 'Military deal with Sudan paves way for Russia to build base on Red Sea' Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 09:16AM A senior Sudanese parliamentarian says a draft military deal with Russia on mutual navy port visits could pave the way for Moscow to build a permanent military base on the Red Sea coast. Major General Al-Hadi Adam, the head of Sudan's parliamentary defense committee, told Russia's Sputnik news agency on Saturday that the agreement set the guidelines for the entry of Russian and Sudanese warships to the ports of the two countries, hailing it as a step towards establishing strategic relations. "The date of the requested port call is being discussed. It will be approved if the two countries make an agreement. This deal will pave the way for more agreements and greater cooperationpossibly a Russian base on the Red Sea," the official said. Musa pointed out that several regional states had already allowed foreign countries to build military bases in their territories, adding that Sudan, just like those countries, reserved the right to allow Russia to establish a military base on its territory. Last week, Russia's legal information portal website reported that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev had approved the draft agreement on port calls with Sudan. According to the draft agreement, "the entry of warships shall be made after notification has been given not later than seven working days prior to the scheduled date of entry." The draft document stressed that "within the framework of the Agreement, no more than seven warships can be present simultaneously, in the territorial sea, inland waters and ports of the receiving State." It does not, however, provide for the building of a military base in Sudan. In November 2017, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir met with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in the Russian city of Sochi, where both leaders expressed their desire to enhance military ties. During the visit to Russia, Bashir even offered to build an airbase for Russia on its Red Sea coast. He also suggested re-equipping the Sudanese army with Russian-built airplanes and military arsenal including surface-to-air missiles. The Sudanese president also asked Putin to help protect his country from the "aggressive" United States. Russia is considered as a key ally of the Sudanese government against Western pressure. Sharp hike in fuel prices triggers angry protests in two Zimbabwean cities Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 11:28AM Protesters have taken to the streets in Zimbabwe to voice their outrage over a sharp hike in fuel prices recently announced by President Emmerson Mnangagwe as a measure to tackle the country's worst fuel shortage in a decade. Angry protests were held in the capital, Harare, and the country's second city of Bulawayo on Monday, only two days after Mnangagwe announced more than 100-percent rise in the price of petrol and diesel, Commuters were stranded in the cities as the protesters barricade roads and blocked buses from carrying passengers. In Bulawayo, police fired tear gas at the protesters, who gathered outside the high court, according to video footage from the Center For Innovation & Technology. A group of angry protesters also attacked minibuses heading to the city center and used burning tires and stones to block the main routes into Bulawayo. Some schools were also turning away children fearing for their safety. "We want Mnangagwa to know our displeasure in his failure," said a protester. "Mugabe [former president] was evil but he listened." A resident in Epworth, a poor suburb east of Harare, described the situation in the city as "tense since early morning." "Roads are blocked with huge stones and there are angry people preventing commuter buses from carrying passengers. People are just stranded," Nhamo Tembo told AFP. In the capital city, Zimbabwe police were deployed to patrol and stop and search citizens. The new rise in price is seen by many as the beginning of a tough year under Mnangagwa, took over from longtime leader Robert Mugabe and won a disputed election last July. Mnangagwa had pledged to revive the economy and end the country's international isolation. In a press conference Saturday night, the president said prices of petrol and diesel would more than double to tackle a shortfall caused by increased fuel usage and "rampant" illegal trading. Petrol prices rose from $1.24 a liter to $3.31, with diesel up from $1.36 a liter to $3.11 starting Sunday. The leader of opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Nelson Chamisa, warned "about a national crisis which is descending into a humanitarian crisis." The main labor alliance, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), also accused the government of showing a clear lack of empathy for the already overburdened poor. The president is now facing a huge task with the unions representing doctors and teachers, who have been on strike for better pay and improved work conditions. Doctors in state hospitals went on a 40-day strike beginning early December. Teachers unions also called a strike last week. Mnangagwa, however, warned that his government would come down hard on "elements bent on taking advantage of the current fuel shortages to cause and sponsor unrest and instability in the country." Major differences still hinder peace talks with Japan over contested islands: Russian FM Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 05:31PM Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says there are still significant disagreements with Japan on reaching a conclusive peace deal to end a decades-long territorial dispute over a group of islands, which has prevented the two sides from promoting their ties since the conclusion of World War II. The top Russian diplomat made the remarks in a press conference on Monday after a meeting with his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono in the capital Moscow, adding that it was hard to expect progress in peace talks without Japan first recognizing Russia's sovereignty over disputed islands. Russia is willing to work toward a peace resolution provided "Japan's indisputable recognition of the entirety of results of World War II, including Russia's sovereignty over all of the islands of the southern Kuril chain," Lavrov further said at the presser. The Kuril chain, which consists of a series of 56 mostly uninhabited islands, separates the Sea of Okhotsk, to the west, and the North Pacific Ocean, to the east. They are located between Hokkaido, Japan's second largest island and its northernmost prefecture, to the south, and Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, to the north. Until the final year of the Second World War, the entire Kuril Pacific archipelago was part of Japan's territory. However, Soviet troops took possession of all islands in aftermath of the Kuril Islands landing operation at the end of the war. Japan claims sovereignty over four islands in the Kuril chain. Moscow, however, cites the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951, which abolished Japan's sovereignty over the archipelago, describing Tokyo's claims as unfounded. Known in Japan as the country's Northern Territories and in Russia as the Southern Kurils, the contested islands have strained Moscow-Tokyo relations for decades, preventing the two neighbors from signing a peace treaty to formally end the wartime hostilities. The standoff has also hindered bilateral investment and trade cooperation between the two sides. Moscow has military bases on the Kuril Pacific archipelago, and in 2016 angered Tokyo by starting the construction of new modern compounds for its troops stationed on the islands. The Japanese foreign minister's visit to Russia is aimed at laying the groundwork for a key diplomatic goal, which is winning back at least some of the territory off Hokkaido from Russia, being pushed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Kono's meeting was arranged to prepare for the upcoming summit between Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin, highly likely to be held in the Russian capital on January 21. Scores of Saudi troopers, mercenaries slain, injured by Yemeni army Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 06:09PM Scores of Saudi soldiers and Saudi-sponsored militiamen loyal to Yemen's former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi have lost their lives when Yemeni army soldiers and fighters from allied Popular Committees launched separate offensives against their positions in the kingdom's border regions. An unnamed Yemeni military source told Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that Yemeni troops and their allies carried out an incursion into the positions of Saudi troopers in the Tabba al-Khashmin area of the kingdom's southwestern border region of Asir, leaving several of them dead or injured. A number of Saudi soldiers and their mercenaries were also killed when Yemeni troops and fighters from Popular Committees targeted them in al-Ebarah military camp and the Jabal al-Qais mountainous area of Jizan region. Elsewhere in Najran region, located 844 kilometers south of the Saudi capital Riyadh, a group of Saudi-backed militiamen were killed when Yemenis fired a high-precision Badr P-1 ballistic missile at their camp west of Bir Askar area. Moreover, Yemeni snipers shot and killed two Saudi soldiers at al-Mashaal military base in Jizan region. Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing Hadi's government back to power and crushing the country's Houthi Ansarullah movement. According to a report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis. The Saudi-led war has also taken a heavy toll on the country's infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years. A number of Western countries, the US and Britain in particular, are also accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 14) House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya said he is "ready" to leave his post "any time," amid talks of an ouster plot against him. "If I go to session today and they say it's time to go, I won't even put up a fight. Let's just go on," Andaya told CNN Philippines' The Source on Monday. But Andaya denied that there are plots to remove him from his post, to which he was elected just six months ago after the ouster of Davao del Norte 1st District Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez as Speaker and his right-hand man Ilocos Norte 1st District Rep. Rodolfo Farinas as majority leader. Still, Andaya said he is considering to resign from his post in preparation for his gubernatorial run in Camarines Sur but not until he finishes probing the alleged flood control project "scam" in the 2019 budget. READ: Andaya sees plunder in flood control 'scam' linked to Budget chief Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo belittled the supposed ouster move against Andaya, telling reporters on Friday that "the majority supports the incumbent." Arroyo also said that if ever the move is put to a vote, she would be voting for Andaya, who once served as her Budget secretary when she was president. Car bomb blast near foreign compound kills four, injures 90 in Afghan capital Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 06:17PM At least four people have been killed and dozens of others wounded after a bomb-laden car exploded near a heavily fortified foreign compound in the Afghan capital Kabul. Afghan Interior Ministry officials said casualties took place after militants targeted Green Village, located near a busy road in the east of the city, on Monday evening. So far, four people have been confirmed dead and more than 90 wounded, including 23 children, the ministry deputy spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said. Three of the dead were members of the security forces and one was a civilian. Rahimi said there were fears the toll could rise. Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish earlier said that "special police forces' units have been deployed to the site to check if there are more attackers." Until recently, some UN staff had lived and worked at the highly secure compound, but Danish said the area was now largely empty and "only a number of guards" were left. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet, but it bears the hallmark of attacks carried out by Takfiri terrorist groups. The militants have stepped up attacks on foreign targets across the war-torn country over the past months. In late November, a vehicle bomb exploded outside the compound of British security firm G4S, killing at least 10 people. The Taliban claimed the attack. That was followed by a bomb and gun attack on a government compound in Kabul on December 24 that killed at least 43 people. The developments come as the Kabul government has stepped up efforts to convince the Taliban to end more than 17 years of militancy amid Washington's failures on the battleground. The US, too, has been holding talks with the Taliban. The US State Department's special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, has said that he had held "productive" meetings in Abu Dhabi with Afghan and international partners "to promote intra-Afghan dialogue towards ending the conflict." Khalilzad said the Taliban seek an agreement on the withdrawal of foreign forces, while the US wants assurances from the militant group that its forces would not be attacked. The talks are the latest in a flurry of diplomatic efforts aimed at putting an end to the war in Afghanistan, which began with the US-led invasion in 2001. US President Donald Trump has ordered the start of withdrawing some 7,000 troops from Afghanistan, about half of the total number of American boots on the ground in the war-torn country. Taliban militants have pledged to step up their attacks unless US forces fully withdraw from Afghanistan. Venezuela to refine tons of gold in Turkey Iran Press TV Mon Jan 14, 2019 11:16PM Venezuela has sent a committee to Turkey to sign a contract enabling refining of thousands of tons of gold at central Turkish facilities. The team has been dispatched to Turkey's province of Corum, where the refineries are located, to conduct the talks leading to the deal, various Turkish media outlets reported on Monday. It will report to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro about the details of the deal, according to Turkey's Aksam newspaper. Venezuela's Minister of Industries and National Production will finalize the deal during a visit to Turkey on Wednesday. Venezuela's Central Bank began refining gold in Turkey in 2018 on Maduro's orders. Venezuela's economy has been stretched almost to the limit by an economic war launched against the country by the United States that calls the country "a threat to its national security" and has brought it under several rounds of sanctions. Relations between Caracas and Washington have been tense since the late socialist president Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999. Former US president Barack Obama first ordered sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials in March 2015, alleging that they were involved in the violation of Venezuelans' human rights. In November 2018, Obama's successor Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing fresh economic sanctions against Maduro's government aimed at disrupting the South American country's gold exports. Earlier this January, the US imposed fresh sanctions against individuals who allegedly worked in a network transferring billions of dollars for the Venezuelan government. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in December criticized sanctions on Venezuela during his visit to Caracas. Maduro says the US seeks to topple his administration through the sanctions. Caracas has lodged a complaint at the World Trade Organization to challenge the bans, saying they flout the WTO's rules. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the American measures targeting Venezuela during a visit to Caracas last December. CNO Visits Chinese Counterpart in Beijing Navy News Service Story Number: NNS190114-01 Release Date: 1/14/2019 4:01:00 AM From Chief of Naval Operations Public Affairs BEIJING (NNS) -- Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. John Richardson met with People's Liberation Army (Navy) (PLA(N)) commander Vice Adm. Shen Jinlong in Beijing, Jan 14. The two heads of navy discussed professional interactions at sea, specifically addressing risk reduction and adherence to rules of behavior. "I appreciate the opportunity to visit China and to meet with Vice Adm. Shen in person," Richardson said. "There is no substitute for these types of face-to-face meetings. Given the responsibilities that our navies have in the larger nation to nation relationship, we must work together. These meetings between senior leaders allow us to speak candidly about areas where we agree and about how to manage risk while we resolve our differences." While in Beijing, Richardson also visited PLA(N) headquarters, the PLA(N) Research Academy and met with other senior Chinese defense officials of the Central Military Commission. "The U.S. and its allies and partners have operated consistently in the region for the last 70 years with a focus on mutual security. This presence has supported exponential growth in prosperity for all," Richardson said. "Our vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific excludes no nation and we recognize that while our two nations may not always agree, it serves both our people's interests to engage where we can." Richardson's visit continues with a stop in Nanjing, where he is scheduled to visit the PLA(N) Command College for a roundtable discussion. The visit is Richardson's second visit to China as the chief of naval operations. The two admirals met previously at the International Seapower Symposium, hosted by Richardson in Newport, R.I. and have held three discussions via video teleconference. Jan. 14, 2019 News Release Press Operations Release No. NR-007-19 Defense Department Successfully Closes Blended Retirement System Opt-In Window The Blended Retirement System opt-in enrollment period closed at midnight on Dec. 31, 2018, capping off the successful roll-out of a new retirement system for members of the uniformed services. More than 400,000 DOD service members chose to opt into BRS during the enrollment period, and more than 150,000 new members were automatically enrolled upon entering the service. In total, over half a million uniformed service members are now covered by BRS and able to begin receiving portable, government-provided retirement benefits. The department is proud of the success of BRS implementation, which was made possible through a comprehensive training program for over 1.6 million people, an award-winning strategic communications outreach effort, and the cooperation, support, and extraordinary efforts of many agencies across the whole of government as well as numerous military and veterans service organizations and community partners. BRS is the largest change to military retirement since World War II. BRS combines a traditional pension, in most cases earned once a member serves at least 20 years, with a 401(k)-style savings plan through the federal government's Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). The government contributions to TSP are vested early in a member's career and go with that member when they leave the military even if they do not serve a full 20 years. Because of this, BRS significantly expands the number of Service members who will receive government retirement benefits. In just the first year, DOD contributed over $300 million to the TSP accounts of those service members participating in BRS. "We are immensely proud of the incredible efforts it took to design and implement the policy and educate and train our forces on the Blended Retirement System," says the Honorable Mr. James Stewart, who is performing the duties of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. "We see BRS as an important change that will set America's service members on the path toward greater financial flexibility, responsibility, and security." The BRS opt-in process was designed to provide eligible Uniformed Service members a choice for their own futures. The department encouraged service members to complete BRS training, seek financial counseling, consult with family, and make a personal decision on whether or not to opt-in. The department did not set a target or goal for opt-in, nor try to persuade members to opt into BRS. While the primary opt-in period has now ended, there are members who have been granted extensions of the opt-in period based on provisions included in law. This includes those members with a date of initial entry into military service that was on or before Dec. 31, 2017, who are still either cadets or midshipmen, or who did not have at least 30 days during 2018 to make an opt-in decision following initial entry training, and certain other categories of personnel who will be afforded additional time due to special circumstances. Consequently, the total number of opt-in participants will continue to grow over the coming months and years. ### Links to the Blended Retirement System Resources: BRS Resource webpage: http://militarypay.defense.gov/BlendedRetirement BRS Opt-In Course, CAC Enabled (Limited to Service Members): https://jkosupport.jten.mil/html/COI.xhtml?course_prefix=J3O&course_number=P-US1332 BRS Opt-In Course Non-CAC (Open to public): http://jko.jten.mil/courses/brs/OPT-IN/launch.html Service members can receive free, confidential support from an accredited personal financial counselor or manager. Locate one through http://www.militaryinstallations.dod.mil, search online at http://jointservicessupport.org/spn or call Military One Source at 1-800-342-9647. Military and Family Support Center. Search online at https://installations.militaryonesource.mil/ or http://www.jointservicessupport.org/spn. New BRS Retirement Calculators: https://militarypay.defense.gov/Calculators/BRS/ https://dod.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1731168/ Jan. 14, 2019 News Release Press Operations Release No. NR-008-19 U.S. and Qatar Sign MOU Reaffirming Qatar's Commitment to Supporting U.S. Military Activities at Al Udeid Air Base The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the Ministry of Defense of the State of Qatar signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) concerning Qatar's support of DOD activities at Al Udeid Air Base (AUAB) during the second U.S.-Qatar Strategic Dialogue in Doha, Qatar Jan. 13. The MOU will help promote interoperability, support regional stability, and reaffirm the U.S.-Qatar defense relationship. It also represents a positive step towards the eventual formalization of Qatar's commitment to support sustainment costs and future infrastructure costs at AUAB, which the State of Qatar proposed at the first U.S.-Qatar Strategic Dialogue in January 2018. Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Michael Pompeo, U.S. Secretary of State, jointly witnessed the signing ceremony. The Principal Director for Middle East Policy in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense Ms. Jennifer Zakriski and Brigadier General Fahad al-Sulaiti, Director of the International Military Cooperation Authority, General Headquarters, Qatar Armed Forces signed the MOU on behalf of their respective governments. Separately, both the U.S. and Qatari delegations to the Strategic Dialogue hailed the many achievements in the bilateral military relationship in the past year, including joint exercises, U.S. ship visits to Doha, and the implementation of standard operating procedures designed to facilitate customs, immigration, and operational processes that will deepen the security and military partnership. Since 2003, Qatar has hosted U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and Special Operations Command (SOCCENT) Forward Headquarters and U.S. Air Forces Central Command (AFCENT) at AUAB, the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East with over 11,000 U.S. and Coalition service members. AUAB has served as the primary staging ground for most air operations in the campaign to defeat ISIS. The U.S. and the State of Qatar have had a longstanding and multi-faceted bilateral military relationship which is guided by shared goals to combat terrorism, deter criminality in the Arabian Gulf and promote regional security and stability. https://dod.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1731648/ Military Staffer Arrested in Germany on Suspicion of Spying for Iran Sputnik News 15:09 15.01.2019(updated 15:13 15.01.2019) The Bundeswehr has found itself in the centre of a spy scandal after the respected German weekly Der Spiegel reported that the intelligence service of the Islamic Republic of Iran recruited a German trooper years ago. The man with Afghan roots worked as a translator and had access to sensitive information. A 50-year-old Bundeswehr trooper, who allegedly colluded with the Iranian intelligence service for several years, has been arrested in Germany. "Abdul Hamid S. is strongly suspected of having worked for a foreign intelligence agency. The suspect was a language expert and cultural adviser for the Bundeswehr. In this capacity, he is believed to have passed insights to an Iranian intelligence agency", the statement by the federal prosecutor's office reads. Der Spiegel reported earlier today that he had access to highly sensitive information, such as the deployment of troops in Afghanistan, but possibly also other areas of interest and passed it to the Iranian secret services. According to Der Spiegel's information, the activities of Iranian intelligence services in Europe have been a matter of increasing concern for local authorities. Last year, an Iranian diplomat, who received accreditation in Austria, was arrested in Germany. For years, he had reportedly had informants in Belgium, and allegedly commissioned two of them to attack a meeting of an Iranian opposition group in Paris. Additionally, Iranian services are also said to have orchestrated hacker attacks against Germany. The outlet reports that the German authorities also believed that Tehran was preparing a list of potential Jewish targets in Germany that could be attacked in the event of an Israeli-Iranian war. However, these allegations have not been proven yet. Sputnik Huawei President Refutes Allegations of Spying for China - Reports Sputnik News 18:52 15.01.2019 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Huawei Technologies President Ren Zhengfei said on Tuesday that the Chinese telecommunication giant had never spied in favour of Beijing or granted access to "improper information" to any country, as cited by the Financial Times. "I still love my country, I support the Communist party, but I will never do anything to harm any country in the world," Ren told reporters at Huawei's Shenzhen headquarters, as quoted by the Financial Times newspaper. The Huawei founder went on saying that had he had "never received any request from any government to provide improper information." He added that he very much missed his daughter, Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Canada in December at the US request on suspicion of violating Iran sanctions imposed by Washington. Huawei has recently faced allegations that it had been linked to the Chinese government and even involved in espionage on its behalf, something that the company has vehemently denied. Last year, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United States banned the Chinese telecommunications giant from participating in government contracts. Most recently, on Friday, Polish media reported that one of the directors of the Polish office of Huawei, and a former high-ranking employee of Poland's Internal Security Agency (ISA) were arrested in Poland on suspicion of spying for China. On Saturday, the Chinese company terminated the contract with the employee detained by the Polish authorities. The company stressed that Huawei always complies with the norms and laws of the country in which it operates, and demands that all its employees follow the relevant laws and regulations. Sputnik Trump: I Never Worked for Russia' By Ken Bredemeier January 14, 2019 U.S. President Donald Trump declared Monday, "I never worked for Russia," days after news reports suggested he might be beholden to Russia and President Vladimir Putin. "I think it's a disgrace you even asked that question," Trump told a reporter who queried him about his ties to Russia outside the White House as he prepared to leave for New Orleans to speak at a farm convention. The New York Times reported over the weekend that Federal Bureau of Investigation officials started investigating whether Trump "was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence" because of his behavior after he fired former FBI chief James Comey in May 2017. At the time, Comey was leading the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The Washington Post also reported in recent days that Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to hide details of his conversations the five times he has met with Putin over the last two years. Both the investigation into Russian meddling, and the investigation into whether the U.S. president has been working for Russian interests are now overseen by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. While the president continues to forcefully criticize the FBI's handling of the investigation into his campaign, the man he nominated as his new attorney general says he supports letting the Special Counsel's Russia investigation finish its work. William Barr, who served as attorney general for two years in the early 1990s, said Monday that allowing the Special Counsel's probe to conclude is "vitally important" and he supports a public report of its findings. Barr is expected to appear in confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Hiding details of Putin talks Trump said Monday he had nothing to hide from his private two hours of talks with Putin in July at their Helsinki summit, where only interpreters were in the room with the two leaders. He said among other issues, they talked about security for Israel and construction of a controversial natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. The Washington Post reported on details of the lengths Trump has gone to keep senior officials from learning about his talks with Putin. On one occasion, the newspaper said Trump took possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructed the linguist to not discuss what had transpired with other Trump administration officials. The newspaper said that incident occurred after Trump and Putin met in Hamburg in 2017, a meeting also attended by then-U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Trump has disparaged the newspaper reports, while characterizing himself as tough on Moscow. He told Fox News talk show host Jeanine Pirro on Saturday "if you ask the folks in Russia, I've been tougher on Russia than anybody else, any other -- probably any other president period, but certainly the last three or four presidents, modern day presidents." Asked directly whether he is now or has ever worked for Russia, he said, much as he did Monday, "I think it's the most insulting thing I've ever been asked." Trump said the Times's account of the mid-2017 FBI investigation of him was "a very horrible thing. They really are a disaster of a newspaper." Democrats concerned Virginia Senator Mark Warner, the leading Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee that has been investigating Trump campaign links with Russia, told CNN on Sunday that at times Trump has "almost parroted" Putin's policies. "It's a very real consideration" whether Trump is a willing agent of Russia," Warner said, especially considering information that surfaced last week that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data in 2016 with a former business associate of his that U.S. investigators believe had ties to Russian intelligence. Another key Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, told ABC News there are "serious questions" about why Trump is "so chummy" with Putin. Earlier, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said in a statement that in the coming weeks his panel "will take steps to better understand both the president's actions and the FBI's response to that behavior." Trump also assailed the Post's story, dismissing concerns about the secrecy surrounding his talks with Putin in Helsinki. No official accounts of their talks have been released, but Trump told Pirro there was nothing to hide about their discussions and could release a transcript. "We had a great conversation," he said. "We were talking about Israel and securing Israel and lots of other things. And it was a great conversation. I'm not keeping anything under wraps, I couldn't care less. I mean, it's so ridiculous." He added, "Anybody could have listened to that meeting, that meeting is up for grabs." All-consuming Russia probe Trump's first two years in office have been consumed by the now 20-month investigation whether his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia to help him win and whether, as president, Trump obstructed justice by trying to thwart the probe by special counsel Robert Mueller, who took over the investigation after Trump ousted Comey. Shortly after Trump dismissed Comey, he told NBC news anchor Lester Holt he was thinking of "this Russia thing" when he decided to fire the FBI chief, saying he felt the investigation was created by Democrats dismayed that Trump had upset former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to win the White House. Mueller is believed to be nearing the end of his investigation and is expected to write a report on his findings. The law is settled, but the fight is just begun Sun Sunday 99 /63 Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 90s and lows in the low 60s. New study claims aliens could exist on Jupiter's icy moon Europa News oi-Vishal Kawadkar We might not be alone in our solar system. In 2018, a NASA scientist caused a stir in the science fraternity after his claims of alien existence. As a part of his paper on extraterrestrial life, he wrote, "They could have visited us, we just didn't notice." Now a new study from a different team of scientists has come up with a new theory that claims that aliens could exist and that too pretty close to our planet. Dubbed "X-Ray, UV, Optical Irradiances and Age of Barnard's Star's New Super-Earth Planet - 'Can Life Find a Way' on such a Cold Planet?," the paper from Villanova University suggests that the recently found exoplanet called Barnard G could possibly have aliens. The co-author of the paper, Edward Guinan is the one who came with the theory. In a press release, he also mentioned that the geothermal heating on the exoplanet is capable of supporting 'life zones' under the surface. The geothermal heating could result in producing an ocean and sustain life. This is something similar to what has been observed in Antarctica's ice lakes. The exoplanet has almost similar temperature as Jupiter's moon Europa which is minus 238 degrees cold. The paper also says that "little is definitely known about geomagnetism of super-earths like 'Barnard B', a large liquid iron core, that could generate geomagnetic fields, could offer protection from strong winds and coronal mass ejections when the star was young & magnetically active." What remains to be seen is whether the exoplanet is capable of sustaining an atmosphere. But, still, the theory makes sense and would be enough to keep the scientists hooked to the information gathered from the planet. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Apple iPhone XR and iPhone 8 price slash up to 20 percent: All you need to know News oi-Karan Sharma Two Chinese e-commerce companies have slashed the prices of Apple iPhone XR and iPhone 8 up to 20 per cent. All you need to know. If you are planning to buy Apple iPhone XR and iPhone 8 then China will be the best country to purchase the phone. Two Chinese e-commerce companies have slashed the prices of both the smartphone by up to 20 per cent. The price drop comes when Apple is getting weak in terms of sales in one of its important markets. JD.com also known as China's biggest e-commerce website has dropped the price of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus by 20 per cent. On the other hand, Suing.com dropped the price of the latest iPhone Xr by 1,299 Yuan (approx Rs 13,500) JD.com, which is said to Chinas biggest e-commerce platform, has slashed prices of Apple iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus by 20%. Suing.com, another major e-commerce platform, dropped prices Apples latest iPhone XR by 1,299 Yuan (Rs 13,500 approximately). According to a CNET report, the JD.com's discount was authorised by Apple and the Suing.com's discount is a part of its annual promotional activities. Apple CEO Tim cook blamed slowing iPhone sales in China for the revision. While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China, Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a letter to investors. According to the report, the Chines companies are encouraging buyers to abandon iPhones after the CFO of Huawei got arrested in Canada for alleged financial fraud. Recently, it was reported that the Apple iPhone XR became the best-selling iPhone model in November 2018. "iPhone XR became the best-selling iPhone model in November 2018. In contrast, last year in November the more expensive iPhone X was the best-selling model with almost 50 per cent higher volume compared to the iPhone XR in November this year. The overall sales of new iPhones took a hit in November due to slower sales of the series in the Asia Pacific region (excluding China and India), Europe and US," Shobhit Srivastava, Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research, said. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Meizu Note 9 leaked renders suggest Snapdragon 6150 SoC and 48MP camera sensor News oi-Sandeep Sarkar The Meizu Note 9 is said to flaunt a 6.3-inch display panel with a waterdrop notch on top of it. Meizu, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer had recently made a comeback with the release of three new smartphones, i.e, the Meizu 16th, Meizu 6T, and Meizu C9. Now, it appears that the company is prepping up for its next smartphone release in the market. This time, we are coming across the reports of an upcoming Meizu smartphone which is the Meizu Note 9. A recent post by company's CEO Jack Wong suggests some of the key specifications which the device will pack. Also, some renders of the device have also been leaked giving us a fair picture at the specifications and features which it will pack. The post shared by Wong hints that the upcoming Meizu Note 9 might be powered by a Snapdragon 6150 chipset and could also pack a 48MP camera lens for better imaging and videos. Besides, the latest leaks and rumors surrounding the smartphone suggest that the device might boast a display with a teardrop notch. Let's have a look at the rumors specifications and features of the upcoming Meizu Note 9 smartphone: The Meizu Note 9 is said to flaunt a 6.3-inch display panel with a waterdrop notch on top of it. For imaging, the device might sport a dual-lens camera setup comprising of a 48MP Samsung GM1 camera sensor. This is the same sensor which is used by the Redmi Note 7 and also the Galaxy A8s. The smartphone is further said to be powered by a Snapdragon 6150 chipset and backing up the unit will be a big 4,000mAh battery unit. Currently, there is no official confirmation from Meizu on the upcoming Note 9 smartphone and we don't have any information as to when this device will make its way to the market officially. We are waiting for some more information to be available on the same and will keep you updated with the same. Source Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Honor 10 Lite launch event: Watch the live stream here News oi-Vivek Honor 10 Lite supports GPU Turbo 2.0 Honor, the e-smartphone brand from Huawei is all set to launch the first smartphone of 2019 in India. The company will be launching the Honor 10 Lite, which is the successor to the Honor 9 Lite. The company is hosting a launch event in New Delhi on the 15th of January @ 11:30 AM. The entire launch event will be live streamed on various streaming platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Watch the live unveiling of the Honor 10 Lite here. Honor 10 Lite expected price The base variant of the Honor 10 Lite retails in China for 1399 Yuan (4 GB + 64 GB), and the smartphone is expected to cost Rs 13,999 in India. The Honor 10 Lite with 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage iteration is likely to cost around Rs 19,000. The Honor 10 Lite will be available exclusively on Flipkart. Honor 10 Lite specifications The Honor 10 Lite is expected to be the most affordable device from the company with a water-drop notch, which is most likely to compete against the likes of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7. The Honor 10 Lite has a 6.21-inch IPS LCD grade screen with a resolution of 2340 x 1080p, protected by 2.5D curved tempered glass. The Honor 10 Lite is powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 710 SoC with 4/6 GB of RAM and 64/128 GB of internal storage. With respect to connectivity, the device has a dual SIM nano-SIM card slot (Hybrid solution) with support for 4G LTE and VoLTE on both the slots. The Honor 10 Lite supports Bluetooth 4.2 and dual channel Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac. The Honor 10 Lite has a dual camera setup with a 13 MP (f/2.2) RGB sensor and a 2 MP depth sensor. The device also has super has a 24 MP selfie camera on the front with an f/2.0 aperture. The mobile phone has a 3400 mAh battery with support for 10W fast charging via micro USB port and a dedicated 3.5mm headphone jack. Out of the box, the device runs on Android 9 Pie OS with EMUI 9.0.1 skin on top. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Judges that served the violent regime of Saakashvili should not be in the Supreme Court, says Eka Beselia - GeorgianJournal 4 Estonians and a Lithuanian who farm tea in Georgia - GeorgianJournal When asked if he felt threatened by the 'E Ihowa' verse of 'God Defend New Zealand', Mr Chong said no. "I just only need to sing the original version," he explained. "If we all have to be made to sing the anthem in two languages, then the haka should be sung in two languages too." 'E Ihowa Atua' was written in 1878, just two years after 'God Defend New Zealand' was first performed. The lyrics, which aren't a direct translation of the anthem, are commonly sung before the English verse. It's not Mr Chong's first race-related controversy. In November 2018 he told NZME that he flew the Confederate flag (regarded as a pro-slavery symbol) during New Plymouth's Americarna festival. In the same radio interview he also defended the Hawera group who wore blackface in an A&P parade. In 2015 Mr Chong was criticised by Mayor Andrew Judd for making fun of Asian accents, and in 2017 he referred to National and Labour as "Natori" and "Labori" in disparaging reference to the amount of money being spent on te reo Maori. Mr Chong has been approached for comment regarding his remarks on Facebook. Newshub. Xem them ... Tin bai cuoi cung Khong con du lieu e load If youve been paying attention, you must be quite unsettled about the recent dire warnings from climate scientists about the climate crisis. Their research shows we have a very short time to bend the curve on greenhouse gas emissions, and to create drawdown actions in time to avoid a cascade of climate crises that will become unstoppable. Many of us are procrastinators, but with a scramble we make it work out. On a planetary scale that cannot work, because we dont see the forces we have already put in motion. We dont see the gathering storm of worldwide interlinked cascading events and tipping points. The Oregon Legislature and U.S. Congress are considering legislation to place a price on carbon, the most effective way to address the planetary mess we are in, says James Hansen, a well-known climate scientist. Pricing carbon can be politically risky. In Washington State this November, voters rejected a measure to place a fee on carbon dioxide emissions. And in France we saw how resentment over rising gas prices resulted in violent protests. Does this mean carbon pricing is doomed to fail? Is it possible to put an ever-rising price on carbon, while avoiding social and political upheaval? How do we make sure low-income people dont suffer without heat, or gas to get to work? The mother of a suspected ring leader in the alleged kidnapping of 5Dimes owner Sean Tony Creighton, appears to have some ties to Malta and bookmakers who once operated there. START YOUR OWN SPORTSBOOK FOR JUST A SMALL FEE PER WEEK PER PLAYER HERE Guiselle Vega Aguirre, 45, is among 13 individuals arrested in Costa Rica and Spain Friday, suspected in the September 24 abduction of 42-year-old Sean Tony Creighton. The victim is a Bridgeport, West Virginia transplant and owner of San Pedro, Costa Rica-based 5Dimes.com, a sportsbook and online casino company that has been in operation since 1999. Vega Aguirre was previously listed as an officer in one now defunct Maltese company. Malta is the worlds largest online gambling hub, and it is the same nation Costa Rican authorities believed 5Dimes laundered money through back in 2016. Funds had been transferred to Latinamerica Trust & Escrow Company SA (Latco), a Costa Rican company set up to handle real estate administration in Costa Rica. Vega Aguirre was also associated with a UK company, Winsor Consultants Limited that dissolved back in April of this past year. Interestingly enough, it listed under the industry of "real estate". Filings for Winsor Consultants Limited show suspect in alleged kidnapping of Sean Creighton was part of company first incorporated by i-Gaming principal Vega Aguirre, who lists herself as being in the banking sector on some social media outlets, was appointed Secretary and Director of said company on January 18, 2017, replacing one Baron Menzel, 50, and taking control of 75% of shares in the company. Winsor Consultants Limited would be dissolved three months later. Until now, no association has been drawn between those arrested Friday and the i-Gaming sector. Vega Aguirre's role in Winsor Consultants Limited named along side Menzel in Articles of Incorporation place her squarely in the Internet gambling realm, though these connections are not thoroughly understood. Mr. Menzel, who first filed paperwork for Winsor Consultants, was reportedly an owner of now defunct online bookmaker Sunderlands Online with no apparent connection to the Surrey UK bookmaker established in 1946, though they apparently did sell their online division back in 2008. Some time thereafter, Menzel represented himself as the new owner of the company, with affiliations to Sunderbet', 'Sunderlands.eu', BetPresto. or .BetVivo. All those domain names are currently for sale. Prior to his association with Sunderlands Online, Menzel was founder of BingoHour.com He touts himself as one of the original Internet gambling pioneers as well as a Gaming Software Specialist, Bookmaker, Entrepeneur, RaceHorse Owner. Menzel currently lists himself as a partner in the ISM Investments Inc. in Gibraltar, another popular online gambling hub. It is unclear what, if any, association he might still have with Vega Aguirre. She, along with her son and mother, were taken into custody Friday. Vega Aguirre was arrested by Spanish authorities and will be extradited back to Costa Rica along with her son and his girlfriend. All other suspects were apprehended in various locations throughout Costa Rica. Law enforcement claims Creighton was taken to Vega Aguirre's mother's home where the perpetrators demanded nearly $1 million ransom from the 5Dimes owner's wife. She sent the funds via Bitcoin and that transaction was ultimately traced back to three wallets belonging to at least one of the suspects. Police say Vega Aguirre, her son and his girlfriend fled to Spain via El Salvador, Panama and Cuba before securing a large rental home in Zaragoza. Law enforcement believes the rest of the crew were set to move to Spain. Two of those arrested were transit officers. Investigators are hopeful Creighton could still be alive. His body is yet to be recovered. - Alejandro Botticelli, Gambling911.com Our Wicked War with Mexico and its Repercussions Sayulita, Mexico - Living in Mexico half the year has motivated me to learn more about the history of the often-contentious relationship between Mexico and the United States. The current problems we have on the Mexican border further inspired my research. By coincidence, flying back from Mexico to the United States recently, I was searching my Kindle and found a book that seemed to fit my interest perfectly: "A Wicked War: Clay, Lincoln and the 1846 Invasion of Mexico," written by Amy S. Greenberg five years ago. I was shocked by what I read. False starts, false allegations, lies, atrocities, disillusionment, depravations and divisiveness, all fueled by manifest destiny - the almost religious belief that it was both justified and inevitable that the United States, by any means, come to own all of the territory between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. General Ulysses S. Grant, fighting in this war as a young army lieutenant, called it "wicked" and "the most unjust war ever waged." Grant felt the ensuing Civil War was God's punishment for that sin. Abraham Lincoln called James K. Polk, who was president at the time of the war, a liar and called down God's wrath on Polk's head. So how did this wicked war come to pass? The Spanish first colonized the states that now make up the southwest portion of the United States. Spain allowed some Americans to settle in what is known as Texas. Mexico broke away from Spain in 1821. By 1835, there were about 20,000 American and European settlers there, as well as slaves. (The Mexican government had tried in vain to limit this influx.) That year, fighting broke out between the American colonists and the Mexican Army because Mexico wanted to limit the practice of slavery. The next year, the colonists declared Texas an independent state. After a decisive victory at the Battle of San Jacinto, fighting stopped. But Mexico never recognized this new, rogue state. Mexico warned the United States that it would go to war if it tried to make Texas a state. The president at the time, Martin van Buren, took the threat seriously, but by 1844, President John Tyler began negotiations with the Republic of Texas that led to the Treaty of Annexation. This infuriated Mexico, which severed diplomatic relations with the United States, but the treaty lacked votes in the Senate and was soundly defeated. Before he left office, Tyler tried again to get the treaty ratified and, with the help of President-elect James Polk, the treaty was passed and Texas became a state on December 29. Mexico, wisely, did not declare war, but tensions between the two countries grew due to a hotly contested dispute over where the border should be. In 1846, Polk, an ardent expansionist, sent Congressman John Sidell to discuss a purchase of the disputed areas, as well as the present-day states of Nevada and California. The mission failed. Some minor fighting broke out, giving the United States an excuse to declare war on Mexico on May 13, 1846. In so doing, a republic invaded another republic with little justification. The Mexicans were out-manned, out-gunned and out-trained, and lost every battle. The war's most daring maneuver came when American forces under General Winfield Scott landed 10,000 men at the port of Veracruz on March 19, 1847, without the loss of one life and marched on to capture Mexico City. Although we won the war, the ensuing peace treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was fraught with great controversy. Polk's representative, Nicholas P. Trist, was the lead diplomat for the peace talks, but Polk got wind that Trist was going to be too lenient with Mexico and recalled him. Trist refused to be recalled and began peace talks in earnest. Finally, the peace treaty was approved - much to the benefit of the United States - but when Trist returned to Washington, he was promptly fired by an angry Polk who cut off all of his pay and much-deserved recognition. Trist lived a long time in poverty before his salary was reinstated. Our victory came at a terrible price: one of the highest casualty rates of any war fought by the United States. Of 80,000 soldiers, 13,200 died - a mortality rate of 17 percent, more than that of World Wars I and II. Most died not from bullets, but from dysentery, yellow fever, malaria and smallpox. The Mexican dead tallied at over 25,000, many lost to atrocities committed by our volunteer troops - burning villages, raping, scalping and torturing in revenge for previous wrongs committed by Mexican troops. So although the war's conclusion seemed like a great win for the United States, in reality the acquisition of so much territory, all at once, with the slavery issue still hotly contested, started the slow but inevitable fuse that ignited the Civil War in 1861. A person of great note against slavery in the new territory was Representative Abraham Lincoln from Illinois. Henry Clay likely lost his bid for presidency by being vocal against the war. Key players on the political side included Jefferson Davis and Stephen Douglas. On the battlefields, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant and Stonewall Jackson were among the dozens of commanders who would later emerge as leaders in the Civil War. Winfield Scott - who was nicknamed "old fuss and feathers" - was likely the ablest of the generals. It was a wicked war and Grant believed that until his dying day. But nothing could compare in wickedness and horror with the Civil War, in which 620,000 soldiers died, two-thirds by disease and starvation. And that war, sadly, still has so much negative impact on our nation. If you have a chance, read the book. It not only presents the facts, but the author writes such vivid portraits of the men and women involved that you will think you are right with them, discussing the serious problems of the day. Graveside services for Ruby Mae Brackeen, 93, of Gainesville, are set for 10:00 AM Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at the Fairview Cemetery in Gainesville with Bro. Gary Carter officiating under the direction of the Geo. J. Carroll & Son Funeral Home. A visitation will be held at 7:00 PM Monday, J Solar facility is too big, too close to residents Im a 15-year resident of Spotsylvania who relocated here primarily because of the regions beauty, tranquility, history and geography. While an advocate of alternative power sources, it amazes me that such a huge project so close to the homes and families of so many Spotsylvania citizens is being seriously considered. This is anything but a solar farm, which is just their consumer-friendly term. It is in fact a massive industrial-scale power complex five times the size of the next largest solar facility in Virginia, and the largest in the East. It may belong in an unpopulated area, but surely not suburban Spotsylvania. The idea that living next to this huge facility will not negatively impact property values is ludicrous. Would you personally, or anyone you know, be willing to pay the current home price if that massive facility is your next-door neighbor? Homes are generally our largest investment; so it directly impacts not only our county tax base, but our financial well-being. SPower is a for-profit business. Its primary objective, not surprisingly, is shareholder value, not the welfare of the people of Spotsylvania. That is, most respectfully, the Board of Supervisors job. Proponents say COPN is necessary to keep full-service hospitals, which are required to offer charity care, financially viable by restricting access to facilities that offer only the most profitable services. In addition, consolidating surgical procedures at high-volume hospitals ensures better outcomes for patients because medical personnel there have more experience performing these procedures. On the other hand, physician groups and owners of ambulatory surgical centers say that without the COPN, they could offer equal quality care at more convenient locations for less cost. Matthew Mitchell, director of the Equity Initiative at George Mason Universitys Mercatus Center, compared Virginia with Ohio, which regulates only nursing home and long-term-care beds, and Pennsylvania, which repealed its COPN law in 1996. Because it has a higher per-capita income and a lower poverty rate than the other two states, Virginia arguably should have had more medical facilities in rural areas than either Ohio or Pennsylvania. But, Mitchell told legislators last April, the opposite was true. We decided that we wanted something that was achievable, something that could get bipartisan support and something that would as fast as possible get protections in place for student journalists at our public schools, he said. Its something I certainly think we could consider later on, but right now we think the way that we can most ensure that this legislation can pass this year is the way it is in its current form. Legislation in Rhode Island would protect students at private schools as well. While Virginias two most high-profile student censorship cases have come from a private school, there have been instances at public schools. The student newspaper at the University of Mary Washington originally had its funding revoked before a student-run finance committee reversed its decision, The Free Lance-Star reported last year. While officials cited The Blue & Gray Press distribution issues in making the decision, supporters of the nearly 100-year-old newspaper said the content of the paper also played a role, according to The Free Lance-Star. In 2011, the adviser to the Madison County High School Mountaineer was removed after students published an editorial criticizing the schools facilities. Hursts bill would prevent that from happening. WASHINGTON - Karen Pence, the wife of Vice President Mike Pence, is going back to her roots: She's taken a part-time gig teaching art at a local Christian elementary school, her office announced Tuesday. Karen Pence, a watercolor artist and longtime teacher, will lead students twice a week at the Immanuel Christian School in Northern Virginia, where she taught while her husband served in the House. "I am excited to be back in the classroom and doing what I love to do, which is to teach art to elementary students," Mrs. Pence said in a statement. "I have missed teaching art, and it's great to return to the school where I taught art for twelve years." The second lady, who has made championing art therapy one of her causes, had previously had taught in public and private schools in Indianapolis. Her watercolors appear in the book "Marlon Bundo's A Day in the Life of the Vice President," written by her daughter, Charlotte Pence, and told from the perspective of the family's pet rabbit, Marlon Bundo. Several of her pieces also hang on the walls of the family's residence at the Naval Observatory. One of the home's previous occupants, Jill Biden, the wife of former Vice President Joe Biden, was an educator, too: During her husband's administration, Jill Biden was a full-time professor at Northern Virginia Community College. Bell would let Virginia taxpayers continue itemizing their deductions, even if they claim the standard deduction that has been doubled at the federal level. Current Virginia law requires state taxpayers to follow whatever choice they made on their federal return. The same change is the foundation of legislation proposed by Del. Tim Hugo, R-Fairfax, one of the few Republican legislators left in Northern Virginia as elections loom in November. Cox, Jones and House Finance Chairman Lee Ware, R-Powhatan, have embraced Hugos legislation. The decision to refer Bells bill to Coxs committee dismayed Del. Vivian Watts, D-Fairfax, a longtime member of the Finance Committee who also has proposed significant changes in tax policy in response to Trumps tax law. I am sad that this committee, whose purview should be tax policy, is not at the heart of this debate, Watts said. Parker Slaybaugh, communications director for Cox, said in a statement: As we said last year, Speaker Cox has always maintained that he wants to be a policy-driven speaker, and referring bills with larger policy implications to the Rules Committee allows him to more actively be involved in shaping the future of the commonwealth. Despite the fact that Americans have said that they are ready for a woman in the White House, they are not. They do not want to see us women who have the experience, the gravitas and the scars to fill the most important roles in public life. And that is why so many older women have experienced this loss as a personal blow. And lest you doubt Jones' ability to get something done, he was one of many involved in getting the Northern Neck license plate created, something thats been a boon for the Northern Neck Land Conservancy. While on the subject of the Northern Neck, I just got word that there will indeed be another Mount Airy Bluegrass Festival this coming summer, a two-day event held Friday and Saturday, June 28 and 29. The event, held at the historic Mount Airy Farm just outside of Warsaw, will be headlined this year by Rhonda Vincent & the Rage. Also on the bill will be Carolina Blue, Josh Grigsby and County Line, Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice and Ralph Stanley II & The Clinch Mountain Boys. A portion of the proceeds from the festival will be donated to the local nonprofit Friends of the Rappahannock. Tickets are available at mountairy.farm or by calling 804/313-0815. A third tidbit came from Jim Klock, who splits his time between the Fredericksburg area and L.A., where he works in the film industry as an actor, producer and sometimes director. He often plays a cop, and his years of working as a policemansome of that time spent as a Stafford County deputymakes it ring true. Take the recent film Green Book, which is getting lots of Oscar buzz. In OSullivans photo, several African-American women sit atop goods piled into an ox-drawn cart as it pauses in mid-river with Union infantrymen and cavalrymen in August 1862. OSullivan recorded the black Virginians as Union Gen. John Popes 50,000-soldier Army of Virginia retreated from Culpeper after Pope lost the Battle of Cedar Mountain. His lens captured a fleeting moment, showing a few of the countless black fugitives who seized the initiative to change their lives and escape toward Alexandria and Washington as Union troops advanced further into Confederate territory. WITHOUT EQUAL OSullivans record of that experience is nearly unique, Civil War historian John Hennessy said Thursday. The Cow Ford image is the most widely published of all known images of slaves on the move, photographic or otherwise, certainly in Virginia, said Hennessy, the author of Return to Bull Run and other works. In context, the photo is one of the most dramatic action photographs of the war, he added. Its filled with mystery, too. Who were those people? Why do the women seem to be shielding their faces from the camera? From whence did they come? Were they joyous? Fearful? Where did they go? Keep the conversation about local news & events going by joining us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Recent updates from The News-Post and also from News-Post staff members are compiled below. Mr. Bush also is no friend to the LGBT community. While in office, he consistently opposed gay marriage. In 2004, he endorsed a proposed constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage in Florida. Mr. Bush also opposed gay adoption: he supported a 2001 federal judges ruling that upheld Floridas ban on gay adults adopting, and the next year, he reaffirmed his position in a gubernatorial debate, saying: If youre going to have permanency, it should be with a loving couple that is a man and a wife. That is the law of this land, its in the courts, but I also believe that personally. The adoption ban was struck down as unconstitutional in 2010. Venture X Continues Expanding its Footprint in Texas Fourth Facility to Meet One of the Fastest Growing Cities on Jan. 17 IRVING, TX - January 14, 2019 /24-7PressRelease/ - Venture X located in Las Colinas, an upscale, affluent area in the Dallas suburb of Irving, will be welcoming a professional coworking office space with an official grand opening celebration on Thurs., Jan. 17. The newest addition, which will be part of a network of locations, offers fully furnished, ready to move-in private offices and open desks, with flexible memberships and no long-term leases. This will officially mark the first Venture X in Las Colinas, an ideal location thanks to its rapid growth, high traffic, and heavy residential and commercial presence. The new office space located at 955 West John Carpenter Freeway, Suite 100, will feature a 12,000 square foot facility. "The Irving/Las Colinas market is the perfect destination for what we have to offer," says new brand President, Jason Anderson. "Since the brand is continually expanding, Texas is a thriving market for us. With eight other locations in the state, we are sure our Irving/Las Colinas location will bring great success to the community and the brand." The modern shared workspace concept is vital in today's fast-paced, ever-changing business world. Venture X specializes in identifying business needs and applying concepts and practices to help businesses of all sizes grow - including benefitting professionals that work remotely. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 65 million people will be freelancers, temps, independent contractors, or entrepreneurs by 2020. This will comprise 40 percent of the national workforce. Venture X provides workspaces for individuals and teams with month-to-month flexibility. Options include private offices, shared workspaces, virtual offices, and more. In addition to the workspaces, each location features a front desk greeting service, meeting rooms - all equipped with the latest technology - conference rooms, and video conferencing capabilities. The Venture X Las Colinas grand opening will feature a ribbon cutting ceremony hosted by the Irving/Las Colinas Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, January 17th at 4:00 p.m. The celebration will feature opportunities to connect with other members of the Irving/Las Colinas business community while touring the new facility and enjoying music and food. Additional details on workspace options and services are available at www.venturex.com/plans. For more information about Venture X Las Colinas, visit online at https://www.venturex.com/locations/texas/irving-las-colinas/ and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/venture-x-las-colinas/. About Venture X Venture X is a shared workspace and community that is a blend of boutique hotel and modern office styles with a high level of design that feels professional and welcoming. We are designing beautiful spaces and developing an environment and community that people love coming to work to every day. Venture X is part of a successful group of affiliated companies and brands under the United Franchise Group (UFG) and has been recognized by Inc. as one of the best co-working spaces in the United States. The brand anticipates having 100 locations operational by the end of 2019. For more information about locations visit www.VentureX.com. About United Franchise Group Led by CEO Ray Titus, United Franchise Group is home to a variety of internationally recognized brands including Signarama, Fully Promoted, Experimax, Jon Smith Subs, Network Lead Exchange, Venture X, SuperGreen Solutions, Transworld Business Advisors, Accurate Franchising, and The Great Greek Mediterranean Grill. With more than three decades in the franchising industry, and 1,600 franchisees in 80 countries throughout the world, United Franchise Group offers unprecedented leadership and solid business opportunities for entrepreneurs. Media Contact: Barbara Rodriguez Ink Link Marketing Voice: 305-631-2283 SOURCE Venture X ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Kinderdance A Top Childrens Franchise Awards A Franchise In Dallas, Texas January 15, 2019 // Franchising.com // Roanoke, VA - Kinderdance International Inc, a top rated kids franchise focuses on developmental dance, gymnastics, yoga, movement and fitness programs for young children, continues to grow and expand their brand by awarding a Silver level franchise to Sara Campbell. Ms. Campbell will be instructing Kinderdance programs to children in the Dallas Texas area. Sara grew up in the Dallas area and began dancing at the age of 4. Throughout her dance career she studied ballet, jazz and modern dance. She was a member of the Lakecities Ballet Theater through high school and was also a member of her high school drill team. Sara attended Texas A&M University and graduated with a bachelors degree in Journalism. While attending A&M, Sara was a member of a dance company called The Dance Repertoire. With her love for dance, she is excited to join the Kinderdance team and spread the joy of learning through dance to children in the Dallas Texas area. We are excited about Sara joining our franchise family and look forward to seeing her business grow in the Dallas Texas area says Kinderdance Vice President of Franchise Development, Karen Maltese. Kinderdance, established in 1979 is a worldwide recognized dance, gymnastics, yoga and fitness program for children ages two to twelve. Over 150 Franchisees currently teach to thousands children weekly at thousands of locations in the US and around the world. The Kinderdance programs are all original worldwide dance, motor development, gymnastics, and fitness programs that combine academic readiness skills that are specifically designed for children ages 15 months to 12 years old. What makes Kinderdance unique is that all of our programs incorporate educational concepts in a developmentally designed curriculum that teaches to the total child. We place special emphasis on building self-confidence and self- esteem in young children. The company offers their educational movement programs on site to child-care centers, recreational centers, churches, fitness centers, corporate child care, community centers, military bases, public and private schools and many other viable locations. For more information on Kinderdance International Please visit their website at www.kinderdance.com. SOURCE Kinderdance International ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus TARRYTOWN, N.Y. (AP) The road to this years Westminster Kennel Club dog show passed through a pandemic and a major change of date and venue. The road also proved dangerous for one of the nations best known dog handlers. His wife and fellow star handler said Saturday that Bill McFadden wa UNION COUNTY, SC (FOX Carolina)- The Union County Sheriff's Office says that it arrested two suspects that are accused of attempted murder and murder for shooting incidents that occurred in 2015, according to a release. Maryland stands to lose more than most if Republican attacks on the Affordable Care Act succeed. Not only would hundreds of thousands of Marylanders lose their health insurance but the state's hospitals would stand to lose billions in federal payments they receive under a waiver from traditional Medicare rules. Maryland has served as a national model in constraining the growth in health care costs while simultaneously improving quality through a policy experiment authorized under the ACA that was conceived by the OMalley administration and solidified and expanded under Mr. Hogan. And at a time when rising premium costs and declining support for outreach and marketing drove down enrollment in other states, Governor Hogan and the General Assembly enacted policies that led to premium reductions and higher enrollment here. The ACA was in its conception a hybrid of Republican and Democratic ideas about health care reform (though few in the GOP would be willing to admit it), and Mr. Hogan is well positioned to make the case to a national audience that it can succeed if both parties try to make it work. (He would be better positioned to do so if he championed the next steps Maryland should take to constrain health care costs and expand access a state-level individual mandate that allows Marylanders to use any fines they owe as a down payment on qualifying health insurance and a prescription drug price review board.) Since the start of the New Year, Metro police have investigated eight fatal crashes. Four of those crashes happened over one weekend. FOX10 News spoke with someone who was involved in tracking down the threats to two Mobile schools over the weekend. While he could not tell us much about the cases because the investigation is ongoing, he did say the threats on social media are on the rise and technology is making their job that much more difficult. Commander Kevin Levy with the Cyber Intelligence Unit at MPD said when they learned of the threat they immediately went to work. Most threats are never carried out, but it is not our job to decide which one's real and which one is not, so we investigate every one of them, he said. We use every tool that we have available to us to help mitigate that threat as quickly and as practically as possible. The job of the Cyber Intelligence Unit is only getting harder as more people get online and some people use anonymous social media sites like the one in the Theodore High School threat case. Everybody is using social media as a platform to communicate and unfortunately with every effort to communicate legitimately there are those out there that try to use social media and web platforms to communicate in ways that are not acceptable, Levy said. MPDs quick work stopped both threats before it could turn into action. The Theodore High School suspect was arrested before classes even started on Monday and police issued an arrest warrant for the 7th grader accused of making the threat to Clark-Shaw Monday afternoon. It's unfortunate that this day and age people are utilizing these types of tools to send these types of messages a lot of times as a prank or because they think it's funny, Levy said. Our message from the police department is that they are not funny, it's not a prank and we will investigate every single one of them. Mobile Police is still investigating both of the cases, they also say they are confident that both suspects poses no threat. Quote: Whiplash2130 Originally Posted by What is the best gun safe for my 2017 F450? Why? How does it install? How does the combination work? Can it be easily defeated by use of a hammer? I had the Lock r down in my burb. I bought it for $29 on ebay from someone who sold his burb and took it out. My point to this? I paid $29 probably b/c the lid was scratched up and had hammer marks on it. The seller informed me that someone broke into his vehicle and tried to breach it with a hammer or something but was unsuccessful. So, there you go. $4 in sandpaper and spray paint and good as new.Now, I have the Ford Accessories version in my F350. It is basically the same deal. It looks the same, feels the same, etc. I wouldn't own a vehicle without it. If you get the Ford version, google the part number and find the cheapest dealer online, then ask your selling dealer to match it. That's what I did.Cheers Check out the latest Spotify earnings call transcript. Spotify (NYSE:SPOT) is preparing to enter the Indian market, after talking up the potential for nearly a year now. Ahead of the launch, the company has just inked a major licensing deal with T-Series, one of the most prominent music and film companies in the country. T-Series is known for producing Bollywood music soundtracks and is the largest record label in India. Spotify users will now have access to over 160,000 songs from T-Series' catalog. That's a huge and crucial step for Spotify as it eyes the world's second-most-populous country. Getting ready for launch Spotify has been slowly inking deals with Indian labels in order to beef up its library of local content, a critical piece of expanding into any new market. Outside of India, there are around 4 million users around the world that listen to Indian music, and "Bollywood" is the most popular search query to find Indian music, according to Spotify. The news comes shortly after Spotify announced it has hit 200 million monthly active users (MAUs), in line with its fourth-quarter guidance, which called for the company to end 2018 with 199 million to 206 million MAUs. Spotify did not disclose how many premium subscribers it had at year's end, however. Competition will be fierce. Two of the largest local music services, Saavn and JioMusic, officially merged just last month to create JioSaavn. That deal had been announced in March 2018, and after consolidating, JioSaavn will be an even greater force to reckon with. The company similarly uses a freemium, ad-supported model while hoping to upsell users to its premium subscription, JioSaavn Pro. JioSaavn is offering a 90-day extended trial of JioSaavn Pro to Jio subscribers, a move that Spotify is expected to make, too. Beyond JioSaavn, Alphabet subsidiary Google has a strong presence in India with Google Play Music and YouTube. The search giant's video-sharing site is the most popular music destination. Apple Music is available in India, but the Mac maker has been struggling to gain traction in the country for years. CEO Tim Cook recently admitted that Apple's revenue growth in India stalled last year. Emerging market growth comes at a cost Globally, Apple Music is Spotify's biggest competitor, and offering a free tier is the Swedish company's most important differentiator. That's helped Spotify accelerate growth in emerging markets, where many consumers may be unwilling or unable to pay for premium subscriptions. At the same time, average revenue per user (ARPU) among premium subscribers has been trending lower, mostly a function of ongoing uptake of family and student plans. Spotify notes that those plans enjoy much stronger retention rates. While Spotify is fine with that trade-off, Rolling Stone reports that record executives consider declining ARPU a "concerning trend." Spotify prices its premium service differently based on the market, and it's unclear how much it will cost in India. For reference, JioSaavn Pro costs just 99 rupees per month, or less than $1.50. Spotify will have its work cut out in trying to balance its growth aspirations with trying to compete on price, all while satisfying record labels. According to Apples operating chief COO Jeff Williams testimony in the ongoing legal battle with Qualcomm, the company wanted to use Qualcomms 4G LTE modems in its newest iPhones, but the chipmaker wouldnt sell to it. This had a major effect on how quickly Apple can make the shift to 5G. Qualcomm, however, continues to provide Apple with chips for its older iPhones, including the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, Apple COO Jeff Williams said during the US Federal Trade Commissions trial against Qualcomm. However, the San Diego chipmaker wont provide Apple with modems for the newest iPhones since both the companies began their fight over patents. Jeff Williams believes the royalty rate Apple paid for using Qualcomm patents $7.50 per iPhone is too high. The FTC has accused Qualcomm of operating a monopoly in wireless chips, forcing customers including Apple to work with it exclusively and charging excessive licensing fees for its technology. FTC has also said that Qualcomm forced Apple to pay licensing fees for its technology in exchange for using its chips in iPhones. The trial started on Jan. 4 in US District Court in San Jose, California. Testimony covers negotiations and events that occurred before March 2018. Apple relies on third-party chips for network connectivity. Qualcomm has been the sole supplier for iPhones from 4S to 6s and 6s Plus in 2015. However, the following year, Apple started using Intel modems in some models of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, but it still used Qualcomm in versions for Verizon and Sprint. The Apples latest iPhones; the XS, XS Max, and XR, now only use Intel 4G chips and the upcoming 2019 iPhones will only use Intel chips something that will make Apple late to the 5G bandwagon as Intels 5G modem isnt expected to hit phones until 2020. Jeff Williams said he contacted Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf to get him to sell chips to Apple. When Qualcomm refused, Apple had to call Intels CEO, Brian Krzanich, to ask him to supply all modems needed for the iPhone instead of only half the volume. Williams comments appear to contradict testimony from Qualcomms Mollenkopf from Friday. He said on the stand that as of spring 2018, Qualcomm still was trying to win a contract supplying chips for iPhones but that it hadnt had any new business from Apple since its previous contracts expired. The FTC, aided by Intel and Apple, filed suit two years ago arguing that Qualcomm has a monopoly on modem chips and harmed competition by trying to maintain its power. The trial has revealed the inner workings of techs most important business, smartphones, showing how suppliers wrestle for dominance and profit. While Qualcomm is battling the FTC in court, its also facing off against Apple. The iPhone maker thinks it should pay a fee based only on the value of Qualcomms connectivity chips, not the entire device. It says that Qualcomm is effectively taxing Apples innovation and that Apple shouldnt have to pay them for technology breakthroughs they have nothing to do with. Qualcomm, meanwhile, says the iPhone wouldnt exist without its technology. On Friday in the trial, Tony Blevins, Apples vice president of procurement and a witness for the FTC, testified that Apple wanted to build an Intel communication chip into its iPad Mini 2, released in fall 2013, but Qualcomms business methods crushed the plan. Apple didnt like relying solely on Qualcomm for modem chips, he said. But in exchange for exclusive use of its chips, Qualcomm offered Apple rebates that reduced costs, so they were no longer exorbitant, a deal that pushed Intel out of the iPad Mini 2. Apple wanted to pay $1.50 per device in royalties to Qualcomm, based on a 5% fee for the cost of each $30 modem connecting iPhones to mobile networks. Instead, it ended up paying $7.50 per phone, Williams said. But Apple agreed to the rate since it was lower than what Qualcomm wanted to charge the contract manufacturers which would equate to about $12 to $20 per device, Williams said. A rebate agreement dropped that to $7.50 per iPhone. Williams said as he explained why Apple signed another licensing agreement said: We were staring at an increase of over $1 billion per year in licensing, so we had a gun to our head. The alternative was if you dont accept it, it just defaults to the contract manufacturer rate of $18, $17. We needed their chip supply. If we tried to pursue them legally, we wouldnt have access to the chips. We didnt have a lot of options. The FTC likely will rest its case Tuesday and then Qualcomm will present its defense. Source A witness who gave his name only as Ken said he saw five bodies at the hotel entrance. Other people were shouting for help and "when we rushed back to try to rescue them, gunshots started coming from upstairs, and we had to duck because they were targeting us and we could see two guys shooting," he said. (14 Jan 2019) A Salt Lake City suburban mall where two people were wounded Sunday in a gang-related shooting has reopened. Police said Monday they arrested two 19-year-old men but were unsure whether those men had been the gunmen.(Jan. 14) Subscribe for more Breaking News: http://smarturl.it/AssociatedPress Website: https://apnews.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP Facebook: https://facebook.com/APNews Google+: https://plus.google.com/115892241801867723374 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/ffa543141dd0411df41f6378c0000800 As he did almost 30 years ago, William Barr is appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee to make the case he's qualified to serve as attorney general. Barr served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993 and has been nominated by President Donald Trump to do the job again. His confirmation hearing Tuesday has multiple story lines worth watching. Washington: As he did almost 30 years ago, William Barr is appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee to make the case he's qualified to serve as attorney general. Barr served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993 and has been nominated by President Donald Trump to do the job again. His confirmation hearing Tuesday has multiple story lines worth watching. The 68-year-old nominee aims to show Republicans he's sufficiently supportive of Trump's tough-on-crime and hardline immigration agenda while assuring skeptical Democrats that special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation will finish without interference or interruption. The panel he'll face is led by a new Republican chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, known for a rapid-fire questioning style. It also includes at least three Democrats seen as potential presidential contenders Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota for whom the hearing could be an opportunity to raise their profiles. Unless there's a major surprise, Barr is expected to win confirmation not only because Republicans control the Senate but also because some Democrats are eager to move on from Matthew Whitaker, the controversial acting attorney general. What to watch in Tuesday's hearings The Robert Mueller led probe into Russian collusion in 2016 Trump campaign The hearing will unquestionably be dominated by talk of Barr's oversight of Mueller's investigation into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. Barr will tell the committee that he believes Mueller should be permitted to conclude his investigation, and that he thinks Congress and the public should be able to see the results of Mueller's work. Those statements, released ahead of the hearing, were aimed at pre-empting some of the most significant questions Barr will face from Democrats. Barr's oversight is especially significant since Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller and who has overseen his day-to-day work, is expected to step down soon after Barr is confirmed. And Barr's own comments about the Mueller investigation have attracted scrutiny, including an unsolicited memo he sent the Justice Department last year criticizing the special counsel's inquiry into whether Trump had sought to obstruct justice. Barr says the memo was narrowly focused on a single theory of obstruction and didn't touch the broader questions surrounding Russian election interference.In his statement, Barr called Mueller a friend he's known personally and professionally for 30 years. The limits of presidential power Democrats will almost certainly grill Barr on the expansive view of presidential power he's displayed at the Justice Department and in the years since. That philosophy is freshly relevant now that Barr would be working for a president who appears to relish the power of the office and who has taken unilateral actions, including firing FBI director James Comey, that have come under scrutiny. As deputy attorney general, Barr advised then-President George H.W. Bush that he did not need congressional approval to attack Iraq. Earlier, when he led the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, he wrote opinions that allowed the U.S. government to invade Panama and arrest its dictator, Manuel Noriega, as well as to capture suspects without the consent of their host nations. As attorney general in 1992, he endorsed Bush's pardons of Reagan administration officials in the Iran-Contra scandal. Barr has discussed those decisions in depth in the past but may be pressed on them again, especially in the context of the Mueller investigation. Immigration Barr says he'll continue to prioritize immigration enforcement and says the government must be able to hold and remove people who illegally enter the U.S. Barr's comments reflect similar thinking to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who drew heavy criticism from immigration activists after defending the Trump administration's policy separating families during a crackdown on those entering the U.S. illegally. Barr will tell senators that the Justice Department cannot allow people to flout America's legal system by "crashing in through the back door." Independent Justice Department Barr faces a tough task in asserting the Justice Department's independence, and defending the lawyers who work there, while also serving a president who demands loyalty. Barr insisted Monday that the president never sought any promises, commitments or assurances from him before naming him attorney general. Trump fired Comey months after asking him for loyalty, forced out Sessions over recusing from the Russia investigation and has repeatedly claimed political bias in federal law enforcement. It remains to be seen how Barr will respond if and when Trump lashes out at the FBI and Justice Department. But his statement does describe Justice Department employees as "dedicated professionals" and takes care to note that law, not politics, holds sway inside the Justice Department. The White House refuted media reports that the daughter of the US President Ivanka Trump was under consideration for the bank's presidency Washington: President Donald Trump's eldest daughter and senior advisor Ivanka will help the US to pick the new World Bank president, the White House has said, dismissing media reports that she herself is a key contender for the top position. World Bank's current president Jim Yong Kim announced last week that he will step down next month, triggering speculation about his replacement. The Financial Times reported on Sunday that former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley in addition to Ivanka were the possible candidates for the top job. However, the White House refuted media reports that the daughter of the US President herself was under consideration for the bank's presidency. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has asked Ivanka to "help manage the US nomination process as she's worked closely with the World Bank's leadership for the past two years - however, reports that she is under consideration are false," White House Deputy Director of Communication Jessica Ditto said on Monday. An American has traditionally led the World Bank while the top position in the International Monetary Fund has been held from Europe. While the candidature of World Bank presidency is finally approved by the financial institution itself, the US has a major say in its decision-making process by virtue of being its biggest stakeholder. Last week, the Word Bank announced its process to accept the application for the top position. The World Bank works to promote economic development and poverty eradication through loans and technical support. The 189-member international financial institution provides loans to countries and focuses on development. The US president cannot install its leader, who must be approved by the bank's board, but has traditionally placed his nominee in the job. Trump has already faced harsh criticism for appointing his daughter as a senior White House advisor. The rules would have allowed more employers in the US, including publicly traded companies, to opt out of providing no-cost birth control to women by claiming religious objections. Some private employers could also object on moral grounds. Harrisburg: Trump administration rules that allow more employers to opt out of providing women with no-cost birth control cannot be enforced anywhere in the nation, a federal judge wrote Monday in a decision blocking the rules from taking effect. US District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Philadelphia agreed with a lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania, citing the potential harm to states should the rules be enforced. Numerous citizens could lose contraceptive coverage, Beetlestone wrote, resulting in the increased use of state-funded contraceptive services, as well as increased costs associated with unintended pregnancies. The rules would have allowed more employers, including publicly traded companies, to opt out of providing no-cost contraceptive coverage to women by claiming religious objections. Some private employers could also object on moral grounds. The rules had been scheduled to take effect Monday. Pennsylvania's attorney general, Josh Shapiro, called the ruling a "victory for the health and economic independence of women". "Women need contraception for their health because contraception is medicine, pure and simple," Shapiro said in a statement. On Sunday, a federal judge in California blocked the rules from taking effect in the jurisdictions in the lawsuit before him. Those included California, New York and 11 other states along with Washington, DC. At issue is a requirement under Democratic President Barack Obama's healthcare law that birth control services be covered at no additional cost. Obama officials included exemptions for religious organisations. But the administration of Republican President Donald Trump expanded those exemptions and added "moral convictions" as a basis to opt out of providing birth control services. The Department of Justice has argued that the new rules "protect a narrow class of sincere religious and moral objectors from being forced to facilitate practices that conflict with their beliefs". Beetlestone had previously blocked an interim version of the rules in a December 2017 ruling. May had promised assurances on the so-called Irish backstop arrangement when she postponed a vote on the agreement in December, facing certain defeat in the House of Commons. London: Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday published further assurances from the EU on the eve of a crucial parliamentary vote on her Brexit deal and warned MPs that rejecting it would lead to "paralysis" that could see Britain stay in the bloc. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council president Donald Tusk repeated in a letter that they would not reopen the divorce deal, but offered clarifications with "legal value" on a controversial clause. May admitted their offer fell short of what she wanted, but said MPs now had the clearest assurances they were going to get and should support the deal. "Whatever you may have previously concluded, over these next 24 hours, give this deal a second look," May told MPs in the parliament. "No, it is not perfect. And yes, it is a compromise." May had promised assurances on the so-called Irish backstop arrangement when she postponed a vote on the agreement in December, facing certain defeat in the House of Commons. As MPs prepare to finally vote on Tuesday evening, large numbers of her own Conservative MPs and her Northern Irish allies are still strongly opposed. In a further setback, government whip Gareth Johnson a Brexiteer and one of the officials charged with getting MPs to vote for the deal announced his resignation. "It is clear this deal would be detrimental to our nation's interests," he said. In a speech in Stoke, a Brexit-supporting city in the English Midlands, May repeated that the only way to avoid "no deal" was to support her agreement. "If no deal is as bad as you believe it is, it will be the height of recklessness to do anything else," she said. But with growing calls to delay Brexit or call a second referendum, she added: "It's now my judgment that a more likely outcome is a paralysis in parliament that risks there being no Brexit." May signed the divorce deal with other EU leaders in December after 18 months of tough negotiations, but it has faced huge opposition in parliament. The most contentious element is the Irish border backstop, which would keep Britain tied to some EU trade rules, with even closer alignment for the province of Northern Ireland, if and until another way was found to avoid border checks with the Republic of Ireland. Tusk and Juncker said the EU "does not wish to see the backstop enter into force" and noted that if it was necessary, it would only be temporary. They promised to work quickly to find alternatives to keep open the border, including using technology, a solution backed by Brexit supporters. The pair repeated that similar assurances to this nature made at an EU summit in December "have legal value". May conceded, however, that the EU had rejected her request for a time limit to the backstop should it come into effect. The main Opposition Labour party, which favours remaining in a permanent customs union with the EU, also dismissed the EU's assurances. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that since the postponed December vote, May had "completely and utterly failed" to get the EU to change its position and the letter from the EU leaders contained "nothing but warm words and aspirations". He called the deal a "damaging shambles" that was "clearly bad for this country". Corbyn has promised a vote of no confidence on the back of a government defeat on Tuesday. If the government loses the confidence vote, parties would have 14 days to find an alternative that had the support of a majority of MPs, or an election would be called. Corbyn has conceded that, if the party won power, parliament would likely need to delay Brexit so it could renegotiate the withdrawal agreement. Speculation is growing in Brussels and London that May could seek an extension to the Article 50 exit process if she loses the vote on Tuesday. More than 100 cross-party members of the European parliament promised to back a delay to Brexit to allow voters to think again, in a letter to British citizens. May said the Brexit date should not be delayed but did not rule out the prospect. "I don't believe that the date of 29 March should be delayed," May told the parliament. She also ruled out holding a second Brexit referendum an option called for by a growing minority of Remain-backing MPs as the only way out of the parliamentary deadlock. SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is about to hold high-level talks in Washington D.C. SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is about to hold high-level talks in Washington D.C. with North Korean senior official Kim Yong Chol on Thursday or Friday, and both sides are fine-tuning details, a South Korean newspaper said. The North Korean official is likely to meet President Donald Trump as well, the Chosun Ilbo said on Tuesday, citing an unnamed diplomatic source familiar with the talks between the United States and North Korea. Asked about the South Korean newspaper report, a State Department official said, "We dont have any meetings to announce." The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The United States is considering partially easing sanctions on North Korea in exchange for the isolated nation discarding, or sending abroad, its ICBMs, in addition to the adoption of a "nuclear freeze," the U.S. talks with the South Korean government have shown, the Chosun Ilbo said, citing the source. "If North Korea accepts, it's a realizable scenario," it quoted the source as saying. South Korea's presidential office directed questions to the foreign ministry, which did not have immediate comment. This month, Trump said he had received a "great" letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and would probably meet him again in the not-too-distant future, as part of efforts to persuade him to give up his nuclear weapons. Pompeo made several trips to Pyongyang last year, but the two sides have not rescheduled an abruptly cancelled November meeting between him and Kim Yong Chol that aimed at paving the way for a second summit. (Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick in WASHINGTON; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Barely days ago, Donald Trump thought he was rid of the men who helped launch the Robert Mueller-led investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections; he didnt realise theres a third man of his own choice who could prove to be far more dangerous: William Barr, Trumps own pick for the post of US attorney general and a long-time friend of Muellers who vowed today in a US Senate grilling that he will not be bullied by his political masters in the White House. New York: Barely days ago, Donald Trump thought he was rid of the men who helped launch the Robert Mueller-led investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections; he didnt realise theres a third man of his own choice who could prove to be far more dangerous: William Barr. Trumps own pick for the post of US attorney general and a long-time friend of Muellers vowed today in a US Senate grilling that he will not be bullied by his political masters in the White House. If the Trump White House was looking for an Attorney General who could make life difficult for Mueller, they dialed the wrong number, it seems. "I would resign if President Trump tried to shut down legitimate investigations", Barr said, in one of many bombshell quotes from his hours long confirmation hearing. If Barr is as good as his word, Mueller will not be fired. Mueller is obligated to file some sort of report when he wraps up his investigations. We dont know what form it will take and whether it will redacted or not but that becomes the next big story now because its not a singular probe but a phalanx of 17 probes, some of them in co-ordination with New York prosecutors. Comments by William Barr at his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday pointedly departed from Trump's own views and underscored Barr's efforts to reassure Democrats that he will not be a loyalist to a president who has appeared to demand it from law enforcement. Given that Barr has said all this today, its going to be harder for the Trump White House to contain any potential damage from the outing of the final Mueller report. Trumps rapidly expanding legal team is definitely going to cite executive privilege so that the report is not made public and it falls upon the Attorney General to decide whethere there is good cause for such a request to be considered at all. For many hours today, Barr repeated his stand on the Mueller investigation to US Senators: Absolutely, I want him to finish his job, he said. He also asserted independence from the White House, saying he believed that Russia had tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, that the special counsel investigation shadowing Trump is not a witch hunt and that his predecessor Jeff Sessions was right to recuse himself from the probe. From the first day of hearings, its not clear if Mueller's final report will be made public. Barr has the final say on what is made public, and he suggested that in the event prosecution is declined, those findings may not be made public. What is clear, though, is that the Barr who may become US Attorney General is not exactly the Barr the White House pushed for. So, the only question here staring down at Washington in big, bold letters is this: Why would Trump want Barr as his Attorney General, a man who made it clear today that Mueller is not just his good friend but also that Mueller will finish the job he started? Was Trump misled by a 19 page memo that Barr wrote some weeks ago, where he suggested that Muellers obstruction of justice investigations against the US president may be a grave injustice? In that memo, Barr criticized as "fatally misconceived" the theory of obstruction that Mueller appeared to be pursuing. He said presidents cannot be criminally investigated for actions they are permitted to take under the Constitution, such as firing officials who work for them, just because of a subjective determination that they may have had a corrupt state of mind. Barr said the memo was narrowly focused on a single theory of obstruction that media reports suggested Mueller might be considering. It's entirely possible that Trump's lawyers read it all wrong. Maybe they thought Barr will be on their team, their growing legal peril made them lurch for a quick and dirty solution what they got is a Mueller friend from three decades ago. "The memo did not address or in any way question the special counsel's core investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election," Barr said. Back to the question: So, how did the Trump White House settle on Barr? Trump is known to like one-pagers, Barr's memo was 19 pages long, maybe only the first page got read. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 14) Twenty rebels who surrendered to the police reported that several university students were threatened into joining their group during "immersion" visits to their areas. In a media briefing Monday, one of the surrendered rebels from the Communist Party of the Philippines - New People's Army (CPP-NPA) relayed his account of meeting several students particularly from the University of the Philippines (UP) and the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) who visited their community in Barangay San Antonio, Kalayaan, Laguna. The rebels were also part of the Dumagat tribe residing there and reportedly surrendered to authorities on January 11 and 12, the PNP said. "Ang mga estudyante na sinasabi nag-aaral sa UP, nakikipamuhay sila sa amin, nagtatanong kung maginhawa 'yung aming ginagawa o mahirap," he told the press. [Translation: The students who were studying in UP, they were accompanying us, and asking if we were living comfortably or not.] The former rebel, identified as Ka Ruben, said there would be around eight students who would visit their homes to ask them about their livelihood. The rebels, in turn, would share their woes to the students to convince them to join their group or threaten them from returning to the city, he said. "Dinadaan nila sa dahas para matakot 'yung taoginagawa nila takutin hindi binabalik 'yung ibang tao sa bayan," he described. [Translation: They would use threats to scare the peoplethey would scare them to prevent them from returning to their city.] Police Regional Director of CALABARZON C/Supt. Edward Carranza said the students were "immersing", which he described as a voluntary practice to visit communities. Carranza said he was convinced by the testimonies of the rebels since their intelligence reports confirmed some CPP-NPA members were former students of the aforementioned schools. "'Yung word na ginagamit dito is 'immersing' whether they will stay there or what, pero it's not within the curriculum. It's voluntary on the part of the students and we have already historical data kung sino 'yung mga member ng CPP who were former students in those universities," he said. He added that one of the threats made against the students was the prospect of being targeted by the military. "Nag-iimmerse sila doon then later on, the threat is if they go back dito sa urban area may threat na sinasabi ng NPA na target na kayo ng military," Carranza said. [Translation: They would 'immerse' there then later on the threat is if they go back to the urban area, the NPA would say they would become the target of the military.] PNP Chief C/Supt. Oscar Albayalde said this is the recruitment tactic of the rebels to "poison" the minds of students. "Ito 'yung mga sinasabi na 'immersion' na kunwari si ganito pupunta doon. Tapos malalason na 'yung pag-iisip tapos tatakutin na hindi pwedeng bumaba so mapipilitan itong mga estudyante to stay there," Albayalde said. [Translation: This is what we call immersion where someone will go to a particular place. Then their minds would become poisoned and they will be treated to return to their city so the students just remain there.] Carranza said the recruitment of the NPA among students remains to be the subject of their intelligence efforts. This is not the first time these schools were put into the spotlight for allegedly associating with the CPP -NPA. In October the military released a list of Metro Manila universities allegedly linked to the "Red October" ouster plot of the rebels. An AFP official also said these schools were the target of recruitment campaigns of the reds. Albayalde maintained that they continue to coordinate with the Education Department and other agencies to counter insurgency in the country. "We are coordinating with DepEd officials. This is part of a 'whole government' approach on ending the insurgency problem in our country," Albayalde said. On 15 January, 2019 Google Doodle commemorates the 260th birth anniversary of the renowned Anglo-Indian traveller and entrepreneur Sake Dean Mahomed, who is credited to have introduced Indian cuisine and shampoo baths to Europe and the rest of the Western world. On 15 January, 2019 Google Doodle commemorates the 260th birth anniversary of the renowned Anglo-Indian traveller and entrepreneur Sake Dean Mahomed, who is credited to have introduced Indian cuisine and shampoo baths to Europe and the rest of the Western world. Mahomed was born in Patna, Bihar in the erstwhile Bengal Presidency on 15 January, 1759. After he grew up, he was recruited in the army of the British East India Company as a trainee surgeon. In the year 1786 Mahomed emigrated to Ireland to study English and remained some time at Cork. Eight years later, in 1794 Mahomed wrote and published his first book, titled The Travels of Dean Mahomet, where he mentioned many Indian cities and chronicled his experiences and first-witness accounts of military conflicts and Britain's conquest in the Indian subcontinent. The book is enriched with fascinating tales of how the Indian rulers and people, in general, played a crucial role in establishing a friendly-cum-negotiated relationship with the Company and as a result also with the Crown. This book is considered the first English book written and published by an Indian, and hence becomes a milestone in introducing India and its culture to the West. After moving to England in 1810, Mahomed added another feather to his cap by opening the Hindostanee Coffee House, which is known as Britain's first Indian restaurant, in Central London's George Street, near Portman Square. The restaurant was no ordinary eating joint; it provided Indian luxuries to the English nobles in the highest form from chillum hookahs to delectable Indian culinary delights cooked and presented to perfection, as mentioned in The Epicures Almanack, an early London restaurant guide. Hindostanee Coffee House could be rightly called the foundation stone of Britain's love for Indian food. The frolicking Indian food and hotel industry in England definitely owes a lot to Mahomed. Unfortunately, due to financial constraints, Mahomed had to close his restaurant venture in 1812, only to come up with something bigger and completely novel to the English society. In 1814, he, along with his family, moved to Brighton and opened a spa named Mahomed's Baths which offered premium vapour massage baths for the public in England. Their technique which they coined as "shampooing" was derived from the Indian word 'champooi' which literally translated to head massage was a combination of thermal steam bath followed by a therapeutic massage. He advertised this new treatment in the local papers with the caption: "The Indian Medicated Vapour Bath (type of Turkish bath), a cure to many diseases and giving full relief when everything fails; particularly Rheumatic and paralytic, gout, stiff joints, old sprains, lame less, aches and pains in the joints", as mentioned in a free copy of The Travels of Dean Mahomet listed in University of California Press' website. Soon people came swarming in and good word about Mahomed's spa treatment spread out all across Europe. So much, that the English nobility started becoming regulars at his spa and Mahomed was fondly given the title of Dr Brighton. He also published a book titled Shampooing; Or, Benefits Resulting from the Use of the Indian Medicated Vapour Bath... Containing a Brief But Comprehensive View of the Effects Produced by the Use of the Warm Bath, in Comparison with Steam or Vapour Bathing.. that was a list of testimonials of his patients-cum-customers. In 1822, King George IV and William IV, impressed by Mahomed's success, appointed him as their personal shampooing surgeon. Mahomed breathed his last in 1851 and was buried at St Nicholas Church in Brighton. A portrait of this multi-faceted personality finds a place at the Brighton Museum commemorating his immense contribution in establishing friendly relations between the two great nations of India and Britain. The previous Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government had pushed for the construction of the 1,320-megawatt Rahim Yar Khan power project by China. Islamabad: The cash-strapped Pakistan government will shelve a major coal-based power plant project under the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), citing sufficient generation capacity already lined up for the next few years. The CPEC, which connects Gwadar Port in Balochistan with China's Xinjiang province, is the flagship project of Chinese president Xi Jinping's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The previous Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government had pushed for the construction of the 1,320-megawatt Rahim Yar Khan power project by China. The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government officially conveyed to Beijing that it was no more interested in the project in view of sufficient generation capacity already lined up for the next few years, Dawn reported. It has requested the Chinese friends to formally delete the project from the CPEC list, the report said. During the 8th Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) meeting held in December 2018, a Pakistani delegation led by Minister for Planning and Development Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtyar "proposed to remove the Rahim Yar Khan imported fuel power plant (1,320MW) from the CPEC list, in order to provide structure optimisation space for the subsequent power market of Pakistan," said an official, quoting minutes of the 20 December meeting. The Chinese side suggested that a joint study on optimisation of energy mix be carried out at the earliest. Cash-strapped Pakistan is negotiating a $8 billion bailout package from the the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to overcome a severe balance-of-payments crisis that threatens to cripple the country's economy. The government reached out to some "friendly countries" for economic assistance including Saudi Arabia, China and the UAE since Imran Khan assumed office in August. The project was originally pushed as imported coal-based plant by Quaid-i-Azam Thermal Company of the Punjab government led by PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif who used to attend meetings of the Cabinet Committee on Energy led by his brother and then prime minister Nawaz Sharif. A leading business tycoon had proposed the project and was expected to be one of the key sponsors. The project was removed from the CPEC priority list when then bureaucracy highlighted that surplus generation capacity had already been contracted and more contracts would lead the country to 'capacity trap'. The government had already notified a ban on capacity addition on imported fuel as early as June 2016 and the Rahim Yar Khan and Muzaffargarh coal-based plants were removed from the CPEC priority list, the report said. Among other reasons, this led to unceremonious removal of the then power secretary and head of the National Transmission Company the system operator. The Punjab government had pushed for revival of the plant which was included again in the priority list in subsequent CPEC negotiations, according to a federal secretary. It was not needed at all and would have been a burden on the already deteriorating financial condition of the power sector, he said, adding that Diamer-Bhasha dam was also included in the CPEC list when the coal-based projects were removed, but the dam project could also not move forward under the CPEC for unrelated reasons. The official said the PTI government had already made up its mind to remove almost 400 "politically-motivated" projects from the development portfolio as part of a comprehensive mid-year review of the Public Sector Development Programme later in January. Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, is on bail in Canada after her arrest over alleged violation of US sanctions on Iran. Beijing: A Chinese court on Monday sentenced a Canadian national to death for his involvement in smuggling drugs amid increasing tensions between Canada and China over the recent arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was sentenced to death at the Dalian Intermediate People's Court in northeast China's Liaoning Province, State-run Xinhua news agency reported on Monday night. All his personal assets will also be confiscated, according to the court. Earlier in the day Schellenberg told the court that he had been framed when prosecutors pushed for a harsher sentence in a case which could further exacerbate tensions between the US, Canada and China. In his defence at his retrial, Schellenberg, a 36-year-old former oil industry employee, said he was a tourist framed by criminals, rejecting allegations he had smuggled more than 200 kgs of methamphetamine in China, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported. But prosecutors said they had evidence that "highly suggests Schellenberg was involved in organised international drug crime," it reported quoting Chinese State-run broadcaster CGTN. While Schellenberg was initially detained in Liaoning province in 2015, his case assumed significance in the backdrop of increased tensions between Canada and China over Huawei CFO Meng's arrest. Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, is on bail in Canada after her arrest over alleged violation of US sanctions on Iran. If found guilty she could be jailed for up to 30 years. Following her arrest, China also detained former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig. Schellenberg was first tried for drug smuggling in the Dalian court in March 2016 but it was not until more than two years later that the court handed down a verdict, convicting and jailing him for 15 years in November 2018, the Post report said. He was also fined 150,000 yuan. He appealed against the sentence to the Liaoning High People's Court, where prosecutors argued the sentence was too lenient. The court heard the appeal on 29 December and ordered a retrial in the lower court. Schellenberg told the court on Monday that he came to China after travelling through Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. He said a friend recommended a man named Xu Qing as a translator. "This is a case about Xu Qing. He is an international drug smuggler and a liar," the Post quoted Schellenberg telling the court. But Xu was presented as a witness by prosecutors. Two Chinese men were also involved in the case: one was sentenced to life in jail, while the other was given a suspended death sentence. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau on Monday voiced "extreme concern" over the Chinese court "arbitrarily" sentencing Schellenberg to death. "It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to arbitrarily apply death penalties in cases, as in this case facing a Canadian," Trudeau said at a press conference. China said that the countries which have relations with Beijing should earnestly abide by the one-China principle and stop any form of military links with Taipei. Beijing: China on Monday firmly opposed transferring technology to Taiwan to make submarines, saying countries which have relations with Beijing should earnestly abide by the one China principle and stop any form of military links with Taipei. Taiwan media had reported in 2018 that the US state department had approved the transfer of technology that will allow Taiwan to produce its own submarines. There were reports that six foreign companies, including one from India, have already submitted design proposals for the submarines. Among the six companies, there are two from Europe, two from the US, as well as an Indian company and a Japanese firm offering designs for the submarines, Taiwan News reported in October 2018. According to the report, the designs would come up for approval by Taiwanese government in March. The report did not give details of the six companies from these countries. Replying to a question from the official Chinese media in Beijing on Monday, foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing that China is firmly opposed to any country selling arms to Taiwan. "China is firmly opposed to any country to have any military links with Taiwan. China is consistent and clear cut. The US and other countries fully recognise the sensitivity and the danger of this issue," she said. China claims that Taiwan, which broke away in 1949, is part of Chinese mainland and is opposed to any country having diplomatic contacts with Taipei. Hua said the countries which have relations with China should earnestly abide by the one China principle and not to allow any enterprises to participate in the submarine programme of Taiwan and stop any form of military links with it. "They should prudently and properly handle Taiwan-related issues, thus, avoiding harming of bilateral relations and peace stability across the Taiwan straits," she said. By Philip Wen, Christian Shepherd and David Ljunggren BEIJING/OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Chinese court on Monday sentenced a Canadian man to be executed for drug smuggling, prompting Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to accuse China of using the death penalty arbitrarily. By Philip Wen, Christian Shepherd and David Ljunggren BEIJING/OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Chinese court on Monday sentenced a Canadian man to be executed for drug smuggling, prompting Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to accuse China of using the death penalty arbitrarily. The ruling, and Trudeau's reaction, could aggravate already sour relations between Beijing and Ottawa following the arrest of a Chinese executive in Canada and China's subsequent detention of two Canadians. The Dalian Intermediate People's Court in China's Liaoning province re-tried Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who had appealed his original 15-year prison sentence, and decided on execution, the court said in a statement. Schellenberg was told in court he had the right to appeal to Liaoning High Court within 10 days upon receiving the ruling, the intermediate court said in a second statement. "It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply (the) death penalty ... as in this case," Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa. Late on Monday, Canada's foreign ministry updated its travel advisory for China to warn citizens about "the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws." It added: "We continue to advise all Canadians travelling to China to exercise a high degree of caution." Schellenberg's aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones, said the family's worst fears had been confirmed. "Our thoughts are with Robert at this time. It is rather unimaginable what he must be feeling and thinking," she said in a statement to Reuters. "It is a horrific, unfortunate, heartbreaking situation." In a second statement sent hours later, she said "the Schellenberg family requests that all Canadians stand with us and pray for the safe return of our loved one." China-Canada ties turned icy in early December after Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL], was arrested in Vancouver on a U.S. extradition warrant. China warned of unspecified consequences unless Meng was released, and detained Michael Kovrig, a Canadian diplomat on unpaid leave from the embassy in Beijing, and Michael Spavor, a Canadian consultant, on suspicion of endangering state security. Beijing has not drawn a direct link between the detentions and the arrest of Meng, wanted by U.S. authorities for allegedly misleading multinational banks about Iran-linked transactions. Western diplomats say the cases are a tit-for-tat reprisal. Lu Shaye, China's ambassador to Canada, suggested in a newspaper article last week the arrest of Kovrig and Spavor was "China's self-defence," but gave no details. Earlier on Monday, Beijing dismissed Trudeau's statement that Kovrig enjoyed some form of diplomatic immunity. A foreign ministry spokeswoman said Trudeau should "earnestly study" the Vienna Convention governing diplomatic ties so as to "not become a laughing stock." Trudeau said Ottawa "will continue to engage strongly" with Beijing over Kovrig's status and what he called China's arbitrary use of justice. 222 KG OF METHAMPHETAMINE Rights groups condemned the Schellenberg sentence while Guy St-Jacques, who was Canada's ambassador in Beijing when Kovrig worked there, expressed concern at how quickly the courts had acted. "The Canadian government will make representations in Beijing, but based on past experience I am not sure whether this will work," he told the CBC. "We are in a very difficult place." William Nee of Amnesty International noted drug-related offences did not meet the threshold of the "most serious crimes" to which the death penalty must be restricted under international law. Drug smuggling is routinely punished severely in China. Beijing has previously executed foreign nationals convicted of drug-related crimes - a Briton was executed in 2009. The court said Schellenberg had conspired with others in an attempt to smuggle 222 kg (489.43 lb) of methamphetamine from China to Australia in 2014. Chinese state television said in an earlier report that Schellenberg argued he was a tourist visiting China and was framed by criminals. A lawyer for Schellenberg, Zhang Dongshuo, told Reuters his client would probably appeal against the death sentence. Beijing considers the number of people executed in China to be a state secret. International human rights organisations estimate the annual figure at around 2,000. (Additional reporting by Michael Martina in Beijing, Meg Shen and Twinnie Siu in Hong Kong, and Tyler Choi in Toronto; writing by Se Young Lee and David Ljunggren; editing by Mark Heinrich, Marguerita Choy and Chris Reese) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By William James and Kylie MacLellan LONDON (Reuters) - British lawmakers defeated Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit divorce deal by a crushing margin on Tuesday, triggering political upheaval that could lead to a disorderly exit from the EU or even to a reversal of the 2016 decision to leave. Parliament voted 432-202 against her deal, the worst parliamentary defeat for a government in recent British history. Scores of her own lawmakers - both Brexiteers and supporters of EU membership - joined forces to vote down the deal. By William James and Kylie MacLellan LONDON (Reuters) - British lawmakers defeated Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit divorce deal by a crushing margin on Tuesday, triggering political upheaval that could lead to a disorderly exit from the EU or even to a reversal of the 2016 decision to leave. Parliament voted 432-202 against her deal, the worst parliamentary defeat for a government in recent British history. Scores of her own lawmakers - both Brexiteers and supporters of EU membership - joined forces to vote down the deal. Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn promptly called a vote of no confidence in May's government, to be held within 24 hours. With the clock ticking down to March 29, the date set in law for Brexit, the United Kingdom is now ensnared in the deepest political crisis in half a century as it grapples with how, or even whether, to exit the European project that it joined in 1973. May's crushing loss, the first British parliamentary defeat of a treaty since 1864, marks the collapse of her two-year strategy of forging an amicable divorce with close ties to the EU after the March 29 exit. "It is clear that the House does not support this deal, but tonight's vote tells us nothing about what it does support," May told parliament, moments after the result was announced. "We need to confirm whether this government still enjoys the confidence of this House," May said. May said parliament had spoken and the government had listened. The small Northern Irish DUP party, which props up her minority government and had said it would oppose the deal, said it would still back May in the no confidence vote. The EU said the Brexit deal remained the best and only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal from the EU. The Brexit deal is basically dead, said Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs at Kings College London. CROSSROADS Ever since Britain voted by 52-48 percent to leave the EU in a referendum in June 2016, the political class has been debating how to leave the European project forged by France and Germany after the devastation of World War Two. While the country is divided over EU membership, most agree that the world's fifth largest economy is at a crossroads and that its choices over Brexit will shape the prosperity of future generations. Before the vote, May had warned pro-Brexit lawmakers that if her plan was rejected, it was more likely that Britain would not leave the EU at all than that it would leave without a deal. She has also warned fellow Conservatives not to let the opposition Labour Party seize control of Brexit. Supporters of EU membership cast Brexit as a gigantic mistake that will undermine the West, smash Britain's reputation as a stable destination for investment and slowly weaken London's position as a global capital. Many opponents of Brexit hope May's defeat will ultimately lead to another referendum on EU membership, though Brexiteers say that thwarting the will of the 17.4 million who voted for Brexit could radicalise much of the electorate. Brexit supporters cast leaving as a way to break free from a Union they see as overly bureaucratic and fast falling behind the leading economic powers of the 21st century, the United States and China. (Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kevin Liffey) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The Conversation The first few days of 2019 brought remarkable news from outer space. On 1 January NASAs New Horizons space probe made the most distant planetary flyby ever and captured images of a small object 4 billion miles away from earth. The following day, China landed its Chang'e-4 rover, named Jade Rabbit 2, on the far side of the moon another first. This suggests that 2019 will be a big year for all things related to space; a suggestion borne out by developments at the International Astronautical Federations International Astronautical Congress which I attended. The event is held each year during the first week of October to commemorate the launch of Sputnik on 4 October 1957, which started the space age. The 2018 Congress was held in Bremen, Germany, and attended by the worlds space agencies, private space companies, engineers, and spaceflight fans. In the past decade, a number of interesting trends have emerged at this Congress. These include which countries are emerging as space powers; what topics get people talking; and what concerns experts have about humanitys ongoing attempts to become a multi-planet species that can live on other planets. Here are the space subjects that are likely to capture the worlds attention in the coming years. Wider reach, new players First, its clear from attendance figures at the Congress that the space industry and countries interest in all matters inter-planetary is growing. About 2000 people attended the 2011 congress in Cape Town, South Africa; there were more than 6000 delegates at the 2018 event. Second, the proportion of delegates and presenters who are women has increased significantly. Women now comprise about one-fifth of all who attend, reflecting their breakthrough into the engineering disciplines. Third, Chinese researchers are prominent in their numbers compared to a decade ago. These are not only from Chinas national space agency. They also come from private Chinese space companies that are offering to launch satellites. The Chang'e launch and landing is an indication, too, that China is now among the leading space powers. Interestingly, the United Arab Emirates space agencys 2018 exhibition stand was bigger than that of the USAs NASA. This suggests that oil-rich Middle Eastern states today show space growth and interest. Hot topics There were a number of hot topics up for discussion at the Congress. These included space tourism panels on the subject were well attended. Part of the attraction is probably simply that Elon Musk is an expert at grabbing headlines. His company website includes paintings of a future Martian town. But hes not the only one pushing for humans to travel in space; Jeff Bezos Blue Origin is also a major player. Musk takes things a step further by suggesting that humans will, in the next decades, start living on other planets. He advocates that, at 26-month intervals, 1,00,000 people should emigrate to Mars and construct pressurised towns on that planet. His hope is that they will fly to Mars on SpaceXs proposed Big Falcon Rocket. Building a fleet of such rockets will certainly provide plenty of business for his company. It wont be cheap transport: Musk plans to offer tickets at around US$200 000 each. Another perennial topic, astrobiology finding life on another planet was also on the agenda. This idea comes with many potential pitfalls. Contamination is among them. All space agencies adhere to the international protocols against forward contamination. That is, inadvertently spreading earth germs to another planet or moon. This would prevent subsequent explorers from knowing if the presence of earth bacteria was due to contamination, or if earths bacteria are naturally spread through the solar system as suggested by a theory called panspermia. The reverse problem is backward contamination: inadvertently returning to earth carrying some extra-terrestrial microbes. We would have no natural antibodies or resistance to defend ourselves from even fatal illnesses. The fate of entire Khoikhoi clans who were wiped out by smallpox infections, to which they had no natural resistance, is merely one historical example warning us, out of many. Astrobiology discussions threw up another topic thats engaged intellectuals and science fiction writers for over a century: finding intelligent life on another planet or moon. The International Institute of Space Law and the International Academy for Astronautics have already proposed a set of protocols to guide our responses after the detection of extra-terrestrial intelligent life but, so far, no state has passed those into law. Space junk and asteroids Planetary protection was also a big issue. That is, how can we protect the Earth from another hit by an asteroid such as the one which led to the extinction of the dinosaurs? Proposed solutions range from knocking an earth-bound asteroid off-course by a nuclear explosion to nudging it away by utilising long-term thrust forces. And there is growing concern over space debris: the thousands of fragments of spacecraft, rockets, and defunct satellites orbiting around us. Due to their high speeds up to eight kilometres per second a piece of debris the size of a bullet would have more than the impact of a grenade. This has led to calls for space traffic management, modelled on current air traffic management. Already the International Space station and some other satellites carry the propellants needed to enable them to take evasive manoeuvres whenever needed to avoid head-on collisions with some other orbiting object. Keith Gottschalk, Political Scientist, University of the Western Cape This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The Associated Press Iran on Tuesday conducted one of at least two satellite launches it plans despite criticism from the United States, but the satellite failed to reach orbit, an official said. The rocket carrying the Payam satellite failed to reach the necessary speed in the third stage of its launch, Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said. Jahromi said the rocket had successfully passed its first and second stages before developing problems in the third. He did not elaborate on what caused the rocket failure, but promised that Iranian scientists would continue their work. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promptly slammed Iran over the launch, accusing Tehran of lying and alleging that the innocent satellite was actually the first stage of an intercontinental missile Iran is developing in violation of international agreements. Iran has said it plans to send two satellites, Payam and Doosti, into the orbit. Payam means message in Farsi, while Doosti means friendship. Its unclear how the failure of the Payam will affect the launch timing for the Doosti. Jahromi wrote on Twitter that Doosti is waiting for orbit, without elaborating. Iranian state television aired footage of its reporter narrating the launch of the Simorgh rocket, shouting over its roar that it sent a message of the pride, self-confidence and willpower of Iranian youth to the world! The TV footage shows the rocket becoming just a pinpoint of light in the darkened sky and not the moment of its failure. Jahromis comments that the problem developed in the launchs third stage suggest something went wrong after the rocket pushed the satellite out of the Earths atmosphere. The Simorgh, meaning phoenix in Farsi, has been used in previous satellite launches. It is larger than an earlier model known as the Safir, or ambassador, that Iran previously used to launch satellites. Iran usually displays space achievements in February during the anniversary of its 1979 Islamic Revolution. This year will mark the 40th anniversary of the revolution amid Iran facing increasing pressure from the U.S. under the administration of President Donald Trump. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that Irans plans for sending satellites into orbit demonstrate the countrys defiance of a U.N. Security Council resolution that calls on Iran to undertake no activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Iran insists the launches do not violate the resolution. Over the past decade, Iran has sent several short-lived satellites into orbit and in 2013 launched a monkey into space. The U.S. and its allies worry the same satellite-launching technology could be used to develop long-range missiles capable that could carry nuclear weapons. Iran denies wanting nuclear weapons. A 2015 nuclear deal it struck with world powers limited its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. However, Trump pulled America out of the deal in May. While United Nations inspectors say Iran has honored the deal up to this point, it has threatened to resume higher enrichment. tech2 News Staff UPDATE: WhatsApp seems to be aware of this issue and has said that it is working on fixing the problem. In an email response, WhatsApp spokesperson said, "We are aware of this bug and are working on a fix for the users who have encountered this issue." Have you been finding some of your old WhatsApp messages gone lately? If yes, you are not alone. Reportedly, many Android users have complained of a new bug that is causing their chat history to be deleted automatically. This bug has apparently existed since last month now. According to a tweet shared by WABetaInfo, a Moto G4 Plus user revealed last month that while this bug first started off deleting chat history in chronological order, recently the bug apparently started deleting chat history randomly. It looks this issue persists for some Android users. Are you still experiencing it? pic.twitter.com/piBXEUopIt WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) January 10, 2019 The user said that they reached out to WhatsApp multiple times regarding this issue, but failed to receive any response regarding it. Many other users on WhatsApp reported the same issue. I discovered this a few weeks ago when I went to look for the first message I sent to my wife in 2014. I had done this before and favored her. Unfortunately... Facebook only shits with everything that touches. Ibraim (@ialima7) January 12, 2019 My chats just disappear on WhatsApp. What's going on? marceline (@sunlathi) October 1, 2018 Where the f*ck do my chats disappear to whenever I go online? Is this the future of sms? No. DON'T THINK SO!!@WhatsApp Simon Juma (@iamsimonjuma) December 16, 2018 @WhatsApp hi, my chat on whatsapp business are suddenly disappear. could you please help me ? Dwi Prastowo (@Praztidutz) July 25, 2018 From what the reports suggest, the bug seems to have affected only Android users, and iOS users seem to be safe. WhatsApp hasn't said anything about the issue yet, and it isn't very clear right now what is causing the messages to delete. Notably though, last year in November, Whatsapp said that it will delete users chat archive unless they back up their message log to Google Drive, which basically means losing all unarchived messages. WhatsApp had warned that any backups that hadn't been updated in over a year would also be automatically removed from the Google Drive storage. Reuters Volkswagen said on 14 January it is investing $800 million to build a new electric vehicle at its plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, as it shifts toward zero-emission vehicles. The German automaker, in an announcement at the Detroit Auto Show, said it is adding 1,000 new jobs and that electric vehicle production in Tennessee will begin in 2022. German automakers have been under pressure from US President Donald Trump to increase their investments in the United States. VW will use a modular electric toolkit chassis in Chattanooga. VW designed MEB to be the basic building block for its EVs and is intended to consolidate all of the vehicles electronic controls and reduce the number of microprocessors. Volkswagen is building the first dedicated EV production facility in Zwickau, Germany, starting MEB production by the end of 2019. Volkswagen will add EV production at facilities in Anting and Foshan, in China, in 2020, and in the German cities of Emden and Hanover by 2022. We obviously think electric vehicles are going to play a more and more prominent role, said Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, who took part in the announcement. The woman said Gaskins began to push her, and she pushed her back so she could get away. The woman said Gaskins pushed her hard enough to knock her down, and when she was on the floor, Gaskins got on top of her and began hitting her in the face. The woman said she scratched Gaskins on the face and was able to get away. tech2 News Staff Samsung just recently confirmed that it will introduce budget Galaxy M-series smartphones in India later this month. As expected, various rumours have started pouring in ahead of its launch. Sketches of the supposed new Samsung Galaxy M20 smartphone have surfaced, revealing design and connectivity details. The set of illustrations leaked by Dutch website Mobielkopen are said to be obtained from an alleged M20 manual. As per the leaked sketches, the supposed Galaxy M20 will have a notch-style design display with a thick chin and minimum bezels on both sides. The proximity sensor and microphone are seen placed at the top while the power buttons and volume keys can be seen on the left side. The Galaxy M20 has dual camera sensors at the back panel which are aligned vertically. A capsule-shaped fingerprint sensor could be seen sitting at the centre. In addition, a USB Type-C port and audio jack are drilled into the base of the device, as per the leaked sketches. Apart from the connectivity suite and design details, Mobielkopen report further suggested that the supposed Galaxy M20 smartphone will have Dolby Atmos support. The phone is said to be equipped with the in-house Exynos 7885 processor and includes 3 GB of RAM with either 32 GB or 64 GB of internal storage. A Reuters report previously suggested that the South Korean tech giant might bring three smartphones under its new Galaxy M-series branding this month. The report quoting Samsung Indian mobile business head Asim Warsi said that the M-series will be available in the sub-Rs 20,000 range, and offer "huge capacity" batteries. The upcoming budget Galaxy M-series will include three models dubbed as M10, M20 and M30. The Galaxy M20 is tipped to feature a tall 6.3-inch display and carry a massive 5,000 mAh battery. While the leading tech giant is all geared up to introduce its upcoming budget M-series in the Indian market, the latest lineup faces fierce competition if one takes the specification list and price into consideration. Samsung being the pioneer in Super AMOLED display technology, the Galaxy M-series is expected to inherit the same. However, the mid-tier processor and below average RAM/storage capacity mean that the M series phones have an uphill battle to fight. The likes of the Redmi Note 6 Pro and Realme 2 Pro offer extremely competitive hardware in this price bracket, and Xiaomi's Poco F1 brings flagship performance to the sub-Rs 20k segment. In fact, the worst thing Samsung can do is attempt to get by on brand value alone, especially since the company has already ceded a large chunk of its market share to Xiaomi and other Chinese brands. Samsung Galaxy M-series will be officially unveiled on 28 January. Samsung India handle has revealed that the handsets will be exclusive to Amazon. You can find the Galaxy M series rumour roundup here. Reuters A British company plans to launch a Braille e-reader for blind people this year that should greatly enhance their reading experience and spare them from lugging around hefty print volumes. Since it was developed by Louis Braille in the 19th Century, the alphabet of raised dots has brought the joy of reading to millions of blind and partially-sighted people. But in its printed form its not exactly convenient or portable: A Braille copy of the Bible can take up about 5 feet (1.5 meters) of shelf space. British firm Bristol Braille Technology hopes to change this with Canute 360, their new Kindle for the blind which it says is the worlds first multi-line Braille e-reader, displaying nine lines of text at a time, or about a third of a page of regular print. This means you only have to press the forward button every 360 characters rather than every 20, said Stephanie Sergeant, whose company Vision Through Sound provides training for blind people and has been working with Bristol Braille. It refreshes a line at a time, starting at the top. So even though it takes a little while for all the lines to refresh, you can start reading almost as soon as you press the forward key. Any text that has been translated into Braille format can be downloaded into the Canute, potentially putting an endless supply of reading material at the users fingertips. The proportion of blind people who can read Braille lettering, formed of one to six dots in a range of combinations, has fallen, partly due to advances in audio description technology. But Bristol Braille says learning to read it can significantly boost literacy and numeracy rates among the blind. The final prototype of Canute will enter mass production this year, priced similar to a high-end laptop. Innovations in the field of Braille technology make this a very exciting time for Braille readers, said Claire Maxwell, senior product developer for Braille at the Royal National Institute of Blind People. Speaking further on the action taken on former CBI director Alok Verma, Kharge again outlined the need to bring out the minutes of the meeting in public domain. New Delhi:The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) can try as much as they want, but the government in Karnataka is stable, asserted senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday. "Let BJP try as much as they want, but the government is stable. All people have been elected on ideology and they are not going to leave. However, BJP keeps on trying (to poach) because they are habitual. In 2008 also when they didn't have the majority, they indulged in poaching and made people resign through operation 'Kamala'," Kharge told ANI. He added, "This time their (BJP) attempts are not going to yield results. I have spoken to the chief minister as well as Siddaramaiah and everyone has assured me that the government is stable." He also cleared the air on speculations of missing Congress legislators and said, "It is all a lie, someone has gone to Mumbai, some are in Delhi because of their work. They will keep on blackmailing and keep on using these tactics till the parliamentary elections." Speaking further on the action taken on former CBI director Alok Verma, Kharge again outlined the need to bring out the minutes of the meeting in public domain and asserted that a decision in this regard depends on the government's outlook. "It is up to their will and we can't force them on CVC report. The report on which the action has been taken, is wrong. They heard only one side. We are talking about principle of natural justice. If they believe in it then they should have given an opportunity to Alok Verma to make arguments on (retired Supreme Court Judge Justice AK Patnaik) Patnaik's report. This is unfortunate that all these things did not happen. We have written a letter, let us see if the answer comes or not," said Kharge. Earlier in the day, Kharge had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the appointment of M Nageswara Rao as interim Director of the CBI was "illegal" and contending that the government seemed to be "scared" of having the premier investigative agency headed by an "independent" chief. Kharge, who is a member of the Selection Committee headed by the prime minister that decides on appointment of a CBI Director, has demanded that the government "come clean" by releasing the CVC report and the report of Justice Patnaik who was asked by the Supreme Court to monitor the CVC's inquiry into the allegations against ousted CBI chief Alok Verma. Congress spokesperson RPN Singh said the BJP wanted the secular parties to remain divided in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh before the 2019 Lok Sabha election and contest independently so that their votes could be split. New Delhi: An SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh without the Congress was exactly what the BJP wanted initially, and the two regional parties have fallen into the ruling party's design, the Congress said Monday. Its spokesperson RPN Singh said the BJP wanted the secular parties to remain divided in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh before the 2019 Lok Sabha election and contest independently so that their votes could be split. Its attempts have proved successful, he added. On Sunday, the Congress said it would contest on all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in the general election, expected in April-May. That the party was left out of the SP-BSP alliance would not affect its prospects and the Congress would contest with "full force", it had said. On Monday, Singh tried to raise doubts over the longevity of the alliance, wondering whether it would last till the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election. He also asked whether now BSP chief Mayawati and SP leader Akhilesh Yadav would attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi on "corruption" in the Rafale jet deal. "The SP-BSP coming together leaving the Congress outside is what the BJP wanted from the very beginning, that the Opposition parties contest independently. It seems they have fallen into the pattern that BJP wanted," he said. He said attempts are being made in all states to unite secular forces and avoid division of anti-BJP votes. "They (SP and BSP) did not express their desire to even talk to us," he alleged. The SP-BSP alliance was formalised on Saturday at a joint presser by Mayawati and Yadav. They announced their parties would contest 38 seats each and would leave two seats for smaller allies. They also said they would not field candidates from Amethi and Raebareli, the traditional seats of Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi, respectively. Accusing the leadership of the SP and the BSP of not attacking Prime Minister Modi on corruption, Singh said, "We don't see the leaders of these parties attacking the prime minister on corruption in the Rafale scam, the way Rahul Gandhi has attacked him." "We expect the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party to take this up as vehemently in the elections as Gandhi has taken it up," he said. The former Union minister who hails from Padrauna in Uttar Pradesh and won the Kushinagar Lok Sabha seat in 2009, said the Congress is talking to other smaller parties in Uttar Pradesh for possible alliances for the general election. He said whenever other political parties have undermined the Congress, the people of Uttar Pradesh have shown them what the grand old party is. However, opinion polls and past trends suggest if the alliance manages to perform in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP will face a setback in the Hindi heartland states. Tejashwi Yadav declared on Monday that it was the people of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar who will play kingmaker in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He claimed that the BJP has been surfing against the tide that the saffron party will lose close to 100 seats in Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. "The message of this alliance has gone not just across Uttar Pradesh but also across the country UP and Bihar will define who is going to form the central government," the Rashtriya Janata Dal leader told reporters after backing Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati's alliance. Tejashwis statement was a political one, aimed to undermine his archrival, the Bharatiya Janata Party. And the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party alliance too is forged in the same vein, inspired by the will to keep BJP out of power rather than any ideological similarities between the two parties. However, the regional satraps could be correct in their pronouncement to the extent that the alliance does seem to be eating away at BJPs share of votes in the politically crucial north Indian states. The two rival parties Mayawati's BSP and Akhileshs SP on Saturday announced that they have reached a 50-50 seat-sharing deal in Uttar Pradesh. Out of 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state, SP and BSP will contest on 38 seats each and have left two seats for the smaller parties. They have also decided to leave out Amethi and Raebareli for Congress without any official alliance with the party. The two states together send 120 MPs to the Lok Sabha 80 from Uttar Pradesh and 40 from Bihar. Add Jharkhand to the equation, which has another 14 seats, then there would be 134 seats from the region. Out of these, the NDA has close to 118 seats. However, opinion polls and past trends suggest if the alliance manages to perform in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP will face a setback in the Hindi heartland states. In Uttar Pradesh, the NDA won 73 Lok Sabha seats out of 80 in the 2014 Lok Sabha. However, an India TV-CNX opinion poll survey predicts it is advantage gathbandhan in the upcoming general elections. The survey claims that if elections were to be held today, the NDA would be restricted at 29 seats, whereas the SP-BSP alliance will win 49 seats. Congress will retain its two seats from the last election and others including smaller parties and independents may win five seats. Earlier, the ABP News-CVoter survey also predicted a slip in NDAs vote share if the alliance was formed. The survey claimed that out of the total 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 50 will go to the SP-BSP combine along with Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal; NDA will be restricted to 28 seats as compared to 73 seats to 2014. The Congress will only manage to win two seats. Likewise, a look at the poll results from 2014 also suggests that if these parties manage to successfully transfer their votes to each other then they are neck and neck in competition with the BJP. The vote shares of SP and BSP when combined came within touching distance of BJP even when the Narendra Modi wave was at its peak during 2014 Lok Sabha polls. This time around, it is quite likely that the SP-BSP alliance is able to combine the Dalit, OBC and Muslim votes, whereas Congress might make a small dent into BJPs upper caste voter base. In Bihar too the Mahagathbandhan might thwart the BJP from repeating its 2014 performance even as it suffers teething trouble in coming up with a seat sharing formula that is acceptable to all its allies. The NDA in 2014, which included the Lok Janshakti Party and the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party, had won 31 seats in Bihar and contributed significantly to NDAs Lok Sabha tally. However, this time around there has been a 180 degrees change in alliances and loyalties in the state, which renders the 2014 data of little use. For instance, the Janata Dal (United), as part of the Mahagathbandhan, contested on 23 seats at the time but it could win only two. The RLSD and Hindustan Awami Morch (HAM), both NDA allies are part of the Mahagathbandhan this time around. But despite this, opinion poll surveys predict that the Opposition parties are growing stronger in Bihar. The India TV-CNX opinion poll claims that BJP is likely to win 13 seats, and the NDA combinedly would get 27 seats out of the total 40. The Mahagathbandhan, on the other hand will win 13 seats if polls were conducted today. However, the BJP may still have a chance in Bihar as the saffron party has taken a step back to accommodate its allies, whereas the seat sharing talks have exposed the chinks in the armour of the Mahagathbandhan. Reports suggest that the BJP is ready to cede electoral space to allies in Bihar. The BJP and the JD(U) will contest 17 seats each, while the LJP will contest six out of the total 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state, Livemint reported. On the other hand, the Mahagathbandhan is facing trouble finalising the seat sharing formula following the entry of Upendra Kushwaha-led RLSP and the Mukesh Sahani-led Vikasshil Insaan Party (VIP). Left wing parties CPI and CPI (ML) are also expected to be part of the Mahaghatbandan, however, each demand their share of cake, which complicates the seat sharing process. Moreover, there is JD(U)s rebel faction led by Sharad Yadav, which would also want that Tejashwi makes adjustments for the leaders who gave up Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha seats and suffered expulsion from JD(U) to back the Mahagathbandhan. The BJP had approached the Supreme Court seeking permission to hold the 'Save Democracy Rally' in West Bengal, which would cover all the constituencies in the state ahead of the Lok Sabha 2019 elections. The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied permission to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to go ahead with its proposed rath yatra in West Bengal. However, the bench said the BJP to could conduct meetings and rallies in the state. The matter went to court after the West Bengal government denied the party permission to hold the rath yatra in the state. SC refused to give a go ahead for the BJP's Yatra in West Bengal. The Apex Court, however, said that the BJP state unit can conduct meetings and rallies. SC said, if BJP comes out with a revised plan of fresh Yatra, that may be considered afresh later. pic.twitter.com/TbvYiRQply ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 On 8 January, the apex court had issued a notice to the West Bengal government after hearing the state BJP unit's plea against a Calcutta High Court order disallowing it from organising the Rath Yatra in West Bengal. The Mamata Banerjee government was given two weeks to respond to the matter. A bench headed by Justice SK Kaul had also asked the BJP's Bengal unit to submit a revised plan for its rallies for consideration by the state government. On Tuesday, as well, the Supreme Court said if the BJP came up with a revised plan, it might consider it afresh. The top court, on 3 January, had agreed to hear the BJP plea against the Calcutta High Court's 21 December order, which had set aside the order of a single-judge bench allowing the rally. The party had then approached the Supreme Court seeking permission to hold the "Save Democracy Rally", which would cover all the constituencies in the state ahead of the Lok Sabha 2019 elections. On Saturday, BSP and SP announced an alliance for the general elections in Uttar Pradesh. The parties, once arch-rivals, will contest 38 seats each and have left two seats Amethi and Raebareli for the Congress. On the occasion of her birthday on Tuesday, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati urged her party workers to gift her the newly forged SP-BSP alliance's victory in Lok Sabha polls for her birthday. She also slammed the central and state governments for anti-farmer and pro-capitalist policies on the occasion. Addressing the press on her birthday, the BSP chief lauded the party workers in all states and asked them to bury the hatchet with Samajwadi Party members and work towards a successful win for all the alliance's candidates. "That would be the real birthday gift," she said. Lucknow: Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav greets Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati at her residence, on her birthday today. pic.twitter.com/COWRKjHkYB ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 15, 2019 Mayawati came down heavily on the BJP-led central government for its 'poor' agrarian policies and also slammed the newly-elected Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan for an insufficient farm loan waiver. "The government should give 100 percent farm loan waiver otherwise farmer suicides will continue. A strong farm loan waiver policy should be made," Mayawati asserted. "We have always worked for the poor and the down-trodden," she added. BSP Chief Mayawati in Lucknow: We have always worked for the poor and the down trodden. The government should give 100% farm loan waiver else farmer suicides will continue. A strong farm loan waiver policy should be made. pic.twitter.com/nRvA8K81SD ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 15, 2019 Mayawati reiterated that the BSP's alliance with Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party (SP) for the Lok Sabha elections has given the ruling BJP "sleepless nights". On Saturday, Mayawati and Akhilesh announced an alliance for the general elections in Uttar Pradesh. The parties, once arch-rivals, will contest 38 seats each and have left two seats Amethi and Raebareli for the Congress. With inputs from agencies Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik will not attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official programme during his one-day tour to the state Tuesday as he would be busy in state government programmes, official sources said. Bhubaneswar: Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik will not attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official programme during his one-day tour to the state Tuesday as he would be busy in state government programmes, official sources said. The prime minister, during his visit to Bolangir in Western Odisha, is scheduled to launch several projects on infrastructure development, connectivity and ease of doing business. Modi will also dedicate Multi-Modal Logistics Park (MMLP) in Jharsuguda and new railway line to be inaugurated between Balangir and Bichupali. After attending the official programme, Modi is expected to address a public rally at Patharachepa ground in Bolangir at 11.45 am. However, Patnaik will not be able to attend such function as he will remain busy at the state government's "Krushi Odisha" programme. Patnaik will address farmers at the meeting. Both the prime minister and the chief minister are scheduled to attend programmes in different areas of the state at 11 am. However, sources in the chief minister's office said, one minister may be deputed to attend the prime minister's official programme. Last time, when Modi visited Baripada in North Odisha on 5 January, Patnaik was not present there as he was attending an official programme at Puri. Odisha'a Steel and Mines Minister Prafulla Mallick represented the state at the function. However, the chief minister had attended the official function of Modi when he came to Khurda near Bhubaneswar on 24 December. Ahead of the general elections, both leaders have been attacking each other's government, though Modi did not take the name of ruling BJD or Patnaik in his speeches at those programmes. Modi, however, on his public meetings at Jharsuguda and Talcher on 22 September, 2018, had criticised Patnaik and his government. The Opposition Congress has alleged that Modi has been maintaining soft attitude towards Patnaik and his party particularly because of the BJP's defeat in three states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattishgarh. Sources in the ruling BJD said Patnaik prefers not to be seen with the prime minister at this juncture as the regional outfit has been maintaining equal distance from both the BJP and the Congress. The survey is a fresh attempt to gauge the performance of BJP MPs, quite different from the traditional methods used by the party in the past. Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election, technologically aware and social media savvy Prime Minister Narendra Modi is experimenting with a new way to zero in on candidates. On his personal 'NaMo' app, a survey called 'People's Pulse' is crowdsourcing data on a variety of factors: including the performance of BJP leaders. Modi urged his followers on Twitter on Monday to participate in the survey. "Your feedback on various issues will help us take important decisions," Modi said in a video message. I want your direct feedback on various issuestake part in the survey on the Narendra Modi Mobile App.' pic.twitter.com/hdshOPnOEY Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 14, 2019 BJP chief Amit Shah also tweeted about the survey, asking people to do their bit "towards a new India." It is a great opportunity to share your feedback with Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi on various issues relating to our constituencies and governance. You can do that by taking the survey on the Narendra Modi Mobile App' and do our bit towards a #NewIndia. Amit Shah (@AmitShah) January 14, 2019 The survey is a fresh attempt to gauge the performance of BJP MPs, rather different from the traditional methods used by the party in the past. One of the "important decisions" the BJP will make based on the results may be on the candidates for the upcoming general election. One can't help but wonder if Modi is taking his cues from Congress president Rahul Gandhi to hit upon a new method to select candidates. When Assembly elections were due in 2018 in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, Rahul changed the selection process for candidates. Economic Times reported how the screening committees were made to travel to the respective states and obtain the information on the candidates from ground zero, before forwarding their names to the central election committee. This idea was reportedly suggested by the Chhattisgarh unit, so as to save time of the candidates who would camp in Delhi while the tickets would be finalised. After the Congress emerged victorious in the three states, Rahul heavily banked on the party observers for the selection of chief ministers and ministers. The Telegraph reported that the Congress chief directed the observers to take recommendations from senior party leaders and MLAs. The survey on NaMo app gathers intelligence on similar lines as the Congress observers. People's Pulse The People's Pulse survey asks participants basic information about their state, constituency, their view on progress achieved by the central government in sectors such as affordable healthcare, prosperity of farmers, corruption-free governance, Swachh Bharat, national security, economy, infrastructure, employment and rural electrification. It requires the respondent to name the three most popular BJP leaders in their constituency, and also asks details related to the performance of the MP of the respondent's constituency. In various interactions with the BJP leaders and grassroot workers, Modi often stressed on the need to connect with the public and keep in touch with them. The survey is a smart way to ensure there is some interaction with the voters, while efficiently gathering data to improve BJP's decisions. In the past, the Modi government has used portals like MyGov to create awareness and gather feedback on its schemes and initiatives. However, this will be the first time the BJP will rely on crowdsourced information to shortlist popular leaders in each constituency. This move comes even as several MPs are dealing with the possibility of being axed in the upcoming election. Recent reports suggested that the BJP might deny tickets to 57 sitting Lok Sabha MPs in Uttar Pradesh. Reports emerged after an internal survey in at least 800 blocks of the state revealed that several party leaders had not adhered to Shah's directions of creating awareness about the party's initiatives. The survey said: "The farm loan waiver has failed to make any political impact as BJP leaders failed to make farmers realise that it was the Adityanath government that was instrumental in extending that sop. With the passage of time, the memory faded, and now farmers do not talk about this." With several Opposition parties also attempting to forge an anti-BJP alliance, the saffron party is clearly feeling the heat. "Do you see any impact of the proposed mahagathbandhan in your constituency?" asks one of the questions in the survey. While it may be too soon for respondents to answer, what remains to be seen is if the gathered information will actually amount to better decisions by the BJP. With the slogan '19 on 19', that is, to get 19 rebel MLAs to defect by 19 January, the BJP in Karnataka has begun its most serious attempt yet to dislodge the seven-month-old Congress-JD(S) coalition government. Five Congress MLAs and one independent have been holed up in a five-star hotel in Mumbai for the past few days, while three more rebels are spending time in New Delhi. With the slogan '19 on 19', that is, to get 19 rebel MLAs to defect by 19 January, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has begun its most serious attempt yet to dislodge the seven-month-old Congress-JD(S) coalition government in Karnataka. Five Congress MLAs and one independent have been holed up in a five-star hotel in Mumbai for the past few days, while three more rebels are spending time in New Delhi waiting for a meeting with BJP chief Amit Shah. Efforts are on to get more MLAs to jump the ship before 19 January to reduce the coalition government of HD Kumaraswamy to a minority. Code-named as 'Operation Sankranthi' to coincide with the festival of harvest, the central leadership of the BJP is trying to harvest the discontent within the Congress after the Cabinet expansion. Simultaneously, in order to prevent counter-poaching of its own MLAs, it has moved all of them (104 to be precise) to Gurugram in Haryana. Fissures opened up in the Congress once it filled up six vacancies in the Cabinet after nearly seven months of forming the government. JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda advised Congress chief Rahul Gandhi to postpone the exercise until after the Lok Sabha polls, but the Congress had its own compulsions. Former chief minister and chairman of the coordination committee Siddaramaiah was given the hatchet job of snatching home portfolio from deputy chief minister G Parameshwar and giving it to his confidant MB Patil, taking away medical education from DK Shivakumar, replacing Ramesh Jarkhiholi with his brother and rival, Satish Jarkhiholi and so on. Siddaramaiah worked on bringing in influential caste leaders and money bags, keeping the Lok Sabha elections in mind. The exercise has apparently ruffled many delicate feathers, leading to simmering dissidence. Miffed at being left out of the ministry, MLAs Nagendra, Bheema Naik, Kampli Ganesh, Anand Singh and Pratap Gouda of the Congress and R Shankar, an independent, have moved to a halfway home in Mumbai, ready to negotiate with the BJP. PWD minister in Maharashtra Chandrakanth Patil is said to be hosting them. The BJP is also eyeing to weaken position of key Congress candidates contesting the Lok Sabha seats and thats one of the reasons why Umesh Jadhav, an MLA from Chincholi in Gulbarga has become a target. Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, who will seek re-election from Gulbarga, will feel the heat if Jadhav is taken away by the BJP, as he commands a substantial chunk of Lambani votes. Having begun Operation Lotus 2.0 in right earnest, the BJP will realise that unlike in 2008, when the then chief minister BS Yeddyurappa was able to lure nearly 18 JD(S) and Congress MLAs to resign their seats and successfully re-contest, this time it is not going to be an easy task. Reasons are that Yeddyurappa is no longer the force he used to be. The BJP after the failure of its government in Karnataka has lost much of its sheen and the Congress and the JD(S) are in an alliance unlike earlier and re-election is not guaranteed. Another crucial factor which may deter operation lotus 2.0 is that unlike last time, being in the opposition, the BJP doesnt have its Speaker in the Assembly. Even after the BJP convinces some rebels to resign, the Speaker can hold back his consent indefinitely, thwarting defections. Veteran Congressman Ramesh Kumar is the current Speaker and that might stymy BJP's plans. There is a growing perception in the central BJP leadership that in order to avoid carrying the odium of causing defection to grab power, if the Kumaraswamy ministry were to fall now, the BJP should not attempt to form an alternative government and instead, keep the Assembly under suspended animation and impose President's Rule till the Lok Sabha elections were over. If that were to be the final outcome of the current drama or if the BJP is forced to abandon its operation defection for now, it would be the end of Yeddyurappas dream to return to power as chief minister of Karnataka. Popkin noted final orders were issued in about half of the cases. The rest of the cases were generally denied or dismissed. He said that shows judges are properly providing gun owners with due process. Members of the committee, which is overseeing the implementation of the law, asked Popkin for more information about the cases for which final orders were denied to see whether there are other issues that need to be addressed with new legislation. Mayawati seemed pleased with herself as she addressed the media at the BSPs palatial headquarters in Lucknow. Since the time Mayawati gained political prominence, she and the BSP have celebrated her birthday with great elan and made it a special occasion. But this time, Mayawati said her 63rd birthday was even more special: not only is it being celebrated as parliamentary elections are around the corner, Mayawati made history by aligning with the Samajwadi Party, her erstwhile sworn enemy. Mayawati seemed pleased with herself as she addressed the media at the BSPs palatial headquarters in Lucknow. And with good reason. The way she has lately shaped her politics: from drawing a nil in the last parliamentary elections, having zero MPs in the Lok Sabha and a minuscule 19 MLAs in 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly (less than five percent of total strength of Assembly where seven years ago she ruled with absolute majority) to being the most sought after alliance partner by the secular parties. The most important announcement she made at this press conference and to all concerned in the wider world is that she looks at the upcoming parliamentary election as a Narendra Modi versus Mayawati battle (though in not so many words). Thus far, it was her new-found allies, Ajit Jogi or Chautalas, or Kumaraswamy or leaders in her own party, who pitched her as a prime ministerial candidate: a direct challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but today she thought it prudent to declare herself as the prime challenger to the PM. While she is challenging Modi, the message was loud and clear for Rahul Gandhi and Congress and the likes of Mamata Banerjee and Chandrababu Naidu, all of whom have prime ministerial ambitions. Mayawati said, This election is being held to decide who will be prime minister... The BSP chief appealed to her voters and supporters to vote for BSP and its allies (without mentioning any names) in Uttar Pradesh and across the country. She added that this time, the prime minister would be from Uttar Pradesh, conveniently forgetting to mention that Modi is the MP from Banaras and Rahul is the MP from Amethi. Later, she re-released her autobiography Mere Sangrashmai Jeevan Evam Bahujan Movement Ka safarnama. About an hour after Mayawati bared her prime ministerial ambitions, her new-found ally Samjwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, who in the last parliamentary election was pitching his father Mulayam Singh Yadav for the top post, turned up at the BSP supremos residence to offer her his best wishes. As Akhilesh's wife Dimpal shares her birthday with Mayawati, there was speculation there could be joint celebrations by SP-BSP cadre, but that didnt happen. Mayawati had a message for BSP and SP workers: forgive and forget about the incident at state guest house in Lucknow on 2 June, 1995, when Kanshiram and Mayawat, then allies of Samajwadi Party were attacked by SP goons because the latter thought she going to withdraw support from Mulayam Singh government. Mayawati was critical of Modi, BJP and RSS, but what was most interesting was that she was unsparing in her criticism of the Congress. She alleged Congress wrongdoing in the first weeks of its new government in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. She also took on Rahul's pet loan waivers for farmers formula, pointed out the follies in its implementation in these three states, and stated how loan waiver was not a solution for farm distress and how it benefits select farmers. It should be noted that until recently, the Congress was hopeful of being part of SP-BSP alliance and even named it the Mahagathbandhan. Rahul repeatedly expressed optimism about such an alliance, but Mayawati in her characteristic way snubbed the Congress. She was very harsh on the Congress blaming the grand old party for not doing anything substantive for poor, Dalit, tribals during the decades of its political hegemony at the Centre and states even as she positioned herself directly against Modi. She argued why this was the time to give her a chance: pitching herself as a new alternative to the Congress, which she said has a history of failing the public. To further strengthen her prime ministerial pitch, Mayawati said she will she move to New Delhi to celebrate her birthday in the national capital and hold deliberations with allies outside Uttar Pradesh. BSP leaders from other states have been asked to land in Delhi by evening to greet her and, time permitting, seek her advice on how to proceed in the next election. Mayawati will be in Delhi for a week, where she will negotiate with present and prospective allies. She will return to Lucknow next week to hold a final round of meetings with BSP office-bearers. Ram Mandir in Ayodhya and the Ardh Kumbh Mela two Hindutva planks that experts believe BJP is banking on heavily ahead of the upcoming 2019 elections. Ram Mandir in Ayodhya and the Ardh Kumbh Mela two Hindutva planks that experts believe BJP is banking on heavily ahead of the upcoming 2019 elections. With the Supreme Court postponing any decision on the Ram Janmabhoomi land dispute case, the BJP might put the Ayodhya and the Ram Mandir as poll pitch on the back burner. Kumbh, however, is a different story. The Ardh Kumbh Mela, the 55-day-long festival in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj, known as Allahabad till recently, is Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's political litmus test notwithstanding the fact that it's a grandiose religious event at the end of the day. The importance attached to this leg of the Kumbh is such that the top brass of the BJP is putting their entire weight behind the Uttar Pradesh chief minister. The preparation for the Kumbh has been going on for a year now. The crowd usually swells during the Maha or the Ardh Kumbh, and this year at least 12 crore pilgrims are expected to pour in from all over the world. Given the numbers, preparations were bound to take time. The Ardh Kumbh is held every six years, while the Maha Kumbh takes place every 12 years. There was also departure from the past when it came to promoting the event. Reports said that the UP government planned events in prominent cities across the world road shows in Berlin, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Dublin and Copenhagen. The idea that Kumbh is an event only for saints and seers was busted as the Adityanath's BJP government aimed at making it a more global phenomena. The officials are preparing for a global audience and nearly two million foreign nationals are expected to arrive. Special brochures in Spanish, German and French carrying an in-depth history of and information about the Kumbh are made available, Hindustan Times reported. Being designed as a "historic and unique event", the Yogi government allocated Rs 510 crore for Kumbh preparations. The chief minister was personally involved in planning as he made several visits to Allahabad and held meetings in Lucknow. He has also asked officials to design an emblem and a slogan for the event. For the first time, Yogi has decided to set up a Prayagraj Mela Development Authority that worked as a nodal agency for all preparations for the event. But beyond the ensuring safety and security, the Kumbh for the BJP and the Sangh is a huge political show. Of the 545 seats in the Lok Sabha, 80 belong to Uttar Pradesh. The BJP secured 71 of these in the 2014 General Elections, accounting for over one-fourth of the total 282 seats that the party won. Though the BJP maintained its winning spree by sweeping the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in March 2017, it has witnessed massive reverses in three Lok Sabha by-elections held in the state thereafter. What was interesting is that in these by-polls, the BJP could not save Gorakhpur, arguably the states strongest saffron seat, which had elected a BJP member of Parliament consecutively since 1991. Before he became the chief minister, Yogi had consecutively won the seat five times. The loss of three more significant states from the Hindi belt Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in the recent Assembly elections has further compounded BJPs problems. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which has taken a keen interest in the mega event, have reportedly executed a "massive exercise to hijack" the event to whip up a solid saffron tide for the BJP ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Armed with almost 600-700 swamyamsevaks, top RSS cadres have turned the Kumbh into a camping site for the Hindutva organisation. "It has been decided that each vibhag (department) of Kashi prant (region) will deploy six to seven hundred swayamsevaks during the Kumbh Mela. They are being trained in crowd management and in various ways they can help people who get separated from their families and relatives," a RSS member was quoted as saying. Watch: Kumbh, it's more than a Mela (Part 1), a Firstpost web series According to a few Sangh leaders, Kumbh can be an excellent opportunity to build mass contact and public relations with core Hindutva voters. The BJP, they were quoted as saying, is "lucky" that General Elections will be held after Kumbh. And if the Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government and the Centre manage to please the saffron core constituency with good arrangements, the road to 2019 for Modi will become smoother. Kumbh can also provide a subtle way to shift sight from Ram Janmabhoomi issue while keeping alive the Hindutva agenda. "In the General Election year, it (Kumbh) promises to be religion, politics, business, tourism and global branding rolled into one," analysts have been quoted as saying. With top BJP leadership, including, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party president Amit Shah and Home Minister Rajnath Singh, putting their weight behind Adityanath, the Ardh Kumbh (which happens every six years) is likely to attract the crowd at a level that one usually witnesses during Maha Kumbh. That the event was going to be grand and laced with political messaging was evident from early last year itself. As early as in July last year, the BJP president met seers, visited temples and religious functions and collected feedback from the saints on hosting the Kumbh in Allahabad. Preparing for the mega event, was the core of Shah's visit to the state. Shah also met the saints of the Akhara Parishad, including its chief Narendra Giri. The Akhara Parishad is the apex body of saints from all the 14 Akharas that participate in the Kumbh and whose feedback he plans to collect, BJP leaders told Hindustan Times. "Of course, every Hindu has a deep connect with Kumbh. Its what we call as the asthaa ka sangam, the confluence of faith. Though we work for each community, we have never engaged in appeasement. Kumbh is a celebration of our eternal religion and culture. We see it like that but yes, if it helps us connect electorally too, its even better," a BJP leader told the newspaper. Even Modi visited the Mela area in December to inaugurate the newly-constructed projects in the Sangam city and temporary structures in the area. The prime minister also reviewed preparations for the Kumbh personally. Several deliberations were held between BJP leaders and the RSS, the leaders, apart from the shrill around Ayodhya, decided to leverage the Kumbh to keep the Hindus united. The Kumbh is also being handed down by the BJP to show off the "good governance" that the state has acquired under the able rule of Adityanath. Law and order has always been a trouble area for any government in the state. By pulling off an event this massive, the Yogi government will definitely gain a few brownie points with the public. "The atmosphere of good governance in the state, which has been brought about by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, has changed the picture and perception of people about Uttar Pradesh. This has attracted foreign investors as well as tourists," a BJP leader was quoted as saying by The Indian Express. Additionally, the BJP is planning to organise five "ideological Kumbhs" which will be held in Lucknow (Yuva Kumbh), Varanasi (Paryavaran Kumbh), Vrindawan (Matru Kumbh), Ayodhya (Samrasta Kumbh) and Sanskriti Kumbh (Prayag). The idea, the BJP says, is to link people from every section of the society and from every region of the state. The decision is also part of BJP's Dalit outreach plan. Through these, BJP and the Uttar Pradesh government would also highlight the significance of Kumbh 2019 - its history as well as relevance in current times. Yogi and several RSS leaders are expected to be present at each of the five conceptual Kumbh Melas. But interestingly, it is not just the BJP. A few national parties have set up camps at the Kumbh. Media reports from Kumbh suggested that all parties plan to make hay while the sun shines and take a "holy" dip in the Hindutva pitch laid down by the BJP. Determined to show their might during the Kumbh, the Congress has got itself allotted two camps on the Mela premises - running into nearly 16,000 square feet area to stamp its presence. This is nearly 40 percent more than it had got during the Kumbh in 2013. The Indian Express quoted RSS officials saying that the concept of a whole Hindutva is a possible instrument to counter the mahagathbandhan in 2019. The report said, "The RSS and Sangh Parivar also talks about uniting the Hindu samaj. Now, they also claim Muslims are those Hindus who converted during the medieval period under the compulsion of Muslim rulers. While explaining samagra hindutva, Shah suggested that we integrate OBC and Dalits in the Hindutva fold. He also emphasised that the government is working to integrate OBCs and SCs and that we need to continue dialogues with these communities to integrate them into the Hindutva fold." The Justice AK Sikri controversy will eventually die down and become lesser than a footnote in history, but the damage to democracy and the decline in the level of trust in institutions is permanent When a Republic is held hostage to unhinged political polarisation, one gets incidents such as the Justice AK Sikri controversy where a sitting judge of the Supreme Court, a man of honour and integrity, is dragged through the mud of slander and ignominy so that a political point may be proved. This case should instil fear in right-minded people about the depths that our political discourse may yet plummet as we approach an inflective point in Indias history. The upcoming Lok Sabha election is not an election. It is war, and everything is kosher. In this age of information, the first casualty of war is the truth. Manipulation of truth is necessary to create a narrative. In the long run, it may irrevocably damage public institutions and have a deleterious effect on democracy, but the immediacy of political needs supersedes such fears. Democracy thrives on debates, and they make it possible for the electorate to make an informed choice. But if a debate becomes debased, mired in falsehood and mirrors the disinformation tactics mastered by autocratic regimes, it eventually generates a deep disconnect between the people and the politicians who are mandated to represent them. The end result is a mass disaffection with politics and cynicism towards democracy. We are witnessing that stage today. The media can play a constructive role in acting as a bridge to address that disconnect. It possesses the power to shape and guide the debate in the right direction if it notices that politicians are manipulating the truth. The problem is, instead of acting as the watchdog of democracy, media has become a wilful tool of disinformation and subversion of truth. Consequently, far from acting as the bridge between the disaffected people and politicians by staying on the right side of facts, it is reinforcing polarisation and amplifying the challenges to democracy. The Justice Sikri controversy will eventually die down and become lesser than a footnote in history. But the damage to democracy and the decline in the level of trust in institutions is permanent. The next time Justice Sikri the second senior-most judge in Supreme Court delivers a verdict in a case involving the government of the day or any other relevant political actors, that verdict will be vulnerable to partisan interpretations. The end result is waning public faith in the integrity of the highest court of the land. The Congress, as a party that has been in power for the better part of Indias journey since Independence, must reflect on the damage it is causing to institutions by taking these irresponsible positions. Politics is cyclical in nature. It wont be long before the party returns to power. It must understand that it is endangering its own position by weakening public institutions because it is the strength of the institutions that ultimately sustains democracy. The Congress had hailed the Supreme Courts decision in May this year when a three-judge bench headed by Justice Sikri had slashed BJP chief minister BS Yeddyurappas time drastically from 15 days to just 24 hours to prove his majority through a floor test, thereby constricting his options of influencing rival lawmakers. The Congress had then commented that democracy has been restored. Rahul Gandhi also didnt waste time in taking credit when Justice Sikri, part of a five-judge Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court to rule on Aadhaar, in September this year struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act permitting private entities to avail Aadhaar data. For Congress, Aadhaar was an instrument of empowerment. For the BJP, Aadhaar is a tool of oppression and surveillance. Thank you Supreme Court for supporting the Congress vision and protecting . #AadhaarVerdict Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 26, 2018 Now that Justice Sikri as a nominee of the Chief Justice of India in his wisdom and as a part of the three-member PM-led high-powered selection committee voted to remove Alok Verma as CBI director, suddenly his integrity is suspect and ulterior motives are being attached to his decision. Is he pliable enough to come under pressure? When the scales of justice are tampered with, anarchy reigns. This PM will stop at nothing, stoop to anything & destroy everything, to cover up the #RafaleScam. Hes driven by fear. Its this fear that is making him corrupt & destroy key institutions.https://t.co/IfYHf2EMGd Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 13, 2019 The unfortunate mudslinging has prompted Justice Sikri to withdraw his consent for a post-retirement seat in the Commonwealth Secretariat Arbitral Tribunal (CSAT) which the government had offered him in the first week of December last year, much before the Supreme Court had even heard the petitions challenging the Centres decision to send Verma on leave. It obviously precludes the decision taken by CJI Ranjan Gogoi to appoint Justice Sikri as his representative in the three-member, high-powered selection committee. The SC judgment (on Verma being sent on leave) came in January first week and till the pronouncement of judgment, there was no way I would have known that I would one day be nominated by the Chief Justice of India to take part in the selection committee meeting on the desirability of Vermas continuance as CBI director, Justice Sikri was quoted, as saying in the Times of India. The newspaper also carried his strong refutation that CSAT appointment was a plum posting. Justice Sikri called it insignificant, one that carries no remuneration and doesnt require him to be based abroad. Justice Markandey Katju, former judge of the Supreme Court and ex-chief justice of Delhi High Court has forcefully backed his former colleague and slammed the media report which formed the basis of Congress presidents insinuation against Justice Sikri as fake news. So to call it a 'plum posting ' as was done in the story in @ThePrintIndia is a complete distortion and fake news. It is a low attempt by a journalist to sensationalise and peddle 'masala' to the public, which is the regular habit of most Indian journalists nowadays Markandey Katju (@mkatju) January 14, 2019 Justice Katju, who in the past has never shied away from criticising the Narendra Modi government, in two lengthy Facebook posts called Justice Sikri an outstanding, totally upright, extremely competent and hard-working judge, termed the media report as half-truth that can be as bad, if not worse than a total lie and called upon the media to apologise to Justice Sikri for sullying and besmearing his image. In another post, Justice Katju claimed to be quoting Justice Sikri in explaining the basis behind his decision and answering a key Congress challenge on why Verma was not given a hearing by the three-member selection committee. Justice Katjus contention also found support from senior lawyers who said that Justice Sikri was unfairly targeted by some political leaders and activist-lawyers and that it was an unnecessary controversy". Be that as it may, the ball has been set rolling and much as the Supreme Court judge at the centre of all attention wants the controversy to die, it wont. There will be new fronts opened every day. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge the third member of the high-powered committee who dissented from the majority decision now wants CVC report on Alok Verma to be made public. Congress alleges that the removal of Verma on 10 January, 2019, was made without following either the due process of law or the principles of natural justice". As we head into the election season, expect more such fusillade. The key question is the price that democracy must pay for making public institutions the pawns in larger battle. Responding to a question on the Congress being left out of the SP-BSP pre-poll tie-up in Uttar Pradesh, Sachin Pilot said his party should not be considered weak. 'It is the Congress that can challenge and defeat the BJP. The party has won three states, which gave new energy to our workers. We will now form the government at the Centre.' Jaipur: It is the Congress that can challenge and defeat the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha election, Rajasthan's deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot said on Monday, while exuding confidence that the UPA, led by his party, will form the next government at the Centre. He said national and regional parties need to work together to fight powers "destroying" democratic institutions of the country. "The NDA has weakened as its key constituents have left, whereas the parties in the UPA have expressed their faith in the leadership of Congress president Rahul Gandhi," Pilot told reporters in Jaipur. "The UPA will form the government in 2019 with Congress leadership." Responding to a question on the Congress being left out of the SP-BSP pre-poll tie-up in Uttar Pradesh, Pilot said his party should not be considered weak. "It is the Congress that can challenge and defeat the BJP. The party has won three states, which gave new energy to our workers. We will now form the government at the Centre." Left out of the SP-BSP pre-poll tie-up in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress on Sunday announced it would go it alone on all 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the upcoming general elections. Congress general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Ghulam Nabi Azad, however, has said his party would accommodate any secular force capable of taking on the ruling BJP in the Lok Sabha election. About preparations for the Lok sabha elections, Pilot said the Congress will hold week-long meetings with the representatives of each Lok Sabha seat to finalise the candidates. He said that the party will give ticket to winnable candidates and youths would be in focus. When asked about Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's son Vaibhav, who is in the race to get a ticket for the Lok sabha polls, he said preliminary talks have been held and the party will give ticket to winnable candidates. "Vaibhav Gehlot has been active in the party for a long time. He might not have got the opportunity due to some reasons in the past, but it will be our endeavour that candidates like him get a chance to come forward. The party's focus is on youths, and there will be an effort to give a chance to them," Pilot said. Pilot, who has completed five years as the president of the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee, said the journey was challenging, but the party won all elections in the state, be it panchayat, Assembly and Lok Sabha bypolls and the recently held Assembly elections. "We worked together and won the elections with the support and strength of our lakhs of workers in the state," he said. The Congress was buoyant in May 2018 when it pulled a BJP and formed a coalition government in Karnataka with the Janata Dal (Secular). Such was its drive to keep the saffron party away from office that it even gave up the chief minister's seat to the partner. But not all (read, former chief minister Siddaramaiah) were happy about ceding power to the coalition partner. The Congress was buoyant in May 2018 when it pulled a BJP and formed a coalition government in Karnataka with the Janata Dal (Secular). Such was its drive to keep the saffron party away from office that it even gave up the chief minister's seat to the partner. But not all (read, former chief minister Siddaramaiah) were happy about ceding power to the coalition partner. Strains in the state government have been visible since July 2018 mere months after the Assembly elections when Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy broke down at an event organised to felicitate him. "The chief minister's post is not a bed of roses, it's a bed of thorns," he had said, explaining his difficulty in running the government with the Congress as his coalition partner, having an Opposition like the BJP to fend off and also meeting the aspirations of his own MLAs. By no means has it been smooth sailing for the JD(S) and Congress in Karnataka. The rift has been widening gradually, even if leaders of both parties, including Kumaraswamy and Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara, continue to deny the speculation. On Monday, a new battle surfaced in Karnataka politics, with both the Congress-JD(S) alliance and the BJP accusing each other of poaching MLAs from their rival camps and both sides denying the allegations. The BJP even went to the extent of holing up over 100 of its MLAs at a resort in Gurugram, moving them to the Haryana city after the national executive meeting concluded. Karnataka BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa rubbished reports that his party was attempting another 'Operation Lotus' in the state to topple the government, referring to the BJP allegedly luring several Opposition MLAs in 2008 to defect to ensure stability of its then government. He said there was no truth to the charge and, in turn, alleged that the Congress-JD(S) combine was trying to woo his party MLAs. At the same time, there are also reports that at least six Congress MLAs came to a hotel in Mumbai on Monday, where they are in touch with BJP leaders. Purported visuals of BJP leaders at the hotel have only added to the poaching allegations. But both sides are still denying poaching rival party legislators. On Tuesday, Congress leader Zameer Ahmed told reporters: "Four-five of our party MLAs are in Mumbai. We will not sit silently if attempts of poaching are made. Even we are in touch with some BJP MLAs. We had spoken to two-three of our MLAs, while the other MLAs' phones are off. I can assure, you no one will leave." But both sides are still denying poaching rival party legislators. There are two aspects to look at here: One, Ahmed's statement contradicts his chief minister's stand from Monday, when Kumaraswamy had said there was no question of "instability" in his government, and that he had the sufficient numbers to run a stable government. Two, Kumaraswamy has contradicted his own self by denying any instability in the coalition a day after he warned the Congress against treating JD(S) leaders as "third grade citizens". Kumaraswamy had emphasised that the Congress must adopt a "give-and-take policy" to put up a united fight against the BJP, and that there should not be any "pettiness" on either side. He had made the statement in view the delicate seat-sharing talks between the Congress and JD(S), which are on for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. There is pressure within the Congress to not cede too much to the JD(S), and the regional partner itself is under pressure to not give in to high-handedness from the Congress. Such is the situation at present that even the strains in the coalition are feeling the strain, as the JD(S) is believed to have demanded 12 of 28 seats in Karnataka for the Lok Sabha polls, while the Congress has offered it half the number. Now, let's look at this analogy: When there are disagreements and fights between parents, they invariably have an impact on the children. Apply this logic to the current scenario in Karnataka, and we could conclude that at the heart of the poaching allegations of the Congress-JD(S) unite and BJP could be the dissatisfaction of coalition MLAs with the estrangement in the Karnataka government. The strained ties between the Congress and JD(S) is bound to have an affect on the legislators trying to work for the government, opening them up to be lured by the BJP to the more stable, infighting-free saffron side. At the time of writing, there's breaking news that two Independent MLAs have withdrawn support to the Congress-JD(S) government in Karnataka, citing lack of understanding between the "allies". H Nagesh and R Shankar have written to the Governor of Karnataka about rescinding their support for the coalition government, no doubt triggering prayers among non-BJP supporters for better health of the Karnataka government. For this , too, the state has pinned the blame on the BJP. Moreover, there are reports that the BJP will move a no-confidence motion in the Assembly next week after "10 Congress and three JD(S) MLAs" jump ship to the saffron side. In view of the seat-sharing talks and a slew of reports on the rift in the administration, JD(S) supremo and former prime minister HD Deve Dowda said: "Both parties have leaders mature enough to handle the issue. We will settle it without any problem." He also exuded confidence in Congress president Rahul Gandhi, saying he understood the importance of regional parties in the fight against the BJP. Also, state minister DK Shivakumar, who was the first to bring up the matter of Congress MLAs in hiding in Mumbai, said on Tuesday: "The government is stable. It will run for a full five-year term under the leadership of Kumaraswamy." The Congress-JD(S) might still have the numbers to hold a majority in the Karnataka Assembly, but if it turns out that Deve Gowda was wrong about Rahul's maturity in understanding the need for regional support and Shivakumar's confidence was misplaced, there could be another saffron stamp on the India map. In Karnataka, MLAs H Nagesh and R Shankar withdrew their support claiming 'disappointment' and 'lack of clarity' in the coalition government. Nagesh said, 'There is no understanding between the coalition partners of this government; there is a mismatch in their actions. There is no respect and recognition for MLAs. Two Independent MLAs of the Karnataka government Tuesday withdrew support from the Congress-JD(S) coalition as allegations of poaching legislators were exchanged between the ruling government and Opposition BJP. Their decision comes hours after Congress leader Siddaramaiah questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi over BJP workers in the state "destabilising" the government. According to reports, MLAs H Nagesh and R Shankar withdrew their support claiming "disappointment" and "lack of clarity" in the coalition government. Nagesh said, "There is no understanding between the coalition partners of this government; there is a mismatch in their actions. There is no respect and recognition for MLAs." "I decided to go with the BJP for the possibility of a stable government and to see that it performs better than this coalition," ANI reported. He added, "After seven months, they have not done anything of significance. People of Karnataka are waiting eagerly for change." The withdrawal leaves the Congress-JD(S) coalition with a majority of only one, with a strength of 118 MLAs. However, Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy dismissed speculation about the stability of the government. He said, "If two MLAs withdraw their support, what will be the numbers? I'm totally relaxed. I know my strength. Whatever is going on in media in the past week, I am enjoying." Karnataka deputy chief minister G Parmeshwara reiterated the accusations of poaching against the BJP. "We have been saying that the BJP is luring our MLAs with money and power. They are trying to topple this government, but it's not going to be successful, he said. Responding to a question about the Opposition's counter-allegations, Parmeshwara said, "We don't have to do that (poaching). Our government is stable. It's not a numbers game," he said. India Today reported that Shankar had been dropped in the cabinet reshuffle in December. Several Congress legislators had also been disgruntled about being skipped over during the reshuffle. 'Show your niyat to people' Siddaramaiah also slammed the prime minister over the slogan of "Saaf Niyat, Sahi Vikas" (clean intent, right development). He tweeted, "'Mr Saaf Niyat' Narendra Modi, is allowing your disgraceful BJP Karnataka leaders to destabilise the government a 'Saaf Niyat' towards democracy?" The former chief minister added, "Your PR slogans do not hide your actual 'niyat', and your 'sahi vikas' should go beyond developing resorts. First show your niyat to people." His tweet came a day after the southern state's Minister for Irrigation DK Shivakumar also accused the BJP of poaching. However, on Tuesday Shivakumar said, "All 104 MLAs are still with the party". HD Kumaraswamy says coalition has "sufficient numbers" Amid media reports on Monday that six to eight Congress MLAs were ready to cross over to the BJP and some lawmakers of the ruling coalition having gone incommunicado, Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Monday said he has "sufficient numbers" to run a stable government. He asserted there was no question of "instability" in his government. The BJP on Monday shifted its 104 state legislators to a private resort in Gurugram, adding to the speculation. The BJP legislators went to the national capital for the party national council meeting which ended on Saturday. As the coalition accused the BJP of offering bribes and other allurements, BJP state chief BS Yeddyurappa rubbished reports his party was reattempting 'Operation Lotus' referring to the BJP's alleged 2008 bid to lure several Opposition MLAs to defect in order to destablise the government headed by Yeddyurappa to topple the state government. He said there was no truth in the charge and instead alleged that the Congress-JD(S) combine was trying to woo his party MLAs. "It is not us, but they (JDS-Congress) have started horse-trading. We will stay in Delhi one or two days because Kumaraswamy is trying his level best to contact our MLAs and horse-trading has started," Yeddyurappa told reporters after meeting state BJP MLAs and MPs in Delhi. The BJP is "alert and careful" as the chief minister is trying to lure our MLAs using "power and money", he added. "Kumaraswamy is trying to contact BJP MLAs and has offered a ministerial post to a Kalburgi MLA," Yeddyurappa alleged, adding the ruling combine is luring BJP state legislators despite having a majority. In the 224-member Assembly, BJP has 104 members, Congress has 79, JDS has 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent have one each, besides the Speaker. BSP, KPJP and an Independent are supporting the coalition. Kumaraswamy said he enjoyed the support of 120 MLAs and alleged that Yeddyurappa was making "futile attempts" to destabilise his government. "I have sufficient numbers for giving a stable government, it is not necessary for Congress or JD(S) to poach the MLAs from BJP, we have sufficient numbers," he said in Bengaluru. "The coalition government enjoys support of 120 MLAs." With inputs from agencies Launching a scathing attack on the left government in Kerala on the Sabarimala issue, Narendra Modi said Communists do not respect India's culture and spirituality. Kollam (Kerala): Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the left government in Kerala on the Sabarimala issue, saying Communists do not respect India's culture and spirituality. Hitting out at the Communist Party of India (CPI)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Opposition spearheaded by the United Democratic Front (UDF) in the state, he said both the fronts were two sides of the same coin and accused them of neglecting people of the state. "We know that the Communists do not respect India's culture, history and spirituality," Modi said at a public meeting in Kollam. Modi also claimed that the Congress has multiple stands on the Sabarimala issue. "They say one thing in Parliament and another in Pathanamthitta (where the Lord Ayyappa shrine is located)," the prime minister alleged. Bipin Rawat later spoke about intelligence-based operations and 'people-friendly' operations in the North East that have managed to limit terrorism in the region Speaking at the 70th Indian Army Day celebrations at the Cariappa ground in Delhi, Army chief General Bipin Rawat on Tuesday said the force would not hesitate to take strong action against terror activities and asserted that enemies along the Line of Control (LoC) were being given a "befitting reply". "Our forces are giving a befitting reply to our enemies along the LoC. They are suffering heavy losses. I am warning our enemy (across the LoC) that we will not hesitate in carrying out strong action against any inimical action," he said "The country along India's western border is providing support to terror groups and the Indian Army is dealing with them effectively," Rawat added, in a stern reference to Pakistan. "We are also ensuring moral dominance along the border in Jammu and Kashmir. Terrorists are being trained and given arms by our neighbouring country, which is being termed state-sponsored terrorism globally," he said. Rawat also said that new guidelines are being followed to maintain peace and tranquillity along the border in the eastern sector. "We will keep reviewing the situation along the eastern border. Our soldiers will not allow any compromise in guarding the border in that sector," he said, referring to the border with China. He also spoke about major restructuring and modernisation of the army. The army chief presented gallantry and other awards to personnel at the event. Rawat later spoke about intelligence-based operations and "people-friendly" operations in the North East that have managed to limit terrorism in the region. He further announced the launch of a mobile application that will be linked to the army personnel's Aadhaar numbers. "Jawans can share their grievances through the application. Rawat shared his concerns about the misuse of social media and said that it is being used "against the army by enemy countries". He also added that the force should be "careful in its use which he said is being used for radicalisation." Referring to criticism of the Army's pyramidical structure, the Army chief said, "For us, the VIP is the jawan who faces the enemy along the LoC." He also spoke about coordination with the Navy and the Air Force. "The security challenge facing the country will become more complex in the coming years. We will have to keep enhancing our combat prowess so that we can defeat our adversaries. I assure that we will keep the trust reposed on us by the people of the country," the Army chief said. With inputs from PTI A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi sought the presence of the Union Public Service Commission secretary at 10.30 am Wednesday New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday directed the UPSC secretary to appear before it Wednesday to apprise it whether the empanelment of IPS officers for promotion as director generals of police (DGPs) in states was being done by the commission. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi sought the presence of the Union Public Service Commission secretary at 10.30 am Wednesday, after lawyer Prashant Bhushan claimed that instead of the UPSC, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) makes the list of senior IPS officers, being considered by state governments for appointment as DGPs. Bhushan, appearing for PIL petitioner and former DGP Prakash Singh, said that UPSC scrutinises the service records and other credentials of the police officers whose names have been forwarded to the commission. "Before we proceed any further, we would like the secretary of the Union Public Service Commission to apprise the court by tomorrow, that is 16 January, at 10.30 am as to whether empanelment of IPS officers for promotion to the rank of DGP in different states of the Union is made by the UPSC in the discharge of its functions," the bench, also comprising justices L Nageswara Rao and SK Kaul, said. It said that the information sought be laid before the court by the secretary by appearing personally. The apex court was hearing applications of various state governments, including Punjab, Haryana and Bihar, seeking to implement their local laws regarding selection and appointment of DGP. At the outset, the bench said that a 2006 apex court verdict on police reforms had said that its directions, including the fixed two-year tenure for DGPs, will remain in force till the states come up up with their laws. "Now the states have come up with the law, the issue is can the court direct that the laws will not be operational. You have also not challenged the laws," the bench said. "The question will keep coming back. If the legislation is challenged then certainly the court can look into it. How can we stop the law from being functional when there is no challenge," it said. Bhushan said that the law cannot be allowed to flout the directions of the apex court. The apex court had on 12 December, extended till 31 January the tenures of present DGPs of Punjab and Haryana and agreed to hear the states' pleas seeking to implement their local laws regarding selection and appointment of the police chief. DGPs Suresh Arora (Punjab) and BS Sandhu (Haryana) were due to retire on 31 December and now they will remain in office till 31 January as per the earlier order of the apex court. Several states are seeking modification of the apex court's earlier order directing all the states to mandatorily take the assistance of the UPSC in short-listing the names for appointing DGPs. The top court, on 3 July, had passed a slew of directions on police reforms in the country and chronicled the steps for appointment of regular DGPs. It had stated that the states will have to send a list of senior police officers to the UPSC at least three months prior to the retirement of the incumbent. The commission will then prepare a panel and intimate the states, which in turn will immediately appoint one of the persons from that list. Besides Punjab, Haryana and Bihar governments, two other state governments of Kerala and West Bengal have said they have already framed a comprehensive law, dealing with the procedures to appoint the DGP, in pursuance of the 2006 apex court verdict on police reforms. The apex court, while deciding the PIL filed by two former DGPs Prakash Singh and N K Singh in 2006, had issued several directions, including setting up of a state security commission, to ensure the government does not exercise unwarranted influence on the police. It had said the appointment of DGPs and police officers should be merit-based and transparent and officers like DGPs and Superintendents of Police (SPs) should have a minimum fixed tenure of two years. However, when states enacted laws providing mechanism for DGP selection, the apex court had on 3 July kept the state laws in abeyance. It had earlier passed a slew of directions on police reforms and had restrained all states and Union Territories from appointing any police officer as acting DGP. The directions had come on an application filed by the Centre in which it claimed that certain states have been appointing acting DGPs and then making them permanent just before the date of their superannuation to enable them to get the benefit of an additional two-year tenure till the age of 62 years. The top court had ordered keeping in abeyance any rule or legislation framed by any of the states or the Centre running counter to the earlier direction of the court. The court, however, had said that if any state has a grievance with regard to the directions, then they may approach it for modification of the order. The apex court, on 8 September, 2017, had agreed to hear a clutch of pleas observing that its historic 2006 verdict on police reforms, recommending steps like fixed tenures for DGPs and SPs, has not yet been implemented by states and Union territories. Kanaka Durga, who returned to her husbands house at Angadipuram in Malappuram district on Tuesday (15 January), was reportedly hit on her head by her mother-in-law. When Bindu Ammini and Kanaka Durga announced their decision to attend the Aarppo Arthavam, an event celebrating menstruation, at Kochi last week, many expected the right-wing activists to mob the venue and unleash their ire on the duo for defying the ban on menstruating women from entering the Sabarimala Lord Ayyappa temple. The organisers were surprised to see that the activists who had unleashed a reign of terror after the two made history by becoming the first women to enter the temple after Supreme Court lifted the ban on 28 September made no effort to even stage a protest outside the venue. Emboldened by this, the two who had gone into hiding since entering the temple on 2 January returned home. While Bindu was given a warm welcome at her home and at her workplace, Kanaka Durga was greeted by angry family members. Kanaka Durga, who returned to her husbands house at Angadipuram in Malappuram district on Tuesday (15 January), was reportedly hit on her head by her mother-in-law. According to Perinthalmanna police, the 42-year-old woman is undergoing treatment at Perinthalmanna district hospital for the injury she has suffered in the attack. Sources in the police station said that they have registered a case under section 341 and 324 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) on a complaint lodged by Kanaka Durga and the investigation was going on. Meanwhile, her mother-in-law has also got admitted to the same hospital alleging that she was attacked by Kanaka Durga. She alleged that Kanaka Durga had attacked her when she asked her not to enter the house. However, police said they had not received any report from the hospital authorities in this connection. Kanaka Durga was not immediately available for comments. She was quoted by Manorama News channel as saying that she was beaten with a wooden rod by her mother-in-law when she went to her husbands house in the morning. She said that she had pain all over her body. However, Bindu who was with Kanaka Durga at an undisclosed destination for the last two weeks said the incident was not serious. I could not talk to Kanaka Durga after the incident. However, I have learnt from her friends that the attack was a natural reaction. The orthodox family has not been able to come to terms with her action of breaking the temples customs and rituals, Bindu said. Family members of not only Kanaka Durgas husband but also her own family were against her decision to go to Sabarimala. She left her husbands home in the second week of December saying she was going to Thiruvananthapuram to attend a meeting. When she did not return after a few days, her husband filed a missing person complaint. The family was shocked when media flashed reports about her attempt to visit the hill shrine on 24 December along with Bindu. The two, who came within 500 metres of the temple, were forced by the police to turn back following protests. They reluctantly returned after police promised to help them enter the temple later. Kanaka Durgas brother Bharat Bhushan had alleged conspiracy by the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Kottayam Superintendent of Police Harinshakar in taking his sister to Sabarimala. Bhushan told the Times of India that Kanaka Durga had been kept at a hideout in Kannur for one week after the failed attempt and police had not allowed the family even to contact her. Bharath Bhushan alleged that police officer did not respond to the repeated pleas of her relatives to reveal the location where she was kept under custody. He had expressed suspicion that she was kept under the protection of CPM workers somewhere in Kannur, with the support of police. Family of Kanaka Durga is a traditional CPM supporter and they are also active workers of Nair Service Society (NSS). Bharath Bhushan said that the entire family and relatives of Kanaka Durga are unhappy over the latest developments and they are against violation of the rituals. Kanaka Durga, a commerce graduate, is a strong CPM supporter. She is associated with Purogamana Kala Sahithya Sangham (PuKaSa) and a member of Valluvanad Samskarika Vedi based in Angadippuram. She has written many articles in magazines and weeklies under the pen name Durga Areekode and Durga Angadippuram. She is currently working as assistant manager of Civil Supplies Corporation outlet at Anamangad near Perinthalmanna. Bindu and Kanaka Durga made the bold attempt to enter the temple after about a dozen women beat a retreat following protests by right-wing activists, including BJP and RSS workers. Before them all the women who reached the base station at Pampa were blocked by thousands of protestors and their houses were attacked. Many were also blocked on the way. Trupti Desai, a gender equality campaigner who came from Mumbai, was not even allowed to step outside the Kochi airport. The two had expected attack from the protestors when they come out of the hiding. Bindu, who returned to her home on 14 January, said she was surprised that none of the protestors had tried to trouble her after she reached home. On the contrary, she was hailed by people in her neighbourhood and workplace. Bindu, who is working as assistant professor in the legal studies department of Kannur University, said the she had gone to her office by foot and none had raised any protest against her on her way. My fellow teachers and students in the office showered me with praises, she said. Activists had hailed the two women for the courage they displayed in defying the protestors. Social reformer and spiritual leader Swami Agnivesh described the entry of the two women in the temple as an act of exemplary bravery against the obscurantist, discriminative custom imposed on Sabarimala by Brahmanical patriarchy. He alleged that the resistance against the entry of women was spearheaded by the BJP and the Sangh Parivar for their political gains. Swami Agnivesh said that the BJP campaign is part of a desperate attempt by the RSS and the BJP to infiltrate into Kerala to compensate for the huge erosion in their popularity in North India. Kerala is paying the price for Modis lust for power and the maniacal desire to hang on. I have good reasons to believe that the Sangh Parivar will meet it with its Waterloo in Gods own Country. Ironically, the slap on its face will be dealt not by a decorated military leader, but the discriminated-against women of Kerala, who have gained for themselves a voice and a mission that their counterparts in India need to emulate, Swami Agnivesh said. These investments will allow us to more effectively prevent and address instances of hate and violence across our state, and help ensure that Maryland remains a place where people of all backgrounds and beliefs can call home, the Republican governor said in a statement. Chief Justice of India Ranjana Gogoi said the hearing of the Sabarimala review petitions in the Supreme Court may be delayed as Justice Indu Malhotra is on medical leave. The hearing of pleas seeking a review of the Supreme Court's historic judgment permitting women of ages between 10 and 50 to enter the Sabarimala temple in Kerala is likely to be delayed further, with Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi saying on Tuesday that the constitution bench of the apex court may not take up the hearing on 22 January. The chief justice said the delay is likely as Justice Indu Malhotra, the lone woman in the five-judge constitution bench that had delivered the verdict in the Sabarimala case, is on medical leave. Review petitions are usually listed before the same bench that has heard, decided and pronounced a judgment on the main matter. "We will see," Gogoi said on Tuesday, when the matter was taken up in court by advocate Mathews J Nedumpara, who sought live streaming of the hearing. On 28 September, 2018, the Supreme Court had said banning the entry of women inside the Sabarimala shrine is gender discrimination, and the practice violates the rights of Hindu women. The judgment was met with widespread protests in Kerala, which rose in intensity after two women, 39-year-old Kanakadurga and 42-year-old Bindu Ammini, entered the shrine on 2 January. Devotees of "eternally celibate" Lord Ayyappa have believed in the tradition of banning the entry of women of menstruating age from the shrine for decades. On 13 November, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Gogoi and justices Rohinton Fali Nariman, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra, had agreed to hear review petitions against its 28 September judgment in the Sabarimala case on 22 January. As many as 49 review petitions were scheduled to be heard in an open court. The decision to hear the review petitions in an open court was hailed as significant as review petitions are usually considered by judges in the absence of the arguing counsels and are most often dismissed, reported The Wire. With inputs from PTI Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday took to Twitter to 'congratulate' Prime Minister Narendra Modi for winning the first-ever Philip Kotler Presidential award and questioned its authenticity. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday took to Twitter to "congratulate" Prime Minister Narendra Modi for winning the first-ever Philip Kotler Presidential award, sarcastically pointed out the fact that the award has no selection jury or any repute to speak of. Mentioning that the award was backed by a little known "Aligarh company," Rahul said the partners of the event were "Patanjali and Republic TV". Patanjali is an Ayurved consumer goods company founded by the BJP's one-time ally Ramdev, while Republic TV is primarily funded by BJP MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar. I want to congratulate our PM, on winning the world famous Kotler Presidential Award! In fact it's so famous it has no jury, has never been given out before & is backed by an unheard of Aligarh company. Event Partners: Patanjali & Republic TV https://t.co/449Vk9Ybmz Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) January 15, 2019 Rahul shared a report carried by The Wire with his tweet. The report noted that many leaders and ministers of the BJP were quick to congratulate Modi on his win. Union ministers Piyush Goyal, Rajyavardhan Rathore, Prakash Javadekar and Smriti Irani, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh, and former chief ministers Raman Singh and Vasundhara Raje were among those who congratulated Modi. The Prime Minister's Office, too, tweeted on the award and said it would be "offered annually to the leader of a nation" who has had impact on "people, profit and planet". According to the award citation, Modi was selected for his "outstanding leadership for the nation". "His selfless service towards India, combined with his tireless energy has resulted in extraordinary economic, social and technological advances in the country," it read. The fact that the award won by Modi is not mentioned in the website or social media of the World Marketing Summit group, which was founded by marketing consultant Philip Kotler, who lends his name to award, was questioned by the Wire report. Kotler, it may be recalled, is a professor of marketing at Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management. Owing to his ill health, Jagdish Sheth of EMORY University, Georgia was deputed to confer the award on Modi, PTI had reported. Meanwhile, ANI reported that Kotler, in a mail addressed to Seth on Tuesday, said: "I can't find the words to express how wonderful you have been making it possible to give the Kotler Award to Prime Minister Modi for his public leadership...I am only saddened that I couldn't be there." Among those who came down heavily on the nature of the award and its purported lack of authenticity were RJD scion Tejashwi Yadav, who retweeted Rahul and sarcastically called the prime minister "second to none". In its response to Pune-based activist Vihar Durve who had sought the report from CAG, the country's auditor said, 'The audit is under progress and the report is yet to be finalised.' New Delhi: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has refused to disclose details about its audit in the controversial Rafale aircraft deal, saying the process is not yet complete and any disclosure at this stage will amount to breach of the Parliament's privilege, an RTI reply said. In its response to Pune-based activist Vihar Durve who had sought the report from CAG, the country's auditor said, "The audit is under progress and the report is yet to be finalised. The information cannot be given under Section 8(1)(C) of the RTI Act as the disclosure would cause breach of Parliament". Section 8(1)(C) of the Right To Information (RTI) Act exempts information the disclosure of which would cause a breach of privilege of Parliament or the State Legislature. The Supreme Court, in December, had dismissed pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets, saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process" warranting setting aside of the contract. It rejected the pleas seeking lodging of an FIR and a court-monitored probe alleging irregularities in the Rs 58,000 crore deal, in which both the countries have entered into an inter-governmental agreement (IGA). "The pricing details have, however, been shared with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), and the report of the CAG has been examined by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Only a redacted portion of the report was placed before the Parliament and is in public domain," the bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had said, relying on the sealed note submitted by the government. After the Congress raised the issue that no such CAG report had been placed before the PAC, the government approached the court seeking changes in the judgment. In the application, the Centre said the two sentences in paragraph 25 of the judgement appeared to have been based on the note submitted by it along with the pricing details in a sealed cover, but indicated the words used by the court lent a different meaning. The Centre made it clear that it did not say that the CAG report was examined by PAC or a redacted portion was placed before Parliament. It clarified that the note had said the government "has already shared" the price details with the CAG, which was written in past tense and "is factually correct". However, where it was stated by the Centre in the note that the report of the CAG "is" examined by the PAC, was a description of the procedure which is followed in the normal course, but in the judgement, 'is' was replaced with the words 'has been', according to the application. In its response to the RTI application filed by Durve, the CAG also refused to share its correspondence related to the audit of Rafale deal with any government department or political party, claiming that such records were "confidential and held in fiduciary capacity" hence, exempted from disclosure under the RTI Act. The CAG added that audit in the Indian Air Force (IAF) is done by designated principal audit officer of the force and the reports are submitted to the national auditor for approval. Qatar Airways posted a 252 million riyal ($67.18 million) loss for the financial year ended 31 March, 2018, as it lost access to 18 destinations due to the political dispute. Mumbai: Qatar Airways will not buy a stake in Jet Airways as a substantial portion of the debt-laden Indian carrier is held by Etihad Airways, whose owner Abu Dhabi is an "enemy" of Qatar, its CEO Akbar al-Baker said on Tuesday. Abu Dhabi is part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that cut ties with Qatar in 2017 over accusations of supporting terrorism. Doha denies the charges. The UAE, together with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain have banned Qatar Airways since June, 2017 as part of the dispute. "We would definitely look at it (Jet Airways) if a 24 percent stake was not held by Etihad," al-Baker told Reuters on the sidelines of an aviation conference in Mumbai. "How can I take a stake in an airline which is owned by our adversary? Etihad plans to hike its stake in Jet to help the Indian carrier with its financial woes, a person close to the Abu Dhabi carrier told Reuters late on Monday. Al-Baker said Qatar Airways would be "delighted" to take a stake in IndiGo, the largest airline in India - home to the worlds fastest growing aviation market. The Qatari airline has previously expressed an interest in investing in IndiGo, owned by InterGlobe Aviation. "But not in an airline where substantial ownership is by the enemy of my country," he said, referring to Jet. Qatar Airways posted a 252 million riyal ($67.18 million) loss for the financial year ended 31 March, 2018, as it lost access to 18 destinations due to the political dispute. As part of a broader effort to diversify its portfolio outside its home market, the Qatari carrier purchased a 10 percent stake in Hong Kongs Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd in 2017 and 5 percent in China Southern Airlines Co Ltd in January. "Qatar Airways also remains interested in starting a fully owned airline in India," al-Baker said on Tuesday, but that is not allowed under Indias current foreign investment rules. Given China and India "are the biggest growing markets, it is obvious as an airline we want to invest strategically in those regions because we ourselves are a very rapidly growing airline," he said. Al-Baker has threatened publicly to pull Qatar Airways out of the oneworld airline alliance despite holding minority stakes in members Cathay Pacific, British Airways and LATAM Airlines Group SA. China Southern in November said it would exit the rival SkyTeam alliance, in a move that opened the potential for it to join oneworld. "Joining oneworld is entirely their business decision and we always will respect as a stakeholder the decision made by the majority shareholder," al-Baker said on China Southern Airlines. A staffer of the Pakistan High Commission was taken to a police station after a woman alleged that he touched her inappropriately in a market, police said on Monday. The woman and the staffer were brought to Sarojini Nagar police station on Sunday, they said. New Delhi: A staffer of the Pakistan High Commission was taken to a police station after a woman alleged that he touched her inappropriately in a market, police said on Monday. The woman and the staffer were brought to Sarojini Nagar police station on Sunday, they said. According to the woman, the man touched her inappropriately in the Sarojini Nagar market, a claim rejected by the High Commission staffer. He said his hand merely brushed past the woman due to the heavy crowd in the market, police said. A senior police official said the matter was sorted out after the staffer apologised to the woman. The police also denied media reports that he was detained. Meanwhile in Islamabad, Pakistani media quoting an unnamed Foreign Office official who claimed that the staffer was arrested by the Indian authorities and was released after the matter was raised by Pakistan. The reports alleged that the official was forced to sign a note before being released when the matter was taken up with the Indian side. Pakistan strongly protested this violation of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations and reserves the right to respond, the official was quoted as saying by Dawn. The Delhi High Court extended till 24 January the interim protection from arrest granted to senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on his pleas seeking anticipatory bail in the INX Media case lodged by the ED and CBI. New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday extended till 24 January the interim protection from arrest granted to senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on his pleas seeking anticipatory bail in the INX Media case lodged by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Justice Sunil Gaur listed the matter for hearing on 24 January after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta expressed his inability to argue during the day. Chidambaram was represented in the hearing through advocates Pramod Kumar Dubey and Arshdeep Singh. On 25 July, 2018, the high court had granted interim protection to Chidambaram from arrest and directed the ED not to take any coercive step against him till August 1 that year in the INX Media money laundering case. Prior to that, on 31 May, 2018, the court had protected him from arrest in the case lodged by the CBI. On 1 August, 2018, the court had extended the interim protection to 28 September and then to 25 October in both the cases. On October 25, the interim relief was extended till 29 November, on which date the court extended the relief till 15 January. The court had also directed Chidambaram to cooperate with the investigation in both the cases as and when required. The senior Congress leader's role had came under the scanner of various investigating agencies in the Rs 3,500-crore Aircel-Maxis deal and the INX Media case involving Rs 305 crore. It was during his tenure as Union finance minister in the UPA-I government that clearances from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) were given to the two ventures. In the INX Media case, the CBI had registered an FIR on 15 May, 2017 alleging irregularities in the FIPB clearance granted to the media group for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007 during Chidambaram's tenure as finance minister. The ED had, in 2018, lodged the money laundering case in this regard. A trial court in Delhi had also granted protection from arrest till 7 August, 2018, to Chidambaram in the Aircel-Maxis case in which he and his son Karti are named in the chargesheet filed by the CBI. Chidambaram's petition had said that though no summons had ever been served on him by the ED in this case, he had an apprehension of arrest in view of the summons issued to him by the CBI, which was investigating the scheduled offence. The Jadavpur University professor had written a piece on 'Virgin Brides', comparing them to a sealed cold drink or a packet of biscuits. New Delhi: The National Commission for Women has asked the West Bengal Director General of Police to investigate and take appropriate action in the alleged case of a Jadavpur University professor giving "misogynistic" lessons to his students. According to a media reports, the professor had written a piece on "Virgin Brides" for "value oriented social counselling for educated youth". In the essay, the professor rhetorically asked whether his readers "would be willing to buy a cold drink or a packet of biscuits, if its seal was broken?" The NCW took suo motu cognisance of the professor's "shocking misogynistic" lessons and asked the West Bengal DGP to investigate the matter and take appropriate action in the case and apprise the commission of it. The National Human Rights Commission issued a notice to the Odisha government on the delivery of a baby girl by a 14-year-old minor student at the hostel of a state-run tribal residential school in Kandhamal district. New Delhi: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a notice to the Odisha government in a case that pertains to the delivery of a baby girl by a 14-year-old student of Class 8, at the hostel of a state-run tribal residential school in Kandhamal district on 12 January. The NHRC acted after taking suo motu cognizance of media reports regarding the incident. The Commission has issued a notice to the government's Chief Secretary and has asked for a detailed report on the matter within four weeks. The report, said the NHRC, should contain information regarding action taken against the guilty and relief or rehabilitation measures taken for the survivor, as well as counseling provided to her. After the delivery, the survivor along with her newborn, was driven out of the hostel and was forced to take shelter in a nearby jungle. The girl and her baby were traced with the help of local police on 13 January and admitted to a hospital. "The girl belongs to Scheduled Tribe, hence, the Commission would also like to know the details of the sections under which the FIR has been registered and status of statutory relief as per provisions of the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities (PoA) Rules, 1995," read the notice. "The Commission has observed that the contents of the news report, if true, amount to gross violation of human rights of the minor girl who, apparently, became the victim of the apathy and gross negligence of the school administration," it said. "The state is responsible for the safety and security of the girl students residing in the residential schools. It is apparent that the school headmistress and hostel warden have failed to protect the poor girl while she was in their custody and due to their negligence she has suffered mental agony and social stigma," said NHRC in its notice. Meanwhile, locals protested against the incident at Kandhamal. Superintendent of Police Prateek Singh, said, "Preliminary inquiry revealed that seven to eight months ago, when the victim went to her home, she was raped by a 23-year-old man in her village." "On the basis of this information, police immediately detained the accused. The administration has also taken immediate action against the school staff," he added. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo faced a tough balancing act on Monday as he pressed Saudi Arabia's crown prince over critic Jamal Khashoggi's murder while shoring up strategic ties with Riyadh. Riyadh: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo faced a tough balancing act on Monday as he pressed Saudi Arabia's crown prince over critic Jamal Khashoggi's murder while shoring up strategic ties with Riyadh. The top US diplomat, on an extensive Middle East tour, held talks with King Salman and his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which also focused on the conflict in Yemen and countering threats from Iran. Pompeo walked a diplomatic tightrope on his second politically sensitive visit to Saudi Arabia since Khashoggi's murder as he demanded that all those involved in the crime be held accountable. The king and crown prince "both acknowledge that this accountability needs to take place", Pompeo said in Riyadh following talks with them. "They reiterated their commitment," he added. Relations between Riyadh and Washington have remained strained after journalist Khashoggi was murdered on 2 October inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Riyadh said the murder was carried out by "rogue" Saudi agents, but the US Central Intelligence Agency reportedly concluded that Prince Mohammed very likely ordered the hit. Pompeo's meeting with the crown prince lasted around 45 minutes. The US diplomat appeared more reserved than his previous visit at the height of the Khashoggi affair, when his broad smiles with the crown prince outraged many Americans. US president Donald Trump has brushed aside critics to stand by Prince Mohammed, who faces international fire over the killing. Riyadh prosecutors have announced indictments against 11 people and are seeking the death penalty against five of them, but they have exonerated Prince Mohammed. Trump has said Washington wants to preserve the alliance with the oil-rich kingdom, which he sees as a bulwark against common foe Iran and a lucrative buyer of US arms. Furious over the murder, US lawmakers have demanded Washington pull back its support to the Saudi-led military campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen. But backing the Saudi position, Pompeo accused the rebels of failing to comply with a truce agreement for the lifeline port city of Hodeida reached last month at UN-sponsored talks in Sweden. "The work that was done in Sweden on Yemen was good, but both sides (need) to honour those commitments," Pompeo said. "Today, the Iranian-backed Houthis have chosen not to do that." Rights groups called on Pompeo to also press Prince Mohammed over the jailing of women activists in the kingdom, amid claims that some of them faced sexual harassment and torture during interrogation. Pompeo on Monday said he discussed human rights issues with the Saudis, including the plight of women activists, without giving any details. Pompeo was in Riyadh as part of an extensive week-long trip to the Middle East, which included stops in Amman, Baghdad, Cairo, Manama, Abu Dhabi and Doha. After Riyadh, Pompeo wrapped up his Middle East tour with a trip to Muscat, where he held talks with Omani ruler Sultan Qaboos. The sultan hosted Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu last October in a rare visit that raised the prospect of normalisation of Israel-Gulf ties. Pompeo, however, cancelled a scheduled visit to Kuwait in order to attend a family funeral at home, US officials said. On Sunday, Pompeo met Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in Doha, where he refused to comment on reports Washington had recently considered military action against Tehran. He also called on Qatar and other Gulf Arab countries to end their worst political rift in years, which has seen Doha diplomatically and economically isolated by neighbouring former allies for the past 19 months. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt all US allies cut ties with Qatar in June 2017, accusing it of supporting terrorist groups and seeking closer ties to Saudi arch-rival Iran. Qatar also a US ally denies the allegations and accuses the countries of seeking regime change. "As for the GCC... we are all more powerful when we're working together when we have common challenges in the region and around the world," Pompeo said, referring to the six member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council. He added that "President Trump and I both believe the ongoing dispute in the region has gone on too long". Mediation efforts by the United States, which at first appeared to back the boycott of Qatar, have stalled, as highlighted by the recent resignation of US envoy Anthony Zinni. For Washington, turning the page on the crisis is essential for the successful launch of the Strategic Alliance of the Middle East (MESA), a NATO-style security pact that includes Gulf countries as well as Egypt and Jordan. Mehbooba Mufti said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) plotted the sedition charges against Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, other students from Jammu and Kashmir in view of the 2019 general elections. Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has urged the Central Government to stall all operations against militants in the state and initiate talks in order to bring an end to the violence in the Valley. According to India Today, the former chief minister said on Tuesday said the only way to stop violence in Jammu and Kashmir is to talk with the militant leadership, urging the Centre to stall the "Operation All-Out" to wipe out militants. She also asserted that talks with Pakistan and Kashmiri separatists are required to bring "peace" in the Valley. According to security officials, law and order situation has improved in the Valley, however, it has come at a cost. According to a November 2018 report, Reuters put the total number of deaths in the militancy-hit state at 400, more than half of them being militants. It is the highest toll since 2008 when 505 people died, the report added. The number of deaths in violence in Jammu and Kashmir had dropped to 99 in 2012 but has been climbing since. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief claimed that unlike former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Narendra Modi failed to discuss the Kashmir issue, "even though he had the mandate". Former J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti: We shook hands with BJP as they had the mandate, to have talks on Jammu & Kashmir issue just like Vajpayee Ji held talks with Hurriyat & Pakistan. But Modi Ji couldn't walk on the path of Vajpayee Ji even though he had the mandate pic.twitter.com/5jZsg42LxG ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 Speaking on the Delhi Police chargesheet in the JNU sedition row against Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya and other students from Jammu and Kashmir, Mufti said that the BJP plotted this in view of the 2019 general elections. Running for office is not necessarily in the cards for me, but if I can provide some input for how we can get the Republican Party back on track and back to its roots, that could be a public service I could do, Hogan said. Most people would say my brand of politics and [moderate Massachusetts Gov.] Charlie Bakers politics are whats desperately needed. I think most people want some kind of moderation. Maharashtra Cabinet approved several schemes worth Rs 736 crores for backward classes, including financial support in the forms of the individual loan, group loan and interest subvention to OBCs, SCs and STs Mumbai: In a bid to reach out to backward castes ahead of crucial Lok Sabha and state assembly polls, the Maharashtra cabinet Tuesday approved schemes worth Rs 736.50 crore for the financial welfare of OBCs and the SC/ST communities. Another takeaway of Tuesday's Cabinet decisions is the government deciding, for the first time, to prepare a special scheme for the Wadar, Ramoshi and Pardhi castes that fall under Nomadic Tribes (NT) and Denotified Tribes category. The Cabinet also approved eight different schemes to provide financial support in the forms of the individual loan, group loan and interest subvention to OBCs, SCs and STs, an official statement said. "The cabinet has approved that it would plan some schemes for the people from these (Wadar, Ramoshi and Pardhi) castes, which will be done soon," said a state government official. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had earlier held meetings with the Ramoshi and Wadar communities in September and December last year. The state cabinet Tuesday also approved Rs 250 crore for the OBC corporation while a sum of Rs 300 crore has been allotted to the SC/ST corporation. The state government had earlier implemented 16 per cent reservation in jobs and education for the Maratha community. Amid tight security, the 55-day long Kumbh Mela commenced with the Shahi Snan of Akharas at Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday. Amid tight security, the 55-day long Kumbh Mela commenced with the Shahi Snan of Akharas at Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday. Security measures have been heightened in Prayagraj and surrounding areas for the auspicious occasion. Besides saints and seers, foreign tourists have also started coming to attend the event. On Monday, Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan had launched special weather services for Kumbh Mela at a function in New Delhi which will provide information about the prevailing weather condition and forecasts to the people visiting Prayagraj during Kumbh Mela. "We have started a checking campaign in view of the Kumbh Mela. Government Railway Police (GRP), Civil Police, Railway Protection Force (RPF) among others conducted the checking," Arvind Kumar, Station Officer- Government Railway Police, earlier said. The Kumbh Mela is the largest human congregation in the world, with over 130 million pilgrims expected to participate in the festival with the belief that taking a dip in the holy water of Ganges River will pave the way for their salvation and would rid them of their sins. In the wake of the mega event, the Indian Railways had last week announced five special trains to handle the extra rush of passengers. A superfast special train between Allahabad Jn. and Delhi's Anand Vihar Terminal will make a total of 24 round trips between the two terminal stations between 15 January and 3 March. It will stop only at Fatehpur, Kanpur Central and Aligarh Junction stations in both the directions. The railways will also run trains from Punjab's Bathinda to the Prayag Ghat (4 trips), from Bathinda to Phaphamau (2 trips), from Himachal Pradesh's Amb Andaura to Prayag Ghat (6 trips) and from Chandigarh to Prayag Ghat (6 trips). The streets of Prayagraj have become a canvas for artists as many murals with various themes are being painted. An area of 20 lakh sq.ft area, has been designated for the street art projects under an initiative by Kumbh Mela Authority called 'Paint my city.' The initiative is being supported by the Prayagraj Mela Pradhikaran of the Uttar Pradesh Government to beautify the city before the onset of Kumbh 2019. Paintings include renowned Indian personalities, Gods and Goddesses. For the visitors of Mela, the administration has put up 1.22 lakh toilets in line with the theme of 'Swachh Kumbh, Surakshit Kumbh.' In order to meet the drinking water needs of devotees, the Kumbh Mela authority has also installed a total of 50 reverse osmosis (RO) water ATMs at various locations. More than 40,000 street lights have also been put up to avoid any kind of inconvenience to the pilgrim during nights. The Kumbh Mela will end on 4 March. The Kumbh predates history and is believed to be an eternal tradition. Yet everything associated with it is ephemeral which is transient and vulnerable. It is an incredible sight. As our small boat moves towards the Sangam (the confluence of the river Ganga, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati at Prayagraj) much before the break of the dawn, a sea of humanity surges forward to take a holy dip in icy waters in an extremely cold weather by north India's standards. Thus begins the Shahi Snan (the royal bath), marking the launch of the Kumbh Mela, the grand event of Hinduism. In this crowd, no one is identifiable as every individuals identity tended merge with the collective whole, the humanity. It is a curious display that combined tradition and modernity, the eternal and the ephemeral. Women take to the river, splashing the water around with gay abandon, without bothering about the presence of Naga Sadhus (members of a cult that believes in living naked). Gender equity is very much evident in its most pristine form. At first glance, it may have been a scene from a millennium ago, and yet the 21st Century also hovers over, in the form of three drones that help the police control room keep a watch and ensure the safety of the millions who congregate here. This spectacle becomes all the more awesome as a red sun in rises a little north, away from its usual spot, marking its northward journey Uttarayan. This shift in the celestial configuration is believed to be auspicious for the humanity as it brings longer days and a respite from the cold weather. Mesmerised by the eternal beauty of nature, devotees rich and poor, young and old, men and women offer prayers to all gods who, mythology says, descended on earth for the Kumbh the pot of nectar. Meanwhile, an army of volunteers is deployed all along the ghats to remove waste and garbage after every bathing. The Kumbh predates history and is believed to be an eternal tradition. Yet everything associated with it is ephemeral which is transient and vulnerable. It has an intricate calendar of its own: every two to four years later, a Kumbh Mela or an Ardh Kumbh Mela is held at one of the four sacred spots: Prayagraj (previously known as Allahabad), Haridwar, Nashik and Ujjain. From time immemorial, devotes from across the country have driven to this place where a drop of amrit (nectar) fell after Samudra Manthan (the churning of the ocean). Driven by the religious impulse to partake of that amrit and become immortal, millions throng in hordes at the sangam that looks like an incessant stream of a veritable human sea. But behind the backdrop of this mythical immortality lies the transient nature of the physical infrastructure that gets erected within three months. As the Mela gets over, this infrastructure that literally accommodates equivalent of Australias population vanishes into thin air. Within six months every trace of that infrastructure will be gone from the banks of the Ganga and the Yamuna. The Uttar Pradesh government has made massive investments to facilitate this most sacred of Hindu pilgrimages. An area of 3,200 hectares along the banks of Yamuna and Ganga has been taken over, divided in nearly a score of administrative zones where officials are on duty to ensure all arrangements. A parallel township has been created with 1,500 premium tents and night shelters, and 1,22,500 toilets. An effective sewerage system has been laid out in the entire township and its flow is taken to a nearby sewage treatment plant (STP) to prevent any dirty discharge in the river. The government has also capped some drainage systems that have been discharging toxic effluents in the rivers. The place where devotees take the holy dip at the sangam has been effectively fenced and its water level is maintained at four feet or below. Its fence is bookended by nets in order to fish out anyone who might happen to drift towards depths. In essence, the government has pulled all its sinews to ensure a seamless celebration of the Kumbh which hosts the biggest gathering of humans on the earth. Given the complexities involved in it, the Kumbh is no doubt the toughest administrative challenge. In the morning, the Mela began with the bathing by Naga Sadhus of Mahanirvani Akhara. With ashes pasted on their bodies, these naked sanyasis belong to a spiritual sect that follows the rigorous path of mortification of the body to lift the spirit. Its practices prima facie appear to be quaint, but are symbolic of the cosmopolitanism of Hinduism that gives a wide latitude to peoples behaviour in their spiritual pursuit. For nearly an hour this akhara occupied an assigned area of the sangam where administration remained quite alert to keep the situation under control. Given a mercurial temperament of the adherents of the Naga sect, a slight provocation often causes serious trouble. But the akhara members left the place quite contented. Then came followers of the Atal Akhara. Interestingly, the other devotees of the Akhara also joined Nagas in performing ablutions in the sacred place. That the Kumbh Mela is the greatest leveller becomes apparent if one looks at the scale of the human participation and heightened spirituality. There is a possibility that a privileged few may have found a better access through official contacts, they do not seem as contented as those who have travelled thousands of miles and walked on foot and took a holy dip to satiate their spiritual quest. It goes to the credit of the herculean efforts by the administration that these ordinary devotees find their trekking to the sacred spot at the confluence better managed than in the past. The Prayagraj Ardh Kumbh Mela of 2019 will be on till 4 March. More and more devotees will arrive here, looking forward to cleanse their sins with a Kumbh dip. Apart from the holy bath, they will have an opportunity to do a darshan of grand Ganga aarti, watch Ram Lila or a 'laser show' on the history of the Kumbh. There is an amusement park, planned sangam walks and heritage walks, virtual reality kiosks and yes, a selfie point. Soaking in the Kumbh, they will have come face-to-face with a veritable microcosm of real India where faith and religiosity is hardly confined to a straitjacketed notion. The bench was constituted after there was a difference of opinion among the Lokayukta and one of the Upa-lokayuktas regarding the jurisdiction of the agency to probe disbursement of assistance from CMDRF Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Lokayukta has admitted a complaint alleging misuse of Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF) and issued notice to Pinarayi Vijayan and other state ministers on it. A full bench comprising Lokayukta Justice Pius C Kuriakose, and Upa-lokayuktas Justices K P Balachandran and A K Basheer, on Tuesday decided to admit a complaint filed by one R S Sashi Kumar. The bench was constituted after there was a difference of opinion among the Lokayukta and one of the Upa-lokayuktas regarding the jurisdiction of the agency to probe disbursement of assistance from CMDRF, an official statement said. The bench decided that the complaint was maintainable before the Lokayukta and ordered notice to the respondents Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and other state ministers. While admitting the complaint, the Lokayukta clarified in the order that he had not found any of the party guilty of the allegations levelled against them. He said that it was only found that there was warrant for admitting the complaint and conducting an investigation whether anybody is guilty and whether any declaration under relevant section of the law is liable to be issued in respect of any of the respondents. Justice K P Balachandran was of the view that the complaint was liable to be inquired into and the Kerala Lokayukta cannot avoid conducting a probe, accepting the contention that it was a cabinet decision and that all decisions of the government were liable to be inquired into. However, Justice A K Basheer, who dissented with the majority decision, was of the opinion that the chief minister, on his own, had wide discretionary powers to allot funds to deserving families. The actions assailed were not taken by the chief minister alone but by the entire Cabinet and that such administrative decisions taken by the state Cabinet cannot be subjected to judicial scrutiny, he said. The complaint alleged "favouritism" in sanctioning financial aid from the fund to NCP leader late Uzhavoor Vijayan, former CPI(M) MLA late K K Ramachandran Nair and to the family of Praveen, a civil police officer who died in an accident while undertaking escort duty for ruling CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan. The complainant sought disqualification of the chief minister and the other ministers for misusing the fund. The case has been posted for a detailed hearing on 15 February, the statement said. While the legality of Alok Verma's transfer cannot be contested as it was approved by the Selection Committee, an important question needs to be asked Ever since Alok Verma was ousted as the CBI chief, the decision politics aside has been questioned on legal grounds. While a detailed scrutiny of the procedure followed in Verma's transfer on 10 January is pending, it is clearly established that he was removed following all the stated rules and by the majority decision of the Selection Committee that has been entrusted with the powers to do so. The short order that sealed the Vermas fate stated, "The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the following: (i) Shri Alok Kumar Verma, IPS (AGMU:79) is transferred from the post of Director, CSI and posted as Director General, Fire Services, Civil Defence & Home Guards for the residual period of his present term ending on 31.01.2019". While the legality of the transfer cannot be contested as it was approved by the Selection Committee, an important question that needs to be asked in simple terms is how can an officer against whom more than one allegation of corruption was found to be substantiated and correct by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) be deemed fit to head another service, no matter how 'insignificant' the service is considered in the bureaucratic scheme of things. In the CVC investigation report, as highlighted by the Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge who was part of the three-member Selection Committee and has dissented against Verma's removal, out of 11 allegations levelled against Verma, while allegations in four cases were not substantiated, further inquiry was recommended. In one case, the allegation was partially substantiated and re-investigation by a different branch of the CBI was recommended. In one case, the allegation was substantiated and in another, it is said that allegations have been found to be true. In another case, the allegation was substantiated and it was stated that it "amounts to serious misconduct and warrants disciplinary and other actions". The case in which the allegations were partially substantiated and require re-investigation pertains to a "failure to take action in gold smuggling case at IGI Airport". The case in which allegations were found to be substantiated pertains to "attempts to induct tainted officers to the CBI". The case in which the allegation is substantiated and amounts to serious misconduct and warrants disciplinary and other actions pertains to "exclusion of suspect from being named as accused in the FIR IRCTC case". The case in which allegations are found to be correct pertains to "inordinate delay in finalising an investigation report in a bank fraud case against the main accused, indicating favoritism towards the main accused". It can hardly be contested that an officer whose action was said to amount to "serious misconduct" warranting "disciplinary action" by all means had no right to hold the post of CBI chief. But then what makes the same officer eligible for the post of Director-General, Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guards? Does this mean that the credentials that make for an upright officer are only required for posts and designations of clout? Can it be safely assumed that there is no possibility of corruption in the 'low-profile' post of Director-General, Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guards? This is not to suggest any doubt or cast any aspersions on Verma, but merely to ask policymakers how a 'wrong' person can be right for any job; that requires the same professionalism and integrity that its more significant peers are expected to have. In November 2017, a Delhi court acquitted a former director-general of the Home Guards in a corruption case 17 years after he was accused of holding disproportionate assets. While acquitting him, the court held that prosecution needed to show beyond reasonable doubt that the accused held assets that were disproportionate to the known sources of his income and it had failed to discharge this burden. While the accused was duly acquitted by the court of law and can in no way be accused of corruption, it nevertheless helps in establishing a fact that corruption knows no boundaries. India had witnessed cases of corruption in the most unexpected areas. The fodder scam that took place in Bihar in the mid-1990s is a grim reminder of this fact. In 2004, a young bureaucrat in Bihar named Gautam Goswami was recognised by Time magazine as one of Asia's young heroes. He was hailed and appreciated for leading the relief efforts in July 2004, during the flash floods, that devastated the state of Bihar. However the same Goswami was named by the Bihar Police as one of the prime accused in a scam in which flood relief funds worth Rs 17 crore were allegedly diverted to a private company. The case in point is that corruption is a possibility in the most unexpected places and can be carried out by the most unexpected 'heroes'. In this context, transferring an officer whose act was found to amount to "serious misconduct" warranting "disciplinary action" to another post of the same seniority, but of much lesser clout only reaffirms the concept of 'punishment posting' that has no legal sanction in the administrative structure of any modern State. Perhaps, posts of 'lesser clout' requires 'lesser credentials' a fact that Verma's transfer highlights in the most striking fashion. Police have also seized the phone he allegedly used to send the e-mail. Further details are awaited as his questioning is underway. New Delhi: A man has been detained for allegedly sending an e-mail to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal threatening to kidnap his daughter, police said on Tuesday. The accused, Vikas Rai, is a resident of Samastipur in Bihar and has been preparing for competitive exams in Delhi, they added. Police have also seized the phone he allegedly used to send the e-mail. Further details are awaited as his questioning is underway. The Chief Minister's Office had received an anonymous e-mail on 9 January which was forwarded to Delhi police commissioner Amulya Patnaik. A Protective Service Officer has been deployed for Kejriwal's daughter by north district police, officials said. The Congress core group is likely to meet at the residence of UPA chairman Sonia Gandhi, in the presence of party chief Rahul Gandhi and party brass, to discuss Mission 2019 and the SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh. New Delhi: The Congress core group meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, is likely to discuss, among other things, the Mission 2019 Lok Sabha poll, and the situation arising out of the SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh where 80 seats are at stake. The meeting is scheduled to be held at the official residence of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, sources said on Monday. The Congress core group consists of party president Rahul Gandhi, former defence minister AK Antony, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel, general secretary KC Venugopal, general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad, former Union minister Jairam Ramesh, and others. A source said issues related to a possible alliance, poll strategy, and organisational structure will come up for discussion during the meeting. "A discussion will also take place on how to strengthen the party at the booth level, galvanising the party cadres for the Lok Sabha polls, strategy for retaining the edge in the states where the party won recently held Assembly polls," he said. Sources said the main focus of the meeting would be Uttar Pradesh, where the SP-BSP has ditched the Congress, instead of forging a grand alliance. The two regional parties, which announced the alliance on Saturday, have left two seats for the Congress, at Amethi and Rae Bareli. "For the last four days, senior party leaders have been working out the plan for the Uttar Pradesh battle," added a source. Congress president Rahul Gandhi has already said that his party would fight with "full force" in Uttar Pradesh to defeat the BJP and its ally, the Apna Dal, which had won 73 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The party's UP affairs in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad has also spoken about an extensive campaign plan for the state and over a dozen rallies are expected to be addressed by Congress president Rahul Gandhi in February alone. A BSF officer was grievously injured and then succumbed to his injuries in sniper fire from across the international border by Pakistan in the Samba sector of Jammu and Kashmir. Jammu: A BSF officer was killed on Tuesday in sniper fire from across the border in the Samba sector of Jammu and Kashmir, officials of the border guarding force said. They said Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad was hit by a sniper shot at about 10:50 am when he and his patrol party were out to "carry out a border domination" exercise along the international border. "Pakistani snipers opened fire at them, leading to grievous injuries to the officer. Prasad was rushed to a medical facility in Satwari in Jammu where he later succumbed to his injuries," an official said. The Border Security Force (BSF) is tasked with guarding the India-Pakistan international border in the Jammu region of the state. After two division benches of the Bombay High Court recused from hearing a petition on Judge BH Loya's death, a third bench finally heard a petition filed by advocate Satish Uke on Tuesday. After two division benches of the Bombay High Court recused from hearing a petition on Judge BH Loya's death, a third bench finally heard a petition filed by advocate Satish Uke on Tuesday. Loya was the presiding judge in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case at a special court, but he died of cardiac arrest in Nagpur on 1 December, 2014, when he was attending the wedding of a colleague's daughter. Uke's petition, one of the many such pleas earlier filed in various courts, alleged that Loya was poisoned with a radioactive isotope. Senior counsel Sunil Manohar appeared for the government along with government pleader Sumant Deopujari and pleaded before the court that the case should be dismissed because a Supreme Court bench had already dismissed the matter and ruled that Loya died of natural causes. However, Uke pleaded that he was an aggrieved in the case and he was not a respondent in the Supreme Court petition. A special bench comprising Justice Pradeep Deshmukh and Justice Rohit Deo admitted the plea and allowed the petitioner to make amendments in the prayer clause. It posted the matter for further hearing after two weeks, The Times of India reported. Earlier, two two division bench of the Bombay High Court had withdrew from the case. Ukey's petition first came up before a bench of Justices SB Shukre and SM Modak in Nagpur on 26 November 2018, but the judges said 'not before them', meaning they will not hear it. The petition was then assigned to a bench of Justices PN Deshmukh and Swapna Joshi. However, Justice Joshi recused herself from the case on 29 November 2018. According to Live Law, the reason for the judges' recusal was not recorded, however, all three were present in Nagpur at the time of Loya's death at the to attend the wedding of Justice Swapna Joshi's daughter. Before this, in January last year, Justice Arun Mishra had recused himself from the case after four senior Supreme Court judges J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, MB Lokur and Kurian Joseph convened an unprecedented press conference to complain about "selective" case allocation by the then Chief Justice Dipak Misra and passing of certain judicial order. Ukey's petition seeks that all records related to Loya's "suspicious" death be safeguarded, including those of the state guest house. He has already moved a judicial magistrate's court in Nagpur seeking a probe into Loya's death. The then chief justice had assigned the Loya death PIL to Justice Mishra, a relatively junior judge. The case of Justice Loya's death came into the limelight in November 2017 when media reports quoted his sister fuelling suspicion about the circumstances surrounding Loyas death and its link to the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case. In January 2018, the Supreme Court agreed to hear two pleas seeking an independent probe into Loya's death. In the same month, the apex court said the issues raised in the please on the death of Loya were "serious" and then transferred to itself two petitions related to Loyas death from Bombay High Court. On 2 February this year, the apex court said it was concerned only with the death of Loya and would not go into other aspects including Amit Shahs discharge in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case. On 9 March, the Maharashtra government came down heavily on alleged accusations, bullying and browbeating of judges in the Supreme Court by some activist lawyers in the Loya death case and said the judiciary and judicial officers need to be saved from such averments. Just three days later, on 12 March, a Mumbai-based lawyers body brought on record in the apex court an order of the Bombay High Court to allege that one of the two judges, who had given statement in the Loya death case, had ordered settlement of a criminal case against a top BJP leader in 2014. On 19 April, the Supreme Court had dismissed pleas seeking an independent probe into the case, saying attempts were made to scandalise and malign the judiciary by levelling serious allegations against judicial officers and judges of the Bombay High Court. With inputs from agencies The Bombay High Court has directed the BEST workers' union to take a final decision on the withdrawal of its ongoing strike by Tuesday evening and inform the court on Wednesday Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has directed the BEST workers' union to take a final decision on the withdrawal of its ongoing strike by Tuesday evening and inform the court on Wednesday. The direction came after the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) told a bench of Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice NM Jamdar that it was willing to implement the redressal measure suggested by a high-powered committee on granting an interim pay hike to its employees. The counsel for BEST, MP Rao, told the bench that the corporation was "open to implementing a 10-step increment" for its employees with effect from February 2018. The increase, however, will be implemented subject to the fact that the strike was called off on Tuesday evening, Rao told the bench. As per the previous submissions made by the BEST workers' union and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in the court, a 'one-step' increase in pay for BEST workers amounts to around Rs 330 per person per month. In compliance with the court's previous orders, the state government through Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni submitted a list of measures recommended by the committee to address the demands raised by the workers' union. The committee, headed by the Chief Secretary, was constituted by the state last week. The committee in its report has recommended among other things, that subject to the strike being called off, as an interim measure, workers be granted a '10-step increase' in salary for about 15,000 employees in a time-bound manner. This amount of increment, however, will be subsumed in the final agreement. It also recommended that upgradation and modernisation measures be implemented within the BEST, but no existing employees should be retrenched. The bench has been hearing since last week a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by lawyer Datta Mane, urging the court to pass interim orders directing the BEST workers to call off the strike immediately. Around 38,000 BEST employees have been on strike since the last eight days now. Some of their demands include a pay hike, revision of pay grade for junior level employees, and the merger of BEST's budget with that of the BMC. The selection of a police commissioner is widely viewed as one of the most important decisions in Baltimore this year. The city has seen four years with more than 300 homicides annually and is in the midst of implementing reforms as part of a civil rights decree designed to stamp out discriminatory policing. The 2019 Kumbh is also the costliest so far. The Maha Kumbh of 2013, when the state was ruled by Samajwadi Party and led by Akhilesh Yadav, cost Rs 1,300 crore while the 2001 Purna Kumbh Mela had a budget of just Rs 165 crore. Prayagraj: "Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt," wrote the Roman poet Juvanal in the first century, a time when the Circus Maximus in Rome reverberated to the sounds of chariot races and gladiatorial fights. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath clearly believes in that concept. Only, he is giving the people a 55-day grand mela the Ardh-Kumbh that started in Prayagraj (Allahabad to those who are not yet used to the new name) on 15 January. And in an election year, with the BJP and Narendra Modi no longer enjoying the dominance they did in 2014, the Kumbh spectacle is as much political, as religious in nature, with the partys Hindutva agenda always close to the surface. Kumbh is the worlds largest organised gathering of people in any religious event and even UNESCO says this, says state BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi. People come from many parts of the world to attend the Kumbh which is why the state government is not leaving any loopholes in the preparations." That was Tripathis justification for the Rs 4,236-crore budget allocated to organise the Kumbh. "If you compare this budget with other global events of the world, like FIFA, you will find it a very small amount," adds Tripathi. Of the Rs 4,236 crore, the Uttar Pradesh government is chipping in with Rs 2,000 crore, and the Centre has allocated Rs 2,200 crore, of which Rs 1,200 crores has already been released. Sources at the state secretariat said that the balance amount will be released soon. The 2019 Kumbh is also the costliest so far. The Maha Kumbh of 2013, when the state was ruled by Samajwadi Party and led by Akhilesh Yadav, cost Rs 1,300 crore while the 2001 Purna Kumbh Mela had a budget of just Rs 165 crore. A temporary city, including a heliport, has come up near the banks of the Ganges to accommodate the lakhs of pilgrims expected to attend the event. "The government is sending its cabinet ministers to other states to invite people of that state to the mega bathing festival," says Tripathi. "This is the biggest event in the world and our chief minister has personally sent invites to over 192 countries. If you are looking at the budget then you should also look at the importance and bandwidth of this event," he adds. 'Prioritising spending' The massive budget, however, has been criticised by activists. Education activist Samina Bano pointed out, "This figure is 80 percent of Uttar Pradesh's total budget for the health sector." "It is also approximately 25 percent of the total elementary education budget." She further says while India moved up one spot (to 130) among 189 countries in the latest Human Development Index (HDI) rankings, released by the United Nations Development Programme, Uttar Pradesh slipped to the second last position on HDI rankings within the country. "While I respect the religious sentiment and the intent behind Kumbh Mela, I wonder what it will take to prioritise spending effectively to improve the deplorable state of education, health and employment in the state that needs immediate attention and intervention." Tripathi argued that "Kumbh is not an annual event. It comes once in six years and the budget for any sector is issued on a per annum basis. I very well understand that improvement is needed in the health sector but how can we compare it with a religious festival which is a matter of faith for billions of people in India and abroad. Improvements in other sectors will come slowly as the BJP has not even completed two years of government." Officials involved in the mela preparations said that a major chunk of the budget will be spent on beautification of the river front and parts of the city and developing permanent infrastructure, besides making arrangements for safety and security during the event. Watch: Kumbh, it's more than a Mela (Part 1), a Firstpost web series A mela administration manages the temporary district during the 55 day-long fair, which involves use of flammable material such as plywood, bamboos and canvas to set up thousands of tents and other structures at the site. This time, the administration has a fleet of 55 motorbikes fitted with fire fighting equipment (MBFFS), which can reach the corners of the massive tent city faster than a fire tending vehicle, says Pramod Kumar Sharma, chief fire officer (CFO) of Mela administration. The mela area, spread in over 3,200 acres, is commonly called as tent city. The tent city has been divided into 20 sectors, each sector has two fire stations to tackle emergency fire situations. The government has installed a temporary hi-tech hospital equipped with ICUs and a capacity of 100 beds which has been set up at the mela ground. The OPD will have a capacity of 10,000 patients per day and ambulances with life support system have been kept on standby. What about the fund for healthcare, education? Samajwadi Party also emphasised on the need for balance in allocating budgets for the mela and social development. SP spokesman Abdul Hafiz Gandhi, said, "Kumbh is rooted in the cultural and civilisational history of India. Its a special occasion where crores of people gather together to perform religious rituals, he said. A fine balance has to be made in spending of resources. When the state is spending so much, then results should be visible in the shape of some concrete infrastructure development in Prayagraj." However, the expenditure on Kumbh is not all loss. Rajeev Kumar Maheshwari, head of the applied economics department at the University of Lucknow, said, "Tourism is a big industry and brings a lot of revenue to the state. The government is promoting this religious event like a tourist place and a large number of people are expected. Yes, the budget is big but its worth spending if it brings revenue and employment. I dont see anything wrong in it. The practice of celebrating Kumbh is being followed in India since ages and breaking these customs is impossible," he added. Congress in-charge of UP media cell Virendra Madan said spending money on a religious event is fine, but somewhere the Yogi Adityanath-led state government is also pushing it's agenda of Hindutva. "Religious events should be kept out of politics and political parties should also refrain from doing so," he said, adding that the Uttar Pradesh government will also try to polarise the coming elections based on the success of this event. "Before going for this massive budget, the government should have looked back on how kids died due to lack of oxygen and the education and health sector has totally deteriorated in the last few years. The (Congress) party is not against celebrating Kumbh, but simultaneously the government should also spend on other important things," he said. This government has made a mockery of democracy, the Congress leader added. State government officials and many analysts feel that the Ardh Kumbh this year will most probably set a record in the number of people who attend the event. The total footfall for the Kumbh held in 2013 is said to be between 12 and 15 crore. This particular version of the Kumbh comes every six years, while the Purna Kumbh is once every 12 years and the Maha Kumbh, once every 144 years. The objection is not on spending taxpayers' money on the mela, but on whether such a large amount was really necessary. "This amount being spent on this festival is too big," said Sharad Patel, who is a social worker. I personally know that more than 40 percent of the people in UP struggle to get two square meals a day, decent health care and education. I feel this is a misuse of public money." According to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, 32.8 percent population of Uttar Pradesh lives below poverty line (BPL). The author is a Lucknow-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com Finance Minister Arun Jaitley unexpectedly left for the US for a medical check-up relating to his kidney ailment, sources said. Jaitley, who had undergone a renal transplant surgery on 14 May, 2018, has not travelled abroad in last nine months. New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley unexpectedly left for the US for a medical check-up relating to his kidney ailment, sources said. Jaitley, who had undergone a renal transplant surgery on 14 May, 2018, has not travelled abroad in last nine months. He was scheduled to attend the 10th India-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue in London in April 2018, but had cancelled his visit due to his kidney ailment. Sources said he left for the US on Sunday night for a medical check-up. Jaitley is to present his sixth and the BJP-led NDA government's last Budget on 1 February, before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Though it is supposed to be an interim budget, it is widely expected that his speech would have been full length budget speech. Jaitley was admitted to AIIMS last year in early April following which he underwent dialysis. He had a renal transplant surgery in May. In his absence, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal was given the additional charge of Finance Ministry on 14 May. Jaitley, 66, who had stopped attending office at the beginning of April, and was back in North Block the seat of Finance Ministry on 23 August. Jaitley had in September 2014, undergone a bariatric surgery to treat weight gain that he suffered because of a long-standing diabetic condition. That surgery was first performed at Max Hospital, but Jaitley was later shifted to AIIMS because of complications. He had a heart surgery several years ago. There were as many as 1,15,000 jobs a month available for application software developers. However, there were fewer than 32,000 recruitments. Availability of a limited number of technology workers in the United States is forcing Indian IT firms to hoard employees and subcontractors, according to a media report. The Economic Times, citing the US Bureau of Labour Statistics' data said that in September 2018 there was a massive gap in jobs and supply and only one out of four software jobs were being filled. The report added that there were as many as 1,15,000 jobs a month available for application software developers. However, there were fewer than 32,000 recruitments. Last week, US President Donald Trump assured H-1B visa holders, an overwhelming majority of whom are Indian IT professionals, that his administration would soon bring changes that would give them certainty to stay in America and a "potential path to citizenship". Trump said that his administration was planning an overhaul of US policies on H-1B visa and would encourage talented and highly-skilled people to pursue career options in the US. "H1-B holders in the US can rest assured that changes are soon coming which will bring both simplicity and certainty to your stay, including a potential path to citizenship. We want to encourage talented and highly skilled people to pursue career options in the US," Trump tweeted on Friday. The H-1B visa, most sought-after among Indian IT professionals, is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Indian IT industry has been facing a shortage of skills and double-digit attrition. In December last year, KS Viswanathan, Vice President of Nasscom, had admitted that there was a relevant skill shortage in the country to capitalise on the huge opportunities from digital platforms. He said the industry would need around 3,00,000 engineers for analytics and data sciences over the next five years. Though the attrition rate in the industry has reduced over the years, the trend has reversed in this fiscal for various reasons, including inability to adopt to newer technologies and not keeping pace with demand for reskilled techies. With inputs from agencies The decision means Ghosn is likely to stay in custody until his trial, which even his own defence lawyer has admitted could take six months to begin Tokyo: A Tokyo court on Tuesday rejected a request by former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn for bail following fresh charges, dashing his hopes for an early release from his Japanese jail cell. The decision means the 64-year-old auto tycoon is likely to stay in custody until his trial, which even his own defence lawyer has admitted could take six months to begin. The Tokyo District Court said in a statement that "a request filed by lawyers for his bail release was rejected today". On Friday, prosecutors pressed formal charges against Ghosn over two more allegations of financial misconduct -- all of which the Franco-Brazilian-Lebanese businessman denies. In a dramatic courtroom appearance on Tuesday, Ghosn denounced the allegations against him, saying he had been "wrongly accused and unfairly detained". He has been indicted on two counts of allegedly under-declaring his income by more than nine billion yen ($83 million) in total over eight fiscal years in documents to shareholders. Ghosn also stands charged with "aggravated breach of trust" over a complex alleged scheme in which he is said to have tried to transfer foreign exchange losses to Nissan's books. His ongoing detention has prompted some international criticism of Japan's legal system, which permits prosecutors to hold suspects while they investigate an allegation, and also allows lengthy pre-trial detention once charges have been filed. Carole Ghosn, his wife, has alleged her husband is being held in "harsh" conditions and subjected to round-the-clock interrogations intended to extract a confession. In a letter to Human Rights Watch, she sought to "press the government to reform its draconian system of pretrial detention and interrogation". But deputy chief prosecutor Shin Kukimoto has defended Japan's investigative procedures, saying he had anticipated overseas criticism. "We expected various reactions since it is a criminal investigation into a globally famous person," he said. "We are acting appropriately in accordance with the existing laws." However, some local media have expressed understanding of the criticism from overseas. The Asahi Shimbun daily said in an editorial that the country "needs a debate toward improvement" of its controversial legal system. Ghosn's lawyer has acknowledged his client is unlikely to be freed before a trial, and that the case could take six months to come to court given its complexity and the need to translate documents into Japanese and English. The former Nissan chief has so far been denied visits from anyone except his lawyers and diplomats from the three countries where he holds citizenship -- Brazil, France and Lebanon. But a court ruling last week means Ghosn's family can now visit him. Ghosn has appeared in public just once since his shock 19 November arrest, during last week's court hearing which was called after his lawyers requested judges explain the tycoon's ongoing detention. One of the most recognisable foreign executives in Japan, Ghosn was led into Tokyo District Court in handcuffs and with a rope around his waist, and was noticeably thinner. His arrest has exposed rifts in the alliance he forged and led between Nissan, Mitsubishi Motors and France's Renault. While the two Japanese firms quickly ousted him from leadership roles, Renault has kept him on and its board said Thursday that an ongoing audit has found no sign of fraud in the last two years. On Friday, Renault decried a "campaign of destabilisation" embroiling its alliance with Nissan, as new allegations surfaced over pay arrangements overseen by Ghosn. Jose Munoz, a top executive widely seen as a close ally to Ghosn, has resigned as the company broadens an internal probe over Ghosn's case. Following the latest charges, Nissan announced it had filed its own criminal complaint against its former chief, saying it can't "tolerate such misconduct and calls for strict penalties". Some have suggested Ghosn's arrest is a form of boardroom "coup" by Nissan against Renault -- a junior partner in the alliance but the best performing. But CEO Hiroto Saikawa dismissed this as "absurd" in an interview with French business daily Les Echos. "Look at the evidence. It's serious," Saikawa was quoted as saying. By Silke Koltrowitz and Sarah White GENEVA (Reuters) - Swiss watchmakers are starting to see signs of slowing spending from Chinese tourists, but are still banking on demand shifting to mainland China to fuel growth this year, several high-end brands said on Monday. Investors are on edge over a softening economic backdrop in China, and weak Chinese trade data on Monday sent shares in luxury goods companies that rely heavily on Chinese customers tumbling. Some brands like Parmigiani, owned by the Sandoz Family Foundation and which makes around 3,000 pieces a year, with average prices at 35,000 Swiss francs ($35,714), said they believed it was still a good time to invest in China By Silke Koltrowitz and Sarah White GENEVA (Reuters) - Swiss watchmakers are starting to see signs of slowing spending from Chinese tourists, but are still banking on demand shifting to mainland China to fuel growth this year, several high-end brands said on Monday. Investors are on edge over a softening economic backdrop in China, and weak Chinese trade data on Monday sent shares in luxury goods companies that rely heavily on Chinese customers tumbling. Some brands like Parmigiani, owned by the Sandoz Family Foundation and which makes around 3,000 pieces a year, with average prices at 35,000 Swiss francs ($35,714), said they believed it was still a good time to invest in China. "People are travelling less, but consuming more domestically so it is the right moment for us to strengthen our local presence (in China)," chief executive Davide Traxler told Reuters at the SIHH industry trade fair in Geneva, adding the label, in turnaround mode, was entering that market "10 years late". Parmigiani is repositioning itself at higher price points after trying to take a more accessible tack a few years ago. Chinese customers make up over a third of spending on luxury goods worldwide, but a falling yuan and Chinese government measures like cuts in import taxes are pushing more of those shoppers to splurge domestically. Business in Hong Kong lost steam in the last three months of 2018, Cartier owner Richemont reported on Friday, and others noted setbacks there and in other parts of Greater China, which includes Macau. "We had growth everywhere last year, except for Greater China where we saw a dip in demand due to the trade war in October and November," said Edouard Meylan, chief executive of independent Swiss label H. Moser & Cie. "It has recovered since," Meylan said. He added the brand had sold an unusual amount of "big-ticket" watches in December and January, but was still wary of nasty surprises. "With the shutdown (in the U.S.), the trade war and Brexit, there is a lot of uncertainty at the moment." STILL GROWING Manufacturers of luxury wares from handbags to fancy timepieces have so far played down the chances of a dramatic fallout from a U.S.- China trade stand-off, arguing that appetite from young, middle-class Chinese customers keen to wear branded goods was likely to hold up in the long term. "We've noticed a small slowdown, but we're still talking about a growth pattern," said Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO of LVMH's Hublot brand, which is not exhibiting its watches at the Richemont-dominated SIHH but at a hotel in downtown Geneva. Young Chinese clients in their 20s and 30s boosted demand for Hublot watches in 2018, Guadalupe added. "In principle this dynamic is going to continue, unless there is a real catastrophe in terms of the geopolitical relations between China and the United States," he told Reuters. Hublot, a stablemate of Tag Heuer and Zenith at LVMH, does not break out revenues. But its sales in Greater China - which accounts for 13 percent of its revenues - rose by 60 percent last year, Guadalupe said, helped partly by Hublot's status as a relatively new entrant in China, where it first invested 10 years ago. That growth could be closer to 10 to 15 percent in 2019 as comparisons get tougher, he added, while Hublot is banking on its global comparable sales expanding by at least 6 to 7 percent after 16 percent growth in 2018. (Reporting by Silke Koltrowitz and Sarah White; Editing by Jan Harvey) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. This action is based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and is not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the NBFC with its customers, the RBI said. Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday said it has imposed a penalty of Rs 1 crore on Bajaj Finance Ltd, a non-banking financial company (NBFC), for violating "fair practices code". This action is based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and is not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the NBFC with its customers, the RBI added. Bajaj Finance is into businesses such as consumer finance, SME finance and commercial lending. To keep watching Indias No. 1 English Business News Channel CNBC-TV18, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family Pack (inclusive of 24 channels), available for Rs. 35/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 4/- per day. To keep watching the Leader in Global Market & Business News CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family HD Pack (inclusive of 25 channels), available for Rs. 50/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 1/- per day. Qatar Airways posted a 252 million riyal ($67.18 million) loss for the financial year ended March 31, 2018, as it lost access to 18 destinations due to the political dispute. Mumbai: Qatar Airways will not buy a stake in Jet Airways as a substantial portion of the debt-laden Indian carrier is held by Etihad Airways, whose owner Abu Dhabi is an enemy of Qatar, its CEO Akbar al-Baker said on Tuesday. Abu Dhabi is part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that cut ties with Qatar in 2017 over accusations of supporting terrorism. Doha denies the charges. The UAE, together with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain have banned Qatar Airways since June of that year as part of the dispute. We would definitely look at it (Jet Airways) if a 24 percent stake was not held by Etihad, al-Baker told Reuters on the sidelines of an aviation conference in Mumbai. How can I take a stake in an airline which is owned by our adversary? Etihad plans to hike its stake in Jet to help the Indian carrier with its financial woes, a person close to the Abu Dhabi carrier told Reuters late on Monday. Al-Baker said Qatar Airways would be delighted to take a stake in IndiGo, the largest airline in India home to the worlds fastest growing aviation market. The Qatari airline has previously expressed an interest in investing in IndiGo, owned by InterGlobe Aviation. But not in an airline where substantial ownership is by the enemy of my country, he said, referring to Jet. Qatar Airways posted a 252 million riyal ($67.18 million) loss for the financial year ended March 31, 2018, as it lost access to 18 destinations due to the political dispute. As part of a broader effort to diversify its portfolio outside its home market, the Qatari carrier purchased a 10 percent stake in Hong Kongs Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd in 2017 and 5 percent in China Southern Airlines Co Ltd this month. Qatar Airways also remains interested in starting a fully owned airline in India, al-Baker said on Tuesday, but that is not allowed under Indias current foreign investment rules. Given China and India are the biggest growing markets, it is obvious as an airline we want to invest strategically in those regions because we ourselves are a very rapidly growing airline, he said. Al-Baker has threatened publicly to pull Qatar Airways out of the oneworld airline alliance despite holding minority stakes in members Cathay Pacific, British Airways and LATAM Airlines Group SA. China Southern in November said it would exit the rival SkyTeam alliance, in a move that opened the potential for it to join oneworld. Joining oneworld is entirely their business decision and we always will respect as a stakeholder the decision made by the majority shareholder, al-Baker said of China Southern. To keep watching Indias No. 1 English Business News Channel CNBC-TV18, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family Pack (inclusive of 24 channels), available for Rs. 35/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 4/- per day. To keep watching the Leader in Global Market & Business News CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family HD Pack (inclusive of 25 channels), available for Rs. 50/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 1/- per day. Following the price revision on Tuesday, petrol was sold in Delhi at Rs 70.41 per litre, Mumbai Rs 76.05, Chennai Rs 72.52 and Kolkata Rs 73.08 a litre, according to data available on Indian Oil Corporation website. Petrol and diesel prices rose for the sixth straight day on Tuesday by up to 28 paise and 31 paise respectively in major cities across the country in the aftermath of weakening rupee and a northward move of crude oil rates in the international market. Following the price revision on Tuesday, petrol was sold in Delhi at Rs 70.41 per litre, Mumbai Rs 76.05, Chennai Rs 72.52 and Kolkata Rs 73.08 a litre, according to data available on Indian Oil Corporation's website. Diesel in Delhi was retailed at Rs 64.47 per litre, Mumbai Rs 67.49, Chennai Rs 68.09 and Kolkata Rs 66.24 a litre. Meanwhile, crude oil prices rose by around 1 percent on Tuesday amid supply cuts led by producer club Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia, although a darkening economic outlook may soon weigh on growth in fuel demand, reported Reuters. International Brent crude oil futures were at $59.62 per barrel, up 63 cents, or 1.1 percent, from their last close. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $51.14 per barrel, up 63 cents, or 1.3 percent. OPEC-led cuts and declining US rig counts have bolstered market sentiment in the New Year, Singapore-based brokerage Phillip Futures said on Tuesday. The Middle East-dominated producer club of the OPEC and some non-OPEC allies, including Russia, agreed in late 2018 to cut supply to rein in a global glut. In the United States, the amount of rigs looking for new oil production has dropped from a 2018-peak of 888 to a still high number of 873 in early 2019, pointing to a potential dent in production growth which was at more than 2 million barrels per day (bpd) last year, bringing American crude output to a record 11.7 million bpd. Meanwhile, the United States last November re-imposed sanctions against Irans oil exports. Although Washington granted sanctions waivers to Irans biggest oil customers, mostly in Asia, the Middle Eastern countrys exports have plummeted since. Iranian exports have already fallen sharply and are likely to remain at around 1.3 million bpd in 2019, 1.3 million bpd down vs their 1H18 average, HSBC said in its 2019 oil market outlook. However, Japan expects to restart oil imports from Iran within this month, the Nikkei business daily reported on Tuesday, with some Japanese banks notifying customers they will resume transactions for oil purchases. With inputs from Reuters To keep watching Indias No. 1 English Business News Channel CNBC-TV18, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family Pack (inclusive of 24 channels), available for Rs. 35/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 4/- per day. To keep watching the Leader in Global Market & Business News CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family HD Pack (inclusive of 25 channels), available for Rs. 50/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 1/- per day. While Pune airport is being developed to cater to one of the major IT hubs in the country, Nagpur airport is being developed for its strategic location in national and international flight routes, Fadnavis said. Mumbai: Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said that the Navi Mumbai airport is likely to be operational by the mid of next year. Speaking at the Global Aviation Summit here, Fadnavis also said that as many as nine more airports are in the pipeline in the state besides the Navi Mumbai airport. "The Navi Mumbai airport will be operational by mid 2020," Fadnavis said. The airport has capacity to add 1 percent to our GDP," he added. While Pune airport is being developed to cater to one of the major IT hubs in the country, Nagpur airport is being developed for its strategic location in national and international flight routes, he said. All metros in India are around an hours distance from Nagpur by flight and this connectivity has called for more attention to its infrastructure development, the chief minister added. A passenger and cargo hub will also be created in Nagpur, Fadnavis said adding the state is looking to increase cargo capacity to 40 percent by 2025 from 28 percent at present. To keep watching Indias No. 1 English Business News Channel CNBC-TV18, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family Pack (inclusive of 24 channels), available for Rs. 35/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 4/- per day. To keep watching the Leader in Global Market & Business News CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family HD Pack (inclusive of 25 channels), available for Rs. 50/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 1/- per day. The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) on Tuesday urged the government to defer the implementation of revised norms for e-commerce companies having foreign investments, as few provisions are unclear and onerous New Delhi: The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) on Tuesday urged the government to defer the implementation of revised norms for e-commerce companies having foreign investments, as few provisions are unclear and onerous. It said it would not be possible for online retailers to comply with the norm which is related to 25 percent cap. According to the revised norms issued by the government last month, inventory of a vendor will be deemed to be controlled by an e-commerce marketplace entity if more than 25 percent of purchases of such vendor are from a marketplace entity or its group companies. It is not possible for online marketplaces to track or monitor all sales from any vendor given a vendor is free to sell their products across multiple e-platforms and even offline, it said in a statement. "Moreover, a bigger concern is when one calculates this benchmark of 25 percent sales. If platforms realise that this benchmark of 25 percent has been crossed, they cannot recall or cancel a transaction which has already taken place to rectify the situation," it added. It said predicting this benchmark is an "almost impossible" task as platforms cannot have a definite measure of future sales from every vendor as it is completely dependent on the buyers' choice. IAMAI suggested that this provision needs to be re-looked for better drafting. It also raised objections over a provision that e-commerce players would not mandate any seller to sell any product exclusively on its platform only. Many small-scale sellers opt to go for exclusive sales through online platforms as these platforms offer warehousing, logistics, and wider market access, it said adding that many new manufacturers prefer digital platforms to avoid high capital expenditures in developing distribution networks and marketing channels. In view of these issues, IAMAI "requests for deferment of the implementation" of these revised norms and suggested for a consultative process with a wide cross-section of e-commerce companies. "Few provisions in the Press Note 2 (2018) are unclear and onerous," it added. Tightening norms for e-commerce firms such as Flipkart and Amazon, the government last month took a host of steps and barred them from selling products of the companies in which they have stake. These norms are issued under this press note. These steps were taken as the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion was receiving a lot of complaints that certain marketplace platforms were violating the policy by influencing the price of products and indirectly engaging in the inventory-based model. These changes will come into effect from 1 February. Further, the association welcomed the guidelines stating that it makes the marketplace model more robust and transparent. To keep watching Indias No. 1 English Business News Channel CNBC-TV18, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family Pack (inclusive of 24 channels), available for Rs. 35/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 4/- per day. To keep watching the Leader in Global Market & Business News CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family HD Pack (inclusive of 25 channels), available for Rs. 50/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 1/- per day. Kyle Jones, 26, was killed in a Jan. 10 fire in Whiteford, according to his mother, Mary. The Jones family home was destroyed during the early morning fire, the cause of which has not been determined, according to the Office of the State Fire Marshal. A ministerial panel headed by Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel would look into the possibility of rationalisation of GST rate in real state sector besides formulating a composition scheme New Delhi: A ministerial panel headed by Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel would look into the possibility of rationalisation of GST rate in real state sector besides formulating a composition scheme. The GST Council in its recent meeting on 10 January had decided to set up a 7-member Group of Ministers (GoM)to boost real estate sector under GST regime. The Terms of Reference (ToR) of the GoM include suggesting ways for pencilling in a composition scheme for the sector, a finance ministry statement said. The GoM would also analyse tax rate of GST, including issues/challenges in view of the proposal for shoring up the real estate sector. The panel would also examine the legality of inclusion/exclusion of land or any other ingredient, in composition and suggest valuation mechanism. It would also examine various aspects of GST on Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) and Development Rights in a joint agreement and suitable model, the statement added. The other ministers in the GoM include finance ministers of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh and Goa Panchayat Minister Mauvin Godinho. Currently, GST is levied at 12 percent on payments made for under-construction property or ready-to-move-in flats where completion certificate has not been issued at the time of sale. The effective pre-GST tax incidence on such housing property was 15-18 percent. GST, however, is not levied on buyers of real estate properties for which completion certificate has been issued at the time of sale. There have been complaints that builders are not passing on the input tax credit (ITC) benefit to consumers by way of reduction in price of the property after the rollout of GST. The proposal before the GST Council, headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and comprising his state counterparts, was to lower GST rate on under-construction properties to 5 percent. With consensus eluding the proposal, the Council decided to set up a 7-member GoM. To keep watching Indias No. 1 English Business News Channel CNBC-TV18, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family Pack (inclusive of 24 channels), available for Rs. 35/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 4/- per day. To keep watching the Leader in Global Market & Business News CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family HD Pack (inclusive of 25 channels), available for Rs. 50/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 1/- per day. A rise in fertiliser prices overseas and a fall in the rupee currency also made imported fertilisers more expensive New Delhi/Mumbai: The government is likely to overshoot its fertiliser subsidy bill for this financial year by Rs 30,000 ($4.2 billion), three sources with direct knowledge of the matter said, and the government could tap state banks to fund the extra spending. Prime Minister Narendra Modis government budgeted Rs 70,080 crore for fertiliser subsidies for the 2018-19 year ending 31 March, but the sources said nearly half of the money was used to settle dues from the previous year. A rise in fertiliser prices overseas and a fall in the rupee currency also made imported fertilisers more expensive, lifting the total subsidy requirement for the year to Rs 1 lakh crore, the highest-ever, the sources said. Since the Ministry of Finance denied extra money to the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers for this year, the government is considering a special banking arrangement for local fertiliser companies, two of the sources said. Such a move would be in keeping with other recent financially-draining measure taken by Modis government to win the support of farmers, small business owners and the less well-off, after the ruling party suffered setbacks in state elections and with a general election due in months. The bank route could also help the government meet its decade-low headline fiscal deficit target of 3.3 percent of the gross domestic product. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India, which has the authority to review state and national budgets, last week criticised the government for increasingly resorting to "off-budget financing here"such as asking banks to fund subsidy gapsand said such arrangements had "fiscal implications". A spokesman for the Ministry of Finance declined to comment. The fertiliser ministry did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. In the past, too, the government has rolled over subsidy requirements by using special arrangements with banks such as State Bank of India or by delaying payments to companies. Considering the poor tax collections, we dont think the government would pay the entire subsidy this year, said a senior official with a co-operative fertiliser company, declining to be named or to identify his employer. Like last year, it will be rolled over to the next year. Monthly goods and services tax (GST) collection has been averaging below expectation at Rs 96,780 crore since April, compared with an average target of over Rs 1.2 lakh crore. For the next fiscal year, the fertiliser ministry has asked for Rs 1 lakh crore in subsidies from the finance ministry, which will present an interim budget for next fiscal year on 1 February, ahead of a general election due by May. The government compensates state and private fertiliser companies such as Coromandel International Ltd, Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals Ltd, Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilisers & Chemicals Ltd and Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers Ltd for selling crop nutrients to the countrys millions of farmers at discounted rates. Follow full coverage of Union Budget 2019-20 here To keep watching Indias No. 1 English Business News Channel CNBC-TV18, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family Pack (inclusive of 24 channels), available for Rs. 35/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 4/- per day. To keep watching the Leader in Global Market & Business News CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family HD Pack (inclusive of 25 channels), available for Rs. 50/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 1/- per day. The country's exports grew marginally by 0.34 percent to $27.93 billion in December 2018 on account of negative growth in sectors such as engineering and gems & jewellery, according to a commerce ministry data New Delhi: The country's exports grew marginally by 0.34 percent to $27.93 billion in December 2018 on account of negative growth in sectors such as engineering and gems & jewellery, according to a commerce ministry data. Imports, however, dipped by 2.44 percent to $41 billion during the last month, narrowing the trade deficit to $13 billion. The trade deficit stood at $14.2 billion in December 2017. Gold imports declined by 24.33 percent to $2.56 billion in December last year as against $3.39 billion in the same month of 2017. During April-December this fiscal, exports grew by 10.18 percent to $245.44 billion. Imports rose by 12.61 percent to $386.65 billion. The trade deficit widened to $141.2 billion during the nine months of the current fiscal from $120.57 billion in April-December 2017-18. Oil imports in December 2018 rose by 3.16 percent to $10.67 billion. To keep watching Indias No. 1 English Business News Channel CNBC-TV18, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family Pack (inclusive of 24 channels), available for Rs. 35/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 4/- per day. To keep watching the Leader in Global Market & Business News CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family HD Pack (inclusive of 25 channels), available for Rs. 50/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 1/- per day. Cash-strapped Jet Airways early in the month said it had defaulted on debt payments to a consortium of Indian banks Etihad Airways will step in to bail out cash-strapped Jet Airways. It is in talks to raise its stake from the current 24 percent to 49 percent, according to media reports. Naresh Goyal, founder, Jet Airways, may give up 20 percent of his stake from the current 51 percent . He may also give up the post of chairman from the board of the embattled airline, reports said. Shares of Jet Airways jumped over 18 percent on Monday on news that Goyal was likely to step down. CNBC TV18, citing sources, reported that Jet was likely to finalise a resolution plan with its lenders this week, and that Goyal would trim his 51 percent stake to 20-25 percent and agree to voting rights on his stake being capped at 10 percent, in a bid to save the debt-laden carrier. Jet and Goyal did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment. Cash-strapped Jet early in the month said it had defaulted on debt payments to a consortium of Indian banks and that it was in talks with the consortium led by State Bank of India. The 25-year-old airline is facing financial difficulties and owes money to pilots, lessors and vendors. Intense pricing competition, a weak rupee and rising fuel costs weighed on Indian airlines in 2018. Last week, Reuters reported that crisis talks between Jet and aircraft lessors had failed to ease the row over late payments, prompting some lessors to explore repossessing their aircraft. --With inputs from Reuters To keep watching Indias No. 1 English Business News Channel CNBC-TV18, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family Pack (inclusive of 24 channels), available for Rs. 35/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 4/- per day. To keep watching the Leader in Global Market & Business News CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family HD Pack (inclusive of 25 channels), available for Rs. 50/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 1/- per day. The company insisted that its vehicles were compliant with Indian emission norms and claimed that 'the committee appointed by the NGT has accepted that Volkswagen Group India has not violated the permissible limits under BS-IV norms'. New Delhi: Volkswagen group on Tuesday said it would object to certain parts of recommendations by a panel formed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which has proposed a Rs 171.34-crore fine on the German auto major as "health damages" in an emission scandal. The company insisted that its vehicles were compliant with Indian emission norms and claimed that "the committee appointed by the NGT has accepted that Volkswagen Group India has not violated the permissible limits under BS-IV norms". A four-member committee formed by the NGT has recommended a Rs 171.34-crore fine on Volkswagen for causing air pollution in Delhi due to excess nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions. Nitrogen oxide is a smog-forming pollutant linked to heart and lung disease. The expert committee in its report has estimated that Volkswagen cars released around 48.678 tonne of NOx in 2016 in the National Capital. Reacting to the development, Volkswagen Group India spokesperson said vehicles from the group are compliant with emissions norms prescribed in India. The committee, appointed by the NGT, has accepted that Volkswagen Group India has not violated the permissible limits under BSIV norms, the spokesperson added. "There are certain recommendations in the report which Volkswagen Group India seeks to object; the issue is presently pending before the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal," the Volkswagen Group India spokesperson said. The four-member panel comprising Automotive Research Association of India director Rashmi Urdhwareshe, CSIR-NEERI's chief scientist Nitin Labhsetwar, department of heavy industries director Ramakant Singh, and Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) member secretary Prashant Gargava determined the penalty of Rs 171.34 crore on the basis of 3.27 lakh Volkswagen cars in India that had deceit software installed. The panel was formed by the NGT on 16 November last year to give its expert opinion on the subject whether the manufacturer has exceeded the prescribed environmental norms and fair estimate of the damage caused to the environment. The committee has told the NGT that automobiles are a major source of nitrogen oxide emissions and nitrogen dioxide is the most prevalent source form of nitrogen oxide. The panel calculated the morbidity by using the estimates of the cost of treatment and related expenses under the heading of cost of illness and the disability-adjusted life years (DALY) from the WHO database. The matter is scheduled to come up for hearing on January 17 before a bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel. The green tribunal had earlier said the use of 'cheat device' by Volkswagen in diesel cars in India leads to inference of environmental damage and asked the German car maker to deposit an interim amount of Rs 100 crore with the CPCB. The tribunal was hearing pleas filed by a school teacher, Saloni Ailawadi, and a few others seeking ban on sale of Volkswagen vehicles for alleged violation of emission norms. A 'cheat' or 'defeat device' is a software which Volkswagen was found using in its diesel engines to manipulate emission tests by changing performance of its cars globally. Volkswagen India had in December 2015 announced the recall of 3,23,700 vehicles in India to fix the emission software after ARAI conducted tests on some models and found that their on-road emissions were 1.1 times to 2.6 times higher than the applicable BS-IV norms. The automobile giant had admitted to the use of 'defeat device' in 11 million diesel engine cars sold in the US, Europe and other global markets to manipulate emission test results. After the tests by ARAI, Volkswagen India had undertaken to rejig the software by recalling around 3.23 lakh vehicles fitted with EA 189 diesel engines which were in alleged violation of emission norms. The company, however, had said that the recall in India was purely voluntary in nature as it did not face any charges regarding violating emission norms in India unlike in the US. The Reserve Bank of India has asked Yes Bank RBI to find a new CEO by 1 February to replace current CEO Rana Kapoor. Will Deutsche Banks India chief executive Ravneet Singh Gill become the next YES Bank CEO? He is one of the two in the race to the top post, according to media reports. Gill and Yes Bank CFO Rajat Monga were recommended by the bank's board and their names have been sent to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last week, a report in The Economic Times said. Gill has an edge over Monga with his experience, said the report. Earlier last week, Yes bank informed stock exchanges that it has shortlisted the names of potential candidates to succeed Kapoor, who is to demit office by month-end. "There are only two names that have been selected by the bank as final candidates for the recommendation of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to replace incumbent Rana Kapoor who has to step aside on 31 January," sources said, to PTI. The bank, however, did not disclose the names of the shortlisted candidates for the top post. The private sector bank will now seek approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the CEO appointment, and will make the relevant disclosures after the RBIs approval, the lender said in a statement. According to the bank, the candidates were finalised on the basis of recommendations made by the Search & Selection Committee (SSC) and the Nomination and Remuneration Committee (NRC). The SSC was mandated to evaluate both internal and external candidates and make suitable recommendations to the Board of Directors. "Pursuant to the recommendations of the Search & Selection Committee and the Nomination and Remuneration Committee, the Board of Directors of the bank at its meeting on Wednesday has finalised names of potential candidates for the position of MD and CEO," Yes Bank had said. "As mandated under the extant RBI norms, the Bank's Board will submit an application to the RBI on 10 January, 2019, seeking approval for the appointment of the new MD & CEO of Yes Bank," the lender said in a regulatory filing to the BSE. On receipt of the RBI approval, the bank shall duly make the requisite disclosures to the stock exchanges, in terms of 'Regulation 30 of the Listing Regulations'." Yes Banks governance was thrown into question in September when the RBI asked Kapoor to step down by the end of January, sending its stock plunging and causing several resignations from its board. The Central bank had asked the lender to find a new CEO by 1 February. In November, independent director Rentala Chandrashekhar had tendered his resignation from the board of directors of Yes Bank. In the same month, former SBI chairman OP Bhatt resigned from the panel set up by the bank to find a successor for Kapoor. Bhatt was under the CBI's scanner in connection with loans given to the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines, promoted by fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya. On 14 November, the bank's non-executive chairman Ashok Chawla had resigned as his name figured in a CBI charge sheet filed in the Aircel-Maxis case. Another independent director Vasant Gujarathi too had tendered his resignation on the same day over audit committee performance issues. The RBI, it is learnt, had found corporate governance issues and under-reporting of non-performing assets, which has led to a series of negative developments in the private sector lender's functioning in the recent past. --With PTI inputs MONTREAL (Reuters) - Europe's Airbus is looking for a 'significant double-digit' percentage reduction in costs for a recently acquired Canadian jet programme, as it expands production capacity to cope with anticipated demand for the former Bombardier jet. Philippe Balducchi, head of an Airbus-led venture which took over production of the loss-making A220 last year, indicated the bulk of the reduction in costs would come from the supply chain as Airbus uses its greater clout in negotiations for parts. Other savings would come from more efficient operations as workers gain experience of building the lightweight 110-130-seat jet, whose deliveries doubled to 33 aircraft last year. MONTREAL (Reuters) - Europe's Airbus is looking for a "significant double-digit" percentage reduction in costs for a recently acquired Canadian jet programme, as it expands production capacity to cope with anticipated demand for the former Bombardier jet. Philippe Balducchi, head of an Airbus-led venture which took over production of the loss-making A220 last year, indicated the bulk of the reduction in costs would come from the supply chain as Airbus uses its greater clout in negotiations for parts. Other savings would come from more efficient operations as workers gain experience of building the lightweight 110-130-seat jet, whose deliveries doubled to 33 aircraft last year. But overall economies will go "way beyond" what Airbus can achieve internally on the assembly line, Balducchi said. "Our focus is to sell, ramp up (production) and reduce costs on the A220," Rob Dewar, head of engineering and customer support, added during a media briefing on the jet, which was known as the CSeries until Airbus took control in July 2018. The A220 consortium, which also includes Bombardier and the Quebec government, is spending some $30 million to expand its Mirabel production plant outside Montreal and will break ground this week on a new assembly line in Alabama for U.S. airlines. Airbus meanwhile said the Canadian-developed A220 jet had won approval to fly up to three hours away from the nearest airport in the event of a shutdown of one of its two engines - a safety standard which underpins its use on longer-range routes. The green light has been given by Canada, while approvals in the United States and Europe are pending, Airbus officials said. The extended operations or ETOPS approval affects the number of routes the plane can fly over water or remote areas. (This version of the story was corrected to show that US/European approval still pending after Airbus officials clarify earlier comments) (Reporting by Tim Hepher; editing by Richard Lough and Jan Harvey) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. MONTREAL (Reuters) - Europe's Airbus said on Monday its Canadian-developed A220 jet had won approval to fly up to three hours away from the nearest airport in the event of a shutdown of one of its two engines, a safety standard which underpins its use on longer-range routes. The green light has been given by Canada, while approvals in the United States and Europe are still pending, Airbus officials said at a briefing MONTREAL (Reuters) - Europe's Airbus said on Monday its Canadian-developed A220 jet had won approval to fly up to three hours away from the nearest airport in the event of a shutdown of one of its two engines, a safety standard which underpins its use on longer-range routes. The green light has been given by Canada, while approvals in the United States and Europe are still pending, Airbus officials said at a briefing. The extended operations or ETOPS approval affects the number of routes the plane can fly over water or remote areas. Airbus took control of the loss-making aircraft programme from Canada's Bombardier in mid-2018. An Airbus executive said the company is looking for double-digit-percentage cuts in unit costs, partly from suppliers. (This version of the story was corrected to show that US/European approval still pending after Airbus officials clarify earlier comments) (Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Richard Lough and Jan Harvey) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. IT industry body Nasscom has urged the government to clarify tax provisions that treat BPO-KPO services as intermediaries under GST rules, and scrap angel tax levied on investments in startups New Delhi: IT industry body Nasscom has urged the government to clarify tax provisions that treat BPO-KPO services as intermediaries under GST rules, and scrap angel tax levied on investments in startups. Expressing concerns over rising instances of revenue authorities treating IT-enabled services, including BPOs and KPOs, as 'intermediary services', Nasscom Senior Director and Public Policy Head Ashish Aggarwal said there is an urgent need to address the outstanding issue. "These companies are in no way engaged in any facilitation/ arranging of supply of goods/services at a pre-supply stage... There is a need for clarification that BPOs and KPOs will not qualify as intermediary service...," he said, outlining the industry's Budget wishlist to the government. Aggarwal pointed out that during the last year, the GST Council had provided several clarifications on many aspects that have helped the industry. However, there are "continued ambiguities and concerns" pertaining to the determination of the place of supply, blockage in working capital due to self-supplies, treatment of Head Office Branch office transactions, SEZ procurements etc that require urgent resolution, he said. "These need to be addressed to ensure ease of business, growth and sustenance of the sector's exports competitiveness," Aggarwal added. He also called for scrapping the angel tax provision and said the focus should be on measures to incentivise startups. "Angel investors invest at the earliest stage of the company and at the highest risk. They are critical to the creation and growth of new companies and need to be encouraged, if not incentivised," he said. Aggarwal explained that the flaw in the present approach is the focus on valuation as a means to verify the genuineness of the investment transaction. "As is well recognised, valuations in unlisted companies are generally subjective and this is more so in the case of start-ups. Therefore, there is a need to shift the focus away from valuation," he added. The issue needs to be taken up at the earliest as "this is a matter of survival for start-ups and strengthening the startup ecosystem", he added. Aggarwal said the Indian IT-BPM industry today stands at $167 billion market and employs around 4 million people. Despite the slowing down in growth rates, the industry has added about $24 billion revenue since FY2016 and continues to be a net hirer (over one lakh additions in FY2018). "India is strongly placed to be the digital transformation partner for global businesses and is also home to more than 5,000 start-ups. The upcoming Budget should focus on ensuring that Indian companies remain globally competitive and ensure ease of doing business," he said. To keep watching Indias No. 1 English Business News Channel CNBC-TV18, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family Pack (inclusive of 24 channels), available for Rs. 35/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 4/- per day. To keep watching the Leader in Global Market & Business News CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family HD Pack (inclusive of 25 channels), available for Rs. 50/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 1/- per day. The government had estimated a fiscal deficit of Rs 6.24 lakh crore, or 3.3 percent of the GDP, for the current fiscal. But, for April-November itself, deficit stood at Rs 7.16 lakh crore, or 114.8 percent of the target. Budget 2019 is not far and there are signs of the government missing the 3.3 percent fiscal deficit target set for 2018-19. If that happens, this will be the third consecutive year the government being stuck at almost the same deficit level of 3.5 percent. Any economist that you come across would tell you that higher deficit is no good thing. In fact, you dont need to be an economist to say that. When income falls below expense, things can turn awry. Remember, even the 3.3 percent is a delayed target and a clear deviation from the earlier commitment stipulated under the Fiscal Responsibility Budget Management (FRBM) Act. In the Budget 2018, the target was 3.2 percent but the government ended up with 3.5 percent target. This year, given the unimpressive revenue collection (mainly GST revenues missing expectations by a far margin), higher expenditure and likely populist packages that is typical in an election year, the government is sure to miss even the the 3.3 percent target set. According to India Ratings and Research, the slippage in Central government's fiscal deficit in 2018-19 is likely to be Rs 39,900 crore, corresponding to a higher deficit figure of 3.5 percent. We dont know whats it going to be. The government can defer some expenditure or try a last minute disinvestment rush riding on the back of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), the governments official milch cow. But, despite all this, there is a likelihood that the fiscal deficit may end up above the target of 3.3 percent. If that happens, India is consistently failing to honor the fiscal deficit commitment under the FRBM. This would raise some uneasy questions on the countrys commitment to fiscal prudence. Originally, the government had estimated a fiscal deficit of Rs 6.24 lakh crore, or 3.3 percent of the GDP, for the current fiscal year. But, for April-November itself, the deficit stood at Rs 7.16 lakh crore, or 114.8 percent of the target. Needless, yet again missing the fiscal deficit target will be a clear turnoff from the point of view of multilateral institutions watching Indian economy and rating companies. The FRBM came into existence in 2003 in order to make the government accountable to sound management of its finances but it has not been a big success so far. This Act was reviewed in 2016 and the committee concerned charted out a path to cut the fiscal deficit to sub-3 percent in the years post 2020. Earlier, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) too had raised an alarm on the government taking the FRBM Act too easily. It said that the government resorted to market borrowings for revenue as well as capital expenditure, after it exceeded expenses from the FRBM set limits. Of course, the Act offers some leeway to the Central government to deviate from the deficit target; for instance if there is a severe economic crisis in the country on account of drought, but we have no such situation as of now. Of course, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has, time and again, expressed his confidence in achieving the target. But that doesnt look likely as of now. There are a few reasons. First, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections have been lower than expectations. The GST collection dropped to Rs 94,726 crore in December 2018, lower than Rs 97,637 crore collected the previous month. The GST collections have consistently fallen below target. In the nine months (April-December) of the current fiscal, the government has mopped up over Rs 8.71 lakh crore from GST. According to economists at SBI research, the shortfall in indirect taxes will be to the tune of Rs 90,000 crore on account of the poor GST show and excise duty cut on petroleum products. Now, look at the disinvestment figures, which constitute a major part of the revenue. So far, the government has managed to mop up Rs 34,142 crore as against a target of Rs 80,000 crore. There was no investor appetite to put money on the table to facilitate large-scale disinvestment. Direct tax collections, on the other hand, have kept up with pace. The direct tax mop up grew 14.1 percent to Rs 8.74 lakh crore during April-December 2018, according to the finance ministry data. But, good show in direct taxes may not be enough for Jaitley to achieve what is hoping for. Also, dont forget that the government is in a difficult year as it looks for some ways to spend money so as to appease the voters ahead of the 2019 general elections. Between now and April-May, there is a fair likelihood of more distributions happening. We dont know what it is going to be. Politics is much more important for any government than good economics when confronted with crucial elections. The Central government is not legally bound to honor FRBM targets; at the best it is a guiding path. In the UPA years too, there have been multiple occasions when these targets were given a convenient miss. But, the question is if no government is particular about the FRBM Act, if the targets are too flexible to tweak every now and then, do we really need an FRBM Act? (Data from Kishor Kadam) To keep watching Indias No. 1 English Business News Channel CNBC-TV18, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family Pack (inclusive of 24 channels), available for Rs. 35/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 4/- per day. To keep watching the Leader in Global Market & Business News CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family HD Pack (inclusive of 25 channels), available for Rs. 50/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 1/- per day. The companies had proposed charging customers between 25 cents and 42 cents more per month to install a $104 million statewide network nearly five times as large, which would have been the countrys biggest outside California. Its not yet clear how much customers will have to pay in the scaled-back version of the plan. What is worse is that the middle class which can invest in education finds that the quality of education in schools is so poor that the educated cannot find jobs very easily. It will probably be a Vote on Account next month. But the expectations of a decent budget will be kept alive. Hopefully, even for electoral reasons, some of the thoughts expressed below might catch the attention of the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. During such trying times, hope is what keeps the wheels moving. Disappointments galore Yes, the government does have lofty plans. But scratch at the veneer and you see how terrible the consequences of the plan could be. At least for the middle class. But what is the middle class. If one goes by the recent reservation formula for 10 percent of the economically poorly off , almost 95 percent of Indias population is poor. That leaves only 5 percent of the population to make up the middle and the upper classes. Instead a better way would be to look to the Ayushman Bharat scheme which offers free health insurance cover to almost 30 percent of the population. One could then assume that 30 percent of Indias population is poor. If one takes away another 10 percent of the population as comprising the rich and the affluent, you have a middle class which makes up the remaining 60 percent. In any country, 60 percent should be considered the majority community. Yet when you look at Indias policies, the benefits invariably go to the backward classes, to minority religious communities and to the poor. The majority middle class has been ignored. Let us examine how. To understand how the middle class has been marginalised, battered and ignored, just look at the two factors which allow the middle class to grow. One is health. The other is education. To understand how the middle class has been discriminated against in matters relating to health, let us examine some of the features of Ayushman Bharat . First, there is no denying that most Indians need health cover and good education to live a life with dignity and find the tools to grow themselves. But then look at how the World Bank views Indias claims that it does care for human capital. In its recently introduced Human Capital Index (HCI), India does not figure among the top 10 countries in the world (see table 1). So where does India figure? Right at the bottom of the list. And when it comes to Indias neighbourhood, India fares miserably. Take a look at the countries that have performed better than India. This countrys only consolation is that Pakistan performed even more poorly than India. What a benchmark! India was quick to retort that the data taken for education was from the PISA scores that date back to the last decade. But that is because India withdrew from PISA rankings on its own, in order to conceal its poor performance on the education front. Surely complaining about old data is absurd, when the country itself refused to participate in new data being generated. The fact is that without education, health and recourse to decent justice, there can be no or little development of human capital. It then becomes a story of crass exploitation. India performs terribly on all three fronts. What is worse is that the middle class which can invest in education finds that the quality of education in schools is so poor that the educated cannot find jobs very easily. This was revealed in one of the answers given to the Lok Sabha. The more educated a person is, the less are the chances of him finding a job. That is one of the unkindest cuts for the middle class. Health takes a backseat If education is a nightmare, so is health. Just look at Table 4. The government spends precious little on health. Most people pay for their health from their own pockets. Thus it needs only one major ailment in a middle class family to bankrupt it (table 5). That is why medical insurance is a must. But once again, the government has failed the middle class. To understand this, it is worth examining the Ayushman Bharat scheme carefully. The government has allowed free insurance of up to Rs5 lakh per household for poor families. Collectively, this is likely to reach out to around 30 crore people. The intent is good. But the concept is bad. Remember, India does not have enough doctors . Its doctor-to-population is one of the worst in the world. Now, the government is giving Rs 5 lakh worth of cover to a poor family without there being enough doctors! So who will determine what type of treatment is required, and how much should be spent on it? Sounds absurd, isnt it? With so much of money available for poor patients, expect all hospitals, pathology labs and doctors to try grab a bite of this moolah. The result: More doctors will be available for the poor than for the middle class. The rich will always find a way to get what they want. The middle class will pay for insurance (it does not get insurance free). And it wont get quality care either. The good doctors will first be with the affluent. Many will go to the rural areas where there is easy money available. The middle class which pays taxes and pays for services will be left out to dry. One solution: De-licence medical education immediately to get more doctors. That is something the government does not do, because politicians who run medical colleges make money through capitation fees. Instead, the government pushes a plan to introduce short-term courses to convert ayurveds and homeopaths into alopath doctors. So why does the government also not have a six month course to convert clerks into IAS officers? Same rule, right? Unless hundreds of more medical colleges are created, India will not have enough doctors. Upgrading ayurveds and homeopaths will degrade the professionalism that the medicare sector is supposed to have. And expensive medical education only makes the cost of treatment that much more expensive, because doctors too must recover the cost of education, right? The result, the middle class will get squeezed. Taxes, a bane The middle class gets badly bruised even where taxes are concerned. Economy class air-tickets are not given GST set-off. Travel by cabseven by Uber, Ola and Meru where there is a tax paid receiptis not given a GST set-off. Nor are payments to restaurants. Result: The middle class pays, but does not get the set-offs that the rich and corporates get. So if you are a consultant, and travel to other cities, and use cabs, you only pay taxes, without any set-off. Rather cruel, isnt it? So the middle class ends up paying the government, which instead pays the poor and protects the rich. Will the budget do something for the middle class this time? (The author is a senior journalist) To keep watching Indias No. 1 English Business News Channel CNBC-TV18, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family Pack (inclusive of 24 channels), available for Rs. 35/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 4/- per day. To keep watching the Leader in Global Market & Business News CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family HD Pack (inclusive of 25 channels), available for Rs. 50/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 1/- per day. In 2018, Amazon had proposed $500 million investment in retailing of food products in India. The governments latest foreign direct investment (FDI) guidelines have scuttled Amazon's foray into the retail food sector, according to media reports. Incidentally, American e-commerce major Amazon is the only foreign retailer to have committed investment of $500 million in the food retail segment. In 2018, the government had approved Amazon's proposed $500 million investment in retailing of food products in India. Last month, the government banned e-commerce companies such as Amazon.com and Walmart-owned Flipkart Group from selling products from companies in which they have an equity interest. In a statement, the government also said that the companies will be prevented from entering into exclusive agreements with sellers. The new rules will be applicable from 1 February. An entity having equity participation by e-commerce marketplace entity or its group companies, or having control on its inventory by e-commerce marketplace entity or its group companies, will not be permitted to sell its products on the platform run by such marketplace entity, the commerce ministry said in a statement. As per the government's revised guideline for e-commerce, Amazons food-only retail business will have to stop selling on Amazon.in, a report in the Economic Times said. The e-commerce giant's plans to acquire a stake in Future Retail may also be delayed, the report said. According to the government's revised guidelines, e-commerce companies can make bulk purchases through their wholesale units or other group companies that in turn sell the products to select sellers, such as their affiliates or other companies with which they have agreements. Those sellers can then sell the products to other companies or direct to consumers, often at attractively low prices. The new regulations follow complaints from Indian retailers and traders, who say the giant e-commerce companies are using their control over inventory from their affiliates, and through exclusive sales agreements, to create an unfair marketplace that allows them to sell some products at very low prices. The All India Online Vendors Association (AIOVA) in October filed a petition with the anti-trust body Competition Commission of India (CCI) alleging that Amazon favours merchants that it partly owns, such as Cloudtail and Appario. The lobby group filed a similar petition against Flipkart in May, alleging the violation of competition rules through preferential treatment for select sellers. The government notification also said that the cash back that customers get as an incentive while online shopping should not be based on whether the product was purchased from an affiliate of the platform or not. The new rules said that services provided to vendors on an e-commerce platform and by that entitys affiliates should be done so at arms length and in a fair and non-discriminatory manner. The new rules will appease small traders and farmers who fear that US companies are making a back door entry into Indias retail market and could squeeze out small corner shops that dominate Indian retailing. With PTI inputs To keep watching Indias No. 1 English Business News Channel CNBC-TV18, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family Pack (inclusive of 24 channels), available for Rs. 35/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 4/- per day. To keep watching the Leader in Global Market & Business News CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, call your Cable or DTH Operator and ask for the Colors Family HD Pack (inclusive of 25 channels), available for Rs. 50/- per month, or subscribe to the channel for Rs. 1/- per day. By Tim Hepher MONTREAL (Reuters) - Europe's Airbus is ratcheting up pressure on suppliers like United Technologies to cut costs for its Canadian-developed A220 jetliner as it expands factory facilities to cope with anticipated demand for the former Bombardier model. Long seen as low on the list of priorities for top suppliers as Canada struggled to break into the main airliner market, the A220 now has the clout of the world's second largest planemaker behind it after Airbus bought the loss-making project last year. By Tim Hepher MONTREAL (Reuters) - Europe's Airbus is ratcheting up pressure on suppliers like United Technologies to cut costs for its Canadian-developed A220 jetliner as it expands factory facilities to cope with anticipated demand for the former Bombardier model. Long seen as low on the list of priorities for top suppliers as Canada struggled to break into the main airliner market, the A220 now has the clout of the world's second largest planemaker behind it after Airbus bought the loss-making project last year. Philippe Balducchi, head of an Airbus-led venture which took over production last July, said the planemaker was looking for a "significant double-digit" percentage reduction in costs but played down suggestions that it could slash costs by half. Speaking at the Mirabel airplane plant outside Montreal which Bombardier now shares with Airbus, Balducchi indicated the bulk of the reduction in costs would come from the supply chain as Airbus uses its greater clout in negotiations for parts. Other savings would come from more efficient operations as workers gain experience of building the lightweight 110-130-seat jet, whose deliveries doubled to 33 aircraft last year. However, overall economies will go "way beyond" what Airbus can achieve internally on the assembly line, Balducchi said. "Our focus is to sell, ramp up (production) and reduce costs on the A220," Rob Dewar, head of engineering and customer support, added during a media briefing on the jet, which was known as the CSeries until Airbus took control in July 2018. Cutting costs is key to lifting the programme out of the red while avoiding a repeat of reportedly low prices that fanned trade tensions between the United States and Canada in 2017. Airbus rival Boeing claimed Bombardier sold airplanes to Delta at unfairly low prices but later lost its complaint. SUPPLIER LEVERAGE Airbus declined to discuss individual suppliers but analysts have said it faces a showdown over costs with United Technologies, whose Pratt & Whitney unit supplies engines and whose other systems make it by far the largest A220 supplier. "It depends how you define significant, but it will be a difficult task," said Leeham analyst Scott Hamilton, noting that Pratt & Whitney is emerging from its own industrial problems. "Pratt is going to be reluctant to give concessions, but Airbus has some pretty good leverage," he added. To maximise its clout, Airbus waited until winning a batch of new orders for the jet before turning up the heat on suppliers, grabbing their attention with sales of 135 of the planes to U.S. airlines including a follow-on order from Delta. "That was the strategy, to get the sales first. Now you can go to suppliers and say look, this is real," said one executive. The A220 consortium, which also includes Bombardier and the Quebec government, is spending $30 million to expand the Mirabel plant and will break ground this week on a new A220 assembly line in Alabama to meet demand from U.S. airlines. It plans to raise Mirabel capacity to 10 A220s a month by the middle of next decade, with four a month in Alabama - though for now about half of the known orders are from the United States. Airbus meanwhile said the jet had won approval to fly up to three hours away from the nearest airport in the event of a shutdown of one of its two engines, a safety standard which supports its use on longer-range routes. Extended operations or ETOPS approval was granted by Canada and affects the number of routes jets can fly over water or remote areas. U.S. and European approvals are pending. (Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Richard Lough and Jan Harvey) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Platform Offers the Latest Jobs Paired with Employee-Provided Reviews, Ratings, Salaries and More on Specific Employers MILL VALLEY, California, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Glassdoor, one of the world's largest job and recruiting sites, today announced its entry into Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand. Glassdoor aims to give job seekers a competitive search advantage through access to all the latest job listings alongside reviews and insights shared by those who know hiring companies best: their employees. Glassdoor welcomes approximately 62 million1 unique monthly visitors worldwide and has 18 localized sites around the world. Glassdoor is on a mission to help people find a job and company they love - each localized site and mobile app is a free resource for job seekers. People can customize their online job search to discover jobs based on job title, location, distance, industry, company size, company rating and more. Job seekers can also set up alerts notifying them of relevant new jobs as soon as they appear online. In addition, before applying for or accepting a job, job seekers can research what it's really like to work at potential employers. Glassdoor currently offers more than 45 million2 company reviews, salary reports, and insights, shared by employees. No other jobs platform combines the latest open jobs with this level of depth and detail into specific jobs at specific companies. "We believe that by pairing together the latest jobs with useful insights into a company's work environment, pay practices and other important facets of employment, we can make the job search and recruiting process better. When job seekers are more informed about a job and company, we know it leads to a better match with the employer," said John Lamphiere, Vice President and Managing Director of Glassdoor International. "Glassdoor has always appealed to a wide global audience and with increased focus on Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand, we are looking to make the Glassdoor experience for people and businesses in these locations even more valuable." Glassdoor uses a 'give-to-get' model, offering free access to all Glassdoor data once someone contributes their own content, such as a company review or salary report. This model helps reduce the likelihood of extremely positive or negative reviews and encourages more neutral and balanced company ratings on Glassdoor. The average company rating on Glassdoor is 3.43 on a five-point scale. Glassdoor also helps employers recruit and hire quality, informed candidates at scale and currently partners with a growing and diverse set of 7,800 employers. In addition, there are 175,000 employers using a Glassdoor Free Employer Account, allowing authorized company representatives to engage on the platform to respond to reviews, post company updates and access basic analytics to make more informed recruiting decisions. Glassdoor is an increasingly influential platform for people to find and apply to jobs and research employers, and nearly four in five (79 percent) Glassdoor users are more likely to apply to an open job if the employer is active on Glassdoor4 (e.g. responds to reviews, updates its profile, shares updates on company culture and work environment). In addition, hires who use Glassdoor have a 30 percent5higher retention rate. Google Analytics, August 2018 Glassdoor Internal Data, November 2018 Glassdoor Internal Data, September 2018 Glassdoor.com US Site Survey, August 2018 Glassdoor EMI Research (US), November 2017 About Glassdoor Glassdoor combines all the latest jobs with millions of reviews and insights to make it easy for people to find a job that is uniquely right for them. As a result, Glassdoor helps employers hire truly informed candidates at scale through effective recruiting solutions like job advertising and employer branding products. Launched in 2008, Glassdoor now has reviews and insights for over 830,000 companies located in more than 190 countries. For more information, visit glassdoor.com. Glassdoor is a registered trademark of Glassdoor, Inc. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/449764/Glassdoor_Logo.jpg Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) - Tidal Royalty Corp. (CSE: RLTY.U) ("Tidal Royalty"), a leading provider of royalty financing to licensed U.S. cannabis operators, is pleased to announce that its portfolio company, Diem Cannabis, has made considerable progress towards expansion of its operations into the state of Massachusetts. Further to Tidal Royalty's news release dated September 4, 2018, Tidal Royalty and Diem Cannabis entered into an agreement whereby Tidal Royalty agreed to provide Diem Cannabis with up to US$12,500,000 over three years to develop and operate a large-scale cultivation and processing facility and up to four dispensaries in Massachusetts. In exchange, Diem Cannabis will pay Tidal Royalty 15% of sales from the financed operations. Since that announcement, Diem Cannabis has secured properties for dispensaries in Worcester and Springfield, a municipal license to operate a dispensary in Worcester, and a property and municipal license for cultivation and production in Orange. Diem Cannabis also purchased New England Patient Network (NEPN), a licensed operator of Registered Marijuana Dispensaries in the state, in December 2018. The acquisition will permit Diem Cannabis to operate medical marijuana treatment centers and is expected to provide priority consideration for Diem Cannabis' expected forthcoming recreational cannabis licensing application. "While we have always had confidence in the Diem Cannabis team's ability to execute on their expansion plan, we are nonetheless impressed by how quickly they have been able to secure key strategic locations and garner municipal support for their efforts," said Paul Rosen, Tidal Royalty's CEO and Chairman. "Diem Cannabis is managed by experienced cannabis operators and they have maintained laser focus on working with local stakeholders to build partnerships that will sustain them in the long term." Massachusetts legalized medical cannabis in 2013 and adult use in 2016, with the first recreational sales having occurred in November 2018. With a population of 6.8 million and over 25 million visitors each year, as reported by the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism, the market for cannabis sales in the state are projected by Statista to exceed US$1 billion annually by 2020. This past week, the Cannabis Advisory Board's public safety committee recommended that the Cannabis Control Commission permit cannabis delivery and license social consumption lounges. Diem Cannabis is an experienced cannabis operator that holds six operating licenses in Oregon and operates cultivation, processing and retail locations in Salem and Portland. Diem Cannabis is known for its unique retail experiences that create safe, inviting environments for new and experienced consumers. Besides Massachusetts, Diem Cannabis plans further expansion in additional states and is in discussion with Tidal Royalty to explore opportunities to work together on such plans. Tidal Royalty's portfolio of royalty financing and equity investments now includes: VLF Holdings LLC d/b/a Diem Cannabis (Oregon and Massachusetts); Lighthouse Strategies, LLC (California and Nevada); and FLRish, Inc. d/b/a Harborside (California). Tidal Royalty is currently in the process of evaluating multiple additional opportunities across the U.S., including in California, New York, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Michigan. Tidal Royalty intends to provide further information on those opportunities when the respective parties reach an agreement and execute letters of intent. About Tidal Royalty Tidal Royalty provides royalty financing to the U.S. regulated cannabis industry. Led by an executive team with extensive industry experience in Canada and the U.S., Tidal Royalty provides operators with the funding they need to grow their business. Operators benefit from non-dilutive capital and investors get top-line access to a diversified portfolio of companies that will form the future of this transformative industry. For further information, please contact: Tidal Royalty Corp. Terry Taouss, President Email: terry@tidalroyalty.com About Diem Cannabis Further information about Diem Cannabis generally can be found at https://hellodiem.com/ and information about Diem Cannabis' expansion can be found at https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/diem-cannabis-completes-key-milestones-towards-massachusetts-expansion-300777337.html. Tidal Royalty does not hereby incorporate any information from Diem Cannabis, whether in Diem Cannabis' website or in any of its news releases or otherwise into this news release, into Tidal Royalty's filings with securities regulators or stock markets, or into any other disclosure to Tidal Royalty's investors. Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "continue", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or information that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Readers are cautioned that forward-looking information contained in this new release is not based on historical facts but instead is based on reasonable assumptions and estimates of management. Forward-looking information contained in this news release includes, but is not limited to: the expected size of the market for cannabis in Massachusetts; the expected utility of and impact on operations of Diem Cannabis of the NEPN license purchase; the timing and success of license applications by Diem Cannabis; the growth and development of Tidal Royalty's portfolio companies and their impact on the revenues of Tidal Royalty, including specifically Diem Cannabis' plans for expansion into additional states and Tidal Royalty's involvement with respect thereto; the realization of Tidal Royalty's entitlements under the financing agreement; the ability of Tidal Royalty to enter into additional letters of intent and associated definitive documentation with current or further proposed investee companies, the operating and financial performance of any investee company to be funded by Tidal Royalty from time to time and the ability of Tidal Royalty to generate revenue or realize profit through royalty agreements or equity investments with any future investee companies. Further, this news release contains information provided by third-party sources, including information regarding the properties, characteristics and relative timing of the development of Diem Cannabis' operations in Massachusetts that have not been independently-verified by Tidal Royalty. Forward-looking information contained herein is based on the opinions and reasonable assumptions and estimates of management as at the date hereof and is subject to a variety of known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of Tidal Royalty, that could cause actual events or results of Tidal Royalty to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Such factors include: the fulfillment by Tidal Royalty's portfolio companies of their obligations under executed agreements; the occurrence of changes of control or other significant transactions in the businesses of Tidal Royalty's portfolio companies; the U.S. regulatory landscape and enforcement related to cannabis, including political risks and risks relating to regulatory change, risks relating to anti-money laundering laws and regulation, other governmental and environmental regulation, public opinion and perception of the cannabis industry, risks related to the enforceability of contracts, the requirement by Tidal Royalty to obtain additional financing, the limited operating history of Tidal Royalty, timeliness of government approvals for granting of permits and licences needed by any future investee companies, including licenses to cultivate cannabis, the actual operating and financial performance of any future investee company, competition and other risks affecting Tidal Royalty in particular and the U.S. cannabis industry generally, and the risk factors effecting Tidal Royalty disclosed in the listing statement of Tidal Royalty available at www.sedar.com. Because of such risks, uncertainties and other factors, investors should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking information contained herein. Tidal Royalty is under no obligation, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable law. The foregoing statements expressly qualify the forward-looking information contained herein. This release does not constitute an offer for sale of, nor a solicitation for offers to buy, any securities in the United States. Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Frontline Ltd. (the "Company" or "Frontline") (NYSE:FRO) today announced that its ownership interest in Feen Marine Scrubbers Inc. ("FMSI") has increased to 28.9% following the purchase by FMSI of a 30.8% stake in FMSI from Bjrnar Feen. Robert Hvide Macleod, CEO of Frontline Management said: "FMSI has gained market share since our initial investment, and we are pleased to see our ownership stake in the company increase. Setting aside potential financial benefits, our ownership in FMSI has allowed Frontline to source high specification scrubbers on short notice, which we believe will present a challenge to many owners as the deadline for sulphur emissions compliance approaches." FMSI was formed in 2017 and has rapidly become a leading manufacturer of exhaust gas cleaning systems ("EGCs"). The company has a presence in Batam, Oslo, Singapore, Athens, Mumbai, Shanghai and Seoul and has received orders for more than 150 EGCs systems since its sales efforts were initiated. As of 3 January 2019, FMSI had delivered 45 EGCs, and fully commissioned 18 systems. In response to market demand, FMSI is increasing its production capacity through constructing a 40,000 square meter facility in Batam, Indonesia. The new facility, which will commence operations in February 2019, will see production capacity increase five-fold at a time when some manufacturers are unable to accept scrubber orders due to capacity restraints. January 15, 2019, The Board of Directors Frontline Ltd. Hamilton, Bermuda Robert Hvide Macleod: Chief Executive Officer, Frontline Management AS +47 23 11 40 84 Inger M. Klemp: Chief Financial Officer, Frontline Management AS +47 23 11 40 76 Forward-Looking Statements Matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements, which are other than statements of historical facts. Words, such as, but not limited to "believe," "anticipate," "intends," "estimate," "forecast," "project," "plan," "potential," "may," "should," "expect," "pending" and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon various assumptions, many of which are based, in turn, upon further assumptions. Although Frontline believes that these assumptions were reasonable when made, because these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies which are difficult or impossible to predict and are beyond the control of Frontline, Frontline cannot assure you that they will achieve or accomplish these expectations, beliefs or projections. The information set forth herein speaks only as of the date hereof, and Frontline disclaims any intention or obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this communication. Thunder Bay, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) - Benton Resources Inc. (TSXV: BEX) ("Benton" or "the Company") is pleased to announce that it successfully held its Annual General and Special Meeting of Shareholders on January 11, 2019 (the "Meeting"). At the Meeting, the election of Stephen Stares, Michael Stares, William Harper and John Sullivan as directors of the Company was approved by an overwhelming majority of shareholders who voted. All other matters presented to shareholders for approval were successfully passed at the Meeting. The Company also announces that it has granted 1,950,000 stock options to directors, officers, employees and consultants of the Company. All such options will have a term of five years at an exercise price of $0.07 per share, will be governed by the terms and conditions of the Company's stock option plan and will be subject to vesting provisions. About Benton Resources Inc. (TSXV: BEX) Benton Resources Inc is a well-funded Canadian-based project generator with a diversified property portfolio in Gold-Silver, Nickel, Copper, and Platinum group elements. Benton holds multiple high grade projects available for option which can be viewed on the company's web site. Most projects have an up to date NI 43-101 report available. Interested parties can contact Stephen Stares using the contact details below. On behalf of the Board of Directors of Benton Resources Inc., "Stephen Stares" Stephen Stares, President THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. The information contained herein contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking statements relate to information that is based on assumptions of management, forecasts of future results, and estimates of amounts not yet determinable. Any statements that express predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance are not statements of historical fact and may be "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation: risks related to failure to obtain adequate financing on a timely basis and on acceptable terms; risks related to the outcome of legal proceedings; political and regulatory risks associated with mining and exploration; risks related to the maintenance of stock exchange listings; risks related to environmental regulation and liability; the potential for delays in exploration or development activities or the completion of feasibility studies; the uncertainty of profitability; risks and uncertainties relating to the interpretation of drill results, the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; risks related to the inherent uncertainty of production and cost estimates and the potential for unexpected costs and expenses; results of prefeasibility and feasibility studies, and the possibility that future exploration, development or mining results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations; risks related to gold price and other commodity price fluctuations; and other risks and uncertainties related to the Company's prospects, properties and business detailed elsewhere in the Company's disclosure record. Should one or more of these risks and uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described in forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements. These forward looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. Actual events or results could differ materially from the Company's expectations or projections For further information contact Stephen Stares @: 684 Squier Street, Thunder Bay, ON P7B 4A8 Phone (807)475-7474 Cell (807)474-9020 Fax (807)475-7200 www.bentonresources.ca sstares@bentonresources.ca GSA/GSA Europe will be on Stand NDA-7 SAN GWANN, Malta, Feb. 04, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GSA and GSA Europe are heading to ICE 2019 and will appear on stand NDA-7 at the show, bolstered by a wave of excitement for its projects in the gaming industry and in the European Union. GSA Europe was specially created to bring more value to and focus on the regional suppliers, manufacturers, online and land-based operators throughout Europe and their unique needs, and GSA Europe's Managing Director Mark Pace will lead the organization's presence at ICE. Pace was recently elected by the Comite Europeen de Normalisation (CEN) to lead the creation of a European Union online gaming reporting standard. CEN has established Technical Committee 456 to create this standard in support of online gambling supervision. GSA Europe joined Technical Committee 456 as a Liaison Organization in 2017. "2018 was an incredible year of standards advancement and for GSA's growth. Today, companies that supply 70 percent of the global gaming marketplace are or have been involved in GSA, and our award-winning standards are in use around the world, driving the industry to innovation and growth," Pace said. "That, combined with our involvement in the CEN, makes this a better time than ever to join GSA/GSA Europe." Wherever they are located, there is a level of membership for every type of company in the global gaming industry. Join GSA as a member today and work with like-minded companies who are creating the future of standards. Find GSA on ICE stand NDA-7, on www.gamingstandards.com , and on LinkedIn , Twitter , and Facebook . GSA Platinum members include: Aristocrat Technologies Inc.; International Game Technology (IGT); Konami Gaming Inc.; Microgaming Software Systems, LTD.; NOVOMATIC AG; Playtech, (PTEC.L) & Scientific Games International (SGMS). Other members include: Other members include: Adlink Technology Inc.; Ainsworth Game Technology Inc.; Alphaslot; Amatic Industries GmbH; AmTote International; APEX pro gaming; Appolonia; Ares Way; Aruze Gaming America, Inc.; Atlantic Lottery Corporation; AxesNetwork Solutions Inc.; BMM Testlabs; Canadian Bank Note Company, Limited; Canadian Gaming Association; Casinos Austria; Cashpoint Payment Solutions; ComTrade Gaming; Combination AB; Crane Payment Innovations (CPI); DRGT Europe; European Casino Association; Everi; Fortunet; Foxwoods Resort Casino; Gaming Laboratories International, LLC. (GLI); Gaming Consultants International; Gaming Technologies Association; Gauselman GmbH; Ganlot; Genlot Game Technology Co., Ltd.; Grand Vision Gaming; House Advantage; Incredible Technologies; Intralot S.A. (INLr.AT); Inspired Gaming Group Ltd.; Interblock USA; JCM Global; Loto-Quebec; Macao Polytechnic Institute; Macau Gaming Equipment Manufacturers Association; Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corporation; Maxgaming; Mobile Gaming Monitoring On GmbH; Multi-State Lottery Association; Nidec Sankyo Corporation; Oregon Lottery; Paltronics Australasia Pty. Ltd.; PVS Australia Pty, Ltd.; Quixant; Radical Blue Gaming; Random Consulting; Sega Sammy Creation, Inc.; Seminole Tribe of Florida; Seoul National University of Science & Technology; Smernax Holdings Ltd.; Synergy Blue; U1 Gaming; Universal de Desarrollos Electronicos, S.A.; UNLV International Gaming Institute; VEIKKAUS; Western Canada Lottery Corporation; Wojskowe Zaklady Lacznosci Nr 1 S.A. New Investors Provide Three-quarters of Funding, Almost All of it Institutional Money CORAL GABLES, FL / ACCESSWIRE / January 15, 2019 / Professional Holding Corp. (OTC PINK: PFHD), parent company of Professional Bank, announced today that it had sold $20 million of common stock at $18.25 per share to institutional and private investors. Proceeds will support continued investment in management, technology and branches. "The new capital ensures we have plenty of runway for continued growth," said Daniel R. Sheehan, Chairman and CEO of Professional Holding Corp., and Executive Chairman of Professional Bank. "The funding supports our growth strategy of hiring great people and extending our branch network into tier-one locations." The 10-year-old bank is one of Florida's fastest-growing financial institutions, having surpassed $700 million in assets in September after reaching $500 million a year earlier. The holding company had sold $19 million of stock in February 2017. "The latest offering was oversubscribed," Sheehan said, "with new investors purchasing over 75 percent of the shares." "We are pleased that the investor universe sees value in the brand we are building, and many still view Florida as an attractive banking market," he said. Professional Bank recently added depth to its management team with the hiring of Executive Vice President Kris Barnhart and Senior Vice President Danielle Webel in Palm Beach County and Executive Vice President/Broward Market Leader Eric Servaites and Senior Vice President/Private Banker Jill Roster in Broward County. Ryan Gorney and Chris Rice joined the bank in November as executives to open a Cleveland-based digital innovation center. With the expansion, the bank is poised to take its existing technology to a new level and provide customers with an enhanced experience that is consistent across all banking platforms. In October, Professional Bank leased space for its first full-service branch in Boca Raton, with an additional branch is expected to open in the Dadeland area of Miami-Dade County during the first quarter of 2019. [Disclaimer] Statements concerning future performance, developments or events, expectations for growth and income forecasts, and any other guidance on future periods, constitute forward-looking statements that are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Neither Professional Holding Corp. nor Professional Bank undertakes any obligation to publicly revise these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. About Professional Bank: Headquartered in Coral Gables, Fla., Professional Bank is one of South Florida's fastest-growing community banks. A subsidiary of financial holding company Professional Holding Corp. (OTC: PFHD), Professional Bank specializes in construction, residential and commercial real estate financing as well as business loans and lines of credit, including SBA financing. Known for high-touch customized concierge services, the bank serves the needs of its customers through a full offering of deposit products, cash management services, online and mobile banking. Founded in 2008, Professional Bank operates full-service branches and loan production offices in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. For more information, visit www.professionalbankfl.com. Media Contact: Eric Kalis or Todd Templin, BoardroomPR ekalis@boardroompr.com/ttemplin@boardroompr.com 954-370-8999 SOURCE: Professional Bank View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532764/Professional-Holding-Corp-Raises-20-Million-to-Support-Continued-Growth Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) - Spey Resources Corp. (CSE: SPEY) ("Spey" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into an Option Agreement (the "Agreement") with Geoxplor Corp. ("Geoxplor") of Arizona, USA., to acquire a 100% interest in the Uravan Vanadium-Uranium Project (the "Property") located in the La Sal area, San Juan County, Utah, USA, approximately 40 miles southeast of the city of Moab. The Company had targeted the Property for acquisition due to the increasing global demand for vanadium. Uravan Project The Uravan Project is located within the La Sal Mining District where historic production of both uranium and vanadium has taken place from 1915 to date. Production of uranium and vanadium is currently being carried out by the only producer in the district, Energy Fuels Inc.*, where mineralized zones carrying lower grade uranium with much higher grades of vanadium are targeted. Although adjoining Energy Fuels' properties, Spey's Property remains virtually unexplored for vanadium, with only minor historical prospecting, pitting and radon surveys having been completed. The 33 lode claims making up the Property are underlain by the Morrison Formation sandstone consisting of a complex assemblage of lenses and sedimentary channel fill. Vanadium zones of potential economic interest can be formed by selective impregnation of sandstone, absorption by shale material and replacement of fossilized plant material. Vanadium-bearing hydrous mica can be in-part disseminated rather uniformly throughout the sandstone and concentrated in sheets along bedding plains. Mineralized zones elsewhere in the Morrison Formation have historically been known to have well defined limits. Production stopes at several nearby historic mines varied greatly in lateral dimensions up to 90m wide by 180m long, with a thickness of 0.5m to over 5.0m. Previously mined zones are lens shaped and graded upwards of 1.5% V2O5 (Carter, W.D., Gualtier, J.L., USGS Paper 508, Geology and Uranium-Vanadium Deposits of the La Sal Quadrangle, 1965 and Kovschak and Nyland, 1981.). *(see Energy Fuels Inc. News Release dated 2019-01-07) Exploration Plans Vanadium is typically associated with uranium in the Morrison Formation sandstone. Spey will explore for vanadium-uranium bearing zones by conducting a detailed radon survey across the Property in order to generate drill targets. Anomalies identified will be tested by recovering samples from depth by shallow drilling to delineate grade and tonnage within the Uravan project. The Agreement Spey secures the right to acquire a 100% interest in the Uravan Property by completing the following: (i) paying Geoxplor a total of US$310,000 cash in 4 annual installments; and, (ii) issuing an aggregate of 3,500,000 common shares in 5 installments in the capital stock of the Company within 4 years of the date of filing of the Agreement with the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE"). An additional payment of US$1,000,000, either in cash or common shares of the Company at Spey's election, will be paid on or before the date of any commercial production, at a per share price equal to the volume weighted average trading price of the Company's common shares on the CSE for 5 days prior to the date written notice of the election is provided to Geoxplor. Upon Spey earning a 100% interest in the Property, Geoxplor shall be entitled to a 2.0% Net Smelter Return Royalty ("NSR") payable upon commercial production from the Property. Spey has the right to purchase three quarters of the NSR (leaving Geoxplor with a 0.5% NSR) by making payments totaling US$1,500,000 at anytime. Subject to the approval of the CSE, Spey may pay a finder's fee of US$10,000.00 in connection with the option to an arm's length party. Stock Option Correction The Company would also like to correct the details of the issuance of stock options to David Thornley-Hall as previously announced in its News Release dated January 10, 2018. The Company has granted 224,000 incentive stock options (not 240,000 stock options as disclosed in the January 10, 2019 news release) to Mr. Thornley-Hall. The options are exercisable for a period of five years at an exercise price of $0.10 per common share. The incentive options were granted in accordance with the Company's stock option plan. On behalf of the Board of Directors of SPEY RESOURCES CORP. "David Thornley-Hall" David Thornley-Hall, President (Neither the CSE nor its regulation service providers accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.) Derrick Strickland, P.Geo., a consulting geologist, is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mining Projects and has reviewed and approved the technical disclosure in this news release. For additional information on the Company or the Property, please email: dthornleyhall@gmail.com. CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: This news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws ("forward-looking statements"). Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," 'projects," "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "could" or "should" occur. Information inferred from the interpretation of drilling and other sampling results may also be deemed to be forward-looking statements, as it constitutes a prediction of what might be found to be present when and if a project is actually developed. These forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation: risks related to fluctuations in metal prices; uncertainties related to raising sufficient financing to fund the planned work in a timely manner and on acceptable terms; changes in planned work resulting from weather, logistical, technical or other factors; the possibility that results of work will not fulfill expectations and realize the perceived potential of the Company's properties; risk of accidents, equipment breakdowns and labour disputes or other unanticipated difficulties or interruptions; the possibility of cost overruns or unanticipated expenses in the work program; the risk of environmental contamination or damage resulting from Spey's operations and other risks and uncertainties. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. At one point, West was seen putting something into the car. The two then returned back inside the bar to the pool table. About five minutes later West allegedly pulled out a 9 mm handgun and shot Beamon multiple times, according to the charging documents. Thunder Bay, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) - White Metal Resources Corp. (TSXV: WHM) ("White Metal" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company has received TSX Venture Exchange approval for its previously announced option agreement (the "Option") with Sokoman Iron Corp. ("Sokoman") to acquire a 100% interest in the Startrek Gold Property (the "Property"), located east of Benton (~16km east of Gander), in central Newfoundland (See White Metal press release dated December 19, 2018). Despite limited historic exploration work, more than 50 gold occurrences have been discovered on the Property through previous trenching and surface sampling. Previous operators, Rubicon and Sokoman, have performed mechanical trenching and drilling but many gold targets remain. As a first phase of work, the Company plans to fly an airborne AEM (Airborne Electromagnetic) survey over the Propert. Upon completion of the airborne survey, all known gold occurrences and previous data will be merged with the airborne data, followed up by a detailed prospecting and geological mapping program. The Company will release results from this work as it becomes available. Qualified Person Technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Dr. Scott Jobin-Bevans (P.Geo.), Vice President Exploration and a Director of White Metal, who is a Qualified Person under the definitions established by the National Instrument 43-101. About White Metal Resources Corp. (TSXV: WHM) White Metal Resources Corp is a junior exploration company exploring in Canada. On behalf of the Board of Directors of White Metal Resources Corp. "Jean-Pierre Colin" Jean-Pierre Colin, President, CEO and Director For further information contact: Jean-Pierre Colin President, CEO & Director (416) 573-4300 jpcolin.whitemetal@gmail.com or Michael Stares Director 684 Squier Street Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, P7B 4A8 Phone: (807) 628-7836 Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Burlington, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) - Rapid Dose Therapeutics Inc. (CSE: DOSE) ("RDT") is pleased to announce its entered into a definitive agreement (the "Agreement") on January 10, 2019, with Flower One Holdings Inc. (CSE: FONE) (OTCQB: FLOOF)("Flower One") pursuant to which Flower One has been granted license to manufacture, distribute and sell RDT's QuickStrip, an innovative, proprietary delivery technology for the cannabis market in Nevada. Flower One expects to produce and distribute QuickStrip for the medical and adult recreational cannabis market in Nevada by Spring 2019. RDT's proprietary QuickStrip game-changing technology is a Quick, Convenient, Precise, Discreet oral fast-dissolving drug delivery system. The QuickStrip technology offers consumers a discreet and smoke-free alternative to enjoy cannabis. "Brand partnerships are a key component to Flower One's growth strategy in the Nevada cannabis market," said Ken Villazor, Flower One's President and CEO. "Our cultivation, processing and custom packaging facilities in Nevada total more than 480,000 square feet. The scale, technology and automation of our facilities will bring precision, quality and a consistent ability for Flower One to bring RDT's innovative QuickStrip delivery technology to Nevada's fast-growing cannabis market." Nevada is one of the most lucrative cannabis markets in the United States, hosting more than 55 million tourists annually from all over the globe to Las Vegas - an audience of almost 1.5 times greater than the population of Canada. The state reported $529.9 million in sales for all 2018 marijuana sales - that includes recreational, medicinal and cannabis-related products. "Through our Managed Strip Service (MSS), RDT is focused and committed to providing consumers in the United States cannabis markets a Smoke-Free Choice," said Mark Upsdell, CEO of RDT. "RDT's Gold Vendor Status agreement with Flower One will enable them to sell to all the legal dispensaries in Nevada, under both their own private brand and as a white label program to the other licensed growers in Nevada. Our brand partnership with Flower One further strengthens and positions QuickStrip for rapid growth as an international brand and delivery device to cannabis consumers - while delivering health and improving outcomes." Villazor adds, "With QuickStrip's discreet and measured dosing, we are well positioned to bring a unique and exciting product offering to Las Vegas and Nevada's tourist-driven cannabis market, and we are thrilled to be adding it to Flower One's portfolio of Brand Partners." About Flower One Holdings Inc. Flower One Holdings is sharply focused on quickly becoming the leading cannabis cultivator, producer and innovator in the highly lucrative Nevada market. Flower One owns and operates a 25,000 square foot cultivation and production facility in North Las Vegas, with nine grow rooms, and owns the established NLV Organics consumer brand of cannabis products. The Company is also rapidly converting its 455,000 square foot greenhouse and production facility, which is the largest in the State, for cultivating and processing high-quality cannabis at scale. Combined, the flagship greenhouse facility and production facility (once fully operational) and the North Las Vegas facility provide Flower One with 480,000 square feet of capacity for cultivation and processing, production and high-volume packaging of dry flower, cannabis oils, concentrates and infused products. The Company is fully licensed for medical marijuana cultivation and production, as well as recreational marijuana cultivation and production in the state of Nevada. Flower One's common shares are traded on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol "FONE" and in the United States on the OTCQB under the symbol "FLOOF." For more information visit: https://flowerone.com. A Game-Changing Delivery System About Rapid Dose Therapeutics Rapid Dose Therapeutics, RDT, is a Canadian biotechnology company that provides innovative, proprietary drug delivery technologies designed to improve outcomes and quality of lives. Rapid Dose Therapeutics offers Quick, Convenient, Precise and Discreet choices to consumers. RDT is focused and committed to clinical research and product development for the healthcare manufacturing industry - including nutraceutical, pharmaceutical and cannabis industries. Within the cannabis sector, RDT provides a turn-key Managed Strip Service Program which enables RDT's QuickStrip proprietary drug delivery technology to be licensed by select partners. RDT's service based annuity contracts drive recurring revenue which enables rapid expansion into emerging markets - generating value for consumers and shareholders. Rapid Dose Therapeutics is committed to continually create innovative solutions aimed at multiple consumer segments and future market needs. For more information, visit: www.rapiddose.ca For inquiries please contact: Flower One NATIONAL Capital Markets 416.848.9835 ir@flowerone.com Rapid Dose Assistant Corporate Secretary Jorge Estepa jestepa@rapid-dose.com 416.818.4035 CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: Certain information in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Any statements that are contained in this news release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward- looking statements. Forward looking statements are often identified by terms such as "may", "should", "anticipate", "expect", "potential", "believe", "intend" or the negative of these terms and similar expressions. Statements containing forward-looking information, including, without limitation, in respect of the delivery of products using the QuickStrip product delivery method, express, as at the date of this news release, the plans, estimates, forecasts, projections, expectations or beliefs of RDT as to future events or results and are believed to be reasonable based on information currently available to them. Forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks, including, without limitation, risks associated with general economic conditions; adverse industry events; marketing costs; loss of markets; future legislative and regulatory developments involving cannabis; inability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources, and/or inability to access sufficient capital on favourable terms; the cannabis industry in Canada generally, income tax and regulatory matters; the ability to implement its business strategies; competition; currency and interest rate fluctuations and other risks. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive. There can be no assurance that statements of forward-looking information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, will prove to be accurate as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) -Precipitate Gold Corp. (TSXV: PRG) (the "Company" or "Precipitate") is pleased to announce it has closed the transaction previously announced with Everton Resources Inc. ("Everton"). The Company has now completed the transfer of title to fully acquire ownership of all of Everton's Dominican Republic exploration concessions, consisting of Pueblo Grande Project, adjoining Barrick's and Goldcorp's world-class Pueblo Viejo gold-silver mine, and the Ponton Project located approximately 30 kilometers ("km") east of Pueblo Grande (see news release dated October 24, 2018). Jeffrey Wilson, Precipitate President & CEO, stated: "We are pleased to have completed our due diligence, satisfied all requirements, and attained the necessary government and regulatory approvals to close this transaction and acquire a 100% interest in this exciting new landholding adjacent to one of the largest gold-silver mining operations in the world. During our due diligence period the Company's technical team has been actively plotting up proposed first phases of work within certain priority target areas and we expect work activities on the ground to commence soon. In preparation for the completion of this transaction, as reported in recent months, the Company has bolstered its Advisory team with the addition of former President and Executive Director of the Barrick-Pueblo Viejo mining operation, Mr. Mejico Angeles-Lithgow and increased its technical understanding of the projects through the engagement of consulting geologist, Dr. Stewart Redwood. With the acquisition now completed, Precipitate and its team are ready to begin a first phases of work." The Pueblo Grande's immediate exploration priority will be the area directly west of Barrick's mining pits, where a notable geophysical magnetic high coincides with an equally substantial area of advanced argillic lithocap alteration. This highly prospective lithocap target area measuring approximately 2.5 km by 3.0 km has seen little systematic exploration and will be the focus of initial phases of work. In accordance with the terms of the Agreement, for 100% title to Everton's three Dominican exploration concessions totalling 9,583 hectares, along with an extensive geochemical, geophysical, geological and drill database, Precipitate delivers to Everton the following: CDN $25,000 cash; Seven million common shares of Precipitate subject to sale legend restrictions for up to 3 years, expiring as follows: 10% (700,000 shares) with resale legend expiring 6 months from the date of issue; 10% (700,000 shares) with resale legend expiring 12 months from the date of issue; 10% (700,000 shares) with resale legend expiring 18 months from the date of issue; 15% (1,050,000 shares) with resale legend expiring 24 months from the date of issue; 15% (1,050,000 shares) with resale legend expiring 30 months from the date of issue; and 40% (2,800,000 shares) with resale legend expiring 36 months from the date of issue. Additional stock payment conditions and details of pre-existing advanced-stage or mining-related commitments, including an underlying NSR to a third party can be found in the Company's news release dated October 24, 2018. About Pueblo Grande and Ponton Properties: Two concessions, comprising a portion of the Pueblo Grande Property, are contiguous to the neighbouring Pueblo Viejo mine. The third concession (the "Ponton Project") acquired in this transaction is located approximately 30 km east of Pueblo Grande in a similarly favourable and prospective geological environment. The Company has also submitted exploration concession applications for an additional strategic land position connecting the two main Everton concessions along the eastern boundary of the Pueblo Viejo mine to form the newly consolidated Pueblo Grande Property. As a result, Precipitate's new land position adjoins Barrick's Pueblo Viejo mine site on the west, north and east sides, covering about 9,963 contiguous hectares. See the Company's news release dated October 24, 2018 for more project information and the accompanying maps or the Company's website at www.precipitategold.com for the property location illustration maps. Map View of All New Acquired Concessions To view an enhanced version of this map, please visit: https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/1718/42195_cfd60d0c64713bcd_003full.jpg The area to the west of the Pueblo Viejo mine is interpreted to be a high-level advanced argillic lithocap alteration type environment which lacks significant known surface gold-silver mineralization but has anomalous trace element suite that typifies the adjacent Pueblo Viejo mineralization style. The lithocap alteration is dominated by pervasive quartz-pyrophyllite-pyrite with numerous and widespread irregular pods, veins, and veinlets of massive hematitized magnetite. Magnetite/hematite, silicification and various pathfinder elements associated with Pueblo Viejo style high sulphidation epithermal gold-silver-copper mineralization offer key exploration vectors into and through the extensive altered lithocap zone. About Precipitate Gold: Precipitate Gold Corp. is a mineral exploration company focused on exploring and advancing its mineral property interests in the Pueblo Viejo Camp and Tireo Gold Trend of the Dominican Republic. The Company also maintains the Reef property located immediately adjacent to Golden Predator's 3 Aces Project in the Upper Hyland River area, Yukon Territory. The Company has entered into an Option to Purchase Agreement with Golden Predator whereby Golden Predator can earn a 100% interest in the Reef claims by making certain staged payments in cash and shares and warrants. Precipitate is also actively evaluating additional high-impact property acquisitions with the potential to expand the Company's portfolio and increase shareholder value. Additional information can be viewed at the Company's website www.precipitategold.com. On Behalf of the Board of Directors of Precipitate Gold Corp., "Jeffrey Wilson" President & CEO For further information, please contact: Tel: 604-558-0335 Toll Free: 855-558-0335 investor@precipitategold.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This press release may contain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein are forward looking information. Generally, forward-looking information may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "proposed", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases, or by the use of words or phrases which state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, or might occur or be achieved. This forward-looking information reflects Precipitate Gold Corp.'s ("Precipitate" or the "Company") current beliefs and is based on information currently available to Company and on assumptions it believes are reasonable. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Precipitate to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such risks and other factors may include, but are not limited to: the exploration concessions may not be granted on terms acceptable to the Company, or at all; general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; the concessions acquired by the Company may not have attributes similar to those of surrounding properties; delay or failure to receive governmental or regulatory approvals; changes in legislation, including environmental legislation affecting mining; timing and availability of external financing on acceptable terms; conclusions of economic evaluations; and lack of qualified, skilled labour or loss of key individuals. Although Precipitate has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Precipitate does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against nine defendants for participating in a previously disclosed scheme to hack into the SEC's EDGAR system and extract nonpublic information to use for illegal trading. The SEC charged a Ukrainian hacker, six individual traders in California, Ukraine, and Russia, and two entities. The hacker and some of the traders were also involved in a similar scheme to hack into newswire services and trade on information that had not yet been released to the public. The SEC charged the hacker and other traders for that conduct in 2015 (see here, here and here). The SEC's complaint alleges that after hacking the newswire services, Ukrainian hacker Oleksandr Ieremenko turned his attention to EDGAR and, using deceptive hacking techniques, gained access in 2016. Ieremenko extracted EDGAR files containing nonpublic earnings results. The information was passed to individuals who used it to trade in the narrow window between when the files were extracted from SEC systems and when the companies released the information to the public. In total, the traders traded before at least 157 earnings releases from May to October 2016 and generated at least $4.1 million in illegal profits. "International computer hacking schemes like the one we charged today pose an ever-present risk to organizations that possess valuable information," said Enforcement Division Co-Director Stephanie Avakian. "Today's action shows the SEC's commitment and ability to unravel these schemes and identify the perpetrators even when they operate from outside our borders." "The trader defendants charged today are alleged to have taken multiple steps to conceal their fraud, including using an offshore entity and nominee accounts to place trades," said Enforcement Division Co-Director Steven Peikin. "Our staff's sophisticated analysis of the defendants' trading exposed the common element behind their success, providing overwhelming evidence that each of them traded based on information hacked from EDGAR." The SEC's complaint alleges that Ieremenko circumvented EDGAR controls that require user authentication and then navigated within the EDGAR system. Ieremenko obtained nonpublic "test files," which issuers can elect to submit in advance of making their official filings to help make sure EDGAR will process the filings as intended. Issuers sometimes elected to include nonpublic information in test filings, such as actual quarterly earnings results not yet released to the public. Ieremenko extracted nonpublic test files from SEC servers, and then passed the information to different groups of traders. The SEC's complaint alleges that the following traders received and traded on the basis of the hacked EDGAR information: Sungjin Cho, Los Angeles, California David Kwon, Los Angeles, California Igor Sabodakha, Ukraine Victoria Vorochek, Ukraine Ivan Olefir, Ukraine Andrey Sarafanov, Russia Capyield Systems, Ltd. (owned by Olefir) Spirit Trade Ltd. In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey today announced related criminal charges. The SEC's complaint charges each of the defendants with violating the federal securities antifraud laws and related SEC antifraud rules and seeks a final judgment ordering the defendants to pay penalties, return their ill-gotten gains with prejudgment interest, and enjoining them from committing future violations of the antifraud laws. The SEC also named and is seeking relief from four relief defendants who profited from the scheme when defendants used the relief defendants' brokerage accounts to place illicit trades. The SEC's investigation, which is ongoing, was conducted by Market Abuse Unit and Cyber Unit staff David Bennett, Arsen Ablaev, Michael Baker, Jason Burt, Laura D'Allaird, Adam Gottlieb, James Scoggins, David Snyder, Jonathan Warner, Darren Boerner, and John Rymas, and IT Forensics staff Ken Zavos, Douglas Bond, Stephen Haupt, Gi Nguyen, and Jennifer Ross. The Division of Economic and Risk Analysis and the Office of Information Technology provided substantial assistance. The investigation was supervised by Robert Cohen, Joseph Sansone, and Carolyn Welshhans. Cheryl Crumpton and Stephan Schlegelmilch are leading the SEC's litigation. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Secret Service. LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / January 15, 2019 / Further to the news releases of December 13, 2018 and December 24, 2018, Gabriel Resources Ltd. ("Gabriel" or the "Company") (TSXV: GBU) is pleased to announce that it has completed closing of the previously announced non-brokered private placement (the "Private Placement") of 106,425,847 units (the "Units") of the Company to certain existing securityholders at a price of $0.2475 per Unit for gross proceeds of US$20 million (approximately $26.3 million). Each Unit consists of one common share ("Common Share") of the Company ("New Shares") and one Common Share purchase warrant ("New Warrants"). Each New Warrant entitles the holder to acquire one Common Share at an exercise price of $0.49 at any time prior to the date that is five (5) years following the closing of the Private Placement. In the second and final closing of the Private Placement, a total of 25,723,372 Units were issued to raise gross proceeds of approximately US$4.8 million (approximately $6.3 million). The New Shares and New Warrants issued in the closing announced today are subject to a statutory 4-month hold period expiring May 16, 2019. Proceeds from the Private Placement will be used by the Company to finance the costs of its continuing arbitration case against Romania before the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes ("ICSID Arbitration") and for general working capital requirements. Securities Currently In Issue Following the closing of the Private Placement, the Company has the following securities in issue: 490,878,357 Common Shares issued and outstanding; 25,723,372 Common Share purchase warrants which are exercisable at a price of $0.49 at any time prior to January 15, 2024; 80,702,475 Common Share purchase warrants which are exercisable at a price of $0.49 at any time prior to December 21, 2023; 111,536,250 Common Share purchase warrants which are exercisable at a price of $0.46 at any time prior to June 30, 2021; $95,625,000 of convertible subordinated unsecured notes, with an annual coupon of 0.025%, a conversion price of $0.3105, and a maturity date of June 30, 2021. At maturity, the Company will have the option to repay the notes through the issuance of Common Shares; and 95,625 arbitration value rights ("AVRs"), comprising: 55,000 AVRs entitling the holders to a pro rata share of 7.5% of any proceeds arising from any monies received by the Company and/or any of its affiliates pursuant to any settlement or arbitral awards irrevocably made in its favour in relation to the ICSID Arbitration ("ICSID Award"), subject to a maximum aggregate entitlement of $175 million among all holders of such AVRs; and 40,625 AVRs entitling the holders to a pro rata share of 5.54% of any proceeds arising from any ICSID Award, subject to a maximum aggregate entitlement of $129.3 million among all holders of such AVRs. The securities described herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities laws and accordingly may not be offered or sold within the United States or to "U.S. persons", as such term is defined in Regulation S promulgated under the U.S. Securities Act ("U.S. Persons"), except in compliance with the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities requirements or pursuant to exemptions therefrom. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the Company's securities to, or for the account of benefit of, persons in the United States or U.S. Persons. Further detail regarding the Private Placement can be found in the news releases issued by the Company on December 13, 2018 and December 24, 2018, which are available on the Company's website at www.gabrielresources.com and filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com, and the material change report also filed on SEDAR dated December 24, 2018. For information on this press release, please contact: Dragos Tanase President & CEO Phone: +44 7799 469694 dt@gabrielresources.com Richard Brown Chief Commercial Officer Phone: +44 7748 760276 richard.brown@gabrielresources.com Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Further Information About Gabriel Gabriel is a Canadian resource company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange. The Company's principal focus has been the exploration and development of the Ro?ia Montana gold and silver project in Romania ("Rosia Montana Project"). The Rosia Montana Project, one of the largest undeveloped gold deposits in Europe, is situated in the South Apuseni Mountains of Transylvania, Romania, an historic and prolific mining district that since pre-Roman times has been mined intermittently for over 2,000 years. The exploitation license ("License") for the Rosia Montana Project is held by Ro?ia Montana Gold Corporation S.A., a Romanian company in which Gabriel owns an 80.69% equity interest, with the 19.31% balance held by Minvest Ro?ia Montana S.A., a Romanian state-owned mining company. It is anticipated that the Rosia Montana Project would bring over US$24 billion (at US$1,200/oz gold) to Romania as potential direct and indirect contribution to GDP and generate thousands of employment opportunities. Upon obtaining the License in June 1999, the Group (as defined below) focused substantially all of their management and financial resources on the exploration, feasibility and subsequent development of the Rosia Montana Project. Despite the Company's fulfilment of its legal obligations and its development of the Rosia Montana Project as a high-quality, sustainable and environmentally-responsible mining project, using best available techniques, Romania has blocked and prevented implementation of the Rosia Montana Project without due process and without compensation. Accordingly, the Company's current core focus is the ICSID Arbitration. For more information please visit the Company's website at www.gabrielresources.com. Forward-looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking information" (also referred to as "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans and allowing investors and others to get a better understanding of the Company's operating environment. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. In this press release, forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by the Company at this time, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies that may cause the Company's actual financial results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied herein. Some of the material factors or assumptions used to develop forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the uncertainties associated with: the ICSID Arbitration, actions by the Romanian Government, conditions or events impacting the Company's ability to fund its operations (including but not limited to the completion of further funding noted above) or service its debt, exploration, development and operation of mining properties and the overall impact of misjudgments made in good faith in the course of preparing forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors including those set out below, that may never materialize, prove incorrect or materialize other than as currently contemplated which could cause the Company's results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, identified by words or phrases such as "expects", "is expected", "is of the view", "anticipates", "believes", "plans", "projects", "estimates", "assumes", "intends", "strategy", "goals", "objectives", "potential", "possible" or variations thereof or stating that certain actions, events, conditions or results "may", "could", "would", "should", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative of any of these terms and similar expressions) are not statements of fact and may be forward- looking statements. Numerous factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, including without limitation: delay or extension to the duration of the ICSID Arbitration; required disclosure, costs, process and outcome of the ICSID Arbitration against Romania; changes in the liquidity and capital resources of Gabriel, and the group of companies of which it is directly or indirectly parent ("Group"); access to funding to support the Group's continued ICSID Arbitration and/or operating activities in the future; equity dilution resulting from the conversion or exercise of new or existing securities in part or in whole to Common Shares; the ability of the Company to maintain a continued listing on the TSX Venture Exchange or any regulated public market for trading securities; the impact on business strategy and its implementation in Romania of: unforeseen historic acts of corruption, uncertain fiscal investigations; uncertain legal enforcement both for and against the Group and political and social instability; regulatory, political and economic risks associated with operating in a foreign jurisdiction including changes in laws, governments and legal regimes and interpretation of existing and future fiscal and other legislation; volatility of currency exchange rates, metal prices and metal production; the availability and continued participation in operational or other matters pertaining to the Group of certain key employees and consultants; and risks normally incident to the exploration, development and operation of mining properties. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of the Company's forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and investors should not infer that there has been no change in the Company's affairs since the date of this press release that would warrant any modification of any forward-looking statement made in this document, other documents periodically filed with or furnished to the relevant securities regulators or documents presented on the Company's website. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by this notice. The Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements or the foregoing list of assumptions or factors, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, subject to the Company's disclosure obligations under applicable Canadian securities regulations. Investors are urged to read the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulatory agencies which can be viewed online at www.sedar.com. SOURCE: Gabriel Resources Ltd. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532750/Closing-of-Private-Placement DALLAS, TX / ACCESSWIRE / January 15, 2019 / EarthWater www.EarthWater.com, a Texas manufacturer of consumer health and wellness products, is excited to guest host 'In the Know with Brian Glenn' from 3:00pm CST to 5:00pm CST on both Thursday January 17th and Friday January 18th on KEXB 620AM Radio, a financial news/talk radio station owned by the Salem Media Group https://620amkexb.com/content/all/brian-glenn. The talk show will be hosted by EarthWater's Strategic Marketing Director, Kim Francis, (on behalf of Host Brian Glenn) and will feature a VIP line up of guests: EarthWater President - Cash Riley Jr. www.EarthWater.com American Diabetes Association Area Executive Director -Ted Gebhardt www.Diabetes.org TangoTab Founder - Andre Angel www.TangoTab.com King Operating Corporation CEO & Founder - Jay Young www.kingoperating.com Plant Chics Co-Founder - Marzia Prince www.plantchics.com Plus a few other surprise special guests. Kim will be ON Air: January 17th (Thursday) from 3:00pm CST - 5:00pm CST January 18th (Friday) from 3:00pm CST - 5:00pm CST You may listen LIVE online at the following link: http://player.listenlive.co/56721. About EarthWater EarthWater is a health and wellness company and manufacturer of mineral infused high-alkaline beverages and liquid concentrate with proprietary blends of natural organic trace minerals mined from deep within the earth's surface. These minerals are composed of 'Fulvic and Humic' and have rehydrating and detoxifying qualities that can inhibit free radicals and improve absorption of key nutrients. EarthWater products are sold through online Membership Sites and through the Amazon Exclusives Program. To engage with EarthWater online, you are encouraged to "like," "follow," and "share" our social media pages. Please direct inquiries to info@earthwater.com or visit www.EarthWater.com. About KEXB 620AM KEXB is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Irving, Texas and serving the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. The station airs a financial news/talk radio format and is owned by the Salem Media Group. For More Info: www.620amkexb.com. Media Contact For More Information on EarthWater or to book Founder/CEO CJ Comu for press interviews or speaking engagements, please contact Kim Francis - Director Strategic Marketing via email at kf@earthwater.com or you may call or text her directly at 469.713.7616. SOURCE: EarthWater Limited View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532676/EarthWater-To-Guest-Host-620AM-The-Experts-in-Business-Radio-for-Two-Days-with-VIP-Guests Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. Furniture Rental and Retail Company Helps Situationally Homeless Turn Their Houses Into Homes CHANTILLY, VA / ACCESSWIRE / January 15, 2019 / Through its partnership with Shelters to Shutters, CORT, the nation's leading provider of transition services, provided furniture and housewares kits for the living room, bedroom and dining room to dozens of program participants in 2018. Shelters to Shutters, a nonprofit that connects property management companies with individuals that are situationally homeless, currently partners with companies like Equity Residential, Waterton and Avalon Bay Communities to employ and house program participants. "We are proud to play an integral role in giving a hand up to individuals through the Shelters to Shutters program," said Pete Regules, director of multifamily products and services at CORT. "CORT is uniquely positioned to help make their new place a home with the Essential Housewares Kit and our vast inventory of home furnishings products." According to a recent study by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, more than half a million people in the United States were homeless on a single night in 2017. "The reality is that 3 million Americans will experience homelessness over the course of a year, and of these, 83 percent are situationally homeless," said Andy Helmer, CEO, Shelters to Shutters. "Through partnerships like those we have with CORT, we are able to extend our services for program participants and ensure they have everything they need to successfully transition back to economic self-sufficiency." In its third full year, Shelters to Shutters has helped more than 100 individuals transition out of homelessness. To partner with Shelters to Shutters or for more information, please visit shelterstoshutters.org/get-involved for more information. About Shelters to Shutters Shelters to Shutters is a nonprofit organization that provides housing and employment opportunities to individuals experiencing homeless by educating and engaging real estate/property management leaders and encouraging action within their communities. Shelters to Shutters brings together apartment industry and real estate professionals across the country who are committed to offering opportunity and economic independence to individuals facing homelessness. Our program is successful in not only assisting individuals and families who have faced homelessness but also helps the industry meet a growing business need - identifying and retaining good employees. About CORT CORT, a part of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, is the nation's leading provider of transition services, including furniture rental for home and office, event furnishings, destination services, apartment locating, touring and other services. With more than 100 offices, showrooms and clearance centers across the United States, operations in the United Kingdom and partners in more than 80 countries around the world, no other furniture rental company can match CORT's breadth of services and companywide commitment to making a house a home, an office a great place to work and an event a memorable celebration. For more information, please visit www.cort.com. SOURCE: CORT View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532742/CORT-Provides-Furniture-Housewares-for-Shelters-to-Shutters-Program-Participants-in-2018 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) - Nighthawk Gold Corp (TSX: NHK) would like to cordially invite you to visit us at Booth #424 at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference (VRIC) to be held at the Vancouver Convention Centre West (1055 Canada Place, Vancouver) on Sunday January 20 - Monday January 21, 2019. The Vancouver Resource Investment Conference has been the bellwether of the junior mining market for the last twenty-five years. It is the number one source of information for investment trends and ideas, covering all aspects of the natural resource industry. Each year, the VRIC hosts over 60 keynote speakers, 350 exhibiting companies and 9000 investors. Investment thought leaders and wealth influencers provide our audiences with valuable insights. C-suite company executives covering every corner of the mineral exploration sector as well as metals, oil & gas, renewable energy, media and financial services companies are available to speak one on one. This is a must-attend for investors and stakeholders in the global mining industry. For more information and/or to register for the conference please visit: https://cambridgehouse.com/vancouver-resource-investment-conference We look forward to seeing you there. For further information: Nighthawk Gold Corp Suzette N Ramcharan Nighthawk Gold Corp info@nighthawkgold.com www.nighthawkgold.com B.S.D CROWN Ltd (LSE:BSD) (the "Company") Ramat Gan, Israel, 15 January 2019 Company Update Further to Company's announcements dated 15 January 2018 relating to the submission of an indictment against the former ultimate controlling shareholders of the Company, Mr. Alexander Granovsky and Mr. Gregory Gurtovoy and against the former Chief Executive Officer of the Company, Mr. Israel Jossef Schneorson. The Company was informed that on 7 January 2019 Mr. Gregory Gurtovoy and Mr. Israel Jossef Schneorson (together herein, the "Accused") were convicted in a plea bargain (the "Plea Bargain") reached under an amended indictment. Under the Plea Bargain, the Accused were convicted of various offenses under the Israeli Securities Law and the Israeli Penal Law. It has also come to the Company's attention (through public press releases) that the Plea Bargain includes 36 months imprisonment to Mr. Israel Jossef Schneorson and 31 months imprisonment to Mr. Gregory Gurtovoy as well as a NIS 1.2 million fine. The district court is not bound by the punishments established as part of the Plea Bargain. The Company wishes to clarify that since May 2017 the Accused are no longer hold any positions in the Company and / or any of its subsidiaries. Enquiries: Joseph Williger, Active Chairman Yossi@ydekel.co.il A natural handyman, he was always fixing things for people, according to relatives. He repaired an old bike and a skateboard for McBride when she said she wanted to learn how to ride. He fixed up her closet so she could put her clothes in it. Family of technology companies united under new corporate name, CM Group CM Group a family of marketing technology companies including Campaign Monitor, Delivra and Emma announced today the acquisitions of Sailthru and Liveclicker, adding nearly $60 million in revenue and 540 new customers, including Bloomberg, Samsung and Fashion Nova. Sailthru, a cross-channel experience management platform, and Liveclicker, a provider of real-time email personalization solutions for marketers, bring easy to use, effective and scalable enterprise solutions to CM Group. "The CM Group vision is to be the most respected, fastest growing family of marketing technology companies in the world," said Wellford Dillard, CEO of CM Group. "Sailthru and Liveclicker are extraordinary technologies capable of solving important marketing problems, and we will be making additional investments in the businesses to further accelerate their growth. Every company in the CM Group has best-in-class customer retention rates, which is a testament to CM Group's excellent customer experience and our ability to be a strategic partner. Bringing these brands together makes it possible for us to provide marketers with the ideal solution for their needs as they navigate the complex and rapidly changing environments in which they operate." Liveclicker's ability to deliver live and geographically relevant content allows its customers, including AT&T, Quicken Loans and TJX Companies to connect with consumers without the complexity of legacy solutions or the risk of sharing out-of-date, irrelevant content to subscribers. Sailthru's customers include TechStyle Fashion Group, Business Insider and other Fortune 500 retailers and publishing enterprises. These organizations use Sailthru to connect and personalize the customer and audience experience across email, web and mobile channels using a combination of artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and other data science driven capabilities. Both Liveclicker and Sailthru's products and product roadmaps will remain in place after the acquisition. "Sailthru's rapid growth is a testament to the fact that enterprise organizations are ready to move past the legacy marketing clouds," said Cassie Young, chief commercial officer at Sailthru. "Now, as part of the CM Group, our organization will have the resources needed to ensure all enterprise marketers are aware of what is possible with a modern multichannel marketing hub." "We are thrilled to accelerate our growth and product development efforts by joining a world-class organization like CM Group while maintaining our autonomy as a dynamic, independent brand," said Xavier Casanova, co-founder and CEO of Liveclicker. "This is great news for Liveclicker and our clients some of the largest and most sophisticated marketers in the world as we continue to serve them and our partners. We strongly believe that real-time personalization made simple and scalable will drive the future of email marketing." With the acquisitions of Sailthru and Liveclicker, CM Group now has more than 500 employees and over 300,000 customers globally. CM Group's acquisition of Liveclicker closed in July 2018, and the acquisition of Sailthru was finalized in December 2018. Union Square Advisors LLC served as exclusive financial advisor to Sailthru and Atlas served as the financial advisor to Liveclicker. About CM Group CM Group is a family of global marketing technology brands including Campaign Monitor, Delivra, Emma, Liveclicker and Sailthru. By joining together these leading brands, CM Group offers a variety of world-class solutions that can be used by marketers at any level. Headquartered in Nashville, TN, CM Group has United States offices in Indianapolis, Los Angeles, New York City, Pittsburgh and San Francisco, and global offices in Australia, London, New Zealand and Uruguay. About Liveclicker Founded in 2008, Liveclicker, a CM Group brand, is a global provider of real-time email personalization solutions for B2C marketers. Since the release of its VideoEmail platform in 2009, marketers have used Liveclicker to captivate consumers and drive program performance. Today, top brands such as Bloomberg, AT&T, MasterCard, Lowe's, Hertz and Samsung rely on the company's market-leading RealTime Email solution to deliver engaging, personalized messages simply and at scale. For more information, visit www.liveclicker.com or email sales@liveclicker.com. About Sailthru Sailthru, a CM Group brand, helps modern marketers drive higher revenue, improve customer lifetime value and reduce churn by using its powerful suite of connected capabilities. Sailthru's high-performance email, website personalization, mobile marketing automation, and unique integrations power new customer acquisition by leveraging machine learning and first-party data to easily deliver relevant, personalized engagement across all channels. The world's most innovative publishers, including Business Insider, Refinery29 and Food52, and the world's fastest growing ecommerce companies, including Rent the Runway, JustFab and Alex and Ani, trust Sailthru to help them succeed. For more information, please visit www.sailthru.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005195/en/ Contacts: Megan Rufty, Allison+Partners 202-591-1138 CampaignMonitor@allisonpr.com Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) -Appia Energy Corp. (CSE: API) (OTCQB: APAAF) (FSE: A0I.F) (FSE: A0I.MU) (FSE: A0I.BE) (the "Company" or "Appia) is pleased to announce it will be closing the final tranche of a non-brokered private placement of up to 4,000,000 working capital units ("WC Units") with the sale of 1,884,121 WC Units for gross proceeds of $452,189 on January 16, 2019. Appia placed a total of 3,309,121 WC Units for aggregate gross proceeds of $794,189. The Company raised an aggregate of $1,396,301.50 pursuant to the offering originally announced on December 31, 2018 (the "Offering"). Proceeds from the Offering are expected to be used for drilling and exploration on the Company's Loranger Property in the second half of February 2019 when the ice road provides access, and at Alces Lake in June, along with the other properties in Saskatchewan. Each WC Unit is priced at $0.24 and consists of one (1) common share and one (1) common share purchase warrant (a "WC Warrant"). Each WC Warrant entitles the holder to purchase one (1) common share (a "WC Warrant Share") at a price of $0.35 per WC Warrant Share until twenty-four (24) months from the closing of the Offering. All securities to be issued under the final closing of the Offering are subject to a statutory four month hold period expiring on May 17, 2019. An insider of the Company subscribed for 25,000 WC Units of this Offering. The insider private placement is exempt from the valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 ("MI 61-101") by virtue of the exemptions contained in section 5.5(a) and 5.7(1) (a) of MI 61-101 in that the fair market value of the consideration for the securities of the Company issued to the insider did not exceed 25% of its market capitalization. About Appia Appia is a Canadian publicly-traded company in the uranium and rare earth element sectors. The Company is currently focusing on delineating high-grade critical rare earth elements ("REE") and uranium on the Alces Lake property, as well as prospecting for high-grade uranium in the prolific Athabasca Basin on its Loranger, North Wollaston, and Eastside properties. The Company holds the surface rights to exploration for 63,980 hectares (158,098 acres) in Saskatchewan. The Company also has a 100% interest in 12,545 hectares (31,000 acres), including Rare Earth and Uranium Deposits over five mineralized zones in the Elliot Lake Camp, Ontario, which historically produced over 300 million pounds of U 3 O 8 and is the only Canadian camp that has had significant Rare Earth Element (yttrium) production. Appia's technical team is directed by James Sykes, who has had direct and indirect involvement with over 450 million lbs. U 3 O 8 being discovered in five deposits in the Athabasca Basin. After closing Appia will have 63.9 million common shares outstanding, 86.4 million shares fully diluted. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This News Release contains forward-looking statements which are typically preceded by, followed by or including the words "believes", "expects", "anticipates", "estimates", "intends", "plans" or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance as they involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. We do not intend and do not assume any obligation to update these forward- looking statements and shareholders are cautioned not to put undue reliance on such statements. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. For further information, please contact: Tom Drivas, President, CEO and Director: (tel) 416-546-2707, (fax) 416-218-9772 or (email) appia@appiaenergy.ca James Sykes, VP Exploration & Development, (tel) 306-221-8717, (fax) 416-218-9772 or (email) jsykes@uraniumgeologist.com Frank van de Water, Chief Financial Officer and Director, (tel) 416-546-2707, (fax) 416-218-9772 or (email) fvandewater@rogers.com Las Vegas, Nevada--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) - International Spirits and Beverage Group Inc. (OTCQB: ISBG) ("ISBG" or the "Company"), a top-tier brand incubator in the Global Wine & Spirits and CBD-Infused Products markets, is excited to announce that its new e-commerce platform will commence live sales of the Company's initial CBD product offering on January 25, 2019. The move effectively represents the launch of the Company's Health and Wellness segment. As noted in prior releases, the Company has partnered with BioPulse Labs ("BioPulse") for innovative custom formulation and production, along with a strong and proven go-to-market strategy in the Nano-infused CBD products marketplace. Management notes that an important element involved in this partnership is access to the BioPulse CBD products database, which is one of the industry's largest and most comprehensive. ISBG CEO Terry Williams commented, "We are moving at breakneck speed now that we have the team at BioPulse engaged. ISBG is committed to becoming a leadership player in the nutraceutical market space, with a strong focus on hydration, nutrition, and overall health and well-being." The initial product offered on the platform will be the Company's "P19 - Calm" CBD Gummies, which will feature 20mg of pure CBD, infused with organic lavender, chamomile extract and pure pomegranate juice. The Company plans to roll out additional products on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, including its "Charge" and "Align" formulations, with both P19 and P20-Extra versions, along with shots, tinctures, and oils for every product type and formulation. About ISBG: International Spirits and Beverage Group (ISBG) is an authorized importer, licensor, and marketer of premium beverage brands, with sales of innovative products and brands worldwide. Based in Nevada, the Company's expertise lies in the strategic development and aggressive early growth of its brands and the establishment of these brands as viable and profitable as an incubator. ISBG intends to nurture emerging brands through critical stages of market development, including conceptualization, go-to-market strategy, supply chain and logistics engineering, integrated marketing, and distribution. In addition, ISBG has now established itself as a health and wellness company with a focus on reshaping the CBD products market through state-of-the-art nanotechnology processes, developing a wide range of nano-infused CBD gummies and beverages formulations. These products will be sold through the Company's website, as well as through established wholesale and retail distribution channels. The company has also partnered with Bengala Technologies to develop and commercialize enterprise and B2B software technology products targeting the logistics and supply-chain marketplace. Forward Looking Statements: This press release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology including "could", "may", "will", "should", "expect", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "predict", "potential" and the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. While these forward-looking statements, and any assumptions upon which they are based, are made in good faith and reflect our current judgment regarding the direction of our business, actual results will almost always vary, sometimes materially, from any estimates, predictions, projections, assumptions or other future performance suggested in this report. Except as required by applicable law, we do not intend to update any of the forward-looking statements so as to conform these statements to actual results. Investors should refer to the risks disclosed in the Company's reports filed from time to time with OTC Markets (www.otcmarkets.com). Contact: For Additional Investor Information: International Spirit & Beverage Group, Inc. info@isbg.global Sudbury, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) - Transition Metals Corp (TSXV: XTM) ("Transition", "the Company") is pleased to announce assay results from a Rotary Air Blast (RAB) drilling program completed in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Of note, hole TMRB-18-01 intersected 9.14 metres grading 23.22 grams per tonne (g/t) gold including 3.05 metres grading 49.54 g/t (1.6 ounces per tonne gold) at the Main Zone before ending in mineralization at a depth of 21.34 metres. The hole was completed as part of an initial test program to assess the effectiveness of RAB drilling to recover samples of near surface oxidized and weathered bedrock and to test for a southward extension to a historically identified zone of sub-cropping mineralization called the Main Zone. In total, 7 holes for 200 metres were completed on the property before the onset of winter conditions in the Highlands forced the Company to demobilize until weather conditions improve this spring. Transition holds an option to acquire a 100% interest in the property. The Company will host a webinar on Wednesday January 16th at 10am EST to discuss the results. Please register for the webinar by following this link https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3270269034555700482 Company CEO Scott McLean describes: "Bedrock in the Highlands displays a high degree of chemical weathering and oxidation comparable to that developed in a subtropical environment, and to that preserved in the Klondike region of the Yukon. We recognized that this high degree of weathering near surface required a different tool kit in order to explore more effectively. Since acquiring the property last fall, our work has highlighted numerous exploration targets associated with mineralized structures, prospective alteration and till anomalies that support the potential for a multi-kilometre scale gold system on the property. The Main Zone is one of 30 mineralized zones identified to date on the property. Given the strongly weathered nature of the bedrock setting, RAB drilling has proven to be an effective tool to inexpensively and rapidly screen numerous targets moving forward." Table 1 presents a summary of drilling results obtained from this program. Table 1. Summary of Highlight Assay Results from RAB Drilling completed in 2018 Hole ID Easting Northing Length Azimuth Dip From (m) To (m) Length (m) Au (g/t) TMRB-18-01 673457 5152980 21.34 0 -90 12.19 21.34 9.14 23.22 Including 673467 5152980 13.72 0 -90 12.19 15.24 3.05 49.54 TMRB-18-02 673447 5152980 27.43 0 -90 6.10 9.14 3.05 5.36 TMRB-18-03 673470 5152950 32 0 -90 19.81 21.34 1.52 0.36 TMRB-18-04 673479 5152959 27.43 50 -55 No Significant Values TMRB-18-05 673557 5152836 44.2 0 -90 No Significant Values TMRB-18-06 673445 5152950 33.53 0 -90 No Significant Values TMRB-18-07 27.43 28.96 1.52 3.22 *Note: length represents downhole interval. Insufficient information exists to estimate true thickness The Highland Gold Property The Highland Gold property covers an extensive cluster of high-grade gold occurrences in an area that has seen very limited exploration. The property is located approximately 60 kilometres northwest of the city of Sydney, Nova Scotia in the Cape Breton Highlands. It consists of staked mining licenses on crown land that covers approximately 5,408 hectares. The property can be easily reached by a major road (Highland Road) and a network of logging roads. Work completed by Transition has highlighted large scale structures, strong alteration and widespread bedrock mineralization that are consistent with aspects of an epithermal gold system. In particular, the high resolution airborne magnetic survey highlighted a large (4 kilometre long) region of low magnetic susceptibility developed around one of the major structures on the property associated with widespread propylitic alteration. Figure 1 depicts the project location, known zones of mineralization and recently completed holes. Rocks of similar age and formation are known to host significant gold deposits in the Carolinas, Newfoundland and the British Isles. The regional geologic framework in Cape Breton is interpreted by Transition to be similar to that hosting First Mining Gold's Hope Brook deposit in Newfoundland (844,000 ounces of gold grading 4.77 g/t gold in the Indicated Resource category and 110,000 ounces grading 4.11 g/t gold in the Inferred Resource category*) and Oceana Gold's Haile Mine in South Carolina (3.32 million ounces grading 1.77 g/t gold in the Measured and Indicated Resource category and 0.6 million ounces grading 1.4 g/t gold in the Inferred Resource category**). *Source: First Mining Gold Website - https://firstmininggold.com/projects/newfoundland/hope-brook-project/ **Source: Oceana Gold Media Release dated March 29, 2018 Previous Work at Main Zone The Main Zone was discovered by Scominex, a joint venture between INCO, Husky Oil and the Nova Scotia government in 1987 as part of a greenfield exploration program to locate the source of gold in stream sediment anomalies detected along a 40 kilometre section of the Cape Breton highlands. This work led to the discovery of more than 30 mineralized bedrock occurrences within an approximate 50 square kilometre area. Despite favourable assay results from surface trenches, Scominex was unable to effectively sample near surface mineralization using diamond drilling, as the friable nature of the oxidized mineralized zones and bedrock contributed to extremely poor core recoveries. The best drill intersection from the 8 hole 612 metre Scominex program was 1.25 g/t over 0.84 metres at the Main Zone. A second attempt to drill the Main Zone was undertaken by Lodestone Resources in 1995 who was only able to recover sufficient amounts of mineralized core to assay from 5 of the 17 holes (383 metres drilled) to submit for assay. The best interval was 4.0 metres grading 1.53 g/t gold however visible gold was panned from drill cuttings of several of the holes. These results were inconsistent with surface sampling including results from a 1,000 kilogram composite sample collected by Lodestone from 10 bedrock sites along a 70 metre exposed section of the Main Zone, reported to average 21 g/t Gold. Transition interprets that the Main Zone is associated with a major northwest trending, southwest dipping structure that can be traced using airborne magnetic and conductivity lineaments for 2.5 kilometres. A large area of strong alteration and mineralization is associated with this portion of the structure. Only cursory historical diamond drilling along a 300 metre section of this structure has been attempted. RAB Drilling and trenching at the Main Zone now outlines a mineralized zone that can been traced along strike at surface for approximately 100 metres down dip to a maximum distance of approximately 50 metres that remains open for expansion to depth and along strike. Main Zone is one of 30 mineralized zones identified on the property. Source: Novascan report AR-ME-1987-204, Report of Exploration on the Cape Breton Highlands Project, Scominex, 1987. Source: Novascan report AR-ME-1995-008, Work Report for the McMillan Flowage Gold Project, Lodestone Ltd., 1995. Vancouver Resource Investment Conference Transition Metals cordially invites you to visit with Company representatives at Booth #836 at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference (VRIC) to be held at the Vancouver Convention Centre West (1055 Canada Place, Vancouver) on Sunday, January 20th - Monday, January 21st, 2019. QAQC and Sample Preparation RAB drilling produces a mixture of crushed rock powder and chips flushed using compressed air and collected at the casing. Each five foot run produces approximately 20 kg of sample material which is homogenized and split on site such that approximately 20% of the sample is submitted for assay. All core samples were half sawn at a controlled location by Company representatives and transported in zip tied sacs by the company to the lab. Transition Metals employs in-house QA/QC procedures that conform to industry best practices including the insertion of field and lab blanks and duplicates. All analytical work performed on samples was conducted by SGS Laboratories in Lakefield, Ontario. Samples were dried, weighed then crushed to 75% passing less than 2 mm, with a 1,000 g split pulverized to 85% passing 75m screen. A 50 g aliquot was analyzed by fire assay methods with samples returning greater than 10 g/t gold being re-analyzed by fire assay with a gravimetric finish. The quality system used by SGS complies with the requirements of ISO 17025:2005. Qualified Person The technical elements of this press release have been approved by Mr. Greg Collins, P.Geo. (APGO, APGNS), a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101. Historical assay results cited above have not been verified by the Qualified Person. Transition Metals Corp Transition Metals Corp (XTM -TSX.V) is a Canadian-based, multi-commodity project generator that specializes in converting new exploration ideas into discoveries. The award-winning team of geoscientists has extensive exploration experience which actively develops and tests new ideas for discovering mineralization in places that others have not looked, often allowing the company to acquire properties inexpensively. Joint venture partners earn an interest in the projects by funding a portion of higher-risk drilling and exploration, allowing Transition to conserve capital and minimize shareholder's equity dilution. Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Information Except for statements of historical fact contained herein, the information in this news release constitutes "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities law. Such forward-looking information may be identified by words such as "plans", "proposes", "estimates", "intends", "expects", "believes", "may", "will" and include without limitation, statements regarding estimated capital and operating costs, expected production timeline, benefits of updated development plans, foreign exchange assumptions and regulatory approvals. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate; actual results and future events could differ materially from such statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, among others, metal prices, competition, risks inherent in the mining industry, and regulatory risks. Most of these factors are outside the control of the Company. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as otherwise required by applicable securities statutes or regulation, the Company expressly disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Further information is available at www.transitionmetalscorp.com or by contacting: Scott McLean President and CEO Transition Metals Corp. Tel: (705) 669-1777 Figure 1. Highland Project Location and Highlights To view an enhanced version of this Figure 1, please visit: https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/2766/42188_cf1dec7cc48e4a24_003full.jpg Visible gold now recovered from multiple zones New sample highlights include 17.6 g/t Au , and 11.1 g/t Au Five of 25 samples taken to date returned values in excess of 11 g/t Au Strike length of new zone extends 400 meters VANCOUVER, CA / ACCESSWIRE / January 15, 2019 / Nexus Gold Corp. ('Nexus' or the 'Company') (TSX-V: NXS, OTCQB: NXXGF, FSE: N6E) is pleased to report additional sample results from the recently acquired, 100% -owned, 98-sq km Dakouli 2 Gold Project, located on the Goren Greenstone Belt, central Burkina Faso, West Africa. A total of 13 samples were taken in the second round of prospecting on the Dakouli 2 property, with five returning values between 1.74 grams-per-tonne ('g/t') gold ('Au'), and 17.6 g/t Au, and eight returning values from 0.052 to 0.864 g/t Au. Samples were collected from orpaillage dumps and from depths of 15 to 40 meters below surface within active artisanal pits and shafts. Of the first 25 samples now collected on the property, 11 have returned values greater than 1 g/t Au. Five samples so far have exhibited various concentrations of coarse, nuggety, visible gold, returning assay values greater than 11 g/t Au. All 25 samples taken to date at Dakouli 2 have tested positive, with several returning significant gold values (see Table 1). Ground reconnaissance recently completed by the Company has identified two new mineralized zones and a secondary vein structure just south of the primary Northeast Zone described in the Company's January 8, 2019, news release. The secondary vein structure identified is located 70 meters south of the primary Northeast Zone. The new workings are parallel to the primary orpaillage being worked and three samples taken 17 to 40 meters below depth returned gold values of 1.74 g/t Au, 3.68 Au and 17.6 g/t Au, respectively. The 17.6 g/t sample exhibited coarse visible gold. The workings of the Northeast Zone on the Dakouli 2 property now cover an area measuring 400 meters along strike enclosing two parallel gold bearing structures 150 meters wide. An additional new zone, located on the western boundary of the Dakouli 2 permit, has returned two samples from workings located there of 2.72 g/t Au and 11.1 g/t Au. This second orpaillage, termed the Boken Vein Zone, consists of gold in quartz veins located proximal to a granitic plug. The samples were taken from workings at 25-meter depths. 'The secondary structure identified in the north east and the Boken Vein showings are revealing just how robust the Sabce fault zone is,' said Vice President of Exploration, Warren Robb, P.Geo. 'The amount of coarse visible gold we have seen thus far makes this a very exciting exploration program,' continued Mr. Robb. 'These are positive early indicators at Dakouli,' said Alex Klenman, president & CEO. 'We have already confirmed multiple mineralized zones on the property and are currently mapping out these zones to determine their relationship to known structural faults and trends. It is a prolific area in terms of gold mineralization and we are encouraged by both the abundance of visible gold at Dakouli and the sample grades so far. We have lots of similar ground to cover, I'm looking forward to a deeper and more extensive exploration program, including a maiden drill program, in the coming months,' continued Mr. Klenman. Dakouli Samples to date Sample-ID Easting Northing Comment Au g/t DKL-001 636687 1445630 Qtz from orpaillage pit, about 8m depth, light grey to smoky qtz, looks like flat vein 3.15 DKL-004 636763 1445627 Milky qtz vein from orpaillage pit, about 8m depth, several pieces of VG show from panning 27.5 DKL-009 636828 1445661 Milky qtz vein from orpaillage pit, 18m depth 2.90 DKL-010 636767 1445652 Light grey qtz vein from orpaillage pit 4.93 DKL-011 636738 1445670 Qtz from orpaillage pit, VG show in panning and on a piece of quartz coming from the same shaft, about 10m depth 29.5 DKL-012 636677 1445642 Qtz from orpaillage pit, about 8m depth, VG show in panning 12.4 DKL-021 625232 1441439 Qtz from orpaillage pit, 15m depth, white to light grey 2.72 DKL-022 625269 1441469 Qtz from orpaillage pit, 25m depth 11.1 DKL-023 636901 1445515 Qtz + VG from orpaillage pit, 40m depth 17.6 DKL-024 636903 1445514 Qtz from orpaillage pit, 40m depth 1.74 DKL-025 636967 1445530 Qtz from orpaillage pit, 17m depth 3.68 Figure 1: Rock sample with visible gold in quartz, recovered at the Dakouli 2 concession Prospecting along the southern boundary of the property has now identified a third area of active artisanal workings. Shafts and workings in this area have targeted a black quartz vein which has returned anomalous gold values ranging from 0.312 to 0.864 g/t Au. This southern series of showings is termed the Black Vein Zone and is located along the southern Sabce Sud lineament. This lineament is defined by the Gougre satellite open pit currently being exploited by Nordgold, a major orpaillage occurring on the adjacent eastern permit, and the orpaillage at the Black Vein Zone. Figure 2: Close up of visible gold in quartz sample recovered at the Dakouli 2 concession The Dakouli 2 exploration permit is located approximately 100 kilometers due north of the capital city Ouagadougou. The 98-square kilometer permit lies immediately south of the Company's Niangouela property (see figures 3 and 4) which has been explored over the past two years. Drilling at Niangouela has returned significant intercepts, including 26.69 g/t Au over 4.85m (including 1m of 132 g/t Au), and 4 g/t Au over 6m (including 20.5 g/t Au over 1m). The Dakouli 2 property is located on the Goren Greenstone belt and is bordered to the north by granitic rocks. It is also bisected by the Sabce Shear, a major structural fault zone proximal to multiple gold deposits, which trends southwest northeast and bisects the entire long axis of the property. Figure 3: Nexus project locations with known structural faults in red The Sabce Nord (see Figure 4) trend starts at Nordgold's Bissa mine continues through the Northeast Zone on the Dakouli 2 permit, and the southeastern corner of the Niangouela permit. It proceeds to Boken Vein Zone on the western boundary of Dakouli 2 and is approximately 12 kilometers in length. The Sabce Sud (see Figure 4) hosts Nordgold's Gougre satellite pit, east of Dakouli 2, and runs approximately four kilometers across the property's southern section, bisecting the Black Vein Zone. The Black Vein Zone, an active orpaillage featuring a series of deep shafts that trend sub parallel to the Sabce Sud, features hard, black siliceous rock, similar to what is being mind at the Gourgre satellite pit. Figure 4: Dakouli 2 mineralized zones and bisecting Sabce faults/lineaments in red About the Company Nexus Gold is a Vancouver-based gold exploration and development company operating primarily in Burkina Faso, West Africa. The company is currently concentrating its efforts on establishing a compliant resource at one or more of it's four current Burkina-based projects which total over 560-sq kms (56,000+ hectares) of land located on proven gold belts and active mineralized trends. Warren Robb P.Geo., Vice-President, Exploration, is the designated Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and is responsible for the technical information contained in this release. On behalf of the Board of Directors of NEXUS GOLD CORP. Alex Klenman President & CEO 604-558-1920 info@nexusgoldcorp.com www.nexusgoldcorp.com Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially because of factors discussed in the management discussion and analysis section of our interim and most recent annual financial statement or other reports and filings with the TSX Venture Exchange and applicable Canadian securities regulations. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable laws. SOURCE: Nexus Gold Corp. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532702/Nexus-Gold-Recovers-Additional-High-Grade-Samples-at-Dakouli-2-Project-Burkina-Faso-West-Africa BriefCam's Video Content Analytics Platform Rapidly Identifies Suspect from Hundreds of Hours of Video Footage in Terror Simulation BriefCam, the industry's leading provider of Video Synopsis and Deep Learning solutions, today announced that it has won the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) Hackathon. The event, sponsored by the UK government, was designed to simulate real-world incident response and was held on November 26-27, 2018 in London. BriefCam earned the hackathon victory by using its next generation platform to successfully identify a real-world subject of interest in a terror simulation. BriefCam searched hundreds of hours of video from dozens of cameras and files, looking for a subject, based on limited known details. BriefCam was able to leverage low resolution, low frame-rate video files as well as simulated, high resolution, live streams to verify several images of the suspect. The subject of interest was accurately identified in less than two hours. The breadth of multimedia formats that are represented in real world investigations, particularly proprietary CCTV, provided a significant learning curve for everyone involved around the need for near real-time ingestion. "Our mission is to help law enforcement agencies solve crimes faster and support municipalities in creating safer cities, so we are honored to have won this hackathon, and demonstrate how we help accelerate the time-to-target for investigations," said Trevor Matz, CEO of BriefCam. "By leveraging the advanced deep learning and artificial intelligence capabilities of our comprehensive video analytics platform, law enforcement agencies globally are protecting what matters most." All hackathon participants were asked to process large amounts of real-time, multimedia data, and rapidly identify key information such as people, places, and events that could assist an investigations team. The hackathon evaluated how subjects of interest relate to each other, the event timeline and narrative, and near-term predictions. Application of cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, including machine vision, was also considered. BriefCam's next generation video content analytics platform includes highly accurate face recognition seamlessly integrated with granular object classification, multi-camera search, quantitative analytics, and real-time alerting capabilities. Leveraging state-of-the-art Deep Neural Networks trained in diverse data sets for industry leading accuracy in face matching and object classification, BriefCam v5.3's capabilities help streamline post-event investigations, support rapid response to situational changes, and derive richer operational intelligence for data-driven decision making. With BriefCam's extensible Video Content Analytics platform, organizations can further benefit from actionable intelligence for their situational awareness and operational agility initiatives. Learn more about BriefCam for accelerating investigations here. About BriefCam BriefCam is the industry's leading provider of Video Synopsis and Deep Learning solutions for rapid video review and search, face recognition, real-time alerting and quantitative video insights. By transforming raw video into actionable intelligence, BriefCam dramatically shortens the time-to-target for security threats while increasing safety and optimizing operations. BriefCam's award-winning products are deployed by law enforcement and public safety organizations, government and transportation agencies, major enterprises, healthcare and educational institutions, and local communities worldwide. For more information about transforming video surveillance into actionable intelligence, visit https://www.briefcam.com/. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005102/en/ Contacts: BriefCam Stephanie Weagle CMO 978-758-7054 Stephanie.weagle@briefcam.com Moxie Mettle Justine Schneider 201-921-9428 justine@moxiemettle.com Medical Device Industry Expert to Spearhead European Sales of the Carillon Mitral Contour System Cardiac Dimensions, a leader in the development of innovative, minimally invasive treatment modalities to address heart failure and related cardiovascular conditions, today announced the appointment of Carmelo Mastrandrea as the company's Vice President of Sales. Mastrandrea is an accomplished medical device veteran, having held diverse leadership positions in sales and management over the past 20 years. Prior to joining Cardiac Dimensions, Mastrandrea most recently served as Vice President of Sales for REVA Medical, a leader in bioresorbable polymer technologies for vascular applications. Previously, Mastrandrea held global sales management positions at Biosensors International, Biotronik, Guidant, and Avintos. "Cardiac Dimensions is strongly positioned to be a leader in the mitral valve repair sector, with exceptional clinical data supporting the use of our minimally invasive heart failure treatment, our newly approved German DRG reimbursement in place, and growth expected in other European regions," said Gregory D. Casciaro, Cardiac Dimension's President and CEO. "We are thrilled to welcome Carmelo to the Cardiac Dimensions team at this important time for our company. His wealth of global sales leadership experience will be tremendously valuable to our team and the customers they serve." In October 2018, Cardiac Dimensions announced that InEK, the German Institute for the Hospital Remuneration System, has granted a permanent DRG (Diagnosis Related Group) code covering reimbursement for the company's Carillon Mitral Contour System to treat patients with Functional Mitral Regurgitation (FMR) in Germany. The new reimbursement became effective January 1, 2019. I am excited to join Cardiac Dimensions' exceptional team to execute on the company's vision of reshaping the course of heart failure," said Mastrandrea. "Cardiac Dimensions has an opportunity to make an enormous impact by offering physicians a safe, effective, and easy-to-use option to treat patients earlier in their disease diagnosis, when treatment can have the biggest impact on disease progression and quality of life." The Carillon Mitral Contour System addresses the underlying mechanical problem of FMR with a catheter-based alternative to medications and invasive surgery. FMR occurs when the left ventricle of the heart is enlarged, dilating the valve opening (annulus) and causing a backward flow of blood into the atrium. Left untreated, FMR contributes to heart failure a chronic, progressive condition that weakens the heart and makes everyday activities difficult. About the Carillon Mitral Contour System The Carillon Mitral Contour System is an innovative minimally invasive treatment for people diagnosed with FMR. The Carillon System is designed to offer physicians a safe and easy-to-use option to treat patients earlier in their disease diagnosis, including those with lesser degrees of FMR (2+ MR grade), to slow disease progression and prevent worsening quality of life. The Carillon System treats the dilated mitral annulus, the underlying mechanical problem of FMR, with a catheter-based alternative to medications and invasive surgery. The Carillon System is a minimally invasive approach that offers patients annular reduction, while keeping adjunctive therapy options open. To date, over 900 patients have been treated with the Carillon System throughout the world. Commercially, the Carillon System has CE Mark and is available in certain European markets as well as other key geographies including Turkey, Italy, and The Netherlands. Clinical data from three completed studies of the Carillon System (AMADEUS, TITAN, and TITAN II) were the basis for the CE Mark demonstrating safety and performance. The recently released REDUCE FMR data is expected to assist with expanding reimbursement and usage in additional geographies such as Poland, France, United Kingdom and Australia. Additionally, the CARILLON Trial, the randomized sham-controlled U.S. pivotal IDE study, continues to enroll patients at centers in the U.S. and Europe. About Cardiac Dimensions Cardiac Dimensions is a leader in the development of innovative, minimally invasive treatment modalities to address heart failure and related cardiovascular conditions. Left untreated, FMR contributes to heart failure a chronic, progressive condition that weakens the heart and makes everyday activities difficult. The Carillon System addresses the underlying mechanical problem of FMR with a catheter-based alternative to medications and invasive surgery. Cardiac Dimensions has operations in Kirkland, Washington, Sydney, Australia and Frankfurt, Germany. The Carillon Mitral Contour System is an investigational device in the U.S. For more information, please visit www.cardiacdimensions.com. Cardiac Dimensions and Carillon Mitral Contour System are registered trademarks of Cardiac Dimensions. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005039/en/ Contacts: Rick Wypych rwypych@cardiacdimensions.com (425) 605-5910 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) - Burcon NutraScience Corporation (TSX: BU) ("Burcon" or the "Corporation"), announces that effective today, Dr. Allan Yap has decided to step down from his positions as Chairman, director and Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for personal reasons. The board of directors of Burcon (the "Board") is pleased to announce that Dr. Lorne Tyrrell has been appointed as Chairman of the Board and Mr. Johann Tergesen has been appointed as the Corporation's Chief Executive Officer. "Dr. Allan Yap was instrumental in the founding of Burcon serving as Chairman, director and as chief executive officer for more than nineteen years. The Board is grateful for his guidance and leadership over the years," said Dr. Lorne Tyrrell, adding, "Allan made significant contributions to Burcon during his tenure." On January 14, 2019, Large Scale Investments Limited, a company wholly-owned by Burcon director Mr. Alan Chan, announced that it had acquired from Dr. Yap 1,566,719 common shares of Burcon. The total number of Burcon shares, which Mr. Chan is now deemed to beneficially own post-acquisition of Dr. Yap's shares is 11,433,287, which represents 26.02% of the issued and outstanding shares of Burcon. Dr. Tyrrell first joined Burcon's board of directors in December 2009 and was appointed Lead Director in February 2016 and chaired Board meetings in Dr. Yap's absence. As Lead Director, Dr. Tyrrell also acted as liaison between the Board and management of Burcon. Dr. Tyrrell is the Glaxo SmithKline Chair in Virology in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Alberta. Since 1986, he has focused his research on viral hepatitis. Supported by Canadian Institute of Health Research and Glaxo Canada, Dr. Tyrrell's work on the development of antiviral therapy resulted in the licensing of the first oral antiviral agent to treat chronic hepatitis B infection - lamivudine - in 1998. Dr. Tyrrell holds more than 50 international patents for his studies on viral hepatitis. Dr. Tyrrell was Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry from 1994 - 2004 at the University of Alberta and is currently the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Gairdner Foundation. The Canada Gairdner International Awards recognizes excellence in medical science research globally. Dr. Tyrrell has received numerous prestigious awards including the Gold Medal of the Canadian Liver Foundation (2000), the FNG Starr Award of the Canadian Medical Association (2004), the Principal Award of the Manning Awards Foundation (2005) and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012). Dr. Tyrrell was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada in 2002. In April 2010, Dr. Tyrrell was appointed as the inaugural director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology at the University of Alberta. On April 28, 2011, Dr. Tyrrell was inducted to the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. In 2015, he was awarded the Canada Council for the Arts Killam Prize in Health Sciences. Mr. Tergesen has served as Burcon's president and chief operating officer since September 2000, having held additional senior management roles with the Company since its inception as a capital pool company in 1998. He also served as a member of Burcon's board of directors for nearly fourteen years from November 1998 to September 2012. A plant protein industry veteran, Mr. Tergesen has helped guide Burcon's technology and intellectual property growth in alternative plant-based proteins. About Burcon NutraScience Corporation Burcon is a leader in developing functionally and nutritionally valuable plant-based proteins. The company has developed a portfolio of composition, application, and process patents originating from a core protein extraction and purification technology. Burcon's CLARISOY soy protein - under license to the Archer Daniels Midland Company - offers clarity and high-quality protein nutrition for low pH beverage systems and excellent solubility and exceptionally clean flavor at any pH; Peazazz is a uniquely soluble and clean-tasting pea protein; and Puratein, Supertein and Nutratein are canola protein isolates with unique functional and nutritional attributes. For more information about the company, visit www.burcon.ca. The TSX has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy of the content of the information contained herein. This press release contains forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements or forward-looking information involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results, performances, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward- looking statements or forward-looking information can be identified by words such as "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "goal," "project," "estimate," "expect," "believe", "future," "likely," "may," "should," "could", "will" and similar references to future periods. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this release are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding expectations, intentions and plans contained in this press release. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements or information. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Burcon's plans and expectations include the actual results of business negotiations, marketing activities, adverse general economic, market or business conditions, regulatory changes and other risks and factors detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by Burcon with securities regulators and stock exchanges, including in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Burcon's annual information form dated June 18, 2018 filed with the Canadian securities administrators on www.sedar.com. Any forward-looking statement or information only speaks as of the date on which it was made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Burcon disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Although Burcon believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and accordingly, investors should not rely on such statements. CLARISOY is a trademark of Archer Daniels Midland Company. Media & Industry Contact: Paul Lam Manager, Business Development Burcon NutraScience Corporation Tel (604) 733-0896, Toll-free (888) 408-7960 plam@burcon.ca www.burcon.ca Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) - Aftermath Silver Ltd. (TSXV: AAG.H) ("Aftermath" or the "Company") is pleased to announce it has reached agreements in principle to amend the terms of two existing agreements relating to the Company's acquisitions of two significant silver-gold projects in Chile. Challacollo Silver-Gold Project As announced by news release dated August 1, 2018, the Company has entered into a non-binding Letter of Intent (the "Challacollo LOI") with Mandalay Resources Inc. ("Mandalay") to purchase the Challacollo silver-gold project ("Challacollo") by the purchase of 100% of Mandalay's shares in the Chilean holding company Minera Mandalay Challacollo Limitada ("MMC"), which currently owns 100% of the Project. Challacollo is the only asset held by MMC. Under the terms of the Challacollo LOI, as amended, the Company may acquire MMC for an aggregate of: CA$1,000,000 cash to be paid on or before February 28, 2019; CA$1,000,000 cash to be paid on or before September 30, 2020; CA$5,500,000 on or before February 28, 2021, to be paid, at Mandalay's option, in Aftermath shares of up to a value of CA$2,750,000, and the balance in cash; provided that in no event shall the number of Aftermath shares issued represent more than 49% of Aftermath's outstanding shares following such payment; and Mandalay to retain a 3% Net Smelter Returns royalty on production, up to a maximum of CA$3,000,000. The Company, by making an additional CA$500,000 payment, shall have the right to vary the February 28, 2021 payment by paying CA$3,000,000 on or before February 28, 2021 and an additional CA$3,000,000 payment on or before February 28, 2022. In each case, Aftermath will have the option to pay up to 50% of each payment in Aftermath shares, subject to Mandalay holding no more than 49% of Aftermath's outstanding shares following each such payment. Challacollo is a low sulphidation epithermal deposit which hosts historic Mineral Resources1 including Indicated Resources of 4.7 million tonnes at 200 g/t silver and Inferred Resources of 1.6 million tonnes at 134 g/t silver, with associated gold credits. Drilling has defined the historic mineral resources on the principal vein (Lolon Vein) to a depth of about 200 m below surface. The Company will focus its initial exploration efforts on parallel vein systems, not included in the historic mineral resource, that have some preliminary drilling. The oxidation level bottoms at approximately 200 m below surface; however, the down-dip extent of the mineralized structures remains unknown. Gold and base metal grades are generally observed to increase with depth. The Challacollo project is located in Chile's Tarapaca Region (Region I), 130 km southeast of the major port city of Iquique and 50 km south of the town of Pica. The project is approximately 30 km east of the Pan American Highway, via Teck Resources' Quebrada Blanca Copper Mine access road. The project is 139 km southeast of the major Pacific port city of Iquique. Road and Power transmission lines are located 15-30 km from the property, in part to service nearby mines of Collahuasi and Quebrada Blanca. The Project includes water rights. Cachinal Silver-Gold Project As announced by news release dated June 25, 2018, the Company has entered into a definitive agreement (the "Cachinal Agreement") with Halo Labs Inc (Formally Apogee Opportunities Inc). ("Apogee") to purchase Apogee's holding in the Cachinal De La Sierra Silver-Gold Project ("Cachinal") through the purchase of Apogee's shares in the Chilean holding company Minera Cachinal S.A., representing 80% ownership. The Cachinal Agreement provides for the Company to pay Halo $1,500,000 in cash on closing. Under the amended agreement, the Company will now pay: CA$500,000 in cash on closing, to occur no later than February 28, 2019; CA$500,000 in cash to be paid on or before 12 months following closing; and CA$500,000 in cash to be paid on or before 18 months following closing. Halo will have the right to convert any part of the purchase price that remains unpaid at any time into shares of the Company at a price of $0.20 per share. Cachinal, is a low sulphidation epithermal deposit which currently hosts current Mineral Resources2 including Indicated Resources of 5.7 million tonnes at 101 g/t silver and Inferred Resources of 0.8 million tonnes at 115 g/t silver, with associated gold credits. Shallow drilling has defined the current mineral resources principally to a depth of 150 m below surface and provides sufficient evidence to interpret the presence of high-grade shoots within the vein system extending below the potential base of an open pit. Following these high-grade shoots to depth with drilling will be the initial focus of the Company's efforts to expand the silver-gold mineralisation. The oxidation level bottoms at about 120 - 150 m below surface; however, the down-dip extent of the mineralized structures remains unknown. The Cachinal Silver-Gold Project is located in Chile's Antofagasta Region (Region II), 175 km southeast of Antofagasta. The project is located about 40 km east of the Pan American Highway, in a nearly flat plain at an elevation of around 2,700 m above sea level, 16 km north of Austral Gold's Guanaco gold-silver mine. The project includes 16 claim blocks for a total area of 4,867 hectares, in two non-contiguous areas. The Mineral Resource is located centrally within the northern of the two claim groups. Mr. Sean Hurd, President and CEO of the Company, commented "The acquisitions of the high grade Challacollo and Cachinal silver-gold projects will launch Aftermath into the upper ranks of silver dominant explorer/developers, with current and historic pro-forma total of 48.6 million tonnes Indicated Mineral Resources at 146 g/t and 9.9 million tonnes Inferred Mineral Resource at 128 g/t. The new deal structures allow us to focus on advancing resource development on both projects in the current market." The two agreements, as amended, are subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including receipt of all regulatory approvals and any applicable shareholder approvals. Qualified Person Peter Voulgaris, MAIG, MAusIMM, a consultant to the Company, is a non-independent qualified person as defined by NI 43-101. Mr. Voulgaris has reviewed the technical content of this news release, and consents to the information provided in the form and context in which it appears. About Aftermath Silver Ltd Aftermath Silver Ltd is a Canadian junior exploration company engaged in acquiring, exploring, and developing mineral properties with an emphasis on silver in Chile. The Company is focused of growth through the discovery and acquisition of quality projects in stable jurisdictions. Aftermath continues to seek new opportunities to take advantage of the relatively low silver price. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS "Sean Hurd" Sean Hurd, President & CEO 604-484-7855 Notes on Mineral Resources Challacollo Historic Mineral Resource: An independent "Qualified Person", as defined in National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101"), has not done sufficient work on behalf of Aftermath to classify the historical estimate as a current indicated or inferred mineral resource, and Aftermath is not treating the historical estimate as a current mineral resource. For full details please see the March 2015 43-101 Technical Report "NI 43-101 Technical Report for the Challacollo Silver Project, Region 1, Chile" QPs Mroczek, M., Collins, and M., Butler, S. of Mining Plus Canada Consulting Ltd. and Tapia, J.C., of Sedgeman S.A. Prepared for Mandalay Resources, available on the Mandalay Resources SEDAR profile. Challacollo mineral resources were classified according to the CIM Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves (December 2005). Mineral Resources are estimated at a cut-off grade of 60 g/t Ag. Mineral Resources are estimated using a silver price of US$24/oz, a gold price of US$1,400 per ounce, metallurgical recoveries of 92% for silver and 75% for gold, and operating costs of US$50 per tonne. A density of 2.45 g/cm3 is used as a base density with adjustments according to the variation of the estimated barium, lead and zinc grades. No capping of Ag grades has been applied due to low grade variability. Au grades have been capped at 3 g/t for two sample composites 4.57 g/t Au and 4.11 g/t Au respectively. Cachinal current Mineral Resource Estimate: for full details please see the April 2018 43-101 Technical Report "Independent Technical Report for the Cachinal Silver-Gold Project, Region II, Chile." QPs Cole, G and Couture, J. of SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc. prepared for Aftermath Silver filed on the Aftermath Silver SEDAR profile. Cachinal mineral resources were classified according to the CIM Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves (December 2005). The Silver equivalent (AgEq) grades are calculated using gold to silver ratio of 50:1, using metal price assumptions of US$12.50 per ounce of silver, US$650 per ounce of gold and metallurgical recoveries of eighty-five percent for silver and gold. Zinc does not contribute to revenues. Open Pit shell constrained Mineral Resources are reported at a cut-off of 40 g/t AgEq to a vertical depth of 150 m below surface, constrained within a Lerchs Grosman optimised pit shell. Underground constrained Mineral Resources are reported at a cut-off of 150 g/t AgEq. The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward Looking Statements Certain statements within this news release, other than statements of historical fact relating to Aftermath Silver, are to be considered forward-looking statements with respect to the Company's intentions for the Cachinal Project in Chile. Forward-looking statements include statements that are predictive in nature, are reliant on future events or conditions, or include words such as "expects", "goal", "potential", "anticipates", "plans", "believes", "considers", "significant", "intends", "targets", "estimates", "seeks", attempts", "assumes", and other similar expressions. The forward-looking statements are based on a number of assumptions which, while considered reasonable by Aftermath Silver Ltd, are, by their nature, subject to inherent risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include: the interpretation of previous and current results, the accuracy of exploration results, the accuracy of Mineral Resource Estimates, the anticipated results of future exploration, the forgoing ability to finance these acquisitions further exploration and development, delays in the completion of exploration, the future prices of silver and gold, and other metals, and general economic, market and/or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements and assumptions will prove accurate and, therefore, readers of this news release are advised to rely on their own evaluation of the information contained within. In addition to the assumptions herein, these assumptions include the assumptions described in Aftermath Silver Ltd's Management's Discussion and Analysis for the three months ended August 31, 2018, as filed with the TSX Venture Exchange and available on SEDAR under Aftermath's profile at www.sedar.com. Although Aftermath Silver Ltd. has attempted to identify important risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual performance, achievements, actions, events, results or conditions to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements, there may be other risks, uncertainties and other factors that cause future performance to differ from what is anticipated, estimated or intended. Unless otherwise indicated, forward-looking statements contained herein are as of the date hereof and Aftermath Silver Ltd. does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements after the date on which such statements were made, except as required by applicable law. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) -I-Minerals lnc. (TSXV: IMA) (OTCQB: IMAHF) (FSE: 61M) (the "Company") is pleased to provide a status update on its ongoing project optimization activities. Alternate technologies have resulted in the production of an exceptional metakaolin product similar to high priced Georgia clay belt products Pilot plan work at Mineral Research Laboratory, North Carolina State University ("MRL"), has continued to demonstrate the potential production of a world class potassium feldspar ("k-spar") product with higher K 2 0 and lower Fe 2 O 3 than virtually all currently available K-spar products. 0 and lower Fe O than virtually all currently available K-spar products. Pilot Plant work at Ginn Mineral Technologies ("GMT") has commenced designed-to-test modifications to the flow sheet including the use of a hammer mill and hydrocyclone for the initial sand - clay separation. As noted in the Company's press release of August 29, 2017, initial testing of the use of flash calcination technologies at FLSmidth in Allentown, PA was undertaken. Additional processes were applied to the flash calcined metakaolin, and ASTM C311 water demand tests and Strength Activity Index ("SAI") tests were undertaken at CTL | Thomson in Denver, CO ("CTL"). Results provided by CTL demonstrate the preferred test product met the ASTM water demand requirements and generated a SAI result well in excess of 110. These results indicate I-Minerals can produce a high performance Supplementary Cementous Material ("SCM"). At the present time there are no other high performance SCMs produced for sale into Western markets offering I-Minerals the opportunity to step in to fill the void. Pilot plant work at MRL has now re-commenced after a shut down for the Christmas holidays. To date 11 runs of approximately 2000 lbs. each have been processed through the plant. After each run samples are sent for oxide chemical analysis with process refinements made based upon the results. The last few runs have generated results approaching 14% K 2 0, 17% Al 2 O 3 , and 0.02% Fe 2 O 3 . Results to date are very encouraging as they continue to demonstrate I-Minerals ability to produce a world class K-spar product as good as or better than any currently available commercial product. Upon completion of the K-spar production the pilot plant will be cleaned and reconfigured for production of quartz products from the "sinks" of the K-spar flotation. GMT has now configured the -front end of the pilot plant. The addition of the hammer mill is intended to break up any clumps of primary clay and reduce the sand fraction particle size to minus inch prior to clay/sand separation. The other process change to the flow sheet is the use of a hydrocyclone for the initial clay (kaolin + halloysite) and sand (quartz + K-spar) separation. I-Minerals has previously tested the use of a cyclone at the equipment supplier's pilot plant facility with very encouraging results. Prior GMT processing limitations had resulted in 22% of the primary clay feed reporting to the clay circuit. Bench scale testing at FLSmidth of the hydrocyclone resulted in 30% of the primary clay feed reporting to the clay circuit indicating an increase in recovered halloysite and kaolin of approximately 30% (8/22). With the pilot plant set to process approximately 60 tons of primary clay the increased kaolin and halloysite recoveries attributable to the use of the hydrocyclone will be demonstrated on pilot production level volumes. Preliminary cost estimates indicate there would be no material capital cost increase by using a hydrocyclone instead of screw classifiers indicating all increased halloysite and kaolin recovery would directly increase the contribution of the clay minerals to total revenue and have limited impact on operating costs. "We are very encouraged by the results to date, "stated John Theobald, President and CEO of I-Minerals Inc. "There is a shortage of high performance pozzolans or supplementary cementitious materials in the western United States as transportation costs from the Georgia Kaolin Belt tend to price metakaolin out of all but the most demanding applications. As a west coast source of highly reactive metakaolin we see great opportunity in servicing and expanding the market for high performance pozzolan. The K-spar pilot plant results are confirming we can produce an exceptional K-spar product. If the bench scale tests with the hydrocyclone can be replicated at the GMT pilot plant we have the potential to materially increase the contribution of the clay minerals to the projects overall revenue. " A. Lamar Long, CPG, is a qualified person ("QP") for I-Minerals Inc. and has reviewed and approved the contents of this release About I-Minerals Inc. I-Minerals is developing multiple deposits of high purity, high value halloysite, quartz, potassium feldspar and kaolin at its strategically located Helmer-Bovill property in north central Idaho. A 2016 Feasibility Study on the Bovill Kaolin Deposit led by GBM Engineers LLC, who were responsible for overall project management and the process plant and infrastructure design, including OPEX and CAPEX calculated an After Tax NPV of US$249.8 million with a 25.8% After Tax IRR. Initial CAPEX was estimated at $108.3 million with a 3.7 year After Tax payback. Other engineering services were provided by HDR Engineering, Inc. (all environmental components; hydrology / hydrogeology; road design); Tetra Tech, Inc. (tailings storage facility design); Mine Development Associates (mine modelling; ore scheduling; mineral reserve estimation); and SRK Consulting (U.S.) Inc. (mineral resource estimation). The project has received mine and water permits from the State of Idaho. I-Minerals Inc. Per: "John Theobald" John Theobald, President & CEO This News Release includes certain "forward looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Without limitation, statements regarding potential mineralization and resources, exploration results, and future plans and objectives of the Company are forward looking statements that involve various risks. Actual results could differ materially from those projected as a result of the following factors, among others: changes in the world-wide price of mineral market conditions, risks inherent in mineral exploration, risk associated with development, construction and mining operations, the uncertainty of future profitability and uncertainty of access to additional capital. Contact: Barry Girling 877-303-6573 or 604-303-6573 Email: info@imineralsinc.com Or visit our website at www.imineralsinc.com Paul J. Searle, Investor Relations 877-303-6573 or 604-303-6573 Email: psearle@imineralsinc.com NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS NEWS RELEASE He was a perfectly new face for me, Snyder told the Times. We interviewed him along with the seven other certified police officers that applied and I had a chance to review his credentials and listen to him and I was impressed by the way he interviewed and his background and what he had done here previously. Stanton International to Launch National Anti-violence and Human Rights Movement Called #ShoutMyChild During March for Life Week Contact: Brandi Swindell, 208-867-1307 WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2019 /Christian Newswire/ -- #ShoutMyChild centers around the simple premise that women do not have to believe the lie that abortion is empowering or being pregnant will somehow diminish or reduce our lives. Women don't have to resort to the violence of abortion to reach and fulfill our dreams. Stanton International, which has affiliates across the nation and in Northern Ireland, is a life-affirming women's medical clinic providing quality health care which specializes in women with unexpected pregnancies. #ShoutMyChild is deeply troubled that the pro-choice community treats pregnant women as if they were second class citizens or that we are still living in the early 1900's where women had little control over their own future or destiny. It was a time where we were not allowed to vote, pursue careers, follow our dreams or be heard in the public square. We are thankful that it is 2019 and no longer 1919! Over the next year, #ShoutMyChild, is inviting women to share their stories through social media, videos, rallies, churches and through public witness events. The website is ShoutMyChild.com. Brandi Swindell, Founder and CEO of Stanton Healthcare, comments: "Today, women can be pregnant and finish college and pursue their educational goals without abortion. We no longer have to be 'barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen,' but can nurse our children on the floor of Congress or in the corporate boardroom." Since the Roe v. Wade decision in January of 1973, there have been millions of women who have gone forward with their unexpected pregnancies and are living vibrant, full and productive lives with their children. These modern and progressive women chose not to accept the lies of the pro-choice establishment that promotes violence and a view of women that is rooted in the past. #ShoutMyChild believes now is the time for these women to tell their stories and expose the lies and discrimination of the pro-choice movement. For more information or interviews call: Brandi Swindell at: 208.867.1307 Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) - Margaux Resources Ltd. (TSXV:MRL) (OTCQB: MARFF) ("Margaux" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into an option agreement (the "Option Agreement") with a third party (the "Vendor") to option the Old Timer gold property (the "Old Timer Property"), near Salmo in southern British Columbia. The Old Timer Property is a road-accessible property, located 10 km north of the Company's Jackpot property, at the north end of the historic Ymir gold belt. It is comprised of 16 mineral claims, totalling approximately 1790 hectares. The Old Timer Property hosts several known gold-bearing veins. The majority of historic exploration has targeted the Old Timer vein, which has been traced on surface and by historic diamond drilling, intermittently for a strike length of 800 m. A 100 m portion of the vein was stripped off in 1980, where it reportedly averages 3 m in width. At present, the stripped area is badly sloughed and the vein is only partly exposed. Reported grades from historic drilling[1],[2] in the vicinity of the stripped area include the following. The reader is cautioned that these are historical results which have not been independently verified by Margaux. ddh 04-04 13.3 g/t Au over 4.4 m ddh 91-01 12.7 g/t Au over 4.0 m ddh 90-01 12.0 g/t Au over 4.3 m ddh 90-02 10.0 g/t Au over 3.1 m "We believe the Old Timer Property nicely complements our existing gold project in the Salmo area, and are pleased with the favourable option terms that allow us to add this to our portfolio. Our team will be compiling historic property data over the coming months and we anticipate being in a position to drill this property in 2019," stated Linda Caron, Vice-President, Exploration for Margaux. Margaux has located and retrieved some of the historic drill core from the Old Timer Property and is in the process of relogging select drill holes. Results from 15 rock samples collected during a site visit to the Old Timer Property have also been received. Fourteen of these 15 samples returned elevated gold values, including a grab sample that assayed 7.9 g/t Au and a 2 m chip sample that assayed 7.5 g/t Au. Terms of the Option Agreement include staged payments totalling $50,000 and 500,000 common shares ("Shares") of the Company over a 4 year period, for Margaux to acquire a 100% interest in the Old Timer Property. The Option Agreement and the issuance of Shares thereunder is subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval. Rock samples described in this release were grab samples collected from outcrop, float or from the dumps of historic workings, or chip samples collected from outcrop. Grab samples are designed to show the presence or absence of mineralization, and results are not necessarily indicative of average grade. Samples were shipped to MS Analytical Laboratory in Langley, B.C. (ISO 17025:2005 certification) for preparation and analysis. At the lab, samples were crushed to 70% passing a 10 mesh (2 mm) screen, then a 500 g split of the crushed sample was pulverized to 85% passing 75 microns. All samples were analysed for gold and a multi-element suite by method IMS-132 (ICP-MS analysis following aqua regia digestion of a 40 g sample of pulverized material). For samples returning > 0.2 ppm Au by IMS-132, the sample was re-analysed by method FAS-111 (fire assay/AAS finish of a 30 g sample). Qualified Person Linda Caron, M.Sc., P.Eng, Margaux's Vice-President, Exploration, is the Company's Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 who supervised the sampling program, reviewed the historic drill results and who has reviewed and approved the technical information contained within this press release About Margaux Resources Ltd. Margaux Resources Ltd. (TSXV: MRL) (OTCQB: MARFF) is a mineral acquisition and exploration company focused on gold exploration in British Columbia, and is directed by a group of highly successful Canadian business executives. Forward Looking Statements This press release may contain forward looking statements including those describing Margaux's future plans and the expectations of management that a stated result or condition will occur. Any statement addressing future events or conditions necessarily involves inherent risk and uncertainty. Actual results can differ materially from those anticipated by management at the time of writing due to many factors, the majority of which are beyond the control of Margaux and its management. In particular, this news release contains forward-looking statements pertaining, directly or indirectly, to the following: Margaux's exploration plans and work commitments, the ability to acquire the Old Timer Property under the terms of the Option Agreement, or at all, the receipt of TSX Venture Exchange Approval and economic factors, business and operations strategies. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of risk factors should not be construed as exhaustive. These statements speak only as of the date of this release or as of the date specified in the documents accompanying this release, as the case may be. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements except as expressly required by applicable securities laws. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. CONTACT INFORMATION Margaux Resources Ltd. Tyler Rice President, CEO and a Director (403) 537-5590 Tyler@margauxresources.com [1] Dunn and Endersby, 2004. Report on the Geology and Mineral Potential of the Summit/Old Timer Property, for Auramex Resources Corp., May 15, 2004. Filed on Sedar. [2] Dunn, 2005. Report on Diamond Drilling on the Summit/Old Timer Property, for Auramex Resources Corp., October 15, 2005. Assessment Report 28026. VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 15, 2019 / Silver Range Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: SNG) ("Silver Range") is pleased to provide an update on work recently completed at its wholly owned Strongbox Property in Esmeralda County, Nevada. The Strongbox Property hosts widespread structurally controlled gold mineralization that straddles Tule Canyon, the site of two small historical hard rock mines (Dark Secret and Eastside) as well as an historical dry wash placer operation. Silver Range recently described the Strongbox Property and two other drill-ready Nevada prospects in a talk presented at the American Exploration and Mining Association annual meeting in Spokane, WA. A link to a video of this presentation, updated with recent results, can be found here. Sampling at Strongbox during October 2018 discovered new, shallow-dipping vein-hosted mineralization on the west side of Tule Canyon about 40 m west of the Dark Secret Mine. A chip sample across a hematitic clay and quartz shear returned 0.7 m @ 37.3 g/t Au. Earlier chip sampling across part of the alteration zone including workings at the Dark Secret Mine returned 20 m @ 0.923 g/t Au. (Silver Range Press Release dated January 18, 2018). On the east side of Tule Canyon grab samples of quartz vein exposed on the backs of stopes in the Eastside Mine returned from 5.38 g/t Au to 27.6 g/t Au. A chip sample of similar material underground graded 0.30 m @ 5.25 g/t Au. The known mineralization at Strongbox appears to be part of a larger structural system that is outlined by sinuous resistivity highs. The Eastside and Dark Secret Mines occur in the western part of the system, and the eastern portion occurs in an area blanketed by thin overburden. Hand trenching is currently underway, targeting mineralization in the eastern portion of the system. Samples collected at Strongbox were secured and shipped to ALS Minerals facilities in Reno, NV for sample preparation and to North Vancouver, BC for assays and geochemical analyses. Rock samples were analyzed by Ultra-Trace Aqua Regia ICP-MS (ALS code ME-MS41) and fire assayed for gold (30 g sample) (ALS code Au-AA25). Technical information in this news release has been approved by Mike Power, M.Sc., P.Geo., CPG, President and CEO of Silver Range Resources Ltd. and a Qualified Person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101. Silver Range is a precious metals prospect generator working in Nevada, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. The company is actively seeking joint venture partners to explore the assets in its portfolio. ON BEHALF OF SILVER RANGE RESOURCES LTD. "Mike Power" President, C.E.O. & Director For further information concerning Silver Range or its exploration projects please contact: Investor Inquiries Richard Drechsler Vice-President, Communications Tel: (604) 687-2522 NA Toll-Free: (888) 688-2522 rdrechsler@silverrangeresources.com http://www.silverrangeresources.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward looking statements based on assumptions and judgments of management regarding future events or results that may prove to be inaccurate as a result of exploration and other risk factors beyond its control, and actual results may differ materially from the expected results. SOURCE: Silver Range Resources Ltd. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532635/Silver-Range-is-Exploring-High-Grade-and-Bulk-Tonnage-Prospects-at-Strongbox-Property-in-Nevada INCLINE VILLAGE, NV / ACCESSWIRE / January 15, 2019 / LithiumOre (http://lithiumore.net) (the "Company"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oroplata Resources, Inc. (OTCQB: ORRP), a lithium resource exploration and development company, is pleased to announce today that Doug Cole, CEO of LithiumOre will speak at the 2019 Wall Street Conference at Mar a Lago in Palm Beach, Florida on Wednesday, January 16, 2019. Mr. Cole will present at 2:00pm and will be available afterwards for one-on-one meetings. During his presentation, Mr. Cole will provide updates to LithiumOre's progress at their Railroad Valley Lithium Project located in Nevada. Made in America, LithiumOre holds 1,300 lithium mineral claims, totaling 26,000 acres, located in Railroad Valley of Nye County, Nevada. Railroad Valley is approximately 112 miles northeast of Clayton Valley and can be accessed by paved highway directly from U.S. Route 6. Railroad Valley is one of Nevada's largest trapped basins and is noted to hold all the necessary commercial and engineering prerequisites for a massive lithium brine deposit. The Company's claims have been evaluated by experts and the BLM and are in planned on-site exploration. LithiumOre, Corp. LithiumOre (http://lithiumore.net), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oroplata Resources, Inc. (OTCQB: ORRP), is a lithium resource exploration and development company, whose primary focus is the establishment of a low cost, environmentally sound production base to supply the rapidly growing lithium-ion battery industry for both mobile devices and laptops, as well as the burgeoning EV (electronic vehicle) industry. LithiumOre is focused on becoming a substantial, profitable lithium producer via the timely development of valuable production-grade lithium brine deposits in Nevada. For more information, please visit: http://lithiumore.net Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, including those with respect to the expected project economics for Western Nevada Basin (Railroad Valley), including estimates of life of mine, average production, cash costs, AISC, initial CAPEX, sustaining CAPEX, pre-tax IRR, pre-tax NPV, net cash flows and recovery rates, the impact of self-mining versus contract mining, the timing to obtain necessary permits, the submission of the project for final investment approval and the timing of initial lithium production after investment approval and full financing, metallurgy and processing expectations, the mineral resource estimate, expectations regarding the ability to expand the mineral resource through future drilling, ongoing work to be conducted at the Western Nevada Basin (Railroad Valley), and the potential results of such efforts, the potential commissioning of a Pre-Feasibility study and the effects on timing of the project, are "forward-looking statements." Although the Company's management believes that such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot guarantee that such expectations are, or will be, correct. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, which could cause the Company's future results to differ materially from those anticipated. Potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, interpretations or reinterpretations of geologic information, unfavorable exploration results, inability to obtain permits required for future exploration, development or production, general economic conditions and conditions affecting the industries in which the Company operates; the uncertainty of regulatory requirements and approvals; fluctuating mineral and commodity prices, final investment approval and the ability to obtain necessary financing on acceptable terms or at all. Additional information regarding the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements is available in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2017. The Company assumes no obligation to update any of the information contained or referenced in this press release. Contact Information Hayden IR Stephen Hart (917) 658-7878 hart@haydenir.com SOURCE: Oroplata Resources, Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532735/LithiumOre-CEO-to-Speak-at-2019-Wall-Street-Conference LCX has become a member at the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution of the World Economic Forum, and joins a select group of global companies closely aligned with the forum's commitment to improving the state of the world. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005477/en/ Monty C. M. Metzger, CEO at LCX, attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting Of The New Champions 2018 in China. Photo by LCX AG Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0 The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an independent international organization recognized for bringing together leaders and policymakers from business, politics, and the academe to discuss the world's most pressing economic challenges. The WEF Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution is dedicated to driving positive change through accelerating the benefits of science and technology. In particular, the Centre has identified nine core technologies believed to lead the way towards the next industrial revolution, which includes blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT). The partnership with WEF involves co-designing frameworks for new DLT use cases in banking, finance, and regulations. "LCX is aligned with the World Economic Forum to engage in this process and shape the exploration and experimentation of DLT for global financial and monetary systems," says CEO Metzger. LCX is a new category leader in the fintech and blockchain industry. LCX's CEO Mr. Monty C. M. Metzger's participated at the World Economic Forum's Twelfth Annual Meeting of the New Champions AMNC September 2018. Further LCX's engaged in a closed-door WEF working group on "Central Banks in the Age of Blockchain Technology" in Singapore, where the Liechtenstein-based exchange hosted a special session attended by senior executives of 15 central banks. The goal of this work is to co-design frameworks for new Blockchain and DLT use-cases that may address challenges such as international inter-bank settlements; digital currency regulation; central-bank issued digital currency ("CBDC") for domestic citizens; and Know Your Customer/Anti- Money Laundering implications. Importantly, it will improve policy making, inform business decisions, share best practices, engage stakeholders and develop proof of concepts (POCs) at the intersection of traditional financial services and the fast-pace crypto-industry. About LCX LCX, the Liechtenstein Cryptoassets Exchange, is a blockchain ecosystem for professional investors. LCX will provide a crypto custody service called LCX Vault, a crypto trading desk called LCX Terminal, an advanced trading platform for security tokens and other cryptoassets called LCX Exchange, and an international fiat-to-crypto exchange called Binance LCX, which is a joint venture with Binance. Web: www.LCX.com - Telegram: http://t.me/JoinLCX - Twitter: www.Twitter.com/LCX - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNj78acRE-ywQPim-wZ8RTQ Media: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dg1hwcyzv6jegeh/AAAXsZoNlmduQ16KjFaWUr5la?dl=0 About World Economic Forum Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Drawing on the World Economic Forum's global convening power, community creation and insight generation, the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco aims to accelerate cross-sector cooperation for Fourth Industrial Revolution governance. The Centre will develop, pilot and scale agile and human-centred governance tools that can be adopted by policy-makers, legislators and regulators worldwide to address challenges related to emerging technologies. Find out more at https://www.weforum.org/centre-for-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/ and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005477/en/ Contacts: Press Mr. Dovydas Dobrovolskis pr@lcx.com Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) - Westhaven Ventures Inc. (TSXV: WHN) (OTC:WTHVF) would like to cordially invite you to visit us at Booth #1034 at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference (VRIC) to be held at the Vancouver Convention Centre West (1055 Canada Place, Vancouver) on Sunday January 20 - Monday January 21, 2019. The Vancouver Resource Investment Conference has been the bellwether of the junior mining market for the last twenty-five years. It is the number one source of information for investment trends and ideas, covering all aspects of the natural resource industry. Each year, the VRIC hosts over 60 keynote speakers, 350 exhibiting companies and 9000 investors. Investment thought leaders and wealth influencers provide our audiences with valuable insights. C-suite company executives covering every corner of the mineral exploration sector as well as metals, oil & gas, renewable energy, media and financial services companies are available to speak one on one. This is a must-attend for investors and stakeholders in the global mining industry. For more information and/or to register for the conference please visit: https://cambridgehouse.com/vancouver-resource-investment-conference We look forward to seeing you there. For further information: Westhaven Ventures Inc. Shaun Pollard 6046815521 spollard@westhavenventures.com www.westhavenventures.com WYOMISSING, PA / ACCESSWIRE / January 15, 2019 / Customers Bank today announced that it will offer a 60-day deferment on principal and interest payments on consumer loans for borrowers who can demonstrate lost income due to the federal government partial shutdown. Late charges for deferred payments would be waived. "Following prudent lending practices, Customers Bank will work with borrowers who are experiencing hardships as a result of the shutdown," said Richard A. Ehst, President & COO of Customers Bank. In a statement the bank said, all changes to payment schedules will be made on a case-by-case basis. Escrow would still be due to ensure that payments of property taxes and insurance are funded and made on a timely basis. Customers Bank might extend the relief program by additional 30-day increments, if the shutdown continues. Borrowers who would like to request the deferment are encouraged to call Customers Bank at (610) 482-4283 or send an email to collections@customersbank.com. Bank team members will work with borrowers to meet their needs. Institutional Background Customers Bank is a super-community bank with $10.6 billion in assets as of September 30, 2018, offering commercial and consumer banking services along the I-95 corridor from Washington, DC to Boston; and in Chicago. Commercial products include cash management; commercial and industrial loans; small business loans; SBA government-guaranteed loans; commercial and multi-family real estate loans; and financing for leasing businesses and residential developers. Customers Bank provides consumer banking services including savings, checking, and money market accounts; certificates of deposit; residential mortgages; and consumer loans. Additional consumer products are marketed as BankMobile, BankMobile Vibe, and Ascent. Customers Bank is a member of the Federal Reserve System with deposits insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Customers Bank is an equal opportunity lender. Customers Bank takes pride in delivering extremely high levels of customer service while charging comparatively very low fees; service that makes our clients say, "Wow." Commercial clients enjoy Single Point of Contact service with one team to handle all banking needs. Some retail bank clients are afforded Concierge Banking Services that brings banking to them, when and where they need it. Customers Bank is a subsidiary of Customers Bancorp, Inc., a bank holding company with its headquarters located in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. The voting common shares of Customers Bancorp, Inc. are listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CUBI. CONTACT: Customers Bank 1015 Penn Avenue Wyomissing, PA 19610 Richard Ehst, President & COO, 610-505-9190 David W. Patti, Dir. Communications & Marketing, 610-451-9452 SOURCE: Customers Bank View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532663/Customers-Bank-Announces-Deferred-Payments-For-Those-Impacted-By-Government-Shutdown AerCap Holdings N.V. ("AerCap") (NYSE:AER) has announced today the delivery of a new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner on long-term lease to EL AL. This is the first of four new 787-9 aircraft to deliver to EL AL from AerCap's order book with Boeing. The remaining three aircraft will deliver through 2019. AerCap is the world's largest lessor of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, with 117 aircraft owned, managed and on order. Aengus Kelly, CEO of AerCap, said, "The delivery of our first 787 to EL AL heralds the next chapter in the long history of successful cooperation between our two companies. We are very pleased to support EL AL's ongoing fleet modernization program and we thank them for the confidence they have placed in AerCap. We wish Gonen Usishkin and all the team at EL AL continued success." Gonen Usishkin, CEO of EL AL, said, "We are pleased to take delivery of the first of four new Boeing 787-9 from AerCap. The arrival of EL AL's 8th Dreamliner, combined with the phase out of the last 767 at the end of this month, is another step towards modernizing and greater efficiency of our fleet. The anticipated arrival of the new 787 aircraft continues the great relations and cooperation between EL AL and AerCap, and marks a revolution in the customer's flight experience. We set a high standard of service and product excellence in order to retain our standing as the first and preferred choice airline for travelers to and from Israel." About AerCap AerCap is the global leader in aircraft leasing with, as of December 31, 2018, 1,421 owned, managed or on order aircraft in its portfolio. AerCap has one of the most attractive order books in the industry. AerCap serves approximately 200 customers in approximately 80 countries with comprehensive fleet solutions. AerCap is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (AER) and has its headquarters in Dublin with offices in Shannon, Los Angeles, Singapore, Amsterdam, Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, Seattle and Toulouse. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains certain statements, estimates and forecasts with respect to future performance and events. These statements, estimates and forecasts are "forward-looking statements". In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may," "might," "should," "expect," "plan," "intend," "estimate," "anticipate," "believe," "predict," "potential" or "continue" or the negatives thereof or variations thereon or similar terminology. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this press release are forward-looking statements and are based on various underlying assumptions and expectations and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions, and may include projections of our future financial performance based on our growth strategies and anticipated trends in our business. These statements are only predictions based on our current expectations and projections about future events. There are important factors that could cause our actual results, level of activity performance or achievements to differ materially from the results, level of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. As a result, we cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements included in this press release will prove to be accurate or correct. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the future performance or events described in the forward-looking statements in this press release might not occur. Accordingly, you should not rely upon forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual results and we do not assume any responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any of these forward-looking statements. Except as required by applicable law, we do not undertake any obligation to, and will not, update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. For more information regarding AerCap and to be added to our email distribution list, please visit www.aercap.com and follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/aercapnv. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005398/en/ Contacts: For Investors: Joseph McGinley Head of Investor Relations jmcginley@aercap.com; +353 1 418 0428 For Media: Gillian Culhane Vice President Corporate Communications gculhane@aercap.com; +353 1 636 0945 PHOENIX, AZ / ACCESSWIRE / January 15, 2019 / Telupay, Inc. (OTC PINK: TLPY) is pleased to announce that it is in the process of having its request for a new ticker symbol, a substantial reduction in issued and outstanding shares in the market and a name change, which will be Celexus, Inc., reviewed. Upon completion of the review of the notification by FINRA, Celexus will be listed on the OTC and available for continued public trading. Celexus, Inc. was conceived to be a holding company for the acquisition and management of promising, early-stage, high-growth businesses and technologies. Our strategy is quite simple really: Get in on the ground floor and help these companies to the proverbial top floor. Due to the recent passing of the Farm Bill, Celexus now feels very comfortable in entering the rapidly growing hemp and CBD markets. It is estimated that hemp biomass has over 50,000 uses including replacing plastic products, paper, clothing, building material, etc. Additionally, hemp and CBD provide incredible medical benefits. It has been reported that CBD oil can treat hundreds of medical issues such as anxiety, depression, pain, arthritis, insomnia, anorexia, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, several types of cancer, Alzheimer's, dementia and epilepsy, just to name a few. It is these reasons, along with the environmental impact associated with hemp, that is driving us to become a key player in such an important market. Our objective is to become a leading supplier of both hemp biomass, CBD oils and isolate to end users internationally. In order to achieve this goal, we intend to participate in the process of growing, harvesting, drying, extracting and the refining of the end product with an emphasis on pharmaceutical-grade CBD. Now that the 2018 Farm Bill has now been signed into law in the United States, hemp has been made legal at the federal level. This new law removes hemp from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and paves the way for the development of hemp as an agricultural commodity. Hemp can be used to produce a myriad of products from superfoods to cannabinoid-infused cosmetics, personal care products and beverages. In addition, there are a multitude of industrial solutions including textiles, carbon-negative building materials, non-toxic biocomposites and much more. The law removes many uncertainties for the industry that will allow businesses alike to obtain the most basic business services that are enjoyed by every other industry, which until now, have been very difficult to obtain. It is expected that this new law will allow companies in the industry to operate more freely than they have been able to up to this point. This long-anticipated Farm Bill allows farmers nationwide to cultivate hemp for any use, including cannabidiol (CBD) and other cannabinoid production. The definition of hemp has been redefined to include any part of the plant, including all derivatives, extracts and cannabinoids. This will now mean that hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) will no longer fall under the regulatory authority of the CSA. One of the most important outcomes of the new law is that businesses will soon be able to secure ordinary banking services without fear of having these relationships terminated. The hemp industry has been considered a high-risk industry in the banking community until now. With the passing of the Farm Bill, hemp is well on its way to becoming an agricultural commodity that farmers can generate far greater returns per acre than any other crop. Farmers will also soon be able to obtain crop insurance to manage the risk from natural disasters that could potentially wipe out an entire crop, as well as other forms of insurance not previously available. It's also only a matter of time before futures and options are offered on the major commodity exchanges like the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) or Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). Similarly, a major carbon credit play is on the immediate horizon because of hemp's ability to sequester more carbon in the shortest period of time, more than almost every other plant on earth. Hemp is among the best plants on earth for the provision of food, clothing, building materials, fuel and medicine. Hemp could potentially be the most industrially usable biomass produced over the shortest growth cycle, utilizing the least amount of water, nutrients and pesticides, while sequestering the greatest level of carbon. It is one of the few plants that can be grown commercially almost anywhere in the world. The potential economic stimulus to the United States and global economy is significant. The Brightfield Group projects a $22 billion hemp industry by 2022, but that only considers the direct impact from hemp; it does not include all of the ancillary industries that provide products and services to the hemp industry that will also see significant economic stimulus, such as legal services, banking, accounting, investment, real estate, processing and manufacturing equipment makers, engineering, marketing and advertising, and technology developers, to name a few. The hemp industry requires many of the same products and services that every other industry needs to operate, but until now, nine out of 10 companies in any industry would not engage in business with hemp companies because of the federal legal status. Post Farm Bill projections for the growth of the hemp industry will likely expand significantly more than previously expected, making 2019 a banner year for the hemp industry. Media Contact: D. James djames@celexus-inc.com info@celexus-inc.com investorrelations@celexus-inc.com SOURCE: Celexus, Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532708/Telupay-Inc-Receives-Name-Change-to-Celexus-Inc-and-Enters-the-Hemp-Market VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 15, 2019 / Skeena Resources Limited (OTCQX: SKREF) (TSX.V: SKE) ("Skeena" or the "Company") is pleased to announce additional Au-Ag drill results for eight holes from the recently completed Phase I surface drilling program at the Eskay Creek Project ("Eskay Creek") located in the Golden Triangle of British Columbia. The multifaceted Phase I program focused on the 21A, 21C and 22 Zones. Assays reported in this release are from the 21A Zone; assays from the remaining 22 Zone will be released once finalized. Reference images are presented at the end of this release as well as on the Company's website. Eskay Creek 21A Zone Phase I Drilling - Current Highlights 4.93 g/t Au, 134.59 g/t Ag, (6.73 g/t AuEq) over 33.57 m (SK-18-033) 7.11 g/t Au, 54.21 g/t Ag, (7.83 g/t AuEq) over 28.88 m (SK-18-034) 22.36 g/t Au, 646.92 g/t Ag, (30.99 g/t AuEq) over 14.72 m (SK-18-036) 6.68 g/t Au, 14.56 g/t Ag, (6.88 g/t AuEq) over 5.50 m (SK-18-037) 12.73 g/t Au, 1.71 g/t Ag, (12.76 g/t AuEq) over 4.50 m (SK-18-040) Gold Equivalent (AuEq) calculated via the formula: Au (g/t) + [Ag (g/t) / 75]. Reported core lengths represent 70-100% of true widths and are supported by well-defined mineralization geometries derived from historical drilling. Grade capping of individual assays has not been applied to the Au and Ag assays informing the length weighted AuEq composites. Processing recoveries have not been applied to the AuEq calculation and are disclosed at 100%. Samples below detection limit were nulled to a value of zero. 21A Zone Phase I Drilling - Discussion The 2018 drilling program was designed to infill and upgrade the inferred resources in the 21A Zone by increasing drill density to 20 metre intercept spacing. This will allow for future economic analyses as well as the collection of fresh material for an upcoming metallurgical characterization and testing program. Reported core lengths represent 70-100% of true widths and are supported by well-defined mineralization geometries derived from historical drilling. The majority of intercepts are less than 125 metres from surface and the shallow extent of mineralization in the 21A Zone is potentially amenable to open-pit mining methods. The 21A Zone represents a significant portion of the 2018 pit constrained resource hosted at Eskay Creek containing an Indicated Resource of 207,000 oz AuEq grading 5.9 g/t AuEq (1.09 Mt grading 4.9 g/t Au, 72 g/t Ag) and an Inferred Resource of 418,000 oz AuEq grading 4.6 g/t AuEq (2.81 Mt grading 3.8 g/t Au, 63 g/t Ag) (for full resource details including the additional underground resource, refer to Skeena news release dated September 17, 2018). About Eskay Creek In December 2017, Skeena secured an option to acquire 100% interest in the Eskay Creek property. Discovered in the Golden Triangle in 1988, the former Eskay Creek mine produced approximately 3.3 million ounces of gold and 160 million ounces of silver at average grades of 45 g/t gold and 2,224 g/t silver. Eskay Creek was once the world's highest-grade gold mine and fifth-largest silver mine by volume. A precious and base metal-rich volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposit, Eskay-style mineralization has been the focus of considerable exploration activity in the Golden Triangle dating back to 1932. Exploration programs in 1988 led to the discovery of the 21A and 21B zones, followed by underground development of the 21B zone starting in 1990 with the official opening of the Eskay Creek mine in 1994. Over the 14-year life of the mine, approximately 2.2 million tonnes of ore were mined with cut-off grades ranging from 12 to 15 g/t AuEq for mill ore and 30 g/t AuEq for direct shipping smelter ore. Eskay is endowed with excellent infrastructure including all-weather road access and proximity to the new 287-kV Northwest Transmission Line. The Property consists of 8 mineral leases, 2 surface leases and several unpatented mining claims totaling 6,151 hectares. About Skeena Skeena Resources Limited is a junior Canadian mining exploration company focused on developing prospective precious and base metal properties in the Golden Triangle of northwest British Columbia, Canada. The Company's primary activities are the exploration and development of the past-producing Snip mine and the recently optioned Eskay Creek mine, both acquired from Barrick. In addition, the Company has completed a Preliminary Economic Assessment on the GJ copper-gold porphyry project. On behalf of the Board of Directors of Skeena Resources Limited, Walter Coles Jr. President & CEO Qualified Persons Exploration activities at the Eskay Creek Project are administered on site by the Company's Exploration Managers, Colin Russell, P.Geo. and Adrian Newton, P.Geo. In accordance with National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, Paul Geddes, P.Geo. Vice President Exploration and Resource Development, is the Qualified Person for the Company and has prepared, validated and approved the technical and scientific content of this news release. The Company strictly adheres to CIM Best Practices Guidelines in conducting, documenting, and reporting its exploration activities on its exploration projects. Quality Assurance - Quality Control Once received from the drill and processed, all drill core samples are sawn in half, labelled and bagged. The remaining drill core is subsequently securely stored on site. Numbered security tags are applied to lab shipments for chain of custody requirements. The Company inserts quality control (QC) samples at regular intervals in the sample stream, Including blanks and reference materials with all sample shipments to monitor laboratory performance. The QAQC program was designed and approved by Lynda Bloom, P.Geo. of Analytical Solutions Ltd., and is overseen by the Company's Qualified Person, Paul Geddes, P.Geo, Vice President Exploration and Resource Development. Drill core samples are submitted to ALS Geochemistry's analytical facility in North Vancouver, British Columbia for preparation and analysis. The ALS facility is accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard for gold assays and all analytical methods include quality control materials at set frequencies with established data acceptance criteria. The entire sample is crushed and 1kg is pulverized. Analysis for gold is by 50g fire assay fusion with atomic absorption (AAS) finish with a lower limit of 0.01 ppm and upper limit of 100 ppm. Samples with gold assays greater than 100ppm are re-analyzed using a 50g fire assay fusion with gravimetric finish. Analysis for silver is by 50g fire assay fusion with gravimetric finish with a lower limit of 5ppm and upper limit of 10,000ppm. Samples with silver assays greater than 10,000ppm are re-analyzed using a gravimetric silver concentrate method. A selected number of samples are also analyzed using a 48 multi-elemental geochemical package by a 4-acid digestion, followed by Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectroscopy (ICP-MS) and also for mercury using an aqua regia digest with Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES) finish. Samples with sulfur reporting greater than 10% from the multi-element analysis are re-analyzed for total sulfur by Leco furnace and infrared spectroscopy. Cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements Certain statements made and information contained herein may constitute "forward looking information" and "forward looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities legislation. These statements and information are based on facts currently available to the Company and there is no assurance that actual results will meet management's expectations. Forward-looking statements and information may be identified by such terms as "anticipates," "believes," "targets," "estimates," "plans," "expects," "may," "will," "could" or "would". Forward-looking statements and information contained herein are based on certain factors and assumptions regarding, among other things, the estimation of mineral resources and reserves, the realization of resource and reserve estimates, metal prices, taxation, the estimation, timing and amount of future exploration and development, capital and operating costs, the availability of financing, the receipt of regulatory approvals, environmental risks, title disputes and other matters. While the Company considers its assumptions to be reasonable as of the date hereof, forward-looking statements and information are not guarantees of future performance and readers should not place undue importance on such statements as actual events and results may differ materially from those described herein. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements or information except as may be required by applicable securities laws. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Table 1: Eskay Creek Project Phase I 21A Zone length weighted drillhole gold and silver composites: HOLE-ID FROM (M) TO (M) CORE LENGTH (M) AU (G/T) AG (G/T) AUEQ (G/T) SK-18-033 93.43 127.00 33.57 4.93 135 6.73 INCLUDING 94.50 96.00 1.50 8.11 181 10.52 AND 97.50 99.00 1.50 15.20 89 16.39 AND 100.50 102.00 1.50 7.57 293 11.48 AND 112.42 113.00 0.58 14.00 2390 45.87 AND 119.00 120.50 1.50 7.04 223 10.01 AND 120.50 121.00 0.50 11.85 500 18.52 AND 121.00 122.50 1.50 11.55 167 13.78 SK-18-033 140.00 141.50 1.50 0.61 232 3.70 SK-18-034 86.62 115.50 28.88 7.11 54 7.83 INCLUDING 91.31 92.50 1.19 9.36 529 16.41 AND 92.50 94.00 1.50 5.71 <5 5.71 AND 94.00 95.50 1.50 10.95 59 11.74 AND 95.50 96.25 0.75 15.20 174 17.52 AND 96.25 97.50 1.25 15.90 39 16.42 AND 97.50 99.00 1.50 19.85 319 24.10 AND 99.00 100.50 1.50 12.55 21 12.83 AND 100.50 102.00 1.50 18.00 8 18.11 SK-18-034 135.50 137.00 1.50 1.94 <5 1.94 SK-18-034 140.00 141.50 1.50 1.49 6 1.57 SK-18-034 167.00 168.50 1.50 4.57 8 4.68 SK-18-035 127.50 134.00 6.50 0.72 25 1.06 SK-18-036 76.78 91.50 14.72 22.36 647 30.99 INCLUDING 79.70 80.42 0.72 88.50 10 88.63 AND 80.42 81.50 1.08 33.20 294 37.12 AND 81.50 82.90 1.40 36.20 155 38.27 AND 82.90 83.95 1.05 22.30 15 22.50 AND 83.95 84.99 1.04 41.40 422 47.03 AND 84.99 85.66 0.67 83.30 12,695 252.56 AND 85.66 86.50 0.84 42.20 20 42.47 SK-18-037 74.00 79.50 5.50 6.68 15 6.88 INCLUDING 74.94 75.80 0.86 17.60 35 18.07 AND 75.80 77.18 1.38 10.60 9 10.72 SK-18-038 89.50 91.00 1.50 0.68 <5 0.68 SK-18-039 74.21 75.50 1.29 0.52 <5 0.52 SK-18-040 65.20 69.70 4.50 12.73 2 12.76 INCLUDING 67.40 68.50 1.10 32.70 7 32.79 Gold Equivalent (AuEq) calculated via the formula: Au (g/t) + [Ag (g/t) / 75]. Reported core lengths represent 70-100% of true widths and are supported by well-defined mineralization geometries derived from historical drilling. Length weighted AuEq composites were constrained by geological considerations. Grade capping of individual assays has not been applied to the Au and Ag assays informing the length weighted AuEq composites. Processing recoveries have not been applied to the AuEq calculation and are disclosed at 100%. Samples below detection limit were nulled to a value of zero. Table 2: Mine grid Phase I drill hole locations and orientations: HOLE-ID EASTING NORTHING ELEVATION LENGTH (M) AZIMUTH DIP SK-18-033 9778.9 10012.7 1040.2 164.0 89.2 -50.6 SK-18-034 9780.0 10012.4 1040.2 200.0 89.0 -65.6 SK-18-035 9781.0 10012.8 1040.0 200.0 87.6 -84.7 SK-18-036 9780.6 10012.7 1040.0 152.0 268.7 -45.4 SK-18-037 9780.3 10012.7 1040.2 152.0 267.4 -71.5 SK-18-038 9739.1 10043.2 1028.9 123.0 91.0 -70.6 SK-18-039 9738.9 10043.2 1028.7 101.0 87.0 -81.9 SK-18-040 9739.0 10043.2 1028.9 102.0 10.7 -89.6 SOURCE: Skeena Resources Limited View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532667/Skeena-Intersects-3099-gt-AuEq-over-1472-metres-at-Eskay-Creek Leading Global Experts Partner to Advance Advice and Best Practices in International Assignee Management International SOS, the world's leading medical and security risk services company, has signed a partnership agreement with the Forum for Expatriate Management (FEM) to be the organisation's exclusive 'Global Medical and Security Risk Management Partner'. The partnership will see the industry-leading expertise of both partners coming together to drive the agenda forward for the protection of the mobile workforce. Together, the partnership will provide insight, debate and innovative thought-leadership to mobility managers and their organisations worldwide. Claire Tennant-Scull, Global Head of Content Events Director at the Forum for Expatriate Management, comments, "International SOS' expertise in medical and security risks is invaluable to global mobility specialists in our ever-changing world of risks. Our partnership will advance practical advice to our members and thought-leadership. Initially, we will be working together to enhance our events and provide members with essential advice and information. Our delegates travel from far and wide to attend our events and move their assignees and business travellers across the globe, so they will benefit enormously from this exciting partnership. Going forward, we will also be producing ground-breaking insights for our audience in this specialist area. We look forward to rolling out this new partnership and its benefits, to our members in the coming months." Kai Boschmann, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at International SOS, said, "We are pleased to launch this exclusive new partnership. International SOS and FEM have shared objectives in creating debate and providing insight to raise standards in the protection of the mobile workforce. Partnering will enable us to combine our expertise and provide professionals, who manage international assignees with the latest thinking, research and best practice through FEM's member platforms." The partnership is global and effective from January 2019, with a long-term view. It will be managed out of FEM's and International SOS' London offices. It will be globally inclusive with an initial focus in Europe (London and Amsterdam), key cities in the US (Dallas in 2019) and Asia (Singapore and Hong Kong). For information on the next FEM event, click here. ENDS View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005462/en/ Contacts: Suzanne Withers International SOS Group Head of PR T: +44 (0)20 8762 8494 M: +44 (0)7825 425 500 Email: suzanne.withers@internationalsos.com The Freedom Readiness Center will be a 67,121-square-foot Leadership in Energy and Enviromental Design (LEED) Silver certified building with a 6,700-square-foot detached storage structure, located at 6501 Sykesville Road, Eldersburg, replacing the existing Catonsville and Ellicott City armories. The center will house approximately 10 full-time staff with 326 individuals on weekend drills and be the largest readiness center in the state when it is complete, according to the Oct. 12 DGS media release. FELTON, California, January 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The global Radiation Detection, Monitoring and Safety Market is expected to value at USD 1.6 billion by 2024. The market is subject to witness a substantial growth due to the growing adoption of nuclear medicine and radiation therapy. Rising demand for nuclear medicine and radiation therapy is attributed to growing incidences of cancer-related diseases. Increasing healthcare expenditure and recent enhancements in the existing medical infrastructure, particularly in the North America region are expected to fuel market demand for radiation detection, monitoring and safety services in the upcoming years. Globally, the radiation detection, monitoring & safety industry is predicted to grow at CAGR of 7.3% in the forecast period, providing numerous opportunities for market players to invest for research and development in the market. The rising occurrence of cancer-related diseases and growing awareness among general population are major contributing factors for robust market growth in the last few years. Rising influence of commercialization and digitalization in healthcare sector are driving demand of the radiation detection, monitoring and safety services, in the recent years. Furthermore, recent technological advancement and increasing adoption of digital services in healthcare sector is leading increasing commercialization of next generation diagnostic is expected to fuel market demand for radiation detection, monitoring and safety services over the forecast period. Soaring demand for advanced analytical techniques for treatment of cancer is predicted to favor market growth in the upcoming years. In addition, surging need for fewer intrusive surgeries and introduction of disposable instruments is projected to foster the growth of radiation detection, monitoring & safety market over the forecast period. The recent technological advancement coupled with development of the novel products & techniques such as genetic therapy are expected to provide platform for the sustained market growth of radiation detection, monitoring & safety in the upcoming years. The radiation detection, monitoring and safety industry is broadly categorized into three major segments based on the product type in radiation detection segment such as gas-filled detectors, scintillators and solid-state detectors. The gas-filled detectors is considered as one of the fastest growing segment in the radiation detection, monitoring and safety market with substantial revenue generation in the last few years. Browse 100 page research report with TOC on "Global Radiation Detection, Monitoring and Safety Market" at:https://www.millioninsights.com/industry-reports/radiation-detection-monitoring-safety-market The radiation detection, monitoring & safety industry is divided by region as North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Africa. North America has shown major growth in recent years owing to the rise in the implementation of latest technologies in healthcare sector, increase in the number of research & development activities in the region and existence of well-established medicinal infrastructure. Asia-Pacific region is predicted to hold major market share in the radiation detection, monitoring & safety market with massive growth in forecast period. Countries such as India, China and Singapore are leading the Asia-Pacific market with strong economic growth, rising healthcare infrastructure, increasing per capita income, growing prevalence of cancer related diseases, ever-growing population base, and significant investment by leading industry players considering potential growth opportunities in the region. The key players in the radiation detection, monitoring and safety industry are Landauer Inc., Mirion Technologies, Inc., Ludlum Measurements, Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Co., Radiation Detection Company, Inc., Canberra Industries, Inc., Arrow-Tech, Inc., Centronic Ltd., AmRay Medical Co., Atomtexs.P.e, and RAE Systems, Inc. Global Radiation Detection, Monitoring & Safety Product Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) Personal Dosimeters Area Process Monitors Environmental Radiation & Surface Contamination Monitors Radioactive Material Monitors Global Radiation Detection, Monitoring & Safety Detection Type Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) Gas-filled Detectors Scintillators Solid-state Detectors Global Radiation Detection, Monitoring & Safety Type Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) Full-body Protection Face & Hand Protection Others Global Radiation Detection, Monitoring & Safety End-use Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) Hospitals Non-hospitals Radiation Detection, Monitoring & Safety Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2013 - 2024) - North America U.S. Canada - Europe UK Germany - Asia Pacific Japan China India - Latin America Mexico Brazil - MEA South Africa Browse reports of similar category available with Million Insights: Retinal Implant Market Dermatology Devices Market Medical Device Outsourcing Market Home Healthcare Market About Million Insights: Million Insights, is a distributor of market research reports, published by premium publishers only. We have a comprehensive market place that will enable you to compare data points, before you make a purchase. Enabling informed buying, is our motto and we strive hard to ensure that our clients get to browse through multiple samples, prior to an investment. Service flexibility & the fastest response time are two pillars, on which our business model is founded. Our market research report store, includes in-depth reports, from across various industry verticals, such as healthcare, technology, chemicals, food & beverages, consumer goods, material science & automotive. Contact: Ryan Manuel Research Support Specialist, USA Million Insights Phone: +1-408-610-2300 Toll Free: 1-866-831-4085 Email: sales@millioninsights.com Web: https://www.millioninsights.com/ Blog: https://millioninsights.blogspot.com Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 15, 2019) - The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) today reported performance data for 2018 featuring record levels for trading volume, trading value, number of listings and capital raised by CSE issuers. The CSE added 123 new issuers during the year, more than twice the 56 issuers that joined the market in 2017. A total of 28 issuers came to market through initial public offerings, also a new record for the exchange. Key Statistics Trading volume in CSE listed securities was 28.6 billion shares, an increase of 64% compared to 2017; The value of shares traded in CSE listed securities totaled $20.3 billion, rising 160% on the year; Financings completed by CSE issuers climbed 276% to $5.22 billion; The CSE finished 2018 with 462 listed securities, up 34%. Cannabis and related companies continued to lead activity on the CSE in 2018, accounting for 60.5% of trading volume. Technology companies were the second most active at 18.9%. Mining companies accounted for 11.8%. Cannabis companies also led the way in raising capital, with issuers grossing a total of $3.99 billion through 270 financings. The largest cannabis financings in 2018 were Curaleaf Holdings (CURA; $520 million), Acreage Holdings (ACRG.U; $416 million) and Harvest Health & Recreation (HARV; $288 million). Mining companies raised a total of $217 million, completing 221 transactions. Financial institutions from North America, Europe and Asia featured prominently in many of the larger cannabis financings, playing a much more notable role than in 2017. The CSE made significant progress with development of its blockchain-enabled clearing and settlement facility during the year. Potential benefits of the facility include shortened clearing times (which should reduce related dealer capital requirements), enhanced document management and lower back-office costs. Testing the system with the dealer community will be a key strategic priority in the coming year. Looking to 2019, the exchange will continue to expand teams working on issuer compliance to support the increasing number and scale of companies choosing the CSE for their primary public listing. New marketing initiatives will also be introduced to help bring issuers to the attention of the financial community. The CSE debuted Public Entrepreneur, a publication profiling a mix of recent and long-standing issuers in each issue, in March 2018. Plans call for extending the brand across more digital media channels in 2019, including podcasts and video. In the first quarter of 2019, the exchange will be moving its headquarters to First Canadian Place in downtown Toronto. Featuring 16,000 square feet of space, the new location will support a host of additional exposure opportunities for CSE issuers, including a market centre to celebrate trading debuts and other important issuer achievements. "The CSE's exceptional growth in 2018 reflects our ongoing commitment to anticipating the needs of our issuer base and continuing to provide a path to the lowest-cost public capital in North America," said Richard Carleton, CSE Chief Executive Officer. "It was clear as the year went on that efforts to convey the value of a CSE listing to entrepreneurs in the US, Europe, Israel and other jurisdictions were having the desired result, as we received listing applications from Canada and abroad at a rate never before seen. Given the size of our new issuer pipeline, and continued investor interest in the exchange's listed companies, the CSE is positioned to achieve a series of important milestones in 2019." Contact Richard Carleton CEO - Canadian Securities Exchange (416) 367-7360, richard.carleton@thecse.com TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / January 15, 2019 / Sphinx Resources Ltd. ("Sphinx" or the "Corporation") (TSX-V: SFX) and its partner SOQUEM are pleased to announce that a new diamond drilling campaign has begun on the Calumet-Sud zinc project (the "Project"). The campaign consists of 24 holes totaling approximately 2,400 meters. This campaign follows the results of channel sampling from 13 trenches completed in the fall of 2018, where zinc grades of up to 21.2% over 1.0 m were obtained (see press release dated November 15, 2018). This work identified zinc horizons within dolomitic marble over a distance of about 1,500 m along a north-south axis. The objective of the drilling campaign is to test the depth extension of the best channel samples and to increase the understanding of the structural setting of zinc-rich zones from the Sonny deposit in the south towards the north along the identified axis. Located in the Pontiac regional municipal county of Quebec, the Project is adjacent to the former New Calumet mine that produced 3.8 million metric tonnes of ore at a grade of 5.8% Zn, 1.6% Pb, 65 g/t Ag et 0.4 g/t Au from 1944 to 1968 (reference: Annual report New Calumet Mine 1968). Drilling will be done by Forage RJLL Drilling Inc. of Rouyn-Noranda. Qualified Persons The 2019 winter drilling program is carried out under the direction of Michel Gauthier, Ph.D. (geo., and director of the Corporation), Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101. This press release was prepared by Normand Champigny, (Eng., director and Qualified Person of the Corporation). About SOQUEM SOQUEM, a subsidiary of Ressources Quebec, is a leading player in mineral exploration in Quebec. Its mission is to explore, discover and develop mining properties in Quebec. SOQUEM has participated in more than 350 exploration projects and contributed to major discoveries of gold, diamonds, lithium and other minerals. About Quebec and Sphinx Quebec has established itself as one of the world's most attractive mining jurisdictions, ranking 6th globally (Fraser Institute press release, February 22 2018). The Quebec government has created market confidence by following a proactive approach to mining policy. Quebec's mining sector has also been encouraged by the clarity and certainty of the legal and regulatory framework adopted by its government. Sphinx is engaged in the generation and acquisition of exploration projects in Quebec with a focus on zinc. For further information, please consult Sphinx's website or contact: Jeremie Ryan President and Chief Executive Officer 819.664.2632 info@sphinxresources.ca www.sphinxresources.ca Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This press release may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and activities to vary materially from targeted results and planning. Such risks and uncertainties include those described in Sphinx's periodic reports including the annual report or in the filings made by Sphinx from time to time with securities regulatory authorities. All forward-looking statements in this press release are made as of the date of this press release. Sphinx does not undertake to update any such forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. SOURCE: Sphinx Resources Ltd. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532659/Sphinx-and-SOQUEM-Start-a-New-Drilling-Campaign-at-the-Calumet-Sud-Zinc-Project-Quebec SAMPO PLC STOCK EXCHANGE RELEASE 7 February 2019 at 9:40 pm Changes in Sampo Group's executive management The Group CEO and President of Sampo Kari Stadigh will retire on 31 December 2019. He also steps down as Chairman of If P&C Insurance Board of Directors as of 7 February 2019. Sampo's Board of Directors has today appointed Torbjorn Magnusson, the CEO of If, to succeed him as Group CEO and President of Sampo Group, effective 1 January 2020. Magnusson will take over as Chairman of If P&C, effective immediately. Furthermore, the Nomination Board of Nordea has today proposed to the AGM that Torbjorn Magnusson be elected as the Chairman of the Board of Nordea. Bjorn Wahlroos has informed Nordea's Nomination Board of his intention to step down from the Board at the next AGM. Torbjorn Magnusson will immediately start focusing on his new responsibilities. The Sampo and If Boards have therefore today appointed Morten Thorsrud, the Head of If Business Area Private, to succeed him as the CEO of If, effective immediately. Thorsrud will in turn be succeeded by Ingrid Janbu Holthe as Head of If BA Private. She is currently SVP for Sales & Services Norway of If BA Private and will at the same time become a member of the Group Executive Committee of Sampo Group. The Nomination Committee of Topdanmark has today nominated Ricard Wennerklint, the Deputy CEO of If, to be elected Chairman of the Board of Topdanmark. He will succeed Torbjorn Magnusson, who resigns from the Board. All CV:s are appended. Further information For the media, further information is available at the press conference held today. Languages used at the press conference are English and Finnish. No interviews are given prior to the press conference. For investors and analysts, further information is available at the English-language conference call held today. Press conference 7 February at 1:00 Finnish time 11:00 am UK time) Restaurant Palace (10th floor), Etelaranta 10, Helsinki Available for the media: Bjorn Wahlroos, Chairman of the Board Kari Stadigh, Group CEO and President Torbjorn Magnusson, future Group CEO and President To attend the press conference and for interview requests please contact Mirko Hurmerinta via e-mail, mirko.hurmerinta@sampo.fi (mailto:mirko.hurmerinta@sampo.fi) The press conference can also be followed as a live webcast at www.sampo.com/result (http://www.sampo.com/result). A recorded version will later be available at the same address. Conference call 7 February at 5:00 Finnish time (3:00 pm UK time) To attend the conference call, please call +44 (0)333 300 0804, +1 631 913 1422, +46 (0)8 5664 2651 or +358 (0)9 8171 0310. Confirmation code: 69958632#. Group CEO and President Kari Stadigh, future Group CEO and President Torbjorn Magnusson, Group CFO Knut Arne Alsaker and Head of IR and Group Communications Jarmo Salonen will attend the conference call. The conference call can also be followed live at www.sampo.com/result (https://www.sampo.com/investors/financial-information/financial-reports/). A recorded version will later be available at the same address. SAMPO PLC The Board of Directors Additional information Jarmo Salonen Head of Investor Relations and Group Communications tel. +358 50 424 0030 Mirko Hurmerinta IR & Communications Specialist, Media Relations tel. +358 10 516 0032 Distribution: Nasdaq Helsinki London Stock Exchange The principal media Financial Supervisory Authority www.sampo.com (http://www.sampo.com/) ANNEX Curriculum Vitaes, 7 February 2019 BJORN WAHLROOS Chairman of the Board, Sampo plc Born 1952 EDUCATION Hanken School of Economics Ph.D. (Econ) 1979 M.Sc. (Econ) 1975 B.Sc. (Econ) 1974 CAREER Sampo plc Group CEO and President 2001-2009 Member of the Sampo Group Executive Committee 2001-2009 Mandatum Bank plc Chairman and CEO 1998-2000 Mandatum & Co Ltd Vice Chairman and CEO 1997-1998 President and Senior Partner 1992-1997 Union Bank of Finland Executive Vice President and Member of the Executive Committee 1989-1992 Senior Vice President and Member of the Board of Management 1987-1988 First Vice President and Deputy Member of the Board of Management 1985-1987 Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois Visiting Associate Professor of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences 1983-1984 Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics 1980-1981 Hanken School of Economics Professor of Economics 1979-1985 Assistant Professor and Lecturer in Finance 1974-1979 POSITIONS OF TRUST Sampo plc Chairman of the Board 2009- Board Member 2001-2009 Nordea Bank Abp Chairman of the Board 2011- Vice Chairman of the Board 2009-2011 Board Member 2008-2009 UPM-Kymmene Corporation Chairman of the Board 2008- The Mannerheim Foundation Board Member 2007- Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA Board Member 2005- The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy ETLA Board Member 2005- Several other charitable institutions. PREVIOUS POSITIONS OF TRUST Hanken School of Economics Chairman of the Board 2009-2018 Sampo Bank plc Chairman of the Board of Directors 2005-2007 KARI STADIGH Born 1955 CURRENT POSITION Sampo Group Group CEO and President 7 April 2009 - 31 December 2019 Sampo plc Managing Director 7 April 2009 - 31 December 2019 EDUCATION Hanken School of Economics BBA 1980 Helsinki University of Technology Master of Science (Eng.) 1979 CAREER Sampo plc Deputy CEO 2001-2009 Sampo Life Insurance Company Limited President 1999-2001 Nova Life Insurance Company Ltd President 1996-1998 Jaakko Poyry Group President and COO 1991-1996 JP-Finance Oy President 1985-1991 POSITIONS OF TRUST Nokia Corporation Board Member 2011- Member of Personnel Committee 2011 - Member of Corporate Governance and Nomination Committee 2014 - Waypoint Group Holdings SA Board Member 2015- Mandatum Life Insurance Company Limited Chairman of the Board 2001- PREVIOUS POSITIONS OF TRUST If P&C Insurance Holding Ltd Chairman of the Board 2002-2019 Nordea Bank AB (publ) Board Risk Committee, Chairman 2011-2018 Board Member 2010-2018 Alma Media plc Chairman 2005-2011 Aspo plc Chairman 2000-2008 TORBJORN MAGNUSSON Born 1963 POSITION AS OF 1 JANUARY 2020 Sampo Group Group CEO and President Sampo plc Managing Director EDUCATION The Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm Licentiate of Engineering 1990 M.Sc. degree (Engineering Physics) 1987 CAREER If P&C Insurance Holding Ltd President and CEO 2002-2019 Member of the Group Management 2001-2019 If P&C Insurance Ltd Head of Commercial Business Division 2001-2002 Head of Commercial Products 1999-2001 Skandia P&C Head of P&C Support and Chief Actuary 1998-1999 Chief Controller 1996-1997 Mercantile & General Reinsurance, London Chief Non-Life Actuary 1995-1996 Deputy Actuary 1994-1995 Skandia International Non-life Actuary 1990-1993 Arthur Andersen & Co Information Systems Consultant 1988-1989 POSITIONS OF TRUST Nordea Bank Abp Board Member 2018- Topdanmark A/S Chairman of the Board 2017- Deputy Chairman of the Board 2015-2017 Board Member 2014-2015 If P&C Insurance Holding Ltd Chairman of the Board 2019- Board Member 2008-2019 Insurance Europe Vice President 2013- Swedish Insurance Federation Board Member 2009- Chairman 2006-2009 Swedish Insurance Employer Association Board Member 2009- Chairman 2006-2009 PREVIOUS POSITIONS OF TRUST If P&C Insurance Ltd, Sweden Chairman of the Board 2002-2019 Academedia Board Member 2011-2016 Aleris Board Member 2009-2010 MORTEN THORSRUD Born 1971 CURRENT POSITION If P&C Insurance Holding Ltd President and CEO 2019- Sampo plc Member of the Sampo Group Executive Committee 2006- EDUCATION Norwegian School of Management Master of Business and Economics 1996 CAREER If P&C Insurance Ltd (publ) Group Executive Vice President, Head of BA Private 2013-2019 Head of BA Industrial 2005-2013 Head of Industrial Underwriting and Claims 2004-2005 Head of Corporate Strategy 2002-2004 McKinsey & Company, Inc. Norway/Europe Associate Partner 2001-2002 Engagement Manager 1999-2001 Associate 1997-1999 Junior Associate 1996-1997 POSITIONS OF TRUST Finance Norway (Finans Norge, FNO) Member of the Executive Committee of P&C Insurance, 2018- Chairman of the Executive Committee of P&C Insurance, 2016-2018 Member of the Executive Committee of P&C Insurance, 2013-2016 RICARD WENNERKLINT Born 1969 CURRENT POSITION If P&C Insurance Holding Ltd Member of the Board 2019- If P&C Insurance Ltd (publ) Managing Director 2006- Sampo plc Member of the Sampo Group Executive Committee 2005- EDUCATION Stockholm School of Economics Executive Education, Advanced Management Program Business Administration and Finance CAREER If P&C Insurance Holding Ltd Deputy CEO 2008-2019 If P&C Insurance Ltd (publ) Chief Financial Officer 2002-2008 Senior Vice President, Head of Business and Financial Control, Business Area Commercial 1999-2001 Skandia P&C Head of Control, Strategic Business Unit Property & Casualty 1997-1999 Trygg-Hansa Head of Financial Control, Major Customer Division 1996-1997 Financial Controller and Project Manager, Business Unit Commercial 1994-1996 POSITIONS OF TRUST If P&C Insurance Holding Ltd Member of the Board 2019- Topdanmark A/S Board Member 2017- Nobia AB Board Member 2014- If P&C Insurance AS, Estonia Chairman of the Board 2017- Board Member 2003-2016 INGRID JANBU HOLTHE Born 1982 CURRENT POSITION If P&C Insurance Ltd Group Executive Vice President, Head of BA Private 2019- Sampo plc Member of the Sampo Group Executive Committee 2019- EDUCATION NHH Norwegian School of Economics and HEC Paris Master of Business and Economics (finance) and CEMS MIM (Master in International Management) 2007 CAREER If P&C Insurance Ltd (publ) Senior Vice President, Sales & Service, Norway, BA Private 2015-2019 Nordic Head of Business Development, Product & Price, BA Private 2014-2015 Business Developer, Project Manager, BA Private 2014 McKinsey & Company Engagement Manager 2010-2013 Associate 2009-2010 Junior Associate 2007-2008 This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: Sampo Oyj via Globenewswire London, January 15, 2019 CNH Industrial N.V. (NYSE: CNHI / MI: CNHI) announces that Pierre Lahutte is stepping down, with immediate effect, as Brand President of IVECO. The Company thanks Pierre for his leadership of IVECO for the past four and a half years and for his 21 years of service in the Company serving the New Holland Agriculture, IVECO and Heuliez BUS and IVECO brands over this time and wishes him well for the future. Gerrit Marx, the recently appointed President of CNH Industrial's Commercial and Speciality Vehicles segment, will assume Pierre Lahutte's responsibilities. Leading Cloud-Hosted Solution Provides Deeper, More Granular Analytics and Insights to Enhance the Employee and Customer Experience Across a Globally Distributed Workforce LONDON and SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15, 2019, the leading provider of mobile employee engagement solutions , today announced the newest version of its mobile employee engagement platform. In response to feedback from its rapidly expanding customer base, StaffConnect version 2.3 includes new features and capabilities that enable large enterprises to better understand workforce trends and engage with globally distributed and remote workforces. Language translation, enhanced analytics, and additional functionality in version 2.3 give organizations greater insights into employee engagement so they can continually adapt to address attrition and productivity issues that result from disengagement. The company has also added infrastructure to strengthen its support of the Asian market and drive performance across the entire region as its footprint continues to expand around the globe. According to the Bureau of National Affairs $11 billion is lost annually throughout diverse industries in the U.S. due to employee turnover, the accompanying retention and attrition problems, and the related costs of new talent recruitment. These three undesirable outcomes are all major risks of disengagement, and it is only by addressing the core drivers that lead to attrition-primarily, lack of engagement-that organizations can substantially decrease this cost. Employee experience, where it was disclosed that nearly half (48%) of businesses surveyed identified engagement as "very important." What's more, Deloitte found that EX is now rated as the fourth most important global trend for business leaders to address. Yet despite management's growing recognition of the critical nature of EX, less than a quarter of companies (22%) reported excellence in building a differentiated EX. StaffConnect empowers organizations to turn these trends around and more fully engage employees by: Working across multiple touch points in EX, since true engagement is two-way and can't be meaningfully measured without employee interaction Reaching the entire workforce, including non-desk employees (NDEs), not just employees who work on site Helping create better engagement across the organization by opening up new channels of communication between employees and managers Enabling senior leaders and operating managers to stay in touch with staff, regardless of when or where people work Accurately measuring and analyzing workforce engagement via insightful reports on employee engagement, productivity, and satisfaction The new functionality in StaffConnect Mobile Employee Engagement Version 2.3 builds on the previous version with the following new capabilities: Content Translation Provides Greater Versatility to Global Organizations Customers can now view content posted in other languages and translate it into their own native languages. With more than 100 languages, the product has greater versatility to support global organizations who operate in different countries around the world. Users can simply see translations or original text by toggling on posts and comments. They can also set their language preference in their user profiles. Enhanced Analytics Provide Deeper, More Granular Insights into Engagement Across the Workforce Version 2.3 offers additional metrics and tools that enable users to measure the success of the platform. With more options and versatility of the management console, administrators can access more metrics and analytics with the capability to better view and understand the data. Users are able to: View global adoption rates View adoption rates by location and department View percentage of users who have added an avatar View charts of question responses for surveys Generate downloadable PDF report for surveys Download the users who have interacted (view, comment, like) with a post in CSV format Download profile completion statistics in CSV format Download top posts in CSV format Enhanced analytics now deliver deeper, more granular insights into employee user adoption, which gives them an extensive understanding of what engagement looks like across the entire workforce. With these insights, organizations can target specific groups, users, locations and functions and adjust their engagement strategy to make the user experience more relevant. Simplified, intuitive user management and at-a-glance dashboards enable customers to build more astute reports, continually optimize their employee engagement strategy, and drive faster adoption at higher levels. In parallel, they can identify and address the symptoms of low engagement much earlier than ever before and take proactive measures to course correct. Footprint Expands in Asian Market with Launch in China and New Infrastructure Support StaffConnect has expanded its infrastructure with servers and storage based in Asia to drastically improve performance for customers with remote locations and dispersed operations across the Asia and Oceania region. Profile Search and Notification Provides a Better Understanding of Roles and Responsibilities The new version allows for greater profile search, allowing users to search across additional profile fields (location, department, interests, skills and more) within the company directory. Along with improvements in notifications, this extended functionality offers customers a higher level of search criteria, enabling them to identify individuals within their organizations more readily and connect with them via the chat function. This is particularly important for those organizations going through periods of business transformation and high growth; they need the entire workforce to easily find new people in new roles, locations and functions. This helps build a picture of all individual employees, helping to provide a better understanding of their roles and responsibilities. Improved Brand Representation Helps Drive a Deeper Connection with the Workforce Customers can now update home panel images from the StaffConnect web console, further building on branding capabilities within the platform. This gives customers the ability to better represent their brand and company culture to drive a deeper connection with their workforce. "We designed the StaffConnect Mobile Employee Engagement platform from the ground up to help our customers easily connect their entire workforce and increase employee satisfaction, productivity and collaboration. With the new version of the StaffConnect platform we are addressing, in particular, large global enterprises who require the ability to better engage with dispersed workforces around the world, including the huge proportion of deskless workers," said Geraldine Osman, CMO, StaffConnect. "We're providing deeper, more granular insights that enable them to really understand workforce trends so they can adjust their engagement strategy as needed. The new version is designed to drive higher employee user involvement, ensuring that our customers can see a measurable difference and real value towards improving engagement and creating powerful employee experiences, building better cultures and ultimately becoming the best places to work." Tweet this: .@StaffConnectApp Adds New Capabilities to Mobile Employee Engagement Platform to Increase Productivity and Profitability EmployeeEngagement EmployeeCommunications https://www.staffconnectapp.com/latest/press-releases/ StaffConnect recently published an ebook on employee engagement in the retail industry: To read "The Retail Industry's Employee Engagement Crisis-And How to Solve It" in its entirety and to learn more about how technology can help employee engagement in the retail industry, please visit: https://www.staffconnectapp.com/retail-e-book About StaffConnect StaffConnect is the leading provider of mobile employee engagement solutions. The StaffConnect platform transforms the employee experience by enabling enterprises to connect, communicate and engage their entire workforce, especially remote, non-desk employees. The customer-branded mobile app gives employees 'a voice' - with access to company and user-generated content to increase loyalty and productivity. The cloud-hosted platform empowers employers to target that content, with analytics, to deepen engagement with everyone. From offices in London and San Francisco, StaffConnect's platform and domain expertise are supporting large businesses around the world to inspire their workforces to deliver better performance, improved customer experiences and greater shareholder value. For further information, please visit: www.staffconnectapp.com . Media Resources PR Contact: Sabrina Sanchez The Ventana Group for StaffConnect Post-stabilisation notice 15thJanuary 2019 Not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States or any jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful. Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau (KfW) 0.75% 5 billion senior unsecured Notes due 2029 Post-Stabilisation Notice Commerzbank (contact Daniela Olt-Farrelly; telephone: +49 69 13623492) hereby gives notice that no stabilisation (within the meaning of Article 3.2 (d) of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU Regulation 596/2014) was undertaken by the Stabilising Managers named below in relation to the offer of the following securities. Issuer: KfW Guarantor (if any): The Federal Republic of Germany ISIN: DE000A2LQSN2 Aggregate nominal amount: 5,000,000,000 Description: 0.75 % Notes due 15th January 2029 Stabilisation Coordinator: Stabilisation Managers: Commerzbank Bank of America Merrill Lynch Societe Generale This announcement is for information purposes only and does not constitute an invitation or offer to underwrite, subscribe for or otherwise acquire or dispose of any securities of the Issuer in any jurisdiction. This announcement is not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States or any other jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful. Satellite Internet services now accessible in Cote d'Ivoire through an extensive network of distributors Regulatory News: Konnect Africa, an initiative of the satellite operator Eutelsat (Paris:ETL) dedicated to satellite broadband on the African continent, today announces the launch of its Internet access offers in Cote d'Ivoire. Advantageous offers for professionals and individuals According to the Telecommunications Sector Observatory of the Telecommunications Regulator/ICT of Cote d'Ivoire (ARTCI), the number of fixed Internet subscribers (Ethernet cable, wifi and fibre) in Cote d'Ivoire stood at 155,541 in the second quarter of 2018, representing 0.6% of the total population. At the same time, according to Deloitte's TMT 2017 report, the country has 9 million mobile Internet subscriptions, notably thanks to the 4G network. Some areas of Ivorian territory, however, are not properly served by mobile technology. Thanks to the latest satellite technologies, Konnect Africa is now helping to bridge the digital divide in Cote d'Ivoire by offering its broadband Internet offers to individuals and professionals, particularly outside major cities, where no reliable broadband solution is available. The Konnect range includes eight Internet access offers, ranging from 5GB to 30GB of data for Konnect Home residential offers, costing from 9,000 to 35,000 CFAF and adapting to all needs. Konnect Pro offers which provide superior performance corresponding to the expectations of professionals, offer between 50 and 500GB of data and are marketed from 58,000 CFAF. These offers will be made available on a prepaid basis in order to meet the needs of the Ivorian market. The speeds offered will be up to 20 Mbit/s downstream and up to 3 Mbit/s upstream. For the launch, Konnect Africa is also setting up a promotion on this new range. In order to make its services accessible to as many people as possible, Konnect Africa has joined forces with local partners in several major cities in Cote d'Ivoire, but also in remote areas: Lifi-Led, Watec, Open Services, HubLive and Ecosat. Specialized in the telecom and technology sector, education, money transfers or audiovisual, these companies with various professions will enable Konnect Africa to address its future customers as closely as possible to their consumer habits. Konnect Africa is targeting rural areas in particular by offering an adapted and lightweight solution called Konnect wifi, which provides shared Internet access through a single point of reception. Konnect wifi will provide Internet access at points of traffic such as shops, villages, schools, farms, hospitals, etc. in rural areas. Access to the service will be through the purchasing of recharge vouchers, valid from a few hours up to 1 month. Currently undergoing the final testing phases, Konnect wifi will be available soon. On the occasion of the opening of Konnect Africa's services in Cote d'Ivoire, Jean-Claude Tshipama, CEO of Konnect Africa, said: "Satellite technology for high-speed Internet is the answer for efficient digital coverage in Cote d'Ivoire. Many "white zones" remain and Konnect Africa's complementary offer addresses this lack of connectivity. Thanks to first-class local partners, we are now able to offer quality broadband offers at competitive prices." About Konnect Africa Konnect Africa's mission is to deploy reliable and accessible connectivity services on the African continent. As an initiative of the satellite operator Eutelsat, Konnect Africa provides internet access services intended for individuals and businesses, as well as collective access solutions, through the implementation of Wi-Fi hotspots. www.konnect-africa.com Facebook: KonnectAfrica Twitter: @WeKonnectAfrica About Eutelsat Communications Founded in 1977, Eutelsat Communications is one of the world's leading satellite operators. With a global fleet of satellites and associated ground infrastructure, Eutelsat enables clients across Video, Data, Government, Fixed and Mobile Broadband markets to communicate effectively to their customers, irrespective of their location. Over 6,800 television channels operated by leading media groups are broadcast by Eutelsat to one billion viewers equipped for DTH reception or connected to terrestrial networks. Headquartered in Paris, with offices and teleports around the globe, Eutelsat assembles 1,000 men and women from 46 countries who are dedicated to delivering the highest quality of service. For more about Eutelsat go to www.eutelsat.com www.eutelsat.com - Follow us on Twitter @Eutelsat_SA View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005383/en/ Contacts: Konnect Africa Viviane Adjado +33 1 53 98 44 11 vadjado@eutelsat.com Commercial Service Tel.: +225 84 00 08 08 Eutelsat Communications Media Marie-Sophie Ecuer Tel.: + 33 1 53 98 37 91 mecuer@eutelsat.com Christina Darvasi Tel.: 52 55 26 29 58 47 cdarvasi@eutelsat.com Jessica Whyte Tel.: 33 1 53 98 37 91 jwhyte@eutelsat.com Investors Joanna Darlington Tel.: +33 1 53 98 35 30 jdarlington@eutelsat.com Cedric Pugni Tel.: +33 1 53 98 35 30 cpugni@eutelsat.com Alexandre Enjalbert Tel.: +33 1 53 98 35 30 aenjalbert@eutelsat.com Press release Boulogne-Billancourt, 15 January 2019 Some of Arjowiggins' companies in the UK plan to enter into administration Following the Receivership proceedings opened in France at the request of Arjowiggins and some of its subsidiaries, the boards of Directors of some of Arjowiggins' companies in the UK have decided to file notices of appointment of an Administrator for the following companies AW UK Holdings Ltd, Arjo Wiggins Fine Papers Ltd, ArjoWiggins Chartham Ltd, AW UK Holdings Ltd, Arjowiggins Sourcing Ltd, Arjobex Ltd and Performance Papers Ltd. These companies operate the mills of Stoneywood, Chartham and Clacton. Under the aegis of Administrators, these procedures will help support the measures undertaken to find buyers for Arjowiggins' businesses. About Sequana Sequana (Euronext Paris: SEQ) reported sales of 2.8 billion in 2017 through: Antalis: leader in B2B distribution of Papers and industrial Packaging and number two in the distribution of Visual Communication media in Europe with around 5,500 employees based in 41 countries. leader in B2B distribution of Papers and industrial Packaging and number two in the distribution of Visual Communication media in Europe with around 5,500 employees based in 41 countries. Arjowiggins: manufacturer of recycled and specialty papers, with around 2,300 employees. Contact Analysts & shareholders Sequana +33 (0)1 58 04 22 80 contact@sequana.com www.sequana.com Contact Press Image Sept Claire Doligez Priscille Reneaume +33 (0)1 53 70 74 25 cdoligez@image7.fr preneaume@image7.fr ------------------------ Copyright Actusnews Wire Receive by email the next press releases of the company by registering on www.actusnews.com, it's free Full and original release in PDF format:https://www.actusnews.com/documents_communiques/ACTUS-0-56715-some-of-arjowiggins-companies-in-the-uk-plan-to-enter-into-administration.pdf NEWFOUNDLAND, CANADA / ACCESSWIRE / January 15, 2019 / Rambler Metals and Mining plc (TSX-V: RAB, AIM: RMM) (Rambler or the Company) announces that Rambler Metals and Mining Canada Limited (RMMC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company, has entered into a loan agreement with CE Mining III Rambler Limited (CEIII) pursuant to which CEIII has made an unsecured loan in the amount of US$1,000,000 to RMMC (the Loan). The obligations of RMMC under the Loan are guaranteed by the Company. The Loan The principal sum under the unsecured Loan bears interest at a fixed rate of 10.0% per annum. The Loan is repayable by the payment to CEIII of all net proceeds realized from each fundraising (whether by way of the issuance of equity or debt by the Company) completed by the Company prior to the Final Repayment Date (as hereafter defined), until such time as the aggregate Loan amount has been repaid in full provided that any principal amount of the Loan remaining unpaid and all accrued but unpaid interest owing on the Loan will be repayable in full on the first business day falling 12 months after the date of the Loan (the Final Repayment Date). Interest on the Loan will accrue daily and compound annually. All accrued but unpaid interest remaining outstanding after the Final Repayment Date will be capitalised and compounded on a monthly basis and default interest will be charged at a rate of 5% per annum, compounded monthly (in addition to the standard loan interest). In connection with the Loan, the Company will also pay CEIII an arrangement fee of US$15,000 as well as the reasonable legal fees of CEIII's solicitors up to a cap of US$5,000, plus applicable taxes in each case. These fees and expenses will be deducted from the amount loaned to the Company. The proceeds of the Loan will be used by Rambler in support of short term working capital requirements at its Canadian operation. Related Party Transaction CEIII is a wholly-owned subsidiary of CE Mining Fund III L.P., a Cayman Islands exempted limited partnership whose general partner is under common ownership with the general partner of CE Mining II L.P., whose subsidiary CE Mining II Rambler Limited (CEII) is a control person of Rambler. CE Mining Fund II L.P., the parent of CEII, is a specialised investment fund, established in 2015 to invest in hard asset mining and mineral projects. As of the most recent early warning report dated November 26, 2018, CEII beneficially own 396,363,636 ordinary shares in Rambler, representing approximately 60% of the issued and outstanding ordinary shares. Assuming conversion at maturity by CEIII of the US$2million Convertible Loan issued to Rambler Metals and Mining plc at November 26, 2018, together, CEII and CEIII would have ownership and control over 449,275,636 Ordinary Shares of the Company, representing approximately 63% of the issued and outstanding Ordinary Shares. Accordingly, the Loan constitutes a "related party transaction" under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (MI 61-101) and for the purposes of Rule 13 of the AIM Rules for Companies. In connection with the Loan, Rambler is relying on the exemptions in Section 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101 from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements, respectively, on the basis that the fair market value of the Loan is less than 25% of the market capitalization of the Company calculated in accordance with MI 61-101. A material change report with respect to the Loan will be filed less than 21 days prior to the closing of the transaction. This time period is reasonable and necessary in the circumstances as Rambler wishes to complete the Loan in an expeditious manner. The terms of the Loan were approved by the disinterested members of Rambler's board of directors (Norman Williams, Glenn Poulter, and Eason Chen) (the Non-Investor Directors) who unanimously determined that the Loan was in the best interests of the Company. The Non-Investor Directors, having consulted with the Company's nominated adviser, Cantor Fitzgerald Europe, consider that the terms of the Loan are fair and reasonable insofar as the Company's shareholders are concerned. In reaching this determination, the Non-Investor Directors considered, among other things, the liquidity the Loan would provide the Company with for its short-term working capital. No special committee was established in connection with the Loan. This announcement has been posted on the Company's website at www.ramblermines.com and will be posted under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. ABOUT RAMBLER METALS AND MINING Rambler is a mining and development company that in November 2012 brought its first mine into commercial production. Rambler has a 100 per cent ownership in the Ming Copper-Gold Mine, a fully operational base and precious metals processing facility and year round bulk storage and shipping facility; all located on the Baie Verte peninsula, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Following the completion of its recent productivity improvement initiative Rambler's focus is on sustaining mine and mill production at 1,250 metric tonnes per day. With a return to profitability and positive cash flow, Rambler will continue advancing Phase III engineering studies with a view to further increase production to 2,000 mtpd at the Ming Mine. Along with the Ming Mine, Rambler also owns 100 per cent of the former producing Little Deer/ Whales Back copper mines and has strategic investment in the former producing Hammerdown gold mine. Rambler is currently dual listed in London under AIM: RMM and in Canada under TSX-V: RAB. Rambler has applied to voluntarily delist its ordinary shares from the TSX-V. Additional details are set out in the Company's news release dated January 7, 2019. For further information, please contact: Norman Williams, CPA, CA President and CEO Rambler Metals & Mining Plc Tel No: 709-800-1929 Fax No: 709-800-1921 Peter Mercer. P. Geo Vice President, Corporate Secretary Rambler Metals & Mining Plc Tel No: +44 (0) 20 8652-2700 Fax No: +44 (0) 20 8652-2719 Nominated Advisor (NOMAD) David Porter Cantor Fitzgerald Europe Tel No: +44 (0) 20 7894 7000 Website: www.ramblermines.com The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014 (MAR). Upon the publication of this announcement via Regulatory Information Service (RIS), this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Caution Regarding Forward Looking Statements: Certain information included in this press release constitutes "forward-looking statements". Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding the Company's expected use of the funds made available under the Loan, statements and information relating to future financial or operation performance and other statements that express the expectations of management or estimates of future performance. Where the Company expresses or implies an expectation or belief as to future events or results, such expectation or belief are based on assumptions made in good faith and believed to have a reasonable basis. Such assumptions include, without limitation, the price of and anticipated costs of recovery of, copper concentrate, gold and silver, the presence of and continuity of such minerals at modeled grades and values, the capacities of various machinery and equipment, the availability of personnel, machinery and equipment at estimated prices, mineral recovery rates, the availability of capital, and others. However, forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed, projected or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks include, but are not limited to, interpretation and implications of drilling and geophysical results; estimates regarding timing of future capital expenditures and costs towards profitable commercial operations. Other factors that could cause actual results, developments or events to differ materially from those anticipated include, among others, increases/decreases in production; volatility in metals prices and demand; currency fluctuations; cash operating margins; cash operating cost per pound sold; costs per tonne of ore; variances in ore grade or recovery rates from those assumed in mining plans; mineral reserves and/or resources; operational risks inherent in mining or development activities and legislative factors relating to prices, taxes, royalties, land use, title and permits, importing and exporting of minerals and environmental protection, the ability of the Company to repay the Loan and the availability to the Company of financing and credit alternatives and access to capital. Accordingly, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements and the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained herein are made as at the date hereof and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or revise any such forward-looking statements or any forward-looking statements contained in any other documents whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law. This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact rns@lseg.com or visit www.rns.com. SOURCE: Rambler Metals & Mining PLC View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/532644/Rambler-Metals-Mining-PLC-Announces-Loan-Transaction-with-CE-Mining-III-Rambler-Ltd Walking down that road again, not with your own child but with a young adult who is in need of some guidance, is just, it just warms your heart, ODell said. Theyve been so grateful and theyve had such good questions, and to be able to answer those questions and have somebody actually listen to your answers and take your advice is very satisfying. You feel like youre giving something back to the community. JZ Capital Partners Ltd - JZ Capital Partners Announces Sale of Petrocorner JZ CAPITAL PARTNERS ANNOUNCES SALE OF PETROCORNER ~ Approximately 12.1 million in gross proceeds realised~ 15 January 2019 JZ Capital Partners Limited (LSE: JZCP.L or "JZCP"), the London listed fund that invests in US and European microcap companies and US real estate, is pleased to announce the sale of Petrocorner, a network of petrol stations throughout Spain, to a Spanish subsidiary of British Petroleum ("BP"). JZCP owns Petrocorner through its 18.75% stake in JZI Fund III, L.P. Headquartered in Madrid, Petrocorner is a strategic build-up in the Spanish retail petrol station market, comprised of 65 petrol stations located across Spain with annualized sales volume of approximately 250 million litres of petrol. JZCP, which owns Petrocorner through its 18.75% stake in JZI Fund III, L.P., expects to receive cumulative gross proceeds of 12.1 million from the sale (including interim proceeds and escrows). This represents a gross multiple of invested capital ("MOIC") of approximately 2.0x and a gross internal rate of return ("IRR") of approximately 23.0%. David Zalaznick, JZCP's Founder and Investment Adviser, commented: "Petrocorner was a highly successful result of our buy-and-build strategy in the retail petrol sector. Our management partners did a superb job and we thank them for all their hard work. For JZCP, the Petrocorner sale represents a further step towards our primary goal to achieve liquidity through realisations and refinancings. We hope to report on additional liquidity events throughout 2019." Ends For further information: Ed Berry / Kit Dunford FTI Consulting +44 (0) 20 3727 1046 / 1143 David Zalaznick Jordan/Zalaznick Advisers, Inc. +1 212 485 9410 Samuel Walden Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited +44 (0) 1481 745385 About JZCP JZ Capital Partners ("JZCP") is one of the oldest closed-end investment companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. It seeks to provide shareholders with a return by investing selectively in US and European microcap companies and US real estate. JZCP receives investment advice from Jordan/Zalaznick Advisers, Inc. ("JZAI") which is led by David Zalaznick and Jay Jordan. They have worked together for more than 35 years and are supported by teams of investment professionals in New York, Chicago, London and Madrid. JZAI's experts work with the existing management of micro-cap companies to help build better businesses, create value and deliver strong returns for investors. For more information please visit www.jzcp.com. Embry-Riddle Offers No.1-Rated Programs and Strong Job Prospects at Affordable Rates DAYTONA BEACH, Florida, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The world's premier aviation and aerospace institution, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, earned the No.1 spot on U.S. News & World Report's 2019 ranking of the best U.S. online bachelor's degree programs. The ranking affirmed the school's focus on academic excellence, affordability and promising career opportunities for graduates. Embry-Riddle is accessible to students worldwide through fully online programs and at more than 135 locations. U.S. News & World Report identified Embry-Riddle's Worldwide Campus as the No. 1 online undergraduate educator among 348 schools ranked on the 2019 list. It was the sixth consecutive year that Embry-Riddle's online bachelor's degree programs ranked within the Top 5 on the list. This year's list placed Embry-Riddle among outstanding company: The university successfully competed with many of the United States' most distinguished research institutions, and it was the only private university among the top schools. Embry-Riddle President Dr. P. Barry Butler said: "We are honored to be named No.1 among so many exceptional online educators. The latest U.S. News & World Report ranking will inspire us to sustain and advance all of our award-winning educational programs in service to students." Embry-Riddle Worldwide Chancellor Dr. John R. Watret added, "Embry-Riddle's online programs meet the highest standards of academic excellence, and they are also remarkably accessible to all students - from first-generation university students, to military members transitioning back into civilian life, to professionals working to advance their careers. Because Embry-Riddle is No. 1, our students are exceptionally well-positioned to secure rewarding, meaningful jobs, particularly because the aviation industry is rapidly growing, yet it faces a global shortage of highly qualified pilots and aviation maintenance technicians." According to Dr. Jason M. Ruckert, Vice Chancellor & Chief Digital Learning Officer at Embry-Riddle Worldwide, "Advancing technology-enhanced education with affordability, academic quality and student success at the forefront is what sets Embry-Riddle apart." The 2019 U.S. News & World Report ranking involved an analysis of some 1,500 online bachelor's degree programs, encompassing four general categories: student engagement (which counted for 35% of each institution's score); faculty credentials and training (20%); peer reputation (20%); and student services and technology (25%). The ranking was only the most recent distinction earned by Embry-Riddle's Worldwide Campus. In 2018, Embry-Riddle Worldwide's unique virtual crash laboratory and aerial robotics virtual lab received a CIO 100 award for innovative and transformative digital educational technology. A high-tech effort to help students feel connected with Embry-Riddle and persist with their studies earned a top honor for excellence in education from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education Cooperative for Educational Technologies. Embry-Riddle also ranked #1 on a U.S. News & World Report list in 2018 that looked at 97 institutions offering online bachelor's programs for veterans. Some 97% of graduates are employed or are in graduate school within a year of graduation, according to Embry-Riddle's annual alumni survey. ABOUT EMBRY-RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is the world's largest and most comprehensive institution specializing in aviation, aerospace, engineering and related degree programs. A non-profit, fully accredited university, Embry-Riddle offers more than 100 associate's, bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. degree programs. For more information, visit www.embryriddle.edu. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/806825/Best_Online_Programs_Bachelors.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/806537/ERAU_Logo.jpg Manibridge nickel; first holes planned for February 2019 - Further work underway on uranium and diamond projects Vancouver, Canada--(Newsfile Corp. - January 14, 2019) - CanAlaska Uranium Ltd. (TSXV: CVV) (OTCQB: CVVUF) (FSE: DH7N) ("CanAlaska" or the "Company") reports that contracts have been signed for drill testing of the Manibridge high grade nickel targets, in the southern Thompson Nickel Belt ("TNB") Manitoba. CanAlaska has three large projects in the Thompson Nickel Belt. The Manibridge target shows a significant concentration of high-grade nickel within a broad fold structure that appears to extend to depth. A 400 metre long high-grade nickel target within a 1,200 metre long horizon of semi-continuous nickel mineralization, north of the former producing Manibridge nickel mine, will be tested with an initial 1000 metres of core drilling. This zone and the main nickel drill intersections are shown on the accompanying figure. Further data is available on the Company's website www.canalaska.com. Figure 1 To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit: https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/2864/42164_1eb40782447ffa53_001full.jpg The Manibridge project is located in an area of generally high nickel tenor mineralization, outlined by discovery drill holes and recent airborne geophysical surveys, as well as a number of untested targets. CanAlaska owns 100% of the project, which for the past several months has been under a LOI with Canada Metals. CanAlaska is currently working with Canada Metals to conclude a long term property funding agreement. CanAlaska president Peter Dasler comments, "There is a strong need of nickel for EV battery development and the most suitable material for this comes from sulphide nickel ore bodies. The Thompson Nickel Belt is the fifth largest sulphide nickel mining camp in the world, and hosts numerous nickel deposits, with new deposits ready to be developed. It is a very good time to show the potential of this part of CanAlaska's Energy Metals project portfolio." Other news The company is active on a number of other fronts: CanAlaska is currently reviewing summer drilling for the West McArthur uranium project. The company is also supporting the current initiatives being undertaken by Northern uranium, the Company's JV partner on the NW Manitoba uranium project. Further VTEM and magnetic airborne survey work is currently being carried out and processed for some of the West Athabasca Kimberlite targets. CanAlaska also announces that it has granted incentive stock options to certain directors, officers and consultants of the Company to purchase up to an aggregate of 2,240,000 common shares of the Company pursuant to the company's share option plan. The options are exercisable for a period of two years at a price of $0.325 per share. About CanAlaska Uranium CanAlaska Uranium Ltd. (TSX-V: CVV; OTCQB: CVVUF; Frankfurt: DH7N) holds interests in approximately 152,000 hectares (375,000 acres), in Canada's Athabasca Basin - the "Saudi Arabia of Uranium." CanAlaska's strategic holdings have attracted major international mining companies. CanAlaska is currently working with Cameco and Denison at two of the Company's properties in the Eastern Athabasca Basin. CanAlaska is a project generator positioned for discovery success in the world's richest uranium district. The Company also holds properties prospective for nickel, copper, gold and diamonds. For further information visit www.canalaska.com. The qualified technical person for this news release is Dr Karl Schimann, P. Geo, CanAlaska director and VP Exploration. On behalf of the Board of Directors "Peter Dasler" Peter Dasler, M.Sc., P.Geo. President & CEO CanAlaska Uranium Ltd. Contacts: Peter Dasler, President Tel: +1.604.688.3211 x 138 Email: info@canalaska.com John Gomez, Corporate Development Tel: +1.604.688.3211 Email: jgomez@canalaska.com Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-looking information All statements included in this press release that address activities, events or developments that the Company expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions made by the Company based on its experience, perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments and other factors it believes are appropriate in the circumstances. In addition, these statements involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties that contribute to the possibility that the predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will prove inaccurate, certain of which are beyond the Company's control. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, the Company does not intend to revise or update these forward-looking statements after the date hereof or revise them to reflect the occurrence of future unanticipated events. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 14, 2019) - AXMIN Inc. (TSXV: AXM) ("AXMIN" or the "Company") Chairman and CEO Lucy Yan provides an update for 2019 commenting as follows: 2018 was a transformational year for our Company. Royalty payments together with the resolution of the long-standing accounts payable have placed AXMIN on a strong foundation and we intend to build on this foundation in 2019. Our main focus will be to become operational in the Central African Republic (CAR) to develop the Passendro asset. AXMIN has maintained a constant presence in country during this difficult time and enjoys an excellent relationship with the authorities in Bangui and also in Bambari. We are monitoring the security situation carefully and when security returns, we have plans in place to renew our operation. We note that the CAR arm forces (FACA) have been deployed to Bambari and are now being deployed in surrounding areas. We are informed by the authorities in Bangui that we should anticipate being operational again in the near future. To this end, we are expanding our presence in country and will add additional senior staff to assist this process. AXMIN has been approached by several potential strategic partners to assist with the development of the asset. The Company will commence a formal process to select the strategic partner once we have clarity on timing the return to Ndassima. We have completed an online data room for this purpose. The selection criteria will favor very large well capitalized companies with mining and infrastructure construction experience in Africa. The first objective will be to complete a site survey and then commence a phased development plan with rapid production being the priority. Going forward, AXMIN will have two distinct parts to our operation in that we anticipate having royalty income from our assets and having operational income from the CAR asset. In order to better facilitate transparency and maximize shareholder value, the Company is investigating how best to structure these two separate activities. AXMIN is taking advice in this regard and may create a separate entity for the purpose of realizing royalty income from Senegal and other potential assets that may be added. In 2019, the Company looks forward to being more communicative with our shareholders. We have commenced a presence on social media and will be providing an updated company presentation as well. Management is looking forward to another strong year for the Company in 2019 and will keep the market updated with further press releases on each of the matters above when appropriate. About AXMIN AXMIN is a Canadian exploration and development company with a strong focus on the African continent. AXMIN continues to closely monitor the political situation at its Feasibility Stage Passendro Gold Project in the Central African Republic. For more information regarding AXMIN visit our website at www.axmininc.com. Please also visit us on Facebook. For additional information, please contact AXMIN Inc.: Lucy Yan Chairman and CEO ceo@axmininc.com AXMIN Inc. General Enquiries David de Jongh Weill Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary david@axmininc.com +65 9781 8281 Investor Relations ir@axmininc.com www.axmininc.com This press release includes certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All information, other than statements of historical fact included herein, including without limitation, information regarding the future option grant plans and objectives of AXMIN, are forward-looking information that involves various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from AXMIN's expectations have been disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in AXMIN's documents filed from time-to-time with the TSX Venture Exchange and other regulatory authorities. AXMIN disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information whether resulting from new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Tripping.com, the US-based vacation rental meta-search site, has been acquired by Berlin-based HomeToGo GmbH, the world's largest vacation rental search engine. In conjunction with the acquisition, Princeville Global, who led Tripping's Series C investment round, made a new investment into HomeToGo. Jen O'Neal, co-founder and former CEO of Tripping.com said in a statement, "I'm extremely happy with the acquisition of Tripping by HomeToGo, and bringing together these two strong brands. The combination of the two companies validates the market opportunity that my co-founder Jeff Manheimer and I set out to prove when we launched Tripping.com in 2011. I applaud the efforts of the entire management team and fellow directors, including in particular Matt Krna from Princeville Global, in bringing this transaction to a successful conclusion." Matt Krna, Managing Partner at Princeville Global, stated, "We are excited to have the opportunity to invest in HomeToGo, the clear global market leader, and, by so doing, reaffirm our initial investment thesis: that consumers can benefit from the same aggregation of fragmented supply, price discovery, and rich search capabilities when booking their vacation rentals that they have historically enjoyed in researching flights and hotel rooms. We look forward to working closely with Patrick and the HomeToGo team." About Princeville Global Princeville Global is an investment firm focused on backing rapidly-growing technology-related companies around the world. The firm looks to support entrepreneurs seeking not only capital, but a value-added partner who can help them fulfill their aspirations to create companies of global scale. The firm has a worldwide network of relationships built over decades of experience investing in and advising rapidly growing companies in the technology sector. Princeville Global has offices in San Francisco and Hong Kong. Visit www.princevilleglobal.com for more information. About HomeToGo HomeToGo (www.hometogo.com) is the world's largest vacation rental search engine. It allows you to easily search and compare over 15 million accommodation offers in over 200 countries from more than 300 partners, including: Booking.com, VRBO, HomeAway, and TripAdvisor. With intuitive features such as flexible dates, users can find their ideal vacation rental according to their preferred destination, travel dates, budget, and amenities. HomeToGo was founded 2014 by Wolfgang Heigl, Dr. Patrick Andrae, and Nils Regge. It includes the brands Tripping.com and CASAMUNDO. The Berlin-based company currently employs more than 150 people and operates local websites in 13 European countries, the United States, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Japan, and Hong Kong. HomeToGo's investors include Insight Venture Partners, Lakestar, Princeville Global, DN Capital, Acton Capital Partners, Global Founders Capital, Perpetual Ventures, and mojo.capital. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190114005811/en/ Contacts: Carter Brutschy carter@tripping.com Taimur Goes To His Play School Taimur just returned to his home after a long European holiday with his parents, and is slowly getting back to his normal routine. Taimur has begun taking baby steps in his education as he was snapped at a play school today. His nanny accompanied him to the school and can be seen helping little Tim Tim out of the car. All Tim Wants To Do Is Go Play! It looks like Taimur had been waiting all day for his play time because he took off as soon as he got out of the car. He Sprints Towards The Playground Leaving His Nanny Behind! The cute cherub can be seen sprinting towards the playground unable to contain his excitement. His nanny had to try and keep pace with him! On the way, he looks at the paps calling out to him. Taimur Ali Khan is truly cute beyond words. See The Look On Taimur's Face When He Gets There See how happy Taimur is to get to the playground! Tim Tim has been cultivating many hobbies and skills. A few days back, he was snapped being taken for a horse ride. He has been spotted doing that on quite a few occasions previously. It looks like the penchant for horse riding began when Taimur, his mum Kareena Kapoor Khan and dad Saif Ali Khan went on a vacay to South Africa in December last year. Tim's Cous Inaaya Joins Him Taimur's cousin, Inaaya Naumi Kemmu also joined him at the play school. Inaaya is the cute grey-green eyed doll of a baby of Soha Ali Khan and Kunal Khemu. She and Taimur have been snapped on numerous play dates before. Isn't she so cute? Shraddha Kapoor who has time and again spared time from her busy schedules to celebrate various festivals, recently returned back to for Makar Sankranti. While the actress always celebrates the festivals with her family, this year she has extended her celebrations to her newly found family- Team Saaho'. It has been about a year that Shraddha has been shooting for Saaho and the crew has become more like a family for the actress. Reportedly, she treated Saaho team with some home-made sweets for the occasion of Makar Sankranti. She also sent boxes of 'Til Gul Ladoos' to Prabhas and the team. The sweets made in Shraddha's kitchen are quite popular and she often gets them to her film sets in Mumbai for her colleagues and the til gul laddoos made at her home is no exception. Sridevi Bungalow: Boney Kapoor Sends Legal Notice To Makers Of Priya Varrier's Bollywood Debut Film When Shraddha was in Hyderabad shooting for Saaho, Prabhas and team had treated her with special home-made delicacies of Hyderabadi cuisine. Now, it was her turn to surprise them. Earlier, the actress was seen celebrating New Year with close friends and family. She had specially flown from Hyderabad where she was shooting for Saaho for a day, not leaving any opportunity to spend quality time with her closed ones. Shraddha has a chock-a-block schedule ahead as she is working on multiple projects simultaneously with Saaho, Chhichhore and ABCD 3. Speaking about working with her in Saaho, Prabhas was earlier quoted as saying, "I have never worked with a Bollywood actor before and she is the best choice for the role. We are very lucky to have her on board. Her character is not just like coming and going or just there for the songs. The character is very important and adds a lot of weight to the story. It is one of the most important characters in the film. She has some amazing action sequences also. It is a very strong character. She is a very hard-working actor and she is very comfortable (on the sets)." Directed by Sujeeth, Saaho is slated to release on 15th August, 2019. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan Is PLASTIC! Emraan Hashmi JUSTIFIES Himself; Reveals Why He Called Her So! I Do Support From Individuals Across Different Walks Of Life "I don't feel lonely, because honestly, people may not be there with me physically, but I get a lot of support from various quarters. I've stood up for so many things. But I've never had a situation where I had egg on my face publicly. Like I said, it may not necessarily be from our industry, but I do get support from individuals across different walks of life." 'People Really Resonate & Identify With Me' "God knows where that comes from and how much people really resonate and identify with me. When the whole nepotism thing happened, Karan Johar went on record and apologised to me. There are a whole lot of instances of such a nature." Kangana Did This While Shooting For Manikarnika "When I began shooting for Manikarnika, I switched off from everything. I never bothered about it, but there were these never-ending open letters. Even in the past, when I faced uneasy accusations from one quarter and I was sent a notice, there was such an outrage. But though I was not relevantly a big star and I was having this conflict with a co-actor, I did find people supporting me." Kangana On The Times She Felt Cornered By The Industry "However, at times I did feel cornered, especially after Simran's failure. Script writer Apurva Asrani, filmmakers Ketan Mehta, Karan Johar and Rakesh Roshan and some others singled me out for criticism. The industry was having these intense meetings to make sure I was put in my place. Probably that was the only phase when I felt suffocated." The Actress Felt Targeted The actress was quoted as saying, "It makes me feel suffocated even now when I think about it. Ketan went to the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Aditya Pancholi filed a case and Rakesh Roshan continued to say he would reveal' something. However, all of this didn't go anywhere. The EOW withdrew the case. Nothing came out of that propaganda, they did. As for nepotism, Karan had to apologise. But at that time, I felt I couldn't take it anymore because there were six-seven things happening simultaneously and I was the lone target." Is Bollywood Hierarchy Dominated By Her, Deepika & Alia? To this she replied, "Let's not have any delusions about that. The kind of place Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan naturally inherited from their seniors like Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan worked differently. Actually as far as the girls go, this is not something that can be looked upon so superficially. With women it has been different. What we have currently is definitely as good as it can get. However, I don't know about us being a part of the hierarchy." 'We Have Definitely Made A Better Place For Ourselves' "In the '80s and '90s, we've had Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit-Nene, who enjoyed a certain spurt of superstardom. If you see, there were those small phases of stardom that they saw, it was very age oriented and focused only around that span of time. Keeping all that in mind, we've definitely made a better place for ourselves." But Are They On Par With Their Male Counterparts? Kangana replied, "No. However, we do wield a certain amount of influence on the audience and that feels good." Manikarnika Dropped A New Song, 'Bharat' Today, a new song from Manikarnika called Bharat' was launched and it sure was a grand event. Held in New Delhi, the film's team and Kangana pulled out all the stops to make a statement with the song launch, as they have been doing with the Manikarnika promotions so far. Kangana In Her Most Elegant Element Kangana looked every bit graceful and elegant at the event. She wore a beautiful sage green kaftan and a golden shawl wrapped around her neck. She started the event with the traditional lighting of the lamp ceremony. Speaking of the song she said, "This song (Bharat) is the spirit of our film. The aathma of our film. Delhi is the spirit of India, its aathma and the heart as well. So there is no better place to launch this film than in Delhi. That's why we have come here, to launch the song and to make you all a part of the event." Kareena's Baggy Jeans Airport Look Kareena Kapoor Khan was seen rocking the baggy jeans look at the airport on Tuesday evening. She teamed her denims with a white tee and a long black blazer over it, and accessorized with a pair of swanky glares. Her outfit screams diva. Kareena recently returned from her long European vacation with Taimur. Jacqueline At A Store Launch Event Actress Jacqueline Fernandez was at a store launch event sporting a totally fun look. Jacqueline posed for the cameras in an orange tank top, a navy blue zip up jacket and a matching skirt. She was showing off a pair of white skechers sneakers, the brand that launched a new store. On the work front, Jacqueline will next be seen in the upcoming action drama film Drive', a Bollywood remake of an American movie with the same name. Taking into account events that have transpired over the last year, I felt it was critically important that we hold the first of these community-oriented meetings in Pasadena, said schools Superintendent George Arlotto in a statement. There is a lot of work, however, for every person in Anne Arundel County to do when it comes to eradicating bigotry and hate. Fountain Hills, AZ (85268) Today Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low 86F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low 86F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike. We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve. 2020 was a year marked by hardships and challenges, but the Fauquier community has proven resilient. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you for your continued support, wed like to offer all our subscribers -- new or returning -- 4 WEEKS FREE DIGITAL AND PRINT ACCESS. We understand the importance of working to keep our community strong and connected. As we move forward together into 2021, it will take commitment, communication, creativity, and a strong connection with those who are most affected by the stories we cover. We are dedicated to providing the reliable, local journalism you have come to expect. We are committed to serving you with renewed energy and growing resources. Let the Fauquier Times be your community companion throughout 2021, and for many years to come. A watchdog has ruled that no further action is required following the accidental release of personal farm details by Welsh government. Both the farm name and the location of those farms selected for Welsh government badger culling as part of the Refreshed Bovine TB Programme were accidentally released by Welsh government in July last year following a freedom of information request. This information was subsequently posted on social media with calls from some anti-cull extremists to engage in behaviour which could have threatened the safety of farming families. The Information Commissioner's Office has now ruled that no further action is to be taken, despite farmer anger. The Farmers Union of Wales (FUW) has expressed its disappointment at the Information Commissioner's Office. Dr Hazel Wright, FUW Senior Policy Officer, said: We recognise that Welsh government have now put procedures in place to reduce the likelihood of this mistake recurring and we hope that lessons really have been learned. However, the lack of a more robust response by the Information Commissioners Office will do little to act as a deterrent against future bad practise. Welsh government were aware that the deliberate or inadvertent release of such information was likely to result in targeting by animal rights extremists, including illegal activity and threats being made. 'Vulnerable position' Dr Wright said many cattle keepers continue to operate their businesses under a raft of burdensome and costly bovine TB controls, and that under such regulations farmers can receive financial penalties for genuine mistakes or factors outside their control. Farmers would naturally expect Welsh government to be held to account in the same way, mistake or not, said Dr Wright. The FUW is extremely concerned that, without robust measures to safeguard farming families, cattle keepers in Wales will continue to be placed in a vulnerable position. We have repeatedly made our position on this matter clear to Welsh government officials, she said. 'Frustrated and alarmed' The FUW said it remains frustrated and alarmed about an existing open access TB information portal and has written several times to the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs about this matter. The vulnerability of cattle farmers to harassment from anti-cull groups is now well documented and cannot be disputed, added Dr Wright. The ever-increasing use of social media has provided a portal for quick, cheap and widespread information dissemination. We will continue to press for access to bovine TB information to be restricted in order to ensure that farming families are safeguarded from vigilantism and intimidating behaviour from animal rights extremists, she said. Tenant farmers have urged Defra in delivering its Clean Air Strategy to understand the unique challenges facing those who do not own the land they farm. The government's new Clean Air Strategy to tackle air pollution in the UK looks at new regulations to be introduced for farmers to tackle ammonia emissions. Announced on Monday (14 January), it highlights ways for farmers to tackle ammonia emissions through new funding and the introduction of new regulations. But the Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) has concerns Defra may move too quickly in implementing new legislation without consulting farmers who do not own the land upon which they run their businesses. On many tenanted holdings, the fixed equipment is owned by and is the responsibility of the landowner. = Any requirement to upgrade or improve fixed equipment must provide a mechanism to allow tenants and other types of farmer occupying land that they do not own, to oblige their landlords to carry out any necessary work of repair, upgrade or new investment. TFA Farm Policy Adviser, Lynette Steel, said: There is no doubt that the agriculture industry must play its part in helping to reduce emissions however actions outlined in the strategy must not be imposed in a way which causes specific difficulty for the tenanted sector of agriculture. More widely, it is important that the Governments actions do not have a detrimental impact on farm competitiveness, especially in these uncertain times. The grant aid being offered to assist with the necessary upgrading of fixed equipment is welcomed by the group, but warns that tenants may not be able to access this funding due to restrictions within their tenancy agreements. Ms Steel added: We have highlighted this issue in our lobbying around the Agriculture Bill, currently awaiting Report Stage in the House of Commons. We have tabled an amendment which would allow farm tenants restricted by their tenancy agreements to have a mechanism to force the issue with their landlords. To date we have not had a response from Defra to the amendments we have suggested. However, we hope that MPs will vote in favour of amending the Bill to ensure the tenants are not disenfranchised in any new grant making regime, she said. The TFA has also welcomed the links that are being made between the implementation of the clean air strategy and other environmental strategies such as water management. Irish farmers are facing a potential armageddon scenario as the UK nears its Brexit date, according to the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA). IFA President Joe Healy said that Irish farmers are already bearing the brunt of the impending Brexit through disastrous beef prices. He has urged Ireland's Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed to put on the green jersey and tog out, right now, for Irish farmers who are facing a potential Armageddon from Brexit. Along with price supports, Mr Healy said the Minister needs to insist that for every 5c/kg change in the cattle price, the EU Commission makes provision for 20 per head compensation on every beef animal slaughtered. IFA Livestock Chairman, Angus Woods added: Irish beef farmers cannot wait until April for the Minister to act on EU price support and compensation. We need Minister Creed to act immediately and get out to Brussels and make it clear to Commissioner Hogan and the Commission that Irish beef farmers cannot be the ones to carry the cost of Brexit losses. He said at current cattle price levels, winter finishers are already shipping major losses, which is not sustainable. He said prices are 25c/kg or 90 per head below this time last year. Cattle prices at the factories are at a base of 3.75/kg for steers and 3.85/kg for heifers. Cow prices are ranging from 2.60 to 3.30/kg with R grades at 3.00+/kg. Farmers south of the Northern Ireland border have expressed concern about what will happen post-Brexit. With less than three months to go until the UK's membership of the EU comes to an end, the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland is proving one of the most difficult issues to overcome in exit negotiations. It is clear that the agri-food sector is set to become a major battleground in the negotiations on the future relationship between the EU and the UK," said Mr Healy. The Irish Government must prioritise our requirement that the UK maintains full regulatory alignment with the EUs standards and common external tariff in the area of agriculture and food. Full regulatory alignment is necessary to avoid a hard border in Ireland and deliver the closest possible trading relationship between the EU and the UK, which is an outcome both sides have prioritised. The ideal solution is for the UK to remain in the Single Market and Customs Union. Short of this, we need an agreed framework whereby the UK remains fully aligned to European standards and trade policy. Our objective must be no border on the island of Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea. Otherwise, farm incomes will be hit and thousands of jobs lost in rural Ireland. The UK government will have to pay out billions of pounds to farmers if the UK leaves the EU with 'no deal', the Scottish government has warned. Scotland's Rural Economy Secretary, Fergus Ewing said the UK government will be liable for covering costs in the event of leaving the EU on WTO terms. He said Defra Secretary Michael Gove is responsible for covering the costs, which could end up in the billions. The warning comes as MPs prepare to vote in the House of Commons on Tuesday (15 January) on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal. The PM appears to be on course for a crushing defeat in the vote, making a 'no deal' Brexit a possible outcome. Mr Ewing said: We will absolutely continue to champion the case for farmers and if there are costs to farmers resultant from a no-deal then Mr Gove is responsible for them. He has said so himself. Its going to be billions. I would far rather eliminate a catastrophic no-deal than deal with it after its happened. We have made it absolutely clear, and I will make it clear to Michael Gove when I meet him today, that the additional costs that arise are the responsibility of the UK Government, he said. The Scottish government has also sent a letter to MPs setting out steps it believes must be taken to protect both Scotland and the UK from the UK government's Brexit deal and a no deal outcome. The letter, written by Constitutional Relations Secretary Michael Russel, calls for MPs to support a new referendum on EU membership in a 'crucial week for the future of Scotland.' Mr Russell said: This will be a crucial week for the future of Scotland but I urge MPs not to think just of the days to come but of the generations to come. The UK government's Brexit deal will take Scotland out of the EU against our will. It will make us poorer, diminish our rights and damage opportunities for future generations. A report by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) which looks at the effect of leaving the EU highlights how Scotland could feel the effects of withdrawal from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) more than other parts of the UK. "EU funds are proportionately more important to Scotland than the rest of the UK," the report says. "The largest part of Scotlands pre- allocated EU funds come from CAP Pillar I with support to farmers incomes provided in the form of direct payments and market-support measures." Many British farms will struggle to survive if the United Kingdom leaves the European Union with 'no deal', the NFU president has warned. During a speech at the Semex dairy conference in Glasgow on Monday (14 January), NFU President Minette Batters said farmers 'want clarity' amid growing political uncertainty. She also covered issues such as the forthcoming Agriculture Bill, the need to uphold UK food standards and the importance of food production. The Brexit warning comes as MPs prepare to vote in the House of Commons on Tuesday (15 January) on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal. The PM appears to be on course for a crushing defeat in the vote, making a 'no deal' Brexit a possible outcome. Mrs Batters said due to the ongoing uncertainty, there has never been a more important time to talk about home grown food. I want to broaden the conversations around food - it is more affordable, diverse, traceable and available than ever before, but around the world the landscape for food is changing and we face significant challenges in sustaining ourselves in the future, she told the conference. For example, a no deal Brexit could lead to an immediate reliance on overseas imports, produced to lower standards, while many UK farms struggle to survive. Farmers want clarity on what the future trading relationship with Europe will be. We have argued for free and frictionless trade with the EU to continue, with no tariffs or non-tariff barriers. The UK's farming unions have repeatedly urged the government for 'free and frictionless' trade in any Brexit deal. With tariffs, farmers fear a nightmare scenario. For example, around a third of Wales lamb crop is exported each year, with 90% of that going to the EU. If the UK were to crash out of the EU and have to trade on WTO terms, exports of lamb would face an effective tariff rate of 46%. For beef, effective rates are much higher at anything between 48 and 84% according to the cut. Mrs Batters added: Our focus will also be to continue to engage with MPs to ensure the new Agriculture Bill delivers for British farmers. Its vital that it establishes a framework that supports farmers as food producers and custodians of the countryside. Whatever happens, Brexit or no Brexit, deal or no deal, we have 66 million mouths to feed and British dairy farmers will continue doing what they do best producing safe, traceable and affordable food for the nation, she said. Meanwhile, the National Sheep Association (NSA) has called for MPs to back the Prime Minister's deal in order to offer stability to the sheep industry. NSA Chief Executive, Phil Stocker said: We need to know that we can continue sending lamb to the EU as freely and frictionlessly as we do now, and we need MPs to consider farming and food interests in considering how they vote. The NSA has repeatedly warned of the wide variety of risks attached to a no deal Brexit and is concerned MPs not accepting the deal will move the country one step closer to this outcome. He added: For our industry many of the lambs being born in the coming months will be intended for European markets and there is increasing concern that our exports to the EU will be stopped or delayed if the deal is not accepted, with no assurances as to when access may be regained. Really, its been the camaraderie, he said, being able to work with guys who have been through pretty much the exact same experiences and some of the same challenges some of us more than others being able to work with them and have somebody to talk to that understands. An agri-tech company looking to progress vertical indoor farming has secured 1 million in their efforts to feed the world's growing population. The UKs innovation agency, Innovate UK, has awarded LettUs Grow a grant of 399,650 to lead a 700,000 project, alongside a further 90,000 grant from the Green Challenge and several additional research grants. The Bristol-based startup also raised 460,000 from ClearlySo, Bethnal Green Ventures, and the University of Bristol Enterprise Fund II. This funding has allowed the company to scale operations and drive forward product development to access the rapidly growing global market for sustainable farming technology. The Bristol-based startup said it wants to help increase food resilience and security in the face of climate change. By 2050, humanity must increase food production by 70% to feed over 9 billion people. The company says existing methods of agriculture will not be enough to feed this global population with 25% less farmland, degraded soil quality, and an unstable climate. Alongside this, most fresh produce is imported out of season, often travelling hundreds of miles to reach consumers and resulting in colossal waste throughout the supply chain. Aeroponics To help solve this problem, LettUs Grow has designed a patent-pending aeroponic system that has shown growth rate increases of over 70% compared to existing solutions for leafy greens, salads and herb production. In aeroponics, instead of using soil, plant roots are suspended in a nutrient-dense mist. This results in faster growth rates than conventional hydroponics, consistent and predictable yields, and a 95% reduction in water usage versus open-field farming. LettUs Grow doesnt use pesticides, and seeks to reduce its environmental impact of delivering food from farm to fork by siting farms in rural and urban locations. Charlie Guy, co-founder and Managing Director of LettUs Grow: This injection of private and public funding into the company enables us to accelerate our innovative products to market and build one of the most technically advanced facilities for indoor growing in the world. The global agri-tech industry is very exciting right now, all stemming from the necessity to improve the economic and environmental sustainability of food production. We are fielding enquiries from all around the world from food producers and farmers who want to experience the benefits of our technology across a growing range of crops, he said. A 94-year-old 'shepherding legend' has scooped an award dedicated to recognising farmers who make a significant contribution to farming in the Inner Hebrides. Hill farmer Sandy McKirdy, from Dalmally in Bute, is this years recipient of the Stalwart award, presented annually by NFU Scotland. The award was created in 2016 in recognition and memory two Inner Hebrides farmers, Bert Leitch and Lachlan MacLean, who passed away in 2015. This years recipient, Sandy McKirdy, has been described by NFU Scotland as a 'legend in hill farming circles', having spent a lifetime working with Blackface sheep and sheepdogs. He started farming with his father at Dunagoil Farm on Bute then going on to work as a shepherd, before spending almost 40 years shepherding for Bute Estates and the Marquis of Bute. Although he retired at 65, Sandy keeps a daily routine that sees him check on ewes and hoggs while training and trialling his sheepdogs for the local trial, where continues to win prizes. NFU Scotland's Argyll & the Islands Regional Chairman, John Dickson said: Given that the award is in memory of Bert Leitch and Lachlan MacLean, it is fitting that it has gone to Sandy in recognition of his lifelong commitment to hill sheep farming. The true measure of someone considered a stalwart is the respect and admiration they get from young and old. The fact that Sandys advice and experience continue to be sought after and valued just underlines the esteem in which Sandy is held by his fellow farmers. In making the award, Sybil MacPherson said: The definition of stalwart sums up Sandy perfectly, someone of outstanding strength and vigour of body, mind and spirit, loyal, reliable and hard working. Sandy is one of natures true gentlemen and an exceptional and inspirational character. Indeed, he is quite unique and held in the greatest respect by all who know him. Very few people, if any, will have spent over 80 years tending sheep. Fewer still will have his level of knowledge, interest, care and dedication, and none with the ability to ken sheep like Sandy. There cannot be a worthier winner of the Argyll & the Islands Stalwart award and I am sure the late Lachlan and Bert, in whose memory this award is presented, would be in full agreement. The Stalwart award is presented annually to either a NFU Scotland member who has given their time to the work for the union in Argyll & the Islands or someone who has made a significant contribution to agriculture in the area. The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. (Farm and Dairy watched the presidential address via the White House video channel.) SALEM, Ohio For the second consecutive year, U.S. President Donald J. Trump addressed the American Farm Bureau Federation at its annual conference Jan. 14 in Louisiana. The president spoke about everything from the federal government shutdown which has been closed for nearly a month to border security and immigration, repealed regulations, low gas prices and the importance of trade. Wants a wall Trump continued his call for a $5.7 billion wall to be built along the United States southern border with Mexico, a major promise of his campaign, and a major dispute with Democrats, who have argued a wall is unnecessary and that he is inflating the issue. Im doing it because we have to do it, Trump said. Its common sense we have to do it. He warned farmers of the caravans of people coming up from Central and South America, many whom he alleges are criminals and drug suppliers. But the president received lengthy applause when he talked about the importance of immigrants in the farm labor sector. He said its necessary to allow legal immigrants into the country, and that his plan will make that process easier. Were going to make that actually easier for them (legal immigrants), because you need these people, he said. Youre in that business and a lot of people dont understand you need people to help with the farms. Trump at one point invited Arizona rancher Jim Chilton to the stage, to talk about the miles of barbed wire fence that separates his land from Mexico. Last year, a border patrol agent was shot multiple times while patrolling Chiltons ranch, and Chilton said he fears for his own life daily. Mr. President, we need a wall, Chilton said to more applause. We need a wall around the length of the border. Weve got to stop the drug packers from bringing drugs in to poison our people. Democrats have argued that border security should be dealt with as its own issue, and have presented multiple paths to re-open the government and debate the wall separately, but the president has so far turned down their requests. Trade policy The president seemed aware of the criticism his trade policy has drawn, which has resulted in retaliatory tariffs from China, and lost potential with Pacific nations in general. He said his approach is to scrap bad trade deals and make them better, while holding other countries accountable and keeping Americas interests first. Im representing our country Im not representing those countries, he said. Rough road Although U.S. commodity prices fell during the trade war of 2018, he said its part of a bigger process that will pay off in the end. Farmers have been offered up to $12 billion in assistance for lost market share, but Trump said it will all work out. The tough choices we make today reap rewards for years to come, he said, mentioning a long list of countries, including Canada, Mexico and Japan, where new trade agreements have been made, although Congress still must approve the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The president reminded farmers they have a new five-year farm bill, which he signed in December, and he reminded them that his administration put a stop to the controversial Waters Of The United States rule which farmers and the president feared would lead to undue regulation by the U.S. EPA. Everything inside was a total kill on you and other businesses, he said. Supporters of WOTUS had argued that farmers would mostly be exempt, as long as they practiced what was defined as normal farming practices. They also argued that builders, the oil and gas industry and other developers would be the big winners if the rule was scaled back. Were going to keep federal regulators out of your stock tanks, your drainage ditches, your puddles and your ponds, he told the Farm Bureau crowd. CANTON, Ohio A Mansfield man was arrested Jan. 14, after he admitted to setting more than a dozen race horses loose from the Stark County Fairgrounds, along Wertz Avenue. Jon Ford, 29, was charged with disrupting public service, possession of drugs, breaking and entering, and inducing panic. He was found to have two types of marijuana on him at the time, according to the Canton Police report. One horse ventured onto Meyers Lake, which was partially frozen, and drowned while first responders attempted a rescue effort. Thirteen other horses were successfully returned to the barns, but not before running through neighborhood yards and roadways. All available police units, some fire units and multiple volunteers responded to the area, to keep the horses away from main roads. Reported loose The horses were reported loose at about 5:30 a.m., by concerned citizens. Canton Police Lt. Dennis Garren said first responders worked to corral the horses, in an effort to keep them away from major roadways and give the owners time to arrive. He said off-duty officers knowledgeable about horses were also called, and the officers worked together to assist the owners. Canton Township Fire Chief Chris Smith said his department got a call about a dog in the icy waters of Meyers Lake, but it turned out to be a male horse. He said emergency responders deployed their rescue boats and were about halfway to the horse, before its body gave out and it slipped under the water. According to Smith, the horse was about 150-200 yards from the shore, and rescuers had to break up the ice on their way to the horse. He said the horse could have been in the water for as long as two hours, long before the emergency phone call was made. We treat those recoveries and rescues just as if it were a person, Smith said. Were going to do everything in our power to execute a rescue. Charges pending Garren said the county prosecutor will review the charges, and that more could be added, including animal cruelty, if the prosecutor decides it is warranted. According to a Facebook post by the fair, the horses were being observed and checked by their owners, trainers and a veterinarian. The Stark County Fair Board expresses our deepest sympathies to the owner of the horse and all who have been effected by this tragic incident, according to the post. The Canton Audubon Society is preparing to select a recipient for the annual Arnold Fritz Memorial Scholarship. Qualifications This $1,000 scholarship is offered to students who are majoring in any of the Environmental Sciences and who reside or attend college in any of the following counties: Ashland, Carroll, Columbiana, Coshocton, Guernsey, Harrison, Holmes, Jefferson, Knox, Mahoning, Medina, Muskingum, Portage, Stark, Summit, Tuscarawas or Wayne. Any eligible student who hopes to pursue a career in a field such as conservation, natural history, wildlife, biology, botany, geology, zoology or ecology is encouraged to apply. Students majoring in business or law with a minor in one of these fields and who plans on a career in environmental business or law will also be considered. How to apply The applicant must be a junior, senior or graduate student in September 2019, but may be a sophomore at the time of application. Guidelines and application forms are available online at www.cantonaudubon.org. Completed applications are due March 1, 2019. Questions may be emailed to cantonaudubonsociety@gmail.com, Attention: Scholarship Committee. (Scroll down to see a slide show of all the award winners.) LEWIS CENTER, Ohio The Ohio Cattlemens Association honored Clark County cattleman Bob Agle and Delaware County farmer and state ag leader Tom Price with its highest awards. Agle received the Industry Excellence Award and Price the Industry Service Award during the associations annual banquet Jan. 12. Agle, of South Vienna, has been active in the cattle industry, particularly show stock, for more than 50 years. He currently runs around 50 head, focusing on show cattle and improving breeding through embryo transfer and in vitro work. Its his work beyond the farm, however, that earned Agle the top award, with association president Sasha Rittenhouse calling him a role model for the beef community, as he lends his support and volunteers at many youth-focused events locally and statewide. He started the Clark County Cattle Battle, an annual show that has grown into weekend event with celebrity classes, costume classes, and an annual benefit fundraiser for the Make a Wish Foundation. Agle also opens his farm for numerous ag tours, meetings and social events. Tom Price Tom Price, owner of Price Farms Organics, received a standing ovation at the banquet for his ag leadership, both public and behind the scenes. As chairman of the Ohio Soil and Water Conservation Commission in 2018, Price was front and center in the contentious and political debate over whether eight sub-watersheds in the Lake Erie watershed should be declared distressed, as ordered by former Gov. John Kasich. In accepting the award, Price, who also serves in many other leadership roles including the Ohio Exposition Commission, characteristically said the real recognition should go to many others. There were some rock stars out there who really helped me out, Price said, adding the issue is still on the front burner. On a scale of 1 to 10, were probably at a 3 or 4, and theres a lot more to be done. He credited Kasich for bringing the issue to the forefront, saying as a farmer he works hard to clean up the environment and do whats right. Commercial award Robison Family Farms, of Champaign County, was named Commercial Cattleman of the Year. Operated by brothers Allan and Thad Robison, their families and mother Connie Robison, the farm is a 100-cow Angus-Simmental-Gelbvieh cooperator herd for Maplecrest Farms. They also market some cattle through local private treaties. Before they could grow their herd and focus on genetics, however, the brothers had to rebuild a family farm that had essentially been idle for 40 years. Theyve worked since 2004 to clear brush, build fence and develop springs. For the calves they precondition for Maplecrest, the Robisons use embryo transplants in their recipient cows, and also use AI for calves they raise for private treaty sales. Allan was also named the associations Young Cattleman of the Year in 2013. Other awards Brad and Mindy Thornburg, of Belmont County, received the Young Cattleman of the Year award. The couple, who both work off the farm, started their farm near Barnesville from scratch six years ago, and are slowing bringing their farm back into shape and raising preconditioned calves. They use rotational grazing for their cows. Lee Miller, of Paint Valley Farms near Millersburg, Holmes County, received the Seedstock Producer of the Year award, and Andy and Brian Stickel, of Wood County, received the Environmental Stewardship Award. The Clark County Cattle Producers received the statewide associations first-ever Outstanding County Affiliate Award. Prior to the banquet, the daylong event included a youth quiz bowl, research update and panel discussion, youth beef quality assurance training, beef checkoff update from the Ohio Beef Council, and the annual meetings of the Ohio Cattlemens Foundation, Ohio Cattlemens Association and the Ohio CattleWomens Association. oca-miller The Miller family of Paint Valley Farms, Millersburg, Ohio, was named this years Seedstock Producer of Year, presented by OCA board member Aaron Arnett (left). From left, Dawn, Lee, Derik, Whitney and Grant Miller. Not pictured is Megan Miller and Gretchen Straits. (Farm and Dairy/Susan Crowell photo) < > < > 1 View oca-miller The Miller family of Paint Valley Farms, Millersburg, Ohio, was named this years Seedstock Producer of Year, presented by OCA board member Aaron Arnett (left). From left, Dawn, Lee, Derik, Whitney and Grant Miller. Not pictured is Megan Miller and Gretchen Straits. (Farm and Dairy/Susan Crowell photo) 2 View oca-commercial-family The Commercial Cattleman of the Year is Robison Family Farms, operated by Allan and Thad Robison and their families. Pictured are: Back, (L-R) Zane, Amanda, Thad, Wyatt and Allan Robison, Mark Zeller; front, Connie, Noah, Kelly, and Josie (in arms) Robison, Barb Zeller. (Farm and Dairy/Susan Crowell photo) 3 View oca-agle Bob Agle, of Clark County, joined here by his wife Peggy and daughter, Allison Regula, received the Ohio Cattlemens Association Industry Excellence Award. (Farm and Dairy/Susan Crowell photo) 4 View oca-price Delaware County farmer and entrepreneur Tom Price (center), who also serves on the Ohio Expositions Commission and as chairman of the Ohio Soil and Water Conservation Commission, received this years Industry Service Award from the Ohio Cattlemens Association, represented by Executive Director Elizabeth Harsh. Matt Reeves, editor of Ohios Country Journal, presented the award. (Farm and Dairy/Susan Crowell photo) 5 View oca-stewardship Andy (left) and Brian Stickel, of Bowling Green, Ohio, received this years Ohio Cattlemens Association Environmental Stewardship Award. (Farm and Dairy/Susan Crowell photo) 6 View oca-young-cattleman The Ohio Young Cattleman of the Year is Brad and Mindy Thornburg, of Belmont County, pictured with their children (from left) Vaya, Vonn and Voss. (Farm and Dairy/Susan Crowell photo) The Business Services arm of the Naval Academy does not rely on taxpayer dollars they are a retail business operating under non-appropriated funding rules, he wrote. Please ask the business owners operating the Market House if anyone can come into their building and start selling things? Can anyone set up outside the Market House and sell whatever? Maximus, Inc. provides business process services (BPS) to government health and human services programs worldwide. It operates through three segments: U.S. Services, U.S. Federal Services, and Outside the U.S. The U.S. Services segment offers various BPS solutions, such as program administration, appeals and assessments, and related consulting works for U.S. state and local government programs, including the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, child support programs, Preadmission Screening and Resident Reviews, and Independent Developmental Disability assessments. This segment also provides program eligibility support and enrollment; centralized multilingual customer contact centers, multichannel, and digital self-service options for enrollment; application assistance and independent health plan choice counseling; beneficiary outreach, education, eligibility, enrollment, and redeterminations; person-centered independent disability, long-term sick, and other health assessments; and specialized consulting services. The U.S. Federal Services segment offers centralized citizen engagement centers and support services; document and record management; case management, citizen support, and consumer education; independent medical reviews and worker's compensation benefit appeals; Medicare and Medicaid appeals; and federal marketplace eligibility appeals. This segment also provides modernization of systems and information technology infrastructure; infrastructure operations and support services; software development, operations, and management services; and data analytics services. The Outside the U.S. segment offers BPS solutions for governments and commercial clients outside the United States, including health and disability assessments, program administration for employment services, and other job seeker-related services. The company was founded in 1975 and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. Read More Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI Belgium ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI Belgium ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. We dont have the capacity to be a booking agent, she said. Thats not part of our mission. Our mission is doing programming that deeply engages the community. Our mission is getting people to leave Netflix and to engage with the city in a new way. Our mission is doing work that is vital and meaningful and relevant, and we think this is the way to accomplish that. GROTON Gov. Ned Lamont got an early start Monday on his first full week in office, attending a 7:30 a.m. briefing by Electric Boat, the submarine manufacturer that is poised to double its waterfront workforce and approach Cold War employment levels in the next decade. Electric Boat announced it will add 900 jobs this year in Connecticut, boosting a home-state workforce that now totals 12,500. That includes including 6,000 engineers and designers and 3,000 men and women building and overhauling submarines at its shipyard on the Thames River. Lamont joined U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., and state legislators from across eastern Connecticut in a hotel ballroom for a bullish update by EBs president of the past five years, Jeffrey S. Geiger. EB has $15 billion in government contracts, and its overall workforce including operations at Quonset Point, R.I. recently topped 17,000 for the first time since 1992, Geiger said. The increase last year was more than 1,000 in Connecticut alone, as EB and the Newport News shipyard in Virginia build two Viginia-class attack subs per year. Electric Boat is also designing the next-generation Columbia class of ballistic submarines to replace the aging Ohio class fleet. Geiger is optimistic that new overhaul work is coming that will save the company from a dip in its shipyard employment before construction on the Columbia class, which could double employment by 2029 and keep it in growth mode for decades beyond that. I think I know what we need to do here. I know that this is a part of the state where we have the wind at our back, Lamont said in an interview after the briefing. You heard those numbers. They are extraordinary numbers. Lamont, who mingled with lawmakers before sitting down for a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon, said Connecticut will be a partner in that growth, primarily by ensuring the company has access to a qualified workforce. He called Electric Boat an engine of growth. There is a role that the states going to play to facilitate that a limited role. Thats all I can do is a limited role, but thats why Im here, and why I keep coming back, Lamont said. Lamont campaigned at EB and visited the company once since winning election in November. Right now, we dont have the infrastructure to support the growth that Jeffrey is talking about. Shame on us, Lamont said. Im talking about workforce. Im talking about development. Im talking about housing. Im talking about education. Im talking a little bit about transportation. Shame on us if we lose that opportunity. Lamont is trying to find a messaging sweet spot in his first days. He is trying to convince a state with a shaky view of its own finances and future that economic growth is at hand, while not overpromising with unrealistic expectations. The state has had successive quarters of economic growth and has recovered all the private-sector jobs lost in the Great Recession, but Lamont still faces a projected deficit of about $1.7 billion less than half of what confronted Gov. Dannel P. Malloy eight years ago, but a deep hole, nonetheless. You can see me struggle with that every day, Lamont said. First, we have to go over this chasm. I try. Everywhere I go, I say this budget is going to be really hard, and Im going to be asking a lot of all of you. And that includes the business community and the labor community and taxpayers. Ive got to solve this thing. Sen. Paul Formica, R-East Lyme, whose district includes New London, said Lamonts initial approach to the legislature is welcome. Hes opening up the tent and trying to get as many people as possible in, Formica said. The fact is he wants everybody involved, at least at this point So, were happy to give give him the benefit of the doubt and try to work with him. Hes a personable guy, and hes got a good business background. Lamont, who hopes to spend every other weekend at his home in Greenwich, spent his first weekend as governor in Hartford. His wife, Annie, and three children explored the area. They made stops at the New Britain Museum of American Art and the Wadsworth Atheneum. One of the benefactors of the Wadsworth was J.P. Morgan, who had successive generations of Lamont ancestors as his partners. The worlds two biggest battery companies one with its main research lab in Bethel are bidding for Eveready Industries India, which was once owned by an affiliate of the former Danbury conglomerate Union Carbide. Duracell parent company Berkshire Hathaway is exploring a bid for Eveready Industries, according to the Indian publication the Business Standard, which did not identify its sources. The Business Standard reported St. Louis, Mo.-based Energizer Holdings as also interested in a deal, as well as multiple, unnamed private-equity investment firms. Energizer makes batteries under the Eveready brand in the United States and China, while having no ownership interest in Eveready Industries India. Evereadys India manufacturing dates back to the eve of World War II; in 1968, Union Carbide opened a battery factory in Bhopal, where a separate company pesticide plant had a massive chemical discharge in 1984 that killed thousands of people, ultimately precipitating Union Carbides bankruptcy dissolution. The Business Standard report sparked a surge in shares of Eveready Industries India which are traded on the National Stock Exchange of India, even though Berkshire Hathaway and Energizer provided no confirmation of any interest in the company. In early January, Energizer completed the $2 billion acquisition of Rayovac from Spectrum Brands, pushing it closer to overtaking Duracell as the top seller of batteries in the world. The Eveready name dates to 1905, six years after David Misell patented the idea for what would become the modern flashlight, with the company folded in 1917 into the entity that would become Union Carbide. As Union Carbides legal woes mounted after Bhopal, the company sold Eveready in 1986 to Ralston Purina, which would spin it back off in 1992 as Energizer. The Indian manufacturing operations had been carved out previously in an auction overseen by the Indian courts after Bhopal. Eveready Industries India is based in Kolkata today, with Williamson Magor Group holding a 45 percent stake and the company making about 1.3 billion batteries and flashlights annually. Cheaper carbon zinc batteries dominate its 50 percent market share in India. Last week, the Times of India reported Williamson Magors intent to solicit offers for the battery maker, with Eveready Industries India valued at the time between $420 million and $560 million. Duracell was long based in Bethel under former owner Procter & Gamble and still has its main research center there today. Berkshire Hathaway established a corporate office for Duracell in Chicago after acquiring the brand in February 2016, where Duracell CEO Thom Lachman works. Under Berkshire Hathaway, Duracell has yet to make a deal to match that of Energizer in its acquisition of Rayovac from Spectrum Brands. Duracell incurred an $89 million loss in 2016 in part due to merger-related costs of its transfer to Berkshire Hathaway, but the unit has increased earnings and revenues since, save for the third quarter of last year when Berkshire Hathaway reported a dip in Duracell sales. Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman Wizz Air will be adding eight new routes from Macedonia starting this March, after the carrier signed a new three-year subsidy agreement with the country for the introduction of new destinations. The no frills carrier will introduce year-long flights from Skopje to Baden Baden and Bremen, as well seasonal services from the Macedonian capital to Turku in Finland and Larnaca in Cyprus. In addition, Wizz will commence year-round operations to Ohrid from Malmo, Milan Malpensa, Memmingen and Dortmund. As a result, the low cost airline will base its fifth aircraft, an Airbus A320, in Skopje. The fleet expansion will also enable it to increase the number of weekly flights on existing routes from Skopje to Gothenburg, Hamburg, Cologne, Malta and Basel. According to the company,. the fifth jet represents a further 101 million dollar investment into the Macedonian aviation industry and will contribute to the creation of over thirty new direct jobs with Wizz Air. Route Launch date Malmo - Ohrid MAR 18 Skopje - Baden Baden MAR 19 Milan - Ohrid MAR 19 Skopje - Bremen MAR 20 Memmingen - Ohrid JUL 01 Dortmund - Ohrid JUL 02 Skopje - Turku JUL 03 Skopje - Larnaca JUL 03 Click on link for further details Wizz Air's Chief Commercial Officer, George Michalopoulos, said, "Further expanding our Macedonian operations means that Wizz Air can provide even more opportunities for Macedonian customers to travel across Europe at the lowest prices. Today we announced the allocation of the fifth aircraft to our base at Skopje together with eight long-awaited routes from Skopje and Ohrid to Germany, Cyprus, Finland, Sweden and Italy". He added, "We are confident that our customers will appreciate these connections and that these routes will be as popular as the other thirty in our Macedonian network. We will continue to further expand our network footprint and provide truly affordable prices, as well as stimulate the local economy of the communities we serve". The Macedonian Minister of Transport and Communications, Goran Sugareski, noted, "It is our pleasure today to start a new phase in the development of air traffic in the Republic of Macedonia. As the responsible government body, we are strongly committed to the development of air transport and creation of conditions for establishing access to new destinations for Macedonian citizens. Today we signed an agreement with Wizz Air, which is the beginning of a new cooperation and an opportunity to improve air traffic in our country. I would like to congratulate the airline. They remain a serious partner of the government in the development of air traffic in the Republic of Macedonia". The Macedonian Minister of Transport and Communications, Goran Sugareski, noted, "It is our pleasure today to start a new phase in the development of air traffic in the Republic of Macedonia. As the responsible government body, we are strongly committed to the development of air transport and creation of conditions for establishing access to new destinations for Macedonian citizens. Today we signed an agreement with Wizz Air, which is the beginning of a new cooperation and an opportunity to improve air traffic in our country. I would like to congratulate the airline. They remain a serious partner of the government in the development of air traffic in the Republic of Macedonia". So far: President Donald Trump has announced a crisis that isnt actually a crisis, requiring a wall that is not really a wall, funded by Mexican pesos that are really American tax dollars, to keep out murderous migrants who are (as a whole) less violent than native-born Americans, leading to congressional negotiations that involve no actual negotiations, resulting in a government shutdown undertaken on the advice of radio personalities, defended in an Oval Office address that consisted of alarmism, prejudice, falsehood and other material caught in the P-trap of Stephen Millers mind. One conservative claimed that Trump finally looked presidential. Actually, we are seeing the federal government Trump supporters and opponents trying to explain and respond to an impulsive, emotive, selfish, irresponsible and fundamentally irrational force at its center. It is like the immune system responding to a virus it has never seen before and cannot defend against. Trump walks in and out of meetings, repeating scraps of his stump speech, unpredictable to his staff, unconcerned about the pressure on his allies, contemptuous toward congressional opponents and with no apparent end game except their total surrender. This is a case study in failed and erratic leadership. The shutdown happened because Trump under pressure from partisan media reneged on a commitment to sign the spending bill the Senate had passed and the House was ready to pass. Then, in an Oval Office meeting with the Democratic leaders, he said he would gladly own a shutdown, presumably because he figured it would look good on TV. Trump apparently did this without talking to congressional Republicans or his own staff. Then congressional Republicans and his own staff were forced to defend Trumps impulse as a strategy. But this has proved difficult, because Republicans have no leverage. So now the whole GOP is left pretending there is an emergency at the border, and that a multiyear construction project is somehow the best way to deal with an emergency. This is the Republican legislators lot in the Trump era trying to provide ex post facto justifications for absurd presidential choices. The border crisis did not break because of some tragedy caused by a porous southern border. It did not result from some serious determination of national security priorities. The whole GOP strategy and all the arguments they are using are really backfill for an intemperate choice made by a president in response to media coverage. It is a dynamic weve seen again and again. Trump announced a summit with Kim Jong Un because, well, for the hell of it. Then the whole government had to backfill a policy and process to fit his wrongheaded announcement. Trump announced the withdrawal of American troops from Syria on the spur of the moment, perhaps to assert himself against the influence of his now-departed Defense Secretary James Mattis. Then the whole defense and national security establishment has to scramble to backfill the details of coherent policy (which they still havent really done). On the issue of border security, it has fallen to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to provide justification for the irrational. And this has turned a serious public servant into a font of deception and bad faith. I am sure all Americans, she explains, would agree that one terrorist reaching our borders is one too many. So, we know that the number of terrorists intercepted at the southern border is equal to or greater than one. What we dont know is how this terrorist threat compares to other dangers and vulnerabilities that require funding as well. I have talked to many counterterrorism experts about domestic radicalization, and foreign intelligence gathering, and drones and special operations, and financial investigation and disruption. I have never met an expert who mentioned the construction of a physical barrier with Mexico as an urgent priority in the fight against global terrorism. If the goal is fighting terrorism, the first dollar would not go to a wall. Or probably the billionth dollar. The argument is deceptive to its core. But security arguments would certainly be at the core of Trumps justification for declaring a national emergency and building the wall with American troops if he makes that choice. Then the ignorance, arrogance and stubbornness of one man would turn a budget crisis into a constitutional crisis and turn Republican defenders into abettors of creeping authoritarianism. All to justify a fools impulse. michaelgerson@washpost.com AUSTIN Republican Gov. Greg Abbott made a bold pledge at his inauguration Tuesday to better fund the states public schools while reining in skyrocketing property taxes in Texas. The eyes of Texas are upon us, he said from a stage at the north side of the Capitol before a crowd of several thousand people. We have the opportunity and the obligation to get this right. Coming into his second four-year term, Abbott is driving an ambitious agenda and working more closely with lawmakers to get his proposals passed. Hes been about as engaged and active as I can recall, said Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, and a member of the tea party-aligned Texas House Freedom Caucus. I definitely see an increased engagement heading into this session. While seizing the lead on such high-profile issues could pay off for Abbott with success, he also runs the risk of having to shoulder blame should reforms fail. The governor is looking for a big political policy win, and this could be it, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. If he could succeed on some key issues, it enhances his credibility on other issues. Theres momentum in dealing with a Legislature that he hasnt developed yet. It plays in Abbotts favor that fellow GOP leaders Lt. Gov Dan Patrick, who presides over the state Senate, and House Speaker Dennis Bonnen say they share the same priorities. But its unknown whether the united front is more than rhetoric. Texas Take: Get the latest news on Texas politics sent directly to your inbox every weekday A House budget blueprint released Monday promises to inject an additional $7 billion into public education, so long as lawmakers can also curb property tax growth. The Senates plan would send $3.7 billion to schools for teacher pay raises and would spend $2.3 billion to reduce the states reliance on recapture funding. For his part, Abbott is pitching to limit what local school districts can raise in property taxes each year, with the state making up the difference. Early estimates show the states cost could reach over $3 billion by 2023. So far, there have been few ideas floated about how to pay for the plan. Related: Texas House calls for $7 billion education funding increase On Tuesday, Abbott said the state must pay teachers more, provide a better education to students and make schools safer. It is time for Texas to deliver real education reform, he said. Abbott, Patrick and Bonnen said they have been working together toward these goals and meeting at the governors mansion to discuss them. Its a stark contrast from the last session, when public battles erupted between Patrick and former House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, over contentious social issues. And Abbott is now working with members more directly, a shift from the past, several lawmakers said. For subscribers: Gov. Abbotts tax break for homeowners would sap billions in school funding Behind the scenes, Abbotts office has been shopping his ideas on school finance and property tax reform to lawmakers, seeking their input, several legislators said. His staff is saying, If you have a problem with something, tell us and lets see if we can work that out, said Tom Craddick, R-Midland. They are already way ahead of the curve this session. Whether that will translate to success remains to be seen. Property tax reform is a thorny issue, with lawmakers often reluctant to vote for changes that will rob their local school districts of money. Abbott acknowledged the challenges, but dismissed those who have questioned whether there are enough resources for both initiatives. Some people say we cant afford property tax reform, he said. I say we cant afford not to reform a system that punishes homeowners, crushes businesses and cripples our schools. Sen. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, said the focus on education is a result of the 2018 election and the education community voting in large numbers. Democrats flipped a dozen seats in the Texas House and statewide Republicans, including Patrick, won by much tighter margins than usual against their Democratic challengers. Menendez said hes happy to hear agreement on giving teachers a raise. I feel like I am watching a movie, he said. I am eager to see the end. amorris@express-news.net On Jan. 18, 2012, I wrote my first column for this newspaper. The topic a certain state representatives unfortunate business association with a bodybuilding personal injury attorney accused of racketeering was less memorable than a piece of advice dispensed to me that day by someone I had called for comment: then-state Sen. Carlos Uresti. His counsel wasnt exactly original. When I told Uresti I would now be writing opinion pieces, he made me feel a little like Spider-Man or at least Peter Parker at the Daily Bugle. OnExpressNews.com: Brockhouse explains journalism to journalists With great power comes great responsibility, he warned, echoing the origin story of the agile comic book hero. Seven years later, almost to the day, I am now writing my final column for this newspaper. A lot has changed. For one, Uresti is headed to prison stripped of his power, having been convicted last year of not wielding it responsibly. Unbelievably, I have more than 1,000 columns under my belt. Im now moving into the role of investigative reporter still at the San Antonio Express-News, a place Ive called home for the last 13 years. Looking back, I can affirm that despite Urestis inability to heed his own advice, his admonishment that day was apt. I hope I wielded the power responsibly. My approach, three times a week, was simply to build an argument, whether about water policy or an elected officials foibles, on a foundation of facts. Doing so could be fun or formidable, depending on how the deadline gods were feeling that day. Some moments have proved particularly memorable. There was that time in 2013 when an aide of then-Councilwoman Elisa Chan slipped me a secret recording, wherein the councilwoman expressed revulsion toward the LGBTQ community So disgusting! while discussing a proposal to update the citys nondiscrimination ordinance. Publishing Chans unvarnished feelings sparked a firestorm and punctured her plans to obscure why she actually opposed the proposal. OnExpressNews.com: Gonzales recruited old colleagues to serve under him A year later, I was the first to share then-Mayor Julian Castros imminent departure to Washington, D.C., to serve in then-President Barack Obamas Cabinet, a development that shook the city and altered its trajectory. Sometimes to get the story, you have to show up to places uninvited. Of all the venues I was ejected from over the past seven years, I especially enjoyed getting booted from the Barn Door, where members of the business community had gathered with elected officials to discuss a pending water pipeline. Im sorry, this meeting is off the record, a developer told me on my way out after sharing that the weekly breakfast was founded decades ago by the executive vice chair of Hearst, which is the parent company of this newspaper. A year later, I got a scoop on that same pipeline when someone leaked a 235-page report that criticized the project and that city officials had refused to release. Reporters get grief; its in the job description. For a columnist, the bad vibes are often magnified. I will certainly never forget walking back from lunch one afternoon in 2017 to find a sizable scrum of strangers on the front steps of the newspaper loudly calling me racist and chanting for my immediate termination. It felt like an alternate universe and it was. These were supporters of Manuel Medina, then a candidate for mayor and a masterful and mendacious pied piper. True to form, Medina had led his allies to the paper to protest a column Id written questioning his truthfulness to voters. I spent the next hour on the wrong side of the journalistic equation, fielding questions from media, before decamping to my desk to defend myself in a column. Not that Im complaining. As a columnist, I was granted the extraordinary privilege of a regular space to offer my opinion on any topic that struck me as particularly urgent. In the relatively halcyon days of 2015, no longer amused by the antics of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, I was able to publicly call him what I believed he had become: dangerous. I embraced this freedom in local races as well. When a Texas House candidate warned of the disconnect between conservative, Christian voters and (then-Texas House Speaker) Joe Straus, for instance, I called the political attack what it was: anti-Semitic. The greatest thrill, though, has been those times when I was fortunate enough to fulfill journalisms most basic mission: being the first to share information that others would rather the reader not know. That wont change in my new role. Jasper Scherer, San Antonio Express-News / San Antonio Express-News Trey Martinez Fischer is the senior member of the San Antonio legislative delegation, but hes also a new addition to the Texas House. The San Antonio Democrat officially returned to the House last week after a two-year absence and he sounds hopeful that the Legislature can tackle the big issues of school finance and escalating property taxes in 2019. If youve ever been interested in trying the art of stained glass but didnt know where to start, the Senior Center now offers stained glass classes on Tuesday afternoons from 1 to 3 p.m. For just $25 for a six-week session, youll be introduced to the art with one-on-one instruction from the instructors. The next session starts in February. There is no experience necessary, but space is limited so if you are interested, reserve your spot early! Five candidates are vying to become San Antonios newest state representative in a special election next month, filling a vacancy that has left the region short a lawmaker as Texas 86th Legislative Session enters its second week. Four Democrats and one Republican will appear on the ballot in House District 125, which covers a swath of the West and Northwest sides. The seat in the Texas House was left vacant when Justin Rodriguez accepted an appointment to the Bexar County Commissioners Court, replacing the late Paul Elizondo. The candidates, who had until 5 p.m. Monday to declare, will now set off on a frenzied, four-week race that will be defined by the low voter turnout often associated with special elections. Election day will be Feb. 12, with early voting beginning Jan. 28. It could be weeks or months before a winner is determined, depending on whether a runoff election is necessary. Whoever wins will have to catch up in a legislative session that will be in full swing by the time the race is over. The Bexar County delegation will be down a member until then, tackling the early work to reform Texas school finance and property tax systems. Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen has repeatedly said those will be the chambers top priorities this year. RELATED: Roster of District 125 candidates in San Antonio-area special election is set The candidates are: Steve Huerta, the last candidate to enter the fray, said he wants to become an activist lawmaker. Huerta, 51, said he has worked for 15 years as a social justice policy adviser with the grassroots organization All of Us or None, which works to restore rights for people who were arrested or incarcerated. Its not just a passion. The Democratic candidate said he was incarcerated after a 1999 arrest for possession of a controlled substance and driving while intoxicated. He was in prison for three months, he said. The candidate thinks that experience will provide a fresh perspective in Austin. Thats what the state really needs, is leadership that wont just talk about change that will impact our communities, but will actually do it, Huerta said. His top priority like many others in the Bexar County delegation would be injecting more state funds into the school system. The states share of the cost has declined from about 50 percent to 38 percent in the last decade, deferring some of the burden to local property-tax payers. The state comptroller recently said there would be about $9 billion more revenue for the states budget, though some of that will be used to plug holes. Huerta said he would use that money to invest in Texas schools. He would also seek to protect San Antonio from state infringements on local control. Ray Lopez, a retired AT&T marketing director, served the West Side on the City Council for eight years. He was term-limited out of office in 2017. RELATED: San Antonio special election for open House seat drawing more interest The Democrat said he would bring expertise in two areas critical for San Antonio during the legislative session: transportation and education. Lopez is currently working with the San Antonio Mobility Coalition, advocating for transportation needs at the Legislature. He also served on and then chaired the Northside Independent School District board of trustees in the 90s. Lopez, 69, hopes that familiarity with voters will now propel him into the Texas House. Ive been in office for eight years, and Ive developed a real strong set of folks that typically give me the support I need, Lopez said. Im excited to get to work. Lopez said the solution to the states broken school finance system will include three things: finding new revenue without raising taxes, maximizing the revenue that state already has and fixing the formula used to allocate funding. Its a multifaceted approach, Lopez said. While other candidates and members of the delegation have said the state needs to return its funding to roughly 50 percent of the cost, Lopez said he didnt want to commit to one number. From my perspective, I would hate to walk into the discussion with my mind set on any one percentage, Lopez said. Republican Fred Rangel owns two small businesses Adco Professional Services and Adco Master Builders and has run unsuccessfully in the past for City Council. He said he wanted to run to bring that business angle to the states problems. Im a businessman, Rangel said. The businessman looks for efficiencies and efficient systems. Rangel, 63, said that will be needed during this legislative session, as lawmakers work to find funding for meaningful reform in school finance. The candidate said he was firsthand experience with schools attending Edgewood Independent School District public schools and then watching his daughter progress through Northside awakened him to the unacceptable disparity many schools face. He agreed that the state must increase its funding, but he said lawmakers have to be careful to do that in a way that doesnt overburden the budget. Rangel said he would also look at consolidating administrative costs in some areas. Rangel is the lone Republican in the race, and he will face an uphill climb in the Democratic stronghold Democrats have held the district since it was redrawn to include more West Side voters in 1992. RELATED: One seat is filled, another opens: County court pick will ripple through San Antonio politics But recent history shows anything can happen in a special election. Last September, Republican Pete Flores won a state Senate seat that had been held by Democrats since the Reconstruction era. Flores campaign manager, Matt Mackowiak, is now running Rangels campaign. Coda Rayo-Garza is the only woman in the race and by far the youngest candidate. The 33-year-old senior coordinator for the San Antonio Independent School District said the sessions focus on public education helped nudge her into the race. I have the expertise to have those discussions, the Democrat said. I felt I could be the right person for the job. Before her gig with SAISD, Rayo-Garza was a policy advocate for a local nonprofit that worked in education, she said. She was also spent about three years as a policy staffer on the City Council, first for then-Councilman Ron Nirenberg and then for Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales. Rayo-Garza said the state needs to find a stable, permanent source for education funding. The rainy day fund and excess revenue are just temporary solutions, she said. At the end of the day, that has to be identified, Rayo-Garza said. It is a top priority. At her campaign kickoff Sunday, she had a compelling guest speaker: Rosie Castro, who one day earlier introduced her son, former Mayor Julian Castro, at his presidential announcement. Democrat Art Reyna brings one unique strength to his candidacy: Hes been there before. The Leon Valley attorney held the seat from 1996 to 2002, when he lost a lopsided Democratic primary to a newcomer named Joaquin Castro. Reyna, 62, would get to keep those six years of seniority if he wins the special election, which he argued is vitally important for a city that has lost several high-ranking members in the last year. I know how this process works. Its not like school board politics, its not like city council politics, Reyna said. If you already know how it works when you get there, you know how to get something done. If any of the other candidates win, they will be the least powerful member of the Texas Legislature, Reyna said. The lawyer said he wants to run again to champion the same issues he advocated for during his first stint, listing public education, health care and womens rights as some of his priorities. He said the arguments surrounding school finance would be complex, and he wouldnt provide details about his ideal solution until he can assess that discussion. That requires me to be in there and look at the solutions that are being offered, he said. But Reyna did echo the need for a more permanent solution than the rainy day fund. Dylan McGuinness covers local politics and the Bexar County government for the Express-News. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | dylan.mcguinness@express-news.net | Twitter: @DylMcGuinness The getaway driver in the killing of a San Antonio police officer who was gunned down as he chased a couple on a robbery spree through three counties was sentenced Monday to life in prison. An Atascosa County jury was about to be selected Monday for the capital murder trial of Jenevieve Ramos, 33, who drove the car while her boyfriend, Shaun Puente, 37, fired a 9 mm Ruger semi-automatic pistol out of the back window of the Mitsubishi Lancer and killed a beloved police officer. But Ramos decided to plead guilty to murder for her role in the 2013 slaying of Officer Robert Deckard and was sentenced to life in prison. I believe that if you shoot a police officer, you should receive the death penalty, Police Chief William McManus said Monday afternoon. Ramos was 28 when she and Puente, then 32, robbed as many as four small businesses in San Antonio at gunpoint during a two-week spree. Ramos was driving the getaway car when they became involved in a highway chase that began in San Antonio and ended in Atascosa County. Puente repeatedly fired a pistol out the back window of the car around midnight Dec. 8, 2013, hitting Deckard, 31, a seven-year veteran of the force. Of three dozen rounds fired at the officer, one struck him in the forehead. Deckard lost control of his police cruiser, a Chevrolet Tahoe SUV, and ran into a tree off Interstate 37. He was taken off life support and died 13 days later. Last year, Puente was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after an Atascosa County jury found him guilty and deadlocked on whether to send him to death row. McManus said he spoke to one of Deckards relatives Monday morning. He said the family was somewhat reconciled to the cases outcome. They realized that Ramos likely would not have received a death sentence if convicted, and they did not want to endure another trial, McManus said. I think it brings closure as much as it can for the family, but there is a sense of injustice whenever anyone can escape the death penalty after killing a police officer, he said. They were OK with it because it brings them to a point of closure on this, and they didnt have any expectation for the death penalty after the first trial. Deckard, married and the father of two, was on patrol on the South Side near downtown on a cold December night when he began chasing Ramos and Puente, suspected armed robbers who were dressed all in black and were wearing bulletproof vests. The chase reached speeds of 115 mph as the vehicles snaked through South Bexar County, into Wilson County and finally to Atascosa. In dashcam video played at Puentes trial, jurors heard the siren and screaming engine of Deckards SUV stop abruptly at the moment he crashed into the tree. Bobby Deckard was a good man and a great officer, Atascosa County District Attorney Audrey Louis said Monday. The family had gone through four months of trial for the first defendant, and it was really painful and caused a lot of stress for them. Im glad we could give them that closure. The San Antonio Express-News was unable to reach the Deckard family for comment. Ramos is being held in Wilson County Jail until her transfer to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Ramos also pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted capital murder and was sentenced to life in prison for shooting at a Poth police officer. Louis said the armed robberies were taken into consideration in negotiating the plea agreement, and she added that it was possible those cases would be dismissed in Bexar County. The two life sentences will be served at the same time, and Ramos wont be eligible for parole until after she serves 30 years. Elizabeth Zavala is a courts and crime reporter in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ezavala@express-news.net | Twitter: @elizabeth2863 The East Texas man convicted of killing a 13-month-old in a brutally botched exorcism was granted a last-minute stay Monday over concerns about the bite mark evidence used to convict him and the possibility that he might be too intellectually disabled to execute. Blaine Milam, who was scheduled to die Tuesday, would have been the Lone Star State's first execution of 2019. "We are grateful that the Court of Criminal Appeals stayed Mr. Milam's execution today so he may prove that his conviction is invalid," said defense attorney Jennae Swiergula, adding that the conviction rested on "junk science." The 29-year-old was sent to death row for the slaying of Amora Bain Carson, whose body was found in Milam's Rusk County trailer, covered in bites and bruises. The little girl's death sparked so much publicity that the trial was moved more than two hours away, after intense media coverage of the sordid allegations including everything from drugs to demonic possession. Initially, Milam told investigators he had no idea what had happened, and that he and his girlfriend had just returned home to find the child dead, according to court records. But in the end, he was sentenced to death and the child's mother - Jessica Carson - was given a life without parole sentence. LISTEN: The first night in prison is not how you imagine It all started in late 2008, when the couple started taking interest in a Ouija board. The young mother, who records show may have been suffering from postpartum psychosis, thought Milam was possessed by the devil. Then, the couple decided that baby Amora was possessed instead. In the early hours of Dec. 2, according to court records, they beat the child with a hammer, bit her and sexually assaulted her in an attempt to cast out the demon. But that didn't seem to work, so the pair went to a pawn shop in the hope of raising funds to hire a priest. While they were gone, the girl died - so just before 11 a.m., Milam called 911. "My daughter, I just found her dead," he said at the time. But Carson later admitted to the Texas Rangers that her daughter had died during the ill-fated exorcism. And, while he was in jail, Milam called for a sergeant so he could confess as well. "I did it," he told a jail nurse, according to court records. "But Ms. Shirley, the Blaine you know did not do this." During his trial, Milam's defense lawyers argued that it was not Milam but Carson who, in the throes of major delusions, slaughtered her child. Milam was found guilty under the law of parties even though, according to Swiergula, prosecutors had "no meaningful evidence" about who actually caused the girl's death. BREAKING NEWS: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text In earlier appeals, the East Texas man focused his efforts on claims of bad lawyering. In the filings entered earlier this month in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Milam alleged that the state withheld exculpatory evidence at trial, that he was denied the right to present a defense, that he was intellectually disabled under the current definition and that the bite mark evidence underlying his conviction isn't reliable science. It was those last two concerns that won him the stay in a three-page opinion. In both instances, the court noted, the law has evolved since Milam's trial. Two years ago, the Supreme Court ordered Texas to retool how it determines intellectual disability, saying the non-scientific method of evaluating intelligence that the state was then using was so out-dated that Texas would run the risk of executing an intellectually disabled person - something the high court has long held is unconstitutional. Then, last month, the Court of Criminal Appeals declared wrongfully convicted Steven Chaney actually innocent of the Dallas County double murder that he kept him behind bars for more than three decades. In that case, the court found that the conviction had relied heavily on testimony regarding bite mark science no longer considered reliable. The stay doesn't mean Milam will necessarily come off death row or be released from prison - just that his case will be sent back to a lower court for further examination. "Upon further review, Applicant may ultimately lose his battle to avoid the death penalty given to him," Judge Bert Richardson wrote in a concurring opinion. "But, based upon two claims he has raised in his subsequent writ application, he is at least entitled to a stay." Three members of the court - Judges Kevin Yeary, Sharon Keller and the newly elected Michelle Slaughter - dissented. NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. WASHINGTON Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand appears to be on the verge of an announcement that shes in the running to challenge President Donald Trump, with a possible announcement as early as Tuesday during a scheduled appearance on Late Night with Stephen Colbert on CBS. One more day! said a Facebook posting late Monday on a page posted by a group calling itself Gillibrand for President 2020. A person close to the senator declined to confirm reports swirling around that Gillibrand, 52, would announce the formation of a presidential exploratory committee on the Colbert show. But the person said that the show would allow in reporters, one per news organization, and that Gillibrand supporters were organizing it. The Associated Press reported that the senator, in her second full term, was likely to announce her bid on Tuesday, citing several people familiar with her plans. She will likely be operating her campaign in downtown Troy. Gillibrand representatives signed a lease for Suite 200 on the second floor of the Frear Building, overlooking Third Street, said Democratic sources who were informed about the transaction. The campaign is taking 4,000- to 5,000-square feet of space. Gillibrand representatives signed a lease for 5,000 square feet of space at an unidentified location in Troy, close to Gillibrands home in Brunswick. And shes done nothing to dissuade speculation that she would be a candidate. And she hired her Senate chief of staff, Jess Fassler, and Meredith Kelly, a former spokesperson for Sen. Charles Schumer and communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), to be on a prospective campaign. Gillibrand is an Albany native with deep roots in local politics. Her grandmother, Dorthea Polly Noonan, was a key player in the OConnell Democratic political machine that dominated the city for decades, and she was close to Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd. If she runs, Gillibrand would become the fifth Democrat to jump into the race to deny President Trump a second term. Gillibrand would be the second woman senator in the race, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., already declaring her candidacy. Other Democratic contenders include former HUD Secretary and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. Other likely possibilities include Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California. Former Vice President Joe Biden also has indicated interest in the race if no viable Democrat emerges. Gillibrand visited a key primary state, New Hampshire, to campaign for the Democratic candidate for governor, Molly Kelly. Shes traveling to Iowa later this week for a Friday appearance before Democratic activists in Sioux City. Gillibrand is known nationally for her advocacy of victims of sexual abuse on college campuses and in the military, as well as paid family leave. Home sales in the San Antonio area rose nearly 5 percent in 2018 as prices climbed and the housing market tightened, figures released Tuesday show. More than 32,000 homes in the region were sold last year, according to San Antonio Board of Realtors data a 4.6 percent increase from 30,715 in 2017. The median home price jumped 5.3 percent to $225,600 last year from $214,300 in 2017. Home prices in Bexar County and surrounding counties have climbed about 25 percent in the last five years. Meanwhile, inventory of available homes was tight last year, hovering around 3.2 months and 3.6 months worth of inventory, a statistic that measures how long it would take home buyers to gobble up the number of houses currently on the market. Related: San Antonio lands Texas' first 'opportunity zone' investment under Trump tax bill Historically, six months worth of inventory is considered a healthy balance between buyers and sellers. Even though prices have risen, San Antonios housing market continues to be among the most affordable of the large cities in the state, SABOR CEO Gilbert Gonzalez said in a news release. That affordability combined with job growth across many industries like tech, medical and military make this a desirable place to buy and sell property. The citys tight housing stock has sparked some concerns that the area doesnt have enough houses for more than 1 million residents expected to move to the region in the coming decades. Nearly 321,000 homes were sold statewide in 2018, SABOR data shows, up 1.9 percent from 2017. The median home price climbed 4.4 percent to $235,000. Joshua Fechter is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering real estate, economic development and philanthropy. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jfechter@express-news.net | Twitter: @JFreports Monday, January 14, 2019 For immediate Release Press Release Local Businesses Take School Security into Their Own Hands Businesses in Rural Township in Ohio Raise Money for School Security After Voters Say No CLEVELAND, OH, January 14, 2019: Frustrated, angry and faced with aging school buildings, three failed school levies and a lack of state funds, local businesses in a rural township in Northern Ohio are determined to make their schools more secure and protect their students. More than fifteen business in the rural Crestwood School District have come together in an unprecedented grass roots movement to raise money to secure and ready the schools in an effort to protect their children from possible active shooters and other threats. Donations have ranged from $250 up to over $10,000 per business. One inventive business has produced and is selling a calendar featuring photos of these local businesses that so far has brought in $20,000. All funds from this grass roots movement are donated to the school district and put into a special account earmarked specifically for school security upgrades. The Crestwood School District is comprised of Mantua Village, Mantua Township, Shalersville Township, Hiram Village and Hiram Township. The Crestwood School District is 21 miles from Chardon, OH where there was a school shooting in 2012. Spurred into action by the recent Parkland School shootings and two failed school levies, Larry and Joe Kotkowski, owners of Lakeside Sand & Gravel, Inc. started to raise money on their own. Soon, many other businesses joined in and now, this small rural area is making sure that their students are going to be as safe as possible in school. Joe Kotkowski stated "I hope that our grass roots movement will become a catalyst for voters to see the need to pass much needed levies to protect our students. We live in a rural area that includes farms so money can be tight, but the safety and security of our students must be addressed." SACS Consulting, Inc. (www.sacsconsulting.com), who has also donated over $6,000 to the project, has been hired to conduct a complete security assessment of all the school buildings in the Crestwood District, many of which date back to the 1950's. There are two lower schools, one middle school and one high school in the district serving 1750 students. Timothy Dimoff, President of SACS Consulting said "Every student deserves to feel safe in school. We are conducting a thorough security assessment with recommendations to make sure that happens. In older school buildings, easy access through windows and unsecured means of entry are of great concern and must be addressed. We will also make suggestions as to security measures that can be implemented by staff, as well as actual physical security upgrades to the buildings." Both the Mantua Chief of Police, and the Portage County Sheriff welcome this help. As in many areas, recent budget cuts are a security concern and the money raised by the local businesses can help to provide a better level of security to keep the students safe. Portage County Sheriff David Crestwood Schools Press Release Page 2 Doak said "Being so spread out, it is a challenge to have sheriff deputies on hand to cover an area of 503 square miles." Police Chief Joe Urso stated "The voters have said they don't want to pay for new schools, so we welcome the money raised by these local businesses to make security better at our existing schools. We must put the safety of our students first." This is a fund-raising model that can be utilized in many areas of the country as voters are unable or unwilling to pass levies for school security. As school shootings are unfortunately a part of our society, these security improvements, along with other measures, will help to keep our students safe. -30- BREXIT VOTE LIVE UPDATE 14:30 16/01: In a marked show of resilience, the Pound Sterling (GBP) extended gains against the US Dollar (USD) and Euro (EUR) following the post-vote rebound witnessed across all GBP-paired FX rates. Wednesday saw GBPUSD hit an early session high of $1.28957, just shy of the multi-week best of $1.29297, and trade from a $1.284 floor throughout the session. Likewise, the pound-to-euro exchange rate extended gains into Wednesdays session, hitting a seven-week high of 1.1312 in the x-rates first foray above the 1.13 handle since late November 2018. Drawn to comment on the GBP's reaction in the wake of the meaningful vote during a hearing of the Treasury Select Committee during Wednesday's session, governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney said "Public market commentary, consistent with our market intelligence, that rebound appears to reflect some expectation that the process of resolution would be extended and that the prospect of no-deal may have been diminished." ING analysts laid down their interpretation of the currency markets pound-positive reaction, attributing the GBP rally to (a) rather low probability of todays no-confidence vote being successful; (b) increased likelihood that Prime Minister Theresa May is likely to have to (eventually) seek cross-party support for the next deal, with the perceived odds of Article 50 extension rising. Focus for Wednesdays session turns to the impeding no confidence vote following Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyns tabling of the no-confidence motion in the immediate aftermath of the meaningful vote results alongside the route ahead for PM May and her Brexit deal or alternative Brexit scenarios. With regards to a deal, PM May and her government now have just three sitting days to table any revisions to the currently proposed deal, under new deadlines imposed by the Grieve amendment. PM May called for cross-party input to enable the government to find a deal which appeases, at least, a majority of MPs in the House of Commons. However, analysts and headlines alike remain dubious of a mutually acceptable resolution based on the current deal. Senior FX strategist at SEB, Richard Falknehall, commented One thing seems clear - this deal they voted on is now dead, I doubt they can make a few tweaks and salvage it, adding You have to look at alternatives to them: there is no support in parliament for a no-deal Brexit so you end with a softer Brexit, or maybe even a second referendum. With regards to the Pound Sterling's (GBP) near-term direction, UK economist Dean Turner of UBS Global Wealth Management, wrote "At this stage we do not advocate taking directional views on sterling and UK assets. The reaction of the pound following the vote would suggest that markets are not currently increasing the risk of an adverse outcome," adding "For the time being, we expect that uncertainty will remain high and UK markets will stay volatile." BREXIT VOTE LIVE UPDATE: 05:40 16/01: The British Pound staged a recovery against the euro and the US dollar in the aftermath of the historic defeat for the UK Government on Tuesday. Read updated follow-up Brexit piece here: What Next For Brexit And The Pound Sterling: 2nd Referendum Or Very Soft Brexit Most Probable Outcomes What next? Analyst reaction from Danske bank was as follows: "The likelihood of an extension of Article 50 has probably increased so that is also something we will monitor (officially May still sticks to the plan of leaving the EU on 29 March). A majority in the House of Commons has clearly indicated it is against a no-deal Brexit, which would only happen by accident, as it is the default option (15% probability). We continue to believe the probabilities of a soft Norway-style Brexit and snap election are low (10% and 5%, respectively)." "The two most likely outcomes are: either May's deal (or something very similar) passing at a later stage as pressure builds on the politicians or a second EU referendum (40% and 30%, respectively) but British politics need to settle before we find out which way the UK will go." "EUR/GBP declined despite the loss being bigger than expected. As such, price actions resembles a 'buy the rumour, sell the fact' and thus GBP short covering in the aftermath of the voting. As we are now in unchartered territory, the next days of debate in parliament and not least the no-confidence vote tomorrow will be directional for GBP." The economists at Danske Bank expect some range-trading for the pound-to-euro exchange rate "until further Brexit clarification." "An extension of the Article 50 would be positive for GBP as it reduces the risk of a No deal Brexit, while pressure on GBP might increase due to rising uncertainty as the 29 March moves closer." BREXIT VOTE LIVE UPDATE: 20:42 15/01: The Pound to Euro exchange rate has fully recovered the day's losses and extended into the green, jumping 0.55% higher to trade at 1.12840. President of the European Commission reacted via a Tweet to today's historic defeat: I take note with regret of the outcome of the vote in the @HouseofCommons this evening. I urge the #UK to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. Time is almost up #Brexit https://t.co/SMmps5kexn Jean-Claude Juncker (@JunckerEU) January 15, 2019 BREXIT VOTE LIVE UPDATE: 19:42 15/01: The UK Government's Brexit Deal was defeated by a majority of 230, unprecedented in British politics. 432 MPs voted against the PM May's deal. Following the result, the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn tabled a no confidence motion in the UK Government. JUST IN: Sterling extends gains after May's #Brexit deal is defeated; now at $1.27 pic.twitter.com/q9w2Nlnxoo Reuters Business (@ReutersBiz) January 15, 2019 The currency markets saw sterling recoup losses made earlier in the day. See a table of the latest top 8 sterling spot rates below: The Pound to Australian Dollar (GBP/AUD) exchange rate is -0.48% lower at 1.77976 . The Pound to Canadian Dollar (GBP/CAD) exchange rate is -0.57% lower at 1.69970 . The Pound to Swiss Franc (GBP/CHF) exchange rate is +0.12% higher at 1.26476 . The Pound to Euro (GBP/EUR) exchange rate is +0.05% higher at 1.12275 . The Pound to Japanese Yen (GBP/JPY) exchange rate is -0.3% lower at 138.93175 . The Pound to New Zealand Dollar (GBP/NZD) exchange rate is -0.38% lower at 1.87892 . The Pound to Turkish Lira (GBP/TRY) exchange rate is -0.63% lower at 7.00243 . The Pound to US Dollar (GBP/USD) exchange rate is -0.63% lower at 1.27935. 118 Tory MPs voted against the Brexit deal - more than a third of the entire Parliamentary party. All 10 DUP too. pic.twitter.com/sTr7YYww3L Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) January 15, 2019 BREXIT VOTE LIVE UPDATE: 16:31 15/01: Pound Sterling exchange rates slumped sharply during the latter half of Tuesdays session as Brexit-themed parliamentary debates raged on with no amicable solution in sight. At the time of writing, the pound-to-dollar exchange rate was last seen at $1.2779 following a session high of $1.2915. Versus the Euro (EUR), similar price action played out with GBP/EUR retreating from the vicinity of one-month highs to the top end of the 1.10 1.12 range which capped December price action. At the time of writing, the GBP/EUR exchange rate was trading at 1.1210. As it stands were at a crucial Brexit impasse with parliamentary arithmetic pointing to an almost certain rejection of PM Mays deal by MPs. At last count 113 of the Prime Ministers own Tory party suggested they would vote against the deal, alongside the opposition Labour party and the DUP which props up the Conservative-led current government. Investor focus has therefore been directed towards the scale of the defeat and the potential scenarios which could play out in the aftermath. Should MPs overwhelmingly reject the deal, by a margin of 100 votes or more, its unlikely that PM May will be able to re-table a tweaked version of the deal at a later date. Following the backing of the Grieve amendment, the government will have three sitting days to table their contingency Brexit plan. However speculation is also growing that Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is on the verge of tabling a motion of no confidence in the current government which, should enough MPs back the motion, could prompt a snap general election. While Corbyn and Labour Party members have kept specifics subdued, they have consistently iterated that a motion of no confidence is coming soon. An alternative, highlighted by Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman, Tom Brake, and backed by significant portion of pro-EU MPs would see the government call a second EU referendum (aka Peoples Vote), given that the EU have remained adamant against reopening negotiations and a no deal scenario could be potentially devastating economically. The most likely scenario, according to pundit projections, is for the UK to seek an extension to Article 50, beyond the current March 29th deadline in order to seek a deal which can find mutual agreement between both the UK and EU while also secure a majority backing in parliament. Pound Sterling forecasts have become increasingly contingent on the outcome of Tuesdays meaningful vote. However, given the outcome is unlikely to progress the Brexit situation (if MPs reject the deal as is expected) in any meaningful way, FX strategist Jordan Rochester at Nomura comments I dont think tonight will provide the move higher that folks are looking for, adding Until that confidence vote is out the way and (May) makes it clear what she intends to do, we are still operating with downside risks attached to sterling, that could quickly become a market focus once again. BREXIT VOTE LIVE UPDATE 14:30 15/01: Volatility for GBP-paired FX rates picked up during Tuesdays session ahead of the final day of Brexit withdrawal agreement debates preceding Tuesday evenings meaningful vote. Against the US Dollar (USD), the x-rate slumped to around the weekly open following numerous runs on the $1.2915 level. At the time of writing, the GBPUSD exchange rate is $1.28375. Versus the Euro (EUR), price action became choppier ahead of the House of Commons debates with the GBPEUR exchange rate fluctuating between 1.1225 and 1.1260. Expectations for PM Mays withdrawal agreement are bleak with a defeat apparently a forgone conclusion as investors and analysts focus on the scale as the defeat to determine the likely pound Sterling market reaction. MUFG strategist, Lee Hardman, commented Its a done deal that the vote will be defeated. Initial market focus will be on the scale of the defeat and the expectation is it will be heavy 100-200 votes, adding The surprise will be if the defeat is narrower. The balance of risks (for sterling) is to the upside as people expect a big margin... But it will still leave us in a state of deadlock. Ahead of the meaningful vote, MPs will be voting on amendments to the withdrawal agreement and political declaration, which together form the plans for the UKs exit from the EU. However, despite amendments aimed at allaying concerns over key contentious issues, some MPs feel they dont go far enough and also that unilateral decisions to change the agreement may not be accepted by European counterparts. The Andrew Murrison amendment which proposes the withdrawal agreement be changed to specify that the backstop solution shall expire on 31 December 2021, has done little to persuade DUP ministers to back the deal, having released a statement which said Amendments tabled in parliament will have no bearing on the legal status of what has been negotiated. What is required is for the prime minister is to go and secure legally binding changes as she promised. Todays very belated amendments are part of the internal parliamentary games and do not change the need to secure legally binding changes. BREXIT VOTE LIVE UPDATE 11:30 15/01: The Pound Sterling to US Dollar exchange rates dipped slightly during Tuesdays session but remained close to the multi-week high posted during Monday trading ahead of MPs convening to round off Brexit debates ahead of Tuesday evenings meaningful vote. Against the Euro, the GBPEUR exchange rate was little changed, gridlocked just below the current three-week high of 1.1266, trading at 1.1244. Expectations that MPs will reject PM Mays withdrawal agreement remains the base case for several institutional forecasts with the Pound Sterling (GBP) market reaction tipped to depend on the severity of the rejection. Analysts from Commerzbank said What we dont know is what is going to happen if the deal is rejected as expected. That is the decisive factor for sterling today. A first indication of how things might progress might be the margin with which May loses. Meanwhile Jane Foley from Rabobank predicted more uncertainty and the potential for more volatility in the wake of the meaningful vote, adding GBP investors can be expected to favour any outcome which appears to suggest a hard Brexit is off the table. This suggests that a second referendum could be cautiously welcomed," but highlights potential downside risks posed by a " far left government" coming into power. Given the extreme disparity between potential outcomes, Foley outlines two development-contingent forecasts for the Euro Pound Sterling (EURGBP) x-rate in the immediate aftermath, We would expect that confirmation of a delay to Article 50 would pushed EUR/GBP back towards the 0.87 area, unless the news also featured a general election. This outcome would weigh heavily on the pound and likely push EUR/GBP towards 0.92 with upside risk depending on the guidance offered by opinion polls. Meanwhile, the German government has denied newspaper reports that chancellor Angela Merkel had offered further concessions to PM May in a bid to boost domestic support for her withdrawal agreement. The statement delivered by a government spokesperson read, the German chancellor has given no assurances beyond those that were discussed by the European council in December and what is set out in the letter from (European commission president) Jean-Claude Juncker and (European council president) Donald Tusk. BREXIT VOTE LIVE UPDATE 11:30 15/01: Will hard Brexit break the pound? Vincent Mivelaz from Swissquote predicts an extension to Article 50 tonight: "Tonight will see the UK House of Commons vote on Prime Minister Theresa Mays proposed Withdrawal Agreement at about 7 pm London time. We expect a refusal. If May is rebuffed enough, we could see vote of no confidence against the government or Mays resignation. However, we suspect a tighter outcome, which probably will lead to an extension the Brexit deadline to mid- or late-2019. GBP/USD is currently trading at 1.2857, approaching 1.2710 short-term" BREXIT VOTE LIVE UPDATE 10:30 15/01: Pound Sterling (GBP) exchange rates were little changed, maintaining close to multi-week highs versus the Euro (GBP/EUR) and US Dollar (GBP/USD) as PM Mays Cabinet met ahead of the final day of Brexit-centric debates, preceding tonights meaningful vote. At the time of writing, the Pound Sterling Euro (GBPEUR) x-rate was trading just below the monthly high of 1.1266 at 1.1242 while the Pound Sterling US Dollar (GBPUSD) was last seen at $1.28545. Ahead of the crucial Brexit vote, Citigroups private-banking arm has issued a warning to high-net-worth clients to avoid trading the Sterling in anticipation of skyrocketing volatility. Global head of investments at Citi Private Bank, David Bailin, said Over the next 24 hours what all were going to find out is the degree to which May loses, how much she loses by, adding That is not something that one actually trades on. Highlighting the uncertainty surrounding the Brexit route ahead, Citis chief investment strategist, Steven Wieting commented If we had the members of parliament and Theresa May and the Europeans all here, they wouldnt know how its going to work out, I dont think we can, adding Be relatively cautious about taking risk on that particular exchange rate. Arlene Foster, leader of the DUP which props up the Conservative Party government tweeted to confirm her partys opposition to PM Mays withdrawal agreement, Tonight will be historic but for the wrong reasons. We will oppose the toxic backstop & vote against the WA. Its time for a sensible deal which governs our exit from the EU & supports all parts of the UK.. MPs are expected to reject the withdrawal agreement with the Pound Sterling (GBP) reaction hinging on the margin by which the agreement falls and the direction Brexit proceedings take thereafter. BREXIT VOTE LIVE UPDATE 09:30 15/01: The Pound to Euro rate remained in the vicinity of the best exchange rates of 2019 as the European session got underway in the wake of disappointing German GDP data (1.5% for 2018) and elevated expectations of a Brexit delay. GBPEUR was last seen at 1.1255. The Cabinet is due to gather in Downing Street imminently ahead of the final round of Brexit debates due to commence during the afternoon session preceding a final speech from prime Minister Theresa May before MPs cast their votes from 7pm (GMT) BREXIT VOTE LIVE UPDATE: 08:30 15/01: The British Pound (GBP) to Euro (EUR) exchange rate is seen slightly elevated approaching the European session, quoted at 1.12338, a monthly (and therefore 2019) best conversion for those looking to transfer money to or holiday in Europe. According to analysts at Lloyds Bank, "Sterling has touched more than one-month highs against both the US dollar and the euro as markets await the outcome of tonights vote." BREXIT VOTE LIVE UPDATE: 06:30 15/01: The British Pound (GBP) is seen slightly elevated during the Asia session on exchange rate markets against the euro (EUR), US dollar (USD) and other major currencies ahead of this evening's Brexit vote at Westminster. According to analysis from SKY reporting, UK PM May could be heading for a potential landslide defeat of 225. A table with the current breakdown of Parliamentary votes is below: FOR: 198 AGAINST: 423 Con: 192 Lab: 3 IND: 3 Con: 109 Lab: 248 IND: 5 DUP: 10 SNP: 35 Lib Dem: 11 Green:1 Plaid:4 The British Pound (GBP) managed to retake 1.29 against the US Dollar (USD) as the UK currency shed some weight ahead of a crucial vote in the UK parliament. Risk sentiment was generally poor after some very weak Chinese Export/Import data, with signs of both reduced consumption and output worrying investors. Today sees the Brexit Withdrawal Deal vote proposed by Theresa May and ING believes that there are a number of eventualities which could yet play out depending on Tuesdays outcome. Pound Sterling Today: Mays Brexit deal vote is finally here, wild volatility expected in GBP After a last-minute postponement and a big delay, the Brexit vote on Prime Minister Theresa Mays withdrawal deal is finally here. The stakes couldnt be higher as a confirmation of the expected no-vote leaves an extremely uncertain and dramatic course of events. In FX markets on Monday stocks were under pressure as the Japanese Yen made inroads against the USD, with USD/JPY dropping towards 108. The British Pound took on a brighter tone, as it continued to grind higher. This was not particularly surprising given that the weight of the positioning was short and investors tend to head for the hills during periods of uncertainty ahead of events which are expected to generate significant periods of volatility. ING forecast probable extension to Article 50 If the UK Parliament does end up voting down Mays deal, it seems extremely likely that Labour will dive in with a no-confidence vote. Beyond that ING believe that the most likely eventuality is going to be an extension to article 50 as May scrambles to find enough time to break the likely deadlock that would ensue after the withdrawal deal failed. ING cautious about assuming which outcomes will elicit a positive reaction from Pound exchange rates, We believe there's more than a 60% chance Article 50, the treaty which began the UK's withdrawal process from the European Union will be extended. But be careful... not every scenario there will be positive for the pound, for instance, it could fall if a general election is called. Euro to Pound (EUR/GBP) exchange rate forecast to move strongly lower if Second Referendum announced For those hoping the Pound Sterling (GBP) is due a major rally, it would appear that the best possible outcome would be a second referendum where Brexit is overturned. ING believes that another vote could help bring EUR/GBP exchange rate significantly off its recent highs, The most positive outcome for GBP is a second referendum, likely bringing EUR/GBP to or below 0.85. Regardless of a second referendum, analysts are still hopeful that things could get better for the British Pound and believe it is strongly undervalued, even if the worsening fundamentals of the UK economy probably accentuate this fact, We still expect a market-friendly resolution by the end of the year which could see sterling stronger (GBP/USD at 1.40). While GBP is ultra-cheap (the cheapest currency in the G10 FX space), the valuation gap is unlikely to close fully as the damage to the economy has already been done. Ultimately the Dutch Institutions conclusion for this week is that there could be more downside in the Pound, as uncertainty in the short-term at least may prove to be too powerful for the short term momentum to be sustained, For now, the lack of short-term risk premium priced into GBP and the potential disappointment if Article 50 isn't extended immediately may translate into a weaker GBP this week Hence it should be a particularly exciting period of time for GBP traders, but whether or not the bulls or bears come off on top remains to be seen. Positioning is definitely in favour of a short squeeze, but it is apparent that some of the risk-premium has unwound a little and a move back to recent lows cannot be ruled out in GBP/USD. Despite the fact they believe that the British Pound is undervalued, ING do in fact believe that current pricing for the British Pound actually looks pretty accurate when the probability of a hard-Brexit is factored into exchange rates, Interestingly, GBP is not trading materially off its probability-weighted level, largely because of the non-negligible risk of hard Brexit (around 20% in our view) which would see a large fall in the pound. We did a reenactment of [her] overdose and it is powerfully done, she said, adding that, although it is the story of one young womans story, it is truly the story of anyone who struggles with addiction. All the music for the 35-minute remade video was written by Brian McCall, a local young man who is in recovery at this time. He is also a rapper who goes by B-Rain and is pretty popular. He traveled around the country to compete with his music. - Big spikes for GBP to USD exchange rate prior to the New York open followed by broad ups and down. - FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) wearing on traders and speculators before upcoming Brexit vote. GBP/USD faces big swings in New York session trading Above: GBP/USD price halted against key 61.8% Fibonacci level. The London open saw traders drive the GBP to USD exchange rate higher from the open of 1.2839 to the swing high of 1.2931 (around +100 pips) just before the New York open. But during the first hour of the New York session, prices took a nose dive towards 1.2862. Prices continued to drop for the majority of the New York session before a bottom was formed at 1.2852. The swing high for the day should be an area of interest to traders and investors. The most recent and important swing high was the high of 2018 found at 1.4377 on April 17th, 2018. A Fibonacci retracement (learn more on this forex analysis technique here) drawn from that high to the second higher swing low of 1.2065 on January 16th, 2017 brings the important 61.8% retracement level to 1.29. That level is also very near the 45-degree angle, which acted as stiff resistance against price. Further downside pressure should be limited to the latter arc (Blue arc) which would bring price near 1.2837. The close of Mondays daily candle is one that certainly shows some mixed signals but certainly leans on the side of the bearish bias. It could very easily be considered a form of an inverted hammer, but the lower wick is to low while the higher wick is appropriate for an inverted hammer. The close of Mondays trade, however, does show the close above Fridays high. We also saw the blue arc act as support against any further downside momentum. Important Brexit Vote Incoming One of the most important events probably in the past 6 months happens during this week with the Brexit vote. On Tuesday, Parliament will vote on the current deal to leave the EU. This is important because if it doesnt go through, Prime Minister May is under threat of a vote of no confidence from the opposition partys leader Jeremy Corbyn. There continues to be a significant amount of tension and apprehension from both sides (UK and EU) regarding finalizing an issue with the Irish and Northern Ireland border. The Prime Minister has affirmed that the dreaded backstop will not be necessary. Adding to the contentiousness of the issue is a great many of the EUs leaders open stating they are unwilling to provide any more agreements or concessions that this deal is it. As always, speculators are on the edge of their seats awaiting an end to the never-ending unknowns. this news is not available DALLAS - Jan. 15, 2019 - The European gypsy moth (EGM) is perhaps the country's most famous invasive insect - a nonnative species accidentally introduced to North America in the 1860s when a few escaped from a breeding experiment in suburban Boston. The caterpillars have been slowly eating their way across the continent ever since, causing widespread defoliation. In research that could lead to better bioinsecticides to protect forests and orchards, Drs. Don Gammon and Nick Grishin of UT Southwestern have sequenced the genomes of the EGM and its even more destructive cousin, the Asian gypsy moth (AGM). Their work, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that the gypsy moth has the largest moth or butterfly genome (number of DNA base pairs) ever sequenced. "The European gypsy moth has spread as far west as Minnesota and as far south as North Carolina. The rather slow spread - about 13 miles a year - is partly due to the fact that EGM females are flightless and must walk or be blown by the wind to disperse," said Dr. Gammon, Assistant Professor of Microbiology and a W.W. Caruth, Jr. Scholar in Biomedical Research. "In contrast, females of the Asian gypsy moth subspecies, which inhabits Asia and eastern Russia, have larger, more developed wings and can fly." If the Asian gypsy moth were to become established in the United States, it would pose an even greater economic threat due to its ability to spread more swiftly, he added. To guard against that possibility, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has surveillance programs at several ports and regularly sprays virus-based bioinsecticides in endangered forests to kill gypsy moth caterpillars. In addition to genome sequencing, the researchers conducted gene expression studies showing how the moths' genes respond to viral infection to understand how viral bioinsecticides might be improved to control gypsy moth populations. Their findings could serve as a roadmap to the insects' vulnerabilities, the researchers said. They also identified genetic differences between the EGM and AGM subspecies that likely contribute to variations in flight ability, chemical sensing, and pathogen interactions. Dr. Gammon became interested in gypsy moths during his postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Dr. Craig Mello at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In a 2014 study in the journal eLife, Dr. Gammon reported that gypsy moth cells are strikingly resistant to arboviruses that otherwise infect a wide range of fly, mosquito, and human cell types. Given the emerging threat of arboviruses such as Zika to human health, Dr. Gammon sought to understand the genetic reasons for gypsy moth cells' resistance with the hope of uncovering novel strategies to block arbovirus infection in other species. However, the gypsy moth genome had not been sequenced, a clear prerequisite for identifying moth-encoded antiviral factors. Shortly after being offered a faculty position at UT Southwestern in 2016, Dr. Gammon asked Dr. Grishin, Professor of Biophysics and Biochemistry and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator, if they could collaborate. At the time, Dr. Grishin's group had just identified two new butterfly species and was sequencing the genomes of several others. That collaboration led to today's study, done with Kyoto Prize winner Dr. Daniel Janzen, a Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania who is world-renowned for his expertise in evolutionary ecology. The Kyoto Prize is considered Japan's highest private honor for global achievement in the winner's field. "Everyone in the Northeastern United States knows the European gypsy moth, or is at least familiar with the devastation its voraciously hungry caterpillar can cause to forests," Dr. Gammon said. Next steps should include functional studies to understand how the genes work, the researchers said. "From a theoretical perspective, we would like to understand how biological diversity is generated via mechanisms of protein evolution," said Dr. Grishin, who holds the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Chair in Biomedical Science and is a Virginia Murchison Linthicum Scholar in Biomedical Research. Other UTSW authors on the study include Jing Zhang, a graduate student, and Dr. Qian Cong, a former graduate student, both in the Grishin laboratory, and Emily A. Rex, a research assistant in the Gammon laboratory. The research received support from UT Southwestern's Endowed Scholars Program, the National Institutes of Health, The Welch Foundation, and the HHMI. More about gypsy moths The EGM is currently found in Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. The EGM is considered particularly high-risk in Kentucky. The gypsy moth prefers approximately 150 primary hosts but feeds on more than 300 species of trees and shrubs. Some of those include: Aspen Birch Cedar Cottonwood Fruit trees Larch Oak Poplar Willow Source: USDA A breeding experiment gone awry: Gypsy moths in North America Etienne Leopold Trouvelot - an amateur butterfly and moth scientist - brought the EGMs from his native France to his home in Medford, Massachusetts, in the mid-1860s. His goal was to crossbreed EGMs with the more delicate silkworm moths to produce a hardier silk producer that would inherit the EGM caterpillar trait of eating a broad range of plants. According to the Smithsonian Institution's gypsy moth page, at one time the amateur naturalist had more than a million larvae growing behind his house near what is now downtown Boston. In the late 1860s, some of the EGMs escaped and began feasting on the nearby woods. Since then, the EGM caterpillars have become major forest and orchard pests, defoliating millions of acres. ### About UT Southwestern Medical Center UT Southwestern, one of the premier academic medical centers in the nation, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institution's faculty has received six Nobel Prizes, and includes 22 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 17 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 15 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. The faculty of more than 2,700 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians provide care in about 80 specialties to more than 105,000 hospitalized patients, nearly 370,000 emergency room cases, and oversee approximately 2.4 million outpatient visits a year. MADISON - Proposals to fight malaria by "driving" genes that slow its spread through mosquitoes is a high-risk, high-reward technology that presents a challenge to science journalists, according to a new report aimed at stimulating a fruitful, realistic public discussion of "post-normal" science and technology. Post-normal science is a new term for technologies where the usual expertise is not enough to evaluate costs, benefits and safety. A debate on a technique to control malaria with genetic manipulation could spark the kind of polarized arguments that persist decades after the introduction of genetically modified (GM) corn, soy and cotton. Inhibiting malaria could reduce the toll of death and disease. The World Health Organization estimated that the mosquito-borne parasite caused 429,000 deaths among 212 million cases in 2015. The new technology of "gene drives" raises the ante on existing uses of GM organisms, says Dominique Brossard, corresponding author of "Promises and Perils of Gene Drives," published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Brossard's scholarship occurs at the intersection of science, media and policy. She chairs the department of life science communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Advocates of "gene drives" propose to battle malaria by creating and distributing genetically engineered mosquitoes that prevent them, and their offspring, from transmitting malaria. One tactic could rely on genes that cause the insect's immune system to kill malaria parasites. Beyond diseases carried by vectors, the technology might be applied to reducing populations of invasive species. Other examples of post normal science include two areas currently in the headlines: climate change and human gene editing. News of the birth of two babies from an embryo that was supposedly subjected to gene editing highlights the need to discuss post-normal technologies, Brossard says. "I would characterize this case as illicit, unregulated, unproven, questionable, unnecessary... and perhaps a harbinger of the future." Smart, effective regulation of post-normal science, the PNAS authors argue, requires accounting for a mix of scientific, social, religious, ethical and environmental viewpoints. The new analysis grew from the Third Sackler Colloquium on The Science of Science Communication, and was performed by Brossard, Pam Belluck, a science journalist at The New York Times, and Fred Gould, a professor of agriculture with a specialty in entomology at North Carolina State University. "Our aim," the authors write, "is therefore to use our collective experiences and knowledge to highlight how the current debate about gene drives could benefit from lessons learned from other contexts and sound communication approaches involving multiple actors." Existing regulations on the release of genetically engineered organisms were "developed for crop plants and animals that typically don't spread on their own in the environment," Brossard's group notes. But even though genetic engineering is now deeply embedded in corn, soy and cotton planted on hundreds of millions of acres, those crop seeds are not to be replanted, and so the novel genes are not supposed to spread. In gene drives, however, success depends on having the GM genes spread broadly in target populations. Thus, gene drives are fraught with a panoply of hazards, real or false, predicted, unpredicted or unimagined. Part of the difficulty emerges from the accelerating pace of science, Brossard says. "If something stays in the lab for a long time, there may be time for discussions about regulation, but now science gets out so fast that the capacity for society to deal with it may lag behind." And in the social-media era, headlines - scary or promising, accurate or otherwise - instantly rocket around the world. The issue of gene drives has become even more pertinent with the advent of a fast, precise "gene editing" tool called CRISPR. "We found that efforts to drive genes into wild mosquitoes or other organisms are both exciting and scary," the PNAS authors wrote. A cautionary example about the perils of "post-normal" science surrounds the introduction of genetic engineering technology more than 40 years ago. The new technology seemed threatening, even to some insiders, and scientists voluntarily suspended research in 1975, then held a conference at Asilomar, Calif., to discuss safety limits. Asilomar is sometimes cited as a success, yet controversy persists over releases of GM organisms. "Asilomar was a great example of an issue that was not approached with what we call the post-normal paradigm," says Brossard. "It was approached as 'Scientists know the best way to move forward,' and that is responsible to some extent for what we see today, a very polarized view about GM organisms. As a result, some of the African countries that need them most are not always able to use them." Given that cautionary history, she says, "This is our warning: Let's be careful not to make the same mistake. We need to consider social, ethical and economic dimensions; it's not only the technical aspects of the technology that matters when you think risks and benefits." Gene editing, gene drives and other impending post-normal technologies offer a chance for a do-over, Brossard says. "Can we develop a middle ground for assessing the situation? How could this technology be useful? What would it mean to use this responsibly? What are its risks and for whom?" One sign of progress, Brossard says, "would be the absence of something we had in the GM debate, two extremely vocal, polarized sides. GM crops are not a magic-bullet technology that is going to save the world - or destroy it, either. All technologies have risks and benefits, and genetic engineering is the same. It still needs regulation." Smart regulation is accepted with older innovations, Brossard says. "Automobiles are a powerful technology. If we did not have traffic laws, if people did not know how to drive, autos could lead to catastrophe, but with smart regulation, they are a highly useful technology." In the context of gene drives and other post-normal technologies, Brossard says, "We need to stop saying, 'We need to promote meaningful dialog.' We need to actually go out and do it." ### David Tenenbaum, 608-265-8549, djtenenb@wisc.edu The ISO 9001 standard is made up of a raft of requirements relating to quality and quality management drawn up by the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO). The ISO 9001 certificate guarantees the validity of the procedures so that they comply with the specifications established by customers. To obtain the ISO 9001 certificate a company has to undergo an audit by a third company, which tends to be an independent auditor, external to the company, and which certifies that a company is complying with the reference standard. And these audits need to be certified by a National Accreditation Body (in Spain, the ENAC). The research group led by Inaki Heras-Saizarbitoria, professor of Business Administration at the UPV/EHU, has spent many years studying, among other things, the phenomenon of ISO quality and environment certificates. "When working with companies here we hear that products or components imported from China have often been found wanting when it comes to correctly complying with the specifications," explained Heras. Following this through and in collaboration with Olivier Boiral, researcher at the Universite Laval of Quebec, in-depth interviews were held following a systematic methodology, with 40 people who work in Chinese companies --personnel with broad experience and who hold high-level positions in quality, consulting and auditing, among other things. Although subsequently "we were contacted by a larger group of professionals, after we had reported on our study at various congresses", said the UPV/EHU researcher. Faking certificates is easy; finding out is also easy The conclusions drawn from these conversations "paint a disturbing picture. While it is true that many Chinese companies correctly implement and comply with the certification, there are many other cases in which this certificate is faked in one way or another. The reliability of Chinese certificates is very low", he declared. As the professor points out, there are four ways of faking the certificate: "by creating a certificate directly in Photoshop; by fraudulently obtaining the official certificate (declaring that things are done in a specific way, when this is not in fact the case; doing them solely for the purpose of the external audit); buying the official certificate without implementing any kind of system; and obtaining the certificate from a certification body that lacks the relevant accreditation, and in this case without implementing any system whatsoever, either". The research group has also launched a series of recommendations to the interest groups to address this situation. They suggest to the public bodies that "transparency should be improved, in other words, the certifying bodies should be required to have their databases updated on their websites, that they should display the list of certified Chinese companies. Despite the fact that this is a requirement, it is not met", he stressed. "The political will is needed for this, but in this field many interests come together, in China as well as in world organisations". Companies are recommended "not to trust certificates of this type coming from China. The problems could be very serious if some item that the company uses in one of its products fails to comply with the proper specifications". "From our point of view, the problem is pretty widespread, even though it is true that in some countries it is particularly serious, as in China or Pakistan, for example. But in other countries, such as Russia or the United States, cases have also been spotted," he explained. As regards the European Union, Heras says that there is greater regulation, because there have been many complaints and problems, "but the situation varies between one European country and another. Each national body is a world unto itself, and each one establishes its limits and obligations. At the end of the day, standardization is a highly paradoxical regulation tool which is growing in strength in this era of globalisation and liberalisation". ### Additional information Inaki Heras-Saizarbitoria is professor of Business Administration at the UPV/EHU's Faculty of Economics and Business. He leads the consolidated research group GIC IT1073-16 2016-2021 of the Basque University System. He has a PhD in Economics and Business Studies and a Master's in Society, Science and Technology (ESST). He is also the author of a large number of publications in various leading international journals. Bibliographical reference Inaki Heras-Saizarbitoria, Olivier Boiral Faking ISO 9001 in China: An exploratory study Business Horizons (2018) DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2018.08.008 A mass of charred seeds found while clearing a home construction site in Brantford, Ontario, has been identified as ancient, domesticated goosefoot (C. berlandieri spp. jonesianum), a form of quinoa native to Eastern North America. The seeds date back to 900 B.C., and have never previously been found north of Kentucky this early in history, says Professor Gary Crawford of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), who was brought in by Archaeological Services Inc. (ASI), the archaeological consulting firm that excavated the site. Archaeological discoveries don't normally shock Crawford but this one comes close. "Finding domesticated seeds that are so old in Ontario is special," Crawford says. "The next time we find a crop in the province is about 500 A.D., and it's corn. All previous research on this species of quinoa, which is now extinct, has taken place in the central United States: Arkansas, Illinois and Kentucky." The charred seeds, about 140,000 in total, were discovered in Brantford in 2010 during a required archeological assessment conducted by Archaeological Services Inc. prior to site development. The Tutela Heights site, which has since become a housing development, yielded some stone tools, post holes, debris and the chenopod seeds. Jessica Lytle, a co-author of the resulting research paper, was one of the assessors who did the initial seed analysis and brought them to Crawford for further analysis, having studied with him at UTM. Their findings are published in the October 2018 issue of American Antiquity. The analysis took time, especially given the number of seeds and the need to document whether the whole collection was from the same crop. "This discovery raises more questions than it answers. We had to consider whether the seeds were only traded here or grown locally," says Ron Williamson, PhD, of ASI, another co-author. "We also had to consider whether this was the beginning of agriculture in the province. It appears not, because we don't see any evidence of local cultivation. If it were grown in the region, we would have expected to see seeds of the crop in other pits around the site, but they were confined to this specific pit. We also don't see any sign of agricultural weeds or stone tools that may have been used for cultivation. Indigenous peoples at the time exchanged certain kinds of minerals and finished stone objects over long distances, but this is the first evidence of a crop circulating in this exchange system. What meaning this plant had for local indigenous people nearly 3000 years ago still is not clear. Professor Crawford notes "We always wondered if they were also exchanging perishable materials. We're taking the conservative view that these seeds were traded; it would make sense that it wasn't only stone and minerals being moved around. In Kentucky, Illinois and Arkansas, this was a very important foodstuff; its nutrient value was probably similar to that of modern quinoa, which comes from South America." The researchers also explored how and why the seeds were charred. They speculate that it may have happened accidentally when the local inhabitants were attempting to parch them. "You can lightly parch seeds so they don't sprout and store them," Crawford says. "It could have been a mistake to have burned them. There was a slight oxidization of the surrounding sediment, so the soil was heated; we think they were burned in place in the pit." For Crawford, the next step in answering some of the questions will be to review seeds in his lab that were collected at other sites in Ontario to see if there are other charred seeds that may be variations of this subspecies and to examine other Ontario seed collections. Today, there is a weedy version that grows locally and he is curious whether this is a holdover from Indigenous agriculture. "All of these bits of data demonstrate that the Indigenous Canadians were knowledgeable, sophisticated and well-connected across Eastern North America," Crawford says. ### Contact: Gary Crawford Professor, Department of Anthropology University of Toronto Mississauga (905)828-3783 (office) 647-992-2221(cell) g.crawford@utoronto.ca Nicolle Wahl Communications, UTM 905-569-4656 nicolle.wahl@utoronto.ca Vaccines to stop the world's next epidemic could be developed in record time under a $14.7 million partnership using technology developed at The University of Queensland. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has funded a research consortium to develop a rapid response pipeline to develop and test new vaccines in as little as 16 weeks. The Australia Government has been an early supporter of CEPI by providing a previous contribution of $2 million, and UQ and CEPI are pleased to see a further contribution today of $4.5 million. UQ's Professor Paul Young and Dr Keith Chappell are leading the project, which has the potential to save millions of lives by targeting existing and new pathogens. "The World Health Organization's Blueprint list of priority diseases recognises that new epidemics can arise from known and unknown viruses - the latter referred to as 'Disease X'," Professor Young said. "These new and emerging pathogens have the potential to reach global epidemic levels." Dr Chappell said the project was ambitious, as more conventional approaches could take years or even decades. "We aim to be able to manufacture more than 200,000 doses of a new vaccine, demonstrate safety and the likelihood of efficacy, and be ready for field deployment in as little as six months," he said. Professor Young, Dr Chappell and Dr Daniel Watterson have patented 'molecular clamp' technology that provides stability to the viral proteins that are the primary target of our immune defence. "The technology has been designed as a platform approach to generate vaccines against a range of human and animal viruses," Professor Young said. "We've had some extremely promising results so far from trials targeting viruses such as influenza, Ebola, Nipah and MERS coronavirus." Dr Watterson said the collaboration would act as an insurance policy against deadly outbreaks caused by the emergence of viral epidemics or pandemics. "By rapidly creating vaccines to these new threats, we'll be able to quickly limit the spread of disease and diffuse potentially catastrophic situations. "Molecular clamp technology has the potential to address some of today's most devastating diseases and to fundamentally change how we protect ourselves from common diseases." ### The collaboration involves UQ, the CSIRO, the World Health Organization's Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza (WHO-CC), the Australian National University (ANU), Hong Kong University (HKU) and Q-Pharm Pty Ltd. The technology has been patented by UniQuest, UQ's commercialisation company. Reconstructive procedures and organ transplants demand nimble fingers that can restore blood flow by stitching together millimeter-scale arteries. It's a tough ask and time-consuming task for even the most skilled surgeon. But a stent full of sugar may help the surgeries go down - in a 3D-printed way. Designed by Nebraska engineer Ali Tamayol and nationwide colleagues, the small sugar-based tube fits inside the adjacent ends of a clipped artery. By sticking to the interiors, the stent holds those ends in place and provides structural support during the precarious sewing process. "One of the plastic surgeons told us about the challenges of this kind of microsurgery - how time-consuming it is, how skill-dependent it is," said Tamayol, assistant professor of mechanical and materials engineering. The stent-assisted suturing took just five minutes when tested on pig arteries, the team reported, compared with the roughly 15 minutes required of a conventional clamp-based technique. Tamayol said the stent also reduces the risk of a surgeon mistakenly threading through both the top and bottom walls of an artery, which blocks subsequent blood flow. Then, the finish: Minutes after the arteries are sutured, the resuming blood flow dissolves the stent and harmlessly sweeps it away. SWEET'N FLOW In designing the stent, the researchers came up with a checklist of essential properties. It needed some flexibility - too brittle, and it could break during suturing - so the team added a glucose derivative called dextran. It needed enough stickiness to bind with the arteries, which glucose itself provided, plus a large dose of sucrose to help combat blood clotting. And it needed a pinch of sodium citrate to further diminish any chance of clotting when the stent dissolved. The recipe was simple enough. But arteries, like the people who contain them, come in multiple sizes. So the team turned to 3D printing as a means of customizing the stent's diameter to individuals and areas of the body. By dissolving their sugar-based concoction in water and baking the solution until most of the water evaporated, the researchers produced a molten ink that's fluid enough to print but viscous enough to solidify in minutes. Experiments with transparent tubing and pig arteries showed that the stent erodes quickly but steadily when subjected to the flow rate, temperature and salinity of human arteries. The suturing held up, too, with no signs of leakage immediately following the procedure. The researchers eventually plan to test the stent's use in live animal arteries, Tamayol said. And they envision a future in which such stents are printed at hospitals to meet the needs of individual patients. "One thing that I really like about this concept: We are always trying to avoid sugar," Tamayol said. "Everyone knows that sugar is (sometimes) bad. But here we found an application in which it's good." ### The team detailed its stent design in the journal Advanced Healthcare Materials. Tamayol authored the study with doctoral student Azadeh Mostafavi and master's student Arian Jaberi, both of Nebraska; Ali Khademhosseini from the University of California, Los Angeles; Harvard Medical School's Ali Farzin, Amir Miri, Negar Faramarzi, Yu Shrike Zhang and Nasim Annabi; Fatemeh Sharifi from the Sharif University of Technology; and Ricky Solorzano of Allevi Inc. The researchers received support from the Nebraska Tobacco Settlement and the National Institutes of Health under grants HL092836, DE019024, EB012597, AR057837, DE021468, HL099073, AR073822 and GM126831. The U.S. Department of Defense has turned to the University of Nebraska to jumpstart the development of drug therapies to protect military service members from the effects of radiation exposure. In an environment where for-profit pharmaceutical companies are often reluctant to embark upon financially risky drug discovery efforts, the unique four-pronged partnership established by the university and the Department of Defense could shorten the U.S. military's wait for drugs that prevent and counteract the effects of radiation exposure. "It's an exciting collaboration among the federal government, our state university and two of its premier research campuses -- University of Nebraska Medical Center and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln -- and consultants from private pharma who are Nebraska alumni," said David Berkowitz, professor of chemistry. This team operates under the auspices of the university's National Strategic Research Institute, one of 13 university-affiliated research centers. Nebraska has the lone research center entrusted by the military to work on chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats. "This research represents the broad capacity of the University of Nebraska and its alumni consultants to tackle potentially hazardous radiation exposures around the world," said Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Robert Hinson, founding executive director of the National Strategic Research Initiative. The University of Nebraska project for the Defense Health Agency, and in collaboration with Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, has reached a second increment -- potentially awarding nearly $11 million in federal funding over the next five years. Nebraska researchers will look for therapeutics candidates the U.S. military would need to protect troops from radiation in case of exposure, as in a nuclear accident or a nuclear weapons incident. Leveraging the full, collaborative strength of a united university system -- multiple campuses, a network of successful alums -- directed by the Department of Defense, is something new for the university. "I've never been involved with anything like that before," Berkowitz said. "This team came together as a joint vision between the team leadership and our (Department of Defense) funders and it's pretty unusual across the country to see such a public-private-government partnership." In fact, the university hopes this opens the door to continued partnership with private pharma in the longer term, through identifying and developing therapeutic candidates that have dual-purposing potential, Berkowitz said. Berkowitz is co-primary investigator of the project, with Ken Bayles, professor of pathology and microbiology at UNMC. Bayles said if private pharmaceutical companies are leaving a gap, the University of Nebraska is eager to step in. "We've pitched this concept to develop a virtual pharmaceutical company, a drug development pipeline that would coordinate the activities of all the expertise we have across all of our campuses and develop capabilities to move molecules forward for drug development," he said. Handfuls of NU's top scientists will work on medicinal chemistry, metabolomics and bioinformatics in order to move potential drug candidates toward clinical trials. "We'll be coordinating all of these aspects like a pharmaceutical company does," Bayles said. "If we do it right, this pipeline concept is an opportunity to build the economy in Nebraska, build the pharmaceutical industry in Nebraska." Berkowitz said the new multi-pronged, multi-campus team is complex, but, "it's working pretty well." "We are extremely proud to be affiliated with this research and the impact it can have for the Department of Defense, Defense Health Agency and other agencies as well," Lt. Gen. Hinson said. Consultants from pharmaceutical industry will advise Nebraska scientists on the drug development effort. Collaborators include the following University of Nebraska scientists, who bring key expertise to the project to establish a drug development pipeline that could speed the process of developing new drugs at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute to counteract the effects of radiation exposure: * Samuel Cohen, UNMC, toxicology. * Patrick Dussault, UNL, synthetic chemistry. * Babu Guda, UNMC, bioinformatics. * Tomas Helikar, UNL, computational systems biology. * DJ Murry, UNMC, pharmacokinetics and pharmacogentics. * Rebecca Oberley-Deegan, UNMC, radiation therapeutics. * Robert Powers, UNL, metabolomics. Additionally, multiple University of Nebraska alums, all doctoral scientists, with current or former experience in private pharma, also are involved. This experienced consultant team includes Eugene Cordes of Philadelphia (honorary degree, UNL, 2009), Norton Peet, Holland, Mich. (Ph.D., UNL, chemistry, 1970), Kevin Woller, Antioch, Ill. (Ph.D., UNL, chemistry , 1996), Chad Briscoe, Overland Park, Kan. (Ph.D., UNL, chemistry, 2009), Ryan Hartung, Tuscon, Ariz. (B.S., UNL, chemistry, 2000). "They are appreciative of the opportunity to give back to their home institution," said Berkowitz. "They really like the idea of the Lincoln and Omaha campuses collaborating. They really like working for the DoD. There is a patriotic aspect of helping the country and protecting our troops using the tools of biomedical science. "That's something that has made this project special for all of us." ### CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Our images of mushroom clouds came from its cameras. So did many shots of missile tests, space missions and the Korean and Vietnam wars. At one point it was the largest self-contained film studio in Hollywood, enlisting such stars as Jimmy Stewart and Marilyn Monroe, as well as Disney animators and other movie industry talent. It made an estimated 900 films. Yet the story of Lookout Mountain Laboratory was largely unknown - until two University of Illinois professors spent 10 years piecing it together for a new book and website. The studio's story had not been fully told because it was run largely in secret, as a unit of the U.S. Air Force. Its films and photos were rarely credited and many are lost or were destroyed. No systematic effort was made to preserve its 22-year history, from 1947-69. Lookout Mountain, however, played a central role in the U.S. government's efforts to control - often unsuccessfully - the science and story around nuclear weapons in their early years, say co-authors Kevin Hamilton and Ned O'Gorman. Their book "Lookout America!: The Secret Hollywood Studio at the Heart of the Cold War" explores the studio's history and significance by way of very different fields of study. Hamilton, a professor of art and design, studies public art and new media. O'Gorman, a professor of communication, specializes in the history and rhetoric of the Cold War. In their research, the authors were struck by Lookout Mountain's sheer productivity. In just two decades, its photographers shot film footage that would require 10 years to view, as well as millions of still photos. Its globe-spanning operation handled everything from scripts to shooting to storage. "More than any other site on earth, Lookout Mountain visually chronicled the activities of the U.S. Cold War state," the authors wrote. Nearly all the Cold War's iconic images would not exist without it. Its film clips and photos have appeared in movies such as "Dr. Strangelove," in television newscasts, in documentaries such as Ken Burns' recent series on the Vietnam War. For a number of years, it shot every Bob Hope Christmas special staged at overseas U.S. military bases. An extensive collection of the studio's work - over 100 films or film clips, along with some photos and documents - can be found on the book's companion website. The authors' research into the studio began when O'Gorman found a reference to a film President Eisenhower had viewed about a thermonuclear test named Operation Ivy. He found a short version online and showed it to Hamilton. They noted it was made by Lookout Mountain Laboratory. "We had never heard of it, didn't know what is was and so we just started digging," O'Gorman said. The resulting project sometimes took on the feel of detective work, he said. "We were just piecing together a bunch of obscure clues and starting to make connections." Their luckiest break came when they visited the abandoned Lookout Mountain facility after Hamilton contacted the property owner and found a trove of Lookout Mountain semiannual reports on microfilm. One thing that piqued their mutual interest early on was in viewing the Operation Ivy film and noting the excessive screen time devoted to operators in front of consoles. In a film about a historic test, they wondered, why that and not more "money shots" of the mushroom clouds and the drama? They eventually concluded that men in front of consoles projected an image of control. "The government began to realize that the images of the tests themselves had the capacity to create unmanageable fear and unmanageable effects," said Hamilton, now also the dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts. "Men in front of consoles was a way of arguing that America has the proper apparatus and the proper bodies and the proper authority to keep that seemingly unmanageable and fearsome technology under control." Lookout Mountain "had first dibs on telling the story, and story is a way of making order out of disorder," O'Gorman said. "They were central in controlling narratives about the bomb and they were controlling those narratives primarily for audiences who had security clearances" - mostly high-level government officials. The public would see only part of the studio's work, often years later. The studio and its people also were "very, very good at what they did," O'Gorman said. "They were committed to their craft." Their engineers and technicians "problem-solved in really amazing ways," designing many new tools and techniques, Hamilton said. "They stretched through crazy time and space constraints to get things done." One example is on the book's cover: an anti-aircraft gun mount adapted for tracking missile launches with movie cameras. In telling the story of bomb tests, the studio's films often presented nuclear weapons with "a certain kind of inevitability ... making them seem almost like a force of nature," Hamilton said. At times the films seemed to suggest the government had no connection to the weapons it was actively developing, he said. The films also often downplayed how the tests affected people, O'Gorman said, whether it was Pacific islanders required to move to new islands or people in the way of nuclear fallout. Despite all that, however, control was often lacking. "Each time they did one of these tests, they never really knew what they were going to get, at least early on," O'Gorman said. One major test, Operation Castle, produced a yield that far exceeded predictions, infamously irradiating a population of Marshall Islanders, a group of Japanese fishermen and millions of square miles of the Pacific Ocean. "And for all their efforts to control the narrative, most of it didn't work," O'Gorman said. In fact, it's a central theme of the book. "It is about the foolishness of kings, so to speak, the belief that they can not only create these things but control them, both technically and narratively. And I think our story shows that they could not." ### The in-store robots move around the store unassisted, scanning the floors for spills and trip hazards, which are reported to human workers, the company said. Once a spill is located, the machine -- which makes beeping noises as it moves -- reports spills by verbally communicating them to human employees after paging them. In addition to scanning grocery store shelves for items that are out of stock, Marty also does price checks, looking for discrepancies between the shelf and the store's scanning system, Patrick Maturo, the manager of store optimization at Ahold USA, told the Pennsylvania news website PennLive. CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Waves of undulating cilia drive several processes essential to life. They clear debris and mucus from the respiratory tract, move spinal fluid through the brain and transport embryos from the ovaries to the uterus for implantation. According to a new study in mice, however, cilia perform somewhat differently in the male reproductive tract. The study, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals that cilia in the efferent ductules, which carry sperm away from the testes, don't propel the sperm forward, as was once thought. Instead, the cilia agitate the sperm to keep them from aggregating and clogging the tubes so that they can reach their ultimate destination. "Motile cilia are eyelashlike extensions of specific epithelial cells and have a beat that moves fluid over a surface," said Rex Hess, a University of Illinois professor emeritus of comparative biosciences and a major collaborator on the study led by Dr. Wei Yan, a foundation professor of physiology and cell biology at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine. "For more than 150 years, most papers and books on the subject stated that motile cilia of the efferent ductules move sperm cells in one direction, like they do in the female fallopian tubes," Hess said. "But we found that the cilia in this organ beat in an unusual manner that stirs and agitates the luminal fluid and sperm. "The textbooks were wrong," Hess said. "Cilia in the male don't transport; they keep the sperm dancing." Contraction of smooth muscle lining the ductal walls moves the sperm into the epididymis. "The research is also important because it focuses on microRNA, which is a product of a noncoding region of DNA," Yan said. "In our study, we found that just two clusters of five microRNAs control the proper formation of motile cilia. That is amazing." When the Yan lab knocked out these microRNAs in mice, the researchers observed that the sperm aggregated into clumps that blocked the efferent ducts. This led to a backup of fluid in the testes, causing male infertility. "Many infertile men may have clogged efferent ductules, but unfortunately this condition has been ignored due to a lack of knowledge on this important structure," Yan said. "Our discovery has significant translational potential and may one day lead to new methods that can help patients." ### Editor's notes: To reach Rex Hess, call 217-417-2067; email rexhess@illinois.edu. To reach Wei Yan, call 775-338-9885; email wyan@med.unr.edu. The paper "Motile cilia of the male reproductive system require miR-34/miR-449 for development and function to generate luminal turbulence" is available to members of the media from pnasnews@nas.edu and from the U. of I. News Bureau. AURORA, Colo. (Jan. 14, 2019) - Children who receive solid organ transplants are hospitalized due to vaccine-preventable infections at rates that are significantly higher than the general population, according to a newly published study by University of Colorado School of Medicine researchers. The study, published today in JAMA Pediatrics, reviewed nearly 7,000 transplant recipients nationally over a seven-year period beginning Jan. 1, 2004, to determine how often they are hospitalized with infections that are typically prevented with vaccines. Of the 6,980 transplant recipients in the study, 1,092 patients, or 15.6 percent, were hospitalized with a total of 1,490 cases of vaccine-preventable infections within five years after transplant surgery. At that rate, hospitalization among the transplant population was up to 87 times higher than in the general population. "The huge burden of illness from vaccine-preventable infections that we show in this article should stress to all physicians the critical importance of ensuring that all transplant patients receive age-appropriate immunizations," said the study's lead author, Amy Feldman, MD, MSCS, assistant professor of pediatrics for the CU School of Medicine and program director for the liver transplant fellowship at Children's Hospital Colorado on the Anschutz Medical Campus. While other studies have looked at morbidity from certain types of infections, this study is the first to explore the burden of illness from all vaccine-preventable infections across the entire pediatric solid organ transplant population. The analysis included all patients younger than 18 years old who underwent a heart, lung, liver, kidney, intestine, or multivisceral transplant at any of the 45 U.S. not-for-profit tertiary care pediatric hospitals that report data to the Pediatric Health Information System of the Children's Hospital Association. Based on the findings, Feldman and her co-authors recommend further study to identify ways to improve the likelihood of vaccination among children who need transplant surgery. The goal is to reduce the costs of hospitalization and the rates of sickness and death due to infections that could be prevented by vaccination. ### Feldman has received funding for her research from an award from the Children's Hospital Colorado Research Institute and from a grant by the National Institutes of Health National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. Feldman's co-authors are Brenda L. Beaty, MSPH, Donna Curtis, MD, MPH, Elizabeth Juarez-Colunga, PhD, and Allison Kempe, MD, MPH, all from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. About the University of Colorado School of Medicine Faculty at the University of Colorado School of Medicine work to advance science and improve care. These faculty members include physicians, educators and scientists at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, Children's Hospital Colorado, Denver Health, National Jewish Health, and the Veterans Affairs Eastern Colorado Health Care System. The school is located on the Anschutz Medical Campus, one of four campuses in the University of Colorado system. Minority and dissident communities face a perplexing challenge in countries with authoritarian governments. They need to remain anonymous to avoid persecution, but also must establish a trustworthy identity in their communications. An interdisciplinary group of researchers at UC Santa Barbara has designed an application to meet both of these requirements. Computer science and communication researchers affiliated with the university's Center for Information Technology & Society traveled to three countries to assess the challenges minority groups face in maintaining a secure, trustworthy social media presence. Based on the communities' feedback, the team designed an app for the Android operating system that would safeguard group members' anonymity as well as verify the reliability of posts coming from the group. A paper detailing the technology appeared in the Journal of Internet Services and Applications. The team, led by computer science professor Elizabeth Belding, traveled to Mongolia, Zambia and Turkey, where colleagues at local institutions connected them with members of marginalized communities. At the time, these countries offered a relatively safe alternative to other nations with restricted speech, like Russia, China and Egypt. About two weeks after the group visited Turkey, however, an attempted coup d'etat prompted the government to clamp down on political dissidence. Interviews and surveys with the general public and with members of marginalized groups in these countries confirmed that maintaining anonymity is crucial for protection. But it comes with drawbacks, as the team soon learned. "The problem with anonymous communication is you don't know if it's credible," said Miriam Metzger, a professor in the department of communication, and one of the paper's coauthors. "If you're just getting a message and you don't know who it's coming from, you're probably not going to do what that message tells you to do. Especially if it's risky." This is where SecurePost comes in. The app allows communities to create secure groups on Twitter and Facebook that let them maintain a consistent, visible presence on social media. This enables them to build up trust with their readership over time, explained Michael Nekrasov, a computer science doctoral student and lead author of the paper. What's revolutionary is that SecurePost allows a group to operate without any roster of its individual members. Additionally, the app checks the group's posts, flagging any content that lacks the proper credentials. In this way, each member is protected by their anonymity even if the group is infiltrated or hacked, all while communications from the group itself are verified as trustworthy. Naturally, these communities want a convenient, yet secure way to extend membership invitations. The research team learned that many groups used passwords for this, however sharing a password always puts the account at risk. "What we found was, people wouldn't just tell someone the password," said Nekrasov. "What they'd do is write it down or send it in a message, and that's incredibly unsafe." Instead the team developed a much more secure method for inviting a new member to the group. The process involves exchanging secure QR codes visually or over a trusted connection, a technique that uses a pair of visible, public keys and a second pair of hidden, private keys to send and receive encrypted information. This ensures the security of the invite even if a third party was witnessing the exchange, said Nekrasov, because the private key is hidden on the device of the person joining the group. Once the new member joins the group, they receive a new key pair. The private key enables them to sign posts on behalf of the group. The public key, which anyone can see and use, enables any social media user -- including those not in the group -- to verify posts. This ensures that if a post is forged or modified by a social network or government, any user will be able to identify it as a forgery. The researchers created an internet browser extension that automatically verifies posts' authenticity. The cryptographic signature, visible under each post on the left, is hidden when running the extension on the right. Content uploaded from an account through SecurePost appears as if it had a single author with no way of identifying individual posters or a group's membership roster. It accomplishes this by hosting the group on a third-party proxy server, which masks the individual's IP address from the social network. "This means you don't have to trust some outside party," said Nekrasov. "A group can run its own server and verify everything that is going on." What's more, SecurePost attaches a cryptographic signature to the post, generated from the group member's private key. The application then automatically verifies the authenticity of this signature for anyone else running the program, regardless of their membership status in a particular group. Because the proxy server never actually receives the users' private key, the verification feature can flag content such as posts made by an impostor or someone who hacked the proxy. The team designed SecurePost with the realities of its users in mind. They produced the application for the Android operating system, which made up 86 percent of the global market share at the time. They also made it compatible with older devices, so that as of October 2017, 99.9 percent of Android devices registered with Google could run the application. This is important because many individuals in the targeted user groups use phones with older operating systems, which are cheaper to purchase. SecurePost can also operate without a continuous internet connection, a necessity in many regions where it will find use. Instead of immediately uploading content, the app stores it on the device and posts it when internet connectivity resumes. To circumvent the vulnerability this creates if authorities confiscate the device, SecurePost also encrypts all data with an application-wide password. If the user is under duress, he or she can provide a false password that wipes the app's data, including the group keys. The team hopes the software ultimately gets developed into a full-fledged product with a wider reach. "At the end of the day, we're not a company, we're researchers," said Metzger. "We can develop apps, and we can put them in the app store, but we don't have a budget for marketing them." "But we can create new systems that a company could build a business around and market," she added. "And that's the way these technologies can have a big impact." ### 11,500 years ago in what is now northeast Jordan, people began to live alongside dogs and may also have used them for hunting, a new study from the University of Copenhagen shows. The archaeologists suggest that the introduction of dogs as hunting aids may explain the dramatic increase of hares and other small prey in the archaeological remains at the site. Dogs were domesticated by humans as early as 14,000 years ago in the Near East, but whether this was accidental or on purpose is so far not clear. New research published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology by a team of archaeologists from the University of Copenhagen and University College London may suggest that humans valued the tracking and hunting abilities of early dogs more than previously known. A study of animal bones from the 11,500 year old settlement Shubayqa 6 in northeast Jordan not only suggests that dogs were present in this region at the start of the Neolithic period, but that humans and dogs likely hunted animals together: "The study of the large assemblage of animal bones from Shubayqa 6 revealed a large proportion of bones with unmistakable signs of having passed through the digestive tract of another animal; these bones are so large that they cannot have been swallowed by humans, but must have been digested by dogs," explained zooarchaeologist and the study's lead author Lisa Yeomans. Lisa Yeomans and her colleagues have been able to show that Shubayqa 6 was occupied year round, which suggests that the dogs were living together with the humans rather than visiting the site when there were no inhabitants: "The dogs were not kept at the fringes of the settlement, but must have been closely integrated into all aspects of day-to-day life and allowed to freely roam around the settlement, feeding on discarded bones and defecating in and around the site." Can new hunting techniques account for the increase in small prey? When Yeomans and her co-authors sifted through the analysed data, they also noted a curious increase in the number of hares at the time that dogs appeared at Shubayqa 6. Hares were hunted for their meat, but Shubayqa 6's inhabitants also used the hare bones to make beads. The team think that it is likely that the appearance of dogs and the increase in hares are related. "The use of dogs for hunting smaller, fast prey such as hares and foxes, perhaps driving them into enclosures, could provide an explanation that is in line with the evidence we have gathered. The long history of dog use, to hunt both small as well as larger prey, in the region is well known, and it would be strange not to consider hunting aided by dogs as a likely explanation for the sudden abundance of smaller prey in the archaeological record," said Lisa Yeomans. "The shift may also be associated with a change in hunting technique from a method, such as netting, that saw an unselective portion of the hare population captured, to a selective method of hunting in which individual animals were targeted. This could have been achieved by dogs." ### Read the study Close companions: Early evidence for dogs in northeast Jordan and the potential impact of new hunting methods published in Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. About Shubayqa 6 Shubayqa 6 is situated on the northern edge of the Qa' Shubayqa, around 130 km northeast of the Jordanian capital, Amman. It is the ?rst substantial early Neolithic settlement identi?ed in the Black Desert and has been under investigation since 2012; this and previous studies demonstrate that settlement in this semi-arid to arid zone was more intensive than previously thought and that the area could sustain large populations of animals and humans. The excavations were carried out in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities of Jordan as part of a project funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research, Danish Institute in Damascus and H.P. Hjerl Mindefondet for Dansk Palstinaforsking. Contact Zooarchaeologist Lisa Yeomans University of Copenhagen Faculty of Humanities Mail: zhr605@hum.ku.dk Phone: 0045 27 12 17 01 Haida Gwaii's small population of northern goshawks--already of great concern to conservationists--are the last remnant of a highly distinct genetic cluster of the birds, according to a new genomic analysis by University of British Columbia researchers. "Goshawks across the British Columbia Coast appear to be declining, however, the distinct Haida Gwaii population is at a particularly high risk of extinction with such a small population size," says Kenneth Askelson, a researcher with the UBC Department of Zoology and Biodiversity Research Centre, who co-led the study. Latest counts puts the population on the archipelago at roughly 50. The genomic findings add new context and impetus to efforts to save this vulnerable pocket of goshawks, which are one of BC's most iconic birds of prey. "Accurate knowledge of geographic ranges and genetic relationships among populations is important when managing a species or population of conservation concern," said Darren Irwin, senior author on the paper. "This is a major step in drawing those boundaries for one iconic species." The diminishing population of northern goshawks across British Columbia's Coast (estimated at roughly 1,200 within B.C.), and continued habitat loss, have led to the laingi subspecies being listed as threatened under the Canadian Species at Risk Act. But debate over which individual northern goshawks should be considered part of the threatened laingi subspecies--and the crucial question of what geographic areas should be considered within their range--has complicated conservation efforts. The paper, published today in Evolutionary Applications, is one of the first to use genomics to inspect biodiversity on Haida Gwaii. "This underscores the importance of conservation-related studies of genetic variation--too often, biodiversity vanishes invisibly," says Armando Geraldes, who co-led the study with Askelson. The researchers estimate the distinct population of birds may have been evolving separately on Haida Gwaii for 20,000 years. Percy Algernon Taverner (a prominent Canadian ornithologist) was the first to describe the laingi goshawk on Haida Gwaii in 1940--identifying them as darker than other examples of the bird. "There may be many unique subspecies that occur only on Haida Gwaii--an indication that the area is a very unique biogeographic region with many distinct lineages of species that have been poorly studied," says Askelson. ### The research was funded by Genome British Columbia, the British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, Coast Forest Products Association, Western Forest Products, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Organ transplant rejection is a major problem in transplantation medicine. Suppressing the immune system to prevent organ rejection, however, opens the door to life-threatening infections. Researchers at the University of Basel's Biozentrum have now discovered a molecular approach preventing rejection of the transplanted graft while simultaneously maintaining the ability to fight against infections. When someone is confronted with 'foreign' material, be it viruses, bacteria, fungi, but also donor organs following transplantation, immune cells called T cells come into action to inactivate and destroy the 'foreign' material. Prof. Jean Pieters' team at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel together with collaborating scientists have now described a way to selectively suppress the immune reaction of the body against the donor organ by modulating the protein coronin 1. By blocking this protein in T cells, these immune cells do not attack the transplanted organ anymore. However, the T cells continue to keep viruses, bacteria and fungal infections in check. These findings could potentially provide new approaches for reducing graft rejection in the future. Engineered T cells prevent organ rejection but still fight infections Coronin 1 is a protein that regulates T cells, which are essential for detecting and destroying invaders of the body. These T cells also recognize a transplanted organ as foreign. In a mouse model, the team has now been able to relate these graft rejections by T cells to coronin 1. "By removing coronin 1, we observed that the T cells not only massively suppressed the immune response to the transplanted organ but even actively prevented its rejection," says first author Rajesh Jayachandran. "At the same time, we were astonished that coronin 1-depleted T cells continue to fight infections." Finding a tolerance pathway for organ transplantation The lab of Jean Pieters originally defined coronin 1 as a host factor hijacked by pathogens to survive within immune cells. The new research shows that in T cells, coronin 1 modulates a signaling pathway that produces the so-called 'second messenger' molecule cAMP. In the absence of coronin 1, cAMP levels drastically increase in T cells, thereby making these cells tolerogenic to the transplanted organ. However, the group found that when challenged with microbial infections, there is still a way to stimulate T cells to control infections, since microbes induce the expression of certain molecules that neutralize the cAMP-mediated suppression. Immune defense manipulation for organ transplantation? The new findings have now demonstrated a way of manipulating the body's immune response by selectively suppressing the immune response of the host. Whether these findings may result in the development of therapies to allow retention of transplanted organs while retaining the ability to fight infections remains a task for the future. ### KANSAS CITY, MO -- New research from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research has identified the backup for an important biological system - the hematopoietic system, whose adult stem cells constantly replenish the body's blood supply. The finding provides evidence that hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) consist of different functional populations of cells, including "primed" cells, which are ready at a moment's notice to be activated to produce red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets, and "reserve" cells, which come into play when there has been damage to the first-line stem cells. "Under severe stress - radiation or chemotherapy that injures blood cells, including primed hematopoietic stem cells - that's when reserve cells kick in," says Linheng Li, Ph.D., an Investigator at the Stowers Institute and senior author of the study. Reserve HSCs could hold the key to understanding how blood cells repopulate after severe injury depletes the bone marrow that produces blood cells. This concept may provide an insight for understanding treatment-resistant leukemia cells. The study appears online January 15, 2019, in the journal Cell Reports. Every second, two million new blood cells are churned out by the amazing, regenerative HSCs that reside in the core of most bones. Only a fraction of these cells actively move through the cell cycle at any given time; the rest lie in an inactive or quiescent state, which was once believed to protect them from harm. However, several studies have shown that the majority of these quiescent HSCs are sensitive to DNA damage from chemotherapy. Over a decade ago, Li suggested that a special population of HSCs that are resistant to damage might still reside in the bone marrow, hidden in some unexplored niche. In this study, Meng Zhao, Ph.D. (now a faculty member at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China), Fang Tao, Ph.D., Zhenrui Li, Ph.D. (now a fellow at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital), Aparna Venkatraman, Ph.D., and Xi C. He, M.D., undertook a series of experiments using a mouse model to prove that these cells exist. A key experiment utilized a cell surface marker to isolate reserve and primed HSCs. The researchers transplanted reserve HSCs or primed HSCs into recipient animals. After the engraftments were established, they treated recipient mice with the chemotherapy agent 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). While the primed HSCs reflected by their derived blood cells began to decline after treatment, the reserve HSCs' derivatives were unscathed. "In effect, we showed that hematopoietic stem cells have functionally distinct subpopulations - one that acts under normal conditions, and the other that acts under times of stress," says Li. Next, the researchers examined bone and marrow from transplanted mice, labeling the reserve cells with fluorescent tags and studying them microscopically to pinpoint their location in the bone marrow. With Sarah Smith, Ph.D., from the Stowers Microscopy Center, they spotted the fluorescently labeled cells lurking in a specialized niche along the inside surface of the bone, adjacent to a population of cells known as N-cadherin+ bone-lining cells, which was reported by the Li team in 2003 as the first niche identified to support HSCs. In the current study, Tao and colleagues found that these N-cadherin+ bone-lining cells are mesenchymal or skeletal stem cells with the potential to produce bone, cartilage, and fat. Therefore, N-cadherin may be used as a marker to isolate skeletal stem cells and may have potential uses in bone and cartilage regenerative medicine. These N-cadherin+ bone-lining cells appear to protect the reserve cells from injury by feeding them survival factors like the aptly named stem cell factor and others. When the researchers depleted these support cells, the reserve cells were no longer able to survive chemotherapy treatment. "Interestingly, we found that N-cadherin+ cells lining the bone are also resistant to chemotherapy, while stromal cells in the central marrow are sensitive to chemotherapy, which allows N-cadherin+ cells to better support the reserve stem cells," said Tao, who, along with Zhao, is co-first author on the study. Other coauthors include Jay Unruh, Ph.D., Shiyuan Chen, Christina Ward, Pengxu Qian, Ph.D., John M. Perry, Ph.D., Heather Marshall, Ph.D., and Jinxi Wang, M.D., Ph.D. The work was supported by funding from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research to L.L. and a grant to the University of Kansas Cancer Center from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under award number P30CA168524. Additional support included National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFA0103403, 2018YFA0107203) to M.Z.; Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India overseas associateship to A.V.; and the National Institutes of Health award numbers R01AR059088 and R01DE018713 to J.W. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Lay Summary of Findings Blood-forming adult stem cells reside deep in the bone marrow and are responsible for regenerating the body's blood supply including red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. In a study published online January 15, 2019, in the journal Cell Reports, Stowers Institute for Medical Research scientists from the laboratory of Linheng Li, Ph.D., and collaborators investigated how these cells, despite being sensitive to DNA damage, manage to repopulate blood cells after chemotherapy or injury has depleted their numbers. The researchers report that a subset of blood-forming, or hematopoietic, adult stem cells called "reserve" hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are resistant to chemotherapy. These reserve HSCs are located in a specialized niche, composed of cells on the inner bone surface expressing the molecule N-cadherin, in mouse bone marrow. The finding advances the understanding of HSC biology and may open new avenues for treating blood diseases like leukemia and autoimmune disorders. ### About the Stowers Institute for Medical Research In a recent article published in Science Bulletin [1], a joint team led by Professors Jian-Wei Pan, Chao-Yang Lu and Nai-Le Liu at the University of Science and Technology of China, and Jing-Ling Chen at Nankai University, has for the first time verified the multipartite Hardy's paradox in experiment. The researchers have further confirmed Bell nonlocality with the use of Hardy's inequality. Within the experimental errors, the experimental results are in agreement with theoretical predictions given in Ref. [2]. Foundations in quantum mechanics are important issues that researchers have been concentrated on Refs. [3-5]. There exist many paradoxes in quantum mechanics, among which Hardy's paradox [6,7] uses a logical contradiction to prove Bell nonlocality, requiring less times of measurement than those of using Bell's inequality. Bell proposed an idea of a theorem, in the form of a mathematical inequality, that any local hidden-variable theory is incompatible with quantum mechanics. For testing whether a quantum state has Bell nonlocality, there are usually two ways to do so: one with proofs using inequalities, like Bell's inequality, the other with proofs without the use of inequalities, such as the "all-versus-nothing" criteria exemplified by Hardy's theorem [6,7] and the GHZ theorem [8]. The GHZ theorem, which is applicable to more-than-two-party systems, is the first Bell's theorem without inequalities. In its argument, quantum mechanics gives a "-1" result but classical theories give "+1", showing a sharp contradiction between these two types of theories. In 2000, the three-party GHZ theorem was first verified in experiment by Jian-Wei Pan and his colleagues [9]. In 1992 Lucien Hardy, then 19 years old (now holding a position at the Perimeter Institute in Canada), proposed an all-versus-nothing criterion (i.e., Hardy's theorem) that applies to the two-party situation. The two-party Hardy's paradox has been experimentally verified in experiments (see Ref. [10] for an example). In contrast with the GHZ paradox, Hardy's original paradox has a successful probability just around 9% [7]. Generalizing the paradox to multipartite situations can not only increase the successful probability, but also yield Hardy's inequalities that have fairly desired mathematical properties. For instance, Cereceda [11] wrote down in 2004 a first generalized N-party Hardy's paradox, showing that the maximal successful probability can reach 12.5%. He further derived out the corresponding N-party Hardy's inequality, using which Sixia Yu and his colleagues [12] analytically proved the Gisin theorem: Quantum entanglement is equivalent to Bell nonlocality for arbitrary N-party pure states. In 2018, Jing-Ling Chen and his colleagues [2] constructed a general framework for N-party generalized Hardy's paradox. The maximal successful probability can reach 25%. The scheme and experimental setup for generalized Hardy's paradox are shown in Fig. 1. The present experiment has for the first time verified the three- and four-party generalized Hardy's paradoxes in experiment. ### [1] Luo YH, Su HY, Huang HL, et al. Experimental Test of Generalized Hardy's Paradox. Sci Bull, 2018,63(24)1611-1615, doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2018.11.025 [2] Jiang SH, Xu ZP, Su HY et al. Generalized Hardy's Paradox. Phys Rev Lett 2018, 120: 0403. [3] Zhou ZY, Zhu ZH, Liu SL, et al. Quantum twisted double-slits experiments: confirming wavefunctions' physical reality. Sci Bull 2017, 62: 1185-1192. [4]Long GL. What is the wave function in quantum mechanics? Sci Bull 2017, 62: 1355-1356. [5]Sanz AS. Bohm's approach to quantum mechanics: alternative theory or practical picture? Front Phys 2019, 14: 11301. [6] Hardy L. Quantum mechanics, local realistic theories, and Lorentz-invariant realistic theories. Phys Rev Lett 1992, 68: 2981. [7] Hardy L. Nonlocality for two particles without inequalities for almost all entangled states. Phys Rev Lett, 1993, 71: 1665. [8] Greenberger DM, Horne MA, Shimony A, et al. Bell's theorem without inequalities. Am J Phys, 1990, 12: 1131-1143. [9] Pan JW, Bouwmeester D, Daniell M. Experimental test of quantum nonlocality in three-photon GHZ entanglement. Nature, 2000, 403: 515-519. [10] For example, see Torgerson, J. R., et al., "Experimental demonstration of the violation of local realism without Bell inequalities." Physics Letters A 204.5(1995):323-328. [11] Cereceda JL. Hardy's nonlocality for generalized N-particle GHZ states. Phys Lett A, 2004, 327: 433-437. [12] Yu SX, Chen Q, Zhang CJ et al., All entangled pure states violate a single Bell's inequality. Phys Rev Lett 2012, 109: 120402. Nitrogen is a part of organic compounds that are of extreme importance for plants: chlorophyll, proteins, hormones, and enzymes. When plants lack nitrogen, their growth slows down, stems become thin, leaves get paler, and the yield reduces. In order to increase the yield, agriculturists use nitrogen fertilizers. However, if the level of nitrogen in the soil is too high, it leaves it in the form of laughing gas, ammonia, and other gases that pollute the atmosphere. Plastic mulching is one of the means to optimize nitrogen consumption and prevent its loss, including in the gas form. However, this method has not been analyzed from the scientific point of view yet. A RUDN pedologist together with his colleagues from China and the UK were the first to describe the optimal conditions for combined use of plastic mulching and nitrogen. Chinese agriculturists suggested using plastic mulching 40 years ago. The mulching keeps moisture in place and is especially efficient in dry areas. Despite almost half a century of practical use, it was still unclear how it should be combined with nitrogen-containing fertilizers. RUDN pedologists found out that the efficiency is affected not only by the amount and content of fertilizers, but also by the part of the bed they are applied to. The scientists made experiments in the Loess Plateau (an ancient agricultural region in Central China) and discovered the most optimal method - to till the soil and then to add the mulching and nitrogen-containing fertilizers to the ridge. To carry out a comparative experiment, the scientists used three systems. The first consisted of a flat (not tilled) bed with plastic mulching. In the second and third cases the soil was tilled, and plastic mulching was added to the ridge between two furrows. In the second system the fertilizer was applied to the ridge as well, and in the third one - to the furrow. All three beds were used to growth corn, and after that their yield was compared. The yield from the tilled land was on average 9.7% bigger than from the flat one, and the consumption of nitrogen by plants was 72.5% higher. The comparison of the second and the third system was more interesting. The major share of nitrogen - 96.5% - was consumed from the ridges, and furrows turned out to be the main source of nitrogen loss. The agriculturists detected the movement of nitrogen from the ridges to the furrows and back. However, they connected it with the movement of water in soil due to the peculiarities of landscape and different soil moisture under the plastic mulching and without it. "The results of the experiment lead us to an important conclusion: in order to increase the efficiency of nitrogen fertilization and to reduce environmental pollution with nitrogen compounds and erosion, fertilizers should be added to the ridges and combined with plastic mulching," said Yakov Kuzyakov, a co-author of the study, and a RUDN employee. ### A study examining the effect of a video educational intervention aimed at increasing HPV vaccinations among adolescents could help the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention meet its goal of getting more eligible adolescents vaccinated against certain cancers and diseases caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). The research, performed by Regenstrief Institute, Indiana University School of Medicine and Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI and funded by Merck & Co., Inc., showed that patient-centered education strategies delivered at the doctor's office could lead to more people choosing HPV vaccination. HPV infection is linked to several types of cancer, including cervical cancer. The CDC estimates that 80% of sexually active people will be infected with at least one type of HPV at some point in their lives. Although the HPV vaccine demonstrated high clinical success rates against certain cancers, vaccination rates in adolescents remain low. In the study, researchers found that parents of children who watched an educational video about the HPV vaccine at a medical clinic while waiting for the provider had three times greater odds of choosing to receive a dose of the vaccine. "These results are very promising for those concerned with public health. If we can educate patients/caregivers at the doctor's office, where they can take immediate action for their health, we can ensure more eligible patients receive the HPV vaccine, potentially saving lives as well as healthcare dollars spent on treating disease," said Brian Dixon, Ph.D., primary author of the study. Dr. Dixon is the director of Public Health Informatics at Regenstrief and the IU Fairbanks School of Public Health and an associate professor at IU Fairbanks. For this study, the research team developed the video detailing the risks and benefits of the vaccine. At intervention sites, parents of children who had not received the HPV vaccine or had not completed the vaccine series were shown the video while they waited in the examination room of a pediatric clinic during a routine visit. The researchers used electronic health records as well as the state's immunization registry system to identify patients eligible for this intervention. In the 7-month cluster randomized trial, 1,596 eligible adolescents ages 11 to 17 were included. One-third visited a clinic where the video was available. The study is unique in its approach of targeting families directly using technology in the context of the clinic exam room. Dr. Dixon explained, "Previous studies sought to prompt provider recommendation of the vaccine via electronic health record alerts. This study sought to educate patients about the vaccine and prompt them to initiate a conversation with their provider. Providers listen to patients and are willing to offer their advice about vaccines when asked." The study results suggest that spurring patients to initiate conversations about vaccines is as effective as prompting providers to initiate these conversations. Although promising, the study did have limitations that will require more research and efforts to integrate the intervention into clinics. A larger study in multiple settings will help the researchers improve integration of the intervention into pediatric as well as family medicine settings. "With better integration, we would expect even greater effects than what we observed in this study," said co-author Stephen Downs, M.D. "This method could go a long way toward improving vaccination rates." Dr. Downs is a Regenstrief scientist and the director of Children's Health Serves Research and the vice chair for general pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine. The study was funded through the Merck-Regenstrief Collaborative, an ongoing, multi-year collaboration between the two organizations that seeks to improve the health of patients through data analytics, healthcare innovation, education and research. "An Educational Intervention to Improve HPV Vaccination: A Cluster Randomized Trial" was published in the journal Pediatrics. Authors of the study, in addition to Drs. Dixon and Downs, are Gregory Zimet, Ph.D. and Shan Xiao, Ph.D. from IU, Wanzhu Tu, Ph.D. from Regenstrief and IU, Brianna Lindsay, Ph.D., formerly of Merck & Co., Inc., and Abby Church, formerly of Regenstrief. About Regenstrief Institute Founded in 1969 in Indianapolis, the Regenstrief Institute is a local, national and global leader dedicated to improving health and healthcare through innovations and research in biomedical informatics, health services and aging, with a goal of ending disease and allowing people to realize true health. The institute is a supporting organization of Indiana University School of Medicine and has several regional partners including IU Health and Eskenazi Health. About IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI Located on Indiana's premier research and health sciences campus, the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI is committed to advancing the public's health and well-being through education, innovation and leadership. The Fairbanks School of Public Health is known for its expertise in biostatistics, epidemiology, cancer research, community health, environmental public health, health policy and health administration. ### The panel mentioned several hurdles. The federal regulations to implement the complex law are not yet complete, so details about what the government will allow isnt totally known. Investors are likely to be from out of town town, so they will need helping identifying local projects and understanding the communities. Those communities will have to understand the limits of what investors will help build and support what does come. And local governments will need to understand the how it all works so they can act as conduits for the projects. Pioneer iPad School Head, Innovator Leads 'Watershed' Tech Focus at Global Christian School Leadership Summit Private Christian schools gathering in San Antonio, Jan. 30-Feb. 1, will address how to harness technology, innovate and other hot-button issues facing movement Contact: Gregg Wooding, 972-567-7660, gwooding@inchristcommunications.com SAN ANTONIO, Texas, Jan. 15, 2019 /Christian Newswire/ -- Forget the joke about Moses being the first person to download something onto a tabletwhen it comes to using technology in schools, some faith-based educators have been quietly leading the way. And, now they want to share their successes and experiences broadly. Photo: How to use technology effectively to help prepare students for the future will be one of the hot topics at the Global Christian Schools Leadership Summit in San Antonio, Jan. 30-Feb. 1. Monte Vista Christian School, in Watsonville, Calif., was the first school of any kind in the world to use iPads in the classroom, and has earned a reputation for innovative use of technology with students. Now, Head of School, Mitchell Salerno, will lead a special workshop on combining ancient truth with futuristic tools at the Global Christian School Leadership Summit (GCSLS, www.gcsls.org), Jan. 30-Feb. 1. How to best use technology to help prepare tomorrow's citizens will be one of the key issues being discussed at the three-day summit, whose theme is "innovate." At the conference, in San Antonio, participants will be invited to take part in an interactive, hands-on session led by Salerno in which they will use their own devices to develop new practices for their schools. "Technology is not going away," said Salerno. "The question for Christian schools is how can we leverage all these technological tools for the sake of redeeming education." Some 1,000 administrators, teachers and others from groups representing more than 25,000 Christian schools in 100-plus countries will meet in San Antonio for the second biennial GCSLS, the largest event of its kind. Attendees serve around six million students worldwide, with private Christian schools seeing significant growth in parts of Asia and Africa. In addition to the workshop led by Salernowho is also President of the Christian Coalition for Educational Innovationthe summit will feature presentations that look at the downside of technology, such as the negative influence it can have on young people. "When it comes to technology, we are at a watershed moment in society," said Lynn Swaner, GCSLS chairperson and chief strategy and innovation officer for the summit's lead sponsor, the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI, www.acsi.org). "Because of the technological advances that have taken place and will take place in the near future, we are facing very serious questions about what it means to be human, and the churchand by extension Christian schoolsshould have the answers that will help prepare students for the future," she said. Other hot-button issues to be addressed will include diversity and engaging the larger culture, as attendees consider how they may continue offering distinctive, faith-based education in an increasingly pluralistic and post-religious world. "Education is facing tremendous change, and as believers we want to lead the way in providing answers to these important questions," said Swaner. "That is why we are coming together, to learn from and encourage one another as we seek to further develop best practices anchored in biblical truth." GCSLS is co-sponsored by eight Christian school associations: Association of Christian Schools International, Christian Schools International, Council on Educational Standards and Accountability, National Christian School Association, Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools, Association of Christian Teachers and Schools, International Christian Accrediting Association, and Christian Schools Australia. Registration for GCSLS 2019 is still available at: www.hyatt.com/en-US/hotel/texas/grand-hyatt-san-antonio/satgh?corp_id=g-acsi. The biennial Global Christian Schools Leadership Summit (GCSLS) www.gcsls.org) to be held in San Antonio, Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2019, is the foremost gathering of Christian education leaders worldwide. GCSLS is co-sponsored by eight Christian school associations: Association of Christian Schools International (www.acsi.org), Christian Schools International (www.csionline.org), Council on Educational Standards and Accountability (www.cesaschools.org), National Christian School Association (www.nationalchristian.org), Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools (www.sbacs.org), Association of Christian Teachers and Schools (www.actsschools.org), International Christian Accrediting Association (www.icaa.oruef.org) and Christian Schools Australia (www.csa.edu.au). Share Tweet Microbes that thrive in some of the most extreme places on Earth have discovered another cozy place to live -- inside homes across the United States. Extremophiles like those found in hot springs and thermal vents are also common in residential water heaters, according to a nationwide study that sheds new light on the extent of extremophile colonization in homes and provides insight about how the heat-loving microbes spread. "Extremophiles are a huge part of the biosphere," said Regina Wilpiszeski, a postdoctoral researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a recent Penn State doctoral recipient. "If we want to understand what life on Earth is doing, we need to understand it across the board." The researchers analyzed samples from water heaters in all 50 states, as well as Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, and found evidence of microbes in about half of the homes. They reported their findings online in the journal Extremophiles. Despite their presence, the microbes pose no health concerns for humans and water from the systems remains safe to drink. A single species, Thermus scotoductus, dominated in all the positive samples in the study, even in locations near natural hot springs that host other similar but distinct strains. "That included houses located near Yellowstone National Park, where we would expect other extreme organisms to live in the natural hot spring environment," Wilpiszeski said. "That was a surprise." Thermus scotoductus has been found in nature, at hot springs in Iceland, hydrothermal waters off the coast of Hawaii and even deep in a gold mine in South Africa. "Most of the time when you are thinking about extreme environments, you are thinking about going out into nature and into these weird and inaccessible places," Wilpiszeski said. "But the truth is we spend the vast majority of our time indoors. And we really just don't necessarily know what is living there." Water heaters offer high temperatures and low levels of organic matter, ideal conditions for extremophile microbe colonies, the researchers said. "Water heaters are unique because they are isolated from each other by cooler temperatures in water lines," said Christopher House, professor of geosciences and director of the Penn State Astrobiology Research Center and the NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium. "This study helps us learn more about how microbes are spreading and how they are inhabiting these environments we have inadvertently created for them." Cooler temperatures would not kill the microbes, meaning they could survive being transported between water heaters, scientists said. However, further study is needed to determine the exact paths extremophiles take to enter our homes. Citizen scientists submitted filters and water samples from their homes as part of a collaboration between the NASA Astrobiology Institute and the NASA National Space Grant Fellowship and Scholarship Program. Researchers analyzed DNA sequences found on the collected filters and grew cultures from the water samples. Together, these different data sets provided a novel view of the thermophilic microbes inhabiting water heaters across the nation. Analyses of the data included comparing genetic differences between samples to the physical distance between their water heater locations. Heather Nelson, formerly of Penn State, oversaw the citizen science portion of the project. Zhidan Zhang, research technician in the Department of Geosciences, also contributed to the study. The NASA Astrobiology Institute and National Space Grant Consortium funded this research. ### Humans have more universal ways of expressing happiness than any other emotion, study finds COLUMBUS, Ohio - Human beings can configure their faces in thousands and thousands of ways to convey emotion, but only 35 expressions actually get the job done across cultures, a new study has found. And while our faces can convey a multitude of emotions--from anger to sadness to riotous joy--the number of ways our faces can convey different emotions varies. Disgust, for example, needs just one facial expression to get its point across throughout the world. Happiness, on the other hand, has 17--a testament to the many varied forms of cheer, delight and contentedness. "This was delightful to discover," said Aleix Martinez, cognitive scientist, professor of electrical and computer engineering at The Ohio State University, and study co-author, "because it speaks to the complex nature of happiness." The differences in how our faces convey happiness can be as simple as the size of our smiles or the crinkles near our eyes, the study found. The study also found that humans use three expressions to convey fear, four to convey surprise, and five each to convey sadness and anger. Those are the findings of a new study published online in the journal IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing. "Happiness acts as a social glue and needs the complexity of different facial expressions; disgust is just that: disgust," Martinez said. The findings build on Martinez's previous work on facial expressions, which found that people can correctly identify other people's emotions about 75 percent of the time based solely on subtle shifts in how blood flow colors a person's nose, eyebrows, cheeks or chin. In this study, Martinez and co-author Ramprakash Srinivasan, a doctoral student at Ohio State in Martinez's lab, assembled a list of words that describe feelings--821 English words, to be exact. They then used those words to mine the internet for images of people's faces. Professional translators translated those words into Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Farsi and Russian. To avoid bias, they used each word to download an equal number of images. They plugged the words into search engines popular in 31 countries across North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia, and ended up with approximately 7.2 million images of facial expressions across a variety of cultures. The study did not include countries from the African continent or other remote parts of the world because of the limited number of candid images available from those areas. Psychologists have debated how to classify human emotion for centuries. An ancient Chinese text--dating back as early as 213 B.C., then modified over the years--described seven "feelings of men" as joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, disliking and liking. Martinez, whose research interests intersect both engineering and the behavior of the human brain, thought there had to be more than just seven or eight. "To think that humans are only capable of eight emotions is absurd," he said. "We are complex creatures. What about the different forms of joy? We experience the world on a much deeper level than just eight emotions." Martinez and Srinivasan hoped to identify the facial configurations that convey emotion across cultures. Based on computer algorithms, they found that the human face is capable of configuring itself in 16,384 unique ways, combining different muscles in different ways. They took the 7.2 million images their searches yielded and sorted them into categories, looking for those that expressed emotion across cultures. Martinez figured they'd find at least a few hundred. They found only 35. "We were shocked," Martinez said. "I thought there would be way, way more." Since the number of universal expressions was smaller than expected, they wondered if most expressions of emotion were culture-specific. The result of this study surprised them even more. Analysis of the same dataset of 7.2 million images showed there are only eight expressions that are used in some--but not all--cultures. These eight expressions convey positive and negative affect, but not emotion categories like joy and anger. The researchers concluded that most facial expressions of emotion are universal, that there are only a few dozen of them and that a large number of them are used to express joyfulness. ### Both Martinez and Srinivasan hold appointments in Ohio State's Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences. This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Human Frontier Science Program. Contacts: Aleix Martinez, 614-688-8225; Martinez.158@osu.edu Misti Crane, 614-292-5220; crane.11@osu.edu Written by: Laura Arenschield, 614-292-9475; Arenschield.2@osu.edu A new study from a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) research team has found that the hypertension drug losartan, which targets the angiotensin signaling pathway, may improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy agents used to treat ovarian cancer. Previous research from the same team identified a similar effect for losartan in animal models of breast and pancreatic cancer, leading to a phase 2 clinical trial that had promising results against pancreatic cancer. "We know that solid stress imposed by growing cancer cells and the extracellular matrix molecules they produce can compress blood vessels, reducing delivery of drugs and oxygen to tumors," says Lei Xu, PhD, of the Steele Laboratories for Tumor Biology in the MGH Department of Radiation Oncology, co-senior author of the report published online in PNAS. "The extracellular matrix itself can keep high-molecular-weight drugs from penetrating tumors, and angiotensin signaling contributes to matrix formation. Since levels of an important enzyme in the angiotensin pathway are elevated and associated with poor outcomes in ovarian cancer, we investigated whether use of losartan to decrease fibrosis could improve outcomes in animal models of ovarian cancer." In a series of experiments in two mouse models the investigators found the following: Losartan treatment reduced extracellular matrix content and solid stress in ovarian tumors, increasing blood supply, oxygen levels and drug delivery; A mathematical model based on tumor physiology predicts that adding losartan to both low- and high-molecular-weight cancer therapies, delivered either intravenously or intraperitoneally, could improve outcomes; Adding losartan to treatment with the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel enhanced the antitumor effect of intraperitoneal paclitaxel and also reduced the development of ascites, accumulations of fluid in the abdomen that significantly reduce patients' quality of life; Losartan depleted the extracellular matrix by inducing the expression of antifibrotic miRNA molecules, which could be used as biomarkers for response or resistance to chemotherapy; An analysis of records of patients who received standard treatment for ovarian cancer at MGH or Brigham and Women's Hospital while also also being treated for hypertension found that those patients taking losartan or other angiotensin-targeting drugs at the time of diagnosis lived an average of 30 months longer than did those taking other hypertension drugs. "The entire class of angiotensin-targeting drugs that includes losartan has been shown to reduce collagen accumulation in cardiac and renal fibrotic disease," says Xu, who is an assistant professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School (HMS). "Losartan is a safe, and inexpensive drug that would cost less than $1/day while making a significant difference for patients with ovarian cancer." Rakesh K. Jain, PhD, director of the Steele Labs, A.W. Cook Professor of Radiation Oncology at HMS and co-senior author of the PNAS report, adds, "Our findings - on top of the the beneficial results of the recent phase 2 trial for pancreatic cancer - should provide information and tools to explore a new therapeutic target for ovarian cancer, which leads to the death of around 14,000 women in the U.S. each year." ### Study co-authors Olapado Yeku, MD, PhD, and David Spriggs, MD, of the MGH Gynecologic Cancer Program, hope to initiate a clinical trial of losartan in ovarian cancer patients later this year to test this strategy. Support for the current study includes American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award RSG-12-199-01-TBG, National Cancer Institute (NCI) grants P01-CA190174 and U01-CA224348, NCI Outstanding Investigator Award R35-CA197743, and grants from the Jane's Trust Foundation, the Lustgarten Foundation, the Ludwig Center at Harvard, the National Foundation for Cancer Research and the Gates Foundation. Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with an annual research budget of more than $900 million and major research centers in HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, genomic medicine, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology, photomedicine and transplantation biology. The MGH topped the 2015 Nature Index list of health care organizations publishing in leading scientific journals and earned the prestigious 2015 Foster G. McGaw Prize for Excellence in Community Service. In August 2018 the MGH was once again named to the Honor Roll in the U.S. News & World Report list of "America's Best Hospitals." Cancers most commonly arise because of a series of two to five mutations in different genes that combine to cause a tumor. Evidence from a growing number of experiments focused on truncal mutations--the first mutations in a given sequence--suggests a new direction in understanding the origins of cancer. In a paper published today in Cancer Cell, authors Arnold J. Levine of the Institute for Advanced Study and Nancy A. Jenkins and Neal G. Copeland, both of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, present a new perspective of these data, highlighting two important variables: 1) the sequence of mutations that leads to the formation of a cancer, and 2) the cell type in which this occurs, providing a new meaningful insight into the growth, properties, and outcomes of these tumors. The concepts developed in this paper suggest new avenues for future experimentation, help to explain previously unclear observations, and recommend new methods to impede cancer development, including blocking the defined sequence that is required to produce a tumor. Levine explains, "This paper does not publish any new experiments. Rather, it outlines a new way to understand and interpret existing results, and in so doing helps to explain previously confusing facts, outlining the differences in developing cancers at young or older ages, and emphasizing the important role of inherited predispositions to developing cancers. The publication suggests entirely new paths to studying the origins of cancers over a lifetime." The Cancer Cell paper collects numerous examples of how the order of mutations affects the outcome of the tumor and its response to therapy. This paper highlights the opportunity for researchers to look at hundreds of these evolutionary trees with different orders of mutations that will perhaps provide a fingerprinting method that could reveal information about a cancer's type, growth, and potential to invade surrounding tissues at the time of diagnosis so that treatments can be planned. With an understanding of these complex mutational chains, pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms could begin to consider interventions to inhibit particular links within a mutational sequence that could block the further development of a cancer. Drugs directed against the first and second mutational outcomes may completely prevent the third and fourth mutations from ever being selected for in a clone of cells. The focus in this paper is thus on cancer prevention, not treatment. Many different kinds of cancers arise by the random accumulation of mutations (mistakes in the information in a gene) over a lifetime. For instance, past research has shown that colorectal cancer is associated with mutations in the following four distinct genes: APC, RAS, TGF-beta, and p53, each of which contributes an error in different functions being carried out by the cells in one's colon. Copeland and Jenkins have demonstrated that colon cancer develops most rapidly when the APC gene is mutated first, the RAS gene second, the TGF-beta gene third, and the p53 gene last. Mutations in the first three genes produce benign tumors. Only when all four genes are mutated is there a malignant tumor. But mutations occur randomly over a lifetime. The order is imposed by Darwinian selection. An APC mutation permits a clone of cells to grow (forming a benign polyp). When an RAS mutation occurs in this clone of cells the polyp enlarges, increasing the number of cells with these two mutations and, therefore, the probability that a cancer may arise. Thus, the ordering of these random mutations is selected for by the viability and replication of cells with this order of mutations. The Levine laboratory showed the same need for an order of mutations in five different genes to produce a different cancer: T-cell lymphomas. It was these two papers, published approximately three years ago, that started Copeland, Jenkins, and Levine exploring whether this was the pathway in the development of all cancers; "Order of Mutations and Cell Type Matters". The trio's new Cancer Cell paper provides scientists and innovators with a new set of questions to ask about tumor development that could move the field of cancer research in a new and exciting direction. ### This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health - National Cancer Institute grant 5 P01CA087497-17. The Institute for Advanced Study acknowledges the generous support of the biology initiative from The Simons Foundation and the Leon Levy Foundation. The full paper The Roles of Initiating Truncal Mutations in Human Cancers: The Order of Mutations and Tumor Cell Type Matters is available at https://www.cell.com/cancer-cell/fulltext/S1535-6108(18)30530-0 at Cell Press. About the Institute: The Institute for Advanced Study is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. The Institute exists to encourage and support curiosity-driven research in the sciences and humanities--the original, often speculative thinking that produces advances in knowledge that change the way we understand the world. Work at the Institute takes place in four Schools: Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Social Science. It provides for the mentoring of scholars by a permanent Faculty, and it ensures the freedom to undertake research that will make significant contributions in any of the broad range of fields in the sciences and humanities studied at the Institute. The Institute, founded in 1930, is a private, independent academic institution located in Princeton, New Jersey. Its more than 8,000 former Members have held positions of intellectual and scientific leadership throughout the academic world. Thirty-three Nobel Laureates and 42 out of 60 Fields Medalists, as well as many winners of the Wolf and MacArthur prizes, have been affiliated with the Institute. About Simons Center for Systems Biology: The Simons Center for Systems Biology at the Institute for Advanced Study conducts research at the interface of molecular biology and the physical sciences: on genetics and genomics, polymorphisms and molecular aspects of evolution, signal transduction pathways and networks, stress responses, and pharmacogenomics in cancer biology. Led by Arnold J. Levine and Stanislas Leibler, Professors in the School of Natural Sciences, the Center hosts a range of distinguished Members and Visitors annually and fosters original research in the field of systems biology. Recent technologies have generated enormous amounts of hitherto unseen biological/genetic data. The tools of modern physics, mathematics, and computer science enable integration of such data, allowing scientists to draw conclusions that will result in leaps of fundamental understanding of evolution and basic molecular biology, and will reduce--perhaps by years--the time leading to significant breakthroughs in developing personalized approaches to diagnosis and treatment of cancer, viruses, and other diseases. Warmer temperatures are causing more tropical species to move northward. Among these are black mangroves, whose abundance is steadily increasing in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Black mangroves grow as short trees in a dwarf forest and displace many plants common to Gulf salt marshes. An article published this month, Tropicalization of the barrier islands of the northern Gulf of Mexico: A comparison of herbivory and decomposition rates between smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora) and black mangrove (Avicennia germinans), examines how this tropical species is impacting the salt marsh food web. In this study, researchers with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, University of South Alabama, and the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium teamed up to determine the black mangroves ability to shift both grazing and decomposer trophic pathways. To determine which leaf the grazers prefer, the team took a novel approach by studying cumulative leaf damage of black mangroves and smooth cordgrass. The research team worked off the coast of Mississippi on Horn Island from 2012 to 2013 on three sites. The sites included sample areas with just smooth cordgrass and those with mixed vegetation. Throughout the study period, the teams took leaf samples to note grazing habits. "Cumulative leaf damage offers a two-way perspective, for the impact to the plant and for the sustenance of the grazers," Aaron Macy, a graduate student at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and the University of South Alabama, explained. "Reconstructing missing leaf portions of Spartina alterniflora, commonly known as smooth cordgrass, allowed us to consider several possible grazing levels and a greater sampling effort over traditional leaf tagging methods." Sample site locations on Horn Island. Click here for larger map. (Courtesy Aaron Macy) Along with leaf reconstruction, the research team used more conventional litter bags to assess how quickly leaf material of each species was eaten by bacteria on the salt marsh floor. Comparing leaf composition from samples, there was a great deal more black mangrove leaf material consumed and ingested than smooth cordgrass. However, more surface area of the smooth cordgrass was removed due to the leaf tips falling off as a byproduct of grazing. The preference for the higher ingestion of black mangrove could be motivated by it's greater nutritional value. After the leaves fall off and reach the ground, bacteria and microbes began to decompose them, and these organisms showed a preference for black mangrove leaves. By understanding the food preference of the salt marsh grazers, scientists can better identify and explain the changes to shifts associated with these economically and ecologically valuable systems. ### New research from Professors Rosalind Chow and Jeffrey Galak examines the lengths people will go to in order to punish bad people who have been rewarded by the universe If you're angry about the political feud that drove the federal government to partially shut down, or about a golden parachute for a CEO who ran a business into the ground, you aren't alone -- but you probably won't do much about it, according to new research by Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business. The research, coauthored by Rosalind Chow, Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Theory, and Jeffrey Galak, Associate Professor of Marketing, outlines how people respond to two types of injustices: when bad things happen to good people, and when good things happen to bad people. In the first instance -- a bad thing happening to a good person, such as a hurricane devastating a town -- human beings are reliably motivated to help, but only in a nominal way, according to the research. "Everybody wants to help. They just do it to a small degree," Galak explains. "When a hurricane happens, we want to help, but we give them 10 bucks. We don't try to build them a new house." This response illustrates that even a small amount can help us feel that justice is restored, Chow explains: "You checked the box of doing something good, and the world seems right again." But the converse is not necessarily true: When the universe rewards bad people despite their rotten behavior, people are usually reluctant to do anything about it, even when they're angry at the unfairness of the situation. That's because people often feel that the forces at play in creating the unfair situation are beyond their control, or would at least be too personally costly to make the effort worthwhile, Galak says. So, we stay angry, but often we settle for the hope that karma will eventually catch up. On the rare occasions when people do decide to take action against a bad person, the research says they go for broke, spending all their resources and energy -- not just a token amount -- in an effort to deprive that person of everything they shouldn't have gotten. The desire to completely wipe out a bad person's ill-gotten gains is driven by a sense that justice will not be served until the bad person will be effectively deterred from future bad behavior, which is unlikely to be the case if the punishment is a slap on the wrist. For example, for individuals who believe that President Trump was unjustly rewarded the presidency, indictment may be seen as insufficient to deter future bad behavior on his part. Only by completely removing his fortune - impeachment from the presidency, dissolution of his businesses--does justice seem to be adequately served. But given that those outcomes are unlikely, many Americans stew in anger and hope for the best. So when ordinary people see bad things happening to good people, pitching in a few dollars feels good enough. Pitching in a few dollars to punish a bad person who has been unjustly rewarded, however, doesn't cut it; only when people feel that their actions are guaranteed to send an effective signal to the bad person will they feel compelled to act. Since that sort of guarantee is hard to come by, most people will just stand by and wait for karma to catch up. The research, titled "Compensate a little, but punish a lot: Asymmetric routes to restoring justice," will be published on January 10, 2019 in PLOS ONE. ### The European Union (EU) and the Canadian government have awarded the international iReceptor Plus consortium, which is composed of more than 20 partners, 8.65 million to promote human immunological data storage, integration and controlled sharing for a wide range of clinical and scientific purposes. The four-year project aims to develop an innovative platform to integrate distributed repositories of Adaptive Immune Receptor Repertoire sequencing (AIRR-seq) data for enabling improved personalized medicine and immunotherapy in cancer, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, allergies and infectious diseases. iReceptor Plus will enable researchers around the world to share and analyze huge immunological datasets taken from healthy and ill patients that have been sequenced and stored in databanks in multiple countries. The project has received 7.85 million from the EU through the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme and an additional 800,000 from the Canadian government. "Most AIRR-seq data is currently stored and curated by individual labs, using a variety of tools and technologies," said Bar-Ilan University Associate Professor Gur Yaari, of the Alexander Kofkin Faculty of Engineering, who is the initiator and coordinator of the iReceptor Plus Project. "The platform will lower the barrier to access and analyze large AIRR-seq datasets and will ease the availability of this important data to academia, industry and clinical partners." Yaari added that iReceptor Plus will advance the understanding of immune responses, and thus provide new targets for therapies and new methods for monitoring therapeutic efficacy. "We will offer a totally new class of biomarkers to support novel treatments," Yaari concluded. "The ability to share and compare AIRR-seq data will also promote the discovery of biomedical interventions that manipulate the adaptive immune system such as vaccines and other immunotherapies." Although data will remain strictly private under the program, the platform's software is free and open source, making it possible for the research community to extend and adapt the tools and technologies used in the project. Database nodes of the iReceptor Plus network will be distributed at several sites to show its effectiveness in the context of both clinical and biopharma use-cases. The iReceptor Plus project is holding its opening conference this week in Eilat, Israel. ### Two new mouse models of uterine cancer shed light on how this disease - the most common gynecological cancer in the U.S. - happens. Led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, the team of scientists found that the Transforming Growth Factor beta (TGF-beta) signaling pathway in uterine cells protects against the disease by suppressing the overgrowth and transformation into cancer cells of the endometrium, the membrane lining the inside of the uterus. The findings, which are published in two papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) today, suggest potential new therapeutic strategies that could be beneficial to patients in the future. "The TGF-beta signaling pathway regulates the development of many types of cancer, but it was not clear whether it also played a role in uterine cancer development," said corresponding author Dr. Martin M. Matzuk, director of the Center for Drug Discovery, Stuart A. Wallace Chair, Robert L. Moody, Sr. Chair and professor of pathology & immunology at Baylor College of Medicine. To explore the role the TGF-beta pathway plays in uterine cancer, the Matzuk lab developed two new mouse models of the disease. Each mouse model tested the effect of lacking specific proteins participating in the TGF-beta pathway; one model was studied in the absence of the protein TGF-beta receptor ALK5 and the other model tested the inactivation of both Smad2 and Smad3, proteins downstream of the receptor. "The mice lacking ALK5 developed metastatic endometrial tumors with cervical and vaginal masses. The tumors were estrogen-dependent, meaning they required estrogen to grow. When the ovaries - the natural source of estrogen - were removed, both the tumors and metastases to the lungs regressed," Monsivais said. "These and other results indicate that it is important to maintain TGF-beta signaling via ALK5 to sustain the health and normal function of the uterus." This study is in this PNAS article. The second mouse model was developed by Dr. Maya Kriseman, reproductive endocrinology and infertility fellow in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine, and her colleagues. In this case, the researchers genetically modified mice to lack two other proteins, Smad2 and Smad3, which transmit the signal from the TGF-beta receptors to the nucleus. Then, they assessed the effect of lacking these proteins in tumor development. "I found that disrupting these particular proteins, Smad2 and Smad3 in mice, caused a very aggressive hyperplasia or overgrowth of the endometrium that rapidly developed into cancer and death," Kriseman said. "These effects were dependent on estrogen, which also is a characteristic of the most common type of uterine cancer in humans. These and other findings give us a better idea as to why these mice develop aggressive uterine tumors and escape normal endometrial regulation." This study can be found in this PNAS paper. "Taken together, the findings of Monsivais and Kriseman strongly suggest that the TGF-beta pathway is a tumor-suppressor mechanism in the uterus," said Matzuk, who also is a member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine. "We anticipate that the new mouse models we have generated can be further used to uncover other processes that can lead to uterine cancer." "Dissecting the complex cascade of biological events that are necessary for protecting the uterus from cancer and for sustaining normal fertility is critical. By revealing that the TGF-beta pathway plays a protective role against uterine cancer, this work has significantly advanced our understanding of the disease and opened novel avenues for future therapeutic strategies," said Dr. William E. Gibbons, professor of obstetrics and gynecology and director of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Baylor College of Medicine. ### Financial support to Baylor College of Medicine for the two studies was provided by Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grants R01-HD032067, R01-HD033438, and K99-HD096057 and the Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA) K12-GM084897. Dr. Monsivais holds a Postdoctoral Enrichment Program Award from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Other contributors to the work of Monsivais and Peng include Dr. Yibin Kang, affiliated with Princeton University and supported by the New Jersey Commission on Cancer Research Fellowship, the Brewster Foundation and National Institutes of Health grant R01-CA212410. Additional authors to the work of Kriseman and colleagues include Monsivais, Julio Agno, Ramya Masand and Chad Creighton, all at Baylor College of Medicine. 2008-02-05 Maeci NEGOTIATING FRAMEWORK AND COOPERATION INITIATIVES 1. Ordinary Cooperation Programme: The cooperation programme currently being implemented is defined by Agreements (1997-98) which envisage aid credits amounting to over 132 million (mainly in the water, environmental protection, cultural heritage and agro-industry sectors) and donor aid totalling about 5 million, for use mainly in the health and agricultural sectors. AID CREDITS Current initiatives: The main projects envisaged by the cooperation agreements currently in force concern the water sector, which absorbs the lions share of the available funding. Worthy of note is the initiative for the sewage treatment plant for the town of Zahle (23 million euros), a contract awarded to Degremont. The first tranche of the funding, amounting to 10.6 million euros, is due to be delivered soon. Forthcoming initiatives: - drinking water and sewage network (39.5 million). The credit for this project was approved by a decree issued by the Ministry for the Economy and Finance in April 2007, with the agreement itself signed last November; - Tripoli/Koura drinking water network (6 million), for which the agreement was signed recently. In the technology up-grade sector, an initiative currently under way envisages the supply of IT equipment and operational programmes to the Central Bank, a project being handled by Elsag. To this should be added a training component, again funded through an aid credit, worth 5.6 million. Funding for this programme, which is not included in the current Cooperation Protocol, was granted in view of the urgency of the situation described by the local authorities. DONOR AID As regards donor aid, delivered in full or currently being implemented, the following programmes are worthy of note. - health sector: refresher courses for nursing staff (over 1 million); improvements to Health Ministry institutional structure (500,000); creation of a central laboratory for the Health Ministry (800,000) and support for a basic national healthcare plan (3.471 million); - agricultural sector: integrated agricultural development in the Baalbeck/Hermel region (2 million) to replace the illegal crops that were developed during the last conflict; and the production of certified vegetable products (1.2 million), a programme entrusted jointly to the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute in Bari, with its International Centre for Advanced Agronomic Studies, and the Lebanese Agricultural Research Institute; - to respond to the Lebanese Governments appeal for measures to combat poverty and provide support in the most depressed parts of the country, since 2006 a UNDP initiative entitled Socio-Economic Development of Depressed Areas (6.7 million) has been under way. The programme is part of the new approach to Italy/Lebanon cooperation and operates both in northern Lebanon (Akkar and Minieh, Dinniyeh and Tripoli-Bab el-Tebbaneh), and in the south of the country (Marjeyoun, Bint Jbeil, Nabatiyeh, Sour, Rashaya, Hasbaya and West Bekaa), areas formerly occupied by Israel. The initiative is linked to a similar multilateral exercise (ART-GOLD) coordinated by UNDP in collaboration with UNESCO, UNIFEM and other UN bodies. Its goal is to channel the input from the various donors and participants in decentralised cooperation initiatives with a view to coordinating initiatives to promote governance and development. An initial allocation of 2.7 million was transferred to UNDP in August 2006. Forthcoming initiatives already approved A second programme to combat poverty, approved in February 2006 and intended to provide social-economic support for producers and their households in Lebanons marginal olive producing regions (3.3 million), has been entrusted to the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute. However, implementation has been delayed as a result of political events in the country and the on-going political situation. 2. EXTRAORDINARY COOPERATION PROGRAMME 1st Extraordinary grant. In August 2006, in response to the appeal launched by the Lebanese Government during the Stockholm Conference, Italy allocated 30 million to tackle the emergency and the need for regeneration and reconstruction following the conflict of summer 2006. This sum was shared out as follows: - directly managed emergency projects (15 million). These envisage the involvement of Italian NGOs for social-economic initiatives (education, services, health, environment) and initiatives in priority sectors indicated by the Lebanese Government; - through the multilateral channel (10 million) to finance the activities of the UN agencies and other international organisations (UNMAS, UNICEF, CIHEAM-IAM, UNFPA, UNRWA and UNDP); - support for the Lebanese state budget (5 million) to repair the damage suffered by the national road infrastructure 2nd Extraordinary grant. As part of the support announced at the Paris Conference of January 2007 (120 million), an extraordinary allocation of 30 million was made available for 2007-08 and is currently being delivered. This extraordinary funding, arranged through Law 38 of 29 March 2007 on funding for peace missions, was allocated to donor aid initiatives in the social sector (health, community development, vocational training, support for micro-entrepreneurship) and in the agricultural/environmental sector (agricultural innovation, transformation and commercialisation of agricultural products and repair and recovery of infrastructure in the water and energy fields). They include a strong vocational training element. In detail, the 30 million can be broken down as follows: - 9 million for a directly managed initiative for the implementation of emergency actions (ROSS 2) with a high socio-economic content (education, services health, environment, construction of networks for a national reconciliation dialogue). These are to be implemented in the Bekaa Valley, to the south of Beirut and in the south of the country; - 1 million for an Expert Fund for technical assistance activities, as envisaged by law 38/2007; - 10 million for activities envisaging direct support for the state budget and the National Recovery, Reconstruction and Reform Programme. These are intended essentially for basic services for the population (access to drinking water, health services, and social protection networks); - 10 million for initiatives on behalf of the Palestinian population in the refugee camps and the Lebanese population living in the vicinity of these camps, to enable those occupational groups most affected by the conflict of summer 2006 to return to employment and promote the sustainable development of the agricultural sector. To this end, funding has been provided for the work of the following international bodies: UNRWA (2 million), ILO (2 million), FAO (3 million), UNFPA (0.7 million), UNDP (1.3 million) and UNMAS (1 million). An agreement was signed by the Italian and Lebanese Governments last November to ensure that the funding under the third and fourth points is used correctly. The Kumbh Mela this time over has, predictably, become media grist more than it ever was before. This huge conglomeration of people, the organisation and management of which is a mammoth exercise, has , one should suppose, always in any age attracted the attention of those whose business is news. It has also provided market access to artisans, craftsmen and producers of various goods. The Kumbh Mela this time over has, predictably, become media grist more than it ever was before. This huge conglomeration of people, the organisation and management of which is a mammoth exercise, has , one should suppose, always in any age attracted the attention of those whose business is news. It has also provided market access to artisans, craftsmen and producers of various goods. For modern media enterprises too, in the country and outside it, the Kumbh Mela has been a date to keep . It presents a whole spectrum for media coverage from the exotic to the magical and the mundane. To advertising agencies especially in the context of globalising village India, the Kumbh Mela offers a market place par excellence. Innovative strategies have been conjured up for a range of branded consumer products. Titan with Indian Railways has named a junction at Allahabad "NainiSonata' and has bought the display rights at four other junctions. Glowing display signs, kiosks, painted boats and, of course, free samples are all in evidence. Hindustan Lever's 'Fair and Lovely' sachets are being offered at the mela grounds as are Godrej's Sara Lee products, as well as food products like Parle G and Al's Tea which already have a rural base. All this new awareness about corporate India is being beamed across four giant screens at the mela grounds. Evidently the mela is an important enough proving ground for new-found rural marketing strategies and no expense has been spared. Advertising agencies are falling over themselves to capture this unique cross-section of the rural rich and poor, the urban pious, the new seekers of salvation, the curious and the with-it generation. Turkish coast guard rescues 40 migrants in Aegean Sea Body of a 4-year-old girl was also recovered Turkish Coast Guard has rescued 40 irregular migrants in the Aegean Sea while recovering one body, security sources said on Tuesday. Coast guard squads rescued the migrants off Kusadasi district of southwestern Aydin province after they were informed that an inflatable boat carrying the migrants including children started taking on water. A body of a 4-year-old girl was also recovered by the squads, according to sources who asked not to be named, due to restrictions on speaking to the media. No further detail about the nationalities of migrants and incident was provided. Coast guard teams continue their searching efforts in the sea, the sources added. Turkey has no issue with Kurds, Erdogan says resident Erdogan discussed the idea of a terror-free safe zone in Syria's northern region with Trump. A statement from the Turkish presidency said Erdogan and Trump discussed the idea of a terror-free safe zone in Syria's northern region. Turkey has no problem with Kurds and aims to fight terror groups Daesh, PKK and its Syrian affiliate PYD/YPG threatening national security, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a phone call with his US counterpart on Monday. KURDS ARE NOT TERRORISTS The phone call came after Trump threatened to "devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds," conflating "Kurds" with the terrorist PYD/YPG, a confusion that Turkey has repeatedly criticized. The White House said in a statement that Trump and Erdogan had discussed bilateral issues, including ongoing cooperation in Syria as US forces begin to withdraw. The president expressed the desire to work together to address Turkeys security concerns in northeast Syria while stressing the importance to the United States that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian Democratic Forces with whom we have fought to defeat ISIS, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement. Greek officers tried to kill us: Migrant in Turkey Greek naval officers allegedly refused saving migrants, says Iraqi rescued by Turkish Coast Guard in the Aegean Sea. An Iraqi irregular migrant who was rescued by the Turkish Coast Guard along with 45 others in the Aegean Sea on Tuesday said Greek naval officers "tried to kill" them. Coast Guard teams saved the migrants off Kusadas district of Aydn province after a semi-submerged boat carrying the migrants including children started taking in water. "IT WAS SO INHUMANE" Iraqi migrant Mohammed Fadl, whose 4-year-old daughter's body was recovered, claimed that Greek naval officers were responsible for the incident. A boat belonging to the Greek Coast Guard Command stopped us in open sea, Fadl told reporters at the Kusadas State Hospital. There were strong waves. We thought they came to save us. They told us to cut the engine. They tied our boat to theirs with a rope, and then they start to turn us in circles, Fadl said. "It was so inhumane. They tried to kill us," he added. Fadl said they had been left for dead mercilessly until the Turkish Coast Guard teams came and saved them, adding: "I saved my two children, but I could not save the other." Roughly 14,000 irregular migrants came to Greece in 2018, according to Greek officials. Turkey has been the main route for refugees trying to cross into Europe, especially since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Erdogan: Trump reaffirms Syria pullout, safe zone President Erdogan says 32-km safe zone in northern Syria will be established by Turkey. Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the remarks in an address to lawmakers of his Justice and Development (AK) Party at parliament in the capital Ankara. On Monday Erdogan held a phone call with US President Donald Trump, discussing the idea of a terror-free safe zone in northern Syria. Erdogan said he told Trump that Turkey embraces all people in Syria without any discrimination. "We also told him that the PKK/YPG tortures the groups in Syria that do not depend on them. We also said that we have given all document on this issue to his advisers," Erdogan said. He added that the two presidents agreed to increase the Turkish-US trade volume to $75 billion. The phone call came after Trump threatened to "devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds," conflating "Kurds" with the terrorist PKK/YPG, a conflation that Turkey has repeatedly criticized. "YOU SHOULD NOT BE DECEIVED BY THIS GAME" Erdogan also called on Kurds not to be fooled by terror groups, adding: "I call on my Kurdish brothers. You should not be deceived by this game... Turkey is the country of my Kurdish brothers as well." Following the surprise announcement in December that US forces would leave Syria, US officials said the withdrawal was conditional on Turkey not attacking the "Kurds," meaning the terrorist PKK/YPG. Turkish officials blasted the US conflation of "Kurds" with the terror group, saying an expected Turkish operation in Syria will target a terrorist group which threatens Arabs, Turkmens, and Kurds in Syria alike. I am a retired Naval Officer and small business owner, outside of my work at the News & Eagle. My wife Tammy and I enjoy serving together at church and attending Gaslight and ESO. We have two daughters, three dogs and little free time. Follow James Neal | Religion/Health Reporter Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today I was born near Denver, later moved to Selah, Washington and then attended the University of Kansas, graduating in May 2017. Prior to Enid News, I interned with the Yakima-Herald Republic and wrote arts and features for the University Daily Kansan. Follow Ryan Miller | area reporter Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today The services celebrating and honoring the life of Jerry Richter, 93, of Enid, are pending under the direction of Brown-Cummings Funeral Home. Condolences and special memories may be shared with the family online at www.Brown-Cummings.com/. Alex Vega, an 11th-grader at Elkmont High School and second-year student of Limestone County Career Technical Center, applies a coat of paint to the Toyota Corolla prototype supplied to the school by Mazda-Toyota Manufacturing USA. The prototype will receive two coats of a specially made blend of Mazdas Soul Red, Toyotas Barcelona Red and Alabamas state flag crimson. Manx Gas dealing with 'emergency' situation in Lonan Manx Gas are currently dealing with an ongoing emergency situation in Lonan where a third party has cut through a gas pipe. A number of properties have lost gas supplies as a result. Manx Gas believe the areas affected are Church Road, Church Lane, All Saints Park, Reayrt Ny Glonney, Croit Y Quill Road and Croit Y Quill Close If anyone is having issues with their gas supply in this area, and have not been spoken to by engineers on site, please contact Manx Gas on 0808 1624 444. Beekeepers buzzing after being awarded Lottery grant Manx Lottery Trust has awarded 4,500 to the Isle of Man Beekeepers Federation to fund a new education centre. The flat pack building will be used to hold training, workshops and learning days for new and current beekeepers. At present the Federation uses community, church and school halls as and when they are available, however this offers no continuity for the members. It is proposed that part of its popular Beekeeping Course, which has run annually for the past 15 years, will be held in the new centre. As part of the course, students man the Apiary throughout the summer months to get to grips with the practical side of bee keeping. The Isle of Man Beekeeping Federation is affiliated to the British Beekeepers Association and is comprised of three local area associations; Southern District Beekeepers Association, Western Beekeepers Association and Ramsey and District Beekeepers Association. One arrested and two flee Douglas crash A man has been arrested after a car crash in Douglas last night. The incident happened at around 9:45pm on Westmoreland Road and Princess Street. Officers arrested one male who received treatment for injuries at Noble's Hospital. Police are keen to trace two other males who fled from the silver Peugeot car. They were dressed in dark clothing. Anyone with information should contact Police Headquarters on 631 212. Montevideo, Jan 15 (epa-efe).- Uruguay's Ministry of Ranching, Agriculture and Fisheries on Tuesday gathered representatives from the dairy industry to create a roadmap for increasing the country's competitiveness in the sector. The idea is to "address all aspects of the dairy industry," given the various problems that the sector faces, Minister Enzo Benech told reporters. "Three companies have closed, a few producers have gone under, a number of sources of employment have been lost, but Uruguay nowadays has more milk than last year and we live in a country where we only take 8 percent of the milk we produce, 30 percent is consumed in other ways and 70 percent is sold," said Benech. Meanwhile, the minister emphasized that the objective of the open meeting is for each member of the industry to express their opinion so that a plan and commitments can be established. "We are sellers to the world market, basically, of powdered milk and some cheese. I believe that we have to work on product diversification, raising prices, serving other markets and lowering costs," Benech said. Assorted experts are participating in the technical conference including representatives of the Agricultural Programming and Policies Office, the National Agricultural Research Institute, the Office of Planning and Budget and the Technological University of Uruguay, among others. To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet - a "portal" that hams think of as the first place to go for information, to exchange ideas, and be part of whats happening with ham radio on the Internet. eHam.net provides recognition and enjoyment to the people who use, contribute, and build the site. This project involves a management team of volunteers who each take a topic of interest and manage it with passion. The site will stand above all other ham radio sites by employing the latest technology and professional design/programming standards, developed by a team of community programmers who contribute their skills to the effort. The site will be something of which everyone involved can be proud to say they were a part. We welcome your comments. The eHam.net Team, Revision 07/2020. Ronald E. O'Dell, 60, of Altamont, died at 1:08 p.m., Sunday, June 13, 2021 at home surrounded by his family. Graveside services will be held at 10:00 a.m., Saturday, June 19, 2021 at Sidener Cemetery, rural St. Elmo with Robert O'Dell officiating. Visitation will be from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m., F Editors Note: Associate Editor Stephen Sawchuk covers curriculum and instruction. This analysis is part of a special report exploring pressing trends in education. Read the full report: 10 Big Ideas in Education. Ask anyone from a school accountability expert to a parent of a school-age child, and you will get near universal agreement that we have a dysfunctional standardized-testing system in the United States. Educators do not like the annual statewide tests: They inform school penalties, not learning, because the results come so late in the school year. They fail to match any specific curriculum, and generally dont deeply measure students analytical capabilities or the dispositions employers and colleges value. Our nearly 20-year experiment with yearly federally required exams has boosted math scores, research indicates, but those gains have petered out as accountability pressures have grown more acute. And efforts over the last decade to produce better tests have been met with tepid enthusiasm. Could classroom assignments really measure student progress as effectively as standardized testing? Scroll down for more from Keith Dysarz. For most teachers and students, testing remains the educational equivalent of a root canal. Its endured, and then recalled with relief. Its not something deeply integrated with teaching that reinforces long-term educational goals like developing students ability to engage in thoughtful, reasoned argumentation. The opt-out movement was a warning sign, the first rumble of a sentiment that has spread, just like the teacher protests of the past year. If policymakers want to preserve the long-term health of our testing ecosystemand help teachers feel invested in, rather than victimized by itthe time to act is now. The main questions on the table: Should we rethink the annual testing of every student? Could such a revision be balanced against the clear need to maintain a focus on those students who have been least well-served by K-12 education? For now, annual testing isnt going anywhere; its enshrined in federal law. But if the politics of the last two years prove anything, its that longstanding policies, even those long thought inviolable, can be rewritten. With testing, you cant have your cake and eat it too: Year-end testing offers longitudinal, comparable data in each state on student performance. But its severely limited in scope and depth. The alternativetesting that better captures student learning, including portfolios and extended writing promptscosts far more in money and time and is harder to make valid and comparable. The Obama administration attempted to square this circle by providing seed funding for richer annual tests, but the results were less revolutionary than proponents had hoped, and they were quickly caught up by the anti-common-core and opt-out movements. What would a world with less-frequent testing look like? There are alternatives worth considering, although each contains significant tradeoffs: Do what the National Assessment of Educational Progress does, by measuring samples of students rather than every student. The resulting savings could be put into test formats that better measure students ability to integrate knowledge and analyze. Continue to test every student, but do so only every two to three years, again investing the cost savings into more useful systems. Integrate testing with curriculum practices, as is the case in the United Kingdom and most European countrieswhere mandatory tests used to grant leaving certificates and other student credentials directly reflect the actual curriculum taught in schools and require the extensive use of essays. Revisit the notion of drawing from classroom artifacts of student work to inform less-frequent testing results. No discussion of these alternatives can be complete without pointing out their very real disadvantages, for equity and transparency, at a time when education advocates are pushing harder for both. The point of testing every child, every year, was to expose the serious performance gaps among and within schools. Thats why many civil rights groups support the practice so strongly, and fear what could happen if its lost. Doing away with annual testing could also hurt efforts to study whats working at scale. After all, annual testing led to the development of data systems that could track kids trajectories over time, prompting a new wave of empirical research on school and teacher quality. Finally, the ideas above are also ambitious. Linking classroom practice to testing is rarely done in the United States, and previous attempts to use informal data from classroom work samples have faltered. Technology could help, but in the age of Big Data, it also raises all kinds of privacy challenges. Nevertheless, there are signs of the beginnings of a transformation: States and school districts are experimenting with several ideas. Georgia is revisiting the idea of using a series of smaller, classroom-based tests better aligned to everyday lessons under its own state-level initiative. A few other innovations are emerging thanks to a small (and not terribly popular) pilot run by the U.S. Department of Education. Louisiana, for instance, is hard at work creating a reading test based on the actual novels and texts students read, rather than dull, random reading passages that favor students with the most background knowledge. And with federal permission, New Hampshire allows districts to use shared performance-based tasks developed by teachers for some grades, and traditional tests in others. Some individual districts are also charting their own paths: Prince William County, Va., among others, uses a British exam system more tightly integrated with curriculum goals in a handful of its schools. What will happen next in testing? Its largely anyones guess. But our current divorcing of standardized testing from the everyday aims of schooling seems untenable for the long haul. Its time for smart policymakers, educators, and testing experts to lay out a new path. PERSPECTIVE How to Make Classroom Assignments Count By Keith Dysarz Measuring student learning is a critical component of education. Assessments, when done well, provide essential data for guiding students learning and inform teachers, parents, and school leaders of students progress. But when done haphazardly and without strategy, assessments waste time and have limited value. As frustration with standardized testing regimes continues to roil educational waters, districts and schools should pay attention to an option that can be just as informative in measuring student progress: classroom assignments. The tasks that teachers ask students to complete daily are an important piece of the larger assessment puzzle. Assignments that challenge students provide an opportunity for simultaneous learning and assessing. Tasks that reflect grade-level standards can help students build their critical thinking skills. Such high-quality tasks are a type of formative assessment, yielding immediate and actionable data on students proficiency. The problem? As significant as assignments can be, research from the Education Trust shows that most student assignments fall far short of demanding college- and career-ready standards. In the more than 6,000 assignments we analyzed, less than 12 percent pushed student thinking to higher levels. The majority of assignments were low-level, provided little-to-no opportunity for students to communicate their understanding in writing or through discussion, and did little to engage them in content. Similarly alarming results were found in research by TNTP. Notice the contrast, for instance, between a 10th grade English assignment that asks students studying a Susan B. Anthony essay, What does suffrage mean? and What was the central idea of the article? with another assignment that calls for 10th graders to write an essay reflecting on power differences linked to cultural accommodation using the short story they have just read and other specific evidence. If what teachers are asking students to do is not on grade level and does not push their thinking or provide opportunities to justify their reasoning, there is little value in using it for formative assessment. Educators must be equipped to recognize the features of high-quality classroom assignments, whether garnered from highly rated instructional programs, district curriculum, or teacher-created tasks. When such assignments are the norm, educators will also have the kind of meaningful formative assessments our students deserve. Keith Dysarz is the director of P-12 Practice at the Education Trust. Equinor, Norway's state oil company formerly known as Statoil, has faced criticism from environmentalists over its plans to drill the Great Australian Bight off the country's southern coast. A potential spill in the area would threaten the ecosystem and endanger the largest breeding populations of endangered southern right whales in the world. Such fears are now confirmed if a blowout should actually occur, according to a leaked draft Oil Pollution Emergency Plan authored by Equinor and obtained by Greenpeace's Australia Pacific branch. In a "worst credible case discharge" scenariowhich involves a "loss of well control" and subsea releases of crude oil for more than 100 daysthe spill could impact Australia's entire southern coast and even reach as far north as Sydney, the document shows. This map shown in this tweet is based on Equinor's modeling of 100 different spills in the Great Australian Bight between the October to May drilling season. "This leak should be the final nail in the coffin of Bight oil drilling," Greenpeace Australia Pacific senior campaigner Nathaniel Pelle said in a press release. "Not only does it show that oil could drench a previously unimaginable area that would include iconic beaches such as Bondi and Manly, it also shows that oil companies have no plan for stopping such a leak should it occur." Not only is the Great Australian Bight a significant southern right whale calving grounds, it's a feeding area for blue whales, humpback whales, orcas, sea lions and is one of Australia's most important fisheries, Greenpeace says. Equinor's map shows how far an oil spill could spread in 60 days after the flow of oil was stopped by drilling a relief well to kill the impacted well. Under the worst case scenario, a "loss of well control" will release an average of 6,739 cubic meters of oil per day until the well is killed on day 102. Equinor plans to drill for oil off South Australia's Eyre Peninsula using similar plans abandoned by BP and Chevron, according to ABC Australia. Greenpeace noted that the leaked document comes just days after the Australian regulator NOPSEMA released BP's Well Operations Management Plan, which showed that an oil spill in the Great Australian Bight could release more than twice the amount of crude oil that entered the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. What's more, the safety equipment would be unusable for more than a third of the year due to high waves, Greenpeace determined. "BP's plan showed that not only would the high waves of the Bight make the use of a capping stack impossible but they also said it was 'highly unlikely' a second rig could be found to drill a relief well and 'kill' the leak," Pelle explained. The BP plan said that a capping stack cannot be used in seas above 3.5 meters. Greenpeace obtained data from the Australian bureau of meteorology that said the sea-state is above 3.5 meters 33.6 percent of the year. Equinor Australia country manager Jone Stangeland told ABC Australia the leaked document was part of an unfinished environment plan distributed to state governments. He explained that the map was "based on an extremely unlikely worst-case event, simulated 100 times in different weather conditions and without any response action taken." "The images don't represent an actual scenario, but the combination of 100 different extremely unlikely worst-case scenarios," he added. "For Equinor, no oil spills are acceptable, and we will not go ahead until we are convinced we can drill safely." A Brand's Guide to Digital Shelf Analytics | eBook What can you do to improve your digital commerce game? The first rule of the digital shelf is to make sure your products can be found. Some might say its mission impossible. Unless, of course, you use digital shelf analytics (DSA). Get the eBook Today! Google is not working on a bespoke search engine that caters to China's totalitarian tastes, and it has no plans to develop one, CEO Sundar Pichai told lawmakers on Capitol Hill Tuesday. "Right now, we have no plans to launch in China," he told members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee at a public hearing on Google's data collection, use and filtering practices. "We don't have a search product there," he said. "Our core mission is to provide users access to information, and getting access to information is an important human right." Pichai acknowledged that the company had assigned some 100 workers to develop a search engine for totalitarian countries, however. "We explored what search would look like if it were to be launched in a country like China," he revealed. 'Dragonfly' Browser A report about a Google search engine for China appeared in The Intercept this summer. The project, code-named "Dragonfly," had been under way since the spring of 2017, according to the report, but development picked up after Pichai met with Chinese government officials about a year ago. Special Android apps also had been developed for the Chinese market, The Intercept stated, and had been demonstrated to the Chinese government for a possible rollout this year. "We certainly hope they abandoned those plans," said Chris Calabrese, vice president for policy for the Center for Democracy & Technology, an individual rights advocacy group in Washington, D.C. "We didn't think it was a good idea to build a search engine that would censor speech in order to go into the Chinese market," he told the E-Commerce Times. Google may have been testing the waters with its Chinese browser, maintained Russell Newman, assistant professor for the Institute for Liberal Arts & Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College in Boston. "It's an example of a firm seeing how far down the road it can go before it receives pushback," he told the E-Commerce Times. "It discovers a limit, then pushes that limit a little more. I'd be surprised if they wholly gave up on the search engine for China." Mission: Protecting Privacy In his opening remarks to the committee, Pichai declared that protecting the privacy and security of its users was an essential part of Google's mission. "We have invested an enormous amount of work over the years to bring choice, transparency and control to our users. These values are built into every product we make," he said. "We recognize the important role of governments, including this committee, in setting rules for the development and use of technology," Pichai added. "To that end, we support federal privacy legislation and proposed a legislative framework for privacy earlier this year." Pichai also addressed a burning issue for Republican members of the panel. "I lead this company without political bias and work to ensure that our products continue to operate that way," he said. "To do otherwise would go against our core principles and our business interests." 'Bias Running Amok' Among the Republicans on the committee who raised the issue of unfairness with respect to the way Google's search algorithm treats conservative views was Mike Johnson, R-La. "My conservative colleagues and I are fierce advocates of limited government, and we're also committed guardians of free speech and the free marketplace of ideas," he told Pichai. "We do not want to impose burdensome government regulations on your industry," Johnson continued. "However, we do believe we have an affirmative duty to ensure that the engine that processes as much as ... 90 percent of all Internet searches, is never unfairly used to unfairly censor conservative viewpoints or suppress political views." Political bias is running amok at Google, charged committee member Louie Gohmert, R-Texas. "You're so surrounded by liberality that hates conservatism, hates people that really love our Constitution and the freedoms that it's afforded people like you, that you don't even recognize it," he told Pichai, who was born in India. "It's like a blind man not even knowing what light looks like because you're surrounded by darkness," Gohmert added. Despite Republican claims of liberal bias in Google's algorithm, "there isn't any evidence to back that up empirically," Calabrese said. Market Dominance Committee members also were concerned about Google's market dominance. "I'm deeply concerned by reports of Google's discriminatory conduct in the market for Internet search," said David Cicilline, D-R.I. Google has harmed competition in Europe by favoring its own products and services over rivals, and by deprioritizing or delisting its competitors' content, he noted citing European Commission findings. "It is important for the U.S. government to follow the lead of other countries and closely examine the market dominance of Google and Facebook, including their impact on industries such as news media," observed David Chavern, CEO of the News Media Alliance in Arlington, Va., a trade association representing some 2,000 newspapers in the United States and Canada. "We will continue to urge for more hearings to examine ways in which the duopoly impacts the business of journalism, which is essential to democracy and civic society," he told the E-Commerce Times. Prelude to Privacy Law House and Senate hearings in recent months are just the prelude to data privacy legislation that could be introduced next year. "We're certainly going to see a wide variety of comprehensive privacy bills filed, and I think we'll make some progress," Calabrese said. "Advocates have seen the need for privacy legislation for a long time," he said, "and now that we have privacy legislation set to kick in in California in 2020, there's a lot of companies who would rather be governed by a federal law than they would a bunch of different state laws." If a general privacy law is enacted, it shouldn't use Europe's General Data Protection Regulation as a model, maintained Alan McQuinn, senior policy analyst for the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a public policy and technology innovation organization in Washington, D.C. "We don't want to see the GDPR enacted here in the states," he told the E-Commerce Times. "It is highly likely to create a drag on the European economy and hurt innovation and businesses," McQuinn explained. Privacy rules should be styled to fit industries, such as healthcare, finance and commerce, he suggested. "The sector-specific approach that the U.S. has taken toward privacy has allowed for more innovation," McQuinn noted, "and created the powerhouse of the digital economy that we have here." John P. Mello Jr. has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, IT issues, privacy, e-commerce, social media, artificial intelligence, big data and consumer electronics. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including the Boston Business Journal, the Boston Phoenix, Megapixel.Net and Government Security News. Email John. Decode Your Future with an Online Computer Science Degree from Drexel Drexel University's online computer science programs are designed to prepare you for work on the cutting edge of technology. The curriculum is designed for students with any level of experience or previous knowledge. Choose the program thats right for you. Learn More. Americans are used to hearing the refrain, "We pay the sales tax," from mattress sellers and car dealerships during big sales weekends. The phrase, "You pay the sales tax," however, is something we're all going to become a lot more familiar with in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling in South Dakota v. Wayfair. That's because the Wayfair decision reverses precedent set by 1967's National Bellas Hess v. Illinois and upheld in 1992's Quill v. North Dakota, in which the court ruled that states could require companies to collect sales tax only if they had "sufficient physical presence" in the state. In South Dakota v.Wayfair, however, the court ruled that making physical presence the minimum standard is "unsound and incorrect." The result is that states now can require businesses to collect sales taxes if they meet the lower standard of "economic nexus" in the state -- a condition state legislatures get to define on their own. Collateral Damage This is a big win for state governments, whose desire to overturn Quill has intensified in recent years due to the rise of e-commerce and the billions of dollars in taxes that go uncollected every year. (Residents in states with sales tax are supposed to file a use tax return with items purchased outside the state, but most do not). By requiring remote sellers to collect sales tax, states are expecting to see a huge increase in the sales tax revenue, especially this holiday season. Unfortunately, the battle to recover this tax base also is likely to result in significant collateral damage in the form of the burden it places on e-commerce businesses. Many small and medium-sized e-commerce companies run on thin margins and have few resources to devote to ensuring they collect the appropriate amount of sales tax on each order. Indeed, the reason the court decided in the past not to require businesses to collect sales taxes on orders sent across state lines was that they acknowledged the serious administrative burden associated with this task. Economists can debate the macro effects of the decision: Will this lead to residents of states with complex sates tax structures being underserved? Will it lead to lower competition because of the additional administrative costs needed to start or operate an e-commerce business? However, what business owners want to know is how this will affect their operations and profitability. Triggering Nexus The first thing companies should know is that you don't need to conduct a lot of business in a state to trigger economic nexus there. In South Dakota, the physical presence condition remains, but it is compounded by an economic nexus rule that says if you have US$100,000 worth of sales, or more than 200 transactions involving customers in the state during the current or previous calendar year, then you must collect sales tax on all transactions with customers in that state. This type of safe harbor threshold quickly is becoming the norm, given that South Dakota's definition is serving as a model for the dozens of other states that have passed or are in the process of passing similar laws. Worse, companies have been given extremely short timetables to comply. The decision came in June, but many economic nexus laws are already in effect, and more will go into effect early next year. Many businesses, having other, more immediate worries, still aren't sure even where to start. While there are technology solutions out there, they take time and expertise to implement, which many small and medium-sized businesses just don't have. Impact on SaaS The impact of Wayfair largely has been on e-commerce, but that doesn't mean e-commerce businesses are the only ones that need to evaluate the effect of the new economic nexus laws. Some states require companies that sell intangible goods over the Internet, such as Software as a Service (SaaS), to collect sales tax where they have an economic nexus. Now that states are making it easier for taxpayers to trigger sales tax nexus in their state, SaaS, cloud computing and other service-based businesses that never have had to worry about sales tax in the past (because the state in which they physically are located doesn't tax their products) may already be in noncompliance, without even knowing it. The aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's Wayfair decision certainly creates a unique situation calling for today's businesses to immediately address sales/use tax issues created by hastily drafted reactionary legislation and interpretations establishing economic nexus thresholds with effective dates in the second half of 2018 and early 2019. Reasoned analysis and decisions are needed, as it does not appear that the economic nexus standards for sales/use tax collection responsibilities are going away any time soon. The proper decision for each business may vary widely, from not doing anything at the moment to registering in all sales/use jurisdictions as soon as possible, or somewhere in between. No matter the final decision, businesses should be resigned to devoting in-house resources or hiring outside resources to address the impact of the current evolution in the world of sales and use taxes. On the positive side, the need for additional resources may be temporary if an efficient sales/use tax collection and remittance system can be put into place effectively. For today's current situation, businesses may be well suited to hire a third-party to notify them when new obligations are created, and to explain what actions are needed. It may be unrealistic for small to medium sized businesses with limited resources to track changes on their own. Pursuing Compliance Once a business accepts the fact that sales tax collection is a business obligation that is not going away soon, and that missteps have the potential to bankrupt an otherwise successful business down the road, an easily overlooked factor in the cost/benefit analysis is who will likely pay the tax due if sellers do not collect tax at the time of sale from the buyer. Many sellers may not fully realize that their future audit assessments might have to come out of operating funds of the business -- or more dramatically, out of the pocket of the individual owners or officers of the business. Instead of looking at sales tax as a payment between a business and the state imposing the tax, sales and use taxes in today's context are more properly viewed as a decision between the seller and the buyer. Either the buyer pays the tax at the time of sale, where allowed, or the business likely has to pay the tax at the conclusion of an audit, which may take place up to three years later when the original purchaser cannot be contacted to pay the tax due. However, the daunting task of complying with state and local sales/use tax obligations in 45 states and the District of Columbia may not be as intimidating as a business owner might think, with today's technology. Sales/use tax compliance is certainly not as simple as downloading an app to your smartphone, but, by the same token, businesses with a repetitive, uncomplicated business process and product line may be able to automate the preparation of sales tax returns and the remittance of tax almost to a point where returns can be produced with a "push of the button" for every filing period. Electronic filing and electronic payments also may be reduced to a data input process that can be accomplished in a low-cost manner. With additional registration requirements created by new economic nexus standards for sales/use taxes on the horizon, business also must take the next step, and determine what other registrations are triggered automatically when registering for sale/use tax purposes. Some states make registration with the Secretary of State a prerequisite to get a valid sales/use tax permit. Secretary of State registration usually requires the presence of an in-state registered agent and additional registration fees for the business, on top of any costs to collect sales/use taxes due. Sales tax registration does not automatically require the filing of income tax returns, as income tax nexus standards are independent of sales/use tax standards. It is possible that sales/use tax filings are required under economic nexus laws, but that state income tax filings are not. States may however, make inquiries of the new businesses registering for sales/use taxes purposes to make an accurate determination of the new businesses' income tax filing obligation. Businesses need to fully understand the specifics of their nexus-generating activities, and the questions they are being asked that will determine whether income tax return filings are also due. Even though Wayfair is a sales/use tax case, states also are closely examining the Supreme Court's analysis to determine if new interpretations of law are possible under the Wayfair rationale that could increase income tax payments or other revenue streams into the state. Although economic nexus has been the focal point for many businesses since the Wayfair decision in June, businesses cannot overlook the other laws recently passed by states to collect the sales/use tax on sales by remote sellers that otherwise do not have nexus with the state. Marketplace Nexus, Reporting Obligation Marketplace Nexus laws establish registration and collection obligations on third-parties that provide the virtual e-commerce marketplace and key services for remote sellers to execute sales. Amazon and eBay are popular marketplace sellers, and they both have started or will start collecting and remitting sales/use tax on some states' transactions executed in their marketplaces established for their sellers. Businesses may have to distinguish sales executed through their marketplaces from their direct online sales, so they can collect and remit applicable sales properly, and use taxes themselves on their direct online sales. When physical presence was still the standard, Reporting Obligation laws were passed requiring non-nexus remote sellers to notify buyers on their invoices of their use tax obligations for non-taxable purchases they made. Remote sellers also may be required to send all in-state purchaser information to states, so states can contact in-state purchasers directly to collect the use tax due. Colorado was the first state to pass Reporting Obligation laws, and approximately 13 other states have such laws on their books. These requirements may take as much effort for compliance as the actual collection and remittance of sales and use taxes due. Even in states without economic nexus legislation, like California, businesses with no substantial physical presence are not necessarily free from sales/use tax collection obligations, because many states have broad "doing business" statutes that could be interpreted as creating sales/use tax nexus for a remote seller. Such laws state that when "doing business" in a state, the requisite nexus is established to enforce the obligation to collect sales and use taxes. The requisite level of "doing business" is very subjective and difficult to anticipate in some situations. Thus, a new, aggressive interpretation that a remote seller is "doing business" in a state may be preferred by states to establish sales tax nexus in lieu of trying to pass economic nexus laws in tax-adverse legislatures now that "substantial physical presence" is no longer the overriding standard. Much remains to be seen in the near future for the post-Wayfair sale tax world, but one thing is certain, businesses should educate themselves about all of the possible scenarios, so they can decide what actions to take and when they should be taken. What used to be a relatively easy decision to make is now anything but. John E. Hayashi is a Managing Director, Tax at BPM and a leader of the firm's SALT Group. With more than 26 years of SALT experience, John specializes in multistate sales and use taxes. Carolyn Cotter is a Corporate Tax Manager at BPM, and co-lead of the firms SALT group. She has eight years of experience in public accounting, providing income tax compliance and consulting services to corporations of all sizes, primarily in the high technology and life science industries. 20th anniversary of the euro Speech by Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, at the session of the plenary of the European Parliament to mark the anniversary of the euro in Strasbourg, 15 January 2019 It is with great pleasure that I am here today to celebrate with you the first 20 years of the euro. The euro is the most tangible representation of European integration that our citizens encounter, on a daily basis. It is fitting, then, to celebrate this anniversary here with the directly elected representatives of all our citizens. Over the years, elected representatives and leaders here and in other parliaments have rightly recognised that ensuring economic prosperity and stability over the long term is a shared challenge that is best faced collectively. We are stronger together. With the Single Market, we have a powerful engine of sustainable growth to underpin our living standards. The euro has safeguarded the integrity of the Single Market. Today, our economies are integrated to a point that was not imaginable when the euro was designed. Intra-EU exports rose from 13% of EU GDP in 1992 to 20% today and value chains are everywhere in the euro area. The euro has produced two decades of price stability also in countries where this was a long lost memory. Stable prices have fostered peoples confidence in the value of their savings, which is one of the conditions for prosperity. Based on such confidence, firms invest and create new jobs. Today most challenges are global and can be addressed only together. It is this togetherness that magnifies the ability of individual countries to retain the sovereignty over the relevant matters, sovereignty that would otherwise be lost in this global world. It is precisely in this sense that the single currency has given to all members of the euro area their monetary policy sovereignty, compared with the pre-existing monetary arrangements. It is together that we have a voice in the regulation of international financial markets; a voice, which has been fundamental in reshaping the world financial regulation after the global financial crisis. But in some countries, not all of the euros benefits have been realised in full. Partly, this is because reforms at national level are necessary, and they would be so under any monetary system, to produce sustainable growth; partly, because the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) remains incomplete. Great progress has been achieved since the crisis struck, but more work still needs to be done; and there is no alternative to a future where we will continue to work together to make our EMU an even stronger engine of prosperity for all its member states. The European Parliament will have a fundamental role in guiding and designing our European future. In the past, together with the EU leaders, the European Parliament took the fundamental decisions to create the Single Market, and in its wake the euro. Today, we are all reaping the benefits of their commitment and we want the future generations of Europeans to similarly benefit from our commitment as well. Today, our duty is to complete what was started two decades ago. If your car drives off the road, your house catches fire, or your ex is pounding too loudly on your door in Wheeler County, know this: Its li After seven years as Wheeler County Sheriff, Chris Humphreys found he could no longer connect with his family. The gloom in his head just wo Where are the best places to shop? Who gives the best haircut? Who cooks the best burger? Join our readers in selecting the "Best of Windham." Make your picks! Claremont, NH (03743) Today Some passing clouds. Low near 45F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Some passing clouds. Low near 45F. Winds light and variable. Readers Survey As our valued readers, we want to hear from you. Please take a moment to fill out the survey below. - Thank you, Eastern Arizona Courier Click Here May you live in interesting times is purportedly a Chinese curse which passed into the common parlance after being quoted in a speech by US Senator Robert Kennedy in 1966. It has particular resonance in 2019, as enterprises globally navigate an economic landscape which has uncertainty as its hallmark. In Australia, the share market has dropped significantly in the space of a few months, residential property is on the slide (significantly so in the once red-hot markets of Sydney and Melbourne) and a federal election which may see significant regulatory and taxation changes for individuals and businesses is looming. At the same time, rapidly evolving consumer dynamics and the ongoing onslaught of technological change continue to shake up traditional businesses and generate opportunities for nimble players to enter the market. Dealing with disruption Disruption was high on the list of over-used business terms for 2018 and its popularity appears undimmed in 2019. Its an umbrella word which is now used to describe any form of rapid, wholesale change, from the decimation of the local taxi industry, following the launch of ride sharing giant Uber to the ongoing reform of the financial services sector, post the damaging revelations which emerged from last years Banking Royal Commission. Disruption can signal disaster or opportunity. How businesses plan for evolving conditions, identify emerging opportunities and pivot on the fly can mean the difference between struggling to stay relevant and viable and succeeding in a much altered business landscape. While some businesses update their plans regularly to reflect changing conditions, theyre in the minority. Anaplans recent State of Connected Planning study which surveyed 1000 businesses around the globe, revealed only one in four enterprises does so on a continual basis. That means tens of thousands of Australian enterprises are working with business plans which dont accurately reflect the markets theyre operating in and the unique challenges theyre throwing up in 2019. By definition, these companies are behind the market not a good place to be, for those which aspire to move forward and capitalise on the opportunities created by disruption. To be able to do so, businesses need to stay ahead of trends, or be poised to adapt to them, as they emerge. Traditional paper or spreadsheet-based planning isnt conducive to this sort of agility. Deploying an enterprise planning platform which can access and synthesise real time data and insights puts businesses in a better position to track market developments and respond to changes as they happen. Prioritise planning across the enterprise For businesses which are yet to embrace dynamic planning, its time to start playing catch up. This begins with the commitment to make planning a priority, not at quarterly or annual sessions but continuously and across all areas of the enterprise. Its something uber-fast growth companies do religiously and Anaplan research suggests its pivotal to their success. Rather than treating planning as an abstract idea or an occasional academic exercise, these enterprises plan actively and frequently and incorporate market information into their plans, along with internal data. Sustaining the pace that separates businesses on a high growth trajectory from flash-in-the-pan concerns requires a weather eye for trends and a focus on keeping employee activity aligned with business goals. Providing all business units with access to the same planning platform and tools is key to the construction of an enterprise where departmental plans are attuned to internal and external changes and aligned to wider business goals. The technological edge Technology is the not-so-secret weapon in the battle to ensure business planning remains dynamic and current. Increasing uncertainty and market volatility make it imperative for businesses to operate with agile plans which can be adjusted quickly and effectively, in a way that static plans cannot. Advanced data analytics tools and technologies, including predictive analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, can be used to produce more accurate forecasting, based on current internal and external variables and risk factors. Using a platform which can harness their power allows planners to identify potential risks and disruption factors more quickly, forecast their impact on every aspect of operations more effectively and reduce the decision-making time frame significantly. Given the times are not just interesting but changing at a pace thats unprecedented in corporate history, being able to do so has never been more important. About the author Patrick Elliott, ANZ Regional Vice President at Anaplan Six Louth Mens sheds are to receive 1,691 each in funding under the Mens Sheds stream of the Community Enhancement Programme. Commenting on the funding announcement, Fine Gael TD Fergus ODowd said, This funding aims to enable individual Sheds to update their facilities by purchasing equipment or by carrying out minor works to improve their shed. The initiative was developed in association with the Irish Mens Sheds Association. He added, The local mens sheds offer a safe and inclusive environment where men can share their life skills, engage socially and work on some very important local projects. "The mens sheds movement are also providing a wonderful health and wellbeing capacity that is acknowledged and appreciated by all. The allocations and purpose of the funding is listed below: Catherine Allison & Company Solicitors would like to welcome their two new members of staff, Annemarie OHare, Solicitor and Kathleen McGeeney, Legal Executive and formerly of McDonough & Breen Solicitors. Annemarie studied in Newry and Belfast, Northern Ireland and obtained her LLB (Hons) Law and Politics Degree at Queens University Belfast in December 2012. Annemarie joined Catherine Allison and Co in Mid 2018 having qualified as a Solicitor from the Institute of Professional Legal Studies in June 2017 with a large firm in Belfast and Bangor. Annemarie practices in residential and commercial property matters, wills and probate. Annemarie has proven to be an exceptional asset to the firm. Kathleen McGeeney M.I.I.L.Ex. Kathleen joined the Company in October 2018 after working for Conor G Breen (McDonough & Breen, Solicitors) for 22 years and has worked in Law Firms since the age of 16. Kathleen graduated from Griffith College Dublin in 2008 with a Diploma in Legal Studies and has practised as a Legal Executive since 2008. She has extensive experience in all litigation / personal injury claims. She has substantial experience in all types of personal injury accidents, to include, workplace accidents, road traffic accidents, criminal injures and public liability accidents. She also practices in areas of medical negligence. Kathleen also obtained Certificate in Management from Newry College of Further Education in 2007 Kathleen also has proven to be another exceptional asset to Catherine Allison & Company who are growing from strength to strength. Contact Kathleen by phone or email kathleen@callison.ie for a first consultation. Catherine Allison & Company have an exceptionally strong and proven legal team who are backed by very experienced support staff, including our own, in house, fully qualified Accountant. We undertake all areas of legal practice excluding only criminal law. We believe our expertise and unmatched efficiency is key and our dedicated and hard working team strive to make all legal transactions a smooth one for all clients. We are also the only practice in County Louth who practice in all the jurisdictions of Ireland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales which helps to widen our client base. - Bankruptcy & Insolvency Matters - Family Law Divorce, Separation, - Nullity, Maintenance & Access - Personal Injury & Accidents - Commercial & Residential Property - Employment Law - Wills & Probate - Landlord/Tenant Law New - Leases and Landlord & Tenant - Litigation - Tax Advice Company/Corporate - Medical Negligence & Coroners - Inquests - Coroners Inquest on Death Catherine Allison & Company Solicitors at 6 Roden Place, Dundalk, County Louth also 15A Margaret Street, Newry, County Down BT34 1DE Web: www.callison.ie Phone: 042 9320854 (10 lines) Fax: 042 9320855 Email: info@callison.ie NI: 02830 251756 PROFESSIONAL, RELIABLE & EFFICIENT SERVICE Local councillor Mark Dearey revealed on his Twitter account on Saturday afternoon that he will not be running in the upcoming May local elections. Mr Dearey served as a councillor with the Green Party for fifteen years in the Louth and East Meath areas. Mark was also elected to the 23rd Seanad between 2010 and 2011. He said it had been a "true honour to have served the people of the area." During the last fifteen years the Green Party Cllr worked on shaping a new Development Plan for Dundalk, made inroads to make Dundalk carbon neutral by 2020 and successfully proposed the first Business Improvement District company outside of Dublin to employ a Commercial Town Centre Manager with a mandate to regenerate the traditional shopping streets (now known as Dundalk BIDS office). Speaking to the Democrat Mr Dearey said: I never saw myself being in politics until the end, but I am thankful to have had three terms and hope that the people I served would deem them successful. It is a very, very heavy burden on both family and business owners (to work as a local Councillor). I just hope that I am not letting people down. During my years serving as a councillor there was an economic crash, so the majority of the time I spent in office has been in the era of austerity. It hasn't always been easy. I am very thankful to my colleague Marianne Butler who will be running in the local elections in May. I sincerely hope she gets reelected. I'm also very thankful to people who have canvassed for me and people who voted for me. "I've enjoyed working with colleagues from other parties. Even if we didn't always agree, there was always mutual respect there and I think that's very important in politics these days." Speaking about the upcoming local elections, due to take place this May, Dearey said: The selection process is ongoing and we will have an announcement very soon. I'm very happy to see two candidates of the new generation coming in. We have a tremendous amount of hope for the future." He added: I have received some lovely messages over the last few days which have reminded me of things I have achieved over the last few years. When asked about the highlights of his political career the local cllr cited bringing in legislation regarding planning permission and climate change into legislation whilst elected to the Senate and at a local level starting up Dundalk BIDs office. Mr Dearey added: I'm not gone yet. I intend to be very active for the next six months and will work right up until the votes are counted at the local elections for my Green Party colleagues. TRIBUTES Tributes poured in following his announcement. Fianna Fail TD Declan Breathnach said: "Mark sorry to hear that you are not contesting. You served your town and County well and if was always a pleasure working with your constructive no-nonsense approach in the interests of making Louth and Dundalk a better place for all." Fine Gael TD for Dublin West Noel Rock said: "Sad to read this. Always thought you served your area and your party with distinction. Plus your venue is class. Wish you the very best with the future!" Cllr Pio Smith said: "Great Councillor, with good values, a sense of honour and a deep commitment to your community. Well done on your public life." Cllr Dolores Minogue said: "Best wishes Mark, very sorry to hear, a voice of reason on many occasion at CC meeting." Fine Gael Councillor David Healy said: "Its a pity to lose such an effective councillor, not just on Louth issues but also other topics such as nuclear and public banking. But looking forward to seeing how else you put your skills to use!" Dublin Cllr Adrian Henchy added: "Sorry to hear that Mark. Saw you up close at HSE Regional meetings and your passion and honourable intentions shone through at these meetings. An excellent representative for your community and no doubt you will be greatly missed. Best wishes." After years of discussion and small steps, Dothan Utilities is ready to institute a smart-metering system that will provide customers several benefits. Chris Phillips, DUs electric operations superintendent, discussed initiating a full rollout of the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) program with the Dothan City Commission during an administrative meeting Tuesday. The smart meters that form the backbone of the program will allow customers to track water and electric usage through a website or phone app and then use the data to make decisions regarding their usage. Additionally, customers can sign up for pre-pay options for their utility bills and can register for various notifications, including low pre-pay funds or high usage alerts, Phillips said. The system will benefit the city in several ways as well, as it will allow DU personnel to identify outages as they happen and begin repairs. The city can also use the system to shut off delinquent accounts remotely, saving man hours and vehicle usage, Phillips said. Monday was Inauguration Day in Alabama, and scores of people braved brisk weather to attend the festivities and listen to Gov. Kay Ivey deliver remarks as she embarks on her first full term at the helm of the ship of state. Such events are bright notes, and leave us filled with optimism and hope that changes in our center of government, however small, might somehow serve to lift our state out of the statehouse muck in which progress is mired. Kay Ivey remains a ray of sunshine in the governors office, particularly in contrast to the clouds that had gathered over her predecessor, Robert Bentley, who resigned in disgrace in the midst of his second term. Her inaugural remarks were as expected; Ivey loves this state and has high hopes for its future as do we all. And it appears she knows whats necessary to accomplish those successes: Let's face it. The challenges we confront today did not just arrive on our doorstep; likewise, they will not go away in weeks or even months. But if we work on them together -- Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals -- then today's challenges can be looked upon as tomorrow's accomplishments. A trial scheduled to begin Monday for a Dothan man facing multiple sex charges has been continued. Joseph Ramirez, 36, of Radford Circle, was arrested May 1 and charged with four counts of first-degree rape, four counts of sexual abuse of a child less than 12 years old and other related charges. Prosecutors requested the continuance Monday, due to issues related to the states witnesses, said Valerie Judah, Ramirezs attorney. Dothan Police Lt. Lynn Watkins previously told the Dothan Eagle the victims mother brought the children to the police department after she was informed of the alleged crime, and the investigation started immediately. Investigators obtained a search warrant for Ramirezs home. Before the search warrant was executed, Ramirez told police he had a firearm and made threats against himself and officers if they attempted to take him into custody. Watkins believes the suspect made the threats in the hope that charges against him would not be pursued. The Special Reaction Team was used to execute the search warrant. As the SRT approached the residence, officers discovered Ramirez had barricaded the doors and covered all the windows in the home. The team proceeded to make entry into the home through a window, and took Ramirez into custody. On Tuesday, at 9:09 a.m., Elba E911 received a call from Coffee County Bakery in the Holley community that an employee was inside the plant threatening other employees with a firearm. E911 dispatched Coffee County Sheriff's Office to the call. Information was obtained that the suspect had left the plant, and was located at his residence on Coffee County Road 474. The suspect, Harold Nobles (a white male), was arrested and placed in the Coffee County Jail for Terrorist Threat. Nobles currently remains in the custody of the Coffee County Jail. The Coffee County Sheriff's Office is continuing the investigation with assistance from the 12th Judicial District Attorney's Office. Though she enjoys the craft, it can be challenging. Sometimes it does feel like work if Im trying to perfect a certain part of the music, said Warner. Sometimes you have to work harder on harder parts of the music. There are some times whenever Im practicing I think it will sound good, and it will be fun, and then there are other times where its just really frustrating. You just have to push through. It was the ability to push through that led her to audition, she said. Initially scared and nervous about the process, she was encouraged by a strong support system that included her friends, parents and teachers. Warner said she learned a great deal from the experience. If you have a goal, even if youre scared to go for it, its always good to just try, said Warner. You never know. You could make it or you could not, but what do you have to lose? If you dont make it, you tried. If you do make it, then its worth everything you put into it. A new music and cultural festival is taking place in Bundoran this weekend. Atlantic Irish Fest will take place from January 19 to 23 offering guests a unique take on Ireland and the chance to immerse themselves into the music and culture of Donegal. The four-day event coincides with the Milwaukee Irish Festival trip to Ireland, and the visitors will have the opportunity to learn a little about the history and culture of the area, with introductory talks and guided tours. They can also choose from a range of outdoor activities including beginner surfing and horse riding, and enjoy the warm and friendly atmosphere with festival visitors from all over the world. The festival program includes The Logues, The Henry Girls, and Johnny Gallagher and the Boxtie band. Dr Niamh Hamill, cultural director of the festival and she said; Lots of visitors to Ireland don't want a tourist experience, they want to immerse themselves in the local atmosphere. Bundoran Tourism Officer Shane Smyth said: We are delighted to have an event of this calibre in Bundoran in January. Our festival guests can look forward to an enjoyable, authentic visit to our beautiful town and see exactly what makes the town tick mid-winter. The programme that is lined up is an impressive one with activities that are bound to please everyone. For more information go to: www.atlanticirishfest.com Govt to extend Udan flights to international destinations The government is planning to extend its low-cost regional air connectivity scheme by connecting small airports in the country to international destinations, at subsidised rates. Modi governments Udan would be going international with flights to Thailand and Bangladesh for as low as Rs2,500, say reports, quoting sources in the aviation ministry. The Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (Udan) scheme is a subsidised low fare initiative to connect small cities and to help more people fly. The 'International Udan scheme will focus on the extension of the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) to international routes and destinations, sources said. This will be announced in the upcoming 3rd phase of Udan scheme. Under the scheme, Assam airports may get connectivity to Bangkok in Thailand and Kathmandu in Nepal. Similarly, Bihar airports may get direct connectivity to airports in Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar. A Zee Media report quoting sources said the Centre's plan has got a positive response from stakeholders. Besides Assam government which has already shown interest, airlines like Spicejet are also interested in flying to popular destinations like Bangkok. Airports in Bihar will get international extension by connecting to Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar, while airports in Tamil Nadu may get to operate flights to international destinations like Singapore, sources said. If the government moves according to plan, the aviation ministry will soon announce the scheme offering international flight tickets starting from Rs2,500. The government recently invited bids for the third phase of Udan scheme and received bids for 111 routes from 15 airlines. SpiceJet and IndiGo have bid for 37 routes and 20 routes in the third round of auctions. Ghodawat Enterprises Private Limited has bid for total of 15 routes in this round. Udan was launched in 2016 to make air travel affordable for people through subsidised ticket rates and to provide air connectivity to smaller towns. Five airlines were mandated to fly on 128 regional routes in the first phase of the bidding in March 2017, and 15 airlines on 325 regional routes, including those having chopper operations, in the second phase in January last year. Pakistan to scrap major CPEC power project The Imran Khan government in Pakistan has decided to scrap a major coal-based power project under the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, as enough generation capacity has been built under the bilateral economic cooperation initiative. Pakistan government has officially requested its Chinese friends to formally delete the project from the CPEC list, after Chinese investments under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) reached $26.5 billion, according to Pakistan media reports. Pakistan will have to pay $39.83 billion to China in 20 years in repayments of debt and dividends on the $28.43 bn CPEC investment, according to a report in the Express Tribune. This means that $11.4 billion will have to be paid in the shape of dividends to the investors, according to official estimates. The decision to scrap the 1,320 MW Rahim Yar Khan power project was taken at the 8th Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) meeting held last month. The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government of prime minister Imran Khan is reported to have officially conveyed to Beijing that it was no more interested in the project, the Dawn reported. Pakistani delegation led by minister for planning and development Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtyar "proposed to remove the Rahim Yar Khan imported fuel power plant (1,320MW) from the CPEC list, in order to provide structure optimisation space for the subsequent power market of Pakistan," the report quoted an official from the minutes of the 20 December meeting. The earlier government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had pushed for construction of the 1,320 MW Rahim Yar Khan power project under the CPEC, which would have left Pakistan in a capacity trap, according to reports. The CPEC, which connects Gwadar Port in Balochistan with China's Xinjiang province, is the flagship project of Chinese president Xi Jinping's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Pakistan government, which is already in a debt trap and is finding it difficult to meet budget requirements, is looking at ways to lessen the burden of the CPEC projects by alternative investments. The Imran Khan government has sought investments from Saudi Arabia to offset the impact of Chinese investments and the latter is reported to have agreed to set up a $10 billion oil refinery near the deepwater port of Gwadar, bein developed by China. Pakistan is also seeking financial support to tackle a soaring current account deficit caused partly by rising oil prices. Last year, Saudi Arabia offered Pakistan a $6 billion package that included help to finance crude imports. With a ban on fuel imports notified as early as June 2016, any addition of thermal power capacity would have been unviable and the Rahim Yar Khan and Muzaffargarh coal-based plants were already out of the CPEC priority list, reports said. The project was included again in the priority list in subsequent CPEC negotiations following pressure from Punjab government that had pushed for revival of the plant, say officials. In fact, the wrangling saw the unceremonious removal of the then power secretary and head of the National Transmission Company. The Imran Khan government is reported to be planning to remove nearly 400 "politically motivated" projects from the CPEC portfolio and these will come up for review later this month. However, the $8.2 billion Mainline-I Project of Pakistan Railways is expected to be taken up for implementation in the next few years. Subscriber content preview FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) A Florida man says people who contributed more than $20 million online to help build a wall along the southern U.S. border can get refunds or shift their support to a new nonprofit effort. Air Force veteran and triple amputee Brian Kolfage says on the GoFundMe page he started to raise money for President Donald Trump's wall that the nonprofit endeavor will be more successful. The message tells donors they can get a refund if they do nothing or direct their donation to the nonprofit. . . . Subscriber content preview Developers and businesses take out substantially more permits than farmers for projects impinging on wetlands and streams, and stand to reap the biggest relief from rollbacks. By ELLEN KNICKMEYER Associated Press WASHINGTON President Donald Trump pointed to farmers Monday as winners from the administration's proposed rollback of federal protections for wetlands and waterways across the country, describing farmers crying in gratitude when he ordered the change. But under longstanding federal law and rules, farmers and farmland already are exempt from most of the regulatory hurdles on behalf of wetlands that the Trump administration is targeting. Because of that, environmental groups long have argued that builders, oil and gas drillers, and other industry owners would be the big winners if the government adopts the pending rollback, making it easier to fill in bogs, creeks and streams for plowing, drilling, mining or building. . . . AwazToday.pk Privacy Policy: We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our Website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here. Disclaimer: AwazToday.pk is not responsible for any content linked to or referred to from these pages. All videos, live tvs, blogs or video links point to content hosted on third party websites or members. We are using third party links for live tvs. Users who upload these videos or blogs agree not to upload illegal content when creating their user accounts. AwazToday.pk does not accept responsibility for content hosted on third party websites or by the members. If you have any questions please contact us. Copyright 2000-2021 AwazToday.pk. All rights reserved unless where otherwise noted. By Charitha Pattiaratchi, Professor of Coastal Oceanography, University of Western Australia Flickr/LJ Mears , CC BY-NC-SA Many people in Australia will head to the beach this summer and thatll most likely include a dip or a plunge into the sea. But have you ever wondered where those ocean waters come from, and what influence they may have? Australia is surrounded by ocean currents that have a strong controlling influence on things such as climate, ecosystems, fish migrations, the transport of ocean debris and on water quality. We did a study, published in April 2018, that helps to give us a better understanding of those ocean currents. https://images.theconversation.com/files/222128/original/file-20180607-1... 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222128/original/file-20180607-1... 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222128/original/file-20180607-1... 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222128/original/file-20180607-1... 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/222128/original/file-20180607-1... 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"> Ems Wijeratne/Charitha Pattiaratchi/Roger Proctor Read more: New map shows that only 13% of the oceans are still truly wild Go with the flow: Indian Ocean Our 15 year simulation indicates that water from the Pacific Ocean enters the Indonesian Archipelago through the Mindanao current (north) and Halmahera Sea (south). It then enters the Indian ocean as the Indonesian Throughflow between many Indonesian Islands, with flow through the Timor Passage being the most dominant. Most of this water flows west as the South Equatorial Current. Re-circulation of the SEC creates the Eastern Gyre that contributes to the Holloway Current. This in turn feeds the Leeuwin Current the longest boundary current in the world (Ocean currents that flow adjacent to a coastline are called boundary currents) The Leeuwin Current is the major boundary current along the west coast and as it moves southward. Indian Ocean water is supplied by the South Indian Counter Current increasing the Leeuwin Current transport by 60%. The Leeuwin Current turns east at Cape Leeuwin, in Western Australias south-west, and continues to Tasmania as the South Australian and Zeehan Currents. https://images.theconversation.com/files/251682/original/file-20181220-4... 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251682/original/file-20181220-4... 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251682/original/file-20181220-4... 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251682/original/file-20181220-4... 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251682/original/file-20181220-4... 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"> Flickr/Cheng, CC BY-NC-ND There is a strong seasonal variation in the strength of the boundary currents in the Indian Ocean with a progression southwards of the peak transport along the coast. The Holloway Current peaks in April/May (coinciding with changes in the monsoon winds), the Leeuwin Current reaches a maximum along the west and south coasts in June and August. Read more: Climate change is slowing Atlantic currents that help keep Europe warm Go with the flow: Pacific Ocean In the Pacific Ocean, the northern branches of the South Equatorial Current are the main inputs initiating the Hiri Current and East Australian Current. At around latitude 15 degrees south the currents split in two: southward to form the East Australian Current, and northward to form the Hiri Current which contributes to a clockwise gyre in the Gulf of Papua. The East Australian Current is the dominant current in the region transporting 33 million cubic metres of water per second southward. At around 32S, the East Australian Current separates from the coast and 60% of the water flows eastward to New Zealand as the Tasman Front. The remaining 40% flows southward as the East Australian Current extension and contributes to the Tasman Outflow. The Tasman outflow is the major conduit of water from the Pacific to Indian Ocean and contributes to the Flinders Current, flowing westward from Tasmania and past Cape Leeuwin into the Indian Ocean. Along the southern continental slope, the Flinders Current appears as an undercurrent beneath the Leeuwin Current and a surface current further offshore. The Flinders Current contributes to the Leeuwin Undercurrent directly as a northward flow, flowing to the north-west of Australia in water depths 300 metres to 800 metres. Impact of the currents Understanding ocean circulation is a fundamental tenet of physical oceanography and scientists have been charting the pathways of ocean currents since the American hydrographer Matthew Maury, one of the founders of oceanography, who first charted the Gulf Stream in 1855. One of the first maps of circulation around Australia was by Halliday (1921) who showed the movement of warm and cold waters around Australia. Although some of the major features (such as the East Australian Current) were correctly identified, a more fine scale description is now available. https://images.theconversation.com/files/220615/original/file-20180528-8... 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220615/original/file-20180528-8... 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220615/original/file-20180528-8... 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220615/original/file-20180528-8... 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220615/original/file-20180528-8... 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"> The unique feature of ocean currents around Australia is that along both east and west coasts they transport warmer water southwards and influence the local climate, particularly air temperature and rainfall, as well as species distribution. Read more: Explainer: how the Antarctic Circumpolar Current helps keep Antarctica frozen For example, the south west of Australia is up to 5C warmer in winter and receives more than double the rainfall compared to regions located on similar latitudes along western coastlines of other continents. Similarly many tropical species of fish are found in the southwest of Australia that hitch a ride on the ocean currents. The Pacific Ocean is the origin of waters around Australia with a direct link to the east and an indirect link to west. Ocean water from the Pacific Ocean flows through the Indonesian Archipelago, a region subject to high solar heating and rainfall runoff, creating lower density water. This water, augmented by water from the Indian Ocean, flows around the western and southern coasts, converging along the southern coast of Tasmania. So next time you head for a dip in the coastal waters around Australian, spare a thought for where that water has come from and where it may be going next. https://images.theconversation.com/files/251464/original/file-20181219-2... 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251464/original/file-20181219-2... 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251464/original/file-20181219-2... 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251464/original/file-20181219-2... 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/251464/original/file-20181219-2... 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"> Flickr/Roderick Eime, CC BY-ND Charitha Pattiaratchi receives funding from the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) as part of National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme (NCRIS), Bushfire Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre and The Australian Research Council. Funding for this study was provided by the Australian National in Marine Science. Simulations presented in this article were performed using the Magnus computer located at Pawsey Supercomputing Centre. The study was funded by the Australian National Network in Marine Science. ozROMS simulation was performed using Magnus supercomputer, the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, access through the partner allocation scheme. Roger Proctor receives funding from the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) and the Australian National Data Service/National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources/Research Data Services as part of National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme (NCRIS), and from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority for a contract under the Reef Integrated Monitoring and Reporting project. He is also a shareholder and director of Tidetech Commercial Marine Pty Ltd ABN: 61 163 598 623. Originally published in The Conversation. Highlights: ISRO is working on reusable rocket technology. The space agency is developing a method to reuse the first and second stages of rockets. Elon Musks SpaceX managed to pull off something spectacular by making rockets that can land after being used and can be reused again. However, the Indian Space and Research Organisation (ISRO) also aims to accomplish the same with its Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) that it first tested on May 23, 2016. In a recent press briefing, ISRO Chairman, Dr K Sivan reiterated the space agencys agenda of making RLVs a reality and while SpaceX has managed to recover the first stage of a rocket, ISRO aims to go a step further by not only recovering the first but also the second stage of a rocket. Sivan also talked about Indias first manned mission flight, Gaganyaan, and said that the mission will be able to carry three Indian astronauts and will orbit the Earth for seven days. In a conversation about RLV, with TOI, Sivan said, We are working on a reusable launch technology in order to recover the first and second stages of a rocket so that we can reuse them to cut cost and carry heavier payloads. The first rocket stage will be recovered on a vertical landing spot on like SpaceX has been doing it with its Falcon rocket. However, recovering the second stage is not simple. We are, therefore, developing a winged body like a space shuttle. This shuttle will be attached as a second stage in a rocket. It will carry the top portion of the rocket comprising a second stage in a rocket. It will carry the top portion of the rocket comprising a satellite or spacecraft to space. Once it injects the satellite in its orbit, the shuttle will glide back to the earth and land on an airstrip like an aircraft." He adds, "second stage recovery has never been tried by any other space agency in the world, not even SpaceX". As mentioned above, ISRO previously tested its RLV in 2016. Back then, the HS9 solid rocket booster carrying RLV-Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) lifted off from the First Launch Pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. After 91.1 seconds, the HS9 burn out took place, after which both, HS9 and RLV-TD, reached to a height of about 56 km and then the RLV-TD separated from HS9 booster and again went up to a height of around 65km. The RLV-TD then descended back into the atmosphere, surviving re-entry, and glided down a defined landing spot over the Bay of Bengal. The next test will be conducted on June-July and it will be different as a helicopter is supposed to take the RLV to a considerable height and drop it. The shuttle is said to then glide back to Earth and land on an airstrip. The landing strip could be set in the Andaman and Nicobar islands but this is currently speculation. Related Reads: Gaganyaan, India's human spaceflight mission approved by cabinet Highlight: Samsung Galaxy S9 is now receiving new update. The update brings January security patch for the device along with many improvements. Samsung Galaxy S7 reportedly being seeded with the new January security patch. Samsung is rolling out a new update for its Galaxy S9 smartphone that brings the devices Android security patch to January 2019. The new patch also brings some notable improvements to the phones like optimisation of the phones front camera, its overall stability of functions and better security. Samsung states that after installing the update, the brightness of faces in backlit conditions will be improved. It remains to be seen how much the imaging capability of the phones front camera improves after the update. Additionally, SamMobile reports that the Samsung Galaxy S7, which was launched back in 2016, has also received the January security patch and it is being seeded to units globally. The new update for the Galaxy S7 is said to sport the software version G930FXXS3ERLF and also fixes three critical Android vulnerabilities. Additionally, the patch addresses a flaw that affected only Samsungs software. The patch is said to be an OTA rollout and should be made available for users over the course of a few days and the Galaxy S7 Edge should also receive the same update in a few days. Last month, Samsung announced the Android 9 Pie update for its Galaxy S9 and S9+ smartphones. Users of the two handsets in Germany received the update that brings the new Samsung OneUI interface. More Samsung devices should soon start receiving Android Pie update since the company recently revealed its Android 9 Pie update roadmap, along with the names of its smartphones and tablets that will be updated. Here's the list: Galaxy Note 9 (February 2019) Galaxy A8 2018, A8+, A7 2018, A9 2018, Tab S4 10.5 (April 2019) Galaxy S9 and S9+ (January 2019) Galaxy J4, J4+, J6, J6+, A8 Star (May 2019) Galaxy Xcover4, J3 2017, Tab S3 9.7 (September 2019) Galaxy Tab A 2017, Tab Active2, Tab A 10.5 (October 2019) Galaxy J7 2017 (July 2019) Galaxy J7 Duo (August 2019) The list reveals that Samsung will take its time to roll out the update across its portfolio of devices. Interestingly, only phones launched after 2017 will receive the Android 9 Pie update. This means the Galaxy S7 and the S7 Edge and older devices will not get the update, as both phones have received the promised two version updates. Related Reads: Samsung Galaxy S9, S9+ receiving Android 9 Pie update, other devices to get update in 2019 Highlights: The 5G variant of the Samsung Galaxy S10 may be called Galaxy S10 X It is expected to launch on March 29 in South Korea It is said to come with a total of six cameras There have been reports that Samsung will launch a 5G model of the Galaxy S10, however, there is no concrete information on the phone's launch date. Now, a report by the South Korean news platform ETnews has not only tipped at the name of the 5G model but also the launch date of both the Galaxy S10 LTE and the Galaxy S10 5G models. The report also suggests that the 5G model could sport a total of six cameras. ETnews says that Samsung Electronics' 5G model is expected to be called the Galaxy S10 X and will be dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Galaxy S series. The report notes that the X Roman numeral 10, and it also includes meanings such as experience (eXperience) and expansion (eXpand). The Galaxy S10 X is also said to have in-display fingerprint sensor, six cameras (two on the front and four at the back), and 1TB of local memory. As for the launch date of these smartphones, ETnews cited a Samsung Executive who reportedly said that the company will launch the LTE version in early March and the 5G model in Korea in late March. The report also says that the Galaxy S10 Lite, the Galaxy S10 and the Galaxy S10 Plus are scheduled to be released on March 8, and the Galaxy S10 X will launch on March 29 in South Korea. When it comes to the cost, the starting prices are likely to range from 800,000 won (approx Rs 50,600) to 900,000 (approx Rs 57,000) won for the Lite models and 1.6 million (approx Rs 1 lakh) to 1.8 million won (approx Rs 1.13 lakh) for the highest-priced models. Samsung will unveil the Galaxy S10 series of phones on February 20 at an Unpacked event in San Francisco. The company may also launch the final version of the foldable phone along with Galaxy S10 series. Related Read: Samsung may bring LPDDR5 RAM in upcoming Galaxy S10 smartphone series: Report Highlights: Samsung Pay Framework is reportedly causing high battery drain Force stopping the app or/and setting battery optimisation to Not optimized may temporarily fix the problem Samsung Pay, a mobile payment service by the South Korean tech company Samsung, made digital payments easy but now it is reportedly causing problems for some users. As per a Reddit thread, the Samsung Pay Framework is causing huge amount of battery drain, and in some cases, the battery drain is as high as 60 percent. Samsung Pay Framework is a pre-installed application on Samsung phones and it enables Samsung Pay support. Samsung phone users have complained that the framework is draining a considerable amount of battery from their phones. While some have uninstalled the app, those who use it, chose not to remove it and have found a temporary fix. One user says that even though he set the allow background activity to restricted, the battery drain did not show any improvements. So then, I thought... what if Samsung's own battery optimization stuff is conflicting with Samsung Pay Framework in some way, and making things worse?, he writes on the thread. The user then sets optimize battery usage to Not optimized and ironically found that it worked with WAY less battery consumption from the framework. Another user says that he has been mitigating the issue by force closing Samsung Pay Framework whenever he notices that it is running. He claimed that by doing this, the battery drain stopped and he got 30 percent left after 6 hours screen-on-time over 24 hours! Samsung is expected to roll out a permanent fix for this problem, till then you can try the above-mentioned methods to cut down the battery drain on your Samsung phones, in case you are experiencing the issue. Related Read: Samsung Galaxy Note 9 One UI beta releases in India and Germany Samsung is looking to regain the ground it has lost in India to Chinese device makers with a range of low-cost smartphones. To demonstrate its commitment to the market, Samsung is launching three brand new M-Series devices in India at the end of January. While primarily targeted towards the Indian market, the range will later be launched internationally, said Samsungs Indian mobile chief Asim Warsi. Warsi told Reuters that the devices would be available via Samsungs own website as well as Amazons Indian site a key point as the vendors online channels are a major revenue stream in India. He added that the range would be manufactured in India, in line with government efforts to push local production of components and devices. The M-Series has been built around and incepted around Indian millennial consumers, said Warsi, adding that the top end devices would cost around INR20,000 ($282) with the lower end models priced at under INR10,000. Statistics from Canalys saw Samsung ceding ground to Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi in the first half of 2018, with the two tied in first place in Q2 with 9.9 million units sold apiece. In July, Samsung began manufacturing at a new facility near New Delhi, and also opened its largest international mobile phone store. Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei has taken the uncommon step of briefing the media in response to the recent focus on the security of the companys products and its relationship with the Chinese government. The company founder has not given press interviews for years, but it was suggested that he may begin to provide briefings more frequently. In his statement at the companys headquarters in Shenzhen, Ren noted that Huawei was pursuing greater transparency. Following the lead of the US, several Western countries have recently introduced restrictions or flat-out bans on using Huawei equipment in 5G network build-outs, citing security concerns. In December last year, the companys rotating chairman Ken Hu implored governments to offer evidence for their concerns so that Huawei could adequately address them. Since Chinese individuals and companies are required to cooperate with the Communist Party of China (CPC) on matters relating to national security, overseas governments are concerned that this could lead to Huawei installing back door access upon the CPCs request for espionage purposes. Ren said that Huawei had no obligation to provide any such access, and added that the company had never been asked to supply a customers data to the Chinese government, saying we would definitely say no to any such request. Under the current law, the CPC would need to file a specific case to gain access to any of Huaweis customer data, rather than Huawei having to take action to block government inquests. When asked about the relationship between Huawei and the CPC, Ren responded: I love my country and I support the CPC, but I would never do anything to harm another country or another individual. Ren maintained that Huawei was a customer-focused enterprise that offers demonstrably secure networks, and noted that the concerns about security are based on suspicions rather than evidence. He also noted that the company would continue to make overtures towards the US market, where it is currently banned from selling largely due to a small number of senators who consider the company a security risk. On the US, Ren said: We dont know much about each other, and dont have channels to communicate with the US government. He added that Huawei would sell its equipment in other markets that could serve as examples to prove we are trustworthy. However, he did note that Chinas ongoing trade war with the US has not had a dramatic effect on Huawei, with the company forecasting 20% revenue growth for this year. He expects the vendor to fare better than compatriot ZTE, saying: we might face difficulties and challenges. But what happened to ZTE I believe will not happen to Huawei. Ren pointed to the 170 countries and 3 billion people - using Huawei equipment, and noted that the company performs strongly in terms of network reliability and security, saying: As long as we develop compelling products, I believe we will have customers. What matters is working to improve internal management, and improve products and services: thats the way to address challenges of the changing world. He also stated that the US and China diverging on standards for 5G technology would be detrimental in the long run as it would increase deployment costs, saying: unified standards, which the technology community has worked hard to forge, are a good example for the entire world to move to a more intelligent world. Personally, Im a supporter of strong global standards. There was one notable area about which Ren was tight-lipped: last months arrest in Canada of Huawei CFO and his daughter Meng Wanzhou. He merely said that since the case was ongoing he was not able to provide an official comment, but noted as a father I miss her very much. Bharti Airtel will sell some of its shares in its Tanzanian business to the countrys government to settle an ownership dispute and pave the way for a potential merger with Telkom Kenya. The Indian operator groups chairman Sunil Mittal told Reuters: We have in principle agreed to move forward with a new arrangement of shareholding of 51:49, where Airtel will now drop from 60% to 51% and the people of Tanzania through the ownership of the government of Tanzania will own 49%. In 2017, Tanzanias President John Magufuli claimed that the state-owned Tanzania Telecommunications Company was the owner of Airtels local unit. The Indian group refuted this, noting that its purchase of a 60% holding in Airtel Tanzania had been cleared by all the required authorities. In November 2018, the ownership row escalated when Bharti Airtel confirmed its intention to go ahead with an IPO of its African business, which consists of 14 units including Airtel Tanzania. The Tanzanian government declared that the offering would be illegal on the grounds that it had not been consulted in its capacity as a part-owner of Airtel Tanzania. In the face of this objection, Bharti Airtel stated that it had made its IPO plans known to the relevant authorities in Tanzania, and noted that it had no plans to change Airtel Tanzanias ownership structure. The dispute appears to have been resolved amicably, with Airtel agreeing not only to hand over more shares in the unit but also to pay dividends to the government. Magufuli welcomed the decision, noting that for eight to ten years we had not received [dividends] The percentage of dividends is still under discussion. Reaching this settlement appears to have rekindled Airtels interest in Telkom Kenya. Last June, the Indian group was discussing a possible merger of its Kenyan unit with the rival operator, but negotiations eventually collapsed after the companies failed to find common ground on their investment plans. However, a deal now appears to be back on the table, according to unnamed sources quoted by Reuters, with Helios Investment is looking to shift some or all of the 60% stake it owns in Telkom Kenya. SALT LAKE CITY William Barr, President Donald Trumps nominee for attorney general, began his confirmation hearings Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. If Barr is confirmed, he will, among other duties, oversee special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election and whether Trumps campaign colluded with the Kremlin. The Deseret News has compiled a list of five things to know about Barr. 1. Barr has already served as the United States Attorney General. Barr, 68, previously served as U.S. Attorney General from 1991 to 1993 under former President George H.W. Bush. While he was attorney general, he supervised Mueller, who at the time led the Justice Departments Criminal Division, according to ABC News. After leaving the Justice Department, Barr served as the general counsel of Verizon before joining Kirkland and Ellis, a Washington, D.C., law firm. Barr received bachelors and masters degrees from Columbia University and a J.D. from George Washington Universitys School of Law. 2. Last year, Barr shared a controversial memo questioning the validity and integrity of Mueller's investigation into whether Russia interfered with the 2016 election and colluded with Trump's campaign. Some senators have expressed concern over Barrs nomination, especially after he shared a controversial memo last year with Trump's lawyers that seemed to articulate opposition to Mueller's Russia investigation. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, have suggested that Barr recuse himself from the investigation due to the memo. In the memo, Barr wrote that the aspect of Muellers investigation that looked into Trumps potential collusion with the Russia in the 2016 election was fatally misconceived. Barr argued that Trumps decision to fire then-FBI Director James Comey should not be considered an obstruction of justice. The attorney general nominee has since clarified his intentions in writing the memo, explaining that it was narrow in scope and only addressed a single obstruction-of-justice theory under a specific federal statute, according to CNN. 3. Barr said Tuesday he believes Mueller needs to continue his investigation into Russian interference and Trump's connections with Russia. During Tuesday's hearing, senators were eager to hear Barr's stance on the Russia investigation and ask questions about the memo. However, Barr started the hearing by saying he believes the investigation should continue, apparently revising his prior opinion. In Barrs pre-written opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, obtained by CNN, he wrote, First, I believe it is vitally important that the Special Counsel be allowed to complete his investigation. I have known Bob Mueller personally and professionally for 30 years ... knowing him, I had confidence he would handle the matter properly. I still have that confidence today. He continued, At the same time, the President has been steadfast that he was not involved in any collusion with Russian interference in the election. I believe it is in the best interest of everyone the President, Congress, and most importantly, the American people that this matter be resolved by allowing the Special Counsel to complete his work. In addition, Barr appeared to disagree with Trumps prior characterization of Muellers investigation as a witch hunt, telling the committee, I dont believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt. Barr added that he is in favor of making the results of the investigation public. 4. Barr has a history of being tough on crime. While serving as attorney general under former president George H.W. Bush, Barr was well-known for his tough-on-crime stance. As attorney general, Barr helped create federal policies that strengthened the war on drugs and mass incarceration, according to Vox. He retained this mindset after he left the Department of Justice, when he signed a 2015 letter encouraging Senate leaders not to advance a sentencing reform bill and published an opinion column in the Washington Postin November 2018 in which he applauded former Attorney General Jeff Sessions stance on crime, Vox reported. Sessions has often been criticized for not supporting criminal justice reform, including the bipartisan First Step Act passed in late 2018, which reforms federal prison sentencing guidelines. When asked during his hearing if he maintains a similar stance on crime, Barr replied, I dont think comparing the policies that were in effect in 1992 to the situation now is really fair. I think the time was right (in 2018) to take stock and make changes to our penal system based on current experience, so I have no problem with the approach of reforming the sentencing structure and I will faithfully enforce that law. Barr has also faced scrutiny for supporting Bushs decision to pardon six U.S. government officials involved in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s, CNN reported. This has sparked concern that a similar situation might arise with Trump, who has said he has the ability to pardon anyone for any reason including in the Russia investigation. During the hearing, Barr said it would be a crime for the president to pardon someone in exchange for keeping their lips sealed, Business Insider reported. 5. Barr already has plans for what the Justice Department should focus on if he's confirmed. The New York Times reported that Barr plans for the Justice Department to take a closer look at Silicon Valley megacompanies like Facebook and Google to determine if they are violating antitrust laws. In addition, Barr suggested a shift in focus when he said that despite "the fixation on Russia," he believes "the primary rival of the United States is China" and needs to be addressed. He also seemed to support the construction of a "barrier" between the United States and Mexico. "Heroin, fentanyl, all the serious drugs are coming across that border. And, again, I feel it is a critical part of border security that we need to have barriers on the border. We need a barrier system on the border to get control over the border," Barr said during the hearing. Barr also said he would prioritize "election integrity" by ensuring voting rights and protections. Whats next? Barrs testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee will continue through January 16. The committee will then send the nomination to the full Senate for a vote on whether to confirm him. To be confirmed, Barr will need the votes of a simple majority. SALT LAKE CITY The voter-approved ballot initiative expanding Medicaid coverage to some 150,000 low-income Utahns would be repealed and replaced by a more limited plan under a bill being drafted for the 2019 Legislature. "We're going to make the program work within the money the proposition provided," the bill's sponsor, Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, told the Deseret News Tuesday. He said the funding provided by Proposition 3 falls short. It raises the state's 4.7 percent sales tax rate 0.15 percent in April money that's expected to bring $800 million in federal matching funds to the state for the full Medicaid expansion available under the Affordable Care Act. Christensen said the sales tax increase will only collect $88 million the first year, although $105 million is needed. By 2023, he said legislative analysts have calculated the expansion program would fall $45 million short. So the plan he and Rep. Jim Dunnigan, R-Taylorsville, are putting together for legislative leadership limits coverage to those earning anything below the federal poverty level about $12,000 instead of 138 percent of that amount, which would be less than $17,000. But Christensen said the state will once again seek a federal waiver from the Trump administration to get the same 90:10 federal funding match offered to states that accept full expansion even though they've tried and failed before. The 2018 Utah Legislature approved a similar plan to partially expand Medicaid coverage to about 70,000 Utahns. But the federal government never approved the needed waiver so the coverage never became available. Rep. Ray Ward, R-Bountiful, a longtime supporter of expanding Medicaid coverage, said there's no reason to believe the administration will be ready to approve a waiver. He said an answer could take nearly a year. "The voters clearly wanted people to get coverage and that's really important," Ward said. "Whatever path we chose to go forward needs to not repeal coverage for those people. It is not acceptable to have a temporary repeal." Christensen, however, sees it differently. "The other way, we would put a bunch of people on Medicaid and turn around and take them back off again," the senator said, adding that he hopes to work out a "default" that would permit the expansion to take place if the White House fails to act. "We're going to expand Medicaid, come hell or high water, or the Trump administration," Christensen said, promising new "safeguards" for the administration will be built into the bill, including enrollment caps. Last July,the New York Times reported that the White House was warned in a confidential memo that there was a "significant risk" Utah voters would approve full Medicaid expansion without action on the waiver by the Trump administration. The memo said that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services "believes allowing partial expansion would result in significant savings over the 10-year budget window compared to full Medicaid expansion by all," the newspaper reported. But President Donald Trump chose not to make a decision on any waivers. Among the administration opponents of allowing a partial expansion, the Times said, was White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, now also acting chief of staff. Christensen said the bill is expected to be heard in committee on Jan. 29, the second day of the upcoming legislative session. Other bills that would simply repeal the ballot initiative are also being drafted, he said, declining to name those sponsors. Details of the much-anticipated legislation comes as the loudest applause at United Way's legislative preview breakfast Tuesday was for the "remarkable step" taken by voters to approve Medicaid expansion. United Way President and CEO Bill Crim told the Grand America Hotel ballroom audience that the organization believes Utahns who need the federal program should "receive it as planned in April." The Legislature's incoming Republican leaders, Senate President Stuart Adams of Layton and House Speaker Brad Wilson of Kaysville, offered no specifics during a panel discussion but both expressed concerns about the cost. "We need to be careful with what we do," Adams said, warning that if the Medicaid budget expands, money might be diverted from schools. He said lawmakers need "to make sure we don't bankrupt ourselves." Wilson promised any plan would "look very similar to what the voters passed, if we do anything," noting Utahns made it clear in the election they want coverage for everyone and were willing to increase their taxes to pay for the program. "But we also have to remember the Legislature has a constitutionally mandated responsibility to balance the budget every year. So we've got to look at that and make sure we have some safeguards in place," he said. The incoming speaker warned that funding for other social services needs as well as education could be jeopardized and said any action needs to be done "in a way that it doesn't become a budget buster like it's done in some other states." Democratic House and Senate leaders backed the expansion plan approved in November. House Minority Leader Brian King, D-Salt Lake City, got a round of applause for saying Utah "can't afford to wait" on any changes being approved by the federal government before extending coverage. King said lawmakers already have missed the opportunity to get hundreds of millions of dollars available under the more generous federal match offered for Medicaid expansion "because we were not courageous enough. We were not smart enough." The Salt Lake County Council voted later Tuesday to approve a resolution supporting the voter-approved Medicaid expansion and urging the Legislature against doing anything different. County Councilwoman Jenny Wilson a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully against now Sen. Mitt Romney sponsored the resolution, calling the Legislatures yearslong failure to fully expand Medicaid one of its biggest misses. County Council Republicans voted in favor of the resolution, but some gave what Councilman Steve DeBry called a tepid yes, expressing hesitance because of future financial costs of full expansion. Contributing: Katie McKellar SALT LAKE CITY The Utah Driver License Division shared Utahns' personal identifying information with three state agencies in violation of state law, a new audit shows. The state auditor's office also found the division provided three other agencies more of drivers' private data than allowed under the law. From our perspective, the driver license division could take steps to better protect personally identifiable information," State Auditor John Dougall said. "In an era when the security and privacy of personal information is already at significant risk, state agencies must be careful to limit sharing of information and must review compliance with the restrictions placed on the use and storage of sensitive information. The driver license division may only disclose drivers' personal information when it determines it is in the best interest of public safety. The law also allows the division to provide limited information to some entities. Auditors found the division improperly shared drivers' private information with the State Tax Commission, the Utah population database at the University of Utah and the Office of State Debt Collection. The division also gave the lieutenant governor's office, the Utah Department of Veterans and Military Affairs, and Intermountain Donor Services more information than the law permits, according to the audit. Improperly shared information includes names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, drivers' licenses numbers, gender, physical characteristics, addresses of people "undecided" about organ donation and license issue dates of "individuals who have outstanding debt" with the state debt collection office, the audit says. In a written response to the audit, the driver license division said it understands the disclosure of drivers' personal data should be limited due to the sensitive nature of the information. But the division contends the law is open to interpretation and that the Utah Legislature should clarify the language. Auditors recognized that interpretations could differ and agreed the Legislature should clarify the law. The audit says the driver license division should stop sharing drivers' personal data and other information not allowed by law and where there is no public safety interest. It recommended the division tell applicants for licenses what personal information may be shared and with whom it may be shared. The law specifically permits the division to provide drivers' private data to licensed private investigators with a legitimate business need; auto insurance companies; organ donor organizations; other states' licensing authorities; specific Utah government agencies; and the U.S. Department of Defense. The auditor's office said it expects to release a second report on the driver license database in six months, allowing the division time to correct any issues identified in the audit. Youth apostolate and pastoral priorities were the seminars main points with discussions focusing, among others, on "Youth and vocation". Mgr Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi referred to the October Synod: "Walking together, listening to us and moving forward in prayer". Tokyo (AsiaNews) More than 300 people took part in the New Year's Assembly of Women Religious of the Archdiocese of Tokyo, which was held on 12 January at St Ignatius Parish in Tokyos Yotsuya district. In the morning, Mgr Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, archbishop of the capital, officiated a Thanksgiving Mass. The youth apostolate and other pastoral priorities of the archdiocese were the main points of discussion of the seminar that followed the service until three pm. The topics discussed included "Youth and vocation". Mgr Kikuchi shared with the sisters a reflection from last Octobers 15th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, dedicated to the theme "Youth, faith and vocational discernment". In particular, the prelate cited Pope Francis final message. In t, the pontiff points to a path of faith that combines listening, proximity and testimony. In a note posted online at the end of the Assembly, Mgr Kikuchi stressed how "participants and young people strove to listen to each other while walking along the road, guided by the Holy Spirit to discern, and aimed at responding to the call of God". "Even in the parish of Tokyo, in establishing the policy of missionary officiating, I would like [for us] to walk together, listen to each other, and move forward in prayer to identify [one another], said the archbishop. [Photo credit: Facebook profile Mgr Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi] The largest religious gathering anywhere on earth gets under way Tuesday, with tens of millions of Hindu pilgrims congregating in India to bathe in sacred rivers for the Kumbh Mela. Indian devotees take a dip on the banks of the Triveni Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers, as people gather for the Kumbh Mela festival in Allahabad on January 14, 2019. [Photo: AFP/Chandan Khanna] Organisers are expecting the enormous spiritual festival in Allahabad to attract more than 100 million devotees over the next 48 days, with seas of pilgrims camped by the riverside. The ancient city in northern Uttar Pradesh state rises alongside the banks of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers. The confluence of the three -- known as Sangam -- is considered especially holy and Hindus believe bathing there during the Kumbh helps cleanse sins and brings salvation. "This pilgrimage gives me peace of mind and an opportunity to reflect on my life," said Sangeeta Gangotri, a pilgrim who travelled 650 kilometres (403 miles) from Nagpur in western Maharashtra state to Allahabad. The riverbank has transformed into a riot of noise and colour. Indian devotees take a dip on the banks of the Triveni Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers, as people gather for the Kumbh Mela festival in Allahabad on January 14, 2019. [Photo: AFP/Chandan Khanna] Naked, dread-locked holy men smeared in ash and sadhus clad in saffron robes wander the crowds, offering blessings to pilgrims who have travelled from every corner of India for the ritual dip. "All the Gods descend on this sacred place during this period. This is the most auspicious event for any human being," said Chandhans Pandey, a 60-year-old devotee. "I have been planning to attend (for) many years." The last major gathering in Allahabad in 2013 drew 120 million devotees, organizers said -- with 30 million plunging into the holy waters on a single auspicious day. Nearly 30,000 police have been deployed to oversee crowds for the huge undertaking, and prevent stampedes that have marred previous gatherings. An Indian Hindu Sadhu (holy man) sits outside his tent as he smokes ahead of the Kumbh Mela festival in Allahabad on January 13, 2019. [Photo: AFP/SANJAY KANOJIA] A tent city with restaurants, roads and marketplaces has sprung up along the river, with pilgrims camped out across a sprawling 45-square kilometre zone specially earmarked for the Kumbh. "More people are drawn to the Kumbh now," Ganeshanand Bharamachari, a 78-year-old pilgrim from nearby Varanasi and a Kumbh veteran, told AFP. "People, mostly from cities, are becoming increasingly religious because the western life they were living has not led them anywhere." The Uttar Pradesh state government, led by a firebrand Hindu priest, has heavily promoted this year's Kumbh, which comes as India prepares for a general election in April and May. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party is in power in Uttar Pradesh, visited Allahabad in December to inaugurate a high-tech command centre to manage the Kumbh. An Indian devotee carries bottles full of Ganga water on the banks of the Triveni Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers, as people gather for the Kumbh Mela festival in Allahabad on January 14, 2019. [Photo: AFP/Chandan Khanna] The historic city was even renamed Prayagraj in October by the state's conservative government, stripping its centuries-old Muslim moniker and replacing it with an ancient Hindu title. But the city is still widely known as Allahabad, the name given by Islamic rulers that reigned over India hundreds of years ago. The Mela, which runs until March 4, was recognised as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2017. WASHINGTON Sony and Marvel released the first trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home, the new sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming. The film, which presumably happens after Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, shows Peter Parker (Tom Holland) heading on a school vacation with his friends and classmates. He decides to leave his suit behind. Little does he know that Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is there to rope Spider-Man back into the fray. Watch the trailer below. Warning: Mild language appears at the end of the trailer after the title appears. As youll see in the trailer, Jake Gyllenhaal makes an appearance as the villain Mysterio. This confirms rumorsthat have hovered around the film for a few years. Gyllenhaal and Holland first explained plot details together at a comic convention in Brazil back in December. Who is Mysterio?: Mysterio, despite his odd appearance, is actually one of the biggest Spider-Man villains who has yet to make an appearance in any of Sonys Spider-Man films. The villain can create illusions and gadgets that can take on many of Spider-Mans abilities with ease. The two have constantly been at war since Spider-Man first put on his suit. The fictional character Quentin Beck has been Mysterio for most of the comic book's history, even though other people have put on the suit for the role, IGN reports. Similar to Dr. Strange, Mysterio can blur the line between reality and fantasy, to the point where his work seems almost supernatural in nature, according to IGN. There was even one version of Mysterio who was a mutant with the power to teleport and to take control of other people's bodies, IGN reported. Why it matters: Mysterio will make for an interesting villain for the Spider-Man sequel according to Den of Geek, a pop culture website. The character will allow for plenty of action possibilities given his powers just look at the trailer for an example and could show off a different version of a villain than the Vulture (Michael Keaton) as seen in Homecoming. Also: Mysterios ability to bend and blur reality may have a substantial effect on Parker. The thought of his loved ones (including Marisa Tomeis Aunt May and all of his chums from school) being endangered and/or killed is exactly the kind of thing that would keep Peter up at night, and Mysterio can create an illusion to show him exactly that, according to Den of Geek. Likewise, if he wants to dredge up the biggest regret from Peters past, Mysterio could create a lifelike projection of Uncle Ben, who weve yet to see in this universe. Seeing his friendly neighborhood destroyed would also mess with Peters mind. (Of course, a lot of these ideas hinge on Mysterio working out Spider-Mans secret identity, which isnt exactly a sure thing.) A look at the tape: There are plenty of videos on YouTube that show Spider-Man and Mysterio battling. Heres one that really hits home: SALT LAKE CITY A crowdfunding campaign to subsidize President Donald Trump's proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall raised more than $20 million in donations. But now all that money will be refunded unless the donors want to give again. "We The People Will Build the Wall," as the fundraiser was called, began last month on the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe. It went viral as Trumps effort to get Congress to fund the wall to the tune of $5.6 billion has prompted a political standoff resulting in the longest government shutdown in United States history currently on its 26th day. Last week, Trump addressed the nation in a primetime television address in an attempt to persuade Americans that a humanitarian and security crisis at the border must be addressed before the shutdown ends. Whether or not a border crisis actually exists has been debated by politicians and pundits. [Fact check: Is there an immigration crisis at the border as President Trump claims? Here's what we found] Brian Kolfage, a triple amputee Air Force veteran, started the GoFundMe campaign in hopes of providing $1 billion to pay for Trumps wall, The New York Times reported. Kolfage said on his campaign page that he was tired of watching the U.S. governments inability to secure our southern border," CNN reported. More than 325,000 donors contributed to the campaign, raising more than $20 million. But the fundraiser, GoFundMe told CNN, was designed to be all or nothing. When the campaign was created, the campaign organizer specifically stated on the campaign page, If we dont reach out goal or come significantly close we will refund every single penny,' Bobby Whitmore, a spokesman for GoFundMe, told CNN. He also stated on the campaign page, 100 percent of your donations will go to the Trump Wall. If for ANY reason we dont reach our goal we will refund your donation.' That did not happen. This means all donors will receive a refund. In a note posted on the campaigns webpage on Friday, Kolfage said the federal government would not be able to accept donations anytime soon, according to The New York Times. Kolfage told The New York Times that donating to the government would have required Congress approval, and he said a Democratic-controlled Congress would not give it to him. In its place, Kolfage formed a Florida nonprofit organization called We Build the Wall, Inc. that will use donations to fund a private effort to build portions of the wall where private landowners permit construction. Kolfage is asking donors to redirect their donations to the nonprofit. But he will honor the refund immediately or will automatically return the money to donors in 90 days if donors dont choose to transfer their donations to the new platform, The New York Times reported. Kolfage told The New York Times he didnt know how many donors would want to transfer their donations to the nonprofit. But on his updated GoFundMe page, Kolfage wrote when Americans see us completing real miles of beautiful wall, we know that we will raise the many billions we need to finally secure the entire border. Typically, GoFundMe campaigns can still collect money even if they dont reach their goal, according to The New York Times. The Department of Homeland Security and the Trump administration did not respond to requests for comment Friday on the possibility of a privately funded effort to build the wall, according to The New York Times. What people are saying about the campaign Some immigration advocacy groups have criticized the GoFundMe campaign as a xenophobic result of fearmongering about immigrants, The New York Times stated. Some started competing GoFundMe fundraisers to drum up donations for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or Raices, a Texas nonprofit. The wall remains the wrong direction for us as a country, something that will not help advance any of our national interests and that would only serve to further harm vulnerable refugees and immigrants seeking protection in our country," Jonathan Ryan, president and chief executive of Raices, told The New York Times. Kolfage himself has also come under scrutiny. A BuzzFeed News investigation published on Jan. 10 cast suspicion upon some of Kolfages past uses of funds generated through GoFundMe campaigns: (Kolfage) used GoFundMe to collect $16,246 for a veteran mentorship program. The campaign closed in February 2015, and the funds went directly to Kolfage. But representatives for all three medical centers told BuzzFeed News that they have no record of any peer-mentoring programs or Kolfage working with patients at their centers, the news outlet stated. NBC News also published an expose of Kolfages past internet activity, which included running a website that promoted debunked conspiracy theories. Kolfage posted a video response to media reports about the refund Monday. "Rumors of our demise have been greatly exaggerated," Kolfage said in a statement. "Our team is thrilled with the positive response of our donors despite media attempts to confuse the situation. Before announcing the new plan, I worked closely with GoFundMe to make sure that we offered original donors a fair process to approve of the new plan that honors We Build the Wall Inc.'s spirit of disclosure, full transparency, and overall business ethics." Are there other ways for Trump to fund the wall without Congress' approval? The White House has floated options for freeing up funding for the wall without needing Congress' signature including declaring a national emergency. "We can call a national emergency and build it very quickly," Trump said Jan. 4. But its unclear if doing so would actually allow the president to free up the requisite cash. For example, under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the president has the authority to declare an immigration emergency, and an Immigration Emergency Fund exists for this purpose. But the law only approves $20 million for the fund on an annual basis, USA Today reported. Thats far less than the $5.6 billion Trump is asking for the wall. Its also likely that such an aggressive move would be face legal challenges, the New York Times reported. [Deseret News analysis: Can Trump declare a national emergency?] In an op-ed published Monday, Julian Zelizer of Princeton University and Michael Zeldin, a CNN legal analyst, advocated for what they call a border wall solution Trump hasnt thought of. If ... a national emergency really exists, as our president insists, then he should take his case directly to the American people and look for other ways to pay for a wall ways that do not require the use of pre-existing taxpayer dollars, they wrote. They proposed that the president issues wall bonds, or government-issued debt securities, to fund the wall, an idea borrowed from the first half of the 20th century, when President Woodrow Wilson and President Franklin Roosevelt rallied the public to pay for national emergency programs by issuing bonds and imposing higher taxes. After all, the best measure of support for a government program is whether the public is willing to pay for the program, they wrote. Floating the idea of wall bonds would allow the president to see how much support truly exists to build a border wall paid for by Americans. History has shown that when the public believes a national emergency exists, they are willing to step up to the plate. A 2018 survey by the Pew Research Center found that a 56 percent majority opposes substantially expanding the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. WASHINGTON On a narrow wall of Rep. John Curtis congressional office hangs a framed front page of the Jerusalem Post. Curtis, a Republican representing Utahs 3rd Congressional District, was a student in BYUs study abroad program in Israel, working the banana fields on a kibbutz in the Galilee, when President Jimmy Carter witnessed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin sign a historic peace treaty on March 26, 1979. He picked up a copy of the newspaper chronicling the event and has hung on to it ever since. That is very symbolic of what can be done in an environment where there was a severe lack of trust, Curtis said, describing the framed clipping featuring a photo of the three leaders clumsily stacking all six of their hands together in celebration. It's debatable whether the ongoing government shutdown over U.S. border security is as high stakes as Middle East peace in the 1970s. But some in Utah's congressional delegation say today's stalemate is a consequence of eroding trust among political leaders and between those leaders and the voters who put them in power. "What the founders intended for our government is a system where debate and disagreement happens. And out of that disagreement comes consensus," said Rep. Ben McAdams, D-Utah, who served in the state Senate and as Salt Lake County mayor before his election to Congress in November. "But right now, I think what's lacking is trust, so neither side can negotiate because there's no trust. And that's broken Washington, right there." Utah's congressional delegation shared their views on trust before an event Monday at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., on integrity and trust in government, sponsored by the Deseret News. Elder D. Todd Christofferson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Council of the Twelve Apostles, famed journalist Bob Woodward, an associate editor of The Washington Post, and Michael Dimock, president of the Pew Research Center, discussed the lessons of Watergate and the public perception of trust and integrity in government. The event was attended by Curtis, McAdams, and Sens. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney of Utah, lawmakers both praised and criticized for their role in Washington and the efforts they can make to get Washington moving again. Declining confidence American confidence in its institutions has been in steady decline since Gallup first measured it in 1973, in the wake of the Watergate scandal that toppled the presidency. In that year, 42 percent of Americans had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in Congress. Last year, 11 percent of Americans felt the same. That's up from 7 percent in 2014, but it didn't change the legislative branch's dead last ranking among the 14 institutions Gallup measured, which include the military, religious institutions and newspapers. Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, said he noticed the decline long before he was first elected in 2012. But the past election marked a particular moment for him when he heard people in government say "the people made a mistake" in whom they elected as president and Congress needs to correct that. "Government has to trust the people and the people have to trust the government. We've seen fundamental breakdowns in both of those," he said. Romney attributes the decline in trust in government to the divisiveness that dominates today's politics. "I think our politics have become too low, too vulgar, too mean, too divisive," the 2012 GOP presidential candidate said. "It's good politics to divide but it's bad for the country to divide. And I think it's important for leaders of all kinds to help bring us together and unite us more behind common beliefs and a common vision." Romney sounded almost surprised recounting how he met with senators from both parties shortly after his November election and came away with a sense of unity among his new colleagues. "Both Democrats and Republicans almost to a person said, 'You know what, we get along a lot better than the public perception would suggest, and we can get things done across the aisle.'" He noted the bipartisan criminal justice overhaul spearheaded by Lee as one example of how Congress can unite behind policy changes. The First Step Act was signed by the president in late December. Agree to disagree Lee, who was elected in the same year that tea party candidates arrived to shake up a Congress that they believed was too congenial, waxes philosophical about trust and how it is earned. He recalled during his time as a law clerk for federal 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Samuel Alito, who would later be appointed to the Supreme Court, hearing the late Justice Antonin Scalia say "to understand is to forgive." "And I think that is closely related to the concept of trust. When you understand someone else's viewpoint, it goes a long way toward having the ability to empathize with them and not take offense," Lee said. "If you understand someone that should enable you to respect differences of opinion and work with them, even if you're working against what they believe in ... and that enables you to have a degree of respect and civility that might not otherwise exist." McAdams said he learned trust is the "currency of government" as a state senator a minority Democrat working with a super majority of Republicans. He recalled hammering out the Utah Compact a set of principles lawmakers would follow in addressing immigration issues with people who had differing opinions on a divisive, emotional topic. "And because we trusted that the goal was to find consensus and not to land a punch or embarrass somebody, we were actually able to have candid conversations and find a path forward that was acceptable," he said. But that's not what the public prefers from its lawmakers, according to Pew Research Center. A survey in March showed Americans are more inclined to prefer politicians who stick to their positions than those who make compromises with people they disagree with(53 percent vs. 44 percent.) "This marked a reversal from July 2017, when nearly 6 in 10 Americans (58 percent) said they preferred politicians who compromised and 39 percent said they preferred politicians who stick to their positions," Pew stated. The data showed Republicans were historically less inclined to prefer elected leaders who compromised, but last year showed no difference among Democrats and Republicans. Pity or respect Whether they used the terms compromise, consensus, understanding, unity or common ground, Utah's congressmen and senators explained that trusting people you don't agree with doesn't mean compromising personal principles. In fact, the people willing to cut deals or follow party leadership at the expense of their principles are those he doesn't trust, said Rep Rob Bishop, R-Utah and dean of the delegation having served in Congress 15 years and another 25 years in Utah's Legislature. "You trust people who are consistent," he said. "If I know somebody will always be the same kind of person and give you the same kind of reliable approach, even if I don't agree with that, at least there is a greater respect for that position." He said politicians who worry whether a vote will cost them re-election or support are more pitied than respected. "A good congressman's or a good senator's first responsibility is to do the right thing," Bishop said, "so you can look in the mirror in the morning and know that you are not a sellout." He said the variable that has changed the most to maintaining trust in government in his career has been the media. The internet's upheaval of mass media has created a more partisan business model that has eliminated neutral sources of news for him. "Everyone is going after a niche market, so I'm more skeptical of the media as time goes on," he said. While Congress has reached a low point in public confidence and this new era of divided government has resulted in a record-long shutdown of many federal agencies, the country has periods of broken trust in more dire circumstances, said Stewart, an author whose has written two books on tipping points in political history. He cited the political rancor at the turn of the 19th century and the years preceding the Civil War as examples. Both periods were followed by a war that eventually reunited the country and its government. "I'm not suggesting war is the only event that can bring us together," he said. "But I have come to the conclusion that something meaningful is going to have to compel us to want to work together to remind us that we're Americans and to break down some of these cultural barriers that we are raising." Curtis could add Carter's brokering peace between Israel and Egypt to the times when trust was necessary to break an impasse. The framed clipping on his wall reminds him of the role trust plays in his job in Congress. "I've learned whether it's business or government or really any relationships, trust is like that little drop of oil on the cogs in the machinery that just makes things go." WASHINGTON, D.C. When Bob Woodward learned that Richard Nixon had been pardoned, the reporter whose investigation led to the presidents resignation believed the pardon was improper, the final corruption of Watergate. A quarter of a century later, Woodward learned the truth: In pardoning his predecessor, Gerald Ford wasnt making good on a shady deal that would give him the presidency, but saving the scandal-weary country from a protracted investigation, at personal cost. What Ford did was gutsy and not corrupt, Woodward said Monday evening at an event sponsored by the Deseret News, Integrity & Trust: Lessons from Watergate and Today. The realization also taught Woodward a lesson: the importance of not rushing to judgment. How humbling. How humiliating, he said. Because, quite frankly, I would have staked my life in 1974 that this (pardon) was corrupt, and you look at it 25 years later through the lens of history, and its the opposite. Its courage." Speaking to about 450 people in the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue, Woodward was joined by Elder D. Todd Christofferson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, brought together by the Deseret News for their connection to Watergate, and Michael Dimock, president of Pew Research Center. All three have a conviction to their principles exemplifying integrity and trust. Elder Christofferson, as a clerk for the late John J. Sirica, was among the first to hear the recordings that revealed Nixons involvement in the Watergate break-in and cover-up. Elder Christofferson remembered the day he first heard the recordings along with Sirica, the U.S. district judge who presided over the trials. It was, he recalled, a somber moment dark with disbelief, he said, "a blow to the gut." I remember the shock that both the judge and I felt in that moment, Elder Christofferson said. We were so discouraged, we went home early that day. We had no heart to do anything else. We knew what would happen several months later. The experience, Elder Christofferson said, made him question his own choice of career, given that several people caught up in the scandal were lawyers. But he was temporarily discouraged, not disillusioned, and ultimately, the experience inspired him to adhere more closely to the ethical standards he was taught as a child. I resolved to be more committed to the teachings of my youth," Elder Christofferson said. The conversation, which took place less than two miles from the White House, was profound in its emphasis on integrity and its importance in civic life. Opening the discussion, which was moderated by Boyd Matheson, opinion editor of the Deseret News, Dimock said Pew Research Center has found a sustained decline in how Americans view their government and their elected representatives on the national level. The decline, he said, was steepest in the years after Nixon resigned, but the number of people who say they trust government to do what is right always or most of the time has been low for a decade. It bottomed out in 2008 and never recovered, Dimock said, adding that partisanship does not account for the low levels of trust. Regardless of how they view the role of government, Americans are expressing fundamental doubts about the fairness of the electoral system, and they are cynical about the honor and motivations of elected officials, he said. Even more concerning, Dimock said, is that they not only distrust politicians, but increasingly dont trust their fellow citizens to make wise decisions. Only 34 percent of Americans believe the country has a knowledgeable and wise electorate, he said. The increasing level of mistrust is occurring amid a massive escalation of partisan hostility, and a fundamental reshaping of how information is delivered, Dimock added. As a result, the angriest voices are rising to the surface, people increasingly disagree about facts, and fewer people have confidence that Americans share common values. For people in power, a sense of destiny can give way to a sense of entitlement and hubris, which is something that Katharine Graham, the late publisher of The Washington Post, warned Woodward and his colleague Carl Bernstein about in a personal letter. My advice is, beware the demon pomposity, Graham wrote. Even Nixon, as he was departing the White House in 1974, revealed a kind of self-understanding that we dont necessarily associate with Nixon, Woodward said. Giving an unscripted farewell address in the East Wing, a sweating and emotional Nixon said, Always remember, others may hate you but those who hate you dont win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself. Think of the wisdom at that moment, Woodward said. ... Its not only a political lesson, but also a wonderful lesson for all of us. Hating in the end doesnt destroy your enemy; its the hating that destroys you. Woodward and Bernstein pounded out their Watergate articles on typewriters that spat out an original and five carbon copies; today people type into their phone and can instantly broadcast what they wrote around the world, with no fact-checking. However, Woodward, who has written 19 books including 2018s Fear, an accounting of Donald Trumps White House, said he still plays by the rules of reporting that he followed in the 1970s, knocking on doors at night to ask hard questions, even in his 70s. He told the story of calling one source for Fear at 11 p.m. When the person asked him to call the office the next day, Woodward asked if he could come over right then, saying, Im only four minutes away. Thats how he got an interview that lasted until almost dawn. Elder Christofferson agreed that danger emerges when people begin to believe the rules dont apply to them, thinking, I can rule from Mount Olympus and dont have to bother with the details. Weve got to feel accountability always, at least to God if nowhere else, but certainly we have many levels of accountability," he said, prompting Woodward to quip, A lot of people thought you were Deep Throat, the infamous source who informed Woodwards reporting through clandestine meetings in a parking garage. Elder Christofferson laughed and said the press kept him humble, by abandoning me when nothing was happening even though they flocked around him one day when Sirica asked him to speak to reporters. Given all thats going on in Washington right now, from the Mueller investigation to the government shutdown, is there hope that things will get better? Dimock said people should remember that theres a lot that feels extremely unique about the moment that were in, but there are some deeper, underlying patterns driven in part by technological changes. And Elder Christofferson noted that the institutions that people distrust are, at their root, comprised of people who can change institutions for the better with their own behavior. Watergate was an assault on the integrity of institutions that are crucial for society. But it didnt have the ultimate effect of destroying them because good people, people of integrity, came to the fore and exercised their influence, he said. People who had integrity defended the institutions and the processes and our society, and I feel like were obligated in our time to be the same kind of people, to be the kind of people that were asking the rest of the world to be." LEHI All the way back in the mid-'90s, long before the moniker Silicon Slopes was applied to Utah's burgeoning tech community in northern Utah County, semiconductor giant Micron Technology was busy making advanced electronics out of wait for it silicon. While big plans for Micron's $1.3 billion facility, which includes multiple buildings with over 2 million square feet of space a few miles east of I-15 in Lehi, didn't immediately come to fruition, a deal with Intel in the mid-2000s to produce Flash memory for Apple products turbocharged the project. On Monday, Micron announced it will exercise an option to buy out its IM Flash partner, Intel, in a deal worth $1.5 billion. And while the buyout brings the long-running, and successful, venture to an end, Micron is soaring on its own and getting set to release a new memory/storage product that company leaders believe will help power the technological advances of the future. "The IM Flash acquisition will enable Micron to accelerate our R&D and optimize our manufacturing plan for 3D XPoint," said Micron Technology President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra in a statement. "The Utah-based facility provides us with the manufacturing flexibility and highly skilled talent to drive 3D XPoint development and innovation, and to deliver on our emerging technology roadmap." Micron officials said the 1,700 IM Flash employees aren't likely to be impacted by the change, except that they will "know what company they're in without the complications that come with a joint (operating) venture," according to Scott DeBoer, Micron executive vice president of technology development. DeBoer also noted that the Lehi Micron plant has borne a direct benefit from the dozens of new tech companies have sprung up in the area in the years since the facility opened. "This has grown into a very substantial area of talent for Micron over a number of years," DeBoer said. "It's a place that is appealing for Micron team members to live and it's a place where we can attract talent." For most of the duration of the IM Flash partnership, that talent was engaged in developing and manufacturing NAND Flash memory products. In 2015, Micron and Intel announced a new product, 3D XPoint, that would perform 1,000 times faster and have up to 1,000 times more endurance than NAND flash. It would also have 10 times the storage density of conventional memory. Sumit Sadana, Micron executive vice president and chief business officer, said the product is designed to become the memory/data storage solution for the computing processes of tomorrow. "If you think about where we are headed in the future, applications will be employing more and more functions reliant on artificial intelligence and machine learning," Sadana said. "Cloud computing applications are already focused in these areas and its just a huge amount of data involved." Sadana said consumers can already see the results of this reliance on artificial intelligence, like how Netflix calculates other movies you might like based on past viewing choices. He also noted technologies still very much in the development stages, like augmented reality and virtual reality, are already testing the limits of current memory and storage technology. Sadana explained that Micron's new 3D XPoint technology creates a new tier between DRAM (dynamic random access memory) and Flash memory, both of which function faster than accessing data stored on hard drives. Sadana said 3D XPoint functions faster than Flash, but not as fast as DRAM, but can provide much larger memory storage for processors to access than DRAM an increasingly important characteristic for data-heavy computing functions like artificial intelligence and machine learning. Sadana said Micron closed its last fiscal year with revenues of around $30 billion. He also noted exercising the option to buy out Intel as 3D XPoint development and manufacturing helps put in the company on very solid footing, from a business perspective, going forward. "Micron has never been better positioned as a company, both strategically as well as financially," Sadana said. "In the year ending last August, we hit $30 billion in revenue which made us the second largest semiconductor company in the U.S., behind only Intel." He also highlighted Micron's unique position among the relatively small handful of companies that develop and manufacture computer memory and storage technology. "If you look at storage technologies and memory technologies, there are six companies that manufacture Flash, three companies that manufacture DRAM predominantly and two companies that manufacture 3D XPoint," Sadan said. "And Micron is the only one that does all three." The transaction will close on a date in the next six to 12 months to be selected by Intel. At the time of close, Micron expects to pay approximately $1.5 billion in cash for the transaction. The payment will end Intel's noncontrolling interest in IM Flash and eliminate IM Flash member debt on Micron's balance sheet, which was $1 billion as of Nov. 29. SUNSET It's 3:30 a.m. in Beijing where "Jenny," a tutor with Qiao Qiao Chinese, is at her computer enthusiastically leading a fifth-grade class at Fremont Elementary School in an online lesson in Mandarin during its Monday afternoon class. If she's sleep deprived, you'd never know it. Students in the Davis School District school were fully engaged as they participated in this week's lessons on how to give compliments. It was almost as if "Jenny" was in the classroom, encouraging students with a warm smile, thumbs up and even the occasional reminders to stay on task. "Eyes on me. Eyes on me," she urged. From more than 6,000 miles away, Jenny notices there are several visitors in the back of fifth-grade teacher Rachel Norris' classroom. At her urging, the students turn to greet the educators, administrators and a former state senator in Mandarin. "Ni hao," they say in unison, which roughly translates to "hello." "Ni hao," the visitors say in response. Once a week, students receive live online training from tutors from Qiao Qiao Chinese, a company based in Pleasanton, California. Many of the tutors are in China, although one of Fremont Elementary's regular tutors works from Poland. The tutors' efforts are enhanced by a Qiao Qiao intern, Jiewen "Duke" Wu, who lives in the area with a host family. "We've got learning going on on three continents at one time," said principal Don Beatty. "Wow." The goal of the instruction is not immersion or mastery of Mandarin, Beatty said. Rather, educators are creating opportunities for students at Fremont, a Title I school, to connect globally and to hone their digital citizenship skills, which enables them to participate safely, productively and responsibly in the digital world. Ask Fremont students how many have been to the airport and likely 75 percent have not, Beatty said. "Their world is their four-block radius. Their world at school is the walls of their school. They don't have the opportunity that kids in other (areas) have to get out and see the world," he said. Norris said the online tutoring "helps them realize the world's connected and it's a bigger place than just down the street. It exposes them to language and culture. I don't know if they would get it in a different way." But once a week at least, entire classrooms at Fremont connect with tutors on other continents, even kindergartners. Many students also participate in more personalized Mandarin tutoring, also provided by Qiao Qiao Chinese tutors, who offer the instruction during Fremont's after-school program. The enrichment program started in November and the school has spent around $5,000 for the tutoring, which has been largely covered through fundraisers and fees charged for its after-school program. Beatty said he plans to propose to the school's community council that the school use its trust lands funds for Mandarin tutoring next academic year. Among the school's visitors Monday was former Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, who has long championed language immersion programs and educational opportunities for students to connect with their peers worldwide. "This is good global exposure for these kids, in these title schools especially. We need to provide an equal opportunity for students who may not have the kind of global perspective that an upper-middle school and neighborhood would just by nature of their family experiences. So this provides them that participation in a global world by literally speaking and learning language from somebody in Beijing, China," Stephenson said. As the year progresses, students will learn about Chinese New Year, food, customs and culture, which Stephenson said is a valuable opportunity. "They will become more globally competent, aware and confident as they progress through their school experience," he said. MURRAY When the two victims from the shooting at Fashion Place arrived at the Intermountain Medical Center trauma center, just two minutes after they had left the mall, they already had tourniquets to stop bleeding placed by citizens at the scene. One victim had tourniquets for wounds on both legs, while the other had a tourniquet on one leg, according to Dr. Mark Stevens, a Level 1 trauma surgeon at the Intermountain Medical Center where the victims were taken. "We recommend placement of tourniquets only when there's life-threatening bleeding that can't be stopped by direct pressure," said Stevens, "I don't think either of the injured were hurt by placing tourniquets, but they probably weren't necessary in this situation." As of Monday afternoon one of the victims had been released from the hospital, the other is still in intensive care, but in stable condition after surgery. A tourniquet is the last step to stop uncontrolled bleeding, and should be used only after applying direct pressure and packing the wound hasn't worked to stop life-threatening bleeding, Stevens urged. Stop the Bleed, a federal safety campaign, teaches free courses to prepare anyone to be an "immediate responder. "Immediate responders are normal citizens who are on the scene of any life-threatening injury, whether it's a car crash, a work injury or a mass casualty event. Stevens said the response to Sunday's shooting shows people are more ready to help than they were 40 or 50 years ago. People called 911 and were available to help the victims by talking to them and helping with their wounds. "People that were in the vicinity, the immediate responders next to the victims, jumped right in, they were prepared to do what they needed to support the patient," said Stevens. Matthew Thomas, a Murray resident, was shopping at the mall during the incident on Sunday. After the shooting stopped, he went back inside to see if there were any victims he could help. On Monday, Thomas described talking with the victims because he would want someone to help him if he was in that position. "I was just basically holding both of their hands just telling them 'It's going to be OK, everything is going to be all right,'" Thomas said. Thomas said he hadn't had firsthand training recently, but he still wanted to do anything he could to help the victims. "Education is leading people to want to do something to prevent unnecessary bleeding and unnecessary deadly death, and we encourage that. But I think it's really important that people come and get the necessary training so they know not only how to place a tourniquet but they know when that's appropriate," said Stevens The Stop the Bleed initiative began as a response to the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School after a series of conferences with the American College of Surgeons, the White House, the FBI and the Department of Defense. "We wanted to empower everyday citizens to know how to deal with life threatening injuries at the scene," Stevens said. Stevens said although using a tie or T-shirt for packing a wound instead of gauze is fine, using anything other than a CAT tourniquet is not recommended. However, in a life-threatening situation, other fabric or elastic and a stick to tighten it will work. Stevens encouraged purchasing a bleeding kit, which includes a CAT tourniquet, as an addition to a first aid kit. "Our goal would be to have this in every first aid kit or in the back of every trunk ultimately we would like to see a Stop the Bleeding kit next to every defibrillation kit in every public place and we're working toward that," Stevens said. The Stop the Bleed course is designed to be taught to every able-bodied citizen. Times and locations of trainings can be found on the Stop the Bleed website, or by calling or looking on the websites of local trauma centers. Contributing: Kelli Pierce SALT LAKE CITY Sen. Mitt Romney and Rep. Chris Stewart want an Iowa GOP congressman to resign over comments he made about the terms white nationalist and white supremacist. CNN reporter Manu Raju tweeted Monday that Romney, R-Utah, said theres no place in Congress for Rep. Steve King. I think he ought to step aside and I think Congress ought make it very clear he has no place there, Romney said. Romney went on say King "ought to resign and move on and let someone else who represents American values take his seat. What he said about white supremacy is unacceptable, and he should find a different line of work," according to his office. Stewart, R-Utah, said on CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time" that King has become ineffective. "It's not the first time that he has said things that the party just cringes at and says, 'What in the world is he saying?'" Stewart said. "I wish he would resign, frankly. He's lost the faith and the trust of his comrades." In an interview with the New York Times, King asked, "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization how did that language become offensive?" King later issued a statement saying he rejects the labels white nationalism and white supremacy. But his remarks are just the latest in a yearslong pattern of using offensive and crude language to describe people of color, according to Politico. House GOP leadership stripped King of his committee assignments, including his seat on the Judiciary Committee. House Democrats could vote as early Tuesday on a resolution to censure King. Former Utah Republican Rep. Mia Love, now a CNN political commentator, said on "The Van Jones Show" over the weekend that King's comments hurt the GOP. "We need other Republicans saying we don't believe in this. He has got to go. This doesn't represent who we are," she said. Romney has earlier said he would speak out against President Donald Trump if he makes divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant or dishonest statements. He called on the president apologize for blaming both sides for the deadly racially motivated shooting in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. Asked about King's comments Monday, Trump told reporters, "I havent been following it. I really havent been following it." Trump campaigned for King in Iowa last year. In addition to Romney, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also weighed in on King. "There is no place in the Republican Party, the Congress or the country for an ideology of racial supremacy of any kind," he said. "I have no tolerance for such positions and those who espouse these views are not supporters of American ideals and freedoms. Rep. King's statements are unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position." SALT LAKE CITY Utah remains in "decent" shape as the partial government shutdown enters its fourth week but won't be able to keep federal programs going long term, a state budget official said Monday. "We are not in position to keep all programs open indefinitely. We can keep some programs open, some services going. We would have to prioritize and determine how long. We are not in a position to just backfill all of the federal programs in the state," Kristen Cox, executive director of the Governors Office of Management and Budget, told reporters. The state plans to provide a weekly update of where it stands until the shutdown ends. Cox said state officials are starting to make long-range plans in the event the shutdown stretches another six weeks or so. It could dip into the state's $820 million Rainy Day Fund or incoming revenue past February if necessary, she said. To date, Utah has spent $66,000 of $80,000 allocated to keep the state's national parks open, accounting for about one-quarter of the cost over the past three weeks. Private foundations and local government have covered the rest. The Utah Office of Tourism has agreed to spend another $4,275 to keep Zion National Park open through Wednesday. It expects private funding to continue so the park can remain open through the end of January, according to the budget office. Bryce Canyon National Park will remain open for at least the next 10 days due to funding from the Bryce Canyon Natural History Association, though the state might step in with "nominal" contributions to extend that through January, according to the budget office. The Utah Department of Transportation plowed snow-covered roads in Arches and Canyonlands national parks last week. The Canyonlands Natural History Foundation has committed to cover the costs for visitor services in both parks for 30 days. The Fruita campground in Capitol Reef National Park is open, but all but one restroom is closed. The scenic drive is also closed. The governor's office is working with state tourism officials on a longer term plan for the parks. "We want to make sure people can plan out weeks in advance. We know what we can do for the next six weeks, two months if this continues," Cox said. "If we cant sustain it after a few months, then well have alternative plans for people to visit state parks." The Utah Department of Health received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fund the Women, Infants and Children Program, better known as WIC, through the end of February. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program the federal food stamps program is also funded through February, according to the state budget office. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Child Nutrition Programs told state school officials last week it has funding for lunch and breakfast programs into March. The Utah National Guard doesn't expect any significant impact through Jan. 30 because most of its money come from the already-approved defense budget, according to state budget office. It has $1.4 million in contracts with the Department of Justice for which reimbursement will be delayed. Francis sends a message to the meeting of the presidents of the Doctrinal Commissions of the Bishops Conferences of Asia with a delegation from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Vatican City (AsiaNews) Pope Francis sent a message to the presidents of the Doctrinal Commissions of the Bishops Conferences of Asia who are meeting with a delegation from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Baan Phu Waan Pastoral Centre (pictured), from 15 to 18 January, in Bangkok, Thailand. In the message, the pontiff reaffirms our common responsibility for the unity and integrity of the Catholic faith and to explore new ways and methods of bearing witness to the Gospel amid the challenges of our contemporary world. The Holy Father also notes that the meeting is taking place in Asia, a "vast continent that is marked by religious, linguistic and cultural diversity, adding that in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, he invited the whole Church "to go forth. I am pleased, he says, that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is actively supporting the important work of the Episcopal Conferences and especially of their Doctrinal Commissions, as they assist and foster the effective and fraternal cooperation among the Pastors of the Church in Asia. ROME The first Italians to tour the new Rome Italy Temple stopped just inside the front door Monday and began to point and smile at something familiar, even though none had ever been inside a temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before. There in a rug in the foyer and soon they found it throughout the temple in stained glass, in staircase railings and engraved in the floors and walls was a unique oval motif created by Michelangelo nearly 500 years ago and familiar to most Romans today, one with added symbolism in a Latter-day Saint temple. "This is from city hall, right?" local Italian politicians and journalists asked excitedly. "It's very Roman," said Elder Massimo De Feo, an Italian and a General Authority Seventy of the church. "They were smiling because they recognized something that they they could connect to immediately." The design has meaning beyond the architect's desire to tie the temple to Rome's history, art and architecture. "I think it's a very nice gesture and gift to the city of Rome to place that symbol in the temple," said Marcello De Vito, president of the Rome City Council. "We are honored to have them bring that symbol into the temple. During the tour of the temple, we learned the oval is a symbol of eternity in your religion. The temple combines this symbol of your religion with a symbol of the city of Rome." In the 16th century, Pope Paul III commissioned Michelangelo to redesign Capitoline Hill, one of the Seven Hills of Rome. Anciently, the hill was dedicated to the god Saturn. Later, it was the site of the temple of Jupiter. By the 1530s, it was in disrepair. The pope hoped the artist could recapture Rome's glory. Michelangelo designed three new buildings, including one used today as Rome's city hall. The other two now are famous as the Capitoline museums. The sculptor's plans called for a plaza in the center of the buildings decorated with a paved oval surrounding an interlaced 12-point star. All who visit the hill remember the unique Piazza del Campidoglio. Circles and ovals in Latter-day Saint temples evoke eternity because they have no beginning or end, Elder David A. Bednar and Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said during Monday's tours of the temple and in a news conference afterward. "Now (we) have the symbol of eternity in the oval or the ellipse in the Eternal City," Elder Bednar said. "That seems like a very nice alignment to me." Giovanni Claudo, president of the Third Roman Municipality, said the church's decision to reimagine the Roman symbol for the temple was itself a symbol of its effort to connect the temple to the community. It appeared to work. "When they saw it in the temple they immediately connected to it, because as Romans they immediately felt this is something that we know," Elder De Feo said. "That was a door opening to them as I explained the significance and the meaning. When they saw that we give value to and honor local authors, and we portrayed Michelangelo, for example, who is the greatest sculptor, they were very proud and they got excited." WASHINGTON Heres a look at the news for Jan. 14. Church News reported that President Russell M. Nelson brought words of comfort in a season of sorrow to California fire victims. Read more. Will honesty and integrity be on trial in 2019? Read more. Church apostles lead first open house visitors through Rome Italy Temple. Read more. Utah shooting sparks panic at Fashion Place Mall. Police are still searching for three suspects. Read more. A new Utah program aims to help tech grads stay in Utah with tuition relief. Read more. Taysom Hill executed a fake punt to help New Orleans rally past Philadelphia. Read more from Utahns in the NFL. Utah search and rescue crews donated thousands of hours in 2018. Read more. A look at our InDepth coverage: A look at our most popular stories: A look at news around the U.S. and world: Groping, lewdness and harassment have haunted the Texas Capitol for years. It must be stopped now Terry M. Jarrett is an energy attorney and consultant who has served on both the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the Missouri Public Service Commission. He contributes regularly to LeadingLightEnergy.com. by Sumon Corraya The words of Shah Ahmed Shafi, a radical cleric, have caused quite a stir. Later, he blamed the media for misquoting him. For activist, He would like to take us back 100 years. Dhaka (AsiaNews) A well-known radical Muslim cleric said that girls and women should not be allowed to go to school, causing quite a stir in the country. Shah Ahmed Shafi told a gathering of 15,000 people that "girls should not be allowed to study after the fourth or fifth grade because if you allow them to attend undergraduate or graduate studies, they will not remain yours." Criticised for his words, the 95-year-old leader said his words had been misquoted and that he meant to say that "women can go to school if they wear the burka", the full-body dress that leaves only eyes uncovered. Catholic activists and women activists have reacted negatively to the clerics words. Among Muslim women, views are divided, with some agreeing with the clerics opinion on women's education. Shah Ahmed Shafi is the head of the radical Hifazat-e-Islam group and runs the Al-Jamiatul Ahlia Darul Ulum Moinul Islam madrassa in Hathazari, Chattogram (Chittagong). He is a very well-known cleric, with millions of followers across the country. All those who attended the gathering where he made his controversial statement pledged to follow his teaching. Sheepa Hafiza, executive director of Ain or Salish Kendra, wants instead the cleric to apology. Aysha Khanam, president of Mohila Porishad, a womens rights NGO, noted that "In the past, the religious leader made obscene statements. He would like to take us back 100 years. Women instead are playing a leading role in the countrys development." For Sumi Gomes, a Catholic, "It hurts to see that he does not want women to develop." Eva Rahaman, a Muslim, a student at the Shanto-Marian University of Creative Technology, does not share such views. "I feel safe when I wear a veil on campus. The wearer of the burka is not the victim of harassment." Even Sangita Akter, a housewife, agrees with the Islamic leader. "Who does not wear the burka does not respect the Quran". However, Aysha Akter, an activist in an NGO, said: "Ahmed Shafi tries to prevent the development of women in this country. He wants women to stay at home, but if they worked like men, our country would grow twice as much." SUBMITTED PHOTO Seven new Chester police officers were sworn in at the January 9 Chester Council meeting. The new patrolmen, pictured above, include Joshua Disylvestro, Eric Bergman, Joseph Benning, Sean Mullen, Zachary Litvinenko, Andrew Pownall and Justin Otten. Operation Kamala (or Operation Lotus) was the name given to the infamous, but successful, attempt of the BJP to engineer the defection of opposition legislators to ensure stability of the BS Yeddyurappa government in 2008. BJP is said to be attempting Operation Kamala 2.0 currently, this time to bring down the Congress-JD(S) coalition government. What happened in 2008? In the assembly polls of May 2008, BJP emerged as the single largest party with 110 seats, three short of simple majority. Yeddyurappa took oath as chief minister with the support of six independents to form the first BJP government in south India. But to further ensure the governments stability, BJP poached seven MLAs -- three from Congress, four from JD(S) -- luring them with money and power, in an operation allegedly financed by the mining baron and former BJP minister Janardhan Reddy of Bellary. In the by-polls, the BJP won five, and this took BJPs tally to 115 in the 224-member assembly. Whats happening now? It is widely believed that BJP is attempting Operation Kamala 2.0 to form its own government by trying to lure legislators of the coalition. In fact, the BJP tried to engineer defections soon after the assembly polls in May this year, when it emerged as the single largest party with 104 seats. However, the Congress-JD(S) coalition was on guard. Audio clips of Yeddyurappa offering money and power to MLAs went public, leaving the BJP exposed, and on the retreat. BJP is said to have revived the attempt now. How do we know that? The BJP has claimed, several times publicly, that the HD Kumaraswamy government would not last much beyond Sankranti (January 15). Members of the ruling JD(S)-Congress coalition have repeatedly accused BJP of trying to poach MLAs. While BJP continues to deny this, at least three Congress MLAs have gone missing, and are said to be talking to BJP. What is BJPs strategy? The Congress-JD(S) coalition has 117 legislators, BJP 104. BJP will have to get at least 13 MLAs from the ruling alliance to resign from the House so as to bring down the strength of the House, allowing the saffron party to stake claim to form the government. The defecting MLAs cannot join BJP straightaway as then they would attract disqualification under the Anti-Defection Law. But they can do so later and face by-polls as BJP candidates. The plan is to have these by-polls held along with the Lok Sabha polls, by which BJP expects to gain an advantage. At least four Congress ministers offered to step down on Monday if that would help keep the coalition with the JD(S) intact, signifying an increased level of panic over the BJPs alleged attempts to stage a post-Sankranti coup. The threat of the BJPs Operation Kamala an exercise to poach rival party MLAs was discussed during a breakfast meeting Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara hosted for Congress ministers on Monday. The entire rank and file of the BJP has been camping in New Delhi for the last three days where it is supposedly chalking out a plan to dislodge the Congress-JD(S) coalition. The BJP MLAs left for Gurugram in the evening and are expected to stay there for two more days. But the Congress is desperate to make sure its coalition with the JD(S) is secure going into the Lok Sabha polls. The BJP is luring some of our MLAs by promising them ministerial berths. So, we said we are willing to sacrifice in the larger interest of the party, a Congress minister said, requesting anonymity. Three to four Congress legislators, including former minister Ramesh Jarkiholi, are said to have camped in Mumbai. We dont know why theyve gone to Mumbai. Maybe theyre holidaying or visiting temples. But we have confidence in our MLAs that they wont join the BJP. Well see what needs to be done to bring them back, Parameshwara told reporters. The BJP is trying its best. Theyre saying this government will fall. This government is secure and at no cost will it become insecure, the minister said. Operation JD(S)? While the Congress is busy combating the Sankranti coup, its coalition partner, on the other hand, is gearing up for Operation JD(S) in a bid to counter the BJPs strategies. According to sources, the JD(S) has zeroed in on at least five BJP MLAs, who are said to be willing to jump ship to the regional party, if things go awry for the coalition government. While the operation is said to be led by Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, three of his trusted lieutenants, who are also his ministerial colleagues Sa Ra Mahesh, C S Puttaraju and Bandeppa Kashempur have been given the responsibility to lasso in the MLAs, if such a situation arises. Two MLAs are said to be from the north Karnataka region, while three MLAs are said to be from the old Mysore region. Kashempurs statements in Vijayapura add credence to these speculations. Its only a matter of time before the BJP MLAs themselves desert their party. Once they realise that the government is stable, they will themselves come towards us. The BJP has been parroting that it will topple the government for the last seven months; not a single Congress or JD(S) MLA will defect to the saffron party, he said. READ MORE DKS off to Mumbai with tricks up his sleeve Kumaraswamy trying to poach BJP MLAs: Yeddyurappa DKS says HDK silent on Operation Lotus Three 'missing' Cong MLAs are in contact with me: HDK West Bengal CID has seized a large haul of softshell river turtle from Durgapur station in West Bardhaman district and arrested four persons in the case. According to CID officials, 689 soft shell river turtles were seized from the four accused. The four accused-Lachman Kumar, Raj Kumar, Sushil Kumar, Raju Kumar are residents of Sultanpur District of Uttar Pradesh. "The four accused were coming from Varanasi by Doon Express on Tuesday and 689 soft shell river turtle were seized from them, said a senior CID official. He also said that after getting down at Durgapur station the accused were trying to head towards Bandel in Hooghly district to dispose of the turtles. The accused persons were proceeding to Bandel for disposal of the seized turtles. The seized turtles and accused are being handed over to Range Officer of Durgapur Division for legal action, said the CID official. Britain is expected to raise the issue at the UN Security Council later this week (Photo: AP) United Nations: Myanmar has postponed a planned visit by the UN refugee chief to Rakhine state following renewed fighting between security forces and insurgents, a spokesman said Monday. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi was due to visit last week but Myanmar authorities scrapped the trip to Rakhine, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims were driven out in a military crackdown that started in 2017. Fighting has flared after 13 police officers were killed on January 4 in an attack by Rohingya militants on border posts near the frontier with Bangladesh. "Based on assessment of Myanmar authorities of the security situation in Rakhine, the visit has been postponed," said UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic. Britain is expected to raise the issue at the UN Security Council later this week, according to diplomats. The decision to delay Grandi's trip and uncertainty surrounding a separate planned visit by the UN envoy Christine Schraner Burgener to Myanmar is fueling concerns that authorities are backtracking on their commitments to address the Rohingya refugee crisis. "They have done nothing at all and didn't particularly want that to be exposed," said a Security Council diplomat of the decision to postpone Grandi's visit. Myanmar's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to requests for information. Britain in December circulated a draft Security Council resolution on Myanmar that would have set a deadline for authorities to roll out a strategy for addressing the Rohingya crisis. China, backed by Russia, however raised strong objections and refused to take part in negotiations, suggesting it was ready to use its veto at the council to block the measure. Myanmar's violent military campaign in 2017 forced more than 720,000 Rohingya across the border to Bangladesh, with refugees bringing accounts of murder, rape and arson. Britain, France, the United States and UN chief Antonio Guterres have described the campaign as ethnic cleansing while UN investigators have called for top generals to be investigated for war crimes. Rohingya in Buddhist-majority Myanmar have suffered decades of persecution and are denied citizenship rights. Myanmar has denied that it has singled out the Rohingya and described its army operation as a campaign to root out terrorists. by Mons. Thomas Dabre* The task is to proclaim that Jesus is the only saviour, whilst showing respect and appreciation for other religions. Correcting and purifying cultures must be done with "prudence and discretion", without using "arrogant and aggressive methods". The focus is on helping small basic ecclesial communities to mature in faith and life. The bishop of Poona laid out plans at the Plenary Assembly of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India of the Latin rite. Chennai (AsiaNews) In his opening address to the Plenary Assembly of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) of the Latin rite, which was held in Chennai (Tamil Nadu) from 7 to 14 January, Mgr Thomas Dabre, bishop of Poona, mentioned some of the challenges that the Church faces, most notably those of proclaiming Jesus Christ as mans only saviour whilst appreciating the countrys other religions, correcting and integrating cultural mismatches whilst being profoundly "nationalist" (i.e. patriotic), addressing the estrangement of so many Catholics from their communities through less red tape and legalism in the life of the Church, communicating the truths of faith in ways other than in the Greco-Roman tradition, and promoting popular piety and small communities of ecclesial life to restore vigour to the life of faith. One of the solutions suggested is the idea of not being negative to other religions and adopt arrogant and aggressive methods for evangelization, thus setting ourselves apart from what Evangelical communities do. At the same time, the Churc needs to assert the uniqueness of salvation in Christ whilst recognising the work of the Holy Spirit in other religions. While working to correct and purify cultures (in favour, for example, of the dignity of women and Dalits), this process requires a lot of "prudence and discretion", as well as a show of ones "nationalism" (to oppose Hindu fundamentalists who brand Christians as followers of a "foreign" god). For Mgr Dabre, "our evangelization can in no way be seen as a threat to Indian cultures and Indian heritage. Even in the midst of "opposition, attacks and rejection" and widespread materialism, indifference to spirituality, agnosticism, atheism and secularism, evangelization must always take place "in joy". Here are broad excerpts of his address. Joy of the Gospel Evangelization: the perennial mission of the church in India All of us who are members of the Church are so because of the evangelization carried out by those of the earlier generations. We in our turn, too, are to be evangelizers. This is the lasting mandate of Jesus to the Church. Go and preach the Gospel to every creature (Mk 16:15) (cf. also 1 Cor 9:16 Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.) How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? (Romans 10:14). All through her history the missionary mandate has been the integral part of the self-understanding of the Church. It is on account of this self-understanding and this faith that thousands of martyrs laid down their lives right up to the present times. Evangelization helps to deal with the fundamental questions of life. Jesus answers all questions of life which always and everywhere are the overriding existential concerns of all humanity. What is man? what is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of life? What is the future and destiny of man? [. . .] It is, however, an existential fact that many Catholics do not feel inspired, challenged or fulfilled with the same faith and the pastoral ministry of the Church. The evangelization and proclamation meet with opposition, attacks and rejection. In our country some are crying for a ban on conversion. The absolute demand of evangelization is non-negotiable; but how to carry it out amid disturbing and discouraging problems and challenges? This is what should constantly occupy us. This mission needs to be carried out in the key of new evangelization. Newness of the Gospel and Christian life I will sing a new song unto thee, O God: upon a psaltery and an instrument of ten strings will I sing praises unto thee (Ps 144). They were all amazed, so that they debated among themselves, saying, "What is this? A new teaching with authority! (Mk 1:27). "And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined. "But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins (Lk 5:37-38) And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph 4:24). For this reason, He is the mediator of a new covenant (Hebrews 9:15). Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come (2 Corinthians 5:17). But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13). Praise the Lord with the lyre, make melody to him with the harp of ten strings! Sing to him a new song. Rid yourself of what is old and worn out, for you know a new song. A new man, a new covenant; a new song. This new song does not belong to the old man. Only the new man learns it: the man restored from his fallen condition through the grace of God, and now sharing in the new covenant, that is, the kingdom of heaven. To it all our love now aspires and sings a new song. Let us sing a new song not with our lips but with our lives (St Augustine: from a discourse on the psalms, Ps. 32, sermon 1, 7-8: CCL 38, 253-254). "To this end, it is more necessary than ever for all the faithful to move from a faith of habit, sustained perhaps by social context alone, to a faith which is conscious and personally lived. The renewal of faith will always be the best way to lead others to the Truth that is Christ" (John Paul II, Ecclesia in America, no. 73). Total all-embracing conversion and renewal I hope that all communities will devote the necessary effort to advancing along the path of a pastoral and missionary conversion which cannot leave things as they presently are (Evangelii Gaudium 21). Pope Francis affirms, The Second Vatican Council presented ecclesial conversion as openness to a constant self-renewal born of fidelity to Jesus Christ: Every renewal of the Church essentially consists in an increase of fidelity to her own calling Christ summons the Church as she goes her pilgrim way to that continual reformation of which she always has need, in so far as she is a human institution here on earth. (Evangelii Gaudium, 26 and Unitatis Redintegratio, 6) Pope Francis expects that In line with the new culture in modern cities and the emerging new way of life the Church ministers should propose newer and more appealing and accessible ways of doing the ministry and sharing the good news of Jesus. For this the schedule of the liturgy, worship and availability and the content of the prayer service, sermons and sharing the word of God and various services of mercy and compassion have to be revised and adapted. In olden times society was static and so a regular time-table and routine was fixed. In the dynamic and fast changing functional society we now need flexibility and modification in our programmes and pastoral ministry. For example, Masses have to be scheduled at any hour of the day, not sticking to a fixed schedule like in the offices in society and so on. Evangelization must reach the places where new narratives and paradigms are being formed, bringing the word of Jesus to the inmost soul of our cities. The unified and complete sense of human life that the Gospel proposes is the best remedy for the ills of our cities (Evangelii Gaudium,74). Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8) Thus the holy apostle, in wise consideration of the meaning of the mystery, says: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever- he knows that the mystery is always new, that the mind in understanding it will never deprive it of its freshness (St. Maximus the Confessor, Five Centuries, Cent. I, 8-13. 2nd Reading, 4th January). Therefore, evangelical fidelity demands that the perennial faith and its newness founded on the abundant, immense and infinite riches of Christ be ever maintained in a serene, stable and dynamic equilibrium of the perennial faith and its constant newness. Evangelization demands creativity and innovation. God is ever new and ancient. I invite everyone to be bold and creative in this task of rethinking the goals, structures, style and methods of evangelization in their respective communities (Evangelii Gaudium 33. This is in line with the New Evangelization which has been emphasized since St. Pope John Paul II who proposed it so enthusiastically, the main components of which are: 1. New ardour, 2. New methods and 3. New expressions.[1] Evangelization today is to be addressed to the three specific groups of people: 1. Regular members of the community whose faith has constantly to be deepened. 2. Like the Good Shepherd accompanying and persuading the estranged Catholics to return to the faith-community and 3 Attracting new believers into the fold, proclaiming the Gospel to the people of other faiths and cultures (Redemptoris Missio, 33). At all levels of the Churchs life the ministry has to be reorganized according to such target groups bearing in mind their specific situation. New Culture and Changed situation Exponential growth of science and technology, ameliorating conditions of life, enhancing health and life-span are in truth Gods blessings through human inventiveness, skills and imagination. However, these have mistakenly led a growing number of people to pride and people live as though man can organize his life by his own resources without dependence on God or even denying his existence. This also has fostered a widespread materialism, indifference to spirituality, agnosticism, atheism and secularism. Postmodernism which is self-referential relativism and subjectivism, rejects objective, universal and absolute truths. The situation within the Church too has reached a critical point: low attendance at worship and liturgy, failures of some of the Church ministers to live up to their commitment, lack of pastoral accompaniment, divisions, failure to adapt to the new cultures and situations and Church, etc. All this calls for new strategies and approaches and perspectives in the process of evangelization. It would be superficial, simplistic and unrealistic to implement a pre-programmed pastoral ministry. This should be kept in mind by the religious and the clergy when they set out from the secure and receptive spirit of the house of formation. The Church as a community of faith has her Doctrine, Law and Ethics which are all essential elements of Faith-life and Evangelization. We have, however, to distinguish between the essentials and the changeable, accretions of history, and time-conditioned human and social traditions. Prohibition of Christian burial for suicides, even in the case of school-going children, stricter regime of fast and abstinence during Lent, 3-hour fast before Communion, universal use of Latin, restrictions on inter-religious marriage, practice of local culture, customs and traditions, especially since Vatican II many such things have been set aside or revised. 1. Many of the faithful are not able to understand and appreciate the traditional formulations of the doctrine. Certainly, the doctrine and the truth of faith are gifts of revelation for our salvation and we should appreciate their significance and riches. However, the defined expressions do not evoke expected response, emotion and experience among some believers on account of their inability to understand and interpret them correctly. The present-day mindset and thought-pattern are not Graeco-Roman which was operative when dogmas were formulated. 2. Over the years the Church Law has been revised. Certainly, Law does illuminate and enable a consistent and well-ordered way of Church life. However, a purely literal interpretation and strict application of the Law has not helped some of the faithful to correct their ways and to live a regular faith-life in the Community of faith. 3. In modern times the Church teaching on marriage, divorce, use of artificial means of birth-control, the primary purposes of marriage, euthanasia have been opposed or ignored even by the faithful without qualms of conscience. Certainly, the Church teaching on morality has its intrinsic merit; it emphasizes the inviolable and transcendent dignity of the human person and seeks to protect the highest values of life. However, there is no reception on the part of some within the Church. Some of these concerns and problems are not addressed well enough in the pastoral ministry. Transmission of the Gospel or evangelization needs renewal of the expressions and forms of the unchanging truths of the gospel and the deposit of faith. Because it is true that in our situation people do not properly understand and appreciate the orthodox formulations. EG invites us to a renewal of the presentation of the doctrine and not to present church laws customs, laws, traditions, practices etc. as being oppressive and burdensome. The faithful should be able to breathe freely in the church. So that everything becomes good news of joy, mercy, forgiveness free of legalism (Evangelii Gaudium 41-42). Some cultural challenges We must recognize that if part of our baptized people lack a sense of belonging to the Church, this is also due to certain structures and the occasionally unwelcoming atmosphere of some of our parishes and communities, or to a bureaucratic way of dealing with problems, be they simple or complex, in the lives of our people. In many places an administrative approach prevails over a pastoral approach, as does a concentration on administering the sacraments apart from other forms of evangelization. Evangelii Gaudium 63 calls for a thorough renewal of the church at all levels and the concomitant restructuring to be in harmony with the spirit of the gospel, mercy, forgiveness, and free of legalism. Uniqueness of Jesus Christ Saviour of the world The presentation of the Uniqueness of Jesus Christ Saviour of the world is really a formidable challenge before the Church in India. It is the absolute faith of the Church that Jesus Christ is the saviour of the world. By His death on the cross, He has brought Gods forgiveness and eternal life, i.e., complete redemption and salvation to all humanity without a single exception. It is the faith of the Church that all salvation everywhere and at times, in all history, civilization and culture is all through the unique mediation of Jesus Christ. If I be lifted up, I will draw all to myself (Jn 12: 32) In Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor 5:19). God our Saviour, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all (1 Tim 2: 4-7). But how to present and how to express the uniqueness of Jesus? How to make it intelligible and acceptable? Hindus say all rivers will go to the ocean so also all people of different religions will go to God. Jainism and Buddhism affirm that one is ones own saviour by ones own effort. These views do need to be seriously considered as we affirm the vicarious role of Christ and his sacrifice. Through my contact with the people of other religions and cultures I see that they are sincere, well- intentioned and deeply spiritual and believe in God from the depth of their hearts. When you genuinely love people and enter into their lives and strike bonds of love you realize that they too are on the path of God. Gods presence, power and the Holy Spirit can well be with them. The Second Vatican Council, in fact, has stated that: the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude, but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a participation in this one source (Dominus Iesus, 14, Lumen Gentium 62). Vatican II has affirmed, the Holy Spirit offers everyone the possibility of sharing in this Paschal Mystery in a manner known to God" (Gaudium et Spes 22). So let us not think that those of other religions are separated from the mystery of Jesus; they may well be united to Him, maybe more than us. So the proclamation of the uniqueness of Jesus should be done bearing this in mind. The uniqueness of Jesus does not mean that the other religions cannot be channels or mediations of Christs salvation to their adherents. The Spirit's presence and activity affect not only the individuals but also society and history, peoples, cultures and religions. The Second Vatican Council recalls that the Spirit is at work in the heart of every person, through the "seeds of the Word," to be found in human initiatives-including religious ones-and in mankind's efforts to attain truth, goodness and God himself. The Spirit's presence and activity affect not only the individuals but also society and history, peoples, cultures and religions. Indeed, the Spirit is at the origin of the noble ideals and undertakings which benefit humanity on its journey through history. n.28: "every authentic prayer is prompted by the Holy Spirit, who is mysteriously present in every human heart (Redemptoris missio, 29). We cannot be negative to other religions and adopt arrogant and aggressive methods for evangelization. This is not the approach of Jesus. I have not come to abolish but to perfect (Mt 5:17-19). In his Areopagus speech St Paul spoke in terms of a common foundation among religions. Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worshipand this is what I am going to proclaim to you (Acts: 17:22-23). Paul, affirmed One God as Creator who is near everyone; he recognized them as being religious and declared the faith in the risen Lord. I have in my inter-religious programs, quoted simple things: 1 That the greatest commandment according to Jesus is: to love man and fellowmen, love thy neighbour as thyself (Mt 22:39) Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me (Mt 25:40). 2 All men are equal. God has made man and women in His image and likeness. Father forgive them (Lk 23:34). The non-Christians have appreciated these words from the Gospel. Thus, the sharing of the Word of God with the non-Christians has been a great point of opportunity for evangelization. Fr. Joseph Vaz, Fr. Constant Lievens and Mother Teresa, Sadhu Sundar Singh, the great Christian scholars like Brahmabandhav Upadhyay, and Rev. N.V. Tilak and others were a huge success in the mission of evangelization, for they identified themselves with the local culture. Through them we learn the importance of inculturation, practising the Word of God and sharing the joys and sorrows of those to be evangelized. Thus our evangelization can in no way be seen as a threat to Indian cultures and Indian heritage. Our evangelization must be done in the light of our diverse situations and specially in harmony with the noble values of Indian religions and Indian cultures. Pope Francis in his general payer intention for the month of December 2018 states, That people, who are involved in the service and transmission of faith, may find, in their dialogue with culture, a language suited to the conditions of the present time. We should also be seen as authentic patriots and nationalists Authentic nationalism should be a feature of people of all religions. Faith in Christ, loyalty to the church and authentic nationalism go together. Authentic nationalism binds all citizens into unity with all their diversity of religions, cultures and ideologies. The language of purification of cultures and religious practices in the process of missio ad gentes adopted in Church documents which per se is justified, should however be very carefully and prudently handled. Certainly, all cultures must be illumined by the Word of God. Accordingly, things such as caste system, idolatry, multiplicity of Gods, the sacred cow, the ban on beef, Punar Janma (rebirth) etc., have to be reviewed and re-evaluated in the light of the Christian faith. But this cannot be done aggressively. It needs to be done with prudence and discretion, lest it incur ire and attacks. Some extremist elements have been very active, creating a climate of fear, anxiety and intolerance. Some of them are aggressive and violent. In such a situation evangelization must be done prudently with wisdom and patience. The Vatican II document in Nostra Aetate states: His providence, His manifestations of goodness, His saving design extend to all men (Nostra Aetate 1) She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ "the way, the truth, and the life" (Jn 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men (Nostra Aetate 2). We cannot presume that we understand what uniqueness really and fully means and implies. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counsellor? Or who has given him anything that he may be repaid? (Romans .11: 33-35) Therefore, the role of Jesus, one and only Saviour of the world can only be stated in utter humility before the divine mystery. Statements about God are confessional and though intrinsically reasonable they are not fully accessible to reason. God always remains a mystery. We must complement faith-statements with our commitment, total surrender, experience and testimony. It is such a witness of life that is the more reasonable and persuasive way of proclaiming the uniqueness of Jesus and that is what the martyrs have done all through the Churchs history. Arguments and proof do not necessarily convince people of religious truths. Trusting in the strength of love he (St. Stephen) overcame the cruel raging of Saul, and so won for himself as a companion in heaven, the man who had been his persecutor on earth. This holy and untiring love ardently desired to acquire as converts by his prayers those whom he had been unable to convert by argument. (Fulgentius of Ruspe, Breviary, reading 26 December) Evangelization, which is a fundamental imperative, is, however, a comprehensive and all-inclusive mission, comprised of multiple dimensions: verbal, dogmatic, intellectual affirmation; spiritual; psychological; physical; social; cultural; political; cosmic. When the Church community of faith lives these multiple dimensions of the fullness of life that Jesus generously offers it becomes a credible witness of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. Gospel of Joy With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you. (Isaiah 12: 3-6) Sing aloud to God our strength; Make a joyful shout to the God of Jacob (Ps 81). For the kingdom of God is not mean food and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). Come to Me, all who are weary and heavily burdened [by religious rituals that provide no peace], and I will give you rest [refreshing your souls with salvation]. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me [following Me as My disciple], for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST (renewal, blessed quiet) FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy [to bear] and My burden is light (Mt 11:28-30). The faith therefore should not be burdensome. Jesus ministry brought joy to children women, the poor, the sinners and the repentant. The message of the beatitudes is a message of blessing and the joy of salvation to all. Even to the enemies he brought joy by His message of forgiveness culminating on the cross. The Church must enable all to have a joyful encounter with Jesus. Since the joy of Christ is for all, the Church must enable all to encounter Jesus. I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them (Evangelii Gaudium 3) Highlighting the importance for the parish, the Pope says, the parish is the presence of the Church in a given territory, an environment for hearing Gods word, for growth in the Christian life, for dialogue, proclamation, charitable outreach, worship and celebration (Evangelii Gaudium 27, 28). We have to realise the key importance of the parish for the mission of evangelization. The big programmes at the level of the Vatican, FABC, NBCLC AND DIOCESE ARE doubtless of great significance. The real change, however, has to take place at the grassroots level. So it is at the level of local parish communities the desired restructuring and renewal has to happen, otherwise all great plans and policies and decisions remain on paper. This would also demand from all of us who operate at higher levels that we should descend to the local, grassroots level. In all its activities the parish encourages and trains its members to be evangelizers. The parishes must be completely mission-oriented. There are many forms and ways of evangelizing. No movements and associations should be avoided if they are legitimately instituted. Sharing the Word of God, as the foundation of evangelization Importance of Word of God through many groups, such as Bible study prayer group, Charismatic Renewal, St. Vincent de Paul and others. Everywhere a passage from the Holy Bible should be shared and reflected upon. Other Church institutions, basic communities and small communities, movements, and forms of association are a source of enrichment for the Church, raised up by the Spirit for evangelizing different areas and sectors (Evangelii Gaudium, 29). Popular piety It appeals to the heart of the people. Sentiment, spontaneity, enthusiasm, felt experience, sacrifice and constancy are some of the striking features of popular piety, observed at Vailankanni, Jhansi, Unteshwari Mata, Mount Mary, Lourdes, Fatima etc. As the Biblical and Church history shows, Christian religion has been a mass movement. The popular devotion keeps the faith alive; they bring vitality to the Church. They are a golden opportunity for an integral and comprehensive evangelization. Of course, they need to be guided and enlightened, by pastors who should guide encourage these with their participation (Evangelii Gaudium 70). Sharing the Word of God is one of the most important focal points of SCC. There are so many SCCs and so many stories of success and joy following the sharing of the Word of God. These are groups of Christians who, at the level of the family or in a similarly restricted setting, come together for prayer, Scripture reading, catechesis, and discussion on human and ecclesial problems with a view to a common commitment. These communities are a sign of vitality within the Church, an instrument of formation and evangelization, and a solid starting point for a new society based on a "civilization of love" (Redemptoris Missio 51). Such effective and fruitful models must be replicated according to situations, e.g. Krist Bhaktas, charismatic prayer, Vincent de Paul, Focolare, popular devotions and piety, etc. We the ministers of the Church must welcome and promote whatever helps any people to be attracted to Jesus Christ and receive a share in the fullness of life that he brings. Conclusion For the sake of the good news of salvation Jesus Himself had to be crucified as a divine necessity. The evangelical community of the Church too has had to suffer all through history. So it cannot be otherwise for us as we endeavour to promote the Gospel of Joy and Newness. The Church is in India is facing unexpected challenges and, problems within the community and from the wider society. But let us not get disheartened. For God's Word, by whom all things were made, was Himself made flesh so that as perfect man He might save all men and sum up all things in Himself. The Lord is the goal of human history, the focal point of the longings of history and of civilization, the centre of the human race, the joy of every heart and the answer to all its yearnings. Gaudium et Spes,45 Let us go ahead trusting in the Lord of History and in the maternal protection of Mary, the Star of evangelization. * Bishop of Poona [1] The Task of the Latin American Bishops, Origins 12 (March 24. 1983), p. 661. United Nations: The warring parties in Yemen have refused to talk face-to-face during two meetings to discuss the redeployment of forces from the key port of Hodeida, which is to be overseen by a U.N. monitoring team, the United Nations said Monday. U.N spokesman Stephane Dujarric said retired Dutch Maj. Gen. Patrick Cammaert, the head of the monitoring team, had to shuttle between representatives of Yemen's government and Houthi Shiite rebels who were in different rooms. Their refusal to sit in the same room was another indication of the lack of trust between the warring parties, and the difficulty in implementing the full agreement that Houthi and government leaders reached in Sweden on December 13. Dujarric said Cammaert is trying to find "a mutually acceptable way forward" to redeploy forces from Hodeida, whose port handles 70 per cent of the food and humanitarian aid imported into Yemen, as well as the smaller ports of Salif and Ras Isa and parts of Hodeida city that are critical for humanitarian efforts. "Recent discussions have been constructive" and Cammaert "continues to encourage the parties to resume the joint meetings in order to finalize a mutually agreed redeployment plan," Dujarric said. While U.N envoy Martin Griffiths said last week that the government and Houthis "have largely adhered" to a cease-fire in the port of Hodeida and the surrounding area, he said progress on a pullout of rival forces, humanitarian access and other issues agreed to in Stockholm has been slow. He said new talks between the warring sides would not take place until there was "substantive progress." Griffiths had said there would be a new round of talks in January but diplomats said he is now looking to February. The Security Council is expected to vote this week on a British-drafted U.N resolution that would establish a political mission headed by Cammaert to oversee implementation of the Stockholm agreement. The resolution would approve Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' proposal for up to 75 U.N monitors to be deployed for an initial period of six months to oversee the cease-fire in Hodeida, demining operations and the redeployment of forces. U.N. officials said one issue Cammaert has faced since his arrival in Houthi-controlled Hodeida is his lack of freedom of movement on the ground. The conflict in Yemen began with the 2014 takeover of Sanaa by the Iranian-backed Houthis, who toppled the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. A Saudi-led coalition allied with Yemen's internationally recognized government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. Saudi-led airstrikes have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties and killed thousands of Yemeni civilians. The Houthis have fired long-range missiles into Saudi Arabia and targeted vessels in the Red Sea. Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, has been plunged into the world's worst humanitarian crisis. U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council last week that the humanitarian situation had not improved since the Stockholm agreement and "remains catastrophic," with 80 percent of Yemen's population over 24 million people now in need of assistance. "They include nearly 10 million people just one step away from famine," he said. Caracas: Leftist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday branded far-right Brazil counterpart Jair Bolsonaro a "modern day Hitler" supported by evangelical Christians. Maduro was delivering his annual address to the Constituent Assembly, four days after he was sworn in for a highly-controversial second term. He and Bolsonaro have been exchanging barbs since the Brazilian won elections at the end of last year. "Bolsonaro is a modern day Hitler. He is. What he doesn't have is courage and his own decisions because he's the puppet of a sect," said Maduro, referring to Bolsonaro's conservative evangelical Christian support base. Bolsonaro has accused Maduro of being a "dictator" and described him as illegitimate when the Venezuelan leader was sworn in on Thursday. Maduro won an election in May that was boycotted by the opposition and dismissed as a fraud by the United States, European Union and many Latin American countries. He was sworn in by the Supreme Court, made up of regime loyalists, rather than the opposition controlled National Assembly, as Venezuela's constitution demands. Parliament has been sidelined since the Supreme Court stripped it of its powers in 2017, shortly after the opposition gained a majority in late 2016. Maduro then created the Constituent Assembly to replace the National Assembly. Brazil's foreign ministry said it recognized the original legislature as Venezuela's "democratically elected" body with "executive authority." Its president, Juan Guaido, has said Venezuela's constitution allows him to assume power and set up a "transitional government" ahead of new elections, but Maduro retains the support of the military high command. Washington: US President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee Bill Barr said Monday he supports letting Russia collusion investigator Robert Mueller finish his probe and his final report being made public. With Trump himself thought to be a possible target of Special Counsel Mueller, Barr sought to allay concerns that as head of the Department of Justice he might stifle the investigation to protect the president. "I believe it is vitally important that the special counsel be allowed to complete his investigation," Barr said in prepared testimony for his confirmation hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee beginning Tuesday. "I also believe it is very important that the public and Congress be informed of the results of the special counsel's work. For that reason, my goal will be to provide as much transparency as I can consistent with the law." Barr, who was attorney general under president George H W Bush from 1991 to 1993 and then a corporate lawyer for 25 years, has been critical of the Mueller probe, suggesting it may be too expansive and staffed by Democratic sympathizers. He also said in a memo addressed to the Justice Department last year -- also reportedly sent to the White House -- that Mueller has no grounds for investigating Trump for obstruction of justice after Trump fired FBI director James Comey in May 2017 in anger over the Russia probe. On Friday the New York Times reported that, immediately after Comey's firing, the FBI opened a counterintelligence probe into whether Trump was working on behalf of Russia. Barr said in his prepared remarks that the memo was just the unsolicited view of a former attorney general "who has often weighed in on legal issues of public importance." "The memo did not address -- or in any way question -- the special counsel's core investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election," he added. "Nor did it address other potential obstruction-of-justice theories or argue, as some have erroneously suggested, that a president can never obstruct justice." Trump chose Barr to replace Jeff Sessions, who was dismissed in November after a testy relationship in which the president repeatedly criticized his decision to recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller investigation. Barr said he has known Mueller professionally and personally for 30 years, and they worked together when Barr was attorney general in the early 1990s. "When he was named special counsel, I said that his selection was 'good news' and that, knowing him, I had confidence he would handle the matter properly. I still have that confidence today." Washington: President Donald Trump's daughter and advisor Ivanka will help the United States choose its candidate to lead the World Bank but she will not be the one, the White House said on Monday. Jim Yong Kim abruptly announced last week that he would cut short his tenure as president of the Washington-based global development lender more than three years before his second term was to end. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney "have asked Ivanka Trump to help manage the US nomination process as she's worked closely with the World Bank's leadership for the past two years," said Jessica Ditto, the White House Deputy Director of Communications. However, Ditto said reports that Ivanka Trump "is under consideration are false." London's The Financial Times reported on Friday that both Ivanka Trump and Washington's former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley were among possible US candidates to replace Kim. Other names being floated include Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs David Malpass and Mark Green, head of the US Agency for International Development, the newspaper reported. Through an unwritten post-war agreement with Europe, the World Bank has always been led by an American while a European has always been in charge of the IMF. However, that is likely to face a serious challenge both because President Trump has shown little interest in, if not antagonism to the Bank, and has upended the traditional alliances that make the agreement possible. Developing nations also have been increasing the pressure on the institutions to name a leader from an emerging market country. Ivanka Trump in 2017 was the driving force behind a $1 billion, Saudi-supported World Bank fund to promote entrepreneurship by women. The World Bank Board said on Thursday it would start accepting nominations for a new leader early next month and name a replacement for Kim by mid-April. Washington: President Donald Trump has attributed the partial government shutdown, which is now into its 24th day, to the opposition Democrats who have blocked his proposal of US $5.7 billion in Congressional funding to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. He also said that he will "never ever back down" when its comes to keeping the American people safe. The partial government shutdown, which is the longest ever, has left more than 800,000 federal government workers out of work across key departments. "The government remains shut down for one reason and one reason only, the Democrats will not fund border security, our safety, our national security," Trump said on Monday while addressing to a rally of farmers in Louisiana. Referring to his visit to the Mexico border last week, Trump said illegal aliens not only from Mexico, but also from other nations enter the country from the southern border. "People come from many countries. When I was at the wall the other day, Border Patrol said they have 150 people they caught that day who weren't from Mexico. I said that's a strange statement," he said. "They said no, these are the people that weren't from Mexico and I was surprised. Three were from Pakistan, four from another Mid-east, and many were from other countries including China, countries all over the world. "150 of the people, as he said, were not from Mexico. Now they caught, many, many more but that's 150 people coming from countries that you wouldn't believe," Trump said. He said the Democrats will not approve the measures he needs to keep America safe. "We can't do that. We can't do that because this is of paramount importance to our country and again, I could take it nice and easy. I could enjoy myself. I could relax. I have been in the White House because I think it's very important to be there," he said. He alleged that the Democrat leaders went on a nice wonderful vacation over the weekend. "They had a great time but I would have loved to have been with them. I didn't like the look of it. I would have loved to have been with them but we have a very big problem. This should have been done by other presidents just like the moving of the embassy to Jerusalem should have been done. It was promised by many other presidents," the US President said. Trump insisted that the US needed a wall all around, all the length of the border. "We have got to stop the drug packers bringing drugs to poison our people," he said, arguing that walls, as being said by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are not immoral. "The biggest wall I have ever seen is around the Vatican. Now you can't tell me that the wonderful priests and officials of the Roman Catholic church including the Pope are immoral. They have a wall. Why can't we?" he said. Asserting that the defense of the nation is his highest and most important duty, Trump said when it comes to keeping the American people safe, he will never ever back down. "I didn't need this fight. This is a real fight. We are dealing against people who think if they can stop me from building the wall again, we've already done a lot of work but they think that's a good thing for 2020 because they're not going to win. They think if they can't stop me from building the wall that's good. This is the reason why they don't want the wall built because they all know it works, they all approved it numerous times," he said. Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed on December 1 to a three-month truce in the escalating spat. (Photo: File) Washington: President Donald Trump said Monday he expects to be able to reach a trade deal with China, which is feeling the impact of US tariffs. "We are doing very well with China. They're having a hard time with their economy because of the tariffs," Trump told reporters at the White House. "I think that we are going to be able to do a deal with China." US officials were in Beijing last week for talks aimed at ending the bruising trade confrontation that has subjected more than USD 350 billion in two-way trade to steep tariffs. Chinese officials said the next round of negotiations would be held in Washington between January 30 and 31. Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed on December 1 to a three-month truce in the escalating spat. "I can tell you we are getting things that before I became president you would have had no chance at getting," Trump said. "They would have laughed in your president's face." As Trump has pressed Beijing to increase imports of US goods, China's trade surplus with the United States hit a record last year of USD 323.3 billion, an 11 per cent increase over 2017, according to Chinese customs data released Monday. However, in a sign that the White House's punitive measures are having an impact, China's exports to the US sank last month. And China's total exports fell 4.4 per cent in December from a year earlier, while imports dropped 7.6 per cent, reflecting sluggish demand at home and abroad. Trump's angry comments sought to bat down a mounting controversy over his alleged ties to the Kremlin, but the fact that he even had to issue such a denial illustrates how far the unprecedented scandal has already gone. (Photo: File) Washington: Standing outside the snow-covered White House on Monday, Donald Trump made an astonishing declaration for a US president: no, he has never been an agent of Russia. "I never worked for Russia," Trump told reporters on the South Lawn. "It's a disgrace that you even ask that question. It's all a big fat hoax." Trump's angry comments sought to bat down a mounting controversy over his alleged ties to the Kremlin, but the fact that he even had to issue such a denial illustrates how far the unprecedented scandal has already gone. The statement, delivered in freezing temperatures before taking off in the Marine One helicopter for a trip to New Orleans, followed two bombshell reports. One, in The New York Times, said that the FBI opened an investigation into whether Trump was acting on Russia's behalf soon after he became president. Another, in The Washington Post, detailed what it said were the unusual lengths taken by Trump to hide the contents of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This, of course, comes on top of the huge investigation led by special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who is looking into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election -- and the possibility it colluded with Trump's campaign. Hiding interpreter's notes? Trump was given an opportunity to respond to the report of the FBI investigation on Saturday when he gave an interview to his favourite Fox News channel. But instead of a clear cut denial, he fuelled a mounting outcry in Washington by merely saying that the question was "the most insulting thing I've ever been asked." His response Monday took the entire alleged Russia collusion affair head on. "It's a lot of fake news," Trump said. He called the then-leaders of the FBI who decided to investigate him "known scoundrels, I guess you could say dirty cops." But the latest twists mean that the president -- currently embroiled in a damaging political battle with Congress over funding a Mexico border wall -- can't escape the Russia shadow, regardless of what he says. The details of the latest reports are especially shocking because they are so concrete, in contrast to the often complex and carefully withheld workings of the almost leak-proof Mueller probe. The Post story says that Trump personally acted to prevent notes taken by his interpreter during one-on-one meetings with Putin from being shared with aides. He allegedly took the notes away and ordered the interpreter not to divulge the contents. The Times report on the FBI investigation said the bureau decided to act after Trump fired the then director, James Comey in 2017. Transcripts of closed-door FBI testimony to Congress obtained by CNN show that the then head lawyer for the FBI, James Baker, said the bureau wanted to know whether Trump was "acting at the behest of (the Kremlin) and somehow following directions, somehow executing their will." "That was one extreme. The other extreme is that the President is completely innocent, and we discussed that too," Baker said in the transcript, according to CNN. The White House says that Trump has been pursued by a politicized FBI. The president repeatedly has called the probes into his dealings with Russia a "witch hunt." But Democrats and even some in Trump's Republican Party have repeatedly suggested that the administration is oddly favorable to Russian policies. They point to Trump's diplomatic assaults on European Union unity and the NATO alliance, as well as his recent comment defending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Top advisor Kellyanne Conway reiterated Monday the administration's assertion that Trump had in fact been tough on Russia, one of Washington's key rivals and sometimes outright adversaries. "He has taken a lot of action," she told reporters, listing sanctions imposed on the Kremlin and US policy in Syria, among other factors. India may stand tall among its South Asian neighbours for its growing economic clout. But does that hold true in terms of the political empowerment of more than 586 million Indian women? If we look at Indias close neighbour Nepal, the mountainous country definitely leads in the region in having more women in parliaments than its big neighbour. Nepal stands at 36 as per the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) 2018 rankings. The present 275-member Nepalese Lower House has 90 women, which is about 32.7 per cent of the total strength, while the 59-member Upper House has 37.3 per cent of women with 22 seats. The country is now led by a woman head of state. Nepal also has a policy of 33 per cent reservation for women in all state institutions, including the national legislature. On the eastern front, Bangladesh, another close neighbour of India, is at 92 in the IPU ranking. Bangladesh has a policy of reserving 14 per cent of seats for women in its Parliament. The country had two women Prime Ministers, one with two terms, and the other is the present incumbent in her fourth term, becoming the longest serving Prime Minister in the country. The 10th general election brought 70 women to the 350-member single house, which was 20.3 per cent of the total strength. Even the Islamic republic of Pakistan is at 94 in the current IPU rankings, and also has a policy of reserving 17 per cent seats for women in the Lower House and 15 per cent in the Senate. In its recently-elected Lower House, there are 69 women, comprising 20.2 per cent of the representation in a 341-member House, while in the 104-member Upper House, there are 20 women, which is 19.2 per cent of the total strength. The country had a woman Prime Minister for two terms, who however, could not complete her full terms and was assassinated while campaigning for the third term. Bhutan, a small country tucked in the mighty Himalayas, also marched past India, at 133 in the IPU rankings. In its 47-member Lower House, there are seven women, which is about 14.9 per cent of the total strength. The 25-member Upper House has four women, having 16 per cent representation. Bhutan, however, follows no policy of reservation and is of the view that such a measure hurts the spirit of equality. Some other countries in the region like Mauritius is just behind India at 152. The 69-member single House has eight women members, which is 11.6 per cent of the total strength. Mauritius has increased the gender quota from six per cent to 26 per cent in 2012 in local government, but no such policy exists for the national Parliament. Some other countries in South Asia like the Maldives stands at 177 in IPU ranking, and has only five women in a 85-member House, which is just 5.9 per cent of representation. The country has no policy for gender quotas either in local or national governments. Sri Lanka is another bottom ranking country at 179 in the IPU list. The single House in the country has now 13 women members in the 225-member House, comprising just 5.8 per cent of the total seats. Sri Lanka, however, has a long history of having women in Parliament, and also had two women Prime Ministers, one of them, subsequently became the countrys President. The country has a mandatory quota of 25 per cent for women in local government. The story of war-ravaged Afghanistan is entirely different. In the 2017 IPU rankings, it was far above India at the 54th rank. But today, it is one among the unranked countries in a list of 187 countries. This is due to the non-availability of relevant data from the October 2018 elections, in which a record number of 417 women were in the fray. The present 68-member Upper House has 18 women, that is 26.5 per cent of its total strength. The Afghan Constitution way back in 2004 provided 27 per cent of the seats to women in the 250-member Lower House and 50 seats in the House of Elders, which made the Afghan Parliament one of the most women-representative countries in the region. Before the October 2018 parliamentary elections, women held 27.7 per cent of seats in the Lower House, 0.7 points higher than the 27 per cent earmarked in the constitutional quota. India at 151, slipping from 148 in the 2017 IPU ranking, has only 11.8 per cent womens representation in the 542-member Lower House, the Lok Sabha, while it is 11.4 per cent in the 237-member Upper House, the Rajya Sabha. A recent election analysis has revealed that there are just 62 women MLAs among the 678 members of legislative assemblies elected in the 2018 state elections in the five states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram. They are home to 93 million women, but only nine per cent MLAs as women, down from 11 per cent from the previous 2013-14 assembly elections. Only Chhattisgarh witnessed an increase in the proportion of female MLAs. Mizoram continues to have zero female representation in the Assembly. India is definitely far off from reaching the global average of 22 per cent in womens representation in the higher political power structure and also has fallen behind some of the countries in the neighbourhood. India, however, had a woman President and a Prime Minister for three terms. But we cant take solace in this in the face of the existing huge gender gap in politics. Many countries in the world like Austria, Cameroon, Canada, France, Sweden or South Africa, who have fared better in the IPU rankings, have introduced a system of voluntary party quotas, which ensured a certain percentage of seats for women in their electoral lists, parliaments and governments. Sadly, in Indian politics, caste, region and religion play a far more dominant role, while women are not considered either apolitical class or a unified votebank or as potential winners. Indian women are hardly visible in the organisational hierarchy or in the electoral fray. In the last Lok Sabha polls, the BJP fielded only 38 women candidates, and the Congress 60. This confidence-deficit also prevails in women-led political parties. Mamata Banerjees Trinamul Congress gave tickets to only 43 women, Mayawatis BSP 21, and the AIADMK, then led by J. Jayalalithaa, 29 in the last Assembly polls. India, of course, scripted a new story by reserving one-third of seats for women in rural and urban local bodies through constitutional amendments in the early 1990s. India can perhaps steal a march over many countries if the long pending legislation earmarking 33 per cent of seats for women in Parliament and state legislatures sees the light of the day as demanded recently by women MPs from the Rajya Sabha, cutting across party lines. But will it be an agenda in the upcoming electoral battles in 2019? Sadly, it doesnt seem so! The writer is a former director-general of Doordarshan and All India Radio, and a former press secretary to the President of India I have long suspected that we, as a people, are prone to hyperbole and overreaction. Rarely, if ever, do we strike the right balance, hit the proper note or come up with the mot juste. When discretion and judgment are required, we have a knack of ending up in extreme positions. To put it bluntly, we often get difficult calls wrong. The decision to press sedition charges against Kanhaiya Kumar and other students of Jawaharlal Nehru University has convinced me that Im correct. The situation called for deft handling. We responded with a blunderbuss. In the process, the government and the police have embarrassed themselves. First, however, let me make a little qualification. India is not Europe or America and slogans proclaiming Bharat ki Barbadi tak Kashmir ki Azadi tak jung karenge jung karenge or Bharat tere tukade honge InsaAllah InsaAllah cross a desi redline and are considered wrong. The key question is what should you do about them? I would say that three factors need to be borne in mind when you consider your response. First, students tend to be anti-establishment and defiant of authority. Revolt and reaction is part of the process of growing up. Weve all gone through it. More importantly, the challenge this poses often forces a valuable rethink. If nothing else, its how any society evolves. This is one reason for tolerating what you might consider the unspeakable. Second, university campuses are places where debate and dissent is to be encouraged, not quashed. And encouragement means permitting, at times even encouraging, the unlikeable and, possibly, also the offensive. Otherwise you could undermine the raison detre of a university. Third, how much criticism that a government or state can tolerate is an indication of their self-confidence and maturity. Cracking down on dissidence suggests weakness, even if for some people it seems like a tough response. Here appearances actually deceive. The astute move would have been to ignore the slogans after forcefully criticising them. When American university students rose in protest against the Vietnam war, including rallies in support of Ho Chi Minh and the burning of the Stars and Stripes, (then US President) Lyndon Johnson didnt charge them with sedition or arrest them. Instead, he let them spend their passion, knowing it would eventually diminish. Similarly, in 1968, when Tariq Ali, then a Pakistani citizen, claimed that he was leading a revolution while living in the UK, the British didnt slap sedition charges or even deport him. They simply advised him against travelling to France, where the authorities might not have been so tolerant! A few years later, they made him a British citizen. Unfortunately, disregarding the above, the Delhi police has responded with charges of sedition. Thats like swinging a battleaxe to crack a nut. Not only is that defiance of Supreme Court judgments which say sedition can only apply when there is a clear and immediate incitement to violence which definitely was not the case its also a section of our penal code which wise leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru hoped would be scrapped or, at least, never enforced. The Supreme Court first made its position clear in 1962 in the Kedar Nath Singh judgment, when it read down Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, which is the sedition clause. In 1995, in the Balwant Singh case, when it ruled that Khalistan Zindabad is not seditious, it upheld the 1962 ruling. More recently, in September 2016, the Supreme Court explicitly reaffirmed this position. It pronounced: We are of the considered opinion that the authorities, while dealing with offences under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, shall be guided by the principles laid down by the Constitution Bench in Kedar Nath Singh versus State of Bihar. So why do our police forces continue to misuse the sedition law? More critically, why do our elected governments permit and condone it? Sadly, there are even occasions when some of our most learned and sophisticated politicians get it wrong. In a 2017 speech in London, Arun Jaitley had said: Free speech does not permit you to assault the sovereignty of the country. Hes wrong. As long as that assault is verbal and not physical and, therefore, violent it is fully covered by Article 19(1). Furthermore, what most politicians forget is that while Article 19(2) permits restrictions on freedom of speech on the grounds of sovereignty its an enabling provision and not the law itself. After the law of sedition was read down, such a law no longer exists. If the BJP wishes to criminalise anti-national slogans, it needs to create a specific law for this purpose. I have two reasons for hoping that it wont. Perhaps in the immediate years after Independence India was fragile and such slogans could genuinely threaten. Thats not the case any longer. Today were resilient enough to withstand provocative rhetoric or dissident behaviour. Indeed, the liberty to act or speak in defiance of public opinion should be proud proof of our strength. Second, as far back as 1962, in his maiden speech in the Rajya Sabha, DMK founder C.N. Annadurai had said: Dravidians demand the right of self-determination ... we want a separate country for southern India. If his speech was tolerated 57 years ago, surely the chanting of offensive slogans should be treated similarly today? Lets not in the name of nationalism commit the blunder of restricting free speech. We know that those who chant anti-national slogans are horribly wrong, but they have a right to be. A great human tragedy has been playing out for a month and a day, but we have been unable to do anything about it. Meghalaya's mine cave-in, in which hope for survival of the 15 trapped in a rathole of an illegal coal mine has all but faded, is challenging our emergency services and our technology. Scientists cannot fathom the reason why the ill-fated 370-foot-deep mine is filling up with water despite tonnes of water being pumped out. Multiple agencies, some using submersible robotic vessels, have been on the rescue mission in the hope of getting the slenderest breakthrough to find any signs of life. That interim compensation cheques have been paid already reflects the scale of the disaster. At the technical level, the rescue efforts, supervised by the Supreme Court, have gone on against the odds. At another level, the very existence of such mines, possibly owned by politicians in proxy names, shows how few avenues exist for people of the region and neighbouring Assam areas to earn a living. It won't take superhuman efforts to shut such mines if there is political will. But in an area featuring illegal timber trading off Bhutan hills and illegal coal mining, shutting of means of livelihood, even if they are of questionable legality, might represent a huge conundrum. This is representative of the state of the economy not being in a position to support the population with jobs and avenues for self-employment. As long as such a state persists, illegal mafias will cynically exploit people to make profits. The regulation of such activities with safety measures in place might prove the ultimate challenge. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe announced that she will not take food for 72 hours, but the protest could continue to the bitter end. The prison authorities denied her medical treatment for neck, arm and leg pain. Member of a charitable NGO, the woman was sentenced to five years in prison for trying to "overthrow the religious establishment". Tehran (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British citizen of Iranian origin with a double passport currently jailed in a prison Tehran has begun a hunger strike to last at least 72 hours to protest against cell treatment and the ban on access to medical care. The 40-year-old woman, project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in April 2016 at the international airport of the capital while she was about to return to London with her daughter, after a visit to her family of origin. Yesterday, husband Richard Ratcliffe announced the start of the protest during a press conference held in the capital of the United Kingdom. "Nazanin called me this morning - he underlined - from Evin prison, to confirm that she started a hunger strike. For now it will last three days "but it is not excluded that it can continue if the situation does not change. The woman is protesting the conditions she is subjected to in jail: the prison guards would have denied specialized medical treatment for severe neck pain and numbness in the arms and legs. Iranian authorities have currently no official comments on the matter. The judges have sentenced Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to a five-year prison term after having recognized her as a conspirator in an attempt to overthrow the Iranian religious establishment. An accusation rejected by the the woman, her family members and the Foundation she works for, a charitable NGO that operates independently of the information giant. British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt, who yesterday called the Iranian ambassador to London and called for the necessary medical treatment to be guaranteed, intervened at the time. "Her ongoing detention - said Hunt - is unacceptable and her treatment by the Iranian authorities is unacceptable". Teheran responded, speaking of "unacceptable" interference "in internal affairs". London has warned all British citizens of Iranian origin not to travel to their country of origin, if not strictly necessary. According to estimates by Human Rights Watch (HRW), Teheran has recently arrested several citizens with double passports. IN an interview with a Turkish television channel, Pakistans Prime Minister Imran Khan completely sidestepped a question about the condition of Uighur Muslims in Chinas western Xinjiang province. He admitted he knew little about the issue, and, instead, preferred to focus on Chinese financial assistance and investment in Pakistan. China is under stiff criticism for its alleged persecution of religious and ethnic minorities, especially Uighur Muslims. Freedom Houses 2018 country report on China classified it as religiously-not-free on its freedom index. China is seriously concerned about this growing perception that hurts its efforts to promote a soft image of China for a successful execution of its Belt and Road Initiative and other global commercial and strategic projects. Last week, China said it welcomed UN officials to visit Xinjiang provided that they stay out of its internal affairs. Pakistan usually avoids commenting on Chinas internal affairs. But many Pakistani men, married to Chinese Uighur women, claim their spouses are being held in so-called re-education camps and are demanding their release. The issue has put Pakistan in a difficult position, mainly due to Chinas huge investment in the country, as well as the extreme sensitivity of Chinese authorities to discussions on the subject. Mystery continues to shroud Chinas re-education camps, with the authorities least interested in opening them up to independent review. However, Chinese scholars claim they are a part of the countrys countering violent extremism strategy, which was not built in isolation from rest of the world. They assert that China has designed its re-education strategy after carefully examining CVE approaches in practice in the West and the Muslim world, which also employ similar community engagement programmes. Though they tend to justify their muscular approach by quoting examples from the Gulf, and South and Southeast Asian Muslim nations, the Chinese CVE strategy still appears highly politicised and opaque to Western practitioners and policymakers. Much of the information about Chinas re-education centres comes from the West. Though the criticism has forced Chinese authorities to release some information, it is insufficient to make a proper assessment. Last year, a state-run news agency published an interview of Shohrat Zakir, the Xinjiang governor, describing the camps as professional vocational training institutions for people influenced by terrorism and extremism who have not committed an offence warranting criminal punishment. Similarly, in a seminar in China last November, local scholars explained Chinas CVE approaches. Alluding to diverse and disparate CVE practices in different countries, they tended to conclude that no uniform or global CVE programme exists. One Chinese scholar presented a four-layered model based on the four principles of breaking, establishing, preventing and developing. Breaking referred to isolating individuals from an extremist environment; establishing meant introducing them to the true spiritual values of religion; preventing was seen as educating; and developing was interpreted as a skill development programme. However, one of the best works available on the subject of Chinas CVE strategy is by Zunyou Zhou, a Germany-based Chinese scholar. In a paper published in the Journal of Terrorism and Political Violence in 2017, he noted that the Chinese CVE strategy is based on multiple approaches and, interestingly, that they consulted Western CVE and deradicalisation approaches extensively and then built their own, more muscular model. The approaches include five keys, four prongs, three contingents, two hands and one rule. Viewed together, these approaches point to legal, religious, cultural, ideological, and scientific aspects of the deradicalisation effort, implemented by governmental agencies, public institutions and non-governmental organisations in the region. The Xinjiang government has developed several programmes to target different groups of people, including those who are radicalised as well as those who are not but considered vulnerable to recruitment. The five keys ideological, cultural, customary, religious and legal give a long-sustaining solution to terrorism. The four prongs refer to a combination of four methods: squeezing by correct faith; counteracting by culture; controlling by law; and popularising science. Squeezing by correct faith refers to clarifying peoples understanding of Islam while counteracting by culture means seeking effective and practical solutions to thwart extremism and guiding people towards secularisation and modernisation. The three contingents refer to the policy of reinforcing three main groups of people the government can count on to maintain stability and security. The two hands refer to the one firm hand that cracks down on terrorists, and the other firm hand that educates and guides Uighur people, and the one rule means the policy of ruling Xinjiang according to the law. For the CVE strategys smooth implementation, the Xinjiang authorities have introduced new legal regimes, and the latest amendment (titled Regulation on Anti-Extremism) was introduced in April 2017 to ban a wide range of extremist behaviours. Under the new legal framework, authorities have launched many programmes including deradicalisation for prisoners, and social programmes for those who have engaged in terrorism or extremism but do not deserve criminal punishment. The re-education camps or rehabilitation centres have been created as a part of Chinas social programming. These centres run through civil society groups in Xinjiang or through Fang Hui Ju working groups, dispatched by the regional government, comprising practitioners tasked with winning the hearts and minds of the people. For CVE practitioners, the Chinese model may have a lot of substance to learn from. But the Uighur problem is more complex than religious extremism, as it has added dimensions of ethnic, cultural and political rights. By arrangement with Dawn Lucknow: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on Congress for not working in the interests of farmers and the backward castes despite being in power for the longest time post independence. "Why did they (Congress) keep the date of loan waiver March 31? They will benefit more by this whereas 70 per cent of farmers will not benefit from this," said Mayawati sparing no stone unturned in criticising the Congress' vested interest policies. After assuming office Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath had announced that only those loans which are outstanding as on March 31, 2018, would be eligible for a loan waiver. However, the date was later extended to December 2018. Underlining the need for a farmer-centric loan waiver policy, Mayawati asserted: "We have always worked for the farmers, poor and the downtrodden. The government should give 100 per cent farm loan waiver, else suicide by farmers will continue. A strong farm loan waiver policy should be made." Addressing the media on the occasion of her birthday, she said: "Congress ruled the country unopposed for a long time after independence. The result of five states is not only a lesson for the BJP but for the Congress as well." She emphasised that BSP's alliance with SP will decide the prime ministerial candidate for 2019 Lok Sabha polls. "The Lok Sabha polls are going to take place soon. Our alliance with SP has made all other parties have become nervous. This alliance is going to decide the Prime Minister of the country. I urge the workers of SP and BSP to just focus on winning the elections," she said. She also emphasised on the need to formulate a policy for Defence deals. She added, "Matters such as Rafale and Bofors should also be taken care of under this." Her birthday is also celebrated as Jan Kalyankari Diwas in the country. On the occasion, she also thanked the people that have shaped and influenced her life and also launched her Blue Book. "I thank everyone who has supported the BSP movement and me during my struggle. This book is a travelogue of the same," she added. The development comes as the ruling coalition is accusing BJP of attempting to topple the government. (Photo: File) Bengaluru: Two Independent lawmakers withdrew their support from the ruling Congress-JD(S) government in Karnataka on Tuesday. The development comes as the ruling coalition and opposition BJP are trading allegations of making a renewed bid to poach MLAs in a fresh political war just ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Independent MLAs, H Nagesh and R Shankar, submitted a letter to the Governor announcing the withdrawal of their support from the Kumaraswamy-led government. H Nagesh, one of the lawmakers who withdrew support, accused the alliance of failing to provide good and stable government and announced that he would join the BJP. My support to coalition government was to provide a good and stable government which utterly failed. There is no understanding among the coalition partners. So, I decided to go with BJP to install a stable government and see that the government performs better than the coalition, he said. Another lawmaker R Shankar said, Today is Makar Sankranti. On this day we want a change in the government. The government should be efficient, so I am withdrawing my support (to the Karnataka government) today. Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said that he is totally relaxed as he knows his strength. If two MLAs withdraw their support, what will be the numbers? I'm totally relaxed. I know my strength. Whatever is going on in media in the past week, I am enjoying, he said. His deputy G Parameshwara also maintained that the government is stable. We have been saying that BJP is luring our MLAs through money and power but their attempts to destabilise the government will fail. Our government is stable, he said. In the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, the ruling coalition has 118 lawmakers. With the defection of two MLAs, the number has come down to 116 which is little above the halfway mark of 113. Over the last two days, the Congress and the BJP are accusing each other of poaching their MLAs. The Congress sais several of its lawmakers are missing while the BJP has shifted its 104 MLAs out of Bengaluru all the way to Gurgaon near Delhi. Bengaluru: Following an order from the Bombay High Court, the Karnataka police is all set to hand over the custody of three accused in the murder of a noted journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh to Maharashtra police. The accused Amol Kale, former convener of Hindu Janajagruti Sami and the alleged mastermind in Gauris murder, Ganesh Miskin, the man who drove Waghmore on the evening of September 5, 2017, and another accused Amit Baddi will be shifted to Mumbais Arthur Road prison. They are currently lodged at the Parappana Agrahara Central Prison here along with 15 other accused arrested for the murder. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the murder had arrested Kale on May 21, 2018, while Miskin and Baddi were arrested on July 22, 2018. The Maharashtra police are in talks with the Karnataka police over the custody of the three accused, also allegedly involved in the murder of rationalists Narendra Dhabolkar, Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi. The names of the trio also figured in the recent Nalasopara arms haul case. We have got all the necessary information from the accused regarding the Gauri Lankesh murder and also established their roles. The accused would be shifted to Mumbai jail amid tight security as they are involved in multiple cases, a senior SIT officer said. The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had sought the custody of the trio for further investigation, which Justice Mridula Bhatkar of Bombay High Court had granted. ATS had got their custody for six days in October as well, but a court had refused to extend their police remand and sent them to judicial custody. They were then moved to Parappana Agrahara Central Prison in the city. The judge asked the state government and additional director general of ATS to make necessary security arrangements for transferring the accused to Mumbai. The court will hear the petition next on January 28. A notice has been sent to the Bengaluru Central Jail Superintendent and the Maharashtra government, asking the latter to ensure adequate security arrangements for transportation of the accused. Bengaluru: With MLAs H. Nagesh from Mulabagilu and Karnataka Prajnavanta Janata Paksha member and former minister R. Shankar from Ranebennur's shock decision to withdraw support from the coalition government, the rebel group led by Gokak MLA, Ramesh Jarkiholi drew first blood in the battle of destabilising the coalition government. Mr Shankar and Mr Nagesh both sent their letters to Governor Vajubhai Vala intimating him of their decision to withdraw support from the coalition government. Both also issued a statement from Mumbai where they had been holed up in a five star hotel with Mr Jarkiholi, stating that they would prefer a BJP government over the coalition government which failed to give good governance in Karnataka. Citing lack of funds from the government for their constituencies and their recommendations on transfer of officials being ignored as the reason for withdrawing support from the coalition government, the Ramesh Jarkiholi group which is camping in Mumbai sent a signal to the coalition government that this time, they were set on destabilising the government. Sources indicate that Ramesh Jarkiholi may have reached out to 14 MLAs, of whom nine are in Mumbai. Sensing that the power rests in the hands of Speaker Ramesh Kumar, who may refuse to accept their resignations, sources close to Jarkiholi also said they have begun consulting legal advisors on how to make their plan a success. Jarkiholi has reportedly promised the BJP top brass that they would complete the operation to pull down the government before Jan. 23, with the BJP leadership reportedly eliciting the promise that if they failed to bring in a BJP government led by B.S. Yeddyurappa, they would drop the plan to bring down the coalition government and focus all their energies on delivering 20 seats for the Parliament elections. Eight to go first, six to follow? Sources said that 8 MLAs may resign in the first stage to precipitate the crisis. Apart from Mr Nagesh and Mr Shankar, the other six include, Umesh Jadhav, Ramesh Jarkiholi, Nagendra, Mahesh Kumathalli, J. Ganesh, Bheema Naik. Sources said these six may resign in the next couple of days. The sources claimed that the group have another six legislators with them who would quit in due course. At what stage can BJP form a government after dislodging the coalition? In a House of 224 (excluding the Speaker), the BJP has 104 MLAs. With the support of two independents, the BJP's tally goes up to 106. So, If more Congress MLAs resign, the House strength will go down as will the simple majority. No less than 13 Congress members must resign from the Congress party for the coalition to be on shaky ground. The Congress and JD (S) will have a majority until the House strength drops to 211. If 13 resign and the House strength drops to 211, BJP with the support of two independents, will get a simple majority in the House (106). Cong ploy: House to be dissolved? Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, a senior Congress leader said on condition of anonymity that the Congress leaders were still only examining the proposal to dissolve the house."This is only an exigency measure. This prevents the BJP which is trying to ensure the House is kept in suspended animation or to form a government on its own. The coalition partners do not want either of this to happen. Therefore, the Congress is still trying to bring both JD(S) patriarch, H.D. Deve Gowda and Chief Minister, H.D. Kumaraswamy on board on this issue," the source said. Speaker Ramesh key to save govt Apart from mulling dissolving assembly, the Congress party is also examining other possibilities to checkmate the BJP's move such as disqualifying rebel MLAs or delaying accepting resignations of MLAs using speaker's office. Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, a senior leader said, "Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar being a very astute politician knows how to handle these kind of issues. We have already seen examples set by Lok Sabha speaker, Sumitra Mahajan who deferred the decision of accepting YSR Congress MPs' resignations by at least six months last year itself, while it is better to speak less about former speaker K.G. Bopaiah, who was the perhaps first Speaker to disqualify MLAs in the state. These are shining examples how the speaker offices time and again used his powers for the benefit of the ruling party." Bengaluru: The South Western Railway (SWR) introduced one more train from Mysuru to Chennai via Bengaluru considering the large number of people, especially workers from the unorganised sector, travelling on the route. While a new mainline electric multiple unit (MEMU) train was recently introduced between Bengaluru and Mysuru in the evenings, the extension of the Chennai - Bengaluru Express to Mysuru will help passengers travelling during the day. Train numbers 12609 and 12160 will leave Mysuru at 4.45 am and reach Bengaluru city railway station at 8.02 am. They will arrive in Chennai by 2.30 pm and on the return journey, leave Chennai by 1.35 pm to reach Mysuru by 11 pm. Speaking to the Deccan Chronicle, a senior railway official said the train had met a long pending demand of workers from the garment and manufacturing industries, besides the unorganised sector from both cities. Although a new MEMU train was introduced recently between Mysuru and Bengaluru, the extension of the Chennai - Bengaluru Express to Mysuru will help passengers travelling during the day. But we havent yet finalised which day the train will run, he added. Welcoming the introduction of the new train, Mr Rakshith N, a regular commuter between the two cities, said, The new train will help thousands of government employees and workers from the unorganised sector from Mysuru reach their workplaces on the Mysuru-Bengaluru route. It will ease pressure on the Chamundi Express that leaves Mysuru at 6.45 am and help reduce traffic on the Mysuru- Bengaluru highway as currently many are forced to go by road in the absence of proper train services. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan greets Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his arrival at Ashramam helipad in Kollam on Tuesday. Governor P. Sathasivam, PWD Minister G. Sudhakaran and Mayor V. Rajendra Babu look on. Thiruvananthapuram: Prime Minister Narendra Modi sounded the poll bugle in Kerala on Tuesday, accusing the LDF Government and the party of the most shameful conduct on Sabarimala and the Congress of playing double standards, saying one thing in Parliament and another in Pathanamthitta. At the NDA rally at Cantonment Maidan in Kollam, Mr Modi hoped Kerala would repeat Tripura, saying the BJP knows Kerala culture the best and that the Communists and Congress are pretenders to gender justice. He was outlining his partys electoral game plan, which is to exploit the social polarisation following the top courts pro-woman verdict and the state governments compliance with implementing the verdict. The party workers, drawn from nearby districts sat impatiently through the welcome by NDA state president Tushar Vellapally and convener P. S. Sreedharan Pillai, awaiting the Modi speak. For the past months the entire nation is talking about Sabarimala. The conduct of Kerala LDF government on the Sabarimala issue will go down in history as one of the most shameful behaviours by any party or government. We knew that the communists do not respect Indian history, culture and spirituality but nobody imagined they have such hatred. The UDF is no better, the Congress has multiple stands; they say one thing in Parliament but different thing in Pathanamnthitta, they say one thing one day, say a different thing another day. I challenge the UDF, clearly state your stand on the issue; your double speak has been exposed. Alleging that both LDF and UDF were "two sides of the same coin", Mr Modi said the Congress and Communists were talking about gender justice on Sabarimala issue but their actions were "just opposite." The Left and the Congress make tall claims about respect to gender justice and social justice... the NDA government has been working for gender justice and social justice. Triple talaq is big injustice to women; several Islamic nations have done away with it. Why should India have such a practice? But because of vote bank politics the Congress and Communists support. The people of Kerala should ask the LDF and UDF, why are they supporting injustice to women? He attacked the Muslim League for voting against the NDA Government 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections. He sought to reach out to the Christian community by the recalling the Governments timely intervention in bringing home nurses stranded in Iraq and the release of the Jesuit, Fr Tom Uzhannalil, from IS captivity. Mr Modi said his Government had achieved what was unthinkable four years ago- Ayushman Bharat scheme to benefit 50 crore people, the emergence of India as the fastest growing economy and its record on FDI. He said he was seeking another term for his party on the achievements of the past four years. "The UDF and LDF may laugh at us. To them I say, don't underestimate the BJP karyakarta. Your stones, your sticks, your violence cannot break the moral of the BJP karyakarta. They should see what happened in Tripura. From zero, we formed the government there. What happened in Tripura will happen in Kerala," Mr Modi said. Kochi: A sharp increase in deer population over the years at the Tripunithura Hill Palace Museum has resulted in the animals fighting for territory and space, leaving many of them injured. Over 260 deer, including 30 Sambar deer, are crammed in a two-acre enclosure located at the top of the hilly area leaving them restless over space and hot climatic conditions. Some of the deer can be seen with blood stains on their horns while certain others are limping. When asked, a caretaker told us they were gasping for space and indulge in fighting for territory, especially Sambar species, said Sreejith Sreedharan, a resident of Kalamassery who visited the tourist spot. E Dinesh, Registrar of the Centre for Heritage Studies which maintains the deer park at the museum, admitted the issue saying they are trying their best to fast track the project to relocate the deer. Though the Culture Mini-stry approved a `1crore project to relocate the deer, the Forest department has sought more time. They are yet to identify a suitable forest space. Were facing several challenges for their upkeep with the food alone costing us `2.5 lakh per month, he said. The number of deer to be shifted is huge and the animals are known to be sensitive over the habitat. Hence there is a risk of casualty if they are shifted to a new habitat suddenly. They should be first provided an environment similar to forest habitat for nearly six months, said a senior Forest officer. The deer enclosure was started in 1992 with just 18 animals, including eight Sambar deer. However, their number rose sharply over the years. Last year 11 of the deer died due to lung infection. Also the green cover in the Deer park got destroyed with the animals skinning out the bark of trees resulting in them drying out. The Central Zoo Authority issued a notice to close down the enclosure in March 2016. The issue is going to be worse with the Summer approaching. Well construct temporary shade nets to reduce intensity of the heat, the official said. New Delhi: The BJPs grand plan to hold a rathyatra in Trinamul Congress-ruled West Bengal received a jolt with the Supreme Court on Tuesday asking the saffron partys state unit to submit a revised schedule of its proposed yatra with the authorities, and seek necessary approvals. The West Bengal unit of the BJP had approached the Supreme Court seeking permission for the rallies and public meetings, which would cover all 42 parliamentary constituencies in the state ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the BJPs West Bengal unit to submit a revised schedule of its proposed rathyatra with the state authorities and seek the necessary approvals. The court also asked the state government to allow the proposed public meetings and rallies of the BJP under its Ganatantra Bachao Yatra. The bench, which also comprised Justices L.N. Rao and S.K. Kaul, asked the state government to consider the revised schedule of the BJP for the rathyatra keeping in mind the fundamental right of speech and expression guaranteed under the Constitution. The bench said the apprehension of the state government of a possible law and order situation cannot be called unfounded and the BJP would have to take all possible steps to address this fear in a reasonable manner. The court had earlier sought the state governments response on the BJPs plea seeking permission to take out the rathyatra in the state. It is for the state government to maintain law and order in the state and the apprehensions expressed in the order will have to be addressed by the petitioner in a reasonable manner, said the bench. Sources said the BJP could curtail its earlier 40-day programme to a 20-day one, and the fresh yatras could start from Behrampur, Diamond Harbour, Medinipur and Kolkata North. Excited about the job, Srikantaiah brought three more aspirants to Ramachandra who also paid him Rs 6 lakh each for the job. Bengaluru: Three including, an assistant secretary to the health department, were arrested for cheating people of lakhs of rupees by promising government jobs. The Vidhana Soudha police arrested assistant secretary Ramachandra (59), a resident of Kaval Byrasandra, lecturer Devaraj (40) and Lakshmi Narayan, a teacher at Tavarakere. The arrests were made based on a complaint filed by victims from Ramanagara district. Accused Lakshmi Narayan had told his relative Shiv Kumar that there were many vacancies in the government and that the aspirants can get them by paying `6 lakh bribe. Shiv Kumar told this to his friend Srikantaiah, who agreed to pay and get the job. A meeting was set up with Ramachandra at his office where Srikantaiah was told that six months after paying Rs 6 lakh, the appointment letter would be issued. Excited about the job, Srikantaiah brought three more aspirants to Ramachandra who also paid him Rs 6 lakh each for the job. A total of Rs 24 lakh was paid to Ramachandra. After six months, when the victims did not get a proper response, they approached Chief Minister H.D. Kumarswamy and narrated their ordeal. The CM then directed the Vidhana Soudha police to look into the issue. The police swung into action and arrested the accused. The police are investigating if the accused were involved in any such similar cases in the past. The police said that Devaraj is a lecture at a government college near Kengeri. The top US diplomat, on an extensive Middle East tour, held talks with King Salman and his son Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Riyadh: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo faced a tough balancing act on Monday as he pressed Saudi Arabia's crown prince over critic Jamal Khashoggi's murder while shoring up strategic ties with Riyadh. The top US diplomat, on an extensive Middle East tour, held talks with King Salman and his son Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, which also focused on the conflict in Yemen and countering threats from Iran. Pompeo walked a diplomatic tightrope on his second politically sensitive visit to Saudi Arabia since Khashoggi's murder as he demanded that all those involved in the crime be held accountable. The king and crown prince "both acknowledge that this accountability needs to take place", Pompeo said in Riyadh following talks with them. "They reiterated their commitment," he added. Relations between Riyadh and Washington have remained strained after journalist Khashoggi was murdered on October 2 inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Riyadh said the murder was carried out by "rogue" Saudi agents, but the US Central Intelligence Agency reportedly concluded that Prince Mohammed very likely ordered the hit. Pompeo's meeting with the crown prince lasted around 45 minutes. The US diplomat appeared more reserved than his previous visit at the height of the Khashoggi affair, when his broad smiles with the crown prince outraged many Americans. US President Donald Trump has brushed aside critics to stand by Prince Mohammed, who faces international opprobrium over the killing. Riyadh prosecutors have announced indictments against 11 people and are seeking the death penalty against five of them, but they have exonerated Prince Mohammed. Trump has said Washington wants to preserve the alliance with the oil-rich kingdom, which he sees as a bulwark against common foe Iran and a lucrative buyer of US arms. Furious over the murder, US lawmakers have demanded Washington pull back its support to the Saudi-led military campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen. But backing the Saudi position, Pompeo accused the rebels of failing to comply with a truce agreement for the lifeline port city of Hodeida reached last month at UN-sponsored talks in Sweden. "The work that was done in Sweden on Yemen was good, but both sides (need) to honour those commitments," Pompeo said. "Today, the Iranian-backed Houthis have chosen not to do that." Rights groups called on Pompeo to also press Prince Mohammed over the jailing of women activists in the kingdom, amid claims that some of them faced sexual harassment and torture during interrogation. Pompeo on Monday said he discussed human rights issues with the Saudis, including the plight of women activists, without giving any details. Pompeo was in Riyadh as part of an extensive week-long trip to the Middle East, which included stops in Amman, Baghdad, Cairo, Manama, Abu Dhabi and Doha. After Riyadh, Pompeo wrapped up his Middle East tour with a trip to Muscat, where he held talks with Omani ruler Sultan Qaboos. Pompeo, however, cancelled a scheduled visit to Kuwait in order to attend a family funeral at home, US officials said. On Sunday, Pompeo met Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in Doha, where he refused to comment on reports Washington had recently considered military action against Tehran. He also called on Qatar and other Gulf Arab countries to end their worst political rift in years, which has seen Doha diplomatically and economically isolated by neighbouring former allies for the past 19 months. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt -- all US allies -- cut ties with Qatar in June 2017, accusing it of supporting terrorist groups and seeking closer ties to Saudi arch-rival Iran. Qatar -- also a US ally -- denies the allegations and accuses the countries of seeking regime change. "As for the GCC... we are all more powerful when we're working together when we have common challenges in the region and around the world," Pompeo said, referring to the six member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council. He added that "President Trump and I both believe the ongoing dispute in the region has gone on too long". Mediation efforts by the United States, which at first appeared to back the boycott of Qatar, have stalled, as highlighted by the recent resignation of US envoy Anthony Zinni. For Washington, turning the page on the crisis is essential for the successful launch of the Strategic Alliance of the Middle East (MESA), a NATO-style security pact that includes Gulf countries as well as Egypt and Jordan. As per the University website, Sarkar specialised in political sociology, political thought, human rights and law, the Constitution and government, and ethnicity and terrorism. (Photo: Facebook) Kolkata: A professor at West Bengals Jadavpur University has sparked outrage with his Facebook post in which he compared a womans virginity to a sealed bottle or packet. Kanak Sarkar had written in the post that, "Virgin girl is like a sealed bottle or sealed packet. Are you willing to buy a broken seal while purchasing a bottle of cold drinks or a packet of biscuits... To most boys, a virgin wife is like an angel." The post, Virgin Bride Why Not? was taken down by him later but he continued to defend his statement citing that the Supreme Court gives freedom of expression on social media. (Photo: Facebook | Fazie Wakil) I have not written anything against any person, individual or anybody without any evidence or proof or any reference. I am doing social research and writing for the good and well-being of society, Sarkar said. Supreme Court has repealed Section 66A of Information Technology Act and given freedom of expression in social media, Sarkar wrote in the second post on Facebook but was later deleted. The National Commission for Women has asked the state police chief to probe the incident and take appropriate action. Jadavpur University promised to take action as Sarkars post drew criticism online and the University Vice-Chancellor Suranjan Das said, We will take all steps as per law". As per the University website, Sarkar specialised in political sociology, political thought, human rights and law, the Constitution and government, and ethnicity and terrorism. Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy said, 'I know my strength. My government is stable. Don't worry.' (Photo: File) Bengaluru: Dismissing any threat to the Congress-JD(S) dispensation in the state after two MLAs withdrew their support, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Tuesday said his government was stable and he was "totally relaxed". Seeking to put up a brave front, Kumaraswamy said, "I know my strength. My government is stable. Don't worry." He added, "Whatever are the episodes in our Kannada (TV) channels going on from last one week I am enjoying it." Taking a swipe at the BJP, the chief minister said, "What is going to happen? If two independents declare support (to BJP). What will be the numbers? I am totally relaxed." Independent legislator H Nagesh and KPJP's R Shankar have written to Governor Vajubhai Vala announcing the withdrawal of their support to the seven-month-old Kumaraswamy government. Also Read: 2 Independent MLAs withdraw support from Cong-JD(S) govt in Karnataka Both the Congress and the BJP have been accusing each other of trying to lure legislators. The BJP MLAs are presently camping in Gurgaon, amid reports that some Congress and Independent MLAs are staying at a hotel in Mumbai. SC asked West Bengal government to allow rallies and meeting of the BJP state unit. (Photo: File) New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday has refused to give a go-ahead for the BJPs rath yatra in West Bengal. The court said the BJP can hold normal rallies with the approval of the state government. However, the top court said if the BJP comes out with a revised plan of fresh yatra, that may be considered afresh later. A bench led by the Chief Justice of India said that apprehension of violence by the state government was not unfounded. The court is hearing a petition of the BJP challenging an order of the Calcutta High Court, which had set aside a ruling of allowing the procession. In its plea, BJP has contended that state authorities cannot abridge their right and they have a duty to facilitate them in exercising their democratic right. The BJP rally plans to cover 42 parliamentary constituencies in Bengal ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha polls. As per the original schedule, BJP president Amit Shah was to launch the yatra from Cooch Behar on December 7, Kakdwip in South 24 Parganas on December 9 and from Tarapith temple in Birbhum on December 14. Justice Mridula Bhatkar gave the direction when hearing an application filed by the state Anti-Terrorism Squad seeking custody of the three accused - Amol Kale, Amit Baddi and Ganesh Miskin. (Photo: File) Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Monday ordered that three accused in the Gauri Lankesh murder case be shifted from a Bengaluru jail to Mumbai's Arthur Road prison to enable them to file affidavits and defend a petition by the Maharashtra ATS seeking their custody in an arms haul case. Justice Mridula Bhatkar gave the direction when hearing an application filed by the state Anti-Terrorism Squad seeking custody of the three accused - Amol Kale, Amit Baddi and Ganesh Miskin. In October 2018, the ATS took custody of the three for their alleged involvement in a case pertaining to recovery of arms at Nalasopara on outskirts of Mumbai. They were then produced before a Mumbai sessions court, which remanded them in ATS custody for six days. The sessions court later refused to extend their police remand and sent them to judicial custody following which they were shifted to Bengaluru. Special public prosecutor Raja Thakar told the high court that the previous six-day police remand was not sufficient for the ATS investigation. Justice Bhatkar, after hearing brief arguments, issued notices to the three accused through the superintendent of the central prison in Bengaluru. "It is directed that these respondents/accused are to be transferred from the central prison in Bangalore to Arthur Road jail in Mumbai to enable them to reply and defend this case," the court said in its order. The judge directed the state government and additional director general of ATS to make necessary security arrangements for transferring the accused from Bengaluru to Mumbai. The High Court posted the petition for further hearing on January 28. The matter came up for hearing before a bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Ajay Rastogi, and the counsel appearing for the petitioner said they have circulated a letter seeking adjournment of the hearing. (Photo: File) New Delhi: The Supreme Court Tuesday said it would hear after four weeks a plea by Zakia Jafri challenging the clean chit by the SIT to then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in connection with the 2002 Godhra riots. Zakia, the wife of Ehsan Jafri, an ex-MP who was killed in one of the worst incidents during the riots, has challenged the Gujarat High Court's October 5, 2017, order rejecting her plea against the SIT's decision. The matter came up for hearing before a bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Ajay Rastogi, and the counsel appearing for the petitioner said they have circulated a letter seeking adjournment of the hearing. "You are asking for four weeks and we are giving your four weeks. List the matter after four weeks," the bench said. The stage is set for the commencement of the much-publicised 49-day Kumbh Mela with its first official bathing of Makar Sankranti on Tuesday to be undertaken by about 1.25 crore devotees. (Photo: ANI) Allahabad: The largest religious gathering anywhere on earth gets under way Tuesday, with tens of millions of Hindu pilgrims congregating to bathe in sacred rivers for the Kumbh Mela. Organisers are expecting the enormous spiritual festival in Allahabad to attract more than 100 million devotees over the next 48 days, with seas of pilgrims camped by the riverside. The ancient city in Uttar Pradesh rises alongside the banks of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers. The confluence of the three -- known as Sangam -- is considered especially holy and Hindus believe bathing there during the Kumbh helps cleanse sins and brings salvation. "This pilgrimage gives me peace of mind and an opportunity to reflect on my life," said Sangeeta Gangotri, a pilgrim who travelled 650 kilometres from Nagpur in Maharashtra to Allahabad. The riverbank has transformed into a riot of noise and colour. Naked, dread-locked holy men smeared in ash and sadhus clad in saffron robes wander the crowds, offering blessings to pilgrims who have travelled from every corner of India for the ritual dip. "All the Gods descend on this sacred place during this period. This is the most auspicious event for any human being," said Chandhans Pandey, a 60-year-old devotee. "I have been planning to attend (for) many years." The last major gathering in Allahabad in 2013 drew 120 million devotees, organizers said -- with 30 million plunging into the holy waters on a single auspicious day. Nearly 30,000 police have been deployed to oversee crowds for the huge undertaking, and prevent stampedes that have marred previous gatherings. A tent city with restaurants, roads and marketplaces has sprung up along the river, with pilgrims camped out across a sprawling 45-square kilometre zone specially earmarked for the Kumbh. "More people are drawn to the Kumbh now," Ganeshanand Bharamachari, a 78-year-old pilgrim from nearby Varanasi and a Kumbh veteran, told AFP. "People, mostly from cities, are becoming increasingly religious because the western life they were living has not led them anywhere." The UP state government has heavily promoted this year's Kumbh, which comes as ahead of general elections in April and May. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Allahabad in December to inaugurate a high-tech command centre to manage the Kumbh. The historic city was even renamed Prayagraj in October by the state's government, stripping its centuries-old Muslim moniker and replacing it with an ancient Hindu title. The Mela, which runs until March 4, was recognised as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2017. 'Our MLAs are with us, we are answerable to the people of the constituency, they are not doing any dirty politics. BJP is trying to create a hype in the country on Mahagathbandhan,' Shivakumar told ANI. (Photo: File) Bengaluru: A day after information surfaced about BJP camping its Karnataka MLAs in Gurgaon, in fear of poaching by Congress, Karnataka Minister and Congress leader DK Shivakumar on Tuesday said that all 104 MLAs are still with the party. Our MLAs are with us, we are answerable to the people of the constituency, they are not doing any dirty politics. BJP is trying to create a hype in the country on Mahagathbandhan, Shivakumar told ANI. Congress MLA Anand Singh told the media, Nobody has contacted me; I am very much in the party. The charges of horse-trading were triggered after three Karnataka Congress MLAs visited Mumbai on Monday, reportedly along with some BJP MLAs. This was followed by the Congress alleging that the BJP was trying to poach the ruling partys MLAs to destabilise the JD(S)-Congress alliance government in the state. BJPs Karnataka unit president and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly BS Yeddyurappa told media on Monday, There is no truth in all these rumours. Kumaraswamy is himself trying his level best to contact our MLAs, by offering ministership and money. That is why we are together here (in the NCR). We are not in touch with any of their MLAs. We are only focused on keeping our MLAs energised. We will stay here for one or two days. Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy accused Yeddyurappa of fabricating stories, adding that there is no need for the Congress-JD(S) alliance to poach on any partys lawmakers. Singh asked whether now BSP chief Mayawati and SP leader Akhilesh Yadav would attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 'corruption' in the Rafale jet deal. (Photo: File) New Delhi: An SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh without the Congress was exactly what the BJP wanted initially and the two regional parties have fallen into the ruling party's design, the Congress said on Monday. Its spokesperson R P N Singh said the BJP wanted the secular parties to remain divided in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh before the 2019 Lok Sabha election and contest independently so that their votes could be split. Its attempts have proved successful, he added. On Sunday, the Congress said it would contest on all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in the general election, expected in April-May. That the party was left out of the SP-BSP alliance would not affect its prospects and the Congress would contest with "full force", it had said. Singh tried to raise doubts over the longevity of the alliance, wondering whether it would last till the UP Assembly election on Monday. He also asked whether now BSP chief Mayawati and SP leader Akhilesh Yadav would attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi on "corruption" in the Rafale jet deal. "The SP-BSP coming together leaving the Congress outside is what the BJP wanted from the very beginning that the opposition parties contest independently. It seems they have fallen into the pattern that BJP wanted," he told PTI. He said attempts are being made in all states to unite secular forces and avoid division of anti-BJP votes. "They (SP and BSP) did not express their desire to even talk to us," he alleged. The SP-BSP alliance was formalised on Saturday at a joint presser by Mayawati and Yadav. They announced their parties would contest 38 seats each and would leave two seats for smaller allies. They also said they would not field candidates from Amethi and Rae Bareli, the traditional seats of Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi respectively. Accusing the leadership of the SP and the BSP of not attacking Prime Minister Modi on corruption, Singh said, "We don't see the leaders of these parties attacking the prime minister on corruption in the Rafale scam, the way Rahul Gandhi has attacked him." "We expect the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party to take this up as vehemently in the elections as Gandhi has taken it up," he said. 'Forget past differences and ensure victory of all joint candidates of the SP and the BSP. This will be my ideal birthday gift,' Mayawati said at a press conference here on her 63rd birthday. (Photo: File) Lucknow: Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Tuesday appealed to workers of her party and the Samajwadi Party to forget their past differences. On Saturday, the BSP and the SP announced an alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections to unitedly fight the BJP. "Forget past differences and ensure victory of all joint candidates of the SP and the BSP. This will be my ideal birthday gift," Mayawati said at a press conference here on her 63rd birthday. The SP and the BSP have decided on a 50-50 seat-sharing deal under which each party will contest 38 seats. Both parties will leave two seats for the smaller parties. Uttar Pradesh has 80 Lok Sabha seats. The parties, however, will not contest in Amethi and Rae Bareli, represented by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi respectively. The 'gathbandhan' has kept the Congress out of the alliance. Om Prakash Rajbhar, a minister in the Yogi Adityanath-led government in the state, has been vocal about implementing an expert group recommendation on sub-categorisation of the 27 per cent OBC quota into three categories to benefit the most backward castes. (Photo: File) Lucknow: BJP ally Om Prakash Rajbhar's party on Monday threatened to quit the National Democratic Alliance and join the opposition coalition if its demand of sub-quota in the existing OBC reservation was not met. Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) general secretary Arvind Rajbhar, son of the party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, said the coming together of arch-rivals Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh had posed a "big challenge" for the BJP. "I think the alliance is a big challenge for the BJP. If it doesn't agree to the demand of sub-categorisation of OBC quota put forward by Om Prakash Rajbhar, this alliance will remain a big challenge for the BJP," he told PTI. Om Prakash Rajbhar, a minister in the Yogi Adityanath-led government in the state, has been vocal about implementing an expert group recommendation on sub-categorisation of the 27 per cent OBC quota into three categories to benefit the most backward castes. Asked if his party could join the opposition alliance in case the SBSP's demands were not met, Arvind Rajbhar said: "We haven't had any talks with the opposition. If the BJP doesn't agree to our demand (sub-categorisation), in that scenario, we can go into the grand alliance, all options are open. "The Congress also wants that we should align with them and the ''Mahagathbandhan'' (SP-BSP) also wants that we join them," he said. Arvind Rajbhar's remarks come about a week after another NDA (National Democratic Alliance) constituent Apna Dal (Sonelal) warned the BJP of going to "any extent" if it does not change its attitude to smaller parties in the ruling coalition. Rajbhar's party has four MLAs in Uttar Pradesh, while Apna Dal (S) has nine. The BJP has a huge majority with more than 300 MLAs in the state's 404-member legislative assembly. Apna Dal (S) president Ashish Patel had told party members in Lucknow that the party can take "any decision" but did not elaborate. "Our party (Apna Dal-S) has been in alliance with the BJP since 2014 and is discharging the alliance dharma with full honesty. But in Uttar Pradesh it is not at all getting the respect, which it deserves," Patel had said. "You (BJP) should change your behaviour, otherwise our leader (Union minister Anupriya Patel) can take any decision or go to any extent. Whatever decision our leader takes, the entire party will support it," he had asserted. SBSP chief Om Prakash Rajbhar on Saturday had also said the newly-formed SP-BSP alliance will put up a strong fight in this year's Lok Sabha elections. "The country is witnessing an era of coalition, and no party has the courage to go to the polls alone. The SP-BSP alliance is a strong alliance, and it will put up a strong contest in the elections, " UP minister had said. The court had also imposed eight million pound fine on Sharif, while a fine of two million pound was imposed on his daughter Maryam Nawaz. Islamabad: Pakistans Supreme Court on Monday dismissed an appeal filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against suspension of sentence awarded to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the Avenfield Reference case. A five-member bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar announced the judgment and maintained the decision of the Islamabad high court of granting bail to Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Mohammed Safdar. During the case hearing, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar inquired from the NAB prosecutor about the grounds on which a bail could be cancelled. You have approached the court for bail cancellation. So, what are the reasons? he said. Justice Asif Saeed Khosa pointing towards the NAB prosecutor said that you have stated that the IHC had keenly examined the substantial evidences in the case. Is this the rule of bail cancellation? he asked, adding that unfortunately the accused person is serving the jail again. We cannot determine why you have been insisting for bail cancellation, he added. The second accused person in the case is a woman, while the law facilitates bail for women, whereas the third accused person has not been served any notice he said. Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry expressed his views on the dismissal of the appeal, and said that the judgment was correct constitutionally. The cancellation of bail requires extraordinary reasons. The decision has not affected practical situation in anyway. Nawaz Sharifs political career has ended forever, he said, adding that the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) is an influential political party of Pakistan which needed a new leadership. The court had also imposed eight million pound fine on Sharif, while a fine of two million pound was imposed on his daughter Maryam Nawaz. On July 13, 2018, Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz were arrested on their arrival from London to Lahore, and subsequently were taken to the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi. However, on September 19, 2018, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) suspended their jail sentences, and ordered their release on bail with an immediate effect. Later, the NAB challenged the IHCs ruling in the SCP. Border Security Force (BSF) is tasked to guard the India-Pakistan International Border in the Jammu region of the state. (Representational Image | PTI) Jammu: A BSF officer was killed on Tuesday in sniper fire from across the border in the Samba sector of Jammu and Kashmir, officials of the border guarding force said. They said Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad was hit by a sniper shot around 10:50 am when he and his patrol party were out for "carrying out border domination" along the International Border. "Pakistani snipers opened fire at them, leading to grievous injuries to the officer. Prasad was rushed to a medical facility in Satwari in Jammu where he later succumbed to his injuries," an official said. The Border Security Force (BSF) is tasked to guard the India-Pakistan International Border in the Jammu region of the state. Would-be mermaids and mermen wear tails that combine a monofin flipper with fabric from the waist down. (Photo: AFP) Espoo: At a pool in Espoo, near Finlands capital Helsinki, Maija Mottonen is teaching adults to swim like mermaids in a class that combines fantasy with fitness. Since August, more than 200 women and men have attended the classes run by Mottonen, a former kindergarten teacher who is Finlands first professional mermaid instructor. Its my childhood dream-come-true, the 28-year-old told Reuters. When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a mermaid or a dolphin. But I think its easier to become a mermaid because its half-human. Would-be mermaids and mermen wear tails that combine a monofin flipper with fabric from the waist down. Its kind of magical, said construction worker Markus Parviainen, 29, describing the feeling of diving with the green tail he bought online for 170 euros ($195). Parviainen, who also enjoys cheerleading, said his new hobby was a good way of keeping fit, but acknowledged it had raised some eyebrows among his co-workers. People think, or mostly men, are thinking that this is only for girls or women. But I disagree, this is for everyone ... as long as you love swimming, he added. Mottonen, whose own tail is bright pink, teaches her pupils how to undulate their entire body from head to toe, like a snake as she describes it, followed by a dolphin kick with the monofin flipper to move forward. More experienced students like Parviainen practise tricks such as flapping their tail on the surface while hanging with their head down underwater. When I had tried this once, I was hooked. I feel real powerful in water, said Annika Ihatsu, who had driven for 40 minutes on icy roads from her home in Hyvinkaa to attend the class. While few people would want to make a splash during the cold Finnish winter, instructor Mottonen said the countrys roughly 180,000 lakes were better for mermaiding in summertime than beaches with salty seawater that would make her tail float. We have a lot of lakes so its easy in summer, she said. 'Saaho' will be Shraddha Kapoor's first film in South and Prabhas' first Bollywood project as it will be shot in three languages. Mumbai: Shraddha Kapoor who has time and again spared time from her busy schedules to celebrate various festivals is back in town for Makar Sankranti. While Shraddha always celebrates the festivals with her family, this year she has extended her celebrations to her newly found family - team 'Saaho'. It has been about a year that Shraddha has been shooting for Saaho and the crew has become more like a family for the actress. Shraddha had earlier taken home cooked food for the entire crew. The sweets made in Shraddha's kitchen are quite popular and she often gets them to her film sets in Mumbai for her colleagues and the til Gul laddoos made at her home is no exception. Earlier, Shraddha was seen celebrating New Year with close friends and family. She had specially flown from Hyderabad where she was shooting for Saaho for a day, not leaving any opportunity to spend quality time with her closed ones. On the work front, Shraddha has a chock-a-block schedule ahead as she is working on multiple projects simultaneously with Saaho, Chhichhore, Saina Nehwal biopic and ABCD 3. Myanmar has postponed a planned visit by the UN refugee chief to Rakhine state Britain is expected to raise the issue at the UN Security Council later this week (Photo: File) United Nations: Myanmar has postponed a planned visit by the UN refugee chief to Rakhine state following renewed fighting between security forces and insurgents, a spokesman said Monday. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi was due to visit last week but Myanmar authorities scrapped the trip to Rakhine, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims were driven out in a military crackdown that started in 2017. Fighting has flared after 13 police officers were killed on January 4 in an attack by Rohingya militants on border posts near the frontier with Bangladesh. "Based on assessment of Myanmar authorities of the security situation in Rakhine, the visit has been postponed," said UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic. Britain is expected to raise the issue at the UN Security Council later this week, according to diplomats. The decision to delay Grandi's trip and uncertainty surrounding a separate planned visit by the UN envoy Christine Schraner Burgener to Myanmar is fueling concerns that authorities are backtracking on their commitments to address the Rohingya refugee crisis. "They have done nothing at all and didn't particularly want that to be exposed," said a Security Council diplomat of the decision to postpone Grandi's visit. Myanmar's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to requests for information. Britain in December circulated a draft Security Council resolution on Myanmar that would have set a deadline for authorities to roll out a strategy for addressing the Rohingya crisis. China, backed by Russia, however raised strong objections and refused to take part in negotiations, suggesting it was ready to use its veto at the council to block the measure. Myanmar's violent military campaign in 2017 forced more than 720,000 Rohingya across the border to Bangladesh, with refugees bringing accounts of murder, rape and arson. Britain, France, the United States and UN chief Antonio Guterres have described the campaign as ethnic cleansing while UN investigators have called for top generals to be investigated for war crimes. Rohingya in Buddhist-majority Myanmar have suffered decades of persecution and are denied citizenship rights. Myanmar has denied that it has singled out the Rohingya and described its army operation as a campaign to root out terrorists. Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription and are still unable to access our content, please link your digital account to your print subscription If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. The Tappan Zee Bridge is no more. Built in 1955, the bridge was replaced after a $4 billion Gov. Mario M. Cuomo replacement bridge was opened to the public last year. For months, the husk of the old bridge remained in the water adjacent to the Cuomo Bridge. But Tuesday, explosives took the remaining structure down, leaving nothing but debris to clear in the water below. Traffic on the New York State Thruway/I-87/I-287 will be halted from exit 9 exit 11 for about 45 minutes while controlled explosion is taking place and shortly thereafter. Here are five things to know about the the Tappan Zee Bridge and its demolition: 1. The explosives were set precisely The vertical support columns on the east side of the bridge will be destroyed, according to lohud.com. The goal is to have the explosives placed at timed to force the bridge to fall east, out of the way of the main shipping channel and the new bridge structure. 2. Nets were set to catch the debris As explosives broke the superstructure apart, nets in the water were placed to the debris did not contaminate the river. "The old structure will fall into nets that are held up by buoys," Piermont Police Chief Michael O'Shea told ABC. "The Hudson is deep. It's a major shipping lane for all kinds of cargo. We want to keep everyone safe." 3. Its a huge spectator draw, despite safety concerns Restaurants near the bridge offered a warm place for patrons to watch the demolition on TV, and spectators braved the cold as close as they could get, which wasnt very close at all. "Westchester County residents should not be alarmed by the plans for demolition, as the process is being handled in a careful, safe manner," county Executive George Latimer said. "The U.S. Coast Guard has established a 2,500 foot safety radius around the site, and no residential areas are within that safety zone. 4. Explosives were used because the bridge was not sound Anyone who has travelled across the bridge in the last few months has seen what remained of the Tappan Zee sitting in the water next to the new bridge. Much of it was taken apart, piece by piece but what remained could not be detroyed that way. Officials said what remained of the old bridge was structurally unsound, making a controlled explosion the safest method to remove what was left. 5. The whole bridge isnt being blown up Only the eastern portion of the bridge is being destroyed with explosives, according to lohud.com. The western side of the bridge is scheduled to be removed in the traditional way piece by piece by the end of 2019. STAMFORD Another downtown hotel could soon be coming to the city, this one next to the new Veterans Memorial Park. Prominent land-use consultant Rick Redniss has presented early plans to build a 14-story structure behind the 119-year-old Stamford Savings Bank building next to the parking entrance to Stamford Town Center. A change to city zoning texts, the first round of city approvals needed to allow the hotel, will go the Zoning Board early next month. The change has earned a recommendation from Planning Board members. The proposal calls for the bank building to be incorporated into the high rise behind it, tucked between Edith Sherman Drive and the park, which is now undergoing a multimillion-dollar renovation. The park is slated to reopen in late fall. The 100-room hotel would use the bank as its primary entrance, according to plans on file with the city, and use nearby parking garages instead of building all required spots onsite. If approved, this veterans themed hotel meeting rooms would be named after veterans would join the new Residence Inn by Marriott and others in a crowded downtown hotel scene. The Residence Inn, the citys first extended-stay hotel, opened downtown in November. Redniss, also president of the Veterans Park Partnership, the nonprofit behind the parks renovation, said the group has always planned for a hotel in the bank building. It would liven the area and spark activity, he said, which would dissuade vagrants from making the park a go-to meeting place, which they often did with the old park. Having 24/7 eyes on the park in terms of public safety is very important to the long term success of the park, he said. It was always a goal to have a hotel in that space rather than a bank. Redniss said a local developer is in contract to buy the bank and build the new hotel, but declined to say who. The bank building has been owned by the First County Bank, which was Stamford Savings until the late 1980s, according to city tax records. The building is one of the few spared by the citys Urban Renewal period that leveled dozens. Nearby Old Town Hall is another building pardoned, though the massive Stamford Town Center mall, an associated parking garage and surrounding mid- and high-rise office buildings now rule the area, dwarfing the old one- to three-story structures. According to LoopNet, an online real-estate marketplace, the bank has been listed since July 2017 although no sale price is published. The city last appraised the bank and its land at $2.7 million. The developers first step toward approval will be getting the text change, tentatively slated for a Zoning Board public hearing on Feb. 4. It would allows balconies or facade elements to overhang public property when on historic buildings incorporated into a hotel design in the northern downtown zone. Redniss said history, mainly Urban Renewal, has also clouded property lines, so hell be asking for changes there, too. City tax maps show the bank address claiming the bulk of the parking lot behind it, but not the whole thing. Some small property lines anomalies need to be ironed out, he said. Its a very complicated history of how the lot came to be, how the park came to be. barry.lytton@stamfordadvocate.com; 203-964-2263; @bglytton More than a dozen former priests accused of sexually abusing minors on a list released Tuesday once worked at Fairfield University and Fairfield College Preparatory School. The names were released by the USA Northeast Province of the Society of Jesus. The list includes all Jesuits in the Province, living and dead, who were credibly accused of sexual abuse dating back to 1950. None are still in active ministry, according to the society. The last known credible allegation of sexual abuse of a minor by a Jesuit occurred in 1996, the society said. One Eugene OBrien, is a past principal at Prep. Another, James Pratt, was a seminary student and teacher at Prep in the early 1980s who two decades later was accused of having sexually abused a high school senior during his time at Prep. In all, 50 Jesuits are on the list released Tuesday. Of those, 13 worked at Fairfield U, Prep or both. Officials at Fairfield University say there are no records or accusations at this time of sexual abuse during the time they were on the Jesuit University campus. The list includes William Cullen and George McCabe who worked for the university. Cullen also worked at Prep, along with OBrien, Pratt, Robert Cornigans, Joseph Dooley, Francis Ennis, Joseph Laughlin, Philip Moriarity, Leo Pollard, Edmund Power, and James Sheehan. All but three are reportedly dead. Cornigans, who reportedly left the order, worked at Prep from 1979 to 1980. OBrien and Pratt are both listed by the order as impeded, which according to university officials means that they are no longer allowed to exercise any priestly function. Cullen, who died in 2010, appears to be the last priest to have worked on campus from 1979 to 1988 at the university and from 1989 to 1990 at Prep. In 2016, he was accused of abusing a minor in 1995 during which time he would have been at Nativity Prep in Boston. OBrien was the principal at Prep from 1983-85. In 1993, he was accused of abuse stemming back to the 1960s, and according to the society, admitted to allegations brought against him. In 1997, the Jesuits, the New York Archdiocese, and Fordham Prep in the Bronx settled a suit alleging that O'Brien sexually abused a boy in the early 1970s, according to published reports. O'Brien was principal of Fordham Prep in 1960-80. Prep has no record or accusation of sexual abuse during the time he was on our campus, university officials said on Tuesday. Pratt taught at Prep for the 1981-82 school year while he was a seminarian. In 2003 he was accused of having sexually abused a high school senior during his time at Prep, according to the website BishopAccountability.org. Pratt was removed from his ministerial duties and reassigned to Rome. Making this list publicly available is an important step in the process of healing and reconciliation, Rev. Thomas M. Simisky, president of Prep, said in a letter released to the high schools community. Fairfield University President Mark R. Nemec, released a similar letter, noting that none of the priests listed remain in active ministry. A few of those named did serve in some capacity at Fairfield University and or Fairfield Prep, Nemecs letter stated. Nemec said beyond Province efforts to address and stop the behaviors, the university has firm policies regarding sexual misconduct that apply to faculty, students and staff. I encourage all of us to support one another and to report through the multiple ways made available across campus any sexual misconduct, bullying or any other inappropriate behavior, Nemec said. Rev. John J. Cecero, provincial for the Northeast Province, in releasing the list, said the society is hoping to contribute toward the healing from the pain and anger caused by clergy sex abuse and the lack of accountability and transparency on the part of church leadership. The 50 listed Jesuits are among 3,500 who belonged to the Northeast Province or its predecessors since 1950. To make sure it doesnt happen again, the society said it has zero tolerance regarding instances of inappropriate conduct between a Jesuit and a minor. Since 2002, it says there are procedures in place to address these types of accusations. The release by the Province is the latest in a series of confessions of the Catholic Church as it owns up to its role in hiding abuse among its clergy members, by moving accused priests from parish to parish. The accountability came only after the practice was revealed in the news media, and public court disclosures like one last year by a Pennsylvania grand jury. Dioceses and archdioceses in many states have released lists of credibly accused clergy, and ordered the removal of several high-ranking church officials, including Theodore McCarrick, the retired archbishop of Washington, as a cardinal after an assault allegation against him was found to be credible. In the Diocese of Bridgeport, the list was released in October. There were 26 priest on the list credibly accused of sexual abuse. The diocese has paid $52.5 million to settle abuse claims since 1953. The diocese also published a list on its website of 26 of its priests credibly accused of sexual abuse. The Archdiocese of Hartford, in November released a list of 17 names. lclambeck@ctpost.com; twitter/lclambeck BRIDGEPORT Less than 24 hours after a fatal stabbing in the city Monday night, police detectives had someone in custody and charged with murder Tuesday. Kenyon Gay, 41, of Bridgeport and West Haven, was charged with murder, possession of a dangerous weapon and second-degree assault. His bond was set at $1 million. City police said the victim was 39-year-old Razzie Hancock. Records show his most recent address was on Laurel Court in Bridgeport. The killing was apparently the result of a domestic dispute between a woman, Hancock and Gay, according to Police Chief Armando Perez on Tuesday. One of the men pulled out a knife, slashed the woman and then fatally stabbed the other male, Perez said, adding that it appeared the suspect walked in on the woman and the victim together, which led to an argument, before the suspect pulled out the knife. The womans injuries were non-life-threatening, Perez said. Police Capt. Brian Fitzgerald said detectives were able to quickly identify Gay as the suspect and apply for an arrest warrant that was signed by a judge Tuesday. Hancock was stabbed once in the chest and died shortly after at Bridgeport Hospital, Fitzgerald said. The homicide, the citys first of 2019, happened around 7:15 p.m. Monday. Hancock was stabbed inside a residence in the 100 block of Bishop Avenue, police said. After being stabbed, he left the residence and collapsed on a nearby sidewalk. I want my city to be safe, Perez said. I dont want these types of events to occur. ...Its such a tragic waste of a life. We try so hard to prevent crime, to prevent things like this from happening. It tugs on your heart because it should never have happened. The chief praised the Detective Bureau, led by Fitzgerald, for giving 150 percent during every investigation. They are very caring, hardworking and dedicated individuals, Perez said of the detectives. They never stop until they get an apprehension. 'I never worked for Russia,' Trump told reporters on the South Lawn. 'It's a disgrace that you even ask that question.' Trump's angry comments sought to bat down a mounting controversy over his alleged ties to the Kremlin, but the fact that he even had to issue such a denial illustrates how far the unprecedented scandal has already gone. (Photo: File) Washington: Standing outside the snow-covered White House on Monday, Donald Trump made an astonishing declaration for a US president: no, he has never been an agent of Russia. "I never worked for Russia," Trump told reporters on the South Lawn. "It's a disgrace that you even ask that question. It's all a big fat hoax." Trump's angry comments sought to bat down a mounting controversy over his alleged ties to the Kremlin, but the fact that he even had to issue such a denial illustrates how far the unprecedented scandal has already gone. The statement, delivered in freezing temperatures before taking off in the Marine One helicopter for a trip to New Orleans, followed two bombshell reports. One, in The New York Times, said that the FBI opened an investigation into whether Trump was acting on Russia's behalf soon after he became president. Another, in The Washington Post, detailed what it said were the unusual lengths taken by Trump to hide the contents of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This, of course, comes on top of the huge investigation led by special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who is looking into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election -- and the possibility it colluded with Trump's campaign. Hiding interpreter's notes? Trump was given an opportunity to respond to the report of the FBI investigation on Saturday when he gave an interview to his favourite Fox News channel. But instead of a clear cut denial, he fuelled a mounting outcry in Washington by merely saying that the question was "the most insulting thing I've ever been asked." His response Monday took the entire alleged Russia collusion affair head on. "It's a lot of fake news," Trump said. He called the then-leaders of the FBI who decided to investigate him "known scoundrels, I guess you could say dirty cops." But the latest twists mean that the president -- currently embroiled in a damaging political battle with Congress over funding a Mexico border wall -- can't escape the Russia shadow, regardless of what he says. The details of the latest reports are especially shocking because they are so concrete, in contrast to the often complex and carefully withheld workings of the almost leak-proof Mueller probe. The Post story says that Trump personally acted to prevent notes taken by his interpreter during one-on-one meetings with Putin from being shared with aides. He allegedly took the notes away and ordered the interpreter not to divulge the contents. The Times report on the FBI investigation said the bureau decided to act after Trump fired the then director, James Comey in 2017. Transcripts of closed-door FBI testimony to Congress obtained by CNN show that the then head lawyer for the FBI, James Baker, said the bureau wanted to know whether Trump was "acting at the behest of (the Kremlin) and somehow following directions, somehow executing their will." "That was one extreme. The other extreme is that the President is completely innocent, and we discussed that too," Baker said in the transcript, according to CNN. The White House says that Trump has been pursued by a politicized FBI. The president repeatedly has called the probes into his dealings with Russia a "witch hunt." But Democrats and even some in Trump's Republican Party have repeatedly suggested that the administration is oddly favorable to Russian policies. They point to Trump's diplomatic assaults on European Union unity and the NATO alliance, as well as his recent comment defending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Top advisor Kellyanne Conway reiterated Monday the administration's assertion that Trump had in fact been tough on Russia, one of Washington's key rivals and sometimes outright adversaries. "He has taken a lot of action," she told reporters, listing sanctions imposed on the Kremlin and US policy in Syria, among other factors. Samsung has hidden the announcement date for the highly anticipated handset in plain sight. The billboards which have been installed in Pariss famous Place de la Concorde pair beautiful imagery with text written in Hangeul. At the Samsung Unpacked event on February 20, the South Korean brand announced that they will unveil the Galaxy S10. Little did we know that the brand has another surprise in store for us. In a statement on their official website, Samsung has officially confirmed that the foldable Galaxy smartphone will make an appearance as well. Samsung states that over the past 10 years, they have established a rich legacy of smartphone innovation that has helped make peoples lives smarter and easier. They go on to state that they are celebrating a decade of game-changing innovations with a set of captivating billboards that pay homage to the companys Korean originality, and tease an exciting future for the Galaxy lineup. In other words, a bold new vision for the Galaxy brand that will drive smartphone innovation for the next 10 years and beyond. The billboards which have been installed in Pariss famous Place de la Concorde pair beautiful imagery with text written in Hangeul, the Korean letters. When translated, the intriguing messages and are revealed to say, The future unfolds and February twentieth. From the text, we can gather that it is none other than the foldable phone that will finally be unveiled after making its first veiled appearance last November. Last year, Samsung Electronics Americas Mobile Product Strategy and Marketing, senior vice president, Justin Denison showed a prototype of the foldable phone with a screen he said measured 7.3 inches diagonally. Folded in two it appeared to resemble a thick phone, but Samsung did not give media or developers a chance to touch or see the device up close. Samsung ends the press note by stating, What exactly does the future hold for the Galaxy brand? Youll have to wait until Galaxy Unpacked 2019 next month to find out. The penta-camera sporting smartphone is believed to come in a higher-end version later on this year. The Nokia 9 Pureview has been expected to make its debut at MWC 2019. But if the latest rumour is anything to go by, then the brand will instead release it ahead of the event and probably as soon as the last week of January. As per a report by GSMArena, the handset is expected to be unveiled in January with it going on sale by March. The website claims the reason for the rush is because HMD Global doesnt want people to be comparing the Nokia 9 Pureview sporting a Snapdragon 845 SoC to 2019 flagship handsets that will be equipped with a Snapdragon 855 chipset. The report goes on to add that a Nokia 9 with a Snapdragon 855 SoC will debut in August and it will support 5G networks. The camera on the model that will launch later this year is said to be better as well. The Nokia 9 Pureview has recently made an appearance in a leaked promotional video and it lines up with leaked images that have been floating around. With it, we learn about some interesting features that the handset will boast. Firstly, the handset will run on Android 9.0 Pie and secondly, it will feature a 5-camera layout with Zeiss Optics. The device once launched will have an edge-to-edge 5.99-inch 2K HDR PureDisplay and sport an in-display fingerprint scanner like most of the current flagships such as the Vivo NEX and OnePlus 6T. The Nokia 9 PureView will also be Qi compatible which means that it will support wireless charging. The handset is powered by a Snapdragon 845 SoC, the same one used in the current crop of flagships from Samsung, OnePlus and LG. Paired with the SoC will be 6GB of RAM and 128GB storage. As of now, this looks like the only configuration it will be available in. Disclaimer: The above report is completely based on online rumours and leaks from the respective sources. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of The Asian Age and/or other staff and contributors to this website. American and Dutch scientists found that yearly ice mass loss in Antarctica increased sixfold in the past 40 years. This file NASA image released on December 20, 2017 and acquired on November 29, 2017 by Operation IceBridge during a flight to Victoria Land, shows an iceberg floating in Antarctica's McMurdo Sound. [File photo: NASA/AFP/Chris Larsen] The study published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed the accelerated melting elevated global sea levels more than 1.2 centimeters during 1979 to 2017. It is the longest-ever assessment of Antarctic ice mass, covering 176 basins and surrounding islands. The researchers compared snowfall accumulation in interior basins with ice discharge by glaciers at their grounding lines. The melting rate increased drastically in the new century. It was an average of 48 gigatons annually per decade from 1979 to 2001, but the pace jumped 280 percent to 134 gigatons for 2001 to 2007, according to the study. "As the Antarctic ice sheet continues to melt away, we expect multi-meter sea level rise from Antarctica in the coming centuries," said the paper's lead author Eric Rignot, professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine. Huawei, the worlds biggest producer of telecommunications equipment, faces intense scrutiny in the West. Poland arrested a Chinese Huawei employee and a former Polish security official on spying allegations. (Photo: AP) China on Monday urged countries to end fabrications about Huawei after an official in Poland said his country could limit the use of the companys products by public entities following the arrest of a Huawei employee there on spying allegations. Huawei, the worlds biggest producer of telecommunications equipment, faces intense scrutiny in the West over its relationship with Chinas government and US-led allegations that its devices could be used by Beijing for espionage. No evidence has been produced publicly and Huawei has repeatedly denied the accusations, but several Western countries have restricted Huaweis access to their markets. Poland arrested a Chinese Huawei employee and a former Polish security official on spying allegations on Friday, officials and sources told Reuters. A Polish government official responsible for cybersecurity, Karol Okonski, told Reuters on Sunday that abrupt policy changes toward Huawei were not warranted after the arrests, but that the use of the companys products by state entities could be reviewed. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, responding to the remarks at a regular news briefing in Beijing, said China hoped the Polish side would work to create mutual trust and maintain relations. Hua said some people seek to use groundless accusations about security threats to suppress and restrict Chinese technology companies development abroad. We urge relevant parties to cease the groundless fabrications and unreasonable restrictions toward Huawei and other Chinese companies, and create a fair, good and just environment for mutual investment and normal cooperation by both sides companies, Hua said. Using security reasons to the hype, obstruct or restrict normal cooperation between companies, in the end, will only hurt ones own interests, she added. Seeking to distance itself from the incident, Huawei said on Saturday it had sacked the employee arrested in Poland, Wang Weijing, adding that his alleged actions have no relation to the company. A LinkedIn profile for Wang showed he has worked for Huaweis Polish division since 2011, and previously served as attache to the Chinese General Consul in Gdansk from 2006-2011. A spokesman for the Polish security services said that the allegations related to individual actions, and was not linked directly to Huawei. Polands internal affairs minister, Joachim Brudzinski, has called for the European Union and NATO to work on a joint position over whether to exclude Huawei from their markets. In August, US President Donald Trump signed a bill that barred the US government from using Huawei equipment and is considering an executive order that would also ban US companies from doing so. Australia and New Zealand have also blocked it from building 5G networks amid concerns of its possible links with Beijing. (Source) Independent legislator H Nagesh and KPJP's R Shankar withdrew support to seven-month-old Kumaraswamy government. Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy said, 'I know my strength. My government is stable. Don't worry.' (Photo: File | PTI) Bengaluru: Dismissing any threat to the Congress-JD(S) dispensation in the state after two MLAs withdrew their support, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Tuesday said his government was stable and he was "totally relaxed". Seeking to put up a brave front, Kumaraswamy said, "I know my strength. My government is stable. Don't worry." He added, "Whatever are the episodes in our Kannada (TV) channels going on from last one week I am enjoying it." Taking a swipe at the BJP, the chief minister said, "What is going to happen? If two independents declare support (to BJP). What will be the numbers? I am totally relaxed." Independent legislator H Nagesh and KPJP's R Shankar have written to Governor Vajubhai Vala announcing the withdrawal of their support to the seven-month-old Kumaraswamy government. Both the Congress and the BJP have been accusing each other of trying to lure legislators. The BJP MLAs are presently camping in Gurgaon, amid reports that some Congress and Independent MLAs are staying at a hotel in Mumbai. You have permission to edit this collection. Edit Close featured Ferndale Ferndale sees upside to Baker College proposal, but will first study impact Tells BJP to give revised schedule to Bengal govt. New Delhi: The BJPs grand plan to hold a rath yatra in Trinamul Congress-ruled West Bengal received a jolt with the Supreme Court on Tuesday asking the saffron partys state unit to submit a revised schedule of its proposed yatra with the authorities, and seek necessary approvals. The West Bengal unit of the BJP had approached the Supreme Court seeking permission for the rallies and public meetings, which would cover all 42 parliamentary constituencies in the state ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the BJPs West Bengal unit to submit a revised schedule of its proposed rath yatra with the state authorities and seek the necessary approvals. The court also asked the state government to allow the proposed public meetings and rallies of the BJP under its Ganatantra Bachao Yatra. The bench, which also comprised Justices L.N. Rao and S.K. Kaul, asked the state government to consider the revised schedule of the BJP for the rathyatra keeping in mind the fundamental right of speech and expression guaranteed under the Constitution. The bench said the apprehension of the state government of a possible law and order situation cannot be called unfounded and the BJP would have to take all possible steps to address this fear in a reasonable manner. The court had earlier sought the state governments response on the BJPs plea seeking permission to take out the rathyatra in the state. It is for the state government to maintain law and order in the state and the apprehensions expressed in the order will have to be addressed by the petitioner in a reasonable manner, said the bench. The BJPs West Bengal unit had challenged the December 21 order of a division bench of the Calcutta high court which had set aside the order of a single-judge bench allowing the yatra. It had also asked the BJP state unit to give a revised plan for its save democracy rally for consideration by the state government. Sources said the BJP could curtail its earlier 40-day programme to a 20-day one, and the fresh yatras could start from Baharampur in Murshidabad district, Diamond Harbour in South 24-Parganas, Medinipur and the Lok Sabha constituency of Kolkata North. This decision, the sources said, was taken in view of the coming school board examinations and the general election. Under the earlier schedule, the rallies were supposed to be flagged off by BJP president Amit Shah from Cooch Behar district on December 7, Kakdwip in South 24-Parganas on December 9 and from Tarapith temple in Birbhum on December 14. It alleged that most Virginia residents are being overcharged by an average of $250 on their utility bills every year due to nonessential spending by utility companies an excess payment that Clean Virginia has dubbed the Dominion tax. The proposed legislation aims to refund that money as a credit on customers bills over a period of six to 12 months. It ensures that we as ratepayers do not pay for Dominions lobbying activities, said Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy, D-Prince William. These nonessential costs should never be subsidized by ratepayers, and refunding this money ensures ratepayers get back every cent that is rightfully theirs. Under the proposed legislation, the State Corporation Commission would conduct annual proceedings to determine whether each electric public utility used revenue collected from its customers to pay for nonessential expenditures and would determine the amount and type of expenditure found to be improper. If any nonessential expenditures are found, the commission would have the authority to order the company to refund an equal amount to its customers. Virginians who participate in the states Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will receive February food benefits early because of the federal government shutdown. The Virginia Department of Social Services announced the change Tuesday. Benefits will go out Jan. 17, and it will affect all SNAP recipients in Virginia scheduled to receive benefits during the first week of February. Benefits for March are uncertain and could depend on the government reopening. The shutdown started Dec. 22 and now is the longest in U.S. history. As of August 2018, nearly 4,500 Albemarle County residents and about 4,000 Charlottesville residents participate in SNAP, according to state data. Families having access to food and children going to school without being hungry is a basic and critical need that transcends politics, VDSS Commissioner Duke Storen said in a news release. The SNAP program ensures food security for many of our nations most vulnerable citizens, and we are pleased to be able to provide benefits to our clients for the month of February. Last February, Moore ruled that the tarps, which the council ordered to represent community mourning, were to be removed. He based his decision on the state law that protects monuments and memorials, saying the law places on the locality the duty to protect, preserve and care for such. The tarps were torn down or damaged on several occasions before they were permanently removed. Two men are currently appealing convictions for vandalizing the shrouds. At an October hearing, Moore allowed the approximate $3,000 cost of the tarp to be added to the suit, but would not allow the cost of the replacement tarps to be added because they were destroyed illegally. He reiterated that decision Monday. Ralph E. Main, an attorney for the plaintiffs, also asked to add attorney fees and damages caused by individuals inability to see the statues while they were shrouded. Moore allowed this, but would not allow the inclusion of attorneys fees incurred while arguing over motions on damages he had already ruled on. I was really surprised, and surprised in the same way that it turns out all of my neighbors were when I began to ask them if they knew anything about this, because literally nobody knew anything about this new Comprehensive Plan and the new Future Land Use Map. The bill was passed by Lok Sabha last week and is expected to be tabled in the Rajya Sabha during the coming budget session of Parliament. New Delhi: In view of the growing protests over the Citizenship Bill in Assam and some of the other states in the Northeast, home minister Rajnath Singh is expected to soon convene a meeting of all chief ministers from the region to discuss various measures to protect the regions cultural and linguistic identity. A series of protests have been witnessed in Assam and some other regions of the North East demanding the withdrawal of the contentious bill, that provides citizenship to non-Muslims who left countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan in wake of religious persecution and came to Indian before December 31, 2014. The bill was passed by Lok Sabha last week and is expected to be tabled in the Rajya Sabha during the coming budget session of Parliament. Those protesting against the bill claim that it was against the 1985 Assam Accord, according to which anyone having entered the state after the cut-off date of March 24, 1971, should be treated as an illegal migrant and should be deported. Thus, the home ministers scheduled meeting is important since it will help address various issues raised by different protesting groups in the region. The Centre has already appointed a committee to assess the implementation of Clause 6 of the Assam Accord and other matters related to the Northeastern states. This particular clause deals with the constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people. According to a home ministry statement, the meeting will also discuss safeguards that need to be provided for protecting the interests of these states and protecting their cultural and linguistic identity. Earlier during the weekend, a delegation from Assam led by chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal met the home minister in the capital. The delegation included Himanta Biswa Sarma, a senior minister in Assam government, and some other Bharatiya Janata Party leaders of the state. In addition, representatives of the Bodo groups including the Bodoland Territorial Council chief Hagrama Muhilary; Chandan Brahma, a minister from BPF in the state government; and MP Biswajit Daimary also met the Union home minister over the weekend and discussed various outstanding demands of the Bodo community. Manipur chief minister N. Biren Singh had also called on Mr Singh along with Manipur BJP president and Rajya Sabha MP K. Bhabananda Singh on Saturday. They discussed issues related to protection of the rights and interests of the indigenous people of Manipur. Rajnath Singh assured them that the interests of all Northeastern states, including Manipur, and their culture and heritage will be fully protected, the home ministry added. The Virginia Festival of the Book will mark its silver anniversary with a busy schedule of readings, panel discussions and programs for all ages. On Monday, the festival unveiled its full schedule, which includes more than 100 free events. Events will dive into a wide range of book genres and industry disciplines, offering everything from poetry to publishing, race to religion and current events to climate change. The annual festival, a program of Virginia Humanities, generally draws more than 20,000 audience members from more than 40 states and has an estimated economic impact in the area of about $4 million. Among the events announced Monday are the following: American Addictions: Our Opioids Crisis, at 2 p.m. March 20, features Beth Macy, author of Dopesick, and Chris McGreal, author of American Overdose. Ruth King: Mindful of Race, at 6 p.m. March 20, is a discussion with internationally renowned meditation teacher Ruth King on racism, white supremacy and identity. New Jersey Resources Corporation, an energy services holding company, provides regulated gas distribution, and retail and wholesale energy services. The company operates through four segments: Natural Gas Distribution, Clean Energy Ventures, Energy Services, and Storage and Transportation. The Natural Gas Distribution segment offers regulated retail natural gas services to approximately 558,000 residential and commercial customers in central and northern New Jersey; provides storage management services; and participates in the off-system sales and capacity release markets. The Clean Energy Ventures segment invests in, owns, and operates commercial and residential solar projects located in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. The Energy Services segment provides unregulated wholesale energy management services to other energy companies and natural gas producers, as well as maintains and transacts a portfolio of physical assets consisting of natural gas storage and transportation contracts in the United States and Canada. The Storage and Transportation segment invests in natural gas transportation and storage facilities. The company offers heating, ventilation, and cooling services; holds commercial real estate properties; and provides solar equipment installation, and plumbing repair and installation services, as well as engages in the water appliance sale, installation, and servicing activities. New Jersey Resources Corporation was incorporated in 1981 and is based in Wall, New Jersey. Read More Teledyne Technologies Incorporated provides instrumentation, digital imaging, aerospace and defense electronics, and engineered systems in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and internationally. The company's Instrumentation segment offers monitoring and control instruments for marine, environmental, industrial, and other applications, as well as electronic test and measurement equipment; and power and communications connectivity devices for distributed instrumentation systems and sensor networks deployed in mission critical and harsh environments. Its Digital Imaging segment provides image sensors and digital cameras for use in industrial, scientific, academic research, and medical applications; and hardware and software for image processing and automatic data collection in industrial, academic research, and medical applications, as well as manufacturing services for micro electro-mechanical systems. This segment also offers light detection and ranging systems; focal plane arrays, sensors, and subsystems; and geospatial software products. The company's Aerospace and Defense Electronics segment provides electronic components and subsystems, as well as communications products, such as defense electronics; environment interconnects; data acquisition and communications equipment for aircraft; components and subsystems for wireless and satellite communications; and general aviation batteries. Its Engineered Systems segment offers systems engineering and integration, technology development, and manufacturing solutions for defense, space, environmental, and energy applications; and designs and manufactures electrochemical energy systems and electronics for military applications. The company markets and sells its products and services through sales forces, third-party distributors, and commissioned sales representatives. Teledyne Technologies Incorporated was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California. Read More Mizuho Financial Group, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in banking, trust, securities, and other businesses related to financial services in Japan, the Americas, Europe, Asia/Oceania, and internationally. It operates through five segments: Retail & Business Banking Company, Corporate & Institutional Company, Global Corporate Company, Global Markets Company, and Asset Management Company. The company provides deposit products; syndicated, housing, and card loans; business matching services; and advisory services related to overseas expansions, and mergers and acquisitions-related services. It also offers consulting services, including asset management and asset succession; payroll services; and sells lottery tickets issued by prefectures and ordinance-designated cities. In addition, it offers financial solutions, such as fund management, underwriting of equity and bonds, M&A advisory, and risk hedging products, etc. for corporate customers to meet their needs in fund-raising, investment management, and financial strategies; solutions based on their capital management, business strategy, and financial strategy; solutions related to real estate; advisory services and solutions, such as advice on proposals on various investment products; and financial services that include funding support. Further, the company offers sales and trading services to meet risk hedging and investment needs; investment products for individual customers; and consulting services for institutional investors. Additionally, the company provides products and services related to trust, securitization and structured finance, pension, and stock transfers; securities services; and research, private banking, and information technology-related services. As of March 31, 2020, its branch network included 464 Mizuho Bank, 60 Mizuho Trust and Banking, and 256 Mizuho Securities; and 7,200 automated teller machines in Japan. The company was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Read More Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari slammed the AAP, saying it will be 'punished harshly' in Lok Sabha polls for 'cheating' people of Delhi. Addressing party volunteers from north east Delhi Lok Sabha constituency on Sunday, Kejriwal had said BJP's rule was similar to what Hitler had done when he came to power. (Photo: File) New Delhi: The AAP has asserted it will end the "dictatorship" of Modi-Shah combine by grabbing all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi in the upcoming General Assembly polls, as party chief Arvind Kejriwal alleged the BJP was "scheming" to abolish elections if it wins. In response, the BJP said a person, let alone a chief minister, cannot make such statements if he has the "slightest" knowledge of the Constitution. Addressing party volunteers from north east Delhi Lok Sabha constituency on Sunday, Kejriwal had said BJP's rule was similar to what Hitler had done when he came to power. BJP president Amit Shah had recently said in a rally that if BJP wins in 2019, they will stay in power for another 50 years, Kejriwal said. "This is part of BJP's scheme. Just like Hitler had done in Germany, the BJP is also planning to amend the constitution and eventually abolish the practice of elections altogether! If Modi comes to power again, BJP will change the constitution and end democracy and elections altogether," Kejriwal was quoted as saying in a party statement. Delhi Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Gopal Rai and party's in-charge for north east Delhi seat Dilip Pandey exhorted the party workers to go door to door to defeat the "Hitler-like regime" of the BJP. "We need to double our efforts to save the nation from the dictatorial attitude of the Modi-Shah duo. Surveys across Delhi reveal that Delhi wants all seven MP's from the Aam Aadmi Party," Pandey said. Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari slammed the AAP, saying it will be "punished harshly" in the Lok Sabha polls for "cheating" people of Delhi. "Despite massive mandate in 2015, the AAP cheated people by not implementing Ayushman Bharat scheme, and failed them in matters of health, education and water supply," he said. Slamming Kejriwal for his allegations, Tiwari said, "Anyone with even a little knowledge of the Constitution, let alone a chief minister, cannot talk like that." The BJP had bagged Delhi's all seven Lok Sabha seats in 2014 which it will try to regain in an expected keen contest against the AAP and the Congress. The following companies are subsidiares of TotalEnergies: ALVEA, AS 24, AS24 Belgie N.V., AS24 Espanola S.A., AS24 Fuel Cards Limited, AS24 Lithuanie, AS24 Polska SP ZO.O., AS24 Tankservice GmbH, Adani Green Energy, Aerowatt Energies, Aerowatt Energies 2, Aerowatt Energies Nogara, Aerowatt Energies Nogara 2, Air Total (Suisse) S.A., Air Total International S.A., Albatros, Alcad AB, Altinergie, Angola Block 14 B.V., Antilles Gaz, Argedis, Aristea, Atlantic Trading and Marketing Financial Inc., Atlantic Trading and Marketing Inc., BOU Verwaltungs GmbH, Balzatex S.A.S., Barry Controls Aerospace S.N.C., Bassin Du Capiscol, Bay Junction Inc., Biogaz Breuil, Biogaz Chatillon, Biogaz Corcelles, Biogaz Epinay, Biogaz Libron, Biogaz Milhac, Biogaz Soignolles, Biogaz Torcy, Biogaz Vert Le Grand, Biogaz Viriat, Borrachas Portalegre Ltda, Brass Holdings S.A.R.L., CPE Energies, CSSA - Chartering and Shipping Services S.A., Caldeo, Catelsa-Caceres S.A.U., Centrale Eolienne De Couloumi, Centrale Eolienne De Coume, Centrale Eolienne De Dainville, Centrale Eolienne De Goulien, Centrale Eolienne De L'Olivier, Centrale Eolienne De La Vallee Gentillesse, Centrale Eolienne Des Malandaux, Centrale Eolienne Du Plan Du Pal, Centrale Eolienne La Cote Du Moulin A Vent, Centrale Eolienne La Croix De Cuitot, Centrale Eolienne Les Champs Parents, Centrale Eolienne Varades, Centrale Hydrolique Alas, Centrale Hydrolique Ardon, Centrale Hydrolique Arvan, Centrale Hydrolique Barbaira, Centrale Hydrolique Bonnant, Centrale Hydrolique La Buissiere, Centrale Hydrolique Previnquieres, Centrale Photovoltaique De La Croix, Centrale Photovoltaique Du Seneguier, Centrale Photovoltaique Le Barou, Centrale Solaire 2, Centrale Solaire Autoprod, Centrale Solaire Base 112, Centrale Solaire Betheniville, Centrale Solaire Briffaut, Centrale Solaire Centre Ouest 2, Centrale Solaire Cet De Hesse, Centrale Solaire Chemin De Melette, Centrale Solaire Couloumine, Centrale Solaire De Cazedarnes, Centrale Solaire Dom, Centrale Solaire Du Centre Ouest, Centrale Solaire Du Lavoir, Centrale Solaire Du Pla De La Roque, Centrale Solaire Felix, Centrale Solaire Ficon, Centrale Solaire Forum Laudun, Centrale Solaire Fremy, Centrale Solaire Gardanne, Centrale Solaire Gigognan, Centrale Solaire Guinots, Centrale Solaire Heliovale, Centrale Solaire La Metairie, Centrale Solaire La Potence, Centrale Solaire La Sauteirane, Centrale Solaire La Tastere, Centrale Solaire Le Castellet, Centrale Solaire Le Cres, Centrale Solaire Les Ancizes, Centrale Solaire Les Aspres, Centrale Solaire Les Canebieres, Centrale Solaire Les Cordeliers, Centrale Solaire Les Cordeliers 2, Centrale Solaire Les Galliennes, Centrale Solaire Les Melettes, Centrale Solaire Lodes, Centrale Solaire Lyreco, Centrale Solaire Manosque Ombriere, Centrale Solaire Mazeran Lr, Centrale Solaire Mazeran Paca, Centrale Solaire Ombrieres Cap Agathois, Centrale Solaire Ombrieres De Blyes, Centrale Solaire Ombrieres De Boujan, Centrale Solaire Ombrieres P5, Centrale Solaire Pezenas, Centrale Solaire Piennes, Centrale Solaire Plateau De Pouls, Centrale Solaire Pont Sur Sambre, Centrale Solaire Quadrao, Centrale Solaire SPW2, Centrale Solaire Sableyes, Centrale Solaire Supdevenergie, Centrale Solaire Toiture Josse, Centrale Solaire Valorbi, Centrale Solaire Viguier, Centrale Solaire Zabo, Centrale Solaire Zabo 2, Centrale Solaire de la Med, Charvet La Mure Bianco, Cie Tunisienne du Caoutchouc S.A.R.L., Compagnie Petroliere de l'Ouest - CPO, Composite Industrie Maroc S.A.R.L., Composite Industrie S.A., Cosden LLC, Cray Valley (Guangzhou) Chemical Company Limited, Cray Valley Czech, Cray Valley HSC Asia Limited, Cray Valley Italia S.R.L., Cray Valley S.A., Cristal Marketing Egypt, DAJA 148, DAJA 154, DAJA 160, DCA-MORY-SHIPP, Deer Creek Pipelines Limited, Digital Energy Solutions, Direct Energie, E.F. Oil And Gas Limited, Egedis, Electricite Solaire De Molleges, Elf Aquitaine Fertilisants, Elf Aquitaine Inc., Elf E&P, Elf Exploration UK Limited, Elf Forest Products LLC, Elf Oil UK Aviation Limited, Elf Oil UK Properties Limited, Elf Petroleum Iran, Elf Petroleum UK Limited, Eole Balaze 2, Eole Balaze S.A.R.L., Eole Boin, Eole Broceliande, Eole Champagne Conlinoise, Eole Cote Du Moulin, Eole Desirade 4, Eole Du Bocage, Eole Fonds Caraibes, Eole Grand Maison, Eole La Montagne, Eole La Motelle, Eole La Perriere S.A.R.L., Eole Les Buissons, Eole Les Patoures, Eole Maxent, Eole Morne Carriere, Eole Morne Constant, Eole Moulin Tizon, Eole Petit Fougeray, Eole Petite Place, Eole Pierrefitte Es Bois, Eole Saint-Jean Lachalm, Eole Sorbon II, Eole Sorbon S.A.R.L., Eole Yate, Eoliennes Arques 1, Eoliennes Arques 2, Eoliennes Arques 3, Eoliennes De L'Ourcq Et Du Clignon, Eoliennes De La Chaussee Brunehaut, Eoliennes De La Chaussee Brunehaut 1, Eoliennes De La Chaussee Brunehaut 2, Eoliennes De La Chaussee Brunehaut 3, Eoliennes De La Chaussee Brunehaut 4, Eoliennes De La Chaussee Brunehaut 5, Eoliennes Du Champ Chardon, Espa S.A.R.L., Ethylene Est, Etmofina, FINA Technology Inc., Fast Jung KB, Feluy Immobati, Fina Pipeline Co, Finansol 1, Finansol 2, Finansol 3, Fioulmarket.fr, Fonroche Biogaz, Frieman & Wolf Batterietechnick GmbH, G2MOBILITY, Gapco Kenya Limited, Gapco Tanzania Limited, Gapco Uganda Limited, Gasket (Suzhou) Valve Components Company Limited, Gasket International S.R.L., Glaciere De Palisse, Global Energy Armateur SNC, Global LNG Armateur S.A.S., Global LNG Downstream S.A.S., Global LNG North America Corporation, Global LNG S.A.S., Global LNG Supply S.A., Global LNG UK Limited, Grande Paroisse S.A., Greenflex, Greenflex Actirent Group S.L., Greenflex S.A.S., Guangzhou Elf Lubricants Company Limited, Gulf Africa Petroleum Corporation, HBA Hutchinson Brasil Automotive Ltda, HETTY, Helio 100 Kw, Helio 21, Helio 974 Toitures, Helio Bakia, Helio Beziers, Helio Boulouparis, Helio Boulouparis 2, Helio Florensac, Helio Fonds Caraibes, Helio Koumac, Helio L'R, Helio La Perriere, Helio Logistique, Helio Moindah, Helio Orange, Helio Piin Patch, Helio Popidery, Helio Reunion, Helio Tamoa, Helio Temala, Holding Eole 2018, Holding Otev, Holding Pdr, Hutchinson (UK) Limited, Hutchinson (Wuhan) Automotive Rubber Products Company Limited, Hutchinson Aeronautique & Industrie Limited, Hutchinson Aeroservices S.A.S., Hutchinson Aerospace & Industry Inc., Hutchinson Aerospace GmbH, Hutchinson Aftermarket USA Inc., Hutchinson Antivibration Systems Inc., Hutchinson Automotive Systems Company Limited, Hutchinson Autopartes Mexico S.A. de C.V., Hutchinson Borrachas de Portugal Ltda, Hutchinson Corporation, Hutchinson Do Brasil S.A., Hutchinson Fluid Management Systems Inc., Hutchinson GmbH, Hutchinson Holding GmbH, Hutchinson Holdings UK Limited, Hutchinson Iberia S.A., Hutchinson Industrial Rubber Products (Suzhou) Company Limited, Hutchinson Industrias Del Caucho SAU, Hutchinson Industries Inc., Hutchinson Japan Company Limited, Hutchinson Korea Limited, Hutchinson Maroc S.A.R.L. AU, Hutchinson Poland SP ZO.O., Hutchinson Polymers S.N.C., Hutchinson Porto, Hutchinson Precision Sealing Systems Inc., Hutchinson Research & Innovation Singapore PTE. Limited, Hutchinson Rubber Products Private Limited Inde, Hutchinson S.A., Hutchinson S.N.C., Hutchinson S.R.L. (Italie), Hutchinson S.R.L. (Roumanie), Hutchinson SRO, Hutchinson Sales Corporation, Hutchinson Seal De Mexico S.A. de CV., Hutchinson Sealing Systems Inc., Hutchinson Stop - Choc GmbH & CO. KG, Hutchinson Suisse S.A., Hutchinson Transferencia de Fluidos S.A. de C.V., Hutchinson Tunisie S.A.R.L., Hutchinson Vietnam Company Limited, Hutchinson d.o.o Ruma, Hydro-M Ingenierie Des Energies Renouvelables, Hydromons, Industrias Tecnicas De La Espuma SL, Industrielle Desmarquoy S.N.C., Jehier S.A.S., Jmb Hydro S.A.R.L., Jmb Solar, Jmb Solar Nogara, Jmcp, Joint Precision Rubber, KTN Kunststofftechnik Nobitz GmbH, La Compagnie Electrique de Bretagne, La Seauve, Lampiris S.A., Le Joint Francais S.N.C., Legacy Site Services Funding Inc., Legacy Site Services LLC, Les Eoliennes De Conquereuil, Les Moulins A Vent De Kermadeen, Les Stratifies S.A.S., Les Vents De Nivillac, Les Vents De Ranes, Libcom, Libwatt, Lone Wolf Land Company, Lubricants Vietnam Holding Limited, Machen Land Limited, Maersk Oil, Marathon Oil Libya Limited, Margeriaz Energie, Messigaz SNC, Methanergy, Mide Technology Corporation, Miyagi Osato Solar Park G.K., Nouvelle Entreprise D'Energie Solaire, Novogy Inc., Olutex Oberlausitzer Luftfahrttextilien GmbH, Ombrieres Te Vendres, Omnium Reinsurance Company S.A., PFW Aerospace GmbH, PFW Havacilik Sanayi ve Dis Ticaret Limited Sirtketi, PFW Uk Machining Ltd., Pamargan (Malta) Products Limited, Pamargan Products Limited, Pan Insurance Limited, Parc Des Hauts Vents, Parc Eolien De Nesle La Reposte, Parc Solaire De Servian, Parc Solaire De Servian 2, Paulstra S.N.C., Paulstra Silentbloc S.A., Pitpoint B.V., Pitpoint Cng B.V., Polyblend GmbH, Pos Production Ii, Pos Production Iii, Pos Production Iv, Pos Production V, Produits Petroliers Stela, Quadran Caraibes, Quadran Holding Nc, Quadran Nogara, Quadran Pacific, Quadrelio, Quadrica, Quimica Vasca S.A.U., Resilium, Retia, Retia USA LLC, Roquefort Solar, Saft (Zhuhai FTZ) Batteries Company Limited, Saft (Zhuhai) Energy Storage Co, Saft AB, Saft AS, Saft Acquisition S.A.S., Saft America Inc., Saft Australia PTY Limited, Saft Batterias SL, Saft Batterie Italia S.R.L., Saft Batterien GmbH, Saft Batteries PTY Limited, Saft Batteries Pte Limited, Saft Batterijen B.V., Saft Do Brasil Ltda, Saft Ferak AS, Saft Finance S.A.R.L., Saft Groupe S.A., Saft Hong Kong Limited, Saft India Private Limited, Saft Japan KK, Saft LLC, Saft Limited, Saft Nife ME Limited, Saft S.A.S., Saudi Total Petroleum Products, Savanna Energy Services Corp., Septentrion Participations, Servauto Nederland B.V., SigmaKalon Group B.V., Smalt Energie, Socap S.A.S., Societe Bearnaise De Gestion Industrielle, Societe Civile Immobiliere CB2, Societe Urbaine des Petroles, Societe d'exploitation de l'usine de Rouen, Societe mahoraise de stockage de produits petroliers, Sofax Banque, Solaire Grand Sud, Solaire Libron, Solaire Villon, Solar Energies, Solar Mimizan, Stillman Seal Corporation, Stogg Eagle Funding B.V., Stop-Choc (UK) Limited, SunPower, Synova, TOTAL E&P NORGE AS, TOTAL MAROC, TOTSA Total Oil Trading S.A., Tadiran Batteries GmbH, Tadiran Batteries Limited, Techlam S.A.S., Tenesol SPV 1, Tepkri Sarsang A/S, Termokarstovoye S.A.S., Terneftegaz JSC(a), Thermal Control Systems Automotive Sasu, Thezan Solar, Toitures Capiscol, Total (Africa) Limited, Total (BTC) B.V., Total (Fiji) Limited, Total Abu Al Bu Khoosh, Total Activites Maritimes, Total Additifs et Carburants Speciaux, Total Africa S.A., Total American Services Inc., Total Atlantic Trading Mexico SA De CV, Total Austral, Total Aviation & Export Limited, Total Belgium, Total Bitumen Deutschland GmbH, Total Bitumen UK Limited, Total Botswana (PTY) Limited, Total Brasil Diesel Comercio e Transportes Ltda, Total Brasil Distribuidora Ltda, Total Brazil Services B.V., Total Burkina, Total Cambodge, Total Cameroun, Total Capital, Total Capital Canada Limited, Total Capital International, Total Caraibes, Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures Europe, Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures International, Total Ceska Republika S.R.O., Total China Investment Company Limited, Total Congo, Total Consulting, Total Corporate Management (Beijing) Company Limited, Total Corse, Total Cote D'Ivoire, Total Country Services Belgium, Total Danmark Pipelines A/S, Total Delaware Inc., Total Denmark A/S, Total Denmark ASW Inc., Total Denmark ASW Pipeline ApS, Total Deutschland GmbH(e), Total Developpement Regional S.A.S., Total Direct Energie Belgium, Total Direct Energie Centrale Electrique Bayet, Total Direct Energie Centrale Electrique Marchienne au Pont, Total Direct Energie Centrale Electrique de Toul, Total Direct Energie Concessions, Total Direct Energie Generation, Total Direct Energie Hambregie, Total Direct Energie S.A., Total Direct Energie Services, Total Direct Energie Yfregie, Total Direct Energies Centrale Electrique de Pont Sur Sambres, Total Dolphin Midstream, Total Downstream UK PLC, Total E&P Absheron B.V., Total E&P Al Shaheen A/S, Total E&P Algerie, Total E&P Algerie Berkine A/S, Total E&P Americas LLC, Total E&P Anchor LLC, Total E&P Angola, Total E&P Angola Block 15/06 Limited, Total E&P Angola Block 16 A/S, Total E&P 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Limited, Total E&P Australia, Total E&P Australia Exploration PTY Limited, Total E&P Australia II, Total E&P Australia III, Total E&P Azerbaijan B.V., Total E&P Barnett Usa (75), Total E&P Bolivie, Total E&P Borneo B.V., Total E&P Bulgaria B.V., Total E&P Cambodge, Total E&P Canada Limited, Total E&P Chine, Total E&P Chissonga Limited, Total E&P Colombie, Total E&P Congo, Total E&P Cote d'Ivoire, Total E&P Cote d'Ivoire CI - 514, Total E&P Cote d'Ivoire CI - 515, Total E&P Cote d'Ivoire CI - 516, Total E&P Cote d'Ivoire CI-605 B.V., Total E&P Cyprus B.V., Total E&P Danmark A/S - CPH, Total E&P Danmark A/S -EBJ, Total E&P Deep Offshore Borneo B.V., Total E&P Do Brasil Ltda, Total E&P Dolphin Upstream, Total E&P Dunga GmbH, Total E&P East El Burullus Offshore B.V., Total E&P Egypt Block 2 B.V., Total E&P Egypte, Total E&P Europe and Central Asia Limited, Total E&P France, Total E&P Golfe Limited, Total E&P Gom Moh. LLC, Total E&P Greece B.V., Total E&P Guyana B.V., Total E&P Guyane Francaise, Total E&P Holding Ichthys, Total E&P Holdings Australia PTY Limited, Total E&P Holdings Russia, Total E&P Holdings UAE B.V., Total E&P Ichthys B.V., Total E&P Indonesia Mentawai B.V., Total E&P Indonesie, Total E&P International K1 Limited, Total E&P International K2 Limited, Total E&P International K3 Limited, Total E&P International Limited, Total E&P Iraq, Total E&P Ireland B.V., Total E&P Italia, Total E&P Jack LLC, Total E&P Jutland Denmark B.V., Total E&P Kazakhstan, Total E&P Kenya B.V., Total E&P Kurdistan Region of Iraq (Harir) B.V., Total E&P Kurdistan Region of Iraq (Safen) B.V., Total E&P Kurdistan Region of Iraq (Taza) B.V., Total E&P Kurdistan Region of Iraq B.V., Total E&P Liban S.A.L., Total E&P Libye, Total E&P Lower Zakum B.V., Total E&P Malaysia, Total E&P Mauritania Block C18 B.V., Total E&P Mauritania Block C9 B.V., Total E&P Mauritania Blocks DW B.V., Total E&P Mauritanie, Total E&P Mauritius Holding Limited, Total E&P Mexico S.A. de C.V., Total E&P Mozambique Area 1 Limitada, Total E&P Mozambique B.V., Total E&P Myanmar, Total E&P Namibia B.V., Total E&P Nederland B.V., Total E&P New Ventures Inc., Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater A Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater B Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater C Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater D Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater E Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater F Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater G Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Deepwater H Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Limited, Total E&P Nigeria S.A.S., Total E&P North Sea UK Limited, Total E&P Oman, Total E&P Oman Dev. B.V, Total E&P PNG 2 B.V., Total E&P PNG 5 B.V., Total E&P PNG Limited, Total E&P Participations Petrolieres Congo, Total E&P Philippines B.V., Total E&P Qatar, Total E&P RDC, Total E&P Research & Technology USA LLC, Total E&P Russie, Total E&P Salmanov, Total E&P Sebuku, Total E&P Senegal, Total E&P Services China Company Limited, Total E&P South Africa B.V., Total E&P South Pars, Total E&P South Sudan, Total E&P Syrie, Total E&P Tajikistan B.V., Total E&P Thailand, Total E&P Three Pl B.V., Total E&P Timan-Pechora LLC, Total E&P UAE Unconventional Gas B.V., Total E&P UK Limited, Total E&P US Well Containment LLC, Total E&P USA Inc., Total E&P USA Oil Shale LLC, Total E&P Uganda B.V., Total E&P Umm Shaif Nasr B.V., Total E&P Uruguay B.V., Total E&P Uruguay Onshore B.V., Total E&P Well Response, Total E&P Yamal, Total E&P Yemen, Total E&P Yemen Block 3 B.V., Total East Africa Midstream B.V., Total Egypt, Total Energie Gas GmbH, Total Energy (Meuk) Limited, Total Energy Investments Tianjin, Total Energy Marketing A/S, Total Energy Services, Total Energy Ventures Emerging Markets, Total Espana S.A., Total Especialidades Argentina, Total Ethiopia, Total European Trading, Total Exploration M'Bridge, Total Facilities Management B.V., Total Facilities Management Services (TFMS), Total Finance, Total Finance Corporate Services Limited, Total Finance Global Services (TOFIG), Total Finance Nederland B.V., Total Finance USA Inc., Total Finance international B.V., Total Fluides, Total Freeport Corporation, Total Fuels Wuhan Company Limited, Total Funding Nederland B.V., Total Funding Nederland International B.V., Total GLNG Australia, Total GLNG Australia Holdings, Total Gabon, Total Gas & Power Actifs Industriels, Total Gas & Power Asia Private Limited, Total Gas & Power Brazil, Total Gas & Power Chartering Limited, Total Gas & Power Limited, Total Gas & Power North America Inc., Total Gas & Power Services Limited, Total Gas & Power Thailand, Total Gas Pipeline USA Inc., Total Gas Y Electricidad Argentina S.A., Total Gas and Power Limited London Meyrin - Geneva Branch, Total Gasandes, Total Gass Handel Norge AS, Total Gastransport Nederland B.V., Total Gaz Electricite Holdings France, Total Gestion Filiales, Total Gestion USA, Total Glass Lubricants Europe GmbH, Total Global Financial Services, Total Global Human Ressources Services, Total Global IT Services (TGITS), Total Global Information Technology Services Belgium, Total Global Procurement (TGP), Total Global Procurement Belgium S.A. (TGPB), Total Global Services Bucharest, Total Global Services Philippines, Total Guadeloupe, Total Guinea Ecuatorial, Total Guinee, Total Holding Allemagne, Total Holding Asie, Total Holding Dolphin Amont, Total Holding India, Total Holdings Europe, Total Holdings International B.V., Total Holdings Nederland B.V., Total Holdings Nederland International B.V., Total Holdings S.A.S., Total Holdings UK Limited, Total Holdings USA Inc., Total International NV, Total Investment Management Tianjin, Total Investments, Total Iran B.V., Total Italia, Total Jamaica Limited, Total Jordan PSC, Total Kenya, Total LNG Angola, Total LNG Supply Services USA Inc., Total Laffan Refinery, Total Laffan Refinery II B.V., Total Learning Solutions (TLS), Total Liban, Total Liberia Inc., Total Lindsey Oil Refinery Limited, Total Lubricants (China) Company Limited, Total Lubricants Taiwan Limited, Total Lubrifiants, Total Lubrifiants Algerie, Total Lubrifiants Service Automobile, Total Luxembourg S.A., Total Madagasikara S.A., Total Malawi Limited, Total Mali, Total Marine Fuels, Total Marketing Egypt, Total Marketing France, Total Marketing Gabon, Total Marketing Middle East Free Zone, Total Marketing Services, Total Marketing Tchad, Total Marketing Uganda, Total Mauritius, Total Mayotte, Total Mexico S.A. de C.V., Total Midstream Holdings UK Limited, Total Mineraloel und Chemie GmbH, Total Mineralol GmbH, Total Mozambique, Total Namibia (PTY) Limited, Total Nederland NV, Total New Energies Limited, Total New Energies USA Inc., Total New Energies Ventures USA Inc., Total Niger S.A., Total Nigeria Plc, Total Oil Asia-Pacific Pte Limited, Total Oil Gb Limited, Total Oil India Private Limited, Total Oil UK Limited, Total Oil and Gas South America, Total Oil and Gas Venezuela B.V., Total Olefins Antwerp, Total Operations Canada Limited, Total Opslag En Pijpleiding Nederland NV, Total Outre-Mer, Total Overseas Holding (PTY) Limited, Total P&G do Brasil Ltda, Total PAR LLC, Total Pacifique, Total Paiement Services, Total Pars LNG, Total Participations, Total Petrochemicals & Refining S.A./NV(e), Total Petrochemicals & Refining USA Inc.(e), Total Petrochemicals (Hong Kong) Limited, Total Petrochemicals (Shangai) Limited, Total Petrochemicals Development Feluy, Total Petrochemicals Ecaussinnes, Total Petrochemicals Feluy, Total Petrochemicals France, Total Petrochemicals Iberica, Total Petrochemicals Pipeline USA Inc., Total Petrochemicals Security USA Inc., Total Petrochemicals UK Limited, Total Petroleum (Shanghai) Company Limited, Total Petroleum Angola, Total Petroleum Ghana, Total Petroleum Puerto Rico Corp., Total Philippines Corporation, Total Polska, Total Polymers Antwerp, Total Polynesie, Total Profils Petroliers, Total Qatar, Total Quadran, Total RDC, Total Raffinaderij Antwerpen N.V., Total Raffinage Chimie S.A.S., Total Raffinage France, Total Raffinerie Mitteldeutschland GmbH, Total Refining & Chemicals Saudi Arabia S.A.S., Total Renewables, Total Research & Technology Feluy, Total Resources (Canada) Limited, Total Reunion, Total Romania S.A., Total Senegal, Total Singapore Shared Services Pte Limited, Total Solar Intl, Total Solar Latin America SPA, Total South Africa (PTY) Limited, Total South Pars, Total Specialties USA Inc., Total Splitter USA Inc, Total Supply MS S.A., Total Swaziland (PTY) Limited, Total Tanzania Limited, Total Tengah, Total Tianjin Manufacturing Company Limited, Total Togo, Total Trading Asia Pte Limited, Total Trading Canada Limited, Total Trading Products S.A., Total Trading and Marketing Canada LP, Total Treasury, Total Tunisie, Total Turkey Pazarlama, Total UK Finance Limited, Total UK Limited, Total USA International LLC, Total Uganda Limited, Total Ukraine LLC, Total Upstream Danmark A/S, Total Upstream Nigeria Limited, Total Upstream UK Limited, Total Venezuela, Total Vietnam Limited, Total Vostok, Total Yemen LNG Company Limited, Total Zambia, Total Zimbabwe, Totalgaz Vietnam LLC, Trans-Ethylene, Transalpes S.N.C., Tssa Total Storage & Services S.A., Uintah Colorado Resources LLC, Unitah Colorado Resources II LLC, Upbeatprops 100 PTY Limited, V Energy S.A., Valorene, Vent De Thierache 01, Vent De Thierache 02, Vent De Thierache 03, Vents D'Oc Centrale D'Energie Renouvelable 18, Vents D'Oc Energies Renouvelables, Vibrachoc S.A.U., Watt Prox, WayKonect, Winergy, Zeeland Refinery NV, and Zeeland Solar B.V.. Nomura Holdings, Inc. provides various financial services to individuals, corporations, financial institutions, governments, and governmental agencies worldwide. It operates through three segments: Retail, Asset Management, and Wholesale. The Retail segment offers various financial products and investment services for individuals and corporations. As of March 31, 2020, this segment operated a network of 128 branches. The Asset Management segment engages in the development and management of investment trusts; and provision of investment advisory services for pension funds and other institutional clients. The Wholesale segment is involved in the research, sale, trading, agency execution, and market-making of fixed income and equity-related products. It also engages in underwriting various securities and other financial instruments, such as various classes of shares, convertible and exchangeable securities, investment grade and high yield debts, sovereign and emerging market debts, structured securities, and other securities; arranging private placements, as well as other capital raising activities; and the provision of financial advisory services on business transactions comprising mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, spin-offs, capital structuring, corporate defense activities, leveraged buyouts, and risk solutions. In addition, this segment offers various financial instruments. The company was formerly known as The Nomura Securities Co., Ltd. and changed its name to Nomura Holdings, Inc. in October 2001. Nomura Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1925 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Read More In its chargesheet, the police claimed that it has video clips to prove the offence which has been corroborated by statements of witnesses. New Delhi: Former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others were named by the Delhi police in a sedition case chargesheet filed in a city court on Monday. The police claimed that Mr Kumar led a procession and supported seditious slogans raised on the varsity campus in February 2016, a charge dismissed by the former student leader as politically motivated. The police also charged former JNU students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya for allegedly shouting anti-India slogans during an event on the universitys campus on February 9, 2016, to commemorate the hanging of Parliament-attack mastermind Afzal Guru. Metropolitan magistrate Sumit Anand put up the chargesheet for consideration before a competent court on Tuesday. In its chargesheet, the police claimed that it has video clips to prove the offence which has been corroborated by statements of witnesses. The other accused chargesheeted in the case are Kashmiri students Aquib Hussain, Mujeeb Hussain, Muneeb Hussain, Umar Gul, Rayeea Rassol, Bashir Bhat and Basharat, some of them were then studying in JNU, Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia. Mr Kumar, who faces allegations that he had incited the mob to shout anti-India slogans, said the charge sheet was a diversionary ploy by the Modi government to hide its all-round failures. The charge sheet is politically motivated. However, we want the charges to be framed and a speedy trial so that the truth comes out. We also want to see the videos that have been placed on record as evidence by the police, he said. As many as 36 others, including Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D. Rajas daughter Aprajita, Shehla Rashid (then vice-JNUSU president), Rama Naga, Ashutosh Kumar and Banojyotsna Lahiri, all former students of JNU, find mention in the court documents but they have not been made accused due to insufficient evidence against them, police sources said. In the chargesheet, Mr Kumar and other accused have been charged with offences under sections 124A (sedition), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 465 (punishment for forgery), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), 143 (punishment for being a member of an unlawful assembly), 149 (being a member of an unlawful assembly), 147 (punishment for rioting) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). In the charge sheet running into around 1,200 pages, police claimed that the footage presented as evidence were genuine and the presence of Kashmiri students was also establish through mobile clips and videos. It claimed that the Kashmiri students, who were wearing masks during the procession, but did not cover their faces while returning from the venue. This showed their involvement, police said. The 10 accused persons have been chargesheeted on the basis of electronic evidence, including CCTV footage and mobile footage, and documentary evidence, which include statements of students and security guards. The final report claims that no permission was granted to organise the event and every member was a part of an unlawful assembly. When informed about the lack of permission to hold the event, the accused started arguing and fighting, it said. A case was registered on February 11, 2016, under sections 124A and 120B of the IPC against unidentified persons at the Vasant Kunj (North) police station, following complaints from BJP MP Maheish Girri and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). The event in 2016 had taken place despite the university administration cancelling the permission, following a complaint from the ABVP, which had termed it as anti-national. Reacting on the police chargesheet in the matter, the ABVP said that this decision is its the victory and shows that it presented correct facts before everyone. This is the victory of all those students who put their life in danger by showing courage to raise their voice against the traitors/urban naxals, said Saurabh Sharma, ABVP leader and the then joint secretary of the JNUSU. JPMorgan Chase & Co. operates as a financial services company worldwide. It operates in four segments: Consumer & Community Banking (CCB), Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB), Commercial Banking (CB), and Asset & Wealth Management (AWM). The CCB segment offers deposit and investment products and services to consumers; lending, deposit, and cash management and payment solutions to small businesses; mortgage origination and servicing activities; residential mortgages and home equity loans; and credit card, auto loan, and leasing services. The CIB segment provides investment banking products and services, including corporate strategy and structure advisory, and equity and debt markets capital-raising services, as well as loan origination and syndication; wholesale payments and cross-border financing; and cash securities and derivative instruments, risk management solutions, prime brokerage, and research. This segment also offers securities services, including custody, fund accounting and administration, and securities lending products for asset managers, insurance companies, and public and private investment funds. The CB segment provides financial solutions, including lending, investment banking, and asset management to small business, large and midsized corporations, local governments, and nonprofit clients; and commercial real estate banking services to investors, developers, and owners of multifamily, as well as to office, retail, industrial, and affordable housing properties. The AWM segment offers multi-asset investment management solutions across equities, fixed income, alternatives, and money market funds to institutional clients and retail investors; and retirement products and services, brokerage, custody, trusts and estates, loans, mortgages, deposits, and investment management products. The company also provides ATM, online and mobile, and telephone banking services. JPMorgan Chase & Co. was founded in 1799 and is headquartered in New York, New York. Read More John Wood Group PLC, together with its subsidiaries, provides consulting, project management, and engineering solutions to energy and built environment worldwide. It operates through four segments: Asset Solutions Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia; Assets Solutions Americas; Technical Consulting Solutions; and Investment Services. The company offers operations solutions, including maintenance, modifications, commissioning and decommissioning, and aftermarket services, as well as industrial services, such as painting, insulation, scaffolding, rope access, E&I, asbestos removal, and civil and earthworks services; engineering, procurement, and construction management; plant operations and life extension; technology solutions; supervision and management services; fabrication and inspection services; and construction and field services. It also provides environment and infrastructure solutions comprising environmental studies and compliance, environmental remediation, public infrastructure, and geotechnical and materials services; clean energy solutions; mine planning and design, mineral processing and metallurgy, mineral resources and project assessment services; and automation and control solutions, such as asset protection and facility and process automation solutions, as well as simulation, learning, and virtual systems. In addition, the company offers subsea and export systems, including subsea, umbilical, riser, and flowline design, as well as planning, design, and development of marine terminals and pipelines; and hull and marine services. It serves oil and gas, infrastructure, industrial and manufacturing, mining, power, and government sectors. John Wood Group PLC was founded in 1912 and is headquartered in Aberdeen, the United Kingdom. Read More Nitish Kumar, Sushil Kumar Modi and Ram Vilas Paswan moved from one venue to another to join feast hosted by leaders of NDA constituents. Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan enjoy feast hosted by leaders of NDA constituents in display of unity. (Photo: Twitter | @SushilModi) Patna: Leaders of the ruling NDA in Bihar on Monday sought to project an image of bonhomie as they treated themselves to sumptuous helpings of dahi-chura (curd and flattened rice) as part of Makar Sankranti festivities. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan moved from one venue to another to join the feast hosted by leaders of the three NDA constituents in a display of unity. BJP, JD(U) and LJP have already announced seat-sharing among them for the coming Lok Sabha election in Bihar. At the Lok Janshakti Party state headquarters, its founding president Ram Vilas Paswan accorded a warm welcome to Governor Lalji Tandon, Chief Minister Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Modi. Paswan was joined by his son and LJP parliamentary board chief Chirag Paswan and brothers Ram Chandra Paswan and Pashupati Kumar Paras, MP and minister in Bihar government respectively, in welcoming the guests, who were also treated to other delicacies prepared with jaggery and til (sesame), consumption of which is believed to be auspicious on this day. Nitish Kumar and Sushil Modi also attended a similar function hosted by Vashishtha Narayan Singh, Rajya Sabha member and state president of the JD(U), which is headed by the chief minister. Appearance of RJD MLC Sanjay Prasad and former state Congress president Ram Jatan Sinha at the function raised some eyebrows though both the leaders insisted that they had personal relations with the host, a veteran socialist leader who has been organising feasts on Makar Sankranti for years. Feasts were also hosted by several other leaders in various parts of the city, notable among these being the one hosted by BJP MLC Rajnish Kumar where besides Kumar and Modi, Paswan figured among the guests. Paswan also turned up at the bhoj organised by senior BJP leader and Union minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey, intra-party rivalry took a backseat as he was seen greeting Modi with a warm hug and an ear-to-ear grin. The festivities were conspicuous by their absence in the opposition Grand Alliance camp, with most leaders heading their respective parties remaining out of the state capital. The RJD has been giving celebrations a slip since last year after its national president Lalu Prasad, who is credited with having made the tradition of dahi chura bhoj popular as a political gesture, was jailed. His wife Rabri Devi had made it clear last week that there would be no celebration this year and their younger son Tejashwi Yadav spent the day in Lucknow, expressing solidarity with the SP-BSP alliance. RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha organised a feast for children in his native village of Javaj in Vaishali district while HAM founding president Jitan Ram Manjhi spent the day attending functions in Gaya. State Congress president Madan Mohan Jha said his party would hold a feast on Tuesday. According to astrological calculations, the Sun this year enters the Tropic of Capricorn on January 15, though traditionally people have been observing the festival on January 14. Ryder System, Inc. operates as a logistics and transportation company worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Fleet Management Solutions (FMS), Supply Chain Solutions (SCS), and Dedicated Transportation Solutions (DTS). The FMS segment offers full service leasing and leasing with flexible maintenance options, as well as maintenance services, supplies, and related equipment for operation of the vehicles; commercial vehicle rental services; and contract or transactional maintenance services of trucks, tractors, and trailers, as well as fleet support services. This segment also provides access to diesel fuel; offers fuel planning and tax reporting, cards, and monitoring services, and centralized billing; and sells used vehicles through its 59 retail sales centers and Usedtrucks.Ryder.com website. The DTS segment offers equipment, maintenance, drivers, administrative, and additional services, as well as routing and scheduling, fleet sizing, safety, regulatory compliance, risk management, technology and communication systems support, and other technical support services. The SCS segment comprises distribution management services, such as designing and managing customer's distribution network and facilities; providing e-commerce services; coordinating warehousing and transportation for inbound and outbound material flows; handling import and export for international shipments; coordinating just-in-time replenishment of component parts to manufacturing and final assembly; and offering shipments to customer distribution centers or end customer delivery points, as well as other value added services, such as light assembly of components. This segment also offers transportation management services, such as shipment optimization, load scheduling, and delivery confirmation services through technological and web-based solutions; and knowledge-based professional services. Ryder System, Inc. was founded in 1933 and is headquartered in Miami, Florida. Read More Bristol-Myers Squibb Company discovers, develops, licenses, manufactures, and markets biopharmaceutical products worldwide. The company offers products in hematology, oncology, cardiovascular, and immunology therapeutic classes. Its products include Revlimid, an oral immunomodulatory drug for the treatment of multiple myeloma; Opdivo for anti-cancer indications; Eliquis, an oral inhibitor indicated for the reduction in risk of stroke/systemic embolism in NVAF, and for the treatment of DVT/PE; and Orencia for adult patients with active RA and psoriatic arthritis, as well as reducing signs and symptoms in pediatric patients with active polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis. The company also provides Sprycel for the treatment of Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia; Yervoy for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma; Abraxane, a solvent-free protein-bound chemotherapy product; mpliciti for the treatment of multiple myeloma; and Reblozyl for the treatment of anemia in adult patients with beta thalassemia. In addition, it offers Onureg for the continued treatment of adult patients with AML; Zeposia to treat relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis; Vidaza for the treatment of myelodysplastic syndrome subtypes; Baraclude, an oral antiviral agent for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B; and Breyanzi, a CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T cell immunotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma. The company sells products to wholesalers, distributors, pharmacies, retailers, hospitals, clinics, and government agencies. It has collaboration agreements with Pfizer, Inc.; Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.; Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.; Nektar Therapeutics; AVEO Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Huyabio; and DarwinHealth, Inc. The company was formerly known as Bristol-Myers Company. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company was founded in 1887 and is headquartered in New York, New York. Read More Etihads stake will be capped at 49 per cent given foreign ownership rules in Indian airlines. Etihad, also said Jets founder and chairman, 69-year old Naresh Goyal, was likely to step down from the board and give up majority control. Abu Dhabi: Etihad Airways plans to hike its stake in debt-laden Jet Airways, a person close to the Abu Dhabi carrier told Reuters late on Monday, further driving up shares of the Indian airline. Jet shares had already spiked following a CNBC TV18 report that, apart from flagging the capital infusion from Etihad, also said Jets founder and chairman, 69-year old Naresh Goyal, was likely to step down from the board and give up majority control. Goyals penchant for control, according to people who have worked with him, has emerged as a major obstacle as the airline tries to negotiate a rescue deal, Reuters reported last month. The person who spoke to Reuters, on condition of anonymity, said Goyal was on his way out but did not clarify if that meant he was stepping down as chairman or from the board. Jet shares jumped as much as 7 per cent early on Tuesday, after spiking 16 per cent on Monday. Shares are trading at the highest levels in more than a month. Etihad putting more cash into Jet is conditional on Goyal diluting his stake, another person told Reuters last month. The Abu Dhabi carrier currently owns 24 per cent in Jet. Even so, Etihads stake will be capped at 49 per cent given foreign ownership rules in Indian airlines. Once its stake goes past 25 per cent, under the countrys capital markets regulations, Etihad will have to make an open offer to shareholders for a majority of the shares, unless it obtains a rare exemption from the market regulator. CNBC TV18, citing sources, reported on Monday that Goyal would trim his 51 per cent stake to 20-25 per cent and agree to voting rights on his stake being capped at 10 per cent. Etihad declined to comment. Jet on Tuesday told the Bombay Stock Exchange that it was regularly making appropriate disclosures but it was unable to comment on the reasons for the share price rise on Monday. Goyal did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment. Jet said on Jan 2 it had defaulted on debt payments to a consortium of Indian banks and that it was in talks with the consortium led by State Bank of India. The 25-year-old airline is facing financial difficulties and owes money to pilots, lessors and vendors. Intense pricing competition, a weak rupee and rising fuel costs weighed on Indian airlines in 2018. Last week, Reuters reported that crisis talks between Jet and aircraft lessors had failed to ease the row over late payments, prompting some lessors to explore repossessing their aircraft. Jet is due to meet with its lenders in Mumbai on Wednesday, the Business Standard reported on Tuesday. Truist Financial Corp. operates as a financial holding company, which engages in the provision of banking services to individuals, businesses and municipalities. The firm offers a variety of loans and lease financing to individuals and entities, including insurance premium financing, permanent commercial real estate financing arrangements, loan servicing for third-party investors, direct consumer finance loans to individuals, credit card lending, automobile financing and equipment financing. It also markets a range of other services, including deposits, life insurance, property and casualty insurance, health Truist Financial Corp. operates as a financial holding company. It engages in the provision of banking services to individuals, businesses and municipalities. The company operates through the following segments: Consumer Banking and Wealth; Corporate and Commercial Banking; and Insurance Holdings. The firm offers a variety of loans and lease financing to individuals and entities, including insurance premium financing, permanent commercial real estate financing arrangements, loan servicing for third-party investors, direct consumer finance loans to individuals, credit card lending, automobile financing and equipment financing. It also markets a range of other services, including deposits, life insurance, property and casualty insurance, health insurance and commercial general liability insurance on an agency basis and through a wholesale insurance brokerage operation, merchant services, trust and retirement services, comprehensive wealth advisory services, asset management and capital markets services. The company was founded on December 6, 2019 and is headquartered in Charlotte, NC. insurance and commercial general liability insurance on an agency basis and through a wholesale insurance brokerage operation, merchant services, trust and retirement services, comprehensive wealth advisory services, asset management and capital markets services. The company was founded on December 6, 2019 and is headquartered in Charlotte, NC. Read More Tyler Technologies, Inc. provides integrated information management solutions and services for the public sector in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Enterprise Software, and Appraisal and Tax. It offers financial management solutions, including modular fund accounting systems for government agencies or not-for-profit entities; utility billing systems for the billing and collection of metered and non-metered services; products to automate city and county functions, such as municipal courts, parking tickets, equipment and project costing, animal and business licenses, permits and inspections, code enforcement, citizen complaint tracking, ambulance billing, fleet maintenance, and cemetery records management; and student information and transportation solutions for K-12 schools. The company also provides a suite of judicial solutions comprising court case management, court and law enforcement, prosecutor, and supervision systems to handle multi-jurisdictional county or statewide implementations, and single county systems; public safety software solutions; systems and software to automate the appraisal and assessment of real and personal property, as well as tax applications for agencies that bill and collect taxes; planning, regulatory, and maintenance software solutions for public sector agencies; software applications to enhance and automate operations involving records and document management; and data and insights solutions. In addition, it offers software as a service arrangements and electronic document filing solutions for courts and law offices; software and hardware installation, data conversion, training, product modification, and maintenance and support services; and property appraisal outsourcing services for taxing jurisdictions. Tyler Technologies, Inc. has a strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services for cloud hosting services. The company was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Plano, Texas. Read More Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI Israel ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI Israel ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. Ad Wall Street Rebel New this week - 383 interested Investors Search for the Next Big Medical Cannabis Winner - This Is It Medical cannabis stocks have rewarded investors with astonishing profits over the last three years and investors are now looking for the next big winner in a market thats expected to quintuple by 2026. Wall Street analysts have given iShares Russell Top 200 ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares Russell Top 200 ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. The following companies are subsidiares of MetLife: 1001 PROPERTIES LLC, 10700 WILSHIRE LLC, 1075 PEACHTREE LLC, 1201 TAB MANAGER LLC, 1320 GP LLC, 1320 OWNER LP, 1320 VENTURE LLC, 1900 MCKINNEY PROPERTIES LP, 1925 WJC OWNER LLC, 23RD STREET INVESTMENTS INC., 334 MADISON EURO INVESTMENTS INC., 500 GRANT STREET ASSOCIATES LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, 500 GRANT STREET GP LLC, 6104 HOLLYWOOD LLC, 85 BROAD STREET MEZZANINE LLC, AFP GENESIS ADMINISTRADORA DE FONDOS Y FIDECOMISOS S.A., AGENVITA S.R.L., ALICO EUROPEAN HOLDINGS LIMITED, ALICO HELLAS SINGLE MEMBER LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY, ALICO OPERATIONS LLC, ALPHA PROPERTIES INC., ALTERNATIVE FUELS I LLC, AMERICAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, ASHTON JUDICIARY SQUARE LLC, American Life Insurance Company, BEST MARKET S.A., BETA PROPERTIES INC., BORDERLAND INVESTMENTS LIMITED, BOULEVARD RESIDENTIAL LLC, BRIGHTHOUSE HOLDINGS LLC, BRIGHTHOUSE REINSURANCE COMPANY OF DELAWARE, BRIGHTHOUSE SECURITIES LLC, BRIGHTHOUSE SERVICES LLC, BUFORD LOGISTICS CENTER LLC, Brighthouse Financial, CC HOLDCO MANAGER LLC, CHESTNUT FLATS WIND LLC, CITYPOINT HOLDINGS II LIMITED, COMMUNICATION ONE KABUSHIKI KAISHA, COMPANIA INVERSORA METLIFE S.A., CONVENT STATION EURO INVESTMENTS FOUR COMPANY, CORPORATE REAL ESTATE HOLDINGS LLC, COVA LIFE MANAGEMENT COMPANY, DANIEL/METLIFE MIDTOWN ATLANTA MASTER LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY, DELAWARE AMERICAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, DELTA PROPERTIES JAPAN INC., ECONOMY FIRE & CASUALTY COMPANY, ECONOMY PREFERRED INSURANCE COMPANY, ECONOMY PREMIER ASSURANCE COMPANY, EL CONQUISTADOR MAH II LLC, ENTERPRISE GENERAL INSURANCE AGENCY INC., ENTRECAP REAL ESTATE II LLC, EPSILON PROPERTIES JAPAN INC., EURO CL INVESTMENTS LLC, EURO TI INVESTMENTS LLC, EURO TL INVESTMENTS LLC, EXCELENCIA OPERATIVA Y TECNOLOGICA S.A de C.V., FEDERAL FLOOD CERTIFICATION LLC, FIRST AMERICAN HUNGARIAN INSURANCE AGENCY LIMITED, FIRST METLIFE INVESTORS INSURANCE COMPANY, FUNDACION METLIFE MEXICO A.C., GALIC HOLDINGS LLC, GENERAL AMERICAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, GLOBAL PROPERTIES INC., GREATER SANDHILL I LLC, General American Life Insurance Company, Grand Bank N.A., HASKELL EAST VILLAGE LLC, HEADLAND PROPERTIES ASSOCIATES, HEADLAND-PACIFIC PALISADES LLC, HOUSING FUND MANAGER LLC, HPZ ASSETS LLC, HYATT LEGAL PLANS INC., HYATT LEGAL PLANS OF FLORIDA INC., INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT HOLDING COMPANY LIMITED, INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL AND ADVISORY SERVICES LIMITED, INVERSIONES METLIFE HOLDCO DOS LIMITADA, INVERSIONES METLIFE HOLDCO TRES LIMITADA, IRIS PROPERTIES INC., JOINT STOCK COMPANY METLIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, KAPPA PROPERTIES JAPAN INC., LAR VIVIENDA XVII S. DE R.L. DE C.V., LEGAGROUP S.A., LEGAL CHILE S.A., LHC HOLDINGS (US) LLC, LHCW HOLDINGS (US) LLC, LHCW HOTEL HOLDING (2002) LLC, LHCW HOTEL HOLDING LLC, LHCW HOTEL OPERATING COMPANY (2002) LLC, LONG ISLAND SOLAR FARM LLC, Logan Circle Partners, MANSELL OFFICE LLC, MANSELL RETAIL LLC, MARKETPLACE RESIDENCES LLC, MCP VOA HOLDINGS LLC, MCP VOA I & III LLC, MCP VOA II LLC, MCPP OWNERS LLC, MET CANADA SOLAR ULC, MET0 SIEFORE S.A. de C.V., MET1 SIEFORE S.A. de C.V., MET2 SIEFORE S.A. de C.V., MET3 SIEFORE BASICA S.A. de C.V., MET4 SIEFORE S.A. de C.V., META SIEFORE ADICIONAL S.A. de C.V., METLIFE 1007 STEWART LLC, METLIFE 1201 TAB MEMBER LLC, METLIFE 425 MKT MEMBER LLC, METLIFE 555 12TH MEMBER LLC, METLIFE ADMINISTRADORA DE FUNDOS MULTIPATROCINADOS LTDA., METLIFE ADVISERS LLC, METLIFE AFORE S.A. DE C.V., METLIFE ALTERNATIVES GP LLC, METLIFE ASIA HOLDING COMPANY PTE. LTD., METLIFE ASIA LIMITED, METLIFE ASSET MANAGEMENT CORP., METLIFE AUTO & HOME INSURANCE AGENCY INC., METLIFE CABO HILTON MEMBER LLC, METLIFE CAMINO RAMON MEMBER LLC, METLIFE CANADIAN PROPERTY VENTURES LLC, METLIFE CAPITAL CREDIT L.P., METLIFE CAPITAL LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, METLIFE CAPITAL TRUST IV, METLIFE CAPITAL TRUST X, METLIFE CB W/A LLC, METLIFE CC MEMBER LLC, METLIFE CHILE ADMINISTRADORA DE MUTUOS HIPOTECARIOS S.A., METLIFE CHILE INVERSIONES LIMITADA, METLIFE CHILE SEGUROS DE VIDA S.A., METLIFE CHILE SEGUROS GENERALES S.A., METLIFE COLOMBIA SEGUROS de VIDA S.A., METLIFE COMMERCIAL MORTGAGE INCOME FUND GP LLC, METLIFE CONSQUARE MEMBER LLC, METLIFE CONSUMER SERVICES INC., METLIFE CORE PROPERTY FUND GP LLC, METLIFE CREDIT CORP., METLIFE EMEKLILIK VE HAYAT A.S., METLIFE EU HOLDING COMPANY LIMITED, METLIFE EUROPE INSURANCE d.a.c., METLIFE EUROPE SERVICES LIMITED, METLIFE EUROPE d.a.c., METLIFE EUROPEAN HOLDINGS LLC., METLIFE FINANCIAL SERVICES CO. LTD, METLIFE FM HOTEL MEMBER LLC, METLIFE FUNDING INC, METLIFE GENERAL INSURANCE LIMITED, METLIFE GLOBAL BENEFITS LTD., METLIFE GLOBAL HOLDING COMPANY I GmbH (SWISS I), METLIFE GLOBAL HOLDING COMPANY II GmbH (SWISS II), METLIFE GLOBAL HOLDINGS CORPORATION S.A. De C.V., METLIFE GLOBAL INC., METLIFE GLOBAL OPERATIONS SUPPORT CENTER PRIVATE LIMITED, METLIFE GROUP INC., METLIFE HCMJV 1 GP LLC, METLIFE HEALTH PLANS INC., METLIFE HOLDINGS INC., METLIFE HOME LOANS LLC, METLIFE INNOVATION CENTRE LIMITED, METLIFE INNOVATION CENTRE PTE. LTD., METLIFE INSURANCE AND INVESTMENT TRUST, METLIFE INSURANCE BROKERAGE INC., METLIFE INSURANCE COMPANY USA, METLIFE INSURANCE K.K., METLIFE INSURANCE LIMITED, METLIFE INSURANCE LIMITED, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL HF PARTNERS LP, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LLC, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL LIMITED LLC, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL PE FUND I LP, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL PE FUND II LP, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL PE FUND III LP, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL PE FUND IV LP, METLIFE INVESTMENT ADVISORS LLC, METLIFE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT HOLDINGS (IRELAND) LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENTS ASIA LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENTS LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENTS PTY LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENTS SECURITIES LLC, METLIFE INVESTORS DISTRIBUTION COMPANY, METLIFE INVESTORS GROUP LLC, METLIFE IRELAND HOLDINGS ONE LIMITED, METLIFE IRELAND TREASURY D.A.C., METLIFE LATIN AMERICA ASESORIAS E INVERSIONES LIMITADA, METLIFE LHH MEMBER LLC, METLIFE LIFE INSURANCE S.A., METLIFE LIMITED, METLIFE LOAN ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC, METLIFE MALL VENTURES LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, METLIFE MAS S.A. DE C.V., METLIFE MEXICO HOLDINGS S. DE R.L. DE C.V., METLIFE MEXICO S.A., METLIFE MEXICO SERVICIOS S.A. DE C.V., METLIFE OBSMEMBER LLC, METLIFE OFC MEMBER LLC, METLIFE ONTARIO STREET MEMBR LLC, METLIFE PARK TOWER MEMBER LLC, METLIFE PENSION TRUSTEES LIMITED, METLIFE PENSIONES MEXICO S.A., METLIFE PLANOS ODONTOLOGICOS LTDA., METLIFE POWSZECHNE TOWARTZYSTWO EMERYTALNE S.A., METLIFE PRIVATE EQUITY HOLDINGS LLC, METLIFE PROPERTIES VENTURES LLC, METLIFE PROPERTY VENTURES CANADA ULC, METLIFE RC SF MEMBER LLC, METLIFE REINSURANCE COMPANY OF BERMUDA LTD., METLIFE REINSURANCE COMPANY OF CHARLESTON, METLIFE REINSURANCE COMPANY OF DELAWARE, METLIFE REINSURANCE COMPANY OF SOUTH CAROLINA, METLIFE REINSURANCE COMPANY OF VERMONT, METLIFE RENEWABLES HOLDING LLC, METLIFE RETIREMENT SERVICES LLC, METLIFE SAENGMYOUNG INSURANCE COMPANY LTD., METLIFE SEGUROS DE RETIRO S.A., METLIFE SEGUROS S.A., METLIFE SEGUROS S.A., METLIFE SEGUROS S.A. (ARGENTINA), METLIFE SERVICES AND SOLUTIONS LLC, METLIFE SERVICES CYPRUS LIMITED, METLIFE SERVICES EAST PRIVATE LIMITED, METLIFE SERVICES EEIG, METLIFE SERVICES EOOD, METLIFE SERVICES SOCIEDAD LIMITADA, METLIFE SERVICES SP Z.O.O, METLIFE SERVICIOS S.A., METLIFE SK S.R.O., METLIFE SLOVAKIA S.R.O., METLIFE SOLUTIONS PTE. LTD., METLIFE SOLUTIONS S.A.S., METLIFE SP HOLDINGS LLC, METLIFE STANDBY I LLC, METLIFE THR INVESTOR LLC, METLIFE TOWARZYSTWO FUNDUSZY INWESTYCYJNYCH S.A., METLIFE TOWARZYSTWO UBEZPIECZEN NA ZYCIE I REASEKURACJI S.A., METLIFE TOWER RESOURCES GROUP INC., METLIFE TREAT TOWERS MEMBER LLC, METLIFE USA ASSIGNMENT COMPANY, METLIFE WORLDWIDE HOLDINGS LLC, METROPOLITAN CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN CONNECTICUT PROPERTIES VENTURES LLC, METROPOLITAN DIRECT PROPERTY AND CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN GLOBAL MANAGEMENT LLC., METROPOLITAN GROUP PROPERTY AND CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF HONG KONG LIMITED, METROPOLITAN LIFE SEGUROS E PREVIDENCIA PRIVADA S.A., METROPOLITAN LIFE SOCIETATE de ADMINISTRARE a UNUI FOND de PENSII ADMINISTRAT PRIVAT S.A., METROPOLITAN LLOYDS INC., METROPOLITAN PROPERTY AND CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN TOWER LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN TOWER REALTY COMPANY INC., MEX DF PROPERTIES LLC, MIDTOWN HEIGHTS LLC, MIM PROPERTY MANAGEMENT LLC, MISSOURI REINSURANCE INC., ML 1065 HOTEL LLC, ML BRIDGESIDE APARTMENTS LLC, ML CAPACITACION COMERCIAL S.A. DE C.V., ML DOLPHIN GP LLC, ML DOLPHIN MEZZ LLC, ML MILILANI MEMBER LLC, ML NEW RIVER VILLAGE III LLC, ML NORTH BRAND MEMBER LLC, ML SOUTHMORE LLC, ML SWAN GP LLC, ML SWAN MEZZ LLC, ML TERRACES LLC, ML-AI METLIFE MEMBER 1 LLC, ML-AI METLIFE MEMBER 2 LLC, ML-AI METLIFE MEMBER 3 LLC, MLA COMERCIAL S.A. DE C.V., MLA SERVICIOS S.A. DE C.V., MLIC ASSET HOLDINGS II LLC, MLIC ASSET HOLDINGS LLC, MLIC CB HOLDINGS LLC, MM GLOBAL OPERATIONS SUPPORT CENTER S.A. DE C.V., MSV IRVINE PROPERTY LLC, MTC FUND I LLC, MTC FUND II LLC, MTC FUND III LLC, MTL LEASING LLC, NATILOPORTEM HOLDINGS LLC, NEW ENGLAND LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, NEWBURY INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED, OCONEE GOLF COMPANY LLC, OCONEE HOTEL COMPANY LLC, OCONEE LAND COMPANY LLC, OCONEE LAND DEVELOPMENT COMPANY LLC, OCONEE MARINA COMPANY LLC, OMI MLIC INVESTMENTS LIMITED, ONE FINANCIAL PLACE CORPORATION, PARA-MET PLAZA ASSOCIATES, PARK TOWER JV MEMBER LLC, PARK TOWER REIT INC., PARK TWENTY THREE INVESTMENTS COMPANY, PJSC METLIFE, PLAZA DRIVE PROPERTIES LLC, PREFCO DIX-HUIT LLC, PREFCO FOURTEEN LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, PREFCO IX REALTY LLC, PREFCO TEN LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, PREFCO TWENTY LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, PREFCO VINGT LLC, PREFCO X HOLDINGS LLC, PREFCO XIV HOLDINGS LLC, PROVIDA INTERNACIONAL S.A., RIVERWAY RESIDENTIAL LP, SAFEGUARD HEALTH ENTERPRISES INC., SAFEGUARD HEALTH PLANS INC., SAFEGUARD HEALTH PLANS INC., SAFEHEALTH LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, SANDPIPER COVE ASSOCIATES II LLC, SANDPIPER COVE ASSOCIATES LLC, ST. JAMES FLEET INVESTMENTS TWO LIMITED, Safeguard Health Enterprises, Security First Group Inc., THE BUILDING AT 575 FIFTH AVENUE MEZZANINE LLC, THE BUILDING AT 575 FIFTH RETAIL HOLDING LLC, THE BUILDING AT 575 FIFTH RETAIL OWNER, THE DIRECT CALL CENTRE PTY LIMITED, THE PROSPECT COMPANY, TIC EUROPEAN REAL ESTATE LP LLC, TLA HOLDINGS II LLC, TLA HOLDINGS III LLC, TLA HOLDINGS LLC, TRANSMOUNTAIN LAND & LIVESTOCK COMPANY, VIRIDIAN MIRACLE MILE LLC, Versant Health, WFP 1000 HOLDING COMPANY GP LLC, WHITE OAK ROYALTY COMPANY, and ZAO MASTER D. Investors Search for the Next Big Medical Cannabis Winner - This Is It (Ad) Medical cannabis stocks have rewarded investors with astonishing profits over the last three years and investors are now looking for the next big winner in a market thats expected to quintuple by 2026. One investment expert claims hes already found it The following companies are subsidiares of Accenture: 2nd Road, 2nd Road Pty Ltd., ?What If!, ?What If! China Holdings Ltd, ?What If! Holdings Limited, ?What If! Innovation Singapore Holdings Pte, ?What If! Limited, ?What If! Shanghai Co. Ltd, ?What If! USA LLC, ACN Consulting Co Ltd, AD Dialeto Agencia de Publicidade SA, AD.Dialeto (Digital Agency acquired by Accenture), AGS Business and Technology Services Limited, ASM Research Inc., ASM Research LLC, ATAN, Accenture (Beijing) Mobile Technology Co Ltd, Accenture (Botswana) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (China) Co Ltd, Accenture (Shenzhen) Technology Co. Ltd., Accenture (South Africa) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (South Africa) Pty Limited, Accenture (UK) Ltd, Accenture 2 Business Process Services S.A., Accenture 2 LLC, Accenture A/S, Accenture AB, Accenture AG, Accenture AS, Accenture Africa Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Holding B.V., Accenture Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Azerbaijan Ltd, Accenture BPM Operations Support Services S.A., Accenture BPM S.C.R.L., Accenture BV, Accenture Branch Holdings B.V., Accenture Bulgaria EOOD, Accenture Business Services for Utilities Inc, Accenture Business Services of British Columbia Limited Partnership, Accenture Business and Technology Services LLC, Accenture C.A, Accenture CAS GmbH, Accenture Canada Holdings Inc., Accenture Capital DAC, Accenture Capital Inc, Accenture Central Europe B.V., Accenture Chile Asesorias y Servicios Ltda, Accenture Cloud Services GmbH, Accenture Cloud Software Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions LLC, Accenture Cloud Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd., Accenture Communications Infrastructure Solutions Ltd, Accenture Company Ltd, Accenture Consulting Services Ltd Tanzania, Accenture Consultores de Gestao S.A., Accenture Consultoria de Industria e Consumo Ltda, Accenture Consultoria de Recursos Naturais Ltda, Accenture Credit Services LLC, Accenture Customer Services Distribution SAS, Accenture Customer Services Limited, Accenture Danismanlik Limited Sirketi, Accenture Defined Benefit Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Defined Contribution Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Delivery Poland sp. z o.o., Accenture Dienstleistungen GmbH, Accenture Digital France Holdings SA, Accenture Digital Holdings GmbH, Accenture East Africa Limited, Accenture Ecuador S.A., Accenture Egypt LLC, Accenture Enterprise Development (Shanghai) Co Ltd., Accenture Federal Services LLC, Accenture Finance (Gibraltar) III Ltd, Accenture Finance GmbH, Accenture Finance GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II GmbH, Accenture Finance II GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II Ltd, Accenture Finance Limited, Accenture Finance and Accounting BPO Services S.p.A., Accenture Finance and Accounting Services Srl, Accenture Flex LLC, Accenture GP LLC, Accenture Ghana Limited, Accenture Global Holdings Ltd., Accenture Global Services Ltd, Accenture Global Solutions Ltd, Accenture GmbH, Accenture HR Services Ltd, Accenture HR Services S.p.A., Accenture Healthcare Processing Inc., Accenture Holding GmbH, Accenture Holding GmbH & Co. KG, Accenture Holding GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Holdings (Iberia) S.L., Accenture Holdings B.V., Accenture Holdings France SAS, Accenture Holdings plc, Accenture Hungary Holdings Kft, Accenture Inc, Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazylym Cozumleri Limited irketi), Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazlm Cozumleri Limited Sirketi), Accenture Industrial Software Solutions Kft, Accenture Industrial Software Solutions SA, Accenture Insurance Services LLC, Accenture Insurance Services SAS, Accenture Insurance Services SpA, Accenture International BV, Accenture International Capital SCA, Accenture International LLC, Accenture International Limited, Accenture International Sarl, Accenture Japan Ltd, Accenture Korea BV, Accenture LLC, Accenture LLP, Accenture Lanka (Private) Ltd, Accenture Limited, Accenture Ltd, Accenture Ltda, Accenture Maghreb S.a.r.l., Accenture Managed Services SRL, Accenture Managed Services SpA, Accenture Management GmbH, Accenture Middle East B.V, Accenture Middle East BV, Accenture Minority I BV, Accenture Minority III Ltd, Accenture Mozambique Limitada, Accenture Mzansi (Pty) Ltd, Accenture NV/SA, Accenture NZ Limited, Accenture Newco LLC, Accenture Nova Scotia Unlimited Liability Co., Accenture OOO, Accenture Operations Sp. z o.o., Accenture Outsourcing SRL, Accenture Outsourcing Services, Accenture Outsourcing Services S.A., Accenture Oy, Accenture Panama Inc, Accenture Participations BV, Accenture Participations II Limited, Accenture Peru S.R.L, Accenture Peru S.R.L., Accenture Post Trade Processing SAS, Accenture Post-Trade Processing Limited, Accenture Process Ltd, Accenture Product Lifecycle Services, Accenture Properties, Accenture Pte Ltd, Accenture Puerto Rico LLC, Accenture S.A., Accenture S.C., Accenture S.L., Accenture S.R.L., Accenture SAS, Accenture SG Services Pte Ltd, Accenture SRL, Accenture Saudi Arabia Limited, Accenture Sendirian Berhad, Accenture Service Center SRL, Accenture Services (Mauritius) Ltd, Accenture Services AB, Accenture Services AG, Accenture Services AS, Accenture Services GmbH, Accenture Services Ltd, Accenture Services Morocco SA, Accenture Services Oy, Accenture Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Services S.r.l., Accenture Services SRL, Accenture Services Sp. z o.o., Accenture Services Sp. z.o.o., Accenture Services and Technology Srl, Accenture Services fur Kreditinstitute GmbH, Accenture Services s.r.o., Accenture Servicos Administrativos Ltda, Accenture Servicos de Suporte de Negocios Ltda, Accenture Solutions Co Ltd, Accenture Solutions Private Limited, Accenture Solutions Pte Ltd, Accenture Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Solutions Sdn Bhd, Accenture Sp. z o.o., Accenture Sp. z.o.o., Accenture SpA, Accenture State Healthcare Services LLC, Accenture Sub II Inc., Accenture Sub Inc, Accenture Sub LLC, Accenture Systems Integration Limited, Accenture Sarl, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag KFT, Accenture Technologia, Accenture Technologia Consultoria e Outsourcing S.A., Accenture Technology Infrastructure Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (Dalian) Co Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (HK) Co. Ltd., Accenture Technology Solutions (Thailand) Co. Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas S.A., Accenture Technology Solutions GmbH, Accenture Technology Solutions Oy, Accenture Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions S.A. de C.V., Accenture Technology Solutions SAS, Accenture Technology Solutions SRL, Accenture Technology Solutions Sdn. Bhd., Accenture Technology Solutions Slovakia s.r.o., Accenture Technology Ventures BV, Accenture Technology Ventures S.P.R.L., Accenture Uruguay SRL, Accenture Vietnam Co., Accenture Vietnam Co. LTD, Accenture Zambia Limited, Accenture do Brasil Limitada, Accenture plc, Accenture s.r.o., Acceria, Acquity Customer Insight Limited, Acquity Group, Adaptly LLC, Adaptly UK Limited, AddVal Technology, Adqptly, Advantium Inc., Agave Consultants Limited, Agilex Technologies Inc., Allen International, Allen International Consulting Group Ltd, Alnova Technologies Corporation S.L., AlphaBeta Advisors, Altima, Altima Asia Ltd., Altima SAS, Altitude, Altitude LLC, Analytics 8 LP, Analytics 8 Pty Ltd, Analytics8, Aorui Advertising (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Apis, Appaloosa Technology SAS, Arca, Ariba - BPO, Arismore, Aspiro Solutions (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Avanade, Avanade (Guangzhou) Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd., Avanade (Thailand) Co Ltd, Avanade Asia Pte Ltd, Avanade Australia Pty Ltd, Avanade Belgium SPRL, Avanade Canada Inc., Avanade Denmark A/S, Avanade Denmark ApS, Avanade Deutschland GmbH, Avanade Europe Holdings Ltd, Avanade Europe Services Ltd, Avanade Federal Services LLC, Avanade Finland Oy, Avanade France SAS, Avanade GZ Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd. (SH), Avanade Guangzhou, Avanade Holdings LLC, Avanade Hong Kong Ltd, Avanade International Corporation, Avanade Ireland Limited, Avanade Italy SRL, Avanade KK, Avanade Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avanade Netherlands BV, Avanade Norway AS, Avanade Poland Sp. z o.o., Avanade Poland Sp. z.o.o., Avanade Schweiz GmbH, Avanade South Africa, Avanade South Africa Pty Ltd, Avanade Spain SL, Avanade Sweden AB, Avanade UK Ltd, Avanade do Brasil Limitada, Avanade Osterreich GmbH, AvantBiz Consulting Limited, Avenai, Axia Ltd., BABCN LLC, BCT Solutions, BCT Solutions Pty Ltd, BPO Servicos Administrativos Ltda, BRIDGE Energy Group, Beacon Consulting Group Inc., Beijing Genesis Interactive Technology Co. Ltd., Boomerang Pharmaceutical Communications, Boomerang Pharmaceuticals Communications Ireland Limited, Bow & Arrow, Brand Learning, Brand Learning Group Limited, Brand Learning LLC, Brand Learning Ltd, Brand Learning Partners Limited, Brand Learning Pte Limited, Bridge Energy Group LLC, Brightstep AB, Byte Prophecy, CAS, CRMWaypoint, CadenceQuest Inc., Capable Marketer Limited, Capgemini - North American health practice, Capital Consultancy Services Inc., Certus Solutions Consulting Services Ltd, Certus Solutions Ltd, ChangeTrack Research Pty Ltd., Chaotic Moon Studios, Chengdu Mensa Advertising Co. Ltd., Cimation, Cimation UK Limited, Cirruseo, Cirruseo SAS, Clarity Insights, Clearhead, Clearhead Group, Clearhead Group LLC, ClientHouse GmbH, Cloud Sherpas, Cloud Sherpas (GA) LLC, Cloud Sherpas (SN) (PTE.) Limited, Cloud Sherpas New Zealand Ltd., Cloud Talent Limited, Cloudsherpas, Cloudsherpas Inc., Codagenic Pty. Ltd., Computer Research and Telecommunications LLC, Concrete Desenvolvimento de Sistemas Ltda., Concrete Solutions, Concrete Solutions Ltda., Context Information Security, Coritel S.A., Corliant Inc., CreativeDrive, CustomerWorks Europe SL, Cutting Edge Solutions Ltd, D5 Global Holdings LLC, DAZ Systems Inc, DAZ Systems LLC, DAZSI Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd., DMA Solutions Limited, Davies Consulting, DayNine Consulting, DayNine Consulting (Australia) PTY LTD, DayNine Consulting (Deutschland) GmbH, DayNine Consulting (New Zealand) Limited, DayNine Consulting France SAS, DayNine Consulting Japan K.K., DayNine Consulting LLC, Declarative Holdings, Declarative Holdings LLC, Defense Point Security, Deja vu Security, Design Strategy and Research de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Designaffairs LLC, Digiplug S.A.S., Digiplug SAS, Digital Consulting & Software Services LLC, Droga5, Droga5 LLC, Droga5 Studios LLC, Droga5 UK Ltd., Duck Creek Technologies, Duck Creek Technologies LLC, Deja Vu Security LLC, ESR Labs, Elcurator SAS, Enaxis Consulting, Enaxis Consulting L.P., End-to-End Analytics, Energuia Web, Energuia Web S.A., Energy Management Brokers Ltd., Energy Quote Private Ltd., EnergyQuote JHA, EnergyQuote JHA Ltd., EnergyQuote Trading Ltd., Enimbos, Enkitec, Enterprise System Partners, Enterprise System Partners B.V. , Enterprise System Partners Bilisim Danismanlik Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Enterprise System Partners Global Corporation, Enterprise System Partners Limited, Enterprise System Partners PR LLC, Enterprise System Partners S.A.S., Epylon, Evopro Group, Exactside Limited, Fairway Technologies Inc, Fairway Technologies LLC, Filmproduction ApS, First Annapolis Consulting, First Annapolis Consulting Inc., First Annapolis Consulting LLC, First Annapolis International, Fjord, Focus Group Europe, Focus Group Europe Limited, Formicary, Formicary Holdings Limited, Formicary Limited, FusionX, FutureMove Automotive, Gapso Servicos de Informatica Ltda., Genfour, Genfour Limited, George Group Consulting L.P., Gestalt LLC, Gestion Altima Canada Inc., Global Public Firm S.L., GlobalView SAS, GoodFilm GmbH Filmproduktion Stuttgart, H.B. Maynard and Co. Inc., Hagberg Consulting Group, Hangzhou Aiyunzhe Technology Co. Ltd., Happen, Hjaltelin Stahl, Hjaltelin Stahl K/S, Hytracc Consulting AS, Hytracc Consulting Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Hytracc Consulting UK Limited, Hytracc Holding AS, I-Faber S.p.A., IBB Consulting, IMJ Corp, IMJ Corporation, INCAD, INSITUM, IT One Company Limited, ITBS Servicios Bancarios de Tecnologia de la Informacion SL, Icon Integration, Imagine Broadband (USA) Ltd, Imagine Broadband USA LLC, Imaginea Inc, Industrie&Co, Infoman AG, Infoman Schweiz AG, Informatica de Euskadi S.L., Infusion Development Inc., Infusion Development UK Limited, InfusionDev LLC, Innoveer Solutions India Pvt Ltd, Insitum Consultoria Argentina SRL, Insitum Consultoria Brasil LTDA, Insitum Consultoria Colombia SAS, Insitum Consultoria Europa SL, Insitum Consultoria Peru SAC, Insitum Consultoria S.A. de C.V., Intrepid, Intrigo Systems Inc, Intrigo Systems India Pvt. Limited, Intrigo Systems LLC, Inventor Advertisement (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inventor Technology Limited, InvestTech, Investtech Systems Consulting LLC, Javelin Group, Javelin Group (Bulgaria) EOOD, Javelin Group Limited (UK), Javelin Group SASU, K Comms Group Limited, KCS.net AG, KCS.net AG West, KCS.net Deutschland GmbH, KCS.net Holding AG, KCS.net Osterreich GmbH, Kaper Communications Limited, Karma Communications Debtco Limited, Karma Communications Group Limited, Karma Communications Holdings Limited, Karmarama, Karmarama Comms Limited, Karmarama Limited, Knowledge Rules Inc., Knowledgent, Knowledgent Group LLC, Kogentix, Kogentix LLC, Kogentix Ltd, Kogentix Singapore Pte. Ltd, Kogentix Technologies Private Limited, Kolle Rebbe, Kolle Rebbe GmbH, Kream Comms Limited, Kunstmaan, Kunstmaan NV, Kurt Salmon, Kurt Salmon Canada LTD, Kurt Salmon UKI, Kurt Salmon UKI Ltd., Kurt Salmon US LLC, LINKBYNET, LabAnswer, LabAnswer Government, LemonXL Limited, Logistics Market Place Limited (UK), Loud & Clear Creative Pty Ltd, MAXIM Systems Inc., MCG US Holdings LLC, Mackevision CG Technology and Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Mackevision Corporation, Mackevision Japan Co. Ltd., Mackevision Korea Ltd, Mackevision Medien Design, Mackevision Medien Design GmbH, Mackevision Singapore Pte. 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Ltd., Silveo, Simian Pty Limited, SinnerSchrader AG, SinnerSchrader Commerce GmbH, SinnerSchrader Content GmbH, SinnerSchrader Deutschland GmbH, SinnerSchrader Praha s.r.o., SinnerSchrader Swipe GmbH, Sinnerschrader, Sistemes Consulting S.L., Solutions IQ, Solutions IQ LLC, SolutionsIQ, SolutionsIQ India Consulting Services Private Limited, Storm Digital, Storm Digital B.V., Structure Consulting Group, Structure Consulting Group LLC, Sutter Mills, Systor AG, TQuila Limited (UK), Tadata Creative Unlimited Company, Tara Insurance DAC, Tara Risk DAC, TargetST8, TargetST8 Consulting LLC, Tech - Avanade Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Tecnilogica Ecosistemas S.A., Tecnilogica Ltd., Tecnilogica, The Brand Learning Partners Limited, The Callisto Integration Corporation, The Monkeys, The Monkeys Pty Limited, The Myrtle Group, Total Logistics, Total Logistics Supply Chain Consultants Limited, Tquila, Troop Studios Pty Ltd, VanBerlo, Verax Solutions, Verax Solutions Corporation, Vertical Retail Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong, Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Ltd., Vivere Brasil Servicos e Solucoes SA, Vivere Brasil Solucoes De Credito Ltda., Weblinc Pty Ltd, Wire Stone, Wire Stone LLC, Wire Stone Sarl, Wolox, Yesler, Zag, Zenta, Zenta Global Philippines, Zenta Global Philippines Inc., Zenta Mortgage Services LLC, Zenta Recoveries Inc, Zenta US Holdings Inc., Zielpuls, Zielpuls (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zielpuls GmbH, avVenta, designaffairs, designaffairs Business Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., designaffairs GmbH, designaffairs group China Co. Ltd., dgroup, i4C Analytics, iDefense, and solid-serVision.com GmbH. Four people have been confirmed dead and 90 others including 23 children sustained injuries in a powerful blast that rocked Afghan capital Kabul on Monday evening, Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish has confirmed. Wounded men lie on beds in a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Afghan officials say multiple people were killed when a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle full of explosive in the capital Kabul on Monday. [Photo: AP/Massoud Hossaini] "The victims of the blast that shocked Kabul today evening claimed four lives including three military and one civilian, 90 injured including 23 children, 12 women and 65 men with majority of them civilians," Danish said in a post on his twitter hours after the blast on Monday. Without providing more details, Danish asserted that the terrorists conducted a car bombing against Green Village camp in Police District 9 and police are in control of the situation there. Green Village camp is a well-protected area next to the main office of Afghan election commission in the eastern edge of Kabul city where a number of foreign security offices and entities located and often frequented by foreigners living or working in Kabul. Earlier, Wahidullah Mayar, the spokesman for Public Health Ministry, confirmed that 40 injured persons had been taken to hospitals. The bloody blast that was heard across the fortified Kabul city and followed by gunshots caused panic among Kabul residents, took place just hours after the Afghan election commission announced the preliminary results of much-awaited parliamentary elections for Kabul. After two months and five days delay, the election commission announced the preliminary results of October elections for Kabul where 24 males and nine females from among more than 800 runners have secured seats in the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga, or the lower house of parliament, amid criticism by those failed to win seat at the legislative house. No group has claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing nor the security apparatus has pointed finger at any militant group including Taliban and Islamic State outfit fighting the government. 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(U.K.), Newage Machine Tools Ltd., OOO Cummins, Petbow Limited, Power Group International (Overseas Holdings) B.V., Power Group International (Overseas Holdings) Ltd., Power Group International Ltd., Quickstart Energy Projects SpA, Shanghai Cummins Trade Co. Ltd., TOO Cummins, Taiwan Cummins Sales & Services Co. Ltd., Worldwide Partner CV Member LLC, Wuxi Cummins Turbo Technologies Co. Ltd., Wuxi New Energy Automotive Technologies Co. Ltd., and ZED Connect Inc.. In a jolt to the seven-month-old Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress coalition government in Karnataka, two Independent legislators, R. Shankar and H. Nagesh, on Tuesday said they were withdrawing support. "I had extended support to the JD-S-Congress coalition expecting good governance, but have been disappointed," Shankar told the media. Shankar, a legislator from Ranebennur Assembly segment in Haveri district, belongs to the regional Karnataka Pragnavantha Janata Party, while Nagesh is an Independent from Mulbagal constituency in Kolar district. With the arrest of a wanted gangster identified as Varun Bhardwaj (32) on Monday from Delhis Dwarka district, Delhi Police were able to avert a major gang war. The accused had allegedly jumped his parole on July 2018, to avenge the death of his friend, who was murdered by members of Shiva Suri gang. A reward of Rs 50,000 was declared for his arrest, police said. According to police, the accused was involved in multiple cases of murder and attempt to murder. He was lodged in jail for a double murder case in Subzimandi Police Station in 2014, when he was released on parole for treatment of his mother who was suffering from cancer in July 2018. However, police disclosed that he jumped his parole to take revenge on members of Shiva Suri gang for the murder of his close friend Bijender. He absconded to Rajasthan and Haryana area and lived in disguise to remain untraceable, Deputy Commissioner of Police Anto Alphonse stated in the official release. On Monday, he arrived at Delhi on the occasion of Makar Sankranti in hope to spot his rival gang members but the information was relayed to police staffs. The team got information that a criminal involved in several cases of murder with a reward of Rs 50,000 over his head is roaming in Dwarka area with illegal weapons. The team laid a trap and arrested the accused Varun Bhardwaj near Radha Swami Satsang Bhawan, Pochanpur, Dwarka at about 3.00 pm. Hence a major an ensuing major gang war has been averted, the DCP said. During interrogation, police revealed that the accused was first arrested in 2005 under an Arms Act case of PaschimVihar police station and was lodged in Tihar Jail. In jail, he came in contact with members of the Nandu Gang and joined the gang after his release, police said. Following this, he was involved in multiple cases of murder and attempt to murder cases and was arrested in 2014 in a double murder case, for the murder of two criminals Sonu Pahalwan and Bunty Pahalwan. With both the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party crossing the major hurdle of seat sharing for the Lok Sabha elections, the leaders of both the parties are now putting their heads together for identifying seats to be contested by both the parties. The alliance between the SP and BSP in UP is seen as a monumental leap of faith between two sworn rivals. Samajwadi Party sources claim that it is highly likely that this alliance may now extend to other states as well like Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. As per the broad understanding reached between the two parties, the Bahujan Samaj Party besides contesting a majority of the 17 Lok Sabha seats reserved for the Scheduled Caste will contest most of the seats in Western UP, while the Samajwadi Party will contest eastern UP constituencies. The father-son duo of Akhilesh Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav are set to contest Lok Sabha polls from Kannauj and Mainpuri, respectively. Mayawati may pick a seat too to re-enter the Lok Sabha after 15 years. She has won twice from Akbarpur seat in east UP, the last time she contested in 2004. The key seats like Bulandshahr, Agra, Bijnor, Meerut, Saharanpur, Nagina and Aligarh are expected to be contested by the BSP while seats like Etawah, Lucknow, Moradabad, Gorakhpur, Allahabad, Kanpur and Azamgarh are expected to be contested by the SP. Baghpat and Mathura seats have been left for RLDs Ajit Singh and Jayant Chaudhary. The SP-BSP alliance may contest these two seats too if RLD refuses their offer and goes to align with the Congress in UP. Akhilesh Yadav had already said that he was willing to make a compromise for lesser seats but said he was grateful to Mayawati for making both parties equal partners. This is also seen as a message to voters and workers of both sides that no partner was inferior hence aid and enable vote transfer to either camp. The BSP has identified seats where Dalit-Muslim voters are enough to help it win with some vote transfer from the Yadavs while the SP will bank on seats where the Yadav-Muslim population is decisive, along with some Dalit backing. The SP has been electorally more successful than the BSP in UP both in the 2014 and 2017 elections. The BSP had drawn a blank during 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The BJP had been attacking the proposed alliance in the past asking if SP workers would accept lesser seats for their party compared to the BSP in an alliance. The equal-seat deal hence silences that critique from the BJP. SP leaders said: Who gets which seat also depends on who finished second on which seat in 2014 and 2009 as well as considering either partys traditional strengths in terms of vote. While the SP had won five seats in the 2014 LS polls and finished second on 31 seats, the BSP won no seat but finished second in 33 seats. Of the two seats where the BSP finished second, the SP won the Gorakhpur and Phulpur seats in the byelections. The biggest strength of the alliance is that it will bring the Dalit-Muslim-Yadav axis to the fore in the state. Shivpal Yadav, heading the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) and the warring uncle of Samajwadi party President Akhilesh Yadav, terming the SP-BSP alliance as 'opportunistic and added that the rank and file of the Samajwadi Party would never accept the new political formation. "It's an opportunistic alliance so it lacks credibility among people. The Bahujan Samaj Party, particularly ever since the breakup of its alliance with the Samajwadi Party in June 1995, had left no stone unturned to humiliate party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and other senior leaders like Janeshwar Mishra," said Shivpal Yadav on Tuesday, adding: "The results of the coming Lok Sabha elections would endorse my observation about the SP-BSP alliance." Shivpal Yadav denied charges levelled by BSP chief Mayawati that his party was a proxy of the BJP. "I am not a purchasable commodity and its too well known about that she is neck deep in economic offences and also known for selling the party tickets during the Assembly and Lok Sabha election s." He claimed all those who had faith in social justice were looking at the SP-BSP alliance with suspicion and questioning its ultimate objectives. PSPL leader claimed that any anti-BJP alliance would not be viable without including his party and the Congress. "Mayawati is notorious for selling the power she earns with the support of Dalits, OBCs and minorities to the BJP and she became the Chief Minister three times with the support of the BJP. Who can guarantee that she will not join hands with the BJP after the Lok Sabha elections?" charged Shivpal Yadav. He alleged that Mayawati as the Chief Minister framed a large number of Muslim youths in false cases and sent them to jail. Shivpal Yadav rejected the claim of Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati that only their alliance could take on the BJP and defeat the ruling party in UP and the Centre. "This is not 'gathbandhan but 'thugbandhan and the way they have decided to keep the Congress and the PSPL out of it raises question over its real intentions. Many are wondering whether the real objective of the alliance is to ensure the division of the votes of Dalits, OBCs and Muslims to pave the way for the easy victory of the BJP in Lok Sabha elections," alleges Shivpal Yadav. Alleging that Mayawati would ditch Samajwadi Party after the Lok Sabha elections, Shivpal Yadav said: "Nobody knows about the possible course of action of Mayawati after the Lok Sabha elections and looking at her past record, anything is possible." He said it was too early to comment on the viability of the SP-BSP alliance and its impact on the Lok Sabha elections. The PSPL has been allotted 'chaabi' (key) as the election symbol by the Election Commission of India. The PSPL is banking on the support of rebels of the Samajwadi Party who will be denied party tickets following its alliance with the Bahujan Samaj party. With only 38 seats in the quota out of total 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, there will be no SP candidate in as many as 42 seats. A large number of SP leaders aspiring for party tickets are set to seek alternative pastures and the most preferable destination is likely to be the PSPL. Nearly two months after the Central Government gave its go-ahead to give access to Kartarpur Sahib Gurudwara in Pakistan, a high level meeting comprising officials from the Centre and the State Governments was held on Tuesday to discuss the modalities concerning the construction of the corridor. Presided over by the Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, the meeting was attended by Punjab Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh, and the state DGP (Intelligence) Dinkar Gupta representing the state government. Besides, Border Security Force (BSF) Director General RK Mishra, the Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria, and the officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) were also present in the meeting. Sources informed The Pioneer that the issue of land acquisition on the Indian side of the corridor was discussed in detail during the meeting that lasted for about 45 minutes. The State Government is awaiting approval from the Central Government to initiate the process for land acquisition. The process would only be started after the Centre sends the details about the khasra numbers of the land proposed for acquisition to the State. A day before, the Punjab Government had also held a detailed meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, to discuss the corridor issue in view of the Tuesdays meeting. During the meeting, discussions were held to ensure coordination with the Central Government authorities to complete the land acquisition process and the corridor construction at the earliest, primarily before the 550th birth anniversary of Sikhs first master Guru Nanak Dev in November this year. Already, the Punjab Government had submitted with the Central Government its plan for the alignment of its proposed corridor on Indian side. Notably, the Union Home Ministry is the nodal Ministry for coordinating with the concerned authorities, including the Local Government, while the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is the nodal Ministry for building and development of the corridor on the Indian side. It has been learnt that India is likely to propose a formal meeting on the Kartarpur corridor to Pakistan soon. The Union Cabinet on November 22 had approved the building of Kartarpur Corridor on the Indian side from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district of Punjab till the border. On the same day, India informed Pakistan its decision to build Kartarpur Corridor and urged Islamabad to develop a corridor in its territory from the International Border to Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib. Vice President Venkaiah Naidu laid the foundation stone for the corridor on the Indian side on November 26, while Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan laid the foundation stone on November 28 on its side of the border. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was accorded warm welcome by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel at Swami Vivekananda Airport here on Tuesday. This was Prime Ministers first visit to Chhattisgarh after formation of Congress government in the State. Modi congratulated the Chief Minister for constituting and leading the new Government in the State. The Prime Minister then left for Balangir (Odisha) by Indian Air Force helicopter at 9.09 am. Former Chief Minister Raman Singh, Rajya Sabha member Ramvichar Netam, Leader of Opposition Dharamalal Kaushik and other BJP leaders were also present. North and East Delhi Municipal Corporation (NMC) have started computerised online admission process in nursery, kindergarten (KG) and first class for 'Economically Weaker Section' (EWS) and for children with special needs (CWSN) category. A senior NMC official said that the applicants can apply through official website of Delhi government www.edudel.nic.in. "The admission process for these categories will begin on January 15 and the last date for submission on online applications is on February 14. The official said that the first computerised draw for children in disability category is scheduled to take place on February 21, while the draw for EWS and Disadvantage group (DG) category will be on February 27. There will be 22 percent reservation of seats under EWS and DG category and three percent reservation under disability category in both the corporation. The Education Department has issued guidelines for the applicants under EWS/DG and Children with Disabilities category to apply through single form for various schools. The Education Department has constituted a Monitoring Cell in various zones which will resolve complaint regarding EWS admission if any. The applicants/parents may register their complaint through helpline number 8800355192 or 9818154069 and email @ adeplangrant@gmail.com. The members of Delhi University Academic Council (AC) will once again raise the issues of ad-hoc teachers in the upcoming meeting scheduled on Wednesday. The proposed ordinance amendment will have 10 per cent permanent position for the contractual teachers and maternity leave for the ad-hoc teachers. "The teachers should be appointed on contract only when it is absolutely necessary and when the student teacher ratio does not satisfy the laid down norms. In any case, the number of such appointment should not exceed 10 percent of the total number of faculty positions in the college/university," stated the proposed amendments. "The AC members will further demand equal pay for the contractual teachers equal like the assistant teachers and allowance of maternity and child care leave. Till now there is no provision of contractual posts against teaching positions in University ordinances", it said. Introduction of contractual appointments in teaching positions by Delhi University under pressure from Human Resources Department ministry is highly condemnable and would create feeling of insecurity among the 4500 ad hoc teachers working various colleges of DU. Starting from ten percent permanent positions as contractual appointments the government may force varsities to gradually increase this percentage and finally appoint only teachers on contractual basis instead of appoint them against the permanent positions. The teachers are treated as slaves. We are going to strongly oppose this provision of contractual appointments," said Pankaj Garg, an AC member. Punjabs job fairs from Feb 13 to 22 Chandigarh: Punjab Government would hold the fourth phase of job fairs from February 13 to 22 across the state. The state Employment Generation and Technical Education Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, after presiding over a meeting with the additional deputy commissioners to review preparations for the same, said that the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh would hand over appointment letters to selected candidates on February 28. HP Guv extends greetings on Military Day Shimla: Himachal Pradesh Governor Acharya Devvrat on Tuesday congratulated the military personnel of the country on Military Day. He said this Day was celebrated to pay homage to the brave soldiers who laid down their precious lives for the cause of the nation. He said that the entire nation would always remain indebted to them for their supreme sacrifices. Soni assures full support to associations Chandigarh: Delegations of various associations on Tuesday called on Punjab Education Minister OP Soni, who assured them fulsome support from the government, while maintaining that their all legitimate demands will be fulfilled soon. HPKVNs review meeting held Shimla: Aimed at mobilization of prospect trainees and their placement, a review meeting of Himachal Pradesh Kaushal Vikas Nigam (HPKVN) was held on Tuesday. Nigams managing director Rohan Chand Thakur met the district coordinators and training service providers, and directed them to make a detailed plan about mobilization process. 188 Officers given selection letter Mohali: Punjab Health and Family Welfare Department on Tuesday gave away selection letters to 188 Community Health Officers under various Health and Wellness Centres across the state. The letters were handed over to the selected candidates by Punjab Health System Corporation chairman Amardeep Singh Cheema and National Health Mission, Punjabs mission director Amit Kumar. Cheema exhorted newly selected officers to work selflessly and compassionately in their areas, and act as agent of change for better healthcare services. Haryana CIA team nabs drug peddler Chandigarh: Haryana Polices Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) on Tuesday seized 900 gram doda post from a person in Kalanwali area in Sirsa district. Spokesperson said that arrested accused was identified as Gurpreet Singh alias Gopi, a resident of Mandi Kalanwali. The CIA team during patrolling in Mandi Kalanwali area spotted a suspicious person who tried to flee away after seeing the police, and immediately nabbed him. When searched, 900 gram doda post was recovered from his possession. One lakh boxes of fake desi ghee seized Chandigarh: In a late night raid in Model Town area of Chhehrta, Amritsar, Punjab food safety team seized nearly one lakh, apparently counterfeit, boxes of desi ghee in varying sizes of one kg, 500 grams and 200 grams bearing the label as Dairy Shine desi ghee along with huge quantity of adulterants for preparing spurious desi ghee. Mayor honoured Ann Anand Chandigarh: The city mayor Davesh Moudgil on Tuesday honoured the team of Ann Anand for Animals, lead by Panjab Universitys Centre for Social Work Assistant Professor Dr Gaurav Gaur. The special honour was given to the team of three students Hiteshi Arora, Ishita Choudhary and Nitika Saini who are pursuing their masters in Social Work from the varsity. 10th PU Rose Fest Secretariat inaugurated Chandigarh: The festival secretariat of tenth Panjab University Rose Festival, to be held from February 8 to 10, was inaugurated on Tuesday by varsity Registrar Prof Karamjeet Singh. The festivals poster was also unveiled by the Registrar, who also had hands on experience of the working of the festivals website www.panjabuniversity rosefestival.in. Registrar appreciated the website, particularly the online registration for competitions and efforts of the Organising Committee. Special lecture held on Army Day Chandigarh: Panjab Universitys Department of Defence and National Security Studies on Tuesday organised a special lecture by Major General Amarjit Singh on the occasion of Army Day. Haryana has become the first state to launch cyber security portal and toll free number for cyber security and cyber alerts. The services were launched by Haryana Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu after inaugurating the National Summit on Digital Innovation and Cyber Security organised in Hartron campus at Gurugram on Tuesday. The State Government has also decided to introduce information related to cyber security in school curriculum. After launching the toll free number 1800-180-1234 for reporting cyber security issues, the Minister also inaugurated an exhibition put up by various Start-Ups and IT Companies at the Summit and saw the exhibits. He appreciated the efforts of the participants and showed keen interest in knowing about the IT solutions. While addressing the participants at the Summit, Capt Abhimanyu said that Haryana has taken so many initiatives which have enabled IT driven governance from physical governance. He said that before becoming part of Haryana Government, he could hardly believe that any State Government can take so many innovative steps because governments are generally lethargic. This summit will help in dealing various issues and making us more aware about cyber world, the minister opined, he said, adding that the technology should be used for fast delivery of services and to facilitate people but not as threat. Ankur Gupta, Principle Secretary to Haryana, Electronics& Information Technology Department said, From now onwards, anybody in the state of Haryana can log on haryanaismo.gov.in (cyber security portal) and know the ways for securing oneself against cyber threats. The portal has information about how to keep children safe online, said Gupta said that as the children use mobile phones and internet, they need to be educated about how to keep themselves safe from cyber threats, so in the portal, there is a set of questions for students of different classes, which they need to answer. This will be introduced in Haryana schools, he said and added that it is first time in the country that any state has launched such a portal. He also said that the next war is going to be cyber war and we all are under attack. That is the reason why this national summit has been organised here to sensitise the masses about the cyber use, he added. Gupta shared that India is fifth largest country facing data breach attacks. He added that Haryana launched its cyber security policy in 2017 and now we are implementing it. Delegates from various states, who did commendable job in the field of cyber security, were also honoured in the Summit. A Constitutional amendment passed by Parliament last week is meant to expand the concept of reservation to favour the economically weaker sections. Those who are covered by the existing reservation for the SCs, the STs and the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes, a Constitutional category known in popular parlance as Other Backward Class (OBC), are not eligible for the proposed reservation of 10%. The amendment makes it clear that the new reservation in public sector jobs and education in both public and private sectors will be above the existing quotas. The Supreme Court had ruled earlier that the total quantum could not exceed 50%. Politically, the move by the Modi Government aims to placate upper caste Hindus though those not covered by any quota among the followers of other religions too are potential beneficiaries. The amendment raises questions about its compatibility with the basic structure of the Constitution, which the court has held, cannot be altered even by Parliament. A petition is already pending in the Supreme Court alleging that the amendment violates the basic Constitutional structure. The idea of giving a 10%-reservation to the upper castes also raises other ethical and moral questions that may not be justiciable. Reservation is currently covered, primarily under Clauses (4) and (5) of Article 15 and Clause (4) of Article 16, which allow the State to make special provisions for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the SCs and STs. The court has examined the concept of socially and educationally backward classes and has ruled that caste can be a basis for inclusion in that category. In the Indra Sawhney vs. Union of India, the court examined the Governments decision to implement the Mandal Commission report that stipulated a 27%-reservation for OBCs and ruled that economic criteria could not be the sole basis for reservation and the 50%-ceiling ought not to be crossed. All these questions will be reopened in the light of the new amendment. The Supreme Court must focus on this issue while hearing the challenge against the hasty Constitutional amendment. It provides a 10%-quota in government jobs and educational institutions for economically disadvantaged people, defined in such elastic terms as to cover over 90% of the population. In theory, the quota is open to all, including Muslims and Christians. In practice, the quota will go almost entirely to the upper castes who have historically been oppressors, not victims. The court may strike down the new amendment for violating the basic structure of the Constitution. The Constitution clearly seeks an India free of historical divides like casteism, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of caste, religion or gender. It also provides job and education quotas for groups historically oppressed for so long that they merited reverse discrimination. These quotas were supposed to be temporary facilitators of change, to be abandoned as India moved towards a scientific temper that led to the withering away of caste. However, far from withering away, caste is becoming central to employment, education, politics and much more. Every new quota deepens caste differences and legitimises them. It does not matters that decades of reservation have failed to uplift SCs and STs. The aim of quotas is no longer to end casteism but to distribute privileged access to sundry vote banks. In our first-past-the-post electoral system, even small but organised vote banks can make the difference between victory and defeat. India has no vote bank for excellence, merit or equality but has vote banks galore for every social divide. So, political parties cave in to one demand after another for caste-based privileges. It looks strange to claim that dominant landowning castes like Jats in Haryana, Patels in Gujarat or Marathas in Maharashtra are backward. Yet, these castes demand inclusion in the list of OBCs to qualify for OBC job and educational quotas. Instead of asking these historically privileged castes to stop this naked grab for privileges, all political parties have supported the legislation to include these dominant castes in the OBC list, leaving it to the courts to strike down such absurdities. Backwardness is no longer a historical tragedy, not even a fact, but simply a path to sneak in special privileges for the already privileged. Noting illustrates this better than the cutoff income of Rs 8 lakh per year to be declared economically backward. Trinamools Derek OBrien derisively says the traditional poverty line is Rs 32 per person per day, but for the purposes of the new quota it has been raised to over Rs 2,000. The aim is not to combat deprivation but to extend quotas to 95% of the population, creating a much larger vote bank than constituted by the poor alone. The US once enacted school legislation with the slogan no child left behind. In India, the new scheme can boast no vote bank left behind. The Government invoked the Directive Principles of State Policy contained in Article 46 to defend its proposal for reservation for the economically weaker sections. This could be questionable. Article 46 says, The state shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, and, in particular, of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation. The economically weaker sections of citizens were not eligible for the benefit of reservation. With a view to fulfilling the mandate of Article 46 and to ensure that the economically weaker sections of citizens get a fair chance of receiving higher education and participation in employment in the services of the state, it has been decided to amend the Constitution, the amendment Bill states. In the Indra Sawhney case, Supreme Court held that while the Constitution permits quotas for the disadvantaged, it cannot override the principle of non-discrimination. So, it decreed that quotas cannot exceed 50% government jobs and educational positions. This balances different Constitutional provisions. That balance needs to be maintained. Equality before the law must be decreed to be fundamental to the basic structure of the Constitution and quotas as exceptions. If quotas exceed 50%, they become the rule and equality before the law becomes an exception. The Supreme Court is likely to reject that approach. If the 50%-ceiling is breached, why stop at 60%? Why not 75% or 90%? And why not have sub-quotas within each quota for sub-caste, gotra, and other social divides? This opens the door for ever-deeper social divisiveness. Many intellectuals (including judges) have opined that quota should be based on economic criteria alone, not cast or religion. That would be in line with the Constitutional provision of equality and promote the eventual abolition of casteism. There is a theoretical case for replacing cast-based quotas by income-based quotas. But the new 10%-quota, in addition to the existing cast-based 50%, is a cynical ploy to entitle almost all upper caste members, leaving out only a tiny upper crust. This has nothing to do with historical injustice and everything to do with political opportunism. In the Indra Sawhney judgment, the court had said, the concept of weaker sections under Article 46 is different from that of the backward class of citizens in Article 16(4), but the purpose of the two is also different. One is for the limited purpose of the reservation and hence, suffers from limitations, while the other is for all purposes under Article 46 While those entitled to benefits under Article 16(4) may also be entitled to availing themselves of the measures taken under Article 46, the converse is not true. If this is borne in mind, the reasons why mere poverty or economic consideration cannot be a criterion for identifying backward classes of citizens under Article 16(4) would be more clear. Whether the economically weaker sections among OBCs, SCs or STs could be excluded from reservation meant for the economically weaker sections is a contentious question. (The writer, a Senior Advocate, is a former All India Service officer, a former diplomat, a former editor, a former President of Orissa High Court Bar Association and a former Advocate General of Odisha.jayantdas@hotmail.com) In the backdrop of political activities gaining momentum in UP after the announcement of an alliance between the BSP and the SP, the state unit of the BJP will launch its poll preparation on Wednesday when party's Lok Sabha poll incharge and Union minister JP Nadda, along with three of his deputies, will hold a meeting with the state leadership. This will be Naddas maiden visit to Lucknow after being declared election incharge of UP. State BJP spokesperson Harish Chandra Srivastava confirmed that Nadda and his three deputies would hold a meeting with the state leadership at the state party headquarters from 1100 hours on Wednesday. "The meeting will be a formal one, when the poll incharge will discuss with the state leadership, led by state president Mahendra Nath Pandey, general secretary (Organisation) Sunil Bansal and others about the preparation for the polls," Srivastava said. Sources suggest that the meeting will pave way for the early selection of party candidates and the seats to be left for the alliance partners -- Apna Dal and Suheldeo Bharatiya Samaj Party. Earlier, another report says that a survey by the party suggests that 57 sitting candidates out of the 68 may be denied ticket this time as they have no chance to retain their seats. This meeting is important because Nadda will preside over it. We will have interaction with three deputies for the first time, Srivastava said. Nadda was announced incharge of UP elections on January 2 and on Wednesday he will be visiting the state, along with his three deputies Gordhan Zadafia, Narottom Mishra and Dushyant Gautam, for the first time. Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav greeted Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on her 63rd birthday on Tuesday. Akhilesh Yadav accompanied by party leaders Sanjay Seth and Javed Abdi reached the residence of Mayawati, after she addressed the press conference. The SP president gave a bouquet and shawl to the BSP chief on her birthday. Both the leaders discussed political issues and Mayawati offered birthday cake and sweets to SP leaders. BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra was also present during the meeting. However, Yadavs wife and Lok Sabha MP Dimple Yadav was not present. Mayawati soon after birthday celebrations left for Delhi. Earlier, in her press meet, Mayawati had appealed to workers of both the SP and BSP to shed their old rivalry and join hands to fight against the BJP and Congress in the Lok Sabha polls. Taking the fight to his enemies camps on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned both the LDF and the UDF that the day is not far off when the BJP would unseat them and win power in Kerala. Addressing a huge NDA rally at the historical Cantonment Grounds at Kollam, Prime Minister Modi lambasted the CPI(M)-led LDF as well as the Congress-led UDF for their stance on the Sabarimala Temple issue. The entire nation is speaking about Sabarimala. The blunders of the CPI(M) would go down in history as the most shameful act. The CPI(M) speaks about gender justice while they behaved in the most shameful and inhumane manner at Sabarimala Temple. Why did they oppose in Parliament the Bill banning triple talaq if they have concern for gender justice and welfare of women? asked the Prime Minister. Modi also said the Communists are known for their hatred to Indian history, culture and spirituality; the Congress is also no different in this issue. The BJP is the only political party which believes and works for the all-inclusive growth of the population, Modi added. He said the Congress is notorious for its double standard as well as hypocrisy. What is their stance on Sabarimala? They speak something in Parliament only to contradict the same the next day outside the House. The LDF and the UDF are the two sides of the same coin. They are the ones who strengthened casteism, communalism and corruption in the country, Modi said, and listed the achievements made by the country under the NDA regime during the last four and a half years. The Prime Minister pointed out that Kollam, which was once famous for its cashew nut industry, is suffering because the Governments led by the UDF or the LDF did nothing to revive and resuscitate the sector. He assured the people of Kollam in general and Kerala in particular that the BJP would soon emerge as the ruling party of the State. I know the karyakartas of the BJP are being assaulted, attacked and victimised by the LDF Government. I would like to remind the Communists and the Congress that if we could win over people in Tripura where we had no representation, Kerala is not far away. Our workers will overcome and win Kerala too, said the Prime Minister. Earlier, the Prime Minister dedicated to the nation the 13-km long two-way Kollam bypass built at a cost of Rs 352 crore which would bring down the travel time between Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram. The project conceived in 1972 could be finished only after the BJP-led NDA Government took charge in New Delhi and released funds for the speedy implementation of all infrastructure projects which were facing inordinate delay, Modi added while inaugurating the bypass. The PM took strong objection to the delay in the execution and completion of the infrastructure projects. I came across 250 projects which have consumed Rs 12 lakh crore and yet remaining incomplete after decades. This is a serious crime because the common man is deprived of the fruits of development, said Modi. Vijaya Mohan Valiathan, a chartered accountant, staying near the bypass said the project got delayed because of land acquisition issues. Two huge bridges, lack of funds, tendering delays, estimate revision requirement and of course Government red tape were the main reasons for the delay the project, Valiathan said. In a setback to the coalition Government of the Congress and the Janata Dal(S) in Karnataka, two Independent MLAs on Tuesday withdrew their support even as the BJP shifted nearly 100 of its MLAs to Manesar in Haryana. Unfazed by these developments, Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy said he was totally relaxed and there was no threat to his Government. R Shankar of Ranebennur and MLA H Nagesh from Mulabagilu Assembly constituency wrote to Governor Vaju Bhai Vala saying they were withdrawing support to the coalition Government led by Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy. These Independent MLAs had extended their support to the Congress-JD(S) alliance when it was formed in May last. Political experts say at this juncture it may not affect the stability of the coalition Government since the Congress with 80 MLAs and the JD(S) with 37 enjoy a clear majority in the 224-member Karnataka legislature where halfway mark is 113. Congress leader and Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara said, We have heard that the two Independent MLAs want to withdraw support to the Government. As Independents, they are free to take any decision they want. They had extended support when the Government was formed and one of them was made a Minister for a while. Asserting that he was totally relaxed and is sure about his strength, the Chief Minister said, If two MLAs withdraw their support, what will be the numbers? Im totally relaxed. I know my strength. Whatever is going on in media in the past week, I am enjoying, he said. Taking a swipe at the BJP, the Chief Minister said, What is going to happen? If two Independents declare support (to BJP). What will be the numbers? Amid claims that the BJP was trying to lure the Congress MLAs and whisked away three of them to Mumbai, AICC general secretary KC Venugopal held a meeting with Kumaraswamy after holding discussions with former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara, senior Minister DK Shivakumar, Home Minister MB Patil and other party functionaries. Later speaking to reporters, the Chief Minister said, This Operation Lotus is a false alarm created by media. There is no threat to the Government. I enjoy the news channels running programmes like soap opera about threat to the Government. Operation Lotus refers to BJPs poaching of MLAs from other parties during BS Yeddyurappas first stint as Chief Minister. JD(S) chief and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda too said nothing would happen to the Government headed by his son. It is not in anybodys hands, including the media. However much you cry hoarse, nothing will happen because it is in the hands of God. When a party (JDS) of 38 MLAs gets the blessings of a national party (Congress), it is all the wish of God, Gowda said. Gowda also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi over allegations that Rs 60 crore and ministerial positions were offered to the MLAs of the ruling coalition by the BJP. Does it look good that a national party (BJP) is hoarding its 104 MLAs? I am not talking about Amit Shah but Modi, who talks a lot throughout the day, he said. Brushing aside any threat to the Kumaraswamy Government, Venugopal said the coalition Government would continue despite the BJPs ugly and dirty horse-trading attempts. We are confident that the Kumaraswamy Government will continue. Even though they are offering a lot of things to our MLAs, we are very confident, he said. We are in touch with all our MLAs. Our people are with us. Our Government will continue, he added. Karnataka is witnessing a high political drama as there is speculation that BJP is attempting to destabilise the coalition Government to send message that such an experiment of alliance will not work after the Lok Sabha polls if the Opposition parties cobble up a Government at the Centre. In another development, one of the three missing MLAs Anand Singh met Congress leaders on Tuesday morning in Bengaluru and said that he was not in touch with the BJP leadership. There is no serious concern. A lot of this is a media creation and a game being played by a desperate BJP. We are contacting all our MLAs, Congress leader and Karnataka observer KC Venugopal said after meeting Anand Singh. According to BJP sources, one of the MLAs Umesh Jadhav from Chincholi who was aspiring to be a Minister in a December Cabinet expansion has been spotted with BJP leaders in Delhi. It is believed that at best five to seven Congress MLAs might be in touch with the BJP leaderships for not for finding places in the coalition Government. To destabilise the Government, BJP needs to lure 11 Congress MLAs so that with the help of 104 of its own MLAs it could stake claim for an alternative Government. Ahead of 2019 general elections, the political development in Karnataka will have a bearing on the national politics. The JD(S) has been demanding 12 out of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka, but the Congress has refused to part with so many seats. The Congress feels that the JD(S) has a realistic chance of winning in around 4 to 6 seats and hence the number should be restricted to just that. In the 2014 elections, the BJP had won 17, Congress 9 and the JD(S), 2. In the 224-member Assembly, BJP has 104 members, Congress 79, JD(S) 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each, besides Speaker. BSP, KPJP and an Independent are supporting the coalition. A pan-India Opposition alliance to take on the BJP remains a chimera at best. Recent activities in the political circles have made it clear that the Opposition lacks unity. The more it divides anti-BJP votes, lesser will be its chances of winning While the Opposition has been touting the idea of a mahagadbandhan (grand alliance), what is happening on the ground is entirely different. It is pretty clear now that a grand alliance is most unlikely. Instead, parties are more inclined to opt for State-specific alliances. This is so because the Opposition is not united in choosing a prime ministerial face. Then at the regional level, satraps like Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati have huge ego problems. All of them want to keep their options open for a post-poll scenario. The situation has become more precarious ever since the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the BSP announced their alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the 2019 Lok Sabha poll. The Congress has now decided to contest all 80 seats of Uttar Pradesh in the general election. Let us be clear, the SP-BSP alliance had been on the cards for quite some time now. The latest announcement just confirmed it. Nevertheless, it is indeed a major decision and the combination will be a huge success if one were to ponder upon the caste arithmetic. Their chemistry, too, should work as it did in last years by-elections in Gorakhpur and Phulpur. It must, however, be agreed that without these two parties, there cannot be a mahagadbandhan. Their focus now is on winning the maximum number of seats in their State. Only after the poll results are announced, will they think about the prime ministerial bid. We want the next Prime Minister to be from Uttar Pradesh and everyone knows whom I will support, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said, hinting that Mayawati might throw her hat in the ring if they get a good number of seats. The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) might also find a place in their alliance. So, it is clear that Uttar Pradesh will witness a multi-cornered contest. The Congress, which was hoping to find a place in the alliance, is now reconciled to fighting it solo in the Lok Sabha poll but its morale is high after its recent win in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Uttar Pradesh has the maximum number of seats and whichever party registers victory over there, will win India. The BJP won 71 seats in 2014 in Uttar Pradesh. This time around, if it loses the State, it would dent its overall tally for the forthcoming election. With no United Progressive Alliance (UPA) at the national level, the Congress is trying to focus on State-specific alliances. There are about 350 seats where tie-ups are already in place. The party has a two-level strategy. First, is to fight solo in States where it is strong. Second is to go for alliances with regional and smaller parties in States. So far, the Congress successfully stitched alliances with various small and regional parties. In Karnataka, the party combined with the Janata Dal (Secular) and in Tamil Nadu, the grand old party has been an ally of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). In Bihar, it is in alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and other smaller parties. In 2015, the grand alliance with the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and other parties worked well for the Congress but this time around, the JD(U) is with the NDA. Likewise, in Maharashtra, the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (Congress-NCP) tie-up has been firmed up and even seat-sharing has almost been decided. In Kerala, the Congress leads the United Democratic Front (UDF) coalition. The UDF and the Left Democratic Front (LDF) have been alternating power in the State. In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the Congress has an alliance with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). In Gujarat, the Congress had smartly stitched an alliance with local leaders like Hardik Patel, Jignesh Mewani and Alpesh Thakur during the Gujarat Assembly poll. This formula is still on. In Jammu & Kashmir, chances are high that the Congress can opt for an alliance with the National Conference (NC). In West Bengal, the party stands divided and is speculating whether it should go with the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) or the TMC but that it will choose any one of them is clear. The Congress might fight it solo in Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Puducherry. So where does all of this leave the grand alliance? It can be successful only when all anti-BJP forces come together to fight the ruling party. Going by the present trend, it seems unlikely. The Opposition is sending conflicting signals about its unity. While SP and BSP have announced their alliance, Telangana Chief Minister Chandrashekhar Rao has been trying to form a federal front with regional satraps like Mamata Banerjee. His bete noire, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, has also been trying to unite anti-BJP forces at the national level. He is already in talks with various parties. NCP chief Sharad Pawar has been entrusted with the task of talking to various parties ahead of the 2019 poll. With parties pulling in different directions, the so-called grand alliance at the national level is at best a mirage. In such a scenario, with a split in Opposition votes in several States, it is an advantage for Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the BJP has a disciplined cadre, unlimited resources, excellent communication strategy and above all, the guidance of a strong leader like him. It is simple mathematics that as long as anti-Modi votes are split, chances of winning for the Opposition are not very bright. (The writer is a senior political commentator and syndicated columnist) The wife of ex-Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn has alleged her husband is being held in "harsh" conditions and subjected to round-the-clock interrogations intended to extract a confession. In a letter to Human Rights Watch, Carole Ghosn urged the group to highlight the case of her husband, who has been in detention in Japan since his shock arrest on November 19 and faces three charges of financial misconduct. The nine-page letter says the former high-flying executive is held in cell that is lit even at night, and is denied his daily medication. "For hours each day, the prosecutors interrogate him, browbeat him, lecture him, and berate him, outside the presence of his layers, in an effort to extract a confession," the letter says. It claims prosecutors have pressed Ghosn to sign documents in Japanese, which he does not understand, providing only an oral translation, and without his lawyer present. "I urge Human Rights Watch to highlight his case... To press the Government to reform its draconian system of pretrial detention and interrogation," the letter adds. Ghosn's ongoing detention has prompted some international criticism of Japan's legal system, which permits prosecutors to hold suspects while they investigate an allegation, and also allows lengthy pre-trial detention once charges have been filed. In a bid to align with the best corporate practices, the Finance Ministry has asked the public sector banks to gradually bring down the government's equity to 52 per cent, a top official said. "The government is essentially a major shareholder. So, this need to be aligned to the best corporate practices. The shareholding needs to come down to at least 52 per cent in the first phase. As and when market condition allows, banks will take step in that direction. They have all the permission in hand," Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar said. Dilution of Government stake will help banks to meet 25 per cent public float norms of market regulator Sebi. Some of the public sector banks have Government's holding beyond 75 per cent. Besides, it will encourage the banks to follow the prudential lending norms. The country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has already initiated step for Rs 20,000 crore share sale through qualified institutional placement (QIP). Post QIP, the Government stake will be diluted from the existing 58.53 per cent. Last month, shareholders of the bank approved sale of shares to fund the business growth. Many other banks are planning to raise capital through some means or other, depending on the market condition. Some of the lenders like Syndicate Bank, Union Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, and Oriental Bank of Commerce among others have already issued or in process of issuing Employee Share Purchase Scheme (ESPS). He further said the Government has also initiated the process for consolidation of Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) to better serve the needs of the rural India. Recently, the Centre has amalgamated three RRBs Punjab Gramin Bank, Malwa Gramin Bank and Sutlej Gramin Bank into a single RRB with effect from January 1. The central Government, after consulting the sponsor banks of the three RRBs, felt that in the interest of the banks and the areas served by them, they should be amalgamated into a single RRB. Besides, Punjab Gramin Bank (PNB), and Uttar Bihar Gramin Bank (UCO Bank) has been amalgamated with Madhya Bihar Gramin Bank (PNB). While the consolidated RRB in Punjab is called Punjab Gramin Bank, with headquarters at Kapurthala, the one in Bihar has been rechristened as Dakshin Bihar Gramin (based in Patna). These banks were formed under the RRB Act, 1976 with an objective to provide credit and other facilities to small farmers, agricultural labourers and artisans in rural areas. Currently, the Centre holds 50 per cent in RRBs, while 35 per cent and 15 per cent are with the concerned sponsor banks and State Governments, respectively. The coming together of the SP and BSP in Uttar Pradesh has set the cat among the pigeons. Both parties have decided to contest 38 seats each, leaving two seats for smaller parties and Amethi and Rae Bareilly uncontested for the Congress. The alliance, formally announced on Saturday, has not only put the ruling BJP on the defensive but the non-inclusion of the Congress has also put the fate of the mahagathbandhan in jeopardy. Political pundits have already written reams about the arithmetic of the Mayawati-Akhilesh Yadav alliance, but will that translate into votes without the Congress and RLD? No one is willing to bet on that yet. What the alliance has definitely succeeded in doing is to give a concrete shape to the opposition's strategy to keep Modi from retaining the PM chair in 2019. RJD president, and Lalu Prasad Yadav's son, Tejashwi Yadav's visit to congratulate Mayawati and his subsequent meeting with Akhilesh Yadav is a strong indication of the same. Together, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar account for 120 seats in the Lok Sabha. That is more than 20 per cent of the total 543 seats up for grabs in 2019. Will the SP-BSP alliance translate into votes without the Congress and RLD? No one's placing bets yet. (Photo: PTI) The significance is not lost not on anyone, especially the ruling BJP, that sailed to victory in 2014 riding on a rich haul of 73 (71 + 2 Apna Dal) seats in Uttar Pradesh and 22 out of the 40 seats in Bihar. More than PM Modi's personal appeal, the BJP benefited by the bifurcation of opposition votes along caste lines, and the party's strategic caste alliances with regional parties. Five years down the line, the Modi wave is faced with regional post-Mandal satraps coming together, fearing their own political survival, something that the BSP faced when it failed to open its account in 2014 in UP, despite polling 19.8 per cent of the total votes. While the alliances got the BJP non-Yadav OBC votes and non-Jatav SC/ST votes, Modi's development pitch and his own humble background and OBC caste got a substantial number of Yadav and some Jatav votes. The RSS' work among tribal groups also helped the party. But can the SP and the BSP successfully transfer their vote share to each other? In the 2014 Lok Sabha Polls, the SP polled 22.4 per cent votes and won 5 seats, the BSP, which, as mentioned, polled 19.8 per cent of the total vote, won 0 seats, the Congress won 7.53 per cent votes and got 2 seats, while the BJP and its ally, Apna Dal, polled 43.3 per cent votes and picked up a handsome tally of 73 seats. The vote share of the SP and BSP, had they fought together, was almost equal to the NDA's vote share. The apparent discrepancy in the number of seats won and percentage of votes polled was due to the SP, BSP and Congress votes getting divided among them. Later, in 2017's Assembly election, the 45.6 per cent combined vote share of the SP, BSP, RLD and the Nishad Party was more than the NDA's 41.4 per cent. The opposition has zeroed in on this, and hopes to translate this arithmetic to seats. But will sidelining the Congress help the opposition's cause as the party still commands a fair share of high caste and minority votes in the state? With new shakti: The Congress, using the recently launched Shakti app, has identified 300 seats pan-India where they had won once between 2004-2014. (Photo: PTI) Although the Congress was not part of the mahagathbandhan during the 2018 by-polls, it helped the opposition by fielding upper caste candidates, cutting into the BJP's votes. By not contesting the Amethi and Rae Bareilly seats, SP and BSP have left the back door open to a post-poll alliance. While the Congress has declared it will fight all 80 seats, strategic understanding between the Congress, RLD, SP and BSP, by putting up strong and weak candidates to help each other out, cannot be ruled out. It will also help the opposition demolish the BJP's accusation of 'All versus Modi', thus preventing a counter-polarisation of votes for the saffron outfit. The Congress, using the recently launched Shakti app, has identified 300 seats pan-India where they had won once between 2004 and 2014. On more than 250 seats, it is in a direct contest with the BJP, while on the remaining 50, it faces off with regional parties. The data from the five million registered users is already being used by Congress party strategists. Using the data, and drawing on their strengths, the party may give way to other regional outfits best suited to defeat BJP. Tejashwi Yadav, whose RJD fought the last Assembly elections in Bihar in alliance with the Congress, will also bridge this gap with the SP and BSP. An understanding with the BSP will also help the RJD get backward caste votes in Bihar, while denting BJP ally JD(U)'s backward caste vote bank. The ruling BJP, already on the back foot due its upper caste supporters' angst, may have tried to win them back by passing the 10 per cent EWS quota for jobs and admissions, but the party risks antogonising its hard-won non-Jatav SC/ST and non-Yadav OBC vote bank. A strategic pan-India caste alliance among regional players could be a massive blow to Modi's 2019 bid. (Photo: PTI) The SP, BSP and RJD are already pitching this as an appetiser to doing away with caste-based reservation, something that the opposition alleges the ruling BJP is doing at the bidding of the RSS. If that message percolates, it could hit the BJP hard. Meanwhile, the BJP is also facing flak from its right-wing supporters, consisting majorly of upper caste votes, on the Ram Temple issue. The party's supporters accuse the BJP of pandering to the backward castes by diluting the SC order on the SC/ST Atrocities Act, while twiddling its thumbs on an ordinance route to building the Ram temple. A strategic pan-India caste alliance among regional players now could be a death blow to Modi's 2019 bid. More than being antagonised, the Congress will be smugly smiling, as most of these regional players may opt to ally with the party post-polls. It also maintains the facade of a strong Rahul Gandhi-led Congress, daring to go alone and not bowing to smaller parties. The only spanner in the Congress' plan is BSP supremo Mayawati's reported Prime Ministerial ambitions; these may scuttle Rahul Gandhi's dream for the top job. But the party, it seems, for now is focusing squarely on the present, and the defeat of the Modi-led BJP at any cost. Also read: Mandal vs Kamandal 2.0: How the SP-BSP alliance has challenged the BJP, again Just as we refuse to accept that menstrual blood is red, and not blue, in television commercials, we, in the subcontinent, cant come to terms with the idea that February 14 is Valentines Day a day for love and lovers. Its quite difficult to stomach the idea that two consenting adults are free to love. Or, is it because the idea is an import from the West? Don't burn in passion. Just burn some greetings cards and add to pollution. (Photo: Reuters) According to reports, the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF), Pakistan, will observe 'Sisters Day' on February 14 this year. Vice Chancellor Zafar Iqbal Randhawa has come up with this lofty idea, which he thinks, will protect Islamic traditions. This comes as a strange departure from the tradition though, because, in both 2017 and 2018, the Islamabad High Court ordered a ban on all V-Day celebrations. Chalo. Something is better than nothing. Pyaar ek dhoka hai: Go get married. (Photo: Reuters) Male students can gift scarves and abayas to their sisters. Otherwise, how would the world know that this country loves and protects its sisters? Also, as the VC said, brother-sister love is the greatest love in the world. (Dont read between the lines with GoT reference). So, claps for the new Sisters Day. We already had a Siblings' day on April 10. We always knew that there's nothing purer. (Photo: Twitter) What else can we do from across the border, where this day has become Parents Day in many of our own states? In 2015, the erstwhile Raman Singh government in Chhattisgarh officially declared Valentines Day as Matru-Pitru Divas (Parents Day). Circulars were issued in 2013 and 2014 as well, but from 2015, it became official. Apparently, it was on the advice of now-jailed godman Asaram Bapu. Later, the Rajasthan government (the previous one) too officially made February 14 'Parents Day'. For VHP and Bajrang Dal activists, February 14 is a day full of activities. They have to gather activists, raid card shops, wave placards, tear up roses, ransack hotels where couples could probably sneak into to set an example, of course. The only PDA which is accepted in India. And maybe, Pakistan. (Photo: Reuters) Even for Shiv Sena activists, the time is no less auspicious. At that time it can be February 13 also some members conduct lathi puja (yes, worshipping the stick) because sticks would come handy to beat affectionate couples in public to a pulp. Meanwhile, did you know Valentine's Day is a three-month-long affair in South Korea? So, on February 14, the women buy gifts for their lovers. On March 14, the White Day (much racism?), the lovers are supposed to reciprocate. If your feelings remain unrequited in this process, you have April 14, Black Day, to celebrate your singlehood. This is just for general knowledge. Not to get inspired by. Our activists and universities have other things to take care of. They can't spare three months like this! Also Read: How Indians are celebrating Valentine's Day in the time of moral policing The popular liberal mayor of Polands port city of Gdansk has died after being stabbed at a charity event by an ex-convict with a history of violent crime. The killing plunged the politically divided country into shock and grief and brought Poles into the streets for solemn vigils in a rare show of national unity. Pawel Adamowicz, 53, died from the wounds inflicted by a 27-year-old man who stormed onstage on Sunday evening while the mayor was addressing an audience during the Lights to Heaven, the finale of a nationwide fundraiser for sick children. Mr Adamowicz had just expressed gratitude to the generous crowd, adding: This is a wonderful time of sharing good things. You are dear. Gdansk is the most wonderful city in the world. Thank you! The assailant rushed up and stabbed him three times, then grabbed a microphone to tell the audience that he acted in revenge against the countrys main opposition party, Civic Platform, which Mr Adamowicz was a member of for many years but left in 2015. With the music still playing and pyrotechnics erupting onstage, the attacker told the stunned crowd he had been wrongly imprisoned under a Civic Platform-led government. I was jailed but innocent. Civic Platform tortured me. Thats why Adamowicz just died, he said. The mayor was taken to hospital where doctors struggled to save him, but a five-hour operation and blood transfusions were not enough. Pawel Adamowicz addresses a rally (Wojciech Strozyk/AP) The assassination came with the nation torn by bitter political divisions that are similar to those in the US. The right-wing ruling Law and Justice party faced accusations that a hostile atmosphere against Mr Adamowicz and other liberals has created fertile ground for violence. Government officials pushed back, strongly denouncing the attack and stressing the assailant had a history of violent bank robberies. Identified by authorities only as Stefan W, he was arrested and charged with murder. Deputy chief prosecutor Krzysztof Sierak said there were questions about the mental state of the attacker, who used a 5.5in knife, and that two psychiatrists will examine him. He had served more than five years in prison and was released towards the end of last year. President Andrzej Duda, who is aligned with the ruling party, opened a news conference with a minute of silence and said a day of national mourning will be observed when Mr Adamowiczs family holds his funeral. He is survived by his wife and two daughters. Mr Duda called him a truly great human being, a great politician and great resident of Gdansk, and denounced the attack as an act of unimaginable evil. Ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Polands most powerful politician, expressed his great pain and solidarity with Mr Adamowiczs family. People place candles as they mourn Pawel Adamowicz in Gdansk (Wojciech Strozyk/AP) In the evening, vigils were held in Gdansk, Warsaw and other cities. Many carried candles in glass jars and some used phones to produce flickers of light, an apparent reference to the Lights to Heaven event. Donald Tusk, a founder of Civic Platform who was prime minister when the attacker was imprisoned and who is now president of the European Council, joined mourners in Gdansk, also his home town. I want to promise you today, dear Pawel, that for you and for all of us, we will defend our Gdansk, our Poland and our Europe from hatred and contempt, Mr Tusk told the crowd. The city flag was lowered to half-mast and masses were held in Gdansk, Warsaw and elsewhere. Mr Adamowicz was part of the democratic opposition formed in Gdansk under the leadership of Lech Walesa during the 1980s. After leaving Civic Platform, he was re-elected to a sixth term as an independent candidate in the autumn. As mayor, he was a progressive voice, promoting sex education in schools and tolerance for LGBT people and minorities. He showed solidarity with the Jewish community when the Gdansk synagogue had its windows broken last year, strongly denouncing the vandalism. He also advocated bringing wounded Syrian children to Gdansk for medical treatment, but the plan was blocked by the Law and Justice government. After he took that stand, a far-right group, the All-Polish Youth, issued what they called a political death notice for him. Government critics said they believed the violence could be partly traced to the animosity voiced against Mr Adamowicz by some ruling party officials, which at times was carried on state TV, as well as by extremists from other groups. Donald Trump has kept his hard line on the partial government shutdown, now in a fourth week over his insistence on billions of dollars for a wall at the US-Mexico border. When it comes to keeping the American people safe, I will never, ever back down, the president said, repeating his view that the wall is needed on both security and humanitarian grounds. He was speaking to farmers at a convention in New Orleans. President Trump Delivers Remarks at the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention https://t.co/tMWj5zj3K0 The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 14, 2019 As Congress returned to Washington for a second week of legislative business since House control reverted to Democrats, the shutdown hit day 24, affecting federal workers and services. Mr Trump has demanded 5.7 billion dollars (4.4 billion) for his long-promised wall, while Democrats, who oppose the wall as both immoral and ineffective, insist he reopen the government before they negotiate further border security. Before leaving for the speech, Mr Trump said he had dismissed a proposal from Republican senator Lindsey Graham to reopen the government for several weeks and continue dealing with Democrats over money for the wall. Donald Trump (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) I did reject it, yes, he said. Im not interested. I want to get it solved. I dont want to just delay it. The truth? Republicans started the #TrumpShutdown and Democrats are working to end it. @realDonaldTrump, its time for you to stop standing in the way of re-opening the government. Let the Senate vote! #EndTheShutdown pic.twitter.com/8Wn438DCfM Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) January 14, 2019 He also backed further away from the idea of declaring a national emergency as an escape hatch, saying: Im not looking to call a national emergency. This is so simple we shouldnt have to. From the White House, he argued he alone was ready to negotiate, noting that a group of House and Senate Democrats were touring hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. A lot of the Democrats were in Puerto Rico celebrating something. I dont know, maybe theyre celebrating the shutdown, he said. Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer were not on the trip to Puerto Rico. Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill tweeted: Speaker Pelosi has been in DC all weekend working from the Capitol. Mr Trump asserted weeks ago that he would own the shutdown, and polls show he is taking most of the blame from Americans, but he now blames his political foes. He targeted Ms Pelosi and Mr Schumer on Twitter, arguing that the shutdown has become their, and the Democrats, fault! Nancy and Cryin Chuck can end the Shutdown in 15 minutes. At this point it has become their, and the Democrats, fault! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2019 He has kept Washington on edge over whether he would resort to an emergency declaration, citing what he says is a crisis of drug smuggling and the trafficking of women and children at the border. The president initially sounded as though such a move was imminent, but then pulled back. He has said several times since he first mentioned the idea in public this month that he prefers a legislative solution. Police have confirmed the body of a man pulled from water in Edinburgh is that of William Scott. The 90-year-old was reported missing from the Chesser area of the city on December 11. He was last seen in the Foot of the Walk pub in Leith at 3.45pm, and in Greggs in the Kirkgate Centre at 4pm. He was found on Friday January 4 in the Water of Leith near to Victoria Bridge at Leith Docks. The discovery was made by officers with police dogs, who cordoned off the area to recover the body with the help of firefighters. His death is not being treated as suspicious and a report is to be submitted to the procurator fiscal. William Scotts body was found almost a month after he went missing (Police Scotland) Chief Inspector Jordana Emerson, area commander for south-west Edinburgh, said: Williams family has shown considerable bravery and composure throughout this harrowing time and our thoughts are with them as they come to terms with their loss. I would like to thank those members of the public and media who assisted in our search, their support was very much appreciated. We are supporting Williams family and will continue to work with them and offer assistance as required. Mary Queen Of Scots star Saoirse Ronan has described the films Scottish premiere at Edinburgh Castle as the most special screening. The 24-year-old spoke of feeling as though the production was being brought home, having already had its international and European premieres. It is a story based on the Scottish monarchs reign and her relationship with Queen Elizabeth I of England. Irish actress Ronan, who rose to fame at the age of 13 in Atonement, appears as the titular queen. Two queens. One destiny. See #MaryQueenofScots now playing in theaters. pic.twitter.com/72guZ8hzEL Mary Queen of Scots (@MaryQueenMovie) December 29, 2018 She said: Its the most special screening weve had so far because it just feels like were bringing it home. All the Scots that are in the film are able to stand next to the film and hopefully be proud of it. Just the fact that we have hopefully been able to honour this woman in some very, very small way and do that here is just amazing. Margot Robbie has been shortlisted for a Best Supporting Actress Bafta for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I, the cousin of Mary Queen of Scots. Margot Robbie (left) and Saoirse Ronan at the films European premiere (Isabel Infantes/PA) The film shows Mary Stuart return from France to reclaim the Scottish throne, under the rule of English Queen Elizabeth I, and assert her claim to the English throne. Ronan added that she wanted to display all aspects of Marys character, not just her strength. She said: I think its as important to show a woman who is strong and powerful, just as much as it is to show someone who is flawed. Thats what I wanted to do with Mary and I think Margot does it with Elizabeth and Beau (Willimon) did it in the script as well. They were great rulers Elizabeth in particular was a really brilliant ruler but they had their faults and they had their insecurities and they made mistakes. I think thats the most important thing, for young people in particular, to see on screen. The screening in Scotlands capital takes place just over a month after the movie had its European premiere in London. Watch as we go behind the scenes on @MaryQueenMovie with #SaoirseRonan pic.twitter.com/vhEC2GrrX3 Working Title (@Working_Title) January 9, 2019 Parts were shot in Scotland, with Blackness Castle in West Lothian doubling as Linlithgow Palace, the birthplace of the Scottish queen. Marys return to Scotland was filmed at Seacliff in East Lothian, while other scenes were shot in Glencoe and the Cairngorms. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon joined Scottish actors Jack Lowden and James McArdle and comedienne Karen Dunbar, who appear in the film, at the event on Monday. Director Josie Rourke and producer Tim Bevan were also at the first Scottish screening of the historical drama, which tells the story of two rival queens. Ms Sturgeon said she believe Mary Queen of Scots would provide a boost for Scotlands film industry and tourism sector. She added: Films like this project an image of a country that is rich in exciting, compelling history, a country that is known for its beautiful landscapes and really does send a message that the film industry in Scotland is going from strength to strength. (left to right) Director Josie Rourke, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and actress Saoirse Ronan (Jane Barlow/PA) McArdle who plays James, Early of Moray spoke of his pride in being part of a Scottish-based film. The 29-year-old from Glasgow said: I think its fantastic for Scotland, I think we should be telling more stories like this. Its a universal story and we have this wealth of talent here which should be on this global scale. I feel weve apologised for our talent a lot, throughout the years, and I think we have a world-class pool of stories to tell and a pool of talent to pool from. James McArdle (left), Saoirse Ronan, and Jack Lowden (Jane Barlow/PA Lowden who plays Henry Darnley said he had fun playing a vain and troublesome Englishman in a Scottish tale. The 28-year-old from the Scottish Borders said: Ive played a few Englishmen now and its always fun to do so. I would have loved to have played a Scot in it, but I mean he was a Scot in a way. Its quite nice to be the get, within. A man who lost his wife and two sons in a shop explosion that killed five people has described the men who engineered the blast for an insurance payout as inhuman. Jose Ragoobeer was at work when the explosion ripped through the shop beneath his familys flat on Hinckley Road in Leicester in February last year, killing his wife Mary, 46, and his sons Shane, 18, and 17-year-old Sean. Also among the dead was Shanes girlfriend Leah Beth Reek, 18, and shop assistant Viktorija Ijevleva, 22, who was working at the time. The explosion was so powerful that neighbours initially thought a bomb had exploded, but in reality a fire had been started deliberately by owners Aram Kurd, 34, Hawkar Hassan, 33, and 38-year-old Arkan Ali. The three men doused the basement of the building with 60 litres of petrol mixed with barbecue fuel and white spirit, and then ignited it in a bid to net a 300,000 insurance payout. The scene of the explosion on Hinckley Road in Leicester (Aaron Chown/PA) All three were found guilty of murder and fraud on December 28. Speaking to ITV News Central, Mr Ragoobeer, 59, a care worker, described his heartbreak at watching the men who killed his family over the course of the trial. He said: It was very stressful and heartbreaking when you see these three people sitting in the dock without any emotion. They are not human, they are not human. And they dont value the life of a human being. They took our loved ones and they knew that there were people living upstairs, because at the back of the shop theyd got a camera and anyone inside the shop, they will see people go in and out, so how could they say they didnt know there were people living there? That makes me more angry. Ms Ijevleva Arkan Alis girlfriend had helped obtain the insurance policy, so her boyfriend and his co-conspirators decided she knew too much and let her die in the blast. Mr Ragoobeers youngest son, Scotty, now 16, was also in the flat at the time of the explosion, but miraculously survived after being trapped under rubble. Police and passers-by managed to pull him to safety. Mr Ragoobeer said of his wife: Mary was a lively woman. She always liked to go to parties. She liked having a drink and she laughed a lot but she would always care for the boys. The boys came first for her. He said sometimes family and friends gather around tributes laid to his wife and two sons to remember them. Its very emotional and sometimes on a Saturday night you can see their friends around having a drink and sitting and chatting. You know that your sons and wife have been loved, he said. The three killers are due to be sentenced on January 18. Sir Bob Geldof has slammed the British Government as incapable and inept and said that Brexit will be a disaster. The prominent Remain campaigner also described Brexit as a serious mistake and said he believed Theresa May would lose Tuesdays crucial vote in Westminster. The rocker and long-standing political activist was speaking as he received an honorary doctorate at the University of Limerick on Monday. He told the media that he was passionately against the UK leaving the European Union but added that Europe needed to be overhauled. Bob Geldof is robed and ready to be conferred. #ULGraduation pic.twitter.com/UeoinaN2To University Of Limerick (@UL) January 14, 2019 The humanitarian and activist said: Its a properly serious mistake, though having said that I do completely understand the other side of argument. I just think its not wrong necessarily, its just that the end result of that argument is not the correct way to go. There are other ways, more positive ways. The University of Limerick honoured Sir Bob Geldof (Sean Curtin/True Media) My view is that Europe needs restructuring from top to bottom, that what the Leavers represent is basically what over 50% of the European electorate represent. He also said that the impact on the Irish economy after Brexit will be tough. It (Brexit) is an expression of English nationalism and I cant stand nationalism. In Ireland we know where it leads to. The English could never be English, they could never wave their flag without being called a skinhead or fascist. Thats part of this whole thing. It (Brexit) wont be apocalyptic but it will be a disaster. I think that the Irish Parliament and Government have been handling this eloquently, almost in direct contrast to the chaos and nonsense of what is clearly the worst British Government in my life incapable, inept. Over here you get patience, compromise, reasons, sympathy, and its handled really well. Meanwhile, best-selling Irish author Marian Keyes was also presented with a doctorate alongside Sir Bob at the Limerick university. Hi everyone, the soon to be Dr @MarianKeyes here in UL. Grand day so far. #ULGraduations pic.twitter.com/hQDrbFR1ST University Of Limerick (@UL) January 14, 2019 Honorary degrees are conferred on people who have shown outstanding achievement in the arts, sciences, business, industry, the professions, sport, social service or public service. The writer, whose father Ted died four weeks ago, described how she has become a socialist activist over the last few years. She said: I was always a feminist and a socialist in my principles but I was afraid to challenge the status quo. The Ireland I was brought up in, women were supposed to keep their mouths shut and be good. I am so thrilled to be brave enough to call out what I see is injustice from time to time. I also had the great privilege to do a talk with the creative writing students and they were so incredibly enthusiastic and engaged and political and it made me very hopeful for the Ireland of the future. University of Limerick president Dr Des Fitzgerald paid tribute to them both: Bob has lobbied politicians and world leaders of all political hues in his herculean efforts to resolve global inequality and poverty. In 2017, he handed over the entire archive of the Band Aid Trust to the National Library of Ireland. This will be a major resource for postgraduate students and academic researchers. Marian has had a strong commitment to activism, particularly in the realm of gender equality. She donated all of the royalties from her best-selling book Under the Duvet to the Irish Simon Community. Former Manchester United midfielder Paul Ince has dismissed Ole Gunnar Solskjaers achievements as caretaker manager at Old Trafford and insists Tottenhams Mauricio Pochettino remains the prime long-term candidate. Solskjaer has become the first United manager in history to win their opening six matches after taking over from the sacked Jose Mourinho, boosting the Norwegians chances of getting the job on a permanent basis. However, Ince poured cold water on the turnaround, saying the former Red Devils striker should not be a long-term solution. We cant get too sucked in with what Oles done. Lets be honest, it couldnt get any worse at Manchester United before Jose Mourinho left, he told Paddy Power News. The shackles are off, but that doesnt mean that Ole is the right man for the job. I could have gone in and done the same thing, so could Steve Bruce. The club shouldnt be making rash decisions, picking a manager just because hes had six wins on the bounce, all of which came against below-average sides bar one. Former Manchester United midfielder Paul Ince has dismissed Ole Gunnar Solskjaers start as caretaker manager (John Walton/PA) If he gets the club into the top four, and into the final of the Champions League, then that would be the time when the board should be swayed. So, for the next few years what the club need to do is bring in a manager that can seriously get United competing with (Manchester) City and Liverpool and of the options available, Pochettino is the man to do that. I believe he should be Man Uniteds number one choice for the job and they should do whatever they can to get him. The European Union does not want the controversial backstop arrangement to remain in place permanently following Brexit, Brussels most senior officials have assured Theresa May. But European Council president Donald Tusk and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker stressed they were not in a position to rewrite or amend the Withdrawal Agreement secured by Mrs May last November. The Prime Minister welcomed the joint letter as an assurance that MPs should not view the backstop designed to avoid a hard border in Ireland as a threat or a trap. And Attorney General Geoffrey Cox issued advice stating that it confirmed that pledges by the remaining 27 EU leaders to work swiftly to forge a new post-Brexit relationship with the UK would have legal force in international law. In a letter to Mrs May, Mr Cox acknowledged the letter did not alter the fundamental meanings of her deal, but said his judgment was that the November Agreement now represents the only politically practicable and available means of securing our exit from the European Union. But the development received short shrift from critics of Mrs Mays deal. President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker (Matt Cardy/PA) DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds said it bolsters our concerns, as it provided no legally binding assurances. And shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said: This is a long way from the significant and legally effective commitment the Prime Minister promised last month Nothing has changed. In letter to Mr Tusk and Mr Juncker requesting additional assurances, Mrs May warned that the Withdrawal Agreement was at risk because of MPs concern that the backstop could leave the UK permanently tied into arrangements under which it had to follow some EU rules and was unable to leave without consent from Brussels. She asked for further reassurance that the fears that some hold on both sides are misplaced. In their response, the EU presidents stated that they regard the Withdrawal Agreement as a fair compromise which would limit the negative consequences of Brexit. My reply to @theresa_may, together with @eucopresident, providing clarifications to the #Brexit Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration. pic.twitter.com/f0PalJkRVu Jean-Claude Juncker (@JunckerEU) January 14, 2019 The European Union does not wish to see the backstop enter into force, as it would represent a sub-optimal trading arrangement for both sides, they said. The EU wants to ensure it would only be in place for as long as strictly necessary. The Withdrawal Agreement makes clear that that backstop comes into effect only if no broader deal on future relations has been reached by the end of the Brexit transition period in December 2020 or after a potential extension of up to two years if that is triggered. The EU presidents stated: Were the backstop to enter into force in whole or in part, it is intended to apply only temporarily, unless and until it is superseded by a subsequent agreement. Mr Tusk said that conclusions agreed by the remaining 27 member states at a European Council summit on December 13 have a legal value and may commit the EU in the most solemn manner. At the summit, the EU27 made a firm commitment to work speedily to deliver a future partnership agreement by the end of 2020, so that the backstop would not be needed. If this proved impossible, they agreed the backstop should be activated only temporarily and the EU would use its best endeavours to negotiate and conclude expeditiously a subsequent agreement that would replace the backstop. However there was no indication in the letter that the EU was ready to contemplate a fixed deadline date for the backstop to be brought to an end, as many MPs demand. Mr Juncker and Mr Tusk said they were ready to sign the Withdrawal Agreement as soon as the so-called meaningful vote is passed by the UK Parliament, allowing preparations for a future partnership to begin immediately thereafter. The letter said that the Commission was committed to providing the necessary political impetus and resources to ensure that a future relationship agreement is drawn up as quickly as possible. The EU would be ready to implement the future relationship deal provisionally even if it has not yet been ratified by all 27 remaining member state, said the letter. And Mr Juncker said that the Commission is ready to consider facilitative arrangements and technologies to replace the backstop believed to be a reference to technological solutions to keep the Irish border open, such as numberplate recognition cameras and online customs declarations. New technology predicting where and when water bursts are likely to happen saved Scottish Water 2 million last year. By looking at the cause and effect of previous bursts and their locations, as well as customers contacting the utility firm in the event of a burst, the system works out where future incidents might occur. A special team has been monitoring transients short-lived pressure waves in the network caused by shocks and gathered historical data to improve results. Scott Young, the leakage delivery team leader based in Edinburgh, hopes the work can continue across the UK, with Scottish Water currently the countrys only utility using such technology. New technology which predicts where and when a burst is likely to happen has already prevented 2,000 bursts and saved Scottish Water 2 million - read all about it here: https://t.co/GY3UO5pfbp #WaterInnovation #MondayMotivation pic.twitter.com/wcxSLq0onO Scottish Water south east (@SWsoutheast) January 14, 2019 He said: This work was critical as it led us to a real understanding of how the network operates. We can see where transients occur, how they travel through the network, what speed they travel at. This knowledge puts us at the leading edge of the water industry. We have already started sharing our findings across the UK, with others looking to replicate what Scottish Water is doing. It could also affect how we could approach things like investment in the future. He added: In the past, with frequently occurring bursts, we might have replaced the pipes. But if were not shocking the network, they wont be under the same pressure and may not even need to be replaced. The technology is being used at 110 sites across Scotland with an average reduction of 81% in each area. Each burst costs 1,400 and with more than 2,500 prevented so far, there has been an initial 2 million saving. It is estimated the technology could save Scottish Water 4.1 million by 2021. Scott Young helps investigate a potential leakage (Scottish Water video/PA) Mr Young added: By stopping transients from occurring, were making our network as calm as possible. That lets us rule out one cause of bursts and get to the true reasons for them if they occur in these areas. There are lots of opportunities for Scottish Water to explore. He added: This was very much a labour of love and being involved in the five years from start to finish was fascinating. To see how this developed from an idea to a pioneering tool which has transformed how we deal with potential bursts saving time, money and energy has been incredible. It is great our customers are benefiting from this- as bursts can cause a lot of inconvenience. An Irish national charged with having an illegal stun gun disguised as a torch has appeared in court, after his arrest at Birmingham airport. Thomas Kavanagh was detained after landing on Saturday, as part of a National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation. The married father-of-six had just returned from a family holiday in Mexico with his wife and children, prosecutor Diane MacKriel told North Staffordshire Magistrates Court on Monday. NCA officers, supported by colleagues from An Garda Siochana Irelands National Police and Security Service and Staffordshire Police, searched his home address on Saturday, recovering a combination torch and stun gun which is illegal under UK law. Kavanagh, who runs a car dealership and has lived in the UK for more than 15 years, was charged with possession of a prohibited item under Section 5 of the Firearms Act, and appeared in court for the first time on Monday. The 51-year-old, wearing glasses, a black V-neck sweater and white shirt, and flanked by two security officers, stood in the secure dock during a hearing lasting 57 minutes. Irish national Thomas Kavanagh is escorted to a custody van after appearing at Staffordshire Magistrates Court (Joe Giddens/PA) The item was discovered on top of a cupboard in the kitchen, the court heard. Kavanagh, of Sutton Road, Mile Oak, Tamworth, Staffordshire, spoke only to confirm his name, date of birth, his Irish nationality, and that he understood proceedings. Following the hearing, attended by his wife, family members, and his accountant, Kavanagh was remanded in custody to appear at Stafford Crown Court on Tuesday. Claire Holden, chairman of the bench, told Kavanagh: You must now go to the crown court, before a judge, who will listen to the prosecution and your lawyer, and make a decision as to what happens next. You must go into custody, overnight, and a decision will be made. The NCA had said a 20-year-old man arrested alongside Kavanagh at Birmingham Airport has been released under investigation. A third man, aged 19, was also arrested and released under investigation. US President Donald Trump has denied he ever worked for Russia, answering a question he declined to directly address over the weekend. Speaking from the South Lawn before departing the White House for New Orleans, Mr Trump called former FBI and Justice Department officials known scoundrels and dirty cops. He was reacting to a New York Times report that law enforcement officials began investigating, in 2017, whether Mr Trump had been working on behalf of Russia against US interests. I never worked for Russia, he told reporters. The president did not directly answer the question in a Saturday Fox News interview. I think its the most insulting thing Ive ever been asked, Mr Trump told Jeanine Pirro, a personal friend. President Donald Trump talks to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House (Evan Vucci/AP) I think its the most insulting article Ive ever had written, and if you read the article youll see that they found absolutely nothing. Mr Trump went on to assert that no president has taken a harder stance against Russia than he has. If you ask the folks in Russia, Ive been tougher on Russia than anybody else, any other probably any other president, period, but certainly the last three or four presidents, he said. White House aides expressed regret over the weekend that the president did not more clearly and forcefully deny being a Russian agent when asked by the usually friendly Fox News host, according to three White House aides and Republicans close to the White House. Mr Trump on Monday defended his decision to fire FBI director James Comey, a move that has drawn the scrutiny of special counsel Robert Mueller. The president called the Russia probe a whole big fat hoax. Former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab urged MPs to vote against the Prime Ministers EU Withdrawal Agreement as he criticised scaremongering around a no-deal exit. Mr Raab, who resigned from the post in November, also proposed post-Brexit policies including a rise in the National Insurance earnings threshold, during a speech in London on Monday. He said there should be more shareholder control over chief executives pay and suggested lowering the income tax threshold. He also refused to comment on a potential Conservative leadership bid after MPs vote on Theresa Mays Brexit deal on Tuesday, which is expected to be rejected. The fundamental way we get change in the Withdrawal Agreement, a negotiated change, and the only way, is to vote down the current, I think, bad terms tomorrow. And then the Government will have an opportunity to go back to the EU, he said. The idea that the only option is this very poor deal on the table, Im afraid I think is a bit of scaremongering and whips tactics that have been fired up to try and increase their vote. Dominic Raab resigned as Brexit Secretary in November (Andrew Matthews/PA) In his speech to the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, Mr Raab said Brexit offered clear opportunities for Britain. But the Conservatives must counter the seductive Marxist allure of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, and instead champion consumers and business. He said Labour had tapped into the feeling of voters about an exploitative and unaccountable elite. Mr Raab proposed a gradual reduction in the basic income tax rate from 20% to 15%. He also urged a repair to the frayed relationship between shareholders and board members in big business. He said: We should do more to encourage stronger shareholder activism, by legislating to empower binding shareholder votes on executive pay packets, not just pay remuneration policy. Calling for the National Insurance threshold to be increased, he said: We should raise the National Insurance employee contribution threshold to 11,850, which would be in line with the personal allowance for income tax. That would save someone earning 15,000 on a low wage 412 each year. Mr Raab added: Brexit will bring enormous opportunities that are there for us to grasp and that spirit of renewal must also galvanise us to tackle some of the homegrown problems and challenges around an authentic and credible policy agenda. Iranian interrogators tried to pressure jailed mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to spy on Britain in exchange for freedom, her husband said as she started a hunger strike. The British-Iranian and another detainee began protesting on Monday morning over a lack of access to proper medical care, Richard Ratcliffe told a press conference in London. He also revealed the 40-year-old charity worker was striking over an attempt by Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps interrogators to pressure her to turn informant for Iran in late December. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her daughter Gabriella (Free Nazanin campaign/PA) Mr Ratcliffe said the tactic, deployed at around her 1,000th day in jail, meant they were in a scary place. In a rare move, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt summoned the Iranian ambassador to his department on Monday to discuss the totally unacceptable detention and to demand immediate healthcare access. PRESS RELEASE: Ongoing violations of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffes rights demand strongest action from the UK government as she beings hunger strike todayhttps://t.co/bZWb4RIA3f REDRESS (@REDRESSTrust) January 14, 2019 Mr Ratcliffe told the conference that his wife was pushed over the edge to start the strike when, on December 29, investigators asked her to spy on Britain. She was told it would be safer for her and safer for her family afterwards if she agreed to do this, he said. She was told to think about it and that they would return. She has been terrified ever since. Specific demands were made to snoop on the Department for International Development and London-based organisation Small Media, he added. Today I summoned the Iranian Ambassador to demand Nazanin has immediate access to the healthcare she requires. Her ongoing detention is TOTALLY unacceptable and her treatment at the hands of Iranian authorities is a fundamental breach of human rights 1/2 Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) January 14, 2019 Mr Ratcliffe said she did not agree to this and investigators were yet to return to question her again. After the conference, he told the Press Association the move was pretty ominous. She was hugely worried as to what was going to happen to her and her family and whether she was going to be taken back to solitary, he added. We are in a scary place. He also said his wife, of Hampstead, north-west London, has been refused a mammogram after a doctor found new lumps in her breasts last month. Mr Ratcliffe said his wife had a number of health concerns which had not been addressed (Victoria Jones/PA) The doctor ordered that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has a family history of breast cancer and had previous lumps ruled as benign, should be examined but this was subsequently denied, Mr Ratcliffe said. Clearly the worry of what those lumps mean has been preying on her mind, he added. Mr Ratcliffe later met with Mr Hunt for some 40 minutes, during which they discussed the prospect of granting her diplomatic protection. Good to meet Nazanins inspirational husband Richard Ratcliffe earlier. We will not rest until she is home. #FreeNazanin pic.twitter.com/l0dsa2VG4K Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) January 14, 2019 The escalation not yet ruled out by the Foreign Secretary would give the UK greater access to the charity worker. Mr Ratcliffe said the minister vowed to do all we can to return his wife. The pair spoke after Mr Hunt summoned the Iranian ambassador to the UK for a meeting. It is the first time he has made such a move since becoming Foreign Secretary. Mr Hunt tweeted: Her ongoing detention is TOTALLY unacceptable and her treatment at the hands of Iranian authorities is a fundamental breach of human rights. It is a truly terrible indictment of Irans approach that she feels she needs to resort to such an ordeal. Iran must take action now. Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested at Tehrans Imam Khomeini airport on April 3 2016 and sentenced to five years in jail. Iran has publicly accused her of spying, which she vehemently denies. Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was planning to go on an initial three-day hunger strike alongside fellow Evin prison detainee Narges Mohammedi but may fast for longer if her demands are not met. The charity worker was jailed for five years on charges of spying (Handout/PA) Human rights charity Redress was among those calling for diplomatic protection to be granted. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: The Foreign Secretary discussed this course of action with Richard Ratcliffe today, and will continue to actively consider the question of diplomatic protection alongside all other options in Nazanins case and the cases of other dual nationals detained in Iran. The Foreign Secretary has been clear that innocent people in prison must not be used as diplomatic leverage. Richard Ratcliffe on this ordeal with Iran's authorities: One of the most ominous parts was the pressures on Nazanins family. Thats one of the reasons we made these things public to stop them playing with us. #FreeNazanin Monique Villa (@Monique_Villa) January 14, 2019 Monique Villa, the chief executive of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, told the conference that denying medical access was a kind of very slow torture. She added that her employee has suffered severe depression in custody and reiterated she is not guilty of espionage. One of the last Wessex helicopters in Northern Ireland has made its final journey. It is to go on permanent display at the Crumlin Road Gaol visitor attraction in Belfast. The aircraft were once a common sight over the skies of the region during the Troubles as the workhorse of the armed forces transporting troops and VIP visitors. The helicopter had been based at RAF Aldergrove in Co Antrim from 1969 as part of the Support Helicopter Detachment, the Ulster Flight. One of the last Wessex helicopters in Northern Ireland was a Gate Guardian at Aldergrove Flying Station since being retired from active service in 2002. (Rebecca Black/PA) There had been 30 Wessex helicopters based in Northern Ireland, which were active until 2002 when they were retired from service. XR 529 Echo was retained as a Gate Guardian for the Station HQ at Aldergrove. On Monday, it made what is expected to be its final journey to Crumlin Road Gaol museum to go on permanent display. Once a common sight in Northern Irelands skies, now one of the last Wessex helicopters in the region is leaving Aldergrove Flying Station for its new permanent home at Crumlin Road Gaol pic.twitter.com/qI2uXt0fxd Rebecca Black (@RBlackPA) January 14, 2019 RAF Northern Ireland community relations officer, Wing Commander Tara Scott, described the Wessex helicopter as a really great workhorse of an aircraft, transporting troops and their kit across the region. She described the helicopters departure from Aldergrove as the end of an era. The Wessex has been associated with RAF Aldergrove, and now Flying Station Aldergrove, since 1962 as part of 72 Squadron, its been here as a Gate Guardian for over 16 years so it has really done a lot of service, she said. We are sad to see it go, but also delighted to see it move to the Crumlin Road Gaol and be part of a new display for them, and be seen by the public, spruced up and returned to its former glory. We are looking forward to seeing it there when it is complete and on display. She added: They were not only a common sight, but also a common noise, it served here for such a long time, I think it will be nice for the public to see it back again and able to learn a little bit more about what it did during the Troubles and its service in Northern Ireland. Crumlin Road Gaol closed as a prison in 1996. It re-opened as a tourist attraction in 2012 and welcomed the Queen as a visitor in 2014. Phelim Devlin, director at Crumlin Road Gaol, described the arrival of the helicopter as an important part in the next phase of development at the jail. We are hoping for the tourism season starting in Easter to add a new range of tours, he said. It is going to focus more on some of the recent Troubles. The Wessex is going to be an important part of that, its going to help tell of the role of the RAF and the British Army during that period. Picture The helicopter will be on display beside the last remaining army sangar on the site. We are absolutely delighted to get it, and very thankful for the RAF for giving it to us. We think it will be a brilliant addition, he added. The helicopter will go on display at Crumlin Road Gaol from Easter following restoration work. A driver who killed a female doctor after failing to clear frost from his car windscreen has been jailed, police said. Alexander Fitzgerald, 26, drove into 30-year-old Jasjot Singhota after not seeing her on a zebra crossing in Tulse Hill, south-east London. He was driving a Ford Fiesta with frost on the windscreen when the accident happened on January 25, 2017. He stopped at the scene. Dr Singhota, who worked for Guys and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust, was taken to a south London hospital where she died the following day after suffering a traumatic brain injury. The Metropolitan Police said she saved the lives of five other people through being an organ donor. Fitzgerald was handed a 10-month prison sentence and a 23-month driving ban at Kingston Crown Court on Friday. University student Fitzgerald, of Selwood Road, Essex, had previously pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving and causing death by driving uninsured. Dr Singhotas sister, Neha Santasalo, said the sentence provides closure allowing us to focus on our sister, her life and all that she achieved. She added that clearing a windscreen during cold weather is a simple action that takes no time at all but can prevent any other family having to go through what we have. Jasjot Singhota worked for Guys and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust (Metropolitan Police/PA) Detective Constable Sejal Unadkat, who led the investigation, said the death of Dr Singhota could have been avoided entirely. Fitzgeralds 54-year-old father, Gary Fitzgerald, pleaded guilty to permitting the use of a motor vehicle with no insurance at Camberwell Green Magistrates Court in May last year. He was given eight penalty points on his licence, issued with a 250 fine and ordered to pay a victim surcharge and costs. There were 164 casualties from crashes on Britains roads in 2017 when a drivers visibility was impaired due to a frosted, dirty or scratched windscreen or visor, Department for Transport figures show. One in eight respondents to an AA survey admitted they do not fully clear ice off their windscreen before setting off. The organisations president Edmund King urged drivers to ensure ice is removed from all windows and mirrors, adding that he often sees drivers peering out of a small gap on the windscreen like a tank commander. Neil Greig, director of policy and research at motoring campaign organisation IAM Roadsmart, said motorists need to take every journey seriously and ensure they can see and be seen. Two bodies have been found in a flat in the south side of Glasgow. Police were called to the scene following reports of concern for a person at around 10.10am on Monday morning. Officers discovered two bodies when they entered the property in Stoneside Square. The deaths are currently being treated as unexplained by police. A police spokesman said: Police are working with partner agencies and taking all precautionary measures as appropriate. The fire service was also asked to attend and sent four appliances to the scene. The last time a government was defeated by more than 100 votes on the floor of the House of Commons was almost a century ago. On October 8 1924, the minority Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald went down to a defeat of 166. MPs voted on an amendment put forward by the Liberal Party to set up a select committee to investigate the governments decision to drop criminal proceedings against JR Campbell, editor of the Communist newspaper Workers Weekly, which had recently published an article encouraging the armed forces to mutiny. The government lost by 364 votes to 198. (PA Graphics) Prime minister Ramsay MacDonald declared the issue a matter of confidence and, having lost the vote, obtained a dissolution of the Commons the following day, which led to a general election that Labour lost. Mr MacDonalds minority government suffered a string of defeats during its short time in office in 1924, including another one that topped 100, when it lost a motion on its Housing Bill by 140. Since 1924 no government has endured a defeat on the floor of the Commons of more than 100. The next largest defeat took place on March 22 1979, in the last few weeks of the Labour government led by Jim Callaghan. MPs voted by 115 to 26 on a motion to annul the fees for a firearms certificate a defeat of 89, although the number of MPs taking part in the vote was low. Mr Callaghans government suffered a defeat of 86 on January 25 1978, when MPs voted by 204 to 118 on an opposition amendment to the Scotland Devolution Bill, which excluded Orkney and Shetland from the provisions of the Bill if they voted no in a referendum. Government defeats since 1979 have tended to occur by much smaller margins, though no prime minister even with a landslide majority in the Commons has escaped without at least one loss. On April 14 1986, the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher suffered a rare defeat over its plans to relax laws on Sunday trading in England and Wales. Margaret Thatcher suffered a Commons defeat over Sunday trading laws in 1986 (PA) On the second reading of the Shops Bill, MPs voted against by 296 to 282 a government defeat of 14. More recently, the Labour government of Tony Blair was defeated on November 9 2005 on its proposal to allow police to detain terror suspects for up to 90 days without charge. MPs voted against by 322 votes to 291 a government defeat of 31. It was a small defeat but a symbolic one, as it was Mr Blairs first House of Commons defeat since becoming prime minister eight years earlier in 1997. Tributes have been paid to two hikers who died in separate falls amid high winds on a Northern Ireland mountain range. Robbie Robinson, from Banbridge, Co Down, and Sean Byrne from Camlough, Co Armagh, were killed within an hour of each other on the Mourne Mountains on Sunday. The first fatal incident happened on a crag on the Wee Binnian hill shortly before 12pm. The second occurred on crags on the Slieve Commedagh mountain just before 1pm. Another man was injured in a third falling incident, in an area known as the Saddle, around 2.30pm. He sustained a broken ankle. The view from a PSNI Air Support helicopter above the Mourne Mountains (PSNI/PA) Strong wind gusts and wet terrain made for hazardous conditions on the mountains on Sunday. An Irish Coastguard helicopter was unable to assist the operations due to the poor conditions. Mr Robinson was a former chief superintendent in the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Retired Stormont Assembly member and former Police Federation chairman Jimmy Spratt tweeted: Shocked and saddened to hear of the tragic death of Robbie Robinson in the Mourne Mountains yesterday. His family are in my thoughts and prayers, as is the family of the other accident. 10 members of the Police Search & Rescue Team responded to the two tragedies in the Mourne Mountains yesterday working with #MMRT, #IrishCoastguard & #PSNIAirSupport in challenging conditions. The mountaineering community is a close knit family and the loss will be felt by many. pic.twitter.com/qVi6uzwu8w Police Service NI (@PoliceServiceNI) January 14, 2019 Mr Byrne had a life-long passion for Gaelic games and was a trustee and former treasurer of his local hurling club Craobh Rua Camlocha. In a statement, the club said his death had devastated us all. He had a great love for our Club and he showed this over the years by the giving freely of his time and experience to help us develop and become rooted within our community. He possessed great gifts of commitment, integrity, calmness and care. He loved his family, his community, Gaelic sport and culture. No words we can say will lessen the shock and pain of his family as they struggle to come to terms with this news. However we will be there for them just as Sean had been here for us over the past 30 years. We convey our deepest sympathies to the families of both those killed whilst climbing yesterday in the Mourne Mountains. Shocked and saddened to hear of the tragic death of Robbie Robinson in the Mourne Mountains yesterday. His family are in my thoughts and prayers, as is the family of the other accident. Jimmy Spratt (@SprattJimmy) January 14, 2019 The Mourne Mountain Rescue Team (MMRT), the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), Irish Coastguard and other emergency services were involved in the recovery and rescue operations on the mountains lasting nine hours on Sunday. The mountains are classified as an area of outstanding natural beauty and are popular with hill walkers and hikers. The PSNI tweeted on Monday: The mountaineering community is a close knit family and the loss will be felt by many. A total of 21 members of the MMRT were on the mountain during Sundays operations. The team posted on Facebook: To have two fatal incidents in the course of a day is an anomalous situation and our thoughts and sympathies are with the families of the deceased. The PSNIs Air Support unit described the recovery and rescue operations as tough and challenging. A tweet said: In strong winds we managed to airlift one male out but sadly the two others had died. Our thoughts are with their loved ones. Ten members of the PSNIs Search and Rescue team were also involved in Sundays emergency response. Theresa May has issued a last-ditch plea for MPs to back her Brexit deal, after Brussels chiefs issued a letter offering assurances that they do not want the controversial backstop to be permanent. Speaking in a factory in Leave-voting Stoke-on-Trent, the Prime Minister said the letter from European Council president Donald Tusk and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker made clear that the backstop was not a threat or a trap. And she said she was committed to working with MPs from across the House to ensure that workers rights and environmental standards were protected after Brexit. Attorney General Geoffrey Cox issued advice that EU assurances on the backstop would have legal force in international law, and said the current deal now represents the only politically practicable and available means of securing our exit from the EU. But Mrs Mays hopes that the letter would win over enough MPs to rescue her Withdrawal Agreement looked set to be dashed, as the Democratic Unionist Party which props up her minority administration dismissed it as meaningless. Rather than reassure us, the Tusk and Juncker letter bolsters our concerns, said DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds, who called on the PM to demand changes to the Agreement itself. And Tory MP Gareth Johnson quit as an assistant whip to oppose Mrs Mays plan, saying it was clear there was no significant change to the Withdrawal Agreement. In the Commons, the Prime Minister acknowledged the deal was not perfect but urged MPs who had come out against it to give it a second look. When the history books are written, people will look at the decision of this House tomorrow and ask: did we deliver on the countrys vote to leave the European Union? Did we safeguard our economy, our security and our Union? Or did we let the British people down? she said. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said she had failed to secure the assurances she had promised and the Government was in disarray. Its clear, if the Prime Ministers deal is rejected tomorrow, its time for a general election, its time for a new government, he said. Earlier in Stoke, Mrs May warned MPs would be behaving with the height of recklessness if they rejected her Withdrawal Agreement in Tuesdays historic vote, when no alternative deal was on offer which was negotiable and respected the 2016 referendum result. The Prime Minister said that the presidents letter provided valuable new clarifications and assurances to address the concerns of MPs who fear the backstop, which is designed to prevent a hard border in Ireland, could become a permanent arrangement which the UK could leave only with approval from the EU. She said the letter delivered: A commitment from the EU to begin work on a new post-Brexit relationship as soon as the Withdrawal Agreement is ratified An explicit commitment that the new relationship does not have to replicate the backstop arrangement, under which the UK would remain in a customs union with the EU and be required to observe some of its rules Agreement on a fast-track process to bring a new free trade agreement into force, even if some of the 27 remaining members delay ratification Acceptance that the UK can unilaterally deliver on commitments made to Northern Ireland, including a Stormont lock on new EU laws being added to the backstop My reply to @theresa_may, together with @eucopresident, providing clarifications to the #Brexit Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration. pic.twitter.com/f0PalJkRVu Jean-Claude Juncker (@JunckerEU) January 14, 2019 The letters published today have legal force and must be used to interpret the meaning of the Withdrawal Agreement, including in any future arbitration, said the Prime Minister. They make absolutely clear the backstop is not a threat or a trap. I fully understand that the new legal and political assurances which are contained in the letters from Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker do not go as far as some MPs would like. But I am convinced that MPs now have the clearest assurances that this is the best deal possible and that it is worthy of their support. In their letter, Mr Tusk and Mr Juncker stressed they were not in a position to rewrite or amend the Withdrawal Agreement secured by Mrs May last year. But they assured the PM that the EU does not wish to see the backstop enter into force, as it would represent a sub-optimal trading arrangement for both sides. The EU wants to ensure it would only be in place for as long as strictly necessary. (PA Graphics) The EU presidents stated: Were the backstop to enter into force in whole or in part, it is intended to apply only temporarily, unless and until it is superseded by a subsequent agreement. With expectations high at Westminster that the Prime Minister is heading for a crushing defeat in Tuesdays crucial vote, Mrs May issued a plea to MPs concerned about the danger of a no-deal Brexit to back her. The only ways to guarantee we do not leave without a deal are: to abandon Brexit, betraying the vote of the British people; or to leave with a deal, and the only deal on the table is the one MPs will vote on tomorrow night, she said. You can take no-deal off the table by voting for that deal. And if no-deal is as bad as you believe it is, it would be the height of recklessness to do anything else. But she said that recent events meant a no-deal Brexit was less likely than a paralysis in Parliament that risks there being no Brexit. Warning that failure to deliver Brexit would do catastrophic harm to trust in the political process, Mrs May said: We all have a duty to implement the result of the referendum. She was speaking as Conservative former ministers Nick Boles, Sir Oliver Letwin and Nicky Morgan put forward a plan to give Parliament control over the Brexit process if Mrs May loses Tuesdays vote. Their European Union Withdrawal Number 2 Bill would give the Government three weeks to seek a compromise that can get through the Commons and allow the UK to leave the EU on March 29 as planned. If that failed, the Liaison Committee made up of senior backbenchers who chair Commons committees would be given the job of coming up with its own compromise deal, which the Government would be legally required to implement if approved by MPs. Under our constitution, Parliament can either change the governments mind or change the government. It can propose legislation for government to take forward & it can amend or block it but back bench MPs cannot take over conducting a complex international negotiation Sarah Wollaston (@sarahwollaston) January 14, 2019 However, Liaison Committee chairwoman Sarah Wollaston poured cold water on the proposal, saying backbenchers constitutionally cannot take over conducting a complex international negotiation. Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, meanwhile, criticised complicated jiggery-pokery by MPs, warning they were really playing with fire. He told LBC: I think that people will feel betrayed. And I think they will feel that there has been a great conspiracy by the deep state of the UK, the people who really run the country. Treasury minister Mel Stride was pictured leaving Downing Street clutching a sheet of paper bearing the words No food. No Channel tunnel. Mel Stride Financial sec to treasury paymaster gen leaving this afternoons brexit cabinet meeting showing some disturbing facts !!!! pic.twitter.com/Mgf3vWPCyi PoliticalPics (@PoliticalPics) January 14, 2019 Some in Westminster saw the image as a clumsy attempt to drive home warnings about the danger of a no-deal Brexit. But sources said the note was simply a list of topics he wanted to raise at a meeting, rather than any kind of prediction. The Treasury declined to comment. Meanwhile, the chairman of the Commons Northern Ireland Committee, Andrew Murrison, tabled an amendment to the Brexit motion to create a sunset clause preventing the backstop extending beyond the end of 2021. Jailed British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has gone on hunger strike over a lack of medical treatment and Tehran trying to pressure her into spying on Britain, her husband has said. Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and another detainee began the protest on Monday after prison authorities failed to convince them they would get specialist care, Richard Ratcliffe told reporters. He said the initial three-day fast was also motivated by Iranian Revolutionary Guard interrogators attempts to pressure her into becoming a spy for Iran in late December. Ministers are under pressure to secure the release of the charity worker, 40, who has been detained in Evin prison for more than 1,000 days on spying charges, which she vehemently denies. Mr Ratcliffe, who has long campaigned for her release, said she has been refused medical attention for lumps in her breasts, neurological care for pains in her limbs and access to an external psychiatrist. He told a press conference: What really pushed her over the edge was they tried to make her become a spy for Iran against the UK. She was told it would be safer for her and safer for her family afterwards if she agreed to do this. She was told to think about it and that they would return. She has been terrified ever since. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been detained for more than 1,000 days (Family handout/PA) Specifically, they wanted her to spy on the Department for International Development, he said. He confirmed Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, of Hampstead, north-west London, started the strike on Monday morning after speaking with her on the phone. It comes as Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt summoned the Iranian ambassador to the UK to the Foreign Office to discuss the deeply concerning deterioration in her health. On Sunday, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and fellow prisoner Narges Mohammedi met with Abbas Khani, the head of the clinic at Evin Prison, located in the outskirts of the countrys capital, but failed to get written assurances regarding treatment. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been subjected to grave violations of her fundamental rights by #Iran this is, in legal terms, an injury to the #UK itself @theresa_may You Must Save #freeNazanin Life @Jeremy_Hunt @AlistairBurtUK Grant #DiplomaticProtection https://t.co/lylmg6dnhe Karen #freeNazanin (@KarenBa10864733) January 14, 2019 Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation charity, was arrested at Tehrans Imam Khomeini airport on April 3 2016 and sentenced to five years in jail. She has suffered mental and physical health complaints during her detention. The first wave of her strike was to last three days, but she will consider extending it if her demands to see a doctor are not met. Monique Villa, chief executive of the Thomson Reuters Foundation said denying medical access was a kind of very slow torture. She added that her employee has suffered severe depression in custody and reiterated she is not guilty of espionage. Human rights charity Redress renewed calls for the Government to end Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffes appalling treatment by taking immediate steps to secure her release, including granting her diplomatic protection. The Foreign Office said Jeremy Hunt is considering whether to take this course of action, having discussed it with her husband. Mr Ratcliffe and Mr Hunt are also scheduled to meet on Monday afternoon. Redress argues that her release should be secured by Britain granting her diplomatic protection, a process under international law that states can enact to obtain repatriation for an illegal act against one of their nationals. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: The Foreign Secretary will call for Nazanin to be immediately given the healthcare she requires and for her and other innocent British-Iranian dual nationals to be released. The Foreign Secretary has made this decision due to the deeply concerning deterioration in Nazanins health and the lack of progress in her case and other cases. We have repeatedly lobbied the Iranians to release Nazanin on humanitarian grounds and we will continue to raise all our cases at every level and every opportunity. China exchanged data with Nasa on its recent mission to land a spacecraft on the far side of the moon, the Chinese space agency has said. It is reportedly the first such collaboration since an American law banned joint space projects with China that do not have prior congressional approval. The space agencys deputy director Wu Yanhua said Nasa shared information about its lunar orbiter satellite in the hopes of monitoring the landing of the Change 4 spacecraft, which made China the first country to land on the far side of the moon earlier this month. China in turn shared the time and co-ordinates of Change 4s scheduled landing, Mr Wu told reporters during a briefing on the lunar mission. He added that while Nasas satellite did not catch the precise moment of landing, it took photographs of the area afterwards. The lunar lander of the Change-4 probe is seen in a photo taken by the rover Yutu-2 (China National Space Administration/Xinhua News Agency via AP) The state-run China Daily said it was the first such form of co-operation since the 2011 US law was enacted. The lunar mission by Change 4 and its rover, Jade Rabbit 2, was a triumph for Chinas growing space programme, which has been rapidly catching up with those of Russia and the US. President Xi Jinping has placed space exploration among the countrys national development priorities and the far side mission offered a chance for China to do something not done before by any other country. The far side of the moon the side which faces away from Earth posed a challenge for scientists because it is beyond radio signals reach. China set up a relay satellite in May to receive communication from Change 4. In the past, we were always rushing to catch up to the advanced global standards in space, said Wu Weiren, the chief designer of Chinas lunar exploration project. There were many things to catch up on, and fewer things in which we could surpass others, he said. With the probe of the far side of the moon this time, Chinese people have done very well. Officials at the briefing declined to give specific figures on the costs of the space programme. Wu Yanhua (Ng Han Guan/AP) Wu Yanhua said the Change 4 was originally built as a backup product for Change 3. He said the spending needed to refit it for its new objective was akin to repairing a short section of subway line. Around the end of this year, China plans to launch Change 5, which is to collect and bring back samples from the near side of the moon, the first time that has been done since 1976. Scientists are still researching whether to send Chinese astronauts, Mr Wu said. The country has also said it will welcome scientists and astronauts from around the world to make use of its space station, which is due for completion by 2022. Urgent action must be taken in Scotland to tackle climate changing emissions, big businesses have said. Global organisations including Coca-Cola, Tesco and Sky have signed a statement calling for the Scottish Parliament to renew their position as a climate leader in the Climate Change Bill. The statement urges Scotland to hit the target of zero net emissions, set in the Paris Agreement, by 2050 at the latest. It reads: Scotland, with its proud tradition of innovation, a wealth of natural resources and a track record on climate change, has an opportunity to rise to this challenge and provide the necessary leadership. We hope the Scottish Parliament seizes the chance to renew its position as a climate leader in the Climate Change Bill and look forward to working with government, businesses and people in Scotland to build a climate-safe future for all. The statement comes as a survey by WWF Scotland suggests 53% of large Scottish businesses with at least 250 employees believe the response to climate change presents economic opportunities. Scotland has been urged to rise to the challenge of tackling emissions (PA) Nick Brown, head of sustainability at Coca-Cola European Partners, said: Coca-Cola has been working in global partnership with WWF for over a decade to help conserve the worlds freshwater supplies, reduce our carbon emissions and ensure that our agricultural ingredients are farmed sustainably. As a local business in Scotland, with a manufacturing site in East Kilbride which uses 100% renewable electricity, were already working to halve greenhouse gas emissions from our core business by 2025. We welcome the introduction of a well-designed deposit return scheme in Scotland and across the whole of Great Britain in order to enable a true circular economy for our key packaging materials so we can put more recycled content back into our packs, reduce waste and improve resource efficiencies. Giles Bolton, responsible sourcing director at Tesco said: As part of our ambition to offer healthy, sustainable food for all, were committed to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of the food we sell. This means reducing emissions in our own operations and supply chain in line with the Paris Climate Accord, while leading the industry in tackling food waste. Clearly there is more to be done and it is vital we all work together to keep up momentum on climate change and carbon reduction. Scotlands Climate Change Bill, published last year, proposed reducing harmful emissions by 90% by 2050 up from the previous target of 80%. The Scottish Government said it will look at targets again in the wake of UN-backed study that said the impacts of climate change, from droughts to rising seas, will be less extreme if temperature rises are curbed at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels than if they climb to 2C. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report said limiting warming to 1.5C is possible but will require fast and far-reaching changes to power generation, industry, transport, buildings and potential shifts in lifestyle such as eating less meat. A Scottish Government spokesman said: We fully agree that transitioning to a carbon-neutral society presents both an important economic opportunity for Scotland as well as being a moral imperative. That is why we have demonstrated global leadership by setting the most ambitious climate change targets of any country in the world for 2020, 2030 and 2040, which will mean Scotland is carbon-neutral by 2050. The targets have been described by independent, expert advisors as the very limits of feasibility. The sentencing of a man caught trying to buy a gun online from the US has been hailed as the first major success of a new joint police taskforce in Scotland. David Mitchells attempt to purchase the firearm came just weeks after the Organised Crime Partnership (Scotland) was launched. What is the Organised Crime Partnership (Scotland)? The OCP(S) is a collaboration between Police Scotland and the National Crime Agency (NCA), which has been working on combating organised crime even before its inception on September 1 last year. Planning and preparation for the initiative began 12 months in advance. It is based at the 75 million Scottish Crime Campus in Gartcosh, North Lanarkshire. What do they do? The main focus is to investigate serious and organised crime including importation of Class A drugs, human trafficking, child abuse and sexual exploitation, and the importation of firearms. The OCP(S) has also provided operational support to drug supply, fraud and cyber crime investigations. The sentencing of David Mitchell over firearms offences is the first case to come to light. David Mitchell was jailed for five years (Police Scotland/PA) What happened in this case? On September 19, officers in Scotland were alerted to Mitchells activity by US colleagues who seized the package he ordered a glock 9mm gun with magazine, silencer and 150 rounds of 9mm ammunition. It was decided the OCP(S) would take lead on the investigation using resources of Police Scotland and the NCA. UK and US forces agreed a placebo package would be delivered and officers in Scotland kept close watch on Mitchell before he was arrested and questioned over the transaction. He eventually pleaded guilty after offering no information on his motivations, in which he acted alone. What about the so-called placebo? Detective Chief Superintendent Gerry McLean, who heads Police Scotlands organised crime and counter-terrorism unit, said the OCP(S) led on the controlled delivery of the package. However to insure public safety they did not deliver a firearm but instead the placebo. For operational and tactical reasons, Mr Mclean did not go into details of how it was constructed or what it looked like but said Mitchell was still of the belief he was receiving the items he ordered from the US. He has been jailed for five years. How many OCP(S) officers are there? There are 30 investigators based at Gartcosh, 15 each from Police Scotland and the NCA respectively, with hopes of this increasing. There are organised crime and counter-terrorism unit officers in 15 locations across the countrys 13 policing areas. According to Rob Burgess, of the NCA, the pooling of resources has given the team access to around 150 liaison officers in more than 50 countries in what he said was a turning point for the organisation. Are there any other examples like the OCP(S)? Mr McLean compared it to a similar model running at the Metropolitan Police for 14 years, which focuses on local priorities. A similar, local issue-driven innovation is also working in Northern Ireland. Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson has said that any move by Parliament to try and frustrate Brexit would be seen by voters as a betrayal by the deep state. The arch-Brexiteer said attempts to thwart EU withdrawal on March 29 would amount to playing with fire. Mr Johnson also indicated that he regretted pulling out of the Tory leadership race in the wake of the 2016 EU referendum. The ex-Cabinet minister was scathing about plots by some MPs to try and give Parliament more control over the Brexit agenda. Mr Johnson told LBC: I notice all this stuff about complicated jiggery-pokery for Parliament to frustrate the deal. I dont think that really can be done. I think that we are really playing with fire. Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson (Brian Lawless/PA) Mr Johnson said that voters would feel betrayed if Parliament tried to thwart EU withdrawal. He said: I think that people will feel betrayed. And I think they will feel that there has been a great conspiracy by the deep state of the UK, the people who really run the country. Asked about what would happen when the Commons votes on Prime Minister Theresa Mays Withdrawal Agreement on Tuesday, Mr Johnson said: I think the deal goes down. I think, possibly, some colleagues are being scared by this idea that there might be no Brexit as a result of voting it down. I think thats nonsense. Britain will leave in March, absolutely, and thats the bottom line. Asked if he had bottled his chance to be Tory leader and prime minister in 2016, Mr Johnson signalled he had second thoughts on withdrawing from the contest to succeed David Cameron. Mr Johnson said: In retrospect if I had my time again I might have done things differently. Liberal Democrat MP and supporter of the pro-Europe Best for Britain campaign Tom Brake criticised Mr Johnsons deep state comments. He said: It serves nobodys purpose, apart from Boris Johnsons, to pretend the UK is descending into a Homeland-style showdown between a corrupt state and doomsday preppers. The irresponsible ratcheting-up of the rhetoric by politicians who should know better has to stop. To resolve the UKs constitutional and political crisis requires cool not hot -heads. Yellow vest protesters and political rivals have criticised a sweeping letter to the French from President Emmanuel Macron as not going far enough to quell national anger at his policies. Mr Macrons letter explains how he is addressing the anti-government movement concerns through a grand debate in local meetings around the country and on the internet, starting on Tuesday. The debate will focus on taxes, public services, climate change and democracy. Yellow vest representative Jeremy Clement told BFM television that the letter settles part of the problem but does not go far enough to address sinking purchasing power. Protester Jerome Rodrigues told CNews television that Mr Macron failed to recognise the urgency of concerns of low-income workers and retirees. A woman passes a mural by street artist PBOY depicting yellow vest protesters inspired by a painting by Eugene Delacroix, La Liberte guidant le Peuple (Christophe Ena/AP) Others criticised Mr Macron for ruling out a restoration of Frances wealth tax on households with assets above 1.3 million euros (1.15 million), and opposition leaders also criticised the letter. In it, Mr Macron said there are no prohibited topics and lists more than 30 questions. He suggests the French can express their views on which taxes should be lowered, what solutions there are for reducing the price of travel, heating and food, and whether mandatory voting and reducing the number of lawmakers should be considered. Mr Macron also mentions the possibility of introducing annual immigration quotas, saying it would not apply to asylum status. He stresses that we will not abandon measures we have taken to encourage investment and make the work pay more. The French leader said the debate would help the government develop policies and Frances position on the European and international scene. The debate comes as the yellow vest movement appeared to gain new momentum this weekend. The French Interior Ministry said about 84,000 people turned out on Saturday for the ninth straight round of demonstrations across France, up from 50,000 the previous week. Thierry Paul Valette, founder of a group called yellow vests citizens, said the yellow vests would have no break. The mobilisations continue. TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - Democrats are celebrating capturing governor's offices in seven states previously led by Republicans, including new chief executives taking office Monday in red-leaning Kansas and solidly blue Illinois. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker were the last two new Democratic governors to be sworn in after last year's midterms. Democrats also turned over governor's offices in Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada and Wisconsin, where Gov. Tony Evers ousted two-term Republican Gov. Scott Walker, a national conservative figure and a one-time presidential hopeful. Democrats hold the governor's office in 23 states, compared with 27 for Republicans, who lost a net total of six while retaining them in hard-fought races such as Florida and Georgia. Democrats were buoyed by the possibility some victories could signal a resurgence in the Midwest, where President Donald Trump did well in 2016. Kelly and Pritzker took their oaths within an hour of each other but offered a stark contrast in personal profiles and political contexts. Kelly, the 68-year-old daughter of a career military officer, was a veteran state senator, while Pritzker is the 53-year-old heir to the Hyatt hotel chain. Kelly's victory last year broke the GOP's dominance over state government, and she promised a bipartisan administration - a necessity because Republicans still hold supermajorities in the Legislature. She defeated Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who had Trump's endorsement. "Let the insults and the finger-pointing give way to compromise and a hand shake," Kelly told a crowd of a few thousand people outside the Kansas Statehouse. "We need to put down the partisan swords and lift up the values that unite us." Gov. Laura Kelly stands during inaugural ceremonies on the Statehouse steps in Topeka, Kan., Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner) Pritzker's defeat of GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner cemented Democrats' dominance in Illinois after a divided government worsened its financial woes. Rauner clashed with the Democrats who control the Legislature, contributing to the longest stretch without an annual budget of any state since the Great Depression and driving the state's credit rating to the brink of "junk" status. "We must begin a new century with new maturity and enough foolishness to believe we can make a difference," he said. "That starts with leadership that abandons single-minded, arrogant notions. No, everything is not broken." Evers took office in Wisconsin last week, calling for a rejection of "the tired politics of the past" and bipartisan solutions to the state's biggest issues. New GOP Govs. Brian Kemp, of Georgia; Mike DeWine, of Ohio, and Kevin Stitt, of Oklahoma, also took office Monday, succeeding fellow Republicans. DeWine led a GOP sweep of nonjudicial statewide offices after getting campaign help from Trump. He followed term-limited GOP Gov. John Kasich, a frequent Trump critic, and promised to serve his state with "an eye to the future and with great optimism." ___ Associated Press writers John O'Connor in Springfield, Illinois, and Kantele Franko in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report. MIDDLETOWN, R.I. (AP) - Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer has bought a house in Rhode Island, and his new neighbor is a familiar face from their days together in the Trump administration: former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The Newport Daily News, citing public records, reported that the sale closed Jan. 2, and Spicer paid $795,000 for the 1,800-square-foot Middletown home, which has four bedrooms and three bathrooms. Representatives for Spicer did not immediately return messages seeking comment. The house is across the street and three doors down from Flynn's home, in a neighborhood that's a short walk to the beach. Flynn is awaiting sentencing on his guilty plea to lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts. Spicer grew up in nearby Barrington. LOGAN TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) - The Latest on the resolved hostage situation at UPS facility (all times local): 5:10 p.m. New Jersey's attorney general says the armed man who burst into a UPS facility and took two female workers hostage was shot and killed by police after he exited the building with both women. Gurbir S. Grewal's office says in a statement the man has been identified as 39-year-old William Owens, of Sicklerville, New Jersey. He says officers responded to the supply chain processing facility in Logan Township, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Philadelphia, around 8:45 a.m. Monday over reports of a man with a gun. He says multiple members of law enforcement fired at the man when he exited the building with the women. People watch as officials respond to reports of an active shooter at a UPS facility Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 in Logan Township, N.J. (Joe Lamberti/Camden Courier-Post via AP) Gloucester County Prosecutor Charles Fiore says there was apparently a prior relationship between the gunman and one of the women he took hostage. ___ 12:20 p.m. Prosecutors say an armed man burst into a UPS facility in New Jersey and took two female workers hostage before officers stormed in and resolved the ordeal. Gloucester County Prosecutor Charles Fiore says the suspect was apparently shot and injured, but the women were unharmed in the situation Monday at the supply chain processing facility in Logan Township, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Philadelphia. Employee Allen Anthony Dowling tells The Associated Press he heard a fellow worker say someone had a gun. Dowling says he then heard what he thought was a gunshot and began to run along with other employees. Fiore says there was apparently a prior relationship between the gunman and one of the women he took hostage. Police swarmed the area in the morning and evacuated employees. ___ 11:10 a.m. An employee at a UPS facility that is the scene of a reported active shooter situation in New Jersey says he heard an apparent gunshot and began to run. Allen Anthony Dowling tells The Associated Press he heard a fellow worker say someone had a gun. Dowling says he then heard what he thought was a gunshot and began to run along with other employees. Police surrounded an area around a loading dock at the supply chain processing facility in Logan Township, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Philadelphia. Television news footage showed armed officers crouching behind one of the vehicles. In a statement, UPS says it's working with law enforcement on an active shooter situation, but did not provide details or identify if any employees were involved. Schools in the area were put on a modified lockdown. ___ 10:05 a.m. Police have surrounded a United Parcel Service facility in New Jersey in response to a reported active shooter. Television images show police cars surrounding the loading dock area of the building in Logan Township, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Philadelphia. Armed officers can be seen crouching behind one of the vehicles. A person answering the phone at the township police department says it is an active shooter situation, but didn't give further details. Gloucester County Prosecutor Charles Fiore gives an update on the police standoff at the UPS facility in Logan Township, Gloucester County, Monday, Dec. 14, 2019. (Tim Hawk/NJ Advance Media via AP) Officials respond to reports of an active shooter at a UPS facility Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 in Logan Township, N.J. (Joe Lamberti/Camden Courier-Post via AP) A police roadblock is set up as officials respond to reports of an active shooter at a UPS facility Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 in Logan Township, N.J. (Joe Lamberti/Camden Courier-Post via AP) People watch as officials respond to reports of an active shooter at a UPS facility Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 in Logan Township, N.J. (Joe Lamberti/Camden Courier-Post via AP) Officials respond to reports of an active shooter at a UPS facility Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 in Logan Township, N.J. (Joe Lamberti/Camden Courier-Post via AP) A New Jersey State Police helicopter prepares to land as officials respond to reports of an active shooter at a UPS facility Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 in Logan Township, N.J. (Joe Lamberti/Camden Courier-Post via AP) Officials respond to reports of an active shooter at a UPS facility Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 in Logan Township, N.J. (Joe Lamberti/Camden Courier-Post via AP) Officials respond to reports of an active shooter at a UPS facility Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 in Logan Township, N.J. (Joe Lamberti/Camden Courier-Post via AP) A police officer directs traffic as officials respond to reports of an active shooter at a UPS facility Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 in Logan Township, N.J. (Joe Lamberti/Camden Courier-Post via AP) UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United Nations says Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and stressed again that a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the only path to peace. Guterres' strong backing for an independent Palestinian state came ahead of the release of a long-awaited U.S. plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace and Israeli elections in April. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric says Guterres also congratulated Abbas during Monday's meeting on the election of the Palestinians to preside over the Group of 77, a bloc of 134 mainly developing nations and China that promotes their collective interests at the United Nations. Abbas will take over the chairmanship from Egypt on Tuesday. As Abbas and his entourage left U.N. headquarters, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour told reporters: "It was a good meeting." BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - An Alabama civil rights museum is apologizing for the discord that resulted from its decision to rescind a human rights award to political activist Angela Davis. A statement issued Monday by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute says the organization created division and compromised its good name with the move. The statement says board members accept responsibility for what happened and are sorry. Davis is an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian cause. The board withdrew her award after a local group that educates Alabamians about the Holocaust asked them to reconsider the honor. Three members of the institute's board resigned last week. The award was supposed to be presented during a February gala. The event has been canceled, but Davis has said she plans to attend an alternative event in Birmingham. GREENBELT, Md. (AP) - Government attorneys on Monday urged a federal judge in Maryland to throw out a lawsuit that claims inadequate funding and staffing for the U.S. Census Bureau will lead to a massive undercount of blacks and other racial and ethnic minorities in 2020. U.S. District Court Judge Paul Grimm didn't immediately rule after hearing arguments from attorneys representing the Census Bureau and the NAACP. Prince George's County, Maryland, a predominantly black county in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., joined the civil rights group in suing the Census Bureau and President Donald Trump last March. The NAACP claims poor planning for the nation's first-ever digital census will exacerbate undercounts and leave the 2020 Census vulnerable to cyberattack. Government lawyers argue that the NAACP's concerns about census preparations are premature and based on nothing more than conjecture. Justice Department attorney Stephen Ehrlich told the judge there has never been such a sweeping challenge to census procedures at such an early stage of the process. He added that the NAACP's lawsuit alleges "entirely speculative injuries that may never occur." Attorneys leave the federal courthouse in Greenbelt, Md., after a hearing on the federal government's motion to dismiss the NAACP lawsuit over concerns about the 2020 census. From left are NAACP general counsel Bradford Berry, Joseph Schottenfeld, third-year student at Yale Law School, and Jeffrey Zalesin, third-year student at Yale Law School. (AP Photo/Michael Kunzelman) "They want a fishing expedition because they don't know what their claims are," Ehrlich said. The NAACP's suit says failing to fully count blacks has been a persistent problem, with a 2.1 percent net undercount of blacks in the 2010 census. But the group claims the Census Bureau has never been so ill-prepared. The Census Bureau operated without a permanent director for months before the Senate voted earlier this month to confirm Trump's pick for the position. The NAACP's suit says a hiring freeze has limited the bureau's ability to fill other staff vacancies. The suit also says the bureau canceled important field tests last year in Puerto Rico, North Dakota, South Dakota and Washington state. "Despite these imminent threats to the accuracy and integrity of the 2020 Census, the Bureau has been operating on the cheap, without sufficient funding to address its many challenges," the suit says. Government lawyers argue the NAACP concerns about undercounting leading to lost federal funding and lost legislative seats are "future harms" that can't occur before the 2020 census has been conducted. Jacob Alderdice, one of the attorneys representing the NAACP, said ruling out a lawsuit before the census is completed would make it too late to remedy all of the problems. "This is an urgent matter that is ripe for resolution," he said. The judge said it's clear there has never been a completely accurate census. "It's just impossible to do given how fluid our society is," he said. The judge also noted that Congress and the courts have been "extremely deferential" to the Census Bureau's role in deciding its methods and means. The judge instructed the attorneys to file post-hearing briefs on Jan. 21 before he rules on the government's request for him to dismiss the lawsuit. The judge asked Ehrlich about the effect of the partial government shutdown on the Census Bureau. Ehrlich said the agency has the funds to continue operating through February without a disruption. SYDNEY, Nova Scotia (AP) - Officials in Canada say a 28-year-old Saudi Arabian man charged with sexually assaulting a Canadian woman has gone missing. Nova Scotia's prosecution service said Monday that Mohammed Zuraibi Alzoabi had bail posted by the Saudi Arabian Embassy last year in the case involving allegations of sexual assault, assault and forcible confinement. A court document says the sheriff unsuccessfully tried to locate Alzoabi last month. His lawyer is quoted as saying that he fled Canada even though police had seized his passport. Veteran immigration lawyer Lee Cohen says the likeliest way Alzoabi would have left the country without a passport is with Saudi embassy-issued travel documents. The Saudi Arabian Embassy has not responded to requests for comment. WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of partying on a beach in Puerto Rico - with lobbyists, no less - while he sat in the White House over the weekend ready to work out a deal to end the federal shutdown. It's not true. Pelosi didn't go to Puerto Rico or any beach. Like Trump, she spent the weekend in snow-bound Washington. In recent days, Trump and allies twisted a weekend retreat in San Juan attended by about 30 Democratic lawmakers into a "vacation" that seemingly emptied the capital of the legislators needed to solve the partial government shutdown. In reality, many lawmakers from both parties were out of town, mostly back home, though talks could have taken place in their absence. Trump misrepresented his own circumstances when he asserted "I haven't actually left the White House in months" except for a trip to Iraq. He said this a day after visiting Texas, and that was far from the only time he has been out of the house. Then on Monday he went to New Orleans to address farmers. He's also misrepresented the movements of Democrats: President Donald Trump speaks at the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention, Monday Jan. 14, 2019, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) - "Nancy Pelosi's in Hawaii over the holidays, now she's in Puerto Rico with a bunch of Democrats and lobbyists, you know, enjoying the sun and partying down there." - Fox News interview Saturday night. - "I'd rather see the Democrats come back from their vacation and act. ... I'm in the White House, and most of them are in different locations. They're watching a certain musical in a very nice location."- Fox News interview. -"A lot of the Democrats were in Puerto Rico celebrating something. I don't know, maybe they're celebrating the shutdown." - comments Monday before leaving for New Orleans. -"Dems in Puerto Rico as Shutdown hits day 24." - tweet Monday. THE FACTS: Far from "enjoying the sun" in Puerto Rico, Pelosi stayed in Washington, which got a big snowfall. She spent the weekend working at the Capitol, said Drew Hammill, her deputy chief of staff. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer did not go to Puerto Rico, either. The senator from New York spent the weekend in New York, said spokesman Justin Goodman. Most Democratic lawmakers were somewhere other than Puerto Rico. Most who went are members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. They attended the annual winter retreat of the caucus's political and fundraising arm. Some attended "Hamilton" as the musical opened a two-week run in Puerto Rico expected to raise millions of dollars for artists and cultural groups struggling in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Referring to Democrats at the fundraising performance in his Fox News interview, Trump called it "frankly, ridiculous." During the trip, lawmakers indeed met political contributors but also made several visits to local and federal institutions, said Marieli Padro, spokeswoman for Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Jenniffer Gonzalez. On Saturday, a small group visited the veterans' hospital to learn about its needs post-hurricane, while another group met U.S. Coast Guard officials. Trump is correct that Pelosi visited Hawaii over the Christmas holiday. ___ Associated Press writer Danica Coto contributed to this report from San Juan, Puerto Rico. ___ Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he told the king and crown prince of Saudi Arabia on Monday that the Trump administration expects the kingdom to hold accountable "every single person" responsible for the slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed inside one of the country's consulates after writing columns critical of the government. In talks with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been accused by some of complicity in the murder, Pompeo said he had been clear about the administration's expectations. At the end of a trip to Riyadh that also focused on Mideast crises and countering threats from Iran, Pompeo said he had raised the Khashoggi case in his meetings with the king and crown prince along with other human rights issues, including the fate of women's rights activists detained in the kingdom. "We spoke about the accountability and the expectations that we have. The Saudis are friends and when friends have conversations you tell them what your expectations are," the secretary said. "Our expectations have been clear from early on: Every single person who has responsibility for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi needs to be held accountable." He said the Saudis understood and had reiterated pledges to pursue the case wherever it leads. He would not comment on U.S. intelligence that has suggested the crown prince may have ordered the killing. The relationship between Riyadh and Washington remains tense following the killing of Khashoggi, who lived in Virginia and wrote columns for The Washington Post, at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October. FILE - In this Dec. 15, 2014, file photo, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi speaks during a press conference in Manama, Bahrain. Saudi state media said Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019, that suspects in the slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi have attended their first court hearing. The state-run Saudi Press Agency said that prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for five of the 11 who were at the hearing. The brief statement did not name the suspects. (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, File) Saudi Arabia has charged 11 people in the death, including several officials close to the crown prince but U.S. lawmakers have been critical of its response, demanding that America withdraw its support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen in response. Pompeo traveled to Saudi Arabia as part of a broader Middle East tour that has already taken him to Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. He was to depart from the kingdom for Oman shortly after his meetings in Riyadh but canceled plans to wrap up the trip in Kuwait on Tuesday, due to a death in his family. At each stop, Pompeo has sought to reassure Arab leaders that President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria does not mean Washington is abandoning the Middle East or the fight against the Islamic State group. Pompeo said he believed he had been successful in explaining Trump's position despite a lack of detail on exactly how and when the withdrawal will take place and differences with Turkey over the fate of U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters after American forces leave. Trump tweeted late Sunday that the U.S. will "attack again from existing nearby base if it (IS) reforms. Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds." Trump's decision to leave Syria, which he initially said would be rapid but later slowed down, shocked U.S. allies and angered the Syrian Kurds. Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said later Monday that they spoke by phone to discuss cooperation on the withdrawal of the approximately 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria. Trump backed away from the economic threat in a later tweet. He said he and Erdogan in their phone call discussed creating a 20-mile buffer zone along Turkey's border with Syria as well as economic cooperation between U.S. and Turkey and its "great potential to substantially expand!" Pompeo also pressed the Saudis on bringing an end to the near two-year-old dispute with its Gulf neighbor Qatar, which has badly hindered U.S. efforts to create a united Arab military alliance to counter Iran. ATLANTA (AP) - The Latest on the inauguration of Republican Brian Kemp as Georgia's 83rd governor (all times local): 3:30 p.m. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has struck a conciliatory tone in his inaugural address, saying he will work hard to represent all Georgians. After his swearing-in Monday, Kemp said that while Georgia appears like a divided state "through the prism of politics," residents in reality have "so much in common." Kemp's wife and daughters sat behind him, wiping tears from their faces as he spoke. The new governor did not mention the conservative agenda that was at the center of his Republican primary campaign. That agenda includes tough abortion restrictions and a religious freedom law that critics say would allow discrimination. FILE- In this Nov. 7, 2018 file photo, Brian Kemp speaks to supporters in Athens, Ga. Georgia's new governor campaigned as a self-described "politically incorrect conservative" who sealed support among fellow Republicans with an endorsement from President Donald Trump and eked out a close November victory. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File) Instead he touted a more moderate agenda he had highlighted during the general election that includes expanding access to health care, increasing teacher pay and supporting Georgia businesses. Kemp said he would support businesses large and small by cutting taxes and red tape. ___ 2:30 p.m. Republican Brian Kemp is Georgia's 83rd governor. Kemp was sworn in Monday before a crowd gathered at a stadium in Atlanta. The ceremony took place before the GOP faithful, lawmakers, members of Kemp's Cabinet and Kemp's family. Sylvia Turnage of Blairsville, Georgia said she had followed Kemp's political career for years and was excited to get to see him sworn in. Turnage said she liked Kemp because he pledged to support the agriculture industry and rural Georgians. But state Democrats showed they weren't ready to put the rancorous 2018 election behind. A political group founded by Kemp's Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams is challenging the way Georgia elections are run in federal court, alleging "gross mismanagement." Turnage said she thought the election was fair and Democrats were "unwise" to continue their challenge. ___ 1 a.m. Republican Brian Kemp is set to be sworn in as Georgia's 83rd governor Monday in Atlanta. The former Georgia secretary of state rose from underdog status to clinch a Republican primary runoff with tough talk on immigration and a nod from President Donald Trump. His general election campaign against Democrat Stacey Abrams was marked by accusations of voter suppression and mismanagement against Kemp, who served as the state's chief election officer during his run. Kemp vehemently denied the claim, pointing to record-setting voter registration numbers. Kemp has promised to pursue conservative policies including signing tough abortion restrictions and a "religious freedom" bill that critics say allows discrimination against gay and lesbian citizens. Kemp is 56 and a native of Athens, Georgia. He and his wife, Marty, have three teenage daughters. WASHINGTON (AP) - Brandon Judd, president of the union that represents thousands of border patrol agents, has flipped the axiom that there are no winners in a government shutdown. His proximity to President Donald Trump has elevated the union leader's profile while burnishing the image of the U.S. Border Patrol, a backwater in prior administrations when compared to other federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI and Secret Service. At the same time, Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, has helped to validate Trump's fiery immigration rhetoric and affirm his conviction that a wall at the southern border is urgently needed to stop what they've described as a humanitarian crisis. Trump's demand that $5.7 billion be provided for his long-promised border wall has triggered a stalemate with Democrats in Congress and the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history. Judd said in a written response to questions that he's not an official adviser to the president. But, he added, any time the union "can make the public aware (of) the critical problems and dangers Border Patrol agents encounter on the border our members benefit." A 21-year Border Patrol veteran currently posted in Montana, Judd has been a staunch ally since the Border Patrol Council endorsed Trump for president in late March 2016 - its first endorsement of a White House candidate. He appeared at Trump's side earlier this month in the White House briefing room and joined the president during his visit last week to McAllen, Texas, a city in the Rio Grande Valley where illegal border crossings have surged. FILE - In this Jan. 3, 2019, file photo, President Donald Trump, left, listens as Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, talks about border security after making a surprise visit to the press briefing room of the White House in Washington. Trump and Judd share an ominous view of the southern border and a certainty that a wall along the boundary is urgently needed to stop what they've described as a humanitarian crisis. Judd, a 21-year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol, has helped to validate Trump's fiery immigration rhetoric and affirm the president's conviction the border with Mexico is a frequently lawless place. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) "So, Brandon, I've known him from the beginning," Trump said during a round table discussion at a McAllen Border Patrol station. "And almost before I announced, he was for my ideas and he was for us." At the White House, Trump introduced Judd as a friend and nodded approvingly as the union president declared that "walls work." The impromptu appearance forced Kevin McAleenan, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, to suddenly cancel a press conference that was about to start at the agency's headquarters a few blocks away. Doris Meissner, commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service during the Clinton administration, said it was striking to see Judd in the White House briefing room with Trump instead of the homeland security officials responsible for carrying out the president's agenda. "That is just not the way the government is supposed to run," said Meissner, a senior fellow at the bipartisan Migration Policy Institute. Like many other federal employees, border patrol agents are working amid the partial government shutdown unsure of when they'll get their next paycheck. Reports that federal employees "do not agree with the shutdown" aren't true, Judd said at the White House. But while Judd was in McAllen, hundreds of furloughed federal workers gathered in front of the White House to call for an immediate end to the shutdown. And the American Federation of Government Employees, the federal workers union the Border Patrol Council is affiliated with, is suing the government, alleging it's unlawful to force federal employees to work without pay. Judd's support for the wall coincided with Trump's candidacy for president. There's no indication Judd publicly urged Congress to allot the money for a border wall between the time he was elected Border Patrol Council president in 2013 and the union's endorsement of Trump. He did on several occasions warn lawmakers during testimony of the challenges that border patrol agents face. "I do not know," Judd said of whether he had recommended a border wall. "I believe I have testified 21 times, and I don't have time to go through each hearing." According to Judd, the Border Patrol Council conducted a voluntary survey last year of agents in Tucson, Arizona, and Laredo, Texas, and found that nearly 90 percent of them agreed that a "wall system in strategic locations is necessary to securing the border." Nearly 700 agents responded to the survey. Customs and Border Protection figures for 2017, the latest available, show there were more than 5,350 border patrol agents in Tucson and Laredo. "With his level of understanding about the complexities of border security, he must know that simplistic solutions don't exist," said Gil Kerlikowske, former commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol. "But like so many others who follow the president, he's adopted a narrow answer to the problem." Since Judd's election, membership in the Border Patrol Council has dropped while the number of officers and employees at its headquarters in Tucson increased, according to annual reports filed with the U.S. Labor Department. Spending on their salaries has grown too. Judd said the union has created or expanded "critical departments that directly affect our members," each one headed by a vice president. The Border Patrol Council has been an active investor with Judd at the helm, primarily buying and selling millions of dollars in U.S. Treasury securities, mutual funds, corporate notes and bonds, according to the annual reports. That's a significant change from previous years when the council's income consisted almost entirely of membership dues. The union's total receipts were $12.3 million in 2017, the latest report available, with $7.8 million coming from the sale of investments. By comparison, the Border Patrol Council had zero investment income four years earlier. Judd began his career as a field agent in 1997 and five years later was assigned as a special operation mountain team leader in Naco, Arizona, a border crossing directly opposite a Mexican town of the same name. He was later stationed as an agent on northern border, in Van Buren, Maine. He was unanimously elected Border Patrol Council's leader in March 2013. Judd took over less than a year after former president Terence J. Bonner was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars in union funds for personal use. Bonner, who'd held the post for 22 years before retiring in 2011, denied the charges, which were eventually dropped after a judge ruled law enforcement agents had exceeded the scope of the search warrant. When Judd became president, the union had nearly 14,600 members. There are 12,451 now, he said, out of a possible 13,889 agents - an 89 percent membership rate. When calculated against employee data maintained by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the rate drops to 73 percent. But Judd said the OPM numbers are out of date. The personnel office is closed because of the shutdown. Judd attributed the fewer number of members to normal attrition, such as resignations and retirements, and bureaucratic changes that exclude certain positions from being eligible to join the union. Agents who are managers can't be union members either. The annual reports show there were 18 Border Patrol Council officers in 2017 who received stipends that ranged from about $4,000 to almost $120,000 for their union work. For officers who are Border Patrol employees, the pay is in addition to their government salaries. There were 11 officers in 2013 and the top salary then was nearly $18,000. Judd received a gross salary of $16,800 and collected more than $83,000 for the reimbursement of expenses he incurred while conducting official union business. The records show that the highest compensated officer was the treasurer, Edward Tuffly, who received more than $308,000 in salary and reimbursements, an 837 percent increase from the nearly $33,000 he collected four years earlier. Among his accomplishments, Judd cited the passage of law in 2014 that overhauled the way agents are paid, making the Border Patrol the only federal law enforcement agency with a statutorily guaranteed system for paying overtime. Josh Childress, a former Border Patrol agent who resigned in August 2018, described the Council as ineffective and said it too often focused on trivial matters, like the kind of hats agents wore. He disputed Judd's suggestion that federal workers are in favor of the partial government shutdown. "I don't know anybody who supports not getting paid for their work," said Childress, who spent nearly seven years at the border crossing in Yuma, Arizona, and quit after deciding he could no longer justify arresting people for the nonviolent offense of crossing the border. Childress also challenged Judd's contention that a wall as envisioned by Trump will succeed in preventing people from getting across the border. In Arizona, Childress said, fences were effective in certain areas and not in others. People will find a way around, or under, a wall, he said, recalling a tunnel from Mexico into Arizona that was discovered in 2012. "If he's spending all his time talking about building a wall," Childress said of Judd, "well, when I was there that's not what most agents were concerned with." ___ Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report. ___ Follow Richard Lardner on Twitter at http://twitter.com/rplardner FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - Florida Congressman Alcee Hastings says he has pancreatic cancer but plans to remain in office as he fights the disease. The 82-year-old Democrat said in a statement Monday that he's optimistic about his chances for survival and for being able to perform his duties. Hastings was elected to the House in 1992 and is a member its Rules Committee. He had previously served as a U.S. district judge but was impeached by the House in 1988 and convicted by the Senate on charges that he had accepted a $150,000 bribe from two co-defendants seeking a light sentence. IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - Iowa's top elections official acknowledged Monday that his office mistakenly derailed a long-sought plan to grant residents more expansive gun rights by forgetting to notify the public of the proposed constitutional amendment, as required. Secretary of State Paul Pate cited a "bureaucratic oversight" for his office's failure to publish notice of the proposed amendment in newspapers before the November election, as required by the Iowa Constitution. The mistake means supporters likely will have to restart the lengthy process for amending the state constitution and that the earliest the measure could be voted on in a statewide referendum would 2022, instead of 2020. The plan likely would be blocked if Democrats gain control of either legislative chamber before then. Supporters reacted with fury to the oversight by Pate, a Republican and lifetime member of the National Rifle Association who supported the proposed amendment. They said they would review any legal options for seeking to fix the error but acknowledged that they would likely have to start again from scratch. "The amendment has been a priority for over a decade now and yes, this may be a monumental setback, but we will continue to press forward and try and get this on the ballot," said state Rep. Matt Windschitl, a Republican sponsor of the proposed amendment who noted that his initial reaction to the oversight "wouldn't be publishable." Iowa's Republican-controlled General Assembly voted last spring to approve a resolution to amend the state constitution to declare that the "right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." The amendment would require any restrictions on that right to be subject to "strict scrutiny," a stringent standard for judicial review. FILE - In this Dec. 19, 2016, file photo, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate collects ballots during Iowa's Electoral College vote at the Statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa. A plan to give Iowa residents expansive gun rights has been derailed after the state's elections office forgot to notify the public of the constitutional amendment approved by lawmakers last year.Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate tells the Des Moines Register that a "bureaucratic oversight" resulted in his office's failure to publish notice of the amendment in newspapers before last fall's elections as required. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File) Supporters say the language is necessary to protect Iowa gun owners from onerous restrictions passed by local, state or federal lawmakers. The measure was among the few major pieces of gun rights legislation approved by states last year after the mass shooting at a school in Parkland, Florida, that led to calls for stricter gun controls. Critics warned that the Iowa amendment would mean that future gun safety laws - and possibly current restrictions - would be blocked in court. Iowa constitutional amendments must be approved in two consecutive legislative sessions and then by a majority of voters. Amendment supporters had been planning to approve the measure again this session so that it could be on the 2020 ballot. But the constitution also requires that any amendment be published for three consecutive months before the election in which voters decide who represents them during the second legislative session. That requirement falls to the secretary of state. Pate apologized for failing to publish notice of the gun resolution and another that would change how the lieutenant governor is selected when the governor leaves office. "I accept full responsibility for this oversight and offer my sincerest apology to the legislators and supporters who worked so hard on these bills," Pate said. "There is no excuse and I am instituting a system that will ensure an error like this never happens again." Pate had promised members of the Iowa Firearms Coalition, which lobbied for the amendment, during a 2017 speech that he would "be right there with you making sure that your voice is going to be heard." He said he enjoyed the ability to hunt and shoot with his grandchildren and that "I don't think I'm going to let anybody, if I have anything to say about it, take it away from me." The group backed Pate in its 2018 voter guide, giving him an "A'' grade. He won re-election by defeating Democrat Deidre DeJear. Iowa Firearms Coalition President Kurt Liske told members Sunday that they had been "wronged" by Pate after working to pass the amendment for years. "Knowing all of that has been undone due to a technicality and an elected official's failure to act makes me sick and that is why I've chosen to share this information as soon as possible," he wrote. Liske said he bears some responsibility for failing to check with Pate to ensure the notices were published but that he took it "for granted" given Pate's support. ___ Associated Press writer David Pitt in Des Moines contributed to this report. ___ Follow Ryan J. Foley on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rjfoley NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The head of New Orleans' police academy will be the city's next police chief, the mayor announced Monday. Cmdr. Shaun Ferguson's promotion to superintendent will mean "we can make the best transition possible," Mayor LaToya Cantrell said at a livestreamed news conference. He will replace Superintendent Michael Harrison, who announced last week that he is retiring Friday after 27 years in the department and four years as superintendent to become police chief in Baltimore. Ferguson said that under Harrison, "We have come a long way. There is much work that is still needed to be done but we have come a very long way." Ferguson also said he is committed to continuing to meet terms of a consent decree with the federal Justice Department. That agreement was reached in 2012 after decades of scandals involving corruption or questionable use of force. "To our citizens: I've served you for 21 years, and I'm looking forward to serving you even longer," said Ferguson, 46. Ferguson thanked Harrison for his leadership and mentoring, noting he was the first commander Harrison sent to the Police Executive Research Forum's senior management institute in Boston after Harrison was appointed superintendent. "He has prepared himself," Harrison said. The number of homicides in New Orleans dropped to a 47-year low last year, coupled with a 28 percent drop in the number of non-deadly shootings. Ferguson wouldn't talk about how he plans to continue the trend, saying he wants to consult with Harrison and see how what Harrison had in mind meshes with his own ideas. Ferguson said he wanted to tell current and future recruits that his promotion shows the department is a place of growth and opportunity. "Join our team," he said. "Keep your dreams ahead of you; keep striving, keep pushing, and you can make things happen." GAINESVILLE, Ga. (AP) - Police say officers shot and killed a gunman who was holding people hostage inside a dermatology office in Georgia. Gainesville police tell news outlets officers shot the man Monday morning at Lanier Dermatology, northeast of Atlanta. Police say the officers and other people involved are OK. Sgt. Kevin Holbrook says a 911 call had reported a gunman at the business. Holbrook says the man was holding workers and others inside the office. The sergeant says the officers shot him when he brandished the gun as they approached. The man died at a hospital. The state Bureau of Investigation tweeted that Gainesville police requested it investigate, which is the protocol when officers are involved in shootings. SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - Billionaire J.B. Pritzker took the oath Monday as Illinois governor, giving Democrats nearly unprecedented power at the Statehouse after four years of divided government only worsened the economic woes of a state billions of dollars in debt. The 53-year-old heir to the Hyatt hotel chain defeated Republican predecessor Bruce Rauner in November. Throughout his four years in office, Rauner clashed with Democrats who dominate the Legislature, contributing to the longest stretch without an annual budget of any state since the Great Depression and driving the state's credit rating to the brink of "junk" status. Pritzker offered a cooperative future while blaming the stalemate on Rauner and his insistence that only a complete reboot could fix "broken" Illinois. "At 200 years old, Illinois is still a young promise," said Pritzker, who became the state's 43rd executive six weeks after its bicentennial. "We must begin a new century with new maturity and enough foolishness to believe we can make a difference. That starts with leadership that abandons single-minded, arrogant notions. No, everything is not broken." Circumstances have set the bar low for Pritzker success. Rauner's demand for his business-friendly, anti-union agenda in exchange for a state spending plan hit a buzz-saw in the Democrats who controlled the General Assembly. Chicago Democrat Michael Madigan took the gavel last week for his 18th term as House speaker, a tenure covering all but two years since 1983. The longest serving speaker of a state House in U.S. history brought with him near-record legislative majorities. Illinois Speaker of the House Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, visits with Illinois House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, R-Western Springs, and Illinois Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker prior to to the inauguration ceremony for the Illinois House of Representatives for the 101st General Assembly at the University of Illinois Springfield's Sangamon Auditorium, Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2019, in Springfield, Ill. (Justin L. Fowler/The State Journal-Register via AP) In the past 140 years, the 74-44 Democratic House majority is second only to the party's strength in 1965-67, and the Senate's 40 Democrats to 19 Republicans matches the 2013-15 count and, as a percentage, falls behind only the Democrats' 1935-37 majority. Pritzker repeated pledges to create a long-desired capital construction plan to fix roads and bridges and to make a push in the just-begun General Assembly to legalize the recreational use of marijuana and its hoped-for $1 billion in annual tax revenue. And Illinois' flat-rate income tax system, which turns 50 this year, is unsustainable, according to Pritzker, whose $3.2 billion net worth ranked him 251st on Forbes' wealthiest 400 Americans last fall. He reiterated his promise to change the state Constitution to create a progressive system that forces the rich to pay a greater percentage of income. "Our regressive tax system ... has the middle class paying more than double the rate the wealthy pay. That's not fair, and it also doesn't pay our bills," Pritzker said. "Today our state's fiscal instability affects every single person who lives and works in Illinois, whether you earn millions or the minimum wage." Illinois taxpayers well know the fiscal foibles, which predate Rauner's term. Overdue bills total $7.5 billion and a $130 billion shortfall in what the state owes to its pension plans continues to haunt politicians who repeatedly short-changed it. The Rauner administration last fall predicted the current state budget will fall $500 million short at the end of the fiscal year June 30, although tax revenues in the first six months of the budget year ran 10 percent ahead of the previous year. After Monday's inauguration, Democrats comprise Illinois' entire statewide slate. Incoming Lt. Gov. Julianna Stratton and Attorney General Kwame Raoul were inaugurated. Secretary of State Jesse White, 84, took the oath for an unprecedented fifth term. Beginning second terms were Treasurer Michael Frerichs and Comptroller Susana Mendoza, who shortly after her November re-election entered a crowded field to replace retiring Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in February's election. ___ Follow Political Writer John O'Connor at https://twitter.com/apoconnor. WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) - The second in a series of trials for 18 inmates charged in a deadly Delaware prison riot began Monday with defense attorneys telling jurors that prosecutors will rely on testimony from convicted criminals who can't be trusted. Obadiah Miller, 26, John Bramble, 29, Kevin Berry, 28 and Abednego Baynes, 26, are all charged with murder, kidnapping and other crimes in the February 2017 riot at James T. Vaughn Correctional Center, during which prison guard Steven Floyd was killed and three other staffers taken hostage. Prosecutors are relying heavily on testimony from some of the 108 other inmates who were in the building at Delaware's maximum-security prison during the riot but were not among the 18 who were charged. Prosecutors have little physical evidence that would tie any of the defendants to a particular crime, but deputy attorney general Nichole Warner told jurors that Miller's DNA was found in a mop room where Floyd was held and beaten. Miller's attorney, Anthony Figliola, suggested that it would not be unusual to find Miller's DNA in the mop room because he had been granted the privilege of a prison job. "He was not a long-timer. He was not one of the guys who had nothing to lose by causing the prison uprising," added Figliola, who said prosecutors will use the "accomplice liability" theory to try to convict the defendants. FILE - In this Feb. 1, 2017, file photo, a prison guard stands on a tower during a hostage situation at James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna, Del. The second in a series of trials for 18 inmates charged in a deadly Delaware prison riot began Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, with defense attorneys telling jurors that prosecutors will rely on testimony from convicted criminals who can't be trusted. (Suchat Pederson/The News Journal via AP, File) "It's sort of like, 'He really didn't do it, but his buddy did, and he knew about it,'" he explained. Figliola and other defense attorneys also told jurors they can expect conflicting and unsubstantiated testimony against their clients, suggesting that inmates who were not charged have made deals or have something to gain by testifying for the prosecution. "Do not trust the wicked," Bramble's attorney, Tom Pedersen, told jurors after reciting a child's fable about a farmer fatally bitten by a snake he had saved from freezing to death. Similarly, Pedersen said, the prosecution's case boils down to "the testimony of snakes from C building at James T. Vaughn." Pedersen's remark prompted Warner to call for a sidebar discussion between the judge and attorneys before Pedersen resumed his remarks, telling jurors that the prosecution has "less than quality evidence." "You are going to hear a dizzying array of contradictions," he said, adding that the prosecution's approach will be to "try to throw everything against the wall and see what sticks." The first witness called by prosecutors was Sgt. Jeffrey Smith, a state police evidence supervisor. Smith narrated as prosecutors showed clips of video he took at the prison after response teams ended a nearly 20-hour standoff by using a backhoe to breach a wall and rescue a female counselor. Two other guards had been released earlier after being beaten and tormented by inmates. Smith's video included shots of Floyd's battered body, lying handcuffed in a pool of bloody water, under a pile of mattresses in a sergeant's office, as well as blood spatters on the walls of the mop room. Before the uprising, inmates had staged peaceful protests over their treatment and conditions at the prison. A review ordered by Democratic Gov. John Carney found that Department of Correction officials' dismissal of warnings about trouble brewing reflected an overcrowded, understaffed facility plagued by mismanagement, poor communication, a culture of negativity and adversarial relationships among prison staff, administrators and inmates. Since the riot, state officials have devoted millions of dollars to security upgrades, staff training, improved programming for inmates and salary increases for correctional officers. In November, officials announced that hundreds of inmates would be transferred to Pennsylvania in an effort to reduce mandatory overtime in the severely understaffed guard ranks at Vaughn. Meanwhile, the first trial of inmates charged in the case ended with one, Dwayne Staats, convicted of murder in Floyd's death. Staats testified that he planned the uprising, knowing that it could be violent, and that he recruited six other inmates to carry it out, but he denied assaulting anyone and said Floyd's death was not part of the plan. Staats's co-defendant, Jarreau Ayers, was acquitted of murder but was convicted along with Staats of kidnapping, assault and other crimes. A third defendant, Deric Forney, was acquitted on all charges. CAIRO (AP) - Egypt hosted its first ever regional gas forum on Monday, with several regional delegations attending alongside the Israeli energy minister, the first such visit by an Israeli Cabinet member since its 2011 Arab Spring uprising. Speaking after attending the closed meeting in Cairo, Yuval Steinitz applauded the Egyptian initiative, saying that the discovery of gas in the eastern Mediterranean and establishing of an organization to coordinate its management help strengthen ties between the participating countries. "I think this is the most significant economic cooperation between Egypt and Israel since the signing of the peace treaty 40 years ago," he told The Associated Press. "It brings all of us - Jordan, Israel, Cyprus, Greece, Egypt, the Palestinian authority and Italy - together." In a recent sign of warming ties between the former enemies, Steinitz confirmed that Israel will begin exporting gas to Egypt this spring as part of a $15 billion corporate deal signed last year. The first batches will be from the Tamar field and, within 10 months, they'll be from the Leviathan field which will open later this year. "There is some final checking about the reverse flow of the EMG (East Mediterranean Gas Company) pipeline. But hopefully in few months' time - it might take 2 or 3 months - the first amount of gas will be exported from Israel to Egypt," Steinitz said. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who is overseeing the efforts, says that Egypt "scored a goal" with the deal, which will see Delek Drilling and its U.S. partner, Noble Energy, sell a total of 64 billion cubic meters of gas over a 10-year period to Egyptian company Dolphinus Holdings. Egypt intends to use most of the gas for domestic consumption, but also aims to establish itself as a regional export hub, liquifying it and loading it onto ships for sale to Europe. Israel Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Egypt has hosted its first ever regional gas forum, with several government delegations attending including the Israeli Energy Minister in the first such official visit since its 2011 Arab Spring uprising. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil) The European Union, seeking to reduce its dependence on Russian gas - a recurring sticking point amid political disputes - is encouraging the formation of new delivery routes, including one called the East Med gas pipeline which will see Israel eventually selling gas via Greece, Italy, and Cyprus. That $7 billion project, expected to take six or seven years to complete, hopes to reshape the region as an energy provider and dent Russia's dominance over the European energy market, and could curtail Iranian ambitions to use Syria as a gateway to the eastern Mediterranean. The proposed pipeline would allow Israel and Cyprus to export their recently discovered offshore reserves to Italy and eventually to the rest of Europe. Greece, which would act as a conduit for the gas to the continent, could also use the pipeline to transport any hydrocarbons potentially found in its own waters. The EU had a seat at Monday's meeting in Cairo, and Steinitz said he expected the next stage of its approval on the East Med pipeline to be signed in the coming weeks. "There was a very important participation of the European energy commissioner and they came with a very important message to Israel, Egypt, Cyprus and actually to all countries involved that Europe ... sees the eastern Mediterranean as some kind of replacement to the North Sea (route for Russian gas)." While the forum may have been short on concrete results, participants agreed to reconvene in April or May and institute regular meetings - an achievement in and of itself according to Steinitz. "The message to the world is very important and very encouraging," he said. Egypt was the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, in 1979, and though past economic agreements have been controversial here, where support for the Palestinians runs high, relations have recently been steadily warming. While security cooperation is normally kept quiet, authorities on both sides are slowly allowing more details to become public, such as military cooperation in the restive northern Sinai Peninsula, where Egypt is battling an Islamic militant insurgency near the Israeli border. ___ Associated Press writer Aron Heller in Jerusalem contributed to this report. Israel Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Egypt has hosted its first ever regional gas forum, with several government delegations attending including the Israeli Energy Minister in the first such official visit since its 2011 Arab Spring uprising. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil) Women have been elected heads of national governments on six continents. They have flown into space, served in elite combat units and won every category of Nobel Prize. The global #MeToo movement, in 15 months, has toppled a multitude of powerful men linked to sexual misconduct. Yet in most of the world's major religions, women remain relegated to a second-tier status. Women in several faiths are still barred from ordination. Some are banned from praying alongside men and forbidden from stepping foot in some houses of worship altogether. Their attire, from headwear down to the length of their skirts in church, is often restricted. But women around the world in recent months have been finding new ways to chip away at centuries of male-dominated traditions and barriers, with many of them emboldened by the surge of social media activism that's spread globally in the #MeToo era. Millions of women in India this month formed a human wall nearly 400 miles long in support of women who defied conservative Hindu leaders and entered an important temple that has long been off-limits to women and girls between the ages of 10 and 50. In Israel, where Orthodox Judaism has long restricted women's roles, one Jerusalem congregation has allowed women to lead Friday evening prayers. Roman Catholic bishops, under pressure from women's-rights activists, concluded a recent Vatican meeting by declaring that women, as an urgent "duty of justice," should have a greater role in church decision-making. Many feminist scholars are challenging the rightfulness of long-standing patriarchal traditions in Christianity, Judaism and Islam, calling into question time-honored translations of verses in the Bible, Torah and Quran that have been used to justify a male-dominated hierarchy. FILE - In this Nov. 5, 2018 file photo, police officers, who are above the age of 50, pray at the Sabarimala temple, one of the world's largest Hindu pilgrimage sites, in the southern Indian state of Kerala. The historic temple had barred women age 10 to 50 from entering the temple. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup, File) Social media is seen as a big catalyst in boosting activism and forging solidarity among women of faith who seek more equality. The #MeToo movement has been evoked - even in the ranks of conservative U.S. denominations - as a reason why women should expect more respectful treatment from male clergy, and a greater share of leadership roles. "Women are looking for opportunities to have their voices heard and be more effective in their religious traditions," said Gina Messina, a religion professor at Ursuline College in Ohio who describes herself as both a feminist and a Catholic theologian. "Using social media is an opportunity to say what they think." She co-founded a blog called Feminism and Religion that has scores of contributors around the world and followers in more than 180 countries. She also co-edited a collection of essays by Christian, Jewish and Muslim women explaining why they haven't abandoned their patriarchal-leaning faiths. "The perception seems to be that it is a feminist act only to leave such a religion. We contend that it is also a feminist act to stay," the three editors write in their foreword. Here's a brief look at the status of gender equality in several of the world's religions: ___ ROMAN CATHOLICISM Catholic doctrine mandates an all-male priesthood, on the grounds that Jesus' apostles were men. A decades-long campaign for women's ordination has made little headway and some advocates of that change have been excommunicated. Women do play major roles in Catholic education, health care and parish administration While the recent meeting of bishops at the Vatican produced a call to expand women's presence in church affairs, no details were proposed. The seven nuns who participated along with 267 male clergy were not allowed to vote on the final document. Earlier this year, a Vatican magazine published an expose detailing how nuns are often treated like indentured servants by cardinals and bishops, for whom they cook and clean with little recompense. At the University of Dayton, a Catholic school in Ohio, religion professor Sandra Yocum says some of the young women she teaches "are having a hard time seeing where they fit in" as they assess the church's doctrine on gender roles and its pervasive clergy sex-abuse scandals. "They have a deep concern for the church," she said. "They want to respond in some way and take a leadership role." Messina sometimes engages in "small acts of dissent" to show displeasure with patriarchal Catholic traditions. At the recent funeral for her grandmother, she changed a Bible reading to make the passage gender-neutral. "We have to continue to push - regardless of whether it's in our generation or five generations from now." Rose Dyar, a senior at the University of Dayton, says she's determined to team with other young Catholics to help the church overcome its challenges. The ban on female priests isn't enough to drive her from Catholicism, but it dismays her. "I absolutely support women's ordination," she said. "Unfortunately I don't foresee it happening anytime soon, and that breaks my heart." ___ ISLAM Some of the most important traditions and practices of the Prophet Muhammad were preserved and carried forth by the women closest to him- his wives and daughters. But as with many other major faiths, women in Islamic tradition have largely been relegated to supporting roles throughout recent history. Women in Islam do not lead prayer or give traditional Friday sermons. In larger mosques where women are welcome, they are almost always segregated from men in the back or allocated spaces on other floors with separate entrances and exits. In Saudi Arabia, a male-dominated interpretation of Islam bars women from traveling or obtaining a passport without the consent of a male guardian. Only this year did the kingdom allowed women to drive. Changes are happening elsewhere. In Tunisia, President Beji Caid Essebsi has proposed giving women equal inheritance rights with men - a much-debated topic around the Muslim world. In the Palestinian territories, Kholoud al-Faqih became the first female Shariah court judge in 2009, in part to help women beset by domestic violence. Some women are challenging interpretations that state only men must attend traditional Friday prayers. A few have chosen to create their own prayer spaces, like the Women's Mosque of America in California where women lead the services and female scholars share their knowledge. The bylaws for that mosque were drafted by Atiya Aftab, who teaches Islamic Law at Rutgers University and is chair of the board at her mosque - a first for a woman in New Jersey. She says moves in the U.S. to expand women's roles in the Islamic community have sometimes been met with conservative backlash, but the momentum for change seems strong. In Texas, Muslim women recently formed a group that has investigated and publicized instances of sexual, physical and spiritual abuse committed against women by Muslim community leaders. ___ JUDAISM The gender situation within Judaism is markedly different in Israel and the United States, which together account for more than 80 percent of the world's Jewish population. The largest U.S. branches, Reform and Conservative, allow women to be rabbis, while the Orthodox branch does not. In Israel, the Conservative and Reform movements are small, and Orthodox authorities hold a near monopoly on all matters regarding Judaism. One major source of contention: the Orthodox-enforced policy of prohibiting women from praying alongside men at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the holiest site where Jews can pray. Numerous women protesting the policy have been arrested, and several American Jewish groups were angered last year when Israel's government backtracked on plans to expand a space where both men and women could pray. However, there have been moves to expand Orthodox women's roles in religious life. A Jerusalem congregation, Shira Hadasha, has adopted a liberal interpretation of Jewish religious law that incorporates women's involvement in services, such as leading Friday evening prayers and reciting from the Torah on the Sabbath. An Orthodox organization called Tzohar is trying to advance women in roles where social custom, not religious law, has excluded them - such as teaching Jewish law or certifying restaurants' compliance with kosher standards. "If Jewish law does not say that something is prohibited, but just because of social or cultural reasons women were not involved, we see no reason that they should not be involved, said Tzohar's chairman, Rabbi David Stav. ___ MORMONISM Women in the Mormon church are barred from being priests, leading local congregations or holding the top leadership posts in a faith that counts 16 million members worldwide. The highest-ranking women in the church oversee three organizations that run programs for women and girls. These councils sit below several layers of leadership groups reserved for men. The role of women in the conservative religion, officially named The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has been a subject of debate for many years, with some members pushing for more equality and increased visibility for women. The church has made some changes in recent years; women's groups say they mark small progress. In 2013, a woman for the first time led the opening prayer at the faith's semiannual general conference in Salt Lake City. Later that year, a conference session previously limited to men was broadcast live for all to watch. Mormon women are still expected to wear skirts or dresses to worship services and inside temples, but the religion has loosened its rules in recent years to allow women who work at church headquarters to wear pantsuits or dress slacks and to let women serving proselytizing missions to wear dress slacks. The church shows no signs of budging on women's ordination. Kate Kelly, the founder of a group called Ordain Women that led protests outside church conferences, was expelled from the faith in 2014. "We're in it for the long haul," said Lorie Winder Stromberg, 66, a member of Ordain Women's executive board. "I think women's ordination is inevitable - but I have no sense of the timing." ___ HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM The gender-equality situation in these two Asian-based faiths is difficult to summarize briefly. Neither has a single supreme entity that enforces doctrine, and each has multiple branches with different philosophies and practices. In Buddhism, women's status varies from country to country. In Thailand, a Buddhist stronghold, women can become nuns - often acting as glorified temple housekeepers - but only in 2003 won the right to serve as the saffron-robed full equivalents of male monks, and still represent just a tiny fraction of the country's clergy. India's Sabarimala temple had long banned women and girls of menstruating age from entering the centuries-old house of worship. Some Hindus consider menstruating women to be impure. The Supreme Court in September lifted the ban, and violent protests broke out after women entered the temple. Earlier this month, women formed a human chain spanning than 600 kilometers (375 miles) to support gender equality. "The Hindu temples at present have almost 99 percent male priests," said women's rights activist Ranjana Kumari, director of New Delhi-based Center for Social Research. "Things have to improve." ___ SOUTHERN BAPTISTS While many Protestant denominations now ordain women, the largest in the U.S. - the Southern Baptist Convention - is among those that don't. It advocates that women submit to male leadership in their church and to a husband's leadership at home. Southern Baptist leaders say this doctrine aligns with New Testament teaching. One passage they cite quotes the apostle Paul as writing, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man." A recent statement from SBC leadership insisted that Southern Baptists "are not anti-woman." "However, because Scripture speaks specifically to the role of pastor, churches are under a moral imperative to be guided by that teaching, rather than the shifting opinions of human cultures." Cheryl Summers, a former Southern Baptist who has challenged the church to improve its treatment of women, describes this gender doctrine as "tortured logic" - especially given the accomplishments of SBC women in the secular world. "There's tremendous cognitive dissonance for a woman of faith who is leading professionally or through volunteer efforts when she experiences the glass ceiling and walls in her place of worship," Summers said via email. For the past year, the SBC has been roiled by a series of sexual misconduct cases involving churches and seminaries, prompting some activist women to demand new anti-abuse policies. ____ Associated Press writers Aya Batrawy in Dubai, Brady McCombs in Salt Lake City, Ashok Sharma in New Delhi, Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem and Grant Peck in Bangkok contributed to this report. FILE - In this June 12, 2018 file photo, rape survivor and abuse victim advocate Mary DeMuth speaks during a rally protesting the Southern Baptist Convention's treatment of women, outside the convention's annual meeting at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas. (AP Photo/Jeffrey McWhorter, File) Yusra Syed, left, listens as Atiya Aftab speaks during a meeting at the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) Atiya Aftab speaks to students who dropped by the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) FILE - In this April 18, 2018 file photo, bishops line up to greet Pope Francis during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican. Catholic doctrine mandates an all-male priesthood, on the grounds that Jesus' apostles were men. A decades-long campaign for women's ordination has made little headway and some advocates of that change have been excommunicated. Women do play major roles in Catholic education, health care and parish administration. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File) FILE - In this Feb. 7, 2016, file photo, Israeli women wear Tefillin, also known as Phylacteries - small leather boxes containing religious texts usually worn by Jewish men, at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray in Jerusalem's Old City. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, File) FILE - In this Oct. 6, 2018 file photo, female and male members of The Tabernacle Choir perform during the twice-annual conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. Women in the Mormon church are barred from being priests, leading local congregations or holding the top leadership posts in a faith that counts 16 million members worldwide. The highest-ranking women in the church oversee three organizations that run programs for women and girls. These councils sit below several layers of leadership groups reserved for men. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File) TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - Kansas' new Democratic governor called Monday for the state to "forge a new chapter" of bipartisanship, arguing as she took office that the Statehouse had lost the "spirit of neighbor-helping-neighbor" under her Republican predecessors. Laura Kelly was sworn in as the state's 48th governor on the Capitol steps, in front of huge banners declaring "Equality," ''Education" and "Opportunity." Her supporters celebrated a sharp break with her conservative GOP predecessors, even as she attempted to summon an ethos of cooperation across political, ethnic and religious lines. "Somewhere along the way, that spirit of neighbor-helping-neighbor that runs so strong in our communities failed to extend into this building," Kelly said in her speech to a crowd of a few thousand people. "Public service gave way to partisanship. And the voices of Kansas families were not heard. Kansas lost its sense of self, its sense of community." The 68-year-old governor was formerly a veteran state senator who pitched herself to voters as a no-nonsense problem-solver who could work with Republicans, who control the Legislature. Top Republicans in the GOP-controlled Legislature brushed off Kelly's critique of state government under her Republican predecessors and focused on her promise to work with the GOP. "What I'm excited about is that she ended with that she wants to compromise and work out things over shaking hands," said Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle, a conservative Wichita Republican. "And so, I'm looking forward to that, and I'll hold her to it." Gov. Laura Kelly, right, takes the oath of office from Chief Justice Lawton Nuss, left, on the Statehouse steps in Topeka, Kan., Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Kelly's husband Ted Daugherty, center, holds a Bible for the ceremony. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner) Kelly's inaugural address at times seemed an implicit rebuke of President Donald Trump's sometimes divisive rhetoric on issues such as immigration. Trump carried the state in 2016 by nearly 21 percentage points, but Democrats made political gains in the state's Kansas City area suburbs in last year's midterms because Trump was unpopular there. Inaugural events began Monday with an interfaith prayer service at the Statehouse that included a liberal rabbi, a Muslim imam and a representative of a Hindu temple. The event was relocated from the national historic site commemorating the U.S. Supreme Court's historic Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 declaring segregated schools unconstitutional because the building has been closed by the partial federal government shutdown. The inauguration itself contained strong echoes of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. The big banners behind Kelly were borrowed from a 50th anniversary celebration of the Brown decision, and a choir from Wichita sang an anthem of the movement, "Lift Every Voice and Sing." "The ideals that bind us are being strained," Kelly said. "And sometimes it can feel like the forces of division are succeeding." But Kelly and her fellow Democratic legislators also felt pushed aside during the past eight years under Republican Govs. Sam Brownback and Jeff Colyer. Brownback sought to make Kansas a laboratory for conservative fiscal policies, enacted through the GOP's supermajorities in the Legislature. "We must forge a new chapter in our story, starting today," the new governor said. Kelly's victory drew national attention because Kansas is a Republican-leaning state and her opponent, departing Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, touted his history of advising Trump. Kobach won a narrow victory over Colyer in the GOP primary after Trump endorsed Kobach. "We must work together in the spirit of putting the collective good ahead of any individual ambition or agenda," Kelly said. "We must seek to lift up ALL Kansans regardless of whether they look like us, think like us, worship like us, love like us or vote like us." But Kelly made the governor's race more about whether Kobach's fiscal policies would align with those of Brownback, who pushed legislators to slash state income taxes as an economic stimulus. Most voters deemed Brownback's experiment a failure because of the budget woes that followed, and legislators reversed most of the cuts in 2017. The new governor has little choice but to work with Republicans, given their large majorities in the Legislature, which opened its annual session Monday afternoon. Even as voters were electing Kelly, in more local Statehouse races, GOP conservatives gained seats. Top Republicans have said they will hold Kelly to a campaign promise not to increase taxes to pay for additional state spending. They will learn more about Kelly's budget proposals later in the week, after she gives the annual State of the State address Wednesday evening. "We're going to try to find places where we can work together," said Kansas House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins, another conservative Wichita Republican. ___ Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna . Gov. Laura Kelly delivers her inaugural address on the Statehouse steps in Topeka, Kan., Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner) A 19-gun salute is fired as part of the inaugural ceremony for Gov. Laura Kelly on the south lawn of the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan., Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner) WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Poland's port city of Gdansk, where the longtime mayor died Monday after being stabbed at a fundraiser, served as the setting for key events in 20th century European history, from the early shots of World War II to the Cold War's final days. The movement that played a pivotal role in the collapse of communism across Eastern Europe was born in the local shipyard, an event Mayor Pawel Adamowicz and others recalled when they called Gdansk a city of "freedom and Solidarity." Solidarity, the anti-communist trade union and social movement, was founded in 1980 by the shipyard electrician Lech Walesa, who went on to become Poland's president. Walesa, 75, still lives in Gdansk and joined residents mourning the mayor Monday. Adamowicz, 53, worked with Solidarity as a student and Walesa said he would remember him as a "great activist" and a friend. Situated on the Baltic coast, Gdansk's history goes back more than 1,000 years. The land the city occupies now changed hands many times between Poles and Germans, who know it as Danzig. Due to its position on the sea and at the mouth of the Vistula River, it emerged as a commercial hub for exported grain, helping to bring Poland significant power from the 15th century to the 18th century. FILE - This Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2011 file photo shows a general view of Gdansk seen from the tower of St. Mary's Church, in Gdansk, Poland. The Polish port city of Gdansk, whose mayor died after being stabbed while on stage during a charity fundraiser, is among Poland's most famous cities due to the key role it played in 20th century European history, from the early shots of World War II to the end days of the Cold War. Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, who died Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 as a result of wounds to his heart and abdomen, was among the many who have called it a city of "freedom of Solidarity," a reference to the anti-communist movement born in the city's shipyard in 1980. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz, file) Long connected to Amsterdam, Hamburg and other port cities, Gdansk has a legacy of openness to the world. The buildings in old town reflect Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architectural styles, even though much of the area had to be rebuilt after World War II. War and resistance are now woven into the city's identity. In 1939, Nazi German forces fired some of the first shots of World War II on Gdansk's Westerplatte Peninsula while attacking a Polish military depot. The defense of the depot started years of Polish resistance to the occupying Germans. Because of its history, Gdansk was chosen as the site for the Museum of the Second World War. The museum, which opened in 2017, has been the focus of an ideological battle between its liberal creators and the nationalist Polish government that came to power in 2015. The creators focused the exhibits on the suffering of civilians across Europe. The government has been changing the message to stress Polish suffering and heroism. Adamowicz, 53, was a strong supporter of the original, more universal message. ___ This version has been corrected to show phrase used to describe Gdansk is "freedom and Solidarity," not "freedom of Solidarity." People hold lit candles in a memorial march for Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, in Warsaw, Poland, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. People in Poland are gathering for solemn vigils to honor Gdansk Mayor, 53-year-old Pawel Adamowicz. who died Monday after being stabbed at a fundraising event the night before. There were vigils in Warsaw and other cities across a nation shocked by the assassination. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) People place candles as they mourn the mayor of Gdansk, Pawel Adamowicz, in Gdansk, Poland, Monday Jan. 14, 2019. Poland's president says a national day of mourning will be observed when a mayor who was fatally stabbed at a charity event is buried. President Andrzej Duda opened a news conference with a minute of silence in memory of Adamowicz, who died Monday from the stab wounds he suffered on Sunday night. (AP Photo/Wojciech Strozyk) FILE - In this Friday, Dec. 23, 2011 file photo, Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz unveils a street renamed in honor of Vaclav Havel, the former Czech president and playwright, in Gdansk, Poland. Poland's health minister says that Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz has died from stab wounds a day after being attacked onstage by an ex-convict at a charity event, it was reported on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Maciej Kosycarz, File) People line up to donate blood for Gdansk Mayor Adamowicz, who is in critical condition and needs blood transfusions after being stabbed in the heart and abdomen on stage during a charity event the evening before, in Gdansk, Poland, Monday Jan. 14, 2019. Doctors operated for five hours on Adamowicz after an ex-convict rushed onto the stage with a knife, carried out the attack and shouted it was political revenge against a political party Adamowicz previously belonged to. (Krzysztof Mystkowski / KFP via AP) POLAND AUT FILE - In this Monday, April 13, 2015 file photo, Pawel Adamowicz, the mayor of Gdansk, signs a condolence book in memory of German writer Guenter Grass, in Gdansk, Poland. Poland's health minister says that Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz has died from stab wounds a day after being attacked onstage by an ex-convict at a charity event, it was reported on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/ Maciej Kosycarz, File) FILE - July 16, 2013 file photo shows Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz as he visits the city hall of Luebeck, northern Germany. Poland's health minister says that Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz has died from stab wounds a day after being attacked onstage by an ex-convict at a charity event. (Markus Scholz/dpa via AP) People place candles as they mourn the mayor of Gdansk, Pawel Adamowicz, in Gdansk, Poland, on Jan. 14, 2019. Poland's president says a national day of mourning will be observed when a mayor who was fatally stabbed at a charity event is buried. President Andrzej Duda opened a news conference with a minute of silence in memory of Adamowicz, who died Monday from the stab wounds he suffered on Sunday night. (AP Photo/Wojciech Strozyk) People hold lit candles in a memorial march for Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, in Warsaw, Poland, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. People in Poland are gathering for solemn vigils to honor Gdansk Mayor, 53-year-old Pawel Adamowicz. who died Monday after being stabbed at a fundraising event the night before. There were vigils in Warsaw and other cities across a nation shocked by the assassination. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) JOHANNESBURG (AP) - Zimbabwe's military deployed in several areas of the capital, Harare, Monday, to put down anti-government demonstrations against President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government. This is the second time that the military has been called in to put down protests since Mnangagwa came to power in late 2017. Both times the military opened fire and wounded civilian bystanders. WHY DOES THE MILITARY SUPPORT MNANGAGWA? Zimbabwe's well-trained and well-equipped military brought President Emmerson Mnangagwa to power in November, 2017, when it put former longtime leader Robert Mugabe under house arrest and patrolled the streets of Harare. Although Mugabe, who ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years, was supported by the military, Mnangagwa's government has greater military involvement. Former army commander Constantino Chiwenga is now vice president and at least two other former high-ranking military officers are in the Cabinet. The military is committed to keeping Mnangagwa in power. The military rolled out onto the streets of Harare in August 2018 to put down protests against delays in announcing the election results. The military opened fire and 6 civilians were killed, some of them bystanders. Riot police are seen on a street during a demonstration over the hike in fuel prices in Harare, Zimbabwe, Monday, an. 14, 2019. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has more than doubled the price of gasoline, hoping the increase will end severe shortages that are fueling public anger even as he departs on a foreign trip to Russia and other countries in search of investment. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) Police and soldiers used "unjustified and disproportionate" force in that incident, according to an official inquiry, which did not recommend criminal charges. HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT FROM WHEN MUGABE RULED? There were some anti-Mugabe protests during his lengthy rule, but they were quickly put down, generally by the national police force, especially the special anti-riot unit. The police frequently fired tear gas and rubber bullets and arrested people by the truckloads. The police invoked draconian laws that outlawed public gatherings of more than 3 people without prior police approval. Mugabe also operated a network of state security within Zimbabwe, the Central Intelligence Organization, which had agents throughout the country. With effective intelligence, most demonstrations were dispersed by police before a crowd could even gather. Some prominent government critics were arrested, tortured and at least one was never seen again. Considerable violence was meted out by militias loyal to Mugabe, that were not part of the police or military but permitted to maraud with impunity. However, it was rare for the military to be deployed and open fire in the cities. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa Protestors gather on the streets during demonstrations over the hike in fuel prices in Harare, Zimbabwe, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Protesters have blocked roads in some parts in Zimbabwe's capital after the government more than doubled the price of gasoline. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) Riot police on the streets during protests over the hike in fuel prices in Harare, Zimbabwe, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Zimbabwean police on Monday fired tear gas in suburbs of the capital an attempt to disperse angry demonstrators who burned tires and threw stones to protest fuel price hikes. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) Zimbabwe soldiers are placed where police are clashing with protestors over fuel hikes in Harare, Zimbabwe, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Zimbabwean police on Monday fired tear gas in suburbs of the capital an attempt to disperse angry demonstrators who burned tires and threw stones to protest fuel price hikes. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) BAGHDAD (AP) - France is committing $1 billion euros ($1.15 billion) to help Iraq rebuild after its war against the Islamic State group, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Monday. Le Drian was in Baghdad on a busy day that also saw Iraq's top officials receiving King Abdullah II of Jordan. The French diplomat said the aid would go to rebuilding Iraq's most devastated areas. He also promised that France would support Iraq's stability, while seeking a rapid "political exit" from Syria, where France has deployed an estimated 200 troops in the battle against the extremist group. "The situation in Syria has to stabilize, and we have to eliminate terrorism," Le Drian said at a press conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohamed Alhakim France is a member of the U.S.-led international coalition that has defeated the group in most of its territory in Iraq and Syria. Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohamed Alhakim, right, shakes hands with visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Ali Abdul Hassan) U.S. President Donald Trump surprised allies last month when he announced he was pursuing a complete military withdrawal from Syria. On Saturday, the U.S. began pulling equipment, but not troops, out of the country. An estimated 2,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Syria. Iraq's Planning Ministry last year estimated the cost of reconstruction at $88 billion. The country was able to raise $30 billion at a donor conference in Kuwait in February. Alhakim thanked France for its assistance to Iraq's minority Yezidi community. Islamic State militants enslaved and killed thousands of Yezidis during their brief reign in north Iraq earlier this decade. King Abdullah II met with Iraqi President Barham Salih and Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi. It was his first visit to the country in a decade. The king and prime minister discussed regional and bilateral issues, Abul-Mahdi's office said in a statement. ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - A former correctional officer has been sentenced to a decade in prison after pleading guilty to bribery and conspiracy, marking the end of a two-year investigation into corruption inside Maryland's prisons. Phillipe Jordan Jr. was sentenced Friday. Prosecutor Emmet Davitt announced Monday that all but three and a half years of his 10-year term was suspended, and he'll also need to complete five years of supervised probation. Jordan was arrested in October 2017, shortly after prosecutors say he met with the twin sister of an inmate incarcerated at the Jessup Correctional Institution and received a $2,000 bribe to smuggle in heroin, synthetic marijuana and nine cellphones. A total of 18 people including another former correctional officer pleaded guilty as a result of the investigation. NEW ORLEANS (AP) - President Donald Trump urged farmers Monday to stick with him even as many grapple with the impact of his trade war with China and the partial government shutdown. "No one understands better than our great farmers that the tough choices we make today reap rewards for centuries to come," Trump said, adding that their "greatest harvest" is yet to come. "We're doing trade deals that are going to get you so much business, you're not even going to believe it," he said. Trump, in an address to the 100th annual convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said the American heartland largely supported him in 2016 and pledged that his policies would ultimately help the agriculture industry despite short-term pain. The president devoted much of his hourlong address to defending his decision to hold out for billions of dollars to build his long-promised wall at the southern border, which has resulted in an impasse with Congress and the longest government shutdown in history. Trump said the wall was needed to cut down on illegal immigration, even though border crossings have fallen in recent years, and he said that it would lead to immigration reform that would help farmers get the workers they need for their fields. President Donald Trump speaks at the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention, Monday Jan. 14, 2019, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) "You need people to help you with the farms," Trump said. "It's going to be easier for them to get in." Despite Trump's assurances, many farmers are feeling the pinch from his policies. The Agriculture Department, which is affected by the shutdown, is scrambling to blunt its impact on America's farmers. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue last week extended the deadline for growers hurt by Trump's trade war with China to apply for federal aid meant to offset their losses. But some farmers will still have to wait until after the government reopens to see their checks. In addition, the Farm Service Agency, which distributes loans to farmers, has been shuttered since the first week of the shutdown. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a statement, said Trump could help by signing a bipartisan bill passed by her Democratic-controlled House to reopen the Agriculture Department "instead of wasting farmers' time with empty words." The bill first must clear the Senate before it can get to Trump's desk, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is refusing to bring up individual House-passed government funding bills for a vote. About 500 demonstrators marched outside the convention center to protest the president, some holding signs that said "Open the Government Now" and "Deport Trump." But some farmers attending the convention said they continue to support Trump despite any difficulty they're feeling. Richard Musel, of Bennington, Nebraska, a corn and soybean farmer, described business as "marginal" but said he doesn't blame Trump. Musel said Trump has been good to farmers and had no choice but to get tough with China. He criticized Democrats for refusing to fund the wall. "He's asking for such a small amount." Musel said of the president. Lemuel and Shelby Ricks grow cotton, soybeans, wheat and peanuts on their farm in Conway, North Carolina. They said they've been hurt by low commodity prices and the shutdown. They can't apply for financial aid the federal government is giving farmers hurt by Trump's trade policies because of the shutdown. The Rickses said they voted for Trump and will again in 2020, contending the country will benefit from his policies in the long run. "We're not giving up on him now," Shelby Ricks said. Despite Trump's lofty promises, there has been great unease in the agricultural community over the ongoing trade dispute with China. Retaliatory tariffs put in place by Beijing have slammed American farmers, many of whom were Trump supporters, and a federal government bailout to the industry has had limited impact. Moreover, despite a pledge to put "farmers first," his new trade deal with Canada and Mexico, which is meant to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, has yet to be approved by Congress and now potentially faces longer odds to win passage in the House. ___ Associated Press writers Rebecca Santana and Stacey Plaisance in New Orleans and Juliet Linderman and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report. President Donald Trump speaks at the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention, Monday Jan. 14, 2019, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) President Donald Trump speaks at the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention, Monday Jan. 14, 2019, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) President Donald Trump speaks at the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention, Monday Jan. 14, 2019, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) President Donald Trump speaks at the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention, Monday Jan. 14, 2019, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) President Donald Trump speaks at the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention, Monday Jan. 14, 2019, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) President Donald Trump speaks at the American Farm Bureau Federation convention in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) President Donald Trump speaks at the American Farm Bureau Federation convention in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) President Donald Trump speaks at the American Farm Bureau Federation convention in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) President Donald Trump speaks at the American Farm Bureau Federation convention in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) President Donald Trump watches as jim Chilton, a rancher from the Arizona, speaks at the American Farm Bureau Federation convention in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) President Donald Trump acknowledges the crowd after speaking at the American Farm Bureau Federation convention in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) President Donald Trump is greeted by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., left, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., center, and Agriculture Sec. Sonny Purdue, right, on arrival at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, in Kenner, La., Monday Jan. 14, 2019, before traveling to New Orleans to speak at the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) President Donald Trump greets supporters on arriving at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, in Kenner, La., Monday Jan. 14, 2019, en route to New Orleans to address the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th annual convention. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Monday Jan. 14, 2019, en route to New Orleans. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) President Donald Trump talks with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before departing for the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci) President Donald Trump walks to greet supporters after arriving on Air Force One at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, in Kenner, La., Monday Jan. 14, 2019 en route to New Orleans to speak at the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Members of the media walk across the tarmac to board Air Force One ahead of President Donald Trump's arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Monday Jan. 14, 2019, en route to New Orleans. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - A Romanian civic group has alleged that a top official illegally issued a certificate for a prosecutor saying that she hadn't collaborated with the communist-era secret police. The Alliance for Fighting Abuses filed a criminal complaint with prosecutors Monday claiming Constantin Buchet, chairman of the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives, had bypassed the council's board and issued a certificate himself. Six board members publicly said they hadn't been consulted on Adina Florea, a regional prosecutor being pushed by the ruling Social Democrats to be the country's next chief anti-corruption prosecutor. The non-governmental group accused Buchet of misconduct and forgery. He has not replied to a request for comment. President Klaus Iohannis says he can't appoint Florea until he gets a guarantee that she didn't collaborate with the Securitate. WASHINGTON (AP) - House Democrats announced a sweeping investigation Monday of the pharmaceutical industry's pricing practices, jockeying for the upper hand with the Trump administration on an issue that concerns Americans across the political spectrum. Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings said he's sent letters to 12 major drugmakers seeking detailed information and documents about pricing practices for brand-name drugs to treat diseases including cancer, diabetes, kidney failure and nerve pain. Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, said he wants to find out why prices have increased so dramatically for some existing medications, as well as how drug companies determine the prices of newly introduced medicines. The committee also is seeking information on what the manufacturers do with revenue and what steps can be taken to reduce prescription drug costs. "Research and development efforts on groundbreaking medications have made immeasurable contributions to the health of Americans," Cummings said. "But the ongoing escalation of prices by drug companies is unsustainable." The committee, which has broad jurisdiction and subpoena power, is planning to hold hearings. The Trump administration has been pursuing its own plan to lower drug prices by approving more generic medications and trying to do away with industry practices that allow manufacturers, insurers and pharmacy benefit managers to profit at the consumer's expense. But independent analysts have said the administration's approach does not stop companies from charging high prices to begin with, particularly for brand-name medications with no generic competitors. Polls regularly show that high drug prices are a major concern for consumers, and that majorities favor government action regardless of political party identification. FILE - In this Jan. 4, 2019, file photo Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., speaks at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Jan. 4, 2019. Leading congressional liberals are unveiling a package of bills that aims to reduce what Americans pay for prescription drugs by linking prices to lower costs in other countries. Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and Cummings plan to introduce three bills Thursday, Jan. 10. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) Last week, Cummings and other prominent liberals introduced legislation that would tie U.S. prices to what consumers pay in other economically advanced countries, where governments regulate prices. The Trump administration has been moving in the same general direction, with an experiment that would involve a limited set of medications, those administered in a doctor's office. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America had no immediate response to Cummings' announcement, but the trade group has previously said that price regulation would "wreak havoc" on the U.S. health care system by undermining the financial incentives for companies to undertake costly research in pursuit of breakthrough medications. The list of companies on the receiving end of Cummings' demand reads like an industry who's who. Included are Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Eli Lilly, the former employer of current U.S. health secretary Alex Azar. Among the drugs Cummings wants to find out about are Gleevec, a widely used cancer treatment from Novartis; Nexium, Pfizer's gastric reflux medication, Humalog, a type of insulin from Eli Lilly, and Crestor, AstraZenaca's cholesterol-lowering medication. A majority of U.S. adults take prescription medication, in most cases affordable generics. But the high cost of some brand-name drugs has alarmed consumers. A few years ago, the hepatitis C cure Sovaldi made headlines when it was selling for $1,000 a pill. Cancer treatments can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year. Patients are not covered by insurance for all costs, and sometimes doctors and insurers disagree about the best approach for treatment, adding to stress for families. The House Oversight committee has a track record of investigating issues of national significance under leadership from both parties. But it can also devolve into a forum of pursuing partisan agendas. BERLIN (AP) - The head of Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party says German companies working on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project with Russia shouldn't be intimidated by a letter from U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell suggesting they could be risking sanctions. The Trump administration has criticized the pipeline as a form of Russian control over Germany, and has said the U.S. could impose energy-related sanctions. Germany's Bild newspaper on Sunday printed a letter from Grenell cautioning companies that working on the project "could prompt a significant risk of sanctions." CDU head Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said Monday the companies "have offered the right response, which is that they won't allow themselves to be threatened and they won't allow this type of intervention." The U.S. Embassy says the letter "is not meant to be a threat but a clear message of U.S. policy." SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - Macedonia's parliament is weighing a diaspora group's request for a new referendum on the deal to change the country's name to North Macedonia in return for NATO, and potentially European Union, membership. A parliamentary committee gave preliminary approval on Monday to the request by the World Macedonian Congress. If the parliament speaker also agrees, the group would be cleared to collect the 150,000 signatures needed for the state electoral commission to allow the referendum. The group is challenging the relevance of a September referendum that showed overwhelming support for the name deal but had low voter turnout. Macedonia's parliament has ratified the agreement with Greece, and last week it also approved constitutional amendments to formalize the country's new name. MOSCOW (AP) - Guzel Yakhina's grandmother was a little girl when Soviet agents burst into her home and deported the whole family to the frozen woods of Siberia. Decades later, she shared those memories with her granddaughter, telling her of immense suffering and death, but also of resilience. Out of those conversations, was born "Zuleikha," Yakhina's widely acclaimed debut novel that tells the story of love and friendship on the brink of death in Josef Stalin's camps. The novel became a national best seller, received two prestigious literary awards in Russia, and has been translated into more than 20 languages. In February, "Zuleikha" comes out in English from Oneworld Publications, an independent global publisher based in London. More than four decades after Alexander Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel prize for exposing the horrors of Stalin's purges, Russian literature is again returning to the subject, examining an unhealed wound. The renewed interest comes as many Russians are dismayed by the efforts of some officials to gloss over Stalin's crimes and paint him in a positive light. "Russian society suffered a great deal of trauma during the early Soviet period and unfortunately you cannot work through this trauma very quickly," Yakhina said in an interview in a Moscow cafe over the summer. In the book, Zuleikha, a slender 30-year-old Muslim woman, lives in a Tatar village in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s, a near-slave to her abusive husband and cruel mother-in-law. She knows no love, no warmth and her world is limited to the confines of her village. "Lie still, woman," orders Zuleikha's husband Murtaza, as he beats her with a broom for a transgression she did not commit, but then he cools off quickly. "She was given a good husband after all," Zuleikha reminds herself. In this photo taken on Thursday, June 21, 2018, Guzel Yakhina smiles during her interview to the Associated Press in Moscow, Russia. Yakhina's grandmother was a little girl when Soviet agents burst into her home and deported the whole family to the frozen woods of Siberia. Decades later, she shared those memories with her granddaughter, telling her of immense suffering and death, but also of resilience. (AP Photo/Maria Danilova) Written in a rich and highly visual prose, the novel is interspersed with Tatar words, as Yakhina pays tribute to her heritage and painstakingly recreates the fabric of Tatar life of the time when men and women lived in separate quarters and where Zuleikha prays both to Allah and to pagan spirits. The book is translated into English by Lisa Hayden. That life ends for Zuleikha when Red Army soldiers show up to confiscate Murtaza's property and force him to join a collective farm. When he refuses, blood is spilled and Zuleikha is taken away. Much like Yakhina's grandmother, Zuleikha spends months traversing the vast Soviet empire by sled, in overcrowded train cars, and then by boat only to be left on the barren bank of the Angara River with just a handful of fellow "heads," as they are referred to, who survived the journey. The deportees dig pit-houses to hide from Siberia's merciless cold and feed off what they can find in the forest. Many still die. "She told me scary things, but on the other hand, she told me about some warm moments," Yakhina said of her grandmother. "The warmest moment was friendship, a very peculiar kind which is stronger than family ties." Yakhina, 41, petite and soft-spoken, was born in Kazan, the capital of the mostly Muslim Russian province of Tatarstan, to an engineer and a doctor. Yakhina moved to Moscow to work in public relations, but her grandmother's story was always on her mind. The woman's death eight years ago finally gave Yakhina the determination to quit her job and devote herself fully to writing. Unlike Solzhenitsyn, Varlam Shalamov and other Soviet authors whose books are based on their first-hand experience in the camps, Yakhina offers a new perspective, trying to examine that period from a distance and relying on her grandmother's recollections and archive materials. Zuleikha's story is one of injustice and pain, but also of a woman's emancipation and renewal. "For the modern reader, I think, it is very important to understand how light and total darkness existed at the same time," said Russian literary critic Galina Yuzefovich. "How people who lived in Stalin's hell had the courage to fall in love, have children and simply live." In recent years, Stalin has been making a comeback in the public eye in Russia, with monuments erected in several cities and his face dotting souvenir stands. Russian president Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that Stalin killed millions of his compatriots, but at the same time warned against "demonizing" him. "Stalin is a tyrant and his rule was a tyranny and this is what my books are about," Yakhina said. But despite all that her grandmother lived through, Yakhina said that the older woman loved and respected Stalin, something that Yakhina is still trying to grasp. "This silent generation absorbed all the hardships of the early Soviet years and preferred to remain silent in order to protect us," Yakhina said. "Now we want to make sense of all that on our own. I want to tear through this veil of silence." LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Latest on a strike by Los Angeles teachers (all times local): 2:35 p.m. California's new governor is urging Los Angeles teachers and school officials to resume contract negotiations and end a massive strike by educators in the nation's second-largest school district. Gov. Gavin Newsom says in a statement Monday that the impasse is "disrupting the lives of too many kids and their families." Thousands of teachers are walking picket lines in pouring rain after their union failed to reach a deal with the Los Angeles Unified School District on issues including salary and class sizes. Schools remain open. Superintendent Austin Beutner told a news conference that some schools are well-attended, and others aren't. Thousands of teachers and supporters hold signs in the rain during a rally Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) Mayor Eric Garcetti tells KNX News Radio in Los Angeles that the city has deployed additional police and other resources to keep kids safe. ___ 11:15 a.m. Thousands of teachers striking the nation's second-largest school district are rallying in downtown Los Angeles despite rain sweeping across Southern California. The teachers plan to march from City Hall to the headquarters of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Teachers went on strike Monday after lengthy contract negotiations failed. Superintendent Austin Beutner told a news conference that all 1,240 K-12 schools are open and students are safe and learning. Beutner says about 3,500 people are protesting outside schools and those rallies have been peaceful. The superintendent says the district is ready to resume bargaining anytime. ___ 9:50 a.m. The Los Angeles Unified School District says all elementary, middle and high schools are open despite a strike by the teachers union. Superintendent Austin Beutner tells KCBS-TV it will be a normal day, with buses picking up students who will be learning. Members of United Teachers Los Angeles started picket lines Monday morning after lengthy negotiations with the nation's second-largest school district failed. Some parents and their children have joined teachers protesting outside schools. ___ 7:40 a.m. Tens of thousands of Los Angeles teachers are striking after contentious contract negotiations failed in the nation's second-largest school district. Members of United Teachers Los Angeles voted last year to walk off the job for the first time in 30 years if a deal wasn't reached on issues including higher wages and smaller class sizes. The strike began Monday. Months of talks between the union and Los Angeles Unified School District ended without a deal. Schools will stay open. The district has hired hundreds of substitutes to replace teachers and others who leave for picket lines. The district says the union's demands could bankrupt the school system. It's projecting a half-billion-dollar deficit this budget year and has billions obligated for pension payments and health coverage for retired teachers. ___ 9:30 p.m. Tens of thousands of Los Angeles teachers are planning to strike Monday. The teachers' union rejected an offer Friday from the LA Unified School District, calling the proposal "woefully inadequate." The district proposed a 6 percent salary increase over the first two years of a three-year contract. The United Teachers Los Angeles says it wants a 6.5 percent hike that would take effect all at once and be retroactive to fiscal 2017. With no new talks scheduled, pickets are likely to begin at 7 a.m. Schools will remain open. The district hired substitutes to replace staffers who leave schools for picket lines. Teachers and supporters hold signs in the rain during a rally Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, in Los Angeles. Tens of thousands of Los Angeles teachers went on strike Monday for the first time in three decades after contract negotiations failed in the nation's second-largest school district, but schools stayed open with the help of substitutes and district officials said students were learning. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Authorities in Latvia have confiscated two tons of cocaine with a street value of a billion euros ($1.15 billion), the largest seizure ever in the Baltic country. Criminal Police Chief Andrejs Grisins told the Baltic News Agency that the drug, which originated from Ecuador, was hidden in 42 cardboard boxes in Koknese, a town some 90 kilometers (56 miles) southwest of Riga. Grisnis said five Latvian citizens were detained, including one with a previous conviction for smuggling and money laundering. He told the news agency Monday the drug was not intended for the Latvian market but did not say where it was headed. He added the shipment was found Jan. 8 in cooperation with U.S. and Ecuadorian authorities. BEIJING (AP) - China's 2018 trade surplus with the United States surged to a record $323.3 billion, but exports contracted in December as the delayed impact of President Donald Trump's tariff hikes started to hurt demand. Exports to the United States in 2018 rose 11.3 percent to $478.4 billion despite Trump's punitive duties in a fight over Chinese technology ambitions, customs data showed Monday. Imports of American goods rose just 0.7 percent over 2017, reflecting Beijing's retaliatory tariffs and encouragement to importers to buy more from non-U.S. suppliers. In December, Chinese exports to the United States that had held up through much of the year fell 3.5 percent from a year earlier to $40.3 billion. Sales to the U.S. market had kept growing by double digits in previous months as Chinese exporters rushed to fill orders. But forecasters said American orders would slump once the full impact of Trump's penalties hit. "Export growth has slowed down dramatically," noted Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "There's plenty of anecdotal evidence of layoffs in export-dependent provinces," including Guangdong on the south China coast. Lardy said he suspects that many migrant workers won't return from their home villages to factory jobs at the end of Chinese New Year next month, either because they have been laid off or are waiting to see what happens to the economy. The slowdown adds to pressure on Beijing to resolve the battle with Trump at a time when the ruling Communist Party also is trying to reverse an economic slowdown. In this Jan. 10, 2019, photo released by Xinhua News Agency, a worker checks on a soybean food at a processing factory in Xiaotun Township of Dafang County in Bijie, southwest China's Guizhou Province. China's trade growth slowed in 2018 as a tariff battle with Washington heated up and global consumer demand weakened. Exports rose 7.1 percent, customs data showed Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 down from the 7.9 percent reported earlier for 2017. Import growth declined to 12.9 percent from the previous year's 15.9 percent. (Luo Dafu/Xinhua via AP) "The external environment is still complicated and severe," a customs agency spokesman, Li Kuiwen, said at a news conference. Li cited dangers including "protectionism and unilateralism" - a reference to Trump's import controls - a possible slowdown in global economic growth and a decline in cross-border investment. U.S. and Chinese officials ended a three-day negotiating session last week with no sign of agreements or word on what their next step would be. "The record U.S. trade deficit with China will sit uncomfortably with the Trump administration," Nick Marro of the Economist Intelligence Unit said in a report. "That may cast a shadow over the next round of trade talks." Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, agreed on Dec. 1 to postpone additional tariff hikes by 90 days while they negotiated. But penalties of up to 25 percent already imposed on billions of dollars of each other's goods remain in place, raising the cost for American and Chinese buyers of soybeans, medical equipment and other goods. Trump is pressing Beijing to roll back plans for state-led creation of Chinese champions in robotics and other tech fields. Washington, Europe and other trading partners complain such policies violate its market-opening obligations. Chinese officials have suggested initiatives such as "Made in China 2025" might be opened to foreign companies, but they refuse to abandon strategies they see as a path to prosperity and more global influence. Chinese leaders are trying to reduce reliance on trade and nurture self-sustaining economic growth based on domestic consumer spending. But their plans call for keeping exports stable to avoid politically dangerous job losses. Some companies have shifted production of goods bound for the United States out of China to avoid Trump's tariffs. Others are lining up non-Chinese suppliers of industrial components. December's trade contraction is "like to continue into 2019 due to falling foreign demand, including demand for Chinese-made electronic products," Iris Pang of ING said in a report. Pang noted Chinese imports of more advanced technology for use in manufacturing smartphones and other higher-technology products declined 14.9 percent in December, nearly double the size of the contraction in overall trade. That likely is due in part to "foreign companies avoiding using China-made electronic components," said Pang in a report. In December, China's global exports shrank 4.5 percent to $221.2 billion while imports declined 7.2 percent to $164.2 billion. For the full year, global exports rose 7.1 percent to $2.5 trillion, down from the 7.9 percent rate for 2017. Imports rose 12.9 percent to $2.1 trillion, down from the previous year's 15.9 percent. The country's global trade surplus was $352 billion, a marked drop from 2017's $509.7 billion. That reflects relatively stronger Chinese economic growth and consumer demand compared with its trading partners. Given Trump's frustration with China's huge trade gap with the United States, the latest data might fuel demands by hardliners in Washington to punish Beijing. Still, Louis Kuijs of Oxford Economics says he expects Washington to extend its 90-day deadline following the "positive vibes" of last week's talks. "We do not see the U.S. fully removing the specter of tariff hikes any time soon," he said in a report. But a deal for "a more lasting suspension of new tariffs" looks more likely. ___ General Administration of Customs of China (in Chinese): www.customs.gov.cn ___ AP Economics Writer Paul Wiseman in Washington contributed to this report. In this Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, photo, containers are loaded onto a cargo ship at a port in Qingdao in east China's Shandong province. China's trade growth slowed in 2018 as a tariff battle with Washington heated up and global consumer demand weakened. Exports rose 7.1 percent, customs data showed Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, down from the 7.9 percent reported earlier for 2017. Import growth declined to 12.9 percent from the previous year's 15.9 percent. (Chinatopix via AP) In this Jan. 1, 2019, photo, a worker pulls a roll of fabric at a dyeing factory in Hangzhou in east China's Zhejiang province. China's trade growth slowed in 2018 as a tariff battle with Washington heated up and global consumer demand weakened. Exports rose 7.1 percent, customs data showed Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, down from the 7.9 percent reported earlier for 2017. Import growth declined to 12.9 percent from the previous year's 15.9 percent. (Chinatopix via AP) German automaker Volkswagen said Monday its factory in Tennessee will be the focus of an $800 million investment in the company's manufacturing of electric vehicles in North America, a sign of a growing push into the electric car market by European companies. Volkswagen made a couple of announcements that it will expand its plant in Chattanooga and create 1,000 jobs there as the factory gears up for electric vehicle production beginning in 2022. The company issued a news release and disclosed the expansion at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The factory in Tennessee's fourth largest city will produce a vehicle using a modular chassis the company has said will help build electric vehicles for the mass market. Volkswagen currently builds two vehicles in Chattanooga, the midsize Atlas SUV and the Passat sedan. The company announced in March a $340 million investment in Chattanooga to build the five-seat version of the Atlas, the Atlas Cross Sport. Volkswagen said last week it posted an annual sales record in 2018. The company has paid more than more than $31 billion in fines and settlements after it was caught installing software that let cars cheat on U.S. diesel emissions tests. European manufacturers need to sell more battery-powered cars to meet tougher European Union limits on carbon dioxide emissions that become effective in 2021. Automakers like VW, Daimler and BMW risk financial penalties if they can't meet requirements for lower average emissions. Wolfsburg, Germany-based Volkswagen said it plans to commit almost $50 billion through 2023 toward the development and production of electric vehicles and digital services. Dr. Herbert Diess, CEO, Volkswagen AG, left, watches Bill Haslam, Governor of Tennessee show his shirt during media previews for the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Jeff Schuster, an analyst at LMC Automotive, said the European regulations and the emissions scandal likely influenced VW's decision to bring electric vehicle production to Chattanooga. "The market was moving away from diesel," Schuster said. "The scandal essentially accelerated that trend. The most obvious solution is electrification." Electric vehicles are taking on a more important role globally, Schuster said. Among European brands, Mercedes, Audi, BMW and VW are "leading the charge toward a higher proportion of their models being electrified," the analyst said. President Donald Trump and executives from VW and Germany's other biggest automakers discussed the companies' investments in the U.S. in December. Trump has been trying to pressure the German automakers into opening more factories in the U.S. and has threatened tariffs on imported vehicles. Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen AG, said in a statement that the plant in Chattanooga "is a key part of our growth strategy in North America." The facility sits on 1,400 acres (560 hectares) and currently employs about 3,500 people. At the Detroit auto show, Diess said the automaker can also expand more rapidly than building a new facility elsewhere - though he sees "pros and cons" to the decision. "It's not easy to attract further labor there - the labor market is a constraint," he said. "Still, we have invested a lot, we have a lot of governmental support there, a strong team there. It makes more sense to increase capacity in Chattanooga." Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, whose term ends in days, said in a statement that VW's expansion in Chattanooga "underscores Tennessee's manufacturing strength and highly-skilled workforce." Two other automakers, General Motors and Nissan, have large manufacturing plants in the state. More than 900 auto suppliers, including large ones such as Hankook Tire and Bridgestone Americas, operate in Tennessee, officials said. ___ Associated Press writer Jeff Karoub in Detroit contributed to this report. PINEVILLE, N.C. (AP) - Police say a fatal shooting at a North Carolina mall resulted from an ongoing dispute between the victim and the employee accused of shooting him. Pineville Police Lt. Corey Copley said in an email that the employee turned himself in shortly after the shooting Sunday at Carolina Place Mall south of Charlotte. Police identified the victim as 24-year-old Khali Amir Holmes of Charlotte. Investigators believe Holmes started a fight with the employee in the DTLR store. Police say the employee shot Holmes during the confrontation, and Holmes' body was found inside the store. Copley says charges haven't been filed, and the suspect's name hasn't been released. Police say the mall has reopened and is safe. BEIJING (AP) - The latest on a death sentence imposed by a Chinese court on a Canadian citizen (all times local): 8:10 a.m. Canada has updated its travel advisory for China to warn Canadians of "the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws." The move comes after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed extreme concern over a court in China imposing the death penalty on a Canadian. A Chinese court announced Monday that it had given Robert Lloyd Schellenberg of Canada the death penalty on drug charges. The Chinese press began publicizing Schellenberg's case after Canada detained the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. The U.S. wants Meng Wanzhou extradited to face charges that she committed fraud by misleading banks about the company's business dealings in Iran. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses the media in Ottawa, Ontario on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. A Chinese court sentenced Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a Canadian man to death Monday in a sudden retrial in a drug smuggling case. Trudeau said he is extremely concerned that China chose to "arbitrarily" apply the death penalty to a Canadian citizen. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP) Since then, China has arrested two Canadians in apparent retaliation for Meng's arrest. It detained former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor on suspicion of endangering China's national security. Canada has called the arrests arbitrary and demanded the men's immediate release. ___ 11 p.m. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he is extremely concerned that China has chosen to "arbitrarily" apply the death penalty against a Canadian. The comments are Trudeau's strongest yet against China. The prime minister says he is "extremely concerned as should all countries around the world" that China is choosing to act arbitrarily with its justice system and with its choice not to respect longstanding practices regarding diplomatic immunity. A Chinese court announced Monday that it had given Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg the death penalty on drug charges. The Chinese press began publicizing Schellenberg's case in December after Canada detained Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. Since then, China has arrested two Canadians in apparent retaliation for Meng's arrest. It arrested both Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, on suspicion of endangering national security. A former Canadian ambassador to China, Guy Saint-Jacques, believes the Chinese likely interrogated Kovrig about his time as a diplomat in China and that would break the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations. He says there is a notion of residual diplomatic immunity that means a country is not allowed to question someone on the work they did when they were a diplomat. ___ 9:45 p.m. A Chinese court sentenced a Canadian man to death Monday in a sudden retrial in a drug smuggling case that is likely to escalate tensions between the countries over the arrest of a top Chinese technology executive. The court in northeastern Liaoning province announced that it had given Robert Lloyd Schellenberg the death penalty after rejecting his plea of innocence and convicting him of being an accessory to drug smuggling. It gave no indication that the penalty could be commuted, but Schellenberg's fate is likely to be drawn into diplomatic negotiations over China's demand for the top executive's release. Schellenberg was detained more than four years ago and initially sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2016. But suddenly last month, an appeals court agreed with prosecutors who said the sentence was too lenient, and scheduled Monday's retrial with just four days' notice. The Chinese press began publicizing Schellenberg's case in December after Canada detained Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. Since then, China has arrested two Canadians in apparent retaliation for Meng's arrest. VATICAN CITY (AP) - A delegation of Chilean bishops met Monday with Pope Francis a year after he threw his papacy into turmoil by defending a Chilean bishop accused of covering for a notorious sexual predator. The five-member permanent committee of the Chilean bishops' conference requested Monday's meeting to brief Francis on its efforts to address the clergy sex abuse crisis in the South American country and chart a future course. "It's a long process," the secretary-general of the bishops' conference, Bishop Fernando Ramos, told reporters after the meeting, which included lunch and lasted for nearly three hours. "All institutions in Chile have lost a lot of credibility, the church included, not just for cultural reasons but because of our own sins and crimes that were committed inside the church." The pope's January 2018 trip to Chile fueled a crisis of confidence in the Chilean Church and the Vatican hierarchy, given the mounting claims of sex abuse and cover-up that were dismissed for years. After returning home, Francis commissioned an investigation, admitted he had been was wrong about the accused bishop, Juan Barros, and pressured every active Chilean bishop to resign. To date, the pope has accepted seven of those resignations, but several more are expected. Two members of the delegation, for example, are under investigation by Chilean prosecutors for their alleged roles in the cover-up. Bishop Fernando Ramos, Secretary General Episcopal Conference of Chile, receives media attention near the Vatican, in Rome Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. A delegation of Chilean bishops has met with Pope Francis a year after he threw his papacy into turmoil by defending a Chilean bishop accused of covering for a notorious sexual predator. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Ramos claimed the resignation offers expired after three months, but a Vatican official has said there's no such expiration. Ramos described the meeting as "cordial" and "interesting." Francis has claimed he was misinformed about the Barros case by members of the Chilean hierarchy. Recently he removed the retired archbishop of Santiago, Cardinal Javier Errazuriz, from his inner cabinet. Bishop Fernando Ramos, Secretary General Episcopal Conference of Chile, receives media attention near the Vatican, in Rome Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. A delegation of Chilean bishops has met with Pope Francis a year after he threw his papacy into turmoil by defending a Chilean bishop accused of covering for a notorious sexual predator. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Bishop Fernando Ramos, Secretary General Episcopal Conference of Chile, receives media attention near the Vatican, in Rome Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. A delegation of Chilean bishops has met with Pope Francis a year after he threw his papacy into turmoil by defending a Chilean bishop accused of covering for a notorious sexual predator. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Framed by a Christmas tree, Pope Francis blesses the crowd as he recites the Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St.Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - When a police truck carrying men in uniform pulled into an impoverished neighborhood in the Haitian capital, residents thought it was an official operation. Maybe police were finally trying to head off a war between the gangs that run protection rackets in the market next to the sprawling collection of cinderblock shacks and low-rise public housing. Then the men opened fire. Joined by local gang members clad in black, they went house to house with long guns and machetes, pulling unarmed people into the narrow alleys and killing them with single shots or machete blows, witnesses told The Associated Press. "When I saw them I thought they were providing security but then I realized they were shooting at the population," said 55-year-old resident Marie-Lourdes Corestan. "They were shooting, and I was running to save my life." Witnesses, a human-rights group and a Catholic charity that collected bodies after the Nov. 13 massacre told The Associated Press that at least 21 men were slain over a 24-hour period in the La Saline neighborhood. Some residents and local rights groups say the killers were gang members working with corrupt police to seize territory in the La Saline gang war. But others accuse Haitian government officials of orchestrating the massacre to head off anti-corruption protests that often start in the neighborhood, an opposition stronghold. In this Dec. 10, 2018 photo, police guard an alleged gang member to keep the crowd from attacking him outside a police station in the La Saline slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Residents believe the arrested man is one of the perpetrators of a Nov. 13 massacre that killed at least 20 people in La Saline slum. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) What's certain is that the killings reveal a startling erosion of security in Haiti since U.N. peacekeepers ended their 13-year mandate in October 2017 because conditions on the island had supposedly improved. Port-au-Prince residents interviewed by the AP said the number of neighborhoods in the capital considered "no-go" zones controlled by armed gangs has grown to at least half a dozen since the departure of the heavily armed U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti. "These lawless zones are multiplying," said Marie-Yolene Gilles, head of a local rights group, Fondasyon Je Klere, which put the death toll as high as 25. "The authorities have said nothing," Gilles said. "They haven't even condemned this massacre." The U.N. force was sent to Haiti in 2004 after the overthrow of President Bertrand Aristide. It was replaced in 2017 by a smaller U.N. mission that has continued a police training program that has helped boost the number of Haitian officers from less than 4,000 during Aristide's time to more than 15,000 today. The police, however, are widely seen as corrupt, inefficient and ill-equipped to take on heavily armed gangs that often serve as enforcers of Haiti's fragmented political forces. U.N. officials said they expect to complete an investigation into the killings within weeks. "There were worrying episodes of violence in some of the most notorious neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, areas where state authority is limited," Helen Meagher La Lime, head of the U.N. Mission for Justice Support in Haiti, which replaced the U.N. peacekeeping force, told the U.N. Security Council last month. "Investigations by both the authorities and human-rights organizations are ongoing, and our human-rights service is also working to determine what happened." Thousands of people live in La Saline, many working in the neighboring market that sprawls for more than a mile and where vendors sell everything from produce trucked in from the countryside to used clothing imported from South Florida. Residents live in cinderblock homes with sheet metal roofs, many barely big enough to hold a single mattress. They cook over open fires in alleyways so narrow that two people can't pass without touching shoulders. Gangs of armed young men control the neighborhood, often pulling out pistols to resolve local squabbles. The gangs' main income comes from protection payments from market vendors and importers anxious to keep the road to a nearby port open, making control of La Saline a valuable franchise. Armed gangs have bought or stolen untold amounts of Haitian police gear in recent years, so the degree of official involvement in the La Saline massacre remains unclear. National Police chief Michel-Ange Gedeon said an investigation into the killings points to a gang fight, and he had suspended two officers accused by local civil rights groups of involvement in the massacre. "If there are police involved with gangs, we are going to fire them," he said. "If they are involved in human-rights violations we will turn them over to justice." One of the officers, Gregory Antoine, was gunned down last week in a crime blamed on rival gangsters, family members told a local radio station. The office of President Jovenel Moise did not respond to AP requests for comment. Joel Noel, a 28-year-old who describes himself as a community leader, said the armed men arrived in a truck marked with the insignia of a special tactical police unit trained by the U.N. and begun under former President Michel Martelly, a Moise ally. Corestan said some wore ski masks and carried machetes when they descended on the neighborhood at 3 p.m. She said she ran for her life when the attack began, leaving behind her 24-year-old son Edaud-Pierre, an aspiring DJ, who was unarmed and practicing mixing songs. She said neighbors told her the armed men killed him in cold blood. There are two police stations in La Saline and the surrounding area, but witnesses said neither sent officers to intervene. Gedeon, the police chief, said officers arrived after nightfall and surrounded the area but were unable to move in because it was dark. Police have since made one arrest in the case, he said. Morelle Lendor, a 33-year-old street vendor, said she was hiding in her shack with a man she knew only as Wuanito when two men knocked on the door. She recognized them as gang members from an adjoining neighborhood, wearing unmarked black uniforms, black caps and carrying long guns. She said they grabbed Wuanito, who was unarmed, and killed him with a single shot. Three weeks later, the bloodstain remained on the wall of her shack. Another resident, Miliana Louis, said her 22-year-old son James was killed by machete blows. "The majority of people who died were innocent people," said Raphael Louigene, a social worker at Fondation St. Luc, a Catholic charity that works in the slums of Port-au-Prince. He said that he and two clergy members collected 21 sets of male remains from the streets of La Saline in the days after the massacre, when neither police nor judiciary officials would enter the neighborhood. He said the victims had been shot or hacked with machetes and only eight full bodies were recovered because most had been burned or fed to pigs. Residents said at least one woman may also have been among the victims. Belande Louis, 33, said her 28-year-old sister Sandra disappeared on Nov. 13 and neighbors said she was killed by men with machetes. Louigene said the massacre appeared to result from a fight over the right to extort marketplace merchants after one gang pushed out another. "The group that was kicked out came back seeking revenge," Louigene said. "The police don't have the means to confront the gang guys." For some in La Saline, the explanation is more sinister. President Moise faces widespread discontent over his failure to pursue allegations that his ally, former president Martelly, embezzled more than $2 billion in proceeds from a Venezuelan program providing the Haitian government with heavily discounted oil that it resold at a hefty profit. La Saline is a longtime rallying point for anti-government protests and the massacre occurred four days before long-planned nationwide protests over the corruption allegations. Some residents and local rights groups accused Haitian government officials of orchestrating the attack by a rival gang to intimidate La Saline residents and prevent protests. "This is a political fight, said Noel, the local leader. "After they had control of the area, they went into people's homes and took them out and executed them." ___ Associated Press writer Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince contributed to this report. ___ Michael Weissenstein on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mweissenstein In this Dec. 13, 2018 photo, pictures, candles and flowers decorate an altar for the massacre victims during a memorial in the La Saline slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Eyewitnesses, a human-rights group and a Catholic charity that collected bodies after the Nov. 13 massacre told The Associated Press that at least 20 people, mostly men, were slain over a 24-hour period in La Saline. Another human-rights group put the toll far higher, at 59, but the AP was unable to corroborate that figure. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) In this Dec. 6, 2018 photo, Marie-Lourdes Corestan asks herself out loud how will she survive without her son, in his room after he was slain during the La Saline massacre in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Corestan, a 55-year-old mother of three, said a group of men arrived in a police truck in the afternoon on Nov. 13 wearing police uniforms and ski masks, some carrying machetes. "They were shooting, and I was running to save my life," she said. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) In this Nov. 21, 2018 photo, a burned body lies amid garbage at a pig farm where witnesses said some victims' of a massacre were thrown and eaten by swine in the La Saline slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Some observers say the killers were gangsters working with corrupt police to seize territory in the La Saline gang war, while others accuse Haitian government officials of orchestrating the Nov. 13 massacre to head off anti-corruption protests. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) In this Dec. 13, 2018 photo, Miliana Louis cries during a memorial for the victims of a massacre in the La Saline slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Louis said her 22-year-old son James was killed with a machete in the mass killing on Nov. 13, and his body fed to pigs. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) In this Dec. 16, 2018 photo, an armed gang member poses for a picture on the south side of La Saline slum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, almost a month after a massacre on Nov. 13. La Saline is mostly controlled by armed young men allied with opponents of President Jovenel Moise. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) In this Nov. 21, 2018 photo, homes that were burned to the ground during a massacre lay in ruins in the La Saline slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Around three in the afternoon on November 13th, men in police uniforms entered the neighborhood, going house to house, pulling unarmed people into the narrow alleys and executing them with single shots. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) In this Dec. 3, 2018 photo, police officer Garry Derosier presents to the press seized guns, bullets and other items taken from arrested gang members during a national police bust of a gang's base near La Saline slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti after a massacre in the slum. There are at least two police sub-stations in La Saline and the surrounding area, but witnesses said neither station sent officers to intervene as black-clad men went door to door pulling young men from their homes and killing them, often with a single shot to the head. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) In this Dec. 13, 2018 photo, Morelle Lendor, who survived the La Saline massacre and lost a friend, cries during a memorial ceremony for the victims in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The 33-year-old street vendor said she was hiding in her home on Nov. 13 with a friend named Wuanito when men knocked on the door who she recognized them as gangsters from an adjoining neighborhood. They pulled Wuanito from the shack and killed him with a single shot, Lendor explained. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) In this Nov. 21, 2018 photo, an armed civilian runs during a shootout between rival gangs trying to take control of the Croix-des-Bossales market on Boulevard Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a main commercial artery of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Residents say the gangs' main source of income is protection payments from merchants in the marketplace, and money from importers to avoid closures of the road to a nearby port, making control of La Saline a valuable franchise. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) In this Dec. 13, 2018 photo, Jeannette Jasmin, mother of 21-year-old Claudy Thomas, who Jasmine said was killed during a massacre that killed at least 20 people in the La Saline slum, cries during a memorial for the victims in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Victims were shot or hacked with machetes and only eight full bodies had been recovered for burial because most had been burned or fed to pigs, according to Raphael Louigene, social-work coordinator for a charity that works in the slums. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) In this Dec. 13, 2018 photo, Makileine Derosier cries out for justice during a memorial ceremony for the victims of the La Saline massacre in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Derosier, who works as a street vendor, said the attackers stole her day's earnings on the day of the massacre, and that her cousin Lasib died while she hid in a bathroom and managed to escape after dark. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) In this Dec. 10, 2018 photo, police arrest an alleged gang member whom residents of La Saline slum identify as one of the perpetrators of the massacre in their slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Nov. 13 massacre revealed a startling degradation of security in Haiti since UN peacekeepers ended their 13-year mandate last year because conditions on the island had supposedly improved. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) In this Dec. 10, 2018 photo, a resident shakes hands with police inspector Seraphin Frantz after police arrested an alleged gang member whom residents identify as one of the perpetrators of the massacre in the La Saline slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The police are widely seen as corrupt, inefficient and ill-equipped to take on heavily armed gangs that often serve as enforcers of Haiti's fragmented political forces. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) In this Dec. 13, 2018 photo, Wilky Coby, 16, who was shot four times but survived the La Saline massacre, holds up a candle during a memorial for the victims in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. United Nations officials said they expect to complete an investigation into the Nov. 13 La Saline massacre within weeks. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) In this Nov. 21, 2018 photo, human bones lay amid garbage at a pig farm where witnesses said bodies from a Nov. 13 massacre were thrown to feed the animals in the La Saline slum of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. "The majority of people who died were innocent people," said Raphael Louigene, the social-work coordinator for Fondation St. Luc, a Catholic charity that works in the slums of Port-au-Prince. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general on Tuesday defended his decision to send an unsolicited memo to the Justice Department criticizing an aspect of the special counsel's Russia investigation, saying he was simply trying to warn senior Justice Department officials against "stretching a statute" to conclude that the president had obstructed justice. William Barr's comments came at his Senate confirmation hearing, where he sought to provide assurance he would not undermine Robert Mueller's investigation. He said he doesn't believe Mueller, a friend of 30 years who once worked for him at the Justice Department, would be involved in a "witch hunt" - as Trump has labeled it. And he said he believed former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was right to recuse himself from matters involving the special counsel probe - a decision Trump railed against during Sessions' time in the office. Barr told the Senate Judiciary Committee he raised his concerns about Mueller's investigation into whether the president had tried to stymie the Russia probe at a lunch last year with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller and oversees his work. Rosenstein did not respond and was "sphinx-like," Barr recalled. He said he followed up with a memo to Rosenstein in June that argued that Mueller should not be able to interview the president about his decision to fire James Comey as FBI director. He said there were other instances in which he had given advice to the Justice Department, such as cautioning against a prosecution of Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez. Barr also told senators that "it is vitally important" that Mueller be allowed to complete his investigation, and said he believes Congress and the public should learn the results. He also insisted that Trump never sought any promises, assurances or commitments before selecting him to be the country's chief law enforcement officer. Attorney General nominee William Barr speaks before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. Barr will face questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday about his relationship with Trump, his views on executive powers and whether he can fairly oversee the special counsel's Russia investigation. Barr served as attorney general under George H.W. Bush. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) In releasing written testimony before the hearing, the Justice Department moved to pre-empt the most significant questions Barr is likely to face from Democrats on the panel - among them, whether he can oversee without bias or interference the final stages of Mueller's probe into potential ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign, and whether he will permit the findings to be made public. "I believe it is in the best interest of everyone - the president, Congress, and, most importantly, the American people - that this matter be resolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work," Barr said. The special counsel is required to report his findings confidentially to the Justice Department. Barr stopped short of directly pledging to release Mueller's report, but he expressed general support for disclosing the findings, whatever they may be. "For that reason, my goal will be to provide as much transparency as I can consistent with the law," Barr said. "I can assure you that, where judgments are to be made by me, I will make those judgments based solely on the law and will let no personal, political, or other improper interests influence my decisions." The remarks are intended to reassure Democratic senators troubled by Barr's past comments on the special counsel's probe, including the unsolicited memo. Barr also sent the memo to White House lawyers and discussed it with Trump's personal attorneys and a lawyer who represents Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, he said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Lindsey Graham. Copies also were sent by Barr to White House lawyer Emmet Flood, Solicitor General Noel Francisco and Pat Cipollone, who is now White House counsel. Barr said he discussed the contents of the memo with Trump's attorneys, Jay Sekulow and Jane and Martin Raskin. Barr also previously said the president's firing of Comey was appropriate and the Mueller prosecution team, criticized by Trump for including prosecutors who have contributed to Democrats, should have had more "balance." Those stances raised alarms that Barr could stifle the investigation as it reaches its final stages or make decisions that protect the president. Among the questions that he might confront if, as expected, he is confirmed would be whether to approve a subpoena for Trump if he refuses to answer additional questions, and whether to disclose to Congress whatever report or conclusions Mueller turns in. Barr's supervisory role in the Russia probe may be especially important because Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller and has overseen his day-to-day work, expects to leave the Justice Department soon after Barr is confirmed. It is not clear how much of the investigation will be left by then. Barr would replace acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, who declined to recuse himself from the investigation. Barr's June memo to top Justice Department officials criticized as "fatally misconceived" the theory of obstruction that Mueller appeared to be pursuing. He said presidents cannot be criminally investigated for actions they are permitted to take under the Constitution, such as firing officials who work for them, just because of a subjective determination that they may have had a corrupt state of mind. Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec has said Barr wrote the memo on his own initiative and relying only on publicly available information. She said senior ethics officials were consulted about the memo and have advised that it presents no conflict of interest to Barr's work as attorney general. Barr said the memo was narrowly focused on a single theory of obstruction that media reports suggested Mueller might be considering. Barr said he wrote it himself "as a former attorney general who has often weighed in on legal issues of public importance." "The memo did not address - or in any way question - the special counsel's core investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election," Barr said. ___ Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report. Read Barr's prepared testimony: http://apne.ws/x87UoUn Attorney General nominee William Barr testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. Barr will face questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday about his relationship with Trump, his views on executive powers and whether he can fairly oversee the special counsel's Russia investigation. Barr served as attorney general under George H.W. Bush. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Attorney General nominee William Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Attorney General nominee William Barr, right, testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. Barr will face questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday about his relationship with Trump, his views on executive powers and whether he can fairly oversee the special counsel's Russia investigation. Barr served as attorney general under George H.W. Bush. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Attorney General nominee William Barr speaks before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. Barr will face questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday about his relationship with Trump, his views on executive powers and whether he can fairly oversee the special counsel's Russia investigation. Barr served as attorney general under George H.W. Bush. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., accompanied by Ranking Member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., right, questions Attorney General nominee William Barr during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. Barr will face questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday about his relationship with Trump, his views on executive powers and whether he can fairly oversee the special counsel's Russia investigation. Barr served as attorney general under George H.W. Bush. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump on Monday denied he ever worked for Russia against U.S. interests, addressing an extraordinary question that has haunted his presidency and shows no sign of going away. Speaking from the South Lawn, Trump issued a flat denial: "I never worked for Russia." He blasted former FBI and Justice Department officials and repeated his claim that the investigation into his ties to Moscow is a hoax. Trump raised eyebrows over the weekend when he didn't directly answer the Russia question in an interview with Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, a personal friend. He was asked about a New York Times report that law enforcement officials began investigating, in 2017, whether Trump had been working on behalf of Russia against U.S. interests. Trump said the question was "insulting," but did not directly deny it. Monday's clear denial demonstrated the unprecedented pressure Trump faces as the special counsel's Russia investigation shows possible signs of wrapping up. After two years in office, the president is still being questioned about whether he was compromised by Russian intelligence agencies and he is still struggling to answer clearly. President Donald Trump talks with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before departing for the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention in New Orleans, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci) White House aides expressed regret over the weekend that the president did not more clearly and forcefully deny being a Russian agent on Saturday when asked by the usually friendly Fox News host, according to three White House aides and Republicans close to the White House. The three spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations. When Pirro asked if he had ever worked for Russia, Trump said it was "the most insulting thing I've ever been asked." "I think it's the most insulting article I've ever had written, and if you read the article you'll see that they found absolutely nothing," he said. Trump went on to assert that no president has taken a harder stance against Russia than he has. "If you ask the folks in Russia, I've been tougher on Russia than anybody else, any other ... probably any other president, period, but certainly the last three or four presidents," he said. On Monday, Trump also defended his decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, a move that has drawn Mueller's scrutiny. Trump called the Russia probe "a whole big fat hoax." Special counsel Robert Mueller is looking into Russian election interference and whether Trump's campaign coordinated with the Russians. He also is investigating possible obstruction of justice by Trump. __ AP writers Zeke Miller and Catherine Lucey contributed to the story. MIAMI (AP) - Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday chose a second Miami appeals judge for a seat on the Florida Supreme Court, continuing to move the state's highest court in a more conservative direction. DeSantis announced Monday that Robert Luck is his latest choice. Luck, 39, a former Miami federal prosecutor and circuit court judge, most recently served on the 3rd District Court of Appeal. DeSantis last week picked another judge on that court, Barbara Lagoa, for the Supreme Court. Luck said he agreed with DeSantis that courts should not overreach and essentially become legislative bodies that create law. He said his priority would be to adhere closely to the Florida Constitution. "The Constitution, not the judiciary, is supreme. I have taken an oath to make the Constitution and not the judiciary supreme. I swear to you governor I will keep that oath today, tomorrow, and God willing, for the next 35 years," Luck said. DeSantis said Luck clearly stood out on the list of 11 finalists for three spots on the Supreme Court that opened when justices reached mandatory retirement age just as the new governor took office last week. The announcement was held at the Jewish Scheck Hillel Community School, where Luck's children attend and where he went to kindergarten. A large Israeli flag was displayed behind the lectern at the announcement. Former federal prosecutor and Miami appeals court judge Robert Luck, right, speaks after being appointed for a seat on the Florida Supreme Court by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, center, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) "He will be a formidable force on the Florida Supreme Court," DeSantis said. "Everybody loves this guy. Nobody says anything bad. Really across the board people know him, like him and respect him." Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, said in a statement he fully supports both of DeSantis' Supreme Court choices. "Governor DeSantis has demonstrated again today that he is committed to appointing judges who have the utmost respect for the separation of powers defined in our Constitution," Galvano said. "I wish Justice Luck well as he begins his service on our state's highest court." House Speaker Jose Oliva, R-Miami Lakes, echoed that view. "Justice Luck's vocal repudiation of judicial activism and opposition to legislating from the bench is both a refreshing and reassuring judicial philosophy," Oliva said in a statement. Luck attended the University of Florida as an undergraduate and got his law degree in 2004 from Florida. As a federal prosecutor, Luck focused on gun violence, Medicare fraud, and investment fraud, rising to become deputy chief of the major crimes section. Luck was a circuit judge in Miami from 2013 to 2017, when Gov. Rick Scott elevated him to the appeals bench. Earlier, Luck clerked for Judge Edward E. Carnes on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. Luck presided over about 70 jury trials as a Miami-Dade circuit judge and has written 70 opinions in less than two years as an appellate judge. DeSantis noted one occasion where Luck was attacked in court by a defendant, got back on the bench and recited for the record what happened, then stepped aside from the man's case. "Not many of us would have the coolness to do that," the governor said. DeSantis did not say when he would choose his third Supreme Court justice. ___ Follow Curt Anderson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Miamicurt Former federal prosecutor and Miami appeals court judge Robert Luck speaks after being appointed for a seat on the Florida Supreme Court by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) Former federal prosecutor and Miami appeals court judge Robert Luck, right, speaks with Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, left, after being appointed to a seat on the Florida Supreme Court by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, center, speaks after announcing the appointment of former federal prosecutor and Miami appeals court judge Robert Luck, right, to a seat on the Florida Supreme Court, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is refusing to be drawn into a dispute over the appointment of Matthew Whitaker as the acting U.S. attorney general. The justices on Monday rejected an appeal in a case dealing with gun rights that also included a challenge to President Donald Trump's appointment of Whitaker to temporarily lead the Justice Department. The appeal claims Whitaker's appointment is illegal under federal law and asks the court to name Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (ROH'-zen-styn) as a party in the case, instead of Whitaker. The Justice Department in November released an internal legal opinion supporting the legality of Whitaker's appointment as acting attorney general. Trump has called Whitaker "a highly respected person." Former Attorney General William Barr has been nominated by Trump to again lead the Justice Department. LONDON (AP) - British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit divorce deal may not be, as one opposition lawmaker called it, "as dead as the deadest dodo," but it is definitely ailing. It looks very likely that Britain's Parliament will reject the agreement in a vote scheduled for Tuesday. If that happens, May has until the start of next week to come back to Parliament with a Plan B - and Britain has just 10 weeks until it is due to leave the bloc, with or without a deal, on March 29. Here's a look at what might happen if lawmakers vote down the deal. SECOND TIME LUCKY If the deal is rejected by a narrow margin, the government could try again, re-submitting the agreement to Parliament after tweaking it or winning some soothing words from the EU to assuage lawmakers' concerns. But while EU leaders have offered "clarifications" to the deal, they insist the 585-page withdrawal agreement cannot be reopened. Leavers display banners opposite the Houses of Parliament to protest against the Brexit-Deal in London, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is struggling to win support for her Brexit deal in Parliament. Lawmakers are due to vote on the agreement Tuesday, and all signs suggest they will reject it, adding uncertainty to Brexit less than three months before Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) Any further assurances they give are likely to fall far short of demands by pro-Brexit lawmakers, who want to alter or drop the "backstop," a guarantee for the Irish border that would bind the U.K. in a customs union with the EU after Brexit. The EU says that there can be no deal without the backstop to guarantee an open border along the U.K.'s only land frontier with an EU member state. The EU would likely be more receptive to a softer Brexit deal that saw Britain remain part of the bloc's single market for goods and services. But May says she will never agree to such a plan and it's unclear whether a majority of lawmakers would support it. __ DELAY BRITAIN'S EXIT With Parliament split, there is increasing speculation that Britain might seek an extension to the two-year exit process that is due to expire on March 29. Even if a withdrawal deal is approved soon, there may not be enough time for Parliament to pass all the legislation that needs to be in place by Brexit day. Some ministers are urging May to delay Brexit and then consult lawmakers in a series of "indicative votes" to see if a majority can be found for a new plan. And various factions of lawmakers are exploring ways to use parliamentary rules to wrest control of the Brexit process from the government. A delay would likely also be needed in the event of two other possible scenarios: a general election, or a second referendum. Any delay to the date of Brexit would require unanimous approval from leaders of the EU's remaining 27 member states. ___ HOLD AN ELECTION If the deal is defeated by a big margin, Prime Minister Theresa May will face pressure to resign. But she has vowed to carry on, and there is no way her Conservative Party can evict her as leader - after a failed no-confidence vote in May's leadership by Conservative lawmakers in December, she is safe from another challenge for a year. The main opposition Labour Party says it will try to trigger an election by calling a no-confidence vote in the whole government. But the vote will fail unless some members of the governing Conservatives or the government's allies from the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland rebel and side with the opposition. If the government lost a no-confidence vote, it would have 14 days to overturn the result by winning lawmakers' confidence in a new vote - possibly with a new prime minster, if May was persuaded to quit. Barring that, there would be an election, a process that takes five to six weeks. ___ SECOND REFERENDUM The campaign to revisit Brexit in a second referendum - driven largely by supporters of the losing "remain" side last time around - has been gathering steam as the pitfalls and complexity of the divorce process become clear. The government is firmly opposed, but has warned that it is increasingly likely that the decision to leave the EU could be reversed if May's deal is rejected. It's unclear whether a majority of legislators would support a new referendum, or what the question would be. Many pro-EU politicians want a choice between leaving on the proposed terms and staying in the EU, but others say leaving without a deal should also be an option. There's a strong chance any new referendum would be as divisive as the first. ___ NO DEAL "No deal" is the outcome few want - but it is also the default option. If the divorce deal is not approved, altered or put on hold, Britain will cease to be an EU member at 11 p.m. London time on March 29. The Bank of England has warned that tumbling out of the bloc with no deal to soften the exit could plunge Britain into its deepest recession in nearly a century, and businesses warn the sudden end to longstanding trading agreements with the EU could see gridlock at British ports and shortages of food and medicines. ___ Follow AP's full coverage of Brexit at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit BALTIMORE (AP) - A Johns Hopkins University scientist hit the gym soon after returning from a trip to South Africa and discovered an unexpected workout partner: an endangered-species toad that stowed away in her sneaker. Nancy Connell tells The Baltimore Sun she recognized the tiny toad peering up at her from her locker as one of the toads that kept jumping into her boots in the Western Cape province. She says she kept checking her boots, but never thought to check her sneakers. She named the toad Riley, after her recently deceased cat, and learned he was a member of South Africa's western leopard toad species. After remedying Riley's cold, dehydration and starvation, she found help at Baltimore County's division of animal services. They're now trying to find Riley a zoo home. ___ Information from: The Baltimore Sun, http://www.baltimoresun.com BEIRUT (AP) - The U.S. will step up efforts to counter Iran's "dangerous activities" around the region including the financing and activities of proxy organizations such as Lebanon's Hezbollah, a senior U.S. official said Monday. U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale spoke following talks he held with Lebanese politicians at the end of an official visit. It comes amid a domestic political crisis over an ongoing government vacuum and tensions along the southern border, with the discovery of what Israel says are cross-border tunnels dug by the Hezbollah group for attacks on Israel. "It's unacceptable to have a militia outside the control of the state and unanswerable to all the people of Lebanon, digging attack tunnels across the Blue Line into Israel, or assembling an arsenal of over 100,000 missiles with which to threaten regional stability," Hale said after meeting with the Lebanese Prime Minister-designate, Saad Hariri. He pledged continued support for the Lebanese military and security forces and said that while Lebanon has the right to defend itself, "that is the right of the Lebanese state alone." Hale spoke a day after Israel said it concluded a weekslong operation that destroyed Hezbollah-dug tunnels stretching into Israel. Israel and the United Nations said the tunnels violate a cease-fire resolution that ended a devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. Hezbollah has not commented on the subject. Hale said the U.S. was concerned about the ongoing government vacuum in the country, which is threatening to scuttle $11 billion in international donors' funds. David Hale, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, arrives at the Lebanese foreign ministry to meet with Lebanese Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Hale is in Beirut to meet with Lebanese officials amid a domestic political crisis over ongoing government vacuum and tensions along the southern border with Israel. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein) "Crucial economic reforms languish while obstructionism drags down the economy endangering the country," he said. He added that the caretaker government should move forward where it can, especially on the economy, to avoid further damage and maintain international confidence. Hale also reiterated that the U.S. will be bringing American troops home from Syria but says America remains committed to ensure that the Islamic State group is unable to remerge. "Through diplomacy and cooperation with our partners, we will expel from Syria every last Iranian boot and work with the U.N.-led political process to bring peace and stability there," he said. U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale, delivers a statement after meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Hale said Monday that the U.S. will step up efforts to counter Iran's "dangerous activities" around the region including the financing and activities of proxy organizations such as Lebanon's Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein) MEXICO CITY (AP) - President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador stopped short Monday of declaring victory over Mexico's fuel theft scourge, but said the government was making progress amid frustration over gas shortages. Long lines continued at gas stations in many parts of the country, but Lopez Obrador asked for patience and said things would soon be getting back to normal. Security patrols had prevented any new illegal taps since late Friday in an important pipeline that brings gasoline from the Gulf coast to Mexico City, he said at his near-daily morning news conference. Mario Avante, 45, who drives a small truck for a cleaning services company, waited a mere 20 minutes Monday morning to fill his tank at a service station in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City, while people in other parts of the capital reported waiting four or five hours the day before. "The gasoline has started to arrive," he said, calculating that the panic over gasoline has begun to subside. Avante, who said he voted for a candidate other than Lopez Obrador, felt it was too early to judge the president's performance a little over a month after he took office. He applauded Lopez Obrador's efforts to stem fuel theft, but wished he had planned it better so that distribution wasn't affected. Commuters line up to fill their fuel tanks at a gas station, some of which are limiting how much each client can purchase, in Mexico City, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has vowed to get the upper hand on fuel thieves and is trying to choke off their supply by taking several major pipelines off line. However, tanker trucks used to deliver the fuel couldn't distribute fuel at the same levels as the pipelines, triggering shortages and panic buying. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte) More than 5,000 members of the armed forces and federal police are now focused on pipeline security. Lopez Obrador promised to continue the stepped-up security until supplies normalize but said conditions are starting to improve in some places. He asked citizens to avoid panic buying, saying, "We have enough fuel; it is a distribution issue." Octavio Romero, director of the state fuel company Pemex, displayed charts showing fuel sales beginning to pick up in some important parts of the country. Jalisco, home to Mexico's second-biggest city, Guadalajara, had seen daily sales drop nearly 40 percent and regain about half that in recent days. Lines as long as 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) have been seen in the city. Saiji Bojorquez spent two hours queued up to fill his pickup truck in Guadalajara on Monday, and said he knew it had been that long because he watched two episodes of a Netflix show while waiting. "We have all been respectful. Nobody has broken into the stores," Bojorquez said. "And you learn to conserve gasoline, to demand better public transportation, and I'm carrying my bicycle back there to inflate the tires." For those whose jobs depend on keeping tanks full, the shortages have been frustrating. "Gasoline is part of our work and that's where our livelihood comes from," said Cesar Perez, who delivers food by motorcycle for Uber Eats and was still in line after waiting for an hour. "You have to pump gas almost daily. And it has hurt us a bit, but we hope this is for the good of the country." Mexico State on the outskirts of the capital has the country's biggest population and highest sales volume. It lost well over half of its sales when an important pipeline was taken off line Jan. 3 and showed only a small improvement Saturday, according to Romero's data. He said Michoacan state sales had about recovered to normal levels. Mexico City sales volume had rebounded to nearly normal levels by Saturday, but the system was still trying to recover from a day earlier this month that saw daily sales - normally about 10 million liters (2.6 million gallons) - fall to about 1 million liters. "The truth is we exhausted the city's inventories," Romero said, adding that he was confident things would be back to normal in the capital in a few days. "We're concluding that if you monitor the pipelines, you guard them, they can operate more efficiently," Romero said. On Sunday, Mexico City's new Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum prompted some consternation among constituents when she called on motorists to follow a calendar under which they would fill up one day a week according to last digit on their cars' license plates, similar to a smog control system that bars vehicles from circulating one day per week. She was careful to note via Twitter that it was only a "SUGGESTED" calendar to help people get gas "in a more orderly manner," but some saw it as a rationing plan and made unflattering comparisons to Venezuela, which has seen severe shortages of all sorts of basic goods amid a deep economic crisis in recent years. Fuel theft has become a massive problem for Mexico. From January to November last year, 65,000 barrels per day were being stolen, according to Pemex estimates. The vast majority was lost to illegal pipeline taps. In early December there was a day in which Pemex estimated 126,000 barrels of fuel were stolen. Recent days have had thefts of 3,400 and 6,700 barrels, according to the company. Lopez Obrador has vowed to get the upper hand on the fuel thieves and earlier this month tried to choke off their supply by taking several major pipelines off line. However, tanker trucks used to deliver the fuel couldn't distribute at the same levels as the pipelines. Shortages and panicked buying ensued. Gasoline tankers shown to be involved in fuel theft are now being seized and turned over to Pemex. In Jalisco, authorities on Monday arrested a person in possession of about 7,400 gallons (28,000 liters) of apparently ill-gotten fuel. Officials also announced that cases were opened against three high-ranking Pemex officials responsible for monitoring pipelines. They were not named. In Mexico City, spirits were lifting among drivers, some of whom expressed support for Lopez Obrador. Dulce Escamilla, 38, a government employee who said she didn't vote for Lopez Obrador, shrugged off the shortage as a minor inconvenience with a higher objective. "We have him as president now, and we have to support him," she said while filling her small scooter with 5 liters of gasoline at a Pemex station. "If the government makes changes for the good of the consumer, it's worth it," she said. ___ Associated Press writers Rogelio Navarro in Guadalajara and Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report. A postal worker whose motorcycle ran out of gas stands at a closed gas station in Mexico City, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has vowed to get the upper hand on fuel thieves and is trying to choke off their supply by taking several major pipelines off line. However, tanker trucks used to deliver the fuel couldn't distribute fuel at the same levels as the pipelines, triggering shortages and panic buying. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte) CAIRO (AP) - Wealthy countries should do more to help developing nations fund local refugee management, the head of the U.N. refugee agency urged Monday, saying that he himself would do "anything" to escape if he was stuck in a squalid camp such as those in war-torn Libya. Speaking to reporters after meeting with the Egyptian president, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said that countries like Egypt do not receive enough recognition for hosting refugees, and that he would advocate for Cairo to receive more bilateral development aid to support its efforts. Some 85 percent of the world's displaced are living in the global south, he said adding that he hoped that Egypt's 2019 presidency of the African Union could help draw more resources for refugees to Africa. Migrant flows to Europe across the dangerous Mediterranean Sea route have fallen drastically to manageable levels compared to years past, he said, but that has not stemmed people fleeing war and poverty flocking to holding camps in places like Libya, where rights groups say conditions are harsh and include beatings, rape and starvation. "If I was a refugee or a migrant or anybody going into this center I would opt for anything to get out of there, even if I knew the risk of death was very high," Grandi said, adding that what Libya needed was security, a political settlement, and help to enforce the rule of law instead of just naval support and aid to build camps to stop illegal people trafficking. Seeking similar arrangements to the east, European Union leaders have been urging Egypt to help stem the flow of migrants entering Europe from Africa, offering to step up economic cooperation and the prospect of a high-profile summit in Cairo as incentives. Cairo has so far been held up as a good example of cooperation on the migrant issue for stopping people from leaving its coast bound for Europe. In this photo provided by UNHCR, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi speaks during an interview in Cairo, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Wealthy countries should do more to help developing nations fund local refugee management, the head of the U.N. refugee agency urged Monday, saying that he himself would do "anything" to escape if he was stuck in a squalid camp such as those in war-torn Libya. Speaking to reporters after meeting with the Egyptian president, Grandi said that countries like Egypt do not receive enough recognition for hosting refugees. (Pedro Costa Gomes/UNHCR via AP) But it has stopped short of setting up "disembarkation platforms" as Europe seeks, where people rescued at sea could be dropped off for screening. "We've heard loud and clear from the government here that they will not establish any camp or any center ... frankly I think they are right," Grandi said, highlighting how Egypt has increased naval surveillance and border control to stop boats headed to Europe from debarking from its shores. Egypt in 2016 passed legislation to crack down on human trafficking, a growing illegal industry across the Mediterranean, and last year referred dozens to trial for attempted smuggling. Those combined efforts, he said, meant that more refugees were staying in Egypt, causing a stronger drain on its public services requiring additional aid. "We need to intensify the help," he said. Egypt hosts some 250,000 officially registered refugees. Cairo however sometimes mentions a much higher figure of 5 million, although that includes many well-integrated Sudanese, and Arabs who have effectively become immigrants through residency. Grandi said that UNHCR intends to help Egypt through intensified donor appeals for humanitarian aid, as well as by marshalling bilateral development aid that goes directly into state budgets. "We can be an advocate for Egypt," he said. "We can make the case for Egypt, and I think I will." BEIJING (AP) - A Chinese court sentenced a Canadian man to death Monday in a sudden retrial in a drug smuggling case that is likely to escalate tensions between the countries over the arrest of a top Chinese technology executive. The court in northeastern Liaoning province announced that it had given Robert Lloyd Schellenberg the death penalty after rejecting his plea of innocence and convicting him of being an accessory to drug smuggling. It gave no indication that the penalty could be commuted, but Schellenberg's fate could become intertwined in diplomatic negotiations over China's demand for the top executive's release. Schellenberg was detained more than four years ago and initially sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2016. But suddenly last month, an appeals court agreed with prosecutors who said the sentence was too lenient, and scheduled Monday's retrial with just four days' notice. The Chinese press began publicizing Schellenberg's case in December after Canada detained Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. Since then, China has arrested two Canadians in apparent retaliation for Meng's arrest. It arrested both Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, on suspicion of endangering national security. A Canadian teacher was detained but released. Schellenberg's lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo, said his client now has 10 days to appeal. The court said it ruled Monday that Schellenberg was involved in an international drug smuggling operation. It said he was recruited to help smuggle more than 222 kilograms (488 pounds) of methamphetamine from a warehouse in Dalian city to Australia. A Chinese person convicted of involvement in the same operation was earlier given a suspended death sentence. Fifty people, including Canadian diplomats and foreign and domestic media, attended Monday's trial, the court said in an online statement. In 2009, China executed a Briton, Akmal Shaikh, on charges of smuggling heroin despite his supporters' protest that he was mentally ill. RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) - A Brazilian police officer died and three others were hospitalized Monday after their helicopter crashed in Rio de Janeiro's Guanabara Bay. Police officials said that Sgt. Felipe Marques de Queiroz, 37, had not survived the accident, but that the three other crew members were out of danger. The men were patrolling in a Fenix 08 helicopter along a major thoroughfare when they had to conduct an emergency landing around 10 a.m. local time, a police statement said. The cause of the crash remained unknown. Images on the Globo television station showed firefighters bringing crew members out of the water and working to resuscitate one of them. In recent years, police helicopters have sometimes been shot down by criminal gangs during police operations in Rio de Janeiro. A police officer stands guard as firefighters try to recover the wreckage of a police helicopter in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. A Brazilian police officer died and three others were hospitalized Monday after their helicopter crashed in Rio de Janeiro's Guanabara Bay. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) Firefighters tow an underwater police helicopter that crashed into Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. A Brazilian police officer died and three others were hospitalized Monday after their helicopter crashed in Rio de Janeiro's Guanabara Bay. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) McALESTER, Okla. (AP) - Oklahoma officials say a man convicted of murder in the 1997 disappearance of his 8-year-old neighbor has been killed in prison. The Oklahoma Department of Correction says Anthony Palma was found unresponsive in his cell late Friday. Investigators believe his cellmate killed him. Palma was serving a life sentence for the presumed death of Kirsten Hatfield. The girl was kidnapped from her home in the Oklahoma City suburb of Midwest City. Her body was never found. Palma was convicted 20 years after Kirsten's disappearance. He was arrested after new DNA testing linked him to blood found on her bedroom windowsill. Midwest City Police Chief Brandon Clabes tells TV station KWTV that Palma "probably met his justice" but that authorities had hoped Palma would one day lead them to Kirsten's body. ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) - Croatia's government on Monday formally canceled a $500 million deal to buy 12 used fighter jets from Israel after it collapsed over U.S. objections. The defense minister said the Balkan country will restart the search for the right deal. Israel and Croatia reached a tentative deal in March for the sale of the upgraded F-16 Barak fighter planes, pending U.S. approval to allow the American-made technology to be purchased by a third party. The deal ran into trouble after Washington said Israel needed to strip off upgrades that were added after Israel took delivery of the aircraft from the United States some 30 years ago. The sophisticated electronics and radar systems were crucial in Croatia's decision to buy the F-16s from Israel instead from the U.S. or Greece, which also bid for the contract together with South Korea and Sweden. Relations between the Trump administration and Israel have been very close, particularly on defense issues. But the sale of the jets to NATO-member Croatia appeared to be an exception. Croatian Defense Minister Damir Krsticevic said that Croatia now awaits the "best offer" from the U.S. FILE - In this Nov. 25, 2013 file photo, Israeli air force technicians check an Israeli air force plane F-16 of the Red Dragon squadron at Ovda airbase near Eilat, southern Israel. Croatia's defense minister says Israel has failed to overcome U.S. objections to a plan to sell 12 used fighter jets to Croatia and the $500 million deal will likely be canceled. Damir Krsticevic spoke after a meeting with Israeli defense officials in Zagreb on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, file) "I would like it to be new planes, preferably F-16s, even if it means fewer aircraft, considering our financial possibilities," Krsticevic said. BERLIN (AP) - The Latest on heavy snowfall across Europe (all times local): 3:45 p.m. The Austrian broadcaster ORF reports that a worker clearing snow off a roof has died after being swept away as the snow began to slide off. ORF reported that the 47-year-old man and three others were pushed off the six-meter (20-foot) roof in Faistenau, near Salzburg, on Monday and buried in the snow. Two others men were hospitalized. Warmer, wetter weather after days of heavy snowfall has increased the risk of avalanches in parts of southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Dozens of people have died in avalanches and weather-related accidents in Europe since the start of the year. Men remove snow from the roof of a building in Elisabethszell, Germany, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. (Armin Weigel/dpa via AP) Germany's interior minister announced Monday that some 230 federal police officers are being sent to assist thousands of rescue workers and volunteers clearing snow-laden roofs in Bavaria. ___ 2:10 p.m. Bosnian authorities say three people have died and 17 others have been injured in car and bus crashes on snowy roads across in the Balkan nation. Authorities say three people died and three others were injured in two separate car accidents on icy roads near the northwestern town of Laktasi. Fourteen other people were hurt, three of them seriously, when the bus they were riding on skidded off a snow-covered road Monday in central Bosnia and overturned. A snowplow also overturned while clearing a highway at Komar Mountain in central Bosnia. Parts of Europe, especially in the Alps, have been hit by days of heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures that sparked deadly avalanches and disrupted travel on planes, trains and highways. The cold snap and snow are forecast to continue through the week. ___ 9:45 a.m. Officials say a large avalanche has slammed into a hotel in southern Germany, damaging the building but causing no injuries. A spokeswoman for Oberallgaeu regional authorities said the hotel's 100 guests were evacuated to other dwellings in the village of Balderschwang. Brigitte Kloepf told The Associated Press that about 1,100 people are unable to leave Balderschwang, near the Austrian border, because of an avalanche risk on roads following days of intense snowfall. Authorities in parts of Austria, Germany and Switzerland have warned that further snow and rainfall is raising the risk of avalanches, and increase the weight on snow-laden roofs. Dozens of people have died in avalanches or weather-related accidents across central Europe in recent days. Germany's top security official planned to visit affected areas Monday. Due to the danger of an avalanche a mountain pass road is closed in Obermaiselstein, Germany, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. (Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa via AP) A firefighter removes a snow covered fallen tree on a road in Hofsgrund, Germany, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. (Patrick Seeger/dpa via AP) Due to the danger of an avalanche a mountain pass road is closed in Obermaiselstein, Germany, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. (Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa via AP) Men remove snow from the roof of a building in Elisabethszell, Germany, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. (Armin Weigel/dpa via AP) Soldiers of the German forces, Bundeswehr, remove snow from the roof of a building in Buchenhoehe, Germany, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. (Matthias Balk/dpa via AP) Due to the danger of an avalange a road is closed in Rottach-Egern, Germany, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2018. (Lino Mirgeler/dpa via AP) A police car blocks the street leading to Balderschwang as a snow plough passes by in Obermaiselstein, southern Germany, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (Benjamin Riss/dpa via AP) A snow plough clears a street to Balderschwang which is closed to the public due to the risk of avalanches in Obermaiselstein, southern Germany, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (Benjamin Liss/dpa via AP) A road in the Black Forest is closed due to snow in Seebach, southern Germany, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Authorities in parts of Austria, Germany and Switzerland have warned that further snow and rainfall is raising the risk of avalanches, and increase the weight on snow-laden roofs. (Benedikt Spether/dpa via AP) A man clears a path to his house, in Davos Laret, Monday, Jan 14, 2019. Switzerland faces big amounts of snowfall. The danger for avalanches in large parts of the alps has risen to the highest level. (Gian Ehrenzeller/Keystone via AP) A man clears a path to his house, in Davos Laret, Monday, Jan 14, 2019. Switzerland faces big amounts of snowfall. The danger for avalanches in large parts of the alps has risen to the highest level. (Gian Ehrenzeller/Keystone via AP) A man clears a path to his house, in Davos Laret, Monday, Jan 14, 2019. Switzerland faces big amounts of snowfall. The danger for avalanches in large parts of the alps has risen to the highest level. (Gian Ehrenzeller/Keystone via AP) Two hikers with snow shoes walk next to a man clearing a path to his house, in Davos Laret, Monday, Jan 14, 2019. Switzerland faces big amounts of snowfall. The danger for avalanches in large parts of the alps has risen to the highest level. (Gian Ehrenzeller/Keystone via AP) A road is blocked near to of the village of Andermatt, Switzerland, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP) A man pushes shovel in the center of the village of Hospental, Switzerland, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP) A man removes snow from a building in the center of the village of Andermatt, Switzerland, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP) Kids remove snow from a car in the center of the village of Andermatt, Switzerland, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP) Icicles hang in front of a building in the village of Andermatt, Switzerland, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP) Buildings a snow covered in the center of the village of Andermatt, Switzerland, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP) People walk in the snow covered center of the village of Hospental, Switzerland, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. (Urs Flueeler/Keystone via AP) BARCELONA, Spain (AP) - Spanish authorities pulled 493 migrants from eight rickety boats in the Mediterranean Sea on Monday yet blocked a humanitarian rescue ship from leaving the port of Barcelona, saying it violated maritime regulations on previous trips. An order from Spanish authorities to the aid group Proactiva Open Arms, seen by The Associated Press, said their boat had violated maritime regulations "to leave those rescued at sea at the nearest port." This happened on the boat's most recent mission in December, when some 300 migrants saved near Libya were taken to Spain. Spain's merchant marine issued a statement saying Proactiva's ship "had to cross the Mediterranean for several days to bring its migrants to land, putting in jeopardy the security of the boat, its crew and the people rescued." The aid group has appealed the decision, arguing that the ship only came to Spain after both Malta and Italy had turned it away. "The boat has all its inspections, licenses and papers in order and was ready to sail" on another mission to waters near Libya when Spanish authorities blocked it, Proactiva Open Arms President Oscar Camps told the AP. "It is just as detrimental for Italy to close its ports to us as for Spain to stop our boat from sailing for an unfounded administrative cause," Camps said. "Stopping our boat for a long time means more deaths in the Mediterranean." A Border Force patrol vessel, foreground, and the HMS Mersey on patrol in The Channel near Dungeness in Kent, Friday, Jan. 11, 2019. (Gareth Fuller/PA via AP) Proactiva Open Arms says the ship has rescued 5,619 people in the Mediterranean Sea since July 2017. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez made the plight of migrants one of his banner causes when he took office in June. His government has allowed several aid boats that rescued migrants at sea to dock after they were rejected by Italy and other countries taking a hard line against immigration. Spain now has become the busiest point for migrants entering Europe illegally. The European Union border agency says about 57,000 unauthorized crossings to Spain took place in 2018 - double the figure for 2017 - while migrant arrivals for Europe overall reached a five-year low. Crossing the Mediterranean in unseaworthy smugglers' boats is still a dangerous journey - around 2,300 people died last year trying to reach Europe that way, according to the International Organization for Migration. People march under rain during a demonstration in support of migrant people seeking to enter Europe, in Brussels, Saturday, Jan. 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) A man shouts slogans as he marches under rain with others during a demonstration in support of migrant people seeking to enter Europe, in Brussels, Saturday, Jan. 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) People shout slogans as they march under rain during a demonstration in support of migrant people seeking to enter Europe, in Brussels, Saturday, Jan. 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) People sing protest songs under rain during a demonstration in support of migrant people seeking to enter Europe, in Brussels, Saturday, Jan. 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) People march under rain during a demonstration in support of migrant people seeking to enter Europe, in Brussels, Saturday, Jan. 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) A man holding a board that reads in French: "Think Before Voting" marches under rain with others during a demonstration in support of migrant people seeking to enter Europe, in Brussels, Saturday, Jan. 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) Migrants mainly from Sudan, and Chad, Africa, gather in a makeshift camp along side of the Porte de la Villette ring bridge in Paris, Friday, Jan. 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)) Migrants mainly from Sudan, and Chad, Africa, gather in a makeshift camp along side of the Porte de la Villette ring bridge in Paris, Friday, Jan. 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)) Migrants mainly from Sudan, and Chad, Africa gather in a makeshift camp along side of the Porte de la Villette ring bridge in Paris, Friday, Jan. 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) The Mayor of the Polish city of Gdansk, Pawel Adamowicz, died on Monday after being stabbed at a charity event a day earlier, the director for medical affairs of the Medical University of Gdansk hospital, Tomasz Stefaniak, was quoted by the Polish Press Agency as saying. "We could not save his life despite all our efforts," Stefaniak said. Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, far right, speaks to an audience shortly before he was stabbed in Gdansk, Poland, on Sunday Jan. 13, 2019. [Photo: KFP/AP/Anna Rezulak] On Sunday evening, Adamowicz was stabbed by a convicted criminal who rushed onto the stage during the finale of a charity event. The mayor was seriously injured in the heart and abdomen. Doctors reanimated Adamowicz on the spot and then transported him to the Medical University of Gdansk hospital, where he underwent five hours of surgery. People hold lit candles in a memorial march for Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, in Warsaw, Poland, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. [Photo: AP/Czarek Sokolowski] Polish prosecutors said that the man accused of stabbing Adamowicz is being investigated on suspicion of attempted murder and will also be subjected to a psychiatric examination. MIAMI (AP) - A New York woman with a rare blood type is donating two units to help treat a 2-year-old South Florida girl with cancer. News outlets report the woman had stored her own blood while pregnant in case she needed a transfusion during her delivery. The blood wasn't needed and the woman agreed to give it to Zainab Mughal, who has neuroblastoma. Susan Forbes of Florida-based OneBlood says the woman isn't eligible to donate more so soon after giving birth. The blood center is seeking more donors for the girl, who lacks a feature common to most types of blood. The donor must be of Pakistani, Indian or Iranian descent and have type A or O blood. TIRANA, Albania (AP) - Albania's prime minister says he will take over the foreign ministry himself after the country's president refused to accept his nominee for the post. Edi Rama on Monday tweeted that he will keep the post, and also threatened to take President Ilir Meta to the Constitutional Court. Meta did not approve Rama's nominee, saying he does not meet standards, and also has not accepted the removal of the previous minister, without explaining why. Rama reshuffled his Cabinet last December, removing seven ministers out of 15 posts following a students' protest and complaints of corruption and inefficiency from the opposition. Meta, the former leader of a minor left-wing party once in coalition with Rama's leftist Socialists, has been continuously hampering the prime minister's Cabinet reshuffles and law approvals. VATICAN CITY (AP) - The retired Vatican diplomat who accused Pope Francis of turning a blind eye to the alleged sexual misconduct of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is begging the American to publicly repent for his crimes for the good of the Catholic Church. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano wrote a letter to McCarrick that was published Monday on an Italian blog, Vigano's way of communicating after he went into hiding following his bombshell accusations against the pope in August. In the letter, Vigano noted the Vatican is expected to shortly deliver its verdict against McCarrick after gathering testimony from at least three men who accused him of misconduct. The McCarrick scandal has thrown the U.S. and Vatican hierarchy into crisis since it was apparently an open secret that the powerful retired archbishop of Washington slept with seminarians. Vigano wrote that a public show of repentance would be a "gift" to the church to help it heal from the sex abuse crisis. "Time is running out but you can confess and repent of your sins, crimes and sacrileges, and do so publicly," Vigano wrote. While saying McCarrick's own eternal salvation was at stake, Vigano also said the credibility of the church was also in the balance. FILE - In this Nov. 14, 2011, file photo, then Cardinal Theodore McCarrick prays during the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' annual fall assembly in Baltimore. A lawyer says the key accuser in the sex abuse case against ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has met with New York City prosecutors, evidence that the scandal that has convulsed the papacy is now part of the broader U.S. law enforcement investigation into sex abuse and cover-up in the Catholic Church. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File) "A public repentance on your part would bring a significant measure of healing to a gravely wounded and suffering church," Vigano wrote. "Are you willing to offer her that gift?" The McCarrick scandal erupted just before a grand jury in Pennsylvania accused some 300 priests of abusing more than 1,000 children over seven decades, while superiors largely stood by. The combined scandal, plus Francis' own missteps in handling abuse cases, has created a crisis of confidence in the Catholic hierarchy. Vigano added fuel to the scandal when he demanded the pope himself resign over what he said was his role in the McCarrick cover-up. In an 11-page denunciation in August, Vigano said he told Francis of McCarrick's misdeeds in 2013 but that Francis went ahead and rehabilitated him from sanctions imposed by the previous pope. Francis has never responded to Vigano's claims, but a top Vatican cardinal, Marc Ouellet, tried to shoot them down. Ouellet urged Vigano himself to repent, for having launched such an unprecedented attack against the pope. BERLIN (AP) - Authorities in Austria say they've arrested a 19-year-old Syrian man in connection with the killing of a teenage girl near Vienna. Markus Bauer, spokesman at the Lower Austria prosecutor's office, said Monday that the suspect was arrested overnight after police received tips about his whereabouts. The victim, a 16-year-old Austrian, was found Sunday covered in leaves and branches in a park in Wiener Neustadt, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Vienna. Bauer said the suspect and the victim knew each other, but he couldn't confirm reports that they had previously been in a relationship. Austrian media reported that the victim appeared to have been strangled. BANSTOL, Serbia (AP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin already has a village, a wax figure, a plum brandy and several cafes named after him in Serbia. Now, he's getting a church. Topped with Russian-style green-and-gold onion-shaped domes, the church in this tiny village in northwestern Serbia is still under construction but it has already been dubbed "Putin's church." Locals say the emerging structure is meant as a sign of admiration for Putin and the centuries-long brotherly ties between the two nations that share common Slavic roots and the Orthodox Christian religion. With Putin set to visit Serbia later this week, the residents of Banstol are eagerly awaiting word on whether he might come to see the church, as some local media have suggested. "This church has acquired the unofficial name of Putin's church because Putin is a symbol of a new, upright Russia, a Russia which Serbs have started to believe in once again," said the local initiator of the project, Branko Simonovic. Simonovic said the church is purposefully designed in the Russian style - traditional Serbian churches have different domes and towers - to show that Serbs "were always looking to Russia for backing, precisely because of religion." In this photo taken Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, the new church under construction designed in the Russian style in the village Banstol in northwestern Serbia. Topped with Russia-style green and gold onion-shaped domes, the church in this tiny village in northwestern Serbia is still under construction but it has already been dubbed ''Putin's church.'' (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) Historically close ties between Russia and Serbia have recently been visibly revived after Putin stepped up efforts to restore Moscow's influence in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe. Russia's interest in the region relates to its strategic position between East and West. Out of Serbia's eight neighbors, five are NATO members; four are in the EU and two more are working toward accession. Serbia has turned out to be a faithful ally to Russia even as the country formally seeks membership in the European Union. Belgrade has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia over Ukraine and has promised it will stay out of NATO. Analysts say that strong ties between the Serbian and Russian churches have played a major role in restoring Russia's influence among the Serbs after the historic alliance collapsed during the existence of Yugoslavia whose communist leader Josip Broz Tito turned away from the Soviet Union to foster close links with the West. Nowadays, shirts with Putin's image are sold by street vendors and openly pro-Russian ministers sit in the Serbian government. Surveys say that most Serbs believe Russia is their country's biggest ally and financial donor despite much bigger Western economic and other aid to the Balkan country. Putin's popularity is mostly because the Kremlin is supporting Serbia in its rejection of independence for the former Serbian province of Kosovo, which the Serbian church considers its birthplace and where hundreds of its medieval monasteries and churches are located. In contrast, most Western countries have recognized Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence. The Head of the Serbian Orthodox church, Patriarch Irinej, recently said that Serbia wants good relations with Europe, the United States and Russia, but since the interests of the West "counter ours, there is no doubt that Russia comes first." The Serbian church demonstrated its loyalty when it sided recently with Russia in rejection of independence for the Ukrainian church from Moscow. Similarly, in the Serb-run part of neighboring Bosnia, pro-Russia authorities are building a Serbia-Russia cultural and religious center that also will include a church that many see as a display of Russia's soft power influence in the Balkans - the ability to attract masses, rather than use force to subdue them like the Soviets did. A common joke among liberal Serbs is that the preparations for Putin's visit to Serbia on Thursday are as if the Pope is arriving. The highlight of Putin's one-day trip will be his visit to the biggest Orthodox Christian temple in the Balkans in Belgrade where some of its mosaics were painted by Russian artists with money donated by the Kremlin. Putin and his host, Serbia's populist President Aleksandar Vucic, are set to address tens of thousands of people outside the Saint Sava church "in a symbol of brotherly ties," the organizers said. Apart from media attention, the Russia-style church in Banstol has attracted tens of thousands of dollars in donations, from home and abroad, especially since it was named after the Russian president. Undisclosed Russian donors reportedly also contributed. "I see that Putin's picture is put on women's underpants, gold watches, cell phones, so why wouldn't a church bear his name? I think that he'd be more happy to have this church as his image brand," Simonovic said. ____ Marko Drobnjakovic and Jovana Gec contributed. In this photo taken Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, the Serbian flag flies near a new church under construction designed in the Russian style in the village Banstol in northwestern Serbia. Topped with Russia-style green and gold onion-shaped domes, the church in this tiny village in northwestern Serbia is still under construction but it has already been dubbed ''Putin's church.'' (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this photo taken Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, a view of the new church under construction designed in the Russian style in the village Banstol in northwestern Serbia. Topped with Russia-style green and gold onion-shaped domes, the church in this tiny village in northwestern Serbia is still under construction but it has already been dubbed ''Putin's church.'' (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this photo taken Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, a view of the new church under construction designed in the Russian style in the village Banstol in northwestern Serbia. Topped with Russia-style green and gold onion-shaped domes, the church in this tiny village in northwestern Serbia is still under construction but it has already been dubbed ''Putin's church.'' (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this photo taken Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, a man walks by the new church under construction designed in the Russian style in the village Banstol in northwestern Serbia. Topped with Russia-style green and gold onion-shaped domes, the church in this tiny village in northwestern Serbia is still under construction but it has already been dubbed ''Putin's church.'' (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) In this photo taken Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, the Serbian flag flies near a new church under construction designed in the Russian style in the village Banstol in northwestern Serbia. Topped with Russia-style green and gold onion-shaped domes, the church in this tiny village in northwestern Serbia is still under construction but it has already been dubbed ''Putin's church.'' (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) ISLAMABAD (AP) - Pakistan's former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is to remain in prison despite a ruling by the country's Supreme Court that upheld a lower court's decision that freed him on bail. Sharif and his family have been embroiled in several trials and an array of corruption charges following his ouster from office in July 2017. The top court on Monday ruled against the prosecution, which had sought to overturn a verdict from September that suspended Sharif's 10-year sentence over the purchase of luxury apartments in London. Following that suspension, Sharif was released on bail four months ago but was again sent to prison when another court convicted him in December and sentenced him to seven years on graft charges. He is appealing that sentence separately. CAIRO (AP) - Sudan's longtime ruler was defiant Monday in the face of more than three weeks of protests demanding his resignation, reiterating at a rally in the west of the country that a change in leadership can only come through the ballot box. In power since 1989, Omar al-Bashir is already one of the region's longest serving leaders. His ruling Popular Congress Party has nominated him to run for another term in office next year. "The people brought this government to office and there is only one way (to change it) and that's the ballot box," al-Bashir told hundreds of supporters in the Darfur city of Nyala. "The ballot box is what decides and the people of Sudan will choose who rules them in 2020, God willing." Al-Bashir's years in office have failed to lift Sudan out of its rampant poverty or bring peace and unity to the religiously diverse country. Sudan was Africa's largest country until 2011, when the mainly animist and Christian south seceded, taking with it about three quarters of the country's oil wealth. He was indicted in 2010 by the International Criminal Court for genocide in Darfur, where a revolt was brutally suppressed by forces loyal to the government, including militias. Tens of thousands died in that conflict and hundreds of thousands were displaced. The ongoing, anti-government protests erupted on Dec. 19, initially over price hikes and shortages but soon shifted to calling on the Islamist president to step down. The unrest has spread across much of Sudan, including areas north of Khartoum from which the country's ruling establishment traditionally hails. Anti-government protesters rally in Khartoum, Sudan, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. Hundreds of protesters are marching again in and around Sudan's capitol Khartoum, the fourth week of unrest that began over the rising price of bread and a failing economy but which now calls for the ouster of autocratic President Omar al-Bashir. (AP Photo) At least 40 people have been killed in the clashes, according to rights groups, but the government has acknowledged only 24 deaths. Authorities have also detained more than 800 people since the unrest began, along with dozens of opposition leaders. Al-Bashir on Monday repeated his claim that the unrest is the work of Sudan's foreign enemies who use local agents for their schemes. "They don't like the stability we've achieved," he said. "There is an economic problem ... and we are working to resolve it," he said without elaborating. Last week, he pledged to continue state subsidies for basic items, raise salaries, improve health care and overhaul the banking system. He didn't say how he intended to accomplish these measures. Also Monday, security forces detained for about five hours 18 journalists, mostly from the independent Khartoum daily al-Jareeda. The arrests were made as the journalists gathered outside the newspaper's offices before heading to the headquarters of the domestic security agency in central Khartoum where they planned to stage a sit-in to protest state censorship. Activists say authorities have further tightened control of the independent media since the latest unrest began, with news of the protests mostly censored or not published at all. Several newspapers, including al-Jareeda, have had their copies confiscated or banned from publication. Several journalists have also been beaten up by security forces while covering street protests, according to activists and their colleagues, while others have been detained. BERLIN (AP) - A German newspaper says one of its employees has been attacked by members of a far-right group. The left-wing taz daily said the woman was grabbed by the neck after confronting six black-clad people who were piling cobblestones and attempting to put up posters in front of the newspaper's Berlin offices. Berlin police confirmed that a woman was attacked during the incident. Spokesman Heidi Vogt said police were still investigating who was behind the incident, but the far-right group Identitarian Movement tweeted photos of members putting up posters in front of the building. German media reported that the group also targeted other media buildings and left-wing politicians' offices. The Identitarian Movement is close to the far-right Alternative for Germany party, whose lawmaker Frank Magnitz was attacked last week. Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today: 1. GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN IN DAY 24 Congress returns to Washington for its first full week of legislative business since control of the House reverted to Democrats, with no end in sight for the partial closure. 2. SECRETARY OF STATE VISITS MIDDLE EAST Mike Pompeo met Monday with Saudi leaders on the latest stop of a tour that has so far been dominated by questions and concerns about the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. 3. MORE CLUES POSSIBLE IN REASONS FOR JET CRASH In this Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, photo, containers are loaded onto a cargo ship at a port in Qingdao in east China's Shandong province. China's trade growth slowed in 2018 as a tariff battle with Washington heated up and global consumer demand weakened. Exports rose 7.1 percent, customs data showed Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, down from the 7.9 percent reported earlier for 2017. Import growth declined to 12.9 percent from the previous year's 15.9 percent. (Chinatopix via AP) Indonesian navy divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder of a Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea in October, killing 189 people. 4. BREXIT DEADLINE NEARS AMID FEUD Prime Minister Theresa May plans to tell lawmakers she has received further assurances about her deal from the EU, a last-ditch attempt to win support ahead of a key vote Tuesday. 5. MADE IN CHINA, SOLD TO THE U.S. China's 2018 trade surplus with the U.S. surged to a record $323.3 billion but exports contracted in December as the delayed impact of President Trump's tariff hikes started to depress demand. 6. WHO STANDS TO GAIN FROM LAXER ENVIRONMENTAL RULES Trump often points to farmers as among the biggest beneficiaries from the administration's proposed rollback of federal protections for wetlands and waterways, but developers and other industry owners could be the big winners, making it easier to fill in bogs, creeks and streams for plowing, drilling, mining or building. 7. SOLIDARITY WITH ATTACKED POLITICIAN Polish blood donors were coming forward in a bid to save the life of Gdansk's mayor, who needs transfusions after being stabbed in the heart and the abdomen at a charity event. 8. VENEZUELAN STRONGMAN GETS CHALLENGER Young backbench lawmaker Juan Guaido has emerged as a key power broker as he leads the opposition-controlled congress in a high-stakes standoff with socialist President Nicolas Maduro. 9. ONLY WOMEN BEHIND THE WHEEL Jackie Heinricher has put together an all-female team of drivers that will debut at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, one of the most prestigious endurance races in the world. 10. STAR-STUDDED GALA REMEMBERS QUEEN OF SOUL Alicia Keys, Patti LaBelle, Celine Dion and more perform some of the late Aretha Franklin's biggest hits in a tribute concert hosted by Tyler Perry. Indonesian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Yudo Margin shows the recovered cockpit voice recorder of Lion Air flight 610 that crashed into the sea in October during a press conference on board of the navy ship KRI Spica in the waters off Tanjung Karawang, Indonesia, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Navy divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder in a possible boost to the accident investigation. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim) Christina Nielsen of Denmark chats with a crew member during a test session at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla., Friday, Jan. 4, 2019. Nielsen is part of an all-female-driver team racing in the Rolex 24 at Daytona later this month. (AP Photo/Mark Long) ROME (AP) - The Latest on Italian fugitive captured in Bolivia (all times local): 3:05 p.m. A left-wing Italian militant who spent 37 years as a fugitive is being transferred to a maximum-security prison in remote western Sardinia. Justice Minister Alfonso Bonafede said security concerns prompted the change in plans for where Cesare Battisti will serve a life sentence for murder. Originally, Battisti was assigned to Rome's Rebibbia prison. He arrived in Rome on Monday on a military aircraft from Bolivia, where he was arrested over the weekend in a dramatic end to Italy's effort to bring him to justice. Bonafede said Battisti would now be imprisoned at Sardinia's Oristano prison, which generally houses high-security inmates serving long sentences. Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and Italian Justice minister Alfonso Bonafede, right, talk to the press after Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti arrived at Ciampino military airport, in Rome, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial on four counts of murder allegedly committed when he was a member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 as he awaited trial. He was eventually convicted in the deaths of four people. ___ 11:45 a.m. A left-wing Italian militant who was convicted of murder three decades ago has arrived in Rome to serve a life prison sentence, after his life as a celebrity fugitive came to an abrupt end with his arrest in Bolivia by a team of Interpol agents. An Italian military aircraft carrying Cesare Battisti landed at Rome's Ciampino airport shortly after 1030 GMT (11:30 a.m. local) Monday, as snipers kept watch. Italy's justice and interior ministers, who have rejoiced that Battisti's victims will finally see justice, were on hand to turn him over to prison authorities. Battisti was arrested Saturday in Santa Cruz, Bolivia's largest city, where he was located by intelligence agents after using one of his mobile devices. Italy sent an aircraft to bring him home for the first time since he fled in 1981 as he awaited trial and dodged extradition by claiming to sympathetic left-wing governments on both sides of the Atlantic that he was a political refugee. ___ 6:15 a.m. A left-wing Italian militant who was convicted of murder three decades ago is heading home to serve a life sentence, after his life as a celebrity fugitive came to an abrupt end with his arrest in Bolivia by a team of Interpol agents. Cesare Battisti was handed over to Italian custody late Sunday in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, where he was located by Italian intelligence agents after using one of his mobile devices. Italy sent a government aircraft to pick him up, and the plane left late Sunday. A photo released by the Italian interior ministry showed Battisti sitting in the aircraft with a gray blanket over his lap. He was due to arrive in Rome on Monday afternoon and be immediately transferred to the capital's main Rebibbia prison. A man who appears to be Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti enters the cabin door of a plane before it takes off for Italy, where he will serve a life sentence, at the airport in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial on four counts of murder allegedly committed when he was a member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism. (AP Photo) In this image made available by the Italian Interior Ministry on Monday Jan. 14, 2019, Cesare Battisti boards a plane at Santa Cruz de la Sierra airport in Bolivia to travel to Rome. Battisti, a left-wing Italian militant who was convicted of murder three decades ago is heading home to serve a life sentence, after his life as a celebrity fugitive came to an abrupt end with his arrest in Bolivia by a team of Interpol agents. (Italian Interior Ministry via AP) In this frame grab taken by a video released by the Italian Police, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019, Italian fugitive communist militant Cesare Battisti walks in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. Italy sent an aircraft to Bolivia on Sunday to pick up Battisti after he was captured there nearly three decades after he was convicted of murder, setting the stage for a climax to one of Italy's longest-running sagas.(Italian Police Via AP) FILE - In this April 12, 2012 file photo, Italian Cesare Battisti attends the presentation of his book about his experience in prison in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Italy sent an aircraft to Bolivia on Sunday Jan. 13, 2019, to pick up fugitive communist militant Cesare Battisti after he was captured there nearly three decades after he was convicted of murder, setting the stage for a climax to one of Italy's longest-running sagas. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo, File) A man who appears to be Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti enters the cabin door of a plane before it takes off for Italy, where he will serve a life sentence, at the airport in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial on four counts of murder allegedly committed when he was a member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism. (AP Photo) Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti is escorted by police as he leaves Ciampino military airport, in Rome, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial on four counts of murder allegedly committed when he was a member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti is escorted by police as he leaves Ciampino military airport, in Rome, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial on four counts of murder allegedly committed when he was a member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti arrives at Ciampino military airport in Rome, Monday, Jan. 14, 2018. Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial on four counts of murder allegedly committed when he was a member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia) Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, left, and Justice Minister Afonso Bonafede, right, wait for the arrival of the fugitive Cesare Battisti at Ciampino military airport in Rome, Monday, Jan. 14, 2018. Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial on four counts of murder allegedly committed when he was a member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia) Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti arrives at Ciampino military airport, in Rome, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Battisti a left-wing Italian militant who was convicted of murder three decades ago is heading home to serve a life sentence, after his life as a celebrity fugitive came to an abrupt end with his arrest in Bolivia by a team of Interpol agents. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti arrives at Ciampino military airport, in Rome, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Battisti a left-wing Italian militant who was convicted of murder three decades ago is heading home to serve a life sentence, after his life as a celebrity fugitive came to an abrupt end with his arrest in Bolivia by a team of Interpol agents. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia) Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti arrives at Ciampino military airport, in Rome, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Battisti a left-wing Italian militant who was convicted of murder three decades ago is heading home to serve a life sentence, after his life as a celebrity fugitive came to an abrupt end with his arrest in Bolivia by a team of Interpol agents. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti, center, arrives at Ciampino military airport, in Rome, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Battisti a left-wing Italian militant who was convicted of murder three decades ago is heading home to serve a life sentence, after his life as a celebrity fugitive came to an abrupt end with his arrest in Bolivia by a team of Interpol agents. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) WARSAW, Poland (AP) - The Latest on the stabbing of a Polish mayor (all times local): 9:10 p.m. The president of the World Jewish Congress says the fatal stabbing in Poland of Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz was an attack "on the very value of tolerance." In a statement issued in New York on Monday, Ronald Lauder called Adamowicz "a true friend of the Jewish community, speaking loudly and clearly against anti-Semitism in Poland." The 53-yaer-old mayor was attacked at a charity event on Sunday by a man who shouted he was taking revenge against Poland's Civil Platform party. Adamowicz was a party member until 2015. Lauder described Adamowicz as "a leading voice of opposition against far-right extremism and a proponent of equal rights and security for all citizens of Poland." People hold lit candles in a memorial march for Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, in Warsaw, Poland, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. People in Poland are gathering for solemn vigils to honor Gdansk Mayor, 53-year-old Pawel Adamowicz. who died Monday after being stabbed at a fundraising event the night before. There were vigils in Warsaw and other cities across a nation shocked by the assassination. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) He expressed hope "this horrific murder will not dissuade proponents of democracy and acceptance from continuing to embrace and promote" them. ___ 8:40 p.m. A former prime minister who co-founded the Polish political party cited by a suspect in a mayor's fatal stabbing has vowed to protect Poland and Europe from hatred. Donald Tusk joined mourners on the streets of his hometown, Gdansk, after Mayor Pawel Adamowicz died Monday from the stab wounds he received at a charity event on Sunday night. Tusk has been the president of the European Council, the EU's round table of national leaders, since 2014. He flew to Gdansk from Brussels to honor Adamowicz, a friend and former member of Civil Platform. The man who stabbed Adamowicz said he acted for revenge against the party, which Adamowicz left in 2015. Tusk said: "I want to promise you, dear Pawel, today, that for you and for all of us we will defend our Gdansk, our Poland and our Europe from hatred and contempt." ___ 7:35 p.m. Former Polish President Lech Walesa has blamed politics for the stabbing attack that killed the mayor of Gdansk. Walesa, who is from Gdansk and founded the Solidarity trade union there in the 1980s, took part in a Catholic Mass and public gathering in Mayor Pawel Adamowicz's memory on Monday. He said he would remember Adamowicz as a "great activist, a person who loved Gdansk" and a man who "was, is and will remain to be my friend." The assailant who attacked the mayor on stage at a charity event on Sunday shouted he was taking revenge against Poland's former ruling party for his imprisonment. Adamowicz had been a member of Civil Platform, but left the party in 2015. Walesa said: "All kinds of sick people take to such steps, and it's politics that is to blame, all this situation." ___ 7:00 p.m. European leaders are condemning the fatal stabbing of the mayor of the Polish city of Gdansk as a "shameless act" and a "senseless act of violence." German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote Pawel Adamowicz's widow and said he was "particularly shocked that your husband was attacked during the closing rally of a donation campaign to raise funds for hospitals." The mayor died on Monday, less than a day after he was stabbed on stage at the fundraiser. Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek called Adamowicz's slaying "a great tragedy not only for Gdansk and Poland but for the whole of Europe and its citizens." Petricek wrote on Twitter: "It is important to make clear that, irrespective of differences in political attitudes, we all strongly condemn this shameful act." ___ 6:40 p.m. People in Poland are gathering for solemn vigils to honor a mayor who died Monday after being stabbed at a fundraising event the night before. Some Poles held candles flickering in glass holders as they gathered in Gdansk, where 53-year-old Pawel Adamowicz recently won re-election to a sixth term as mayor. There were also vigils in Warsaw and other cities across a nation shocked by the assassination. In the Polish capital, some held a big banner reading "Stop Hate." Adamowicz was stabbed multiple times by an assailant who stormed the stage at the "Lights to Heaven" fundraiser. The assailant shouted it was revenge against Poland's main opposition party, which Adamowicz left in 2015. ___ 6:20 p.m. Poland's president says a national day of mourning will be observed when a mayor who was fatally stabbed at a charity event is buried. President Andrzej Duda opened a news conference with a minute of silence in memory of Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, who died Monday from the stab wounds he suffered on Sunday night. Duda said the attack was an "evil hard to imagine" and a "blow to our community of people who want to do good." He called Adamowicz a "truly great human being, a great politician and great resident of Gdansk." Funeral and burial plans are pending. Poland's private TVN24 is broadcasting black-and-white footage of Adamowicz shaking hands and patting children's heads in the street while collecting money for the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity. ___ 4:50 p.m. The head of the popular Polish charity event during which the mayor of Gdansk was fatally stabbed says he is resigning from his position after having received threats for years. Pawel Adamowicz died Monday after being stabbed on the stage during an annual event for the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity. The charity's head, Jerzy Owsiak, a popular figure known across the country for his energy, said he is resigning as head of management but will continue to cooperate with it. Owsiak said that for years he has been the target of threats and hate messages, including by some right-wing lawmakers, but that he is not getting any help from the police. He told a news conference that recently the level of public criticism is "touching on Nazi, fascist language, on threats." He said that maybe his resignation would make "let go" the extreme groups and individuals who "have been given a wide space for such activity." He apparently meant far-right groups under the current right-wing government. ___ 4:15 p.m. An aide says that top European Union official Donald Tusk is traveling to his Polish birthplace of Gdansk after his friend, the city's mayor, was stabbed to death. Pawel Adamowicz died Monday hours after surgery for wounds to his heart and internal organs sustained the previous evening in a knife attack by an ex-convict who said it was his revenge on the liberal Civic Platform party that Adamowicz formerly belonged to. Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, is the founder of Civic Platform and now president of the European Council. Tusk tweeted: "Pawel Adamowicz, Mayor of Gdansk, a man of Solidarity and freedom, a European, my good friend, has been murdered. May he rest in peace." His aide Pawel Gras said that Tusk is going to Gdansk because of Adamowicz's death. Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced. ___ 4:05 p.m. The leader of Poland's conservative ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has expressed "great pain" at the death of the opposition mayor of the city of Gdansk, who was stabbed by an ex-convict during a public charity event. Mayor Pawel Adamowicz died Monday, hours after surgery for the wounds to his heart and internal organs he sustained Sunday in a knife attack. The attacker said it was his revenge on a liberal party that Adamowicz formerly belonged to, now in the opposition. Kaczynski was quoted by a party spokeswoman as saying: "I express great pain after the tragic death resulting from a criminal attack on Gdansk Mayor Mr. Pawel Adamowicz. I remain in solidarity with the family and want to express my deep regret over the death of (their) husband, father and brother. Critics of the ruling party say it has created an atmosphere of suspicion and hostility against Adamowicz and other liberal political opponents that was fertile ground for the attack. ___ 3:15 p.m. Prosecutors in Poland say they have raised charges to murder for a man who stabbed Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, causing injuries to his heart and abdomen. Poland's health minister says Adamowicz, 53, died of his wounds on Monday after being stabbed at a fundraiser on Sunday. Doctors spent hours fighting to save his life. The 27-year-old ex-convict who attacked the mayor was previously facing charges of attempted murder. If convicted of murder, he could face up to life in prison. He stabbed Adamowicz before an audience on the stage of a popular nationwide charity event. The Gdansk city flag has been lowered to half-staff at the news of the death. ___ 2:50 p.m. Poland's health minister says that Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz has died from stab wounds a day after being attacked onstage by an ex-convict at a charity event. Lukasz Szumowski said Monday that the doctors who were fighting to save Adamowicz's life informed him the mayor had died. ___ 1:55 p.m. Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro says prosecutors are looking closely at the trial five years ago of the man accused of stabbing the mayor of Gdansk and wounding him severely. The suspect in Sunday's stabbing of Pawel Adamowicz was convicted of involvement in bank robberies and served the 5-year prison term in full. Ziobro, who is also the country's chief prosecutor, said Monday the term was not very high given the crime, and noted the man was refused parole three times. Ziobro, a prominent figure in the right-wing government, said he found no words to describe the "evil" of this "terrible event." He said the thoughts and prayers of everyone were with Adamowicz's family, and expressed hope that his life will be saved, but said everything is in the hands of "providence." ___ 1:50 p.m. Polish prosecutors say that the man accused of stabbing the mayor of Gdansk is being investigated on suspicion of attempted murder and will also be subjected to a psychiatric examination. Pawel Adamowicz remains in life-threatening condition after undergoing five hours of surgery for wounds to his heart and internal organs. Deputy Chief Prosecutor Krzysztof Sierak said Monday five prosecutors have so far questioned 20 witnesses and are preparing to question the 27-year-old suspect. Sierak said there are "doubts" as to the mental state of the attacker, who used a 14.5 centimeter (5.6 inch) knife on Adamowicz, and two psychiatrists will examine him. Prosecutors are also looking into the level of security at Sunday's public event which was the 27th annual festive collection for a very popular charity. Doctors list Adamowicz in very serious condition, saying more time is needed before they will know if his life will be saved. ___ 1:25 p.m. A surgeon involved in treating the mayor of the Polish city of Gdansk said doctors are still fighting to save the politician's life and that his prognosis is still uncertain. Pawel Adamowicz, 53, was stabbed in the heart and the abdomen Sunday evening while on stage during a fundraiser by an ex-convict who shouted that it was revenge against the politician's previous political party. He was taken to the university hospital in the Baltic port city, where he underwent a five-hour operation. Dr. Tomasz Stefaniak said Monday afternoon that Adamowicz is not conscious or able to breathe on his own and is on a life-support machine. __ 11:30 a.m. A Polish doctor says that the prognosis for the mayor of Gdansk remains uncertain after he lost a lot of blood and suffered oxygen deprivation in a knife attack. Mayor Pawel Adamowicz underwent five hours of surgery after suffering wounds to his heart and internal organs in the Sunday attack by an ex-convict who said it was political revenge on a party Adamowicz formerly belonged to. Jerzy Karpinski, the chief doctor for the Gdansk region, said Monday that Adamowicz is on life support and that "prognosis for his life and health is uncertain" after he lost a lot of blood that caused hypoxia of the whole body. He stressed, however, that the 53-year-old Adamowicz is a "relatively young, healthy person with no health issues" and that there is hope his body will cope and his condition will return to normal. He said the situation should be clearer within some 20 hours. ___ 11:20 a.m. A Polish police spokesman says a man accused of seriously wounding Gdansk city Mayor Pawel Adamowicz acted out of "irrational" motives and is in custody waiting for questioning by prosecutors. Mariusz Ciarka said Monday the 27-year-old, who was recently released from prison, appeared to have acted alone. He could face charges of attempted murder that carry up to life in prison. Ciarka said police were checking how the man got hold of a media pass, and whether it was authentic, as it allowed him to get on stage and stab Adamowicz during a popular nationwide charity event. A reporter for the Onet news portal, Piotr Olejarczyk, said he himself was admitted to the event just by saying he was an journalist. The popular annual charity event for hospitals is traditionally cheerful and open, with celebrities, politicians and teenagers collecting money in the streets across Poland and also abroad. ___ 10:15 a.m. A spokeswoman for Poland's ruling right-wing party has condemned a knife attack on an opposition city mayor as "barbaric" and has called for less aggression in politics. Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz remains in very serious condition after suffering wounds to his heart and internal organs in the Sunday attack by an ex-convict who said it was a political revenge on a party Adamowicz formerly belonged to. Beata Mazurek of the Law and Justice party said Monday that the attack on Adamowicz should be "absolutely condemned by all, regardless of what side of the political stage they are on, or whether they are politicians." She stressed such attack should never have taken place. Mazurek said politicians in Poland need "greater responsibility for words, for deeds" because "there is no shortage of madmen on both sides" of the political spectrum. ___ 7:20 a.m. The Polish city of Gdansk is holding a blood collection for its mayor, who remains in serious condition after being stabbed in the heart and the abdomen. Doctors operated for five hours on Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, who was stabbed during a popular charity event Sunday by a convicted criminal who called it political revenge. One of the surgeons, Dr. Tomasz Stefaniak, said Adamowicz suffered a "serious wound to the heart, a wound to the diaphragm and to the internal organs." He said Adamowicz needed massive blood transfusions. Gdansk is holding a blood collection for Adamowicz on Monday. A rally against violence is also planned. Gdansk Archbishop Leszek Slawoj Glodz, who was at the hospital during the surgery, said he was praying for a "miracle." Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz,right, far right, speaks to an audience shortly before he was stabbed in Gdansk, Poland, on Sunday Jan. 13, 2019. Adamowicz was taken to a hospital in very serious condition after the attack and underwent surgery. (AP Photo/Anna Rezulak/KFP) POLAND AUT A man holds a sharp object just after stabbing Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, on Sunday Jan. 13, 2019. Adamowicz was taken to a hospital in very serious condition after the attack and underwent an operation.(AP Photo/Anna Rezulak) People participate in the annual fund raising event the 27th Grand Finale of Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) FILE - The May 4, 2016 file photo shows Gdansk mayor Pawel Adamowicz speaking at a commemoration ceremony for late Bremen Mayor Hans Koschnick. Poland's health minister says that Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz has died from stab wounds a day after being attacked onstage by an ex-convict at a charity event. (Carmen Jaspersen/dpa via AP) FILE - In this Friday, Dec. 23, 2011 file photo, Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz unveils a street renamed in honor of Vaclav Havel, the former Czech president and playwright, in Gdansk, Poland. Poland's health minister says that Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz has died from stab wounds a day after being attacked onstage by an ex-convict at a charity event, it was reported on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Maciej Kosycarz, File) FILE - In this Monday, April 13, 2015 file photo, Pawel Adamowicz, the mayor of Gdansk, signs a condolence book in memory of German writer Guenter Grass, in Gdansk, Poland. Poland's health minister says that Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz has died from stab wounds a day after being attacked onstage by an ex-convict at a charity event, it was reported on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/ Maciej Kosycarz, File) People place candles as they mourn the mayor of Gdansk, Pawel Adamowicz, in Gdansk, Poland, on Jan. 14, 2019. Poland's president says a national day of mourning will be observed when a mayor who was fatally stabbed at a charity event is buried. President Andrzej Duda opened a news conference with a minute of silence in memory of Adamowicz, who died Monday from the stab wounds he suffered on Sunday night. (AP Photo/Wojciech Strozyk) FILE - July 16, 2013 file photo shows Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz as he visits the city hall of Luebeck, northern Germany. Poland's health minister says that Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz has died from stab wounds a day after being attacked onstage by an ex-convict at a charity event. (Markus Scholz/dpa via AP) People line up to donate blood for Gdansk Mayor Adamowicz, who is in critical condition and needs blood transfusions after being stabbed in the heart and abdomen on stage during a charity event the evening before, in Gdansk, Poland, Monday Jan. 14, 2019. Doctors operated for five hours on Adamowicz after an ex-convict rushed onto the stage with a knife, carried out the attack and shouted it was political revenge against a political party Adamowicz previously belonged to. (Krzysztof Mystkowski / KFP via AP) POLAND AUT People place candles as they mourn the mayor of Gdansk, Pawel Adamowicz, in Gdansk, Poland, on Jan. 14, 2019. Poland's president says a national day of mourning will be observed when a mayor who was fatally stabbed at a charity event is buried. President Andrzej Duda opened a news conference with a minute of silence in memory of Adamowicz, who died Monday from the stab wounds he suffered on Sunday night. (AP Photo/Wojciech Strozyk) People hold lit candles in a memorial march for Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, in Warsaw, Poland, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. People in Poland are gathering for solemn vigils to honor Gdansk Mayor, 53-year-old Pawel Adamowicz. who died Monday after being stabbed at a fundraising event the night before. There were vigils in Warsaw and other cities across a nation shocked by the assassination. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) PARIS (AP) - Two French policemen went on trial Monday on charges of gang-raping a Canadian tourist at Paris police headquarters nearly five years ago. The officers, both members of the BRI anti-gang force at the time, are accused of raping the woman at 36 Quai des Orfevres, a famous address depicted in many crime movies and novels. They deny any wrongdoing and claim the alleged victim consented to sexual interactions during a booze-fueled evening. Their trial is expected to last three weeks. The woman, Emily Spanton, attended the trial's first day at a Paris courthouse located only a stone's throw from the police headquarters. She said she met a group of officers across the street near the Seine River in an Irish pub in April 2014. After several drinks, they invited her for a night tour of police headquarters, where she claimed she was forced to drink whisky, perform oral sex and was raped several times. She left the building about 90 minutes later, barefoot and without her tights. FILE - In this Friday, Feb. 6, 2015 file picture, police officers stand guard in front of the 36 Quai des Orfevres police headquarters in Paris, France. Two anti-gang French policemen are going on trial over charges of gang-raping a Canadian tourist at Paris police headquarters. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File) According to court documents, the men's DNA was found on the woman's underwear. Court president Stephane Duchemin said a medical exam performed after she filed a lawsuit showed she had bruises on several parts of her body and a gynecological lesion. Experts also determined she was drunk and that she had "between 2.6 and 3.3 grams of alcohol per liter of blood in her body" when the alleged rapes took place. The Associated Press does not usually identify alleged victims of sexual violence unless they have come forward and voluntarily identified themselves, as Spanton did. Spanton first said that she had been raped by four officers before revising her testimony to cite three police. Only two policemen have been brought to court. Judges initially threw out the case but the Paris prosecutor and the alleged victim won their appeal to have it brought to a trial. The officers, who have not been jailed, face up to 20 years in prison. One of the officers admitted he received oral sex but claims he did not force the Canadian woman. The other initially denied any sexual relationship then admitted to some mutual touching. PARIS (AP) - Anti-government protesters and political rivals of President Emmanuel Macron criticized a sweeping "letter to the French" he issued after two months of weekly demonstrations, saying Monday his response was inadequate to quell anger over his economic policies. The letter released Sunday explained how Macron wants to address the concerns roused by the yellow vest movement with a "grand debate" on taxes, public services, climate change and democracy. The three-month initiative is supposed to take place at local meetings around the country and on the internet starting Tuesday. The French leader said no topics are prohibited and he listed more than 30 questions. He suggested that citizens express their views on which taxes should be lowered and offer ideas for reducing the cost of transportation, heating and food. Yellow vest representative Jeremy Clement told BFM television the president's letter "settles part of the problem" but doesn't go far enough to address the sinking purchasing power of French citizens. One protester, Jerome Rodrigues, told CNews he thinks Macron failed to recognize "the urgency" of financial concerns among low-income workers and retirees. French President Emmanuel Macron poses next to a traditional epiphany cake at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Friday, Jan. 11, 2019. (Ian Langsdon /Pool Photo via AP) Others criticized Macron for ruling out restoring a wealth tax on households with assets above 1.3 million euros ($1.5 million.) Opposition leaders also criticized the letter. The spokeswoman for the conservative Republicans party, Laurence Sailliet, said "this letter doesn't allow us to know if Macron will realize the mistakes he made and will actually change his policy." The spokesman of far-right National Rally party, Sebastien Chenu, called it "hypocritical claptrap." Far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon called the letter "a failure" that doesn't address the French's concerns. Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer, speaking on France Inter radio, said "the message of the yellow vests has been heard. We are making something constructive out of it." An online poll by French institute YouGov this month showed 40 percent of respondents said they wanted to take part in the debate while 39 percent didn't want to and the remainder didn't know. Skepticism about the debate's usefulness appeared on social media. Paris resident Jerome Huntziger told the AP the public conversation "won't change anything." "The feeling of the French is a fed-up feeling on a certain number of things, a feeling of not being listened to by the national representatives," he said. The French Interior Ministry said about 84,000 people turned out on Saturday for the ninth straight round of demonstrations across France. Thierry Paul Valette, founder of a group called "yellow vests citizens" told the AP the yellow vests would have "no break. The mobilizations continue." The movement emerged in mid-November as a response to fuel tax increases, and is named for the fluorescent garments motorists are required to keep in vehicles. _______________________ Nicolas Garriga in Paris contributed to the story. A French riot policeman throws a canister of smoke during clashes with yellow vest protesters in Lyon, central France, Saturday, Jan. 12, 2019. Authorities deployed thousands of security forces nationwide for a ninth straight weekend of anti-government protests. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani) HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A federal judge on Monday put a nationwide hold on Trump administration rules that allow more employers to opt out of providing women with no-cost birth control. U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Philadelphia agreed with a lawsuit originally filed by Pennsylvania, citing the potential harm to states should the rules be enforced. Numerous citizens could lose contraceptive coverage, Beetlestone wrote, resulting in the increased use of state-funded contraceptive services, as well as increased costs to state services from unintended pregnancies. The rules, scheduled to take effect Monday, would change a mandate under 2010's Affordable Care Act by allowing more employers, including publicly traded companies, to opt out of providing no-cost contraceptive coverage to women by claiming religious objections. Some private employers could also now object on moral grounds. Pennsylvania's attorney general, Josh Shapiro, called the court ruling a "victory for the health and economic independence of women" and the rejection of a Trump administration move to violate a federal law that requires insurers to cover the services. "Congress hasn't changed that law, and the president can't simply ignore it with an illegal rule," Shapiro said. FILE - In this March 25, 2015 file photo, Margot Riphagen of New Orleans, La., wears a birth control pills costume during a protest in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. A U.S. judge will hear arguments Friday, Jan. 11, 2019, over California's attempt to block new rules by the Trump administration that would allow more employers to opt out of providing no-cost birth control to women. The new rules are set to go into effect on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File) New Jersey later joined Pennsylvania in suing. In issuing the injunction, Beetlestone wrote in her opinion that the states were likely to win their lawsuit's claims that Trump's administration violated procedural requirements for how regulations must be created and that the rules exceed the scope of authority under the Affordable Care Act. The Department of Justice did not say whether it would appeal, saying only that it will "continue to vigorously defend religious liberty." The Department of Health and Human Services said the rules affirm the administration's commitment to upholding constitutional freedoms. "No American should be forced to violate his or her own conscience in order to abide by the laws and regulations governing our health care system," Health and Human Services Department spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said in a statement. On Sunday, a federal judge in California blocked the rules from taking effect in the jurisdictions in the lawsuit before him. Those included California, New York and 11 other states along with Washington, D.C. At issue is a requirement under former Democratic President Barack Obama's health care law that birth control services be covered at no additional cost. Obama officials included exemptions for religious organizations. But the administration of President Donald Trump, a Republican, sought to expand those exemptions and added "moral convictions" as a basis to opt out of providing birth control services. The Justice Department has argued that the new rules "protect a narrow class of sincere religious and moral objectors from being forced to facilitate practices that conflict with their beliefs." Beetlestone had previously blocked an interim version of the rules in a December 2017 ruling. In November, the Trump administration rolled out a final version of the rule, prompting another challenge by states. ___ Associated Press writer Sudhin Thanawala in San Francisco contributed to this report. JERUSALEM (AP) - Scuffles broke out at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's Old City on Monday after guards at the mosque refused to allow an Israeli policeman to enter for a routine security check because he was wearing a Jewish skullcap known as a kippah, a Palestinian official said. Firas Dibs, a spokesman for the Islamic authority that oversees the site, says dozens of worshippers scuffled with police after the guards closed the doors to the mosque and barricaded themselves inside. He says the director of the mosque was lightly wounded. Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police "prevented any disturbances from taking place" after local residents closed the doors of the mosque and prevented officers from entering. He said the doors were opened a few hours later and that police detained five people for questioning. The iconic gold-domed mosque is part of the Al-Aqsa mosque complex, which Muslims consider their third holiest site after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. It is the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the location of the biblical temples. The holy site is at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and past clashes there have sparked widespread violence. Dibs said police carry out routine security checks every morning, and that the policeman was only prevented from entering because he was wearing a kippah. The Palestinians have long feared that Israel plans to take over the site so it can rebuild the temple, allegations denied by the Israeli government, which says it has no plans to change the status quo. Israeli police stands at the door to the Dome of the Rock mosque confronted by Palestinians, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Scuffles broke out at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's Old City on Monday after guards at the mosque refused to allow an Israeli policeman to enter for a routine security check because he was wearing a Jewish skullcap known as a kippah. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean) Earlier on Monday, the Gaza Health Ministry said a 14-year-old Palestinian who was shot by Israeli forces during mass protests along the perimeter fence over the weekend died of his wounds. The ministry said Abdelraouf Salhah was shot in the head during the protest on Friday. A 43-year-old female activist was also killed, and two dozen Palestinians were wounded. Hamas has been orchestrating weekly mass protests along the perimeter fence since last March to protest an Israeli and Egyptian blockade imposed on Gaza when the Islamic militant group seized power in 2007. At least 187 Palestinians have been killed since the protests began, including 35 who were 18 or younger, and thousands of Palestinians have been wounded. An Israeli soldier was also killed. Israel says it is protecting its border from infiltrators who could carry out attacks. ___ Associated Press writer Fares Akram in Gaza City, Gaza Strip contributed. Israeli police stands at the door to the Dome of the Rock mosque confronted by Palestinians, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Scuffles broke out at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's Old City on Monday after guards at the mosque refused to allow an Israeli policeman to enter for a routine security check because he was wearing a Jewish skullcap known as a kippah. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean) Israeli police stands at the door to the Dome of the Rock mosque confronted by Palestinians, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Scuffles broke out at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's Old City on Monday after guards at the mosque refused to allow an Israeli policeman to enter for a routine security check because he was wearing a Jewish skullcap known as a kippah. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean) TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - A decades-old Iranian Boeing 707 military cargo plane reportedly carrying meat from Kyrgyzstan crashed on Monday while trying to land west of Iran's capital, killing 15 people on board and leaving a sole survivor, authorities said. The crash of the jetliner marked just the latest aviation disaster for Iran, which hoped to replace its aging fleet under terms of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. But instead, President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the accord in May scuttled billions of dollars in planned sales by Airbus and Boeing Co. to the Islamic Republic, only increasing the danger for passengers in Iran planes. The aircraft, which bore the paint scheme of the Iranian air force's civilian Saha Airlines, was an making emergency landing around 8:30 a.m. Monday at Fath Airport, an airfield controlled by Iran's powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. The plane skidded off the runway, crashed through a perimeter fence and into a residential neighborhood. Iranian state television aired images of smoke-charred homes and the fuselage of the aircraft lying on the ground in the neighborhood. Nearby was one of its landing gears, torn away. Small fires burned around it. The plane was meant to land at the nearby Payam International Airport, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Tehran, the Iranian capital. This photo provided by Mizan News Agency, shows Iranian rescue personnel and security work at the site of a Boeing 707 cargo plane crash, at Fath Airport about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Tehran, Iran, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. An Iranian emergency management official has told state TV that 16 people were on board a Boeing 707 cargo plane that crashed west of Tehran and that there is only one known survivor. (Hasan Shirvani/Mizan News Agency via AP) Authorities did not immediately offer a reason for the crew's decision to land instead at Fath Airport. That airport is some 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) southwest of Payam. Its runway is some 1,100-meters (3,600-feet) long, compared to Payam's 3,600 meters (11,800 feet). In November, a commercial airline reportedly mistook Fath for Payam, but was able to abort its landing. Iran's state-run IRNA news agency later quoted an anonymous aviation official saying Monday's doomed flight likewise mistook Fath for Payam. Pirhossein Koulivand, the head of the country's emergency medical services, said that of the 16 people on board the plane, only the flight engineer was known to have survived. IRNA reported all 15 bodies of the crew who died had been recovered by Monday afternoon. Iran's air force said in a statement that the fate of the crew, including their possible "martyrdom," is under investigation. It wasn't immediately clear who owns the plane, though Gen. Shahin Taghikhani, an army spokesman, told state TV that the plane and its crew were Iranian. Iranians often use the word "martyrdom" for those who die in war or national service. The plane reportedly was carrying a cargo of meat from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan's capital, to Iran. Since 2016, Iran has been importing meat from Kyrgyzstan, usually via Saha. It imported 150 tons in 2016 and 350 tons in 2017. Saha Airlines operated one of the world's last commercial flights of the Boeing 707, which was first manufactured in 1958 and helped usher in the jet age. The four-engine, narrow-body aircraft were built until 1979. Maintenance information regarding the Boeing 707 that crashed Monday was not immediately available. However, Iran has struggled to obtain parts for its aging fleet of airlines, nearly all purchased during the time of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Saha Airlines' Boeing 707s suffered a previous fatal crash in April 2005, when a flight coming from the Kish island crash-landed at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran, killing three passengers. Iran has suffered a series of major aviation disasters in recent decades. Its last major crash happened in February 2018, when an Aseman Airlines ATR-72 brought back into service only months earlier after being grounded for seven years crashed in a foggy, mountainous region of southern Iran, killing all 65 people aboard. In January 2011, when an Iran Air Boeing 727 broke to pieces on impact while trying an emergency landing in a snowstorm in northwestern Iran, killing at least 77 people. In July 2009, a Russian-made jetliner crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran, killing all 168 on board. A Russian-made Ilyushin 76 carrying members of the Revolutionary Guard crashed in southeastern Iran in February 2003, killing 302 people. In February 1993, an Iranian airliner with 132 people aboard collided with an air force jet after takeoff from Tehran's main airport, killing everyone on the two aircraft. And in July 1988, the USS Vincennes in the Strait of Hormuz mistook an Iran Air flight heading to Dubai for an attacking fighter jet, shooting down the plane and killing all 290 people aboard. ___ Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This photo provided by Mizan News Agency, shows an Iranian rescue works at the site of a Boeing 707 cargo plane crash, at Fath Airport about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Tehran, Iran, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. An Iranian emergency management official has told state TV that 16 people were on board a Boeing 707 cargo plane that crashed west of Tehran and that there is only one known survivor. (Hasan Shirvani/Mizan News Agency via AP) WARSAW, Poland (AP) - The popular liberal mayor of Poland's port city of Gdansk died Monday after being stabbed at a charity event by an ex-convict with a history of violent crime. The killing plunged the politically divided country into shock and grief and brought Poles into the streets for solemn vigils in a rare show of national unity. Pawel Adamowicz, 53, died from the wounds inflicted by a 27-year-old man who stormed onstage Sunday evening while the mayor was addressing an audience during the "Lights to Heaven," the finale of a nationwide fundraiser for sick children. Adamowicz had just expressed gratitude to the "generous" crowd, adding: "This is a wonderful time of sharing good things. You are dear. Gdansk is the most wonderful city in the world. Thank you!" That's when the assailant rushed up and stabbed him three times, then grabbed a microphone to tell the audience that he acted in revenge against the country's main opposition party, Civic Platform, which Adamowicz was a member of for many years but left it in 2015. With the music still playing and pyrotechnics erupting onstage, the attacker told the stunned crowd he had been wrongly imprisoned under a Civic Platform-led government. "I was jailed but innocent. ... Civic Platform tortured me. That's why Adamowicz just died," he said. People hold lit candles in a memorial march for Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, in Warsaw, Poland, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. People in Poland are gathering for solemn vigils to honor Gdansk Mayor, 53-year-old Pawel Adamowicz. who died Monday after being stabbed at a fundraising event the night before. There were vigils in Warsaw and other cities across a nation shocked by the assassination. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) Adamowicz was taken to a hospital, where doctors struggled to save him, but a five-hour operation and blood transfusions were not enough, given the gravity of the injuries. The assassination comes while the nation is torn by bitter political divisions that are similar in many ways to those in the United States. The right-wing ruling Law and Justice party faced accusations that a hostile atmosphere against Adamowicz and other liberals has created fertile ground for violence. Government officials pushed back against that accusation, strongly denouncing the attack and stressing the assailant had a history of violent bank robberies. Identified by authorities only as Stefan W., he was arrested and charged Monday with murder. Deputy Chief Prosecutor Krzysztof Sierak said there were questions about the mental state of the attacker, who used a 14.5-centimeter (5.5-inch) knife on Adamowicz, and that two psychiatrists will examine him. He had served 5 years in prison and was released toward the end of last year. President Andrzej Duda, who is aligned with the ruling party, opened a news conference with a minute of silence and said a day of national mourning will be observed when Adamowicz's family holds his funeral, which was not yet announced. He is survived by his wife and two daughters. Duda called Adamowicz a "truly great human being, a great politician and great resident of Gdansk," and denounced the attack as an act of unimaginable evil. Ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland's most powerful politician, expressed his "great pain" and solidarity with Adamowicz's family. In the evening, solemn vigils were held in Gdansk, Warsaw and other cities. Many carried candles in glass jars and some used cellphones to produce flickers of light, an apparent reference to the "Lights to Heaven" event where Adamowicz was attacked. In Warsaw, the capital, some held a big banner reading "Stop Hate." Donald Tusk, a founder of Civic Platform who was prime minister when the attacker was imprisoned and who is now president of the European Council, joined mourners in Gdansk, also his hometown. "I want to promise you today, dear Pawel, that for you and for all of us, we will defend our Gdansk, our Poland and our Europe from hatred and contempt," Tusk told the crowd. The city flag was lowered to half-staff and Masses were held in Gdansk, Warsaw and elsewhere. Many people in Gdansk had donated blood for Adamowicz, with some saying they were given time off work. Adamowicz was part of the democratic opposition formed in Gdansk under the leadership of Lech Walesa during the 1980s. After leaving Civic Platform, he was re-elected to a sixth term as an independent candidate in the fall. As mayor, he was a progressive voice, promoting sex education in schools and tolerance for LGBT people and minorities. He showed solidarity with the Jewish community when the Gdansk synagogue had its windows broken last year, strongly denouncing the vandalism. The World Jewish Congress said it was in shock and mourning. "He was a true friend of the Jewish community, speaking loudly and clearly against antisemitism in Poland," it said. Adamowicz also advocated bringing wounded Syrian children to Gdansk for medical treatment, but the plan was blocked by the Law and Justice government. After he took that stand, a far-right group, the All-Polish Youth, issued what they called a "political death notice" for him. Government critics said they believed the violence could be partly traced to the animosity voiced against Adamowicz by some ruling party officials, which at times was carried on state TV, as well as by extremists from other groups. The assassination also initiated some soul-searching about whether security is as stringent as it should be in a country where most people enjoy a general sense of safety. The assailant got access to the stage using a media pass. Adamowicz often mingled freely with the public and had been on the streets Sunday raising money for the charity, along with volunteers across the country. Following the killing, Jerzy Owsiak said he was resigning as head of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity but would continue to work with the organization, whose primary mission in its 27 years of existence is to buy modern equipment for pediatric wards in cash-strapped state hospitals. Owsiak said he himself has been the target of threats and hate messages, including by some right-wing lawmakers, but that he is not receiving any help from the police. He told a news conference that recently levels of public criticism is "touching on Nazi, fascist language." The last politically motivated attack in Poland was in 2010 in Lodz when a man shouting that he wanted to kill Kaczynski fatally shot an aide to one of the party's European Parliament lawmakers. Kaczynski, at the time an opposition leader, blamed the attack on an "atmosphere of hate" under Civic Platform. Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz,right, far right, speaks to an audience shortly before he was stabbed in Gdansk, Poland, on Sunday Jan. 13, 2019. Adamowicz was taken to a hospital in very serious condition after the attack and underwent surgery. (AP Photo/Anna Rezulak/KFP) POLAND AUT People hold lit candles in a memorial march for Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, in Warsaw, Poland, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. People in Poland are gathering for solemn vigils to honor Gdansk Mayor, 53-year-old Pawel Adamowicz. who died Monday after being stabbed at a fundraising event the night before. There were vigils in Warsaw and other cities across a nation shocked by the assassination. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) A man holds a sharp object just after stabbing Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, on Sunday Jan. 13, 2019. Adamowicz was taken to a hospital in very serious condition after the attack and underwent an operation.(AP Photo/Anna Rezulak) FILE - The May 4, 2016 file photo shows Gdansk mayor Pawel Adamowicz speaking at a commemoration ceremony for late Bremen Mayor Hans Koschnick. Poland's health minister says that Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz has died from stab wounds a day after being attacked onstage by an ex-convict at a charity event. (Carmen Jaspersen/dpa via AP) People donate blood for Gdansk Mayor Adamowicz, who is in critical condition and needs blood transfusions after being stabbed in the heart and abdomen on stage during a charity event the evening before, in Gdansk, Poland, Monday Jan. 14, 2019. Doctors operated for five hours on Adamowicz after an ex-convict rushed onto the stage with a knife, carried out the attack and shouted it was political revenge against a political party Adamowicz previously belonged to. (Krzysztof Mystkowski / KFP via AP) POLAND AUT People line up to donate blood for Gdansk Mayor Adamowicz, who is in critical condition and needs blood transfusions after being stabbed in the heart and abdomen on stage during a charity event the evening before, in Gdansk, Poland, Monday Jan. 14, 2019. Doctors operated for five hours on Adamowicz after an ex-convict rushed onto the stage with a knife, carried out the attack and shouted it was political revenge against a political party Adamowicz previously belonged to. (Krzysztof Mystkowski / KFP via AP) POLAND AUT FILE - In this Saturday, April 21, 2018 file photo, the mayor of Gdansk, Pawel Adamowicz addresses a rally organized in protest against a recent gathering by far-right groups in this Baltic coast city, in Gdansk, Poland. A private broadcaster in Poland is reporting that a man attacked 53-year-old Mayor Pawel Adamowicz while he was on stage on Sunday Jan. 13, 2019, for the finale of the charity event in the Baltic city. (AP Photo/Wojciech Strozyk, File) FILE - July 16, 2013 file photo shows Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz as he visits the city hall of Luebeck, northern Germany. Poland's health minister says that Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz has died from stab wounds a day after being attacked onstage by an ex-convict at a charity event. (Markus Scholz/dpa via AP) FILE - In this Friday, Dec. 23, 2011 file photo, Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz unveils a street renamed in honor of Vaclav Havel, the former Czech president and playwright, in Gdansk, Poland. Poland's health minister says that Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz has died from stab wounds a day after being attacked onstage by an ex-convict at a charity event, it was reported on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Maciej Kosycarz, File) FILE - In this Monday, April 13, 2015 file photo, Pawel Adamowicz, the mayor of Gdansk, signs a condolence book in memory of German writer Guenter Grass, in Gdansk, Poland. Poland's health minister says that Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz has died from stab wounds a day after being attacked onstage by an ex-convict at a charity event, it was reported on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/ Maciej Kosycarz, File) People hold lit candles in a memorial march for Gdansk Mayor Pawel Adamowicz, in Warsaw, Poland, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. People in Poland are gathering for solemn vigils to honor Gdansk Mayor, 53-year-old Pawel Adamowicz. who died Monday after being stabbed at a fundraising event the night before. There were vigils in Warsaw and other cities across a nation shocked by the assassination. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) ROME (AP) - A left-wing Italian militant who was convicted of murder three decades ago arrived in Rome on Monday to begin serving life in prison, after his time as a celebrity fugitive came to an abrupt end with his arrest in Bolivia. An Italian military aircraft carrying Cesare Battisti landed at Rome's Ciampino airport shortly after 11:30 a.m. after an overnight flight from Bolivia. As snipers kept close watch, Battisti emerged and descended from the plane, surrounded by police. Wearing a brown jacket, a look of resignation and no handcuffs, Battisti was escorted to an airport facility to be processed - a remarkably quick finale to one of Italy's most drawn-out, politicized efforts to bring a fugitive home. "All of the families, we waited for such a long time," marveled Alberto Torregiani as he watched live television coverage of the arrival of the man convicted in the death of his father. "Seeing him come out of the airplane and in this moment is going to prison - it puts the word 'end' on this story." Battisti was arrested Saturday in Santa Cruz, Bolivia's largest city, where he was located by intelligence agents after using one of his mobile devices. Italy sent an aircraft to pick him up and bring him back for the first time since he fled Italy in 1981 as he was awaiting trial. The 64-year-old, who became a successful author during his life on the run, had lived openly in Brazil and France for years, enjoying the protection of left-wing governments on both sides of the Atlantic, much to the consternation of Italy. Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti arrives at Ciampino military airport, in Rome, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Battisti a left-wing Italian militant who was convicted of murder three decades ago is heading home to serve a life sentence, after his life as a celebrity fugitive came to an abrupt end with his arrest in Bolivia by a team of Interpol agents. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia) But Brazil's outgoing president signed a decree last month ordering his extradition. That apparently prompted Battisti to flee to Bolivia, where his request for political asylum was rejected on Dec. 26, five days after he made it, Bolivian officials said Monday. Battisti escaped from an Italian prison while awaiting trial on four counts of murder allegedly committed when he was a member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism. He was convicted in absentia in 1990 and faces life in prison for the deaths of two police officers, a jeweler - Torregiani's father, Pierluigi - and a butcher. Battisti acknowledged membership in the militant group but denied killing anyone. He painted himself as a political refugee who would face certain torture or death in Italy. After initially fleeing to Mexico, he then settled in France, where he joined dozens of left-wing Italian militants who enjoyed official protection from the French government. Like Battisti, they fled Italy during its "years of lead," a bloody, turbulent era during the 1970s and 1980s when militants on the left and right carried out bombings, assassinations and other violent acts to try to bring down the Italian government. After political winds shifted in France, Battisti fled to Brazil in 2004 to avoid being extradited. He was arrested in Rio de Janeiro in 2007, prompting the Italian government to request that he be handed over. But then Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva granted him political asylum in 2010. Battisti was eventually released from jail but was arrested again in 2017 after he was caught trying to cross the Brazil-Bolivia border with about $7,500 in undeclared cash. He was released after a few days. After that incident, the Brazilian supreme federal tribunal issued a warrant for Battisti's arrest on tax evasion and money laundering charges. Outgoing Brazilian President Michel Temer signed the decree in December ordering the fugitive's extradition, and Brazil's new right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, vowed to follow through with it. In the end, that wasn't necessary, as Bolivian authorities handed Battisti directly over to Italian authorities, bypassing Brazil. That handoff will enable Italy to enforce the life sentence Battisti is due to serve. Under Brazilian law, people extradited to serve life sentences must have their sentences capped at 30 years. "Today to the world, we say no one can escape Italian justice," Justice Minister Alfonso Bonafede said from the airport tarmac after Battisti arrived, with Italy's interior minister by his side. Bonafede had said earlier that Battisti would serve his term at Rome's Rebibbia prison. On Monday, he announced a change in plans on security grounds, saying that Battisti would instead be imprisoned at a maximum security facility in remote western Sardinia. As for Torregiani, he was still processing the remarkable 48 hours that ended the nearly four-decade hunt for the man convicted in his father's death. "It is not a question of how many years or months that someone stays in prison," he told The Associated Press. "It is just important that he begins to serve that sentence that for so many years he was able to avoid." ___ AP videojournalist Brian Hendrie contributed from Casalvolone, Italy. Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti, center, arrives at Ciampino military airport, in Rome, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Battisti a left-wing Italian militant who was convicted of murder three decades ago is heading home to serve a life sentence, after his life as a celebrity fugitive came to an abrupt end with his arrest in Bolivia by a team of Interpol agents. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti arrives at Ciampino military airport, in Rome, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Battisti a left-wing Italian militant who was convicted of murder three decades ago is heading home to serve a life sentence, after his life as a celebrity fugitive came to an abrupt end with his arrest in Bolivia by a team of Interpol agents. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia) Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti arrives at Ciampino military airport, in Rome, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Battisti a left-wing Italian militant who was convicted of murder three decades ago is heading home to serve a life sentence, after his life as a celebrity fugitive came to an abrupt end with his arrest in Bolivia by a team of Interpol agents. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) FILE - In this April 12, 2012 file photo, Italian Cesare Battisti attends the presentation of his book about his experience in prison in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Italy sent an aircraft to Bolivia on Sunday Jan. 13, 2019, to pick up fugitive communist militant Cesare Battisti after he was captured there nearly three decades after he was convicted of murder, setting the stage for a climax to one of Italy's longest-running sagas. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo, File) In this image made available by the Italian Interior Ministry on Monday Jan. 14, 2019, Cesare Battisti travels to board a plane from Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia to Rome. Battisti, a left-wing Italian militant who was convicted of murder three decades ago is heading home to serve a life sentence, after his life as a celebrity fugitive came to an abrupt end with his arrest in Bolivia by a team of Interpol agents. (Italian Interior Ministry via AP) In this frame grab taken by a video released by the Italian Police, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019, Italian fugitive communist militant Cesare Battisti walks in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. Italy sent an aircraft to Bolivia on Sunday to pick up Battisti after he was captured there nearly three decades after he was convicted of murder, setting the stage for a climax to one of Italy's longest-running sagas.(Italian Police Via AP) A man who appears to be Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti enters the cabin door of a plane before it takes off for Italy, where he will serve a life sentence, at the airport in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial on four counts of murder allegedly committed when he was a member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism. (AP Photo) A man who appears to be Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti enters the cabin door of a plane before it takes off for Italy, where he will serve a life sentence, at the airport in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial on four counts of murder allegedly committed when he was a member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism. (AP Photo) JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Navy divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder of a Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea in October, Indonesian officials said Monday, in a possible boost to the investigation into why the 2-month-old plane nosedived at high velocity, killing 189 people. Ridwan Djamaluddin, a deputy maritime minister, told reporters that remains of some of the people who died in the crash were also discovered at the seabed location. A spokesman for the Indonesian navy's western fleet, Lt. Col. Agung Nugroho, said divers using high-tech "ping locator" equipment started a new search effort last week in a previously identified target area and found the voice recorder beneath 8 meters (26 feet) of seabed mud. The plane crashed in waters 30 meters (98 feet) deep. The bright orange device was transported to a port in Jakarta, where it was handed over to the National Transportation Safety Committee, which is overseeing the accident investigation. "This is good news, especially for us who lost our loved ones," said Irianto, the father of Rio Nanda Pratama, a doctor who died in the crash. "Even though we don't yet know the contents of the CVR, this is some relief from our despair," he said. Indonesian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Yudo Margin shows the recovered cockpit voice recorder of Lion Air flight 610 that crashed into the sea in October during a press conference on board of the navy ship KRI Spica in the waters off Tanjung Karawang, Indonesia, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Navy divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder in a possible boost to the accident investigation. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim) The Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, on Oct. 29, killing everyone on board. The cockpit data recorder was recovered three days after the crash and showed that the jet's airspeed indicator had malfunctioned on its last four flights. Lion Air initially claimed that problems with the aircraft were fixed before its final flight. If the voice recorder is undamaged, it could provide valuable additional information to investigators. The transport committee's chairman, Soerjanto Tjahjono, said the device will be taken to the investigators' "black box" facility. It will take three to five days to dry and clean the device and to download its data, he said. "To analyze it, we need more time, depending on the complexity of the problem. Data obtained from CVR is expected to complete our investigation data," Tjahjono said. Data from a preliminary investigation report, which didn't state any conclusions, showed that the plane's nose pointed down 26 times on its fatal 11-minute flight despite repeated efforts by the pilots to manually aim the nose higher. Rear Adm. Harjo Susmoro, head of the navy's Center for Hydrography and Oceanography, said the voice recorder was found just 50 meters (164 feet) from where the data recorder was located. A "heroic" team of 21 divers removed debris and carried out "desludging" operations to reach the voice recorder, he said. Susmoro said the voice recorder's signal, designed to last 90 days following a crash, would have stopped after about 15 days. The family of one of the pilots, 41-year-old Harvino, has sued Boeing Co. in Chicago, alleging that aircraft sensors provided inaccurate information, causing the plane to nosedive, and that Boeing failed to provide proper training to pilots on the 737 MAX 8's features. Indonesian media reported in December that Lion Air's chief executive, Edward Sirait, said the airline was considering canceling its remaining orders for nearly 200 of the Boeing planes. The Lion Air crash was the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people died on a Garuda flight near Medan. In December 2014, an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea, killing all 162 people on board. Lion Air is one of Indonesia's youngest airlines but has grown rapidly, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations. It has been expanding aggressively in Southeast Asia, a fast-growing region of more than 600 million people. The recovered cockpit voice recorder of Lion Air flight 610 is kept in a water-filled container on board of Indonesian Navy ship KRI Spica in the waters of Tanjung Karawang, Indonesia, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. Navy divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder of the Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea in October, Indonesian officials said Monday, in a possible boost to the accident investigation. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim) FILE - In this Oct. 30, 2018, file photo, Indonesian navy frogmen emerge from the water during a search operation for the victims of the crashed Lion Air plane in the waters of Tanjung Karawang, Indonesia. A search effort has located the cockpit voice recorder of the Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea in October 2018, an Indonesian official said Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, in a possible boost to the accident investigation. Ridwan Djamaluddin, a deputy maritime minister, told reporters that the agency investigating the crash that killed 189 people had informed the ministry about the discovery. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana, File) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a handover ceremony for the new chief of staff on January 15, 2019 in Tel Aviv Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday urged Iran to quickly remove its forces from neighbouring Syria or face continued attacks on them by Israel. "Yesterday I heard the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman saying 'Iran has no military presence in Syria, we only advise them'," Netanyahu said at a Tel Aviv ceremony to install a new head of Israel's armed forces. "So let me advise them -- get out of there fast, because we'll continue our forceful policy of attacking, as we promised and are doing, fearlessly and relentlessly," he said. In a rare public confirmation on Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel had attacked what he described as "Iranian warehouses containing Iranian weapons in the Damascus international airport" over the weekend. Netanyahu added that Israel had attacked Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria hundreds of times. Israel has pledged to prevent Iran entrenching itself militarily in Syria, where its arch foe is backing President Bashar al-Assad's regime alongside Russia and Hezbollah. At the ceremony for the new chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Aviv Kochavi, Netanyahu reiterated that Israel's central security challenge was "Iran and its terror emissaries," saying the Israeli military had "prevented the military entrenchment of Iran in Syria." Tehran denies sending regular troops to fight in Syria, saying it has only provided military advisors and militia fighters from various countries. (ANSA) AMMAN, JANUARY 15: Jordan on Tuesday announced it will host UN brokered peace talks between Hourthis and the government to salvage a fragile truce in the Yemeni city of Hodeidah, official sources said. An official spokesman from foreign ministry said Jordan accepted a request by the UN to organize the meeting in the Jordanian capital between the Iran backed Ansar Allah militants and the government to discuss prisoners exchange, according to Petra news agency. Official sources said that a delegation from Houthi group has already landed in Amman ahead of the expected talks but the government in Amman was keeping a tight lid on the developments. Tension boiled up this week after an attack after an attack by Houthis against a military convoy in province of Lahaj that killed several people. The impasse in peace talks came after fighting broke out between Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces in Hodeidah on Saturday. The city of Hodeidah has seen level of violence escalate as the Saudi backed troops launched attacks to capture the strategic town. Yemen crisis has deepened with millions left without humanitarian aid with figures by the UN and international aid organizations pointing that 24 million, or 80 percent of the population, are in need of aid. As many as 85,000 children are believed to have starved to death since the war stated. (ANSA) Scott Morrison will become the first Australian leader in decades to visit Vanuatu and the first ever to make a bilateral visit to Fiji Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison embarks on a landmark trip to the Pacific on Wednesday, hoping to mend fences and reassert Australian influence as China makes its presence felt in the region. Morrison will become the first Australian leader in decades to visit Vanuatu and the first ever to visit Fiji, where he is due to deliver a major speech on Friday. In the face of increased Chinese influence -- and, some suspect, creeping militarism -- across the Pacific Islands, Morrison's government has stepped up efforts to secure his country's historic role as a regional powerbroker. The trip will be "focused on our security, economic and cultural partnerships," said Anne Ruston, a junior minister responsible for international development and the Pacific. Australia is by far the region's largest trade partner and donor -- providing quadruple the amount of aid as the next largest donor, New Zealand -- but has seen its influence wane. Australian PM Scott Morrison has committed to developing a military base in Papua New Guinea In response, Morrison has committed to basing more Australian diplomats in the Pacific, increasing investment and security cooperation and developing a military base in Papua New Guinea. Jenny Hayward-Jones, an analyst at the Lowy Institute, describes a "sense of panic in Canberra that China's growing influence in the region is now threatening Australian interests." - Choppy waters - In Vanuatu, one topic up for debate will be domestic security, local newspaper the Daily Post reported, suggesting Morrison will open an Australian-backed police training college. "We are having greater cooperation on police matters," the paper quoted foreign minister Ralph Regenvanu as saying. The tiny island chain of just over a quarter of a million people has become an unlikely geopolitical and security hotspot. Australia's centre-right government has downplayed the implementation of climate targets and refused to limit the extraction of coal Australian and American officials believe Chinese construction and investment on the island includes plans for an eventual military base. Such a facility could dramatically alter the balance of power in the Pacific, compelling Washington and Canberra to reconsider its force posture -- which is currently focused on northeast Asia. Pacific leaders, well aware of their new-found desirability, are likely to try to leverage competition between powers to gain concessions and investment. But Morrison's trip has been made more difficult, coming as it does against the backdrop of testy relations between Canberra and the Pacific Islands, with disputes about governance and the importance of tackling climate change. Australia is among the world's largest polluters per capita and Morrison's centre-right government has downplayed the implementation of climate targets and refused to limit the extraction of coal. Many Pacific Islands see rising sea levels and intensified weather systems as an existential threat and would like Canberra to act. - Domestic policies - Facing a difficult election in May, Morrison could struggle to square his domestic and foreign policy agendas. Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama played down talk of a rift between Australia and his country It is "domestic policies that prevent Australia from following through on commitments made to Pacific island countries," said Hayward-Jones. To add to the difficulty of Morrison's trip, his government was recently embroiled in an embarrassing dispute with the government of Fiji over its decision to unilaterally cancel the Australian citizenship of suspected Islamic State group operative Neil Prakash on the grounds that he also held Fijian nationality through his father. Fiji denied that Prakash was a citizen. But Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, who had been criticised for his involvement in a coup but recently won election, played down talk of a rift. He described meeting Morrison in Sydney last year as a "pleasure," adding, "I look forward to seeing him again here in Fiji this week. "As the first-ever bilateral visit by an Aussie PM, this will mark an historic step up in our diplomatic relationship," he tweeted. Jake Patterson is charged with two counts of intentional homicide, and kidnapping An American 21-year-old arrested for holding a teenaged girl captive after murdering her parents chose his victim after seeing her get on a school bus, according to a charge sheet filed on Monday. Jake Patterson confessed to killing James and Denise Closs and to abducting their 13-year-old daughter Jayme, according to the document filed in court in Barron County, Wisconsin. Referred to in the document by her initials, JLC, Jayme Closs was the subject of a nationwide search following her disappearance three months ago -- until last week when she made a seemingly miraculous escape. "I did it," the criminal complaint quotes Patterson as saying after sheriff deputies stopped his car in Douglas County, Wisconsin, on January 10. Patterson appeared in court on Monday by video link from his cell. He showed little emotion as he was formally charged with murder and kidnapping. The criminal complaint described how he killed the teen's parents on October 15 at their rural Barron home, in order to take their daughter. He had worked at a cheese factory for two days before quitting. While driving to work on one of those days he had stopped behind a school bus and saw the teen board. "He had no idea who she was," the document said, but "when he saw JLC, he knew that was the girl he was going to take." Patterson then allegedly drove twice to her home, hoping to kidnap her, but there were too many cars in the driveway and people visible in the home so he did not carry out the plan. On October 15 he returned with his father's 12-gauge shotgun, a weapon he chose in part because he felt it "would most likely be the best choice... to kill someone," the complaint says, citing Patterson's confession. He shaved his face and hair, donned a balaclava and gloves, and had modified his car to carry out the crime. At the Closs home, he saw James Closs through a decorative glass panel in the front door and shot him dead, the document says. - Killed in front of her - Inside, Patterson found Denise Closs hugging her daughter in the bathtub of the bathroom where they had taken refuge. He broke the door down after at least 10 hits from his shoulder, bound the girl with duct tape, and then allegedly shot her mother dead. Jayme Closs, 13, was the subject of nationwide search Patterson told investigators that he had the intention of killing anyone in the house because he could not leave any eyewitnesses. As he drove with Jayme Closs in the trunk of his car, police cars passed him with flashing lights on their way to her house. Her mother had called 911 before her death. Patterson then kept the girl captive in his house in an isolated area about 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of Barron. When he went out or had visitors he forced her to hide under his bed, with totes and laundry bins stacked around and blocked by weights, the complaint says. The teen told detectives that, under threat of violence, he would make her stay under the bed for up to 12 hours with no food, water or bathroom breaks. But, last Thursday when he was out, she was able to move the obstacles away and escape, finding help from a neighbor walking a dog. Patterson was arrested minutes later. Pilgrims travel from every corner of India for the ritual dip The largest religious gathering anywhere on earth gets underway Tuesday, with tens of millions of Hindu pilgrims congregating in India to bathe in sacred rivers for the Kumbh Mela. Organisers are expecting the enormous spiritual festival in Allahabad to attract more than 100 million devotees over the next 48 days, with seas of pilgrims camped by the riverside. The ancient city in northern Uttar Pradesh state rises alongside the banks of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers. Naked, dread-locked holy men smeared in ash and sadhus clad in saffron robes wander the crowds The confluence of the three -- known as Sangam -- is considered especially holy and Hindus believe bathing there during the Kumbh helps cleanse sins and brings salvation. "This pilgrimage gives me peace of mind and an opportunity to reflect on my life," said Sangeeta Gangotri, a pilgrim who travelled 650 kilometres (403 miles) from Nagpur in western Maharashtra state to Allahabad. The riverbank has transformed into a riot of noise and colour. Nearly 30,000 police have been deployed to oversee crowds for the huge undertaking, and prevent stampedes Naked, dread-locked holy men smeared in ash and sadhus clad in saffron robes wander the crowds, offering blessings to pilgrims who have travelled from every corner of India for the ritual dip. "All the Gods descend on this sacred place during this period. This is the most auspicious event for any human being," said Chandhans Pandey, a 60-year-old devotee. "I have been planning to attend (for) many years." The last major gathering in Allahabad in 2013 drew 120 million devotees, organizers said -- with 30 million plunging into the holy waters on a single auspicious day. Nearly 30,000 police have been deployed to oversee crowds for the huge undertaking, and prevent stampedes that have marred previous gatherings. A tent city with restaurants, roads and marketplaces has sprung up along the river A tent city with restaurants, roads and marketplaces has sprung up along the river, with pilgrims camped out across a sprawling 45-square kilometre zone specially earmarked for the Kumbh. "More people are drawn to the Kumbh now," Ganeshanand Bharamachari, a 78-year-old pilgrim from nearby Varanasi and a Kumbh veteran, told AFP. "People, mostly from cities, are becoming increasingly religious because the western life they were living has not led them anywhere." The Uttar Pradesh state government, led by a firebrand Hindu priest, has heavily promoted this year's Kumbh, which comes as India prepares for a general election in April and May. The Mela was recognised as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2017 Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party is in power in Uttar Pradesh, visited Allahabad in December to inaugurate a high-tech command centre to manage the Kumbh. The historic city was even renamed Prayagraj in October by the state's conservative government, stripping its centuries-old Muslim moniker and replacing it with an ancient Hindu title. But the city is still widely known as Allahabad, the name given by Islamic rulers that reigned over India hundreds of years ago. The Mela, which runs until March 4, was recognised as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2017. Gabon's ailing President Ali Bongo left Morocco on Monday to fly home days after security forces there foiled an attempted coup Gabon's ailing President Ali Bongo left Morocco on Monday to fly home days after security forces there foiled an attempted coup, a source close to the leader said. "Doctors have judged that the journey does not present any danger for his health," the source said, after the president's stay in Morocco to recover from a stroke in October during a visit to Saudi Arabia. The president's departure was confirmed by Gabon's embassy in the Moroccan capital Rabat, where Bongo had been staying at a private residence following a period in a military hospital. Bongo is due to arrive in the Gabonese capital Libreville on Tuesday, in time to preside over the swearing in ceremony of the new government which was announced in his absence. The president suffered a stroke on October 24 in Saudi Arabia and was hospitalised for a month in the capital Riyadh, before being transferred to Morocco. Initial silence by officials over the president's health led to speculation in Gabon over his well-being, with Bongo addressing his compatriots for the first time since his stroke with a New Year's video message. Despite the president promising to "meet you again soon", renegade soldiers stormed a state radio station on January 7 and called for an uprising during his absence. Security forces captured the rebel chief and killed two of his men in Libreville, after which Prime Minister Julien Nkoghe Bekale announced a new government. The reshuffle was announced on Saturday in a video message recorded by the premier from Morocco. Bongo's return to Libreville allows ministers to fulfil their constitutional duty by taking their vows in front of the president. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces losing his Liberal Party's majority in parliament Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reshuffled his cabinet Monday ahead of upcoming elections, naming a new attorney general who could decide the fate of a Chinese executive arrested in a case that has roiled Ottawa's relations with Beijing. Yale-educated former law professor David Lametti was one of two new ministers named in the shake-up, likely the last significant change to Trudeau's team before Canadians head to the polls in October. His displacement of Jody Wilson-Raybould, Canada's first indigenous attorney general, comes with Canada and China at loggerheads over the arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver last month. Meng was later released on bail pending the outcome of an extradition hearing. The United States -- which is locked in a trade war with Beijing -- has accused her of violating sanctions on Iran. China detained former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and China-based business consultant Michael Spavor on December 10, in a move widely seen as retaliation for Meng's arrest. Lametti is now expected to oversee Meng's case as head of the justice department and will likely spark further anger from China if she is sent to stand trial in the US. Trudeau's Liberal Party has fallen in recent polls to just a slim lead over the opposition Tories, raising the possibility for the first time of Trudeau losing his majority in parliament in the next ballot. Teachers and their supporters picket outside John Marshall High School in Los Angeles, California on the first day of the teachers' strike, on January 14, 2019. More than 30,000 public school teachers in Los Angeles walked off the job on Monday to press their demands for better pay, smaller class sizes and more educators. The strike -- the first in 30 years -- is affecting some 500,000 students in the nation's second largest school district, with intense negotiations in past weeks failing to lead to a breakthrough. The action is being watched closely by teaching unions across the country that are engaged in labor negotiations and also considering strikes. "Here we are on a rainy day in the richest country in the world, in the richest state in the country, in a state that's blue (Democrat) as it can be -- and in a city rife with millionaires -- where teachers have to go on strike to get the basics for our students," Alex Caputo-Pearl, the head of the United Teachers Los Angeles union, told a news conference. "Here we are in a fight for the soul of public education," Caputo-Pearl added. "The question is: do we starve our public neighborhood schools so that they (become) privatized, or do we re-invest in our public neighborhood schools for our students and for a thriving city?" Although the teachers' union and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) agree that class sizes -- some at more than 40 -- must shrink, teacher salaries must improve and more support staff are needed, they differ on funding. School district officials insist they have taken great pains to avert a strike and negotiate with the union and say the district simply doesn't have enough money to meet all of the demands. A revised offer submitted on Friday and calling for roughly $24 million more in funding and 1,200 more teachers for the upcoming school year was rejected. - 'We'd like to resolve this' - LAUSD superintendent Austin Beutner on Monday said his office had reached out to the governor's office and the mayor's office to see if they could help broker a deal. He said the teachers' demands would cost about $3 billion and push district into insolvency. Students join teachers and their supporters on the picket line outside John Marshall High School in Los Angeles, California "We remain committed to resolve the contract negotiations as soon as possible," Beutner told reporters. "We urge (the union) to resume bargaining with us anytime, anywhere, 24-7. We'd like to resolve this." Despite the walkout, the 1,240 schools in the sprawling district remain open, he said, with classes taught by administrators and substitute teachers. Last spring, a strike by teachers in the state of West Virginia over low wages and rising health care costs set off a wave of similar action in several other states and garnered strong public support. The walkout in Los Angeles could have a similar effect. In Denver, Colorado, for example, the teachers union has threatened a strike unless an agreement can be reached by the end of this week on salary conditions. Teachers' unions across the country offered support for those striking in Los Angeles, with many educators and parents wearing red T-shirts in solidarity. Red became the signature color of striking teachers last year after an early demonstration called on them to wear "Red4Ed." Monday's strike action also drew support from Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren. "I support @UTLAnow & LAUSD teachers who are for fighting for better pay, smaller classes, & better resourced schools for our kids," she tweeted. "When we fail our public school teachers, we fail their students - and we fail our future. I'm with our teachers all the way. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi speaks during a press briefing with journalists at a hotel in the Egyptian capital Cairo on January 14, 2019 The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on Monday called for more resources to help African refugees in 2019. The comments by Filippo Grandi came during a two-day visit to Egypt where he met President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and other government officials. His trip to Cairo also comes as Egypt prepares to assume the presidency of the African Union in February. Grandi said "85 percent of the 68 million displaced and refugees are not in those countries of the global north but they are in the global south." It was now time to "draw resources to Africa," he told a news conference, pointing out that those allocated to the continent were "limited". Grandi also noted that while Egypt hosts "a lot of refugees," it is not fully recognised as a "refugee-hosting country". Egypt hosts more than 250,000 registered refugees, more than half of whom are Syrians, according to the UN refugee agency. Grandi spoke about the goals of the Global Compact on Refugees adopted by 181 countries in December, saying it is "to mobilise not only humanitarian resources, but also development resources". He also voiced "concern" over the protests in Sudan, saying he fears displacement would occur if the situation deteriorates in the country. "We hope the situation will stabilise in a peaceful manner," he said. For Syria, Grandi said about 50,000 refugees had returned to Syria in 2018. "It's a small number," he said, adding that the number stood at 60,000 the year before. "It is possible that with increased stability we can see more people going back. But it's very difficult to say how many," he said. The Virginia Lottery's profits fund the state's public schools Her husband is one of thousands of federal employees who haven't been paid due to the US government shutdown -- but a Virginia woman snagged her family some extra income, winning $100,000 and a car in the state lottery. "I cried. I couldn't believe it," Carrie Walls said, recalling the moment she realized she had won, the Virginia Lottery said in a news release. Along with the $100,000, Walls -- who lives in Ashburn, a suburban town near Washington -- also bagged a Ford Expedition SUV. Around 800,000 federal employees have been on mandatory leave or working without pay for 24 days as US President Donald Trump and Congress wrangle over funding for a wall on the southern border. On Friday, Congress voted to guarantee federal employees retroactive pay once the shutdown ends. No caption Libya's internationally recognised government said Monday it will boycott an Arab economic summit in Lebanon this weekend after supporters of a Shiite movement in the country attacked its flag. "We have been forced to boycott this summit and refuse to participate in its work" because Lebanon was unable to guarantee "the appropriate climate" for it, the foreign ministry said in a statement. The UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) said the Lebanese government had failed to prevent the attack on Libya's flag. Videos shared on social media showed men tearing and trampling on the Libyan flag before burning it in protest against the North African country's participation at the three-day summit in Beirut. The alleged supporters of the Shiite Amal movement accuse Libya of failing to clarify the disappearance of its founder, imam Moussa Sadr, during a visit to Tripoli in 1978. Tripoli accuses Beirut of having banned the entry of Libyan businessmen who were to attend meetings on the sidelines of the summit. Foreign ministry spokesman Ahmad al-Arbad said Libya had decided against taking part in the January 18-20 summit "at any level". "Libya's seats will remain empty," said Arbad. The GNA also asked Lebanon "for a quick explanation of its position". In Cairo, Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit voiced "deep concern" over the burning of the Libyan flag in Beirut. He called on Lebanon to "ensure full respect for the delegations of member states from the Arab League who must participate in the summit meetings". Donald Trump's angry comments followed a New York Times report that the FBI opened an investigation into whether he was acting on Russia's behalf soon after he became president Standing outside the snow-covered White House on Monday, Donald Trump made an astonishing declaration for a US president: no, he has never been an agent of Russia. "I never worked for Russia," Trump told reporters on the South Lawn. "It's a disgrace that you even ask that question. It's all a big fat hoax." Trump's angry comments sought to bat down a mounting controversy over his alleged ties to the Kremlin, but the fact that he even had to issue such a denial illustrates how far the unprecedented scandal has already gone. The statement, delivered in freezing temperatures before taking off in the Marine One helicopter for a trip to New Orleans, followed two bombshell reports. President Donald Trump has repeatedly called the probes into his dealings with Russia a "witch hunt" One, in The New York Times, said that the FBI opened an investigation into whether Trump was acting on Russia's behalf soon after he became president. Another, in The Washington Post, detailed what it said were the unusual lengths taken by Trump to hide the contents of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This, of course, comes on top of the huge investigation led by special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who is looking into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election -- and the possibility it colluded with Trump's campaign. - Hiding interpreter's notes? - Trump was given an opportunity to respond to the report of the FBI investigation on Saturday when he gave an interview to his favorite Fox News channel. The Washington Post detailed what it said were the unusual lengths taken by Donald Trump to hide the contents of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin But instead of a clear cut denial, he fueled a mounting outcry in Washington by merely saying that the question was "the most insulting thing I've ever been asked." His response Monday took the entire alleged Russia collusion affair head on. "It's a lot of fake news," Trump said. He called the then-leaders of the FBI who decided to investigate him "known scoundrels, I guess you could say dirty cops." But the latest twists mean that the president -- currently embroiled in a damaging political battle with Congress over funding a Mexico border wall -- can't escape the Russia shadow, regardless of what he says. The details of the latest reports are especially shocking because they are so concrete, in contrast to the often complex and carefully withheld workings of the almost leak-proof Mueller probe. The Post story says that Trump personally acted to prevent notes taken by his interpreter during one-on-one meetings with Putin from being shared with aides. He allegedly took the notes away and ordered the interpreter not to divulge the contents. The latest Russia controversy comes as Donald Trump is embroiled in a damaging battle over funding a Mexico border wall -- a row that has triggered a partial government shutdown now in its fourth week The Times report on the FBI investigation said the bureau decided to act after Trump fired the then director, James Comey in 2017. Transcripts of closed-door FBI testimony to Congress obtained by CNN show that the then head lawyer for the FBI, James Baker, said the bureau wanted to know whether Trump was "acting at the behest of (the Kremlin) and somehow following directions, somehow executing their will." "That was one extreme. The other extreme is that the President is completely innocent, and we discussed that too," Baker said in the transcript, according to CNN. The White House says that Trump has been pursued by a politicized FBI. The president repeatedly has called the probes into his dealings with Russia a "witch hunt." But Democrats and even some in Trump's Republican Party have repeatedly suggested that the administration is oddly favorable to Russian policies. They point to Trump's diplomatic assaults on European Union unity and the NATO alliance, as well as his recent comment defending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. "Like I said: a puppet," tweeted Hillary Clinton, the Democratic heavyweight beaten by Trump's insurgent campaign in 2016. She was referring to an accusation she made during a campaign debate with Trump that Putin would "rather" a puppet in the White House. However, top advisor Kellyanne Conway reiterated Monday the administration's frequent assertion that Trump has in fact been tough on Russia, one of Washington's key rivals and sometimes outright adversaries. "He has taken a lot of action," she told reporters, listing sanctions imposed on the Kremlin and US policy in Syria, among other factors. (ANSAmed) - LJUBLJANA, JANUARY 15 - Slovenian police filed a lawsuit in an administrative court against the commissioner for information, Mojca Prelesnik, who had called on security forces to make public documents on the way migrants are treated at the border with Croatia. According to Prelesnik, the treatment and procedures for asylum requests were not in line with international legislation as all applications were considered regardless of the applicants' home country. The lawsuit was first reported by newspaper Dnevnik, which requested to see the court document together with Amnesty International Slovenia, only obtaining to see parts of it. The newspaper reported that police in 2018 did not allow some migrants to apply for asylum, although they had the right to file the application, and sent them to Croatia, although there were no legal grounds for such a move. The issue was raised following testimony from a number of migrants today residing in Bosnia Herzegovina. However, police denied the allegations and refused to make the documents public, citing security reasons, both to Slovenia and the European Union. (ANSAmed) Senegalese President Macky Sall says he's hoping for a first-round win in next month's elections Senegal's Constitutional Court on Monday authorised five candidates, including head of state Macky Sall, to contest presidential elections next month but blocked two prominent opposition figures. The seven-member court barred, as expected, former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall and ex-minister Karim Wade because of convictions for misuse of public funds. The four other candidates in the February 24 vote will be a rising opposition MP, Ousmane Sonko; former prime minister Idrissa Seck; Madicke Niang, an associate of former president Abdoulaye Wade; and El Hadji Sall, of the Unity and Assembly Party (PUR). The list published on Monday was provisional, and candidates have until January 20 to file any appeal. President Sall, 57, who is not related to the two other men of the same name, was elected in 2012, taking the helm of one of West Africa's most prosperous and stable countries. The former French colony is seen as a model of democracy in the region, having never experienced a coup d'etat and successfully staging peaceful transfers of power in 2000 and 2012. Amnesty International's regional director, Alioune Tine, said the list issued by the Constitutional Court was "hardly a surprise" but still posed "an enormous risk" for Senegal's credentials. - Fairness of trials questioned - International and regional organisations as well as human rights groups have questioned the fairness of some trials -- notably those of Karim Wade and Khalifa Sall. Thousands of supporters of both politicians have staged protests in recent months calling for fair and transparent elections while challenging the impartiality of the justice and interior ministries. Thousands of supporters of both politicians have staged protests in recent months calling for fair and transparent elections while questioning the impartiality of the justice and interior ministries Khalifa Sall, 63, one of Senegal's most popular politicians, was handed a five-year jail term last March for fraudulent use of public funds, a conviction that he said was politically motivated. He appealed it unsuccessfully. A dissident member of the Socialist Party, Sall began his political activism at the age of 11. He went on to hold various ministerial portfolios before being elected mayor of the capital in 2009 and reelected in 2014, a position that catapulted him to nationwide prominence. Karim Wade, 50, was widely seen as being groomed to succeed his father, former president Wade. Paris-educated, he served as minister of state for international cooperation from 2009 to 2012. In 2015, shortly after his father's party, the centrist Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), designated him its candidate for the next presidential elections, Wade was given a six-year jail term for "illegal enrichment" -- amassing a fortune allegedly worth at least 178 million euros ($204 million). President Sall pardoned Wade in 2016, although an enormous fine, the equivalent of more than 210 million euros, still stood. Khalifa Sall's representative, Babacar Thioye Ba, said an appeal would be filed against the decision to bar his candidacy. "We should now realise, and the Senegalese people along with us, that the time has come to put an end to Macky Sall's abuses," he told AFP. - Sall's big-ticket projects - The incumbent says he is confident of winning re-election in the first round set for February 24. Adeline Van Houtte of the Economist Intelligence Unit said "potentially the biggest opposition threat could come from Sonko, who makes intensive and efficient use of social media (to promote) a nationalist economic agenda." Sall will officially launch his campaign in Mbacke, in the centre of the country, on February 3, culminating in Dakar on February 22. He has already been highly visible in the runup to the election, notably attending the inauguration of big-ticket projects. They include the opening of a new stretch of motorway, the inauguration of a black heritage museum and, on Monday, ceremonies for a fast train line between Dakar and a new town, Diamnadio, being built around 25 kilometres (16 miles) from the capital. Trump attorney general nominee Bill Barr (center) said he had confidence in Robert Mueller's Russia probe and expected that the special counsel would 'handle the matter properly' US President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee Bill Barr said Monday he supports letting Russia collusion investigator Robert Mueller finish his probe and his final report being made public. With Trump himself thought to be a possible target of Special Counsel Mueller, Barr sought to allay concerns that as head of the Department of Justice he might stifle the investigation to protect the president. "I believe it is vitally important that the special counsel be allowed to complete his investigation," Barr said in prepared testimony for his confirmation hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee beginning Tuesday. "I also believe it is very important that the public and Congress be informed of the results of the special counsel's work. For that reason, my goal will be to provide as much transparency as I can consistent with the law." Barr, who was attorney general under president George. H.W. Bush from 1991 to 1993 and then a corporate lawyer for 25 years, has been critical of the Mueller probe, suggesting it may be too expansive and staffed by Democratic sympathizers. He also said in a memo addressed to the Justice Department last year -- also reportedly sent to the White House -- that Mueller has no grounds for investigating Trump for obstruction of justice after Trump fired FBI director James Comey in May 2017 in anger over the Russia probe. On Friday the New York Times reported that, immediately after Comey's firing, the FBI opened a counterintelligence probe into whether Trump was working on behalf of Russia. Barr said in his prepared remarks that the memo was just the unsolicited view of a former attorney general "who has often weighed in on legal issues of public importance." "The memo did not address -- or in any way question -- the special counsel's core investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election," he added. "Nor did it address other potential obstruction-of-justice theories or argue, as some have erroneously suggested, that a president can never obstruct justice." Trump chose Barr to replace Jeff Sessions, who was dismissed in November after a testy relationship in which the president repeatedly criticized his decision to recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller investigation. Barr said he has known Mueller professionally and personally for 30 years, and they worked together when Barr was attorney general in the early 1990s. "When he was named special counsel, I said that his selection was 'good news' and that, knowing him, I had confidence he would handle the matter properly. I still have that confidence today." At odds: Martin Fayulu (left) and Felix Tshisekedi pictured at talks with the African Union in Kinshasa on January 2 DR Congo's Constitutional Court said it would start hearing Tuesday an appeal against presidential election results that gave victory to opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi. "The Constitutional Court will start examining the appeal by Martin Fayulu tomorrow, from 9.30am [0830 GMT]," press officer Baudouin Mwehu told AFP on Monday. Fayulu, likewise from the opposition, was declared runner-up in the December 30 poll to choose a successor to President Joseph Kabila, in power for the last 18 years. He says the results released last Thursday, which are provisional, were an "electoral coup" and is demanding a recount. Tshisekedi was credited with 38.57 percent of the vote, against 34.8 percent for Fayulu. Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, the candidate backed by Kabila, came a distant third with 23.8 percent. In the few opinion polls conducted before the vote, Fayulu had been tipped as clear favourite. He claims he garnered 61 percent of the ballot. Fayulu filed his appeal on Friday. The court has a week to study the request before giving its ruling, with the new president scheduled to be sworn in on January 22, according to Corneille Nangaa, head of the Independent National Election Commission (CENI). On Sunday, Southern African Development Community (SADC), a bloc that includes Angola and South Africa, called for a unity government and urged a recount to "provide the necessary reassurance to both winners and losers." The country's long-running political crisis erupted two years ago when Kabila refused to step down at the end of his constitutional term in office, sparking protests which were brutally repressed. The vast, unstable country has never had a peaceful transition of power since gaining independence from Belgium in 1960. It became a battlefield for two regional wars in 1996-7 and 1998-2003, and the last two presidential elections, in 2006 and 2011, were marked by bloody clashes. The influential Roman Catholic Church, which says it deployed 40,000 observers to monitor the poll, has also dismissed the official outcome as not reflecting the true result. But it has held back from saying who, in its opinion, was the victor. Kitty Dudley, 9, said: "I asked her if she was having a girl or a boy and she said she didn't know" Prince Harry's wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex told well-wishers on Monday she was six months pregnant and was expecting her baby at the end of April or beginning of May. Clutching her growing baby bump on a visit in northwestern England, the glamorous former US television actress also said she does not know if she is expecting a boy or a girl. "She said she is six months pregnant and due at the end of April, beginning of May," Kim Thompson, who was among the people the royal couple met with, told British media. Harry and Meghan also spoke to a group of children from St Anne's Catholic Primary School in Birkenhead and were asked about the sex of their unborn child. Kitty Dudley, 9, said: "I asked her if she was having a girl or a boy and she said she didn't know". Harry and Meghan married in a fairytale wedding that broke with royal traditions at Windsor Castle in May last year and announced in October that they were expecting a baby. Kensington Palace, their official residence in London, said at the time that the duchess was due in spring 2019. Royal officials never reveal the precise due date. Meghan last week was seen as becoming a fully-fledged member of the royal family by taking up her first patronages. The charities she will lend her name to are involved in education, theatre, women's empowerment and animal welfare. Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir appears during a rally with his supporters in the Green Square in the capital Khartoum on January 9, 2019 Defiant Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir said Monday that ongoing protests will not lead to a change in government, as crowds of supporters cheered him at a rally in war-torn Darfur. Deadly protests have rocked Sudan since December 19 when angry demonstrators took to the streets in towns and villages against a government decision to raise the price of bread. At least 24 people have died in the protests, which swiftly turned into nationwide anti-government rallies, with protesters calling on Bashir to step down. "Demonstrations will not change the government," Bashir told crowds of supporters gathered in Niyala, the capital of South Darfur state, where a day earlier police broke up an anti-government demonstration, state television reported. "There's only one road to power and that is through the ballot box. The Sudanese people will decide in 2020 who will govern them," said Bashir, who is planning to run for the presidency for the third time in elections to be held next year. In the initial days of protests, several buildings and offices of Bashir's ruling National Congress Party were set on fire in towns and villages before the demonstrations spread to the capital Khartoum. "Sudan has many enemies and those enemies have few people among us who don't want stability and security," said Bashir, with state television broadcasting footage showing him waving his trademark cane as supporters chanted "stay, stay". "We will not allow anyone to destroy our homeland by looting and burning our properties," said Bashir as some supporters attended the rally on camels, while many heard him from tree tops. On Sunday, the first anti-government demonstrations were held by groups of protesters in Niyala and El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. -- 'Economic problems' -- Darfur, a region the size of France, has been torn by violence since 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against Khartoum's Arab-dominated government, accusing it of economic and political marginalisation. About 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict and another 2.5 million displaced, according to the United Nations. Most of those displaced still live in sprawling camps. Darfur has been largely calm over the past few months but tensions remain high in the region. Bashir, who seized power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989, has been charged by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) with genocide and war crimes allegedly committed in Darfur. A picture taken on January 13, 2019 shows anti-government demonstrators in the Sudanese capital Khartoum On Monday, he reiterated that Sudan faced "economic problems," but said they could not be solved by looting and burning of properties. Meanwhile in Khartoum, Sudanese security agents raided on Monday the offices of the Society of Sudanese Surgeons and confiscated its letterheads and stamps, the group said in a statement. The general secretary of the society was also detained, it said. Some unions of doctors are part of an umbrella group called the Sudanese Professionals' Association that has spearheaded the anti-government demonstrations. On Monday, security agents also stopped a group of journalists in Khartoum from holding a sit in to protest the banning of Al-Jadida newspaper from publishing for several days, witnesses said. Sudan is currently ranked 174th out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index, with security agents regularly confiscating entire print runs of newspapers without giving reasons. Organisers of protests have so far staged hundreds of rallies across the country, including in Khartoum. They have urged protesters to continue with their demonstrations this week, calling it as the "Week of Uprising". On Sunday, protesters had rallied in the capital's Bahari district chanting "peace, peace" and "revolution is the people's choice," but they were quickly confronted by riot police with tear gas. Rights groups say more than 1,000 people have been arrested since the protests began, including opposition leaders, activists and journalists as well as demonstrators. Although the unrest was triggered by the rise in the price of bread, Sudan has faced a mounting economic crisis over the past year, led by an acute shortage of foreign currency. Repeated shortages of food and fuel have been reported across cities, while the cost of food and medicine has more than doubled. Richard Ratcliffe, husband of jailed British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says she decided to stage a hunger strike when Tehran tried to force her to spy on Britain A jailed UK-Iranian mother launched a hunger strike Monday over a lack of medical care and attempts by Tehran to force her to spy on Britain, her husband said. The high-profile case prompted UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt to summon the Iranian ambassador to demand that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe be given "immediate access to the healthcare she requires". "Her ongoing detention is TOTALLY unacceptable and her treatment at the hands of Iranian authorities is a fundamental breach of human rights," Hunt tweeted. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 40, was arrested in April 2016 as she was leaving Iran after taking her infant daughter to visit her family. Her hunger strike was to last for an initial period of three days, and could be extended if she fails to win assurances of proper medical attention. She was joined by Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, who was arrested in 2015 and jailed for 10 years for "forming and managing an illegal group", among other charges. - 'Slow torture' - A project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the media group's philanthropic arm, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was sentenced to five years in September 2016 for allegedly trying to topple the Iranian government. She denies all charges against her. Zaghari-Ratcliffe's husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said his wife's condition has deteriorated despite her detecting a lump in her breast and complaining of numbness in her arms and legs. Thomson Reuters Foundation chief executive Monique Villa called her treatment "slow and cruel torture". But Ratcliffe said "what really pushed her over the edge" was an interrogation on December 29 during which Iran's Revolutionary Guards made her release conditional on her spying on Britain. "She clearly didn't want to say yes, and they didn't want to hear a no, so she was told to think about it. They have never come back," he told reporters in London after speaking to his wife by phone earlier Monday. Ratcliffe said it was important for his wife's release to be unconditional, so that "we don't get left with this leverage over her family" in Iran. Hunt confirmed that he would be meeting later Monday with Ratcliffe, who is trying to secure "diplomatic protection" for his wife -- a status that requires Iran to allow British diplomats to check on her condition. Tehran refuses to recognise Zaghari-Ratcliffe's UK citizenship and is treating her detention as a domestic matter. Zaghari-Ratcliffe's detention has received broad attention in Iran, which marked her 1,000 days in jail by broadcasting a film featuring previously unreleased footage of her arrest at Tehran airport. It was shown as part of a multi-series documentary on "enemies' interference in domestic affairs. Ratcliffe said he believed there was an internal struggle within Tehran about how best to deal with Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other detained dual nationals. "It's the first time she's received a visit from interrogators for over a year," he said. There is "a part that wants to solve the issue of Nazanin and other dual nationals, and a part that wants to stand its ground and show it's tough and strong against the rest of the world," Ratcliffe said. "It feels, if I'm honest, that it's a kind of scrambling manoeuvre." The sentence comes against the backdrop of the Chinese government's anger over the arrest in Canada of a top executive from telecom giant Huawei last month A Chinese court sentenced a Canadian man to death on drug trafficking charges on Monday after his previous 15-year prison sentence was deemed too lenient, deepening a diplomatic rift as Canadian premier Justin Trudeau accused Beijing of "arbitrarily" using capital punishment. Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, 36, nodded as the judge in the northeast city of Dalian asked him whether he understood the verdict, following a day-long retrial in which he declared his innocence, saying, "I am not a drug smuggler. I came to China as a tourist". The sentence comes against the backdrop of Beijing's anger over the arrest in Canada of a top executive from telecom giant Huawei last month on a US extradition request related to Iran sanctions violations. Chinese authorities later detained two Canadian nationals -- a former diplomat and a business consultant -- on suspicion of endangering national security, a move seen as retaliation over the Huawei executive's arrest. Schellenberg had originally been sentenced to 15 years in prison and a 150,000-yuan ($22,000) forfeiture in November. But following an appeal, a high court in Liaoning ruled in December that the sentence was too lenient given the severity of his crimes. After Monday's sentence was announced, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed "extreme concern" that China had "chosen to arbitrarily" apply the death penalty in Schellenberg's case. The Dalian court said Schellenberg, who was detained in December 2014, played a "key part" in an international drug trafficking syndicate. "The court completely rejects the accused person's explanation and defence because it is completely at odds with the facts," the chief judge said in a courtroom packed with observers -- among them Canadian embassy officials and three foreign reporters, including one from AFP. "This syndicate... does not just spread drugs in one country, the problem has spread across borders... it is a harm to human health and also to the stability of countries," the court said. - China denies political link - China has executed other foreigners for drug-related crimes in the past, including a Japanese national in 2014, a Filipina in 2013 and a Briton in 2009. Experts said retrials are rare in China, especially ones calling for a harsher sentence, but rights groups noted that courts are not independent and can be influenced by the Communist Party. "Many factors in this case raise serious questions of concern: particularly, that the retrial was rushed through so quickly and that state-run media drew such deliberate attention to the case," William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty International, told AFP. "Most likely, China wants to send a tough message to Canada," Nee added. Schellenberg can appeal against the sentence in an upper court. "China has the ability to grant clemency, and this will be used as another pressure tactic against Canada," Hugh Stephens, distinguished fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, told AFP. Beijing has repeatedly denied any links to Canada's arrest of the Huawei executive. The Chinese foreign ministry said Friday critics should "stop recklessly suspecting others of politicising legal issues just because they have done so". Last week, Trudeau accused China of "arbitrarily and unfairly" detaining former diplomat Michael Kovrig and business consultant Michael Spavor, who were rounded up nine days after Canada arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. Trudeau suggested that Kovrig still enjoyed diplomatic immunity, an assertion rejected by the Chinese foreign ministry on Monday. - No coins in court - The Dalian court was filled with about 70 observers, who were patted down and made to empty pockets -- receipts and stray coins were to be left at the security check. Brought into court in handcuffs, a bespectacled Schellenberg, whose hair had been cut short, was dressed in a white sweater and black trousers. In an opening statement, Schellenberg said he had come to China after travelling through Southeast Asia, including Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. He said a friend recommended a man named Xu Qing as a translator and he was swept up in what has turned out to be an international drug trafficking syndicate. "This is a case about a man named King (Xu Qing), he is an international drug smuggler and a liar," Schellenberg told the court, accusing Xu of setting him up. Schellenberg claimed the drug deal was masterminded by Khamla Wong, a Canadian who was arrested in Thailand in 2016 on drug charges. But Chinese prosecutors said Schellenberg was the principal suspect in a case involving an international syndicate that planned to send some 222 kilogrammes (490 pounds) of methamphetamine to Australia. Prosecutors brought in Xu as a witness, who in almost two hours of testimony never once turned to look at Schellenberg. When pressed on details, he frequently said he could not remember and had to refer to a written statement, including when Schellenberg questioned him about 180,000 yuan he was purportedly given. Two other Chinese men have been involved in this case -- one was sentenced to life imprisonment, another handed a suspended death sentence. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (L) and US President Donald Trump have exchanged threats over the future of Washington's Kurdish allies in Syria US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday that talks were under way on Washington's proposal to establish a "safe zone" in flashpoint border areas of northeastern Syria, where tensions are rising between Turkey and Kurdish militia. "We want to make sure that the folks who fought with us to down the (Islamic State group) have security... and also that terrorists acting out of Syria aren't able to attack Turkey," Pompeo said. "We want a secure border for all the parties," he said in the Saudi capital Riyadh, the latest leg of a whirlwind Middle East tour. Washington is holding talks with all relevent sides about such a "safe zone", he added. His comments came a day after US President Donald Trump in a tweet pushed for the creation of a 20-mile (30-kilometre) "safe zone", without saying who would create, enforce or pay for it. Trump also did not say exactly where such a buffer area would be set up. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Monday said his country was "not against" a "security zone" in Syria. Tensions have been high between the United States and Turkey over the fate of Washington's Syrian Kurdish allies in the fight against the Islamic State group. Ankara has repeatedly threatened a new cross-border operation against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which have been working closely with the US in the war on IS jihadists. Turkey views the YPG as a "terrorist offshoot" of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin on Monday said Ankara would "continue to fight against them all", referring to IS and the YPG. His comments came after Trump, in Sunday's tweet, warned Turkey of economic devastation if it attacks the Kurds in the wake of a US pullout from Syria. On Sunday Trump also urged the Kurds not to "provoke" Ankara. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a previous visit to Riyadh on October 16, 2018 US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo faced a tough balancing act Monday as he pressed Saudi Arabia's crown prince over critic Jamal Khashoggi's murder while shoring up strategic ties with Riyadh. The top US diplomat, on an extensive Middle East tour, held talks with King Salman and his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which also focused on the conflict in Yemen and countering threats from Iran. Pompeo walked a diplomatic tightrope on his second politically sensitive visit to Saudi Arabia since Khashoggi's murder as he demanded that all those involved in the crime be held accountable. The king and crown prince "both acknowledge that this accountability needs to take place", Pompeo said in Riyadh following talks with them. "They reiterated their commitment," he added. Relations between Riyadh and Washington have remained strained after journalist Khashoggi was murdered on October 2 inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Riyadh said the murder was carried out by "rogue" Saudi agents, but the US Central Intelligence Agency reportedly concluded that Prince Mohammed very likely ordered the hit. Pompeo's meeting with the crown prince lasted around 45 minutes. The US diplomat appeared more reserved than his previous visit at the height of the Khashoggi affair, when his broad smiles with the crown prince outraged many Americans. US President Donald Trump has brushed aside critics to stand by Prince Mohammed, who faces international opprobrium over the killing. Riyadh prosecutors have announced indictments against 11 people and are seeking the death penalty against five of them, but they have exonerated Prince Mohammed. Trump has said Washington wants to preserve the alliance with the oil-rich kingdom, which he sees as a bulwark against common foe Iran and a lucrative buyer of US arms. - Yemen truce - Furious over the murder, US lawmakers have demanded Washington pull back its support to the Saudi-led military campaign against Huthi rebels in Yemen. But backing the Saudi position, Pompeo accused the rebels of failing to comply with a truce agreement for the lifeline port city of Hodeida reached last month at UN-sponsored talks in Sweden. "The work that was done in Sweden on Yemen was good, but both sides (need) to honour those commitments," Pompeo said. "Today, the Iranian-backed Huthis have chosen not to do that." Rights groups called on Pompeo to also press Prince Mohammed over the jailing of women activists in the kingdom, amid claims that some of them faced sexual harassment and torture during interrogation. Pompeo on Monday said he discussed human rights issues with the Saudis, including the plight of women activists, without giving any details. Pompeo was in Riyadh as part of an extensive week-long trip to the Middle East, which included stops in Amman, Baghdad, Cairo, Manama, Abu Dhabi and Doha. After Riyadh, Pompeo wrapped up his Middle East tour with a trip to Muscat, but cancelled a scheduled visit to Kuwait in order to attend a family funeral at home, US officials said. - Gulf crisis - Pompeo met Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani on Sunday in Doha, where he refused to comment on reports Washington had recently considered military action against Tehran. He also called on Qatar and other Gulf Arab countries to end their worst political rift in years, which has seen Doha diplomatically and economically isolated by neighbouring former allies for the past 19 months. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt -- all US allies -- cut ties with Qatar in June 2017, accusing it of supporting terrorist groups and seeking closer ties to Saudi arch-rival Iran. Qatar -- also a US ally -- denies the allegations and accuses the countries of seeking regime change. "As for the GCC... we are all more powerful when we're working together when we have common challenges in the region and around the world," Pompeo said, referring to the six member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council. He added that "President Trump and I both believe the ongoing dispute in the region has gone on too long". Mediation efforts by the United States, which at first appeared to back the boycott of Qatar, have stalled, as highlighted by the recent resignation of US envoy Anthony Zinni. For Washington, turning the page on the crisis is essential for the successful launch of the Strategic Alliance of the Middle East (MESA), a NATO-style security pact that includes Gulf countries as well as Egypt and Jordan. Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir appears during a rally with his supporters in the Green Square in the capital Khartoum on January 9, 2019 Defiant Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir said Monday that ongoing protests will not lead to a change in government, as he addressed a rally of cheering supporters in war-torn Darfur. "Demonstrations will not change the government," Bashir told crowds of supporters gathered in Niyala, the capital of South Darfur state, where just a day ago police had broken up an anti-government demonstration, state television reported. "There's only one road to power and that is through the ballot box. The Sudanese people will decide in 2020 who will govern them," said Bashir, who is planning to run for the presidency for the third time in elections to be held next year. Deadly protests have rocked Sudan since December 19 when angry crowds took to the streets in towns and villages against a government decision to raise the price of bread. At least 24 people have died in the protests, which swiftly turned into nationwide anti-government rallies, with protesters calling on Bashir to step down. "Sudan has many enemies and those enemies have few people among us who don't want stability and security," said Bashir, with state television broadcasting footage showing him waving his trademark cane as supporters chanted "stay, stay". "We will not allow anyone to destroy our homeland by looting and burning our properties," said Bashir. In the initial days of protests, several buildings and offices of Bashir's ruling National Congress Party were set on fire in towns and villages. On Sunday, the first anti-government demonstrations were held in Niyala and El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. -- 'Economic problems' -- Darfur, a region the size of France, has been torn by violence since 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against Khartoum's Arab-dominated government, accusing it of economic and political marginalisation. About 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict and another 2.5 million displaced, according to the United Nations. Most of those displaced still live in sprawling camps. Bashir, who seized power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989, has been charged by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) with genocide and war crimes allegedly committed in Darfur. A picture taken on January 13, 2019 shows anti-government demonstrators in the Sudanese capital Khartoum On Monday, he reiterated that Sudan faced "economic problems," but they could not be solved by looting and burning of properties. Sudanese security agents, meanwhile, stopped a group of journalists in Khartoum from holding a sit in to protest the banning of a newspaper this week, witnesses said. The journalists were planning a sit in after authorities banned Al-Jadida newspaper from publishing for several days this week, a witness told AFP without offering details. Organisers of anti-government protests have so far staged hundreds of rallies across the country, including in Khartoum. The Sudanese Professionals' Association that is spearheading the rallies have urged protesters to continue with their demonstrations this week, calling it as the "Week of Uprising". On Sunday, protesters had taken to the streets in the capital's Bahari district chanting "peace, peace" and "revolution is the people's choice," but they were quickly confronted by riot police with tear gas. Rights groups say more than 1,000 people have been arrested since the protests began, including opposition leaders, activists and journalists as well as demonstrators. Although the unrest was triggered by the rise in the price of bread, Sudan has faced a mounting economic crisis over the past year, led by an acute shortage of foreign currency. Repeated shortages of food and fuel have been reported across cities, while the cost of food and medicine has more than doubled. Migrants: Muscat, Italy and Malta should be on the same side Premier tells Radio24 he has spoken to Conte, not Salvini (ANSAmed) - ROME, JANUARY 15 - Maltese Prime Minister Josep Muscat told Radio 24 that ''for years Italy and Malta asked to share the problem of migrants, I don't understand why Italy took a step back with the Global Compact - which means exactly this''. ''We are the third country in terms of the number of asylum applications in the European Union'', he said. ''We are second only to the Greeks and Cypriots. There is thus pressure on Malta. We agree in saying that this is not the problem of one country but a European problem or rather a worldwide one. This is also why we signed the Global Compact on migration, which says the issue must be solved at a world level''. In the interview, the premier spoke about his relationship with Italy: ''I have never spoken with Mr Salvini, I often speak with the premier, he has a natural predisposition for dialogue. I think I have a decent relationship with him, we are not always in agreement on this issue and I am sorry because in the end Malta and Italy have the same problems and should be on the same side to reform the Dublin treaty and in order not to leave border countries alone. There are many Italians in Malta and they are welcome''. Talking about populist politicians, Muscat said ''we don't negotiate with extremist leaders but we must talk to people who vote for these parties. They are not extremists, they are good people who have legitimate questions to which traditional parties provide no answers. Only extremists give answers, they are the wrong answers but they are the only ones around''. (ANSAmed) Firefighters and security forces gather at the crash site of a Boeing 707 cargo plane that slammed into a residential complex near the Iranian capital Tehran with at least 10 people onboard on January 14, 2019 A military cargo plane overshot a runway, crashed and caught fire during a botched landing near the Iranian capital Tehran, killing 15 people, the army said Monday. The plane was carrying meat from Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan when it crashed near the capital Tehran, an army spokesman told state TV, adding that only the flight engineer survived. "The plane had 16 passengers, 14 of whom were the army crew and two were civilians; 15 were martyred," spokesman Amir Taghikhani said. "One, the flight engineer, was injured and is currently in hospital." The charred remains of a plane's fuselage with Iranian Air Force colours, its nose wedged through the wall of what appeared to be a house, were seen in photographs obtained by AFP. Wreckage including a landing gear and a mangled jet engine were scattered nearby. Rescuers examine a Boeing 707 cargo plane that crashed into a residential complex near the Iranian capital Tehran with at least 10 people onboard on January 14, 2019 "A (Boeing) cargo 707 place carrying meat took off from Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan and had an emergency landing at Fath airport this morning," the army said earlier in a statement on its website. "It exited the runway during the landing and caught fire after hitting the wall at the end of the runway." Fath airport is in Alborz province, just northwest of Tehran. The Fars news agency, considered close to the military, earlier said there were 16 people onboard and that only the flight engineer had survived. State broadcaster IRIB showed footage of burning wreckage. - Still smouldering - Investigators found a black box from the plane, which will provide more details about the crash, deputy Alborz governor Azizollah Shahbazi told Tasnim news agency. Pictures published by local media showed the charred carcasses of the animals on board, still smouldering inside one of the buildings the plane smashed into. Fars carried a video showing emergency teams cutting through the aircraft's nose, which had penetrated what it said was an empty residential complex. Iran's ageing air fleet has had a string of crashes in recent years. Firefighters examine the wreckage of a Boeing 707 cargo plane that slammed into a residential complex near the Iranian capital Tehran with at least 10 people onboard on January 14, 2019 Iran's Aseman Airlines was ordered to ground its fleet of ATR planes in February last year after one of them crashed in the Zagros mountains, killing all 66 people onboard. Iran has been subject to tough US sanctions for years, hindering the purchase of new aeroplanes and critical spare parts for the US-made planes in its air force, civilian flag carrier Iran Air and domestic airlines. Hopes for a change in the situation were dashed last May when Washington pulled out of a landmark 2015 deal over Iran's nuclear programme, reimposing sanctions that had been lifted as part of the multilateral accord. Syrian demonstrators hold a portrait of President Bashar al-Assad during a demonstration in the northeastern city of Qamishli on December 23, 2018 Qatar's foreign minister ruled out on Monday the possibility of re-opening an embassy in Damascus, in line with some other Gulf countries, calling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a war criminal. "Normalisation (of relations) with the Syrian regime at this stage is the normalisation of a person involved in war crimes, and this should not be acceptable," said Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani at a Doha press conference. Al-Thani said the reasons why Assad -- who was elected unopposed in 2000 and has stayed in power during nearly eight years of civil war -- was excluded from the international community are still in place. He added that Damascus under Assad should not be allowed back into the Arab League -- its membership was suspended in 2011 -- as "the Syrian people are still under bombardment... by the Syrian regime". His comments come after Gulf neighbours the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain announced late last month they reopened their Damascus embassies. The UAE's foreign minister Anwar Gargash tweeted that his country was doing so in part because of the influence of Iran and one of Qatar's strongest allies, Turkey, in Syria. Tehran has been a staunch supporter of Assad's government and has expanded its military footprint in Syria throughout the course of the conflict. That move also emphasised the foreign policy differences between the three Gulf states. For the past 19 months Qatar has been in a deep diplomatic dispute with the UAE and Bahrain, in part over the direction of Doha's regional foreign policy in recent years. Qatar has been instrumental in the Syrian civil war supplying weapons to rebel groups, according to institutions such as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Syria's opposition leader Nasr al-Hariri has pleaded with Arab leaders not to rebuild relation with Assad as his government now controls almost two-thirds of the country following military backing from Russia and Iran. Al-Thani was speaking at a press conference announcing Qatar had agreed to commit $20 million (17.5 million euros) to an African Union fund to help cover costs to return illegal African refugees stranded in crisis-hit Libya in north Africa to their home countries. AU chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat said the money was vitally needed. "I hope this is the beginning for a solution to a very, very difficult issue," he said. "Since last year, we have brought back 30,000 migrants from Libya to their own countries, but the number is bigger than that." The issue of migrants departing from Libya, particular to Europe, has become a major political and social headache for several countries. Italy's interior ministry said this month that some 23,270 people landed in Italy in 2018, most of whom had set off from Libya. Chinese authorities arrested former diplomat Michael Kovrig last month in a move widely seen as retaliation for Canada's arrest of a top Chinese executive from telecom giant Huawei China on Monday ridiculed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's claim that a former Canadian embassy official detained in Beijing still held diplomatic immunity, while Trudeau doubled down on his comments. Chinese authorities arrested former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor last month, accusing them both of endangering national security. The move was widely seen as retaliation for Canada's arrest -- on a US extradition request -- of a top Chinese executive from telecom giant Huawei. Trudeau on Friday accused China of "arbitrarily and unfairly" detaining the two men and of ignoring Kovrig's "diplomatic immunity" -- earning a scornful rebuke from Beijing. "The accusations that the Chinese side arbitrarily detains Canadian citizens are unfounded," said foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying at a regular press briefing. "The relevant people on the Canadian side should seriously learn and study the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations... Don't make specious statements that make a fool of oneself," Hua added. Persons carrying a diplomatic passport are protected by limited immunity when they are abroad under the terms of the Vienna Convention. Kovrig was arrested on December 10, after taking leave from his diplomatic posting to work for the International Crisis Group think tank. Trudeau's original statement suggested Kovrig carried a diplomatic passport while on his sabbatical -- which is possible if authorised by Canada's foreign ministry -- but Hua said he was in China on an ordinary travel document with a business visa. "No matter which angle you look at it from, Michael Kovrig does not have diplomatic immunity," she said. "Kovrig is not currently a diplomat." - Diplomatic immunity - On Monday, Trudeau repeated the claim, saying Beijing had chosen "to not respect longstanding practices and principles in regard to diplomatic immunity." "This is something that everyone should be alert to and certainly something we as a government take very seriously and will continue to engage strongly with China on," he said. A senior Canadian official told AFP that Kovrig maintained his government employment and diplomatic status, despite being on leave to work for the International Crisis Group, and that questions posed to him by Chinese interrogators about his work as a diplomat bolster Canada's position. Ottawa has called for the Canadians' immediate release, with the backing of the US, EU and several western nations. Trudeau has also called for China to respect the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary. Canada should "first take real action to prove that its own judicial system is independent," Hua said. Huawei was hit by a second high-profile arrest last week when authorities in Poland detained a Chinese employee of the company over espionage allegations. A Chinese state-run daily, the Global Times, said in an editorial on Monday that Poland "must pay" for the arrest of Wang Weijing, who according to Polish special services is suspected of having worked for Chinese authorities "to the detriment of Poland". "Beijing should resolutely negotiate with Warsaw and conduct relative counter-measures, helping the world understand that Poland is an accomplice of the US," the nationalist tabloid said. But when asked whether China could take measures against Polish citizens, Hua said: "We value our relationship with Poland. We believe that maintaining the healthy and stable development of China-Poland relations is in the common interest of the two countries." The Chinese embassy has requested consular access to Wang, who was fired by Huawei following his arrest, and a clarification on the reasons behind his arrest, Hua said. ehl-rwm-lth-amc/jm US President Donald Trump has warned his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan against harming Kurdish fighters as US troops withdraw from Syria Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US counterpart Donald Trump mooted Monday the creation of a "security zone" in northern Syria as tensions rose over the fate of Kurdish fighters in the war-torn country. In a telephone conversation, the leaders "discussed the idea of creating a security zone cleared of terrorism in the north of the country," the Turkish presidency said in a statement. Trump confirmed this in a tweet later, but referred to the proposed area as a "safe zone." This came after Turkey vowed it "will not be intimidated" by Trump's threats of economic devastation if Ankara attacked Kurdish forces as US troops withdraw from Syria. Trump on Sunday warned the US would "devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds". Ankara has repeatedly threatened to carry out a cross-border operation against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which have been working closely with the United States in the war on Islamic State (IS) jihadists. US support for the YPG has been a major source of friction between the NATO allies. The White House said in a statement that Trump had warned Erdogan against harming Kurdish military units. "The president expressed the desire to work together to address Turkey's security concerns in northeast Syria while stressing the importance to the United States that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian democratic forces with whom we have fought to defeat ISIS," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. - 'Security zone' - The Kurds But in his subsequent tweet, Trump put a more positive spin, noting that he and Erdogan "also spoke about economic development between the U.S. & Turkey -- great potential to substantially expand!" The strained relationship between Ankara and Washington initially seemed to improve after Trump announced last month that 2,000 US troops would withdraw from Syria. Ankara welcomed the decision and Erdogan told Trump that Turkey could finish off the last remnants of IS. Trump has been pushing for the creation of a 30-kilometre (20-mile) "safe zone" in Syria. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday talks were under way on Washington's proposal to establish the zone in flashpoint border areas of northeast Syria. "We want to make sure that the folks who fought with us to down the (Islamic State group) have security... and also that terrorists acting out of Syria aren't able to attack Turkey," Pompeo said on a visit to Riyadh. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said earlier that Turkey was "not against" a "security zone" in Syria. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey was "not against" a "security zone" in Syria And in their conversation Monday, Erdogan assured Trump that Turkey was ready to provide "any kind of support" to the United States in its withdrawal from Syria. Turkey views the YPG as a "terrorist offshoot" of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984. The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Ankara, the United States, and the European Union. - 'Radical solution' - Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Ankara would "continue to fight against them all", referring to IS and the YPG. There has been growing tension between Turkey and the US over the fate of the YPG, especially after Pompeo this month said Washington would ensure Turkey does not "slaughter" Kurds. And before a visit to Ankara last week, White House National Security Advisor John Bolton said the US retreat was conditional on the safety of Kurdish fighters, provoking angry retorts from Turkish officials. Turkey previously launched military offensives in northern Syria in 2016 and 2018 respectively against IS and the YPG. In early 2018, Syrian rebels backed by Turkish military forces captured the YPG's northwestern enclave of Afrin. Ankara, which supports Syrian opposition fighters, is also involved in the last rebel bastion of Idlib, where Turkey has agreed a buffer zone deal with Damascus ally Russia. But the deal has not stopped an assault by jihadists in Syria. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an alliance led by jihadists from Al-Qaeda's former Syrian affiliate, last week extended its administrative control over the whole of the Idlib region. Syria's National Coalition, the leading opposition body, on Sunday called for a "radical solution" to put "an end to its (HTS) presence" in Idlib. Cavusoglu however said the Idlib deal was being "successfully applied" and that statements that HTS took 50 percent of Idlib are "not true". burs-sms/ft A handout picture released by the Jordanian Royal Palace shows Iraqi President Barham Saleh(R) welcoming Jordan's King Abdullah II (2nd L) in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on January 14, 2019 Jordanian King Abdullah II met Iraq's president and prime minister in Baghdad on Monday, in the monarch's first trip to Iraq in more than a decade. It is the latest in a string of top-level visits to Iraq in recent weeks, which kicked off with a surprise Christmas trip by US President Donald Trump. King Abdullah met separately with Iraqi President Barham Saleh, who had travelled to Jordan in November, and Prime Minister Adel Abdel-Mahdi, their press offices said. They said Jordan and Iraq were looking to strength bilateral ties but did not give additional details. Abdullah's last trip to Iraq was in 2008, when he became the first Arab leader to visit Baghdad after strongman Saddam Hussein was toppled by the US-led invasion in 2003. The two countries share a 179-kilometre (111-mile) border, and Jordan is a major importer of Iraqi crude oil. In 2013, they agreed on a 1,700-kilometre pipeline linking Iraq's oil-rich Basra province to Jordan's Aqaba port, but the Islamic State group's sweep across nearly a third of Iraq put a screeching halt to the plan. Last year, Jordan approved a framework to revive it, but did not give a timeframe for the line's construction. Jordan's King Abdullah II made his first trip to neighbouring Iraq in more than a decade on January 14, 2019 The two states have also discussed plans for Iraq to import around 300 megawatts of electricity from Jordan to cope with widespread power shortages. Currently, Baghdad relies heavily on its eastern neighbour Iran, importing around 1,300 megawatts of electricity and 28 million cubic metres of natural gas to feed power plants. Washington, which sees Tehran as its top foe in the region, is keen to break those ties. It reimposed tough sanctions on Iran in November but has granted Iraq a temporary waiver on energy imports, while urging it to partner with US firms instead. "Everyone is looking to Iraq as a virgin land requiring more investment by regional and international powers," said Iraqi political analyst Issam al-Faily. "Jordan has a real desire to stretch an oil pipeline from Basra to the Aqaba port because it would fulfil its fuel needs," he told AFP. - Diplomatic flurry - Iraq has witnessed a revolving door of diplomatic visits since Trump went in late December. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a surprise stop in Baghdad on his regional tour last week, followed by Iran's oil minister then top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (L) and Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali al-Hakim (R) shake hands following a joint news conference in Baghdad on January 13, 2019 Zarif landed Sunday and met with Abdel-Mahdi on Monday, according to the premier's office. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian also met Abdel-Mahdi on Monday morning and said the two countries had entered "a new stage" in their ties. The premier said he appreciated France's "support" to Iraq and hoped for greater economic cooperation. Fanar Haddad, an Iraq expert at the National University of Singapore's Middle East Institute, said the flurry of visits showcased Iraq's "major advantage". "From Iran to the United States, Saudi Arabia to Turkey, Syria to Qatar, Iraq can speak to everyone in a region that is otherwise deeply fractured by several strategic fissures," Haddad told AFP. But it also leaves Baghdad vulnerable to regional power struggles. A handout picture released by the Iraq Prime Minister's Media Office on January 14, 2019 shows French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian (L) meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi in the Iraqi capital Baghdad "One of the most potent threats to Iraqi stability today is the danger of US-Iranian tensions escalating and playing out in, and at the expense of, Iraq," said Haddad. That could thwart Iraq's plans to rebuild after three gruelling years recapturing urban strongholds from IS. On Monday, two shepherds were found dead after being kidnapped by IS near Tikrit, around 175 kilometres north of Baghdad, according to police sources. It came a day after seven Iraqis were sentenced to death for "terrorism"-related charges. Thais woke up Monday morning to another day of murky air blanketing Bangkok Thailand is set to deploy rainmaking planes to seed clouds in an effort to tackle the pall of pollution that has shrouded the capital in recent weeks. The weather modification technique involves dispersing chemicals into the air to aid cloud condensation, which should in theory result in rain. "The Department of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation... expects the rainmaking to be done tomorrow (Tuesday) but it depends on wind and humidity levels," Pralong Dumrongthai, director-general of Thailand's Pollution Control Department, told reporters. As Thais woke up Monday morning to another day of murky air blanketing its bustling construction-filled capital, environment group Greenpeace said Bangkok was currently the 10th most polluted in the world, rivalling some cities in China. Reasons for the persistent smog include combustion exhaust from Bangkok's traffic-strewn roads, the burning of fields from farmers outside the city, and pollutants from factories. Public discontent has surfaced on Thai social media and television, with pollution-related hashtags trending and TV hosts advising viewers on the types of face masks they should wear. Air Visual, an independent online air quality index (AQI) monitor, pegged Bangkok at "unhealthy" levels measuring 156 AQI on Monday -- though numbers have often crept higher in the last two months. Public discontent has surfaced on Thai social media and television, with TV hosts advising viewers on the types of face masks they should wear But the Pollution Department played down the dangers of the persistent haze, which the government judges using a different set of measurements to see the concentration of harmful microscopic particles known as PM2.5. He said Bangkok had recent peak PM2.5 levels of 102 micrograms per cubic metre and on Monday was sitting under 90. "Our PM figure is high but it is not a crisis yet," he said. "We are not in the range of 120-150 where all people have to wear masks all the time when they are out." But Greenpeace's Thailand director Tara Buakamsri said immediate action should be taken by the authorities, like reducing the number of cars and closing schools in high-risk areas. "The pollution issues are more and more frequent in Bangkok. We need smarter air quality management." In recent weeks, municipal workers have sprayed water along the roads and into the air in Bangkok to help clear the smog, while authorities have urged people to stay indoors. Retiring Victorian independent MP Cathy McGowan is tight-lipped on whether she will support legislation designed to get sick asylum seekers off Manus Island and Nauru. Ms McGowan, who is leaving politics at the next election, said she had always supported removing children from detention and treating people well, but would not say which way she would vote. "When the bill comes up to parliament I will vote on it in the normal way and I am not going to do it now in the media," she told ABC Radio National on Tuesday. After nearly pulling off one of the gutsiest comebacks of his career, Andy Murray faces an agonising decision between surgery on a chronic hip injury or a farewell match at his beloved Wimbledon. The five-time Australian Open finalist most likely played his last match at Melbourne Park - and perhaps ever - after going down 6-4 6-4 6-7 (7-5) 6-7 (7-4) 6-2 to 22nd seed Roberto Bautista Agut on Monday. The 31-year-old Scot had the crowd on their feet as he mustered a rousing fightback from two sets down in an absorbing contest lasting over four-hours Murray came close to confirming it was his last Australian Open, telling the Melbourne Arena audience he would "maybe" see them again. He now faces a call that could end or extend his career. "I have basically like two options. One is to take the next four-and-a-half months off, then build up, play Wimbledon," Murray said. "But having an operation like that, there's absolutely no guarantees I'd be able to play again. "That is the decision that I have to make. It will improve my quality of life, I'll be in less pain doing normal things like walking around and putting your shoes on." Murray said he had left nothing on the court after nearly claiming a memorable victory from two sets down. Video tributes for the three-time major winner from the likes of Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic were played on the big screen after the match. "If it was my last match, look, it was a brilliant way to finish," Murray said. "I literally gave everything that I had on the court, fought as best as I could. I'd be okay with that being my last match." One of the hardest trainers on the ATP tour, Murray said he regretted pushing his body to the brink and if he had his time over would do things differently. "It's also been a flaw of mine. Some people might say, It's a positive thing that Andy worked really, really hard. "But I also often didn't stop myself when I was being told to do things. "I would always kind of just go along with what I was being told. That was a mistake." Humbled by the outpouring of support from the Melbourne crowd, Murray said it would be up to others to judge his legacy. "There's matches here, for example, that I would love to play again, have another opportunity to do that," he said. "I don't know what it will be, but I have tried my best." Casting for the highly anticipated Sopranos prequel The Many Saints Of Newark is moving forward at quite a pace. On Tuesday, Deadline.com reported that Corey Stoll and Billy Magnussen are being added to the roster. It comes hot on the heels of Monday's announcement that Jon Bernthal and Vera Farmiga are lined up to star along with Alessandro Nivola. High profile role: Corey Stoll has been added to the cast of the highly anticipated Sopranos prequel movie The Many Saints Of Newark, Deadline.com reported Tuesday Famous face: Stoll, 42, is best known for playing Senator Peter Russo in Netflix's House of Cards, left. He currently stars as Buzz Aldrin in the Neil Armstrong biopic First Man, right Stoll, 42, is best known for playing the compromised Senator Peter Russo in Netflix's House of Cards. He's currently starring in Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner's Amazon Prime series The Romanoffs and plays Buzz Aldrin in the Neil Armstrong biopic First Man. Magnussen, 33, has appeared in Netflix series Maniac and last year's movie The Oath and has completed production on the upcoming horror film Velvet Buzzsaw opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and John Malkovich. Cast: Magnussen, 33, has appeared in Netflix series Maniac and last year's movie The Oath and has completed production on the upcoming horror film Velvet Buzzsaw On board: The casting news comes hot on the heels of Monday's announcement that Jon Bernthal, left, and Vera Farmiga, center, are lined up to star along with Alessandro Nivola, right Little is known about the characters that will be featured in The Many Saints Of Newark as Sopranos creator David Chase is keeping his cards close to his chest. All that's been revealed so far is that Nivola will play Dickie Moltisanti, the father of the TV series character Christopher, and that a young Tony Soprano will appear in the movie. The story is set in Newark, New Jersey, around the time of the riots that took place in 1967, sparked by the beating of an African-American taxi driver by two police officers. 'I was against [the movie] for a long time and I'm still very worried about it, but I became interested in Newark, where my parents came from, and where the riots took place,' Chase explained as reported by Deadline. 'The movie will deal with the tensions between the blacks and whites at the time, and Tony Soprano will be part of this, but as a kid,' he added. Backstory: The Sopranos centered around mob boss Tony, played by James Gandolfini, who sought treatment for panic attacks. The show ran for six seasons on HBO from 1999 to 2007 Chase is co-writing the screenplay with Lawrence Konner who wrote for The Sopranos and also for Boardwalk Empire. The film will be directed by Alan Taylor, who helmed nine episodes of the HBO bob drama as well as directing episodes of Game Of Thrones, Mad Men and the film Thor: The Dark World. The Sopranos centered around mob boss Tony who sought treatment for panic attacks and ran for six seasons on HBO from 1999 to 2007. It made a star of actor James Gandolfini and won numerous awards including Golden Globes, Emmys and SAG Awards. Gandolfini died suddenly of a heart attack while visiting Rome, Italy, on June 19, 2013. He was 51. Highly anticipated: Set at the time of the 1967 Newark race riots, Sopranos creator David Chase has revealed: 'The movie will deal with the tensions between the blacks and whites at the time, and Tony Soprano will be part of this, but as a kid' Ewan McGregors acrimonious divorce from his French wife, Eve Mavrakis, has taken an unexpected turn as his daughter, Clara, launches a virulent attack on the Trainspotting star. It is the first time the 22-year-old model has explicitly lashed out against her father since he left her mother after 22 years of marriage for his Fargo co-star, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, 34, in 2017. On holiday with her mother and sister Esther, 17, Clara posted a beach snap of Eve in a bikini looking markedly younger than her 52 years. My mother, ladies & gentlemen, she wrote, adding pointedly: 50 is the new 30 apparently. Ewan McGregors daughter, Clara, posted a beach snap of her mother Eve in a bikini looking markedly younger than her 52 years Her jaunty tone then took a hostile turn when Clara responded to one of her followers But her jaunty tone took a hostile turn when Clara responded to one of her followers, who commented: Good to know you have the genes . . . keep her away from your boyfriends. Clara replied: I keep her away from a*****e men who leave my goddess of a mother, followed by a smiling face emoji. Until now she has tried to temper her criticism of her errant father. Last year, she branded U.S. actress Mary a piece of trash online. She later apologised, and added of her 47-year-old father: We are incredibly close and despite strongly disagreeing with how hes gone about things, Ill always love him, and I hope hes happy, you know? In January last year, Ewan cited irreconcilable differences when he filed for divorce from Eve, with whom he also has two adopted daughters Jamyan, 17, and Anouk, seven. Ewan McGregor and his wife of 22 years Eve Mavrakis pictured in 2012. In January last year, Ewan cited irreconcilable differences when he filed for divorce from Eve They continue to battle over joint and sole custody. In October last year, divorce documents claimed Ewan has been voluntarily contributing to the living expenses of Eve and their children. However, Ewan has said hes paying more than he is obliged to, while Eve believes she should be getting more. Matching hats and kisses in the cold, Sienna's in love again Sienna Millers New Year has got off to a romantic start. The actress, 37, was spotted kissing and walking hand in hand with gallery owner Lucas Zwirner as the pair went on a romantic stroll with Siennas pooch in New York sporting matching beanie hats. Lucas, who is ten years Siennas junior, joined his family business to grow his fathers eponymous art gallery, David Zwirner. Sienna Miller, 37, was spotted kissing and walking hand in hand with gallery owner Lucas Zwirner in New York Sienna took Lucas as her date for her ex Tom Sturridges birthday party last month. She broke off her engagement to the actor, father of her six-year-old daughter, Marlowe, over three years ago. Sienna previously said that Tom was her best friend in the entire world. Spencer has a nibble on his nipper New mum Pippa Middleton need look no further than her lively brother-in-law, Spencer Matthews, when she needs an entertaining babysitter for her two-month-old son, Arthur. The former Made In Chelsea lothario has been showing off his boisterous side this week in St Barts as he shares a picture of himself online playfully biting the leg of his own son, four-month-old Theodore. Favourite meal of the day . . . Spencer, 31, captions the snap, in which Theodore, whose mother is Irish model Vogue Williams, appears to be thoroughly enjoying himself. Spencer Matthews has been showing off his boisterous side this week sharing a picture of himself online playfully biting the leg of his own son, four-month-old Theodore Talk about suffering for your art. Helen George, star of period drama Call The Midwife, says her feet killed her on set as she had to wear vintage shoes. Feet were so tiny then, none of the shoes bloody fit us! We took them off a lot. There are loads of shots where we are walking off into the distance with our Ugg boots on. They were like Cut! Youve still got Uggs on. Spain: jihadist cell allegedly preparing attack dismantled Five Algerians behind organization, media report (ANSAmed) - ROME, JANUARY 15 - Catalan police on Tuesday morning dismantled a suspected terrorist cell allegedly preparing an attack, newspaper La Vanguardia reports. According to the daily, two people have been arrested and officers are carrying out additional arrests in an ongoing operation. The cell was reportedly managed by five Algerians with a police record for theft, armed robbery and drug trafficking. (ANSAmed). Usually one of Londons most publicity-loving figures, Fast Eddie Davenport has been keeping a low profile since a bouncer was stabbed to death by a gang outside a Park Lane sex party to which he was linked on New Years Day. Now, the convicted fraudster has resurfaced 6,000 miles away in Thailand and is smiling for the cameras again. Fast Eddie Davenport has resurfaced 6,000 miles away in Thailand and is smiling for the cameras again - the 53-year-old shared this snap online posing with some model chums in the Zuma restaurant at the five-star St Regis Hotel in the Thai capital Fast Eddie (pictured right on Halloween) has been a fixture on the London party scene since he was young Eddie, 53, shared this snap online posing with some model chums in the Zuma restaurant at the five-star St Regis Hotel in the Thai capital. A week in Bangkok, he wrote next to the picture, in an apparent reference to the song One Night In Bangkok from the musical Chess, which suits his chequered past. Granchester hunk Tom Brittney, who replaces James Norton as the dashing vicar in the current series, reveals hes got his sights set on being the next James Bond despite the fact that Norton is tipped for the role. I would love to be Bond. And apparently if you even talk about it, you put your name in the ring, says the 28-year-old. You know, I worked with [Bond producer] Barbara Broccoli on my first ever film. So maybe she will be keeping an eye on my career. I have been doing [Israeli martial art] Krav Maga lessons, I think I look OK in a tuxedo, and I am a raging alcoholic no, just kidding so, I tick a few boxes. Granchester hunk Tom Brittney (pictured) is replacing James Norton as the dashing vicar in the current series Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard has been given a dressing down for not dressing up for his own 80th birthday party last year. U.S. author Joseph Epstein says Stoppard epitomises the new schlepporisty in fashion shared by many of his dishevelled thespian guests. Michael Gambon, who seems to have forgotten to brush his hair, Iain Glen in flip-flops, Jude Law in a wife-beater undershirt exposed under an unbuttoned shirt; and the birthday celebrant himself unkempt and wearing an emphatically rumpled chambray work shirt. It was a party, Joseph! He is one of Hollywood's most iconic and well-loved actors. And Pierce Brosnan, 65, appeared thrilled as he bumped into his pals Amanda Seyfried, 33, and Hugh Jackman, 50, while casually sitting in an airport. Sharing a snap of the three sitting together, the Irish actor, 65, captioned it: 'So there I am sitting in the airport lounge at Genva airport and who should walk into my day but Amanda and Hugh ...love you both and all the work that you do safe travels.' 'Who should walk into my day?' Pierce Brosnan, 65, appeared thrilled as he bumped into his pals Amanda Seyfried, 33, and Hugh Jackman, 50, while casually sitting in an airport Pierce looked like his dapper self as he swung his arm around a make-up free Amanda and casually clad Hugh. As one of Hollywood's most beautiful actors, Pierce is most famous for his hunky portrayal of MI6 agent from 1995-2002. He starred in films GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day. With Daniel Craig set to commence filming on the as-yet unnamed Bond 25 film, Pierce recently spoke about the latest generation of the franchise. Icon: As one of Hollywood's most beautiful actors, Pierce is most famous for his hunky portrayal of MI6 agent from 1995-2002 The actor said Craig's brooding portrayal had to be more serious because the franchise was forced to reinvent the character as 'more muscular' and solemn. However, in the process, Pierce claimed the series has lost its sense of humour while he spoke about the developments of the franchise over the years. He told The Rake magazine: 'There had to be humour, I felt. It is different now. They had strong competition and they haven't reinvented it but given it a much more muscular, dynamic twist. Candid: The actor recently said Daniel Craig's brooding portrayal had to be more serious because the franchise was forced to reinvent the character as 'more muscular' and solemn 'When I played him you have to let the audience in that this is a fantastic joke this man, jumping off a motorcycle and catching up a plane, is completely preposterous. But for me you had to let them in. 'That's what I was brought up with. Sean (Connery) did it, Roger (Moore) did it par excellence.' Meanwhile, on the personal front, Pierce has been happily married to Keely Shaye Smith since 2001. She spent the weekend celebrating the 40th birthday of Cash Warren, husband of her bestie Jessica Alba. But after all the fun and games, it was back to her regular routine for Nicole Richie - who caught up with another famous pal, the singer Katy Perry. The two dressed down for a casual morning yoga session on Tuesday, joining two other friends for a class in Los Angeles. Having fun: Nicole Richie, centre, and Katy Perry, left, are in high spirits as they head to yoga class together on gloomy Los Angeles day Keeping it casual: For her workout, Nicole dressed down in a grey T-shirt and leggings, while Katy hid beneath a black cap and wore chunky gold hoops in her ears Laughing away, Nicole and Katy looked in good spirits on the gloomy Los Angeles day. For her workout, Nicole dressed down in a grey T-shirt and leggings, while Katy hid beneath a black cap and wore chunky gold hoops in her ears. Carrying her large black padded jacket, Katy was ready for the predicted rain storm about to hit the city. The usual routine: Nicole had spent the weekend partying hard with Jessica Alba No hangover here! This past weekend Nicole was one of a starry crowd celebrating Cash Warren's 40th at a pajama party Both based in Los Angeles, Katy and Nicole have been friends for years, and were pictured together as far back as 201. I Kissed A Girl singer Katy is currently dating on/off boyfriend Orlando Bloom, after the two reconciled last year. Meanwhile former The Simple Life star Nicole shares her children Harlow, 10, and son Sparrow, nine,with her Good Charlotte rocker husband Joel Madden, whom she married in 2010. Catching up: I Kissed A Girl singer Katy is currently dating on/off boyfriend Orlando Bloom, after the two reconciled last year The two celebrated eight years of marriage in December. This past weekend Nicole was one of a starry crowd celebrating Warren's 40th at a pajama party. The group played Twister, flip cup and beer pong, with pals including Nicole's sister-in-law Cameron Diaz, Kourtney Kardashian and Rachel Zoe. Jeremy Clarkson has admitted he's gotten 'unbelievably fat' since he quit smoking, as he joined co-stars James May and Richard Hammond at The Grand Tour Season 3 Launch. The presenter, 58, confessed that ditching the tobacco has led him to pile on the pounds as he spoke in a Q and A ahead of the screening, while co-host James joked that that he 'was fat when he was smoking.' It came as Jeremy put on a loved-up display with girlfriend Lisa Hogan, 46, as they attended the launch in London's The Brewery. Happy couple: Jeremy Clarkson was putting on a loved-up display with girlfriend Lisa Hogan on Tuesday as they led stars in attendance for the launch of Season 3 of The Grand Tour Answering audience questions about the impending third series, Jeremy confessed even he's been baffled by his growing waistline. He said: 'Im a lot fatter. I gave up smoking, anyone here given up smoking? Anyone else get fat, like unbelievably fat, as a result of it? Its just terrifying.' James then hilariously quipped: 'So, why were you fat when you were smoking?' while Richard added: 'I was wondering.' Ever the sharp-tongued presenter Jeremy then added: 'Same reason as you James, same reason as you. Exhibit A, the smoker James May.' Looking good: As Jeremy, 58, looked smart in his simple grey suit, Lisa, 46, looked more stylish in a classic gold biker jacket over an all-black ensemble Regardless Jeremy was still putting on a united display with partner Lisa at the shows launch, looking smart in a simple grey suit. Meanwhile Lisa looked more stylish in a classic gold biker jacket over an all-black ensemble with her blonde tresses styled into effortless waves. The couple were seen posing alongside a car, which is believed to be a red Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio, priced at around 69,000. Jeremy and Lisa have been dating since March 2017, after he split from wife Frances Cain two years earlier. Smart: Also in attendance was Jeremy's presenting partner James May, sporting one of his signature quirky printed shirts as he posed alongside a blue BMW i3 Cool: The long-haired presenter attended the launch of the show's third season, which could also be its last in the currently format Lavish: James went for a casual look as he teamed the floral shirt with jeans and a grey blazer for the event Also in attendance was Jeremy's presenting partner James, sporting one of his signature quirky printed shirts as he posed alongside a blue BMW i3, which is priced at around 35,000. He was joined by Richard who got behind the wheel of a vintage 1965 Ford Mustang 390, as he stood outside ahead of the screening of the Amazon Prime series. The presenting trio have been brought back together as they attended a screening for The Grand Tour's third series. Grand: The car certainly stood out as it appeared alongside James at the event, along with its hefty price tag of around 35,000 Suited and booted: Richard Hammond also made his arrival for the screening of the first episode of the third series, looking sharp in a black waistcoat Recovered: It came 18 months after Richard was rushed to hospital, after crashing a car while filming The Grand Tour in Switzerland The third season is expected to be full of cars, stars and non-stop action - and it will begin on Amazon Prime on Friday 18th January. While it was previously reported that the show had been axed after three series, it had been confirmed that The Grand Tour will go on, but not with its usual studio format. All three stars have signed a new two-year deal with Amazon that is expected to yield as many as four stand alone shows a year, with the presenters travelling to far flung parts of the world in scenes not dissimilar to their globe-trotting adventures on Top Gear. Classic car: Richard also posed up a storm alongside a more classic car, in the form of a green Ford Mustang 390 from 1965 Throwback: The Ford is certainly a classic car with its two-door streamlined shape Done: While The Grand Tour will not continue in its studio format, the stars are contracted for two more years to film numerous specials for Amazon Prime Video The stars also addressed rumours of another series at the show's launch, though went onto admit that the third series was STILL being finished - despite being days away from its premiere. Jeremy explained: 'Well we were signed up by Amazon to do three seasons, but were delighted to say that Amazon has asked us to do more. 'People would say that we couldnt tell them because we werent allowed to, but no we cant tell you because we havent got around to finishing three.' Richard then joked: 'Were still finishing this.' Passionate: The stars of the car-centric series also took part in a Q and A ahead of the screening Down in one! James certainly got into the party spirit as he downed a glass of wine at the event 'We got round to doing this, and then we talked to Amazon and they said theyd be delighted, and we love Amazon and they love us, and consequently youve got us for a few more years yet,' Jeremy added. 'To be honest, we are, as you know, still doing season three. Id love to be able to tell you that the entire season is finished, but thats not true. Mr [Andy] Wilman is here, go and ask him about why its taking so long to edit it. 'There are still two shows which havent been edited, whichever ones they are, so were still working hard on three and when thats over well turn our attention to four, five and however more there are going to be, and what itll be like.' Big money: Fans can expect no-holds barred excitement when the specials do eventually air, with Clarkson claiming they have been given a huge budget to rival the Marvel film franchise Casual: Sat on the stage at the lavish launch, Richard, Jeremy and James all spoke about what fans can expect from the upcoming third series During the chat Richard also spoke about the horrific crash he suffered 18 months ago while filming The Grand Tour, saying he was 'very proud' not to have done the same in the new series. He explained: 'Yes, Im very proud not to have crashed. In fact, I finished as intact as when I started. Sorry, didnt bin it this time. I didnt crash this time, shame I ruined a perfectly good record. Jeremy then joked: 'Can I just say, I hurt myself' before brandishing a tiny cut on his finger. Richard then quipped back: 'Oh, here we go. Ladies and gentleman, if you havent eaten now then dont because this will turn your stomach.' But Jeremy added: 'The scar is still there, and that was six months ago. I was attempting to bash the beak off a porcelain duck with a hammer, and god knows how I got it wrong.' Important: Due to the show's incoming shake-up this will be the last series of The Grand Tour in its current format And at one point Jeremy also appeared to take a swipe at his former bosses at the BBC, when the presenter trio revealed there would be no celebrity guests on the third series. He said: 'The fact of the matter is, when we began on the other channel. Radio communism many years ago, BBC Corbyn. 'Many years ago it was a British show, it was only really shown in the UK, and then it became international, and it still is very much international. 'We are much better known in Italy and China than we are here, weirdly. So theres no point having a guest, like "ladies and gentleman its Howard from the Halifax advert", because in Uruguay they havent got a f****** clue who he is. 'So it seemed to us to be no point persevering with the guest, so that segment has gone. No guests in season three.' The Grand Tour returns on Friday 18th January on Amazon Prime Video. Three-time Grammy winner Drake has reportedly joined the likes of pop divas Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey, and Lady Gaga by scoring well over $10M for his very own Las Vegas residency. The 32-year-old Canadian crooner signed a multi-year deal to perform a minimal 10 shows at the Wynn Las Vegas' XS Nightclub, according to The Blast. 'He chose XS due to its high exposure and ability to consistently bring in the biggest crowds,' the source told the site. Nevada bound! Three-time Grammy winner Drake has reportedly joined the likes of pop divas Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey, and Lady Gaga by scoring well over $10M for his very own Las Vegas residency (pictured December 31) 'He chose XS due to its high exposure and ability to consistently bring in the biggest crowds': The 32-year-old Canadian crooner signed a multi-year deal to perform a minimal 10 shows at the Wynn Las Vegas' XS Nightclub (2012 stock shot) The biracial R&B belter left little doubt about the venture by sharing a snap of himself onstage XS on Saturday captioned: 'New home.' On Monday, Drake - who boasts 142M combined followers - Insta-storied stacks of cash beneath an autographed poster of the 1998 poker drama Rounders starring Matt Damon. The extra income will surely benefit the Degrassi alum's 15-month-old son Adonis with French babymama Sophie Brussaux. The biracial R&B belter left little doubt about the venture by sharing a snap of himself onstage XS on Saturday captioned: 'New home' Gambler: On Monday, Drake Insta-storied stacks of cash beneath an autographed poster of the 1998 poker drama Rounders starring Matt Damon The God's Plan hitmaker will next compete for seven trophies - including record of the year and album of the year - at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, which air February 10 on CBS. But Drake (born Aubrey Graham) is not scheduled to perform again until March 8 and 13 at the AccorHotels Arena in Paris. 'Adonis > Picasso dont @ me': The extra income will surely benefit the Degrassi alum's 15-month-old son Adonis with French babymama Sophie Brussaux (pictured December 25) She recently returned from a New Year's break to Jamaica. And Leigh-Anne Pinnock looked nothing short of sensational as she shared snaps of herself going for a dip in the Caribbean sun in the final days of her holiday on Tuesday. Taking to Instagram, the Little Mix star, 27, shared photos of herself emerging from the waters with a sun-kissed glow. Stunning: Leigh-Anne Pinnock, 27, looked nothing short of sensational as she shared snaps of herself going for a dip in the Caribbean sun in the final days of her holiday The hitmaker donned a tiny black bikini which showed off her lithe figure. Her hair slicked back from the water, Leigh-Anne accessorised with a simple golden necklace. She captioned the snap: 'In my happy place'. In an earlier photo, Leigh-Anne can be seen modelling a sporty black two-piece with high-rise briefs making the most of her enviable legs. Trip: The hitmaker donned a black bikini which showed off her lithe figure. Her hair slicked back from the water, Leigh-Anne accessorised with a simple golden necklace The make-up free beauty flashed a huge grin as she posed with her hands running through her hair. 'My country dont need no filter.. until next time ', she captioned the striking image. Upon her return to London, Leigh-Anne wasted no time in getting on the phone to her favourite takeaway. The star shared a video of her loved ones tucking into a feast from Dominos pizza, indulging after spending two weeks in a bikini. Holiday: In an earlier photo, Leigh-Anne can be seen modelling a sporty black two-piece with high-rise briefs making the most of her enviable legs Sun-kissed: Last week, Leigh-Anne shared a sultry picture of herself rocking scanty two-piece in the sea Last week, Leigh-Anne shared a sultry picture of herself rocking scanty two-piece in the sea. The Black Magic hitmaker teased her peachy posterior as she lay down in crystalline waters, clad in a monochrome bikini. Little Mix recently revealed they had a different name for their album, LM5, which made them 'sound like Amy Winehouse'. Speaking in an interview for The Guardian's The Guide magazine, Jesy Nelson, 27, revealed the title was 'Wine And Make-up Wipes' before adding that she 'hated it.' Kelly Brook cut an effortlessly chic figure in a red jumper and grey palazzo trousers on Tuesday, as she was seen leaving Global Radio in London. The stunning model, 39, looked amazing in a casual look as she left an interview on Heart Radio, almost tripping on a paving stone as she strolled through the city. It comes after Kelly recently admitted she was body-shamed by a school teacher at the age of 11, as they accused her of wearing clothes that were too 'flirty.' Sensational: Kelly Brook cut an effortlessly chic figure in a red jumper and grey palazzo trousers on Tuesday, as she was seen leaving Global Radio in London Highlighting her gorgeous curves, Kelly was putting on a stylish display as she headed back into London, sporting the simple red turtleneck jumper with grey leopard print trousers. Adding a 70s twist to the look, the budding actress' bottoms had a palazzo feel to them, as she accessorised the ensemble with red snakeskin ankle boots. Styling her glossy brunette tresses into effortless waves Kelly finishing her look with a statement red lip to match her jumper and shoes. Stylish: The stunning model, 39, looked amazing in a casual look as she left an interview on Heart Radio All dressed up: Kelly was putting on a stylish display as she headed back into London, sporting the simple red turtleneck jumper with grey leopard print trousers New look: As she exited the radio studio, Kelly looked incredibly chic in her dynamic look, sporting red snakeskin ankle boots with the ensemble Later in the day Kelly suffered a near-miss as she exited Heart FM, struggling to retain her balance after almost tripping over a paving stone. Holding out her arms to steady herself, Kelly managed to avoid a nasty fall on the concrete, and continued her walk out of the studio in good spirits. Going for a more practical accessory on her outing, Kelly finished her look with a black chained cross-body bag. It comes after Kelly recently revealed that she was body-shamed by a teacher due to her curvaceous physique, during her time at school. Playful: Later in the day Kelly nearly tripped on a paving stone as she left the Heart FM studio, but managed to retain her balance Playful: The star was putting on an energetic display for the outing as she tried to stay balanced while strolling through London Time to go! After her interview, Kelly was then seen jumping into a nearby taxi, before making her way home She told the Mirror's Notebook magazine: 'The Head Of Year sent me to her office and said: "You can't come to school looking the way you do, flirting with every boy that comes past.' I was 11. 'I didn't know what the word 'flirt' even meant. I dressed the same as everyone else, but my curves made me different. 'After that realisation I felt very uncomfortable with my looks.' During a recent interview with Femail, Kelly revealed that her weight started creeping on after she returned to the UK from a stint in LA two years ago. And resorting to using editing tools to change the way she looked in her Instagram photos helped her realise she wasn't happy. Transformed: During a recent interview with Femail, Kelly revealed that her weight started creeping on after she returned to the UK from a stint in LA two years ago Opening up about her past weight loss struggles Kelly, who has always been renowned for her curves, explained: 'I'm a curvy girl and I like my natural shape. It's who I am after all. 'But I'm aware that over the last few years, I've been gradually gaining weight. It didn't really start to bother me until I couldn't get into my skinny jeans anymore.' She added: 'Suddenly I realised at aged 39, I was beyond my healthy BMI. My wardrobe had became very limited and I wasn't feeling at my best anymore.' Since starting her weight loss journey back in October, she has lost 15lbs and 4 inches from her hips. She's starring in the upcoming Apple series Top Of The Morning. And Jennifer Aniston was hard at work while shooting the episodic drama around LA on Monday night. The Friends favorite, 49, covered up from the evening chill wearing a camel colored coat over black pants and a white top. Early bird gets the worm! Jennifer Aniston was hard at work on Monday in LA where she was seen shooting scenes for her upcoming Apple series Top Of The Morning The star's caramel blonde hair was pinned up into a neat chignon and she went for a natural glow with her makeup. Jennifer carried a book with her, but it was unclear if the tome was some between take reading material or a prop. While cameras rolled, posters for her made-up Morning Show covered the bus stops on set. The advertisement's yellow tagline read: 'Start your day with family.' Bookworm? Jennifer carried a book with her, but it was unclear if the tome was some between take reading material or a prop Make believe: While cameras rolled, posters for Jennifer's made-up Morning Show covered the bus stops on set Top Of The Morning is part of Apple's new journey into original programming. The show, which was said to have been a highly sought after property, is one of the platform's first two scripted series. Reese Witherspoon will join Aniston as an actor and executive producer. (The pair previously united for an episode of Friends, where Reese played Jen's sister.) Steve Carrell, Billy and Mark Duplass are also attached to the project. Dual roles: Reese Witherspoon will join Aniston as an actor and executive producer. The pair are seen together in 2011 above The show was described as 'an inside look at the lives of the people who help America wake up in the morning, exploring the unique challenges faced by the women (and men) who carry out this daily televised ritual.' Apple has already green lit the series for two 10-episode seasons. They appear to be following the model of Netflix, who heavily invested in high-profile projects with big ticket talent and robust budgets in their attempts to expand the platform. Principal photography for the series kicked off back in October of 2018. It was revealed the final series of Game Of Thrones will return on April 14 on Monday. And one day after the news, Maisie Williams ensured all eyes were on her as she sat front row at the Heron Preston catwalk show at the Palais de Tokyo for Paris Fashion Week Men's. The actress, 21, who plays Arya Stark in the HBO franchise, looked worlds away from the skilled assassin as she continued to rock her candyfloss pink hairdo. Head turner: Maisie Williams ensured all eyes were on her with her candyfloss pink hair as she attended the Heron Preston catwalk show at Palais de Tokyo for Paris Fashion Week Men's Maisie, who was previously a brunette, wore her vibrant pink locks in crimped waves and sported a full fringe for her fashion week look. She clashed her flamboyant hairdo with a shamrock green denim jacket by the streetwear designer. The English beauty layered the outerwear atop of a black polo neck and paired the look with light-wash jeans. New look: The actress, 21, who plays Arya Stark in the HBO franchise and previously rocked brunette locks, looked worlds away from her character with her vibrant hairdo (pictured September) Bright: She clashed her flamboyant hairdo with a shamrock green denim jacket by the streetwear designer and blue trainers Double denim: The English beauty layered the outerwear atop of a black polo neck and paired the look with light-wash jeans Sartorially savvy: She accessorised her cool ensemble with a practical black cross-body bag and accentuated her fair complexion with a rosy pink make-up look Cool: The star posed for the cameras as she sat alongside fashion designer Virgil Abloh Best seats in the house: The actress sat front row with American fashion designer Virgil Abloh Maisie finished off her street-inspired look with flushed pink cheeks and an understated sweep of mascara. The actress appeared in high spirits as she sat front row with American fashion designer Virgil Abloh. The event was Heron Preston's first runway show of his namesake label and featured an array of edgy designs, with him focusing on cycle shorts, form-fitting gymwear and androgynous coats. Latest venture: The event was Heron Preston's first runway show of his namesake label and featured an array of edgy designs Streetwear: The collection featured cycle shorts, form-fitting gymwear and androgynous coats Maisie's appearance comes a day after it was announced Game Of Thrones' eighth, and final, season will return on April 14. Producers dropped a chilling teaser trailer that hinted at the Stark's battle for Winterfell on Monday- exactly three months before the show is released. Fans will be delighted by the prospect of finally getting to see how the battle for Westeros pans out, as it was also announced that the series will be simulcast in the US on April 14 at 9pm, and in the UK at 2am on April 15. The series, which is based on George R.R. Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire book franchise, will feature six episodes that are expected to be over 60 minutes each in length each. Speaking to Variety last week, HBO chief Richard Plepler admitted: 'It's a spectacle. The guys have done six movies. The reaction I had while watching them was, "I'm watching a movie."' 'They knew the bar was high. Theyve exceeded the bar. Ive watched [the episodes] twice without any CGI and Im in awe. Everybodys in for an extraordinary treat of storytelling and of magical, magical production.' Game Of Thrones: Maisie's appearance comes a day after it was announced the eighth, and final, season will return on April 14 The trailer keeps its focus on beloved characters Arya Stark (played by Maisie), Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and Sansa (Sophie Turner) as the trio convene at the crypts below their ancestral home of Winterfell. Hinting at their potential deaths in the final season, each stares in awe of three eerie statues of themselves before an ice-cold wind grabs their attention once more. As they prepare to face off against the chilling, other-worldly presence, the fog surrounds them before the trailer fades to black. In an interview with the Guardian in October, Maisie said her final scene was 'beautiful' but said her character was alone because 'Arya's always b****y alone'. They famously declared 'we ride together, we die together.' And Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are certainly proving that they are Bad Boys for life. The 50-year-old rapper and 53-year-old comedian were spotted for the first time on the Atlanta, Georgia set of Bad Boys 3 on Tuesday morning. They're back! Will Smith and Martin Lawrence were spotted for the first time on the Atlanta, Georgia set of Bad Boys 3 on Tuesday morning Will has already sprung into action as his character Mike Lowry as he was filmed running out of a doorway while sporting a sheer black Henley shirt with jeans and black leather boots. Martin was back as Marcus Burnett in a burgundy letterman's jacket over black shirt, relaxed fit jeans, and white sneakers. In between takes the two men bundled up in long black puffer coats as they chatted up the film crew. No Tropical Fruit Bubbalicious? Will has already sprung into action as his character Mike Lowry as he was filmed running out of a doorway Looking good: He rocked a sheer black Henley shirt with jeans and black leather boots Did you get some in the morning? Martin was back as Marcus Burnett in a burgundy letterman's jacket over black shirt, relaxed fit jeans, and white sneakers Back in November the two stars reunited in Santa Monica as Lawrence took to Instagram to share a snap from their meeting while confirming they are returning to their highly-popular action franchise. The former Martin star posted the photo with 50-year-old will alongside the caption: 'Its official. Bad Boys for Life. #teammartymar #badboysforlife @willsmith #weback.' Last month Variety reported that the two stars will be joined on screen by Vanessa Hudgens, Charles Melton and Alexander Ludwig. For life: Back in November, Martin reunited with Will in Santa Monica as he shared this snap while confirming that Bad Boys 3 is happening Hired: Vanessa Hudgens, left, Riverdale's Charles Melton, center, and Vikings star Alexander Ludwig, right, are joining the cast of the third Bad Boys movie, Variety reported last month According to the trade publication, Hudgens, Ludwig, and Melton will play 'a modern, highly specialized police unit that collides with the old school Bad Boys (Smith and Lawrence) when a new threat emerges in Miami.' The new sequel in the franchise is also tentatively titled Bad Boys 4 Life. While not yet confirmed by Sony, the current plan is to have Bad Boys 3 in theaters in January 2020, over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. They're back: The new sequel in the franchise is also tentatively titled Bad Boys 4 Life Dynamic duo: While not yet confirmed by Sony, the current plan is to have Bad Boys 3 in theaters in January 2020, over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend David Guggenheim (Designated Survivor) and Joe Carnahan (The A-Team) had previously taken a crack at the script, with Carnahan even once set to direct. The directing duties have now been handed over to Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, who are best known for directing the first two episodes of the hit FX series Snowfall. Columbia Pictures president Sanford Panitch said in a previous interview that, if they wanted to make another Bad Boys movie 15 years later, it would have to be 'next-level great,' which he thinks the new directors can bring. 'These guys are amazing,' Panitch said. 'They loved the first movies, but theyre not afraid to change things up.' Panitch also added that a new Bad Boys movie would be 'inconceivable' without original stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, and while he wouldn't divulge any story details, the executive revealed there will be a 'big idea' at the heart of it. 'With these movies you have to have one big idea for the film,' Panitch said. 'In some ways, this big idea is ultimately more important than the brand itself.' The Bad Boys return: The directing duties have now been handed over to Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, who are best known for directing the first two episodes of the hit FX series Snowfall, as Lawrence and Smith are seen in the 1995 original film The original Bad Boys, which helped launch the film careers of TV stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in 1995, grossed $141.4 million worldwide on just a $19 million budget, which also marked the feature directorial debut of Michael Bay. Bay returned to take the helm on the 2003 sequel Bad Boys II, which earned $273.4 million worldwide from a much larger $130 million budget. Sony is trying to compete with Disney by bringing back franchises from their vault, with varying degrees of success. While Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was a huge hit last year with $962 million worldwide (from a $90 million budget), the studio's Ghostbusters reboot took in $221.9 million worldwide, from a $144 million budget. The studio also has reboots of Men in Black and Charlie's Angels in the works, with a 21 Jump Street spin-off with female detectives also in development. Migrant claims Greek coast guard behind daughter's death Pushed vessel back, 'they tried to kill us' (ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, JANUARY 15 - The death around dawn of a four-year-old girl in the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece allegedly occurred after the Greek Coast Guard pushed a boat carrying migrants back. The claim was from the girl's father, an Iraqi irregular migrant named Mohammed Fadil, quoted by the Anadolu news agency. He was one of the 46 people rescued by the Turkish Coast Guard off the country's southwestern coast near the town of Kusadasi. "There were strong waves. We thought they came to save us. They told us to cut the engine. They tied our boat to theirs with a rope, and then they start to turn us in circles," Fadil said. ''It was so inhumane. They tried to kill us,'' he added, stressing that they had been left for dead mercilessly until the Turkish Coast Guard teams came and saved them. ''I saved my two children, but I could not save the other,'' he said. (ANSAmed). She is reportedly preparing to fight with her ex-husband Kieran Hayler over their two children. And Katie Price took to Instagram on Monday to make a hilarious dig at her ex-husbands as she compared herself to Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. The world's richest man, 55, is currently facing the prospect of a $68.5 billion (53 billion) divorce from his wife of 25 years MacKenzie, as he moves on with his lover Lauren Sanchez. Hitting out: Katie Price took to Instagram on Monday to make a hilarious dig at her ex-husbands as she compared herself to Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos Dig: Katie, 40, shared a quote on her Instagram with the caption: 'That would never happen to me lol total opposite and other way around,' followed by a collection of laughing emojis (sic) And Katie, 40, took to her social media platform to share a quote, which read: 'Divorcing your cheating husband for an ironic $69 billion, which puts you on the list of the richest people on the planet and simultaneously demotes your ex from the top of that list to tie with you is the craziest "last laugh" anybody can come up with ever & I'm here for it.' She captioned the post with: 'That would never happen to me lol total opposite and other way around,' followed by a collection of crying laugh emojis. (sic) A source close to Bezos has insisted to DailyMail.com that he and MacKenzie were separated before his romance with Lauren began. Split: The world's richest man, 55, is currently facing the prospect of a $68.5 billion (53 billion) divorce from his wife of 25 years MacKenzie (pictured together in March 2018) Moving on: A source close to Bezos has insisted to DailyMail.com that he and MacKenzie were separated before his romance with Lauren Sanchez began (pictured together in 2016) Katie was married to Peter Andre from 2005 until 2009, she then went on to marry Alex Reid in 2010, with the two divorcing in 2012. The mother-of-five is currently in the process of divorcing her third husband, Kieran Hayler, after announcing their split last year. And Katie is reportedly preparing to fight with the former stripper, 31, over their two children, insiders say. She doesn't name any names directly in her post, so it is unclear which of her husbands she is alluding to. It comes following the Christmas Eve stand-off between Katie and Kieran, which saw the 40-year-old refuse to let her former flame take Bunny, four, and Jett, five, home for the big day. Bitter battle: Katie is reportedly preparing to fight with her ex husband Kieran over their two children, insiders say 'Katie and Kieran have been co-parenting well, but there was an incident over Christmas that made him really angry,' a source told The Sun. 'He doesnt want to fight with Katie, but she can be very stubborn and tends to do whatever she wants, and without a formal agreement in place over the kids, its hard for Kieran to put his foot down.' The insider added that it will be 'especially bad now' as Katie has been banned from driving - meaning Kieran, 31, will have to travel to the former glamour model and could be turned away at any time. Yet a source for the mother-of-five reportedly warned the publication that 'Katie isnt going to be pushed around', and is preparing for a row with her ex. Drama: It comes following the Christmas Eve stand-off between the pair, which saw the 40-year-old refuse to let her former flame take Bunny, four, and Jett, five, home for the big day (pictured in 2017) They added: 'For a while they were getting along, and they try not to fight in front of Bunny and Jett, but shes not going to back down to any of Kierans demands or let him tell her what to do.' Viewers of Katies show, My Crazy Life, have had front-row seats to the pairs tense stand-offs in recent months. One captured Katie making a harsh comment after Kieran dropped his kids off with their mother. 'You still look fat by the way. You are,' she told him. Kieran had just confessed to the camera that he felt in better shape since the couples split. Ready to row: A source for the mother-of-five reportedly warned that Katie isnt going to be pushed around, and is preparing for a row with her ex (pictured in 2015) Katie came under fire recently after she took to Instagram on Saturday with a snap of a 70k Mercedes-Benz S Class as she thanked a personal chauffeur company for taking her to her court appearance earlier this week. After facing charges of driving without insurance and driving while disqualified, the post left a bad taste in the mouths of her followers, as they blasted her for not taking the offence seriously. 'Verified Best chauffeur company in London thank you very much for always looking after me Team HR I have lots of work for you now @hr_carriages_mayfair,' Katie gleefully captioned the snap. However, Katie's followers weren't too pleased as they blasted her in the comments section: 'Dont think you should glorify your driving ban had you have had an accident would be a different thing. And drink driving, shame on you.' Criticised: Katie came under fire recently after she took to Instagram on Saturday with a snap of a 70k Mercedes-Benz S Class 'Best company!' The model thanked the personal chauffeur company for taking her to her court appearance earlier this week Storm Keating ensured all eyes were on her at the IWC Schaffhausen event in Geneva on Tuesday, as she showcased not one, but two completely different looks. The 37-year-old was the epitome of glamour as she arrived on the arm of her 41-year-old husband Ronan rocking a poker straight blonde wig with a full fringe. Slipping her lithe frame into a backless khaki evening dress, the fashion designer transformed her look later in the evening as she wowed in a racy red cut-out dress. New look: Storm Keating ensured all eyes were on her at the IWC Schaffhausen event in Geneva on Tuesday, as she showcased two completely different looks Arriving at the bash, Storm showcased her sleek blonde locks, which was actually a wig by Carl Bembridge, topped off with the brand new fringe. The mother-of-one flashed the flesh in the backless number, making it crystal clear why she was at the event by waving her watch around She added nude heels to the look, a sweep of mascara and a slick of rose gloss to her pout, while Ronan went all-black, in jeans, boots and a T-shirt. Risque: The fashion designer transformed her look later in the evening, wowing in a racy red cut-out dress Gorgeous: Storm then swapped her khaki number for a slinky maroon floor-length dress, which highlighted her incredible physique due to fishnet design Switching it up: She also ditched her wig to showcase her own hair, which was styled in tumbling waves (L-R) (pictured with Ronan, David Coulthard and Karen Minier) Handsome: Ronan also swapped his casual attire for a dapper black suit and bow tie Mere hours later, Storm swapped her khaki number for a slinky maroon floor-length dress, which highlighted her incredible physique due to its fishnet design. She also changed from her nude court shoes into bejewelled sandals and ditched her wig to showcase her own hair, which was styled in tumbling waves. Ronan also swapped his casual attire for a dapper black suit and bow tie. The couple put on a loved-up display as they wrapped their arms around one another while posing for photos. The duo had teased their visit to Switzerland earlier in the afternoon, documenting it on Instagram, seen boarding the plane and jumping into a car after touch down. Matching looks: The 37-year-old was the epitome of glamour as she arrived on the arm of her 41-year-old husband Ronan rocking a poker straight blonde wig with a full fringe Subtle: Storm flashed the flesh in the backless number, making it crystal clear why she was at the event by waving her watch around His' n' hers: Ronan went all-black, in jeans, boots and a T-shirt, careful to flash his watch around too Smitten: The couple put on a loved-up display as they wrapped their arms around one another while posing for photos Storm snapped a shot of her fringe and asked her Instagram following to vote whether it was a yes or no, in their opinion. The results of that, however, are yet to be revealed. Rosamund Pike was also in attendance and joined by supermodel Adriana Lima. The blonde leading the blonde: She showcased her sleek blonde locks, which was actually a wig by Carl Bembridge, topped off with the brand new fringe Stylish as ever: Rosamund Pike was turning heads as she arrived at the IWC Schaffhausen in Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday Stunner: She was joined by glamorous supermodel Adriana Lima at the fashion bash Last year, Adriana broke down into tears when she walked her last Victoria's Secret show after being with the lingerie brand for 20 years. Adriana has been moving on with her life since she bid an emotional goodbye to Victoria's Secret when she was dubbed the 'greatest Angel of all time'. The catwalk stunner walked her first Victoria Secret show in 2000 when she was just the tender age of 19 but she has been with the brand since 1999. Making an impression, the runway star opened five of the shows for the lingerie brands in the following years: 2003, 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2012. Chic: Also putting in a stylish appearance at the event was Karolina Kurkova Smouldering: Oliver Cheshire looked dashing in a sharp suit and a polo-neck In 2008, the model wore the coveted $5 million Fantasy Bra encrusted with rubies and diamonds for the first time. The mother-of-two donned the Fantasy Bra again in 2010 and for a final time in 2014. Adriana, who raises eight-year-old Valentina and six-year-old Sienna with her ex-husband Marko Jaric, only missed the 2009 show because she was pregnant. She confirmed the news she was leaving on social media: 'Dear Victoria, Thank you for showing me the world, sharing your secrets, and most importantly not just giving me wings but teaching me to fly.' She's Kim Kardashian and Kayne West's youngest. And little Chicago West marked a huge milestone when she celebrated her very first year on Tuesday. Reality diva mom Kim glowed about over her baby as she shared a beautiful black and white Instagram with a caption which read: 'Happy Birthday to my pretty girl Chi!!!! The sweetest baby in the whole world! Mommy and Daddy love you so much!' Happy birthday! Kim Kardashian marked her youngest child Chicago's first birthday with a sweet Instagram on Tuesday Chi, as her family affectionately calls her, looked darling while laying down on a knitted blanket wearing a white linen dress and gazing up at her mom adoringly. Grandma Kris Jenner also announced her love on Instagram, posting a pretty photo of the little one lying on her belly in a pink wrap. It was captioned: 'Happy birthday to our beautiful angel Chicago!! You are my precious ray of sunshine and I love you so very much.... 'You put a smile on everyones face the moment you crawl into any room and you bring such joy and happiness into our lives!!! I love you Chi Chi #love #family #happybirthdaychi.' Pretty in pink: Grandma Kris Jenner also announced her love on Instagram, posting a pretty photo of the little one lying on her belly in a pink wrap Growing family: Kim and Kanye - who are also parents to North, five, and Saint, three - are currently expecting a fourth baby Kim and Kanye - who are also parents to North, five, and Saint, three, - welcomed their baby girl via a surrogate last year While Chicago is currently the baby of the family, that won't be the case for long. The celebrity brood is currently expecting a fourth child, a boy, via surrogate. After the baby news was reported earlier this month, Kim personally confirmed things on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen Monday. Kim and Kanye are said to be 'thrilled it [surrogacy] has worked out' for a second time, with Kim particularly happy to have her 'perfect' combination of 'two boys and two girls'. A source told E! News: 'The surrogate is well into the pregnancy. She is due in May and everything looks good. Going well: A source told E! News : 'The surrogate is well into the pregnancy. She is due in May and everything looks good' 'Kim and Kanye have known for awhile and are very excited. They had one male embryo left and are thrilled it has worked out. Kim always wanted four kids and having two boys and two girls feels perfect.' According to TMZ, Kim and Kanye are using a new surrogate and not the woman who carried their daughter Chicago. Their first surrogate was unable to carry a second baby for the couple as she gave birth to her own child on Christmas Eve. Kim and Kanye are said to have just recently started to share the news of the pregnancy with family and friends, with the reality star currently planning a baby shower to celebrate. Dancing On Ice bosses have hit back at claims Gemma Collins has been acting like a diva behind the scenes and refused to be filmed. The latest news to surround the 37-year-old TOWIE star comes amid claims she 'threatened to quit the show after being left 'devastated' by Holly Willoughby's criticism of her behind the scenes behaviour. Speaking to MailOnline, ITV bosses have slammed the claims that she is attempting to 'rule the roost' and even kicked crew members off the ice. Shocker: Dancing On Ice bosses have hit back at claims Gemma Collins has been acting like a diva behind the scenes and refused to be filmed Before the denial, insiders said: 'She's been refusing to be filmed and keeps throwing the crew off the ice when they are trying to film rehearsals... 'She's trying to rule the roost and it just doesn't work like that...everyone is just trying to do their job but they are getting increasingly fed up.' MailOnline has contacted representatives for Gemma for comment. Gemma later shared a snap as she revealed she was headed for dinner in London with her dance partner Matt Evers - in what seemed to be a defiant stance on the ongoing reports surrounding her dramas on the ice. Drama: The TOWIE star was said to be in 'floods of tears' after hearing show host Holly slam her backstage antics live on This Morning on Monday Stunner: Gemma later shared a snap as she revealed she was headed for dinner in London with her dance partner Matt Evers - in what seemed to be a defiant stance on the ongoing reports surrounding her dramas on the ice The TOWIE star was said to be in 'floods of tears' after hearing show host Holly slam her backstage antics live on This Morning on Monday. The TV personality, who styles herself as The GC, is now said to be threatening to quit Dancing On Ice after her headline-grabbing first week on the ITV1 celebrity skating competition. A source told The Sun: 'She's devastated by everything that's been said and is threatening to quit. She's feeling there's a conspiracy to bring down their biggest star.' The insider added that Gemma left 15 minutes early during the live Dancing on Ice show on Sunday because she was 'exhausted' after a day of skating and a 9am start. 'On the first show she told an exec she was the star so shouldn't have to be in group performances or stand on the balcony to watch the others,' the source adds. Upset: According to a new report from The Sun, the TOWIE star was in 'floods of tears' after hearing DOI host Holly slam her backstage antics live on ITV's This Morning on Monday Not impressed: Holly slammed Gemma for her 'lack of professionalism and 'diva' behaviour after bored star left live show early on Sunday The insider goes onto claim that producers know Gemma is a 'nightmare' behind the scenes but they're willing to put up with her behaviour because she is this series' biggest star. Representatives for Gemma and Dancing On Ice have been contacted by MailOnline for comment. On Monday DOI hosts Holly and Phillip Schofield publicly slammed Gemma for her lack of professionalism, with Holly telling This Morning: 'I absolutely love Gemma, 37, but there needs to be needs to be professionalism on a show like that. Dancing On Ice hosts: Holly and Phillip Schofield, 56, - who also helm This Morning - were left flabbergasted by her 'diva' attitude and Holly insists she needs to have more 'pride' in her work Kem Cetinay, 22, - who is This Morning's backstage reporter on the ITV talent show, claimed she left the live broadcast before the end because she was a 'bit bored'. Dancing On Ice hosts Holly and Phillip, - who also helm This Morning - were left flabbergasted by her 'diva' attitude and Holly insists she needs to have more 'pride' in her work. Kem revealed why Gemma was missing in action, saying: 'We went into the live show, and then the last quarter of the show, she went home. 'Well I didn't know she went until after but then we saw this video and I was thinking, 'I don't know where Gemma is,' and I went to her dressing room and she wasn't there. Gemma's chequered reality past 2014: TOWIE rages Fuming: Gemma was well-known for her shocking TOWIE behaviour, including a memorable row with Ferne McCann in which she stated: 'I'm 34-years-old I've earned my diva-ship' Gemma was well-known for her shocking TOWIE behaviour, including a memorable row with Ferne McCann in which she stated: 'I'm 34-years-old I've earned my diva-ship'. 2015: THAT I'm A Celebrity... Get My Out Of Here stint Stunned: Gemma left I'm A Celeb viewers shocked four years ago, when she departed the jungle after just three days Gemma left I'm A Celeb viewers shocked four years ago, when she departed the jungle after just three days, amid claims of starvation and a self-diagnosis of Malaria. After much criticism, she insisted she donated her 4800 fee - the percentage she received of her full sum - to charity. 2016: The dramas of Celebrity Big Brother Shocker: Gemma was showing all the hallmarks of her 'divaship' in Celebrity Big Brother Gemma was showing all the hallmarks of her 'divaship' in Celebrity Big Brother as she lashed out at bosses for various challenges the housemates were faced with. She was the seventh star evicted from the house. 2017: The ill-fated stay on Sugar Free Farm Not so sweet: Gemma was one of the rebellious stars of the show, which sees a host of celebrities gather on a farm and totally cut out their sugar intake Gemma was one of the rebellious stars of the show, which sees a host of celebrities gather on a farm and totally cut out their sugar intake. She joined Alison Hammond in stealing food from the kitchen, as she said: 'Me and Alison are clearly the rebels of the sugar-free farm'. Advertisement 'So I did speak to her after and she said she was a bit bored, but she does love skating.' Holly then gave her opinion on The GC's no-show, saying: The thing is I really love Gemma, you know I'm a big fan of Gemma's and I think she's great on the show I do, but I think there has to be a bit of professionalism that comes into any work you do, just a bit of pride in your work.' Phil then scornfully added: 'In all the years I've been in television, I have never kept a studio waiting.' Shock: Explaining Gemma's excuse for her behaviour, Kem said: 'I think, she says it's not Gemma Collins, that's The GC' Explaining Gemma's excuse for her behaviour, Kem said: 'I think, she says it's not Gemma Collins, that's The GC.' But Holly was in no mood to indulge Gemma's diva alter ego. The presenter said: 'But then that's absolute rubbish, that's just a really good excuse to get away with stuff you don't want to do. I love that side of her, I do love it, but I do think professionalism will always outweigh that diva behaviour.' A spokesperson for Gemma declined to comment to MailOnline. Star power: An insider has claimed that producers know Gemma is a 'nightmare' behind the scenes but they're willing to put up with her behaviour because she is this series' biggest star Holly's words come a day after it was reported that Gemma had infuriated her co-stars by turning up late to rehearsals for the week two routine. In a VT ahead of the performance, the group were left questioning where the reality star was as they gathered on the rink for training. One asked: 'Is she sleeping?' before Gemma made her grand entrance onto the ice. Completely unapologetic about her late arrival, she quipped: 'I'm the GC, remember?!' She later told the cameras: 'I was late but I showed up. I'm bringing out my inner diva for this number.' Married Neighbours star Mark Little, 59, who reportedly sent a series of suggestive WhatsApp messages to a busty model after she contacted him online, became the first star to be voted off the show this weekend. He said on Monday: 'At least I got the ice dancer gear on. I get my London bus pass this year, so I'm pretty proud of myself. Dance partner Brianne Delacourt said: It's hard but I'll still be involved, I'll be back on the show on Sunday.' Mark concluded: 'I'll definitely continue my skating. Ice people are nice people.' Chloe Madeley and James Haskell tied the knot in Berkshire last month and the pair appeared on Loose Women on Monday to talk about their life as newlyweds. And during the chat, James said that his new father-in-law, Richard, was keen for him to break tradition and take on the family name. Talking to the panel, the 33-year-old English rugby union player said: James joked: 'He tried to get me to be James Madeley. They've tied the knot: Chloe Madeley's new husband James Haskell told Loose Women on Monday that his father-in-law Richard wanted him to take on his surname 'We did a show, I think thats coming out in the summer with Dermot OLeary, and he [Richard] made it Team Madeley. 'I was like, "Its two Haskells and a Madeley!" But hes British TV heritage, so I just did as I was told. Asked if Chloe has taken her husbands surname, she explained shell keep her name on her books. In the family: James said of Chloe's father Richard, 'he wanted me to be James Madeley' She said: 'I have such a really good and loyal audience now, Im going to stay Chloe Madeley, which is a nice ode to my dad as well. But in everything else, Im a Haskell'' Talking about their special day, Chloe, 31, said her emotions got the better of her. She said: 'I was the only one who cried and I couldn't stop! [James] and mum were so joyous. It was the best day of my life. Happy: Talking about their special day, last month, Chloe, 31, said her emotions got the better of her. She said: ' I was the only one who cried and I couldn't stop!' Awkward! Chloe revealed that James and her father swear at each other a lot Say it how it is: James had been annoyed by how much everyone, including Chloe had been going on at him to propose - but he said he folded in the end because he loves her 'It's very stressful planning a wedding. There were moments I thought I just wanted to get it done. I had wanted to get the church bit out the way but I fell to pieces.' And James had his own ideas for what he wanted to be included in the wedding and chose two rugby songs as hymns. James said: 'Chloe said Richard and Judy are not rugby people, you will have to calm it down. Her dad is sensitive. Chloe said: 'It's very stressful planning a wedding. There were moments I thought I just wanted to get it done. I had wanted to get the church bit out the way but I fell to pieces' 'Now we've developed our relationship so I can give him a bit of stick.' Chloe chimed in: 'They swear a lot at each other.' And talking more about the wedding ceremony itself, she said: ' My dad was like don't put too much pressure on the wedding. 'You need to be calm, fluid and go with it. But you do feel pressure.' Couples who work together... Chloe and James share a love of fitness - he is a rugby player and she is a personal trainer James also told how Loose Women almost scuppered his proposal plans. He said: 'The last time I was allowed to come on this show, invited I should say, straight away the lovely ladies brought up, if I going to get engaged. 'I basically decided that any time anyone mentioned it, I was going to put it back six months. 'I had had this conversation with Chloe. I said, "Listen if you keep talking about it, Im going to put it back." 'When I came on the show I was like, "right, ok, I see, trying to bully me into it". But I folded in the end because I love her and I wanted to get married.' He said: 'I folded in the end because I love her and I want to get married.' Asked if it was the same case for asking about whether they will have children, Chloe said: 'Lucky for everybody who does ask that question, were so on the same page. She continued: 'The books and career has taken so long and so where I'm focused I'm not quite there. [To James]. You're very focused on the rugby.' Tom Holland revealed the first look at Spider-Man: Far From Home live on Instagram on Tuesday, which went hilariously wrong when the audio was out of sync. The actor, 22, took to his social media to reveal the clip to his fans, but the event went wrong, and his co-stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Zendaya told him to stop and post the video on YouTube instead. Preparing for the reveal, the star yawned before saying: 'It is 5.52 am, the date is the 15 of January 2019. Its obviously a big and exciting year for Spider-Man: Far From Home, but I don't know what Im supposed to be showing you right now. Going live: Tom Holland shared a FIRST LOOK at Spider-Man Far From Home teaser trailer live on Instagram on Tuesday (but reveal went hilariously wrong after several technical glitches) He continued: 'Sony just sent me an image which says Sony in the middle, but they said I shouldnt watch it til I do this. 'I don't know what Im about to show you but Im assuming its the trailer but I havent seen it, if it is the trailer then I have seen it, but if its not then I haven't seen it.' The actor then played the video, and after trying, and failing, several times to make the clip work he admitted: 'Its totally out of sync but I dont want to, I dont you to. What can I do? What can I do?' After Jake and Zendaya repeatedly told him to post it online, Tom said: 'Theyre telling me to post it, so I better listen to them. Im going to do that, I will make sure it will come out today because I have it, and Ill make sure its posted.' Super-hero: Despite the technical issues, Sony released a full teaser trailer after the star had finished his live video Technical issues: The actor, 22, took to his social media platform to reveal the clip to his fans, but the event went wrong when the audio was out of sync with the images 'Post it!!!!!': Zendaya kept telling Tom to post the video online when he tried to play it again Despite the technical issues, Sony released a full teaser trailer after the star had finished his live video which previewed the character's return after the tragic events at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. Peter Parker disintegrated at the very end of Avengers: Infinity War leaving many to wonder what the fate was of your friendly, neighbourhood Spider-Man, but he was back in full force in the trailer. The official teaser clip was a longer version of what Tom had shared, and it began with Peter Parker attending an event for a charity in aid of homeless people with his Aunt May. He's back: Peter Parker disintegrated at the end of Avengers: Infinity War leaving many to wonder what his fate was, but he was back in full force in the trailer Intense: The trailer was full of action, as Spider-Man had to try and fight many foes Flying out: Peter was seen heading out to Europe on his school trip It's a bird, it's a plane! Peter was spotted as his Spider-man alter-ego and he was seen flying in the air thanks to his new suit World travellers: Peter and his school friends went to a number of locations After the successful event, his aunt thanks him before a potential love interest comes to visit them backstage. In a hilariously awkward exchange, the man tells Peter's aunt that she 'looks nice' and asking about her outfit, before the superhero chimes in: 'What just happened?' Moving on to the main premise of the film, Peter prepares for a school trip to Europe as he picks up all the essentials and a new passport (with a terrible picture). Helping him to pack, his aunt asks him: 'Packed your suit?' But Peter quips: 'I just want to enjoy my trip, Europe doesnt really need a friendly neighbourhood.' Hero: Helping him to pack, his aunt asks him if he packed his suit, but Peter quips: 'I just want to enjoy my trip, Europe doesnt really need a friendly neighbourhood' School trip! Heading to Venice with his classmates, including Zendaya's Michelle 'MJ' Jones and Jacob Batalon's Ned Leeds Danger: Peter's trip was sure to spell trouble as he was attacked by an unknown being New suit: Peter was seen in a red and black outfit, which looked vastly different to his red and blue one from previous films Heading to Venice with his classmates, including Zendaya's Michelle 'MJ' Jones and Jacob Batalon's Ned Leeds. Trying his luck with MJ, Peter tells her: 'You look really pretty.' To which she responds: 'Therefore I have value?' As Peter tries to think of a way to apologise, she quickly adds: 'Im messing with you, you look pretty too.' Awkward: Trying his luck with MJ, Peter tells her, 'You look really pretty,' to which she responds: 'Therefore I have value? Im messing with you, you look pretty too.' New outfit, who dis? Spider-man was seen in a different black outfit, which seemed to have a bullet-proof jacket built in Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D: Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) suddenly appears and says 'so nice to finally meet you Spider-Man' Surprise: Peter was telling Ned how he wanted to use the trip to get MJ to fall for him, but before his friend could respond he's hit by Nick Fury with a sleeping dart On the frontline: Nick was also seen with Cobie Smulder's Maria Hill fighting off a monster Later that night, Peter tells Ned how he wants to use the trip to get MJ to fall for him, but before his friend can respond he's hit with a sleeping dart and collapses. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is seen sitting in a corner of the room with the dart gun in his hand, as he says: 'So nice to finally meet you Spider-Man.' Shocked, Peter looks at him aghast as the former agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. who tells him to put on some clothes as they 'go for a ride.' Worried for his friend, he asks Nick if Ned will be 'okay like that', to which the spy says: 'Might want to turn him over, so he doesnt swallow his tongue.' Let's go: Shocked, Peter looks at him aghast as the former agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. who tells him to put on some clothes as they 'go for a ride' Concerned: After Nick had shot Peter's friend Ned with a dart gun, he asks if he'll be 'okay like that', to which the spy says: 'Might want to turn him over, so he doesnt swallow his tongue' Fiery creature: In another scene, a monster made out of fire was seen Tough fight: Peter could be seen trying to fight off the creature, and falling from atop a building as an explosion happened Now in London, Peter can be heard narrating over a scene where an unknown force is destroying Tower Bridge: 'I think Nick Fury just hi-jacked our summer vacation.' As Peter flies in the air in his new suit to fight the mysterious being, Nick can be heard telling the teen: 'You have gifts Parker, but weve got a job to do. Are you going to step up or not? While a series of scenes show things going wrong for Peter and his friends, as they are being shot at and attacked by the creature. Another character tells Peter: 'You're all alone, your friends are in trouble. What are you going to do about it?' Oh no: Now in London, Peter can be heard narrating over a scene where an unknown force is destroying Tower Bridge: 'I think Nick Fury just hi-jacked our summer vacation' Go Spidey: As Peter flies in the air in his new suit to fight the mysterious being, Nick can be heard telling the teen: 'You have gifts Parker, but weve got a job to do' Mysterious creature: In Venice, Peter was faced by an other-worldly being who appears in the water and tries to submerge the city What is it? The force of nature appeared in the shape of a person as it tried to destroy the city Time to fight: Peter tried to get ready to face the creature from atop the Rialto Bridge Jake's character Mysterio is then finally revealed, as the character appears in a puff of green smoke, clad in red and gold armour - similar to what Thor would wear. As he goes up against the force of nature, he tells Peter: 'You don't want any part of this.' In a hilarious after title scene, Mysterio is shown defeating the monster on a TV, as Peter and his classmates watch on. One student asks, 'Who is that guy?' as another person quips: 'Hes like Iron Man and Thor rolled into one.' First look: Jake's character Mysterio is then finally revealed, clad in red and gold armour - similar to what Thor would wear What an entrance: Mysterio appears in a puff of green smoke in front of Peter Run! As the creature tried to submerge the city in water, Peter and his friends ran for their lives Up to me: As he goes up against the monster, he tells Peter: 'You don't want any part of this' Before another student says: 'Hes no Spider-Man.' MJ says to him: 'What is it with you and Spider-Man?' To which the student quips, 'What? He looks out for the neighbourhood, he has a dope suit and I really respect him.' Peter looks at the student with a proud look on his face, but, not knowing his alter-ego, the teen says to him: 'Sup d***wad.' Watching on: In a hilarious after title scene, Jake's character is shown defeating the monster on a TV, as Peter and his classmates watch on Curious: One student asks, 'Who is that guy?' as another person quips: 'Hes like Iron Man and Thor rolled into one' as another says he's 'no Spider-Man' Not you: After saying he 'respects the masked vigilante, Peter looks at the student with a proud look on his face, but, not knowing his alter-ego, the teen says to him: 'Sup d***wad' Marissa Tomei is reprising her role as Aunt May, while Michael Keaton will reportedly play Vulture. Cobie Smulders will also appear as Maria Hill, a former high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. While J.B. Smoove is also slated to appear, though details of his specific role arent yet known publicly. The movie is slated to be released on July 5, 2019, and is expected to follow on just a few minutes after the end of the hotly-anticipated Avengers: Endgame. She failed to pick up the Best Actress trophy at the Golden Globes for her role in A Private War. But Rosamund Pike was putting her disappointment behind her when she attended the IWC Schaffhausen in Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday, where she was joined by supermodel Adriana Lima. The 39-year-old actress was the picture of elegance in a striking gown with a daring cut-out at the waist to highlight her slender frame. Stylish as ever: Rosamund Pike was turning heads as she arrived at the IWC Schaffhausen in Geneva, Switzerland on Tuesday Stunner: She was joined by glamorous supermodel Adriana Lima at the fashion bash The British star looked every inch the natural beauty in the simple yet effortlessly elegant gown. The cream dress featured black halterneck detailing and a matching waistband, and was perfectly paired with coordinating peep-toe heels. She complemented her pretty features with rosy blush and natural lipgloss, wearing her blonde bob down in loose waves. Meanwhile, Brazilian beauty Adriana wowed in a tuxedo-inspired maxi dress with a racy split extending along the leg and a deeply-plunging neckline giving a flash of her cleavage while she kept her hair in an elegant, slicked do. Gorgeous: The British star looked every inch the natural beauty in the simple yet effortlessly elegant gown Smart: The cream dress featured black halterneck detailing and a matching waistband, and was perfectly paired with coordinating peep-toe heels Happy days: Adriana wowed in a tuxedo-inspired maxi dress with a racy split extending along the leg and a deeply-plunging neckline giving a flash of her cleavage while she kept her hair in an elegant, slicked do Sizzling: Adriana opted to shun the cardinal legs-or-cleavage rule as she gave a look at her endless legs while also flashing her perky assets Adriana opted to shun the cardinal legs-or-cleavage rule as she gave a look at her endless legs while also flashing her perky assets. Showing off her famed natural beauty, the supermodel pulled her fiercest poses for the camera as she smouldered in the sexy suited look. The double-breasted dress was perfectly cut to highlight her tiny waist and perky cleavage while also flashing her svelte, toned pins. On the up: Adriana has been moving on with her life since she bid an emotional goodbye to Victoria's Secret when she was dubbed the 'greatest Angel of all time' Chic: Also putting in a stylish appearance at the event was Karolina Kurkova Edgy: The model was showcasing the brand's watch design as she posed in a stylish leather jacket and striped dress Love: Karolina was joined by her handsome husband Archie Drury at the event Looking good: Archie cut a dapper figure in a suit and crisp white shirt Smouldering: Oliver looked dashing in a sharp suit and a polo-neck Last year, Adriana broke down into tears when she walked her last Victoria's Secret show after being with the lingerie brand for 20 years. Adriana has been moving on with her life since she bid an emotional goodbye to Victoria's Secret when she was dubbed the 'greatest Angel of all time'. The catwalk stunner walked her first Victoria Secret show in 2000 when she was just the tender age of 19 but she has been with the brand since 1999. Making an impression, the runway star opened five of the shows for the lingerie brands in the following years: 2003, 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2012. Hot couple: Ronan Keating looked trendy in an all-black look as he cosied up to his stunning wife Storm Mane attraction: Storm looked sensational in a skintight dress, while her blonde locks were styled in a blunt fringe Putting in an appearance: Dev Patel was also seen arriving at the event Hunk: Australian actor Travis Fimmel smiled for photographers Pop of colour: Sonam Kapoor stood out in a bright purple suit Work it: The Bollywood beauty completed the look with a chic chignon and white shirt In 2008, the model wore the coveted $5 million Fantasy Bra encrusted with rubies and diamonds for the first time. The mother-of-two donned the Fantasy Bra again in 2010 and for a final time in 2014. Adriana, who raises eight-year-old Valentina and six-year-old Sienna with her ex-husband Marko Jaric, only missed the 2009 show because she was pregnant. She confirmed the news she was leaving on social media: 'Dear Victoria, Thank you for showing me the world, sharing your secrets, and most importantly not just giving me wings but teaching me to fly.' Handsome: Valtteri Bottas looked dapper in a blue blazer She sent her fans' imaginations into overdrive when she posted a picture of herself holding her stomach on New Year's Eve. And Charlotte Crosby has now laughed off the rumours she's expecting her first child with boyfriend Josua Ritchie, joking she simply had an 'extremely bloated belly'. The former Geordie Shore star, 24, told Closer magazine: 'I've been doing a lot of drinking lately, which I wouldn't be doing if I was pregnant. Rumour has it: Charlotte Crosby has now laughed off the rumours she's expecting her first child with boyfriend Josua Ritchie, joking she simply had an 'extremely bloated belly' 'It's just that I'd had a very big dinner and I was trying to hide my extremely bloated belly!' The image in question saw the bubbly blonde clutching her abdomen as she posed in a green jumpsuit during a whirlwind trip to party in Paris. Her post was met with an influx of questions from some of her 6.5million followers, who were convinced it was her way of announcing she was with child. This doesn't mean Charlotte is ruling out having kids in the future, however, and the TV personality admits she can see Josh being a good dad. He's the one: This doesn't mean Charlotte is ruling out having kids in the future, however, and the TV personality admits she can see Josh being a good dad Speculation: She sent her fans' imaginations into overdrive with the pose - but failed to clear up the speculation until now 'I can see myself having a family with Josh,' she told the publication, 'He's so perfect, he's dead loyal and so down to earth.' The outspoken star has made no secret of the depths of her feelings for the cheeky chappy, best known for appearing in Love Island series 1. Uploading a cute selfie of the duo cosying up together, Charlotte branded their love 'extraordinary'. 'Not even all the words in the world could explain how much I love you......you see the feelings quite extraordinary. I never even knew some1 like you existed before you came along so unexpectedly. @joshuaritchie1', she enthused. Gone for good: The former Geordie Shore star, 28, got rid of her 'fishy' arm inking (L), as well as her half bear half cheetah tattoo on her back (R) In a bid to cement their love, Charlotte has been having laser tattoo removal to erase the names of boyfriends past from skin. She recently removed her two tattoos dedicated to former beau Stephen Bear following their split in December 2017; a 'fishy' arm inking and the half bear, half cheetah tattoo on her back. The reality star underwent her first removal procedure in January last year, but visited the parlour again to get rid of the tattoo for good. She previously also had her tributes to ex Mitch removed in the past - but her latest tattoo of Joshua's name on the back of her neck remains intact, of course. They've been working hard for the Strictly Come Dancing Live Tour, set to kick off in Birmingham on Friday. But Joe Sugg and Dianne Buswell ensured they still managed to spend quality time with each other as they snuggled up to each other in a cosy snap. Posted to the YouTuber's Instagram account on Monday, the 27-year-old and his pro dancer girlfriend, 29, appeared as loved-up as ever as she laid on his chest during their time on the tour bus. Smitten: Strictly's Joe Sugg and Dianne Buswell ensured they still managed to spend quality time with each other as they snuggled up to each other in between tour rehearsals Captioned 'tour life', the red-haired beauty looked radiant in minimal make-up, as the younger brother of Zoella pulled a funny face while sporting square-framed sunglasses. On Tuesday, the pair cut casual figures as they left a hotel to head to Arena Birmingham for the BBC show's tour rehearsals. Meanwhile, earlier this month, Joe and Dianne sparked speculation they're engaged with a ring snap. The new couple sent fans wild as the professional dancer sported a gold band on her wedding finger in a loved-up snap. Busy bees: The YouTuber, 27, and the Strictly pro, 29, been working hard for the Strictly Come Dancing Live Tour, set to kick off in Birmingham on Friday Work time: On Tuesday, the red-haired beauty and internet sensation cut casual figures as they left a hotel to head to Arena Birmingham for the BBC show's tour rehearsals Beaming: The Australian native wrapped up against the chilly climes of the English city in a fluffy oversized jacket Revealing their romance just last month, they appeared smitten as they cosied up to each other while relaxing on a sofa. Strictly runner-up Joe captioned the image: 'Last day of chillin with this one before we start the tour', alongside a heart emoji. However, the image caused fans to question whether the pair had taken their fresh romance to the next step. Causing quite a stir as the new Strictly lovebirds, Dianne finally confirmed the duo were not engaged with a cheeky Instagram post as she replied to her fellow Strictly star Gemma Atkinson's post. Moving fast? Meanwhile, earlier this month, Joe and Dianne sparked speculation they're engaged with a ring snap It's not true: Dianne confirmed the duo were not getting engaged with a cheeky Instagram post as she replied to her fellow Strictly star Gemma Atkinson's post Sweet: Following on from the Strictly final in December, Joe and Dianne finally confirmed their romance after months of speculation She re-posted the 34-year-old soap star's picture which read: 'Instagram flips the camera. My ring is on my right hand (before I read I'm engaged again.' The Strictly professional added in response: 'OMG same here sister.' Internet sensation Joe first went public with their romance when he shared a snap of the two of them following the Strictly final saying he had 'won' the love of Dianne. He wrote: 'I may not have won the glitter ball, but I've won something a million times more special.' They have jetted off to the Caribbean for an envy-inducing New Year's break. And an inside glimpse of Josh Denzel and Kazimir Crossley's lavish getaway has been given as the couple soak up the sun in Jamaica. The Love Islanders have shown off their toned beach bodies as they enjoy a stay at the Sandals Royal Caribbean Resort & Private Island, located on Jamaicas north coast. Idyllic: An inside glimpse of Josh Denzel and Kazimir Crossley's lavish getaway has been given as the couple soak up the sun in Jamaica Envy-inducing: The Love Islanders are staying at the luxury Sandals Royal Caribbean Resort & Private Island, located on Jamaicas north coast The resort features 227 opulent suites including Maldivian style bungalows and villas situated over the crystalline waters, where the duo have posed for many loved-up snaps. For smitten couples such as the make-up artist, 24, and TV presenter, 27, a beach-front massage service is available along with the award-winning Red Lane spa for romantic treatments. The couple stayed in the decadent Crystal Lagoon Honeymoon One Bedroom Suite which came with its own butler during their romantic break. The reality couple have also dined on mouthwatering cuisine including traditional Caribbean food from the Jerk Shack and Thai dishes at Royal Thai. Toned: The resort features 227 opulent suites including Maldivian style bungalows and villas situated over the crystalline waters, where the duo have posed for many loved-up snaps PDA: For smitten couples such as the make-up artist, 24, and TV presenter, 27, a beach-front massage service is available along with the award-winning Red Lane spa for romantic treatments Josh and Kaz visited a private island, and explored beach resort town Negril, famous for its 7-mile-long white sandy beach where the couple also sampled some local cuisine. Over the Christmas break, Kaz revealed that Josh had planned to whisk her off for a romantic break in Miami and Jamaica. The couple have been enjoying a fun-filled trip, travelling to Miami's Biscayne Island to bring in the New Year in their typically glamorous fashion. Happy: Kaz showed off her incredible bikini body as she relaxed and stared at the ocean Honeymooners: The couple stayed in the decadent Crystal Lagoon Honeymoon One Bedroom Suite which came with its own butler during their romantic break Kicking back: Josh and Kaz visited a private island, and explored beach resort town Negril, famous for its 7-mile-long white sandy beach where the couple also sampled some local cuisine The couple have been flooding their social media profiles with snaps in recent days, leaving their combined total of 2.4 million Instagram followers green with envy. But everything isn't as it seems as Josh, 27, bemoaned Instagram isn't 'fun' because he has to change his outfits on a night out in the toilets to get the best post. The social media influencer with 1.2 million followers he has a duty to update complained not being able to get the picture he wants ruins his day. 'No joke, I've been in places where I've fully done an outfit change in the toilet because I can't post exactly same picture as Kaz.' He told BBC Radio five live. Envy-inducing: Kaz posed up in front of the crystal clear waters during the break (ANSA) - Oristano, January 15 - Cesare Battisti expressed comments suggesting he was confused when talking to guards at Massama jail near the Sardinian city of Oristano, former Sardinian lawmaker Mauro Pili said he has learned from sources on Tuesday. The former leftwing terrorist has spent his first night at the high-security jail, after he was brought back to Italy on Monday, ending his 37-year run as a fugitive from Italian justice. "Can you tell me what part of the world I'm in?," Battisti said, according to Pili. "It's all over. I'm 64. I'm ill. I have changed". Battisti had a medical, a meeting with a therapist and an encounter with his lawyer at the prison, ANSA sources said. He was arrested in Bolivia at the weekend and has finally started serving a life sentence for four murders committed in Italy's 'years of lead' of political violence in the 1970s and 1980s. Justice Minister Alfonso Bonafede said will be held in solitary confinement for six months. Prosecutors said Battisti will serve the whole term and will not be eligible for time off his sentence for good behaviour or any other forms of leniency or benefits. Battisti, a former member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism (PAC), had recently fled from Brazil, where he had lived openly for many years and and been granted asylum, anticipating an order for his arrest by a Brazilian judge. New Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had promised to have Battisti extradited. True Detective returned for Season Three with a storyline that featured two new cops, investigating a fresh case, in a different location from the previous series. But the opening episode still felt more like a compilation: True Detectives Greatest Hits. Violence and philosophy were inter-twined, like poetry with witchcraft. Stellar performances from Mahershala Ali and Stephen Dorff! American televisions scariest crime show get back to its best or worst. Season 3s debut was like True Detectives Greatest Hits, by Jim Shelley When a teacher read the lines what is love? Our name for it is knowledge it still sounded eerie - coming in this century and moment of mania. Even the young kids were reading H.P. Lovecraft or wearing potentially significant/disturbing T-shirts. Whats a Black Sabbath? asked one detective. Big moment: But the opening episode still felt more like a compilation: True Detectives Greatest Hits Its a satanic mask, replied the other ominously. But it was the familiar sight of those sinister-looking corn dolls where 12 year-old Will Purcell had been killed seemingly in some kind of ritual that told us the shows creator/writer Nic Pizzolatto had worked out how to erase the memory of Series Two: by simply making the first one again. Admittedly this could only ever be a poor imitation of the stunning, terrifying, spectacle that was Rustin Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) struggling with the mysteries of The Yellow King and Carcosa. Vengance: Violence and philosophy were inter-twined, like poetry with witchcraft But at least it ensured Series Three wouldnt be anything like the famously disastrous, self-indulgent, follow-up starring Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, and the ludicrous Vince Vaughn. This time, like the first, the protagonists were an obvious Odd Couple but still real men - driving across vast, desolate, landscapes (Arkansas rather than Louisiana), exchanging Tarantino-style observations about the meaning of serving in Vietnam, hunting wild boar, and the death of Steve McQueen. Detective Roland West was basically Stephen Dorff channelling Woody Harrelsons Marty Hart: drinking beer, being sexist, and asking his partner if they could go ride around. Maybe we can find someone to beat the s**t out of. His partner Wayne Hays (Mahershala Ali) on the other hand was a contemplative, grief-ridden, detective in the style of Matthew McConaugheys Rustin Cohle more likely to consider how many times rats had nearly ended civilization?, then answer his own question at least two, and muttering I hate rats. Set the scene: This time, like the first, the protagonists were an obvious Odd Couple but still real men - driving across vast, desolate, landscapes Inevitably, like Cohle, Hays was portrayed as both a specialist in violence and virtually a mystic. Hes like a pathfinder, claimed West. The man was an lrrp in Nam. Long range reconnaissance. Drop him in the jungle alone hell come back two or three weeks later with scalps. Also like Rustin, Hays was carrying a multitude of burdens the trauma of the war and grief over his wife (a teacher, the author of a book about the Purcell case considered a classic of literary non-fiction, and seemingly a saint). Yeah of course I remember it, Hays drawled giving his deposition ten years after the boys murder, shortly before the man convicted of it was exonerated. I remember everything. It was a full moon. Steve McQueen had died. Tragedy: So far the suspects included a local known as The Trashman and the kids uncle a pervert at the very least and possibly a paedophil So far the suspects included a local known as The Trashman and the kids uncle a pervert at the very least and possibly a paedophile. Then there was the gang of dissolute youths listening to The Stooges, letting off firecrackers, and drinking, out in the woods at Devils Den. I hear things, about what they do out there, whispered a resident fearfully. Like the desperate deeds wed seen in Louisiana in the first series everything was creepy: the disused tower, abandoned cars, and the missing childrens drawings. Supposedly innocent books like The Official Scout Handbook and The Forests of Leng (a Lovecraft fantasy revered by Stephen King and George R.R.Martin) had potentially malevolent significance. Haunting: Like the desperate deeds wed seen in Louisiana in the first series everything was creepy: the disused tower, abandoned cars, and the missing childrens drawings And only in True Detective could a wardrobe be so scary. (Hays discovered the uncle had a peephole inside it, presumably to spy on Will and his little sister.) The prospect of Pizzolatto being able to conjure anything as sensationally nerve-shredding as the original finale when Rustin Cohle entered Carcosa has to be unlikely. But he seemed admirably unrepentant. The final scene saw Hays using his virtually supernatural tracking skills to find Will Purcells body lying in the cave - his hands clasped usually as if in prayer but decidedly more chillingly here. A final end: It wrapped up Hays using his virtually supernatural tracking skills to find Will Purcells body lying in the cave - his hands clasped usually as if in prayer but decidedly more chillingly here Hays then insisted on heading back into the night to search for the boys missing sister. A sign of his dedication yes, or his desperation. But surely written more by Pizzolato as a thinly coded message to all the critics and viewers whod dismissed the previous series of True Detective as unpalatably bleak. The objection its too dark was met with the forceful comeback: I dont care. Kit Harington has revealed he feels 'grief' now that Game Of Thrones is over, as he admitted he's 'not happy, but very satisfied' with the final season. Making an appearance on The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show on Tuesday, the actor, 32, was discussing how he felt about the series' ending when he made the admission. The How To Train Your Dragon star explained: 'Its like when you finish a book, youre not happy its over are you? You dont finish a good book and say Im happy I finished that. Pleased: Kit Harington revealed on Tuesday that he's 'not happy, but very satisfied' with Game Of Thrones' final season as he admitted he feels 'grief' now that it's over 'But you have this grief that its over, and its the exact same with nine years doing this show. 'No matter how it ended, or how it does end, theres always this bit of you thats like oh, theres this loss around it.' Coyly answering the presenter, 48, about his thoughts on how the show ends, the actor, who plays Jon Snow in the series, added: 'Maybe not happy, but very satisfied. 'Im so excited for people to see it, I think its going to be extraordinary, hopefully itll change TV again like it did originally, and break boundaries, I think it might.' Candid: Making an appearance on The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show, the How To Train Your Dragon star explained, 'Its like when you finish a book, youre not happy its over are you?' Kit added that it's been tough to keep quiet about the final season, as he admitted: 'Its weird walking around, I think, for all of us, walking around with this big secret where we know how it all wraps up, and how it ends.' On Monday, HBO released a chilling teaser trailer for the show that teased the Stark's battle for Winterfell, as it focused on Jon, Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) as they convened in the crypts below their ancestral home. The trio discover three eerie statues of themselves, hinting at their potential deaths as an ice-cold wind, representing the ominous White Walkers, creeps up on them, and grabs their attention. Jon's statue shows the King In The North as a much older man, and the prop was clearly special for the actor as he revealed he took it home with him. Hopes: Kit added he's 'so excited for people to see' the final season, as he thinks 'its going to be extraordinary' and wishes it'll 'break boundaries' Kit explained: 'I kept that statue. You know, the one in the crypt. They sent it to my house, Ive got it in my shed, how sad is that! 'I was the only one who kept my statue, thats how narcissistic I am, Im going to turn it into a water feature.' The eighth season of the HBO show is sure to have an intriguing story surrounding Jon, as the previous outing confirmed a popular fan theory regarding his heritage. During the seventh season's finale, it was finally announced that Jon is not the illegitimate son of Ned Stark, but the son his sister Lyanna shared with Daenerys Targaryen's brother Prince Rhaegar. Memories: On Monday, HBO released a chilling teaser trailer where Kit stared at an ominous statue, hinting at his character's death, and he revealed he took the prop home with home Born after the pair married in secret, this means that Jon is actually Daenerys' nephew, and also a rightful heir to the Iron Throne. The series, which is based on George R.R. Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire book franchise, will feature six episodes that are expected to be over 60 minutes each in length each. Fans will be delighted by the prospect of finally getting to see how the battle for Westeros pans out, as the series will be simulcast in the US and the UK. The final season of Game Of Thrones airs on April 14 in the US at 9pm, and will be simulcast in the UK at 2am on April 15. She is preparing for the glamour of her Maldives wedding. Yet Billie Faiers took a break from planning to ring in her 29th birthday on Tuesday as she stepped out with her fiance Greg Shepherd ahead of a trip into London and shortly after a sweet present giving with their kids in the morning. The Mummy Diaries star looked sensational in head-to-toe black for her outing, shortly after Greg shared a series of videos from their morning ritual, where Nelly, four, and Arthur, two, tucked into her unicorn cake with their hands. Happy days: Billie Faiers took a break from planning to ring in her 29th birthday on Tuesday as she stepped out with her fiance Greg Shepherd ahead of a trip into London and shortly after a sweet present giving with their kids in the morning Billie looked stunning as she stepped out in her sleek ensemble complete with chic flares, a polo-neck jumper and a biased-cut leather jacket. She left her blonde locks in loose waves falling from a centre parting while pairing the look with flawless make-up and a pair of simple gold hoops. Greg meanwhile looked winter-ready in a grey jumper with a padded white coat with a fluffy trim while he carried a bag from an Essex kids' boutique. In a series of hilarious videos, Nelly was seen not only tucking into her mum's cake but also revealing her present before she opened it and nabbing her Chanel bag. Yummy! The Mummy Diaries star looked sensational in head-to-toe black for her outing, shortly after Greg shared a series of videos from their morning ritual, where Nelly, four, and Arthur, two, tucked into her unicorn cake with their hands Out and a pout: In a series of hilarious videos, Nelly was seen not only tucking into her mum's cake but also revealing her present before she opened it and nabbing her Chanel bag The secret is out! Additionally, she ruined the surprise when Billie was opening a ring - which said 'Mum' on it - as she repeatedly said: 'It's a mum ring!' Additionally, she ruined the surprise when Billie was opening a ring - which said 'Mum' on it - as she repeatedly said: 'It's a mum ring!' Billie's sister Sam also paid tribute to the birthday girl as she shared a series of throwback snaps from their lifetime. She is set to marry Greg in an idyllic beach wedding in the Maldives later this year. Billie and Greg recently revealed they will be trying for their third child straight after they tie the knot in the Maldives in May 2019. The celebrity pair, who have been engaged since 2014, are already parents to Nelly, four, and Arthur, 21 months, and are keen to get cracking on baby number three as soon as they're married. Off we go: Billie looked stunning as she stepped out in her sleek ensemble complete with chic flares, a polo-neck jumper and a biased-cut leather jacket Treats for his sweet! Greg meanwhile looked winter-ready in a grey jumper with a padded white coat with a fluffy trim while he carried a bag from an Essex kids' boutique Happy days: The celebrity pair, who have been engaged since 2014, are already parents to Nelly, four, and Arthur, 21 months, and are keen to get cracking on baby number three as soon as they're married Speaking to The Sun Online, Greg said: We want another baby after the wedding. Billie wants another baby so it will be after then hopefully. Billie added: I've got my hands full with these two already but I am really enjoying them so we will see! Although the pairs exact wedding date is being kept a secret, the reality star explained that she is ready for her big day, apart from a few last minute touches. But before the wedding, Billie enjoyed a raucous hen do in Ibiza with her pals, all of which was captured for her hit ITVBe show The Mummy Diaries. Woo! As the girls drank and danced by their hotel pool, the rain started to fall but Billie explained it didn't dampen their spirits as they only partied harder, belting out the classic 'It's Raining Men. Sweet: Billie's sister Sam also paid tribute to the birthday girl as she shared a series of throwback snaps from their lifetime Emotional: Sam shared a snap in which she closely resembled her daughter Rosie while Billie looked the image of Nelly In the episode, the mum-of-three was seen dancing in the rain with her hens, including sister Sam, 27, and TOWIE pal Ferne McCann, 28. As the girls drank and danced by their hotel pool, the rain started to fall but Billie explained it didn't dampen their spirits as they only partied harder, belting out the classic 'It's Raining Men.' Billie and Greg announced their engagement after the Essex-based businessman proposed during a babymoon in the Maldives four years ago. Loved-up: Billie and Greg announced their engagement after the Essex-based businessman proposed during a babymoon in the Maldives four years ago Woah! Their youthful mum Sue was also pictured in a throwback shot They went public with their romance in July, with their relationship going strong ever since. And Rose McGowan and her non-binary partner Rain Dove have now shared sweet details about their romance. The Charmed actress, 45, and model, 29, who prefers the pronoun 'they', revealed how they met, their first kiss and when they first dropped the love bomb. Smitten: Rose McGowan and her non-binary partner Rain Dove have now shared sweet details about their romance Talking to PinkNews, Rose revealed that Rain came over to her house in February 2018, following an incident with a transgender protester at a reading from her book, Brave, at Barnes & Noble in Manhattan's Union Square. The actress admitted to the publication that she was 'not in a place to meet anybody' but they did and kept in touch. Rose went on to reveal that she 'reconnected' with Rain when they were both in London and she asked the model out to dinner. Loved-up: The Charmed actress, 45, and model, 29, who prefers the pronoun 'they', revealed how they met, their first kiss and when they first dropped the love bomb With Rain admitting that they shared a kiss on their first date, they said: 'The first time meeting you was more profound than the first time kissing you. 'So its really hard to remember like the first kiss is supposed to be your most amazing kiss, but if you have a lot of amazing, intimate moments with somebody, its really hard to pinpoint. I would say it would be that night, though, yeah.' Talking about their romance, Rose added: 'It is my first time dating a non-binary person, and yeah its nice not going out with a man.' Rain went on to reveal that they told the actress they were in love with her during a car ride in LA, adding that it was 'really cool'. Mwah!: Rain admitted to PinkNews that they shared a kiss on their first date, they said: 'The first time meeting you [Rose] was more profound than the first time kissing you.' New Yorker Rain, who stands at a striking 6ft2in, is famous for modelling both men's and women's clothes. Born female but taunted over their masculine looks, Dove believed they were popular because they had been adorned a nickname 'Tranny Danny' until they discovered what 'tranny' meant in high school. They discovered that dressing like a man received different treatment, and even worked as a firefighter under a male pseudonym for a year. Going strong: Talking about their romance, Rose added: 'It is my first time dating a non-binary person, and yeah its nice not going out with a man.' They became a model after losing a bet and agreeing to go to a Calvin Klein lingerie casting call; they were told to come back the following day to the male casting, and was hired. 'I think all people are androgynous,' Dove told Buzzfeed in a 2015 interview. 'It's just that we've created these genders. 'I think that "androgynous" applies to someone who doesn't appear physically to be gender specific you won't be able to figure out what's in their pants.' Blac Chyna has thrown some passive aggressive shade at her former love rival Kylie Jenner by sharing a picture of an egg in some Fashion Nova jeans. The post comes after Kylie, 21, lost her title of having the most-ever liked Instagram picture, to an egg, so it's unlikely to be a coincidence. The girls have been locked in a bitter feud ever since Kylie started dating 30-year-old Chyna's ex fiance rapper Tyga, 29, the father of Chyna's eldest son, King Cairo, six. Ouch! Blac Chyna has thrown some shade at ex love rival Kylie Jenner after she lost her title for most-liked Instagram to an egg (pictured in 2016 during a brief time of friendship) Make no mistake: Chyna knew exactly what she was doing when she shared a snap of an egg sitting in some skinny jeans Kylie saw the funny side of losing her record and on Sunday, she shared a video of herself cracking an egg on the sidewalk. Only posted last week - by the account World Record Egg - the simple photo of an egg on a plain background quickly surpassed the 18.1 million 'likes' required to steal the crown from the makeup mogul. The 21-year-old reality star took the title when she shared the first picture of newborn daughter Stormi back in February. In 2015, shortly after Kylie started dating Chyna's former fiance Tyga, Kylie shared a snap of herself wearing a Audemar Piguet watch was identical to one Tyga gave Chyna Petty: Chyna responded by sharing a throwback snap of herself cuddling Tyga in a bid to anger Kylie Before and after: Blac Chyna pictured with Tyga in 2013, then the rapper and Kylie in 2017 Blac and Kylie's shade goes back a long way. In 2015, Kylie shared a snap of herself wearing a Audemar Piguet watch was identical to one Tyga gave Chyna. Her nemesis responded by sharing a throwback snap of herself with her arms around Tyga. In 2016, Chyna poked fun at Kylie when she shared an Instagram picture of herself with giant lips, with many fans saying she was mocking Kylie's lip fillers. Cheeky: In 2016, Chyna poked fun at Kylie when she shared an Instagram picture of herself with giant lips, with many fans saying she was mocking Kylie's lip fillers Not nice to see: Later, she shared messages which were rumoured to be from Tyga, and the couple were rumoured to have briefly split as a consequence Rocky: Rob and Chyna began their on/off relationship in January 2016, before finally calling it quits in July 2017 (pictured May 2016) Later, she shared messages which were rumoured to be from Tyga, and the couple were rumoured to have briefly split as a consequence. That year, Blac started dating Kylie's brother Rob Kardashian, 31, with whom she welcomed her second child, a daughter called Dream, now two. Kylie and Chyna called a truce and tried to make out their feud had all been a joke. She's lost her crown: Only posted last week - by the account World Record Egg - the simple photo of an egg on a plain background quickly surpassed Kylie's 18.1 million 'likes' Bundle of joy: Kylie took the title when she shared the first picture of newborn daughter Stormi back in February, with 18.1 million 'likes' We doubt it! Kylie and Chyna tried to make out they had been friends all along with a series of friendly posts in a bid to support the romance with Rob They shared a snap of one another taken in a bathroom, with the the words: 'When we've been best friends the whole time.' Both Rob and Chyna and Kylie and Tyga have now split and Kylie is now dating Travis Scott, the father of her daughter, Stormi. Blac Chyna has a new feud going on at the minute as she's been accused of throwing a drink over Alexis Skyy in a club. Rob invited Alexis over for dinner and put videos of the encounter on social media. He later tweeted that he has been friends with her for over five years and it had nothing to do with the spat with his ex . The way to a man's heart: Chyna is now having a feud with Alexis Skyy after she accused her of throwing a drink over her - Rob invited her over for dinner in another swipe They've said they plan to get engaged at some point and it looks as though Lucy Mecklenburgh is already planning her wedding to Ryan Thomas. According to new!, Lucy, 27, has been looking at inspiration and has liked lots of wedding themed snaps on Instagram, including dresses, flower arrangements and table layout ideas. Ryan, 34, and Lucy are currently enjoying a holiday together in New York after brushing off split rumours. Is Lucy Mecklenburgh planning her wedding? Reality star has dropped major engagement hints on social media as the couple move on from that kiss video Lucy was pictured looking very cosy with a man in a Dubai nightclub, believed to be her friend and business associate Adam Rossiter. In the same week the video of Lucy and Adam emerged, at the end of last year, Ryan had told OK! magazine that Lucy is keen for him to get down on one knee. He said: 'Shes always dropping hints about what she wants to happen. I think Lucy wants me to propose next year! She knows what she likes: Lucy is following a host of wedding titles on Instagram (a few pictured here) and has been liking pictures of interest And Lucy said: 'Youd better get saving because I want a really heavy left hand!' In fact, back in October last year, Lucy dropped a major hint regarding what sort of ring she would like Ryan to choose for her, liking the same jewel 20 times. Feeling tap happy on various accounts, it was an oval cut diamond by Jean Dousset, the great-great grandson of Louis Cartier. Moving on: Lucy and Ryan have brushed off any sign of trouble between them after a video emerged of the star kissing her friend, who is believed to be Adam Rossiter Lucy and Ryan began dating after taking part of Celebrity Island With Bear Grylls last year and have been enamoured ever since. The couple are currently on holiday in Mykonos for one of the Corrie hunk's best friend's wedding. The star shares nine-year-old daughter Scarlett with his former co-star Tina O'Brien, having dated from 2003 to 2009, while Lucy was previously engaged to her TOWIE fellow Mario Falcone, before they split in 2012. She has been winding down abroad after wrapping up her stint as Roxie Hart in the West End's smash hit musical Chicago. And Caroline Flack, 39, shared a glimpse of her holiday with her admirers once again when she filmed herself arriving on another island on Tuesday. The Love Island host's cleavage threatened to spill out of her minuscule ivory bikini as she strutted her stuff through the quiet leafy resort. Scroll down for video All you need is Love (Island): Caroline Flack, 39, looked very busty in a microscopic bikini as she island hopped during beach break in Thailand on Tuesday Accentuating her fabulous figure, the West End star tied a pink patterned bikini sarong around her slender waist. The presenter shielded her eyes from the bright orb sunshine as she accessorised with trendy circular sunglasses. While she's not been out in Thailand long, the television host has already boasts of a glowing tan which she has picked up from lying out in the red-hot sun. Tanning in Thailand: Accentuating her fabulous figure, the West End star tied a pink patterned bikini sarong around her slender waist She told the camera: 'So today I am on a different island and I'm at the quietest resort I've ever been to in my life. 'Everyone is doing yoga and meditation... doing spiritual things. I'm going to read my book and go for a walk on the beach... 'I miss you Molly... I'm still here in the sun!' Beach days! The presenter shielded her eyes from the bright orb sunshine as she accessorised with trendy circular sunglasses Caroline has put her ex love Andrew, 28, out of her mind as she makes the most of her joyous holiday in the sweltering temperatures. The Love Island personality and the Apprentice star had a rocky on/off romance which had a heartbreaking end for the pair of them. Now Andrew has jetted off to Australia on a one-way ticket to get a fresh start in the New Year after they finally called it quits on their romance. So hot: While she's not been out in Thailand long, the television host has already boasts of a glowing tan which she has picked up from lying out in the red-hot sun Marking the end of last year, Caroline wrote on social media that she would be taking some time out following her stint in Chicago. She wrote: 'Its been a crazy old year.... Ive had some of the best moments of my life in 2018 ... and I wont forget it in a heartbeat... 'But as we get nearer to the new year its a time for reflection and change..... so gonna take me some time off after Chicago ... Have a lovely Christmas and a happy new year ... and remember to Choose Love.' She's been celebrating the success of her latest film Bohemian Rhapsody, which has garnered much critical acclaim. And Lucy Boynton appeared in high spirits as she strolled through LAX airport to jet out of Los Angeles, California, on Monday evening. The actress, 24, opted for casual chic for her low-key appearance as she wrapped up in a vibrant blue scarf, tied in with a sophisticated wool coat. Beaming: Lucy Boynton appeared in high spirits as she strolled through LAX airport to jet out of Los Angeles, California, on Monday evening Displaying her eye for fashion, the Murder on the Orient Express star sported a pair of ankle-grazing trousers, which worked well with her chunky suede brogues. The New York-born beauty added touches of glamour into her look as she toted a designer chain-strap handbag during her journey. Lucy swept her blonde locks into a lightly-tousled updo to reveal her striking visage, which was enhanced with matte foundation and rose-tinted lipstick. Standing out from the crowd: The actress, 24, opted for casual chic for her low-key appearance as she wrapped up in a vibrant blue scarf, tied in with a sophisticated wool coat Walk this way: Displaying her eye for fashion, the Murder on the Orient Express star sported a pair of ankle-grazing trousers, which worked well with her chunky suede brogues Bohemian Rhapsody centers on the life of Queen's frontman Freddie Mercury, played by Rami Malek. In the film, the blonde plays the super star's ex-fiancee Mary Austin, with Lucy and Rami's on-screen relationship became a real-life relationship. On receiving the Breakthrough Performance nod at the Film Awards Gala, The Pacific actor thanked his new girlfriend in his acceptance speech. 'Thank you Lucy Boynton. You have been my ally, my confidant, my love. Thank you so much', he gushed. Style savvy: The New York-born beauty added touches of glamour into her look as she toted a designer chain-strap handbag during her journey Radiant: Lucy swept her blonde locks into a lightly-tousled updo to reveal her striking visage, which was enhanced with matte foundation and rose-tinted lipstick Rumors of their relationship first bloomed in April last year and the lovebirds have been pictured canoodling during outings together ever since. Screen star Rami, who is of Coptic Egyptian descent, was previously in a relationship with actress Portia Doubleday; they met on the set of their television series Mr. Robot but split in 2017. The movie recently picked up the Golden Globe award for Best Motion Picture Drama, and has been nominated for five BAFTAs. Critically-acclaimed: Bohemian Rhapsody centers on the life of Queen's frontman Freddie Mercury, played by Rami Malek Kerry Katona has claimed her daughters 'aren't keen' on their former step-mum Vogue Williams, who was previously married to her ex Brian McFadden. When asked if she has tuned into Vogue's reality show, which follows life with her new husband Spencer Matthews and their five-month-old baby Theodore, she insisted Molly, 17, and Lily-Sue, 15, have banned the show in the house. The 38-year-old mother-of-five, who split from the Westlife star, also 38, in 2004 after two years of marriage, spoke to Closer Magazine about the fractious relations as she hinted they did not like their former step-mum. Not too happy: Kerry Katona has claimed her daughters ( Lily-Sue and Molly McFadden, left-right in 2016) 'aren't keen' on their former step-mum Vogue Williams, who was previously married to her ex Brian McFadden Kerry and Brian were a pop golden couple in the early Noughties, after marrying in an idyllic ceremony in Rathfeigh, County Meath, Ireland in 2002, they later announced their divorce before finalising in 2006. They share Molly and Lily-Sue, while Kerry went on to have Heidi, 11, and Max, 10, with ex-husband Mark Croft and Dylan-Jorge, four, with ex George Kay. Brian meanwhile dated Delta Goodrem from 2004 to 2011 before meeting Vogue later that year and marrying in Italy in 2012, yet separated in 2015. Announcing their break-up, Vogue said: 'It is with sadness that Brian and I have made the tough decision to go our separate ways. We will always care about each other, remain friends and wish each other all the very best for the future.' Happy days: When asked if she has tuned into Vogue's reality show, which follows life with her new husband Spencer Matthews and their five-month-old baby Theodore, she insisted Molly, 17, and Lily-Sue, 15, have banned the show in the house Way back when: The 38-year-old mother-of-five, who split from the Westlife star, also 38, in 2004 after two years of marriage, spoke to Closer Magazine about the fractious relations as she hinted they did not like their former step-mum (Kerry and Brian pictured in 2003) While there does not seem to be any acrimony, Kerry's candid confession will no doubt shock both Vogue and fans of Spencer, Vogue and Baby Too. She said: ''I've heard it's really funny. But my daughters aren't keen on her, so I can't watch it with them. I'll have to see it on my own.' Proving she is on amicable terms with her ex, Kerry revealed she will be going to see Brian perform on Dancing On Ice with her girls. Kerry continued: 'I'm going to go and see the show live with the girls. I can't wait - I know he'll be really good. He did a lot of dancing when he was younger. I reckon he'll make the finals! It'll be fun to see.' Happier times: Brian meanwhile dated Delta Goodrem from 2004 to 2011 before meeting Vogue later that year and marrying in Italy in 2012, yet separated in 2015 (pictured in 2015) Stunner: Announcing their break-up, Vogue said: 'It is with sadness that Brian and I have made the tough decision to go our separate ways. We will always care about each other, remain friends and wish each other all the very best for the future' In 2017, Brian spoke out about the stunner saying: 'It's very difficult to remain friends unless you've got children. I think it's pointless as it's going to get in the way of you having a future with other people'. Vogue hit back with a cryptic tweet reading: 'Really wish certain people would stop discussing me publicly, throwing in a few lies too'. She also discussed her want for a more personal relationship - a comment which may be regrettable in hindsight giving her romance with Spencer. She told the Irish Independent: 'I think I got burnt the last time, I should have been a bit more careful. It was too much in the public eye and I don't think there's any need for it and I don't want to have a relationship like that again.' They're the faces of some of Britain's best loved detective dramas. And Emilia Fox, Tom Brittney, Ardal OHanlon, Neil Dudgeon, Brenda Blethyn, and Mark Williams were on hand to discuss their most iconic roles in a Cluedo inspired photoshoot for Radio Times on Tuesday. The Silent Witness star, 44, said of her many strange cases: 'There have been a lot of odd deaths in 14 years. Ive taken out breast implants, Ive drilled in extraordinary places, Ive taken peoples faces off. Who dunnit? Emilia Fox, Tom Brittney, Neil Dudgeon and more discussed their iconic roles, crime dramas and if they'd get away with murder in a Cluedo-inspired photoshoot on Tuesday 'Ive definitely handled more naked bodies as my fictional character than I have done in my real life.' Naming Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes as some of her inspirations for her role as pathologist Dr. Nikki Alexander, which she called her 'dream job'. Dressed as Miss Scarlet in a gorgeous red halter-neck dress for the Cluedo-themed shoot, she joked that she could get away with murder in her ensemble because 'the blood wouldnt show up'. Tasks: Of dealing with so many strange cases in Silent Witness, Emilia said: 'Ive taken out breast implants, Ive drilled in extraordinary places, Ive taken peoples faces off' While Grantchester newcomer Tom Brittney, 28, who is set to play crime-solving priest Rev Will Davenport, admits that 'everyone's got an in-built morbid curiosity' for detective dramas. Of his character's newfound role with the police, he said: 'He didnt plan to do it or ever think he would, he just sort of discovers that the skills that make him a good vicar can also make him a good detective.' Admitting that being a detective was his 'plan B' if acting didn't work out, Tom said that he'd never get away with murder because he's 'not a very good liar' but his role has taught him that no one could do it. Unexpected situation: Of his character's newfound role with the police in Grantchester, Tom said: 'He didnt plan to do it or ever think he would' Ardal OHanlon, 53, spoke about his role as DI Jack Mooney in Death in Paradise, and said of his appeal: 'He is genuinely very nosey. Thats an Irish characteristic. Hes curious and wants to know what makes people tick.' While he admitted he wouldn't be able to get away with murder because he's 'such a bad liar' the actor said he 'had a bucket list, like most people' of people he'd wanted to kill, but that he got rid of it because it was 'too negative'. Though, of a possible method, he added that 'an awful lot of people' have fallen off of balconies in his show. Intriguing: Ardal OHanlon, 53, spoke about his role as DI Jack Mooney in Death in Paradise, and said of his appeal: 'He is genuinely very nosey' While Neil Dudgeon spoke about his iconic show Midsomer Murders, which has been on our screens since 1997, and said of it's popularity: 'People love the humour and eccentricity.' 'The majority of ordinary people like to see posh folk behaving badly. They are terribly polite and reserved and all those things, but one of them is going around garrotting people or slashing them to bits.' Of whether he'd make a good detective in real life, he added that 'if it was the Midsomer model' then he would probably be able to do it because it'd be easy to pick out the killer based on who's left standing. Iconic: Neil spoke about his iconic show Midsomer Murders, which has been on our screens since 1997, and said of it's popularity: 'People love the humour and eccentricity' Vera's Brenda Blethyn, 72, said of being naturally inquisitive for the role because she likes 'to work things out' like the viewers. And, of being a detective herself, Brenda added that she'd 'leave no stone unturned' in her quest for the truth, much like her character. The crime drama features some odd who-dunnits for its viewers, including someone being found 'in an abattoir kiln'. Curious: While filming Vera on location, Brenda Blethyn admitted she would wonder about 'how many people have gone in there in real life' More: Read the full interview in the new issue of Radio Times, which is out now Brenda revealed of filming the scene in a real abattoir: 'It was a dreadful situation, and very thought-provoking. I wondered, How many people have gone in there in real life? 'We also find someone on a landfill site and I couldnt help thinking, If we started digging, how many people would be in there?' Mark Williams, who has played the title character in Father Brown since 2013, said of his character: 'He doesnt quite conform, and I think a degree of nonconformism is vital when it comes to the great detectives.' Read the full interview in the new issue of Radio Times, which is out now. (ANSA) - Niamey, January 15 - The European Union should do more for Africa and boost trust funds if it wants to stem migrant flows, Premier Giuseppe Conte said on a visit to Niger Tuesday. "We must tackle the causes of migratory flows at the root," he said. "We must invest more in the trust fund for Africa and in cooperation processes". "It's useless to think of combating the phenomenon only turning on the TV spotlights on emergency situations, but you have to act on the origin of the phenomenon," he said at a press conference with Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou. Sailor Brinkley-Cook flaunted her model genes during at swim at Bondi Beach in Sydney on Monday. Wearing a leopard print bikini, the 20-year-old model daughter of supermodel Christie Brinkley was seen wading through the shallows of the water. Having arrived at the beach with her long blonde hair pulled back in a high ponytail, the American beauty let her tresses loose as she enjoyed her dip. Scroll down for video Beach babe: Sailor Brinkley-Cook flaunted her model genes during at swim at Bondi Beach in Sydney on Monday A silver necklace bearing her name hung around her neck. She was also seen sunbaking on the sand, lying on her back with headphones in her ears, before turning over onto her stomach. A takeaway food box and a bottle of water rested on the sand beside her, along with a beach bag and a pair of denim cut-off shorts. Clearly reveling in the water, Sailor was seen frolicking in the waves near the shoreline. Animal instincts: Wearing a leopard print bikini, the 20-year-old model daughter of supermodel Christie Brinkley was seen wading through the shallows of the water Beach bum: In an interview with Page Six last month, the stunning star revealed she couldn't wait to venture Down Under The smiling star then returned to her belongings, before toweling off and pulling on her shorts. Sailor's mum, Christie, was a leading supermodel in the 1970's. But in a 2015 interview with The Wendy Williams Show, the 64-year-old confessed she wasn't sure she would have made it in the modeling industry by today's standards. Like mother, like daughter: Sailor's mum, Christie Brinkley (left in 1983), was a leading supermodel in the 1970's. But the 64-year-old has said she probably wouldn't have made it in the industry by today's standards 'Our industry is getting sort of thinner and thinner. If I tried to be a model today, there's no way. I would never make it in the industry,' she said. Meanwhile, Sailor has been in Australia for work, and she certainly appears to be making the most of her time here. In an interview with Page Six last month, the stunning star revealed she couldn't wait to venture Down Under. Making a splash: Clearly reveling in the water, Sailor was seen frolicking in the waves near the shoreline You name it: A silver necklace bearing her name in cursive font hung around her neck as she took to the water Working it: Sailor has been in Australia for work, and she certainly appears to be making the most of her time here Soaking up the sun: She was also seen sunbaking on the sand, lying on her back with headphones in her ears, before turning over onto her stomach 'Ive always wanted to go,' she told the publication ahead of her trip. 'I want to expand out of New York and meet new people.' And clearly the visit has lived up to her expectations, with Sailor sharing a series of excited posts on Instagram since arriving in Sydney almost two weeks ago. Looking for adventure: 'Ive always wanted to go,' she said ahead of her trip to Australia. 'I want to expand out of New York and meet new people' All tied up: Having arrived at the beach with her long blonde hair pulled back in a high ponytail, the American beauty let her tresses loose as she enjoyed a swim 'Greetings from Aus! Where I can work in a bustling city then take a 10 min Uber to the most beautiful beach for a dip,' she wrote on Instagram early last week. '3 days into living here and I f***ing love it.' She also took to Instagram Stories to share a series of videos from her seemingly many trips to the beach. Making the most of it: Clearly the visit has lived up to her expectations, with Sailor sharing a series of excited posts on Instagram since arriving in Sydney almost two weeks ago Life's a beach: '3 days into living here and I f***ing love it,' Sailor wrote on Instagram shortly after arriving in Australia Fixture: Sailor has been active on Instagram Stories, sharing a series of videos from her seemingly many trips to the beach 'I'm in heaven. I live in heaven. How is this life,' she captioned an awestruck video showing off the beach. In another video, she wrote: 'Life is too good'. A separate video posted to her Instagram Stories showed off a series of white rock formations emerging from the ocean. 'I'm in heaven. I live in heaven. How is this life,' she captioned an awestruck video showing off the beach Making a move? Sailor is in Australia for work, and she appears to be loving the laidback lifestyle on offer Settling in: A takeaway food box and a bottle of water rested on the sand beside her, along with a beach bag and a pair of denim cut-off shorts 'Oh, these rocks are gorgeous!' she can be heard marveling. Sailor also shared a photo of herself sipping what appears to have been an iced coffee while sitting on a balcony in the sun. 'Living in a dream,' she captioned it. Dream girl: 'Living in a dream,' she wrote on Instagram, shortly after arriving in Australia almost two weeks ago But while Sailor is clearly having a great time, her mother appears to have some reservations. One of Sailor's Instagram followers tagged Christie on one of her daughter's posts and informed her, 'Australia has the most poisonous snakes than anywhere else'. 'Wait! What???' the 64-year-old responded, adding a stunned face emoji. Advertisement A new trailer for Little Woods starring Lily James and Tessa Thompson dropped Monday. The gritty drama is set to open in select theatres this coming April after premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2018. James, 29, and Thompson, 35, play sisters in a North Dakota town who find themselves struggling to make ends meet following the death of their mother. Lily James, 29, and Tessa Thompson, 35, play estranged sisters who find themselves struggling to make ends meet following the death of their mother in the trailer for Little Woods Thompson stars as Ollie, who's finishing up a period of probation after being convicted of smuggling pain medications across the border from Canada. She had started doing it for her ailing mother but then discovered the black market for it especially among the men working in the oil town. However, her estranged sister Deb, played by James, comes seeking help as she struggles as a single mother with a deadbeat ex and unplanned new pregnancy. Thompson stars as Ollie, who's finishing up a period of probation after being convicted of smuggling pain medications across the border from Canada James stars as Deb who comes seeking help from her sister as she struggles as a single mother with a deadbeat ex and unplanned new pregnancy Set against the backdrop of a gritty North Dakota oil town, Ollie is faced with a life-changing decision when the bank decides to foreclose on the family home Complicating things is the bank's decision to foreclose on the family home. Ollie faces a choice - stay straight or go back to drug smuggling to raise the money she and her sister need. 'Can you do this without getting caught? Are you sure?' Deb asks in the trailer. Ollie replies: 'Of course not.' Among the challenges she faces include run-ins with other drug dealers, encounters with law enforcement and her strained relationship with her sister. Little Woods is written and directed by Nia DaCosta who makes her feature debut with the movie. Ollie had started doing smuggling pain meds across the border for her ailing mother but then discovered the black market for it especially among the men working in the oil town Advertisement Olympic swimming legend Michael Klim split with wife Lindy Rama in February 2016, before embarking on a romance with Desiree Deravi later that year. And while fans immediately noticed striking similarities between the two women, who are both brunette fashion designers, it appears some things are more than just a coincidence. Both beauties boast carefully curated Instagram profiles, however it appears Desiree has been copying several of Lindy's social media snaps, even travelling to Greece where she captured the exact same photograph. Imitation is the best form of flattery! Michael Klim's girlfriend Desiree Deravi appears to be COPYING the swimmer's ex-wife Lindy Rama on Instagram. Lindy (left) shared a photo to Instagram on December 18, before Desiree (right) uploaded a similar snap on December 26 In July 2017, Lindy travelled to Santorini where she shared several pictures of the breathtaking scenery. The following month, Desiree uploaded images from the same location, even posting a picture of the exact same blue topped building. And after Lindy was pictured posing among the region's historic architecture, Desiree also decided to take some similar snaps. What a coincidence! In July 2017, Lindy travelled to Santorini, Greece, before Desiree arrived the following month. Lindy snapped the picture at left, while Desiree captured the image at right Strike a pose! After Lindy (left) was pictured posing among the region's historic architecture, Desiree (right) also decided to take some similar snaps Both women sported similar hairstyles, with their brunette locks parted in the middle and tied into tight ponytails. Desiree may have also taken sartorial inspiration from Lindy, donning a similar style of maxidress. However, it's not just on holidays when Desiree appears to copy Lindy's pictures. Ladies in white! Lindy shared a photo of herself in a white maxi dress posing on a set of stairs in August 2017, before Desiree shared a near-identical photo in December of the same year In March 2017, Lindy posted a photo in which she was seen crouching down on the sand while tenderly gazing at a tiny turtle. Four months later, in July 2017, Desiree was pictured in the exact same position. The beautiful brunettes also share a penchant for posing both in and in front of some of Bali's most jaw-dropping swimming pools. They both love nature! In March 2017, Lindy (left) posted a photo in which she was seen crouching down on the sand while tenderly gazing at a tiny turtle. Four months later, in July 2017, Desiree (right) was pictured in the exact same position. Going swimmingly! Lindy shared a photo while standing in the water with her back toward the camera in February 2017. Desiree shared a similar snap the following month And while it seems Desiree may be regularly checking Lindy's Instagram profile, the stunning star is probably hoping that Lindy is checking hers too. In August 2017, Desiree posted a picture in which she was seen sitting on the side of the Trevi Fountain in Rome. The picture is believed to have been taken by Michael, and could have been a taunt towards Lindy, as it was the exact location where the swimmer proposed to Lindy back in 2005. Significant site! In August 2017, Desiree posted a picture in which she was seen sitting on the side of the Trevi Fountain in Rome - the very spot where her boyfriend Michael proposed to Lindy more than a decade earlier Michael went on to tie the knot Lindy in 2006, before they split in 2016 after a decade of marriage. The couple share three children, Sella, 12, Rocco, 10, and Frankie, eight. Lindy has since moved on following the couple's high-profile break-up, marrying British property developer Adam Ellis in Italy last year. The couple welcomed one year old daughter, Goldie. She has been spotted recently trying to kick-start a new fashion trend of wearing two long winter coats at a time. But on Monday, Allison Williams reverted back to the traditional one winter coat when she was spotted heading out for an appearance on the Late Show With Seth Meyers in New York City. The actress, 30, has been out in force doing press for A Series Of Unfortunate Events, which premiered its third and final season on New Year's Day. Gams on parade: Allison Williams put on a leggy display when she headed out for an appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers on Monday This go-around Williams donned a simple, but still very elegant, black and grey wool overcoat. She left it unbuttoned which made it easier to get a glimpse of her stylish black dress that showcased her long lean legs. Adding to her height, the Girls star slipped on a pair of black heels, and wore her dark brown tresses long with extra volume and a right part. Stylin': The Girls star wore a stylish black dress and an elegant overcoat; she has been spotted in recent day trying to start a new trend by wearing two winter coats at a time Trending? Williams has donned the two coat look a number of times in the new year Williams, who also made waves in the critically acclaimed scare-fest film Get Out in 2017, has pulled off the two-coat look a number of times in recent days. She was caught doing a double-wear when she headed to the SiriusXM studios for a chat with Andy Cohen last Monday, and again, the following day, for an appearance on Live With Kelly & Ryan. The daughter of legendary TV news anchor Brian Williams, appeared in the final two seasons of A Series Of Unfortunate Events. She plays Kit Snicket, the sister of narrator Lemony Snicket (Partrick Warburton) and former flame of Neil Patrick Harris' dastardly Count Olaf. Reunion? The actress is open to a return to her role as Marnie Michaels in a Girls movie Kit is a pivotal character in the last two novels of the 13-book series - The Penultimate Peril and The End. The newest season was released to widespread critical acclaim, earning a coveted 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. A return to her role as Marnie Michaels in a Girls movie may also be a possibility in the future. 'Oh, I mean, I hope for one. I think itd be so fun,' Williams confessed to Andy Cohen last week. 'The likelihood? I genuinely dont know. I have no idea. It would be so much fun.' Fortunate appearance: The Girls actress was plugging her role in Netflix's A Series Of Unfortunate Events Famous father: The daughter of former NBC Nightly News Anchor Brian Williams stars in the final season of the Netflix original Major new role: She plays Kit Snicket, the sister of narrator Lemony Snicket (Partrick Warburton) and former flame of Neil Patrick Harris' dastardly Count Olaf LBD: The Get Out star showed off her stylish, short black dress and radiant smile 90 Day Fiance star Colt Johnson told law enforcement Larissa Dos Santos Lima threatened to kill herself before getting arrested for battery last Thursday. The reality star said the Brazilian downed a half-full bottle of antidepressant pills and locked herself in the bathroom after allegedly attacking Colt, according to TMZ Monday. The website said the police report stated Larissa accused her husband of cheating after discovering he'd purchased porn, allegedly punching him in the mouth before inflicting injuries on herself. Troubled: 90 Day Fiance star Colt Johnson told law enforcement his wife Larissa Dos Santos Lima threatened to kill herself during fight before getting arrested for battery last Thursday Colt, 33, filed for divorce Friday in Nevada following the altercation at the marital home in Las Vegas. Larissa, 32, has been booked for battery and had set up a GoFundMe page to raise $5,000 which, she said, she needed for bail and legal fees. However, UsWeekly reports that her GoFundme page has since been taken down prompting Larissa to make a tearful plea to fans via social media. 'I'm not happy about it,' the tearful reality star said in an Instagram Live session on Sunday. 'I'm not proud about it, but it's something that I need your help with now.' 'I am so thankful for all of the donations. Unfortunately, I won't get the money,' she added. Over: Colt, 33, filed for divorce Friday in Nevada following the altercation at the marital home in Las Vegas. The two, who met via social media, secretly tied the knot in June 2018 Reality stars: The two are on season six of TLC's 90 Day Fiance and according to TMZ, their most recent fight came when Larissa discovered Colt had purchased porn Larissa had been arrested twice before on domestic violence charges in Las Vegas, once in June and again in November last year. Both misdemeanor cases were subsequently dismissed. It was revealed in December that Larissa and Colt had secretly tied the knot in June 2018. The two, who star on season six of TLC's 90 Day Fiance, met via social media. Larissa had shared photos showing a deep cut to her face and scratches all over her body that she claimed to have received during the fight with her husband. Law enforcement sources, though, told TMZ that since Colt bites his nails, he couldn't have causes the scratches. Cops also determined that most of the blood spatter was on her. Colt would have been expected to have splatter on himself had he caused her injuries. Scheana Shay confessed her dreams of having sex with SUR barback Adam in last week's episode Vanderpump Rules. The 33-year-old reality star however already moved on to his best friend on Monday night's episode smooching with former Bachelorette finalist Robby Hayes. In an episode where Lisa Vanderpump panicked about getting new bar TomTom ready for the Daily Mail TV party, Scheana revealed her truly bizarre love story. New romance: Scheana Shay moved on with The Bachelorette finalist Robby Hayes on Monday's episode of Vanderpump Rules Just last week she admitted dating Adam, complaining that he would not have sex with her but admitting: 'He's hot as f*** and maybe one time he'll say yes. He makes my vagina dance.' She quickly moved onto Robby the runner-up on JoJo Fletcher's Bachelorette season admitting that she met him as Adam's best friend, with the three of them together. 'He's supportive, he's reliable he's drop dead gorgeous,' she gushed, saying: 'His abs, like yes please. He always makes me feel special.' She was shown kissing him after calling him 'too perfect,' and with him teasing her for claiming he was not her type. Kissing session: The 33-year-old reality star and Robby kissed after she called him 'too perfect' Her type: Scheana insisted that Robby wasn't her type before they kissed 'If things keep going well I could definitely see myself falling for him,' she admitted later. But just to confuse matters, she said: 'Adam's gorgeous, but a friendship's the only option. However, if he would I would, because I would give in at any moment.' Not all the other women were enamored with her new romantic connection, with Stassi Schroeder, 30, calling Robby a 'douche a cheesy douche.' Cheesey dude: Stassi Schroeder called Robby a 'douche a cheesy douche' 'The cheesiest group of dudes ever,' she said of Robby, Adam and their friends. 'Wait, Scheana's dating two people who are best friends and not having sex with either of them? What the f***!' Stassi declared. Stassi had her own drama, however, starting the episode in tears over her freak-out fight with boyfriend Beau Clark. Birthday fallout: Beau Clark and Stassi talked after she blew up at him during her birthday party She then ended the episode in yet more tears this time following a bizarre row with her mother Dayna. The previous episode saw Stassi have a meltdown at the end of her 30th birthday, smashing her phone after Beau failed to answer her messages. It emerged that he also ended the night in tears, telling Stassi: 'I'm not your punching bag.' Getting emotional: Stassi cried while talking to Beau about her meltdown 'Stassi screamed at Beau, ordered him into the bedroom, and that's how she spent the remainder of her birthday night,' Kristen Doute, 35, recalled. Katie Maloney-Schwartz, 31, said: 'He just wanted to kick it with us. I don't see why that's such a big problem.' Stassi tearfully apologized to Beau the next morning with him admitting: 'You drove me crazy. It's like literally you d***-punched my heart.' Making up: Beau and Stassi hugged and kissed as they made up He told her she 'lost it' and 'freaked out' when he walked off 'for my own sanity.' When he asked what set her off, she admitted: 'I don't know. That's what scares me. and I'm so f***ing concerned that you are going to leave me because of the way that I act.' When they finally hugged, Stassi called herself 'a d***. I'm an erect d***.' Felt bad: Stassi felt bad about her behavior and admitted that she was afraid of scaring Beau off 'Yeah,' Beau smiled, kissing her. 'I just know that there's no one else out there like Beau. I'm not going to find anyone else like him again,' Stassi said in a confessional. 'I just need to be really careful not to screw it up.' Unique guy: The blonde beauty said that she didn't want to screw things up with Beau Beau then insisted: 'I look at every fight as a learning experience. 'I'm not walking away. We're gonna work this out. I'm in love with her.' Later, Stassi's mom Dayna joined Katie's and Kristen's moms for drinks, sparking an embarrassing conversation with Beau. Dinner drama: Kristen Doute ate her salad as Stassi struggled with her mother Dayna After telling him 'I love you,' she bragged about grabbing his butt at her daughter's party then warned him how terrible her daughter can be. 'I just don't want you to go anywhere I think you're the perfect man for my daughter. The clock is ticking and I need grandchildren,' she said, as he listened uncomfortably. When Stassi came over, her mom told her in front of Beau: 'I don't want you to be yourself and mess it up. I'm hoping he's a strong enough guy to go the distance.' Bold statements: Dayna told Beau that she hoped he was strong enough to stick with Stassi She then warned Beau: 'I just hope you know what your future holds.' Beau finally made an excuse to leave, but the fight continued later as the women all had dinner, with Dayna blaming menopause for her behavior. She told the group of her daughter: 'Every night I go to bed and pray that she doesn't take her baggage from old relationships and carry it into this.' Too much: Stassi hid her face as she grew increasingly frustrated with her mom After Kristen also had words with Stassi, Dayna finally walked away from the table in tears. 'This happens every f***ing time. I fight with her all the time,' Stassi complained, with Katie wiping away her tears for her while the other moms wiped away Dayna's. 'This night sucks. Everything about it sucks,' Stassi said, admitting: 'I am scared that one day that is gonna be me.' Moms night: Katie Maloney's mother Teri also joined in on drinks However, she earlier also revealed her book deal for Next Level Basic, which is 'about embracing your basic b****. It's like a manifesto.' Lisa, meanwhile, was worried about getting TomTom ready for the Daily Mail TV party. 'Daily Mail TV reached out to us and asked us if we would host their annual party at our new venue TomTom. We're so far behind and we're not ready but we've already committed to it. Their invitations have gone out,' she admitted. TV party: Lisa Vanderpump was worried about getting TomTom ready for the Daily Mail TV party Tom Sandoval, 35, and Tom Schwartz, 36, were brought in to create special cocktails for the party, with Schwartz saying: 'We want to deliver we want to knock their socks off.' Lisa said: 'I have to hand it to them. I'm not a mixologist but some of them are really damn good.' When she told them they had to stay away from the bar while acclaimed designer Nick Alain worked on it, Schwartz joked: 'I've got professional blue balls.' Smooth drink: The British restaurateur liked a special cocktail created for the Daily Mail TV party Lisa later called a SUR staff meeting to discuss James Kennedy's' firing with manager Peter admitting his concerns, saying: 'Tuesday's one of our best nights because he's behind the DJ booth.' 'It's upsetting that you guys are thinking of a business point of view instead of our feelings. It's really hurtful,' Brittany Cartwright, 29, complained. 'I'm f***ing mortified by James. He's a mean person. It's so hard to not get emotional.' Staff meeting: Lisa gathered her staff for a meeting after firing James Kennedy But some of the other staff shared Peter's sentiments, with Scheana Shay, 33, saying later: 'Everyone wants to be on the schedule on Tuesday night. It's the busiest night, the tips have more than tripled, and that's because of James.' Billie Lee then sparked outrage when she suggested that Kristen Doute, 35, should not be there, either, saying: 'You bring the f***ing trigger in here and then you're wondering why he's blowing up.' 'That does not give him the right to come in here and call her fat and call me a whore,' fumed Lala Kent, 28, pointing to Katie. Sparked outrage: Billie Lee sparked outrage when she suggested that Kristen Doute should be banned as she 'triggers' James As the meeting grew increasingly heated and divisive, Lisa insisted: 'James is not working here, and I 1,000 percent do not support the way he spoke to Katie or rapped' about Brittany and Jax. She added later: 'It would be very easy for me to let him have his job back that would make quite a few people at SUR happy. But how women are treated is of paramount importance to me.' Lala, however, called a meeting with James, saying it was out of respect for her late dad who never held a grudge. Not happy: Katie and Lala Kent did not endorse Billie Lee's point of view James got tearful as he admitted: 'I miss our friendship a lot. 'I can't clean the slate overnight. I need to fix myself first before I can fix anything else.' When she said she was 'here to support you in whatever you need,' James told her: 'You surprised me today, so thank you.' 'You're gonna be OK, kid,' she told him, a far cry from her previous statements of hate towards her one-time best friend and lover. They recently returned to London following a New Year's break in her native Russia. And Katya and Neil Jones enjoyed a date night in the capital on Monday night as they headed to Victoria Palace Theatre for a performance of Hamilton. The Strictly Come Dancing professionals, who were rocked by a cheating scandal last year, looked in good spirits as they caught the tube home after their date night. Strictly in the audience: Katya and Neil Jones enjoyed a date night in the capital on Monday night as they headed to Victoria Palace Theatre for a performance of Hamilton Katya bundled up for the chilly London weather in a chic grey coat tied at the waist. She added pops of colour with her bright red scarf and matching ankle boots which coordinated perfectly with her lip shade. Neil meanwhile stood out in a dapper yellow jacket which he paired with skinny fit jeans and a black t-shirt. Riding the rails: The Strictly Come Dancing professionals, who were rocked by a cheating scandal last year, looked in good spirits as they caught the tube home after their date night Looking good: Katya bundled up for the chilly London weather in a chic grey coat tied at the waist teamed with red boots and a matching scarf The married couple were spotted strolling arm in arm out of the theatre as they headed to a tube stop to make their way home. It was recently reported that the pair went on a make-or-break trip to Cambodia to save their marriage ahead of the new year. The couple, who have been married since 2013, are said to have traveled to Asia days before their trip to Katya's Russian home for New Year's, which has been well-documented their social media accounts. Bold choice: Neil stood out in a dapper yellow jacket which he paired with a black t-shirt Got your Oyster? Neil checked on his wife as they shunned a car and caught the tube home Good spirits: The pair broke out into big smiles after their fun date night at the popular show Neil and Katya's relationship came under fire after the brunette beauty was pictured kissing her dance partner Seann Walsh, 33, during a drunken night out in October last year. A source told The Sun: 'Those close to Neil and Katya have been saying this was a make-or-break holiday. 'Neil really felt like the trust had gone and he wasnt quite sure he knew who Katya was any more. They decided to go away for some time out of the spotlight so they could have some very frank conversations. 'Katya begged for forgiveness and promised it would never happen again while Neil agreed to move towards getting the trust back and putting it both behind them.' Going strong: Neil and Katya's relationship came under fire after the brunette beauty was pictured kissing her dance partner Seann Walsh, 33, during a drunken night out last year Close: The couple have looked stronger than ever after spending Christmas together Smitten: The Strictly Come Dancing pro, 29, rang in the new year with Neil, 35, in her native country of Russia as they decided to put the Seann Walsh kiss scandal behind them The insider also added that while the pair's main priority is to save their marriage, they also want to 'rebuild their public image'. MailOnline has contacted Neil and Katya's representatives for comment. The pair had a rocky end to 2018 after the Russian star was pictured in a steamy clinch with the comedian. Katya and Neil's marriage was thrown into public scrutiny following the kiss with Seann, which resulted in the breakdown of his five-year relationship with actress Rebecca Humphries. Relaxation: The show professionals appeared happier than ever as they enjoyed a trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, to visit family over the festive season Earlier that week, Neil reflected on his past year, penning on Instagram: 'I was honoured to be part of another successful year on @bbcstrictly which I choreographed @boyzoneofficial on @bbcin special. 'Had a wonderful time dancing with the fabulous @itsanitarani and launched Nell de Jaunse on Ittakestwo fingers crossed I will be back next year plus you will be able to see me on the new Strictly pro tour, strictly cruises and @donaheys weekends.' He finished with: 'Anyway 2018 has given me so many more great moments and Im really excited for 2019 but tell me about some of your great moments in 2018.' Rob Kardashian has a new crush, and the timing is uncanny. The 31-year-old declared his 'Woman Crush Wednesday' on Monday was Alexis Skyy, just days after she reportedly got embroiled in a brawl with his ex Blac Chyna. 'My WCW... I've been wanting you for so long,' he captioned a snap of her with a number of loveheart emojis. Interesting timing: Rob Kardashian has claimed he has a crush on Alexis Skyy... just days after the Love & Hip Hop star 'brawled' with his ex Blac Chyna at a party Coincidentally, the Love And Hip Hop star claimed his babymomma threw a drink at her while they attended the same party over the weekend. According to TMZ, Chyna, 30, invited Alexis, 24, to her 'section' for drinks but soon things went sour between the two and Chyna asked Alexis to leave before throwing a drink at her. Skyy recounted the details of what she said happened on her Instagram, which were obtained by the publication before they were deleted. Describing herself as 'the nicest person in the world' in her Instagram Live, Alexis said she was sitting down at the soiree, when someone alerted her that Chyna was also in attendance. Alexis decided to go over to the mother-of-two and after their second drink Chyna began berating her, telling her to 'get out of my section.' Confused by the sudden change in demeanour, Alexis asked why she needed to go which reportedly set Chyna off, according to the publication. Wordsmith: 'My WCW... I've been wanting you for so long,' he captioned a snap of her with a number of loveheart emojis The TV personality said that Chyna then threw a drink at her as tensions rose, which led to both of them 'throwing hands' and they 'started swinging' at each other. MailOnline approached Blac Chyna's rep for comment. Following the incident, Alexis said she was subsequently kicked out of the party. The Love and Hip Hop star then took to her Instagram Stories to share her side of the story and claimed that she wasn't leaving Los Angeles until Chyna came face-to-face with her. She wrote in now deleted posts: '@blacchyna come ya punk a** outside!!!!!' 'B***h u tried the right b***h but ran!!! I promise u I'm not leaving this b***g until it punk crack head ass come outside!!!' Claims: According to TMZ , the E! reality star, 30, invited Alexis, 24, to her 'section' for drinks but soon things went sour between the two and Chyna asked Alexis to leave before throwing a drink at her In another post, she said: 'I'm not leaving LA until u see me!!! I don't have s*** else to say. And in her third update, Alexis added: 'Please trying to make me look like I'm crazy .. I'm not even the type to start a fight. 'She threw a drink at me.. @blacchyna stay off the coke and addys..' In clip obtained by The Shade Room, Alexis can be seen charging towards Chyna while fellow party goers try to intervene. While in another video, Chyna can be seen removing herself momentarily from the party and trying to calm tensions by standing outside as Alexis keeps going for her. The claims come after Chyna agreed to reimburse the cost of ex Rob's television after she allegedly damaged it over two years ago. Social media: The Love and Hip Hop star then took to her Instagram Stories to share her side of the story and claimed that she wasn't leaving Los Angeles until Chyna came face-to-face with her The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star has claimed his former partner, with whom he shares two-year-old daughter Dream, 'consumed a significant amount of drugs and alcohol' before damaging his television, the walls, breaking down a door and destroying his phone in an incident on December 14, 2016. He also claimed she ruined a gingerbread house, which had been made for the upcoming festive celebrations. Court documents, obtained by The Blast, said that Chyna is planning to fight back against some of the allegations but will pay for a replacement television. Rob also alleges he was injured in the altercation, but Chyna insists there was no damage to his face in a video posted online a couple of days later. Rob and Chyna began their on/off relationship in January 2016, before finally calling it quits in July 2017. Keira Maguire has lashed out at a 'desperate' magazine, claiming they put an orange filter over a photo of her and boyfriend Jarrod Woodgate to 'make a headline'. New Idea appeared to edit an Instagram snap of the couple kissing at the Portsea Polo in Melbourne on Saturday, and captioned it: 'Spray-tanned Jarrod and Keira smooch at the polo.' The Bachelor In Paradise star, 32, told Daily Mail Australia she was 'mortified' when she saw the doctored version - which seems to have a more saturated red-brown hue than the original. Not impressed: Keira Maguire has lashed out at a New Idea magazine for putting an orange filter (pictured) over a photo of her and boyfriend Jarrod Woodgate. Left: the original paparazzi photo. Right: New Idea's photo 'I was mortified but then kind of laughed at it. Desperate times I guess,' she said. Keira also accused the publication of editing the photo in order to 'make a headline'. 'I just feel that they could have come up with a better headline instead of stopping to editing a photo to make one,' the blonde beauty said. Keira ensured she and Jarrod were preened to perfection at the polo on Saturday - and admitted to fans that she gave him a spray tan before the big day. Preened: Keira ensured she and Jarrod were preened to perfection at the polo on Saturday - and admitted to fans that she gave him a spray tan before the big day Sharing a sweet photo with the vineyard farmer on Instagram, the reality star candidly wrote: 'Polo Vibes with my Man. I may or may not have given him a spray tan...' Their public appearance comes after couple received backlash from fans who accused the Bachelor In Paradise stars of faking their reunion to remain in the 'limelight.' When Keira took to Instagram to share a picture of the couple back together, some followers immediately questioned their motives. Grooming: The reality star candidly said: 'Polo Vibes with my Man. I may or may not have given him a spray tan...' One wrote: '[sic] Too funny, new series of MAFS is airing this year and Love Island. Think about it people, why do you think these ppl are so called getting back together. Limelight will be lost. Fake af.' Meanwhile another commented, 'there must be another payment due to be together at a certain date.' The reality couple initially split up in August last year, just months after falling in love on Bachelor in Paradise. Fan of a tan: Keira often hits the spray tanning booth for a darker hue At the time, the vineyard manager claimed Keira was 'Insta-obsessed' and told Who he felt like he was 'competing with 177,000 other people.' However, the blonde may have changed her ways as a source close to Keira claimed she's determined to make it work with Jarrod this time around. 'Jarrod is the man of her dreams,' and insider reportedly told NW recently. 'They sat down and talked it all out and one thing was clear, despite all that had happened, they still love each other.' Coronation Street star Charlie Lawson has admitted it is highly likely he would have picked up a gun and fought in The Troubles had he not left Northern Ireland to become an actor. Protestant Charles, 59, who has played Jim McDonald in the ITV soap on and off for the last 30 years, believes he would have joined a loyalist paramilitary group if he had been unemployed in his hometown of east Belfast. The conflict, which started in the 1960s, saw loyalist and republican paramilitary groups fight over a 30 year period on Northern Irelands streets - mainly about the nations constitutional status. 'Highly likely': Coronation Street star Charlie Lawson has admitted it is highly likely he would have picked up a gun and fought in The Troubles Speaking on Eamonn Mallie's Face to Face, set to air on UTV on Tuesday, the actor said: 'I never took up arms. 'I suspect if I had stayed and not had the opportunities thrown at me and been unemployed staying up the Newtownards Road, I would say it probably would have been highly likely.' He added: 'I didnt meet a Catholic until I was 20 years of age not extraordinary for the times really, when you think about it. Candid claims: Protestant Charles, 59, believes he would have joined a loyalist paramilitary group if he had been unemployed in his hometown of east Belfast But the damage we did to ourselves as human beings and the sheer cruelty and the barbarity of both sides of what people were willing do to other people. Its horrendous and people dont believe it now. They are not taught about it and they should be. Charles also issued a public apology to his daughter Laura, 31, as he admitted he used to put 'drink, drugs and partying' before her. The actor confessed he was 'pretty hopeless' as a father while his only child was at boarding school and also reflected on his relationship with current partner Debbie Stanley as he insisted she's changed his 'life for the better.' Regret: Charles admitted he was 'pretty hopeless' as a father while his only child (pictured) was at boarding school Honest and open: 'I was pretty hopeless as a dad. [Boarding school] made me useless with kids. I wasn't interested at all', the Northern Irish star shared In the upcoming episode, the Northern Irish actor candidly touched on his life as a father to former police officer Laura. 'I was pretty hopeless as a dad. [Boarding school] made me useless with kids. I wasn't interested at all. 'My grandchildren adore me and for some reason I am good with them. But for my own daughter I can offer nothing but sincerest heartfelt apologies about the way I behaved because I was so selfish.' Charles, who has been with partner Debbie for over 10 years, previously revealed he left his family as he was 'unhappy' in his first marriage, with Laura being only seven at the time of her parents' split. Happier: Charles reflected on his relationship with current partner Debbie Stanley as he insisted she's changed his 'life for the better' The My Mother and Other Strangers star added: 'I left home because I was having a good time. 'I cared more about drink and drugs and having fun than I did with my family which is a disgusting thing to have to admit but unfortunately that is the truth. I am trying to make amends for it now.' Meanwhile, Charles recently broke down in tears as he recalled the devastating moment he suffered a mini stroke on the opening night of Rebus: Long Shadows in early October. Recalling his transient ischaemic attack, he confessed on Good Morning Britain: 'I was in the middle of the second half and I just collapsed. I went deaf, then I went blue and saw bright lights. Long stint: This year marks the screen star's 30th anniversary as Jim McDonald in ITV soap Coronation Street (pictured alongside Beverley Callard) 'I get emotional talking about it [holds back tears]. The psychiatrist says I have to talk about it. I honestly didnt know where I was. 'The neck scan was fine, MRI scan showed I had a TIA. So when I finish the play I have to reassess my life.' WHAT ARE WARNING SIGNS OF A MINI STROKE? A transient ischemic attack (or, TIA) involves a temporary lack of blood flow to the brain, which causes momentary dizziness, confusion, tingling, and numbness in the arms. You should call 911 if you suspect you are suffering a TIA. Symptoms include: vision changes dysphasia (trouble speaking) confusion balance issues tingling an altered level of consciousness dizziness passing out an abnormal sense of taste an abnormal sense of smell weakness or numbness on just one side of the body or face, determined by the location of the blood clot in the brain Advertisement A TIA, also known as a mini-stroke, occurs when blood flow to the brain is momentarily disrupted, causing numbness in the face, arms and legs which usually resolves within a few minutes. They are usually considered a short-term issue and are often dismissed as exhaustion, a migraine or a funny turn, however research previously conducted by the University of Birmingham suggested that mini-strokes can be problematic in themselves, causing lasting cognitive impairment, depression and fatigue. Surprised by his emotional reaction, Charlie said: 'I spoke to this doctor and said, "Why am I upset about this?" He said, "If you break your leg, you break your leg. If something goes wrong with the computer [points to his head], it can disturb you".' He added: 'Im going to have to take some time just to reassess my life, which is a shock Piers [Morgan], because you know, I like life.' The actor also teased the possibility of Jim McDonald's return to the cobbles, admitting bosses have left the door open for him. He revealed: 'Jim is a bit of a legend. His storyline was like Marmite. Some people thought it was amazing and others thought it was rubbish. 'I could be back doing Corrie for a couple more months. They asked me about how I feel about the future and what I want to do with the character, so I had a lot more control.' (ANSA) - Rome, January 15 - Democracy is people and not buildings, Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio said in responding to French European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau's criticism of his proposal to abolish the European Parliament's Strasbourg seat Tuesday. "Democracy is made up of people who participate, Italian citizens, French citizens, all European citizens want more decision-making power, more democracy, more direct democracy," said the industry and labour minister, who is head of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S). "You can't solve these problems with a billion-euro building". Loiseau described Di Maio's demolition proposal as "a declaration of war on European democracy". They have been plagued by rumours of a split for the last couple of years. But Home and Away star Kate Ritchie and her husband Stuart Webb appear to be happier than ever. Speaking to Daily Mail Australia at the premiere of the Charlie And The Chocolate Factory musical last Friday, the 40-year-old actress said she had a lovely break with her family over the Christmas break. Scroll down for video 'We had a lovely holiday' Kate Ritchie revealed her 'happy' Christmas with her family at the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory premiere last Friday after rumours of a split with her former rugby player husband, Stuart Webb 'I had six weeks over Christmas with family. That always helps. We've had a lovely holiday,' she said, while posing alongside Stuart, 38, and their daughter Mae, four. 'Having six weeks off from working at Nova has been really lovely, back to work on the 21st,' she added. Looking like the picture perfect family, Kate was all smiles as her husband kissed her on the head. Rumours of trouble in the couple's relationship were sparked when New Idea claimed they were living apart back in 2016. Picture perfect! Looking like the picture perfect family, Kate was all smiles as her husband kissed her on the head at the premiere as they posed with their daughter, Mae, four At the time, the magazine alleged that the retired St. George player moved into a newly-purchased home in the NSW Southern Highlands, while Kate stayed with Mae in Randwick. 'It's rare for Kate and Stu not to wear their wedding rings, and they have been spending a bit of time apart as well,' an insider said at the time. 'So we're all naturally worried.' Rumours: Speculation of trouble in the couple's relationship were sparked when New Idea claimed they were living apart back in 2016. The report turned out to be false The couple also inadvertently fuelled split speculation when they were pictured without their wedding rings that same year. And then in 2017, Kate and Stuart looked strained while engaging in awkward PDA in a Sydney park. Last year in October, Kate told The Australian's Women's Weekly that although at times she is 'not sure' what is going on in her life, she and Stuart are happy and committed to their marriage. Committed to their marriage: Last year in October, Kate told The Australian's Women's Weekly that although at times she is 'not sure' what is going on in her life, she and Stuart are happy and committed to their marriage 'Of course [split rumours] are wrong... it is baseless. But I don't want to say any more about it because it will breathe life into it again,' she explained. 'When you ask me how does that affect me, the truth is I have had to learn how to not let if affect me.' She continued: 'Firstly, I think good luck to anybody who thinks that they know what is going on in my life because there are times when I am not sure - and I don't mean that in a negative way.' Kate clarified that she meant she is 'just putting one foot in front of the other' and is focused on enjoying life. Millions have watched for two decades as detectives solve crimes in the picturesque county of Midsomer. But it appears the enduring appeal of Midsomer Murders is not the complex plots or good acting star Neil Dudgeon believes that viewers enjoy seeing 'posh folk behaving badly'. The actor, 58, who has played DCI John Barnaby in the ITV drama since 2011, said it is the well-heeled characters that keep people coming back for more. Midsomer Murders with Neil Dudgeon as DCI John Barnaby and Nick Hendrix as DS Jamie Winter He said: 'Without being snobby, there's something more sordid about working-class people drinking, getting violent and killing each other in a terrace house. For the working classes it's a desperate act of necessity; with the upper classes murder is more of a leisure activity. The majority of ordinary people like to see posh folk behaving badly.' The actor, 58, who has played DCI John Barnaby in the ITV drama since 2011, said it is the well-heeled characters that keep people coming back for more Pointing out the middle-class nature of the show, Mr Dudgeon said his favourite murder from the series was when a man was mauled to death by a wild boar after being tied to a tree and 'smeared with truffle oil.' Other bizarre killings on the show include drowning in a vat of soup and being crushed to death by a wheel of cheese. Speaking to the Radio Times, Dudgeon added that we are so invested in crime dramas because 'it's like turning over a stone and all the little insects underneath running around in a panic'. Radio Times Cluedo Front Covers. Neil Dudgeon believes that viewers enjoy seeing 'posh folk behaving badly'. Sarah Paulson is about to star in a prequel to one of the most popular novels and films ever made, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. On Monday, Ryan Murphy, 53, announced 10 new actors who will be joining the 44-year-old actress in Netflix's Ratched. The impressive list, which counts Sharon Stone, Cynthia Nixon and Corey Stoll among its members, features a number of high profile film and television stars. Murderers' row of talent: On Monday, Ryan Murphy, 53, announced 10 new actors who will be joining the Sarah Paulson, 44, in Netflix's Ratched 'RATCHED on Netflix starts shooting in a couple weeks. On behalf of myself and Ms. Sarah Catharine Paulson who plays the title role and is also a big fancy producer on it, we are thrilled to announce our amazing cast...a true murderers row of talent,' wrote series creator Ryan Murphy in an Instagram post. 'So many of these actors are supremely talented folks who Sarah and I have both longed to work with. The Ratched Principal Players, in alphabetical order: JON JON BRIONES, CHARLIE CARVER, JUDY DAVIS, HARRIET HARRIS, CYNTHIA NIXON, HUNTER PARRISH, AMANDA PLUMMER, COREY STOLL, SHARON STONE AND FINN WITTROCK.' The influential TV writer ended with promises of more cast additions. 'More to come, but come on...Sarah, Cynthia, Judy, Amanda and Sharon, all doing scenes together? I cannot WAIT.' Welcome back: Perhaps the most tantalizing addition to the cast is Sharon Stone, 60. The Basic Instinct star has had a relatively low profile after recovering from a stroke in 2001; pictured in April Perhaps the most tantalizing addition to the cast is Sharon Stone, 60. The Basic Instinct star has had a relatively low profile after recovering from a stroke in 2001. She made a return to playing a series lead in HBO's critically acclaimed Mosaic in 2017, and will also be appearing in The New Pope for the same network. Her upcoming role in Ratched shows her career is still on an upswing. Putting politics on hold: Cynthia Nixon, 52, was in the news more in 2018 for her campaign for the Democratic nomination for Governor of New York than her acting; still from the Sex And The City film Cynthia Nixon, 52, was in the news more in 2018 for her campaign for the Democratic nomination for Governor of New York than her acting. Ratched will be one of her first roles since taking time off to focus on politics. The Sex And The City actress received widespread critical acclaim for her performance as Emily Dickinson in 2016's A Quiet Passion. No second fiddle: Corey Stoll, 42, played the second man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, in last year's Oscar contender First Man; pictured in December You've seen her in everything: Harriet Harris, 64, is a prolific and in-demand character actress, best known for roles in Frasier, Memento and Phantom Thread; pictured in May Corey Stoll, 42, played the second man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, in last year's Oscar contender First Man. He also starred on FX's horror series The Strain from 2014-2017. Finn Wittrock, 34, is no stranger to a Ryan Murphy series. The actor has starred in three seasons of American Horror Story, as well as The Assassination of Gianni Versace. He was seen recently in the Oscar favorite If Beale Street Could Talk. Harriet Harris, 64, is a prolific and in-demand character actress, best known for roles in Frasier, Memento and Phantom Thread. Jon Jon Briones, 53, is a Filipino actor known for his musical theater performances, especially in Miss Saigon. He was featured in The Assassination Of Gianni Versace. Out of the weeds: Hunter Parrish, 31, rose to fame portraying the long-suffering son on the Weeds; pictured in 2016 Not a leftover: Charlie Carver, 30, played opposite his twin brother in HBO's The Leftovers, and also starred in the LGBTQ miniseries When We Rise in 2017; shown in October Hunter Parrish, 31, rose to fame portraying the long-suffering son on the Weeds. Pulp Fiction fans will recognize 61-year-old Amanda Plummer as the woman who robs the diner at the beginning of the film. She appeared more recently in the Hunger Games series. Charlie Carver, 30, played opposite his twin brother in HBO's The Leftovers, and also starred in the LGBTQ miniseries When We Rise in 2017. Judy Davis, 63, is most famous for roles in multiple Woody Allen films and David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch. She previously worked with Ryan on Fued: Bette and Joan, playing gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. Ratched was ordered to series by Netflix with two seasons of nine episodes each. It's slated to premiere sometime later this year. Duane 'Dog the Bounty Hunter' Chapman and his ailing wife Beth Chapman are heading back to TV. The couple announced Monday they were starring in the upcoming WGN America reality series Dog's Most Wanted, in which they would embark on dangerous treks with their crew in search of fugitives. The TV bounty hunter, 66, said in a statement: 'Crime in America is skyrocketing! Criminals are finding it easier to avoid the system. With more and more dangerous criminals running the streets, the time couldn't be better for the World's Greatest Network to bring back the World's Greatest Bounty Hunter. Fugitives beware!' Coming soon: Duane 'Dog the Bounty Hunter' Chapman, 66, and his ailing wife Beth Chapman, 51, are heading back to TV on a new WGN America show called Dog's Most Wanted WGN America Gavin Harvey said in a statement that 'in this brand-new series, millions of Dog and Beth fans will join them on bigger hunts, pursuing more dangerous criminals, with a supporting cast of tough-as-nails crime fighters' nicknamed the 'Dirty Dozen.' The 10-part series, which will be produced by Dorsey Pictures, heads into production in the coming months, Deadline reported. The announcement comes months after Beth, 51, underwent an emergency surgery in Los Angeles November 27, which revealed her throat cancer had returned. Beth was first diagnosed in September of 2017, and received a cancer-free diagnosis later that year; the cancer has since spread to Beth's lungs, and doctors have declared it incurable, US reported. On the hunt: The couple will embark on dangerous treks with their crew in search of fugitives Revved up: Both Beth and Dog took to social media to celebrate the new series on Monday Dog, who spent the holidays with Beth in Colorado, told the magazine that he was focused on remaining a positive force for his spouse. 'Im here every moment I can be for her,' he said last month. 'Ive never had to go through anything like this in my entire life. I love my honey so much. I dont know what Im gonna do.' He continued: 'I pray a lot, anywhere. I cry all the time. I'm a sinner. I pray a lot. I have done double that. I constantly ask God to heal my honey and make sure He takes care of it. I've been telling Him that I'm going to try and quit smoking and cursing. I'm a dealmaker, and I'll do anything.' She had a whirlwind year in 2018. And Charlotte Dawson has kicked off the new year by diving into work with her pals by posing for a glamorous photoshoot on Monday. The Ex On The Beach star, 26, was joined by Taylor Ward and Darby Ward, daughters of Real Housewives Of Cheshire star Dawn Ward a photo shoot for Freeda Funk at Parea in Alderley Edge in Cheshire. Style: Charlotte Dawson has kicked off the new year by diving into work with her pals by posing for a glam photoshoot for Freeda Funk at Parea in Alderley Edge in Cheshire on Monday The trio looked in high spirits as they exited their photoshoot and were all dressed to impress. Charlotte donned a figure-hugging a-symmetric black mini dress and added to her frame with a matching pair of high heels. Showing off her bronzed hue, the reality star added a touch of glamour by styling her brunette locks into flowing curls. It appears the Celebs Go Dating star sported a dramatic look for the photoshoot as she was also seen wearing a floor length, faux-fur coat. Glamour: The trio looked in high spirits as they exited their photoshoot and were all dressed to impress Taylor wore an off the shoulder black mini dress and strappy heels, letting her blonde locks hang loose down her shoulders. Meanwhile, Darby looked sensational in a burgundy dress with a daring slit on the leg and a plunging neckline, topping off the look with a pair of strappy heels. It was a year of ups and downs for the reality starlet - who is the daughter of late comedian Les Dawson. Charlotte launched her own fashion line, Fredafunk in February and gained a new legion of fans with her hilarious stint on Celebs On The Farm over autumn. However, she also faced heartache when her boyfriend Matt Sarsfield faced jail for punching a stranger outside a club. Fashion: Taylor wore an off the shoulder black mini dress and strappy heels while Darby donned a burgundy dress with a daring slit on the leg and a plunging neckline Outfit: Charlotte donned a figure-hugging a-symmetric black mini dress and added to her frame with a matching pair of high heels In August, Matt was left 'sickened' in court, after hearing details of how he drunkenly landed a single blow to Daniel Jackson's bottom lip on April 2 this year, which may leave him with permanent scarring. He hit the aspiring actor without warning in an unprovoked attack, Wigan and Leigh magistrates heard. Matt was sentenced to six months in prison which has been suspended for two years, as well as being handed a community order and hefty fine. Cold Feet Rating: Icons Rating: Few sights are more depressing than a row of Hell's Angels 'hogs' in the car park of a service station. Inside, the white-haired bikers have swapped their chrome handlebars for walking frames and are hobbling to queue for the gents. Once, dolly birds clung on as they rode pillion. Now, if there's a girl on the back of the bike, she'll be a carer. Cold Feet used to be youthful and rebellious. These days it's just awkward (pictured, Robert Bathurst, James Nesbitt and John Thomson) Cold Feet (ITV) is like that. It used to be youthful and rebellious. These days it's just awkward. 'I don't wanna grow old, I'm not ready to,' wailed James Nesbitt as Adam. His eyebrows were so arched and black, it looked like he had a Victorian railway viaduct painted on his forehead. Widower Adam has been chatting up younger women for years, and as the series returned he excelled himself panting over a coffee-shop barista without realising that she was actually going out with his teenage son. Isn't that hilarious? And not the least bit creepy. Usually when we meet characters like Adam in TV dramas, they have a basement lined in plastic sheeting where they dissect their victims while listening to Mahler. His best mates Jen and Pete (Fay Ripley and John Thomson) were interrupted in a lay-by by a traffic copper while having sex on the front seat of a car. They seemed to think this confirmed they were young and fun-loving but when you do that in your 50s, it's called something else... Nothing ever changes in the world of Cold Feet. Every episode we get the surreal dream sequences and the laboured jokes, unaltered in two decades Adam and Pete still meet up most nights for a few pints with their mate David (Robert Bathurst), who is bankrupt but can somehow afford a round of drinks at 20 quid a throw. We're meant to believe their boozing is normal behaviour. The reality is, it's as horrible as discovering that Rick, Vyvyan and Neil the Hippy from The Young Ones are still getting together on a Friday night to trash a curry house and throw up in the municipal flower beds. Nothing ever changes in the world of Cold Feet. Every episode we get the surreal dream sequences and the laboured jokes, unaltered in two decades. The real reason those feet are cold is that the whole show is a rigid corpse. Musical joke of the night: Railway lover Chris 'Professor Higgins' Tarrant invited us on Extreme Railway Journeys (C5) to see 'why the train in Spain is getting such acclaim'. That gag would work better if the show was called My Fare Lady. Ole! If the gang were behaving awkwardly, their antics were nothing compared with the reaction of Springwatch's Chris Packham when he encountered physicist Albert Einstein's favourite jacket, on Icons (BBC2). Pressing his face against the decaying leather, Chris inhaled deeply. 'We naturalists have a keen sense of smell,' he declared. Einstein, apparently, smelled of tobacco and sweat. This eccentric history series is not to be taken too seriously. In each episode, a presenter trots through four famous biographies of scientists, politicians or artists, and invites us to vote on who was the greatest. In each episode, a presenter trots through four famous biographies of scientists, politicians or artists, and invites us to vote on who was the greatest Trying to decide whether Marie Curie made a greater contribution to science than Alan Turing is a strange sort of beauty contest, with no right answer. But the format allows us to celebrate great men and women, while learning about others who are unjustly ignored I confess I'd never heard of the Nobel prize-winning researcher Tu Youyou, who helped develop a medicine to fight malaria. The rules weren't consistent. We were encouraged to treat Marie Curie's tempestuous private life as irrelevant, while Turing earned bonus points for being hounded to death over his secret homosexuality. But the trumped-up competition provided a good excuse to re-examine these lives, and Chris displayed his usual gift for setting out complex arrays of facts in a clear, easy-to-follow style. As a storyteller, he's not to be sniffed at. Gemma Collins has 'threatened to quit Dancing On Ice after being left 'devastated' by Holly Willoughby's criticism of her behind the scenes behaviour. The TOWIE star, 37, was said to be in 'floods of tears' after hearing show host Holly, 37, slam her backstage antics live on This Morning on Monday. The TV personality, who styles herself as The GC, is now said to be threatening to quit Dancing On Ice after her headline-grabbing first week on the ITV1 celebrity skating competition. Drama: Gemma Collins was left 'devastated' by Holly Willoughby's criticism of her behind the scenes behaviour on Dancing On Ice A source told The Sun: 'She's devastated by everything that's been said and is threatening to quit. She's feeling there's a conspiracy to bring down their biggest star.' The insider added that Gemma left 15 minutes early during the live Dancing on Ice show on Sunday because she was 'exhausted' after a day of skating and a 9am start. 'On the first show she told an exec she was the star so shouldn't have to be in group performances or stand on the balcony to watch the others,' the source adds. The insider goes onto claim that producers know Gemma is a 'nightmare' behind the scenes but they're willing to put up with her behaviour because she is this series' biggest star. Upset: According to a new report from The Sun, the TOWIE star was in 'floods of tears' after hearing DOI host Holly slam her backstage antics live on ITV's This Morning on Monday Not impressed: Holly slammed Gemma for her 'lack of professionalism and 'diva' behaviour after bored star left live show early on Sunday Representatives for Gemma and Dancing On Ice have been contacted by MailOnline for comment. On Monday DOI hosts Holly and Phillip Schofield publicly slammed Gemma for her lack of professionalism, with Holly telling This Morning: 'I absolutely love Gemma, 37, but there needs to be needs to be professionalism on a show like that. Kem Cetinay, 22, - who is This Morning's backstage reporter on the ITV talent show, claimed she left the live broadcast before the end because she was a 'bit bored'. Dancing On Ice hosts Holly and Phillip, - who also helm This Morning - were left flabbergasted by her 'diva' attitude and Holly insists she needs to have more 'pride' in her work. Kem revealed why Gemma was missing in action, saying: 'We went into the live show, and then the last quarter of the show, she went home. 'Well I didn't know she went until after but then we saw this video and I was thinking, 'I don't know where Gemma is,' and I went to her dressing room and she wasn't there. Dancing On Ice hosts: Holly and Phillip Schofield, 56, - who also helm This Morning - were left flabbergasted by her 'diva' attitude and Holly insists she needs to have more 'pride' in her work Gemma's chequered reality past 2014: TOWIE rages Fuming: Gemma was well-known for her shocking TOWIE behaviour, including a memorable row with Ferne McCann in which she stated: 'I'm 34-years-old I've earned my diva-ship' Gemma was well-known for her shocking TOWIE behaviour, including a memorable row with Ferne McCann in which she stated: 'I'm 34-years-old I've earned my diva-ship'. 2015: THAT I'm A Celebrity... Get My Out Of Here stint Stunned: Gemma left I'm A Celeb viewers shocked four years ago, when she departed the jungle after just three days Gemma left I'm A Celeb viewers shocked four years ago, when she departed the jungle after just three days, amid claims of starvation and a self-diagnosis of Malaria. After much criticism, she insisted she donated her 4800 fee - the percentage she received of her full sum - to charity. 2016: The dramas of Celebrity Big Brother Shocker: Gemma was showing all the hallmarks of her 'divaship' in Celebrity Big Brother Gemma was showing all the hallmarks of her 'divaship' in Celebrity Big Brother as she lashed out at bosses for various challenges the housemates were faced with. She was the seventh star evicted from the house. 2017: The ill-fated stay on Sugar Free Farm Not so sweet: Gemma was one of the rebellious stars of the show, which sees a host of celebrities gather on a farm and totally cut out their sugar intake Gemma was one of the rebellious stars of the show, which sees a host of celebrities gather on a farm and totally cut out their sugar intake. She joined Alison Hammond in stealing food from the kitchen, as she said: 'Me and Alison are clearly the rebels of the sugar-free farm'. Advertisement 'So I did speak to her after and she said she was a bit bored, but she does love skating.' Holly then gave her opinion on The GC's no-show, saying: The thing is I really love Gemma, you know I'm a big fan of Gemma's and I think she's great on the show I do, but I think there has to be a bit of professionalism that comes into any work you do, just a bit of pride in your work.' Phil then scornfully added: 'In all the years I've been in television, I have never kept a studio waiting.' Shock: Explaining Gemma's excuse for her behaviour, Kem said: 'I think, she says it's not Gemma Collins, that's The GC' Explaining Gemma's excuse for her behaviour, Kem said: 'I think, she says it's not Gemma Collins, that's The GC.' But Holly was in no mood to indulge Gemma's diva alter ego. The presenter said: 'But then that's absolute rubbish, that's just a really good excuse to get away with stuff you don't want to do. I love that side of her, I do love it, but I do think professionalism will always outweigh that diva behaviour.' A spokesperson for Gemma declined to comment to MailOnline. Star power: An insider has claimed that producers know Gemma is a 'nightmare' behind the scenes but they're willing to put up with her behaviour because she is this series' biggest star Holly's words come a day after it was reported that Gemma had infuriated her co-stars by turning up late to rehearsals for the week two routine. In a VT ahead of the performance, the group were left questioning where the reality star was as they gathered on the rink for training. One asked: 'Is she sleeping?' before Gemma made her grand entrance onto the ice. Completely unapologetic about her late arrival, she quipped: 'I'm the GC, remember?!' She later told the cameras: 'I was late but I showed up. I'm bringing out my inner diva for this number.' Married Neighbours star Mark Little, 59, who reportedly sent a series of suggestive WhatsApp messages to a busty model after she contacted him online, became the first star to be voted off the show this weekend. He said on Monday: 'At least I got the ice dancer gear on. I get my London bus pass this year, so I'm pretty proud of myself. Dance partner Brianne Delacourt said: It's hard but I'll still be involved, I'll be back on the show on Sunday.' Mark concluded: 'I'll definitely continue my skating. Ice people are nice people.' Charlie Sheen's decades-long dance with the fast life of drugs, booze and scores of women has been well chronicled, and even spoofed in TV and film. But in the wake of his HIV diagnosis, the one-time wild man of Hollywood has made a more impressive transformation since going public with his new journey in life. 'That was good, that was good, yes, indeed had to be done, had to be done,' the now 53-year old actor confessed to Extra. Might transformation: Charlie Sheen gave the thumbs up at the California Strong Celebrity Softball Game in Malibu on Sunday admitting to reporters: 'I feel good' in reference to celebrating one year clean an sober in December The admission came during his appearance at the California Strong Celebrity Softball Game in Malibu on Sunday. Flashing a big beaming smile during a photo-op, he added: 'I feel good.' The Wall Street star is now focused on another addiction in 2019, one that he has battled since his years as a young burgeoning star in the 1980s. 'I did the resolutions before new year showed up, but I have to work on the smoking thing that's not good,' he said about his cigarette habit that at times has reached two packs a day. Courageous: 'That was good, that was good, yes, indeed had to be done,' the actor said about going public with his new journey in life as a clean and sober man living with HIV The other addiction: Sheen is currently trying to quit smoking Sheen has had a long, and well publicized, battle with substance abuse. The father of five has previously said that he was clean and sober for 11 years, but began to use again after he was diagnosed with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) in 2012. 'It was to suffocate the anxiety and what my life was going to become with this condition and getting so numb I didnt think about it,' he revealed in an appearance on the Dr. Oz Show as reported by People. 'It was the only tool I had at the time, so I believed that would quell a lot of that angst. A lot of that fear. And it only made it worse.' Young gun: The now 53 year old actor had his breakthrough in the 1986 military drama Platoon Big hit: Sheen made waves as the lead in 1987's Wall Street, alongside his father Martin Sheen Sheen has appeared in a slew of hit films that included Platoon (1986), Wall Street (1987), Young Guns (1988), Eight Men Out (1988) Major League (1989) and Hot Shots! (1991). He went on to earn multiple Golden Globe and Emmy nominations on the popular sitcom Two And A Half Men from 2003 to 2011. Most recently he starred in the drama film 9/11 in 2017, alongside co-stars Whoopi Goldberg, Gina Gershon and Luis Guzman. The Mary Queen of Scots star, 28, pictured on January 15 last year, said: Im so angry theres this social contract' She tied the knot with boyfriend Tom Ackerley two years ago but Margot Robbie says she is fed up of being asked when the couple are going to have children. The Mary Queen of Scots star, 28, told Radio Times: Im so angry theres this social contract. Youre married, now have a baby. Dont presume. Ill do what Im going to do. Miss Robbie, who plays Elizabeth I in the period drama, said pressures placed on the monarch to produce an heir angered her during filming. How dare some old guy dictate what I can and cant do when it comes to motherhood, she said. Miss Robbie launched her own production company in 2014 to find better roles. She said: I wasnt seeing many scripts where I wanted to play the female role 'The female roles are always a catalyst for the male story, and thats unsatisfying. So I was like, Well, well start making our own films, because we cant just sit around for ever and wait for them to come along. Michelle Yeoh is set to jet into the outer reaches of the universe when she takes over her own Star Trek series. The 56-year-old Malaysian actress will take the lead in a new spin-off from CBS All Access' Star Trek: Discovery. The Crazy Rich Asians star plays dual roles on the show as Captain Philippa Georgiou and her mirror from an alternate dimension, Emperor Philippa Georgiou. Where no woman has gone before: Michelle Yeoh, 56, will take the lead in a new spin-off from CBS All Access' Star Trek: Discovery; still from Star Trek: Discovery season one 'Michelle has shattered ceilings, broken boundaries, and astonished us with her grace and gravitas for decades,' said Discovery Executive Producer Alex Kurtzman in a statement today. 'As a human, I adore her. As an actor, I revere her.' 'I'm so excited to continue telling these rich Star Trek stories,' said Michelle in response to the news. 'Being a part of this Universe and this character specifically has been such a joy for me to play. I can't wait to see where it all goes certainly I believe it will go 'where no WOMAN has ever gone before!' Her new series will be led by Executive Producers Bo Yeon Kim and Erika Lippoldt, both new to the Star Trek franchise. More of Michelle: She's also expected to continue to be a recurring character on Discovery, so Star Trek fans will be seeing quite a bit of her in the next few years; shown on January 6 Michelle's future series is still in the early development stages, according to Deadline. She's also expected to continue to be a recurring character on Discovery, so Star Trek fans will be seeing quite a bit of her in the next few years. The Memoirs Of A Geisha star's tenure on Discovery has been complicated, to say the least. She originally played the Captain of the Discovery, though her character was dispatched early in the show's run. The Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon star made a surprise return as a devious, alternate dimension version of the captain. It's that mirror version of Philippa Georgiou that now exists on the series. New threads: The Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon star made a shocking return as a devious, alternate dimension version of Captain Georgiou; still from Star Trek: Discovery season one Lots of options: Because the former Bond girl plays two roles, her new spin-off could function either as a prequel to Discovery focusing on Captain Georgiou's adventures, or as a concurrently running series following her new character; pictured on January 8 Because the former Bond girl plays two roles, her new spin-off could function either as a prequel to Discovery focusing on Captain Georgiou's adventures, or as a concurrently running series following her new character. Emperor Georgiou will be part of Section 31, a secret arm of Starfleet that operates in more ethically questionable scenarios. Discovery has already adopted a darker style than previous Star Trek shows, and Michelle's new spin-off could go further in that new direction. Her new series will join other upcoming Star Trek expansion shows. Patrick Stewart will be returning to the franchise for an upcoming show about Captain Picard, and a half-hour animated comedy series aimed toward adult viewers is also in the making. (ANSA) - Orsitano, January 15 - As well as having talks with the warden and a psychologist at Massama Prison near Oristano in Sardinia, former leftist terrorist Cesare Battisti also met the jail's chaplain, Father Gabriele Cossu. He also received the first visit from his defence lawyer Tuesday, Milanese criminal lawyer Davide Steccanella. Battisti was arrested in Bolivia at the weekend after 37 years on the run and is set to serve life for four murders. South Africa: President Ramaphosa on drive to improve public service President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to visit various government departments in a bid to build an efficient and effective public service, which puts the people first. The Presidents drive will see him visiting the Department of Defence and Military Veterans, as well as the State Security Agency in Tshwane this morning. The visits form part of the commitment given in the Presidents 2018 State of the Nation Address that he would engage with and visit senior officials in government departments to ensure that the work of government is effectively aligned, the Presidency said. Last year, the President visited the Department of International Relations and Cooperation and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. President Ramaphosa has emphasised the building of a developmental State that puts people first and has dedicated public servants who work diligently to improve the lives of the people. The President has commended many public servants, who are committed and dedicated professionals and perform their tasks faithfully. [However], he has also noted that there are some whose indifference to the needs and concerns of citizens have led to a deterioration in the quality of services and assistance rendered, the Presidency said. The President has called on public servants to serve the nation with commitment, diligence, humility, respect and honesty, and to make sure that they are effective agents of transformation. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-01-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. A New Jersey high school student who has never been in a movie before has been cast in the coveted role of Maria in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story remake. Rachel Zegler, 17, landed the role after submitting a video of herself singing one of the film's most iconic songs, I Feel Pretty, in Spanish to producers. She first learned about the auditions in January 2017 from a Twitter ad asking for actors from within the Latinx community. Zegler's mother Gina is Colombian and her father, who works in construction, is American. The teenager is a part-time wedding singer and honor roll student. 'I am so thrilled to be playing the iconic role of Maria alongside this amazing cast,' she said in a statement about the announcement after it was made on Monday. She will star alongside 24-year-old Ansel Elgort, who will play Tony, and Ariana DeBose, who will play Anita. Career break: Steven Spielberg has cast unknown wedding singer Rachel Zegler, 17, as Maria in his West Side Story movie remake alongside Ansel Elgort She also wrote on Instagram: 'When I played Maria on stage a few summers ago, I never could have imagined that I'd be taking on the role again in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story. 'As a Colombian-American woman growing up in this day and age, strong roles like Maria are so important. 'To be able to bring that role to life - a role that means so much to the Hispanic community - is so humbling.' Zegler went viral last year after posting a video of herself singing Lady Gaga's song from A Star is Born, Shallow. It garnered almost 500,000 views. West Side Story, with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, was first performed on Broadway in 1957. Beautiful brunette: The actress in an Instagram snap posted on December 5, beat 30,000 people to the role, (left) and Natalie Wood (right) in the original film Rachel is an honors student who lives in Clifton, New Jersey, with her father Craig, mother Gina and 20-year-old sister Jacquelin Zegler first heard about the role from a Twitter ad asking for Hispanic actors to audition The teenager has never been cast in a film before but has an impressive following on YouTube and social media Zegler has been bowled over by the reaction she has received since the announcement was made It was made into a Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise movie in 1961, with Russian actress Natalie Wood playing the lead role of Maria, and Richard Beymer as Tony. The show has been on Broadway and around the world several times over the past decades. Spielberg made clear that he would only cast Latina and Latino actors for the Puerto Rican roles. The original film faced criticism for its largely white cast who played Hispanic characters. He told Deadline: 'I'm so happy that we've assembled a cast that reflects the astonishing depth of talent in America's multifaceted Hispanic community. Her leading man: Ansel Elgort, 24, will play Rachel's love interest Tony, who was played by Richard Beymer in the original film Broadway veteran Ariana DeBose, 27, (left) will star as Anita who was played by Rita Moreno (right). Moreno has signed on as an Executive Producer and she will also appear in the film in a written-in role David Alvarez will play Bernardo, the villainous leader of the Sharks gang who was originally played by George Chakiris Josh Andres Rivera will play Chino. Jose Vega assumed the role in the original film Moreno, who starred in the original, is signed on as an executive producer and will also appear in the film in the role of Valentina - a re-written, female version of store-owner Doc, right, from the original film Steven Spielberg said the cast 'reflects the astonishing depth of talent in America's multifaceted Hispanic community' 'I am in awe of the sheer force of the talent of these young performers, and I believe they'll bring a new and electrifying energy to a magnificent musical that's more relevant than ever.' Broadway veterans Ariana DeBose, 27, and David Alvarez, 24, will star as Anita and Bernado, members of the Sharks gang. Ariana appeared in Hamilton and was nominated for a Tony award for starring in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical. David won a Tony in 2009 for originating the title role in Billy Elliot: The Musical. Ariana said: 'Im honored to follow in the footsteps of the remarkable women who have played Anita including Chita Rivera and, of course, the incomparable Rita Moreno. 'I relate so strongly to Anita a strong Puerto Rican woman who came to New York in search of opportunity and I feel so fortunate for the chance to work with this amazing cast and creative team.' Filming will reportedly begin this summer. Liam Hemsworth celebrated his 29th birthday on Sunday. And to commemorate the big day, the Australian actor showed off his impressive driving skills, performing wheelies on a red quad bike. In a video shared on Instagram, the Hunger Games star is seen riding past a camera on a cemented path before performing the thrilling bike maneuver. It looks wheely fun! Liam Hemsworth showed off his impressive skills on a quad bike while he celebrated his 29th birthday on Sunday In the hilarious stunt, Liam is seen giving a funny blank stare to the camera as he drives by. Keeping warm in the cold weather, Liam is bundled up in a bomber jacket and tracksuit pants, paired with gumboots and a beanie. 'Birthday wheelies all day. Thanks for the love everyone!' his caption read. He's got some serious motor skills! To commemorate the big day, the Australian actor showed off his impressive driving skills, performing wheelies on a red quad bike Meanwhile, on Monday, Liam's wife Miley Cyrus paid a heart-warming tribute to her beau on his special day. The songstress, 26, shared a lengthy letter to her husband on Instagram, writing: 'L, HBD [Happy Birthday] to my #1'. 'When we met you were 19, today you are 29... I thought I could share some of my favourite things about my favourite dude in honour of this very special day,' she wrote. Daredevil: In the video shared on Instagram, the Hunger Games star was seen riding past the camera on a cemented path, performing the thrilling bike maneuver Miley detailed some of Liam's great qualities, including his contagious positive nature. 'The look on your face when you receive good news and how you look AT the bad news. I love how you always try things your way, but are never too proud to ask for help. (Yes, I've noticed and taken note, I'm a work in progress),' she penned. Miley continued: 'I love your dirty socks on the floor cause that means YOU'RE HOME. I love when you introduce me to a new band, so when you're away I can listen, and it feels like you're here. Birthday tribute: On Monday, Liam's wife Miley Cyrus paid a heart-warming tribute to her beau on his birthday 'I love laying in bed late at night looking for new recipes, only going to sleep so we can wake up and make breakfast together while having a hot cup of coffee (almost as hot as you are).' Miley gushed over the activities the lovebirds share, including eating Chinese food after a night of drinking, attending parties and brushing their teeth together in the morning. 'I love going to a random party and remembering basically everyone is fake AF out here and how lucky I am to share a life with someone so REAL. I love how you let ME be ME. Put simply... I love YOU. Unconditionally,' she fondly expressed. In love: The songstress, 26, shared a lengthy letter to her husband on Instagram , writing: 'L, HBD [Happy Birthday] to my #1' 'In our time together you have displayed what it really means to love through all circumstances. I respect you and you respect me. 'You and me baby... let's take this dark place head on and shine through with the light of L.O.V.E. Thank you for giving me the happiest days of my life.' The couple exchanged nuptials in their home in Franklin, Tennessee in December. Miley and Liam have been in an on-again-off-again relationship for years, and first got engaged back in June 2012. They first met on the set of the movie The Last Song in 2009, in which they played a couple, foretelling their real-life future. Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show episode that was taped in Puerto Rico with Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda is being called a 'love letter to the island' as it still tries to rebuild in the wake of 2017's Hurricane Maria. 'It's a real celebration of Puerto Rico,' Fallon told The Associated Press of Tuesday's episode of the NBC late-night show. 'It's not just a pity party, it's a party party.' The show aims to boost tourism and let viewers know about other ways to help in the rebuilding process that has been estimated to cost more than $130 billion. Special Edition: Jimmy Fallon (left) taped an episode of Tonight Show in Puerto Rico, where he joins the cast of Hamilton with creator Lin-Manuel Miranda (center); they perform The Story of Tonight from the Tony-winning musical which will air on Fallon's show on Tuesday, Jan. 15 Never one to be shy when it comes to showing his excitement and enthusiasm, Fallon boasted: 'It's one of the best shows, if not the best show, we've ever done. It's amazing.' The inspiration to take the New York-based - Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon - to the island came from Miranda last year, when he told the late show host his plan to stage a run of Hamilton on the island, which opened this past Friday in San Juan. With a little help from Fallon, Miranda and his troupe perform The Story Of Tonight number from his Broadway hit on Tuesday's broadcast. Views: Fallon took in the sights with members of Tonight Show band The Roots; he is pictured with Tariq 'Black Thought' Trotter and Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson Explore: Fallon toured some of the devastated areas ripped apart by 2017's Hurricane Maria Music artists Bad Bunny, Jose Feliciano and Ozuna also are featured in the episode that includes Fallon showcasing island activities and some food play with chef-activist Jose Andres, who led a grass-roots effort to feed residents of the devastated island. There's also a music video with Fallon, Bad Bunny and Tonight house band The Roots that was filmed in San Juan's historic district with marching bands and dancers. The special episode closes with Feliciano and Ozuna singing the beloved Puerto Rican tune 'En Mi Viejo San Juan' (In My Old San Juan). Tropical trip: The special show aims to boost tourism and let viewers know how to help in the rebuilding process; the late night host is pictured with reggae sensation Bad Bunny Getting down: Fallon and Bad Bunny even hit the streets for some fun in the sun Tour guide: Fallon also showcases island activities and food play with chef-activist Jose Andres When asked why he and his crew took on the complicated and costly task of bringing the show to Puerto Rico, he wasted little time delivering a response. 'But I'm American, and we've got to step up, we've got to help each other,' he said. 'That's the message that Lin and Jose are sending through their charities and what they're doing.' The reaction from the locals to the show's presence has been overwhelming. 'I said "gracias" so much, my Spanish got much better,' the funnyman joked. He also thinks the episode is way for the Tonight Show to stay fresh with new ideas. 'We're always changing, always doing something different and always growing. And I think it's good, as my mom would say, to get out of the house.' Must see: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon episode from Puerto Rico airs Tuesday During his brief downtime on the island, Fallon visited one struggling area still facing big challenges, including school closures. It's not part of the episode, but viewers are given information on how they can donate to charities aiding in the island's recovery. Fallon also strongly suggests taking an island vacation as a way to help the recovery. 'You can have fun and that would mean just as much as giving. It's a win-win,' he said. I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! producers are no doubt hoping for a 'jungle romance' between Justin Lacko and Angie Kent this season. But before they met for the first time in the South African jungle over the weekend, Gogglebox star Angie made regrettable comments about Justin's sexuality. In a Twitter post from June 2018, which was shared by Angie and Yvie Jones' joint account, Justin was described as 'clearly gay'. 'Come out already': I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here's Angie Kent (left) called Justin Lacko (right) 'clearly gay' when he was on Love Island - as the pair are tipped for a 'jungle romance' The tweet was a reference to the male model's appearance on Love Island Australia, where he failed to build a romantic connection with any of the women. 'Justin, she's probs not into gay guys,' wrote Angie and Yvie. The two women then suggested Justin was being dishonest about his sexuality, adding the hashtags 'clearly gay' and 'come out already'. Whoops! In a Twitter post from June 2018, which was shared by Angie and Yvie Jones' joint account, Justin was described as 'clearly gay'. Pictured: Angie and Yvie That's not very nice! The two women then suggested Justin was being dishonest about his sexuality, adding the hashtags 'clearly gay' and 'come out already' Meanwhile, Justin described Angie as 'cute' on Monday's episode of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, hinting at a possible attraction. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Channel 10 for comment. Back in June, Justin - who identifies as straight - responded to rumours about his sexuality during an interview with Daily Mail Australia. No dramas! Back in June, Justin - who identifies as straight - said he found the rumours about his sexuality 'quite funny'. Pictured on Love Island Australia 'I find it quite funny because if anything I would be questioning maybe some of the other guys [on Love Island],' he said. 'I could say the same thing about some of the boys who have like a massive bromance - and some of the guys shower naked together.' I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! continues Tuesday at 7:30pm on Channel 10 She's a pioneer in promoting diversity in Australian modelling. And Indigenous model, Samantha Harris, recently stripped down to lingerie as part of a new body confidence campaign with Bras N Things. The 28-year-old showed off her statuesque frame in a burgundy lace bra and matching underwear, while posing alongside the likes of influencer, Steph Claire Smith, 25, high jumper, Amy Pejkovic, 25, and environmentalist, Laura Wells, 30. Model behaviour! Samantha Harris (left), Steph Claire Smith and more flaunt their figures in racy lingerie to promote body confidence for Bras N Things campaign. Pictured right, Amy Pejkovic The new Bras N Things Fits Me campaign is designed for 'women from all walks of life'. Bondi Sands model Steph Claire Smith oozed confidence in a racy red lingerie set, including thigh-high stockings. 'BNT Fits Me and fits everyone, for whatever their needs are,' Steph said in a statement on Monday. Body diversity: The new Bras N Things. Fits Me campaign is designed for 'women from all walks of life'. Pictured L-R, Amy, Samantha, Steph and Lauren Wells Racy! The models oozed confidence as they happily posed together to showcase different body types Red hot! Influencer Steph posed in a racy lingerie set, including thigh-high stockings 'When I walk into their stores, I can be who I want to be and feel great about it. She added: '...And when you have the right fit, you'll feel better and have the confidence to strut what you've got.' Sportswoman Amy and plus-size model Laura Wells also stripped down for the racy photo shoot. Posers: The models appeared to be in high spirits throughout the racy shoot Confidence: Steph showcased her radiant glow and toned figure in a strapless nude set All four women happily posed in lingerie together to represent different body types. Last year, Samantha, who in 2010 became the second Indigenous model to ever grace the cover of Vogue Australia, applauded diversity on Australian runways. 'Australia is nowadays very multicultural,' she told SBS' Living Black. 'There are plenty of different races and it's nice to showcase what we have to offer on the runways It's celebrating us as a country.' Sleepwear: Lauren (left) and Sam (right) modelled brightly-coloured pyjamas Rachael Taylor attended the 30th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival on Sunday. The 34-year-old Australian actress stunned as she walked the red carpet for the closing night screening of her new movie Ladies in Black, posing alongside her fellow cast members. Rachael exuded elegance in a black strapless frock with bow detail, which was nipped in at the waist to accentuate her trim tummy. Scroll down for video Lady in black! Rachael Taylor showed off her lithe frame in elegant strapless frock at the Palm Springs Film Festival on Sunday She finished off her look with matching bow stilettos. Letting her little black dress do the talking, Rachael simply accessorised with a pair of gold button stud earrings. Showing off her flawless visage, the blonde beauty kept her makeup minimal, adding a touch of highlighter to her cheeks and a pink lip. Natural beauty: Showing off her flawless visage, the blonde beauty kept her makeup minimal, adding a touch of highlighter to her cheeks and a pink lip She left her blonde wavy locks out to cascade past her shoulders and parted in the middle. It comes after Rachael reflected on her new role as Fay in the 2018 all-female drama Ladies in Black. Set in the 1950s, Rachael plays Fay, a complicated former cocktail waitress who lands a job at the prestigious David Jones department store in Sydney. Candid: It comes after Rachael reflected on her new role as Fay in the 2018 all-female drama, Ladies in Black (pictured: L-R Rachael Taylor, Alison McGirr and Celia Massingham) Speaking in the Sydney Morning Herald last year, Rachael said her role centred on 'female desire' at a very specific time in Australian culture. 'It's very much about a specific moment in time in Australian culture - 1959 on the cusp of the 1960s, which was an era when there was a great transformation for women,' she said. Directed by legendary film-maker Bruce Beresford, the movie follows four ladies working at the luxurious store, with each living out their own personal struggles. Flashback: Set in the 1950s, the blonde beauty plays Fay, a complicated former cocktail waitress who lands a job at the prestigious David Jones department store in Sydney (pictured with Sue Milliken) All smiles: Last year, speaking in the Sydney Morning Herald , Rachael said her role centred on 'female desire' at a very specific time in Australian culture (pictured: L-R Alison McGirr, Bruce Beresford, Rachael Taylor and Celia Massingham) The film is an adaption of the novel Women in Black by author Madeleine St John. Rachael said that while each of the characters are very relatable, her's focuses on the struggle to find true love. 'For my character, it's about her commitment to true love, and the other characters have different wants and desires that they're both realising, and in some more painful moments, not realising.' The actress stars alongside Angourie Rice, Julia Ormond and Alison McGirr in the film. Michelle Wolf's routine for the White House Correspondents Association dinner on April at the Washington Hilton was raunchy and controversial at times. It including one joke about abortion that visibly unsettled the crowd, and uncomfortable personal attacks on White House staffers present. Here are some of the highlights: ON PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP 'Like a porn star says when she's about to have sex with a Trump, let's get it over with,' Wolf said to open the act. 'You know he's not any good.' 'It's 2018 and I am a woman so you cannot shut me up. Unless you have Michael Cohen wire me $130,000,' said Wolf, referencing the Stormy Daniels controversy. 'You can find me on Venmo under my porn star name: Reince Priebus.' Wolf also addressed Trump's absence head on: 'I would drag him here myself, but it turns out that the president of the United States is the one p***y you're not allowed to grab.' On Trump pulling out of the Paris climate accord, she said: 'He said he was going to pull out and he did, and that's a refreshing quality in a guy.' 'You might be rich in Idaho but in New York you're just doing fine,' she said. Using call and response from the audience, Wolf shouted 'Trump is so broke', to which the audience responded 'how broke is he?' Among her responses were: 'He has to fly failed business class'; 'He looked for foreign oil in Don Jr's hair'; 'Southwest used him as one of their engines'; and 'He had to borrow money from the Russians and now he's compromised.' 'Trump is racist. He loves white nationalists, which is a funny term for a Nazi, it's like calling a pedophile a kid-friend or Harvey Weinstein a lady's man.' And finally: 'He grabs p**sies because he thinks there might be loose change in them.' ON VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE 'Mike Pence is what happens when Anderson Cooper isn't gay. Mike Pence is the kind of guy who brushes his teeth and then drinks orange juice and thinks, Mmm,' said Wolf. 'He thinks abortion is murder. Which first of all don't knock it til you try it. And when you do try it, really knock it, you gotta get that baby out of there.' ON SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS AND KELLYANNE CONWAY The room grew quiet and groans were heard as Wolf directed harsh jokes at White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was sitting just feet away, including attacks on her appearance. 'I have to say I'm a little starstruck, I loved you as Aunt Lydia in A Handmaid's Tale. Mike Pence, if you haven't seen it you would love it,' said Wolf, turning to Sanders. 'Every time Sarah steps up to the podium, I get excited because I'm not really sure what we're gonna get. A press briefing, a bunch of lies, or divided into softball teams. [in deep voice] "It's shirts and skins and this time don't be such a little b***h Jim Acosta."' 'I like Sarah, I think she's really resourceful. She burns facts and uses the ash to create a perfect smokey eye,' the comedian added. 'Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's lies. It's probably lies.' 'I'm never really sure what to call Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Is it Sarah Sanders, is it Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is it Cousin Huckabee, is it Aunt Huckabee Sanders?' Wolf said, continuing, 'What's Uncle Tom but for white women who disappoint other white women? Ah I Know, Aunt Coulter.' Wolf also took shots at counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway. 'Man, she has the perfect name for what she does. Conway. It's like if my last name was tells-jokes-frizzy-hair-small-t*ts.' Ivanka Trump also came under fire: 'Ivanka, she was supposed to be an advocate for women but she is about as helpful to women as an empty box of tampons.' Wolf also compared the president's daughter to a 'diaper genie', saying she 'Looks sleek on the outside, but inside is full of s**t.' ON CONGRESS 'I'm here to make jokes. I have no agenda, I'm not trying to get anything accomplished. So everyone who's here from Congress, we should get right get along.' 'Mitch McConnell isn't here tonight, he had a prior engagement. He's finally getting his neck circumcised.' 'Paul Ryan couldn't make it, of course he's already been circumcised. Unfortunately while they were down there they also took his balls.' ON THE MEDIA 'I known there's a lot of people who want me to talk about Russia, and Putin, and collusion, but I'm not gonna do that because there's also a lot of liberal media here, and I've never really wanted to know what any of you look like when you orgasm. Except maybe for you, Jake Tapper. I bet it's something like this [blank face] "Ok, that's all the time we have."' 'CNN, you guys love breaking news. And you did it, you broke it.' 'Fox News is here so you know what that means, ladies: cover your drinks.' 'We've got MSNBC here. MSNBC's new slogan is 'This Is Who We Are', guys that is not a good slogan.' 'We cannot forget about Rachel Maddow, she's the Peter Pan of MSNBC. But instead of never growing up she never gets to the point. Watching Rachel Maddow is like going to Target. You went in for milk but you left with shampoo, candles and the entire history of the Byzantine Empire.' 'What would I do without Megyn Kelly? Probably be more proud of women.' 'I watch Morning Joe every morning. Now we know Mika and Joe are engaged, it's like when a MeToo works out.' Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky are in the process of building an $8million mega-mansion in Byron Bay, New South Wales. And the coastal town is reportedly seeing a rise in housing prices due to the presence of the big-name pair. Realestate.com.au chief economist Nerida Conisbee told news.com.au that the famous family are luring buyers to the area. 'They are giving the area a very high profile!' Expert says Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky's sprawling mega-mansion has caused Byron Bay house prices to soar Chris is pictured with his wife Elsa Pataky 'There's always been a lot of celebrities who have loved living up in that area but they (Hemsworths) are very high profile and they are giving the area a very high profile as well,' she said. Prices are booming as a result, 'This would definitely be pushing Byron Bay up the list in terms of international visibility,' she adds. The paper reports that, 'the median property price in Byron Bay has reached $1.75 million' which is higher than many prices in Sydney. Massive: Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky are in the process of building an $8million mega-mansion in Byron Bay, New South Wales (pictured) Digs: The new development is replacing Chris and Elsa's Balinese-style, eight-bedroom resort home, also in Byron Bay, for which they paid approximately $7million for in 2014 (pictured) Catch of the day: Realestate.com.au chief economist Nerida Conisbee says that the famous family are luring buyers to the area Chris and Elsa have been living in the area, and building a new compound that has been compared to a supermarket in size. The new development is replacing Chris and Elsa's Balinese-style, eight-bedroom resort home, also in Byron Bay, for which they paid approximately $7million for back in 2014. The new, architecturally-designed estate is estimated to be costing the Avengers star over $8million to build. All his fault? The paper reports that, 'the median property price in Byron Bay has reached $1.75 million' which is higher than many prices in Sydney The home is located within bushland at Broken Head, but is conveniently just minutes from the beach. It is expected to feature a gym, steam room, large swimming pool, luxury spa, media room and games room, as well as vast outdoor spaces and six bedrooms. Chris and Elsa were married in 2010 and share three children together, daughter India Rose, six, and twin sons Tristan and Sasha, four. It's been rumoured that Liv Phyland may have with split with her TV star boyfriend, Dr Chris Brown. But the beauty appeared in high spirits when she was pictured with The Bachelorette's Luke McLeod earlier this month. Liv was seen smiling alongside the reality star and three other friends in an image uploaded by Luke to Instagram. A shoulder to lean on? Liv Phyland (back right) recently spent time with The Bachelor's Luke McLeod (front left) after a reported split from her TV star beau Dr Chris Brown In happier times? It's been rumoured that Liv may have with split with Dr Chris after a short-lived relationship 'Please get more legends around you in 2019!!' Luke captioned the snap, which saw Liv posing at the side of a Volkswagen Kombi. And while Liv, 28, may be leaning on Luke in the wake of a possible split, New Idea reported on Monday that the image 'was said to have 'broken' Chris' heart. Chris, 40, is currently on location in South Africa for hosting duties on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, and Daily Mail Australia has reached out for comment. Friends: Luke shot to fame on the 2017 season of The Bachelorette where he competed for the heart of Sophie Monk Meanwhile, Luke isn't the only male pal with whom Liv has recently been seen. On Sunday, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the beauty was seen with several men on Sydney's Tamarama beach following a recent surf session. An alleged onlooker told the newspaper that 'the petite blonde seemed close to one male in particular.' Just friends? An alleged onlooker told The Sydney Morning Herald that 'the petite blonde seemed close to one male in particular' at Tamarama beach in the past week However, Liv was with another female friend at the time and the whole group engaged in conversation. Chris arrived in South Africa on January 6, and will be there until mid-February while presenting I'm A Celebrity alongside Julia Morris. Working away! Chris arrived in South Africa on January 6, and will be there until mid-February while presenting I'm A Celebrity alongside Julia Morris (pictured) It was first reported that Chris was dating Liv in November - after splitting from long-term girlfriend TV producer Kendall Bora in September. Despite being photographed on romantic dates together, neither Chris or Liv have ever publicly confirmed their romance. Livs relationship with actor Nick Slater ended earlier this year. Caroline recently set herself up as the B&B Doctor after realising there was no one-stop B&B service online for owners keen to chat about their plans The next time you stay in a terrible B&B, perhaps leave the owners a discreet note suggesting they see a doctor B&B doctor Caroline Nolder, that is. Caroline runs a highly successful B&B in Bruton, Somerset, called Turks Hall, but recently set herself up as the B&B Doctor after realising there was no one-stop B&B service online for owners keen to chat about their plans. The self-proclaimed #granpreneur (she has six grandchildren) communicates with her clients via Whatsapp and Facetime but she told MailOnline Travel the secrets to running the perfect lodge over the phone. First on the agenda? The golden rules. The guest really is always right, says Caroline. I cant emphasise that enough. Even if theyre being difficult and tedious you have to just accommodate them as much as you can. 'If someone is very very fed up I do think its worth giving them a partial refund. That way, if you do get a bad review you can at least say youd offered to give some of the monies back. And I think having someone to meet and greet is absolutely essential. We always give guests a cup of tea or a glass of wine when they come. Be flexible up to a point, as one does have a life. If you need to explain to people why you might not be around, everyone is normally very accommodating. Guests are very keen that youre a person in your own right. They want to know that youre an interesting person. Also, make sure the bathroom is spotless and its essential that you keep the fridge in the kitchen tidy and the food in-date sometimes people do check the fridge! You cant tell them not to. Hypoallergenic bed linen is also a very good idea. Using social media is also key, says Caroline but not too much, and not too little. She explains: I think a lot of us are just about getting there with social media. My generation havent really embraced it, but we are now. I tend to do Instagram photographs of me as a person and if Im cooking something Ill say this is this and so on. I think Instagram lets people get to know who you are if theyre interested. If youre doing Instagram or Twitter you need to do it twice a week, not every day. But if people look on a social media page and there isnt something for six months, it doesnt look very professional. So if youre going to do it, do it regularly. The dining room in Caroline's Turks Hall B&B AT-A-GLANCE TOP TIPS FOR B&B OWNERS Three words to describe the ideal B&B Comfortable, convivial and convenient. The worst kind of B&B Dirty, unwelcoming and bad location. Where do most B&B owners go wrong? Cobbling together a bad website, wrong location and not doing their homework before they start. The 'golden rules' Always be there to greet your guests, invest in a good website, state house rules clearly on your website and promote on social media. The guest is always right! Golden don'ts Do not be too trusting. Do not have dirty basins and showers or out of date food. Don't lose your temper. How should a B&B owner deal with stroppy guests? Stay calm. Be tactful but firm. Look into their complaint. Do not give them cause to write a bad review. Are there any free things B&B owners can do to improve their property? Flowers, iced water in rooms, toiletries and homemade cakes. Expensive things to improve it Egyptian cotton sheets, gorgeous curtains and draperies, climate control systems, consider creating a home gym. Source: The B&B Doctor Advertisement A swish website is important, too. And to build the swishest Caroline recommends using Wix.com. She enthuses: Wix.com is a very good portal for doing websites, which is what I use. People can do it themselves, it costs them very little. 'Keep it simple and plain. Wix will help you make it clear and concise and they have very good follow up. But there are other portals as well. A good website, she emphasises, is a sign of a B&B that cares. She adds: Bad websites that look old fashioned, people are just not going to bother about. Theyll think if they cant be bothered with their website, why would they bother with their B&B? I recommend creating a virtual tour of the whole house and see exactly what its like before they come. I also have a picture of the kitchen. People really like to see where food is being processed. For anyone reading this who might fancy themselves as a B&B owner, Caroline has some words of advice before they dive in think where your customers are going to come from. Turks Hall is in Bruton, Somerset She says: A lot of people think weve got a house, two bedrooms, a bathroom down the corridor, lets open it up. They spend money doing it up and might do a bathroom. Then they suddenly think oh wait, where are the customers coming from? And I think one of the major things when opening a B&B is to think about where your customers are coming from. If youre in the middle of nowhere the chances are youre not going to get enough monies to pay for the things youve done to the house. I think it takes three years. I think its worth going round to see the other B&Bs in your area and talking to them. Most people Ive found are incredibly friendly and out there to help each other. Certainly in Somerset. People go out of their way to help each other. When we were in France it was the opposite. The basic question to ask yourself is do you like people and are you prepared to have them in your house? It really does impede on family life. You have to be very certain youre the right person. Advertisement There are a multitude of countries that once existed - but have now vanished, their nationhood wiped out. Fifty such lost lands have been documented in a fascinating book called Nowherelands An Atlas of Vanished Countries 1840 1975, by Bjorn Berge. What binds them - from Heligoland in the North Sea to Hejaz on the Arabian Peninsula, where Lawrence of Arabia roamed - is that they all once issued their own stamps. Solid proof that they did indeed once exist. Here MailOnline Travel examines the tales of six of these nations and presents their stamps, with the kind permission of publisher Thames & Hudson. Scroll down for a fascinating voyage of discovery. Heligoland 1807 to 1890. Population - 2,200. Area 0.65 square miles Heligoland (pictured), formed from two small islands 45 miles off the western coast of Germany, was conquered without resistance by England in 1807 Heligoland was used as a command post for espionage against Napoleonic forces, then, from around 1826 onwards, it was used as a spa and bathing resort From the 1860s Heligoland began to issue its own stamps (pictured) Heligoland, formed from two small islands 45 miles off the western coast of Germany, was conquered without resistance by England in 1807, having previously been used as a base by pirates and owned by Germany and Denmark. At first it was used as a command post for espionage against Napoleonic forces, then, from around 1826 onwards, it was used as a spa and bathing resort, with wealthy visitors from England, Prussia, Poland and Russia flocking there to soak in cold saltwater baths, British doctors having declared them as being good for the health. At this time there were around 2,200 people living on it. From the 1860s Heligoland began to issue its own stamps but in 1890 was given to Germany in exchange for the east African island of Zanzibar. The Germans changed the named to Helgoland and used it as a naval base in the First and Second World Wars. The British took back control of it in 1945, but in 1952 it was handed back to Germany once more. Berge says: By that time they are utterly lacking in any traces of history other than the occasional bomb crater. The stamps it issued were, unusually, two colours always red and green on white paper. And they featured, of course, Queen Victoria. Van Diemens Land 1803 to 1856. Population - 40,000. Area 26,409 square miles In the 18th century there were few places on earth that had been discovered that were more mysterious than Van Diemens Land, off the south-east coast of Australia When the British arrived in Van Diemen's Land somewhere between 3,000 and 7,000 Aboriginal people dwelled there, mostly living off kangaroo meat The first Van Diemen's Land stamps were issued around the 1850s In the 18th century there were few places on earth that had been discovered that were more mysterious than Van Diemens Land, off the south-east coast of Australia. Berge explains that a measure of its mysteriousness was the fact that it was the setting for Jonathan Swifts 1726 book Gullivers Travels. At that time, explorers didnt even realise that it was an island. But by the end of the 1700s the British had circumnavigated it and worked out that it was an island roughly the size of Ireland. Then they turned it into a gigantic penal colony. Berge writes: Of the 12,000 people on the island in 1822, 60 per cent were prisoners. To secure law and order, the entire place was organized as a police state. The prisoners were mostly from Ireland, Wales and Scotland and guilty of rebellion against the British authorities. When the British arrived somewhere between 3,000 and 7,000 Aboriginal people dwelled there, mostly living off kangaroo meat. But in 1820, feeling threatened, they burned a number of farms and killed the occupants. The British response was merciless, explains Berge. By the 1850s they had killed all but 16 of the Aboriginals, many having wasted away in concentration camps. The colony got its first stamps around this time, featuring Queen Victoria. But soon afterwards, in 1856, the governor, William Denison, concerned that the islands name had a stigma attached to it from its history of bloodshed and repression, decided to change its name to Tasmania. In 1876 the last Aboriginal inhabitant died and in 1901 it was merged with Australia. New Brunswick 1784 to 1867. Population 193,000. Area 28,149 square miles New Brunswick (pictured) was partitioned off as a separate colony in 1784. It was named after the Duchy of Braunschweig in northern Germany, the childhood home of the British king, George I New Brunswick was incorporated as a Canadian province in 1867. The British and French fought furiously over Canada During its time as a British country, New Brunswick issued 11 postage stamps, including one in 1860 bearing, uniquely, the image of a steamship The French officially discovered Canada in 1534, but the British wanted to stake a claim to chunks of it and fought several wars with them in the 17th and 18th century over Nova Scotia (New Scotland) - named thus by Scotsman Sir William Alexander in 1632. They were eventually victorious and booted the French out - and established peace with the indigenous Mi'kmaq. New Brunswick at that time was part of Nova Scotia but was partitioned off as a separate colony in 1784. It was named, explains Berge, after the Duchy of Braunschweig in northern Germany, the childhood home of the British king, George I. It was incorporated as a Canadian province in 1867. During its time as a British country, it issued 11 postage stamps, including one in 1860 bearing, uniquely, the image of a steamship, probably the SS Hungarian, a British transatlantic passenger ship wrecked on the treacherous sandbanks of Cape Sable Island, south of Nova Scotia. All 205 on board died. Eastern Karelia 1922. Population 100,000. Area 19,305 square miles Eastern Karelia could be found wedged between Finland and the Soviet Union, and formed in the wake of Finland declaring independence on December 6, 1917 Eastern Karelia sprung up because its largely Finnish-speaking population felt betrayed at being on the wrong side of the new border with the Soviet Union The stamps for Eastern Karelia, on which a huge angry bear is depicted, were only valid for about two weeks The stamps for Eastern Karelia, on which a huge angry bear is depicted, were only valid for about two weeks, from January 31 to February 16, 1922. It could be found wedged between Finland and the Soviet Union, and formed in the wake of Finland declaring independence on December 6, 1917. New borders were drawn up between Finland and the Soviet Union, but, as Berge explains large Finnish-speaking areas in Eastern Karelia were left on the Soviet side of the border... The population felt betrayed and rebelled. However, the uprising was eventually crushed by Soviet troops and the resistance crumbled in February 1922. Eastern Karelia became the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic but is today part of Karelia, one of Russias 21 federal republics. Inini 1931 to 1946. Population 5,000. Area 23,166 square miles Inini came into being in 1930 after a decision was taken to use the inland areas of French Guiana for agriculture, forestry and controlled gold mining, explains Berge. Officials believed these endeavours would be more efficient if they took place in a separate colony The land that formed Inini is some of the most biodiverse on the entire planet Inini issued its own stamps from 1932 onwards in the form of French Guianan issues with a Territoire de LInini overprint Inini, South America, was twice the size of Belgium, writes Berge, but had only 3,000 inhabitants, not including some indigenous people, whom nobody had bothered to count. It came into being in 1930 after a decision was taken to use the inland areas of French Guiana for agriculture, forestry and controlled gold mining, explains Berge. Officials believed these endeavours would be more efficient if they took place in a separate colony. Berge writes: It was assigned a governor and named Inini after a tributary of the much larger Maroni River. The local people knew the environment, but it was seen as a hopeless project to use them to clear roads and build railways. Prisoners were thus brought in to form the workforce. But it was a fiasco. He continues: Little land was ever cleared and the few railway lines and roads that were built quickly disintegrated. And today we can count ourselves lucky that it was so, because the jungle is so biodiverse. It is said that the biodiversity on a single hectare of land here is greater than in the whole of Europe. It issued its own stamps from 1932 onwards in the form of French Guianan issues with a Territoire de LInini overprint. Inini ceased to be in 1946 when French Guiana became a department of France. Hejaz 1916 to 1925. Population 850,000. Area 96,525 square miles Before Saudi Arabia, there was the Kingdom of Hejaz, which formed briefly between 1916 and 1925 Hejaz lay on the western side of the Arabian Peninsula, stretching along the shores of the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aqaba in the north all the way towards Yemen in the south Before Saudi Arabia, there was the Kingdom of Hejaz, which formed briefly between 1916 and 1925. It lay on the western side of the Arabian Peninsula, stretching, as Berge explains, along the shores of the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aqaba in the north all the way towards Yemen in the south. Before 1916 the area was part of the Ottoman Empire, but with the help of the British and one T E Lawrence, the Ottomans were driven out during what came to be known as the Arab Revolt. One T E Lawrence chose the stamp design, which he found at a Cairo railway station Lawrence chose the motif for the kingdom's stamps, which he found at the railway station in Cairo. The text in the circle reads 'Venerable Mecca'. The kingdom's independence ended when the Sultanate of Nejd in the east invaded. In victory they combined the two states to form the Kingdom of Nejd and Hejaz, which was renamed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. OTHER VANISHING ACTS... Vancouver Island Vancouver Island was a self-governing colony between 1849 and 1866. It began issuing stamps in 1860. In 1871 it became part of a unified Canadian province. Obock Obock, on the Ethiopian border, was the first French colony in the Red Sea region and was a self-governing administration between 1862 and 1894, when it was dissolved. Boyaca Until 1863 Boyaca was part of Colombia but became a sovereign state after a bloody civil war. That state of affairs lasted until 1885, when it was downgraded to a province. However, it did issue its own stamps in 1899. Its now divided into Boyaca, Arauca and Casanare. Eastern Rumelia Eastern Rumelia, sandwiched between Bulgaria and Macedonia, was a separate nation between 1878 and 1908, when it was reunited with the rest of Bulgaria. Ile Sainte-Marie Ile Sainte-Marie, off the coast of Madagascar, became a separate French colony between 1894 and 1896. It then became subordinate to Madagascar, writes Berge. Today it goes by its original name of Nosy Boraha. Advertisement Nowherelands is out now, published by Thames & Hudson, priced 16.95 A controversial trial has used a hi-tech headband to monitor the brains of schoolchildren in class to ensure they are concentrating. Massachusetts-based start-up BrainCo says its Focus 1 headbands can help teachers identify pupils who need extra assistance. It partnered with a Chinese school for the recent trial using schoolchildren between 10-17, and says it is also working with schools in the US, Mexico, Spain, and Brazil. Scroll down for video Massachusetts-based start-up BrainCo says its Focus 1 headbands can help teachers identify pupils who need extra assistance Teachers monitored pupils' attention using an app which received information from the headbands. Lights on the front of the devices also show different colours for varying concentration levels, flagging to staff if students are not paying attention. 'With BrainCo's brainwave-detecting headbands and software platform, educators can track student engagement and class attention levels as they're happening,' the firm behind the headband boasts. HOW THE HEADBAND WORKS The headbands use electroencephalography (EEG) sensors to detect brain activity when the wearer is engaged in a task. Typically, the brain's high-frequency beta waves are increased when we are focused, and the low-frequency alpha and theta waves are more excited when we are relaxed. The patterns vary from person to person, so Focus determines each user's maximum attention level via a series of mental tasks. A high numerical score for the EEG signal suggests that a student is paying attention; a low score is interpreted as a distracted or unfocused student. Advertisement However, neuroscientists have questioned the devices' effectiveness and the technology has also raised privacy concerns. The headbands use electroencephalography (EEG) sensors to detect brain activity when the wearer is engaged in a task. The devices were worn by 10,000 schoolchildren aged between 10 and 17 during a recent 21 day trial in China, according to New Scientist. Students also played a smartphone game aimed at improving their concentration for 25 minutes at home each day. BrainCo founder and chief executive Bicheng Han told New Scientist the trial led to improved grades among participants, who also needed to spend less time on homework. The company has signed a deal to provide 20,000 headbands to a Chinese distributor. 'Our goal with the first 20,000 devices, each of which will be used by multiple students in schools, is to capture data from 1.2 million people,' Mr Han. However, the China study's results have not been published in an academic journal and scientists have voiced doubts about the technology. The firm is also running a pilot study at a Boston-based high school to offer focus and relaxation neurofeedback training to students to enhance their learning efficiency and education outcomes. Russell Barkley, clinical professor of psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University, said any improvements were likely to be caused by the placebo effect. 'It's from parents' expectation, not the products, he said. It ruled the seas for 21 million years - but then mysteriously disappeared. Megalodon is the most massive shark species that ever lived, growing to 60 feet long, three times the size of the largest of today's great whites. Yet researchers have never found out why it suddenly disappeared 2.5 million years ago - until now. New researcher has revealed energetic particles from an exploding star, known as muons, could have been to blame. Scroll down for video Megalodon is the most massive shark species that ever lived, growing to 60 feet long, three times the size of the largest of today's great whites. Yet researchers have never found out why it suddenly disappeared 2.5 million years ago. WHAT IS A MUON? They are made when high-energy particles called cosmic rays slam into atoms in Earths atmosphere. They can sail through Earth's atmosphere with greater ease than protons and electrons. Travelling at close to the speed of light, muons shower Earth from all angles. Every hand-sized area of the planet is hit by roughly one muon per second, and the particles can pass through hundreds of metres of solid material before they are absorbed. Advertisement A new study claims energetic particles from an exploding star, known as muons, may have contributed to the extinction of the prehistoric monster shark megalodon. The new research, led by Adrian Melott, an astrophysicist at the University of Kansas, concluded a supernova around 2.6 million years ago would have increased the flow of muons streaming through the atmosphere several hundred times over. 'We find that the radiation dose from the muons will exceed the total present surface dose from all sources at depths up to 1 km and will persist for at least the lifetime of marine megafauna,' the team wrote in the journal Astrobiology. 'It is reasonable to hypothesize that this increase in radiation load may have contributed to a newly documented marine megafaunal extinction at that time.' The study estimates cancer rates could have increased by 50 percent for an animal the size of a human, Melott told Quanta. For a mammoth or a megalodon which was the size of a school bus the radiation dose would be even worse, THE BIGGEST SHARK EVER The megalodon, meaning big-tooth, lived between 15.9 and 2.6 million years ago. C. megalodon is considered to be one of the largest and most powerful predators in vertebrate history and fossil remains suggest it grew to 59 ft (18 metres) long. It's thought the monster looked like a stockier version of today's much feared great white shark and weighed up to 100 tons. Megalodon is known from fossilized vertebrae and teeth, which are triangular and measure almost eight inches (20cm) in diagonal length. Famed fossil hunter Vito 'Megalodon' Bertucci took almost 20 years to reconstruct a megalodon's jaw - largest ever assembled - which measures 11 ft across and is almost 9 nine ft tall. The Megalodon's colossal mouth would have produced a but force of 10.8 to 18.2 tons. The ancient shark has been described as a super predator, because it could swim at high speeds and kill a wide variety of prey such as sea turtles and whales, quickly in its strong jaws. Advertisement The fossilized jaw of a giant, prehistoric Megalodon shark at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History 'It's an interesting coincidence,' he said. Researchers have previously suggest two supernovae had substantial effects on the terrestrial atmosphere and life on Earth during the Early Pleistocene. When a star dies, its 'guts' stream ut, and within them is a rare form of iron known as iron-60. By looking for this, researchers have been able to roughly date when supernovae hit Earth. A recent study found one event took place roughly 2.6 million years ago, and another sometime between 6.5 million and 8.7 million years ago. Another recent study claimed the shark itself could be to blame, because of its inability to regulate its temperature and deal with cooling oceans. Preliminary tests found that, compared to modern sharks, megalodons 'maintained a higher body temperature' Michael Griffiths, an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Science at William Paterson University in New Jersey, told Live Science the megalodon was unusually hot. Ancestors of today's makos and great white sharks that swam alongside megalodon millions of years ago likely had body temperatures of about 68 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit (20 to 30 degrees Celsius), the researchers say - while megalodon may have been running a body temperatureas high as 95 to 104 degrees F (35 to 40 degrees C), which is the body temperature of whales, Griffiths said. Modern-day sharks can self-regulate their body heat and adapt to their environments. To keep their temperatures warm enough to survive, it is believed the megalodon ate large quantities of food. However, as the oceans cooled during the Pliocene, its prey was able to adapt, while the megalodon was not. HOW WOULD A SUPERNOVA AFFECT EARTH? Researchers have previously suggest two supernovae had substantial effects on the terrestrial atmosphere and life on Earth during the Early Pleistocene. The blasts would initially have lit the night sky, potentially disrupting circadian rhythms. An influx of blue light at night may have had physiological effects for weeks to follow. Artist's impression of a supernova About 500 years later, there may have been increased ionization in the troposphere, which may have triggered climate change. At the ground level and in the upper ocean, muon irradiation would have increased 20-fold for several thousand years, causing the radiation dose to triple. This may have put large organisms, including human ancestor Homo erectus, at higher risk of cancer and mutations. Advertisement 'While still preliminary, these results may provide clues as to what may have led to the demise of O. megalodon during the Pliocene,' researchers wrote in a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union 'Cooling of ocean temperatures during the Pliocene would have constrained the species to lower latitudes where ocean temperatures were warmer, whilst its preferred prey (e.g., whales) evolved traits to adapt to cooler temperatures of the higher latitudes. 'Therefore, large climatic shifts combined with evolutionary limitations may provide the 'smoking gun' for the extinction of the largest shark species to ever roam the planet.' Professor Sora Kim and her colleagues are interested in why an apex predator vanished. Megalodon is the most massive shark species that ever lived, growing to 60 feet long, three times the size of the largest of today's great whites. Yet researchers have never found out why it suddenly disappeared 2.5 million years ago. Using fossilized teeth from different sites around the world that span megalodon's time as the ocean's apex predator, the researchers will use a suite of analytical methods not typically used in paleontology to probe them and improve understanding of the largest shark that ever swam Earth's oceans. 'I'll use stable isotope analysis and build a bridge between classical paleo and modern techniques,' Kim said. By performing 'isotope fingerprinting' on oxygen, strontium, calcium and other trace elements found in fossilized megalodon teeth, Kim and colleagues will be able to answer fundamental questions about megalodon that have eluded scientists up to now. 'What did the meg eat? Could megalodon regulate its own body temperature? What was its environment like? And why did it go extinct? Isotope fingerprinting will provide more definitive answers to these questions,' Kim said. 'Batterygate' may have had a far bigger impact on Apple's iPhone sales that the tech giant admitted, it has been revealed. Following Apples revision to its Q1 2019 earnings that saw billions wiped off its value, CEO Tim Cook told employees the firm had replaced dramatically more batteries than usual in 2018. During an all-hands meeting, Tim Cook reportedly stated that Apple replaced 11 million batteries over the duration of the $29 replacement program triggered by the 'batterygate ' row over throttling iPhones, according to Daring Fireball. During a normal year, Apple plans to replace around between 1 and 2 million batteries, Cook said during the meeting. Scroll down for video Apple CEO Tim Cook this week told investors that the main drag on the firm's performance in China had been a sharper-than-expected slowdown in the country's economy, exacerbated by the impact of trade tensions between Washington and Beijing. WHAT WAS 'BATTERYGATE? In December 2017, Apple was forced to apologize after iPhone users found out that the Cupertino company was throttling phones when their batteries degrade. In an open letter to infuriated customers, the tech giant wrote: Weve been hearing feedback from our customers about the way we handle performance for iPhones with older batteries and how we have communicated that process. We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down. We apologise. By way of apology, Apple reduced the cost of replacing iPhone batteries for models 6 and up to 25 ($29) 54 ($50) down from their original costs. Advertisement 'A few million extra iPhone users happy with the performance of their old iPhones with new batteries who would have otherwise upgraded to a new iPhone this year put a ding in the bottom line,' said Daring Fireball's John Gruber, The $29 replacement initiative was active for almost exactly a year. It first emerged in December 2017, when Apple was forced to apologize after iPhone users found out that the Cupertino company was throttling phones when their batteries degrade. By way of apology, Apple reduced the cost of replacing iPhone batteries for models 6 and up to 25 ($29) 54 ($50) down from their original costs. Last month, Apple issued its first revenue warning in nearly 12 years, sending its shares down 10 percent, their biggest intra-day fall in six years. That rare forecast cut exposed weakening iPhone demand in China, the world's biggest smartphone market, where a slowing economy has also been buffeted by a trade war with the United States. However, it comes as Apple CEO Tim Cook told Mad Money's Jim Cramer, when asked about reports that the iPhone XR was a flop, Cook says he calls 'bologna on that.' Apple plans to launch three iPhone models this year with some new camera features, including three rear cameras for the most expensive model and two for the other models, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The new iPhones will succeed the XR model that has shown sluggish demand, which according to Apple was due to weak sales in China. That led several electronics retailers in the world's second largest economy to slash iPhone prices this week. Apple was not available for comment outside regular business hours. The Cupertino, California-based company has decided to stick to liquid-crystal display (LCD) at a time when sluggish sales of iPhone XR cut into its most recent revenue projection, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. Apple shares plunged over 9 percent earlier this month as Wall Street was rattled by the Silicon Valley giant's shock revenue warning. The firm said it now anticipates lower revenues of $84 billion Apple plans to continue with LCD model as the device has been in the production pipeline for months, the report said. However, for 2020, Apple will fully switch to the organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, display for iPhones, thereby completely dropping the LCD model, the report said. Shares of the company was nearly flat in premarket trading. Apple, which slashed its quarterly sales forecast last week, has reduced planned production for its three new iPhone models by about 10 percent for the January-March quarter, the Nikkei Asian Review reported on Wednesday. BATTERYGATE COMES TO THE IPHONE X The row over Apple's decision to slow down the performance of iPhones has resurfaced after the firm revealed its latest iOS update brings the controversial 'throttling' feature to iPhones bought just a year ago. The firm, which was hit by a huge customer backlash after the 'batterygate' throttling was first revealed, has previously said there was no need to bring the 'performance management feature' to its latest phones. However, the release notes for iOS 12.1, released on Tuesday, revealed Apple has brought the controversial feature to the iPhone X, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus - which were released just a year ago. To check if Apple is throttling your phone, go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health. It will show the exact amount of degradation on your battery, and it will tell you if it's being throttled The row led to many accusing Apple of 'built-in obsolescence' that effectively forced users to buy a new phone. As batteries in all phones and gadgets age, they become less effective. Meanwhile, as software becomes more advanced, it puts more of a strain on the battery and processor as the phone ages, and in come cases, this can cause phones to simply shut down. Apple's performance management feature throttles some system components, such as the CPU and the GPU, as the battery degrades over time to prevent the device from randomly shutting down. Previously, this was an automatic feature in every iPhone, but following outrage from users, Apple began giving them the option to turn it off in iOS 11.3. But Apple admitted in the iOS 12.1 release notes that the performance management feature will be turned on for its latest iPhone models - many of which users have only owned for a year or less. Advertisement He said the iPhone XR has, in fact, been the most popular iPhone 'every single day' since it started shipping out to customers. Many analysts and consumers have said the new iPhones are overpriced. Rembrandt is one of the most famed artists of all time and scientists have finally discovered the secret ingredient to his iconic technique. The Dutch genius refined his impasto technique, which gave a 3D appearance to his work, with a mystery recipe for his paint. Centuries of research found it to be a combination of materials traditionally available on the 17th century Dutch colour market, namely lead white pigment, cerussite and organic mediums such as linseed oil. Until now, the exact combination remained a mystery. Scientists have used cutting-edge imaging techniques to find the missing ingredient called plumbonacrite. This is now used in the car manufacturing industry as a colour preserver for red and orange paints. Scroll down for video Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 1669) (pictured) was one of the world's greatest painters and an important figure in Dutch history. He refined his impasto technique, which gave a 3D appearance to his work, with a mystery recipe for his paint Plumbonacrite is extremely rare in historic paint layers and has only ever been detected in some samples from 20th century paintings and in a degraded red lead pigment in a 19th century painting by fellow Dutch master Vincent Van Gogh. Main author Dr Victor Gonzalez, of the Rembrandt Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and Delft University of Technology, explained: 'We didn't expect to find this phase at all, as it is so unusual in Old Masters paintings. 'What's more, our research shows its presence is not accidental or due to contamination, but the result of an intended synthesis.' Impasto is where thick layers of paint create visible brush or knife strokes in amounts that enable them to stand out from the surface. The word originates from the Italian verb impastere, 'to put in paste' and the method increases the perceptibility of the paint by increasing its light-reflecting textural properties. The study, published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, used state of the art scanning machines at the European Synchrotron, Grenoble, France (ESRF), to discover just how impasto came to be. They took tiny samples from three of Rembrandt's masterpieces - the Portrait of Marten Soolmans at Rijksmuseum, Bathsheba from The Louvre in Paris and Susanna housed at Mauritshuis in The Hague. Radiation X-ray beams allowed the Dutch and French team to identify the chemicals in Rembrandt's impasto and in the adjacent paint layers. Study Of A Head Of A Young Man (pictured), measuring just over 25cm (10 inches) high, is expected to fetch about 6 million ($7.8m) when it is auctioned in London next month Then they modelled the shape and size of the pigments, calculating their distribution at the microscale. The samples were less than 0.1mm in size, requiring the small and intense light to produce high resolution images. Dr Marine Cotte, an internationally renowned art conservation expert at the ESRF, said: 'In the past, we have already successfully used the combination of these two techniques to study lead white based paints. WHO WAS REMBRANDT? Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 1669) was one of the world's greatest painters and an important figure in Dutch history. Known for his self-portraits and biblical scenes, his early work was small but rich in detail; religious and allegorical themes were prominent. He then moved to use light, leaving large areas of his paintings obscured in shadow. Starting in 1628, Rembrandt took on students, and is believed to have had around 50. Often blamed for Rembrandt's supposed downfall are the death of his wife and the supposed rejection of a painting called the Nigth Watch by those who commissioned it. Advertisement 'We knew the techniques can provide us with high quality diffraction patterns and therefore with subtle information about paint composition.' The analysis of the data showed Rembrandt modified his painting materials intentionally. Explained Dr Cotte: 'The presence of plumbonacrite is indicative of an alkaline medium. 'Based on historical texts, we believe that Rembrandt added lead oxide, or litharge, to the oil in this purpose, turning the mixture into a paste-like paint.' The breakthrough also opens the door to the long-term preservation and conservation of Rembrandt's masterpieces. But the number of samples studied is not extensive enough to assess if lead white impastos systematically contain plumbonacrite. Added Dr Annelies van Loon, of the Rijksmuseum: 'We are working with the hypothesis that Rembrandt might have used other recipes, and that is the reason why we will be studying samples from other paintings by Rembrandt and other 17th Dutch Masters, including Vermeer, Hals, and painters belonging to Rembrandt's circle.' Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born in Leiden in The Netherlands in 1606 and died in 1669. In 2009 his 'Portrait of a man, half-length, with his arms akimbo' was sold at Christie's auction house in London for 20.2 million, which is the most ever paid for one of his works. Human beings have 17 different facial expressions that tell those around us we are feeling happy. Experts have discovered that the human face is capable of contorting itself into more happy faces than any other emotion. Only three facial guises successfully convey fear, four show surprise, and five display sadness and anger. Scroll down for video Human faces are able to create more than 16,000 expressions and 17 different ways to display happiness using facial muscles. Subtle differences create different looks but all portray the same message. Researchers used a vast internet search of approximately 7.2 million images in their study. This included celebrities, sports stars, politicians and even stock image models Researchers at the Ohio State University compiled a list of 821 words that expressed emotions and had these translated into a number of languages including Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Farsi and Russian. These were entered into popular search engines across countries and the team collected approximately 7.2 million images of facial expressions online. Using computer algorithms, the researchers established that human face is capable of configuring itself in 16,384 unique ways, combining different muscles in different ways. Despite the plethora of facial arrangements that are possible with the human face, researchers found only 35 were transferable over different cultures. This may be a testament to the variety of ways in which joy is felt by humans, such as in the form of cheer, delight and contentedness. Professor Aleix Martinez, cognitive scientist, at The Ohio State University, said: 'Happiness acts as a social glue and needs the complexity of different facial expressions; disgust is just that: disgust.' Experts have discovered that the human face is capable of contorting itself into more happy faces than any other emotion. Only three facial guises successfully convey fear, four show surprise, and five display sadness and anger. Happy faces range from a big cheesy grin to a subtle smirk and even a mid-laugh snap Despite the plethora of facial arrangements that are possible with the human face, researchers found only 35 were transferable over different cultures. More than half of these were related to happiness Disgust is only revealed by our faces via one culturally transferable expression. The latest study builds on Martinez's previous research that showed people can correctly identify facial emotions about 75 percent of the time based solely on tiny differences in differences such as the colour of a person's nose, eyebrows, cheeks or chin. So they were shocked to find that only 35 expressions could be understood across all of human kind. The latest findings are published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing. The loneliest frog in the world may have found a mate after ten years of isolation. Romeo, a Sehuencas water frog, was collected by biologists ten years ago and has spent the ensuing decade in a Bolivian aquarium. Experts believed his species to be in danger of extinction and has spent the ensuing decade in a Bolivian aquarium. Romeo attracted international attention as the last known member of his species and found himself lacking any company. His keepers collaborated with Match.com in an attempt to find him a partner, where he was described as 'not fussy' and a 'pretty simple guy'. Scroll down for video Single and ready to mingle: A frog, dubbed the loneliest frog in the world, may have found a match after ten years in isolation in an aquarium in Bolivia. Lovesick Romeo, a Sehuencas water frog, was collected by biologists ten years ago as his species was in danger of becoming extinct One year on, scientists may have found him his Juliet while on an expedition to an isolated Bolivian cloud forest. Five Sehuencas water frogs were spotted in a stream and subsequently captured to become part of a breeding programme before reintroduction in the wild. The group consisted of three males and two females and constitute the first sighting of Romeo's species in the wild for a decade. Romeo's future stablemates are now in quarantine at the Museo de Historia Natural Alcide d'Orbigny in Cochabamba City in Bolivia. Teresa Camacho Badani, chief of herpetology at the Museo de Historia Natural Alcide d'Orbigny, told BBC News: 'Romeo is really calm and relaxed and doesn't move a whole lot.' 'He's healthy and likes to eat, but he is kind of shy and slow.' However, Juliet has rebellious traits. 'She's really energetic, she swims a lot and she eats a lot and sometimes she tries to escape,' said Ms Badani. Romeo attracted international attention as he was the last known member of his species and found himself lacking in any company. His keepers collaborated with Match.com in an attempt to find him a partner. Pictured here, Teresa Camacho Badani looking at Juliet Love is in the air: The team spotted five Sehuencas water frogs in a stream and captured them to breed them with a view to re-introduce them into the wild. The three males and two females are the first sighting of Romeo's species seen in the wild for a decade. Here, Juliet Chris Jordan of Global Wildlife Conservation, which is supporting conservation efforts, said: 'We have a real chance to save the Sehuencas water frog - restoring a unique part of the diversity of life that is the foundation of Bolivia's forests, and generating important information on how to restore similar species at grave risk of extinction.' Before being introduced to Romeo, the five new frogs will be treated to protect against an infectious diseases such as chytridiomycosis, which is wiping out amphibians around the world. Romeo will then meet Juliet, in the hopes that they will produce offspring that can eventually be returned to the wild. Around half of amphibian species are in decline, while a third are already threatened with extinction. According to the BBC, 22 per cent of amphibian species are threatened as a result of, habitat loss, pollution and climate change. Teresa Camacho Badani says Romeo's story is important to draw attention to their plight. Romeo's online dating profile campaign raised 19,000 last year, the money of which was used to spend on the exploration of bodies of water around Bolivia to search for the frogs, like the ones they found. Opposites attract? While Romeo is really calm and relaxed, Juliet, pictured here, has rebellious traits. She is energetic swims a lot and she eats a lot and sometimes she tries to escape, according to Ms Badani AFFAIRS - Women with long index fingers are more likely to have affairs Women with long index fingers on their left hands are more likely to have affairs, a study by Oxford University revealed. The findings surprised scientists as having a longer index finger is associated with having more typical female characteristics. The longer index finger and shorter ring finger have been linked to being exposed to higher levels of female sex hormones in the womb. It was assumed that women who were more feminised would be more likely to be satisfied with their romantic relationships, and to be less impulsive. Being more exposed to the sex hormone oestrogen in the womb leads to womens index fingers growing longer than their ring finger. By contrast, being exposed to more of the male sex hormone testosterone in the womb has a more masculinising effect - and results in a longer ring finger and a shorter index finger. SEXUALITY - Women with longer ring fingers are more likely to be lesbian Women whose ring fingers are longer than their index digits more likely to be lesbian, according to a study by Essex University. Researchers looked at sets of identical twins where one of the siblings was heterosexual. They found that the homosexual twin tended to have a greater difference between the length of their index and ring finger, with the difference most pronounced among women. Previous research has indicated that exposure to the male hormone testosterone in the womb could be linked to differences in finger length and also to sexuality. Women's index and ring fingers are typically of similar length while in men there is a greater difference. Both men and women are exposed to the 'male' hormone testosterone in the womb. VOICE - Babies are more likely to have squeaky voices if the index finger is longer than their ring finger University of Sussex scientists found there could be a link between the length of a child's fingers and the pitch of their voice. A baby is more likely to grow to have a squeaky voice if the index finger on their right hands is longer than the ring finger, the research suggested. Similarly, scientists said the connection is probably the result of a lack of testosterone in the womb. Testosterone is known to be key to early body growth and plays an important role in how vocal pitch develops during puberty. JOB - Women with long ring fingers are more likely to have a traditionally female job A womans choice of career is linked to the length of her fingers, according to a study by the National Research University in Russia. Women whose index finger was short compared to their ring finger were more likely to have what was regarded as a traditionally male job, such as a lawyer or a manager in industry, the researchers found. And those whose index finger was longer than their ring finger were more likely to be employed in a stereotypically female career, such as nursing or primary school teaching. For the study, researchers from the National Research University in Russia analysed data from 1,500 men and women whose fingers were measured using digital callipers. They found that significant differences in the 2D:4D differences were observed only for women and mostly for the left hand. SHARING - Children with longer ring fingers are less likely to share Children who have index fingers shorter than their ring fingers are less likely to share their toys, research by the University of Vienna suggests. Evidence already exists to show they are more aggressive - but the new study shows they are also more selfish - and won't even share with friends. It is known those who have an index finger that is shorter than their ring finger are exposed to greater amounts of testosterone in the womb because the hormone affects the development of finger length. Anthropologists argue that higher levels of the hormone during pregnancy leads to a 'masculinisation effect' in both boys and girls. Testosterone levels remain high as children age. Austrian experts observed the habits of dozens of boys and girls given the choice of who gets glittery stickers to make the conclusion. Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered two ancient tombs dating back to the Roman period in the country's Western Desert. The team discovered structures of two different architectural styles at the Beir Al-Shaghala site in the Dakhla Oasis, though both were built from mud-brick. Inside the colorfully-painted tombs, they also found several human skeletons, clay lamps, and a number of pottery vessels. Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered two ancient tombs dating back to the Roman period in the country's Western Desert. Colorful funeral paintings in one of the ancient tombs is shown above Each of the tombs is decorated in vibrant funeral paintings, though much of the artwork has been lost to time. According to Egypts Ministry of Antiquities, the paintings once illustrated the process of mummifying the deceased. Archaeologists have been excavating the site since 2002 over the course of five archaeological seasons. Overall, theyve discovered more than 10 incomplete sandstone tombs at the site. The latest finds include one sandstone tomb with a 20-step staircase and a mud-brick tomb located on the east side of the first. In recent years, Egypt has heavily promoted new archaeological finds to international media and diplomats in the hope of attracting more visitors to the country. The vital tourism sector has suffered from the years of political turmoil since the 2011 uprising. Each of the tombs is decorated in vibrant funeral paintings, though much of the artwork has been lost to time. According to Egypts Ministry of Antiquities, the paintings once illustrated the process of mummifying the deceased The latest finds include one sandstone tomb with a 20-step staircase and a mud-brick tomb located on the east side of the first Archaeologists revealed another Roman-era discovery earlier this month from the Egyptian west coast. Recent excavations uncovered the ruins of a sprawling Hellenistic fortress constructed more than 2,000 years ago. Researchers say the ancient fortress was built to defend a port on the Red Sea coast, with three large courtyards and numerous structures that housed workshops and stores. Inside, the team also found trash heaps filled with terracotta figures, coins, and even a fragment of an elephant skull. The team discovered structures of two different architectural styles at the Beir Al-Shaghala site in the Dakhla Oasis, though both were built from mud-brick WHAT COULD NEW DISCOVERIES IN THE NILE VALLEY REVEAL ABOUT ANCIENT EGYPT? Researchers from the University of Chicago recently discovered two ancient buildings in southern Egypt. They reveal much about the country's history, but they also left archaeologists with new questions. The preservation of one of the buildings is curious to the researchers, who find it odd that the building wasn't stripped of its materials after they believe it was abandoned. Pictured is an archaeologist from University of Chicago examining remains from ancient Egypt. Researchers recently found two buildings that were built during a turning point in the country's history: when pharaohs became interested in provincial regions The trend at the time was to take from buildings any useful materials when abandoning them, but the building was left untouched. This is strange considering that wood was a rarity in the region. Researcher Nadine Moeller said: 'It's such a unique site. We've had a hard time finding architectural parallels because no other settlement in Upper Egypt has such extensive remains from this time period. We've learned so much, and there's still more to come.' Advertisement The ruins of the Roman city, called Berenike Trogodytika, were first discovered in 1818, though it wasnt until 2012 that excavations finally began. Work at the site uncovered a multi-phased building measuring about 160 meters long and 80 meters wide. The team also found a line of defenses along the north and north-east side. According to the researchers, the findings at Berenike represent the first known Hellenistic urban site in the region. A Harvard professor who received huge backlash after claiming the mysterious cigar-shaped space rock Oumuamua was an alien probe is steadfastly standing by his controversial theory. Avi Loeb, chair of Harvard University's Astronomy Department, has given an interview defending his hypothesis that the mysterious rock is 'a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth's vicinity by an alien civilisation.' Dr Loeb has now said that when humans succeed in leaving the solar system we will be greeted with a message that says 'Welcome to the interstellar club' from distant alien civilisations. Scroll down for video Oumuamua (artist's impression pictured), was first viewed by telescopes in October 2017. A Harvard professor received huge backlash after claiming the mysterious cigar-shaped space rock Oumuamua was an alien probe 'As soon as we leave the Solar System, I believe we will see a great deal of traffic out there,' he told Israeli newspaper Haaretz. 'Possibly we'll get a message that says, "Welcome to the interstellar club." Or we'll discover multiple dead civilisations - that is, we'll find their remains.' Oumuamua, Hawaiian for 'messenger' or 'scout,' was first viewed by telescopes in October 2017. The alien rock was the first interstellar object to enter our solar system and is about 1,300 feet long (400 meters), and only about 130 feet (40 metres) wide. Dr Loab and a team of researchers at Harvard published a research paper based on the theory that a quirk of its acceleration was a result of alien propulsion. 'Currently there is an unexplained phenomena, namely, the excess acceleration of Oumuamua, which we show may be explained by the force of radiation pressure from the sun,' co-author and Harvard astrophysicist Shmuel Bialy said at the time. 'However this requires the body to have a very large surface and be very thin, which is not encountered in nature.' Avi Loeb (pictured), is chair of Harvard University's Astronomy Department and gave an interview defending his hypothesis that the mysterious rock is 'a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilisation' The alien rock (artist's impression pictured) was the first interstellar object to enter our solar system and is about 1,300 feet long (400 meters), and only about 130 feet wide. Dr Loab and a team of researchers at Harvard published a research paper based on the theory that a quirk of its acceleration was as a result of alien propulsion Their suggestion of an alien force at work went viral and received condemnation from other scientists. Harvard's academics pressed ahead with their hypothesis despite the concerns from their peers. 'We have no way of knowing whether it's active technology, or a spaceship that is no longer operative and is continuing to float in space,' Professor Loeb added recently. 'But if 'Oumuamua was created together with a whole population of similar objects that were launched randomly, the fact that we discovered it means that its creators launched a quadrillion probes like it to every star in the Milky Way.' WhatsApp users have reported their messages are being deleted without warning. The incident seems to be affecting Android phones and has reportedly hit both older and more recent messages. WhatsApp users have taken to Twitter to vent their anger about the missing data. It is thought that a bug could be causing the problem, although WhatsApp itself has not confirmed whether this is the case. Scroll down for video WhatsApp messages are being deleted on Android phones without warning. Users have reported old and new messages disappearing. The app said last year that it would delete some messages which are not backed up on the Google Drive, which is free for WhatsApp users WABetaInfo, a WhatsApp leak site highlighted the problem on the social media site and received numerous replies that seem to confirm the bug theory. WhatsApp currently lets users backup messages on Google Drive for free and announced last year that it would start deleting old messages that were only backed up on the phone. It is not clear whether the current issues are due to WhatsApp's own actions or due to a bug, and the firm has not responded to social media calls for an explanation. Mailonline contacted WhatsApp and a spokesperson said: "We are aware of this bug and are working on a fix for the users we have encountered this issue." Some users have complained about old messages dating back a few years being affected while others say their most recent messages are disappearing. One user, Deny Sri Supriyono, responded to WABetaInfo saying that messages on his Xiaomi phone, the Mi A2 Lite, was disappearing within hours and on a daily basis. It is thought that a bug might be the cause of the problem and some users are saying it affects both old and new messages. One user, Deny Sri Supriyono, said messages on his Xiaomi phone, the Mi A2 Lite, disappeared within hours Both recent and old chats seem to be disappearing and no one knows what the logic is, although it has been suggested a bug is to blame for the issue occurring with Android phones A few users on social media have claimed that even with a software update the problem is not going away. The incidents are happening to both messages sent and messages received For some, the process seems entirely at random. One user, Amit Jain, commented that the missing messages were 'disappearing randomly date wise' and that there was 'still no solution' For some, the process seems entirely at random. Another user, Amit Jain, commented that the missing messages were 'disappearing randomly date wise' and that there was 'still no solution'. Issues have also been raised with the security of the messages once uploaded to Google Cloud, since WhatsApp's own encryption disappears once it is stored elsewhere. But Google Drive also adds encryption to its own data, although some think this means they can then view the content of users messages. China's Chang'e-4 mission has successfully started growing plants on the moon. Cotton seeds can be seen sprouting in a photo released by the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The mission took a variety of seeds to the moon as part of its biosphere experiment and this marks the first time ever that biological material has been cultivated on the lunar surface. Other biological matter on the Chang'e-4 mission includes cotton, oilseed rape, potato, Arabidopsis, yeast and fruit flies. More plants are expected to sprout in the next 100 days, the Chinese space agency claims. Developing the ability to grow plants in space is an important step towards successful long duration space flight to Mars and beyond. Scroll down for video Cotton seeds can be seen sprouting in a photo released by the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The mission took a variety of seeds to the moon as part of its biosphere experiment The picture emerged after being released has come from Chongqing University and was published on the university's Weibo account. It read: 'After experimenting under the moon's high vacuum, large temperature difference, strong radiation and harsh conditions, mankind has grown the first plant sprout, realising man's first moon-based biological growth experiment'. Images sent back by the probe show the cotton sprout has grown well, but so far none of the other plants on-board have taken, the university said. Fruit flies - also known as Drosophila - are a model organism widely used throughout science to understand how animals react in different environments. Their short reproduction time is useful in allowing scientists to understand its genetic impact after several generations of reproduction. Arabidopsis, a simple plant related to the mustard family, is the plant equivalent of Drosophila and also widely used by scientists. The studies on these pioneering plants are being done in a specially designed biosphere on the Chang'e-4 lander and not on the mobile rover, Yutu-2. It has greater temperature regulation and insulation which protects its experiments from the extreme temperatures on the moon. A lack of atmosphere means the UV rays from the sun reach the surface of the moon unfiltered and unabated. Temperatures fluctuate between highs of 127C (261F) and frigid lows of -173C (-279F). The seeds and eggs are kept in a small cylindrical tin and are expected to grow inside the 0.8L container. The 'lunar mini biosphere' is part of Beijing's biological studies in space as it plans to build a lunar base and eventually put people on the moon by 2036. Researchers hope the potato and Arabidopsis seeds will grow to blossom on the moon in 100 days, with the process captured on camera and transmitted to Earth, according to a previous reports. The mission took a variety of seeds to the moon as part of its biosphere experiment and this marks the first time ever that biological material has been cultivated on the lunar surface. This handout shows a cotton sprout growing in a lattice-structured container The 0.8L cylindrical tin was designed by experts from south-west China's Chongqing University. It is equipped with insulating layers and a mini air-conditioning system Scientists hope that the seeds will grow to blossom on the moon in 100 days and the silkworm eggs will hatch and grow into moths. The seeds and eggs are kept in a 'lunar mini biosphere' WHAT IS THE LUNAR MINI BIOSPHERE ABOARD THE CHANG'E-4 PROBE? As well as radiation monitoring and mineralogical experiments, China's Chang'e-4 probe contains a 'lunar mini biosphere' to perform biological studies. It holds potato seeds and silkworm eggs, as well as arabidopsis seeds - plants related to cabbage and mustard that are commonly used by biologists as a model for how plants behave in different environments. Researchers hope the seeds will grow to blossom on the Moon, with the process captured on camera and transmitted to Earth. The 6.6lb (three kg) cylindrical tin is made from a specially developed aluminium alloy. It is seven inches (18 cm) tall, with a diameter of six inches (16 cm) and a net volume of 1.4 pints (0.8 litres). As well as seeds, it contains water, a nutrient solution, air and equipment including a small camera and data transmission system. It will use a tube to direct sunlight on the surface of the Moon into the tin to allow the plants to grow. Researchers from 28 Chinese Universities are behind the project, led by southwest China's Chongqing University. Astronauts have previously cultivated plants on the International Space Station. Rice and arabidopsis were also grown on China's Tiangong-2 space lab. Both of these experiments were conducted in low Earth orbit and under very different conditions. Experts hope that the new experiment will help accumulate knowledge for building a lunar base and long-term residence on the Moon. Advertisement The 6.6lb (three kg) tin is made from a specially developed aluminium alloy. It is seven inches (18 cm) tall, with a diameter of six inches (16 cm) and a net volume of 1.4 pints (0.8 litres). As well as seeds, it contains water, a nutrient solution, air and equipment including a small camera and data transmission system. Researchers from 28 Chinese Universities are behind the project, led by southwest China's Chongqing University. Astronauts have previously cultivated plants on the International Space Station. Rice and Arabidopsis were also grown on China's Tiangong-2 space lab. Professor Christopher Conselice, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Nottingha, told MailOnline: 'China is doing experiments with seeds and worms to see how things form in space and there is relatively little information on this. 'That's a new ares of space exploration which we can learn about which was impossible before Chang'e-4.' Yutu-2 has a host of instruments and will be powered by solar panels. Unlike the similar probe on-board the Chang'e-3 mission this rover has no robotic arm. It announced afterwards it will be taking a 'nap' to protect against the sun's immense heat on the moon Speaking to Xinhua last year, the chief designer of the 'lunar mini biosphere' Xie Gengxin called the experiment 'significant'. Xie said it could herald a breakthrough for them to understand how humans might be able to survive on an alien planet. Zhang Yuanxun, a director from China's Deep-space Exploration Associated Research Centre, said the difficulties of the experiment was to control the temperatures and ensure energy supply for the 'lunar mini biosphere' in the 'complicated' environment on the moon. The lunar day and night each lasts for 14 days, half of its orbit around Earth. The temperatures on its surface could range from the peak of 127C (261F) to lows of -173C (-279F). To control the temperatures, scientists put insulating layers around the tin and built a mini air-conditioning system inside hoping it could provide a pleasant environment for the plants to grow. To obtain energy, the tin will be powered by the solar panels on Chang'e-4 during the day and its internal batteries during the night. CHINA STEPS UP PLANS TO BECOME SPACE SUPERPOWER WITH MARS AND MOON MISSIONS Officials from the Chinese space agency are working to become a space superpower alongside the US and Russia. They have already sent the first lander to explore the far side of the Moon - sharing photos from the part of our nearest neighbour we rarely see as part of the Chang'e-4 mission. In November 2020 they sent the Chang'e-5 space probe to the Moon to collect and return the first samples of lunar soil in 45 years. This was done in collaboration with the European Space Agency who provided tracking information for the Chinese spaceship. Chang'e-6 will be the first mission to explore the south pole of the Moon and is expected to launch in 2023 or 2024. Chang'e-7 will study the land surface, composition, space environment in an overall mission, according to the Chinese space authority, while Chang'e-8 will focus on technical surface analysis. China is also reportedly working on building a lunar base using 3D printing technology and sending a future crewed mission to the surface. Mission number eight will likely lay the groundwork for this as it strives to verify the technology earmarked for the project. The CNSA is also building an Earth-orbiting space station where Chinese astronauts will conduct scientific experiments, similar to the crew of the ISS. The agency also launched a mission to Mars in summer 2020 and landed a rover on the red planet in May 2021. China is also said to be working on a project to build a solar power generator in space, that would beam energy back to Earth and becoming the largest man made object in orbit. They also have a number of ambitious space science projects including satellites to hunt for signs of gravitational waves and Earth observation spacecrafts to monitor climate change. Advertisement Chang'e-4 is also equipped with instruments developed by scientists from Sweden, Germany and China to study the lunar environment, cosmic radiation and the interaction between solar wind and the moon's surface. China has revealed it wants to be the first country to establish a base on the moon and says it will build it using 3D printing technology. Officials from the Chinese space agency also said the country will return to the moon by the end of the year with the Chang'e-5 mission. Three successive missions will further explore the barren surface and the viability of building houses there. China is swiftly establishing a reputation as one of the forerunners in the renaissance of the space race with its continued investment in both Martian and lunar missions. After Chang'e-5 returns lunar rocks from the surface the next mission, Chang'e-6 will be the first mission to explore the south pole of the moon. Chang'e-7 will study the land surface, composition and space environment in a comprehensive mission, it was claimed, while Chang'e-8 will focus on technical surface analysis. Mission number eight will likely lay the groundwork for a potential lunar base as it strives to verify the technology earmarked for the ambitious project. China National Space Administration (CNSA) said they also have plans to go to Mars in 2020, a timeline that would likely make them the first to do so, beating out the US, Russia and the plethora of private firms looking to colonise space. There have been numerous landings on the moon as a result of the 20th century space race between the US and the USSR - including the famed Apollo 11 mission which saw Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans on the moon. After Luna 24 landed on August 18 the next lunar landing was the Chinese mission Chang'e-3 on December 14, 2013. Chang'e-4 is the first spacecraft to land on the far side of the moon The rover is equipped with a variety of scientific instruments to help it analyse the surface of the moon, including a panoramic and infrared camera, ground-penetrating radar and a low-frequency radio spectrometer China successfully achieved a global first with its trip to the far side of the moon when it landed in the Von Karman crater on January 4. The mission's scientific undertakings are now well underway on board both Yutu-2 and Chang'e-4. Yutu-2, the Jade Rabbit rover, went into 'nap' mode shortly after landing on the surface of the far side of the moon and woke up after five days. Since then it has sent back stunning panoramic images of the grey and pockmarked moonscape as well as video and images of both the rover and the lander. Yutu-2 is designed to study the geology of the rocks in the Von Karman crater in the South Pole-Aitken basin - the largest known impact basin in the solar system. The crater is believed to be composed of various chemical compounds, including thorium, iron oxide, and titanium dioxide. It is also hoped that by judging this deep scar on the surface of the moon the scientists could find clues to piece together the origin of the lunar mantle. China's space agency hopes that by exploring the huge 8-mile deep divot on the surface of the moon they may be able to shed some light on its history and geology by collecting rocks that have never been seen before. Researchers hope the huge depth of the crater will allow them to study its mantle, the layer underneath the surface of the moon. Controversial subsidies for burning wood in power stations could be scrapped in the drive to clean up Britains air. Firms that burn wood pellets currently receive about 1billion a year because, unlike coal, these are considered renewable sources of energy. But critics say burning wood produces similar amounts of carbon dioxide to coal, contributing to air pollution. It also increases the logging of forests in the US, while shipping them to Britain in vast quantities has a further negative effect on the environment. Environment Secretary Michael Gove yesterday revealed subsidies for burning wood could be scrapped as he unveiled the Governments clean air strategy. Firms that burn wood pellets currently receive about 1billion a year because, unlike coal, these are considered renewable sources of energy. Pictured: Drax coal-fired power station near Selby The U-turn comes after years of state support for biomass such as wood pellets, in schemes pioneered by disgraced former Liberal Democrat energy secretary Chris Huhne. He was hired by US firm Zilkha Biomass, which makes wood pellets, after serving a prison sentence in 2013 for perverting the course of justice. The clean air strategy includes proposals to scrap some subsidies paid under so-called contracts for difference. The contracts, which last until 2027, offer payments of about 100 per megawatt hour for burning imported wood more than double the wholesale energy price. Britains biggest power station, Drax, near Selby, North Yorkshire, burns about 7million tons a year of compressed wood pellets imported from the US and Canada. Drax supplies around 7 per cent of the UKs electricity, with four of its six units converted to burn the pellets. Britain is committed to closing all its coal power stations by 2025 unless they can be adapted to capture carbon without releasing it into the air. A Drax spokesman defended the technology, stressing it is critical to the UK electricity system because it provides low-carbon, cost-effective power reliably, whatever the weather unlike wind and solar energy sources. But Sasha Stashwick of the Natural Resources Defence Council, an environmental campaign group, said: Burning trees in giant power plants is bad for the climate and the air Britons breathe. 'Its important that [the clean air strategy] recognises the drawbacks of biomass energy ... and rings the death knell on new rounds of subsidies for this dirty power source. Sadly, it does nothing to stop billions of pounds going to existing coal-to-biomass conversions. Environment Secretary Michael Gove (pictured) yesterday revealed subsidies for burning wood could be scrapped as he unveiled the Governments clean air strategy Its time to stop propping up the biomass industry full stop and direct the savings to real clean air and energy. Britains drive to meet tough new air quality targets could also see an end to some subsidies for red diesel, which costs around 62p a litre compared with about 131p for standard white diesel. Officials said they wanted to ensure its lower cost is not discouraging the transition to cleaner alternatives. The taxpayer funds payments worth about 2.4billion a year to firms who use the fuel to power construction machinery such as bulldozers, as well as cooling units in lorries. Any change would not affect farmers, who receive about a quarter of the subsidies and use red diesel in tractors, combine harvesters and other machinery. WESTGATE MALL, SEPTEMBER 2013 Al Shabaab fighters burst into a luxury shopping mall in Nairobi, hurling grenades and starting a days-long siege that left 67 people dead. The assault horrified the world and exposed weaknesses in Kenya's security forces after it took them hours to respond. GARISSA UNIVERSITY, APRIL 2015 The al Shabaab claimed responsibility for an attack on Garissa University that killed 147 people, mostly students. The attack occurred near the Somalia border that had seen multiple assaults on buses and schools. The extremists separated Christians from Muslims and killed the Christians. BOMBINGS OF US EMBASSIES, AUGUST 1998 Al-Qaeda bombed the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, and the embassy in neighbouring Tanzania, killing more than 250 people. The explosions were the first major al-Qaeda attack on U.S. targets. Nearly 5,000 people were injured. NORFOLK HOTEL, DECEMBER 1980 The hotel was bombed on New Year's Eve and killed at least 15. Suspicion fell on Palestinian militant groups that targeted Kenya for supporting Israel. The al-Qaeda-linked al Shabaab, whose name means 'The Youth,' seeks to impose its strict version of sharia law in east Africa. The group is particularly active in Somalia, where it has an estimated 7,000 to 9,000 militants in its ranks who frequently unleash attacks targeting security and government officials, as well as hotels and restaurants in the capital. The group has also behind deadly attacks in Kenya and Uganda, which both contribute troops to an African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia. In 2013, al-Shabaab extremists burst into the luxury shopping centre, hurling grenades and starting a days-long siege that left 67 people dead in Nairobi. Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei on Tuesday rejected claims his company is used by the Chinese government to spy and said he missed his daughter, who is being held by Canadian authorities, the Financial Times newspaper reported. Ren Zhengfei spoke in a rare meeting with foreign reporters as Huawei Technologies Ltd., China's first global tech brand, tries to protect its access to global telecom carriers that are investing heavily in next-generation technology. Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's chief financial officer, was detained in Canada last month at the request of U.S. authorities who allege she misled banks about the company's control of a firm operating in Iran. 'I still love my country, I support the Communist party, but I will never do anything to harm any country in the world,' he said, adding he missed his daughter 'very much'. Chinese President Xi Jinping is shown around the offices of Huawei Technologies Co Ltd by Ren Zhengfei, president of Huawei, in London, Britain October 21, 2015 Ren's comments were the 74-year-old former military engineer's most direct public response to accusations the world's biggest maker of telecom network gear is controlled by the ruling Communist Party or is required to facilitate Chinese spying. The United States, Australia, Japan and some other governments have imposed curbs on use of its technology over such concerns. 'We would definitely say no to such a request,' Ren said when asked how the company would respond to a government demand for confidential information about a foreign customer. Asked whether Huawei would challenge such an order in court, Ren chuckled and said it would be up to Chinese authorities to 'file litigation.' Huawei is facing heightened scrutiny as phone carriers prepare to roll out fifth-generation technology in which the company is a leading competitor. 5G is designed to support a vast expansion of networks to serve medical devices, self-driving cars and other technology. That increases the cost of potential security failures and has prompted governments increasingly to treat telecoms communications networks as strategic assets. The company's image suffered a new blow last week when Polish authorities announced one of its Chinese employees was arrested on spying charges. Huawei announced it fired the employee and said the allegations had nothing to do with the company. Ren said Huawei has no research cooperation with the ruling party's military wing, the PLA. He said the company has no dedicated unit for military sales and he knew of no purchases of civilian technology by the PLA. Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg will appeal the death sentence verdict, his lawyer said on Tuesday, arguing that the court should not have increased his sentence given no new evidence had been introduced during his retrial. Schellenberg's lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo, said his client's defence has centred around an argument there was insufficient evidence to prove he was part of a drug syndicate, or that he was involved in the smuggling of methamphetamines. But even if the court accepted all prosecution charges, it should not have increased his sentence, given that facts the prosecution presented as new evidence had already been heard in court, Zhang told Reuters. A still image taken from CCTV video shows Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg in court, where he was sentenced with a death penalty for drug smuggling in Dalian 'Chinese law stipulates that during an appeal, only if new evidence is discovered and retried can there be an increase in the severity of a sentence,' Zhang said. 'They are not new facts so you cannot increase the severity of the sentence.' Zhang said Schellenberg would lodge an appeal. Earlier, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was of 'extreme concern' that China had chosen to 'arbitrarily apply' the death penalty. A Chinese state-run newspaper rejected any suggestion China was putting pressure on Canada with the sentence, saying it was 'unreasonable speculation' and showed 'rude contempt' toward Chinese law. 'Public opinion in Canada has claimed recently that China is 'politicizing' Schellenberg's case, but what Canada is doing is actually politicizing law,' the nationalist Global Times said in an editorial late on Monday. Though Schellenberg was arrested in 2014, state media has played up coverage of his case following the deterioration in relations with Canada. The court invited media to cover the retrial, and state television aired a five-minute segment on the proceedings. The Global Times said the sentence would convey the message that 'drug smuggling faces higher risks in China'. 'The trial will also send the message that China won't yield to outside pressure in implementing its law,' it said. Schellenberg had faced a number of charges in Canada related to drug possession and drug trafficking, according to Canadian court records. One foreign expert on Chinese law questioned the swift verdict in Schellenberg's retrial, given the political backdrop. The death penalty was handed down at the end of a one-day hearing. 'I do not know whether Schellenberg is guilty,' Donald Clarke of George Washington University said in an online post. 'But I do know that before Meng Wanzhou's detention, the original trial court heard the case and then thought about it for over two and half years before deciding that a sentence of 15 years in prison was an appropriate punishment.' John Bercow last night appeared to open the door to Parliament taking control of Brexit from the Government. The controversial Speaker told MPs he would give them the opportunity to hold debates and vote on proposals about what should happen next after the defeat of Theresa May's deal. Mr Bercow's remarks were seen as a signal that he could tear up the Commons rule book to allow backbench MPs to seize control from the Government over the negotiations. The controversial Speaker told MPs he would give them the opportunity to hold debates and vote on proposals about what should happen next after the defeat of Theresa May's deal In what critics described as an attempted 'coup', senior backbench Tories have drawn up a Bill to hand power to the Liaison Committee which is made up of select committee chairmen and dominated by Remainers. It would then decide on a new plan for leaving the EU. They say their plan would stop an economically damaging no-deal Brexit. It would also make a Norway-style Brexit or a second referendum more likely. After Mrs May's deal was defeated, Mr Bercow told MPs: 'If there are matters members wish to debate and they want subject to a vote, they will be debated and voted on. If MPs want to debate a matter and vote on it, that opportunity will unfold.' Mr Bercow, whom Tories claim is 'no longer neutral', stoked further controversy at the start of yesterday after he rejected two amendments seen as helpful to the Government. Theresa May risked a backlash from Tory Cabinet Brexiteers last night after she signalled her intention to win over Labour MPs to get a deal through the Commons. Moments after the deal was crushed, the Prime Minister said she would hold meetings with senior MPs 'from across the House' to find ideas that Parliament could support and take to Brussels. Despite previously insisting 'no deal is better than a bad deal', Mrs May also said she did not think a 'no-deal' outcome was what people voted for. Theresa May risked a backlash from Tory Cabinet Brexiteers last night after she signalled her intention to win over Labour MPs to get a deal through the Commons Her comments will spark concern among Tory MPs including in Cabinet who fear Mrs May could try to soften the deal and Brexit to buy off opposition votes. At yesterday's Cabinet meeting, former Remain backers urged the PM to cut a deal with Mr Corbyn. But a clear split emerged as more Eurosceptic ministers urged the PM to focus on getting fresh concessions out of Brussels, and party chairman Brandon Lewis warned the PM she could face a grassroots revolt if she reaches out to Mr Corbyn's party. Mrs May did not go as far as suggesting she would hold formal talks with the Labour leader. But she could speak to biddable backbenchers who want the UK to leave with a deal. She told MPs: 'If the House confirms its confidence in this Government I will then hold meetings with my colleagues, the DUP and senior Parliamentarians from across the House to identify what would be required to secure the backing of the House.' And in comments that will alarm those in the Cabinet who want a no-deal strategy, Mrs May used her speech at the end of the debate to say: 'I do not believe that is what the British people voted for, because they were told that, if they voted to leave, they could still expect a good trading relationship with the European Union.' But she did not say no-deal was off the table. Earlier at Cabinet, Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd urged the PM to 'reach out' to Labour and attempt to find a compromise, even if it meant accepting a permanent customs union with the EU. Miss Rudd was backed by Business Secretary Greg Clark, Justice Secretary David Gauke and Energy Minister Claire Perry, who all argued that Mrs May had to switch to a Plan B if her deal hit the rocks, which would ultimately need Labour MPs' support. But party chairman Brandon Lewis warned the PM she would face a grassroots Conservative uprising if she tried to cut a soft Brexit deal with Jeremy Corbyn. At yesterday's Cabinet meeting, former Remain backers urged the PM to cut a deal with Mr Corbyn. But a clear split emerged as more Eurosceptic ministers urged the PM to focus on getting fresh concessions out of Brussels, and party chairman Brandon Lewis warned the PM she could face a grassroots revolt if she reaches out to Mr Corbyn's party Tory sources said Mr Lewis intervened during a heated Cabinet debate yesterday on how the Prime Minister should respond to a thumping Commons defeat. He reportedly told ministers that, with Tory activists content with a no-deal Brexit, any move to work with Labour would be seen as an act of betrayal. 'The party wouldn't wear it,' he said. A string of other ministers also spoke out against shifting towards Labour. Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Liam Fox, Gavin Williamson and Liz Truss all said Mrs May should instead focus on wringing fresh concessions out of Brussels. Mrs May has so far shunned calls to open talks with Labour, arguing that the party's MPs could never be relied upon to support government policy. Last night one Cabinet minister told the Mail Labour would 'never agree to any sort of deal' adding: 'It's not in their political interests and Jeremy Corbyn is political to his fingertips.' Other ministers want Mrs May to make a concession to backbench Tories on the Northern Ireland backstop. Last night one Cabinet minister told the Mail Labour would 'never agree to any sort of deal' adding: 'It's not in their political interests and Jeremy Corbyn is political to his fingertips.' Other ministers want Mrs May to make a concession to backbench Tories on the Northern Ireland backstop One said she should adopt the Murrison amendment - which would insert a sunset clause into the backstop. If it passed she could use that as 'leverage in Brussels'. Mrs May told Cabinet that the 2016 referendum result would trump any Commons defeat. She indicated she would push ahead with her deal regardless. The PM also dismissed calls to take no-deal off the table. Miss Rudd led calls for the Government to 'take the lead' on ruling out no-deal before parliament did. And Commons leader Andrea Leadsom warned that a push by former ministers Nick Boles, Nicky Morgan and Sir Oliver Letwin to empower parliament to force the Government to rule out no deal, was a real danger. Mrs Leadsom said that for the first time she feared Brexit 'might not happen at all'. But Education Secretary Damian Hinds argued that no deal had to be kept on the table to focus minds on the need to support the Government's deal with Brussels. Meanwhile Greg Clark made an 'impassioned' plea for Mrs May to rule out no-deal, warning it would have a 'devastating' effect on the economy. Downing Street later confirmed that Mrs May still believes no deal is better than a bad deal. Emmanuel Macron has poured scorn on the UK over its Brexit crisis, saying the vote to leave the EU had been manipulated by 'false information and lies'. In his toughest attack on the June 2016 referendum which led to Britain voting to exit the bloc, the President of France said it had been 'manipulated from the outside' and by populism. He also said that Britain leaving the EU without a deal would be 'scary for everyone,' and especially the British themselves, as they would be 'the first victims'. vote to leave the EU had been manipulated by 'false information and lies'. In his toughest attack on the June 2016 referendum which led to Britain voting to exit the bloc, the President of France said it had been 'manipulated from the outside' and by populism Macron was reaching the end of an almost seven-hour debate with local officials when he was told of the result of the British vote. 'First option, they go toward a no deal. They say: 'there is no deal'. That's scary for everybody. The first losers in this would be the British,' Macron told mayors during a town hall meeting in Normandy. 'Second option, they tell us - in my view, that's what they'll do, I know them a bit - 'we'll try to improve what we can get from the Europeans and we'll get back for a vote',' Macron said. 'In that case, we'll look into it, maybe we'll make improvements on one or two things, but I don't really think so because we've reached the maximum of what we could do with the deal and we won't, just to solve Britain's domestic political issues, stop defending European interests,' he said. After praising the head of the European Council Donald Tusk and the EU's Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, Macron said he expected Britain to eventually ask for more time to renegotiate a deal. 'There's a third option, which is to say - and in my view they'll start with the second option and then we'll eventually end up with the third - 'actually, we're going to take more time to renegotiate something',' he said. 'It creates a great deal of uncertainty and worries.' 'When there's a difficult decision to be made, it's often elected representatives who make them, because they integrate the constraints,' said Mr Macron. 'Difficult decisions are rarely made by referendums'. Instead Mr Macron said he believed the British would now ask for more time to negotiate a new trade deal. Mr Macron heard about Tuesday night's crushing parliamentary defeat of Prime Minister Theresa May's flagship exit plan while he was taking part in a live TV debate of his own in Normandy Mr Macron was talking to mayors in the town of Bourgtheroulde, near Rouen, and pointed out how the increasingly violent and populist Yellow Vest movement in France was demanding regular referendums. 'We must not create a situation where there is competition between forms of democracy,' said Mr Macron. He said that the 'sovereign people, through their representatives' were best qualified to decide a country's future. Mr Macron made it clear that the British would be the 'first victims' if they withdrew without a trade deal. He said: 'First option, they go towards a no deal. They say there's no deal. That's scary for everybody. The first losers in this would be the British. 'Second option, they tell us - in my view, that's what they'll do, I know them a bit - we'll try to improve what we can get from the Europeans and we'll have another vote. 'In that case, we [the Europeans] will look into it, maybe we'll make improvements on one or two things, but I don't really think so because we've reached the maximum of what we could do with the deal and we won't, just to solve Britain's domestic political issues, stop defending European interests.' After praising the head of the European Council Donald Tusk and the EU's Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, Mr Macron said he expected Britain to eventually ask for more time to renegotiate a deal. 'There's a third option, which is to say - and in my view they'll start with the second option and then we'll eventually end up with the third - actually, we're going to take more time to renegotiate something' he said. Highlighting the 'uncertainty and worries' and wishing Mrs May 'good luck', Mr Macron saidhe would 'take the bet that the British will ask for a deadline to leave past the European elections.' At present, Britain is due to leave the EU at the end of March, while the European Parliament elections are set to be held on May 23 to 26. A total of 751 MEPs currently represent some 500 million people from 28 member states, but in February 2018 the European Parliament voted to decrease the number of MEPS to 705, in line with the UK leaving. Mr Macron, who was elected in President of France in May 2017, originally displayed a hard line against Brexit, at one stage before his win calling it 'a crime'. But until tonight he had toned down his attacks on the British leave vote while in office, saying he was leaving negotiations to senior EU representatives. Investigators are baffled after a body was found near a Melbourne shopping centre on Wednesday morning. Police were called to Main Drive near Plenty Road in the suburb of Bundoora at 7am. The body has not yet been formally identified. Police were called to Main Drive near Plenty Road in the suburb of Bundoora about 7am on Wednesday Investigators are baffled after a body was found near a Melbourne shopping centre on Wednesday morning A police spokeswoman said homicide detectives are investigating the scene. The body was found near Polaris Town Centre, a popular shopping area. Main Drive has been cordoned off by police. A police spokeswoman said homicide detectives are investigating the scene The body was found near Polaris Town Centre, a popular shopping area James Baker, the former general counsel for the FBI, has joined fired director James Comey and his deputy Andrew McCabe in the hot seat over allegations on whether he was behind unauthorized leaks to the media. Baker is under federal investigation on the matter, a letter from House Republicans obtained by Fox News revealed Tuesday. Republican Reps. Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows, in their letter, cited the transcript of a congressional interview with Baker and his lawyer last fall, where the investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham was discussed. James Baker, the former general counsel for the FBI, is under investigation for unauthorized leaks to the media The investigation was revealed in a letter from GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (left) and Mark Meadows (right); the two men are staunch Trump allies 'You may or may not know, [Baker has] been the subject of a leak investigation a criminal leak investigation that's still active at the Justice Department,' lawyer Daniel Levin told lawmakers. Jordan and Meadows' letter was sent to Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, and it requested additional information about his look into Baker later this month. 'As we continue our oversight and investigative work, we felt it prudent to write to you seeking an update. Without being apprised of the contours of your leak investigation and Baker's role, we run the risk of inadvertently interfering with your prosecutorial plans,' they wrote. The two Republicans are some of President Donald Trump's staunchest allies on Capitol Hill. The letter doesn't give the status of the investigation nor explain by it's being led by the U.S. attorney out of Connecticut. Baker left the FBI in May of this year. But he's become a focal point for some Republicans recently as his closed-door testimony to lawmakers last fall confirmed that top FBI officials at the FBI were concerned Trump may have been working to benefit Russia, particularly after Comey's firing, CNN reported. Comey and McCabe have also come under fire for media leaks. In June of last year, Comey, in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, revealed how he engineered the leak of his own memo to The New York Times. The memo detailed his private conversation with President Donald Trump about the FBI's probe of then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and his ties to Russia. Former FBI James Comey revealed he was behind the leak of his memo of a meeting with President Trump to the New York Times Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe was found to be the leak behind a Wall Street Journal story written in the closing days of the 2016 election Comey testified he hoped the information in his memo would lead to the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election. He noted he was not a federal employee nor was the memo classified when it was leaked. The fired FBI director gave the memo to a friend, a professor at Columbia Law School, to pass it on to a journalist. 'I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter,' Comey said. The FBI was investigating Flynn's ties to Russian officials. Flynn later admitted he lied about the content of calls with then-Russian ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak. In his memo, Comey wrote that Trump asked him to back off Flynn, which Trump has denied. Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed and part of his purview was to examine whether Trump interfered in the investigation. McCabe was also investigated for unauthorized an media leak. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe last year and claimed the FBI's inspector general found the deputy director made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and 'lacked candor including under oath on multiple occasions.' McCabe denied he misled investigators. The Department of Justice Inspector General found McCabe was the leak behind a Wall Street Journal story written in the closing days of the 2016 election that revealed investigators found 650,000 emails on a laptop that they believe was used by former Rep. Anthony Weiner and his wife Huma Abedi that could have sent messages to or from Hillary Clinton's private email server. Boris Johnson last night insisted the Brexit deal can be renegotiated without delaying Britain's departure from the bloc. The former foreign secretary said he did not 'rejoice' in the massive defeat suffered by Theresa May, but demanded that she ditches the Irish border backstop and takes a 'fresh approach'. He dismissed the idea that would mean extending the Article 50 process, which has just 10 weeks left to run, saying most of the other terms were 'fine'. Mr Johnson also confirmed that he will back the PM in a no-confidence vote being called by Jeremy Corbyn tonight. Mrs May's has been left clinging on to power by her fingernails after 118 Tory rebels joined forces with Labour to trounce her Brexit plan by 432 votes to 202. Boris Johnson said he did not 'rejoice' in the massive defeat suffered by Theresa May, but demanded that she ditches the Irish border backstop and takes a 'fresh approach' The majority of 230 was by far the biggest on record, higher than the 166 defeat for the Labour minority government in 1924. Rising to her feet moments after the drubbing, a clearly shaken Mrs May said the government will now 'listen'. Mr Johnson told Sky News that the margin of defeat was 'bigger than I expected'. Its no particular cause for rejoicing for me, after all Ive been trying for so long to get the government back in the place the PM was in her Lancaster House speech last year,' he said. We were really talking about taking advantage of free trade deals and taking control of our laws. All that got lost as we moved into this quicksand of the backstop, locked into the customs union and single market. What she has now is a massive mandate. With 432 votes against her deal, she takes it back to Brussels and says we cant do this deal as it is, we need a fresh approach. We can keep the good bits, protecting rights of the 3.2million EU citizens here in UK. Challenged that to change the Withdrawal Agreement the Article 50 process will need to be extended beyond the end of March, he said: You dont need to extend Article 50 at all, there are bits of the Withdrawal Agrereement that are fine. 'She should take out, excise, surgically remove the backstop. Thats the problem, thats the lobster pot, thats the trap that keeps us locked in the customs union. We had this terrible Hobsons choice between sacrificing Northern Ireland or remaining subject to the EU without having any say in the EU. Thats the trap, and it needs to come out. Then we use the implementation period to do the free trade agreement. Thats eminently doable when you consider the UK and EU are completely aligned. What she should not do, and Im hearing rumours around this place, what would be fatal is parliamentary plottery and jiggery-pokery and coming up with schemes to delay Article 50 or come up with a second referendum.' Asked whether he would support Mrs May tonight, Mr Johnson said last night: We in the conservative party went through that in December last year. Thats not the issue. 'I would certainly vote for her and the conservative government tomorrow because the one thing I do not want is Jeremy Corbyn taking over as prime minister.' Meghan McCain found herself in familiar territory on Tuesday, as she and her fellow co-hosts on The View took aim at one another It all began when Sunny Hostin veered off topic during a discussion about the racist rhetoric of Congressman Steve King and suggested that Americans who support the proposed border wall are racist. There was a good deal of back and forth on the subject, and Joy Behar jumped in eventually to agree with Hostin, saying that racism was more about the 'platform' than the 'person.' This resulted in McCain slamming her fist on the table and declaring: 'I am John McCain's daughter! I am not someone who sits here and is OK with racism in any way.' Behar responded by pounding her fist on the table and stating: 'And I'm Dino's daughter....' The back-and-forth was then shut down by moderator Whoppi Goldberg, who calmly said: 'And I'm Whoopi Goldberg, and we'll be right back.' heated: The View panel were discussing Congressman Steve King's racist rhetoric on Tuesday when Sunny Hostin switched the topic to the border wall (Meghan McCain above on Tuesday) Hottopic: She said that President Trump was promoting racist rhetoric with his support of the wall, and suggested those who backed the wall might also be racist The women were all in agreement at the top of the segment about King, and applauded Republicans for denouncing his recent comments about the acceptability of racist language. In a interview last week, King asked: 'White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization - how did that language become offensive?' Hostin then shifted gears by moving from King to President Trump. 'But will Republicans now step up to the plate with Donald Trump? Because he's been using, I think, the border wall as sort of this dog whistle for race,' said Hostin. 'The government is still shut down. And I think it's all about let's not let all these brown people in. Unless they're working for farmers, unless they're working in agriculture. Will the Republican party step up to him and say: "We don't want this any more?"' Abby Huntsman responded by noting: 'Forty-two percent of people support the wall, are they all racist?' She was referencing the numbers released over the weekend in an ABC/Washington Post poll. That same poll found that 54 percent of Americans blame President Trump and Republicans for the shutdown while just 29 percent place the blame on congrssional Democrats. 'That's a good question' replied Hostin. 'I'm asking you that. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think a lot of people that believe in security,' said Huntsman. Hostin then asked: 'Is Donald Trump racist.' 'Duh,' said Behar. 'I'm not referring to the president...'said Huntsman, who was then cut off by a riled up McCain. 'A lot of people support the wall. I think this is a problem with identity politics in the country,' said McCain. 'When you broad-stroke everyone. All black people think one thing. All Hispanics think one thing. All Republicans thing one thing.' She continued: 'That's how we got ourselves into this mess and I'm one of the people that would like to pull ourselves out of it. So let's talk about Steve King, and I am happy to talk about the wall and border security.' Piling on: Joy Behar (above) later backed this, saying that racism as less about the 'person' and more about the 'platform' Moderating: Whoopi Goldberg (above) then quickly threw to commercial She then got even more animated, having gotten the full attention of her co-hosts. 'Trump, by the way, I think I have made myself quite clear how I feel about President Trump, how i feel about the America that was always great before he came to it. I think I have made myself explicitly clear on this show and other places,' said McCain. 'So please don't paint me because I'm for border security that I'm racist. I'm against the wall, let me just say that, but I'm for strong border security.' Hostin at no point suggested that McCain was racist. 'King's language is important. He said white nationalist, white supremacist, westeern civilization how did that language become offensive, this is very clear, It's very clear racist language from Kin,' said McCain. 'But I'm just saying when we broad-stroke everyone, I would like our show to be above that broad stroking people into different pockets.' McCain then asked: 'Do you think 42 percent of Americans are racist?' 'I said I don't know, that's why I'm asking the question, replied Hostin. Goldberg jumped in next, saying: 'Okay. Stop, stop, stop, stop. I can't follow anything that is happening. Everyone is talking at the same time.' Behar then asked if she could make one point before stating: I don't think we concentrate on Steve King...' McCain cut her off and said: 'Well you did just call 42 percent of the country racist. That is something that is going to make Abby and I as Republicans uncomfortable.' Behar shot back: 'Check the platform, not the person.' That is when Mcain name-checked her late father, and Goldberg quickly threw to commercial. Drinking water in one Australian town is so dirty it comes out brown from the tap and leaves residents feeling sick. Residents at Menindee, in the far west of New South Wales, are copping the worst aspects of the drought, with up to a million fish dying along the river as a result of a toxic algal bloom. Taya Briggs said people in her small town of 550 people had no choice when it came to drinking water. Scroll down for video Drinking water (pictured) at Menindee in the far west of New South Wales is so dirty it comes out brown from the tap and leaves residents feeling sick 'This is the disgusting water coming out of our tap today,' she wrote on the Menindee Region Community Group on the Darling River's Facebook group. She has posted to her Facebook page images of tap water from the bathroom and the kitchen, showing it is as brown as black tea. Another Menidee resident described feeling sick by turning on the tap. 'My bathroom water is green. Spewed in the shower again from the stench,' this local said on the Facebook group. Up to a million fish have died along the Darling River at Menindee (pictured) as a result of a toxic algal bloom A million dead fish have floated along a 40km stretch of the Darling River at Menindee, near Broken Hill, as a result of a toxic algal bloom which starved aquatic life of oxygen. NSW Primary Industries Minister Niall Blair described the Menindee fish kill as 'quite catastrophic'. 'We were talking about fish kills and where they've been happening right across the state,' he told reporters on Tuesday. The dead fish began appearing in the second week of January. Experts warn that if the fish are not removed from the river they could sink to the bottom and decompose, making it difficult to remove their rotten remains. A man accused of killing British backpacker Grace Millane in New Zealand has pleaded not guilty to her murder. Miss Millane's body was found in bush on the outskirts of Auckland a week after she went missing in the city's centre on December 1, the day before her 22nd birthday. She was last seen arriving at the Citylife Hotel with Jesse Kempson, who was arrested and charged with her murder. Scroll down for video A man accused of killing British backpacker Grace Millane (pictured) in New Zealand has pleaded not guilty to her murder Kempson, 27, denied the charge when he made his first appearance in the High Court at Auckland on Wednesday. His trial will begin on November 4 and is expected to last at least three weeks. Other than making his plea, the accused remained silent during the brief hearing and was remanded in custody. Jesse Kempson, 27, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Grace Millane He will next return to court in April. Kempson made an appearance in a lower court in December. He was identified by international media but can't be named in New Zealand because his legal appeal to keep his name secret is ongoing and will be argued in court next month. Miss Millane, from Essex, was on the second leg of a year-long world tour after graduating from the University of Lincoln. After visiting Peru, she arrived alone in New Zealand in November. A large-scale search was launched on December 5 after she uncharacteristically failed to reply to birthday messages from family. On December 8 police found Grace's body dumped on a roadside, launched a murder investigation, and arrested Kempson. He appeared in court for the first time two days later, where he looked glum and didn't speak a word. No plea was entered on his behalf. As he was led from the gallery, someone shouted 'scumbag' at him. Miss Millane's funeral service was held in her hometown of Brentwood last week. Father David (far left) said that while daughter Grace (far right) was only in New Zealand for a few weeks, in some small way 'she will forever be a Kiwi' Gangs are ruthlessly exploiting a legal loophole to get away with luring children as young as 12 to become 'county lines' drug mules, police revealed yesterday. Hundreds of vulnerable boys and girls have been groomed by gangs based in Britain's biggest cities to carry cocaine and heroin to small market towns and seaside resorts, exposing them to horrific violence. Gangs tell the children that if they are caught by police peddling drugs they should cite Section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act effectively protecting them from prosecution. Gangs are ruthlessly exploiting a legal loophole to get away with luring children as young as 12 to become 'county lines' drug mules, police revealed yesterday (stock photo) MPs were told yesterday that 'Mr Bigs' are abusing the law, introduced by Theresa May as home secretary in 2015, to safeguard their illicit networks. Meanwhile, police chiefs said that 505 suspects had been arrested since Home Secretary Sajid Javid launched the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre to strengthen the fight against crime gangs. The gangs' operations are named after the phone lines used to organise the trade. Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer, modern slavery lead for the National Police Chiefs' Council, said that under Section 45 anyone aged under 18 is not guilty of committing a crime if it is carried out as a 'direct consequence' of 'exploitation'. He told the Commons home affairs select committee: 'Section 45 is a brilliant piece of legislation but it is having an unintended consequence. It is enabling top-end serious and organised crime people to coerce others by building it into their defence.' However, it also emerged that county lines gang bosses will be charged with slavery offences. Police and prosecutors believe the labels of 'slave master' and 'child trafficker' are more likely to deter gang bosses than if they were solely prosecuted under drugs laws. The modern slavery laws also enable the courts to impose tougher penalties. A 16-year-old girl will need to use a colostomy bag for the rest of her life after suffering severe injuries while attempting group anal sex. The teenager's debilitating experience is just one of many detailed by experts and educators who say young women are suffering at the hands of their porn-addicted boyfriends. Teen boys and men are developing dangerous attitudes towards sex as a result of their compulsive consumption of hardcore and violent online pornography, experts have warned. Cyber safety expert Susan McLean said many high-school aged girls have suffered injuries trying to replicate porn scenes. 'It tends to be using objects. It does tend to be quite violent or being tied up, and the girls often feel very powerless to say no,' the former police officer told the ABC. Another educator said a 16-year-old girl suffered serious injuries attempting group anal sex, and now requires a colostomy bag. Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology senior lecturer Meagan Tyler said her research found that pornographers have been making their films increasingly more violent. 'There's no debate that it's happened, that the kind of things that were seen as pushing the boundaries in the late 1990s have become very much normal and mainstream. So things like double and triple anal... and things like choking as well,' she said. Tasmanian doctor Sebastian Seirdel said injuries caused by sex were not uncommon. 'We have seen anal fissures more and more. I've seen that more in women, so that's caused by men having sex with women,' he said. One woman - Sarah, 41 - spoke about her own horrific experiences as an unwilling part of porn-fuelled fantasies. She was seven-years-old when her brother began molesting her, inspired by magazines he would steal from shops. In 2015, she was raped by her ex-boyfriend. They were having consensual sex before he forced her to have anal sex, despite telling him she didn't want to. She suffered nerve damage and was so shaken by the incident that she fears physical contact, now unable to even hug her mother. 'In pornography, it's not how it is in real life. It's just not how it is,' she said. 'It looks like they enjoy it, but it actually really hurts.' A couple were forced to duck for cover when a Home Bargains candle allegedly exploded and showered them in molten wax and glass. Gladys and Richard Kruger claim they were lucky their home did not burn down following the bizarre incident involving a large scented candle bought from the discount store. Gladys, 53, and Richard, 57, bought the candle from the same store in Tain, Scotland where a man recently purchased a flask which he claimed exploded leaving him with severe burns. Gladys and Richard Kruger claim they were lucky their home did not burn down following the bizarre incident involving a large candle bought from the discount store. Gladys, 53, and Richard, 57, bought the candle from the same store in Tain, Scotland where a man recently purchased a flask which he claimed exploded leaving him with severe burns Pictures of the aftermath, although blurred, show blobs of pink candle wax spattered on the walls. There is also a scorch mark from where the candle was sat. Another picture shows the shattered remains of the jar in which the candle was held. The couple's daughter-in-law, Kirsty Bogue, took to Facebook on January 7 to complain to the discount store saying the incident was 'absolutely shocking'. She wrote: 'Candle purchased from Home Bargains Tain store that my mother in-law received as a present this is the outcome of it being lit tonight! Absolutely shocking! 'Luckily my father in law who was sitting close by didn't get any shards of glass in his face from the explosion of the glass which it was in and thankfully there was no blaze as it was attended to very quickly. There is also a scorch mark from where the candle was sat. Another picture shows the shattered remains of the jar in which the candle was held. The couple's daughter-in-law, Kirsty Bogue, took to Facebook on January 7 to complain to the discount store saying the incident was 'absolutely shocking' 'Had this been lit throughout the day whilst busy cleaning the house hoovering another room, it could have easily done more damage as it has already burnt the area which it was sitting in. 'Surely this could have been avoided if you sold these candles in proper heat resistant glass!' Lorna Jensen commented: 'That's terrible absolutely shocking.' Wendy Stewart said: 'I had one in bathroom, burned through but didn't explode.' Louise Lee commented: 'The same thing happened to mine too.' Home Bargains commented on the post saying that they would look into the incident. Mrs Kruger said things could have been much worse: 'We were just sitting there when out of the blue there was an explosion. 'It all happened so quickly and we were very lucky because Richard was sitting quite close to it, the house could have been burnt. 'It could have sliced his face or lost his eyesight.' Home Bargains have yet to give an official response to enquiries about the incident, four days after they were alerted. Los Angeles teachers' strike rolled into its straight day - affecting more than half a million local children. More than 30,000 public school teachers were joined by educators from the city's charter school system in protest over pay and class sizes on Tuesday. The strike is already having a profound effect on the city's schools where just 140,000 of more than half a million regular students turned up for class on Monday. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti expressed support for teachers who educate some 640,000 students, which include 62,500 special needs pupils. Los Angeles faced the second consecutive day of a teachers' strike led by most of the city's 30,000 public school teachers, who on Tuesday were joined by educators from the charter school system A GoFundMe campaign, Tacos for Teachers, was created by the International Socialist Organization and Democratic Socialists of America along with Zingo Tacos Victor Fernandez (right) with the International Socialist Organization showed up at teacher's rally. The educators received food prepared by local taco vending trucks Why bring tacos? Its L.A. what else are you going to bring, asks Fernandez. Its tacos. Nobody hates tacos. pic.twitter.com/Ge9Dq8owOG Steve Saldivar (@stevesaldivar) January 14, 2019 'This has been already an historic week for educators and for public education in Los Angeles,' the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) President Alex Caputo-Pearl told a rally for striking charter school teachers. The striking city employees welcomed the educators from The Accelerated Schools, which oversees three charter schools but operate under charter from the Los Angeles Unified School District [LAUSD]. The teachers' strike also got some support from local taco vending truck owners. A GoFundMe campaign, Tacos for Teachers, was created by the International Socialist Organization and Democratic Socialists of America along with Zingo Tacos. A goal of $15,000 was easily attained in just 11 days as strangers donated almost $23,000 to provide breakfast burritos and lunch taco plates at five different schools this week. Victor Fernandez, with the International Socialist Organization, was even dressed up in a taco costume while teachers protested at a local school. 'It's L.A. What else are you going to bring?' Fernandez said according to the Los Angeles Times. 'It's tacos. Nobody hates tacos.' Workers at a taco truck in Los Angeles have prepared breakfast burritos and taco plates for lunch and delivered them to the teachers who are on strike Tacos for Teachers, a campaign set up through GoFundMe, raised almost $23,000 to cover the expenses generated by local taco truck owners who are delivering food to teachers during the strike School district official have said all schools will remain open during the strike, but student attendance was noticeably short on Monday. A spokesman for The Accelerated Schools, which are managed independently but run under a charter from LAUSD, said its three schools remained open on Tuesday. He declined to immediately provide staff or enrollment numbers although a staff directory on its website listed 28 teachers. Although the two sides are far apart on contract proposals, they are largely aligned on their goals, Los Angeles County School Superintendent Austen Beutner said. 'We aspire to the same set of things, but we have limits,' Beutner told a morning news conference. 'We didn't set the limits.' Beutner said the district has offered staff increases that would cost $130 million a year - more than county officials have said is available - while the union's demands would cost $800 million. Meat, vegetarian and vegan burritos were made by Zingo Tacos Al Carbon to fuel the @UTLAnow picket line in front of Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools thanks to a @gofundme started by a few organizations. @SpecNews1SoCal pic.twitter.com/cKTmPkQ99q Iliana Guevara (@_ilianaguevara) January 14, 2019 Students skip class and show up to support their striking teachers in Los Angeles Beutner offered to join teachers in lobbying state lawmakers to increase education funding. 'Join me on the bus,' he said. 'Let's go.' Asked about Garcetti's support for the striking teachers, Beutner said the school system would welcome additional financial support from the city. Garcetti, a Democrat, said on Twitter late on Monday: 'I am proud of our teachers and I admire the courage with which they remain steadfast in defending excellent schools and opportunities for our children.' UTLA negotiators have demanded a 6.5 percent pay raise, more librarians, counselors and nurses, smaller class sizes, less testing and a moratorium on new charter schools. Teacher pay currently averages $75,000 in the LAUSD, according the California Department of Education. The district has offered a 6 percent hike with back pay. No negotiations have been held since talks broke down on Friday, and administrators and substitute teachers have been leading classes. Advertisement Friends, fans and loved ones of model Annalise Braakensiek have gathered at Bondi Beach for a moving memorial ceremony for the local star. A diverse crowd of hundreds - women in long bohemian dresses, men in business suits, kids in wetsuits gathered at sunrise on Wednesday to pay tribute to the former TV presenter who took her own life on January 6 after a lengthy battle with depression. Mourners, including model Jodhi Meares, gathered silently at the southern end of the beach just before 6am, leaving their shoes by the wall and sitting across the rocks for a poignant reflection at the place where she had been spotted by a modelling scout as a teenager and launched to fame. Most carried a single frangipani, Braakensiek's favourite flower, and two large wreaths were laid nearby. Hundreds of mourners gathered on Bondi Beach on Wednesday morning to pay tribute to model Annalise Braakensiek (pictured is her ex-husband, Danny Goldberg) The lingerie designer's former husband, stockbroker Danny Goldberg, was front and centre on the beach, as was her family People from all walks of life were seen grieving on the sand, as they engaged in silent meditation before heading into the surf (pictured left is model Jodhi Meares, right is friend Gina Byrnes) The former model, who had launched successful jewellery and lingerie lines, had been an ambassador for R U OK? and had spoken often in interviews and on social media about her struggles with mental health. She took her own life on January 6 One woman brought her dog, while others were seen on the beach with their young children Model Jodhi Meares (pictured left) was in attendance at the sunrise ceremony on Wednesday Mourners said a prayer for Braakensiek and sang a song as a group during the moving ceremony Danny Goldberg, the designer's former husband, arrived with one flower behind his ear and a bunch tied around a string and worn as a necklace. As the large group moved from the rocks to the sand, he was embraced by friends and family as he took his seat on the sand, positioned front and centre. After a lengthy meditation, ended with music played on a wooden recorder and a prayer, the crowd moved towards the water to lay their single frangipanis. Friends held each other for support as they watched the sun rising over the waves and remembered their friend in silence. Dozens of mourners returned to the sand to change into swimming gear and grab their surfboards before paddling out beyond the break to gather in a circle and talk more about Braakensiek. Mr Goldberg was taken into the deep water by a lifeguard on a jet ski while holding a wreath of frangipanis. As the surfers took a moment to remember their friend, another large crowd stayed closely gathered on the shore, watching on. Mr Goldberg was comforted by friends as he took part in a prayer for his estranged wife. The Bondi man had been married to Braakensiek for 16 years before they split in April While dozens made their way into the water, more stayed on the sand and watched the group gather in a circle The surfers remained in the circle for some time, in quiet reflection, before returning to shore (pictured) Mr Goldberg was seen carrying a large frangipani wreath into the water, before he was picked up by a jetski and taken to the circle Mr Goldberg was comforted by a friend in the water before he was taken in beyond the break to say his goodbyes The large crowd then all gathered to sing, and were encouraged by a live band to: 'sing for her'. Afterwards, mourners convened to The Bucket List bar and eatery for 'hot lemon water, a coffee, and a natter', said to be a tradition between Braakensiek and one of her best friends, meditation guru Gina Byrnes. Ms Byrnes, a mother-of-two, shared a loving tribute to Braakensiek on Instagram last week, telling followers how she: 'had an ability to smile with her whole body'. 'You were a work of art and yes not everyone understood you but those who did will never forget you,' she wrote. 'You stayed committed to being adventurous, joyful, authentic, creative, genuine, inclusive, compassionate, forgiving and open minded. You loved passionately, fiercely and without conditions. Your body oil fragrance is still lingering in your now very empty room. 'Oh honey... this pain... Im happy we hugged every day and told each other how much we loved each other, and why we loved each other, priceless cuddles sunshine!!! 'I miss our 4.30 am texts. "Are you awake? Ok great!!! Lets meet downstairs for a lemon water, a coffee and a natter. We laughed and cried together sharing each others pain and happiness. Baby I know you felt so abandoned and misunderstood by some people but you were loved globally sweetheart, your presence and unselfish creative soul touched so many peoples hearts. 'Thank you for opening up your beautiful generous heart sharing your inner secrets with me, what an honour... you made my soul shine and feel alive, my spiritual goddess.' Mourners paddled out into the ocean on surfboards and formed a circle to mourn the lingerie and jewellery designer As the surfers got ready to paddle out, those in attendance used the time to comfort each other and catch up A number of people brought their young children to the beautiful event (pictured) A live band performed a call and response song, with the singer encouraging mourners to 'sing for her [Braakensiek]' Braakensiek was found dead in her brand new Potts Point apartment on January 6 by friends who had become concerned after not hearing from her for a few days. The former model, who had launched successful jewellery and lingerie lines, had been an ambassador for R U OK? and had spoken often in interviews and on social media about her struggles with mental health. In the months before she took her life, Braakensiek had posted a series of cryptic social media posts, including one in which she paid tribute to those who had supported her during a 'challenging year'. 'The rest you know who you are. I love you. Beyond. Including my bestie in heaven. A day doesn't go by when I don't think about you,' she posted. Ms Braakensiek split with her stockbroker husband Danny Goldberg in April last year after 16 years together. She bought the apartment in Potts Point where her body was found after the break up. Frangipanis played a vital role in the service, as they were Braakensiek's favourite. Guests were encouraged to each lay a single flower in the ocean Ms Braakensiek split with her stockbroker husband Danny Goldberg (pictured) in April last year after 16 years together In one of the last posts to her 40,000 followers on December 15, she wrote: 'Everything seems to feel twisted and upside down at the moment'. 'Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you who have helped me though my dark clouds,' she wrote in another Instagram post about her mental health struggles. In a later-deleted Instagram post, she wrote: 'I don't know if a broken heart mends or learns to live in pieces'. She also wrote that she was 'hanging in there by the hair on my chinny chin chin'. While Braakensiek was left devastated by the breakdown of her marriage, friends say she was also grieving for a man she had lost more than a decade before. For confidential support in Australia call Lifeline 24-hour crisis support on 13 11 14. Advertisement A Los Angeles bachelor pad described as a 'sexually charged home' that has its own cryogenic chamber and a double-story infinity pool has hit the market for a whopping $55 million. The West Hollywood home, which is owned by developer Nile Niami and was only completed late last year, has six bedrooms and 10 bathrooms. The 14,000 square foot property also boasts a cold-therapy cryogenic chamber, a sensory deprivation tank and a yoga room with plant walls. The property, which has sweeping views over Hollywood and is close to the Sunset Strip, has a double-story infinity pool so those below can see people swimming above them. Los Angeles bachelor pad in West Hollywood has just been listed for sale for a whopping $55 million The home, which was only completed late last year, boasts six bedrooms and 10 bathrooms over multiple levels The property has sweeping views over Hollywood and is close to the Sunset Strip The home also has a game room and several bars to go with its bachelor pad theme It also has a movie theater, outdoor bar, a wine room and a game room to go with its bachelor pad theme. '(It) lends itself to someone in search of the L.A. life of wellness, or a very sexually charged home,' listing agent Rayni Williams told the Wall Street Journal. 'It has a very sexual energy.' The home also has a number of custom designed art pieces that are available to purchase with the home, including a 24-foot gold sculpture of a giraffe. The developer bought the property for $6 million back in 2014. The home is listed by Rayni and Branden Williams of Hilton & Hyland Real Estate. It also has a double-story infinity pool (pictured left) so those below can see people swimming above them It has five huge bedrooms with soaring views of Los Angeles and multiple art installations that are also up for sale This bathroom, which is one of 10 in the property, has sweeping views over the bright lights of Los Angeles The double-story infinity pool allows swimmers to see those above or below them The property has multiple entertaining factors to go with its bachelor pad, or LA lifestyle, theme A potential juror in the trial of former stockbroker Rod Covlin, accused of murdering his wealthy estranged wife in 2009 before she could write him out of her will, has been cut loose because he worked for Harvey Weinstein. Alex Spatt was tossed from the jury pool on Tuesday after he revealed he once worked for the disgraced movie mogul. Weinstein is on trial in New York in May after being charged with rape and sexual assault. According to his LinkedIn page, Spatt had served at The Weinstein Company from March 2016 as Harvey Weinstein's executive assistant before becoming director of production and development in October 2017. He left in July 2018. Rod Covlin, now 45, is accused of of murdering his businesswoman wife, Shele Danishefsky Covlin, in 2009 by strangling her and leaving her body in the bathtub of her Manhattan apartment for their daughter to find. He is shown, left, in court nine years after her death He told Manhattan Supreme Court judge Ruth Pickholz that he couldn't serve in the Covlin trial, expected to last up to eight weeks, because he had just received a job offer and is scheduled to start within a month. Spatt then added, 'Just for the sake of disclosure, in a past job I had to deal with legal issues including talking to the district attorney's office.' 'What was your old job?' Pickholz asked. 'I worked for Harvey Weinstein,' Spatt said as several members of the jury pool tittered. Spatt was excused as part of a larger group as Pickholz pared Tuesday's pool of 112 potential jurors by several dozen. Many of the excused jurors told the judge either they or their family members had been victims of domestic violence. Three people, two women and one man, were selected to serve on the jury and told to return next Tuesday for the start of the trial. Film exec Alex Spatt (left) was dropped from Rod Covlin trial's juror pool after telling Manhattan Supreme Court he had a new job but once worked for Harvey Weinstein (right) Covlin, now 45, is accused of murdering his businesswoman wife Shele Danishefsky Covlin and trying to frame their daughter when he realized police were closing in on him, it has been claimed. Prosecutors say Shele had been put in a choke-hold by Covlin, strangled, then turned face down in the bathtub of her Manhattan apartment to set it up to look like an accidental drowning. The couple's daughter Anna found Shele's body at 7am on New Year's Eve in 2009. Covlin was 36 at the time. Shele, a UBS executive from a wealthy Jewish orthodox family, was 47 and the sole breadwinner while her husband pursued a career as a professional backgammon player. Because the only visible injury on her body was a cut to the back of the head and because her religious family protested against an invasive autopsy, the cause of her death was undetermined. At the time of her death, Rod was 36 and Shele, a UBS executive from a wealthy background, was 47. She was the sole breadwinner and he was pursuing his backgammon passion At the time, the couple were in the midst of a bitter custody and divorce battle which centered around Covlin's alleged infidelity. The day before her death, Shele made an appointment to meet with her attorney to discuss taking Rod, a Columbia University graduate, out of her $4million will. Prosecutors also contend he was cheating at the time of his wife's death with a string of women including paid escorts. For six years, her death was deemed to be an accident until 2015 when Covlin was recorded by a girlfriend hatching a plan to kidnap Anna. He wanted to take Anna, then 13, to Mexico where he would pay an 18-year-old Mexican $10,000 to marry her. Covlin's hope was that by her getting married, Anna would no longer be considered a minor and that technicality would grant him access to Anna's inheritance. By then, the children had been removed from his care and given to his parents and Covlin had no way of accessing the $4million which had been left to them by their deceased mother. Covlin is also accused of trying to frame Anna for killing Shele by penning a computer note in 2013, allegedly pretending to be his daughter, where she confessed to the killing. Covlin, pictured in court, denies killing his wife and all of the other allegations It read: 'All of these years I have been so incredibly afraid and guilty about the night my mom died. 'I lied. She didn't just slip. That day we got into a fight about her dating I got mad so I pushed her, but it couldn't have been that hard! 'I didn't mean to hurt her! I swear! But she fell and I heard a terrible noise and the water started turning red and I tried to pull her head up but she remained still' Prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos claimed Covlin wrote the note once he learned the DA's investigation into him was heating up again. On the morning of his wife's death, Covlin left the apartment building where they lived at 4am to go for a walk. It piqued prosecutors' interest because on his way out, he offered their doorman a cup of coffee. The doorman told investigators that it was odd behavior from a man who had scarcely ever acknowledged him before. Shele's body was found at 7am, three hours after their encounter. Though suspicion against him was abundant, police did not file charges until six years later. There are a number of reasons for the delay including the fact that Shele's body never underwent a full autopsy. In 2010, a year after Shele died, her family allowed her body to be exhumed so that a full autopsy could be carried out. They had previously refused on grounds of their religion but changed their minds as suspicion against Covlin mounted. The autopsy revealed Shele had been strangled and a medical examiner ruled the cause of death as homicide but no charges were brought against her ex-husband. The couple were in the midst of a bitter divorce battle and Shele was trying to write her husband out of her will. They were living in separate apartments on the same floor of this Upper West Side apartment building Her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against him and, as part of it, a judge placed an order prohibiting him from seeing any of the money that had been left to him or her children but he still did not face murder charges. Covlin was reported to police by a girlfriend who secretly recorded a conversation they had where he allegedly discussed marrying Anna off so that he would finally be able to get control of her trust fund. After their mother's death, the children were entrusted to their father's parents' care after they raised concern that he was physically abusing their son. There were also claims he had been trying to contact underage girls by 'poking' them on Facebook. One threatened to report him to the police if he did not stop, according to prosecutors, and there were other allegations which prosecutors made vague reference to in court that he had actually engaged in sexual contact with a minor. Shele's nine-year-old daughter Anna found her face down in the bathtub (shown) on December 30, 2009 at 7am. She alerted Covlin who had an apartment in the same building Covlin, who has been described as greedy and unscrupulous by prosecutors, was enraged by it because he was desperate to control the children's trust fund. To try to regain control of it, he allegedly hatched a plan to kill his own parents. Shele's body was exhumed in 2010 a year after she died for an autopsy to be performed. It revealed she had been strangled He also, it is claimed, tried to convince Anna to accuse her grandfather, his father, of molesting her. He denies all of the allegations against him and maintains that Shele's death was an accident. This guy is a f****** psychopath Former co-worker at Pearl Capital debt collectors Details of his life before Shele remain unclear as are the details surrounding his career on Wall Street. When his wife died, he was well known on the backgammon circuit and was one of the founding members of the US Backgammon Federation. In the months before his 2017 arrest, he had been working for a loan collectors company under a different name. Calling himself Rod Sommer, he worked at Pearl Capital as a head loan collector. After his arrest, former co-workers said he was a 'f****** psychopath' who came to work reeking of alcohol and who was aggressive towards some of the people he was collecting money from. 'This guy is a fking psychopath. He is out of his bird. Sometimes he'd come nose-to-nose with me. 'Whenever he was in my face, he reeked of liquor... 'There was always alcohol on his breath early in the morning, all day, in fact,' the worker, who declined to be named, told The New York Post in 2017. An Australian soldier died during a routine training exercise at a Victorian Army base. The family of the soldier, who died on Tuesday at the Puckapunyal Military Training Area, have been notified and the Department of Defence said it is providing support. 'The death of an Australian Army member, regardless of the circumstances, is a tragedy and deeply felt by the Army family and the broader Defence organisation,' a defence spokesman said. An Australian soldier has been killed during a routine training exercise at the Puckapunyal Military Training base (pictured) 'The soldier collapsed during a routine training activity and CPR was performed prior to the Victorian Ambulance service arriving on scene.' The cause of the death is not yet known. The Puckapunyal base, about 100km north of Melbourne, is one of the country's largest training bases. President Donald Trump told hundreds of state, local and community 'leaders' on a conference call Tuesday four separate times that he is prepared to ride out a lengthy government shutdown and won't reopen a long list of unfunded agencies until Congress appropriates money for his long-promised border wall. 'We're not going back until it's over. We're going to build this wall. It's going to happen,' the president said. 'If we just stick together, we're going to win. Because we're not going back until it's until the Democrats do what they know they have to do,' he urged later. The White House's Office of Political Affairs organized the call Monday with invitations to the 2:30 p.m. Tuesday event, which lasted less than 14 minutes. It was promoted as a briefing 'not intended for press purposes,' and a call moderator declared at the beginning that it was 'not on the record.' DailyMail.com did not participate in or listen to the call in real-time. A registered participant provided audio afterward. Those in the call were not named by the White House and had been invited by its political office to participate, suggesting they were already committed Trump backers. President Donald Trump told supporters in a conference call on Tuesday that he's ready to keep the federal government closed indefinitely unless Democrats find his southern border barrier: 'We're not going back till it's over! We're going to build this wall!' The president is demanding $5.7 billion from Congress to continue the construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall, an idea that Democrats on Capitol Hill show no interest in helping with 'We need unity. We're going to stay out for a long time if we have to. We'll be out for a long time,' Trump said on the call, insisting that 'government's working well' despite the loss of about 380,000 workers and the frustrations of another 400,000 who are performing their mission-critical duties without pay. A federal judge in Washington had hours earlier refused to order the administration to pay them, and to allow those furloughed at home to find other sources of income while they wait. 'We really appreciate the people that have sacrificed so much. And they're not being paid right now because of the Democrats,' Trump said. Trump also declared that Republicans in Congress are marching in lockstep: 'I have had nobody call up and say, "Gee, let's go back".' He lapsed at one point into his campaign-year rhetoric, claiming migrants who stream north from Central America toward the U.S.-Mexico border aren't refugees, but the equivalent of economic sponges. 'This has very little to do with fear. This has to do with economics,' he said, dismissing the 'fear' claims of asylum-seekers. 'People are coming up, and in many cases they're not working. They're coming up to enjoy the fruits of a system that too a long time to build, that'll collapse under the weight of the millions of people that want to pour in,' he said. Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis and other House Republicans spoke to the media after meeting with Trump about funding for the border wall and ending the partial government shutdown Davis showed off a copy of a White House handout, which matched almost exactly a fact sheet the president's team sent to reporters on January 8 The president's morning Twitter diet on Tuesday included a message about 'a big new Caravan ... heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras,' and a plea for his base to pester House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on his behalf. 'Tell Nancy and Chuck that a drone flying around will not stop them. Only a Wall will work. Only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe! Stop playing political games and end the Shutdown!' he tweeted. Tuesday's call came after a meeting between Trump and House Republicans, after an attempt at a bipartisan negotiating session fell apart. Democrats declined the invitation. GOP members strode out of the West Wing, eager to talk to reporters, with one clutching a handout boasting of Trump's tough-as-nails border security positions. The sheet matched nearly identically one that the White House sent to reporters a full week ago, suggesting the president's team hasn't changed its messaging much since the partial government shutdown began 25 days ago. The president's morning Twitter diet on Tuesday included a message about the next caravan of migrants to travel north through the length of Mexico toward the United States Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen introduced the president minutes later on the conference call; no one else spoke other than Trump's Arizona law-enforcement guest. Dial-in participants were locked in 'listen-only mode.' 'Stay together. Be unified. We're not going back until we get what we have to get,' they heard Trump say, while insisting that 'the Republican Senate and the Republican House, members of whom I just left, are totally united for the sake of safety for our nation.' Trump mused that 'maybe it'll be 100 to nothing someday in Congress, and I guess I'll just sort of sit back and say, "Well, they're going to get it." But I don't think so.' 'We'll get this up, we'll get it up fast, and it'll be like a different day,' he said finally, of his controversial border barrier. 'Stay together, we're going to win, we're not going back until it's over. We're going to build this wall. It's going to happen. I've been promising. It has nothing to do with a campaign promise. It has to do with the fact that we need this for our country.' It's unclear how many people listened to Trump and an Arizona sheriff on the call. DailyMail.com's source said an automated system advised at the time his call connected that the number was in the hundreds. The White House's published schedule for Tuesday described the event as 'a briefing call on the border crisis with State, local, and community leaders' and said Trump would participate. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The call came as the shutdown's effects spread, with chaos at airports as sickness levels among TSA staff hit three times the normal rate, and with Trump winning a court victory over a move by furloughed workers to seek paid employment elsewhere during the shutdown. Travelers have been advised to get to the airport three hours early as a record number of security screeners fail to show up for work across the US in the fourth week of the partial government shutdown. Hour-plus wait times have been reported at security checkpoints at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, the world's busiest airport (above) Passengers can be seen making their way to a security checkpoint on Tuesday at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport, where one terminal remains closed for the third day The Transportation Security Administration reported a national absence rate of 6.8 percent - about one in 13 - on Monday, to a 2.5 percent rate one year ago on the same day. Monday marked the first business day after security screeners saw their first missed paycheck since the shutdown began. TSA officials remain concerned they could soon reach a 'tipping point' where large numbers of their agents quit and look for paid work elsewhere. At Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world's busiest, some passengers have had to wait more than an hour to get through checkpoints. 'It's chaos out here,' passenger Vincent Smith said as he stood in a line that snaked through the Atlanta airport's atrium and baggage claim areas. 'This line, I've been here about 15 minutes and it has moved two feet.' In a statement Tuesday morning, TSA officials said: 'Nationwide, TSA screened 1.89 million passengers yesterday. Overall, 99.1 percent of passengers waited less than 30 minutes; 94.3 percent of passengers less than 15 minutes. In TSA Pre Check lanes, passengers on average waited less than 10 minutes.' Republican Congressman Steve King voted Tuesday for a resolution condemning himself for comments he made about white nationalism and white supremacy. 'I agree with every word that you have put in this,' King told Democratic lawmaker James Clyburn, who sponsored the resolution, in a speech on the House floor shortly before the vote. 'So I want to ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle let's vote for this resolution. I'm putting up a yes on the board here because what you say is true, is right and is just,' he added. The final vote was 424 yeas and one vote against it. Republican Congressman Steve King voted for a resolution condemning himself for comments he made about white nationalism and white supremacy The final vote was 424 in favor and one opposed; Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush said he would vote no because he wants King censured, a much stronger punishment King, 69, was seen making the sign of the cross as he walked into the well of the House to speak before his colleagues voted on whether or not to condemn him. In his six minutes of remarks, King also defended himself, as he has done since his interview with The New York Times was published last week, in which King questioned how the terms 'white nationalism' and 'white supremacy' became offensive. 'There is no tape for this interview I did. It is 56 minutes long,' King said. 'There's no way to go back and listen. But I can tell you this. That ideology never showed up in my head. I don't know how it would have come out of my mouth.' He also got in a slam at the newspaper, which is also a favorite target of President Donald Trump's. 'They make a habit of attacking the president as a matter of fact,' he said. The resolution not only disavowed King's comments it also served as a 'condemnation of white nationalism and white supremacy in all forms.' Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush said he would vote against the resolution because he wanted to see King censured - a stronger punishment that is one step below expulsion from the House. 'Anything short of censure would be shallow,' Rush said in a statement introducing his censure resolution. If censured, King would be required to stand in the House well while his colleagues formally reprimand him. A growing number of Democrats' are supporting such a move. But Clyburn, the highest ranking African American member of Congress, said Monday he didn't push for censure because he felt that should be reserved for alarming statements made on the House floor. House Republicans have already punished King by stripping him of his committee assignments, a move that leaves him virtually powerless on Capitol Hill. King served on the House Judiciary, Agriculture and Small Business committees in the last Congress. Republican Congressional leaders have also spoken on in condemnation of their colleague. House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy called King's remarks 'beneath the dignity of the Party of Lincoln and the United States of America'. 'We will not tolerate this type of language in the Republican party or in the Democratic party,' McCarthy said. 'I watched what Steve King said and we took action.' Democratic congressmen Bobby Rush (pictured) wants King to facer a harsher punishment Republican Congressional leaders Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (left) and House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (right) have condemned King's remarks Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also denounced King on Monday and even suggested the congressman 'should find another line of work'. 'There is no place in the Republican Party, the Congress or the country for an ideology of racial supremacy of any kind,' McConnell said in a statement. 'Rep. King's statements are unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position. If he doesn't understand why "white supremacy" is offensive, he should find another line of work.' The uproar began in with King's interview with The New York Times last week. 'White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization - how did that language become offensive?' King asked during the interview. 'Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?' he noted. Since the interview, King denied that he is racist and said his remarks were 'completely mischaracterized'. Alexys Brown died after becoming stuck between the lift and ceiling of her home in Weymouth, Dorset A heartbroken mother has paid an emotional tribute to her 'angelic little girl' who died after her head got stuck in a faulty lift. Alexys Brown, known as Lexi, died from 'horrific' head and neck injuries when she got her head trapped between the lift and the ceiling of her home in Weymouth, Dorset in August 2015. The disability lift had been installed in the family home for Lexi's older brother Jack, who is wheelchair-bound. The incident happened when Jack asked his five-year-old sister to fetch his mobile phone from upstairs, Bournemouth Crown Court heard. Their mother Lorraine Brown said the family had been left 'broken' by Lexi's death. She also said her 11-year-old son Jack has been wracked with guilt and left traumatised after watching his little sister die. She told an inquest: 'My son Jack had to witness something people wouldn't even be able to have nightmares about. 'He is receiving treatment for PTSD, he doesn't sleep or eat. He carries a huge amount of guilt he just cannot let go of. 'What he witnessed we can only imagine.' Two companies have now been fined more than 1.5 million over the death of the five-year-old. The family told Health and Safety Executive investigators there had been ongoing problems with the lift (pictured) since they moved in Mrs Brown told Bournemouth Crown Court yesterday that her other children had been left 'broken' by the devastation caused by Alexys' death. She is pictured right, with her older sister and brother Lorraine Brown, the mother of Alexys Brown, with Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector Leo Diez, reads a statement outside Bournemouth Crown Court Yesterday a judge at Bournemouth Crown Court fined housing association Synergy Housing Ltd, which owned the property where Alexys lived with her family, 1million. Maintenance contractor Orona Ltd, which was responsible for servicing and maintaining the lift, was fined 533,000. Both companies were ordered to pay 40,000 towards the costs of the Health and Safety Executive prosecution. Lexi's mother Lorraine Brown described the last three years as 'unimaginable'. She said: 'Hold your children a little tighter, love your family a little harder because you never know when you might not be able to anymore.' 'The loss of Alexys has impacted our lives and our children's lives immensely,' she said. 'Nothing can ever bring Alexys back to us. The fines to us are irrelevant. All we ever wanted was an apology from Synergy and we got that. 'Alexys was a loving, carefree and angelic little girl who was full of energy, love and laughter. 'I hope that what has happened to our family sheds light on others in order to avoid anything like this ever happening again. 'We are now looking forward in raising our children with memories, photos, videos and stories of their sister.' Firefighters had to cut Alexys free because there was no emergency key or handle to manually free her, the court heard. Picture shows police outside her home following her death Mrs Brown, who was accompanied by her husband Matthew, added: 'Hold your children a little tighter and love your family a little harder. You never know when you won't be able to anymore.' Bournemouth Crown Court heard the incident happened when Alexys' older brother, who is a wheelchair user, asked her to go upstairs to get his mobile phone. As the little girl went up on the platform lift she was able to put her head through a hole in the Perspex door panel, which had not been repaired - and she got trapped. The children's grandmother, who was looking after them, heard the boy shouting and rushed to the scene. She tried freeing her granddaughter but was unable to and called the emergency services. Firefighters had to cut Alexys free because there was no emergency key or handle to manually free her, the court heard. Sadly Alexys couldn't be saved and she died at the scene from head and neck injuries. The Brown family moved into the three-bedroom property in 2009 because it already had the lift installed and would be of assistance to their disabled son. They told Health and Safety Executive investigators there had been ongoing problems with the lift since they moved in, including the doors not opening. By May 2015 the Perspex door panel was damaged and should have been repaired or replaced. Diagram of how the lift operated from its original manual The lift should have been serviced every six months and subjected to a 'thorough examination' twice yearly by a third party insurer. That examination was last carried out in 2012 after Synergy told the insurance company the lift had been removed. Orona had twice quoted Synergy a price to replace the lift but the housing association did not approve the work as it was investigating the building of a ground floor extension instead. Mrs Brown told Bournemouth Crown Court yesterday that her other children had been left 'broken' by the devastation caused by Alexys' death. Alexys' family have spoken of their grief in the wake of her death She said: 'The heartache and emotion they have had to face of losing their sister and best friend and the circumstances of her death make it impossible. 'We believed Alexys was sent to us for a reason at a time when we were given a horrible diagnosis with Jack. 'Alexys' arrival gave Jack something to look forward to. She was and is his guardian angel. She gave him a reason to fight, to be, to live and that reason has gone, along with his fight. 'Our life is never sleeping due to thousands of what ifs and why didn't Is. The silence is deafening, every day getting worse. As time goes by we just miss her more. 'We should have been able to protect her and that was taken away from us. It's just heartbreaking.' At a previous hearing both companies pleaded guilty to a single charge under the Health and Safety at Work Act. Dominic Kay QC, for Synergy, said: 'Synergy accepts wholeheartedly its failings. It is important to understand the feelings of regret and remorse felt at Synergy.' James Ageros QC, representing Orona, expressed his 'sincere regret and condolences' to Alexys' family. 'Nothing I say is meant to detract from the human tragedy of this case,' he added. Passing sentence, Judge Stephen Climie listed several failings, including a failure to ensure the proper maintenance and repair of the lift. 'No one should ever lose sight of the fact that this was industrial machinery operating in a domestic setting with young children present which should have resulted in the most careful assessment of safety measures and controls at all times,' he said. 'Each defendant has accepted responsibility through the basis of plea documents and has accepted that to some extent each is responsible for causing Alexys' death. 'Between them I am satisfied that they were wholly responsible for her death and the desperate loss to her family.' Both companies are to pay 40,000 prosecution costs. Charges against a third company, Aster Property Ltd, were ordered to lie on file. After passing sentence, Judge Climie praised the Brown family for the 'dignity and strength that would be beyond many of us'. 'It is clear the family feel responsible for Alexys' death. The only fault which attaches in this case as far as Alexys' death is concerned lies with the defendants,' he said. 'No words or actions by this court can compensate the family for their loss. 'The financial penalties which are imposed in this case are not a reflection of value of her life. She was beautiful, and she was priceless.' Mrs Brown said: 'Our life is never sleeping due to thousands of what ifs and why didn't Is. The silence is deafening, every day getting worse. As time goes by we just miss her more' The list of fatal errors included; A key switch preventing the lift being used unsupervised was never given to the family A handle to operate the emergency lowering system was never supplied to the family The family were never given any training on operating the lift or a user manual In 2012 Orona quoted Synergy 14,000 for a new lift after a series of failings with the existing one but this was never followed up A third party insurance company stopped bi-annual inspections of the lift in 2012 as it was wrongly told the lift had been removed Orona was notified of the damaged door three months before the tragedy but nothing was done to fix this. The Browns were so worried about the safety of the lift they applied for planning permission to extend their end-of-terrace house so Jack could have his bedroom downstairs. Today a judge at Bournemouth Crown Court fined Synergy, which is part of Aster Group, 1m. Orona Ltd was fined 533,000. Both companies were ordered to pay 40,000 towards the costs of the Health and Safety Executive prosecution. Judge Stephen Climie told Alexys' parents, Lorraine and Matthew, that the fine was in no way a reflection of the value of their 'beautiful and priceless' daughter's life. He said: 'The Browns have behaved with extraordinary dignity and have shown strength in the face of adversity which would be beyond many of us. 'I wish to express my sympathy and condolences. Alexys would have been proud of each and every member of her family had she been here today. 'No words or actions of this court will ever be able to compensate the Browns for their loss. 'The financial penalties required to be imposed are in no way a reflection of the value of Alexys' life. She was beautiful and she was priceless.' Mrs Brown, 33, said: 'Knowing it could have been prevented turns my upset to anger. Someone failed our family and needs to take responsibility. 'Our life is never sleeping due to thousands of 'what ifs' and 'why didn't Is'. The silence is deafening, every day getting worse. As time goes by we just miss her more. 'We should have been able to protect her and that was taken away from us. It's just heartbreaking. 'The world kept moving and ours just stood still. The hurt in our hearts will never end. Losing a child is beyond grief, there are no words.' The Browns moved into the three bedroom house in 2009. The lift was installed for Jack who has suffered from a neuro-degenerative disease since the age of five. On the day of the tragedy, August 13, 2015, Alexys and Jack were at home and being looked after by their grandmother who was in another room when her granddaughter got into the lift. Sara Lawson QC, prosecuting for the Health and Safety Executive, said: 'The catalogue of failures and lack of checks made by these companies led to Alexys' death. 'The lift was in an unsatisfactory condition at the time it was in use. If either the hole had not been present or there had been adequate control of the key switch at the time this incident would not have occurred. 'The systems in place were not rigorous enough and problems with the emergency lowering system had existed since the start of the Brown family's tenancy and had not been addressed.' Synergy Housing and Orona Limited admitted charges of failing to discharge their health and safety duty, a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Alexy's mother Lorraine Brown with HSE inspector Leo Diez outside of court Dominic Kay, representing Synergy Housing, said: 'The upset, regret and remorse is felt at all levels of Synergy and Aster. The whole purpose of these organisations is to assist people who need help and everyone is devastated by what happened. 'The CEO, finance director, housing director, operations director and head of health and safety are all here because they feel it is their duty to represent the company and hear what is said by the Crown and Mrs Brown. 'They haven't shrugged this off, valuable lessons have been learnt to ensure nothing like this will happen again.' James Agaros, representing Orona, said: 'Everyone at Orona expresses its sincere regret and condolences to the Brown family. 'The company is represented at the highest echelons of the organisation as a representation of the seriousness with which they treat this. 'This is a company where there are systems in place and the systems fell down and were not properly implemented. 'Synergy say Orona was their specialist advisor but Orona did advise on two occasions for the lift to be removed and quotations were raised. 'They can't say 'we relied on our specialist advisor' but then when they give you advice you don't take it.' An overwhelming majority of Australians continue to reject calls for the country's national day to be moved from January 26, according to new polls. Polling commissioned by the Institute of Public Affairs, a conservative think-tank, showed just 10 per cent of 1,000 people surveyed want to change the date of Australia Day. Young Australians were even less welcoming to the idea of moving the date from January 26, which many indigenous Australians view as Invasion Day. 'Only eight per cent of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 say Australia Day should not be celebrated on 26 January,' the IPA's Dr Bella d'Abrera said. '[It] proves that despite the media and political left narrative, young people are not drawn to the divisive argument of opposing our national day.' An overwhelming majority of Australians reject calls for the country's national day to be moved from January 26, according to new polls Polling commissioned by right-wing think tank the Institute of Public Affairs showed just 10 per cent of 1,000 people surveyed want to change the date of Australia Day A separate poll of 1,659 people, conducted by conservative lobby group Advance Australia, found 78 per cent of those surveyed were proud to celebrate Australia Day on January 26. 'The results are in - January 26 is not a day for division and protest, but rather a day for all Australians to celebrate,' the group's National Director, Gerard Benedet, said. Ten days out from Australia Day, the Greens have offered to host citizenship ceremonies on behalf of local councils who refuse to hold events on January 26 out of respect for indigenous people. Prime Minister Scott Morrison plans to force councils to hold ceremonies on Australia Day and enforce a strict dress code at official events in an attempt to preserve the date. A separate poll of 1,659 people, conducted by conservative lobby group Advance Australia, found 78 per cent of those surveyed were proud to celebrate Australia Day on January 26 Ten days out from Australia Day, the Greens have offered to host citizenship ceremonies on behalf of local councils who refuse to hold events on January 26 Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has declared he will never move the date of Australia Day if he becomes prime minister. Mr Shorten also said he had no desire to be the 'fashion police' telling people what they could wear at citizenship ceremonies. 'I just think we've got to leave the politics alone, catch up with our family and friends, and on Australia Day my wish is for all Australians to realise what a great country we live in,' he told the Nine Network on Wednesday. The opposition leader refused to buy into the Greens' idea on citizenship ceremonies. Prime Minister Scott Morrison plans to force councils to hold ceremonies on Australia Day 'Some days I'd like to put the Greens with Tony Abbott and a few of the right-wing in the Liberal Party in the same room, tell them to sort it out, and the rest of us can just get on and cook a snag on the barbie,' Mr Shorten said. 'What happens in Australian politics is sometimes the extremes - because they say radical things - grab a headline. 'I'm not going to get distracted by that - the Greens can say or do what they want - Labor is not going to go down that path. 'We're not going to have big political debates about the day of Australia Day.' Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has declared he will never move the date of Australia Day if he becomes prime minister Many indigenous people view January 26 as Invasion Day or Survival Day and find it offensive the date their ancestors lost their sovereignty to British colonialists is celebrated Health Minister Greg Hunt is confident the vast majority of people support Australia Day. 'It celebrates what we are as a contemporary nation and this game that's played out every year is simply a diversion and self-serving,' Mr Hunt said. 'Australia Day is about celebrating a nation that is a multi-ethnic success, with all of the challenges of any country.' Many indigenous people find it offensive the date their ancestors lost their sovereignty to British colonialists is celebrated with a public holiday. A young man died after falling down an elevator shaft in a vacant building while playing hide-and-seek. Detroit police said the group was on the building's ninth floor early Saturday morning. The 21-year-old is believed to have fallen through an elevator shaft on the 9th floor of the building, according to police. A young man died after falling down an elevator shaft at the former Packard plant in Detroit (pictured) The man's friends left when they couldn't find him, but they returned later in the morning to search for him. They called 911 after finding his body amid piles of debris in the shaft on the first floor of the building. The Detroit News reports that the building was used as a warehouse and cold storage. It closed in 2002. The Packard Property, which is made up of 45-buildings, was purchased by a developer in 2014 with plans to eventually revitalize the property. The first phase of the project broke ground in May 2017, which included revitalizing the administration building and a nearby building. The project is estimated to cost $23 million and developer Fernando Palazuelo is financing the entire project. Police tape (left) can be seen surrounding the building as signs saying 'no trespassing' are displayed at different points (right) Blight Busters Co-Founder John George (above) said disused sites can be very dangerous While there are plenty of 'No Trespassing' signs on the property, there are also reportedly a lot of unlocked, open doors. John George, co-founder of Blight Busters, told FOX2: Its really hard to keep people out that want to get in. 'Seriously, these are construction sites, demo sites and you really need to approach them with a great deal of caution,' he said. El Chapo gave former Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto a $100million bribe in 2012, according to the drug kingpin's right hand man. Alex Cifuentes is one of several witnesses testifying against his former boss at a highly anticipated Brooklyn trial. On Tuesday, he claimed under cross-examination from El Chapo's lawyers that he had the bribe delivered to Nieto by an unnamed woman in Mexico City. 'Mr. Guzman paid a bribe of $100 million to President Pena Nieto?' Jeffrey Lichtman, one of the drug dealer's lawyers, asked. Cifuentes replied 'yes' but later tried to backtrack, saying: 'It wasn't like that.' Cifuentes first told prosecutors about the bribe in 2016 after El Chapo, whose real name is Joaquin Guzman, was recaptured. At the time the bribe is said to have been given, Guzman was on the run after his first prison escape in 2001 and Nieto had just been elected. It was during the years between 2001 and 2014, when he was captured again, that he was able to grow his empire from the Sinaloa mountains. Alex Cifuentes (seen left with the drug kingpin) told his trial on Tuesday that he gave Enrique Pena Nieto (right) a $100million bribe in Mexico City in 2012 when he was on the run Cifuentes did not tell the court on Tuesday specifically whether the bribe was for. El Chapo was arrested again in 2014, when Nieto was still in office. It supports claims made by El Chapo's followers and even his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, who have long claimed that Nieto is corrupt and disloyal to the people of Mexico. The former Mexican president has always vehemently denied accepting bribes from any cartel groups. He proudly boasted about Guzman's recapture in 2016 then handed him over to the US without question the following January. Elsewhere in his testimony on Tuesday, Cifuentes told how his former boss once ordered the death of his secretary because he thought she was lying when she told him that a Mexican general 'hated him' and had refused a bribe to stay off his case. A court sketch depicting Cifuentes testifying against his former boss while he watched on Tuesday No cameras are allowed inside the Brooklyn courtroom where El Chapo's trial is taking place. A sketch depicts defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman questioning Cifuentes on Tuesday while his client watched ENRIQUE PENA NIETO: MEXICO'S SCANDAL-HAUNTED FORMER PRESIDENT Enrique Pena Nieto was elected in 2012. He took over from Felipe Calderon whose own office faced widespread corruption allegations. When Nieto triumphed, he brought the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) - which had long been detested by the Mexican public for unscrupulous corruption - back into power after a 12 year absence. Nieto was sworn in in November 2012. Over the next several years, more than 10 governors would be implicated on corruption charges and 43 students would go missing in the state of Guerrero. Their bodies have never been found and despite claims from the government that their deaths were the result of cartel scare tactics and corrupt police, questions still persist over what happened to them. During his campaign, he was forced to admit that he had fathered two children with other women while he was married to his soap star wife Angelica Rivera (pictured with him during the Mexico Independence Day Celebrations at Zocalo on September 15, 2018) The widespread distrust in Nieto and his predecessors is what fueled El Chapo's popularity in the impoverished communities where he held ranks. Among other scandals Nieto found himself embroiled in were claims that he and his wife bought their home in a sweetheart deal from a contractor he was accused of then giving kick backs to. During his campaign, he was forced to admit that he had fathered two children with other women while he was married to his soap star wife. Advertisement The secretary, Andrea Velez, had been told to proposition the general, who was not named. Cifuentes said Velez often provided girls from her modelling agency to entertain the general at parties and that they wanted to keep him on side. She asked him if he would take money to lay off El Chapo's case but, according to Cifuentes, he refused and told her he 'hated' her boss 'very much'. When she relayed the news to Guzman, he was in disbelief and accused her of making it up. 'He was angry and he said she was a liar, he ordered her killed,' Cifuentes said. He ordered her dead but she was never killed. Cifuentes did not specify when the order was made. He was captured again in 2014 then escaped from prison in 2015 and was not taken back into custody until the following year. El Chapo's lawyers' defense is that he was framed by his partner as part of a 'vast conspiracy' which also involves the Mexican government. The world's media has declared 'chaos' in Britain after Theresa May was humiliated in the Commons vote on her Brexit deal. The PM's withdrawal agreement went down by 432 votes to 202 in the House of Commons, the largest defeat on record for any government in modern times. The result has thrown Brexit into chaos and Mrs May's government could be toppled in a confidence vote tonight. Germany's leading tabloid newspaper Bild announced that the 'Brexit chaos is complete', saying MPs had 'swatted May's plans away'. Germany's leading tabloid newspaper Bild announced that the 'Brexit chaos is complete', saying MPs had 'swatted May's plans away' Spanish outlet El Mundo said May's Brexit had 'crashed' in Parliament with 432 votes against her withdrawal deal and only 202 in favour The newspaper said a parliamentary 'battle of nerves' had ended with a 'brutal hammering' for the Prime Minister. Britain's planned exit date of March 29 was 'wobbling more than ever' as a result of the vote, they wrote. Germany's leading broadcaster ARD said Mrs May had suffered a 'miserable failure' but said Jeremy Corbyn would face pressure to back a second referendum if he did not win his no-confidence vote tonight. The country's finance minister Olaf Scholz called it a 'bitter day for Europe', saying a no-deal exit was the 'worst of all possibilities'. Meanwhile weekly magazine Der Spiegel said the Conservative leader had 'failed with a crash', saying Brexit was having a 'collision with reality'. In France, financial newspaper Les Echos wrote that the Prime Minister had gone down to a 'historic defeat'. Broadcaster France 24 described the outcome in similar terms, calling it a 'historic failure' and saying MPs had inflicted a 'serious humiliation' on the PM. Newspaper Le Monde said the result had 'worsened the uncertainty over the future of the United Kingdom'. Spanish outlet El Mundo said May's Brexit had 'crashed in Parliament' as a result of the massive defeat. The country's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Twitter that his Government regretted the 'negative result' in the Commons. In France, financial newspaper Les Echos wrote that the Prime Minister had gone down to a 'historic defeat' in Parliament Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf announced a 'heavy defeat for May in the Brexit deal vote', saying that 'faith in the PM has completely disappeared' He added that the PM's Withdrawal Agreement was the 'best possible' and said a disorderly exit would be 'negative for the EU and catastrophic for the United Kingdom'. Spain would work on contingency measures and 'would prioritise the rights of citizens and residents', he said. Dutch paper De Telegraaf said it was a 'heavy defeat' for Mrs May, pointing out that the last comparable Commons loss for a British PM was in 1924. Faith in Mrs May had 'completely disappeared' after the huge rebellion from inside her own party, the newspaper said. Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera said Mrs May was on the 'last beach, saying she had united Remainers and hard Brexiteers in opposition to her deal. EU leaders have also reacted, with European Council President Donald Tusk saying: 'If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?' European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said: 'I take note with regret of the outcome of the vote in the House of Commons this evening. 'The risk of a disorderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom has increased with this evening's vote. While we do not want this to happen, the European Commission will continue its contingency work to help ensure the EU is fully prepared. 'I urge the United Kingdom to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. Time is almost up.' A 16-year-old girl called the police on her father after he took her phone away as punishment for having it password protected, Ohio officials say. Bodycam footage shows the moment officers responded to the 911 call made by the teen, who told dispatchers: 'My father took my property, which is an $800 phone that doesn't belong to him. He didn't buy it.' Lt James Wilson of the South Euclid Police Department said officers recognized the situation as a teaching opportunity, telling WKYC: 'Certainly if we were busy, it would be pushed to the back burner, but we still have an obligation to respond.' The father, Anthony Robertson, and his daughter were both sitting outside the home when officers arrived on Saturday afternoon. The teen, whose name has not been released because she is a minor, can be heard saying: 'I want my phone.' Robertson then explains: 'I took her phone because she's a juvenile, and I don't want her to have it. 'I can't inspect it, because the phone is locked, so I took it away.' The officers determined that it was merely a parental disciplinary issue and sided with Robertson. A 16-year-old girl called the police on her father, Anthony Robertson, after he took her phone away as punishment. Bodycam footage shows officers arriving at Robertson's home in South Euclid, Ohio, after the teen called 911 on Saturday afternoon Robertson explained to the officers: 'I took her phone because she's a juvenile, and I don't want her to have it. I can't inspect it, because the phone is locked, so I took it away' The girl says: 'It's my property and I don't live here,' claiming that she lives with her grandmother but occasionally stays at her father's home. One of the officers responds: 'But guess what? Everything that you own belongs to your mother and your father. Having a phone is not a right.' Robertson adds: 'It's a privilege.' The officers then warned the teen not to call 911 in non-emergency situations. A post about the incident on the South Euclid Police Department's Facebook page has been liked and shared hundreds of times by empathetic parents. It also stirred a debate over the property rights of teenagers. Lt Wilson said: 'Our department would not pursue this type of "theft". 'You'd be hard pressed to find a court in this country who would take the case.' Speaking to WKYC after the incident, Robertson said he was shocked when police showed up at his home. 'There's like, four cars, and I'm like, oh my goodness, the police are coming and they look kind of tough,' he said. Defending his decision to take away his daughter's phone, Robertson said: 'To all the parents, you know? Stay on them. There's so many hidden apps and little ways that they can hide and cover up what they're doing on those phones. It's ridiculous.' Do you know the father in this story? Please email Sean.O'Hare@mailonline.com. The girl, who has not been named or pictured because she is a minor, claimed that the dad had stolen her property because he didn't purchase the phone. Police sided with Robertson, telling the teen that having a cellphone was a privilege, not a right A Michigan special education teacher has been pictured sobbing in her mugshot after being charged with multiple counts of sexual misconduct involving children. Heather Winfield, 38, was arrested last week following a lengthy investigation that began back in 2016 when she was working as a teacher at Thunder Bay Junior High School in Alpena. Winfield is facing up to life in prison if she is found guilty of the various charges that stem incidents with at least one child under the age of 13 years. Heather Winfield, 38, was arrested last week following a lengthy investigation that began back in 2016 when she was working as at Thunder Bay Junior High School in Alpena, Michigan She was charged on Monday with two counts of first degree criminal sexual conduct with a child younger than 13 and one count of first degree criminal sexual conduct during the commission of a felony. Winfield is also charged with a count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a child ages 13 to 15, accosting a minor for immoral purposes and using a computer to commit a crime. Police have not confirmed if the charges relate to one under age victim, or if Winfield is accused of having multiple child victims. It is also not clear if the alleged victim or victims were Winfield's students. The investigation was based on allegations between 2016 and July 2018. Winfield worked as a special education teacher at the junior high school from 2012 until she resigned in 2016. Alpena Public Schools issued a statement on Monday, saying they are 'committed to the safety, security, and quality of the learning environment for all of our students'. 'We will always take proper action in alignment with our board policies and Michigan law to maintain a safe environment for students. 'Alpena Public Schools has cooperated with this investigation from the beginning and will continue to cooperate moving forward. 'Due to state and federal law protecting student privacy and personnel records, we are unable to share any additional details at this time.' A KFC employee's violent reaction to a complaint that she failed to wear gloves while preparing food has been caught on tape. Shade Renee Simmons, 30, was arrested and charged with battery using a 'personal or special weapon' late last month in Jacksonville, Florida, after the shocking drive-thru incident. Customer Ronald Jenkins, 53, began filming at the drive-thru window at the KFC on Edgewood Avenue after he noticed Simmons preparing his box of extra crispy chicken and biscuits without a hairnet or gloves on. Inside the KFC, the video shows Simmons getting increasingly agitated over the fact that Jenkins is filming, as the worker tries to block his view through the window. Customer Ronald Jenkins, 53, began filming at the drive-thru window at the KFC on Edgewood Avenue after he noticed a worker preparing his food without gloves Jenkins later explained that he was recording because he planned to go inside the location and contact the manger about how the food was prepared and say that he did not want the order. Finally Simmons snaps, opening the window and shouting: 'What is you recording?' Jenkins replies that this is America, and he can film whatever he wants in public. The agitated worker turns and grabs Jenkins' order, puts it in a bag, and returns to the drive-thru, where she slings it violently at him. 'Get your food. Bye,' Simmons says. Employee Shade Renee Simmons, 30, became irate when she noticed Jenkins filming her, storming over to the drive-thru and yelling: 'What is you recording?' Simmons slung the bag of food violently at Jenkins, hitting him the the face Jenkins said that the box of food hit his phone, which struck him in the mouth, damaging a tooth and causing him to bleed. 'She didn't throw it, she actually swung it and hit me in the face with it,' he told WJXT-TV. 'It was a backhand, pow!' After he showed the manager the video, Jenkins got a refund on the spot. Police were also contacted, and arrested Simmons at the restaurant on December 29 after viewing the video. The KFC franchise where Simmons worked also fired her. 'The actions of the employee were unacceptable and the franchisee who owns the restaurant terminated her employment,' a KFC spokesperson told DailyMail.com in a statement. 'We believe in respect for all people and any behavior otherwise will not be tolerated.' Jenkins (left) said the rough treatment damaged a tooth and caused him to bleed. Simmons (right) was arrested for battery with a 'personal or special weapon' Jenkins said he will never return the to location (above) where the incident occurred It is not Simmons' first brush with the law, Duval County records show. In 2007 she was charged with domestic battery and in 2009 she was charged with petty retail theft, getting a suspended sentence. Then in December 2013, Simmons was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, driving on a suspended license, and probation violation. The battery charge was dropped and she was released on time served after spending a month in county jail. After her most recent arrest, Simmons was released on a $5,003 bond on New Year's Eve. She does not appear to have a court date set, and declined to comment to local media. Jenkins says he will never again go to the KFC location where the incident occurred, and is considering a civil suit. President Donald Trump appears to be losing the public opinion battle over the government shutdown as a new poll shows only 2 percent of Americans said his Oval Office address changed their minds about his border wall. The Quinnipiac University National Poll released Monday also shows 56 percent of Americans think Trump is responsible for the shutdown after three polls from the weekend found a majority of people put the GOP at fault. Trump has been in a public relations battle over his wall since the shutdown began on Dec. 22. He's traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border, offered many Twitter posts, canceled his holiday trip to Mar-a-Lago and, on Jan. 8, gave a nine-minute address from the Oval Office. President Trump has been on a public relations battle to win public opinion on the shutdown A new poll shows his Oval Office speech did not convince people But only 2 percent said that speech swayed them while 89 percent did not change their minds about building a border wall, the Quinnipiac University poll found. People also believed the Democratic argument delivered by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer more than Trump: 46 percent to 36 percent. Pelosi and Schumer spoke in primetime after the president. Additionally, voters do not want the president to invoke emergency powers to build his barrier. People disapprove of that idea, 65 percent to 32 percent, the poll found. ''Mr. President, it's on you,' voters say about the government shutdown, blaming President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans more than Democrats,' said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, in a statement. 'And while they believe there is both a humanitarian and a security crisis along the southern border, they absolutely don't think a wall will solve the problem,' he added. Negotiations to reopen the government remain at a stand still. President Trump is demanding $5.7 billion to build his border wall while Democrats are holding firm at the $1.3 billion they offered for border security. The president is holding a luncheon with Congressional Republicans at the White House Tuesday. No Democrats opted to attend. 'Today, the President offered both Democrats and Republicans the chance to meet for lunch at the White House. Unfortunately, no Democrats will attend,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. In a meeting Monday night, Pelosi and Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told fellow party leaders they were fine with rank-and-file members meeting with Trump, a source in the meeting told The Hill. Pelosi told Hoyer: 'They can see what we've been dealing with. And they'll want to make a citizen's arrest.' The poll found more Americans believed Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi's argument more than Trump's Trump is demanding $5.7 billion to build his border wall before he will sign legislation reopening the government At Day 25, the shutdown has become the longest in U.S. history. One option is for the president to declare a national emergency and use existing Defense Department funds to build his wall, tasking the Army Corps of Engineers to serve as his border wall's general contractor. Trump has resisted the temptation, and appeared no closer on Monday to taking it. 'I'm not looking to call a national emergency. This is so simple, you shouldn't have to,' he said. 'Now, I have the absolute legal right to call it, but I'm not looking to do that. Around 800,000 federal workers - some furloughed, some working as essential employees - did not get paid on Friday. House Democrats have passed individual appropriations bills to open each Cabinet department affected by the shutdown. And 63 percent support a Democratic proposal to reopen parts of the government that do not involve border security while negotiating funding for Trump's wall, the Quinnipiac poll found. The House has canceled its planned recess for next week because of the shutdown. A woman is facing manslaughter charges after she shot and killed her boyfriend as they posed for a picture in Texas. Autumn King, 20, accidentally shot her boyfriend Eric Charles Allen, 26, two days before Christmas as they posed with a rifle for a Snapchat photo. According to the affidavit, King and Allen, who lived in Pflugerville, had been dating for two years before the shooting. Autumn King (left) is facing manslaughter charges after she accidentally shot her partner Eric Charles Allen (right) The couple were trying to pose up like infamous outlaws Bonnie and Clyde (pictured here in 1932) who were killed by cops at a police road block in 1934. They have a child together and lived with each other in the 12500 block of Rampart Drive, where the shooting happened around 12.30pm on December 23, police said. 'Autumn stated that she was holding a tan assault rifle and that Eric was holding Autumns cell phone because he was going to take a picture of her holding the assault rifle', according to the affidavit seen by The Statesman. King told officers she had the rifle pointed towards Allen and that the assault rifle 'went off'. The affidavit said the bullet hit Allen, who was a father-of-four in the chest. According to the report, King told investigators that she thought Allen was playing around and told him to get up. However when she realized that he was bleeding from his nose and mouth, she tried to drag him out to a car but couldnt. Allen (left) and King right) pictured together King told police that she and Allen argued earlier that day in an interview after the shooting, Fox7 reported. She said Allen left guns around the house regularly where kids could access them. Police said there were two children at the house at the time of the incident. 'Autumn stated that she ran outside and screamed for help and then went back inside and called 911 from her cell phone', the affidavit said. Allen was pronounced dead a few minutes after medics arrived. The Travis County Medical Examiner ruled the cause of death was from a gunshot wound and the manner of death as homicide King said she picked up a black rifle and put it behind the couch, then grabbed another rifle. King said she aimed the rifle Allen (pictured) as he held her cellphone and prepared to take a photo to post online Eric's sister LaQuisha Allen told KXAN said her brother worked hard to provide for his children Allen then asked if she wanted to take a picture with it, the affidavit said. 'Autumn stated that she did not intend to pull the trigger and that she put her finger lightly on the trigger. 'Autumn went on to say that she was trying to be like Bonnie and Clyde. Autumn said that her dad always told her never touch a gun, 'I didnt listen', the affidavit added. Eric's sister LaQuisha Allen told KXAN said he worked hard to provide for his chidren. The shooting happened two days before Christmas at the 12500 block of Rampart Drive She said: 'He did nothing but provide for his kids. He provided for his family if you wanted it he gave it to you, you didnt have to ask multiple times if hed seen that you needed it he had no problem giving it. 'A 10-year-old and a nine-month-old got to watch their daddy die today, thats the hardest thing in the world that you can see is your daddy laying on the floor dead,' she said. 'They want to know what happened, its going to be hard for us to tell them'. Taking pictures up a woman's skirt is set to become a criminal offence in the spring - with perverts found guilty of doing so facing up to two years in prison. Upskirting often sees perpetrators taking photographs or videos of a victim's groin area from under their clothing, often without that person's knowledge. A new law which bans 'upskirting' passed its final legal hurdle today when it received its third reading in the Upper Chamber of the House of Lords. Gina Martin (pictured), 27, has long campaigned for a change in the law to make upskirting a criminal act - having been a victim of such behaviour herself Reacting to the news, Barnoness Anita Gale, a member of the Lords, said: 'Victims of upskirting will now get justice and the perpetrators will be brought to justice' Campaigners had argued that existing laws for voyeurism, public decency and public order did not provide enough scope for a conviction. Reacting to the news, Barnoness Anita Gale, a member of the Lords, said: 'Victims of upskirting will now get justice and the perpetrators will be brought to justice.' While Sian Hawkins, a feminist and campaigner, said: 'Important stage for development of 'upskirting' legislation today. 'Important to note this offence is treated as sexual offence, so anonymity for survivors, unlike 'revenge porn'.' The upskirting bill will now become part of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and cover England and Wales. It is already a crime in Scotland. Gina Martin, 27, has long campaigned for a change in the law to make upskirting a criminal act - having been a victim of such behaviour herself. The issue was thrust into the spotlight by 27-year-old Gina Martin, who launched a petition to make upskirting a sexual offence after realising someone took a photo up her skirt at a music festival in Hyde Park in 2017 when she took a selfie (pictured right). The alleged perpetrators are obscured in black and ringed She recalls an incident in 2017 when she spotted an image of a woman's thighs and underwear on a man's phone while at the BST Festival in Hyde Park, and realised the image was of her. She reported it to the police but was told they could not punish the man because he had 'done nothing illegal', and so she launched a campaign to get upskirting added to the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Speaking last year, she said: 'It's supermarkets, it's bus stops when they're on their own, Tube cars, in parks, festivals it's happening everywhere. 'The change in the law is huge, it sets a precedent of what's right and wrong and it means it will cover women in every situation which the law can't now. 'But changing attitudes is also really important. More importantly, realising you can be a regular person like I am and make a difference if you keep working at it and get the right people involved.' The move to make upskirting a criminal act hit a roadblock last year when Tory MP Sir Christopher Chope shouted 'object' when the draft law was raised in the Commons on June 15. There were cries of 'shame' in the Commons - including from minister Victoria Atkins - when Sir Christopher made his shock move as MPs were invited to wave the change in the law through. Tory MP Sir Christopher Chope (pictured) shouted 'object' when the draft law was raised in the Commons on June 15 last year. But the government later intervened and ensured the bill went through as part of its bid to eradicate sexual abuse The draft law came forward after Liberal Democrat Wera Hobhouse was backed by the Ministry of Justice to try and deliver it from the backbenches Prime Minister Theresa May later expressed her 'disappointment' at the block, and pledged the Government would back moves to get the anti-upskirting legislation through Parliament. The draft law came forward after Liberal Democrat Wera Hobhouse was backed by the Ministry of Justice to try and deliver it from the backbenches. But because it was not debated in full, any MP could stop the reform from making progress by simply shouting 'object'. Lack of debate is frequently cited by Sir Christopher - who has blocked dozens of pieces of legislation in the same way - as a reason for objecting to a Bill on principle. Soon after, however, the government intervened and ensured the bill went through as part of its bid to eradicate sexual abuse. And now the House of Lords has ensured it passes its final hurdle meaning it should become law when it receives Royal Assent in the Spring. Reacting to the news, Ms Martin told the Metro: 'I knew it would become illegal because we were legally right, secured Government backing and had the support of good people across the country. 'Regular people can make change. Weve done it. We have made upskirting a sexual offence. GUILTY: MICHAEL FLYNN Pleaded guilty to making false statements in December 2017. Awaiting sentence Flynn was President Trump's former National Security Advisor and Robert Mueller's most senior scalp to date. He previously served when he was a three star general as President Obama's director of the Defense Intelligence Agency but was fired. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his conversations with a Russian ambassador in December 2016. He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation. GUILTY AND JAILED: MICHAEL COHEN Pleaded guilty to eight counts including fraud and two campaign finance violations in August 2018. Pleaded guilty to further count of lying to Congress in November 2018. Sentenced to three years in prison and $2 million in fines and forfeitures in December 2018 Cohen was investigated by Mueller but the case was handed off to the Southern District of New York,leaving Manhattan's ferocious and fiercely independent federal prosecutors to run his case. Cohen was Trump's longtime personal attorney, starting working for him and the Trump Organization in 2007. He is the longest-serving member of Trump's inner circle to be implicated by Mueller. Cohen professed unswerving devotion to Trump - and organized payments to silence two women who alleged they had sex with the-then candidate: porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. He admitted that payments to both women were felony campaign finance violations - and admitted that he acted at the 'direction' of 'Candidate-1': Donald Trump. He also admitted tax fraud by lying about his income from loans he made, money from taxi medallions he owned, and other sources of income, at a cost to the Treasury of $1.3 million. And he admitted lying to Congress in a rare use of the offense. The judge in his case let him report for prison on March 6 and recommended he serve it in a medium-security facility close to New York City. GUILTY AND JAILED: PAUL MANAFORT Found guilty of eight charges of bank and tax fraud in August 2018. Sentenced to 47 months in March 2019. Pleaded guilty to two further charges - witness tampering and conspiracy against the United States. Jailed for total of seven and a half years in two separate sentences. Additionally indicted for mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney, using evidence previously presented by Mueller Manafort worked for Trump's campaign from March 2016 and chaired it from June to August 2016, overseeing Trump being adopted as Republican candidate at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He is the most senior campaign official to be implicated by Mueller. Manafort was one of Washington D.C.'s longest-term and most influential lobbyists but in 2015, his money dried up and the next year he turned to Trump for help, offering to be his campaign chairman for free - in the hope of making more money afterwards. But Mueller unwound his previous finances and discovered years of tax and bank fraud as he coined in cash from pro-Russia political parties and oligarchs in Ukraine. Manafort pleaded not guilty to 18 charges of tax and bank fraud but was convicted of eight counts in August 2018. The jury was deadlocked on the other 10 charges. A second trial on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent due in September did not happen when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and witness tampering in a plea bargain. He was supposed to co-operate with Mueller but failed to. Minutes after his second sentencing hearing in March 2019, he was indicted on 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy by the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., using evidence which included documents previously presented at his first federal trial. The president has no pardon power over charges by district and state attorneys. GUILTY AND GOING TO WEEKEND JAIL: RICK GATES Pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and making false statements in February 2018. Sentenced to 45 days weekend jail and three years probation, December 17, 2018 Gates was Manafort's former deputy at political consulting firm DMP International. He admitted to conspiring to defraud the U.S. government on financial activity, and to lying to investigators about a meeting Manafort had with a member of congress in 2013. As a result of his guilty plea and promise of cooperation, prosecutors vacated charges against Gates on bank fraud, bank fraud conspiracy, failure to disclose foreign bank accounts, filing false tax returns, helping prepare false tax filings, and falsely amending tax returns. GUILTY AND JAILED: GEORGE PAPADOPOLOUS Pleaded guilty to making false statements in October 2017. Sentenced to 14 days in September 2018, and reported to prison in November. Served 12 days and released on December 7, 2018 Papadopoulos was a member of Donald Trump's campaign foreign policy advisory committee. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his contacts with London professor Josef Mifsud and Ivan Timofeev, the director of a Russian government-funded think tank. GUILTY AND JAILED: RICHARD PINEDO Pleaded guilty to identity fraud in February 2018. Sentenced to a year in prison Pinedo is a 28-year-old computer specialist from Santa Paula, California. He admitted to selling bank account numbers to Russian nationals over the internet that he had obtained using stolen identities. GUILTY AND JAILED: ALEX VAN DER ZWAAN Pleaded guilty to making false statements in February 2018. He served a 30-day prison sentence and was deported to the Netherlands on his release Van der Zwaan was a Dutch attorney for Skadden Arps who worked on a Ukrainian political analysis report for Paul Manafort in 2012. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about when he last spoke with Rick Gates and Konstantin Kilimnik. His law firm say he was fired. GUILTY: W. SAMUEL PATTEN Pleaded guilty in August 2018 to failing to register as a lobbyist while doing work for a Ukrainian political party. Sentenced to three years probation April 2019 Patten, a long-time D.C. lobbyist was a business partner of Paul Manafort. He pleaded guilty to admitting to arranging an illegal $50,000 donation to Trump's inauguration. He arranged for an American 'straw donor' to pay $50,000 to the inaugural committee, knowing that it was actually for a Ukrainian businessman. Neither the American or the Ukrainian have been named. CHARGED: KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK Indicted for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. At large, probably in Russia Kilimnik is a former employee of Manafort's political consulting firm and helped him with lobbying work in Ukraine. He is accused of witness tampering, after he allegedly contacted individuals who had worked with Manafort to remind them that Manafort only performed lobbying work for them outside of the U.S. He has been linked to Russian intelligence and is currently thought to be in Russia - effectively beyond the reach of extradition by Mueller's team. INDICTED: THE RUSSIANS Twenty-five Russian nationals and three Russian entities have been indicted for conspiracy to defraud the United States. They remain at large in Russia Two of these Russian nationals were also indicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 11 were indicted for conspiracy to launder money. Fifteen of them were also indicted for identity fraud. Vladimir Putin has ridiculed the charges. Russia effectively bars extradition of its nationals. The only prospect Mueller has of bringing any in front of a U.S. jury is if Interpol has their names on an international stop list - which is not made public - and they set foot in a territory which extradites to the U.S. INDICTED: MICHAEL FLYNN'S BUSINESS PARTNERS Bijan Kian (left), number two in now disgraced former national security adviser Mike Flynn's lobbying company, and the two's business partner Ekim Alptekin (right) were indicted for conspiracy to lobby illegally. Kian, an Iranian-American was arrested and appeared in court charged with a conspiracy to illegally lobby the U.S government without registering as a foreign agent. Their co-conspirator was Flynn, who is called 'Person A' in the indictment and is not charged, offering some insight into what charges he escaped with his plea deal. Kian, vice-president of Flynn's former lobbying firm, is alleged to have plotted with Alptekin to try to change U.S. policy on an exiled Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania and who is accused by Turkey's strongman president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of trying to depose him. Erdogan's government wanted him extradited from the U.S. and paid Flynn's firm through Alptekin for lobbying, including an op-ed in The Hill calling for Gulen to be ejected. Flynn and Kian both lied that the op-ed was not paid for by the Turkish government. The indictment is a sign of how Mueller is taking an interest in more than just Russian involvement in the 2016 election. GUILTY AND AWAITING SENTENCE: ROGER STONE Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign official and longtime informal advisor to Trump, was indited on seven counts including obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and lying to Congress about his communications with WikiLeaks in January 2019. Convicted on all counts November 15, 2019, awaiting sentence Stone was a person of interest to Mueller's investigators long before his January indictment, thanks in part due to his public pronouncements as well as internal emails about his contacts with WikiLeks. In campaign texts and emails, many of which had already been publicly revealed before showing up in Mueller's indictment, Stone communicated with associates about WikiLeaks following reports the organization had obtained a cache of Clinton-related emails. Stone, a former Nixon campaign adviser who has the disgraced former president's face permanently tattooed on his back, has long been portrayed as a central figure in the election interference scandal. 'They got nothing,' he said of the special counsel's investigation. Stone gave 'false and misleading' testimony about his requests for information from WikiLeaks. He then pressured a witness, comedian Randy Credico, to take the Fifth Amendment rather than testify, and pressured him in a series of emails. Following a prolonged dispute over testimony, he called him a 'rat' and threatened to 'take that dog away from you', in reference to Credico's pet, Bianca. Stone warned him: 'Let's get it on. Prepare to die.' CLEARED: GREG CRAIG Greg Craig, President Barack Obama's White House counsel, was indicted for failing to register as a foreign agent. Mueller's investigators uncovered Craig's work on behalf the government of Ukraine while probing Manafort, who did business with Craig. Prosecutors released a grand jury indictment of Craig in April 2019, after Craig's law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP agreed to pay more than $4.6 million as part of a settlement. The prominent firm also acknowledged it had failed to register, and placed much of the blame on Craig, a senior partner there. Craig's lawyer blasted the decision as an abuse of prosecutorial discretion, and prepared to argue that omission of information during an interview is not tantamount to making false statements. The charges stem from a 2012 report Craig and the firm produced on behalf of the Ukrainian government on opposition figure and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. She was an opponent of Manafort's client , former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Craig was cleared on September 9 2019. A man visiting his family in the UK was put on the wrong plane to fly back home to Poland - ending up 1,000 miles away in Malta. Pawel Lawreniuk, 75, realised he had landed in the wrong county when he asked a bemused taxi driver to take him home only to discover he did not speak a word of Polish. The widower was booked on to the 6.50am Ryanair flight to Gdansk from Leeds-Bradford airport on Sunday, January 6. He had flown to the UK to see his daughter for two weeks at Christmas. Pawel Lawreniuk, 75, was allowed to board a Ryanair flight (file photo) from Leeds Bradford to Malta with his ticket to Gdansk The Pole only realised he was in a foreign land when he asked a cabbie to take him home in Polish, only to discover he was Maltese But Mr Lawreniuk was allowed to get on the wrong flight. The plane actually took him to Malta International Airport, with retired engineer Mr Lawreniuk, who does not speak English, none the wiser. Mr Lawreniuk was shocked to discover he was in the wrong country while attempting to order a taxi after being told by staff at a tourist information desk: 'I am sorry sir but I don't speak Polish.' It meant he was stranded with little money, a phone which didn't work in Malta and no grasp of the local language. Luckily, a Polish-speaking woman overheard the worrying conversation and was on hand to contact his daughter and book him onto the correct flight that same day. Mr Lawreniuk has since explained to family that he showed the plane ticket to staff on the flight who directed him to his seat - and as far as he was concerned he was on his way to Poland. His daughter Lucyna Lawreniuk, 34, feels aggrieved that the mix-up meant he got back to Gdansk nearly 14 hours after setting off from her home in Bradford, West Yorks. She said: 'I double checked the ticket, printed it and it said Gdansk. 'There was a call to me at work and I saw it was from Malta. I thought oh s**t, there's something wrong. I then saw someone writing on WhatsApp and saw the message. 'I cried, I was scared - he was in a different country, a different place. I don't know how it is possible for him to make it all the way to Malta. 'I spoke with him about everything and he's had bad dreams - I'm worried about him, but hopefully everything will be OK. 'If someone didn't come forward, I'm not sure what would have happened - he had no money, no phone, he can't really do anything alone. 'My father told me he doesn't want to come to me next year. He doesn't want to fly anymore. I would like to speak with a lawyer about what happened.' Mr Lawreniuk told his distraught daughter he would not travel by air next year after the harrowing mix-up Lucyna was first alerted to the mishap by Kamilla Nikolas who luckily happened to be in the airport at the same time Mr Lawreniuk was struggling to work out why he couldn't get a taxi home. Ms Nikolas, 35, said: 'I went to find out what had happened and said I speak Polish. 'He looked very nervous, confused, and I asked what happened. It was hard to communicate with him because he was so confused.' Ms Nikolas said she told Mr Lawreniuk he was in the middle of the Med and he just could not believe it. With the help of staff at Aviaserve, Ms Nikolas was able to arrange a flight from Malta to Gdansk later that day. But, she said the whole situation was extremely fortunate because there are only two flights a week. Eventually, Ms Nikolas had to leave for her trip to Sicily but made sure she left Mr Lawreniuk's daughter with contact details for Aviaserve and kept in constant contact. Ms Nikolas said: 'I'm just happy I overheard the conversation and I could help. There's not many Polish in Malta - I was in the right place at the right time. 'It must have been horrible - I just hope it will be an eye-opener. 'It's not all about the extra luggage, or the extra rules. Imagine if he'd had a heart attack? It could have been a lot worse.' A Swissport, the handling agency for Ryanair at LBA, spokesperson said: 'We are aware that a passenger was able to board an incorrect flight at Leeds Bradford Airport on Sunday 6 January. 'The passenger had undergone all airport security screening before boarding the flight and had a valid passport which had been checked. 'We are investigating how this occurred and we are re-briefing all staff on procedure. We would like to apologise to Mr Lawreniuk for the inconvenience caused.' Ryanair has been contacted for comment. A US federal narcotics agent known for his expensive tastes and high-profile drug seizures has been implicated in a multimillion-dollar money-laundering conspiracy that involved the very cartel criminals he was charged with fighting in Colombia. A once standout Drug Enforcement Administration agent, Jose Irizarry is accused of conspiring with a longtime DEA informant to launder more than $7million in illicit drug proceeds, sometimes using an underground network known as the black-market peso exchange, according to five current and former law enforcement officials. The officials described the case as one of the biggest black eyes in the history of the DEA, an agency that has seen repeated scandals in recent years, and one they fear could have compromised undercover operations in the US and South America. The conspiracy not only allegedly enriched Irizarry but is believed to have benefited one of South America's top money launderers, who is a relative of Irizarry's Colombian wife, said the officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the federal investigation. The allegations have sent shockwaves through the DEA and drawn new scrutiny to the agency's Colombia field office, a critical outpost that has been steeped in turmoil in recent years. The division has seen internal strife and turnover in leadership even as it grapples with record-high levels of cocaine production. Some of the details emerged in a federal case in Tampa, Florida, in which a former DEA informant, Gustavo Yabrudi, a dual Venezuelan-American citizen, recently pleaded guilty to money laundering. That case refers to an unnamed 'co-conspirator 3' - a suspect who is in fact Irizarry, the five officials said. Jose Irizarry, a US federal narcotics agent known for his expensive tastes and high-profile drug seizures, has been implicated in a multimillion-dollar money-laundering conspiracy that involved the very cartel criminals he was charged with fighting in Colombia (file photo) It is unknown where the 44-year-old is living, or whether he has been charged in the ongoing criminal probe. Repeated messages seeking comment left on a cellphone number the law enforcement officials said belongs to Irizarry were not returned. Chad Van Horn, a Miami attorney who represented Irizarry in a bankruptcy case, said he had no comment and could provide no assistance in efforts to reach him. Barry Wax, a Miami defense attorney who has also represented Irizarry, did not return phone calls and emails seeking comment. A DEA spokeswoman said Irizarry resigned from the agency after he was recalled from Colombia to Washington in 2017 but declined further comment. When word of the scandal reached Washington that year, the FBI and Justice Department dispatched investigators to Colombia to conduct criminal and internal inquiries, fearing that it could backfire on the DEA's ability to keep the trust of sources in the criminal underworld, the law enforcement officials said. The case raises new questions about the DEA's screening practices in its hiring of special agents. Irizarry was hired by the DEA despite indications he showed signs of deception in a polygraph exam he took upon admission, three of the law enforcement officials said. There were other red flags. In 2010, Irizarry declared bankruptcy with debts of almost $500,000, but he was nevertheless permitted to handle financial transactions in his role at the DEA. Before he was exposed, Irizarry had been a model agent, the law enforcement officials said, winning praise from his supervisors. Based out of Miami, he won special permission to set up an undercover operation to send money and ship contraband merchandise to Colombia on behalf of suspected drug traffickers using front companies, shell bank accounts and couriers. His investigations led to scores of drug arrests, earning him an early-career transfer to a coveted foreign posting in the Colombian resort city of Cartagena, where his successes continued. 'He was the superstar everyone wanted to be,' one former law enforcement official said. The allegations have sent shockwaves through the DEA and drawn new scrutiny to the agency's Colombia field office (above in a file photo), a critical outpost that has been steeped in turmoil in recent years. The division has seen internal strife and turnover in leadership even as it grapples with record-high levels of cocaine production But unbeknownst to his bosses, Irizarry and Yabrudi, his long-time informant, allegedly opened a bank account where they directed deposits from a growing network of criminal contacts looking to repatriate drug proceeds to Colombia, the officials said. Sometimes the funds were used to purchase electronics, textiles and other goods that were exported to Colombia for resale in pesos, which were used to pay the traffickers. Prosecutors allege that $7million flowed through a single account over almost six years. Yabrudi, in pleading guilty, admitted he withdrew cash from the account and gave payments to his unnamed DEA co-conspirator - Irizarry, the officials said - and accounts he controlled. 'None of these deposits, nor the use of the funds that followed, were officially sanctioned DEA operations,' prosecutors wrote in court filings. They said Yabrudi knew that the funds were illegal drug proceeds and that his co-conspirator had been 'acting outside the scope of his authority' as a DEA agent. Yabrudi's lawyer, Leonardo Concepcion, declined to comment about the case but described it case as 'involving serious corruption by a DEA agent.' At times, Irizarry fabricated DEA seizure orders or letters from banks in order to pocket some of the money, the law enforcement officials said. Given the huge sums laundered every day, his unsuspecting criminal clients chalked up the losses to a cat-and-mouse game with the feds. Some of the details emerged in a federal case in Tampa, Florida, in which a former DEA informant, Gustavo Yabrudi (above), a dual Venezuelan-American citizen, recently pleaded guilty to money laundering Irizarry also adopted the ostentatious tastes of the drug traffickers he was tasked with targeting. Unlike most agents earning a government salary on temporary assignment, Irizarry bought a home and Land Rover in Cartagena. He traveled first-class to Europe sporting Louis Vuitton luggage and a gold Hublot watch, one official said. He hosted raucous yacht parties with bikini-clad prostitutes, which fellow agents and at least one supervisor attended against DEA policy, according to an official, who went to one such party. The DEA banned such gatherings in the wake of the 2015 'sex parties' scandal in Colombia that prompted the retirement of the DEA's administrator at the time. Investigators are also examining whether Irizarry's marriage into the mafia was driving his off-the-chart arrest and seizure numbers, the law enforcement officials said. His second wife, Nathalia Gomez, is related to Diego Marin, who US and Colombian officials describe as one of the top money-laundering suspects in the country over the past decade. Authorities believe Marin is Colombia's contraband king, importing shipping containers full of electronics and textiles with drug dollars that wind up being sold at flea markets featuring contraband goods at a steep discount. Marin was arrested in 1993 for allegedly hiding dope money for the Cali cartel in Colombia-bound home appliances. But he was never charged and has eluded prosecution ever since by leveraging relationships built over decades as an informant to multiple US law enforcement agencies, the officials said. Current and former US law enforcement officials now suspect Irizarry was using his badge to turn in Marin's rivals. Calls and text messages sent to Irizarry's wife seeking comment from Marin, who is her relative, went unanswered, as did repeated phone calls and emails to Marin's Miami-based lawyer, David Macey. Irizarry's undoing came when he was caught stealing from police informants and interfering in legitimate law-enforcement actions. Among the missteps was an $87,000 wire transfer destined for a trafficker in Cali that mysteriously went missing. Irizarry didn't know the trafficker was an informant for the Miami-Dade money-laundering strike force, which complained to the Justice Department, leading to Yabrudi's arrest last year. Around the same time, the law enforcement officials said, an Internal Revenue Service agent flagged to the DEA what he considered a suspicious phone call Irizarry made trying to reverse the seizure of a container of commercial goods. Later, the officials said, it was learned that he had also been falsifying DEA paperwork used to pay informants - pocketing the money for himself. Judge Richard Leon heard arguments Tuesday in a federal courtroom from federal workers and their unions; some say they're being treated like slaves, but he ruled against them for now A federal judge decided Tuesday that he won't intervene in the 25-day-old government shutdown, refusing to force the Trump administration to release 780,000 unpaid federal workers from employment limbo. Judge Richard Leon denied petitions from two government employees' unions and their members for a temporary restraining order that would have ended the practice of making some workers perform their duties without salaries and requiring others to stay home without earning money at other jobs. Leon said after hearing oral arguments that he sympathized with out-of-work federal employees. But the shutdown 'squabble,' he ruled, shouldn't be solved by using federal courts as a source of leverage by one side of a dispute against another. Some workers claim Trump is violating their Fifth Amendment rights by taking their property their salaries without due process. Others say he's unconstitutionally treating them like slaves, forcing them to work for free without sufficient reason. The National Treasury Employees Union and National Air Traffic Controllers Association say forcing government employees to work without pay violates the U.S. Constitution and the Fair Labor Standards Act. The air traffic controllers' lawsuit contends that government employees' salaries are their 'property,' and depriving them of that compensation without a sufficient reason runs counter to the Fifth Amendment's guarantee that no one can be 'deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.' Their members, the union said, shouldn't be 'distracted by financial issues ... caused by the government's unlawful taking of their property without due process.' IRS employee Diane Zelazny and others protested last week against the government shutdown, saying they want the forced furloughs and payroll interruptiosn to end 780,000 federal workers have been off payroll since December 21; about half have been forced to come to work anyway since their jobs are considered 'essential' government functions President Donald Trump is locked in a stalemate with congressional Republicans, who refused to fund his long-promised wall on the U.S.-Mexico border A group of five individual plaintiffs also sued under the 13th Amendment, declaring that being forced to work without a predictable payroll is a violation of the 13th Amendment's prohibition of slavery. They claim the government has threatened to punish 'essential' employees if they don't show up to work despite not being paid, and that those sent home will be fired if they find other paid employment while they wait for the nation's longest-ever shutdown to end. Separately, the Treasury workers' union says Trump is violating the Anti-Deficiency Act, a 149-year-old law that prevents federal agencies from spending money Congress hasn't allotted to them. The law, passed during the Ulysses Grant administration, allows for the government to keep running, without funding, in the case of 'emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property.' Congress added new language to it in 1990, saying that definition did not include 'ongoing, regular functions of government' unless life or property is threatened. The union says the White House is illegally lumping ordinary government tasks, like processing tax returns, in with vital functions like military defense in order to avoid a public backlash. The government shutdown affects about 25 per cent of the federal budget, and is now in its 25th day Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (right) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (left) are insisting they won't negotiate over border security funding unless Trump agrees to sign a bill funding the government and reopening its doors Judge Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, consolidated all the cases and heard oral arguments Tuesday in Washington. The National Treasury Employees Union represents more than 150,000 federal workers in 33 separate agencies. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association has 15,000 members and is affiliated with the AFL-CIO. Treasury union president Tony Reardon said last week in a press release that '[i]f employees are working, they must be paid and if there is not money to pay them, then they should not be working.' Congress has already passed, and Trump has signed, legislation requiring back-pay disbursements for affected federal employees as soon as the shutdown is over. Santosh Bhatta, 31, from the Wirral, Merseyside, pictured today outside Liverpool Magistrates' Court, pleaded not guilty to ill treating or neglecting Olinda Mansfield, 79 A hospital worker appeared in court accused of placing a plastic bag over an elderly patient's head. Santosh Bhatta, 31, was initially arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after the incident on Ward 11 of Broadgreen Hospital, on July 22 last year. However he was later charged with the lesser offence of being a care worker who ill-treated or wilfully neglected the victim, 79-year-old Olinda Mansfield. Bhatta, from Wirral, appeared at Liverpool Magistrates' Court today where he pleaded not guilty to the charge. Miss Mansfield, who it is believed had 'no friends or family', has since died, although her death is believed to be unrelated to the July incident. At the time sources told the Liverpool Echo Miss Mansfield was discovered by horrified nurses with the bag over her head in a room on Ward 11. Today the case was deemed too serious to be heard in the lower courts and committed to Liverpool Crown Court, where Bhatta is due to appear next month. He was released on bail with conditions not to enter Broadgreen Hospital or communicate with any members of staff from Ward 11. The Royal Liverpool & Broadgreen University Hospitals Trust (RLBUHT), which runs both hospitals, said after the incident there was no ongoing risk to patients. A spokesperson said: 'We are investigating a serious incident at Broadgreen Hospital. We reported the matter to Merseyside Police and are assisting them with their enquiries. 'We have taken appropriate action and there is currently no suggestion that patients or their loved ones should be concerned for their safety.' A second Broadgreen health care assistant was also interviewed under caution over an unrelated alleged assault on Miss Mansfield, but no further action was taken by Merseyside Police. Ward 11 was recently subject to a 1m investment and adapted to take overflow patients from the Royal Liverpool Hospital. The move was designed to create space for patients, who are mainly elderly and with complex needs, awaiting places in nursing homes or discharge to their own homes with carer support. The alleged incident happened at Broadgreen Hospital in Liverpool, pictured However trust data showed that ward 11 was understaffed by nurses in day-time hours for May and June. Average fill rates, or the number of hours nurses are actually available to treat patients compared with the number of hours deemed necessary, were below the national target of 80% for both months. The Trust also recorded 'a spike in medication incidents.' According to a Safe Staffing Report, the Trust underestimated the complexity and severity of patients Ward 11 would be required to treat. The report said: 'Following discussions with the senior nursing team and the care group it has been acknowledged that actual patient acuity and dependency is higher than originally profiled when planning took place to staff this ward, therefore the establishment across Ward 11 and the Frailty Unit has been reviewed. 'As a result additional nursing resource will be allocated to Ward 11 and the recruitment process has commenced to support this.' Mark Adams, 56, (pictured earlier this year) has been found guilty of rape A former Downing Street aide has suffered a 'remarkable fall from grace' after being jailed for seven years for rape. Mark Adams raped the 'particularly vulnerable' 24-year-old woman in her sleep the morning after the 2015 general election, after offering her a job. The disgraced father-of-four had served both Tony Blair and his predecessor as Prime Minister, John Major, as a private secretary for six years in the 1990s. The 56-year-old, who was made an OBE in 1997 and is a graduate of Cambridge University, denied rape but was found guilty after a six-day trial at Woolwich Crown Court. Judge Jonathan Mann QC said he had taken advantage of a 'particularly vulnerable woman'. Sentencing Adams, he said: 'You were playing the nice man, when in fact you were controlling and mean. Adams was today found guilty of raping a woman in his former London home in 2015 Judge Mann QC said: 'You approached the victim who had just lost her job and split up with her boyfriend.' Adam returned home on the night of the May 2015 General Election after drinking 'several whiskies' at a bar. The victim had no space to sleep, and was invited to watch TV with Adams on a downstairs sofa bed. After she had fallen asleep, the former aide began touching her before he raped her. Adams claimed he was confused the next day in a cafe, when the victim told him what he had done. He went to a chemist 'outside the area' to buy a morning after pill but claimed it 'had nothing to do with sex'. When interviewed by police, Adams said that he did not rape the victim and claimed he had no recollection of the night. Adams was today sentenced to seven years in prison for rape Jeffrey Israel, for Adams, said: 'There is little to be said in mitigation. The offence was opportunistic rather than a premeditated attack. 'He has been engaging in rehabilitation programme and it has had an effect, particular with his relationship with women.' Mr Israel described the conviction as a 'remarkable fall from grace' after Adams had 'risen to prominence in political circles'. He added: 'Mr Adams had gone on to attend Cambridge University and later rose to prominence in political circles.' A jury of five women and seven men took nine hours and 42 minutes to return a unanimous guilty verdict. Jailing Adams, Judge Mann QC told him: 'This brings an end to your career, it is a tragedy giving your previous public service. 'You did not use a condom and you stopped her moving - the victim was particularly vulnerable. 'This case falls under category 2B - where sentencing ranges between eight and nine years - the sentence is seven years imprisonment.' Adams will remain on the Sex Offenders' Register for life, and was also ordered to pay a 170 victim surcharge. Labour has been fined 12,500 for failing to properly report the donations given to it, the Electoral Commission today said. The watchdog said the fine is the highest penalty ever slapped on a political party for such an offence. Jeremy Corbyn's party failed to deliver accurate quarterly donations during the 2017 general election campaign, the Commission said. Labour has been fined 12,500 for failing to properly report the donations given to it, the Electoral Commission today said (pictured, Jeremy Corbyn leaving his home today) Louise Edwards, the Electoral Commission's director of regulation, said: 'As a well-funded political party it should be able to meet its legal requirements. 'The reporting requirements are clear, so it is always disappointing when parties and campaigners fail to comply. 'The law clearly states when and how financial data is required to be submitted to the commission. 'We will continue to enforce these requirements on all parties and campaigners to ensure voters have the information they need.' Labour blamed 'administrative issues' for the inaccurate declarations and said there was no suggestion any donations had been concealed. A party spokesman said: 'This was a genuine administrative error. Jeremy Corbyn's party failed to deliver accurate quarterly donations during the 2017 general election campaign, the Commission said (pictured, the Labour leader addressing supporter in Glasgow the day before the general election in June 2017) 'Labour adheres to all Electoral Commission rules on the publication of donations to the party.' The Commission also revealed the Tories have bee given a 200 fine for failing to hand back a donation which they were not allowed to keep within the 30-day deadline. And the Lib Dems were also fined 200 for failing to deliver accurate quarterly donations. Mr Corbyn traveled the length and breadth of the United Kingdom during the 2017 snap election. His campaign received a major boost from a flood of small donations which were given by the thousands of new Corbynista supporters who entered the party under his leadership. Chris Christie slammed Jared Kushner for launching a political 'hit job' against him to get him fired as the head of President Donald Trump's transition team and for keeping him out of the administration. Christie contends the president's son-in-law was acting out of revenge for Christie's prosecution of Jared Kushner's father, Charles Kushner, in 2004 when he was U.S. attorney for New Jersey, it was revealed on Tuesday. In his soon-to-be-published memoir, 'Let Me Finish,' the former New Jersey governor lets loose on Kushner and gets his own revenge for being left out in the cold during Trump's time in the White House. Chris Christie slammed Jared Kushner for launching a political 'hit job' against him to get him fired as the head of President Donald Trump's transition team Christie contends the president's son-in-law was acting out of revenge for Christie's prosecution of Jared Kushner's father, Charles Kushner Christie claims his knowledge comes straight from Steve Bannon, Trump's former campaign chief and White House counselor. When Bannon fired Christie from Trump's transition team at a meeting at Trump Tower in New York, Christie forced him to tell him who was really behind the move by threatening to go the media and blame Bannon instead, Christie reveals in his upcoming book, a copy of which was obtained by the Guardian. 'Steve Bannon made clear to me that one person and one person only was responsible for the faceless execution that Steve was now attempting to carry out. Jared Kushner, still apparently seething over events that had occurred a decade ago,' Christie writes. 'The kid's been taking an ax to your head with the boss ever since I got here,' Christie quotes Bannon as telling him about Kushner. Christie's prosecution of billionaire real estate developer Charles Kushner helped put him on the map. The elder Kushner plead guilty to 16 counts of tax evasion, one count of retaliating against a federal witness, and another count of lying to the Federal Election Commission. Charles Kushner's retaliation conviction had to do with a revenge plot against his brother-in-law William Schulder, a former employee turned witness for federal prosecutors. Charles Kushner hired a prostitute to lure Schulder into having sex in a Bridgewater, New Jersey, motel room as a hidden camera taped the encounter. That tape was then sent to Schulder's wife, who was Charles' sister Esther. The Schulders, in turn, brought the tape to prosecutors, who tracked down the prostitute and threatened her with arrest. She turned on Kushner and revealed the plot. Christie subsequently negotiated a plea deal with Charles Kushner. The tawdry case not only put the elder Kushner in jail for two years, it caused great embarrassment to the Kushner family. Jared Kushner, in a 2014 interview with real estate publication The Real Deal, talked about how his father's case affected him: 'My dad's arrest made me realize I didn't want to be a prosecutor anymore. The law is so nuanced. If you're convicting murderers, it's one thing. It's often fairly clear. When you get into things like white-collar crime, there are often a lot of nuances. Seeing my father's situation, I felt what happened was obviously unjust in terms of the way they pursued him. I just never wanted to be on the other side of that and cause pain to the families I was doing that to, whether right or wrong. The moral weight of that was probably a bit more than I could carry.' Charles Kushner (center) wades though the media with his legal team and wife to the U.S. District Courthouse in Newark, New Jersey, in August 2004 Christie contends Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner worked to keep him from being Trump's running mate Christie's memoir, which will be published on January 29, is 'exceptional as a chronicle of the score-settling and animosity that drove key decision-making' in Trump's presidency, the Guardian notes. While the book covers Christie's time in the New Jersey gubernatorial mansion in addition to his work with the Trump campaign, it's likely his talk of Kushner that will get the most attention. Christie recounts how Jared Kushner badmouthed him to Trump in an April 2016 meeting while Christie was in the room. 'He implied I had acted unethically and inappropriately but didn't state one fact to back that up,' Christie wrote. 'Just a lot of feelings very raw feelings that had been simmering for a dozen years.' The former governor claims Kushner told Trump that it wasn't fair his father spent so long in prison - the elder Kushner served 14 months behind bars and the rest of his two year sentence in a halfway house. Jared Kushner also insisted the sex tape and blackmailing was a family matter that should have been kept away from federal authorities: 'This was a family matter, a matter to be handled by the family or by the rabbis,' Christie quotes Kushner as saying. Christie also contends it was Jared Kushner and wife Ivanka who kept him from being Trump's running mate, according to the Guardian's recount of his memoir. When Christie dropped out of the 2016 Republican primary, he endorsed Trump and was one of his early and strongest supporters. He was said to be on the short list for vice president. Christie's memoir, out January 29, covers his time in the New Jersey gubernatorial mansion in addition to his work with the Trump campaign When Christie dropped out of the 2016 Republican primary, he endorsed Donald Trump for president An anonymous 'high-ranking Trump staffer,' Christie recounts, called him to warn that 'the family is very upset that he says it will be you'. But Christie does offer Jared Kushner a defense - of sorts - about Kushner's attendance at the now-infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting when Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort met with a Russia lawyer with ties to the Kremlin who claimed to have dirt on Hillary Clinton. Christie wrote taking the meeting was merely 'dumb' or, in the case of Kushner and Trump Jr, a 'sign of profound inexperience.' But he does claim Kushner misjudged two Russia-related firings: that of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn in February 2017 and that of the FBI director James Comey in May 2017. Christie writes that Kushner thought firing Flynn would end talk of links between the Trump campaign and Russia - it did not - and that firing Comey would not provoke 'an enormous shit-storm' in Washington. It actually did. 'The president was ill served by poor advice,' Christie writes. The former governor also has amusing anecdotes from his relationship with Trump, including the president ordering his food for him, giving him weight loss tips and offering fashion advice. At his first meeting with Trump in 2002, at a dinner in the Trump Tower in New York, Trump ordered his food for him. The then-business mogul chose scallops, which Christie is allergic to, and lamb, Christie dislikes. Christie recalls wondering whether Trump took him for 'one of his chicks.' At a dinner three years later, Trump told Christie to lose weight. Trump told him 'you gotta look better to be able to win' in politics. In the 2016 campaign, Trump advised Christie to wear a longer tie as it would make him look thinner. Christie and Trump have known each other for 15 years. Christie attended Trump's 2005 Mar-a-Lago wedding to Melania. Robert Haggarty (pictured) died when he did not propel him far enough away from the jump spot and hit a rock that made him lose control A British wingsuit base-jumper sang 'Happy Birthday' to his friend then died from 'unsurvivable injuries' after he failed to clear a cliff ledge on a 8,000 ft high Italian mountain, an inquest has heard. Robert Haggarty, from Andover, Hampshire, died from multiple head and chest injuries following the accident. He smashed into a rock and lost control after leaping from the Castelleto Della Busazza in the Dolomites on June 24. The 47-year-old, who had completed 500 jumps previously, had joined a group of 27 for a base-jumping holiday in the area, his Winchester inquest heard. Dr Angelo Grubisic, a lecturer in astronautics and advanced propulsion at the University of Southampton, told the hearing that Mr Haggarty had sung Happy Birthday to him minutes before carrying out the jump. Dr Grubisic said that the jump required clearing a sloping cliff 20 to 30 metres below the jump point which he said Mr Haggarty failed to do, which sent him spinning forward out of control and causing his parachute to deploy. He said: 'He was very calm, there was nothing to indicate he was in any worse shape than he was usually. 'It was my birthday, he had just sung Happy Birthday to me minutes prior to the jump, he was in good health and in a good state of mind.' Mr Haggerty (pictured jumping from Kjerag Waterfall, Norway, during in 2013) failed to clear a ledge when he leaped from the Dolemite mountain, which caused him to lose control Dr Grubisic said that he had completed the jump ahead of Mr Haggarty and only realised his friend had died after another jumper informed him. He said: 'I was pretty distraught at that point. I grabbed a pair of binoculars and looked back at the mountain and saw Rob's canopy was hung on the mountain.' He added: 'Rob always jumped alone. Rob was always a very conservative jumper, always taking great care with his gear, always staying safe and doing the more conservative jump which makes it all the more surprising he made a mistake.' Rescue teams are pictured descending the peak to recover the remains of Mr Haggarty last year following his fatal fall Italian rescue workers are pictured abseiling down the mountain (last year) after Mr Haggarty failed to clear a ledge The inquest was shown drone video footage of Mr Haggarty, who had completed the same jump twice the previous year, launching himself off the mountain edge before his lower body caught the cliff edge below, with the canopy then opening a short while later. Coroner Simon Burge said: 'He didn't propel himself out far enough and fell and struck the rock-face a glancing blow within no more than two seconds of launching. Rescue teams descended the mountain to recovery Mr Haggarty's remains after he was killed in the jump 'That glancing blow caused him to adopt a forward rotation which in base-jumping circles is an extremely dangerous state to be in. It causes a complete loss of control and also causes the canopy to deploy.' He said that Mr Haggarty, who was born in Dumfries, Scotland, suffered fatal head and chest injuries in the initial collision and two further crashes after the canopy had deployed. Recording a verdict of death by misadventure, Mr Burge added: 'He died doing what he loved but far too soon, he had a full life ahead with his wife Joanna and his career.' Willy Wonka eat your heart out - an Arizona highway was left covered in a real river of chocolate on Monday after a tanker truck overturned. The truck, which was traveling from Ontario, Canada, to Nevada, crashed along an interstate around 9am on Monday. The accident caused 3,500 gallons of chocolate to pour out along the road, creating a river of the sweet stuff for emergency crews to clean up. An interstate in Arizona was left covered with chocolate after a tanker overturned and spilled 3,500 gallons of the sweet substance along the road Police were forced to close the interstate for around four hours while the truck was drained of chocolate before it could be flipped upright and towed away. The truck was hauling 40,000lbs - or 3,500 gallons - of chocolate which had been heated to 120F to keep it liquid and make it easier to move. Authorities told ABC 15 that the accident happened when the truck became detached from the tanker it was towing. Fortunately nobody was hurt during the accident. Traffic was rerouted along an off-ramp close to the accident, keeping delays to a minimum, ABC reported. Jayme Closs escaped her kidnapper Jake Patterson after he left the teenager alone to visit his mother who lived nearly an hour away, DailyMail.com can reveal. The 21-year-old left Jayme behind at his remote cabin in Gordon, Wisconsin, to journey to where his mother Deborah Frey lived with his stepfather Kevin Frey in Haugen, Wisconsin on January 10. Patterson shot dead Jayme's parents Denise and James in order to abduct Jayme on October 15. He bound the teen's hands and ankles with tape before dragging her out of her home in Barron, Wisconsin, and putting her in the trunk of his car. At his cabin nearly two hours away, Patterson made Jayme hide under his twin-sized bed in one corner of his bedroom. He surrounded the bed with bins which he stacked weights against so that Jayme could not push them over and get out from under his bed. Jayme was finally able to break free from the loner's makeshift lair when Patterson told her he would be gone for a few hours and she managed to push the weights away and flee the home. A neighbor told DailyMail.com on Tuesday that Patterson's mother Deborah is 'distraught,' and 'scared to come out of her house,' in the wake of the horrifying revelations about her son's crimes. Jayme Closs escaped her kidnapper Jake Patterson after he left the teenager alone to visit his mother Deborah Frey (pictured above with Jake and his sister Katie in 2015) who lived nearly an hour away, DailyMail.com can reveal Jayme was finally able to break free from the loner's makeshift lair when Patterson told her he would be gone for a few hours, managing to push the weights away and flee the home Patterson's mother was described as holed up at home (pictured), uncertain as to how to move forward in the wake of all that has happened and her youngest son's horrifying confessions of kidnapping Jayme Closs and shooting dead her parents Patterson's stepfather Kevin is, according to another neighbor, a keen hunter who is often seen out taking shots. It is not known if his stepson who gunned down Denise and James Closs with such lethal efficiency ever joined him. Pictured: Target practice in the backyard of the Haugen, WI home of Jake Patterson's mother, Deborah and stepfather Kevin Frey Speaking to DailyMail.com a neighbor who asked not to be named said: 'She's distraught. They're good people. This is just shocking.' The stark description is the first insight into the family behind the killer and kidnapper whose horrific actions have stunned the nation. According to the neighbor, Deborah Frey and her second husband Kevin - Patterson's mother and stepfather - are thoughtful people who get up early each morning to plow snow from driveways. The neighbor said: 'I would see him [Jake] across the street but not to talk to him. They're good people. But he's a freak.' Today his mother was described as holed up at home, uncertain how to move forward in the wake of all that has happened and her youngest son's horrifying confessions. Neither Patterson's mother nor father has given any hint that they recognized anything unusual about their son's behavior across the 87 days during which he held Jayme prisoner, though both saw him during that time. The couple split for good in 2007 after a turbulent marriage when their youngest son, Jake, was 12 years old. They had filed for divorce once before, in 2005, but the suit was dropped as they endeavored to try to save the marriage that brought them three children - Jake, 21, Erik, 24, and sister Katie, 26. Today Deborah lives with her second husband Kevin in the small town of Haugen just 20 minutes drive from Jayme's home in Barron. Their clapboard home is neatly kept, with clearly tended garden beneath a layer of frozen ground and a target practice out in the back yard. Patterson's stepfather Kevin is, according to another neighbor, a keen hunter who is often seen out taking shots. It is not known if his stepson who gunned down Denise and James Closs with such lethal efficiency ever joined him. A neighbor who wished not to be named told DailyMail.com: 'She's distraught. They're good people. This is just shocking.' The neighbor added: 'I would see him [Jake] across the street but not to talk to him. They're good people. But he's a freak' Patterson's older brother, Erik, and father Patrick (pictured together) were the only family present for Patterson in his first court appearance on Monday. They refused to answer questions following the hearing and Patrick shook his head when asked if he knew what had happened at the cabin Those who knew Patterson growing up have described him as 'quiet' 'studious' and a member of Northwood High School's Quiz Bowl team. But an ex-boyfriend of his sister, Katie, who dated her in 2009 and often stayed with her in the Patterson family home, recalled Patterson as more troubled than quiet. He said: 'I often stayed there for a week at a time so as to save on gas money for the ride home - I lived about an hour away from their place in Gordon.' Patterson's parents got joint custody of the children but the ex recalled Patterson's father Patrick as the primary care giver. He said: 'Patrick was just a great guy and so welcoming. But he worked long hours. He'd be up at four to leave the house and not back till late and Jake was kind of alone, isolated even in his family. His brother and sister were that bit older. 'Nobody would really engage with Jake. I never saw him out playing with their dog or taking part in any sporting activity or even with friends. 'He was just always indoors sitting by himself. He'd be watching TV and just staring straight ahead at it. One of the last times I saw him I was getting ready to leave and I sort of said my goodbyes to him and he just kept looking straight ahead, he didn't react at all or turn his head or wavenothing. 'There was something very flat and emotionless about him. There was nothing behind his eyes. I remember feeling that even back then.' On his graduation in 2015 Patterson stated in his high school yearbook that he wanted to join the Marines. But his career with the Marines was cut short. Military records show he was discharged after only five weeks. A spokesperson for the Marines said that the brevity of his career indicated that 'the character of his service was incongruent with Marine Corps' expectations and standards.' He held a job at Barron's Jennie O Turkey Factory - where Denise and James Closs worked for more than two decades - for just one day some three years ago. His latest job at Saputo Cheese Factory lasted just two days. His first morning drive there was the one on which he claimed to have first seen Jayme getting on her way to school. Patterson displayed that same flat affect recalled by his sister's ex-girlfriend when he appeared in Barron County Circuit Court via video link on Monday. Patterson told cops he decided Jayme was 'the girl he was going to take' after seeing her get on a school bus when it stopped in front of him as he drove to work one day Patterson is charged with shooting dead Jayme's parents Denies (left) and James Closs (right). The gruesome scene is laid bare as deputies attending the scene told of 'blood and brain splattering on the wall' Pictured is the front door of the Closs home. It appears to be covered with plywood and a blanket, and sources say it was kicked in during the home invasion He sat, impassive, as the horrific charges of his apparently inexplicable crime spree, were read to the court. At one point he seemed to almost stifle a yawn. He blinked. He looked down at the copy of the charge sheet on the table before him. And he showed not one flicker of emotion, remorse or care. His father wept openly, as the charges against his son were read out in court and bail set at $5 million. Patterson's brother, Erik, and father, Patrick, were the only family present for him in court. Erik wore a blue and black hooded jacket and sat hunched forward. His father, seated next to him, was dressed in a grey pin stripe suit. He took his glasses from his nose as he sat down and held them in his hands. He fretted with them briefly. 'You don't have anyone else coming on your side do you?' Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald asked as he tried to accommodate media, public and court officers in the rapidly filling benches. Only the bench reserved for Patterson's family remained relatively vacant. 'No we don't sir,' Patterson Sr responded. As the court waited and 3.30pm approached Patterson's father put a protective hand on his son Erik's knee. He gave it a squeeze and his hand remained there a while. They refused to answer questions following the hearing. Mr Patterson shook his head when asked if he knew what had happened at the cabin or witnessed anything strange. Patterson will not be allowed firearms, contact with Jayme or the neighbors and dog walker who alerted authorities to her escape. Asked if he understood that Patterson answered confidently,'Yes sir.' With that the court was adjourned. Patterson stole his father's 12 gauge Mossberg shotgun (file photo)- chosen because it was so common and would be hard to trace Hours before his first court appearance, the horrifying details of the Closs murders and Jayme's abduction emerged in the criminal complaint that was filed on Monday. It told of how Jayme cowered in the bathroom with her mother as Patterson shot her father in the head and then watched in horror as he did the same to her mother minutes after kicking in the flimsy door. Dressed in black from head to toe including a face mask, hat and gloves, Patterson grabbed the terrified teenager, taped her hands and ankles together, covered her mouth with tape and dragged her out of her home to his waiting car. According to Jayme, her abductor then bundled into the trunk and drove her approximately two hours to the cabin where he would hold her for the next three months. Patterson took her into the cabin, removed the tape from her mouth, hands and ankles and told her to go into the bathroom and remove all her clothes, the complaint states. He made her put the clothes in which she had been abducted into a bag, making some comment about 'not having evidence.' When friends of relatives visited Patterson, he 'made it clear that nobody was to know she was there or bad things would happen to her.' He made her hide under his bed in one corner of his bedroom and stacked totes and laundry bins around the bed with weights stacked against them so she could not move them. On one occasion, according to the documents seen by DailyMail.com, Jayme stated that Patterson got mad and 'hit her really hard on the back with the handle of something he used to clean blinds.' She could not remember what had angered him. Her escape came when he left the cabin and she managed to push the weights away and flee. Patterson has confessed has been charged with two counts of first degree homicide, kidnapping and armed burglary. Patterson told cops he decided that Jayme was 'the girl he was going to take' after a chance sighting of her getting on the school bus when it stopped in front of him as he drove to work. According to Patterson he 'had no idea who Jayme was' when he decided to take her and set about plotting his crime. He bought a black balaclava mask from Walmart and drove to the Closs home twice with the intent to kidnap her but was deterred by cars in the driveway and lights in the house. On the night of October 15, he finally followed through and stole his father's 12 gauge Mossberg shotgun - chosen because it was so common and would be hard to trace. He took six 12 gauge shells because 'he felt the 12 gauge would inflict the most damage on someone and would most likely be the best choice of shell and weapon to kill someone.' As well as the balaclava, he wore two pairs of gloves. He shut off his headlights and coasted to the end of the driveway. As he approached under cover of darkness Patterson saw Jayme's father, James, standing in the large window. Jayme told detectives that she had been woken by her dog Molly barking and noticed somebody coming up the driveway when she went to investigate. She woke her parents and her father 'went to the door to see what was going on.' Patterson claimed that he yelled at Closs to get on the ground but that he 'kept shining a flashlight and looking outside.' The gunman then approached the front steps, opened the glass storm door and began pounding on the wooden door. As James Closs peered through the decorative glass window, he asked to see Patterson's badge - assuming that he was law enforcement. In that moment, Patterson said, he raised his shotgun, pointed it at James Closs' head and pulled the trigger. James is described in the complaint as having 'significant trauma to his face and head.' Chillingly after he had dragged the shocked teen to his car, bundled her into his car and made his getaway, Patterson recounted 'he yielded to three passing squad cars that were travelling west towards the house with their red and blue emergency lights and sirens on' The image above shows the cabin in rural Wisconsin where Jake Patterson allegedly held 13-year-old Jayme Closs prisoner for nearly three months He tried to shoulder open the door behind which James Closs had collapsed but when he couldn't he lowered his shotgun and blasted the doorknob. Once in, he stepped over James Closs' lifeless body and headed to the closed door directly in front of him. He quickly scanned other rooms checking for anybody else. When he found nobody else inside the house, he returned to the closed door where Denise and Jayme were hiding, kicking and shoving the door 10 to 15 times before it burst open. In a terrifying scene he tore the shower curtain down, taking the rod with it and found Denise 'with her arms wrapped around Jayme in a bear hug.' Patterson told Denise to place black duct tape over her daughter's mouth but when she 'struggled to do that' he put down his shotgun, took back the tape and wrapped it around Jayme's mouth and head. He made the teen stand up while he 'took and placed [tape] around her wrists, with her palms together to restrain her hands and arms.' Patterson then taped her ankles, removed her from the tub and, as she stood beside him, he took aim at her mother's head and pulled the trigger. As he dragged Jayme away he told officers he nearly slipped on the blood that had pooled on the floor. The gruesome scene is laid bare as deputies attending the scene told of 'blood and brain splattering on the wall directly behind the wooden entrance door.' Denise had also been shot in the head, 'with the rear backside of her head and skull plate completely removed and lying next to her body in the bathtub.' As Jayme's family prepares to face down Patterson in court, DailyMail.com obtained exclusive photos of the squalid basement 'cell' in Patterson's home The image above shows the filthy basement den where authorities believe 13-year-old Jayme Closs was held prisoner by her alleged abductor, Jake Thomas Patterson, 21 Inside the main living room is a half-finished game of Monopoly and a book entitled 'U.S. Armed Forces Survival Guide' This aerial photo shows the cabin where 13-year-old Jayme Closs was held by Jake Thomas Patterson, surrounded by law enforcement vehicles Chillingly after he had dragged Jayme to his car, he bundled her into his car's trunk and made his getaway. Patterson recounted 'he yielded to three passing squad cars that were travelling west towards the house with their red and blue emergency lights and sirens on.' Asked what he would have done if he he been stopped by police as he made his escape, Patterson said 'he still had the loaded shotgun in the front seat of the car [and] would most likely have shot at the police.' Patterson said 'knew he was going to kill anyone in the house [that night] because..he could not leave any eyewitnesses behind.' He described Jayme as 'scared and crying' when he finally let her out of the trunk. She had urinated herself and so he told her to change into a pair of his sister's pajamas. He then kept her in a space under his bed which is twin-sized and sits approximately 2 1/2 feet off the ground. He said that Jayme had tried to escape his makeshift lair at least twice and when she had done so, he 'struck a wall and screamed a lot to the point where he knew she was scared and she better never try that again.' He believed her to be 'fearful enough not to leave the bedroom without him.' According to Patterso, Jayme did not leave because he had scared her enough with his outburst to the point where she complied to his wishes The details of Jayme Closs' abduction have emerged in the criminal complaint filed on Monday ahead of Jake Patterson's (pictured) first court appearance in Barron, Wisconsin According to Patterson she did not leave because he had scared her enough with his outburst to the point where she complied. Patterson said he left her alone for 12 hours at Christmas while he visited his grandparents in Superior and when his father visited, he simply turned up the radio to mask any sound she might make. On the day of her escape and his arrest Patterson had told Jayme he was leaving for a few hours. When he got home he discovered she was not under the bed and began a frantic search for her. After a few minutes he returned to his house and when he saw police 'he knew he was caught.' In a bizarrely nonchalant admission Patterson told cops he 'assumed he had gotten away with killing James and Denise and kidnapping Jayme since he hadn't been caught in the first two weeks.' He denied having ever met Jayme either in real life or online and that he only learned her name after the abduction. He claimed he learned her parents names when he saw the reports of their killings. Patterson told a detective 'he never would have been caught if he would have planned everything correctly.' A British photographer and travel writer described as an 'inspiration' who 'touched so many people's lives' has died while surfing off the coast of Sri Lanka. Jon Lewin, 36, is believed to have suffered a seizure in the water while on holiday and doctors were unable to revive him. His devastated girlfriend Immy Clifton, who he was on holiday with, paid tribute to 'soulmate' Jon in a heartbreaking Facebook post. Mr Lewin's best friend Charlie died surfing in 2004 - and Ms Clifton says they have been reunited in the afterlife. Jon Lewin, 36, is believed to have suffered a seizure in the water while on holiday in Sri Lanka on Sunday last week The couple were joined by Mr Lewin's best friends from the UK - and the group woke at 5am for an early surf. Mr Lewin, a long-term sufferer of seizures, disappeared under water and failed to resurface two hours later. The 'free spirit' grew up in Long Clawson, Leicestershire, before studying photojournalism at Swansea University. He also wrote a travel cookbook titled The Locals' Kitchen. Three Scandinavian doctors were by chance also present but failed to save Mr Lewin. She said: 'They didn't know anything was wrong until they noticed his surfboard floating in the water. His devastated partner Immy Clifton, who he was on holiday with, posted an update after his death 'Everyone swam over to it and when they got there, felt that he was still attached to the leash. 'Incredibly there were also three super efficient Scandinavian doctors in the water. 'They were apparently amazing with him. Everything that could have been done was done but, it wasn't meant to be. 'It is presumed that he had a seizure, as he had no injuries, he knows the water so well and the waves were not that big.' Immy added that she is 'absolutely devastated' and said 'words can't even describe the hole I feel through my heart physically and emotionally. She said: 'He died in the water (where he'd always said he wanted to die) doing something that he loved so much. He was in such a happy place in his life. According to girlfriend Immy Mr Lewin's best friend Charlie also died while out surfing in 2004 'If it was a seizure (most probable) then he would've instantly blacked out and it would have been painless. 'He had said to me before that he never remembered his seizures or felt them coming on so his last moments on this earth would have been surfing a wave in his absolute element, loving life. 'Although at this moment I can't imagine life without him, his wise words are still ringing in my ears. 'He knew death and grief intimately and said that his mum and best friend dying, at such young ages, spurred him on to live life to the absolute fullest, don't waste precious time, make the most of every moment and make your dreams and passions a reality. 'Be open and honest and full of love as you never know what's around the corner. Immy Clifton and Jon Lewin embarking on their trip to Sri Lanka. His body will be cremated in Sri Lanka and his ashes spread across his two favourite beaches 'Always look for the positive in life and the lessons. When things like this happen it's so hard to but I know that's what he would've wanted. 'He had so much love for everyone in his life and inspired and connected with anyone that was lucky enough to cross his path. 'He had such a simple and positive outlook on life. That's why I called him Pooh bear (Winnie the Pooh). 'I really feel that he was my soulmate and although we weren't together as long as we wanted, he will always be with me and everyone else who shared love with him. 'I hope I meet him again in another lifetime but for now, he's with his mum and his best friend Charlie. 'Good luck on your journey my one. I hope we find each other again in another lifetime. Mr Lewin will be cremated in Sri Lanka and his ashes spread across his two favourite beaches. He will then be carried home where the rest of his ashes will be laid in places close to his heart. Advertisement New York's old Tappan Zee Bridge has been brought down in a spectacular demolition. The eastern span of the 63-year-old bridge across the Hudson River in upstate New York came down in a controlled demolition at 10.52am on Tuesday, marking the end of an era for commuters in the region. Despite bone-chilling temperatures of 29 degrees, hundreds gathered on the river banks and a nearby pier to watch the bridge come down. Roughly 6,500 tons of steel fell about 140 feet into the river, where dive teams and boats will remove the debris in the coming days. A section of the old Tappan Zee Bridge is brought down with explosives in this view from Tarrytown, New York on Tuesday morning The explosions went off at 10.52am, after crowds had waited for an hour to see the demolition A series of explosions on vertical supports brought the span down without damaging the new Tappan Zee built alongside, officially named the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge. Crowds had cameras at the ready when a boom shook the ground and rattled trees. Acrid black smoke filled the air as the structure dropped straight into the river. It remained about half submerged; the remnants will be salvaged and recycled. 'The fact that you can feel the concussion against your legs was crazy,' said Kathleen Staab, who watched from about a half-mile away. 'Whoa!' the crowd shouted. 'Do it again!' A lighthearted mood prevailed as spectators, bundled against the cold, gathered outside the historic Lyndhurst Mansion. 'My boss let me go,' said Catherine Easton, 56. 'I was going to make up a story, but I decided to tell the truth.' Easton, 56, drove from Redding, Connecticut, with her boyfriend. 'We saw our first fireworks together with the bridge in the background,' she said. 'So we have a sentimental thing with the bridge and we wanted to wish it goodbye.' Staab, 45, of Sussex, New Jersey, went there with her sons, ages 10, 7 and 4. 'They're playing hooky,' she said. 'I'd rather them experience history than read about it.' She said, 'It was always a neat bridge to drive over, and the views were always so beautiful. But it is always kind of sad to see a piece of history implode.' The western span of the bridge will be brought down by the end of the year, officials said. The demolition was originally scheduled for January 12 but had to be postponed due to high winds. Boats were diverted to a 300-foot channel on the western side of the river prior to the demolition. The eastern span came down some 63 years after it first opened across the Hudson River The new Tappan Zee is seen in the background as the old bridge is brought down Some 6,500 tons of steel fell about 140 feet into the river, were the debris will be removed Coast Guard Petty Officer Steve Strohmaier told the AP prior to the demolition that vessel traffic would be shut down for nearly an hour during the implosion. Original plans were to remove the Tappan Zee piece by piece and avoid the use of explosives that could have an impact on Hudson River fish habitats. Eight counties had requested some of the 150 deck panels to be salvaged for reuse in other bridges. But experts determined the old bridge was structurally unsound, preventing workers from continuing the piecemeal takedown. The new bridge project was launched by the state Thruway Authority in 2013 after decades of political squabbling. The old bridge was decaying and overburdened by the 140,000 vehicles that traveled it each day - substantially more than its designed capacity. It had become a poster child for America's crumbling infrastructure. Shifting steel plates gave drivers unnerving glimpses through road cracks of the chasm below. There are plans to dismantle the western portion without explosives sometime this year. The Governor Malcolm WilsonTappan Zee Bridge first opened in December 1955, and crossed the Hudson River at one of its widest points. The crossing acquired its name after the an Indian tribe called the Tappan, while Zee is the Dutch word for sea. Pictured before the demolition, is a side-by-side view of the old bridge (left) and the new bridge (right). The old one was opened in 1955 The old Tappan Zee Bridge is seen in 2014. The bridge stood from some 63 years An aerial view shows steel and concrete piers for the old Tappan Zee bridge under construction in the 1950s. The Bridge connects Nyack and Tarrytown Pictured are cranes working over the steel and concrete piers for the under-construction Tappan Zee bridge in July 1954. The bridge was opened in December 1955 This general view looking toward the toll bridge on the Tarrytown side of the old Tappan Zee Bridge was taken on December 15, the day the $60million bridge opened The crossing was built by the engineering firm Madigan-Hyland and designed by Emil Praeger. Praeger went with a cantilever design, which is constructed with a rigid structural element and projects horizontally into space, supported on only one end. The total length of the bridge approaches was 16,013 feet long, and located about 25 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. The last vehicle to travel the 3.1-mile bridge was a 1929 Model A Ford Phaeton, driven by Seth Kestenbaum, in October 2017. Lawyers for Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz sought Tuesday to pry loose evidence for his defense from a state commission that investigated last year's Valentine's Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The commission did dozens of interviews and collected numerous pieces of evidence before releasing its 446-page report earlier this month. Cruz attorney Melisa McNeill said at a hearing Tuesday the defense needs access to that material. 'We don't know what they have. We just want to know what they have,' McNeill told Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer. Jason Jones, who represents the chairman of the 15-member Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, said most of the key witness statements and transcripts had already been turned over to Broward County prosecutors. Parkland school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz enters the courtroom for a hearing at the Broward Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Tuesday Jones said he'd have a list of other evidence to Cruz's defense by Friday. 'We have turned over all recorded and or transcribed statements,' Jones said. 'All those have been turned over to the state as we promised.' Assistant State Attorney Steven Klinger said prosecutors were still going through about 180 witness statements collected by the commission but would soon turn them over to Cruz's lawyers. Judge Scherer set a January 29 deadline for that to happen. 'We would at least like to have the time to review them and read them,' Klinger said. 'We haven't even seen most of them.' Those statements become public record once they are turned over to the defense. Cruz returned court this week for hearings on the Valentine's Day 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, and on accusations he assaulted a corrections officer Parkland school shooter Cruz, center, speaks with defense attorney Melisa McNeill, with defense attorney Diane Cuddihy at right, before a hearing at the Broward Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday The commission's report to the governor and legislative leaders included a long list of recommendations, such as a controversial proposal that teachers who volunteer and undergo training be allowed to carry guns. The report also details failures in the county school district's security program that members believe allowed Cruz, a former student known to have serious emotional and behavioral problems, to enter campus in Parkland while carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in a bag. Another hearing is set Wednesday for a defense attempt to prevent further contact between Cruz and a corrections officer he's accused of assaulting in November. The altercation proves the two can't get along, according to Cruz's lawyers, and they want him supervised by someone else. The Broward Sheriff's Office contends it has the right to decide its own jail policy, not the inmates. Cruz, 20, could get the death penalty if convicted of killing 17 people and wounding 17 others in the school shooting. Det Sgt Nick Bailey (pictured) was left fighting for life after coming into contact with Novichok at the home of Sergei Skripal A hero police officer who nearly died when he was poisoned with nerve agent Novichok in last year's Salisbury attack is running a marathon less than a year after the shocking incident. Det Sgt Nick Bailey was left fighting for life after coming into contact with the deadly nerve agent at the home of Sergei Skripal. He returned to work with Wiltshire Police and will run to raise money for Salisbury District Hospital, which treated him in the aftermath of the poisoning. Writing on JustGiving, Det Sgt Bailey said he was running the Salisbury Marathon for the city's hospital. He wrote: 'In March 2018 I was poisoned by a nerve agent whilst at work. 'I was admitted to the Radnor Ward at Salisbury District Hosptal, an intensive care/high dependency unit. 'I was fortunate to be able to walk out of the hospital a couple of weeks later and this is down to the skill and determination of every doctor, nurse and member of staff on the ward. 'They truly are an amazing group of people that spend their days trying to save the lives of critically ill people. 'My recovery is taking time, but I have decided to try and repay them in whatever way I can for their first class care. 'So, on the 11th of August I'll be running in the Salisbury Marathon, raising money for the Radnor Ward through the Stars Appeal. 'I know this will be be a challenge for me, but it will be nothing compared to the challenge that our amazing NHS staff face each and every day. 'If you could spare a little, anything at all, I would be very grateful.' The link to the page was shared on Twitter by Wiltshire Police Federaton. They wrote: 'Please consider donating to Nick Bailey's Just Giving page. 'He is running Salisbury marathon in August and is an example to all on how to recover from adversity. 'Good luck you superhero.' DS Bailey was tasked with making sure there were no other casualties at their home, and was wearing a forensic suit rather than a protective hazmat suit. He fell seriously ill two days later and was rushed to hospital where tests revealed he too had been poisoned with the nerve agent after touching the home's door handle. DS Bailey spent two weeks in hospital and lost his home in Fordingbridge, Hants, where he lived with his wife Sarah and two children, due to the contamination. Speaking for the first time after the attack, DS Bailey said in November: 'My pupils were like pinpricks and I was quite sweaty and hot. 'At the time I put that down to being tired and stressed. It was horrendous, I was confused, I didn't know what was going on and it was really, really frightening.' Scroll down for video DS Bailey and two colleagues were sent to Skripal's home (pictured on Saturday) on March 4, after the former Russian spy and his daughter were found seriously ill on a bench in Salisbury Former Russian spy Mr Srkipal, 66, right, and his daughter Yulia, 33, left, were poisoned last year after the nerve agent was sprayed on the door handle of Mr Skripal's home in Salisbury Realising how ill the Skripals were, he feared for his own life, adding: 'It's the fear of the unknown because it's such a dangerous thing to have in your system. 'Knowing how the other two were and how badly they'd been affected by it, I was petrified.' The Skripals survived the assassination attempt, but Dawn Sturgess, 44, fell ill in Amesbury months after the incident and died in hospital in July. She had come into contact with a perfume bottle believed to have been used in the attack and then discarded at a park in Salisbury. Her partner, Charlie Rowley, 45, was also exposed to the same nerve agent but was treated and discharged. Two Russian nationals were accused of travelling to the UK to try to murder Mr Skripal with Novichok. Russian nationals Alexander Petrov, left, and Ruslan Boshirov, right, are suspected of carrying out the attack after being caught on CCTV in Salisbury ahead of the incident The two men, known by their aliases Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, were caught on CCTV in Salisbury the day before the attack. Speaking on the day he was released from hospital on March 22, DS Bailey said: 'People ask me how I am feeling - but there are really no words to explain how I feel right now. 'Surreal is the word that keeps cropping up - and it really has been completely surreal. 'I have been so very overwhelmed by the support, cards and messages I have received - everyone has been so incredible. 'One thing that has lifted me throughout the last few weeks has been the public support the police service has received during this incident. Detectives believe Sergai Skripal and his daughter Yulia, pictured, first came into contact with the poison Novichok when it was sprayed on the door handle of their property in Salisbury 'The care I have received from the medical staff has been simply outstanding from day one - from the man that cleans the floor to the doctors giving the treatment - they have all been absolutely phenomenal. 'Thank you just doesn't seem enough and just doesn't convey the gratitude I feel for what they have done for me.' Wiltshire Police said around 350,000 worth of police vehicles had to be destroyed over fears they were contaminated with Novichok. An estimated 7million was needed to cover costs of bringing in officers from 40 other forces, and 1.3million was set aside for overtime pay. The Government pledged more than 5million to support local businesses in Salisbury and Amesbury following a drop in footfall after the first poisoning. A McDonald's employee in Florida has been fired after he was filmed calling a customer the N-word during a heated drive-thru altercation. The altercation occurred at a McDonald's in Spring Hill, north of Tampa, last week. The customer, identified as Zacch Barnes, filmed a young male employee hurling racial slurs at him through the drive-thru window. The video, which surfaced on social media on Thursday, does not show what occurred in the lead up to the altercation. The customer, identified as Zacch Barnes, filmed a young male employee (above) hurling racial slurs at him through the drive-thru window in Spring Hill, Florida last week It starts mid-confrontation with the customer filming three employees through the window as he accuses one of the workers of calling him the N-word. 'You just called me a n***er,' the customer screams repeatedly. The female employee standing closest to the window was on the phone to police at the time. After the angry customer repeatedly yelled about being called the N-word, the male employee stormed over and said: 'I don't care... don't give a f**k n***er'. 'I got you on camera. You're getting fired,' the customer yelled back. The customer repeatedly screamed that each of the three employees was going to get fired over the exchange. It prompted the male employee to come back to the window scream: 'I will f**k you up, you f***ing n***er'. After the angry customer repeatedly yelled about being called the N-word, the male employee (pictured above) stormed over and said: 'I don't care... don't give a f**k n***er' The female employee standing closest to the window was on the phone to police at the time and told the operator that the customer was 'threatening to kill my manager' The customer then proceeded to tell the third employee that she too would be fired. 'You're getting fired too, because you're a manager. You're supposed to handle this differently,' he told her. At one point during the 90 second exchange, the customer tore the window open and sparked an angry reaction from all three employees. The female worker who had called police was filmed describing him as a 'black male wearing a tan shirt and black jeans'. 'He's threatening to kill my manager. He pulled my window open,' she told the 911 operator. The franchisee of that store, Javier Illas, issued a statement after the footage went viral and described the male employee's behavior as 'improper and unacceptable'. 'I am aware of the incident involving one of my employees earlier this week,' the statement read. 'The disturbance with the customer prompted our management team to call the police right away; and we did an immediate investigation on this matter. 'This behavior goes against the values and standards that I expect from employees in my restaurants. This employee displayed improper and unacceptable conduct and is no longer with the company.' Advertisement Remarkable new photographs have been released capturing the agility of a hunting polar bear as its dives headfirst into the ice looking for food. The images, taken on the sea-ice off Spitsbergen's east coast, are part of Richard Sale and Per Michelsen's new book, The Arctic, which aims to showcase one of the last great wildernesses in the world. It also features images of a huge frozen waterfall at Gullfoss in Iceland, as well as a coloured aurora displaying the full spectrum in northern Scandinavia. Other striking shots show a dead walrus being hauled ashore by Yuppiat hunters in Chukotka, a Nenet woman preparing reindeer leg skin for shoe making and breaching humpback whales in the Lynn Canal, Alaska. A Polar bear hunting on the sea-ice off Spitsbergen - part of Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole The sequence of images shows a polar bear diving headfirst into the snow hoping to find a meal beneath the surface The images are part of Richard Sale and Per Michelsen's new book, The Arctic, which aims to showcase one of the last great wildernesses in the world - before it is too late The annual migration of the Nenets people on the Yamal Peninsula, Russia. The Nenets are a Samoyedic ethnic group native to northern arctic Russia Humpback whales are seen breaching in the Lynn Canal - an inlet into the mainland of southeast Alaska, in The Arctic by Richard Sale and Per Michelsen Close to the Skaftfell National Park Svartlfoss in Iceland, the Black Waterfall is seen falling over a cliff of basalt columns A female Polar bear and cubs, on sea ice off east Spitsbergen, Svlabard. The family has only recently emerged from the maternity den Coloured auroras are extremely rare. This one, which includes the full spectrum, was photographed in northern Scandinavia One way of crossing narrow leads on a snow scooter is to open the throttle and skip across like a stone skimmed across a lake. This photograph was taken in Pand Inlet, Canada, with Bylot Island in the background Summer temperatures in parts of the Arctic can be surprisingly warm, a sharp contrast to winter temperatures. This photograph was captured in Gullfoos, Iceland Photographer Per Michelsen, on one of the visits to the site in modern times, inspects the Andree crews' camp site. Andree's Arctic expedition of 1897 was an ill-fated attempt to reach the North Pole. All three expedition members died on the journey River water freezing at the top of a waterfall in Gullfoss, Iceland. Gullfoss is part of the Golden Circle tour in South Iceland on the Hvita (White) river Kulusuk, a settlement in the Sermersooq municipality of southeastern Greenland, which is located on an island of the same name. It has a population of 267 A Nenet woman preparing reindeer leg skin for shoe making outside her home. There are about 45,000 Nenets in the Russian Federation A bearded seal rests on a floating piece of ice on the Hinloppen Strait on the Svalbard archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole A male wolf runs along the snow on the Barren Lands of Northwest Territories, Canada in winter. The photograph is part of Richard Sale and Per Michelsen's new book showcasing the Arctic An Inuit hunting camp on the sea ice of Baffin Bay, located between Baffin Island and the southwest coast of Greenland in the North Atlantic NBC's CEO is shouldering some of the blame of Megyn Kelly's disgraceful fall from the Today Show. The 48-year-old host was unceremoniously booted from hosting the third hour of Today following her controversial blackface comments in October where she said it was okay for white people to wear the offensive costume. NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke, 60, took part of the blame for Kelly's flopped segment saying he personally hired her, adding: 'I went over and told [Kelly] she should come here.' Burke also clarified that NBC News Chief Andy Lack isn't getting any heat for bringing Kelly to the network in early 2017, saying he's '100 percent behind Andy', in an interview with Variety. NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke (left) says he's partially to blame for Megyn Kelly's (right) flopped show on the network. She was axed from NBC in October She was fired for her morning talk show Megyn Kelly Today following her controversial comments defending blackface as a Halloween costume. Pictured above in a following episode apologizing for those comments 'News organizations like ours should take risks...Megyn Kelly was a huge talent,' he said. He reasoned that Kelly was at a disadvantage because her talk show Megyn Kelly Today wasn't scheduled on air at an optimal time. 'She was at the wrong time of day (on NBC). In hindsight we shouldnt have done it. But it wasnt Andy going off rogue,' he said in his interview. Burke made no mention of the fact that Kelly also failed in the evening lineup with her show Megyn Kelly Tonight. Kelly and the network reached a settlement on Friday which a source told DailyMail.com gave the embattled host a payout somewhere between $25-30million, thus fulfilling her original $69million three-year contract. As per the terms of her $30million severance agreement with the Peacock Network, Kelly will not be permitted to dish dirt about what took place behind the scenes at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where her show was filmed. Kelly pictured above on Monday going to yoga with friends after she finally reached a $30million severance agreement with NBC last week Kelly pictured out and about with friends on Monday. Her exit from NBC was made official on Friday Her show was cancelled following her defense of blackface in a segment about Halloween costumes. In her final episode, she held back tears and apologized for those statements saying she realized 'such behavior is indeed wrong'. It was her last time on NBC. Burke defended NBC News Chief Andy Lack for bringing Megyn Kelly to NBC Nielsen ratings show that in the two months since Kelly was ousted over her remarks on blackface, viewership has increased close to 20 percent in both the key demo and total audience. In the Variety interview, Burke not only took responsibility for hiring Kelly, he adamantly defended his faith in Lack. He applauded Lack's removal of Today show host Matt Lauer in November 2017 when he was accused of sexual misconduct. 'I'm 100 percent behind Andy. When the drumbeat began of "You gotta fire this guy" - a lot of that was really unfair,' he said. 'Matt Lauer was a grenade that we didn't know was a grenade. I was here seven years and I thought Matt lauer was the greatest interviewer in news,' he added. This is the comical moment a mischievous baby elephant knocks over a tourist as he attempts to take a selfie with it. During the amusing scene, a couple crouch in front of a group of elephants at the Chiang Mai Elephant Sanctuary, North Thailand, before the youngest of the group decides to cause a little mayhem. As the couple crouch down in front of the animals, the cheeky elephant steps forward and pushes its trunk against the female tourist's head before doing the same to her partner. The mischievous baby elephant knocks over two tourists attempting to take a selfie with it in the Chiang Mai Elephant Sanctuary, North Thailand The baby elephant steps forward and pushes its trunk against the female tourist's head before doing the same to the man sat next to her During the clip, the three elephants patiently wait behind the couple before the smallest of the group becomes tired and decides to have a little fun. As the male tourist adjusts the camera, the baby elephant stretches its truck and steps forward. The female tourist quickly stands up to avoid being pushed to the ground but her boyfriend continues in his attempts to take a picture. The playful elephant continues walking towards the male tourist before finally managing to push him over. The female tourist quickly stands up as the playful elephant continues walking towards the male tourist and pushes him to the ground A local worker rushes to the man's aid and attempts to push the elephant off him According to reports, the tourists had been warned by a guide at the sanctuary to refrain from turning their backs on the elephants, especially the younger ones, who are notorious for being mischievous. The sanctuary, which lies around 60 kilometres from Chiang Mai City, is a unique conservation project that helps sustain a natural home for the endangered species. President Donald Trump's plan to end the shutdown by peeling off moderate lawmakers from the opposing party who represent districts he won fell apart on Tuesday, as not one of them accepted an offer to lunch. Trump invited legislators he believed he could woo to the White House for talks and targeted their party leaders in an attempt to divide the Democratic Party. The plot didn't work. A White House statement chastising Democrats for refusing to come to the lunch table to discuss border security revealed that only Republican lawmakers would come to the meeting. 'Today, the President offered both Democrats and Republicans the chance to meet for lunch at the White House. Unfortunately, no Democrats will attend,' press secretary Sarah Sanders said. 'The President looks forward to having a working lunch with House Republicans to solve the border crisis and reopen the government.' Trump invited five Democrats to the meeting, according to The Hill. He would need close to 20, and every single Republican in the House, to end the impasse. President Donald Trump 's plan to end the shutdown by peeling off moderate lawmakers from the opposing party who represent districts he won fell apart on Tuesday, as not one of them accepted an offer to lunch The White House declined to release a list of Democrats who rejected the president to DailyMail.com. A spokesman for Rep. Lou Correa of California, who was among those who were said to have been invited told DailyMail.com that the Democrat would not sit down with Trump to talk about border security until he signs legislation ending the shutdown. 'Congressman Correa welcomes the opportunity to talk with the President about border security, as soon as the government is reopened,' he said in an e-mail. Correa's colleagues slammed him and other Democrats who declined to 'come to the table' at an impromptu news conference outside the White House after. 'This is about coming to the table and having a discussion. And that's what we're asking them to do, negotiate issues around border security, negotiate a way to reopen the partial shutdown, something we don't want at all,' Rep. Susan Brooks of Indiana said. Lawmakers griped that Democrats wouldn't sit down with them at the White House even as they claimed that are talking to their colleagues on Capitol Hill. 'We have many friends across the aisle, and yes we are talking to your friends across the aisle. And we're pleased that you are all here to encourage,' Brooks said later at the event. She and five of her colleagues who attended the lunch, including Illinois' Rodney Davis, spoke to press. Lawmakers, including Rodney Davis, center, griped that Democrats wouldn't sit down with them at the White House at an impromptu press conference in front of the West Wing after lunch Davis had said in a tweet that he hoped the president would serve fast food at the luncheon, like he did at a Monday evening dinner that took place at the White House. 'Heading to the White House to meet w/ @POTUS on how we can end this shutdown & secure our border. As a @McDonalds family, Im personally hoping for some leftovers from last nights @ClemsonFB dinner,' he said. The lawmaker kept walking as reporters asked him if the president granted his wish at the end of the news conference. The White House had earlier slammed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in the statement that included the names of nine Republicans who'd be dining with Trump. 'As Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi refuse to negotiate, President Donald J. Trump and his team are working hard to find solutions to solve the humanitarian and national security crisis at the border and reopen the government,' she said. She said Trump would be hawking a proposal at the working luncheon to that 'includes additional technology at ports of entry, allows minors from Central America to seek asylum in their home country, and physical barriers between ports of entry made of steel instead of concrete.' 'Its time for the Democrats to come to the table and make a deal,' Trump's spokeswoman asserted. This morning, the president assailed Pelosi by name in a tweet, asking why the California congresswoman is getting paid when federal employees' who were required to stay on the job while their divisions are shutdown are not. Democratic legislators who control the lower chamber as of this month made Pelosi the House speaker, putting her in charge of negotiations with the president to reopen the federal government. 'Why is Nancy Pelosi getting paid when people who are working are not?' the president asked. Senate Democrats have put their weight behind New York's Schumer, another longtime party leader. Trump referred to him in a Monday tweet by the derogatory nickname 'Cryin' Chuck' that he developed for the senator who represents his home state. The two Democrats have released public statements in lockstep since the shutdown began, but Trump is trying to split them by preying on Pelosi's vulnerabilities within her own caucus. Trump invited legislators he believed he could woo to the White House for talks and targeted their party leaders in an attempt to divide the Democratic Party Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have released public statements in lockstep since the shutdown began, but Trump is trying to split them by preying on Pelosi's vulnerabilities within her own caucus She narrowly won her election this month for House speaker, as freshman representatives who believe the party needs fresh blood revolted. Other Democrats who support Pelosi have signaled that they would be willing to break with her since then and give Trump the money he wants for a physical barrier along the southern border in order to end the longest government shutdown in history. California Rep. Katie Hill acknowledged Saturday that the bitter battle between her party and the president over his 'wall' was a semantic one as she said she would be willing to vote in favor of funding a barrier. 'For many of us, there's not really doubt that some kind of physical barrier is necessary,' she told Fox News in a Saturday interview. 'I think the challenge is that we've gotten so hung up on the semantics, really on both sides. Gosh, I can't tell you how much I've come to hate the word "wall," and many of us have.' Trump has tried to attack the problem from the angle of the semantic debate, telling Democrats they can call the barrier a fence, if they want to, to get over the hump and claim to constituents they did not fund a wall. Hill's comments were the first sign that his tactics could be working, and the White House sought to capitalize on them this week with an invitation to rank-and-file Democrats to meet with Trump. It could be his last stop before taking unprecedented action to divert military resources to the construction of his wall. He said Monday he'd prefer to work with Congress. But he has also declared repeatedly over the past 10 days that he was likely to use emergency powers if he comes to believe the impasse cannot be resolved through regular order. Trump on Monday slapped down a proposal from Sen. Lindsey Graham, a key Republican confidant, to reopen the federal government for three weeks while he negotiates with congressional Democrats over funding for his long-promised border wall. 'That was a suggestion that Lindsey made, but I did reject it,' Trump told reporters as he left the snow-swept White House for a speech in New Orleans. The White House formally rejected legislation that would reopen parts of the government for three weeks while negotiations continue on Tuesday, saying in a statement issued by the Office of Management and Budget that Trump would likely veto bills Democrats have proposed. About one-quarter of the federal government's funding, and 800,000 workers' paychecks, has been on hold since December 21 in the longest-ever shutdown as the White House tangles with Pelosi and Schumer. Trump has said he won't sign a budget that would reopen the government unless it includes $5.7 billion in new spending to complete portions of his border barrier. 'I'm not interested,' Trump said Monday of a temporary pause. 'I want to get it solved. I don't want to just delay it. I want to get it solved.' A White House official told DailyMail.com on Monday that the president has 'zero confidence' Pelosi and Schumer would change their position if he were to sign a short-term spending bill, 'and that might just embolden them.' The president hasn't taken his foot off the gas pedal, bashing Democrats for leaving Washington while government employees wait to find out when their paychecks will return. 'Ive been here all weekend,' he groused. 'A lot of Democrats are in Puerto Rico, celebrating something, I dont know. Maybe theyre celebrating the shutdown.' He ridiculed Schumer as 'Cryin' Chuck in a tweet earlier in the day and said he had been 'waiting all weekend' amid an ongoing standoff in negotiations. 'Nancy and Cryin' Chuck can end the Shutdown in 15 minutes. At this point it has become their, and the Democrats, fault!' Trump said. Weekend polling showed that more Americans blamed Trump than the Democrats for the partial shutdown that has TSA and border agents working without pay, but he says it's not his fault negotiations have stalled. 'I've been waiting all weekend. Democrats must get to work now. Border must be secured!' Trump wrote in a Monday missive. President Donald Trump has rejected the idea of reopening the government for three weeks while negotiations continue over funding for his border wall Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a key Trump confidant, proposed the idea over the weekend as a good-faith gesture to bring Democrats back to the table He didn't express any confidence that the shutdown's days are numbered, although he described Republicans as 'rock solid' and claimed of Democrats that 'many of them are calling and many of them are breaking. 'I don't know if we're close on a deal,' Trump told reporters. 'This should be the easiest deal that I've ever seen. We're talking about border security. Who could be against it?' 'We're talking about drugs pouring in, human traffickers tying up women, putting tape on their mouths, and pouring into our country. We can't have that. We can't have that. We have drugs, we have criminals, we have gangs. And the Democrats don't want to do anything about it.' With Pelosi and Schumer standing in his way, a remaining option is for the president to declare a national emergency and use existing Defense Department funds, tasking the Army Corps of Engineers to serve as his border wall's general contractor. Trump has resisted the temptation, and appeared no closer on Monday to taking that tempting off-ramp from the crisis. 'I'm not looking to call a national emergency. This is so simple, you shouldn't have to,' he said. 'Now, I have the absolute legal right to call it, but I'm not looking to do that. Trump claimed that Democrats 'are stopping us, and they're stopping a lot of great people from getting paid.' 'All they have to do is say, "We want border security." That automatically means a wall or a barrier.' The Trump administration cannot put a question about citizenship status on the 2020 census, a federal judge in New York ruled Friday in a boost to proponents of counting immigrants. In a 277-page decision that won't be the final word on the issue, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman - an Obama appointee - ruled that while such a question would be constitutional, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had moved to add it to the census arbitrarily and had not followed proper administrative procedures. 'He failed to consider several important aspects of the problem; alternately ignored, cherry-picked, or badly misconstrued the evidence in the record before him; acted irrationally both in light of that evidence and his own stated decisional criteria; and failed to justify significant departures from past policies and practices,' Furman wrote. Among other things, the judge said, Ross didn't follow a law requiring that he give Congress three years notice of any plan to add a question about citizenship to the census. The ruling came in a case in which a dozen states or big cities - all Democratic - and immigrants' rights groups argued that the Commerce Department, which designs the census, had failed to properly analyze the effect the question would have on households where immigrants live. Ruled down" A New York federal judge said that the Trump administration had not followed to law in adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. The Supreme Court is to consider the issue next month A separate suit on the same issue, filed by the state of California, is underway in San Francisco. The U.S. Supreme Court is also poised to address the issue Feb. 19, meaning the legal issue is far from decided for good. In the New York case, the plaintiffs accused the administration of Republican President Donald Trump of adding the question to intentionally discourage immigrants from participating, which could lead to a population undercount - and possibly fewer seats in Congress - in places that tend to vote Democratic. Even people in the U.S. legally, they said, might dodge the census questionnaire out of fears they could be targeted by a hostile administration. The Justice Department argued that Ross had no such motive and acted properly after consulting with Census Bureau staff members and others. When Ross announced the plan in March, he said the question was needed in part to help the government enforce the Voting Rights Act, a 1965 law meant to protect political representation of minority groups. Ross said politics played no role in the decision, initially testifying under oath that he hadn't spoken to anyone in the White House on the subject. Later, however, Justice Department lawyers submitted papers saying Ross remembered speaking in spring 2017 about adding the question with former senior White House adviser Steve Bannon and with then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked Ross from being deposed, but let the trial proceed, over the objections of Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. In a dissent on one of two Supreme Court orders related to the case, Gorsuch wrote there was 'nothing unusual about a new cabinet secretary coming to office inclined to favor a different policy direction, soliciting support from other agencies to bolster his views, disagreeing with staff, or cutting through red tape.' This one's on him: Wilbur Ross, 81, Trump's commerce secretary, did not follow the law in trying to add citizenship to the census, the judge found 'Of course, some people may disagree with the policy and process,' he wrote. 'But until now, at least, this much has never been thought enough to justify a claim of bad faith and launch an inquisition into a cabinet secretary's motives.' The constitutionally mandated census is supposed to count all people living in the U.S., including noncitizens and immigrants living in the country illegally. The Census Bureau's staff estimated that adding a citizenship question could depress responses in households with at least one noncitizen by as much as 5.8 percent. That could be particularly damaging in states like New York or California, which have large immigrant populations. Justice Department lawyers argued that the estimate was overblown and that, even if they were true, that didn't mean Ross exceeded his legal authority in putting the question on anyway. The administration faces an early summer deadline for finalizing questions so questionnaires can be printed. This is the terrifying moment a seven-foot-long alligator is pulled out of a sewer by two animal control officers. The large reptile was spotted inside the drain by 12-year-old Hannah Siler, 12, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, USA, last Monday while she was searching for her missing cat. The schoolgirl had decided to check the storm drain outside her home when she was met with the alligator staring back up at her through the grate. The seven-foot-long alligator is pulled out of a sewer by two animal control officers in Pascagoula, Mississippi, USA The large reptile is pulled from the storm drain after being spotted by 12-year-old Hannah Siler, 12, while she was searching for her missing cat She said: 'I was kind of surprised that it was in the sewer drain. I yelled for my neighbour to come look.' Brooque Snow, 25, who lives next door to Hannah, hurried to her aid and alerted animal control. She said: 'We looked inside and there was an alligator. We waited a minute and took a second glance. Then I took out my phone, took a picture and called the authorities.' Animal control officers arrived at Columbus Drive, Pascagoula, to trap the large reptile. The two animal control workers are caught on camera wrangling the reptile out of sewer with a pole and rope The workers eventually subdued the creature by sitting on top of its body and flattening its jaw on the ground The two workers were caught on camera wrangling the reptile out of sewer with a pole and rope as the creature twisted from side to side and chomped its jaws. Eventually they subdued the creature by sitting on top of its body and securing its arms while flattening its jaw on the ground. The alligator was covered in bloody patches from its time in the sewer. Trevor Hodgins, 18, a student at Mississippi Community College, caught the terrifying moment on camera. He said: 'I was frightened but I've dealt with alligators in the past. We live in the South. 'We see alligators pretty often but I've never seen one in a sewer before.' Mississippi wildlife officials later released the reptile into a river outside the city. Pascagoula Police Captain Doug Adams said: 'We have a lot of alligators around Pascagoula because we are surrounded by water. But it's unusual to get one in a drain pipe. 'It was unfortunate it was there in a way, but it was also fortunate that it was there and not just roaming people's yards. 'Thank goodness the child saw the alligator because otherwise it would have died in that sewer. We have no idea how long it was in there. Our licensed trappers released it into the wild.' A no confidence vote that could oust Theresa May will be held today after Jeremy Corbyn launched his attack seconds after the Brexit deal was crushed. The Labour leader is seizing on the Brexit chaos to try to force the Tories out of power and get the keys to Number Ten for himself. But braced for the attack, the PM told the Commons she would face a confidence vote before he had a chance to announce his plan. Getting to his feet at the end of an explosive day in Parliament, Mr Corbyn said the PM had suffered a 'catastrophic' defeat that has left her Brexit plan in tatters. In a defiant statement moments after Mrs May was defeated 432 to 202, Mr Corbyn said he had tabled the crucial motion. He said: 'The result of tonights vote is the greatest defeat for a government since the 1920s in this House. This is a catastrophic defeat for this government. 'After two years of failed negotiations, the House of Commons has delivered its verdict on her Brexit deal and that verdict is absolutely decisive.' His spokesman even suggested that if Labour lose tonight's vote they could table another no confidence vote in future weeks. The move triggers a high-stakes contest that, if he wins, could send Mrs May tumbling from office and pave the way for a general election. But Mrs May looks set to cling on tonight after the DUP and her hardline Brexiteers confirmed they would vote for her - despite pulling their support last night. Jeremy Corbyn is hoping to seize on the chaos of the PM's deal being voted down to table a no confidence motion and try to topple Mrs May Theresa May (pictured in the Commons last night after her crushing defeat) will face a fresh attack tonight as Labour try to topple her from power Jeremy Corbyn (pictured leaving Parliament last night) said it was a 'catastrophic' defeat for the Government and confirmed he would seek to oust Mrs May tonight Mr Corbyn had been under a huge amount of pressure from his MPs to table the vote to try to topple the PM after her humiliation last night. He had threatened to hold the vote last month, but U-turned on it in a move which saw him mocked by his critics. Backbencher Gavin Shuker said failure to force a vote would be an 'abdication of leadership' and prove that the Labour leader is just trying to dodge backing a second Brexit referendum. Why has Corbyn called a confidence vote and what does it mean? What is a vote of no confidence? To win and keep power, any Prime Minister has to be able to win votes in the House of Commons - this is known as 'confidence'. Where the Opposition believes this is no longer true, it can call a vote of no confidence to demonstrate it. Why has Corbyn called one tonight? Theresa May lost her Brexit deal by a landslide 230 votes - the biggest margin ever recorded. Corbyn says this is proof she does not have the confidence of the House. Why might he have delay? Corbyn has resisted demands for weeks to call a vote, insisting it will only happen when he is sure he will win. His backbenchers think it is also to avoid him having to back a new referendum on Brexit. When will the vote happen? The vote will be called at 7pm tonight. Will May lose? Probably not - this time. Labour and other opposition parties cannot win without help from Tory MPs. Some have suggested they might join a no confidence motion to prevent no deal Brexit but May is unlikely to back this after losing tonight's vote. Labour can call another vote in future. What would losing mean? Historically, losing a no confidence vote would be a trigger for the Prime Minister to resign and call a general election. This last happened in 1979, bringing down James Callaghan 311-310 - paving the way for the election of Margaret Thatcher. This is no longer true. Instead, it starts a 14-day countdown in which the Government must assemble a new coalition or the Opposition must demonstrate it can form a Government. Failure would then mean an election. Advertisement Mr Shuker said yesterday: 'A failure to table a no confidence motion would be a huge betrayal tonight. 'An abdication of leadership; the act of someone trying dodge a People's Vote and run down the clock.' Labour want to oust Mrs May, force a general election, seize power and take control of the Brexit talks. They insist that a Labour government would do a better job in the talks than the PM. But Labour are deeply divided on Brexit - with many Remainer MPs clamouring for a second referendum while voters in the Labour heartlands overwhelmingly backed Brexit. Mr Corbyn is under huge pressure from his backbenchers to back a second referendum, dubbed a 'People's Vote'. But he has tried to dodge these demands by saying that he will push for another election but after that all options are on the table. And yesterday his spokesman suggested that they could repeatedly try to delay the moment of truth when they will have to decide whether or not to back another referendum by tabling more than one no confidence vote. Mr Corbyn's spokesman said: 'Motions of no confidence can happen more than once.' Mrs May lost the crucial vote on her Brexit deal by a staggering 230 votes tonight - the biggest defeat inflicted on a PM in over 100 years. The previous largest was 166 by the minority Labour government in 1924. She is now desperately scrambling to try to drum up support from Labour moderates for another tweaked version of her Brexit deal. If she survives tonight's confidence vote to cling on as PM, then she will hold a series of meetings with MPs across the House to try to find a way forward. But only three Labour MPs defied their party to vote with the PM on her Brexit plan tonight - John Mann, Ian Austin and Kevin Barron. Seizing on the PM's defeat to try to push his new bid for power, Mr Corbyn told the Commons: 'I hear the words of the Prime Minister but the actions of her government in these past two years speak equally clearly. 'She is only attempting to reach out now, to try to keep her failed deal alive after it has been so roundly rejected by parliament on behalf of the people of this country. 'Labour had laid out our priorities consistently: no deal must be taken off the table, a permanent customs union must be secured and people's rights and protections must be guaranteed so they don't fall behind. 'At every turn the Prime Minister has closed the door on dialogue. 'Businesses begged her to negotiate a comprehensive customs union, trade union leaders pressed her for the same thing. They were ignored. 'In the last two years, she has only had one priority: the Conservative Party. 'Her governing principle of delay and denial has reached the end of the line. How does the Brexit vote measure up to previous Commons showdowns 166 - Labour goverment in 1924 The largest government defeat in modern times occurred on October 8 1924, when the minority Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald lost a vote by 364 votes to 198. The vote was on an amendment put forward by the Liberal Party to set up a select committee to investigate the Government's decision to drop criminal proceedings against JR Campbell, editor of the Communist newspaper Workers Weekly, which had recently published an article encouraging the armed forces to mutiny. 89 - Labour government in 1979 On March 22 1979, in the last few weeks of the Labour government led by Jim Callaghan, MPs voted on a motion to annul the fees for a firearms certificate. Although the numbers taking part were low, the Government lost by 115 to 26. 86 - Labour government in 1978 The largest post-war defeat where at least half of MPs took part. It happened on January 25 1978, when MPs voted by 204 to 118 on an opposition amendment to the Callaghan government's Scotland Devolution Bill. The legislation had excluded Orkney and Shetland from the provisions of the Bill if they voted 'no' in a referendum. Advertisement 'She cannot seriously believe that after two years of failure, she is capable of negotiating a good deal for the people of this country. 'On the most important issue facing us, this government has lost the confidence of this House and this country.' DUP leader Arlene Foster had some solace for Mrs May today as she confirmed that the confidence and supply deal with the Tories - which props them up in power - still holds. The commitment means there should be little chance of Labour winning a vote. Mr Corbyn had accused the Prime Minister of trying to 'blackmail' Labour MPs into supporting her Brexit deal. If the no-confidence motion passes and a new government with the support of a majority of MPs cannot be formed within a fortnight Parliament will be dissolved and an early election called. But the DUP - whose 10 MPs prop the Tories up in power - have vowed to back the PM. And the Brexit-backing Tory group European Research group, which represents around 60 to 80 Tory MPs - have also pledged to support her. It came as a poll showed Labour falling six points behind the Conservatives despite the Brexit chaos engulfing Mrs May's party. In the YouGov poll for the Times Mr Corbyn's party plunged to 35 per cent, its lowest rating since mid December, while the Tories score 41 per cent. Mr Corbyn is believed to have held off on challenging the Government amid fears that failure to trigger a general election could lead to a second referendum. Under Labour's Brexit plans, decided at its conference in September, the party's policy is to seek a general election first. If the party cannot secure one, Labour has promised to look at all options including another referendum. Polling suggests that a large majority of Labour members want Mr Corbyn to actively back a so-called People's Vote. But this would prompt a backlash from his pro-Brexit voters in the party's Northern heartlands. A Minnesota man with a history of indecent exposure was arrested twice in one week for allegedly exposing and pleasuring himself in front of people, including children, in Florida. Jason Tietz, 47, was busted last Wednesday after police say he walked out of his room at Hotel Zamora in Clearwater in his birthday suit, took an elevator to the rooftop lounge and proceeded to masturbate in front of an employee. Tietz was booked into the Pinellas County Jail on a count of lewd and lascivious exhibition, but was released the next day. Jason Tietz, 47, was arrested on January 9 (left) and then again on January 12 (right), on charges of lewd and lascivious exhibition for allegedly masturbating in public Tietz is accused of walking out of his room at Hotel Zamora in Clearwater naked, heading up to the rooftop lounge and pleasuring himself in front of an employee On Saturday, five young girls were hanging out on Clearwater Beach in front of the Hyatt Regency Hotel when they allegedly spotted Tietz touching himself near the cabanas, reported Fox 13. The girls alerted one of the cabana attendants, 17-year-old Tyler Bauer, who confronted Tietz. According to Bauer, the suspect tried to walk away from him, but the teen yelled at him to stop and gave chase. Bauer followed Tietz into the parking garage of a nearby hotel, where he and a couple of good Samaritans managed to restrain the 5-foot-9, 185-pound Minnesotan until police arrived. Bauer said that during the struggle, Tietz punched him in the face. Cabana boy Tyler Bauer, 17 (left), confronted Tietz (right), followed him to a garage and restrained him with the help of others. The suspect allegedly punched the boy in the face Three days later, Tietz was allegedly caught exposing and touching himself in front of five teen girls on the Clearwater beach I remember while I was laying on the ground the guy started to apologize, the teen told Fox 13. Bauer's father, Carl, wrote on Facebook he was proud of his son for not letting the 'sicko' suspect get away. Tietz posted this selfie and a message accusing Clearwater cops of police brutality on his Facebook page on January 4 - a day after he was picked up for trespassing According to his profile, Bauer is a high school senior and works as a cabana boy at Barefoot Beach House. When police arrived on the scene, Tietz was taken to the local jail and booked on five counts of lewd or lascivious exhibition, one count of trespassing and one count of child abuse for allegedly punching Bauer. He remained jailed on Tuesday on bond totalling $55,000. Pinellas County Jail's online record reveal that a week before the January 9 arrest, Tietz was picked up by police in Clearwater on a misdemeanor trespassing charge and released on $150 bond. The next day, he shared a selfie on his Facebook page showing himself with a black eye and accused local law enforcement of police brutality. So this is what the cops do to you for trespassing in pinellas county Florida, the man lamented. I see a pretty big lawsuit in my future. Tietz lives in Minnesota and describes himself as an avid hunter. In December, he was arrested in South Dakota for allegedly masturbating in front of two young girls at a hotel Tietz, who lives in Burnsville, Minnesota, with his pet Labradors and describes himself as an avid hunter on Facebook, was previously arrested in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in mid-December for allegedly masturbating in front of two teenage girls at a Ramada Inn hotel. According to a KSFY report, Tietz entered a family's hotel room while the adults were away, exposed himself to a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old, and pleasured himself in front of them before blurting something out about being in the wrong room and fleeing. When the girls' mother returned, she summoned police, who arrested Tietz on charges of indecent exposure and disorderly conduct. One of two Indian women who entered an ancient Hindu hill temple in southern India this month in defiance of a centuries-old ban on women of menstruating age alleged she was beaten up by her mother-in-law on Tuesday, police said. Kanaka Durga, 39, a civil servant, suffered injuries to her head and had to be hospitalised, police said. She claims she was attacked only minutes after she returned to her home from spending a month at undisclosed locations fearing attacks by conservative Hindu groups, police said. 'We received a complaint from Kanaka Durga alleging that she was attacked by family members of her husband when she returned home after entering the temple,' said Jaya Mani, officer in charge of Perinthalmanna police station in Malappuram district, which is in the state of Kerala where the Sabarimala temple is located. Kanaka Durga, 39, one of two Indian women to enter Sabarimala temple is seen at a hospital in Manjeri town, Kerala on Tuesday Bindu Ammini, 42, and Kanaka Durga, 44, are escorted by police after an earlier failed attempt to enter the Sabarimala temple in Pathanamthitta last month Police were investigating, Mani said. A second police source said Durga had alleged she was assaulted by the mother-in-law. The mother-in-law had denied the allegation, he said. Durga did not return calls seeking comment. The family members, including Durga's mother-in-law, could not be reached for comment. The Sabarimala temple has been the site of tension since India's Supreme Court ruled in late September to end a ban on women and girls aged from 10-50 from entering. The temple refused to abide by the ruling and subsequent attempts by women to visit were blocked by thousands of devotees. The Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala in the southern state of Kerala from which women were banned Kanaka Durga, 39 (left) and Bindu Ammini, 40, became the first women to enter Sabarimala temple That was until Bindu Ammini, 40, a law lecturer at Kerala's Kannur University, and Durga finally succeeded in entering the temple on Jan. 2 through a side entrance in the middle of the night. Some other women have claimed they have got into the temple since then. Their entry sparked widespread protests and a day-long strike in Kerala led in part by members of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. 'The attack is a natural reaction of the family members, who are strong believers of the temple's customs and rituals,' Ammini said. 'Her friends told me that her family members were angry with her action. They have unleashed their anger when they saw her.' Millions of women formed a 385-mile human chain over the Indian temple's rejection of Durga earlier this month. Footage showed the staggering number of the 'women's wall' which even surprised its organisers, Kerala's governing Communist Party of India, who said five-and-a-half million turned out. Riot police were deployed anticipating protests following reports of two women entering the Sabarimala temple Protesters burn an effigy of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan reacting to reports of two women entering the Sabarimala temple Indian police fired tear gas, stun grenades and water cannon as clashes erupted across Kerala after news of the women entering spread. Violent clashes were reported between scores of people in front of the state parliament in Thiruvananthapuram, while protests with sporadic violence were also reported in several other towns across the state. A tense standoff lasting more than four hours in Thiruvananthapuram was ongoing, with neither side showing any sign of backing down as rival groups shouted slogans. Police with batons also charged at protesters who were trying to enforce a shutdown of shops in the area. Several policemen were injured as protesters threw stones. Police remove members of Kerala Students Union, the student wing of India's main opposition Congress party, as they take part in a protest after two women entered the Sabarimala temple Hours after the last remnants of a Confederate statue were removed overnight from North Carolina's flagship public university, the state university system's governing board pushed out the official who ordered them gone. UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt had said Monday that she would leave at the end of the school year in May, but the Board of Governors on Tuesday made her departure effective at the end of this month. The removal of the statue's marble pedestal could increase pressure on the board to give up on plans to restore the monument. Folt ordered the base for the toppled statue known as 'Silent Sam' removed because of continuing unspecified threats since she and university trustees last month proposed a new location away from the heart of the country's oldest public university, she said. 'Despite our best efforts, even since that time, threats have continued to grow and place our community at serious risk. This led me to the action that I authorized,' Folt said in a conference call with reporters. 'While I recognize that some may not agree with my decision to remove the base and tablets now, I'm confident that this was the right one for our community.' Folt did not detail the ongoing threats, and university spokesmen said they couldn't provide further information. The pedestal of a Confederate statue on the University of North Carolina's Chapel Hill campus was removed in the middle of the night on Tuesday. Hours later, the woman who ordered its removal, Chancellor Carol Folt, was pushed out by the university system's governing board Folt (above last fall) had said Monday that she would leave at the end of the school year in May, but the Board of Governors on Tuesday made her departure effective at the end of the month The stone base and attached metal tablets honoring former students who fought for the slaveholding Confederacy were removed in the middle of the night. A work crew with a large truck, a forklift and floodlights took the last piece of the base from the main campus quad around 2.30am, leading to cheers by a crowd that gathered to watch. Folt said the timing was dictated by a desire to avoid disrupting the campus and protect traffic and pedestrian safety from operating cranes and forklifts. The massive pedestal and memorial plaques will be stored, like the statue, while their fate is decided, she said. The statue has been in storage since it was pulled down last August by protesters who consider it a racist symbol dedicated in 1913 by a former Confederate reading a white supremacist speech. The Confederate monument nicknamed 'Silent Sam' was pulled down last August by protesters who consider it a racist symbol The statue, dedicated in 1913 by a former member of the confederacy reading a white supremacist, is seen above before it was toppled on August 20, 2018 Folt's move drew an angry response from Board of Governors chairman Harry Smith. The board had given itself until mid-March to come up with a plan for the statue, and Smith said that timeline hasn't changed. Smith denied Tuesday that Folt was being punished for what he called 'a very bold action'. 'There are definitely camps in this,' Smith said. 'We take a look at what we think is the very best for the institution. We feel strongly that it's probably in the best interest to go ahead and allow a change in leadership so we can move to a healing process.' The Sons of Confederate Veterans issued a statement early Tuesday saying Folt 'has effectively erased the contribution and sacrifice of these brave veterans and the tribute paid to them by subsequent generations'. The group's North Carolina spokesman Frank Powell said late Monday the group could sue the university for violating a 2015 law restricting removal of Confederate memorials. Gov Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein, both Democrats, praised Folt's move as prioritizing safety. 'The law says that she can act to keep people safe. Public safety is an element of the statute, and that was her determination. And she was within her rights to make that decision,' Stein said in an interview. Police and protesters react to a smoke bomb during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam in August. Both the statue and pedestal are now in storage University of North Carolina police surround the toppled statue in August. The statue's pedestal has now also been removed from the campus Folt had been criticized both by those who wanted the statue gone for good, and those who said state law required it to be restored to where it had stood in McCorkle Place for more than a century. Folt's announced departure comes shortly after a similar decision by university system president Margaret Spellings, who had also frequently drawn protesters' barbs. Both were left with weakening support after the university leaders who selected them left and the 28-member governing board became more conservative. The GOP-led legislature appoints all of the board's voting members. 'There has been discontent on the political right not just with Chapel Hill but a lot of public universities being too liberal,' said Ferrel Guillory, a former North Carolina political journalist and current director of UNC-Chapel Hill's Program in Public Life. That conservative turn comes at a time when issues of race and its place in American history have become more urgent, Guillory said. 'Societal trends and issues play themselves out on a big university campus,' Guillory said in a phone interview. 'The education of students and scholarship of faculty doesn't take place in isolation - just in the classroom - but it's appropriate for a public university to be engaged with the public.' Folt, who came to UNC in 2013 from Dartmouth College, said Monday she was proud of work she'd overseen on the Campaign for Carolina fundraising drive that raised more than $2billion as of last summer, or about half of its ambitious goal. But Folt's tenure also saw UNC sued by a transgender employee over the state's so-called bathroom bill, as well as the Silent Sam debate growing more heated after a deadly white nationalist rally in Virginia in 2017. Nathalie Abildgaard, 27 leaves Victory House where she is suing her former firm A City worker suing her firm for sexism after she was propositioned by her boss was left 'suffering stress and anxiety', an employment tribunal was told. Nathalie Abildgaard, 27, is claiming she was unfairly dismissed after batting off advances from a 50-year-old executive director at IFM Investors. Miss Abildgaard left the Australian fund management firm just a month after Frederic Michel-Verdier said: 'If I was 20 years younger, I would have been all over you' at a nightclub in Madrid, it is claimed. He is also said to have messaged her his hotel room number so 'we could have some fun' on the night in March last year, which was organised to celebrate the closing of a deal. Miss Abildgaard, who is originally from Denmark, was said to have sought medical treatment for stress and anxiety after the incident. At Kingsway Employment Tribunal today, Employment Judge Graeme Hodgson adjourned the hearing until Thursday so the panel could read witness statements and other documents. Carol Davis, representing IFM Investments, said: 'This is a case that's essentially allegations relating to conduct. 'This is a case, in essence, about conduct alleged to have occurred in a nightclub in Madrid and the way in which the claimant dealt with that prior to her resignation. 'This is a four-day hearing and revolves around a few hours in a nightclub.' The lawyer said there may be some legal arguments relating to issues with evidence before the tribunal opens. One of these issues may be in relation to medical evidence submitted by Miss Abildgaard. Michel Verdier, 50, has denied any kind of inappropriate behaviour towards female colleagues The panel of employment judges heard she started a new job after leaving IFM but was signed off on sick leave by her doctor. Ms Davis said: 'We have objected on the basis this is liability only. There has not been expert evidence nor full disclosure. 'What we have been provided with as a statement dated 7 July 2018 is that the claimant tendered her resignation on the 9 April. 'On July 10 she commenced alternative employment at another firm for which she then a couple of days later went on sick leave. 'The certificate says she has been suffering from anxiety and stress related to sexual harassment.' Lucy Bone, representing Miss Abildgaard, said: 'It's relevant to the offence. Part of the statutory tests for harassment. 'The respondent puts into dispute that the claimant has had the impact that she says she has suffered.' In a statement, IFM Investments said: 'IFM Investors takes allegations of workplace misconduct extremely seriously and recognises the impact any such incidents can have on employees involved. 'This matter was investigated immediately upon IFM Investors being made aware of the complaint in April last year and management action was taken in accordance with our policies and procedures. The city worker said her older male boss texted her the number of his hotel room after drinks to celebrate a business deal 'IFM Investors goes to great lengths to foster a positive, equal and respectful workplace culture and we work continuously to improve our organisation.' Mr Verdier has denied the accusations. He kept his job as the firm felt it could not 'reasonably conclude' that there had also been 'verbal unwanted and physical advances.' Advertisement Charlotte Rampling wrote a poem about her. Jacqueline Bisset is Jacky to her. Robert de Niro politely asked she not take his photo because he was concentrating on his next scene: walking across a room. Al Pacino begrudgingly let her take some shots. Audrey Hepburn was absolutely extraordinary. And those were just the actors. Photographer Eva Serenys astounding career shooting actors and directors on film sets during the 1970s and 1980s took her around the world. She has captured remarkable images of Hollywood heavy hitters and legends Truffaut, Fellini, Nichols, Spielberg, Lucas, Herzog and has the behind-the-scenes stories to match. This word awesome, yes. Its pretty awesome, she told DailyMail.com when asked about witnessing the master directors in action. A young wife and mother, Sereny had the moxie to walk into The Times office in London and show an editor her photographs, the first step that would eventually land her on many film sets including three of the Indiana Jones movies. These images and more are now part of her recent book 'Through Her Lens: The Stories Behind the Photography of Eva Sereny.' Quick with a laugh, Sereny had many tales to tell even about those relationships that had inauspicious starts. Photographer Eva Sereny's long and stellar career was spurred by an unusual incident: her husband's car accident in Rome. He was not hurt, but she realized that she wanted to do something, and she plunged herself into photography. She ended up on film sets taking photos of Hollywood legends. Above, Marlon Brando, left, lights the cigarette of director Bernardo Bertolucci, right, on the set for his film 'Last Tango In Paris,' which was released in 1973 but remains controversial today After realizing she wanted to be a photographer, Sereny learned all she could about the craft. A good friend was the head of the Italian Olympic Committee and asked her to take photos at the youth centers they were developing. Sereny wanted to know if the photos she had taken were any good, and so she hopped on a plane and went to The Times office in London. She met an editor who eventually put her photos into the newspaper. Above, actress Raquel Welch wears a royal blue, one-piece bathing suit in an image Sereny took in the 1980s Getting her photos in The Times was the first step in Sereny's career and she would eventually take shots on film sets. Sigourney Weaver, pictured, had just wrapped the first 'Alien,' which was released in 1979. The actress and Sereny both happened to be in Paris, and she was asked to photograph Weaver. Sereny told DailyMail.com that she wanted the shoot to somewhat have a feel of the movie, and it took place at the architecturally-interesting Centre Pompidou, a museum in Paris 'The Last Picture Show,' released in 1971, had put director Peter Bogdanovich 'on the map,' Eva Sereny wrote in her recent book, 'Through Her Lens: The Stories Behind the Photography of Eva Sereny.' 'I could tell he was completely besotted by actress Cybill Shepherd, whom I liked very much. She was very easy to work with and took beautiful pictures.' Sereny took the above image of Bogdanovich, left, and Shepherd, right, on the set of 'At Long Last Love,' which was released in 1975 Above, an image of director Sydney Pollack, left, and Robert Redford, right, on the set of the film 'The Electric Horseman,' which was released in late 1979. Sereny told DailyMail.com that she worked with four cameras - two that were for color and two that were black and white. I always wanted to be quick, she explained. Images like the one above were quite difficult to do because I had no idea how it would come out. Dont forget, Im using film the real McCoy You hope to God that its going to come out right, she said By the 1980s, Sereny had taken photos on several film sets. Producer Frank Marshall joined Steven Spielbergs team for Raiders of the Lost Ark the first film of the blockbuster Indiana Jones movies and asked her to be the special photographer on set. Above, from left, Kate Capshaw, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Harrison Ford take a break during the filming of 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,' which was released in 1984 Photographer Eva Sereny, left, with director Steven Spielberg, right. Sereny took photos on three of the Indiana Jones movies - traveling to Tunisia, Sri Lanka and Marbella in Spain. Of course, working on a Spielberg movie is something very special. Just seeing Steven direct is fascinating, she wrote While shooting on film sets, she tried to be as unobtrusive as possible and did not take photos during filming. I always put myself very much in the back. I didnt want to be seen. I wanted to be camouflaged, she explained. Even so, there were snafus. When she started taking photos on the set of director Herbert Ross The Last of Sheila, released in 1973, Raquel Welch, she recalled, shouted at me, Who the hell are you? Ross, the director, come to Serenys side and let Welch know that she was alright to be on set. I dont want her here. I dont want her here, Welch said. Sereny said she then disappeared. So that was my first encounter with Raquel. However, she was slated to work with actress again. I was very worried that she would remember me. But she didnt remember me and I never told her, she said and then laughed. Sereny said that they are now great work friends, and she has taken many images of Welch. In one photo that is part of her book, the actress wears a royal blue, one-piece bathing suit. While taking snaps on The Last of Sheila, Sereny was also the special photographer for Francois Truffauts film, Day for Night, which was released in 1973, and that was when she meet her good friend Jacqueline Bisset. We connected immediately from the beginning and have been very good friends ever since that movie, she wrote in her book. Bisset wrote the foreword for Serenys book, saying that her photographs capture the deeper soul. Truffaut, director of the seminal films The 400 Blows and Jules and Jim, was always very busy on set, one minute hed be in a conversation, the next second he was somewhere else. I felt even the little time I was on the set with him he was very understanding and pleasant in his commanding position as a director vis-a-vis his actors and crew, Sereny wrote. Sereny also worked on some of Bernardo Bertoluccis films, including The Conformist, 1900, Last Tango in Paris, and Luna. I have to admit that working with Bernardo has definitely inspired my photography, she wrote. For Last Tango in Paris, star Marlon Brando initially didn't want her to take his picture but she managed to convince him. As relayed in her book, she told Brando that he would be shown the photos for his approval. But before she could run the images by Brando, French magazine Paris Match wanted the photos right away. All he said was Dont worry, Eva: you make the choice. I was able to gain Brandos trust in me and my work, she wrote. What a great feeling! In the book, there is an image of Brando lighting Bertoluccis cigarette on the set of the film, which remains controversial to this day, and another portrait of the actor fixing his red tie. Francois Truffaut, left, directed many seminal films, including The 400 Blows and Jules and Jim. He was always very busy on set, one minute hed be in a conversation, the next second he was somewhere else, Sereny wrote in her book 'Through Her Lens.' Sereny took the above photo during 'Day for Night,' which was released in 1973, and starred Jacqueline Bisset. Bisset and Sereny 'connected immediately' and became friends, she wrote in her book. Bisset penned the foreword for Sereny's book, writing her photographs capture the deeper soul Sereny took the image of Werner Herzog, above, off the film set. He was the most interesting director, she wrote of Herzog, adding that he was also charming. She photographed Herzog and his cast during the filming of 'Nosferatu the Vampyre,' which was shot in the Netherlands. His inspired 1979 remake starred Klaus Kinski and Isabelle Adjani, Sereny wrote Director Steven Spielberg on the set of his movie 'Always,' which starred Audrey Hepburn in what turned out to be her last film. 'Always' was in theaters in late 1989, and Hepburn died on January 20, 1993. Sereny told DailyMail.com that Hepburn was absolutely extraordinary. She was just gorgeous, just gorgeous. It just makes me tearful really to think thats she gone.' Sereny had taken photos on three of Spielberg's Indiana Jones movies Director Luchino Visconti, pictured, on set of his film 'Death in Venice,' which was released in 1971. Sereny took the above photo, and the 'Death in Venice' filming was the second time she had taken snaps on a set. The photos she took of one the film's stars, Italian actress Silvana Mangano, in costume were featured in The Sunday Times Magazine. Thats how everything started for me. It was enormous, Sereny recalled Sereny took this photo of Peter Bogdanovich during the filming of 'At Long Last Love,' a movie that starred Cybill Shepherd and Burt Reynolds and was in theaters in 1975. After Sereny's husband was in a car accident in the late 1960s, she knew that she wanted to pursue a creative outlet and chose photography. This photo and others are part of her book, 'Through Her Lens' The first movie set that Eva Sereny was on to take photos was director Mike Nichols' film 'Catch-22,' released in 1970. Throughout his prolific career, Nichols, pictured above on the 'Catch- 22' set, directed such classics as 'The Graduate.' In her book, Sereny recalled how nervous she was to show Nichols her photos: 'I studied his face and didnt notice a change of expression; until, slowly, a broad smile surfaced. All was well. I was asked to stay on for the last two weeks of shooting as a paid "special photographer" ' In one of the most famous scenes of 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,' star Harrison Ford, playing Jones, cuts the above bridge when he finds himself in a pickle. Sereny took snaps on three of the Indiana Jones films, including this one above with Steven Spielberg, left, and George Lucas, right One of Serenys first 'photo shoots' was much less glamorous than Paris: she had to take a shot of her husbands car after an accident. At around aged 20, Sereny decided to leave London and went to Italy. I was going to stay there for a few months but I stayed there for 50 years, she said and then laughed. She married an Italian man, who was an engineer, her first year in Rome and they had two children. One day in 1967, he was on his way to work when his car skidded and went through the side of a bridge. I dont think he even had a scratch I dont know how that happened. He had nine lives, thank God, she recalled. But he wanted a photo of the car, and Sereny said: Maybe that inspired me. When the accident happened, Sereny knew that she wanted to do something she just didnt know what. I knew I was creative but I couldnt draw. This is Gods truth, I mean, thats really (what) I was thinking. Maybe photography I mean literally like that. But I didnt even think it would become a metier, I mean a profession, she recalled. Sereny plunged into photography, getting books and becoming obsessed with developing and printing. I was really, really raw. I didnt know anything. Her first break came from an unlikely source: the Italian Olympic Committee. A good friend was the head of the committee and asked her to take photos at the youth centers they were developing. Sereny wanted to know if the photos she had taken were any good, and so she hopped on a plane and went to London. I literally just walked into the foyer of The Times. At The Times, she met editor Norman Hall, who would take a few days but eventually printed her photos framing it as future Italian hopefuls for the next Olympics - in the newspaper. Now Sereny had published photos she could show. Her next break was to be hired as a special photographer for director Mike Nichols' 1970 film Catch-22. In her book, she explained that a special photographer was someone who just comes to the set and sends their work out via their agency I was with Camera Press at the time or directly to newspapers and magazines. The way I like to approach my job is to catch images of the off-moments, when the cameras are not rolling, by focusing on the actors in character, in this way I can still manage to catch the essence of the film, she wrote. Marlon Brando, above, in a portrait that Sereny took on the film 'Last Tango in Paris,' which was released in 1973. In her book, 'Through Her Lens,' Sereny recounted how she convinced Brando to let her take his picture, telling him that he would get photo approval. But a French magazine, Paris Match, wanted the photos right away and she was unable to show him the images. She wrote: 'All he said was 'Dont worry, Eva: you make the choice." I was able to gain Brandos trust in me and my work. What a great feeling! In her book, 'Through Her Lens,' Serent wrote: Working with someone like Fellini was extraordinary. He was an artist who worked without brush or palette. He had the unbelievable talent of illustrating everything on the big screen from the characters to the costumes and the atmospheric environments. Above, Federico Fellini, right, puts makeup on star Donald Sutherland, left, during the filming of 'Casanova,' released in 1977 Robert Redford, above, in character during the filming of director of Sydney Pollack's film, 'The Electric Horseman,' which was in theaters in late 1979. Sereny told DailyMail.com that she worked at times without an assistant - no small feat when cameras had to be loaded with film - and that she had three cameras around her neck and one in her hand while taking photos In 1980, Sereny was assigned to take photos of Luciano Pavarotti for the London Observer Magazine. She went to his home in Modena, Italy. Larger than life in every way and he commanded attention. Well, he had every right he was one of the greatest tenors of his time, she wrote. Sereny told DailyMail.com: He smoked - I didnt ask him to smoke Sereny took the above photo of Clint Eastwood while he was showing her where he would build his home in Carmel, California in the early 1970s. After beating the incumbent, Eastwood would end up being mayor of Carmel from 1986 until 1988, and has been active in politics, speaking at Republican National Conventions Above, Robert Redford as the character Jay Gatsby. Sereny took photos on the set of 'The Great Gatsby,' the 1974 film adaption of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel of the same name. The film starred Redford and Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan, and was directed by Jack Clayton A year or two later, she then took photos on the set of Luchino Viscontis 1971 film Death in Venice. The photos she took of one of the film's star, Italian actress Silvana Mangano, in costume were featured in The Sunday Times Magazine. Thats how everything started for me. It was enormous, she recalled. By the times the 1980s rolled around, Sereny had already been the special photographer for several well-known directors and their sets, including Peter Bogdanovichs 1975 At Long Last Love starring Cybill Shepherd and Burt Reynolds. Producer Frank Marshall helped her get the gig on the set of At Long Last Love.' He would turn out to become one of my strongest supporters over the years, she wrote. After Marshall joined Steven Spielbergs team for Raiders of the Lost Ark the first film of the blockbuster Indiana Jones movies he called her up and asked her to be the special photographer on set. Thats how an extraordinary adventure began for me, Sereny wrote. Sereny took snaps on three of the films: Raiders of the Lost Ark, released in 1981, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, out in theaters in 1984, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, released in 1989. She traveled to sets in Tunisia, Sri Lanka, and Marbella in Spain. Of course, working on a Spielberg movie is something very special. Just seeing Steven direct is fascinating, she wrote. Sereny used to shoot with four cameras: two for black and white, and two for color. Three would be slung around her neck, the fourth in her hand. She often worked without an assistant during a time when cameras needed their film loaded. I always wanted to be quick, she said about the four cameras. You just had to feel which one was right. Adding with a laugh: I dont know how I did it. I really dont. Sereny pegged her incredible career to luck and being ready when opportunities arose. Its been a very strange journey doing this book, she told DailyMail.com. It was an extraordinary journey because many of the times I could not remember how, when I did do these things. I sometimes think, Good God, I did that? In the spring of 1971, Sereny got a call from actress Romy Schneider whom she had just met a few days earlier on the set of Joseph Loseys film The Assassination of Trotsky, and asked if Sereny would take photos of her. My heart skipped a beat. Romy Schneider was asking to have a photo session with me! This was a very unusual situation. Its usually the other way around, Sereny wrote in her book, 'Through Her Lens.' Above is one of the images of Romy Schneider from that photo shoot, which Sereny wrote lasted until 5am While shooting on film sets, Sereny said she tried to be as unobtrusive as possible and did not take photos during filming. Even so, there were snafus. When she started taking photos on the set of director Herbert Ross The Last of Sheila, released in 1973, Raquel Welch, she recalled, shouted at me, Who the hell are you? Ross, the director, come to Serenys side and let Welch know that she was alright to be on set. I dont want her here. I dont want her here, Welch said. Sereny said she then disappeared. So that was my first encounter with Raquel.' But later on the two became good work friends. Above, actress Raquel Welch in photos Sereny took in the late 1980s Sereny worked with actress Raquel Welch again after an inauspicious start. I was very worried that she would remember me. But she didnt remember me and I never told her, she said and then laughed. Sereny said that they are now great work friends, and she has taken many images, including the one above of the actress A man and woman who allegedly robbed a cellphone from a couple were nearly beaten to death by an angry crowd. Alicia Martinez Bustamante, 20, and Gerardo Hernandez Garcia, 37, were attacked on Monday evening by neighbors of the San Andres Totoltepec couple they allegedly stole the phone from. Cellphone video, obtained by MVS Noticias, shows the couple cowering against a wall, surrounded by the 30-strong mob. Martinez Bustamante (pictured to the left on both images with Gerardo Hernandez Garcia standing behind her) tries to fight off to fight off a group of 30 residents after they had allegedly robbed a couple Both Bustamante and Garcia appear to try and protect each other from the baying crowd. At one point, Garcia receives a blow to the head while he tries to shield his alleged accomplice. The clip shows the group appearing to swipe at the suspects with the very same knives they'd managed to wrestle off couple, before the video started. Luckily for the alleged cellphone thieves, the police arrived before either of them was killed or seriously injured. Photos of Bustamante and Garcia showed them bruised, battered and covered in blood before they were taken to hospital. They were later arrested. At least one of the men in the crowd was also injured, and the video showed him displaying his stab wound underneath his shirt. Alicia Martinez Bustamante (left) and Gerardo Hernandez Garcia (right) were left bruised and bloody Upset residents in Mexico City disarmed two muggers and tried to used the sharp weapons to attack them before the police arrived Tom Hardy (pictured with wife Charlotte Riley) has won the right to keep the cladding Actor Tom Hardy has won the right to keep high-end cladding he layered onto the extension to his 3.4million home despite allegedly breaching planning rules. The Peaky Blinders star secured permission to build a two-storey extension at his Georgian home in 2013. But a source tipped off the his local council saying he'd seen white-oiled Siberian larch timber finish despite the application only allowing clad tiling. Hardy's planning agent was forced to submit a retrospective application to keep the extension as it is - and the proposal was accepted by the council. The decision by a London council last month means Hardy won't have to take down the cladding on his five-bed home Richmond. Outlining their decision, a planner at London Borough of Richmond Council said the plans would not 'detract from the wider street scene'. The 41-year-old got the go-ahead to scrap a single-storey side extension and build a two-storey replacement five years ago. The actor built this two-storey extension to the right of the main building, but was accused of flouting planning rules with his choice of cladding It was alleged he had not stuck to the exact details of his granted application, by using different materials on his home, according to planning documents. Tom Hardy (pictured at October's premiere of Venom in California) has won the right to keep his cladding despite planning rules The council also discovered a window been moved from the right to the left of the extension, documents said. His alleged mistake apparently went unnoticed for five years, until someone informed the council, who contacted the actor, letters claim. Council workers said he could either tear down the larch or submit an new application, planning documents said. Hardy's agent then resubmitted the plans in October 2018 asking to keep the wood. A representative for his agents Howard Sharp and Partners LLP said when it was built, Hardy was 'very keen to ensure a high quality material' was used. They said the white oiled Siberian Larch timber was chosen because it 'was seen by the applicants to positively respond to the overall contemporary design of the extension'. They said the window was position to get a better internal layout and added: 'Our clients were somewhat surprised to be notified over an alleged breach of planning control.' London Borough of Richmond Council approved Mr Hardy's retrospective application on December 10. A Georgia couple is accused of giving a four-year-old a drink laced with methamphetamine. Ashley Lee Sexton, 27, and Joshua Lamar Teems, 29, were arrested Monday after allegedly giving the child the spiked drink on Saturday. The drugs caused the child mental and physical pain, the Rome News-Tribune reported. Ashley Lee Sexton, 27, and Joshua Lamar Teems, 29, were arrested Monday for allegedly spiking a child's drink with meth Both Teems and Sexton are from Kensington, Georgia, about an hour north of Atlanta. It's not clear what the relationship was between the couple and the child. Floyd County Jail records show that Sexton and Teems face felony charges of second-degree child cruelty. Teems is facing an additional charge of possessing less than an ounce of marijuana. As of Monday night they were both being held without bond in the Floyd County Jail. A cross-dressing pervert who travelled more than 400 miles across Britain believing he was meeting a 14-year-old girl was trapped by paedophile vigilantes. Richard Grattige, 48, who lives in Maidstone, Kent, and is also known as Vicky Green, believed he was in contact with a child after talking to her on WhatsApp. He travelled by bus to Glasgow after arranging to meet her - but was confronted by vigilantes who recorded him confessing his plans before handing him over to police. Richard Grattige (pictured), 48, who is also known as Vicky Green, believed he was in contact with a child after talking to her on WhatsApp from his home in Maidstone, Kent A video shows Grattige - who is undergoing hormone treatment for a sex change - admitting he planned to meet a girl and pleading to be allowed to return home. Grattige appeared from custody at Airdrie Sheriff Court and admitted communicating indecently and intending to have sex with an underage girl. Depute fiscal Agnes Meek said he was confronted by members of a group called Wolf Pack Hunters at Glasgow's Buchanan Street bus station in September last year. She said: 'A false profile was created on an online chat service under the name of Taylor who was 14 but because of restrictions on age she marked Taylor as being 18. 'She received a message from Jack with a photo of a male aged 47 who is now the accused. Grattige, who lives in Maidstone, Kent, travelled by bus to Glasgow after arranging to meet her 'The accused sent sexual messages to Taylor before he was advised she was 14 to which he replied 'you are not old enough, I will have to find a new girl to meet but I can't have any fun with you because you are aged 14'. 'They continued chatting and WhatsApp was brought up. The accused then stated he was on WhatsApp and provided her with a mobile number and an email address and communications became sexual. 'He asked if she had a boyfriend and asked if she wanted to have sex when she was a bit older and said 'I hope you come to me because I hope to have a baby with you, I think you would make a good mother'. 'They then discussed meeting and he asked if he should bring condoms up with him in case they needed them. Grattige appeared from custody at Airdrie Sheriff Court (pictured) and admitted communicating indecently and intending to have sex with an underage girl 'He told her that if she didn't want that they would just cuddle and stated 'it's not about the sex I just love you so much'. 'He then arranged to travel to Glasgow when he was approached by Wolf Pack members who recorded and uploaded the meeting to Facebook.' Alan Cox, defending, said: 'I think that it is relevant to say that before this he was in the course of transitioning to become a female but he has stopped taking the hormone tablets while he has been in Barlinnie. 'He says that he will resume that once able to do so.' Sheriff Frank Pieri deferred sentence and remanded him in custody. This is the dramatic moment a British aid worker was rescued by al-Qaeda-linked jihadists after being kidnapped and held for ransom in Syria for two months. Mohammed Shakiel Shabir, from Birmingham, was reportedly taken by an armed group in Idlib, northwestern Syria, in November, after which they demanded 3million in exchange for his release. Video footage released by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist group also known as al-Qaeda in Syria, shows him in chains on the floor of a dark cell. Taken: Mohammed Shakiel Shabir, from Birmingham, was reportedly kidnapped by an armed group in Idlib, Syria, in November 'Shakiel! Do you recognise me?' one of the fighters asks the aid worker according to Middle East Eye. 'I do my brother,' Shakiel Shabir replies and embraces his rescuer. The website reported that Shakiel Shabir had been kidnapped at a checkpoint at the end of November and held captive ever since. Moazzam Begg, outreach director of CAGE, an organisation which aims 'to empower communities impacted by the War on Terror', told MEE he had been in touch with Shakiel Shabir's family who confirmed the rescue mission by HTS. Begg, who was famously held in Guantanamo Bay for three years without charge, said the kidnappers had demanded $4million (3million). Freed: Dramatic video footage shows the moment Shakiel Shabir is rescued in Syria 'Do you recognise me?' The British aid worker embraces one of his rescuers after spending more than two months in captivity The group had allegedly demanded 3million in exchange for releasing the Birmingham man Shakiel Shabir has been living and working in the Middle East for several years, initially on the Turkish side of the Syrian border, but more recently inside the war-ravaged country. A 2014 interview with the Times details how he had led a troubled life growing up in central Birmingham, including several stints in prison. After travelling to Gaza to deliver aid in 2009 he 'rediscovered Islam' and began working with a Turkish charity. The UK Foreign Office advise against all travel to Syria and urge all British nationals in the country to leave by any practical means. The UK suspended all services of the British Embassy in Damascus in 2012, and is not able to provide consular services to any citizens in the country. MailOnline has contacted the Foreign Office for comment. Salim Wakil (pictured outside the Old Bailey on January 7) had lived with his parents and nine younger siblings in Fleet, Hampshire The jihadi sister of a 'naive' brother who wired her more than 2,000 after she fled Britain to join Islamic State boasted of her time in Syria, it emerged today as he faced up to 14 years in jail. Salim Wakil, 25, who had lived with his parents and nine younger siblings in Fleet, Hampshire, recruited a friend who lent him his bank details to send 2,350 via Western Union transfer to his sister Sumaiyyah last February. Sumaiyyah left a series of voice messages for relatives from Raqqa telling them how great life was and that she was not coming back. In one in May 2015, she said: 'Guess what today there's going to be a stoning of a woman. Me and my husband are going to go and see it inshallah. So cool man.' Sumaiyyah left the country when she was just 16 in August 2014, leaving behind a handwritten letter for her family begging them not to alert the police. The sister, who is now 21, expressed 'anger' about 'the state of the Islamic community', indicating that the only way to help was by travelling to the war-torn country to fight and help those suffering. She also made clear she wished to die as a martyr as she made her way to ISIS-controlled areas, the court heard. Wakil denied funding terrorism over the transfer, claiming the money was meant to help bring her back to the UK. But a jury convicted him after a week-long trial at the Old Bailey in London. Brett Weaver, prosecuting, told the court: 'The offence for which Mr Wakil has now been convicted has a maximum sentence of fourteen years imprisonment. Pictures of Sumaiyyah's daughter with a drip in her hand, sent to Wakil in May 2017 to try to persuade him to send more money Wakil (top left) at an HSBC branch in Fleet in February 2017 where he withdrew 2,000 in cash Wakil (pictured) claimed the money was meant to help bring his younger sister back to the UK 'The Islamic State was and is an organisation that is a cash economy, if I can put it that way, and my Lady saw evidence of salaries being paid to fighters and costs for infrastructure in the city of Raqqa. 'There is a deliberate use of encrypted communications, either to facilitate the offence or to avoid detection. 'We would submit that whilst there may be evidence that the defendant acted under the direction of his sister, he was required to carry out certain research himself. 'We also point to, we submit, a failure to respond to warnings over many months - this defendant was warned in stark terms.' A police handout image of some of the messages sent between Wakil and his sister Sumaiyyah Sumaiyyah, whose messages are pictured, left the UK when she was just 16 in August 2014 In messages they exchanged, Sumaiyyah told her brother she had made a 'stupid mistake' In one of the messages they exchanged, Wakil asked his sister: 'You don't trust Allah?' 'This arrangement was made by the defendant in spite of repeated warnings from police that any such transfers sent to Syria could lead to him committing a criminal offence,' said Mr Weaver. 'Furthermore, rather than send the money in his own name the defendant sought the help of a friend of his named Robert Chisca who went with him to the Western Union outlet. 'Robert Chisca provided his details for the transfer although it was the defendant's money that was being sent. 'The prosecution say this was done quite deliberately in an attempt to conceal his actions and thereby demonstrate that he knew perfectly well what he was doing was wrong. Sumaiyyah told him in a message that the UK Government 'don't even help their own citiziens' Sumaiyyah said in another message to her brother that 'money does not fall from the sky' One message from Sumaiyyah urges her brother: 'Do something, idiot... ur so annoying' 'At the relevant time, the contact that the defendant and other members of his family had had with Sumaiyyah showed that not only was she in Syria but at various times she was in locations that were under the control of the Islamic State, a proscribed terrorist organisation. 'As a result, the prosecution say that sending money to someone in Syria in such circumstances give rise to a clear suspicion, at the very least, that it could end up being available to those engaged in terrorism overseas. 'In response to this allegation, the defendant accepts that he sent money to Sumaiyyah via Western Union, using the help of Robert Chisca. 'He says that at all times his intention was to help with the return of his sister Sumaiyyah from Syria back to the United Kingdom. A photo sent to Wakil by Sumaiyyah of the River Euphrates, near where she was living in Syria Another photo sent by Sumaiyyah to Wakil of the River Euphrates, near where she was living 'The money was sent in line with instructions she had given to him and which she had told him would allow her to be brought back home. 'He told police he did not believe that the money would be used for the purposes of terrorism. 'However, despite his sending the money to Sumaiyyah for her to leave, she remained in Syria and in fact contacted him in the months that followed to request that he send her more money.' Wakil denied funding terrorism but was convicted by a jury. He was bailed ahead of sentencing on February 8. President Donald Trump said privately multiple times last year that he wanted to pull the United States out of NATO, a move that aides scrambled to counter, a new report claims. Trump told top national security officials that he didn't see the point of the international alliance that the U.S. founded alongside it's European allies in Washington D.C. after World War II, the New York Times reported. His discontent was especially high during the organization's meeting over the summer in Brussels. President Donald Trump said privately multiple times last year that he wanted to pull the United States out of NATO, a move that aides scrambled to counter, a new report claims The American president reportedly threatened to withdrawal from the group during a closed-door session with world leaders, if they didn't meet a soft obligation to contribute 2 percent of their respective nations' GDP to NATO nations' collective defense. Neither the president nor the White House have commented on the Times' report crystallizing Trump's concerns. President Trump did mention NATO in a pair of tweets before the report ran, however. He counted increased military spending among member nations as an achievement of his two-year-old administration. 'For decades, politicians promised to secure the border, fix our trade deals, bring back our factories, get tough on China, move the Embassy to Jerusalem, make NATO pay their fair share, and so much else - only to do NOTHING (or worse),' he said. 'I am doing exactly what I pledged to do, and what I was elected to do by the citizens of our great Country. Just as I promised, I am fighting for YOU!' The Times reported several hours later that the president considered a NATO withdrawal and aides to Trump were concerned that he could raise the issue again. A senior White House official did not slap down the Times' reporting but instead suggested that it was not currently his position. The official reminded that Trump said the alliance is 'very strong' and 'very important' in July when asked to comment by the paper. According to the Times, aides including former Defense Secretary James Mattis and National Security Advisor John Bolton, scrambled to contain the situation last year, fearful that even discussing the prospect of the U.S. leaving could provide a crack in the historic alliance. Forged after the allied victory in World War II, security experts credit NATO with helping preserve peace in Europe for decades while countering the Soviet threat. Trump made the comments around the time of the NATO summit in Brussels in 2018, where he repeatedly went after allies for failing to live up to defense spending commitments, which Trump refers to as 'dues,' even though they are not mandatory for admission. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who seeks to restore lost Soviet influence to Russia, is eager to see splits in the alliance that for years countered Warsaw Pact nations. His budding relationship with Trump, who has shielded his conversations with Putin from even his senior-most aides, has sparked new concerns that he could ditch the organization, the Times reported. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who seeks to restore lost Soviet influence to Russia, is eager to see splits in the alliance that for years countered Warsaw Pact nations The Times, which did not include direct quote from the president in the story with his NATO-bashing, quoted former supreme allied commander of NATO Adm. James Stavridis as saying U.S. withdrawal would be 'a geopolitical mistake of epic proportion.' 'Even discussing the idea of leaving NATO let alone actually doing so would be the gift of the century for Putin,' Stavridis said. At a news conference in Brussels at the conclusion of the summit in 2018, Trump didn't deny telling world leaders he wanted to pull out. He said that he believes it's 'unnecessary' now because 'people have stepped up' their contributions at his request. 'Everybody in the room thanked me. Theres a great collegial spirit in that room that I dont think theyve had in many years. Theyre very strong. So, yeah, very unified, very strong. No problem,' he concluded. Seven people have been arrested after a 16-year-old boy was allegedly kept as a sex slave for a whole year having been promised him a better life away from his family. The six Florida men and one woman were caught after luring a second teenager to their 'deplorable' trailer over an online gaming app, police say. Four of the men are accused of repeatedly sexually abusing the first boy at the squalid mobile home in St. Petersburg. He is said to have been found living on a small mattress surrounded by animal cages and feces. The Tampa Bay Times reports he was rescued in May last year after police investigated the disappearance of a different missing teen, a 17-year-old from Louisiana. Police this week confirmed they had arrested seven people, including a married couple, in connection with the case. Scroll down for video. Police this week arrested Mark Earl Dennis (left) and his husband Andrew Barry Dennis (right), accusing them of repeatedly sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy Mark Earl Dennis, right, and his husband Andrew Barry Dennis, left, lived at the trailer Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said: 'As a mother, I cannot begin to stress how disturbing the facts of this case are for me. 'The teenage victim in this case was lured away from his family with promises of a better life. Instead, he was moved into a filthy trailer and used as a slave for nearly a year.' According to a report the teen was 'introduced to sadomasochism and used as a sex slave by Mark and Andrew Dennis, Gruwell, Schwartz and their associates Michael Ray Blasdel and JR Gauthier.' Married couple Mark Earl Dennis, 52 and Andrew Barry Dennis, 45, were arrested in Pinellas County along with Michael Ray Blasdel, 36, and 29-year-old J.R. Gauthier. Eleanor Faye McGlamory, left, was arrested in Marion County and police announced Tuesday they had found a seventh suspect, 34-year-old Curtis Lee Gruwell, right Both Michael Wayne Schwartz, 56, left, and Michael Ray Blasdel, 36, right, face charges of conspiracy to commit human trafficking and interference with custody Police believe Eleanor McGlamory, pictured, introduced the boy to married couple Mark and Andrew Dennis. The Dennis', Blasdel, pictured, and Gauthier all faces charges of sexual battery of a child under the age of 16, according to reports Eleanor Faye McGlamory, 56, was arrested in Marion County and Michael Wayne Schwartz, 51, was found in Lee County. Police announced Tuesday they had found a seventh suspect, 34-year-old Curtis Lee Gruwell. They say there may be more victims. J.R. Gauthier was arrested in Pinellas County as police say there say there may be more victims St. Petersburg police were first alerted to the case after Louisiana authorities told them a missing 17-year-old from that state may be being held there. Authorities say one of the defendants groomed the teen using the online game Discrod. McGlamory is accused of picking him up in Louisiana and driving him to St. Petersburg. Police Chief Tony Holloway said: 'He was told he was going to go to a place that was better.' When they arrived at the 'feces covered trailer' cops say they found that teen as well as a 16-year-old who had been reported missing from Marion County nearly a year ago. His mom had found a note from her son asking her not to look for him, according to authorities. The teen is said to have been found living on a small mattress surrounded by animal cages and feces in this trailer Conditions inside the trailer, where 'the boy was kept as a sex slave' was said to be 'deplorable' Mark Earl Dennis and Andrew Barry Dennis lived at the trailer with Gruwell and Schwartz Police has been investigating the disappearance of a different missing teen from Louisiana Major Mark Hensley said: 'They used him as a sex slave. The conditions inside this small trailer were deplorable. The victim was living on a small mattress with no bedding surrounded by animals, animal cages and animal feces.' Mark Earl Dennis and Andrew Barry Dennis lived at the trailer with Gruwell and Schwartz. Mark Dennis, Andrew Dennis, Blasdel and Gauthier are charged with sexual battery. All seven defendants face charges of conspiracy to commit human trafficking and interference with custody. Police do not believe the 17-year-old was sexually battered. John Bercow killed off Theresa May's last lifeline in last night's vote by ignoring an amendment seen as the PM's best hope of avoiding catastrophe. He ignored a proposal from Tory MP Andrew Murrison which would have approved the deal subject to further negotiation to get an expiry date on the Irish border backstop. The plan was unlikely to carry last night but it was thought No 10 wanted to see a strong vote in favour of it to demonstrate to Brussels what was needed to win a second clash. Mr Bercow also rejected amendments from John Mann and Hugo Swire that ministers had signalled they would accept. John Bercow (pictured in the Commons today) killed off Theresa May's last lifeline in last night's vote by ignoring an amendment seen as the PM's best hope of avoiding catastrophe The Speaker has instead chosen four amendments - including a wrecking plan from Jeremy Corbyn - highly unlikely to win broad support in the Commons. It meant Mrs May was likely to confront a showdown vote on her deal alone at around 8pm last night with no concessions at all, setting the stage for the biggest loss in history. The worst ever defeat for a PM in the Commons was a majority of 166 against Ramsey MacDonald in 1924. The amendments selected are: Amendment A: Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's amendment rejects the deal and says no deal is also unacceptable. It says the deal should include a permanent UK-EU customs union, alongside protections for workers' rights and the environment. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's amendment rejects the deal and says no deal is also unacceptable. It says the deal should include a permanent UK-EU customs union, alongside protections for workers' rights and the environment. Amendment K: SNP leader Ian Blackford's amendment rejects the deal and calls for Article 50 to be extended to avoid a no deal Brexit and notes that the UK could choose to cancel Brexit altogether. SNP leader Ian Blackford's amendment rejects the deal and calls for Article 50 to be extended to avoid a no deal Brexit and notes that the UK could choose to cancel Brexit altogether. Amendment B: Tory MP Sir Edward Leigh's amendment would approve the deal but warn the EU making the backstop permanent would breach the Vienna Convention and obliges the UK to scrap the divorce treaty in 2022 if the backstop is still in force. Tory MP Sir Edward Leigh's amendment would approve the deal but warn the EU making the backstop permanent would breach the Vienna Convention and obliges the UK to scrap the divorce treaty in 2022 if the backstop is still in force. Amendment F: Tory MP John Baron's amendment approves the deal but only subject to the EU agreeing to give the UK a unilateral way of ending the Irish border backstop. It means Mrs May (pictured leaving No 10 today) is likely to confront a showdown vote on her deal alone at around 8pm tonight with no concessions at all, setting the stage for the biggest loss in history Votes began at 7pm last night, after the Prime Minister made the final speech of a five day debate. Each 'division' of the Commons takes around 15 minutes as MPs have to physically walk through the aye and no lobbies to cast their vote. The first vote was on Mr Corbyn's amendment, followed by Mr Blackford, Sir Edward's and then Mr Baron's. The final vote was on the main motion - with whatever amendments have been agreed attached to it. Its been a very bad week for men. Yesterday, the American Psychological Association released a set of guidelines that condemned traditional masculinity as harmful. Specifically, it stated that male traits like stoicism, competitiveness, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, adventure, and risk are bad and should be expunged. I literally choked on my bacon-and-sausage sandwich (my contribution to Veganuary) when I read this absurd load of PC-crazed bilge. Its basically saying that its wrong, and harmful, to be masculine, to be a man. Its been a very bad week for men. First the American Psychological Association released a set of guidelines that condemned traditional masculinity. Then came this dreadful, virtue signalling Gillette ad As David French, a writer for the National Review, put it in his withering response to the report: The assault on traditional masculinity while liberating to men who dont fit traditional norms is itself harmful to the millions of young men who seek to be physically and mentally tough, to rise to challenges, and demonstrate leadership under pressure. The assault on traditional masculinity is an assault on their very natures. Are boys disproportionately adventurous? Are they risk-takers? Do they feel a need to be strong? Do they often by default reject stereotypically feminine characteristics? Yes, yes, yes and yes. Exactly. Ive got three sons and a daughter. My siblings have eight girls and a boy between them. So Ive had plenty of experience watching all 13 of these children (their ages range from two to 25) grow up. And heres a cast-iron fact for you: girls are very different to boys. They think differently, behave differently, dress differently, emote differently, and have markedly different characteristics. Anyone whos actually had kids knows this. Yet somehow, its become offensive to say it out loud. The incessant poisonous war on gender has culminated in the very word man being decried as an abusive term, to the extent that Princeton University actually issued a ridiculous four-page memo instructing students to only use gender-neutral language. Even the word mankind had to be replaced by humankind. Im not joking: Princeton literally wanted to end mankind. But it turns out that the American Psychological Associations disgraceful report wasnt even the worst attack on men this week. No, that inglorious honour falls to razor company Gillette. For 30 years, the company has used the tagline The best a man can get to persuade people like me to part with large sums of money for their expensive shaving blades and foam. For 30 years, the company has used the tagline The best a man can get to persuade people like me to part with large sums of money for their shaving blades and foam. The commercials made one feel good about being male Its commercials have unashamedly celebrated men and masculinity. You watch them and feel good about being male. Not just because they make you aspire to be a winner and successful achiever, but because they also encourage you to be a good father, son, husband and friend. As a result of this consistently upbeat and positive marketing style, Gillette has grown into the most successful razor firm in history, generating annual sales of $6 billion a year. Ive bought Gillette products for three decades. In fact, only yesterday I spent over $150 stocking up on its latest range of Gillette blades and foam. I didnt do so because their stuff is any better than their main competitors. Ive tried them all and its not. I did so because I like Gillettes brand and what I thought it stood for, and the companys never done anything to p*ss me off. Then I saw its new commercial, a short film entitled Believe, which has a new tagline: The best men can be. And I suddenly realised Gillette isnt the brand I thought it was at all. Gone is the celebration of men. In its place is an ugly, vindictive two-minute homage to everything thats bad about men and masculinity. The film asks Is this the best a man can get before flashing up images alluding to sexual harassment, sexist behaviour, the #MeToo movement, bullying and toxic masculinity. Interspersed is a patronising series of educational visual entreaties about what men should in various unpleasant situations. The subliminal message is clear: men, ALL men, are bad, shameful people who need to be directed in how to be better people. Its one of the most pathetic, virtue-signalling things Ive ever endured watching. Gillette said the purpose of the ad was to urge men to hold each other accountable for bad behaviour. Right, because the one thing thats not happening right now in the world is men being held accountable for bad behaviour! Its one of the most pathetic, virtue-signalling things Ive ever endured watching. The ad shows one man stopping his friend as he catcalls a woman who is walking by Jeez, its hard to think of a single minute of any day where men arent being summarily hung, drawn and quartered somewhere for alleged bad behaviour their careers and lives destroyed. Not in most cases through due process in a court of law, but often on the mere say-so of a Facebook post by an angry ex-girlfriend making allegations that may or may not be true. I dont seek to diminish the importance of the #MeToo campaign which has shone an important and long overdue light on completely unacceptable sexual harassment, bullying and abuse. But why should all men be tarred with the same monstrous brush in the way this Gillette campaign sets out to do? If I made a commercial aimed at female customers predicated on the generalised notion that women are liars, cheats, psychopaths and murderers (such women exist: Ive interviewed many of them for my Killer Women crime series) and so every woman has to be taught how not to be those things, all hell would break loose and rightly so. As always with this kind of furore, the joy of radical feminists on social media at such man-hating nonsense is only matched by the pitiful hypocrisy of certain men racing to virtue-signal their support for them and lambast any man like me who objects. To sum up this hypocrisy, I received a tweet today from a man named Jeffrey Reddick. Gillette isnt saying men and masculinity are bad, he wrote. Toxic masculinity is when we teach boys that real men dont cry. Real men dont show fear. Real men dont lose. Real men take what they want. Real men solve problems with their fists. It is toxic and it damages men and women. Fine words from a man desperate for women to think hes on THEIR side against supposedly horrible toxic masculine men like ME. Well yes, until you realise this is the same Jeffrey Reddick who boasts on his Twitter profile that he makes scary movies. Oh, he certainly does! Jeffrey created the hugely successful Final Destination horror franchise, making himself a very rich man by shamelessly and gratuitously glorifying the slashing, stabbing, shooting, incineration, strangulation and dismemberment of myriad women. I wonder if thats what Jeffrey thinks real men should be doing to cement their caring, sharing, sensitive, female-friendly credentials? Hes not the biggest hypocrite here, though. Theres only one thing Gillette really wants to achieve with this new campaign, and thats to emasculate the very men it has spent 30 years persuading to be masculine. As one male customers Twitter response, that quickly went viral, said: Just used a Gillette razor blade to cut off my testicles. No more toxic masculinity for me. Thanks Gillette! He was not alone in his fury. Many users expressed their fury at the new commercial The YouTube version of the ad has been watched millions of times but attracted ten times as many dislikes as likes, fast turning Believe into one of the least popular commercials in US history. Gillette which believes so much in womens rights that it has just two women on its board of nine directors - thought it was being clever by tapping into the radical feminist assault on men and masculinity. In fact, it was being unutterably dumb. By telling its male customers were basically all a bunch of uneducated, vile, sexist, harassing predators, theyve jumped the shark in an unforgivable way. I for one wont use Gillette razors again until they withdraw this terrible commercial and formally apologise for their man-hating bullsh*t. I suspect I am not alone. Potential home buyers in Frederick, Colorado will be able to get a home valued at $550,000 for a steal this coming April, there is just one catch. The home where Chris Watts murdered his pregnant wife Shanann, 34, and their daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, has gone into foreclosure. Watts was notified of this development in a letter sent last month by the Weld County Public Trustee. Other documents obtained by DailyMail.com show that Watts purchased the home in May 2013 for $392,709 but almost six years later still had an outstanding principal balance of $349,938.09. Scroll down for video Killer dad: The Frederick, Colorado home where Chris Watts murdered his pregnant wife Shanann, 34, and their daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, is up for auction (Watts with his victims in the spring of 2018) Up for grabs: Documents obtained by DailyMail.com show that the property will be sold to the highest bidder in April (home above with tributes out front) The auction will be publicly announced on March 22 in the Greely Tribune, with the auction following a little less than a month later. Interested parties will need to assemble at the office of the Weld County Public Trustee at 10 am on April 17 if they would like to place a bid. The family of Shanann had been seen removing her possessions from home shortly after her death and then again once the trial was concluded, with Watts accepting a plea deal of life in prison for confessing to the murders. It was just a few hours after he buried the body of his wife and dumped his daughters in oil tanks that Watts' alibi began to fall apart. That was due in large part to the surveillance footage his neighbor had of Watts on the morning of the murders, which very clearly showed him back his truck up to his garage, load up the vehicle and drive off. Watts had told police and his wife Shanann's friends and family that she and daughters Bella and Celeste had run off that day while he was at work, but footage proved that was not the case. In fact, the footage did not capture anyone leaving the house that day but Watts. In video obtained by DailyMail.com after filing a request under the Colorado Open Records Act, Watts is seen watching that video for the first time - and throwing his hands behind his head in disbelief when he realizes he has been caught. That video would later be used to draw out Watts' confession before he was formally charged with murder. Once he had confessed, the process began of retrieving the bodies of his wife and two daughters, who had been found despite his refusal to help with the search. Pay up: Watts purchased the home May 2013 for $392,709 but almost six years later still had an outstanding principal balance of $349,938.09 (Watts above watching surveilance of himself moving the bodies out of the home) Behind bars: Watts is currently serving out his life sentence at the Dodge Correctional Institution in Wapun, Wisconsin (Shanann with Bella and Celeste) A Hazardous Materials Incident Narrative Report filed by the Colorado State Patrol details the process to retrieve the bodies of Bella and Celeste Watts, 4 and 3, after they were murdered by their father and dumped into an oil tank. The process of removing the bodies began at 5am on the morning of August 16 and would go on for almost 14 hours, with the report noting that at 6:45pm that evening members of the Colorado State Patrol cleared the scene. In that time, the oil from the two 400-barrel tanks on the scene was manually drained by workers, who carefully poured the liquid over metal screens to collect any possible evidence. Then, once the tanks were emptied, men in self-contained breathing gear entered and removed the bodies of the girls, whose skin came off their bodies as they were passed out of the tanks. Their mother and unborn baby brother Nico were found just 100 yards away in a shallow grave. Watts is serving out his life sentence at the Dodge Correctional Institution in Wapun, Wisconsin. He was moved there on December 3 in a inmate exchange between the Colorado and Wisconsin Departments of Correction under the Interstate Corrections Compact for his own safety. A high school science teacher from Texas has been accused of having an inappropriate relationship with one of her students. Jennifer Drushel, 30, of College Station, was arrested Monday afternoon on a felony charge of improper relationship between educator and student. If convicted, she could face up to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Texas teacher Jennifer Drushel (left and right), 30, has been charged with a felony count of improper relationship between educator and student Drushel has taught forensic and environmental science at Navasota High School in Texas, and has served as the school's color-guard director Drushel has taught forensic and environmental science at Navasota High School, and has served as the school's color-guard director. According to a statement from the Navasota Independent School District, officials received an anonymous tip last Thursday alleging that Drushel was supplying alcohol to minors and drinking with them, reported Navasota Examiner. The local police department was notified and an investigation was launched. Detectives assigned to the case reportedly came upon inappropriate electronic communication between Drushel and a student at Navasota High School. According to the school district, the 30-year-old teacher had at least one encounter with the student at an off-campus location. School Superintendent Stu Musick told the station KAGS the victim was not a minor. The environmental science teacher was arrest after police allegedly discovered improper message exchanges between her and the student No matter the age of the student, a teacher or staff member, as an adult, is held to a higher standard of accountability by both the law and the Educator Code of Ethics, Musick said. We will continue to work with the investigation of the Navasota Police Department and continue that investigation on our end, as well. After police interviewed Drushel and the student, a warrant was issued for the teachers arrest, which prompted her to turn herself in at 2pm on Monday. Drushel has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation and barred from the school campus. In the wake of her arrest, Drushel's profile had been expunged from the schools website. Pregnant Labour MP Tulip Siddiq was wheeled into the Commons to vote in last night's crunch showdown after being accused of delaying her caesarean to 'make a point' on Brexit. Ms Siddiq, 36, revealed on Monday that she had decided to go against doctors orders and delay the delivery of her unborn son so she could vote against the PM's Brexit deal. And she was seen being pushed through the division lobbies in a wheelchair to take part in the historic vote. The MP, who has a two-year-old daughter Azalea, decided to travel to Parliament after losing faith in the system which allows pregnant women to be 'paired' with an MP from an opposing side so neither votes. But appearing on TV yesterday, Tory MP Kemi Badenoch said she thinks MS Siddiq made the decision to prove a point to her pro-Remain constituency 'irrespective of pairing'. Her comments were lashed by Labour MPs who accused Ms Badenoch of making a 'scurrilous slur' and 'appalling smear'. Tulip Siddiq, pictured in the wheelchair, delayed the cesarean birth of her son to attend last night's historic Brexit vote Pregnant Labour MP Tulip Siddiq (circled) was wheeled into the Commons to vote in last night's crunch showdown after being accused of delaying her caesarean to 'make a point' on Brexit Tory politician Kemi Badenoch (pictured on the BBC's Politics Live show yesterday) accused pregnant Labour MP Tulip Siddiq of delaying the caesarean birth of her child to 'make a point' about Brexit Ms Badenoch was asked on the BBC's Politics Live show about Ms Siddiq's decision and whether it shows that Parliament should introduce proxy voting. She said: I have heard her speak on this issue privately before, and I think irrespective of pairing I think she wants to make a point that she is doing this for her constituents. She represents a very strong Remain constituency and she wants to show that she did everything she could to stop Brexit. I think that is what this is about.' What is the pairing system and why have MPs lost faith in it? Parliament has operated a pairing system for many years which allow those who are ill, pregnant, or cannot vote for another good reason. These MPs are 'paired' with a politician from the opposing side, so that neither of them take part in the vote - therefore cancelling each other out. But faith in the system was dealt a major blow last summer when the Tories broke it. Lib Dem Jo Swinson had been paired with Tory chairman Brandon Lewis so she did not have to leave her newborn baby at home to take part in the vote. But Mr Lewis took part in the knife-edge vote on the customs union on Monday night. Number Ten insisted it had been a genuine mistake and that Theresa May apologised for it. But it sparked a major row and renewed calls for proxy voting to be introduced which would allow MPs to elect another person to vote on their behalf. Advertisement And she said that if the predictions that Mrs May's Brexit deal will be defeated by a landslide of up to 200 prove true then Ms Siddiq's vote will make no difference anyway. She said: If what we are hearing is true and there are hundreds and hundreds of people voting against it [Theresa Mays deal] that one vote is not really going to make a difference. I hope it is not going to be anything like that but that is the reality. But her comments sparked a ferocious backlash from MPs Labour MP Diana Johnson said: 'This is a very mean thing to say and Tulip Siddiq is having to make a point because of the cruel decisions of a male dominated Government whips office. Lets get that straight please.' Labour MP Jo Stevens demanded to know if Ms Badenoch spoke to Ms Siddiq before making the claim on live television. While Labour MP Stephen Doughty accused her of making an 'appalling smear' and Labour MP Sharon Hodgson said it was a 'scurrilous slur'. Ms Siddiq was advised by her doctors at the Royal Free Hospital in north London to have her caesarean last night after she developed gestational diabetes. But she decided to defy doctors orders and delay the operation to have her son so that she could vote against the PM's Brexit plan last night. She said that she had lost faith in the pairing system after the Tories broke the pact when one of their MPs was paired with Lib Dem Jo Swinson in another key Brexit vote last summer. And she called for the parliamentary authorities to change the rules introduce proxy voting so that heavily pregnant MPs like her can ask another MP to vote on their behalf. Revealing the drastic decision, she told he Evening Standard 'If my son enters the world even one day later than the doctors advised, but it's a world with a better chance of a strong relationship between Britain and Europe, then that's worth fighting for.' Tulip Siddiq (pictured with her daughter Azalea) is delaying the birth of her child so she can take part in today's crunch Brexit vote The comments from Tory MP Kemi Badenoch sparked a furious backlash from Labour politicians Labour MPs rallied round their colleague Tulip Siddiq and said it was cruel that she had been forced to pick between voting and her caesarean Labour MPs accused the Tory politician of being mean to mother-of-one Tulip Siddiq Another Labour MP said the comments by Kemi Badenoch amounted to a smear against her parliamentary colleague Under usual circumstances, heavily pregnant MPs can be 'paired' with an MP from the opposing side, so that neither of them take part in the vote - therefore cancelling each other out. But Ms Siddiq said she could not trust the Tories to stick to the system after they broke a pairing deal in a crunch Brexit Commons vote last summer. Lib Dem Jo Swinson had been paired with Tory chairman Brandon Lewis so she did not have to leave her newborn baby at home to take part in the vote. But Mr Lewis took part in the knife-edge vote on the customs union on Monday night. Number 10 insisted it had been a genuine mistake and that Theresa May apologised for it. Ms Siddiq said the experience had sapped her trust in the pairing system. She said: 'If the pairing system is not honoured, there's nothing I can do, and it's going to be a very close vote. I've had no pressure at all from the whips to come and vote but this is the biggest vote of my lifetime. 'I've sat down with my husband Chris and he said to me this is my choice but that he would support me.' Donald Trump accused FBI leadership of orchestrating a cover-up of campaign spying on Tuesday furthering his claim that one the America's most venerable institutions was led by crooked cops, until he cleaned house. Trump claimed in a tweet that the bureau's allegations of Russian collusion against his associates was a poor attempt to justify the surveillance he's long accused the federal government of using to illicitly monitor his campaign. 'The rank and file of the FBI are great people who are disgusted with what they are learning about Lyin James Comey and the so-called leaders of the FBI,' he began. 'Twelve have been fired or forced to leave. They got caught spying on my campaign and then called it an investigation. Bad!' Donald Trump accused FBI leadership of orchestrating a cover-up of campaign spying on Tuesday furthering his claim that one the America's most venerable institutions was led by crooked cops, until he cleaned house Trump has claimed in recent days that Comey, the FBI director he fired for alleged incompetence, and his since dismissed underlings were corrupt He claimed in a new attack on Comey on Monday that he was a 'bad cop' and a 'dirty cop' and he did the country a favor when he fired him Trump has claimed in recent days that Comey, the FBI director he fired for alleged incompetence, and his since dismissed underlings were corrupt. He is seeking to make the case the agents at the law enforcement agency chasing down Russian election meddling had a vendetta against him, and levied trumped up charges against his aides and associates to pursue their duplicitous agenda. The president says that he never engaged in 'Russian collusion' and allegations that his campaign did are a 'hoax' that he now claims was designed to cover fired FBI agents' tracks. His charges against ousted FBI leaders follow reports that they launched a counterintelligence investigation into him after he canned Comey and met the next day at the White House with the Russians. The revelation forced him into a position on Monday where he had to deny publicly that he was ever a foreign agent of Russia. Trump has been asked the question during a phone interview on Fox News on Saturday night and did not deny the claim directly. But Monday, as a backlash mounted, he denied the charge that the New York Times says was at the center of an FBI probe into him as he prepared to board Marine One ahead of a trip to New Orleans to address a farming group. 'I never worked for Russia, and you know that answer better than anybody,' he told a reporter as he left a snowy White House for Louisiana. 'Not only did never work for Russia, I think it's a disgrace that you even asked that question, because it's a whole big fat hoax.' Instead, he unleashed on the FBI. Trump called FBI bosses, including ex-acting director Andrew McCabe and former FBI lovers and agents Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, 'known scoundrels' and said that was why they launched a probe into his relationship with Russia after 'Crooked Hillary' failed her bid for the presidency. He claimed in a new attack on Comey that he, too, was a 'bad cop' and a 'dirty cop' and he did the country a favor when he fired him. 'What happened with the FBI, I have done a great service for the country when I fired James Comey. He was a bad cop and he was a dirty cop and he lied, he really lied,' he said. President Donald Trump denied Monday that he was ever a foreign agent of Russia Attack: Trump vented about the FBI as he left the White House to fly to New Orleans to address the Farm Bureau conference Chilly mood: Trump set off on Marine One from a frozen White House lawn after Washington D.C. was blanketed in snow Trump claimed in a new charge against James Comey that he too was a 'bad cop' and a 'dirty cop' and he did the country a favor when he fired him WATERGATE'S BERNSTEIN: MUELLER WILL SAY TRUMP HELPED PUTIN DESTABILIZE U.S. Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein has claimed Robert Mueller's report will say Donald Trump 'helped destabilize the United States'. Bernstein told CNN on Sunday that Trump's actions had led White House insiders to believe he has become a 'half-witting pawn' working on behalf of Vladimir Putin. It comes as the Washington Post reported on Saturday that Trump had taken extraordinary measures to conceal the contents of his meetings with Putin. 'This is about the most serious counterintelligence people we have in the U.S. government saying, 'Oh, my God, the president's words and actions lead us to conclude that somehow he has become a witting, unwitting, or half-witting pawn, certainly in some regards, to Vladimir Putin,'' Bernstein said. Carl Bernstein (pictured), famous for his reporting on the Watergate scandal, made the claims in an interview with CNN Sunday Bernstein said he had found out from government sources what Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election will say 'From a point of view of strength rather, he has done what appears to be Putin's goals. 'He has helped Putin destabilize the United States and interfere in the election, no matter whether it was purposeful or not,' the journalist added. Bernstein also explained that he knew from his own high-level sources that Mueller's report would discuss this assessment. Advertisement The president said of Comey's recent testimony to Congress about the Hillary Clinton email investigation, 'Either he's a bad liar or he's grossly incompetent.' Trump accused all those involved in ordering the inquiry into whether he was a Putin agent after he fired Comey of being corrupt. 'The people doing that investigation were people that have been caught that are known scoundrels there,' he said. Among them he named the FBI lovers Strzok and Page. 'I guess you could say they're dirty cops,' he claimed as he lit into favorite targets. He called McCabe, who was fired before his retirement kicked in, a 'proven liar'. The president said the former agents' conduct was 'so unfair' to the bureau's rank and file. And he suggested that more FBI heads could roll after McCabe, Strzok and Page quit or were fired by new FBI director Christopher Wray. Trump repeatedly dodged demands that he respond to a second report on his relationship with Russia in the Washington Post, proclaiming that he had nothing to hide even as he refused to release the transcripts of his conversations with Vladimir Putin. Trump claimed on Fox on Saturday that 'anybody could have listened' to his infamous closed-door conversation with Putin over the summer in Helskini and the 'meeting is up for grabs' but said Monday that he didn't think it would be appropriate to provide a more fulsome report. 'I just don't know anything about it. I read it this morning. It's a lot of fake news. That was a very good meeting,' he said. 'It was actually a very successful meeting and I have those meetings with everything. I just know nothing about it.' The president recalled, 'It was a very, very successful meeting. We talked about Israel, we talked about the pipeline that Germany is paying Russia a lot of money I don't think it's appropriate.' The Washington Post claimed in a Sunday article that Trump took his interpreter's notes after a 2017 conversation with Putin in Hamburg and has kept his senior staff from seeing transcripts or highlights of that and other conversations with the Russian leader. A senior official told the Post that no record exists of any of Trump's five face-to-face conversations with Putin since he took office. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee threatened Sunday to subpoena the interpreter's notes from the president's June summit with Putin in Finland. 'Last year, we sought to obtain the interpreters notes or testimony, from the private meeting between Trump and Putin. The Republicans on our committee voted us down. Will they join us now? Shouldnt we find out whether our president is really putting America first? asked Democrat Adam Schiff. Kellyanne Conway, counselor to Trump, invoked Schiff on Monday morning as she responded to the report. She noted that he could wield his subpoena power, now that Democrats are in power, to get and release the notes himself. Conway said that Trump shielded his conversation with Putin in 2017, because his administration was 'suffering from a great number' of leaks at that time. 'His calls with the leaders of Mexico and Australia had leaked, he had an Oval Office meeting in May of 2017, contents of that leaked. And so there was great concern at the time,' she said. Conway had just appeared on 'Fox & Friends,' where she responded to the charge and a revelation in the New York Times that the FBI launched a counterintelligence probe into the president after he fired the bureau's director and met with the Russians the next day. They suspected Trump of acting as a Russian agent, whether he meant to or not. Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Donald Trump, says the president shielded a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2017, because his administration was 'suffering from a great number' of leaks at that time Conway wrote off the probe as one that was conducted 'rogue actors' who were fired from their positions because they had a vendetta against Trump. 'The president said this weekend that its the most insulting thing hes ever been asked, thats ever been said about him, which is saying a great deal, given everything thats been said and done about him,' she said. 'It sort of confirms what the president has said all along about some of the rogue actors at the very tippy top of the FBI, who are no longer there because they were fired and worse.' She invoked Strzok and Page, who were said to be having an affair at the start of the special counsel probe, and suggested they sent sexually explicit texts to one another. 'Some of them were deemed to be leaking and lying, sexting each other obviously with their tremendous biases against this president,' she contended. 'So I think it confirms what he has said all along about some of those rogue actors not the 35,000 or so rank-and-file men and women in the FBI who go to work and do a fabulous job every day.' Trump on Monday morning had mocked reports that the FBI opened a counterintelligence probe of his activities following his firing of Comey, needling critics who 'thought he worked for the Kremlin' in a tweet that made light of the allegations against him. The president noted a drop in gas prices, which is harmful to oil-exporting Russia although market-driven global oil prices are thought to be far beyond control of any single official including the president. 'Gas prices drop across the United States because President Trump has deregulated Energy and we are now producing a great deal more oil than ever before,' Trump wrote on Twitter Monday morning. 'But this is bad news for Russia, why would President Trump do such a thing? Thought he worked for Kremlin?' Trump asked. Trump's tweet followed yet another revelation about Russia, after CNN reported on transcripts of congressional testimony of top FBI officials. Former FBI general counsel James Baker spoke about the debate as officials contemplated opening an investigation of Trump with possibilities including his innocence as well as him being directed by Moscow. Baker said that officials wanted to know if Trump was 'acting at the behest of and somehow following directions, somehow executing their will.' 'That was one extreme. The other extreme is that the President is completely innocent, and we discussed that too,' Baker told the House Intelligence Committee. 'There's a range of things this could possibly be. We need to investigate, because we don't know whether, you know, the worst-case scenario is possibly true or the President is totally innocent and we need to get this thing over with and so he can move forward with his agenda,' he added. Trump continued responding to a bombshell story in The New York Times tating that the FBI began a counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump (seen left with Russian President Vladimir Putin) was acting as a Kremlin agent Targeted: Lisa Page, the FBI attorney, and Peter Strozk, the FBI agent whose affair included exchanging anti-Trump texts, were targeted by Trump again Monday Trump blasted the FBI and Comey this weekend after the New York Times reported the FBI opened a counterintelligence in the days after the Comey firing. 'Wow, just learned in the Failing New York Times that the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin' James Comey, a total sleaze!' Trump tweeted. The transcripts also include former FBI lawyer Page commenting on the days after the Comey firing, including a text from fellow FBI official Strzok that said: 'We need to open the case we've been waiting on now while Andy is acting.' It was a reference to then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who was also fired after Trump took office. 'It's not that it could not have been done,' Page testified. 'This case had been a topic of discussion for some time. The 'waiting on' was an indecision and a cautiousness on the part of the bureau with respect to what to do and whether there was sufficient predication to open,' she said. Trump called in to Justice with Jeanine Pirro on Saturday night to deny that he is a secret agent of Russia, following a New York Times report that the FBI had investigated the possibility Senator Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN on Sunday that whether Trump was a witting or unwitting agent of Russia is the defining question of Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation. At the time that he was fired, Comey was leading an investigation into Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The Times reported the counterintelligence probe was sparked in part by growing alarm about Trump's behavior, including comments he made suggesting he fired Comey over the Russia investigation, which is now being led by Mueller. Warner on Sunday cited a report alleging that Paul Manafort, Trumps former campaign manager, shared internal polling data with a Russian businessman believed to be connected to Russian intelligence. Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page also testified about the FBI's conduct following the Comey firing Why would you turn over that information? And whats curious is it would be that kind of information that would inform the Russians later in the campaign when they launched their social media efforts where they created these fake identities, Warner said. The Democratic senator said it was clear-cut proof that Russian efforts were aimed at dissuading African-Americans from voting. Trump spoke just ahead of his attorney general nominee, William Barr, telling members of Congress that he will protect Robert Mueller's Russia probe saying the special counsel must be allowed 'to complete his investigation.' Barr's testimony is being closely watched because he would assume oversight of the Mueller probe at a critical time and because of his unsolicited memo that went after the probe and questioned its foray into potential obstruction of justice. 'I believe it is vitally important that the Special Counsel be allowed to complete his investigation,' Barr said in prepared remarks released Monday. 'I believe it is vitally important that the Special Counsel be allowed to complete his investigation,' Barr said in prepared remarks released Monday 'I believe it is in the best interest of everyone - the President, Congress, and, most importantly, the American people - that this matter be resolved by allowing the Special Counsel to complete his work,' he said. Barr, a former attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, also provided some subtle reassurance in the tenor of his remarks, referring to Mueller as 'Bob' and conveying their professional relationship. Trump has spent months attacking Mueller as 'highly conflicted' and unable to carry out the probe. Barr as a private citizen penned a June memo that went after the Mueller probe. 'As I understand it, his theory is premised on a novel and legally insupportable reading of the law, Barr wrote, the Wall Street Journal reported. Moreover, in my view, if credited by the Justice Department, it would have grave consequences far beyond the immediate confines of this case and would do lasting damage to the Presidency and to the administration of law within the Executive branch. He called Mueller's posture 'grossly irresponsible and said it had potentially disastrous implications.' He has come under criticism from Democrats for the memo, which he sent Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. He also called the probe into whether Trump obstructed justice 'fatally misconceived.' Rosenstein said it didn't have an impact on him. The testimony comes days after the New York Times reported FBI agents opened a counterintelligence investigation into Trump after he fired Comey. Barr's nomination has broad support by most Senate Republicans. However, he is expected to receive tough questions during two days of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee that start on Tuesday morning, including questions about why he wrote the memo and whether he will agree to make Mueller's findings public once the probe concludes. Mueller is investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign and potential obstruction of justice. Russia has denied U.S. intelligence agencies' findings that it meddled in the 2016 campaign, while Trump has denied any collusion with Moscow and called Mueller's probe a 'witch hunt.' In his testimony, Barr said he has known Mueller professionally for 30 years and has confidence in his abilities. 'If confirmed, I will not permit partisan politics, personal interests, or any other improper consideration to interfere with this or any other investigation,' Barr said in his written remarks. 'I will follow the Special Counsel regulations scrupulously and in good faith, and on my watch, Bob will be allowed to complete his work.' An RSL club that was forced to shut off all live music as a result of one alleged formal complaint has summed up Sydney's nightlife problem. Narrabeen RSL posted a photo of the sign on Tuesday, which stated the club was told to cancel all outdoor music as a result of one complaint by local residents. 'Due to a single formal residential complaint and state government regulations we are now forced to have all amplified music inside only,' the sign read. Narrabeen RSL posted a photo of the sign (pictured) on Tuesday, which stated the club was told to cancel all outdoor music as a result of one complaint by local residents An RSL club that was forced to shut off all live music as a result of one alleged formal complaint has created a sign that sums up Sydney's nightlife problem The sign also stated the ruling had the potential to prevent guests from sitting outside and enjoying the venue, which has operated for the last 65 years. 'Narrabeen RSL will endeavour to fight with everything we have to get this condition overturned. We may need you help so stay tuned. 'We hope for a return to great tunes and good vibes outside soon. Until then we are at the mercy of Nimbys and noise restrictions. You can thank your state government.' According to the complaint lodged with Liquor and Gaming NSW, the primary issues were whether the quiet and good order of the neighborhood had been disturbed. Some considerations that were taken into account included the order of occupancy, structural changes and changes in the activities conducted on licensed premises. Other considerations included the club's location in relation to local residents and the recent introduction of live music on weekdays - in addition to weekends. The result of the complaint was that the club must impose three conditions on the liquor licence, including noise condition, noise limiter, and security patrols. The Reddit post has since garnered plenty of mixed reactions from users, with many people taking to social media to share their views of Sydney's dwindling nightlife. According to the complaint lodged with Liquor and Gaming NSW, the primary issues were whether the quiet and good order of the neighborhood had been disturbed Other considerations included the club's location in relation to local residents and the recent introduction of live music on weekdays - in addition to weekends 'R.I.P Sydney. This town officially belongs to the boomers from now until 2040,' one person wrote. 'They live in a city, if they cant handle city noise then they should retire to the country. Simple,' another person said. A third person added: 'I moved here in '96 everything leading up to it was amazing, but after it seems like it's had a 20 year hang over.' Despite plenty of support for the club's live music scene, a number of Reddit users supported the decision to shut off all live music at the venue. 'People have a right to object to loud noise in their neighbourhood,' one person wrote. 'Well s**t, if a business music is bothering someone in their own home, they should complain! And they should stop it,' another person said. A third person added: 'It looks like the management is now caring about the patrons.' A toddler in south-east China had to be rescued by firefighters after he got his head stuck in a chamber pot. The mischievous one-year-old boy in Zhongshan, Guangdong province was playing with the pot at home and placed it on his head to imitate an adult wearing a hat. However, he was unable to remove it, prompting his grandmother to alert emergency services. A boy in south-east China's Guangdong province had to be rescued by firefighters after he got his head stuck in a chamber pot. He was freed after several minutes and was unhurt The mischievous one-year-old boy in Zhongshan, Guangdong province was playing with the pot at home and placed it on his head to imitate an adult wearing a hat Video footage released by the Guangdong Fire Department shows a team of firefighters coming to the boy's aid at about 9:30 last Wednesday. The toddler was seen sitting on his grandmother's lap, bursting into tears whenever the rescuers tried to pull his red 'helmet' off. 'Little boy, don't be scared, where did you find this fancy hat?' one of the firefighters was heard asking the child. Several minutes later, rescuers were eventually able to free the boy by cutting an opening in the aluminium pot to make space. The toddler was seen sitting on his grandmother's lap, bursting into tears whenever the rescuers tried to pull his 'helmet' off. The incident happened last Wednesday at 9:30am Rescuers were able to free the boy by cutting an opening in the aluminium pot to make space A small red mark was seen on the boy's head but he is unhurt, according to Zhongshan Broadcasting Station. 'While playing at home, the child thought it was cool to place the chamber pot on his head but got trapped,' the fire department said on Chinese microblogging site Weibo. The grandmother sought help from a store near their home in Nantou town but the owner did not have the appropriate tools to break the pot apart, according to the report. 'Parents, please watch over your children carefully,' the authority added. 'While playing at home, the child thought it was cool to place the chamber pot on his head but got trapped,' the fire department said on Chinese microblogging site Weibo Net users on Weibo were amused by the incident. 'I'm so sorry, but I can't stop laughing! This poor baby,' one comment read. 'It's okay little boy, I thought your hat looked great,' one user said. 'Kudos to the firefighters for their efforts!' another said. In a similar incident last September, a two-year-old girl in Haining, Zhejiang province had to be rescued after getting her entire head stuck in a chamber pot at home. Horrifying dashcam video has captured the moment a toddler who was still strapped into her car seat flew out of a moving car after her mother failed to properly fasten the seat. The two-year-old girl toppled out of the rear left door of the car as her mother veered around a corner in Mankato, Minnesota on Monday. The shocking incident was captured on Chad Cheddar Mock's dashcam as he was driving behind the mother's car at about 11.45am. The two-year-old girl toppled out of the rear left door of the car as her mother veered around a corner in Mankato, Minnesota on Monday It showed the girl, who dressed in a pink jacket and gray tights, falling from car as it slowly veered around a bend in the road. The seat miraculously landed on its side and the girl did not appear to hit the ground. The car braked momentarily at the traffic lights a few feet away despite having a green signal. When the door of the car was shut, the car drove off and left the little girl in the middle of the road. Mock was captured on his dashcam jumping out of his own vehicle and trying to wave down the mother. The video showed the girl, who dressed in a pink jacket and gray tights, falling from car as it slowly veered around a bend in the road The seat miraculously landed on its side and the girl did not appear to hit the ground. The mother's car appeared to brake after she fell from the car despite having a green signal When the door of the car was shut, the car drove off and left the little girl in the middle of the road He stopped traffic so he could safely carry the child off the road in her car seat. First responders examined the little girl and found that she had not been injured in the ordeal. Police said the toddler was properly buckled in her child seat but the seat had not been fastened correctly inside the car. It is not clear how the car door managed to fly open. The girl's mother eventually returned to the scene 20 minutes later when she realized her daughter and the car seat were missing. Police have asked the Blue Earth County Attorney's Office to consider charging the mother with child endangerment and not fastening a child restraint system. Chad Cheddar Mock, who captured the incident on his dashcam, jumped out of his car to try and flag down the mother as she drove off Cemal Dageviren, 59, was mowed down by a hit-and-run driver Monday A gas attendant has been killed by a hit-and-run driver who refused to pay $22 worth of gas. Married father-of-two Cemal Dageviren, 59, had worked at Pit Stop gas station in Long Island, New York, for more than 20 years when he was mowed down Monday by an SUV. Surveillance footage captured the moment Dageviren stepped in front of the GMC Yukon to block the man from driving off without paying. But instead of stopping, the vehicle continued and ran over Dageviren, tragically killing him. Police are now searching for the suspect who has dreadlocks and was seen wearing a bright orange hat. Authorities say the suspect originally tried to use a fake credit card and the SUV had no license plates or registration. The married father-of-two tried to stop a man from driving off without paying Surveillance footage captured the moment Dageviren stepped in front of the SUV and attempted to block the driver from speeding off without paying Dageviren was taken to South Nassau Communities Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Neighbor Joe Loliscio told NBC New York he was walking his dog when he passed the scene. 'He was lying in the street,' he said. 'Women were out there who witnessed it, they were crying, yelling it was a hit and run.' A co-worker of the victim, Rodi Polat said: 'He worked here for over 22 years. He was very helpful, kind. A very good person and honest person.' The suspect, pictured, stole $22 worth of gas as he ran Dageviren over and fled Dageviren, pictured with his wife, worked at the Pit Stop gas station for more than 20 years Polat said that costumers have stolen gas in the past, but this was the first time he knew of that Dagdeviren tried to stop someone from driving off. 'We're offering a $5,000 reward for information,' he said. 'Help us to catch him please.' Police remained at the scene all day Monday, and the gas station will remain closed for a few days as the investigation continues. The suspect was last seen driving off southbound on Grand Avenue, authorities said. Advertisement A Briton and a US businessman are among the 14 people killed when gunmen sprayed guests with bullets and a suicide bomber blew himself up in a terror attack on a luxury hotel in Kenya. The attackers, one wearing a green belt laden with grenades, were seen on CCTV blasting their way into the hotel and office complex in Nairobi after detonating car bombs outside a nearby bank . The suicide bomber then blew himself up in the lobby before the other four began hurling grenades and shooting people as they fled or hid under tables. Kenyan police confirmed today that the five attackers, up from a previously reported four, had died either via the suicide bombing or were subsequently shot dead by security forces. President Uhuru Kenyatta said this morning that 14 civilians have been confirmed dead and that more than 700 people had been evacuated to safety from the the 14 Riverside Drive complex - which includes a large hotel known as DusitD2, banks and offices. This morning, it emerged that 40-year-old U.S. citizen Jason Spindler, who survived 9/11, was among the dead. He was the CEO of I-DEV International, a management strategy and investment firm that is based in the Kenyan capital. A British man who has not been named was killed while a second Briton was injured. Somali Islamist militant group al-Shabaab, which has links to al-Qaeda claimed that it was behind the terror attack, which also saw another British citizen injured. A CCTV grab showing one of five suspected al Shabaab attackers who opened fire in the hotel as a suicide bomber detonated in the lobby Gunmen blasted their way into the venue - sending workers fleeing for their lives as others cowered under their desks. Pictured: Bullet holes in the windows of a restaurant inside the venue Rescued: A distressed woman is taken out of the luxury hotel complex during the terror attack on Tuesday The Somali Islamist militant group al Shabaab claimed that it was behind the attack at the complex - which includes a large hotel known as DusitD2, banks and offices. Pictured: People run for cover A security guard helps two women to flee from the Nairobi hotel (left) while others escape through a window before climbing down a ladder Kenyan security forces walk from the scene as continued blasts and gunfire could be heard early on Wednesday In nearly 12 hours of fast-moving developments clouded by erroneous official statements, it has emerged - Four gunmen burst into the 14 Riverside Drive hotel and business complex at around 3pm local time Targeted cars outside a bank with explosives before one detonated a suicide bomb in the hotel lobby Other three sprayed bullets at terrified workers and guests, who fled or hid under desks and tables Special forces arrived at the scene and at 11pm officials said the scene was 'under control and safe' But gunfire heard two hours later when it emerged injured people remained trapped inside building At 2am - 11 hours after attack began - people were still being evacuated and more gunfire was heard. Charles Njenga, a worker at the complex, said after fleeing: 'What I have seen is terrible. I have seen a human as I ran out and there is what looks like minced meat all over.' A Foreign Office spokesman said: 'We are supporting the family of a British man killed in the recent terrorist attack in Kenya. We are also supporting a British person who was wounded during the attack and is receiving medical attention. 'We stand ready to help any other British people affected.' It is understood the man who died was of British and South African dual nationality. The US State Department had earlier said an American woman had died in the attack but a spokesman confirmed to DailyMail.com on Tuesday that only one US citizen lost their life. Mr Spindler's brother, Jonathan, confirmed the death on Tuesday, saying: 'It's with a heavy heart that I announce that my brother, Jason, passed away this morning during a terror attack in Nairobi. Jason was a survivor of 9/11 and a fighter. I am sure he gave them hell.' Meanwhile, London-based company Adam Smith International also said two employees were killed in the attack. Abdalla Dahir and Feisal Ahmed were killed on the terrace of a restaurant in the complex where the company has Nairobi offices, the company said in a statement. The attack began at around 3pm local time, when the four gunmen threw bombs at cars parked outside the hotel before walking into the lobby, where the suicide bomber blew himself up. Authorities sent special forces into the hotel to flush out the gunmen believed holed up inside. About eight hours after the siege began, Interior Minister Fred Matian'i said that all of the buildings affected by the attack had been secured and that security forces were mopping up. 'I would like to reiterate that the situation is under control and the country is safe,' he said. Jason Spindler (pictured), 40, was killed at the Dusit hotel in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi along with 13 others on Tuesday Spindler is pictured during a trip to Puerto Rico with friends in 2013 (left) and (right), rock climbing in Nairobi CCTV showing two of the alleged attackers walking past a barrier towards the hotel wearing dark paramilitary-style gear. Al Shabaab has already claimed responsibility for the carnage Civilians flee as gunfire erupts at the hotel complex, while members of the security forces (right) fire back at the attackers A woman is carried out of the hotel and office complex on a stretcher in the Kenyan capital after al Shabaab Islamists set off explosions and hurled grenades Unidentified witnesses who made it out of the building are embraced by others outside the complex Survivors duck down to avoid being shot and cling to the person in front as they are led out of the complex in single file Security forces armed with assault rifles stand guard and help evacuate people at the scene in Nairobi Survivors run for their lives in the street as a gunfight ensued between al Shabaab terrorists and Kenyan security guards An armed soldier takes cover next to a bullet hole-riddled glass during ongoing gunfire and explosions in Nairobi However, more gunfire was heard about an hour later, Kenyan broadcaster NTV reported. Reports at around 2.00am local time (11pm GMT) also said people remained trapped. A woman, who gave her name only as Nelly, said: 'I have spoken to my brother just now and we are exchanging text messages. Bloody terror attacks that have hit Kenya since the 1980s WESTGATE MALL, SEPTEMBER 2013 Al Shabaab fighters burst into a luxury shopping mall in Nairobi, hurling grenades and starting a days-long siege that left 67 people dead. The assault horrified the world and exposed weaknesses in Kenya's security forces after it took them hours to respond. GARISSA UNIVERSITY, APRIL 2015 The al Shabaab claimed responsibility for an attack on Garissa University that killed 147 people, mostly students. The attack occurred near the Somalia border that had seen multiple assaults on buses and schools. The extremists separated Christians from Muslims and killed the Christians. BOMBINGS OF US EMBASSIES, AUGUST 1998 Al-Qaeda bombed the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, and the embassy in neighbouring Tanzania, killing more than 250 people. The explosions were the first major al-Qaeda attack on U.S. targets. Nearly 5,000 people were injured. NORFOLK HOTEL, DECEMBER 1980 The hotel was bombed on New Year's Eve and killed at least 15. Suspicion fell on Palestinian militant groups that targeted Kenya for supporting Israel. Advertisement 'He is in there and he has told me they are hiding with over 10 other people. Why is the government saying they have rescued them?' Two hours later, there was more gunfire as rescuers tried to evacuate around 50 survivors. Those saved included a pregnant woman, a first responder said, and the daughter of a former lawmaker. Ex-MP Boni Khalwale tweeted that she had been saved more than 12 hours after Somali Islamists began their attack. Al Shabaab spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab said: 'We are behind the attack in Nairobi. The operation is going on. We shall give details later.' Two Kenyans in their early 30s working with governance consultants Adam Smith International were among the dead, a family member said. Both had young families, she said. A Spanish national was among the injured, a Spanish diplomat said. The US Embassy had offered assistance, a State Department official said, adding all American diplomats were safe. A woman shot in the leg was carried out of the complex, and several men emerged covered in blood. Some office workers climbed out of windows. Many said they had to leave colleagues behind, still huddled under their desks. 'There's a grenade in the bathroom,' one officer yelled as police rushed out from one building. Geoffrey Otieno, who works at a beauty salon in the complex, said he heard a loud bang from something thrown inside the building, then saw shattered glass. 'We hid until we were rescued,' he said. John Maingi said there had been 'a flash of lights and a loud bang' at the Secret Garden restaurant where he works. 'When I peeped outside I saw a human leg which has been cut off. We hid in the room and then some police officers rescued us,' he said. Survivors reported hearing a shattering blast and saw people mowed down by gunmen as they sat in a cafe. Victims were left lying on tables, bleeding. 'We were changing our shifts, and that is when I heard a loud blast and people were screaming,' said Enoch Kibet, who works as a cleaner at the cafe and managed to crawl out a basement gate. 'I couldn't believe I was alive. The blast was so loud and shook the whole complex.' Several vehicles are burning while people are being rushed and carried from the scene in the Kenyan capital An injured man is evacuated from the scene of an explosion. Thick black smoke can be seen billowing from the complex behind them Shell-shocked survivors are rushed to safety from the complex, barely-clothed, by security forces Paramedics come to the aid of an injured woman who has collapsed on the road after fleeing the scene of the terror attack A shell-shocked woman is evacuated form the Dusit Hotel by hotel staff and security guards who try to calm her down Burnt-out cars in a parking lot within the complex. Police say one of the explosions was caused by a car bomb An unexploded grenade lies in a hallway in a hotel complex under attack by al Shabaab extremists Police say a car bomb was detonated by terrorists in the car park, before gunmen opened fire - sending workers fleeing for their lives and cowering under desks An injured man is taken to the Kenyatta National Hospital after the attack on the luxury hotel and business complex Meanwhile, Simon Crump, an Australian who works for an international firm in the complex, barricaded himself inside a spare room with two other people. He said they waited for more than two hours for help to arrive. 'You're hiding under a desk trying to figure out what's going on, and you just don't know, as there's so much misinformation,' he said. When soldiers finally reached the group, they instructed them to put their phones away and put their hands in the air as they made their way to safety. A Kenyan police officer who was among the first on the scene said 'there was no time to count the dead' but that there were many bodies. A mortuary worker later said 15 had been killed, including a Briton and an American. The other victims are believed to be Kenyan, although two did not have any documents. Around 30 people are also being treated in hospital, according to local media reports. A witness who gave his name only as Ken said he saw five bodies at the hotel entrance. He said that other people were shouting for help and 'when we rushed back to try to rescue them, gunshots started coming from upstairs, and we had to duck because they were targeting us and we could see two guys shooting.' A member of the security forces is seen reflected in a window as he inspects bullet-holes in the glass A bloodied victim is brought to the Kenyatta National Hospital with gun wounds following the terrorist attack Kenyan RedCross workers provide first aid service to an injured woman who has blood dripping down her head and in her hands Kenyan hospitals appealed for blood donations even as the number of wounded remained unclear. Video from inside the hotel showed Kenyan security officers searching the building and scared workers emerging from hiding while gunfire could still be heard. Some climbed out of a window by a ladder. One man got up from the floor where he appeared to be trying to hide under a piece of wood paneling, then showed his ID. As officers searched luxury fashion displays, wounded people were carried away on stretchers. Like the attack at the luxury Westgate Mall, this one appeared aimed at wealthy Kenyans and foreigners living in the country. It came a day after a magistrate ruled that three men must stand trial in connection with the Westgate Mall siege. Al-Shabaab has vowed retribution against Kenya for sending troops to Somalia since 2011. The al-Qaida-linked group has killed hundreds of people in Kenya. In 2015, al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for an attack on Kenya's Garissa University that killed 147 people, mostly students. Tuesday's violence also came three years to the day after al-Shabaab extremists attacked a Kenyan military base in Somalia, killing scores of people. An injured man is held up by a paramedic as he makes his way out of the complex An armed officer tells survivors to stay back and duck down as he tries to lead them to safety Kenyan special forces take position at the scene following several explosions and heavy gunfire A woman is in tears as she's rescued from the Dusit Hotel on Riverside Drive in the Kenyan capital A female member of staff cries after making it out of the complex. Her male colleagues and a guard console her Kenyan special forces armed with AK-47s crouch in bushes outside of the hotel complex as they fight back against terrorists Cars were seen burning at the scene amid reports of explosions and heavy gunfire Survivors make their way arm-in-arm from the hotel complex as fires rage behind them and engulf vehicles parked on the street Members of security forces take up position at the scene where explosions and gunshots were heard at the Dusit hotel compound Members of the Kenyan Army take up positions as they prepare to engage with the gunman inside the building People are evacuated from the complex - some down a ladder - after gunfire and explosions were heard The latest carnage demonstrated al-Shabaab's continued ability to carry out spectacular acts of bloodshed despite a dramatic increase in US airstrikes against it under President Donald Trump. Tourism - an important source of revenue in Kenya, where safaris are a major attraction - has suffered because of the violence. A Kenyan intelligence official said the country had been on high alert since November, with information about potential attacks on high-profile targets in Nairobi. The official was not authorized to talk to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity. Despite the repeated attacks, the Kenya-Somalia border remains porous, with al-Shabaab extremists able to easily bribe their way across, according to a U.N. panel. The hotel complex in Nairobi's Westlands neighborhood is about a miles from Westgate Mall on a relatively quiet, tree-lined road in what is considered one of the most secure parts of the city. The hotel's website says it is 'cocooned away from the hustle and bustle in a secure and peaceful haven.' A woman has shared shocking claims that a man accused of raping a seven-year-old stalked her before her claims were allegedly brushed off by police. The woman who wished to go by the name of Kristina claims police dismissed perverted calls she claims were from Anthony Sampieri, 9 News reported. 'They kind of blew it off and said hes just a perverted caller, hes got his jollies off,' she said. Sampieri is accused of raping a seven-year-old child after he allegedly choked the girl until she was 'unable to resist' in a toilet cubicle at a dance studio in Kogarah, southern Sydney in November. Scroll down for video A woman (pictured) has told of her harrowing experience when police brushed aside her concerns that a convicted rapist was stalking her The woman who wished to go by the name of Kristina claims police dismissed the perverted calls from Anthony Sampieri (pictured) The 55-year-old allegedly stabbed a man who attempted to rescue the girl before a second man subdued him while police were called. Sampieri was charged with 87 offences after he allegedly made countless calls to numerous women in the months leading up to the attack at Kogarah. Police brought the charges against him after combing more than 13,000 calls from his home. The charges were added to the initial allegations of sexual intercourse with a child under 10 years old, wounding or grievous bodily harm with intent, aggravated kidnapping and attempting, or assaulting with intent, to have sexual intercourse with a child under 10. He's also charged with choking a person with an intent to commit an indictable offence, using a child under 14 to make child abuse material, aggravated act of indecency being filmed, aggravated indecent assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Prior to the sickening attack at the dance studio, Kristina claimed she was a target of Sempieri's predatory behaviour. 'I was quite worried about my safety and my co-workers safety because he knew where we worked and would follow us home,' she said. Sampieri failed to appear in court on Tuesday, as the magistrate heard allegations he harassed several women over the phone while on parole. In one day, Sampieri allegedly made 15 calls in less than 12 hours, from 9.23am to 9.05pm. Sampieri is accused of raping a seven-year-old child after he allegedly choked the girl until she was 'unable to resist' in a toilet cubicle at a dance studio in Kogarah, southern Sydney in November (pictured) According to the Nine Network, alleged victims had similar phone calls in so far that Sampieri would swear at them before denying it was him. Sampieri is said to have made three such 'offensive' calls just hours before allegedly assaulting the seven-year-old girl at Kogarah, the Daily Telegraph reported. Court documents show he made three calls from his mobile phone between 3.18pm and 3.23pm, before the alleged assault at 7.30pm. Sickening details of Sampieri's alleged sex attack on a seven-year-old girl emerged in his first court appearance in November. He appeared before Waverley Local Court last year where his barrister Ken Buckman did not apply for release. Police alleged Sampieri forced the girl to perform sex acts on him and filmed her doing so. Court documents reveal that he is accused of choking the girl to 'render (her) incapable of resistance, done so with intent of enabling himself to commit another indictable offence, to wit, sexual assault'. Sickening details of Sampieri's alleged sex attack on a seven-year-old girl emerged in his first court appearance in November (pictured, police escort Sampieri) Sampieri spoke twice while fronting court, and consented to a police application for a forensic procedure. At 7.55pm on November 15, two men confronted and attempted to detain Sampieri at the dance studio in Kogarah after concerns were raised for the girl's welfare. The men allegedly found Sampieri naked with the girl in the toilet before a struggle ensued, resulting in one of the men being left with several stab wounds. Sampieri was taken to hospital, where he remained under police guard and in the custody of Corrective Services NSW during treatment. It is understood Sampieri has Hepatitis C and liver damage. After being deemed fit by doctors, Sampieri was transported to Maroubra Police Station where he was arrested by detectives from the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad. An investigation led by detectives from the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad under Strike Force Berliet resulted in a string of charges. Sampieri is due in court next week after his defence team did not apply for bail during the court appearance on Tuesday. A man who savagely attacked two innocent passengers on separate bus journeys in Brisbane has been charged. The 39-year-old allegedly punched a man on board a bus in an unprovoked attack in December last year, before he targeted an innocent female passenger just three days later. The man, believed to be from the Brisbane suburb of Aspley, has been charged with two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm. Queensland cops caught the suspect while on routine patrols earlier today. 'At around 2.30pm today, officers conducting routine patrols took a man into custody on Lutwyche Road in Windsor,' Queensland police told The Courier Mail. 'The first alleged assault occurred around 7.45pm on December 9, when a 40-year-old man was sitting on a bus as it stopped on Maundrell Terrace in Chermside. 'Police will allege the same man assaulted and caused facial injuries to an 18-year-old woman on a bus on South Pine Road at Everton Park at around 5.45pm on December 12,' the police said. The man who has not been named is scheduled to appear in Brisbane Magistrates Court on February 2. At the time of the incident, officials released footage and images of the suspect. The man (pictured) is accused of assaulting a 40-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman in two separate incidents in Brisbane last December The police shared the footage, which shows the man entering Anaconda Everton Park on South Pine Road on January 4, in a bid to appeal to witnesses. He appears to be Caucasian with a shaved head and was wearing a red polo shirt during both of the incidents. Other images show him wearing black tracksuit bottoms bearing three white stripes and a red hoodie. The original footage, which was captured by public transport CCTV, shows two separate incidents just days apart in which the man is seen to assault two passengers in Brisbane's northeast suburbs. On December 12, the man was seen hitting an 18-year-old woman in the face before jumping off the bus. A new image of the suspect (pictured) shows him wearing black tracksuit bottoms bearing three white stripes and a red hoodie In one attack, the man was seen hitting a woman in the face before jumping off the back of the bus The woman is said to have suffered serious facial injuries. In a separate incident three days earlier, the man was captured punching a 40-year-old man in the face before fleeing at the Maundrell Terrace stop in Chermside West. Both assaults appear to be unprovoked attacks. This is the moment an aeroplane veers off the runway and finds itself stuck in thick snow before take-off following an error made by the co-pilot. CCTV footage shows the Boeing-737 accidentally turn off the runaway and become stuck in the snow at Sheremetyevo International Airport near the Russian capital Moscow, causing the runway to be shut down. According to reports, the aeroplane belonging to Smart Wings, a Czech airline, was about to take off but turned off the runway instead. This aeroplane veers off the runway and gets stuck in thick snow following an error made by the co-pilot at Sheremetyevo International Airport near the Moscow, Russia CCTV footage shows the Boeing-737 accidentally turn off the runaway and get stuck in thick snow The aeroplane belonging to Smart Wings, a Czech airline, turns to the runway just before it is about to fly off The incident was recorded by a CCTV camera installed in the airport. The clip shows the co-pilot of the Boeing-737 make a turn off the runway and drive straight into the snow. There were 47 passengers on-board the plane travelling from Moscow to Prague. The runway was temporarily closed after the incident and 30 other flights were delayed, according to local media. The Boeing captain, who has not been named, reportedly explained the incident to the airport authorities. The aeroplane comes to a halt after getting stuck in the thick snow. The incident was recorded by a CCTV camera installed in the airport Following the incident, the runway was temporarily closed and 30 other flights were delayed, according to local media According to him, the co-pilot, whose name has not been disclosed, made a mistake whilst running the engine control levers. Airport workers are said to have used special equipment to pull the Boeing out of the snow and the plane then underwent a technical inspection. The plane reportedly left Sheremetyevo airport for the Czech Republic several hours after the incident. Nobody was injured in the incident, according to reports. Three deputies were shot and wounded as they were serving a drug-related search warrant in Texas this week. Three officers of Ector County Sheriff's Office were serving a narcotics search warrant around 9.30pm on Monday evening when a suspect inside the home opened fire. The cops were injured and returned with gunfire and one person was killed in the evening shooting at a home in Odessa, around North Golder Avenue and East Yukon. Ector County Sheriff deputies hug in the ambulance entrance at Medical Center Hospital after three sheriff's deputies were shot in the line of duty while serving a narcotics search warrant on Monday evening Three officers, who remain unnamed, were serving the narcotics search warrant at a home in Odessa when bullets were fired their way from inside the home. Two deputies were shot in the leg and another had a graze wound to the mouth. They're were said to be in 'fair condition' at Medical Center Hospital (above) following shooting Investigators believe the person who died was the subject of the search warrant, though authorities have not said how the person died. Two deputies were shot in the leg and another had a graze wound to the mouth. The officers were transported to Medical Center Hospital where by 11pm they were described to be in 'fair condition', according to CBS7. Ector County Sheriff Mike Griffis said all three are expected to recover. The names of the shot officers were 'withheld as the investigation continues'. Ector County Hospital District Police Chief Brad Timmons spoke on behalf of the department on the shooting late Monday evening saying a suspect was killed in the shooting, a second taken in for questioning, and a third is on the run and believed to be armed Ector County Sheriff Mike Griffis said all three wounded deputies are expected to recover The Sheriff's Office shared this press release on Monday evening following the shooting 'A second suspect remains in custody at the time of this release and is being questioned by officers,' the Sheriff's Department shared in a press release. Neither of those suspects have been named either. 'The good Lord looked down after us tonight, it could have been way worse,' Sheriff Griffis said. Authorities are now searching the Odessa area for a possible third suspect involved in the case and are waiting for a second search warrant to search the home where the shooting unfolded. They said that the third suspect is armed and on the run. Police assured there is no public threat at this time. A man who was stabbed 13 times by his girlfriend proposed to her in court as she was about to be sentenced and begged the judge not to jail her. The man - named Shakur - was nearly murdered in the frenzied knife attack, and only survived because he managed to flee the scene, Russian state prosecutor Airat Bikmurzin told the court in Nizhnekamsk. As the woman stood and faced the judge, Shakur proposed to her in the court, according to a report from NTR-24 TV. Shakur and his girlfriend at the woman's sentencing, where he reportedly proposed to her Shakur is said to have stood up and begged the judge not to jail his girlfriend because they wanted to plan a wedding He appealed to the judge for leniency and said they intended to arrange the date of their wedding. The Russian judge postponed a decision on sentencing until a future hearing, according to reports. Mr Bikmurzin said: 'The accused woman failed to fulfil her criminal intention due to circumstances she could hardly influence the victim managed to escape from the crime scene and found medical help in time', he said. The man needed three weeks treatment in hospital for stab wounds all over his body, he said. Russian state prosecutor Airat Bikmurzin demanded the woman be locked up for six years for the knife attack The judge sitting in the court in Nizhnekamsk (pictured) postponed the decision on sentencing until a future hearing 'Using the knife as a weapon, she stabbed the victim at least 13 times,' he told the court. He demanded a custodial sentence of up to six years for intentionally causing damage to the health of the man and threatening his life. The unnamed woman faces up to six years for the nearly-fatal attack. She pleaded guilty to the stabbing incident but denied she had intended to 'kill' her boyfriend and said she was 'drunk' at the time. It was not clear what the dispute was about. A grandmother has spent an entire year cleaning every bit of plastic off 52 British beaches after making a New Year's resolution. Pat Smith, 70, trawled Devon and Cornwall's iconic beaches armed with bin bags, rubber gloves and a little picker after she vowed to clean one sandy beach every week. The married mother of two travelled from one end of the South West to the other, collecting litter in beauty spots from Coverack, Cornwall, to Blackpool Sands, Devon. And Mrs Smith has no intention of stopping - saying that the beaches need her. Pat Smith, 70, (pictured) trawled Devon and Cornwall's iconic beaches armed with bin bags, rubber gloves and a little picker after she vowed to clean one sandy beach every week Two black bin bags filled by Mrs Smith on one of her beach cleans. She has pleaded with beach goers to be more thoughtful in the coming year Mrs Smith said a lot of the rubbish she picks up are everyday items. She said: These things are used by all of us and it is shocking to find them polluting our beautiful beaches Mrs Smith, founder of the environmental campaign group Final Straw Cornwall, said: 'Doing 52 beach cleans in 2018 was my New Year's Resolution and it's finally done. 'I won't stop as our beaches need me. 'A lot of the rubbish I have picked up consists of everyday items. These things are used by all of us and it is shocking to find them polluting our beautiful beaches. 'Please let's try to be more thoughtful in this coming year. 'I'm driven to try and protect our living planet for my children and grandchildren and I will continue to do everything in my power to achieve that.' Mrs Smith, pictured on one of her litter picks, is founder of the environmental campaign group Final Straw Cornwall The mother of one during one of her beach cleans last year. She told how she is joined by other volunteers who are determined to keep beaches clear of rubbish Mrs Smith said she was urged to take action after noticing the effects of plastic pollution, and she reflected back on her life. She said: 'I grew up in the generation where plastic use was at it's worse. I lived through that, yet I lived the life campaigners are pushing for now. 'Even though it was everywhere, we had no plastic at home - we would walk to the shops or get the bus to get groceries.' Mrs Smith said that she was often joined by other volunteers who were determined to keep our beaches clean. Mrs Smith said during litter collections she has been mistaken for someone carrying out community service Another haul of plastic rubbish collected during a clean. Mrs Smith said she was urged to take action after noticing the effects of plastic pollution Mrs Smith said that she was often joined by other volunteers who were determined to keep beaches clean But she said not everyone understood, and on some occasions, she would be mistaken for doing community service. She said: 'People don't understand I've been doing this voluntarily. 'We should all take responsibility for picking up the litter, as well as ensuring we don't drop litter in the first place.' Along the way, Pat, who also runs a bed and breakfast in St Austell, Cornwall, joined with other campaigners. She spent time with Martin Dorey, founder of the 2 Minute Beach Clean, and Wayne Dixon, who is walking the UK coast as an ambassador for Keep Britain Tidy. Advertisement Both Remain and Leave supporters rejoiced outside Parliament last night after MPs rejected Theresa May's Brexit deal by a majority of 230 - the biggest government defeat in history. Protestors from both sides of the debate had been waiting on College Green and Parliament Square for the outcome of the vote since yesterday morning - although many had dispersed by the time the result was announced. The majority of those present wanted to see Mrs May's deal voted down. A group of 'gilet jaune' protesters chanted 'Bye bye EU, bye bye' to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, as pro EU demonstrators sang 'You can stick your Brexit up your a***'. The exchange was peaceful although police and security staff were present. However, there were dramatic scenes earlier as a far right protester and bodyguard of Tommy Robinson was arrested. Daniel Thomas was among protesters at a 'Yellow Vest' demonstration this weekend attended by James Goddard, who was arrested over 'Nazi' slurs aimed at Tory MP Anna Soubry last week. An anti-Brexit supporter reacts in Parliament Square after news came through that MPs had rejected Theresa May's Brexit deal by a majority of 230 Before the outcome of the vote was announced, far-right activist Daniel Thomas was led away by police. He was among protesters at a 'Yellow Vest' demonstration this weekend attended by James Goddard, who was arrested over 'Nazi' slurs aimed at Tory MP Anna Soubry last week Protesters waving Union Jack and EU flags react to the news Mrs May's deal had failed. Both sides of the debate gathered outside Parliament appeared to welcome the news How did your MP vote? 202 voted For and 432 Against in a historic - and devastating - Commons defeat for the Prime Minister An anti-Brexit protester waving a European Union flag cheers after news of the Prime Minister's huge loss filtered through Pro-EU protesters smile as they watch a giant television screen relay the news of Mrs May's loss on Parliament Square yesterday evening Demonstrators wearing yellow vests and holding signs saying 'leave means leave' celebrate the outcome of last night's vote The majority of those present wanted to see Mrs May's deal voted down, including these protesters waving EU flags Campaigners outside Parliament welcoming the news Mrs May's Brexit plan had failed when put to a vote by MPs Most of the protesters had actually gone home by the time the outcome of the vote was announced, although a substantial minority - like the ones pictured - stuck around Mrs May (pictured in the Commons last night) will now have to face a vote of no confidence brought by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn Daniel Thomas (seen being led away by police yesterday evening) was a bodyguard for former EDL leader Tommy Robinson Campaigners wearing yellow vests confront each other in Westminster last night amid the vote on Mrs May's Brexit deal in Parliament A protester wearing the stars of the EU flag among a crowd of demonstrators gathered in Parliament Square yesterday evening prior to the outcome being announced Both pro-EU protestors (pictured) and their Brexit-supporting counterparts pictured bedding in for a long night ahead outside the House of Commons An EU flag flutters next to the statue of Winston Churchill outside the Houses of Parliament, where hundreds of protestors gathered before last night's vote Despite the tension in the air, yesterdays' protests passed without serious incident. The Metropolitan Police (whose officers are seen in this image taken yesterday evening) said its response would be 'appropriate and proportionate' Mrs May's Brexit deal finally reaches the House of Commons yesterday evening and MPs begin voting on it at 7pm. Pictured: Pro-Remain supporters outside Parliament Eva, aged 7, from Exeter, waves a Union Jack while leaning on an EU flag among the crowds of protestors outside Parliament Grotesques of Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and David Davis outside the Palace of Westminster last night Hundreds of flags were on display outside Parliament last night as a large contingent of police officers watched on Firms fear more uncertainty The pound swung sharply last night as business leaders warned that Theresa Mays Brexit defeat has sparked a national emergency that could cripple the economy. Sterling fell to under $1.27 in the moments after the vote, before rallying to $1.286. Against the euro, sterling fell towards 1.11 before bouncing back towards 1.13. The bounceback came as traders bet Brexit could now be delayed and weakened or even overturned. Meanwhile, business leaders voiced concerns over the continuing uncertainty. Most senior City figures backed Mrs Mays deal because it ruled out the risk of no deal, which they fear could create chaos at Britains borders and risk a recession. Stephen Martin, of the Institute of Directors lobby group, said: As things stand, we will leave on March 29, with or without a withdrawal agreement, and yet MPs are behaving as though they have all the time in the world how are businesses meant to prepare in this fog of confusion? Advertisement One group of Leave protesters kept up a steady racket with a bell and a bass drum they dubbed The Liberty Bell with the words Save Our Sovereignty above it. Brexiteer David Hurlibut, 62, from Ipswich, said: 'It's not being true to the referendum. We may as well stay in the EU.' Remainer John Wilkins, 64, from Crediton in Devon, also wanted to see the deal blocked. 'The Government hasn't managed to find a solution to the Irish border and no one is happy with the agreement,' he said. Remainer Tony Singh, 53, said: 'No one will support a trade deal that's detrimental to the interest of the UK.' In nearby Parliament Square a platform and two screens were set up by those campaigning for a people's vote. A float with a sculpture of Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and David Davis with the words 'Brexit is a monstrosity' circled the area. The demonstrations ahead of the vote were calm, although a small number of 'gilets jaunes' protesters verbally abused police, calling them 'EU Police' and 'EU fascists'. Earlier yesterday, former UKIP leader Nigel Farage posed with pro-Brexit campaigners on Parliament Square as the number of protestors from both sides continued to swell. He claimed Mrs May had never really wanted to leave the EU. 'This should be a day of celebration for Brexiteers but unfortunately the Prime Minister never wanted us to become an independent country, her deal costs us a fortune, ties us into EU rules indefinitely and is a total shocker,' he told the Daily Star Online prior to the outcome of the vote. 'This failure of leadership has given the Remainers the opportunity to hijack the process.' Crowds converged on the square and street opposite the Palace of Westminster - the formal name for the Houses of Parliament and grounds - from around 10am, under the gaze of TV cameras beaming the images around the world. BBC politics reporter Joey D'Urso tweeted 'Properly bonkers feeling in Westminster right now. People's Vote rally roaring in one direction. Pro-Brexit bell portentously ringing out in the other. It's an utter carnival and it's about to dial up a notch.' In one of the more eye-catching displays, pro-EU protestors reimagined the Titanic disaster, erecting a cardboard ship, iceberg and caricature of Prime Minister Theresa May on the bow beside a life-ring. 'Brexit is a sinking ship,' said Bert Wander, one of the organisers. 'It paralyses our politics, and today Theresa May's Brexit deal will be defeated in parliament.' 'This is a symbol, people are showing what could happen,' observed Joseph Iliasz, a Polish tourist visiting London who stopped to view the spectacle. At first, it looks funny, but if you think more, it is not funny, it is rather sad,' he said. Mr Iliasz admitted he is worried that his daughter will not be able to study in the British capital after Brexit. 'We want to keep England in Europe,' he added. Others had showed up simply to witness the spectacle. Tony Brack, who was in London for business, used his mobile phone to film the growing numbers of demonstrators mid-afternoon waving signs and placards like 'Don't Let May Betray the UK' and 'Stop the Brexit Mess'. 'I've never seen anything like it,' he said. 'It is a circus. What does the rest of the world think about it?' A man wearing what appears to be a 'Make America Great Again' cap bangs a drum attached to a display topped with a banner reading, 'Save our sovereignty' Banners reading 'The Truth About Brexit' and 'Stop Brexit' were seen being held outside the House of Commons yesterday evening Protestors from both sides of the Referendum debate hold their respective banners outside the House of Commons Three Remain demonstrators wave pro-EU flags in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament ahead of the vote yesterday evening Crowds converged on the square and street opposite the Palace of Westminster from the early hours of the morning, under the gaze of TV cameras beaming the images around the world An anti-Brexit activist wrapped in an EU flag stands with other protestors on Parliament Square last night 'People's Vote' supporters dance and listen to speeches during a rally last night on Parliament Square Earlier in the day, demonstrators had lined the walkways around nearby makeshift broadcasting studios, with each side staking out their camp and no mingling on show. 'I would have talked to them, but because they are abusive, no,' said 65-year-old Sally Smith, pointing to the pro-EU faction. The no-deal Brexit supporter, originally from Shropshire near Wales, had taken the day off work to come and make her point - by frantically ringing a bell. In the opposite camp, Louise Hummerstone, a 66-year-old potter and craftswoman wearing an EU beret, admitted that she had 'lost friends' who voted Leave in the 2016 referendum. 'I can understand naive voters, I completely understand people who believed the lies, but I cannot tolerate those who voted for racist reasons,' she said. Despite the entrenched opposition, the atmosphere remained civil as large numbers of police looked on. 'I am talking to MPs who are on the fence, not sure which way to go - [to] give them support to reject the deal,' explained Pete Bell, between shouts of 'Stop Brexit' through his megaphone. An effigy emblazoned with the words 'Brexit is a monstrosity' depicting Theresa May, Boris Johnson, environment secretary Michael Gove and former Brexit secretary David Davis was displayed outside Parliament yesterday A police officer extinguishes a flag that was set alight by pro-Brexit protestors outside the Houses of Parliament, London, ahead of yesterday evening's vote Nigel Farage posed with a crowd of flag waving activists outside the House of Parliament hours before MPs had their say on Theresa May's deal The former Ukip leader spoke to party supporters and Leave supporters outside the House of Parliament yesterday Speaking earlier this week Mr Farage called last night's vote 'the most important vote since 1940 when Churchill became PM' Tensions have been running high in recent days as Leavers and Remainers coming head-to-head on the streets of the capital. Pictured: A pro Brexit supporter argues with a cyclist outside the House of Parliament Leavers hold up signs next to pro-European demonstrators protesting opposite the Houses of Parliament The NHS doctor believes that leaving the EU 'will leave us economically in a bit of a disaster' and is campaigning for a second referendum. Timeline to Theresa's Commons defeat 6.45pm: Theresa May will sum up the debate and make a final appeal to MPs to back the deal. 7pm: Voting will begin. First, MPs will vote on the amendments to the motion. Four have been selected by the Speaker. If any pass, the final vote on the deal is with the amendment attached. Each vote will take around 15-20 minutes, meaning the result should be in by around 8.30pm. 8.30pm: After the votes, Mrs May will make a statement setting out her response and the next steps the government will take. Advertisement Mark Stevens also wants May's deal to be defeated, but for very different reasons. The ardent Brexit supporter hopes a damaging loss will lead to May - who backed Remain in 2016 - losing power. 'At the moment we have very little enthusiasm and leadership shown for leaving,' he said. 'Someone who would have a more positive approach would help the thing work a lot better,' he added. The Metropolitan Police said yesterday that preparations to deal with protests will be 'appropriate and proportionate.' It came as Theresa May told her Cabinet yesterday that she won't quit even if her Brexit deal falls to the biggest Commons defeat in history. The PM signalled defiance as she gathered her team despite fears that she is on track for catastrophic failure in the showdown last night - with warnings the margin could be more than 200 votes. That would eclipse the record humiliation of 166 suffered by the minority Labour government in 1924. But Mrs May is said to have told Cabinet that she will not quit regardless of the scale of the loss, as her plan is the 'only option'. She said she was the 'servant of the people' and determined to implement the referendum result. Protestors gathered outside Parliament yesterday as MPs prepared for the historic showdown A protestor dressed as the Prime Minister as the tense scenes unfolded at Parliament yesterday Pro and anti-Brexit campaigners protest outside Parliament just hours for last night's crunch vote Uber fares in London will be increased from tomorrow to help drivers buy electric cars, with a clean air fee of 15p per mile will be added to every trip. The minicab app firm expects the scheme to raise more than 200million in the coming years, which will be used to help drivers convert to electric cars. Uber said it is 'keen to expand' the initiative to other UK cities and expects the surcharge to be around 45p for an average trip. Uber fares in London will be increased from tomorrow to help drivers buy electric cars A London driver using the app for an average of 40 hours a week will be given about 3,000 towards the purchase cost of an electric car in two years, the firm added. The clean air fee will not include miles travelled to a passenger's pick up location and will not be affected by dynamic pricing. Uber's new fee and how it will affect drivers and passengers tomorrow From tomorrow, trips picked up within the M25 will be subject to a 'Clean Air Fee' of 15p per mile. Riders will pay this fee as part of their trip fare, and it will be applied across all products in London - UberX, XL, Exec, Lux, Assist, Access and Pool. It will not apply to cancellation fees, will not surge - and it will only apply to miles travelled on a trip. The fare will only apply to miles travelled on a trip, and will not include miles travelled to a pick up location. Uber says all the money raised will go towards supporting drivers who want to move into an electric vehicle and other clean air initiatives. Once drivers have an electric vehicle, the fee will then be used to support their ongoing vehicle costs. Advertisement Uber wants 20,000 cars on its app in London to be fully electric by the end of 2021, increasing to every car by 2025. There are currently around 45,000 Uber drivers in the capital. When the plan was announced in October last year, Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said: 'The Mayor of London has set out a bold vision to tackle air pollution in the capital and we're determined to do everything we can to back it. 'Our 200 million Clean Air Plan is a long-term investment in the future of London aimed at going all-electric in the capital in 2025. 'Over time, it's our goal to help people replace their car with their phone by offering a range of mobility options - whether cars, bikes, scooters or public transport - all in the Uber app.' London mayor Sadiq Khan introduced a 10 toxicity charge for older, more polluting vehicles in the centre of the capital in October 2017. This will be replaced by an Ultra Low Emission Zone, which will create stricter emissions standards for diesel vehicles at all times, from April. Uber expects the surcharge added from tomorrow to be around 45p for an average trip In June, a judge granted Uber a short-term operating licence in London after its permit was initially not renewed over safety concerns. 1,000 London minicab drivers protest over congestion charge Nearly 1,000 minicab drivers joined a protest against congestion charges they claim will cut their take-home pay by up to 25 per cent. The demonstration yesterday in London was called by the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which claims the charge is a 'tax on the poor' and will do little to reduce congestion in the capital. Minicab drivers stage a congestion charge protest at Transport for London yesterday The daily charge of 11.50 will have to be paid by private hire drivers, such as those working for Uber, from April. The union said roads outside Transport for London's (TfL) offices were blocked by the demonstration, which it vowed to repeat every Monday. Spokesman James Farrar said the protest showed how angry drivers were about the extension of the congestion charge. 'The ball is now in TfL's court as we have raised our collective voices and stand united against this unjust and regressive tax on the poor.' Alex Williams, TfL's director of city planning, said: 'Bold action is required to tackle London's public health crisis. More than 9,000 deaths are linked to air quality every year. 'The private hire trade, along with all road users, have a central role in reducing the filthy fumes circulating in our city.' Advertisement The firm conceded it had made 'serious mistakes' and Transport for London was correct in its renewal decision, but told an appeal hearing it had made 'wholesale' reforms. It comes amid reports that controversial subsidies for burning wood in power stations could be scrapped in the drive to clean up Britain's air. Firms that burn wood pellets currently receive about 1billion a year because, unlike coal, these are considered renewable sources of energy. But critics say burning wood produces similar amounts of carbon dioxide to coal, contributing to air pollution. It also increases the logging of forests in the US, while shipping them to Britain in vast quantities has a further negative effect on the environment. Environment Secretary Michael Gove yesterday revealed subsidies for burning wood could be scrapped as he unveiled the Government's clean air strategy. It comes after years of state support for 'biomass' such as wood pellets, in schemes pioneered by disgraced ex-Liberal Democrat energy secretary Chris Huhne. Britain's drive to meet tough new air quality targets could also see an end to some subsidies for red diesel, which costs around 62p a litre compared with about 131p for standard 'white' diesel. Officials said they wanted to 'ensure its lower cost is not discouraging the transition to cleaner alternatives'. Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said he hopes more people will be persuaded to support the drive for clean air after a nine-year-old girl's death was linked to unlawful levels of air pollution. Ella Kissi-Debrah lived 25 metres from the South Circular Road in Lewisham in South East London - one of the capital's busiest roads, and died in February 2013 after three years of seizures and 27 visits to hospital for asthma attacks. On Friday her family was given permission by the Attorney General to apply for a fresh inquest, after their lawyers said the original held in 2014 did not investigate the potential impact of air pollution. Beach-goers were forced to run away in shock after a huge crocodile stormed onto a beach and strolled down to the shoreline. The clip of shows a large American crocodile walking onto the beach in the Tayrona National Natural Park in Santa Marta, northern Colombia. A group of young men, who are looking the other way, are seen almost walking straight into the huge reptile and end up running off in panic. Screams and shouts can be heard as beach-goers swarm to the opposite end of the beach to escape the scaly animal. The clip of shows a large American crocodile walking onto the beach in the Tayrona National Natural Park in Santa Marta, northern Colombia The crocodile strolls its way down to the water where it stops as onlookers watch it in shock. National park officials reminded beach-goers the park was set up to protect wildlife as well as for people to enjoy and the presence of the crocodile was actually a positive sign. However, rangers later evacuated the beach - as much to save the crocodile from being bothered by curious onlookers filming it with their smartphones as to protect people from the dangerous reptile. National park director Luz Elvira Angarita said it was not unusual to see crocodiles in the area and it was a good sign for the wildlife diversity of the park. A group of young men, who are looking the other way, are seen almost walking straight into the huge reptile and end up running off in panic He said: 'It's important to remember these habitats are not just for people to enjoy, but also for the protection of wildlife species.' The American crocodile, also known in Colombia as the Caiman Aguja, can reach lengths of 6.1 metres (20 ft) and weigh up to 907 kilogrammes (2,000 lb). They are potentially dangerous to humans but tend not to be as aggressive as some other species. Experts advise people to remain at least 20 metres (66 ft) away from them, not to provoke them and not to swim in areas where they have been seen. Around 15 live in the national park and they can be also found from South Florida and the coasts of Mexico to as far south as Peru and Venezuela but hunting, pollution and the loss of natural habits are taking their toll on numbers. Advertisement A fascinating collection of unique images captured on glass plates has shed new light on the life-saving history of the RNLI. An exhibition of almost 100 images will take visitors on a journey from the lifeboat builders of the early 20th century to the faces of the brave volunteers who crew the vessels of today. Many of the never-before-seen images have been developed from the historic archive of the famous Beken family in Cowes, which has been photographing maritime activity around the Isle of Wight since the turn of the century. Three generations of Beken men Frank, Keith, Kenneth first made their name capturing spectacular yachts racing on the Solent. They modified their cameras to enable them to use them on the water and photographed countless famous vessels, including King George V's racing yacht Britannia and the Titanic. A black-and-white photograph of the Ilfracombe RNLI crew in 2015. The image will sit alongside nearly a hundred photographs that were developed from glass plate negatives taken by the famous Beken family, that will feature in a exhibition at Poole Museum this year The crew of the Newquay RNLI lifeboat are pictured during a break from the seas in 2016. Images like this will sit aside images of lifeboats recorded by the Beken family over several decades, with the family well-known for photographing maritime activity around the Isle of Wight since the turn of the century The Weymouth lifeboat, named Frank Spiller Locke, is pictured out at sea in 1957. The Bekens modified their cameras to enable them to use them on the water, meaning they were able to capture crystal-clear images despite difficult shooting conditions This picture featured in the exhibition shows the Broughty Ferry RNLI lifeboat volunteers in 2018. The exhibition of almost 100 images will take visitors on a journey from the lifeboat builders of the early 20th century to the faces of the brave volunteers who crew the vessels of today This archive picture featured in the exhibition shows the interior of the Aberystwyth lifeboat Aguila Wren in 1961. The Bekens captured lifeboats at the very start of their working lives, before they went onto to save thousands of lives at stations around the coast of southern England The Seaham lifeboat George Elmy is pictured roaming the seas around County Durham in 1950. Innovator Frank Beken came up with the idea of using a rubber ball that he would bite in order to take a photograph, as his hands were needed to hold the camera as he rocked from side to side on the water Innovator Frank Beken came up with the idea of using a rubber ball that he would bite in order to take a photograph, as his hands were needed to hold the camera as he rocked from side to side on the water. Kenneth said: 'My grandfather Frank had to invent his own new style of camera, a twin lens device that enabled him to hold it at arm's length and absorb all the movement of his boat and the yacht he was photographing. 'He wasn't the first photographer but he was a great innovator. He couldn't fire the shutter with his thumb or fingers because it jerked the camera so he built a rubber tube which he put in his mouth, with a big rubber ball on the end that he would bite, and that would fire the shutter. 'People laughed but the image of him with his camera became famous at the time.' The Beken family mainly photographed lifeboats during their time out on the seas, many of which were built on the Isle of Wight. The Bekens captured lifeboats at the very start of their working lives before they went onto to save thousands of lives at stations around the coast and even on the beaches of Dunkirk during World War Two. The launch of Yarmouth lifeboat S.G.E in 1938. From the late-19th to the mid- 20th century, more than 400 lifeboats were built in Cowes. The Beken family took photos of these lifeboats as they rolled out of the shipwrights and when they were trialled on the water, amassing a collection of stunning photographs that cover 1918 to 1969 A crew member on the St Ives lifeboat in 1948. The Beken family mainly photographed lifeboats and the men and women working aboard them during their time out on the seas, with many of the lifeboats built on the Isle of Wight, which was a central hub for the RNLI during the 20th century This archive picture featured in the exhibition shows Bembridge lifeboat Jesse Lumb in 1939, at which point the RNLI was working harder than every before following the outbreak of the Second World War the year before The Fraserburgh lifeboat, named The Duchess of Kent, is pictured patrolling the seas off the coast of Aberdeenshire in Scotland in 1954. The photograph is one of several from a collection by photographer Jack Lowe, who isiting all 238 RNLI lifeboat stations in the UK and Republic of Ireland to capture them using Wet Plate Collodion, a Victorian process that creates stunning images on glass The second floor gallery is also full of beautiful glass plate imagery of lifeboats and lifeboat crews but from an inspiring modern day odyssey called The Lifeboat Station Project. The eight-year mission, which is the brainchild of photographer Jack Lowe, began in January 2015. Jack is visiting all 238 RNLI lifeboat stations in the UK and Republic of Ireland to capture them using Wet Plate Collodion, a Victorian process that creates stunning images on glass. Jack who lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, travels in Neena a decommissioned NHS ambulance purchased on eBay and converted into a mobile darkroom. Jack makes portraits using a camera made in 1905, and then develops the images in his ambulance. Lifeboat volunteers are able to watch as their portraits appear on the glass plates an experience Jack says they find fascinating, and sometimes very moving. Visitors to Poole Museum will be able to see 55 images from Jacks journey, along with glass plates he has made and the camera on which he learnt how to create them. Calm Before the Storm: The Art of Photographing Lifeboats' will be at Poole Museum from January 26 to April 22. Entry is free. The Seahouses lifeboat, named Grace Darling, is shown in 1954. The launch of Aberdeen's lifeboat Hilton Briggs in 1951. The second floor gallery during the exhibition is also full of beautiful glass plate imagery of lifeboats and lifeboat crews but from an inspiring modern day odyssey called The Lifeboat Station Project The launch of Troon lifeboat Sir David Richmond of Glasgow in 1929. The exhibition was made possible with the support of both the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and Christopher Andreae and The Scorpion Trust. This backing enabled the RNLI to preserve and digitise the glass plate negatives Hundreds of desperate Hondurans have formed a new migrant caravan and set off on a long march toward the US. Up to 800 Hondurans said they were fleeing violence and poverty back home as they set out from San Pedro Sula on Monday in search of a better life in America. The news comes as the US government shutdown continues for a 25th day amid Donald Trump's demands for $5.7billion to build a wall along the southern border. A new caravan of Honduran migrants has begun its march toward the US after setting off from the town of San Pedro Sula on Monday Between 600 and 800 migrants boarded buses and lorries heading for the border with Guatemala in the hopes of reaching America Most people in the caravan said they were fleeing endemic violence and poverty in their home country for a better life further north The newest caravan follows in the footsteps of nearly 13,000 people from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who made the journey last year About 300 people, mainly women and children, clambered aboard 30 small buses, intent on reaching the Guatemalan border. Another 300 or so began walking in the rain toward the border town of Agua Caliente late Monday. More people continued to arrive at the bus station, making it likely the caravan's numbers would grow as it makes its way north. One passing man asked a journalist for his umbrella, saying he feared his daughter would get sick in the rain. One woman, who refused to give her name because of safety concerns, said her 9-year-old daughter had already been raped so badly she suffered medical problems. The mother, who worked at a bakery, said she was taking her daughter and 13-year-old son to the United States. The migrants were aware of Trump's hardline attitude toward them, but hoped he might soften and let some of them in once they arrive A line of migrants walk through the rain in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, as they head for the border with Guatemala Once the migrants have crossed Guatemala they will need to enter Mexico before continuing towards the US border Two men carry a Honduran flag as they start the long journey north towards the US Once there, she said she would ask U.S. authorities for asylum or refugee status, 'because it's not possible to live in Honduras anymore.' 'I'm determined to find a good job in the United States,' said 24-year-old caravan member Darwin Perez. 'It's a difficult road ahead but I hope President Trump's heart might soften, and that he won't be so hard and will let us enter,' he added. But Trump has repeatedly vowed to stop all caravans at the border and turn people away, insisting that only people coming through legal channels will be allowed. Last year, around 13,000 migrants joined together in an attempt to cross Mexico and enter the US. Some 7,000 are thought to have since returned home after finding the route too difficult, while another 2,500 remain at the Mexican border city of Tijuana. Donald Trump has vowed he will 'never give up' until Democrats agree to give him $5.7billion in funding for a wall along the southern border Trump has repeatedly blamed migrants crossing the southern border for importing drugs and crime into the US, and says a border wall is the only solution Around 300 migrants left San Pedro Sula on foot while another 300 jumped on buses and more began joining them on their journey A man pushes his two children along with a collection of food and other supplies in a shopping cart as he begins his journey to the US Several hundred migrants did make it to the American border in the final months of 2018, but have been kept on the Mexican side using measures including tear gas. Meanwhile Trump has said the partial shutdown of the US government will continue for as long as it takes to get funding for a southern border wall. That is despite his approval ratings slipping amid signs that Americans are blaming him for the chaos in Washington, rather than the Democrats. Earlier this week Trump rejected a short-term fix that would have seen the government reopen while talks were ongoing, saying he will 'never ever back down.' Trump is locked in an impasse with congressional Democrats. He has demanded $5.7 billion in wall funding. Democrats, who oppose the wall as immoral and wasteful, have called on him to reopen the government while border negotiations continue. Pregnant Meghan Markle gushed about Prince Harry's parenting skills as she chatted to well-wishers yesterday telling them: 'He's going to be fantastic father.' The Duchess of Sussex, who is expecting her first child in April, met locals in Birkenhead , Wirral during the couple's first joint engagement of the year. During a walkabout with royal fans she revealed she is six months pregnant and they don't know whether they're having a boy or girl, as they want it to be a surprise. Mother of three Rebecca Blundell, who lives in Birkenhead and brought her daughter Lily, six, and Lottie, two, to the event, was one of the lucky ones who got to speak to the couple. Rebecca Blundell, who lives in Birkenhead with daughter Lily, six, and Lottie, two, was one of the lucky ones that got to speak to the couple and took these photographs of their encounter Ms Blundell told how Harry asked how to spell Lily's name. She told Mailonline: 'Prince Harry came over first and chatted to my two-year-old then spoke to my six-year-old Lily and then as he was walking off, he turned back he asked Lily of she spent her name with a I or Y. 'I straight away thought that must be a name choice. 'Meghan then came and I asked her if she was excited for the impending arrival. She said she was thrilled and that Harry would be a fantastic father. 'I replied that she would be a fantastic mother and she looked really touched. 'She was so calm and at ease in the crowd.' Kim Thompson, another local woman, said: 'She said she is six months pregnant and due at the end of April, beginning of May. 'Another woman in the crowd joked that she was a trained midwife. Meghan said that one of her friends had [given birth] five weeks early and [the midwife] said the baby comes when they are ready. Harry, pictured during by Ms Blundell during a walkabout in Hamilton Square, travelled to Merseyside with Meghan yesterday morning to visit organisations that support and empower groups within the community The couple were presented with baby gifts as they chatted to young fans yesterday morning. Royal fans had previously speculated that Baby Sussex could be expected as early as March due to Meghan's blossoming baby bump 'I said, as long as they are healthy, and Meghan agreed. Then she said, pointing to Harry, 'He's going to make a fantastic father'.' Harry and Meghan travelled to Merseyside from London yesterday morning to visit organisations that support and empower groups within the community. Their first stop was Birkenhead's Hamilton Square to view a new sculpture that was erected in November to mark the 100th anniversary of war poet Wilfred Owen's death. After unveiling a plaque to mark their visit, Harry and Meghan met local veterans and members of the Birkenhead Institute Old Boys, which Owen belonged to, and played a part in the creation of the tribute. The couple take a short walk to meet with locals after unveiling a plaque. A gift for baby Sussex? The Duke and Duchess are festooned with gifts as they undertake a royal walkabout amongst the large crowds, many of whom had been queuing for hours to catch a glimpse of the royal couple on Monday morning The Duke and Duchess then undertook a royal walkabout amongst the large crowds, many of whom had been queuing for hours to catch a glimpse of the royal couple. The Duchess also chatted to a hypnobirthing teacher, Sonia Richards, who was in the crowd with her mother Marion Mazumder. Sonia, who runs Wirral Hypno, said: 'I told her I teach hypnobirthing and she said, 'It's such a special thing that you are doing'. She looked radiant, she looked really well and I just wished her a wonderful birth.' Marion added: 'I said I am looking forward to the baby coming and she said, 'So are we.'' The Duchess of Sussex ditched the sleek chignon she's been sporting in recent weeks for a classic messy bun as she arrived in Merseyside on Monday morning for a day of engagements The couple also knelt down when meeting a group of blind children, allowing them to feel their faces. The royal couple were also given a babygro bearing the words 'Born in 2019' by eight year old Harry Edwards and Megan O'Carroll, of St Werburgh's. The schoolchildren were among 16 pupils whose names were pulled out of a hat by teachers to attend the walkabout in Birkenhead's Hamilton Square. The Duchess also spotted a handmade sign by Lewis Avis-Taylor, nine, from Park Primary School in Wallasey, which read: 'Welcome Harry and Meghan'. Megan Redford, seven, quizzed the Duchess on baby names saying: 'She asked me if I was called Meg or Meghan because she said her friends call her Meg and mine do as well. Meghan delighted fans with the news that she is just six months pregnant with her child expected in late April/ early May Meghan clutches bunches of flowers she was handed by well-wishers who came out to see the royal couple visiting Birkenhead yesterday 'I asked her whether she would call her baby Amy if she has a girl and she said 'That's a really pretty name, I like it, we'll have to think about it'. The former actress could be seen frequently holding her growing baby bump, which could clearly be seen protruding from her purple Babaton by Aritizia dress and Sentaler coat. Meghan said she was 'feeling really well' and thanked locals including 92-year-old Dorothy Parker from Hoylake for waiting in the cold to see her. Dorothy said: 'I thanked Meghan for coming to see us and asked her how she was feeling. She told me she was feeling really well and said the best part of her day was meeting me. She's such a lovely woman and so beautiful I'm delighted I got to meet her.' Fans presented Meghan with bouquets of flowers, and she looked particularly delighted with the gift of handmade paper flowers from a young fan from the nearby Fun Train Day Nursery. The Duke and Duchess then travelled to Number 7, a Feeding Birkenhead citizen's supermarket and community cafe, to official open the new premises in a surprise visit. Their last stop of the day was the Hive Wirral Youth Zone. Created by the charity OnSide Youth Zones, which is developing 21st century youth facilities across the UK, the Hive provides a safe environment where young people can come and enjoy themselves, building key skills and raising their aspirations and confidence. Pregnant Meghan, who is expecting her first child with Harry this spring, is continuing to keep a busy schedule packed with royal engagements as she nears her due date. The mother-to-be stepped out in London last week and the couple will also make an appearance on Wednesday to watch Cirque du Soleil's TOTEM at the Royal Albert Hall, as part of a fundraising campaign for Harry's charity Sentebale. It comes as the couple continue to make renovations on their new home, Frogmore Cottage in Windsor, ahead of the birth of their first child. A newlywed husband has been charged, along with two gang suspects, over the death of his wife who was shot dead outside a Popeyes fast food restaurant. Alisha Stephens, 35, died in the shooting and her new husband Michael LaVigne was critically injured alongside another victim, as they left the fast food restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia, at 9pm on October 22 last year. The mother-of-three, who married LaVigne two weeks before her death, was shot 10 times and her husband was blasted seven times - with four wounds to the head. At the time their families did not know why they could have been attacked and said they were 'in the wrong place at the wrong time'. Police are now saying that the couple went to the parking lot to by crystal meth from two men, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Alisha Stephens with her husband Michael LaVigne, who were repeatedly shot in the parking lot of a Popeyes fast food chicken restaurant Police arrested 19-year-old Carlos Rodriguez and he was charged with felony murder along with a third suspect, 29-year-old Juan Carlos Ortiz The day after the killing 19-year-old Carlos Rodriguez was arrested and charged with murder. But it has now emerged that LaVigne has been charged with murder, according to his indictment, and is one of three men charged as part of a drug trafficking scheme. According to police, LaVigne and Stephens were in the parking lot looking to buy drugs from two men who are alleged to be gang members when an argument broke out which led to a shootout. Rodriguez allegedly robbed LaVigne at gunpoint, who then pulled out a firearm and let off a volley of shots, the indictment states. Stephens with her children from a previous relationship. She had only been married to LaVigne for two weeks before she was gunned down The couple had gone to the parking lot of a Popeyes in Atlanta, Georgia, (pictured above) to buy crystal meth, according the indictment Rodriguez and a third suspect, 29-year-old Juan Carlos Ortiz, are believed to be members of the Latin Kings gang, who allegedly orchestrated the drug sale from prison, the District Attorney's office said. LaVigne claimed he had no memory of what happened in the parking lot as he was shot four times in the head and was unable to attend his wife's funeral as he was undergoing a series of surgeries. Stephens and LaVigne had only been married for two weeks. She posted this image on Facebook on October 8 A DeKalb grand jury last week indicted LaVigne on numerous counts, including felony murder, and drug and firearm charges and he was arrested. Rodriguez and Ortiz are included in the 14-count indictment on charges of malice murder, felony murder, violation of street gang and terrorism prevention laws, armed robbery, aggravated assault and drugs. Stephens, who has three children from a previous relationship, got married on October 8, two weeks before the shooting. 'She's got three beautiful children that she leaves behind, and my heart just hurts for them. 'The 14-year-old is really taking it hard, but she's a spitting image of my sister,' Stephan's sister Teresa Dean said at the time of the attack. She described her killing as a 'needless, senseless act of violence'. 'I don't have the money to pay for a proper funeral for her. She is so very young. 'We are all in shock and ask for your prayers of support,' she added. Workers from a Chinese company have been forced to crawl on the street after failing to reach their annual targets, sparking an outcry among web users. The staff were on all fours as they made their way through the busy traffic of Tengzhou yesterday afternoon, according to local reports. Pedestrians of the city in eastern China were shocked by the scene as they stopped to watch the employees moving forward on their hands and knees, videos show. All of the crawling workers were female and they work for a company which sells beauty products, reported btime.com. The group were led by a male supervisor, who was walking while holding a large flag that bore the name of the firm. Two other workers were seen walking alongside the group while filming the extreme punishment. Police soon arrived at the scene after being informed of the group's behaviour, according to btime.com. Officers demanded the leader of the team stop the punishment before issuing him a verbal warning. A group of female employees at a beauty company in eastern China were forced to crawl on all fours through a busy street yesterday as a punishment for their poor performance at work Footage of the humiliating task has sparked outrage among Chinese web users with many criticising the firm for its abuse on the workers. One typical comment reads: 'Employees are humans as well. To give them such a disrespectful punishment means the boss is not a sensible person.' The comment continues: 'It's the same for those employees too. How come they are still working in such a company?' Some internet users suspect that the company wanted to use the penalty to advertise itself in the city, hence the large flag; others are convinced that the business is a pyramid scheme. It is reported that the company was ordered to halt business and carry out self-reflection by the local authorities. According to China's employment contract law, employers are not allowed to humiliate and give corporal punishment to workers. Furthermore, the employer shall be liable for compensation if any harm is done to the worker. Nevertheless, many Chinese companies have been known for carrying out public humiliation rituals as punishment, from crawling on the streets to worm-eating. Last month, workers at a Chinese hair salon were forced to slap themselves in the face 100 times, eat raw chillies and run 10km because their work performance hadn't reached their boss's expectation. In November, employees at a home improvement firm in Zunyi, Guizhou province, were whipped with belts, forced to drink urine and eat insects after failing to reach their targets. The Duchess of Cornwall has lost a long-running planning battle to thwart her next door neighbour from building a 'granny flat' for his elderly mother where an outhouse on his Wiltshire property once stood. It comes after her neighbour, Phil Clayton, last year won a separate protracted planning battle to be allowed to make significant renovations to his house - including the addition of a sun room. Camilla, 71, kept her former home Rey Mill House, built in 1860, after she married Prince Charles in 2005. The Duchess objected to plans by her neighbour Phil Clayton when he applied to demolish an outbuilding next to his house and build a flat for his elderly mother. On three separate occasions the Duchess submitted letters of objection to the council - on HRH-headed notepaper from the head of Prince Charles' nearby Highgrove estate. But despite her clear and longstanding objection to the planned changes Wiltshire Council has now approved the plans for the flat, which will be 60m from the Duchess' property in Reybridge, near Lacock in Wiltshire. An aerial view of Ray Mill House, the Duchess of Cornwall's country estate in Wiltshire Grade-II listed Ray Mill House in Wiltshire was built in 1860. Its owner, the Duchess of Cornwall, has had her objections to a neighbour's planning proposal disregarded The apostrophe-shaped swimming pool on the grounds of Ray Mill House Planning Ping Pong The back-and-forths of the planning disputes between the Duchess, Mr Clayton and their other neighbours can be hard to follow. Mr Clayton bought The Old Mill for 675,000 in 2017. Since then he has sought permission for two main projects: one to renovate and extend his main home; the other to demolish an outbuilding and build a granny flat in its place. The Home Renovations 2017: He submitted an application to increase the size of the bedrooms, lounge, and dining room and build an extension with a sun room. This received objections from the Duchess and other locals. March 2018: The application was withdrawn. April 2018: An amended application was submitted. These plans did not draw objections. July 2018: The application for home renovations were approved. The council told Mr Clayton that care should be taken with 'the use and routing of heavy plant and vehicles, and the control and removal of spoil and wastes.' The Granny Flat March 2018: In the same month his renovation application was rejected, Mr Clayton submitted a separate application to Wiltshire Council requesting permission to demolish an outhouse and build a granny flat. This application received objections from the Duchess and others. July 2018: The application was rejected. August 2018: An amended application was submitted. This also drew objections from the Duchess. Autumn 2018: Mr Clayton amended the application again, turning the proposed building through an angle of 90 degrees but making it 25 per cent bigger. Camilla objected again. December 2018: Wiltshire council approved the application. Advertisement It comes after the pair clashed last year over different renovations at his home, The Old Mill, which shares a private lane with the Duchess' Grade-II listed country pile. Outlining the granny flat decision, council officer Alistair Cunningham, said 'This distance [60m] combined with the simple design of the outbuilding, means it is not considered that there would be any harm to the setting of Rey Mill House from the proposals.' Camilla bought her property in 1986 for 850,000 following her divorce from Richard Parker Bowles and is said to use it as a country retreat. It has been reported she uses it as a bolt-hole from the pressure at nearby Highgrove and can enjoy putting her feet up there. One source said: 'At Rey Mill she can sit down with a big G&T, kick of her shoes and watch Coronation Street, which Charles loathes. 'She also doesn't have to bother about how the place looks Charles is so fussy about tidiness, while she leaves her stuff all over the place. She doesn't need her cushions plumped all the time.' Mr Clayton bought his nearby 675,000 home in 2017 and initially focused on renovations to the main house. The businessman submitted plans which included increasing the size of the bedrooms, lounge and dining room, and building a separate extension with a sun room. The Duchess and other locals objected over flooding concerns and the plans were withdrawn in March last year. Revised proposals were submitted a month later to which Camilla did not object. That application was approved in July. Mr Clayton was granted permission to renovate the interior and exterior of his house, build an extension with a glass passageway, replace the garage with a two-storey gymnasium and hobby room, and construct a new sewage treatment plant. The letters of objection came from Charlie Craven, the head of Prince Charles' nearby Highgrove estate - and some pieces of correspondence in the year-long planning dispute even arrived on headed notepaper The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, pictured for Country Life at Birkhall in Scotland The Duchess of Cornwall and Prince of Wales on a country walk, left, and the Duchess, right This outbuilding, since demolished, on the grounds of The Old Mill will be replaced by a 'granny flat' after Wiltshire Council gave owner Phil Clayton the go-ahead for the construction project The rear of The Old Mill, which is due greatly to expand as a result of a separate planning application approved last year Mr Clayton's Wiltshire home, The Old Mill, pictured, shares a lane with the Duchess's After numerous objections and resubmissions Mr Clayton has now been granted permission to undertake works on both his main property, pictured, and the outhouses The garage at The Old Mill which - courtesy of a different planning application approved last year - is due to be turned into a gym and a hobby room But at the same time, Mr Clayton also submitted plans to demolish an outbuilding and build a granny flat for his mother. The plans entail replacing the structure with a new, timber-clad, slate-roofed building for 'ancillary accommodation'. Once again, Prince Charles' Highgrove estate manager Charlie Craven - based 18 miles away and in a different county - objected on behalf of Camilla. In a letter to the council's planning team, he said: 'I believe it will have a negative effect on the flow of water from the river during periods of flooding. The river has flooded numerous times. Mr Clayton's planning application shows the proposed replacement of the old outbuilding with a timber-clad flat The plans show how close the two properties are and make clear where the flat will sit in relation to Rey [corr] Mill House Not the Duchess's first spat with a neighbour Mr Clayton bought The Old Mill from long-term owner Ralph Adams, who died in 2017. He was also involved in a spat with the Duchess - over an overgrown hedge of hers, in 2006. The bush was so out of control that bin men refused to reverse down the narrow private lane to collect the rubbish, and residents were told to drag their bins to the main road, which infuriated some. Mr Adams, a retired sand merchant, complained: 'Walking 400 yards is hard for me but she can get a flunky to do it. 'It might not be a problem for her, but I'm 83, with arthritis and collapsing discs. She needs to cut the hedge. It sticks out about three feet further than it should.' In the same year, it was revealed that the taxpayer was footing a 1.8 million security bill at the house. Advertisement 'Anything that hinders or alters the natural flow of the river to the detriment of other properties is clearly unacceptable.' The council rejected the plans in July - claiming they did not address the potential impact of flooding - and he resubmitted them a month later. These plans received further objections from the Duchess and fellow nearby residents. Once again a letter from Highgrove, written by Mr Craven, listed flooding concerns, and others also wrote to the council to object. Mr Clayton submitted amended plans - which increase the proposed size of the flat by 25 per cent but turn it by an angle of 90 degrees - which he said would reduce the risk of flooding. The head of Charles's Highgrove estate objected once more and said in a letter he was 'encouraged' by some changes, but 'perplexed' over the size increase. Fellow neighbour James Campbell also wrote: 'Our main concern is with flooding and we have experienced several major incidents since we came to live in Reybridge in 1993. 'The present owner of "The Old Mill" has not experienced a serious flood of the Avon at Reybridge and so is presumably unaware of how quickly and dangerously the water rises and flows at such a time. 'Anything which could theoretically exacerbate the extent of flooding is of serious concern to us and indeed to our immediate neighbours.' Despite the objections, Wiltshire Council planners approved his plans on December 12. A teenage boy has admitted attacking the former British ambassador to the US Sir Christopher Meyer at Victoria tube station. The 74-year-old former diplomat was hospitalised with serious facial injuries when he was attacked in July last year. The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, will be sentenced at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court on January 31. Former British Ambassador to the United States, Sir Christopher Meyer, pictured here in July 2018, was attacked at Victoria Tube station by a 17-year-old boy Pc Maya Alayli said the teenager pleaded guilty to the attack and saved Sir Christopher, with his wife Baroness Catherine Meyer, the trauma of having to give evidence in court. The teenager will be sentenced at Uxbridge Magistrates' court on January 31 Following the attack, Sir Christopher thanked people on Tiwtter for the support they had shown him after his ordeal His wife, Baroness Meyer tweeted a photograph while Sir Christopher was in hospital showing the extent of his injuries. According to the Evening Standard, Pc Maya Alayli, who was investigating the case, said: 'The violence the defendant unleashed on his victim was appalling, and left him unconscious for a number of minutes. 'I am pleased that the man pleaded guilty to the charge, saving the victim a lot of unnecessary stress from having to attend court.' Baroness Meyer said shortly after the attack: 'I'm absolutely shocked by the level of the brutality. They really beat him. It's appalling - like something you would see in a war zone.' She added: 'We have no idea about what could have caused it. 'Possibly because he was standing there in a nice suit, or maybe he brushed them accidentally on the platform. It could have been an attempted robbery. Sir Christopher Meyer, pictured with his wife Baroness Meyer, right, was attacked after he left the couple's home in Vauxhall 'I see a link between this and rising crime rate in London and in this country. I am outraged that this has happened. 'We cannot accept this behaviour from a tiny minority of people. We have to say enough is enough.' The former ambassador left his home in Vauxhall and travelled by train to Victoria where he was attacked. Sir Christopher was the longest serving British ambassador to the US since the Second World War and his time in Washington coincided with 9/11 and the preparation for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1966 and spent his early years as a diplomat in Russia and Spain. He was also ambassador to Germany. Before taking up his post in Washington he served as a government spokesman and chief press secretary to Prime Minister John Major from 1994 to 1996. Boston is marking the 100 year anniversary of the Great Molasses Flood, one of the city's deadliest and most bizarre disasters that killed 21 people in a tidal wave of treacle. A tank containing 2.3 million gallons of molasses, which came up on ships from the Caribbean, exploded sending the sticky stuff through the busy North End neighborhood. The initial wave rose at least 25 feet high and traveled at speeds of 35mph after the tank blew up in the city's oldest neighborhood. It struck without warning and flattened entire buildings and injured more than 150 people within seconds. Most of the dead were municipal workers killed while eating lunch at a city building. Two tenement occupants, a firefighter, a chauffeur and a blacksmith also were killed, along with horses and other animals. Also among the dead was a young girl, one of many neighborhood children drawn to the leaky tank with buckets to collect the sweet molasses oozing from the bottom. The rescue effort lasted four days and damage amounted to $100 million in today's money. The ruins of tanks, pictured on the day of the disaster, containing more than two million gallons of molasses lie in a heap after erupting in Boston's North End neighborhood Welders carefully began cutting up the molasses tank with torches in the search for bodies on Jan. 20, 1919, five days after the Great Molasses Flood Rubble is all that's left of a fire station the day after the tank in the North End collapsed, sending a wave of an estimated 2.3 million gallons of molasses through the streets of Boston Police, firemen and other rescue workers rushed to the scene on Jan. 15, 1919 Smashed vehicles and debris sit in a puddle of molasses on Commercial Street the day after the explosion which injured 150 people WHY DID THE TANK EXPLODE? Two days before the disaster, the tank had been topped off with a fresh shipment of molasses from the balmy Caribbean that hadn't yet cooled to Boston's wintry temperatures, Harvard University research found. Once the gush of molasses hit the chilly air, it quickly thickened, complicating rescuers' frantic efforts to free victims. Purity Distilling's parent company, U.S. Industrial Alcohol, argued that anarchists active at the time must have planted a bomb that shredded the tank. But investigators concluded the tank's construction was faulty. A judge found the company guilty of negligence and ordered it to pay $300,000 - the equivalent of about $4.5 million today - in damages to victims and their families. Flawed steel similar to what was used to build the Titanic went into the tank, said Ronald Mayville, a structural integrity engineer who has spent much of his career studying exactly what went wrong. Advertisement Now the city is marking 100 years since the deadly tsunami which struck without warning at midday on January 15. There is a plaque where the tank used to stand. The Associated Press reported at the time that rescuers were 'greatly hampered by the oozing flood of molasses which covered the street and the surrounding district to a depth of several inches and slowly drained down into the harbor'. The added: 'If a worker stood still for a minute he found himself glued to the ground.' But despite the catastrophic nature of the explosion it remains relatively unknown and historian Stephen Puleo, who has written a book about it, admits most people question it even happening when they first hear about it. He said: 'When you first hear of it, the molasses gives the entire event this unusual whimsical quality. The substance itself kind of begs some incredulity. 'People's first reaction is, 'Are you serious? Did that really happen?' If it were fire or flood or famine or pestilence, this story would be much better known.' But he adds: 'The molasses flood did for building construction standards what the Cocoanut Grove fire did for fire safety.' Puleo told NPR: 'There were often comments made by people around the vicinity that this tank would shudder and groan every time it was full. And it leaked from day one.' The molasses tank, pictured left, before it exploded, date unknown, before it formed a tidal wave that reached a depth of 15 feet and in places was 100 yards wide, right Elevated train tracks buckled on Atlantic Ave. pictured in the days after the explosion How The Boston Post reported the disaster which struck without warning and flattened entire buildings and injured more than 150 people within seconds A placard commemorating the Great Molasses Flood rests on a wall at the site of the 1919 disaster in Boston's North End neighborhood Commercial Street, pictured in 2019, near where a giant storage tank of molasses burst on Jan. 15, 1919, in Boston's North End neighborhood The city will mark the centennial of the disaster, when the tank erupted, killing 21 people and injuring 150 others near Commercial Street, pictured in 2019 Now archaeologists with the University of Massachusetts-Boston say they have found what appears to be the base of the tank just below ground. The contents of the tank, owned by the Purity Distilling Co, was used mostly to make alcohol for wartime munitions during World War One. It had also been used to produce rum before Prohibition kicked in and was used to store molasse until it could be transported to a nearby distillery. Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church survived because they were uphill. Advertisement Everyone loves a sunburnt country, our land of sweeping plains - and we have the hashtags to prove it. Publication Big 7 Travel has declared Australia as the Worlds Most Instagrammable Countries 2019. 'Officially the most Instagrammable place in the world for 2019, Australia scored top marks for its popular hashtag and geolocations on social media,' the travel publication said. Australia has been ranked the most Instagrammable country in the world (pictured: Sydney's Opera House and Harbour Bridge) Publication Big 7 Travel handed over the crown to the down-under country for its Worlds Most Instagrammable Countries 2019 (pictured: Elizabeth Quay in Perth) Big 7 made its decision based on the number of hashtags used on Instagram, survey results of its readers and panel votes (pictured: Fremantle Arts Centre in Perth) Big 7 made its decision based on the number of hashtags used on Instagram, survey results of its readers and panel votes. With its beautiful beaches, expansive bushland and gorgeous wildlife, Australia pipped other popular destinations like America, United Kingdom and Singapore. The sunburnt country scored an incredible 89.98 per cent, with second-placed Hong Kong taking home 86.99 per cent and third-placed Canada dragging its feet behind on 82.84 per cent. The country's neighbour New Zealand was surprisingly placed 45th on the list, despite its picturesque landscape. Hot Instagrammable places in Sydney included soft-serve ice cream parlour Aqua S, natural feature Wedding Cake Rock and Icebergs Bondi Beach. Melbourne's Tinker Cafe, St Kilda Pier and Hosier Lane were in the Victorian capital's top three Instagrammable destinations. With its beautiful beaches, expansive bushland and gorgeous wildlife, Australia pipped other popular destinations like America, United Kingdom and Singapore (pictured: Blue Mountains in NSW) The sunburnt country scored an incredible 89.98 per cent, with second-placed Hong Kong taking home 86.99 per cent and third-placed Canada dragging its feet behind on 82.84 per cent (pictured: Figure 8 Pool in NSW) Whitehaven Beach, Cape Tribulation and Lake Wabby were in the top echelon in Queensland (pictured: Whitsundays in Queensland) The country's neighbour New Zealand was surprisingly placed 45th on the list, despite its picturesque landscape (pictured: Barossa Valley in South Australia) Hot Instagrammable places in Sydney included soft-serve ice cream parlour Aqua S, natural feature Wedding Cake Rock and Icebergs Bondi Beach (pictured: Bondi Public Baths, Sydney) Cottlesloe Beach, Fremantle Arts Centre and Crawley Edge Boatshed proved to be Perth's top three, and Whitehaven Beach, Cape Tribulation and Lake Wabby were in the top echelon in Queensland. 'While Sydney and Melbourne tend to get the most attention from tourists coming to Australia, youd be missing out by not making the trip out west to Perth,' the travel publication said. South Australia capital Adelaide had Rainbow Walk, Henley Square and State Library of South Australia in its top three. Top Instagram-worthy countries aside, Big 7 Travel also found one third of travellers decided on their holiday destination purely on Instagram snaps. The travel publication discovered 67 per cent visited a new destination after they saw it on the social media site. Top Instagram-worthy countries aside, Big 7 Travel also found one third of travellers decided on their holiday destination purely on Instagram snaps (pictured: Basin Rottnest in Western Australia) The travel publication discovered 67 per cent visited a new destination after they saw it on the social media site (pictured: Cottlesloe Beach, Perth) Nicholas Hankin (pictured arriving at yesterday's hearing) is facing 10 allegations of unacceptable professional conduct A headmaster was sacked after being accused of using school money to get Mac laptops as Christmas presents for his family. Nicholas Hankin allegedly leased two Apple Mac laptops as gifts and charged them to the school. One laptop had the name of his partner saved as a login, a disciplinary hearing was told. The 55-year-old 'vehemently denies' buying the laptops as Christmas gifts for his partner and son. He said that he used his wife's name on one of the computers so he was able to tell the difference between the machines. Mr Hankin also failed to bank money given to the school and when he did deposit the cash it was not done so in 'a timely manner', it is alleged. The sums referred to in the allegation include 410.60 for a school trip, 390 of pupil deposits to go to London and 464.63 of book fair money. It was not made clear in court which funds are thought to have not been deposited nor was it specified which payments were banked in an untimely manner. Mr Hankin was suspended from the school, called Ysgol Gwenfro (pictured), in Wrexham, in December 2015. Mr Hankin (pictured) says that his wife's name was a log-in on one of the laptops in order for him to tell the machine apart from the other Mac Presenting officer Cadi Dewi said: 'Apple laptops appeared to be used by Mr Hankin and a third party at his home. The price of the items was not logged or accounted for in the school's budget. 'Mr Hankin did not record that he had taken the items home and there was no way of tracking their location.' Mr Hankin was suspended from the school, called Ysgol Gwenfro, in Wrexham, North Wales, in December 2015. He was later dismissed during police proceedings. Ms Dewi said: 'It is the council's case that Mr Hankin took various sums of money for his own gain and that his conduct was dishonest.' Mr Hankin was also accused of leasing a MacBook Pro, a Sony camera and a green screen all worth 9,000 while at his previous school - Ysgol Tanyfron, near Wrexham. The headmaster was also accused of leasing items when he was at Ysgol Tanyfron (pictured) near Wrexham Gareth Waite, representing Mr Hankin, said: 'He strenuously denies all the allegations made against him by the council. He denies the laptops were bought as gifts for his partner or his son.' The hearing was told Mr Hankin believed he was entitled to lease the laptops because it was common practice in other schools. Mr Hankin, previously of Rhos-on-Sea, was charged with fraud and faced trial at Mold Crown Court. But he was cleared by a jury and later claimed he had been the victim of a witch hunt. He never faced criminal charges relating to money missing from the school. Mr Hankin now denies ten allegations of unacceptable professional conduct. The Education Workforce Council hearing in Cardiff continues. A former worker at a healthcare center where a woman in vegetative state gave birth said there was a culture of 'don't ask - don't tell' with bonuses offered to staff if incidents were not reported. Marla Kica said staff at Hacienda HealthCare in Phoenix were given financial incentives to encourage them not to officially report problems and that there was a climate of fear among her colleagues. Phoenix police have said the 29-year-old Native American woman incapacitated since age three was sexually assaulted and gave birth last month. Investigators are collecting DNA from Hacienda's male employees and others who may have had contact with the woman in an effort to identify a suspect. When Kica began working at the care home for people with disabilities, she was a supervisor, before moving on to the internal review committee. Hacienda HealthCare in Phoenix where a 29-year-old woman gave birth despite being in a vegetative state for more than a decade Phoenix police officers are pictured here visiting residents of the home around the time of the holidays in 2014 Slips, falls and bed sores on patients were allegedly under-reported in official documents, Kica told ABC15. She said: 'If you went so many days without an incident then you would get a bonus. 'I don't know how much other people were offered. I received a lot of bonuses. A lot.' She also claimed CEO of Hacienda HealthCare, Bill Timmons, would get the final sign off on every final report and recommendation as he was her direct supervisor, that staff were afraid of him. Kica added: 'You knew that you filled out an incident report and four or five people saw it before he [Timmons] looked it over and put his signature on it. 'So the likelihood of the information being reported correct was very-very low.' The revelation that a woman in a vegetative state was raped inside a care facility has horrified advocates for people with disabilities and the community at large. Hacienda HealthCare CEO Bill Timmons stepped down last week in light of the scandal. A former colleague said his staff were scared of him State regulators reportedly wanted to remove developmentally disabled patients from Hacienda HealthCare in Phoenix, a long-term care facility years before a woman in a vegetative state gave birth Hacienda HealthCare's CEO William Timmons resigned on December 31 as the provider announced new safety measures, including more than one staff member being present during patient interactions and more scrutiny of visitors. The woman's family, who are members of the San Carlos Apache tribe, said in a statement through their attorney that they will care for the infant boy. Regulators wanted to remove developmentally disabled patients from the long-term care facility years before the woman gave birth, an Arizona newspaper reported on Sunday. The Arizona Republic reported Hacienda HealthCare faced a 2016 criminal investigation for allegedly billing the state more than $4 million for bogus 2014 charges for wages, transportation, housekeeping, maintenance and supplies. The criminal case was dropped in 2017 and no charges were filed, the Republic said, but a court battle is continuing in an effort to force Hacienda to turn over financial records. Members of the Phoenix police department would regularly visit the home during the holidays The woman was an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache tribe, whose reservation is in southeastern Arizona about 134 miles east of Phoenix. Members of the San Carlos Apache Tribe are seen in a 2014 Facebook photo Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, said his office is considering bringing in a third party to assume responsibility for the ongoing management of Hacienda. The nonprofit facility gets more than $20 million annually in taxpayer funds for taking care of extremely ill people, many of whom are incapacitated and on ventilators, the Republic reported. Hacienda's annual average cost of care was $386,000 per client in 2012 compared with $134,000 per client in similar U.S. facilities, Arizona Department of Economic Security auditors said. San Carlos Apache Tribal Chairman Terry Rambler Former economic security director, Timothy Jeffries, and the agency's chief law enforcement officer, Charles Loftus have both filed lawsuits against the state, claiming they were forced out of their jobs over their probe of Hacienda. Jeffries was forced to resign in 2016 after a series of controversies, including a finding by the Arizona Department of Public Safety that the department kept shoddy record-keeping, had insecure storage of guns and ammunition and that it had violated state procurement policies in buying some 60,000 rounds of ammunition. He filed suit against the state in 2017 over what he claims is libel in a police report that detailed a stash of weapons and ammunition kept in the agency offices. He claims statements in the DPS audit were false and that there were malicious motives involved in the report. The Republic quoted Jeffries as saying Timmons was obstinate during the investigation of Hacienda and bragged of tight ties to Ducey. Ducey spokeswoman Elizabeth Berry said the governor was horrified by accounts of the rape and denied that the state failed to act on concerns raised by the economic security department. She also said Hacienda played no part in the forced resignations of Jeffries and Loftus after their two-year tenure. This is the terrifying moment violence erupts inside a McDonald's restaurant as a group of thugs exchange blows and brandish large knives at each other. Footage, captured inside a London branch of the fast-food chain, shows a gang of youths hit each other with chairs in front of horrified customers. The violent youths are also seen brandishing large blades at each other before trying to flee the scene. The footage comes two days after two men were left with knife wounds inside a McDonald's chain in Edmonton, North London, however it is not clear if the video relates to the same incident. After one of the youth's punches a rival, another yob member throws a chair at members of the gang During the clip, one hooded youth punches another rival to the ground before more members of the gang join in with the fight. A chair in then thrown by another yob member as the fight ensues, leaving terrified customers running to the side and out of harms way. One woman is seen desperately trying to run to safety. Suddenly a large knife is drawn by one of the thugs wearing a balaclava and he begins to wave it at arms length in the faces of the other youths. One hooded youth brandishes a large knife at another person causing him to roll onto the counter As the knife is threateningly waved in faces of the other gang members, one youth is seen rolling over the counter in an effort to remain safe. As the violent chaos continues, restaurant staff and customers are seen looking on in horror and trying to escape the scene. The violent brawl comes two days after officers were called to a McDonald's restaurant in Edmonton, North London, after fight between a group of men led to two people aged 20 and 18-years-old, suffering with knife inflicted injuries. MailOnline have contacted the Metropolitan Police for comment. Silent Sam is seen on the UNC campus before protesters toppled the statue in August Crews removed remnants of a Confederate statue from North Carolina's flagship public university early Tuesday, hours after the school's outgoing chancellor ordered that the empty pedestal be put into storage because of safety concerns. The University of North Carolina sent a statement around 1am on Tuesday confirming that removal of the pedestal for the statue known as 'Silent Sam' was under way at its Chapel Hill campus. In a statement on Monday, Chancellor Carol Folt had announced the plan to remove the empty base for the statue that had honored UNC student who died in the Civil war from a main quad. She also said she was stepping down at the end of the school year. Crews with a large truck, a forklift and floodlights took away the last piece of the base by 2.40am, leading to cheers by a crowd that had gathered to watch. Police had a heavy presence in the area as the statue was removed, and one person was arrested after a scuffle with police, WRAL-TV reported. The statue itself has been in storage since it was toppled last August by protesters who say it was a racist symbol. Folt said the massive pedestal and bronze memorial plaques will also go into storage while their fate is decided. UNC sent a statement around 1am on Tuesday confirming that removal of the pedestal (above in a file photo) for the statue known as 'Silent Sam' was under way at its Chapel Hill campus She cited concern for safety in her decision, saying: 'The presence of the remaining parts of the monument on campus poses a continuing threat both to the personal safety and well-being of our community and to our ability to provide a stable, productive educational environment.' Folt's surprise order drew an angry response from Harry Smith, chairman of the Board of Governors that oversees the state's public universities. The board had given itself until mid-March to come up with a plan for the statue, and Smith said that timeline hasn't changed. 'We are incredibly disappointed at this intentional action,' he said in a statement before the removal work began. 'It lacks transparency and it undermines and insults the Board's goal to operate with class and dignity.' As the public face of the university, Folt had been criticized both by those who wanted the statue gone for good, and those who said state law required it to be restored to where it had stood in McCorkle Place since 1913. Police surround the toppled statue, which honored UNC student who died in the Civil War, in August. On Tuesday the pedestal of the statue was removed Police and protesters react to a smoke bomb during a rally to remove the confederate statue known as Silent Sam in August. Both the statue and pedestal are now in storage The announcement of her departure comes weeks after the rejection of a plan, which Folt helped craft, to build a new $5 million history center on campus to house Silent Sam. Folt's announcement also comes shortly after the departure of the president of the statewide university system, Margaret Spellings, who had also frequently drawn protesters' barbs. The plans sparked outrage among students and alumni who feel angry their student fees are going towards protecting the controversial statue. Alyssa Bowen tweeted: 'UNC pays us graduate students $13,000 a year, but they will spend $5.3 million on protecting #silentsam, a SHRINE TO WHITE SUPREMACY on our damn campus.' George Peterson added: 'Imagine if they spent that money to help those affected by institutionalized racism.' The Board of Governors rejected that plan in December and announced it would go 'back to the drawing board.' Folt acknowledged in December that the plan to build the history center 'didn't satisfy anyone.' Folt, who came to UNC in 2013 from Dartmouth College, said Monday she was proud of work she'd overseen on the Campaign for Carolina fundraising drive that raised more than $2 billion as of last summer, or about half of its ambitious goal. But Folt's tenure also saw UNC sued by a transgender employee over the state's so-called bathroom bill, as well as the Silent Sam debate growing more heated after a deadly white nationalist rally in Virginia in 2017. University of North Carolina police surround the toppled statue in August. The statue's pedestal has now also been removed from the campus 'Silent Sam' was toppled in August by protesters who decried its origins, including a racist speech by a former Confederate when it was dedicated. In early December, Folt and the Chapel Hill campus trustees proposed a site for the new history center about a mile from where the statue previously stood, saying they had to balance safety concerns with a strict 2015 state historical law on Confederate monuments. At the time, Folt and several trustees said they would prefer moving the statue off campus entirely, but were restricted by the monuments law that allows relocation only in narrow circumstances. The Sons of Confederate Veterans issued a statement early Tuesday saying that Folt 'has effectively erased the contribution and sacrifice of these brave veterans and the tribute paid to them by subsequent generations.' Late Monday, before the removal began, the group's North Carolina spokesman Frank Powell said the group could use the 2015 law to sue if the removal went forward. A female primary school teacher in north-west China has been accused of beating a student's private parts for stealing her lipstick, Chinese media reported. The eight-year-old victim, surnamed Zhao, was found bleeding profusely by her grandmother on December 14 after the girl came home from school. The first grader at Yangzhuang Primary School in Ningxian, Gansu province said the teacher hit her after she refused to admit she had stolen her lipstick, the girl's relatives said. However, the local education bureau on Tuesday released an official statement contradicting the relatives' claims, saying it was Zhao's two male classmates, aged six and seven, who had assaulted the girl during a fight. The eight-year-old victim, surnamed Zhao, was found bleeding profusely by her grandmother on December 14 after the girl came home from school in north-west China's Gansu province Photos show bloody tissue paper scattered on the ground as her family members tried to stop the bleeding. The eight-year-old girl was treated for vaginal wall injuries in hospital The latest case of child abuse to rock the nation first came to light when the girl's uncle posted details of the incident on Chinese microblogging site Weibo on Sunday. According to a photo of a medical report dated December 15, Zhao was treated for vaginal wall injuries at Xi'an Children's Hospital in Shaanxi province. Other photos show bloody tissue paper scattered on the ground as her family members tried to stop the bleeding. On the day of the incident, the teacher called Zhao's grandmother to school and demanded her pay for the stolen lipstick worth several hundred yuan, according to Beijing Youth Daily. However, the grandmother refused and left, saying the teacher had no evidence to prove that her granddaughter had taken the lipstick. The report said the teacher eventually found the lost lipstick in her office drawer. After Zhao came home from school at about 4pm, her grandmother found her blood-soaked trousers and immediately took her to hospital. The latest case of child abuse to rock the nation first came to light when the girl's uncle posted details of the incident on Chinese microblogging site Weibo on Sunday In the statement released by the Ningxian education bureau, Zhao's injuries were caused by two boys, surnamed Ma and Zhao, who were upset with the girl. The statement said she had stolen an eraser from Ma and borrowed 1 yuan (0.12) from Zhao without returning the money. After pushing the girl to the ground, the two boys used a broom to poke her privates while beating her, according to the statement. The school's principal, Yang Derong, and vice-principal, Li Jihong, were both fired following investigations into the incident, the authority said, adding that the two boys will not be charged as children under the age of 14 cannot be held criminally responsible according to Chinese law. The statement did not mention the female teacher or the stolen lipstick. The school had paid for the girl's medical expense amounting to 13,464 yuan (1,549). The education authority admitted that the case 'revealed weak links in school management and moral education for juveniles'. It ordered all primary and middle schools to look into management issues and remove risks. After Zhao came home from school at about 4pm on December 14, her horrified grandmother found her blood-soaked trousers and immediately took her to hospital The shocking case has rocked China as violence against children has been gaining wider public attention in recent years. A Weibo page of the incident, titled 'Eight-year-old girl from Gansu beaten in private parts', gathered more than 130 million views, with many upset net users calling for a more thorough investigation into the accused teacher. 'What use is there to fire the principal and vice-principal? The authorities should arrest and punish the teacher instead,' one net user said. 'The poor child, she does not deserve this! I doubt two young boys would be able to cause such serious injuries,' another said. 'It's clear that the investigation is not transparent enough as there are so many contradicting accounts,' another comment read. State broadcaster CCTV posted a commentary on Tuesday criticising the investigation as the education authority's statement of the incident was 'nowhere similar to the relatives' account'. 'Since children under the age of 14 wouldn't be criminally prosecuted, this raises concerns that they were being used as "tools" to abuse other children,' the commentary read. It called for authorities at the provincial level to thoroughly investigate the incident and publicise the results. Advertisement Incredible photographs depicting the mining women who scandalised Victorian Britain by 'doing a man's job' have been unearthed. The remarkable portraits, taken in the 1860s, show the female workers who toiled for long hours at Welsh mines using heavy equipment to break ironstones. All of the photographs were taken by W. Clayton of Tredegar, a small Welsh mining town which boomed during the industrial revolution. The women worked 12-hour days from 6am to 6pm, only stopping for breakfast and dinner, earning about six shillings per day. A reporter from the Bristol Mercury who visited Tredegar in April 1865 described what the women are wearing in the images. Shown are some anonymous pit brow lasses in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, shown with some of the instruments they used to carry out work on the surface at mines across Britain. The last pit brow lasses were finally made redundant from the Harrington No 10 mine in Lowca, Cumberland, in 1972 The pictures were taken circa 1865 by W. Clayton of Tredegar, South Wales. Tredegar was an early centre of the Industrial Revolution in Wales where it had both a coal mine and an iron works. Not much is known about the photographer or why he took so many photographs of female labourer, but his shop was on Iron Street on Tredegar from the 1860s to the 1890s 'The females can be seen wearing a short frock and apron, tight to the neck. Underneath they wore red worsted stockings and lace-up boots heavy with hobnails. Their tips and toecaps would pull the legs off some of the ploughmen of the Midland Counties. 'The bonnet or hat, for it is difficult to discern to which of the classes this head-dress belongs, is bedecked with beads, brooches and feathers. 'In this dress, with faces black with dust and smoke it is difficult to discern the sex to which these objects belong.' The pictures were taken circa 1865 by W. Clayton of Tredegar, South Wales. Tredegar was an early centre of the Industrial Revolution in Wales where it had both a coal mine and an iron works. Not much is known about the photographer or why he took so many photographs of female labourer, but his shop was on Iron Street on Tredegar from the 1860s to the 1890s. In 1842, there had been outrage when it had been discovered that women around the country had been working underground in coal pits half-naked. This of course, being due to the extreme temperature in the pit. The remarkable portraits, taken in the 1860s, show the female workers who toiled for long hours at Welsh mines using heavy equipment to break ironstones. All of the photographs were taken by W. Clayton of Tredegar, a small Welsh mining town which boomed during the industrial revolution. The women worked from 6am to 6pm, earning about six shillings per day After women were banned from going underground, they took to carrying out work on the surface. Here they would load carts, sort coal from stone and haul materials from the pit face, while some would use large axes (right) to break up iron stone at the surface of the mine How tragedy saw women and children banned from the mines Women and children under the age of 10 were banned from working underground following the passing of the Mines and Collieries Act 1842. Before this time, women and young children were able to work deep underground alongside adult men, however this changed after after an accident at Huskar Colliery in Silkstone, near Barnsley in 1838. A stream overflowed into the ventilation drift after violent thunderstorms, causing the death of 26 children. The disaster came to the attention of Queen Victoria, who ordered an inquiry which saw women and children under 10 banned from mining underground. This led to the creation of pit brow women or pit brow lasses, who were women who worked on the surface at British collieries. They worked on the pit bank (or brow) at the shaft top, where they were tasked with picking stones from the coal after it was hauled to the surface. Advertisement They were eventually banned from underground work, but continued to work on the surface. This led to a further inquisition in 1865, when the miners of Northumberland and Durham petitioned Parliament on a variety of matters including surface labour by women. They asserted 'that the practice of employing females on or about the pit banks of mines and collieries is degrading to the sex, leads to gross immorality, and stands as a foul blot on the civilisation and humanity of the kingdom.' The House of Commons set up a Select Committee to look into the matters raised and questions were asked about the morality of women employed on the pit banks. The Committee had difficulty to stand up the charges of 'degradation' and 'immorality,' and great interest was shown in the 'peculiarity' of some females wearing trousers. Peter Dickinson, a male miner from Wigan, was questioned specifically on his colleagues' dress. He said: 'The entire person of the woman is covered and there nothing indecent in the dress.' He then boldly undermined the Committee by adding: 'Though you spoke of the dress as being one of the leading features of the degrading character of the employment?' In 1867 the Select Committee on Mines presented its final report. Concerning the employment of women at the pit's mouth, they concluded 'that the allegations of either indecency or immorality were not established by the evidence.' The wife of a businessman has fled the UK to take their children to her home country of Ukraine. The businessman is now trying to ensure that he and his spouse are named in reports of a High Court battle that began last year. She opposes lifting reporting restrictions on the grounds that publicity could harm the children. The wealthy businesswoman was fighting to be able to take her children to Kiev following the marriage breakdown. At the time the businessman told Mr Justice Mostyn it was 'unsafe' for him to travel to Ukraine. He thought his ex-wife's father 'wanted to hurt him' and could 'easily' do so. The businessman is campaigning to have his wife's name revealed after she allegedly breached an order made at the Royal Courts of Justice (pictured) last year by taking the youngsters to Ukraine Mr Justice Mostyn ruled at the Family Division hearing that the youngsters aged five and two should stay in London and see their father frequently. He also said that any media reports must not identify the daughters - but their father now wants that overturned. Mr Justice Mostyn heard yesterday that the woman took her children in breach of the order made in April 2018. Barristers Adam Wolanski, who is leading the businessman's legal team, and Gervase de Wilde, who is representing editors, outlined detailed arguments to Mr Justice Mostyn at a hearing in the Family Division of the High Court in London on Monday. Mr Justice Mostyn is due to hear detailed argument from barrister Lord Pannick QC, who leads the woman's legal team, when the hearing resumes on Tuesday. Mr de Wilde said the case raised issues of public interest which should be given a 'substantial public airing'. He said the 'human aspect' of the story of a father whose children had been 'abducted' to a foreign country ought to be 'properly ventilated'. Mr de Wilde said there was also a public interest in describing the involvement of the woman's father, a Ukrainian businessman. He said the woman had instructed an 'army of expensive lawyers' to fight the case on her behalf. But Lord Pannick says public interest arguments are 'marginal', adding that the welfare of the children has to be the judge's focus and there is a 'real risk' that publicity will harm them. The judge said the pair met in Vienna in 2010, married in Ukraine in 2012 and lived in Hampstead, north London. Their marriage ended in 2015. The businessman stayed at the home they had share while the woman moved to a 9million property nearby. Both have since developed new relationships. Last year's battle began when the woman wanted to take her children to live with her new fiance. The businessman's bid to lift reporting restrictions, which bar journalists from revealing the identity of the people involved, is being backed by The Times, the BBC and Associated Newspapers, which publishes the Daily Mail. Experts have issued an urgent health warning as the nationwide heatwave reaches record-breaking high temperatures. A health alert has been issued across New South Wales and Sydney, as concerns continue to mount for the potentially deadly consequences of the sweltering conditions. With temperatures expected to soar for the remainder of the week, people are being urged to take extra precautions when it comes to preventing heat-related illnesses. (File picture) A health alert has been issued across New South Wales and Sydney as the heatwave continues this week Director of Environmental Health Dr Richard Broome cautioned that if individuals werent careful when basking in the hot weather, they could face a whole host of repercussions. Were expecting temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius for much of the state until Saturday, so once again Id encourage everyone to take the risk of heat-related illness seriously, Dr Broome told Yahoo 7 News. We know that conditions like these can cause severe illness, hospital admission and even deaths. People over 75, people with chronic medical conditions and people who live alone are particularly vulnerable, he added. Sydney dwellers are set for the warmest day on Friday with a top of 43C, but the heatwave is expected to see five days surpass 30C - a record not seen in the city since 2011. (File picture) Director of Environmental Health Dr Richard Broome warned that people needed to take heat-related illnesses seriously Port Augusta, a small city in South Australia, hit record-breaking highs of 52C earlier today How to prevent heat-related illnesses Try to limit your outdoor activity to when its coolest and cut down on exercise in the heat Always wear sunscreen as sunburn affects your bodys ability to cool down and can make you dehydrated Drink Plenty of Fluids throughout the day Stay in an air-conditioned place as much as possible Check your local weather authority for extreme heat alerts and safety tips Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advertisement This intensity is due to increased humidity, compared to the dry heat that swept most of the state last month. Meanwhile, Port Augusta, a small city in South Australia, hit record-breaking highs of 52C earlier today. A Code Red was issued in South Australia in the wake of the blistering heat. Perths hottest days will hit over the weekend with temperatures as high as 40C, while Darwin will peak at 33C throughout the week. Canberra will reach a top of 41C by Friday. While both Brisbane and Melbourne will hit a maximum of 33C later this week. The Bureau of Meteorology said hot days were expected in January, but multiple days in a row of temperatures above 40C are unusual. (File picture) Sydney dwellers are set for the warmest day on Friday with a top of 43C A baby elephant has died after suffering horrific injuries when a hunter tied her up and abandoned her in a forest in eastern Thailand. The one-month-old elephant was found by villagers in Rayong, tethered to a fence with a rope cutting deep into her ankle and exposing her bone. It is not known how long the baby elephant, christened Baitong, had been without her mother's milk when she was rescued, but she was so weak that she was barely able to stand. Scroll down for video Heartbreaking: The one-month-old elephant was found by villagers in Rayong, eastern Thailand, tethered to a fence with a rope cutting so deep into her ankle her bone was exposed Baby elephants are completely dependent on their mothers for food until they are around two years old, and it is not known what happened to Baitong's mother. Baitong was rescued on December 18, but despite round-the-clock care and an emergency amputation of her infected foot, she died on Friday. Prasarn Buangsook, a vet from the Bureau of Conservation Area Management, said: 'The wire cut Baitong's foot deep through her bone. She was badly wounded and skinny because she hadn't eaten anything for days.' 'Her whole foot skin was dead and her bone has an huge, incurable wound. 'Cutting her foot off was needed to prevent her from dying of infection,' Buangsook added. Veterinarians ruled the elephant's food needed to be amputated in order to save her life Despite initially making a recovery after the surgery, Baitong collapsed and died last week Buangsook said vets had noticed that she was slowly starting to recover, but she still need to be under 24-hour care. Last Thursday, Baitong was playing with some of her carers when her condition suddenly worsened and she collapsed later that evening. Several vets worked through the night to treat Baitong but she passed away on Friday morning. Nathanong Panpech, one of the vets, said: 'Baitong's blood oxygent levels were very low, causing a high level of acid in the blood. 'We gave her an infusion, medicines, and oxygen but she couldn't bear it any longer. 'We are all close to her and very sad to see her go. Hope the death of Baitong will remind all the hunters that animals are innocent and they do not deserve any of this at all.' Almost all of the world's airports are vulnerable to drone attack despite the chaos at Gatwick over Christmas, one of the world's leading experts has said. Robert Garbett, founder and Chief Executive of Drone Major Group (DMG), warned that December's chaos, as well as the exploding drone that killed six soldiers in Yemen last week, are a sign of what may be to come. 'There remains very low awareness among the business community of the extraordinary pace at which drone technology is evolving,' he said. Robert Garbett (pictured) founder and Chief Executive of Drone Major Group said nearly all the world's airports are vulnerable to drone attack despite the chaos at Gatwick over Christmas 'This makes staying ahead of the threat posed by those who would abuse this technology challenging, for even the most competent of airports.' Financial centres, energy facilities, stadiums and concert venues are all open to drone attack, he said, whether that takes the form of disruption or the release of explosives. Earlier this month, Heathrow's north runway was closed for an hour after reports of a drone sighting caused all departures to be halted. The incident came weeks after London's second busiest airport, Gatwick, saw 1,000 flights cancelled or diverted after drones were reported in its airspace on three consecutive days. As many as 140,000 passengers were affected. The cost to the airport and airlines was expected to run into the tens of millions. The business community has been too slow to adapt to the evolving threat, Mr Garbett said, and urgently requires 'tailored defence strategies' to protect against 'a new and real security challenge'. 'The commercial air drone market is currently still like the Wild West,' he said, 'representing unprecedented economic opportunities for companies and organisations which are fast adopting this exceptional technology. Despite 360-degree scanning radar which can detect micro, mini or standard drone targets (pictured) financial centres, energy facilities, stadiums and concert venues are all open to drone attack, Mr Garbett told MailOnline 'However, there will always be those who would flaunt laws and regulation to cause maximum disruption around the world. 'The British Armed Forces have been world leaders in the use of drone technology, for both offence and defence, for many years, long before the recent adoption by the business world. '[But] There are literally hundreds of counter drone products and manufacturers worldwide. The market is expanding on a daily basis, making it extremely difficult to keep track.' The scramble to put counter drone measures in place in the wake of high-profile drone disruption can lead to costly mistakes in the long term, he added. Often there is a rapid, often knee-jerk adoption of new technology in the face of media pressure. While sometimes providing a short-term fix, this can often be a long term error of judgement. 'In isolation of appropriate policies and procedures, [it] is rarely effective,' he said. Hasty adoption of counter drone measures can also lead to wasted money when it takes place without the construction of supporting infrastructure within organisations. Mr Garbett, an expert in drone safety warned the recent chaos at Heathrow when a suspected drone was spotted in the sky (pictured) downing planes is a sign of what may be to come Gatwick has spoent millions installing anti-drone hardware that tracks drones and jams the signals (pictured) but Heathrow's has not yet got up and running 'One of the challenges is the need to adopt drone technology within a disciplined strategy which supports the organisation, ensures security and also 'future proofs' what is put in place,' Mr Garbett said. Fighting threats from drones, he said, should be treated in an equally systematic way. 'The adoption of counter drone technology is no exception,' he said. 'We would urge those organisations reacting to recent events to take a breath and think strategically.' DMG's counter drone team, which is staffed largely by former soldiers, are continually analysing systems which can be used in the 'soft' and 'hard' combat of hostile drones. 'Soft' measures include intelligence-led threat identification and robust airspace management, supported by risk management policies and legal procedures. The radar (left) can detect normal sized drones from a distance of up to six miles away, and the inhibitor (right) stops radio frequencies controlling the drone, bringing it safely down. More companies are going to require this kind of technology to protect themselves, said Mr Garbett The 'hard' approach is divided into 'detect', 'track', 'identify' and 'defeat', which can be carried out either by remotely jamming a drone's motors or destroying it at the touch of a button using cutting-edge weaponry. This, Mr Garbett added, was subject to 'strict usage restrictions'. Rogue drone operators will be obstructed as the business community becomes more informed, the CEO said, especially as larger numbers of organisations invest in counter drone strategies prompted by high-profile drone attacks. A UK Drone Bill is in the pipeline which will tighten up restrictions on the use of drone in the wake of the Gatwick chaos. In addition, a set of new aerial drone standards was launched for public and peer group consultation in November last year by the International Standards Organisation (ISO). The deadline for public responses is next week. Speakers blasting Toto's Africa have been set up in the Namib Desert to play the soft rock classic on an infinite loop. Namibian artist Max Siedentopf has set up a solar-powered sound installation in a hidden location to 'keep Toto going for all eternity'. The six speakers are attached to an mp3 player with the single 1982 track on it. Six speakers blasting Toto's Africa on an infinite loop have been set up in the Namib Desert The sound system is attached to an mp3 player with the single 1982 soft rock classic on it '[I] wanted to pay the song the ultimate homage and physically exhibit "Africa" in Africa,' the 27-year-old artist told the BBC. 'Some [Namibians] love it and some say it's probably the worst sound installation ever. I think that's a great compliment.' Mr Siedentopf said he hopes the song - which is quadruple platinum - will play in the 55million-year-old desert for another 55 million years. Mr Siedentopf said he hopes the song - which is quadruple platinum - will play in the world's oldest desert 'for another 55 million years' Jim Peterik with Bobby Kimball of Toto perform Africa in 2015. Despite releasing 37 years ago, Africa was the most streamed song in 2017 'Most parts of the installation were chosen to be as durable as possible, but I'm sure the harsh environment of the desert will devour the installation eventually,' he added. Africa has more than 440million views on YouTube and was the most streamed tune in 2017. It was recently covered by Pitbull for the new superhero film Aquaman, with the rapper adding lyrics about Banksy. Oliver Hargreaves (pictured) is being touted as the UK's answer to 'hot felon' Jeremy Meeks A fugitive who taunted police by boasting 'catch me if you can' has attracted an army of female admirers online after his mugshot was posted online. Oliver Hargreaves is now being touted as the UK's answer to 'hot felon' Jeremy Meeks after a social media appeal by Humberside Police attracted hundreds of comments. Hargreaves, 29, is being hunted by officers as he is wanted on prison recall, although police have not revealed why. After sharing Hargreaves' mugshot online, the post was inundated with comments on his looks while others offered their services in apprehending him. Sallyann Thompson wrote: 'I can assure you if anyone finds him they will be keeping him [...] what do you reckon would you be handing him in?' Vez Blount posted: 'I'm going to do society a favour and look for this man, keep y'all safe.' Chelsea J. Morgan joked: 'I'll keep him prisoner for you!' Ruth O'Grady wrote: 'He's a solid 10 tho don't care what he's done.' However not everyone who commented on the post was struck by his looks, blasting people's disrespect for the law. After sharing Hargreaves' mugshot online, the post was inundated with comments on his looks while others offered their services in apprehending him Lisa May Lawton wrote: 'Wow! No wonder Jezza Kyle is making such a good living. The comments on here. Lack of self respect much...' Amy J Gibbons wrote: 'You'd want a criminal in your home? I don't care if he's robbed a shop or in for something far worse... pretty sure I want to be with someone who's not going to be in and out of prison.. Jesus ladies, standards!' Jeremy Meeks gained worldwide fame when he was dubbed 'the world's hottest felon' after his custody photo went viral in 2014 Nicola Furley posted: 'Sounds more like Tinder than a criminal finder page!!!' Hargreaves, from Goole, East Yorkshire, is no stranger to dodging the long arm of the law after going on the run from North Yorkshire Police in 2014. He taunted authorities with his 'catch me if you can' jibe on social media when he went on the run before cops raided his home and caught him napping. Humberside Police posted its second appeal in December and neighbouring force North Yorkshire Police have appealed for information about his whereabouts as he is known to have links to Selby. Jeremy Meeks gained worldwide fame when he was dubbed 'the world's hottest felon' after his custody photo went viral in 2014. Meeks has since swapped a life of crime for the catwalk and has had a baby with billionaire heiress girlfriend Chloe Green. Police are searching for Grant McNamara Police are searching for a man who has gone missing from an open prison. Grant McNamara, an inmate at HMP Castle Huntly in Dundee, was reported missing to police at 2pm on Monday. McNamara was jailed for four years in 2013 after splitting a taxi driver's head open with an axe. When he was sentenced, the court heard how McNamara told his victim: 'I'll chop you. Look at the state of your head it's halved in two.' His trial heard how McNamara had attacked the driver with an axe before headbutting him twice and fleeing the scene. McNamara was described as a 'danger to the public' by Sheriff James Spy, who also placed a two-year extended sentence on top of his original jail time. Police say he may have travelled to the Paisley area, where he has connections. The 26-year-old has been reported missing from HMP Castle Huntly in Dundee Anyone who sees him is advised not to approach him but to contact police immediately on 101 or 999. The 26-year-old is described as as being 6ft 2in and of medium build, and is clean shaven with short brown hair. Information can also be given anonymously through the charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. It is believed McNamara may have travelled to Paisley, where police say he has 'connections' The Scottish Prison Service and Police Scotland have been approached for comment. The Prison Service said it was 'unable to give out further details because of the Data Protection Act' when asked by MailOnline. A British journalist who was captured by ISIS more than six years ago could still be alive, according to a senior Kurdish official in Syria. John Cantlie was taken by ISIS while reporting in Syria in 2012 and has been used by the depraved cult to create English-language propaganda. He was last seen in a video recording during the early battle for Mosul in December 2016. Hope: British war correspondent John Cantlie, 47, pictured in an ISIS video, was reported dead earlier this year, but now a former ISIS fighter claims he is still alive Since the conflict for the Iraqi city, there have been conflicting reports regarding his wellbeing. One report suggested he escaped to Raqqa, while another said he was killed. ISIS are now surrounded near the Syrian town of Hajin, in the eastern province of Dier Ezzor, and has been under attack from Kurdish-led forces known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Mustafa Bali, a SDF spokesman for the US and British backed militia, said there was unconfirmed reports Cantile was 'still alive and moving around' in Hajin. He told the Times he was trying to substantiate the reports with 'special sources'. The whereabouts of at least three foreign journalists in Syria remain unknown. Taken: John Cantlie poses with a Free Syrian Army rebel in Aleppo, Syria, in 2012 shortly before he was kidnapped Along with Cantile, among the missing journalists are Austin Tice, thought to be held by the regime, vanished from Damascus in August 2012, and Shiraz Mohammed, a South African photojournalist who disappeared near the border with Turkey two years ago. American reporter James Foley, who was taken hostage with Cantlie in Idlib, was killed by ISIS in 2014. In November last year, a former ISIS member told French magazine Paris Match that he saw Mr Cantlie in the Syrian city of Raqqa, 300 miles from Mosul. He told the magazine in October that he saw him 'seven or eight months ago, in my prison, with an interpreter'. The ISIS man claimed Mr Cantlie, 47, was working for the regime, speaking to prisoners and asking them about their conditions in jail. He said: 'He presented me with a pass on which I immediately recognised the green stamp of Baghdadi himself. 'All ISIS authorities, emirs and soldiers are asked to facilitate the work of John Cantlie,' said the document. 'I welcomed him and he went to interrogate the prisoners: how were they there? What were their conditions of detention? What they ate, if they were well treated. 'Then he left. It is not official, but his companions in ISIS, say that he joined Daesh.' Michael Gove has compared tonight's Brexit vote to the final battle with the apocalyptic army of the frozen undead in Game of Thrones and warned MPs who destroy Theresa May's deal: 'Winter is coming'. The Prime Minister's Environment Secretary said Parliament will damage British democracy if it rejects her proposed EU divorce agreement at 9pm tonight. In a stark warning Mr Gove said today: 'If we don't vote for the deal tonight then in the words of Jon Snow - winter is coming'. 'Winter is Coming' in the motto of House Stark, whose hero and king Jon Snow leads the fight against the 'White Walkers' - an army of zombie soldiers bent on destroying mankind. Michael Gove used the words of Jon Snow from Game of Thrones (played by Kit Harrington) to warn MPs to back Mrs May's Brexit deal The Brexiteer turned to blockbuster television show Game of Thrones to give the gloomiest of warnings to MPs preparing to kill off Mrs May's deal. Timeline to Theresa's Commons defeat 12.30PM: Assuming there are no delays, Attorney General Geoffrey Cox QC will stand up to open the final day of debate on Theresa May's Brexit deal. Beforehand Speaker John Bercow will select the amendments to the motion proposed by different groups of MPs. There are likely to be at least half a dozen. During the day MPs who have not spoken during the previous days of debate will stand to make their speeches. 6.45pm: Theresa May will sum up the debate and make a final appeal to MPs to back the deal. 7pm: Voting will begin. First, MPs will vote on the amendments to the motion. If any pass, the final vote on the deal is with the amendment attached. Each vote will take around 15 minutes, meaning the vote on the deal could be 9pm or later. 9.30pm: After the votes, Mrs May will make a statement setting out her response and the next steps the government will take. Advertisement Mr Gove told the Today Programme: 'The British people have placed a responsibility on us. Are we going to live up to that responsibility and vote to leave the European Union or are we going to disappoint them and damage our democracy by not voting to leave the EU? 'If we don't vote for this agreement then we risk playing into the hands who do not want Brexit to go ahead. The message sent to the people of Britain will be that the decision you have made is not being respected. He added: 'If we don't vote for it tonight, in the words of John Snow: 'Winter is coming'. Theresa May is facing the worst Commons defeat in almost 100 years as MPs plot to kill off her deal and push Britain towards a softer Brexit - or stop it completely. Mr Gove declined to predict a victory for the Prime Minister in Tuesday's vote, saying he did not know which way it would go. But he reiterated that remaining in the EU was worse than leaving without a deal, telling Today: 'The real danger is if people do not vote for the Government this evening, we face either a no-deal Brexit, with the short-term economic damage that would bring, or worse: no Brexit at all. 'We know there are people in the House of Commons and outside who have never made their peace with this decision, who want to overturn it.' Mr Gove also defended the backstop agreed by Mrs May with Brussels, saying: 'I think the whole point about the backstop is that it's deeply uncomfortable for the EU. 'If it is a trap for anyone, it's a trap for the EU. Why? Because the European Union said at the very beginning of this process that there would be no cherry-picking, the four freedoms of the single market were indivisible. 'But we have picked a whole bowl of glistening cherries, we have free access to the European market with no tariffs and no quotas but at the same time we say that European citizens have no freedom of movement. 'We don't pay a penny for that access, if we are worried about money after we leave and when we are in the backstop, and at the same time we can say to European nations, 'Do you know what? Access to our territorial waters for fishing, access to our exclusive economic zone, forget about it'. 'We are in a stronger position in the backstop.' Theresa May smiles from her car last night on the eve of the vote that could destroy her Brexit deal Theresa May appealed to the Commons to back her deal yesterday - but tonight faces the largest defeat since 1924 and Jeremy Corbyn (pictured today) will then try to force a formal vote of no confidence in the Government Allies of the Prime Minister acknowledged her plans could be rejected by a majority approaching 200 votes eclipsing the record government loss of modern times in 1924 - but added: 'She is not going to abandon the deal and she is not going to quit.' MPs including Hilary Benn have pulled amendments to Mrs May's Withdrawal Agreement motion in order to set up a 'clean vote' and inflict the worst possible defeat on the PM. And Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will then try to exploit Tory divisions by forcing a formal vote of no confidence in the Government tomorrow, which could usher in a general election. Mrs May will have three days to set out her 'Plan B' but MPs are plotting to wrestle control of the process from her. Experts believe that if she is defeated in the Commons tonight a softer Brexit such as the Norway-style free trade deal, a second referendum or a general election are now the most likely outcomes. In a last-ditch appeal to Parliament yesterday, Mrs May urged MPs opposed to her plans to give the proposed withdrawal agreement 'a second look' in the light of assurances in a letter from EU chiefs Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk yesterday. She acknowledged that the plan was not perfect, but added: 'When the history books are written, people will look at the decision of this House tomorrow and ask: 'Did we deliver on the country's vote to leave the European Union?' Mrs May said critics must to heed the advice of Attorney General Geoffrey Cox who said that her Brexit deal is the 'only politically practicable means' of leaving the EU. Tory Eurosceptics and Mrs May's governing partners in the DUP last night rejected her plea. Sky News forecast the PM would be defeated by 422 votes to 197. A former Cabinet minister said: 'There's no avoiding it, this is the Charge of the Light Brigade'. An EU flag is flown over Westminster today as MPs try to wrestle back control of Brexit from the PM Dawn breaks over Westminster as the Prime Minister faces another fight for her political life today How the Commons will vote: Theresa May's deal is expected to lose heavily on Tuesday night, which could lead to a no-confidence motion and potentially a general election The crucial votes that could kill off the PM's Brexit deal TIME LIMIT Tabled by a loyal Tory backbencher, Northern Ireland Select Committee chairman Andrew Murrison, this would impose a sunset clause requiring the Northern Ireland backstop to expire on December 31, 2021. The EU has rejected such a time limit but both Tory arch Brexiteers and the Northern Irish DUP demand one as a condition of support for the deal. Last night there were rumours ministers were quietly urging MPs to support it. Any explicit endorsement by Mrs May would enrage Brussels. But if passed, it would likely save the PM from a painful defeat. THE BACKSTOP Proposed by Sir Hugo Swire, this would give parliament an effective veto over whether to enter the Northern Ireland backstop or extend transition at the end of the 20-month transition period. Government insiders say the veto would not be binding but it could force the two sides to come to an alternative arrangement. Ministers have said they accept the spirit of the amendment. If selected by the Speaker, it could help build support among Tory MPs but is unlikely to be a game-changer. THE CUSTOMS UNION The Labour amendment, put forward by Jeremy Corbyn, says the deal should be rejected because it fails to provide for a permanent customs union and a 'strong single market' deal. It also rejects leaving with no deal. Likely to be selected but unlikely to get enough cross party support. WORKERS RIGHTS John Mann, one of a handful of Labour MPs set to vote for the May deal, it provides additional assurances on protecting workers rights, environmental standards and health and safety. Ministers have said they are sympathetic towards its aims. Unlikely to be called by the Speaker. Advertisement As the most significant vote for decades approaches: Friends of International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said she would vote for the plan, despite having failed to back it in public; Attorney General Geoffrey Cox said Mrs May's deal was 'the only politically practicable and available means' of leaving the EU; Former Tory ministers Nick Boles, Nicky Morgan and Sir Oliver Letwin vowed to press ahead with plans to allow Parliament to seize control of Brexit; Tory whip Gareth Johnson became the latest government figure to resign over the deal; Mr Corbyn told Labour MPs he would not hold off from calling a vote of no confidence; Labour MP Tulip Siddiq has postponed a planned caesarean section to cast her vote against Mrs May's plan; Mrs May refused to rule out extending Article 50; The Prime Minister is expected to make an immediate statement to MPs tonight on her next move. An ally said: 'In the words of Churchill, she will keep buggering on. She is not going to abandon the deal and she is not going to quit.' Labour MP Hilary Benn has pulled his amendment to the Government's Withdrawal Agreement motion today which would have rejected both the PM's deal and leaving the EU with no deal. Mr Benn, who is chairman of the Commons Exiting the European Union Committee, had Tory support for his proposal but tweeted that he had decided to act because 'its vital that we now get the clearest expression of view from the House on the Government's deal'. He said he would vote against the motion and intends to pursue a 'no to no deal' vote at the earliest opportunity. China has asked some of the country's state-run companies to avoid business trips to the United States and its allies, and to take extra care to protect their devices if they need to travel, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. The State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), which oversees about 100 government-run companies, has told some firms in recent weeks to only take secure, company-issued laptops meant for overseas use if travelling is necessary, according to the report, citing people familiar with the request. China's travel advice also included warning on travelling to the other countries in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing pact - Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Bloomberg said. A traveller looks at her phone at Beijing's international airport. China has told firms in recent weeks to only take secure, company-issued laptops meant for overseas use during travels At the centre of growing strains between China and the United States was the recent arrest of Meng Wanzhou (pictured), a top executive at Huawei in Canada at the request of U.S. China has asked some of the country's state-run companies to avoid business trips to the US The order also said that employees should have the company verify which files they are carrying on any trip and only store them on secure USB flash drives, two people familiar with the warning said separately, adding that SASAC didn't specify how long the travel rules will apply. SASAC did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. One state-owned Chinese energy firm had recently tightened information technology security protocols for employees travelling to the United States, a company source told Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. Some employees at the company were not allowed to take laptops on such trips and were ordered to delete all work-related data and information from their personal phones before travelling, the person said. Approved business trips to the United States had not been cancelled, the person told Reuters. Tensions between Beijing and Ottawa have also risen after a Chinese court on Monday sentenced Canadian Robert Schellenberg to death for drug trafficking after a one-day retrial Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is pictured addressing the media in Ottawa today. He said he was concerned that China had chosen to 'arbitrarily' apply death penalty to a Canadian At the centre of growing strains between China and the United States was the recent arrest of Meng Wanzhou, a top executive at Chinese technology giant Huawei in Canada at the request of U.S. authorities. The detention has raised concerns over a potential backlash on U.S. firms operating in China, amid an already tense war between the two countries on the trade front. China's ties with Canada have also turned frosty since the arrest of Meng, who is also the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei. Huawei, the worlds biggest producer of telecommunications equipment, has been facing intense scrutiny in the West over its relationship with China's government and U.S.-led allegations that its devices could be used by Beijing for spying. Ren on Tuesday rejected claims his company is used by the Chinese government to spy and said he missed his daughter. China has warned of unspecified consequences unless Meng was released, and has detained Michael Kovrig, a Canadian diplomat on unpaid leave from the embassy in Beijing, and Michael Spavor, a Canadian consultant, on suspicion of endangering state security. Michael Kovrig (left), an adviser with the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based non-governmental organisation and Michael Spavor (centre), who is frequently consulted on matters linked to North Korea, and Sarah McIver (right), a teacher, are among the 13 Canadian citizens detained in China since Huawei exec Meng Wanzhou's arrest on Dec 1 in Vancouver Beijing has not drawn a direct link between the detentions and the arrest of Meng, wanted by U.S. authorities for allegedly misleading multinational banks about Iran-linked transactions. Western diplomats say the cases are a tit-for-tat reprisal. Tensions between Beijing and Ottawa have also risen after a Chinese court on Monday sentenced a Canadian man to death for drug trafficking after a one-day retrial. The move prompted Canada to update its travel advisory for China, urging its citizens to 'exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws.' China in turn issued a travel alert for Canada, telling its citizens to 'fully assess the risks of travel' after a Chinese citizen was 'arbitrarily' detained by Canadian law enforcement on the request of a third country. 'As long as foreigners including Canadians abide by the law, their freedom and safety is guaranteed,' Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters at a regular briefing on Tuesday. 'It is Canada, not China, that is arbitrarily detaining foreign citizens under the guise of the law.' Moscow is set to deploy more than 30 underwater drones capable of carrying a two megaton nuclear warhead, which could obliterate Western ports, according to Russian state media. Four submarines fitted with the torpedo drones, named Poseidon, will join the Northern and Pacific Russian fleets, state news agency Tass reports. Each submarine can fit eight Poseidons, designed specifically to destroy 'enemy navy bases' and able to travel at up to 70 knots. 'Two Poseidon-carrying submarines are expected to enter service with the Northern Fleet and the other two will join the Pacific Fleet,' a defence industry source told Tass this week. 'Each of the submarines will carry a maximum of eight drones and, therefore, the total number of Poseidons on combat duty may reach 32 vehicles.' A 'special-purpose nuclear-powered submarine' currently under construction at the Sevmash Shipyard in Severodvinsk, a port city on Russia's White Sea, will be one of the Poseidon carriers, Tass said. Last year, Russian state media claimed the Navy will be able to 'mount various nuclear charges on the 'torpedo' of the Poseidon multipurpose seaborne system, with the thermonuclear single warhead to have the maximum capacity of up to two megatonnes in TNT equivalent.' Four submarines fitted with more than two dozen Poseidon nuclear torpedo drones will join the Northern and Pacific fleets according to Russian state media. Pictured: A Russian Defence video shows how the Poseidon could look President Vladimir Putin announced plans for an underwater drone in his state-of-the-nation speech in March last year, in which he boasted of an array of new nuclear weapons 'invulnerable to enemy interception' With its nuclear charge, the Poseidon drone 'is primarily designed to destroy reinforced naval bases of a potential enemy,' the report added. The development of the Poseidon was announced by President Vladimir Putin in his state-of-the-nation speech in March last year, in which he boasted of an array of new nuclear weapons 'invulnerable to enemy interception'. Speaking last month, Putin said on Wednesday that Russia would deploy its first regiment of hypersonic nuclear-capable missiles this year, saying the move meant his country now had a new type of strategic weapon. Despite the continuous announcement of developments in its nuclear weapons arsenal, the Kremlin said in 2018 that it will cut its defence budget to less than three per cent of gross domestic product within the next five years. A former medical student jailed for luring a millionaire TV exec into a deadly 'honeytrap' will not be mayoress after her husband today dramatically quit his bid for office over the controversy. Varinder Singh-Bola, mayor-elect of Redbridge in London, said he would no longer be taking up the position to protect his family from 'public speculation and hearsay.' The shock decision comes as he defended his wife, Mundill Mahil, as a 'great example' of Britain's criminal justice system as she prepared to become mayoress. He said she had made a 'positive contribution to society through mentoring and supporting others' since leaving prison four years ago. Since her release Mahil has rebuilt her life, becoming a personal trainer and marrying Mr Singh-Bola in 2016 following her conviction for causing GBH in 2012. The former medical student was jailed for six years in 2012 for inviting infatuated Gagandip Singh, 21, to her student flat in Brighton where he was beaten over the head by another man and locked in the boot of a burning car. Mundill Mahill (pictured) was jailed after luring Sikh TV executive Gagandip Singh, 21, to her student digs where he was beaten savagely over the head by another man then tied up with electrical cord and trapped in the boot of his Mercedes car which was set on fire Since Mahil (left) was released from a six-year jail term for GBH she has rebuilt her life. She has become a personal trainer and married Labour politician Varinder Singh-Bola (right) Mahil's husband Councillor Singh-Bola (pictured right), today quit in his bid to become mayor at Redbridge Council, east London over the controversy surrounding his appointment Her husband Mr Singh-Bola said 'I have taken time and reflected on the events of the past weekend and the concerns of my family, friends and colleagues and have decided to withdraw my name from consideration for the Mayoralty of Redbridge 'The Redbridge Mayoralty is a hugely important and distinguished position and one which I do not wish to do undue harm by allowing it to become mired in controversy. 'I stand united with my beloved wife and my wider family. They have always loved and supported me and now it is my time to shield them from public speculation and hearsay. Leader of the Redbridge Labour Group, Cllr Jas Athwal said: 'I accept Cllr Singh-Bola's decision to withdraw his nomination, we will now move on and look at further candidates for Mayor of Redbridge in 2019/20'. Mr Singh-Bola and Redbridge Labour Party will be making no further commend. The Labour councillor had previously told of his 'excitement' at starting the ceremonial role and defended his wife of three years, saying: 'I'm really looking forward to starting my mayoral term later this year and fundraising for local charities in Redbridge. 'It's an exciting time for me. I have been inundated with supportive messages from friends, former classmates and teachers. 'I stand by my wife who has long been involved in charities and grassroots politics, well before I even met her. We have refrained from publicising our side of the story, and instead have been focusing on giving back to the community. Former medical student Mahil (pictured) was jailed for inviting infatuated Gagandip Singh, 21, to her student flat in Brighton where he was beaten over the head by another man During her trial at the Old Bailey, Mahil (left) claimed she had no role in the attack on Gagandip (right) and the jury cleared her of murder, but convicted her of causing grievous bodily harm Gagandip's body was later found in the boot of the burnt out wreckage of his Mercedes car, dumped 60 miles away near Greenwich Park, in South East London (pictured) In the trial Harvinder Shoker (left), who was infatuated with Mahil, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life while Darren Peters (right) was jailed for 12 years for manslaughter 'Mundill is a great example of a young woman who has gone through our criminal justice system and is making a positive contribution to society through mentoring and supporting others. 'No one can turn back the clock and I only wish people would refrain from passing judgment without knowing the full details.' During her trial at the Old Bailey in 2012, Mahil claimed she had no role in the attack and although she was cleared of murder she was convicted of grievous bodily harm. The jury was told that she enticed Mr Singh to her student digs to get revenge for a sex assault on her. His body was later found in the boot of the burnt out wreckage of his Mercedes car, dumped 60miles away near Greenwich Park, in South East London. Another man, Harvinder Shoker, who was also infatuated with Mahil, was convicted of murder and jailed for a minimum of 22 years and a third, Darren Peters, of manslaughter, jailed for 12 years. Sentencing Mahil, Judge Paul Worsley QC said she had 'many outstanding qualities' but was also 'manipulative, vengeful and deceitful'. Since her release, she has trained as a personal trainer, aromatherapist and masseuse as well as getting involved with photography and charity work. Mr Singh-Bola is an Ilford councillor who worked as a senior official in the office of Ilford South MP Mike Gapes and who in the past has been pictured with London Mayor Sadiq Khan. Last week, the councillor tweeted: 'I'm over the moon to be confirmed as the Mayor-Elect for the London Borough of Redbridge. 'It's an incredible privilege to step into the role of Mayor following the incredible Cllr @DebbieThiara and represent the Borough I love and have lived in my whole life.' As his wife, Mahil will attend official functions and glittering society parties by his side. Mr Singh's family reacted with fury at the news. His sister, Amandip Kaur Singh, 26, said: 'That woman lured my brother to a horrible death and yet served just three years in prison for it. 'She has only been out for four years and is now a mayoress, albeit through her husband but she will be afforded as much respect as him. 'She will be on his arm at official functions, where she'll no doubt launch a charm offensive with the gathered dignitaries. 'But she doesn't deserve any of it. My brother's life was snatched away when it was just about to really begin and as a family we've been struggling to deal with it ever since. Mr Signh-Bola proudly announced on Twitter that he is mayor-elect of the London Borough of Redbridge, which means that his wife, who served three years for GBH will be mayoress In 2016 she wed Mr Singh-Bola (pictured), an Ilford councillor who worked as an official in the office of Ilford South MP Mike Gapes and who has been pictured with Sadiq Khan Mr Singh-Bola had proudly announced on Twitter that he was mayor-elect of the London borough of Redbridge, which would have meant his wife, who served three years for GBH would have been mayoress. The councillor defended his wife calling her a 'great example of the British criminal justice system' before he pulled out of his bid to be mayor 'Yet she's served a meagre prison sentence, married a high-flying local councillor and is now trying to ingratiate herself into polite society. 'Not once has she ever admitted her guilt or apologised to us. She's moved on and is trying to pretend nothing ever happened.' Since her release from prison, Mahil has also been working with a charity called Working Chance, which helps women with convictions rehabilitate back into employment and mainstream society. Founder and chief executive Jocelyn Hillman OBE, Founder and Chief Executive of Working Chance, added: 'Mundill served her sentence and is now herself working for charitable causes including the reintegration of offenders. 'We are aspirational for the women we support at Working Chance, and one of our mottos is 'Look where I'm going, not where I've been.' 'Any press attention should focus on the contribution Mundill is making to society today, as a good example of how reform and rehabilitation should operate.' Former Scottish National Party MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh has been found guilty of professional misconduct over her handling of a trust at a law firm where she was a partner. The SNP member was brought before a tribunal along with fellow solicitor Alan Mickel, with whom she ran the now defunct Hamilton Burns. The case centred on a trust set up in May 2012 on behalf of Mr Mickel's sister, which he believed to be a 'private, family matter' but in legal terms was considered a client of the firm, it was heard. Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, pictured with her husband Zulfikar Sheikh, was yesterday forced to accept she had breached strict rules for solicitors while a partner at Hamilton Burns The mother of four was accused of showing 'disregard for the rules' over a prolonged period The Law Society said Mr Mickel and Ms Ahmed-Sheikh showed 'disregard for the rules' when they failed to keep proper accounts of the trust and sums were borrowed from the fund when it was not in the practice of lending money. Their actions constituted a conflict of interest and risked undermining public confidence in the profession, it said. At a hearing in Perth on Tuesday, Scottish Solicitors' Discipline Tribunal (SSDT) chairman Nicholas Whyte said it had found both guilty of professional misconduct. Ms Ahmed-Sheikh was a partner at Hamilton Burns and held the title of cash room manager before her resignation in May 2015, when she was elected MP for Ochil and South Perthshire. She lost the seat in the 2017 general election. An inspection of the firm raised concerns in October 2015 and Mr Mickel resigned that December. The Law Society accepted the pair's belief the trust was not a client of the firm was 'genuine but erroneous'. It was agreed there was no suggestion of dishonesty or personal benefit. A model from Belarus who sensationally claimed last year that she had evidence of Russian involvement in helping Donald Trump win office has pleaded guilty in a Thai court in a case related to holding a 'sex training seminar' and will be deported. A lawyer representing Anastasia Vashukevich said she and seven co-defendants were given suspended 18-month prison terms and fines of 100,000 baht ($3,135), waived in view of nine months already served since the charges of soliciting and conspiracy were filed against them. The lawyer, who asked not to be identified, said the group would be freed Tuesday night and deported. Anastasia Vashukevich (pictured today at Chonburi Immigration in Pattaya, Thailand), known by her pen name Nastya Rybka, has been held in custody since a police raid in the sleazy seaside resort of Pattaya last February Vashukevich, also known as Nastya Rybka, claimed to have recordings of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska talking about interference in the 2016 U.S. election, but never released them. Anastasia Vashukevich, known by her pen name Nastya Rybka, had been held in custody since a police raid in the sleazy seaside resort of Pattaya last February. Vashukevich looked sombre as she arrived at the court earlier today, before the eight defendants stood trial for multiple charges including soliciting sex. Vashukevich, also known as Nastya Rybka, claimed to have recordings of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska talking about interference in the 2016 U.S. election, but never released them Anastasia Vashukevich travelled to Thailand after becoming embroiled in the political scandal She had travelled to Thailand after becoming embroiled in a political scandal with Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska, a one-time associate of US President Trump's disgraced former campaign director Paul Manafort. In a peculiar tale she set off a scramble for details after promising to reveal 'missing puzzle pieces' on claims the Kremlin aided Trump's 2016 election victory. No material has been released to substantiate her claims, which critics have dismissed as a publicity stunt. Police alleged the risque seminar, led by self-styled Russian seduction guru Alex Kirillov, was effectively breaching Thai decency laws. Kirillov, who has served as a spokesperson for the mostly Russian group, told reporters he believes they were set up. 'I think somebody ordered (our arrest)... for money,' he said as he arrived at court. The group have pleaded not guilty, saying they were only training people on 'how to seduce men and women' and not participating in sexual activity. Vashukevich claimed she had proof of Russian efforts to help Donald Trump Vashukevich, who has penned a book about seducing oligarchs, also faced legal problems in Russia. Pictured at Chonburi Immigration in Pattaya, Thailand today Supporters of the defendants say the seminar was geared towards offering romance and relationship advice. Vashukevich and Kirillov have expressed fear of being deported back to Russia and at one stage called on Washington for help. But Vashukevich later blamed the US for their imprisonment. Both Washington and Moscow have publicly shrugged off Vashukevich's story, which the US State Department described as 'bizarre'. Vashukevich, who has penned a book about seducing oligarchs, also faced legal problems in Russia. Deripaska won an invasion of privacy lawsuit against her in July after a video apparently filmed by the model showed the tycoon vacationing with an influential Russian deputy prime minister. Kremlin-connected Deripaska and Manafort, Donald Trump's ex-campaign manager, did business together in the mid-2000s. Manafort has since been convicted in the US of financial crimes related to political work he did in Ukraine before the 2016 election as well as witness tampering. He has also admitted to providing polling data to a Russian with intelligence ties during the 2016 presidential race. A man ran to help at the scene of a car crash before finding his wife-to-be had been killed in the accident. Scot Brading, 30, was walking his dog in a field beside the A1 in Scotland when he ran to give assistance at the scene of a collision. But as he arrived, he realised his 26-year-old fiancee Meghan Ambrozevich-Blair had been involved in the accident. Truck driver Michael Friel admitted killing Meghan in a head-on collision after driving along the dual carriageway the wrong way. Friel kept driving on the A1 Edinburgh to Newcastle trunk road as other drivers swerved to avoid him and flashed their headlights before smashing into Meghan's car. Veterinary nurse Meghan Ambrozevich-Blair, pictured with dog Milo, died in the crash on the A1 Mr Brading found Meghan at the scene of the crash. Meghan posted these photos on her Facebook in May 2015 after Scot proposed to her, writing: 'My proposal was perfect. Thank you so much Scot Brading! Im over the MOON to be your fiancee!' Friel, 57, pleaded guilty to causing death by driving dangerously on December 9, 2016, near Dunbar, East Lothian, after performing a three-point turn and driving the wrong way in the face of oncoming traffic. The High Court in Edinburgh heard that Miss Ambrozevich-Blair was posthumously awarded a first-class honours degree in veterinary nursing from Edinburgh Napier University. Truck driver Michael Friel, pictured outside court, admitted killing Meghan The young couple had recently shared the news with friends that they were set to marry, and had been excitedly planning their life together. Meghan shared the happy news just a year before she died, telling friends and family she was 'over the moon'. Miss Ambrozevich-Blair was in her fourth year at university at the time of her death and previously was awarded a medal as best HNC animal care student on graduating from an agricultural college in Dumfries. A former pupil of Dunbar Grammar School, she regularly raised funds for the Scottish SPCA and campaigned against animal cruelty, the court heard. Lord Arthurson deferred sentence on Friel, of Macmerry, East Lothian, for background reports. He said: 'A substantial custodial sentence remains at the forefront of the court's mind.' Miss Ambrozevich-Blair's family said in a statement that their 'world fell apart when our beautiful Meghan was taken from us'. They added: 'Meghan was talented, caring and loving in every way. She loved life and had it all in front of her. 'We lost an incredible daughter and sister, and her fiance lost his soulmate and the family they planned to have. 'The suffering we have endured over the last two years since that day has been horrendous. 'We never thought it was possible to be in so much pain and still be alive.' They added: 'We have faith that whatever punishment the court decides to impose will reflect the severity of this crime.' Advocate depute Alex Prentice, QC, told the court the student had left her home in Dunbar, to drive to her part-time job at a veterinary surgery near Edinburgh. Friel had also set off from Dunbar in the Ford Transit tipper, heading for Little Spott, East Lothian. The young couple had been looking forward to getting married and planning their life together Scot Brading was walking his dog in a field beside the A1 in Scotland when he ran to give assistance at the scene of the collision Meghan, a young student veterinary nurse, posted this heartfelt tribute to Scot when he asked her to become his wife Mr Prentice said: 'He joined the A1 southbound and had almost reached Torness nuclear power station before realising he was travelling in the wrong direction for his destination.' Friel stopped and called his brother, who he worked for, and was told to return north to the Spott roundabout and wait for him at a supermarket. Friel missed the turn at the roundabout and continued north on the A1 before realising that he had made a mistake. He then pulled up and made a three-point turn. Mr Prentice said: 'The accused drove in a southerly direction in the northbound carriageway. He encountered a number of vehicles travelling north at speed. 'The drivers in five vehicles had to take immediate action by swerving and flashing headlights to avoid colliding with the accused's vehicle. 'Two other drivers saw the accused's vehicle and flashed headlights to alert him to their presence. 'Two drivers noticed the accused appeared to be oblivious to the danger presented and that he was staring straight ahead while driving.' Miss Ambrozevich-Blair, pictured with her fiance, was not travelling at excessive speed before the crash Mr Prentice added that Miss Ambrozevich-Blair was not travelling at excessive speed before the crash. The prosecutor said a number of people stopped and tried to help after the collision, including an off-duty doctor. They could see that the student was trapped in her Kia Cerato and appeared unresponsive. An off-duty doctor started performing CPR on her and Mr Brading went to help the medic. He also called her parents and they went to the scene. A firefighter spoke to Friel who asked her: 'When did this become a one way?' She said he was on the 'motorway' and that it had always been one way. Friel replied: 'It used to be two way.' A breath test on Friel proved negative and he was taken to hospital for treatment to fractures. A gunman who took his ex-girlfriend and another woman hostage at a UPS facility in New Jersey has been named by police. Several officers fired at William Owens, 39, of Sicklerville, New Jersey, who was killed as he left the building with the women on Monday morning the state Attorney General's Office said in a news release. Owens had entered the business at about 8:45 a.m. and fired shots, which did not strike anyone, before taking the women to a room and barricading himself inside with them, authorities said. Officials believe that Owens had a prior relationship with one of the hostages, Gloucester County Prosecutor Charles Fiore said. The women escaped without serious injuries after the standoff in Logan Township, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of Philadelphia, Fiore said. An active crime scene was underway at a UPS facility in Logan Township, New Jersey Monday morning A gunman took his ex-girlfriend and another woman hostage inside the building The two women were rescued and the gunman was arrested 'Multiple members of law enforcement fired at the man, who was armed with a handgun. He was pronounced dead at the scene,' the news release said. Earlier in the day, Fiore said the suspect had been taken to a hospital after being shot but that his condition was not known. 'I heard one of my fellow employees say, 'Run, he's got a gun,' then I heard the little pop of the gun, I guess, and we all ran and law enforcement took over,' employee Allen Anthony Dowling said. Gloucester County officials say 32 employees were inside the facility on Birchcreek Road at the time of the shooting. Police evacuated the building and surrounded the loading dock area of the large UPS supply chain warehouse in Logan Township, about 20 miles south of Philadelphia Armed officers were seen from aerial images crouching behind vehicles, while other officers swarmed an office door. Armored trucks, bomb squad and ambulances were also on the scene. Police surrounded the loading dock and were seen crouching behind vehicles and armed There were 32 employees inside at the time of the shooting and police were evacuated from the building A police roadblock was set up as officials responded to reports of an active shooter UPS employee Donnelle Harden told abc6 he was doing his work when he saw his coworkers running toward the exit and heard two gunshots. Another employee Ashlee Erickson posted video to Facebook from outside the facility and told 6abc that she was inside when the building was evacuated. 'There was a massive police presence as soon as we were walking out of the building, there were a good 10 cop cars, they all had their guns drawn out heading toward the main entrance of the building,' Erickson said. 'From what I understand it was someone who did not work there that was having a confrontation with their significant other,' she added. Schools in the area were put on a modified lockdown, and no one could enter or leave the schools in the township due to 'policy activity in a nearby industrial park,' Superintendent Patricia Haney said. 'All other businesses and areas within the community are secure,' Gloucester County spokeswoman Debra Sellitto said in a statement. A massive operation to locate and rescue a two-year-old boy who fell down a 350ft well on Spain's Costa del Sol has entered its third day today. Police said they had yet to find any sign of the youngster - bar a packet of sweets and a plastic cup in a blockage nearly 250ft down the tiny 10-inch wide hole. But officers insisted they would continue to search for him round-the-clock in the hope of finding and saving him. Specialist machinery has been brought in to 'suck' away the earth preventing emergency service responders from confirming Julen is beneath the blockage - thought to have been caused by a mini-landslide as he fell - and is still alive. The boy's distraught mother, Vicky Garcia, waited anxiously for an update at the scene yesterday This photo posted by local firefighters show the small 15in-wide hole Julen fell down on Sunday afternoon Overnight private sector experts began to install tubing in the uncased shaft on land near Totalan, a 30-minute drive north-east of Malaga, to prevent it collapsing. Officials admitted Julen's condition was unknown, with his loved ones clinging to the hope there was water and a pocket of air at the bottom of the well which could be keeping him alive despite a fall which has been described as the equivalent of 30 floors. The youngster's parents, whose three-year-old son Oliver died in May 2017 after suffering a heart attack believed to be linked to a congenital heart condition, continued to pray for a miracle from a tent at the scene where they have spent the past 40 hours since their son vanished. A massive rescue team are at the well with specialist equipment to 'suck' earth out of the well to reveal whether the boy is trapped underneath Tragedy: The two-year-old boy fell down the deep well on a countryside property in Malaga, Spain's Costa del Sol, while his parents were having lunch nearby Julen's fast food restaurant worker mum Vicky Garcia and his jobless dad, named locally as Jose Rosello, told police after they raised the alarm around 2pm on Sunday that he had fallen down the well shaft as they prepared a paella with friends during a family day out in the countryside. The youngster's grandmother Reme Garcia said she was confiding in his dead elder brother to protect him from Heaven in an emotional outpouring of grief. She wrote on social media in a heart-wrenching message to Oliver: 'Today all I ask is that your brother comes out now. He needs you. 'Oliver, don't forget your brother Julen. You know we've been waiting for him for many hours. I know you protect him a lot, my little King.' Early this morning in another post alongside a picture of a baby asleep in the arms of an adult, she added: 'If it's true that there's a God up there, help him please. Hold on Julen.' She also joined the little boy's mum in criticising an expert well-digger who claimed yesterday it was 'almost impossible' the youngster was in the well. Family members console each other yesterday as the rescue team worked round the clock to find the child Francisco Barranquero, owner of a Malaga-based prospection firm, appeared to cast doubt on his parents' version of events by telling a Spanish news website: 'I think it's very unlikely that little boy is there. Almost impossible. Either that or the search is not being done properly.' Insisting the shaft would not consist of a completely vertical drop and would include small deviations, he added: 'I've managed to recover hammers that have fallen down such small holes. 'Is it possible that a baby wouldn't end up getting stuck and might have reached the bottom? I say that's very difficult.' Mission: More than 100 firefighters and emergency workers in southern Spain are searching for the two-year-old Julen's angry gran raged: 'What s##t are you saying about my grandson? You have no feelings. All I ask is that you don't go to the spot where my daughter and family are.' The youngster's mother took time out of her 24/7 vigil near the spot where the boy was last seen to repeat what they had told police about hearing the boy cry when he first fell by adding: 'Shut up Francisco. You are the least appropriate person to be speaking about this. 'I heard my son cry and his father was talking to him and he heard him and cried again and now we can't hear him anymore.' Police have insisted their efforts are '100 per cent' focused on trying to locate and rescue Julen in the well, despite claims by Spanish news website El Confidencial Civil Guard investigators were working on a reconstruction of his fall 'to contemplate all options.' This morning's work was geared towards continuing to try to remove the blockage 250ft down the well while shoring up the shaft. It is not clear if there is water at the bottom of the hole, which was reportedly created last December by prospectors Two other options have also been considered, although neither has yet been launched. One involves creating another wider hole running parallel to the existing well which would be made slighter deeper and link to the first hole in a U-bend. The other involves excavating a horizontal tunnel an adult could fit into through the hillside to the spot where rescuers hope to eventually locate Julen. Officials have admitted both options could take at least two days to complete - and they ideally need to discover exactly where the youngster is first. Local reports have pointed to the land where the drama is unfolding being owned by relatives of the missing boy - with one saying an uncle made the hole to look for water in another tragic twist to the ongoing incident. Experts have said it is normal for prospections of this kind to take place - but the holes have to be covered up afterwards if nothing is found with a large stone which is usually sealed hermetically to stop anyone from removing it and avoid accidents like Sunday's. More than 100 people including police, firefighters, Civil Protection workers and private sector experts are involved in the search operation. Hundreds of British men are threatening to boycott Gillette over a new advert which references bullying, the #MeToo movement and 'toxic masculinity' Social media was deluged with outraged males who vowed never to buy any more products from the firm after the commercial went viral. It shows a man talking over a woman in a boardroom, boys fighting and grown men ignoring them saying 'boys will be boys'. It later features men wolf whistling at women without being countered by their peers. Mansplaining: In one scene, a man speaks over his female colleague and explains what she means Not having it: Instead of saying 'boys will be boys,' a dad stops his son from fighting with another little boy Then at the end of the advert it shows good examples of behaviour, with men being corrected for their actions. In just one day 197,000 'disliked' the advert on YouTube. The twitter hashtags #boycottgillette and #getwokegobroke - a term aimed at companies who try to be too politically correct and then suffer financially - spread online. One wrote: 'Good luck continuing to sell your overpriced easily replaced razors to the majority of your razor customer base after telling them how much you hate them.' ocial media was deluged with outraged males who vowed never to buy any more products from the firm after the commercial went viral Another said: 'I choose to no longer use Gillette products. I am neither sexist nor a misogynist and I find it abhorrent that a firm would use these messages and MeToo campaign to sell their wares.' Another user wrote: 'This is absolutely shambolic stuff. A cheap and disingenuous attempt to win favour with today's PC culture. 'Men are NOT like this and sexual harassment and bullying have NEVER been part of what masculinity is about. Any bloke worth their salt should. And one added: 'Congratulations Gillette. You just alienated about half of your customers with this stupid ad. Hope you like losing money because that's what is going to happen. Piers Morgan was furious over the Gillette advert and said it would be outrageous if there was a similar advert about women Earlier today Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan was livid the P&G brand known for its 'the best a man can get' slogan was advising men how to behave, saying 'most men are good guys'. He said: 'Men these days don't know what the hell they're doing all the qualities that were good in men are being portrayed as evil. 'Gillette used to celebrate fabulous masculine qualities, now the presumption is we are all horrible people. They have changed their tone from celebration of masculinity. Stand up for what's right: The ad shows one man stopping his friend as he catcalls a woman who is waking by 'This is not being driven by most women. It's being driven by radical feminist who don't like masculinity. 'If this was the other way round starting from the presumption all women are bad you'd be fired. 'The premise of the Gillette advert is all men are predators unless proven otherwise.' The advert asks, as it shows examples of bad behaviour: 'Is this the best a man can get? Activist: The commercial shows a clip of actor Terry Crews, a victim of sexual assault, saying: 'Men need to hold other men accountable' It continues: 'Its been going on far too long. Something finally changed It finishes with: 'The boys watching today will be the men of tomorrow.' The advert is currently being aired in the US and there are no plans to bring it to the UK even though the ad was directed by Kim Gehrig at the UK-basedproduction agency, Somesuch. A spokeswoman for P&G said: 'Gillette first introduced its tagline 'The Best A Man Can Get' 30 years ago. 'Today, we're saying that the ideals that this statement inspire still hold true but there's more we can do as a brand, and as a community of men, to live up to this ideal. Challenging social norms: The commercial highlights all the different ways the mistreatment of women has been normalized over the years 'As a brand that has been part of manhood for over a century we have a responsibility to influence culture and use our voice to champion positive male behaviours. 'We expected debate - discussion is necessary. This campaign encourages all men to strive to be the best versions of themselves everyday to set the right example for the next generation.' Women in the UK have also been angered by the advert. Clare Dalliday said online: Shame on you @Gillette. One step too far. Full of meaning: |A boy runs through a living room as a mother consoles her son who is a victim of bullying 'The man stopping his friend from going after woman in street. Why? Looked at her, liked her, wanted to ask her out. 'What is wrong with that? Is this the end of dating. I fear for my 2 teenage sons wanting to date. @GMB #GilletteAd. A woman named Annette said: I think if you made the identical advert related to Gillette womens their would be outrage! Another woman said: Still open season on men I see. However some were more positive and supported the message. One man said: I love the #Gillette advert. 'I agree that it showed how you can still be masculine and not have to adhere to old fashioned and toxic tropes. Some people will never understand how important it is to change the way some men act and how it reflects others. Albert Watson is pictured arriving at Hull Crown Court A learner driver killed his own grandfather when he pulled into oncoming traffic in an 'extremely tragic' accident that has split his family. Albert Watson, 74, was a back seat passenger in a Fiat Punto that collided with two other cars on the A1105 in Hessle, East Riding on December 1, 2016. He was taken to hospital along with four other people injured in the crash, but later died from multiple injuries, pneumonia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Hull Crown Court heard that his grandson Callum Watson, 22, who was driving the Punto, thought of his grandfather 'like his dad'. But other members of the family were left 'angry and upset' by the accident as Watson, who was uninsured and had no licence, believed he was 'not to blame'. He was waiting at a junction at 4.10pm when he pulled out in front of a silver Subaru Impreza heading in the opposite direction, whose driver had 'no chance to brake'. Watson's mother, and daughter of Albert Watson, was a front seat passenger in the same car and suffered a fractured pelvis and ribs. The occupants of the Subaru were a couple in the front and their two-year-old daughter in a child seat in the back. Michele Stuart-Lofthouse, prosecuting, said the father driving suffered whiplash injuries but immediately got out to check on his wife and daughter. His wife suffered 'severe whiplash' and bruising to the chest. Their daughter was not physically injured but now 'starts to scream when she is placed in a car or getting on a bus'. The driver also went to speak to Watson, who told him: 'I didn't see you. I was looking, I didn't see you.' The Punto also struck a stationary blue Ford S-Max, whose driver watched with horror as the Fiat began pulling out. The driver had said of Watson's manoeuvre: 'What are you doing? Don't do it.' Watson had mistakenly believed his grandfather held a full driving licence, which meant his insurance was void at the time of the crash. His mother had also only held a provisional licence. Miss Stuart-Lofthouse said when he was interviewed on March 8, 2017, Watson provided a prepared statement to police. He accepted being the driver but msaid he had been under his grandfather's supervision, and thought he had a full licence. Watson was waiting at a junction at 4.10pm when he pulled out in front of a silver Subaru Impreza heading in the opposite direction, whose driver had 'no chance to brake' The prosecutor said: 'He stated he had not seen the car before pulling away and assumed the driver was exceeding the speed limit.' Watson also 'finally apologised for his actions', but declined to answer questions. The Subaru had been driving below the 30mph speed limit at the time, the court heard. Watson, of west Hull, admitted causing death by careless driving last November, and causing death by driving while unlicensed, and causing death by driving while uninsured at a hearing in April. In a victim statement, Albert Watson's other daughter said: 'I feel very angry and upset. 'It is hard enough to deal with the death of a loved one, but even more so under these circumstances. 'Neither my sister or nephew have shown any sort of remorse about what happened and believe they are not to blame.' Charlotte Baines, for Watson, said he was sorry and remorseful, which Judge Paul Watson QC accepted. Describing the crash as 'extremely tragic', Miss Baines said: 'The defendant has lost a very positive role model in his grandfather. 'He has had no positive relationship with his own father, and effectively saw his grandfather as his dad.' Sentencing Watson to a two-year community order, the judge told him: 'I am satisfied that you are sorry for what happened and that you do and will for the rest of your life genuinely regret your inattention and bad driving that day.' Watson must do 200 hours of unpaid work, comply with a four-month curfew between 7pm and 7am, and have up to 15 days rehabilitation. He was banned from driving for 18 months and must pass an extended test before he can hold a licence. A young couple were found dead in their home yesterday after a suspected carbon monoxide leak. Police are treating the deaths of Derek Hurles and Nicole McGeachin, both 23, as unexplained after officers discovered their bodies in their Glasgow flat at about 10am. Today friends and neighbours paid tribute to the 'lovely' young couple after firefighters carried out tests to monitor the property's atmosphere. Their two dogs were found alive at the flat, neighbours have told the Daily Record. Derek Hurles and Nicole McGeachin (pictured) have died at the age of 23 in a suspected carbon monoxide leak at their Glasgow flat Police at the property (pictured) yesterday drafted in firefighters to carry out atmospheric tests following the deaths A family friend - who wished to remain anonymous - described the couple as 'lovely, warm and down to earth', adding that a friend of couple is looking after their pets. Mr Hurles was a bricklayer at CCG Scotland and is thought to have been in a relationship with Ms McGeachin since June 2015. They had lived at the Thornliebank flat for about a year, another neighbour said, adding that they had not seen the pair 'in about three days'. Ms McGeachin 'struggled with her health', they added, as emergency services sealed off the flat. A police officer is pictured, left, speaking with firefighters tasked with carrying out tests at the property after the deaths of the young couple, right A police spokeswoman said officers were called at 10.10am yesterday to 'reports of a concern for a person'. She said the force remains at the scene 'to establish the circumstances' but police would not comment on speculation that a carbon monoxide leak caused the deaths. Scottish Fire and Rescue Service confirmed they attended the scene after being asked to help police at 11.27am. A spokesman said: 'Firefighters and a scientific adviser carried out atmospheric monitoring tests. Crews left the scene after ensuring the area was made safe.' The 18-year-old girl who fled the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia after rejecting its strict Islamic laws, stepped out on Tuesday showing she's wasting no time in taking advantage of her new freedom in Canada. Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun - who revealed she had dropped her last name connecting her to her Saudi governor father - bared her legs in a gray sweater dress that stopped at the knee - an outfit that's far more revealing than custom allows in her homeland. And not only did she ditch the abaya robe, but the teenager also opted not to wear the traditional hijab or niqab covering for her face and head. She showed off her straightened bob hair style as she walked into the room full of media in a pair of shiny black ankle boots with studded embellishments. Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun speaks at the COSTI Corvetti Education Centre today in Toronto, Ontario without wearing the traditional Saudi dress for women Ms al-Qunun was greeted by journalists as she walked into the education centre in Toronto to give a talk while wearing a gray sweater dress that showed off her knees She arrived in Toronto on Saturday after the country granted her asylum on the advice of the United Nations' refugee agency. But it has since emerged that the teen has received multiple threats online that have made her fear for her safety and she is now being given round-the-clock security. That's according to Mario Calla, executive director of Costi Immigration Services, a refugee agency contracted by the Canadian government to help her settle in Toronto. Calla said: 'It's hard to say how serious these threats are. We're taking them seriously.' Costi has hired a security guard and plans to 'make sure she is never alone.' 'She sees these threats,' he said. 'She has left Islam and she basically has broken away from her family, and that scares her. Her emotions go back and forth.' Mario Calla (right), executive director of Costi Immigration Services, a refugee agency contracted by the Canadian government to help her settle in Toronto She said she wants to help other women flee Saudi Arabia as it's revealed she'll have round-the-clock security Rahaf Mohammed, 18, addresses the media with the help of translator Saba Abbas (right) When asked why she had fled her homeland, Ms al-Qunun (seen during her talk today) replied: 'I wanted to be free from abuse and depression' 'What's new about this is the role of social media that it played in getting the attention she received,' he said. In her first weekend in Canada the young woman immediately got winter clothes and phone service. Calla said she has completed high school and had expressed interest in taking civil engineering in university. "But maybe there's a future in politics for her," Calla said. "She certainly has been handling all this pressure very well." Ms al-Qunun has nine siblings. She used a loophole in the state's tough laws to travel to Kuwait unaccompanied. Women from the country are usually have to have a male guardian make decisions for them. From there, she purchased a ticket to Bangkok and was hoping to seek asylum in Canada, the United States, Australia, the UK or 'any nation would protect her from being harmed or killed by her family'. Before: The teenager, pictured with her 12-year-old sister, said it had upset her that her family had announced they had disowned her 'simply because I wanted to escape their abuse' New style: Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, 18, has begun adapting to life in Canada after being granted asylum, with a photo showing her all bundled up in a winter jacket and woolly hat Instead, her passport was seized by a Saudi diplomat and she was forced to lock herself in an apartment room. She says she spent months planning her escape before implementing her dangerous plan on January 5. She barricaded herself in an airport hotel room where her social media campaign got enough public and diplomatic support that Thai officials admitted her temporarily under the protection of U.N. officials, who granted her refugee status Wednesday. 'What's new about this is the role of social media that it played in getting the attention she received,' Calla said. In her first weekend in Canada the young woman immediately got winter clothes and phone service. Calla said she has completed high school and had expressed interest in taking civil engineering in university. 'But maybe there's a future in politics for her,' Calla said. 'She certainly has been handling all this pressure very well.' In a television interview, she spoke of finally being 'free' from abuse by both the Saudi state and her family, after being granted asylum by Canada Ms al-Qunun said in an Australian television interview that she expected her experience would inspire other women to flee her homeland The Saudi teen revealed that once she learned she'd be relocating to Canada 'the stress that I felt over the last week melted away'. It has inspired her to work to help others in a similar position. 'Today and for years to come, I will work in support of freedom for women around the world,' she said in the statement read by Saba Abbas. 'The same freedom I experienced on the first day I arrived in Canada. 'I understand that everyone here and around the world wishes me well and would like to continue to hear about how I am doing, but ... I would like to start living a normal private life, just like any other young woman living in Canada.' She thanked the Canadian and Thai governments and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for making her move to Canada possible. 'I am one of the lucky ones,' she continued. 'I know that there are unlucky women who disappeared after trying to escape or who could not do anything to change their reality.' She added that women in KSA 'can't be independent and they need the approval of their male guardian for everything. Any woman who thinks of escaping, or escapes, will be at risk of persecution'. Ms al-Qunun spoke of finally being 'free' from abuse and oppression by both the Saudi government and her own family, but admitted that her parents announcing they have disowned her had upset her. 'How could my family disown me simply because I wanted to be independent and escape their abuse? It really upset me,' she said. Safe arrival: The teenager arrived in Canada this weekend, after fleeing her home country earlier this month - allegedly to escape her abusive family Ms al-Qunun, accompanied by Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland, right, and Saba Abbas, general counsellor of COSTI refugee service agency, left, arrives at Toronto Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Ontario Ms al-Qunun walks through sliding doors as she beams alongside officials at Toronto Pearson When asked why she had fled her homeland, Ms al-Qunun replied: 'I wanted to be free from abuse and depression. I wanted to be independent. I wouldn't be able to marry the person I wanted to. I couldn't get a job without permission.' Ms al-Qunun said her situation has highlighted the cause of women's rights in Saudi Arabia, where several women fleeing abuse by their families have been caught trying to seek asylum abroad in recent years and returned home. 'I think the number of women fleeing from the Saudi administration and abuse will increase, especially since there is no system to stop them,' Ms al Qunun told Australian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview. 'I'm sure that there will be a lot more women running away. I hope my story encourages other women to be brave and free. I hope my story prompts a change to the law, especially as it's been exposed to the world. This might be the agent for change,' she added. Ms al-Qunun said she felt 'like I was born again' when she was met at Toronto airport on Saturday by Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland. 'It was something amazing. There was a lot of love and hospitality, especially when the minister welcomed me and told me I was in a safe country and had all my rights,' Alqunun said. From her personal Twitter account, al-Qunun thanked everyone for their support, saying she had never 'dreamed of this love' Al-Qunun shared photos to Twitter from her flight to Toronto, showing her relaxing in first class with wine and her legs up Almost there: Rahaf Mohammed holds a mobile phone in Bangkok, Thailand last Friday This handout photo released and taken by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on January 11, 2019 shows Rahaf Mohammed before her departure for Canada In a separate interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation she said arriving in her new home country was 'worth the risk I took'. She said: 'I felt that I could not achieve my dreams that I wanted as long as I was still living in Saudi Arabia.' In her new home, 'I will try things I haven't tried. I will learn things I didn't learn. I will explore life... I will have a job and live a normal life.' Several other countries, including Australia, had been in talks with the U.N.'s refugee agency to accept Ms al-Qunun before she flew to Canada. Australian media reported that UNHCR had withdrawn its referral for Ms al-Qunun to be resettled in Australia because Canberra was taking too long to decide on her asylum UNHCR spokeswoman Lauren La Rose said the fact she was processed so quickly is a credit to those that made it happen. 'This is someone who was clearly in harm's way, who clearly felt her life with her threatened, and my colleagues in concert with governments in Thailand and Canada recognized that need,' she said. Canada is now the new home for Saudi refugee Ms al-Qunun (pictured) after Canada answered a request by the UNHCR Ms al-Qunun (pictured) previously reacted to news Australia was considering granting her asylum, saying, 'Is it true??? Australia wants me to go there??? I'm so happy' The 18-year-old was detained in Thailand following her arrival in the country. She is pictured having barricaded herself in an airport hotel room in a bid to avoid deportation A paedophile caught with over 300,000 child porn images said he didn't think viewing the content was wrong because the kids were actors. Former school teacher Donald Anthony Capon, 53, was caught with more than 380,000 images, 17,000 videos and 1,600 files of children, according to US authorities. The children were either naked, partially naked or engaged in sexual acts in videos and stills. Capon admitted his primary motivation for being in possession of child porn material was due to the thrill because it was illegal and forbidden content The Taranaki man from New Zealand's north island began to share explicit images of children in an internet chatroom in late 2015. Capon was sentenced to four years and six months in prison in 2016 after being convicted of several charges including possession of objectionable material, distribution of objectionable publications and importing prohibited goods. He was denied parole in January and December last year, the NZ Herald reported. Capon had completed a child sex offenders programme in prison, which he said he found 'difficult' but was 'happy with the progress' he made. Parole Board panel convenor Tania Williams-Blyth said Capon had addressed his 'distorted thinking' about the victims being actors. 'He realises that he was lying to himself and they were not actors,' said Ms Williams-Blyth. 'Lying to himself, he thought that merely watching videos was in no way as serious as those who committed the crimes.' Capon was sentenced to four years and six months in prison and had undergone a child sex offenders programme Ms Williams-Blyth said Capon admitted his primary motivation for possessing child pornography was for the thrill because it was forbidden material that was against the law. 'Now he says he doesn't need the thrill because the medication he is on is managing the highs and lows that he has felt. 'He will continue to take his medication and will engage in other activities such as voluntary work, church and hospice activities.' Capon has said he would like to engage with a psychologist and would go through one in the public health system if he found it unaffordable. He was denied parole because he did not have appropriate accommodation approved for his release. Capon, now 53, will remain in prison until his next parole hearing in March. China's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said it was strongly dissatisfied after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused China of 'arbitrarily' sentencing a Canadian to death for drug smuggling. Speaking at a daily news briefing in Beijing, ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying urged Canada to respect China's sovereignty and stop making such remarks. A Chinese court on Monday handed Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, 36, the death penalty for smuggling 222 kg of methamphetamines, aggravating already sour relations between Beijing and Ottawa following the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, a Huawei executive, in Vancouver and China's subsequent detention of two Canadians. In this image taken from a video footage run by China's CCTV, Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, 36, attends his retrial at the Dalian Intermediate People's Court in Dalian, northeastern China's Liaoning province on Monday. He was sentenced to death in the retrial Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday it was of 'extreme concern' that China had chosen to 'arbitrarily apply' the death penalty on Canadian Robert Schellenberg Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was of 'extreme concern' that China had chosen to 'arbitrarily apply' the death penalty. 'It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply (the) death penalty ... as in this case,' he told reporters. 'We encourage Canadians to exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws,' Global Affairs Canada said in an updated travel advisory released on Tuesday, without referring to the sentencing of Schellenberg. Also on Tuesday, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned Chinese citizens to 'fully assess the risks' and 'exercise caution' while travelling to Canada. In an online statement, the Ministry explained that a Chinese citizen had been detained 'at will' by Canada's law enforcement authorities at the request of 'a third country', leading to the travel warning. Schellenberg had been sentenced to 15 years in prison in November. A month later, a higher court took up his appeal and ordered a retrial after ruling that the punishment was too lenient The public trial was held on Monday in the Dalian Intermediate People's Court in Liaoning China has not linked Schellenberg's sentence to Meng's case and the state-run newspaper Global Times said in an editorial late on Monday that the idea that China was putting pressure on Canada with the sentence was 'unreasonable speculation' and showed 'rude contempt toward Chinese law'. 'Public opinion in Canada has claimed recently that China is 'politicising' Schellenberg's case, but what Canada is doing is actually politicising law,' Global Times said. 'Whatever Canada does, it is the rule of law, but whatever China does is not. Canadian elites are feeling so righteous with this double standard, and it is time for them to wake up from such cultural and value narcissism.' Then the previously little known case of Schellenberg, who was detained in December 2014, suddenly came to the fore following the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of tech giant Huawei on December 1 on U.S. charges related to trading with Iran. Schellenberg was sentenced to 15 years in prison in November. But a month later, a higher court took up his appeal and ordered a retrial after ruling that the punishment was too lenient. His death sentence was announced Monday during a first public trial by the Dalian Intermediate People's Court in Liaoning province. All personal assets belonging to Schellenberg will be confiscated by the court. The Dalian court said Schellenberg played a 'key part' in a drug trafficking syndicate that planned to ship some 222 kilogrammes (490 pounds) of methamphetamine to Australia The Dalian court said Schellenberg played a 'key part' in an international drug trafficking syndicate that planned to ship some 222 kilogrammes (490 pounds) of methamphetamine to Australia, hidden in plastic pellets which were concealed in rubber tyres. International rights groups condemned the sentence, with some saying it was too severe and suggesting it may have been politically motivated. 'China is going to face lots of questions about why this particular person, of this particular nationality, had to be retried at this particular time,' Human Rights Watch's Washington-based China director Sophie Richardson said. Schellenberg's lawyer said on Monday he would appeal the verdict. China has executed other foreigners for drug-related crimes in the past, including a Japanese national in 2014 and a Filipina in 2013. In 2009, a Briton, Akmal Shaikh, was executed in China on charges of smuggling heroin despite his supporters' protest that he was mentally ill. Tensions have escalated between China and Canada since Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of tech giant Huawei, was arrested in Vancouver on December 1. Ms Meng, pictured arriving at a parole office in Vancouver on December 12, is fighting extradition to the U.S. Michael Kovrig (left), an adviser with the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based non-governmental organisation and Michael Spavor (centre), who is frequently consulted on matters linked to North Korea, and Sarah McIver (right), a teacher, are among the 13 Canadian citizens detained in China since Huawei exec Meng Wanzhou's arrest on Dec 1 in Vancouver Schellenberg's case is likely again to test relations between Beijing and Ottawa, which have been tense since Meng Wanzhou's arrest. Meng was detained in Vancouver on December 1 at the request of the U.S., which accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. Meng is the vice chairman of Huawei, the second-largest smartphone creator in the world. After three days of hearings, she was released on bail of C$10million (US$7.4million) on December 11 - on the condition she surrender her two passports and agree to wear an ankle bracelet. She has been staying in Vancouver and confining herself to one of her two Vancouver homes from 11pm to 6am as she awaits possible extradition to the U.S. Chinese authorities later detained two Canadian nationals - Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat and Michael Spavor, a business consultant - on suspicion of endangering national security, a move seen as retaliation for the Huawei executive's arrest. Ottawa has called for the Canadians' immediate release, with the backing of the US, EU and several western nations. Advertisement Theresa May is set to cling on to 10 Downing Street in a confidence vote today, after her Brexit deal was crushed in the worst ever Commons defeat for a sitting government. An extraordinary 118 Tory rebels, more than a third of the parliamentary party, joined forces with Labour to sink Mrs May's withdrawal agreement by 432 votes to 202 - a majority of 230 - on a dramatic day at Westminster. Moments after the result was announced Jeremy Corbyn announced he would table a no-confidence motion, which MPs will vote on tonight, in a bid to force a general election. But the PM's Northern Irish allies, former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, and backbench ringleader Jacob Rees-Mogg have all pledged to support her, meaning she is likely to survive. The DUP's Sammy Wilson said the party wanted to 'get the government back on track' and would back Mrs May, while Mr Rees-Mogg said last night: 'I will be supporting the Prime Minister'. Mr Johnson said he 'certainly shall' vote for the PM in Wednesday night's vote, saying he did not want Mr Corbyn in office instead. Historic defeat: Mrs May (left) just about managed to raise a smile as she was driven away from the Commons last night, while Mr Corbyn (right) looked smug after calling a vote of no confidence that aims to topple the Prime Minister Boris Johnson (pictured among MPs voting against the deal, far left) said he did not 'rejoice' in the massive defeat suffered by Theresa May, but demanded that she ditches the Irish border backstop and takes a 'fresh approach' Remainers celebrate on Parliament Square as Britain appeared to edge closer to a softer Brexit or no Brexit at all Dawn at Downing Street today where Mrs May faces yet another battle for her political life with a confidence vote that could spark a general election at 7pm tonight Boris Johnson says there is STILL time to renegotiate the Brexit deal without delaying Britain's departure from the EU Boris Johnson last night insisted the Brexit deal can be renegotiated without delaying Britain's departure from the bloc. The former foreign secretary said he did not 'rejoice' in the massive defeat suffered by Theresa May, but demanded that she ditches the Irish border backstop and takes a 'fresh approach'. He dismissed the idea that would mean extending the Article 50 process, which has just 10 weeks left to run, saying most of the other terms were 'fine'. Rising to her feet moments after the drubbing, a clearly shaken Mrs May said the government will now 'listen'. Mr Johnson told Sky News that the margin of defeat was 'bigger than I expected'. Its no particular cause for rejoicing for me, after all Ive been trying for so long to get the government back in the place the PM was in her Lancaster House speech last year,' he said. We were really talking about taking advantage of free trade deals and taking control of our laws. All that got lost as we moved into this quicksand of the backstop, locked into the customs union and single market. What she has now is a massive mandate. With 432 votes against her deal, she takes it back to Brussels and says we cant do this deal as it is, we need a fresh approach. We can keep the good bits, protecting rights of the 3.2million EU citizens here in UK. Challenged that to change the Withdrawal Agreement the Article 50 process will need to be extended beyond the end of March, he said: You dont need to extend Article 50 at all, there are bits of the Withdrawal Agrereement that are fine. 'She should take out, excise, surgically remove the backstop. Thats the trap that keeps us locked in the customs union. We had this terrible Hobsons choice between sacrificing Northern Ireland or remaining subject to the EU without having any say in the EU. Thats the trap, and it needs to come out. Then we use the implementation period to do the free trade agreement. Thats eminently doable when you consider the UK and EU are completely aligned. What she should not do, and Im hearing rumours around this place, what would be fatal is parliamentary plottery and jiggery-pokery and coming up with schemes to delay Article 50 or come up with a second referendum.' Asked whether he would support Mrs May in the confidence vote, Mr Johnson said last night: We in the conservative party went through that in December last year. Thats not the issue. 'I would certainly vote for her and the conservative government tomorrow because the one thing I do not want is Jeremy Corbyn taking over as prime minister.' Advertisement The margin of 230 in the vote on Mrs May's deal was by far the largest government defeat on record, higher than the 166 votes by which the minority Labour government lost a division in 1924. Cheering could be heard by crowds of protesters gathered outside Parliament as the news filtered through - while the EU expressed shock. Rising to her feet moments after the drubbing, a clearly shaken Mrs May said the government will 'listen' and announced she would fight a no-confidence vote today - effectively daring Jeremy Corbyn to call one. He immediately accepted the challenge, saying she had reached the 'end of the line' and a general election was now essential. Mrs May jibed that while it was 'clear' the House did not support her deal, there was no clarity about what MPs did back. 'It is clear that the House does not support this deal. But tonight's vote tells us nothing about what it does support. Nothing about how - or even if - it intends to honour the decision the British people took in a referendum Parliament decided to hold,' she said. 'People, particularly EU citizens who have made their home here and UK citizens living in the EU, deserve clarity on these questions as soon as possible. Those whose jobs rely on our trade with the EU need that clarity.' Downing Street sources said in the wake of the devastating result, which threatens to plunge the Brexit process further into chaos, it would be reaching out to 'senior Parliamentarians' in a bid to find a way forward. The pound rose sharply against the US dollar and euro, as markets seemingly concluded that the UK's departure from the EU had become less likely to happen. Remainers and Brexiteers were jubilant about the rout, with Mr Johnson saying it was even larger than he had expected and demanding the Irish border backstop is dropped. Pro-EU factions seized on the outcome to push for a second referendum, with Scottish First minister Nicola Sturgeon hailing the setback for the government, and the Lib Dems saying it was the 'beginning of the end of Brexit'. As the PM looked into the abyss yesterday: DUP leader Arlene Foster branded the Irish border backstop 'toxic' and confirmed her party's 10 MPs would vote against the Withdrawal Agreement. But crucially she suggested they will support the government in the confidence vote today. MPs will cast their vote on whether they have confidence in the government this evening at 7pm. Defeat for the PM could pave the way for a general election. EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said he 'regretted' the vote, warning that the chances of no-deal Brexit had increased significantly. EU council chief Donald Tusk hinted that he now wanted to see Brexit reversed. The German government dismissed claims Angela Merkel had promised more concessions after the vote last night - although the country's foreign minister Heiko Maas suggested talks could be reopened in the wake of a defeat. Downing Street sources said Mrs May would be reaching out to senior MPs to try and find a new way forwards on the Brexit issue. Boris Johnson said there was 'still time' to go back to the EU and renegotiate the exit package, saying the Irish border backstop was the only real sticking point. A Cabinet meeting underlined the splits in Mrs May's team over what to do next, with Amber Rudd, David Gauke and David Lidington backing 'indicative' votes in Parliament - but Sajid Javid, Andrea Leadsom and Jeremy Hunt opposed. Former Tory ministers Nick Boles, Nicky Morgan and Sir Oliver Letwin vowed to press ahead with plans to allow Parliament to seize control of Brexit. Theresa May made her final appeal to MPs last night ahead of the crucial Brexit deal vote, saying they had a 'duty to deliver' She is pictured looking dejected as the scale of her defeat by 230 votes becomes apparent in the Commons Tory backbench ringleader Jacob Rees-Mogg (left), Arlene Foster (centre) and the DUP, and former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson (right) have all vowed to support the government in Wednesday night's confidence vote How did your MP vote? 202 voted For and 432 Against in a historic - and devastating - Commons defeat for the Prime Minister SNP MP Carol Monaghan tweeted a photograph of Tory MPs - including 1922 committee chair Graham Brady - trooping through the 'no' division lobbies with Opposition politicians There is an almost unlimited number of possible scenarios of what might happen in the aftermath of a defeat and much will depend on the margin in tonight's vote Speaker John Bercow declined to select an amendment that could have taken some of the pressure off the PM yesterday Far-right activist Daniel Thomas was led away by police as both Leave and Remain protesters gathered outside Parliament Pro-EU protesters smile as they watch a giant television screen relay the news of Mrs May's loss on Parliament Square Campaigners outside Parliament welcoming the news Mrs May's Brexit plan had failed when put to a vote by MPs There were noisy protests outside of Parliament last night as the moment of truth loomed for Mrs May's Brexit strategy Mrs May - who said she expected to survive Wednesday's vote - has until January 21 to set out a Plan B, with the clock ticking on the scheduled date of Brexit in just 73 days' time on March 29. Jean-Claude Juncker, who has cancelled travel plans in order to be in Brussels for the aftermath of the vote, voiced 'regret' at the defeat of what he termed 'the best possible deal'. He said in a statement: 'The risk of a disorderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom has increased with this evening's vote. While we do not want this to happen, the European Commission will continue its contingency work to help ensure the EU is fully prepared. 'I urge the United Kingdom to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. Donald Tusk hinted in a tweet that he thought Brexit could now be cancelled. 'If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?' he wrote. The PM's spokesman said she will be holding cross party talks with senior parliamentarians over the next few days to try to come up with a new Brexit plan if she survives tomorrow's confidence vote. He denied that Mrs May's deal is 'dead' and said that she believes it still forms the basis for a Brexit deal which can eventually win the backing of Britain's Parliament. And he signalled that her red lines on ending free movement and having a trade policy independent of the EU have not softened. He said: 'I can give you a sense of the principles going in we want a smooth and orderly exit with a deal, one that protects our union, gives us control of our borders law and money and means that we have an independent trade policy. How does the Brexit vote measure up to previous Commons showdowns? 166 - Labour goverment in 1924 The largest government defeat in modern times occurred on October 8 1924, when the minority Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald lost a vote by 364 votes to 198. The vote was on an amendment put forward by the Liberal Party to set up a select committee to investigate the Government's decision to drop criminal proceedings against JR Campbell, editor of the Communist newspaper Workers Weekly, which had recently published an article encouraging the armed forces to mutiny. 89 - Labour government in 1979 On March 22 1979, in the last few weeks of the Labour government led by Jim Callaghan, MPs voted on a motion to annul the fees for a firearms certificate. Although the numbers taking part were low, the Government lost by 115 to 26. 86 - Labour government in 1978 The largest post-war defeat where at least half of MPs took part. It happened on January 25 1978, when MPs voted by 204 to 118 on an opposition amendment to the Callaghan government's Scotland Devolution Bill. The legislation had excluded Orkney and Shetland from the provisions of the Bill if they voted 'no' in a referendum. Advertisement 'Now it is for others to set out their position, but we want to identify what would be required to secure the backing of the House consistent with what we believe to be the result of the referendum.' The shattering blow for the PM came despite her making a final plea for critics to think again, insisting her deal was the only realistic option on the table. After hours of desperate arm-twisting, she begged MPs to recognise it was the 'most important' vote they would cast in their careers, and every member would have to 'justify and live with' their actions. But hordes of Tories - including the chair of the powerful 1922 committee Graham Brady - still trooped through the No division lobbies with Opposition MPs. At least two ministerial aides, Tom Pursglove and Eddie Hughes, resigned to go against Mrs May. In her closing speech last night, Mrs May dismissed calls from the DUP - which is propping her up in power - to erase the Irish border backstop from the divorce deal. She said she was PM for the 'whole United Kingdom', and would never recommend something that was not in the 'national interest'. 'Parliament gave the people a choice. We set the clock ticking on our departure and tonight we will determine whether we move forward with a Withdrawal Agreement which honours the vote and sets us on course for a better future,' Mrs May said. 'The responsibility of each and every one of us at this moment is profound for this is a historic decision that will set the future of this country for generations.' She added: 'I believe we have a duty to deliver on the democratic decision of the British people, and to do so in a way that brings our country together.' She also accused Mr Corbyn of 'failing in his responsibility to provide a credible alternative to the government of day', appealing for moderate MPs on his benches to recognse that he had forefeited the right to their loyalty. But Ms Sturgeon said: 'It has been crystal clear for months that the Prime Minister's approach was heading for a crushing defeat. Instead of facing up to that fact, she wasted valuable time with her postponement of the meaningful vote in December. There is no more time to waste.' The DUP said it would be supporting the government in the confidence vote, but leader Arlene Foster said Mrs May must now demand 'fundamental change' to the Withdrawal Agreement. 'The House of Commons has sent an unmistakable message to the prime minister and the European Union that this deal is rejected,' they said. 'Mrs May will now be able to demonstrate to the Brussels' negotiators that changes are required if any deal is to command the support of parliament. 'Reassurances whether in the form of letters or warm words, will not be enough. The prime minister must now go back to the European Union and seek fundamental change to the withdrawal agreement.' Mr Corbyn's spokesman suggested Labour could table another motion of no confidence in the Government if they lose this evening's vote. 'I became PM immediately after the referendum and I believe its my duty to deliver the result': Theresa May's response to her Brexit defeat in full Mr Speaker, the House has spoken and the Government will listen. It is clear that the House does not support this deal. Tonights vote tells us nothing about what it does support. Nothing about how or even if it intends to honour the decision the British people took in a referendum Parliament decided to hold. People, particularly European Union citizens who made their home here and people from the UK living in the EU, deserve clarity on these questions as soon as possible. Those whose jobs rely on trade with the EU need that clarity. First, we need to confirm whether this Government still enjoys the confidence of the House. I believe it does but, given the scale and importance of tonights vote, its right others have the chance to test that question if they wish to do so. I can therefore confirm that, if the Official Opposition table a confidence motion this evening in the form required for the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, the Government will give time to debate that motion tomorrow. [Jeremy Corbyn later did so, with a vote to be held today.] Second, if the House confirms confidence in this Government I will then hold meetings with my colleagues, our confidence-and-supply partner the DUP and senior Parliamentarians from across the House to identify what would be required to secure the backing of the House. The Government will approach these meetings in a constructive spirit, but given the urgent need to make progress, we must focus on ideas that are genuinely negotiable and have sufficient support in this House. If these meetings yield such ideas, the Government will then explore them with the European Union. I want to end by offering two reassurances. First, to those who fear Government strategy is to run down the clock to 29 March: This is not our strategy. I have always believed the best way forward is to leave in an orderly way with a good deal and have devoted most of the last two years negotiating such a deal. We respect the will of the House [on the Grieve amendment for a Plan B] and we will table an amendable motion on Monday. My second reassurance is to British people who voted to leave the European Union in the referendum two-and-a-half years ago. I became PM immediately after the referendum and I believe its my duty to deliver on their instruction and I intend to do so. Every day that passes without this issue being resolved means more uncertainty, more bitterness and more rancour. The Government has heard what this House has said tonight but I ask members on all sides of the house to listen to the British people who want this issue settled. And to work with the Government to do just that. Advertisement A clearly shaken Mrs May complained that while the House had clearly rejected her plan, it did not appear to have a collective view on what else should be done The pubs around Westminster including the famous Red Lion on Whitehall were packed as people watched the dramatic news come through, with loud cheering Asked how many times Labour would put the confidence vote before accepting that they could not get a general election, he replied: 'It will go on being the case that the best outcome is a general election but if we can't get a general election then all the options will be on the table as unanimously agreed in Liverpool.' The spokesman added that the Government was 'quite clearly unable to govern', and said the 'unprecedented' scale of the defeat made clear that 'no amount of tweaking or talks on the detail are going to change that'. Boris Johnson said he did not take 'pleasure' in Mrs May's humiliation. 'I was slightly surprised by the scale of the defeat, but I take no particular pleasure in it,' he said. 'I would never rejoice in the idea of a Conservative government being defeated on anything. 'A second referendum would plunge us back again into an orgy of toxic tedium of the kind that nobody wants.' At a Cabinet meeting earlier, ministers led by Chancellor Philip Hammond are understood to have urged Mrs May to cling on regardless of the scale of her loss, voicing alarm about the economic panic her departure could cause. The premier insisted she was the 'servant of the people' and was determined to stay on to implement the referendum result, saying her plan was still the 'only option'. However, the meeting underlined the growing splits over how to handle the mounting crisis. MailOnline understands there were pointed exchanges over whether to stage a series of 'indicative votes' to establish what Brexit options might command a majority in Parliament. Remain-leaning ministers including Amber Rudd, David Gauke and David Lidington were 'heavily sat on' by a more hawkish group led by Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Andrea Leadsom and Gavin Williamson. One supporter of the plan admitted it was given a 'good kicking'. Mr Gauke also urged the PM to rule out a no-deal Brexit, but was slapped down by the same combination of colleagues, according to sources. Mrs May was bobbing in and out of the Commons debate as tensions rose last night, as she met MPs face-to-face to plead for their support. Her husband Philip was also seen watching in the gallery of the chamber. There was a heavy police presence to keep the protesters away from the secure perimeter at the Houses of Parliament Groups of demonstrators from both sides of the argument waved Union flags as they pushed their views on Brexit MPs including Hilary Benn pulled amendments to Mrs May's motion in order to set up a 'clean vote' and inflict the worst possible defeat on the PM. And Mr Bercow, who has been criticised for conspiring with MPs to frustrate the Brexit process, whittled the field down further by shunning other changes. Tory accuses pregnant Labour MP Tulip Siddiq of delaying her caesarean to 'make a point' on Brexit Tory politician Kemi Badenoch (pictured on the BBC's Politics Live show today) accused pregnant Labour MP Tulip Siddiq of delaying the caesarean birth of her child to 'make a point' about Brexit A Tory politician today accused pregnant Labour MP Tulip Siddiq of delaying the caesarean birth of her child to 'make a point' about Brexit. Ms Siddiq, 36, revealed yesterday that she has decided to go against doctors orders and delay the delivery so she can vote in tonight's crunch showdown. Ms Siddiq, who has a two-year-old daughter Azalea, took the decision after losing faith in the system which allows pregnant women to be 'paired' with an MP from an opposing side so neither votes. But appearing on TV today, Tory MP Kemi Badenoch said she thinks MS Siddiq made the decision to prove a point to her pro-Remain constituency 'irrespective of pairing'. Her comments were lashed by Labour MPs who accused Ms Badenoch of making a 'scurrilous slur' and 'appalling smear'. Advertisement MPs had been due to vote on four amendments to the deal - including one from Labour that would rule out no deal. Other changes selected would order the government to terminate the Withdrawal Treat in January 2022 if the backstop is still in force. However, Labour, the SNP and Tory MP Edward Leigh withdrew their changes. Conservative MP John Baron insisted on pushing his amendment to a vote, but was trounced. Mrs May will have three days to set out her 'Plan B', and insisted she will not try to 'run down the clock'. She will hope to thrash out more concessions from the EU. The German foreign minister Heiko Maas yesterday held out the prospect of reopening negotiations. However, Remainer rebels are plotting to wrestle control of the process from the government and hand it to Parliament. Other options being pushed by MPs include a Norway-style free relationship, a second referendum or a general election - although there does not appear to be any clear majority in Parliament for any of the outcomes. As the temperature rose in the Commons ahead of the crunch vote last night, Attorney General Geoffrey Cox QC launched an extraordinary assault on those opposing her plan during the Commons debate, accusing them of 'childish' behaviour and gambling with people's lives. He warned them not to underestimate the legal complexity of leaving the EU after 45 years, saying the deal offered a chance for 'order and predictability'. 'It provides for the orderly and predictable and legally certain winding-down of our obligations and involvement in the legal systems of the EU,' Mr Cox said. 'If we do not legislate for that legal certainty as a matter of law alone, thousands of contracts, thousands of transactions, thousands of administrative proceedings, of judicial proceedings in the European Union and this country, will be plunged into legal uncertainty. 'It would be the height of irresponsibility for any legislator to contemplate with equanimity such a situation. 'If you were a litigant in a court, if you were dependent upon having concluded a contract on the basis of EU law and you found yourself suddenly with the rug pulled from under you, not knowing what your legal obligations would be, you would say to this House 'What are you playing at? What are you doing? You are not children in the playground, you are legislators' - we are playing with people's lives.' The vote was originally due last month but was pulled at the last minute in the face of overwhelming opposition. The PM pledged to negotiate 'legally binding' assurances from the EU to calm fears that the so-called backstop, which is designed to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland if trade talks falter, would keep the UK permanently in a customs union. When a letter from Mr Juncker and Mr Tusk was published yesterday, Mr Mrs May insisted it did go further than the EU had been willing to previously, but acknowledged that it fell short of what she had requested. The letter said the EU did not want the backstop to become permanent and Brussels would not impose new laws. How did YOUR MP vote on the Brexit deal last night? Theresa May suffered an historic landslide defeat in the Commons last night, losing her Brexit deal by 432 to 202 - a huge majority of 230. She suffered a rebellion of 118 of her MPs - with the group including a raft of former ministers and a number of low-scale resignations. The PM was aided by just three Labour rebels - an Austin (Labour - Dudley North), Sir Kevin Barron (Labour - Rother Valley) and John Mann (Labour - Bassetlaw) - plus three independent MPs Frank Field (Birkenhead), Lady Hermon (North Down) and Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) TORY LOYALISTS WHO BACKED THE DEAL (196 MPs) Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty) Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden) Peter Aldous (Conservative - Waveney) Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Pudsey) Edward Argar (Conservative - Charnwood) Victoria Atkins (Conservative - Louth and Horncastle) Ian Austin (Labour - Dudley North) Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Conservative - Saffron Walden) Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire) Stephen Barclay (Conservative - North East Cambridgeshire) Sir Henry Bellingham (Conservative - North West Norfolk) Richard Benyon (Conservative - Newbury) Sir Paul Beresford (Conservative - Mole Valley) Jake Berry (Conservative - Rossendale and Darwen) Nick Boles (Conservative - Grantham and Stamford) Sir Peter Bottomley (Conservative - Worthing West) Andrew Bowie (Conservative - West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) Karen Bradley (Conservative - Staffordshire Moorlands) Jack Brereton (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent South) Steve Brine (Conservative - Winchester) James Brokenshire (Conservative - Old Bexley and Sidcup) Robert Buckland (Conservative - South Swindon) Alex Burghart (Conservative - Brentwood and Ongar) Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire) Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan) James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk) Alex Chalk (Conservative - Cheltenham) Jo Churchill (Conservative - Bury St Edmunds) Colin Clark (Conservative - Gordon) Greg Clark (Conservative - Tunbridge Wells) Mr Kenneth Clarke (Conservative - Rushcliffe) James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree) Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative - The Cotswolds) Dr Therese Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal) Alberto Costa (Conservative - South Leicestershire) Mr Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and West Devon) Stephen Crabb (Conservative - Preseli Pembrokeshire) Chris Davies (Conservative - Brecon and Radnorshire) David T. C. Davies (Conservative - Monmouth) Glyn Davies (Conservative - Montgomeryshire) Mims Davies (Conservative - Eastleigh) Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport) Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative - Huntingdon) Leo Docherty (Conservative - Aldershot) Michelle Donelan (Conservative - Chippenham) Oliver Dowden (Conservative - Hertsmere) Jackie Doyle-Price (Conservative - Thurrock) David Duguid (Conservative - Banff and Buchan) Sir Alan Duncan (Conservative - Rutland and Melton) Mr Philip Dunne (Conservative - Ludlow) Michael Ellis (Conservative - Northampton North) Mr Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth East) George Eustice (Conservative - Camborne and Redruth) Mark Field (Conservative - Cities of London and Westminster) Vicky Ford (Conservative - Chelmsford) Kevin Foster (Conservative - Torbay) Dr Liam Fox (Conservative - North Somerset) Lucy Frazer (Conservative - South East Cambridgeshire) George Freeman (Conservative - Mid Norfolk) Mike Freer (Conservative - Finchley and Golders Green) Sir Roger Gale (Conservative - North Thanet) Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest) Mr David Gauke (Conservative - South West Hertfordshire) Ms Nusrat Ghani (Conservative - Wealden) Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative - Chesham and Amersham) John Glen (Conservative - Salisbury) Mr Robert Goodwill (Conservative - Scarborough and Whitby) Michael Gove (Conservative - Surrey Heath) Luke Graham (Conservative - Ochil and South Perthshire) Richard Graham (Conservative - Gloucester) Bill Grant (Conservative - Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) Mrs Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and The Weald) Chris Grayling (Conservative - Epsom and Ewell) Damian Green (Conservative - Ashford) Andrew Griffiths (Conservative - Burton) Kirstene Hair (Conservative - Angus) Luke Hall (Conservative - Thornbury and Yate) Mr Philip Hammond (Conservative - Runnymede and Weybridge) Stephen Hammond (Conservative - Wimbledon) Matt Hancock (Conservative - West Suffolk) Richard Harrington (Conservative - Watford) Rebecca Harris (Conservative - Castle Point) Trudy Harrison (Conservative - Copeland) Simon Hart (Conservative - Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) Sir Oliver Heald (Conservative - North East Hertfordshire) James Heappey (Conservative - Wells) Chris Heaton-Harris (Conservative - Daventry) Peter Heaton-Jones (Conservative - North Devon) Nick Herbert (Conservative - Arundel and South Downs) Mr Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire) Simon Hoare (Conservative - North Dorset) George Hollingbery (Conservative - Meon Valley) Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton) John Howell (Conservative - Henley) Nigel Huddleston (Conservative - Mid Worcestershire) Mr Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - South West Surrey) Mr Nick Hurd (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) Mr Alister Jack (Conservative - Dumfries and Galloway) Margot James (Conservative - Stourbridge) Sajid Javid (Conservative - Bromsgrove) Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark) Dr Caroline Johnson (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham) Andrew Jones (Conservative - Harrogate and Knaresborough) Mr Marcus Jones (Conservative - Nuneaton) Gillian Keegan (Conservative - Chichester) Seema Kennedy (Conservative - South Ribble) Stephen Kerr (Conservative - Stirling) Julian Knight (Conservative - Solihull) Kwasi Kwarteng (Conservative - Spelthorne) Mark Lancaster (Conservative - Milton Keynes North) Andrea Leadsom (Conservative - South Northamptonshire) Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford) Sir Edward Leigh (Conservative - Gainsborough) Sir Oliver Letwin (Conservative - West Dorset) Brandon Lewis (Conservative - Great Yarmouth) Mr David Lidington (Conservative - Aylesbury) Jack Lopresti (Conservative - Filton and Bradley Stoke) Rachel Maclean (Conservative - Redditch) Alan Mak (Conservative - Havant) Kit Malthouse (Conservative - North West Hampshire) Paul Masterton (Conservative - East Renfrewshire) Mrs Theresa May (Conservative - Maidenhead) Paul Maynard (Conservative - Blackpool North and Cleveleys) Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Conservative - Derbyshire Dales) Mark Menzies (Conservative - Fylde) Huw Merriman (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle) Mrs Maria Miller (Conservative - Basingstoke) Amanda Milling (Conservative - Cannock Chase) Anne Milton (Conservative - Guildford) Penny Mordaunt (Conservative - Portsmouth North) Nicky Morgan (Conservative - Loughborough) David Morris (Conservative - Morecambe and Lunesdale) James Morris (Conservative - Halesowen and Rowley Regis) David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) Dr Andrew Murrison (Conservative - South West Wiltshire) Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst) Sarah Newton (Conservative - Truro and Falmouth) Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North) Jesse Norman (Conservative - Hereford and South Herefordshire) Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough) Guy Opperman (Conservative - Hexham) Neil Parish (Conservative - Tiverton and Honiton) Mark Pawsey (Conservative - Rugby) John Penrose (Conservative - Weston-super-Mare) Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole) Claire Perry (Conservative - Devizes) Chris Philp (Conservative - Croydon South) Christopher Pincher (Conservative - Tamworth) Dr Dan Poulter (Conservative - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) Rebecca Pow (Conservative - Taunton Deane) Victoria Prentis (Conservative - Banbury) Mr Mark Prisk (Conservative - Hertford and Stortford) Jeremy Quin (Conservative - Horsham) Mary Robinson (Conservative - Cheadle) Amber Rudd (Conservative - Hastings and Rye) David Rutley (Conservative - Macclesfield) Antoinette Sandbach (Conservative - Eddisbury) Paul Scully (Conservative - Sutton and Cheam) Mr Bob Seely (Conservative - Isle of Wight) Andrew Selous (Conservative - South West Bedfordshire) Alok Sharma (Conservative - Reading West) Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative - Elmet and Rothwell) Mr Keith Simpson (Conservative - Broadland) Chris Skidmore (Conservative - Kingswood) Chloe Smith (Conservative - Norwich North) Julian Smith (Conservative - Skipton and Ripon) Sir Nicholas Soames (Conservative - Mid Sussex) Dame Caroline Spelman (Conservative - Meriden) Mark Spencer (Conservative - Sherwood) Andrew Stephenson (Conservative - Pendle) John Stevenson (Conservative - Carlisle) Rory Stewart (Conservative - Penrith and The Border) Sir Gary Streeter (Conservative - South West Devon) Mel Stride (Conservative - Central Devon) Graham Stuart (Conservative - Beverley and Holderness) Rishi Sunak (Conservative - Richmond (Yorks)) Sir Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West) Maggie Throup (Conservative - Erewash) Kelly Tolhurst (Conservative - Rochester and Strood) Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon) David Tredinnick (Conservative - Bosworth) Elizabeth Truss (Conservative - South West Norfolk) Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge and Malling) Mr Edward Vaizey (Conservative - Wantage) Mr Charles Walker (Conservative - Broxbourne) Mr Robin Walker (Conservative - Worcester) Mr Ben Wallace (Conservative - Wyre and Preston North) David Warburton (Conservative - Somerton and Frome) Matt Warman (Conservative - Boston and Skegness) Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent) Mrs Heather Wheeler (Conservative - South Derbyshire) Craig Whittaker (Conservative - Calder Valley) Gavin Williamson (Conservative - South Staffordshire) Mike Wood (Conservative - Dudley South) Jeremy Wright (Conservative - Kenilworth and Southam) Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon) TORY REBELS WHO VOTED NO (118 MPs) Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor) Lucy Allan (Conservative - Telford) Heidi Allen (Conservative - South Cambridgeshire) Sir David Amess (Conservative - Southend West) Mr Richard Bacon (Conservative - South Norfolk) Mr Steve Baker (Conservative - Wycombe) Hannah Bardell (Scottish National Party - Livingston) Mr John Baron (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay) Guto Bebb (Conservative - Aberconwy) Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East) Crispin Blunt (Conservative - Reigate) Mr Peter Bone (Conservative - Wellingborough) Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield) Sir Graham Brady (Conservative - Altrincham and Sale West) Suella Braverman (Conservative - Fareham) Andrew Bridgen (Conservative - North West Leicestershire) Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton) Conor Burns (Conservative - Bournemouth West) Sir William Cash (Conservative - Stone) Maria Caulfield (Conservative - Lewes) Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham) Sir Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch) Mr Simon Clarke (Conservative - Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) Damian Collins (Conservative - Folkestone and Hythe) Robert Courts (Conservative - Witney) Tracey Crouch (Conservative - Chatham and Aylesford) Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley) Mr David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden) Ms Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire) Steve Double (Conservative - St Austell and Newquay) Richard Drax (Conservative - South Dorset) James Duddridge (Conservative - Rochford and Southend East) Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative - Chingford and Woodford Green) Charlie Elphicke (Conservative - Dover) Mr Nigel Evans (Conservative - Ribble Valley) Sir David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford) Michael Fabricant (Conservative - Lichfield) Sir Michael Fallon (Conservative - Sevenoaks) Mr Mark Francois (Conservative - Rayleigh and Wickford) Mr Marcus Fysh (Conservative - Yeovil) Zac Goldsmith (Conservative - Richmond Park) James Gray (Conservative - North Wiltshire) Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West) Justine Greening (Conservative - Putney) Mr Dominic Grieve (Conservative - Beaconsfield) Mr Sam Gyimah (Conservative - East Surrey) Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow) Greg Hands (Conservative - Chelsea and Fulham) Mr Mark Harper (Conservative - Forest of Dean) Sir John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings) Gordon Henderson (Conservative - Sittingbourne and Sheppey) Mr Philip Hollobone (Conservative - Kettering) Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham) Eddie Hughes (Conservative - Walsall North) Mr Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire) Sir Bernard Jenkin (Conservative - Harwich and North Essex) Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood) Boris Johnson (Conservative - Uxbridge and South Ruislip) Gareth Johnson (Conservative - Dartford) Joseph Johnson (Conservative - Orpington) Mr David Jones (Conservative - Clwyd West) Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham) Sir Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire) John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) Mrs Pauline Latham (Conservative - Mid Derbyshire) Dr Phillip Lee (Conservative - Bracknell) Andrew Lewer (Conservative - Northampton South) Dr Julian Lewis (Conservative - New Forest East) Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Conservative - Bridgwater and West Somerset) Julia Lopez (Conservative - Hornchurch and Upminster) Mr Jonathan Lord (Conservative - Woking) Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham) Craig Mackinlay (Conservative - South Thanet) Mrs Anne Main (Conservative - St Albans) Scott Mann (Conservative - North Cornwall) Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage) Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton) Johnny Mercer (Conservative - Plymouth, Moor View) Stephen Metcalfe (Conservative - South Basildon and East Thurrock) Nigel Mills (Conservative - Amber Valley) Mr Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield) Anne Marie Morris (Conservative - Newton Abbot) Mrs Sheryll Murray (Conservative - South East Cornwall) Dr Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon) Priti Patel (Conservative - Witham) Mr Owen Paterson (Conservative - North Shropshire) Sir Mike Penning (Conservative - Hemel Hempstead) Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin) Tom Pursglove (Conservative - Corby) Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester) Dominic Raab (Conservative - Esher and Walton) John Redwood (Conservative - Wokingham) Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (Conservative - North East Somerset) Mr Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury) Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford) Douglas Ross (Conservative - Moray) Lee Rowley (Conservative - North East Derbyshire) Grant Shapps (Conservative - Welwyn Hatfield) Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley) Anna Soubry (Conservative - Broxtowe) Bob Stewart (Conservative - Beckenham) Julian Sturdy (Conservative - York Outer) Sir Hugo Swire (Conservative - East Devon) Sir Robert Syms (Conservative - Poole) Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives) Ross Thomson (Conservative - Aberdeen South) Michael Tomlinson (Conservative - Mid Dorset and North Poole) Craig Tracey (Conservative - North Warwickshire) Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Conservative - Berwick-upon-Tweed) Mr Shailesh Vara (Conservative - North West Cambridgeshire) Martin Vickers (Conservative - Cleethorpes) Theresa Villiers (Conservative - Chipping Barnet) Giles Watling (Conservative - Clacton) Mr John Whittingdale (Conservative - Maldon) Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire) Dr Sarah Wollaston (Conservative - Totnes) Mr William Wragg (Conservative - Hazel Grove) LABOUR, SNP, LIB DEM AND OTHERS WHO VOTED NO (314 MPs) Ms Diane Abbott (Labour - Hackney North and Stoke Newington) Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth) Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow) Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting) Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale Tonia Antoniazzi (Labour - Gower) Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South) Mr Adrian Bailey (Labour (Co-op) - West Bromwich West) Margaret Beckett (Labour - Derby South) Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central) Luciana Berger (Labour (Co-op) - Liverpool, Wavertree) Mr Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East) Mhairi Black (Scottish National Party - Paisley and Renfrewshire South) Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party - Ross, Skye and Lochaber) Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North) Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour - City of Durham) Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central) Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen) Mr Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter) Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington) Kevin Brennan (Labour - Cardiff West) Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith) Alan Brown (Scottish National Party - Kilmarnock and Loudoun) Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham) Mr Nicholas Brown (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East) Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda) Ms Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North) Richard Burden (Labour - Birmingham, Northfield) Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East) Dawn Butler (Labour - Brent Central) Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill) Sir Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham) Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth) Dr Lisa Cameron (Scottish National Party - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) Mr Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry) Mr Ronnie Campbell (Labour - Blyth Valley) Sir Alan Campbell (Labour - Tynemouth) Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton) Mr Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland) Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham) Douglas Chapman (Scottish National Party - Dunfermline and West Fife) Jenny Chapman (Labour - Darlington) Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Enfield, Southgate) Joanna Cherry (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh South West) Ann Clwyd (Labour - Cynon Valley) Vernon Coaker (Labour - Gedling) Ann Coffey (Labour - Stockport) Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley) Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire) Yvette Cooper (Labour - Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) Jeremy Corbyn (Labour - Islington North) Ronnie Cowan (Scottish National Party - Inverclyde) Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark) Sir David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East) Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East) Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield) Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow) Jon Cruddas (Labour - Dagenham and Rainham) John Cryer (Labour - Leyton and Wanstead) Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South) Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North) Mr Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South) Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East) Nic Dakin (Labour - Scunthorpe) Sir Edward Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton) Wayne David (Labour - Caerphilly) Geraint Davies (Labour (Co-op) - Swansea West) Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk) Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea) Gloria De Piero (Labour - Ashfield) Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West) Emma Dent Coad (Labour - Kensington) Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough) Martin Docherty-Hughes (Scottish National Party - West Dunbartonshire) Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East) Nigel Dodds (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast North) Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Democratic Unionist Party - Lagan Valley) Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth) Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle) Dr David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud) Jack Dromey (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington) Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury) Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood) Ms Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey) Jonathan Edwards (Plaid Cymru - Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) Clive Efford (Labour - Eltham) Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central) Dame Louise Ellman (Labour (Co-op) - Liverpool, Riverside) Chris Elmore (Labour - Ogmore) Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central) Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Islwyn) Paul Farrelly (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme) Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale) Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party - Motherwell and Wishaw) Jim Fitzpatrick (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse) Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East) Caroline Flint (Labour - Don Valley) Yvonne Fovargue (Labour - Makerfield) James Frith (Labour - Bury North) Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) Hugh Gaffney (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) Mike Gapes (Labour (Co-op) - Ilford South) Barry Gardiner (Labour - Brent North) Ruth George (Labour - High Peak) Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party - North East Fife) Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party - North Ayrshire and Arran) Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston) Paul Girvan (Democratic Unionist Party - South Antrim) Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside) Mr Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green) Helen Goodman (Labour - Bishop Auckland) Patrick Grady (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North) Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes) Neil Gray (Scottish National Party - Airdrie and Shotts) Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston) Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South) Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West) Nia Griffith (Labour - Llanelli) John Grogan (Labour - Keighley) Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish) Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield, Heeley) Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East) David Hanson (Labour - Delyn) Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) Ms Harriet Harman (Labour - Camberwell and Peckham) Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East) Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood) Sue Hayman (Labour - Workington) John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne) Sir Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston) Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) Mr Stephen Hepburn (Labour - Jarrow) Mike Hill (Labour - Hartlepool) Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch) Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath) Dame Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking) Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West) Kate Hoey (Labour - Vauxhall) Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn) Kelvin Hopkins (Independent - Luton North) Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East) Mr George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley) Dr Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton) Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East) Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West) Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central) Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North) Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West) Gerald Jones (Labour - Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) Graham P Jones (Labour - Hyndburn) Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North) Mr Kevan Jones (Labour - North Durham) Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central) Susan Elan Jones (Labour - Clwyd South) Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East) Barbara Keeley (Labour - Worsley and Eccles South) Liz Kendall (Labour - Leicester West) Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester, Gorton) Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West) Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon) Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove) Lesley Laird (Labour - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion) Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk) Mr David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham) Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck) Chris Law (Scottish National Party - Dundee West) Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln) Mr Chris Leslie (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham East) Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields) Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South) Mr Ivan Lewis (Independent - Bury South) David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East) Emma Little Pengelly (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast South) Tony Lloyd (Labour - Rochdale) Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles) Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion) Ian C. Lucas (Labour - Wrexham) Holly Lynch (Labour - Halifax) Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party - Na h-Eileanan an Iar) Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston) Mr Khalid Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Perry Barr) Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood) Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston) Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South) Sandy Martin (Labour - Ipswich) Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central) Christian Matheson (Labour - City of Chester) Steve McCabe (Labour - Birmingham, Selly Oak) Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East) Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden) Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough) Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South) Stuart C. McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington) Mr Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East) Conor McGinn (Labour - St Helens North) Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South) Liz McInnes (Labour - Heywood and Middleton) Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North) Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West and Royton) Anna McMorrin (Labour - Cardiff North) John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk) Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead) Edward Miliband (Labour - Doncaster North) Carol Monaghan (Scottish National Party - Glasgow North West) Mrs Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend) Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport) Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon) Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East) Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South) Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington) Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South) Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan) Gavin Newlands (Scottish National Party - Paisley and Renfrewshire North) Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North) Brendan O'Hara (Scottish National Party - Argyll and Bute) Jared O'Mara (Independent - Sheffield, Hallam) Fiona Onasanya (Independent - Peterborough) Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby) Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central) Kate Osamor (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton) Albert Owen (Labour - Ynys M?n) Ian Paisley (Democratic Unionist Party - North Antrim) Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East) Teresa Pearce (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead) Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich) Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield) Jess Phillips (Labour - Birmingham, Yardley) Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South) Laura Pidcock (Labour - North West Durham) Jo Platt (Labour (Co-op) - Leigh) Luke Pollard (Labour (Co-op) - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) Stephen Pound (Labour - Ealing North) Lucy Powell (Labour (Co-op) - Manchester Central) Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East) Faisal Rashid (Labour - Warrington South) Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne) Mr Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North) Christina Rees (Labour (Co-op) - Neath) Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge) Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West) Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wolverhampton North East) Jonathan Reynolds (Labour (Co-op) - Stalybridge and Hyde) Ms Marie Rimmer (Labour - St Helens South and Whiston) Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast East) Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Labour - Coventry North West) Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading East) Danielle Rowley (Labour - Midlothian) Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd) Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown) Joan Ryan (Labour - Enfield North) Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd) Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West) Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford) Mr Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall) Mr Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield) Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh East) Paula Sherriff (Labour - Dewsbury) Mr Gavin Shuker (Labour (Co-op) - Luton South) Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn) David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann) Mr Dennis Skinner (Labour - Bolsover) Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith) Ruth Smeeth (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent North) Angela Smith (Labour - Penistone and Stocksbridge) Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Fleetwood) Eleanor Smith (Labour - Wolverhampton South West) Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester, Withington) Laura Smith (Labour - Crewe and Nantwich) Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd) Royston Smith (Conservative - Southampton, Itchen) Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South) Gareth Snell (Labour (Co-op) - Stoke-on-Trent Central) Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West) John Spellar (Labour - Warley) Keir Starmer (Labour - Holborn and St Pancras) Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West) Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central) Jamie Stone (Liberal Democrat - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North) Graham Stringer (Labour - Blackley and Broughton) Mr Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East) Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire) Mark Tami (Labour - Alyn and Deeside) Alison Thewliss (Scottish National Party - Glasgow Central) Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West) Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen) Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury) Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham) Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth) Anna Turley (Labour (Co-op) - Redcar) Karl Turner (Labour - Kingston upon Hull East) Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton) Stephen Twigg (Labour (Co-op) - Liverpool, West Derby) Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon) Chuka Umunna (Labour - Streatham) Keith Vaz (Labour - Leicester East) Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall South) Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley) Tom Watson (Labour - West Bromwich East) Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green) Matt Western (Labour - Warwick and Leamington) Dr Alan Whitehead (Labour - Southampton, Test) Martin Whitfield (Labour - East Lothian) Dr Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party - Central Ayrshire) Dr Paul Williams (Labour - Stockton South) Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon) Chris Williamson (Labour - Derby North) Phil Wilson (Labour - Sedgefield) Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim) Pete Wishart (Scottish National Party - Perth and North Perthshire) John Woodcock (Independent - Barrow and Furness) Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford) Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge) Advertisement Downing Street resident Larry the cat seemed unphased by the political drama yesterday. Attorney General Geoffrey Cox QC has been a key backer for the PM's plan David Davis (right) reiterated his opposition to the government's deal at a press conference in Westminster yesterday Baffled by Brexit? Here's everything you need to know about the plots, the votes and the deals (and what last night's Commons showdown REALLY means) MPs last night voted on Theresa May's Brexit plan in what was set to be the most important decision taken by Parliament since the Second World War. The PM suffered a catastrophic defeat in the crunch vote, with MPs seizing on her weakness to push their own plans for Britain's future with the EU. Politicians are deeply divided over whether Brexit should be soft or hard, and if the UK should go for a Norway-style deal or a Canada plus plan. But the terms and arguments deployed by MPs are often steeped in jargon and bamboozling to the ordinary Brit. Here are some of the things that will help you to finally understand the Brexit debate rocking Britain and its Parliament. Theresa May (pictured in the Commons today) has struck a deal with the EU - but MPs are expected to vote it down by a massive majority today 1. Plan B what is it and why do we need one? Theresa May has struck a deal with the EU - but MPs voted it down by a massive majority last night, meaning she will have to come up with a Plan B. And last week week MPs passed an amendment put forward by Tory Remainer Dominic Grieve which gives the PM just three working days to come up with her new plan. It means she will be hauled back to the Commons on Monday to spell out what she will do next. The PM has so far refused to say what her Plan B will be, but she will be under huge pressure to rule out a no deal Brexit and say what direction she plans to take the talks in next. It is believed that Tory former ministers Oliver Letwin and Dominic Grieve (pictured) are also involved in the plot have launched a plot to try to take over Brexit talks Remainers will want her to go for a Norway-style deal, which will keep the UK in the single market and therefore free movement, or a second referendum. While Brexiteers will push for the PM to go for a Canada-style free deal which will take Britain fully out of the EU's customs union and single market. 2. The Remainer plot - who is behind it and how would it work? A group of Tory Remainers have launched a plot to try to take over Brexit talks if the PM cannot come up with a plan in three days. Tory MP Nick Boles said that if this happens the Liaison Committee - a committee of 32 senior MPs which is dominated by Remainers - should take over the talks. It is believed that Tory former ministers Oliver Letwin and Dominic Grieve are also involved in the plot. This plan to sideline the Government would flout the rules of Parliament, but Commons Speaker John Bercow - who would have the final say on if this is possible or not - has made it clear he is happy to re-write the rules when it comes to Brexit. No10 believe that if the plan succeeds then the MPs on the committee will push for a softer Brexit, for example to get a Norway-style deal which would keep the UK in the single market and therefore keeping free movement of people. 3. No deal - what would it mean for Britain and who opposes it? Britain has been locked in talks with the EU to thrash out a Brexit deal, but if a new plan cannot be quickly agreed then the UK will crash out with no deal. But many MPs have warned they will do whatever it takes to block a no deal - fearing this will send the UK's economy into meltdown. And a string of Cabinet ministers, including Greg Clark, Amber Rudd and David Gauke are expected to quit the Cabinet in fury if the PM then backs a no deal Brexit. Economic experts have issued dire warnings about the fall-out of a no deal with the CBI saying it could slash 8 per cent off the size of the UK's economy and plunging the country into a massive recession. But there is a group of die-hard Brexiteers in the Tory Party, including Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the European Research Group, who say there is nothing to fear about a no deal Brexit. This group sees going for a no deal Brexit as a step towards their goal of achieving a Canada plus style trade deal with the EU. Jeremy Corbyn (pictured in the Commons today) is hoping to seize on the chaos if the PM's deal is voted down today to table a no cinfidence motion and try to topple Mrs May from No10 4. No Confidence Vote - what is it and who would back it? Jeremy Corbyn took up Theresa May's challenge to table a motion of no confidence in the government in the aftermath of the vote on the withdrawal deal. If the PM lost the vote, then another candidate has 14 working days to hold and win a vote of confidence of MPs - if they manage this then they become PM. If no party leader can do this within the two weeks then another general election is called. But it is unlikely that the Labour leader will be able to win the backing of a single MP from the ranks of the Tories or the DUP - meaning his bid to topple Mrs May is likely to fail. 5. General Election - how could one be called and who wants it? Labour have been demanding an election, while many commentators believe that the Tories may end up having to call another election to break the political deadlock in Parliament. Under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, Mrs May would need the Commons to agree to hold another election - and many MPs will be dead-set against the plan which they fear would cost them their seats and could hand Mr Corbyn the keys to No10. But if the PM's deal is voted down and MPs cannot agree an alternative before the UK leaves on March 29 then an election may end up being called to bring in new MPs who may be able back a deal. Many MPs are pushing for a second referendum to be held, less than three years after voters backed Brexit (file pic of voting booth) 6. Second referendum why might we need one and what would the question be? Many MPs are pushing for a second referendum to be held, less than three years after voters backed Brexit. Remainers argue that with MPs unable to agree a deal among themselves then the only way forward is to send the question back to the public. Many Labour MPs, the Lib Dems and a powerful group of Tory MPs all back a second referendum. But Mrs May has repeatedly ruled out holding one while she is PM, and even backers of the plan are at loggerheads over what should be on the ballot paper. Some Remainers believe voters should be offered a choice between the PM's plan and remaining in the EU on current terms, but some others believe a no deal Brexit on world trade organisation terms should be offered. 7. Who is Gareth Johnson, the latest Tory to quit the government? Tory MP Gareth Johnson quit as a whip whose job it is to convince his fellow Conservative MPs to back the PM's plan - so he could oppose the deal. He is the latest in a long line of Tory MPs who have resigned as aides and ministers to voice their objections to her blueprint. The MP for Dartford has a strongly Leave-supporting seat, and he was appointed an assistant whip, one of the most junior ranks, in November last year. Sources said he had been 'desperate' to get into government, but pointed out that his voters were overwhelmingly Brexit-backing. Resigning today, he said he was putting his 'loyalty to the country above loyalty to the government'. Iran launched a satellite criticised by the United States as a breach of a UN resolution today - but it failed to reach orbit, the telecommunications minister said. Iran's arch foe Israel swiftly condemned the launch, which it charged was cover for the testing of the first stage of an intercontinental ballistic missile. 'The Payam satellite was successfully launched this morning with the Safir satellite carrier,' Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi told state television. 'But the satellite unfortunately failed to be placed in orbit in the final stage.' Iranian state TV broadcast a clip of a rocket carrying a Payam satellite launched at Imam Khomeini Space Center, a facility under the control of the country's Defense Ministry, in Semnan province, Iran The Payam (Message in Persian) and its launch vehicle had gone through successful testing of its first and second stages, the minister said. But in the actual launch, the satellite failed to reach the required speed on detachment from the rocket in the third stage. Both the Payam and its carrier were designed and produced at Tehran's Amirkabir University of Technology. University head Ahmad Motamedi said Amirkabir had already received an order for a replacement, Mehr news agency reported. Iran also plans to launch another low Earth orbit satellite, the Doosti (Friendship in Persian), Jahromi said. He did not give a date for the launch but said the satellite was intended to orbit the earth at an altitude of 156 miles. 'We will do our best to place it in the orbit,' he said. Iran has said repeatedly that its space programme, like its wider ballistic missile programme, is for scientific research and defence purposes only. The Payam and the Doosti were both designed to gather information on environmental change in Iran, President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday. 'The satellite will give us all the information we need, and we will prove to the world that we are a country of science,' Rouhani said. A picture released by Iran's Defence Ministry in July 2017 of a Simorgh (Phoenix) satellite rocket at its launch site at an undisclosed location in Iran But Israel and its US ally both claim the space programme is cover for the development of longer-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads. 'Iran is lying now that it launched an innocent satellite to space,' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the abortive launch. 'It actually wants to achieve the first stage of an intercontinental missile, in violation of all international agreements,' he told a ceremony in Tel Aviv for the investiture of new armed forces chief of staff, Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi. 'We fully support the United State's firm objection to this act of aggression,' he added. Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Iran's plans to send satellites into orbit would violate the UN Security Council resolution that endorsed a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between major powers and Tehran. Tehran reined in most of its nuclear programme under the deal, since abandoned by Washington last year, but has continued to develop its ballistic missile and rocket technology. Iranian TV broadcast footage of the launch today claiming the ballistic missile programme is for scientific research and defence purposes only Security Council Resolution 2231 calls on Iran to refrain from testing missiles designed to be capable of carrying a nuclear weapon, but does not specifically bar Tehran from missile or rocket launches. Washington says the space launches violate the resolution. Iran's satellite-delivery rockets use technology 'virtually identical' to nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, Pompeo said on January 3. 'The United States will not stand by and watch the Iranian regime's destructive policies place international stability and security at risk.' Tehran denied the planned launch was a violation of Resolution 2231. 'The satellite is part of a civil project with purely scientific aims, foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told the semi-official ISNA news agency. 'Iran will wait for no country's permission to conduct such scientific projects.' The Payam satellite, first designed over a decade ago, was initially expected to be launched on a foreign-manufactured rocket, project manager Mostafa Safavi told ISNA in an interview published just hours before the launch. 'The Payam is a non-military satellite with a non-military mission but some countries, thinking that it could have a military purpose, showed no enthusiasm for launching Iranian satellites,' Safavi said. 'When they did not cooperate for non-technical reasons, the satellite's specifications were altered and made ready for a domestic launcher,' he added. Iran has launched several short-life satellites into orbit over the past decade, including the Simorgh and the Pajouhesh. A dog has been saved from a scorching hot car, after a complacent pet owner abandoned the pooch inside the vehicle. Team members from the Lidcombe Fire and Rescue squad spotted the distressed dog while on patrol in the western Sydney suburb on Monday, and freed the trapped animal but were unable to locate its owner. The adorable animal was left panting and distressed as temperatures inside the vehicle soared to a blistering 48C. A pet dog (pictured) has been saved from a scorching hot car after firefighters spotted the 'distressed' animal The Lidcombe squad took to their official Facebook page to caution 'hot cars kill dogs', and in a stern statement explained the dog was only saved because officers were 'in the right place at the right time'. FRNSW attends numerous calls to rescue pets left in hot cars all over NSW. Do not leave your pets unattended in a vehicle, the temperature rises in minutes, the statement read. Lidcombe Fire and Rescue squad (pictured) spotted the distressed dog while on patrol in the western Sydney Alongside a shocking image of the poor pooch, a statement explained how the officers rescued the animal. Today B platoon drove past a parked car and noticed a dog locked inside he was panting and distressed with no owner in sight, we immediately got to work to free the poor doggo, they said. And while the owner had left the window agape, the officials cautioned this would do little to stop the temperature inside the car from soaring. They explained: The outside temperature was 29 degrees and studies have shown that temperatures inside the car could have been as high as 40 degrees (after 10 minutes) or 48 degrees (after 30 minutes) even if the windows are cracked open! (File picture) The temperature inside the car could've risen as high as 48C after 30 minutes The fire service explained the dog was only saved because officers were 'in the right place at the right time' These high temperatures can quickly become fatal,' they added. The stark warning should be noted by all pet owners in the New South Wales area as a sweltering heatwave is set to hit the state. The average maximum temperature in New South Wales is expected to be 40C for the next few days, while some areas could get as hot as 45C. Meanwhile, Port Augusta in South Australia reached a record-breaking 52C as the sweltering temperatures continue to soar. A former boxer who split open a policeman's head with a samurai sword says the hit was just the accidental result of a muscle spasm during a time when he was 'psychologically distressed' after his marriage breakdown. Milos Radovic, 47, sliced Senior Constable Swift's head open at the scene of a domestic violence call-out in Perth about 5.30pm on July 19 of 2017. Radovic - who twice fought against Danny Green - claimed the hit was accidental, arguing he moved the sword in a 'tai chi' motion during a muscle spasm after he was tasered, falling forward onto the officer's skull. Scroll down for video Milos Radovic, 47, (pictured) split open a policeman's head with a samurai sword but said he was left psychologically distressed after his marriage breakdown In footage of the incident, Senior Constable Swift was hit with the sword, and a struggle ensued where Radovic was eventually overpowered by the two officers Senior Constable Swift's (pictured) head was sliced open at the scene of a domestic violence call-out in Perth on July 19 of 2017. The officer was rushed to Royal Perth Hospital But the father-of-four was found guilty of attempted murder in an attack that left Constable Swift, 57, with multiple horrific head wounds and a fractured skull. Radovic's defence lawyer Helen Prince argued her client failed to appropriately deal with his marriage breakdown in 2015, during a sentencing hearing on Tuesday. She said prior to the break-up he was a highly successful man and was under a lot of psychological distress at the time of the attack, during a sentencing hearing on Tuesday. At the time, Radovic had a violence restraining order out against him that banned him from approaching his ex-wife or their two teenage sons. Senior Constable Swift (above) arrived at Radovic's former wifes Rockingham home and had just finished taking statements when Radovic returned with a 1.2m sword and a knife One of Radovic's children gave evidence during the trial he could hear his father swearing and shouting 'I will fing kill yous (sic) all' outside his home on the day of the attack, the West Australian reported. Senior Constable Swift and his partner arrived at Radovic's former wifes Rockingham home on Parkin Street to attend a domestic dispute and had just finished taking statements when Radovic returned to the unit with a 1.2m sword and a knife. In footage of the incident, Senior Constable Swift wrestled Radovic using his Taser to subdue the attempted murderer. He was then hit with the sword, and a struggle ensued where Radovic was eventually overpowered by the two officers. 'Fear me, fear my power, fear my people,' Radovic yelled as he was taken in the back of a police van. Constable Swift, 57, (above) was left with multiple horrific head wounds and a fractured skull. He was given more than two-dozen stitches to wounds to his forehead and back of his head Radovic made a series of claims including that he feared his son was being used as a drug courier, that he didn't know his former wife lived at the Rockingham house and that he did not realise Senior Constable Swift was a policeman before he hit him. However, prosecutor Justin Whalley described that suggestion as 'fanciful'. He told the court that an attack on a police officer was an attack on the community. Defence lawyer Helen Prince said Radovic understood Senior Constable Swift was only doing his job and acknowledged that things could have been worse if the officer did not carry out his duties in such a professional way. 'He is grateful that it didn't go worse on that day for Senior Constable Swift,' Ms Prince said. Justice Fiannaca has adjourned Radovic's sentencing until next week. We know President Donald Trump has had a long-running feud with the news media, so he probably got some satisfaction when his Marine One chopper blew snow on the White House press corps as it landed back at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Monday. Washington, D.C. was hit with between six and 12 inches of snow this past weekend, so there was a significant coating on the South Lawn of the White House at sundown on Monday. Thats when Marine One, transporting the President after he returned from a trip to New Orleans to address farmers, touched down back home. Incredible images show Marine One, carrying President Donald Trump, landing on the South Lawn of the White House, which was still covered with a blanket of snow as of Monday night Marine One was transporting Trump from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to the White House Trump was making his return to Washington, D.C. after visiting New Orleans to address farmers The snow is seen above as it's kicked up by the prop wash from Marine One Marine One is seen preparing to land on the South Lawn of the White House as the sun sets over Washington, D.C. on Monday In the process, it kicked up specks of snow - so much so that the White House press corps which waited for Trump to emerge was hit with a mini-snow shower. Video footage of the landing was captured by Steve Herman, the White House bureau chief for Voice of America. Earlier on Monday, stunning images showed Marine One, which is the military code name for the Sikorsky VH-3D helicopter, landing on the South Lawn to take Trump to Joint Base Andrews for his trip to New Orleans. The breathtaking images showed Marine One kick up a snowstorm with the White House in the background. The force generated by the helicopters rotors created a gust of wind that kicked up the snow. Trump used most of his speech Monday at the American Farm Bureau Federations 100th convention in New Orleans to justify his fight with congressional Democrats over the border wall he promised to build Earlier in the day, Marine One kicked up snow as it took Trump from the White House to Joint Base Andrews Amazing images show the White House in the background as Marine One kicks up a mini-snow storm Marine One is the military code name for the Sikorsky VH-3D helicopter that transports the President Marine One is seen above as it transports Trump to Joint Base Andrews for his flight aboard Air Force One to New Orleans on Monday Washington, D.C. was hit with between six and 12 inches of snow this past weekend, so there was a significant coating on the South Lawn of the White House at sundown on Monday In New Orleans, Trump sought to assure farmers that they will still be able to get the help they need if he builds a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump used most of his speech Monday at the American Farm Bureau Federations 100th convention in New Orleans to justify his fight with congressional Democrats over the border wall he promised to build. Trump says a wall is needed to stem illegal immigration and crime. Democrats disagree and say a wall would waste money and not solve the problem. Trump says he understands that farmers need people to help with harvests. He says hell make it easier for immigrants to enter the country to work on farms. Says Trump: Its going to be easier for them to get in. Friends and family of 13-year-old Jayme Closs have been sharing photos of the teen following her miraculous escape. Jayme turned up five days ago, after being held in captivity for 88 days, allegedly by Jake Patterson, 21, who is also accused of killing her parents. Since she's been back, the outpouring of support from her community has been as strong as ever, with many calling the teen 'JAYMAZING' for her resilience in the face of everything she's been through and has yet to face. Jayme Closs' friends and family have shared photos of the abducted 13-year-old. Jayme is pictured with her aunt, Sue Allard Jayme's aunt, Sue Allard, was pictured with her niece, holding her tight on a bed with the letters 'JAYME' displayed in the background. In several photos, Jayme is seen clutching on to stuffed animals, and always in the center of a group of friends and family, who are holding her tight. Her aunt, Jennifer Smith, flanked was seen in a photo shared on Sunday, with cousin Lindsey Smith on her other side. Jayme (center) is seen with her cousin Bailey Lynn Sikora (left) and another relative in a photo posted to Facebook on Sunday Jayme (center) is pictured with aunt Jennifer Smith (left) and cousin Lindsey Smith (right) in a photo shared to social media on Sunday More family members posted photos on Monday with the smiling teenager, including relatives Brody and Seara Closs. Another photo shared by her cousin, Tyrel Sikora, showed Jayme clutching a stuffed animal and smiling, in the same bright yellow, hooded sweatshirt. On the photo with Sikora, a person named Rhiana LeNae commented, 'This is so beautiful! Please keep sharing that smile of hers! She's a real life superhero.' Jayme (right) is pictured with cousin Lindsey Smith (left) in a photo shared to social media on Sunday, wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt More family members posted photos on Monday with the smiling teenager (center), including relatives Brody (left) and Seara Closs (right) Jayme is pictured with her cousin Tyrel Sikora clutching a stuffed animal and smiling Robert Massey called for 'all prayer warriors' to join him in supporting Jayme, in a post that included a photo of the teen cuddled up with two dogs, including her own, named Molly, at the foot of the bed. 'We have had some great days of celebration here which have been simply #JAYMAZING but I feel its time to get back to the business at hand, which is praying for Jayme,' Massey wrote. 'Yes, she has been rescued and shes back home, but home is now a completely different place than where she went to bed on the night of October 14. She has been through who knows what, and now comes back to a new house, without her parents, and trying to rationalize what just happened for the last 88 days of her life. 'She needs our prayers now more than ever! We prayed this girl back home, now we need to pray her back to a more normal life again.' Robert Massey called for 'all prayer warriors' to join him in supporting Jayme, in a post that included a photo of the teen cuddled up with two dogs, including her own, named Molly, at the foot of the bed Members of Jayme's family told DailyMail.com they would be in court on Monday to 'look Jake Patterson in the eye,' as he made his first appearance in Barron County Circuit Court. Speaking on the eve of Patterson's arraignment Jayme's aunt Jennifer Smith, 48, revealed they had made the difficult decision to face down the man accused of kidnapping the teen and gunning down her parents - whom he saw as a 'barrier' to her, his target - on the advice of law enforcement. She said: 'I won't be there but my brother and sister will be there to look him in the eye.' Jennifer described the court appearance as, 'the next step towards healing,' in this long and difficult process. She added: 'We were advised by agents that this would be a good thing, so yes some of the family will be there.' Family members of Jayme Closs' (pictured with her aunt Sue Naiberg Allard) told DailyMail.com they will be in court later today to 'look Jake Patterson in the eye,' as he makes his first appearance in Barron County Circuit Court Jayme's aunt Jennifer Smith, 48, (left with Jayme's aunt Sue Allard) revealed they had made the difficult decision to face down the man accused of kidnapping the 13-year-old and gunning down her parents - whom he saw as a 'barrier' to Jayme It has been barely five days since Jayme fled the remote cabin in Gordon, Wisconsin where Patterson is accused of having held her hostage for 87 days in a crime that propelled the small Wisconsin town of Barron, with a population of just over 3,000, unwillingly into the spotlight. Barron County Sheriff, Chris Fitzgerald has always maintained that his mission was to 'bring Jayme home.' But faced with the violence of the apparently targeted attack and abduction in the early hours of October 15 he was forced to admit that his assertion was based on nothing more concrete than hope. Ultimately, he has said, Jayme herself broke the case after she escaped and 'turned up like a ghost,' 70 miles from her home in rural Wisconsin. Yet despite her ordeal her grandfather, Robert Naiberg, said she is doing 'exceptionally well,' and is in 'exceptionally high spirits, good spirits for what she went through.' As Jayme's family prepares to face down Patterson in court, DailyMail.com obtained exclusive photos of the squalid basement 'cell' where cops believe she could have been kept prisoner for 88 days. The secret den complete with a scruffy mattress and cuddly stuffed pig is beneath Pattersons tumbledown forest cabin in rural Gordon, Wisconsin. Patterson, 21, is believed to have lived at the isolated woodland home until his arrest on charges of kidnapping and intentional homicide As Jayme's family prepares to face down Patterson in court, DailyMail.com obtained exclusive photos of the squalid basement 'cell' where cops believe she could have been kept prisoner The den was filled with soft toys, a dirty mattress, women's clothing, and women's makeup The image above shows the filthy basement den where authorities believe 13-year-old Jayme Closs was held prisoner by her alleged abductor, Jake Thomas Patterson, 21 A stash of kids backpacks, including one with panda ears, can be seen piled up in one corner of the eight-foot-by-eight-foot room. Police sources say investigators are zeroing in on the creepy lair as they try to establish the exact spot where Jayme was imprisoned after Patterson allegedly slaughtered her parents and snatched her. They are also understood to have examined an adjacent basement compartment, a former wine cellar, which was the only room in the house which had its curtains drawn when officers arrived on Thursday to search the ramshackle property following Jaymes remarkable escape. Patterson is believed to have lived at the isolated woodland home until his arrest on charges of kidnapping and intentional homicide. The surrounding 2.5-acre lot is littered with old cars, rusty bikes and an assortment of junk, while a sign saying 'Patterson's Retreat' greets visitors as they approach the two-story, $110,000 dwelling. Twinkling Christmas decorations are still strung across the yard and many of the lights are still on inside the wooden house - suggesting the occupant left in a hurry and didn't have a chance to return. The image above shows the cabin in rural Wisconsin where Jake Patterson allegedly held 13-year-old Jayme Closs prisoner for nearly three months The window with the blue tape leads inside to the basement 'cell' where authorities fear Jayme was held prisoner This part of the home appeared to be well-equipped. It has a furnace, a television, a couch, and lights A number of coats are seen hanging from hangers on the wall on the left. The room on the right appears to have a washing machine Chillingly, a mound of trash strewn beside a garage includes an empty box of 80 adult Member's Mark diapers. Lying nearby in the snow are empty bottles of sugary alcoholic drinks such as cranberry and lime Smirnoff Ice, Henry's Hard Soda and black cherry White Claw, as well as discarded bags of chips. What looks like a recently baked and eaten tray of pasta was dumped outside. The cabin itself is filled with an assortment of tatty old furniture, from rocking chairs to fans and years-old televisions and stereos. Dirty plates are piled up in a dated kitchen. Inside the main living room is a half-finished game of Monopoly and a book entitled 'US Armed Forces Survival Guide'. A hammer, a flashlight, a scouring pad, scissors and a spray bottle of cleaning fluid are piled on a table. Investigators think it's possible that Jayme could have spent time in different areas of the house before being bundled into the basement whenever Patterson thought someone was visiting. Advertisement A British family are to be deported from New Zealand after locals say they wreaked havoc across the country. The tourists, believed to be from Liverpool, face claims they trashed a beach, left a cafe without paying, damaged their apartment and allegedly stole a journalist's phone. A young boy in the group also threatened to 'knock the brains out' of a woman who had filmed them littering on a picturesque Auckland beach while the family have also been accused of putting ants and hair in restaurant meals to avoid paying the bill. Today, a 26-year-old woman connected with the rowdy tourists was arrested and charged with theft in Hamilton, where she is due in court on Wednesday. The group of around 12 includes brothers John and David Johnson, their partners, children, and mother, Eileen Doran, of Liverpool, who arrived in New Zealand on Friday. They said they are a 'respectable' family who were 'here to see the Hobbits' - but their plans have been 'f***** up' by the accusations against them. Their stint of mayhem across New Zealand led to the group being labelled 'a*******' and 'trash' by the mayor of Auckland, Phil Goff. A petition calling for their deportation has now amassed more than 2,500 signatures. In a radio interview, Goff said: 'I've asked the council to follow up because I want to see them loaded with an infringement fine for trashing our country. They shouldn't even be here.' The family's behaviour now appears to have culminated in a heated stand-off in which police were called after they were seen walking through a Burger King drive-through. Scroll down for video A British family are to be deported from New Zealand after locals say they wreaked havoc across the country. The behaviour of the tourists (pictured speaking to police after causing a scene) has sparked anger in the country and the group have been labelled 'a*******' and 'trash' by the mayor of Auckland One of the accused family members, who named himself as John Johnson, posing for a photo while on holiday. They have received dozens of complaints from locals and businesses across New Zealand since arriving on January 11 One of the members of the group was seen ushering a child away as he threatened local woman Krista Curnow, saying he was going to 'knock your brains out' One of the females believed to be in the group from England smiles as her picture is taken on a mobile phone in Auckland Footage showed a young boy, wearing a wide-brimmed Bunnings Warehouse hat, approaching Ms Curnow, telling her: 'I'll knock your brains out' Staff at the fast food chain said they were causing a nuisance and complaining by asking for free food, while the children were banging coins on machines. Six police officers and two immigration officials were on the scene in Hamilton at about 3pm, when they served the family with deportation papers, Stuff reported. They remained at the premises before leaving and returning in the afternoon. Staff eventually decided to call police after they walked through the drive-through. Other accusations made against the group include: Littering at a beach before a boy threatened to 'knock the brains out' of a woman who challenged them Leaving a soiled nappy in a plane's overhead bin and constantly demanding booze on their flight Putting ants and hair in their meals in an attempt to get meals for free at numerous different restaurants Ordering more than $110 worth of food at a cafe before skipping out on their tab Grabbing a reporter's phone before deleting footage and handing the device back Causing extensive damage to an apartment they had stayed in The family, who denied being 'gypsies', earlier said they were going to cut their holiday short after denying they were responsible for the series of incidents. In an interview with the New Zealand Herald, family member David Johnson said he was stunned by the backlash against them. He said: 'We did leave a mess and they're saying we're gypsies, we're not gypsies.' Witness Krista Curnow said the group of about 12 tourists, who spoke with an Irish accent, turned violent when she asked them to clean their mess as they left the beach The establishments where the group of British tourists have reportedly had complaints about their behaviour during their stay in New Zealand After the publication tracked them down at a hotel in Hamilton, one of the brothers protested over being filmed and grabbed the phone from the reporter's hand and deleted the footage before handing it back. The two brothers, who gave their names as John Johnson and David Johnson, said they were being targeted at the beach by people telling them to go back to their country. David Johnson said his son was hit at the beach by another child and then taunted, which is the reason for his outburst towards being filmed. Auckland mayor Phill Goff labelled the tourists 'a*******' in a radio interview, adding that they shouldn't be in the country 'We were sitting there, and a little boy smacked one of the kids. They come over and start calling us loads of names "go back to Ireland." We're sitting there having a meal and we're relaxing,' the boy's father David Johnson said. 'One of the guys got very violent to one of my friends and everybody got around us and we had no choice but to get up and leave and there was a mess there, because we couldn't clean it up because we were badly intimidated by a group of people.' He said they would now cut their trip short by a week and leave the country on Friday and will not get to visit one of their trip highlights. 'We're here to see the Hobbits ... I've been looking at the Hobbits my whole life, since I'm born, that was originally what our plans was but it's all been f***** up now ... I feel very unwelcome here. I feel like an alien invader, I don't feel happy and I'm far from Irish.' John Johnson said he no longer felt comfortable in New Zealand. He said: 'I'm no one famous. I'm just a fat kid from England on holiday.' He reportedly told the newspaper that he came from a good family, and said his grandfather was the 'tenth richest man in England' Establishments around Auckland on New Zealand's North Island have complained the group put ants and hair in their meals in an attempt to get their meals for free and abused staff. Three members of the group had breakfast at the Montrose Cafe and ordered over $110 worth of food before skipping out on their tab. Benjamin Salt, the restaurant manager, said that the group was continuously ordering items to keep staff busy and were rude to the other customers. 'They asked me for the total bill. I told them it was $114 and I had to repeat myself a few times before all of a sudden one of them said "have a look at this, there is a hair in my food",' he told the New Zealand Herald. 'We were pretty sceptical but the chef came out to the table to apologise and we were going to take the item off their bill and then one shoved their food into me and when I went back to get rid of the plate they ran out the door.' A woman with the group then pulled a hoodie over her head before getting into their white van, slamming the vehicle door into a nearby car as she did so A group of tourists who allegedly left their trash all over a beachside park, threatened locals, and caused chaos on a flight have now been accused of not paying for meals at two restaurants and a cafe. Pictured: The man who named himself as John Johnson The group had been accused of attempting to scam two other restaurants by refusing to pay for food at Mr India and The Backyard Bar & Restaurant in Northcote. Roger Van Kempen, the manager of The Backyard Bar & Restaurant, said some of the tourists bought food at the establishment and then put ants in the food to try and avoid paying their bill. A coffee shop in inner Auckland also accused the group of refusing to pay for chocolate cake and then yelling at staff. When the New Zealand Herald tracked down some of the travellers when they checked out of their budget hotel on Monday they were told there would be trouble if they were photographed. A woman with the group then pulled a hoodie over her head before getting into their white van, slamming the vehicle door into a nearby car as she did so. The tourists also allegedly caused havoc on their flight into the country. On their flight over, they reportedly demanded large seats, continuous requests for alcohol and a dirty nappy left in an overhead bin. Pictured: Rubbish left behind by a group of tourists at a popular beach in Auckland One passenger on the Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to Auckland on Friday told the New Zealand Herald the family made the journey the 'worst flight' of his life. Before the flight departed, both children gallivanted around the plane's aisles and a daughter allegedly yelled at her mother who demanded food from staff, the passenger claimed. When others realised the family-of-six had apparently left a soiled piece of clothing in their hand luggage, the fellow passenger reached the end of his tether. 'The parents also asked for different seats because they are overweight and didn't have enough space, even insisting the attendant ask another couple with the only free seat on the plane to switch with them,' he said. 'They would lean against us often with an armpit on my head or an entire arm blocking the movie I attempted to watch. I was already boiling at this point, so asked the attendants if we could move. 'After leaving the plane they even left one of her [their baby's] suits in the overhead that we think had actual poop left in it, because it smelt like death.' The British tourists who trashed a beach also allegedly caused havoc on their flight into the country. Here they are pictured leaving the scene after allegedly littering Ms Curnow said she and her friends cleaned up the tourists' mess with the help of other beachgoers As the plane descended the passenger said the young girl ignored the seatbelt sign and attempted to stand. They were also accused of damaging an apartment which they had stayed in. Sufi Muhammad, Star Queens Service Apartment manager, said: "She didn't pay for Saturday, and on Saturday the apartment was totally mess, broken television even the toilet was leaking.' He claimed the group requested a year-long lease but were offered a studio apartment for a week. After accepting the offer, they allegedly tried to break into a bigger apartment. 'Their response was basically if we have a problem then we can pick it up and that that's what the council is for,' Ms Curnow said Mr Muhammed said he felt threatened by the group, and when they started stealing cleaning equipment and linen he asked them to leave. On January 14, the group tried to trade in their two vehicles for one at the Hamilton car dealership. But when staff checked the van they found five children in the back with no seats. 'He was pretty arrogant, soon as he walked in, he approached my boss with a rude voice and rarked everyone up, a lot of arrogance on his side,' said a staff member at the dealership. Days later the supposed same group were filmed leaving beer bottles and rubbish on a busy beach, before a child threatened to 'knock the brains out' of locals who confronted them in now-viral footage. The incident, which unfolded at Auckland's Takapuna Beach on New Zealand's North Island on Sunday, was captured on camera by Krista Curnow. She said the group of about 12 tourists, who spoke with an Irish accent, turned violent when she asked them to clean their mess as they left the beach. 'Their response was basically if we have a problem then we can pick it up and that that's what the council is for,' Ms Curnow said. 'I approached the family to ask again if they could not disrespect our country while visiting and pick up their rubbish. 'They turned violent and even grandma and the child got involved saying they wanted to punch my head in.' Footage showed a young boy, wearing a wide-brimmed Bunnings Warehouse hat, approach Ms Curnow, telling her: 'I'll knock your brains out'. 'The mouth on that young boy - absolutely disgusting! What kind of role models are the parents allowing this sort of behaviour,' Ms Curnow said. 'We live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, how dare people come to NZ and disrespect our country, this is our home.' The family later ordered food at a nearby Nandos store, before demanding a refund, The New Zealand Herald reported. Another local claimed they confronted the family at a Bunnings Warehouse after seeing the video online. 'We just came across him in Bunnings Hillsborough... he was wearing the same clothes,' the woman wrote on Facebook. 'He's absolutely s******* himself after getting a bit of a talking to from my partner about respecting our country.' Footage of the incident has since gone viral and has garnered thousands of comments. 'My big fat gypsy holiday! Imagine having to sit next to them on a 12-hour flight. Horrendous! Glad you said something,' one wrote. 'What did I just watch? That little boy thought he was so tough,' another noted. The incident unfolded at Auckland's Takapuna Beach (pictured), a beauty spot on New Zealand's North Island on Sunday Ms Curnow said she and her friends cleaned up the tourists' mess, with the help of other beachgoers. 'I loved how everyone else on the beach came to support and we all picked up the rubbish together! Love NZ,' she said. Inspector Kevin McNaughton, Acting Area Commander of Waitemata East Police, told Daily Mail Australia the incident was being investigated. 'Police will be speaking with those involved and will be referring them to Auckland Council with regard to their behaviour around the littering of rubbish,' he said. 'Police would like to remind the public that offenders caught illegally dumping rubbish may be issued with a fine of up to $400. 'Serious offenders may also be prosecuted under the Litter Act 1979 with a maximum penalty of $30,000. 'We pride ourselves in our clean, green image as a country and thank the members of the public who reported this behaviour on this occasion.' Attorney General nominee William Barr told senators Tuesday he would resist pressure to axe special counsel Robert Mueller, including from the president, unless there was good cause to do so. Asked if he would fire the special counsel or if he would change Justice Department regulations and then fire him if asked to do so by the president without 'good cause,' Barr responded: 'I would not carry out that instruction.' He was pressed by Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons and multiple other lawmakers on how he would handle Mueller, his longtime friend who President Trump has accused of overseeing a 'witch hunt' against him. 'I don't believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt,' Barr said under questioning. He revealed he met with President Trump in June 2017 when the president was seeking to expand his legal team, and who asked him at the time how well he knew Mueller. 'I said Bob is a straight shooter and should be dealt with as such,' Barr said he told the president. William Barr's confirmation hearing to return to the helm of the Justice Department featured tough grilling from Democrats about his views on the Robert Mueller probe The comments were among multiple markers of independence Barr put down during the hearing, where he also praised fired Attorney Gen. Jeff Sessions' decision to recuse from the Russia probe and praised deputy attorney gen. Rod Rosenstein, another favore target of the president's. He also offered explanations for the unsolicited memo he sent to Rosenstein arguing Mueller's probe was 'fatally misconceived' by going after possible obstruction of justice by the president. And he refused to give Democrats commitments they sought repeatedly that he would yield to ethics professionals if they advised him to recuse himself from the Mueller probe. 'I'm not surrendering that responsibility. I'm not giving it away,' he said. Scroll down for video Asked by Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California under what scenario he would not follow the advice of career ethics officials, he said curtly: If I disagreed with them. But on other matters, Barr told lawmakers he didn't need the high-level job he has previously held, would not be 'bullied' by anyone, and stated explicitly several instances of interference in prosecution that would be improper or illegal. Barr said the president would violate his oath of office if he ordered the Justice Department to take an action in which he had a 'stake.' President Trump's attorney general nominee William Barr William Barr, 68, served as attorney general for George H.W. Bush. He practices law at the firm of Kirkland & Ellis and served as a counsel to corporate boards and amassed an estimated $37 million fortune. Barr penned an unsolicited memo about the Mueller probe and gave it do Deputy Attorney Gen. Rob Rosenstein. He wrote that the probe of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe was 'fatally misconceived' by going after obstruction of justice. Barr is longtime friends with Mueller and the two men's wives attended bible study together. He attended Columbia University and did a stint in the CIA. Advertisement Barr made that statement as part of a hypothetical example during his first day of high-stakes testimony before the Senate Judiciary, when asked about his views on executive power and whether the president could intervene in political cases. He made the comments as on a day when he backed up his friend Mueller, and said longtime Trump foil former Attorney Gen. Jeff Sessions was probably right to recuse himself from the Russia probe. But he also repeatedly refused under questioning by Democrats to state that he would relinquish powers he said were established in the office. 'I am not going to surrender the responsibilities that I have,' he said. On the president's powers, he said: 'The other category of cases and let's pick an easy bad example would be if a member of the president's family or a business associate or something was under investigation and he tries to intervene.' 'He's the chief law enforcement officer, and you could say well he has the power, but that would be a breach of his obligation under the Constitution to faithfully execute the laws,' Barr said. Sworn in: William Barr takes the oath at the start of his confirmation hearing Major hearing: The confirmation process for William Barr is a critical moment for the Trump administration Family presence: William Barr's family sat immediately behind him including (from left): wife Christine, a retired librarian; daughter Meg, legislative assistant to new Republican senator Mike Braun; daughters Patricia, counsel to the House Agriculture Committee; and Mary, coordinator for opioid enforcement in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General; Mary's husband, Mike, an attorney at the Department of Justice in the National Security division; their son Liam; Patricia's husband, Pelham, who is a founding partner of a consulting firm; Meg's husband Tyler,assistant United States attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia 'So in my opinion, if a president attempts to intervene in a matter that he has a stake in to protect himself that should first be looked at as a breach of his constitutional duties. Whether it also violates a statute depending on what statute comes into play and what all the facts are,' he said. Such pronouncement would ordinarily be boilerplate, but takes on extra significance while a probe President Trump has labeled a 'witch hunt' continues to examine Trump associates and family members who had contacts with Russians during the campaign. Barr spoke as Senate Democrats pressed him on his views of the Mueller probe including its investigation of any obstruction of justice by Trump, something Barr has criticized in writing. Trump fired FBI Director James Comey early in his term, and according to Comey asked if he could relieve pressure on his former national security advisor Mike Flynn. 'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go,' Comey says Trump told him. As Demoratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein brought up in the hearing, Trump has called for rival Hillary Clinton to be jailed. His son, Donald Trump Jr., has testified to congressional investigators after a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting he attended with Russians. The Mueller probe has already resulted in guilty pleas by Flynn and longtime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and the conviction of former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort. Barr was pressed on his expansive view of executive power at the top of the hearing. He called the president the nation's chief law enforcement officer but stated it wouldn't accurately reflect his views to say the president could order a probe that would then be carried out of anything he wants. 'Let's say the president's concerned about Chinese stealing trade secrets: I want you to go after this company that may be stealing trade secrets,' he explained. 'That's perfectly appropriate for him to do to communicate that. But, whether it's bonafide or not, the Department of Justice's obligation and the Attorney General's obligation is not to take any action unless we reach their own independent conclusion that it is justified under the law. Regardless of the instruction,' Barr continued. 'Everyone is saying I'm siccing it's okay for the president to direct things,' he said. 'All I said was, It's not per se improper for the president to call on the Department for doing something, especially if he has no personal or political interest in it,' he added. PREPARED: Attorney General nominee William Barr, center, and his wife Christine, right, smile before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019 Barr was pressed repeatedly on whether he would allow Special Counsel Robert Mueller to repeat his work Sen. Dianne Feinstein questioned Barr on his written argument that the president's law enforcement powers extend to 'all matters including those in which he has a personal stake' In another round of questioning, Barr expressed his view that the president has the view to pardon a family member but could be held accountable for it. 'Yes he does have the power to pardon a family member, but he would then have to face the fact that he could be held accountable for abusing his power, or if it was connected to some act that violates and obstruction statute it could be obstruction,' he told Sen. Coons. 'In the absence of the violation of a statute then hed be accountable politically,' he said, referencing elections or impeachment, the two ways to remove a president from office. Many panel Democrats acknowledged favorable answers they had gotten from Barr in private, and saved their sharpest stings for Trump. 'These are not normal times,' said Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, who did challenge Barr for his unsolicited memo on obstruction of justice. 'This is not 27 years ago. Today the president is Donald Trump, who will do anything to protect himself. He wants you, who has written a manifesto about why the president shouldn't be prosecuted at least for obstruction of justice, who has met with and consulted with the president's defense attorneys, who has written op-eds defending his firings of Sally Yates and James Comey, to be his attorney general. Barr also answered a question about what would happen if the president used his pardon power to try to change testimony as part of an investigation. Trump has expressed repeated sympathy for former campaign chair Paul Manafort and how he has been treated by Mueller's team, which won a conviction. 'If a pardon was a quid pro quo to altering testimony, then that would definitely implicate an obstruction statute,' he said. Senate Democrats opened the the Barr hearing to be attorney general by pressing him on his memo going after special counsel Robert Mueller's probe and asked if he'll have the 'strength' to push back at President Trump. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the panel, said in her opening statement she had read the memo that Barr sent unsolicited to the White House, and would press him on his far-reaching view of executive powers. 'I believe it's important that the next attorney general be able to strongly resist pressure, whether from the administration or Congress, to conduct investigations for political purposes,' the California Democrat said. 'He must have the integrity, the strength and the fortitude to tell the president no - regardless of the consequences,' Feinstein said in her remarks. She said she would question Barr on his written argument that the president's law enforcement powers 'extend to all matters, including those in which he has a personal stake, and that the Constitution places no limits on the president's authority to act on matters which concern him or his own conduct' and brought up Trump's own vows to jail political opponent Hillary Clinton. 'Let me just say that, some of your past statements on the role of attorney general and presidential power are concerning,' she said. Barr also assured lawmakers that he has the independence needed to carry out the job. Some questioners, including Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, brought up Trump's constant attacks on former attorney general Jeff Sessions and others. Durbin also brought up the stunning resignation of Defense Sec. James Mattis. Barr said he was too old to succumb to pressure. 'It might give me pause if I were 45 or 50 y old but it doesn't give me pause right now,' he explained. 'I had a very good life. I have a very good life. I love it. But I also want to help in this circumstance. And I am not going to do anything that I think is wrong and I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong, by anybody - whether it be the editorial boards or Congress or the president. I'm going to do what I think is right,' Barr said. In his own opening remarks, Barr acknowledged the government shutdown and expressed solidarity with federal workers in the Justice Department who 'continue to perform their critical jobs.' Feinstein also asked a question at the behest of House Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler, who has said he would subpoena the final Mueller report if necessary. Barr maintained a large caveat: 'I am going to make as much information available as I can, consistent with the rules and regulations that are part of the special counsel regulations,' he said. Right away, Barr provided an assurance he won't allow Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe to be shut down. 'On my watch, Bob will be allowed to finish his work,' referring to his friend Mueller by his first name. He said Mueller wouldn't be terminated except for good cause, that he wouldn't hold up his resources. And in another tip to opponents, he said the Justice Department should be a place 'where the rule of law, not politics, holds sway.' 'I will serve in the same independence I did in 1991,' he said, opening his remarks with quips about family members he brought along. 'I feel like I'm in a position in life where I can do the right thing and not really care about the consequences,' he said under questioning by Sen. John Coryn of Texas. Barr sprinkled his remarks with policy and rhetorical acknowledgements of the priorities of minority Democrats, even though Republicans in the Senate can confirm him without Democratic votes. Barr shared his view on Comey's decision to announce why the FBI decided not to charge Hillary Clinton after investigating her emails during the 2016 campaign. 'I thought that to the extent that he actually announced a decision, was wrong, and the other thing is, if you're not going to indict someone, then you don't stand up there and unload negative information about the person,' he said In introductory remarks, Barr mentioned as priorities the right to vote, the integrity of elections, and foreign interference in elections. Barr introduced about 10 family members who are all government prosecutors or lawyers. New Judiciary Chairman 'Lindsey Graham told the little boy he should be a doctor so someone in the family makes some real money. Barr's financial disclosures revealed he has amassed about $37 million in assets. President Donald Trump picked Barr to replace Jeff Sessions, the attorney general he fired in November Barr and Mueller worked together when Barr was Bush's attorney general between 1991 and 1993 and Mueller oversaw the department's criminal division. The two men are 'best friends,' Graham said, and have known each other for 20 years. Their wives attend Bible study together, and Mueller attended the weddings of two of Barr's daughters. A vegan activist has posted footage of herself being arrested at the site of a cattle truck crash where several cows had to be euthanised. Leah Doellinger, an activist with 32,000 Instagram followers, drove down to Koo Wee Rup, south of Melbourne after the truck rolled this morning. Several cows had escaped and were roaming nearby fields before officials rounded them up into a paddock. Leah Doellinger (pictured), an activist with 32,000 Instagram followers, drove down to Koo Wee Rup, south of Melbourne after the truck rolled this morning A vegan activist has posted footage of herself being arrested at the sight of a cattle truck crash (pictured) where several cows had to be euthanised Some of the cows were badly injured and sadly had to be put down. Ms Doellinger filmed herself tending to one of the euthanised cows with a group of friends. In her Instagram video, officials can be heard repeatedly asking the group to move away from the dead cow which was having muscle spasms. But the women refused, believing the cow was still alive: 'We'll leave when she's dead,' one said. After Ms Doellinger refused to move away from the cow, a police officer approached and arrested her. She posted the moment to her Instagram story with a teary message in which she said: 'A cop just ran at me and tackled me to the ground'. Ms Doellinger filmed herself attending to one of the euthanised cows with a group of friends The activist claimed her arrest was unnecessarily violent. She told the Herald Sun: 'They handcuffed me and dragged me on the grass. I've got cuts on my wrist - he didn't even give me warning.' A Victoria Police spokesman a man and women were arrested for hindering police and would be charged on summons. The B-Double truck overturned next to a roundabout at 7.15am this morning. The 42-year-old female driver suffered minor injuries and the cause of the crash is being investigated. Victoria Police said in a statement this morning: 'Several cattle are being euthanised at the scene with assistance from the Department of Agriculture. 'The remaining cattle are being herded into nearby paddocks and the recovery operation is expected to take several hours.' Australia's ban on mind-altering party drugs has been blamed for encouraging a spike in organised crime. A campaigner for Australia's first medically-supervised safe injecting room and a former conservative state premier have spoken out, following a spate of deaths at music festivals. Their intervention in the drug law debate has occurred as the New South Wales Coroner announced a directions hearing would be held next week into how Joshua Tam, Alexandra Ross-King and Callum Brosnan died this summer after taking banned substances. Scroll down for video A campaigner for Australia's first safe injecting room and a former state premier have spoken out, following a spate of deaths at music festivals (pictured is Josh Tam who died in December) Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation president Dr Alex Wodak, who two decades ago successfully campaigned for Sydney's Kings Cross safe injecting room, said existing laws banning drugs had failed. 'The drug market has continued to expand and become more dangerous,' he told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday. 'While that's happened, there's been an increase over the decades in deaths, in disease, in crime, corruption and violence.' Dr Wodak had an unlikely ally in former Queensland Liberal National Party premier Campbell Newman, who likened existing drug laws to the United States's ban on alcohol between 1920 and 1933. The NSW Coroner has also announced a directions hearing would be held next week into a series of drug-related deaths of Alexandra Ross-King (left) and Callum Brosnan (right) Dr Alex Wodak said the ban on illicit drugs had only led to an increase in deaths over many decades (pictured is Sydney's FOMO music festival where Alexandra Ross-King died this week) 'It hasn't stopped anything. That's the simple fact,' Mr Newman told Sky News Australia on Tuesday. 'In the 1930s America had an experiment with Prohibition. 'It didn't work and anybody who wants to have a look at this should look at the lessons of that period. 'The explosion in organised crime and indeed the criminalisation of a huge proportion of the American population. It's all there again today.' Despite a spate of deaths in New South Wales, state Premier Gladys Berejiklian has continued to rule out allowing pill testing on the purity of illegal drugs. Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation president Alex Wodak (left) had an unlikely ally in former Queensland premier Campbell Newman (right) when it came to criticising drug laws Dr Wodak said pill testing was better than doing nothing about drug use. 'Very simply, testing drugs is better than not testing drugs,' he said. 'The more accurately we can do that, and feed that information back to people who are considering taking the drug, I get the sense that more lives will be saved.' Dr Wodak likened pill testing to the labelling of alcohol levels. 'Presuming you drink alcohol, like me, you wouldn't want to drink alcohol that was either two per cent or 80 per cent,' he said. 'Who would want to drink alcohol that could be untested bootleg?.' A man accused of raping a seven-year-old child in a toilet allegedly made three obscene phone calls just hours before the sickening attack. Anthony Sampieri allegedly choked the girl until she was 'unable to resist' in a toilet cubicle at a dance studio in Kogarah, southern Sydney in November. The 55-year-old allegedly stabbed a man who attempted to rescue the girl before a second man subdued him while police were called. Anthony Sampieri (centre) will face charges for 87 counts of using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend Sampieri was yesterday also charged over 87 menacing phone calls he allegedly made during the three months before the attack. He is said to have made three such 'offensive' calls just hours before allegedly assaulting the seven-year-old girl, reported the Daily Telegraph. Court documents show he made three calls from his mobile phone between 3.18pm and 3.23pm, before the alleged assault at 7.30pm. Detectives brought the harassment charges after interviewing other potential victims, who claimed they had received offensive and obscene phone calls from Sampieri. The charges will be added to the initial allegations of sexual intercourse with a child under 10 years old, wounding or grievous bodily harm with intent, aggravated kidnapping and attempting, or assaulting with intent, to have sexual intercourse with a child under 10. He's also charged with choking a person with an intent to commit an indictable offence, using a child under 14 to make child abuse material, aggravated act of indecency being filmed, aggravated indecent assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Sampieri remains in custody and will appear at Sutherland Local Court on Tuesday. The 54-year-old physically and sexually assaulted the girl in the bathroom of a Kogarah dance studio, police alledge (pictured is the studio's bathroom) Sampieri (left), who had been under police guard in hospital, was transferred to Maroubra Police Station just before 4pm after doctors determined he was fit to be released Sickening details of Sampieri's alleged sex attack on a seven-year-old girl emerged in his first court appearance in November. He appeared before Waverley Local Court last year where his barrister Ken Buckman did not apply for release. Police alleged Sampieri forced the girl to perform sex acts on him and filmed her doing so. Court documents reveal that he is accused of choking the girl to 'render (her) incapable of resistance, done so with intent of enabling himself to commit another indictable offence, to wit, sexual assault'. Sampieri spoke twice while fronting court, and consented to a police application for a forensic procedure. At 7.55pm on November 15, two men confronted and attempted to detain Sampieri at the dance studio in Kogarah after concerns were raised for the girl's welfare. The men allegedly found Sampieri naked with the girl in the toilet before a struggle ensued, resulting in one of the men being left with several stab wounds. Sampieri was taken to hospital, where he remained under police guard and in the custody of Corrective Services NSW during treatment. It is understood Sampieri has Hepatitis C and liver damage. After being deemed fit by doctors, Sampieri was transported to Maroubra Police Station where he was arrested by detectives from the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad. An investigation led by detectives from the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad under Strike Force Berliet resulted in a string of charges. Fears are growing for a hiker who went missing in scorching temperatures after an extensive land and air search failed to locate her in the north of Western Australia. Felicity Shadbolt, 36, failed to return from a walk on Mount Nameless near Karijini National Park in the Pilbara outback and was last seen on Sunday at 11.30am. About 35 people have been involved in a ground search including police, SES and members of the local community in the early hours of Tuesday. Felicity Shadbolt (pictured), 36, has been missing since Sunday on 11.30am after she went on a walk in the Pilbara outback About 35 people have been involved in a ground search including police, SES and members of the local community in the early hours of Tuesday Temperatures had soared to 46C within the Pilbara region and will stay in the 40s, according Daniel Hayes, observer at the Broome Bureau of Meterology. BOM predicted further storms within the area in the coming days, which could cause flash flooding and bushfires due to lightning strikes. A helicopter with a spotter and a fixed-wing aircraft with two spotters were also involved in the search for the mother-of-two who has now been missing for three days. Leading the search Pilbara District Police Inspector Ray Thompson said: 'We have horses on site today as of the first thing this morning - it's going to be a very challenging day, so we've started at first light.' The search was temporarily called off on Monday due to storms in the area, which brought wind, rain and lightning and posed safety concerns. Infrared technology was used during the search in the evening by an Australian Maritime Safety Authority aircraft, Inspector Thompson told the ABC. 'They conducted a search pattern for three hours last night looking for any heat signatures that might resemble a person on the ground but unfortunately nothing was sighted in that search area,' he said. 'All we can do at this moment is to do our best to both go over old ground and to continue our search into new areas.' BOM predicted further storms within the area in the coming days, which could cause flash flooding and bushfires due to lightning strikes Ms Shadbolt, affectionately known as 'Flick' is described as being 150-155cm tall, has a slim build and blonde hair with two ponytails Ms Shadbolt, affectionately known as 'Flick' is described as being 150-155cm tall, has a slim build and blonde hair with two ponytails. She is believed to be wearing blue pants and a black t-shirt, and has a bright light blue CamelBak hydration pack. A tattoo artist in Brazil filmed himself working on a client while blindfolded, in his own version of the 'Bird Box Challenge.' The Bird Box Challenge stems from the Netflix original movie called Bird Box, starring Sandra Bullock, where her character is forced to make a dangerous journey with her children while blindfolded, so as not to lay eyes on a monster that if seen, causes people to kill themselves. After the movie was released on December 13, people started filming themselves doing all kinds of things while blindfolded, often with disastrous results. The video of the man tattooing a customer without the use of his sight was recorded on Saturday in Blumenau, Santa Catarina, and the results were exactly as one might expect. The video starts with a man laying on his back and looking at the camera as a tattoo artist stands poised with a tattoo gun in hand, blindfold already on. His task is to tattoo a face on the man, which has already been outlined on the client's right pec. The artist makes contact with the man's skin briefly, before stepping away and re-centering himself, and coming back for another stab at it. A tattoo artist in Brazil filmed himself on Saturday, working on a client while blindfolded, in his own version of the 'Bird Box Challenge.' The challenge stems from the Netflix film, Bird Box The artist's task was to tattoo a face on the man, which had already been outlined on the client's right pec, but it does not turn out anywhere near as anticipated When the artist returns to get going again, the client tries to help guide his hand, and lets out a nervous laugh. Both men then start chuckling uncontrollably, to the point that they have to take another break before they can attempt to get started again. Finally, the artist composes himself, and the man guides his hand again to get started. Both men start chuckling uncontrollably, to the point that they have to take a break before they can attempt to get started Finally, the artist composes himself, and the man guides his hand to start drawing eyes The artist puts ink into his skin in the two spots where the eyes are stenciled, but that's as far as he gets before another fit of giggles takes over. The movement is enough to shift the artist off-center from the stencil enough that he then starts placing ink in the center of the man's chest, no where near where the guiding lines are. After stopping to dab up the extra ink on top of the skin, the artist manages to realign himself and start working on the area that appears to be the mouth on the drawing. Eventually, it seems the artist has given up on trying to create anything that looks like the stencil on the man's chest, appearing to be scribbling any which way, as he attempts something that looks like it might have been meant to be a beard From there, it seems the artist has given up on trying to create anything that looks like the stencil on the man's chest. He appears to be scribbling any which way, as he covers the part of the drawing where the hat is and attempts something that looks like it might have been meant to be a beard. Before the session is over, the man on the table has to guide the artist's hand once more to wipe off excess ink. Near the end of the clip, we see the stencil that the tattoo was meant to look like, as the artist sprays liquid on paper towel over what he's actually drawn As he pulls the damp towel away, a few scribbles of ink are shown on the man's body, which look to be fairly lightly drawn on Near the end of the clip, we see the stencil that the tattoo was meant to look like, as the artist sprays liquid on paper towel over what he's actually drawn. As he pulls the damp towel away, a few scribbles of ink are shown on the man's body, which look to be fairly lightly drawn on. The man on the table can only laugh as he compares the result to the planned image. With any luck, the few lines will make for an easy cover-up job, once the artist ditches the blindfold for good. This is the shocking moment a middle-aged white man punches a young black girl in the face in front of a horrified crowd of kids standing outside a shopping mall. The altercation involving 51-year-old David Steven Bell and the 11-year-old victim was captured on cellphone video around 7pm Saturday outside the Asheville Mall in North Carolina. Bell is seen in the footage bickering back and forth with the group of young girls, before one of them harmlessly shoves him from behind. It's unclear what transpired between Bell and the children before the video was filmed. David Steven Bell, 51, is seen outside the Asheville Mall in North Carolina Saturday night Video shows the man violently punches the girl in the face and she falls to the ground The 11-year-old victim appears to hit her head on the pavement during the fall He is heard in the clip ordering the kids to 'break it up' before the girl filming the incident asks, 'who is he?' Seconds later, Bell is seen forcefully pushing the female victim in the chest before she storms toward him again. Bell, who is 6ft 5in and 250lbs, according to jail records, has been charged with assault on a female under the age of 12 and two counts of assault The man in the video violently punches her in the face and she falls to the ground, appearing to hit her head on the pavement. The girl filming then screams out: 'Oh my god! Oh my god,' before the video concludes. Bell is 6ft 5in and 250lbs, according to online jail records. Bell was arrested after the incident and charged with assault on a female under the age of 12 and two counts of assault. He was booked to Buncombe County jail but released around 1am Sunday. The victim declined medical treatment, according to police, who have not revealed the nature of her injuries. Bell's Facebook page, which has since been deleted, said he resides in Black Mountain and is married with two children. He is employed as an at-home piano teacher. A woman who appears to be his wife is seen in the left-hand corner of the video watching the violent brawl in silence. Bell, pictured above with his wife, is from Black Mountain and has two children Bell, pictured again with his wife, works as an at-home piano teacher Police are currently investigating the Saturday incident. The Asheville Mall also said in a statement: 'We are aware of the videos circulating on social media. 'The @AshevillePolice responded immediately and the situation was diffused. An arrest has been made. 'Please contact the Asheville Police Department with further questions.' The snorkeller who drowned at the popular Kiama Blowhole tourist attraction on the New South Wales south coast has been remembered as a 'caring and loving' father. Wadie Andrawis was pulled unconscious from the water about midday on Monday while snorkelling with friends and family. The group of four had swum from a nearby beach to get to the blowhole but the 33-year-old father-of-two became separated from the remaining trio. Mr Andrawis was swept onto rocks by underwater currents, before suffering a suspected heart attack. Wadie Andrawis (pictured with his wife) died after he suffered a suspected heart attack while snorkelling with family and friends on the New South Wales south coast Lifeguards performed CPR on Mr Andrawis but he was pronounced dead at the scene. Mr Andrawis, the father of a two-year-old daughter and two-month-old son, 'worked hard and loved his wife and two babies dearly', his older brother, Wagdi Andrawis, told the Daily Telegraph. He added his younger sibling was 'a fun, caring and loving man' and his death had had a devastating impact on the family. 'This is the second loss in the family as we have lost our 23-year-old sister recently, my mother and father are devastated,' Wagdi told the publication. Mr Andrawis, from Kingswood, in Sydney's west, had been due to fly out on Wednesday to attend the engagement party of another sister. The three survivors, including two teenagers, were treated by paramedics but did not have serious injuries. The New York metropolitan area could get as much as a foot of snow this weekend thanks to a massive storm system set to make its way east. A 'Tennessee Valley' storm, which is currently over the Pacific Ocean, is expected to barrel its way through the Plains and Midwest before reaching the Northeast either Saturday or Sunday. It is still unclear just how much snow will fall, but meteorologists are predicting that it could be anywhere from an inch to a foot. Accuweather meteorologist Dave Dombek said that the New York City area could get 'a messy mixed bag of snow, sleet, and rain.' A 'Tennessee Valley' storm, which is currently over the Pacific Ocean, is expected to barrel its way through the Plains and Midwest before reaching the Northeast either Saturday or Sunday It is still unclear just how much snow will fall, but meteorologists are predicting that it could be anywhere from an inch to a foot in some places like New York 'This is a pretty significant, juicy storm,' Dombek said. 'It could be a 24-hour storm.' On November 15, New York was hit with about 6 inches of snow. The storm, while not major, still wreaked havoc on city services. City officials said they were taken by surprise by the amount of snowfall. The storm that is currently moving eastward will likely dump more snow and ice on parts of the country that were battered by the deadly winter storm Gia that left as much as 13 inches of snow in Washington, D.C. and Virginia. The snowstorm is blamed for the deaths of at least eight people in road accidents across the U.S. Midwest and possibly also the death of an Illinois state police officer who was killed on Saturday during a traffic stop. Air traffic at Ronald Reagan National Airport and Dulles International Airport was returning to normal. On November 15, New York was hit with about 6 inches of snow. The storm, while not major, still wreaked havoc on city services. City officials said they were taken by surprise by the amount of snowfall Early on Monday, fewer than 400 flights were canceled in affected areas and about 1,600 were delayed, according to Flight Aware. At the height of the storm, more than 1,600 flights were canceled in and out of U.S. airports on Sunday, the bulk of them at Washington's Reagan and Dulles. Winter storm warnings for millions of Americans in 10 states and Washington, D.C., were being lifted early Monday in a swath of the United States from Colorado to the East Coast. 'But up north it's going to stay cold,' said Jim Hayes, a forecaster with the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. A mother accused of pouring bleach down her disabled baby's feeding tube begged for donations from members of the public. Brooke Evelyn Lucas, 26, was arrested last Friday and charged with intending to kill or endanger her son William. William has a congenital condition called Pierre Robin sequence and Lucas allegedly tried to poison her boy days after celebrating his discharge from hospital. Now it has emerged that Lucas solicited $2,395 in donations from GoFundMe to allegedly cover the cost of going to and from hospital. Brooke Evelyn Lucas, 26, was accused of pouring bleach down her disabled baby William's (pictured) feeding tube. She has been remanded to a psychiatric hospital Brooke Evelyn Lucas, 26, (right) was charged on Friday with intending to kill or endanger her son William (left) A screenshot from a GoFundMe page Lucas uploaded 'We live an hour away from the hospital its costing us 100+ plus a week in fuel to visit on top playing for parking and meals at the hospital,' she wrote on the crowdfunding site. 'Its (sic) costing us a fortune plus Wills needs special equipment so we are trying to fundraise money to help in the long run. 'Any help will be greatly appreciated and hopfully (sic) we can finally get our little boy home for his 1st birthday'. Lucas posted to Facebook that it was a 'Christmas miracle' when William was discharged from Perth Children's Hospital, following a bout of what his mother said was bronchitis. 'William has been discharged from PCH and will be spending his first Christmas at home,' she posted on Facebook on December 24. But William was back in hospital on December 29 after police allege Lucas poisoned him by pouring bleach into his feeding tube. The boy's family said on Sunday that the boy is recovering and is expected to be released into their care. Lucas's Facebook page has since been deleted, as has her fundraising page. The 13-month-old baby, who has a congenital condition called Pierre Robin sequence and requires 24-hour care, needs a tube to breathe and eat Mrs Lucas (pictured) has been remanded to the Frankland Centre, a high-security inpatient unit at Graylands Hospital, on a seven-day order following a mental health assessment Charges were laid against Lucas last Friday. Appearing in Perth Magistrates Court on Monday, Lucas was visibly distressed and did not speak. She has been remanded to the Frankland Centre, a high-security inpatient unit at Graylands Hospital, on a seven-day order following a mental health assessment. She is due back in court on January 30. Lifeline 13 11 14 beyondblue 1300 22 4636 Music festivals could be shut down by the state government if revellers die from drug overdoses if new guidelines are introduced. NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant said rules would be strengthened following the fatal death of 19-year-old Alex Ross-King, who died of an overdose at FOMO music festival in Western Sydney on Sunday. If the changes go ahead, festival operators would be required to say if drug taking is 'possible' or 'highly unlikely' before the event is approved by NSW Health, Daily Telegraph reported. Alex Ross-King, 19, died of an overdose at FOMO music festival in Western Sydney on Sunday NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant said festival guidelines would be strengthened following death of Ms Ross-King Ms Ross-King died from a fatal overdose at the FOMO music festival on Sunday (stock) In addition to the possibility of drug taking, NSW Health would also consider the number of attendees, the distance of the location to the nearest hospital, and any previous drug-related deaths. From there, the festivals would be given a risk category which will determine what further action the organisers have to do. The moves comes after Ms Ross-King brought the number of fatal overdoses to six - five in NSW and one in Victoria - in the last four months. On Saturday, December 29 university student Callum Edwards, 20, fell critically ill at the Beyond The Valley music festival in Lardner Josh Tam, 22, died after taking an unknown substance at Lost Paradise festival in Gosford, New South Wales Poll Should the government introduce pill testing at festivals? Yes No Unsure Should the government introduce pill testing at festivals? Yes 59 votes No 25 votes Unsure 1 votes Now share your opinion Just weeks before, on Saturday, December 29 university student Callum Edwards, 20, fell critically ill at the Beyond The Valley music festival in Lardneer, about 100km east of Melbourne in Victoria. He was flown to hospital where he died three days later from a suspected drug overdose. His family later refuted this as reports emerged Mr Edwards died with tiger snake venom in his blood. Mr Edward's death followed two other revellers at the same festival being rushed to hospital suffering from suspected drug overdoses. A man in his 20s was rushed by air ambulance to Royal Melbourne Hospital in a critical condition but was later upgraded to stable and discharged. Another man, also in his 20s, was taken to Dandenong Hospital in a critical condition. The same weekend Josh Tam, 22, died after taking an unknown substance at Lost Paradise festival in Gosford, New South Wales. Mr Tam, from Toowong in Brisbane, was rushed to Gosford hospital at 8pm on Saturday, December 29 and died soon after arriving. Callum Brosnan was found in a 'distressed state' at the Knockout Games of Destiny Dance Party earlier in December Joseph Phan (left), 23, and Diana Nguyen (right), 21, died at Defqon. 1. music festival on September 15 2018 Earlier in December, 19-year-old Callum Brosnan, from Baulkham Hills, was found in a 'distressed state' at the Knockout Games of Destiny Dance Party at Sydney Olympic Park in Homebush, Sydney. He was admitted to Concord Hospital with a suspected drug overdose just before 1.30am on Sunday, December 9 and died little more than three hours later. The deaths of revellers Joseph Phan, 23, and Diana Nguyen, 21, at Defqon. 1. music festival on September 15 shocked the country and threw the future of the popular Sydney festival into doubt. Dr Chant met with organisers of the FOMO festival on Monday night to gather more information about the event and how it led to the death of Ms Ross-King (stock) We are committed to continually strengthening the licensing scheme we take this very seriously and we will learn if there are room for improvements,' she said The publication also revealed that Dr Chant met with organisers of the FOMO festival on Monday night to gather more information about the event and how it led to the death of Ms Ross-King. 'We are committed to continually strengthening the licensing scheme we take this very seriously and we will learn if there are room for improvements,' she said. 'We will refine these guidelines and improve on them but the key driver is the number of people at the event and the age profile and the nature of the event which gives an indication to drug use.' NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian previously rejected pill testing but earlier this month backtracked on her comments saying she would consider it if the government showed evidence it could save lives. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian previously rejected pill testing but earlier this month backtracked on her comments saying she would consider it if the government showed evidence it could save lives (stock) Some advocacy groups are also recommending young party-goers to use DIY drug testing kits before consuming the illicit substances. Dr Chant is asking festival-goers to look after themselves and their friends as more events are scheduled for the coming week after 115 people were admitted into emergency departments with MDMA poisoning in the first week of the New Year. 'While MDMA alone can be a killer, mixing MDMA with alcohol and other drugs can increase the risk of harm. Add to that warmer temperatures and you have even more issues,' she said. 'The combination of hot days plus people taking multiple or high-doses of MDMA can lead to severe poisoning and even death sometimes even one dose can be fatal. 'MDMA effects everyone differently but its lethal toxicity is well known so be aware of poisoning symptoms - a fast heartbeat, high body temperature, confusion and vomiting. 'Look out for your mates. Don't be afraid to ask for help. If you or a friend are experiencing trouble at a festival seek immediate medical attention from the staff onsite, or call 000 if you have left the festival.' A child murderer who hid a 16-year old's body in a freezer is being re-investigated over the mysterious death of a teenager. John Taylor, 62, is serving a life sentence life for the murder of Leanne Tiernan, 16, whose body was found in Chapel Allerton, Leeds, in 2000 - plus a series of sex attacks. Now former detective Chris Clark thinks that Taylor may also have killed Donna Healey, 18, who like Leanne was found in the same town. John Taylor, 62, is serving a life sentence life for the murder of Leanne Tiernan, 16, whose body was found in Chapel Allerton, Leeds, in 2000. Now a former detective thinks that Taylor may also have killed Donna Healey, 18, (pictured above) who like Leanne was found in the same town. Donna is pictured Taylor (pictured) kept Leanne's body in a freezer in Leeds for 19 months before before dumping it when the freezer broke down Taylor kept Leanne's body in a freezer in Leeds for 19 months before dumping it when the freezer broke down. Donna's body had been stored in an airtight container, just like Leanne's. Police have reopened the investigation into Donna's death. They are also re-investigating the deaths of Lindsay Rimer, 13, Yvonne Fitt, 33, and Deborah Wood, 20. Mr Clark believes the focus of the investigations should be on Taylor. He also thinks that they should investigate whether he is responsible for the murder of Ann Ballantyne, 20, who was discovered in an Edinburgh canal in 1987. Speaking to the Mirror, he said: 'How many men in West Yorkshire were murdering victims and putting them in cold storage? 'It's a bit like Peter Sutcliffe going round bashing women with a hammer.' The re-investigation into the women's deaths is being supported by their families, who are 'desperate for their heartbreak to end'. Donna's mother, 72, was informed about the investigation by detectives last week. The woman, from Bradford, who did not want to be named, said: 'Somebody out there must know something, I hope we get some answers this time. I don't want to die not knowing what happened to her.' Donna was reported missing by her parents in March 1988. Her body was later found in the grounds of a nursing home in 1991 that was undergoing a renovation. At the time police were not able to identify her due to the condition of the body But they were finally able to identify it in 2004 due to advances in DNA technology. Storing the body in a container meant Donna's body was partially preserved in a 'mummified' state. Police believe that the body was moved by someone who had a a link to the area who had a change in circumstances. At the time of Donna's death Taylor lived five miles away. Detective Superintendent Jim Griffiths of the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team said:'We are carrying out a new review into her death. 'This review is in its infancy and is looking at a number of potential lines of enquiry.' He was asked about Taylor and responded by saying police would 'not name any individual who was or was not part of these initial enquiries' but 'again urges anyone with information to come forward.' Leanne Tierman, 16, was last seen when she got off a bus with a friend after shopping in Leeds West Yorkshire Police carried out probes on Donna's death in 2003 and 2013 but it has remained 'unexplained'. There are four other murders that are linked to Leanne's death. One is of Lindsay Rimmer who lived near Taylor's Bramley home. Lindsay vanished after leaving her home in 1994 and was strangled. She kept in a freezer nine months, then dumped in Lindley Woods. Yvonne Fitt,33, had been buried in a shallow grave in the same woods - just yards from where Leanne's body was found. Yvonne lived six miles from Taylor in Leeds and was found eight months after she was stabbed in 1992. Lindsay Rimer, 13, vanished after leaving her Hebden Bridge home to buy cornflakes in 1994. Deborah Wood, 20, was found on fire at a Leeds railway station in 1995 after her body was kept in cold storage for 10 days. A TV station founded by an Islamic preacher banned from the UK is under investigation after a guest claimed fathers should 'push' their daughters into marriage. Islamic scholar Haitham al-Haddad, once described as 'one of the most dangerous men in Britain', made the statements on Peace TV's Marriage and Divorce show in November. During a broadcast, he claimed fathers should 'push' and 'convince' their daughters to get married and said it was 'alarming' for women to want to go on to higher education while unmarried. His comments are now being investigated by media regulator Ofcom, the Times reported. Haitham al-Haddad (pictured at Leytonstone Islamic Centre) founded the Muslim Research and Development Foundation - described as 'the main Salafist organisation in the UK' Dr Haddad also said women who were unmarried in their 30s would 'not receive good proposals'. He said he knew older women who wished their parents had pushed them to wed when they were younger. The investigation comes after it was revealed in October that Amazon had donated to a charity founded by Dr Haddad - the Muslim Research and Development Foundation (MRDF). Under its charitable scheme Amazon Smile, the tech giant donates a percentage of customers' money to the MRDF described as 'the main Salafist organisation in the UK'. The Salafi movement promotes a hardline interpretation of Islam and is linked with jihadism. MRDF founder Haitham al-Haddad, 52, from Saudi Arabia, has been described as 'one of the most dangerous men in Britain' by the head of the Quillam Foundation, an anti-extremism think-tank. But despite this, the charity has become one of 6,000 including the British Red Cross, Barnardo's and Cancer Research UK to join the Amazon Smile programme, which was launched in the UK in November last year. The scheme allows shoppers to select a charity they want to donate to when buying a product. The retailer then sends 0.5 per cent of the purchase price to the charity. Dr Haddad has been criticised for his chilling opinions on punishments for adultery and leaving the Muslim faith. He once said being gay was a 'scourge' and a 'criminal act'. Dr Haddad said the Japanese tsunami in 2011, which killed more than 15,000 people, was a just punishment for the country not being Muslim. On child marriage, he said: 'The earlier the better, especially for girls, but you have to be careful of the legal issues.' During a broadcast, he claimed fathers should 'push' and 'convince' their daughters to get married and said it was 'alarming' for women to want to go on to higher education before marrying Six investigations were launched into Peace TV, which is available to Sky customers and reaches 200million viewers, by Ofcom last year. A seventh probe began recently after another complaint was lodged about the channel. The media regulator will now investigate whether or not Haddad's comments breached Britain's broadcasting code. The founder of the channel, Zakir Naik, who insists he is an enemy of extremism, was banned entering Britain in 2010 after he said 'all Muslims should be terrorists'. Mr Naik, 53, is also the founder of the Islamic Research Foundation. Peace TV declined to comment on Monday, the Times reported. House Republicans will block Iowa Rep Steve King from serving on any committees in the new Congress as punishment for his remarks about white supremacy. Rep Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, announced the move against King on Monday, calling his remarks 'beneath the dignity of the Party of Lincoln and the United States of America'. 'We will not tolerate this type of language in the Republican party or in the Democratic party,' McCarthy said. 'I watched what Steve King said and we took action.' In an interview with The New York Times last week, King, 69, questioned how the terms 'white nationalism' and 'white supremacy' became offensive. 'White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization - how did that language become offensive?' King asked during the interview. House Republicans will block Iowa Rep Steve King from serving on any committees in the new Congress as punishment for his remarks about white supremacy 'Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?' Since the interview, King - who was serving on committees for agriculture, small business, and judiciary - has denied that he is racist and said his remarks were 'completely mischaracterized'. King was removed from his committees just hours after Democratic congressmen Bobby Rush and Tim Ryan both introduced separate censure resolutions against him. A censure in Congress is a formal statement of disapproval that is more severe than a reprimand but not as serious as expulsion. Only 23 members of the House have ever been censured in the history of Congress. 'As with any animal that is rabid, Steve King should be set aside and isolated,' Rush said Monday. 'It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican, we all have a responsibility to call out Rep King's hateful and racist comments,' Ryan added, noting that this wasn't the first time King has made headlines for inappropriate language. The text of Rush's censure resolution lists more than a dozen examples of King's remarks, beginning with comments in 2006 in which he compared immigrants to livestock. The move came hours after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell condemned King's remarks and suggested he should 'find another line of work' In an official statement, McCarthy said that King's comments called into question 'whether he will treat all Americans equally, without regard for race and ethnicity'. 'House Republicans are clear: We are all in this together, as fellow citizens equal before God and the law,' McCarthy continued. 'As Congressman King's fellow citizens, let us hope and pray earnestly that this action will lead to greater reflection and ultimately change on his part.' Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also denounced King on Monday and even suggested the congressman 'should find another line of work'. 'There is no place in the Republican Party, the Congress or the country for an ideology of racial supremacy of any kind,' McConnell said in a statement. 'Rep. King's statements are unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position. If he doesn't understand why "white supremacy" is offensive, he should find another line of work.' President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he hadn't been following the King saga King was removed from his committees just hours after Democratic congressmen Bobby Rush (pictured) and Tim Ryan both introduced separate censure resolutions against him Sen Mitt Romney also condemned King's comments on Monday and called on the congressman to resign. 'Our Senate leader also said today that Steve King ought to find a different line of work. I think he's absolutely right,' Romney said. 'I think it's very clear that the party leadership is unified that Steve King is out of bounds and that he should no longer be serving in Congress.' One Republican did not join the chorus of criticism. Asked about King's remarks on Monday, President Donald Trump said: 'Who?' King said in a Times interview that he didn't understand how phrases like 'white supremacy' and 'white nationalism' became offensive Told it was King, Trump claimed he hasn't 'been following it'. King's position in the GOP had been imperiled even before his remarks about white supremacy. Shortly before the 2018 midterm elections, in which King was running, Ohio Republican Rep Steve Stivers, then the head of the GOP campaign committee, issued an extraordinary public denunciation of him. King has already drawn a primary challenger for the 2020 election: Randy Feenstra, a GOP state senator. A group of Irish tourists who allegedly left their trash all over a beachside park, threatened locals, and caused chaos on a flight have now been accused of not paying for meals at two restaurants and a cafe. The establishments across Auckland on New Zealand's North Island have complained that the group put ants and hair in their meals in an attempt to get their meals for free and abused staff. On January 9 three members of the group had breakfast at the Montrose Cafe and ordered over $110 worth of food before skipping out on their tab. Scroll down for video A group of Irish tourists who allegedly left their trash all over a beachside park, threatened locals, and caused chaos on a flight have now been accused of not paying for meals at two restaurants and a cafe A woman with the group then pulled a hoodie over her head before getting into their white van, slamming the vehicle door into a nearby car as she did so Benjamin Salt, the restaurant manager, said that the group was continuously ordering items to keep staff busy and were rude to the other customers. 'They asked me for the total bill. I told them it was $114 and I had to repeat myself a few times before all of a sudden one of them said 'have a look at this, there is a hair in my food',' he told the New Zealand Herald. 'We were pretty sceptical but the chef came out to the table to apologise and we were going to take the item off their bill and then one shoved their food into me and when I went back to get rid of the plate they ran out the door.' The group previously been accused of attempting to scam two other restaurants by refusing to pay for food at Mr India and The Backyard Bar & Restaurant in Northcote. Roger Van Kempen, the manager of The Backyard Bar & Restaurant, said that on January 3 some of the tourists bought food at the establishment and then put ants in the food to try and avoid paying their bill. A coffee shop in inner Auckland also accused the group of refusing to pay for chocolate cake and then yelling at staff. The establishments were the group of Irish tourists have reportedly had incidents When the New Zealand Herald tracked down some of the travellers when they checked out of their budget hotel on Monday they were told there would be trouble if they were photographed. A woman with the group then pulled a hoodie over her head before getting into their white van, slamming the vehicle door into a nearby car as she did so. The tourists also allegedly caused havoc on their flight into the country. Among the carnage were reportedly demands for large seats, continuous requests for alcohol and a dirty nappy left in an overhead bin. One passenger on the Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to Auckland on Friday told the New Zealand Herald the family made the journey the 'worst flight' of his life. Before the flight departed, both children gallivanted around the plane's aisles and a daughter allegedly yelled at her mother who demanded food from staff, the passenger claimed. The Irish tourists who trashed and threatened locals on a New Zealand beach also allegedly caused havoc on their flight into the country When others realised the family-of-six had apparently left a soiled piece of clothing in their hand luggage, the fellow passenger reached the end of his tether. 'The parents also asked for different seats because they are overweight and didn't have enough space, even insisting the attendant ask another couple with the only free seat on the plane to switch with them,' he said. 'They would lean against us often with an armpit on my head or an entire arm blocking the movie I attempted to watch. I was already boiling at this point, so asked the attendants if we could move. 'After leaving the plane they even left one of her [their baby's] suits in the overhead that we think had actual poop left in it, because it smelt like death.' As the plane descended the passenger said the young girl ignored the seatbelt sign and attempted to stand. Days later the supposed same group were filmed leaving beer bottles and rubbish on a busy beach, before a child threatened to 'knock the brains out' of locals who confronted them in now-viral footage. Witness Krista Curnow said the group of about 12 tourists, who spoke with an Irish accent, turned violent when she asked them to clean their mess as they left the beach The incident, which unfolded at Auckland's Takapuna Beach on New Zealand's North Island on Sunday, was captured on camera by Krista Curnow. She said the group of about 12 tourists, who spoke with an Irish accent, turned violent when she asked them to clean their mess as they left the beach. 'Their response was basically if we have a problem then we can pick it up and that that's what the council is for,' Ms Curnow said. 'I approached the family to ask again if they could not disrespect our country while visiting and pick up their rubbish. 'Their response was basically if we have a problem then we can pick it up and that that's what the council is for,' Ms Curnow said Footage showed a young boy, wearing a wide-brimmed Bunnings Warehouse hat, approach Ms Curnow, telling her: 'I'll knock your brains out' 'They turned violent and even grandma and the child got involved saying they wanted to punch my head in.' Footage showed a young boy, wearing a wide-brimmed Bunnings Warehouse hat, approach Ms Curnow, telling her: 'I'll knock your brains out'. 'The mouth on that young boy - absolutely disgusting! What kind of role models are the parents allowing this sort of behaviour,' Ms Curnow said. 'We live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, how dare people come to NZ and disrespect our country, this is our home.' The Irish family later ordered food at a nearby Nandos store, before demanding a refund, The New Zealand Herald reported. Another local claimed they confronted the family at a Bunnings Warehouse after seeing the video online. 'We just came across him in Bunnings Hillsborough... he was wearing the same clothes,' the woman wrote on Facebook. The Irish family reportedly later ordered food at a nearby Nandos store, before demanding a refund Pictured: Rubbish left behind by a group of tourists at a popular beach in Auckland 'He's absolutely sh***ing himself after getting a bit of a talking to from my partner about respecting our country.' Footage of the incident has since gone viral and has garnered thousands of comments. 'My big fat gypsy holiday! Imagine having to sit next to them on a 12-hour flight. Horrendous! Glad you said something,' one wrote. 'What did I just watch? That little boy thought he was so tough,' another noted. One of the members of the group was seen ushering the child away as he threatened Ms Curnow The incident unfolded at Auckland's Takapuna Beach on New Zealand's North Island on Sunday A third said: 'Being Irish, this embarrasses me so much. It's people like this that made me leave Ireland. Absolute disgrace.' Ms Curnow said she and her friends cleaned up the tourists' mess, with the help of other beachgoers. 'I loved how everyone else on the beach came to support and we all picked up the rubbish together! Love NZ,' she said. Inspector Kevin McNaughton, Acting Area Commander of Waitemata East Police, told Daily Mail Australia the incident was being investigated. Ms Curnow said she and her friends cleaned up the tourists' mess with the help of other beachgoers 'Police will be speaking with those involved and will be referring them to Auckland Council with regard to their behaviour around the littering of rubbish,' he said. 'Police would like to remind the public that offenders caught illegally dumping rubbish may be issued with a fine of up to $400. 'Serious offenders may also be prosecuted under the Litter Act 1979 with a maximum penalty of $30,000. 'We pride ourselves in our clean, green image as a country and thank the members of the public who reported this behaviour on this occasion.' More than a million British expats living in Europe face having to retake their driving tests in their adopted country if the UK leaves the EU without a deal, it was warned yesterday. But the 3.2 million EU nationals in Britain have been assured they will not have to take their test over here, government officials confirmed. Last night the president of the AA described the arrangement as grossly unfair and warned that thousands of British expats - many of them elderly - will not relish the prospect of having to qualify to drive again. A no-deal Brexit could pose a much bigger headache for many of the 1.3million Britons living within the EU. They will not be able to apply for an IDP The Department of Transport (DfT) published two documents outlining the bureaucracy facing drivers planning holidays or living abroad if Theresa Mays Brexit deal is rejected this evening. The DfT said if no agreement is reached with Brussels, anyone with a UK driving licence may need to purchase an International Driving Permit (IDP) for 5.50 from the Post Office if they want to drive within in the EU after March 29. But it warned a no-deal Brexit could pose a much bigger headache for many of the 1.3million Britons living within the EU. They will not be able to apply for an IDP. Instead they will have to exchange their British licence for a local one before the UK leaves the EU if they want to be able to continue driving there. The DfT warned that increased demand may lead to longer processing times and delays to exchanging driving licences the closer it is to March 29, 2019. It said the UK government has assured Brussels that EU nationals already living in Britain will not have to retake their driving test. There are an estimated 3.2million EU nationals currently living in the UK. Last night one Whitehall official said: As usual it is clear that Britain is bending over backwards. There is lots of political pressure in the UK to guarantee the rights of EU people living over here. What about the other way around? The AA pointed out that up to half a million expats living in France and Spain alone may have to retake their test. Edmund King, president of the motoring group, said: This is grossly unfair. Like all of these arrangements, it should work both ways. Thousands of expats, many of them elderly, will not relish the prospect of having to re-take their driving test in a different country and different language if there is no deal. Edmund King, president of the AA, said: This is grossly unfair. Like all of these arrangements, it should work both ways' Drivers without the appropriate IDPs could also be turned back at the ports. Unless these Brexit issues are sorted out soon many UK drivers living in Europe may well need to start practising for a new driving test. The DfT said expats who later return to live in the UK will be able to swap back to a British licence, provided they had passed their test in Britain. UK driving licences currently qualify people to drive within the EU and the European Economic Area, which includes Iceland and Norway. The DfT said if no deal is reached with the EU Britons may need to apply for an International Driving Permit to guarantee they can drive in Europe. This is likely to apply until the government can reach agreements with individual EU members to recognise each others driving licences. Currently these permits are only required or recommended for visiting countries outside Europe. From February 1, drivers will no longer be able to apply for a permit by post and will have to visit a Post Office. Currently it is also possible to obtain a permit from motoring groups including the AA and the RAC as well as the Post Office. A DfT spokesman said: The department has been fully preparing for a range of scenarios and has focused on no-deal planning for some time. The Government is seeking to put in place new arrangements to ensure UK driving licences continue to be recognised. However, in a no-deal scenario an International Driving Permit will provide certainty to UK motorists visiting and driving in the EU after exit day. A six-figure job at a blueberry orchard has been advertised online. Blueberry Country, New Zealand's largest blueberry orchard, is offering an estimated $200,000 salary for the position of general manager. The role, which does not require formal tertiary qualification, is the highest paying job advertised on Trade Me. The Blueberry Country is looking to hire a general manager for an estimated salary of $200,000 The position does not require applicants to have formal tertiary education (stock) Recruiter Cameron King, of Tribe Group, told Stuff he had received roughly 92 applications for the position and was juggling constant phone calls The Cambridge-based position on New Zealand's north island has premises in Ngatea, Ohaupo and Otauta, with a total of 400 acres of blueberries in production. Mr King said the salary was negotiable and the $200,000 was just 'a rough estimate'. 'If you can see someone has continued to develop themselves, that can be seen as an advantage but it doesn't have to be a degree,' said Mr King. The ideal candidate will have developed their work experience through sales and marketing (stock) The job listing says the recruiter is looking for someone who is passionate about the horticulture sector. The ideal candidate will have developed their work experience through sales and marketing. 'It does without saying you need to be strong commercially and a proven leader,' the listing states. There are grave fears for an Australian tourist who sent frantic text messages from a Thailand detention centre after 'some pretty serious stuff went down'. Claire Johnson, 46, was due back in Sydney on January 8, but a week later contacted a friend to tell her she was 'so scared' and locked up in immigration detention. Ms Johnson's friends first raised concerns when, on the day she was due to fly home, she posted on Facebook: 'All grand adventures end with a big bang'. When one asked what was wrong, Ms Johnson said she would not be boarding her plane home and the situation was 'serious'. On Monday night, in a string of panic-stricken text messages to friend Juliet Potter, Ms Johnson begged for help and said she was 'so scared... get media involved.' There are grave fears for Australian tourist Claire Johnson (pictured), who sent frantic text messages from a Thailand detention centre after 'some pretty serious stuff went down' 'They are taking my phone... Have to go,' Ms Johnson wrote to friend, Juliet Potter 'They are taking my phone... Have to go,' Ms Johnson wrote to Ms Potter. Ms Potter told Daily Mail Australia her friend was terrified and had no idea why she had been detained. 'She needs help... She apparently had to pay somebody,' Ms Potter said. 'She called me and asked me to wire her some money. She said something about wanting to buy a blanket in the jail - you must have to buy a pillow and a blanket.' 'She needs help... She apparently had to pay somebody,' Ms Potter said of Ms Johnson (pictured) Ms Johnson's friends first raised concerns when, on the day she was due to fly home, she posted on Facebook: 'All grand adventures end with a big bang' In a message to another friend, Ms Johnson said she was 'panicking' as she was taken into custody. 'They said the detention centre is not like a jail. I am praying he is right,' she wrote. 'Now I know hat it feels like to be a prisoner. They won't even let me go to the toilet by myself.' The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was providing consular assistance to an Australian woman detained in Thailand. In a string of panic-stiken text messages to friend Juliet Potter (pictured), Ms Johnson begged for help and said she was 'so scared... get media involved' In a message to another friend, Ms Johnson (pictured) said she was 'panicking' as she was taken into custody 'For privacy reasons we are unable to provide further details,' the department told Daily Mail Australia in a statement. Ms Potter claimed the department wasn't doing enough to help her friend, who she hasn't heard from since the text message exchange. 'I don't think they are [providing assistance]. Otherwise she would never had reached out to me - and she's still over there, she's not home,' she said. Ms Johnson describes herself on Facebook as a 'international medical tourism promoter, photographer, freelance journalist, world traveller.' Ms Potter said she had been told by a friend that Ms Johnson may have accidentally overstayed her Thai visa by one day. A man who admitted to killing and dismembering his mother during an argument in their Honolulu apartment has been sentenced to 30 years in prison. Yu Wei Gong was charged with murder after he called police in 2017 to turn himself in after a suicide attempt. He admitted killing his mother Liu Yun Gong about six months earlier, according to court documents. When officers asked where his mother was, he said 'in the fridge.' An officer searched the freezer and found human remains, including two arms with hands and a decapitated head, in numerous plastic trash bags, court documents said. Yu Wei Gong, center, appears in court in Honolulu on Monday accompanied by his attorney, Darcia Forester, left, and Mandarin Chinese language interpreter on the right. Gong, who admitted to killing and dismembering his mother during an argument in their apartment Yu Wei Gong, left, admitted to killing and dismembering his mother during an argument in their Honolulu apartment. He has been sentenced to 30 years in prison The woman was found wrapped in seven plastic bags inside a refrigerator freezer in the family's sixth floor apartment in Honolulu's beachfront neighborhood of Waikiki. Authorities said Gong initially phoned dispatchers in April 2017 and informed them that he was suicidal. That's when he admitted to police: 'I killed my mother.' Gong admitted to police he killed her after he became angry because he didn't want to go to school. Authorities determined she had died from blunt force trauma to the head. Police said Gong called it an 'accident' and said he didn't mean to do it. Last year, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter, avoiding a life sentence. His defense attorney and the prosecutor in the case said it's a deal the victim's family supports. Gong, 28, spent most of Monday's sentencing looking down. He spoke quietly as he apologized to his family in China and Hawaii. 'I am ashamed for what I did,' he said. 'I'm sorry, Mom.' The Hawaii man confessed to police after they found human remains in their apartment (the building, pictured) in April 2017. Gong's mother has been dead since September 2016 Gong feels he doesn't deserve the forgiveness his family has given him, said Darcia Forester, his public defender. 'I want to make clear that he did love his mother and she was a very good mother,' she said. 'Under no circumstances did she deserve what happened.' Liu Yun Gong worked at a spa as a licensed therapist. When she didn't show up for work one day, her boss, Julie Kim, told the Star Advertiser that she tried her cell phone several times but got no answer. 'Usually she responds very quick,' Kim said. Later, she said Liu Yun's son called her and told her his mother had gone to a neighboring island and left her phone at home and wouldn't be back for a couple of months. She said the last words the doomed woman said to her were 'see you tomorrow.' Gong, pictured in 2017, killed his mother and then stuffed her body parts into a freezer Judge Paul Wong noted the 'obviously sensational facts' in the case, even though there was no mention of the gory details. Wong sentenced Gong to 20 years for manslaughter and 10 years for identity theft, to be served separately. A one-year sentence for abuse of a corpse is to be served at the same time. Gong will receive credit for time he's already served. The identity theft charge stems from Gong paying rent with his mom's checking account. A parole board will determine the minimum number of years Gong must serve. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Wayne Tashima said his office won't recommend fewer than 20 years. A man who savagely attacked two innocent passengers on separate bus journeys in Brisbane in still on the loose. Queensland Police have released additional footage and images of the man, hoping that more witnesses will come forward. The man is accused of assaulting a 40-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman in two separate incidents in December. Police have shared the new footage, which shows the man entering Anaconda Everton Park on South Pine Road on January 4, in a further bid to track him down. The man (pictured) is accused of assaulting a 40-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman in two separate incidents in Brisbane last December He appears to be Caucasian with a shaved head and was wearing a red polo shirt during both of the incidents. A new image shows him wearing black tracksuit bottoms bearing three white stripes and a red hoodie. The original footage, which was captured by public transport CCTV, shows two separate incidents just days apart in which the man is seen to assault two passengers in Brisbane's northeast suburbs, last month. On December 12, the man was seen hitting an 18-year-old woman in the face before jumping off the bus. A new image of the suspect (pictured) shows him wearing black tracksuit bottoms bearing three white stripes and a red hoodie In one attack, the man was seen hitting a woman in the face before jumping off the back of the bus The woman is said to have suffered serious facial injuries. In a separate incident three days earlier, the man was captured punching a 40-year-old man in the face before fleeing at the Maundrell Terrace stop in Chermside West. Both assaults appear to be unprovoked attacks. Queensland Police are appealing for anyone who travels around the Albany Creek Rd, Maundrell Tce area in Aspley or Chermside West and South Pine Rd in Everton Park who may have witnessed either incident or who may recognise the man. Police also have urged any pedestrians or motorists who captured the incident on their mobile or through dashcam vision to contact Crime Stoppers. One of the leaders of the Womens March on Monday once again declined to condemn Louis Farrakhan for making anti-Semitic remarks. Tamika Mallory, the co-president of Womens March Inc., was grilled by ABCs The View on Monday for once referring to the controversial Nation of Islam leader Farrakhan as the greatest of all time. Mallory also attended an event in February during which Farrakhan said Jews were responsible for all of this filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out turning men into women and women into men. The powerful Jews are my enemy, Farrakhan said at the event. I didnt call him the Greatest of All Time because of his rhetoric, Mallory told The View on Monday. Tamika Mallory, the co-president of Womens March Inc., was grilled by ABCs The View on Monday for once referring to the controversial Nation of Islam leader Farrakhan as the greatest of all time In 2017, Mallory posted an Instagram message in which she is photographed with Farrakhan (above). In the caption, she refers to him as 'the GOAT' - the acronym for 'greatest of all time' Bob Bland, another Women's March leader, defended Mallory and the organization's leadership, which has been accused of pushing out Jewish activists I called him the Greatest of All Time because of what hes done in black communities. View co-host Meghan McCain pressed Mallory by citing other comments Farrakhan has made about Jews. I would never be comfortable supporting someone who called, Im not an anti-Semite, Im an anti-termite, Its the wicked Jews, the false Jews that are promoting lesbianism, homosexuality, McCain said. McCain also mentioned a recent story in the online Jewish publication Tablet which claimed that Mallory and another Womens March leader, Carmen Perez, asserted that Jewish people bore a special collective responsibility as exploiters of black and brown people - and...claimed that Jews were proven to have been leaders of the American slave trade. McCain said: Now a lot of people think that youre using your organization as anti-Semitism masked in activism and that youre using identity politics to shield yourself from critiques. Women's March Co-Chairs and honorees Carmen Perez (far left), Bland, Mallory, and Linda Sarsour attend Ms. Foundation for Women 2017 Gloria Awards at Capitale on May 3, 2017 in New York City Bob Bland, Womens March Inc. co-president who appeared alongside Mallory on The View, denied the allegations made by Tablet. The people that the journalist spoke to did not tell the truth, Bland said. And I think its important for us to understand, and Ill be very clear in this room, that the womens march unequivocally condemns anti-Semitism, bigotry. Mallory then added: We did not make those remarks. I dont agree with many of Mr. Farrakhans statements. McCain then asked Mallory why she refused to outright condemn Farrakhan. Mallory responded that demands on her to condemn Farrakhan were sexist. I should never be judged through the lens of a man, she said. Farrakhan has a lengthy history of making anti-Semitic comments. This past October, Farrakhan said that Jews were stupid and that instead of calling him an anti-Semite, he should be referred to as anti-termite. He was also quoted as saying last year that Satanic Jews have infected the whole world with poison and deceit. Farrakhan also repeated the anti-Semitic conspiracy alleging that Zionist Jews and Israelis...had foreknowledge of the attacks of September 11, 2001. The unwillingness of Womens March leaders to disavow Farrakhan led actor and activist Alyssa Milano to announce she would no longer speak at the groups events. Milano has demanded that Mallory and another key Womens March national organizer, Linda Sarsour, condemn Farrakhan. In response to the backlash, Sarsour released a statement in November saying: Its become clear, amidst this media storm, that our values and our message have - too often - been lost. Alyssa Milano, the actor and activist, said that she will no longer appear at Women's March events as long as Mallory and Sarsour refuse to condemn Farrakhan That loss caused a lot of harm, and a lot pain. We should have been faster and clearer in helping people understand our values and our commitment to fighting anti-semitism. We regret that. Every member of our movement matters to us - including our incredible Jewish and LGBTQ members. We are deeply sorry for the harm we have caused, but we see you, we love you, and we are fighting with you. An earlier statement from Sarsour read: We want to say emphatically that we do not support or endorse statements made by Minister Louis Farrakhan about women, Jewish and LGBTQ communities. Last month, Vanessa Wruble, a Jewish woman from Brooklyn, claimed she was kicked out of the Womens March after Mallory and Perez told her that Jews needed to confront their own role in racism. Thousands more foreign doctors will be recruited every year to plug NHS shortages after regulators announced a new testing centre. The General Medical Council will double its capacity so it can test the skills of 11,000 doctors a year from outside the EU from summer. It is hoped the new facility in Manchester will ease the flow of overseas doctors who want to come to the UK. Thousands more foreign doctors will be recruited every year and the General Medical Council will double its capacity so it can test the skills of 11,000 doctors a year from outside the EU (file photo) The announcement comes weeks after ministers axed the visa cap on skilled migrants, opening the doors to thousands to talented workers including doctors. One in every three doctors in the NHS is foreign-born, showing the health services huge reliance on those born and trained overseas. Foreign doctors must pass the GMCs Professional and Linguistic Assessment Board test, to ensure they demonstrate the same level of medical knowledge and skills as UK graduates. The new assessment centre is due to open in the summer. One of Britain's biggest police forces has failed to record thousands of violent crimes, including reports of rape and serious assaults. More than 16,600 calls are ignored every year by West Midlands Police because of mistakes or a lack of training for officers, meaning victims are denied justice. Some police and staff dismiss reports of crime received from vulnerable victims. The police watchdog said the force routinely under-records rape, sexual offences and violent attacks. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary raised concerns after rating the force's crime recording as 'inadequate' in 2017. West Midlands Police is under fire after a report revealed that the force ignored more than 16,600 calls are ignored every year (file photo) Its latest report said: 'Too often the force is failing victims. By our estimate the force is failing to record over 16,600 violent crimes reported each year. 'We found examples of officers letting down victims by simply not believing them.' Inspectors were unable to examine other types of crime because the force was updating its computer systems. Deputy Chief Constable Louisa Rolfe said: 'It is frustrating that, despite substantial progress, our grading has remained as inadequate. 'This report focuses upon reports of violent crime and sexual offences. 'It does not include the results of other crimes and, consequently, it has not recognised the force's overall crime recording from which we have good, reliable crime accuracy.' A US judge in Pennsylvania on Monday blocked President Donald Trump's administration rules which would allow more employers to opt out of providing women with no-cost birth control by claiming it violates their 'moral convictions' from taking effect, nationwide. US District Court Judge Wendy Beetlestone for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania temporarily blocked the new expanded exemptions rules from taking effect on Monday, while they are being challenged in court in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Beetlestone said in the ruling that loss of contraception coverage resulting from the rule's enforcement could lead to 'significant, direct and proprietary harm' to the states through increased use of state-funded contraception services. Judge Haywood Gilliam, a United States District Judge of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, granted a request for a preliminary injunction in only California, 12 other states and Washington, DC on Sunday. 'The law couldn't be more clear - employers have no business interfering in women's healthcare decisions,' California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement on Sunday. Gilliam limited the scope of the ruling to the plaintiffs in the California case, but Beetlestone's order has now temporarily blocked the rules across the country. A US judge in Pennsylvania on Monday blocked President Donald Trump's administration rules which would allow more employers to opt out of providing women with no-cost birth control by claim it violates their 'moral convictions' from taking effect, nationwide. President Donald Trump is shown speaking at the American Farm Bureau Federation's 100th Annual Convention on Monday in New Orleans The changes would allow more employers, including publicly traded companies, to opt out of providing no-cost contraceptive coverage to women by claiming religious objections. Some private employers could also object on moral grounds. Opponents of the rules change argue that women would be forced to turn to state-funded programs for birth control and experience unintended pregnancies. 'Today's court ruling stops another attempt by the Trump administration to trample on women's access to basic reproductive care, Becerra said on Sunday. 'It's 2019, yet the Trump Administration is still trying to roll back women's rights. 'Our coalition will continue to fight to ensure women have access to the reproductive healthcare they are guaranteed under the law.' 'The law couldn't be more clear - employers have no business interfering in women's healthcare decisions,' California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement on Sunday. Becerra is pictured in Sacramento, California on October 10 At a hearing on Friday, Judge Haywood Gilliam said the changes would result in a 'substantial number' of women losing birth control coverage, which would be a 'massive policy shift.' This file photo shows a woman holding a birth control pill at her home on January 3, 2013 The US Department of Justice said in court documents the rules 'protect a narrow class of sincere religious and moral objectors from being forced to facilitate practices that conflict with their beliefs.' At issue is a requirement under President Barack Obama's health care law that birth control services be covered at no additional cost. Obama officials included exemptions for religious organizations. The Trump administration expanded those exemptions and added 'moral convictions' as a basis to opt out of providing birth control services. At a hearing on Friday, Gilliam said the changes would result in a 'substantial number' of women losing birth control coverage, which would be a 'massive policy shift.' The California judge previously blocked an interim version of the rules - a decision that was upheld in December by an appeals court. Trump's administration released the final version of the rules in November, with minor changes from the previously blocked intermine rules. Those updated, final version is now being challenged in courts across the country. Two female jailers who endured a nightmare stint at a detention centre on Manus Island are suing their employer and the Commonwealth for damages. In a statement of claim filed with the Supreme Court of Victoria, former workers Diane Parker and Kerry Clifton outline a prolonged ordeal on the island off Papua New Gunea. Both were employed between 2013 and 2014 to provide security, operational and management services for the protection of the detainees. But it was staff who ended up needing the protection, they claim. Asylum seekers staring at media from behind a fence at the Manus Island detention centre, Papua New Guinea. It was the year they would riot. An incident on Manus Island saw about 30 asylum seekers sew their lips together and 500 more go a hunger strike. The government faces several law suits from workers at the facility Facilities at the Manus Island Regional Processing Facility, which was used for the detention of asylum seekers. Several ex workers are suing the government over their time there. The claims are believed to be among a swag of writs being lodged by former employees of G4S, which employed the workers on behalf of the government at the detention centre. In February 2014, the women endured days of rioting at the centre which left one person dead and 77 injured - 13 suffered serious injuries. Both claim they were forced to work in an unsafe workplace where women were targeted as potential hostages during the riot. They further claim G4S failed to train them adequately for the situation in which detainees gained access to weapons and rocks. A former security officer, Gregory Wisely, has already alleged that he was struck in the head by a rock during the riot, sustaining a brain injury. The allegations are among more than 24 made by the women. Refugees and asylum seekers protest inside the Manus Island immigration detention centre last year. Workers have lodged claims in the Supreme Court of Victoria over their experiences working at the facility Ms Parker claims she was forced to work in a triage station of an emergency post despite not having the skills to perform the work. She states that she was deprived of sleep and and was yelled at and humiliated. In a further slap down, Ms Parker claims G4S changed its sick leave policy while she was on sick leave, causing her further distress. The women claim they were left sitting ducks when the detainees began to riot, arguing they had been unable to even carry out searches on the detainees. Police storm the Manus Island facility during a period of 'high tension' last year. Several former employees have described their terror while working at the facility. When things got out-of-control, the workers argued the Australian Defence Forces should have been deployed, but were not. The women claim they had no idea a riot was about to break out and when it did, they were grossly outnumbered and under resourced. Both claim to be left suffering from nightmares, flashbacks and depression. The matters are set to go to trial before a judge and jury. Pope Francis has told parents that it's okay to argue with each other when children are out of sight and urged mothers to breastfeed in the Sistine Chapel if they are hungry. He made the revelations on Sunday in a mass for the feast of the Baptism of the Lord in which 27 newborn babies are thought to have been baptised. The Pope, 82, also urged mothers to breastfeed their newborns and make them comfortable. Pope Francis salutes the crowd as he recites the Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio The pope told mothers: 'If they cry for hunger, breastfeed them. 'To the mothers, I say: breastfeed the children. 'The Lord wants this.' Stock picture shows a woman breastfeeding Pope Francis has told parents that it's okay to argue with each other when children are out of sight and urged mothers to breastfeed in the Sistine Chapel if they are hungry. Pictured, Pope Francis blesses the crowd as he recites the Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St.Peter's Square, at the Vatican, on Sunday He said: 'If they cry for hunger, breastfeed them. 'To the mothers, I say: breastfeed the children. 'The Lord wants this.' Francis told parents that they had taken on an important new job of transmitting the faith to their children - which 'begins at home, in the family'. He also described the 'anguish' a child goes through when they see their parents quarrel. The Pope often stresses that couples should make a habit of saying 'Please, thank you and sorry,' and should never go to bed mad. Pictured, Pope Francis blesses the crowd as he recites the Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio He said: 'But the important thing is to transmit the faith with your life of faith. 'They see the love of the spouses, who see the peace of the house, who see that Jesus is there. 'And I would like to give advice - sorry, but I recommend this - never fight in front of children, never. 'It is normal for spouses to quarrel, it is normal. 'The opposite would be strange. 'Do it, but that they do not hear, that they do not see. 'You do not know the anguish a child receives when he sees his parents quarrelling. 'This, I dare, is a piece of advice that will help you pass on the faith.' As Pope, Francis frequently offers advice to couples. He also did so for many years when he worked as a minister, priest, bishop and cardinal in Buenos Aires. The Pope often stresses that couples should make a habit of saying 'Please, thank you and sorry,' and should never go to bed mad. Eccentric Sydney sandwich board activist Danny Lim and his dog have returned to the same spot where three police officers used force to arrest him four days ago. The 74-year-old Malaysian-born provocateur appeared with his 16-year-old chihuahua-Pomeranian mutt Smarty at Barangaroo in the city on Tuesday morning, this time wearing a different sign. 'Unconditional love. B kind to animals our voiceless children,' it said. The former Strathfield councillor told Daily Mail Australia he was greeted with hugs of support from passersby during the two hours he spent at the bottom of the escalators, where three police officers had arrested him on Friday. Scroll down for video Eccentric Sydney sandwich board activist Danny Lim and his dog Smarty (pictured) have returned to the same spot where police used force to arrest him four days ago 'A lot of people come and hug me and thank me,' he said. Mr Lim, who moved to Australia in 1963 from Malaysia, said he wanted to 'show I'm alright' by appearing at Barangaroo for two hours, from 7am on Tuesday. 'We are better than that,' he said. The father of two daughters was, however, in shock from the brutal arrest on Friday morning, after police had asked him to move on as he held a sign with swear words. 'It very shocked me a lot,' he said. 'It shouldn't have happened at all.' Mr Lim (pictured on Friday being arrested at Barangaroo) said he wanted to 'show I'm alright' by reappearing at the same spot again on Tuesday His arrest sparked a large protest on Sunday outside the police's Sydney command centre at Day Street in the city While Mr Lim has flagged legal action against the New South Wales Police Force, he said he wasn't angry at law enforcement officers for apprehending him and taking his dog. 'I don't blame the police. They are doing a good job,' he said, but declining to answer questions on possible legal action. An image of Mr Lim standing in the exact spot where three police officers forcefully arrested him on Friday was posted to a closed Facebook group, Irish Around Sydney. 'He's back. Yessss!!!,' Aimee Muschamp wrote in a social media post. Footage of Lim's Friday arrest went viral, after police objected to his sandwich board sign mimicking a swear word. 'SMILE CVN'T! WHY CVN'T?,' it said. Mr Lim told Daily Mail Australia his dog Smarty, who also accompanied him to the police protest, was a companion animal Following his arrest on Friday, Mr Lim was taken to St Vincent's Hospital at Darlinghurst, where doctors examined the bruising to his arms (pictured) His arrest sparked a large protest on Sunday outside the NSW police Sydney command centre at Day Street in the city. Mr Lim told Daily Mail Australia his dog Smarty, who also accompanied him to the police protest, was a companion animal. 'I suffer from post-traumatic stress,' he said. Following his arrest on Friday, Mr Lim was taken to St Vincent's Hospital at Darlinghurst, where doctors examined the bruising to his arms. 'Even at St Vincent, everyone, they got a shock, the nurses, the paramedics,' he said. Five police officers face a probe into how they dealt with a series of complaints from a 17-year-old girl who said she was being harassed by her 'county lines' drug dealer boyfriend who went on to kill her. Katerina Makunova was killed by Oluwaseyi Dada, 21, in Camberwell, south London, on July 12, 2018 - a day after she told her family she was ending the abusive relationship. Previously, the trainee hairdresser and her family had called police five times between February and June to accuse Dada, who she met on Instagram, of assault and harassment. Katrina Makunova, 17, (left) was killed by her boyfriend Oluwaseyi Dada, 21, (right) in Camberwell, London on July 12, 2018. Both images are undated The Independent Office for Police Conduct is examining the performance of two Metropolitan Police sergeants and three constables after the victim's family criticised the way they had handed their complaints, reported The Times. Ms Makunova died after an altercation in the foyer of Dada's block of flats in Camberwell. Police believe this ended with her falling on her handbag which contained a knife that fatally pierced her chest. Dada, from Streatham, admitted manslaughter, but Ms Makunova's family believe he should have been charged with murder due to his controlling and brutal behaviour. Brett Weaver, prosecuting, said there was a 'background of animosity' in the relationship and the couple had 'made threats and insulted each other via social media'. Her older brother, Julius, 21, said Dada regularly threatened Katerina with violence if she went to police. One time, Julius said he contacted police after Dada threatened to kill his girlfriend because he suspected she had been talking to other boys. 'She told me in [Romanian] not to saying anything because he had a machete in his trousers,' he recalled. Julius said Dada was a psychopath whose controlling behaviour regularly led to violence, including when he threw his girlfriend out of his flat naked and forced her to get a taxi home. He also said his sister had sent a message the day before he died saying she 'did not love' Dada but he was 'very possessive'. Later, Dada told her: 'Don't f***ing play that game before I stab you'. This was followed by even more threatening messages, and 30 minutes before she arrived at his flat to pick up a mobile phone he sent a note saying, 'Let the party begin'. Police and paramedics found Dada attempting CPR on Ms Makunova at the scene, pictured in July last year Ms Makunova, believed to be the 82nd victim of the epidemic of knife crime in London last year, had been working at Aroma Hair and Beauty in Farnborough, Hampshire, and aspired to become a beautician. Speaking soon after her death, Julius paid tribute to the tragic teenager, describing her as a 'hardworking, confident and joyful girl'. He added: 'She could walk into the room and put a smile on everyone's face.' Detective Inspector Domenica Catino of the Homicide and Major Crime Command, said: 'A young woman has lost her life and my thoughts are with her family and friends, who have been devastated by Katrina's death. 'This is another young person who has been killed as a result of a knife and we need our communities to work with the police to end this scourge.' Dada will return for sentence on January 29. A photo of Australian footy stars posing while on holiday last year has raised some eyebrows. Parramatta Eels players Mitchell Moses, Jarryd Hayne, Michael Jennings, Nathan Brown and Tim Mannah appeared to be living it up in Greece and Lebanon during their getaway in September. Along their travels, the group visited the small northern Lebanese town of Kfarsghab, however, the street sign hanging above their heads featured a distinctively Australian name. Parramatta Eels players Mitchell Moses, Jarryd Hayne, Michael Jennings, Nathan Brown and Tim Mannah were pictured living it up in Greece and Lebanon in September 'Parramatta Road,' the blue and white sign reads. Kfarsghab renamed its two-kilometre main street in recognition of the 40,000 Lebanese immigrants who relocated from the area to western Sydney after World War II. Many Lebanese migrants also fled to Canterbury and Parramatta after fleeing political turmoil in their home country. The Lebanese civil war broke out in 1975 and raged until 1990. By 2008 an estimated 10,000 people in Parramatta could trace their ancestry to Kfarsgahb. The Parramatta local government gifted the street sign to Kfarsghab in 2009, when a delegation from the Council visited the village. Parramatta Eels players Mitchell Moses, Jarryd Hayne, (pictured) Michael Jennings, Nathan Brown and Tim Mannah were enjoying some time away from the pitch while holidaying in Greece and Lebanon Singapore's decision to cane a Briton for drugs offences was condemned by a former Cabinet minister yesterday. Priti Patel said the punishment for London-born Ye Ming Yuen was reminiscent of the Dark Ages. Her comments increase the pressure on the authorities in Singapore to grant clemency to the 29-year-old former public schoolboy. In this day and age it is astonishing to see these sorts of reprehensible punishments being given, said Mrs Patel, who sits on the Commons foreign affairs committee. This sounds like something from the Dark Ages. Drug offences are serious, and we need to understand the severity of the impact of drugs on peoples lives. London-born Ye Ming Yuen, 29, has been jailed for 20 years and will also be caned for drug offences in Singapore But the punishment given here is wrong. The Government needs to use its bilateral relations with Singapore to make clear how badly we think of this. The case has prompted the intervention of Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and his senior officials, who say they strongly oppose corporal punishment. Mr Hunt was in Singapore on an official visit earlier this month but sources said the authorities there gave no assurances that Yuen would not be caned. The city-states government, which regards caning as a traditional part of the islands legal system, has defended the sentence. Yuen, who has also been sentenced to 20 years in jail, will be stripped naked and strapped to a large wooden trestle. Then his buttocks will be flogged 24 times with a 4ft rattan cane delivered at a speed of up to 100 miles an hour. It is the maximum caning sentence that can be handed out in Singapore and one that could leave him scarred for life. His family said he could be subjected to the punishment any day at Singapores Changi Prison, where he is being held following his convictions for seven drug-related offences last year. Former minster Priti Patel has slammed the punishment as being from the 'dark ages' Yuen was originally facing the death penalty but the capital charge against him was dropped because the net weight of drugs involved was below 500 grams, the quantity that warrants execution in Singapore. A former top club DJ in the city, his offences include four cases of repeat drug trafficking involving either cannabis or methamphetamine. He was also sentenced for a further three offences of possession of meth. Yuens businessman father has called for his sons case to be reviewed by officials in the former crown colony. Alex Yuen, 70, who lives in London, said: The fundamental principle of sentencing is that the punishment must fit the crime and the culpability of the offender, that the sentence must be fair and proportionate to the seriousness of the offence, which is measured by the degree of harm to society caused by the offender. If Ming was not genuinely remorseful and if he did not have the upmost respect for law, he would have absconded at the first opportunity instead of remaining in Singapore to attend court again and again, waiting to exchange his freedom for many years of incarceration and caning. Last year the Singaporean authorities refused to let Yuens father attend his sons court case because he did not have the necessary travel documentation. His family hope he will be able to visit his son in the coming months after he is given a British passport. Human rights groups say caning in Singapore is a violation of international law. In 2015 the International Commission of Jurists said: International prohibition against ill-treatment extends not only to torture, but also to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment. The ICJ considers that caning constitutes both types of ill-treatment. An armed robber is said to have successfully sued the Singapore government in 1991 for grievous harm to his buttocks after he was wrongly subjected to a 48-stroke caning in one go. Asked whether there had been any developments in the caning row case, a Foreign Office spokesman said: Our consular staff have been assisting a British man and his family since his arrest in Singapore in 2016. Yuen attended Westminster School in London where fees are 37,000 a year. Samantha Jones, left, is accused of killing her husband John, right, in Malaysia but she may be spared the death penalty A British woman accused of stabbing her husband to death in Malaysia - after allegedly suffering years of domestic abuse - may be spared the death penalty. Samantha Jones, 52, was told last year she would be hanged if found guilty of murdering her 62-year-old husband John on Langkawi island last October. But her defence lawyers said she was a 'victim', alleging that her late husband had beaten her repeatedly in drunken outbursts. She may be charged with manslaughter rather than murder, in a possible move which has 'given her real hope', the Daily Express reported. Her lawyer said: 'We went to court again and the prosecution told me they now have all the documents, including the post mortem, and would be reconsidering the charge.' The lawyer, Sangeet Kaur Deo, said: 'She was so relieved. It has been terrifying for her and this has given her real hope.' Mr Jones had given his wife a 'broken jaw' years earlier and pulled her hair out in violent attacks, the lawyer claimed. Deo said the accused woman's husband would 'go from nice John to crazy psycho John' leaving her terrified. Executions in Malaysia are also on hold as the government considers abolishing the death penalty. In October police found a blood-stained kitchen knife in the home Jones shared with her husband on the island of Langkawi. Samantha Jones, right, is led away from police prison cells last year after she was arrested on suspicion of murdering her husband Jones was charged with stabbing her husband with the 12-inch weapon at the couples bungalow. She alleged to police that her husband had punched her in the face and kicked her in the stomach after a night of drinking. She had only attacked the retired firefighter in self-defence when he chased after her, she claimed. Her husband was fatally wounded by the knife attack and was dead by the time an ambulance crew arrived at the 200,000 villa. They had moved to the tropical island 11 years ago under the Malaysia My Second Home scheme, which gives foreigners long-stay visas. Her husband was a retired chief fire officer in Yeovil, Somerset, and had returned from a visit to his family in England shortly before his death. A man has been taken into custody after a stand-off with police following reports multiple shots were fired in a quiet neighbourhood. Police were called to Coledale, in the New South Wales Illawarra, about 9am on Tuesday after terrified residents raised the alarm. Buttenshaw Drive and Morrison Avenue were immediately placed into locked down as police worked to secure the area. Residents of those two streets not already at home were told not to return while emergency services are on scene, while those at home were told to stay inside. Police were called to Coledale, in the New South Wales Illawarra, about 9am on Tuesday following reports multiple shots were fired Resident Ben Squires, who has been in the area for about two months, told the ABC he regularly heard gunshots in the suburb. 'To be honest we heard it a couple of times over the last two weeks in the middle of the night, maybe three in the morning,' he said. Mr Squires said he heard about three gunshots between 9am and 9.30am and 'there was half a dozen to 10 shots after the police had turned up'. Another resident said a man had refused to let authorities onto his Buttenshaw Drive property to discuss an aggressive dog. A New South Wales Police spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia it appears it was just fireworks which had been let off. A 40-year-old man had thrown the fireworks onto his lawn before heading back inside, where his mother was also staying. He was taken into police custody about 11.25am. His mother was later taken from the home and is now in the care of relatives. Two dogs were seized from the property. There are some indisputable astrological facts that help draw a picture of the future royal baby. He or she will be one of the first among a new generation of Taureans born with Uranus (the planet of unexpected changes) in their sign. Uranus creates interesting dynamic tension. Taureans usually like to dig their heels in and prefer dealing with what they know. Yet, with the symbol of rebellion so prominent in their chart, this child will be free-spirited, with an independent soul and a rebellious heart. A rare alignment in early May between Mars, Jupiter and Neptune brings an aura of excitement and adds a zest for adventure. A can do attitude and an optimistic outlook will oversee this childs future. Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex arrives with Prince Harry, at the Hive, Wirral Youth Zone, as part of a visit to Birkenhead near Liverpool I'm having an April baby! Meghan lets slip to well-wishers during walkabout she is now SIX months pregnant - but doesn't know if it's a boy or a girl because she wants it to be a surprise Rebecca English, Royal Correspondent for the Daily Mail The Duchess of Sussex let slip yesterday that she is six months pregnant and expecting her first child in late April or early May. On a visit to Birkenhead, she and her husband Prince Harry could not hide their excitement as they revealed the baby would arrive weeks before their first wedding anniversary. Meghan, 37, also told a local mother-to-be that they did not know whether they would be having a boy or a girl, preferring to keep the sex of their baby a surprise. The bun is back! In a return to her signature style, the Duchess of Sussex ditched the sleek chignon she's been sporting in recent weeks for a classic messy bun as she touched down in Merseyside on Monday morning for a day of engagements Lady in red! The Duchess of Sussex , 37, looked stunning in a red wrap coat and matching stilettos worn over a purple dress as she touched down in Merseyside on Monday morning for her first joint engagement with Prince Harry But she said her pregnancy, which was announced last autumn, had flown by and that the Queens grandson would make a fantastic father. Meghan looked radiant in a 107 purple dress from Babaton by Aritzia under a red 1,085 Sentaler coat and sassy matching heels. She carried a 1,695 Gabriela Hearst leather bowling bag and had her hair in a relaxed messy bun. The couple were on the Wirral at the invitation of local MP Frank Field to learn about some good news stories in the region. A gift for baby Sussex? The Duke and Duchess are festooned with gifts as they undertake a royal walkabout amongst the large crowds, many of whom had been queuing for hours to catch a glimpse of the royal couple on Monday morning The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrives arm in arm to view a statue if poet Wilfred Owen. It comes as the couple continue to make renovations on their new home, Frogmore Cottage in Windsor, ahead of the birth of their first child And while there was plenty for the pair to see, baby chatter was clearly the biggest topic of the day. Until now Kensington Palace has revealed only that the couples bundle of joy is due in the spring. But during a 45-minute walk-about at Birkenheads Hamilton Square, Meghan was more specific with well-wishers. After meeting her, Kim Thompson, a resident of the area, said: She said she is six months pregnant and due at the end of April, beginning of May. Baby on board! Meghan, 37, revealed that she is six months pregnant with her first child expected in April as she chatted to well-wishers in the northwest town of Birkenhead during her and Prince Harry's first joint engagement of the year Meghan this morning delighted fans with the news that she is just six months pregnant with her child expected in late April/ early May. The brief exchange was overheard as Meghan, glowing in a red wrap coat worn over a figure-hugging 107 purple dress from Babaton by Aritizia, met locals in Merseyside with her husband on Monday morning The couple spoke to others in the crowd, then visited projects in the area including the Number 7 cafe and supermarket for those on low incomes. There, Meghan presented expectant mother Angel Midgely with a Moses basket, telling her she and Harry had chosen not to find out the sex of their baby. Were keeping it a surprise, she said. Whichever way, well be thrilled with the outcome. The couple spent almost an hour chatting to fans this morning. Meghan, 37, revealed that she is six months pregnant with her first child expected in April as she chatted to well-wishers in the northwest town of Birkenhead during her visit today Harry is given a gift for his new arrival as he and Meghan chat to locals in Birkenhead this morning. The Duchess also chatted to a hypnobirthing teacher, Sonia Richards, who was in the crowd with her mother Marion Mazumder The couple also visited Tomorrows Women, which helps disadvantaged women. Meghan delivered an impromptu speech, saying: We all know how important it is for me, women supporting each other. With Harry listening, she added: It is also key that men are there supporting behind the scenes. Making friends: The Duchess of Sussex speaks with locals at Number 7, a Feeding Birkenhead citizens' supermarket and community cafe. Feeding Birkenhead is a coalition of churches, food banks, community groups, and other organisations working together to eliminate hunger in Birkenhead A tradesman whose rental property was firebombed over an apparent love-triangle has denied any knowledge or involvement in an affair. 'This is for f***ing my wife' was spray-painted along the wall of John Vesely's rental at Ashmore, on Queensland's Gold Coast, as it burned to the ground on Monday morning. But Mr Vesely has denied being involved in any romantic tryst and claims police are investigating whether the graffiti was a deliberate attempt to confuse detectives. 'This is for f***ing my wife' was spray painted on the wall of John Vesely's rental property after it was firebombed on Monday morning Mr Vesely (right) said he had been in a relationship with his current girlfriend (left) for close to 12 months and believes the firebombing may have been a case of 'mistaken identity' 'I don't know what it's about, it could be a case of the wrong identity,' Mr Vesely told Daily Mail Australia. 'At the end of the day I've been seeing my partner for up to 12 months and she's been divorced for up to two years, but we have a good relationship with her ex-husband. 'Police believe it could be an attempt to throw them (investigators) off the scent. 'I'm just devastated. Whatever they claim I've done it's totally untrue and it's affected a lot of lives.' The blaze broke out about 8am and began in Mr Vesely's ute which was parked in the driveway, before spreading to the house. A dozen firefighting crews were needed to extinguish the inferno, which destroyed half the house while the remainder suffered severe smoke damage. Police have confirmed that as the inferno raged, those responsible for the fire stole a boat, trailer and moped. Late last night a boat and trailer were found alight by a roadside at Clagiraba, east of Ashmore. Both are believed to belong to Mr Vesely. The blaze broke out about 8am and began in Mr Vesely's ute which was parked in the driveway, before spreading to the house A tearful Mr Vesely (pictured) revealed none of his possessions inside the home were insured Adding to Mr Vesely's pain is the fact none of his possessions inside the home at the time of the blaze were insured. The shattered father-of-two said he would leave the search for the firebug to police, with his priority to find accommodation for he and his children. 'I've got my kids and we'll try to enjoy the last bit of their school holidays before any effort to rebuild,' Mr Vesely said. 'We're still trying to come to grips with it all.' A P-plater who filmed an elderly man weaving through head-on traffic while driving on the wrong side of a motorway has been fined $337. The sedan was seen speeding east along the westbound lanes of Sydney's M5 motorway in Liverpool about 10.25pm on December 30. The 68-year-old driver was pulled over a short time later and 'spoken to about his actions' before being let go. Police lodged a fitness to drive application against the elderly motorist, but said no further action was expected to be taken. The concerned P-plater who filmed the dangerous behaviour, on the other hand, was on Saturday slapped with a $337 fine and 10 demerit points. Poll Was it fair for police to fine the P-plater who filmed the wayward driver Yes No Was it fair for police to fine the P-plater who filmed the wayward driver Yes 32 votes No 64 votes Now share your opinion The whopping penalty for using a mobile phone while driving was handed down due to it taking place during a double demerits period. Social media users jumped to the young driver's defence, pointing out that if the wayward car was involved in a deadly crash, police would need the footage. Police initially described the video as a social media stunt that could have had a 'quite catastrophic' outcome. 'These two drivers probably think they're pretty funny but they're not,' Chief Inspector Phil Brooks told reporters at the time. 'It appears to be a social media stunt. This is a number of road users taking risks to try and make themselves popular on Facebook. Well it's failed, not even the people on Facebook accept this behaviour.' This is the terrifying moment a car speeds into oncoming traffic on a busy Sydney motorway Police investigations later revealed the driver was an elderly man and not known to the P-plater who filmed the incident and uploaded it to Snapchat. The driver was seen moving past a truck and continuing down the wrong side of the concrete barrier on the six-lane motorway. Sitting in the farthest lane, the car then went straight on, driving into traffic coming in the opposite direction. It continued to weave in and out of traffic while it travelled down the shoulder of the motorway, before turning around and driving in the right direction. A silver sedan is seen racing past trucks and weaving in and out of traffic on Sydney's M5 motorway The video was viewed more than 10,000 times before being taken down, with many worried that the driver was putting other people's lives at risk. 'This is not cool or funny! People want to risk there own life fine, dnt (sic) do it at someone else's expense,' one Facebook user wrote. 'Running a mock.. (sic) or more like the driver is digging his own grave,' another person commented. Other people were bewildered the driver wasn't caught by police, especially since double demerits were in place state-wide. 'Did he forget it's still double demerits in Sydney,' one user commented. Social media users, and it appeared NSW Police at the time, were unaware that the driver was indeed caught. This luckless goanna met with a grisly end after it was demolished by a hungry snake on a beach in Western Australia. Two shocked residents were walking along Little Beach, in Albany, when they saw the dugite snake devouring the fellow reptile. The snake belongs to a species of venomous and potentially lethal snake family Elapidae, which are native to Western Australia. Shocked walkers at Little Beach, Albany in Western Australia, were shocked to find the dugite snake devouring its lunch on the beach Two friends, Holly King and Sinead Hart, spotted the reptile with its lunch during their morning walk on Sunday Two friends, Holly King and Sinead Hart, spotted the snake with its lunch during their morning walk on Sunday. 'Holly and I were on our morning walk when we saw it,' Ms Hart told the Albany Advertiser. 'It already had the lizard in its mouth once we got a picture. 'We kept walking and it was gone by the time we got back.' The image was widely shared social media on Tuesday. 'Grab the lotion towels and rifle we're going to the beach,' one person joked 'Grab the lotion towels and rifle we're going to the beach,' one person joked. 'And youre worried about the sharks! another wrote. 'Straya,' one simply commented. It seems enough of a cheek to be charged 20p to spend a penny. So residents are likely to be even less amused to learn that one authority is putting the price for using its public toilets up to 40p. But amid widespread opposition, Pembrokeshire County Council is trying to soften the blow. While it announced yesterday that it is doubling the charge for using ten of its public toilets from April, users will not have to carry any extra loose change as they will be able to pay by contactless credit or debit card. Charges could be introduced at a further 62 sites which are currently free. The council which is urging the Welsh Government to fall into line with England and scrap business rates on toilets claims a price rise is needed to improve facilities. Pembrokeshire County Council is charging people 40p to use public toilets in a controversial new move (file photo) Cris Tomos, cabinet member for the environment and Welsh language, said 450 people had responded to a public consultation. The majority did not want to see an increase in the level but its human nature that we want to maintain prices lower, he said. The move comes as the BBC found the number of council-run toilets in the UK has fallen from 5,159 to 4,486 in eight years, Network Rail has announced it will scrap charges for station toilets this year, with chief executive Mark Carne saying it is quite wrong to penalise people when they are in discomfort. A 12-year-old indigenous girl living in a community near Adelaide has taken her own life making her the fifth Aboriginal girl to take her own life in nine days. The wave of reported suicides include three cases in Western Australia, one in Queensland, and the most recent one in South Australia. Meanwhile, a 12-year-old boy was flown on Monday from Roma to Brisbane where he is on life support in hospital after what is thought to be a suicide attempt, according to The Australian. The wave of reported suicides include three cases in Western Australia, one in Queensland, and the most recent one in South Australia The five most recent cases began on January 3 when a 15-year-old from Western Australia who was visiting relatives in Queensland was admitted to hospital after self harming. She died two days later as a result of her injuries. On January 4, in South Hedland in Western Australia, a 12-year-old girl took her own life, while two days later on January 6, a 14-year-old girl in the Kimberley region of the Northern Territory also died from suicide. A 15-year-old girl from Perth's south also took her own life on January 10 and the most recent case out of the five occured in South Australia on January 11. Head of the Federal Government's indigenous critical response team Gerry Georgatos said that poverty and lack of education were identified as factors leading to the deaths, but added that sexual assaults were behind one-third of cases. TIMELINE OF TRAGEDY JANUARY 3: Girl, 15, from Western Australia self-harms in Queensland and dies two days later. JANUARY 4: Girl, 12, kills herself in Western Australia. JANUARY 6: Girl, 14, commits suicide in the Northern Territory. JANUARY 10: Girl, 15, dies from suicide in Perth. January 11: Girl, 12, kills herself in a community near Adelaide. Advertisement Indigenous lawyer Hannah McGlade has advised the UN High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva and said there is a clear link between child sexual assault, family violence, and the high levels of indigenous girls and women who were taking their own lives. 'Last year the UN highlighted the level of violence against indigenous women and girls in Australia and called for a specific national action plan,' Dr McGlade told The Australian. 'The people funded to provide suicide prevention plans are not properly addressing the level of sexual violence suffered by our women and girls.' If you need help call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or www.lifeline.org.au. Kids Helpline - 1800 55 1800 Matt Hancock (undated pic) said his 12-year-old daughter was not yet on social media, but that it 'infuriates' him that tech firms made it so easy for children Web giants including Facebook and Twitter should do more to stop under-13s using their platforms instead of passing the buck to parents, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said last night. The minister said his 12-year-old daughter was not yet on social media, but that it 'infuriates' him that tech firms made it so easy for children who are still getting 'comfortable' with themselves. Instead of using technology to restrict access, companies leave it up to parents to police their offspring online, Mr Hancock said. 'Social media companies say their products shouldn't be used by under-13s and it infuriates me that they make it very easy for under-13s to use them and don't do anything to stop them, leaving it all down to parents.' Mr Hancock did not single out any social media giants, but Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all say users must be 13 to use their websites. But their checks are so lax that younger children are signing up in their millions. The web giants do not demand any proof of age. Instead they simply ask users to enter their birth date, which can be easily faked. Asked whether any of his three children were active on social media yet, Mr Hancock said: 'No. My daughter is the eldest, she's 12.' In the interview with Grazia magazine, Mr Hancock also warned that the ready access to social media had made growing up and parenting much harder. 'This is one of the hardest times to be growing up,' he said. 'It's a very hard time to be a parent, too, because of the amount of pressures that impact on young people. 'Everybody goes through a period of becoming comfortable with themselves; that's part of growing up. It was hard in the old world of simple communications, but in this new world it's harder.' Twitter said its services were not directed at children. Facebook, which owns Instagram, declined to comment. Australian support for immigrants has plummeted amid soaring house prices and overcrowded cities. Just 30.4 per cent of Australians now believe the country needs more people, according to a poll by the Australian National University (ANU). This was compared to 69.6 per cent who felt Australia did not need more people, a dramatic increase since a similar poll was done in 2010. According to a report on the figures most Australians were supportive of cultural diversity but did not want population growth to come at the expense of the environment. 'Crowding and housing affordability have become key issues,' the report stated. Australian support for immigrants has declined significantly, with most people voicing concerns regarding soaring house prices and overcrowded cities Both the Liberal and Labor parties are developing their own stance and policies on immigration, but the new findings suggest only three in every 10 people who participated believe Australia has room for more people. Questions asked were similar to those asked in the 2010 survey in an attempt to keep results as even as possible. The 2010 survey found 45 per cent of participants were supportive of population growth. Male support has now fallen to 38.4 per cent, while female support is even lower at 28.2 per cent. The Australian population is now a little over 25 million Do you think Australia needs more people?,' was one question participants were asked to answer. An Australian National University survey conducted in 2018 discerned the attitudes of Australians toward population growth are continually changing Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to lower his intake of immigrants from 2019-2020 from 190,000 to 160,000 Australia's population growth is the largest it has experienced since colonisation. In 1981 the Australian population was around 14.9 million people. By June 2018 it had reached 25.0 million, with the last five million of that growth occurring since December 2004. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is expected to lower his intake of immigrants from 2019-2020 from 190,000 to 160,000. This will be confirmed when the April budget is released. Mr Morrison's decision - should he go ahead with it - reflects the ANU findings, in which the least supportive of increased immigration was coalition voters. Greens were found to be the most supportive, though support was still below 50 per cent. President Donald Trump's pick to take Brett Kavanaugh's former seat on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit wrote a controversial series of op-eds on race, date rape, and LGBT rights that are sure to come up at her confirmation hearing. In pieces Neomi Rao wrote between 1994 and 1996, she called race a 'hot, money-making issue,' affirmative action was the 'anointed dragon of liberal excess,' welfare was 'for the indigent and lazy,' and LGBT issues are part of a 'trendy' political movement, according to Buzzfeed News, which reviewed the writings. And, on date rape, Rao wrote that if a woman 'drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice,' the online news site reported. Neomi Rao was nominated to replace Brett Kavanaugh on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit Brett Kavanaugh left the DC Circuit for the Supreme Court She is on tap to replace Kavanaugh on the influential DC Circuit, which hears cases that shape national law and often feeds judges to the Supreme Court, which is where Kavanaugh ended up. Rao has never served as a judge. The graduate of Yale University and the University of Chicago Law School currently serves as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. She submitted her writings to the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of her confirmation process. Democrats are sure to bring them up. Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec told BuzzFeed News that Rao's writings were 'intentionally provocative.' 'Neomi Rao is a renowned constitutional and administrative law expert. That is why the President nominated her to the D.C. Circuit. The views she expressed a quarter century ago as a college student writing for her student newspaper were intentionally provocative, designed to raise questions and push back against liberal elitism that dominated her campus at the time,' Kupec said. 'More than two decades later, her views can be found in her numerous academic articles and speeches. We are confident Ms. Rao will make an exemplary judge on the D.C Circuit.' Her pieces appeared in the Yale Free Press and Yale Herald, where she was an undergrad, as well as in the Washington Times and the Weekly Standard, the news website noted. In a 1996 piece for the Weekly Standard, she wrote: 'Race may be a hot, money-making issue, but even West seems to realize that it can be talked to death.' In a November 1994 piece for the Yale Herald about LGBT issues on campus, Rao wrote: 'Trendy political movements have only recently added sexuality to the standard checklist of traits requiring tolerance.' Neomi Rao at the announcement President Trump was nominating her to replace Kavanaugh on the U.S. D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Rao serves as President Trump's administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs In an October 1994 piece in the Yale Herald, Rao wrote that a drunk man who raped women should be prosecuted but 'a good way to avoid a potential date rape is to stay reasonably sober.' 'And if she drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice,' Rao wrote. 'Implying that a drunk woman has no control of her actions, but that a drunk man does strips women of all moral responsibility.' There is no confirmation hearing scheduled for her yet. Rao clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas, served in the George W. Bush administration in the White House counsel's office, and is a longtime member of the Federalist Society, a group that promoted Kavanaugh's Supreme Court candidacy. She is also on the administration's shortlist for the Supreme Court should Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat become available, Politico reported. The Senate confirmed her for her position as Trump's regulatory czar. | BY Ricki Green | With the holiday season over, families across Australia are gearing up for the first exercise of 2019: Back to School shopping. BIG W, has launched a campaign, developed by M&C Saatchi Sydney, inspiring kids to Start Something Great, harnessing the excitement around the start of a new school term. Airing across the country from this week, the campaign encompasses three 15-second TVC spots which capture kids treasured experiences at school. Says Kristen Linders, general manager marketing, BIG W: Back to School is a defining occasion in childs year, so we wanted to authentically celebrate the moments that Aussie kids experience from new friendships to fun schoolyard games. As a mother, I appreciate just how challenging Back to School shopping can be so its great that BIG W enables families to save both time and money by getting everything they need under one roof, at low prices. BIG Ws Start Something Great campaign also features the retailers inaugural study on Australians Back to School shopping habits. Led by integrated agency Magnum & Co, the research unearthed interesting spending insights of Australian parents. The campaign is also supported through social with the Proud Parent Moment competition on BIG Ws Facebook, inviting Aussie parents to share a photo and story of an achievement their child has made in the lead up to starting school. BIG Ws Start Something Great integrated campaign comprises TV, radio, online, social, OOH, SEM, and PR. Creative Agency: M&C Saatchi Media Agency: Woolworths@DAN PR Agency: Magnum & Co BIG W brand team: Kristen Linders General Manager, Marketing Carly Bowra Head of Brand & Category Marketing Ruchi Agarwal Marketing Manager Rebecca Spurr Head of Design, Production & Store Marketing Fiona Harrop Head of Media Buying, Social Media and Public Relations Michelle Bartolo Public Relations Manager A mother-of-two was nearly given jail-time for failing to pay dog registration and driving offence fines. Alira Kelly-Ryder, from Perth, had fines totalling $3,744 for a range of offences, but having just lost her job, was unable to pay them in full. The Fines Enforcement Registry allegedly refused her suggestion that she pay off the installments and demanded she pay in full or go to jail. Ms Kelly-Ryder (right) from Perth was nearly given jail-time for failing to pay dog registration and driving offence fines of $3,744 'I just wasn't in a financial position to pay that $3,000 upfront, and there wasn't any option for me,' she said. According to the ABC, Ms Kelly-Ryder offered to pay $160 a fortnight, but was told: 'No, there is nothing we can do for you. You need to pay for fines or you need to go to prison for seven days'. The Perth mother was allegedly at risk of being taken to prison immediately should police stop her, meaning she was then forced to hide away, 'frightened'. The mother-of-two offered to pay $160 a fortnight, but was allegedly told: 'No, there is nothing we can do for you. You need to pay for fines or you need to go to prison for seven days' The Perth mother was allegedly at risk of being taken to prison immediately should police stop her, meaning she was then forced to hide away, 'frightened' 'I didn't drive to the shop, I didn't leave the house, I got my friend to buy milk and bread they could take me right there on the spot in front of my children and take me to prison,' she said. However, prison advocacy group Sisters Inside then stepped in with an offer she couldn't refuse. The group has been campaigning to free fine defaulters from prison, and they raised $100,000 in the first 24 hours for Ms Kelly-Ryder. This figure is now understood to sit at around $275,000. 'I was shocked when I saw how much has been raised because people really do care,' she said. Ms Kelly-Ryder is understood to be closely related to Ms Dhu, an aboriginal woman who died in police custody in 2014 for unpaid fines. Alira Kelly-Ryder is understood to be closely related to Ms Dhu (pictured) who died while being held in police custody in 2014 for $3,622 of unpaid fines Prison advocacy group Sisters Inside stepped in to help Ms Kelly-Ryder. The group has been campaigning to free fine defaulters from prison, and they raised $100,000 in the first 24 hours Ms Dhu was held for three days at South Headland, WAS, police station for $3,622 in unpaid fines, and passed away of septicaemia and pneumonia cause by a broken rib. The issue of fine defaulters going to prison is being discussed by state government. The WA Department of Justice said the numbers of people in jail for fine defaults had dropped significantly in the past year, and Perth Attorney-General John Quigley said recent figures also showed a drop in the number of Indigenous women in custody for the offence. Mr Quigley added that he had a 'whole raft' of changes currently with the Parliamentary Council for drafting to Parliament, and that he had been working with the Registrar of Fines on other ways of reducing the numbers. More than a quarter of flights at Australia's major airports are now delayed, according to new figures. Statistics released by air travel data network OAG revealed that 21.5 per cent of all Australian flights arrived late in November, last year. While 23.6 per cent of flights were delayed from take off. Melbourne Airport has the worst on-time performance with 35 per cent of flights arriving late, and 30 per cent taking off late. Melbourne Airport has the worst on-time performance with 35 per cent of flights arriving late, and 30 per cent taking off late Statistics released by air travel data network OAG revealed that 21.5 per cent of all Australian flights arrived late in November, last year (stock) Sydney Airport did not fare much better than Melbourne with a third of flights being behind schedule or arriving at least 15 minutes late. Mackay Airport in Queensland was named the most punctual airport in Australia with 87 per cent flights on time. Close behind was Cairns airport with a 85.1 per cent rate of on time flights. Sydney Airport was almost 10 per cent behind Mackay Airport at 78 per cent, followed by Melbourne with 77.3 per cent and Hobart on 75.7 per cent. Sydney Airport was almost 10 per cent behind Mackay Airport at 78 per cent Melbourne Airport chief executive Lyell Strambi told The Australian that the delays are 'not so bad' and travellers would sometimes have to change their plans to deal with the disruptions. 'When we experience delays, we're mainly looking at minutes, not hours,' he said. 'The most common disruptions to services relate to severe weather events, particularly fog, which is why we sought to install the right precision approach and landing system equipment to guide aircraft in low visibility conditions.' Brisbane Airport Corporation chief executive Gert-Jan de Graaff also told the publication that the weather is the biggest challenge which affects flights but there are also a number of reasons. 'Any flight may be delayed for a myriad reasons including late connections, baggage handling, mechanical issues, infrastructure failures, systems outages or a major emergency,' he said. Australia's frozen drink war looks set to be decided with iconic 1970s company Slush Puppie Australia headed for closure. Documents filed with the Supreme Court of Victoria are calling for the company to be wound up over its failure to pay a $60,000 debt. The company has until February 13 to cough up the cash, believed to be for legal expenses incurred in Queensland, or face obliteration. Slush Puppies face going into receivership if it does not pay a $60,000 bill be next month The iconic Slush Puppie has been cooling down Aussies for 40 years Slush Puppies have been causing Aussie brain freezes since the 70s when its frozen drinks ruled the Australian landscape. But it has been an uphill battle in recent times as 7-Eleven increased its presence in Australia, with $1 Slurpees. McDonald's has also been sellings its frozen Cokes for a buck. Slush Puppie Australia's parent company, Doggone Qld Pty Ltd, was served with the paperwork this week. The company's director was warned if a representative did not show up at court, the application would be dealt with in its absence. If the company is to fold, it will be the end of an Australian institution. Slush Puppie Australia has attempted to remain relevant over the years, and in 2010 the company went about trying to lure in 12-25 year olds. Until then, its frozen treats were largely enjoyed by four to 10-year-olds. A subsequent rebranding that year was the first of its type in more than 30 years. In recent times, the company has attempted to go 'natural', with products containing no added sugar, all natural flavours and some containing 99 percent apple juice. Its latest marketing push saw retailers offered free Slush Puppies freezers in a profit share arrangement with the Queensland-based company. The company boasted that retailers could make 100 per cent mark ups on the 'slushies', with the freezers serviced free of charge. The Simpsons' Apu helped reinvigorate the iced treat market with his steady stream of 'Squishy' customers - The Simpsons' take on the 7-eleven Slurpee. The beloved Slush Puppie faces extinction if it fails to pay its debts The company has also tried to push its products into school canteens - boasting a 4.5 star health rating. Touted as 'the original and best non-carbonated ice crystal drink in the world', the frozen drinks are sold in more than 40 countries. But some customers have expressed disappointment on the company's Facebook page. One wholesaler complained that the service provided over the past 12 years was not up to scratch. Another stated that the service was 'terrible'. Daily Mail Australia has contacted the company for comment. Netflix has released the first trailer for its brand new docuseries, Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, which incorporates over 100 hours of unheard audio interviews with the serial killer and drops on January 24. Bundy is pictured while representing himself in court Netflix has released the first trailer for its brand new docuseries, Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes. The series is based off of a book by the same name, written by Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth, who interviewed the notoriously handsome and charismatic murderer who is believed to have killed dozens of women. Over 100 hours of never before heard audio from those sessions from death row will be incorporated into the series, giving true crime enthusiasts unbelievable access to the inner workings of Bundy's mind. 'I mean, I'm not an animal and Im not crazy and I don't have a split personality,' Bundy can be heard saying in the trailer for the show. 'Im just a normal individual.' Bundy was eventually convicted of killing a pre-teen girl, and two sorority members in Florida, after the second time he had escaped from custody on other murder charges. Season one of the series drops on January 24, which is the 30th anniversary of Bundy's execution. WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES 'He didn't look like anybody's notion of somebody who would tear apart young girls,' a man's voice says as the trailer begins. And a moment later, Bundy's voice is heard for the first time in the clip. 'My name is Ted Bundy,' he says. 'I've never spoken to anybody about this, but I am looking for an opportunity to tell this story as best I can.' As the chilling words infiltrate the viewer's ears, evidence from Bundy's crime scenes flash across the screen. 'My name is Ted Bundy,' the serial kiler's voice is heard saying in the trailer. 'I've never spoken to anybody about this, but I am looking for an opportunity to tell this story as best I can.' Ted Bundy is believed to have killed dozens of women, including (top row, left to right) Kimberly Leach, Caryn Campbell , Margaret Bowman , Debbie Kent, (second row, left to right) Laura Aime, Roberta Parks, Georgann Hawkins , Donna Manson, (third row, left to right) Lynda Healy, Janice Ott, Denise Naslund, Susan Rancourt, (fourth row, left to right) Katherine Devine, Melissa Smith, Brenda Ball, and Lisa Levy As the chilling words infiltrate the viewer's ears, evidence from Bundy's crime scenes flash across the screen, including ski masks, gloves, rope, hand cuffs, a sharp object and a flashlight Then a badly decomposed skull lying in a wooded area is shown in the trailer for the series Bundy confessed to killing 30 women in seven states, including Washington state, Idaho, Utah and Colorado, before he was executed by electric chair on January 24, 1989 in Florida for the murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach (pictured) Beautiful women, ski masks, gloves, rope, hand cuffs, a sharp object, a flashlight... and then a badly decomposed skull lying in a wooded area were shown. 'Murder, leaving a person of this type hungry... unfulfilled... would also leave him with the obviously irrational belief that the next time he did it, he would be fulfilled,' a man's voice says. 'And the next time he did it, he would be fulfilled. Or the next time he did it, he would be fulfilled.' Traveling across state lines, he was known to prefer female victims with long, dark hair, parted down the middle. Bundy confessed to killing 30 women in seven states, including Washington state, Idaho, Utah and Colorado, before he was executed by electric chair on January 24, 1989 in Florida for the murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach, who he killed one month after slaying Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman at Florida State University. Some say he made the admissions in an effort to stall his death. Some say he made the admissions in an effort to stall his death. Leach's grave is shown He was known as a charming man, who earned the trust of his victims before luring them to a secluded place to murder them. He would also enter the rooms of sleeping college students and bludgeon them to death. At the height of his murder spree, female college students disappeared at a rate of one per month. He was first arrested in Utah, and imprisoned there for kidnapping and assault, before being transferred to custody in Colorado to face murder charges. He escaped custody twice, eventually fleeing to Florida where he murdered Levy and Bowman, the two Chi Omega sorority sisters on January 15, 1978, and Leach, one month later, before being brought back in. He escaped custody twice, eventually fleeing to Florida where he murdered Levy and Bowman, the two Chi Omega sorority sisters on January 15, 1978, and Leach, one month later, before being brought back in. The bloody scene of a Bundy murder is shown 'Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes' is based on a book by the same name The trailer features audio from news coverage of the Florida trials, which was the first ever to be televised in the United States. 'Bundy is acting as his own lawyer,' a reporter says, over video of Bundy carrying a box of papers and giving a thumbs up to cameras in the courtroom. 'What is unusual to see is that many of the onlookers are women,' the reporter says, panning across faces of ladies filling the benches of the gallery during Bundy's trial. One of his attorneys, John Henry Browne from Seattle, who wrote a memoir in 2012 based on his interactions with Bundy, said, '[Bundy] told me he killed more than 100 people, and not only women.' The U.S. ambassador to Germany warned a pair of industrial titans on Monday that if they continue to help Vladimir Putin's Russia build a new natural gas pipeline to Germany, the Trump administration might sanction them by freezing them out of future American ventures. Companies that 'work to bring more Russian influence to Europe' by helping build the Nord Stream 2 pipeline 'may find themselves unable to also work on U.S. projects,' Ambassador Ric Grenell told DailyMail.com. Grenell had already sent letters of caution on January 3 to BASF, the world's largest chemical producer, and Uniper, a subsidiary of the massive power company E.ON. Both are major partners in the planned pipeline project traversing through five nations' territorial waters along the length of the Baltic seabed. The letters declared that companies involved with the pipeline 'are actively undermining Ukraine and Europe's security,' and warned of a 'significant sanctions risk' associated with helping Russia expand its own energy markets and destabilize Ukraine in the process. Grenell told DailyMail.com that 'We agree with the European Parliament, the U.S. Congress and roughly 20 European countries that now is not the time to buy more Russian gas.' Trump's move to isolate companies helping Putin comes at a time when he's routinely criticized in media reports for taking a soft-glove approach to the Kremlin. Reports surfaced Monday night that the president has repeatedly mused about pulling the U.S. our of NATO, a move that would persuade Putin he can pursue his interests throughout much of Europe while expecting a muted pushback. One reporter asked Trump Monday at the White House whether he had ever 'worked for Russia.' United States Ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell told DailyMail.com that companies helping Russia build a new natural gas pipeline to Germany are risking sanctions that could freeze them out of U.S. projects in the future Russian President Vladimir Putin is pushing hard for the undersea Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would double its capacity to bring gas to Europe without going across land through Ukraine The Nord Stream 2 is slated to run alongside the original Nord Stream pipeline, connecting Vyborg, Russia with Lubmin, Germany Grenell is President Donald Trump's man in Berlin; he is raising hackles among Germany's leaders, including Chancellor Angela Merkel One of the companies that got a stern letter from Grenell is BASF, the world's largest chemical company; it has invested more than $1 billion in the Russian pipeline, and operates massive facilities in the U.S. More than one-quarter of the electricity consumed in EU countries is generated by burning natural gas. One-third of that already comes from Russia, and Russia wants more: The first Nord Stream pipe was switched on in 2011, and its successor is set to double the overall capacity. The 765-mile Nord Stream 2 project would be the longest of its kind in the world. It would also circumvent Russia's traditional natural-gas route to Europe, which runs through Ukraine. Supplying gas directly to Germany's pipelines would allow Russia to limit Ukraine's leverage with European nations that so far have been friendly in the republic's clashes with the Kremlin. Ukraine would in addition lose the fees it charges Russia for using its pipeline. And Naftogaz, Ukraine's national gas company, claimed Monday on Twitter that completing the pipeline could give Russia a new strategic cudgel in its territorial aggressions. 'The competition of Nord Stream 2 may lead to the occupation of the Baltic Sea by Russian military vessels on the pretext of protecting the pipeline,' the company tweeted. Grenell warned in his letters about 'Russia's increasingly aggressive behavior, especially Moscow's use of energy resources for political and economic leverage.' The Nord Stream 2 is already under construction, with a specialized ship laying pipe a few feet at a time Below deck, welders assemble the 12-meter-long pipes before they're elected out the stern and into the water Grenell's letter, obtained by DailyMail.com, warns BASF and Uniper of 'significant sanctions risk' if they continue to be involved with the pipeline A State Department source said Grenell's letters went only to the two German companies, BASF and Uniper. BASF's oil and gas subsidiary Wintershall is among the Russian state-owned company Gazprom's partners in the Nord Stream 2 project. BASF was the largest U.S. chemical producer in 2017, edging DuPont. Uniper's parent company E.ON owns and operates wind farms and solar energy projects in the U.S. Untouched by sanction threats, so far, are the other consortium members: Royal Dutch Shell, the French multinational corporation Engie and Austria's OMV. While the United States does not comment on specific future sanctions actions, we continue to stress that firms operating in the Russian energy export pipeline sector are engaging in activities that carry significant sanctions risk. I therefore request on behalf of my government that your company consider the danger this project represents to European energy security, as well as the reputational costs and sanctions risks associated with it. Ambassador Rid Grenell, in letters to BASF and Uniper Each of the five companies is investing 950 million Euros ($1.09 billion) in the project, adding to Gazprom's 4.75 billion Euros ($5.45 billion). Engie is one of the largest energy suppliers to industries and institutions in 13 states and the District of Columbia. Royal Dutch Shell is most visible in the U.S. as Shell, the gas station chain. Twenty-eight other European companies from 11 countries are directly involved in constructing the pipeline. Grenell is not the first American official to throw a potential monkey-wrench into Nord Stream 2. Trump warned in September during his United Nations General Assembly speech that 'Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course.' U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland said in November that the Trump administration had 'not yet implemented all the tools that could seriously jeopardize or stop the project.' he added that President Donald Trump had 'many, many other tools available to try to contain and stop [it].' Members of Congress introduced seven separate bills in 2017 and 2018 targeting the pipeline project. Trump signed one into law in August 2017. The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act authorized banking and import-export sanctions against anyone who spends or invests more than $1 million on a Russian energy pipeline, or puts $5 million into it over a 12-month period. So far the Trump administration hasn't leveled any of these sanctions on any companies involved with the pipeline. President Donald Trump warned in his September United Nations speech that 'Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course' More than one-quarter of the electricity consumed in EU countries is generated by burning natural gas. One-third of that already comes from Russia But the White House is increasingly aware of the potential impact of efforts to limit Moscow's energy exports, and some in the National Security Council are drawing parallels with the Soviet Union's dependence on oil revenues in the final years before its eventual collapse. Sources inside the NSC say a 1996 book by Peter Schweizer titled 'Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union' has become required reading for senior staff. It tells the story of how Reagan and his globe-trotting CIA director William Casey plotted to destabilize Moscow by choking off its access to hard currency. By partnering with Saudi Arabia, Schweizer writes, Casey and Reagan forced a dramatic plunge in global oil prices costing the USSR enough money to make its government unsustainable. This 1996 book by Peter Schweizer is now required reading in the National Security Council; it chronicles the Reagan Administration's work to undermine the Soviet Union by driving down the price of oil at a time when Moscow couldn't afford to keep going without charging high prices to the West About half the Russian government's income today, and 30 per cent of Russia's GDP, are dependent on oil and gas sales through state-owned companies. A National Security Council spokesperson declined comment on Monday. The Treasury Department, which would enforce any sanctions, did not respond to a request for comment. The head of German Chancellor Angela Merkels Christian Democratic Union party said Monday that companies shouldn't be intimidated by Grenell and other Trump proxies, and predicted that 'they wont allow themselves to be threatened.' Ralf Stegner, deputy leader of the Social Democrats, tweeted: 'Does Mr. Grenell know that the time of the High Commissioners in Germany is over?' That was a reference to the post-World War II Allied High Commission, through which the U.S., France and the United Kingdom supervised and regulated the new Federal Republic of Germany for nearly six years. The European Parliament passed a resolution on December 12 calling for the Nord Stream 2 project to be canceled. Mr Strickling found the sting to be extremely painful and could feel it hours later A wind was blowing the creatures towards the shore at Avoca Beach in NSW A man tested how painful the sting of blue bottle is and immediately regretted it A man decided to test just how painful the sting of a blue bottle jellyfish really is by placing two of the creatures on his feet at a popular beach. A north-westerly wind swept the creatures, also known as Portuguese Man-Of-War jellyfish, toward the shore at Avoca Beach in New South Wales on Monday. Despite lifeguards warning swimmers to evacuate the water, Jacob Strickling took it upon himself to catch one of the blue bottles and deliberately place it on his foot so it would sting him. Scroll down for video A man decided to test just how painful the sting of a blue bottle jellyfish really is by placing two of the creatures on his feet at a popular beach (pictured) A north-westerly wind swept the creatures, also known as Portuguese Man-Of-War jellyfish, toward the shore at Avoca Beach in New South Wales on Monday Mr Strickling immediately found the sting to be extremely painful. Still not satisfied, Mr Strickling decided to pick up yet another Portuguese Man-Of-War jellyfish, this time with a stinger roughly six metres long. 'I can verify that it is very painful and in fact it sent sharp pains up his leg and turned into a welt,' he said. Mr Strickling (pictured) immediately found the sting to be extremely painful Blue bottle jellyfish (pictured) are often found washed up on the shorelines of NSW beaches He said the stings were still painful hours later. Blue bottle jellyfish are often found washed up on the shorelines of NSW beaches. The sea creatures are of a blueish colour and have long tentacles, which deliver a painful sting that can kill other animals and in rare cases, humans. Shocking images which emerged from Mexico this weekend show the moment residents slaughter a cow following an accident involving two trucks. A wild scene quickly developed after a trailer transporting cattle in the southeastern coastal state of Veracruz collided with another truck on a highway which was carrying over 100 undocumented migrants. One cell phone video, just one of many which were shared on social media, shows residents immediately descend at the site of the accident in the town of Cosamaloapan trying to steal the cattle. Residents in the southeastern Mexican state of Veracruz, slaughter a cow after a truck transporting cattle collided with a trailer that was carrying undocumented migrants from Central America Dozens of people can be seen in the video running around with ropes to tie the animals up and lead them away from the crash site as cops and bystanders look on from a overpass bridge. At one point, people stand over one of the animals as a man started chopping away at it with a machete. Witnesses told Mexican news outlet Diario de Mexico that residents were slaughtering the animals on highway in order to take as much meat as possible while law enforcement agents looked on. A group of men attempt to free cattle stuck inside a trailer A wild scene developed in Mexico on Saturday after villagers rushed to the scene of a truck accident and stole the cattle being transported A group of men team up to tied two cows that were trying to run away from the crash site According to Razon, a migrant from Central American who was being smuggled in the truck was declared dead on the scene. Another person suffered injuries and was transported to a local hospital. Sources told Razon that the truck carrying the migrants was traveling at a high speed to avoid being captured by local authorities. The migrants immediately fled the scene. Law enforcement officials have not announced any detentions. Teachers will soon have to pass a literacy and numeracy test to prove they can read, write and solve maths problems before they're allowed in the classroom (stock) HISTORY EXCURSION Our Year 9 students will be spending two weeks in a rural community to learn more about life there. Students will focus on issues that have affected these settlements over time. They will be given opportunities to meet and talk with local residents. Students will work on assignments designed to help explain their history. All students have been given explicit instructions about how to record their findings during the excursion. Q1. Which underlined reference in the text is ambiguous? A life there B these settlements C They D their history Q2. All students have been given explicit instructions about how to record their findings during the excursion. Which of the following is closest in meaning to explicit? A extensive B simple C hands-on D clearly stated Q3. Below are four versions of a sentence from a student's assignment about the history excursion. Which version has acceptable punctuation? A 'Our community, is not static,' she said. 'It is constantly changing.' B 'Our community is not static' she said 'it is constantly changing.' C 'Our community is not static,' she said. 'It is constantly changing.' D 'Our community is not static, she said, it is constantly changing.' Q4. If the sentence below contains a spelling error, correct the error by writing the word as it should appear; if there is no error, write N. It is no exageration to say that the students' insights into historical processes and social conditions were impressive. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday denounced Rep. Steve King over his latest remarks on white supremacy, saying, 'There is no place in the Republican Party, the Congress or the country for an ideology of racial supremacy of any kind.' 'Rep. Kings statements are unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position,' McConnell said. 'If he doesnt understand why white supremacy is offensive, he should find another line of work.' McConnell is the highest-ranking Republican to criticize King, an Iowa congressman, who lamented last week that 'white supremacy' and 'white nationalism' have become offensive terms. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other GOP House leaders have also condemned King's remarks as racist. House Democrats said they'll seek formal punishment for King. Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, is facing the threat of a formal punishment in Congress over his remarks to The New York Times about white supremacy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that King should 'find another line of work' Illinois Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush said a censure resolution against King would announce to the world that Congress has no home for 'repugnant and racist behavior.' 'As with any animal that is rabid, Steve King should be set aside and isolated,' Rush said Monday in a statement that also called on Republicans to strip King of his committee memberships until he apologizes. Rep. Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat, introduced a separate censure resolution against King. 'It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican, we all have a responsibility to call out Rep. King's hateful and racist comments,' Ryan said, noting that the white supremacy comments were not the first time King has made headlines for inappropriate language. The text of Rush's censure resolution lists more than a dozen examples of King's remarks, beginning with comments in 2006 in which he compared immigrants to livestock and ending with his lamentation in The New York Times last week that white supremacy and white nationalism have become offensive terms. McConnell, in his statement, said he has 'no tolerance' for the positions offered by King, and said 'those who espouse these views are not supporters of American ideals and freedoms.' President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he hadn't been following the King saga Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said King's views 'should be ridiculed at every turn possible' and don't represent conservatives Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois (left) said that King should lose his House committee assignments until he apologizes: 'As with any animal that is rabid, Steve King should be set aside and isolated' McCarthy on Sunday said that 'action will be taken' against King. One Republican did not join the chorus of criticism. Asked about King's remarks Monday, President Donald Trump said, 'Who?' Told it was King, Trump said, 'I haven't been following it.' King on Friday suggested he's been misunderstood. He said the foundation of the Times interview was partly a Sept. 12 tweet in which he wrote: ''Nazi' is injected into Leftist talking points because the worn out & exhausted 'racist' is over used & applied to everyone who lacks melanin & who fail to virtue signal at the requisite frequency & decibels. But...Nazis were socialists & Leftists are socialists.' On Friday, King said on the House floor that the interview with the Times 'also was discussion of other terms that have been used, almost always unjustly labeling otherwise innocent people. The word racist, the word Nazi, the word fascist, the phrase white nationalists, the phrase white supremacists.' King said he was only wondering aloud: 'How did that offensive language get injected into our political dialogue? Who does that, how does it get done, how do they get by with laying labels like this on people?' King said in a Times interview that he didn't understand how phrases like 'white supremacy' and 'white nationalism' became offensive South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who is the only black Republican in the Senate, cast King's remarks and those like them as a blemish on the country and the Republican Party. 'When people with opinions similar to King's open their mouths, they damage not only the Republican Party and the conservative brand but also our nation as a whole,' Scott wrote in an op-ed last week in The Washington Post. King's views, Scott added, are separate from the conservative movement and 'should be ridiculed at every turn possible.' 'Some in our party wonder why Republicans are constantly accused of racism - it is because of our silence when things like this are said,' Scott wrote. King's position in the GOP had been imperiled even before his remarks about white supremacy. Shortly before the 2018 midterm elections, in which King was running, Ohio Republican Rep. Steve Stivers, then the head of the GOP campaign committee, issued an extraordinary public denunciation of him. King has already drawn a primary challenger for the 2020 election: Randy Feenstra, a GOP state senator. Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's wife Emma Coronel Aispuro was pictured arriving at federal court in Brooklyn, New York where the Mexican drug lord is currently on trial. During Monday's testimony, she heard in court heard how her husband was excited about the prospect of getting his life story on film, to evade the soldiers hunting him at a moment's notice and how he ordered the killing of an informant during witness testimony. Aispuro flashed a smile at the cameras while walking into court wearing a white blouse and black pants - along with a pair of sunglasses. Once inside, testimony quickly got underway with the court hearing from witness, Alex Cifuentes, was a member of a Colombian drug-trafficking clan when he was sent in 2007 to live with Guzman and his associates at one of the kingpin's hideaways in Mexico - complete with satellite TV and maid service - 'for business reasons,' he told jurors in federal court in Brooklyn. Business was as robust as Guzman's vanity: Cifuentes testified last week that his organization ended up making $40 million a month by supplying stockpiles of cocaine that the Sinaloa cartel smuggled into the United States. The wife of Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, Emma Coronel Aispuro, arrives at the US Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn on January 14 Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's wife Emma Coronel Aispuro arrives at federal court in Brooklyn, New York where the Mexican drug lord is currently on trial Plenty of cameras were waiting to greet the wife of El Chapo as she headed into court Lawyers for Guzman say Cifuentes is one of several cooperators who are framing their client in hopes of getting leniency in their own cases. Cifuentes described Monday how when his wife suggested that Guzman should make a movie about his life as a near-mythical outlaw on the run, 'He loved the idea.' There were two drafts of the story written but it never made it to production, he said. Another time, when it appeared the military was closing in on the camp, Guzman ordered his followers to grab their assault weapons and flee on foot into the darkness, the witness said. 'We were running practically all night,' he said before trucks arrived to take them to another one of Guzman's half dozen hideouts in the region. There also was testimony about Christian Rodriguez, a computer tech hired by the cartel to set up a secure communications system installed with spyware that allowed Guzman to covertly track his associates and love interests. The kingpin 'was really interested in what people were saying about him,' Cifuentes said. 'If it wasn't pertaining to him, then he really didn't care.' During another conversation, Guzman informed Cifuentes that Rodriguez had given information to authorities about Cifuentes' drug dealer brother. El Chapo (seen above at his arrest in 2016) case continues as he's pleaded not guilty to a 17-count indictment, including firearms possession, murder conspiracy, and importation and distribution of cocaine Emma Coronel Aispuro the wife of El Chapo smiles as she walks out of Brooklyn court Monday Guzman said 'that we should look for him to kill him,' Cifuentes testified. His response: 'I started looking for him.' In an intercepted phone call to his mother about his brother, Cifuentes asked her to 'send him my regards and tell him that Christian was the one who blew the whistle.' The hit never happened and the tech ended up helping the FBI collect scores of incriminating text messages that are a centerpiece of the prosecution. Meanwhile, El Chapo's case continues as he's pleaded not guilty to a 17-count indictment, including firearms possession, murder conspiracy, and importation and distribution of cocaine. A man extradited from Western Australia over the alleged sexual assault of young family members in rural NSW has been granted bail to stay at a Sydney hostel. The 49-year-old, given the pseudonym Roderick Colt, was one of eight relatives arrested by police in 2018. He is charged with four counts of sexual intercourse with a person under the age of ten and one of sexual intercourse without consent involving an 18-year-old woman. A man extradited from Western Australia over the alleged sexual assault of young family members in rural NSW has been granted bail to stay at a Sydney hostel NSW Supreme Court Justice Stephen Campbell on Monday granted him bail to live in temporary hostel accommodation in Sydney. '(He) basically has nothing other than the clothes he was arrested in so he has to start somewhere,' Colt's lawyer, Robert Bucksath, told the judge. The bail conditions stipulate that Colt must report twice daily to police, not contact crown witnesses or his co-accused and not leave the state. He'll forfeit a $10,000 surety if he fails to appear in court. The 49-year-old, given the pseudonym Roderick Colt, was one of eight relatives arrested by police in 2018 (pictured rural farm in NSW where alleged abuses took place) The Crown opposed his release, with prosecutor Mardi Cartwright saying he'd breached bail in other states and belonged to a family 'known to travel long distances to see each other' (pictured shed in NSW where several members of the 'Colt' family were found) Colt's lawyer previously told the court his client 'is in a situation where he is basically consumed by the terrible taboo of intergenerational incest'. Mr Bucksath told last year's bail hearing Colt had 'broken away from what's been termed the 'nomadic' or 'living off-the-grid lifestyle' attributed to him' and hadn't contacted certain family members for a number of years. But the Crown opposed his release, with prosecutor Mardi Cartwright saying he'd breached bail in other states and belonged to a family 'known to travel long distances to see each other'. Monday's decision came after the Colt family's 51-year-old matriarch - who's been given the pseudonym Betty Colt - was refused bail in Central Local Court last week by magistrate Margaret Quinn (pictured being led out of court in 2014) Monday's decision came after the Colt family's 51-year-old matriarch - who's been given the pseudonym Betty Colt - was refused bail in Central Local Court last week by magistrate Margaret Quinn. The mother of 12 is charged with perverting the course of justice and five counts of making a false statement on oath amounting to perjury. The magistrate found there was an unacceptable risk she would interfere with witnesses and commit a serious offence, noting the matriarch 'aggressively' kept in contact with her children in the past against court orders. All eight family members are next scheduled to have their case mentioned in Central Local Court in March. World War II veteran and Purple Heart medal recipient Duane Sherman, 96, received more than 50,000 cards, letters and gifts for his birthday, after a simple Facebook post by his daughter. Sue Morse, 65, said she wanted her dad to feel special, so she requested over social media that friends send well-wishes for his December 30 birthday, expecting to get something like 160 responses. But as of January 9, Sherman, who has outlived most of his friends and who his daughter said only receives bills in the mail, had gotten tens of thousands of letters from all 50 states and 10 foreign countries. One brightly colored envelope in particular was decorated with a message on the outside that read, 'Please handle gently, going to an American hero.' 'I was amazed, shocked and appreciative,' Sherman told the Orange County Register. 'All the good comments people made, it just brightened my day.' World War II veteran and Purple Heart medal recipient Duane Sherman, 96, received more than 50,000 cards, letters and gifts to his Fullerton, California for his birthday, after a simple Facebook post by his daughter Notes poured in from people from all walks of life, including elementary school students, prison inmates, the secretary of the Navy, the State of Indiana Department of Veteran Affairs, and even the Pittsburgh Steelers. Postal bins packed with envelopes of every color are stacked high on two sofas and the floor of Sherman's home - and that's only a few thousand of them. Thousands more are stored at a friend's house and there are bins still to be picked up at the post office, Morse said. Since her father is legally blind, Morse has been reading the cards and letters out loud to her dad, whose wife of 57 years, Lois, passed away in 2011. Sue Morse, 65, said she wanted her dad to feel special, so she requested over social media that friends send well-wishes for his December 30 birthday, expecting to get something like 160 responses from the post. Morse and Sherman pose for a photo at their home in Fullerton, California on January 8 One brightly colored envelope in particular was decorated with a message on the outside that read, 'Please handle gently, going to an American hero' Notes poured in from people from all walks of life, including elementary school students, prison inmates, the secretary of the Navy, the State of Indiana Department of Veteran Affairs (pictured), and even the Pittsburgh Steelers The commander of the USS Cowpens, a guided missile cruiser stationed in San Diego, sent a letter and then visited with several officers to take Sherman to lunch. A group of officers from the US Navy Sonar School in San Diego also paid a visit - listening intently as Sherman told stories about his WW II experience. The mail also brought gifts of mementos, like an American flag that flew over Pearl Harbor, a scale model of a battleship and a plaque carved out of wood from the USS. Constitution. 'It was very gratifying,' Sherman said. 'It was hard to believe.' As of January 9, Sherman, who has outlived most of his friends and who his daughter said only receives bills in the mail, had gotten tens of thousands of letters from all 50 states and 10 foreign countries. A postal worker is pictured with racks of letters and packages for Sherman Sherman received a gift carved from a piece of wood from the USS Constitution Morse shared a photo of this card sent to Sherman, which reads 'Live well, laugh hard, love big' Sherman enlisted in the Navy shortly after Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941. He was stationed aboard the USS Lamson, a destroyer that saw several battles in the Pacific. Sherman is pictured at his home in California on January 8 Sherman enlisted in the Navy shortly after Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941. He was stationed aboard the USS Lamson, a destroyer that saw several battles in the Pacific. So far, Morse has read about 1,700 letters. She will enlist the help of several friends to make sure her father hears the messages in the rest of his cards and notes. Morse hopes to respond to most of the letters. The amount the taxman receives via Value Added Tax has jumped nearly 80 per cent in the last decade to reach a record high, according to figures compiled by accountants UHY Hacker Young. HMRC collected 125billion in VAT receipts in the 2017/18 financial year and it now makes up 21 per cent of its total tax take, up from less than 18 per cent in the aftermath of the financial crisis. In the tax year 2009/10 the take was just 70billion. The standard-rate of the consumption tax, levied on the purchase of goods and services ranging from chocolate to fuel, shoes to taxi fares, has been set at three different levels since 2008. The purchase of most everyday goods and services is subject to Value Added Tax. This will often add an extra 20% onto the cost of most of the things you buy in shops, or filling your tank Gordon Brown cut VAT from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent in the midst of the financial crisis in December 2008, before returning it to the previous level in 2010. The coalition government raised it 2.5 per cent one year later to 20 per cent, eight months after coming to power and it has stayed at that level ever since. In that time, VAT as a share of the taxman's total take has risen more than three per cent, coming close to overtaking National Insurance Contributions as the Government's largest source of tax income after income tax. Nics made up 22 per cent of HMRC's tax take last year, while income tax made up 31 per cent. The taxman's top income sources Tax name % of HMRC tax take 2008/09 % of HMRC tax take 2010/11 % of HMRC tax take 2017/18 VAT 17.6% (VAT rate 15%) 18.4% (VAT rate 17.5%) 21% (VAT rate 20%) Income tax 34.4% 33.8% 31% NICs 21.7% 21.3% 22% Corporation tax 9.9% 9.5% 9% Fuel Duties 5.5% 6% 5% Stamp Duty Land Tax 1.1% 1.3% 2% Capital Gains Tax 1.8% 0.8% 1% Other 8% 8.9% 9% Source: UHY Hacker Young The taxman took 594bn in 2017/18, with VAT making the third largest contribution to that behind income tax and National Insurance. Other taxes include beer duty, and inheritance tax While its income from Nics has remained at broadly the same level since the year before VAT was last raised in 2011, VAT makes up 2.5 per cent more of HMRC's tax receipts now than nine years ago. In actual cash terms, the amount it took from VAT jumped by 14billion to 98billion in the first year of the increased rate of VAT. Since then, it has risen by a further 27billion. According to the data, the rise in VAT appears to have come at the expense of both Corporation Tax and Capital Gains Tax. CGT made up 1.8 per cent of the taxman's take in 2008, but just one per cent last year, while the percentage that came from corporation tax dropped by nine per cent over the last decade. Corporation Tax receipts were 54billion last year. While the VAT rate has risen twice over that time, the main rate of corporation tax has been cut by nine per cent over the last decade, and now sits at 19 per cent. According to figures, the taxman's Vat take jumped by nearly 80% over the last decade. Vat now makes up 125 billion of HMRC's total 594 billion tax take, a 30-year high The accountancy firm said the growing importance of VAT to the Government's total tax take reflects how the tax burden in the UK is increasingly being shifted onto consumers. It added that this shift often disproportionately affects consumers on lower-incomes who can end up spending a greater portion of their earnings on tax. This appears borne out by the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics. The 'others': The top five sources of tax revenue for HMRC last year listed under 'other' according to UHY Hacker Young were: - Insurance Premium Tax - Inheritance Tax - Wine Duties - Shares - Beer Duties It found that while richer households pay more in indirect taxes, they pay less as a proportion of their income. In the financial year ending in 2017, the poorest fifth paid 30 per cent of their disposable income as tax, with VAT being the largest component of that at 12.8 per cent. Meanwhile, the richest fifth paid 14.6 per cent of their disposable income as tax, and VAT made up 7.3 per cent of that. However, all households saw a 3.5 per cent increase in the amount of VAT they paid between 2016 and 2017. HMRC's total tax take increased to 594billion in the 2017/18 financial year and is now at a record high. This represents 33 per cent of UK GDP and means the UK ranks 20 out of 36 OECD countries for highest tax burden. France tops the table at 46 per cent while Ireland is considerably lower at 23 per cent. What could Brexit mean for VAT? VAT has been inextricably tied to the UK's membership of the European Union. VAT replaced the old Purchase Tax when Britain joined the EU in 1973, and operation of VAT is a mandatory requirement for EU member states. The 2006 EU VAT directive also harmonises rates across the bloc and determines what VAT rates member states can set. The directive requires member states to set a standard rate of VAT of at least 15 per cent, but does allow for EU countries to apply one or two reduced rates of at least five per cent to specific goods or services, and also allows for exemptions from VAT. In the Brexit referendum campaign, Vote Leave members Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Gisela Stewart, argued that leaving the EU would allow Britain to scrap VAT on fuel bills, which is currently subject to a five per cent rate of VAT. What we pay VAT on: The UK operates a VAT system with three rates - standard (20%), reduced (5%), and zero-rated, while some items are also exempt: - Standard-rate - applies to alcoholic drinks, road fuel, shoes and taxi fares - Reduced-rate - applies to purchases of electricity, gas and heating oil, children's car seats and maternity pads - Exemptions - items exempt from VAT include antiques when sold to public institutions, membership subscriptions, the TV licence, insurance and medical treatment More details on VAT rates can be found here Depending on the terms of the final agreement Britain will gain more flexibility on the structure of VAT after Brexit, and could even abolish it entirely. However, accountancy group ArmstrongWatson wrote that it 'wouldn't encourage anyone to get too excited about the prospect of that happening.' It added that 'it would appear inconceivable that the level of tax income' that comes from VAT 'could be generated elsewhere'. As the figures show, VAT is close to overtaking Nics as the UK government's second-highest source of tax revenue after income tax. Instead, what could be likelier is a decrease in VAT rates to encourage consumer spending after Brexit. Sean Glancy, VAT partner at UHY Hacker Young, said: 'The long term increase in VAT receipts will be most keenly felt by lower income consumers who will be further squeezed by higher import costs feeding through into prices post-Brexit. 'Depending on the outcome, Brexit could result in falling VAT receipts as consumers spend less due to higher prices and increased economic uncertainty. 'Falling receipts post-Brexit would certainly be a concern for the Treasury. 'The Government could put contingency plans in place to help counter the potential fall in receipts. 'For example, VAT rates could be reduced in order to encourage consumer spending post-Brexit.' Barclays' former boss has appeared in court to deny fraud charges. John Varley and three colleagues including Roger Jenkins, the former head of Barclays' Middle Eastern business are accused of fraud when the bank raised 6.1billion from Qatar during the 2008 financial crisis. John Varley (right) and three colleagues including Roger Jenkins (left) are accused of fraud when the bank raised 6.1billion from Qatar during the 2008 financial crisis The case was brought by the Serious Fraud Office. Varley, 62, pleaded not guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation at Southwark Crown Court. Jenkins, 63, and former senior bankers Thomas Kalaris, 63, and Richard Boath, 60, also entered not guilty pleas. Varley Barclays' boss from 2004 to 2011 is the most senior banker to go on trial over the 2008 crisis, which saw banks collapse around the world and triggered a string of taxpayer bailouts. Slump: Citi brought in 13.3billion in the last three months of 2018, down 2.3 per cent on a year earlier TURMOIL TELLS Market turmoil around the world triggered a fall in revenues at US bank Citigroup in the last three months of 2018. Citi brought in 13.3billion, down 2.3 per cent on a year earlier, but it made profits of 3.4billion up from a loss of 13.6billion in the same period of 2017. PASTRY PAIN Another director has left the troubled parent of Patisserie Valerie, marking the latest change to the board in the wake of its brush with collapse last year. Non-executive director James Horler will leave immediately. VAT TAKE More than a fifth of Britains tax take comes from VAT, after receipts surged to a record high, according to accountant UHY Hacker Young. The taxman collected 125billion from the levy on sales in 2017/18, up from 78billion a decade earlier. The figures show that HMRC is increasingly reliant on customers to rake in revenues. VAT is 20 per cent on most products. LONDON BOOST 3.9billion hedge fund Orchard Global Asset Management is moving its headquarters from Singapore to London to take advantage of the Citys top-class debt markets, it revealed. TUB DEAL Private equity firm Investindustrial, which recently floated Aston Martin, has bought hot tub producer Jacuzzi Brands from a group of investors. OIL LINK Supermajor BP has teamed up with Italian energy group Eni to work with the Oman oil ministry to explore an onshore field in the country. GOLDEN SHOT Tanzania-focused gold miner Acacia said its fourth-quarter production of 130,581 oz exceeded expectations but was still down 12 per cent on the previous year. MINER TIE-UP US gold miner Newmont Mining is buying Canadas Goldcorp in a 7.8billion deal. FASHION BOOST Cornish womenswear firm Seasalt posted a 9 per cent jump in sales in the last five weeks of the year. WEALTH FIRM Broker Arden Partners has launched its own wealth management firm, Arden Wealth, which will be headed by Henry Algeo, a former director of Brewin Dolphin. CHIPPING IN London-listed Gresham House has invested in Rockfish, the seafood restaurant group founded by chef Mitch Tonks, to increase its presence from six to 16 locations in England. A 60-year-old man suffered seizures that led to him sweating so profusely he left puddles where he sat. The man, who is unnamed in the bizarre medical case report, had been sweating heavily in strange episodes for three years. Various doctors were unable to pinpoint the root cause of his problem - until one doctor observed the man during an episode. He noticed that his responses became slowed, leading to a diagnosis of temporal lobe seizures in the brain. The seizures were activating a pathway that leads to sweating, the doctors noted. A 60-year-old man from Wisconsin suffered seizures that led to him sweating so profusely he left puddles where he sat, according to a case report The man, from Wisconsin, had been having the episodes, which lasted for several minutes over a 13-hour period, every month. This type of sweating is called 'cyclical sweating', which is different to excessive sweating because it occurs in a repeated pattern. The man was otherwise healthy, with no other symptoms, and all tests that doctors ran on him returning with normal results. Doctors and specialists at various hospitals initially though he had 'hyperhidrosis', the lead case report author Dr Mark Chelmowski told Live Science. But no-one knew why his excessive sweating was occurring, said Dr Chelmowski, who treated the man at Advocate Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee. Excessive sweating is commonly reported by patients with the causes being obesity, anxiety, hyperthyroidism, infection, cancer, and side effects of some medications. But the man didn't appear to fit and of these, and was questioned on his lifestyle and if he had recently travelled. He and his partner decided to meticulously chronicle the episodes to find out themselves. This was valuable information as the man was then able to visit Dr Chelmowski when he felt an episode was going to happen. According to the report, the patient 'felt it coming on; he lowered his head into his hands and had slowed verbal responses for approximately two minutes'. The doctors described his sweating as 'profuse' and detailed a pool of sweat left on an examination table. According to LiveScience, Dr Chelmowski said sweat was 'pouring off him', which accumulated where his elbows had rested. Five minutes later, the man was back to normal. The changes in the patient's responsiveness over the episode 'suggested a seizure,' the report, published in journal Annals of Internal Medicine, said. For further investigations, the man was scheduled for an EEG (electroencephalogram), a test that monitors the brain's electrical activity. As the doctor had predicted, the EEG showed that during the sweating episodes, the man was having seizures, or outbursts of electrical activity, in the temporal lobe of his brain which is responsible for processing sound and language. Temporal lobe seizures are sometimes called focal seizures with impaired awareness, as people - like the man - can remain aware of what's happening. It can be come before an 'aura' or warning symptom, such as hallucinations of any of the five sense, vivid deja vu or recalled memories or emotions. According to Dr Chelmowski, the man's seizures were causing a pathway in his brain to signal sweating, which normally happens when someone is releasing body heat or is experiencing an emotion. Once the cause of the man's cyclical sweating was diagnosed, doctors treated him with anti-seizure medication - but temporal lobe seizures causes are unknown. The patient was prescribed anti-seizure medication and in the last 18 months, has only had one cluster of sweating episodes. Zerina Nelson loves being compared to the Disney princess Elsa because they have the same white-blonde hair and pale skin. But the four-year-old from Mesa, Arizona, is actually suffering from a rare form of albinism that is destroying her lungs. Her mother, Aura Nelson, realized something was wrong with her daughter when she couldn't control her eye movements at three months old. After going through multiple doctors, one of whom eventually ordered a DNA test, Zerina was diagnosed with a rare hereditary disorder called Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome. Doctors told Nelson that the condition will cause Zerina to develop a lung disease that will scar her organ tissue and leave her in need of a life-saving lung transplant by the time she's 30 years old. Zerina Nelson, four (left and right), of Mesa, Arizona, was diagnosed with a rare hereditary disorder called Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome. It is characterized by little to no color in the skin, hair and eyes as well as blood platelet dysfunction, which causes excessive bleeding Her mother, Aura, realized something was wrong with her daughter when she couldn't control her eye movements at three months old. Pictured: Zerina as a newborn in 2014 Nelson, 26, said it took a few months before she could find a doctor that would address her worries. 'I was very concerned when she was about three months old because she seemed unable to control her eyes,' Nelson, 26, said. 'They seemed to constantly be moving and she didn't seem to follow objects well, which made me concerned that she may be blind. 'Her first pediatrician said that she was just too young to control her eye movements, but that diagnosis didn't feel right to me.' A second pediatrician referred Nelson to a children's hospital for genetic testing. Within a few weeks, Zerina was diagnosed with Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome (HPS). HPS is a rare hereditary disorder that is characterized by albinism as well as blood platelet dysfunction, which causes excessive bleeding. Signs include pale hair, eyes and skin; poor eyesight with vision acuity of 20/200, which is considered legally blind; and prolonged bleeding after accidents. Zerina bruises very easily and Nelson needs to constantly apply sunscreen to her daughter's highly sensitive skin. Zerina bruises very easily and needs to take medication that clots her blood if she gets a scrape. Nelson also needs to constantly apply sunscreen on her daughter due to her sensitive skin. Pictured: Zerina, left, with Nelson in summer 2018 Doctors told Nelson that Zerina (left and right) has a form of HPS that will cause her to develop a lung disease called pulmonary fibrosis, which is when lung tissue becomes damaged and scarred. Without a lung transplant, sufferers could die in their thirties A mild sunburn could cause serious damage to the skin, so Nelson they even need to check how bright it is outside. If Zerina accidentally gets a cut or a scrape, she takes a prescription to help her blood clot. Even a minor injury could cause her to bleed out because she doesn't have a clotting agent in her blood. 'At first this used to scare me, and I used to hover over her a lot, but I've tried to step back so that she's able to have a somewhat normal childhood,' Nelson said. The National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) says HPS is caused a mutation in one of 10 genes. For a child to be diagnosed with HPS, both parents need to be carrying one copy of the mutated gene. According to the National Institutes of Health, the syndrome affects around one in 500,000 people worldwide, with a significantly higher occurrence in Puerto Ricans. Patients with certain forms of HPS, like Zerina, develop a lung disease called pulmonary fibrosis, which is when lung tissue becomes damaged and scarred. Without a lung transplant, sufferers could die in their thirties, forties or fifties, according to NORD. 'When they described the negatives associated with HPS - such as the eventual need for a lung transplant, difficulties bleeding - a lack of pigment and the vision problems seemed a lot less important,' said Nelson. Despite her struggles with day-to-day life, Zerina has embraced her look and has been frequently compared to the Disney princess Elsa from the film Frozen by her friends and peers. 'Zerina has noticed that her hair is different from other people's, mostly because we can't go anywhere without someone mentioning her hair,' Nelson said. 'She enjoys the compliments and is a very social kid. I think it has really helped to have a Disney princess that she can relate to.' Nelson said she has begun sharing pictures of her daughter on social media to raise awareness of the rare disease. Pictured: Zerina with her father on first day of nursery in January 2018 Nelson uploads pictures with hashtags including #AlbinismIsBeautiful, #InMySkinIWin and #InMyOwnSkin. Pictured: Zerina, left, with Nelson in 2018 Zerina loves being compared to the Disney princess Elsa from the film Frozen because they have the same-white blonde hair and blue eyes Nelson has begun sharing pictures of her daughter on social media to raise awareness of Zerina's rare condition. She uploads pictures with hashtags including #AlbinismIsBeautiful, #InMySkinIWin and #InMyOwnSkin. 'I started reaching out via social media to other moms with kids with albinism,' Nelson said. 'It was actually really great. I never knew anything about albinism before we got her diagnosis. Most people don't. 'I think that seeing her thrive and be a social butterfly has really helped me move on from my immediate fears or anxiety about her having albinism.' A mother says that she has suffered from a damaged liver after taking a controversial contraceptive pill. Laura Hutchinson, 27, of Nottinghamshire, switched to Rigevidon in September 2018 after spending years using a contraceptive injection called Depo-Provera. After a month using the pill, her skin was so itchy her body was 'covered in scabs', her eyes became yellow and she felt feverish. 'Mystified' doctors tried to figure out what was causing her symptoms, before a liver biopsy in November confirmed her organ was damaged. Ms Hutchinson spent 11 days in hospital. Allegedly, the biopsy results showed that Rigevidon could be to blame, adding to the growing claims from women the controversial pill is a health hazard. Laura Hutchinson, 27, of Nottinghamshire, switched to Rigevidon in September 2018 after spending years using a contraceptive injection Ms Hutchinson, who is now out of hospital, said: 'The doctor told me that these problems had been down to the Rigevidon pills I had taken', she said. 'I was also told that this has caused damage to my liver and it will not be fully recovered by the end of this year.' The mother-of-one, who has been unable to work for four months, switched to the contraceptive pill after years using injections. She believed the protection would wear off quicker than the injections when she planned to have another child with her partner of six years in the future. After taking a month's worth of the pills, Ms Hutchinson's skin started to become very itchy in October. She was advised by her GP to urgently go to Bassetlaw Hospital in Worksop for a blood test. DOES THE CONTRACEPTIVE PILL INCREASE A WOMEN'S RISK FOR DEPRESSION? Hormonal birth control does not increase women's risk of depression, research suggested in February 2017. Contrary to popular belief, contraceptive pills, implants or injections do not make women more likely to suffer from the mental-health condition, a study found. Lead author Dr Brett Worly from Ohio State University, said: 'Depression is a concern for a lot of women when they're starting hormonal contraception. 'Based on our findings, this side effect shouldn't be a concern for most women, and they should feel comfortable knowing they're making a safe choice.' The researchers blame platforms such as social media for making contraception complications seem more common than they are. But a different study, published in April 2017, found that the pill can indeed trigger mood swings and fatigue. A team of British and Swedish researchers also found that the contraceptive can lower energy levels, but found no links to depression. Professor Niklas Zethraeus, of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said more doctors should be aware of the risks before dishing them out. Advertisement After several tests, doctors were dumbfounded - but Ms Hutchinson suspected that there may be something wrong with her liver. Hospital staff continued to send her for rigorous blood tests as her symptoms got worse over the month. Ms Hutchinson noticed her urine starting to get very dark and began showing jaundice-like symptoms, which include abdominal pain and fatigue, and even the whites of her eyes started to go yellow. The concerned mother then suspected that it may have been cirrhosis of the liver, normally caused by long-term damage by alcohol or hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. But she was reassured by hospital staff that it wasn't. Her symptoms grew worse as she began to make herself bleed from extensive scratching of her skin. 'By this point, I had taken a lot of days off work and I still didn't know what I was coming down with,' Ms Hutchinson said. 'I then started feeling very feverish and weak, but the doctor did not understand what was going on. 'They started testing for hepatitis and other things - they even tested to see if I was actually pregnant as well. 'It was very frustrating, and I kept demanding answers but the doctors said it was a complete mystery.' It was revealed that Ms Hutchinson had high levels of bilirubin - a yellow pigment in the blood which is processed by the liver. Any condition that affects the function of the liver, and its ability to remove bilirubin from the blood, can cause bilirubin to build up. The common symptoms of liver dysfunction include jaundice, dark urine and itchy skin. Ms Hutchinson's bilirubin levels reached a high of 245. Doctors told Ms Hutchinson that the healthy levels are in the 20s, and so they sent her for a liver biopsy in mid-November 2018. 'Even after the procedure, I was still continuing to get more and more sick,' Ms Hutchinson said. 'I was also on three or four different kinds of medication and had so many scabs all over my body.' After a month using the pill, Ms Hutchinson began to get itchy skin, followed by jaundice-like symptoms - even the whites of her eyes started to go yellow Ms Hutchinson was given a liver biopsy in November. Doctors said that 'liver damage' had been caused by Rigevidon, Ms Hutchinson claimed She added: 'By the 11th day on the ward, I pleaded with the nurse to let me go home as I couldn't bear the stress any longer.' Ms Hutchinson said that her bilirubin levels have gone down as a result of the liver biopsy, but they continued to be at a high level of 45. During her time in hospital, Ms Hutchinson claims she was informed the results of the biopsy showed Rigevidon had caused her symptoms. 'This has made me think twice about going on to any contraceptive pill as I am led to believe that anything could be very dangerous,' Ms Hutchinson said. 'Women need to be aware that these side effects exist and that awareness does continue to grow - there is even a petition that has went online to stop the NHS from providing it.' Ms Hutchinson is continuing to go for blood tests on a regular basis and is now getting out to do more day-to-day activities, hoping to go back to work soon. In 2016, a petition named 'remove the contraceptive pill Rigvedon from the NHS' appeared on change.org, receiving 27,000 signatures before closing. Another, which was launched in June 2018 by a woman who claims she almost lost her life due to the pill, is still open and supported by many other women. There are some risks associated with using the combined contraceptive pill. However, according to the NHS, these risks are small and, for most women, the benefits of the pill outweigh any concerns. The Rigevidon pills are developed by a Hungarian pharmaceutical company called Gedeon Richter Plc. The company says that they will be investigating Ms Hutchinson's case. A spokesperson for Gedeon Richter Plc said: 'Many different causes might lead to liver injury - i.e. other medications, viral infection or underlying medical conditions of the liver. 'Therefore in the current case, based on the very limited information available, the causal relationship between levonorgestrel-containing contraceptive product and the liver injury is not assessable, drawing any conclusion regarding the product would be premature.' Rigevidon coated tablet is a combined oral contraceptive (COC) pill which contains 150 micrograms levonorgestrel (a progestogen) and 30 micrograms ethinylestradiol (an oestrogen). Levonorgestrel-containing contraceptive products have been globally available for more than 20 years, used by millions of women. The spokesperson added: 'Liver function disturbances are rare side effects concerning the whole drug class of hormonal contraceptives and oestrogens. 'To provide adequate information to the patients, the best way is a comprehensive consultation between the doctor and the patient prior to prescription, involving risks and benefits of the oral contraceptive pill.' A pregnant woman nearly died after she suffered a stroke that caused her to hallucinate her doctors and husband were trying to kill her. Bridget Chiovari, 28, of Arizona, developed a stiff neck in September 2016 while 27-weeks pregnant, which doctors dismissed as nothing serious. She was even told it was just dehydration when she felt a 'pop' in the back of her head - followed by a headache and dizziness - when she went to pick up her three-year-old daughter Liliana. Within hours, Mrs Chiovari became delusional and unable to walk, with her husband Chris demanding hospital staff carry out a brain scan. The MRI revealed Mrs Chiovari had suffered a brain haemorrhage caused by a ruptured arteriovenous malformation (AVM) - and would have died just two hours later if untreated. Mrs Chiovari - whose son Roman was born via C-section in November 2016 - spent a month in hospital having excess blood on her brain drained. Now fully recovered, she was convinced doctors were trying to kill her. Bridget Chiovari nearly died after she suffered a stroke that caused her to hallucinate her doctors and husband were trying to kill her. Pictured left after the ordeal and right in hospital, Mrs Chiovari endured a brain haemorrhage caused by a ruptured arteriovenous malformation She developed a stiff neck in September 2016 while pregnant with her son Roman (pictured being held by his mother after the ordeal). Told it was nothing serious, she then felt a 'pop' in her head when she picked up her daughter Lilliana (pictured being held by her father Chris) Speaking of her symptoms, Mrs Chiovari said: 'When I was 27-weeks pregnant with my second child, I had an incredibly stiff neck. 'I didn't really think anything of it but then I went out hiking one night and as I was picking up my daughter to put her in the carrier I felt a pop go off in my head. CAN PEOPLE HALLUCINATE AFTER A STROKE? Hallucinations and delusions are a rare side effect of stroke that affect around one per cent of patients. They typically only occur in patients who have psychosis, which affects the way a person thinks or feels and can cause them to lose touch with reality. A peduncular hallucinosis can occur if there is damage to the mid-brain. This usually causes a person to see vivid, colourful scenes of animals or patterns within a few days of their stroke. The hallucinations may disappear within a few weeks or last years. Most usually develop a 'eyesight' into these hallucinations and realise they are not real. Some patients also develop Charles Bonnet syndrome, which can cause people to see things that 'fit' into their surroundings, such as animals when looking at a field. Others may see fantasy scenes. Hallucinations often become less intense over time. Sessions with a psychologist or counsellor can help sufferers develop coping mechanisms. As well as hallucinations, some stroke patients may experience delusions, where they develop strong beliefs that are not true. This may include feeling someone is spying on them or that they are in danger. Capgras' syndrome is a type of delusion where a person feels they have been replaced with an imposter like an alien or someone who looks like them. Patients may require anti-psychotic medication. Source: Stroke Association Advertisement 'It was followed by the worst headache of my life and I got really dizzy. Things were moving and my mouth got so dry. Any drop of saliva I had in my mouth was gone. 'I thought it was really strange, so I went to the hospital, but they pretty much sent me home and said it was just dehydration.' After being told to 'sleep it off', Mrs Chiovari felt so unwell she was convinced she was dying but did not have the energy to express her fears. 'I knew it in my head but at that point I couldn't physically communicate to my husband,' she said. 'All I could do was hit and kick everything in the car. 'By the time my husband brought me home, I tried eating something but just ended up throwing up. I have a pretty high pain tolerance so I knew something was wrong when the pain was so high I couldn't even handle it. 'I was delusional, so in the middle of the night after Chris put me to bed, I tried to get out of the bed but took a fall and cut my lip open.' It was at this point Mrs Chiovari's husband took her to hospital and demanded she have a brain scan. 'They could see I was having a brain haemorrhage but they didn't know why,' she said. 'So, they put this tube into my brain that drained out the excess blood and I was kept in ICU for a month while that was happening. 'They told my husband I would have only lived two more hours if they didn't put the drain in when they did. 'At this point, I wasn't in my right mind at all. I was hallucinating a lot, I couldn't remember who my family was and I wasn't able to walk. 'I don't know if it was from the bleed itself, or the medication I was on, but I genuinely thought my husband was trying to kill me and the hospital staff [were] against me.' Pictured left carrying Roman, Mrs Chiovari has since been told she would have died two hours later if her husband had not insisted doctors carry out a brain scan. Following her diagnosis, she spent a month in intensive care having excess fluid drained from her brain (right) While she was in hospital, Roman (pictured as a newborn) was born healthy via C-section Pictured left during her recovery, Mrs Chiovari enjoys hiking but still gets tired easily and suffers poor balance. She is pictured right before having radiation therapy to cut off her bleeding in the brain. This was required after surgery failed and options were running out Pictured left hiking after the ordeal, Mrs Chiovari has come a long way. Right image shows her scarring after she had a tube fitted into her head to drain excess blood from her brain Mrs Chiovari had the drain fitted on September 14. Once her swelling had reduced four weeks later, doctors detected a ruptured AVM. An AVM is an abnormal tangle of blood vessels that connect arteries and veins. This disrupts normal blood flow and oxygen circulation. On August 22 the following year, Mrs Chiovari had an embolisation to block her abnormal blood vessels in preparation for a craniotomy - surgery to open the skull and access the brain beneath. 'They basically go in with a glue called Onyx, which is supposed to block blood flow to certain blood vessels and reduce any complications for the surgery,' she said. 'After the embolisation, doctors said they could cut off all blood flow going to the AVM. I'd have to have routine angiograms to check it but it was announced cleared. But during her first angiogram - X-ray of the blood vessels - in March last year, blood was found to be feeding Mrs Chiovari's AVM. 'Due to the location of the AVM and with the embolism done, surgery was now considered too risky,' she said. 'My last option was radiation, which I had on March 13 2018, but it can take one or two years for radiation to obliterate the AVM.' Although still not completely out of the woods, Mrs Chiovari already feels better. 'I have a lot more energy than I used to, but I'm still recovering,' she said. 'I think the recovery process from a stroke is a lifelong thing. 'I walk a little strange when I'm tired and moving my head from side-to-side makes me dizzy. I also have a serious lack of balance now and my memory isn't very good.' Mrs Chiovari (pictured with Roman at her angiogram - X-ray of the blood vessels - in March last year) requires regular check-ups to monitor her progress. It was here she learned blood is still feeding her arteriovenous malformation despite surgery to cut it off The killer Ebola outbreak in the Democratic of Congo will only get worse if political instability continues to break the public's trust, experts fear. Professor Jeremy Farrar, an infectious disease expert and director of the Wellcome Trust, said there is 'nothing to stop' the epidemic spiralling into 'worst case scenario' as a result of ongoing political conflict. Felix Tshisekedi was declared the winner after the DRC's presidential elections on December 30, which took place two years behind schedule. But accusations that the results of the first uncontested democratic transfer of power after 18 years don't 'add up' are threatening more violence. As a result the 'public health will suffer', as confidence in authorities is essential for containing the virus - considered one of the most lethal in existence. Ebola has already struck 649 people, killing 396 of them as of January 13, according to figures from the DRC's health ministry. The death toll is 392 - including 343 among confirmed cases - but is feared to become even worse during a time of political instability and mistrust in the health authorities Felix Tshisekedi was declared the winner after the DRC presidential elections on December 30, which has led to more political conflict and public mistrust Professor Farrar, who recently visited the DRC with a WHO leadership team, said: 'The worst case scenario is that political instability remains, mistrust grows ... and then there's nothing to stop the epidemic getting embedded into a big urban centre and taking off as it did in West Africa.' The breakout is the second largest in history after the 2014 West Africa Ebola that lasted for two years, infecting 28,000 and killing more than 11,300. DOES A QUARANTINED US MEDIC WHO RETURNED FROM THE DRC HAVE EBOLA? A US medic who was quarantined amid fears he caught Ebola while treating patients in Africa has been released from hospital. The unnamed physician, 39, did not display any symptoms during his three-week stay in medical isolation at a hospital in Nebraska. He had been in quarantine since December 29, after returning from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an Ebola outbreak is ongoing. The patient came home from a trip to Burundi, in central Africa. The only cases of Ebola reported in Africa this year have been in the DRC. Reports suggest the medic was given an experimental Ebola vaccine as a post-exposure preventive precaution. Advertisement Mr Tshisekedi was surprisingly declared the winner of the election on Thursday, leading to claims of fraud and calls for a recount. It was supposed to mark the end of a chaotic 18 years of ruling by President Joseph Kabila, and it was believed that Martin Fayulu, Mr Tshisekedi's rival within the opposition, would win. The announcement has threatened more volatility in the unstable African state. Professor Farrar said making sure the public are confident in health authorities is essential when fighting a fast-spreading disease, especially where local services are scant. Professor Farrar said: 'When you have political instability, public health always suffers.' An Ebola centre was ransacked in December by protesters who were furious over further voting delays. Three cities in the DRC, Beni and Butembo in the eastern North Kivu province, and the city of Yumbi in western Bandundu province, were rescheduled by the electoral commission CENI to take place in March this year. In response, the treatment centre, housing people suspected of having the highly contagious disease, was attacked. It's not the first time health workers have been at the forefront of conflict - with medical staff being kidnapped and killed by armed rebels in previous months. As of 12 January, the total of Ebola cases has risen to 649, including 600 confirmed and 49 probable cases. The announcement of the new president, after the election was delayed by two years, has threatened more volatility in Africa's already most unstable state. Pictured, a woman casts her ballot during the general election in Kinshasa Ebola is still concentrated in North Kivu and Ituri provinces. Pictured, a healthcare worker sprays around a baby suspected of dying of Ebola in Beni, North Kivu The WHO said the risk of the disease spreading remains 'very high' at national and regional levels. Pictured, a health working giving a vaccine to a woman in Mangina The risk of the disease spreading remains 'very high' at national and regional levels, according to the WHO, still concentrated in North Kivu and Ituri provinces. There are some signs case numbers in the North Kivu city of Beni may be dwindling, but WHO experts are cautious. They say the apparent lull may be due to people getting ill but failing to seek proper diagnosis and treatment. Professor Farrar said people are often scared to come forward to government or international health teams who are trying to help. The outbreak, which has been difficult to control because of armed violence and community protests, is expected to rage on into the middle of this year, experts on the ground have warned. Neighboring countries Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan have been on high alert for months, as the WHO works urgently to avoid people becoming infected over borders. US states with fewer diagnoses of melanoma have the highest rates of death from the disease, a new study says. Researchers from the University of Utah Health found that the states with the highest incidence of skin cancer - Oregon, Washington, Utah, Minnesota, Vermont and New Hampshire - have the best survival rates. However, the states with the lowest incidence - Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Indiana, Illinois and Nevada - have the worst survival rates. States that had both high incidence and high mortality rates of melanoma have more white residents - who are most prone to the disease - but may also have more specialists who take more severe cases with poor survival odds, the researchers believe. A new study found e states with the highest incidence of skin cancer - Oregon, Washington, Utah, Minnesota, Vermont and New Hampshire - have the best survival rates (pictured) Melanoma begins in the melanocytes, a type of skin cell that makes melanin and gives skin a tan or brown color. The American Cancer Society estimates that more than 96,000 people will be diagnosed with melanoma in the US in 2019 and that more than 7,200 will die. Skin cancer is the most common cancer and - although melanoma only accounts for one percent of skin cancers - it causes the majority of skin cancer deaths. For the study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, the researchers looked at the mortality-to-incidence ratio (MIR) each state. Data was collected from the United States Cancer Statistics database between 1999 and 2014 and the MIR was collected by dividing the mortality rate by the incidence rate. The researchers found that Hawaii had the lowest MIR and Alaska had the highest. In fact, Alaska was the only state in which survival worsened significantly over the course of the study period. 'While we're not sure why, plausibly is because there are less resources [in Alaska] to get to major cities to receive care,' first author Dr Zachary Hopkins, a resident in internal medicine at University of Utah Health told DailyMail.com. Next, researchers compared each state's MIR to its respective variables such as the number of doctors in a population, health care spending, and sociodemographic variables including household income and race. The team found that there were two factors that were associated with a low survival rate: a high number of practicing doctors and a higher number of Caucasians. 'With more physicians in an area with a more robust system, we expected the survival rate would be a better,' Dr Hopkins said. The researchers say it may be that states with large medical centers - that employ a high number of doctors - have specialized cancer centers that see more complex or severe cases. 'These might be big referral centers - like in Utah we take melanoma cases because we're one of the big centers,' said Dr Hopkins. 'Same with MD Anderson in Texas, [Memorial] Sloan Kettering in New York. So the cases doctors might see have propensity towards worse survival.' Conversely, the states with the lowest incidence - Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Indiana, Illinois and Nevada - have the worst survival rates (pictured) However, the large percentage of Caucasians being associated with poorer outcomes was not surprising. According to the American Cancer Society, melanoma is at least 20 times more common in white adults than black adults. The lifetime risk of a white adult getting melanoma is 2.6 percent compared to 0.1 percent for blacks, and 0.58 percent for Hispanics. 'Although it was less surprising, it could be that minorities might not able to get care or have trouble entering the [healthcare] system,' said Dr Hopkins. 'That would be another interesting hypothesis to explore on a state level.' For future research, the team plans at looking on survival rates within each state and compare survival rates among different socioeconomic groups including by household income and race. 'While survival appears to be improving, that change is not homogeneous,' said Dr Hopkins. 'Some [states] are improving more than others. Identifying those in the system can allow for improvements in the future.' A top US lawmaker launched an investigation into pharmaceutical industry pricing practices on Monday, less than a week after he and fellow Democrats introduced legislation aimed at lowering medicine prices. Representative Elijah Cummings, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, sent letters to 12 drugmakers seeking information on price increases, investment in research and development, and corporate strategies to preserve market share and pricing power, his office said in a statement. Those companies included giants like Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer. Four of them (Novo Nordisk, Amgen, Celgene, and Novartis) said they were reviewing the request. The other drug companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Representative Cummings letter suggests that the companies' pricing schemes may be unfairly driving up costs to a federal subsidy program that covers medications for the elderly and disabled. Drug companies are raising prices for 250 drugs in 2019 even after promising a temporary freeze on prices last year. Representative Elijah Cummings is launching an investigation into pricing schemes and has sent letters requesting explanations to 12 companies These drugs are the costliest to Medicare Part D, a program that helps beneficiaries of the federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled pay for self-administered medicines like those purchased at drugstores, as well as drugs that have had the largest price increases over a five-year period. They include AbbVie's Humira, the world's top-selling medicine that had a price increase at the start of the year, Johnson & Johnson's blockbuster cancer drug Imbruvica and several diabetes medications. President Donald Trump made high prescription drug prices a top issue in the 2016 US presidential campaign and said that drug companies were 'getting away with murder.' The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last year rolled out a plan to lower drug prices and has introduced several modest proposals to curb medicine costs, but Democrats have said Trump and his administration are not doing enough. Several pharmaceutical companies temporarily froze prices on select drugs last year after being criticized by Trump on Twitter. But drugmakers raised prices on more than 250 prescription drugs to begin 2019. Cummings, along with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, introduced three bills last week aimed at lowering drug prices. That legislation would peg US prescription drug prices to the median price from five countries - Canada, Britain, France, Germany and Japan - where drug costs are typically far lower because of government price controls. It would also allow Americans to import medication from Canada and other countries, as well as allow the HHS secretary to negotiate prices in Medicare Part D. (Reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien) The idea that getting outside is good for us is centuries old but it is only recently that science has been able to unravel the multiple and surprising benefits, especially for our eyesight. Short-sightedness, or myopia, is a condition which begins in childhood and isnt simply a case of needing glasses, it is also a leading cause of adult-onset blindness. And the number of people developing myopia is increasing at an alarming rate. In both the UK and the U.S., myopia rates have doubled since the Sixties and continue to rise. In Western Europe some 56 per cent of people are expected to be short-sighted by 2050. Fact: Short-sightedness, or myopia, is a condition which begins in childhood and isnt simply a case of needing glasses, it is also a leading cause of adult-onset blindness Meanwhile, in East Asia the situation is even worse. They are grappling with an epidemic of the condition. In some urban areas, such as Guangzhou, the most populated region of southern China, the prevalence of myopia has reached 90 per cent, whereas 60 years ago just 10 to 20 per cent of the Chinese population was short-sighted. Until recently the textbooks called it a genetic condition, but as Professor Ian Morgan, an expert in vision science from the Australian National University points out, the prevalence of myopia has been rising far faster than can be explained by natural selection. Indeed, when he decided to investigate just how global a phenomenon this rise in myopia was, he discovered that, by the age of seven, the prevalence of it in Australia was 1 per cent, whereas across the water in Singapore it was 30 per cent. This difference could not be explained by genetics among children of Chinese ancestry who had been raised in Australia the rate of myopia was just 3 per cent. The only factor we could think of that differed, was the amount of time kids reported being outdoors, says Professor Morgan. Further studies revealed that, whereas Australian children spend some four to five hours outdoors per day, in Singapore it was more like 30 minutes. Professor Morgans theory that outdoor light might be protective was strengthened by animal experiments conducted at other laboratories. For example, raising baby chickens in low light was found to significantly increase their chances of becoming myopic, and a separate study found that housing chicks in the equivalent of outside light protected them from developing an experimental form of myopia. Furthermore, one study published in the journal PLoS One in 2014 found the most protective effects came not from exposure to continuous light, but to intermittent bright light as we would to experience with the normal night and day cycle. Theory: The theory is that, in the absence of bright daytime light, this rhythm becomes disrupted, resulting in retarded growth of the eyeball Myopia is caused by the eyeball growing too long, resulting in the light from distant objects focusing a short distance in front of the retina (the layer of light sensitive cells at the back of the eye), rather than directly onto it. In severe cases, the inner parts of the eye stretch and thin, resulting in complications such as cataracts, retinal detachment, glaucoma and blindness. The current best guess is that light stimulates the release of the hormone dopamine in the retina, which blocks the elongation of the eye among children (unfortunately, bright light doesnt seem to reverse myopia in adults). Release of dopamine in the retina is regulated by an internal clock and, as well as being needed for normal eye growth, it also acts as a chemical messenger allowing the eye to adapt to differing levels of light. Hence it usually ramps up during the day, enabling the eye to switch from night to daytime vision. The theory is that, in the absence of bright daytime light, this rhythm becomes disrupted, resulting in retarded growth of the eyeball. Ironically, given the impact that myopia can have on childrens education, it is the very desire to see their children excel at school that is contributing to the problem in East Asia. The combination of intensive schooling and a lifestyle that actively discourages children from playing outside is depriving them of daylight an essential ingredient of healthy eye development. Our hypothesis would be that you need to be aiming for four or five hours of outdoor time each day, like Australian children have. Professor Ian Morgan Also, children dont go outside at recess time because theyre told it is bad for their skin, says Professor Morgan. By contrast, in Australia its a punishment if you dont go outside. The prevalence of myopia is also increasing in this country, where we have an iPad generation of youngsters who are more firmly wedded to staying inside with their gadgets than playing outside. Rates have in fact doubled since the Sixties and continue to rise. Once myopia starts, it generally progresses until late adolescence. So if you can delay its onset by even a few years, it is hoped that this may drastically reduce the numbers suffering from severe myopia, with its associated risks. The solution may be relatively simple. In 2009, Professor Morgan launched an ambitious trial to put his theory about the protective effects of outdoor light to the test in Guangzhou. At six randomly selected schools, six- and seven-year-old children would have a compulsory 40-minute outdoor class at the end of each school day. The children were also sent home with activity packs containing umbrellas, water bottles and hats with an outdoor activity logo. They were rewarded if they completed a diary of weekend outdoor activities. Children at six other schools carried on as normal, serving as controls. Three years later, Professor Morgan and his colleagues compared rates of myopia between the two sets of schools: in those with the outdoor intervention, 30 per cent of children had developed myopia, whereas in the control schools it was 40 per cent. That may not sound like much, but the children of Guangzhou were only getting an extra 40 minutes of daylight per day, five days a week during term time and from a very low starting point. Also, barely any families took up the challenge of venturing outdoors more frequently at the weekends. Our hypothesis would be that you need to be aiming for four or five hours of outdoor time each day, like Australian children have, says Professor Morgan. Another U.S. study found that spending ten to 14 hours per week engaged in outdoor and sport activities was associated with approximately half the risk of developing myopia, compared to children doing less than five hours per week. ADAPTED from Chasing The Sun: The New Science Of Sunlight And How It Shapes Our Bodies and Minds by Linda Geddes, (The Wellcome Collection, 14.99). To order a copy for 11.99 (offer valid to next Tuesday, p&p free on orders over 15), visitmailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640. Millions of British teenagers are having sex too early, research suggests. Some 40 per cent of women and 26 per cent of men asked about the experience of losing their virginity said it had not happened 'at the right time', according to a study published in the British Medical Journal. Experts asked nearly 3,000 sexually experienced people, aged 17 to 24, how they felt when they had sex for the first time. They were asked whether both partners had been equally willing to have sex, whether the decision had been due to drunkenness or peer pressure, whether they had been ready to start having sex, and if a reliable method of contraception had been used. Only respondents who answered yes to all four questions were deemed sexually competent. Just 48 per cent of women and 56 per cent of men were sexually competent when they lost their virginity, the researchers judged. Nearly 3,000 people were asked about the experience of losing their virginity. The research was led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine The academics, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, wrote: 'A substantial proportion of young people in Britain become sexually active under circumstances that are arguably incompatible with sexual health, defined in its broad sense, encompassing both physical and psychosocial wellbeing.' Lead author Melissa Palmer said: 'Although the survey results yielded some positive outcomes, such as nearly nine in 10 young people using a reliable method of contraception at first sex, further efforts are required to ensure that the broader wellbeing of young people is protected as they become sexually active. WANT TO BE HAPPY IN YOUR 70S? HAVE SEX ONCE A FORTNIGHT If you are looking for the secret to a happy retirement, cancel the tickets for that world cruise. The key to contentment in later life may be as simple as having sex every fortnight, according to research published in December 2018. Life is significantly more enjoyable if you have an active love life, according to a study of almost 7,000 people with an average age of 65. For men, having sex at least twice a month can lead to happiness, while women are more interested in kissing and the emotional closeness of sleeping with their husband or partner. Researchers led by Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge found older people were far happier if they had made love in the last 12 months, which could be down to feelings of post-coital 'bliss' or the benefits of the exercise involved. Advertisement 'This highlights the importance of comprehensive relationships and sex education, which equips young people with the negotiation and communication skills enabling them to have safe and positive first sexual experiences.' Fellow researcher Kaye Wellings added: 'Age is often used as a determinant of readiness for sex. 'The problem with this measure is it assumes every young person is the same, that they will all wake up on their 16th birthday equipped with the qualities that will enable them to have safe and satisfying sexual experiences. 'Our findings show this isn't the case. 'Every young person is different some 15 year olds may be ready while some 18 year olds are not. 'The features of first sexual intercourse that we've shown to be important to the quality of the experience, such as consensuality, autonomy and protection against unintended pregnancy and infection, are all easily conveyed to young people through effective sex education. 'This can help them to choose an optimal time and situation for becoming sexually active.' A hospital in London will begin freezing the ovaries of women battling cancer on the NHS for the first time. The fertility treatment may help thousands who may have difficulty getting pregnant after chemotherapy to have children later on in life. Experts believe it is more successful than freezing eggs and could be suitable for women who can't have IVF. The procedure involves removing one of a woman's ovaries and freezing it at nearly -200C (-328F), then re-implanting it when the woman wants to get pregnant. Ovary freezing has been used for years in Europe, the US and Japan and in some experimental procedures in the UK, but never on the NHS. The Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, north London, has become the first NHS hospital to offer ovary freezing for women and girls about to have cancer treatment The Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead is now offering the 3,500 service for free to its own patients and potentially those referred from other areas. And the health service plans to extend access to the pioneering therapy through which around 100 babies have been born across the UK. 'We have modelled our protocols on how it is done at one of the largest hospitals in Denmark,' said Paul Hardiman, gynaecologist at the Royal Free. 'They have been freezing human ovarian tissue since 1999. What is infertility? Infertility is when a couple cannot get pregnant despite having regular unprotected sex. It affects one in seven couples in the UK around 3.5 million people. About 84 per cent of couples will conceive within a year if they have unprotected sex every two or three days. Some will conceive quicker, and others later people should visit their GP if they are concerned about their fertility. Some treatments for infertility include medical treatment, surgery, or assisted conception, including IVF. Infertility can affect men and women, and risk factors include age, obesity, smoking, alcohol, some sexually transmitted infections, and stress. Fertility in both genders decreases with age most rapidly in their 30s. Source: NHS Advertisement 'This is a well-established method in Europe, the US and Japan but the UK has lagged behind and patients often faced having to go abroad and pay to receive this treatment. 'At a time when patients need to concentrate on life-saving therapies this intervention needs to take place as quickly as possible.' The treatment involves keyhole surgery to remove an ovary, which is then processed and stored at -196C (320F) until the woman wants to use it again. It will be offered to girls and women going through cancer treatment, because chemotherapy and radiotherapy can leave people infertile. Some can use IVF if they already have a partner in which eggs and sperm are used to make embryos in the lab and freeze them but this isn't suitable for all patients. If a woman has her ovary frozen, when she wants to have a child she can have the tissue put back into her body and connected to the remaining ovary, which will restart her menstrual cycle. This prevents the early menopause which is suffered by many cancer patients. The hospital had to get the approval of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and its go-ahead could open the door for the treatment to be given for other conditions. For example, women could one day choose to freeze their own ovaries if they want to delay having children, or they could be at risk of infertility for other reasons. Louise McLoughlin was just 13 when the very foundations of her happy childhood were ripped from under her. Her parents sat her down one day and told her they had something important to tell her. They revealed that her dad the man who'd loved her, hugged away her tantrums, wiped away her tears and kissed her goodnight might not be her father after all. She'd been conceived through IVF, her parents explained. They had struggled to conceive for years and, to increase their chances, they'd mixed her dad's sperm with that of a donor, meaning there was a 50 per cent chance he was not biologically related to her. Picture shows a close up of female scientist looking to microscope in clinical laboratory over hydrogen chemical formula and DNA molecule structure They had always planned to tell her, and figured that at 13 she was old enough to know the truth. 'That night, I slept in my parents' bed, between them, sobbing,' recalls Louise. 'At an age when I was just figuring out who I was, half of my identity had been torn away.' Haunted by uncertainty, two years later, aged 15, Louise insisted on a DNA test. 'The results confirming my worst fears arrived when Dad was at work,' she recalls. 'I opened the letter and then waited by the front door, announcing the moment he walked through it: 'We got the DNA results. It's not the news we wanted.' 'We hugged in the hall and he held me, while I sobbed, for a long time afterwards.' Nicki Field (second right) discovered when she was 13 that the man she believed was her father was not. She is pictured with her mother and stepfather In the years that followed, while her love for her dad remained steadfast, Louise, now a 27-year-old TV producer from London, felt there had been a seismic shift in how she viewed her place in the family, and indeed herself. 'I'd spend long periods in front of the mirror, figuring out which of my features brown hair, blue eyes, freckles, button nose I'd inherited from my biological father. I used to fantasise about him being a famous guitarist and songwriter.' While this may sound more like the plotline from a soap opera than everyday life, Louise's family is far from the only one left reeling by advances in medical science, which mean that secrets which would previously have gone undiscovered or, at the very least, unproven are now easily exposed. In this brave new world, by paying 50 to a DNA-testing clinic and sending off a saliva swab in the post, it is possible to ascertain who each of us is, and is not, related to. Ancestry websites have sprung up, too, where people can post their DNA profiles to be matched to others all over the world, revealing long-lost relatives and dropping almighty bombshells without warning. While it is impossible to be exact, experts estimate that between 2 and 4 per cent of the population that's up to 2.6 million people in the UK believes one of their parents (usually the father, for obvious biological reasons) is not actually related to them. The implications are huge, both on a personal and societal level. Recently, millionaire Richard Mason, co-founder of comparison website Moneysupermarket.com, revealed how he'd been left 'in pieces' after discovering his three grown-up sons were not biologically his. He'd been diagnosed with the life-limiting medical condition cystic fibrosis, and was told it was not physically possible for him to father children. He then sued his former wife, Kate, who has been ordered to repay 250,000 of her 4 million divorce settlement. Richard's sons a 23-year-old and 19-year-old twins, two of whom refuse to have any contact with him, were no doubt as distraught as their father at the news. Nicki Field (pictured) was devastated and it was many years before she traced the family of the man her mother told her was, in fact, her biological father One of the twins, Joel Mason, says he doesn't know who his biological father is, and doesn't care. 'Dad is a very manipulative man, not the kind of person you want to be with, but he's still my dad and I'm not going to look for my real one,' he explained. Kirsty Ward, a 28-year-old mother of two from London, saw her childhood similarly ripped apart 14 years ago by an envelope marked 'private and confidential'. A DNA test revealed her dad had fathered a baby with her 19-year-old cousin from her mother's side of the family. Within months, Kirsty's parents had divorced and a huge rift opened in the family, which has never healed. 'Even now I feel sick when I think about the day the results came through,' says Kirsty. 'I was sent to my older sister's house while my parents opened the letter, and the moment Mum called I knew from my sister's face that our lives would never be the same. Dad was packing his bags by the time I got home.' The baby, it turned out, had been conceived after Kirsty's father, then 38, and her cousin had unexpectedly met up during a night out. In the throes of labour, her cousin had tearfully revealed the identity of her baby's father, although at first Kirsty's mum following reassurances from her husband insisted this could not be true. A few months later, however, in an attempt to pour cold water on her niece's continuing claims about her baby's parentage, Kirsty's mum, a teacher, insisted her husband take a DNA test. The impact of the result on teenage Kirsty was profound. 'I was desperately unhappy for many years and didn't feel I could trust anyone, which put a huge strain on friendships and relationships,' she says. 'Nor could I speak to anyone in my family about how upset I was because we were all hurting,' says Kirsty. 'My cousin and her family lived five doors away from us, though they moved away after all this, so we had grown up together and were very close.' Recently, Kirsty's half-sister, who is now 14, got in touch with her and the two have managed to build a relationship, despite the past rift. Recently, millionaire Richard Mason, co-founder of comparison website Moneysupermarket.com, revealed how he'd been left 'in pieces' after discovering his three grown-up sons (who he is pictured with) were not biologically his. Theirs is a pain with which Nicki Field, a teacher who, at 50, has just discovered the identity of her biological father, can certainly empathise. Hers has been a long and agonising journey since the day, 37 years ago her 13th birthday when Nicki's mother revealed that the man she had thought was her dad was not. 'He'd bought me a watch and, overcome with joy, I said to Mum: 'It's the best birthday present ever and he is the best dad in the world!' She looked at me, then said: 'He's not even your real dad,' ' recalls Nicki. 'The shock was so overwhelming, a punch in the face would have been less painful. 'They split up six months later and I realise now that the marriage was already on the rocks, so she saw no point in carrying on the pretence.' Nicki's mother had met her stepfather when Nicki was two years old the couple went on to have two daughters of their own. Nicki's biological father, her mum told her, was called Gary Holmes and lived in London. In the days long before there were Google searches and genealogy databases, Nicki had no idea how to trace him. Fast forward three decades to 2014, however, and the married mother of four children, aged between ten and 28, went searching. She managed to find contact details for a brother of Gary Holmes, who, it emerged, had died in 1993. 'Kirsty Ward, a 28-year-old mother of two from London, saw her childhood similarly ripped apart 14 years ago by an envelope marked 'private and confidential'. A DNA test revealed her dad had fathered a baby with her 19-year-old cousin from her mother's side of the family'. She is pictured aged 14 Gary had carried a photograph of Nicki until his dying day but, while his family were very welcoming, DNA tests showed she was not, in fact, related to them. Her mother insisted the test must be wrong, but Nicki, trusting the science, knew otherwise. 'I was so angry with my mum for repeatedly lying to me that I haven't had any contact with her since,' says Nicki, from Kimbolton, Cambridgeshire. 'She never made any attempt to explain or apologise, so I've no idea why she told me my father was one man when he turns out to be someone different. She must have been sleeping with them both.' Nicki sent her DNA for testing to genealogy firm Ancestry.co.uk, and posted the results on sites which match people with shared genes. Finally, in July 2017, she was alerted to someone who was said to be her first cousin. Further investigations revealed that his uncle, a married dad of four, was Nicki's biological father. There was more heartache, however, when the man refused to acknowledge that he'd had an affair with Nicki's mother, or that she is his daughter. 'It was devastating to be told neither he, nor any of his children, with whom I share an obvious resemblance, wanted me in their lives,' says Nicki. 'My mother is black and racism was rife in the Sixties, so, if he knew I existed, that may be the reason he didn't want to know me. 'Most people don't realise the power of DNA tests and the can of worms they can open,' she adds. 'But there are thousands of us in online support groups, such as NPE (Not Parent Expected), who are all too aware. Every day heartbroken members show up saying: 'I've just found out through a DNA test that my dad is not my father.' This deceit destroys lives.' Consultant clinical psychologist Emma Citron, who has counselled patients through the aftermath of this thoroughly modern trauma, agrees it can lead to trust and rejection issues, which can make future relationships untenable. She also fears the numbers affected could soon escalate. 'One of the most popular gifts in the U.S. at Christmas was a 20 DNA test, which means a lot of people will now be processing devastating revelations about their parentage,' she says. 'As with so many trends over there, we're highly likely to see it take off here. 'Those who deceive children about their parentage always say they do so 'with the best intentions', but it can lead to apocalyptic moments which throw their whole lives into turmoil and leave them questioning everything about themselves.' Mandy Booth, 54, had her own 'apocalyptic moment' three years ago when a woman approached her in Sainsbury's and announced that she was her sister. Still living in the small rural town in Yorkshire where she had grown up, Mandy knew the woman vaguely she had been in the same class at school as her younger brother but was baffled by her claim that Mandy's mother had had a fling with this woman's father, and Mandy was the result. Shaken and confused, she headed home and called her mum, who flatly denied the story, insisting that her biological father was the man she had separated from when Mandy and her elder sister were small and whom she had seen only a handful of times since. However, when her mother died several months later, Mandy signed up to the DNA testing site 23andme.com and was contacted by a sibling of the woman she had met in the supermarket. Confirmation that Mandy is indeed their half-sister, and their father's daughter, came through just a few days after he, too, died, by then in his 80s. 'I would have liked the chance to ask him why he'd never told me I was his daughter, because he clearly knew my aunt told his wife that my mum was pregnant with me,' she says. 'I also look just like him, the same bone structure and hazel eyes, as do my daughter and my granddaughter. 'I feel sorry for my mother that she had to lie, but angry, too. My biological father had three sons, including the one in my class, and I shudder to think that I could have unwittingly ended up in a relationship with one of them. 'I know I, and others in this position, have been described as 'a dirty little secret' and that leads to intense feelings of shame, which we don't deserve.' After the test revealed that her cousin's new baby had, in fact, been fathered by her father Kirsty Ward's parents immediately separated and divorced soon afterwards In an era when a drop of saliva, flake of skin or strand of hair can instantly reveal a person's identity, as well as their kith and kin without any of the attendant genetics counselling the NHS provides when testing for hereditary diseases it seems impossible to legislate for the fall-out. Louise McLoughlin's story has a happy ending, though. In 2012, supported by a group which matches donor-conceived adults to their biological family, Louise decided to take a DNA test. Though there has been no match with her father, in 2017, a woman eight months Louise's senior got in touch and, to her delight, turned out to be her half-sister. Her mother had been inseminated with sperm from the same donor. 'We meet up often and message every day,' Louise says. 'I hope that she'll be in my life for ever.' A couple who grew tired of life in suburbia quit the 9-5 to live off grid with their five daughters deep in the Canadian wilderness. Childhood sweethearts Jeff and Rose Burkinshaw left the demands - and comforts - of modern life behind to embark on a quest of self-sufficiency, buying a remote 40-acre plot of land in a forest 500 miles north of Vancouver. The couple lived in a tent with their five daughters - the youngest of whom was just two at the time - as they constructed a eco-friendly home fit to withstand the unforgiving snowfall and -30C temperatures of the Canadian winters. Now Jeff and Rose live almost entirely off the land, in a large part due to the help they receive from daughters Sarah, Abigail, Julia, 13, Christina, 11, and Keziah, 10, who spend the afternoons hunting, felling trees and skinning animals. Their home, which has solar energy, wood burners but no running water, was visited by Ben Fogle on tonight's episode of Channel 5's New Lives in the Wild. Ben Fogle visited the Burkinshaw family, who live in a cabin in the Canadian wilderness, on tonight's episode of New Lives In The Wild. Jeff and Rose live with their five daughters, Sarah, Abigail, Julia, 13, Christina, 11, and Keziah, pictured, who can operate machinery aged 10 Father Jeff took Ben out hunting with daughters Sarah and Christina, 11, who had won a raffle allowing them to hunt moose. The family kill the animals for meat in order to survive Ten-year-old Keziah, pictured, was taught how to fire a gun just days after her tenth birthday, pictured. She was also given her first knife to mark the milestone - just like her sisters had been Fogle visited Jeff and Rose Burkinshaw, pictured with daughters Julia, Sarah, Abigail, Christina and Keziah, outside their home deep in a forest some 500 miles north of Vancouver, Canada The family are almost entirely self-sufficient at home, pictured. Solar panels power the electricity while wood burners keep the house warm during the unforgiving Canadian winters The adventurer and TV presenter spent time with the family in a bid to discover whether the unusual lifestyle is being enforced on the five girls by their parents, or whether it is one they truly embrace. While Fogle was initially dubious, he was ultimately left feeling the Burkinshaws' set-up was the 'perfect escape from the rat race', adding he was 'somewhat in awe'. It was 2011 when Jeff and Rose, who married at the age of 19, decided to sell up Jeff's engineering business and use the money to buy their own slice of forest. The parents worked tirelessly on their home, building three bedrooms and a large open-plan living and kitchen space with large windows looking out to the forest. Home videos show how their daughters were expected to help from a young age, sweeping debris or shoveling small piles of rubble. It was 2011 when childhood sweethearts Jeff and Rose, who married at the age of 19, pictured, decided to sell Jeff's engineering business and use the money to buy their own slice of forest The parents worked tirelessly on their home, pictured, building three bedrooms and a large open-plan living and kitchen space with large windows looking out to the forest Home videos show how their daughters were expected to help from a young age, sweeping debris or shoveling small piles of rubble, pictured There is a three-sided outhouse with views over the forest which the families use most of the year, with two indoor compost toilets coming into service during the winter months. Ultimately the project cost less than $25,000 and left the Burkinshaws with a space where they could live and spend time together without the debts, mortgages and bills that burden so many families. 'I had a mortgage for quite a while and when I got rid of that mortgage, there was a huge part of my brain that was liberated from external responsibilities,' Jeff explained. As Fogle approached the property by car, he noted that the forest was home to 'bears, moose and elk' but far away from 'any signs of human life'. As Fogle approached the property, located behind a bullet-ridden sign, he noted that the forest was home to 'bears, moose and elk' but far away from 'any signs of human life' The home, pictured, boasts large windows with views out over the Canadian forest All five girls attend an online interactive home school, working together across different seats in the large family living room, pictured, but are finished their classes by lunchtime - leaving plenty of time for chores in the afternoon There is a three-sided outhouse with views over the forest which the families use most of the year, with two indoor compost toilets, pictured, coming into service during the winter months Indeed the family rely on the meat from these animals to survive. At the time Fogle visited it was late autumn and the family were building their food stocks for winter, knowing that they would soon find themselves blocked in by as much as 2m of snow. Each of the girls was taught to hunt at the age of 10. 'Age is very important in this house,' mother Rose explained. 'When you turn 10, you get to take the hunting course and you get your first knife. When you turn 12 you get to start welding.' Fogle looked on as Keziah was given her first lesson with a gun just days after her tenth birthday. While initially nervous, she soon settled into the target practice. All five girls attend an online interactive home school, working together across different seats in the large family living room, but are finished their classes by lunchtime - leaving plenty of time for chores in the afternoon. The girls sleep between two bedrooms on bunkbeds: three in one bedroom and two in the other. Pictured, Fogle is shown around the properties by one of the five daughters Presenter Fogle immediately remarks how cosy the home is when he steps inside, pictured, despite the plunging autumn temperatures outside The presenter, himself a father of two, is left in awe of the number of tasks carried out by the girls, from collecting firewood to feeding goats and collecting eggs from the roughly 100 chickens that are kept in a large coop on the property. Fogle joined the Sarah and Abigail as they showed him their own house they were building elsewhere on the property, expertly maneuvering mechanical forklifts, mill saws and chain saws as they chopped and prepped the wood they needed. He joked: 'I'm worried about leaving my kids with little pen knives when they are at home but these girls are using a mill saw and a chain saw, milling pieces of wood for the house.' Elsewhere the presenter looked on as Julia, 13, soldered together the pieces she needed for a goat cart she had designed - her proud father looking on behind. The presenter, himself a father of two, is left in awe of the number of tasks carried out by the girls, including milking the herd of goats, pictured The five girls are also confident chopping wood and often venture out into the forest, pictured Fogle looked on as Julia, 13, soldered together the pieces she needed for a goat cart she had designed - her proud father looking on behind, pictured Fogle, right, also joined the family as they continued to fell trees and chop wood - an essential step of building up their stores to survive through the bitterly cold winter months Fogle noted there was no place for the restrictions of traditional gender roles in the wilderness. 'The girls can do anything that the boys can do,' Rose noted. 'And it's funny because if there are any boys here and they are like "oh, let me do that for you" then the girls are like "I don't need you to do that for me".' While the idea of living 'off grid' might conjure images of solitary figures living in isolation, the Burkinshaws enjoy the company of neighbours - albeit distant ones - gathering for family meals and hunting trips. The girls have also spent some time in the city with their father, but it was clear they were all more than happy with their lives in the wild. As one told him: 'People put a lot more stress on the work that we do and how hard it is but they don't put emphasis on the fun stuff. We've got a lot more flexibility with school schedules... We get to hang out more as a family.' While Fogle was initially dubious, he was ultimately left feeling the Burkinshaws' set-up was the 'perfect escape from the rat race', adding he was 'somewhat in awe'. Pictured, Jeff Burkinshaw heads out into the forest with three of his four young daughters Ten-year-old Keziah is charged with looking after the 100 chickens that live on the family's land The two eldest girls, Sarah and Abigail, are even building their own elevated home on the property, declaring the family home too 'squishy' for all seven family members Fogle left impressed by how Rose and Jeff had managed to create a lifestyle that was suitably adventure filmed and independent, but was still conducive to raising a family of dynamic, well rounded and highly capable young women. He added: 'I have been lucky enough to visit so many people who have escaped the rat race and it is often in an isolationist, individual kind of way. It is often the bearded man in the woods. And there is beauty in that and it can work. 'What I think Rose and Jeff have done, they have made it work for their family. They have maintained sociability. 'These are girls who have friends, these are girls who have fleeces alongside their camoflage jackets, these are girls that can use a computer and can go online but can also go and mill the wood for their own home. 'I think they have created the perfect escape from the rat race. I am somewhat in awe.' This is the moment Meghan accidentally revealed her baby's due date after months of speculation. The Duchess of Sussex, who is six months pregnant, let slip that her first child is expected at the 'end of April or May' while greeting crowds in Birkenhead, Merseyside on Monday. New footage shows Meghan saying that the baby will come 'when it's ready', telling fans: 'We're ready, we're so excited.' She says: 'One of my friends was saying she was five weeks early, so you can never really gauge.' Eileen Athurst, 65, from Wallasey captured the moment on camera and told MailOnline she had waited for an hour in the cold to catch a glimpse of the royals. The Duchess of Sussex , 37, looked stunning in a red wrap coat and matching stilettos worn over a purple dress as she touched down in Merseyside on Monday morning for her first joint engagement with Prince Harry - during which she revealed her due date to waiting crowds Ms Athurst said Harry came over her after spotting her leopard print coat, saying: 'I like your coat. Was it a Christmas present?' Another woman in the crowd then asked Meghan about her baby due date. Eileen recalled: 'I was very surprised by how open she was [but] she came straight out with it. 'They chatted to everybody. I shook hands with both of them and they were so lovely and so friendly.' While Kensington Palace have not publicly revealed Meghan's due date, royal fans had previously speculated that Baby Sussex could be expected as early as March due to her blossoming baby bump. Harry was also heard asking one mother how her daughter Lily's name was spelt, although Meghan insisted that they did not know the sex of their baby. Fellow fan, local woman Kim Thompson, said that Meghan had told her she thought Harry would make a 'fantastic father'. New video footage shows the moment the Duchess of Sussex accidentally revealed baby's due date after months of fevered speculation - telling fans it's due 'April or May' Meghan chats to fans in Merseyside yesterday. Eileen Athurst, 65, from Wallasey took the video and told MailOnline she waited for an hour in the cold to catch a glimpse of the royals In the video, Another woman in the crowd then asked Meghan about her baby due date. Eileen recalled: 'I was very surprised by how open she was, she came straight out with it' The Duchess also chatted to a hypnobirthing teacher, Sonia Richards, who was in the crowd with her mother Marion Mazumder. Sonia, who runs Wirral Hypno, said: 'I told her I teach hypnobirthing and she said, 'It's such a special thing that you are doing'. She looked radiant, she looked really well and I just wished her a wonderful birth.' Marion added: 'I said I am looking forward to the baby coming and she said, 'So are we.'' The 37-year-old told a young girl in the crowd that neither she or husband Prince Harry know the sex of their first child and were 'keeping it as a surprise'. Baby on board! Meghan, 37, revealed that she is six months pregnant with her first child expected in April as she chatted to well-wishers in the northwest town of Birkenhead during her and Prince Harry's first joint engagement of the year A gift for baby Sussex? The Duke and Duchess are festooned with gifts as they undertake a royal walkabout amongst the large crowds, many of whom had been queuing for hours to catch a glimpse of the royal couple on Monday morning Kitty Dudley, nine, from St Anne's Primary School in nearby Rockferry, said: 'Meghan came up to me and asked me how old I was and where I went to school. 'I could see her bump and I asked if she was having a boy or a girl and she said 'we don't know whether it's a boy or girl, we are keeping it as a surprise'. Megan Redford, seven, quizzed the Duchess on baby names saying: 'She asked me if I was called Meg or Meghan because she said her friends call her Meg and mine do as well. 'I asked her whether she would call her baby Amy if she has a girl and she said 'That's a really pretty name, I like it, we'll have to think about it'. The couple announced they were expecting their first child in October, coinciding with their first major overseas tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga. Reese Witherspoon has baffled fans with her ten year challenge pictures that show the actress hasn't aged a day. On Monday, the 42-year-old Big Little Lies actress decided to follow in suit of other people on Instagram and share a throwback picture of herself next to a current picture. 'Time sure does fly when you are having fun!!' Reese wrote for the caption after sharing two pictures of herself in black dresses that were ten years apart. Fountain of youth: Reese Witherspoon, 42, shared with followers her ten year challenge pictures on Instagram Monday. Pictured right is the throwback from 2009 and left is current Twins: The actress, pictured with her daughter Ava in October, appeared to not age a day since her throwback picture True: Country Living magazine joked that Reese was the next Benjamin Button because she appeared just as youthful now Hilarious: Instagram's Eva Chen asked if the actress was Dorian Gray based on her comparison pictures But the picture left most fans baffled who couldn't see a single difference in the before and after picture except that Reese has since grown her blond hair out. Country Living Magazine hilariously commented on the picture: 'Benjamin Button remake staring Reese Witherspoon, coming to theaters in 2029!' Other comments poured in saying the mom of three hasn't aged a day since the 2009 throwback picture. 'Are you Dorian Gray?' Instagram's Evan Chen commented on the picture after it was posted. Commenters also pretended to not know which one could be the younger version of Reese because of how little the differences were between the two pictures. 'Which one is from 09?' One fan asked after seeing the throwback picture. Another person joked: 'C'mon...10 years Reese, not 10 days.' Fair point: Another fan stated that Reese could post a 20 year picture and they would still look similar Read up! Reese recently published a book entitled Whiskey in a Teacup, and one fan wanted to know if her youthful secrets might be inside Curious: One commenter asked which picture was the throwback because they both looked so similar Agreed: Most fans were in agreement that the actress appeared to never age Gorgeous women: Reese showed how youthful looks might just be in her genes after a recent picture with her daughter Ava and mother in Vogue magazine Recently the actress appeared on the February cover for Vogue. Included in the issue was also a picture of the actress standing alongside her mother and 19-year-old daughter, Ava Phillipe. Good genes might just run in the family because all three women looked youthful while posing for the cover story. In the magazine, Reese spoke about the need for their to be more female-led projects in Hollywood that boosted up the gender. 'The idea is to put women at the center of the story,' she told the magazine. Reese played a key role in the Time's Up movement that was founded at the start of 2018. 'I was sick of making movies where I was the only female lead on the set,' she continued. 'I was sick of seeing scripts where there was one female role, badly written, and yet every actress in town wanted the part because there was nothing else.' The actress had an incredible year in 2018 after starring in the hit HBO show Big Little Lies and releasing her own book entitled Whiskey in a Teacup. Marla Maples is peak Marla Maples in the Caribbean this week. The 55-year-old former model and Mrs. Trump has been island-hopping for the past few days, enjoying the sun, the beach, and the scenery in such places as St. Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and now Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. And on Monday, she embraced all things wellness and luxury as she performed a series of limber yoga poses on the deck of a yacht. Living it up! Marla Maples shared photos of herself doing yoga on a yacht in the Caribbean this week Limber lady: The 55-year-old looked trim and toned in a sporty bikini as she stretched in the sun Yoga lover: She advised her followers, 'Yoga works and breathing deep into any pain we may feel allows the oxygen to flow and healing and relief to come' Shortly after Marla spent Christmas with her daughter Tiffany, Tiffany jetted off to Hong Kong while Marla stayed back in New York. But last Wednesday, she popped up on the Caribbean for a warm and sunny holiday. One of the highlights was surely her yacht yoga, which she performed on a blue mat while wearing a sporty two-piece swimsuit by Live!, a Brazilian brand. 'Ok so honestly...the best natural lighting ever...' she gushed, captioning the photo. 'Thanks to the magical sea and sunlight of Caribbean. 'So after the 4 1/2 mile hike straight up and down Gros Piton my quads were so sore, and my toes and most everything else, but this pose, I believe called Swan in #Yoga and the others to follow were so helpful to stretch out the soreness, especially the quads. '#yoga works and breathing deep into any pain we may feel allows the oxygen to flow and healing and relief to come. Try it,' she concluded, adding a smiley face. She also noted in a comment that she and her companions took a dip, too, enjoying the opportunity to swim with the fish. Sore muscles: She said she needed the yoga after a strenuous hike in St. Lucia She wrote: 'So after the 4 1/2 mile hike straight up and down Gros Piton my quads were so sore, and my toes and most everything else' Up high: She and three other women ascended the 771 meter high Gros Piton The hiking that wore out her muscles happened just hours earlier. Marla shared a few snaps from the outing, showing her posing with a trio of other women as they ascended the 771 meter high Gros Piton in St. Lucia. She opted for a T-shirt, jean shorts, and sneakers for the hike, striking some more yoga poses as a sweeping view appeared behind her. 'Truth be known, I held these postures maybe a huge split second each after making it to the top of #GrosPiton a World Heritage Site near the town of Soufriere in #Saintlucia. 'The Pitons are 2 beautiful and mountainous volcanic plugs with the greenest jungles but pathways of rock which we carefully navigated upwards then down again. Ahhhh....' Captioning another photo from a similar hike days earlier, she wrote: 'All hands and toes were needed as we pushed ourselves emotionally and physically to reach the top of the majestic but very rocky Pitons... 'We supported each other, stayed focused and even sang some Broadway show tunes on the long path back down. Saying thank you to unexpected challenges and the courage to face them and for the healing sea to soothe our newly acquired aches .' Just chilling: From pictures, it seems they hiked the mountain twice, but later Marla was able to enjoy the view from the water Wildlife: She also went for a swim and visited a turtle sanctuary Good weather: The former Mrs. Trump went island-hopping for a week to escape the New York City cold The hike was certainly one of the more strenuous activities from her trip, which also included swimming, several boat outings, a visit to a turtle sanctuary, and a few stops to enjoy the sunrise and sunset. Natural wonders: She also shared quite a few photos of sunrises and sunsets For one such sunset, Marla shared a photo on Instagram of the colorful sky touching the water, while commenting on it in her signature spiritual and philosophical fashion. 'Its so beautiful when you see the light and the dark come together Realizing on the other side of the dark cloud is a bright light just waiting to shine... the challenge is appreciating it all... trusting the path... and moving forward,' she wrote. And just before leaving to head back to New York on Tuesday, she wrote again. 'Sunrise at sea ... thank you Caribbean for filling our hearts with your beauty, life-force and adventure ... 6am this morning... as we sail back north.' She told a follower that though she is 'coming home soon to that cold air' in New York where temperatures are in the 30s she is luckily doing so 'with a suntan'. Jamie Oliver has defended his decision to release a food-to-go range in partnership with Shell petrol stations. The collection of wraps, sandwiches, salads, hot pots and sushi was launched in London today and will be rolled out in 500 Shell service stations across the UK from the end of the month. Oliver, 43, has faced criticism over the 5million deal, with some claiming it undermines his role as a UN environmental champion. Jamie Oliver has defended his decision to release a food-to-go range in partnership with Shell petrol stations. He launched the range by serving some of the products to London cab drivers on Tuesday, pictured Jamie Oliver hands out food at his pop-up cafe in Russell Square, London, to announce the launch of Jamie Oliver deli by Shell. The chef has faced criticism over the partnership, with some claiming it undermines his role as an environmental champion But the chef hit back today, saying: 'I think I've earned trust over the last 20 years and I would hope that people think I've thought about it correctly. I can stick up for what's in the stores and where it's come from.' The 80 Jamie Oliver Deli by Shell products contain an average of 69 per cent more fruit and vegetables than Shell's previous food-to-go offerings. He launched the deli range today, which will be available from 31 January, by serving a selection of his new products to London cabbies. The chef said he hopes the range will prompt further change across the food-to-go sector. Jamie Oliver and Istvan Kapitany - Executive Vice President Shell Retail (centre), hand out food at the cafe. The 80 Jamie Oliver Deli by Shell products contain an average of 69 per cent more fruit and vegetables than Shell's previous food-to-go offerings 'My job's to work for the British public and push Shell to be the best that we can be and also to disrupt the market,' he said. 'If we want Britain to be in a healthier, more productive place in 15 to 20 years, we absolutely need businesses to be on that journey.' Among the critics of Oliver's partnership with Shell has been Welsh Labour MP Anna McMorrin, who is on the Commons' Environmental Audit Committee. She criticised Oliver in an interview with the Daily Mirror last year, saying: 'Climate change is the major issue facing all of us. Jamie Oliver said he hopes the range will prompt further change across the food-to-go sector. Pictured, the chef speaks to Milan Charles and Carol Holness outside the pop-up cafe 'We have seen Sir David Attenborough addressing the UN Climate Change conference about the need to be taking this seriously.' 'If Jamie Oliver is there promoting something that exploits fossil fuel, then that's not taking it seriously.' Shell is one of the world's largest oil companies, although it is considered an industry leader in the move from fossil fuels to green energy. Last month it declared it intends to double the amount it spends on green energy to $4bn (3.2bn) a year. Jamie was named as an 'environmental champion' three years ago on the United Nations Environment Programme's website. A mother-of-four who sustained horrifying injuries in a violent attack by her husband has revealed her disappointment in the judge who let him walk free from court. Lindsay Cowell, 38, from Preston, Lancashire was initially happy with furniture trader John Cowell, 39, but over time, her ex-husband began to control every aspect of her life, even recording her conversations by bugging her handbag. Following a horrific physical assault last year, Lindsay was left suffering cartilage damage to her knee and hearing damage, but feels cheated after a judge imposed a suspended sentence, meaning he served no time behind bars. 'I think the judge will look at this now and realise he's made a mistake,' Lindsay said, during an appearance on This Morning. 'People have seen this now and it's got very public. It's wrong. Other people need to come forward.' However, a retired judge appeared on the show to explain the thinking behind the suspended sentence - and said that the fact that he has a criminal record is also a type of punishment. Lindsay Cowell, 38, from Preston, Lancashire, appeared on This Morning earlier to slam the criminal justice system after her abusive husband walked free The mum-of-four was left suffering cartilage damage to her knee, nightmares and flashbacks and is now warning other women to speak up. Pictured, Lindsey after the attack John Cowell, 39, (left) was given a 15-month sentence, suspended for 18 months. He also imposed an 18-day rehabilitation requirement, a restraining order and 2,000 in compensation. The couple met back in 2010 at a local pub John Cowell, who pleaded guilty to causing his soon-to-be ex wife Lindsay actual bodily harm and breaching a non-molestation order, was given a 15-month sentence, suspended for 18 months. Simon Medland QC also imposed an 18-day rehabilitation requirement, a restraining order and 2,000 in compensation. Retired judge Lindsey Kushner took to the sofa to explain why he is not behind bars. 'The way judges deal with it is first of all see whether a prison sentence is necessary, which in this case is obviously yes, then you have to work out how long it's supposed to be. 'I hasten to add the sentence of 15 months, after he's pleaded guilty, because you get discount for that, means that the sentence the judge originally had in mind and eventually passed, is higher than average.' She added: 'It's outside the normal range for this type of offence, so he's obviously taken into account the aggravating features here.' Above, Lindsay shows just a few of the injuries she suffered at the hands of her husband John Cowell - who repeatedly punched her during a violent attack 'As far as the public is concerned they just think of the defendant walking straight out of the court without having to serve any prison time. 'From a judges point of view we think of it as a prison sentence passed which is on his record - it's just a case of whether he has to serve it immediately or not.' Speaking of how she met John back in 2010 in her local pub in Preston, Lindsay said: 'He was lovely at first. He was everything I wanted a guy to me. I was infatuated by him.' They moved in together but Lindsay claims it was on New Years Eve 2011 that he became abusive towards her for the first time. I was in the same pub and someone come over, touched me on the shoulder and approached me,' she alleged on the show. 'He slapped me across the face and called me a t***. I thought he was jealous and just really liked me. I didnt realise he was a violent person. He grew increasingly controlling and stopped her from seeing friends and family. On one occasion - the night before her sister's wedding - Cowell returned home from the pub and launched a violent attack that left Lindsay in need of a hearing aid which she still needs today. 'When he arrived home he was extremely drunk and fell over the step of the door,' explained Lindsay. 'He got extremely angry. He grabbed me by the arm and rolled up his sleeves before he started punching me. 'Then, he grabbed hold of my hair which was in a bun and pushed it towards the chip pan which was spitting fat in my eye. 'He dragged me through the hallway by my ankles, and I hit my pubic bone which cause a hematoma.' Following the horrifying ordeal, Lindsay's daughter encouraged her to call the police and report her abusive husband. 'To anyone in an abusive relationship - leave,' she added. He told me, "if you leave me you'll have nothing". It's only now I look back and think that was crazy - why did I believe him?' A woman is taking the Januhairy movement one step further by dyeing her armpit hair all the colours of the rainbow. When Emerald Jade, 24, from Arkansas first began to sprout body hair as a teenager, she removed it by shaving, which would irritate her sensitive skin. Eventually, tired of her skin flaring up, she vowed to ditch razors for good when she was 20. Then, last year, she took things even further and started to dye her armpit fuzz. This January she even dyed her armpit hair bright pink, to celebrate the JanuHAIRY movement. British student Laura Jackson, of Warwickshire, launched the JanuHairy movement earlier this month, which aims to normalise body hair and encourage women to grow out their own. Emerald, who is currently single, said: 'In my experience, men don't mind it. It's something a little different. I've never had any negative comments. 'It also makes me feel much more confident and empowered, which helps with dating.' Emerald Jade, 24, from Arkansas is taking the Januhairy movement one step further by dyeing her armpit hair all the colours of the rainbow Hair stylist Emerald first began to sprout body hair as a teenager, but shaving it would irritate her sensitive skin so now she lets her armpit hair grow out Hair stylist Emerald said: 'The only colours I haven't been are red and orange, just as I don't like them all that much. But everything else pink, purple, green you name it, I've done it. 'I started out dyeing my pit hair as a bit of fun, but now I feel much more confident and empowered.' Though supporters have got behind Januhairy in their thousands, and strong celebrity women like Miley Cyrus and Madonna have also happily displayed their body hair, the idea has been met with some resistance. Emerald claims that her colourful body hair helps to give her confidence when she goes on dates, and insist that men don't seem to mind Strangers on the street also notice her vivid armpit hair when she shows it off in warmer months but no-one has reacted too badly, she said. 'Luckily, I have never had anyone say anything negative to my face - but because I don't attempt to hide my body hair, I do get people staring,' she continued. 'I think people feel awkward because it isn't the norm for women to have body hair let alone bright pink body hair. 'Other people's opinions don't bother me, though. It is ridiculous that, in 2019, women are still pressured to shave or wax. Emerald said of her colourful hair: 'Growing it makes me feel much more confident and empowered, which helps with dating' 'Body hair is a personal choice, and what I do with my armpits is up to me, and no different to what someone chooses to do with their head hair or eyebrows.' Growing up, Emerald told how she initially removed her armpit hair with a razor, or by waxing, when it first appeared, but it made her sensitive skin break out in a rash and feel sore. 'Eventually, I thought, 'Why am I doing this?' she said. 'I realised I would rather be comfortable and odd, than make myself uncomfortable trying to blend in.' From there, Emerald decided to grow out all of her body hair, including her legs, which she once dyed bright purple as an 'experiment' when she was 20. 'It didn't really show up much,' she laughed. 'It was more of a purple glow not worth the bother really.' At first, she would occasionally trim her armpit fuzz with scissors when it grew too long but, as of 2018, she no longer does even that. Laura Jackson, of Warwickshire, launched the Januhairy movement, which aims to normalise body hair and encourage women to grow out their own One of the biggest misconceptions around growing out underarm hair, she said, is that it is somehow unhygienic. 'If it's so unhygienic, why do men have armpit hair as the norm? Nobody ever mentions hygiene to them, so that argument doesn't stand up,' said Emerald. 'I personally haven't found body odour to be an issue I just use deodorant, like everybody else. 'Body hair is supposed to be there, that's why it grows. It has a function and letting it grow out is just allowing it to do that function.' Last year, around the same time Emerald decided to stop even trimming her hair, she also opted to dye it at home one day, purely as a 'bit of fun'. The process taking around an hour, she started by applying bleach to remove the hair's natural colour, ensuring more dramatic results. Next, she coated on a layer of fuchsia pink colourant from an at-home kit. Pleased with the results, she then uploaded a snap of her psychedelic pits to Instagram. 'I wasn't sure what reaction I'd get, but people loved it,' she said. 'My immediate family thought it was a little odd, but my friends thought it was great. 'Body hair is supposed to be there, that's why it grows. It has a function and letting it grow out is just allowing it to do that function,' Emerald explained 'Stopping shaving myself has even inspired some of them to do the same not completely, but just cutting down to whatever they are comfortable with.' Since then, Emerald has continued to experiment with dye, which she said has made her more confident, as it has helped her realise body hair is not something to feel insecure about. She posts a lot of snaps to Instagram, under the hashtag 'pony pits'. Now, she hopes to reduce the stigma that she believes comes with women embracing their body hair. She continued: 'Each to their own, is my motto. There is nothing wrong with growing or removing your body hair it's up to you. 'But I think those that believe it's strange to see a woman embracing her hair need to ask themselves why that is. Why should it matter what somebody else does with their body? She is well known for her love of monochrome but the Duchess of Sussex surprised royal watchers when she stepped out in a purple and red ensemble on Monday. Pregnant Meghan, 37, made a departure form her more subtle wardrobe attending her engagement in Birkenhead wearing a bright red coat from Canadian brand Sentaler. And adding yet another pop of colour the mother-to-be opted for a purple dress from Babaton by Aritizia dress and a pair of court shoes in the same shade as her coat. Eagle-eyed royal fans have pointed out that the colour palette was one favoured by her late mother-in-law, Diana, Princess of Wales. The Duchess of Sussex stepped away from her usual monochrome colour palette yesterday, instead favouring clashing tones of red and purple The colour combination is a known favourite of her late mother-in-law Princess Diana who was first seen wearing the colours during a state dinner in Thailand in 1988 (pictured) People points out that Prince Harry's mother had opted the unusual colour combination on more than one occasion, first back in 1988. The late royal wore a one-shouldered scarlet ball gown with a violet sash to a state dinner in Thailand that year. And just one year on Diana flaunted the colour combination once again during a state visit to Hong Kong. The ensemble saw the mother-of-two pair a purple skirt with matching shoes and hat, featuring a red ribbon and then a cropped jacket in a scarlet shade. And just one year on Diana flaunted the colour combination once again during a state visit to Hong Kong in 1989 (seen here) She wore the very same ensemble for one of her most iconic appearances when she posed solo at the Taj Mahal back in 1992 (pictured) And she returned to bright look once more, wearing the very same outfit sans hat during her iconic visit to the Taj Mahal where she posed solo for photos in 1992. It seems that Meghan was inspired by her mother-in-law's love of bright colours for her engagement on Monday. The Duchess of Sussex relied on an old favourite when it came to the designer, opting for a red version of the Sentaler coat she had worn to her first Sandringham Christmas back in 2017. She also owns a camel version of the 1,085 coat from the Canadian brand which she was able to tie at the waist during her first royal Christmas. Meghan relied on an old favourite when it came to her ensemble on Monday, wearing a red version of the Sentaler coat she was spotted in during her first Christmas at Sandringham The Duchess of Sussex wore the camel version of the baby alpaca coat when she joined Prince Harry for the royal celebrations in 2017 (pictured) When it came to her hair the mother-to-be relied on her signature low bun for a busy day of engagements in the down of Birkenhead However, with her baby bump now bigger than ever the former actress wore the scarlet version open allowing her purple Babaton by Aritizia dress to peak through. Meghan completed her ensemble today with a pair of rouge stiletto court shoes and could be seen carrying a tan leather bag costing 1,695 by Gabriela Hearst. The Uruguay based designer describes herself as creating 'honest luxury' taking ethics 'and key values' into consideration while designer her bags. When it came to her hair the mother-to-be relied on her signature low bun for a busy day of engagements in the town of Birkenhead. Australia has been rocked by scorching temperatures over the last few weeks with no relief in sight. With this in mind NSW Health has issued a number of warnings about placing blankets, towels and light cloths over prams to cover up babies. While it may seem as though you're just harmlessly providing your child with shade, without significant airflow under the covering there is a significant increase of heat suffocation. Does your pram look like this? NSW Health has issued a number of warnings about placing blankets, towels and light cloths over prams to cover up babies Overheating and re-breathing in carbon dioxide can also increase the baby's risk of SIDS. Queensland Children's Hospital director of paediatric medicine Dr David Levitt has suggested that temperatures under the covering can be 15C higher than the outside air temperature. 'The combination of no airflow, heavier clothes and the babies' poorer temperature regulation lead to potential heat injury which can be life-threatening,' Dr Levitt told The Sunday Mail. Queensland Children's Hospital director of paediatric medicine Dr David Levitt has suggested that temperatures under the covering can be 15C higher than the outside air temperature Parents are being advised by Queensland Health to keep babies out of the sun between 11am and 5pm as a precaution. 'An enclosed pram can get very hot; try to ensure that the air circulates around your baby by removing the back panel (if possible) or placing them in more open strollers,' their website states. The NSW Health website advises that hot weather can affect your baby or child because their bodies cannot adjust to changes in temperature as well as adults. Babies and children sweat less, reducing their bodies' ability to cool down, and they generate more heat during exercise than adults. Mother-of-two Emma Lovell (centre), who lives on Sydney's Northern Beaches, was noticing a number of parents using inappropriate coverings during the warmer months and wanted to raise the alarm Heat can also make existing illnesses worse. Mother-of-two Emma Lovell, who lives on Sydney's Northern Beaches, was noticing a number of parents using inappropriate coverings during the warmer months and wanted to raise the alarm. She designed a product called CoziGo which is made of a breathable mesh that blocks out 97 per cent of the light without covering the child entirely. She designed a product called CoziGo which is made of a breathable mesh that blocks out 97 per cent of the light without covering the child entirely The NSW Health website advises that hot weather can affect your baby or child because their bodies cannot adjust to changes in temperature as well as adults (CoziGo pictured) 'Living on Sydney's Northern Beaches, I'd often take bub for a walk along the coast and it's a common sight to see parents covering their baby's stroller with a blanket or towel thinking they're keeping bub safe from the sun and blocking distractions,' she explained. 'However, poor circulation of air combined with the wrap following the line of the stroller means baby can pull the wrap in causing a choking or suffocation hazard. 'What ensued was designing a product that is 100% breathable, has a Sun Protection Factor of 50+, still allows baby to see out of either side of the cover, and a pop-dome shape (so it can't be kicked off by little legs, pulled by little fingers, or blown off in the wind), ensuring the sleeping environment is safe and comfortable for bub.' The CoziGo can be purchased from their website for $99.95. Ashley Bush enjoyed a wild bachelorette party weekend filled with dancing and singing as she and her closest friends took the Big Apple by storm. The 30-year-old bride-to-be celebrated her last days as a single woman with her sister, Lauren Bush Lauren, and her mom, Sharon Bush, who both took to Instagram to share videos and photos from their raucous night out in New York City. 'When your sister/best-friend/mini is getting married soon, you dance all night long!' Lauren, 34, captioned an image of herself posed with Ashley. Scroll down for video All smiles: Ashley Bush (right) enjoyed a weekend-long bachelorette party with her sister, Lauren Bush Lauren (left), over the weekend Having a blast: Their mother, Sharon, shared a photo of Ashley dancing the night away The lookalike sisters are both flashing open-mouth smiles for the camera, but Ashley is decked out in a veil and a sash as the bride to be. Their 66-year-old mother, Sharon, also took part in the festivities, and she happily posted pictures from the weekend, starting with two group shots that were taken inside Soho House's new Brooklyn club Dumbo House. The top half of the split image shows Sharon standing behind her daughters and their friends as they pose for a photo. Ashley has a crown on top of her head and is wearing a flashy necklace made up of light-up letters. Living it up: Sharon, 66, and Ashley, 30, wore matching penis necklaces as they danced on chairs at Little Prince restaurant in Soho FYI: 'The necklace not my idea...' Sharon joked while posting a video from the outing The second snapshot shows Ashley smiling brightly while posing with five of her party guests. According to the proud mom, her daughter's bachelorette weekend started 'strong' with an AM IntenSati class.' Created by Patricia Moreno, IntenSati is a workout that combines high-intensity cardio with positive affirmations. Sharon posted a snapshot of herself and the other bachelorette weekend attendees flexing for the camera after their workout. Later that evening, the group headed to Little Prince restaurant in Soho, where they danced on chairs and shook maracas during Ashley's Mama Mia-themed bash. Sisters: 'When your sister/best-friend/mini is getting married soon, you dance all night long!' Lauren, 34, captioned an image of herself posed with Ashley Good times: In another clip, Ashley is seen enthusiastically singing 'Chapel Of Love' with her friends Yum: Ashley was given her own special desert during the celebratory dinner A video that was taken at the restaurant shows Ashley dancing alongside her mom to Ciara's hit song '1, 2 Step' and they are both wearing cheeky penis necklaces. 'This is what happens when your youngest daughter is about to be married. Mama Mia party,' Sharon captioned the clip. 'The necklace not my idea..' In another clip, Ashley is seen enthusiastically singing 'Chapel Of Love' with her friends. Sharon couldn't resist posting a picture of her youngest daughter dancing with heart-shaped sunglasses on her face, writing: 'Love this baby girl!! #mysweetgirl #grownuptoofast.' She also posted a snapshot of her daughters together, calling them 'forever friends.' Night out: Ashley wore a crown as she and her party guests posed for photos inside Soho House's new Brooklyn club Dumbo House Close as can be: The bride-to-be also took a snapshot with five of her other friends Working up a sweat: The group kicked off the weekend with an IntenSati class, a workout that combines high-intensity cardio with positive affirmations In addition to Ashley and Lauren, Sharon has a 32-year-old son, Pierce Bush, who married his wife, Sarahbeth Melton, in Colorado last spring. Although it's no surprise that he wasn't at his little sister's bachelorette party, their cousins Barbara Bush and Jenna Bush Hager also appeared to be absent from the bash, even though they are both live in New York City. At the 37, the twin sisters are much older than Ashley and are closer in age to her sister, Lauren. Barbara and Jenna both attended Pierce's nuptials last May, and they'll likely be present when Ashley says 'I do.' It's been over a year since Lauren celebrated her sister's engagement to her fiance Julian LeFevre on Instagram, and the family has been excitedly planning their upcoming nuptials. In September, Sharon posted a picture of herself with her three children and their respective partners, minus Lauren's husband, David Lauren, who appeared to absent from the family trip. Getting ready: Ashley got engaged to her fiance Julian LeFevre in Iceland in December 2017. Sharon shared this photo of them wedding planning in Austin, Texas, in September All together: Ashley and Jules also did some wedding planning in Houstin with her mom, her sister, her brother, Pierce Bush, and his wife, Sarahbeth Melton 'Wedding planning with the family in Houston Texas. Ashley and Jules! A lot of cooks in the kitchen...#austintx #cowboysandgirls,' she captioned the image. She later shared an picture of just Ashley and Jules, writing: 'Cutest couple- wedding planning in Austin,Texas...' Sharon's children were raised in Texas, and while it's unclear which city they plan on having the wedding, it seems like the nuptials will take place in Ashley's home state. Ashley, Lauren, and Pierce are grandchildren to President George H.W. Bush and the daughters of President George W. Bush's brother Neil. Neil and Sharon divorced in 2003 after 23 years of marriage; a year later, he married his current wife, Maria Andrews. A proud mother has revealed how the Duke and Duchess of Sussex sent her children a belated thank you note after they invited the royal couple for afternoon tea. Kelwyn White explained her children, Maddie, Finn, Sienna and Hamish, had written to the couple and offered to host them at their New South Wales home during the royal tour of Australia in October last year. Posting on Twitter this week, Kelwyn, who works for the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, told how her children were 'super excited' to receive a personalised response from a Kensington Palace aide on behalf of the royal couple. Kelwyn White explained her children, Maddie, Finn, Sienna and Hamish, pictured, wrote to the couple and offered to host them at their New South Wales home during the royal tour of Australia in October last year. The family received a belated thank you note this month The note, typed on Kensington Palace letterhead, pictured in a photo shared by Kelwyn, explained Harry and Meghan had asked that the children be thanked for their 'lovely letter' The proud mother said her children were 'super excited' to receive the thoughtful response from a Kensington Palace staff member on behalf of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex The note, typed on Kensington Palace letterhead, explained Prince Harry, 34, and Meghan, 37, had asked that the children be thanked for their 'lovely letter'. The children were also thanked for sending a 'delightful' suggested menu. It went onto apologise for the delay in reply, saying the couple had received an 'enormous volume of correspondence' in the last few months and that it was taking 'much longer to respond than usual'. The heartfelt letter was accompanied by four black and white photos of Harry and Meghan at the wedding as a 'special thank you' for each of the children. Kelwyn shared news of the royal response with a photo of her children beaming with their royal photographs. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, pictured in Sydney, were asked whether they wanted to join the children for afternoon tea during their royal your of Australia in October last year A number of Kelwyn's followers shared their joy over the children receiving the response and claimed to be delighted. The post was also shared by a number of royal fan accounts on social media. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex's trip to Australia was the couple's first official Royal tour since their marriage. The 16-day occasion consisted of visits to the Sydney Harbour, Sydney Opera House and Taronga Zoo. A number of responses to Kelwyn's post appeared to be delighted for the children Throughout their time in Australia, Harry and Meghan met more than 2,000 well-wishers and received a number of tokens of admiration. Kensington Palace has previously sent letters to a number of members of the public thanking them for kind messages following Meghan and Harry's wedding. The Palace has also been known to send letters to individuals who wrote congratulating the birth of each of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's children. In instances of individuals sending the Royals wedding gifts along with letters, the Palace has made a decision to send back items from commercial organisations or artists. Temperatures are dropping and that means one thing time to pile on some more layers. Fortunately as seen on the fall/winter runways in Milan, Paris and Germany topping your outerwear is 'in' this season. Throwing a cashmere blanket or a colorful stole over your shoulders is the simplest way to look effortlessly chic and keep warm in the cold. Blanket dressing: Blanket toppers were seen on the runways at Alexander McQueen Trending: A model came down the runway Breuninger with a blanket resting on her forearm, while Isabel Marant incorporated a Navajo-inspired throw into her fall collection Blankets were the final touches of several looks that came down the runways of Alexander McQueen, Breuninger and Isabel Marant. McQueen opted for oversize silhouettes that resembled capes, while Breuninger used solid color blankets as accent pieces draped over the models' forearms. Navajo-style throws rounded out Parisian designer Isabel Marant's edgy fall/winter offerings, while Dawid Tomaszewski fearlessly paired ankle-length plaid blankets with graphic prints, florals and even leopard. Hallelujah! The cozy trend is accessible (everybody has one!) practical (i.e. warm!) yet fun and statement-making, too. Fashion is fun: Dawid Tomaszewski fearlessly paired ankle-length plaid blankets with graphic prints, florals and even leopard throws rounded out Parisian designer Isabel Marant's edgy fall/winter offerings. Plaid is rad: Sonia Rykiel topped her wool coats with tartan blanket-scarves The simplest way to rock your blanket a la Berlin-based blogger, Aylin Koenig, is to carelessly throw it over your shoulders. The social media star paired her rainbow Loewe blanket with a purple knit top, distressed jeans and Gucci loafers The simplest way to rock your blanket a la Berlin-based blogger, Aylin Koenig, is to carelessly throw it over your shoulders. The social media star paired her rainbow Loewe blanket (below) with a purple knit top, distressed jeans and Gucci loafers. To avoid letting the shapeless throw swallow up your frame, reach for separates that are fitted and won't add more bulk. For hand mobility, fasten one end of the blanket to the other with a brooch at your shoulder. SHOP IT: Left: Women's Print Reversible Shawl Wrap by Lands'End, now $34.97; landsend.com. Right: Skull wool and cashmere-blend shawl by Alexander McQueen, $645; matchesfashion.com Left: Tartan virgin-wool blanket scarf by Sonia Rykiel, now $447; matchesfashion.com. Right: Fringed jacquard-knit wrap by Etro, $1,140; net-a-porter.com Left: Cashmere Bicolor Cape by Lafayette 148, $698; lafayette148ny.com. Right: Fringed metallic crochet-knit wrap by Missoni, now $552; net-a-porter.com Colorful stoles are having a moment on the streets. And for good reason, as the touch of fluff can add personality to just about any ensemble and make last year's coat feel like new. Unlike blanket dressing, a stole acts as an accent piece or centerpiece, so opt for a style that complements the rest of your outfit. London based fashion and lifestyle blogger, Anisa Sojka, brightened up her navy look with a striped stole resting on her shoulder. Give a basic trench or wool coat a much needed boost with a faux collar in a bold color or print. To really set yourself apart from the crowd, rework the piece by wearing it diagonally across your torso. A fur stole is versatile and works for any occasion from day to night. A touch of fluff: London based fashion and lifestyle blogger Anisa Sojka brightened up her navy look with a striped stole resting on her shoulder Liven up a look: Give a basic trench or wool coat a much needed boost with a faux collar in a bold color or print Think outside the box: To really set yourself apart from the crowd, rework a fur collar by wearing it diagonally across your torso Ditch your traditional scarf: Dress up any ensemble day or night with a stole SHOP IT: Left: Cuddle Cuff by Charlotte Simone, now $115.64; charlottesimone.com. Right: Sabrina Fur Stole by Carolyn Rowan Accessories, $2,725; modaoperandi.com Left: Fur stole by Desa 1972, now $107; farfetch.com. Right: Stole scarf by Simonetta Ravizza, now $567; farfetch.com If you've already failed at Dry January then maybe you've simply approached it with the wrong mindset, an author has claimed. British writer Ruby Warrington, who only drinks a handful of times a year, claimed the trick to giving up alcohol is to focus on the larger benefits of a sober life, rather than focusing on the perceived negatives. She explained the one time many people go alcohol-free is when they are pregnant, a time when the dangers of heavy drinking mean women are more likely to put their bodies first. In her book Sober Curious, which was quoted by Stylist, Warrington poses that this switch in attitude can be adopted by people everywhere to help give up alcohol, whether they are pregnant or not. If you've already failed at Dry January then maybe you've simply approached it with the wrong mindset, an author has claimed. Stock image She writes: 'What if you - men, women, and readers of every gender expression in between - were to adopt the mindset that your body, too, is a vessel for birthing new life? 'Be it actual new humans or new creative projects, or positive new experiences and memories, or new ways to feel pleasure and transcend the day-to-day.' By seeing ourselves as being 'pregnant' with possibilities, ideas and opportunities, we might also see the benefits of ensuring this 'pregnant' vessel is unhindered by the negative effects of drinking. British writer Ruby Warrington, pictured, claimed the trick to giving up alcohol is to focus on the larger benefits of a sober life, rather than focusing on the perceived negatives A record 4.8million Britons are thought to have embarked on Dry January this year Warrington, a former Sunday Times journalist, changed her relationship with alcohol seven years ago after noticing that it made her unhappy and anxious. Sober Curious offers a new way to think about your relationship with alcohol She now runs Club Soda NYC, which runs events for the 'sober or debating abstinence'. Explaining how it has impacted her own life, she writes: 'In my day-to-day life, it means often being the odd-one-out . . . and my being very much okay with this. 'It means not making up excuses about why Im not drinking to make me or anyone else feel more comfortable. 'It means early nights, orgasmic sleep (more on this later too!), and every morning feeling like a fresh start. Most of all, it means being honest with myself abouthe way alcohol makes my mind, my body, and my feeland trusting the rather than the external messaging about alcohol we are bombarded with daily. Sober Curious: The Blissful Sleep, Greater Focus, Limitless Presence, and Deep Connection Awaiting Us All on the Other Side of Alcohol, by Ruby Warrington published by HarperOne, 20. The sole flicker Theresa May betrayed, on hearing that thumping defeat, was a rueful grimace, her upper lip slightly pursed. Seconds later, she hauled herself to her feet, voice somehow level though her blood must have been pumping, to say she would wait to see if her Government still had the Houses confidence. If it did, she would work with political opponents. That now means 432 MPs, with some 432 different theories of what to do. The Chamber was packed, tingling, a-quiver with the occasion. They were standing 14-deep down at the far end, Members spilling into the lobby beyond, craning necks to grab a glance at the woman on the scaffold at the centre of it all. But what the evening lacked, dramatically, was tension. The sole flicker Theresa May betrayed, on hearing that thumping defeat, was a rueful grimace, her upper lip slightly pursed. Seconds later, she hauled herself to her feet, voice somehow level though her blood must have been pumping, to say she would wait to see if her Government still had the Houses confidence There had not, from the start of the long debate on Mrs Mays doomed deal, been any doubt that it was going to be defeated by Opposition MPs, Tory Remainers and scores of Tory Leavers (the last seeing this deal as an Establishment sell-out, insufficiently Brexity). For all the fervour, the lack of suspense about the result robbed the evening of a certain place in the history of parliamentary spectacles. But it was certainly, ahem, an unusual episode. Greatest defeat for a government since the 1920s, said Jeremy Corbyn. Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Con, Derbyshire Dales): You were here? Mr Corbyn, not for the first time, sank to the moment. Terrible. Where the country might have appreciated statesmanship, the Labour leader just shrieked about Mrs Mays sheer incompetence. On this of all nights, he managed to make her look dignified. The days debate had begun with an extraordinary speech by Attorney-General Geoffrey Cox, so magisterial that Speaker Bercow addressed him as Sir Geoffrey. Cox swivelled, he boomed, he wrung emotion from his chops and very eyeballs. He waved his elbows, tickling the air with his fingertips. He could have been Simon Rattle conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker. His arguments, imploring the Tory party to support Mrs Mays deal, were the most impressive case I had heard for the dead deal. I say that as a Leaver who regarded it as a grossly sub-standard proposal. Yet Mr Cox carried weight because he is a keen Leaver, one of too few in Mrs Mays inner counsels. What a pity she never grabbed the positive possibilities of Leave from July 2016 onwards. At times Mr Cox turned his back almost completely on the Opposition benches to address the Tory backbenches beyond the gangway, where the David Davis/Boris Johnson wing of the party sits. Unlock the airlock and take us into the next stage, he boomed. Labour hecklers called the airlock a vacuum. Speaking to MPs opposing the deal (both Remainers and Leavers), Mr Cox cried: What are you playing at? You are not children in the playground. You are LEGISLATORS! We are playing with peoples lives. Do we opt for order or do we choose chaos? Beside him sat the Prime Minister, as we can still call her at least for a day or so, shrivelled by tiredness and, perhaps, by the realisation she should have used Mr Coxs rhetorical gifts much more. The Chamber was packed, tingling, a-quiver with the occasion. They were standing 14-deep down at the far end, Members spilling into the lobby beyond, craning necks to grab a glance at the woman on the scaffold at the centre of it all. But what the evening lacked, dramatically, was tension By now he was into a passage about how foreign fishermen would not be allowed to point the prows of their trawlers one metre into British fishing waters thanks to Mrs Mays deal. Metre, Geoffrey? Fathom might have been more Nelsonian. Mr Cox used urgent, vivid language of a sort the May regime has so terribly lacked. Not that fellow lawyer Dominic Grieve (Con, Beaconsfield) approved. He snootily deplored Mr Coxs theatricality and said it was a sign of the Governments weakness that it had to rely on the advocacy skills of a criminal defence advocate. Thats lawyer-speak for hes just a High Court show-off and I am seething with envy. Mr Cox is certainly proving a far more memorable Attorney-General than he ever was. On a long day when so many inadequates rambled through cliches, Julian Lewis (Con, New Forest E) excelled. His speech was just one sentence: Because Brexit means Brexit and no deal is better than this bad deal, I shall vote no, no, no. Mr Lewis was echoing Margaret Thatcher. Members and gallery spectators alike were grateful to him for his brevity. Crispin Blunt (Con, Reigate) asked: What would Remainers do without Project Fear? Theyd have to think up convincing, positive arguments for staying in the EU. They would struggle to think of many, he felt. Stalwart Brexiteer Richard Bacon (Con, S Norfolk), firmly of the view that the political class has been trying to wreck the referendum vote, reached for a satirical line from German poet Bertolt Brecht: Would it not be easier for the Government to dissolve the People and elect another? Just before the vote, up in the visitors gallery, sat Sally Bercow, the Speakers wife. She was waving cooee to Labour MPs while her companion blew kisses at them. Classy. If Mrs May had only listened more to the Brexiteers and Bertolt Brecht, less to Philip Hammond and Whitehall mandarins, she might have won parliamentary backing for a treaty. But now she has been consigned to another circle of political hell working with Yvette Cooper and Sir Keir Starmer and Sir Bill Cash. In that flaming, scream-racked realm she and we will be detained until March 29, when for the sake of national safety, if not national sanity, we must, despite yesterdays hoo-hahs, still leave Herr Selmayrs European empire. Theresa May's devastating defeat may not turn out to be the boon for Labour that many commentators expect. In fact, I believe Jeremy Corbyn's dishonest and unscrupulous behaviour in the months leading up to the vote will be judged by many voters to have been morally despicable and politically inept. Labour will stage a motion of no confidence today in Mrs May. It is likely it will lose this Commons vote since both the Democratic Unionist Party and the Tories' hard-line Brexiteers have indicated that they will support the Government. If this happens, Labour will find itself as far as ever from the general election it has been straining every sinew to bring about. The target on which the party has aimed every calculation could well be kicked into the long grass for the foreseeable future. Theresa May's devastating defeat may not turn out to be the boon for Labour that many commentators expect. In fact, I believe Jeremy Corbyn's dishonest and unscrupulous behaviour in the months leading up to the vote will be judged by many voters to have been morally despicable and politically inept Of course, no one should rule out the possibility of Corbyn still becoming the least qualified and the most lethal occupant of No 10 in our history. But such an outcome is still far from certain. Once it becomes clear he won't get the instant election for which he has yearned, Corbyn will come under enormous pressure from his Europhile backbenchers, as well as the wider party, which is overwhelmingly anti-Brexit, to support a second referendum or some other device designed to delay and ultimately scupper this country's withdrawal from the EU. The irony of all this is that the Labour leader is a life-long Eurosceptic and, I believe, a furtive Brexiteer, who in his heart will not relish what would be the most likely result of a so-called People's Vote namely our remaining in the EU after a skewed campaign in which Project Fear is resuscitated on an epic scale. Labour will stage a motion of no confidence today in Mrs May. It is likely it will lose this Commons vote since both the Democratic Unionist Party and the Tories' hard-line Brexiteers have indicated that they will support the Government To be fair to Corbyn, he has nursed some limited concern for the millions of Labour voters, especially in northern cities and towns, who voted Brexit. But these people will now be left high and dry if Labour embraces a second vote. Some, perhaps many, will never forgive the party if another referendum leads to Britain staying in the EU. Why is Corbyn hurtling along a path he never wanted to take? Weakness and lack of political nous are a partial explanation. Many Labour MPs have been unable to accept the referendum result. Sir Keir Starmer, the Shadow Brexit Secretary, is much more Europhile than his boss. Corbyn, never the most acute of brains, has sometimes found himself dominated by sharper anti-Brexit minds on his own benches. But the main reason for his predicament is his breathtaking lack of principle despite his wish to be seen as a straight dealer. The fact is that he's been prepared to sacrifice every consideration in order to precipitate a general election, one which he and his terrifying sidekick John McDonnell hope will unleash their socialist utopia on the British people. This Labour leadership has consistently placed party before country. Whereas some previous Labour leaders put country first Clement Attlee's decision to join Winston Churchill's wartime coalition in May 1940 being the most obvious example Corbyn and his senior colleagues have refused to play a constructive role. At a moment of national crisis, and in the months leading up to it, they have shown just how unfit they are for high office. Consider what they could have done. First, Labour's so-called six tests were designed to be unachievable. The insistence that a final Brexit deal should include the 'exact same benefits as we currently have as members of the single market and customs union' could never be acceptable to the EU in a month of Sundays. It was pie in the sky and deliberately so. And yet Jeremy Corbyn has had the nerve to criticise Mrs May for being impractical and unrealistic in her approach to negotiations with Brussels. Labour will stage a motion of no confidence today in Mrs May. It is likely it will lose this Commons vote since both the Democratic Unionist Party and the Tories' hard-line Brexiteers have indicated that they will support the Government Despite this, the party's stand on Brexit, insofar as it is intelligible, has some features in common with Mrs May's deal. Like her, Corbyn has argued for access to the single market. Admittedly, there's been a difference of opinion about the customs union Labour wants membership while the Prime Minister does not but both party hierarchies share an antipathy to No Deal. If Labour had offered Mrs May even a sliver of guarded help or encouragement in recent months, she would have been much stronger in her negotiations in Brussels. As it was, Corbyn's refusal to assist Mrs May, for reasons of low political calculation, strengthened the hand of officials in Brussels. They realised they were dealing with a Government with which an Opposition prepared to sell Brexit short was at loggerheads. They doubtless hoped that at some stage Labour would grab hold of the negotiating process. Will it? Assuming that there is no immediate election, it seems likely that the Labour front bench will make common cause with cross-party backbenchers, who will attempt to throttle what remains of Mrs May's obliterated deal, and substitute a second referendum, or somehow water down Brexit. And it is a racing certainty that in this endeavour, Corbyn will have the continued assistance of the Commons Speaker. John Bercow is a staunch Remainer who rescued the Labour leader last month after he had been seen to mouth the words 'stupid woman' at Theresa May. Corbyn then allegedly said to him: 'Thank you for all you have done.' Labour is joyous at the scale of Theresa May's defeat. Corbyn will claim today in the Commons that she has lost all authority, and that Labour stands fit and ready to govern. I don't believe it does. And I also think that many people will conclude that, whatever her faults, the Prime Minister does at least have principles. She has stuck to her guns with guts and resilience, and fought for what she believes. By contrast, on Brexit as on much else, Jeremy Corbyn has shown himself indecisive, treacherous and dishonourable, and only too eager to put his and his party's interests before those of the country. Shows you must see in 2019 (Part 1) Brexit On Ice- O2 Stadium (March) All your favourite Brexit characters, including Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Anna Soubry and Jeremy Corbyn, don their skates to appear in this song-and-dance ice spectacular. Theyve put aside their differences and come together to create a magical wonderland of indecision, says top choreographer Craig Revel Horwood. Were hoping itll run for years and years. Songs include Should I Stay Or Should I Go?, Im Leaving On A Delayed Jet Plane and many more. Now get your skates on for Brexit on Ice! All your favourite Brexit characters, including Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Anna Soubry and Jeremy Corbyn, don their skates to appear in this song-and-dance ice spectacular [File photo] Downton Abbey: Dowagers Revenge (September) Lord and Lady Grantham and the rest of the household finally make it to the big screen. To gain the all-important international audience, the producers have tweaked the plot for added excitement. Appalled at being served a stale cucumber sandwich at the annual Downton Tea-Party, Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith) exacts her revenge by placing a shark in the village pond. Upset ensues after dinner is delayed by 23 minutes, at which point a concerned Mr Carson takes Lord Grantham to one side and informs him that the severed corpse of Mrs Patmore has just been found washed up near the duck house. Appalled at being served a stale cucumber sandwich at the annual Downton Tea-Party, Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith) exacts her revenge by placing a shark in the village pond [File photo] Of course, when Mrs Patmore took a dip, she had no idea the offending creature would be lurking there, mlud, or else she would have prepared dinner beforehand, of that we may be sure. The last thing she would have wanted would be for dinner to be delayed on account of her untimely demise. Mrs Patmore is buried in an unmarked grave, but the terror at Downton ratchets up when demure housekeeper Mrs Hughes is kidnapped by aliens. Only after local police spot the leader of the aliens wearing a diamond tiara do Lord Granthams suspicions fall upon his mother, the Dowager Countess. Consequently, he pays a call on his mother, who is sitting outside with a self-satisfied smile on her face. Mama, I really do think that the servants have suffered enough for what was, after all, only the most minor of errors, he tells her. If thats what you think, take that, punk! replies the Dowager Countess, lifting up her skirts, removing a 44 Magnum from her thigh-holster and shooting Lord Grantham through the chest. She then unlocks a picnic basket and unleashes a family of boa constrictors onto the lawn, shortly before the annual Staff Get-Together is due to take place. On Tour: Greggs Vegan Sausage Roll (April) One of the most controversial acts of the year, Greggs Vegan Sausage Roll, embarks on a nationwide tour of 22 venues, culminating with a performance at Londons Royal Albert Hall on April 27. Ill be telling some of my best-loved anecdotes before taking questions from the audience, says the Vegan Sausage Roll. And, yes, you can guarantee Ill be telling my trademark story of how I made Piers Morgan feel sick! Ill be telling some of my best-loved anecdotes before taking questions from the audience, says the Vegan Sausage Roll [File photo] The Crown: Series 3 (March) The latest series charts the fortunes of the Royal Family from 1964-1970. By far the most exciting event in this period was, of course, the birth of Prince Edward, now the Earl of Wessex. Screenwriter Peter Morgan draws on years of research to include scenes of universal rejoicing. Episode two shows the young Edwards first tentative steps into showbiz, when he plays The Baby Jesus at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. By episode three, he has taken on the lead role in Oliver! for a sell-out season at the Palladium. But, in episode four, the young Edward faces an agonising decision. Should he follow his dreams, and pursue a glittering career in Hollywood? Or should he put away his costumes and make-up for ever and buckle down to royal duty? In episode five, he dons a navy-blue suit and tie, resigned to touring naval training colleges in the provinces for the rest of his life. Before I started researching Edwards story, I had no idea he had once been a major child star of the West End stage reveals Morgan. Or that it was his great-great-great grandmother Queen Victoria who finally stamped on his dreams, telling him, in no uncertain terms, that he had been born to serve. Timothy Spall plays the young Edward, with Kate Beckinsale as Queen Victoria. His deception was so keen and he hid behind the mask of being a lawyer or a lawyer in good standing and developed the trust from all of the victims," said Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Kelli McGinnis Pull Quote @ChescoCourtNews on Twitter Michael P. Rellahan has been a staff reporter and editor at the Daily Local News since 1982. He has covered all kinds of news over the years but is now assigned to report on court and legal news, as well as Chester County government news and politics. Stephen Pitt, General Counsel for the Office of the Governor, at right and Matt Kuhn answer questions during the Ashland Rotary Club meeting on Monday. KEVIN GOLDY | THE DAILY INDEPENDENT This is the entrance to Thomas Brownlies property on Mill Dam Road in Marbletown, N.Y., a proposed site of a special events venue. Since 1990, Patricia R. Doxsey has been a reporter for the Freeman, covering politics, crime, and government affairs. Media News Group, parent company of the Daily Freeman, was unsuccessful in its effort win seats on the Gannett Co. board of directors. Matt Hamilton/Daily Citizen-News The Whitfield County Board of Commissioners has approved an agreement to expand sewer at the Carbondale Business Park. County officials say they have lost business at the park because of limited sewer capacity. A Romantic Holiday in Asia is the key to igniting your passion Romance is like a flame on a wax candle. When it burns brightly it is because of its environment, aka. the oxygen giving it the chemical properties needed to burn even brighter. However, should you trap it in a small container then your flame will be extinguished. Your relationship is just like this. The experiences you share with your partner is the oxygen that makes the spark between you and your partner burn even brighter. If you want to keep it going for longer, then you need to figure out how you can upgrade your intimacy. The answer? A Holiday. A holiday to a romantic destination can be the ticket to reigniting old passions or to even find new love abroad. This is why you should consider Asia as the perfect destination to discover new cultures and to taste a romantic courtship that you have only ever seen in overly-zealous travel blogs. Asia is a land where you can truly unwind and enjoy a varied array of treats for both you and your partner. Relax and Unwind on the soft white sands of Asia's beaches, romp with your partner through Jungle Environments or even take a tour through Asia's metropolitan cities. Asia presents a microcosm of experiences that will present you and your partner a myriad of experiences that you can both fall in love with, as well as with each other all over again. Multi Cultural Asia When it comes to visiting Asia with your lover, one of the main things that you need to remember is that Asia itself is a huge region. Asia is so big that it has had to be split into five geographical sub- regions. Each of these sub-regions is completely unique and have their own cultures, geographical beauties and delicious cuisines. Each of these areas are perfect for both you and your partner to rekindle your flames. Whilst you can take a romantic adventure to each of these areas, if you are looking to relax in one area in particular in Asia, then you may want to consider one of these countries. Intimacy in Thailand Naturally, when you think about visiting Asia for romance, you may think of Thailand. Thailand is a hot spot for tourists looking to indulge in its free-spirited party cultured, or to even find love in the arms of an escort, such as the beautiful companions from Absolute Angels Bangkok. But if you are looking to get away from all of the over- crowded tourist traps and indulge in some well-needed alone time with your lover, you may want to consider one these little gems to start planning your route towards. Play in Powdered Sands The Idyllic Spirit of Thailand is something that can mainly be seen through its extensive cluster of beaches. After all, the sand is warm, powdery and white, the waters are clean and are so pure that you can see everything that lies at the bottom of the sea. The colours themselves of these waters are reminiscent of a painting, merging with different tones of blue. Not even tourism to these beaches has spoiled their beauty. That is why they are just the perfect place to visit with your partner. Cuddle up together on the sands, pull out a book or a picnic and simply relax. Some of the best beaches that could suit a romantic date include: Sunrise Beach, Koh Lipe Koh Kradan Beach (Including a Coral Reef) Kluai Beach, Koh Kood Chaweng, Koh Samui Mae Nam, Koh Samui Railay Beach (West), Krabi Phra Nang, Krabi Tubkaak, Krabi Thong Nai Pan, Koh Phangan Hat Salad, Koh Phangan Turning your romantic trip into a beach vacation is the perfect way to help you and your partner unwind. Leave your troubles at home and get ready to put on your best swimsuit. You and your lover can take a dip into the warm ocean, sunbathe on the sand with a book, picnic or cocktail. You can even play beach games, like Paddle Ball or Badminton, or bring a board game with you to enjoy. For romantic couples that thrive on a little more adventure, some of the best things about a Thai Beach is its variety. Some are there to simply relax on, others are there to test your adrenalin and nerve. With Coral Reefs, nearby Jungle Bushes and boats for hire, you can personalise your own beach trip to suit your needs. Explore the ocean with your lover by going deep sea diving, or better, prepare yourselves for a trek through the jungle. But be sure to pack all of your essentials before you set out! You may even get to meet an elephant if you are lucky. Cultured Shrines If you and your lover are looking for a dating spot to take you away from the loud cities of Thailand, you may want to consider visiting some of the more historical monuments in Thailand. One of the best ways that bond with your partner is by visiting places that you may have previously undertaken by yourself. However, the beauty of Thailand's countryside is sure to bring you closer together as take the trip out to explore Thailand's history and culture. The journey to a shrine, like Wat Rong Khun (The White Temple), The Sanctuary of Truth, Wat Mahathat or Wat Pho (The Temple of the Reclining Buddha), will allow you and your lover to navigate your way through Thailand's beautiful fields before you both take in the magnitude of these ancient buildings. These Shrines are certainly worth a day trip to explore everything that these sights have to offer. By the end of the day, you will certainly feel closer to your partner. After all, you have just finished creating some happy memories together. Thai Massage Bliss Of course, you and your partner simply cannot travel to Thailand without a romantic couple's Thai massage. When you go to Thailand and experience a massage with your partner, you may leave thinking that it appeared to be more like Yoga than a relaxing back rub. However, with its focus being on Chinese Traditional Medicine, in reality it aims to open up channels in your body for distributing energy. Your Thai Massage will focus on pressure techniques in order to relieve tension from different areas of your body. It is exceptionally helpful for relaxing the body, relieving pressure and for loosening up stiff muscles and joints within the body. If you and your partner have very stressful jobs then you may end up sitting in front of a computer in a bad body position for quite a few hours of the day. If you are looking to reconnect with your lover, as well put your body back into good shape, then you just have to have a traditional massage in Thailand. You may naturally associate a Thai massage with a "Happy Ending." The last thing you want to consider whilst getting a massage in Thailand is for your masseuse to get a little bit too hands on. But do not worry. Most of the massage parlours that offer happy endings in Thailand are located near the main roads or have "spokeswomen" in skimpy outfits either in the building or outside flyering to distinguish them. Should you ever get propositioned for a "happy ending" or "special treatment", then a simple no will make sure that you an avoid any future problems. Intimacy in China China is a country that has been built upon the foundations of spirituality and cultural tradition. Should you visit China with your lover, you may need to consider whether you want to experience China's modern urban city or whether you want to indulge in the tranquillity of the Chinese countryside. Each area will have its own monuments and traditions. If you want to experience some alone time whilst travelling with your lover, here are some of the best places you should consider visiting. Travelling to Tibet If you want to visit an extremely welcoming culture that cherishes its historical monasteries and gorgeous mountain regions, you and your partner will adore taking a trip out to tibet. Whilst you will need to obtain a permit to travel to this area of China, it is certainly worth the effort. The Monasteries of Tibet are some of the oldest in China and are still being used today. Whilst travelling to one of these monasteries may not be romantic, you and your lover will simply adore being able to stop and take in the sight of the mountains that can be seen from the monasteries. These mountains include Mt Kailash, one of the tallest mountains in China. You will be able to sit and relax in the company of your lover as you take in the beautiful sights. If you are feeling brave, you may even want to consider taking a tour up the mountain itself. The accomplishment you will feel with your partner if you successfully scale it will be something that will bond you together forever. Natural Beauties China is a country where you will find Mother Nature at her finest. With sprawling forests, rivers and lakes, it would be surprising if you and your partner actually managed to find an area that wasn't pretty. If you are a nature lover, and truly want to romanticise the idyllic nature of the Chinese Land, why not take a trip to one of these stunning landmarks: Anhui: Mount Huangshan (also known as "the loveliest mountains of China") Fujian: Mount Wuyi Fujian: Xiapu Mudflat Gansu: Echoing Sand Mountain and Crescent Lake, Dunhuang Guangxi: Yangshuo Guizhou: Huangguoshu Waterfall Each of these natural monuments are simply stunning. Pack a picnic and set off early, because you will need all day in order to explore these areas with your partner. If you manage to find a quiet spot together on your tour then take your time to reconnect amongst all of the natural beauty around you. Pandering to your Partner Of course, if you go to China, then you just have to consider how you and your partner are going to see the wildlife. One of the main creatures that China is known for its Pandas. These large and cuddly black and white bears can be found in Chengdu, a small city of 14 million. Take a trip through the forest with your lover and have fun watching the bears at play, eating bamboo, rolling in the leaves and generally gallavanting around the forest! Intimacy in Japan Should you choose to visit Japan, then you will find that the culture is quite divided. Whilst Japan's population retains its respectful traditions and heritage, its capital has been completely modernised. With Japan being the forefront for technology, visiting an urban city is to encounter and extremely fast paced way of life. Decide to go to the countryside with your partner then it will certainly slow down. Here are some of the best places you can go to rekindle the passion you have with your lover. Japanese Love Hotels Once you have finished exploring the major cities in Japan, like Tokyo, Osaka and Yokohama, you will need to consider which hotel you will be staying at with your partner. The Japanese take their tourism extremely seriously, having been the first to create the Capsule Hotel, and so have themed hotels that can suit different clients. For many Japanese Families, their bedrooms are either shared or have very thin walls, meaning that if a couple wants some intimacy then there just isn't enough privacy to get down and dirty. This is why Love Hotels exist. Love Hotels are romantic getaways that are specially designed for couples looking to have some alone time together. Each of the rooms is themed and contain hot tubs, costume booking systems, massage treatments or even unique bedroom styles to adhere to the fetishes of the couples. Whilst some rooms may reflect a romantic balcony, there are some that reflect dungeons or the lab of a mad scientist. There have been bedrooms that are completely based on films, such as a Jurrasic Park, or product brands, such as Hello Kitty. Overall, a love hotel is "A place where play, fantasy and escape can be realised" ( https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2760981/Inside-Japan-s-love-hotels-rooms- rented-HOUR.html Therefore if you are feeling in the mood to relax with your partner in an extremely romantic (or a little bit of silly) environment, then you should check out a love hotel that will truly quench both of your palettes. Spas and Baths When it comes to bathing like a local, should you go out to the countryside then you may be able to locate a Japanese Bathhouse. A Bathhouse, for both you and your partner, is perfect little pinnacles of paradise. These bathhouses are a mixture of a hotel and a spa, with large outdoor spas that are naturally heated by a spring. The spring itself is a big hit with tourists, an example exclaimed from Twitter from Maggie Eckford who exclaimed, after using a Japanese Onsen, "Man...we are BIG fans. Probably the best spa experience we have ever had." (https://twitter.com/maggieeckford/status/1084520331371560966) Whilst you are your partner will be separated into gendered baths, once you are finished luxuriating, then you can relax in your bathrobes together. You can then either explore the bathhouse itself, and its gorgeous outside environment, or relax in your room and wait for a small Japanese feast to be served to you. Service in Japan is practically impeccable and you will truly enjoy the tranquillity that a bathhouse has to offer you. Fall in Love all over again in Asia No matter where you go in Asia with your Lover, what matters most is that you are able to find the alone time that you need to reconnect with your partner. Your travelling experiences should be able to bring you both together. In Asia, you can bond over you experiences and adventures. For only you and your lover have had those experiences and memories. Therefore, you have developed a powerful connection that will last between you for a life time. Don't waste your time and enjoy your romantic holiday to its fullest extent. Writer: Hannah Fletcher STORY LINK GBP/NZD: Pound Sterling New Zealand Dollar Exchange Rate Slips as Prices Rise at NZ Dairy Auction Pound Sterling weighed Down by New Zealand Dairy Price Increase Pound Buoyed by PMs Suggestion MPs more likely to Block Brexit than No-deal Chinas Drop in Exports Weighs Down Risk-Sensitive New Zealand Dollar (NZD) GBP/NZD Exchange Rate Outlook: Parliaments Meaningful Vote Likely to Cause Volatility Like this piece? Please share with your friends and colleagues: Today is the fifth and final day of the UK Parliaments Brexit debates, with the meaningful vote scheduled for later on this evening.The Pound New Zealand Dollar (GBP/NZD) exchange rate slid over the course of the morning, and is currently trading at a rate of NZ$1.8818.Theresa May is expected to lose the vote this evening, with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), opposition parties and some members of the Conservative Party expected to vote against her agreement, causing the Pound to fall during todays session so far.The New Zealand Global Dairy Trade Price Index was released today, with the Kiwi pushing higher against the Pound as the price of dairy increased by 4.2%.Yesterday saw the GBP/NZD exchange rate rise as comments from Theresa May suggested the UK could potentially remain a part of the European Union.Downing Street reportedly said that based on the evidence of the last week it was far more likely that MPs would manage to block Brexit than the UK leaving the European Union without a deal.May also stated that the EU had rejected her proposal for a time limit on the Irish backstop as well as stating that she would not be extending Article 50.Despite this, the Pound remained buoyed over the course of the session.With China being one of New Zealands largest trade partners, the disappointing Chinese trade figures dragged down the risk-sensitive Kiwi.The December import and export figures arguably have provided the first indication of the impact of the US-China trade tensions, with the drop in exports the sharpest since December 2016.Despite the forecast suggesting that imports would increase compared to the previous year, the figure plummeted -7.6%. While exports were predicted to show slowed growth, this figure also contracted.The outcome of the UK Parliaments meaningful vote on Brexit is likely to have a big effect on the Pound Sterling New Zealand Dollar (GBP/NZD) exchange rate, as the Pound is likely to plummet or rally depending on the way MPs vote.This evening will also see the release of the New Zealand Electronic Card Retail Sales for December, which could lend support to the Kiwi if the figure increases compared to the previous month, and if there is an increase from the previous years figure of 4.6%.Tomorrow morning the Governor of the Bank of England (BoE), Mark Carney, is due to give a speech, and depending on whether his tone is dovish or hawkish, there could be movement in the pairing. International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements. TAGS: Pound New Zealand Dollar Forecasts Virginia "Sue" Robinson of Cullman Alabama passed away June 10, 2021 at the age of 82. She was born January 14, 1939 in Cullman to E.R. and Gracie Nix Neal. She was preceded in death by her parents, husband Elwin Ray Robinson, daughter Sharron Fuller, sisters Evelyn Hardin and Norma Bradford The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a case challenging the constitutionality of the CFPBs structure. As always, the court gave no reason for refusing to take the case. Courts have been divided over the issue, with the federal Appeals Court for the District of Columbia ruling that the makeup of the bureau is constitutional. However, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the FHFAs structure is unconstitutional; that agency has the same structure as the CFPB. For now, the split between the circuits remains unresolved. Credit union trade groups have said the CFPB should be governed by a commission and that the agency should be subject to the annual appropriations process. Its no surprise to see changes in legislation and regulation as the new top risk in the UK, jointly with cyber threats, said Tracey Hunt, Deputy CEO, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS), UK. Uncertainty around Brexit along with concerns around a potential increase in the regulatory burden and global trade disputes have made confidence fragile. UK businesses also continue to be occupied by the threat of cyber-attacks. The consequences of a major data beach have never been greater since the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force with data breaches potentially now resulting in huge fines. Workforce skills shortages are a new entry into the Top 10 UK Risks Shortages of skilled workers appears in the top 10 UK risks - coming in at number 7 - for the first time, with factors such as Brexit uncertainty, changing demographics and a shallow pool of talent in the digital economy contributing to its rise. A UK study** found that nine in 10 employers were struggling to recruit the skilled staff they need, with Brexit set to make this worse. Shortage of skilled workforce also appears for the first time among the 10 top business risks globally at 10; as well as in many countries in Central and Eastern Europe, US, Canada and Australia. Skilled workforce and human capital more generally has become the scarce resource of the digital economy, says Ludovic Subran, Deputy Chief Economist of Allianz. Competition is fierce between companies to get new recruits with competencies in artificial intelligence, data science, or frontier risk management such as managing cyber or reputational risk as most of these jobs did not exist 10 years ago. Even attractive salaries do not suffice as the pool of recruits with the needed skillset is limited and the urgency to onboard them does not allow for on-the-job training." Global Results Cyber Incidents and Business Interruption (BI) top global risks In the wake of mega data breaches and privacy scandals, major IT outages and the introduction of tighter data protection rules in the European Union and other countries, cyber risk is now a core concern for global businesses in 2019 and beyond. According to the Allianz Risk Barometer 2019, Cyber incidents (37% of responses) are neck-and-neck with Business interruption (BI) (37% of responses) as the top business risks globally. Climate change (#8 with 13% of responses) and Shortage of skilled workforce (#10 with 9% of responses) are the biggest climbers globally. At the same time, companies are more worried year-on-year about changes in legislation and regulation (#4 with 27% of responses) resulting in impacts such as Brexit, trade wars and tariffs. The annual survey on global business risks from Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) incorporates the views of a record 2,415 experts from 86 countries including CEOs, risk managers, brokers and insurance experts. Companies need to plan for a wide range of disruptive scenarios and triggers, as this is where their big exposure lies in todays networked society, says Chris Fischer Hirs, CEO of AGCS. Disruptive risks can be physical, such as fire or storms, or virtual, such as an IT outage, which can occur through malicious and accidental means. They can stem from their own operations but also from a companys suppliers, customers or IT service providers. Whatever the trigger, the financial loss for companies following a standstill can be enormous. New risk management solutions, analytical tools and innovative partnerships can help to better understand and mitigate the modern myriad of BI risks and prevent losses before they occur." BI threats continue to evolve BI remains the top threat for businesses worldwide for the seventh year running and is the top risk in countries such as the US, Canada, Germany, Spain, Italy and China. Potential BI scenarios are becoming ever more diverse and complex in a globally connected economy, including breakdown of core IT systems, product recalls or quality issues, terrorism or political rioting or environmental pollution. Both cyber and BI risks are increasingly interlinked as ransomware attacks or accidental IT outages often result in disruption of operations and services costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Cyber incidents rank as the BI trigger most feared by businesses (50% of responses), followed by fire (40%) and natural catastrophes (38%). At the same time, BI is seen as the biggest cause of financial loss for businesses after a cyber incident (69% of responses). Cyber growing awareness, growing losses Increasing concern over Cyber incidents follows a watershed year of activity in 2018. Cyber risk has been a major risk for a number of years, but as with any new risk it has struggled with awareness, explains Marek Stanislawski, Deputy Global Head of Cyber, AGCS. We have now reached a point where cyber is as equally concerning for companies as their major traditional exposures. Cyber crime now costs an estimated $600bn a year up from $445bn in 2014*** .This compares with a 10-year average economic loss from natural catastrophes of $208bn**** three times as much. While criminals use more innovative methods to steal data, commit fraud or extort money, there is also a growing cyber threat from nation states and affiliated hacker groups targeting critical infrastructure providers or stealing valuable data or trade secrets from companies. Cyber incidents are increasingly likely to spark litigation, including securities and consumer class actions. Data breaches or IT outages can generate large third party liabilities as affected customers or shareholders seek to recoup losses from companies. More information on the findings of the Allianz Risk Barometer 2019 Top 10 global business risks Executive summary Full report Video Appendix Results for 34 countries Selected infographics *Business interruption and cyber incidents are tied at the top of the ranking at 37% of all responses. However, business interruption received more responses by number: 1,078 to 1,052 **The Independent, Nine in 10 UK employers struggling to find skilled workers with Brexit set to make shortage worse, survey finds, June 12, 2018 ***Center for Strategic and International Studies, Economic Impact of Cybercrime No Slowing Down ****Swiss Re, Preliminary sigma estimates for 2018 Although the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) had slowed its enforcement actions considerably in 2018, several actions have come out of the bureau in the last few months including a recent settlement with USAA Federal Savings Bank (USAA), a federally chartered savings association headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, with approximately $80.5 billion in total assets. Without admitting or denying any of the alleged violations outlined in the 39-page consent order, the bank agreed to the terms of the order, to provide over $12 million in restitution and pay a $3.5 million civil money penalty. So what were the violations? USAA was found to have violated the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA) and Regulation E by not stopping preauthorized electronic fund transfers (EFTs) and by not initiating and conducting adequate error resolution investigations. The CFPB also found the bank violated the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 (CFPA) by reopening closed consumer deposit accounts without getting prior authorization or giving adequate notice to the consumers. The EFTA and its implementing Regulation E require a financial institution to allow a consumer to stop future payment of preauthorized EFTs and to contest incorrect or unauthorized past EFTs through an error resolution procedure. According to the consent order, USAA uses the Automated Clearing House (ACH) to process EFTs from their customers accounts and accounts held by other financial institutions. On many occasions prior to 2015, the CFPB found the bank didnt enter stop payment orders after the account holders had notified USAA they wanted to stop payment on preauthorized EFTs. Rather, the bank required their account holders to contact the merchants initiating the EFTs as a prerequisite for it to implement stop payment orders. In some cases, USAA didnt enter stop payment orders because the consumers wanted to stop payments to payday loan lenders. The bank did not consistently honor oral stop payment requests for 14 days. When USAA didnt have a system in place to stop payment of preauthorized EFTs processed by a debit card, it resulted in a failure to block thousands of preauthorized EFTs where consumers had requested stop payment. Friday was the first day many federal workers missed a paycheck as the federal government shutdownand the news coverage of itcontinued past the three-week mark. Pretty much since day 1 of the furlough of about 800,000 federal employees, this editors inbox has been full of press releases about the great ways credit unions are helping them throughfrom emergency loans to negotiated payment schedules. As a longtime CU industry editor, I love these good news stories inside of the tough newsand mainstream news outlets will love them even more. Indeed, its a great time to pick up the phone and talk with the media. Have you told your story of how you are people helping people during this tough timeand others? Some credit unions have landed national coverage about their efforts to help federal workers with industry trade associations and even, for example, CNN and CNBC. My hats off to $149 million Democracy Federal Credit Union, Alexandria, Virginia; $233 million Transportation Federal Credit Union, also in Alexandria; and $757 million Launch Federal Credit Union, Merritt Island, Florida, for stepping up in these two national media opportunities. Telling the credit union story in such a visible forum is positive PR for the industry (at a time when some banks are getting some bad press, to boot). As the globe turns to face the coming of a new year, so moves forward the international credit union movement! As we focus on supporting our own field of membership and fostering social responsibility to communities we serve, we are challenged to keep a pulse on the growing impact our movement has on millions around the globe and in communities that face similar challenges to our members. Whether here at home or in a seemingly faraway place, the challenge is the same: provide member prosperity through financial inclusionpackaged in a unique, special model of credit unions and cooperatives. National associations, their credit union members, and lives of individuals have improved exponentially in the face of serious developmental barriers using collaboration via the cooperative model. But the question remains: how best to stay in tune with global cooperative developments and why? Theres an easy answer- stay connected with the World Council of Credit Unions and its Worldwide Foundation. In kicking off 2019, weve created an engagement calendar that serves as a singular resource to help you determine how and when to connect with the greater global credit union movement to gain a global CU perspective, train staff, or learn about innovative approaches to similar issues occurring globally that you may be facing at your credit union. Three Events Thatll Connect You to the International Credit Union Movement Haiti Embassy Supporter Reception March 10 @ GAC, Washington D.C. Highlighting impact, sharing success stories, and spotlighting our donors has been an annual tradition and we continue that trend at the Haitian Embassy in Washington D.C. during GAC 2019! Ambassador Paul G. Altidor cordially invites you to immerse yourself in Haitian culture and cuisine, while learning about the power of collaboration between the World Council and Haiti through the Haiti HOME and Accessible Finance projects to grow a sustainable, affordable housing market, serving 536,000 middle to low income Haitians members. Young Professional Exchange May 19-25 @ Curitiba, Brazil Join us during World Councils Young Professional Exchange Program in Brazil and network with young leaders from financial cooperatives throughout the Americas. Attend SICREDIs 2nd Annual Youth Summit, a unique forum for exploring strategies that address the shared challenges facing credit unions today. Learn how SICREDIs powerful model for collaboration has expanded financial services and contributed to one of the fastest growing credit union movements in the world. Gain new perspectives on day-to-day operations during an immersion experience with colleagues working in similar roles at local credit unions. World Credit Union Conference July 28-31 @ Atlantis in the Bahamas While you might be tempted to just lay out by the pool the entire time, our World Credit Union Conference, hosted at Atlantis and in tandem with the Caribbean Confederation of Credit Unions will spotlight our work in the Caribbean CU system, while providing networking opportunities and engagement experiences that will offer a deeper dive into the growth, impact, and history of Caribbean credit unions. WCUC presents an engaging menu of keynote speakers and breakout sessions on all the hot topics affecting credit unions worldwide. Dont forget to take time and visit local credit unions as part of our CU visit experience. Stay Up to Date! Connect to these channels regularly and youll be in the know on all things globally cooperative: Happy New Year & we hope to see you at these and other international events during 2019! WASHINGTON Sen. Richard Blumenthal and President Donald Trumps nominee for attorney general, William Barr, got into a series of testy exchanges Tuesday over the scope of special counsel Robert Muellers investigation of alleged Trump 2016 campaign contacts with Russia, and whether Muellers final full report would be publicly available. The questions and answers over 10 minutes covered some hair-splitting legal questions, hardly surprising for a former Connecticut state attorney general probing a former U.S. attorney general. Barr served as attorney general in the early 1990s under President George H.W. Bush. Barr told the committee that at age 68, he has little to fear in acting independently of Trump and the White House. Trump fired the previous occupant of the office, Jeff Sessions, principally because Sessions recused himself from oversight of Muellers probe. Barr stated that Mueller should be allowed to conclude his investigation. He told Blumenthal and other senators on the GOP-dominated panel that he considered Mueller a friend, harkening back to their days together in the Justice Department under the first President Bush. Mueller is a straight shooter and should be treated as such, Barr said. But he said he would not recuse himself from overseeing Mueller until he is confirmed and sworn in and has a chance to discuss it with other Justice Department officials. Roe v. Wade reference Barr also answered questions about memos he authored, including one in which he appeared to question Muellers pursuit of an obstruction-of-justice case against Trump. Barr played down the memo as a more abstract exercise in legal interpretation, and that it would be an abuse of power for Trump to intervene in an investigation he has a stake in. Although Barrs willingness to buck Trump was the main topic during the first day of a two-day confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Q&A also ranged into other areas including prison-sentencing reform, immigration, marijuana law enforcement and the future of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that undergirds legal abortion. Do you still believe it? I said in 1991 that as an original matter, it had been wrongly decided, Barr said. Its been 46 years (since the court decision). The department under Republican administrations has stopped asking as a routine matter that it be overruled. I dont see that being resumed. After the hearing, Blumenthal called Barr very polished and well-prepared. But he said he had not made up his mind whether to vote for his confirmation. While Barr has drawn fire from Democrats over his expansive views of presidential power, others have argued that Barr may be the best nominee anyone could expect from a president as legally besieged as Trump. I have a responsibility to evaluate nominees in terms of their ability to do the job, not the much lower bar of whether it is the best we can expect from this administration, Blumenthal said. A totally unqualified nominee would not receive my vote simply because he or she is best we can expect, he added. But William Barr has strengths that warrant serious consideration, and thats what Im giving it. Barr is Manhattan native, but he has family connections to Colebrook, Conn. His parents had a home there. His father, Donald Barr, was a deeply conservative headmaster of the Dalton School in New York and the Hackley School in Tarrytown, N.Y. in the 1960s and 1970s. Red line Blumenthal crossed swords early in his questioning when he labeled as stomach churning news reports of the FBI investigating Trump as a possible asset of Russia after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017. What is stomach churning about that? Barr said after determining to which reports Blumenthal was referring. Blumenthal, facing a time limit, moved on to questions about whether Barr would black out portions of Muellers final report and, if so, would he explain the editing to Congress. I dont know what kind of report being prepared, I have no idea, Barr replied. If Im confirmed, Im going to go in and see whats being contemplated, what (Mueller and his Justice Department supervisor, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein) agreed to and what game plan they have in mind. My purpose is to get as much information out as I can, consistent with the regulations. Blumenthal attempted to nail Barr down on whether Muellers probe could be hampered by a red line laid down by Trump such as putting the real-estate moguls personal finances off limits. The scope of the investigation is determined by (Muellers) charter from the acting attorney general, Barr said. If he wants to go beyond that charter, I suppose he would come back and talk to whoever the attorney general is. Blumenthal also asked whether Barr would impose restrictions on other federal prosecutors, such as the U.S. attorney in Manhattan overseeing the case against former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who brokered deals on Trumps behalf to secure the silence of women with whom hed have affairs. I would not stand by and allow a U.S. attorney to be fired for the purpose of stopping an investigation, Barr said. But the president can fire a U.S. attorney. Its a presidential appointment. In a second round of questioning by Blumenthal, Barr agreed that a president pardoning someone such as Paul Manafort as a quid pro quo would be an abuse of power. Blumenthal described Barrs statement as welcome. Manafort, Trumps one-time campaign manager, pleaded guilty to charges of tax fraud and money laundering in connection with his representation of a pro-Russia party in Ukraine. The New Britain native is now in a legal tussle with Mueller over his agreement to cooperate with the special counsel in pleading guilty. dan@hearstdc.com Speedcast Recognized as WTA's Top Independent Operator and Fastest Growing Operator Tops World Teleport Association's Rankings for 2018 Sydney, Jan 15, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Speedcast International Limited ( ASX:SDA ) ( OTCMKTS:SPPDF ), the world's most trusted provider of remote communication and IT solutions, announced that the company was honored by the World Teleport Association (WTA), being named #1 Top 15 Independent Operator and #1 Fastest Growing Operator for 2018. Speedcast was also ranked #5 Global Top 20 Operator and #1 non satellite-operating company in the top global rankings.World Teleport Association completes the rankings each year by surveying teleport companies around the world, gathering data about revenue and revenue growth as well as referencing financial reports from publicly held companies. The WTA's criteria for independent operators include companies whose primary business does not include owning and operating satellites or terrestrial networks. Speedcast holds the Top Independent Operator ranking based on revenue from all sources, in addition to 2018's Fastest Growing Independent Operator.WTA's Global Top Operator ranking includes all companies focused on satellite communications, including those who own and operate satellite fleets. In this category, Speedcast ranked as the fifth largest in 2018 based on revenues from all communications-related business activities.The recent acquisition of Globecomm is likely to further strengthen Speedcast's future position, as Globecomm also ranked #5 of the Top 15 Independent Operators and #13 on the Top Global 20 Operators."Speedcast is extremely proud to be recognized by the World Teleport Association for becoming not only the the #1 independent operator but also the fastest growing operator." says PJ Beylier, Speedcast CEO. "We executed on a strategy which allowed us to achieve significant growth and add depth to our portfolio and we look forward to continued strong growth in 2019 as we integrate Globecomm's team and capabilities. I want to thank our customers for their continuous support, and all our employees for their unwavering dedication to customer satisfaction".For complete information about the WTA Top Operator Rankings of 2018, visit www.worldteleport.org/page/topoperators.For more information about Speedcast, visit www.speedcast.com or contact marketing@speedcast.com.About Speedcast International Ltd Speedcast International Ltd (ASX:SDA) is the world's most trusted communications and IT services provider, delivering critical communications solutions to the Maritime, Energy, Mining, Media, Telecom, Cruise, NGO, Government, and Enterprise sectors. With more satellite capacity than any other provider, Speedcast enables faster, seamless pole-to-pole coverage from a global hybrid satellite, fiber, cellular, microwave, MPLS, and IP transport network with direct access to public cloud platforms. The company also integrates differentiated technology offerings that provide smarter ways to communicate and distribute content, manage network and remote operations, protect and secure investments, and improve the crew and guest experience. With a passionate customer focus and a strong safety culture, Speedcast serves more than 3,200 customers in over 140 countries. Learn more at www.speedcast.com. High Grade Vanadium Mineralisation Confirmed at Airijoki Brisbane, Jan 15, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Pursuit Minerals Limited ( ASX:PUR ) has received additional geochemical results for a further four drill holes from the southwest magnetic zone at the Airijoki Project in northern Sweden (see Figure One in link below). The results continue to confirm that the vanadium mineralisation within the southwest magnetic zone at Airijoki is both high-grade and of substantial thickness. To date the Company has received assay results for only whole rock samples. Final results for vanadium magnetite concentrates, produced by Davis Tube Recovery (DTR), are expected later in January 2019.Highlights- Results for a further four drill holes have been received from the southwest magnetic zone on the Airijoki Project in northern Sweden- Drilling continues to deliver outstanding results, confirming the vanadium mineralisation is both high-grade and of substantial thickness- Drill hole AIR18-007 intersected vanadium mineralisation over a 178m downhole interval:o 178.0m @ 0.5% V2O5 (whole rock) from 12.0m depth, including;-- 19.0m @ 0.7% V2O5 from 64.0m, and;-- 26.0m @ 0.7% V2O5 from 150.0m- Drill hole AIR18-008 intersected vanadium mineralisation over a 112.0m downhole interval including:o 81.0m @ 0.5% V2O5 (whole rock) from 44.0m depth, including;-- 20.0m @ 0.7% V2O5 from 101.0m- Drill hole AIR18-005 intersected vanadium mineralisation over a 55.0m downhole thickness including:o 21.0m @ 0.6% V2O5 (whole rock) from 123.0m depth, including;-- 13.0m @ 0.7% V2O5 from 131.0m- Geochemical data for the remaining 9 drill holes from the northeast magnetic zone, and results for vanadium magnetite concentrates (produced from the whole rock vanadium mineralisation), are expected to be delivered in late January 2019The whole rock geochemical results from holes AIR18-007 and AIR18-008 showed vanadium mineralisation occurs over 178m and 112m downhole intervals respectively. A substantial thickness (55m) of vanadium mineralisation was also recorded in hole AIR18-005. These results are a continuation of the substantial thickness of vanadium mineralisation recorded in the previously announced drill holes AIR18-006 (213m), AIR18-003 (56m), AIR18-002 (22m) and AIR18-001 (13m and 22m) (see Figure Two in link below)(see Note 1 below).Pursuit Minerals Managing Director Jeremy Read said the results from the southwest magnetic zone on the Airijoki Project are stunning due to the incredible thickness of vanadium mineralisation intersected and the high-grade intervals recorded."Drill holes AIR18-007 and AIR18-008 delivered exceptional results with vanadium mineralisation recorded over 178m and 112m downhole intervals respectively and within these huge intersections there are a number of high-grade intervals at 0.7% V2O5 in the whole rock," Mr Read said."Following such a positive start to the results from the recently completed drilling program, we are now eagerly awaiting the geochemical results from the vanadium magnetite concentrates produced from the whole rock vanadium mineralisation.""The southwest magnetic zone at Airijoki is firming up as a major accumulation of very thick, highgrade vanadium mineralisation and we are looking forward to defining the maiden JORC Inferred Resource at Airijoki" Mr Read said.Airijoki Prospect (Northern Sweden)The Airijoki Project is located in northern Sweden, approximately 55km east of the mining town of Kiruna and 9km north-west of the village of Vittangi (see Figure One in link below). Pursuit was initially granted an Exploration Licence in April 2018 (Airijoki 100), for a period of three years, covering an area of 9.6km2. In December 2018, Pursuit was granted three additional Exploration Licences (Airijoki 101, 102, 103), valid for three years, covering a further 22.4km2, bringing the total area under tenement to 32km2.Historic exploration work from the 1980's identified vanadium mineralisation within a magnetite gabbro unit that is part of the Vittangi Greenstone Belt. Nine historical drill holes are located within the Airijoki Project area. In August 2018, Pursuit was able to access two of the historical drill holes, K-AIR01 and K-AIR05, at the Swedish National Core Library. Drill hole K-AIR1 returned an exceptional intesection of 178.3m @ 0.3% V2O5 (1.3% V2O5 in magnetite concentrate) from 9.0m, which included a higher-grade zone of 16.0m @ 0.6% V2O5 (2.0% V2O5 in magnetite concentrate) from 171.3m. Pursuit then collected rock chip samples from surface outcrops of vanadium mineralisation in and around the vicinity of the historical drill holes K-AIR1 and K-AIR5, as well as to the northeast where a 2.5km long, high amplitude magnetic anomaly extends across the Airijoki 100 tenement. The rock chip samples returned vanadium values in whole rock ranging from 0.5 - 1.1% V2O5 in the southwest and between 0.2 - 0.6% V2O5 in the northeast(see Note 2 below).These results indicated that the high-grade vanadium mineralisation extends to the surface in the vicinity of holes K-AIR1 and K-AIR5, as well as to the northeast along the 2.5km long, northeast trending, high amplitude magnetic anomaly.In November and early December 2018, Pursuit completed an initial drill program at Airijoki, drilling 18 holes for 2,876m. The objective of the drilling program was to test 2.5 - 3.0km of outcropping high-grade vanadium mineralisation, in the southwest and northeast of the project area and then use the data from the drilling program to define a JORC compliant Inferred Mineral Resource. Following definition of the Resource a Scoping Study will be undertaken. Pursuit is aiming to complete the initial Resource by early February 2019 and the Scoping Study by March/April 2019.To date whole rock geochemical results have been received for nine holes drilled into the southwest magnetic zone, which includes drill holes AIR18-001 through to AIR18-009 (see Figure Two and Table One in link below). Full drill hole details for the drill holes detailed in this announcement are given in Appendix One. A summary of the geochemical results for the drill holes detailed in this announcement is given in Table One and the full geochemical results are given in Appendix Two (see link below).The whole rock geochemical results for the drill holes detailed in this announcement, and those previously announced on 20 December 2018, show the vanadium mineralisation in the southwest section of the Airijoki Project, to be significantly thick, high grade and covering an approximately 600m strike length of the aeromagnetic anomaly.The northeast extension of the vanadium mineralisation was drilled over a 2.5km strike length in holes AIR18-010 to AIR18-018 (see Figure Three in link below).Pursuit is expecting the geochemical results for vanadium magnetite concentrates for the drill holes from the southwest magnetic zone at Airijoki to be delivered in mid-January, with the remaining whole rock vanadium geochemical data to be delivered in late January.Notes:1 See Pursuit Minerals ASX Announcement 20 December 2018. The Company is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the information contained in that announcement.2 See Pursuit Minerals ASX Announcement 9 October 2018. The Company is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the information contained in that announcement.To view tables and figures, please visit:About Pursuit Minerals Ltd Pursuit Minerals (ASX:PUR) listed on the ASX in August 2017 following the completion of acquisition of a portfolio of projects from Teck Australia Pty Ltd, which remains Pursuit's largest shareholder. Led by a Board and Management team with a wealth of experience from all sides of minerals transactions, Pursuit Minerals understands how to generate and capture the full value of minerals resource projects. From local issues to global dynamics, Pursuit Minerals knows how to navigate project development and deliver returns to shareholders and broader stakeholders. Pursuit's project portfolio is focussed on the emerging Energy Metal, vanadium. In 2018, through compilation and interpretation of historical data, Pursuit applied for and was subsequently granted Exploration Tenements in Sweden and Project Reservations in Finland, covering projects with historical deposits of vanadium and extensive confirmed areas of vanadium mineralisation. Finland has in the past produced up to 10% of the world's vanadium and is currently rated the number one jurisdiction globally for developing mineral projects. Sweden has a long mining history and culture and was the second country in the world where vanadium was recognised as a metal. With its Sweden and Finland projects very well positioned to take advantage of Scandinavia's world-class infrastructure, cost effective power and stable legislative frameworks. Pursuit is looking to accelerate assessment and potential development of its quality vanadium project portfolio. With Europe rapidly transforming its energy grid to renewable energy, which will require large increases in battery storage, Pursuit's projects are well placed to participate in the energy revolution underway. For more information about Pursuit Minerals and its projects, visit: http://www.pursuitminerals.com.au BRIDGEPORT Police were investigating a fatal stabbing Monday night. It was the first homicide in the city this year. Capt. Brian Fitzgerald said the stabbing happened at around 6:15 p.m. A 39-year old male was stabbed during an altercation inside 136 Bishop Avenue. The victim exited the premises and collapsed on the sidewalk nearby. A witness called 911 and the victim was located by police. He was transported by medics to Bridgeport Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Detectives processed the crime scene at and are following leads in the case, Fitzgerald said. The victims name is being withheld at this time pending autopsy and notification of next of kin. Anyone with information about this crime is asked to call Detective Winkler at 203-581-5224 or the Bridgeport Police Tips Line at 203-576-TIPS (8477). Despite the frigid temperatures, a crowd gathered at the intersection of Connecticut and Bishop avenues as police detectives worked within an area cordoned off with yellow crime tape. Police would not say if they had any suspects or what the motive for the fatal stabbing might be. Contributed Photo / Department of Transportation / Contributed Photo BRIDGEPORT The site of a two-car crash that sent two people to the hospital Tuesday afternoon has been cleared. The crash was reported around 2 p.m. on Route 8 north between Exit 5 and Exit 8. Initially, only the two right lanes were closed shortly after the crash. By 2:20 p.m., the lane closure expanded to the three right lanes. New Contract with Mobile Operator Will Benefit Local Populations and Enterprises in the Region Extends Mobile Services to Remote Locations in Central America Miami, Florida, Jan 15, 2019 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Speedcast International Limited ( ASX:SDA ) ( OTCMKTS:SPPDF ), the world's most trusted provider of remote communication and IT solutions, today announced it has won a new contract with a subsidiary of one of the largest mobile operators in the Americas to increase mobile coverage in Central America.Speedcast will use an extensive satellite network to provide cellular backhaul and VPN services for consumers and enterprises in Nicaragua and other countries in Central America. The Speedcast technology will provide the region access to best-in-class services that will enable mobile carriers to expand their 3G and 4G services throughout the region. Carriers will also be able to provide high-speed VPN services for enterprises that want to increase the speed and security of their critical communications and expand into areas that don't have connectivity today.In regions with very dense vegetation, satellite transport solutions are the best way to reach remote populations to enable people to communicate and break down the digital divide. Speedcast's cellular backhaul solution will also help deliver a premium enterprise service that will spur economic growth in remote areas of Central America."We continue to see strong demand for connectivity in emerging markets, and with our satellite services, local carriers in Central America will be able to greatly expand their mobile networks in order to provide services to people and business that aren't connected today or that are not satisfied with their current communications options," said Erwan Emilian, EVP, Enterprise & Emerging Markets at Speedcast. "We look forward to working with this new customer as they shift from a competitor's network to Speedcast. We are proud that they trust Speedcast to provide best-in-class critical communication services that will enable them to grow their business in the region."About Speedcast International Ltd Speedcast International Ltd (ASX:SDA) is the world's most trusted communications and IT services provider, delivering critical communications solutions to the Maritime, Energy, Mining, Media, Telecom, Cruise, NGO, Government, and Enterprise sectors. With more satellite capacity than any other provider, Speedcast enables faster, seamless pole-to-pole coverage from a global hybrid satellite, fiber, cellular, microwave, MPLS, and IP transport network with direct access to public cloud platforms. The company also integrates differentiated technology offerings that provide smarter ways to communicate and distribute content, manage network and remote operations, protect and secure investments, and improve the crew and guest experience. With a passionate customer focus and a strong safety culture, Speedcast serves more than 3,200 customers in over 140 countries. Learn more at www.speedcast.com. Intended as a discussion group, the blog has evolved to be more of a reading list of current issues affecting our county, its government and people. All reasonable comments and submissions welcomed. Email us at: bill.pysson@gmail.com REMEMBER: To view our sister blog for education issues: www.district100watchdog.blogspot.com STRATFORD Police on Monday said they are making progress in the investigation of the towns first homicide in more than a year. Eduardo Concepcion, 30, of Bridgeport was shot to death in a car early Saturday. Police sources said they dont believe it was a random killing and they are talking to witnesses. Police said that shortly after 2 a.m. Saturday, officers were dispatched to Regency Terrace, off Barnum Avenue, on a report of a shooting. Upon arrival, officers found Concepcion, who had been wounded by gunfire. Concepcion was transported to Bridgeport Hospital, where he later died. More News News Stratford cops ID homicide victim Police said the preliminary investigation showed that Concepcion and another man were sitting in a parked car on Regency Terrace when they were approached by two men on foot. The men exchanged words, and one of the men produced a firearm and fired at least one shot, striking the victim, police said. The two men fled the area on foot. Police said Concepcion, who also goes by the name Rafael Concepcion, has a criminal record but they said they have no indication at this time that it was connected to his death. The towns last homicide was in August 2017. Anyone with information is asked to call the Stratford Police department at 203 385-4140 or 203 385-4128. Information may be shared anonymously on the Stratford Police TIP411 app. WASHINGTON The House on Tuesday failed to muster enough support to approve a short-term funding bill to reopen the federal government through Feb. 1. The resolution, backed by the entire Connecticut delegation as well as every other Democrat, was taken up under a process requiring a two-thirds majority to pass. Only six Republicans supported the resolution. The vote was 287-187. It came 25 days into a partial government shutdown that is now the longest in history. Rep. Jahana Hayes said it is incumbent on Congress to reopen the federal government as soon as possible and saw todays resolution as part of an ongoing effort to put pressure on Republicans to relent on their insistence that funding must be included for a border wall. It is unconscionable to me that at the moment where Democrats were positioned to take control of the House border security became the number one top issue of this administration. Thats not how we govern. We have to put pressure from the inside and the outside from our communities on elected officials to do the job they were sent here to do, she said. Hayes, a freshman, was included in the House Democrats weekly leadership news conference that took place in the Capitol Tuesday morning. House Republican leaders said that a growing crisis on the border must be addressed. We are standing firm with President Trump to secure the border, said Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming. At the press conference, Hayes described how the shutdown is hurting people in Connecticuts 5th District. In my district, we house five of the nine domestic abuse and violence shelters in the state. Those shelters are at risk of closing their doors, she said. Hayes also said 175 low-income housing units in her district have not received their payments from the federal government, which put people at risk of homelessness. There are also 400,000 Connecticut residents participating in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), which runs out in February. Many working mothers, many single parents rely on the supplemental assistance to feed their children. As a teacher, I recognize kids cant learn when they are hungry, she said. This is not their fault. Hayes also said the shutdown is eroding peoples confidence in government. I ran on a platform that government works Thats what got me elected - that we help each other, that we are communities of people, she said. This is not government working. This is not what it is supposed to look like No other government in the world shuts itself down. The House, now in control of the Democrats, is expected to vote on similar funding resolutions on Wednesday and Thursday to reopen the government. Even if they are approved, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he will not bring one up for a vote unless President Trump supports it. Trump has remained firm in insisting he will not support reopening the government before a deal on funding a border wall is completed. Trump has asked for nearly $6 billion for the wall. MONROE The Town Council voted unanimously Monday night to delay the towns budget referendum by nearly a month in the hopes of giving officials time to get more information before presenting the document to the public. Previously, the town budget would go for an initial town referendum on the second Tuesday of April one of the earliest dates for a referendum in the state. Under the changes approved Monday, the budget would go to a first town-wide vote on the first Tuesday in May. Other steps in the budget process have been pushed back as well. The timing of our referendum (was) quite cumbersome and put pressure on all boards and commissions said Town Council Chairman Frank Lieto. Councilman Jason Maur agreed, saying the new schedule gives Monroe officials, among other things, more time to assess how the town will be affected by the state budget. The governors proposed budget usually comes out in early February, and its often a long time before towns know how much state aid they might be getting, Maur said. Under the new schedule, he said, Monroe should have at least an idea of what state money is coming into town before finishing our own budget process. The councils decision stems from a letter sent to Lieto on Dec. 31 by Monroe First Selectman Kenneth Kellogg. In the letter, Kellogg pointed out that the budget process is largely dictated by the towns charter, and that a new piece of legislation, Public Act No. 18-12, approved in May, allows a municipality to amend its charter for the sole purpose of modifying its budget adoption dates. In the letter, Kellogg pointed to several pieces of information that often arent available until late in the budget process, or after its completion. These include information about the impact of the state budget, and health insurance premium rates for town employees. Under the new schedule, not only is the referendum date later, but the Town Council and the Board of Finance now have more time to review the budget proposals. However, Kelloggs initial budget proposal is still due to the town council on Feb. 8. The changes should make for a smoother, more-informed process, Maur said. This really is something that should be very good for the town, he said. BRIDGEPORT The Ohio man accused of fatally shooting a young Bethel woman he lured to the citys boat ramp waived a hearing on probable cause Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. You piece of (expletive), a male relative of the victim shouted from the back of the courtroom as Brandon Roberts pleaded not guilty to murder, felony murder, first-degree robbery and carrying a pistol without a permit. Roberts asked for a jury trial. Police said Roberts, who met 25-year-old Emily Todd on an online dating site, lured the woman to the Seaview Avenue boat ramp in Bridgeport on the evening of Dec. 8 where he shot her in the back of the head and then stole her car, credit cards and cell phone. Standing before Superior Court Judge Robert Devlin in a bright-orange jumpsuit, the 26-year-old Roberts simply told the judge I understand, when asked if he understood the ramifications of waiving a hearing on probable cause. In the hearing state prosecutors would have to present their evidence in the case to show they have probable cause to try him for murder. Devlin continued the case to Feb. 6. States Attorney John Smriga met privately with about a dozen of Todds family following the court hearing. He declined comment. The familys lawyer, Joseph DaSilva Jr., said family members would not be commenting on the proceeding. Todd, a therapist at a Danbury senior center, was found lying face down in the sand along the shore in the morning of Dec. 9. Police said she was fully dressed and appeared to be wearing a long, blond wig. She had been shot in the back of the head and a single spent bullet shell casing was found near her feet. Police said Todds mother later told detectives that her daughter had met Roberts, who was staying with relatives at a Stratford hotel, on an online dating app. After several dates, police said, Todd called off the relationship. But they said Roberts convinced Todd to meet him one more time, luring her to the area of the boat ramp. Video surveillance later showed Roberts driving Todds car into the drive through at the Peoples United Bank in Trumbull, where he used Todds debit card to withdraw $400 from Todds bank account, police said. Police raided the Stratford hotel room after finding Todds car in the parking lot. However, they said, Roberts uncle told them he had left without saying goodbye. When the uncle later called Roberts to let him know police were looking for him, police said, Roberts told the uncle sorry unc, and hung up. Police said they arrested Roberts at his fathers home in Shaker Heights, Ohio, on Dec. 14, without incident. A 2002 graduate of Ansonia High School, Roberts grew up in Ansonia and Bridgeport and has family in the area. Police said he confessed to killing Todd and to shooting another woman in Washington Park in 2017. BRIDGEPORT A local man, awaiting trial in connection with a Stratford shooting, has been charged with secretly video recording himself having sex with the states key witness and then posting the video online. Davonte Whitehurst, 20, of Iranian Avenue, was charged with voyeurism and disseminating voyeurism materials. STRATFORD - A Shelton man was arrested after police said he got into a fight in a local bar here. Paulo Dias, 47, of Huntington Heights, was charged with third-degree assault, second-degree threatening, criminal mischief and breach of peace. BRIDGEPORT - A veteran police detective has been placed on administrative leave following a road rage incident. Police Chief Armando Perez confirmed Monday that Joseph Badolato has been relieved of his regular duties pending further investigation. Badolato has been a detective since 2009. He was involved in a road rage incident recently with another driver and was placed on administrative status while (The Office of) Internal Affairs investigates it, Perez said. The chief said no one was injured in the incident but declined to provide any other details while the investigation is pending. He is a good detective, but sometimes good people do stupid things, Perez said. HARTFORD With New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on the verge of signing legislation to allow early voting, Connecticut is now one of only 11 states that requires voters to show up at the polls on Election Day and requires a legally valid excuse to obtain an absentee ballot. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Denise Merrill, surrounded by politicians and proponents who support early voting, announced a new effort to pass legislation calling for a Constitutional Amendment to allow Connecticut voters to enjoy a minimum of three days of early voting. Voters in the states that have passed legislation are now able to use some form of early voting to cast their ballots. In 2018, close to 40 million voters voted prior to the election, a record number for a midterm election. A record number of Connecticut citizens registered to vote leading up to the 2018 election, and we had record turnout, despite long lines and heavy rains, Merrill said at a press conference in her office. Merrill said that there was a large turnout of voters in the midterms 65 percent overall and up to 80 percent in some towns. She said that turnout caused some long lines and caused some people to change their mind about voting. Those lines were most notably in New Haven, but Merrill said even smaller towns experienced long lines of people waiting to vote in an election that saw a huge surge in new voters in Connecticut, especially among young voters. Early voting would be an immense help in curbing election headaches, Merrill and others said. We should continue to remove barriers to Connecticut voters exercising their most fundamental right to vote by joining the overwhelming majority of states that allow their voters to cast a ballot before Election Day, Merrill said. This popular, common-sense election reform will help ensure that not only can every Connecticut citizen easily register, but that every registered voter can conveniently vote. The earliest Connecticut voters could have a say on early voting will be in the November, 2020 election - and that would only be if both the House and Senate passed legislation this year with a three-quarters vote in both chambers. The last time Connecticut voters weighed in on early voting was in 2014. It was defeated as 53 percent voted no on the ballot question, outnumbering the 47 percent who voted yes. Merrill said she felt that part of the reason is failed was how the question was worded on the ballot. She also said her office would need to do a better job of informing voters about the ballot initiative if it made it that far this time. Connecticuts Constitution requires voters to appear on Election Day unless they are able to meet one of the requirements in order to vote by absentee ballot. The proposed Constitutional Amendment would require a minimum of three days of in-person voting, and would remove the restrictions on absentee ballots. Merrill reiterated that the 2018 Connecticut election, with high-interest translating into voters waiting on long lines in the rain, made clear the need for early voting. Early voting will act as a pressure-relief valve, alleviating long lines at polling places on Election Day, she said. She and others at the press conference also reiterated that people who work two jobs or are dealing with day care often have difficulty making it to the polls at all, or cant wait around for hours to vote.. Even though the Democrats have big majorities in both the House and Senate, it will take Republicans to jump on board the initiative to get to the magic three-quarters numbers. Government Administration and Elections Committee Co-Chairwoman Sen. Mae Flexer believes the numbers can be there this year. She and others at the press conference said they didnt believe the issue was a one that should split parties. Many Americans before us fought for and defended our democracy and our right to vote, Flexer said. Yet we have failed to make the way we vote work for the lives we lead today. Too many residents of our state still cannot exercise this sacred right. Flexer said she hears from college students, seniors, and working people about how difficult it is to vote. We need to secure reasonable access to voting for all Connecticut residents and make early voting a reality, Flexer said. House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said early voting is a priority for both himself and House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin. Its unclear how much Republican support there will be for the measure. Republicans have largely opposed early voting in the past. During a debate on the measure last year in the House, Rep. Laura Devlin, R-Fairfield, said theres no need for early voting. It would just be another unfunded mandate on municipalities. Devlin said her research showed that there was a 74 percent voter participation rate in the 2012 election; 77 percent rate in the 2016 election. Thats significant participation, she said. We do have an active electorate already and this would add costs as an unfunded mandate. We have far more important issues in front of us. Adrian Pellot and his wife Sarah Small are among the roughly 150 Transportation Security Administration agents at Bradley International Airport who missed their first paycheck last week, and the couples concerns are mounting as the federal government shutdown rolls into a 24th day. Pellot, 36, who has worked as a behavior detection officer for more than 10 years, said he thinks about his missed paycheck almost constantly and feels frustrated that the government isnt thinking about federal workers as people that have bills to pay. Instead the government is holding us as a bargaining chip so its agitating, Pellot said. He and Small are now depending on their savings to pay their bills. Small, who works part-time as a transportation security officer while in nursing school, said not bringing in any income is hard. Its more nerve-wracking because of the fact that if this shutdown lasts any longer one us is going to have to find something, Small said. About 25 percent of the federal government closed after funding ran dry Dec. 22, including the Department of Homeland Security, which has authority over the TSA, There are more than 8,000 federal workers in Connecticut, and Pellot and Small are among 1,500 affected by the shutdown. Some of those impacted workers, like Pellot and Small, are considered essential and required to work without pay. Others were furloughed. On Monday, there was little progress made to end the shutdown, although a bipartisan group of senators planned to meet in the evening to try to work something out. Last week, talks collapsed between President Donald Trump, who is demanding an additional $5 billion to build a border wall, and congressional Democrats, who are holding firm on their objections to the creation of that barrier. Pellot and Small were among a handful of federal workers and union officials who met with Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Monday morning. Blumenthal said those TSA workers and roughly 40 air traffic controllers at Bradley who work for the shuttered Department of Transportation at Bradley are suffering real harm and hardship from the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. It is also having a rippling effect throughout our economy it is impacting industries and economic development and real jobs, real people who need their pay and income, Blumenthal said. He called on the state labor department to give those who are working without pay unemployment compensation, just as it will be doing for furloughed employees, and said lawmakers should change the law if necessary. The senator also criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for failing to call a package of bills to the chambers floor that would reopen the government. If he calls these bills to a vote this afternoon they will pass and if Donald Trump vetoes them, I believe there will be enough votes to override that veto, Blumenthal said. Christopher Scofield, a technician who works in Bradleys control tower and on the airfield, said he is picking up as many shifts as he can at his second job as a Zamboni driver at a local skating rink. Scofield said his washing machine broke last week and he is not sure when he will be able to replace it. Scofield said he is worried for all of the roughly 800,000 federal employees that are currently furloughed or working without pay, and noted it can only get worse from here as far as affording bills. Pellot, who is also a U.S. Air Force veteran, said he believes strongly in border security that involves more technology, training and people. A physical barrier can be discussed after workers get paid, he added. If we dont have the people there to police those things then whats the point? We need the people, Pellot said. I believe that the human element is the strongest element of any security operation. Then we can worry about a physical security fence or whatever they want, but before any of that needs to happen, how about we pay the people, how about we do what the government is supposed to do and debate that in another venue rather than using us as a poker chip, Pellot said. Quinnipiac University released a poll Monday that showed that two-thirds of the voters surveyed want the government reopened while wall funding is negotiated, the position offered by congressional Democrats. Nearly six in 10 polled by Quinnipiac said the wall is not a good use of taxpayer dollars. Other recent polls show similar results. Voters say, Mr. President, its on you said Tim Malloy, the polls assistant director. Meanwhile, there are efforts in Connecticut to help federal employees who have had their pay stopped. Connecticut United Way said it would join a new effort to assist furloughed federal workers and others impacted by the ongoing government shutdown. United Way said it is preparing for an expected uptick in calls to 211 from those seeking assistance with rent and mortgage payments, utility bills and groceries and will address those new needs by bringing together United Ways deep community knowledge with organized labor and our corporate partners who want to help those in need during the extended shutdown. Food pantries have been established for Coast Guard members who are also victims of the shutdown. On Monday, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, urged affected Coast Guard employees to apply for help from the Connecticut Military Relief Fund, which provides grants of up to $5,000 for military members and their families who are experiencing a financial hardship due to military service. The Trump administration has moved to blunt some of the impact of the shutdown on ordinary Americans, ordering the shuttered Treasury Department to process income tax refunds and verify incomes of those seeking mortgages. It has also extended the life of the food stamp program, which is run by another closed agency, the Agriculture Department. But federal workers affected by the shutdown wont get any relief until the closed agencies are reopened and because Congress approved legislation last week that would allow it these workers are also likely to receive back pay. Michael Glenn is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher at Tomlinson Adult Learning Center. The school, built in 1924, overlooks beautiful Mirror Lake in downtown St. Petersburg. His adult students attend classes full time 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. with the sole purpose of learning to read, write and speak English. The majority of his students are new to the U.S. and know little or no English. Tomlinson has other programs for adults such as computer classes and GED.The many excellent teachers work under the direction of Tomlinsons administrator Godfrey Watson. My experience for the last three years, however, is with Mr. Glenn. Ive been volunteering a few days a week, assisting with two of his classes, working with beginning English learners. So this story is about him and my experience in his classroom.There are many challenges with these adult students. They are from all different backgrounds -- affluent families, refugees, others seeking political asylum, and a few simply seeking proficiency in English to return to their own country and field of study. Some speak languages that use the Roman alphabet while others speak languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet, Arabic alphabet or any number of other global language systems. Vietnam, Cambodia, Serbia, Russia, China, Cuba, Panama, Bangladesh, Somalia, Eritrea, Venezuela, Mexico, Peru, Greece, Poland and every corner of the globe are represented at Tomlinson. Its truly a global community.There are many things to consider when working with a room full of these students, all of whom are eager to learn and very attentive. Ability to learn, educational background in their home country (some have very basic literacy) and what brought them here all impact the classroom experience.Michael Glenn began at Tomlinson as a part-time Spanish teacher in 2012 and in 2015 began teaching ESL full time at the school. A native of Buffalo, NY, he spent his early career teaching high school Spanish before switching to ESL, earning an applied linguistics degree. For a decade he taught in various ESOL programs, including an internship through his university at an elementary school as well as after-school program, before moving to St. Petersburg. He and his wife, Indira, have a 5-year-old son, Miguel.Mikes knowledge of phonetics helps him teach pronunciation from a technical and scientific approach. These methods work and are preferable to simply having students repeat words over and over. Its been fascinating for me to observe these methods in action and how the students improve.Ive watched Mr. Glenn work through the basics such as teaching students to write and pronounce their phone numbers and addresses, how to fill out a form and how to introduce themselves. Some students struggle with simply making eye contact; some wrestle with pronunciation and others pick things up instantly. He adjusts to every circumstance with ease and enthusiasm.He has great empathy for these newcomers to St. Petersburg. Although its not exactly in his job description, he helps students with cultural issues. Ive observed him helping them program their phone, give them directions on a map to various local services and often lend an ear to a student who just needs to vent or needs advice about another class. He suggests apps on their phone that might help them outside of the classroom and directs them to the free clinic in St. Petersburg when theyre sick.As the students learn, Mr. Glenn also encourages them to share things about their cultures. At the end of some sessions, everyone is encouraged to bring in a dish from their country. Its optional but most participate. We have a fabulous lunchtime world buffet of home-cooked delicacies and share in a way that everyone can communicate in a comfortable and casual setting in the classroom. Its a pretty amazing experience and the students are thrilled to share something of their homeland with us. I mean, how often do you get the opportunity to have lunch with adults from a dozen different countries? Last session one Moroccan woman spent three hours baking a few dozen of the most amazing variety of Moroccan cookies. This was her way of giving back and saying thanks for this most welcoming learning experience.Every day Mr. Glenn comes in upbeat, positive and welcoming to each and every student. Its clear they care deeply for him because they often stop him in the hall, visit his class after theyve moved on to higher levels at Tomlinson or seek his guidance on a variety of matters. Some come by just to say hello or visit to spend time with him.Many students have jobs that they must work around to attend classes or leave early. He encourages them to attend as much as they can fit into their schedules. Everyones circumstances are different. Many of the students have young children, are responsible for parents, have health issues and a variety of challenges related to adjusting to a new country that expects expedient assimilation.Volunteering at Tomlinson has been most rewarding. Equally as important and a great inspiration has been to spend time with an authentic individual like Michael Glenn who exemplifies the best of our community every day.I feel very fortunate to live in St. Pete, a community that supports a school like Tomlinson, and to spend time with an educator who shows such genuine compassion and caring to help these motivated adults become part of our community. Follow this link to learn more about Tomlinson Adult Learning Center and opportunities to volunteer. GREENWICH The building that houses the downtown Starbucks store, and formerly a prominent drugstore, has sold for $7 million. The approximately 8,300-square-foot property at 301 Greenwich Ave., was sold by longtime owner Joel Adelman to Greenwich-based Charter Realty & Development Corp., which owns or operates more than 80 shopping centers in the U.S., including several in Connecticut. In addition to the Starbucks cafe, the fully leased edifice houses The Tobacconist of Greenwich shop on its ground floor and second- and third-floor offices for tenants, including financial-services and legal firms. Its an iconic building, Adelman said. (Broker) Steve (Westerberg) came into the picture and said he had a great deal for me, so thats how the opportunity arose. The acquisition reflects Charters strategy of purchasing street-retail buildings that also have other uses, Charter Principal Paul Brandes said. The firms recent projects include co-developing the Bedford Square mixed-use center in downtown Westport. Charter plans to preserve 301 Greenwichs exterior architectural features, while upgrading its interior common areas. This iconic asset, at the most highly visible location on the Avenue, fit well with our criteria of purchasing superior quality assets in unique interior/in-fill locations, Brandes said in an email. Greenwich Avenue still represents one of the strongest streets in the region for commercial activity, and we believe, as a long-term holder, it will only appreciate over time. From the sale, the town and state, respectively, netted $17,500 and $87,500 in conveyance taxes. The building stands on the towns main retail corridor and yards from the Greenwich school districts main offices and the towns police and fire headquarters. It received several offers from local and out-of-area investors, according to Westerberg, first vice president of the Stamford commercial real estate firm, Marcus & Millichap. Buyer demand for high-quality Greenwich properties continues to be strong, Westerberg said. Greenwich is still a solid market, fortified by its sophistication, affluence and proximity to New York City. Before the Starbucks opening about 30 years ago, 301 Greenwichs corner storefront housed the flagship store in the local Finchs drugstore chain. Adelman worked at Finchs, which included a lunch counter, before acquiring the business about 50 years ago, and then the 301 Greenwich building with his then-business partner, the late Marvin Weinberg. Adelman declined to disclose how much he paid for the property. Another Finchs storefront once operated on East Putnam Avenue while a Finch Pharmacy is now in business at 263 Glenville Road. Adelman no longer owns the Glenville location. It was very important to meet at Finchs, on the Avenue, Adelman said. Everybody knew Finchs. It was a very important landmark. pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; twitter: @paulschott Tenable Research discovered four zero-day vulnerabilities in PremiSys access control system from IDenticard (PremiSys IDenticard). The first, a hardcoded backdoor account, allows attackers to add new users to the badge system, modify existing users, delete users, assign permission, and pretty much any other administrative function. The ability to give an attacker unfettered access to the badge system database, allowing him/her to covertly enter buildings by creating fraudulent badges and disabling building locks is troubling considering tens of thousands of customers, ranging from K-12 schools, universities, government agencies, medical centers, and Fortune 500 companies, rely on IDenticard for secure key card access. The researchers warn that theres also a hardcoded password for viewing backups, a default database username and password combination, as well as user credentials and other sensitive information being stored with weak encryption. [ How much does a cyber attack really cost? Take a look at the numbers. | Get the latest from CSO by signing up for our newsletters. ] Apparently, the vendor believed the best course of action was to ignore Tenables attempts at a coordinated disclosure. After 45 days, Tenable turned to CERT, which the vendor also ignored. Ninety days after trying to responsibly disclose the vulnerabilities, Tenable Research made its findings public. Renaud Deraison, co-founder and CTO of Tenable, said, Unfortunately, many manufacturers in the new world of IoT dont always understand the risks of unpatched software, leaving consumers and enterprises vulnerable to a cyber attack. In this case, organizations that use PremiSys for access control are at a huge risk, as patches are not available. Other cybersecurity news U.S. Secret Service memo warns of criminal gangs using Fuze Cards to evade police Speaking of cards, a U.S. Secret Service internal memo warned that fraudster gangs are using Fuze Cards to store stolen card data in attempts to avoid getting caught. The cards are marketed as Your whole wallet in one card, since Fuze can hold account data for up to 30 credit cards. Krebs on Security got hold of the memo shared with the financial industry, reporting that it stated, The transaction may also appear as a declined transaction, but the fraudster, with the push of a button, is changing the card numbers being used. Ryuk ransomware gang, which made $3.7 million since August, is likely Russian, not North Korean North Korean hackers were not behind the Ryuk ransomware attack against Tribune newspapers, according to McAfee Advanced Threat Research. Instead, the most likely hypothesis in the Ryuk case is that of a cyber crime operation developed from a tool kit offered by a Russian-speaking actor. The attackers methodology of using the TrickBot trojan to target enterprises for Ryuk ransomware was dubbed big game hunting by CrowdStrike. Since Ryuks appearance in August, the threat actors operating it have netted over 705.80 BTC across 52 transactions for a total current value of $3,701,893.98, the report said. FireEye added, Following indiscriminate campaigns, threat actors can profile victims to identify systems and users of interest and subsequently determine potential monetization strategies to maximize their revenue. According to Kryptos Logic, The attribution of attacks will remain difficult, as nation-states can and will use misdirection where possible, and criminal groups are ready to sell access to anyone willing to pay. While, at the same time, the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by both groups are often overlapping, hence yet again increasing the difficulty of attribution. Ransomware attack forces Texas city to use pen and paper The City Hall of Del Rio, Texas, was crippled on Thursday after a ransomware attack. Del Rio officials explained, The first step in addressing the issue, was for the Citys M.I.S. (Management Information Services) Department to isolate the ransomware, which necessitated turning off the internet connection for all city departments and not allowing employees to log into the system. Due to this, transactions at City Hall are being done manually with paper. The next step was contacting the FBI, which referred officials to the Secret Service. Neither the type of ransomware nor the reasoning for needing the Secret Service to get involved was revealed. Other security and privacy tidbits If organizations using Schneider Electric's EVlink Parking charging stations dont install new firmware, then attackers may exploits flaws that would keep electric car drivers from being able to charge their rides. The author of the GPL-licensed text-mode casino game GPC-Slots 2 has had enough; hes rescinded the GPL license from Geek Feminists. Smartphones are allegedly becoming dumbphones again as vendors make tweaks to squeeze in extra battery saving features. Theres an interesting discussion about this on Hacker News, as well as a rating with bad vendor scores. Good luck these days when trying to buy a new TV that isnt smart. Vizio makes it out like smart TVs are spying on us to actually help us out by keeping prices down. CTO of Vizio confirms that Data collection in Smart TV's is now offsetting the cost of the hardware to the point that a non-Smart TV would have a higher price tag. Just like android phones, user data is used to reduce costs and stay competitive. https://t.co/ZaCwg723dh Scott Manley (@DJSnM) January 10, 2019 Domain registrar GoDaddy was caught injecting JavaScript into websites script that GoDaddy admitted could slow site performance or result in broken/inoperable websites. U.S. customers are automatically opted in to this code, which is part of Real User Metrics, but it can be disabled by admins in the cPanel. Russia will reportedly tackle U.S. sanctions by investing in bitcoin to replace the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. Thanks to the government shutdown, more than 80 TLS certificates used by .gov sites expired. Rapid7 updated its penetration testing framework, releasing Metasploit 5.0. Some people only walk this earth for a short time. Their departure reminds us that angels are watching over us. Last week, Aggie Reed rejoined her heavenly family and gained her wings. Agnes Lee "Aggie" Wilson-Reed passed away unexpectedly in Cookeville on June 11, 2021, at the age of 83. Ag To enjoy our website, you'll need to enable JavaScript in your web browser. Please click here to learn how. Jan 15, 2019 | By Cameron Sometimes markets get oversaturated with entrants to the point that none of them can sustain themselves. Prosthetics is not one of those markets. Im delighted every time one of these stories land in my inbox because there are still so many individuals being underserved in the space. Another young entrepreneur, Guillermo Martinez, is making headlines for providing 3D printed prosthetics free of charge to people around the world, with a focus on helping those in more remote regions that dont yet have access to 3D printers. 24-year-old Martinez went to school for industrial engineering. He purchased a 3D printer in 2017 for $172 and started watching YouTube videos on 3D printing robotics, which is when he stumbled on 3D printed prosthetics hands. "One day, I found the prototype of a one-hand prosthesis on the Internet, and I started putting it together in ways that made me laugh with the thumb up, twisted round, giving the middle finger," Martinez said with a laugh. It didnt take long for him to see the potential of the technology, stating. "I started making many 3D-printed hand prostheses for fun. Then I thought to myself, 'what if this can actually help someone?' I had already prepared my trip to Kenya and I contacted the NGO Bamba Project, as well as one of the orphanages that operates in Kenya. I didn't think I was going to find anyone." Boy, was he wrong. The next morning he had several messages from people all over Kenya interested in receiving a prosthesis. "There are everyday things we do in our daily lives that we take for granted," said Martinez, "and we don't realize how lucky we are. For others it's a constant struggle, and that's why I set up Ayudame3D to do my own bit, however small." He wanted to produce the prosthetics in Kenya by teaching the locals how to use the 3D printers, but he found that the infrastructure was often too limiting. "I'd always considered making prostheses in Kenya or somewhere else where I'd volunteered," Martinez explained, "but when I went there, I realised it just wasn't viable. I would have to spend a lot more time there to train someone in 3D printing, and the materials used to make the prostheses aren't easy to find there not to mention the fact that, in Kenya, there are power outages all the time." The great thing is that his prosthetic hands cost only $50 to produce, so with contributions from contributors and investors, Martinez has provided 50 prostheses to people in Kenya, Morocco, Chad, Tanzania, El Salvador, and Spain. His goal is to create a global network of 3D printers so local communities could produce their own prostheses. Hes started an initiative aimed at children to help them adopt the necessary skills at an early age. "We contact schools and give each classroom some manuals to help train them in new technology. The first level involves teaching kids how to make key rings with their name on or with easy shapes. The idea is that the difficulty level increases gradually until they're making more complex constructions like prostheses. Once it's done, we'll give a talk about how the 3D hands will be put to use," Martinez explained. Keep fighting the good fight, Guillermo. Posted in 3D Printing Application Source: Business Insider Maybe you also like: Parilee King, 93 of Corsicana passed away Monday morning, June 14, 2021 at Legacy West. She was born November 11, 1927. Visitation will be Friday, June 18th from 9 a.m. - 10 a.m. at Griffin-Roughton Funeral Home Chapel with funeral service following at 10 a.m. Burial will be at Oakwood Cemet 100% Website pt.jimdo.com uses latest and advanced technologies. It is very popular on the web, it's within the 1 million most visited websites of the world at position 1093 by Alexa. It supports HTTPS and GZIP compression. The main html page has a size of 219130 bytes (213.99 kb uncompressed) and 45899 bytes (44.82 kb compressed). This CoolSocial report was updated on 2021-04-04, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. Andrew Gimsons Commons sketch: For Cox to speak with such force suggested how desperate Mays predicament has become. The inexhaustible riches of Geoffrey Coxs advocacy poured over the Tory benches as he opened for the Government on the final day of the Brexit debate. Here was a lost cause worthy of the Attorney Generals powers. He boomed, he declared, he pleaded, he went quiet for a moment, he turned again and again to face the Conservative benches, he jabbed his finger at his opponents on his own side, told them not to behave like children, lauded compromise as if he were Moses leading the chosen people through the wilderness towards a land flowing with milk and honey. Beside him sat the Prime Minister. She looked white with exhaustion, mournful, almost hopeless. Yet during the hour he spoke, she revived like a wilting pot plant rescued at the last moment by a drink of water. Cox opened by praising the most passionate appeal to understand the role of compromise voiced at midnight last night by the Member for Gedling a Labour MP, Vernon Coaker, who according to Cox had been heartfelt and eloquent. So the Government still hopes it can get its motion through with the help of Labour moderates. That at least was what Cox appeared to imply. But as Rachel Reeves complained from the Labour benches near the end of this performance, for most of the time Cox turned to address his own party. Even the Speaker, John Bercow, asked the Attorney General to address the House rather than the Conservative Party: This perambulation is very uncommon and irregular. You upbraid me entirely justly, Cox replied. But for the rest of the time, he did the upbraiding: What are you playing at? What are you doing? You are not children in the playground, you are legislators. And as legislators, they must understand it would be the height of irresponsibility to pull the rug from under anyone who needs legal certainty, and can only get it if Parliament accepts the procedure for leaving the European Union which the Government has negotiated. The Attorney General offered the curious analogy of an air lock, which we must enter in order to adjust our bodies to the different pressure we shall find when we pass through the second door on the far side and begin life outside the European Union. Hilary Benn suggested, from the Labour benches, that beyond that second door lies a complete vacuum. Cox insisted on the contrary that we would find a bright new world. But he offered another analogy. Removing ourselves from the EU is as if we were to separate from a living organism with all its arteries and veins. It is a dangerous and complicated operation, about which we must be wholly pragmatic: Do we opt for order or do we choose chaos? We cannot hurl the one million British citizens living on the continent of Europe, and the three million Europeans living here, into a legal void. If MPs vote down the motion, the path to Brexit becomes shrouded in uncertaintyand because of the Northern Ireland backstop. Cox had done his best to make rejecting the motion merely because of the backstop seem absurd, dangerous and disproportionate. When he realised he was in danger of going on too long, he quickly and skilfully brought his remarks to a close. He had at least managed to cheer up the Prime Minister. Indeed, with this bravura performance, he had cheered up many people who are heartily sick of the whole Brexit debate. But for him to need to speak with such force suggested also how desperate the Governments predicament has become. ConservativeHomes first rule of Commons votes is that the Speaker will do everything he can to spite the Government. He is therefore unlikely to smile on any eleventh-hour manuscript amendment designed to reduce the scale of Theresa Mays loss this evening. None of the Conservative amendments that would aid the Government are expected to pass Andrew Murrisons, Hugo Swires, Edward Leighs. Labour will whip against them and ERG-aligned MPs will vote against them. They take the same view of these as they do of yesterdays letter from Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker to the Prime Minister: that they carry no legal weight of any significance. The amendment that would most spare the Prime Ministers blushes is Hillary Benns, which is both anti-her deal and anti-No Deal. It is thought likely to be carried, thereby obviating her main motion but by a smaller margin than she would otherwise lose by. Some Tory MPs have therefore been discreetly lobbied by Whips to back this amendment that opposes her deal. Since Benns anti-deal amendment is thus helpful to May (we hope youre still with us), it follows that he may withdraw it: indeed, it is reported this morning that he has now done so. When unclear about procedural malarkey, its usually best to turn to MPs motives. It will do for our purposes today to look at the Conservatives only. They fall roughly into five groups: loyalists, Remainers, Soft Brexiteers and then two types of harder Brexiteers. The loyalists will of course vote for the Prime Ministers motion, assuming it is reached, as will those Conservative MPs convinced of the merits of her deal. Remainers, such as Dominic Grieve, will largely vote against. Soft Brexiteers, such as our columnist Nicky Morgan, will mostly vote for. They will then cluster around Nick Boles Norway Plus scheme, or some variant of EEA membership. The harder Brexiteers divide into two main tendencies. First, there are those set against Mays deal at any price. Lets call them the Diehards, adapting the use of the term by James Forsyth. They actively hunger for No Deal and the WTO minimum. The second are those who believe, as Jacob Rees-Mogg puts it in our Moggcast this morning, that most of the poison is in the backstop. Again borrowing from Forsyth, lets refer to them as the Ditchers. Were the UK to have a unilateral escape clause from the backstop or were it to have a clear end-date, most of this band of MPs would drop their opposition to the deal. It just might then be able to pass. It follows that it is therefore in the interest of this second group as well as the first to vote against the deal today since, by doing so, they would send a message to Brussels that it will only clear Parliament if concessions are made on the backstop. But not so fast. Some of the Ditchers are brooding over the numbers. They calculate that if the Prime Minister loses by a big margin tonight, the EU may give up on the deal together. And that if she does so by a small one, it will offer no further concessions. But that if she loses by a margin somewhere in between the two, concessions of real value will be forthcoming. They may be right. As March 29 approaches, we are hearing rather less about how the deal represents the last word of the EU, that rule-based organisation, which wont budge. And more and more about how it may blink after all. None the less, we hope that Ditcher MPs arent drawn into playing clever-clever games this evening, tailoring their votes according to what they believe Mays likely majority may be, and trying to game the result so that she loses by, say, 50 votes or so in order to squeeze those concessions out of the EU. Such wheezes are not unknown among the most sophisticated electorate in the world. The simple truth is that no MP is in a position to second-guess the mass of individual decisions that his or her colleagues may take. In such circumstances, the most straighforward course is nearly always the best. Which, is this case, to judge the Prime Ministers deal on its merits and demerits. What are these? In our view, Brexit is a film, not a photo. In other words, where Britain will be on March 29 is not necessarily where it will be in ten years time. For example, it would be acceptable to stay in a customs union for a transition period. Indeed, it is inevitable, since the systems are not yet ready to escape it. What is not acceptable is for that film to be Groundhog Day in short, for a backstop from which we have no guarantee of escape lock the whole UK in a customs union, with Northern Ireland none the less divided from Great Britain. The proposed regulatory border in the Irish sea would separate the province further from the rest of the country. That has implications not only for Northern Ireland but for Scotland, and thus for the unity of the UK. The deal sets up an institutional tension between Eurosceptism and unionism, since Great Britain could move further, under its terms, from Single Market and Customs Union rules, but Northern Ireland could not. For this reason, we hope that Conservative MPs vote against Mays deal this evening. As weve said before, it almost works. Theresa May won on borders and money in the negotiation, and minimised the ECJs scope on laws, which could reasonably be scored as a points win. She gained the bespoke deal that her critics said would be impossible. She has won almost no credit for this achievement, first, because she has no media allies or strong public backing, but faces formidable opposition from both second referendum Remainers and UKIP-type Leavers; second, because U-turns and broken pledges elsewhere have bust her credibility and third, of course, because of the backstop. But almost good enough is not good enough. Strangely but truly, Tory MPs can best help their leader by voting her deal down today, sending her back to Brussels, and gaining those backstop concessions. This is far from being a guaranteed outcome but it is not at all an impossible one. The EU doesnt want a messy Brexit on its north-west frontier if it can be avoided, especially with the possibility of recession coming to the Eurozone. Either way, the Commons should honour the referendum result. Mays deal ultimately falls short of doing so and guarantees losing the DUP, together with her majority. Andy Street is Mayor of the West Midlands, and is a former Managing Director of John Lewis. The UK faces momentous decisions over Brexit. Political machinations, entrenched viewpoints, and the impending deadline have seen the Brexit Deal dominate the national discussion in the first weeks of 2019. These are historic times. The deal and its details have constitutional connotations which will define how the UK trades with the rest of the world for generations to come. Its vital that Parliament is allowed to do its job properly in time-honoured fashion. Yet the inevitable inertia as the deal is hammered out is bad for business, the economy, and confidence. Thats why its vital that while all the current talk is about whether there will be a deal on March 29th, the Government starts thinking now about what comes after a deal is struck. So, what should the Government be planning? First of all, we need to explain, explain and explain again. The deal in its current state is 585 pages of highly technical language. While big business will have the resources and technical expertise to understand its implications, small businesses, charities, and many other organisations, simply will not. They will need to understand it, to accelerate returning confidence, and put certainty back into planning. Looking ahead, we need to recognise that once a deal is struck, negotiations on the UKs future relationship with the EU begin straight away. What can we do to ensure there will not be the same parliamentary impasse when these proposals are brought forward? Is a new, more transparent approach required, that reaches out across the sectors to help build a parliamentary consensus? With a deal settled, we need to demonstrate Conservative leadership to boost business, create jobs, and grow the economy. There needs to be tangible support for the Governments policy of Local Industrial Strategies which the West Midlands has pioneered to grow regional productivity. That means investment in skills and training, and infrastructure to help business. In some cases, this could mean direct support. Government should rapidly look at whether State Aid regulation can be altered to enable them to directly support our industries of the future, vital for companies such as Jaguar Land Rover. Business rates on the High Street need to be looked at again, too. Retailers and traders welcomed the tax announcements in the Budget, but after a Christmas that has confirmed long-term trends these need to go further. Across all sectors of business, tax cuts will incentivise capital investment to increase productivity. The sealing of a Brexit Deal is likely to release pent-up investments from businesses. I know businesses in the West Midlands have been deferring investment decisions because of the uncertainty over the deal. If the Government gets this right, we are likely to get a Brexit boost as these investments are given the green light. Of course, the UK will also be able to push ahead with new trade arrangements around the globe. Work has already begun with many countries, but there are some quick wins to be had here such as abolishing mobile roaming charges in the USA. After the uncertainty of the last few months, we need to let the world know we are open for business. In the West Midlands, for instance, preparations for the Commonwealth Games in 2022 will play an important part in how we reach out as a region. The next wave of public service reform needs to be interwoven into plans following a deal, too. The NHS long-term plan, investment in policing, getting Universal Credit right, and the roll-out of T-Levels all contribute to a new sense of investment and change. Finally, we should unleash the regions to maximise the benefits of a new Brexit Deal. This means giving cash and power to Mayors and local decision-makers to drive their own prosperity, putting decision-making in the hands of those on the ground in the regions. Local leaders need long-term control as well as funding for transport investment so they can open new railway lines, build Metro systems, rollout out 5G and electric vehicle infrastructure. The regions need more powers to support the key sectors that build prosperity, and more control over Local Industrial Strategy. Our regions can drive the success of UK Plc. The Comprehensive Spending Review this year is an opportunity for Government to make a success of Brexit. If Government gets this right it could turn on the taps for billions of pounds of new investment into the UK. For the West Midlands, this could be hugely significant, with ambitious investment in housing, more businesses choosing us as their home, a surge in confidence, and a tangible Brexit Boost to the local economy. When a Brexit Deal is struck, it will be time to get the UK moving again. Now is the time to start planning. Jan 15, 2019 | By Thomas China wants to be the first country to establish a base on the moon and will be using 3D printing technology to build facilities, the Chinese space agency said Monday, weeks after landing a rover on the far side of the moon. Officials from the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said that the forthcoming Chang'e-5 mission will be launched before the end of the year, and will bring Moon rock samples back to Earth. Three successive missions will further explore the barren surface of the moon and test equipment for an international lunar research base. "Chang'e-5 will return mission sampling from the surface of the Moon around the end of this year," said Dr Wu Yanhua, deputy director of the CNSA and deputy commander of Lunar Exploration Programme. "Our country's first Mars exploration mission will take place before and after 2020." After Chang'e-5 returns lunar rocks from the surface the next mission, China will launch Chang'e-6 to bring samples back from the south pole of the moon. "Whether the probe will land on the near side or the far side of the moon, we will make the decision according to the performance of Chang'e 5," Wu said. Chang'e-7 will study the land surface, composition, terrain and space environment. Chang'e-8 will focus on scientific surveys and experiments, such as testing important technologies needed to construct a science and research base on the Moon. It will explore possibilities of building a lunar base using 3D printing technology. "For example, can we build houses on the moon with lunar soil using 3D printing technology?" Wu said. "We hope that Chang'e 8 will help test some technologies, and do some exploring for the building of a joint lunar base shared by multiple countries." Wu said. China successfully achieved a global first with its trip to the far side of the moon when the Chang'e-4 lunar probe landed in the Von Karman crater on January 3. The lunar probe and its rover, Yutu-2, transmitted the first-ever "close range" image of the far side of the moon last week. "From the images sent back from Chang'e 4, we can see the area surrounding the probe is dotted with craters of different sizes, and it's very difficult for the rover to drive in the region," explained Sun Zezhou, chief designer of the Chang'e 4 probe. "We'll try to find the relatively safe areas and make a reasonable plan for the route of the rover based on the images taken by it," Sun added, "we haven't found any insurmountable obstacle in the region." Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: Jeremy Hunt is Foreign Secretary and MP for South West Surrey. For once the cliche is justified: today really is an historic day. The House of Commons is about to vote on an agreement that would change our national destiny and take Britain out of the European Union in just 73 days. It took a remarkable sequence of events to get us to the verge of leaving the EU after 46 years. There was a referendum that most experts predicted would deliver a victory for Remain. There was an election that left us without a majority. Even so, we now have a 585-page Withdrawal Agreement, negotiated and concluded with 27 countries. It has compromises but not even the Prime Ministers fiercest critics would doubt her dogged determination that has got us to this point. But it is clear the opponents of Brexit are not giving up. On the face of it, all the cards are stacked against them. At the 2017 election both the two main parties pledged to leave the EU. They are up against a Government and a Prime Minister committed to delivering on this. And most importantly of all, those who want Brexit stopped are up against the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the EU, more than for any other cause or party in British history. Like many who campaigned to remain in the EU, that for me is the single biggest reason we must honour the mandate: as one of the oldest parliamentary democracies in the world it would be a devastating blow both to our national cohesion and our global reputation if the political class succeeded in unpicking what the people had told it to do. It is of course perfectly principled to take a different view. But the effect of changing the parliamentary rules to prevent No Deal would whether intended or not also allow Parliament to stop Brexit altogether. Because you cannot just change the rules of Parliament on one specific issue: once the precedent has been set they can be changed on any issue. This kind of asymmetric tactic to delaying or stopping Brexit would be significant for two other reasons: firstly because the most likely outcome would not be a decisive shift to a different kind of Brexit, rather a move to constitutional stalemate and Brexit paralysis. Businesses up and down the country desperate to plan would instead be condemned to months more uncertainty. But secondly and much more profoundly it would directly pit the will of Parliament against the will of the people. We have never had a written constitution and that has given us admirable flexibility to move fast at crucial moments. But it has always depended on restraint from parliamentarians, recognising that our role is not to impose our will on the people but to remain faithful to our democratic mandate. After a referendum in which all major political parties promised to honour the result, failing to do so would lead to a potentially irreparable breach of trust. So why vote for this deal? It has compromises and elements that make many people myself included frankly uncomfortable. Yet it does contain much that Leave voters were demanding: sovereign control over immigration, leaving the CAP and the CFP, no large annual membership fees, and only the most limited role for the European Court of Justice. At the same time, it protects businesses and jobs that depend on trade with the EU in the way any responsible government would obviously seek to do. And with skilful negotiation, an independent trade policy will be something we can achieve. The risk is that by opposing it in the hope of something better, we end up with the worst possible outcome: no Brexit at all. Why is that? Because those seeking to reverse the Brexit decision have a simple three part plan: defeat the Government in the meaningful vote; then use the deadlock to extend Article 50 and push for a second referendum. It is not scaremongering to point this out: the first part may happen tonight and then with the amendment planned by Dominic Grieve for later in the week Parliament could require the Government to adopt the second. If Brexit were then to be reversed in a second referendum, how would we look the 52 per cent who supported Brexit in 2016 and went on to vote Conservative in the 2017 General Election in the face? They trusted us to deliver Brexit and we would have failed. I have many colleagues and friends whom I respect enormously who have taken an honourable decision to accept that risk, but I cannot. This is our moment to deliver on what the British people asked us to do and we should seize it. Brexit 1) May faces heavy defeat in the meaningful vote Bercow calls the shots Financial Times Pleading, threats and dire warnings Daily Telegraph Warm words arent enough to appease the DUP The Times PM claims backstop assurances have legal force Belfast Telegraph Chris Philp claims a shift by MPs to back the deal Daily Express MP Tulip Siddiq delays caesarean to enter lobby in wheelchair The Times Stride accused of desperate picture stunt Daily Mail Dark mood descends on No 10 Financial Times It could be the biggest ever Government defeat in the Commons Daily Telegraph Theresa May warned Tory rebels last night that they will risk a Jeremy Corbyn government if they vote against her Brexit deal amid fears of the heaviest defeat suffered by a government in modern politics. Downing Street is braced for a no-confidence vote as soon as tomorrow as Mr Corbyn tries to force an election he claims would break the Brexit logjam. The prime minister begged Brexiteer Tories and the Democratic Unionist Party to take a second look at her agreement in the light of further European Union assurances over the Irish backstop. However, only half the Conservative parliamentary party turned up to hear her eve-of-vote pitch in which she urged them to unite around two tasks: achieving Brexit and keeping the Labour leader out of Downing Street. The best way to secure those aims, she said, was to vote for her deal. The Times >Today: >Yesterday: Brexit 2) Wallace: Broken promises have ended up pleasing neither side Mays retreats, first at Chequers and then in the Withdrawal Agreement, were supposed to bring people together. They have instead emboldened and inspired pro-EU MPs to rebel more. It is fashionable to praise the virtues of compromise and consensus, but politics remains red in tooth and claw giving ground is seen as weakness, and when May offered the Remain lobby an inch she emboldened them to demand a mile. Leavers reward for two years of loyal support was an outright breach of Mays promises Even Leavers are abandoning her Her disastrous strategy gradually reinflated the Remain wing of the Parliamentary Conservative Party, but it inflamed the Leaver side. Not only is this a bad deal from a Eurosceptic perspective, loading the UK with costs without delivering proper democratic self-government in return, but many of Mays colleagues feel it breaks promises made by the Prime Minister to her party and by the Conservative Party to the country. Scores of Tory MPs find themselves unable and unwilling to support it, setting the stage for the largest Commons defeat ever seen. Mark Wallace, The i Brexit 3) Gareth Johnson resigns as a Government Whip to oppose Mays deal Brexit 4) Prime Minister may have to quit, suggest some cabinet ministers The man in charge of getting other MPs to vote for Mays EU deal has quit in protest.Assistant Tory whip Gareth Johnson threw in the towel on Monday, January 14, as the PM battles to win last-minute support for her hated deal. The 49-year-old said he couldnt back it as it would keep us tied to the EU for years to come, and said it was disrespectful to the millions of Brits who opted to leave. In his resignation letter to Theresa May he wrote: This agreement prevents us taking back control and instead could leave us perpetually constrained by the European Union. Ex-Brexit minister Steve Baker, who also quit over our EU exit, hailed him as a hero and said it was the right thing to do. The Sun Theresa May will be expected to stand down if she loses Tuesday nights crucial vote on her Brexit deal as heavily as predicted, Cabinet sources have said. More than 100 Tory MPs have insisted they will oppose the deal, putting Mrs May on course to break a series of unwelcome Parliamentary records.If Mrs May loses the vote expected between 7.30pm-9.30pm depending on how many amendments are chosen by the Speaker she is expected to make an immediate statement on her next move.Downing Street declined to deny that Mrs May would resign if she suffers a defeat well into triple figures, and Cabinet sources said a defeat by a majority of more than 100 would put Mrs Mays future in peril. Daily Telegraph Brexit 5) Thornberry: Labour may be forced to back a second referendum Hilary Benn withdraws amendment The Guardian The prime minister must call an election. Anything else would not be stoicism or stubbornness, or whatever other qualities her admirers claim; it would just be sheer cowardice. But if she refuses,if Labours no confidence motion fails, and if we have to move to other options, including campaigning for a public vote, we will take no lectures from her about respecting our countrys democracy. Because she will be the one who has forced us into that position by ignoring every historical precedent on which that democracy is based. Emily Thornberry, The Guardian >Yesterday: WATCH: Gardiner attacks the idea of calling off Brexit and staying in the EU Brexit 6) Boles Bill would mean MPs could instruct May to request an extension of Article 50 Opponents of a no-deal Brexit will publish a plan today to force Theresa May to delay Britains departure from Europe if parliament cannot unite on a way to leave the bloc. In a move designed to upend the default setting of Brexit, a cross-party group of MPs are to publish a draft bill that, if passed, would reverse Britains automatic departure on March 29. The bill would give Mrs May and parliament six weeks to agree a new way forward if, as expected, the prime ministers plan is defeated in the Commons tonight. If no consensus can be agreed, MPs would be permitted to instruct the prime minister to request an extension to the Article 50 process, which mandates that Britain will leave the EU even without a dealThe plan is being masterminded by a group of senior Conservative MPs including the former ministers Sir Oliver Letwin, Nicky Morgan and Nick Boles. Yesterday they held talks with a group of cross-party MPs to try to win support for the move. The Times Four cabinet ministers back the plot The Sun Possible amendments to PMs Brexit deal BBC Its all or nothing: Article 50 cant be revoked temporarily The Times Idea of senior select committee devising alternative finds no traction Financial Times Brexit 7) McVey: Reject the Withdrawal Agreement and show confidence in our country Brexit 8) Hague: Put your reservations aside and support the Prime Minister Yes, some measure of uncertainty would be created by the government shifting to pursue a bolder, no deal route out of the EU. But we have to believe in the strength of British industry and in our countrys unique place in the world, recognising that this scenario would be far more preferable to staying in an EU that is making a host of wrong decisions at a critical time of global change. As Parliament prepares to finally go through the lobbies for the meaningful vote on the Prime Ministers Withdrawal Agreement, I would urge my colleagues to consider the importance of those two words Trust and Confidence. Trust in the people who made the decision to leave, and confidence that Britain can thrive outside the EU. Esther McVey, Daily Telegraph Ardent Remainers want that second campaign because they think they would win it. But two close referendums would mean this question would never go away. Now, ardent Leavers seem to be warming to the idea as well a chance to nail it, to run rings round the establishment again, to channel the anger that would erupt if Brexit is foiled. Its a dangerous idea. Political leaders who try to channel anger tend to be consumed by it instead. It is not responsible to put this country through the agony of another vote. So for multiple reasons I would go through the lobby with Theresa May. It doesnt look as if a sufficient number of MPs will do that. I hope they dont have the nerve to complain about the consequences afterwards. William Hague, Daily Telegraph Brexit 9) Daily Mail makes final plea to back the deal After all the endless months of bickering, braggadocio and blatant attention-seeking, the day of destiny for British democracy has finally arrived. Today, the Commons votes on Theresa Mays plan to secure an orderly withdrawal from the EU. In the Mails view, the choice before MPs is simple: accept a deal which delivers the main planks of Brexit and provides the stability the nation yearns for. Or lead us into a dark and hazardous unknown. So to honourable members of all stripes, we make this plea. Before entering the division lobby at such a pivotal moment in our constitutional history, put personal prejudice aside and think very hard about where the overriding national interest lies. Leader, Daily Mail Other comment Davis to back 28 day limit to immigrant detention Plans to limit the amount of time people can spend as a detainee in immigration centres to 28 days are likely to be passed by MPs within weeks. The Tory MPs David Davis, Dominic Grieve and Andrew Mitchell, along with the Labour MPs Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper, are seeking to force the government to impose the limit on all immigration and asylum detainees apart from foreign national offenders. Under the plans, foreigners who are ineligible to be in the UK under immigration or asylum rules could be detained for 28 days and then removed or tagged. No further detention beyond this period would be allowed in any one year. The MPs believe that they have a cross-party majority to force a change given that the government does not have a majority in the Commons. The Times Raab launches thinly veiled leadership bid, with a speech calling for tax cuts I bottled it over pulling out of PM race in 2016 after winning Brexit vote, Johnson admits The Sun Obesity is not a disease, insists Hancock Dominic Raab finally launched his thinly veiled leadership bid yesterday outlining a tax-cutting blueprint for post-Brexit Britain. The former Brexit Secretary called for a rise in the National Insurance earnings threshold to 11,850 to save someone earning 15,000 around 412 each year.In a speech at Westminster, he told supporters there should also be more shareholder control over chief executives pay. Arguing the Tories must counter the seductive Marxist allure of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, he said they should instead be championing consumers and business. Mr Raab proposed a gradual reduction in the basic income tax rate from 20 per cent to 15 per cent..Supporters attending the speech yesterday included the influential chair of the Tory 1922 committee Sir Graham Brady. The Sun Obesity is not a disease and people should take responsibility for being fat, the Health Secretary said yesterday. Matt Hancock also unveiled a government plan to enrol one million heavies in exercise classes.But he denied it was a nanny state approach saying there should be less intervention for the healthy and more for those who need it. And he claimed even a fatty cut of delicious steak is healthy in moderation. The Sun News in brief NTU and NUS to host inaugural Singapore panel session at Davos WEF Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) will be hosting the nation's inaugural panel and reception event alongside the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland this month. Focusing on the theme "Globalisation 4.0: Technology & Innovation for Humanity", the panel will be headlined by Mr Heng Swee Keat, Singapore's Minister for Finance and Mr Lim Chow Kiat, Chief Executive Officer of sovereign wealth fund GIC, as well as Professor Suzanne Fortier, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Canadas McGill University, and Mr Dion Weisler, President & Chief Executive Officer of HP Inc. Professor Subra Suresh, NTU President. Photo courtesy: NTU Professor Subra Suresh, President of NTU Singapore, will moderate the discussion. Some 200 World Economic Forum delegates, including global thought leaders and key influencers, are expected to attend the exclusive event. It will be held on 23 January 2019 at the Steigenberger Grandhotel Belvedere in Davos. In a joint press release, the two universities said the session comes at a significant time as the Fourth Industrial Revolution comes to bear worldwide. The shift will create new avenues for growth, while also posing serious challenges to the global socio-economic order. The disruptions arising from Industry 4.0 are already causing a sharp reaction against globalisation in many parts of the world. The panel 'Globalisation 4.0, Technology & Innovation for Humanity' will discuss how Singapore is addressing the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution. Photo: Connected to India The panel will discuss how Singapore is addressing the challenges of Industry 4.0. It will also touch on how the nation is promoting a new Globalisation 4.0 that will shape the growth of ASEAN, Asia and beyond. I commend NTU and NUS for coming together to host this first-ever Singapore panel discussion at the World Economic Forums Annual Meeting in Davos, said Minister for Finance, Mr Heng Swee Keat. This years meeting is taking place at a significant moment when a new and more complex era of globalisation is taking shape. The panel session brings together experts on major technological advances to discuss how we can collaborate to ride the waves of change to benefit our people and peoples around the world. NTUs Professor Subra Suresh said, "Singapore is a small yet forward-looking city-state that is fast-tracking to become Asias digital capital and a global leader in embracing Industry 4.0 technologies. The panel discussion will amplify Singapore's voice on the global stage and contribute to international discussion about the impact of technology from a Smart Citys perspective. NUS President, Professor Tan Eng Chye. Photo courtesy: NUS NUS President Professor Tan Eng Chye added that, Singapore with its high education levels, digital savvy workforce and strong technology base is well-positioned to play a key role in helping to reshape the global landscape. This panel discussion provides an excellent opportunity for Singapore to share our experiences, and at the same time, address key challenges and opportunities brought about by the globalisation of innovation. NUS is proud to host this unique event, and we look forward to a stimulating discussion. The 2019 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos runs from January 22 to 25. It doesnt matter if we buy them less often, were all going to continue to buy smartphones. The congregation of loyal iPhone users will continue to grow, which means Apples biggest challenge isnt mobile its Mac. Wave bye-bye to Windows 7 Apple has a huge opportunity. Over a third of all the Windows PCs on the planet are running a version of the Microsoft OS that is about to die a cold and lonely death, Windows 7. That installation is just 12 software patches away from forced retirement, after which enterprise and consumer users will be forced to upgrade, to pay Microsoft way too much money to support the old OS, or to upgrade. Apple sold 18.21 million Macs in its 2018 financial year, generating around $25.484 billion in revenue. There are approximately 642 million PCs in use worldwide that use Windows 7, and all of these will need to be upgraded in the next 12 months. If Apple can convince just 5 percent of those users to choose to migrate to a Mac (or other Apple product), it could generate significant revenue. Upgrading Windows doesnt come cheap. Consumers will be asked to cough up $140 to go from Windows 7 to Windows 10 Home, while enterprises will be required to find $200 to upgrade, or over $700 to continue to use their old OS for three years after it expires. Thats a lot of money for nothing. Why not get a Mac? We know PC sales are soft. We know smartphone sales are soft. We know retailers in many countries had a disappointing holiday season. The snag is that despite all these inconvenient truths, enterprise and consumer users will need to circle back to their rapidly diminishing credit limits and fork out for an OS upgrade if they want to keep their data safe. They have no choice in this, as support ends in 12 months. In normal times, wed expect most of these millions of users to purchase a new PC or buy Windows 10, but these are not normal times. These days people have choices: iPads, Surface, Chromebooks, and iPhones are all viable replacements for an increasing number of those old Windows PCs. After all, its not as if Windows 7 can be considered a cutting-edge system, so the tasks those machines are doing can often be replaced by a mobile device, and certainly a Mac. Apples big challenge is to help these migrating Windows 7 millions change. Think different(ly) Enterprise users already know Apple is everywhere. Those iPhones and iPads are seeing so much more use in business, as I point out from time-to-time. What works well with an iOS device? A Mac. Pretty soon, Macs will even begin to run iOS apps, which means enterprises will be able to build mobile apps that run reliably on both platforms. Thats one big reason Windows 7 users may want to replace their systems with an Apple platform. Here are 7 more: 7 reasons to dump Windows 7 for Mac 1. Free OS upgrades Apple has proved its commitment to free software upgrades and regular security patches for both macOS and iOS platforms. Windows 7 users can invest in either of these, and trust that they wont be required to pay for a software patch ever again during the life of their Apple machine. 2. Long life Speaking of usable life, we now know that Apple is tweaking its business plan to support its products for around five years. This means a system you buy today in 2019 is still likely to be supported and usable in 2024, though some features may not be available. Thats a five-year usable life, which should help stretch those budgets. 3. The TCO thing Forget the myth that Apple products are expensive. They cost more initially, but that cost includes regular software patches, long usable life, and extensive software packages (Swift, iWork, Xcode, numerous accessibility features) that youd be expected to purchase separately on some other platforms. IBM claims to save $500 in the life of a Mac in contrast to Windows systems. That initial outlay soon looks like a smart investment. 4. The S word Security is sexy. Apples platforms have proved themselves to be more secure. Security is a never-ending dance, of course, but surely it makes sense for consumer and enterprise users to prioritize security as they upgrade for a data-centric computing age? We know that two-thirds of Windows users would consider migrating to Mac on the basis of security. Another word beginning with S? Software with cloud services replacing traditional applications in so many situations, it is becoming harder to find mission-critical applications you cant access from Windows, iPhones, and Mac. 5. Migration is easy Apple made it easy to migrate from Windows to Mac years ago. It even offers an app dor that, Windows Migration Assistant. This will transfer files, emails, contacts, and calendars from a PC running Windows 7 (or later) to a Mac. It even saves your bookmarks for you. You can also share information over your network or run a version of Windows on your Mac using Boot Camp or Parallels. 6. Microsoft will help you The new Microsoft under the able leadership of Satya Nadella is a multi-platform firm providing cutting-edge cloud services. This business model means it matters less to Microsoft which platform you run, so long as you run a Microsoft service on that platform. This is why Microsoft reached a deal with Jamf last year under which it will help make it much easier for customers to migrate from Windows to Mac or iOS. 7. Shiny happy people Word of mouth is often the best recommendation. The American Customer Satisfaction Index's 2018 Household Appliance and Electronics Report confirmed that Macs deliver the highest customer satisfaction scores in the industry, with iPhones and iPads also top of their class. Think about the numbers game I think PC market figures may make interesting reading over the next few months, particularly as Apple introduces new model Macs. Please follow me on Twitter, and join me in the AppleHolics bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe. Columbia, MO (65201) Today Partial cloudiness early, with scattered showers and thunderstorms overnight. Low around 70F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Partial cloudiness early, with scattered showers and thunderstorms overnight. Low around 70F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. Jan 14, 2019 | By Thomas Last month we covered Shanghai Machinery Construction Groups gigantic 3D printer printing the worlds largest plastic 3D print in the form of a pedestrian bridge. After 35 days of printing, the bridge is finally complete. The 15-metre-long S-shaped pedestrian bridge opens to the public in Taopu Smart City Central Park in Shanghai last Friday. The 3D printed bridge, measuring 15.25 meters long, 3.8 meters wide, 1.2 meters high, passed all pressure tests and loading tests. On its website the Shanghai government described the new bridge as an innovative way to promote 3D printing technology and popularise it in urban construction. The 3D printer was built by Shenyang Machine Group and the extruder system was manufactured by Coin Robotic (who also built the bed), together totaling some $2.8 million in investment. "The footbridge could be used for up to 30 years", said Chen Xiaoming, deputy chief engineer at Shanghai Construction Engineering Machinery Group. By using glass fiber-infused ASA (acrylonitrile styrene acrylate) to print the bridge, the bridge is strong enough to support a load of 250kg per square meter, which is about the weight of four adults. And at 5,300kg, its also the heaviest plastic object to be 3D printed. A pedestrian bridge over a lake is a great way to showcase the largest 3D printed plastic object as its both an everyday, practical application and an interactive one that involves people touching and even relying upon (to keep them from getting wet) a 3D printed thing. Many people have never touched a 3D printed object and they still think of it as part fantasy and part future tech, so projects like this do a lot of good in terms of exposing the public to the reality and the possibilities of 3D printing. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: Nah wrote at 1/15/2019 5:54:18 PM:That's all well and good but its hardly much of a bridge. You could have used a handsaw and built a bigger one from trees in 35 days.Just you wrote at 1/15/2019 2:22:52 PM:If your feet don't get wet, it's a bridge. LolJust Me wrote at 1/15/2019 12:02:44 PM:Its it still technically a bridge when its so close to the water? The story of Cyntoia Brown is heartbreaking. Knowing that a girl younger than many of us college students endured something as terrible as human trafficking sends chills down my spine. If this name is unfamiliar to you, Brown was found guilty of first degree murder for killing Johnny Allen, who paid her $150 for sex. She shot him because she believed he had a gun pointed at her. She was also forced into trafficking and abused at 16 years old by someone she became romantically involved with -- Garion McGlothlen, also known as Kutthroat. Her abuse reportedly made her paranoid, which is why she believed Allen pointed a gun at her. Prosecutors argued the murder of Allen was motivated by robbery. She was sentenced 51 years to life in maximum security prison. For 15 years after that, many people would advocate and petition for Cyntoias freedom. Some of those people were celebrities such as Cara Delevingne, Rihanna and Kim Kardashian. Rihanna wrote an Instagram post in which she passionately expressed her disappointment in the judicial system. She wrote, Did we somehow change the definition of #JUSTICE along the way?? cause..... Something is horribly wrong when the system enables these rapists and the victim is thrown away for life!" Kardashian was probably one of biggest advocates for her, and even tweeted out in 2017 saying, The system has failed. Its heartbreaking to see a young girl sex trafficked then when she has the courage to fight back is jailed for life! We have to do better & do whats right. Ive called my attorneys yesterday to see what can be done to fix this." Kardashian reportedly called one of her top-notch lawyers, Shawn Holley, to see what could be done in Browns case. He is known to have an excellent reputation, and was on the team of lawyers that defended O.J. Simpson during his murder trial. Brown is now 30 years old, and after serving her sentence for 15 years, she was granted clemency by Governor of Tennessee Bill Haslam, and will be released on Aug. 7. Governor Haslam has not stated whether or not this change in her sentence was influenced by celebrity opinions and endorsement, but he did say he took this case into careful consideration. One could assume that when many people have the same opinion on a subject, it has the power to sway someones point of view. It is inspiring to see there are people who use their power for good such as Kardashian, but it is at the same time also disappointing that celebrities are seemingly the only ones who have the power to influence this case. Although American citizens may not think they have as much power as Kardashian, they have a duty, no matter who they are, to stand up for what they believe in. If one believes Brown deserves to be free, they should speak and not rely on the power of celebrities to change the outcome. Though cliche, I believe its true it takes just one spark to start a fire. Many people are wrongfully sitting in prison cells right now, and we dont know their stories, who they are and what they have been through. Though its highly unlikely I will ever meet or know Cyntoia Brown personally, I am thankful she gained the attention that helped her get the freedom she deserved. I just hope other wrongfully convicted inmates have the opportunity to gain public advocacy, too. Unfortunately, we live in a world where not everyone receives this opportunity. With more advocacy from fellow citizens, it has potential to be as powerful as the celebrities who helped Brown. State College Police are currently investigating multiple thefts from the Benner Pike Walmart. An unidentified male stole a TV at around 7:42 p.m. on Jan. 5, according to a press release. The man then stole a second TV from the store at 8:21 p.m. on Jan. 7. The release described the suspect as a white male with dark hair. At the time of the theft, he was wearing blue jeans and a plaid coat. The male left the Walmart parking lot driving a dark-colored sedan with a Pennsylvania license plate. The first three letters on the plate were covered with tape. State College Police ask that anyone with information regarding the theft to contact them. A State College resident faces charges after attempting to kiss an on-duty police officer and shoving another officer while intoxicated. At approximately 1:58 a.m. on Jan. 11, police responded to a situation where Emma Miller, 21, was said to be causing public alarm to the point where it created a hazardous environment. According to the report, the incident occurred at 118 S. Garner St., which is the location of Lions Den. Witnesses say Miller continuously yelled and cursed at officers before shoving one of them. The defendant was not arrested, but citations were filed by mail on Jan. 11. Miller faces charges of disorderly conduct and public drunkenness. According to the Penn State directory, Miller is an undergraduate student studying health policy and administration. The State College Borough Council officially declared that Jan. 22 will be recognized as the National Day of Racial Healing in State College. Mayor Don Hahn issued the proclamation in full at the Borough Council meeting on Jan. 14. The proclamation seeks to fight racism in State College. It is the third year that the borough has participated in this effort. Each year, the day has been observed one day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day. According to Hahn, the observance was originally suggested by the National League of Cities. Council member Catherine Dauler spoke in support of the national day. I think the recipients are really all of us, because I think this is something that we can all endorse and support as Americans, and as members of communities all over the country, Dauler said. Im very gratified that the mayor has issued this proclamation for the third time. Council member Theresa D. Lafer added it is not surprising State College would observe this day, as she said the community values unity. This unity, she said, was displayed by the services held after the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. When 600 people from our community showed up, in a room that is designed for 200-300 people, it was very beautiful, and it shows that these things really do matter, Lafer said. One of the most wonderful things about State College, as a borough and as a larger community, is that we do stand together, and we do stand against hatred, violence and bigotry. In addition to issuing the proclamation, the council discussed the government shutdown and made several approvals. Two members discussed how the partial government shutdown is affecting State College. The president of the council, Evan Myers, criticized both the shutdown and the proposed border wall which he believes is the root of the shutdown. I believe that the partial shutdown of the government is directly and indirectly impacting the people not only of the United States and the state of Pennsylvania, but also the Borough of State College, Meyers said. I believe the president and the administration should end this crisis by agreeing to accept the will of Congress and sign legislation to reopen the government, so it stops harming the citizens of the country especially citizens of State College. Council member Jesse Barlow agreed with Meyer, adding that he believes the shutdown is an antidemocratic tactic. He proposed the government should adopt an immigration policy based on "practicality and humanity." The council also approved several consent items during the meeting, such as the closure of various streets in April for the 14th annual Autism Speaks U 5k Race/3k Walk. A portion of South Allen Street will be among the streets closed. In addition, the council approved the use of multiple parking meters along East College Avenue to raise awareness about Lyme disease in April. It also approved the use of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Plaza in May for the second annual JAM Fest. The council also granted an exception to the Open Container Ordinance for Pop Up Ave and fall market events. Finally, Hahn addressed Penn State students directly in a welcome report following winter break. He apologized for not being able to resume his office hours yet, and said they will resume soon. I wish to note and commend the increased level of student activism on campus as evidence as the high voter turnout last November, he said. I urge council to encourage student interest and increase knowledge and participation of local government by creating student representative positions. A security guard show the way to a man outside of the Davos Congress Centre under snow ahead of the opening of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting, in Davos, eastern Switzerland. FABRICE COFFRINI | AFP | Getty Images Thousands of business, political and cultural leaders from all over the world will return to the snowy mountains of Davos, Switzerland next week to discuss the latest global issues. The main theme of this year's World Economic Forum (WEF) is "Globalization 4.0: Shaping a New Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution." The annual gathering of the rich and powerful is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, January 22, and end on Friday, January 25. CNBC takes a look at some of the most prominent leaders expected to make an appearance. Bill Gates Billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is expected to visit the Swiss Alpine town of Davos once again in 2019. He is due to take part in a discussion focused on financial innovation for global health. John Lamparski | Getty Images Christine Lagarde Christine Lagarde is expected to take part in several panel sessions at WEF in Davos next week. Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), became the first woman to head the Washington-based institute in 2011, following a career in international law and the French government. The WEF conference has been criticized in previous years for lacking female representation. Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde speaks during the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore on November 7, 2018. Roslan Rahman | AFP | Getty Images David Attenborough U.K. naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough is set to be recognized as an "exceptional cultural leader" at the Annual Crystal Awards ceremony in Davos on Monday. With a broadcasting career spanning six decades, the 92-year-old is scheduled to present key sequences from "Our Planet" in Davos. "Our Planet" is a new Netflix series focusing on the preservation of life on earth. David Attenborough attends the opening ceremony of the COP 24 United Nations climate change conference on December 03, 2018 in Katowice, Poland. Sean Gallup | Getty Images Jacinda Ardern New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is also set to attend WEF at Davos in 2019. She is set to take part in panel sessions discussing a range of issues, from mental health to the safeguarding of earth. In June last year, Ardern became the first woman in the country's history to give birth while in office. She also became the country's youngest prime minister when she took office through a coalition deal in 2017. New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern. Getty Images | Kerry Marshall Jair Bolsonaro Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is also expected to visit the snowy mountain village of Davos next week, marking his first international trip since his inauguration at the start of the year. In the absence of President Donald Trump, Brazil's populist leader is widely expected to take center stage at the forum. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro delivers a speech during the appointment ceremony of the new heads of public banks, at Planalto Palace in Brasilia on January 7, 2019. Evaristo Sa | AFP | Getty Images The American musician and tech entrepreneur Will.I.Am has become a frequent visitor to the Swiss Alps in recent years. The Black Eyed Peas frontman, who was raised in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, started a foundation seven years ago where children have the chance to study about robotics and computer software. will.i.am of the Black Eyes Peas performs during the 2018 AFL Grand Final match between the Collingwood Magpies and the West Coast Eagles at Melbourne Cricket Ground on September 29, 2018 in Melbourne, Australia. Ryan Pierse | AFL Media | Getty Images Prince William The Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, is expected to arrive in Switzerland next week to take part in a conversation with David Attenborough and a session discussing mental health. Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge attend the 2018 Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey on March 12, 2018 in London, England. Max Mumby | Indigo | Getty Images Al Gore Former Vice President Al Gore will once again join thousands of other global elites in Switzerland next week. The environmental activist is scheduled to take part in a session focused on the so-called "ocean economy." Gore will also chair a discussion on how to safeguard the earth. Former Vice President Al Gore discusses 'Confronting The Climate Crisis: Critical Roles For The US And China'at Harvard University's Sanders Theatre on April 7, 2016 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Paul Marotta | Getty Images David Blaine U.S. illusionist David Blaine is expected to take part in a one-on-one interview session entitled "Searching for Magic in Real Life" at WEF in Davos next week. The thrill-seeking performer originally made his name in New York as a magician and endurance artist. Magician, David Blaine soaks in a water bath full of ice. Todd Plitt | Getty Images Tim Berners-Lee Tim Berners-Lee, a London-born computer scientist who invented the world wide web, is expected to discuss digital environment safety at WEF in Davos. In an interview with CNBC late last year, Berners-Lee said the internet was at a "tipping point," as it faces threats such as market concentration, data breaches and so-called "fake news." Sir Tim Berners-Lee inventor of the World Wide Web waves to photographers as he arrives at Guildhall to receive an Honorary Freedom of the City of London award on September 24, 2014 in London, England. Peter Macdiarmid | Getty Images Chrystia Freeland Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland will attend the annual gathering of world leaders in Switzerland next week. Alongside U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others, Freeland is expected to take part in a panel session entitled "The Geopolitical Outlook." Chrystia Freeland, Canada's minister of foreign affairs, speaks to members of the media outside the U.S. Trade Representative office in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2018. Yuri Gripas | Bloomberg | Getty Images Dara Khosrowshahi Dara Khosrowshahi, chief executive officer of Uber, will return to the Swiss Alps next week to discuss how capitalism can be reshaped to promote inclusive prosperity. The former Expedia chef executive was appointed by Uber in August 2017, replacing co-founder Travis Kalanick after months of turmoil. North Korea Vice-Chairman Kim Yong Chol shakes hands with United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on May 31, 2018 in New York. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is about to hold high-level talks in Washington D.C. with North Korean senior official Kim Yong Chol on Thursday or Friday, and both sides are fine-tuning details, a South Korean newspaper said. The North Korean official is likely to meet President Donald Trump as well, the Chosun Ilbo said on Tuesday, citing an unnamed diplomatic source familiar with the talks between the United States and North Korea. Asked about the South Korean newspaper report, a State Department official said, "We don't have any meetings to announce." The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The United States is considering partially easing sanctions on North Korea in exchange for the isolated nation discarding, or sending abroad, its intercontinental ballistic missiles, in addition to the adoption of a "nuclear freeze," the U.S. talks with the South Korean government have shown, the Chosun Ilbo said, citing the source. "If North Korea accepts, it's a realizable scenario," it quoted the source as saying. South Korea's presidential office directed questions to the foreign ministry, which did not have immediate comment. This month, Trump said he had received a "great" letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and would probably meet him again in the not-too-distant future, as part of efforts to persuade him to give up his nuclear weapons. Pompeo made several trips to Pyongyang last year, but the two sides have not rescheduled an abruptly canceled November meeting between him and Kim Yong Chol that aimed at paving the way for a second summit. Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Indra Nooyi speaks at The New York Times DealBook Conference Indra Nooyi, the former PepsiCo CEO, is reportedly being considered to become the next head of the World Bank. The New York Times, citing several people familiar with the matter, said Tuesday that Nooyi has been courted by Ivanka Trump as an ally to the Trump administration. However, the report said the process for picking the next World Bank chief remain fluid and is still in the early stages. Nooyi stepped down from her job as PepsiCo's chief executive in October. She led the snacks and beverage company for 12 years. It is unclear whether Nooyi would accept the job, according to the report. However, Ivanka Trump has referred to Nooyi as a "mentor" and an "inspiration." Tweet Still, The Times points out that Nooyi's support of former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton could be a roadblock to her being nominated. The report comes a day after the White House denied that Ivanka Trump, the daughter of President Donald Trump and a senior advisor to him, was in the running for the World Bank job. Instead, the White House confirmed Ivanka was overseeing an internal search for candidates. The bank's presidency became vacant after Jim Yong Kim announced last week he was stepping down effective Feb. 1. The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. Click here to read the full story from The New York Times. [The stream is slated to start at 9:30 a.m.ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.] President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Justice, William Barr, is scheduled Tuesday to begin the first of two days of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Barr, 68, is expected to defend himself against a barrage of queries from the committee's Democratic minority about his views on special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russia's election meddling and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. They also plan to grill the conservative Washington insider about his belief in a president's expansive authority, in light of Trump's past threats against Mueller's probe and his more recent flirtation with declaring a national emergency to bypass a negotiating deadlock with congressional Democrats over funding for a border wall. The impasse over funding nine federal departments has led to the longest ever government shutdown. Barr, who previously served as attorney general in President George H.W. Bush's administration, came under fire from Democrats after it was revealed that he sent a 19-page memo to the DOJ in June, arguing that Mueller's focus on whether Trump had obstructed justice is "fatally misconceived." The memo raised fears among defenders of the Mueller probe that Barr may have been selected because of a bias against the investigation. Barr's opening remarks will attempt to allay these fears from the outset of the hearings. They appear to show him assuring senators that "it is vitally important" for Mueller to complete his probe, and establishing himself as an independent legal mind who will not be swayed by the president. Democrats may ask him about possible recusal from any involvement in the probe, similar to his predecessor Jeff Sessions, who recused himself following reports about his contacts with Russia's then-ambassador to the U.S. Sessions' recusal put oversight duties in the hands of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, but could be transferred back to Barr if he is confirmed. The Democrats on the committee include three potential candidates for president in the 2020 election. Multiple Democrats have already officially announced their campaigns, including former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, or have made major steps toward an official announcement, such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Committee Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Kamala Harris of California are all being closely eyed as more Democrats announce their bids to challenge Trump in 2020. Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at an Economic Club of New York event in New York on Feb. 7, 2018. Amazon is the e-commerce giant, a behemoth in cloud computing and an aspiring player in the pharmacy business. Across those industries, Amazon is scaring everyone, forcing them to partner up to defend themselves. The latest deal was announced on Tuesday, when drug store chain Walgreens said it's teaming up with Microsoft for a seven-year agreement that includes exploring digital health opportunities within stores and developing software for managing patient engagement. Last month, Walgreens inked a deal with Verily, Alphabet's life sciences company, to work on projects related to helping people take their medicines. Walgreens and other pharmacy companies are paying particularly close attention to Amazon after it bought online pharmacy PillPack in June for $1 billion. The acquisition came after Amazon had already eaten into sales of household items like paper towels and shampoo, which consumers traditionally bought in local retail stores, often while picking up a prescription. While Amazon shares have climbed 28 percent in the past year, Walgreens is down 5.6 percent and CVS has plunged 19 percent. Both pharmacy companies have started redesigning stores to add more health services in hopes of driving traffic to their physical locations. When it comes to the online experience, they need the expertise of technology companies, which have learned how to acquire customers and keep them engaged and loyal. Under the new deal with Microsoft, Walgreens is signing up more than 380,000 employees for its Microsoft 365 cloud apps offering and will move most of its information technology workloads to the Azure public cloud. Stephen Buck, a drug supply chain expert, said it's a notable development. Back in June, after the PillPack deal, Walgreens CEO Stefano Pessina said he was "not particularly worried" about Amazon. "This partnership with Microsoft suggests otherwise," Buck said. Voting rights organizations are raising alarm bells about President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Justice, William Barr, whose confirmation hearing kicked off Tuesday in the Senate. The organizations are saying the former attorney general under George H.W. Bush is likely to purge voter rolls and pursue limited enforcement of the Voting Rights Act if he is confirmed by the Senate, as is widely expected. Few individuals at the top levels of government have earned such unified scorn from civil rights groups as Trump's former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who reversed the department's position in two major voting rights cases and avoided bringing any new cases to enforce voting protections. Yet those groups are warning that Barr could accelerate the administration's efforts, which they see as disenfranchising lawful voters. "So far, he has said nothing on the Voting Rights Act and the need to restore it, or on the importance of the Department's role in enforcing other federal voting rights laws," Kristine Lucius, executive vice president for policy at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 200 rights groups, said in an email as Barr's confirmation hearing was underway. The prospect has heightened significance because of the 2020 presidential election campaign, which is beginning to pick up steam as Democratic contenders for the White House start announcing their intentions. Trump claimed in the aftermath of the 2016 election that "millions and millions" of people had voted illegally. The president never provided any evidence for his claim, and a commission that he established to investigate the matter dissolved without locating any. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment for this article. Right-leaning organizations are hopeful that Barr will take up the mantle from Sessions. They point to recent Supreme Court cases upholding restrictive voter registration practices as evidence that states need to devote more attention to who is on their voter rolls. "With Sessions, what we began to see was picking up where the George W. Bush administration left off, particularly around voter roll list maintenance," said Logan Churchwell, a spokesperson for the conservative Public Interest Legal Foundation. "Barr and the DOJ are ready to go. We want to see Sessions' legacy move forward." Barr briefly touched on voting in his prepared opening testimony, which was released Monday. "Fostering confidence in the outcome of elections also means ensuring that the right to vote is fully protected, as well as ensuring the integrity of elections," he wrote. Later, he told Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., that election integrity would be one of his priorities. But civil rights groups are concerned that Barr, who has earned a reputation for being deferential to executive authority, could act on Trump's wishes in a way that hurts potential voters. Republicans stand to benefit electorally from laws that limit turnout among minority populations and other voters hit by restrictive voting rules. "You can imagine that with this next election rolling around that if Trump engages in these same kind of games, he is not going to have Barr serve as a voice of reason for him," said Allegra Chapman, the director of voting and elections at the nonpartisan good-government group Common Cause. "He has no appreciation for what voting rights are, and Trump is going to be unhinged when it comes to voting rights issues." Under Sessions, the Justice Department switched its position in a case brought against the state of Ohio for purging thousands of individuals who did not regularly vote in federal elections and who did not respond to inquiries. The Justice Department under President Barack Obama had opposed the law. Ultimately, the Supreme Court upheld it in a 5-4 ruling last June that divided the court's conservatives and liberals. The DOJ under Sessions also swapped sides in a case against a Texas voter ID law that critics said could exclude more than half a million voters. Under Sessions, the department asked the courts to let the law stand. Texas lawmakers revised the law in 2017. Migrants from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, climb a border fence to cross illegally from Mexico to the U.S., in Tijuana, Mexico, December 21, 2018. Most Americans agree with President Donald Trump that a "crisis" is taking place at the southern U.S. border. They just do not think the president's proposed border wall will solve the problems. Trump has cast immigration on the U.S.-Mexico border as a "humanitarian crisis" as he argues for more than $5 billion to build the barrier. A dispute over the funding has led to a partial government shutdown now in its 25th day, the longest ever. Trump has insisted on wall money as a condition for reopening nine federal departments, while Democrats have urged him to support a House-passed plan to fund the government without resources for the barrier. Most Americans blame Trump for the closure. Talks crumbled last week as hundreds of thousands of federal worker started to miss paychecks and numerous services were disrupted. As a resolution appeared elusive Tuesday, Trump again made his case for a wall. In tweets, the president claimed that "only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe!" To boost his argument, he said, "polls are now showing that people are beginning to understand the Humanitarian Crisis and Crime at the Border." Trump tweet Trump tweet 2 Most voters do see a humanitarian crisis at the border just not necessarily the kind the president describes, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday. Majorities also said the wall is not needed to secure the border, would not make the U.S. safer and would not be a good use of taxpayer money, according to the survey. "While [American voters] believe there is both a humanitarian and a security crisis along the southern border, they absolutely don't think a wall will solve the problem," Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a statement accompanying Monday's poll. Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei praised President Trump's tax policies Tuesday while speaking in a rare public appearance before international media. But he also hinted the U.S. might be scaring away potential investment through actions like the arrest of his daughter and Huawei's CFO, Meng Wanzhou. "For President Trump as a person, I still believe he is a great president in the sense that he was bold to slash taxes, Ren said. "And I think that's conducive for the development of industries in the United States." Ren continued, saying that actions like "the detention of certain individuals" could have negative effects on U.S.-China relations. Meng was arrested in Canada in December. U.S. authorities allege that Meng and Huawei violated Iran sanctions and may have made illegal transactions with HSBC. Authorities in the U.S. have until the end of January to file an extradition request. "It's also important to treat countries with potential investors nicely, so that those investments will come," Ren said. "If countries or companies are getting frightened... by the detention of certain individuals, and then those potential individuals might be scared away, and that is definitely not in the interest of the United States." China is also detaining people, however. Since Meng's arrest, 13 Canadian citizens have been detained by China, though at least eight have been released, according to Reuters. Huawei has faced increased scrutiny in the U.S., which has advised consumers against buying Huawei-made phones over concerns they could be used to spy. Also, developed markets such as Australia and New Zealand have banned the use of Huawei products to build new faster 5G networks. Ren denied all allegations that Huawei spies for China and said he would refuse requests from the Chinese government if it asked for Huawei's user data. During the briefing, Ren said Huawei "might face challenges and difficulties in international markets," and said that growth during the next year "would be less than 20 percent." Another Chinese telecom company, ZTE, faced similar headwinds in 2018, but Ren assured the media that "what has happened to ZTE will not happen to Huawei." --CNBC's Kate Fazzini contributed to this report. Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. Prime Minister Theresa May sits down in Parliament after the vote on May's Brexit deal, in London, Britain, January 15, 2019 in this screengrab taken from video. Reuters TV | Reuters Defeat for the U.K. government over its proposed Brexit deal has thrown the country into yet more political uncertainty. U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May had placed a motion before lawmakers in the lower house of Parliament, asking them to rubber stamp her withdrawal agreement with the European Union. The bill was rejected by 432 votes to 202. The 230 vote defeat is thought to be the largest in U.K. political history. What happens now? Following a controversial amendment, the U.K. government now has just three working days to map out a new plan of action. With Parliament not set to sit on Friday, that means a new plan must be agreed with Europe and presented to U.K. lawmakers by the close of business on Monday January 21. May confirmed in Parliament that she would adhere to this. Amid the confusion there appears to be six potential outcomes, some of which could occur simultaneously. 1. Renegotiation The size of the defeat now makes it questionable whether the prime minister can tweak the deal to change the minds of lawmakers. But May and her team might believe there are a significant number of MPs (Members of Parliament) close to switching sides, so watch to see if she dashes to Brussels in an attempt to wrestle further concessions from Europe. One key stumbling block is the Northern Irish "backstop," which acts as a safety net to prevent any hard border with the Republic of Ireland, which is remaining as an EU member country. Many of May's critics see this provision as a way in which Britain could be tied to the European Union indefinitely. The EU has attempted to offer assurances that this would not be the case, but the Northern Irish party that currently supports Theresa May's party in the U.K. government has said it does not go far enough. WATCH: Brexit explained: The UK's big gamble 2. General Election The leader of the opposition Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, has said he will put forward a motion of no-confidence in Theresa May's government on Wednesday. It's expected that a result of that vote will be known by 7.00 p.m. London time on Wednesday. Should a majority of lawmakers from across all the U.K. political parties express "no confidence in Her Majesty's government," then the current Parliament would have 14 days to agree a new arrangement that would govern the country. If that isn't possible, then a General Election is likely. The EU has said that a change in U.K. leadership would not change its stance. 3. Second referendum The June 2016 referendum on membership of the European Union was officially a non-binding advisory poll, but lawmakers promised the public they would act on its result. Momentum has grown for a second referendum which proponents argue would gauge the public's appetite for Brexit, now that people have a clearer idea of what it means. Critics of a second vote have said it would ignore and insult the democratic process of the original vote. Former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown told CNBC Monday that he believes another referendum is more likely. "I think at some stage there will be another referendum. I cannot say when it will be, and I would not like to predict it would be in the next few weeks. But I think at some stage you will have to resolve this issue and finally come to a conclusion about the details and not just the principle of Britain's relationship with Europe," Brown said. 4. Article 50 extension There are some, particularly those from opposition parties, who believe a fresh negotiation between the EU and U.K. is still possible. Britain and Northern Ireland are set to leave the European Union in less than three months and so any attempt at major surgery to the existing deal would likely require more time. That would mean an extension of Article 50 which is the legal means by which a country leaves the Union. May's triggering of the clause in March 2017 set off a two-year countdown to Britain's exit on March 29. The chief investment officer at Barclays Investment Solutions, William Hobbs, told CNBC Monday that currency traders had recently raised bets on an extension to that countdown. "The way that sterling reacted last week to rumors that you're going to see an extension (to Article 50), showed that there is a lot priced in to the market already." An extension would have to be approved by the EU's other 27 members. It's unclear in what circumstances they would approve that and by how long they would agree to extend it. 5. No Brexit Any move toward a second referendum or an extension of Article 50 would increase speculation that the U.K. will not actually leave the EU. On Monday, May delivered a speech that claimed such an outcome would result in "catastrophic harm" to people's faith in the British political system. Downing Street has claimed that the possibility of lawmakers managing to block Brexit is now more likely than the U.K. leaving the EU without any sort of deal. British hedge fund veteran Crispin Odey, who is a backer of Brexit, told Reuters last week last week that he thought Britain would now stay in Europe. "My view is that it is not going to happen. I just cannot see how it happens with that configuration of parliament." 6. Brexit with no deal U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May has overwhelmingly lost a crucial vote on her Brexit plans in the House of Commons, the U.K.'s lower house of parliament. May lost by 230 votes after lawmakers voted by 432 to 202 to reject the deal. Politicians from different political parties rejected the proposed Withdrawal Agreement, currently the only deal agreed with the European Union on how Britain should exit the bloc in March of this year. It's reportedly the largest defeat for a sitting government in U.K. political history. Despite the result, and expressing a defiant tone, May told lawmakers that she wanted to show those who voted to leave the EU that it was her "duty to deliver" on Brexit. No confidence vote due Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, said he would now table a motion of no confidence in the government during parliamentary business on Wednesday. Ian Blackford, the leader of the Scottish National Party which is the third largest party in the parliament confirmed that it would support Labour's motion. May's deal with Europe is seen by some as a sell-out to the ideals of Brexit, reducing Britain's influence while staying within many of the EU's rules. And many of those who oppose Brexit didn't like the deal either. They have argued that it will reduce Britain's ease of trade with the world, repel global talent, and increase the cost of living. The result creates a political vacuum in the Brexit process, with no firm certainty as to what might happen next. Potential outcomes range from a revised attempt by May to force her plan through, a second Brexit referendum or even a General Election. May added on Tuesday evening that she would now make a statement to the Commons on Monday 21 where she is due to present a "plan B" for the exit agreement. May also confirmed that she would make time to debate Corbyn's no-confidence motion. "We need to confirm whether the government enjoys the confidence of the house. I believe that it does, but given the scale and importance of tonight's result it is right that others have the right to test that question if they wish to do so," she said. Following the heavy defeat, the pound gyrated briefly below $1.27 before recovering. Sterling had been sitting near session lows at $1.273 prior to the vote. Analysts at Capital Economics argued that the heavy defeat for May may actually be a boon for the U.K. economy. "This defeat surely means PM May's deal is dead," Paul Dales, the chief U.K. economist at the firm, said in a research note. "Even if May tries to resurrect it by stating by Monday 21st that her Plan B is to seek more concessions from the EU ... The magnitude of the loss means the EU might see little point in as it is unlikely to sway enough MPs," he said. "That said, May's initial statement after the defeat was more conciliatory than we expected and implies that perhaps she will change direction to try and find a resolution that Parliament supports," Dales added. What was the vote? The U.S. is evaluating whether to impose tougher sanctions against Venezuela's military and vital oil industry, a senior White House official said Monday, as it seeks to ratchet up pressure on authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro to hold free and fair elections. The Trump administration is considering a range of measures including curtailing the flow of Venezuelan oil to the U.S., the official said, in what could be the harshest blow to the country's money supply. No final decision has been made. This is the nuclear option. Oil is the ironic tether that binds the U.S. and Venezuela together. Hugo Chavez threatened countless times to cut the U.S. off, but there was no way he could do that without destroying himself. Socialism of the 21st century needed the empire to give it life. Here is a look at Venezuela's oil exports to the U.S.As Vyas points out, this is about half of Venezuela's oil exports and it has always been difficult to switch because Venezuela's crude is hard to refine. In short, oil sanctions would be devastating. They would also be damaging to the U.S. economy, but that's a separate issue.The essential question here is the effect on Venezuelans. Geoff Ramsey and David Smilde just finished recommending that the U.S. refrain from any sanction that exacerbates the country's humanitarian crisis. This nuclear option certainly would do so.I think their suggestions are preferable to this kind of move. Simply saying "We don't recognize Maduro" is pretty minimal without a broader strategy beyond that. There are a number of options before simply dropping the bomb. After months in court, a Delaware judge ruled Tuesday that Papa John's must turn over internal documents to its founder John Schnatter. Schnatter, who owns a 30 percent stake in the company, stepped down as CEO in November 2017 and left his post as chairman in July after a series of public relations snafus crippled the company's stock. Schnatter argued in court that the company has documents that prove the company was mismanaged and that he had been improperly pushed out of his executive roles. On Tuesday, a judge ordered the company's directors to turn over documents and other communications, including text messages on personal devices, related to Schnatter's firing. The order covers some messages between the directors and their lawyers, the ruling said. A spokesperson for Schnatter said, "We are pleased that Mr. Schnatter was vindicated today by the Delaware Court of Chancery, which ruled that Papa John's must give Mr. Schnatter numerous documents it has wrongly withheld from him for months." A Papa John's spokesperson said it has already provided and will continue to provide John Schnatter with all materials that he is entitled to receive. "We are pleased that the Delaware Court of Chancery agreed that John Schnatter's remaining document requests are 'overbroad' and significantly limited the scope of these requests," a spokesperson for Papa John's said. "...Our focus remains on the important steps we are taking to move Papa John's forward and create a better future for our 120,000 corporate and franchisee team members." This ruling comes months after CNBC reported the pizza chain had begun to explore a possible sale. Papa John's shares have fallen more than 30 percent over the past year, but the stock is up nearly 7 percent since the start of 2019. Virtual reality technology made Palmer Luckey a multi-millionaire. Now, the Oculus co-founder's new company is using artificial intelligence technology to create a high-tech surveillance system that could be used to build a "virtual wall" on the southern US border. In fact, Anduril Industries, the defense technology start-up Luckey founded in 2017, has already tested its border control tech in Texas and San Diego. In those tests, Anduril's surveillance technology helped US border agents catch dozens of people who were trying to cross the border into the US without authorization, US Customs and Border Protection told Wired in June 2018. When Luckey was only 21 years old, he sold Oculus, the virtual reality headset company, to Facebook for over $2 billion just a few years after creating the first prototype as a teenager working out of his parents' garage. Here's how Luckey, now 26, describes his latest company's AI-powered system, which is called Lattice, in an October 2018 interview with CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin: "What Lattice is is an AI-powered sensor fusion platform that can take data from thousands of sensors and integrate it into a single cohesive, real-time 3-D model that has everything in it tagged using machine learning so, all the people, all the vehicles, all the drones and the aircraft over very large areas." Lattice uses a network of connected cameras and infrared sensors that can be set up along wide swaths of land (attached to towers, or even to small flying drones), potentially covering hundreds of miles of the US border. The system's AI-powered technology can scan for movement miles away while analyzing the source to see if it has spotted a person, a vehicle, an animal, etc. Anduril's technology has "a lot of applications," Luckey tells CNBC. "We're securing military bases, we have sites that are on the U.S. border, we're doing some programs we can't talk about," Luckey says. "There's a lot of applications for this in protecting oil pipelines, protecting airports, protecting power plants basically, anywhere where you want to know everything that's going on, so that you can have people focusing on responding to problems instead of looking for the problems." Nissan plans to file a civil suit against ousted chairman Carlos Ghosn to claim for damages resulting from alleged misuse of company funds, a person with knowledge of the issue said, which would add to the high profile executive's legal headaches. Ghosn, who remains chairman and chief executive of Nissan partner Renault, has already been charged with three counts of financial misconduct and has been held at a detention centre in Tokyo for nearly two months. On Tuesday, a Tokyo court denied his request for release on bail, raising the possibility that he may remain in custody for months before his trial begins. Ghosn denies the charges against him, which include understating his salary for a total of eight years and temporarily transferring personal financial losses on to Nissan's books. "The broader investigation (into Ghosn's alleged financial misconduct) continues to expand, so we will file a suit after that issue has been sorted out," said a person familiar with the issue who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. A civil suit could seek losses related to the alleged use of company funds to pay for the executive's residences, donations to universities, and payments to a Saudi businessman who is believed have helped Ghosn out of financial difficulties. Nissan declined to comment on the issue. Ghosn regularly spent more than 100 days a year flying between Nissan's headquarters in Yokohama and cities including Paris and had residences in Tokyo, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Amsterdam and Beirut. Nissan had been providing those residences to the executive, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, but people inside the company with knowledge of the issue say the company was only aware that it had been paying rent for Ghosn's apartment in Tokyo. Reuters last month reported that payments for some of Ghosn's residences were portioned out and processed through a Nissan unit in the Netherlands called Zi-A Capital BV and its subsidiaries, which initially had been set up to invest in technology start-ups. Nissan is reviewing receipts and other financial records to see if purchases of residences and other expenses such as a yacht club membership and donations to universities in Lebanon, Ghosn's ancestral homeland, had been approved and paid for properly, according to people with knowledge of the issue. Ghosn's arrest has sent shockwaves through the auto industry and rocked Nissan's alliance with Mitsubishi Motors Corp and Renault. Having been credited for masterminding Nissan's financial turnaround two decades ago, the executive has since been removed from chairmanship positions at Nissan and Mitsubishi. Special counsel Robert Mueller and a lawyer for Rick Gates, the Trump campaign official convicted of lying to federal investigators, on Tuesday asked for a further postponement of Gates' sentencing, citing his continuing cooperation in "several ongoing investigations." Mueller and Gates' lawyer, in a filing in federal court in Washington, D.C., asked the judge in the case to allow them to next update the judge about the status of Gates' case by no later than March 15. The request for a delay came a day after multiple media reports about lavish spending by President Donald Trump's inaugural committee. The $107 million in spending by that committee, on which Gates was deputy chairman, already was the subject of a federal criminal investigation. "To date, the status of this matter has not changed substantially since the November [status] report, as defendant Gates continues to cooperate with respect to several ongoing investigations, and accordingly the parties do not believe it is appropriate to commence the sentencing process at this time," Mueller and Gates' lawyer, Thomas Green, wrote in their new status report Tuesday. Mueller's spokesman declined to comment. Green did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Gates is one of several people connected to Trump who has pleaded guilty in cases lodged by Mueller. He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion by Trump campaign officials. Trump has denied any wrongoing by himself or by his campaign, and has called Mueller's probe a "witch hunt." Read more: Trump AG pick Barr: Special counsel Mueller would not be "involved in a witch hunt" Gates was a longtime business associate of former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort, and testified against him last summer at Manafort's first federal criminal trial in Virginia. That trial ended in Manafort's conviction on a variety of crimes, which were unrelated to his work on the Trump campaign. Gates had been charged with Manafort in a case related to their consulting work in Ukraine for pro-Russia politicians. Gates pleaded guilty in early 2018 to lying to Mueller's investigators. Manafort himself pleaded guilty to multiple crimes on the eve of his scheduled second trial in federal court in Washington. Like Gates, he agreed to cooperate with the special counsel's probe, in a bid for leniency when he is sentenced. Mueller in late 2018 accused Manafort of breaking his plea deal by lying to the special counsel's team during debriefing sessions conducted after his guilty plea. Manafort's own lawyers have said in a court filing last week that Mueller accused Manafort of lying about sharing Trump campaign polling data with an alleged Russian spy, and about his conversations with that accused agent, Konstantin Kilimnik, regarding a possible peace plan for Ukraine. Manafort's lawyers have said he "has not made intentional misstatements," and have suggested that conditions in the jail in which he is being held without bail have weighed heavily on his "state of mind and on his memory." Mueller on Monday filed a sealed reply to Manafort's lawyers' recent filing. Manafort has yet to be sentenced. Aisha Nyandoro, CEO of Springboard To Opportunities in Jackson, Mississippi. Photo courtesy Inherent Good Documentary Presidential hopeful Andrew Yang with the Fassi family. Photo courtesy Andrew Yang. And in Stockton, California, Mayor Michael Tubbs, 28, has launched the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, or SEED, a universal basic income test program for the city. Researchers will randomly select 100 Stockton recipients who meet initial qualifications (occupy a residence within the city, be at least 18 years old and live in a neighborhood where the median income is at or below $46,033) to get $500 a month for 18 months. Stockton is "close" to selecting the candidates for the pilot program, Daniel Lopez, public information officer for the office of the mayor, tells CNBC Make It, and by Feb. 15, Stocktonians who are participating in the program should have their first deposits. Magnolia Mother's Trust is the result of a partnership between Springboard Opportunities and the Economic Security Project, which is also collaborating on the Stockton UBI program. Nyandoro raised additional money for the Mississippi program through private philanthropy. Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook. Olivia Michael | CNBC J.P. Morgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon urged U.S. political leaders on Tuesday to work together in order to sustain business and consumer confidence as the new year begins. "As we head into 2019, we urge our country's leaders to strike a collaborative, constructive tone, which would reinforce already-strong consumer and business sentiment," Dimon told J.P. Morgan shareholders in a press release detailing the company's fourth-quarter financial results. "Businesses, government and communities need to work together to solve problems and help strengthen the economy for the benefit of everyone," he added. The bank chief's comments came amid the longest funding lapse in U.S. history, which has left parts of the government shut down and hundreds of thousands of federal workers without pay. The government shutdown stems largely from disagreement between Republicans and Democrats over appropriations for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, one of President Donald Trump's chief campaign promises. About 800,000 U.S. employees missed their first paycheck Friday, with airport security lines clogging and economic growth taking a modest hit. The extended government closure has sparked anger across the political spectrum, with a majority of Americans believing that Trump bears more blame for the shutdown than congressional Democrats, according to three polls released Monday and Sunday. Dimon, 62, has not shied away from voicing his own frustrations with the Oval Office in the past. He took a swipe at Trump in September, claiming that he could defeat the president in a head-to-head election. I think I could beat Trump," Dimon said at the time. "Because I'm as tough as he is, I'm smarter than he is. I would be fine. He could punch me all he wants, it wouldn't work with me. I'd fight right back." Shortly after, Dimon addressed the uproar caused by his comments: "I should not have said it. I'm not running for president," the CEO said about an hour after the original exchange. But Dimon, who has been CEO of J.P. Morgan since 2005, has also expressed optimism when talking about the strength of the U.S. economy. Last June, he said the current uptrend in the business cycle could last years. "The way I look at it, there is nothing that is a real pothole," he said. "Business sentiment is almost at the highest level it's ever been, consumer sentiment is at its highest levels, markets are wide open, housing's in short supply and my guess is mortgage credit will expand a little bit." Still, the nation's largest bank on Tuesday posted quarterly profit below analysts' expectations for the first time in 15 quarters on weaker-than-expected bond-trading revenue. CNBC's Jacob Pramuk contributed reporting. WATCH: Robinhood: The controversial app worth $5 billion that's trying to upend Wall Street PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. (Jan. 14, 2019) Two national educational programs from the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) will enhance the lineup of events scheduled for the 16th annual WWII Heritage Days , April 27-28, 2019, at the Dixie Wing Warbird Museum at Atlanta Regional Airport-Falcon Field in Peachtree City, Ga. The Rise Above programs, based in Dallas, Texas, will feature the history of famed Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) organization. Displays will include a unique video dome and historic aircraft. The Tuskegee Airmen was the first video program for the dome, followed by the latest video honoring the WASP program. Rise Above now includes two traveling exhibits that promote the concept of rising above adversity. WASP began as an experimental program open to women with pilots licenses. Of the 25,000 who applied, only 1,830 were accepted into the program and 1,074 graduated. WASP received myriad assignments: flying new, untested planes from factories to airbases; towing targets for live anti-aircraft training; test-piloting newly repaired and experimental aircraft; and transporting vital equipment and personnel. The women also served as Certified Flight Instructors, training female and male pilots. They logged more than 60 million miles of operational flights and delivered every type of military aircraft. WASP was the only unit that flew every type of aircraft in the Armys arsenal, from bombers to fighters. By December 1944, 38 WASP pilots had made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Fallen WASP were not given military honors and, as civilian contractors, did not receive veteran status or any benefits, including death benefits. When disbanded in December 1944, the U.S. Army instructed them to not speak about their flying service. The government records were sealed for more than 30 years. The WASP was the Forgotten Airforce. When the records were unsealed in 1977, they finally received veteran status, and recognition in the form of a Congressional Gold Medal in 2009. Today, the CAF honors these pilots with its WASP Squadron, providing outreach education and operating an AT-6 that was part of the 1943-44 training, said Dixie Wing Education Officer Rick Ector. The plane, which will be on display for WWII Heritage Days, was flown by three identified WASP at that time and has flown seven WASP veterans since 2016. It is fondly called Nella, after the WASP mascot, Fifinella, a female gremlin character created by Walt Disney. The Tuskegee Airmen are best known for their extraordinary efforts in the air war of World War II, and for challenging the stereotypes that had kept black Americans from serving as pilots in the U.S. Armed Forces. The amazing story of the Tuskegee Airmen, Americas first black military pilots and their support personnel, will be told in a new CAF attraction, a portable video dome. In 1940, under pressure from activists, the press and political groups, and responding to the campaign promises of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the U.S. Army Air Corps reversed its position and began to accept black applicants to their flight programs, and the next year created a segregated unit for these new aspiring pilots. The program included all the pilots and enlisted support personnel who served the all-black unit, totaling 14,000 men and women. Their ability to triumph over adversity and go down in history as extremely adept pilots proved their worth and continues to inspire future generations to rise above their own obstacles to achieve success. WWII Heritage Days is an immersion experience, said Ector. The sights and sounds will inspire people of all ages and walks of life to connect with the legacy of The Greatest Generation. The Commemorative Air Force (CAF) Dixie Wing will recreate the 1940s era with the music of Glenn Miller at a Hangar Dance and displays of historic aircraft, military vehicles, antique cars and vintage fashion. WWII veterans will be honored throughout the weekend. The festivities at the CAF Dixie Wing Warbird Museum constitute the largest annual 1940s theme event in Georgia. Throughout the weekend, more than 500 volunteers will conduct special events such as Allied and Axis troops in reenactment battles, 1940s music shows, veteran and historian presentations, education displays and activities for children. On Saturday evening, the romance and glamor of the Big Band Era will return during Keep em Flying, a 1940s-theme hangar dance featuring a live 20-piece swing band. Republican John Kasich is joining CNN as a senior political contributor after eight years as Ohio's governor and as he thinks about making another run at the White House. Kasich, one of the most outspoken GOP critics of President Donald Trump, had been signalling to advisors and donors that he'd like to join either CNN or MSNBC, as CNBC first reported Monday. His team and sources close to him insisted that even though he's joining a TV network, he's still considering running for president in 2020. In fact, Kasich is planning to go on a West Coast swing this week to meet with donors and business leaders, including traveling to Los Angeles and parts of Silicon Valley, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. CNN announced Tuesday morning that Kasich would be joining the network as a contributor. Kasich's chief political strategist, John Weaver, commented on the development to CNBC. "This is a strong platform for the governor to continue to offer his positive vision to the country and engage on the vital issues facing America," Weaver said. Weaver himself appears as an analyst on NBC News and MSNBC. Kasich will be appear across most of CNN's platforms and will make his debut on Chris Cuomo's show Tuesday night. Kasich also signed with talent management firm United Talent Agency on Monday. The decision to sign with the group comes after The Daily Beast reported in October that Kasich met with CNN President Jeff Zucker and MSNBC President Phil Griffin. During the meeting with Zucker, he was reportedly accompanied by Jay Sures, UTA's president. Kasich has been a staunch critic of Trump's administration. The former Ohio governor and has made several appearances on CNN in the past, often criticizing the president for his tariffs and hard-line trade policy, as well as his border wall proposal, among other issues. Jamie Dimon, the J.P. Morgan Chase CEO who has been bullish on the U.S. economy, said the partial government shutdown could wipe out growth from the world's biggest economy. "Someone estimated that if it goes on for the whole quarter, it can reduce growth to zero," Dimon told reporters on a media call to discuss fourth-quarter results. "We just have to deal with that. It's more of a political issue than anything else." Dimon, who is also chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Business Roundtable, said that while the "underlying statistics for the economy globally are not bad," the bank will be prepared for the eventual downturn. There's still growth, despite early signs of a slowdown in China, Japan and the U.S., among other nations, he said. "Consumers are in good shape, they're spending money, they're saving money, household formation is going up, wages are going up," Dimon said. "Eventually there will be offsets that may push the economy into recession, we don't know when that's going to be." Singapore's export-driven economy is among the most vulnerable in the ongoing U.S.-China trade conflict, but major investors said its stock market could deliver attractive returns this year. "It's very attractive and that's one of the reasons why we're actually overweight Singapore relative to other Asian equities," Kelvin Tay, regional chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, said on Monday. Tay told clients at the UBS Wealth Insights forum that the bank actually has a bearish outlook on the Singapore economy. The bank expects the country's gross domestic product to grow by 2 percent in 2019, down from last year's estimated 3.3 percent and at the lower end of official forecast of 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent. Singapore, a tiny but wealthy Southeast Asian country, relies heavily on exports to power its economy. Its exports of goods and services in 2017 were close to 200 percent of its roughly $300 billion GDP among the highest globally, according to the World Bank. Jay Clayton, chairman of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), speaks during an SEC open meeting in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, April 18, 2018. Yuri Gripas | Bloomberg | Getty Images Federal prosecutors unveiled charges in an international stock-trading scheme that involved hacking into the Securities and Exchange Commission's EDGAR corporate filing system. The scheme allegedly netted $4.1 million for fraudsters from the U.S., Russia and Ukraine. Using 157 corporate earnings announcements, the group was able to execute trades on material nonpublic information. Most of those filings were "test filings," which corporations upload to the SEC's website. The charges were announced Tuesday by Craig Carpenito, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, alongside the SEC, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service, which investigates financial crimes. The scheme involves seven individuals and operated from May to at least October 2016. Prosecutors said the traders were part of the same group that previously hacked into newswire services. Carpenito, in a press conference Tuesday, said the thefts included thousands of valuable, private business documents. "After hacking into the EDGAR system they stole drafts of [these] reports before the information was disseminated to the general public," he said. Those documents included quarterly earnings, mergers and acquisitions plans and other sensitive news, and the criminals were able to view it before it was released as a public filing, thus affecting the individual companies' stock prices. The alleged hackers executed trades on the reports and also sold them to other illicit traders. One inside trader made $270,000 in a single day, according to Carpenito. The hackers used malicious software sent via email to SEC employees. Then, after planting the software on the SEC computers, they sent the information they were able to gather from the EDGAR system to servers in Lithuania, where they either used it or distributed the data to other criminals, Carpenito said. The EDGAR service operates in New Jersey, which is why the Justice Department office in Newark was involved in the case. Stephanie Avakian, co-head of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, said the same criminals also stole advance press releases sent to three newswire services, though she didn't name the newswires. The hackers used multiple broker accounts to collect the illicit gains, she said. Two Ukrainians were charged by the Justice Department with hacking the database Oleksandr Ieremenko and Artem Radchenko. Seven further individuals and entities were also named in a civil suit by the SEC for trading on the illicit information: Sungjin Cho, David Kwon, Igor Sabodakha, Victoria Vorochek, Ivan Olefir, Andrey Sarafanov, Capyield Systems, Ltd. (owned by Olefir) and Spirit Trade Ltd. Consolidated Audit Trail fears Video-streaming giant Netflix announced Tuesday that it is raising prices between 13 and 18 percent for new and existing customers. That's the most substantial increase in its history. Following the announcement, the company's stock shot up more than 6 percent. If you had invested in Netflix in 2007, when it first began its streaming service, that investment could have paid off big time: A $1,000 investment would be worth more than $90,000 as of Jan. 15, according to CNBC calculations. While the company's stock has performed well over the years, any individual stock can over- or under-perform and past returns do not predict future results. The platform faces competition from Amazon, Apple, Disney and, most recently, NBCUniversal, which either offer similar services or plan to launch streaming platforms and which could pull content, and potentially viewers, from Netflix. "I think Netflix is in trouble when the big guys start coming after them," Laura Martin, an analyst at investment-banking and asset-management firm Needham & Company, said in a previous interview with CNBC. Still, investors remain generally optimistic about Netflix. CNBC: Netflix stock as of January 2019 "The company's investment in content, technology and distribution will drive subscriber growth well above consensus expectations, both in the U.S. and internationally," says Goldman Sachs internet analyst Heath Terry. And Justin Patterson of investment banking-company Raymond James upgraded Netflix's stock to "strong buy" from "outperform." "We believe the combination of positive revisions and emerging signs of long-term profit potential will yield share price outperformance," says Patterson, noting high viewer numbers for the popular original film "Bird Box," as well as "Netflix's advantages in film; convenience, cost, and global distribution." Chinese technology giant Huawei is building a brand new campus designed to look like different places in Europe. CNBC had a tour of the nine square kilometer site, which can house up to 25,000 employees. A building on Huawei's roughly nine square kilometer campus located in Dongguan, south China. The buildings on the campus are modelled on architecture from various parts of Europe. Arjun Kharpal | CNBC The campus is split into "towns," which are areas where employees work. Each town is named after a European city. There is Granada, a city in the south of Spain. This building represents the architecture found in Granada in the south of Spain. Arjun Kharpal | CNBC Other towns include Paris in France, Verona in Italy,and Bruges in Belgium. The campus is still being built. So far eight of the total 12 towns have been built. These buildings on Huawei's new campus are supposed to represent architecture found in the Czech Republic. This "town" is called "Cesky", a place in the Czech Republic. Arjun Kharpal | CNBC The campus is located in an area of southern China called Dongguan. It is north of Shenzhen, the location of Huawei's current headquarters. A fountain in the middle of one of the "towns" on Huawei's brand new campus in Dongguan, south China. Arjun Kharpal | CNBC Currently, 17,000 employees are located on the campus. There are over 50,000 employees at Huawei's Shenzhen headquarters. Huawei's Dongguan campus is so big that a tram operates to transport employees between different towns. Huawei's new campus has 12 "towns" which are connected by a tram. Each town can hold around 2,000 people meaning the whole campus can house somewhere between 24,000 and 25,000 people. Arjun Kharpal | CNBC There's even a bridge that connects the different parts of the campus on different sides of the lake. The bridge is a replica of the Freedom Bridge in Budapest, Hungary. This bridge is a replica or the Freedom Bridge found in Budapest, Hungary. The tram that runs through the campus crosses this bridge. Arjun Kharpal | CNBC Huawei would never allow China's government to access customer data, even if Beijing requested it, the CEO and founder of the company repeatedly emphasized Tuesday, amid continued political pressure on the Chinese technology giant. In a rare sit down with international media, Ren Zhengfei addressed concerns raised by the U.S. government, which has warned that the company's equipment could allow the Chinese government to have a backdoor into a nation's telecommunications network. Ren, speaking Mandarin and using a company-provided translator, told the group that Huawei has never handed data to Beijing. "When it comes to cybersecurity and privacy protection we are committed to be sided with our customers. We will never harm any nation or any individual," Ren told the journalists assembled at Huawei's headquarters in Shenzhen, China. "China's ministry of foreign affairs has officially clarified that no law in China requires any company to install mandatory back doors. Huawei and me personally have never received any request from any government to provide improper information," Ren added. Ren Zhengfei, founder and chief executive officer of Huawei Technologies, left, speaks during an interview at the company's headquarters in Shenzhen, China, in January. Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images Ren, a former soldier in the People's Liberation Army and a current Communist Party member, has faced several years of questions about his relationship between those organizations and his company. Despite his history, Ren told the representatives of the international media that his longtime affiliation with China's authoritarian party would not affect his ability to fight against that same government if it requested user data. "The values of a business entity is customer first, is customer centricity. We are a business organization so we must follow business rules. And in that context I don't see close connection between my personal political believe and our business actions we are going to take as a business entity. And I think I already made myself very clear right now, we will definitely say no to such a request," Ren said, when asked by CNBC about whether his ties to China's ruling party would stop him from fighting any kind of data request. Praises Trump Huawei has recently faced mounting global pressure. The company has been blocked from selling equipment to the U.S. for many years, but other countries, including Australia, New Zealand and Japan, have in recent months also excluded the company from supplying components for the next generation of mobile internet networks, known as 5G. And his daughter, Meng Wanzhou, who is chief financial officer of the company, was arrested in Canada recently at the request of the U.S. Meng has been accused of fraud related to payments that violated U.S. sanctions against Iran. But Ren actually praised the U.S. president. "For President Trump as a person, I still believe he is a great president," he said. "In the sense that he was bold to slash taxes. And I think that's conducive for the development of industries in the United States." Meanwhile in Poland, law enforcement arrested a Huawei executive alleging that he colluded with a local official to commit espionage. Polish officials have said that the charges relate to the individual's actions and not those of Huawei. The Chinese firm also denies involvement. Ren was asked several times during the Tuesday discussion to comment on the detention of his daughter, but he declined to go into detail, citing the ongoing status of the legal case. Instead, he said he "trusts" the U.S. and Canadian legal systems are open and he will await the judgement of the court. 'Challenges and difficulties' A senior Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) figure told CNBC Tuesday that politicians in Brussels would clamour for fresh terms of trade with the U.K. should the country leave the European Union with no deal. Sammy Wilson, the Brexit spokesman for the Northern Irish party, added that his party would not support the current deal set to be voted on in Parliament on Tuesday night. Wilson, whose party props up May's minority government in Westminster with, told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick that a "no-deal" Brexit would spur the EU into fresh talks. "I believe once we are in that situation, reality will kick in Brussels and they will come back and negotiate a realistic trade deal, rather than the one we have got at the moment," he said. Wilson said lawmakers in Brussels would urgently seek talks in order to protect their large surplus on trade. According to a U.K. Parliament report, the EU had an overall trade surplus of 67 billion ($86 billion) with the U.K. in 2017. A deficit of 28 billion on trade in services was outweighed by a surplus of 95 billion on trade in goods. WATCH: Brexit explained: The UK's big gamble A security guard show the way to a man outside of the Davos Congress Centre under snow ahead of the opening of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting, in Davos, eastern Switzerland. The White House revealed the presidential delegation that will attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland next week. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will lead the five-strong delegation which also includes Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross; U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer; and Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Coordination, Chris Liddell. President Donald Trump canceled plans to attend the forum himself last week, citing the ongoing partial government shutdown that has arisen over a funding dispute for a wall along the United States' southern border. White House officials who had been planning to attend the forum but are involved with the ongoing deliberations over the shutdown and the wall include Trump son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner and Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen. Streaming giant Netflix raising its subscription prices means good things for other large companies that offer subscription services, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Tuesday. "Netflix serves as a powerful reminder that the subscriber business model is incredibly strong here," the "Mad Money" host said. "A recurring service revenue stream is very, very lucrative." Better yet, Wall Street loved the move, with Netflix's 6.52 percent rise taking the broader market higher. That's a signal that other service providers that charge customers on a recurring basis can follow in Netflix's footsteps, Cramer said. In fact, the company's move highlighted "two other bargains, two companies with service revenue streams that could easily get away with raising their prices: Amazon and Apple," Cramer said. Calling Amazon Prime "the single greatest bargain on earth," the "Mad Money" host said he "wouldn't even blink" if Amazon raised its $119-a-year offering to $150. He also noted that when Amazon increased the cost of Prime by 20 percent in 2018, it was met with little to no resistance. "That's one of many reasons why I think Amazon's stock is a lot less expensive than it seems," he said. "On top of Prime, they've also got the red-hot Web Services division and a rapidly growing advertising biz. Put it all together and I'm a big fan of Amazon['s stock] here in the $1,600s." The only stock that might be an even bigger bargain is Apple, Cramer said, adding that shares are trading at a "measly" 11 times next year's earnings estimates. The "Mad Money" host said Apple's stock could "explode higher" if it raised prices for its increasingly sticky services, particularly given the pressure it has endured amid weakening iPhone sales. "Every month I pay Apple to back up my photos and insure my phones. Don't you? Every month I pay [for] Apple Music," Cramer said. "They are automatically charged to my AmEx account. If Apple were to put through a price increase on any of these services, I'd feel compelled to keep paying for it." That longevity, coupled with Wall Street's embrace of Netflix's price bump, means these companies are essentially in the clear when it comes to raising prices, he concluded. "The bottom line? What matters right now are the expectations, and so far, they're being exceeded both by the companies reporting earnings and the likes of Netflix that are raising their prices because there's no resistance to doing so," Cramer said. "That is all positive in a market where people are still negative, so negative that it staggers the mind." Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during the State dinner with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, September 22, 2016. China denounced Canada on Tuesday for "irresponsible" remarks after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused it of "arbitrarily" sentencing a Canadian to death for drug smuggling, aggravating already icy relations. The two countries have been at odds since early December, when Canadian police arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, on a U.S. extradition request as part of an investigation into suspected violations of U.S. trade sanctions. Days later, China detained two Canadians on suspicion of endangering state security - former diplomat Michael Kovrig and business consultant Michael Spavor. Monday's death sentence for Canadian Robert Schellenberg for smuggling 222 kg of methamphetamines has become the latest strain on ties. China has not linked any of the three Canadians' cases to Meng's arrest but has warned of severe consequences if she was not immediately released. Trudeau said it should be of "extreme concern" to Canada's friends and allies, as it was to Canada's government, that China had chosen to "arbitrarily apply" the death penalty. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, speaking at a regular news briefing, expressed "strong dissatisfaction" with the comments. "The remarks by the relevant Canadian person lack the most basic awareness of the legal system," Hua said. Taking Canada to task for issuing an updated travel advisory warning its citizens about the risk of arbitrary enforcement of laws in China, Hua said that Canada should instead remind its people to not engage in drug smuggling there. "We urge the Canadian side to respect the rule of law, respect China's legal sovereignty, correct its mistakes, and stop making irresponsible remarks," Hua said. Hours later, the ministry issued its own travel warning. Citing the "arbitrary detention" of a Chinese national in Canada at the request of a "third-party country", it urged its citizens to "fully evaluate risks" and exercise caution when traveling there. This picture released by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) shows the Yutu-2 moon rover, taken by the Chang'e-4 lunar probe on the far side of the moon. CNSA via CNS | AFP | Getty Images Seeds carried by China's Chang'e 4 lunar lander have sprouted, marking the first instance of biological matter growing on the moon. China's Chang'e 4 lunar probe hit headlines earlier this month after it was reported that it had successfully landed on the far side of the moon in a world first. Now a photograph has been released by the China National Space Administration, according to the South China Morning Post, which shows cotton seeds sprouting in a sealed container. The image was shared on Twitter on Tuesday by the People's Daily newspaper, a mouthpiece for China's ruling Communist Party. Tweet The newspaper said in a tweet that the development marks "the completion of humankind's first biological experiment on the moon." Professor Liu Hanlong of Chongqing University, who led the research, said that rapeseed and potato seeds had also germinated, but that the cotton seeds were the first to sprout, the South China Morning Post reported. While plants like zinnias and leaf vegetables have been grown in space on the International Space Station, none had ever been grown on the moon. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent (L) stands watch as U.S. troops set up concertina wire at the San Ysidro port of entry during a 'large-scale operational readiness exercise' which briefly closed the border crossing on November 22, 2018 in Tijuana, Mexico. More than 40,000 immigration court hearings have been canceled since the government shutdown began, straining the country's immigration system. At the same time, the Pentagon is directing additional funds to militarize the U.S.-Mexico border, extending troop deployment. The troop extension comes as the partial government shutdown, now the longest shutdown on record, enters its 25th day. President Donald Trump and Congress have been unable to agree on a spending deal to fund the government over the president's demand for $5.7 billion in border wall funding. That has forced the closure of nine federal agencies. Immigration courts have been frozen since the shutdown began, with all scheduled hearings canceled except for those immigrants in detention centers. According to a report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, 42,726 immigration hearings have been canceled as of Jan. 11. If the shutdown continues through the end of the month, more than 100,000 hearings will be canceled; by March, nearly 200,000 will be canceled. With a court backlog of over 800,000 pending cases, immigration lawyers expect that canceled hearings will not be rescheduled until at least 2020. Immigrants can remain living in the United States until their court date, a practice colloquially known as "catch and release," which Trump has criticized in the past. As a result of the shutdown, those who would have been deported after their hearing will stay in the country even longer while they await their new court date. Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced in a statement Monday evening that the troops deployed at the border since last November will remain there through September. Trump ordered the troops to be deployed last fall ahead of the arrival of a migrant caravan traveling from Central America. The troops were originally scheduled to leave on Dec. 15, but the deployment was extended through January before being extended again on Monday. The Pentagon originally estimated a cost of $72 million to cover the 5,900 troops amassed at the border until Dec. 15, but it is unclear how much the extended deployment will cost. A representative from the Department of Defense told CNBC, "We have not yet determined the force size and composition to meet this request." The troops will be installing concertina wire on top of existing fencing, as well as using mobile cameras and aviation surveillance. However, the president has expressed doubts about the effectiveness of parts of the Pentagon's plan. "A drone flying around will not stop [illegal immigration]," he tweeted on Tuesday. "Only a Wall will work." tweet People wait outside a Bank of China branch in Beijing on July 11, 2014. Bank of China, the country's fourth-biggest lender by assets, has offered a loan of $300 million to Sri Lanka which can be raised to $1 billion, a source in Colombo with direct knowledge of the matter, told Reuters on Tuesday. The government is considering the offer because of "difficulty in borrowing money after recent ratings downgrades," the source said, declining to be named as the information was not public. Reuters could not immediately reach Sri Lanka's Ministry of Finance and the Bank of China. Sri Lanka, an island nation off India's southeastern coast, is struggling to repay its foreign loans, with a record $5.9 billion due this year including $2.6 billion in the first three months alone. The Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, also known as Masdar, has acquired stakes in two U.S. wind farms in what will be its first-ever foray into the North American market. The company, a subsidiary of Emirati investment vehicle Mubadala Investment Company, on Tuesday announced its share purchase agreement to buy British developer John Laing Group's interest in wind farms in Texas and New Mexico. While the exact dollar value of the deal has not been disclosed, Masdar's leadership described it as being "north of $100 million." The 149 megawatt (MW) Rocksprings project in Texas is home to 53 of General Electric's 2.3MW wind turbines and 16 of its 1.72MW turbines in Val Verde County, while the Sterling project in New Mexico's Lea County has a total installed capacity of 29.9MW provided by 13 of General Electric's 2.3MW turbines. Masdar Chief Executive Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi spoke to CNBC's Dan Murphy about the move Tuesday while at Abu Dhabi's Sustainability Week, calling the U.S. "a very important market not only for Masdar but the renewable energy world." Last year's conference by the same name saw $15 billion worth of deals announced. Indeed, America saw a record 6.3 percent of its electricity generated from wind in 2017, and is home to "one of the largest and fastest-growing wind markets in the world," according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The country installed over 7,000 MW of wind energy capacity in 2017, according to data from the Global Wind Energy Council, putting it behind only China in terms of new installations. 'Double-digit growth' in renewable energy use Al Ramahi stressed the growing potential of America's clean energy market, despite the Donald Trump administration's focus on coal and other traditional power sources. "Regardless of what you hear, about renewables or against them, what we see in the U.S. is a high double-digit growth in the adaptation of renewable energy," the CEO said, adding that this trend was evident around the world as well. "Obviously policy makers and politicians are important for the advancement of capital flow in certain sectors, but regardless of this, we see the U.S. as still a growth market for renewable energy, we are happy to enter the U.S. today, and we continue pursuing further opportunities for the U.S. for sure." This image shows the Chisholm View wind farm in Oklahoma. Enel Green Power Those other opportunities could include solar power as well as renewable energy storage, Al Ramahi said. The Masdar chief went on to describe the pickup in renewable energy consumption around the world, and stressed the industry's growing importance not just to strategic diversification of national energy portfolios, but to commercially viable investment as well. More than just diversification He said that more and more countries around the region were adopting renewable energy into their energy mix, pointing to the targets of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Egypt, and across North Africa, whose governments are now working to move away from historic dependence on fossil fuels. "It started as a strategic approach to get away from their dependence on fossil fuels, but today it's not only about strategic adaptation. Today renewable energy makes commercial sense," Al Ramahi said. "So it actually competes with pricing with conventional power generation." Renewable power generation costs are coming down by the year. The period between 2010 and 2016 saw a 69 percent decrease in the cost of electricity from solar photovoltaics and an 18 percent cost decrease for onshore wind, putting the former "well into the cost range of fossil fuels," according to the international Renewable Energy Agency. Less than a year after taking over as CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill, Brian Niccol has helped reshape the once beleaguered burrito chain, improving sales and fueling the company's best stock performance in five years. Niccol told investors at the ICR Conference in Orlando that he hopes he's making the brand more visible and reminding consumers why they liked Chipotle in the first place. It's no secret that Chipotle has struggled in the past. A series of foodborne illness outbreaks three years ago crippled the stock, which once hit a high of nearly $759 a share. These days the stock is just over $500, having recovered from a 52-week low of $247.52 last February. The change has come as investors gained confidence in Niccol's ability to turn the brand around. Since joining Chipotle in March, Niccol has championed upgrades to the company's mobile app and in-restaurant technology. His goal has been to remove friction so that food gets to customers faster. He's also pushed for more menu innovation, stronger marketing and bringing in new talent to staff its corporate finance, operations and digital teams. When Niccol was CEO of Taco Bell, he launched the company's mobile ordering and payment program and reached an agreement with franchisees to finance new tech initiatives, like self-serve kiosks and expanded delivery. At Chipotle he has advocated for updating the chain's kitchens with a separate prep station for digital orders. He also added digital order pick-up shelves and is testing drive-up windows designed for guests to pick up the orders they've placed online. Niccol's goal is to make ordering from Chipotle easier and more convenient. Now, around 11 percent of all Chipotle's sales come from online orders. This is a good trend because online sales tend to be higher and customers who use the app tend to be more loyal. "If they will come, they will create another ecosystem and people will live together," Pessina told CNBC's Jon Fortt in an interview announcing the news. "We have never believed that someone could monopolize the market. We believe that if you do the right things you can drive even if you have hard competitors." Amazon's core business still lies in e-commerce it has expanded in brick-and-mortar retailing through Amazon Go Stores, its Whole Foods acquisition and other efforts and at times that's proving to be an advantage to Amazon's competitors in the cloud business. In the case of Walgreens, Amazon's recent push into health care looms large. Although the company has kept its intentions closely guarded, it's making moves like acquiring online pharmacy PillPack and teaming up with J.P. Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway on a long-term plan to improve care and reduce costs for employees. As Amazon keeps growing, Microsoft is getting involved with ever more retailers. On Tuesday Microsoft said it has signed a multiyear deal with Walgreens Boots Alliance . Under the deal, Walgreens Boots Alliance is signing up more than 380,000 employees for its Microsoft 365 cloud apps offering, including Office 365, Windows 10, and mobility and security tools. The company will move most of its information technology workloads to Microsoft's Azure public cloud. Beyond operating Walgreens and Duane Reade stores, Walgreens Boots Alliance has almost 400 distribution centers that deliver to hundreds of thousands of doctors, hospitals, health centers and pharmacies annually, according to its latest annual report. The company acknowledged Amazon's PillPack deal in the report's risk factors section. The deal will also include tests of "digital health corners" within some Walgreens stores, plus cooperation on research and development and software for managing patient engagement and chronic disease. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in the CNBC interview the deal was sparked by a conversation about three years ago. "They [WBA] went through a pretty rigorous process of really finding the right partner who can bring both world class technology, but also the trust in order to be able help them build this ecosystem," Nadella said. "Because, ultimately, this is about broad partnerships that need to be harnessed by Walgreens in order to deliver the services that [they're] envisioning and they needed to find a partner who, on the technology side, has the capability to do that ecosystem orchestration and is trusted, and that is something where we obviously do well in and I'm glad to sort of really bring all of that to this partnership. Nadella said Microsoft will act as the "glue" for various technology and partnerships that will bring data from multiple sources together in order to establish new programs. "So it's not just about Microsoft, but it's about again being able to orchestrate that entire ecosystem of tech providers in order to help companies like WBA transform," Nadella said. Microsoft has recently signed cloud partnerships other big retailers including the Gap, Kroger and Walmart. But AWS retains many retail customers, including Brooks Brothers and Under Armour, as well as health-care companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb and Celgene. WATCH: Satya Nadella has been tactically more impressive than Apple CEO Tim Cook, says portfolio manager Pony.ai, one of China's most valuable driverless car start-ups, has launched an app that allows users to hail an autonomous taxi, making it one of the first companies to do so. The app, which was quietly launched in late December, allows a user to hail a self-driving taxi from a pre-set location in Nansha, which is part of Guangzhou in southern China. The car can travel to specific areas that have been set by the company such as its offices or residential areas. Currently, only employees and a few VIP users are using the app, which is a mini-program built within WeChat, China's most popular messaging service. Rides are free for now. Pony.ai, a $1 billion firm co-located in China and the U.S., makes software to power driverless cars. It does not make the vehicle itself. Instead it has partnered with automakers including China's BYD and GAC. The company's technology relies on continuous testing and data gathering to improve the software, something that will be boosted by an autonomous taxi service carrying real passengers. A demonstrator holds a 'Stop The Shutdown' sign during a rally with union members and federal employees to end the partial government shutdown outside the White House in Washington, D.C. Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images The partial government shutdown is quickly turning into a nightmare scenario for the country's cybersecurity functions, often in unexpected ways. Even after Congress ultimately reaches a deal to end the shutdown, these negative effects could last far into the future. Close to half of the employees within the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA which works to help secure the nation's critical infrastructure industries, such as banking, water, energy and nuclear are furloughed. Eighty-five percent of the National Institute of Standards and Technology workers have been furloughed as well, and these are the employees who help private- and public-sector companies stay up to date on the latest cyberattacks and mitigation techniques. The shutdown is also contributing to an already stark brain drain of cybersecurity talent, creating new, possibly disgruntled insider threats and ushering in a huge backlog of unchecked and needed security updates. Here are a few of the ways the lack of government funding is grinding down America's cybersecurity readiness. Basic maintenance on hold "CISA coordinates all cybersecurity efforts between the government and its private partners, ensuring both are properly trained and prepared to handle potential cyberattacks," explains Jon Murphy, leader of the cybersecurity practice at consulting firm Alliantgroup. "The absent employees could mean that various US government agency's computer systems might go without needed security updates and possibly lack the ability to detect newer intrusions/attacks timely." Even cybersecurity functions that are deemed "essential," including those that deal with active defense of nuclear systems and other critical functions, are suffering because of a lack of incoming information and assistance from other government agencies. "The government shutdown is raising new and alarming concerns as routine website maintenance is essentially furloughed," said Mike O'Malley, VP of strategy at Radware. "Because almost all 'routine' maintenance includes a level of security patching along with human touchpoints, we have laid out the welcome mat to any and all nefarious actors," he said. "Unfortunately, we know all too well from experience that hackers, especially nation-state sponsored, have a high level of patience and are willing to lie in wait for the most opportune moment." One basic maintenance task often filled by entry-level employees is monitoring websites for expired security certificates. Because of the shutdown, more than 80 such certificates have expired across agencies such as NASA and the Department of Justice, according to research from cybersecurity company Tripwire. The certificates in question are called "TLS" or "transport layer security," which provide security as part of securing websites using HTTPS. This is the protocol that encrypts data being transferred over the internet, including your emails, web browsing history and the secure documents you send. It's extremely important. When certificates expire, websites become more susceptible to having encryption broken, opening a way for hackers to read information in transit. The frequent pop-ups also provide another opportunity for fraudsters to create phony links that transmit malware. "In addition to expired HTTPS certificates, with federal workers furloughed, it is likely that computer systems of several government agencies did not receive the January 2019 Microsoft patches and will soon miss updates from Oracle and other vendors," said Craig Young, a security specialist with Tripwire's research team. Young said he expects these weaknesses could lead to attacks from nation-states such as Russia, which has developed malware that can be implanted on routers malware that "is perfect for surreptitiously hijacking HTTPS connections to US government web sites." What this all means is that while the shutdown may only last weeks, malware may be implanted that lasts long past any time when a congressional deal is finally reached. The people problem Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili held the first working meeting with Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze. Zurabishvili hosted Bakhtadze at the Atoneli presidential residency. The sides discussed future cooperation issues at the meeting, as well as the most important topics for Georgia and foreign trips. Earlier, Zurabishvili said that she will visit Brussels on her first official visit abroad and will hold meetings at the headquarters of NATO and the EU. William Barr, U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee to be Attorney General, arrives to pay a visit to Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) in her office on Capitol Hill in Washington, January 10, 2019. Attorney general hopeful William Barr is set Tuesday to appear for confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee again. The 68-year-old Barr, who was partially retired when he was tapped for the role by President Donald Trump, has already served as the top Justice Department official, nearly three decades ago, under President George H.W. Bush. While he was unanimously approved then, Barr is expected to face a much rockier path the second time around. His past doubts about parts of special counsel Robert Mueller's authority, combined with his expansive view of presidential authority, have raised alarms among Democrats wary of Trump's threats to wield his immense power unilaterally. Barr apparently hopes to skirt much of this scrutiny from the outset of the two-day hearings. His prepared remarks appear to show him assuring senators that "it is vitally important" for Mueller to complete his ongoing probe of Russian election interference and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. He will also promise to assert his "independence" as a public servant, placing his allegiances in "the rule of law, the Constitution, and the American people," rather than in the president. "If confirmed, I will not permit partisan politics, personal interests, or any other improper consideration to interfere with this or any other investigation," Barr's remarks say. "I will follow the special counsel regulations scrupulously and in good faith, and on my watch, Bob will be allowed to complete his work." Barr may hope that statement inoculates him against harsh scrutiny of a 19-page memo Barr sent to the DOJ in June, arguing that Mueller's focus on whether Trump had obstructed justice is "fatally misconceived." Still, his kickoff is likely to be returned by a barrage of questions from the committee's Democratic minority, who are poised to pick apart Barr's feelings about both the Russia probe and the limits of the president's authorities. Those two topics "will be a big focus of tomorrow's hearing," a spokeswoman for ranking Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told CNBC on Monday. Barr's broad view of a president's control over the executive branch was not uncommon at the time he served in the Bush administration. Many conservatives of that era felt that the presidency had been too far diminished in the backlash from the Watergate scandal that engulfed Richard Nixon's administration. "Barr was representing the more mainstream view at that time," said Nancy Baker, a professor emeritus of New Mexico State University who helped conduct an oral history of Barr in 2001. But in 2019, that view has grown more controversial. Both the left and the right have decried what they have labeled executive overreach of the past two administrations. And Trump's denunciations of the Mueller probe on Twitter have raised fears among the special counsel's defenders that the president may try to quash a federal investigation in which he is a central figure. Barr will field questions from Democrats about immigration as well, the spokeswoman said, which are likely to touch on the trench warfare being fought over funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump wants more than $5 billion for a steel barrier, while Democrats refuse to provide any money for the president's proposal. Any deal to fund nine hobbled federal agencies hinges on the gridlocked negotiations surrounding the wall; as a result, the partial shutdown has now become the longest on record. Trump has again raised Democrats' fears in the shutdown fight by threatening to bypass Congress through a national emergency declaration in order to get his wall built. He appeared to back down from those threats Monday, however, telling reporters he was not looking to call an emergency at the border at this time. The previous permanent attorney general, Jeff Sessions, took a hard-line stance on confronting illegal immigration from the southern border. Sessions was pilloried for his "zero tolerance" policy, which resulted in the separation of thousands of children from their families. Sessions was fired from the role by Trump in November, after enduring more than a year of scathing criticism from the president's Twitter account. Matthew Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney, has been serving as acting attorney general since Sessions was fired and has been heavily scrutinized for his past attacks on Mueller, including in a 2017 op-ed for CNN. Democrats also plan to grill Barr on a spate of other issues, including privacy rights, criminal justice and the decades-long battle over the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade. A spokesman for Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., did not respond to CNBC's inquiries about the confirmation hearings. Barr is still more likely than not to be confirmed, said Russell Riley, a presidential scholar at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney who was not Senate-appointed, "gave the appearance of the president putting a partisan hack into office," said Riley, who also participated in the oral history. Nominating Barr, a conservative Washington insider whose resume boasts experience in the CIA and the Reagan administration, "does not look like how the interim appointment looked," Riley said. Technology executives are telling CNBC's Jim Cramer that they're willing to endure short-term pain from the U.S.-China trade war in favor of the long-term payoff. "When I went out to San Francisco last week, I heard the same thing from a surprising number of people in the tech industry who do not like President [Donald] Trump one bit," the "Mad Money" host said Monday. "What they said was 'If we're going to take on China, now's the time to do it,'" he said. "They may not be fans of the president, but they're on board with the trade war." Part of the reason could be tied to the pain points emerging in China's economy, Cramer said. On Sunday, Chinese government data revealed that China's overall December exports fell by 4.4 percent and imports sank by 7.6 percent year over year. The data also showed the largest trade surplus with the United States in more than a decade. "This harsher-than-expected view ... may be more realistic than you think" when it comes to how tech leaders feel about China's unfair trade practices, Cramer said. "I think it's because the Chinese economy has never been more vulnerable than it is right now, and our economy has rarely been this strong," he explained. "If we're ever going to do anything about China, this is the perfect time. If we're ever going to stop them from forcing our companies into dubious joint ventures that represent ridiculous technology transfers and often outright theft, this is the moment." And while no one in Silicon Valley wants to trigger a recession, "the consensus out there is that the Chinese may be forced to cave," the "Mad Money" host said. "They export more than $500 billion worth of goods to the United States [and] only import ... less than $200 billion," he noted. "China has a lot more to lose than we do. But beyond that, a lot of these executives believe that the Chinese economy is much, much, much weaker than we think." Cramer pointed to the various devices the Chinese government is using to keep its markets afloat, from one-year junk bonds to risky lending practices. If the United States and China part ways, China could go into a recession, he said; the United States "may not even notice." "The reality of the situation may be that China is teetering here, something that keeps coming up in behind-the-scenes discussions with anyone who examines the People's Republic from a financial angle," Cramer said. "The trade war is not about soybeans, people; it's about balance sheets. And, believe it or not, our balance sheet is much, much, much, much better than theirs." And while trade talks between the two countries are allegedly still ongoing, Cramer doubted that something would get done before Trump's next round of tariffs on China are instated in March. "But, again, a surprising number of executives are willing to accept the pain, precisely because they know there can be real gain when the Chinese finally open their markets," Cramer said. "See, it's when, not if, because China's economy is actually far weaker than people seem to realize. That's why these execs want to press the bet, and you know what? I agree with them." Activist hedge fund Starboard Value might be making a mistake with its involvement in Dollar Tree, but that doesn't mean the stock's not worth buying, says CNBC's Jim Cramer. On Jan. 7, the Wall Street Journal reported that Starboard had taken a 1.7 percent stake in Dollar Tree in the hopes of convincing management to sell the Family Dollar business. Since Dollar Tree bought Family Dollar in 2015, it has struggled to improve the division, resulting in three straight quarters of disappointing results in 2018. As such, Starboard reportedly sees an opportunity: the firm is calling on Dollar Tree to spin off Family Dollar and demanding seven out of its 12 board seats to ensure that happens. It has also suggested reworking Dollar Tree's pricing model. But after speaking with Dollar Tree President and CEO Gary Philbin after the company's most recent earnings report, Cramer harbored some doubts about Starboard's plans for Family Dollar. "I think that, for once, Starboard Value may be a little off base," he said Monday on "Mad Money." "The last time Dollar Tree reported ... back in November, the whole story changed." While the headline earnings results were still disappointing, Cramer saw a clear "silver lining": Dollar Tree's ongoing renovations of the Family Dollar stores were finally bearing fruit in the form of accelerating sales. In the post-earnings conference call, management said the renovations could result in high-single-digit same-store sales growth. In the interview with Cramer, Dollar Tree's CEO doubled down on that sentiment. He cast Family Dollar's turnaround as "a multi-year trajectory to get to an inflection point" and said the company planned to renovate at least 1,000 stores in 2019. "Ever since that last quarter and that interview, ... the stock's trajectory has turned around," Cramer said. Shares of Dollar Tree have gained nearly 8 percent in 2019 after falling slightly in December of last year. "Even though Dollar Tree has run up dramatically from its lows, the stock is still down nearly $20 bucks from its highs," the "Mad Money" host said. "I think it's a bargain here." Still, Starboard seems convinced that Dollar Tree has failed to turn the brand around. According to the activist firm, the market is valuing Family Dollar, which Dollar Tree bought for $8.5 billion, in a $1 billion to $3 billion range. And while the "Mad Money" host liked Starboard's pricing idea to build a multi-tiered pricing structure at Dollar Tree, similar to other discounters, instead of charging $1 for everything he wanted to see the Family Dollar transition play out. "[Starboard] want[s] Dollar Tree to consider cutting their losses and moving on," Cramer said. "But based on what the company just told us about the remodeling initiative when it reported, I think they have a chance to prove to Starboard that they can deliver a turnaround." Thankfully, Cramer sees a few ways for investors to win regardless of which side gets its way. "This could be a win-win," he said. "Either Dollar Tree pulls off the turnaround or Starboard takes some heads and ... unlocks value that way a little more brutal. So, while I disagree with some of their points, I have to like that they're giving you multiple ways to win." He also saw a third path: "As long as Starboard gives management some time to prove their plan can work, perhaps in exchange for a board seat or two, I bet there's more upside, and Dollar Tree? It's a buy." Dollar Tree shares slid at the end of Monday's fairly placid trading session, settling down 0.05 percent at $97.23. DEWITT [mdash] Jean Gravert, 95, formerly of Delmar, Iowa, passed away peacefully in her daughter's home in Iowa City. Per her wishes, there will be no visitation. A Celebration of Life will be held Sunday, July 25, 2021, from 1:00 until 4:00 p.m. at Grossman Hall in Delmar. Arrangements are HOLLYWOOD, Fla. A letter from a Holocaust survivor helped Aly Raisman realize that when she performed, she was not only representing her country. I had no idea how much of an impact it would have on the Jewish community, Raisman said Tuesday, describing her 2012 gold medal-winning routine, which included a component to the music of Hava Nagila, the Jewish folk song. I didnt realize at the time I was representing not only the United States but the Jewish community, Raisman told the Lion of Judah conference, held this year at a Florida resort. I received a letter from a Holocaust survivor saying she never imagined in her life seeing a young girl performing to Hava Nagila in front of the world and see her win for it. The Jewish Federations of North America organizes the Lion of Judah conference for Jewish woman leaders. Raisman has become a face of the #MeToo movement in the wake of her testimony against Larry Nassar, the former U.S. Olympics gymanastics team physician effectively sentenced to life for abusing at least 250 women and one man in various jobs. In an interview at the event, Raisman told Bari Weiss, a New York Times editor, that the attention has become overwhelming, including anti-Semitic attacks on social media. A lot of people dont realize the pressure I feel all the time, and Ive learned to take a step back and learn that I cant fix everything, she said. I had never experienced anti-Semitism until the past year, which is really devastating. The post Aly Raisman says she represents Americans and Jews when she performs appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Related content U.S. President Donald Trump could return to his threat to withdraw his country from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, The New York Times reported, citing unnamed senior administration officials. According to sources, Trump privately said several times last year that he wanted to withdraw his country from NATO. Current and former officials who support the alliance said they feared Trump could return to his threat as allied military spending continued to lag behind the goals the president had set. Those concerns were first sparked last year when the U.S. leader hinted that he could leave the 29-member defense bloc without Congressional approval. At the time, Trump was pushing member countries to increase spending. Since then, however, the Republican has backtracked on that threat. After the NATO meeting in July 2018, Trump claimed that allies had committed to his request and said that U.S. withdrawal from the organization would be "unnecessary." comfortable disagreeing with the president - free to disagree, a process of democracy. Like or not, you gotta listen to your opponents. In a short term, The shutdown is bad for those impacted, but in a long term, it benefits all the people in the society. Such " showdowns" -- Such processes provide a powerful argument for redressing the neglect of small, isolated minorities, for urgently prioritizing their restoration, and for avoiding simplistic application of democratic rights in national decisions, through the voters, by the voters, realizing that you gotta wait for your turn. ___ The shutdown affects approximately 800?000 federal employees from nine Cabinet departments whose funding has lapsed, including the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The shutdown speaks to the complexity and distributed nature of the American political system that impinges on health. For example, although part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which, along with the National Institutes of Health, has already received its 2019 operating budget through another appropriation bill, portions of FDA are funded through the Department of Agriculture, which is part of the current budgetary crisis. Similarly, the Indian Health Service (IHS) budget is imperilled because, although operated by HHS, it receives funding from the Department of the Interior. Not only are health workers from agencies such as IHS and the Department of Homeland Security affected by the shutdown by being considered excepted and working without pay but also direct funding for programmes such as preventive health clinics on tribal lands are suspended until the government reopens, a dual burden for some of the most underserved Americans. In loving memory of Sammy Kay, a private dedication service was held on June 13 at Bet Olam Cemetery. Sammy was the loving brother of Harvey and Marlene Schiffer; father to Dominik; and loving son of the late Ben and Regina Kay. COLUMBUS, Ohio At least three of Ohios first medical marijuana dispensaries are going to limit how much patients can buy to ensure everyone will have product in the first days of sales. Lines are expected to be long at the four dispensaries scheduled to open at 9 a.m. Wednesday -- one in Sandusky, two in Wintersville, near Steubenville, and one in Canton. Patients have been waiting 33 months since the Ohio General Assembly passed the law legalizing medical marijuana. The law required the medical marijuana program to be fully operational Sept. 8. But that day passed without product on shelves, due to litigation, and issues the state had reviewing applications of medical marijuana businesses. Our goal is to accommodate all the patients and make sure they can get their medicine -- thats what theyve been waiting for, said Jason Erkes, a spokesman for the CY+ Dispensary in Wintersville, owned by Cresco Labs, a cannabis company that operates in several states. CY+ is going to limit sales to 2 ounces per person in the first week, Erkes said. CY+ will have product from cultivators coming in all week to replenish supply that is sold. The dispensary will have close to 30 strains from three growers, he said. On Wednesday, CY+ employees will give patients a number so they dont have to stand in line, Erkes said. We have a hospitality tent set up so people can have hot chocolate and coffee and tables and chairs where they can fill out paperwork, he said. The first marijuana for sale will be in flower form since Ohio hasnt given certificates of operation to processors who use THC from marijuana plants in edibles, oils, lotions and other products. Ohio law prohibits people from smoking marijuana, but they can vape the plant form. Inside the Forest Sandusky, an Ohio medical marijuana dispensary in Sandusky. The Forest Sandusky is one of the first dispensaries expected to open. In Sandusky, patients at The Forest Sandusky will be limited to 1 ounce, said CEO Erik Vaughn. Our consultants and advisers that are an important part of our team have been through these launches in a dozen other states, Vaughn said. We are prepared for whats going to be a lot of interest in this historic moment. We expect to have adequate supply. The Forest Sandusky is expecting patients to purchase anywhere from about $60 to several hundreds of dollars in the first day. The company will charge about $50, plus tax, for a daily unit -- which is a 10th of an ounce of bud, Vaughn said. Military veterans will get a 20 percent discount, he said. At the Botanist in Canton, supplies will also be limited to accommodate high numbers of patients, said Caroline Henry, its communications officer. The cap will be 14.2 grams, or five days' units. A days unit is 2.8 grams. The cost per day unit will b $40 to $60. Each of the three stores cleveland.com talked to said it will only accepting payment in cash. Patients will need to bring government photo IDs, such as a drivers license, as well as their state-issued Ohio medical marijuana e-cards that contain a bar code that dispensaries need. The e-cards can be presented on smart phones or can be printed out. Patients must have one of 21 qualifying conditions, a recommendation from a physician who is certified in the medical marijuana program and be registered with the state to buy medical marijuana. Also opening Wednesday is Ohio Valley Natural Relief, also in Wintersville. Its unknown whether there will be sale limits. A message left at the dispensary was not immediately returned. This story has been updated to reflect the Tuesday afternoon announcement of the fourth dispensary, The Botanist in Canton. COLUMBUS, Ohio The long wait will soon be over for patients and caregivers registered in Ohios medical marijuana program, with the states first dispensary set to open for business 9 a.m. Wednesday. Cresco Labs CY+ Dispensary, 180 Main St., in Wintersville, near Steubenville, announced Monday evening it will open its doors then. Only flower, or bud, will be available for purchase, since companies that process THC and infuse it in edibles, oils, lotions and other products, are not yet up and running. Patients should expect to encounter a line since it will be the first day at the states first dispensary, the company said. Dispensary employees are trained to educate patients to help them feel more comfortable with marijuana. Patients must have one of 21 qualifying conditions, a recommendation from a physician who is certified in the medical marijuana program and be registered with the state. Patients are reminded to confirm their recommendation is completed with the state registry and to bring a state-issued ID along with their registry barcode. The Ohio General Assembly passed, and former Gov. John Kasich signed, a bill legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes in April 2016. The program was supposed to be fully operational Sept. 8, but is about three months late due to litigation and delays in reviewing applicants of medical marijuana businesses, among other issues. Later this week, a Canton store called The Botanist is also expected to open, according to a spokeswoman. The White House rejected reports that U.S. President Donald Trump's daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump is a possible candidate for the position of World Bank Group president. White House Deputy Director of Communications Jessica Ditto said that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney "have asked Ivanka Trump to help manage the U.S. nomination process as shes worked closely with the World Banks leadership for the past two years," Reuters reported. "Reports that she is under consideration are false," Ditto stressed. CLEVELAND, Ohio A man and woman who cared for a 4-year-old boy are charged in the childs death more than a year after his body was found decomposing in a garbage bag in the backyard of a vacant home. Joanna Vega, 31, and her husband Romaine Tolbert, 36, are charged with murder, gross abuse of a corpse and child endangering, permitting child abuse, tampering with evidence and kidnapping in connection with the death of 4-year-old Eliazar Ruiz. The indictment was handed up on Tuesday. Both are scheduled to be arraigned on Jan. 29. Eliazar was killed sometime between March 1, 2015 and Sept. 20, 2017, according to the indictment. A tree pruner found Eliazars remains Sept. 20, 2017 hidden in a garbage bag tucked under shrubs at a home on Longmead Avenue just east of West 130th Street in the citys Longmead-Puritas neighborhood. The pruner cut the bag open with shears and saw Eliazars full skeleton, according to police reports. The house sat had vacant for several months after a fire and was under renovation at the time he made the grisly discovery, neighbors said at the time. Cleveland police launched an investigation, but the investigation stalled after police and the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner struggled to identify the remains. Eliazar had been dead for several months before the worker discovered his remains, Medical Examiner Thomas Gilson previously said. Gilsons office was unable to determine how the child died but ruled the death a homicide. Gilson said that Eliazars was indicative of a child his age and it appeared that he was well nourished. Both of Eliazars arms were broken, including a recent fracture of his left arm, according to the indictment. Kent State University assistant anthropology professor Linda Spurlock created a forensic sketch using the remains that authorities released on Dec. 6, 2017 in the hopes that someone would recognize the child. The medical examiner on Jan. 24 identified the Eliazars remains after his mother, Ashley Makuhan, saw the sketch on the news and called police. Tests confirmed the remains matched Eliazars DNA. Makuhan had been in jail and prison since Feb. 7, 2017 and placed in Eliazar in care of Vega, his godmother, and Tolbert in 2015, Makuhan told cleveland.com last year in an interview while she was still in prison. Makuhan has two other children, according to court records. She had cases with the Cuyahoga County Children and Family Services that ended in findings that she provided insufficient parental care for her two other children in 2009 and 2010. She did not have any children under her care in 2012, the last time Children and Family Services had contact with her, a Cuyahoga County spokeswoman previously said. Vega has two prior felony convictions, both for allowing someone to sell drugs near her young children. She was sentenced to one year in prison in both cases. Vega in 2007 allowed a man to sell crack cocaine near her young children, according to court records. In 2006, she hid crack cocaine in her underwear as police arrested her and a man during a traffic stop. The man gave Vega a baggie of crack cocaine, which she hid. Vegas then 3-year-old daughter was in the backseat of the car, court records say. To comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments page. CLEVELAND, Ohio A 51-year-old man is accused of holding a woman captive for two days against her will and dragging her back into the home by her hair when she tried to leave, according to police and court records. William Carte of Cleveland is charged with abduction, a third-degree felony. He is being held in the Cuyahoga County Jail on $25,000 bond at his first court appearance on Monday. The 40-year-old woman called police about 4:30 a.m. Friday after she escaped the home on West 93rd Street and Madison Avenue in the citys Cudell neighborhood, police reports say. The woman told police she met Carte about a month ago. He came to her house a couple days prior and helped her move into her home, according to police reports. Carte became angry that the woman didnt want to be in a relationship with him, according to police reports. Carte forced the woman to stay in the home with him for two days and threatened to beat her if she tried to leave, according to police reports and court records. The woman two days later ran out of the home, but Carte ran after her, grabbed her by the neck and hair and dragged her back into the home, according to police reports and court records. Carte told police he was trying to keep the woman from buying drugs and that he never grabbed her but tried to get her to come back into the house, according to police reports. Carte has 20 felony convictions dating back to 1985. He served a three-year prison sentence after his most recent conviction in 2015 for burglary. Hes also been convicted of robbery, aggravated burglary, assaulting a police officer, domestic violence, intimidating a crime victim, receiving stolen property, aggravated theft, breaking and entering and other crimes, according to court records. To comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments page. CLEVELAND, Ohio DJ Yulissa Davila, who is better known as IamYulissa, is a regular DJ in Clevelands nightlife scene. You might have seen her spinning at Magnolia, Barley House and other clubs in town. Davila said she has also worked for brands like Mercedes Benz, T-Mobile, Ben & Jerrys for celebrity events. Born in Venezuela, Davila was raised in Cleveland. She regularly vlogs about her DJ events on a YouTube channel called iamyulissatv. She picked three albums that she thinks you should listen to all of which were released in the summer of 2018. The Carters (Beyonce & Jay-z) Everything Is Love This album is skip proof. Every song has a meaning and a groove. I have two songs that I love for two different moods. APESH*T is the song I put on when I am running on the treadmill. NICE is a song I put on when I am in the car on chill mode. That song is so inspirational. Cardi B Invasion of Privacy This was an amazing body of work. All 13 songs were a vibe. She made me turn into a big fan after hearing this album. So much heart and passion behind some songs. I love that she is playful on some songs but also shows her sensitive side on a few. Love it. Drake Scorpion Drake honestly does not disappoint. Always a good body of work; a bit longer than the other two, but its amazing in every way. My favorite song is After Dark. Its a smooth groove that you can listen to on your way to late dinner or cruising that city in the evening. Drake never fails in showing his sensitive side which was demonstrated in a few songs, but then he has songs like NonStop and Mob Ties that you play in the club and people get super hype. For more stories about the Cleveland music scene, past and present, sign up for our weekly local music newsletter, Listen Up Cleveland. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- "I never worked for Russia, " claimed President Donald Trump, Putin Puppet Works Employee of the Month for January 2019 and the 24 months of 2017 and 2016. The President of The United States made the comment after The New York Times reported that the FBI found reason in 2016 to open a counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump was working for Russia, either wittingly or unwittingly. On the same weekend of the NYT report, The Washington Post reported that Trump had gone to "extraordinary" lengths to keep details of his conversations with Vladimir Putin from U.S. officials who would normally be informed. Trump's efforts to conceal his conversations included seizing the notes of interpreters. Trump has denied ever working for Putin's Russia. He has just been acting like he's been working for Russia during his entire presidential campaign and presidency. Which is why the FBI opened its investigation, according to the NYT report. "Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence." "Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump's ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude." Here are a few of Trump's Russia-linked actions prior to, and at the time the FBI launched their counterintelligence investigation. * Candidate Trump calls on Russia, if they're listening, to hack Hillary Clinton's systems to find her email. * Trump hires Russia-Ukraine connected Paul Manafort to be his campaign manager. * Manafort is indebted to an oligarch with ties to Putin. * Under Trump-Manafort's control, the Republican Convention platform's position on Ukraine is changed to favor Russia. * Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner meet with Russians in Trump tower who are promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. One of the Trump-Putin meetings, whose details the Post says were kept from officials, occurred just before Trump concocted the cover story that the Don Jr. meeting with Russians was just about adoptions. * Trump fires FBI Director James Comey and tells NBC News it was over "the Russure thing." * Trump invites the Russian Foreign Minister and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. into The Oval Office and over laughs tells them, "I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job... I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off." In the same meeting, Trump tells the Russians classified information about Israel that compromises covert action. The FBI would have been derelict in their duty if they had not opened a counterintelligence investigation at the point they did. An FBI counterintelligence investigation is not the same as a criminal investigation. It's a fact-finding mission to understand what, if anything, a foreign power is doing and if the American being investigated has been compromised or not. "In most cases, the investigations are carried out quietly, sometimes for years. Often they result in no arrests," reported the NYT. Overt of not, too many of Trump's actions have served the interests of Putin and Russia more than they have the United States. Monday it was reported that Trump had sought aides help in withdrawing the United States from NATO. The aides were so inept they actually consulted Wikipedia to see if the president had the authority to withdraw. Chief of Staff John Kelly eventually stepped in putting a halt to the action which would be Putin's dream come true. Trump is well on his way to being the worst president in U.S. history and best U.S. President in Russia history. "Winning!!" "Make America Great!" CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The estate of a 5-year-old Cleveland boy whose body was found in late 2017 buried behind his mothers house has filed a lawsuit against the social services arm of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland that employed the worker who was supposed to keep tabs on the family. The survivorship of Jordan Rodriguez filed the wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court against Catholic Charities, its employee Nancy Caraballo, the boys mother Larissa Rodriguez and her boyfriend Christopher Rodriguez. The suit accuses Catholic Charities and Caraballo of recklessness, negligence and failing to report abuse the boy suffered in the two years leading up to his death. The estate, administrated by Michelle Rodriguez, seeks to take the case before a jury. In a statement sent through the diocese, Catholic Charities called Jordans death shocking," While we cannot at this time comment on what is alleged in the lawsuit, Catholic Charities protects and advocates for those who are most vulnerable, the statement said. All employees undergo thorough background checks and extensive training with regard to ethics and specifically their duties to report child abuse or neglect. Jordans body was discovered buried in the familys backyard in December 2017, after Cleveland police received a call from Pakistan that said Christopher Rodriguez confessed to burying the child. Investigators responding to the call found the home in deplorable condition, and it wasnt long before they uncovered that Caraballo, a parent educator at an agency contracted with Catholic Charities who was assigned to the Rodriguez family, had been buying Larissa Rodriguezs food stamps at discounted prices and lying in her reports of her visits. Caraballo was supposed to conduct monthly home visits to check on Rodriguezs children and living conditions and file a report each time. But investigators subpoenaed her cellphone records and compared text messages between Caraballo and Rodriguez to the reports and found that, on at least 12 occasions, Caraballo simply showed up to Rodriguezs house to pick up the food stamp card. She filed false reports that said she inspected the home. The scheme began in 2016 and continued until investigators dug up Jordans body in December 2017. Caraballo pleaded guilty to trafficking in food stamps, grand theft and tampering with records and was sentenced to three years in prison. She was released from prison in November after she served less than eight months of her sentence. Larissa Rodriguez and Christopher Rodriguez each pleaded guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter, felonious assault, child endangering and gross abuse of a corpse in Jordans death. Common Pleas Court Judge Nancy Margaret Russo broke down in tears during the June 29 hearing where she sentenced Larissa Rodriguez to 25 years in prison and Christopher Rodriguez to 28 years in prison. Chicago-based attorney Jay Deratany is lead counsel on the lawsuit. Deratany is also serving as lead counsel on a lawsuit filed in September against the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services over the death of another 5-year-old, TaNaejah McCloud. TaNaejahs mother, Tequila Crump, and Crumps live-in girlfriend, Ursula Owens, were convicted and sentenced to prison for their roles in the girls death. The lawsuit says the death would have been prevented had social workers done their jobs and removed the girl from the home that had no bed for the girl to sleep in and was riddled with cockroaches. Randazzo Law will serve as local counsel on the lawsuit over Rodriguezs death. Deratany has filed several lawsuits against social services agencies across the county. He represented the estate of a Chicago-area boy who died in 2011 when a non-profit agency contracted with that countys child and family services agencies relinquished custody back to the boys biological mother after he had been hospitalized. A jury awarded the boys estate $45 million. Update: This post was updated with comments from the Catholic Charities. NORTHFIELD, Ohio - MGM Resorts International announced Tuesday it has picked an executive from MGM Grand Detroit to run the Hard Rock Rocksino Northfield Park under a yet-to-be announced new name beginning later this year. An affiliated company, MGM Properties, in July paid $1 billion to purchase the Hard Rock Rocksino, the busiest of Ohios 11 casinos and racinos. Since then, MGM Resorts announced it would run the property, beginning sometime during the first half of this year. Tuesdays announcement was silent on the new name for the property, saying only that MGM Grand Detroits Chris Kelley would become president and chief operating officer of the Ohio resort, currently known as the Hard Rock Rocksino Northfield Park." Kelley joined MGM Resorts in 2017 as vice president and chief financial officer of MGM Grand Detroit. Before then, he worked at Viejas Casino & Resort near San Diego. Hard Rock International announced in November that its Northfield Park president, Mark Birtha, was being transferred to become president of Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Sacramento at Fire Mountain. Under Birthas leadership, the Rocksino solidified its position has Ohios busiest gambling operation, despite as a racino not being permitted to offer table games like Ohios four casinos. The Rocksino in 2018 had $255.9 million in gambling revenue - after paying out winnings. This not only outpaced Ohios four full casinos, but dwarfed the revenue at all other racinos. Racino revenue elsewhere in Ohio ranged from $81.2 million at Belterra Park in Cincinnati to $175.1 at Eldorado Scioto Downs near Columbus. This excludes wagering on horses. We are looking forward to building on that successful foundation and driving further growth," Anton Nikodemus, chief operating officer of regional operations for MGM Resorts, said in a statement announcing Kelleys appointment. While the transfer to MGM Resorts is pending, long-time Rocksino executive Jeff Michie is serving as interim general manager. Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, writes about numbers on a variety of topics. Follow on Twitter @RichExner . Follow casino coverage at cleveland.com/casino. CLEVELAND, Ohio PNC Bank has named Pat Pastore the new regional president of the Cleveland market. Pastore, who most recently served as the executive vice president and market leader for PNC Corporate Banking in Northern Ohio, succeeds Paul Clark, who is set to retire March 31. Its a huge honor, Pastore said. I feel very confident in the role and have certainly worked with Paul for a long time. This has been and will continue to be an orchestrated transition. Clark has led Pittsburgh-based PNCs regional operations in Cleveland for the past decade, and Pastore has worked closely with him as part of the local senior leadership team, even before PNC purchased National City. Pat has extensive banking experience and deep roots in this community. He is a life-long Northeast Ohioan who is active in this community and has played a significant role in our efforts to serve this market, Louis Cestello, executive vice president and head of PNCs regional markets, said in a prepared statement. He and Paul will work closely to ensure a smooth transition that will extend our long history of great work in this market. Pastore, who grew up in Hartville, comes from a family of small business owners. His formative years were spent watching his parents manage a barbershop, a dry cleaning business and an RV dealership. Through them, he learned traditional values and gained an understanding of the struggles of small business owners, he said. I feel like I understand Northeastern Ohio. Im proud to be part of it. Its who I am, Pastore said. I have a deep desire to make an impact in the community. If I was coming in from out of town, it might just be a job. Pastore lives in Shaker Heights with his wife, Julie, their daughter, Sophia, and their Schnoodle dog, Lucy. Their two adult children, Patrick and Katy, live in Cincinnati. Pastore is co-vice chairman of the board of JumpStart, on the board of The United Way of Greater Cleveland, a member of the Leadership Cleveland Class of 2011 and previously served on the boards of the United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Cleveland and The Salvation Army of Greater Cleveland. Paul was a wonderful leader for a long time in the community, and I think its important for people to understand that PNC has an ongoing commitment in all of the communities that we do business in. As the new leader, its going to be important for me to maintain that, Pastore said. He said the banks community development efforts will evolve as the community evolves, such as a new focus on blockchain, but that its commitment to the communities it serves will remain steadfast. Pastore has worked for the bank for a total of 25 years, leaving for a five-year stint to serve as a vice president in the investment banking group of Parker/Hunter Inc. and as a relationship manager in ABN AMRO Banks corporate banking group, according to PNC. At National City and then PNC, he worked in the corporate finance group of PNC Capital Markets. At National City, he was named head of corporate banking for Cleveland in 2005 and a regional manager of corporate clients in Northern Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania in 2007. He assumed his most recent role as PNCs market leader of corporate banking for Northern Ohio in 2009. Pastore earned a bachelors degree in finance from Miami University of Ohio and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University. CLEVELAND, Ohio Air traffic controllers from airports throughout Ohio will greet passengers on Tuesday at Cleveland Hopkins airport, handing out fliers to travelers in hopes of hastening an end to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. End the government shutdown immediately, say the fliers. Protect the national airspace system, aviation safety professionals and the U.S. economy. William Gentry, an air traffic controller at the Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center in Oberlin, said the skies are currently safe. But the longer the shutdown continues, the greater likelihood that training, system updates and other important functions will go unfilled. Everything is current right now, he said. The longer this goes on, some of those things wont be current. He noted that although air traffic controllers are considered essential personnel and must report to work, others in his office including trainers, technicians and administrative support are on furlough, leaving important duties unfilled. Gentry, a controller for the past 17 years, has been through past shutdowns but none that lasted this long, and none that encompassed a missed paycheck. Federal workers will be paid when the shutdown is over, but in the meantime, workers are worried about paying their bills, said Gentry, president of the union that represents nearly 400 workers at the Oberlin center. People are angry. Theyre upset. Theyre scared, said Gentry. Informational leafleting by the air traffic controllers union started Monday at several airports, including Minneapolis, Dallas and Atlanta, and will expand to other facilities, including Cleveland, on Tuesday. Gentry said he expects several dozen controllers from airports throughout Ohio to greet Cleveland Hopkins passengers at the baggage claim and ticketing levels from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, handing out information and talking to travelers. Passengers will be asked to contact members of Congress to urge them to resolve the dispute. Gentrys union is one of several in recent days to file suit against the government, alleging that being required to work without pay is a violation of workers rights. One incident in recent days did lighten the burden facing Gentry and his colleagues: Air traffic controllers in Cleveland and across the country on Friday enjoyed free pizza courtesy of their fellow controllers in Canada. Air traffic controllers in Toronto sent their colleagues in Cleveland dinner from Lorenzos Pizzeria in Oberlin. That made everybody smile for a while, said Gentry. Related: Security lines at Cleveland Hopkins arent growing, as TSA agents work without pay AVON, Ohio -- Fraud, Detroit Road: A man called police Jan. 7 to report that a fraudulent check for $4,257 was written from his bank account on Nov. 30 and that the check was cashed on Dec. 10 in New York City. The incident was still under investigation at the time of the report. Theft, Chester Road: Police responded to two separate thefts from a Walmart store Dec. 30. Both suspects were eventually arrested and the items, including more than $77 worth of children's games and household items, were recovered and returned to the store. Theft, Chester Road: A woman was arrested at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 3 for "skip scanning" $64 worth of items in a self-checkout line. She was cited for petty theft and released. Theft, Chester Road: A woman was arrested for shoplifting after being caught trying to take more than $59 worth of items from a Walmart store. If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page. Dr. Jim Hart, left, and his wife, Christy Hart, discuss their November mission trip to the Dominican Republic during Thursdays meeting of the Cleburne Rotary Club. Hart said he and fellow dentists saw more than 50 patients a day during their stay. The Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said that his country supports Irans missile program, calling the criticisms against the Iranian missile nonsense, Mehr news agency reported. Talking to reporters on Tuesday, after Irans launching of Payam satellite, which a technical failure prevented it from placing into the orbit, Sergey Ryabkov reacted to Western countries criticism against Iranian missile program. Sergey Ryabkov said it is very difficult to imagine that talks on Iran's missile program would start under US pressures. He stressed that barrage of criticism against the development of Iran's missile program is meaningless. Grace Louise Archer, age 90, a resident of Aurora, Colorado, a former resident of Chillicothe, Missouri, passed away on Wednesday, June 2, 2021, at Shalom Park, Aurora, Colorado. Grace was born the daughter of Maurice P. Martin, Sr., and Margaret (O'Connor) Martin on October 10, 1930, in Chi Value-based care, party changes in several states, as well as a holistic view when it comes to patient injuries will have a significant impact on the workers compensation industry this year, according to hosts of the Out Front Ideas webinar series, Mark Walls and Kimberly George. The two workers comp industry experts continue their monthly webinar series, kicking off the New Year with a webinar on the 20 Issues to Watch in 2019 in workers compensation. George, chief healthcare officer for Sedgwick, said to expect continuing healthcare discussions now that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was ruled unconstitutional. States will continue to expand Medicare programs with a focus on addressing costs of prescription costs, she added. Big pharma is bracing for smaller, but significant, regulatory changes, George said. There will also be greater focus on value-based care with the goal of improving health outcomes and quality of care. Elections in 2018 may have a big impact on the workers compensation landscape in 2020, said Walls. Governor changes in eight states Alaska, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and Wisconsin, according to Walls, vice president of Communications and Strategic Analysis at Safety National, means new regulators and administrative law judges could significantly impact workers compensation practices in individual states. In addition, the industry could see legislative changes resulting from the six states (Democrats: California, Alabama, Illinois, Mississippi and Florida. Republicans: Alaska) where one party has total control of the governorship and both legislative branches. I would put all of these states on the watch list for potential workers compensation legislation, Walls said. With the American Medical Association sixth edition guidelines to consider, Walls said states will need to address whether subjective factors should be considered in permanent impairment ratings. Perhaps the most pervasive trend to watch is the overarching focus on the injured employee. Not only in the customer service sense, but there will also be continued emphasis on offering a personalized experience, with stakeholders increasingly viewing injured workers as consumers instead of claimants. There will, George said, be a move to include the voice of the injured worker in the handling of their claims. In addition, there will be increased focus on the social determinants of health, she said. The impact of loneliness, safe housing, employment and transportation concerns on a patients ability to heal and return to work will be examined. Workers comp payors are already addressing these issues by offering meal replacement delivery services post-surgery and offering caregiver services for food preparation and companionship. The psychology of pain according to George is the biological, emotional and social factors that impact pain. When patients focus on pain, studies indicate their pain worsens. Employers and claims teams can address the issue by introducing a pain philosophy into their programs, she said. This includes creating pain assessment tools and identifying a pain expert that can consult on more complex cases. Employee health models are another area gaining traction among employers. Employee health models are evolving with employer-purchased care, in part, because health insurers are not negotiating and managing costs in a way that employers can do so directly, said George. Other areas to watch include mega claims, natural disaster planning and dealing with impairment at work related to legalized marijuana. Listen in to the webinar to hear the full list of workers comp issues to watch in 2019. Efforts to legalize marijuana for recreational use in New York are gaining steam, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo predicts a bill will pass this year. But dont expect to see pot shops opening up from Brooklyn to Buffalo anytime soon. While theres broad agreement on the idea of legalization, theres no consensus on a long list of details that must be figured out first. Taxes and regulations must be approved. Rules for licensing retailers must be written. A new government entity may have to be created. Local governments will have to be brought in. Even after a bill passes, it could take a year or more for any pot shops to open, based on whats happened in other states and New Yorks own experience with medical marijuana. While reaching a compromise will prove difficult, lawmakers in New York say they have the advantages of seeing whats worked and what hasnt in other states that have eliminated the ban. That growing list includes Washington, Colorado, California and now neighboring Massachusetts. There does seem to be this air of inevitability, said Sen. James Skoufis, a Democrat from the Hudson Valleys Orange County. But we need to make sure we do it right. LEGALIZE WHAT, EXACTLY? First off, lawmakers will have to set the broad parameters of the law. All legalization proposals so far would eliminate legal penalties for the adult use of marijuana in a private home. Almost all would permit retail shops where people could buy the product. But what about Amsterdam-style pot cafes, where users could partake on site, while perhaps enjoying food, a cup of coffee or even an alcoholic beverage? Would people be allowed to consume marijuana outside? In their cars? At hotels? While children are present? Should local governments be able to prohibit pot shops in a certain town or county? States have taken their own approach to each question. California allows pot cafes, while other states do not. Washington, the first state to legalize marijuana, requires users to smoke in their own homes or, if they rent, with their landlords permission. Vermonts law legalizes possession and use of marijuana but makes no provisions for retail sales. So far, the 10 states that have legalized weed have all put in place a minimum age of 21, mirroring the rules for alcohol. Some supporters, including the New York Public Interest Research Group, say the age should be set at 18 in New York, arguing that picking 21 would only push younger users to the black market. The growing list of states is one reason why lawmakers say they want to legalize marijuana in New York this year. Officials in New Jersey and Connecticut are also weighing legalization, and Massachusetts and Vermont have already done it. Officials say they dont want to be left behind and see New Yorkers travel to other states to spend their money. I think were going to pass it, Cuomo said this past week when asked about the prospects for passage this year. HOW FAST AND HOW MANY? Will the state create a new agency to oversee marijuana, put it under the control of an existing office, such as the Department of Health, which oversees medical marijuana, or leave much of the decision to local governments? The answer could determine how many retail shops are ultimately allowed, and when they might open. New York has a history of taking a slow, cautious approach when it comes to pot. Lawmakers approved medical marijuana in 2014, but in a limited fashion. Only a handful of dispensaries were authorized, and only non-smokable forms of cannabis were allowed. Even then, the first dispensaries didnt open for nearly 18 months. In California, many of the decisions about licensing and approving local pot retailers are given to local authorities, with the thinking that they know what works best for their community, residents and businesses. But opponents say it can lead to a confusing mishmash of rules and a lack of oversight. Massachusetts took a far different approach, giving a state task force control over approving retail shops. Thats led to a slower, more conservative roll out. Voters approved legal pot in the Bay State in 2016, but the first retail shops didnt open until late last year. Six are now open, compared to hundreds in California. New York has the benefit of not being the first to do this, said Sen. Todd Kaminsky, a Long Island Democrat. Theres a lot to learn from the rest of the country. THE OPPOSITION Democrats now control New Yorks Assembly, Senate and the governors office, giving marijuana supporters a clear path to legal marijuana this year. But opponents remain, and theyll do what they can to fight or limit legalization. Legalizing recreational marijuana could likely adversely impact the health of a great many New Yorkers, Sarah Ravenhall, the director of the state Association of County Health Officials, wrote in an op-ed published Thursday. The group questions how the state will discourage pregnant or nursing women from consuming pot, and whether enough will be done to keep the drug out of the hands of minors. Local prosecutors have pointed out that law enforcement will have to consider the best ways of testing marijuana impairment in drivers, a difficult goal since the active ingredients in marijuana can stay in the bloodstream for weeks long after the effects have worn off. Thats a challenge supporters acknowledge as well. Police and prosecutors around the country are struggling with the same issue. Field sobriety tests have long been used to catch drunken or drugged drivers, and many departments are stepping up their training now that they expect to encounter more drivers who have consumed marijuana. Washington state has established a legal limit for THC in a drivers system, similar to the well-known 0.08 blood alcohol level used to catch drunken drivers. Other states are considering following suit. To us, the hardest thing to figure out is what do you do about driving under the influence, said Blair Horner, director of the New York Public Interest Research Group. Sen. Fred Akshar, a Republican from Broome County and a former undersheriff, said he and many of his colleagues remain concerned about the harmful effects of legalization. Its going to have a profound effect on public safety, Akshar said. TAXES Among the toughest questions will be how much to charge in taxes and what to do with the revenue. And theres no shortage of ideas. Some have suggested revenue could support repairs to New York Citys aging subway system. Others want it spent on efforts to fight addiction and mental health. Many say it should just go into the states general fund, like revenue from other taxes and fees. Then theres the question of the appropriate tax rate, which creates a problem Goldilocks would understand: set the rate too high and consumers might buy from the black market or drive to nearby states where pot is cheaper. Set it too low and the program wont raise the money officials say the state needs. If you charge too much, you will drive the business back to the illegal sales because it is just less expensive, Cuomo told reporters Thursday. REVISITING THE WAR ON DRUGS? Marijuana legalization must be accompanied by the expungement of past criminal convictions for marijuana possession, according to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Bronx Democrat whose powerful position gives him significant influence over the debate. Heastie and fellow pot supporter, Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, a Buffalo Democrat, argue that thousands of black and Latino New Yorkers were unfairly targeted by police and prosecutors during decades of the war on drugs. Proposals aimed at setting things right include giving minorities or residents of neighborhoods hard hit by the war on drugs precedence when it comes to licenses to grow or sell marijuana. Another would funnel some of the pot revenue toward efforts to help low-income neighborhoods. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. After what Facebook says were lengthy consultations with media partners and users, the social network came to the conclusion that local journalism is one of the areas that needs the most help, so this morning it announced plans to put a total of $300 million over three years into a number of journalism projects, including several non-profit ventures that focus on local reporting. Among others, the company announced funding for Report for America, the American Journalism Project, the Local Media Association and the Local Media Consortium, as well as a partnership between the Knight Foundation and the Lenfest Institute, a Philadelphia-based non-profit set up in by local businessman Gerry Lenfest in part to protect The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News. Among the larger grants announced by the company are: $20 million to expand Facebooks Accelerator pilot, which was announced last year and was aimed at helping local newsrooms figure out how to improve their success with subscription and membership models. Brown said the pilot has been very successful, with publishers such as The Miami Herald tripling the number of people who hit the paywall. $6 million for the Community News Project in the UK, a partnership with a number of news organizations including Newsquest, the Midland News Association and the National Council for the Training of Journalists, to train community journalists. This funding and partnership were originally announced in November. $5 million for a partnership with the Pulitzer Center, which will be making a matching commitment of $5 million, to create a series of grants that local newsrooms can use to help cover topics that affect their local communities. $2 million for Report for America, an offshoot of the non-profit GroundTruth project that has said it wants to put a thousand journalists in local newsrooms across the country over the next five years. $1 million for the American Journalism Project, which was co-founded by Elizabeth Green of Chalkbeat and John Thornton of the Texas Tribune. Facebook says its funding will help grow and sustain local civic news organizations through venture philanthropy. Although the headline number in Facebooks announcement is $300 million, the total for all the projects announced today adds up to less than $40 million. Facebooks Head of News, Campbell Brown, tells CJR that todays release only includes a portion of the amount that the company plans to spend, and that there will be more news to come over the next few months about new partnerships and extensions of existing ones. Brown says the company plans to hold a symposium in March with representatives from nonprofit groups and publishers so that it can identify new areas where it can also add funding. Brown also says Facebook isnt telling any of the partner groups what to do with the money they are getting. In most cases, she says, they will apply the funding to existing projects. While Facebook described the funding news as a commitment to local journalism, and entitled its blog post, Doing More to Support Local News, Brown says the $300 million figure includes all of the social networks funding of media and journalism, including the money it has been spending to get media companies to produce content for its Watch video feature. And while a focus on reporting sounds like a valuable thing, the funding Facebook is providing for both the Local Media Consortium and the Local Media Association isnt for local reporting per se, but rather to help those groups create a branded content strategy, meaning a revenue-generating model that allows advertisers to sponsor a publishers content. The CEO of the Local Media Consortium, Fran Willis, said in a statement released by Facebook that the idea behind the initiative is to help our members create a branded content strategy that will create credible environments for brands. In her interview with CJR, Brown says Facebook didnt select the organizations it decided to work with based on any kind of ideological calculations about whether one was left-wing or right-wing, even though the social network has come under fire in the past both for allegedly suppressing conservative news and for bending over backwards in an attempt to show that it isnt biased against conservatives. Ideology is not something were thinking about with this, Brown says. We just wanted to find groups who wanted to work with us on these programs. When it comes to helping fill the news deserts that are forming across the country, Brown said that is part of the reason for the funding of Report for America. When asked whether the group saw any conflict of interest in taking money from Facebook, an entity that has helped gut the media industry over the past few years, Report for America supplied CJR with a comment from President Steve Waldman, who said: From our perspective, the most important point is: more communities will have more local reporters covering topics of critical importance. Facebooks announcement has echoes of the $350 million that Google committed to its Google News Initiative almost a year ago, in March of 2018money that also included funding for programs that had already been announced. In Googles case, and to some extent in Facebooks as well, the aid that is being given amounts to help in convincing newsrooms and journalists to use the companys products more. For Google, that might be YouTube training, and for Facebook, it is things like how to use the social networks ad targeting mechanisms or how to think about the News Feed algorithm. This is just one of the concerns that a number of media industry professionals expressed in a CJR feature about funding from the two tech giants. Others, however, said they were happy to take funding from anywhere, including Facebook and Google, if it would allow them to do the things they wanted to do. Will more media companies and journalistic organizations make the same choice when Facebook comes calling? Sign up for CJR 's daily email Note: Were talking about the problematic nature of Facebooks funding on CJRs Galley forum, if you are interested in joining the discussion. Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Mathew Ingram is CJRs chief digital writer. Previously, he was a senior writer with Fortune magazine. He has written about the intersection between media and technology since the earliest days of the commercial internet. His writing has been published in the Washington Post and the Financial Times as well as by Reuters and Bloomberg. Mark in Charleston wants to know how to tell his fellow South Carolinians about the gravity of sea level rise without pushing them to anger or despair. Katie in Virginia is concerned about public health in her home state of North Carolina. And an anonymous New Yorker isnt sure how to talk to her Republican friend about the floods that will make her friends Miami mansion uninhabitable. For Americans with personal questions about climate change, there are few outlets that can provide both clarity on complex science and individualized insights on its effectsa void that inspired Sara Peach, senior editor at Yale Climate Connections, to start an advice column dedicated solely to such concerns. With an administration dedicated to undermining its own climate science and a news media overwhelmed with unending political scandal, climate change and environmental issues have struggled to take a leading spot in our national discourse, despite being one of the largest threats facing humanity today. ICYMI: Struggling to tell the biggest story in the world People oftentimes dont even realize the severity of what were talking about with climate change, and I just believe so deeply that people need to know, Peach says. Its my duty to help them understand that, so that they can make the decisions they need to make for their families and their communities and for the country as a whole. Peach, who has been on the climate beat since covering the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, began tinkering with the idea of a climate advice column after reading a transcript of Ira Glasss commencement speech to the Columbia Journalism Schools 2018 class. Glass talked about the need to be cunning to draw audiences to difficult stories, particularly when dealing with large-scale humanitarian issues, which can otherwise feel overwhelming and inaccessible. I really took that to heart, Peach says. Its my job as a journalist to help people understand whats happening so they can make decisions If theyre just tuning me out, then whats the point? Sign up for CJR 's daily email Peach currently publishes her column once a month, answering questions that arrive via Twitter, Facebook, and email. While Peach is a fan of advice columns and their empathic approach, she responds with a journalists tone and grounds her answers firmly in her own reporting and research, both from previous stories and new interviews specific to the letter writers quandaries. The resulting column is perhaps the most direct instantiation of advice science journalists know well: to communicate something distant and complex, find a way to bring the story home. Theres evidence that Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about climate change, even as their fears struggle to take precedent in our national conversation. A recent Pew study found that 59 percent of Americans already think climate change is affecting their local communities, while another found that 67 percent of respondents think the federal government is doing too little to address its effects. But personal concern over climate change isnt translating into conversations about it. In a 2016 survey from Yale and George Mason universities, 67 percent of Americans said they were very or moderately interested in climate change, while only 22 percent said they saw climate in the news at least once a week. Just 5 percent hear people they know talking about climate change at least once a week while for 24 percent of respondents, the term doesnt come up. Most people dont want to start a conversation or express an opinion about climate change because they dont feel they know enough to explain or defend their point of view, says Edward Maibach, director of George Masons Center for Climate Communication and an author of the survey. The reality of the situation is that most Americans dont know very much about climate change and dont feel confident in what they do know. Maibach and his colleagues dubbed this situation the spiral of silence: even people who want to discuss climate change avoid the subject because its yet to become an accepted topic of conversation. The politicization of climate science has only intensified the spiral, Maibach says. We are taught that some topics dont make for polite dinner table conversationincluding politicsso people prefer to simply steer clear of it, Maibach says. But unless we learn to start talking about our problem, we are unlikely to solve it. A climate advice column, then, provides a forum to talk openly about the ways it directly affects individuals, a key component in moving the climate conversation forward. Research has shown that simply providing more factswhats known as the information deficit modelis sometimes ineffective at and even actively harmful toward, efforts to bring divided communities closer together. Connecting on a personal level, however, can help to de-escalate and depoliticize, similar research suggests. Republican Congressman Bob Inglis, for example, shifted from denying climate science to spearheading conservation efforts after a dive on the Great Barrier Reef with oceanographer and fellow Christian Scott Heron. Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe has made inroads with American Evangelicals, many of whom staunchly deny the reality of climate change, by embracing and sharing her own identity as an Evangelical Christian. For Mark in Charleston, who wanted to talk about the dangers of climate change without shutting down others, Peach turned to the collective knowledge of another group of people who regularly have to provide startling, potentially devastating information: doctors. Drawing on the evidence-based protocol doctors use to tell patients of a cancer diagnosis, Peach advised an informed, compassionate, practical approach to talking about climate change that could benefit us all. Even as journalists, we can get pulled into, This person is wrong and Thats an incorrect fact, Peach says. That is valuable, but I really love the chance to think about approaching the conversation in an empathic way. RELATED: Reporters must convey the perils of climate change without paralyzing their audience Correction: This post has been updated to reflect that Bob Inglis is a representative, not a senator, and to more accurately describe the research on the information deficit model. Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Laura Dattaro is a science journalist, writer, and producer based in New York. By sharing Cisco's own IT experience, Cisco on Cisco can help customers and partners use technology to achieve business outcomes. Get an inside look at the inner workings of Cisco IT. Learn how we help organizations transform through technology. Canada ranked 6th out of 167 countries in latest Democracy Index Canada scored 10 out of 10 for civil liberties Canada ranked 6th out of 167 countries in latest Democracy Index Canada scored 10 out of 10 for civil liberties Canada ranked 6th out of 167 countries in latest Democracy Index Canada scored 10 out of 10 for civil liberties CIC News Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif Sans Font Size A A Canada earned a 10 out of 10 for civil liberties and was ranked sixth overall among the worlds democracies in the Economist Intelligence Units updated Democracy Index. The index provides a snapshot of the state of democracy in 167 countries based on scores in five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Canadas overall score remained unchanged from 2017 at 9.15 while its 25th-ranked southern neighbour, the United States, saw its score drop slightly from 7.98 to 7.96. The index classified Canada as a full democracy, one of only 20 countries to achieve that title. The U.S. remained a flawed democracy after falling below the threshold for a full democracy in 2016. A full democracy is described as one in which not only basic political freedoms and civil liberties are respected, but which also tend to be underpinned by a political culture conducive to the flourishing of democracy. A functioning government, independent media, an effective system of checks and balances and an independent judiciary are also hallmarks of a full democracy, according to the study. Ranking ahead of Canada on the Democracy Index, from first place to fifth, were Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand and Denmark. Canada was one of four countries that earned full marks for civil liberties, joined by New Zealand, Australia and Ireland. Canada has scored consistently well in the Democracy Index, thanks to its history of stable, democratic government, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) wrote, noting its high scores for civil liberties, electoral process and functioning of government. On civil liberties, the index reported that freedom of expression and religious and cultural tolerance are supported by the Canadian state, which is important given Canadas large French-Canadian and native minorities. It also noted that all Canadians enjoy equality under the law. Despite this assessment, the index found that there is room for improvement in Canada when it comes to political participation, a problem the EIU said many developed nations share. Canada earned a score of 7.78 in the category, which was its lowest among the five categories. The EIU pointed to poor voter turnout, low membership in political parties and a general lack of political engagement as examples of weaknesses on the political participation front. The Economist Intelligence Unit is the research and analysis wing of The Economist Group, which publishes The Economist magazine. Find out if you are eligible for Canadian immigration 2019 CICNews All Rights Reserved Britain is a former empire trying to stay relevant in European affairs by becoming an anti-Russian champion, Nikolai Patrushev, a senior Russian security official, believes. British people see through this ruse, he said, RT reports. Patrushev, the former head of the security service FSB, who currently chairs the Russian national security council, painted a highly unfavorable picture of modern Britain in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta. He said the British establishment still cannot get over their countrys rapid transition from the worlds most-powerful empire to a nation subjugated by its former colony, the United States. The Russian official said Britain is trying to preserve its diminishing influence by becoming Europes champion in an anti-Russian crusade, based on supposed common European values. This foundation however is false, Patrushev said. Britain poses as a model democracy. But its not clear how it complies with the strict censorship in the British media, for example," he said. The BBC has pretty much become a fake news factory that the Britons themselves take with a smile, Patrushev added. Admittedly, Britain is not alone in its Russophobic policy. Except the nations with the same mindset mostly are in Eastern Europe. A. There needs to be a traffic light there instead. B. A roundabout will work just fine in that location. C. Roundabouts are confusing and terrible. It shouldn't happen. D. That intersection is not a priority for change, so just leave it the way it is. Vote View Results A member of the Russian State Duma Committee on Physical Culture, Sports, Tourism and Youth Affairs, Dmitry Svishchev, called on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to hold extra examinations of containers used for collecting doping samples of athletes, a statement from the lawmakers press service said. Last week a video footage was circulated on the Internet, showing Norwegian pole vaulter Sondre Guttormsen easily opening three sealed containers with doping samples. According to the video, he opened them in the presence of a doping control officer during an inspection and without using special equipment. The Norwegian anti-doping body is using standard bottles produced by Swiss company Berlinger for storing collected doping samples, just like in the rest of the world. "WADA needs to conduct urgently a set of additional examination tests of containers for storing collected doping samples and to ban the use of Berlingers new bottles, which, as it turned out, can be easily opened," Svishchev stated. "The fact that such things take place again speaks for the unreliability of these containers." "Let us recall that exactly a year ago - in late January 2018 before the Olympic Games in PyeongChang - representatives of the IOC [the International Olympic Committee] and WADA stated an intention to hold a thorough investigation into the quality of containers. Even at the [2018] Games, as IOC representatives stated, containers of the previous generation were used, since numerous questions were on the table in regard to the new ones." "A year has passed and what do we see? An athlete is easily opening all three containers," Svishchev said. "It casts a shadow on the efficiency of work of the whole global system on the fight against doping." A delegation of WADA experts is currently in Moscow, where they work to retrieve data from the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory. Sandra Jones' first job out of college was her dream gig -- a public affairs position at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston that she couldn't have been more thrilled about starting Jan. 7. But about two weeks before her start date, the federal government shutdown. And just like that, the excitement of her new job turned to dread. She was starting a life in Houston, a thousand miles away from her home in Nebraska, without a job to go to or, more importantly, a paycheck. "I feel like, as a young person, I'm helpless," said Jones, 24, who graduated from the University of Nebraska Omaha in December. "Johnson has a good network of people to help out but it's not ideal." FRUSTRATING: Workers at NASA's Johnson Space Center brace for missing paycheck Friday Jones was among more than 50 people protesting the shutdown Tuesday outside Johnson. They held signs denouncing the government's closure and those responsible for it which incited enthusiastic honking from passersby that became so loud people had to shout to be heard. The number of protesters Tuesday doesn't come close to the number of people impacted by the shutdown. About 94 percent of the 3,055 federal employees at the Houston center have been out of work since Dec. 22, when the government was shuttered as President Donald Trump held firm on his demand that Congress fund a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Johnson is home to the nation's astronaut corps, where human space flight research and training take place. It also is home to the International Space Station's mission operations and the Orion program. About 200 federal employees still working at Johnson are there primarily to ensure the astronauts aboard the International Space Station stay alive. And they're not getting paid. IMPENDING EXODUS? Experts worry government shutdowns will drive NASA employees to the private sector People, organizations and even restaurants have been stepping in to help furloughed workers where they can. A NASA engineer started a GoFundMe page that had raised $3,560 as of Tuesday afternoon to help cover peoples' bills. The Johnson Space Center Federal Credit Union is offering zero interest loans to those impacted. And several restaurants in Houston D'Amico's Italian Market Cafe in Rice Village, Bistro Provence in the Energy Corridor, Ouisie's Table near River Oaks and the Rainbow Lodge on White Oak Bayou are offering free meals. On the federal level, U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, filed a bill Tuesday that would allow federal workers and contractors to take funds from their retirement without penalization. The measure still must be approved by Congress. "Hardworking federal employees and contractors at federal facilities like Johnson Space Center shouldn't suffer because the federal government can't do its job," Olson said in a statement. "Families of federal employees should not become casualties of partisan politics in Washington. This simple adjustment will allow them to access funds to provide financial stability during a stressful period they have no control over." While most people driving by Tuesday showed support for the protesters, not everyone was thrilled about their presence or message. As the demonstrators chanted about democracy and reopening the government pumping fists full of PayDay candy bars for emphasis drivers more than once slowed down, shouting "get a job" and "secure our border." But protesters, like Paromita Mitra, held strong. A month ago, the 27-year-old uprooted her entire life in Mississippi to take a job at Johnson as an engineer working on space suits. She's only received two paychecks. Her third would have come last Friday if the government hadn't shutdown. "It's stressful," Mitra said of the financial burden that's been placed on her over the past month. Mitra had hoped she could apply for the zero percent interest loans being offered during the shutdown by the JSC Federal Credit Union. But she didn't sign up for an account in time, she said. "I'm living off credit cards and trying to be as frugal as possible," she said Still, Mitra wouldn't consider leaving Johnson, where she's dreamed of working since childhood. But it certainly stings, she said, especially when she thinks about the jobs she turned down just two months ago that were offering double the salary. Steve Candler feels differently, however. Candler, who is in his 60s, has worked at Johnson for nearly 26 years. The day the shutdown began he started sprucing up his LinkedIn profile. "I still want to work here," said Candler, who works in facilities operations. "But I expected to have a job when I signed on and it makes me question working for the government." Candler said he was able to secure a loan from the credit union but not before his bank account dropped to $14 on Saturday. "My reserves are running out," he said. "All we want is our pay day." Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey. NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. If you've ever been appalled by the image of plastic naked babies hiding in your king cake, prepare for some validation. An advertising company says Facebook went too far with censorship last week when it prevented them from promoting a photo of a plastic "king cake baby" on the social media site because of "excessive nudity," according to a press release from the company. Innovative Advertising originally posted the photo to Facebook last week for its annual King Cake Snob competition, which ranks the cakes from bakeries across Louisiana. The post included the image of six plastic king cake babies with the caption, "We're back baby! King Cake season is here, and it's time to go vote for your favorite King Cake." The image was successfully uploaded to Facebook without any issues, but when the company tried to promote or "boost" the post as an advertisement, Facebook didn't allow it. "This ad isn't running because it includes an image or video depicting excessive skin or nudity, which includes medical diagrams depicting external organs of reproduction, breasts or butt," Facebook said in a notice to King Cake Snob, which included a screen shot of the message in its press release. "This kind of material is sensitive in nature." RELATED: This Mardi Gras, try Blue Bell's King Cake ice cream flavor The king cake baby is a Mardi Gras tradition that involves small plastic babies, which symbolize Jesus, hidden inside a King Cake. The baby might represent luck or prosperity to the person who finds it in their slice of cake. It also means they have to buy the next king cake. Jay Connaughton, managing partner of Innovative Advertising, said the company was initially shocked by Facebook's move. "Obviously the folks at Facebook have never tasted the sweet deliciousness of a traditional or filled king cake," Connaughton said in a prepared statement. "If they had, they would understand the deep passion that runs in Louisiana for king cakes of all varieties, and the little babies that live inside them." King Cake Snob spokesman Andrew Alexander told Chron.com the company requested a more in-depth review of the post after the initial notice. Even then, Facebook declined to promote the image, he said. "We don't allow ads with content that features sexually suggestive positioning or that shows a lot of skin (even if it's for an artistic or education reason) because of their highly sensitive nature," Facebook said after the second review, according to a screenshot of the message provided to Chron.com. After the issue with the first post, King Cake Snob decided to jokingly respond with its own censored image of king cake babies. The new image showed two plastic babies partially blurred out. When the company tried to boost that post, Facebook again denied the image, Alexander said. However, on Wednesday, a Facebook spokesperson offered a prepared statement saying the company overturned its decision. "We took another look at this ad and it's clear the King Cake baby does not violate the spirit of our policy," the statement said. "We've overturned the ad so it can run on Facebook." Julian Gill is a digital reporter in Houston. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | julian.gill@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. The man accused of shooting at a group of egg-chucking teens clocked triple-digit speeds to chase the pranksters before they crashed and killed a woman, officials said. Christopher Lopez, 48, sped up to 100 mph to keep up with the car full of teens, among them the 14-year-old driver who was fleeing him and the pistol he allegedly flashed and fired, prosecutor Teresa Cannady said Tuesday morning in court. The teens were tossing eggs at pedestrians and vehicles, including Lopezs 1971 model Lincoln Continental, for a New Years Day gag, but he pursued them, Cannady said. Harris County Sheriff's Office A witness saw Lopez aim the semi-automatic weapon out the window and fire on the teens, authorities said. The 14-year-old driver hit and killed 45-year-old Silvia Zavala after running a red light, police said. Lopez has been indicted with manslaughter, failure to stop and render aid and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He surrendered at the Harris County Jail on Monday night. He posted a $60,000 bond which is less than the $70,000 Cannady asked for and was released the next morning, records show. A magistrate judge granted a public defenders request to lower Lopezs bond because he has no prior convictions and surrendered after the indictment. The judge, however, believed Lopez could pose a flight risk because he was fleeing responsibility when he left the crash site. The conduct, if it were to occur again, would pose a risk to the communitys safety, the judge said during a 2 a.m. bond hearing. The defender, Jennifer Gaut, said Lopez works as an international product coordinator. He also co-owns a business promoting custom cars known in Houston as slabs, according to county records. Lopez could not be reached Tuesday afternoon at his home where recently placed No Trespassing signs were taped to his fence and door. His lawyer, David Cunningham, has not responded to repeated requests for comments. The 14-year-old driver who Lopez is accused of chasing has been charged with murder in Zavalas death. Nicole Hensley contributed to this report. samantha.ketterer@chron.com Twitter.com/sam_kett The FBI has ended its probe into Austin serial bomber Mark Conditt after finding no evidence to suggest his deadly crime spree was motivated by any recognized ideology, federal court papers show. Investigators closed the case into the March 2018 package bombings on Jan. 10, according to a Western District of Texas filing last week. With more than nine months to go until Houstons municipal elections, Mayor Sylvester Turners first two opponents turned their attention this week to limiting political donors influence at City Hall. Both challengers, millionaire lawyer and Texas A&M University System Regent Tony Buzbee and Bill King, the businessman and former Kemah mayor who lost to Turner in a close December 2015 runoff, announced they would spearhead separate petition drives to amend the city charter by temporarily blocking political donors from doing business with the city. The issue of pay to play appears likely to become a focal point in the race for Houston mayor, and could feature prominently in city Council campaigns too, all of which will take place as national Democrats vie for their partys presidential nomination amid growing calls for politicians to reject money that allegedly comes with strings attached. Buzbee, in a full-page ad in Sundays Houston Chronicle, said he intends to lead a petition drive to bar anyone who donates to a city official from doing business with the city for a year. King on Monday morning announced a similar idea at a press conference, proposing a two-year moratorium for people who give more than $250 to a city official. His idea would extend the ban to prospective lobbyists and appointees to boards or commissions, and cover candidates for mayor, controller and city council. Buzbee has not yet specified if his proposal would cover non-incumbent candidates. After Kings announcement, Buzbee had harsh words for his rival, criticizing his failed run in 2015 and accusing him of following his lead on the petition idea. King said he had mused on the topic for more than a year and had planned a petition push well before Buzbees announcement. I understand that Tony's talking about pay-to-play and I congratulate him for doing that, King said. I welcome him into this fight over this issue. Both candidates were beaten to the punch by Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who announced days after she was sworn in to office Jan. 1 that she would refuse contributions from county contractors. For now, though, local elected officials appear reluctant to embrace the idea; none of Harris Countys four commissioners have followed Hidalgos lead in rejecting vendors campaign cash. Shortly after King announced his petition drive Monday, Turner put out a statement noting existing rules governing campaign contributions from city contractors. The city has long-established rules that govern potential conflicts of interest regarding campaign contributions, including a black-out period and prohibitions on the members of certain boards and commissions, Turner said. As with all city policies, we continually evaluate these rules to ensure they are meeting the citys needs. The city will always entertain ideas and proposals from anyone, especially if theyre not trying to score political points. Houstons charter bars officials from taking or asking for contributions once the city publicly seeks proposals or bids for a contract. They cannot start accepting bids again until 30 days after City Council awards the contract, or decides not to award it at all. The same section of the charter also prohibits officials from accepting or soliciting vendors contributions at any point they know the vendor has interest in a contract. A separate provision also restricts when candidates who are not in office can accept contributions from vendors. Kings proposal would prevent people who contribute more than $250 to an official from entering into a contract with the city, registering as a city lobbyist or receiving appointments to city boards of commissions. Turner, through a spokesperson, declined to say whether he could get behind the changes proposed by King or Buzbee. Months ahead of the election, the mayor mostly has ignored Buzbee and King, brushing off questions from reporters about their candidacies. On Sunday, though, Turners supporters received an email from his long-dormant campaign mailing list that included a light jab at Buzbee following the newspaper ad. As mayor, and during my entire career, Ive fought to lift up every voice from the most economically challenged residents to billionaires who want to become mayor because every voice matters in this city, Turners email read. Timing aside, Kings decision to accompany his campaign with a petition drive and focus on ethics reform is a shrewd political move for a repeat candidate, said University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus. "He's run for mayor before, and so, running without a cause may look like he's just perpetually in the political arena, Rottinghaus said. This allows him to have new life and potentially develop a newer constituency to supplement his constituency from the last go-round." King is likely to face questions about his own history of contributing to campaigns and accepting donations as a candidate. In 2015, he and Turner faced criticism from opponents for their ties to Linebarger, Goggan, Blair & Sampson, the widely used delinquent-tax collection law firm that has come under fire at times for its outsized political influence. King previously managed Linebargers Houston office, while the firm once hired Turners own law firm and put it on retainer. On Monday, King acknowledged he has been a part of the system he is now trying to reform, but he said that experience came with exposure to behavior that convinced him it is time for a change. Meanwhile, Buzbee said he will reject all contributions, running an entirely self-funded campaign worth up to $5 million as a show of transparency. The debate over campaign contributions from stakeholders and wealthy donors is not new, though it has has received fresh attention during the last couple election cycles, and may be picking up steam nationally as Democrats position themselves to run for president in 2020. Candidates have heard a growing cry from the partys base to reject money from political action committees following Bernie Sanders small-donor fueled presidential bid and, more recently, Beto ORourkes Senate run in Texas during which he routinely reminded voters that he did not accept donations from PACs. Sanders and ORourke nonetheless benefitted from PACs that spent on their behalf, but were not affiliated with their campaigns. Already, former San Antonio mayor Julian Castro, who announced Saturday he is running for president, has pledged not to take money from PACs. "I think that's going to be the new normal for politics, especially Democratic politics going forward, Rottinghaus said of rejecting money from PACs and local vendors. There's a real reluctance from the base, especially the younger progressive base, to (support candidates who) take big money, because of this growing wariness that it's essentially buying and paying for government." jasper.scherer@chron.com twitter.com/jaspscherer Between 20,000 and 25,000 people are expected to march through downtown Houston Saturday in the citys third annual womens march, says organizing group Houston Women March On. The first march, in 2017, was part of an international reaction against Donald Trumps election. Both that year and in 2018, the protest drew tens of thousands of people both men and women, supporting a range of progressive causes to Houstons City Hall. It all happened in about seven minutes on Martin Luther King Day in 2016. Curtis Lee Holliman, then 32, was angry that his housemates were making fun of him, so he allegedly ran upstairs to get a gasoline can and a barbecue lighter, threw the accelerant on both men and set them on fire. That's how prosecutors on Tuesday explained how Holliman burned well-known criminal defense attorney Kirby Taylor and killed his 45-year-old son Dexter Taylor. "What this case comes down to is this defendant set two men on fire, killing Dexter Taylor, because he was mad at Kirby Taylor," prosecutor Kristina Roberts said. Holliman, who had been in jail since being arrested a day after the crime, pleaded not guilty and listened to the allegations without reacting. His attorney, Skip Cornelius, did not give an opening statement. Court filings in the case show that prosecutors are bracing for several lines of defense, including whether Holliman has bi-polar disorder, whether he is not guilty by reason of insanity and whether Holliman and Kirby Taylor were having a romantic or sexual relationship. In a motion filed last week, prosecutor Jennifer Meriwether asked the judge to limit any evidence of those explanations and noted that even the defense team's mental expert did not find that Holliman was insane. During opening statements, prosecutors explained that Holliman and Kirby Taylor met at church, became friends, and Holliman moved in to the lawyer's home in 2008. In 2015, their friendship was souring with Holliman increasingly arguing and fighting with the lawyer. The relationship became so untenable, prosecutors said, that Kirby Taylor moved out of his own home and moved into a motel. About the same time, Taylor's adult son, Dexter, moved into the home. On MLK Day in 2016, Kirby Taylor dropped by his home to check on things, during which he and Dexter Taylor had a laugh. Holliman took offense and allegedly started the fire. The blaze left the older man covered in burns on more than 30 percent of his body and killed his son. Dexter Taylor was pronounced dead at Memorial Hermann Hospital. If convicted of murder, Holliman faces the possibility of life in prison. The trial in state District Judge Kelli Johnson's court is expected to last about a week. Inter-departmental consultations between Russia and the United States on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty have started in Geneva today. The consultations will be held behind closed doors. The Russian delegation is led by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov while the U.S. delegation is headed by Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson. This will be their first encounter since Thompsons appointment, TASS reported. Yesterday, Ryabkov said that Russia is ready for serious work with the United States at the upcoming consultations and urges Washington to give up advancing any ultimatums and preconditions. The OSCE mission has conducted a monitoring on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops today in the direction of Azerbaijans Tartar district, according to the website of Azerbaijans Defense Ministry. The monitoring was held under the mandate of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Personal Representative. On the Azerbaijani side, the monitoring was carried out by field assistants of the OSCE chairperson-in-office's personal representative Ghenadie Petrica and Martin Schuster. On the opposite side, the monitoring was conducted by field assistants of the OSCE chairperson-in-office's personal representative Mihail Olaru and Simon Tiller. For many Houstonians, the only thing better than a barbecue meal is a free Killen's 'cue platter. And that's just what families affected by the government shutdown will receive Friday at Pearland's famous Killen's Barbecue, 3613 E. Broadway. Owner Ronnie Killen announced that government employees, with proper ID, will be eligible to receive a pack of sausage, brisket, potato salad, bread and beans this Friday, Jan. 18 at the west to-go window. The "Furlough Friday" giveaway starts at 11 a.m. and will run until the last designated-free meal is given away. ON HoustonChronicle.com: Texas author's new cookbook explores the foods and foodways of the American South "I'm buying 1,500 pounds of meat, and we got 400 pounds of sausage, that gives about 1,000 links," Killen said Tuesday. "That will hopefully feed about 2,000 to 2,500 people." Killen said he was called to action after walking through the Los Angeles airport and seeing how short-staffed TSA counters were. He said a terminal had to be closed entirely due to its lack of security agents. Watching fallout from the shutdown on TV and seeing the social media response to government-employee distress spurred Killen to set up this meal donation. UP NEXT: Popular Pearland steakhouse to launch second location in The Woodlands "'I was thinking, What can I do?' Feed people, that's what we do. I'm a chef and that's my nurturing personality," he said, adding that this may become an ongoing weekly event as long as the shutdown continues. "I know they'll get back-pay but still," he adds, recognizing that some government employees live paycheck-to-paycheck and rely heavily on their benefits. To claim your free meal, show up at the west-facing to-go window at 11 a.m. with your government badge ready to display. "It's not much, but we can feed people," Killen said, "and we're going to do as much as we can." NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. The Armenian National Assembly elected three vice-speakers today - Lena Nazaryan, Alen Simonyan and Vahe Enfiajyan. Alen Simonyan became vice-speaker from My Step ruling party 109 MPs cast their votes for him, 20 voted against. Lena Nazaryan, his fellow partisan, was elected as second vice-speaker by scoring 124 votes with three against. Of the two seekers of the third vice-speaker seat Vahe Enfiajyan from Prosperous Armenia and Mane Tandilyan from Bright Armenia Enfiajyan was elected by 108 votes defeating his rival, who scored only 19 votes, ARKA reported. Courtesy photo The Fort Bend Junior Service League is currently accepting applications from charitable organizations interested in benefiting from an FBJSL event to be held in the 2019-20 League year. To be eligible for consideration, applicants must have 501(c)(3) status, serve the Fort Bend community, and fit within the Leagues mission, goals, and one or more position statements. FBJSL considers the specific needs of each qualified applicant and selects beneficiaries that it believes will thrive due to FBJSL support. Tammy Marino/Clements Theatre Co. / Tammy Marino/Clements Theatre Company The Clements Theatre Company invites audiences to join them in the worlds most luxurious and mysterious hotel as the high school thespians perform Grand Hotel, under the direction of Lucas Howland. This musical, that won multiple Tony and Drama Desk Awards, features a score that is sure to get toes tapping, while the story richly contrasts comedy, tragedy, glitz and realism. The dreams and hopes of Martin Luther King Jr. continue to inspire residents of Montgomery County to make a difference in the community, including with two upcoming events that will offer both celebration and scholarship awards for youth. For the past 30 years, Myrna Irons, 70, has served as the chairperson for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration, which will once again from 11:45 to 1 p.m. on Monday at The Woodlands United Methodist Church. The event is hosted by Impact MLK Scholarship Foundation, which was established to support the efforts of the celebration and founded to continue the dream of the late civil rights leader and the legacy the foundation has made awarding more than 150 scholarships to students in the community over the past three decades, averaging about seven students per year, who she said has either graduated from college or are still in college. We have had a 100 percent return on education, Irons said noting the event is free and open to the entire community. This year, she said the event will once again commemorate the life of King led through singing, a keynote speech on the theme living the dream by The Woodlands United Methodist Church Senior Pastor Ed Rob, and a presentation of scholarships and Drum Major awards. There will be an adult choir, a children's choir and a special needs choir singing throughout the program that she says has been important to The Woodlands, Conroe, and Houston area, which she described as a supportive community that has been supporting Kings dream. The drum major awards are to recognized that everybody can be great and everybody can serve, and we can all be a servant, Irons said. So we pursue Dr. Kings commitment to liberty, justice, peace, and the work in which he gave his life Its a meaningful event to Irons, who has observed the significance of the dream throughout her life starting with where she was born, in Gary, Indiana. My father, at the time when I was a young child, was a fireman in a town that at one time that there was considered a black fire station and a nonblack fire station, Irons recalled. My father sat me down one day and talked to me about that racism kills. At first, she did not understand what her father was talking about. He went on to explain to her that as a firefighter in his hometown at that time his fire station was not allowed to fight fires in a certain area. This fire that came in was closest to his fire station, she said. He went over there but his station didnt go over there, and a young girl was killed because she died of smoke because he couldnt not go there as being the first one, the first station. That impacted him tremendously and it impacted me as a young lady growing up that we have to make a difference we cant let this happen. But she believes that today is a different day. Yes, I can I see a difference (in society) that that is no longer true, Irons said. But that young man who could not fight fires in certain neighborhoods became the fire chief of our city. He didnt give up, he didnt give in, he said we must make a difference. And he did make a difference and serving as chairperson, it allowed me just to make a little difference to keep the dream alive. She believes it is important for the community to remember the lessons of King in 2019. Its so true what he (King) said it is about the content of your character, Irons added. Integrity is nonnegotiable, integrity does not have a color, and that is what its about we all are just one big family. Montgomery In Montgomery, the 6th Annual Community Celebration Honoring his Life and Legacy continues to grow and will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at The Lone Star Community Center at 2500 Lone Star Parkway. The celebration will base its principle theme upon Follow your Dream. The event is hosted by the nonprofit Martin Luther Ling, Jr. Improvement Organization which has a mission preserve, celebrate, and implement the philosophy and teaching of King. The organization desires to enrich communities through the promotion of education, respect, and appreciation as it celebrates diversity within the county, city, and schools. Montgomery Councilman T.J. Wilkerson, who is with the organization said the organization is excited to welcome the Lake Creek High School Choir for the first time. The event will also feature Keynote Speaker, Dr. Vonne Jones of Houston who founded the Texas Womens Care Clinic, Gospel Singing, Praise Dancers, readings and poetry from youth, and much more. The event aims to inspire creative thought and imagination, while encouraging self-expression in youth to seek their dreams and make them into realities as an extension of Kings dream. This includes by exposing the youth to people like Jones, who he hopes can inspire the youth to be more than they think they can be. We want them to not only learn about Dr. King, but we want them to establish and be committed to their dreams as well. It is one think to look at Dr. King and what he did but what are we doing today, where do we go from here and most of all how do we get there, Wilkerson said. Because when we look at the news of fairly young black boys, it is not too promising, so we are trying to encourage them to be the best that they can be in whatever they are doing, to inspire them all. That is what of the things Im sure the speaker will talk about how she was committed, dedicated, and how you have to stick to things. Last year, the event awarded two $500 scholarships for the first time to Madlyn Chambers from New Waverly attending Stephen F. Austin Jahill Howard from Montgomery High School attending Ranger College. The event will reveal two more $500 student scholarship recipients this year, with the hope to increase the amount and continue awarded the scholarships each year. On Tuesday, Wilkerson knocked on doors and shared he invites everybody in the community to come out to the event and help it grow. The greatest thing we can do is serve and help each other, whether that is at nursing homes, mentoring a kid, mowing a yard, providing a meal for elderly those type of things that is what Dr. Kings dream is all about, helping each other as a community, Wilkerson said. mellsworth@hcnonline.com Moscows position on its participation in the work of the Council of Europe remains unchanged no re-engagement until its voting right is restored, the Russian parliament speaker told his visiting Finnish counterpart, RT reports. On Tuesday, Vyacheslav Volodin is hosting Paula Risikko during the officials visit to Russia. Moscows continued absence from the work of the Council of Europe, the 47-member-strong rights body, topped the discussion. The Russian speaker said that, while Moscow values being part of the council and its various bodies, it wont re-engage with it as long as discrimination against Russia there continues. We dont require any special status for Russia. We insist on one thing, that all 47 member nations should be equal, as it is stated in the founding charter of the Council of Europe, Volodin told Risikko. The Russian Parliament is expected to review the situation later this week, but since no changes were made on the councils side, legislators will recommend a continued freeze in relations, Volodin indicated. Speaking to his Finnish guest, the Russian speaker said the difference of opinion about what happened in Ukraine in 2013-2014 will remain a stumbling block for Russias relations with other European nations. We believe a common understating has to be formed Once we all acknowledge that there was an armed coup in Ukraine, an armed takeover of power, many issues and approaches will change and everything will fall in its place, he said. The Montgomery County Council of Chambers which includes six local chamber organizations is utilizing its strength in numbers to present a unified front for the issues that most impact the county and its residents. In preparation for the 86th Legislative Session which is now taking place, and to build relationships with those at the federal level of government, the Montgomery County Council of Chambers in 2018 identified four key areas that are legislative priorities in Montgomery County. Representatives from The Woodlands Area Chamber of Commerce, the Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber of Commerce, the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Magnolia Parkway Chamber of Commerce, the Greater East Montgomery Chamber of Commerce and the Montgomery County Hispanic Chamber identified the areas of education, transportation, flood mitigation and health care as concerns that could be impacted in the legislature and at the federal level. Additionally, within the Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber of Commerce, a committee previously called the Voice of Business, has gone through a reboot in the past year and is now named the Governmental Affairs Committee with a focus on building better relationships with elected officials and government agencies at the city, county, state and federal levels. In todays world, where legislation is key, you have to be an advocate for the businesses in the chamber and we really need to fulfill that function in order to bring value to our members, said Steve Scott, chairman of the chambers Governmental Affairs Committee. Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber of Commerce President Brian Bondy pointed out that a big part of the chambers work in the 21st century is to advocate for the members businesses at the local, county, state and federal levels. If you go back through our history, a lot of things that got done in Conroe, were through the Chamber, Bondy said. (Members) would go to Austin and say We need to get Loop 336 built. This is basically an extension of those days. Its up to the chamber to provide businesses information and its also imperative for us to keep abreast of issues that can have an impact on local business. For the first time, the six chambers worked together in 2018 through the Montgomery County Council of Chambers to identify the four areas of interest mentioned above. We all sat down as a Council of Chambers and we gave them feedback and they gave us feedback and thats how we arrived at these four key issues, Bondy said. All of our boards then approved this countywide initiative. Bondy noted that the Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber had its own list of initiatives, some similar to the countywide goals but others that focused on more local projects. For example, one project on the local list is for the completion of Loop 336 from East Texas 105 to South Interstate 45 to a minimum of at least two lanes in each direction. The other local project he mentioned is the widening of FM 3083 from Texas 105 on the west side to I-45 on the north side. In a series of meetings that began in March 2018, issues like these and others were brought before local elected officials as they prepared for the upcoming session. Also for the first time, a group from the Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber visited Washington, D.C. in October. The trip which was funded by those who went was the vision of current board president George Waggoner and was organized through Congressman Kevin Bradys office. A group of approximately 13 board directors spent two days meeting with Congressman Brady, Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. John Cornyn and representatives from the Department of Transportation, the Department of Labor, the Small Business Administration, Health and Human Services, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. When you spend an hour in a one-on-one visit with Congressman Brady, Sen. Cruz and Sen. Cornyn, you begin to get an appreciation for how much they really are doing for Montgomery County and our community, Bondy said. Scott explained that prior to the trip, they had to have an agenda of what they wanted to achieve. Thats also how the four initiatives mentioned above came about. One of their goals also was to develop relationships at the federal level. If youre going to be an advocate for business, you have to have relationships, Scott said. Without those relationships you have no influence. He likened the trip to a political campaign. We have to see if we can get everybody to want to vote for us Montgomery County, he said. He said all of the departments were prepared for their visit and up to date on things happening in Montgomery County. The whole attitude up there was of how to cooperate and support the American people, he said. He said the trip was very, very successful in their mission of building relationships. Eric Lookofsky is the vice chair on Governmental Affairs/Community Development for the 2019 Chamber Board of Directors. Hes also the senior plant manager at Newpark Drilling Fluids in Conroe and he has seen first hand how incentives can be beneficial to local businesses. Our company has been able to take advantage of some of the tax breaks in Conroe, Lookofsky said. We wanted to be able to stay in touch with those and we want to continue to influence those who make decisions to keep those kind of incentives around for us and for others as well. Lookofsky also participated in the Washington, D.C. trip and one of the things he took away from the trip was what could be accomplished using the advocacy function of the chamber. We were able to provide personal stories of how these issues were affecting us, affecting our employees and affecting other businesses in the area and why these are areas that they should spend time on as a part of their function in government, he said. It is the plan that trips to Washington, D.C. will take place in even-numbered years. Next up the Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber of Commerce will take part in Montgomery County Day at the Capitol in Austin Feb. 25-26 where representatives from Montgomery County will meet with elected officials. For more information about the Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber of Commerce visit www.conroe.org. The rebuilding of New Hope Presbyterian Church after Hurricane Harvey coincided with the 40th anniversary of the congregation that calls five acres at 1350 N. Mason Road home. Rebuilding included new seating and an audiovisual system after between 2 to 5 inches of water flooded the building in which walls had to be gutted up to 4-feet high, said Brian Long, the fourth pastor to serve the church. Insurance covered damages estimated at up to $1.5 million caused by Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 and members met in a temporary structure on church grounds while rebuilding occurred. The first priority was getting the school up and running again, said Jo Ann Franklin, whos served as office manager for 18 years. The church is home to the New Hope Child Development Center for ages 18 months to five years. Out of the 100-member congregation six people including Long, who lives in Kingwood, also experienced flooding damage to their homes. While the church has new upgraded facilities, Long said he is focusing more on becoming a missional church as opposed to drawing more people to services in the sanctuary. He shared that message at the anniversary observance, where he said former pastors talked of the past while he talked about the next goal: How to become a good neighbor in our neighborhood. He credits church member Terry Owens with establishing a food pantry that benefits Katy Christian Ministries as well as homeless people who have come to the church. There also may be seasonal collections such as school supplies which were taken to Sundown Elementary School, said Long, who earned his master of divinity at Fuller Seminary and will be starting studies for a doctorate at Houston Graduate School of Theology. Faith is about love and caring for people; not about marketing, continued Long. Nothing in the Bible says to draw people to church services, but rather it talks about being sent into the world to help and serve people, he said. How do we get to people? How do we love the people? Faith is so many different things, said Franklin. Faith is being calm in a crisis . . . being comforting and welcoming. Ive grown in faith through the years, added Franklin, who said shes a Stephen Minister. Stephen Ministers are laypeople who are trained to care for people grieving and experiencing a difficult time in their lives. Franklin had 50 hours of classroom training in addition to regular ongoing training and she uses that to help someone who, perhaps, lost a job or a spouse. We walk with them through the crisis, she said. How do you touch the life of a person, asks Long. He said it can be something as simple as smiling at someone, wishing someone a good morning, telling someone you love them or giving someone a meal. Its not about what would Jesus do?, he said. Its what do we do in light of what Jesus did. I want the community to be interested in New Hope and New Hope to be interested in the community. You have to go to people and you have to meet their needs, adds Franklin. About three years ago, New Hope also became home to the Houston Korean Community Church. karen.zurawski@chron.com Investigators with the Harris County Sheriffs Office are asking the public for help in obtaining information on the person responsible for shooting at a Katy-area mosque this week. On Monday, Jan. 14 around 4:30 p.m., deputies received a call to respond to the Muslim American Society - Katy Center on 1800 block of Baker Road in west Harris County, according to a Harris County Sheriffs Office news release. A mosque employee told deputies a contractors truck that was parked in the lot and a section of the exterior wall of the mosque had been struck by gunfire from the roadway, the release said. Upon investigation, deputies noticed a bullet hole in the windshield of the truck and the front of the mosque to have been hit by a bullet round. Mosque employees believe the shooting took place early Monday around 3 a.m., but they had not noticed it until the afternoon. Investigators were able to pull a still from a surveillance video, but the image is dark and grainy. The make and model is undetermined. Anyone with information is urged to call the Violent Crimes unit at 713-274-9100. Anyone with information leading to the charge and/or arrest of the suspect/s in this case are asked to call Crime Stoppers. Information may be reported by calling 713-222-TIPS (8477) or submitted online at www.crime-stoppers.org. Tips may also be sent via a text message by texting the following: TIP610 plus the information to CRIMES (274637). All tipsters remain anonymous. Rothko Chapel will temporarily close down on Monday, March 4, for renovations lasting through the rest of the year, with plans to reopen in mid-December 2019. According to Executive Director David Leslie, renovations have been in discussions for the last 10 years, and are related to the visitors experience. Visitors to the Rothko Chapel enter a quiet space that is filled with Mark Rothkos murals. Part of the whole experience is engaging with the natural light. I think people felt that the current iteration of the light system just does not allow for that original purpose and intent, Leslie said. Another issue that will be addressed during renovation is space for engagements. Right now the chapel is the only available space for programming, and so it closes down and is not available for visitors seeking reflection time. IN OTHER NEWS: West University Place names David Beach new city manager We are open every day of the year free of charge to let people be. At the same time we have concerts, lectures and conferences on key issues, Leslie said. Last year the chapel saw well over 100,000 counted visitors and another 7,500 to 10,000 program participants. It is really stressing the building and campus, Leslie said. The second phase of the renovations will include the building of a new visitor welcome house across the street from the chapel, on Sul Ross Street. Demolition on the existing bungalow in the space is currently underway. There will also be a program center to accommodate extra public programs and events. This is one way we are trying to proactively welcome guests and orient them to the chapel, Leslie said. Right now the entryway of the chapel has a space for the sale of books and postcards, and this will move into the new welcome building. This will create more sense of the sacred space, Leslie said. MUST SEE: $3.5M Bellaire villa boasts backyard 'secluded resort', rooftop veranda The entire campus will shut down for the duration of the renovations, including the outdoor plaza area, because the work also includes landscaping and weather mitigation. The Rothko Chapel will operate normally with scheduled programming up until the day before it closes, including a symposium on climate change at the end of February, and will still hold off-campus programming throughout the renovation process. During the duration of the renovation, those interested can keep see the progress on the chapels website. Leslie noted that there will be written updates as well as photos and videos. The Rothko Chapel is a unique addition to Houstons art and culture, and Leslie noted that he hopes it will grow along with Houstons continuing growth. The renovations will be completed in time for the chapels 50th anniversary in 2021. People from all around the world come to the Rothko chapel. The Rothko Chapel is about creating a safe and sacred engagement space where one can explore spirituality however defined, Leslie said. For more information, cllick here. rebecca.hazen@chron.com Houston Chamber Choir has been selected to participate in the prestigious World Symposium on Choral Music 2020 (WSCM2020), to be held in Auckland, New Zealand, from July 11 to 18, 2020, where 24 of the best choral ensembles in the world will perform. The festival, held every three years in different locations across the globe, received a record 179 entries this year. This is the first such invitation for the Houston Chamber Choir, which was notified of the honor right before Christmas. The opportunity to represent our City, our State and our Nation at this gathering of the worlds top choirs has long been a dream of mine, says Robert Simpson, founder and artistic director of the Houston Chamber Choir. Now that we have achieved this lofty goal, I am overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude to the musicians, staff and board whose dedication and talents have propelled us to this level. This is truly a Team Win. The World Symposium on Choral Music is the peak global event of the International Federation for Choral Music - its own Olympics and world congress rolled into one. Drawing together the leading choirs, conductors, composers and administrators from all over the planet for a superlative experience of concerts, seminars and workshops, the Symposium has also come to be a public showcase for the best the choral world has to offer. The theme for WSCM2020 is People of the Land, or tangata whenua, the name the indigenous Maori use of themselves and a concept that sits at the heart of New Zealand culture. The tangata whenua are guardians of the countrys natural resources, environment and sustainability - values and priorities shared by all New Zealanders, regardless of race. People and the Land will be explored through choral music as the relationship humans have with the land that supports them: the sense of identity they derive from it and the tensions that arise out of it. The festival organizers hope this will be interpreted freely and with flair by participating choirs, encouraging them to draw from a broad range of repertoire and styles in their programming. Houston Chamber Choir will perform two major pieces at the Symposium, one that is 45 minutes in length and the other about 25 minutes. Simpson says the music selections are still to be determined, but they will reflect the People of the Land theme. Additionally, the Choir will extend its stay and perform concerts outside of Auckland, to gain even greater exposure abroad. They will work with a concert promoter from Australia on venue selection. I was absolutely thrilled to hear Houston Chamber Choir was selected to perform at the World Symposium on Choral Music 2020! says soprano Kelli Lawless of the Houston Chamber Choir. I can't wait to represent Houston on the world stage in Auckland, New Zealand. I'm so proud to be a member of this organization that just keeps raising its standard of excellence year after year. Being invited to the World Symposium on Choral Music in 2020 is such an honor, says Houston Chamber Choir member, soprano Kammi Estelle, who is the twin sister of Lawless. Representing the Houston arts community, as well as the United States, will be an experience that the artists in the Houston Chamber Choir will never forget. More Information About Houston Chamber Choir Houston Chamber Choir has established itself as one of the premier professional choirs in the United States, serving Houston through concerts and educational initiatives that enlighten, entertain, and educate people of all ages. Winner of Chorus America's 2018 Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence, it has been described by The Tallis Scholars founder Peter Phillips as "one of this country's leading ensembles." The Choir also received The American Prize for best choral performance in the country and its Artistic Director Robert Simpson received the award in the conducting category in 2015. The Chamber Choir recently finished recording their fifth CD, The Complete Choral Works of Maurice Durufle, with organist Ken Cowan in April 2018. See More Collapse Houston Chamber Choir continues to be recognized for its outstanding work. In 2018, the organization received the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence from Chorus America, the advocacy, research and leadership development organization that advances the choral field. In 2015, the Choir received The American Prize for best choral performance in the country, and Simpson took home the award in the conducting category. For more information about Houston Chamber Choir or to purchase tickets for concerts, visit us at houstonchamberchoir.org. The next concert is Hear the Future - 20th Anniversary on Jan. 27 at 4 p.m. at South Main Baptist Church. Drainage improvements and upgrades to the San Luis Pass Bridge highlight a list of possible infrastructure projects discussed by Galveston County commissioners Monday. County Engineer Michael Shannon presented a list of 10 possible projects that could be eligible for roughly $3.4 million in federal money allocated for Hurricane Harvey recovery in the county. The commissioners will have to choose which of the projects to prioritize, and how much of the available money to allocate. They will send their recommendations to the Texas General Land Office for funding through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's disaster recovery program. BORDER WALL IMPASSE: Abbott joins Texas lawmakers urging Trump not to take Harvey funds for wall The deadline to submit projects to the land office is Jan. 31, though the county is hoping to get a 60-day extension. The highest priority project appears to be a storm sewer project in Bacliff, an unincorporated community in Galveston County prone to major flooding. The proposal would create a storm sewer along Jackson Avenue that discharged into Trinity Bay. "There's been a longstanding problem in Bacliff in general in having insufficient drainage," Shannon said. "It's not mapped in the flood plain but there's a history of drainage problems." The $3.4 million would be enough to build out a quarter of the length of the storm sewer, about 2,000 feet. Other potential projects eligible for funding include the widening of the a drainage ditch in Bacliff that would cost about $1 million; detention basin improvements near Dickinson that would include a portion of the local match towards the $36 million construction of the Dickinson Detention Pond; and repairs to the San Luis Pass Bridge. The bridge had previously been considered for reconstruction as part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' proposed coastal barrier. However, according to the Army Corps' proposal released in October, the 71-mile barrier would end at San Luis Pass, leaving the bridge potentially vulnerable to a storm surge. Shannon said the pilings and beams of the current bridge are eroding, and the county doesn't have the funds for repairs. The two-lane bridge, built in 1970, spans 1.2 miles and connects Galveston Island to Brazoria County across San Luis Pass where the Gulf of Mexico meets West Bay. Drivers pay a $2 toll each way to cross the bridge. The county last spent over $10 million on erosion prevention measures intended to extend the life of the bridge another 20 to 25 years, and any major improvements would likely cost significantly more. While the bridge is not likely to top the county's priority list for the disaster recovery grants, officials eventually will have to make a decision about the span. "The other option is to just tear that bridge down and not have a bridge there and people could just go all the way around, which would create some problems for a whole lot of people, but that is an option," Clark said. "Not a very good one, but it is an option." Nick Powell covers Galveston County for the Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter and send him tips at nick.powell@chron.com Brooke Wilson kicks another item off her bucket list by being the first to play a funny character called Venus in the world premiere of The Carpenter Jan. 18 through Feb. 10 at the Alley Theatre in Houston. It is an actors dream to get to originate a role in a new play by a great playwright, said the 1997 graduate of Friendswood High School. The comedy was written by Cypress native Robert Askins, whose 2015 Broadway debut, Hand to God, was nominated for five Tony Awards, including best play. In 2016, Hand to God was a hit at the Alley, where Askins returned the following year to workshop The Carpenter as an original script in the theaters annual All New Festival. Wilson portrayed Venus, who is a stripper, in the five performances that ran two weekends as a test-run to get audiences reactions. However, she is the only performer from the workshop to reprise her role in the world premiere. Some things are exactly the same, but others changed so drastically, she said. The first incarnation of the play had a rosy ending, but that changed even in (workshop) rehearsals. Rob has such a smart ear; he would tweak a tiny word that would change the whole intention of a scene and flip it on its end. Wilson bonded with Askins as a fellow Texan. He really gets that language; so something your aunt says, he puts it in the play and it is so funny, she said. The Alleys press material summarizes the show as having mistaken identities, accidental partner swaps and an angry stripper. In the show, a blue-color Houston man and his fiance from Dallas rich Highland Park arrive at her fathers mansion for their wedding when the man receives a startling revelation about his family, his father and a secret everybody has been trying to keep. I tend to be cast as the hooker with a heart of gold, said Wilson. I would like to think that Venus does (have a heart of gold). In Wilsons senior year at Friendswood High, the daughter of Rollin and Donna Beauchamp of Friendswood starred as Eliza Doolittle in the school musical, My Fair Lady. Friendswood has such a great fine arts department, and I really value that, she said. It set me on a good pace to follow. Wilsons drill team instructor, Susan Clark, had such a big influence on her that Wilson followed in Clarks steps when she attended Kilgore College in Kilgore by becoming a member of the precision dance team the Kilgore Rangerettes. Wilson went on to major in psychology at Texas A&M University. In addition to performing, she is a choreographer and dance educator whos on the faculty at St. Johns School in Houston. This role was a Christmas present, she said, even though I found out in August that I was cast. The same week, she became engaged to Oscar Quiroz, a human resources professional in Houston. It was a good week, said Wilson, who will begin wedding-planning after The Carpenter ends. The couple has set Feb. 24, 2020 as their wedding date. Performances of The Carpenter are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and 8 p.m. Fridays, 2:30 and 8:00 p.m. Saturdays and 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Due to strong language, The Carpenter is recommended for audience members who are at least 18 years old. For further information, call 713-220-5700 or visit www.alleytheatre.org. Don Maines is a freelance writer who can be reached at donmaines@att.net The mall food court is back! This time, with chef-driven food and small-batch microbrews. Houston's downtown food-hall craze has only grown since the launch of Conservatory, 1010 Prairie, in 2016. Finn Hall, 712 Main, is the latest debut, a sprawling shared space which houses Dish Society, Goode Co. Taqueria, Craft Burger, Amaya Coffee, Low Tide, Mala Sichuan and a slate of other establishments. Like Conservatory, this destination offers the bustling downtown crowd a place for coffee, lunch and after-work happy hour. >>>See where to eat in downtown Houston in the gallery above. Other food halls are still expected to open downtown later this year. Bravery Chef Hall, which was supposed to open last summer, will differentiate itself from similar concepts by focusing on its chef-driven fare. When Lyric Market, another food hall, opens at 411 Smith this year, it will offer Houstonians a place to dine with an indoor-outdoor view of downtown. A 4,000-square-foot terrace will offer the ultimate al-fresco urban dining. CITY LIVING: Get the latest on the Houston lifestyle at HoustonChronicle.com. The owners of Bravery Chef Hall and Conservatory have another ace up their sleeves: Railway Heights is expected to open at 8200 Washington Ave. sometime this year. It will also be a place for Houstonians to visit and choose from a number of different cuisines, but this one will be at Washington Corridor. Apart from those mega-food-malls, Houston's familiar favorites still remain around the city center: Hubcap Grill's original location, Huynh Restaurant and Treebeards. As for newer local spots, La Calle Tacos & Tortas is relatively new downtown but has already generated a loyal clientele, from weekday at lunch to late-night weekends. NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. World-renowned jazz guitarist and Houston music legend Joe Carmouche is the featured performer at the 2019 Houston Community College Black History Scholarship Fundraiser, 6 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 23, at the Czech Center Museum Houston, 4920 San Jacinto St., Houston, TX 77004. Now in its 13th year, the HCC Black History Scholarship Fundraiser is one of the premier annual Black History Month events in Houston. The event has raised thousands of dollars to support deserving students at HCC. Several of this years scholarship recipients will be on hand to describe how the scholarship program has made tremendous differences in their lives. The city of West University Place named David Beach as its newest city manager during a regular city council meeting on Monday, Jan. 14. Beach, who has been with the city since 2005, will assume his new post on Tuesday, Jan. 22. Beach replaces outgoing City Manager M. Christopher Peifer. Beach was first hired by the city as its assistant to the city manager on July 5, 2005. Since then, he has been the citys general services superintendent and public works director. From July 2015 to Dec. 31, 2017, he has served as the assistant city manager and public works director. We are excited and pleased to appoint Dave as city manager, Mayor Susan Sample said in a news release. His unique combination of executive management, high standards and knowledge of West U makes him the right choice. He is a skilled administrator who has earned the confidence and respect of city staff and is known throughout the community. It is without question he will bring transparency, innovation and a team spirit as we work together on behalf of West University. Beachs public service background includes project management and contract administration; capital project development; financial and strategic planning and implementation; and asset leverage. He is a graduate of Washington State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and government, and holds a Masters Degree in public administration from Arizona State University. Prior to working in West U, Beach woked in Mukilteo, Wash., as a management analyst and assistant to the city manager from 1998-2005. rkent@hcnonline.com Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree to establish the Azersilah Open Joint Stock Company on the basis of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense Industry, according to the presidential website. The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense Industry will continue to work until the state registration of Azersilah OJSC. Azersilah OJSC is a commercial legal entity which, by using advanced technologies, manufactures and exports weapons, organizes sales of weapons within and outside the country, as well as an entity coordinating the activity of enterprises based on modern standards of management and corporate governance and carrying out other work to develop the industry. Harris County Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia said an employee salary compensation study is underway to help determine if an increase of the minimum wage to $15 per hour for county employees is viable. Garcia said the study will be completed by the end of the month. The findings will be presented to County Judge Lina Hidalgo in February, he said. Precinct 2 has amongst the hardest working people in (Harris County), Garcia said. Some of the socioeconomic profiles of precinct 2 includes the fact that we have amongst the lowest median income, and that we have amongst the lowest number of children and families without health insurance. And we have amongst the lowest homeownership rates. The study will inform the county of the budgetary impact from compensating employees with a minimum starting salary of $15 per hour. Garcia said there is currently no procedure in the county to increase employee wages. The commissioner wants to make sure there is a policy in place that will secure county employees and their families a livable wage. SPEAKING OUT: Kingwood residents voice concerns about high rise development planned in floodway at meeting It is all done by individual desire or commitment, Garcia said. So any employee whether they work in the flood control district or they work in the constables office or the sheriffs office, any employee that walks in our doors should start at a liveable wage. Garcia predicts the compensation study will show about 300 Harris County employees currently earning less than $15 per hour. When Precinct 1 Commissioner (Rodney) Ellis, for example, took office he immediately raised the minimum wage for his employees and that was at his discretion, Garcia said. Thats the problem. It shouldnt be by any one persons discretion, it should be a commitment that this county has to its employees to decide to help us move our public policies forward. The Precinct 2 Commissioner plans on presenting the compensation study to Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and the rest of the Commissioners Court during their February meeting. I believe (Judge Hidalgo) is committed and understands the value of raising the liveable wage for county employees, so I think she is supportive of it, Garcia said. Obviously Commissioner Ellis has done (a compensation study) for his precinct, so I assume hes supportive of it and the other two commissioners I dont know. I think its worth a conversation with them. kaila.contreras@chron.com AUSTIN The House wants to pour $9 billion more dollars into public schools over two years should state lawmakers change Texas' education funding formula and reform property taxes, according to budget documents released late Monday. Although the Senate is expected to release it's own budget plan Tuesday, the jump in funding offers a first glimpse at how Republicans propose to fulfill their promise to give a boost to schools. Passing a budget is the only task lawmakers are required to complete during their 140-day session that began last week. Lawmakers are still a long way from inking their final budget. Texas Take: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox The proposed boost in state funding would be contingent on enacting legislation that helps public schools, such as by increasing the state share of the Foundation School Program, enhancing district entitlements and decreasing the practice of "recapture" which includes taking money from property-wealthy districts to cover education costs in property poor districts, according to the budget documents. The plan is also contingent on providing local property tax relief, while maintaining an equitable system of school finance. The budget was released late Monday on behalf of newly-elected Speaker Dennis Bonnen. The Senate is expected to release its version of the budget on Tuesday under the direction of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. For subscribers: Outgoing House Speaker Joe Straus says Texas can afford $5B school funding increase It is unclear whether retired Speaker Joe Straus played a part in crafting this budget. He said last month Texas could add $5 billion into school funding and said he would draft his own budget. The proposal from the House chamber suggests the state can spend even more money. Texas lawmakers are likely to spar over school finance and property taxes through May while they figure out how to change how Texas funds schools and reform property taxes amid voter outcry. Both are complicated policy and political issues woven closely together. The spending plan includes a cut of $1.1 billion 3.2 percent in funding for health and human services, including Medicaid spending. The proposal also includes cutting the Department of Natural Resources by 13 percent, or $124 million. Funding for business and economic development would balloon by 64 percent to $319 million, while funding for border security would remain steady at $783 million. Exxon Mobil is starting a major maintenance overhaul at one of the nation's largest oil refineries in Baytown. The Irving oil major started the planned shut down in January in what will be the Baytown refinery's largest improvement and maintenance program in the site's history, company spokeswoman Sarah Nordin said in email. The overhaul will spur some 3,000 temporary contractor jobs, including mechanics, machinist and electricians. GROWTH: Exxon Mobil starts up multibillion-dollar Baytown chemicals project "Activities in the maintenance turnaround will allow the refinery to process lighter and sweeter crude oil, providing the capability to produce an incremental 10,000 barrels per day of jet fuel, as well as additional projects aimed at improving environmental performance and competitiveness," Nordin added. The refinery wouldn't be alone in seeing upgrades to process lighter sweeter crude oil: several Gulf Coast refineries have seen de-bottlenecking projects and upgrades to process light crude to take advantage of steep discounts of oil from the Permian Basin and elsewhere. PERMIAN: Refiners investing to capitalize on flood of Permian crude The shut down will also allow Exxon to conduct routine maintenance and detailed inspections of equipment that is normally in continuous running, Nordin added. The company shut down the large crude distillation unit Monday at the 560,500 barrel-per-day site, according to Reuters. The upgrades will shut down a 280,300 barrel-per-day crude distillation unit, called Pipestill 8, for up to two months.That unit refines crude oil into hydrocarbon feedstocks to be used in other parts of the refinery and accounts for half of the refining capacity at the Baytown plant A sulfur plant and a 55,000 barrel per a day Gofiner hydrotreater will also shut down during the planned maintenance period. Hydrotreating is an established refinery process for decreasing sulfur, nitrogen and aromatics while enhancing density, smoke point and other properties. Located about 25 miles east of Houston, the Baytown site is the nation's second-largest oil refinery after Saudi Aramco's 600,000-barrel-a-day Motiva Port Arthur refinery. Exxon recently expanded the petrochemical complex there but is considering another a $1.9 billion expansion to its alpha olefins production. A final investment decision is expected in the first half of this year. NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. Main Squeeze Juice Co/Main Squeeze Juice Co. Main Squeeze Juice Co. plans to open at 820 W. Bay Area Blvd. in Webster as part of the brand's expansion in the Houston area. The store, owned and operated by franchisees Jeff Drost and Tabatha Jones, will open Friday. Trump, Brexit and human sexuality: Are we to be doomed by intransigence? This article appears in ViaMedia News and is used with permission. Whether or not Albert Einstein actually said 'insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result' I think we can all agree that in the most part this sentiment holds true. That said, perhaps a better, more accurate saying actually might be 'if you want a different result then you have to try a different approach'. Certainly President Trump and the Democrats could learn this, and arguably Theresa May over her Brexit deal too. One thing is clear though: simply repeating the same rhetoric over and over again is not likely to unlock any deadlock or move people nearer to finding a solution that is acceptable to the majority. While many would love for the content of what is being said in various key debates to change, the first thing that normally needs to be addressed is that of the debate's tone. Hence the constant talk of 'good disagreement' not as an endpoint, but as a way of working together towards trying to find one. Anyone who heard President Trump lambasting the Democrats for not agreeing on his demands for a border wall, and laying the blame for any deaths of children in custody firmly at their feet, will understand I am sure what I mean. He has stormed out of meetings, he has shouted at reporters, he has made what many would see as outrageous claims but the one thing he has not done is modelled any form of 'good disagreement'. Or compromise. For to do so would be seen as weakness, or so it seems he believes. This is 'stubborn hard man' diplomacy which most of us learnt earlier in our childhood rarely works. Intransigence it seems can be rather infectious, affecting both sides of the pond. Indeed, our very own prime minister has been accused of the same tactic. However, at least in her case she has brokered a deal with all 27 EU nations, and appears to be trying to address some of the concerns expressed over the backstop. Perhaps most importantly, her tone while firm has been far more respectful and as such a much better model of 'good disagreement'. Who can forget her willingness to sit, listen and answer hours of questions in the chamber back in mid-December a model that perhaps her counterpart in the US would do well to heed? Intransigence, of course, is not the sole purview of politicians. We see it constantly in various polarised debates across society not least in matters concerning the sexuality debate within the Church. I would suggest we had a perfect example of it last week. A letter was signed by some 100+ clergy within a large diocese of over 1500 clergy, which criticised their bishop for a letter he himself had sent a few months before. Their complaint? That he had failed to mention things that they felt he should have said, and that he had said things that they felt he should not have said (despite it being completely in line with the current House of Bishops guidelines). Their 'overriding concern', or so they said, was that it implied a certain 'direction of travel' in the diocese even though it was a direction that the archbishops themselves had committed the whole Church to undertake. Ironically it beautifully proved why the bishop's letter was needed in the first place. Of course the hard truth is that their letter said nothing new. It was the same intransigence that we have seen throughout this whole debate. Yet again they chose to ignore the fact that as the House of Bishops have themselves stated there is a wide body of opinion on this matter. Yet again they failed to engage with the critical issue of pastoral care for the LGBTI community and the significant harm that has been caused by their teaching. Yet again they threatened to go elsewhere if their demands weren't met. What struck me most however was the letter's tone. It's a tone that many are now becoming all too familiar with. It's a tone that has the veneer of seeming gracious and kind, yet has veiled threats at its heart. An iron fist in a velvet glove. 'Stubborn hardman diplomacy' that gets us nowhere. It's a standoff. Or should I say a very Mexican standoff? Where (according to Wikipedia) 'no strategy exists that allows any party to achieve victory. As a result, all participants need to maintain the strategic tension, which remains unresolved until some outside event makes it possible to resolve it.' So what could this outside event look like, I wonder? Well, it's very difficult to speak for either the US or UK situations, but I wonder whether in the Church it will be when the congregations of these clergy start to stand up to them and say 'Not in my name!' Ideally of course they would follow this up with action such as choosing to stop their financial assistance, and perhaps instead divert it to an inclusive church organisation. The good news is that we know that there is an inevitably about this particular 'standoff'. For research has shown there is a younger generation of Christians that are growing older by the year who hold a completely different view on this issue to their older leaders. It is purely a matter of time. Sadly there is the burning question about how many lives will be traumatised before this time comes to pass...but the answer to that is of course in our hands. My answer to the very Mexican standoff that we are currently experiencing is therefore that we pray that the voices of those in the pews will become louder over the year ahead, and that they will vote with either their feet or their wallet against letters sent in their name. Jayne Ozanne is editor of ViaMedia.News and director of the Ozanne Foundation. Syrian church leader fears US troop withdrawal will trigger 'new war' Donald Trump's decision to withdraw troops from Syria has given rise to fears of a new war with Turkey. Msgr Jacques Behnan Hindo, who leads the Syro-Catholic archeparchy of Hassake-Nisibi, told AsiaNews that there was 'enormous tension' following the US president's sudden announcement last month. He fears that Turkey will attack the north-east of Syria, an area currently controlled by Kurds who were backed by Washington. 'We are afraid that there will be a new war and further attacks; the situation is extremely volatile,' he said. In a war of words on Twitter, Trump threatened to 'economically destroy' Turkey if it invades Syria. 'Starting the long overdue pullout from Syria while hitting the little remaining ISIS territorial caliphate hard, and from many directions. Will attack again from existing nearby base if it reforms. Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20 mile safe zone....,' he wrote. In another tweet he said, 'Likewise, do not want the Kurds to provoke Turkey. Russia, Iran and Syria have been the biggest beneficiaries of the long term U.S. policy of destroying ISIS in Syria - natural enemies. We also benefit but it is now time to bring our troops back home. Stop the ENDLESS WARS!' On Tuesday, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded by agreeing to Trump's request for a 'safe zone' along the border with Syria. With the western region of Syria being largely controlled by government forces, Msgr Hindo said he wanted to see the two sides reconcile under the umbrella of Damascas. He said that Kurds had started negotiations with the Syrian government and that he had recently asked Kurdish leaders to work towards national reconciliation. 'I spoke with their leaders and I explained to them that they can not act as occupiers,' he said, adding that the 'military grip' must be loosened. 'I told them that we Christians want peace, development, freedom and that they can not accuse the Syrian government of despotism, because they too behave in the same way,' he said. Hundreds of Islamic clerics sign declaration against killing in the name of religion Over 500 Islamic clerics in Pakistan have signed a declaration against killing and violence in the name of Islam. The 'Islamabad Declaration' was signed in the Pakistani capital last week during a conference organised by the Pakistani Ulema Council, AsiaNews reports. The declaration says that murders carried out 'on the pretext of religious belief' are 'against the teachings of Islam'. The clerics went on to declare that all people of faith have the right to live in Pakistan according to their religious beliefs. 'It is the responsibility of the government to ensure protection of life and property of non-Muslims living in Pakistan,' the document reads. They also proclaimed 2019 as the year to 'annihilate terrorism, extremism and sectarian violence from Pakistan' as they reiterated that 'non-Muslim citizens must enjoy the same rights as everyone else'. Human rights activist Sabir Michael welcomed the declaration, telling Fides news agency: 'We appreciate and acknowledge the efforts of the Pakistan Ulema Council (PUC) to stop extremism and contribute to tolerance, peace, justice and equality in society. It is necessary to promote and spread this message to the communities. 'In the past, solemn declarations such as this, are not very successful, now the government and religious communities must work together in this direction - let us not lose hope for the good of the country.' The declaration is an unexpected voice of support for Pakistan's religious minorities after months of tension and unrest following the acquittal of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman freed from eight years on death row for blasphemy last November. The declaration says that her case, which is now under review again in the courts, must be heard as a 'priority'. Her acquittal was followed by violent protests across the country in which radicals called for her execution to be carried out. They also called for the death of the judges who exonerated her. The threat of death forced Bibi and her family to go into hiding as soon as she was released from prison. Although she has requested asylum from a Western country, an offer has not yet been made. The Pakistani government has since brought terrorism charges against the leader of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP) party, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, who orchestrated the protests against Bibi's acquittal. Eco-friendly locomotive will be 'rolling ambassador' for German Protestant festival A special locomotive bearing the motto of the 2019 Kirchentag, Germany's biggest regular Protestant festival, will travel the length and breadth of the country as a 'rolling ambassador' for the event that takes place this year in June in the western German city of Dortmund. Painted in the red livery of Germany's national rail company, the Deutsche Bahn (DB), and decorated with the logo of the Kirchentag, the locomotive was presented at a ceremony on 14 January at Berlin's central station marking the start of the DB's official partnership with the Dortmund Kirchentag. 'The Kirchentag is taking the train once again because it makes sense and it is climate friendly,' said the president of the Dortmund Kirchentag, journalist Hans Leyendecker, who received a scale model of the locomotive from DB chief executive Richard Lutz at the end of the ceremony. More than 100,000 participants are expected in Dortmund from 19-23 June for the Kirchentag, a church festival that takes place every two years in a different German city. Its 2019 motto 'What confidence is this,' based on a biblical verse (2 Kings 18:19) is painted on the side of the series BR101 locomotive that will haul Intercity and Eurocity trains throughout Germany. Describing the locomotive as a 'rolling ambassador' for the Kirchentag, Lutz noted that the electricity that powers DB trains comes from 100 per cent renewable sources. 'We share the concern of the Kirchentag for the environment and mother earth,' said Lutz. The Kirchentag was founded in 1949 by Protestant lay people in Germany to strengthen democratic culture after the Nazi dictatorship and the Second World War. As in previous years, the World Council of Churches (WCC) will be present at the Kirchentag with a stand in the 'Market of Opportunities' exhibition space, and representatives of WCC member churches and its leadership will take part in many of the events at the five-day gathering. Doctor Strange director says Christians are not the solution but the 'core problem' in America Despite being a Christian himself, Hollywood director Scott Derrickson isn't so happy with American Christianity. The director, best known for Doctor Strange starring Benedict Cumberbatch, has previously described himself as a Presbyterian and spoken of his appreciation of Catholicism. On Monday, he tweeted what he sees as all the current wrongs of American Christianity and went as far as to say that Christians are the nation's 'core problem'. 'American Christians have long loved their pop culture heroes. I have frustrated attempts to make me one because of this singular heart-felt conviction,' Derrickson wrote. He added: 'In America, we Christians are not the solution. We are the core problem.' When a Twitter user agreed with his diagnosis and asked him how he thought other Christians who feel the same could change things for the better, Derrickson responded by saying that the first need was to 'reject Christian nationalism'. 'It's a straight-up heresy,' he said. He then said American Christians needed to 'read the gospels'. 'Jesus was about aiding the poor, the judged, the sick, and the socially oppressed,' he said, before concluding that they also need to 'reckon with fear and racism. 'They are deceptively deep roots in the American faith,' he said. In another exchange on Twitter, he hit out at Christian support for Trump and his 'blatantly racist regime'. 'Christians in America are spreading Trumpism not the Gospel,' he said. Derrickson has been open about his Christian faith, tweeting last year about mercy. 'I'm not a good Christian; which is also why I'm a Christian. We need a whole lotta mercy,' he said. After making horror flicks The Exorcism of Emily Rose in 2005 and Deliver Us From Evil in 2014, he told the National Catholic Register that horror was the 'perfect genre' for a Christian filmmaker because 'you can think about good and evil pretty openly'. 'I always talk about it being the genre of non-denial. I like the fact that it's a genre about confronting evil, confronting what's frightening in the world,' he said. Counting bricks: a lesson in accountability from a bankrupt church There are very few areas of being a parent that I can say with any confidence that I outperform my wife. She is a brilliant mum and our son is thriving because of it. Where I come into my own, however, is DUPLO. In case you don't know, DUPLO is the pre-school version of LEGO. The bricks are a bit bigger but the idea is the same. I came late to LEGO as a kid I couldn't really understand the appeal. As an adult, I've had to build shelves in my house just to accommodate my growing collection. As soon as I could, I started buying my son DUPLO bricks, and he has come to love it as much as I do. We can lose hours to building stuff with DUPLO, and he's recently discovered that a gap in any other set of toys can be filled with a carefully constructed DUPLO alternative. If the PJ Masks need a garage to repair their vehicles 'Daddy, get the DUPLO.' If the Avengers need a lookout to track villains 'Daddy, get the DUPLO.' We've made shields for knights' costumes, spaceships for aliens and even a sleigh for Santa. I'd love to tell you my parental superiority comes from the fact that I'm a naturally gifted DUPLO builder, but it's actually more simple than that. I'm just a bit more compliant than his mum. When they try to build together it becomes a battle of bricks and wills. One of them will place something in position, the other will then attempt to move it unnoticed. Then a few moments later, having been caught, the piece will magically be put back by the now affronted party. I recognise my place as Master Builder's Assistant and see my job as the facilitator of his vision, albeit with a more mature set of fine motor skills and better dexterity. Last week, he came to me with an idea. 'Daddy, the Paw Patroller needs a garage attached to a tunnel.' Now if you don't know, Paw Patrol is a cartoon essentially about a small seaside town with an incompetent mayor who has outsourced all their emergency services to a teenage boy and his six highly trained dogs. The Paw Patroller is an HGV lorry that can transport the dogs and their emergency vehicles. Somewhat sinisterly, the boy has also created a robotic dog to drive the lorry, as if warning the pups that they are entirely replaceable. I digress. My son needed a garage and a tunnel for his Paw Patroller. And so he gave the command 'Daddy, get the DUPLO.' He began to describe what he wanted. A full garage for the patroller with three surrounding walls and a roof covering. This would be connected to a tunnel that it could travel through before entering the real world at full speed. I began to think about how we could make this work. He was already adding to the project. Moving turntables, windows, emergency exits, somewhere for the robot dog to sleep (I didn't have the capacity to explain that robots don't sleep). It was growing and growing, and I was becomingly quickly aware of a problem - not enough bricks. This hadn't come up before; he's got a lot of bricks, collected over the past four years. Any time we've needed to build, we've always had enough. But this latest scheme would need more bricks than we had. In fact, he was still talking, still envisioning more and more layers to this project meaning that even if I'd had the desire or resource to go and buy all the bricks in our local Smyths Toyshop, I don't think we'd have had enough. I interrupted him midway through describing where the gym facility would be and calmly explained that I thought we might need to have another think. He looked confused, I'd never had to say this before. He told me what he wanted, he explained what he was imagining and then I would build it for him. This accountability was something completely new. I explained that we simply didn't have enough bricks to do what he wanted. I assured him that his idea was a good one, but it wasn't going to be possible. I promised him we would still build something amazing, in fact, it might even be better than what he'd first thought because now we'd have to make every brick count. And best of all, we'd be figuring out how to do it together. The lip went first, then the tears came, and then he lay on the floor as his disappointment turned to despair right before my eyes. A story in the news caught my eye this week. It was about a church in Nottinghamshire that has been forced into liquidation. The International Church in Mansfield Woodhouse had planned a huge arena tour of a musical entitled Heaven on Earth, based on the story of Adam and Eve. It was to be a visual spectacular that would play across the whole UK including Wembley Arena. Russell Watson was booked to play the voice of God and the costume budget alone was reported to be over 300,000. Church leaders had set up a production company to put on the show and planned a six-month tour. One former church member told the BBC, 'They thought it would be a God-given tool to win nations, to change the world.' Instead, the whole thing went bust weeks before its first scheduled performance, in debt to the tune of 2.6 million. Perhaps saddest of all is that it has been reported that around 500,000 of that cash came from members of the congregation. The BBC reports that Audrey Beardal, 80, claimed she was asked to take out 3,000 of savings and was driven to a bank. There are reports some had remortgaged homes. Others said they were told that giving to fund the show was 'giving to God'. It's worth noting that one of the musical's directors has said they're sorry for everyone who had lost money including themselves. They went on to insist that any donation was made on a 'free will basis' and 'there was no pressure on anybody'. It's hard to know where to begin with a story like this one. It doesn't seem like anyone made any money out of it, so it doesn't fit the mould of pastors funding private jets or paying for 'retreat' houses in the Cayman Islands with the contents of the offering plate. This doesn't have all the markings of a get rich quick scam or chance to line a greedy leader's pockets. I wasn't there, so I can't tell you exactly what happened in that church in Nottinghamshire, but by all accounts, they really were going to put on a musical spectacular. They really had booked arenas, actors, musicians, technicians. They really did think they could change the world. And, if accounts are to be believed, they really did ask their congregation to fund their vision. Vision is a funny thing isn't it? Whether it's a four-year-old hoping to build a garage for his dog-lorry or a bunch of pastors trying to change the world with some singing and a light show, it's easy to get caught up in it all. I can't help but imagine how differently this story might have ended if there had been some way to ask more questions, to bring some accountability to those in authority, to find some others who had done this type of thing before. I can't help but wonder if it might have been different if someone had asked, 'Might it be a better idea for us to learn how to do this before we leap into an arena tour?' Or if someone had suggested, like a dad who wants to help facilitate a vision but knows we don't have the bricks, that maybe they needed to keep an eye on the finances. Of course, those questions or concerns might have been written off as lacking faith, or dissenting voices. They might have been ushered out the side door or silenced with some heavy-handed preaching on respect and authority. But maybe not. Maybe the questions would have been heard, the warnings heeded, the liquidation avoided. And if not, at the very least, the unwillingness to make space for even the slightest inch of accountability might have served as a warning for others. But it's so easy to get caught up in it all. Vision has always had a special place in the church, for both the good and the not so good. If there's a single verse of the Bible guaranteed to get even the most progressive pastor dusting off their King James Version it's Proverbs 29:18, 'Where there is no vision, the people perish.' Usually quoted just before or after launching their latest 'perish-proof' vision. And while there is no doubt that many congregations flourish under this kind of visionary leadership and many others flounder without it, there is surely a need to ensure that 'vision' doesn't become a catch-all term for any idea that any one or any group has just had. That every idea, however untested, becomes sacred by the attachment of the 'vision' label. And while I know that might get messy, and it might take a little longer; while I understand it might lead to a few tears and maybe even the odd tantrum; I also wonder if when the vision is robust enough to take a few questions, big enough to be moulded by other voices, and patient enough to take the time to listen, it might just be building on a better foundation, and might just find it doesn't run out of bricks. Because while it's true that where there is no vision, the people perish, for me, the lesson for all of us from Mansfield Woodhouse is that where there is vision without accountability, the people end up bankrupt in more ways than one. Matt White is a Northern Irish TV producer living in Essex and working in London. Follow him on Twitter @mattgwhite Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev and first vice president Mehriban Aliyeva have attended the inauguration of the Health Ministry's newly built united city hospital No17 in Gobustan settlement, Garadagh district, Baku. Head of Garadagh District Executive Authority Suleyman Mikayilov and chief physician of united city hospital No17, honored doctor Elmira Rafailova informed them of the work done here. An ambulance station was built in the area of the four-storey hospital. The necessary infrastructure was created at the 60-bed hospital. The hospital occupies a total area of 1.4 hectares. The president cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening of the hospital and met with the hospital staff. Congo polling data backs up Catholic Church claims of fraud The controversial Congo presidential vote that saw Felix Tshisekedi declared victorious was the subject of a massive voter fraud, according to data seen by the Financial Times. The data backed up allegations by the country's powerful Catholic Church, which deployed thousands of monitors at polling stations and said Martin Fayulu was the clear winner. The vote was set to be the first peaceful transfer of power since Joseph Kabila took over the country 18 years ago. But the unlikely result, and the fact that his own favoured successor, who came third, accepted the result without demur, led to fears that Kabila's supporters had struck a deal with Tshisekedi which would support Kabila's return to the presidency. According to the FT, an analysis of a separate set of voting results collected manually by the Catholic Church's 40,000 observers and representing 43 per cent of turnout shows that Mr Fayulu secured 62.8 per cent of this sample of votes. The FT has also seen a spreadsheet with more than 49,000 records from electronic voting machines taken from the electoral commission's central databse, which tallied almost perfectly with the Church's results. The electoral commission denied its results were fraudulent. Fayulu is appealing its declaration in favour of Tshisekedi and a judgment is expected on Friday. Meanwhile the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has called an emergency meeting on Thursday in Addis Ababa to discuss the election. SADC, which includes Congo allies such as South Africa and Angola, on Sunday called for a recount. South Africa and Zambia backtracked on Monday, although Zambia reiterated its call for a government of national unity. Tshisekedi's Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) also plans to file a challenge on Tuesday to the results of the legislative election, which took place the same day as the presidential vote, UDPS spokesman Vidiye Tshimanga said. Although the presidential candidate of Kabila's ruling coalition, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, won only 24 per cent of the vote, the coalition took more than 350 of 500 seats in the National Assembly, compared with about 30 for the UDPS. That could undermine Tshisekedi's ability to live up to campaign promises to break with Kabila's long tenure, which began in 2001 when his father was assassinated. Fayulu alleges that Tshisekedi's win was the result of a backroom deal between Tshisekedi and Kabila that will let Kabila maintain control over important ministries and the security services. Tshisekedi and Kabila deny there was any deal. Additional reporting by Reuters. Bible class targeted in China clampdown, Christians interrogated Chinese authorities have once again targeted the Early Rain Covenant Church with a police raid on a Bible class. The flourishing church in Chengdu was repeatedly raided in December, with 160 of its members detained including its pastor Wang Yi and his wife Jiang Rong. According to China Aid, more than 30 students had gathered last week at a restaurant for an 'Introduction to Christianity' class and a meal. Around 20 police officers confiscated their phones and took them to a police station, where they were interrogated. According to China Aid's source, the Christians were kept at the police station for several hours without food or water, and it was very cold in the interrogation room. Wang Yi and Jiang Rong are being held on charges of 'inciting subversion of state power'. The moves against Early Rain are part of a wider Chinese clampdown on religion that has also seen around 1 million Uighur Muslims detained in 're-education camps'. According to Bitter Winter, which reports on persecution in China, authorities are enforcing 'church-free zones' around schools, forcing churches to close if they are too near schools. It cites an official order stating: 'All private Christian gathering sites around universities and colleges, as well as on-campus activity sites, are to be shut down in accordance with the law. Criticism and (re)education of participating teachers and students is to be carried out by the school authorities.' Bitter Winter also reports on a new electronic surveillance programme, 'Sharp Eyes', which monitors churches. It quotes one rural Christian as saying: 'If they install any more surveillance cameras in the village, there will truly be nowhere left to go. During the Cultural Revolution, some Christians were able to dig underground cellars for congregations, but I fear in the future we won't even have a chance to do that.' Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Christians and atheists often engage in heated debate over the rationality of faith. Unfortunately, those conversations tend to generate more heat than light, not least because the parties to the discussion often end up talking past one another. If we want to make real progress on debating the rationality of faith, we should begin by considering what we mean when we use the word 'faith.' Just what is that concept that we are debating? The following article on faith is excerpted from the book An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar. In the book, atheist Justin Schieber and I, a Christian theologian, engage in one long conversation talking about God, the universe, and, well, everything. One of the hallmarks of the book is to stem the tide on the unfortunate tendency to talk past one another by modeling careful listening and generous exchange. In this case, we turn our attention to the meaning and rationality of faith. Randal: Perhaps we can switch gears at this point and turn to defining faith. Just as there are many different definitions of God, so there are many different definitions of faith. In particular, there are two basic ways the word faith is defined, and they are often conflated in discussions like this. So its probably worthwhile to be clear on the distinction. Justin: Thats a good point. That word gets thrown around a lot, and its not always clear what usage is intended. Randal: In the first sense, faith is roughly equivalent to religion. Insofar as we are working with that definition of faith, its clear that some people have faith and some dont because some people are adherents to a particular religion, while others have no religious affiliation. Justin: Right. As with the phrase, the Abrahamic Faiths. Randal: Yup. In this sense Ive got a faith (Christianity), but you dont. And in the second sense, faith is roughly equivalent to trust. In other words, to have faith in something is to trust in that thing. If I have faith in the truth of a proposition, then I trust that the proposition is true. If I have faith in a person, then I am inclined to trust what this person says as being true. If I have faith in my cognitive faculties, like sense perception and memory, then I trust that the deliverances of these faculties are generally reliable. Justin: That makes sense. Randal: I think its important to make this distinction clear because I often hear those without a religious faith (the first definition) insist that they dont have faith in something like the second sense. But this is simply false. Whether you have a religious affiliation or not, everybody must still trust in some truth claims, in particular persons, and in the very cognitive faculties that mediate information about the world to us. There is no view-from-nowhere that allows us to test our beliefs apart from faith. So only some of us have faith in the first sense but everybody has faith in the second sense. Justin: I suspect that the nonreligious community would rather use trust than faith when speaking of confidence in some proposition or person because of faiths religious connotations. But its certainly the case that the word can be used in both senses. Randal: While some folks may feel better about using the word trust, the truth is that there is nothing especially religious about the term faith. Just listen to George Michaels 1987 hit song Faith, in which the pop stars call to have faith is focused on a lowbrow desire for sexual contact with a woman. Needless to say, there are no lofty religious convictions in that use of the word. The lesson is that the very common tendency to pit faith against reason is wholly mistaken, for reason always begins in faith or trust. This reality goes straight back to our earliest formation as infants and toddlers, as we extended trust to our caregivers to mediate information about the world to us. Indeed, I like to describe faith and reason as the two oars of a boat. If you only row on one side of the boat, you go in circles. You need faith and reason together to advance in your understanding of the world. Justin: Thank you for that important distinction. A core takeaway here is that, whatever word we might prefer to use when talking about confidencebe it faith or trustnot all confidence is equally rational. But, at this point, Id like to make a related and important point: the rationality of ones faith or trust in, say, the goodness of a person, the usefulness of an idea, or the accuracy of a text can exist in degrees that can change over time. In the case of the parents who turned a blind eye to the incriminating evidence against their two sons, they had faith or trust in their childrens innocence. It might be the case that their trust was the rational result of consistent saintly behavior from the two brothers until the night in question. If it were, their faith in the innocence of their children was well-placed, given the information to which they had access at the time. Where they erred was not in their original faith or trust in the innocence of the defendants. Rather, their mistake was when they let this supreme confidence in the innocence of their sons get in the way of updating their current belief with important additional information from the prosecutor. Randal: Yup, and this is one of the places where I think folks often get into trouble when judging the rationality or objectivity of other folks. The problem comes when we judge the rationality of other people based on the set of beliefs we hold. Thats a mistake. Justin: I agree, and its a very common mistake. The question is not whether or not some particular belief is rational, the question is rational for whom? Some beliefs can be rational for some persons but irrational for others. Randal: Right. And this is a point worth underscoring with an example, one that brings us squarely back to theism. Lets say, for example, that Pastor Jones prays for his daughter to recover from a bad case of pneumonia. A couple of hours after the prayer, the daughter begins to show dramatic signs of improvement. By the next day, she is fully recovered, and Pastor Jones concludes that God healed her. I have often heard religious skeptics reply that this kind of interpretation of the recovery is irrational because the childs improvement could just as well be due to chance. I agree that it could be chance: nobodys denying that. However, we should also remember that Pastor Jones starts out with different background beliefs from the skeptic. Pastor Jones believes there is a God who answers prayer, while the skeptic doesnt believe this. Since they have different starting points, each reasonably interprets the same data differently relative to their background assumptions. As a result, the pastor can see the hand of providence while the skeptic sees mere serendipity. So here is how this cashes out: it is reasonable for Pastor Jones to attribute the recovery to divine action, and it is reasonable for the skeptic to attribute it to chance. The point is that we dont need to decide which interpretation is reasonable or justified. Rather, Pastor Jones and the skeptic can both be reasonable in interpreting the data differently, each in accord with his background beliefs. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment One encouraging development for the pro-life movement is the significant increase in the number of pro-life laws being enacted at the state level. According to the Guttmacher Institute, between 1983 and 2010, the average number of pro-life state laws enacted annually was fewer than 15. Between 2011 and 2017, meanwhile, an average of 57 state-level pro-life laws were enacted each year, and between 2000 and 2019, the number of states that Guttmacher deemed hostile to abortion rights increased from four to 22. The obvious reason for this increase is that Republicans have won majorities in state legislatures. In 1992, Republicans controlled both chambers of the state legislature in only seven states; now, they control both chambers of the state legislatures in 30 states. Over the course of the past 40 years, both political parties have become increasingly polarized on the issue of abortion. As a result, when state legislatures flip from Democratic control to Republican control, it is much easier for pro-lifers to enact protective legislation. A recent study published in the Journal of Women, Politics, and Policy entitled Rewinding Roe: Understanding the Accelerated Adoption of State Level Restrictive Abortion Legislation 2008-2014 highlights another important factor behind this recent surge in pro-life legislation. It found that states with a higher percentage of female lawmakers in the Republican legislative caucus enact a greater number of pro-life laws than other GOP-controlled legislatures. The study analyzed seven years of data from 48 states, holding constant political, ideological, and demographic factors that might influence the passage of state level pro-life legislation. The results make a great deal of intuitive sense. For one thing, male pro-life politicians are frequently criticized by supporters of legal abortion for legislating on a womens issue, so male legislators are likely more willing to introduce and support pro-life laws if they know they will have the support of a significant number of their female colleagues. The results of this study also suggest that Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser had a good insight when she and other pro-life women founded SBA List more than 25 years ago namely, that in order to succeed legislatively, the movement should focus on electing pro-life women to office. When SBA List began in 1992, there were only two consistently pro-life women serving in Congress. In the current Congress, there are 13 pro-life women serving in the House and five pro-life women serving in the Senate. Meanwhile, 188 female pro-life elected officials from 43 different states are members of SBA Lists Pro-Life Womens Caucus. The pro-life movement has made considerable progress since the early 1990s, and public opinion reflects that many Americans now favor restricting abortion in some circumstances. There also have been increases in the percentage of women who carry their unintended pregnancies to term. Most importantly, the annual number of abortions in the U.S. continues to fall. This new study illustrates that female elected officials have been, and will continue to be, an important part of the pro-life legislative success story. Originally posted at nationalreview.com Michael J. New is a Visiting Associate Professor at Ave Maria University and an associate scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_J_New Miracle Hill denies turning away Jewish woman from Christians-only foster care program Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Miracle Hill Ministries, a Christian social services agency that runs South Carolinas largest and most respected state-funded foster care program, denied a report that they turned away a Jewish woman as they await an exemption from the Trump administration to keep accessing government funds while having a Christians-only policy. Beth Lesser, a Jewish woman in her 50s, told the Forward, a Jewish-centered publication, in October that she and her husband were turned away by Miracle Hill while participating in a child mentorship program for prospective foster parents. Miracle Hill wont even let a Jewish person take a kid out for ice cream while they wait for a home, Lesser, who has no children of her own, told the publication. What did they think I was going to do, force feed them latkes? In an interview with The Christian Post this week, Sandy Furnell, Miracle Hills, communications director, said her agency does not prevent anyone from becoming a foster parent and did not specifically turn Lesser away. The reality is, Miracle Hills existence does not prevent anyone from fostering. Anyone who wants to foster can do so through their local department of social services that is available to anyone regardless of religion, sexual orientation, whatever the case may be. No religion, whatever. "We are not preventing anyone from becoming a foster family in this state. We are simply adding to the pool. Its our special mission that we have, she said. Its because of who we are and this is what we choose to do according to our faith. Furnell explained that Lesser was trying to become a mentor with a local organization called Fostering Great Ideas which is a Miracle Hill partner. Fostering Great Ideas works to improve the experience for every child in foster care. She said Lesser was trying to mentor, not foster, through Fostering Great Ideas. When she went to the mentoring training at one point the leader of the training divided the participants into different religious groups to assign them to organizations that were in line with their religious values. Lesser said, however, that she felt discriminated against in the program. I was the only Jewish person, she told the Forward. It was humiliating to be told essentially, Christians over here, Jews over there. Furnell added that matching prospective foster parents or mentors with organizations that align with their faith is in line with Fostering Great Ideas mission to improve the foster care experience. We partner with Fostering Great Ideas for mentoring with the kids who are in our childrens home, our boys shelter. In terms of mentors to work with, the kids who are in our childrens homes we do ask that they be like-minded in their faith with us because we are a faith-based organization. We believe people who are mentors or foster parents are in places of spiritual influence in someones life, Furnell said. A spokeswoman for South Carolinas Department of Social Services told The Washington Post that there are 11 child-placement agencies in South Carolina with religious affiliations. Miracle Hill, however, is the only one that insists foster parents share its faith. The social services agency wrote to Miracle Hill in January 2018 and outlined that it breached a federal regulation instituted by the Department of Health and Human Services near the end of President Barack Obamas second term that bans discrimination in all HHS programs. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has sought to get an exemption for Miracle Hill from HHS but the agency has yet to make a decision. An HHS spokesman told The Washington Post the issue was one of religious freedom, and signaled that the federal agency was open to allowing the funding. The request from the governor of South Carolina on religious freedom and foster care agencies has been received by HHS and is currently under consideration, he said. Furnell said that while Miracle Hill is hopeful for a positive outcome, they remain concerned about the future of their foster program which operated without government funding for some 27 years of their 30 year operation. Our ministry has been operating since 1988 and I believe it wasnt until three years ago that we took any government funding at all. So for about 27 years we did not have any government funding. We did foster care completely on our own and the reason why we started to take some funding was because DSS asked us to step up our recruitment efforts and we said Ok, wed be happy to do that, if were able to get a little bit more support because we only have so much funding. But we would love to do more if we could, she said. According to The Washington Post, Miracle Hill received nearly $600,000 in state and federal money in the last fiscal year to support foster care families. Reid Lehman, the ministrys leader, said he would rather drop out of those government programs if they insist on sacrificing their faith-based policy that's been in place since 1988. Furnell said because of Miracle Hills efforts, they were able to greatly increase the number of foster homes in their area. Even if Miracle Hill chose to forgo working with government agencies to help place children with foster families, Furnell said the issue of their operating license would still hamstring the foster care ministry without an exemption from HHS. At this point I think the greater issue is whether we are allowed to exist or not because when Department of Social Services wrote to us, they basically said, this goes against various policies; you cant do this so we wont license you unless you change. And so if we are not allowed to be licensed then we can no longer even participate in the system, she said. Even if we did not take government funding at all, if we are not allowed to be licensed, if the Department of Social Services wont license us because of how we operate, then we can no longer even participate in the process, Furnell stressed. That is getting lost on a lot of people. Do we have a right to even exist as a faith-based foster care program? If were not licensed we cant work with the kids that come with the system. We wont be allowed to, even if we dont accept government funds, she said. She explained that they're operating on a provisional license from the DSS but it will expire on Jan. 27. We are hopeful and we feel confident that DSS will renew another provisional license but we dont know what the Department of Health and Human Services is going to say, she said. Each provisional license is issued for a maximum of six months but Furnell noted that only the DSS can decide how long they will keep issuing a provisional license. We feel that probably [they] would want to because we provide such good service for foster care in our area. So we feel that it would obviously be in their best interest to continue to renew that, she added. We of course would love to continue to serve our families and serve children in this area as long and as much as possible. Of course funding will depend on our community support. We do what we can with the support that is given by our community, she said. For now, Furnell explained, Miracle Hill is hoping the HHS will allow them to continue serving their community according to their faith. We are still awaiting. We have not gotten a response from the Department of Health and Human Services yet. And were not the only organization across the country that need some clarification on this as well, she said. Man praises God as family, childhood Bible are saved after horn goes off warning them of truck on fire near home Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment An Oklahoma father of five is still singing praises to God after the horn of his truck, which caught fire next to his home with his children inside, went off in time to warn them of the danger. When firefighters were able to put out the blaze, they found the mans childhood Bible inside the truck unscathed by the flames. God has made it to my eyes that I should be grateful for being alive, the father, Steven Gaut, told Fox 6 in an interview after the fire that occurred on Dec. 9. God sent his angels, Gaut also wrote on a Facebook fundraiser that raised almost $5,000 to assist his family. My truck was parked 2 feet away from the house. If it wasn't for the horn blowing the house would've gone too. The Vinita Fire Department had to pry the Bible that was in a cloth cover. My Bible was in great shape and the cover was in bad shape, he continued. In his message on the Facebook fundraiser, Gaut said he was hiding Christmas gifts in the garage of his home when his oldest son heard the horn of his truck go off. The kids were in their rooms playing. Got my Dad to watch the kids so I went [and] got some dog food from Atwoods. Got home and was putting gifts in my garage. I was out there for a few minutes and my oldest son heard a horn honking in front of the house. He looks out the window and sees my truck on fire. He immediately comes to the garage to tell me about it. I call 911. By the time I got to the truck it was totally engulfed with flames, Gaut said. After firefighters put out the blaze they told him that someone at Atwoods, a farm and ranch supply company based in Enid, Oklahoma, likely threw a cigarette in the back of my truck. Once the fire was out Gault said he assumed he'd also lost everything inside his truck including a cherished Bible he's had since he was 13. The first thing I asked for was to see if my Bible was OK, he told Fox 6. The Bible was down there on the ground and they had to pry it up from the case, Gaut said. In a recent interview with Fox News, he said despite the fire the Bible survived, it doesnt even smell like smoke either. He further explained that if the fire had managed to reach his home before anyone was able to respond, it would have been devastating. I'm a single dad raising five kids and six in the summer, just had to go bankrupt due to the divorce. I'm very grateful no one was hurt and thank God for saving our lives, he wrote on his Facebook fundraiser. Witchcraft, demons are 'dark power,' but are they real? African pastor answers Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment An African pastor has warned that the dark powers of witchcraft and demons are indeed real forces in the world that Christians need to be prepared for. Conrad Mbewe, an author and pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, said in a video for The Gospel Coalition Africa last week that one of the greatest challenges African Christians have is related to the spiritual world. Mbewe explained that, in many villages, there's a mixture of African religious traditions and confusion over how to speak about witch doctors and witchcraft. Some of the questions people have about witchcraft, he said, include whether the powers that are in witchcraft [are] real, or just imaginations that human beings seem to have?" And "Is it major deception like people who are playing magic or tricks? As for how Christians should respond to that world, Mbewe said believers should keep in mind that this is nothing new. When you go through the Old Testament, you find that one of the areas that God was very adamant with respect with the children of Israel was that they were not to engage in witchcraft, he said. In fact, if anybody was found genuinely guilty of it, that person was to be stoned to death. That's how hard the writings of the Old Testament go as far as witchcraft is concerned. The pastor pointed out that in the New Testament, believers are not threatened with being stoned to death, but are urged to be delivered from the acts of darkness, witchcraft included. He said that one of the examples is in Acts 16, where a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and practiced fortune-telling was rebuked by Paul, who commanded the dark spirit to come out of her. Mbewe said that what Christians can learn from the passage is, No. 1, "it was a spirit and it was an evil spirit that finally had to be cast out. No. 2, they were real extraordinary powers that this woman [had,] it is real power, dark power ... but real power nonetheless. He warned that Christians should have nothing to do with it, as such power is part of the works of darkness. He added that believers also need to realize that all are Gods children, and God has the ultimate power over the dark powers. We need not be afraid of them. Absolutely no fear. We ought to know our God is absolutely sovereign. Finally, he said that Christians should share the Gospel, the Good News of the Lord Jesus Christ, with individuals who are still in bondage to witchcraft. We should say to them, there is forgiveness and there is deliverance through the Lord Jesus Christ.' Addressing the significant growth in the practice of witchcraft in the U.S. in recent decades, radio host and author Carmen LaBerge noted that statistics show that the 1.5 million Americans who today identify as practicing witches is now larger than the number of Americans who are members of the Presbyterian Church USA, which is estimated to be 1.4 million. Some have contended that it's not an accurate comparison. "Pews Wiccan estimate includes all persons who identify with Wiccan type beliefs. The Presbyterian number is based on the enrolled membership of the Presbyterian Church (USA), which is the largest Presbyterian denomination in America." "This comparison does not involve equals. A more accurate assessment would compare enrolled members of covens with the enrolled members of all Presbyterian denominations," said Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, who noted that the statistic is based on a 2014 study conducted by the Pew Research Center, and is "based on old numbers," But Julie Roys, formerly of Moody Radio, told The Christian Post last October, "It makes sense that witchcraft and the occult would rise as society becomes increasingly postmodern. The rejection of Christianity has left a void that people, as inherently spiritual beings, will seek to fill. "Plus, Wicca has effectively repackaged witchcraft for millennial consumption. No longer is witchcraft and paganism satanic and demonic," she added. "It's a 'pre-Christian tradition' that promotes 'free thought' and 'understanding of earth and nature.'" University lets people use bathrooms 'they deem they need to use,' opens 23 'all-gender' facilities Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A public university in Ohio is letting people use whatever bathroom facility they deem they need to use in order to create a more inclusive environment and has also converted nearly two dozen restrooms into all-gender bathrooms. Wright State University in Dayton has granted universal access, allowing individuals to use the restroom that corresponds to their sex, gender identity, and/or gender expression in order to comply with the universitys discrimination policy and its interpretation of Title IX law. The university's Office of LGBTQA Affairs lays out protections for trans-identified people in a web page titled Trans at Wright State. On the page, the office states that the university strives to support and value all members of the campus community. To that end, it says that providing safe, accessible, and convenient restroom facilities is one aspect of creating an inclusive environment. The university also notes that some people experience difficulty, inconvenience, and a lack of safety when trying to use a gender-specific bathroom. It also states that transgender individuals can be subject to harassment or violence when using mens or womens restrooms. We allow people to use the restroom facility they deem they need to use, the webpage explains. According to an online resource from the pro-LGBT organization GLESN that was linked to by the university website, gender expression is defined as the multiple ways (e.g., behaviors, dress) in which a person may choose to communicate gender to oneself and/or to others. The Christian Post reached out to Wright State for clarification on its universal access policy. A response is pending. The university website also explains that 23 restrooms in different buildings across the campus were converted to all-gender bathrooms as part of the universitys All-Gender Restroom Expansion Project. The bathrooms were all converted by Dec. 19. In some instances, a designated all-gender restroom may contain multiple stalls, the webpage reads. For those who do not wish to use an all-gender single stall or all-gender multi-stall restroom, there will be gendered restrooms located in every building. The campus-wide project was spearheaded by a joint committee of students, faculty and staff. The project was supported through a resolution unanimously approved by the Wright State Student Government Association. This project plan has been an opportunity for Wright State University to further our mission and vision of centering diversity, inclusion, and accessibility in the Wright State University community, Chief Diversity Officer Matthew L. Boaz wrote in a letter to the campus community. By providing greater access to restroom facilities, we strive to create safer and more accessible spaces for people with children of a different gender, people with disabilities who need assistance in the restroom from someone of a different gender, and people who identify as transgender and nonbinary. Not everyone in the Wright State community is happy with the all-gender bathrooms. A Wright State dance team member took to Twitter to complain about the gender-neutral bathrooms. Cant even use the bathroom because all the bathrooms at wright state are gender neutral now and theres men and urinals in all the bathrooms, she wrote, adding the hashtag #ihavetopee. The school responded by stating that not all bathrooms were all-gender and instructed the student to go up or down a flight of stairs to the next restroom if she is not comfortable in the all-gender bathroom. Well they are the main bathrooms on the floor everyone uses :)) thank you though, the student wrote in a response to the school. Everyone finds it awkward and inconvenient! Ill go find the next closest next time! While LGBT activists have pushed school districts and colleges across the nation to embrace policies that grant bathroom and locker room access on the basis of gender identity, social conservatives have voiced concern that such policies violate the privacy rights of others, especially women and girls. Family Research Council released a report in 2017, listing 21 incidents of men assaulting or violating women's privacy in public bathrooms and warning that transgender-friendly policies do increase the risk of such crimes. "It is important to note that the concern is not that transgendered individuals are more likely to be sexual predators, but rather that sexual predators could exploit such laws by posing as transgendered in order to gain access to women and girls," FRC stated. The Trans at Wright State web page also recommends that university community members refer to each other by preferred names and pronouns. The web page details some examples of transgender pronouns that include ze and hir. Not using a students correct name and pronouns can make the student feel disrespected, can potentially out this student to their peers, and can create a classroom environment that could be very difficult for them to thrive in, the university resource reads. SC city ordinance preventing churches from occupying new properties, worshiping: lawsuit Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The city of Gaffney, South Carolina, voted 3-2 earlier this week to keep what a conservative law group calls an illegal provision that is preventing some churches from worshiping. At the center of the dispute are Innov8tion Church and Mission of Grace in Gaffney, which filed a lawsuit through the American Center for Law and Justice, arguing that a provision in the city zoning ordinance prevents them from occupying new properties and holding worship services. As the Gaffney Zoning Ordinance of 2017 explains, any fraternal, political, or civic organization can choose to relocate to the Central Commercial zoning district, but churches and other religious organizations are not allowed the same right. The ACLJ wrote a letter to city officials in November 2018 informing them that the ordinance violates federal law, namely the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. RLUIPA, enacted in 2000, states that "the right to build, buy or rent space is an indispensable adjunct of the core First Amendment right to assemble for religious purposes." "Churches in general, and new, small, or unfamiliar churches in particular, are frequently discriminated against on the face of zoning codes and also in the highly individualized and discretionary processes of land use regulation, the Act warns. Zoning codes frequently exclude churches in places where they permit theatres, meeting halls, and other places where large groups of people assemble for secular purposes. Following the Citys Planning Commission's 3-2 vote this week to keep the ordinance, the request for amendment of the ordinance is set to be heard on Feb. 4, with the ACLJ team in attendance. It is Innov8tion Church and Mission of Graces hope that this matter can be resolved amicably. We respectfully request that the City Council closely review the challenged provision of the zoning ordinance and take the necessary steps to ensure the ordinance is amended to remove the provision prohibiting religious organizations occupancy of commercial and storefront buildings in the CC district, the ACLJ wrote in its letter in November. This matter is an urgent one for Innov8ton Church and Mission of Grace. The ACLJ has long battled controversial city ordinance rulings, including one in the city of Englewood in New Jersey that initially barred pro-life activists from being closer than eight feet from the entrance of abortion clinics. A federal judge struck down the buffer zone ordinance in November 2017, leading the ACLJ to declare a "big pro-life free speech victory." "We at the ACLJ are certainly pleased that our efforts to secure the necessary breathing space for pro-life free speech in Englewood have come to fruition in this case," the law group celebrated at the time. Most Voyeurism, Sexual Assaults Against Women Occur in Mixed-Sex Changing Rooms, Statistics Show Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Freedom of Information requests in England reveal that changing rooms that have been opened to both sexes prove more dangerous to women and girls than single-sex facilities, results that do not surprise women's rights advocates. Nearly 90 percent of complaints regarding changing room sexual assaults, voyeurism and harassment are about incidents that have taken place in unisex facilities, The Independent (UK) reported. Likewise, two thirds of all sexual attacks at leisure centers and public swimming pools take place in unisex changing rooms. Of all the 134 complaints in 2017 and 2018, 120 reported incidents occurred in changing rooms where both sexes are allowed to be there and only 14 happened in single-sex changing areas. "Like many women, I've never been happy to get undressed around men that I don't know," said Venice Allan, 42, a London-based jewelry designer and mother of two, in an interview with The Christian Post Tuesday afternoon. Transgender activists across the U.K. have been campaigning to abolish sex-segregated spaces and replace them with what they say are more "inclusive" facilities, she explained, and such ideas are presently backed by every major political party. However, as in the U.S., opposition exists from both liberal and conservative women alike. Allan is a part of We Need to Talk, a group of women who are organizing meetings around the U.K. to discuss the government's proposals to amend the Gender Recognition Act. "Now we have evidence that women are put at considerable risk in these unisex spaces. I sincerely hope that politicians and service providers will recognize that they need to reconsider these policies immediately," she said of the latest statistics. Emily Zinos, who was a project coordinator with Ask Me First MN, said in an email to CP that "the fact that society has long separated men and women in public facilities like restrooms is not evidence of bigotry, it stems from a reasonable concern for women's privacy and safety. Voyeurs don't randomly target anyone in a public restroom or gym shower, they target women." She pointed out that in 2017, South Korea had 6,000 reported cases of "spy cam porn" and 80 percent of the victims were women. "This is a whole category of Internet porn made by men who secretly film women on the toilet or changing clothes. Do the public officials and corporate board rooms mandating mixed sex facilities realize that, ultimately, they're eliminating women's privacy in public places and putting them at real risk of becoming another voyeurism victim?" She now avoids retail changing rooms and gym locker rooms, telling CP she believes an assessment of the impact mixed-sex facilities are having on women is needed as soon as possible. The statistics come as no surprise to others who have done their own data gathering on the subject. "It is sad to see women and children bearing the brunt of a politically-correct agenda to put males and females together in the same private facilities," commented Paul Dirks, who pastors at New West Community Church in British Columbia, in an email to CP Tuesday. "The literature on paraphilias and sexual offending is very clear concerning sex disparities. Ninety-eight to a hundred percent of voyeurs, exhibitionists and rapists are men." Dirks has conducted extensive original research on women's protections-related issues and gender dysphoria. Earlier this year, he released a study on the website of the Woman Means Something campaign called "Gender-Inclusion Policies and Sexual Violence: A Longitudinal Analysis of Media Reports at Target Stores." "This latest data out of the UK is consistent with the analysis we performed of media-published sexual offenses at Target stores in the US where we observed a roughly three-fold increase of voyeuristic sex offenses after the publication of their non-sex specific privacy policy," Dirks said. "It is hard to fathom the logic behind the erasure of women's bodily privacy rights which is occurring at the same time as an increased cultural awareness of the breadth of sexual offenses against women." German police have arrested a 50-year-old man suspected of passing military secrets to Iran. Federal prosecutors named the Afghan-German army linguist, arrested in Rhineland state, only as Abdul Hamid S. He is understood to have known details of German military operations in Afghanistan. Prosecutors said he was suspected of "having passed on his knowledge to an Iranian intelligence service," BBC reported. According to Der Spiegel, the man had access to highly sensitive information, such as the deployment of troops in Afghanistan, but possibly also other areas of interest and passed it to the Iranian secret services. Mom Describes Sexual Assault of 5-Y-O Daughter in School Bathroom After Transgender Policy Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A mother has described the graphic sexual assault her 5-year-old daughter suffered in the girls' bathroom a year after the school implemented its new transgender bathroom policy. Pascha Thomas, the Georgia mother in question, shared her testimony on Wednesday in a video with the nonprofit legal firm Alliance Defending Freedom. She explained that her daughter was assaulted in November 2017 at an elementary school that is part of the City Schools of Decatur. "My daughter stated to me that she was in class, and she asked the teacher if she could go to the bathroom. And the teacher said yes," Thomas described. "So she was in the bathroom and she was pulling up her pants, when one of her classmates came into her bathroom, a little boy. She tried to leave the bathroom, [but] the little boy pushed her against the bathroom stall. Basically pinned her up against there. She asked him to stop, he wouldn't. He took his fingers and he was penetrating her through her pants. She asked him to stop, and stated several times that it hurt. He refused," the mother continued. "Once he was done, she went to class. I asked her if she told anyone about it. She started crying and said 'No mama, I didn't tell nobody, but I didn't ask him to come in the bathroom with me. I didn't know he was going to do that.'" ADF explained that the school had implemented a policy in 2016 to allow students who identify with the opposite sex to use bathrooms, locker rooms and showers that corresponded with their gender identity, rather than their biological sex. Meaning that boys who identify as female are allowed to enter girls' facilities. Superintendent David Dude revealed to staff at the time that they were implementing "a policy that required all Decatur Schools to admit boys who identify as female into girls' restrooms, locker rooms, and shower areas on school premises ... based solely on the stated preference of the individual student. ..." The move was allegedly made without informing the parents, however, a number of whom said that they shared their concerns about the change but were largely ignored. Thomas explains that she has since been involved in an ongoing dispute with the school. She accused the City Schools of Decatur of blaming her for the incident and even sending the Department of Family and Children's Services to investigate her family. She says that the school has continued ignoring the assault, and even directly told her that the bathroom policy would not be reversed. "What happened to her, I felt devastated, I felt angry. I felt betrayed," Thomas said about her daughter in the video. "When I dropped my child off at school, I never would think that she would be sexually assaulted in a bathroom by a little boy." The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights announced back in September that it will investigate the ADF's complaint, which was filed against the City Schools of Decatur on behalf of the 5-year-old girl. "This situation was both deeply tragic and avoidable," said ADF Legal Counsel Christiana Holcomb. "Schools have a duty to protect the privacy and safety of all students and Decatur Schools clearly failed this young girl. The current approach that many schools are taking of passing these transgender bathroom policies isn't working; they fail to provide basic privacy or ensure the safety of all students." Attorney Vernadette Broyles with the Georgia Adoption & Family Law Practice, who co-filed the complaint with ADF, argued that a school's top priority should be the safety of its students. "Decatur School's policies have created a stressful, unfair, and, as in this case, even unsafe environment particularly for girls. We are grateful that OCR is investigating this tragedy, and we hope the agency helps this school district and others adopt commonsense solutions that protect the privacy and safety of all students," Broyles said. A school district spokeswoman told The Atlanta Journal Constitution that the district was "aware of the unfounded allegations" and that "we fully disagree with their characterization of the situation." The statement added that there would be no further comment as it was a pending legal matter. Watch Pascha Thomas' story below: GOP leader removes Rep. Steve King from committee assignments after racist remarks Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Congressional Republicans are speaking out against one of their colleagues, Steve King, saying he exemplifies why some continue thinking conservatives do not take racism seriously, amid a growing Congressional push to censure him. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy informed reporters Monday evening that King will not receive any committee assignments this term. The Democrats, who now control the House, will schedule a vote to censure him, according to Politico. King, who has represented northwestern Iowa in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2003, maintains that he does not hold the views being attributed to him, though did not deny the accuracy of the report. The latest episode that has precipitated criticism of the Iowa Congressman came about following The New York Times interviewed King in a Friday article about the immigration debate. "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization? he said. Following the publication of the article, King took to the floor of the House Friday, saying that he is an "American nationalist," is a believer in the values of Western civilization, and that he rejects the labels and ideologies of white supremacy and white nationalism and what they represent. His comments to The New York Times drew swift backlash from fellow Republicans, including some from his home state. In a tweet Saturday, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, condemned Kings remarks, calling them "offensive and racist and not representative of our state of Iowa." King has a reputation for similar rhetoric and it has nearly cost him his political career. In the 2018 cycle, he was barely reelected, edging out his Democrat opponent by a few points in a district Trump won overwhelmingly in 2016. Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, who is African-American, explained in a Washington Post editorial that the reason Republicans are often accused of racism is that the party is too often silent when comments such as King's emerge. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also weighed in on the matter, saying in an interview on NBCs "Meet the Press," that King's remarks were "stupid," "hurtful," and "wrong." "And he needs to stop it. I think all of us ought to be united regardless of party in saying white supremacism, white nationalism is hatred, it is bigotry, it is evil, it is wrong. And I think we need that clarity. And I'm certainly going to urge everyone to provide that clarity." Such was also the sentiment of other conservative thought leaders, including prominent publications like National Review. In a Saturday editorial titled "Dump Steve King," the National Review editors urged the Republican party to stop supporting him for the next election cycle. "King has done nothing to earn the benefit of the doubt or to credibly suggest that his comments to the Times were somehow a slip of the tongue," they wrote of his most recent remarks. "Over the last several months, the congressman has compiled a distressing record: endorsing the political campaign of a protest candidate for mayor of Toronto who appeared on a white-supremacist podcast and has repeated white-supremacist mantras; approvingly citing white nationalists on social media and, when pressed, refusing to admit error; and nodding to fringe tropes such as 'cultural suicide by demographic transformation' that reduce the legitimate issue of national cohesion to an ugly exercise in racial bean-counting." Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, did not mince words. These comments are abhorrent and racist and should have no place in our national discourse, Cheney, who is the daughter of former Vice President Cheney, said of King's words in a tweet Friday afternoon. McCarthy warned, in a CBS "Face the Nation" interview Sunday, that he would do something about King's remarks. "Action will be taken. I'm having a serious conversation with Congressman Steve King about his future and role in this Republican Party," he said. "I will not stand back as a leader of this party, believing in this nation that all are created equal, that that stands or continues to stand and have any role with us." Evangelical group offers proposal to end gov't shutdown in letters to Trump, Congress Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment An evangelical group that seeks to promote immigration reform has called upon President Donald Trump and Congress to end the government shutdown through what it described as a Bipartisan Immigration Compromise. For the past few weeks, the federal government has been on a partial shutdown since Dec. 22 due to the failure of the president and Congress to agree on a budget. The main issue has been funding for the southern border wall that Trump promised to build for security purposes but Democrats oppose. The Evangelical Immigration Table sent an open letter to President Trump and members of Congress on Monday urging them to hammer out a compromise that would give both sides something they want. Both secure the border and provide a path to citizenship for those in the nation who meet certain requirements, EIT proposed. The Scriptures both instruct a respect for the rule of law which is diminished when immigration laws are violated without consequence and mandate our concern for the wellbeing of vulnerable immigrants and their families, many of whom are longstanding members of local churches throughout the United States, stated the letter. The letter referenced the Tables six principles on immigration reform, namely that such a reform Respects the God-given dignity of every person, Protects the unity of the immediate family, Respects the rule of law, Guarantees secure national borders, Ensures fairness to taxpayers, and Establishes a path toward legal status and/or citizenship for those who qualify and who wish to become permanent residents. Such a compromise would require both sides to accept provisions that may not be universally popular with their most fervent supporters, but it would resolve a longstanding problem and should also allow our federal government to re-open, continued the letter. Signees of the letter included Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; World Relief President Scott Arbeiter; Shirley V. Hoogstra, president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities; Hyepin Im, president & CEO of Faith and Community Empowerment; Jo Anne Lyon, ambassador and general superintendent emerita of the Wesleyan Church; Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention; Edgar Sandoval, president of World Vision U.S.; and the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. Earlier this month, Rodriguez released a similar statement calling upon members of Congress to pass a budget that will fund the wall and give us DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals]. DACA was an Obama administration-era program that gave legal status to unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the United States as minors. We can and we must seize upon one of the great debates of our time, and chisel from the hard stone of division just the sort of compromise which has built the foundations of our national unity so many times before, Rodriguez stated. Democratic National Committee drops partnership with Womens March Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment (JNS) The Democratic National Committee has dropped its partnership in the Womens March over anti-Semitism concerns, according to a Democratic source. This development comes amid accusations of anti-Semitism within the movements leadership, causing many organizations to drop their support of the this years march, scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 19. There have been calls for firms to back out. In recent weeks, a number of progressive groups that have withdrawn their support of the march, which was launched in 2017 in protest of the election of President Donald Trump, including, but are not limited to, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations, the Human Rights Campaign, Greenpeace, Childrens Firearm Safety Alliance, Coalition Against Gun Violence and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense. Moreover, local marches, such as in Chicago and New Orleans, have been cancelled. Jewish organizations such as the Jewish Democratic Committee of America applauded the groups that have scrapped their affiliation with this years Womens March. JDCA supports the objectives of the Womens March and stands with sister marches across the country this weekend, its executive director, Halie Soifer, told JNS. At the same time, we welcome the DNC, SPLC, Emilys List and other organizations decision to not sponsor and participate in the Womens March and take a principled stand against anti-Semitism. Womens March co-leader Tamika Mallory denied any anti-Semitic accusations, including her support of National of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has an extensive history of making anti-Jewish remarks such as Im anti-termite and that Hitler was a very great man. Mallory said in a Monday appearance on ABCs The View that we did not make those remarks. What I will say to you is that I dont agree with many of Minister Farrakhans statements. In response to host Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Sen. John McCain, asking her if she condemns Farrakhans statements, Mallory said: To be very clear, its not my language. Its not the way that I speak; its not how I organize. And I think it is very clear over the 20 years of my own personal activism, my own personal track record, who I am, and I should never be judged through the lens of a man. Originally posted at JNS.org. Bring Your Bible to School Day lawsuit filed against Calif. school district in religious speech row Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A conservative Christian group has filed a lawsuit against the Huntington Beach City School District in California, alleging that it is preventing the distribution of Bible-themed fliers. District Superintendent Gregg Haulk said that he was surprised and disappointed by the lawsuit last week, however. We did not restrict the students from passing out fliers, Haulk said, according to Fox News. In the center of the religious freedom row are the actions of two children at John R. Peterson Elementary School who attempted to hand out fliers promoting Bring Your Bible to School Day, which is sponsored by Christian group Focus on the Family. The promotional materials, which encourage children to share their Bibles with their friends and families, were prohibited by the school to be distributed during instructional time, which for the school includes recess and lunch times. Holly Bausch, the mother of the two students behind the Freedom X lawsuit, argued that recess and lunch time shouldnt count as instructional time, however. To me, it doesnt seem like kids get instruction during lunch and recess, Bausch said. Why is that considered instructional time? My kids go to daycare before and after school. So, lunch and recess are the only times when they wouldve had time to distribute the fliers. Candi Cushman, director of education issues and initiatives at Focus on the Family, who oversees the Bring Your Bible to School program, said the issue is vital for religious freedom in America's public schools. Respectfully sharing information during a free period on campus is one of the primary, and often only, outlets that kids have for expressing their values and putting their free-speech rights into practice," Cushman argued. "Shut down that right and youve pretty much squelched kids ability to direct any kind of student-led event. Bill Becker, president of Freedom X, who is representing the Bausch family, added that "to discriminate based on religious content is a violation of the First Amendment. He further argued that California schools choose to teach Islam and Sharia Law, but attempt to exclude Christianity. They are trying to push the idea of multiculturalism that is inclusive of Islam, but they are always willing to be exclusive of Christianity, Becker said, according to the Orange County Register. Its an upside-down world we have today, a backlash against the time when all schools were required to teach the Bible. Haulk insisted again that the mother was told that the content is appropriate. Despite the initial confusion, we communicated effectively with the parents. Weve never had any issues with Bring Your Bible to School Day, the superintendent maintained. Cushman wrote in an op-ed in The Christian Post in 2017 that "thousands of courageous students, from kindergarten to college, are bringing the Bible back to campus" through its program. "The big idea behind Bring Your Bible to School Day is to help kids feel empowered to share what's most important to them, and what makes them who they are their faith," said Focus on the Family President Jim Daly. Anglican ambassador to Vatican says he never denied Jesus' bodily resurrection Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The newly appointed Anglican ambassador to the Vatican has strongly denied ever questioning that Jesus rose from the dead, despite criticism coming from the Church of England. John Shepherd, the former dean of St. Georges Cathedral in Perth, Western Australia, who earlier in January was chosen to lead the Anglican Centre in Rome on an interim basis, declared Christ is Risen! when asked about his response to recent criticism. The criticism stems from a 2008 Easter sermon he preached, in which he said that "it is important for Christians to be set free from the idea that the resurrection was an extraordinary physical event, which restored to life Jesus original earthly body." "The resurrection of Jesus ought not to be seen in physical terms, but as a new spiritual reality," Shepherd said back then. The resurfaced comments led to some, such as Rev. Lee Gatiss, the head of the Church of Englands largest evangelical group, to call them utterly bizarre and absolutely inappropriate. If it is true that he does not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, then I dont think he should have been ordained as a minister in the Anglican Communion in the first place, Gatiss told The Telegraph. The Rev. Ian Paul, a member of the General Synod, also asked whether it is wise to appoint "as the Archbishop's envoy to Rome someone who doesn't believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Shepherd sought to clarify the comments, saying it's a misunderstanding of his views. It is my faith that Jesus rose from the dead and I have never denied the reality of the empty tomb. The risen Christ was not a ghost he ate and could be touched but at the same time he appeared in a locked room (John 20. 26) and vanished from sight (Luke 24.31) and he was often not immediately recognized, Shepherd said, according to Anglican Communion New Service. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states (para 646) In his risen body he passes from the state of death to another life beyond time and space. In my Easter sermon in 2010 I said We believe in the resurrection of Jesus after three days, and in this faith we come to know God who raises us from despair to life, day after day, he continued. This remains my faith that Christ is risen indeed. ACNC noted that the governors of the Anglican Centre in Rome will review the events before making a decision about the permanent replacement to Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi. Lambeth Palace further told The Tablet: "Dr. Shepherd is a priest in good standing in his diocese and due diligence was paid in appointing him to what is a temporary role." Kay Goldsworthy, the Anglican archbishop of Perth, was one of those who came to Shepherd's defense even before his clarification. If that happened to every preacher in the Church we would all be in trouble, frankly, Goldsworthy said about digging up old sermons. There is a statement that people have picked out, whoever the people are, and have sort of wanted to make some example of. I am not sure what they wanted to achieve. 3 Christian series based off 'Comedians in Cars' feature clergy talking in cars about life, theology and comic books Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Have you seen Clergy in Cars Getting Coffee"? Loosely based on comedian Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, several online series are now featuring pastors, professors and denominational leaders in cars, drinking coffee, engaging in topics that range from theology to comic books. Two Episcopal leaders in Texas have taken to Facebook to broadcast their series "Clergy in Cars Getting Coffee." From the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, the Rev. Daryl Hay and Rev. Matt Stone comically ride in a car and talk about traditions and popular culture on their show. The Rev. Paul Klitzke of the Diocese of Dallas, Texas, has also premiered a show titled, Clergy in Cars which features various priests and bishops, including Presiding Bishop Michael Curry of The Episcopal Church who in an episode in October talked about fasting, the scriptures he was studying at the time, and racial reconciliation. He described reconciliation as being in relationship with people that are different than you." An advocate for reconciliation, last May, Curry led a group of multiracial progressive faith leaders in a procession to the White House to condemn racism, misogyny and the immorality of political leaders. In an interview with Fox News' Martha MacCallum at the time, he refused to say whether he'd agree to meet with President Trump to work on issues of racial reconciliation. Curry, who garnered worldwide attention for giving a 14-minute sermon at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in England last May, is a controversial figure for supporting same-sex marriage and for his decision last week to punish a bishop in New York who, following biblical doctrine, has refused to allow clergy in his diocese to officiate same-sex marriages. Another show that premiered just before the new year is Cars, Coffee, Theology with Jonathan T. Pennington, assistant professor of New Testament interpretation at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He describes the 30-minute series as a caffeinated, academic, vlog on wheels. The latest episode, which can be seen on YouTube, features Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of Southern Baptist Convention. The conversation between the professor and Moore ranges from their childhood crushes to comic book universes, to issues concerning marriage, parenting and hermeneutics. Pennington and Moore kept their conversation lighthearted but also talked about Moore's most recent book, The Storm-Tossed Family: How the Cross Reshapes the Home. "As I go down each of my children, I'm a better parent. The difference is [now] I know what to freak out about and what not to freak out about," Moore said. 2020 Democrat presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard slammed for once supporting traditional marriage Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Democrat Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard announced her intent to run for president in 2020 and has immediately faced heat for her involvement with her fathers advocacy group Alliance for Traditional Marriage when she was younger. The 37-year-old Gabbard, who is the first Hindu and Samoan-American member of Congress, told CNNs Van Jones over the weekend that she plans to seek the partys nomination in the next presidential election. However, commentators are speculating that her chances of success could be hindered by the fact that as a teen, she worked in the 1990s and 2000s for her father's pro-traditional marriage organization, which some in the secular press are labeling "anti-gay." The Alliance for Traditional Marriage was aimed at opposing pro-LGBT legislation. The organization spent over $114,000 to help pass an amendment that gave the Hawaii legislature more power to limit marriage to a union between a man and a woman. CNN reported that her father, Mike Gabbard, also served as the director of Stop Promoting Homosexuality and also ran what CNN called an anti-gay radio show. A slew of headlines has accused Gabbard of having a homophobic past, due to her previous support for marriage. In a statement provided to CNN, Gabbard said she regrets the positions she took in the past and the things she has said in defense of marriage. I'm grateful for those in the LGBTQ+ community who have shared their aloha with me throughout my personal journey, Gabbards statement reads. As Roll Call pointed out, Gabbard had previously criticized Democrats in 2004, when she was only 23 but already had two years of experience in the state legislature, for a mostly pro-LGBT platform that she said at the time gave too much credence to a small number of homosexual extremists. In her statement to CNN, Gabbard continued by listing the number of pieces of legislation that she has worked on that had the support of LGBT activists. Much work remains to ensure equality and civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ Americans and if elected President, I will continue to fight for equal rights for all, her statement said. Although Gabbards views on marriage and sexuality have shifted since the 2000s, Gabbard seems to have a broader interpretation of religious freedom rights than others in the Democrat Party. Earlier this month, Gabbard wrote an op-ed in which she criticized (not by name) two Democratic senators (Californias Kamala Harris and Hawaiis Mazie Hirono) for questioning a Trump nominees connection to the pro-family and pro-life Catholic fraternal organization Knights of Columbus. While I oppose the nomination of Brian Buescher to the U.S. District Court in Nebraska, I stand strongly against those who are fomenting religious bigotry, citing as disqualifiers Bueschers Catholicism and his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, Gabbard wrote. If Buescher is unqualified because of his Catholicism and affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, then President John F. Kennedy, and the 'liberal lion of the Senate' Ted Kennedy would have been unqualified for the same reasons. Gabbards criticism did not sit well with many Democrats, including Hirono. It is unfortunate that Congresswoman Gabbard based her misguided opinion on the far-right wing manipulation of these straightforward questions, Will Dempster, Hironos spokesman, said in a statement provided to media. Gabbard was also criticized online. Jill Filipovic, a fellow with the Washington-based think tank New America who is also an attorney and writer, called Gabbard a progressive fraud. Tulsi Gabbard is accusing female senators of anti-Catholic bigotry for (rightly) questioning a judicial nominee's membership in an extreme right-wing anti-choice anti-LGBT all-male organization, Filipovic wrote on Twitter. Gabbard is not a progressive, she's a fraud. Gabbard has also been criticized for her support of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. In 2017, the Washington Post labeled her Assads mouthpiece in Washington. Hollywood actor cut from ABC show for refusing to do sex scenes is glad he stuck by Christian values Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Actor Neal McDonough says he was blacklisted in Hollywood for several years because he refused to perform sex scenes. Known for his performances in Band of Brothers, Minority Report and Desperate Housewives, the Catholic actor recently opened up about his strong Christian convictions and said it cost him his job on ABCs Scoundrels series in 2010. It was a horrible situation for me, he told Closer Weekly of being fired for refusing to perform sex scenes with co-star Virginia Madsen. After that, I couldnt get a job because everybody thought I was this religious zealot. I am very religious. I put God and family first, and me second. Thats what I live by. It was hard for a few years. The Boston native has had a no sex scenes policy for most of his 30-year career and not even his stint in Desperate Housewives, a highly sexualized series, made him compromise his rule. When Marc Cherry signed me, I said, Im sure you know, but I wont kiss anybody, McDonough recalled telling the Desperate Housewives creator. He was like, But this is Desperate Housewives! I said, I know. He paused for about five seconds and said, All right, Im just going to have to write better. And we had a great time. McDonough and his wife of 16 years, South African model Ruve Robertson, have five children together. The loyal husband said he also refuses to kiss his co-stars because these lips are meant for one woman. Despite being fired from Scoundrels in 2010 for standing by his convictions, McDonough celebrated his decision. He said his career has been phenomenal ever since. Almost 20 years, five kids and just one heck of an awesome life later, to have her as my partner in everything, Im just the most blessed guy I know, the 57-year-old said. Thats why I go to church every day and say thank you to God for everything Hes given me. And most importantly, thank you for giving me Ruve, because, without her, I most certainly would not be talking with you right now. McDonough isn't the only actor whose spoken about being temporarily blacklisted in Hollywood for their religious or political beliefs. In an interview with The Christian Post last year, 30-year TV and film star Antonio Sabato Jr. said he's been barred from Hollywood because of his faith. "They don't want to say Jesus; they don't even want to mention His name. It's a shame! They need Jesus. I think Jesus needs to be more relevant to everyone in Hollywood," said Sabato who told CP he was shunned for being conservative and for supporting President Trump. "... if you talk about this president or being a conservative, you'll be blacklisted. I was completely blacklisted from Hollywood." Chris Pratt engaged; actor vows to 'live boldly in faith' with Katherine Schwarzenegger Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Actor Chris Pratt has announced his engagement to Katherine Schwarzenegger and said hes excited to live boldly in the faith with his future wife. On Monday, Pratt, 39, revealed on Instagram that Schwarzenegger, the 29-year-old daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger and journalist Maria Shriver, accepted his proposal. Sweet Katherine, so happy you said yes! Im thrilled to be marrying you. Proud to live boldly in faith with you. Here we go! he captioned with a diamond ring emoji. Pratt also posted about the engagement on Twitter, suggesting they were sharing the news early. Ideally we'd have kept this secret for as long as, he tweeted to his 6.6 million followers along with a link to his announcement on Instagram. The "Jurassic World" world star and Schwarzenegger began dating earlier last year, and in December, Pratt said he was thrilled God put her in his life. For Schwarzeneggers birthday, Pratt gifted the lifestyle blogger a wooden frame of Jesus with 1 Timothy 1:14 on the inscription: Grace mixed with faith and love poured over me and into me. And all because of Jesus, the frame read. The pair, who met through Schwarzeneggers mother, are both professing Christians. Although raised Catholic, Schwarzenegger has regularly attended Hillsong Church with Pratt over the last few months. She often shares inspiring quotes on Twitter and recently retweeted Pastor Chad Veach: 1 Corinthians 13: "Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about ones achievements nor inflate its own importance." Meanwhile, the actor, who is currently embarking on a 21-day combination of fasting and prayer inspired by the Bible, regularly uses his platform to share his faith. When accepting the Generation Award at the MTV Movie & TV Awards, he shared nine points of advice, including Christian guidance. "God is real. God loves you. God wants the best for you. Believe that. I do," he said. Pratt told the AP that he feels compelled to share his faith so publicly because of the current state of the world, as well as "what I'm feeling called to do right now." "That kind of a message, it might not be for everybody. But there is a group of people for whom that message is designed," he said. "And nothing fills my soul more than to think that maybe some kid watching that would say, 'Hey, I've been thinking about that. I've been thinking about praying. Let me try that out.'" Pratt finalized his divorce from ex-wife actress Anna Faris in October 2018. They were married for nine years and share together their 6-year-old son, Jack. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had discussed a safe zone which Turkey would set up inside Syria along the length of their border, during a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump, which he described as positive. "The safe zone issue, including a safe zone along Turkeys borders that will be formed by us - an issue that I have brought up since the Obama era - was reiterated by him as 20 miles," Erdogan told members of his AK Party in parliament. The Turkish leader also said that he and Trump had agreed to improve economic ties during their phone call. "Turkey will continue to do what it has to in order to solve this issue in line with the spirit of its alliance, so long as our rights and laws are respected. We reached a historic understanding with Trump last night," Reuters cited Erdogan as saying. Southwest Baptist U launches external evaluation to ensure 'theological integrity is intact' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Southwest Baptist University in Missouri is launching an external peer assessment committee to lead the institution through evaluation and discussion of orthodoxy to ensure that its theological integrity is intact following the firing of a theologically conservative professor. In a statement posted to the university's website, Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar announced the commission of an independent committee that will lead a universitywide dialogue regarding faith and learning. Included within this assessment will be deeper conversations and evaluations regarding orthodoxy, the statement from the four-year private university reads. The commission will be led by David Dockery, the president of evangelical Indiana-based Trinity International University and former president of Union University in Tennessee. We welcome the committees assessment as an integral process to better articulate who we are and to effectively provide a Christian higher education while remaining loyal to our Baptist heritage, the statement explains. We believe that the result will be an SBU that is even more firmly grounded in the core values that have defined us since our inception. The announcement of the review comes just weeks after Clint Bass, a tenured professor in the universitys Redford College of Theology and Ministry, was dismissed with cause on Nov. 28, 2018, after he voiced concerns about the theological views of other faculty members that SBU President Eric Turner claimed was based on hearsay from students and unfounded. Bass also questioned the doctrinal stability of the theology school as it pertains to the beliefs of the Baptist Faith and Message and Missouri Baptist Convention. In a statement provided to The Christian Post through a university spokesperson Thursday night, SBU explained that it originally planned to have conversations on faith and orthodoxy starting in the tall 2019. However, those plans changed after Bass dismissal. Since an employee was given Notice of Dismissal in late November for conduct violating the universitys Faculty Handbook, public discussions have mischaracterized the theological views and stances of certain SBU faculty and the university, which has caused us to move up our timeline, the statement reads. In an effort to ensure that the universitys theological integrity is intact, we have commissioned the peer assessment committee chaired by David Dockery. Bass firing drew a strong backlash from SBU students, who launched a Change.org petition calling for Bass reinstatement. The petition was supported by over 1,300 people and includes letters of support from professors from other theology schools around the nation. Tom Nettles, senior professor of historical theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, wrote in a letter of support for Bass that a close investigation of the doctrinal stance of some other [SBU] professors would be fitting. Bass departure even drew criticism from SBU alumnus and senior fellow in Christian ethics at the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Andrew Walker. Walker suggested that there were serious questions about SBUs actions and that Missouri Baptists should be vigilant about what doctrine is being taught by Redford faculty. SBU says it has been working on a strategic plan for the future of the institution and assures that SBU is and always should remain a Christ-centered community. We believe that the result of this dialogue will be an SBU that is even more firmly grounded in the core values that have defined us since our inception in 1878, the statement concluded. In the schools original statement on the assessment, SBU asserts that it has a history of strong spirit of cooperation and support among Missouri Baptists. The biblical worldview and perspective we provide at SBU matters, the university states. Today, we are as committed to a higher education through this Christian worldview as we were at our founding in 1878. We are confident that these biblical values will continue to serve as a strong foundation for the university. The university, which has an enrollment of about 1,400 undergraduate students, has said it will share additional details on the assessment at some point in January. Episcopal Church head Michael Curry punishes NY bishop who wont allow gay marriage in diocese Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The head of The Episcopal Church has issued a partial restriction on the ministry of a New York bishop who recently refused to allow same-sex wedding ceremonies at his diocese. Bishop William Love of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany released a pastoral letter last year stating his refusal to follow a recently passed resolution mandating that all regional bodies in The Episcopal Church perform same-sex marriages. A spokesperson for The Episcopal Church directed The Christian Post to a statement released Friday by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, who supports same-sex marriage and leads the mainline Protestant denomination. During the period of this restriction, Bishop Love, acting individually, or as Bishop Diocesan, or in any other capacity, is forbidden from participating in any manner in the Churchs disciplinary process in the Diocese of Albany in any matter regarding any member of the clergy that involves the issue of same-sex marriage, said Curry. Nor shall he participate in any other matter that has or may have the effect of penalizing in any way any member of the clergy or laity or worshipping congregation of his diocese for their participation in the arrangements for or participation in a same-sex marriage in his diocese or elsewhere. Curry said the restriction will take effect immediately and will remain until the issues surrounding the potential canonical offense of Love's actions is resolved. In the meantime, I or my successor, should this matter continue after my term, shall review the continued necessity of this restriction from time to time and amend or lift it as appropriate, added Curry. Last year, The Episcopal Church General Convention passed Resolution B012, which allows congregations to perform same-sex weddings even in dioceses where leadership objects. The new policy took effect on Dec. 2. While the new resolution still gives clergy the right to refuse to perform same-sex weddings, bishops who oppose same-sex marriage rites must call on another bishop who does not oppose such unions to provide pastoral support for the couple and a clergy for the ceremony. Love took issue with Resolution B012, officially stating in a pastoral letter released last year that the same-sex marriage rites approved "shall not be used anywhere in the Diocese of Albany by diocesan clergy (canonically resident or licensed)." "Jesus is calling the Church to follow His example. He is calling the Church to have the courage to speak His Truth in love about homosexual behavior even though it isn't politically correct," wrote Love. "Sexual relations between two men or two women was never part of God's plan and is a distortion of His design in creation and as such is to be avoided. To engage in sexual intimacy outside of marriage between a man and women, is against God's will and therefore sinful and needs to be repented of, NOT encouraged or told it is OK." Love also said that he believes both his denomination and overall Western society "have been hijacked by the 'Gay Rights Agenda,'" and that pro-LGBT Episcopalians have been "received into believing a lie that has been planted in the Church by the 'great deceiver' Satan." College Campus Ministries leader offers 6 necessary changes for reaching the next generation' Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A director for a California-based ministry that seeks to evangelize college students offered six important adjustments he believes American churches should undertake when reaching young people. GJoe Joseph of Campus Outreach San Diego out of Redeemer Church in Encinitas, wrote a column published by The Gospel Coalition titled 6 Needed Shifts for Reaching the Next Generation. By no means are we proposing that we shift away from clear biblical teaching on important truths such as our legal guilt before God, clarified Joseph. We are merely saying that shifting intuitions may require new starting places in evangelistic conversations and discipleship relationships. The first shift Joseph advised was to move away from the assumption that a preachers audience is going to be knowledgeable about the Bible. At least on the West Coast, the days have long past when one could start talking about Jesus and assume people knew his identity and claims, wrote Joseph. To justify this point, Joseph pointed to Acts 17, where the Apostle Paul used different methods when communicating the Gospel to non-Jewish audiences. The apostle Paul, who was quick to jump into the message of Jesus with Jewish audiences, shifted his approach when speaking to the unprepared Athenians, Joseph explained. Unlike his typical messages laden with Old Testament references and Jewish assumptions, he was patient, contemplative, and slow with unprepared audiences. Joseph also advised evangelists to shift to emphasize shame before guilt, a dialogue-oriented form of discipleship, winsome boldness, to shift from apologetics to hospitality, and to create a developmental approach to ministry. Ministering to younger generations demands that we disciple the whole person for all of life. In the past, much discipleship started in the spiritual realm, wrote Joseph. But upcoming generations need mentoring that helps to press Christianity into practical areas like finances, relationships, faith and work, and countless others. Read the rest here. Campus Outreachs stated mission is to seek to see college students called to Christ, changed by the gospel and compelled to go out into the harvest fields all round them. We exist to come alongside Christ in His raising up of Christ-centered leaders from the campus through the Church for the renewal of our city and beyond, explained the group. In a column published by The Christian Post last September, Dare 2 Share Ministries International founder and president Greg Stier offered seven ways to help strengthen youth ministries. These included making intercessory prayer a priority, training teens to practice relational evangelism, have a clear vision, have leaders who model good values, focus on making and multiplying disciples rather than just making converts, program true priorities, and properly measure progress. Your youth ministry priorities are either empty platitudes or true priorities depending on whether or not they get programmed. For instance, if you spend more time in announcements than actual prayer during youth group, is prayer a true priority? If you push all of your outreach efforts into a monthly or quarterly outreach meeting, is it a real priority? wrote Stier. We must relentlessly program our priorities. We must put intercessory prayer, leadership development, evangelism training and disciple multiplication strategies into our programs and onto our calendars. If we don't, we are only fooling ourselves. Last summer Stephanie Lobdell, co-lead pastor at Mountain Home Church of the Nazarene in Idaho, started a sermon series on the forgotten characters of Scripture. One of the subjects she wanted to cover was Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, who was raped by a Hivite prince. Her sexual assault ultimately spurred her brothers to massacre the royals people (Gen. 34). Lobdells co-pastor and husband, Tommy, was apprehensive about her decision to broach Dinahs story. He said, Why are you preaching about rape? Its such a vile topic. Its such a sensitive area. Why are you taking that risk? said Lobdell. He felt anxious, like, Whats going to happen when we open this door? But Lobdell was beginning to feel burdened by sermons in which womens suffering was a little side note to what pastors really want to talk about. It was one of those subtle promptings of the Holy Spirit: Heres ... You have reached the end of this Article Preview You have reached the end of this Article Preview To continue reading, subscribe to Christianity Today magazine. Subscribers have full digital access to CT Pastors articles. 1 Slightly fewer young adults are dropping out of church after high school, but those who do have more serious reasons for leaving than a decade ago. In a 2017 LifeWay Research survey released today, 66 percent of Americans between 23 and 30 years old said they stopped attending church on a regular basis for at least a year after turning 18, compared to 70 percent in 2007. Most young churchgoers skip out on Sundays at some point amid their transition to going to college, moving away from home, or starting their first jobs. LifeWay has found that historically about two-thirds of dropouts return to services once they get older. But these days, young Christians are more likely to cite weightier political and spiritual concerns as pushing them away from the church, with 70 percent listing such beliefs as a reason for their departure in 2017 compared to about half (52%) 10 years before. Moving for college remains the top reason young people stop attending church in both surveys, which are based on ... 1 "In Christ, we are never alone in an ultimate and enduring sense, and that is great news to the lonely." Image: via Pixabay/Free-Photos This years theme will be Preoccupied with Love and will feature key leaders today such as CJ Rhodes, Alan Hirsch, Colin Smith, Trillia Newbell, Jenny Yang, James Choung, Sam Owusu, and more. R. York Moore, National Evangelist for Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, will be talking about A Gospel for the Lonely. Below, I speak with York about his thoughts on evangelism today. This coming summer we will be hosting the Amplify North American Evangelism Conference from June 25-26 at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL. Amplify has become the largest evangelism conference in North America and one that I am proud to host.This years theme will be Preoccupied with Love and will feature key leaders today such as CJ Rhodes, Alan Hirsch, Colin Smith, Trillia Newbell, Jenny Yang, James Choung, Sam Owusu, and more. R. York Moore, National Evangelist for Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, will be talking about A Gospel for the Lonely. Below, I speak with York about his thoughts on evangelism today. Ed: Its hard to deny that we are living in challenging times culturally. The churchs influence is fading, and we are struggling to find answers to some hard questions. Whats your take on the health of the church today, especially as it relates to our witness? York: Whats hard is that witness as a category itself seems to be disappearing. I find myself struggling with pastors and lay leaders in their understanding and acceptance of our role as witnesses. I feel that the church growth movement of the 1990s into the 2000s did so many great things for the church. That era developed the category of leadership in the church, created new standards of excellence in worship and platforming, and changed modern-day preaching forever. At the same time, witness gravitated toward something lay people did by merely bringing others to church programs. The idea that an average, everyday Christian could simply explain the good news of Jesus to another person and call that person to a decision has all but disappeared in our churches. Many Christians need to be persuaded that personal witness is a good and dutiful part of their relationship with God. I believe we need a witness revolution, a basic conviction that the gospel is good news for those around us. Ed: Evangelism has especially fallen on hard times. It seems that everything elseeven good things like discipleshiphas overwhelmed our passion for sharing the love of Jesus with others. What does evangelism look like today and how can we begin to develop a passion for showing and sharing the love of Jesus on a daily basis? York: The challenge is that for most Americans, times are great. We sit and sip our $6 lattes and people-watch at our favorite coffee shop and what do we see? We see well-dressed people holding $900 cell phones giggling to the sounds of Michael Buble. Our Instagram feeds are full of young parents with happy kids eating organic snacks with the latest clothes. It is hard to feel that people are absolutely spiritually destitute and dangling over the very flames of hell. It doesnt seem like those around us have already been judged by a Holy God who has power to destroy the body and soul in hell when all we see is heaven on earth. Why rock the boat when life works for them and life works for us too? In North America, we suffer from abundance. Like anesthesia, abundance has numbed us to the reality of mortality and the eternal consequences of sin and Gods wrath. Motivating Christians to share their faith because people are in great need and danger has more than fallen out of fashion; it seems nonsensical. We are more motivated to share our faith or church programming because we want people to have better marriages, or to love their children better, or have financial peace. The reality is we need a megadose of hell, judgment, and wrath. These kinds of eschatological ideas need to find fresh expression in our language and practical theology. While the church growth movement sought to erase these categories in the pursuit of being seeker-friendly, the result has become an anaesthetized church to the real spiritual needs of their neighbors. Ed: You are a plenary speaker at our 2019 Amplify North American Evangelism Conference next summer, and you are talking about A Gospel for the Lonely. Tell me about what a gospel for the lonely looks like, and why it should matter to all of us. York: While most people in our world seem like they are having a great time, the reality is that loneliness and all the associated maladies like depression and suicidal thoughts are rampant. Our college campuses, as an example, are filled with tens of thousands of young, upwardly mobile, and intelligent adults who seem like they have everything going for them. At the same time, there is an epidemic of depression, anxiety, and suicide. There are entire departments on every major university tasked with dealing with these realities. Loneliness is all around us, hiding just underneath the veneer of a life well lived. While we have never been more connected in the history of humanity, loneliness is all around us. The great news of Jesus is that a God is with us. This phrase with us is replete throughout the Bible. God is with his people in their desert wandering, God is with Mary in her shame and alienation, and we are with Him in the end as the tabernacle of God is finally among mortals (Rev. 21:3). Before Christ ascended, he declared that he would be with us always, even to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). This idea of constant companionship is the singular aspect of my personal faith that has propelled me deeper and deeper with Jesus. Whenever Im tempted to forsake the faith, settle for mere Churchianity or just live a quiet religious life, it is Gods constant presence that calls me to the reality of being known and knowing. The gospel is good news because it restores our humanity, calling us deeper into relationship with God and others. We are restored to who we have been made to be as we are known and as we knowthese realities are a critical contour of the gospel and the only real, enduring way that we can be freed from the oppression of loneliness and the despair that comes with it. I have struggled with loneliness my entire life, which is why I crumbled into tears at the altar on my wedding day when the pastor marrying us turned and said to me, York, from this day forward, you will never be alone. What I have in a spouse is a temporary but powerful picture. My marriage combats loneliness in a small way, but it reminds me that God is with me and that I am with God. In Christ, we are never alone in an ultimate and enduring sense, and that is great news to the lonely. Let me shed a little light on the situation with Wheaton College and Ryan Bomberger. Image: via Wikimedia/Canva A tempest has arisen in the teacup that is the conservative blogosphere. Let me try to shed a little light in the midst of the heat. Last month, black pro-life activist Ryan Bomberger spoke on the Wheaton campus about abortion and race. A link to his speech is below, but what is not seen in the video is a question-and-answer session in which Bomberger made comments that several students found objectionable, and said so publicly. Bomberger took exception to their objections and said so publicly. The blogosphere has taken it from there. Pro-Life As I said, let me try to shed some light. First, Wheaton College is doctrinally pro-life. Thats correctlife from conception is in our community covenant. Faculty and students agree that we will, uphold the God-given worth of human beings, from conception to death, as the unique image-bearers of God (Gen. 1:27; Psalm 8:3-8; 139:13-16). Wheaton has demonstrated its commitment to this deeply-held value. It was Wheaton College that sued the Obama administration over the HHS contraceptive mandate. And we won. That lawsuit came from our pro-life commitments. Forbes reported: We are grateful to God that the court recognized Wheatons religious identity and protected our ability to affirm the sanctity of human life, said Philip Ryken, president of Wheaton College. You cant teach or go to school here if you dont affirm life, from conception forward. So any Wheaton College is not pro-life comments (as Ive seen in some places on the Internet) are simply false. Black Lives Matter Second, I believe black lives matter. People can go ahead and take my statement out of context. Im fine with that. And, not only do I believe black lives matter, but I think it is unhelpful to say all lives matter in response. Obviously all lives matter, but there are some in the African American community who wonder if the rest of the world believes their lives matter. So, let me say it again: black lives matter. Let me also say, unborn lives matter. (Ever notice that people dont snap back, All lives matter to that?) Now, Black Lives Matter, the organization, is quite another story. Some of its stated values are quite contrary to many values an evangelical would hold. Ive posted many articles here at The Exchange that point out that reality. Unborn Black Lives Matter It is irrefutably true that the African American community has been disproportionately impacted by abortion. Tens of thousands of unborn black lives have been lost to the tragedy of abortion. Thats the primary message Bomberger brought to Wheatons campus and the reason I am writing this article. Ive watched his presentation and share many of his concerns. Furthermore, he has a compelling life story that powerfully undergirds his message he was conceived in rape, adopted, and now is a black pro-life activist. I imagine that wed get along quite well and we share some similar values. In fact, Bomberger spoke at the Chicago March for Life this year, an event where I spoke last year. However, after his presentation on the Wheaton campus, reports say he and several students disagreed concerning how to best respond to some issues concerning race, not abortion. I dont know what they discussed beyond that, but students were bothered by his answers. They communicated their concerns to their student government leaders, and those leaders communicated the concerns in an email to the student body. Actually, our student newspaper wrote about the incident: Wheatons student body president, who played a key role in drafting the school-wide email, said Bomberger went from political disagreement into a place of a racially-aggressive speech that left students crying and feeling really unheard their question wasnt really addressed in a respectful manner. Bomberger affirmed that students were upset, but denied that anyone had cried. The student body president wasnt there, but was representing what she was told by students who attended. I wasnt there either. But, clearly Bomberger knows that some folks were upset with his post-talk answers, and wrote (and wrote) about it in several on-line forums, including LifeNews, The Christian Post, Town Hall, and LifeSite News, with the title, I went to Wheaton to talk abortion. The student govt flipped out. Other conservative sites then ran news stories based on his columns. Some joined the outrage, believing that anything bad about a Christian institution must be true, while others actually had the integrity to report facts. Silenced? Bomberger said some wanted to silence the message and smear the messenger, yet the video of the talk is available online and Bomberger himself has encouraged people to watch it. (How is a video silenced if its on the Internet?) Of course, Ive seen this before when I worked at LifeWay. People would say, LifeWay banned my book, so buy my book to show them! Obviously, books (and videos) are not banned or silenced when they are readily available elsewhere, but I get how this works. Bomberger also indicated in his columns that he wanted a Matthew-sort of conflict resolution approach to all this, but thats not how public dialogue and disagreement works. Matthew 18 applies when you think Ive sinned. If Ive disagreed with you (even in a manner that you find questionable), thats called public disagreement. Disagreement is part of public dialogue. If Ive sinned against you, call me. No one sinned against Bomberger. Some students disagreed with him. If disagreement is unsafe, then Wheaton is unsafe. If you dont like people challenging your ideas when you are intentionally provocative, this is not the place to come and speak. Wheaton Im glad that I work in a pro-life place that cares deeply that people of color are valued. And, this is also my community now, and I will defend it when needed. This argument between Bomberger and some of our student leaders is just thata conversation and disagreement between Bomberger and students. Furthermore, student leaders did not smear Bomberger. They disagreed with him and shared their perception and concern with fellow students. As the elected leaders of the student body, they represented their peers concerns. Some staff members worked with them at the students request, and the students sent out an email voicing their concerns. Again, the students sent their ideas in response to Bombergers post-video comments, so using the video as a means to undermine the students claims does not address the issue. These students objected to some of what he said after the talk, contrary to what you may have read in some places around the web. You see, we debate ideas here at Wheaton, and our students felt that some of Bombergers comments after the talk were unhelpful and dismissive, not about abortion, but about other issues of concern to them. Honestly, I would not have used the charged word safe that the students used in that email, but it does convey the kind of place we want Wheaton to bea safe place to debate ideas and a safe place for people of color. The Real Issue The issue in this story is not about whether pro-life messages are welcome on campus. It would be against our community covenant to promote views that undermine our commitment that life begins at conception. But, when you speak provocatively, you open yourself up to criticism. When you speak out, it can have a jarring effect on the recipients of the message, and sometimes people dont like what you said or how you said it. You see, Wheaton is a safe place for differing ideas, but it may not be a comfortable place for speakers with untested or confusingly-articulated ideas. We sometimes disagree. We debate. Thats what we do in a college setting. But, and this is key, when youve built your reputation as a speaker who says things in provocative ways like Bomberger has (and, at times, like I have as well), you cant run to the press with a story saying someone is trying to silence and smear you when, in reality, three college kids pushed back in an email to their peers. Its not silencing, and its not about abortion. Its disagreement. Some college kids disagreed with Bomberger. It is what it is. Read part 2 of the series here. Ed Stetzer holds the Billy Graham Distinguished Chair of Church, Mission, and Evangelism at Wheaton College, serves as Dean of the School of Mission, Ministry, and Leadership at Wheaton College, is executive director of the Billy Graham Center, and publishes church leadership resources through Mission Group. New Florida Bill Will Require Public High Schools to Offer Classes on the Bible and Religion Share Tweet Florida state legislators recently introduced a new bill that will require the school districts to offer classes on religion and the Bible in public high schools. House Bill 195 was filed by Florida House Democrat Kimberly Daniel last week and requires each school district to offer specified courses relating to religion, Hebrew Scriptures, and the Bible to certain students as elective courses, WFTV 9 reports. Some of the suggested classes include a course on "Hebrew Scriptures and Old Testament of the Bible; a course on the New Testament of the Bible; and a course on the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament of the Bible, and the New Testament of the Bible." Along with the study of the Bible, the bill states that a brief meditation period will also be allotted for students. The bill stresses that teachers teaching these courses will be required to approach the subject in an objective matter as to adhere to state and federal regulations, stating that all teachers must maintain religious neutrality and accommodating the diverse religious views, traditions, and perspectives of all students in the school. A course offered pursuant to this section may not endorse, favor, or promote or disfavor or show hostility toward a particular religion, religious perspective, or nonreligious faith. The act, which will serve as an amendment to Floridas 1003.45, F.S. law, will take effect July 1, the bill states. Photo courtesy: Pixabay An Ohio University Changes 23 Restrooms across Campus to 'All-Gender' Facilities Share Tweet An Ohio public university has converted 23 restrooms into all-gender bathrooms. Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio also instilled a new policy last month allowing people to use whatever bathroom facility they deem they need to use on the campus. The change, which complies with the universitys discrimination policy, allows individuals to use the restroom that corresponds to their sex, gender identity, and/or gender expression, their website stated. In some instances, a designated all-gender restroom may contain multiple stalls, the webpage reads. For those who do not wish to use an all-gender single stall or all-gender multi-stall restroom, there will be gendered restrooms located in every building, it continued. Wright State Universitys Chief Diversity Officer Matthew L. Boaz wrote in a letter to the campus that the changes to their restroom policies further the schools mission of diversity, inclusion, and accessibility. By providing greater access to restroom facilities, we strive to create safer and more accessible spaces for people with children of a different gender, people with disabilities who need assistance in the restroom from someone of a different gender, and people who identify as transgender and nonbinary, he continued. Meanwhile, critics of gender-neutral bathrooms say policies like Wright States violate the privacy rights of others, especially women. One student even posted a complaint about the change on Twitter writing, Cant even use the bathroom because all the bathrooms at wright state are gender neutral now and theres men and urinals in all the bathrooms. Wright State University responded, informing the student that not all of the bathrooms have been changed and that she needed to "go up or down a flight of stairs" to find a gendered bathroom she was comfortable with. The Christian Post reports that a 2017 report from the Family Research Council found 21 incidents of men assaulting or violating womens privacy in public bathrooms. Photo courtesy: Unsplash University lets people use bathrooms 'they deem they need to use,' opens 23 'all-gender' facilities Christian Post Contributor | 15 January, 2019 by Samuel Smith A public university in Ohio is letting people use whatever bathroom facility "they deem they need to use" in order to create a more "inclusive environment" and has also converted nearly two dozen restrooms into "all-gender" bathrooms. Wright State University in Dayton has granted "universal access," allowing "individuals to use the restroom that corresponds to their sex, gender identity, and/or gender expression" in order to comply with the university's discrimination policy and its interpretation of Title IX law. The university's Office of LGBTQA Affairs lays out protections for trans-identified people in a web page titled "Trans at Wright State." On the page, the office states that the university strives to support and value all members of the campus community. To that end, it says that providing "safe, accessible, and convenient restroom facilities" is "one aspect of creating an inclusive environment." The university also notes that some people experience "difficulty, inconvenience, and a lack of safety" when trying to use a gender-specific bathroom. It also states that transgender individuals can be "subject to harassment or violence when using men's or women's restrooms." "We allow people to use the restroom facility they deem they need to use," the webpage explains. According to an online resource from the pro-LGBT organization GLESN that was linked to by the university website, gender expression is defined as "the multiple ways (e.g., behaviors, dress) in which a person may choose to communicate gender to oneself and/or to others." The Christian Post reached out to Wright State for clarification on its "universal access" policy. A response is pending. The university website also explains that 23 restrooms in different buildings across the campus were converted to "all-gender" bathrooms as part of the university's "All-Gender Restroom Expansion Project." The bathrooms were all converted by Dec. 19. Read more from "University lets people use bathrooms 'they deem they need to use,' opens 23 'all-gender' facilities" on The Christian Post. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country would set up a security zone in northern Syria as suggested by US President Donald Trump as both leaders sought to ease growing tensions, Al Jazeera reports. Addressing his deputies on Tuesday, Erdogan said he held a "quite positive" telephone conversation with Trump late on Monday where he reaffirmed "a 20-mile [32-km] security zone along the Syrian border ... will be set up by us". Erdogan said he viewed the planned security zone in Syria positively and added its range may be extended further. The president added he and Trump reached "a historic understanding" during the phone call, but Erdogan didn't elaborate. Trump confirmed the idea of establishing a zone around the border in a tweet earlier, referring to the proposed area as a "safe zone". Two churches that prayed for 88 days for the safe return of 13-year-old Jayme Closs who was kidnapped from her Barron, Wisconsin, home where her parents were murdered, celebrated the power of prayer and faith on Sunday after the teen was reunited with her family. "I tingle because I have been praying for her since it happened, I don't know the family personally but it's just wonderful," said Larry Leff, a member of St. Peter Catholic Church in Cameron where Jayme's religious education classes and her parents' funeral were held. Parishioners at St. Joseph Church in Barron, along with others at St. Peter Catholic Church, reportedly prayed unceasingly for Closs' return home after she went missing on Oct. 15 and her parents were found shot dead in the family home, NBC News reported. As these churches prayed and authorities searched for the teenager, she suddenly appeared from the woods near Gordon, Wisconsin, and asked a woman walking her dog for help. The teenager said she had been held captive in a nearby cabin but finally escaped. Jake T. Patterson, 21, the man accused of holding Closs against her will, was expected to be charged with kidnapping and two counts of first-degree intentional homicide on Monday. "I think all of our prayers is what brought her home," St. Peter member Geri Schoenecker told NBC 15. "It was a full house at St. Peter Catholic Church in Cameron as members were celebrating Jayme's safe return. Our prayers have been answered and God is good," said church member JoAnn Trowbridge. "Thank you is all I can say because I think God got sick of us nagging Him so He answered our prayers." Closs was released from a Duluth hospital and returned to the home of her aunt, Jennifer Smith, who has shared photos of the teenager on a Facebook page called "Healing for Jayme Closs." Smith reportedly attends St. Joseph Church but she and her family were not present on Sunday. Many parishioners at both churches readily pointed out how they saw the hand of God in Closs' return. "I think the thing that's outstanding to me is the lady that she went to was a child protection worker," Margaret Sailor, a St. Peters member since 1974, told the Star Tribune. "I just think that the Holy Spirit was instrumental to guiding these people to be there at the right time." Juan Valadez, who worked with Closs' father, James Closs, at Jennie-O Turkey Store for at least a decade, told the Tribune that the attack on the Closs family had been devastating for those who knew them and expressed that it was a "great feeling" to have the teen back. "I've asked people, 'Do you believe in miracles?' They say 'yes,' and I say, 'Well, we just had one today,'" said Valadez, who sat at the back of St. Joseph with his wife and daughter on Sunday. Closs' cousin, Lindsey Smith, whose mother is currently caring for her, as well as two of her aunts, Sue Allard and Lynn Closs, told "CBS This Morning" that even though they never gave up hope that she would be found, they are still in shock like much of the country. "I still feel a little in shock. I just want to go over there, every day to my mom's house and see Jayme. It's amazing to see her home," Smith said. Smith explained that the attack on Closs' parents as well as her kidnapping had broken her mother's heart. Now that the girl has been found, however, it has been a source of hope for her mother. "My mom, her heart has been just broken since Jayme was gone," Smith said. "And now I told her, I said, 'I get my mom back. You are happy again. You are. It's just the best thing I've ever seen.'" The family is now surrounding the teenager with as much love as they can to ensure she is safe. They recorded her parents' funeral for her and she still hasn't grieved their deaths yet. "Making sure she's safe. She feels safe. She's doing pretty well. I spent the afternoon there yesterday. We had her smiling, laughing, going through things in her room," Allard told CBS. The family told NBC that they have not yet talked about the time she was missing but will do so whenever she is ready. "When she's ready to talk she will. But we haven't asked her anything yet," Allard said. For the last two nights, they said, Closs has slept in bed with her aunt, Jennifer, her dog and Jennifer's dog, Allard said. "My sister meant the world to me and I wasn't giving up. We were going to find her daughter because her daughter meant the world to her mom and dad," Allard added. Courtesy of The Christian Post Recent reports suggest Meghan Markle is having a hard time adjusting to her royal life. Despite being all smiles at engagements, the Duchess of Sussex is allegedly struggling behind the scenes with the surge in media attention and tabloid culture that has engulfed her relationship with Prince Harry and his family including Kate Middleton, who she is allegedly feuding with. The jury is still out on whether Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle are actually in a fight. And, some suggest they have managed to get along in the midst of their husbands quarrels. However, thats the least of Meghan Markles worries, as her father and siblings continue to cause drama in her new royal life and the growing media attention has forced her to make a change to her living situation for the sake of her family. With all that she has experienced in the first eight months as an official member of the royal family, could Meghan Markle have regrets about marrying Prince Harry? Find out, ahead. Meghan Markles royal life On the outside, the Duchess of Sussex seems to have it made. She went from Hollywood actress to duchess married to an actual prince! in just a couple of years and has seemingly never looked back. However, recent news about her struggle to adapt to royal life suggests otherwise. Meghan Markle gave up everything to marry Prince Harry. Her home, her career, and even one of her dogs were all sacrificed for her to move to the United Kingdom and marry into the royal family. And, while she had some training to help prepare her for the wave of media attention, she likely never thought joining the royal family would be this hard especially since Kate Middleton did not experience similar issues. While Meghan Markle most-likely doesnt regret marrying Prince Harry (have you seen the way they look at each other?!), she probably wishes their situation could be different. Prince Harry has even expressed his own wish for a normal life. However, as members of the monarchy, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex cant really do anything about their stardom and the attention that comes with it. Media attention The biggest difference between Meghan Markles old life and new life has a lot to do with media attention. Not only does she now receive a different kind of press, but she can no longer control the stories about her. Most celebrities take to social media or talk shows to put rumors to rest, but royal family life does not allow that. Some royal experts say that because the duchess has lost her voice, and has to depend on the royal familys official communications secretary to put rumors to rest, she is having a harder time coping with the storm of rumors out there. They liken the situation to Princess Diana, who also experienced some media-related misery in her early years as a royal. A new home With a baby on the way, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle recently backed out of their original plans to move into the main living quarters in Kensington Palace. Instead, they will move to the countryside (in Windsor) and raise their baby outside of the hustle and bustle of the city and royal life. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex want their son or daughter to grow up with a sense of normalcy and moving away from The Crowns headquarters is their best option at the moment. Family separation According to some rumored reports, the main source of Prince Harry and Prince Williams alleged feud stems from the Duke of Sussex wanting a different kind of royal life. He hopes that as his brother grows into his role as British heir and then king, he and Meghan Markle can separate themselves from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with different royal responsibilities and roles. If thats the case and Prince William agrees to it Prince Harry and Meghan Markle could carve out their own version of the royal family, but likely wont include their son or daughter in the business. As previously mentioned, the duke and duchess want their baby to have a normal life, so they will likely encourage different, non-royal career paths. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! At first glance, Keanu Reeves seems to have it all. Many talented actors only dream of attaining Reeves level of fame and fortune, the fruits of labor of an acting career that has spanned three decades. Although his agent thought he should change his name when he first started acting, Reeves has been very successful using the name his mother gave him. The Canadian actor has 97 credits in his IMDB filmography, including one rumored project and seven that havent been released yet. Reeves successful career has paid well, too, making the star one of the richest actors in Hollywood. Looks can be deceiving, though. The story of Reeves personal life is heartrendingly sad. Beginning at the age of 3, Reeves has endured one tragedy after another. Keanu Reeves father walked out on his family Reeves was born in Beirut, Lebanon to showgirl and costume designer Patricia Taylor and geologist Samuel Reeves. When Reeves was just 3 years old, Samuel walked out on the family. A single mother, Patricia moved the family around a lot during Reeves childhood, raising him in Hawaii, Australia, New York, and Canada. Reeves attended four high schools by the time he dropped out when he was 17 years old. He credits his struggles with dyslexia for making his education a bigger challenge than it is for most people. River Phoenix was Keanu Reeves best friend Actor River Phoenix was considered to be one of the most gifted actors of his time. His work in films like Stand by Me and Rivers Edge were universally praised by critics. Phoenix and Reeves met on the film I Love You to Death and quickly became best friends. When Reeves saw the script for My Own Private Idaho, he knew Phoenix was perfect for the role. In December 1989, Reeves rode more than 1,000 miles on his motorcycle to hand deliver the films treatment to Phoenix and persuade him to take the role. It was during the filming of My Own Private Idaho that Phoenix developed a drug addiction that would later claim his life. In 1993, Phoenix died of a drug overdose outside of the famed celebrity hotspot, Viper Room, when he was 23 years old. The actor reportedly took a lethal combination of cocaine, heroin, and Valium. Reeves was also 23 years old at the time. The death of Keanu Reeves daughter and girlfriend Just five years after the death of his best friend, Reeves met David Lynchs assistant, Jennifer Syme, in 1998. The pair fell instantly in love, according to Reeves, and conceived a child one year later. On December 24, 1999, while Reeves was filming The Matrix, Ava Archer Symes-Reeves, was stillborn. The grief of losing a child understandably strained their relationship and the couple broke up a few weeks later. Unfortunately, the tragic story doesnt end there. A year and a half later, Syme was on her way back to a party at Marilyn Mansons home when she was killed in a car accident. She was only 28 years old at the time of her death on April 2, 2001. Reeves addressed his never-ending grief in a 2006 interview. Grief changes shape, but it never ends, Reeves told Parade. People have a misconception that you can deal with it and say, Its gone, and Im better. Theyre wrong. When the people you love are gone, youre alone. Reeves has cited the deaths of Ava and Symes as the reason he avoids serious relationships and having children. Tragedy hasnt made Keanu Reeves bitter Reeves life story is unarguably sad, but it is also inspiring. Any one of the above events is enough to make almost anyone bitter, but Reeves seems to have only gained more compassion and empathy along the way. Despite all of the pain and misfortune he has endured, Reeves has become just as well known for his random acts of kindness as he is for his movies. Although Reeves doesnt like to talk about his painful past, he does tend to portray characters who have endured similar hardships in life. In John Wick, Reeves character is an assassin who is motivated by the loss of his wife and dog. Reeves told The Telegraph that Wicks grief allowed him to connect with the character. For me, it was Johns grief that made it personal, says Reeves. It was strong enough to make him want to unearth his past. I thought of it not as revenge but as reclaiming. Future Ready Institutes in Hamilton County Schools will send teen representatives from their programs to be trained as student ambassadors this Friday at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to help them share their experiences. The training is scheduled for Friday from 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. in the Chattanooga Room at UTCs University Center. The training will involve 100 representatives from the 20 Future Ready Institutes in Hamilton County Schools.Word of mouth is the most effective way to communicate the benefits of Future Ready Institutes, and when students in the programs share their story, the message can make a significant impact on others who will benefit from the Future Ready Institute experience, said Blake Freeman, director of Future Ready Institutes in Hamilton County Schools.We look forward to our students participating in this training so they will be able to effectively share their great experiences regarding how Future Ready Institutes are preparing them for future success.Each of the 20 Future Ready Institutes in Hamilton County Schools will send five students chosen through an application and interview process to the training. The National Career Academy Coalition will lead the sessions focused on the role of the ambassador, understanding Future Ready Institutes, and effective communication. Students participating in the one-day session will receive a National Career Academy Coalition Student Brand Ambassador Certification.Applications for students to enroll in a Future Ready Institute will open on Feb. 1. A Future Ready Institute information night will be held at the Unum downtown location on Feb. 19 from 5-7 p.m. All 20 Future Ready Institutes will be at Unum to share information about programs available. Individual schools will also hold events at the home schools during the registration period to showcase their programs and answer parent and student questions."Future Ready Institutes provide students with a unique learning environment that tailors their education to career-themed subjects," officials said. "Each institute has its unique curriculum with career teachers working hand-in-hand with academic subject teachers to make learning meaningful for each participant. Participants also have opportunities for college credits and industry-based certifications. The goal of Future Ready Institutes is to help high school students jump-start their college education, collaborate with local business professionals and work toward a future career."Future Ready Institutes include:Brainerd HighThe Institute of Law, First Responders, and Forensic ScienceThe Institute of AviationCentral HighThe Institute of Advanced Manufacturing and MechatronicsEast Hamilton Middle/HighThe Bryan College Institute of Marketing and BusinessThe Tinker, Innovate and Engineer InstituteEast Ridge HighThe Institute of Building and DesignHixson HighThe Institute of Advanced Agriculture, Food, Natural Resources and TechnologyThe Institute of Health Careers and Medical AdvancementThe Institute of Future Business Leaders and OwnersThe Howard SchoolErlanger Institute for Healthcare and InnovationThe Institute of Hospitality and Tourism ManagementLookout Valley Middle/HighThe Institute of Digital Media ProductionOoltewah HighInternational BaccalaureateThe Institute of Architecture and EngineeringRed Bank HighThe Institute of Engineering and Computer ScienceSequoyah HighThe Institute of Industrial ManufacturingSignal Mountain Middle/HighInternational Baccalaureate World SchoolSoddy Daisy HighThe Institute of Media and EntrepreneurshipTyner AcademyThe EPB Institute of Technology and NetworkingThe University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Institute of Teaching and Learning The Southeastern Cave Conservancy, Inc. has received a donation of more than 2,300 acres on Lookout Mountain from an anonymous donor, as well as additional acreage from the Georgia-Alabama Land Trust, Inc. Together, the donated property constitutes most of the failed development called the Preserve at Rising Fawn, located at Johnsons Crook in Dade County, Ga. The property includes more than 30 known caves, stands of hardwood trees in a stunning landscape, and a diverse ecological environment supporting wildlife of all kinds, officials said. The donated land will be named the Charles B. Henson Preserve at Johnsons Crook, honoring the memory of Chuck Henson, a long-time caver and benefactor to the Conservancy. His recognition of the risks of development to the fragile systems of Johnsons Crook and the opportunity for conservation began the efforts to protect the land and make the preserve a reality. For over six years, Georgia-Alabama Land Trust worked to protect many parcels in the failed development as they became available, through the acquisition of land and through conservation easements. It now holds a permanent conservation easement on all of the land in the Henson Preserve. The Land Trust's Johnson's Crook Project was accomplished through private and corporate donations, and support from foundations such as the Open Space Institute's Northwest Georgia Land Protection Fund. Open Space Institute's Northwest Georgia Land Protection Fund is made possible with funding from the Lyndhurst Foundation and the Benwood Foundation. The Northwest Georgia Land Protection Fund seeks to build capacity of land trusts working to protect ecologically significant landscapes in northwest Georgia. "I can't tell you how thrilled I am that this project all came together," said Katherine Eddins, executive director of the Georgia-Alabama Land Trust. "The importance of preserving Johnson's Crook first came to my attention 15 years ago, and it has been gratifying to see land once slated for development preserved in its natural state." "The partnership with the Land Trust has made it possible for this natural resource to be protected and enjoyed forever by cavers, hikers, and other outdoor enthusiasts," said Ray Knott, executive director of SCCi. "The Conservancy wants the Henson Preserve to be an asset to Dade County and the North Georgia community." The Conservancy will work with community partners to develop a master plan for the Henson Preserve. "Conserving this amount of land comes with a lot of responsibility and cost. Stewardship, trails, and basic recreation structures can be costly. We will need the input and support of many partners to make the Henson Preserve a North Georgia destination," stated Mr. Knott. The Southeastern Cave Conservancy, Inc. (SCCi) protects more than 170 caves on 4,500 acres in six southeastern states. The Georgia-Alabama Land Trust, Inc. is a nonprofit conservation organization that actively works to protect and steward land. They are the largest land trust that services the Southeastern region of the United States. Chattanooga Preparatory School (Chattanooga Prep) announces an upcoming event, "Speak Like a King. I am the Dream." "Speak Like a King. I am the Dream." will be a showcase of Prepster talent as the young men will honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through visual and performance arts. The event is slated for Monday, Jan. 21 at the Bessie Smith Cultural Center beginning at 10:30 am. The event will be free and open to the community, giving Chattanooga residents the opportunity to learn more about the new charter and the venue. The Bessie is proud to host such talented young men as they honor Dr. Martin Luther King, states Paula Wilkes, president of Bessie Smith Cultural Center. We are looking forward to seeing what great work the students have accomplished with this project and to hear what they have learned in the process. The happening is the result of an on-going conversation between Chattanooga Preps Dean of Faculty and Students Chatoris Jones and Chattanooga orator Vincent Ivan Phipps of Communication VIP. The two connected to discuss how their entities could establish a partnership and found that they both wanted to provide Prepsters with an "unforgettable experience that would help them grow as leaders while developing their artistic flair." We always strive to create teachable moments for our boys, said Mr. Jones. But, we dont want every moment to feel like your standard lesson. Speak Like a King gives us and the boys the opportunity to create those moments in a fun, new way. Prepsters have spent the weeks leading up to the event participating in workshops to help them prepare. Several community leaders and volunteers stepped up to help run the workshops and ensure that Prepsters have all they need to be successful on the 21st. "Speak Like a King. I am the Dream." kicks off the charters event calendar for the 2019 year. Chattanooga Prep will also host the 2nd Annual WODanooga fitness fundraiser on Saturday, Jan. 26 at the Downtown YMCA and the first ever Sentinel Smoke-Off barbecue event on Saturday, Sept. 14 at the First Tennessee Pavilion, among other things. For more information about Chattanooga Prep, contact the schools Development Office at 423-468-4105. I would like to start by commenting that I wish the American people would read more. If citizens would actually read the reports that come out of the Trump administration, and specifically from the DOJ and DHS, they would realize that a wall at the southern border would be a colossal waste of taxpayers dollars. Dont get me wrong, I am all for secure borders, but a wall is not the way to go. For example, according to DHSs own account, the majority of terrorists coming across our borders are coming mainly through airports and the northern border. Amazingly, the majority of illegal immigration in this country is not even from the southern border. It comes from the overstay of visas, issued legally through embassies around the world. Well, what about the transport of drugs across the border? Drugs in this country come across the southern border through legal ports. They are smuggled in cars and trucks, we have all seen the images. Moreover, the dangerous opioid Fentanyl comes through shipping ports from China or from over prescription and the pushing of these drugs from big Pharma (who actually developed these drugs and advertised them as not addictive!). If drugs come across the southern border undetected, it is more often than not through a tunnel 70 feet below ground of which ICE has discovered over 170 of these since 1990, one just recently. So, again, a wall will not fix this. Now dont take my word, read the administrations own reports. Well what about the caravan? Ok, what about it? Presenting oneself at a legal entry point on the southern border is completely legal by law and international law, to which our country signed onto many years ago. The overwhelming vast majority of people who present at the southern border are asking for asylum, again completely legal. The problem arises when these persons present, but our government has decreased the number of allowed asylum seekers by a pen stroke, has reduced the number of judges who hear these cases at the border, and have held the ones who do get in for an indefinite amount of time, something the Obama administration was taken to court over. But what are the facts? Did you know migrants to our southern border are at a 45-year low? Of the total number of immigrants who enter our country every day, the southern border is a small percentage of that total, and has been declining. The question becomes what kind of country do we want to give our children: one where diversity is valued, compassion is the model and immigrants are given a chance? Or a country where we all live behind walls, empathy is not a value we encourage, and immigrants are harassed, threatened, bullied and sometimes shot because they look different than white America? Are we a nation of courage or fear? But what about criminals from the southern border? Did you know that immigrants who are released into our nation commit crimes at a lower rate than native born citizens? Did you know that immigrants who are released will return for all court dates at a rate of 92 percent? The fact is crime is committed in this country daily, many times violent crime. The question becomes are we going to spend billions of dollars on a wall to catch an extremely small number of criminals? The concept of diminishing returns comes to mind. Yes, all crime is bad, but the amount of money for a southern wall will not stop the crime. After all, I dont think the promise was American taxpayers would pay for the wall. There are many other, better and more effective ways to achieve security - key word, security. And lastly, declaring a state of emergency to get a wall? Again, please read one of the myriad of books published about how a democracy slides into a dictatorship. Such an action shortcuts the Constitution, gives the presidency extraordinary powers without oversight, would put our military on the southern border over a crisis that really doesnt exist, and take money away from Americans hurting from devastating hurricanes, fires, and numerous disasters My question, is when will our country start thinking again? Reading? Ferreting out the facts from the rhetoric? Making policy based on some sense of research or fact? But what do I know, Im just a mathematician; one of those elites like other researchers or scientists who apparently have no place in this administration. Last time I heard the elites vilified was out of the mouth of a dictator by the name of Putin. Tracey Purdue Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss on January 23 coordination of efforts in light of the planned withdrawal of the US troops from Syria, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters on Tuesday, UrduPoint reported. "On Wednesday, January 23, our president will make a one-day visit to Moscow in order to coordinate actions with Russian colleagues in light of the withdrawal of US troops from Syria," Kalin said. People's Artist of Azerbaijan Emin Agalarov (EMIN) starts his U.S. tour. The artist will perform in New York on January 26, the concert in Miami is scheduled for January 30, in Los Angeles - on February 2. The concert in Canada's Toronto will be held on January 29. Earlier, EMIN announced his collaboration with German DJ Robin Schulz. "The big world premiere is scheduled for the first day of my concert in New York - January 26. We will start the U.S. concert tour with the release of my new album and single," Trend cited Emin as saying. Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze has congratulated Nikol Pashinyan on his re-election as Armenian Prime Minister, the Armenian governments press office reported. "I am confident that friendly Armenia ruled by Pashinyan will manage to implement successfully progressive reforms, which will contribute to further development and stability," ARKA cited Bakhtadze as saying. The Georgian PM expressed hope that friendship between Georgia and Armenia will be deepening and strengthening in the future. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia launched an investigation into an attempted murder and illegal purchase and storage of firearms after a man was shot on Melikishvili Street in Tbilisi, InterPressNews reported. InterPressNews was reported by the Internal Affairs Ministry that the investigation is in progress under Article 19-108 and 236 of the Criminal Code of Georgia, involving an attempted murder and illegal purchase and storage of firearms. Reportedly, a man was shot by unidentified persons while he was driving a car. The man continued driving and crashed into a vehicle parked nearby the Philharmonic Concert Hall. The driver left his car and ran away. Peru's cement market expands 4% in 2018 ICR Newsroom By 15 January 2019 Cement consumption in Peru increased 5.8 per cent YoY to 1.02Mt in December 2018, according to the latest data from Perus cement association, Asocem. Cement production remained largely stable in December 2018 at 906,000t, up 0.9 per cent YoY and 0.6 per cent MoM. Clinker output rose 2.1 per cent YoY to 913,000t and 6.9 per cent MoM from 855,000t. Domestic production was supplemented by 136,800t of cement imports, up 49 per cent YoY while clinker imports edged up by three per cent to 44,000t. The country's cement producers exported 18,800t of cement in December 2018, some 51 per cent less than in December 2017. Clinker exports rose by 10 per cent to 67,100t over the same period. Sector advances in 2018 In 2018 Peruvian cement demand advanced 3.7 per cent YoY to 11.244Mt from 10.845Mt in 2017. Most of this demand was met by domestic production of 10.049Mt (+0.7 per cent YoY), but around 0.982Mt of cement was imported, up 60 per cent YoY. Clinker imports saw a 49 per cent rise to 0.784Mt in 2018 when compared to 2017. Cement was mainly imported from Vietnam, which accounted for 85 per cent of total cement imports, with smaller volumes supplied by China (nine per cent share) and Mexico (three per cent). In terms of clinker, South Korea was the main importer, accounting for about a third of the clinker imports, closely followed by Vietnam (31 per cent). Ecuador was the point of origin for around 19 per cent of clinker imports and Japan supplied equivalent to 17 per cent of the total. Cement producers exported 1265,800t of cement in December 2018, representing a 26 per cent drop when compared to December 2017. Clinker exports surged 63 per cent YoY to 896,900t in 2018. Published under Kenya's cement consumption drops by 15% in 9M18 15 January 2019 Kenya is stuck in a spiral decline of cement demand with sales continuing to plumit in the first 9M18. According to official data the country's cement consumption fell by 113,096t to 4.13Mt in the first 9M18, compared to 4.24Mt in the first 9M17. Narendra Raval, chairman of Devki Cement group, said: "Cement sales are down 15 per cent." There are various reasons for the decline including a wave of countrywide demolitions that have discouraged new investment. "The main reason is people are scared of continuing with development due to the demotions of buildings. Structures that were approved by other governments 20 years ago have been demolished," added Mr Ravi. Despite these developments, Devki Group which operates National Cement Co Ltd Kenya, promoter of the Simba brand of cement, signed a contract with Sinoma Energy Conservation Ltd this week for US$25.13m. Published under The 10th Gaidar Forum opens in Moscow in the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA). Scientists, officials, social activists, politicians, and businessmen from various countries will gather at the Academy. This year, the forum is called Russia and the World: National Development Goals and Global Trends. Ivan Fedotov, the Director of the Russian Innovative Regions Association, the vice-rector of RANEPA, the head of the Gaidar Forum, told Vestnik Kavkaza about the event. - Why is the forum called Russia and the World: National Development Goals and Global Trends? - The title was articulated by the chair of our organizational committee, the First Deputy Premier of Russia Anton Siluanov. We suggested other titles at the organizational council as well. However, key discussions will touch on implementation of Presidents May Decree. So we decided to leave it at that. - How do you interpret such a broach theme? - We believe national goals of Russia cant be formulated out of global goals. Thats why we have so many foreigners at the forum. All things we discuss about national projects we will discuss within global trends in spheres of healthcare, education, demography, and so on. - Do you expect guests from the South Caucasus? - Of course we do. We have more than 800 guests from foreign countries, including post-Soviet republics. For example, we welcome our colleagues from the Academy of Public Administration of Azerbaijan. - After relations between Russia and the West worsened, has the entry list changed? - Each Gaidar Forum is held in the context of toughening sanctions against Russia and anti-Russian attacks in the West. However, each year, we see a growing number of foreign guests at the forum. The paradox can be explained. Firstly, Russia is very interested to a common sense expert community of foreign countries. Secondly, our forum is held at an academic institution, while academic institutions are not under sanctions. So, its easier to come to us than to forums held by the government. Thirdly, our forum has a certain reputation. Its a platform for meeting smart people who share their views freely. We have gained the reputation over 9 years. I hope we will go on moving forward. Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription, or activate your access, to continue reading. The 10th Gaidar Forum kicks off today in Moscow, at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Traditionally, it will bring together scientists, government officials, public and political figures, businessmen from different countries - those who by their advanced achievements influence the socio-economic development of regions and states. The rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Vladimir Mau, said that traditionally, since 2010, the Gaidar Forum has been held a week before the Davos Forum: This is the first discussion platform of the year, not only in our country but also in the world. As always, the common topic is Russia and the world. First Deputy Prime Minister Anton Siluanov suggested entitling the current Gaidar Forum Russia and the World: national development goals and global trends. To a large extent, the discussion will revolve around the goals set for the next 5-6 years." According to Mau, the Russian national goals, including those set out in the May Presidential Decree, fit into the global trends, the development trends of the global developed economies: "They are human capital, infrastructure, state efficiency, digitalization. Look at the program of any political party in a western country and you will see the same words and tasks, of course, adjusted to the national specifics. " According to Vladimir Mau, about 900 foreign participants will take part in the forum: Despite all the political difficulties, we have a lot of working politicians. Usually, they are former prime ministers and ministers. This time, Singapores deputy prime minister and Italian Finance Minister, the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation of France, the Chairman of the Finnish Parliament and a number of other colleagues will participate in the discussions. More acting politicians appear. Photo: Google Street View Police in Calgary have arrested a Catholic priest who is accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a church more than six years ago. Investigators say the woman told them last October about assaults at St. Mark Roman Catholic Church in the city's northeast between September and October 2012. The woman alleged she had been sexually touched without consent on several occasions by a priest. A 62-year-old man was taken into custody on Friday. Malcolm Joe D'Souza is charged with one count of sexual assault. He is to make his next court appearance on Feb. 21. Do you have an athlete in mind that contributes to the team or sport, holds sportsmanship and team spirit, has epic playmaker moments and/or in general makes the the sports fun? If yes, please make your nominations for our edition of Athlete Spotlight. CLICK TO NOMINATE Every Jan. 20, Azerbaijan remembers the martyrdom of more than 130 Azerbaijani citizens killed by the Soviet troops in 1990. Korean Times reports in its article Azerbaijan remembers martyrs from 1990 Black January that the bloody crackdown, ordered by then Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev, eventually led to Azerbaijan's declaration of independence on Oct. 18, 1991, and is therefore viewed as "the rebirth" of the Azerbaijan Republic. The country declared its first independence in May 1918, after the Russian Empire collapsed. Marking the 29th anniversary of "Black January," the Azerbaijan Embassy in Korea last week described the event as "the obvious display of the ability of Azerbaijani people to reserve the longstanding historical heroism and to resist the cruel attacks for the sake of the freedom and independence of their motherland at the cost of losing their lives." "Their bravery made a vivid history in the chronicle of heroism of our country." More than 26,000 Soviet troops stormed Azerbaijan's capital of Baku on Jan. 20, 1990 and shot unarmed protesters. Over 130 people, including children, women and the elderly, were killed, around 800 people were wounded, 841 men were illegally arrested and five are still missing. The pretext was a massive popular uprising in Baku, calling for Azerbaijan's independence from the USSR. "The violence used by former Soviet Army aiming to destroy the martial spirit of the nation was out of proportion to the intention of freedom and independence," the embassy said. The extreme session of the Supreme Council of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) took place right after the massacre to evaluate the event. The session adopted the Decree of the Supreme Council of the Azerbaijani SSR "On cancellation of the state of emergency in Baku city," and also the appeals to the USSR Supreme Council, Supreme Councils of union republics, and the parliaments of all countries. "The operation conducted by Soviet troops was a distinct and harsh violation of the Final Act of Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) of 1975, Final Document of Viennese meeting of CSCE of 1989, Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict of 1974, Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989, acting conventions regulating waging of war, in particular, fourth Hague Convention about the rule and customs of land war of 1967." Gorbachev, widely credited with facilitating the communist bloc's disintegration, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, conceded in 1995, "The declaration of a state of emergency in Baku was the biggest mistake of my political career." The Azerbaijani people buried their martyrs in Mountain Park, the highest spot in Baku, which was later named Martyrs' Avenue. Since 1994, Jan. 20 has been commemorated as National Mourning Day. Martyrs' Avenue is a most sacred place for every Azerbaijani. Every year millions of Azerbaijanis visit Martyrs' Avenue and lay carnations on the graves. This ceremony begins in the early morning when the president and representatives of foreign missions lay wreaths at the eternal flame. OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi -- Salvetti's Italian Restaurant is no more. The longtime staple of the Ocean Springs restaurant scene closed it's doors last week for the final time, bringing to an end the Salvetti family's restaurant saga which began with the opening of the original restaurant in 1993. Salvetti's owner Shaleigh Salvetti confirmed the closing, saying that the restaurant was not performing as it had in the past. She had decided to put the business on the market, expecting it to take the typical 6-8 months to sell, but very quickly received an offer. "We had talked to Fred (building owner Fred Moran) about selling," Salvetti said. "Fred had already engaged in talks with the owners of RAW Oyster Bar (in Bay St. Louis) about moving into the old Manhattan Grill location across the street, but Fred told them I was looking to get out." A few days into the New Year, RAW owner Thomas Genin and others took a tour of Salvetti's Washington Avenue location, along with architect Henry Furr. "They came in for a few hours, looking around, had the architect look around, and they wanted it," Salvetti said. So last Monday, Salvetti announced on the restaurant's Facebook page it would be closing, permanently. "Trust me, I didn't want to shut it down as quickly as I did," she said, "because there are people who were loyal to us and kept coming in. I know there are people upset about it, but I had to do what was best for my family. "I'm still sad over the whole thing." The original Salvetti Brothers restaurant opened in the same Washington Avenue location in 1993, with Mike and Pat Salvetti sharing ownership and younger brother Danny coming down from their native Syracuse, N.Y., to help run the place. Enjoying tremendous success in those early years led to Mike and Pat securing a loan to build a $1 million facility on U.S. 90 on the east end of town, near the Lakeview subdivision. The new building opened in July 2001 and Salvetti's remained successful for the first few years, but by the mid 2000s had begun to struggle. In January 2007, Salvetti's shut down. Three years later, however, Danny and Shaleigh Salvetti (then married, now divorced) opened Salvetti's Italian Grill in a small location in what is now the Woody's Roadside building on U.S. 90. Again, they enjoyed success, to the point when the opportunity presented itself to move back to the original building, they jumped at the chance. The last incarnation of Salvetti's opened in 2015. RAW Oyster Bar opened it's Bay St. Louis location some 100 days ago, according to Genin, and expects to have the new Ocean Springs location open in about 60 days. "From the beginning, we envisioned bringing the RAW concept to Ocean Springs," Genin wrote on the business website. "We're excited about opening this second location in a facility that is perfectly suited for it." The restaurant will undergo a complete interior renovation, designed by Furr. A new addition will be an outdoor bar on the existing patio, where Bloody Marys and Mimosas will be served for bruch. According to the website, the Ocean Springs location will emphasize fresh seafood, with a 125-gallon lobster tank located behind the hostess station. Sushi, lobster, shrimp and both raw and baked oysters will be among the menu staples. RAW will also feature Grab-N-Go for customers to pick up a quick sushi lunch. Private dining for groups will also be available with a 50-seat dining room which opens into the patio to allow for groups as large as 100. * Username This is the name that will be used to identify you within the system. Choose wisely! * First name * Last name Your real name will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more! * Email Your e-mail address will be used to confirm your account. We won't share it with anyone else. * Password Create a password that only you will remember. If you forget it, you'll be able to recover it using your email address. remaining of Thank you for reading! This is your last free article before you will be asked to subscribe. Already have a paid subscription? Sign in Tashkent has embarked on a range of reforms to open itself up to the world, improve the business climate and boost its economy since Shavkat Mirziyoyev in 2016 succeeded Islam Karimov, who had ruled the country for almost three decades, as president, according to The Financial Times' article Uzbekistan turns to nuclear energy to power economy. The decision to build the first commercial nuclear reactor is the latest move to develop the Uzbek economy. The long-mooted project will involve Russian help that Mr Mirziyoyev has said provides a strong impulse for co-operation between the states. Kazakhstan, the worlds leading uranium producer, has been reluctant to launch new nuclear reactors because of public opposition as memories of the ecological harm from nuclear tests at the Semipalatinsk site in Soviet times remain strong. But Uzbekistan, itself the worlds seventh largest uranium producer, sees the nuclear project as a pass into the elite club of nuclear powers, according to Jurabek Mirzamakhmudov, head of Uzatom state nuclear agency, which was established in July to lead national nuclear development. We will be joining the club of countries with peaceful use of nuclear energy. That is an elite club. This is a whole new level, different type of relationships, new technologies, science and education development, he told the Financial Times. Stanislav Pritchin, head of Central Asia and Caucasus group at the Institute of Oriental Studies at Russias Academy of Sciences, said: This is a positive achievement and big success of Shavkat Mirziyoyev. It would make Uzbekistan the first country in the region using a nuclear power plant and will make it a leading producer of electricity. It adds to Uzbekistans prestige but certainly follows a rational approach. Uzbekistan needs electricity. It often experiences gas shortages, and the nuclear power station project solves this issue. To be a regional power and to attract investors, Uzbekistan needs stable electricity supply. Some 30 countries operated nuclear power plants as of the end of 2017; 20 had past or planned nuclear projects, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Uzatom and its strategic partner, Russias state nuclear agency, Rosatom plan to build two reactors of the latest generation, starting the first in 2022 and launching it in late 2028, with the second following 18 months later, according to Mr Mirzamakhmudov. The choice was made in favour of nuclear power given uranium availability and most importantly, economic benefits to the country. Today this is one of the cleanest, ecologically safest sources of power, as well as the cheapest one after hydropower, Mr Mirzamakhmudov said. Uzbekistans current reliance on coal, gas, oil and hydropower will not be enough to meet growing demand, even with plans to double hydropower capacity by 2030. Nuclear energy is expected to account for 15 per cent of the countrys power balance and ensure stable energy supply with expectations of power demand doubling by 2030, according to Uzatom. Uzbekistan was also taking steps to develop solar and wind energy, but would only rely on them for about 3 per cent of power generation in a decade as neither was a stable supply source, said Mr Mirzamakhmudov. The project is of strategic interest to both Russia and Uzbeks. It will help Uzbekistan generate economic growth. It will enable the Russians, who are providing financial backing, to re-establish themselves as the primary regional power in terms of security and economic muscle, according to Camilla Hagelund, principal analyst at UK-based risk consultancy, Verisk Maplecroft. Central Asia is often described as the soft underbelly of Russia. You have continued security issues in Afghanistan. Central Asia is like a buffer in-between that and a potential security threat in its own right, she said. Moreover, China had been growing influence in the region: There is a level of competition between Russia and China, and it is very important for Russia to continue to demonstrate that it is the primary regional power for Central Asia. In part, it is an element of a wider ambition to be a great power. If you are not important in your local neighbourhood, then that undermines in essence that youre a global power, she added. Mr Putin has expressed hopes for deeper economic and trade co-operation. Other large Russian companies, including giant gas producer Gazprom and the second-largest oil producer Lukoil already invest in Uzbekistans gas processing industry, and may look to increase their involvement. Uzbekistan has said it is open to co-operation with any investors be they Russian, Korean, Chinese, or others said Mr Mirzamakhmudov. If it chooses to export gas, its most likely buyer are Gazprom or neighbouring Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan, according to state officials and experts. On top of this, revenue also may come from planned electricity exports to neighbours, primarily Afghanistan, Mr Mirzamakhmudov added. Licensing the next generation of surface profilometer for in-process inspection January 15, 2019 Montreal, Quebec As the aerospace industry in Canada and around the world continues to increase its use of automated composite manufacturing techniques to produce large aircraft components, the industry is eager to find solutions to manufacture reliable, safe, and cost-effective composite structures. The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and Fives are working together to improve the efficiency of manufacturing composite parts. They are developing an advanced profilometer that will provide faster and more accurate part inspection. Based on an innovative optical technology, the advanced profilometer for composite placement shows considerable advantages over existing inspection technologies used for the same purposes. This groundbreaking in-process inspection technology will help manufacturers meet strict standards by providing superior measuring information without limiting the process functionality. These faster, better measurements will speed up manufacturing processes, reduce the risk of errors, and help composite manufacturers be more competitive. Fives has already started the last testing stage of the next-generation profilometer with customers and expects to begin commercializing the technology before the end of 2019. The NRC and Fives will continue to work together to advance this technology and bring innovative manufacturing solutions to the aerospace industry. About the National Research Council of Canada The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) is the Government of Canadas largest research organization. It is a key part of the Innovation and Skills Plan and of Budget 2018s commitment to supporting Canadas researchers to build a more innovative economy. To help position Canada as a global leader, the NRC is increasing its collaboration with regional ecosystems and with universities, polytechnic institutions and colleges, and establishing collaboration centres across the country. About Fives As an industrial engineering group with a heritage of over 200 years, Fives designs and supplies machines, process equipment and production lines for the worlds largest industrial players in various sectors such as steel, aerospace and special machining, aluminium, automotive and manufacturing industries, cement, energy, logistics and glass. The effectiveness of its R&D programs enables Fives to design forward-thinking solutions that anticipate industrials needs in terms of profitability, performance, quality, safety and respect for the environment. In 2017, Fives achieved a turnover of 1.9 billion and employed close to 8,700 people in about thirty countries. Become A Subscriber A subscription opens up access to all our online content, including: our interactive E-Edition, a full archive of modern stories, exclusive and expanded online offerings, photo galleries from Caledonian-Record journalists, video reports from our media partners, extensive international, national and regional reporting by the Associated Press, and a wide variety of feature content. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country would set up a security zone in northern Syria as suggested by US President Donald Trump as both leaders sought to ease growing tensions. As Al Jazeera writes in the article Erdogan: Turkey to set up 'security zone' in Syria, addressing his deputies on Tuesday, Erdogan said he held a "quite positive" telephone conversation with Trump late on Monday where he reaffirmed "a 20-mile [32-km] security zone along the Syrian border ... will be set up by us". Erdogan said he viewed the planned security zone in Syria positively and added its range may be extended further. The president added he and Trump reached "a historic understanding" during the phone call, but Erdogan didn't elaborate. Trump confirmed the idea of establishing a zone around the border in a tweet earlier, referring to the proposed area as a "safe zone". The phone conversation came amid heated discussions about a US decision to withdraw forces from Syria and rising tensions over the fate of the US-allied Kurdish fighters in the war-torn country. Bitter differences between Washington and Ankara over the Kurdish YPG militia had soured talks between the two NATO partners. Trump threatened on Twitter on Monday he would "devastate" Turkey's economy if its forces attacked the Kurdish fighters, who helped Washington in its fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (banned in Russia and other countries). Erdogan said he was saddened by Trump's tweet, but the phone call later in the day was positive. "Turkey will continue to do what it has to in order to solve this issue in line with the spirit of its alliance, so long as our rights and laws are respected," he said. Ankara considers the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and its political wing - the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) - to be "terrorist groups" with ties to the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey. For weeks, it has vowed to carry out military operations against the YPG and has condemned the US for its military relationship with the armed group. The Trump administration has defended its YPG alliance and made the Kurdish fighters' safety a pre-condition to the US troop withdrawal. Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency reported during the phone conversation the two leaders also discussed the need to complete a security plan for Syria's border town of Manbij to prevent a power vacuum once US forces pullout. Turkish and US troops began joint patrols in Manbij on November 1 as part of an agreement that focuses on the withdrawal of YPG fighters from the city to stabilise the region. Last month, Trump's withdrawal announcement surprised many politicians in Washington as well as Western and Kurdish allies fighting alongside the US against the ISIL group. Trump's decision was initially expected to be carried out swiftly, but the timetable became vague in the weeks following his announcement. Chinas Moon Explorer Posts Photo of Sprouting Cotton Plant By Runhua Zhao / Jan 15, 2019 12:44 PM / Environment Chinas moon explorer Change-4 sent back a photo on Tuesday and its of a plant. The picture is of a sprouting cotton plant in a part of the spacecraft sectioned off for experiments, CCTV reported. This is Change-4's first biological experiment on the surface of the moon, but the explorer has also brought potato seeds and fruit-fly eggs, so it shouldnt be its last. A Chang'e-5 explorer is also expected to land on the moon by late 2019. China also plans to launch Mars missions in 2020, China's State Council Information Office said this Monday. Related: China Makes Historic Touchdown on Moons Far Side Downtown Beijing to Open Duty-Free Shop for Inbound Visitors By Tang Ziyi / Jan 14, 2019 12:58 PM / Business & Tech Travelers walk past a Hotel Shilla Co. Shilla Duty Free store at Terminal 1 (T1) of Changi Airport in Singapore Want cheaper booze and cigarettes on that trip to Beijing? Youre in luck. The city is planning its first downtown duty-free shop for inbound visitors, as it sees an increasing number of foreign travelers, according to Beijing Business Today. Often located in airports, duty-free shops sell items to inbound or outbound travelers that are exempted from local taxes. Cao Pengcheng, deputy director of the Beijing municipal culture and tourism bureau, said state-run China Duty Free Group is in talks with Chaoyang district to fix a proper location for the shop. Cao said the facility will house more types of goods with a larger space. According to the report, inbound visitors to Beijing reached 1.93 million in the first half in 2018, up 3.4% compared to the same period the year before. Related: What a New Law Could Mean for Chinas Daigou US President Donald Trump has said that his trade and tariff policies have started working and many countries, including India, have opened up their markets for American poultry and agricultural products that were not allowed previously. Addressing the 100th annual convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation on Monday, he said, "India and Morocco have opened their markets to our poultry exports. We do so much for them, it's incredible. Japan opened its market to US exports of potatoes from Idaho and lamb from the great State of Texas." Also Read: India's first electric taxi service launched in Delhi-NCR He also said that under the Trump administration, the US is turning all of that around with fair trade deals that put American farmers, ranchers, and in fact put America first. "That's what I'm interested in, American first," he added. For the first time in a quarter of a century, Argentina recently opened its market for American pork exports, Trump said. "They (Argentina) needed something. I said you have to open it up to pork, and they said, okay. I said, why didn't you do it before? They said, nobody ever asked us. A lot of it is that. You would be amazed. Nobody ever asked us," the US President said. Similarly, he said that beef from the US has been shipped to Brazil for the first time since 2003. "They're going to have a great new leader. They say he's the Donald Trump of South America. Do you believe it," Trump told the cheering farmers. Asserting that the US has taken the toughest ever actions to confront China's unfair trade practices that hurt American farmers and ranchers, he said, "This includes China's theft of trade secrets from American agribusiness." He said he could not believe how complicated their business is with the seeds and the genetic farming. "It's incredible. People don't know this. But your secrets were being stolen by China and, in all fairness, other countries. We want a fair deal for American farmers removing China's arbitrary bans on agricultural imports, safeguarding our intellectual property, and providing fair market access to all American producers," the US President said. Trump said the US has also made history by finalising an agreement to replace the "horrible" North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with a brand-new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, called the USMCA. Alleging that the NAFTA was one of the worst trade deals ever made by a country, he said the new landmark trade deal will increase exports of wheat from Montana, dairy from Wisconsin, chicken from Georgia, and products from farmers and ranchers all across the country. "As part of the USMCA, Canada agreed to give fair treatment to the US wheat farmers. They will now grade American wheat just like they grade their own," he said. According to Trump, over the last 15 years, there has been a continual decline in the US' share of agricultural trade all throughout the world. "It's all going in the wrong direction. It's changing now. Wait till you see what happens. We do the right deal with China, you're talking about massive - and they're already back ordering, right? They're already back. I told them. I said you got to start ordering. You're going to order. They're going to order, and they're already started," he said. "We're turning all of that around with fair trade deals that put American farmers, ranchers, and in fact put America first. That's what I'm interested in, American first," the US President said. Also Read: Govt eMarketplace initiative to enable women entrepreneurs sell products on its platform Also Read: Mumbai locals to get visual indicator to warn that train is ready to move China on Monday firmly opposed transferring technology to Taiwan to make submarines, saying countries which have relations with Beijing should earnestly abide by the one-China principle and stop any form of military links with Taipei. Taiwan media last year reported that the US State Department had approved the transfer of technology that will allow Taiwan to produce its own submarines. There were reports that six foreign companies, including one from India, have already submitted design proposals for the submarines. Also Read: Many countries, including India, opened up their markets to US poultry, agricultural exports: Donald Trump Among the six companies, there are two from Europe, two from the US, as well as an Indian company and a Japanese firm offering designs for the submarines, the Taiwan News reported in October last year. According to the report, the designs would come up for approval by the Taiwanese government in March this year. The report did not give details of the six companies from these countries. Replying to a question from the official Chinese media here on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing that China is firmly opposed to any country selling arms to Taiwan. "China is firmly opposed to any country to have any military links with Taiwan. China is consistent and clear cut. The US and other countries fully recognise the sensitivity and the danger of this issue," she said. China claims that Taiwan which broke away in 1949 is part of the Chinese mainland and is opposed to any country having diplomatic contacts with Taipei. Hua said the countries which have relations with China should earnestly abide by the one-China principle and not to allow any enterprises to participate in the submarine programme of Taiwan and stop any form of military links with it. "They should prudently and properly handle Taiwan related issues thus avoiding harming of bilateral relations and peace stability across the Taiwan Straits," she said. Also Read: India's first electric taxi service launched in Delhi-NCR Also Read: Govt eMarketplace initiative to enable women entrepreneurs sell products on its platform Also Read: Mumbai locals to get visual indicator to warn that train is ready to move The Supreme Court on Monday allowed an NGO to make the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) a party in a plea seeking direction to messaging application WhatsApp for complying with data localisation norms with regard to its payment services. The plea filed by NGO Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change (CASC) said WhatsApp has not fully complied with the circular of the RBI which prescribed data localisation norms. The NGO has also sought direction to restrain the messaging platform from proceeding with its payment service unless it fully complies with the provisions of the RBI. A bench of Justices R F Nariman and Vineet Saran asked advocate Virag Gupta, appearing for the NGO, to file an application seeking to make RBI as a party to the plea in a week''s time. At the outset, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for the Centre said that RBI needs to be made as party in the petition as the issue pertains to data localisation. The bench also allowed the NGO to file an rejoinder affidavit within two weeks. In their counter-affidavits filed by WhatsApp and the Central government, they have stated a grievance officer for India has been appointed by the instant messaging service company. The NGO has referred IT (Intermediary) Rules of 2011 and IT (reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules 2011 wherein provision is made for appointment of grievance officer. The NGO further said in its affidavit that it will be a paradox if data localisation norms are prescribed in India but companies are allowed to keep data officers in USA. On August 27 last year, the top court had agreed to examine a plea alleging that WhatsApp does not comply with the Indian laws including the provision for appointing a grievance officer. WhatsApp reportedly has over 200 million users in India and almost one million people are "testing" its payments service. India is one of the largest bases for the Facebook-owned company that has over 1.5 billion users globally. In its plea, the CASC said that to open a bank account, a customer needs to comply with KYC norms laid down by the RBI and various other formalities. "WhatsApp is a foreign company with no office or servers in India. To run Payments Service in India, WhatsApp is obligated to have its office and payments in India. "Moreover, it is also required to have a Grievance Officer for users in India. Yet, it is being allowed to continue with its payments and other services, without any check," the plea claimed. The petition also alleged that the social media giant does not comply with tax and other laws of India, but its reach was such that it is used by everyone, be it a commoner or even the judges of the apex court. The plea, filed through advocate Virag Gupta, said that every user has a number on WhatsApp but the messaging platform has no number through which its user can contact it for any grievance redressal. Pointing to alleged cases of internet-based crimes, it claimed that the growth of such incidents was directly proportional to the growth of the user base of messaging services like WhatsApp. Also Read: How to send WhatsApp message to a person not on your phone contact list Despite the advancement in battery technologies, most mobile smartphones need to be charged at least once a day. Besides, they guzzle even more battery when connected to the internet, for which they are primarily being used nowadays. Many a times we wonder why our smartphones cant run for a week or even more without charging. Its very much possible, says Professor Navakanta Bhat, who heads the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE) at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru. Bhat and his team are now spearheading a project to miniaturise the chips used in ... By Humeyra PamukWASHINGTON (Reuters) - United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer did not see any progress made on structural issues during trade talks with China last week, Republican U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, who held a meeting with him, said on Tuesday.In his weekly conference call with reporters, Grassley said Lighthizer commented very positively in the Friday meeting on China's soybean purchases, which resumed in modest amounts last month after Washington and Beijing agreed to a 90-day truce in a trade war that has disrupted the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars of ... TOKYO (Reuters) - The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday denied former Nissan Motor Co Ltd Chairman Carlos Ghosn's request for release on bail after his indictment last week on two new charges, including for aggravated breach of trust.Ghosn awaits a lengthy criminal trial that could be as long as six months away, after his surprise arrest on Nov. 19.Last week, Ghosn was indicted for aggravated breach of trust for temporarily transferring personal investment losses to Nissan in 2008, and under-reporting his salary for three years through March 2018. He has denied the charges.It is rare in Japan ... By Noah BrowningLONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Tuesday amid supply cuts by producer club OPEC and Russia, although a darkening economic outlook may soon weigh on growth in fuel demand.Brent crude oil futures were at $59.47 per barrel at 0950 GMT, up 48 cents, or 0.81 percent, from their last close.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $50.92 per barrel, also up 0.81 percent, or 41 cents. "OPEC-led cuts and declining U.S. rig counts have bolstered market sentiment in the new year," Singapore-based brokerage Phillip Futures said.The Middle East-dominated Organization ... By Henning GloysteinSINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices rose by around 1 percent on Tuesday amid supply cuts led by producer club OPEC and Russia, although a darkening economic outlook may soon weigh on growth in fuel demand.International Brent crude oil futures were at $59.62 per barrel at 0740 GMT, up 63 cents, or 1.1 percent, from their last close.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $51.14 per barrel, up 63 cents, or 1.3 percent."OPEC-led cuts and declining U.S. rig counts have bolstered market sentiment in the New Year," Singapore-based brokerage Phillip Futures said on ... BERLIN (Reuters) - The German economy had a slightly positive statistical overhang at the end of 2018, meaning that it is carrying modest growth momentum into 2019, the statistics office said on Tuesday.German exports to China grew by nearly 10 percent from January to November in 2018 on the year while exports to Britain fell by 3.6 percent in the same period, the office said."The overall impact of Brexit on German economic growth is impossible to quantify," an official of the statistics office said during a news conference in Berlin. (Reporting by Michael Nienaber; editing by Thomas ... The French government is moving to dismiss Renault's scandal-hit Chairman and Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn and has requested a board meeting to consider candidates to replace him, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. France, Renault's biggest shareholder, had until now supported the company's decision to keep Ghosn in office while he awaits trial in Japan for alleged misconduct at Nissan, the French carmaker's alliance partner he also chaired until his dismissal in November. But the government, which commands a 15 per cent Renault stake and two board ... By Laurence Frost and Gilles GuillaumePARIS (Reuters) - The French government is moving to dismiss Renault's scandal-hit Chairman and Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn, and has requested a board meeting to consider candidates to replace him, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.Renault is set to convene a meeting of its nominations committee, followed by a full board session on Sunday Jan. 20, according to three people briefed on the process.France, Renault's biggest shareholder, had until now supported its decision to keep Ghosn in office while he awaits trial in Japan for alleged ... By Kenneth Li(Reuters) - Facebook Inc will invest $300 million over three years in local news globally as it faces blistering criticism over its role in the erosion of the news business worldwide.The investment in time and money is a significant expansion of a plan to help newsrooms in the U.S. and abroad create and sustain viable business models to survive, the company said on Tuesday.Unlike earlier investments in the news business, this latest round is distinguished by how it is not tied to Facebook-related products, recipients of the investments say. Earlier rounds of investments in the ... By Yereth RosenANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Regulators in the U.S. state of Alaska will investigate all of the oil and natural gas wells operated by BP Plc at its Prudhoe Bay oil field after the release of a small amount of crude oil and gas from a well that had earlier been shut.The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC) has scheduled a Feb. 7 hearing "to assess the mechanical integrity of Prudhoe Bay wells operated by BP Exploration (Alaska), Inc.," the agency said in a notice issued on Friday. Last month's leak occurred at one of 14 wells that BP had shut in 2017 following a ... Zimbabwe's police and military patrolled the streets of the capital, Harare, Tuesday as a helicopter fired tear gas at demonstrators blocking a road and burning tires on a second day of deadly protests after the government more than doubled the price of fuel in the economically shattered country. The streets of the capital were quiet by the evening as most residents stayed indoors to avoid violence. Eight people were killed Monday when police and military fired on crowds, according to Amnesty International. Another rights group said 26 people suffered gunshot wounds and that some were afraid to go to hospitals for fear of arrest or assault. Police and soldiers went door to door and barged into homes in Mabvuku and other Harare suburbs and assaulted people, according to Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and witnesses. Many males in Mabvuku went into hiding to avoid being beaten, said residents. The opposition MDC party said its headquarters was attacked. The anti-government demonstrations amounted to "terrorism," Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said on state television Tuesday night. The protests were "well coordinated," by Zimbabwe's opposition, she said. She urged people to return to work and said the government forces would guarantee their security. She also said the government intends to pay an allowance to government workers to cushion them from the effects of the fuel price rise. As Zimbabwe was rocked by the protests, President Emmerson Mnangagwa was in Russia and met President Vladimir Putin, to request loans and investment. This has been Zimbabwe's biggest unrest since deadly post-election violence in August. Witnesses also reported violence in the eastern city of Mutare, where people attacked passenger buses and destroyed some shops. Mutare was quiet by late Tuesday and there were reports of security forces going from home to home in that city and assaulting men suspected of participating in the protests. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp were disabled. Businesses and schools were shut down and public transport vehicles grounded in most of the country despite government assurances that security would be provided. The government over the weekend announced a price of USD 3.11 per liter (0.26 gallons) for diesel, and USD 3.33 per liter for gasoline. That makes gasoline in Zimbabwe the most expensive in the world, based on data from GlobalPetrolPrices.com. Lives were lost, police officers were injured, property was damaged and more than 200 people were arrested, said Owen Ncube, the state security minister. He blamed the main opposition MDC party and some civil society groups for stoking violence in an attempt to topple the government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took power after longtime leader Robert Mugabe was forced to resign in November 2017. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions had called for a three-day national shutdown to protest against the fuel price increase announced by Mnangagwa, who then left for Russia on a multi-nation trip to try to attract international investment and loans. He is set to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) / -- Xoriant, a Silicon Valley-headquartered product engineering, software development and technology services company, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT), a leading engineering college in Pune with A++ rating as per NAAC accreditation. (Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/449859/PRNE_Xoriant_Logo.jpg ) According to the MoU, Xoriant will develop Center of Excellences in digital technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, deep learning and data science for VIT. Xoriant aims to organize innovative sessions, set up labs with a training program curriculum by proficient technology experts for the faculty and students of VIT. In addition to co-creating content on new-age digital technologies, the MoU provides an opportunity for VIT to gain first-hand experience of use cases where these new technologies will be used to solve real-time business challenges. Students of VIT will gain internships, employment opportunities and will be able to do collaborative research on next-gen technologies at Xoriant. Mr. Rakesh Lagu, Vice President, Xoriant said, "One of the core values of Xoriant has been the passion for technology. We have invested heavily in leveraging cutting-edge technologies and upskilling talent for the digital age paradigm. This agreement is a step towards collaboration and strengthening our efforts for imparting high-class training and education to nurture the new talent. Xoriant aims to mentor students and select interns to work on new technologies, co-create innovative solutions to address business problems using AI, ML, DL and data science." Prof (Dr.) Rajesh Jalnekar, Director, VIT Pune said, "We have been associated with Xoriant for several years. Xoriant has a broad portfolio of clientele across industry verticals." Dr. Premanand Ghadekar, HoD of IT, VIT said, "With this joint venture, our faculty and students will get an exposure to work with industry professionals while demonstrating the application of IT in live business use cases. Thus, making our students an active contributor to innovative ideas much earlier in their career using the latest technologies."About XoriantXoriant is a Silicon Valley-headquartered product engineering, software development and technology services firm with offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia. For both technology companies and enterprises, from startups to the Fortune 100, we leverage our expertise in emerging technologies and our high-performing teams to deliver innovative solutions that accelerate time to market and keep our clients competitive. Across all our technology focus areas - Product Engineering, DevOps, Cloud, Infrastructure & Security, Big Data & Analytics, Data Management & Governance, Digital and IoT - every solution we develop benefits from our product engineering pedigree. For 25 years and counting, we have taken great pride in the long-lasting, deep relationships we have with our clients. Learn more at http://www.xoriant.com. About VIT Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune, a highly commendable private engineering institute, occupies a place of pride amongst the premier technical institutes of the western region of India. Established in the year 1983, VIT is financed and run by the Bansilal Ramnath Agrawal Charitable Trust, Pune. It is affiliated to the University of Pune. Within three decades, the institute marched towards the pinnacle of glory through its remarkable achievements and laurels in the field of engineering education of high caliber. The Institute is running 9 undergraduate, 8 postgraduate & 6 Ph.D. Programs which are affiliated to the University of Pune. Learn more at http://www.vit.edu. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath Tuesday said his government would consider all aspects before deciding on providing 10 per cent reservation to economically weaker sections (EWS). Gujarat on Monday became the first state in the country to implement 10 per cent reservation in jobs and education to the EWS in the general category. Talking to reporters here, Nath said the Madhya Pradesh government would take into consideration interests of all sections of the society before taking any decision to this effect. "We are thinking how to do it...will consider the interests of all sections of the society. We must see that nobody's interests are harmed...A delegation of OBC met me recently and said that reservation to them has been low considering their population," Nath said in response to a query on Gujarat implementing the EWS quota scheme. When asked about the alleged scam in allotment of e-tendering contracts under the BJP's watch, which was one of the poll planks of the Congress in the assembly elections, he said, "We are waiting for the report of the central agency in this regard. The state government has been waiting for this report since the past seven months. If it is delayed further, we have to suspect the Centre." Earlier, during his address at the launch of the state government's farm loan waiver scheme, Nath said he had talked to the top industrialists of the country about investments into Madhya Pradesh and would share the information related to it a month later. The chief minister added that he would keep sharing with the media his government's performance every month. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Army Chief Gen. Bipin Rawat on Tuesday warned Pakistan that India will not hesitate to carry out "strong action" against its inimical moves, asserting that the Army was giving enemies along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir a "befitting reply" and inflicting heavy losses. In his address at the Delhi Cantonment here on the occasion of Army Day, Gen. Rawat also said that efforts were on to maintain peace and tranquillity along the border with China, adding Army troops guarding the border will not allow any compromise on India's interests. Elaborating on the Army's modernisation plan, he said a major restructuring of the force is being initiated, besides induction of a range of missiles, tanks, and other weapons including M-777 and K9 howitzers. Both M-777 howitzers and K9 Vajra, which were inducted last year, were showcased at the Army Day parade. In his address, Gen. Rawat extensively talked about the situation in Jammu and Kashmir and said India's neighbour on the western border continues to support terror groups operating in the state. "Our forces are giving a befitting reply to our enemies along the Line of Control. They are suffering heavy losses. I am warning our enemy (across the LoC) that we will not hesitate in carrying out strong action against any inimical action," he said. "We are ensuring moral dominance along the border in Jammu and Kashmir and we will continue to do so," he assured. He said the Indian Army has ensured heavy damage to terrorists in the state. "Youths in Jammu and Kashmir are being terrorised and forced to take up arms... We do not want that people in J&K are disturbed. Our neighbouring country has a hand in these activities. Terrorists are being trained and given arms by our neighbouring country," the Army chief said in an obvious reference to Pakistan. Referring to the border with China, he said the armies of both India and China have issued new guidelines to their respective forces. "Efforts are on to maintain peace and tranquillity along the (eastern) border. But we will keep reviewing the situation. Our soldiers will not allow any compromise in guarding the border in the eastern sector," Gen. Rawat said, adding that the orders given by the government will be strictly followed. On the Northeast, he said the situation is peaceful in the region and the Army is carrying out regular anti-insurgency operations. He also urged Army personnel and their families to be careful in using social media which he said is being used for radicalisation. Referring to criticism of the Army's pyramidical structure, the Army chief said, "For us, the VIP is the jawan who faces the enemy along the LoC." Gen Rawat also talked about coordination with the Navy and the Air force. "We will achieve decisive victory along with the Navy and the Air Force in case of a war," he said. The Army, he asserted, was carrying out major restructuring and modernisation of the Army. "The security challenge facing the country will become more complex in the coming years. We will have to keep enhancing our combat prowess so that we can defeat our adversaries. I assure that we will keep the trust reposed on us by the people of the country," he said. On the issue of disability pension, Gen Rawat said he was focussing on removing disparities in disability pensions. He also awarded 15 Sena Medals (including five posthumously) for individual acts of gallantry. Every year Indian Army celebrates January 15 as Army Day to commemorate the day when General (later Field Marshal) K M Carriappa took over the command of Army from General Sir FRR Bucher, the last British Commander-in-Chief in 1949. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A member of a pioneering group of women who flew military planes in the United States during World War II has died. Millicent Young of Colorado Springs, a member of the Women's Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, died Saturday of complications related to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, her son Bill Young told The Gazette. She was 96. WASPs flew bombers and other warplanes to free up male pilots for combat service overseas. They served as civilian employees but were granted veteran status in 1977. Of the about 1,000 women chosen for the job, fewer than 30 are still believed to be alive, said Bill Young, who wrote a book about the program. "They opened so many doors for women," he said. Young, born near Lodgepole, Nebraska, dreamed of flying since she was 6 when a pilot landed at her family's farm and told her "Don't touch that plane, little girl", according to her family. She learned to fly at an airstrip in Ogallala, Nebraska, using money she earned growing wheat on land leased from neighbors. She told The Spokesman-Review in 2010 that she could drive a truck and a car by the time she was 10 and did not doubt she could qualify for the WASPs. She spent about a year at a female-only air base in Sweetwater, Texas, mainly flying an AT-6 Texan single-engine plane towing a target so male pilots could train for in-air combat. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) More than 3,000 leaders from across the world, including Swiss President Ueli Maurer, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will attend the high-profile WEF Annual Meeting next week to discuss how globalisation can work and to identify new models for peace, inclusiveness and sustainability. At the five-day jamboree of the global elite in the Swiss resort town Davos, beginning January 21, the top agenda would include climate change, inclusiveness and international governance, Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) said while announcing the programme. The theme of the meeting this year would be 'Globalisation 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution', said the WEF, which describes itself as an international organisation for public-private partnership. The meeting will be attended by more than 3,000 participants from over 110 countries and more than 65 heads of state/government and top international organisations. These would include leaders from business, government, civil society, academia, arts and culture and media. Over 100 participants from India are also expected to be present, including union ministers, chief ministers and CEOs. These include Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu. Earlier, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis were among registered participants, but their names do not figure in the latest list. The WEF said the meeting's purpose is to identify new models for peace, inclusiveness and sustainability to suit a world where further global integration is inevitable and where existing models of global governance struggle to foster concerted action among the world's powers. "This fourth wave of globalisation needs to be human-centred, inclusive and sustainable. We are entering a period of profound global instability brought on by the technological disruption of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the realignment of geo-economics and geopolitical forces," WEF's Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab said. "We need principals from all stakeholder groups in Davos to summon the imagination and commitment necessary to tackle it," he added. There would be more than 350 official sessions during the five-day event. These would include a global dialogue on geopolitics in a multi-conceptual world to enable candid and constructive discussion on how to drive future cooperation along with a global dialogue on peace, the WEF said. The sessions would also focus on future of the economy to better reflect the structural changes inherent in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and achieve sustainable growth and long-term societal well-being. Another global dialogue would focus on industry systems and technology policy to define the principles for new and emerging technologies to ensure that they are underpinned by a values-based framework. Besides, the annual summit would also tackle issues like environmental issues, cyber security, human capital and institutional reforms. Besides Maurer, Abe and Merkel, top political leaders taking part are Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro, China Vice-President Wang Qishan, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Italy Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Spain Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Iraq President Barham Salih, Afghanistan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and Austria Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Besides the top leaders from Colombia, Ethiopia, Ireland, Libya, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Palestine, Peru, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Viet Nam and Zimbabwe would also be present. Earlier, US President Donald Trump was also expected to attend the meeting, but he is unlikely to come due to the shutdown-related issues in his country. The leaders from international organisations would include UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, WTO chief Roberto Azevedo, OECD chief Angel Gurra, IMF chief Christine Lagarde and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The meeting will host over 900 civil society leaders including International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General Secretary Sharan Burrow, Oxfam International Executive Director Winnie Byanyima, Greenpeace International Executive Director Jennifer Morgan and Transparency International Chair Delia Ferreira Rubio. The co-chairs of the annual meeting are Microsoft's Indian-origin CEO Satya Nadella. In addition to a record participation from the public sector, the private sector will be represented by more than 1,700 leaders, the WEF said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior Congress leader and former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Tuesday described Sarbananda Sonowal as a "weak chief minister" who allegedly failed to provide a strong leadership when the state was going through trying times due to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. The bill, passed by the Lok Sabha on January 8, seeks to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslims who fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and entered India before December 31, 2014. Protests have erupted across Assam and a statewide "bandh", called by a number of organisations, was observed on January 8. "Sarbananda Sonowal is a weak chief minister. If he does not take a strong stand on the bill today, it is certain that the future of Assam will be dark. I feel if the chief minister remains weak at this time, it is very unfortunate for the people of Assam," Gogoi, who preceded Sonowal as the chief minister, said. "Sonowal has given only a weak leadership and for that, I believe, (Finance Minister) Himanta Biswa Sarma is the one who is the most responsible. And due to this, he (Sarma) is riding roughshod over the hopes and aspirations of the people of Assam, instead of supporting them," he told reporters here. Even after all this, if the chief minister did not wake up, people would realise that he was pretending not to understand their plight because of his self-interest, the Congress leader said, while taking part in the "Meji-burning" ritual of Bohagi or Magh Bihu, an agrarian festival of Assam. "All this time, he (Sonowal) had been sleeping... that is all right. But now he should wake up from his slumber and fulfil the promises he had made to the people of the state," he added. As the "Meji" structure, made of bamboo, hay, dried leaves and wood, was lit amid religious rituals, Gogoi said, "Today, I am praying in front of the Meji that god gives Sonowal good sense. We seek his good health and prosperity." On the Citizenship Bill, he said, "We will continue with our protests against the bill. We assure the people of Assam that the bill will not be implemented at any cost. We promise to oppose the bill till it is withdrawn. Let the Meji fire burn all the negativity along with it." Gogoi claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government could not get the bill passed in the Rajya Sabha because of the stand taken by the Congress. At the Magh Bihu function organised by the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee in Guwahati, state party president Ripun Bora also prayed before the Meji fire for the withdrawal of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and peace in Assam. Meanwhile, Sonowal extended his greetings to the people of the state on the occasion of Magh Bihu and offered prayers at the Meji-burning ceremony at his home constituency of Majuli. Recollecting his childhood memories of Bihu before the media, the chief minister said, "Being sons of farmers, all the three Bihus are very dear to us." Bihu is celebrated together by all people of Assam irrespective of religion, language, caste or ethnicity to cook and enjoy a meal together at the end of a good harvest. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "Whether we win or lose... we will not discriminate among people," Home Minister Rajnath Singh said Tuesday at a function organised by a Christian body during which he also made it clear that mass conversions need to be checked across the country. Singh said he supports freedom to follow any religion but was of the opinion that a debate is needed as mass conversion is a matter of concern for any country. He said as far as the government is concerned there will not be discrimination with anybody. "I have never discriminated on the basis of caste, creed and religion in my life. Whether or not we get votes. Whether or not we form the government, whether we win or lose. But we will never discriminate among people. This is what our prime minister feels," he said at the function organised by Rashtriya Isai Mahasangh. Singh said one cannot be in power and rule without love. "One can only rule with love. There is no other way," he added. "I would also say one thing on the Christian community. We do not want to level allegations against anybody. You may have also heard. If somebody wants to accept a religion, he should do that. There should not be any objection to it. But if mass conversion starts happening, large number of people start changing their religion, then it could be a matter of concern for any country," Singh said. He said in almost all countries, including Britain and America, minorities demand anti-conversion law. "Here (in India) I see majority demand that there should be an anti-conversion law. Then it is a matter of concern. It should not happen," Singh said. Citing a slogan in Sanskrit, the home minister said "we do not have allergy with anybody". "You want to enlighten people. This is your purpose right? 'Hum number badhane ke chakkar me kyon pade hain' (why are we for increasing the numbers?) Do we have to rule on somebody?" he asked. The programme was titled "Festival of Peace". Singh said there are attempts to create a sense of fear among people. "BJP aa gayi. Ab gadbad hoga, ye hoga wo hoga (BJP has come. Now this or that will happen). We do not want to run the country by instilling a sense of fear. We want to run this country with a sense of confidence (among people). Nobody should have a sense of alienation. This will be our efforts, he said, adding that "all are welcome in the country. Citing examples, Singh said there had been attempts to defame the NDA government. "Recently, stones were pelted at the churches. Some priests came and met me to demand security. I assured them all that those behind it will be punished. I also assured security to them. But it (stone pelting) started a month before the assembly elections and stopped a month after that. What would you say on that? Whose conspiracy is that," he asked. Singh said as far as the NDA government is concerned there will not be discrimination against anybody. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 32-year-old wanted gangster, who carried a reward of Rs 50,000 on his head, has been arrested from southwest Delhi's Dwarka, police said on Tuesday. Varun Bhardwaj alias Mannu is a resident of Uttam Nagar and was wanted in several criminal cases including murder, attempt to murder and those filed under the Arms Act, they said. On Monday, a trap was laid following a tip off, a senior police officer said. Bhardwaj was arrested near Pochanpur area, he said. With the arrest of Bhardwaj, police claimed to have averted a major gang war in the national capital. Bhardwaj's close friend Bijender was killed by a rival gang and he had pledged to take revenge. He planned to kill the rival gang's leader, the police said. During interrogation, the accused revealed that he had jumped parole in July, 2018 and fled to Rajasthan, they said. A country-made pistol and two live rounds were recovered from him, the police said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Vegetable oil imports rose by 11 per cent last month to over 12 lakh tonne, edible oil industry body SEA said Tuesday and predicted that a rise in inward shipments of refined palm oil on customs duty cut that could affect domestic farmers and refiners. "Import of vegetable oils (comprising edible and non-edible oils) during December 2018 is reported at 12,11,164 tonnes compared to 10,88,783 tonnes in December 2017...The overall import of vegetable oils during November to December 2018 is reported at 23,45,057 tonnes compared to 23,37,593 tonnes," Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) said in a statement. Edible oil imports fell to 22,19,147 tonne during November-December 2018 from 22,83,604 tonne in the corresponding period of the previous year, while import of non-edible oils rose to 1,25,910 tonne from 53,989 tonne. The edible oil marketing year runs from November to October. SEA said the government has reduced customs duty on crude palm oil imported from Malaysia to 40 per cent from 44 per cent, while that on refined palmolein to 45 per cent from 54 per cent. As a result, the duty difference between crude palm oil and refined palmolein has come down to 5 per cent from 10 per cent. "The reduction in the duty difference will encourage larger import of RBD Palmolein in coming months, detrimental to the interest of domestic oil palm cultivation and will also erode the competitiveness of domestic refiners," the association added. According to the SEA data, the import of refined oil (RBD Palmolein) decreased to 2,39,370 tonne during November-December 2018, compared to 2,54,286 tonne in corresponding period last year. Import of crude oil fell to 19,79,777 tonne, compared to 20,29,318 tonne during the same period last year. During November-December 2018, the import of palm oil (both crude and refined) increased to 15,03,527 tonne, against 14,39,825 tonne in the year-ago period. However, import of soft oils (soyabean, sunflower and rapeseed) decreased to 7,15,620 tonne from 8,43,779 tonne during the same period of last year. "The duty changes will promote Indian import demand for palm oil at the expense of soft oils. The preferential rate will put Malaysia in a position to gain market share from Indonesia," SEA said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US House Republican leaders delivered an extraordinary rebuke Monday to an Iowa congressman from their party over his recent remarks deemed as racist, with some calling for his resignation. Steve King, whose comments last week about white supremacy sparked bipartisan outrage, will be stripped of all committee assignments, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's office said. "Steve's remarks are beneath the dignity of the Party of Lincoln and the United States of America," McCarthy said. "His comments call into question whether he will treat all Americans equally, without regard for race and ethnicity." King, a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, is an opponent of illegal immigration and unabashed defender of white culture. In an interview last week with The New York Times, the 69-year-old asked how certain terms had become insulting or inappropriate. "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization -- how did that language become offensive?" said King in his latest in a long list of similar comments. The outcry was comprehensive, with the Senate's lone black Republican, Tim Scott, delivering a withering attack on King and the "silence" within the Republican Party when such remarks are made. Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell called the Iowa conservative "unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position." Others like Senator Mitt Romney went further, urging King to resign and leave the party. Amid the uproar, President Donald Trump told reporters asking about his reaction to King, "I really haven't been following it." King has used explosive racial language for years, often without consequences. In 2018 he declared that "we can't restore our civilization with other people's babies." The House speaker at the time, Paul Ryan, said he hoped King "misspoke." With pressure mounting Monday, McCarthy took action. His move, approved by the House Republican Steering Committee, effectively prevents King from putting his stamp on legislation, other than through a vote on the House floor. King called McCarthy's castigation an "unprecedented assault on my freedom of speech." King was re-elected in November for a ninth term despite caustic rhetoric about what he called efforts to supplant Europe's white Christian majority with minorities. Some Democrats mocked Republicans for their sudden outrage. "GOP leaders finally acknowledge Steve King as the blatant racist he is," congressman Earl Blumenauer tweeted. "The question is...what took them so long? He has been spewing hate for years. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US Embassy in Kabul says special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad has arrived in Kabul following visits to India, the United Arab Emirates and China. A statement released Tuesday says Khalilzad has arrived to meet with President Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and other political leaders to discuss next steps in U.S. efforts to facilitate an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process. In a trip in December, Khalilzad said the only solution to the conflict is for all parties is to sit down together and reach an agreement on the political future of Afghanistan with mutual respect and acceptance. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday permitted the Gautam Buddh Nagar administration to participate in the prestigious Global Sustainable Cities 2025 initiative, officials said. Noida and Greater Noida, the twin cities in Gautam Buddh Nagar, adjoining Delhi, were in November invited by the Global Sustainability Index Institute (UNGSII) to become a member of the initiative. Noida and Greater Noida are among the only 25 cities across the world which have been selected in five categories by the UN Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cities initiative, Senior UN Advisor and CEO UNGSIIRolandSchatz had said during a visit here when he extended the formal invitation to the district administration. "After due consideration, Noida and Greater Noida are permitted to participate in the SDG Cities initiative," Chief Secretary, UP government, Anup Chandra Pandey said in a letter on Tuesday. His letter came in response to a letter by District Magistrate Brajesh Narain Singh on December 1, 2018. Singh welcomed the development and said the "great step" by the state government would have far-reaching implications in times to come. "The government's approval is interest of the people in Noida and Greater Noida. The twin cities will be qualitatively very different from other cities in the country in the future after becoming a member of the initiative," he told PTI. Noida and Greater Noida have been chosen under the 'University City' category of the initiative along with cities such as Cambridge (UK), Palo Alto (US), Hiedelberg (Germany), Espoo (Finland). The twin cities, according to officials, have eight universities, over 600 primary government schools, 139 public schools affiliated to the CBSE with a collective student strength running into lakhs. Signing a contract will enable Noida and Greater Noida to get "multi-million dollar finance and implementation know-how for each of the 17 SDGs along the defined KPIs (key performance indicators)", among others from the UNGSII Foundation, an official note had said. The district will have to shell out 100,000 Euros every year till 2025 as administrative support to the initiative from participant cities in return of funds and resources for capacity-building and working towards achieving the SDGs, Schatz had told PTI in an interview earlier. In his letter to the government, the district magistrate had suggested roping in local private partners to arrange the funds in the form of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in order to reduce burden on the state. In September 2015, 193 heads of state, including India, had pledged their commitment to implement the 17 Sustainable Development Goals at the United Nations. The 17 SDGs, otherwise known as the Global Goals, are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. The UNGSII Foundation was created to assist and accelerate the implementation process. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : The University of Hyderabad Tuesday said it would allow students and 'invited speakers' to pay tribute to the bust of scholar Rohith Vemula, who committed suicide on January 17, 2016, on the campus and hold 'planned' meetings at the auditorium of the varsity. Some sections of students of the university and outfits under the 'Rohith Vemula Struggle and Solidarity Committee' banner had given a call for 'Chalo HCU' for January 17 against the alleged 'destruction' of portraits of Dr B R Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule and other Dalit leaders. On the call given by the students to observe January 17 as a special event to remember Rohith Vemula, the university, in a statement posted on its website, said it would like to clarify that while its students and invited speakers would be welcome to pay tribute to Vemula's bust at the North Shopping Complex area, the planned meeting could be held in the Savitribai Phule auditorium. Denying any destruction of portraits at the North Shopping Complex on the campus, the university said the institution holds Dr B R Ambedkar, Mahatma Phule, Savitribai Phule, and other leaders in high esteem. The auditoriums on the campus have been named after these leaders, and there are academic programmes in the university to promote their philosophy and thought, the varsity said in the statement. The authorities said the portraits which were part of fresh flexi material being set up by a section of students in violation of university regulations were relocated for safekeeping, the statement added. The suicide of Vemula, a PhD scholar, on the campus had sparked nationwide protests and opposition parties had blamed groups affiliated to the BJP and the RSS for his death. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : The political turmoil in Karnataka in the wake of two MLAs withdrawing support to the coalition government of Congress and JD(S) led to a Twitter war between Congress strongman Siddaramaiah and the BJP. Siddaramaiah launched a scathing attack on Prime MinisterNarendra Modi, asking him whether his slogan 'Saaf Niyat' (Clean intention) meant a coup and grabbing power. The former chief minister was active on Twitter from the morning, attacking the BJP as it became clear to theCongress leadership that independent MLA H Nagesh fromMulabagal and the lone MLA of rookie Karnataka PrajnyavantaJanata Paksha R Shankar from Rane Bennur constituency Tuesday would withdraw support to the coalition government and align with BJP. "Mr. Saaf Niyat @narendramodi, Is allowing your disgraceful @BJP4Karnataka leaders to destabilise govt a 'Saaf Niyat' towards democracy? Your PR slogans don't hide your actual 'Niyat' & your 'Sahi Vikas' should go beyond developingResorts. First show your Niyat to people!!" Siddaramaiah tweeted. Taunting BJP leaders for huddling their MLAs in a resort as they had done in the past, Siddaramaiah said the BJP always hadGandha Niyat (bad intention) and 'Resort Vikas' (promoting resort politics). He also took a dig at 'Operation Lotus', the alleged attempt to destabilise the government. "@BJP4India has a legacy of 'Gandha Niyat, Resort Vikas'. Their 'Operation Kamala' is not new & they will indulge whenever they feel politically threatened. Recent miserableloss in 5 states is the result of their ongoing attempt inKarnataka which will fail #GandhaNiyatResortVikas," he said. In a Kannada tweet, Siddaramaiah mocked the Prime Minister, asking him whether guarding the BJP MLAs in a resort was his role as Chowkidar (watchman). "Dear watchman prime minister Narendra Modi, you had called yourself as the watchman of the nation. You have now become a watchman to guard the MLAs of Karnataka in a hotel." Hitting back, BJP tweeted, "You seem to have completely lost it after you were booted out in#KarnatakaElections. Remember how your party locked up yourown MLA's in resorts just few months back, Who was thenthreatened ? Certainly not BJP. Your greed to have controlover Congress is today backfiring." To Siddaramaiah's 'Saaf Niyat' jibe, the BJP tweeted, "Disgraceful is when you form government even after been rejected by people of Karnataka.Lack of Niyat & Vikas in your unholy alliance is a result of crippled govt. Stop blaming BJP& Modi to hide your failure to save your existence. Your greedhas crippled @hd_kumaraswamy's govt" Venting her outburst, BJP MP from Udupi Chikkamagaluru, Shobha Karandlaje tweeted, "Does the man who masterminded Operation Hasta have any credibility to comment on PM??!! The same man got 8 MLA's defected with unethical ways, and now Speaking about Gandha Niyat??!!! It's known to all how 'Gandha' is the Niyat of @siddaramaiah, who practices opportunism. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union minister Sushma Swaraj was Tuesday moved by a Tunisian woman's professed love for India, prompting the senior politician to say that she must have been "an Indian in her previous life". Maha Gaida, 31, who speaks four Indian languages -- Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam and Tamil -- participated in the grand finale of the 'Bharat Ko Janiye' quiz and became emotionally overwhelmed while describing her relationship with India. "Tunisia and India, both have a very special place in my heart. And, I am delighted to be part of this event, and excited to explore India more. I wish to thank Sushma ji for this opportunity," she said. Maha, who participated in the foreigner category, later while interacting with reporters said this was her fourth visit to India, but first shot at the quiz contest. Her professed love for India, charmed Swaraj, who in her address at the event held at the Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra here, said, "Among all the events organised by the MEA, the quiz is the dearest to me." "Maha has been very excited about her visit and was getting overwhelmed answering each of the question which shows she came well-prepared. But, what is the most striking part is her love for India," she said. "Maha, you must have been an Indian in your previous life... we in India believe that (previous life). And, it is that love for India which is manifesting in your eyes and words spoken," Swaraj said, drawing applause from the audience. During the felicitation ceremony, Maha greeted Swaraj by touching her feet on the dais and the minister reciprocated by hugging her. A senior Ministry of External Affairs official said 24 contestants were selected for the semi-final, which took place on Sunday, from over 40,000 applications drawn from over 100 countries. From 24 semi-finalists, nine were chosen for the grand finale in three categories -- NRI, PIO and foreigner. An emotionally overwhelmed Maha, during her interaction with reporters, said she learned Kathakali dance in Kerala during her visit to India a few years ago. "I love Bollywood films, but I also love south Indian language films. Indian films are not just Bollywood. I like Shah Rukh Khan but also Vijay from Tamil films and others," she said. Maha, who hails from Sousse city in Tunisia, said she watches film on internet which helped her pick up Hindi. Her younger sister, Soha, a fashion designer, who also participated in the quiz event, said, "We watch films on TV with French subtitles." Maha said both India and Tunisia had several similarities like spicy food, scenic locales and cultural roots celebrated in both the countries. "I am deeply in love with India and it is my heart," she extolled. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Donald Trump has sent a letter to Kim Jong-un, a media report said Tuesday, days after the US President said he received a "great letter" from the reclusive North Korean leader, amid talks about a second summit between them on denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. Kim and Trump held a historic meeting in Singapore on June 12 last year where they issued a vague goal for the "complete denuclearisation" of the Korean Peninsula without describing when and how it would occur. The letter delivered over the weekend comes after President Trump said early this month that he had received a "great letter" from Kim and was looking forward to meet the North Korean leader for a second time in the "not-too-distant future". The letter comes as the two sides negotiate details of a second meeting between the two leaders. It was flown to Pyongyang and delivered by hand, the CNN reported, quoting a source familiar with the ongoing talks between Washington and Pyongyang on denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. North Korea's former spy chief Kim Yong Chol - one of Pyongyang's top negotiators - could visit Washington as soon as this week to finalise details of the upcoming summit, it said. The CNN previously reported that US scouting teams had visited Bangkok, Hanoi and Hawaii as they search for a location for the second summit. Last week, South Korean President Moon Jae-in threw his support behind another Trump-Kim meeting, saying it - along with a visit by Kim to Seoul - would be a turning point "that will firmly solidify peace on the Korean Peninsula", the report said. "We will not loosen our guard until the promise to denuclearise the Peninsula is kept, and peace is fully institutionalised," Moon said. Trump's announcement of receiving a letter from Kim had come after the North Korean leader warned that Pyongyang may change its approach to nuclear talks if Washington persists with sanctions. Earlier, the US president expressed satisfaction over the progress in talks with the North Koreans, saying he is in no rush for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. "We're getting along fine. I'm not in any rush. I don't have to rush. All I know is there's no rockets, there's no testing," he said. Trump said his administration was not getting any credit for this peace initiative which has averted the world from a major war. After years of isolation, Kim held a number of diplomatic summits in 2018, meeting with Moon, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Last week, he made a surprise visit to Beijing to meet again with Xi, a meeting which indicated that China remains a major player in any future action to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chinese auto maker GAC will delay its entry into the US market until 2020 because of the trade war between Beijing and Washington, a company executive said Monday at the Detroit auto show. "We originally had the plan to launch our first vehicle in the US at the end of 2019," GAC President Yu Jun said through a company interpreter. "However we have postponed our plans due to the recent development on trade. We're making steady progress towards it." GAC now planned to launch its first product in the US in the first half of 2020, Yu said. Beijing and Washington remained locked in a trade war that could escalate as soon as next month, when the Commerce Department is expected to deliver a report on possible new auto tariffs. Analysts predict rapid contraction in the auto industry should more tariffs take effect. "Tariffs would be devastating to the entire industry," said Robert Carter, chief of Toyota's North American sales, adding that vehicle prices would increase and suppress sales. Cox Automotive chief analyst Jonathan Smoke said 47 percent of the vehicles sold in the United States in 2018 were imported. "Tariffs already had an impact in 2018," he said. "We believe about two percent of today's prices are because of the tariffs that were already implemented." The average price of a car in the United States was USD 36,000 in 2018, up more than three per cent from the previous year. The privately-held GAC Group, which is participating in its fifth Detroit show, said it will open its third US research and development center on Tuesday in Detroit. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari Tuesday urged Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to implement 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections in general category with immediate effect in the city. In a statement issued by his office, Tiwari condemned the "attitude" of the Delhi government towards the Centre's "pro poor policies". The constitutional amendment to provide the 10 per cent quota was approved by Parliament last week and had received assent of President Ram Nath Kovind Saturday. Tiwari, an MP from North East Delhi, also welcomed the Gujarat government's decision to implement the new provision. "I urge Kejriwal to implement the 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections in the general category with immediate effect for the benefit of the people residing in Delhi," Tiwari said in the statement. He also said, "I will not be shocked if this is not implemented as previously they have already stalled the world's largest healthcare scheme PMJAY depriving 30 lakh people of Delhi from the benefits of the scheme. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Terrorists attacked an upscale hotel complex in Kenya's capital Tuesday, sending people fleeing in panic as explosions and heavy gunfire reverberated through the neighbourhood. A witness reported seeing at least two bodies. Al-Shabab the Somalia-based extremist group that carried out the 2013 Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi that left 67 people dead claimed responsibility for the assault and said its members were still fighting inside. Several vehicles burned. People were rushed, some carried, from the scene. At least one was on a stretcher. Some ducked behind cars, screaming. appeared to take cover behind fountains and other features in the lush outdoor complex. The complex in Nairobi's Westlands neighborhood includes a large hotel known as DusitD2, along with banks and offices. "It is terrible. What I have seen is terrible. I have seen a human as I ran out and there is what looks like minced meat all over," said one man who said he ran from the scene, Charles Njenga. Another man, who did not give his name, said he hid in an office. "I have been hiding. My colleagues were running everywhere," he said, breathing heavily. Another witness, Robert Murire, said he saw at least two bodies at the scene, along with attackers wearing green and wrapped in ammunition. It was not clear how many attackers took part. Gunfire continued several minutes after the first reports as ambulances, security forces and firefighters rushed to the scene. Black smoke rose from the complex. A bomb disposal unit arrived, and vehicles were cordoned off for fear they contained explosives. Police said they detonated a car that had explosives inside. An unexploded grenade was also seen in a hallway at the complex. What appeared to be plainclothes security forces inched their way toward the scene, guns in hand. "We have sent officers to the scene, including from the anti- unit, but so far we have no more information," police spokesman Charles Owino said. A large group of women were hurried out by security forces, one woman still in curlers. Dozens of were hurried away as plainclothes officers went shop to shop in the complex. Some people held up their hands to show they were unarmed. Al-Shabab has vowed retribution against for sending troops to Somalia since 2011. The al-Qaida-linked group has killed hundreds of people in Kenya, which has been targeted more than any other of the six countries providing troops to an African Union force in Somalia. The attack immediately reminded many Kenyans of the Westgate Mall attack, when al-Shabab extremists burst into the luxury shopping center, hurling grenades and starting a days-long siege. RJD leader Tej Pratap Yadav on Tuesday warned Union minister and Lok Janshakti Party president Ram Vilas Paswan to get ready to be taught a lesson by his mother Rabri Devi for his recent barb against her. At a press conference here last week, Paswan had criticized the RJD for its opposition to the upper castes quota and alleged that the party founded and headed by Lalu Prasad - believed only in raising slogans and making an angootha chap (illiterate, using thumb impression in place of signature) the Chief Minister. Although Paswan did not take Rabri Devis name, his remark was inferred as a veiled attack on the former Bihar Chief Minister. Yadav the elder son of Prasad and Rabri Devi took to the micro-blogging site twitter for venting his ire at Paswan who, incidentally, was an RJD ally before he joined the BJP-led NDA ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Yadav shared a cartoon on his official twitter handle wherein Paswan has been depicted as mythical demon Mahishasura being slain by his mother as Goddess Durga riding a lion depicting Tej Pratap himself. A woman gives birth, motherly affection and also forgives mistakes. But history is witness that those insulting a woman, even big demons like Ravana and Duryodhana, were vanquished, what to say of these opportunistic politicians, Yadav tweeted in Hindi by way of a caption. Notably, Paswans comments had drawn flak from his own daughter Asha who had said that she felt hurt by the remarks as her own mother was illiterate. Married to Anil Sadhu an RJD leader Asha who is Paswans daughter from his first marriage, had also staged a dharna demanding that the LJP chief apologize for the remarks. Members of Lalu Prasads family had, so far, refrained from commenting on Paswans remark against the former chief minister Rabri Devi, who is at present the leader of the opposition in the state legislative council. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Taliban issued a statement Tuesday threatening to end contact with the US even as Washington's peace envoy makes another round of the region in pursuit of a negotiated end to Afghanistan's protracted conflict before a frustrated President Donald Trump makes good on his 2016 campaign promise to end America's involvement. Earlier in the day, the US Embassy in Kabul said Zalmay Khalilzad had arrived in Kabul following visits to India, the United Arab Emirates and China. Khalilzad was to meet President Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and other political leaders to discuss the next steps in US efforts to get an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process started. The Taliban have refused repeatedly to meet directly with representatives of the Kabul government. According to the insurgent statement, the US agreed in meetings in November on a two-point agenda: Withdrawal of foreign troops and guarantees that Afghanistan would not again be used as it was by al-Qaida to plot attacks on other countries. The statement accused Washington of seeking to expand the agenda, presumably a reference to a US demand that the Taliban hold direct talks with the Afghan government. Meanwhile, Khalilzad was expected in Pakistan following his meetings in the Afghan capital. There were reports Tuesday that Pakistan had arrested Taliban leader Hafiz Mohibullah in Peshawar, in northwest Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. Taliban officials, who confirmed the arrest, said he was later released. Mohibullah is a member of the Taliban political commission based in Pakistan. Previously he was head of the Taliban military commission overseeing operations in 18 norther and eastern provinces. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Tajikistani man has been arrested by customs officials for allegedly trying to smuggle over 60 kg sandalwood at the Delhi airport, an official statement issued Tuesday said. The passenger was intercepted when he was proceeding to board a flight to Dushanbe via Almaty (Kazakhstan) on Monday. The 33-year-old man was found to be carrying 62.5 kgs of sandalwood and Rs 40,000, the statement issued by the customs said. He was arrested, it said, adding that sandalwood and Rs 40,000 being carried by him were seized. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Tuesday asked the West Bengal government to allow proposed public meetings and rallies of BJP under its "Ganatantra Bachao Yatra". A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked BJP's West Bengal unit to submit a revised schedule of its proposed 'Rath Yatra' with the authorities and seek necessary approvals. The bench also comprising Justices L N Rao and SK Kaul asked the West Bengal government to consider the revised schedule of BJP for 'Rath Yatra' keeping in mind the fundamental right of speech and expression under the Constitution. The bench said the apprehension of the state government of possible law and order situation cannot be called "unfounded" and BJP will have to take all possible steps to address the apprehension in reasonable manner. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Protests against the controversial Citizenship Bill continued to rock Assam on Tuesday as Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal was shown black flags during his visit here and effigies of him, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh were burnt. Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) waived black flags at Sonowal's convoy as it entered the Bihu venue at the century-old Nehrubal Bhogali Bihu here and released black balloons when he unfurled the Bihu flag. Krishak Shramik Kalyan Parishad set alight effigies of Modi, Rajnath Singh and Sonowal in front of Nagaon district deputy commissioner's office to protest against the bill. Some protestors were rounded up but were released later, the police said. Tuesday was the third consecutive day when Sonowal, who heads the BJP-led government in Assam, faced protests against the bill that seeks to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslims who fled religious persecution from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and entered India before December 31, 2014. Black flags were shown to him at his constituency Majuli on Monday by AJYCP, Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), a peasant organisation and other local organisatons. On Sunday he had faced similar protests by AJYCP and KMSS outside Kaziranga University where he had gone to participate in its convocation. Addressing the Bihu celebration gathering here, Sonowal said his government was committed to look after the genuine interests of the indigenous people of the state. He criticised the opposition Congress and Left organisations for "instigating and misguiding people against the Bill". He called upon All Assam Students Union (AASU) to take responsibility for implementing Clause 6 of the Assam Accord for guaranteeing constitutional safeguards to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social and linguistic identity and heritage of Assamese people. Sonowal said that the government during his tenure was successful in unearthing the Assam Public Service Commission cash-for-job scam and now meritorious candidates are being selected by APSC for government jobs. The chief minister also attended a function to mark the 125th foundation day of Nagaon Bangalee Sanmilani and called upon all sections of the people to maintain peace and extend their contribution for the development of Assam as well as the country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, his cabinet colleague Himanta Biswa Sarma,, Congress state committee president Ripun Bora have mourned the death of former minister Biraj Sarma on Tuesday here. Sonowal in a statement directed the state administration to conduct Sarma's funeral with full state honour. The Chief Minister said, "The death of Biraj Sarma is a great loss to the political spectrum of the state. During his long political career, he contributed immensely to the cause of public life of the state." "He was also instrumental in getting the Assam Accord signed in 1985. His death is a great loss to the socio-economic and political life of the state and is bound to create void which will be difficult to be filled," he said. APCC president Ripun Bora described Sarma as a front ranking leader of the Assam Agitation and a signatory to the historic Assam Accord. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Some of the Delhi University's academic council members have said they will be opposing the varsity's proposal to have 10 per cent of permanent positions as contractual appointments. The DU's academic council meeting was adjourned on January 2 after its members entered the well of the house over the reviewed report of the University Grants Commission regulations 2018 not being included in the agenda. The meeting will take place Wednesday where the varsity will be presenting this proposal. Until now there was no provision of contractual posts against teaching positions in the University Ordinances and Statutes, said Pankaj Garg, a member of the academic council. "Introduction of contractual appointments in teaching positions by the Delhi University under pressure from the HRD ministry is highly condemnable and would create feeling of insecurity among 4,500 teachers working on ad hoc basis in various colleges," he said. Starting from 10 per cent of permanent positions as contractual appointments, the government may force universities to gradually increase this percentage and finally appoint only teachers on contractual basis instead of appointing them against permanent positions, he said. Other members expressed similar views and said they will be strongly opposing this provision of contractual appointments in the meeting. Meanwhile, the Delhi University Teachers' Association has called for a flash protest Wednesday demanding absorption of ad hoc teachers. A high-power committee was constituted to review the UGC regulations 2018 regarding service condition of teachers but the committee report was not placed in the agenda of the meeting on January 2. The committee had recommended absorption of ad hoc teachers with immediate effect and the extension of other benefits like paid maternity leave to them, they added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rubabuddin Shaikh, brother of Sohrabuddin Shaikh, who was allegedly killed in a fake encounter, has requested the home ministry and the CBI to appeal against the trial court's acquittal of all the accused in the case. On December 21, 2018, a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court had acquitted all the 22 accused due to insufficient evidence and the prosecution's failure to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. The accused, mostly junior level police officers from Gujarat and Rajasthan, were charged with killing Sohrabuddin Shaikh, his wife Kausar Bi and his associate Tulsiram Prajapati in a fake encounter. On January 14 this year, Sohrabuddin's brother Rububuddin wrote letters to the Ministry of Home Affairs and CBI, the prosecuting agency, requesting them to file an appeal in the Bombay High Court challenging the lower court's order. "The judgement of the CBI court dated December 21, 2018 acquitting all the accused persons is bad in law and prima facie untenable. The special CBI court has erred in appreciating facts and evidence in right perspective," the letter said. "I humbly request you (MHA and CBI) to kindly undertake all necessary measures to file appeal before the Bombay High Court," Rubabuddin said in the letter. According to CBI, the three victims, who were returning to Sangli in Maharashtra from Hyderabad in a bus, were taken into custody by a police team on the night of November 22-23, 2005. The couple were taken in one vehicle and Prajapati in another. The CBI said Shaikh was killed on November 26, 2005, allegedly by a joint team comprising Gujarat and Rajasthan Police, and Kausar Bi three days later. Prajapati, who was lodged in an Udaipur Central Jail, was killed in an encounter on the Gujarat-Rajasthan border on December 27, 2006. The CBI had initially charged 38 persons, including BJP president Amit Shah, who was then Gujarat home minister, Gulabchand Kataria, the then Rajasthan home minister, and senior IPS officers like D G Vanzara and P C Pande. The prosecution had examined 210 witnesses, of which 92 turned hostile. Shah was arrested in the case in July 2010, but released on bail by Gujarat High Court in October 2010. He was discharged by the CBI court in December 2014. Sixteen people, including Shah, Kataria, Vanzara and Pande, were earlier discharged by the CBI court due to lack of evidence. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The single window portal of the Goa Investment Promotion and Facilitation Board (IPB) will boost the employment potential in Goa, a Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar said Monday. State revenue minister Rohan Khaunte on Tuesday addressing a press conference along with state tourism minister Manohar Ajgaonkar, and said that the portal will help investors as well. "Through this portal, we have ensured that there is ease of doing business. It will be a single window to apply, seek all approvals," Khaunte said. The ITB will be interface to ensure that the proposals are followed up, he said adding that the applicant will be able to check the status of their file on a real time basis. "The portal will undergo more amendments in due course of time after going through feedback of the users," he said. Khaunte indicated they are considering revenue generation and employment opportunities while approving the proposals. The single window system is requirement of business reform action plan (BRAP) for the state as identified by government of India, he said. "We are meeting 62 per cent of the parameters under BRAP. With the single window there will be maximum improvement in the services," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Singapore's privacy watchdog Tuesday imposed fines of Sg$1 million ($740,000) on a healthcare provider and an IT agency over a cyber-attack that saw health records of about quarter of the population stolen. In the city-state's biggest ever data breach, hackers last year gained access to a government database and made off with the records of 1.5 million people, with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong among those targeted. An official inquiry last week highlighted a litany of failings, including weaknesses in computer systems and inadequate staff training and resources, and said authorities believe a state was likely behind the attack. The official Personal Data Protection Commission announced it was fining Integrated Health Information Systems, which runs the IT systems for Singapore's public healthcare sector, Sg$750,000. SingHealth, a healthcare provider which groups some public hospitals and clinics, was hit with a Sg$250,000 fine. The commission said the organisations had failed to "make reasonable security arrangements to protect personal data of individuals". The stolen information was "highly sensitive and confidential personal data," it said. "It is not difficult to imagine the potential embarrassment that a patient may suffer if such sensitive information about the patient and the patient's health concerns were made known to all and sundry." Officials have not disclosed which state they believe was behind the breach, which occurred between June 27 and July 4. The compromised data included personal information and medication dispensed to patients. Analysts say that Russia -- which is accused of meddling in the US presidential election -- China, Iran and North Korea are believed to have the capability to carry out such attacks. Wealthy Singapore is hyper-connected and on a drive to digitise government records and essential services. But the government says it fends off thousands of cyber-attacks every day and has long warned of breaches by actors as varied as high-school students in their basements to nation states. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actors Sharon Stone and Cynthia Nixon have joined the cast of Netflix's "Cuckoo's Nest" prequel titled "Ratched". Producer Ryan Murphy made the announcement on Monday on Instagram. "'RATCHED' on Netflix starts shooting in a couple weeks. On behalf of myself and Ms Sarah Catharine Paulson who plays the title role and is also a big fancy producer on it, we are thrilled to announce our amazing cast A true murderers' row of talent. "So many of these actors are supremely talented folks who Sarah and I have both longed to work with More to come, but come on Sarah, Cynthia, Judy, Amanda and Sharon, all doing scenes together? I cannot WAIT," Muprhy posted. It was announced in 2017 that Murphy and Paulson would be collaborating on a series about the origin of Nurse Ratched, who was famously portrayed by Louise Fletcher in 1974's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", an adaptation of Ken Kesey's 1962 novel. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi University on Tuesday formally promoted DUSU vice-president Shakti Singh to the post of president. In an official communication, the varsity said, "In compliance with the order of the Hon'ble Delhi High Court dated December 18, 2018, the DUSU Election Committee 2018-19 declared the promotion of Mr Shakti Singh, vice-president DUSU 2018-19 as President 2018-19." Singh said that the decision came late which has hampered the working of the students' union but said he would try to make the optimum use of the less time he has as the DUSU president. The NSUI said that the BJP is capturing institutions and where it cannot, people are shunted out or even thrown out. "The checks and balances of democracy cannot handle bullies. The only recourse is to throw these guys out," they said. The Left-backed All India Students' Association also slammed the varsity's decision and accused them of deliberately delaying the verification of Baisoya's marksheets so that the president's post could go to Singh. The RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad's Singh had taken over as the students body's president last month. The Delhi High Court had dismissed a plea by the Congress-backed National Students' Union of India leader Sunny Chillar challenging the election of DUSU ex-president Ankiv Baisoya for allegedly furnishing a fake bachelor's degree to get admission in the university. According to the Lyngdoh Committee Guidelines, which are applicable to the DUSU polls, "In the event of the office of any major post of office bearer falling vacant within two months of elections, re-elections should be conducted; otherwise, the vice-president may be promoted to the post of president." The ABVP had cited the above guidelines as Singh assumed office last month. The Delhi University cancelled the admission of Baisoya on November 14 after receiving a letter from Thiruvalluvar University confirming that his bachelor's degree was fake. Baisoya was also suspended from ABVP and an inquiry into allegations that he got admission in the varsity on the basis of a fake marksheet was ordered. Police have also registered an FIR in the case. The DUSU elections were held in September. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday night claimed that he had twice received suggestions for inducting poll strategist Prashant Kishor into his JD(U) by BJP national president Amit Shah. Kumar, who also heads the JD(U), said this at an event organized by a private channel here while responding to queries as to whether he looked at the poll strategist- turned-politician as his political successor. Kishor was inducted into the JD(U) in September last year and elevated to the post of national vice-president weeks later triggering speculation that he was being thought of by Kumar as his political heir. "He was not a newcomer for us. He had worked with us in the 2015 assembly polls. For a brief period, he was busy elsewhere. Please let it be known that none other than Amit Shah had asked me twice to induct Kishor in the JD(U)," he said. "Prashant Kishor has been assigned the task of attracting young talent, from all social segments, to politics which was becoming inaccessible to those not born in political families," he added. "I have a lot of affection for Prashant Kishor. But please, let us not talk in terms of successors. This is not a monarchy," Kumar said. He also said he had "a lot of love" for RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, his former deputy, "irrespective of the acerbic language he uses against me". "Even with Lalu, I only had political differences. It never affected our personal relationships," he said. He also stated that leaders like Tejashwi and former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav "ought to remember that whenever they emerge victorious in an election, they are blessed by the people for whatever promise they themselves hold and not by virtue of their family background". "Mahatma Gandhi considered politics without principles a social sin. Dynasty politics, which I have always been opposed to, is an example of politics without principles," he quipped. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The West Bengal unit of the BJP on Tuesday said it did not take the Supreme Court verdict, putting on hold the party's proposed "rath yatra" programme in the state, as a setback, adding that it would decide on the future course of action after discussions with the party's central leadership. The proposed "rath yatras" of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the Lok Sabha polls were put on hold on Tuesday by the Supreme Court, which asked the saffron party to seek a fresh approval from the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal by submitting a revised proposal. State BJP president Dilip Ghosh declined to accept the apex court verdict as a setback and said the party would take up other programmes to expose the "misrule" of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in the state. "In politics, sometimes you taste success, sometimes you taste defeat. But there is nothing called a setback. We have other plans to reach out to the masses," he said. Asked whether his party would come up with a new "rath yatra" schedule and seek permission from the state government in view of the Supreme Court verdict, Ghosh said, "We will take a call after discussions with our central leadership. But one thing is for sure that even if we submit a new plan, the state will again deny us permission. So, we have to act accordingly." The apex court said the law-and-order apprehensions of the state government were not "totally unfounded", but allowed the Bengal BJP to continue with its proposed public rallies and meetings under its "Ganatantra Bachao Yatra". Hitting out at the Mamata Banerjee government, BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha said, "By repeatedly opposing our programme, the West Bengal government has actually exposed the lawless situation prevailing in the state. It has repeatedly been saying that our programme will create law-and-order problems. "By doing so, they (the TMC) have actually admitted that they are unable to maintain law and order in the state," he said. TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee alleged that the BJP's sole aim behind the "rath yatras" was to disturb peace and flare up communal passions in the state. The Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, in its verdict asked the TMC government to consider the fresh, revised proposal of the BJP, keeping in mind the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the Constitution. It also said the government should respond to the revised proposal of the BJP with "utmost expedition", keeping in mind that with the commencement of the CBSE and other board examinations, the use of loudspeakers might be banned. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked former Jharkhand Minister Yogendra Sao and his MLA wife Nirmala Devi, accused in a rioting case, to explain on how many occasions they did not attend trial court proceedings despite being in the state. The top court also asked the two about the circumstances in which they were out of Madhya Pradesh capital Bhopal and his wife attended the Jharkhand assembly despite the court barring them from doing so, after the Jharkhand state counsel sought cancellation of their bail for alleged violation of conditions.. A bench of justices S A Bobde and Deepak Gupta said, "If you were in Jharkhand and did not attend the trial court proceedings, then you have violated the bail condition". It said that only exception granted to Sao and Devi while granting bail was that they would enter Jharkhand to attend the trial court proceedings against them. The bench asked them to file an affidavit within a week giving every detail of the occasions they were out of Bhopal. Both Sao and Devi were granted bail on December 15, 2017 by the top court in the case and they were directed to stay in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh as a bail condition. They were allowed to visit Jharkhand only for court hearings under police protection after intimating Bhopal superintendent of police. At the outset, advocate Tapesh Kumar Singh, appearing for Jharkhand state, said that they want their bail to be cancelled as they have violated the conditions imposed by the court. He said that out of 260 days, Sao had been in Jharkhand for more than 150 days and hardly spent 25 days in Bhopal. Singh claimed that Sao travelled out of Bhopal on 24 occasions out of which he had travelled to Delhi a dozen times. "While being in Jharkhand, Sao had not appeared before the trial court. The cases against them are pending at the same stage as was on the day they were granted bail," he said. The bench then asked the counsel for Sao and his wife to furnish the details of the occasions they were out of Bhopal within a week. On November 22, last year, the apex court had said that it may cancel the bail granted to Sao and his MLA wife for violating conditions imposed by it. Jharkhand government had earlier said that in 11 cases registered against Sao, charges were not framed by the trial judge as he did not appear before the court despite directions from the top court. Singh claimed that Devi also did not appear before the trial judge in four cases where charges were to be framed against her. On October 29 last year, the apex court had sought response from Sao and Devi after the state government sought cancellation of their bail on the grounds that they had violated bail conditions. The Jharkhand government had said several criminal cases were pending against the couple. The cases are at various stages, including of framing of charges, where their presence is needed, it had said. The government has annexed their call details records to show that the Sao and Devi had violated the bail conditions. The apex court had earlier taken exception to the charge framing order passed by a court in Jharkhand through instant messaging application WhatsApp. It had wondered how this kind of a "joke" was allowed to happen in a court of law in India. A lower judge in Hazaribagh district had put Sao on trial by pronouncing the order framing charges against them through a 'WhatsApp' call. Both the Sao and Devi had challenged the order in apex court saying that the trial judge had on April 19 this year framed charges against them through a 'WhatsApp' call despite they raising objections to it. The apex court took serious note of it and observed that this process cannot be allowed, and administration of justice cannot be allowed to be brought into disrepute. The couple had sought transfer of their cases from Hazaribagh to New Delhi. Both Devi and Sao were accused in the case relating to violent clashes between villagers and police in 2016 in which four persons were killed. Sao was a minister in the Hemant Soren government in August 2013. Devi, a Congress MLA, had led an agitation against NTPC authorities for their alleged attempt to forcibly evacuate villagers from Barkagaon without giving them due compensation or rehabilitation, according to police. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Tuesday asked the UPSC secretary to personally appear before it Wednesday to apprise it whether the empanelment of IPS officers for promotion as director generals of police (DGPs) in states was being done by the commission. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi sought the presence of the Union Public Service Commission secretary at 10.30 am Wednesday, after lawyer Prashant Bhushan claimed that instead of the UPSC, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) makes the list of senior IPS officers, being considered by state governments for appointment as DGPs. Bhushan, appearing for PIL petitioner and former DGP Prakash Singh, said that UPSC scrutinises the service records and other credentials of the police officers whose names have been forwarded to the commission. "Before we proceed any further, we would like the secretary of the Union Public Service Commission to apprise the court by tomorrow, that is January 16, at 10.30 am as to whether empanelment of IPS officers for promotion to the rank of DGP in different states of the Union is made by the UPSC in the discharge of its functions," the bench, also comprising Justices L Nageswara Rao and S K Kaul, said. It said that the information sought be laid before the court by the secretary by appearing personally. The apex court was hearing applications of various state governments, including Punjab, Haryana and Bihar, seeking to implement their local laws regarding selection and appointment of DGP. At the outset, the bench said that a 2006 apex court verdict on police reforms had said that its directions, including the fixed two-year tenure for DGPs, will remain in force till the states come up up with their laws. "Now the states have come up with the law, the issue is can the court direct that the laws will not be operational. You have also not challenged the laws," the bench said. "The question will keep coming back. If the legislation is challenged then certainly the court can look into it. How can we stop the law from being functional when there is no challenge," it said. Bhushan said that the law cannot be allowed to flout the directions of the apex court. The apex court had on December 12 last year, extended till January 31 the tenures of present DGPs of Punjab and Haryana and agreed to hear the states' pleas seeking to implement their local laws regarding selection and appointment of the police chief. DGPs Suresh Arora (Punjab) and B S Sandhu (Haryana) were due to retire on December 31 last year and now they will remain in office till January 31 as per the earlier order of the apex court. Several states are seeking modification of the apex court's earlier order directing all the states to mandatorily take the assistance of the UPSC in short-listing the names for appointing DGPs. The top court, on July 3 last year, had passed a slew of directions on police reforms in the country and chronicled the steps for appointment of regular DGPs. It had stated that the states will have to send a list of senior police officers to the UPSC at least three months prior to the retirement of the incumbent. The commission will then prepare a panel and intimate the states, which in turn will immediately appoint one of the persons from that list. Besides Punjab, Haryana and Bihar governments, two other state governments of Kerala and West Bengal have said they have already framed a comprehensive law, dealing with the procedures to appoint the DGP, in pursuance of the 2006 apex court verdict on police reforms. The apex court, while deciding the PIL filed by two former DGPs Prakash Singh and N K Singh in 2006, had issued several directions, including setting up of a state security commission, to ensure the government does not exercise unwarranted influence on the police. It had said the appointment of DGPs and police officers should be merit-based and transparent and officers like DGPs and Superintendents of Police (SPs) should have a minimum fixed tenure of two years. However, when states enacted laws providing mechanism for DGP selection, the apex court had on July 3 last year kept the state laws in abeyance. It had earlier passed a slew of directions on police reforms and had restrained all states and Union Territories from appointing any police officer as acting DGP. The directions had come on an application filed by the Centre in which it claimed that certain states have been appointing acting DGPs and then making them permanent just before the date of their superannuation to enable them to get the benefit of an additional two-year tenure till the age of 62 years. The top court had ordered keeping in abeyance any rule or legislation framed by any of the states or the Centre running counter to the earlier direction of the court. The court, however, had said that if any state has a grievance with regard to the directions, then they may approach it for modification of the order. The apex court, on September 8, 2017, had agreed to hear a clutch of pleas observing that its historic 2006 verdict on police reforms, recommending steps like fixed tenures for DGPs and SPs, has not yet been implemented by states and Union territories. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal Tuesday said the party will announce names of its candidates for the Lok Sabha polls after the election schedule is notified. Out of the 13 Lok Sabha seats, the SAD usually contests on 10 seats while its ally the BJP field its nominees on three seats. "After the election dates are announced, we will decide about the candidates," Badal told reporters here. He said the party's election manifesto committee, headed by MP Balwinder Singh Bhundar, would come out with a mission statement for the upcoming polls. "We will talk about the performance of the central government, Punjab government and previous SAD-BJP government in the state," Badal said. "The central government gave road projects worth Rs 40,000 crore and Rs 3,000 crore of irrigation projects to the state. Besides, Kartarpur corridor has been approved which had been the main demand of Sikhs," the SAD chief said. He claimed that he has already covered 25 assembly constituencies wherein he held one-on-one meetings with residents to understand their issues. Badal accused the Congress government in the state of not fulfilling its poll promises. "I want to know on which issue, the Congress will go to people to seek votes. That is why Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and Punjab Congress Chief Sunil Jakhar are shying away from going to meet people ahead of the polls," Badal said. To a question on any seat swapping with the BJP, he said the party will soon have a meeting with its ally. "We will see who has the best chance to win from which seat and which party has the strongest candidate," he said. Meanwhile, the Akali Dal Tuesday presented two families of Abohar who alleged that false cases had been registered against them at the behest of Punjab Congress Chief Sunil Jakhar for not supporting his party. The families of Mohinder Bathla and Satish Satija alleged that false cases were being registered against them solely because they had supported a BJP candidate from Abohar constituency in the 2017 assembly elections. The SAD president said the party would approach the Punjab and Haryana High Court demanding an inquiry into the matter. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A top Russian diplomat says he and his American counterpart are set to meet Tuesday to discuss the dispute over a Cold War-era arms control treaty that Washington has threatened to abandon. Russian agencies quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying he would sit down with Undersecretary of State Andrea Thompson in Geneva. The meeting concerns the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The 1987 pact between the United States and the Soviet Union bans production, testing and deployment of land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range between 500 and 5500 kilometres. President Donald Trump declared his intention in October to withdraw from the treaty over alleged Russian violations. The US gave Russia a February deadline to address its objections and come into compliance. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In the wake of IL&FS crisis, there is a need to review role of as they continued to rate the NBFC at top notch investment grade even a day before it defaulted on its payment obligation, a top Finance Ministry official said. IL&FS, a large systemically important non-deposit accepting core investment company, sent markets into tizzy with series of default beginning August last year. failed to see the financial troubles brewing and judge the ballooning debt of IL&FS. Following the series of defaults, the credit rating industry came under scrutiny. While banks were busy with the clean up exercise, NBFCs went on aggressive lending spree, Financial Service Secretary told PTI. "The growth of NBFCs was exponential when banks were cleaning themselves and a kind of a similar situation what happened to the banks in aggressive lending happened to NBFCs. "Some of the NBFCs which have grown more than the normal needs a correction in terms of the asset quality management and at the same time needs to be regulated more intensely than what have been. Also the role of credit need to be introspected and looked at as to how entities can remain AAA and suddenly can come 8 notches down in a day. So, these roles have to be seen," he said. IL&FS, which has been downgraded to junk status by rating agencies, is sitting on a debt pile of around Rs 91,000 crore. Of this, Rs 57,000 crore are bank loans alone, most of which are from state-owned lenders. State-owned LIC is the largest shareholder with a fourth of the firm's equity, while Orix Corporation of Japan owns 23.5 per cent. Other shareholders include Abu Dhabi Investment Authority with 12.5 per cent stake, IL&FS Employees Welfare Trust with 12 per cent, HDFC with 9.02 per cent, Central Bank of India with 7.67 per cent and State Bank of India (SBI) with 6.42 per cent at the March-end 2018. In a bid to align with the best corporate practices, the finance ministry has asked the public sector banks to gradually bring down the government's equity to 52 per cent. "The government is essentially a major shareholder. So, this need to be aligned to the best corporate practices. The shareholding needs to come down to at least 52 per cent in the first phase. As and when market condition allows, banks will take step in that direction. They have all the permission in hand, Kumar said. The country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has already initiated step for Rs 20,000 crore share sale through qualified institutional placement (QIP). Post QIP, the government stake will be diluted from the existing 58.53 per cent. Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying he wants to "congratulate" him on winning the "world famous" Philip Kotler Presidential award, evoking a sharp reaction from BJP leader Smriti Irani who accused the Gandhi family of conferring Bharat Ratna "on themselves". Gandhi's jibe comes a day after Modi received the first-ever Philip Kotler Presidential award. According to a statement from the Prime Minister's Office, the award focuses on the triple bottom-line of 'people, profit and planet' and will be offered annually to the leader of a nation. According to the award citation, Modi was selected for his "outstanding leadership for the nation". "I want to congratulate our PM on winning the world famous 'Kotler Presidential Award'!" Gandhi said on Twitter. "In fact it's so famous it has no jury, has never been given out before & is backed by an unheard of Aligarh company. Event Partners: Patanjali & Republic TV :)," Gandhi added. In a sharp retort, Union minister Irani, while tagging Rahul Gandhi's tweet, suggested that unlike Prime Minister Modi, who was awarded by someone else, Gandhi family members had conferred themselves the country's top civilian honour --Bharat Ratna. "Rich !!! Coming from a person whose illustrious family decided to confer the Bharat Ratna' on themselves," she tweeted, mocking Rahul Gandhi's remark. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress president Rahul Gandhi is likely to address a rally of the party workers in Goa by this month-end, a senior party functionary said Tuesday. "Rahul Gandhi is expected to visit Goa this month-end during which he will address the party workers," Congress Goa spokesman Sunil Kavthankar told reporters here tonight. He said Congress has begun preparations for the rally as well as for the upcoming by-elections to Shiroda and Mandrem assembly constituencies. The bypolls are necessitated following resignation of sitting Congress MLAs last October, who crossed over to the ruling BJP. Earlier in the day, the Congress held a meeting which was attended by AICC secretary and Goa desk-incharge Chellakumar and GPCC president Girish Chodankar, among other leaders. "It is also decided to finalise the booth level and ward-level committees by January 20 and to start preparations for the bypolls," Kavthankar said. Kavathankar said the party will soon launch door-to-door "Jan Sampark Abhiyaan". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar Tuesday attributed his sudden exit from the opposition alliance to Congress president Rahul Gandhi's "inability" to take a stand on corruption charges against his former deputy and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav. Kumar, who also heads the JD(U), claimed that his party was instrumental in the Congress getting 40 seats to contest in the 2015 assembly polls. The chief minister said he had felt let down by Gandhi, then the party's vice-president, when he "did not come up with even a statement that could have made me have second thoughts (about leaving the alliance)". Kumar had quit the alliance, comprising the JD(U), the RJD and the Congress, in July 2017 after the CBI lodged an FIR against Yadav on corruption charges and the following strife between him and the RJD. "It has been always my line that there will be no compromise on crime, corruption and communalism. Their (RJD's) style of functioning was such that it was becoming increasingly difficult for me to work. There was interference at all levels. Their people would telephone police stations with their own decrees," Kumar claimed. He was speaking at an event here organised by a private channel. "Rahul Gandhi had famously tore that ordinance. It was the JD(U) which insisted that it (Congress) be given 40 seats and they ended up winning 28. The RJD, despite its old association with it, was never ready to give it that much weightage," Kumar said. In 2003, Gandhi had torn an ordinance brought by the Manmohan Singh government with a provision to protect convicted politicians against disqualification. Stating that he resigned as he had no other choice, Kumar said his resignation was immediately followed by an offer of support from the BJP. "So I took the decision (to join hands with the BJP) in the interests of Bihar," he said. "We have our differences on issues like Ayodhya, Article 370 and Uniform Civil Code since the 1990s. My association with the BJP predates the NDA's formation in 1999. But we have always worked amicably. Even now, we are getting full cooperation from the Narendra Modi government," he said. Kumar had snapped ties with the BJP in 2013 following differences over projection of Narendra Modi, the then Gujarat chief minister, as the prime ministerial candidate. On a query about the RSS, he said, "I may not agree with their thoughts but I cannot help admiring their consistency and commitment towards organisation building, something those adhering to our socialist ideology never excelled at." Recalling the stupendous performances by the JD(U)-BJP combine in 2009 Lok Sabha polls and the assembly elections a year later, Kumar said, "Now we have an important leader like Ram Vilas Paswan with us. So there is no reason why we should not do even better in the upcoming LS polls." On the opposition 'mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance), which comprises the RJD, the Congress, the RLSP, the HAM and some smaller parties, he said, "Even the term mahagathbandhan that they keep flaunting was given by me. After the exit of JD(U), it is just a gathbandhan (alliance)". "The opposition in Bihar is in panic. So it keeps adding more allies to its flock," Kumar remarked dismissively when asked about many parties, including former NDA allies like RLSP and HAM, gravitating towards the alliance. On the RJD's opposition to the quota for upper castes, Kumar, whose party voted in favour of the bill in Parliament, said social changes have led to a sizeable growth in the number of poor among the unreserved category. "When they are being helped without infringing on the rights of SCs, STs and OBCs, there should be no complaints," he said. He also asserted that the NDA will face no major problems in the Lok Sabha polls, saying in states like Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the margin of defeat was small. "Moreover, people have vented their ire against the governments that ruled the respective states for long. Now there is nothing that voters are going to hold against the NDA," Kumar said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Chief of Punjab Special Task Force (STF) Mohammad Mustafa Tuesday warned police officials of stringent action if lapses were found on their part when dealing with drug smugglers and peddlers. Mustafa said a comprehensive action plan had been prepared to ensure all fugitive drug smugglers be brought to book. The Punjab police has registered a total 21,430 cases under theNarcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act and 25,579 related arrests have been made from the period April 14, 2017 to January 13, 2019. A total of 280 kg of heroin has been seized in this period, out of which the STF has recovered 233 kg of the drug. "A comprehensive action plan has been put in place to deal with drug smugglers," Punjab DGP (STF) Mustafa said, while addressing the media here. He further said the department would fix those police officials who are responsible for lapses when taking action against drug smugglers. Citing examples of proclaimed offenders (POs), absconders and bail jumpers evading custody or arrest, the DGP said "serious lapses" have been found on part of the district police in catching them. He further pointed out that the STF had come across cases in which filing of challans in NDPS cases were deliberately delayed beyond the 180-day period to aid the accused. Sharing other statistics, Mustafa, who took over as STF chief in September last year, said the force had prepared a list of 140 POs, 332 absconders and 151 parole jumpers and directions have been issued to concerned police officials in all the districts to arrest them. The STF has also directed police chiefs to file appeals in courts in 32commercial quantity (big quantity) cases for the cancellation of bails of accused. In 685 cases of acquittal, instructions have been issued to file appeals against the order in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana. "STF has analysed numerous bail orders and court judgments of acquitted cases and identified major shortcomings in investigation of NDPS Act cases. Instructions issued to district police to ensure proper investigation and prosecution of cases," he said. He also said the department would also get the property of POs attached. "In58 cases, illegally acquired property worth Rs 20 crore has been forfeited and 49 cases are pending with competent authority for confirmation of forfeiture of property worth Rs 29 crore," he said. Directions have also been issued to keep a watch on as many as 71 major drug traffickers who are in different jails in the state. The district police has been instructed to provide adequate escort to major drug traffickers for court hearings or medical treatment to prevent escape from custody. It has also been directed to facilitate court hearings through video conferencing, wherever feasible, he said. Mustafa was accompanied by Special Principal Secretarycum-ADGP to Chief Minister Harpreet Singh Sidhu, IGs Special Task Force B Chandra Shekhar, Parmod Ban, RK Jaiswal, Balkar Singh Sidhu. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Waving European Union flags, hundreds of anti-Brexit activists outside parliament roared with approval on Tuesday as the government's divorce deal was crushed by MPs. Massed in front of two big screens airing live coverage of the pivotal vote, the crowd of fervent pro-Europeans erupted into cheers and clapping as the result was relayed. "I'm so pleased -- but a bit concerned with what comes next," retiree Sarah Cuthbertson, 68, told AFP. "I didn't think it would be such a big majority against," she said of the whopping 230-vote margin of defeat -- the largest ever in modern British political history. Nearby, a smaller contingent of pro-Brexit activists were similarly cheered by the defeat of Prime Minister Theresa May's deal, but for different reasons. "I'm ecstatic," said Reg Kerr-Bell, 55, a retired Londoner clasping a "Leave Means Leave" placard. "No-deal is what I want to see now." But he conceded that parliament's rejection of the government's plan puts Brexit in some jeopardy. "I'm very worried they (MPs) might try to hijack the process." Deploying flags, floats and even a mock-up of the Titanic dubbed "HMS Brexit", hundreds of noisy pro- and anti-EU activists had descended on Westminster to make their voices heard ahead of the crunch vote. "The only thing so far that managed to unite the country has been this deal and how everyone hates it," Simon Fisher, 25, told AFP, draped in a "Leave Means Leave" flag. As opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn announced he had filed a no-confidence motion in the government, pro-EU supporters urged him to go further. "Unless he changes his stance on a second referendum, I don't think he'll get people on board," said Lesley Lacloche, 61, who was draped in EU attire. Some waved signs and placards like "Don't Let May Betray the UK" and "Stop the Brexit Mess". Crowds converged on the square and street opposite the Palace of Westminster -- the formal name for the Houses of Parliament and grounds -- from the early hours of the morning, under the gaze of TV cameras beaming the images around the world. In one of the more eye-catching displays, pro-EU protesters reimagined the Titanic disaster, erecting a cardboard ship, iceberg and caricature of Prime Minister Theresa May on the bow beside a life-ring. "Brexit is a sinking ship," said Bert Wander, one of the organisers. Demonstrators had lined the walkways around nearby makeshift broadcasting studios, with each side staking out their camp and no mingling on show. "I would have talked to them, but because they are abusive, no," said 65-year-old Sally Smith, pointing to the pro-EU faction. The no-deal Brexit supporter had taken the day off work to come and make her point -- by frantically ringing a bell. In the opposite camp, Louise Hummerstone, a 66-year-old potter and craftswoman wearing an EU beret, admitted that she had "lost friends" who voted Leave in the 2016 referendum. "I can understand naive voters, I completely understand people who believed the lies, but I cannot tolerate those who voted for racist reasons," she said. Despite the entrenched opposition, the atmosphere remained mainly civil as large numbers of police looked on. However, officers detained one pro-Brexit demonstrator after a face-off between the rival camps. The anti-EU protesters shouted "scum" at officers as they led the handcuffed man away. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Tamil harvest festival Pongal was celebrated with usual fervour across Tamil Nadu and neighbouring Puducherry with people ushering in the auspicious Tamil month of 'Thai'. Chants of 'Pongal-o-Pongal' rent the air in many a home as the milk boiled, symbolising the gushing of prosperity. People decorated their homes with mango leaves and strings of flowers. Special prayers were held at temples. This year, the AIADMK government had distributed gift hampers containing raw rice, sugar, raisins, cashew nut, cardamom and sugarcane to all cardholders to celebrate the harvest festival, in an effort to mitigate the impact of cyclone Gaja in the Cauvery delta and drought in the northern districts. The ingredients are used in the preparation of the sweet delicacy 'Pongal'. President Ramnath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit, Chief Minister K Palaniswami and DMK president and Leader of Opposition M K Stalin greeted people. Purohit celebrated the festival with the villagers of Sathurangapattinam in Kanchipuram district while Palaniswami took part in the festivities in his native Salem. The famed bull-taming sport of jallikattu was also held in Madurai coinciding with Pongal, with a number of eager volunteers participating in it. Meanwhile, Palaniswami greeted Purohit. "I have great pleasure in conveying my best wishes and greetings to you, the First Lady and all the members of your family for a very happy Pongal and Sankaranthi," he said in a message to the Governor. In Puducherry, the festival was celebrated with pomp and gaiety, as people, both young and old, attired in new clothes exchanged greetings. The residents of the former French colony visited temples to offer prayers on the occasion. Newly-made earthen pots, sugarcane and other festival-related farm products were selling like hot cakes in most parts of the town and in the peripheral areas. As the arrival of sugarcane in large numbers from distant villages and neighbouring Tamilnadu created a traffic snarl in and around the markets, police began to control the traffic and restricted movement of vehicles. Territorial Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi, Chief Minister V Narayanasamy and assembly Speaker V Vaithilingam, and leaders of different political parties, Ministers and Members of Parliament greeted the people. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday launched a slew of central government projects worth over Rs 1,550 crore in Odisha and said they would play a key role in accelerating the state's development. Affirming the Centre's resolve to expand connectivity in Odisha, he said education, coupled with connectivity, would lead to speedy development and overall progress of all sections of the society. "I am happy to unveil projects worth Rs 1,550 crore in areas like education, connectivity, tourism and culture," Modi said while inaugurating and laying foundation stone for a series of projects, mainly in the railway sector, at a function here. During his third visit to Odisha in as many weeks, the prime minister dedicated to the nation the electrification of Jharsuguda-Vizianagaram and Sambalpur-Angul railway lines spanning 813 km, which have been completed at a cost of Rs 1,085 crore. The project aims to ensure seamless rail connectivity on the line and reduce journey time. It will also reduce diesel consumption and greenhouse gas emission, a senior railway official said. Modi also inaugurated the doubling of 14.2 km Barpali-Dungaripali and 17.3 km Balangir-Deogaon rail lines, completed at a cost of Rs 189.3 crore. They are part of the 181.54 km Sambalpur-Titlagarh doubling project. Describing connectivity as a catalyst for progress, Modi said it would boost trade, commerce and tourism, besides helping farmers in taking their produce to the mandis. Strong connectivity would also propel industrialisation, which in turn would create enormous opportunities for employment generation, he said. A Multi-Modal Logistics Park (MMLP) at Jharsuguda, built at a cost of Rs 100 crore, was dedicated to the nation by the prime minister. Spread over 28.3 acres, the MMLP is adjacent to the Howrah-Mumbai main line, 5 km from Jharsuguda Railway station. Several industries, such as cement, paper, aluminium, refractory, pig iron, sponge iron and steel pipe, located in and around the area would benefit from the facility, Modi said. He also inaugurated the 15-km-long Balangir-Bichhupali railway line laid at a cost of Rs 115 crore. It is part of the new 289-km Balangir-Khurda Road line which connects to Howrah-Chennai main line on Khurda roadside and Titlagarh-Sambalpur line at Balangir. The line would connect coastal Odisha with western region through Sonepur, Boudh, Puranakatak, Daspalla and Nayagarh, synchronising development across the state. The line would also benefit many micro, small and medium enterprises and cottage industries, and generate opportunities for the mining sector. The prime minister flagged off a new train on Balangir-Bichhupali route which would benefit commuters of the region, besides connecting Bichhupali to Jharsuguda and Vizianagaram main line through Balangir. A bridge between Theruvali and Singapur Road station, constructed at a cost of Rs 27.4 crore, was inaugurated on the occasion. The bridge reestablishes the linkage over Nagavali river, which was washed away during floods in July 2017. These apart, Modi inaugurated renovation and restoration works at Nilamadhav & Siddheswar Temple at Gandhaharadi in Boudh, Paschim Somnath group of temples, also in Boudh, and Ranipur Jharial group of monuments in Balangir, an official of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) said. He inaugurated six Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) at Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Puri, Phulbani, Bargarh and Balangir through video conferencing. The PSKs would immensely benefit the people as they would no longer require to travel all the way to Bhubaneswar for getting passports issued, Modi said. The prime minister laid the foundation stone for a permanent building of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Sonepur, to be constructed at a cost of Rs 15.81 crore and also inaugurated a Kendriya Vidyalaya at Rayagada. He said the Centre has been taking concrete steps for spreading the Kendriya Vidyalaya network in Odisha and the new schools would play a significant role in human resource development in the state. Modi's visit to the western Odisha town on Tuesday assumes significance in light of the upcoming Assembly and general elections. He toured Bhubaneswar and Khurda on December 24 and launched Rs 14,523 crore worth of projects for Odisha, while on his visit to Baripada on January 5 he unveiled programmes worth Rs 4,733 crore. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the left government in Kerala on the Sabarimala issue, saying Communists do not respect India's culture and spirituality. Hitting out at the CPI(M)-led LDF and the Opposition, spearheaded by the in the state, he said both the fronts were two sides of the same coin and accused them of neglecting people of the state. "We know that the Communists do not respect India's culture, history and spirituality," Modi said at a public meeting here. Modi said the Congress party has multiple stands on the Sabarimala issue. "They say one thing in Parliament and another in Pathanamthitta (where the Lord Ayyappa shrine is located)," the Prime Minister said. : Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday offered prayers at the centuries-old Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple here, known as one of the 108 'divyadesams' of Lord Vishnu. Modi, who entered the sprawling shrine through the eastern entrance, spent about 20 minutes there. Earlier, while speaking at a function at neighbouring Kollam district, the Prime Minister said he would seek blessings of Lord Padmanabhaswamy for the "welfare of people of Kerala and other parts of the country". Governor Justice P Sathasivam and state Devaswom minister Kadakampally Surendran accompanied Modi inside the shrine. Before the darshan, Modi inaugurated the multi-crore developmental works carried out at the shrine as part of the union government's flagship Swadesh Darshan Scheme, which is aimed at developing the basic facilities in and around religious institutions across the country. He unveiled at the east gate, a plaque on the project "Development of Spiritual Circuit: Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple-Aranmula-Sabarimala", being implemented under the Swadesh Drashan Scheme of the union tourism ministry. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Minister of State for Tourism, Alphons Kannanthanam and Shashi Tharoor, MP, were among those present during the occasion. People and party workers gathered on both sides of the road leading to the shrine to have a glimpse of the prime minister, Officials said that under the Swadesh Darshan project, the Ministry of Tourism had sanctioned Rs 92.22 crores during 2016-17 and a majority of the work under this project was carried out at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple. The construction of the heritage walk footpath, bio toilets and bathrooms, renovation of the Padmatheertham temple tank, electrification and setting up of security systems have been completed at the shrine, dedicated to Lord Padmanabha, under the initiative. Recognising the tourism potential of the state,the Centre has sanctioned seven projects in Kerala under the Swadesh Darshan and PRASHAD schemes for about Rs 550 crore. After the temple visit, Modi left for New Delhi. The centuries-old temple, dedicated to Lord Padmanabha, had hogged media attention in 2011 after its four underground cellars revealed gold ornaments, vessels, jewels and precious stones worth thousands of crores of Rupees during an inspection. An architectural splendour in granite, the temple was rebuilt in its present form in the 18th century by the erstwhile Travancore Royal family, for whom Lord Padmanabha (Vishnu) is their family deity. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially declared open the much-awaited Kollam bypass on Highway-66 in Kollam on Tuesday. The 13-km-long, two-lane bypass, with a project cost of Rs 352 crore, will cut the travel time between Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram districts of Kerala and is expected to decongest the traffic in Kollam town. The bypass has three major bridges over the Ashtamudi Lake, with a total length of 1,540 metres. Dedicating the bypass to the nation, Modi said only 56 per cent of the rural habitat was connected with roads in the country when he came to power in 2014. "On the banks of the Ashtamudi lake, I sense the recovery from the (August, 2018) floods. But we will have to fight harder. I congratulate you all on the completion of the bypass," he said. "In our country, we often see many infrastructure projects getting stalled after inauguration. A huge amount of public money goes to waste," the prime minister said, adding that he evaluated the development projects and engaged in meetings with all departmental secretaries and state chief secretaries. "Some projects get delayed for more than 20-30 years. It is a crime towards the common people," he said. The prime minister said foreign tourist arrivals went up in the country from 70 lakh in 2013 to one crore in 2017, adding that foreign exchange earned due to tourism went up from $18 billion to $27 billion in the said period. "India was among one of the fastest-growing tourist destinations in the world in 2017," he said. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said his government had fulfilled the development promises made to the prime minister when it came to power in the state. "Now I can proudly say that Kerala has fulfilled the promise given to the prime minister when we came to power. All these developments are for the welfare of the people," he said. This was the prime minister's third official visit to Kollam. Modi's first visit to the district was in December 2015, when he had unveiled the statue of former Kerala chief minister R Sankar. He had also visited Kollam in April 2016, hours after the Puttingal fire tragedy that claimed over 100 lives. Modi, who earlier arrived at Thiruvananthapuram in a special plane, was welcomed by Kerala Governor Justice (retd) P Sathasivam, Vijayan, officials and other leaders. He subsequently arrived at Kollam in a helicopter. Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday greeted soldiers on the occasion of Army Day, saying the nation is proud of their grit and determination. "I bow to their courage and bravery," he tweeted. He said the countrymen are proud of the grit and determination of the soldiers. Army Day is celebrated on January 15 every year to mark the taking over as commander-in-chief of the Indian Army by then Lt Gen K M Carriappa in 1949 from GeneralFrancis Butcher, the last British Commander-in-Chief of India. Carriappa later became a Field Marshal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga has told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the people of the northeastern state vehemently opposes the passage of Citizenship (Amendment) Bill,, an official statement said Tuesday. The controversial bill, which has triggered large scale protests in the northeastern states including Mizoram, was passed by the Lok Sabha on January 8. The statement said that Zoramthanga met Modi in New Delhi yesterday and discussed several issues including the opposition to the proposed amendment on the Citizenship Act, 1955. They also discussed about bamboo projects, Mizoram's separate cadre for all India services and proposed termination of Jet Airways' flights from Aizawl to Kolkata and Guwahati from February 10, the statement added. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, provides for according Indian citizenship to the Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis who fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India, instead of the 12 years currently, even if they do not possess any document. A meeting of the state council of ministers on January 10 had expressed regret that the citizenship bill was passed in the Lok Sabha and that the state government should make concerted efforts for the defeat of the bill in the Rajya Sabha. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar Tuesday held a meeting with party leaders to frame a strategy for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Jakhar, who is an MP from Gurdaspur, asked them to work towards achieving the 'Mission 13' in next general elections by winning all the Lok Sabha seats from Punjab, according to an official release issued here. There are 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab. The MP asked his party-men to dedicate themselves to achieve the target which was fixed by the Congress during a rally at Killian Wali on October 7 last year. Jakhar blamed the "wrong" policies of the BJP-led NDA government for the "sufferings" of the farmers and traders. He alleged that the Goods and Services Tax was implemented in a "faulty" manner on traders and it was also imposed on agriculture inputs which further "harassed" the farming community of the nation. "Farmers are not being paid appropriate prices for their crops and on the other hand, the goods are getting expensive for consumers," he claimed. During the meeting, the state Congress president also took suggestions from the leaders of different units of the party for preparing for the Lok Sabha polls. Punjab Youth Congress president Amanpreet Singh Lali, Punjab Mahila Congress president Mamta Dutta, president of Punjab Congress Sewa Dal Nirmal Singh Kalra, INTUC leader Subhash Sharma, SC Morcha leader Raj Kumab Chhabewal, OBC leader Gurinderpal Singh Billa, leader of farmer and farm labour cell Inder Jeet Singh Zira were also present in the meeting. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday accused the past governments at the Centre of ruling like "sultanates" and neglecting the country's rich heritage. He said the government led by him is committed not only to conserving and preserving the country's rich cultural heritage but also to clubbing ancient identities with modernity. "Past governments ruled like Sultanates and neglected our rich heritage. They ignored our glorious civilization and failed to pay attention to their preservation," Modi said at a BJP rally in this western Odisha town. The prime minister said some people are even opposing celebration of International Yoga Day without understanding that yoga is India's ancient asset. Claiming that priceless antique pieces and ancient idols were stolen and moved out of the country in the past, he said the NDA government has taken concrete steps to bring back the precious idols from abroad. "In the last four years, many such idols have already been brought back," Modi said. Before addressing the rally, the prime minister unveiled a slew of projects worth Rs 1,550 crore for Odisha. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Palestinians will launch a bid to become a full member of the United Nations even though such a move will be blocked by the United States, the Palestinian foreign minister said Tuesday. The Palestinians have the status of non-member observer state at the world body and full membership would amount to international recognition of Palestinian statehood. Any request to become a UN member-state must first be approved by the Security Council, where the United States has veto power, before it is endorsed by the General Assembly. "We know that we are going to face a US veto but that won't prevent us from presenting our application" for full UN membership, Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki told journalists. The Palestinians will begin lobbying Security Council members with a view to presenting the application for UN membership in "a few weeks," said Maliki. The Palestinians presented a request for UN membership in 2011, but the application never came before the Security Council for a vote. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas addressed a ceremony at the United Nations marking the start of the Palestinian chair of the Group of 77 and China, raising their profile by leading the biggest UN bloc of developing countries. Abbas charged that Israel was hampering development in the Middle East and renewed his commitment to a two-state solution. "Israel's continued colonization and occupation of the state of Palestine undermines our development and capacity for cooperation, coordination and obstructs the cohesive future development of all peoples of the region," Abbas told the gathering. The Palestinian leader said he was committed to a "peaceful solution that brings an end to the occupation and the realization of the independence of the state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital, living side-by-side in peace and security with the state of Israel." The Palestinians reacted furiously to President Donald Trump's decision in December 2017 to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, breaking with the international consensus that the status of the city would be decided in negotiations. Abbas has broken off ties with the Trump administration and has vowed to oppose any US peace proposal that he has warned would be biased in favour of Israel. The United States has also cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for the Palestinians including funds to the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), which was forced to scale back its education and health programs. The General Assembly last year adopted a resolution granting the observer-state of Palestine additional rights to act as chair of the G77, a bloc of 134 countries at the United Nations. The US voted against that measure, arguing that the Palestinians should not be allowed to take the chair because it is not a full member-state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Describing Pakistan's rapidly growing population as a "ticking timebomb", the Supreme Court Tuesday urged religious scholars, the civil society and the government to back population control measures, including a two children per family norm, in the Muslim-majority country. A three-member bench led by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar made the observations during a hearing in a case related to population control in Pakistan, now the world's fifth most populous. In its order, the Supreme Court urged religious scholars, the civil society and the government to take steps to promote population control in the country. The bench referred to the increasing population as a "ticking timebomb", the Express Tribune reported. "The increasing population is a burden on the country's resources. It is about the future of the next generation. It would be unfortunate if the population is not controlled. Two children per home will help to control the population. There is a need for a campaign on the matter," the apex court was quoted as saying by the report. "The entire nation needs to stand together to control the population," the chief justice said. According to the 2017 census, Pakistan's population was approximately 207,774,520, making it the world's fifth most populous nation only behind China, India, the United States and Indonesia. In July, the Supreme Court took suo motu action on increase in population. The chief justice, on the occasion, remarked that there is dire need to formulate a uniform and effective policy to curb Pakistan's population growth. On Monday, the apex court came down hard on Health Secretary Captain (Rtd) Zahid Saeed after he admitted that the department could not devise and implement effective measures to control population growth, Duniya reported. An angry Chief Justice Nisar remarked, "how could surveys be done while sitting in offices?" Subsequently, the court ordered him to submit a progress report to the court every three months. The secretary informed the court that a plan has been devised to control the population growth rate which has to be brought down to 1.5 per cent by 2025. The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has also voiced its concern at the rapid increase of population in the country, calling it a looming disaster. In a recent press statement, the PMA said the birth of 15,000 babies in Pakistan on the 1st day of 2019 was alarming. The PMA thinks that it is a distressing situation as at the moment as 60 per cent of the national population stands below the age of 25 years; 25 million children are not going to school and 90 per cent the population is not being provided with clean drinking water. Malnutrition is another big issue and food scarcity is a big problem, the association said. The PMA said it believes that the unchecked rise in the population is a looming disaster, and concrete steps should be taken to implement family planning and make people-friendly economic policies to overcome these difficulties and save the coming generations. Pakistan's population was one of the fastest growing in the world and in years to come, the country will be the fourth most populous in the world, the PMA said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistani security agencies on Tuesday killed two terrorists of the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group in Punjab province, who were allegedly involved in the kidnappings of an American national, a senior army officer, and the son of former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. The terrorists were also involved in the killing of senior intelligence officials. According to a statement issued by the counter terrorism department (CTD) of the Punjab Police, the terrorists were to hit the offices of an intelligence agency on Tuesday but they were eliminated before they could act. "On Monday the CTD received credible source information that some terrorists were hiding in Faisalabad, some 150 kms from Lahore, in a rented house. A person from the neighbourhood observed suspicious activity and secretly informed the police," a CTD spokesman said. He said an intelligence-based operation was jointly conducted by the CTD, Punjab and an intelligence agency at midnight. "The terrorists were warned to surrender but they started indiscriminate firing at the personnel of the raiding team. A shootout ensued. When the firing stopped, two terrorists were found dead. They were identified as Adeel Hafeez and Usman Haroon. They belong to a very dangerous network of Daesh (IS)," he said. The spokesperon further said both terrorists had planned to attack security personnel in Faisalabad, evidence from the crime scene showed. "This terrorist network has been found involved in several high profile terrorist activities including killing of officials of the intelligence agency in Multan namely Umar Mubeen and Yasir Ali, kidnapping of son-in-law of General Tariq Majeed, an American national Warren Weinstein in 2011, Ali Haider Gilani, son of former PM Yousaf Raza Gilani and Brigadier Tahir," the CTD said. Weinstein, who was adbucted from Lahore, was accidentally killed in a US drone strike in 2015 on the Afghan border. The slain terrorists had also killed two police officers in Faisalabad in an attempt to kidnap a senior law enforcement officer. Two suicide jackets, one pistol, two hand grenades and live rounds of pistol have been recovered from the crime scene. The CTD said further investigation is underway. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan has arrested a senior member of the Afghan Taliban here in a bid to put pressure on the militant group to come to the negotiating table to hold talks with the US, a media report said Tuesday. Hafez Mohibullah, who served as Religious Affairs Minister when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan until 2001, was held in Peshawar, the BBC reported quoting sources in the group. The US has repeatedly called on Pakistan to end "safe havens" for the Taliban on its soil. Pakistan denies backing the group to retain influence in Afghanistan. The reported detention of Mohibullah came ahead of US envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad's visit to Pakistan for a fresh round of talks with top officials to push forward a US-backed ongoing peace process in the war-torn country. Two high-ranking Taliban figures, talking on condition of anonymity, suggested the former minister had been detained to put pressure on the group into meeting Khalilzad in Pakistan this week, and crucially to agree to meet representatives of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, the report said. "They arrested him [Mohibullah] to send a message," the report said, quoting one senior Taliban figure as saying. "There was a meeting with Pakistani officials on the upcoming peace talks which ended in arguments. Right afterwards, the authorities raided a number of houses and arrested Mohibullah. After that (Taliban leader) Sheikh Hibatullah sent a message warning everyone to be alert," said another source from the militant group's Quetta Shura or leadership council. The US wants Pakistan to encourage the militants to reach a settlement in Afghanistan and bring the 17-year war to a close. The Taliban officials have said they will only begin talks with the Afghan government once a firm date for the withdrawal of American troops from the country has been agreed. India has been a key stakeholder in the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan. India has been maintaining a policy of not engaging with the Taliban and pressing for an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace initiative to bring peace and stability in the war-ravaged country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will award medals to the winners of the 'Bharat Ko Janiye' quiz on January 22 during the Pravasi Bhartiya Divas celebration in Varanasi, Union Minister Sushma Swaraj said Tuesday. The winners will also visit the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, she said. The quiz, conducted by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), seeks to motivate overseas Indian youth to enhance their knowledge about India and connect with their roots. The external affairs minister said the quiz had "changed the image" of India among the non-resident Indians and people of Indian-origin living abroad. Swaraj was addressing a gathering at the Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra here, after the grand finale of the second edition of the event. She also asserted that among all the events organised by the MEA, the quiz was the "dearest" to her. A senior MEA official said, 24 contestants were selected for the semi-final, which took place on Sunday, from over 40,000 applications. From 24 semi-finalists, nine were chosen for the grand finale. This year, a new category has been added -- foreigners -- besides the existing two -- non-resident Indians (NRIs) and Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs). Swaraj said the number of contestants in this edition had jumped to 40,000 from 5,000 in the first edition held in 2015. "The youngsters who have been chosen as part of the quiz will get to experience and see India's diversity which they have learned of only in books. All those who have participated in the event here, will now travel to Lakshadweep Islands, and also attend the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas in Varanasi, and then also get to see the Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, which happens once in 12 years," she said. "I am happy to share that these winners will get their medals from the hands of the Prime Minister himself in Varanasi on January 22, during the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas celebrations," Swaraj said. After coming back from from Allahabad, the participants will also attend the Republic Day Parade at Rajpath on January 26, she added. Lauding the event, Swaraj said it had helped people of Indian roots living abroad widen their horizon about the country. "We had earlier done the Know India Programme (KIP) to familiarise Indian-origin youth with their Indian roots. And, many of them had a stereotypical notion that India was a country of snake charmers, abject poverty and had bad roads," she said. "The PIO youths, whose ancestors moved to foreign countries 100-150 years ago, are learning so much through this quiz," the minister said. Srihari Hulikal Muralidhar, 26-year-old PhD scholar at Aarhus University in Denmark, who won first prize in the NRI category, was ecstatic to learn that he will be receiving the medal from Modi. "I am super excited about it, and about visiting Varanasi and Allahabad for the Kumbh Mela," he told PTI. Asked about the selection procedure, Muralidhar, who hails from Karnataka, said, "I saw a post about the event on the Facebook page of the Indian Embassy in Denmark and applied. After that, two online rounds were held, and the competition was tough," he said. Maha Gaida (31), a Tunisian, who participated in the foreigner category, said he was excited to explore India. "India and Tunisia, both have a special place in my heart and I am delighted to be part of this event, and excited to explore India more," she said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A top North Korean diplomat was travelling to Sweden Tuesday, she told reporters, as speculation mounts over the next summit between the isolated state's leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump. Choe Son Hui, a North Korean vice-minister of foreign affairs, landed in Beijing on a flight from the North Korean capital Pyongyang. "I am going to an international conference in Sweden," South Korea's Yonhap agency quoted her as saying on arrival at the airport. Choe's trip comes as expectations grow for a second meeting between Kim and Trump -- despite a lack of progress in denuclearisation negotiations -- after the North Korean leader went to Beijing, long Pyongyang's key ally, last week for talks with President Xi Jinping. South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Kim's trip was a sign a second US-North Korean summit was "imminent", and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo added at the weekend that: "We're working out the details". Suggestions circulating among Korea-watchers for possible venues include Vietnam and Thailand, among others. Stockholm has a long history of mediating between Washington and Pyongyang -- while the two do not have diplomatic relations, Sweden is the protecting power for US citizens in the Asian country, and Choe has been intimately involved in the US-North Korean relationship. Before she assumed her current position, she was director general of the foreign ministry's North American department. She was also among the officials who accompanied Kim to Singapore for his first summit with Trump in June. The meeting, held in a blaze of publicity, saw the two men sign a vaguely worded document in which Kim pledged to work towards "the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula". But progress has since stalled with the two sides disagreeing over what that means. Pyongyang is seeking sanctions relief and rejects demands for what it calls its "unilateral" disarmament, while Washington insists that the punitive measures must stay in place until it gives up its nuclear arsenal. Citing a diplomatic source, the South's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported Tuesday that Kim Yong Chol, Pompeo's counterpart in the discussion process, was expected to visit Washington later this week for talks. There were no reports that he had passed through Beijing. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) National Commission for Women chairperson Rekha Sharma will meet Jadavpur University's vice chancellor on Friday to discuss the matter involving a professor who allegedly wrote a "misogynistic" social media post. The professor had written a post on Facebook on virginity of women which he deleted later. In the post, the professor rhetorically asked whether his readers "would be willing to buy a cold drink or a packet of biscuits, if its seal was broken?" Strongly objecting his comments, Sharma Thursday wrote to Jadavpur University VC Suranjan Das and said the NCW is seriously concerned over the matter. She said that she will meet Das during her upcoming visit to Kolkata on Friday. The NCW also took suo motu cognisance of the professor's "shocking, misogynistic" lessons. It asked the West Bengal DGP to probe the matter and take appropriate action in the case and apprise the commission of it. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Terming local militants as "sons of soil", PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti Tuesday said efforts should be made to save them, adding the Centre should initiate dialogue with the militant leadership in Jammu and Kashmir to end the "gun culture". "Right now, talks should be held with Pakistan and separatists. Similarly, the militant leadership should also be talked to as it is they who have the guns and only they can end the gun culture," she told reporters in Anantnag after a party function. "I believe at some stage, talks will have to be held with Hurriyat Conference and militants as well," she said. The former chief minister, however, said it was "too early (for talks with militants)". Mehbooba said local militants should be prevented from walking on the path of violence. "Right from the time I came into politics in 1996, I have been saying that local militants are sons of the soil and our maximum efforts should be to save them because they are assets. "If an encounter breaks out, the two people (militants and security forces) come face to face and no one can do anything about it then," she said. The PDP president had on Monday questioned the timing of filing of charge sheet in the 2016 JNU sedition case, in which seven Kashmiris have been named, saying the students were being used to score political points ahead of Lok Sabha elections. "No surprises here. We are months away from the 2019 general election and like always, using Kashmiris to score extra political points with the Indian electorate has become somewhat of a pre-requisite," she had said in a series of tweets. "Timing of the charge sheet couldn't be any more suspicious. When UPA was in power, it decided to send Afzal Guru to the gallows and to this day, J&K is paying a price," she said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Meghalaya government Tuesday ordered implementation of the Supreme Court order banning transportation of coal with immediate effect, officials said. Chief Secretary Y Tsering issued the order directing authorities to ensure compliance of the directions of the Supreme Court without fail, they said. The apex court banned transportation of coal in the state forthwith until the next hearing on February 19, refusing a plea by the miners to send extracted coal left to transport since the 2014 National Green Tribunal ban on mining. In pursuance of the directions of the Supreme Court in its sitting Tuesday as communicated by the learned advocate general, transportation of coal in the state of Meghalaya is hereby stopped with immediate effect, Tsering said in his order. The ban comes a week after a citizens forum in Meghalaya, in which RTI activists Agnes Kharshiing was part of, demanded the Supreme Court to issue a complete ban on coal mining/transportation in the state citing that there has been absolute loss in terms of revenue from the industry and that all indices in the mining district are down with 76 per cent of people landless. The forum alleged collusions between the state government and the illegal coal miners wherein the courts and the NGT were misled on several occasions on the total amount of extracted coal waiting to be transported. The Supreme Court has also rapped the Meghalaya government for failing to curb illegal mining and has asked it to file an affidavit. Former chief minister and Leader of Opposition Mukul Sangma hit out at the state government and said the leadership do not have the moral rights to continue to be in office. This (SC order) shows that for the first time, the court no longer trusts the state government and the leadership has to be held responsible. With this exposure, the leadership does not have the moral and legal rights to continue in office, Mukul said. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the Indian Navy carried on with the underwater exploration at the main shaft in search of the miners for 15 hours without any results, operation spokesperson R Susngi told PTI. He said the Kirloskar Brothers Ltd (KBL) pumps did not dewater the main shaft in view of the Navy underwater exploration. Coal India Ltd and Odisha Fire Services on the other hand, ran their pumps in nearby abandoned shafts in search of any signs of the miners, Susngi said. Scientists from Hyderabad and Chennai are surveying the strata of the coal seams and the rocks formation in the area, he said. As the operations entered its 32nd day Tuesday, the Sound Navigation and Ranging (SONAR), which uses sound propagation to navigate, communicate or detect objects underwater, is expected to arrive at the site anytime soon. The machines will be used to map the rat holes criss-crossing underneath the earths crust in the area. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A man has been detained for allegedly sending an e-mail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal threatening to kidnap his daughter, police said on Tuesday. The accused, Vikas Rai, is a resident of Samastipur in Bihar and has been preparing for competitive exams in Delhi, they added. Police have also seized the phone he allegedly used to send the e-mail. Further details are awaited as his questioning is underway. The Chief Minister's Office had received an anonymous e-mail on January 9 which was forwarded to Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik. A Protective Service Officer has been deployed for Kejriwal's daughter by North district Police, officials said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 45-year-old man allegedly committed suicide Tuesday by jumping in front of a train at the busy Rajiv Chowk metro station in Delhi, police said. The incident during the morning rush hour disrupted metro services for 15-20 minutes on the Blue Line, which connects Dwarka to Noida in Uttar Pradesh. Police said they were informed about the incident at 9.34 am. Officials said Pramod Kumar, a resident of the city's Sirsapur area, committed suicide by jumping in front of a train going towards Noida City Centre. He was rushed to Lady Hardinge hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Delhi Metro) Dinesh Gupta said. Officials said they were investigating the matter and examining CCTV footage of the incident. A senior police official said Kumar used to work at the ESI hospital in Rohini but had left his job some time ago. "His wife had left him about five years ago, and they did not have any child. At present, he was jobless, has no family and lived alone. He was travelling to Noida to withdraw his provident fund," the officer said. "Though his family members are not sure about the step taken by him, but, prima facie, circumstances indicate that he jumped before a train as he was troubled," the officer said. Located at Delhi's Connaught Place, Rajiv Chowk is an interchange station which sees footfall of lakhs of commuters everyday. The Blue Line meets the Yellow Line at this station. The Yellow Line of the Delhi Metro connects Gurgaon in Haryana to Samaypur Badli, a suburb in north Delhi. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 24-year-old man, arrested for allegedly sending e-mails to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's office threatening to abduct his daughter, wanted to draw the attention of a high-profile person in order to get better treatment for his psychiatric issues, police said on Tuesday. The accused, Vikas Rai, a resident of Samastipur in Bihar, was preparing for the SSC CGL exams in the national capital, they said, adding that he had been staying in Delhi for over a year now. He was currently being interrogated by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Special Cell of Delhi police, officials said. After sending the e-mails, Rai had left for his sister's place at Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh. The police traced him and asked him to join the investigation. Rai was arrested on Tuesday after the police took permission from the court since the FIR against him was registered for non-cognisable offences, the police said. The accused, who was undergoing treatment for psychiatric issues at the Safdarjung Hospital here and was declared fit, felt he needed better treatment facilities, a senior police officer said. "He was undergoing treatment for the last one-and-a-half to two months and the doctor told him that he was a normal person who needed to exercise and relax himself. He was not satisfied with the doctor's advice and felt that if he did something like this (sending the e-mails), he would be treated as someone with mental problems and would get a better treatment," the officer added. In order to draw the attention of a high-profile person to the issue, he had sent the e-mails to the Chief Minister's Office (CMO), allegedly threatening to abduct his daughter. A second-year B.Sc student, Rai was pursuing his degree through correspondence from a university in Bihar. The police have seized the phone he allegedly used to send the e-mails. Rai had sent three e-mails from his ID. The first one threatened to abduct the chief minister's daughter, the second one said the first e-mail was not fake, while the third one said it was a fake e-mail and should not be taken seriously, the officer said. Rai was traced with the help of Google, which searched for the IP address from which the e-mail was sent. The accused used to stay with his maternal aunt at Pul Prahladpur in the national capital. His family has also told the police that he was "mentally disturbed". "He has said that he did not have any intention to harm Kejriwal's daughter and it seems so till now. So far, we have not found any previous criminal record in his name. We are probing further and examining all the aspects," the officer said. Rai's father works in Mumbai, while his mother stays in Bihar. The CMO had received the anonymous e-mails on January 9, which were forwarded to Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik. A Protective Service Officer was deployed by the North district police for Kejriwal's daughter's security, officials said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 24-year-old man, arrested for allegedly sending an e-mail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's office threatening to abduct his daughter, wanted to draw the attention of a high-profile person in order to get better treatment for his psychiatric issues, police said on Tuesday. The accused, Vikas Rai, a resident of Samastipur in Bihar, was preparing for competitive exams in the national capital, they said, adding that he had been staying in Delhi for over a year now. After sending the e-mail, Rai had left for his sister's place at Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh. The police traced him and asked him to join the investigation. Rai was arrested on Tuesday after the police took permission from the court since the FIR was registered for non-cognisable offences, the police said. The accused, who was undergoing treatment for psychiatric issues at the Safdarjung Hospital here and was declared fit, felt he needed better treatment facilities. In order to draw the attention of a high-profile person to the issue, he had sent the e-mail to the Chief Minister's Office (CMO), allegedly threatening to abduct his daughter. A second-year B.Sc student, Rai was pursuing his degree through correspondence from a university in Bihar. The police have seized the phone he allegedly used to send the e-mail. Further details are awaited as his questioning is underway. The CMO had received an anonymous e-mail on January 9, which was forwarded to Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik. A Protective Service Officer was deployed for Kejriwal's daughter's security by the North district Police, officials said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP Tuesday said it did not consider a setback the Supreme Court verdict, putting on hold the party's proposed "rath yatra" programme in West Bengal, even as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee welcomed the order. The saffron party said it would decide on its future action after discussions with the central leadership. The proposed 'rath yatras' of the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls were put on hold Tuesday by the apex court, which asked the party to seek a fresh approval from the state government by submitting a revised proposal. Banerjee told reporters at the state secretariat 'Nabanna', "I welcome the court order. I'm not going to make any comment." BJP state president Dilip Ghosh declined to accept the SC verdict as a setback and said the party would take up other programmes to expose the "misrule" of the Trinamool Congress government in the state. "In sometimes you taste success, sometimes you taste defeat. But there is nothing called setback. We have other plans ready to reach out to the masses," he said. Asked whether the BJP would chalk up a new 'rath yatra' schedule and seek permission from the state government in view of the verdict, Ghosh said, "We will take a call regarding it after discussion with our central leadership." "But one thing is for sure that even if we submit a new plan, the state (government) will again deny us permission. So we have to act accordingly," he said. BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha hit out at the Trinamool Congress government, claiming that by repeatedly opposing the programme, it had exposed the lawlessness in the state. "The state has been repeatedly saying that our programme will create law and order problem. By doing so they (the ruling Trinamool Congress) have actually admitted that they are unable to maintain law and order in the state," he said. Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee claimed that the BJP's sole purpose behind the Rath Yatra programme was to disturb peace and flare up communal passions in the state. The SC bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi in its verdict asked the TMC government to consider the fresh, revised proposal of the saffron party keeping in mind the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the Constitution. The apex court said the law-and-order apprehensions of the state government were not "totally unfounded" but allowed the BJP state unit to continue with its proposed public rallies and meetings under its 'Ganatantra Bachao Yatra'. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee is a better leader than many others, but it cannot be said at this juncture if she would make a good prime minister, former national security advisor M K Narayanan said Tuesday. Narayanan, also a former governor of West Bengal, said he had spent a lifetime in intelligence and had seen almost all leaders since Independence and she is "better suited among others as she is a listener at least to some.... She is a difficult person with some remarkable qualities." Participating at a session in the Bharat Chamber of Commerce (BCC), the former IPS officer, however, did not link his statement to whether the state chief minister will be a good prime minister. To a question by BCC president Sitaram Sharma, he said, "It is a difficult question to answer. Unless a person slips into the shoe of any role, it cannot be judged." The former governor had seen the transition of government from the Left Front government to the Trinamool Congress during his stint between 2010-14 in the state. Narayanan said he had an excellent experience with both Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Mamata Banerjee, the two chief ministers he had worked with. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a bid to reach out to backward castes ahead of crucial Lok Sabha and state assembly polls, the Maharashtra cabinet Tuesday approved schemes worth Rs 736.50 crore for financial welfare of OBCs and the SC/ST communities. Another takeaway of Tuesday's Cabinet decisions is the government deciding, for the first time, to prepare a special scheme for the Wadar, Ramoshi and Pardhi castes that fall under Nomadic Tribes (NT) and Denotified Tribes category. The Cabinet also approved eight different schemes to provide financial support in the forms of the individual loan, group loan and interest subvention to OBCs, SCs and STs, an official statement said. "The cabinet has approved that it would plan some schemes for the people from these (Wadar, Ramoshi and Pardhi) castes, which will be done soon," said a state government official. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had earlier held meetings with the Ramoshi and Wadar communities in September and December last year. The state cabinet Tuesday also approved Rs 250 crore for the OBC corporation while a sum of Rs 300 crore has been allotted to the SC/ST corporation. The state government had earlier implemented 16 per cent reservation in jobs and education for the Maratha community. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) French President Emmanuel Macron attempted Tuesday to rebound from two months of often violent anti-government protests by launching a nationwide debate over the grievances fuelling the "yellow vest" movement. Macron travelled to the northern town of Grand Bourgtheroulde to kickstart what he has billed as a "great national debate", the central plank of his bid to turn around his presidency. The 41-year-old centrist passed a group of yellow vest protesters by the roadside on the way to his meeting with 600 mayors, who relayed the concerns of residents in their towns and villages in the Normandy region. In his opening remarks to the meeting, which was broadcast live on television, Macron promised that "all the questions" raised by citizens would be given consideration. "There can be no taboos," he said in answer to charges that he has sought to limit the debate by taking some issues off the table from the outset. Several mayors spoke of a sense of abandonment by the state in underpopulated rural areas with dwindling public services, and a widening chasm with Paris and other big cities. "We feel as if there is a two-speed France and wonder if we're not in the B category," Jean-Paul Legendre, mayor of Iville, a town of 500 people near the city of Rouen, told Macron. "We feel isolated and yet we're only 160 kilometres from Paris," said Jean-Noel Montier, mayor of Mesnil-en-Ouche, which groups several remote villages. Macron, a former investment banker who previously never held elected office, won the presidency in 2017 on a promise of reform and democratic renewal. He is hoping that returning to the sort of participative democracy he championed during his campaign will take the heat out of the yellow vest revolt. Security was tight for Macron's visit in Grand Bourgtheroulde, a town of 3,500 people near Rouen where a yellow vest demonstration ended in clashes with police on Saturday. Police used tear gas to disperse a few hundred protesters, many in yellow vests, who lined the road outside Grand Bourgtheroulde as Macron's motorcade arrived. "Macron, resign!" some in the crowd chanted. Five yellow vest representatives met earlier with junior environment minister Emmanuelle Wargon, who has been charged with coordinating the debates along with local government minister Sebastien Lecornu. Tuesday's meeting sounded the start of two months of consultations across France on four main themes: taxation; France's transition to a low-carbon economy; democracy and citizenship, and the functioning of the state and public services. In an open letter to the French on Sunday listing 35 questions for debate, Macron said he hoped "as many as possible" would participate in the townhall-style discussions. "We won't agree on everything, that's normal, that's democracy. But at least we'll show we are a people who are not afraid to talk, exchange and debate." Following the two-month debate, Macron said he would come up with a "new contract for the nation". Five independent auditors will be appointed to ensure the debates remain free of government interference. Many yellow vests have however reacted sceptically to the initiative, calling it a smokescreen designed to sap the strength of their movement. They point to the government's setting of red lines -- particularly its refusal to repeal a cut on wealth taxes for high earners -- as proof that it has already decided the outcome of the dialogue. Analysts and many in Macron's own party fear the consultations will spur a cascade of nebulous demands or calls for the repeal of longstanding laws, such as those that abolished the death penalty or allowed gay marriage. An Elabe poll Tuesday showed the French feeling lukewarm about the consultations, with 40 per cent saying they intended to participate and 66 per cent saying they did not think it would end the protests. The demonstrations began in mid-November over fuel tax increases seen as unfairly weighing on rural and small town inhabitants who depend on their cars for transport. Since then they have snowballed into a broader push to tackle inequality and give citizens more of a say in government decision-making, including the possibility of Swiss-style citizen-sponsored referendums. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As the first Shahi Snan (auspicious bath) of the 2019 Kumbh Mela got underway Tuesday, a UP Cabinet minister said the religious congregation is being held in Prayagraj after 350 years as the holy city was renamed Allahabad in the past. Religious Affairs Minister Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary also claimed that it's perhaps for the first time since Independence that proper arrangements (of milk, ghee, food, blankets and firewood) have been made for the seers, ashrams and akharas. "Nearly 350 years ago, the name of Prayagraj -- considered a prominent centre of Hindu culture and Sanatan Dharma -- was changed to Allahabad. However, last year, under the leadership of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, it was decided that Allahabad should be renamed as Prayagraj, as mentioned in ancient Indian texts including the Vedas. "And it is after 350 long years that the world's biggest spiritual congregation is being held in Prayagraj in the form of Kumbh Mela," he told PTI in an interview. On October 16, the Uttar Pradesh cabinet had approved a proposal to rename the historic city of Allahabad as Prayagraj. UP Cabinet minister Siddhartha Nath Singh had then said it will help highlight Indian culture at international level. Elaborating on the Kumbh Mela, Chaudhary said, "Kumbh symbolises peace and harmony amongst all human beings. Thanks to the efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Kumbh Mela has been inscribed on the list of 'Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity' by UNESCO in 2017." "Kumbh also signifies the coming together of people from various cultures from across the world and it is a spectacle that is the largest peaceful congregation of humanity," he said. The UP minister said, "It is an avismarniye (unforgettable) Kumbh. It is for the first time that representatives of 172 countries will participate in the Kumbh Mela. This time, the Kumbh Mela is spread over an area of 3,200 hectares as compared to 1,600 hectare area in the previous melas." "Apart from being a Divya Kumbh, Bhavya Kumbh (divine Kumbh, grand Kumbh), this Kumbh Mela would also be remembered as Swachh Kumbh (clean Kumbh), as more than 11,000 safai wokers have been pressed into action," he said. For maintaining cleanliness and hygiene and to host an open-defecation-free Kumbh, more than one lakh toilets have been planned to be deployed. Solid waste is to be collected in 20,000 dustbins that are to be deployed and will be transported out of the Mela area by tippers and compactors, he said. Apart from this, more than 2,000 Ganga Praharis/ Swacchagrahis are being engaged as foot soldiers. The minister also informed that it is for the first time that Akshay Vat and Saraswati Koop have been opened for the public after centuries. According to folklore, the Akshay Vat tree inside the Allahabad Fort near Sangam has the power to fulfil wishes, while the Saraswati Koop, also located in the fort premises, is a well in which one can see waters of the mythical Saraswati river. For the first time, an Integrated Control and Command Centre has been established in the Kumbh area, he said, and added that Kumbh Mela will also witness the use of artificial intelligence for better crowd management this year. Over 1,000 CCTV cameras and 40,000 LED lights have been installed in the Mela area. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Welcome Guest! You are here: Home Haj 2019 Madhya Pradesh Haj Qurrah 2019 results releasing today, Check your name here The Madhya Pradesh State Haj Committee has received a total of 16,486 applications Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh State Haj Committee is holding today i.e. Tuesday January 15, 2019 the Haj Qurrah or draw of lots to finalise the list of pilgrims who will embark on Haj journey this year. According to the state Haj Committee, the Haj 2019 Qurrah or draw of lots will be held today at 02:00 pm at Tajul Masajid Bhopal. MP Chief Minister Kamal Nath will preside over the special ceremony organised to select the final list of pilgrims who will embark on Hajj this year from Madhya Pradesh. The Madhya Pradesh State Haj Committee has received a total of 16,486 applications. Based on the population of Muslims in the state which stands at 47,74,69, it has been allotted a quota of 4,640 pilgrims. Hence the Qurrah will be held today for 4,640 seats and the result will be displayed on Haj Committee of India website. Steps to Check your name in Haj 2019 Final List using Cover No. Follow the steps given below to check if your name is in the Final or Waiting List released by the Madhya Pradesh State Haj Committee. Go to Haj Committee of India website by clicking here hajcommittee.gov.in. Brwose to the bottom of home page and look for the area similar to the one shown below. Enter your Cover No in the box. Your Cover No should start with your state code. Click on the Down Arraow from 'Select State' menu and select your state. Enter Passport No in the box. Click on "Load" button. Your application status shoul appear on the computer or mobile phone screen. The Haj Qurrah process starts district wise. Before the Qurah/Draw of Lots, it has been decided by the Haj Committee to directly select the pilgrims of above 70 years of age and women who had applied to go for Haj without Mahram. After the Draw by the Madhya Pradesh Haj Committee roday the list of pilgrims going to Haj from Bhopal, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Indore and other state districts and cities are now final. Those who had applied for this year's haj can check their status using cover number as explianed above. The Haj Committee of India distributed its total quota of 175,025 seats to pilgrims going to Haj through it. Accordingly, a total of 125,025 pilgrims will go through the Haj Committee of India and the remaining 50,000 seats have been allotted to Private Tour Operators (PTOs). The Haj Committee of India has received a total of 267,261 Haj Application Forms (HAF) from 31 Indian states. The number of application received this year has drastically reduced due to various reasons. But, it is still more than the double of India's Haj Quota allotted by Saudi Government. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Union Minister of Minorities, has requested the Saudi government to increase India's quota by 20,000. However a final decision on this is yet to be taken. All the states including Maharashtra will be allotted more seats if this additional quota is granted to the country. Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh State Haj Committee held the Haj 2019 Qurrah of the state on Friday January 11, 2019. The Rajasthan State Haj Committee held the Haj 2019 Qurrah on January 13, 2019. Maharashtra State Haj Committee conducted the Haj 2019 Qurrah on Monday January 07, 2019 and Kerala Haj Committee conducted the Qurrah on Saturday January 12, 2019. Also, the Haj Committee of India after completing Qurrah will release the Haj 2019 waiting list on February 05, 2019. The pilgrims whose names are in the Haj 2019 waiting list will be given a chance against cancellation of pilgrims who are unable to make the payment or cancel their Haj travel due to some other reason. Haj pilgrims should note that the Hajj 2019 Flight Schedule from all embarkation points will be released by the Haj Committee of India only after the process of the Haj Qurrah is completed by all states. However, according to Haj Action Plan 2019, the first outbound flight for Haj 2019 will depart from India on July 01, 2019. The last outbound Haj 2019 flight will be on August 03, 2019. The first inbound Haj flight from Saudi Arabia to India will be on August 14, 2019. Coinciding with Eid al Adha, Haj is the annual ritual to commemorate the sacrifices made by Prophet Ibrahim, his wife Hager and their son Prophet Ismael. The likely date of Wuqoof e Arafat - the key ritual of the Hajj, is August 09 or 10. As the Islamic calendar is based on sighting of moon, the final date will be decided once the new moon of the month of Dhul Hijjah is sighted. For all the latest News, Opinions and Views, download ummid.com App . Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. After two Independent MLAs in Karnataka withdrew support to the Congress-JD(S) alliance government, a Maharashtra BJP minister Tuesday said the Kumaraswamy-led dispensation will "come down" within two days. Comments of Water Conservation, Protocol and OBC Minister Ram Shinde came amid a fresh political turmoil in the southern state. "People of Karnataka had given the mandate in favour of BJP (in 2018 polls), but we fell short by some numbers (to form government). As the Congress-JD (S) alliance has been on a sticky wicket, there are indications that the (Kumaraswamy) government would come down in two days," he told reporters. The two MLAs, H Nagesh (Independent) and R Shankar (KPJP), staying at a hotel in Mumbai, wrote to Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala, conveying their decision to withdraw their support with immediate effect, which set off a political storm. Karnataka Water Resource Minister D K Shivakumar had said that three Congress MLAs were camping at a hotel in Mumbai in the "company of some BJP leaders". In the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, BJP has 104 members, Congress-79, JD(S) 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each, besides Speaker. BSP, KPJP and an Independent are supporting the coalition. Referring to the outcome of last year's elections in Karnataka wherein the BJP had emerged as the single largest party, Shinde, a close associate of state chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, said, "You cannot ignore the mandate of the people. BJP got the maximum votes but Congress' kept us away from power. Such arrangements don't work". Amid reports of uncertainty over survival of his seven-month old government, Kumaraswamy has said his ministry was stable and he is "totally relaxed." The BJP has shifted its flock of 104 MLAs to a resort in Haryana's Nuh district, fearing their poaching by the ruling coalition. Shinde pointed out that the Congress had backed JD (S) patriarch H D Deve Gowda in becoming prime minister in 1996, but later withdrew support. "It is the same Congress that had played with the then prime ministers Chandra Shekhar, Deve Gowda and I K Gujaral. How can you ignore such history and expect the current alliance of the Congress and JD (S) in Karnataka to be successful," the minister questionned. Taking a swipe at Congress, Shinde said the Karnataka CM wept in public because of troubles he was facing in running the alliance government along with Congress. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A professor at Kolkata's premier Jadavpur University (JU) has stoked a major controversy by making comments on virginity of women on Facebook and later defending his remarks. International Relations' professor Kanak Sarkar has likened a woman's virginity to a "sealed bottle" or "packet" in a Facebook post on Sunday, triggering a furore on social media and academic circles. Though he was quick to delete the post, screenshots of it went viral. Students' unions on Tuesday submitted memorandums to JU Vice-Chancellor Suranjan Das, demanding strict action against Sarkar. The professor, in his post, wrote: "Are you willing to buy a broken seal while purchasing a bottle of cold drink or a packet of biscuits? It is the same case with your wife. "A girl is biologically sealed from birth until it is opened. A virgin girl means many things accompanied as values, culture, sexual hygiene. To most boys, virgin wife is like angel." Facing criticism from all quarters, a defiant Sarkar appeared to justify his comments, asserting it was intended for "fun" among a social media group of friends and "not for public consumption". "Someone took a screenshot of the post and forwarded it, which triggered the response. I did not intend to hurt anyone's sentiment or insult any woman," he said. He also said according to a Supreme Court order every individual is entitled to express his opinion. The JU Arts Faculty Students Union leader Debraj Debnath told PTI that both the AFSU and the Students' Federation of India (SFI) have submitted separate memorandums against the professor to the VC for the "sexist post". "It is their democratic right to submit memorandum against me to the authorities. But, I should be allowed to explain my stand," Sarkar said. A student of his department alleged that Sarkar made similar "sexist comments" on social media in the past as well. "During classes, he had created an uncomfortable situation for woman students. We don't feel secure in his presence in the department," she said. The International Relations Department of the varsity will also appeal to the VC for action against him, she added. The vice-chancellor was not available for comments. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Kim Kardashian has officially confirmed that she and husband Kanye West are expecting their fourth child together via surrogate. Earlier this month, People magazine had confirmed that the couple are set to welcome a baby but they were yet to comment on the Kardashian, however, spilled the beans on Andy Cohen's "Watch What Happens Live" when she appeared on the show with sisters Kourtney and Khloe. When Cohen asked whether they were working on having another baby, she confirmed saying, "We are." The "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" star said she let the secret out when she got "drunk" at their Christmas Eve party. "I got drunk at our Christmas Eve party and I told some people. I can't remember who I told because I never get drunk," she said. The 38-year-old entrepreneur also verified that it's a boy. Citing multiple sources, Us Weekly had claimed the fourth child is a male, who is due in "very early May". The couple's third child, daughter Chicago turned one on Tuesday, was also born through surrogacy. Kardashian and West, 41, are also parents to eldest daughter North, five-and-a-half years and son Saint, three. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : In a jolt to the H D Kumaraswamy led Congress-JD(S) government in Karnataka, two Independent MLAs Tuesday withdrew support to the seventh-month old ministry amid turmoil triggered by charges of horse trading flung at each other by the ruling coalition and BJP. In a significant turn to the political war that erupted on Monday with both sides venting their fears of poaching,H Nagesh (Independent) and R Shankar (KPJP) wrote to Governor Vajubhai Vala, conveying their decision to withdraw their support with immediate effect. Both lawmakers, staying at a hotel in Mumbai, sent identical letters to the Governor and requested him to take "necessary action", a move that reduced the ruling coalition's strength to 118, but still kept it in the safe zone in the 224-member assembly. Putting up a brave face, Congress and JDS top leadership said that the government was safe, with a seemingly unfazed Kumaraswamy saying his ministry was stable and "I am very totally relaxed." The action by Nagesh and Shankar came even as the 104 BJP MLAs were hunkered down at a resort in Haryana's Nuh district near the national capital, fearing their poaching by the ruling coalition. Shankar was dropped from the Ministry during the recent cabinet rejig, reportedly for showing reluctance to be an associate member of the Congress. Nagesh was miffed over not being included in the Ministry. During the ministry formation exercise after the May 2018 assembly polls, Shankar had announced support to the BJP, but made a last minute switch towards Congress. Nagesh, a former member of Congress, had contested and won as an independent candidate after not getting the party ticket. "I know my strength. My government is stable. Don't worry," said Kumaraswamy as he sought to portray of picture of being unperturbed by the development, insisting that the two MLAs action would have no bearing on his ministry. He added, "Whatever are the episodes in our Kannada (TV) channels going on from last one week I am enjoying it." Taking a swipe at the BJP, the chief minister said, "What is going to happen? If two independents declare support (to BJP). What will be the numbers? I am totally relaxed.I know my strength"With fear of 'Operation Lotus' taking shape, AICC General Secretary K C Venugopal held a meeting with Kumaraswamy after discussions with former chief minister Siddaramaiah, deputy chief minister G Parameshwara, senior minister D K Shivakumar, home minister M B Patil and other party functionaries. Later speaking to reporters, chief minister said "This 'Operation Lotus' is a false alarm created by media. There is no threat to the government.I enjoy the channels running programmes like soap opera about threat to the government." JDS chief and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda also said nothing would happen to the government headed by his son. "It is not in anybody's hands, including the media. However much you cry hoarse, nothing will happen because it is in the hands of God. When a party (JDS) of 38 MLAs gets the blessings of a national party (Congress), it is all the wish of God," Gowda said. He also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi over allegations that Rs 60 crore and ministerial positions were offered to the MLAs of the ruling coalition by the BJP. "Does it look good that a national party (BJP) is hoarding its 104 MLAs? I am not talking about Amit Shah, but Modi, who talks a lot throughout the day," he said. Brushing aside any threat to Kumaraswamy, Venugopal said the coalition government would continue despite the BJP's "ugly and dirty" horse-trading attempts. In charge of party's Karnataka affairs, Venugopal alleged that the MLAs of the Congress-JD(S) ruling combine were being offered a "lot of things" by the BJP to switch sides. "We are confident that the Kumaraswamy government will continue. Even though they are offering a lot of things to our MLAs, we are very confident. We are in touch with all our MLAs.Our people are with us. Our government will continue," he added. The Congress has convened a meeting of all its MLAs Wednesday to take stock of the evolving situation, party sources said. BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa, former chief minister Jagadish Shettar and other senior leaders like Shobha Karandlaje are among the 104 MLAs staying in the ITC Grand Bharat resort in Hasanpur Tauru in Nuh district since Monday. Sources said the BJP legislators have been shifted to the resort in an attempt to keep the flock together and thwart any poaching attempt by the Congress-JD(S) combine. "We are staying in the resort. We don't know how long we are going to be here," Shettar told PTI. Yeddyurappa has rubbished reports about the BJP attempting 'Operation Lotus' to topple the government and said there was no truth in it and alleged that the Congress-JD(S) combine was trying to lure Opposition MLAs. 'Operation Lotus' is a reference to the BJP's alleged bid to lure several opposition MLAs to defect to ensure stability of its then government headed by Yeddyurappa in 2008. In the 224-member Assembly, BJP has 104 members, Congress-79, JDS 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each, besides Speaker. BSP, KPJP and an Independent are supporting the coalition. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Attempts by mediapersons to sneak in a luxury hotel where some Congress MLAs from Karnataka were staying proved futile, amid talk of BJP's 'Operation Lotus' to topple the coalition government in the neighbouring state. Security was beefed up at the five-star resort in suburban Mumbai where two independent MLAs and reportedly four Congress MLAs from Karnataka are staying. The Congress suspects that some of its MLAs are lodged in the Powai-based hotel, kept secretly by BJP leaders. Many journalists and Congress workers were seen in the vicinity of the hotel, searching for the "missing" Congress MLAs. There was a large media presence outside the hotel Tuesday after the two independent MLAs announced they were withdrawing support to the Congress-JDS coalition government in Karnataka. Earlier Tuesday, some mediapersons managed to sneek in the hotel but could not progress beyond the hotel lobby. The hotel security and local police were at the main gate to monitor those entering the premises. There were speculations that Karnataka Water Resources Minister DK Shivakumar may visit the hotel but that did not materialise. ' Shivakumar had on Sunday claimed that three Congress MLAs were camping at the hotel in the "company of some BJP leaders". "We are aware of what has transpired there and how much has been offered to them," Shivakumar had said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi Police has claimed before a court here that former JNU student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar had raised anti-India slogans in 2016 "to incite hatred and disaffection towards the government". Police cited statements of various witnesses in its charge sheet to state that Kumar was walking along with the protesters where a number of unidentified persons were raising slogans during an event in the university's campus on February 9, 2016, to commemorate the hanging of Parliament-attack mastermind Afzal Guru. The court will consider the charge sheet on January 19. The matter was listed for Tuesday but since the judge concerned was on leave, the matter was posted for next date of hearing. The witnesses further said that he was at the crime scene, where other protesters had posters of Guru in their hands. "It is evident from Kumar's act seen in the video footage/statements of witnesses that he become the part of unlawful assembly, led the unlawful assembly, played active role in riots, raised/supported anti national slogans which lead to violence," the final report said, adding that "Kumar himself raised anti-India slogans to incite hatred and disaffection towards the government established by the law." The evidence listed by the agency include report of JNU's high-level committee, statement of varsity's Registrar Bhupinder Jutshi and the mobile phone recordings in which Kumar was seen arguing with him over cancellation of the programme. "Kumar also told him (Jutshi) that they would go ahead with the programme without permission," it said. Regarding other two former JNU students -- Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya -- the police said they also raised anti-India slogans. The police said that a video shot by a channel and those clips shot by students present at the spot, show that Khalid, Bhattacharya and Ashutosh were raising slogans. "When interviewed by channels, others in the procession supported and repeated the anti-India slogans," the final report said. It, however, added that the slogans raised by Ashutosh were not anti-national unlike those by Khalid and Bhattacharya. Khalid raised slogans as shown in the videos and mobile clips, the police said, citing a video which shows him saying "the programme is against occupation of Kashmir by the Indian State. I am making it very apparent that I am not from Kashmir but I believe that what is happening in Kashmir is Indian occupation of Kashmir..." A number of videos show Khalid shouting slogans whereas all witnesses confirmed his presence, the charge sheet said. His mobile phone location was also used as evidence, besides electronic evidence proving his contact with other accused, it said. The police listed videos where Bhattacharya was shown citing slogans and walking with Kumar, Khalid and others in the procession. "He also gave a provocative speech," the agency said, including statement of witnesses, JNU high level committee report and mobile phone location as evidence. Regarding Rama Naga, whose name appear in column 12, the charge sheet said that he delivered speech with contents against RSS. On 36 others listed in column 2 of the charge sheet, including Ashutosh, Rama Naga, Banojyotsana, Shehla Rashid and Aparajitha Raja, police said that they were not seen raising anti-India slogans. A case was registered on February 11, 2016 under sections 124A and 120B of the IPC against unidentified persons at the Vasant Kunj (North) police station, following complaints from BJP MP Maheish Girri and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. The event had taken place despite the university administration cancelling the permission, following a complaint from the ABVP, which had termed it as "anti-national". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Jammu and Kashmir administration has approved the formation of two women police battalions and creation of 2,014 posts for them, aiming to increasing their representation in the force and help tackle gender-based violence, an official said. The State Administrative Council (SAC) under the chairmanship of Governor Satya Pal Malik met here Monday night and accorded sanction to the raising of two women battalions of the Jammu and Kashmir Police along with creation of 2,014 posts of various ranks for these battalions, an official spokesman said. The two battalions will be raised exclusively for women on the pattern of Border Battalions, he said. The move is aimed at equipping the J&K Police to effectively deal with crimes against the women and give due representation to women in the police force, the spokesman said. Due to inadequate representation and less availability of women police personnel at various levels and to address the issues of gender-based violence faced by women, the state government had taken up the issue of raising of women police battalions with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), he said. The 2,014 posts created for the women police battalions include two posts of Commandant, six posts of Deputy Commandant, 14 posts of Deputy Superintendent, 14 posts of Inspector, 4 posts of Inspector Ministerial and telecommunication (M/Tel), 46 posts of Sub-Inspector, 4 posts of Sub-Inspector (M/Tel), 46 posts of Assistant Sub-Inspector, 10 posts of Assistant Sub-Inspector (M), 320 posts of Head Constable, 8 posts of Constable (Tel), 1402 posts of Constables (Tel), 138 posts of Follower, 2 posts of Medical Officer, 4 posts of Medical Assistant and 2 posts of Nursing Assistant, the spokesman said. The recruitment to these battalions will be completed within one year from the date of sanction, he added. The raising of a women battalion will involve financial implications of around Rs 235 crore of which Rs 105.11 crore will be provided by the Government of India and Rs 129.94 crore will be the state's share. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Donald Trump's eldest daughter and senior advisor Ivanka will help the US to pick the new World Bank president, the White House has said, dismissing media reports that she herself is a key contender for the top position. World Bank's current president Jim Yong Kim announced last week that he will step down next month, triggering speculation about his replacement. The Financial Times reported on Sunday that former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley in addition to Ivanka were the possible candidates for the top job. However, the White House refuted media reports that the daughter of the US President herself was under consideration for the bank's presidency. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has asked Ivanka to "help manage the US nomination process as she's worked closely with the World Bank's leadership for the past two years - however, reports that she is under consideration are false," White House Deputy Director of Communication Jessica Ditto said on Monday. An American has traditionally led the World Bank while the top position in the International Monetary Fund has been held from Europe. While the candidature of World Bank presidency is finally approved by the financial institution itself, the US has a major say in its decision-making process by virtue of being its biggest stakeholder. Last week, the Word Bank announced its process to accept the application for the top position. The World Bank works to promote economic development and poverty eradication through loans and technical support. The 189-member international financial institution provides loans to countries and focuses on development. The US president cannot install its leader, who must be approved by the bank's board, but has traditionally placed his nominee in the job. Trump has already faced harsh criticism for appointing his daughter as a senior White House advisor. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Iranian satellite-carrying rocket blasted off into space on Tuesday, but scientists failed to put the device into orbit in a launch previously criticised by the US as helping the Islamic Republic further develop its ballistic missile programme. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has alleged that Iran's space program could help it develop a missile capable of carrying a nuclear weapon to the mainland US, criticism that comes amid the Trump administration's maximalist approach against Tehran after withdrawing from the nuclear deal. Iran, which long has said it does not seek nuclear weapons, maintains that its satellite launches and rocket tests do not have a military component. Tehran also says they don't violate a United Nations resolution that only "called upon" it not to conduct such tests. The rocket carrying the Payam satellite failed to reach the "necessary speed" in the third stage of its launch, Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said. Jahromi said the rocket had successfully passed its first and second stages before developing problems in the third. That suggests something went wrong after the rocket pushed the satellite out of the Earth's atmosphere. He did not elaborate on what caused the failure, but promised that Iranian scientists would continue their work. Iran had said that it plans to send two nonmilitary satellites, Payam and Doosti, into orbit. The Payam, which means "message" in Farsi, was an imagery satellite that Iranian officials said would help with farming and other activities. It's unclear how the failure of the Payam will affect the launch timing for the Doosti, which means "friendship." Jahromi wrote on Twitter that "Doosti is waiting for orbit," without elaborating. Tuesday's launch took place at Imam Khomeini Space Center in Iran's Semnan province, a facility under the control of the country's Defense Ministry, Jahromi said. Satellite images published last week and first reported by CNN showed activity at the launch site. Given the facility's launching corridor, the satellite likely fell in the Indian Ocean. Iranian state television aired footage of its reporter narrating the launch of the Simorgh rocket, shouting over its roar that it sent "a message of the pride, self-confidence and willpower of Iranian youth to the world!" The TV footage shows the rocket becoming just a pinpoint of light in the darkened sky and not the moment of its failure. The Simorgh, meaning "phoenix" in Farsi, has been used in previous satellite launches. It is larger than an earlier model known as the Safir, or "ambassador," that Iran previously used to launch satellites. Ahmad Motamedi, the chancellor of Tehran Amirkabir University of Technology, which designed the satellite, told the semi-official Mehr agency that Jahromi already has ordered them to design another satellite. "Now, we have earned plenty of experience and we will be able to make a new satellite quicker," he said. Over the past decade, Iran has sent several short-lived satellites into orbit and in 2013 launched a monkey into space. Iran usually displays space achievements in February during the anniversary of its 1979 Islamic Revolution. This year will mark the 40th anniversary of the revolution amid Iran facing increasing pressure from the US under the administration of President Donald Trump. Pompeo has said that Iran's plans for sending satellites into orbit demonstrate the country's defiance of a UN Security Council resolution that calls on Iran to undertake no activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. There was no immediate American reaction to the launch Tuesday. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promptly slammed Iran over the launch, accusing Tehran of lying and alleging that the "innocent satellite" was actually "the first stage of an intercontinental missile" Iran is developing in violation of international agreements. Iran denies wanting nuclear weapons. A 2015 nuclear deal it struck with world powers limited its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. However, Trump pulled America out of the deal in May. While United Nations inspectors say Iran has honoured the deal up to this point, the country has threatened to resume higher enrichment. On Tuesday, Iranian state television aired footage of nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi apparently from a previous interview warning Tehran could raise the its enrichment of uranium "instantly." "In a matter of four days we (are able) to start," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi High Court Tuesday extended till January 24 the interim protection from arrest granted to senior leader on his pleas seeking anticipatory bail in the lodged by the ED and CBI. Justice Sunil Gaur listed the matter for hearing on January 24 after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta expressed his inability to argue during the day. Chidambaram was represented in the hearing through advocates Pramod Kumar Dubey and Arshdeep Singh. On July 25, 2018, the high court had granted interim protection to Chidambaram from arrest and directed the (ED) not to take any coercive step against him till August 1 that year in the INX Media money laundering case. Prior to that on May 31 last year, the court had protected him from arrest in the case lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). On August 1, 2018, the court had extended the interim protection to September 28 and then to October 25 in both the cases. On October 25, the interim relief was extended till November 29, 2018. On November 29, 2018, the court extended the relief till January 15. The court had also directed Chidambaram to cooperate with the investigation in both the cases as and when required. The senior leader's role had come under the scanner of various investigating agencies in the Rs 3,500-crore Aircel-Maxis deal and the involving Rs 305 crore. It was during his tenure as Union finance minister in the UPA-I government that clearances from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) were given to the two ventures. In the INX Media case, the CBI had registered an FIR on May 15, 2017 alleging irregularities in the FIPB clearance granted to the media group for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007 during Chidambaram's tenure as finance minister. Thereafter, the ED had last year lodged the money laundering case in this regard. A trial court here had also granted protection from arrest till August 7, 2018 to Chidambaram in the Aircel-Maxis case in which he and his son Karti are named in the charge sheet filed by the CBI. Chidambaram's petition had said that though no summons had ever been served on him by the ED in this case, he had an apprehension of arrest in view of the summons issued to him by the CBI, which was investigating the scheduled offence. Welcome Guest! You are here: Home Life & Style Pakistan varsity tweaks Valentine's Day, Says convert threats into an opportunity The Vice Chancellor says Sisters' Day celebration will make people realise how sisters are loved in Pakistan Islamabad: Saying that 'threats should be converted into an opportunity"' a Pakistani university Sunday decided to observe February 14, which is celebrated as Valentine's Day, as 'Sisters' Day'. The University of Agriculture Faisalabad Vice Chancellor Zafar Iqbal Randhawa said the move will be made to "ocal culture and promote Islamic traditions. The varsity announced that on the special day female students on campus can be gifted scarves and abayahs as gifts, media reports said. "I am not sure if my suggestion to celebrate Sisters' Day "would click or not". But, I believe it iss compatible with Pakistan's culture and Islam", the Vice Chancellor, said while speaking to Dawn NewsTV. Randhawa said that although some Muslims have turned Valentine's Day into a threat, "My thinking is that if there is a threat, convert it into an opportunity." "Today the era of gender empowerment is here, Western thinking is being promoted," he told the Pakistani newspaper. "But the best gender empowerment and division of work is in our religion and culture." He said Sisters' Day celebration will make people realise how sisters are loved in Pakistan. "Is there a love greater than that between brother and sister?" he asked. "On Sisters' Day, it is greater than the love between husband and wife." For all the latest News, Opinions and Views, download ummid.com App . Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. Everstone-promoted IndoSpace Tuesday said it will invest Rs 650 crore in Gujarat to develop three logistic parks over the next three years. IndoSpace has announced its foray into the state with start of construction work at its first logistic park in Bavla near Ahmedabad. The park will be spread over 47 acre with leasable area of 1 million sq ft. The park is located close to the industrial hubs of Sanand and Changodar and has easy access to Kandla and Mundra ports. With rising demand of industrial space, IndoSpace is planning to build two more logistics parks in Gujarat with a total leasable area of 1.5 million sq ft. "The Bavla industrial park not only marks our foray into Gujarat, it also shows our clear determination to strengthen our leadership in the light industrial manufacturing space. We plan to invest Rs 650 crore in new parks across Gujarat. "Upon completion, the projects are expected to generate employment for more than 10,000 people directly and indirectly," said Rajesh Jaggi, Managing Partner, Real Estate, Everstone Group. Recently, IndoSpace announced the closure of its third logistics real estate fund with a corpus of USD 1.2 billion, taking its total India commitment to well over USD 3.2 billion. It has around 30 million square feet across developed and under-construction projects. Its portfolio includes 30 industrial and logistics parks in nine cities. Indospace, promoted by Everstone Group, GLP and Realterm, has clients like IKEA, Amazon, Nissan, PepsiCo, DHL, Leoni, Steelcase, Kubota, Ericsson, Bosch and Delphi. The Everstone Group is a premier India and South East Asia focused private equity and real estate firm. GLP is the leading global provider of modern logistics facilities and technology-led solutions. Realterm is a multi-strategy private equity real estate operator in North America. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Indian peacekeepers serving with the UN Mission in South Sudan have been lauded for their efforts to renovate a health institute in the war-ravaged nation's town, enabling crucial medical training to resume at the centre. The Jonglei Health Institute located in Bor had been out of service for five years after being vandalised and abandoned when the conflict broke out in December 2013. The Bor hospital too had been left abandoned but has long since reopened. However the health institute remained shuttered. A report from UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said that following a request from the South Sudanese government, the UN and the Indian peacekeepers carried out extensive repairs of the facilities, including its water supply system, generator and lighting, putting in place essential infrastructure necessary to provide medical services. At the end of the month, the health facility will start training 40 recruits to become nurses, midwives and other clinical staff. Attending a ceremony at the Institute, local resident Joyce Akol welcomed the re-opening of the health institute. "It opens an opportunity for me and many of my friends to get trained as health personnel and acquire skills that can provide us with a livelihood and employment, in the main hospital here or anywhere in the country," she said, adding: "It also indicates that slowly, peace is returning to our country." A local resident Rebecca Yar was quoted as saying in the report that the 40 people set to receive training would help provide better healthcare and treatment to patients. India is the second largest contributor of peacekeepers to the UN's mission in South Sudan with more than 2,400 military and police personnel now deployed in the country. Last year as part of its 'Service and Sacrifice' campaign, the UN honoured Indian peacekeepers for carrying out initiatives that go beyond the call of duty and that have made a positive impact on the lives of the people in the countries where they are deployed. Earlier this month, South Sudan State Minister of Physical Infrastructure and Urban planning in Bentiu Tuach Lew Thoat had praised the Indian Peacekeepers for renovating a road network connecting the state capital to parts of the region. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Raj Shah, an Indian-origin top spokesman in the White House press office, has left US President Donald Trump's administration to join an arm of a lobbying firm, becoming the latest of several senior officials to quit in recent months. Shah, 34, White House deputy spokesman and a former researcher at the Republican National Committee, was in the administration since president Trump took office in January 2017. His portfolio recently included helping prepare Justice Brett M Kavanaugh for his Senate confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court. Shah will lead the Media Group, the press wing of Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm with offices in Florida and Washington, The New York Times reported. He will work with Jamie Rubin, a Democrat who was a spokesman for Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state, the report said, quoting the officials. His departure comes as the White House press and communications teams have been depleted. Several aides have moved on to roles at government agencies or have left the Trump administration entirely. Shah was born in 1984 to Indian parents of Gujarati origin. His parents moved to Chicago in 1970s and then moved to Connecticut where he was born and raised. Shah joined the White House right from the day the Trump administration took charge. He was made the Deputy Communications Director at the White House. Previously, he was director of Opposition Research in the Republican National Committee. Shah is the latest in a number of top officials to leave the Trump administration. Former Defence Secretary James Mattis left Trump's Cabinet last month, after former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was pushed out in November. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was unceremoniously fired in March and national security adviser H R McMaster was replaced last year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Indian national was among those killed in the terror attack in Afghanistan's capital on Monday, the Ministry of External Affairs said and called for the perpetrators of the assault as well as those who provide them shelter to be brought to justice expeditiously. A bomb exploded near a heavily-fortified foreign compound in Kabul, killing at least four people and wounding over 100. The Taliban on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attack in Kabul that ripped through surrounding neighbourhoods. "India strongly condemns the horrific terror attack in Kabul yesterday in which an Indian national and many others lost their lives," the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement Tuesday. The Indian Embassy in Kabul is taking steps for repatriation of the mortal remains of the Indian national, the MEA said. "We express our sincere condolences to the families of the victims of this cowardly attack and wish early recovery to the injured," it said. India calls for the perpetrators of this heinous attack and those who provide them shelter to be brought to justice expeditiously, the ministry said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Commending India for being a very important player in the multilateral system, UN General Assembly President Maria Fernanda Espinosa has said the country is a "leading force" in areas of climate action and poverty eradication. Espinosa underscored that given India's large population, its actions and success on issues such as climate change and poverty eradication is "extremely important." "India is a very important player in the multi-lateral system. It is a very strong reliable partner of the system. This should be acknowledged," Espinosa told PTI in an interview here. Lauding India for its "constructive" role in the multilateral sphere, she said the country is a very good ally to boost role of the UN and to strengthen the multi-lateral system. "I commend India for that. On the climate agenda, India is a leading actor, it has a strong commitment to renewable energies, push for solar power, poverty eradication agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). India is really a leading force," she said. "India has a very important role to play when we talk about counter-terrorism. It is a very important and key partner," she said, adding that as the President of the 73rd session of the General Assembly, she is "very much looking forward to working with India" in the new year "in terms of rights-based approach, in terms of everything that has to do with our agenda." Before assuming office as the UNGA President in September last year, Espinosa visited India and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior officials. Recalling her visit to India, she had said she was touched to see how the SDGs were being implemented on the ground in the country. During the visit she met NGOs and groups of young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods, and said it was heartening to see them organizing their communities using the SDGs as a framework. Last year, Espinosa also underscored that India's success in achieving the SDGs can "change the face of the world." In an era of rising unilateralism and nationalism, Espinosa emphasised that multilateralism is very important, relevant and needed, "especially today." She stressed that countries can look after their national interests while at the same time contributing to a multi-lateral world order. There is a perception that a nation either preserves and takes care of its national interest or espouses multi-lateral responses to global challenges, she said. "This either/or is not real because you can have both. National leaders, heads of nation can really take care of national interest when at the same time they can take part in the international community and have shared responsibilities and global leadership on global issues. Both can co-exist in a very healthy way." India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin had told PTI last month that during the course of 2018, India stressed that issues such as migration and climate action require multilateral solutions. "We are among those who are fully committed to multilateralism because we feel these issues can only be addressed multi-laterally. You cannot address them in a segmented form," he had said. Espinosa stressed that she agrees with the Indian Ambassador's view that issues such as climate change, migration, counter-terrorism can only be addressed through a multilateral response. "There is no way that one country alone can face these challenges, no matter how big or powerful the country," she said. The threat to multilateralism as witnessed across the globe drew calls for renewed commitment to a rules-based global order. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, addressing word leaders at the start of the high-level General Debate in September last year, had warned that the world is suffering from a bad case of "Trust Deficit Disorder" where polarisation is on the rise and cooperation among nations is more difficult. The UN chief underscored that challenges across the globe are growing outward, while many people are turning inward. "Multilateralism is under fire precisely when we need it most," he had said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India will provide special training to 62 Nepalese officials on public finance management which includes e-payment system, accounting, internal audit and fiscal responsibility, Indian officials here said Tuesday. The training session is part of the Nepal-India Economic Cooperation Programme, the Indian Embassy said. The course on 'Global Perspectives on Public Financial Management' will be held in three batches with 20 Nepalese officials being trained in New Delhi from January 14, it said. The training will enhance the capabilities of these officials in global practices dealing with e-payment system, accounting and cash management, public borrowing system, accounting of foreign loans/grants and repayments, pension payment system, internal audit, fiscal responsibility and budget management, among others, it added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India is setting up a cyber agency under the Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) to deal with potent threats in the cyber space, Lt Gen M M Naravane, GOC-in-C, Eastern Command, said Tuesday. He said that the Armed Forces were alive to cyber threats which necessitated a cyber agency that will be set up by pooling talent from all three services - Army, Air Force and Navy. "It will be an inter-services agency, not purely Army, functioning under the IDS and they will be looking after all the threats in the cyber domain," Naravane told newspersons during Army Day celebrations at Fort William, the Army's Eastern Command headquarter here. The IDS is responsible for fostering coordination and enabling prioritisation across the different branches of the Indian Armed Forces. "It will be headed by a two-star rank officer," the Eastern Army Commander said. Naravane said that the entire proposal is under final formulation. Stating that the cyber agency will not be a full-fledged command, he said its units will be spread across the country. "There will be units or cells or dedicated officers at every headquarter to deal with the aspect of cyber security," he said. The General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Eastern Command, earlier laid a wreath at 'Vijay Smarak', Fort William and paid homage to the courageous soldiers who laid down their lives while protecting the country. Similar ceremonies were held at all military stations in the eastern theatre. To mark the occasion, five units from Eastern Command were conferred with the Chief of Army Staff Unit Citation for exemplary professional performance, an army official said. "On similar lines, 18 units have been awarded the Unit Appreciation by the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Eastern Command, which includes 10 infantry battalions, two artillery regiments, two engineer regiments, one aviation squadron, one ASC battalion and two Assam Rifles battalions," the official said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India Tuesday asked the members of the World Trade Organisation to come forward for resolving the issues related to the current impasse in the appointment of judges in the WTO appellate body. The delay in appointment of members in the appellate body of the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism would hamper its functioning. The US has blocked the appointment of these members. "India reiterated its willingness to engage in resolving the issues related to the current impasse in the appointment/reappointment of judges in the WTO appellate body and urged the WTO members to come together to resolve the current crisis," Additional Secretary in the department of commerce Sudhanshu Pandey said. He said this while addressing a programme of Centre for Trade and Investment Law (CTIL) here. Speaking at the event, Deputy Directors General to the WTO David Shark said the concerns raised by the US on the functioning of the WTO appellate body are not new and have been expressed by the previous administrations also. The dispute settlement mechanism is an important arm of the WTO (World Trade Organisation) to resolve trade disputes among member nations. The appellate body is the apex institution to adjudicate disputes. The decrease in serving members is likely to cause further delays in appellate proceedings. India along with other members have time and again raised concerns on the matter. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : BJP General Secretary Muralidhar Rao Tuesday said withdrawal of support to the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in Karnataka by two independent MLAs was an offshoot of internalbickerings among Congress leaders, mainly D K Shivakumar. "The withdrawal of support by two independent MLAs is the result of internal bickerings among Congress leaders. Particularly, D K Shivakumar is a problem. He basically is precipitating the problem, but levelling charges against the BJP," he told PTI over phone. Rao, also in-charge of BJP affairs in Karnataka, stated this when asked to comment on the MLAs -R Shankar and H Nagesh -withdrawing support amid charges that BJP was engineering defections to topple the H D Kumaraswamy government. Attacking Shivakumar, Rao said he was the main culprit for the fresh political turbulence as he wanted to project himself as the 'true loyal Congress leader.' Rao said it is wrong on the part of Congress to charge BJP with horse-trading to woo independent MLAS, who are free to withdraw support to the government as they are not bounden by any political party. "Independent MLAs are not the private property of the Congress. You tell me where is the question of BJP'sindulgence in it. They are independent MLAS and they are freeto support any government they want. How can one say that these twoMLAs are bounden by the Congress or the JDS?" he asked. Asked whether the BJP expected more MLAs to quit or withdraw support to the government, Rao said, "It is fartoo hypothetical a question for now. I cannot immediatelycomment because I do not know the gravity of the situation in Karnataka," Replying to a query, Rao said the BJP neither wanted the coalition government to continue, nor was it keen on bringing it down. "We are just waiting and watching the political developments," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Health Minister J P Nadda travelled in the Delhi Metro and interacted with commuters Tuesday, officials said. The minister took a ride in a train on the Yellow Line that connects Samaypur Badli to Huda Centre Centre, and is one of the busiest corridors of the network. "He boarded a train from Udyog Bhawan around 11.00 am and deboarded at Haiderpuri Badli Mor," a senior DMRC official said. Udyog Bhawan metro is located near Nirman Bhawan, which houses the office of the health ministry. "On the return journey, he boarded a train from Haiderpuri Badli Mor and alighted at Udyog Bhawan station around 2:24 PM," the official said. During the journey, the minister interacted with the commuters, officials said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) By Najiya O, TwoCircles.net The reform movement carried out by Vakkom Abdulqader Moulavi is not much acknowledged in Kerala as the reformation in the state is considered mainly as related to the Hindu religion, said writer and cultural activist Sunil P Ilayidom. He was delivering the chief commemorative talk at the Vakkom Moulavi Memorial Award function held in Kozhikode on January 12. Ilayidom explained the various contributions of Vakkom Moulavi in the fields of journalism, popularising the Malayalam language, empowering women and womens education, religious reformation within the Muslim community etc. He also cited the examples of reform leaders from the Muslim and Christian communities such as Hamadani Thangal, Sanaullah Makthi Thangal, Chalilakath Kunjahammed Haji, Chavarayachan etc to strengthen his view that reforms unrelated to Hinduism have been ignored in the state. Support TwoCircles The 4th Vakkom Moulavi Memorial Awards were presented to writer Sara Joseph and Justice PK Shamsudheen. Writer Anand presented the awards comprising of memento and cash prize, organized by the Vakkom Moulavi Centre for Studies and Research, based in Kozhikode. The unexpected arrival of Swami Agnivesh at the venue was received with much awe by the audience and speakers alike. Agnivesh, who had been in Kozhikode, expressed his solidarity with the function and sat on the stage for some time before leaving. Presenting the awards, writer Anand shared his concern as to why the reforms that took place in the Muslim community in Kerala have not materialized into laws, while the Hindu community has something boast of in the matter. Justice Shamsudheen, Sara Joseph, Mujeeb Rahman Kinalur and Noora Vallil also spoke among others. Justice Shamsudheen retired as Chief Justice of the Kerala High Court in 1993. During his service and after, he was active in the progressive movements in the Muslim community in Kerala, and has been in the forefront to organize and promote seminars and programmes promoting progressive thoughts. He currently is a patron of the World Fellowship of Inter-religious Council, which he had helped found in 1981. Sara Joseph is an eminent writer and critic in the Malayalam literature arena. She has won several awards including the prestigious Kendra Sahitya Academy Award, which she returned in 2015 along with several others protesting against the intolerance and lack of freedom under the Modi Government. Vakkom Muhammed Abdulqader Moulavi (1873-1932), popularly known as Vakkom Moulavi, was a renowned social reformer, scholar, teacher, writer, journalist and newspaper proprietor in the state of Travancore in British India. He started the newspaper Swadeshabhimani in 1905, with Ramakrishna Pilla as editor, and wrote without any qualms against the rule of the then Diwan. The newspaper was confiscated and editor exiled in 1910. He also ran a journal named Al Islam in Arabi-Malayalam script, and Islam and Deepika in Malayalam. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Kerala Muslim Aikya Sangham, a united forum for the Muslims of Travancore, Cochin and Malabar, in 1922. The Delhi High Court has sought response of the Delhi government and jail authorities on a plea seeking ayurvedic doctors for prisoners lodged in the high-security ward of Tihar jail, without any discrimination. Justice Mukta Gupta asked the authorities to file a status report and listed the matter for further hearing on January 25. The plea filed by prisoner Daya Singh Lahoria claimed that he was suffering from serious ailments and has been recommended hot water by an orthopedic doctor and it was also allowed by the trial court but the jail authorities were not providing it despite repeated requests. He sought direction to jail authorities to provide facilities for keeping electronic kettle for hot water as recommended by the orthopedic doctor. Advocate Harpreet Singh Hora, appearing for Lahoria, alleged that unani/ayurvedic doctor was being provided to the prisoners but the jail authorities were acting in a "discriminatory manner" and have discontinued the same to the prisoners lodged in the high-security ward of the Tihar jail, that is ward number 8/9. The plea said no reason was given by the authorities for discontinuing the Unani doctor's treatment. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bombay High Court has directed the BEST workers' union to take a final decision on the withdrawal of its ongoing strike by Tuesday evening and inform the court on Wednesday. The direction came after the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) told a bench of Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice N M Jamdar that it was willing to implement the redressal measure suggested by a high-powered committee on granting an interim pay hike to its employees. The counsel for BEST, M P Rao, told the bench that the corporation was "open to implementing a 10-step increment" for its employees with effect from February this year. The increase, however, will be implemented subject to the fact that the strike was called off this (Tuesday) evening, Rao told the bench. As per the previous submissions made by the BEST workers' union and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in the court, a 'one-step' increase in pay for BEST workers amounts to around Rs 330 per person per month. In compliance with the court's previous orders, the state government through Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, submitted a list of measures recommended by the committee to address the demands raised by the workers' union. The committee, headed by the Chief Secretary, was constituted by the state last week. The committee in its report, has recommended among other things, that subject to the strike being called off, as an interim measure, workers be granted a '10-step increase' in salary for about 15,000 employees in a time-bound manner. This amount of increment, however, will be subsumed in the final agreement. It also recommended that upgradation and modernisation measures be implemented within the BEST, but no existing employees should be retrenched. The bench has been hearing since last week a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by lawyer Datta Mane, urging the court to pass interim orders directing the BEST workers to call off the strike immediately. Around 38,000 BEST employees have been on strike since the last eight days now. Some of their demands include a pay hike, revision of pay grade for junior level employees, and the merger of BEST's budget with that of the BMC. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani Tuesday reviewed preparations for the forthcoming Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit in Gandhinagar. The three-day investors' meet is scheduled to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Mahatma Mandir facility for international events in the state capital on January 18. Rupani, accompanied by senior government officials, visited various halls at the venue that would host an array of events during the 9th edition of the summit. The closing ceremony will be held in the presence of Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu, the chief minister told reporters after reviewing the preparations. He said the prime minister will be on a two-day visit of Gujarat on January 17 and 18. "On January 17, Modi would inaugurate 'Vibrant Gujarat Global Trade Show' near Mahatma Mandir and a newly-built hospital in Ahmedabad. In the evening, the PM would inaugurate a shopping festival on Sabarmati Riverfront," said Rupani. The PM is scheduled to open the Vibrant Summit on Friday in the presence of thousands of delegates and business leaders from across the world, the chief minister said. "PM Modi would also hold one-to-one meetings with some global leaders attending the event," said Rupani. Heads of five countries and over 30,000 national and international delegates are expected to attend the summit. Some of the major events during the three-day meet include a round-table interaction with the heads of global funds, 'Africa Day' and an MSME convention, Rupani added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Australia is increasingly engaging with India's educational and research institutions to address several global issues ranging from food security to climate change, according Australian officials and scientists. Last year, representatives from a number of top Australian universities travelled to India to sign numerous Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) for joint PhDs, exchange programmes, as well as research collaborations. According to Louise McSorley, Counsellor for Education and Research at the Australian High Commission here, the 'India Economic Strategy to 2035' report focused Australia's attention on India in a way that has never happened before. The report, commissioned by the former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, outlines steps to transform Australia's relationship with India, and take the economic partnership between the two countries to a new level. "The growth of the economy here has excited interest in Australia -- not just in education but across the board. People are seeing opportunities of collaboration to solve the real grand challenges of the world like food sustainability, climate change, and immigrant security," McSorley told PTI. "We do have similar problems of climate, managing populations, building smart cities, agricultural challenges," McSorley said, adding that collaborations between the "best and brightest" minds of both countries were a win-win for both India and Australia. In a written reply to a Lok Sabha question earlier this month, Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Satya Pal Singh, noted that there is a growing collaboration between Australian and Indian institutions on joint research projects and PhD programmes in areas of mutual interest. Under the newly initiated Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) programme, 157 joint research proposals between reputed Indian and Australian institutions have been received and are in the process of approval, Singh said. Data from 2016 showed that there were over 340 formal agreements between Australian and Indian universities and institutes which included research collaborations, academic and student exchange and other links. "Over the past two years, we have seen a strong growth in collaborations for joint research between Australian and Indian universities, including the development of joint PhD programmes," Geraldine Gante, First Secretary, Public Affairs at Australian High Commission told PTI. For example, Australia's University of Queensland has a partnership with IIT Delhi for joint research and a joint PhD programme, while Swinburne University of Technology has a similar agreement with IIT Hyderabad for joint research and a joint PhD programme. Western Sydney University Vice Chancellor and President Barney Glover said that universities have the capacity to collaborate across boundaries in ways that governments find difficult to do. "We have a number of projects and partnerships with Indian institutions, focused on the Himalayas," Glover told PTI. Over 1.9 billion people rely on the water from the Himalayas -- an extremely important region vulnerable to climate change. However, it is often hard for countries of this region to collaborate effectively. However, universities can collaborate across those political barriers, Glover said. Universities of eight countries of the Hindu-Kush region, including China, Pakistan, Myanmar, Bhutan, and Nepal are working together to address climate change issues, which could devastate the region if left unaddressed. "What excites me about university collaborations between India and Australia is that researchers (of both countries) are often similarly fearless in trying to tackle the really challenging problems in new ways," said David Rooney, a professor at Macquarie University. He added that the cultural diversities within both countries can add vibrancy to "an emerging intellectual problem solving ecosystem." Gante added that the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund (AISRF) has been the centrepiece of the bilateral science relationship. Jointly funded by Australian and Indian Governments, the AISRF has supported over 300 activities including collaborative research projects, workshops and fellowships since 2006. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government is working on a blueprint for the domestic manufacturing of aircraft and also looking at aircraft financing from within the country, Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu said Tuesday. Speaking to the media at the Global Aviation Summit 2019, organised jointly by the civil aviation ministry, the Airports Authority of India and Ficci, the minister also emphasised on carrying out of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) work domestically. "We will soon roll out a road map for manufacturing of aircraft in India," Prabhu said. Stating that the country needs 2,300 new aircraft to meet the future air travel demand, he said, "We would like to join hands with top players from across the globe." The minister said the government wants aircraft financing to be done by domestic players. "We are already working on financing of aircraft and how that should happen from India. We are loosing out lot of resources to outsiders," Prabhu said. He further said the government wants aircraft MRO to happen in the country. "There are so many planes and the maintenance and repairs can be done in India," he said. Prabhu warned that if MRO work is not carried out in the country then the government will be loosing out lot of money, besides job opportunities. He said the domestic passenger traffic has been growing at 17-18 per cent, adding the government is also now focusing on cargo and has for the first time unveiled a policy to boost the growth in the segment. Prabhu said the government has recently launched a drone policy and would like to make sure that drone becomes one of the preferred use for many sectors such as agriculture and disaster management, among others. 'We will make sure that drones are manufactured in the country," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The CPI(M) on Tuesday said the government was going ahead with the merger process of three nationalised banks in haste, ignoring opposition from the entire industry. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo, in a statement, said it was concerned over the "haste" in which it was being done. "The politburo is deeply concerned at the unseemly haste with which the government of India has been going ahead with the merger/amalgamation process of three nationalised banks viz. the Vijaya Bank, the Bank of Baroda and the Dena Bank, ignoring the collective opposition of the employees and officers of the entire industry," it said. The Left party claimed that while the merger of these banks was being justified by the government on the ground of strengthening and consolidating them, in reality, they will further be weakened. "The problems of public sector banks emanate from the deliberate default in loan-repayment by big corporate houses. The solution lies in stern action by the government for outright recovery of the huge loan amounts from these defaulter corporates with penalty, instead of the futile exercise of merger," it said. Alleging that the government was displaying a "totally indulgent attitude" towards the defaulting corporates, the CPI(M) said through the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) procedure, public sector banks were being forced to accept a big reduction in the defaulted loan amount. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A special TADA court in Gujarat's Jamnagar Tuesday rejected the discharge applications filed by two accused brothers in the 1993 Gosabara RDX and arms landing case. The explosive substances and other weapons, procured from Pakistan, were allegedly used in the serial bomb blasts in Bombay (now Mumbai) in March 1993, in which 257 people were killed and hundreds were injured. Investigating agencies had said that conspiracies had been hatched to smuggle the arms and ammunition from Karachi and Dubai. The applications were filed by Mamumiya Panjumiya Bukhari and his brother Jusabmiya Panjumiya Bukhari, currently out on bail, before the court of special judge P C Rawal. The consignment of RDX, hand grenades and pistols had landed near Gosabara in Porbandar. It was procured from Pakistan via sea route allegedly by absconding Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, Tiger Memon and the Bukhari brothers among others. So far, 46 of over 60 accused have been arrested in the case under various sections of Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Explosive Substances Act. A total of 15 accused, including Dawood and Memon, remain absconding. An FIR was registered against the accused in Jamnagar (B) Division Police Station. In their application seeking discharge, the Bukharis claimed that the necessary legal sanction required before lodging the FIR under sections 20(A)(1) and 20 (A)(2) of the TADA Act, were not obtained. They also claimed that the statements recorded under the section 15 of the TADA Act were withdrawn. Opposing their plea, Special Public Prosecutor Tushar Gokani told the court that the then complainant, a police sub-inspector, had taken the consent in writing from the then superintendent of police, on the date of lodging of the FIR. Stating that the sanction was valid, Gokani said the applications were filed by the duo merely to delay the trial in the case. He said the state Home department had also obtained the necessary sanction under section 20(A)(2) of TADA Act. "This (argument) cannot be the ground for discharge... these can be challenged during cross arguments," Gokani argued. The special court has already framed charges against 30 accused in the case. Charges against seven more accused, including the Bukharis, are expected to be filed either on Wednesday or in the next few days. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Search giant Google Tuesday celebrated the legacy of Patna-born entrepreneur Sake Dean Mahomed by dedicating a special doodle to a man of many talents credited with opening the first Indian restaurant in Britain. Mahomed also became the first Indian to write and publish a book in English (The Travels of Dean Mahomet, 1794). The doodle shows soap powder, ginger, turmeric and a bottle of shampoo placed in the middle, with mint leaves flanking it, giving the doodle a virtual garnish. An image of Mahomed, showing his profile is depicted on the bottle, which forms the 'O' in the stylised letters of the doodle, hosted on a day that would have been his 260th birth anniversary. "A man of many talents, Sake Dean Mahomed was an entrepreneur who made a name for himself by building cultural connections between India and England. On this day in 1794, he became the first Indian author to publish a book in English and later, to open an Indian restaurant in England, ushering in what would become one of Great Britain's most popular cuisines," said Google on its official doodle page. He also found success as the 'shampooing surgeon' of Brighton, opening a spa in the British seaside town that attracted the rich and royal. In 1822, King George IV appointed Mahomed as his personal 'shampooing surgeon'. He continued to hold this post under William IV, according to British Library. "In 1822, Mahomed published 'Shampooing; or Benefits resulting from the use of the Indian medicated vapour bath'. This medical work featured testimonies from his patients, as well as details of the treatment that made him famous. "Mahomed's decision to publish a work of this kind was canny: the book acted as a marketing tool for his unique baths in Brighton and capitalised on the early 19th century trend for seaside spa treatments," according to the information shared by the library on its website. Born in Patna, Bihar in 1759, Mahomed initially served as a soldier in the East India Company's Bengal Regiment before arriving in Ireland in 1784 with his colleague Captain Baker, it said, adding that he married Jane Daly. After moving to London in 1810 Mahomed established the Hindostanee Coffee House at 34, George Street, the first Indian restaurant in Britain. "The Epicure's Almanack -- an early London restaurant guide -- hailed it as a place for nobility to enjoy hookah and Indian dishes of the highest perfection. Nonetheless, Mahomed was forced to close his luxurious restaurant in 1812 and sought to reinvent himself," according to the Google doodle page which shared the information Tuesday. He later moved his family to Brighton and opened a spa named Mahomed's Baths offering luxurious herbal steam baths. "His specialty was a combination of a steam bath and an Indian therapeutic massage -- a treatment he named 'shampooing' inspired by the Hindi word champissage meaning 'a head massage," the doodle page said. "In 1822, King George IV appointed Mahomed as his personal 'shampooing surgeon', which greatly improved his business. A portrait of Mahomed hangs in the Brighton Museum, commemorating this man who helped merge the cultures of his two homelands. Happy Birthday, Sake Dean Mahomed!," it said. A plaque commemorates the legacy of the Hindostanee Coffee House in Britain, however, this celebrated man is not known much in his birthplace in Patna. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Germany on Tuesday detained a German-Afghan man on suspicion he was spying for Iran while working for the German army as a linguistic and cultural adviser. The 50-year-old identified as Abdul Hamid S. was arrested in western Germany, federal prosecutors said in a statement. "The accused was a language evaluator and cultural issues adviser of the German armed forces. In this capacity, he is believed to have passed on information to an Iranian intelligence service," they added. According to Spiegel Online, he is suspected of working for Iranian secret services for several years. While working for the German army, he had access to highly sensitive information including on troop deployment in Afghanistan, the report added. Previous cases of infiltration by a foreign agency have sparked outrage and shock in Germany. In 2016, Markus Reichel, himself a former intelligence agent for Germany, was convicted for spying for both the CIA and the Russian secret service. He admitted handing over "scores of documents and internal information" to the CIA, including papers detailing Germany's counter-espionage strategies. Reichel also delivered three classified documents to the Russians. In 2011, Germany jailed a married couple for spying for the Russian secret services for more than 20 years. The pair, identified only by the code names Andreas and Heidrun Anschlag, were planted in the former West Germany from 1988 by the Soviet Union's KGB and later worked for its successor the SVR. The couple had obtained NATO and EU political and military secrets, focussed especially on the relationship of NATO and the EU with eastern European and central Asian countries. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Five students from the country, including three from Delhi, have been declared winners of power discom TPDDL's nationwide energy conservation campaign, a company spokesperson said. The winners of the 'Bijli Bachao Star Banjao' campaign are Marisa Kapadia from Mumbai, Raamya Goswami, Manavi Grover and Dhaniksha Sharma from Delhi, Sofia Praveen from Kolkata, and VB Nivethitha from Bengaluru, the spokesperson said. Besides the winners, ten consolation prizes have also been announced. Over 1,100 students from the country participated in the campaign expressing their ideas of energy conservation through different media like videos, poems, slogans and paintings, said the spokesperson. The campaign was run in association with Tata Power's 'Club Enerji' programme and radio channel Red FM. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) TCN News Delhi Youth Welfare Association (DYWA) in collaboration with American Federation of Muslims of Indian Origin (AFMI), organized the DYWA Annual Award Celebration on 13th January 2019 at Hindi Bhawan, Rouse Avenue, New Delhi. 96 students from 15 schools were felicitated with a shields, certificates and cash prizes. Five special awards were also given. Maulana Azad Education Foundation (best government organisation), Society for Promotion of Education (best non-government organization), Shehnaz (best student, class XII), Nikhat Urooj and Iffat Zareen (best students, Urdu Language/Literature in class XII) and Rabea Girls Public School (the school with highest number of individual awards in class X & XII). Support TwoCircles This was the 28th edition of annual awards. Various educationists, social activists and political leaders such as Arfa Khanum (Senior Journalist, The Wire), Dr. A.S. Nakadar (Founder Trustee and Former President AFMI), Dr. Aslam Abdullah (Editor, Muslim Observer and Director Islamic Society of Nevada) attended the convention as guests. Siraj Hussain, former vice chancellor, Jamia Hamdard University, was the chief guest at the event. He shared a few tips on how to become civil servants. Befriend as many books as you can. And choose best universities to pursue higher education, he said. Dr. Nakadar encouraged students to identify their latent talents. Stop comparing yourself with others. It will make you better person and best among the people, he said. Arfa Khanum shared her journey from a small town in Uttar Pradesh to charting a successful career in journalism. Being in Delhi is a privileged which many of you may have overlooked. You must make use the resources available to you to the optimum. You are the future of India and you would decide what this nation wants, she said. Aslam Abdullah underlined the perils of patriarchy. We ought to treat at par with men. That is a perquisite for us to bring about any change, he said. DYWA is a well-known organization of old Delhi and has been working in the field of education for the last 28 years and AFMI (American Federation of Muslims of Indian origin) is a philanthropic charity formed by American Muslims of Indian Origin in the year 1989. A slowdown in fighting in Yemen's Hodeida province has allowed the UN to deliver more than 3,000 tonnes of food to two areas for the first time in six months, the World Food Programme said Tuesday. Tuhayta and Darahimi districts in southern Hodeida last received humanitarian aid in July, when a WFP truck delivering relief goods was "hit," agency spokesman Herve Verhoosel said, without elaborating on the nature of the July incident. The deliveries so far to the districts include more than 3,300 metric tonnes of food. "This can be thanks to an inconsistent de-escalation over recent days following the December peace talks in Stockholm," Verhoosel said in a statement. The rebel-held port in Hodeida city -- through which more than 80 percent of imports and humanitarian aid pass -- was for months the main front line in the Yemeni conflict after government forces launched an offensive to capture it in June from Iran-backed Huthi rebels. Yemen's government forces are supported by a Saudi-backed coalition. The United Nations has said the Hodeida truce has largely held since it came into force on December 18 but there have been delays in the agreed pullback of rebel and government forces. Since the Saudi-led military coalition intervened in support of the government in March 2015, the conflict has killed nearly 10,000 people and unleashed the world's worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations. UN officials say 80 per cent of the population -- 24 million people -- are in need of aid and nearly 10 million are just one step away from famine. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Fertiliser Ministry has sought additional Rs 23,000 crore from the Finance counterpart to meet the subsidy requirement for the January-March quarter, a senior government official said on Tuesday. Till December, a subsidy payment of Rs 23,283 crore was due towards and the ministry was left with about Rs 13,056 crore from the budgeted allocation, he added. "We have sought an additional budget of Rs 23,000 crore to meet the subsidy requirement for the current quarter," the official said. The backlog of pendency will be cleared from the balance funds available during the current fiscal and the remaining dues will be paid on receipt of additional budget, he said. The government releases subsidy to the on regular basis subject to the availability of budget. For the current fiscal, the government had budgeted Rs 73,439.85 crore for payment of The government has already paid Rs 60,383.79 crore till December of this fiscal, the official data showed. The subsidy is not being released to farmers directly, it is given on various soil nutrients to in public, private and cooperative sector. The Fertiliser Ministry is giving subsidy through the (DBT) scheme, which is different from the traditional DBT implemented for Under the fertiliser DBT system, the soil nutrient is made available to farmers/beneficiaries at a subsidised prices and 100 per cent subsidy on the fertiliser grades is released to the companies instead of the beneficiaries on the basis of actual sales made by the retailers. Sale of all subsidised fertilisers to farmers is being made through Point of Sale (POS) devise installed at each retailer shop and the beneficiaries are identified through Aadhaar card, kisan credit card, voter identity card among others. Extremists launched a deadly attack on a luxury hotel in Kenya's capital Tuesday, sending people fleeing in panic as explosions and heavy gunfire reverberated through the complex. A witness said he saw five bodies at the hotel entrance alone. Al-Shabab - the Somalia-based Islamic extremist group that carried out the 2013 Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi that left 67 people dead - claimed responsibility. "It is terrible. What I have seen is terrible," said a man who ran from the scene, Charles Njenga. As night fell, gunfire continued more than two hours after the first shots were heard at the complex, which includes the DusitD2 hotel, along with bars, restaurants, banks and offices and is in a well-to-do neighborhood with large numbers of American, European and Indian expatriates. It was not clear how many attackers took part. "We are aware that armed criminals are holing up in the hotel, and special forces are now currently flushing them out," said Kenya's national police chief, Joseph Boinnet, describing the assault as a suspected terror attack. Boinnet gave no figures on the dead and wounded. However, a Kenyan police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media said that bodies were seen in restaurants downstairs and in offices upstairs, but "there was no time to count the dead." Also, a witness who gave his name only as Ken said he saw five bodies at the entrance. He said that other people were shouting for help and "when we rushed back to try to rescue them, gunshots started coming from upstairs, and we had to duck because they were targeting us and we could see two guys shooting." Kenyan hospitals appealed for blood donations even as the number of wounded remained unclear. The violence appeared to fit the pattern of attacks al-Shabbab often carries out in Somalia's capital, with an explosion followed by a group of gunmen storming the place. Like the Westgate Mall attack, this one appeared aimed at wealthy Kenyans and foreigners living in the country. The attack came a day after a magistrate ruled that three men must stand trial on charges they were involved in the Westgate Mall siege. A fourth suspect was freed for lack of evidence. Tuesday's violence left blood and glass all over. Several vehicles burned, sending black smoke rising over the complex. People were rushed, some carried, from the scene. Some ducked behind cars, screaming, while others took cover behind fountains and other features at the lush complex. Ambulances, security forces and firefighters converged along with a bomb disposal unit, and vehicles were cordoned off for fear they contained explosives. Police said they blew up a car that had explosives inside. An unexploded grenade was also seen in a hallway at the complex. Security forces hurried out a large group of women, one of them still in curlers. Dozens of others were rushed to safety as plainclothes officers went shop to shop in the complex. Some people held up their hands to show they were unarmed. Al-Shabab has vowed retribution against Kenya for sending troops to Somalia since 2011. The al-Qaida-linked group has killed hundreds of people in Kenya, which has been targeted more than any other of the six countries providing troops to an African Union force in Somalia. The attack immediately brought to mind the Westgate Mall massacre, when al-Shabab extremists burst into the luxury shopping center, hurling grenades and starting a dayslong siege. In 2015, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for an attack on Kenya's Garissa University that killed 147 people, mostly students. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The country's exports growth remained almost flat in December 2018, recording a marginal expansion of 0.34 per cent to $27.93 billion, mainly on account of global trade tensions. Subdued exports and declining imports have narrowed the trade deficit to a ten-month low of $13.08 billion in December 2018 as against $14.2 billion in the same month of the previous year. According to trade data released by the commerce ministry, in last December, exports grew by 0.34 per cent (lowest in three months), while imports entered the negative zone, registering a decline of 2.44 per cent to $41 billion. Last time, imports had plunged into negative territory in September 2016. It was dipped by 2.54 per cent then. The import of gold, too, contracted by 24.33 per cent to $2.56 billion in December 2018. During the month under review, several key export sectors recorded negative growth. It includes engineering goods, gems and jewellery, leather, pharmaceuticals, marine products, iron ore, tea and coffee. Commenting on the figures, exporters body FIEO said that the marginal growth in exports was due to uncertain global cues and challenges on the domestic front. "China's exports contracted in December 2018, highlighting fragile global conditions. The weak global economic outlook are showing no signs of respite," Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President Ganesh Kumar Gupta said. Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) Chairman Ravi Sehgal too said the unfolding global situation comprises not only problems on account of trade tensions between China and the US but other issues like uncertainty over Brexit fall-out in the European markets. "The situation certainly calls for a major rethink and redrawing of our export strategy," he said. However, cumulatively during April-December this fiscal, exports grew by 10.18 per cent to $245.44 billion. Imports rose by 12.61 per cent to $386.65 billion. The trade deficit widened to $141.2 billion during the nine months of the current fiscal from $120.57 billion in April-December 2017-18. Oil imports in December 2018 rose by 3.16 per cent to $10.67 billion. During April-December this fiscal, imports grew by 42.85 per cent to $108.10 billion. Non-oil imports during the nine-month period of the fiscal increased by 4.06 per cent to $278.54 billion. A probe initiated by the Supreme Court Tuesday accused ousted Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif of illegally allotting the land of a religious shrine in Punjab province. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) was constituted by the apex court last year to probe the transfer of land of the shrine of Hazrat Baba Farid Ganj Shakar in Pakpattan in 1986 when Sharif was chief minister of Punjab. The JIT presented its report to the bench headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar who expressed anger at an earlier denial by Sharif that he had not authorised any such transfer. The report showed that 14,398 acres of shrine property was illegally allotted to one Dewan Ghulam Qutab by Sharif. The JIT recommended the retrieval of land and criminal proceedings against Sharif, then secretary to chief minister Syed Javed Iqbal Bukhari, the legal heirs of Qutub, the then assistant administrator of Auqaf Pakpattan and revenue clerics. The chief justice adjourned the case for two weeks while ordering the Punjab government and the former premier to file responses. The case was started in 2015 by the then chief justice Nasirul Mulk. But the current chief justice expedited its hearing. Sharif is already in jail serving a 10-year sentence in a corruption case over setting up a steel mill in Saudi Arabia in 2001. Sharif was disqualified as premier by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case in July, 2017. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Lanka's former president Chandrika Kumaratunga Tuesday criticised President Maithripala Sirisena for the 51-day power tussle in the island nation which ended last month, saying the party would not approve any alliance with former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa. In a strongly-worded letter to the President, Kumaratunga called for an urgent meeting with him to discuss the party's future. The island nation witnessed a 51-day political crisis after Sirisena controversially sacked prime minister Ranil Wickeremesinghe and installed Rajapaksa in his place on October 26. Sirisena later dissolved Parliament, almost 20 months before its term was to end, and ordered snap polls. The Supreme Court, however, overturned his decisions. Wickremesinghe was last month administered the oath of office after Rajapaksa resigned. Sirisena's alliance with Rajapaksa, who in November ended his five-decade-long association with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and joined the newly-formed Sri Lanka People's Party (SLPP), has not gone down well with his party leaders. A section of the SLFP, led by Kumaratunga who remains an SLFP loyalist even 14 years after handing over the leadership to Rajapaksa in 2005, has criticised Sirisena. Kumaratunga said the party would not approve his new alliance with Rajapaksa. Sirisena, meanwhile, departed for a four-day official visit to the Philippines, his office said, amid mounting pressure on him after his failed attempt to install Rajapaksa as the prime minister. Sirisena succeeded Rajapaksa as the SLFP leader in January, 2015 when he defeated the former strongman with electoral support coming from SLFP's arch-rival, the United National Party (UNP) of prime minister Wickremesinghe. Rajapaksa's SLPP defeated both the SLFP and the UNP in the local-level elections held in February last year. A wider section of the SLPP remains opposed to Sirisena's leadership and said it would not endorse him in the event of a snap presidential election which must be held before January 2020. The SLPP's local councilors have said they would not back Sirisena's nomination for the next presidential election. They want a member of the Rajapaksa family to become the main candidate to fight a UNP challenger. Rajapaksa, who has been Sri Lanka's President twice, cannot run for the third term. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi University's Bhagini Nivedita college is likely to stop using its biometric machines for a month over complaints of technical glitches, an official said Tuesday. The proposal was mooted by the college's governing body which had received several complaints from the non-teaching staff and ad-hoc teachers, who are required to punch in the machines that were installed in 2017, the official said. The permanent teachers, however, are not under any compulsion to do so, he added. In a meeting held on Tuesday, the governing body decided that the staff will sign the attendance registers for a month and if the system works, the machines would be done away with permanently, he said further. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday asked the Odisha government not to wait for elections to undertake developmental activities in the state. He also attacked the state government for its "inability" to spend Rs 4,000 crore lying with the District Mineral Foundations (DMF) and develop the mining areas. "Do not wait till elections, they will come and go. Resolve the problems of poor and work for their development. You have money in hand to undertake developmental activities," Modi said while addressing a huge gathering in this western Odisha town after launching several projects. "I am worried - what has happened to this government? Is it sleeping?" he lashed out, but refrained from taking the name of either the ruling BJD or Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik during his 47 minute-long speech. The prime minister said for the first time in the country, the BJP government had made provisions for the development of mining areas inhabited by tribals. Working for 'Sab ka Sath, Sab Ka Vikas' (collective efforts, inclusive growth), the BJP government has given priority to tribal development. In the past though there has been huge earning from mining operations, the mineral belts used to be neglected and the people there were poverty-stricken, he said. Stating that DMF was people's money and mandated to be spent for the welfare of those inhabiting the mining areas, predominantly tribals, Modi said the state government should fully utilise the funds for them. He also highlighted the development projects launched by him during his three visits to the state in as many weeks. "In a month, more than Rs 20,000 crore of development projects have been either inaugurated or initiated in Odisha. Projects worth more than Rs 1,500 crore in sectors like education, connectivity, culture and tourism that were launched today will not only spur the growth of the state, but also of eastern India," he said. This apart, Modi said his government has allocated about Rs 20,000 crore in the railways sector in the state during the last four-and-half years. This is five times more than the funds allocated by any other government in the past, he said. Besides invoking Lord Jagannath, the BJP leader took names of a number of freedom fighters and prominent social workers to woo the gathering. He also lauded the rich culture and heritage of Balangir and Odisha. The assembly polls in the state are scheduled to be held along with the Lok Sabha elections this year. The prime minister also paid tributes to Achyutananda Sahu, a Doordarshan cameraman from Balangir district, who was killed in a Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh a few months ago. "His (Sahu's) sacrifice will strengthen our pledge to fight violence," he said. Modi said Odisha has rich legacy and is a land known for its culture, heritage, ancient temples and monuments. No previous government had given any stress on Odisha and its rich cultural heritage, he said, adding the NDA government has taken up the work of restoring and preserving ancient monuments to promote tourism. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi government has floated a tender to upgrade bus terminals in Azadpur and Najafgarh with facilities like mohalla clinics and e-Kiosks, according to an official statement released Tuesday. The move is intended to provide a world-class transit experience to commuters in the national capital, the government said. It stated that designs for five more new terminals have been finalised and the tenders are expected to be released next month. Present bus terminals suffer from "many deficiencies" such as traffic disorder at the terminal entry and exit points, inaccessibility for para-transit services, informal shops and kiosks lined up along the boundary walls adding to the traffic congestion, it said. The futuristic Azadpur and Najafgarh bus terminals will have an aerodynamic canopy, held up by tree-like columns. In the current phase, eight bus terminals are being developed as modern world-class terminals in Delhi, Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot was quoted as saying in the statement. The canopy will serve as a shelter and help in rainwater harvesting. The public plaza of the terminal will have space for kiosks, shops, and hawkers with a round-the-clock anchor store. "By bringing the mohalla clinic, waiting areas integrated with a creche/play area, e-Kiosk for bill payment into the bus terminal, we are recreating the transport hub into a civic center," it stated. The government said the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) will be able to garner revenue from outdoors signage and digital media integrated into the architecture of the public amenities on site. Earlier this month, the government had floated tender for the modernisation of the Nehru Place bus terminal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : A senior police official Tuesday said the death of Kanagaraj, the prime accused in Kodanadu murder and heist case, was an accidental one and that Dhanpal, the brother of the deceased, has himself confirmed it to be so. According to Salem Range DIG Senthilkumar, Kanagaraj died in a motorcycle crash on the Salem-Chennai bypass road. Based on the complaint from Dhanpal, investigations were made and it was confirmed that the death was caused by an accident, Senthilkumar told reporters. Police have the scientific and medical certificates in this regard, he said. The police official also said Dhanpal, who initially had raised doubts over the death, had not lodged any complaint. ''It was our duty to clarify on the issue, as Dhanpal has raised doubts. In fact he, in his interview to the media the day after Kanagaraj's death, had stated his brother died in the accident,'' Senthilkumar said. On April 23, 2017 late night, a group of men, including prime accused Kanagaraj barged into the Kodanad Estate after assaulting two guards. One of them, identified as Om Bahadur, died. The group had smashed the bungalow's window panes and searched three rooms and finding no expensive articles and money, decamped with ornamental things and watches. Two suspects in the case, K V Sayan and Valayar Manoj had levelled the charge, which was dismissed as false and defamatory by the AIADMK, linking the party co-coordinator and Chief Minister Palaniswami to the break-in in the clip that was released in Delhi. Kanagaraj, days after the break-in, had died in the road mishap on April 28, 2017 and Palaniswami had told the Assembly in July 2017 that there was no suspicion on the accident based on the police "probe done so far." There was no doubt as well in regard to another road accident in Kerala the next day (April 29, 2017) involving another suspect Sayan, he had said. In that mishap, while Sayan survived, his wife and child died. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Saudi Arabia's Neom airport, part of the $500-billion futuristic city Neom, welcomed its first flights last week, operated by flag carrier Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia), said a report. A total of 130 passengers, employees of Neom, were flown to the megacity on two Airbus A320 planes, said a report in Arab News. We wanted our employees to experience the Neom project which they have been working to make a success since its inception last year. There is a big difference between knowing the details of the project in theory and visiting it practically, exploring its treasures, beauty, and heritage," the report quoted Neom CEO, Nadhmi Al-Nasr, as saying. Neom, being built on northwestern part of Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea coast, forms part of the Saudi giga-projects investment pool for the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia. The giga-projects are integrated economic ecosystems that will support the economic transformation of the kingdom and act as a catalyst for investment across various sectors. The Department of Science and Technology and public broadcaster Doordarshan Tuesday launched two science channels-- DD Science and India Science, officials said. Speaking at the launch of the free-to-air channels, Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan said developing a scientific temperament was a "critical necessity" and the ultimate aim was to launch a 24/7 channel dedicated to science. While DD Science is a one-hour slot on Doordarshan national channel, India Science is an Internet-based channel. The Union minister stressed that there was no dearth of ideas, talent, and potential in the country. Inaugurating the two key initiatives, Harsh Vardhan said that today is a watershed moment not only in science and technology communication but in developing the scientific temper of our society. Recalling the role played by Doordarshan, India's public service broadcaster, in the Pulse Polio campaign back in the 1990s, Vardhan said that the channel which reaches out to more than 92 per cent of India's population would be a very impactful medium for popularisation of science. The minister expressed hope that in near future the country will see a 24*7 DD Science Channel. "By 2030, we have to be in the top three countries in science and technology and such initiatives are building blocks towards that," Vardhan said. An agreement between Vigyan Prasar, an autonomous organisation under the Department of Science and Technology, and Doordarshan was signed on the occasion. While DD Science will be telecast Monday to Saturday from 5 pm to 6 pm, India Science will be available on any internet-enabled device and will offer live, scheduled play and video-on-demand services. The channels will have science-based documentaries, studio-based discussions, virtual walkthroughs of scientific institutions, interviews and short films and will be completely free to access, said Doordarshan Director General Supriya Sahu. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Secretary Amit Khare said Doordarshan reaches over three crore houses in the country and would be an impactful medium for the popularisation of science. Khare also said that Doordarshan would be an ideal platform to send the scientific findings across. Addressing the gathering, CEO Prasar Bharati Shashi Shekhar Vempati said the channels were dedicated to science and will "enhance the spirit of enquiry in children". The two science communication platforms are national-level initiatives to elevate science into a celebration and bring it close to everyday life. The channels have been conceived and supported by the Department of Science and Technology and are being implemented and managed by Vigyan Prasar. The two science channels which are milestones in the history of science communication in India are the first step in creating a national science channel for the country. While India Science (www.indiascience.in) is already a 24x7 presence, DD Science may also be scaled up to a full-fledged channel in the future. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : The CPI(M) and the Opposition Congress in Kerala Tuesday lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for criticising both parties on the Sabarimala issue. While CPI(M) asked Modi to read the Constitution, which he is sworn to uphold, rather than the Manusmriti or RSS oath, Congress state chief Mullappally Ramachandran said the Prime Minister's speech was a reflection of BJP's decision to use Sabarimala as a 'political opportunity.' Criticising the LDF government, Modi had said at a public rally at Kollam that the conduct of the LDF on the Sabarimala issue "will go down in history" as one of the most "shameful behaviour" by any party and government. Slamming the alleged "multiple stands" taken by the opposition Congress and the party-led front UDF, he urged the them to clear their stand on the issue. Modi also said that the Congress says one thing in Parliament and another in Pathanamthitta (where the Lord Ayyappa shrine is located) and challenged the UDF to state their stand on the Sabarimala issue. Meanwhile, the CPI(M) lashed out at the Prime Minister through its Twitter handle and said Kerala does not need cultural lessons from 'regressive forces.' "Shameful that Modi attacked the LDF Govt for implementing Supreme Court's order on Sabarimala while inaugurating a project in Kollam in Kerala. Modi should read the Indian constitution, which he is sworn to uphold, rather than Manusmriti or RSS oath," the tweet said. "What is shameful is your party leaders defending rapists, what is shameful is BJP leaders defending Sati, AND what is shameful is ruling BJP members defying the country's top court and Constitution. Mr Modi! Kerala does not need cultural lessons from regressive forces," the tweet said. KPCC president Ramachandran said the national leadership of the BJP and RSS had initially welcomed the entry of women into Sabarimala, but the BJP state chief found Sabarimala as a "political opportunity". "Prime Minister is also aiming the same. His Kollam speech was a reflection of BJP's decision to use Sabarimala as a political opportunity," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union minister Radha Mohan Singh said here Tuesday that the cooperative sector could bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. He also said there was a need to have skilled manpower to run the cooperative institutions in the country. The Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister was speaking at the foundation day of Vaikunth Mehta National Institute of Cooperative Management (VAMNICOM) here. "In India, the culture of cooperation existed for a long time. However, the cooperative policy was framed in 1904. There are more than eight lakh cooperative societies, which are currently existing in the country and we need skilled and professional manpower to run these institutions successfully," he said. He lamented that after the Independence, the cooperative sector has got weakened, which created a big gap between the rich and the poor. "It is the cooperative movement that can bridge this gap," he said. The minister said that transparency through computerisation is the only solution to raise the economic standards of agri-based cooperatives. "One needs to act upon the suggestions made in the M S Swaminathan report to ensure appropriate growth in the agriculture and cooperative sectors," said Singh. He emphasised that cooperation is the key to achieve the vision of 'sab ka sath, sab ka vikas'. Satish Marathe, Director of the central board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), who was also present on the occasion, informed the gathering that diversification and legal system in cooperative sector are yet to take the desired shape. "The agriculture sector is moving forward as the government's main agenda that is doubling the income of farmers and the time has come to focus on agri-business in general and food processing industries," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday said there was a conspiracy to oust him as his government had stopped the siphoning of Rs 90,000 crore through bogus documents. "We have put an end to loot of public money (which was the case) during the previous governments by middlemen. We have busted more than six crore fake ration cards, LPG connections and bogus pensions," Modi said at a BJP rally in this western Odisha town. Around Rs 90,000 crore has been saved by detecting these irregularities and blocking the leakages, he said. "Money was being siphoned using names of children who were not born, in the name of people who did not exist," the prime minister said, after he unveiled a slew of central projects worth over Rs 1,550 crore at an official function here. Since the Centre has put the illegal interests of some people in jeopardy, they are now joining hands to remove the country's "chowkidar" (watchman) by levelling false allegations against me, the prime minister said without taking any names. He said, "Who will protect the rights of the poor? We have stopped the loot of Rs 90,000 crore. This money used to go into the pockets of people who used to purchase big cars and fly in aeroplanes. But now these things have stopped, so their anger against Modi is natural. Now they want to take revenge against me. But with your blessings their efforts will not be successful," he said. Hinting at the coming together of opposition parties against the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Modi said conspiracies are being hatched from various quarters and now some of the conspirators are coming together. "I want to tell these people from the land of Lord Jagannath that this chowkidar will rest only after completely halting loot of public money. "Chowkidar will rest only after ensuring punishment to those who looted public money," he said, virtually kicking off BJP's campaign for the coming elections. Modi's latest visit to Odisha was his third visit to the state in the last three weeks. Assembly elections in Odisha are slated to be held along with the Lok Sabha polls, due in a few months. Asserting that the BJP-led NDA government has been working with determination for the development of the country, Modi said the Centre is focusing on five streams -- education, earnings for the youth, medicine for the elderly, irrigation for farmers and listening to the masses -- to ensure overall and balanced progress. Speaking on the 10 per cent reservation for economically backward people in the general category, Modi called it "significant work done." "Sabka saath sabka vikas (development for all) is ensured when all sections of society get equal opportunity. "Gaps in society get wider in the absence of opportunities (for all). A major step has been taken by amending the constitution to provide 10 per cent reservation for the poor belonging to general category in jobs and education without affecting the constitutional rights of OBCs, SCs and STs", he said. Hitting out at the Congress without taking the party's name, the prime minister accused the previous central governments of ruling like "sultanates" and neglecting the country's rich heritage. He said the government led by him is committed not only to conserving and preserving the country's rich cultural heritage but also bringing together ancient identities with modernity. "The past governments left these (culture and modernity) to their fate. The past governments ruled like 'sultanates' and neglected our rich heritage. They ignored our glorious civilization and failed to pay attention to their preservation," Modi said adding India was known worldwide for its progress in science but little was done for its propagation. The prime minister said some people are even opposing celebration of International Yoga Day without understanding that yoga is India's ancient asset. He said yoga is not his creation or his government's but the contribution of "our forefathers" and that it has become popular worldwide on its own strength. Modi said the proposal to name an island in the Andamans after Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose snatched the sleep of some people. "These people neither have any understanding of our past and heritage, nor are they aware of the importance of tourism and culture," he said. Those who mocked the Statue of Unity failed to realise that the world's tallest statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel could become a place of tourist attraction, Modi said. Foreigners were once jealous of India's assets and richness which were destroyed and plundered by invaders, he said adding no serious effort was made to retrive, reconstruct and preserve these by the past governments. Claiming that priceless antique pieces and ancient idols were stolen and moved out of the country in the past, he said the NDA government has taken concrete steps to bring back precious idols from abroad. "In the last four years many such idols have already been brought back from foreign countries," Modi said. The prime minister, who unveiled a slew of projects worth Rs 1,550 crore for Odisha before addressing the BJP rally, said central projects worth more than Rs 20,801 crore have been launched in the state in the last three weeks. "I am happy to unveil projects worth Rs 1,550 crore in areas like education, connectivity, tourism and culture," Modi said after inaugurating and laying foundation stone for a host of projects, mainly in the Railways sector. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) RSS leader Indresh Kumar Tuesday alleged that the Congress, the Left and "two-three judges" were among the "culprits" who were creating hurdles in construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya by delaying justice. He also reiterated the RSS' demand that the government bring an ordinance for construction of the temple. "We appeal to the government to conduct a debate in Parliament. We feel that justice should be done at the earliest," he said, adding that the mood of the entire country is that the temple of Lord Ram should be built as soon as possible. Addressing a press conference here, Kumar dismissed as a "lie" the allegations by Congress and other parties that the ruling BJP was raking up the Ram temple issue to derive political mileage in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Kumar's remarks on Ayodhya came days after the top court rescheduled the hearing in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land title dispute for January 29 before a new bench. Kumar, the president of RSS-affiliated Rashtriya Muslim Manch, was in Pune to attend some programmes. "Places of worships such as Kaba, Vatican City, Diksha Bhoomi, Sarnath, Golden Temple and other places worldwide receive respect, then why there is an injustice and insult meted out to the place where Lord Ram was born, and the entire world should answer this question," he told reporters. "This is the responsibility of 125 crore people of this country to bring about the solution to address the issue of 'Ram Janmabhoomi', as this is not a responsibility of any party or religion alone," he said. Alleging that the Congress and the Left were among the main culprits for delaying justice in the Ram temple matter, Kumar said, "The third culprits are two-three judges of the Supreme Court who are using delaying tactics, and such tactics are turning out to be the hurdles in the case." Three years ago, the apex court had categorically said that it would conduct day-to-day hearing in the title suit case and ensured that the decision will be delivered at the earliest, he claimed. "They (the bench) not only refused to oblige the Supreme Court but they are defying the Constitution, fundamental rights and the faith of the people of this country. Instead of delivering justice, the matter is being delayed and is put into denial (sic)," he said. Kumar alleged that it was not BJP but the Congress, the Left, the fundamental elements and two-three judges who have stretched the Ayodhya issue till elections. "I am sure that people of this country will give a befitting reply in the general elections to those who are creating hurdles in the case," the RSS leader said. Without elaborating on his claims, Kumar also equated a veteran actor, who recently talked about intolerance, as also a couple of other public figures, with historical characters like Jaichand and Mir Jafar. Nationalism and patriotism cannot be compromised and if they are compromised then it is unfortunate, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : Congress Tuesday came down heavily on the BJP, accusing the saffron party of engaging in "horse trading" to pull down the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in Karnataka, but said nothing would happen to it. AICC General Secretary Karnataka in-charge, K C Venugopal alleged that the BJP had been making attempts to destabilise the secular government headed by H D Kumaraswamy ever since it came to power in the state seven months ago after the Assembly polls. "Our government will continue at any cost. It will complete five years. Nothing will happen. Our MLAs are strong and united," Venugopal said after holding a meeting with Kumaraswamy in Bengaluru. "This will be a big slap on the face of the BJP," Venugopal said. Asked whether relations between the Congress and JD(S) are strained, the Congress leader said: "We are very much united." Accusing BJP of trying to lure legislators offering huge sums of money, he said: "The anti-democratic and unethical practice of the BJP will be exposed soon". He also accused media of "celebrating the unholy horsetrading being carried out by the BJP" in the state. In a jolt to the Kumaraswamy led Congress-JD(S) government, two Independent MLAs Tuesday withdrew support to the seven month old ministry amid turmoil triggered by charges of horse trading flung at each other by the ruling coalition and BJP. In a significant turn to the political war that erupted on Monday with both sides venting their fears of poaching, H Nagesh (Independent) and R Shankar (KPJP) wrote to Governor Vajubhai Vala, conveying their decision to withdraw their support with immediate effect. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Steering skillfully through the treacherous waters at the confluence of Hooghly river and Bay of Bengal, Coast Guard deputy commandant Shruti Mohan Jainpur is keeping a close eye from her hovercraft on lakhs of devotees who have congregated at the Gangasagar mela. Jainpur, one of the seven women pilots who command hovercraft of Indian Coast Guard at different stations in the eastern and western seaboards of the country, said she was always intrigued by the way armed forces functioned and determined to be a part of it when she grew up. "It is amazing, it is something that brings the best out of you," Jainpur, who is posted at the force's Haldia Port station, said about her experience in the Coast Guard. Deputy Commandant Sneha Kathayat, another hovercraft pilot posted at Haldia Coast Guard station, joined the force in 2011 and has been serving on the seas since 2015, having graduated from the first batch along with three other women. Jainpur, only child of a retired BARC scientist, has taken to the seas for Gangasagar security for the first time. When the ICG opened up combat posts for the female officers, she had volunteered for the sea service. "Army uniforms fascinated me since childhood and I wanted to join the forces. I joined Coast Guard in 2013 as an officer and was trained in administration and logistics," Jainpur, who did her BTech in information technology from Chennai, said. The Mumbai girl, who has been commanding a hovercraft since June 2018, also said she is thrilled to have got the opportunity to work for security, search and rescue operations of Coast Guard at the Gangasagar Mela, one of the largest annual religious congregations in the country. Devotees from across the country take holy dip at Sagar Island, situated at the confluence of Hoogly river and the Bay of Bengal, during the annual Gangasagar Mela on Makar Sankranti. The Coast Guard is the only armed force in the country to have so far allowed women officers in operations service. "We are treated equally, we take up challenges and responsibilities equally. We are held responsible and accountable," Jainpur, who has so far completed nearly 160 hours as a pilot, said. "It is helping us break social norms and see the world in a different way," said the proud officer, whose mother is a homemaker. Kathayat, from the path breaker first batch of ICG's women pilots, said that the Gangasagar mela is an "excellent occasion to prove a person's worth and capabilities." She has manned hovercraft for the mela on previous occasions, too. "I am the first from my family to have joined the forces and enjoying every bit of the experience," the pilot, daughter of school teacher parents at Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand, said. The Coast Guard has placed a sizeable number of its assets at Gangasagar to ensure foolproof security at the Gangasagar Mela, DIG, chief staff officer (operations) of Coast Guard of North East region, I J Singh told newspersons here. "We have stationed an offshore patrol vessel, two fast patrol vessels, three hovercraft and two helicopters for security, search and rescue operations," he said. Two Dornier aircraft are also making regular sorties over the mela site, Singh said. The force is also maintaining electronic surveillance at the mela site, he said. "We have a radar station in Haldia which monitors entire coast of Haldia and Sagar Island," Singh said. He said that movements at the mela site were being monitored live 24 hours a day through the surveillance system, which is part of the coastal security network. "While the 107-metre long offshore patrol vessel ICGS Sujay, with a helicopter on board, is keeping a watch in the deep sea for any threat from the seaward side, the fast patrol vessels and hovercraft are keeping a closer watch at the bathing site to ensure that no untoward incident or accident happens," he said. The Coast Guard has also deployed a life-saving rapid action team, comprising divers with rubber gemini boats, at the mela site to thwart any threat emanating from the sea or to save people from drowning in case of any exigency. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After SP Growth Partners (SPGP), an investor in bankrupt apparel brand Reid & Taylor, showed inability to cough up the earnest money deposit (EMD), a new investor CFM Asset Reconstruction Company approached the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to invest in the company. SPGP director Pankaj Agarwal Tuesday informed the bench of the inability to pay the EMD before filing the resolution plan, and offered to bring in another investor CFM ARC, who would meet the required net worth to make a bid as a consortium. However, the court dismissed the application. CFM ARC CEO S V Shah appeared as a co-applicant of Hong Kong-based investor SPGP, along with the Employees Welfare Association of RTIL to revive RTIL. Shah informed the court that CFM ARC has over Rs 100 crore net worth and an asset under management (AUM) worth over Rs 1,200 crore. The court asked CFM ARC to file a separate application in this regard. The Mumbai NCLT bench headed by Bhaskara Pantula Mohan and V Nallasenapathy asked Shah to revert within 48 hours, with how much money he can deposit as EMD. The court said that CFM ARC is required to deposit at least Rs 5 crore while submitting a resolution plan. They elaborated that Shah can deposit Rs 2 crore or more as EMD through a demand draft in the name of RTIL to show his seriousness on Thursday and another Rs 3 crore while submitting the resolution plan. The bench also reprimanded Agarwal and said he painted a "rosy picture of his net worth, wasted the courts time and also misrepresented facts", which amounts to contempt of court, for which he can be tried. RTIL, owned by the Kasliwal family-run S Kumar Group owes over Rs 4,100 crore to lenders. The committee of creditors includes Finquest Financial Solution, which is the largest with close to Rs 800 crore of claims, Union Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, IL&FS Financial Services, IDBI Bank and L&T Finance etc, who had voted for liquidation on December 14, 2018. Edelweiss ARC had taken the company to NCLT in March 2018. Besides, Arcil and JM Financial ARC also have exposure to RTIL. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Leading global bedbank Hotelbeds Group raised 9,000 ($10,321.6) during the holiday season through its new digital Christmas card as part of its charity donation drive, which will go to Care International this year. For each digital Christmas card sent by Hotelbeds to its partners around the globe, the company donated 20 ($22.9) to Care International. Care International is a humanitarian agency that tackles the underlying causes of poverty and social injustice to bring lasting change to the lives of poor and vulnerable people. It provides intensive schooling for girls and helps overcome the gap between the education of boys and girls. This area has been identified as one of the most critical barriers, not only to female empowerment, but also to the economic growth and prosperity of developing countries. Haley White, corporate fundraiser at Care International London, said: Hotelbeds generosity will help us provide clean water, food, access to healthcare and education, and emergency assistance when vulnerable families need it the most. Supporters like Hotelbeds make our work possible and we cannot thank them enough for this. Their support means a great deal to us and to each and every individual they are helping around the world. We really want to thank them for their kindness. Teresa Laso, corporate sustainability manager at Hotelbeds, explained: We are very pleased to be able to help communities who need support. As a leading company serving the travel trade, with more than 5,000 employees around the globe, we have a great responsibility to raise awareness about important issues and promote good practices amongst our employees. Since 2010, Hotelbeds has been making donations for Christmas instead of purchasing corporates gifts. In previous years the donations have been aimed at other charities and humanitarian agencies, such as Le Passage Travel Foundation in India and UNHCR. - TradeArabia News Service / -- It is that time of the year, when an excited team comes together sending out speaker invites, curating startup pitches and welcoming a new lot (2,000+) of passionate youngsters, entrepreneurs and founders from across the state of Andhra Pradesh - to deliver a wonderful conference experience called StartAP Fest, Andhra Pradesh's flagship startup festival and Asia's fastest growing. StartAP is an initiative by Startup Oxide Biz Solutions. StartAP was founded by Siddharth Marupeddi in 2014 as a key ecosystem platform for startups in Andhra Pradesh to bring together high-impact entrepreneurs, startups, passionate youngsters and investors for building a vibrant entrepreneurial community and accelerating conversations of change. It is now enabling Asia's fastest growing entrepreneurial ecosystem. The initiative has impacted around 15,000 youngsters, 250+ Startups during the last 4 editions with the active support of Govt. of A.P. StartAP Awards which took place in May, 2018 recognised some of the most performing entrepreneurs from across Asia which included Ritesh Agarwal of OYO, Lakshmi Potluri of Jabong and Sudhakar of AbhiBus, and startups like Swiggy, Payswiff, Xiaomi and 25 more. The jury for the event included Peter Vesterbacka of Angry Birds; Kirthiga Reddy, FMR Facebook India Head and Divyank Turakhia, Billionaire Entrepreneur. The theme of the upcoming event for 2019 is Products of the Future - Powered by Innovation Valley. After the successful StartAP Awards happened last May 2018, the 5th edition of StartAP Fest is designed to create conversations around the growing entrepreneurial zeal and celebrate the vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem. The focus line of this year - 'Products of the Future', reflects the purpose to create a platform for product innovations and showcase them to newer markets, especially A.P where the youth are equally responsive to emerging technologies. This edition of StartAP has curated its speakers with the ever-growing entrepreneurial ecosystem in the capital in consideration. There are more than 50 startups expected from across South India along with forward thinking founders. Speakers include: 1. Shobhu Yarlagadda, Producer, Baahubali 2. Sudhakar, Founder and CEO, Abhibus3. Srikanth Bolla - Founder, Bollant Industries4. Raju Vanapala - Founder, Way25. Prabhu Kishore Vallurupalli, Chairman, Varun Group6. Prasad Kompalli, CEO, mFine7. Kalyan Akkipeddi, Founder, Proto Village8. Vijay Arisetty, CEO, myGate"StartAP has been enabling the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Andhra Pradesh since 2014 and I welcome all the startups from across the country to launch their products in Andhra Pradesh. Experience the spirit of Andhrapreneurship at StartAP," - N Chandrababu Naidu, Honourable CM of AP. "We bring together people with high impact stories which can inspire and generate a thought among the youth here, in Amaravati. The conversations are designed to accelerate growth and understand the trends across various ecosystems in India. As a curator of the event, my responsibility is to facilitate a platform so as to engage the aspiring founders, students and successful startuppers to learn, grow and share. We are happy the 5th edition is happening in Amaravati with the support of Innovation Valley, Govt. of AP," - Siddharth Marupeddi, Founder and CEO of StartAP. There will be around 20 Startups showcasing their product innovations at the venue. 10 Startups are expected to launch their products and services during the event. Interested startups, founders can apply for a free stall space in the website. More details and registrations at http://www.startapfest.com. About StartupOxide Biz Solutions StartAP is an initiative by StartupOxide Biz Solutions to enabling Asia's fastest growing startup ecosystem in Andhra Pradesh. StartupOxide Biz Solutions is a strategy firm which builds disruptive brands with potential to impact a larger ecosystem. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Competition Commission Tuesday slapped a fine of over Rs 1 crore on Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing and its four officials for indulging in the cartelisation of dry cell batteries market. In an order, the fair trade regulator said, Godrej & Boyce and Panasonic Energy India Ltd along with their officials contravened Section 3 of the Companies Act by indulging in cartelisation, and are liable under the Act. Section 3 of the Act pertains to anti-competitive agreements. With regard to Godrej, the commission slapped a fine of Rs 85.01 lakh and a total fine of Rs 15.44 lakh on its four officials -- Sorab Parekh, Sunil Patil, Rakesh A and Rajiv Jhangiani. However, the commission waived the penalty on Panasonic as it provided genuine, continuous and expeditious cooperation during the course of investigation. The CCI suo motu initiated the investigation after it received an application filed by Panasonic Japan over the issue. In the application, it revealed that there was a bi-lateral ancillary cartel between Panasonic Energy and Godrej & Boyce in the institutional sales of dry cell batteries from at least 2012 till November 2014. Panasonic Japan further said its Indian enterprise and Boyce used to agree on the market price of the batteries being sold by them, so as to maintain price parity in the market. They also used to monitor other manufacturers in various regions of India, and inform each other in cases of any discrepancy noticed. Follwing which the CCI ordered a probe by director general(DG), its investigation arm. The DG in the report said that the product supply agreement, (PSA) between both the parties included an explicit anti-competitive clause, which imposed a mutual obligation of not taking any step detrimental to each other's market interests and thereby found them to be in contravention of Section 3. Based on the report, the commission said that it holds both the firms in contravention of Section 3 for indulging in cartelisation and directed to cease and desist from indulging into any act of cartelisation henceforth. Accordingly, Godrej & Boyce and its officials were fined over Rs 1 crore in total. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Competition Commission of India Tuesday dismissed e-commerce platform Snapdeal's complaint alleging unfair business practices against KAFF Appliances with regard to the imposition of minimum resale price maintenance (RPM). The fair trade regulator dismissed the complaint by Jasper Infotech Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates e-commerce platform Snapdeal, as the "conduct of KAFF did not demonstrate any adverse effect on the competition". The complaint was filed by Jasper in 2014 after it alleged that KAFF was attempting to impose a price restriction on the online platform to make sales at a minimum price and threatened to ban online sales if such prices were not maintained. Following this, the commission had directed its investigation arm, director general, to investigate whether the minimum resale price imposed by KAFF on its dealers contravened the Competition Act. The director general submitted the main investigation report and consequently the supplementary investigation report to ascertain whether KAFF imposed price restriction. In a 28-page order, CCI said based on both the reports, the commission did not find any evidence of adverse effect on competition. Further, the presence of a large number of dealers who were competing with each other suggests a fair degree of intra-brand competition, Competition Commission Of India (CCI) noted. Accordingly, CCI dismissed the complaint as it found no contravention of Section 3 of the Act. Section 3 pertains to anti-abusive agreements. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) CBI interim chief M Nageswara Rao has started the process of making structural changes in the Central Bureau of Investigation in order to streamline the work load on various zones of the agency across the country, officials said. Several senior officers have raised the issue of uneven distribution of work in various zones which is affecting the ongoing probes and work force distribution. Normally the issues such as these are discussed in the quarterly review meeting of all the joint directors and deputy inspector general when they converge at New Delhi headquarters of the agency. The last quarterly meeting scheduled in December last year did not take place as the Supreme Court had barred Rao, in his first tenure as acting director, from taking any policy decisions. In a controversial order on October 23, 2018, the government had divested the powers of the then CBI director Alok Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana sending them on forced leave as both had accused each other of corruption. The move was taken after a bitter battle between the two top officials of the agency spilled in the public domain. A corruption case was filed against Asthana. A plea to quash it has been rejected by the Delhi High Court. The government had given charge of the agency to Joint Director Rao, who was later promoted as additional director. On a plea of Verma, challenging the forced leave order of the government, the Supreme Court had directed Rao to not take any major policy decision. The Supreme Court had reinstated Verma on January 8 this year, setting aside government order to send him on forced leave. Within 48 hours, a high powered committee comprising of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Justice A K Sikri and Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge in a split verdict, decided to transfer Verma as Director General Fire Services. Following the decision, Rao was again given the charge of the agency. Rao has now moved a proposal among all the joint directors seeking their comments on the restructuring of zones as the previous restrictions imposed by the Supreme Court do not apply in his fresh term, officials said. Each zone will have a Special Crime branch and an Economic Offences branch in addition to the Anti Corruption Branches with co-terminus jurisdiction of respective zone, a proposal circulated among all the CBI offices said. According to the proposal, Anti Corruption Branch of Bengaluru will be reporting to Chennai zone. It is reporting to Hyderabad which has just three branches under it. Hyderabad zone will also look after the works of the Anti Corruption Branches of Raipur, Jabalpur and Bhopal. Mumbai zone will get two new branches, under it a special crime and an Anti Corruption based in Nagpur, taking the tally from current five to seven branches under it. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former National Security Advisor M K Narayanan Tuesday said the crisis at the top layer of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) should be resolved within the system and the head of the agency should also be selected by it. What is happening at the CBI is a matter of concern, Narayanan said while taking part at a session with the Bharat Chamber of Commerce (BCC) here. "It creates a dent in the institutional culture. Dissension at the top level of the institution was not a new phenomenon, but earlier these issues used to be decided primarily at the bureaucracy level within the system," he said. To a question whether selection of the head of the investigation agency should be decided by it, Narayanan replied in the affirmative. On the issues with China and Pakistan, he said, "China should be our main concern. One country which does pose danger to ours is China. China wants you off the main table... does not want you on the same table," he said. If one accepts the subordinate position, it is fine, he said explaining the attitude of the leadership of China. To buttress his point, Narayanan recounted an episode when India required voting of all the Nuclear Supply Group (NSG) members for the fuel to feed the nuclear power plants under the Indo-US nuclear deal. He said, the entire Chinese government was not reachable and the country was absent during voting despite giving an assurance to India that "we will not let you down". "Unless the USA had put pressure, it would not have been possible" Narayanan said. A major aspect of the Indo-US nuclear deal was that the NSG gave a special waiver to India that enabled it to sign cooperation agreements with a dozen countries. On Pakistan, Narayanan emphasized that dialogue should take place with the neighbour for a long term solution and talks for short term gains will bound to fail. There should also be efforts to bring some normalcy in Kashmir, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Comptroller and Auditor General has refused to disclose details about its audit in the controversial Rafale aircraft deal, saying the process is not yet complete and any disclosure at this stage will amount to breach of the Parliament's privilege, an RTI reply said. In its response to Pune-based activist Vihar Durve who had sought the report from CAG, the country's auditor said, "The audit is under progress and the report is yet to be finalised. The information cannot be given under Section 8(1)(C) of the RTI Act as the disclosure would cause breach of Parliament". Section 8(1)(C) of the Right To Information (RTI) Act exempts information the disclosure of which would cause a breach of privilege of Parliament or the State Legislature. Last month, the Supreme Court had dismissed pleas challenging the deal between India and France for procurement of 36 Rafale jets, saying there was no occasion to "really doubt the decision making process" warranting setting aside of the contract. It rejected the pleas seeking lodging of an FIR and a court-monitored probe alleging irregularities in the Rs 58,000 crore deal, in which both the countries have entered into an inter-governmental agreement (IGA). "The pricing details have, however, been shared with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), and the report of the CAG has been examined by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Only a redacted portion of the report was placed before the Parliament and is in public domain," the bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi had said, relying on the sealed note submitted by the government. After the Congress raised the issue that no such CAG report had been placed before the PAC, the government approached the court seeking changes in the judgment. In the application, the Centre said the two sentences in paragraph 25 of the judgement appeared to have been based on the note submitted by it along with the pricing details in a sealed cover, but indicated the words used by the court lent a different meaning. The Centre made it clear that it did not say that the CAG report was examined by PAC or a redacted portion was placed before Parliament. It clarified that the note had said the government "has already shared" the price details with the CAG, which was written in past tense and "is factually correct". However, where it was stated by the Centre in the note that the report of the CAG "is" examined by the PAC, was a description of the procedure which is followed in the normal course, but in the judgement, 'is' was replaced with the words 'has been', according to the application. In its response to the RTI application filed by Durve, the CAG also refused to share its correspondence related to the audit of Rafale deal with any government department or political party, claiming that such records were "confidential and held in fiduciary capacity" hence, exempted from disclosure under the RTI Act. The CAG added that audit in the Indian Air Force is done by designated principal audit officer of the force and the reports are submitted to the national auditor for approval. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A BSF officer was killed on Tuesday in sniper fire from across the border in the Samba sector of Jammu and Kashmir, officials of the border guarding force said. They said Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad was hit by a sniper shot at about 10:50 am when he and his patrol party were out for "carrying out border domination" along the IB. "Pakistani snipers opened fire at them, leading to grievous injuries to the officer. Prasad was rushed to a medical facility in Satwari in Jammu where he later succumbed to his injuries," an official said. The Border Security Force (BSF) is tasked to guard the India-Pakistan International Border in the Jammu region of the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An assistant commandant of the Border Security Force (BSF) was killed in sniper firing by Pakistan Rangers along the International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district Monday morning, officials said. Pakistan troops also violated the ceasefire and resorted to firing and shelling along the Line of Control (LoC) in Rajouri district, prompting the Indian Army to retaliate strongly. The BSF troops were carrying out border domination along the IB, when snipers of Pakistan Rangers opened fire on them at around 1050 hours in Hiranagar-Samba sector of Kathua district, a senior BSF officer told PTI. Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad was critically injured in the sniper fire and the officer was evacuated to the Military Hospital at Satwari (Jammu), where he succumbed to his injuries and attained martyrdom, he said. The BSF director general and all ranks of the force salute the supreme sacrifice of the martyr. The BSF stands with the family of the bereaved, the officer said. In another incident, Pakistan troops also resorted to firing and shelling along the LoC in Sunderbani sector. "Pakistan Army initiated unprovoked ceasefire violations by resorting to firing and shelling along with heavy caliber weapons in Sunderbani sector from 1000 hours," PRO, Defence said. Indian Army troops guarding the borderline retaliated effectively and strongly. The exchange of fire is still on, he said. The year 2018 has witnessed the highest number of 2,936 ceasefire violations by Pakistan troops in the last 15 years along the Indo-Pak border. On Sunday, an Army jawan was injured in ceasefire violation along the LoC in Rajouri's Keri sector. On Friday, an Army porter was killed in a ceasefire violation in Nowshera sector of Rajouri district. On the same day, a Major and a soldier were killed in an IED blast along the LoC in Laam sub-sector of Rajouri. Despite repeated calls for restraint and adherence to the 2003 ceasefire understanding for maintaining peace and tranquillity at Indo-Pak flag meetings, the truce has been repeatedly violated. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The umbrella organisation of the 35,000 odd Bru refugees living in Tripura on Tuesday appealed to new Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga to take initiative for solving the 22-year-old problem of the displaced people. The Bru refugees are living in six relief camps at Kanchanpur sub-division in North Tripura district since 1997. In a letter to Zoramthanga, Mizoram Bru Displaced People's Forum (MBDPF) general secretary Bruno Msha asked the chief minister to give audience to the MBDPF leaders on the issue in Delhi or Aizawl. As the chief minister is currently visiting New Delhi, Msha informed Zoramthanga that A Sawibunga and R Laldawngliana, MBDPF president and vice president respectively, and he would be in the national capital till Wednesday. He expressed hope that the new state government would soon convene a meeting with Bru leaders to deliberate the issues of repatriation and rehabilitation of the displaced Brus lodged in the relief camps in North Tripura district. Mizo National Front president Zoramthanga was swron in as chief minister on December 15. His government succeeded the 10-year regime of the Congress. Thousands of Bru refugees from Mizoram fled to Tripura during an ethnic violence in 1997. The clashes broke out after a forest official was killed by Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) militants. The Centre, in association with the governments of Mizoram and Tripura, was repatriating the displaced Brus in phases. Though several Bru families have returned to Mizoram over the years, many refused to leave Tripura citing security reasons and inadequate package. During the latest repatriation process between August 25 to September 25 last year, only 150 refugees of 42 families returned to Mizoram. Msha asked the chief minister to give top priority to the Bru issue so that all the communities in the state could live with dignity and honour. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) British Prime Minister Theresa May faces crushing defeat in a historic vote in parliament on Tuesday over the Brexit deal she has struck with the European Union, leaving the world's fifth biggest economy in limbo. With just over two months to go until the scheduled Brexit date of March 29, Britain is still bitterly divided over what should happen next and the only suspense over the vote is the scale of May's defeat. The British leader's last-minute appeals to MPs appear to have fallen on deaf ears and how much she loses by could determine whether she tries again, loses office, delays Brexit -- or if Britain even leaves the EU at all. "When the history books are written, people will look at the decision of this house... and ask: did we deliver on the country's vote to leave the European Union," May asked MPs on the eve of the vote, expected after 1900 GMT. Opposition to the deal forced May to postpone the vote in December in the hope of winning concessions from Brussels. EU leaders have offered only a series of clarifications but German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in Strasbourg on Tuesday raised the possibility of further talks while ruling out a full re-negotiation of the text. "Everything has been done in recent weeks and months to signal our interest in a positive decision," Maas said. "However, I am sceptical that the agreement can be fundamentally reopened once again," he said. The vote is the climax of over two years of intense national debate after the shock Brexit referendum of 2016 -- a result mostly pro-Remain MPs have struggled with. Hardline Brexiteers and Remainers oppose the agreement for different reasons and many fear it could lock Britain into an unfavourable trading relationship with the EU. Pro- and anti-Brexit campaigners rallied outside parliament ahead of the vote. One placard read "EU Membership is the Best Deal", another said: "No Deal? No Problem!" Uncertainty over Brexit has hit the British economy hard. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders lobby group warned MPs that Britain crashing out of the EU would be "catastrophic". Financial markets will also be watching the result closely, with several currency trading companies roping in extra staff for the vote and at least one putting a cap on trades to avoid excessive currency movements. "Today's vote is a foregone conclusion so sterling is unlikely to move significantly," said Rebecca O'Keeffe, an analyst with online trader Interactive Investor. "The fireworks will happen after today -- when it is clear what happens next," she said, predicting that a decision not to leave the EU would send sterling shooting up while a no-deal Brexit would send it down to record lows. Rather than heal the divisions exposed by the Brexit referendum, the vote has reignited them. Pro-European MPs campaigning to force a second vote say they have faced death threats. Brexit supporters have also voiced growing frustration with what they see as parliamentary blockage of their democratic vote. Criticism of the deal is focused on an arrangement to keep open the border with Ireland by aligning Britain with some EU trade rules, if and until London and Brussels sign a new economic partnership which could take several years. Sammy Wilson, Brexit spokesman with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the Northern Irish party on whom May relies for her Commons majority, told the BBC his party would not be forced into backing the deal by fears over the border. "We fought (against) a terrorist campaign (in order) to stay part of the United Kingdom," he said, evoking Northern Ireland's past conflict. "We are not going to allow bureaucrats in Brussels to separate us from the rest of the United Kingdom." His boss Arlene Foster stressed "we cannot accept the backstop...it does violence to the union." Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said May must call an election if she loses on Tuesday and has threatened to hold a confidence vote in her government if she does not. In the event of a defeat, the government must set out what happens next by Monday at the latest. Speculation is growing on both sides of the Channel that whatever the outcome May could ask to delay Brexit. But a diplomatic source told AFP any extension would not be possible beyond June 30, when the new European Parliament will be formed. The withdrawal agreement includes plans for a post-Brexit transition period to provide continuity until a new relationship is drawn up, in return for continued budget contributions from London. Without it, and if there is no delay, Britain will sever 46 years of ties with its nearest neighbours with no agreement to ease the blow. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) UAE-based electronics retail giant ECity has announced the opening of a new 2,000-sq-m store in Abu Dhabi's Deira City Center, making it one of the largest electronics and gadgets stores in the emirate. The new store is part of a multi-million-dollar expansion programme, which will see four more ECity stores open by early 2019. Two of those stores are expected to open in Dubai, the group said in a statement. E-City, part of Al Batha Group, also unveiled plans of a soon-to-launch e-commerce venture. We are proud to announce that our strategic expansion drive in the GCC market has officially begun. As unveiled earlier in the year, ECitys expansion bid is firmly anchored on reinforcing the brands presence in the UAE and GCC as a whole. The regions ballooning demand for electronic goods is our main driver. The additional stores are not only our way of meeting this demand but to also expose the region to emerging trends and that at favourable price points, said Jaouad Dakir, chief executive officer, ECity. The expansion announcement was made shortly after ECity was named Most Admired Retailer Consumer Electronics 2018 Award for its strong presence in the region at the recently held Retail ME Awards 2018. It is the second time that ECity has won the honour making it a two-year sweep. Apart from the UAE market, ECity is also eyeing the Saudi Arabia and Oman markets as its next growth frontier. - TradeArabia News Service In a tragic incident, a bride to be and five of her friends were killed when a fire broke out at a home in Pakistan's garrison city of Rawalpindi on Tuesday. The incident took place as relatives were preparing for the wedding, Geo reported. Initial investigations suggest that the fire broke out due to gas compressor explosion. Police is also probing whether the house fire was deliberately set or not. All the six victims were pronounced dead at the hospital. The relatives alleged that the firefighters did not arrive quickly and lives were lost due to the negligence by the rescue team, the report said. Rawalpindi Rescue District Officer Abdul Rehman, however, rejected the allegation levelled by the family. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday decreed the easing of Brazil's gun laws as part of a law-and-order agenda, despite fears it could aggravate already staggering violent crime. The executive order, signed in a live television broadcast following a cabinet meeting, allows "good citizens" to more easily own firearms, said Bolsonaro, a rightwing populist. Brazil recorded nearly 64,000 homicides in 2017, making it one of the most dangerous countries in the world outside of a war zone. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleged on Tuesday that in Karnataka, the BJP was playing its old game of poaching legislators of other parties. Earlier in the day, the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) government in Karnataka, led by Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, suffered a jolt, with two MLAs withdrawing support to the seven-month-old ministry. There were charges of horse-trading flung at each other by both the ruling coalition and the BJP. "It won't look nice for me to comment on the situation there. There are local leaders," Banerjee said. Asked about allegations that the BJP was poaching other leaders, the Trinamool Congress supremo said, "This is an old game... there is nothing new. There had been similar things in some parts of Northeast and Goa." The BJP have behaved like this earlier, Banerjee added. Independent MLA H Nagesh and R Shankar of the Karnataka Pragnyavantha Janatha Party (KPJP) wrote to state Governor Vajubhai Vala, conveying their decision to withdraw support from the Kumaraswamy government with immediate effect. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Senior leader P Tuesday accused the government of following a scorched-earth policy, saying it will spend the money it does not have and will leave a huge unpaid bill for the next dispensation. He asserted that only those who know they face defeat will follow a scorched-earth policy. "As I had said, more panic-driven measures are in the offing, but where is the money?" the former finance minister tweeted. "The government is following a scorched-earth policy. It will spend money it does not have and it will leave a huge unpaid bill for the next government," he wrote on the microblogging site. The has been accusing the of taking hasty decisions to woo voters just ahead of the It had hit out at the BJP for what it called "hasty" passage of the bill for quota to economically weaker sections of general category, passed in both Houses of Parliament in the just-concluded winter session. The BJP has hailed the move as historic and one that is pro-poor. Launching a frontal attack on the BJP over the political developments in Karnataka, the NCP Tuesday said the saffron party's efforts to "dislodge" the Congress-JD(S) dispensation were aimed at creating a public perception ahead of Lok Sabha polls that alliance governments are unstable. NCP national spokesperson Nawab Malik said the BJP would not succeed in its alleged bid to poach some MLAs of Congress for dislodging the H D Kumaraswamy government in the southern state. Malik's comments came on a day two Independent MLAs in Karnataka withdrew support to the alliance government, triggering a political firestorm. As the move set off speculations over survival of the seven-month old dispensation, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy ruled out any threat of stability to his ministry. The ruling Congress and opposition BJP have levelled charges of horse-trading against each other, as the two MLAs who withdrew the support are staying in a hotel in Mumbai. "The BJP will not be able to form government in Karnataka, as the numbers are not stacked in its favour," Malik told reporters. He said the BJP's political manoeuvring was aimed at "creating a perception among the people ahead of the general polls that alliance governments are unstable". The BJP wanted to project it among voters as politically indispensable, Malik added. In the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, BJP has 104 members, Congress-79, JD(S) 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each, besides Speaker. BSP, KPJP and an Independent are supporting the coalition. In 2018, the Congress and the JD(S) had formed a coalition government in the southern state after BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa, who was sworn-in as Chief Minister, resigned ahead of taking floor test to prove majority in the same month. Amid charges and counter-charges of horse-trading between BJP and Congress, the saffron party has shifted its flock of 104 MLAs to a resort in Haryana's Nuh district. Karnataka Water Resource Minister D K Shivakumar had said that three Congress MLAs were camping at a hotel in Mumbai in the "company of some BJP leaders". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Cabinet, among other decisions, on Tuesday hiked the fees for getting two and three-wheelers checked for pollution fitness. The Pollution Under Control (PUC) fee has been increased from Rs 50 to Rs 80 for motorcycles, while for three-wheelers, the charge will be Rs 100 from Rs 80, Cabinet Secretariat Department Principal Secretary Sanjay Kumar told reporters here. The fee for availing PUC certificate for cars, however, remain unchanged at Rs 120. The Cabinet also approved the proposal for the Aggregator Policy 2019, which makes it mandatory for private operators like Ola and to obtain license and permit, he said. The license fee for private operators running four-wheeler commercial vehicles is Rs 15,000 for three years, while the permit fee will be Rs 1,000, the principal secretary said. The Cabinet also approved the draft State University Service Commission (Recruitment and Service Conditions for Chairman and Members) Rules, 2019, he said. The decision (framing of rules) would expedite the appointment of teachers in colleges and universities of Bihar. Besides these, it sanctioned Rs 591.77 crore for construction of Sri Ram Janki Medical College and Hospital, Samastipur, Kumar said, adding, the Bihar Medical Services and Infrastructure Corporation (BMSICL) will now float tender for the work. The Cabinet gave its nod to amendment in Bihar Pension Rules, 1950, as per which 'post-retiral' benefits will be withheld till the disposal of the matter if any departmental/judicial proceeding is pending against any employee at the time of his/her retirement. A total of 19 decisions were taken at Tuesday's Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister The BEST bus strike in Mumbai continued for the eighth day on Tuesday as the agitating workers and the management of the civic-run transport undertaking failed to reach an agreement. Over 32,000 employees of the various workers' unions of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST) have been on strike since Tuesday last week and 3200-odd buses in its fleet are off the roads. The Bombay High Court Tuesday directed the BEST workers' union to take a final decision on the withdrawal of its ongoing strike and inform the court on Wednesday. However, the ongoing negotiations between the workers' unions and the BEST management as well as the intervention of the state government and political leaders failed to end the deadlock. "The state government's high-powered committee has made up its mind to accept the union's major demand of merging the BEST budget with that of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and a decision to this effect is likely to soon," the officials said. "A proposal of merger of both these budgets was passed last year in the BMC general body meeting...If all the demands of the BEST workers are met, then the civic body will have to bear the additional financial burden of around Rs 500 crore," he said. Meanwhile, leaders of the workers' unions also demanded that the BEST head office should be shifted to the BMC headquarters. "Both the budgets should be merged and new workers should get old grade pay benefits," said Ankush Karande, one of the representatives of the workers' union protesting at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) in South Mumbai. The BMC should run the BEST buses. The court should pass the order of the merger. The BMC should look after the BEST and its employees should get their salaries on the same day as other civic employees get, he said. As commuters continue to face hardships due to the strike, the state transport body continue to ply its buses to ferry them. "Since the last eight days at least 125 ST buses have been running on the city roads. On Monday, around 160 buses provided service, while on Tuesday 151 buses ferried passengers," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uttarakhand Chief Electoral Officer Saujanya on Tuesday flagged off 21 vehicles, to travel in different directions, as she launched an awareness campaign to train the rural populace in the use of EVMs and VVPAT machines. Consisting of two poll officers and one police constable each, these vehicles will train people in the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and the functioning of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) by conducting live public demonstrations, the officer said. A campaign like this was necessary as there will be 100 per cent use of EVMs and VVPAT in the Lok Sabha polls this time, she said. The vehicles will travel to every village of Uttarakhand during the month-long campaign covering three-four villages every day, the official said. Two-three such vehicles have been deployed for each assembly constituency, she added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Uttar Pradesh government has allocated Rs 4,200 crore for the Kumbh Mela being held in the 'sangam' city of Allahabad, which is over thrice the budget of the Maha Kumbh in 2013, making the mega pilgrimage perhaps the costliest ever. "The UP government has allocated Rs 4,200 crore for 2019 Kumbh Mela. The previous state government had spent around Rs 1,300 crore for the Maha Kumbh, which was held in 2013," state Finance Minister Rajesh Agarwal told PTI. He said that apart from this, some other departments have also allocated funds for the mega event. Agarwal said this time the Kumbh Mela area has been doubled as compared to the previous years. This year's Kumbh Mela is spread over an area of 3,200 hectare as compared to 1,600 hectare area in the previous melas. The endeavour of the UP government has always been to enhance the facilities for the public and establishing facilities at the ground level has been a big task, the minister said. The Kumbh Mela (the festival of the sacred pitcher) is anchored in Hindu mythology. It is the largest public gathering and collective act of faith anywhere in the world. Ardh Kumbh is held in every six years, while the Kumbh Mela comes after 12 years. The Yogi Adityanath government has renamed Ardh Kumbh as Kumbh and the Kumbh as Maha Kumbh. The mela draws tens of millions of pilgrims over the course of approximately 48 days to bathe at the sacred confluence of the Ganga, the Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati river. The congregation includes Ascetics, Saints, Sadhus, Sadhvis, Kalpvasis and pilgrims from all walks of life. In all there are six auspicious bathing dates in this Kumbh - Makar Sankranti (January 15), Paush Poornima (January 21), Mauni Amawasya (February 4), Basant Panchami (February 10), Maghi Poornima (February 19) and Mahashivratri (March 4). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indian Army will not hesitate to take strong action to deal with terror activities along the border with Pakistan, Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat said on Tuesday. The country along India's western border is providing support to terror groups and the Indian Army is dealing with them effectively, Gen Rawat said in an obvious reference to Pakistan, "We are ensuring moral dominance along border in Jammu and Kashmir," he said while addressing Army personnel on the occasion of Army Day here. The Indian Army will not hesitate to take strong action to deal with terror activities along the western border, Gen Rawat said. He said new guidelines are being followed to maintain peace and tranquillity along the border in the eastern sector. "We will keep reviewing the situation along the eastern border," he said, referring to the border with China. "Our soldiers will not allow any compromise in guarding the border in the eastern sector," he said. Gen Rawat also said the Army was carrying out major restructuring and modernisation of the Army. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mubadala Investment Company, through its healthcare investment team, Mubadala Healthcare, has acquired Amana Healthcare, a leading provider of long-term care, specialized rehabilitation, and home healthcare services in the region. Amana Healthcare, founded in Abu Dhabi and US-accredited, is the first healthcare provider in the Middle East to offer an integrated continuum-of-care to patients across the region. Amana Healthcare operates hospitals in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain and provides world-class services including long-term inpatient care for medically complex cases, inpatient rehabilitation, transitional care and clinical care in the home. The acquisition of Amana Healthcare expands the Mubadala Healthcare Network, which currently includes Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, Healthpoint, Imperial College London Diabetes Centre, National Reference Laboratory, Abu Dhabi Telemedicine and Capital Health Screening Centre. Mubadala Healthcare has plans for continued expansion to better serve an increasing number of domestic and international patients. Mubadalas decision to acquire Amana Healthcare expands the Mubadala Healthcare Networks ability to serve the regions patients and their rehabilitation needs. Patients will now benefit from improved continuity of care and access to an integrated network of world-class services from primary and acute care to post-acute and long-term care services. Waleed Al Mokarrab Al Muhairi, Mubadala deputy group CEO and chief executive officer, Alternative Investments & Infrastructure said: We are excited to enter the next phase of growth with Mubadala Healthcare and the acquisition of Amana Healthcare will drive innovation while expanding the continuum of care for the UAE market. This is the first investment by Mubadala Healthcare in a UAE-based health services company, and we will certainty continue to look for the right acquisition opportunities, both on a regional and international level, to further bolster our portfolio of healthcare assets. Abdulla Abdul Aziz Al Shamsi, head of Mubadala Healthcare, added: The acquisition of Amana Healthcare gives Mubadalas customers the benefit of extended continuum-of-care services, all of which contribute to our vision of a world-class integrated health system for the people in the UAE. The acquisition also validates the Emirate of Abu Dhabis investment promotion strategy, under which the founders of Amana Healthcare developed an outstanding specialized healthcare provider that operates to the highest international standards. Mark McGourty, CEO of Amana Healthcare, said: We are delighted that Mubadala has chosen to add Amana Healthcare to its stable of internationally-recognized providers. Amana Healthcare was established to set the standard for continuum-of-care services in the region with a focus on clinical excellence, compassion, and patient experience. Mubadala also provides an ideal platform for Amana Healthcare to expand its much-needed services throughout the UAE, across the Middle East, and beyond. Latham Watkins and Allen & Overy supported the transaction as legal counsels, Bank of America Merrill Lynch as sell-side advisor, and Deloitte as tax and accounting advisors. TradeArabia News Service The Indian Army will not hesitate to take strong action to deal with terror activities along the border with Pakistan, Army chief Gen said on Tuesday. The country along India's western border is providing support to terror groups and the Indian Army is dealing with them effectively, Gen Rawat said in an obvious reference to Pakistan, "We are ensuring moral dominance along border in Jammu and Kashmir," he said while addressing Army personnel on the occasion of Army Day here. The Indian Army will not hesitate to take strong action to deal with terror activities along the western border, Gen Rawat said. He said new guidelines are being followed to maintain peace and tranquillity along the border in the eastern sector. "We will keep reviewing the situation along the eastern border," he said, referring to the border with China. "Our soldiers will not allow any compromise in guarding the border in the eastern sector," he said. Senior Army officers in Jammu and Kashmir joined other ranks to pay tributes to slain soldiers on the occasion of the 71st Army Day on Tuesday, a defence spokesperson said. Lieutenant General J S Nain, general officer commanding (GOC) of Rising Star Corps; and Tiger Division GOC Major Gen. Sharad Kapur paid tributes at the Tiger War Memorial in Jammu, the spokesperson said. The event was attended by several serving and retired officers, junior commissioned officers and jawans. Fire and Fury Corps GOC Lt Gen. Y K Joshi laid a wreath at the Leh War Memorial. All ranks of the Fire and Fury Corps and Leh Garrison were present at the ceremony, the spokesperson said. A short film. 'Indian Army - Pride of the Nation', was screened on the occasion. Army Day is celebrated on January 15 every year to mark the taking over as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Army by then Lt Gen. K M Cariappa in 1949 from General Francis Butcher, the last British commander-in-chief of India. Cariappa later became a Field Marshal. A series of events such as distribution of solar lamps, lecture on importance of water conservation were organised in Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban districts. A wreath-laying ceremony was also conducted at the statue of Naib Subedar Chuni Lal at Bhaderwah, the spokesperson added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Terming as "illegal" the appointment of M Nageswara Rao as the CBI's interim director, leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and demanded that a meeting of the selection committee be convened immediately to appoint a new chief of the probe agency. Kharge, who is part of the prime minister-headed three-member panel that removed Alok Verma as CBI chief despite the Congress leader's dissent note, alleged that the government is scared of the CBI being led by an "independent" director. "The government should come clean by releasing the CVC report, the report of Justice Patnaik and the minutes of the meeting held on January 10, 2019, so that the public can draw its own conclusion on this matter," he said in his letter to the prime minister, while accusing the government of violating the law in appointing Rao. "The appointment of an interim director is illegal and against section 4A (1) and 4A (3) of the DSPE Act. "The actions of the government in this matter indicate that it is scared of having the CBI headed by an independent director," he said Kharge said the government should establish its bonafides in fighting corruption and ensuring the integrity of the premier investigating agency of the country by convening an immediate meeting of the selection committees as per Section 4A(1) of the DSPE Act to appoint a director without any further delay. "Any delay would further erode the faith the public has placed in this institution and the credibility of this institution," he said. "It is unfortunate that the manipulative actions of the government are directly responsible for causing deep embarrassment to the judiciary. "The fact that the government did not even issue a reasoned order while removing Alok Verma led to the unfair situation where a member of the judiciary has been forced to defend the decision taken indirectly," Kharge said while referring to the comments made by Justice (retd) Patnaik on the CVC report. "The government seems to be worried about something and in a tearing hurry to dispose a man from his office, that an irrational decision was taken to transfer Alok Verma as DG Fire Services even after his superannuation," he said. The Congress leader alleged the actions of the government in handling the appointments in CBI have been consistently against the letter and spirit of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act. Kharge alleged that Alok Verma was removed on January 10, 2019 without following either due process of law or the principles of natural justice. He added that in each of the instances, his advice as a member of the opposition has been consistently sidelined by the government. Barely two days after the Supreme Court reinstated him, Verma was Thursday last removed as CBI director by the high-powered committee headed by PM Modi on charges of corruption and dereliction of duty, in an unprecedented action in the central probe agency's 55-year history. There were eight charges against Verma in the CVC report presented before the committee that also comprised Kharge and Justice A K Sikri, appointed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi as his nominee. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has directed the power utilities to work out modalities to enhance the power supply duration to agriculture sector from the present seven to nine hours a day, soon. An official release issued by the Media Advisor (Energy and Infrastructure Department) A Chandrasekhara Reddy said the Chief Minister directed the power utilities to "work out modalities and make arrangements" to increase the present 7-hour free power supply to nine hours. The officials, he said, briefed the Chief Minister that an additional 2,800 million units of power would be required, at an extra cost of Rs 1,200 crore, to increase the supply duration. The state is now supplying 10,831 million units of power free-of-cost to the farm sector at a cost of Rs 6,030.17 crore. "No state in India bears such a huge amount as subsidy for giving free power to agriculture. Our government is empowering the farmers by supplying free power and implementing several welfare schemes. In fact, during my tenure in 1994-2004, I had introduced 9-hour free power to farmers," Reddy quoted the Chief Minister as saying. "A power deficit of 22 million units was plaguing the state immediately after bifurcation (in June 2014). As soon as I became CM, the state became power surplus within six months and doubled its installed capacity to 18,000 MW from 9000 MW. This is an outstanding achievement of our government," the Chief Minister was quoted as saying. The state would see a remarkable change once the Polavaram irrigation project was completed, the CM added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) / -- Broking body seeks its due recognition as a partner in India's progress; also, recognition as the first-level regulator for brokers, at the 10th International Convention on Capital Markets Urges government to engage in healthy discussions with the broking industry on important policy decisions and tax framework Association of National Exchanges Members of India (ANMI), the leading pan India body of around 900 stock brokers, is seeking an active role alongside the government and the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), in policymaking for the Capital Markets. During its '10th International Convention on Capital Markets' held on January 12th, 2019 in Mumbai, ANMI urged the Government to allow it the status of a Self-Regulatory Organisation or a SRO. The ANMI convention, which was based on the theme of 'Capital Markets in the Age of Disruption', provided a global interactive forum to the industry representatives from India and world over to take a stock of many such evolving patterns currently dominating the Indian Capital Market Industry and also to deliberate on the future course and the impact on businesses. Elaborating on the Convention theme, Mr. Naresh Tejwani, Convener of the ANMI Convention, said, "With evolving times, disruptive technologies are bound to trigger disruptive growth in the Capital Markets as well. The ANMI convention brings together all stakeholders of this industry under a single roof to identify the early indicators of the disruptions and be better prepared for the future growth by leveraging this era of disruption." Mr. Rajesh Baheti, President, ANMI, pointed out, currently, brokerages and intermediaries are not even given the status of an industry or considered a responsible source of advice or policy feedback though they have played a big role in bringing about many important structural changes in the markets. He further added, "The Broking Industry plays a pivotal role, as a partner, in India's progress and it is high time that the industry be given its due recognition by a say in policy making and the role of a first-level regulator for the broking industry. Providing an SRO status to the industry will lead to enhanced supervision, fair conduct, ethical practices and investor protection. This, together with the policy reforms, would provide further impetus for growth of our capital markets." ANMI has been sharing important recommendations each year for the consideration of policymakers, but policies are framed without any consultation with the broking industry, though it is an integral part of the Capital Markets. "Moreover, though all transactions in the industry are transparent, the industry still is burdened with multiple taxes and levies. We, therefore, require and request that the government engage with us to evolve a stable tax framework for the capital markets as part of the Direct Tax Code that is in the making," Mr. Baheti said. The ANMI 10th Capital Markets Convention was attended by a cross-section of experts from exchanges, technology providers, thinkers, leading market participants and industry leaders from across the world. Shri Suresh Prabhu, Hon'ble Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation also addressed at the convention. About ANMI Association of National Exchanges Members of India (ANMI) is a pan India body comprising of the trading members across country of National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSEIL), Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and other exchanges having national presence. ANMI is the only Indian Capital Market Forum recognized all over the world. It is a member of ICSA, the Asian Securities Forum (ASF) and Asia Forum for Investors Education. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The allegations made by two accused in the Kodanad estate break-in case, reportedly linking Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami to the incident was "another chapter of the mysterious story," Makkal Neethi Mayyam (MNM) Chief Kamal Hassan said Tuesday. He was responding to a specific question on the case from reporters here. Asked for his comment on the demand for the Chief Minister's resignation over the issue, Kamal Hassan indicated his support for it. "This (claims of former Tehelka journalist) is another chapter of a mysterious story," he said. The DMK had urged Governor Banwarilal Purohit to direct Chief Minister K Palaniswami to resign from his post to ensure a free and fair probe into the matter. The main opposition party had demanded a probe by a Special Investigation Team, comprising officers of the rank of Inspector General of Police and further investigation into the "mysterious death" of alleged key conspirator Kanagaraj. On January 11, a former magazine editor Samuel Mathew had released a 16-minute video clip in Delhi, alleging that Palaniswami had links to a break-in at Kodanad estate in 2017. Palaniswami, refuting the allegations, had said on Saturday that those who were unable to take on AIADMK politically were resorting to such cheap acts and asserted that a probe would expose their identity. On Monday, two of the accused persons, V K Sayan, and Valayar Manoj, were brought from Delhi by police in a private flight and whisked away for further interrogation. They were reportedly seen making purported remarks linking the chief minister to the April 2017 break-in in the video. The Kodanad estate in the hilly Nilgiris District was used by the late J Jayalalithaa for both official and residential purposes during her tenure as Chief Minister. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With Congress president Rahul Gandhi mocking the prime minister for being awarded the Philip Kotler award, the marketing guru took to Twitter to congratulate Narendra Modi for the honour and hailed his "selfless service towards India". "I congratulate PM @narendramodi for being conferred the first ever Philip Kotler Presidential Award. He has been selected for his outstanding leadership & selfless service towards India, combined with his tireless energy," Kotler said on Twitter Tuesday. He said Modi's efforts in India have resulted in "extraordinary economic, social and technological advances". "His winning the first Philip Kotler Presidential award raises the bar for future recipients," the marketing guru said. Gandhi earlier took a dig at Modi saying he wanted to "congratulate" him on winning the "world famous" Philip Kotler Presidential award. "In fact it's so famous it has no jury, has never been given out before & is backed by an unheard of Aligarh company. Event Partners: Patanjali & Republic TV :)," he said on Twitter. In a sharp retort, Union minister Smriti Irani, while tagging Gandhi's tweet, suggested that unlike Prime Minister Modi, who was awarded by someone else, Gandhi family members had conferred themselves the country's top civilian honour --Bharat Ratna. "Rich !!! Coming from a person whose illustrious family decided to confer the Bharat Ratna' on themselves," she tweeted. Modi had on Monday received the first-ever Philip Kotler Presidential award here. According to a statement from the Prime Minister's Office, the award focuses on the triple bottom-line of 'people, profit and planet' and will be offered annually to the leader of a nation. Philip Kotler is a professor of marketing at Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu Tuesday called upon youth to pay renewed attention to agriculture and said the need of the hour was to accord greater prominence to natural farming. In his message to the people on the occasion of Pongal and Makar Sankranti, Naidu said Pongal is a thanksgiving festival celebrated with traditional fervour and gaiety by people across Tamil Nadu. "I call upon the youth to pay renewed attention to agriculture, which is the backbone of the Indian economy. The need of the hour is to accord greater prominence to natural farming and reduce the use of chemical fertilisers", he said. Noting that the traditional family system was a pride of the country, he said, "there is a need to protect family values." "Our traditions and customs not only strengthen the social fabric but also create a bonding among different sections," he said. Everyone should strive to protect, promote and propagate their mother tongue, he said. "Indians always believed in the philosophy of sharing, caring and worshipping nature. During this Sankranthi festival, let us all rededicate ourselves to the cause of building a healthy, strong, prosperous and inclusive India", he said. Naidu who arrived here Sunday celebrated pongal with family members. The Vice-President extended his Pongal and Sankaranthi greetings in Tamil and Telugu language respectively, in his official twitter account, and also shared a photograph of his family members celebrating Bhogi on Monday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Six suspected drug peddlers were arrested in separate incidents here, a senior police official said Tuesday. One person, identified as Harendra, was arrested Monday at 10 pm and police recovered 2.25 kg cannabis from his possession, DIG Upendra Agarwal said. On Saturday night, police intercepted two people and 1.5 kg cannabis was seized from their possession, he said. The two men were identified as Kripanand and Omprakash. Two suspected drug peddlers -- Kuldeep and Gaurav -- were arrested from Loni and 200 alprazolam tablets were seized, the DIG said. In Mustafabad colony, one person was arrested with 600 gram cannabis and one country-made pistol was seized from his possession, Agarwal added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) This years edition of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) will explore how digitalisation and innovative technologies are converging to provide new solutions to drive economic growth and sustainable development. It is vital for the global community to commit to working together to address the challenges of climate change and accelerate sustainable development, UAE ministers and senior business leaders were quoted as saying by state news agency Wam ahead of ADSW. The event - one of the worlds largest sustainability gatherings - takes place in the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, from January 12 -19, and explores major social, economic and environmental trends impacting the sector, under the theme, Industry Convergence: Accelerating Sustainable Development. Held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, the global platform hosts heads of state, government ministers, policymakers, industry experts, innovators and future sustainability leaders. Speaking at the press conference to launch the landmark event, Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, said: "Every year at ADSW, the UAE joins forces with the rest of the world to accelerate the pace of sustainable development. Platforms such as this one enable the country to keep pace with the increased global uptake for innovative climate technologies, and lead the way to a cleaner and better tomorrow." "This year, the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment is proud to present the second edition of the Climate Innovation Exchange initiative that facilitates seamless sourcing, funding and monetisation of pioneering climate solutions," he added. Al Zeyoudi noted, "We are working in accordance with the directives of the wise leadership and the UAE Vision 2021 and its national agenda, which emphasis its commitment to the agenda of sustainability, which we have made a fundamental goal we seek to achieve." In turn, Adnan Z Amin, director-general of the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) said, "Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week is one of the worlds preeminent gatherings of policy, industry and academic leaders that aims to identify a common pathway to a more equitable, low-carbon and sustainable economic future." "The Assembly, Irenas ultimate decision-making body that brings together 180 countries, takes place each year at ADSW a reflection of its significance as a leading global platform for policy dialogue and a catalyst for action," he noted. To align more closely with the UAE Vision 2021 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the event has widened its scope beyond renewable energy. ADSW 2019 will address global sustainability challenges and opportunities on the six pillars of Energy and Climate Change, Water, Future Mobility, Space, Biotechnology and Tech for Good. The topics of Youth and Digitalisation will inform each of these pillars and the programmes running throughout ADSW. ADSWs anchor event, World Future Energy Summit, WFES, will feature more than 850 exhibiting companies from 40 countries. As part of WFES, the inaugural Future Summit is being held on 15th-16th January, bringing together leaders from government, the non-profit community, institutional investors and the private sector to debate accelerating the transition to a sustainable society. For his part, Mohammad Juma Al Falasi, Under-Secretary of the Department of Energy in Abu Dhabi, said, "Sustainability is one of the main pillars of our strategy aimed at optimising the contribution of our natural resources to the energy supply in the UAE. We are keen to enhance the level of integration among all stakeholders, and ensure that we have the right strategy and regulations in place to minimise the consumption of oil & gas, and to benefit from renewable sources, particularly solar." Commenting on Masdars role as host of ADSW and the events expanded mandate, Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, CEO of Masdar, said, "At Masdar, we regard investing in renewable energy and sustainable real estate as good business. Hosting ADSW, on the other hand, is our proud duty to the UAE. It is a collaborative effort and a platform for multilateral dialogue." A new addition this year is the inaugural Abu Dhabi Sustainable Finance Forum, which is designed to focus on increasing the adoption of sustainable financing and directing capital towards activities with positive economic, social and environmental impacts. Richard Teng, CEO of Financial Services Regulatory Authority, Abu Dhabi Global Market, ADGM, said, "Abu Dhabi Global Market is pleased to host and curate the inaugural Abu Dhabi Sustainable Finance Forum as part of the eminent Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week. As a leading international financial centre, ADGM recognises the importance of driving sustainable financing and investments and working with key local and international stakeholders to facilitate initiatives that deliver long-term benefits for the well-being of society and the economy. Last year, a record 38,000 people representing 175 countries attended ADSW, including 180 ministers and 300 high-level speakers. Commercial projects worth US$15 billion were announced during the week. Over 30 lakh pilgrims from across the country and neighbouring Bangladesh and Nepal took holy dip at the confluence of the River Ganga and the Bay of Bengal on the occasion of Makar Sankranti Tuesday, the state government said. Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Subrata Mukherjee said the pilgrims also offered prayers at the Kapil Muni Temple. Mukherjee, who has been assigned the task of monitoring the arrangement for the pilgrims along with his cabinet colleagues Power Minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay and PWD Minister Aroop Biswas, told reporters that the gathering was over 30 lakh, compared to last year's 20 lakh. Every year, on Makar Sankranti day, lakhs of Hindu pilgrims flock to Ganga Sagar to take a dip and offer prayers in the Kapil Muni Temple. "Last year, over 20 lakh pilgrims had visited the Ganga Sagar. This year, it has crossed 30 lakh mark despite Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj. It was absolutely peaceful and the pilgrims have also appreciated our arrangement," Mukherjee said. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has also been monitoring the fair and has been advsing the officials from time to time. Four persons have so far died of cardiac arrests, while police have arrested 50 persons for petty crime. A thick blanket of security cover has been thrown in and around the Mela premises. The state government deployed a huge contingent of security personnel and volunteers, besides pressing into service 20 drones to keep a tab on security. It also equipped its officials with satellite phones to ensure uninterrupted connectivity during the Mela. Over 800 CCTV and 200 balloon cameras have been installed to aid security of the grand fair. The state disaster management department has made arrangements to receive live feed from the mela for effective monitoring of the proceedings. Several giant LED screens have been placed at different points through which pilgrims are being updated on the timings of trains, buses and ferries. Tide timings as well as safety tips are also being announced in Bengali, Hindi and English. The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) has enhanced its surveillance along the coastline of West Bengal for the Ganga Sagar Mela, an official said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two nursing students were arrested on Tuesday after they apparently confessed to their involvement in the killing of 16 puppies at a hospital premises here, an incident that had outraged animal lovers in the city. Acting on an FIR lodged on Monday, the police had identified some students and security guards on the basis of CCTV footage and interrogated them for hours. Of them, two nursing students admitted to their involvement in the crime and they were arrested, Entally police station officer-in-charge Supriyo Pal said. On Sunday, carcasses of 16 puppies were found in plastic bags in front of a hostel at the state-run Nil Ratan Sircar (NRS) Medical College and Hospital in Sealdah. Preliminary reports had said the puppies were beaten to death. The NRS hospital authorities, which had ordered an internal inquiry, said appropriate steps would be taken against those who had been arrested. Meanwhile, animal lovers from different NGOs, who had demonstrated outside the Entally police station on Monday, continued their protests demanding punishment to the culprits. Some of them turned restive, injuring a policeman and damaging vehicles parked outside, the police said. On Sunday, an adult dog, who was found in a critical condition nearby, was taken away for treatment by an animal lover. Kolkata Municipal Corporation Deputy Mayor Atin Ghosh had said the civic body would also inquire into the incident. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 40-year-old man was killed in a brawl after a collision of a motorbike and a car in Rajasthan's Kota district, police said Tuesday. The deceased, Ramnivas Malav, was attacked with stones and sticks by some persons from a nearby village for intervening in the quarrel between the motorbike rider and the car driver on Monday evening, said Mohammed Sharif, assistant sub-inspector (ASI) of Kaithoon police station. Mukesh Banjara and his wife was going to Deeppura village when his motorcycle slightly hit against a car, which resulted in a scuffle between the accused and the car driver, the ASI said. Some farmers, who were working in the nearby fields, reached the spot and tried to pacify the two parties. But the three allegedly attacked the farmers with stones and sticks, following which they fled the spot, the ASI said. Two persons, who got injured, were rushed to a hospital in Kota, where the doctors declared one of them dead, while the other was discharged after primary treatment. The deceased has been identified as Ramnivas Malav. Banjara, his wife, Manbhar, and Murarilal of Seemalhedi village were booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including Section 302 (murder), and they were detained for interrogation on Tuesday, Kaithoon police station in-charge Sugan Singh told. The deceased's body has been handed over to the family on Tuesday morning after post-mortem, he said, adding that an investigation was underway. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) On the occasion of the 71st Army Day, General Officer Commanding of 1 Corps Lt Gen Taranjit Singh Tuesday paid homage to slain soldiers at a war memorial here. The day started with the wreath-laying ceremony followed by playing the traditional military bugle call 'The Last Post', Defence PRO Gargi Malik Sinha said. A two-minutes silence was also observed in the memory of slain soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice for the nation, she added. The Army Day is celebrated to commemorate the appointment of Field Marshal Kodandera M Cariappa as the first Indian Commander-in-chief of the Indian Army post-independence. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The sacred baths began at break of dawn as the sun rose faintly over the horizon and went on through the day till the last rays set over the Sangam, the chants of "Har Har Gange" reaching a crescendo as lakhs of people took a dip to mark the beginning of the Kumbh Mela on Tuesday. By end of day, about 1.4 crore people had taken the ritual bath in the holy waters of the Sangam here, administration officials estimated. Makar Sankranti, which marks the beginning of the festival, is one of the sacred bathing days of the 50-day Kumbh Mela. The confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati has called out to the religious for centuries and Tuesday was a continuation of an ancient ritual that has stood the test of time, history and modernisation. Undeterred by the cold, a couple with their hands held tight stood waist deep in the river, a woman, her hands cupped, offered water to the rising sun, an ascetic took a dip with his eyes closed in veneration while a group of children frolicked nearby. It was about religious fervour, spirituality, love and even fun at the 'Shahi Snan' (royal bath) on Makar Sakranti as devotees, ascetics and religious leaders of various orders gathered for the largest congregation in the world. People from lands near and far braved the cold weather to take a dip in the icy waters, reaching the makeshift township of Kumbh Nagari, touted to be the world's biggest temporary city, as early as 4 am. Sadhus of 13 akharas (seven Shaiva, three Vaishnava, two Udasina, and one Sikh) who have traditionally participated in the Kumbh Mela were the first to take the holy bath. They marched in a procession, dancing and singing devotional songs, all the way to the waters. Each akhara, the term for an organisation of sadhus, was allocated 45 minutes to participate in the ritual bath by the Kumbh administration. The order in which the holy dip is performed by various akharas is pre-determined. It started with Mahanirvani along with the Atal akhara, the Niranjani along with the Ananada Akhara, and the Juna along with the Avahana and Agni akharas. They were followed by the Nirvani akhara, Digambara akhara, Nirmohi akhara, Bada Udasin akhara, Naya Udasin akhara and last, the lone Sikh Nirmal akhara. Attracting eyeballs of one and all, especially foreigners, was the march of the Naga sadhus, a martial order of ascetics who roam naked with ash smeared on their bodies. "It is surreal. I had always heard about them. In fact, one of the reasons we wanted to come to the Kumbh was to see them in real as we are told that this is the only festival in which they arrive in numbers," said Manuel Matthaus, who had come from Germany. "Yes, I did plan to take the bath. But I guess the water now is too freezing for my liking. Maybe later," as his girlfriend captured the spectacle on her camera. More than 12 crore people are expected to visit the Kumbh between now and Maha Shivratri on March 4. It is traditionally called 'Ardh Kumbh' as it takes place twice in 12 years. But the present Uttar Pradesh government recently renamed it 'Kumbh'. In 2013, according to a recent book 'Kumbha: The Traditionally Modern Mela', one in 10 Indians attended the grand religious event. The state government expects the number to be higher this time. The Uttar Pradesh government has allocated Rs 4,200 crore for the Kumbh Mela, which is more than thrice the budget of the Maha Kumbh in 2013, making the mega pilgrimage perhaps the costliest ever. "The UP government has allocated Rs 4,200 crore for 2019 Kumbh Mela. The previous state government had spent around Rs 1,300 crore for the Maha Kumbh, which was held in 2013," state Finance Minister Rajesh Agarwal told PTI. The auspicious bathing days of the 2019 Kumbh Mela include Paush Poornima (January 21), Mauni Amawasya (February 4), Basant Panchami (February 10), Maghi Poornima (February 19) and Mahashivratri (March 4). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The UK parliament on Tuesday voted to overwhelmingly rejected the Brexit deal, further complicating the country's historic exit from the European Union (EU). MPs voted 202 to 432 against the deal reached between the British government and the EU after a five-day debate. British Prime Minister Theresa May has three sitting days to return to parliament with a "Plan B", Xinhua news agency reported. Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tabled a motion of no confidence in the government following the defeat. The motion will be debated in the House of Commons on Wednesday. In a last minute plea ahead of the vote Prime Minister May said the vote any politician will ever make in their political careers. She said the decision will define Britain for decades to come. Before the main vote MPs voted by to accept reject an amendment by Conservative MP John Barron. It was designed to give the British government the right to terminate the Northern Ireland backstop measure without the agreement of the EU. It was defeated by 600 votes to 24. An EU insistence that a backstop must be part of May's deal led to many MPs voting against her in tonight's deal. --IANS vc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump on Monday spoke over phone with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan following recent bickering between Washington and Ankara, said the White House in a statement. The two leaders discussed several bilateral issues, including the US troops' withdrawal from Syria, said the White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders in the statement, reports Xinhua news agency. "The President expressed the desire to work together to address Turkey's security concerns in northeast Syria while stressing the importance to the US that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian Democratic Forces," added Sanders. The spokesperson also revealed that US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford will meet with his Turkish counterpart on Tuesday to continue "consultations with Turkey on Syria." On Sunday, Trump tweeted that the US would "devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds" amid the withdrawal of US troops from Syria. He also suggested the creation of a 20-mile (32 km) safe zone in Syria. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Monday hit back at the threats against Turkey, claiming that "economic threats against Turkey will get nowhere." The US and Turkey have been quarreling recently regarding the Kurdish militia in northern Syria, a US ally in the anti-Islamic State campaign but seen as a terrorist group by Ankara. --IANS vc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed "ongoing cooperation in Syria as American forces begin to withdraw" during a phone call, just a day after Trump threatened to "devastate Turkey economically" if the NATO-allied country attacks Kurdish militia in the region. "The President expressed the desire to work together to address Turkey's security concerns in northeast Syria while stressing the importance to the US that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian Democratic Forces with whom we have fought to defeat the IS (Islamic State)," CNN quoted White House press secretary Sarah Sanders as saying on Monday night about the call that took place earlier in the day. Sanders said that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford will meet his Turkish counterpart on Tuesday "to continue consultations" on Syria. "Gen. Dunford is scheduled to meet his Turkish counterpart this week on the sidelines of the NATO Military Committee in Chiefs of Defence Session, which will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium," Col. Patrick Ryder, a spokesperson for Dunford told CNN. On Monday night, Trump confirmed the phone call in a tweet. "Spoke with President Erdogan of Turkey to advise where we stand on all matters including our last two weeks of success in fighting the remnants of IS, and 20 mile safe zone. Also spoke about economic development between the US and Turkey - great potential to substantially expand," he wrote. During the call, Erdogan told Trump that Turkey backs the President's withdrawal decision and extends all kinds of support to the US, according to Turkish news agency Anadolu. Anadolu said Erdogan emphatically told Trump that Turkey does not have any problems with the Kurds and that "Turkey aims to fight all terror organisations including IS, PKK (The Kurdistan Workers Party) and its cross-border extensions that are threat to its national security". The two leaders agreed on developing bilateral economic relations to a higher level, according to the report, CNN reported. Monday's call between Trump and Erdogan comes a day after the US President issued a stark threat toward Turkey, saying that Washington "will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds". Turkey views some Kurdish groups in the region as terrorist groups and Kurds make up the majority of US-allied fighters operating in Syria in the civil war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu responded directly to Trump's comments on Monday prior to the phone call. "As for Donald Trump's threat language, we have repeatedly said that we will not be afraid of any threat... You cannot have any result from threatening Turkey economically. We need to see how we can solve this problem together." --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi Chief Secretary Vijay Kumar Dev has approved the removal of Tihar Jail's Deputy Superintendent for allegedly releasing a prisoner without a proper release order, an official statement said on Tuesday. Tihar Jail's Deputy Superintendent Jagdish Singh was removed by "imposing the penalty of compulsory retirement" following an inquiry, the statement said. "Jagdish Singh, Deputy Superintendent, Central Jail Tihar, was found guilty of assisting illegal meeting of a prisoner with an outsider, and in another case, he released a prisoner without a proper release order from the competent court," the statement read. It said that Dev, who was appointed as the Delhi Chief Secretary in November last year replacing Anshu Prakash, has emphasised that there will be zero tolerance policy towards corruption and misdemeanour. A few days ago, a Health Department's store purchase supervisor was also removed on charges of "irregularities" in the purchase of consumables for stores of a state-run hospital. --IANS nks/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Frederic Fougea's docu-drama "First Man" released in 2017, but it will reach the Indian audience two years later. The French director says the story of the origin of mankind is very relevant as it will teach people what they are made of. The two-hour special series will premiere on Discovery Channel on Tuesday night in India. It will take viewers on a journey 25 million years ago to explore the ancestral roots of man at the time of the great apes. "It's important to go back and understand where we are coming from. This story origin of mankind is very relevant. It teaches us what we are made of, how we evolved, what we are today," Fougea told IANS in a telephonic interview. His main goal is to address a wide audience. It is directed by Fougea and Jerome Guiot, with scientific direction from Pascal Picq. "It (the project) was huge because it took two years of preparation. Six months went into making prosthetics and creating masks. So, it was important to share this much amount of work. We got on really well together," he said. Its special effects make-up team had earlier worked on Leonardo DiCaprio-starrer "The Revenant". "They came with a truck. Actors had to reach the set at 2 a.m. because it would take six hours of make-up. It was a huge team," he said. --IANS nn/rb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Dubai-based Culligan Middle East has partnered with local UAE company KMA to set up a new company Culligan KMA to provide a range of cleaning services for water tanks in villas, apartment buildings, hotels and public buildings. Providing complete water solutions for homes, hospitals, offices, restaurants and industrial plants, Culligan recognised a need for these services across the Emirates in a drive to encourage more residents to drink tap water, a statement said. Marco Seghi, service director of Culligan Middle East, said: We have created this new business to deliver on our assurance to keep the quality of water people have access to as clean as possible. Many people dont realise that storage tanks in villas and buildings have the potential to become contaminated by external factors and microbiological growth. With access to the Culligan Groups extensive experience in the water treatment industry, spanning over 80 years, Culligan KMA is primed to enter the market with effective solutions and advice on maintaining water tank cleanliness and hygiene. Seghi said: Dubai Municipality recommends water tanks are thoroughly cleaned every year. This doesnt always happen and in some cases its done by companies that havent been accredited. Additionally, contaminants can get in through unclean piping, rather than the tank. To counteract this were using a fully biodegradable biocide disinfectant which ensures theres no harmful residue left behind in the pipes. Culligan KMA is currently working with some of the top facilities management companies in the region and offers a range of testing and consulting services such as a full laboratory report before and after the tank cleaning, a certificate of sanitisation, and water sampling and testing for legionella and other biological factors. TradeArabia News Service The CPI-M on Tuesday urged the government to stop the merger of three nationalized banks, saying it will weaken all three post unification. The CPI-M said it was "deeply concerned at the un-seemly haste with which the government has been going ahead with the merger/amalgamation process of Vijaya Bank, Bank of Baroda and Dena Bank" ignoring the opposition of the employees and officers. "The merger of banks is being justified by the government on ground of strengthening and consolidating the concerned banks; but in reality, such a merger will further weaken all the three banks post merger," the Communist Party of India-Marxist said. "Problems of public sector banks emanate from the deliberate default in loan-repayment by the big corporate houses. The solution lies in stern action by the government for outright recovery of the huge loan amounts from these defaulter corporates with penalty instead of the futile exercise on merger." But the CPI-M said that the government had been displaying "a totally indulgent attitude" to the defaulter corporates and through the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) procedure public sector banks were being forced to accept big reduction of the defaulted loan amounts. "Such merger of banks, instead of addressing their basic problems, will actually result in squeezing the banks' operational areas through inevitable closure of several branches seriously affecting employment," it said. "It also affects the spread and availability of banking services for common people particularly in comparatively remote areas," it added, calling upon the government to desist from such moves. --IANS mr/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Terming the alliance between the SP and the BSP in Uttar Pradesh as "selfish", BJP national Vice President Dushyant Kumar Gautam on Tuesday said the parties are doing injustice to their activists by bringing two ideologically different forces together. Citing examples of animosity between Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said people of Uttar Pradesh are feeling deprived by the decision of alliance and will reject it in the 2019 general elections. "It is a selfish alliance. The two parties, who have had strong animosity and no ideological connection, have decided to come together just for the sake of votes. People of UP are feeling deprived by their decision," Gautam said at the state BJP headquarters here. "Mayawati once said she would never join hands with the SP. On the other hand, Mulayam Singh Yadav had said he can never consider Mayawati as his sister. They are doing injustice by bringing two parties together who are ideologically poles apart," he claimed. Gautam further claimed that the SP, BSP or Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) are not political parties but parties run by certain families and are trying to form an alliance against the BJP just to save their own chairs. He also questioned the legitimacy of an opposition alliance without the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, where it is one of the prime political parties. Talking about the possibility of an anti-BJP alliance in 2019, Gautam said if any such alliance happens, the BJP is "more than prepared" to defeat them. Referring to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's mega anti-BJP rally in Kolkata on January 19, which is expected to be attended by a number of senior opposition leaders, he said all the parties which have become weak in their own states are trying to revive themselves by coming together. "All these parties have become weak in their respective states. That's why they are trying to come together to increase their vote share. But they have no ideological affinity. We have also lost three elections but have not shifted from our ideology. Our party has an image and a good will of nation building. People of the country know everything. They will be rejected," he added. --IANS mgr/ssp/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "Daughters of Mother India" director Vibha Bakshi says her latest documentary film "Son Rise", set in Haryana, depicts men as heroes. The film, which touches upon the gender rights issue, was screened here on Tuesday. The screening was held as the Ficci Ladies Organisation (FLO) extended support to the UN #HeForShe campaign. "'Son Rise', produced both in Hindi and English, is a 50-minute documentary which depicts men as 'heroes' in this gender rights documentary set in the most unlikeliest of places - Haryana, the land of the Khap Panchayats with one of the most skewed sex ratios in the country," said Bakshi, the film's producer and director. The film's premiere at the India Habitat Centre saw the cast in attendance, as was Nishtha Satyam, Deputy Country Representative, UN Women. Pinky Reddy, President, FLO -- the women business wing of trade body Ficci, stressed on the need for men and women working together to reach gender equality. "Men and women have to work together to get systemic reform. One thing that remains certain is that gender balance can be achieved by engaging men in their initiatives to ensure equality for women in the society. We need to make sure women feel supported and are never held back because of their gender," Reddy said. "Empowerment of women and gender parity is an economic imperative. This stands true more so today in the global context, when women are empowered and can claim their rights and access to land, leadership opportunities - economies grow, food security is enhanced and prospects are improved for current and future generations. Men have major role in supporting such initiatives," Reddy added. --IANS rb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actress Shriya Pilgaonkar is set to make her debut in Tamil and Telugu cinema with director Prabhu Solomon's upcoming trilingual film "Haathi Mere Saathi". She says she would love to explore more movies from the south film industry. "I couldn't be happier starting 2019 with this film 'Haathi Mere Saathi'. It's the first time that I am doing a trilingual film which I'm excited about. It will be my Tamil and Telugu debut," Shriya said in a statement about the film, which will also be released in Hindi. "In the film, I play a journalist who feels very strongly about a story and is trying to put it out there in spite of the pressure on her not to cover it. She is a rebel in her own right and wants to stand by the truth. Prabhu Sir has such a grand vision for this film. I love elephants and the subject of this film is very close to my heart too," she added. The "Fan" actress said she follows Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu cinema. "I feel like it churns out some of the most interesting and diverse content. For me, the story of the film is the most important and I have always wanted to explore working in other industries as well. "It's a challenge of course, but I enjoy it. So yes, I would absolutely love to explore more films from the south as and when the opportunities present themselves," she said. --IANS nn/rb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a setback to the BJP, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said that the party cannot hold its proposed "rath yatra" in West Bengal unless it can address the Mamata Banerjee-led state government's apprehensions on law and order issues. The order by a Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi-headed bench came in a petition by the West Bengal BJP challenging a Calcutta High Court order declining permission for the rath yatra in the state. The apex court bench observed that the Bengal government's apprehensions of law and order disturbance due to the rath yatra, were not "unfounded" and the BJP has to address that apprehension. The court, however, allowed the BJP to conduct meetings and other contact programmes, as agreed to by the Bengal government. The BJP had approached the Supreme Court in appeal after a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court had upheld the decision of the state government to refuse permission for the rath yatra. The BJP had originally scheduled three "rath yatras" from north Bengal's Cooch Behar, South 24 Parganas district's Gangasagar and Birbhum district's temple town of Tarapith, to be flagged off by party President Amit Shah on December 7, 9 and 14, respectively. These rallies were meant to touch all the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state before converging in Kolkata in January. With the Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government refusing permission for the rallies citing "grave apprehension of major breach of peace and communal violence", the BJP moved a single bench of the High Court on December 17 proposing December 22, 24 and 26 as fresh dates for the three yatras. While the single bench gave the conditional go-ahead, saying the party should not create any trouble during their movement, the Banerjee government moved a division bench challenging the court's nod. --IANS and/pgh/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for getting the Philip Kotler Presidential award, saying the award was so famous that it has no jury. "I want to congratulate our Prime Minister on winning the world famous 'Kotler Presidential Award'," tweeted Gandhi. "In fact it's so famous it has no jury, has never been given out before and is backed by an unheard of Aligarh company. Event Partners: Patanjali and Republic TV," said Gandhi, tagging a media report. The award was conferred on Modi on Monday by the World Marketing Summit (WMS) whose event in December was co-sponsored by GAIL India and partnered by Ramdev's Patanjali group, Republic TV and a number of other companies. Gandhi's jibe at Modi attracted reaction from Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani, who referred to former Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi being honoured with Bharat Ratna during Congress regimes. "Rich!!! Coming from a person whose illustrious family decided to confer the 'Bharat Ratna' on themselves," tweeted Irani, referring to Nehru and Indira Gandhi getting India's highest civilian award while they were Prime Ministers. --IANS and/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Taking its legal battle with chip making giant Qualcomm to the next level, Apple has claimed it wanted to use Qualcomm modems in its 2018's iPhone models but the chip maker refused to sell them after being sued by the iPhone maker over its licensing practices. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has accused Qualcomm of operating a monopoly in wireless chips, forcing companies such as Apple to work with it exclusively and charging excessive licensing fees for its technology. According to Apple Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams's testimony in court during the FTC trial against Qualcomm, the latter refused to sell its 4G LTE modems to Apple because of the companies' licensing dispute, the CNET reported late on Monday. The chip making giant continues to provide the iPhone maker with chips for its older models, including the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. "The strategy was to dual-source in 2018 as well. We were working toward doing that with Qualcomm but in the end they would not support us or sell us chips," the report quoted William as saying. Apple reportedly dialled Intel's CEO at the time, Brian Krzanich, to ask the company to supply all modems needed for the iPhone instead of only half the volume. However, Williams' comments appear to contradict testimony from Qualcomm's CEO Steven Mollenkopf. Mollenkopf on Friday had said on the stand that as of spring 2018, Qualcomm was still trying to win a contract supplying chips for iPhones but that it hadn't "had any new business" from Apple since its previous contracts expired, the report added. --IANS ksc/mag/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Delhi High Court judge Kailash Gambhir has approached President Ram Nath Kovind against the elevation of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna to the Supreme Court. In a letter to Kovind on Monday, Gambhir said the recommendation for elevating the two judges, superseding as many as 32 judges, was "appalling and outrageous". The Supreme Court Collegium headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, on January 10 recommended the elevation of Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, and Justice Sanjiv Khanna of the Delhi High Court to the top court. Gambhir mentioned in his letter he could not believe the news of the Collegium recommending their elevation superseding many Chief Justices of high courts. "To be honest, the said news breaking all traditions has sent shockwaves to the entire legal and judicial fraternity. "This is appalling and outrageous that such an earth shattering decision has been taken to supersede as many as 32 judges which include many Chief Justices, casting aspersions on their intellect, merit and integrity," he said. Gambhir said the supersession of the 32 judges will be a "historical blunder" and pleaded the President to preserve the credibility and independence of the judiciary. Urging the President to ponder over the issue, Gambhir said "how will the democracy and independence of judiciary in the country survive". "I write to you as having been a proud member of this vibrant judiciary, which has withstood the tests on its credibility every now and then, but I am afraid may not survive this time," added Gambhir. --IANS and/pgh/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tamil Nadu celebrated Pongal, a major harvest festival, on Tuesday with traditional fervour. Across the state, people got up early, put on new clothes and offered special prayers at temples. At homes at the auspicious time, children beating a small drum shouted "Pongolo Pongal, Pongolo Pongal" when the milk started boiling over the pot as a part of preparing "Chakarai Pongal", the special dish of the festival. In some homes, conches are blown prior to the formal offering. When the milk boils over, other ingredients -- rice, jaggery, Bengal gram -- are added to the milk and finally ghee, fried cashews, almonds and cardamom, are also added. The mud pot or stainless steel in which the dish is cooked is decorated by tying up ginger, turmeric, sugarcane piece and banana at the neck. The Pongal dish is offered to the sun god as thanksgiving and eaten as "prasad". People exchanged greetings and Chakarai Pongal with their neighbours. The Pongal festivities take place over four days, the first day being "Bhogi", which was on Monday, when people burn their old clothes, mats and other items. Homes are painted afresh. The second day is the main festival celebrated on the first day of the Tamil month, "Thai". The third day is "Mattu Pongal", when bulls and cows are bathed and their horns painted and worshipped as they play an important role in farms. Women feedbirds with coloured rice and pray for the welfare of their brothers. In some parts of the state, "jallikattu" - a bull-taming sport - is held. The fourth day is "Kannum Pongal" - the day to go out and meet relatives and friends. --IANS vj/ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The mayor of the Polish city of Gdansk, a well-known critic of his country's right-wing government, died on Monday, one day after he was stabbed by a man who rushed on stage during an open-air charity event. Thousands of people witnessed Sunday's attack on Pawel Adamowicz, 53, who was rushed to hospital where he underwent a five-hour long operation before succumbing to his injuries. He was stabbed in the heart and stomach. The brazen attack took place during the finale of a children's hospital charity event, known as the Great Orchestra of Christmas, when Adamowicz was thanking everyone who had helped raise funds for medical equipment, CNN reported. The 27-year-old suspect, who was arrested, is a Gdansk resident with convictions for bank robbery and had spent time in prison. Gdansk city press officer Dariusz Wolodzko said the suspect came onstage shouting, and blamed the mayor and his party for his conviction and imprisonment. Born and raised in Gdansk, Adamowicz had long been a fixture of public life in the city. He entered local politics in 1990 as a local councilor before serving as Gdansk's mayor, a position he held for more than 20 years. He was known as a progressive voice in a country ruled by a populist, staunchly rightwing government. He was a staunch supporter of LGBT rights, immigrants, and minority groups. Silent demonstrations in solidarity with the slain mayor, and against the toxic nature of rhetoric in Polish politics, are expected to take place across Poland on Monday evening. Poland's Interior Minister, Joachim Brudzinski, described the attack in a tweet as an "act of inexplicable barbarity." Photos shared on social media showed people lining up to give blood for Adamowicz on Sunday. Hundreds of people responded to Gdansk's regional center's Facebook post appealing for blood group O RhD negative, or universal donors. "In connection with the attack on the Mayor of the City of Gdansk and the need to make sure that blood is protected, we are asking you to give this precious medicine," the center said in the post. Just moments before the attack, Adamowicz shared a photo on Instagram showing a crowd of people holding white lights during "Lights to Heaven" fundraiser, organized by the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity. Hundreds of people have since commented on the post with messages of remembrance. "In my heart, Gdansk occupies the first place. I want a modern, fair, friendly and open Gdansk. Gdansk, where everyone lives well, works, develops and brings up children," Adamowicz wrote of himself on his Facebook account. The head of the charity, Jerzy Owsiak, resigned from his post in the wake of the attack. --IANS vc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday attacked previous governments at the Centre for ruling the country like their "Sultanates", neglecting its rich heritage. "Past governments ruled like Sultans and neglected our rich heritage. They ignored our glorious civilisation and failed to pay attention to their preservation," said Modi while addressing a public meeting in Balangir town in Odisha. "This criminal error will always stick to the parties, who the country gave the opportunity to run governments for decades. Surprisingly, they have not taken lessons from this," he added. He also attacked the state government under Naveen Patnaik and said the benefits meant for the people should reach them on time and must not be used as an election tool. This was Modi's third visit to the state in the past three weeks and showed the importance that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was attaching to the state ahead of the general and assembly elections. The Prime Minister said his government was committed to conserving and preserving the country's rich cultural heritage. He said his government has been constantly making efforts to bring back the idols stolen from the temples in India. He also attacked the parties for opposing the International Yoga Day and the construction of the Statue of Unity. "Some parties were against organising the International Yoga Day. These are the people who did not promote yoga. These people neither understand India nor tourism," he added. "They raised questions on erecting the statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. But, after becoming the world's tallest statue, it has generated jobs for people residing around the structure. "They were also against changing the names of islands in Andaman and Nicobar islands," said Modi. He said the central government has cancelled around six crore fake ration cards, gas connections, scholarships with wrong names, grabbing pension under wrong names over the last four years. "We plugged these leakages, saving crores of rupees. All ration cards have been digitised and around 80 per cent of them have been linked with Aadhaar," said the Prime Minister. "The middlemen used to loot the money meant for poor. We have stopped this. We ensured everyone gets what they deserve," he added. The Prime Minister said there are people, who are angry because he has put a stop to their loot and corruption. Highlighting the developmental works being carried out by the Centre in the state, he attacked the Odisha government for failing to utilise the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) fund in the mineral bearing areas. "Odisha has Rs 4,000 crore in its DMF Fund which has remained unutilised so far. What has happened to the government? It is in deep slumber. The government of Odisha should ensure that the benefits reach the tribal people. "Do not wait for the elections. Ease the problems of people, elections will keep coming," said Modi. He said the central government has allocated over Rs 20,000 crore for the development of Railways in Odisha in the last four years alone, which is five times more than the allocation by the previous government. In a month, development projects worth more than Rs 20,000 crore have been either inaugurated or initiated in Odisha, said Modi. --IANS cd/in/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan has arrested a senior member of the Afghan Taliban in a bid to put pressure on the militant group amid talks with the US, the media reported on Tuesday. Hafez Mohibullah, who served as Religious Affairs Minister when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan until 2001, was held in Peshawar, the BBC reported citing sources in the group. Kabul and Washington have long been calling on Islamabad to deny the Taliban shelter on its soil. Pakistan denies backing the militants. The reported detention came ahead of a visit to Pakistan by the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, who had earlier held a series of meetings with the Taliban's political office in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Washington wants Islamabad to encourage the militants to reach a settlement in Afghanistan and bring the 17-year war to a close. There was no immediate response from authorities in Pakistan. The report cited Taliban sources as saying that Mohibullah had been living in Peshawar for a number of years. Two Taliban figures told the BBC said that Mohibullah was detained by Pakistan to put pressure on the group into meeting Khalilzad this week and to agree to meet representatives of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. "They arrested him (Mohibullah) to send a message," a senior Taliban figure said. Another source from the militant group's Quetta Shura, or leadership council, added: "There was a meeting with Pakistani officials on the upcoming peace talks which ended in arguments. Right afterwards, the authorities raided a number of houses and arrested Mohibullah. "After that, (Taliban leader) Sheikh Hibatullah sent a message warning everyone to be alert." The Taliban figures earlier said they will only begin talks with the Afghan government once a firm date for the withdrawal of American troops from the country is agreed. The last set of negotiations between Khalilzad and Taliban representatives took place in Abu Dhabi in December, with Pakistani and Saudi officials present. A team from the Afghan government also went to the Gulf state but the Taliban refused to meet them, according to the report. --IANS soni/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The newly-appointed UN special envoy to Syria made his first visit to the war-torn country on Tuesday since he assumed the post. Geir Pedersen, who was appointed after his predecessor Staffan de Mistura stepped down in November, became the fourth envoy to take on the role since the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011, Efe news reported. "UN special envoy Geir Pedersen arrived in Damascus and looking forward to productive meetings here," a tweet on his account said. The Norwegian diplomat was expected to discuss with Syrian leaders the formation of a UN-backed constitutional committee, an issue that was left pending by De Mistura who resigned after four years of unsuccessful efforts to resolve the Syrian conflict. Ayman Soussan, assistant of the Syrian Foreign Minister, was cited by pro-goernment al-Watan newspaper as saying the new envoy would achieve what his predecessors could not. The Syrian government had expressed readiness to cooperate with the new UN envoy to make his mission a success, the newspaper said. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The National Commission for Women (NCW) on Tuesday took suo motu cognisance of objectionable remarks made by a Jadavpur University professor and sought police action against him. "I request you to investigate the matter and take appropriate action as per the relevant provisions of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and subsequently, the Commission be apprised a feedback in the matter at an early date," Rekha Sharma, NCW Chairperson said in the letter addressed to the Bengal DGP. Sharma will also meet the University's Vice Chancellor to discuss the matter during their scheduled visit to West Bengal this week. Kanak Sarkar, a professor of International Relations at Jadavpur University, drew flak for a series of Facebook posts where he compared a virgin girl to a sealed "bottle of cold drink or a packet of biscuits" and commented that to men "virgin wife is like angel". His social media posts drew howls of protests from netizens and the academic community, while the university promised to take action. --IANS som/pgh/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday asked YSR Congress Party President Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy and his sister Y.S. Sharmila as to how can they contest elections in the State when they have no faith in the state police. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief asked the leaders of the main opposition party in the state to behave as responsible citizens of Andhra Pradesh. "How will you remain citizens of the state if you don't trust the state police? In that case, how can you contest the elections here?" Naidu said while addressing a news conference in his native village Naravaripalle in Chittoor district. Naidu was reacting to Sharmila lodging a complaint with the Hyderabad police, seeking action against those trying to defame her by posting objectionable comments in the social media. Alleging that the TDP is behind the conspiracy, she told reporters after meeting the Hyderabad Police Commissioner on Monday that she has no trust in Andhra Pradesh Police. Condemning Sharmila's allegation, Naidu said the TDP has never indulged in personal attacks and character assassination. Naidu reiterated that the state will challenge in court the Centre's move to order probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into October 25 attack on Jaganmohan Reddy at Visakhapatnam airport. "The Centre is trying to take away the state's rights. We will not allow this. We will fight for our rights," he said. The NIA on January 1 took up the investigation into the knife attack on Jagan, who had refused to give his statement to Andhra Pradesh Police, saying he does not trust them. "Can you go to another country and demand inquiry into an incident which happened in India?" Naidu said. The TDP chief alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jagan and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao have colluded with the aim to damage Andhra Pradesh. He also remarked that justice to Andhra Pradesh is possible only if Modi is defeated in the coming elections. He claimed that TDP is the only party which has a right to seek votes in the coming elections as it has undertaken more development and welfare schemes than revenue-surplus states like Telangana. --IANS ms/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday celebrated the festival of Makar Sankranti with gaiety and zeal as thousands of people thronged temples and river banks to offer prayers and take part in rituals. Devotees gathered in large numbers in the holy city of Ujjain since dawn to take a dip in the Kshipra river. And as the Sun came up, they offered prayers to it and distributed 'khichdi' and 'til laddoos'. Similarly, at Gwarighat -- a small town on the banks of the Narmada river near the city of Jabalpur -- thousands of devotees offered prayers and took a holy dip. People also donated food items and other things to the poor and the needy. Temples were bustling with devotees offering special prayers to the deities on the auspicious day. At several places across the state, people were flying kites. --IANS hindi-mag/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hundreds of hoardings carrying the images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath dotted the streets of the holy town as millions from across India and abroad have descended here for the religious, spiritual and cultural congregation taking place barely three months ahead of the 2019 general elections. The Kumbh Mela, which opened formally in the early hours of Tuesday with the first of the six 'shahi Snan' (royal bath), and is expected to draw over 15 crore pilgrims this year, is a sea of saffron and slogans such as "Modi tum sangharsh karo, hum tumhare saath hain" (Modi you lead the fight, we are with you) and "Mandir wahin banayenge" (temple will be built at the disputed site in Ayodhya) rent the air at the site. Notably, both Modi and Yogi have waxed eloquent on the preparations for the holy dip, which according to legend, opens the doors to heaven. The Kumbh Mela administration officials told IANS that Yogi has resolved to provide an unforgettable pilgrimage experience to crores of devotees visiting Kumbh. They say that Yogi has laid special emphasis on "blending the grand traditions of Kumbh with the deployment of modern techniques and solutions" so that the kalpavasis, spiritual gurus, dignitaries, foreign visitors and the pilgrims have a "life emancipating experience" during their visit to Prayagraj. At a press conference on Monday, Prayagraj Commissioner Ashish Kumar Goyal told reporters that the state government is fully dedicated to providing a unique and fulfilling experience to visitors, highlighting that "there is no shortage of budget, we have sufficient funds". He maintained that the Chief Minister is personally monitoring the Kumbh Mela, and has advised officials to do everything that is needed. The Kumbh is also the world's largest religious congregation of its kind, making it a potential political playfield for the BJP that has a strong voter-base among the Hindus. The 2019 Kumbh Mela is organised on a much wider scale than its previous editions and multiple tent cities, along with lakhs of new toilets have cropped up along the banks of the holy river Ganga. The historic city was also recently renamed from Allahabad by the BJP government. Displayed here are multiple life-size hoardings welcoming pilgrims to Kumbh and they carry images of Modi and Yogi on either side with their messages. Such hoardings and posters are among the first sights that visitors arriving in the city encounter, and on the way leading up to the Sangam -- the confluence of Ganga and Yamuna rivers and the mystical Saraswati -- visitors are introduced to the various programmes and campaigns introduced and promoted by the BJP government. One example of this is a massive yellow-coloured hoarding that appears near the Parade Ground on Kali Road, about 3 kms before the Sangam, that sings praises of the bonhomie between the Yogi-led Up government and the Modi-led NDA government at the centre. It states that in keeping with the piousness of the Ganga, the state of Uttar Pradesh is marching forward. The hoarding, whose similar variations also appear in other parts of the city, states that Modi has allotted Rs 146.87 crores and Rs 52.76 crores towards Prayagraj District Sewerage Project and Prayagraj District Sewerage Network Project, respectively. The hoarding carries smiling pictures of Modi and Yogi on either sides, with the achievements of the BJP government inscribed at the bottom. Another similar hoarding reads: "Ek dubki aastha ki, ek bhaav sadbhav ka" and displays a saint offering water to the Sun god. The smiling pictures of Modi and Yogi on either sides of the hoarding keep the visitors company here as well. The Kumbh administration has built pontoon bridges that lead the visitors to the five-kilometre bathing ghat at Sangam. These bridges can only be reached after passing through the by-lanes of the city, which are dotted with hundreds of such hoardings and posters at regular intervals. While several such hoardings in multiple colours and sizes attract the visitors visually, there are occasional political sloganeering in the praise of the two leaders that reverberate the Kumbh nagri. Organised processions of men, women and sadhus were seen late on Monday evening, hailing lord Ram and calling for the construction of a grand Ram Temple at the disputed Babri Masjid site. Such slogans, almost routinely, shift from singing the praises of gods to those of PM Modi. Visitors too seem to have entered the election mood as political conversations and predictions can be heard at roadside tea stalls and dhabas. This gathering of Hindu pilgrims also becomes significant for its political implications as Congress President Rahul Gandhi had recently set on a Mandir-hopping exercise before the state assembly elections. The Kumbh Mela, 2019 is being held from January 15 to March 4, with six important bathing dates. Makar Sankranti, which falls on Tuesday, was the first of these dates for bathing, and officials expect over a crore devotees to take the holy dip on the first day of the fair. (Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in) --IANS ss/vsc/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended his brief trip to Kerala on Tuesday after praying at the Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple here. Arriving from Kollam where he had two meetings, he drove to the temple where hundreds of people was waiting to see him. He spent about 15 minutes in the temple. Later he drove to the airport and returned to Delhi. --IANS sg/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived here on Tuesday evening on a brief four-hour visit of Kerala. Stepping down from the aircraft that flew him from Raipur, Modi was received by Governor P. Sathasivam, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders. From the airport, Modi took a helicopter to Kollam, about 70 km from here. He has three programmes, including inauguration of the Kollam bypass and addressing a meeting of his party activists, both at Kollam. He will return to the state capital to inaugurate various developmental projects worth Rs 90 crore under the Swadesh Darshan programme. Around 8 p.m, Modi will fly back to Delhi. --IANS sg/nir/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Even though Microsoft ended mainstream support for "Windows 7" in January 2015, the software giant has now decided to put a final halt on the roll-out of free security patches also for the operating system (OS) next year. "After January 14, 2020, Microsoft will no longer provide security updates or support for PCs running 'Windows 7'," the company wrote in a post on Monday. Even after Microsoft ends support for the older OS, users would still be able to operate on it but would not receive any security, software or feature updates. "You can continue to use 'Windows 7', but once support ends, your PC will become more vulnerable to security risks," Microsoft said. "Windows 7" however, would also still be available for installation and activation after January 14, 2020. "To avoid security risks and viruses, Microsoft recommends that you consider upgrading to Windows 10," the company added. "Windows 7" was released in October 2009, less than three years after the release of its predecessor, Windows Vista. --IANS rp/ksk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said on Tuesday that he has sought an appointment to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016. "As a government, we have taken the lead in opposing this Bill and we will continue opposing it. Now the situation is slightly different because the Bill has not been passed in the Rajya Sabha and it is not a complete amendment yet. Therefore, right now we are waiting and watching what the (Central) government does," Sangma told the media here. "We (a delegation of the ruling Meghalaya Democratic Alliance) have sought an appointment and we hope to get it very soon within a week's time." Sangma said that all MDA partners will be part of the delegation and will express the concerns of the citizens of the state and the northeastern people as a whole. Asked if the MDA government should cut off ties with the Centre over the controversial Bill, Sangma said: "We are yet to take a call on that because the Bill has not been amended completely. When it is amended in full, then the situation arises, but it is not appropriate for me to comment right now." The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Hill State People's Democratic Party (HSPDP) have also submitted separate letters to Modi opposing the controversial Bill, which was passed in the Lok Sabha. It aims to remove hurdles for eligible migrants of six minority groups from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan from getting Indian citizenship. Two BJP members of the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council - Kurosh Marak and Sofiur Rahman - quit the BJP in protest. The Bill is expected to be tabled in the Rajya Sabha during Parliament's upcoming Budget Session as members of the opposition strongly opposed it. The six-party MDA coalition includes 20 members from the National People's Party, seven from the United Democratic Party, four from the People's Democratic Front, two each from the HSPDP and the BJP, one from the Nationalist Congress Party besides three Independent members. --IANS rrk/ksk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Kite-flying claimed two lives and left a boy critically injured in separate incidents over the past two days in Hyderabad, police said on Tuesday. A 11-year-old boy died after accidentally falling from the terrace of a three-storey building on Monday. A police officer said Syed Junaid Quadri sustained critical injuries and was shifted to a hospital where he succumbed. The incident occurred in Ameen Mandi area. In a similar incident on the same day, Mohammed Abdul Rahman, 9, sustained critical injuries after he fell from the first floor of his house in Nampally area while flying a kite. Police said the boy was admitted to hospital. A 27-year-old youth also fell to his death while flying a kite on the terrace of his house in Warasiguda area on Sunday. Syed Khalid, who got married six months ago, lost his balance and fell on the compound wall of an adjacent building. Youth and children take to kite-flying during the Sankranti holidays. Hundreds of people can be seen flying kites from the terraces of their buildings in the twin cities of Hyderabad, Secunderabad and outskirts. Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar has denied that he has imposed any blanket ban on kite-flying. He clarified that the notification issued by him restricted kite-flying only on thoroughfares and around places of worship to prevent any untoward incident. --IANS ms/in/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge has demanded that the government should make public the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) report that formed the basis for the ouster of CBI Director Alok Verma, which has been disowned by retired Supreme Court Judge A.K. Patnaik, causing embarrassment to the government. He also termed the appointment of M. Nageshwara Rao as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) interim Director "illegal" and sought an immediate meeting of the high-level Screening Committee to appoint a new Director. "Despite my best efforts to convince the members of the Committee (Prime Minister and CJI nominee) that we should be following the due process of law and the principles of natural justice, the members chose to take a decision based on a report that now stands disowned by Justice Patnaik, who was asked by the Supreme Court to monitor the CVC inquiry," he said in the letter. Kharge cited media reports which quoted Justice Patnaik as saying that "there was no evidence of corruption against Verma" and what the CVC says cannot be the final word while terming the Committee's decision as "very very hasty". "Such a huge embarrassment could have been avoided if the Committee had decided to independently examine a report of the CVC, the report of Justice Patnaik, the submissions of Alok Verma in his defence and drawn its own conclusions before reaching a decision." He said a Committee that consists of senior representatives of the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary should not take a decision merely on a report prepared by an outside agency, howsoever competent, without vetting the report and applying its mind. "It is unfortunate the manipulative actions of the government are directly responsible for causing deep embarrassment to the judiciary. The fact that the government did not even issue a reasoned order while removing Alok Verma led to the unfair situation where a member of the judiciary has been forced to defend the decision taken indirectly. "The government seems to be worried about something and in a tearing hurry disposed a man from his office, an irrational decision was taken to transfer Alok Verma as DG, Fire Services, even after his superannuation," he said. Kharge said the action of the government in handling the appointments in CBI had been consistently against the letter and spirit of the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act. He also said that he had brought to the attention of the Committee that the appointment of Verma in 2017 did not completely satisfy the conditions under the DSPE Act "but it was not considered". Likewise, the initial removal of Verma was done in violation of the DSPE Act without involving the Committee and the final removal on January 10 was made without following either due process of law or the principles of natural justice. "In each of the above instances, my advice, tendered on behalf of the opposition, has been consistently sidelined by the government," he said. Referring to the appointment of Nageshwara Rao as interim Director, the Congress leader said the Committee had not been consulted as the government seemed to have made up its mind on appointing him and the matter was never placed before it. "This appointment of an interim Director is illegal and against Section 4A(1) and 4A(3) of the DSPE Act." He said the actions of the government indicate that it was scared of having a CBI headed by an independent Director. "The government should come clean by releasing the CVC report, the report of Justice Patnaik and the minutes of the meeting held on January 10, 2019 so that the public can draw its conclusion on the matter." Kharge said the government should establish its bona fides in fighting corruption and ensuring the integrity of the premier investigative agency by convening an immediate meeting of the Special Committee as per the DSPE Act and appoint a Director without further delay. Any delay would further erode the faith the public has placed in this institution and the credibility of the institution, he added. Verma quit on Friday. He had rejoined office after the Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated him as the CBI Director but with riders. He was sent on forced leave by the government on October 23 after the fight between him and CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana became public. --IANS and-ps-aks/vsc/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Working President K.T. Rama Rao will meet YSR Congress Party President Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy here on Wednesday to invite the party to join the proposed Federal Front. Rama Rao, who is son of Telangana Chief Minister and TRS President K. Chandrashekhar Rao, also known as KCR, along with some other leaders of the party will hold talks with Jaganmohan Reddy, who is the Leader of Opposition in Andhra Pradesh Assembly, TRS sources said. This will be the first direct talks between the leaders of two parties since KCR floated the idea of Federal Front as an alternative to both Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress. The TRS chief has already held talks with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Janata Dal (United) leader and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and DMK leader M.K. Stalin. After taking over as the Chief Minister for second term following TRS' victory in last month's elections, KCR intensified his efforts to cobble together the Federal Front. TRS leaders are also likely to discuss with Jagan the possibility of their working together in Andhra Pradesh to defeat the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in the ensuing elections in the neighbouring state. KCR last month dropped hints to this effect with a remark that he will "return the gift" to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP President N. Chandrababu Naidu. He was referring to Naidu campaigning extensively in the Telangana elections. The grand alliance led by the Congress and comprising TDP and two other parties suffered crushing defeat in the Telangana polls. --IANS ms/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a jolt to the seven-month-old Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress coalition government in Karnataka that could lead to a political showdown, two Independent legislators, R. Shankar and H. Nagesh, withdrew their support even as the whereabouts of three Congress MLAs were not known while opposition BJP MLAs were lodged in a luxury hotel in Gurugram. The development came amid an ongoing political war between the coalition partners JD-S and Congress on the one hand and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the other over alleged poaching of Congress legislators by the BJP. Though Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, his deputy G. Parameshwara and the Working President of state Congress claimed that there was no threat to the government, it could portend difficult days ahead for it as the nearly 100 MLAs of BJP stayed put in the hotel and remained incommunicado. "I had extended support to the JD-S-Congress coalition expecting good governance but have been disappointed," Shankar told the media. A legislator from Ranebennur Assembly segment in Haveri district, Shankar belongs to the regional Karnataka Pragnavantha Janata Party while Nagesh is an Independent from Mulbagal constituency in Kolar district. The two Independents shared with the media their letter to Karnataka Governor Vajubhai R. Vala withdrawing their support to the coalition. Senior Congress leader K.C. Venugopal, who is incharge of BJP affairs in Karnataka, told reporters in Bengaluru that he was confident of the Independents rethinking their decision. "The Independents have every right to withdraw their support, but we're confident they will be with us," Venugopal said after a meeting with state unit Congress leaders. Kumaraswamy was unfazed. "I know my strength. We are in touch, why do you worry," he asked journalists. He was referring to the three Congress MLAs including Ramesh Jharkiholi, a senior leader who is now sulking after being dropped from the Cabinet recently. Congress leader and Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara accused the BJP of trying to "topple" a "stable" government. "The BJP is trying to sway the legislators with money power. Their aim is to topple the government, but we are confident of retaining our stability as we have the support of all our legislators," Parameshwara told the media in Bengaluru. In the 225-member Karnataka Assembly, the Congress has 80 MLAs including the Speaker, the JD-S 37 (117 in all) and the BJP 104. While the BJP has denied the poaching allegations, it has kept 99 of its 104 legislators at a private resort in Gurugram, adjoining the national capital, state unit spokesman Vamanacharya said. "A total of 99 legislators are currently at a private resort, while the other five are in Delhi and in touch with us," he told IANS here. The hotel where the MLAs were put up remained out of bounds for journalists. --IANS bha-aks/vsc/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) People across Karnataka on Tuesday celebrated the harvest festival of Sankranti with thousands of Hindus thronging temples. The festival began with people heralding 'Uttarayan', when the Sun enters the northern hemisphere, marking a new month in the Hindu calendar. The traditional sweet dish of "Pongal", made from newly harvested rice and jaggery, was made in most households, particularly the farmer families. Markets bustled with high demand for fruits and flowers. Prices shot up on the account of the festival. A festive spirit prevailed, with women and children gathered in towns and villages to create rangoli patterns adorned with flowers in public spaces and singing folk songs. Students and children took to kite flying. In view of the passenger rush with people travelling to their hometowns in various districts of Karnataka and in neighbouring states for the festival, the state-run Karnataka State Road Transport Corp (KSRTC) has been operating 500 additional bus services. These buses were operated since January 11 within the state and to neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu in addition to special buses to cater to the travellers. Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy wished the people on the occasion. "The state has been working for the economic upliftment of farmers through several pro-farmer initiatives," he said in a message. --IANS bha/ksk/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Supreme Court judges should not be given any profitable posting after retirement, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) demanded on Tuesday, claiming that such postings influence the judicial system. "I demand that judges should not be given any profitable posting after retirement. Otherwise, this is directly influencing the judiciary system," AAP MP Sanjay Singh told the media here. "Even (BJP leader Arun) Jaitley, during Congress rule, had said that posting judges influence the decisions of the courts," Singh said. He also said if the judges were promised creamy posting for giving favourable decisions, "then it is a very serious matter". The AAP spokesperson also said there were "loopholes" in the Supreme Court ruling on the ousted CBI Director Alok Verma. "The decision was left for the Select Committee and instead of the Chief Justice of India, (Justice A.K.) Sikri went for the meeting. A month ago, Sikri was offered a job with a posting of four years in London. This was an internal deal," he said. Sikri, who last week sided with the government in the three-member committee to remove Alok Verma, agreed in December to be nominated to the post of President/Member of the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat Arbitral Tribunal (CSAT). On Sunday, Sikri communicated to the government that he was withdrawing his consent after news broke out over his nomination to the post. Singh also criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi over Verma's removal. "I also want to ask why Modi is so keen on removing Verma from his post? Chances were high that if Verma would have remained at his post for some more time, a probe over the Rafale deal would have been started. Verma has been removed from the post to save Modi," he said. --IANS nks/mag/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jordan agreed on Tuesday to host a meeting between the representatives of the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels upon the request of the UN special envoy to Yemen over the issue of the exchange of prisoners, the media reported. Martin Griffiths will attend the upcoming Jordanian conference on the earlier agreed 16,000 prisoner exchange between the warring Yemeni sides. The meeting in Jordan comes on the heels of December's Sweden-based peace negotiations where Griffiths attempted to end nearly four years of civil war that pushed the Arab country to the brink of famine. "Jordan with its all capabilities supports our brothers in Yemen in their efforts aimed at putting an end to this prolonged crisis, which needs a political solution," Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesman Sufyan Qudah said in a statement cited by Efe news. On January 9, Griffiths urged the UN Security Council to speed up the implementation of the agreements reached in Sweden as it would be necessary "before the parties can reach a comprehensive peace agreement". "Progress in Sweden is a basis for confidence. It would be conducive to further progress at the next round of consultations," Griffiths had said. Tension between the Houthis and Yemeni government increased in recent days due to violations of the December 18 ceasefire agreement in and around the Houthi-held port city of Hodeida, the main point of entry point for food and medicine for Yemen's population. The Arab country has been locked in a political and military crisis since popular regional uprisings began in 2011, with the Houthis taking control of Yemen's capital Sana'a in September 2014, a move that spurred Saudi Arabia to go to war against the Houthis in 2015 with the support of the United Arab Emirates and other key Saudi allies. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) It could have been just another routine by-election but the Jind assembly seat in Haryana has turned into a political battlefield for all major parties to test the waters on which way the wind is going to blow in the coming months. Voting takes place on January 28 and whosoever wins the seat will be elected for just around nine months. This is because the term of the present Haryana assembly ends on November 2. Yet, the by-election has become an all-important event for everyone -- be it the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), the Congress and the newest player in state politics, the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP). This is because parliamentary elections are about 3-4 months away and the next assembly polls are to be held in October. The seat fell vacant when INLD legislator Hari Chand Middha, who twice won from Jind, passed away last August. The Congress, and more so its president Rahul Gandhi, can be credited with making the Jind bypoll, which otherwise would have been a fight between the BJP on one side versus the rest, a very interesting election by fielding his close confidant and the party's national spokesman, Randeep Surjewala. By doing so, Gandhi has not only stirred up Haryana's but the highly-factionalised Congress party in Haryana as well. When Surjewala filed his nomination on January 10, the entire top brass of the Congress leadership -- from former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, leader of the Congress in the assembly Kiran Chaudhary, state Congress president Ashok Tanwar, and former Union ministers Selja and Kuldeep Bishnoi (former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal's son), were present in strength. Surjewala, who is the incumbent Congress legislator from the adjoining Kaithal assembly seat and has been a cabinet minister in Haryana, himself may have been reluctant to get into the contest in Jind but did not seem to have been offered any options by his party president. "Our (Congress) win on this seat will set the tone for the forthcoming elections," Surjewala, who is a political heavyweight in the area, said. Though he has been put centre-stage in the Jind bypoll by his party, Surjewala is facing the fire from the BJP, INLD and the JJP. "We have seen legislators contesting Lok Sabha polls and vice versa or people contesting from two seats simultaneously but we have never seen a sitting legislator contest another assembly seat. This is quite strange," Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, who has been heading the first BJP government in Haryana since October 2014, quipped. Senior BJP minister Ram Bilas Sharma was caught on camera on Jan 10 taking a dig at Hooda by saying "your thorn (Surjewala) has been removed". Surjewala is seen as a possible contender for chief ministership against Hooda if the Congress returns to power. The BJP has played its cards well for this by-election by nominating Krishan Middha, the late INLD legislator's son. Despite a wave in its favour in October 2014 when it romped home to form a government for the first time on its own in Haryana, the BJP had been unsuccessful in Jind. The INLD, which is trying to regain the seat under the leadership of Abhay Singh Chautala, has put its weight behind Khap leader Umed Singh Redu. "We will teach a lesson to all the contesting parties. The INLD will win this seat again," Abhay Chautala claimed. New entrant JJP, which has emerged after a split in the INLD, has jumped into the fray by fielding a strong candidate in Digvijay Chautala, great-grandson of former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal. Digvijay is the grandson of INLD chief O.P. Chautala and a nephew of Abhay Chautala. The JJP will surely cut into the INLD votebank. "We have the strength and the commitment to win this election. The people, especially the youth, are with us," Digvijay said. Thus, the Jind constituency, which has a substantial chunk of scheduled caste and backward classes votes (around 50 per cent) and Jats (around 25 per cent) in its 1.7 lakh electorate, is in for an interesting contest. (Jaideep Sarin can be reached at jaideep.s@ians.in) --IANS js/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A section of Jadavpur University students on Tuesday boycotted classes and began an agitation demanding expulsion of International Relations' Professor Kanak Sarkar for his comments on virginity. Sarkar, meanwhile, regretted 'his language' but stuck with his opinion of imparting 'moral values and ethics'. Students came out in large numbers to participate in the campus protest. "We want his immediate expulsion for the comments he made and also the way he has been speaking in class," a student said. However, the Professor denied making any such comment in class. "Social media posts and classroom are separate. I used my freedom of expression. Since people's sentiments are hurt, I regretted and deleted the post within an hour. I had tried to impart values and ethics. Maybe the language I used was inappropriate," Sarkar said. In a series of Facebook posts, Sarkar had compared a virgin girl to a sealed "bottle of cold drink or a packet of biscuits" and commented that to men "virgin wife is like angel". Expressing his view on extending an apology to the women, he said: "Women are no individual, they are a part of the society. I have my wife and daughter at home and they are not saying anything to me." The professor also mentioned that when poet Srijato Bandopadhyay had faced an ordeal for speaking his mind, intellectuals had come out in support. Giving a political twist to the row, he said: "I think students are against me because I support the ruling party." --IANS bnd/ssp/pgh/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ivanka Trump, US President Donald Trump's daughter and senior adviser, will help choose the new World Bank President, the White House has said. Jessica Ditto, a White House spokeswoman, said on Monday that Ivanka Trump was asked because "she's worked closely with the World Bank's leadership for the past two years", The New York Times reported. Ivanka Trump, who had been rumoured to be a contender for the position herself, will not be a candidate, Ditto said. But she will assist the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and the acting White House Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, in choosing a successor to Jim Yong-kim, the current president of the World Bank who announced his resignation last week. Administration officials are expected to begin the interview process for the job on Tuesday. The White House did not provide any names of contenders. Ivanka Trump, Mnuchin and Mulvaney will make recommendations to the President, who will nominate a candidate for the position. Member countries of the World Bank will then vote on the nominee. Traditionally, the American President's pick is accepted and Europe chooses the leader of the International Monetary Fund because both institutions were founded during World War II. Jim, a former Dartmouth College president and a global health expert, was selected for the post by former President Barack Obama in 2012. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Thai police have arrested an Indian man and 27 Thai women in connection with a fake-marriage registration scam that enabled Indians to get residential visas in the country. The Indian man, Wikrom Layerhi, was arrested on charge of being a broker to arrange for Thai women to register fake marriages with Indian nationals, the National daily cited Lt. Gen. Surachate Hakpal, Immigration Bureau Chief and Deputy Head of the Technology Crime Suppression Centre, as saying on Monday. Surachate said that the arrested women were hired for 8,000 to 10,000 bahts each, adding that these women never stayed with the Indians with whom they had registered their marriages. One of the women was 70 years old and had a family, including children, Surachate said. Police officials said they checked more than 8,000 Indians living in Thailand and found that 127 of them unlawfully obtained residential visas, which have been revoked. Thirty-six of the 127 men had been deported, according to authorities. --IANS soni/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) National Vice President, Avinash Rai Khanna, on Tuesday said the party would fight 2019 Lok Sabha elections on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's performance during the last four and a half years. Addressing a media conference at the party headquarters in winter capital Jammu, Khanna said political parties trying to join hands with the Congress against the BJP were essentially created to offer resistance to the Congress and by trying to come close to Congress against the BJP indicates these parties have conceded that their very creation had been a mistake. "We are a cadre-based party having eleven crore workers in the country out of whom seven crore workers have been assigned responsibilities for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. "We fought 2014 elections projecting the person of Narendra Modi and we will fight 2019 elections projecting the performance of Narendra Modi during the four and a half years of our power. "Country wants a 'mazboot' (strong) government, not a 'majboor' (handicapped) government", he said. He spoke of 10 per cent reservation for the weaker sections of general category candidates, of minimum support price (MSP) for farmers, of LPG cylinders distributed to the weakest among the weaker sections of the society and other schemes implemented by the BJP government in the country. Khanna claimed that the BJP which has two out of six seats from J&K in the present Lok Sabha would better its performance in 2019 elections. Replying a question about the protest by former state chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti against the JNU charge sheet, he said, "There has been a criminal case against some persons and the law is now taking its own course. "I can only pity Mehbooba Mufti saying that the charge sheet is intended to frame Kashmiris. We love the people of Kashmir more than she does." He parried a question when asked whether the BJP would again form an alliance government in the state if the state assembly elections delivered a fractured mandate like it did last time, "We will cross the bridge when we come to it", he said. --IANS sq/vc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Indian and Pakistani soldiers exchanged heavy gunfire on Friday on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district, the Defence Ministry said. "At 3.45 p.m. the Pakistan Army violated the ceasefire and resorted to unprovoked shelling and firing at Indian positions in Mendhar sector," Ministry spokesman Lt Col Devender Anand said. The Pakistanis used mortar shells and small arms to target Indian positions. The Indian Army retaliated "befittingly", he added. On Thursday, an Indian soldier, Rifleman Yash Paul, was killed in Pakistani firing on the LoC in Rajouri district. --IANS sq/in/mr (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Both China and India started building their national systems under comparable conditions in the late 1940s. Different policies and historical circumstances have, however, led them to different educational outcomes, with China outperforming India not just in terms of its percentage of literate population and enrollment rates at all levels of education, but also in terms of number of world-class institutions in higher education, and greater research output. The roots of China's successful system date back to the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), which unintentionally expanded access to the primary through democratising the schooling system, which was previously elitist in character, thus addressing the problem of mass illiteracy. In contrast, India continued to focus on its higher education system since independence and only realised the importance of basic education in 1986, keeping it behind China and many other countries in Asia in educational development. In terms of enrollment, China reached a 100 percent gross enrollment rate (GER) in its primary education in 1985, whereas, India attained that level only in 2000. In terms of secondary school enrollment, India and China both started at the similar rates in 1985, with about 40 percent of their population enrolled in secondary schools. However, due to a wider base of primary school students, the rate of increase in China has been much faster than in India, with 99 percent secondary enrollment rate in China and 79 percent in India in 2017. India is closing in on the Chinese rate in terms of access to education, but on the literacy level front, there is a huge gap in the percentage of literate populations in the two countries. In the age group of 15-24 years, India scores 104th rank on literacy and numeracy indicator, compared to China's 40th rank. The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which assesses after every three years the domain knowledge of 15-year-old students in reading, mathematics, science and finance, revealed that students in China performed above the OECD average in 2015. Moreover, one in four students in China are top performers in mathematics, having an ability to formulate complex situations mathematically. Further, China outperforms all the other participating countries in financial literacy, by having a high ability to analyse complex finance products. For India, the comparable data is not available as it was not a participating country in PISA 2015. However, in India, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2017 provides data for rural youth, aged 14-18, with respect to their abilities to lead productive lives as adults. According to this survey, only about half of the 14-year-old children in the sample could read English sentences, and more than half of the students surveyed could not do basic arithmetic operations, like division. For basic financial calculations, such as managing a budget or making a purchase decision, less than two-thirds could do the correct calculations. With regard to the higher education system, both India and China dominate the number of tertiary degree holders because of their large population size, but when it comes to the percentage of the population holding tertiary degrees, only about 10 per cent and 8 per cent of the population possess university degrees in China and India, respectively. By contrast, in Japan, almost 50 per cent of the population holds a tertiary degree, and in the United States, 31 per cent of the population hold a tertiary degree. In terms of the international recognition of universities, the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Ranking for 2019 places seven of the China's universities in the top 200, compared to none for India. The global university rankings, which are based on various performance metrices, pertaining to teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industrial income, shows progress for several of China's low-ranked universities, largely driven by improvements in its citations. In fact, the Tsinghua University has overtaken the National University of Singapore (NUS) to become the best university in Asia due to improvements in its citations, institutional income and increased share of international staff, students and co-authored publications. While India has progressed in terms of massification of education, there is still a lot which needs to be done when it comes to catching up with the China's educational outcomes. China's early start in strengthening its primary and secondary education systems has given it an edge over India in terms of higher education. Moreover, Chinese government strategies are designed in line with the criterion used in major world university rankings, especially emphasis is on the two factors which weigh heavily in the rankings -- publications and international students. The relentless publications drive, which is very evident in China, is weak in India and has led to a growing gap in the number of publications contributed by the two countries. Further, China enrolled about 292,611 foreign students in 2011 from 194 countries, while India currently only has 46,144 foreign students enrolled in its higher education institutions, coming from 166 countries. The large number of international enrollments in China is a reflection of its state policies granting high scholarships to foreign students. To catch up with China, India needs to lay emphasis on improving its educational outcomes. Massification drive for education has helped India raise its student enrollments, but a lot needs to be done when it comes to global recognition for its universities. Further, it needs to focus on building the foundation skills which are acquired by students at the school age, poor fundamental skills flow through the student life, affecting adversely the quality of education system. (Amit Kapoor is chair, Institute for Competitiveness. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at Amit.Kapoor@competitiveness.in and tweets @kautiliya. Deepti Mathur, senior researcher at large has contributed to the piece) --IANS amitk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which took power in Delhi four years ago with a promise to build 1,000 Mohalla (neighbourhood) Clinics in the national capital, has managed to provide only 189 of the widely-praised clinics, blaming the central government for the slow pace of execution. The Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinic (AAMC) project -- the opening of primary healthcare centres to ensure free doctor consultations, tests and medicines to people -- was one of the flagship schemes of the AAP for which the initial deadline was December 2016. But it was extended to March 2017 and the government failed to meet that target as well. The tussle between the central and the Delhi governments has been blamed the most by the AAP for the delay in the construction of the clinics as the government lacked the power to take decisions until July 4, 2018, when the Supreme Court ruled that Delhi's Lt Governor was bound by the "aid and advice" of the Delhi government, bringing powers back to the AAP government. The AAP, which came to power in February 2015, had a plan to have a clinic each -- with a doctor, a pharmacist, a clinic assistant/multitasking worker -- in a radius of five kilometres over a population of 10,000-15,000. "Mohalla Clinics have been conceptualised as a mechanism to provide quality primary health care services accessible within the communities in Delhi at their doorstep. In the past three years, 164 clinics could be established. In just five months, 25 more clinics were opened. We can, for sure, say that the court ruling has given momentum to the work," an official told IANS on the condition of anonymity. The official said the tender to build 300 additional clinics had been finalised after land was identified. "The construction work is going on in full swing." "Identification and finalisation of land have been a major issue (as the subject of land is not under the Delhi government). Acquiring land takes most of the time... The other agencies are not very keen in giving us the land for clinics. As soon as we identify and finalise the land, construction is initiated." The PWD is given six months to build the clinic while three months time is assigned to ensure electricity and water supply along with posting of the staff -- a doctor, a pharmacist and a multi-tasker worker. The setting up of clinics has been envisaged in the form of a Pre-Engineered Insulated Box Type Re-located Structure which are to be manufactured and installed through PWD. The clinics, functional from 8.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m. on all days except Sundays, provide services like basic medical care based on standard treatment protocols which include curative care for common illnesses like fever, diarrhoea, skin problems, respiratory problems, first aid for injuries and burns, dressing and management of minor wounds and referral services. While medicines are provided free of cost to the patients as per the essential drug list, the lab investigations were carried out by the empanelled laboratories. Officials said a total of 214 tests can be done for free through the clinics. Along with providing health-related information, education and awareness, the clinics also provide preventive services such as antenatal and postnatal care of pregnant women, assessment of nutritional status and counselling and a preventive and promotive component of National/State Health Programmes. The Mohalla Clinic project has been widely praised, including by the late Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General, and Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Norwegian Prime Minister and a former Director-General of World Health Organisation. Another former UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, along with Brundtland visited some clinics last year and were "deeply impressed" by it. The Delhi government was providing health care services through primary, secondary and tertiary facilities out of which the primary care is delivered through dispensaries, secondary health care through multi-speciality hospitals and tertiary health care services through super-speciality hospitals. After the AAP came to power, in order to fill the gaps in services, there has been a paradigm shift in reorganising health care services. Now the Delhi government provides a four-tier health care delivery system, with Mohalla Clinics for primary health care, multi-speciality poly-clinics for secondary health care in the form of OPD consultation by specialist doctors including diagnostics, multi-speciality Hospitals for IPD care (earlier called secondary level hospital) and super-speciality hospitals (earlier called tertiary level hospital). The health services also cater to people from neighbouring states. The government is also planning school clinics, to be started on the lines of the Mohalla Clinic. "The school clinics will be started in Delhi government schools with an aim to improve the health and nutrition of the students. Locations of 265 School Clinics have been finalised," another officer said. The government has also proposed 94 additional polyclinics, apart from 25 functional ones in the city. "These will act as a satellite centre for outdoor specialised medical treatment centres," the official said. (Nivedita Singh can be contacted at nivedita.singh@ians.in) --IANS nks/vsc/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday asked how YSR Congress Party President Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy and his sister Y.S. Sharmila can contest elections in the state when they have no trust in the state police. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief asked the leaders of the main opposition party in the state to behave as responsible citizens of Andhra Pradesh. "How will you remain citizens of the state if you don't trust the state police? In that case, how can you contest the elections here?" Naidu said while addressing a news conference in his native village Naravaripalle in Chittoor district. Naidu was reacting to Sharmila lodging a complaint with the Hyderabad police, seeking action against those trying to defame her by posting objectionable comments in the social media. Alleging that the TDP is behind the conspiracy, she told reporters after meeting the Hyderabad Police Commissioner on Monday that she has no trust in Andhra Pradesh Police. Condemning Sharmila's allegation, Naidu said the TDP has never indulged in personal attacks and character assassination. Naidu reiterated that the state will challenge in court the Centre's move to order probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into October 25 attack on Jaganmohan Reddy at Visakhapatnam airport. "The Centre is trying to take away the state's rights. We will not allow this. We will fight for our rights," he said. The NIA on January 1 took up the investigation into the knife attack on Jagan, who had refused to give his statement to Andhra Pradesh Police, saying he does not trust them. "Can you go to another country and demand inquiry into an incident which happened in India?" Naidu said. The TDP chief alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jagan and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao have colluded with the aim to damage Andhra Pradesh. He also remarked that justice to Andhra Pradesh is possible only if Modi is defeated in the coming elections. He claimed that TDP is the only party which has a right to seek votes in the coming elections as it has undertaken more development and welfare schemes than revenue-surplus states like Telangana. --IANS ms/pgh/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Union Home Ministry on Tuesday held discussions on issues relating to Kartarpur Corridor that included land acquisition on the Indian side for the project. Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba chaired the meeting in which Punjab Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh, BSF Director General Rajni Kant Mishra, DG Intel Punjab and Indian envoy to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria took place. The meeting lasted for approximately 45 minutes. The Home Ministry is the nodal ministry for coordinating with the authorities concerned, while Road Transport and the Highways Ministry is the nodal ministry for building and developing the corridor on the Indian side. The Union Cabinet on November 22 last year had approved building of Kartarpur Corridor on the Indian side from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district till the border and informed Pakistan about its decision. India also urged Islamabad to develop a corridor in its territory from the International Border to Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib. Vice President Venkaiah Naidu laid the foundation stone for the corridor on the Indian side on November 26 last year, while Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan laid the foundation stone on November 28 on their side of the border. --IANS rak/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Himachal Pradesh aims to increase forest cover from 26 to 35 per cent, Forest Minister Govind Singh Thakur said on Tuesday. Presiding over a workshop on a project for improvement of the Himachal Pradesh Forest Ecosystems Management and Livelihood here, he said the state had taken various steps to protect forests from fire. "This requires the support and participation of people. A mobile app to alert the public about the forest fires is showing positive results," he said. Talking about the project, the Minister said that the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)-funded Rs 800 crore 10-year project would be implemented by 2028. The aim of the project is management of forest area more efficiently so that forest cover could be increased along with improvement in community livelihood. He said the project would be implemented in three stages in six districts -- Kinnaur, Shimla, Bilaspur, Mandi, Kullu and Lahaul-Spiti. India and Japan signed a pact for this project in Tokyo on March 29, 2018. A total of 17 lakh saplings were planted in the state in the last monsoon and a fencing was also done for the protection of planted saplings. The Minister said now the department was preparing to start plantation in the winter season also. The total geographical area of Himachal Pradesh is 55,673 sq km, of which 66.5 per cent (37,033 sq km) is classified as forest region. The state is one of the storehouses of biodiversity in the country. Of the 45,000 species of flora species found in the country, 3,295 are found in Himachal Pradesh. --IANS vg/mag/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In the wake of the Supreme Court order imposing conditional ban on the BJP's proposed Rath Yatra in Bengal, the party on Tuesday said it will not be cowed down by the tactics of the Mamata Banerjee government and continue its political programmes within the limits of the apex court's directive. Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court denied permission for the Rath Yatra observing that the state government's apprehensions of violence during the programmes were not "unfounded" and that before taking out the Yatra, the party would have to address the state government's apprehensions on law and order. The court, however, allowed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to conduct meetings and other contact programmes, as agreed to by the Bengal government. "We accept the apex court's order. We will talk to the party's central leadership to decide upon our future course of action. We will prepare the blue print of our political meetings and mass rallies," BJP national Secretary Rahul Sinha told the reporters here. "If Mamata thinks she will be able to stop BJP by deterring the Yatra, she is wrong. BJP will continue to be on the streets of Bengal. We have several political programmes planned in the state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party president Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will soon come to Bengal," he claimed. Sinha further said that the court was "misguided" by the "forged intelligence report" produced by the Mamata Banerjee government about possible breach of peace during the Yatra. "That was a forged intelligence report. It was not made by the state detective department. It was made by Trinamool Congress to create doubts in the court's mind. I think the court was misguided by the report," he said. Taking a dig at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the BJP leader said the verdict only proved that the law and order situation has further deteriorated under the current regime as compared to the erstwhile Left Front government in Bengal. "Today (Tuesday)'s verdict clearly shows that the Chief Minister has failed to fix the law and order situation in the state in the last seven years, rather the situation has further worsened under Banerjee's regime," Sinha said. "A number of 'Yatras' were held in Bengal during the Left rule including the Lal Krishna Advani's 'Swarna Jayanti Rath Yatra' in 1997 and 40 day-long rally in 2013, without a single incident of law and order breach. The state government is stopping it for narrow political gains. People of Bengal will not accept it," he added. On the other hand, Bengal Congress leadership welcomed the apex court's verdict and accused the BJP of trying to terrorise people in the name of practising religion. "We welcome the verdict. Practising religion is good. But BJP always tries to use the religion to divide people and create an atmosphere of terror and hatred. Not allowing the Rath Yatra is the correct decision," state Congress leader Abdul Mannan said. --IANS mgr/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Explosions and heavy gunfire rocked an upscale hotel complex in the Kenyan capital on Tuesday in a terrorist attack that sent people fleeing into the streets and left body parts on the ground, the media reported. The Somali-based militant group Al-Shabaab claimed the attack on Riverside Drive in Nairobi's affluent Westlands neighbourhood, which houses the DusitD2 hotel as well as offices, but gave no details, the BBC reported. At least two blasts and gunfire were heard at the compound. Eyewitnesses said that armed men hurled grenades outside the DusitD2 hotel compound, which is frequented by foreigners, before storming inside. The same compound houses several private and government offices Vehicles were on fire in the car park and plumes of white smoke could be seen billowing from the scene into the air amid sustained gunfire. The police described it as a terrorist attack and were trying to rescue those inside the hotel and surrounding buildings. The area around DusitD2 hotel was cordoned off. "I am in 14 Riverside drive hiding in a bathroom and we are under attack," tweeted one man who described himself as being on the scene of the attack. "There was a massive bombs blast then gunshots." Kenya has been repeatedly attacked by militants of the Al-Shabab movement based in neighbouring Somalia. In September 2013, they attacked the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi and killed 71 people. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Gujarat-based company has been proposed as a new investor to support the employees' association of the beleaguered Reid and Taylor after a Hong Kong group failed to honour its commitment for depositing its promised earnest deposit money before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) here on Tuesday. The NCLT has asked the CFM Asset Reconstruction Pvt Ltd (CFMARPL), Gujarat, to deposit Rs 2 crore within 48 hours and another Rs 3 crore with the resolution professional, and posted the matter for further hearing on January 17. The NCLT has assured that after they provide the initial amount (Rs 2 crore), the resolution professional would be directed to provide the necessary documents of the company to enable them (CFMARPL) prepare a resolution plan. CFMARPL CEO S.V. Shah said the company has a net worth of over Rs 100 crore besides managing assets of around Rs 1,200 crore. Incidentally, SPGP Holdings, Hong Kong, which had claimed a net worth of Rs 70 crore was later calculated by the resolution professional to around Rs 7 crore only. Last December, the creditors' committee had moved the NCLT for liquidation of the Reid & Taylor as there were no credible investors ready to submit a resolution plan for the debt-hit fashion brand. However, the employees' association, backed by SGPF Holdings, has requested the NCLT for an opportunity to help bail out the company by submitting a resolution plan. The NCLT, presided over by B.P. Mohan and V. Nallasenapathy, had stalled the liquidation process by giving an extra 11 days time for the corporate insolvency resolution process after the 270-day time period for a resolution proposal of the company ended. --IANS qn/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Unfazed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement that the government will wait for the Supreme Court ruling on a Ram temple in Ayodhya, the VHP on Tuesday said the government should come out with an ordinance in the upcoming Budget Session of Parliament. Vishwa Hindu Parishad's Working President Alok Kumar said the VHP would hold talks with spiritual leaders to chalk out a strategy on the Ram temple issue at the "Dharam Sansad" to be held at the Prayagraj Kumbh this month-end to put pressure on the government. "The VHP is committed to fight for Ram Temple till we achieve success. The strategy and programmes are chalked out by sants. We have called a meeting of Dharam Sansad between January 31 and February 1. It will decide how to take forward the fight," Kumar told IANS in an interview. Asked about the Prime Minister's statement on the issue, he said: "We have a right to continue to persuade him to our point of view, to frame a law. They have to pass a legislation and they have the February session to do it. We will place the whole situation before the sants and let the sants decide for us." He said that the government had brought an ordinance for triple talaq, which was good, but it should bring one on Ram temple too as the country cannot wait till eternity for it. "It's already 69 long years. Can't wait till eternity. The Supreme Court is not even beginning to hear it... Therefore, we ask the government to find out the alternative method of legislation," he said. The VHP President said that Hindus were still emotionally attached to the issue like they were in 1990s. But he refused to speak on political repercussions in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls if the government failed to bring a legislation. "The public meetings we held all over the country have shown an exceptionally enthusiastic response. We are sure that the issue has resonance with the general Hindu society. But whether it has impact on the elections or not, this is something I do not calculate," he said. Asked how the issue may impact BJP's prospects in Uttar Pradesh, if the BJP failed to fulfil its election promise ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, he said construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya was an issue for national "regeneration" and he does not know whether it will have an impact on election or not. "There is a BJP government in the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh. Therefore, they should take steps for the construction of a Ram temple." He hit out at the Congress for creating hurdles in the court over the issue. Kumar cited two evidences of that and accused the Congress of trying to put pressure on the judiciary to delay the temple construction. "Kapil Sibal was a Minister in the UPA government and he is a prominent Congress leader. He appeared for Sunni Waqf Board in the Supreme Court and wanted the hearing to be postponed till the Lok Sabha elections. They brought an impeachment motion against the Chief Justice on frivolous grounds. This proves that they tried to build up pressure on the judiciary to delay a ruling," he said. On Congress President Rahul Gandhi's temple visits, Kumar said: "I am certainly suspicious of his new found love for temples. We have not seen it decades. He suddenly declares that he wears a 'janeu'. Then the publicity department arranges a visit to Kailash Mansarovar. Then he declares his 'gotra'. Honestly, I do not know if it is a change of heart. But a propaganda is built up around it, and makes me suspicious," he said. The VHP leader, however, welcomed the Rajasthan government's decision to honour those who adopt stray cows on Independence Day and Republic Day. "This is a good thing and we support it. We believe that all governments irrespective of their colour should work towards the cause including cow protection." The VHP's Board of Trustees, which would meet on the sidelines of Kumbh in Prayag Raj from January 17, would take stock of the current situation, its performance in the last six months and the problems faced by Hindus. (Brajendra Nath Singh can be contacted at brajendra.n@ians.in) --IANS bns/vsc/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Centre on Tuesday constituted a seven-member Group of Ministers (GoM) to look into Goods and Services Tax (GST)-related issues of the real estate sector. Nitin Patel, the Deputy Chief Minister of Gujarat, would head the GoM which would analyse the tax rate of GST on the under-construction residential properties for boosting the realty segment, a Finance Ministry statement said. Among the issues concerning the sector, a major subject is the GST rate on under-construction residential properties. There have been demand from many quarters to slash the rate on the segment to 5 per cent from the current 12 per cent. The members of the GoM are finance ministers of five states -- Sudhir Mungantiwar of Maharashtra, Krishna Byre Gowda, Kerala, T.M. Thomas Isaac, Karnataka, Manpreet Singh Badal, Punjab and Rajesh Agarwal of Uttar Pradesh. Goa Minister of Panchayat Mauvin Godinho is also a member. As per the Ministry, the GoM would "examine and suggest ways for composition scheme or any other scheme, for boosting real estate sector and suggest scheme for transition vis-a-vis introduction of suggested scheme". As per the terms of reference, it would also examine various aspects of levy of GST on Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) and Development Rights in a joint development agreement and suitable model. The GoM would further examine the legality of inclusion or exclusion of land or any other ingredient, in composition and suggest valuation mechanism. The Union Government appointed Manish Sinha, Joint Secretary (TRU-II), Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, as Secretary to the GoM, the statement said. --IANS rrb/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Search engine giant Google on Tuesday celebrated the birth anniversary of Sake Dean Mahomed who was the first Indian author to publish a book in English and later, to open an Indian restaurant in Britain. Born in 1759 in Patna, Mahomed went on to find success as the "The Shampooing Surgeon of Brighton", opening a spa in the British seaside town that attracted the rich and the royal. In 1810 after moving to London, he opened the 'Hindostanee Coffee House', Britain's first Indian restaurant. However, Mahomed was forced to close his luxurious restaurant in 1812. He later moved his family to the beachside town of Brighton and opened a spa named 'Mahomed's Baths' which offered luxurious herbal steam baths whose specialty was a combination of a steam bath and an Indian therapeutic massage - a treatment he named 'shampooing', inspired by the Hindi word 'champissage' meaning a head massage. He also published a book about the therapeutic benefits of the treatment with testimonials from his patients. In 1822, King George IV appointed Mahomed as his personal 'shampooing surgeon', which greatly improved his business. A portrait of Mahomed also hangs in the Brighton Museum. --IANS som/mag/ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Gegong Apang on Tuesday resigned from the party, saying it was no longer following the principles of the late Atal Bihari Vajpayee. "I am disappointed to see that the present day BJP is no longer following the principles of the late Vajpayeeji," Apang said in his resignation letter sent to BJP President Amit Shah. "The party is now a platform to seek power, it serves a leadership which hates decentralization or democratic decision making and no longer believes (in the values) the party was founded for," he added. Apang said the Bharatiya Janata Party did not get the people's mandate in 2014 in Arunachal Pradesh. "But the BJP leadership used every dirty trick in the trade and installed the late Kalikho Pul as Chief Minister. Despite an adverse Supreme Court ruling, a BJP government was reinstalled. "Neither a proper investigation was done in Pul's suicide nor the present BJP leadership thought of morality and ethics by installing many more BJP governments in the northeast," said Apang. He said that during the state level executive committee meeting held on November 10 and 11 at Pasighat, BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav did not allow many members and office bearers to place their views. "The decision to put Pema Khandu's name as Chief Minister before the election is neither the norm nor the tradition that a cadre-based party like BJP had followed. The BJP in the past has always asked the views of legislature and party members and then decided on leadership issues. Such undemocratic practices are not for the parties that grew under the leadership of Advani, Vajpayee, B.S. Shekawat, Kushabhau Thakre, Madan Lal Khurana, Rajmata Scindia and Sikandar Bakhl," he added. "From issues like grass-root delivery of government schemes to matters like Naga peace talks, Chakma-Hajong issue, amendments of Citizenship Bill, telecommunications and real time digital connectivity to peaceful and cordial relation with neighbours like Bangladesh, Myanmar and China, both the party and the Modi government are not addressing the real issues," he said. Apang appealed to Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to remember the teachings of Vajpayee about 'Raj Dharma' and then he said history will judge them. --IANS ah/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Foodgrain and other relief supplies for the Reang tribals sheltered in Tripura for over 21 years, have been extended for another two-and-a-half-months, an official said here on Tuesday. "The (Union) Home Ministry has extended the deadline for repatriation of tribal refugees from Tripura to Mizoram till March 31. The assistance to the refugees in the form of foodgrain and cash dole will also be continued till March 31," Kanchanpur Sub-Divisional Magistrate Abeda Nanda Baidya told IANS on the phone. Baidya said following the appeal of the refugees, the Central government had initially agreed to resume the supply of free rations and relief material to them (refugees) from October 22 last year. This was to stop on Wednesday. Following a four-party agreement in Delhi last July, the supply of foodgrain and relief material was stopped from October 1, ostensibly to compel the tribal migrants to return to their villages in Mizoram. Over 35,000 Reang tribals, comprising 5,907 families, fled from Mizoram and have been staying in seven relief camps in northern Tripura's Kanchanpur and Panisagar sub-divisions since October 1997 following ethnic tension after a Mizo forest official was killed in the neighbouring state. Meanwhile, the Mizoram Bru Displaced People's Forum (MBDPF), the apex body of the refugees, has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba and Joint Secretary (North-East) Satyendra Garg to extend their relief and other assistance until they returned to their homes in Mizoram. MBDPF President A. Sawibunga, Vice-President R. Laldawngliana and General Secretary Bruno Msha, in a joint letter on Monday, said that it would be very inhuman if the government unilaterally stopped the assistance to the refugees. In their letter, the refugee leaders also called the Election Commission to set up polling stations inside the seven relief camps during the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The Election Commission had set up 15 special polling stations at Kanhmun, a village along the Mizoram-Tripura border, facilitating polling by 12,018 voters among over 35,000 tribal immigrants, to vote in the November 28 Assembly polls in Mizoram. According to an official of the Tripura Relief and Revenue Department, over Rs 370 crore has been spent on the relief packages. --IANS sc/pgh/vm (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Model-turned-actress Elena Fernandes, who has worked with actor Emraan Hashmi in the forthcoming film "Why Cheat India", says he is talented and helped her learn a lot. In an e-mail interview with IANS, Elena, who had in the past worked on a magazine shoot with Emraan, said: "It was a joy to reconnect with Emraan. He is such a talented actor and a sweet person. He is truly passionate about delivering a character correctly and I learnt a lot from that." She said from making sure her mannerisms are correct for the character, to how she carried herself, he helped her all the way, making her performance "more believable" to the audience. In the film, Elena essays Emraan's family member. "Why Cheat India" is Elena's second film in Bollywood. She made her debut in Indian cinema with a cameo in the 2016 film "Kapoor and Sons". While talking about her journey in Bollywood so far, the Goan-South American model-actress said that she has "been fortunate enough to be part of such incredible industry". "But it has been a lot of hard work that has led to this point. The industry has been super supportive and lovely. I've been fortunate not only in working with Bollywood's finest (talent), but also incredible production houses and teams. "What more could I ask for? Everyone here is so warm and welcoming," she added. Asked what made her step into the world of acting, Elena said her transition from modelling to acting was a natural process. "Modelling, I feel, is silent acting. You have to emote a character through the clothes, hair and make-up styles. Several editorials led to print campaigns, which led to TV commercials and TV roles which naturally led to films. So, it was a very gradual process." Apart from "Why Cheat India", Elena is currently preparing for two other films alongside some British projects. --IANS sim/rb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) may soon attach the properties of Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case key accused Brajesh Thakur, who is currently lodged in a high security jail in Punjab, an official said on Tuesday. The ED official's remarks came two days after it questioned Thakur in the Patiala jail on Sunday after seeking permission from a Bihar court on January 5. He said that Thakur was questioned by the agency's Patna team for over seven hours. Thakur was shifted to the Patiala jail from the Bhagalpur Central Jail in Bihar on October 30, 2018, after he was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The ED official said after his questioning, the agency has got some details of Thakur's properties bought allegedly with ill-gotten money. "Those properties are being identified and will be soon attached," he said. The financial probe agency's action comes in the wake of a money laundering case it registered in October in the Muzaffarpur case pertaining to the rape of minor girls by officials of the shelter home. The ED has filed a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) taking cognizance of an FIR filed by the CBI. It is inquiring into the operations of the NGO Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti which had been running the shelter home since 2013. It has been alleged that Thakur had managed to get his close relatives to become part of the NGO's governing body using fraudulent means. Of the 42 girls lodged at the short-stay home run by the NGO, 34 were found to have been sexually assaulted. The crime came to light following a social audit by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, over six months ago. The Supreme Court is monitoring the CBI probe into the case. An FIR was lodged against 11 people, including Thakur, on May 31. The probe was later taken over by the CBI. --IANS aks/in/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The capital city has rolled out the red carpet for the first edition of the Diorama Film Festival, which has the aim of providing an impetus to filmmaking in Delhi and promote appreciation of cinematic art. "Delhi is a growing city in terms of actors. It has given many talented stars to Bollywood. Diorama Film Festival is a great initiative and I wish Manoj Srivastava all the luck for the great start,' veteran actor Randhir Kapoor said at the fest's opening here on Monday night. Actress Divya Dutta, one of the jury members at the gala, told IANS: "It's lovely that a film festival has come to Delhi." The event, being held here till January 20 at the Siri Fort auditorium, is organised by Manoj Srivastava, who worked closely on the International Film Festival of India, Goa till 2012. A slate of 130 films from over 50 countries has been lined up for the fest, where a slew of actors are expected to be in attendance. The opening ceremony saw Rajiv Kapoor, Arjun Bajwa, Neetu Chandra, T.P. Aggarwal, Rahul Rawail, Manu Rewal, Iranian actress Mozhgan Taraneh, and Singapore International Film Festival's former director Philip Cheah. The festival will also give out Sparrow Awards, named after the endangered bird, for the best work over 25 film categories and they will be decided by four international film juries. A highlight of the event is a masterclass on acting by "The Mummy" actor Erick Avari. --IANS rb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now. Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market. In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender. India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex. Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted. But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted? Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner. If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems. I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now. I want more variation in masturbation I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own. If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end. What is sex toys for Indian? Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation. It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms. They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable. Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner. The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner. It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past. In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping. Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order. In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing. Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome. Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own. But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance. More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around. Sextoy situation in India Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years. In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India. Mumbai Kolkata Bangalore Delhi Chennai Hyderabad These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India. In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well. If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too. If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it. What are Sextoys for beginner? Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms. Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy. I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion. I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy. If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma. Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it. Advantages of using sextoy for Indians There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways. Can have stimulating sex Can develop new sexual zones If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern. However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways. You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation. Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever. There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure. This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it. When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems. It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms). For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles [Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou... Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India. Sextoy for beginner men in India So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners. For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men! The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men Masturbator Cock rings Love Doll Sex Lubricants Toys for the prostate Lets check each one in detail. Masturbator The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products. It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands. Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands. They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.) Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much. Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! ! Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa SEXToys India PR (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018 Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood. If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here Really pleasant male masturbation and how to do it Are you in a rut with your daily masturbation routine? I'm going to show you five ways men masturbate that you might ... [For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien... Cock Ring A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis. It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow. It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber. In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection. Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction. It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it. Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time. Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function. Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy. You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect. [Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat... Love Doll Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex. There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women. Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price. The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true. You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste. There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice. You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls. If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to... Sex lubricants Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules. It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution. Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse. There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent. Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent. If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here. What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many... Toys for the Prostate Another sextoy for men is prostate toys. The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line. Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men. Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men. What is the prostate? The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm. You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus. By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms. Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.) The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation. Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure. sextoy for beinner women in India The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy. The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy. Vibrator. Dildo Electric Masserger Lets check out what each one is in detail. If you want to check out womens toys, click here. [BEST25]Sex Toys for Women in IndiaThat Can Help You Have an Orgasm There are many women who pretend to feel orgasm during sex. But don't worry, you don't have to pretend to feel orgasm... Vibrators A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator. Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy. It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy. Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women. For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators. Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex. Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself. This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual. Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men. When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons. Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most... Dildo A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis. It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass. A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it. They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well. It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device. A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo. Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands. For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis. This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one. To learn more about dildo, please click here. What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th... Electric Masserger A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores. It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low. Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels. Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation. It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure. For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm. It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out. If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager? To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here. What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th... How to choose a sextoy for Indian Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one. Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points: Does the size fit you (the partner)? Does the size fit you (your partner)? Is the environment able to produce sound without problems? Price range First of all, the choice of size is quite important. Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women. For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage. Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems. Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise. If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level. Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it. Finally, there is the price range. The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest. Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy. Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy? I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance. For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics. If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out. How to buy sextoys in India The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping. For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below. Sextoy is one of them. Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping. SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India. They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry. Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card. To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy. ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal. Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on. Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture. Cautions for Indians using sextoy When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind Keep sex toys clean Watch out for electrical leakage Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone. Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there. It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case. In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness. Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful. If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it. You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly. Summary What did you think? In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India. The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future. As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values. However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health. If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try? Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women. I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it. Veteran writer-filmmaker Gulzar, who has made some critically-acclaimed movies during his tenure as a filmmaker, has praised the current generation of filmmakers, saying they are making really good films. Gulzar was interacting with the media at the trailer launch of animated film "Goopi Gawaiyaa Bagha Bajaiyaan" along with film's director Shilpa Ranade on Tuesday in Mumbai. Gulzar has directed acclaimed films like "Koshish", "Parichay", "Aandhi", "Angoor" and "Maachis" in his film career. Gulzar directed his last film "Hu Tu Tu" which released in 1999. When asked whether he ever feels like directing a film again, he said: "I don't think I need to return to direction...that's because contemporary filmmakers like Shilpa (Ranade), Meghna (Gulzar) and Vishal (Bhardwaj) are making really good films. Vishal has made films for children also and Meghna has made films on current topics. Now, Shilpa has made film for children, so now it's their time." Gulzar added that current generation of filmmakers are much ahead of him. He said: "Let me sit back, they are making films which are cinematically better than me." He said that he is now focusing only on writing. "I don't need to return to direction because I feel that books are also necessary medium to educate or entertain children." "Goopi Gawaiyaa Bagha Bajaiyaan" is a captivating animated adaptation of a cherished children's classic by Satyajit Ray. This timeless fable is the story of Goopi and Bagha, a pair of musicians gifted with magical powers by the King of Ghosts. It is directed by Shipa Ranade and produced by CFSI (Children's Film Society of India), in association with Karadi Tales -- a publishing house known for children's books. It has been nominated and awarded at many film festivals in India and abroad. The film is scheduled for release on March 1. --IANS iv/pgh/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A court here on Tuesday set January 19 for considering a chargesheet filed against former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student leaders Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others in a sedition case after some students shouted "anti-national slogans" in February 2016. The hearing was adjourned because Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Sherawat, who was scheduled to hear the matter, was on leave on Tuesday. The Delhi Police on Monday filed the chargesheet naming former JNU student leaders Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya and seven Kashmiri students as accused in the case. The charges were slapped under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) dealing with sedition, voluntarily causing hurt, forgery, using as genuine a forged document, punishment for unlawful assembly, unlawful assembly with common object, rioting and criminal conspiracy. The case involves an event organised on the JNU campus in February 2016 against the hanging of Parliament-attack mastermind Afzal Guru. Both Kumar and Khalid have questioned the filing of the chargesheet, saying it was "politically motivated" and a "diversionary ploy" by the Narendra Modi-led BJP government. --IANS akk/ksk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a setback for the Tamil Nadu government, a court refused to remand two accused persons who had alleged that Chief Minister K.Palaniswami was also involved in a robbery case at the Kodanad Tea Estate. Late Monday, the magistrate's court refused to remand Sayan and Manoj as it was not satisfied with the grounds on which they were arrested. The two, who were already on bail, are accused in the robbery-cum-murder that took place in the Kodanad Estate owned by late Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa in April 2017. On January 11, Samuel Mathews, a former Tehelka journalist, released a video featuring Sayan and Manoj linking Palaniswami to the crime. The next day, Palaniswami said the allegations made against him in a video were totally false and suspected to have been politically backed. The Tamil Nadu Police on January 13 arrested Sayan and Manoj in Delhi and brought them back here. --IANS vj/ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Crores of rupees changed hands as cockfights continued unabated in several parts of coastal Andhra Pradesh during Sankranti, despite court orders and warnings by police. On the second day of the festival on Tuesday, the cockfights were conducted across Krishna, Guntur, East Godavari and West Godavari districts. Poking fun at law-enforcing authorities, the organisers arranged special tents, erected barricades in open places, installed LED screens and made specially-bred roosters fight with small knives or blades tied to their legs. The fight often ends with the death of one of the two birds. People including women and children thronged these arenas in large numbers to watch the cockfights which they consider a part of the harvest festival. Punters, including those who came from Hyderabad, Bengaluru and other cities, bet on the roosters. Punters bet anywhere between Rs 25,000 to Rs 2 lakh on each rooster. Like in the past, politicians including MLAs encouraged the cock-fights, with some even inaugurating the event. There was no impact of the police warnings on the ground as the organisers faced no hurdle in making all the arrangements. Police officials in some places allowed cockfights on the condition that they were organised in a traditional manner without tying knives to the roosters. But this request was flouted openly. The organisers even deployed bouncers and erected fencing to control the crowds. At some places, they arranged liquor. Food stalls set up near the venue did brisk business. Director General of Police R.P. Thakur had directed Superintendents of Police of all the 13 districts to prevent cockfights and other illegal activities. Last year, the Hyderabad High Court expressed its displeasure over the failure of authorities in Andhra Pradesh to prevent cockfights. It was in 2016 that the High Court had banned cockfights. The Supreme Court upheld the ban. However, there was hardly any impact of it on the ground as police failed to check the bloody sport. Animal rights activists point out that as per the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 and the Andhra Pradesh Gaming Act, 1974, cockfights are illegal. Humane Society International (HIS) India said that despite court orders, the cockfights continued unabated, reportedly under the patronage of elected public representatives while law enforcement agencies turned blind eye to this lawlessness. --IANS ms/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Riding on its success of landing a rover on the far side of the Moon earlier in January, China's space agency is planning to launch another mission to the Moon by the end of 2019 and a mission to Mars as early as 2020, the media reported. The plans underscore China's ambitions in space at a time when the US is curtailing NASA's budget and increasingly handing over space exploration to commercial adventurers, the Washington Post reported on Monday. The China National Space Administration is working to send a probe to the Red Planet, said Wu Yanhua, deputy chief of the agency. "China will carry out its first-ever exploration mission to Mars around 2020," he said. On January 3, China's robotic spacecraft Chang'e-4 landed on the far side of the moon, a first in the human history of space exploration. The 1.3-tonne lander, which made a soft landing on the Moon, put potato seeds and silkworm eggs housed in a chamber, and fed natural light and nutrition, on the Moon. The space agency plans to launch a Chang'e-5 mission at the end of 2019 with the goal of collecting samples from the near side of the moon, Wu said. They would be the first samples retrieved since 1976. China is also building its own space station, called Tiangong or Heavenly Palace, which is expected to be operational in 2022. But the agency is still deciding whether to send astronauts to the Moon, Wu said. It also deployed a small rover called Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, to explore the surrounding lunar terrain, which is believed to be older than that on the near side. "All these are first-time breakthroughs for humankind," Wu said, adding "they are bound to make significant impacts on both China and the world." Meanwhile, China also said it has shared data with NASA about the Chang'e-4 lunar mission. That claim could not be immediately substantiated, but it could raise eyebrows on Capitol Hill because NASA and the Chinese agency are prohibited from cooperating without congressional approval, the report said. The 2011 Wolf Amendment, motivated by security concerns, bans NASA scientists from working with Chinese citizens affiliated to a Chinese state enterprise or entity. "Expanded international cooperation is the wish of all scientists," Wu said. "It takes joining of forces among the world's big space powers to really make a difference in human space exploration." --IANS rt/mag/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) China on Tuesday defended the death sentence given to a Canadian for drugs smuggling and warned Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau against making "irresponsible" remarks about Chinese law. A Chinese court on Monday handed the death penalty to Robert Lloyd Schellenberg for smuggling drugs, aggravating tensions between Beijing and Ottawa who are locked in a dispute over Canada's arrest of telecom giant Huawei's Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou. Trudeau slammed the court's judgment, saying that "China chose to arbitrarily apply the death penalty" on Schellenberg. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it was dissatisfied with Trudeau's "irresponsible" remarks. "I think this is wrong. I don't know if the relevant person has carefully read the notice issued by the Dalian's Intermediate People's Court and Chinese laws," ministry's spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a press briefing. Hua said there was enough evidence against the 36-year-old Canadian who was part of an international syndicate and smuggled 222 kg of methamphetamine in China. "Drugs smuggling is a grave crime in other countries of the world... and it is the same in China. All people are equal before the law. "The relevant remarks made by the Canadian side are full of double standard and lack the spirit of rule of law. We are highly dissatisfied with the remarks and we urge the Canadian side to respect China's rule of law and sovereignty and stop making such kind of irresponsible remarks," Hua added. Schellenberg was detained in China in 2014 and sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2016 for drug peddling in China. However, the court deemed the quantum of punishment for Schellenberg was way too lenient given the grave nature of his crime and ordered a retrial of the case. Schellenberg's case was the most recent in a series of incidents between Ottawa and Beijing which began with Meng's arrest at the request of the US. Washington has sought her extradition for fraud and violating the US sanctions on Tehran. The row was further aggravated when two Canadian citizens -- Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor -- were arrested in China, suspected of activities that Beijing said put the country's national security at risk. --IANS gsh/soni/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday the Centre is striving hard for the development of eastern India, including Odisha, as he launched projects worth Rs 1,550 crore. "We have either inaugurated or laid the foundation stones of projects worth Rs 1,550 crore. They are aimed at improving education, connectivity, culture and tourism," he said at Bolangir. "When a region has good connectivity, it positively impacts all sectors, especially tourism," he added. Odisha has become a tourism hub for all types of tourists and the Centre has been engaged in developing the heritage sites in the state over the last four years. The projects that were inaugurated include the 28.3 acre Multi-Modal Logistics (MMLP) Jharsuguda, the Balangir-Bicchupalli new railway line, doubling of Barpali-Dungaripali and Bolangir-Deogaon road line along with electrification of 813 km of Jharsuguda-Vizinagaram and Sambalpur-Angul lines. The Multi-Modal Logistics Park (MMLP) at Jharsuguda is built at a cost of Rs 100 crore. It will facilitate EXIM and domestic cargo, including Private Freight Traffic. The Prime Minister also laid foundation stones for renovation and restoration works at Asurgarh Fort in Kalahandi. He inaugurated a bridge between Therubali-Singapur Road station and Passport Sewa Kendras at six places -- Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Puri, Kandhamal, Bargarh and Bolangir -- through video conferencing. "With the inauguration of six new Post Office Passport Seva Kendras, now the people of Odisha wouldn't have to travel very far to get their passports," he said. He also laid the foundation stone for a permanent building at Kendriya Vidyalaya, Sonepur. --IANS cd/in/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Canada has reviewed its China travel advisory, warning of a risk of arbitrary law enforcement after a Chinese court sentenced of its nationals to death over drug charges. The Canadian government on Monday said there was a "risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws" and warned of the application of the death penalty for drug-related offences, reports Efe news. Ottawa recommended its nationals "exercise a high degree of caution" in the country. The advisory followed the death sentence ruled against Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, 36, earlier on Monday. Schellenberg was arrested in 2014 accused of planning to send 222 kg of methamphetamines from China to Australia. In November 2018, the Canadian was given a 15-year prison sentence by the Dalian Intermediate People's Court, but following an appeal, a court on Monday sentenced him to death. The sentence comes amid a diplomatic crisis between the two countries that started on December 1, 2018, when Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei, was detained in Canada. Meng's arrest was made at the request of the US, which wants her extradited for fraud and violating Washington's sanctions against Iran. In the weeks after her arrest, Chinese authorities detained two Canadians - former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor - suspected of activities that Beijing says put the country's national security at risk. Canadian media said that although in the past death sentences have been handed down to foreign citizens in China for drug trafficking, Schellenberg's case was not made public by the Chinese authorities until after Meng's arrest. "It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply the death penalty," Justin Trudeau told the media in Ottawa on Monday. Schellenberg has 10 days to appeal to the Liaoning High Court. China is believed to execute thousands of people each year - more than all other countries in the world put together, but is highly secretive about the number, according to the Amnesty International. --IANS ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Burglars stole CCTV surveillance equipment from a bank in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district, police said on Tuesday. The incident took place on Monday night at the J&K Bank's Mandi branch. "After breaking into the bank branch, burglars managed to de-activate and then steal the CCTV equipment at the branch," the police said. It was being ascertained whether the burglars looted any cash from the bank or not. --IANS sq/ksk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BSP chief Mayawati on Tuesday said that the alliance between her party and the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha elections was giving the ruling BJP "sleepless nights". "This year my birthday has come at a time when the Lok Sabha elections are very near. And keeping the elections in mind, my party has formed an alliance with the SP which is giving sleepless nights to the BJP and also others," she told the media as she turned 63. On January 12, Mayawati and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav announced that they will contest 38 Lok Sabha seats each in Uttar Pradesh of the total 80. The SP and BSP won't put up candidates in Rae Bareli and Amethi, the constituencies of Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. The Congress had otherwise been kept out of the alliance. The Bahujan Samaj Party supremo also said that it was Uttar Pradesh which decides which party will form a government at the Centre. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP won a whopping 71 seats while an ally bagged two more. Appealing to party workers to vote for the alliance and forget past differences, Mayawati said: "To make this alliance a success, I appeal to all the workers of SP and BSP to forget the past differences and work for the victory of both parties' candidates. This would be the biggest gift on my birthday." She also warned the party workers that the BJP was capable of spreading confusion and rumours and urged them to remain alert. Slamming both the Centre and the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh, the four-time Chief Minister said the BJP had lost support of the people of the state as they did not fulfil promises made in 2014. She said it would have been beneficial to the farmers if the Modi government had implemented the Swmainathan Commission's recommendations. The BSP leader accused the BJP and Congress governments of corruption since independence. "Due to the corruption, farmers, Dalits and tribals did not get opportunities to progress in life. So we had to form the BSP after getting disillusioned," she added. At the event, Mayawati released the 14th edition of her "Blue Book", which details her struggles as the BSP leader. She also wished Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple, an MP from Kannauj, on her birthday, which also falls on Tuesday. --IANS aks-md/ksk/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) German Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz on Tuesday said that the Brexit vote is not an "accident" but a "warning signal." When delivering a key note speech at the Future Forum Europe at the German Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, Scholz said the European Union must become more political, also in response to the British exit. "The Brexit is a sad development. We would be happy if it would be different. The EU must be prepared for it," said Scholz, who warned of massive consequences of a disorderly Brexit, for example, if additional customs and border controls would be necessary. Scholz did not go straight to the expected vote on Tuesday evening in the British House of Commons over the negotiated exit agreement with the EU, reports Xinhua news agency. In many EU members, anti--European and populist currents have gained in popularity. Many citizens doubted whether Europe had answers to key challenges of the future. That is why the EU must become more political, said Scholz. In recent decades, the EU has focused too much on the single market, which helped to make Brussels a "small, bureaucratic administrative unit." Scholz promoted a better culture of debate in the EU and more ability to compromise within the remaining 27 members. --IANS vc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP on Tuesday rejected Congress' allegation that it is trying to topple seven-month-old Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S)-Congress coalition government in Karnataka and hit back at opposition parties calling the current crisis their "internal problems". "We are not doing any game. Why we should topple if they themselves are toppling their government? It is their problem. They have their internal problems and unnecessarily blaming us," BJP General Secretary and party's in-charge for Karnataka P. Muralidhar Rao told IANS. He said to date, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has never said that the Karnataka government is in minority, though he added that it cannot survive its full five-year term. "From our side, there was no meeting with dissidents or there was no such activity. If there are dissidents, they are within the Congress. Instead of solving the problem, they are calling dissidents as BJP agents. We are waiting and watching. But it's sure that this government cannot survive its full five-year term and will fall on its own due to internal conflicts," he said. Earlier in the day, R. Shankar, a legislator from Ranebennur Assembly segment in Haveri district, belonging to the regional Karnataka Pragnavantha Janata Party (KPJP), and H. Nagesh, Independent MLA from Mulbagal constituency in Kolar district, withdrew their support to the coalition government. Rao also slammed the Congress for their "failure to provide good and coherent government" in the southern state. The senior BJP leader said that the party MLAs are staying in a hotel in Manesar as a precautionary measure after Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy said that some BJP MLAs are in his touch. "My MLAs are here only because they had come to Delhi for National Convention. All over the country all MLAs came. We only stopped them as a precautionary measure after Kumaraswamy said that the BJP MLAs are in touch with him," he said. The BJP has kept 99 of its 104 legislators at a private resort in Gurugram, adjoining the national capital. In the 224-member Assembly, the BJP has 104 members, Congress-79, JD-S 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each, besides the Speaker. The Bahujan Samaj party, KPJP and an Independent were supporting the coalition. --IANS bns/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) On the occasion of the 71st Army Day on Tuesday, members of the film fraternity paid tribute to the Indian soldiers for their bravery. The Army Day is celebrated to commemorate the day when Field Marshal M. Cariappa took over as Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army from General Sir Francis Butcher on January 15, 1949. So, celebrities like Anupam Kher, Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit Nene took to social media to praise the "real heroes" of the nation. Anupam thanked the army for always protecting the Indian flag and "sacrificing lives for civilians." "Our flag does not fly because the wind moves it, it flies with the last breath of each soldier who died protecting it. Wishing the amazing Indian Army a very happy 71st Army Day, Jai Hind." Remembering her freedom fighter grandfather on Army Day, actress Richa Chadha wrote: "It's Indian Army Day. This is my Nanaji. Lt Col Dharamveer Prasad. He was a freedom fighter and then a surgeon in the Indian army post independence. "He fought all wars till 1971 and even took a bullet in the leg in one. I miss him, he passed away in 2007. In these times of global jingoism, I miss his quiet dignity, his peaceful strength and his commitment to the cause of humanity." Actor Sushant Singh Rajput also marked the day by posting a motivating video on Instagram where he can be seen taking training from commandos. He also urged people to "spend at least one day, every six months with Indian Armed Forces and try to learn from the mindset of the Heroes and serve them with due respect in any way possible." Here's what others wrote: Anushka Sharma: There is nothing but gratitude to the men and women in uniform, the veterans and their families who have kept our nation safe and have put the country before themselves. Jai Hind. Sanjay Dutt: Playing a soldier is tough and being one is even tougher! On this Army Day, my tribute to the Indian Army jawans for their selfless sacrifice and service.I salute you all with respect and gratitude. Sunny Deol: Salute to all the men and women who do so much for us. Anil Kapoor: Wishing all the men and women in uniform who have dedicated their lives for our nation and it's safety a very happy Army Day. Saluting the real heroes of India. Arjun Kapoor: My utmost respect to all the soldiers and their families.No words will be enough to express how thankful we are for the sacrifices and everything that you do for us. Randeep Hooda: We sleep peacefully because there is someone staying awake guarding our peace...to the nameless soldier guarding our sovereignty, to the many who laid down their lives for our freedom. Madhuri Dixit Nene: We are safe as they are awake. A big salute and gratitude to the brave men & women of the Indian Army for their innumerable sacrifices, valour and dedication! Jai Hind. Preity Zinta: A Salute to our real life Superheroes and a heartfelt thank you to martyrs, soldiers, veterans and their families for their bravery, valour, courage and countless Sacrifices. Paresh Rawal: We are because of you. --IANS sim/rb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Assam on Tuesday celebrated Magh Bihu, the annual harvest festival, with traditional fervour. While Wednesday marks the first day of the Assamese calendar month of 'Magh', Bihu celebrations started from Monday night that marked 'Uruka', the last day of the Assamese month of 'Puh'. Following the 'Uruka' night feasting, people on Tuesday morning lit the traditional bonfire called 'Meji' to pray to the god of fire and seek blessings for the new year. From Wednesday, people will visit friends and families. Meanwhile, hundreds of organisations continued their protests against the Centre's move to pass the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha. In a few places, protesters also burnt copies of the Bill. The opposition Congress also lit a 'Meji' at one of the party offices in Guwahati's Dispur area on Tuesday and took an oath to protest against the Bill. Former Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi participated in the event. --IANS ah/ksk/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amnesty International on Tuesday urged China to revoke the death sentence handed down to a Canadian citizen in the country, a decision that was condemned by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as "arbitrary". On Monday, a court in Dalian city gave Robert Lloyd Schellenberg the death penalty over drugs charges, a decision which came amid a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Ottawa after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, on December 1. "The death sentence given to Robert Schellenberg does not deliver justice. We urge the Chinese authorities to revoke this sentence. Drug-related offences do not meet international standards for the use of capital punishment," China researcher for Amnesty, William Nee, said in a statement cited by Efe news. Schellenberg was initially arrested in 2014 and accused of planning to send 222 kg of methamphetamines from China to Australia. In November, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for drug smuggling, but the sentence was appealed, and on December 29 the court ordered a re-trial. "The sudden re-trial and apparent rush to judgment has highlighted the numerous flaws in China's judicial system," said Nee. After the death sentence was announced on Monday, Trudeau said it was an "extreme concern" for his government and also for the international community that China was using the death sentence "arbitrarily". Schellenberg's case was the most recent in a series of incidents between Ottawa and Beijing which began with Meng's arrest at the request of the US. Washington has sought her extradition for fraud and violating the US sanctions on Tehran. The row was further aggravated when two Canadian citizens, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, were arrested in China, suspected of activities that Beijing said put the country's national security at risk. The Canadian media said that although in the past death sentences had been handed down to foreign citizens in China for drug trafficking, Schellenberg's case was not made public by the Chinese authorities until after Meng's arrest. "China's death penalty system is shrouded in secrecy, which contributes to why many will be questioning the timing of this decision. We have seen before that in highly politicized cases the trial is often a mere spectacle with the outcome already decided," Nee added. China is believed to execute thousands of people each year -- more than all other countries in the world put together -- but is highly secretive about the number, Amnesty said. --IANS soni/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The West Bengal CID on Tuesday recovered at least 689 endangered Indian soft-shell river turtles and arrested four persons in this connection, an official said. Based on prior information, the CID team apprehended Lachman Kumar, 30, Raj Kumar, 25, Sushil Kumar, 20, and Raju Kumar, 30, of Uttar Pradesh's Sultanpur district while they were on-board the Doon Express. They were arrested before they could dispose off the consignment in Hooghly district's Bandel. They were coming from Varanasi with the endangered turtles. The seized turtles, and the arrested persons have been handed over to the range officer of Durgapur division for legal action, officials said. --IANS bnd/pgh/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Four people have been confirmed dead and 90 others including 23 children sustained injuries in a powerful blast that rocked Afghan capital Kabul on Monday evening, Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish has confirmed. "The victims of the blast that shocked Kabul today evening claimed four lives including three military and one civilian, 90 injured including 23 children, 12 women and 65 men with majority of them civilians," Danish said in a post on his twitter hours after the blast on Monday. Without providing more details, Danish asserted that the terrorists conducted a car bombing against Green Village camp in Police District 9 and police are in control of the situation there, reports Xinhua news agency. Green Village camp is a well-protected area next to the main office of Afghan election commission in the eastern edge of Kabul city where a number of foreign security offices and entities located and often frequented by foreigners living or working in Kabul. Earlier, Wahidullah Mayar, the spokesman for Public Health Ministry, confirmed that 40 injured persons had been taken to hospitals. The bloody blast that was heard across the fortified Kabul city and followed by gunshots caused panic among Kabul residents, took place just hours after the Afghan election commission announced the preliminary results of much-awaited parliamentary elections for Kabul. After two months and five days delay, the election commission announced the preliminary results of October elections for Kabul where 24 males and nine females from among more than 800 runners have secured seats in the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga, or the lower house of parliament, amid criticism by those failed to win seat at the legislative house. No group has claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing nor the security apparatus has pointed finger at any militant group including Taliban and Islamic State outfit fighting the government. --IANS vc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a jolt to the seven-month-old Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress coalition government in Karnataka, two Independent legislators, R. Shankar and H. Nagesh, on Tuesday said they were withdrawing support. "I had extended support to the JD-S-Congress coalition expecting good governance, but have been disappointed," Shankar told the media. Shankar, a legislator from Ranebennur Assembly segment in Haveri district, belongs to the regional Karnataka Pragnavantha Janata Party, while Nagesh is an Independent from Mulbagal constituency in Kolar district. The two Independents shared with the media their letter to Karnataka Governor Vajubhai R. Vala withdrawing their support to the coalition. The development came amid an ongoing political war between the coalition partners JD-S and Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over alleged poaching of Congress legislators by the BJP. Senior Congress leader K.C. Venugopal told reporters here that he was confident of the Independents rethinking their decision. "The Independents have every right to withdraw their support, but we're confident they will be with us," Venugopal said after a meeting with state unit Congress leaders. Responding to the development, Congress leader and Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara blamed the BJP for trying to "topple" a "stable" government. "BJP is trying to sway the legislators with money power. Their aim is to topple the government, but we are confident of retaining our stability as we have the support of all our legislators," Parameshwara told the media here. In the 225-member Karnataka Assembly, the Congress has 80 MLAs including the Speaker, the JD-S 37 and the BJP 104. While the BJP has denied the poaching allegations, it has kept 99 of its 104 legislators at a private resort in Gurugram, adjoining the national capital, state unit spokesman Vamanacharya said. "A total of 99 legislators are currently at a private resort, while the other five are in Delhi itself and in touch with us," he told IANS here. --IANS bha/in/vm (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi Police has arrested two gangsters of a notorious criminal gang who were going to commit a robbery in the national capital, a police officer said on Tuesday. Rajat Parashar, 24, and Sandeep Gahlot, 25 -- residents of west Delhi's Najafgarh and Kakrola villages, respectively -- were arrested on Monday night from south Delhi's Vasant Kunj area, when they came on a bike to execute the crime. "Police team got a tipoff that two members of Ashok Pradhan gang would visit Vasant Kunj area for executing some criminal act. When police saw a suspected bike without any number plate and challenged them, they tried to flee. They were intercepted and overpowered," Deputy Commissioner of Police Devender Arya said. "During interrogation, Gahlot said he had been involved in a case of supplying drugs and mobiles in Gurugram's Bhondsi jail. The accused worked for Ashok Pradhan and used to collect extortion money from people operating illegal gambling in various parts of Delhi," Arya said. --IANS sp/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Crime Branch of Haryana Police has arrested a notorious criminal carrying a bounty of Rs 2 lakh on his head along with his accomplice, an officer said on Tuesday. A court here remanded them for two day police custody, police spokesman Shubhash Boken told IANS. Assistant Commissioner of Police Shamsher Singh told the media that Chand, 24, and Vikas, 29, were arrested after a brief exchange of fire. They were wanted in over a dozen heinous crimes, including six murder cases. One was the murder of a land official at the Industrial Model Town (IMT) here on the Delhi-Jaipur highway. "Two pistols and cartridges were recovered from them," Boken said. --IANS pradeep/in/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Wipro announced that its board will consider bonus issue of shares in its meeting on 17-18 January 2019. The decision of the board of directors will be informed to the stock exchanges on the evening of 18 January 2019. The company is also slated to announce its third-quarter earnings on 18 January 2019. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 14 January 2019. ICICI Bank announced that its board appointed B. Sriram and Rama Bijapurkar as additional (independent) directors of the bank with effect from 14 January 2019 for a period of 5 years, subject to the approval of shareholders. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 14 January 2019. Tata Power announced that the shareholding of Resurgent Power Ventures, Singapore has undergone a change with Power Platform (a wholly owned subsidiary of State General Reserve Fund, Oman) and Kuwait Investment Authority together buying out the shares of CDP Groupe Infrastructures Inc. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Caisse de d et placement du Quec). Resurgent Power is a joint venture based out of Singapore and is held 26% by Tata Power through its wholly-owned Singapore based subsidiary. The balance 74% of Resurgent Power is held by ICICI Bank, Power Platform and Kuwait Investment Authority. Resurgent Power has recently signed a share purchase agreement for acquiring 75.01% shares in Prayagraj Power Generation Corporation (PPGCL), a 3X660 MW coal-based power project in Uttar Pradesh. The transaction has received approval from the Competition Commission of India and the transaction closure is currently in progress. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 14 January 2019. Bharti Airtel will be watched. With reference to news item captioned, "Bharti Airtel releases payment to Aircel to meet staff salaries, maintain assets," Bharti Airtel clarified after market hours yesterday, 14 January 2019, that it had, on behalf of Aircel and Dishnet Wireless (Aircel Entities), procured and submitted certain bank guarantees amounting to approximately Rs 453 crore to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). The amount of the bank guarantees were deducted from the consideration to be paid to the Aircel entities for the spectrum being traded with Aircel entities in the year 2016. These were business transactions, the information of which was provided to the stock exchange on 8 April 2016. The bank guarantees were procured by Airtel against its credit lines with Axis Bank and Airtel was exposed to the extent of the bank guarantees' amounts towards Axis Bank, until the bank guarantees were to be returned in original or were to be irrevocably cancelled. The said bank guarantees were to be returned by the DoT as per the order of the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) dated 9 January 2018 in a matter between the Aircel entities and the DoT, which was not being done by the DoT. Based on an appeal by the Aircel entities, the Supreme Court on 8 January 2019, passed orders to the effect that the said bank guarantees shall stand cancelled and shall no longer be used for any purpose whatsoever. Basis the cancellation of the bank guarantees and the consequent release of the credit lines of Bharti Airtel by Axis Bank, Airtel paid the amounts owed by it to the Aircel entities on 10 January 2019. These are routine transactions and Airtel has acted in accordance with the orders of the Supreme Court and the TDSAT, Bharti Airtel said. On a consolidated basis, ICICI Securities' net profit fell 34.28% to Rs 101.17 crore on 18.04% decline in total income to Rs 404.75 crore in Q3 December 2018 over Q3 December 2017. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 14 January 2019. Tata Metaliks' net profit fell 1.8% to Rs 39.63 crore on 11.5% rise in net sales to Rs 546.37 crore in Q3 December 2018 over Q3 December 2017. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 14 January 2019. Punj Lloyd announced that Pengeramg Refining Company Sdn. Bhd. (Formerly PRPC Refinery and Cracker Sdn. Bhd.) (hereinafter referred to as 'PRC') has invoked the performance bond of $58,100,000 given in respect of the project for engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning of rapid tank farm for refinery and petrochemicals integrated project awarded by PRC to the unincorporated joint venture of the company and Punj Lloyd Sdn. Bhd., the wholly owned subsidiary of the company in Malaysia. Punj Lloyd has achieved more than 99% of the mechanical and financial completion of the project. The company has accordingly taken up the matter with PRC at the highest management level for refund of the bond amount. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 14 January 2019. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Larsen & Toubro rose 0.44% to Rs 1339.85 at 10:49 IST on BSE after the company said its wholly-owned subsidiary won two projects from Saudi Aramco. The announcement was made during trading hours today, 15 January 2019. Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 322.54 points, or 0.90% to 36,176.10. On the BSE, 33,000 shares were traded in the counter so far compared with average daily volumes of 1.56 lakh shares in the past two weeks. The stock had hit a high of Rs 1348 and a low of Rs 1336 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 1,469.60 on 1 February 2018. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 1,183.40 on 23 October 2018. L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering (LTHE), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro, in consortium with Subsea 7 has won yet another award for two projects from Saudi Aramco. The award consists of engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) of three oil production deck manifolds and subsea pipelines in Zuluf and Berri Fields of Saudi Aramco. This is the fifth award for the consortium and provides for significant project pipeline for the firms. At present, there are four offshore contracts under execution by the consortium for Saudi Aramco under the long-term agreement. LTHE has three fabrication yards and this project will be built at its flagship facility at Hazira in Gujarat, India, established to "design and build" offshore oil & gas projects. The company's board will meet on Friday, 25 January 2019, to consider Q3 December 2018 results. L&T's consolidated net profit rose 26.21% to Rs 2689.63 crore on 21.30% rise in net sales to Rs 32080.83 crore in Q2 September 2018 over Q2 September 2017. Larsen & Toubro is an Indian multinational engaged in technology, engineering, construction, manufacturing and financial services. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Total stock at ports and in pipelines reported at 20.25 lakh tonnes as on 01 January 2019 India's import of vegetable oils (edible & non-edible) has increased 11% to 12.11 lakh tonnes in December 2018 from 10.89 lakh tonnes in December 2017, as per the data released by Solvent Extractors Association (SEA) of India. The edible oils import stood at 11.46 lakh tonnes and non-edible oils was 0.65 lakh tonnes. The overall import of vegetable oils is reported at 23.45 lakh tonnes during November to December 2018 compared to 23.38 lakh tonnes during November to December 2017. The stock of edible oils as on 1 January 2019 at various ports is estimated at 8.05 lakh tonnes (CPO 4.30 lakh tonnes, RBD Palmolein 1.50 lakh tonnes, Degummed Soybean Oil 0.80 lakh tonnes and Crude Sunflower Oil 1.45 lakh tonnes) and about 12.20 lakh tonnes in pipelines. Total stock at ports and in pipelines is reported at 20.25 lakh tonnes down from 21.91 lakh tonnes as on 1 December 2018. India's monthly requirement is about 19.0 lakh tonnes and operates at 30 days stock against which currently holding stock over 20.25 lakh tonnes equal to 32 days requirements. Import of refined oil (RBD Palmolein) decreased to 2.39 lakh tonnes during Nov.-Dec 2018, from 2.54 lakh tonnes in same period of last year, Also, Import of crude oil decreased to 19.80 lakh tonnes compared to 20.29 tons during the same period of last year. Palm Oil import has increased to 15.04 lakh tonnes during Nov.-Dec 2018, from 14.40 lakh tonnes during the same period of last year. However, Soft Oils import decreased to 7.16 lakh tonnes from 8.44 lakh tonnes during the same period of last year. Import of Non-edible oils is reported at 1.26 lakh tonnes during November & December 2018 compared to 0.54 lakh tonnes during the same period last year, showing an increase of 133% due to nil duty on P.F.A.D. and RBD Palm Stearin. Ministry of Finance issued two Notification No.84/2018 Customs both dated 31 December 2018 reducing import duty on palm oil and also reducing the duty difference between crude and palm oil from 10% to 5% on palmolein to be imported from Malaysia. This has lead to overall reduction in effective duty by 4.4% for CPO, but in case of RBD Palmolein imported from Malaysia would be 9.9%. The duty reduction has reduced the effective duty difference between CPO & RBD Palmolein to just 5% against previous 10% as under: SEA of India expects the duty changes to promote Indian import demand for palm oil at the expense of soft oils. The preferential rate will put Malaysian in a position to gain market share from Indonesia. In last one year, in international market, prices of various edible oils have gone down in the range of 15% to 30% due to excess supply in the world market. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Headline shares of the Mainland China equity market surged on Tuesday, 15 January 2019, as investors' sentiments bolstered by reports that China stepped up its efforts to combat an economic slowdown, a day after weak trade data from the world's second-largest economy. At closing bell, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index advanced 1.36%, or 34.58 points, to 2,570.34. The Shenzhen Composite Index, which tracks stocks on China's second exchange, rose 1.49%, or 19.41 points, to 1,323.16. The blue-chip CSI300 index was up 1.96%, or 60.21 points, to 3,127.99. Risk appetite buying in the Mainland China market today bolstered after senior economic leaders, briefing reporters Tuesday on the outcome of an annual policy-setting meeting last month, pledged to keep the monetary policy of the world's No. 2 economy flexible but stable and to support growth with improved access to financing for private and smaller enterprises. The assurances came as China weathers its worst slowdown since the global financial crisis amid a punishing tariffs dispute with the U. S. The China's National Development and Reform Commission said in a statement that China will strengthen monitoring of its economic situation and improve its "reserve" of economic policies. The stimulus measures include a cut to value added tax rates for selected industries and provide tax rebates for others, helping to soothe fears about a slowdown in China and its implications for global growth. The stimulus from the China's spurred a positive movement in most of the markets, following an unexpected fall in China's December exports and imports. The PBOC has slashed RRR five times over the course of a year to keep liquidity from tightening too much as the economy slows. Twin cuts announced this month were the largest so far. The PBOC announced earlier this month that it was cutting the ratio of cash that banks must hold as reserves by 100 basis points (bps), with the first stage of 50 bps reduction effective on Tuesday. China's government is turning increasingly to tax cuts as the first line of defence against a slowing economy, in a departure from the wasteful infrastructure binges of the past. Further evidence of the shift emerged Tuesday, as senior policy officials pledged that tax reductions on a larger scale are in the pipeline, amid worsening economic data. JPMorgan Chase economists estimate the total impact will be around 2 trillion yuan (US$300 billion), or 1.2% of gross domestic product. Last May the government cut value added taxes for manufacturing, transportation, construction, telecommunications and farm produce industries, followed by a cut in personal income taxes and the introduction of more deductions. Earlier this month, the State Council announced a US$29-billion annual tax cut plan for small companies. The stimulus from the China's spurred a positive movement in most of the markets, following an unexpected fall in China's December exports and imports. Senior Chinese economic policy officials vowed to increase tax cuts to boost growth, while lending data from the country suggested December estimates may be exceeded. China's exports to the world fell 4.4% in December from a year earlier, the biggest monthly drop in two years, pointing to further weakening in the world's second-largest economy. Imports also unexpectedly contracted, falling 7.6%, the biggest decline since July 2016. China's global trade volume rose last year but its surplus with the world fell 16.2% to $351.76 billion in 2018, as imports rose 15.8% while exports gained 9.9%. CURRENCY NEWS: China yuan edged up against greenback on Tuesday, after central bank set stronger mid-point rate. Prior to market opening on Tuesday, the PBOC set the midpoint rate at 6.7542 per dollar, the strongest since July 19, and 18 pips firmer than the previous fix of 6.756. In the spot market, the onshore yuan opened at 6.7500 per dollar and was changing hands at 6.7520 at midday, 150 pips firmer than the previous late session close and 0.03 percent stronger than the midpoint. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Headline indices of the Australian financial market closed higher on Tuesday, 15 January 2019, as investors welcomed China stimulus efforts to combat an economic slowdown, a day after weak trade data from the world's second-largest economy. The PBOC cut the RRR rate while the Finance Ministry unveiled fresh fiscal measures. Among ASX sectors, the trade-sensitive energy and mining sectors bounced back from yesterday's lull, while the big banks, retailers, and health care sector had a solid session. At closing bell, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index added 41.19 points, or 0.71%, to 5,814.57 points, while the broader All Ordinaries index rose 38.53 points, or 0.66%, to 5,871.76 points. Risk appetite buying in the Sydney market today bolstered after the China's National Development and Reform Commission said in a statement that China will strengthen monitoring of its economic situation and improve its "reserve" of economic policies. The stimulus from the China's spurred a positive movement in most of the markets, following an unexpected fall in China's December exports and imports. Senior Chinese economic policy officials vowed to increase tax cuts to boost growth, while lending data from the country suggested December estimates may be exceeded. China's exports to the world fell 4.4% in December from a year earlier, the biggest monthly drop in two years, pointing to further weakening in the world's second-largest economy. Imports also unexpectedly contracted, falling 7.6%, the biggest decline since July 2016. China's global trade volume rose last year but its surplus with the world fell 16.2% to $351.76 billion in 2018, as imports rose 15.8% while exports gained 9.9%. Among individual stocks, Coca-Cola Amatil fell 2.2 per cent a day after announcing it plans to phase out plastic straws and stirrers in favour of biodegradable products. Adult education provider Navitas has surged 12.9 per cent after receiving an improved takeover bid from BGH. CURRENCY: Australian Dollar was up against greenback and against a basket of other peers on Tuesday. The Australian dollar was quoted at 72.14 US cents, from 71.86 on Monday; 78.42 Japanese yen, from 77.69; 62.85 euro cents, from 62.61; 55.90 British pence, from 55.95; and 105.47 NZ cents, from 105.59. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hundreds of people on Monday took to the streets here to protest against Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa's decision of announcing a 150 per cent hike in fuel prices, triggering anger and discontent among the masses. Agitators, including bus drivers and activists, barricaded main roads with burning tyres, stone blocks and tree branches, as the police had a tough time in quelling the protests in western suburbs of Emakhandeni and Luveve of Bulawayo and fired warning shots and tear gas on the defiant demonstrators, Al Jazeera reported. Slamming Mnangagwa's decision to hike fuel prices, a protestor named Glen Ncube said, "What kind of a man does this? Can Mnangagwa even be called a president? He's making life hard for us and the police are trying to stop us as if they don't know our pain." On January 12, Mnangagwa announced an increase in petrol prices from $1.34 to $3.31 per litre and diesel prices to $3.11 per litre, which ignited the anti-fuel price hike demonstrations across the country. Several workers' trade unions have called for a three-day nationwide shutdown in protest against the decision. In the heart of Bulawayo, protestors marched to a court and disrupted the proceedings there. Owing to the unrest, commuter fares doubled due to the fuel price hike, while businesses were shut down due to safety concerns. Four people were reportedly shot by security personnel while eight others were arrested in connection to the protest at Epworth, a low-income area located outside the capital Harare. The Zimbabwean government said that it "will not hesitate to take action" against the agitators who attempted to destabilise the country. Security has been heightened across the country with military forces being deployed to assist the police. Zimbabwe is already reeling under a major economic crisis in a decade. Since the crash of the hyperinflated Zimbabwe dollar in 2008, the African nation uses several currencies including Indian Rupee and US Dollar and an unpopular local surrogate called the "bond note" for making daily transactions, as per the report. After Robert Mugabe stepped down as the country's president in November last year, Mnangagwa took over, promising an economic turnaround for the destitute African nation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a bid to ensure comfort of devotees, the Mission for Clean Ganga is enhancing the facilities at the river bank by renovating and constructing ghats, crematoriums and developing the river fronts to actualise the dream of 'Nirmal' (cleaner) and 'Aviral' (free flowing) of River Ganga. The government plans to complete 151 ghats and 54 crematoriums projects by March 2019. Ganga is considered as the most sacred river by Hindus, and is worshipped as Goddess Ganga Maa or Mother Ganges. The banks of the river also attract a large number of devout Hindus to offer their prayers, or to drink the water and bathe in the river to cleanse themselves from sins and also purify their bodies. Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, Director General, Mission for Clean Ganga said, "The kind of amenities you provide to the pilgrims or even local people, the kind of sanitation which will be available, plus the kind of lifestyle you can give at the ghats is very important. So what we have done in some of the places is that, we have developed river front and connected few Ghats. Some of the important cities like Patna in Bihar, there is a river front-six kilometres long riverfront has been developed. At other places, we have about 115 ghat projects at this point of time and more than 50 crematoriums. Again crematorium need to be modernised, better facilities have to be created." He added that new ghats in cities like Kanpur, Prayagraj, Vrindavan, Varanasi, Haridwar and Patna will be well-equipped with facilities like bio-toilets, changing rooms and wider bathing space for the devotees. Some old ghats at prominent places are being upgraded and renovated to facilitate large gatherings during the occasions and festival season. Besides these ghats, the Mission for Clean Ganga is developing river fronts to facilitate locals and tourists to relax and get a nicer view of the river. Special emphasis has been given to ensure that these ghats are clean and local municipal authorities have been engaged for the same. Mishra added, "We have also brought into focus some of the major iconic Ghats like Varanasi, Haridwar. Mathura Vrindavan, Kanpur, Bithoor and Allahabad. We have taken up the process of regular cleaning of these ghats. So some agencies are there to clean up them. Along with this we have also encouraged local people to join as volunteers and clean these Ghats because unless there is some sense of sensitivity and awareness that these are our Ghats, then it is very difficult for the government to keep these ghats clean." Highlight a Hindu ritual, Pitroloka, and said Hindus believe that upon death the waters of River Ganges need to reach the world of the ancestors, as a result, they bring the dead bodies of their families or relatives to banks of Ganga for cremation and later the ashes are immersed in the river. The National Mission of Clean Ganga is now constructing over 50 new crematoriums at popular Ghats, where the rituals can be performed. Such initiatives will help the people to follow their rituals and the river will also remain clean. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress leader V Muniyappa has been appointed as the Political Secretary to Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy. Muniyappa is a Member of the Legislative Assembly from Sidlaghatta constituency. This comes after BJP camped all its 104 party MLAs in Gurugram in Haryana along with its state unit chief BS Yeddyurappa, fearing poaching by the Congress and the JD-Secular. The charges of horse-trading were triggered after three Karnataka Congress MLAs visited Mumbai earlier on Monday, reportedly along with some BJP MLAs. This was followed by the Congress alleging that the BJP was trying to poach the ruling party's MLAs to destabilise the JDS-Congress alliance government in Karnataka. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The lady teacher, who was suspended from her post after appealing to Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat during his Janta Darbar in June 2018, has now alleged of being subjected to continuous injustice for last 8 months. Speaking to ANI, teacher Uttara Bahuguna said: "I am neither being suspended nor reinstated. I am receiving only notice after notice which makes no sense." Recalling her ordeal, Bahuguna said: "My family is going through a crisis. It is my daughter who is working and sending us money for livelihood. I was working with honesty and a small issue was unnecessarily dragged to make it huge. I just want to know if I was wrong why they aren't suspending me from the department." She also appealed to the Chief Minister and Minister of Education to take cognizance of the issue. She also levied strong accusation against the department of education and said that the same act under which she was suspended has been used afterwards for the transfer of 4 people. Reacting on her acquisitions, Madan Kaushik, Minister and Government spokesperson said: "An official was appointed for the enquiry, based on his report further course can be decided. Only after seeing the report of the investigative officer, it would be possible to say anything on this issue." In June last year, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat had directed the police to take Bahuguna into custody for allegedly protesting at his Janata Darbar session in Dehradun. The Chief Minister also ordered her suspension, after she allegedly used abusive language and showed indecency, while seeking a transfer from a remote location. Later on June 29, School Education Secretary Bhupinder Kaur Aulakh said Uttara Bahuguna has been suspended, as she "violated the decorum". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two Independent MLAs H Nagesh and R Shankar on Tuesday withdrew support to the coalition government headed by JD(S)-Congress in Karnataka, adding a new twist to the political drama underway in the state over the last two days. Nagesh told ANI that he has decided to go with the BJP to "install a stable government" as the H D Kumaraswamy government had "utterly failed". In the 224-member Assembly, JD(S) has 37 seats and its coalition partner has 80 seats, making the combine's total of 117 seats in the House. The combine also has support of one BSP MLA in the House where the majority figure is 113. Nagesh and Shankar wrote separate letters to Governor conveying their decision to withdraw support to the government. "I would like to bring to your kind attention that I am withdrawing my support extended to the coalition government of Karnataka headed by Congress and JD(S) parties with immediate effect," wrote Shankar, who represents Ranebennur Assembly Constituency, in his letter to the Governor. Nagesh, who represents Mulabagilu constituency, also wrote a similar letter to the Governor. He later told ANI here: "My support to the coalition government was to provide good and stable government which utterly failed. There's is no understanding among coalition partners. So, I decided to go with BJP to install stable government and see that the government performs better than the coalition." Karnataka Chief Minister and JD(S) leader Kumaraswamy was unperturbed by the development. "If 2 MLAs withdraw their support, what will be the numbers? I'm totally relaxed. I know my strength. Whatever is going on in media in the past week, I am enjoying," he told reporters in Bengaluru when asked to comment on Tuesday's development. Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, who hails from Karnataka, said the BJP has been "continuously making attempts" to destabilise the Kumaraswamy government but there will be no impact as "those who have been elected on the basis of principles and ideology would not leave". Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara said the BJP was "trying its best" to destabilise the government by "luring our people with money and power" but the "government is stable". The withdrawal of support by the two Independent MLAs will not affect the stability of the government but it comes against the backdrop of a political drama wherein the Congress and Opposition BJP are trading charges of horse-trading. The Congress has alleged that its three MLAs were taken to Mumbai by the BJP as part of luring them into their fold. The BJP, while dismissing these claims, has alleged poaching attempts by the Congress. The BJP, in fact, has housed all its 104 MLAs in a hotel in Gurugram, on the outskirts of Delhi, because of the fear of alleged poaching. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As the partial government shutdown entered the 24th day, US President Donald Trump on Monday rejected calls from one of his top Republican aides to temporarily reopen the government. Asked about Senator Lindsey Graham's suggestion that he would sign a short-term spending bill to hold talks with the Democrats over the border wall, Trump remarked, "I do reject it." "I'm not interested. I want to get it solved. I don't want to just delay it. I want to get it solved," he was quoted by The Hill as saying. In an interview to Fox News, Graham on Sunday urged Trump to temporarily reopen the government in a bid to lure the Democrats to come to the negotiating table. He also suggested that the US President could use his emergency powers to bypass the Congress and build the wall. "I would urge him to open up the government for a short period of time, like three weeks, before he pulls the plug. See if we can get a deal. If we can't at the end of three weeks, all bets are off - see if he can do it by himself with the emergency powers. That is my recommendation," he said. However, Trump also rejected the suggestion of using emergency powers, saying that he is "not interested" in the taking the step for now. Democrats have repeatedly said that it will pass a series of stopgap spending bills to reopen government agencies while funding the Department of Homeland Security through February 8 to buy more time for talks on the proposed wall, as per the report. Already in the last week, the ongoing partial government shutdown broke the record of being the longest in the history of the country when it entered the 22nd day, breaking the previous record of 21 days. There is still no hope in sight for the end of the current shutdown which has been learnt to have impacted a quarter of the federal government and a large number of federal workers. Approximately 800,000 federal workers have been adversely affected by the lapse in funding. The shutdown was triggered on December 22 last year by a lack of consensus between lawmakers and the US President on the funding for the wall on the border with Mexico which was one of Trump's electoral promises. So far, no agreement has been reached between Trump and congressional Democrats to put an end to the shutdown. Trump has reiterated his demand for $5.7 billion to fund the wall, asserting that the "growing crisis" of illegal immigration is hurting millions of Americans. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Election Commission of India (EC) announced on Monday announced that Voter Awareness Forums will be set up in ministries, government departments, non-government departments and other institutions to promote electoral awareness ahead of the general elections. The Election Commission will be briefing the Nodal Officers of Ministries, Government of India and a representative from Federations on January 16 at Pravasi Bhartiya Kendra here, read a statement. Similar briefing sessions are being held across the country by the Chief Electoral Officers and District Election Officers on the same day where nodal officers of departments, non-government departments, CSOs, corporate and media houses in the state and district are being briefed respectively. These are informal forums for generating awareness around electoral process through activities like discussions, quizzes, competitions and other engaging activities. All employees of the organisation are expected to become members of the VAF with the head of the organisation acting as Chair of VAF, which is a part of the Electoral Literacy Club (ELC) programme of EC. Launched on the 8th Voters Day, January 25 last year, ELC programme envisages setting up of Electoral Literacy Club in every educational institution and Chunav Pathshala at every booth to cover those outside the formal education system. Around 2.11 lakh ELCs have already been established across the country in the first year of the launch of the programme. The ELCs and Chunav Pathshala activities are conducted by the convener using a resource guide where step by step instructions are given for conducting each activity. Separate resource books have been developed for Class IX, X, XI and XII. A calendar of activities in a year has also been indicated. Total of six to eight activities, with specific learning outcome, running into approximately four hours in all, have been identified for each class. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Karnataka Cabinet Minister K J George asserted that there is no political crisis in Karnataka and BJP is creating an atmosphere in the wake of upcoming Lok Sabha elections. "I don't see any political crisis in Karnataka, only BJP is creating an atmosphere keeping in view the upcoming Lok Sabha elections," said KJ George. He also said that there is no need to protect the Congress MLA's from BJP as the Congress is strong enough to protect its own MLAs. "There is no need of protecting, Congress is strong and they will protect themselves," he said. Earlier in the day, after two Independent MLAs withdrew their support to the JD(S)-Congress government headed by H D Kumaraswamy in Karnataka, the Chief Minister said that he is totally relaxed as withdrawal of the two independents will not affect his government. "If 2 MLAs withdraw their support, what will be the numbers? I'm totally relaxed. I know my strength," he told reporters in Bengaluru when asked to comment on Tuesday's development. Two Independent MLAs H Nagesh and R Shankar on Tuesday withdrew support to the JD(S)-Congress government headed by H D Kumaraswamy in Karnataka. In the 224-member Assembly, JD(S) has 37 MLAs and its coalition partner has 80. It has support of some Independents in the House where the majority figure is 113. Nagesh and Shankar wrote separate letters to the Governor conveying their decision to withdraw support to the government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj here on Tuesday attended the grand finale of 'Bharat Ko Janiye' or 'Know India Programme', an initiative by the Government of India to reconnect with the Indian Diaspora. The minister said that it was the wish of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to start this programme as many Indian nationals who are settled abroad are entirely disconnected from the Indian culture and history. "They have very little knowledge about our country and whatever they know is mostly wrong. They became entirely detached from the roots of Indian culture and traditions as they moved out of the country a long time ago. Therefore, we want them to reconnect with us," Swaraj said. Providing details of the programme, the Indian minister stated that the programme divided the Indian Diaspora into three categories, namely the non-residential Indians (NRIs), persons of Indian origin (PIO) and 'Foreigners'. The 'NRI' category included non-residential Indians or the ones who do not reside in India. This category is also known as 'Pravasi Bharatiya' or 'Anivasi Bharatiya'. The 'PIO' category included people whose forefathers had moved out of India more than 100 to 150 years ago, the Indian minister added. She further noted that from this year, the Ministry has included a new category named 'Foreigners' or the people who are entirely from different countries. While addressing the gathering, Swaraj informed that the programme was first organised in 2015, with 15,000 participants, but this year around 40,000 participants (students) from all across the globe have registered their names to participate in the programme. The minister also said that Prime Minister Modi will be distributing prizes to the students who have won the programme on January 22. In addition to this, all the participants will be provided with a 25-day tour of India by the Indian government. "The kids will first go to Lakshadweep and then Varanasi because we have the Maha Kumbh going on in Prayagraj, after a span of 12 years, along with the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Varanasi. Then we will bring them to New Delhi to attend the Republic Day celebrations in the capital on January 26," Swaraj added. The Indian minister also reiterated that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has recognised Kumbh Mela as India's cultural heritage. Meanwhile, the Indian minister, while addressing the programme, also used "chunav" words amid her speech and later clarified that elections will soon be underway in the country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Somalia's al-Shabab terror group claimed responsibility of the series of gunfire followed by massive blasts that took place at a luxurious hotel complex in the Kenyan capital on Tuesday. "We are currently conducting an operation in Nairobi," Al Jazeera quoted the terror group's military operations spokesman, Abdiaziz Abu Mus'ab, as saying. According to reports by Washington Post, smoke was rising from the area of the blast, outside the DusitD2 hotel and office park on Riverside Drive in Nairobi's Westlands neighbourhood, while the people scattered here and there called for relief measures as soon as possible. Soon after the terror attack, heavily armed local police surrounded the area and said that some of the militants might still be hiding out inside the building. However, the local police have not reported any deaths or injuries so far. Investigation into the matter is underway. Further details are awaited. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two related companies involved in the worst data leak in Singapore's history were fined 1 million Singapore dollars (about 740,000 U.S. dollars) in total, Singapore's Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) announced here Tuesday. PDPC imposed financial penalties on Integrated Health Information Systems Pte Ltd (IHiS) and Singapore Health Services Pte Ltd (SingHealth) for breaching their data protection obligations under the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), according to a press release issued by the PDPC. SingHealth's patient database system suffered cyberattack in mid-2018, which led to the disclosure of personal information of 1.5 million patients, including Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. In investigating the largest data breach case in the country's history, PDPC found that IHiS1 had failed to take adequate security measures to protect the personal data in its possession and thus has imposed a financial penalty of 750,000 Singapore dollars (about 556,000 U.S. dollars). A financial penalty of 250,000 Singapore dollars has also been imposed on SingHealth as the owner of the patient database system. PDPC also recognized that both organizations were victims of a skilled and sophisticated threat actor bearing the characteristics of an Advanced Persistent Threat group, using numerous advanced, customized and stealthy tools. In a statement on Tuesday, SingHealth's CEO Ivy Ng apologized to patients and accepted the PDPC fine. "We are making changes to enhance our cyber-security governance structures and improve management oversight of our critical systems," she said. SingHeath is Singapore's largest healthcare group. Founded in 2000, it consists of four public hospitals and five national specialty centers. IHiS was appointed by SingHealth to operate its patient database system. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The hearing of the Sabarimala review petitions in the Supreme Court may not take place on its scheduled date of January 22 as Justice Indu Malhotra is on medical leave and might be unavailable on that day. "Constitution bench of the Supreme Court may not take up hearing on January 22 of petitions seeking review of judgment permitting women of all ages to enter Sabarimala Temple as Justice Indu Malhotra is on medical leave," Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi told the court. Justice Malhotra, the lone woman judge in the five-member constitution bench, had expressed dissent over the quashing of restrictions on the entry of women into Sabarimala Temple, saying issues which have deep religious connotations should not be played with to maintain a secular atmosphere in the country. On September 28, 2018, the Supreme Court had lifted the ban on the entry of women between 10 to 50 years into the Lord Ayyappa shrine. Despite the apex court's ruling, a string of protests took place at the Sabarimala Temple and its surrounding areas in the state, as several women attempted to visit the shrine, only to be sent back by agitating devotees of Lord Ayyappa. Lawyer Mathews J Nedumpara had mentioned the case before the top court and sought live streaming of hearing on the petitions seeking review of the apex court's judgement allowing all women inside the Temple. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono on Monday held talks here to discuss the issue of concluding a peace treaty between the two countries, which have been de facto in a state of war for decades. The talks, however, have not been a breakthrough, proving that the issue of the disputed Kuril Islands cannot be overlooked as the parties began their path toward concluding a peace treaty. The fact that Japan and Russia have never signed a permanent peace treaty after the end of War II has long been a stumbling block in Russia-Japan relations. The main issue standing in the way of a treaty is an agreement concerning a group of four islands that both countries claim - Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai, collectively referred to as the Southern Kurils by Russia and the Northern Territories by Japan. The two counterparts noted at the meeting the huge potential of relations between Moscow and Tokyo. "In recent months, the agreement on avoidance of double taxation has come into force, and the simplification of the visa regime for groups of Russian tourists has been implemented. In addition, bilateral economic ties are developing consistently ... There is great potential in relations between Russia and Japan," Kono said. Lavrov, for his part, indicated that Russia was interested in making additional efforts to bring the Russian-Japanese relations to a new level. "We actively advocate making additional efforts to bring bilateral relations to a new level, to achieve trust, true partnership, including partnership on international affairs," the Russian minister stated. According to Lavrov, both Russia and Japan realised the need for a qualitative change for the better in the bilateral relations. "We have a shared understanding that the quality of our relations should be drastically improved in order to discuss complicated and the most difficult issues. Our relations are on the rise in general, with trade, economic, investment, and cultural ties developing. Right now, Russia and Japan are holding cross [-cultural] years that stir keen interest of our citizens and the residents of the Japanese islands," Lavrov indicated. Lavrov stressed that the potential for the Russian-Japanese cooperation in economy and investment, as well in the security field was not exhausted yet, noting, at the same time, that the security cooperation between the two countries was marred by the deployment of United States missile defense systems in Japan. "During negotiations, we have drawn attention [of Tokyo] to the steps that the United States was taking to develop its global missile defense system on the Japanese territory - the actions that are aimed at militarization of this part of the globe and that the United States formally justifies by the need to neutralize what they call the North Korean nuclear threat. But in fact these actions create risks for Russian and Chinese security," Lavrov pointed out. The discussions devoted to the future peace treaty, inspired by the talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Singapore in November and Buenos Aires in December obviously became central to the meeting. "In accordance with instructions of our leaders based on the outcome of meetings in Singapore in November and Buenos Aires in December last year, we launch today negotiations on the issue of peace treaty," Lavrov launched talks. The Russian foreign minister stressed on the need to hold negotiations without misinterpreting earlier agreements. "I would like to remind you that President Putin and Prime Minister Abe have agreed that the work on peace treaty will be carried out professionally, without any attempts to distort the agreements reached at this stage, without fueling controversial, unilateral rhetoric in public space. That's why I would like to urge our Japanese colleagues to strictly follow the agreements reached between our leaders both on the format of our negotiations and the essence of work on the peace treaty," Lavrov stated. Lavrov said that he and Kono discussed the need to speed up the talks on the peace treaty, as instructed by Putin and Abe, but stressed that the sides still had significant disagreements over the issue. "We still have significant disagreements [on the matter]. We have had diametrically opposed approaches from the very beginning and we have already said that. But the political will of our leaders to fully normalize the relations between Russia and Japan encourages us to intensify this dialogue," the Minister stressed. Lavrov also underlined that both Moscow and Tokyo had confirmed that they were ready to work on the treaty relying on the 1956 declaration, "which first of all means the immutability of the very first step, which is Japan's full recognition of the outcomes of War II, including Russia's sovereignty over all the islands of the South Kuril ridge." "This is our basic position, and without making steps in this direction it will be very hard to expect for any kind of progress on other issues. We drew the attention of our Japanese colleagues to the fact that the issue of sovereignty over the islands is not being discussed, this is the territory of Russia, and we also pointed at the fact that the Japanese legislation calls these islands northern territory, which is, of course, unacceptable for Russia," Lavrov pointed out. On November 14, Putin and Abe agreed to enhance talks on a peace treaty's conclusion based on the 1956 Soviet-Japanese joint declaration, the only document recognised by both countries. The declaration stipulates, among other things, that Japan will regain control over Habomai and Shikotan islets following the conclusion of the peace treaty with Russia. Russia and Japan agreed to develop more ambitious projects for joint economic activity on the Kuril Islands, Lavrov said after talks with Kono. "Today we drew the attention of our Japanese colleagues [to the matter] and agreed that more ambitious projects would be developed by relevant departments to ensure practical implementation of joint economic activity," Lavrov told a press conference. He regretted that the agreement reached by Putin and Abe several years ago to develop joint economic activity in the region was being implemented at a slow pace, adding that the sides were planning five projects but not in the key areas. Lavrov said there were no obstacles for Russia and Japan to switch to visa-free travel, starting from visa-free travel for people living on Russia's Sakhalin and Japan's Hokkaido islands. "We told our colleagues that in recent years Russia has put forward many initiatives that are aimed at either liberalizing the travel regime for some citizen categories ... or introducing a visa-free regime. This is our global objective," the Russian minister stressed. In January 2017, the Japanese authorities eased visa requirements for Russian citizens. The visa facilitation regime primarily affected entrepreneurs, artists and scientists. On September 23, 2017, the first charter flight brought the former Kuril Islands residents from Japan to the islands. Before this date, only sea transport was used. Putin and Abe will meet on January 22 during Abe's visit to Russia, Kono said, adding that Tokyo expected the Russian president's visit to Japan in June. "President Putin's visit to Japan is expected in June for participation in the closing ceremony of the Russian-Japanese cross year," the diplomat noted, stressing that his next meeting with Lavrov may be held at the Munich Security Conference in February. The Russian and Japanese deputy foreign ministers, Igor Morgulov and Takeo Mori, will hold consultations on Tuesday. "We agreed that our deputies would stay in contact clarify each other's positions. By the next summit between President Putin and Prime Minister Abe, we will report on how their instructions are being implemented," Lavrov underlined. Valery Kistanov, the head of the Center for Japanese Studies at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and former Russian Ambassador to Japan Alexander Panov commented on Lavrov-Kono talks and the prospects for concluding a peace treaty. Speaking about Russia's demand that Tokyo recognises Russia's sovereignty over the Kuril Islands, Kistanov told Sputnik that Japan was unlikely to do this. "The recognition of Russia's sovereignty over the four South Kuril Islands by Japan is a very difficult step as contradicts the current Japanese position, which implies that at the end of the War II the Soviet Union attacked Japan, when it was on the verge of defeat, forcefully took the Kuril Islands and, first the Soviet Union then Russia, has been illegally occupying these islands since then," Kistanov argued. Kistanov suggested that Japan was likely to seek "a tricky option that would allow avoiding the official recognition of Russia's sovereignty over the islands." "Speaking about the peace treaty, it is not a treaty on the transfer of territories but on creating a new quality of relations ... The agreement text could include - and I think it would be logical - the clause saying that allied obligations of Japan and possible allied obligations of Russia with third countries will in no way be against the partner country and that armed forces of a foreign state will not be used to hurt the interests of the partner country," Panov suggested. If the peace treaty has this clause, it will give Russia "a strong lever of influence" in its relations with Japan, he added, stressing that the disagreements between Moscow and Tokyo are not too sharp and that they still had a chance to overcome them. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Retired judge of the Delhi High Court Justice Kailash Gambhir has written to President Ram Nath Kovind, objecting to the decision of a collegium that recommended the elevation of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dinesh Maheshwari to the Supreme Court. In his letter, Justice Gambhir has pleaded President Kovind to ensure "independence and trust" in the judiciary by preventing the decision to materialise which he has termed as a "historical blunder." He also raised the issue of undermining seniority while elevating the Judges, asserting that in a recommendation for the elevation of Justice Sanjiv Khanna not only the seniority of three Delhi High Court Judges has been ignored but also of more than 30 senior Judges in the country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress president Rahul Gandhi is slated to hold 13 massive rallies in Uttar Pradesh soon, thus setting the tone for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Rahul will commence his poll campaign from state capital Lucknow, most probably after February 6. The prominent places where the rallies are expected to be held are Gorakhpur, Gonda, Aligarh, Saharanpur, Sitapur, Agra, Moradabad, Varanasi, Prayagraj (after the completion of Kumbh Mela), and Kanpur. The Congress has given the key responsibility of arrangement of such massive rallies to senior leaders of the party. According to sources, the Congress has short-listed 30-40 Lok Sabha constituencies where all senior leaders from the state will be fielded to contest polls. The party is also trying to form an alliance with small regional parties, the source said. The source also revealed that the Congress is in touch with other party leaders like Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSPL) chief Shivpal, Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, and Apna Dal leader Pallavi Patel. Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) president Ajit Singh is likely to join hands with the Congress. On Sunday, Shivpal Yadav had said that the PSPL is ready to forge an alliance with the Congress in Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha elections, although no talks have been held in connection with the same. "There have been no talks with the Congress party as yet. The Congress is also a secular party and if it approaches us to defeat the BJP, we will lend our support," Yadav had said on Sunday. Apart from holding rallies, Rahul will visit Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj for holy Snan (bath). However, the date is yet to be decided. The SP and the BSP recently announced that they would contest on 38 seats each, adding that they would not field candidates against Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Amethi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi in Rae Bareli. They have also kept two seats for the smaller parties. Ousted from the alliance, the Congress announced that they would contest on all 80 Lok Sabha seats at stake in Uttar Pradesh with 'full might,' but did not rule out the possibility of joining hands with the secular forces in the state to defeat the BJP in the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday met the parents of Doordarshan (DD) cameraman Achyutanand Sahu who was killed by Naxals in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district in October last year. The Prime Minister offered condolences to Sahu's parents on the irreparable loss during his visit to Balangir. Addressing a public gathering in the district, Prime Minister Modi said Sahu, who was targetted by "cowardly" Naxals, was performing his duty of presenting to the world the democratic picture of the country through Doordarshan. He also said that sacrifices such as his have only strengthened India's resolve to end this cycle of violence. Sahu, along with three police personnel, was killed in an ambush in Dantewada district, a Maoist hotbed in the heavily forested central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. Another police personnel who was critically injured in the attack succumbed to injuries. DD news had deployed a team to cover the elections in Bastar. The team, accompanied by the police forces, was videotaping a notice put up by Naxals to boycott the elections and stop development works. Subsequently, Naxals attacked the team, which was accompanied by a dozen security personnel. Sahu was caught in the crossfire before rebels snatched his camera. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India on Tuesday said that the perpetrators of the heinous Kabul attack on Monday, should be immediately brought to justice. The terror attack in Kabul, which took place in the Green Village compound in Kabul's Police Division 9 on Monday, killed an Indian and along with many others. A press statement released by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Tuesday said, "We express our sincere condolences to the families of the victims of this cowardly attack and wish early recovery to the injured." The Indian Embassy in Kabul has also taken further steps to repatriate the mortal remains of the Indian According to Washington Post, the vehicle bomb explosion on Monday night in Kabul took lives of four people and injured 113 people, as confirmed by local officials. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) More than 90 per cent of employees in Taiwan are considering seeking a new job after the Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls on February 5 this year, indicating low pay as a major reason, a survey released by Taiwan's online job bank Yes123 showed Monday. The rate of potential job-hoppers is the highest in 10 years, according to the survey. The estimated number of employed people in Taiwan is over 9 million. Among those who intend to change jobs, 55 per cent said it was due to being dissatisfied with salaries, followed by poor welfare provided by their companies, no chance of promotion, and having a bleak outlook for their companies. As many as 65 per cent of those said they had already begun to search for a new job. Nearly 85 per cent of the respondents said they were considering securing a job outside Taiwan with a higher pay. Yang Tsung-pin, spokesman for Yes123, said a shortage could loom if the brain drain continued on the island, impacting Taiwan's overall competitiveness. In order to tackle the job-hopping boom, 94 per cent of the surveyed companies said they planned to recruit new staff after the New Year, and 63 per cent said they would only fill the vacancies after employees left. The survey was based on questionnaires completed by 1,204 employees and 912 companies from December 26 to January 4. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after information surfaced about BJP camping its Karnataka MLAs in Gurugram, in fear of poaching by Congress, Karnataka Minister and Congress leader DK Shivakumar on Tuesday said that all 104 MLAs are still with the party. "Our MLAs are with us, we are answerable to the people of the constituency, they are not doing any dirty BJP is trying to create a hype in the country on Mahagathbandhan," Shivakumar told ANI. Congress MLA Anand Singh told the media, "Nobody has contacted me; I am very much in the party." The charges of horse-trading were triggered after three Karnataka Congress MLAs visited Mumbai on Monday, reportedly along with some BJP MLAs. This was followed by the Congress alleging that the BJP was trying to poach the ruling party's MLAs to destabilise the JD(S)-Congress alliance government in the state. BJP's Karnataka unit president and Leader of Opposition in the Assembly BS Yeddyurappa told media yesterday, "There is no truth in all these rumours. Kumaraswamy is himself trying his level best to contact our MLAs, by offering ministership and money. That is why we are together here (in the NCR). We are not in touch with any of their MLAs. We are only focused on keeping our MLAs energised. We will stay here for one or two days." Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy accused Yeddyurappa of fabricating stories, adding that there is no need for the Congress-JD(S) alliance to poach on any party's lawmakers. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Mumbai branch of the Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday filed a chargesheet against two accused in connection with a Fake Indian Currency Note (FICN) racket in Gujarat's Junagadh. The chargesheet was filed in the Special Court of NIA cases in Gujarat's Ahmedabad against Sanjaykumar Mohanbhai Devadiya and Sureshbhai Mavajibhai Lathidadiya. Following a tipoff from the NIA, the Ahmedabad-unit of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) apprehended Sanjaykumar Mohanbhai Devadiya in Junagadh and seized 53 fake notes of Rs 2,000 and 92 fake notes Rs 500, amounting to Rs 1,52,000. Accordingly, a case under sections 489B, 489C and 120B of IPC was registered against Devadiya. The case was then transferred to NIA who during their investigations found that pursuant to a criminal conspiracy, Devadiya purchased fake currency from a wanted accused, Tahir Saikh, on the directions of Lathidadiya, and brought it to Junagadh from New Farakka, West Bengal for circulation. The investigation has also revealed interstate and international linkages, pointing towards a supply of FICN received from across the border. Further investigation into the case is underway. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Commission for Women (NCW) has taken suo motu cognisance of the objectionable statements made by a professor of Jadavpur University in West Bengal's Kolkata. As per reports, the professor in his Facebook post had compared a woman's virginity to a sealed bottle or packet. The NCW team, led by Rekha Sharma, will meet the Vice Chancellor, Jadavpur University to discuss the matter during their scheduled visit to West Bengal this week. The Commission has also written to DGP, West Bengal, directing him to investigate the matter and take appropriate action as per the relevant provisions of Indian Penal Code. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain has underlined the need for unity among all stakeholders to free Balochistan from the oppressive regime of the Pakistani military. Hussain on Monday held detailed discussions with various Baloch leaders, human rights activists, lawmakers and freedom fighters, who lost their beloved sons at the hands of Pakistan's military establishment in Balochistan and stressed the need for joint efforts against their oppression. They have also agreed in principle to make joint efforts against the tyrannical occupation of Balochistan by the Pakistani military establishment. The MQM and other groups in Balochistan, and Pakistan also agreed to launch a decisive movement against Pakistan. Apart from slamming the military establishment, the leaders present at the meeting expressed complete solidarity with the families of Balochs, Pashtoons and Mohajirs who have been executed by the demonic military establishment. The leaders also expressed deep concern over enforced disappearances of Balochs, Pashtoons, and Mohajirs and vowed to take oppressors into account. Hussain appealed to all 'Haq Parast' people to seek the blessings of the Almighty for the success of their alliance. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday likened the charge sheet filed against JNU student leaders in the sedition row with the hanging of terrorist Afzal Guru and termed it vote bank "As I have already said that such kind of steps before elections raise doubts. People may remember that even before 2014 elections, Congress hanged Afzal Guru by picking him up from the 28th position. They thought that this way they will win 2014 elections. Today BJP is doing the same thing. Kanhaiya, Umar Khalid and seven-eight other students from Kashmir have been named in the charge sheet. This is absolutely wrong. It feels like Jammu and Kashmir people are once again being used as a pawn ahead of 2019 elections. This is nothing but of votes," said Mehbooba told the media here on Tuesday. Speaking further about her party's association with BJP, she said: "We shook hands with BJP as they had the mandate, to have talks on Jammu and Kashmir issue just like Vajpayee Ji held talks with Hurriyat and Pakistan. But Modi Ji couldn't walk on the path of Vajpayee Ji even though he had the mandate. People can be angry with us for forging an alliance with BJP but they don't hate. It was a tough decision for us to go with BJP. This was taken in the welfare of people." Emphasising that local militants are the "son of the soil", she asserted that "attempts should be to save him (local militants). She further said, "I believe, in Jammu and Kashmir, not only Hurriyat but those with the guns should also be engaged with, but not at this time." The Delhi Police on Monday slapped the charges of sedition, rioting, and criminal conspiracy among others on former JNU Students' Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others in a three-year-old incident which rocked the campus of India's premier seat of learning on the evening of February 9, 2016. Delhi Police charge sheet, running into 1,200-page and filed at the city-state's Patiala House Court on Monday, contains serious charges against them under various sections of the Indian Penal Code's (IPC) including Section 124A (sedition), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 465 (forgery), 471 (using as genuine, forged document), 143 (punishment for unlawful assembly), 149 (unlawful assembly with common object), 147(rioting), and 120B (criminal conspiracy). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on Congress for not working in the interests of farmers and the backward castes despite being in power for the longest time post independence. "Why did they (Congress) keep the date of loan waiver March 31? They will benefit more by this whereas 70 per cent of farmers will not benefit from this," said Mayawati sparing no stone unturned in criticising the Congress' vested interest policies. After assuming office Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath had announced that only those loans which are outstanding as on March 31, 2018, would be eligible for a loan waiver. However, the date was later extended to December 2018. Underlining the need for a farmer-centric loan waiver policy, Mayawati asserted: "We have always worked for the farmers, poor and the downtrodden. The government should give 100 per cent farm loan waiver, else suicide by farmers will continue. A strong farm loan waiver policy should be made." Addressing the media on the occasion of her birthday, she said: "Congress ruled the country unopposed for a long time after independence. The result of five states is not only a lesson for the BJP but for the Congress as well." She emphasised that BSP's alliance with SP will decide the prime ministerial candidate for 2019 Lok Sabha polls. "The Lok Sabha polls are going to take place soon. Our alliance with SP has made all other parties have become nervous. This alliance is going to decide the Prime Minister of the country. I urge the workers of SP and BSP to just focus on winning the elections," she said. She also emphasised on the need to formulate a policy for Defence deals. She added, "Matters such as Rafale and Bofors should also be taken care of under this." Her birthday is also celebrated as Jan Kalyankari Diwas in the country. On the occasion, she also thanked the people that have shaped and influenced her life and also launched her Blue Book. "I thank everyone who has supported the BSP movement and me during my struggle. This book is a travelogue of the same," she added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday said that mass religious conversions are a matter of concern for any country including India and must be stopped. "If someone accepts a religion out of his choice, then nobody should raise an objection. However, mass conversion is a matter of concern for any country including India," he said. "If you are a Hindu, be a Hindu. A Muslim should be a Muslim; a Christian should be a Christian. Why do you want to convert the whole world," asked Singh. He said that mass religious conversion in India must be stopped. "India is a land of peace and mass religious conversions must be stopped here," Singh said, while speaking at a function here. He said that the majority community in India is demanding an anti-conversion law, which is a matter of concern and is contrary to what happens in other countries. "In Britain and America, minority community demands anti-conversion laws, but here in India, the majority community asks for it. It is a matter of concern," said Singh. He said that India is a land of peace and tolerance in which every religion thrives. "All six sects of Christianity are found here in India. All 72 sects of Islam are not found even in Islamic countries but are found in India," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi Police on Tuesday detained a man in connection with an anonymous mail received by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's office on January 9, threatening to kidnap his daughter Harshita Kejriwal. The detained suspect has been identified as Vikas, a resident of Samastipur district in Bihar. He was preparing for the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) examinations for a government. Vikas was detained by the Cyber Crime Unit of the Special Cell of Delhi Police from Rae Bareli area in Uttar Pradesh, where he had gone to meet his sister. Following the detention, he was interrogated by the police. According to sources in the Delhi Police, a non-cognisable report (NCR) has been filed in the case and the detained suspect may be brought to Delhi for further investigation. On January 9, the office of Delhi Chief Minister received an anonymous mail that threatened to kidnap Kejriwal's daughter Harshita Kejriwal. The letter reads: "We will kidnap your daughter. Do what you can to protect her." Swinging into action, the Delhi Police deployed a Protective Service Officer (PSO) for Kejriwal's daughter Harshita. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) ' 2025', Beijing's industrial plan to create a tech superpower, is still receiving a major push from the Chinese government, despite earlier reports of the policy being revised in a bid to calm down trade tensions with the United States. As per a few Chinese companies, they have not witnessed any change in the country's generous support for their efforts to secure top talent and to dominate cutting edge technology, reported Nikkei Asian Review. These companies were participating in the Consumer Electronics Show last week in Las Vegas. Some of them informed that they were shifting procurement from the U.S. to Chinese suppliers in order to support the development of domestic high-tech supply chains. "Beijing does not talk about ' 2025' anymore, but things haven't changed much on the ground. I don't think that the Chinese government will ever pull back their support. After all, high-tech is vital for China's future," said a Chinese entrepreneur. The entrepreneur went on to add that his startup making chips for smart devices has roughly received 10 million yuan (USD 1.5 million) in government subsidies last year. Besides that, there is another startup, specialized in mind reading wearables, which is planning to open a global headquarters in Hangzhou, and aims to start mass production of smart prosthetic devices later this year. Their offices have been paid for by the Hangzhou authority, which is also funding research and development. Not just startups, but established companies too have benefited from the Chinese government. In December last year, a Nikkei Asian Review report stated that a top iPhone assembler, Foxconn Technology is preparing to launch a chip factory worth USD 9 billion in Zhuhai. The company, which is expected to open in 2020, will be built largely with subsidies from the Zhuhai government, as chipmaking is one of China's most needed technologies. China's determination to transform itself into an advanced manufacturing power by targeting 10 strategic sectors including artificial intelligence and robotics has been a key issue in the tensions between the US and China. The US President Donald Trump's administration has imposed punitive tariffs on a total of USD 250 billion of Chinese imports in a bid to stop what it claims is 'unfair competition'. The two nations appeared to make progress on resolving the dispute last week, however, no firm agreement has yet been reached. "The major change is that the ( 2025) policy is not talked up directly as much...but the (Chinese) government is still working extremely hard to develop a modern design and manufacturing ecosystem. Their support is not likely to stop as this shift is seen as a must-win," said Benjamin Cavender, a senior analyst with Shanghai-based consulting firm China Market Research. All the companies believe that Beijing will not ease back on its high-tech industrial development push add that they boost their in-house research and development efforts in a bid to reduce reliance on US technology. A Shanghai-based auto company has set up a research centre in Silicon Valley shortly after the trade disputes emerged in March last year. "Although we had this plan for a while, the trade war has motivated us to speed up the implementation. The key technology of autonomous driving is at the hands of Americans and one can expect it would only become more difficult to access American technology in the future. So we have no choice but to develop our own technology," an executive from the company said. Chinese companies have extensively supported the development of the domestic supply chain, either via direct investment or by increasing local purchases. One such trend can be seen particularly in the chip industry, which was virtually non-existent in the country a few years ago, but has now reached a scale of more than 1,000 companies according to some industry estimates. "In the past, Chinese companies preferred to buy US chips because they didn't want to take risks of trying out domestic products. Now, they have realized they cannot survive and thrive without the co-existence of strong domestic suppliers," said Xiang Jianjun, founder of the Chengdu Analog Circuit Technology. Xiang said the turning point came last summer when US banned ZTE putting the Shenzhen-based telecom equipment manufacturing giant's survival in question. Some Chinese high-tech companies are also rushing to produce their own chips. "China is very good at commoditizing technologies. In some cases, China is great in leveraging worldwide open source foundations to create super strong things," said Chris Dong, global research director at technology advisory firm IDC China. Shen Qiang, a founding partner of Beijing-based Jiangmen venture capital firm, said that Chinese companies can perform as well as their American counterparts in certain areas such as smart devices. "China had dreamt about developing high-speed railway technology since its debut, but it took us so many years to get there. But once we get there, look at where we are now," he said. Students of Kolkata's Jadavpur University (JU) on Tuesday staged a protest in the university campus, demanding the expulsion of Professor Kanak Sarkar over his remarks made in a Facebook post. "We want his expulsion as he is influencing young minds and we don't want a misogynistic environment here. He's a repeat offender," a protestor said. As per reports, the professor had compared a woman's virginity to a sealed bottle or packet in a Facebook post. Earlier in the day, the Commission for Women (NCW) took suo motu cognisance of the objectionable statements. The NCW team, led by Rekha Sharma, will meet the Vice Chancellor, Jadavpur University to discuss the matter during their scheduled visit to West Bengal this week. The Commission has also written to DGP, West Bengal, directing him to investigate the matter and take appropriate action as per the relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The training course focused on the topic 'Global Perspectives on Public Financial Management' upon the request of the Nepal government with the Indian Government under the Nepal-India economic co-operation programme. "The programme is designed as per the requirement of the Ministry of Finance of Nepal and is being held at the Institute of Government Accounts and Finance (INGAF). The training will enhance the capabilities of these officials in global practices dealing with e-payment system, accounting and cash management, public burrowing system, accounting of foreign loans/grants and repayments, pension payment system, internal audit, fiscal responsibility and budget management, etc," read a statement from Indian Embassy in Kathmandu. The training courses are set to be held in three batches out of which the first batch of 20 officials is currently undergoing training at INGAF, New Delhi from January 14. "The INGAF, New Delhi is a premier training institute of Government of India in the field of Public Financial Management with state-of-the-art learning facilities. INGAF's recognition across the spectrum has led to having associations and collaborations with premier institutions like Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) Florida, Atlanta School of Public Policy, Duke University, Management Development Institute (MDI) Gurgaon, Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru, etc," the statement added. The INGAF in India's capital is a partner institute for imparting training of officials from friendly developing countries under the ITEC programme of the Indian government. In addition to some of the global programmes, the INGAF has been undertaking tailor-made training for officials from neighbouring countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, and Sri Lanka. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Indian government released a five-year plan to reduce the air pollution in the 102 worst-affected cities in the country by 20-30 percent by 2024. The air pollution level in the Indian capital of New Delhi became severe, officials said on Sunday. The overall air quality index remained in severe category at 414, according to the Indian Central Pollution Control Board. "We hope this will be a guiding document, a guiding force for all those who join the activities," the Indian Minister Harsh Vardhan told local media. "These are tough targets, but we believe they are achievable if we do this well," Secretary Chandra Kishore Mishra said. The plan outlines multiple actions and their timelines for central ministries, states and city-level agencies seeking to curb vehicular, industrial and thermal power emissions and reduce the air pollution from the burning of crop residue and firewood, brick production, construction and other activities. Some actions are either ongoing or due for immediate implementation, while others have timelines up to 2024. However, some environmentalists criticised the plan for lacking clear mechanisms or robust funding to achieve its aims. And some observers questioned that the plan may be faced with obstacles as the Indian government focuses on economic growth, with an objective of creating 1 million jobs per month to accommodate India's expanding working class. Officials asserted that the experiences of cities in other countries suggested that it could take several years for Indian cities to significantly improve their air quality. Cities "are engines of growth and equity but they have to be sustainable," Amitabh Kant, the Chief Executive of the Indian Central Government's think tank, the National Institution for Transforming India, told the New York Times. India has nine of the world's 10 most polluted cities, according to a Health Organization measure, with choking urban smog that researchers estimate killed 1.24 million people in 2017. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday called the regular walkouts by the opposition during the sessions of the National Assembly as "this is the only function they intend to perform". Khan further lashed out at the opposition by terming the walkouts to be a form of "pressure tactic to seek a National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) and evade accountability for corruption in National Accountability Bureau (NAB) cases." The Pakistan Prime Minister took to twitter saying, "In a Parliament that costs taxpayers billions yearly, yet another walkout in NA by the Opposition shows that this is the only function they intend to perform. These are pressure tactics to seek an NRO and evade accountability for corruption in NAB cases not initiated by PTI." "Does democracy mean immunity from the corruption of democratically elected political leaders? It seems for them being elected is a license to plunder the country," Khan added. The statement by the Prime Minister came amid protests by Shehbaz Sharif-led Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to rebid the contracts of the Mohmand dam as the entire procedure seemed questionable to the opposition, Geo News reported. PML-N argued that Imran Khan's government forwarded the contract of the Mohmand dam after the process was initiated by the Sharif government. Meanwhile, the opposition walked out of the National Assembly session in a protest after Federal Minister for Water Resources Faisal Vawda was about to reply to Shehbaz Sharif arguments. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In the run-up to the 70th Republic Day, Indian Air Force's Siachen maintenance unit conducted a trekking expedition in the daunting terrain of Ladakh region. "This expedition on the frozen Zanskar river was undertaken by the air warriors of Air Force Station, Thoise," an Air Force release said. The team leader and overall coordinator of this expedition was Wg Cdr Vikrant Uniyal, a qualified mountaineer from Army Mountaineering Institute, Siachen. The expedition team comprising seven air warriors covered a total distance of 65 kilometres in five days through a treacherous route on the frozen Zanskar river. The Chadar Trek is one of the toughest and most challenging trails in the country. The trek began from "Chilling" and continued on Chadar (frozen Zanskar river) via "Tibb" cave till "Naerak" village. The nights were spent in tents near caves along the frozen river at an altitude of 13000 feet. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A new study now finds that our oceans are much warmer than previously thought. Driven by climate changes caused by human, they are heating up faster than earlier believed. The study published this week in the journal showed that the world's oceans have got much warmer since the 1960s. According to study authors, 2018 would be the warmest year on record for oceans, CNN reported. Rising ocean temperatures have far bigger consequences upon life on Earth as well. Rising sea levels: The study says this effect alone could make sea levels rise 30cm (12 inches) by the end of the century. Speaking about it, Stephen Simpson, associate professor in marine biology and global change at the University of Exeter, in the UK, said that while it does not sound like much, but there are many large cities around the world, much built on reclaimed land, that are not more than 30cm above sea level. Rising sea levels could cause millions of people to be displaced. Furthermore, warming oceans are causing polar ice sheets to melt faster, which will make sea levels rise even more. The combination of melting ice and expanding water could cause sea levels to rise by up to a meter by 2100. Hundreds of millions of people could be forced to leave their homes. Weather gets more extreme: Warmer oceans make tropical storms more intense and longer lasting. Notably, Hurricane Harvey, which brought more than 1.5 meters (60 inches) of rain over four days in late August 2017, was made worse by unusually warm ocean temperatures. Speaking to CNN, Brad Linsley, research professor Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory said that warming temperatures also mean changing rainfall patterns. "Higher temperatures lead to more evaporation, so parts of the earth will get wetter and parts will get drier," he added. Ocean life under threat: Coral reefs are especially sensitive to warmer seas. Between 2016 and 2017, half the corals at the Great Barrier Reef were killed by two ocean heat waves. Also, increased flooding causes more nutrients to be washed into sea. This leads to plankton bloom causing some parts of the sea to be starved of oxygen, making it hard for fish to live there. Food security: Fish species respond to warmer oceans by migrating to cooler, experts say. But the waters in some parts of the world are getting too warm for any fish -- and that could lead to food shortages in those areas. Melting sea ice: Warmer seas are causing sea ice to melt. Sea ice floats on the ocean surface, so when it melts it doesn't affect sea levels. However, there is less sea ice to reflect heat from the sun back into space, which means the planet gets warmer. This becomes problematic for both animals and some Arctic communities. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Patiala House Court on Tuesday adjourned the JNU sedition case till January 19. The matter was deferred after Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Deepak Sehrawat, who was supposed to take cognisance of the charge sheet filed by the Delhi Police in connection with the 2016 case, went on leave. The Delhi Police on Monday filed a 1,200-page charge sheet in the Patiala House Court, and statements of more than 90 witnesses were recorded. Sources in the Delhi Police said column number 12 of the charge sheet named 36 people as accused including Raja's daughter Aparajita Raja and former JNUSU vice president Shehla Rashid. The charge sheet names 10 JNU students as main accused including Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya, and seven Kashmiri students, namely, Aquib Hussain, Mujeeb Hussain, Muneeb Hussain, Umar Gul, Rayeea Rasool, and Bashir Bhat. On February 9, 2016, "anti-national" slogans were allegedly raised in JNU campus during a programme called to protest against the death sentence handed out to Afzal Guru, a convict in the 2002 Parliament attack. The Delhi Police have reportedly used video footage and other documents to support their points in the charge sheet, which has been filed almost after three years the incident took place. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amit Degwekar, an accused in the Govind Pansare murder case, has been sent to police custody till January 23 by Kolhapur sessions court on Tuesday. Degwekar was in custody of Karnataka SIT in connection with the Gauri Lankesh murder case. He is also an accused in the Narendra Dabholkar murder case in which he was recently granted bail by Pune Session Court on grounds that the CBI did not file charge sheet against him. Degwekar is accused of destroying weapons used to kill Pansare. Pansare, a Communist Party of India leader, who was known for his rationalist views, was shot dead in Kolhapur on February 20, 2015. His wife, too, was injured in the attack. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In February, Texans experienced forced rolling and extended blackouts ordered by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas as demand for electricity spiked during a winter storm. On Monday, ERCOT took precaution to avoid blackouts by urging Texans to conserve power through Friday as summer temperatures continue to rise. Approximately 12,000 megawatts of generation were offline Monday, and ERCOT officials said the outages were unexpected. Are you satisfied with ERCOTs oversight of the states electric grid? You voted: Google's honourary doodle today was a nod to Anglo-Indian traveller and businessman Sake Dean Mahomed who not only became the first Indian author to publish a book in English, but would go on later, to open an Indian restaurant in England. Born in 1759 in Patna, Sake Dean Mahomed, who came from Buxar knew much of alchemy and understood the techniques used to produce various soaps and shampoo. Introducing the Indian cuisine to Great Britain, Mahomed went on to find success as the "The Shampooing Surgeon of Brighton," opening a spa in the British seaside town that attracted the rich and royal. In 1810, Mahomed opened the Hindostanee Coffee House, Britain's first Indian restaurant, which was hailed by the then media reports as a place for nobility to enjoy hookah and Indian dishes of the highest perfection. Nonetheless, Mahomed was forced to close his luxurious restaurant in 1812 and sought to reinvent himself. According to Google, "Moving his family to the beachside town of Brighton, he opened a spa named Mahomed's Baths offering luxurious herbal steam baths. His specialty was a combination of a steam bath and an Indian therapeutic massage-a treatment he named "shampooing" inspired by the Hindi word champissage meaning "a head massage." He also published a book about the therapeutic benefits of the treatment with testimonials from his patients. In 1822, King George IV appointed Mahomed as his personal 'shampooing surgeon', which greatly improved his business. A portrait of Mahomed hangs in the Brighton Museum, commemorating this man who helped merge the cultures of his two homelands." The doodle itself shows a portraiture of Sake Dean Mahomed on a bottle surrounded by Indian herbs and spices. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Prime Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) president HD Deve Gowda on Tuesday said the perceived 'political crisis' in Karnataka was a just media hype. He also downplayed the importance of two independent MLAs withdrawing support from the Congress-JDS government led by Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, who happens to be his son. Speaking to ANI, Deve Gowda said: "The two MLAs are not affiliated with any party. They are independents. There is no need to hype it up so much. It is the media who wants to play a certain role. It is all a media hype." He said that the Congress had decided to fill up the vacancies of six ministers, board and corporation members and political secretaries in the state and were unable to accommodate a few people including the two independent MLAs. The former Prime Minister further said the BJP's move to camp all their elected legislators in a Gurugram hotel in Haryana highlights their sense of insecurity and their inability to "keep all 104 MLAs together." "JDS members are all here. We are not going to shift them. They are in their own villages. Even the Congress MLAs have not gone anywhere. Kumaraswamy has also contacted two independent MLAs. They said they are not joining the BJP. They have made it amply clear," Deve Gowda said. Expressing confidence that the Congress-JDS alliance government will last its full five-year term, Deve Gowda dismissed rumours that MLAs from the coalition government may join the BJP. "Who will go? Who can trust Yeddyurappa firstly," he asked. Earlier in the day, two Independent MLAs, H Nagesh, and R Shankar withdrew their support to the JDS-Congress government. In the 224-member Assembly, JDS has 37 MLAs while the Congress has 80. The coalition has the support of a few Independent legislators in the House, where the majority figure is 113. Chief Minister Kumaraswamy was unfazed by the development, saying he is "totally relaxed." "If two MLAs withdraw their support, what will be the numbers? I am totally relaxed. I know my strength. Whatever has been going on in the media for a week, I am enjoying," he told the reporters. The Congress has alleged that three of its MLAs were taken to Mumbai by the BJP in a bid to lure them to their fold. The BJP, while dismissing these claims, has alleged poaching attempts by the Congress. The BJP has housed all its 104 MLAs in a hotel in Gurugram, on the outskirts of Delhi, because of the fear of the alleged poaching. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The 38-year-old K Dhanya Sanal, spokesperson for the Union Ministry of Defence, on Tuesday became the first woman to reach Agasthyarkudam peak, a biodiversity hotspot and the second highest peak of Kerala. Sanal started trekking from Bonakkad on Monday after the Kerala High Court lifted the ban on women's trekking to the hilltop on December 9 last year. As many as 100 women registered themselves for trekking this year but Dhanya Sanal was the first woman turned up for trekking. Dhanya reached the Athirumala base camp around 3 pm. "The first 7 kilometers was not that much hard but after that, 4 kilometers was a very tough terrain called tropical mountain forest. It was a very steep terrain. After reaching the base camp, we took a halt. The Forest Department has arranged accommodation and two women staff too," said Sanal. "Strong wind was blowing throughout the night. Today morning we started trekking. It was a very tough day today," she added. In an exclusive interview to ANI, Sanal, while trekking to the Agasthyarkoodam on Monday, had said that she would follow the instructions given by the state's Forest Department and would avoid going into the prohibited areas where the tribal people are residing. "I will take the pathway and will not go into the prohibited areas and hurt the sentiments of the locals," she told ANI. According to media reports, this peak was banned for the women trekkers as for the Kani tribal people the hilltop is the final resting place of the sage Agasthya, who holds similar importance as Lord Ayyappa at Sabarimala temple. Kani tribal people contend that if the women trekkers are allowed to climb the hill top, it will violate their religious beliefs and customs. Unhappy with the HC order, the Kani tribe, which lives in the foothills of Agasthyarkoodam, is also holding protests at the base camp in Bonacaud. The 'unofficial ban' was lifted by the Kerala High Court on December 9 last year after hearing a petition jointly filed by three NGOs, namely, Pennoruma, Kannur; Women Integration and Growth Through Sports, Malappuram; and Anweshi Women's Counselling Centre, Kozhikode), seeking the lifting of ban on women's trekking to the hilltop. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Ministry of Defence on Tuesday dismissed Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Somnath Bharti's comment regarding the cancellation of allowances being given to Army officers and called it completely untrue and defamatory. Alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has issued orders to cancel 52 allowances given to Army officers, Bharti had earlier tweeted: "Was shocked to learn from an Army officer who visited me today that Mr Modi has issued instructions not only to cancel 52 allowances being given to Army officers but has directed to recover earlier allowances also. What sort of nationalism is this? Is it true N Sitharaman Ji?" However, taking cognizance of the assertions made on social media, the Defence Ministry quoted AAP legislators tweet on Tuesday evening and termed it as "false and malicious". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amidst the high-voltage political drama in Karnataka, Congress leader and Karnataka Minister Zameer Ahmed Khan said that his party MLAs went to Mumbai for holidays and will be back by Wednesday. "Our MLAs went to Mumbai for holidays; they will be back by tomorrow. As per media, the number is increasing but according to us, it is decreasing. For us, it has come down to 2 from 15-16. Akalmand ko ishaara kaafi hai," said Zameer Ahmed Khan. Earlier in the day, two Independent MLAs H Nagesh and R Shankar withdrew support to the coalition government headed by JD(S)-Congress in Karnataka, adding a new twist to the political drama underway in the state over the last two days. In the 224-member Assembly, JD(S) has 37 seats and its coalition partner has 80 seats, making the combine's total of 117 seats in the House. The combine also has support of one BSP in the House where the majority figure is 113. The withdrawal of support by the two Independent MLAs will not affect the stability of the government but it comes against the backdrop of a political drama wherein the Congress and Opposition BJP are leveling charges of horse-trading. The Congress has alleged that its three MLAs were taken to Mumbai by the BJP as part of luring them into their fold. The BJP, while dismissing these claims, has alleged poaching attempts by the Congress. The BJP, in fact, has housed all its 104 MLAs in a hotel in Gurugram, on the outskirts of Delhi, because of the fear of alleged poaching. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) RSS leader Indresh Kumar on Tuesday said that the Congress party created hurdle on the way of Ram Temple by adopting the delay tactics in the Supreme Court. "The Congress party adopted the delay tactics on Ram Mandir issue," said Indresh Kumar. "The Congress celebrates Rama Navami but has given affidavit in the Supreme Court that Ram was never born and is an imaginary character. This is the biggest sin of the Congress party and they should withdraw the affidavit to get free from this sin," said Indresh Kumar. He said that the second hurdle on way of Ram-Temple is the affidavit by the ideologically left people which says that excavation should be done on the site. "They want that excavation should be done to find out what was there. They say that if anything related to Ram was found they will withdraw the affidavit," he said. He said that it is the responsibility of all Indians to find solution to Ram Temple issue and Congress party is the biggest hurdle on its way. While saying that the behaviour of some judges is the third hurdle in the way of Ram Temple. "Instead of giving justice they have delayed it and even said that this is not the issue there are more important issues," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress Core Group's meeting, which took place on Tuesday here at 15, Gurdwara Rakabganj Road, had a detailed discussion on the preparedness for the coming Lok Sabha elections among other political issues. Sources said the meeting discussed the coming together of Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh, where they have decided to contest 38 seats each out of a total of 80, while on two seats-Amethi and Rae Bareli-they have decided not to put up their candidates. They have also kept two seats for smaller parties. According to sources, the meeting which went on for nearly three hours also discussed the prevailing political situation in Karnataka, where the BJP and Congress-JDS leaders are accusing each other of poaching their MLAs. Sources said the Core Group would meet again to discuss further the party's roadmap for the coming Lok Sabha polls. Since Congress president Rahul Gandhi is out of the country, the Core Group did not take any call either on "Uttar Pradesh or any other major issues related to the Lok Sabha elections." Congress Core Group consists of party president Rahul Gandhi, former Defence Minister AK Antony, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel, General Secretary KC Venugopal, General Secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad, former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh, P Chidambaram, Randeep Singh Surjewala, and others. "The discussion also took place on how to strengthen the party at the booth level, galvanising the party cadres for the Lok Sabha polls, strategy for retaining the edge in the states where the party won recently held Assembly polls," sources said. Congress president Rahul Gandhi has already said that his party would fight with "full force" in Uttar Pradesh to defeat the BJP and its ally-Apna Dal, which had won 73 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The party's UP affairs in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad has also spoken about an extensive campaign plan for the state and over a dozen rallies are expected to be addressed by Congress president Rahul Gandhi in February. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress Core Group's meeting begins here at 15, Gurdwara Rakabganj Road. The meeting is likely to discuss among other things Mission 2019 Lok Sabha poll and the situation arising out of the SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh where 80 seats are at stake. Congress Core Group consists of party president Rahul Gandhi, former Defence Minister AK Antony, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel, General Secretary KC Venugopal, General Secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad, former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh, and others. Sources have told ANI that the issues related to a possible alliance, poll strategy, and organisational structure will come up for discussion during the meeting. "The discussion will also take place on how to strengthen the party at the booth level, galvanising the party cadres for the Lok Sabha polls, strategy for retaining the edge in the states where the party won recently held Assembly polls," they said. Sources said the main focus of the meeting would be Uttar Pradesh, where the SP-BSP has ditched the Congress instead of forging a grand alliance with the grand old party. The two regional parties, which announced their alliance on Saturday, have left two seats for the Congress-Amethi and Rae Bareli. "For the last four days, senior party leaders have been working out the plan for UP battle," added sources. Congress president Rahul Gandhi has already said that his party would fight with "full force" in Uttar Pradesh to defeat the BJP and its ally-Apna Dal, which had won 73 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The party's UP affairs in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad has also spoken about an extensive campaign plan for the state and over a dozen rallies are expected to be addressed by Congress president Rahul Gandhi in February. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that the conduct of Kerala's Left Democratic Front (LDF) government on Sabarimala temple issue "will go down in history as one of the most shameful behaviours by any party and government." Addressing a rally here, he also slammed Congress-led UDF, describing it as another side of the same coin. The Prime Minister said, "The conduct of Kerala LDF government on Sabarimala issue will go down in history as one of the most shameful behaviours by any party and government. We knew that communists do not respect Indian history, culture, and spirituality but nobody imagined that they will have such hatred." Firing a fresh salvo on the Congress party, he said: "The United Democratic Front (UDF) is no better. Congress has multiple stands-they say one thing in Parliament but a different thing in Pathanamthitta. I challenge the UDF to clearly state their stand on the issue. Your double standards have been exposed. Our stand on this issue has always been clear. And, the actions of our party match our words." He further stated that the BJP has always supported the people of Kerala, adding that the people and their aspirations are a matter of conviction for his party. "Left and Congress make tall claims about respect to gender justice and social justice but their actions are exactly the opposite. The NDA government is working towards abolishing the Triple Talaq. Who is opposing us on this? Communists and the Congress," Prime Minister Modi said. "A few days ago, our government had the historic opportunity to pass legislation that gives 10 per cent quota to poor people from the general category. We believe that every Indian, irrespective of caste, creed or community deserves equal opportunity," the Prime Minister added. While saying that the UDF and the LDF are two sides of the same coin, Prime Minister Modi said that both are the same in terms of corruption, casteism, communalism, ignoring the poor and political violence. With the General Elections on the horizon, the Prime Minister's rally is construed as a part of the BJP's focus on increasing their tally of Lok Sabha seats in the state, as the party looks to retain power for the next five years. Kerala has been dominated by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-led LDF and the Congress party led-UDF for the past two decades and has traditionally not been one of the BJP's strongholds. The BJP had failed to win even a single out of 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala in the 2014 General Elections. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Canada has updated its travel advisory for China to warn citizens about the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws after a court sentenced a Canadian tourist to death on Monday. "Exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws," the note reads, citing "death penalty, penalties for drug-related offences." This comes after Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was given a death penalty on drug-smuggling charges after appealing the initial 15-year jail term. He will now have 10 days to challenge the ruling. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was extremely concerned about this turn of events, which coincided with a process in Canada against a senior executive of China's telecoms giant Huawei, Meng Wanzhou. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Border Security Force (BSF) officer on Tuesday was killed in a sniper attack from across the border in Samba sector of Jammu and Kashmir. The officer, identified as Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad, was evacuated to MH Satwari in Jammu where he succumbed to his injuries, according to a release issued by the BSF. The incident took place at around 10:50 am when the BSF troops in Samba sector were carrying out border domination and were suddenly fired upon by Pakistani snipers, resulting in grievous injuries to Prasad. The BSF has offered condolences to the family of the deceased. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After two Independent MLAs withdrew their support to the JD(S)-Congress government headed by Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy in the state, Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara on Tuesday accused the BJP of indulging in horse-trading of MLAs. "However, there is no threat to the stability of the coalition government in the state," said Parameshwara. "We have been saying for long that the BJP is luring our MLAs through money and power but their attempts to destabilise the government will fail. Our government is stable," he added. Two Independent MLAs-H Nagesh and R Shankar-on Tuesday withdrew their support to the JD(S)-Congress government headed by Chief Minister Kumaraswamy. In the 224-member Assembly, JD(S) has 37 MLAs and its coalition partner Congress has 80. It has the support of some Independents in the House where the majority figure is 113. Nagesh and Shankar wrote separate letters to Governor Bajubhai Bala conveying their decision to withdraw support to the government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Bombay High Court on Tuesday sought response from all the parties in connection with the ongoing indefinite strike by BEST employees here. The high court asked all the parties to decide about the ongoing BEST strike till 11 am on Wednesday and inform the court about their decision. The lawyer representing BEST also said that BEST is ready to give 10 step increments to employees which will be implemented from February 2019. Mumbai's civic transport, comprising a workforce of 32,000 people, has been demanding the merger of BEST budget with 'A' budget of BMC. They are also seeking resolution of the issue of employee service residences and recruitment. When the talks with the authorities failed, the employees resorted to the strike. In the wake of the ongoing strike, locals in Mumbai are forced to bear the brunt of higher fares as they now have to opt for a private taxi or an auto-rickshaw to commute. Moreover, rides to busy areas such as Churchgate, Lower Parel, BKC, Andheri, and Goregaon are costing more than the rest of the places. BEST, the lifeline of Mumbai has a fleet size of as many as 3,200 buses. It the second largest transport system in the metropolis after local trains which ferry more than 70 lakh commuters on a daily basis. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Human Rights Commission of India (NHRC) issued a notice to the Rajasthan government over reports of separation of a baby's head from its body during delivery in Jaisalmer district on 10 January. The head of the baby was later removed from the mother's womb in a hospital in Jodhpur. On January 12, a male nurse working at a government medical centre 'decapitated a baby while pulling too hard during a difficult birth'. At the time of delivery, the nurse pulled the foetus so carelessly that it resulted in the splitting of the baby's body into two parts. After the incident, the nurse, along with a colleague, deposited the lower part of the foetus in the centre's mortuary and asked the family of the lady to take her to Jaisalmer for further treatment. Another mistake that the Ramgarh health centre committed was lying to the gynaecologist at Jodhpur Umaid hospital that they have finished the delivery. The Ramgarh's hospital staff left the placenta in the womb. Later, a team of doctors headed by Dr Ravindra Sankhla operated the victim again and found that the foetus' head is in the womb. The doctors then informed the victim's kin about the incident. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) World number one Simona Halep cleared the first hurdle of her campaign at the Australian Open with a thrilling victory over Estonian player Kaia Kanepi at the Margaret Court Arena on Tuesday. Halep rallied from a set down to defeat Kanepi 6-7(2), 6-4, 6-2, booking her spot in the second round. In spite of trailing by a set and a break after losing serve in the third game of the second set, the Romanian bounced back to dominate Kanepi and didn't look back for the rest of the match. "I can take a lot of confidence because it is not easy facing Kaia. It was a great match; I think both of us played really well for first round. It was a tough draw, but for sure, it is really important for me coming not very confident into this tournament," Australian Open quoted Halep, as saying. Halep, who rested up in the off-season after a lower back injury curtailed her 2018 campaign, added: "I just took the risk coming late here, no regrets, staying home more because I wanted. I felt like I need." The top seed will next meet Hobart International champion Sofia Kenin. "I just want to give my best to find the rhythm. I feel like I am one step forward. I am not putting pressure on myself any more with the results, but I am still motivated. I feel better, what it comes now, it is a bonus," she concluded. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) All ration cards have been digitised and around 80 per cent of them have been linked with Aadhaar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday. "In the last four years, we have cancelled around 6 crore fake ration cards, gas connections and scholarships. We plugged this leakage, saving crores of money," said Prime Minister Modi while addressing a public meeting here. "All ration cards have been digitised and around 80 per cent of ration cards have been linked with Aadhaar," he added. The Prime Minister said that projects worth more than Rs. 1,500 crore in sectors like education, connectivity, culture and tourism, that were kickstarted today will not only spur the growth of Odisha but entire eastern India. "In a month, more than Rs 20,000 crore of development projects have been either inaugurated or initiated in Odisha," he said. The Prime Minister also said that Odisha got more than Rs 4000 crore due to Centre's decision to create the District Mineral Fund. He said the amount would help in the development of the tribal areas where mining is carried out. "Unfortunately the state government has not been able to spend the money for the welfare of tribals," he added. Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister inaugurated the Balangir-Bichhupali railway line. Furthermore, the Prime Minister laid the foundation stone for a permanent building at the Kendriya Vidyalaya at Sonepur and inaugurated new Passport Sewa Kendras at Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapur, Puri, Phulbani, Bargarh and Balangir. Apart from inaugurating the railway line, the Prime Minister launched six Ministry of Railways projects, including the launch of 813 kilometres of electrified lines from Jharsuguda to Vizianagaram and from Sambalpur to Angul. Prime Minister Modi also dedicated a Multi-Modal Logistics Park (MMLP) Jharsuguda, which will facilitate Import/Export and Domestic Cargo, including Private Freight Traffic (PFT). This is the Prime Minister's third visit to Odisha from the past month. On his first visit, to Khurdha in December, the Prime Minister launched Rs 14,523 crore worth projects in the state and during his second visit on January 5, he inaugurated projects worth Rs 4,733 crores, taking the total amount of projects in Odisha to Rs. 20,801 crore in the past month. During Tuesday's visit, projects worth Rs 1,545 crore were inaugurated by the Prime Minister. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India defeated Australia by six wickets in the second one-day international (ODI) at the Adelaide Oval on Tuesday to level the three-match series 1-1. Chasing a target of 299, India openers Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma contributed 47 runs for the first wicket. However, on a fuller delivery from Jason Behrendorff, Dhawan's (32) entertaining knock came to an end. Sharing the crease with the Hitman, skipper Virat Kohli walked in and continued ticking the scoreboard. Rohit (43) played a crucial 54-run partnership with Kohli before getting caught at the deep forward square by Peter Handscomb. The skipper then built a 59-run stand with Ambati Rayudu for the third wicket. However, Rayudu (24) played a poor shot to deep mid-wicket and Marcus Stoinis took an easy catch. With Kohli and former skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the middle, the duo put together 82 runs for the fourth wicket. Kohli hammered 104 runs off 112 balls, which marked his 39th ODI century and 24th in run chase before giving a catch to Glenn Maxwell at deep midwicket. Following the end of a brilliant inning, Dinesh Karthik (25*) came out to share the crease with Dhoni (55*) and registered the victory in the last-over thriller with four balls remaining. For the hosts, Australian bowlers couldn't make an impact as Jason Behrendorff, Jhye Richardson, Marcus Stoinis and Glenn Maxwell managed to pick up a wicket apiece. India and Australia will meet for the third and final ODI in Melbourne on January 18. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred the hearing for four weeks on a plea filed by Zakia Jafri against the clean chit given to Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, for his alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots cases. A bench of the apex court, headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar, today posted the matter for further hearing after four weeks. Zakia Jafri had approached the top court last year challenging the Gujarat High Court's order of October 2017 that had upheld Special Investigation Team's (SIT) clean chit to him for his alleged role. Zakia had lost her husband Ehsan Jafri, a former Congress parliamentarian, in the Gujarat riots in 2002. After the Gujarat High Court rejected her plea, Zakia moved the Supreme Court seeking justice for her husband. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two security personnel were injured in ceasefire violations across the Line of Control (LoC) here on Tuesday. One army and one BSF jawans were injured in the cross border firing by Pakistan in Sunderbani sector of Rajouri district, police said. The injured security personnel have been shifted to the Army hospital for treatment. The Indian Army is currently retaliating to the firing. Earlier in the day also Pakistani Army had violated ceasefire in Hiranagar and Sunderbani sectors of Jammu and Kashmir. In Hiranagar sector, one Border Security Force (BSF) personnel had sustained injuries due to the cross-border firing. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Donald Trump's daughter and advisor Ivanka will help the United States choose its candidate to lead the but she will not be the one, the White House said on Monday. abruptly announced last week that he would cut short his tenure as president of the Washington-based global development lender more than three years before his second term was to end. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney "have asked to help manage the US nomination process as she's worked closely with the World Bank's leadership for the past two years," said Jessica Ditto, the White House Deputy Director of Communications. However, Ditto said reports that "is under consideration are false." London's The Financial Times reported on Friday that both and Washington's former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley were among possible US candidates to replace Kim. Other names being floated include Treasury Undersecretary for Affairs David Malpass and Mark Green, head of the US Agency for Development, the newspaper reported. Through an unwritten post-war agreement with Europe, the has always been led by an American while a European has always been in charge of the IMF. However, that is likely to face a serious challenge both because President Trump has shown little interest in, if not antagonism to the Bank, and has upended the traditional alliances that make the agreement possible. Developing nations also have been increasing the pressure on the institutions to name a leader from an emerging market country. Ivanka Trump in 2017 was the driving force behind a $1 billion, Saudi-supported fund to promote entrepreneurship by women. The World Bank Board said on Thursday it would start accepting nominations for a new leader early next month and name a replacement for Kim by mid-April. The military is taking on a new and extended role on the US-Mexico border, the said on Monday. At the request of the Department of Homeland Security, the agreed to provide personnel to operate security cameras and to lay about 240 kilometres of concertina wire between official ports of entry, officials said. The military also will continue to fly aircraft in support of Customs and Border Protection personnel. "DOD is transitioning its support at the southwestern border from hardening ports of entry to mobile surveillance and detection, as well as concertina wire emplacement between ports of entry," the said in a statement. Troops last fall put down about 110 kilometres of concertina wire. An official familiar with the agreement said the Pentagon has not yet determined how many additional active-duty troops will be required to carry out the additional work. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that were not made public after Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan approved the plan. There are about 2,350 active-duty troops performing the border mission, which began October 30 and initially was to end December 15. It was extended to January 31 before DHS submitted a new request for help December 27 and will now stretch to the end of September. ALSO READ: Trump asks how many Pakistanis tried to cross into US through Mexico border The official said it is possible that National Guard troops could perform some of the aviation support. The military's current role at the border has been widely debated, in part because it began just days before the congressional midterm elections in November and was attacked by critics as a political ploy. The military is prohibited by law from performing domestic law enforcement tasks but has periodically provided assistance to civilian border security authorities. British lawmakers were preparing to deliver their verdict on Prime Minister Theresa May's divorce deal with the on Tuesday after more than two years of political upheaval. All signs point to it receiving a resounding thumbs-down from Parliament, a development that would throw British further into turmoil, just 10 weeks before Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29. Despite a last-ditch plea from May for legislators to give the deal "a second look," it faces deep opposition, primarily because of measures designed to prevent the reintroduction of border controls between the UK's Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. Pro- lawmakers say the deal will leave Britain bound indefinitely to EU rules, while pro-EU politicians favor an even closer economic relationship with the bloc. That leaves the agreement facing likely defeat on a day that could bring a very British mix of high drama, low insults and convoluted parliamentary procedure. Environment Secretary Michael Gove urged colleagues not to let their visions of a perfect get in the way of what he said was a good deal. "The real danger is if people do not vote for the government this evening, we face either a no-deal Brexit, with the short-term economic damage that would bring, or worse: no at all," Gove told the BBC. Lawmakers are scheduled to vote Tuesday evening, after the last of five days of debate on the deal struck between May's government and the EU in November. May postponed a vote on the deal in December to avoid a resounding defeat, and there are few signs sentiment has changed significantly since then. ALSO READ: Brexit: May faces biggest Parliamentary defeat for a British govt in 95 yrs Reassurances from EU leaders that the Irish border "backstop" is intended as a temporary measure of last resort have failed to win over many skeptics. And the EU is adamant that it will not renegotiate the 585-page withdrawal agreement. In a sign of the widespread opposition, Parliament's unelected upper chamber, the House of Lords, voted by 321 to 152 late Monday in favor of a motion saying May's deal would damage Britain's economic prosperity, internal security and global influence, while also rejecting the idea of leaving the EU without a deal. The Lords' vote has no direct effect on the fate of May's deal. May says rejecting the agreement would lead either to a reversal of Brexit overturning voters' decision in a 2016 referendum or to Britain leaving the bloc without a deal, a course she said would damage the country's economy, security and unity. Former education minister Nicky Morgan, who said she planned to vote for May's agreement, warned that the U.K. wasn't ready for the economic upheaval of a no-deal Brexit. "There are millions of people in this country watching Westminster and Parliament very anxiously today," she told the BBC. ALSO READ: Ahead of Brexit deal, here's minute-by-minute guide to UK Parliament votes If Parliament votes down the deal, May has until the following Monday to come up with a new proposal. So far, May has refused publicly to speculate on a possible "Plan B." The main opposition Labour Party says it will call a no-confidence vote in the government if the deal is defeated in an attempt to trigger a general election. The party has not disclosed the timing of such a motion, which could come as soon as Tuesday night. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told colleagues on Monday that a no-confidence vote was "coming soon. US on Monday spoke to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, where they discussed the current situation in Syria and the economic development between the two countries, a day after he threatened to "devastate" Turkey's economy if it fought with the Kurds. Taking to his Twitter handle, Trump wrote, "Spoke w/ of Turkey to advise where we stand on all matters including our last two weeks of success in fighting the remnants of ISIS, and 20 mile safe zone. Also spoke about economic development between the U.S. & Turkey - great potential to substantially expand!" Spoke w/ of Turkey to advise where we stand on all matters including our last two weeks of success in fighting the remnants of ISIS, and 20 mile safe zone. Also spoke about economic development between the U.S. & Turkey - great potential to substantially expand! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2019 The White House said that during the phone call, Trump discussed cooperation with Turkey to address Ankara's concerns in northeast Syria. "The President expressed the desire to work together to address Turkey's security concerns in northeast Syria while stressing the importance to the that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian Democratic Forces with whom we have fought to defeat ISIS," CNN quoted White House press secretary Sarah Sanders saying. According to Anadolu News Agency, backed Trump's call on withdrawing all troops from the war-torn country, saying Turkey supported the decision and extended support to the US. Erdogan said that Turkey does not have issues with Kurds and that "Turkey aims to fight all terror organisations including ISIS, PKK (The Kurdistan Workers Party) and its cross-border extensions that are a threat to its national security." On Sunday, while giving a stark threat to Turkey over the future of Kurds in the region and reiterating that Washington began the pullout of its troops from Syria, Trump tweeted, "Starting the long overdue pullout from Syria while hitting the little remaining ISISterritorial caliphate hard, and from many directions. Will attack again from existing nearby base if it reforms. Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20 mile safe zone...." "....Likewise, do not want the Kurds to provoke Turkey. Russia, and Syria have been the biggest beneficiaries of the long term US policy of destroying in Syria - natural enemies. We also benefit but it is now time to bring our troops back home. Stop the ENDLESS WARS!" he added. Turkey views some Kurdish groups as terrorist organisations operating in the region. Apart from that, the Kurds, an Iranian ethnic group, found in parts of Syria, Iraq, and Turkey, make up the majority of US-allied fighters fighting in the against President Bashar al-Assad's regime. ALSO READ: 'Will devastate Turkey if they hit Kurds,' warns Trump after US exits Syria In response, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu slammed Trump's comments, saying that Ankara is not afraid of any threat and asserted that it was not an enemy of the Kurds. "As for Donald Trump's threat language, we have repeatedly said that we will not be afraid of any threat. ... You cannot have any result from threatening Turkey economically. We need to see how we can solve this problem together. There are economic difficulties on one side and terror on the other," he said. President Trump has frequently called the situation at the southern border with Mexico a crisis and insists that building his long-promised border wall will fix it. Here are some of Mr. Trumps most common assertions of a crisis, and the reality of what we know about immigrants and the border. TRUMP -- We cant have people pouring into our country like they have over the last 10 years. THE REALITY Illegal border crossings have been declining for nearly two decades. In 2017, border-crossing apprehensions were at their lowest point since ... British parliament on Wednesday rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal agreed with the European Union (EU). With just over two months to go until the scheduled Brexit date of March 29, this leaves Britain in limbo and the world on tenterhooks about what will happen next. MPs from all parties had opposed the agreement for different reasons, according to agency reports. On the eve of the vote, May had urged them to look again. "No, it is not perfect. And yes, it is a compromise," she said. "But when the history books are written, people will look ... The Trump administration has been clear about its view of China. A 2017 national security strategy document called China a revisionist power attempting to reorder international politics to suit its interests. Its difficult to think otherwise given Beijings military buildup, its attempts to undermine American influence and power, its retaliations against American allies such as Canada, and its economic actions. How to respond is more controversial. After years of unsuccessful talks and handshake deals with Beijing, the United States should change course ... Prime Minister Theresa May is set to see her Brexit deal rejected in the biggest Parliamentary defeat for a British government in 95 years after her last minute pleas for support appeared to fall on deaf ears. The battle now is over not whether May loses, but how badly. At least 70 of her Conservative Party, as well as sometime allies in the Democratic Unionist Party, are publicly pledged to join opposition Members of Parliament in voting against her agreement Tuesday. That would translate into a defeat by a margin of 150 or more, the largest in over a century. Even if some abstain, ... The ayes to the right... Thats how Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow will begin announcing the result of the vote that could determine Britains future. But amid the flummery of the British Parliament, where members cannot address each other by name, and the security is provided by men in tights, how can you tell whos actually won and lost? Even veterans of the system can be caught out by procedure. Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor expects India to continue to be the largest source market for overseas arrivals in 2019 with a growth of around 10 per cent year-on year, a senior official said on Tuesday. In 2018, the capital city of had around 3.35 lakh arrivals from India up to October. "We expect India to continue to be the largest overseas market for arrivals in 2019. We are expecting around 10 per cent growth in the number of Indian arrivals in 2019," Department of Culture and Tourism, Travel Trade and Market Development Department Acting Director Anthony Rippingale told PTI. As of October 2018, India is the largest source market for overseas arrivals to Abu Dhabi, he added. "The growth we are expecting is despite this being an election year in India. This is on account of long historical ties between the two countries with strong person-to-person contact," Rippingale said. When asked about the focus areas that the department is targeting here, he said: "We are focussing on all the segments such as MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) segment, leisure segment specially the families and on weddings and honeymoon segment." The average stay per person in is 3 to 4 nights, he added. On the initiatives being taken to promote Abu Dhabi as a preferred destination, Rippingale said: "We are expanding sales team in India. We are also creating regional sales teams to cater to the specific needs of various regions in India." The efforts are also being made to promote culture tourism. Focus is also to promote cruise tourism. The efforts are being made to support the trade partners, he added. "Apart from these initiatives, we are also connecting directly to the consumers. India is a key staregic focus market for Abu Dhabi," Rippingale said. The on Tuesday accused the Modi government of systematic decimation of the economy and jeopardising the future of youths, farmers and the marginalised through its decisions. spokesperson Gaurav Vallabh demanded the government come out with a white paper on Mudra loans to ascertain in which sector there was default. He accused the government of unleashing anarchy in the country's economy, destroying the unorganised sector and worsening the agrarian crisis. The government has "ill-treated" the farmers, who are getting less prices for their produce and are paying more for their daily needs, he said. "As the government enters its last lap, it is crystal clear that it has unleashed an economic anarchy of 'jumlanomics' and wreaked havoc in the lives of the people. It is high time that PM Modi reflect on his unwitting decisions and apologise to the people. Ninety days are now left, and the people have already made up their mind to vote out the BJP," he told reporters here. He said the falling farm-produce prices and rising non-farm prices was causing rural distress, frauds, fake news. "The government is single-handedly responsible for destroying, damaging and demolishing the Indian economy, thereby severely jeopardising the future of youths, farmers and the marginalised. There is no doubt that the twin assaults on the economy -- demonetisation and a flawed -- finished jobs and completely decimated the unorganised sector," he said. Vallabh alleged the Modi government's gross financial mismanagement was killing consumption and purchasing power, encouraging deflation, hurting exports, stagnating investments, terminating manufacturing growth and lowered the faith of the people in the banking sector. "There are no jobs. Farmers are in extreme distress. The rural sector is anguished. The poor are suffering. The countdown for Modi government's exit has begun, even though it is trying to clutch at straws by announcing one 'jumla' after another," he said. Charging the government with dealing a severe blow to the socio-economics of the country, he said there are no jobs, the unemployment rate has increased to a 27-month high of 7.38 per cent in December 2018. In the last one year, 11 million people have lost their jobs, 30 million people are looking for jobs and unemployment rose to a four-year high post-demonetisation. Taking on the government over joblessness, he said while the prime minister claims there is no 'data on jobs', a report prepared by the former Niti Aayog's VC Arvind Panagariya on 'jobs data' has been "deliberately kept in the cold storage by the Modi Government" which is said to have painted a "grim picture" for job creation. The government has also held back labour bureau's employment/unemployment report for 2016-17, he alleged, noting that HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar made an "obnoxiously bizarre remark" on the unemployment crisis where he allegedly said "people who don't work out of choice, cannot be considered unemployed". "This comment not only mocks our youth, but also rubs salt on their wounds inflicted by the Modi government. Earlier, we have heard horribly repulsive comments by PM Modi himself on how opening a 'pakoda' stall is also job creation," he alleged. He said the wholesale price index (WPI) for December revealed that the WPI for the sub-component for primary food articles has been negative for six consecutive months beginning July 2018 which means the price at which farmers are selling their products are falling. Fall in nominal rural incomes due to falling prices and low rural wage growth are bound to put a squeeze on consumption demand in the economy, Vallabh said. He said the worst agrarian crisis in 20 years created due to "the demonetisation scam and Gabbar Singh Tax" has forced the government "to bandage the situation" by giving interest-free loans and income support schemes ahead of the general elections. "Like all other schemes, this is a hurried scheme prepared by a panic-stricken Modi government. This will only turn out to be an electoral 'jumla'," he said. He also said that India's foreign direct investment (FDI) outflows more than doubled in 2017 to $11.3 billion while FDI inflows fell 9 per cent to $40 billion during the year, according to the latest World Investment Report, 2018, released by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). "Which means even though ease of doing business ranking is getting better, economic conditions created by the Modi government are not conducive for private investment," he said. Finance Minister (FM) Arun Jaitley has gone to the US for a regular medical check-up, but he will be back within a week. Sources in the government said he would present the interim Budget for the next fiscal year (2019-20) on February 1. As the FM is expected to be back by this weekend, no one has been given charge of the ministry, said another official, adding that the ministers of state for finance were in charge. A source in the government said Jaitley left on Sunday night. This is Jaitleys first overseas visit since his kidney ailment was confirmed in ... The in its meeting scheduled on Wednesday is likely to consider fund infusion in ( Bank), sources said. The meeting, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, may take up a host of issues including a capital infusion of Rs 500 crore in Bank, sources said. The infusion would help the bank expand its business, sources added. The government infused Rs 500 crore in Bank last financial year. Established by the Government of India, commenced operations as a purveyor of export credit, mirroring global export credit agencies. It serves as a growth engine for industries and small and medium enterprises through a wide range of products and services. This includes import of technology and export product development, export production, export marketing, pre-shipment and post-shipment and overseas investment. In a blow to the Congress-JDS coalition in Karnataka, two MLAs Tuesday withdrew support to the government headed by H D H Nagesh (Independent) and R Shankar (KPJP) have written to governor Vajubhai Vala conveying their decision. In separate identical letters, available to the media in Bengaluru, the lawmakers said they were withdrawing support extended to the coalition government of the Congress and the JDS with immediate effect. The MLAs, who are now staying in a Mumbai hotel, requested the governor to take "necessary action." Both the Congress and the BJP have been accusing each other of trying to lure legislators. The BJP MLAs are presently camping in Gurgaon, amid reports that some Congress and Independent MLAs are staying at a hotel in Mumbai. With the loss of 2 MLAs, the strength of the ruling coalition is down to 118 in the 224-member Assembly. With 104 lawmakers, the BJP is far short of majority. Justice Kailash Gambhir, former Delhi High Court judge, has written a letter to President Ram Nath Kovind against the collegium's recommendation to elevate Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna to the apex court by superseding 32 judges. The letter written on Monday mentions that Justice Khanna is the nephew of late Justice H R Khanna who was superseded after he gave a dissenting verdict during the Emergency by not supporting the view that even a fundamental right can be curtailed in certain circumstances. Just like Justice H R Khanna's supersession was termed as a "black day" in the history of the Indian judiciary, it would be another black day when there will be supersession of 32 judges who are senior to Justice Sanjiv Khanna and many of them maybe no less meritorious and men of integrity than him. The letter comes in the wake of the January 10 collegium recommendation for elevation of Justice Maheshwari, who is presently the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, and Justice Sanjiv Khanna, a judge in the Delhi High Court, as the judges of the apex court. Retired Justice Gambhir, a senior advocate, urged the president that the credibility and independence of the judiciary be preserved and "let another historical blunder not be committed". He said when he saw the news on TV channels on January 11 that the collegium has recommended elevation of Justices Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna to the apex court, at first, he disbelieved it. However, he saw that on legal news websites there was a detailed coverage of this event, including the decision of collegium placed on the website of the "To reiterate what you may be aware, it states that the collegium has discussed the names of Chief Justices as well as senior puisne judges of the high courts, eligible for elevation to the and is of the considered view that at present the said two persons are more deserving and suitable in all respects than other Chief Justices and senior puisne judges of high courts for being appointed as judges of the Supreme Court of India. "The decision of the collegium also refers to certain decisions taken by it on December 12, 2018, but since the required consultation could not be undertaken as the winter vacation of the intervened and by the time the court reopened, the composition of the collegium underwent a change," the two-page letter stated. It added that the news breaking all traditions has sent shock waves to the entire legal and judicial fraternity and termed the "earth shattering" decision to supersede 32 judges as appalling and outrageous. "This is appalling and outrageous that such an earth shattering decision has been taken to supersede as many as 32 judges which include many Chief Justices, casting aspersions on their intellect, merit and integrity," it said. Justice Gambhir also wrote that Justice Sanjiv Khanna, the son of late Justice D R Khanna, and nephew of a highly respected man in the legal world, former Supreme Court Justice H R Khanna, who had given a dissent judgement in ADM Jabalpur matter. "The talk in the legal corridors is that the elevation of Justice (Sanjiv) Khanna is with a view to pay respect to the legacy left by his great uncle and is a tribute to his great ideals, principles, judicial philosophy and most of all, to the courageous stand taken by him in the habeas corpus case. "We all know that Justice (H R) Khanna stood as a rock in his known dissenting and minority voice and refused to bow down to the majority voice of four senior-most judges who went on to compromise the life and liberty of citizens, permitting unrestricted powers of the government for detention during the Emergency," the letter said. It stated that Justice H R Khanna knew when he signed his dissenting judgement that he was signing away his future chief justiceship. As a fait accompli, when the time came, Justice H R Khanna was superseded and in his place Justice M H Beg was appointed as the Chief Justice of India, it said. Justice Gambhir said Justice H R Khanna resigned so as to give a slap on the face of all those votary of playing with the independence of the judiciary and to respect the seniority of judges. Many term the supersession of Justice H R Khanna as a 'black day' in the history of the Indian judiciary, he said. He also referred to the January 12 last year presser by the then four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court, including Justice Ranjan Gogoi, the now Chief Justice of India to flag some of the pressing problems they faced with the then CJI Dipak Misra. While addressing the media, it was said that 'unless this institution is preserved, democracy will not survive in this country'. It was also said that the 'democracy will not survive without free judiciary', the letter said. "I humbly urge your Excellency to kindly ponder over as the head of largest democracy in the world with a robust judiciary and having remained a part of the legal fraternity, and see yourself that the way the present collegium of five eminent senior judges have superseded almost 32 judges, how will the democracy and independence of judiciary in the country survive. "It cannot be forgotten that it is just one-and-a-half month back the then collegium members of the Supreme Court had superseded Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and now out of the blue, he becomes more deserving and suitable within such a short gap," Justice Gambhir said. Qatar Airways will not buy a stake in Jet Airways as a substantial portion of the debt-laden Indian carrier is held by Etihad Airways, whose owner Abu Dhabi is an "enemy" of Qatar, its CEO Akbar al-Baker said on Tuesday. Abu Dhabi is part of the United Arab Emirates that cut ties with Qatar in 2017 over accusations of supporting terrorism. Doha denies the charges. The UAE, together with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain have banned Qatar Airways since June of that year as part of the dispute. "We would definitely look at it (Jet Airways) if a 24 percent stake was not ... Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC A legendary Brooklyn-born comic artist who got his start doodling strips for the Brooklyn Paper died on Saturday at 65-years-old, following a two-year battle with brain cancer. Batton Lash, born on Oct. 29, 1953 and raised in Marine Park, joined the Papers staff as a young delivery man, dropping issues off at Court Street law offices shortly after it debuted in 1978. The characters and architecture Lash encountered on that delivery route served as the inspiration for his spooky, courtroom comic Wolff and Byrd: Counselors of the Macabre, which he would draw for much of his decades-long career, according to his one-time boss. He went into each building and delivered papers to law offices, and thats how he got the idea of a doing a strip about lawyers for dead people and super-natural characters, said Brooklyn Paper Publisher Emeritus Ed Weintrob. Lashs stars of Wolff and Byrd attorneys Alanna Wolff and Jeffrey Sutton Byrds, whose zany legal adventures included defending vampire dentists, astral-projecting philanderers, and vandal giants made their first appearance in the Papers pages the year after he joined the team, in September 1979. Years later, the strip found a more prominent home at the National Law Journal in 1983, but Lash continued drawing comics for the weekly broadsheet, balancing out its news coverage with his sharp, comedic illustrations through the mid 90s. Weintrob remembered Lash as an unusually dapper fellow, whose skills with a sketch pad were rivaled only by his ability to light up a room. From the day he came to work at Brooklyn Paper, through all the years I knew Lash, that was the thing about him, he made everybody happy, Weintrob said. Lash, who studied cartooning at New York Citys School of Visual Arts, moved to San Diego in 1993 to marry Jackie Estrada, a veteran organizer of that citys Comic-Con convention and the only woman the artist dated who actually read comics, she said. I had some original artwork from [Spider Man co-creator] Steve Ditko, so that blew his mind, said Estrada. Together, the couple founded Exhibit A Press in 1994, through which they self-published Wolff and Byrd or Supernatural Law, as it was later called in both strip and comic-book form ever since. Lash, who also drew and wrote extensively for The Simpsons and Archie Comics, is also well-remembered amongst fans for penning the near-mythical crossover Archie meets the Punisher. The artist is survived by his wife, brother William Marangi, and sisters Irene Marangi, Nancy Rorke, and Mary Andresakis. Reach reporter Colin Mixson at cmixs on@cn gloca l.com or by calling (718) 260-4505. Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC The city rejected a developers controversial request to upzone a block of Surf Avenue in Coney Island, citing this newspapers reporting that the builder would consider going against city code by revising the application to only upzone its own properties on the stretch. Amending the rezoning application to only include the developers own lots and not the entire Surf Avenue block would violate city-planning principles that prohibit such upzonings from directly benefitting the properties of those who request them, according to a City Planning Commission report issued after the panel panned the request on Wednesday. The commission cannot turn a blind eye to the facts on the ground, the report read. This would not be an appropriate and rational land use. Eight of the commissions 11 members voted against developer Winiarski Entitiess application to upzone Surf Avenue between W. 22nd and W. 23rd streets to allow for the construction of six-to-10-story buildings, in line with those that can rise in the nearby Special Coney Island District the city rezoned back in 2009. The builder needed the upzoning to erect two mixed-use high-rises a 12-story tower facing W. 22nd Street and a five-story building facing W. 23rd Street, which would be connected by a ground-floor retail strip on the five lots on the stretch it already owns. But the developer ultimately applied to rezone the entire block at the suggestion of City Planning honchos, according to its attorney Richard Lobel, who previously told local civic gurus that his client chose to take the officials advice, despite it being in the builders best interest to upzone as few lots as possible. When we do a rezoning, its in the developers interest to rezone as small an area as possible. Why is that? We pay fees to the city for every square foot thats included in the rezoning, Lobel said at an Oct. 24 meeting of Community Board 13, whose members ultimately panned the rezoning request in their recommendation given as part of the citys Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. The Department of City Planning asked for this, and we responded. This newspaper published those comments which Lobel gave in response to residents concerns that rezoning the entire block would likely displace too many locals in an Oct. 29 story, which the City Planning Commission referred to, but did not cite directly, in its report on the decision not to grant the rezoning. Commission chairwoman Marisa Lago said she was quite disturbed to read the attorneys remarks in this paper while questioning Lobel at a Dec. 5 public hearing, where she suggested his comments undermined the panels confidence in Winiarski Entitiess honesty and intentions for the Coney Island block, since the city does not seek to benefit individual property owners or developers through rezonings, according to a Department of City Planning spokesman. And Lobels previous representation of another builder that last year secured a so-called spot rezoning of an individual development site owned by a Fort Greene church but originally sought to upzone a larger swath of land didnt help relieve the commissions doubts, according to Lagos comments at the December hearing. Lobel falsely told Lago that this newspaper took his comments out of context in responding to her concerns at that hearing, noting that his client ultimately sought to rezone the full block. But months before, the attorney explicitly encouraged members of CB13 to ask the city to reduce the proposed rezoning area to just his clients Surf Avenue properties and even alleged officials would be less inclined to approve a request to upzone all of the blocks 25 lots. The truth of the matter is, you can decide, its more money, and its more time and effort, and less likely that were going to get our approval if we have 25 lots, but we included them, Lobel said at the panels Oct. 24 meeting. If this community board has in its conditions that they want to reduce the size of that rezoning, that doesnt hurt us. That basically is the community boards prerogative to do that. The commissions rejection of the rezoning concludes its Ulurp journey, a roughly year-long process the developer must begin again from scratch if it wants another version of its application to be reconsidered. But if history is any indication, the builder wouldnt find the process any easier a second time around. The community board, Borough President Adams, and Councilman Mark Treyger (DConey Island) all either outright rejected or expressed concerns about the plan, due to the developers refusal to make a legal commitment to relocate tenants of its current Surf Avenue buildings that would be demolished to make way for its new complex. Their plan calls for the displacement of over 30 apartments, and I in good conscience cannot support such a plan, Treyger said. My concern is making sure first and foremost that we mitigate the damage that could be done to working families who have already gone through quite a bit here in Coney Island. Lobel did not respond to a request for comment about the City Planning Commissions decision by press time. Washington: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is urging Republican senators to support the Trump administration's decision to ease sanctions on companies linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Credit:AP Mnuchin met privately with senators on Tuesday before a vote on a resolution from Democrats. That measure would prevent the administration from lifting penalties against the aluminum manufacturing giant Rusal and two other companies connected to Deripaska. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Mnuchin said, "We have been tougher on Russia with more sanctions than any other administration." He said the sanctions "shouldn't be a political issue." The Treasury Department says the Russian companies have committed to separating from Deripaska, who will remain blacklisted as part of an array of measures announced in early April that targeted tycoons close to the Kremlin. It also warns that the sanctions could upset global aluminum markets. San Jose, California: Two cats are living large at a $US1500-a-month ($2083) studio apartment their owner rents for them in Silicon Valley, where a housing shortage has sent rents skyrocketing. A frolicking cat. Credit:Robert Shakespeare The Mercury News reports the 9-kilogram cats named Tina and Louise moved to the studio in San Jose after their owner moved away to college. The student's father, Troy Good, was unable to keep them and asked friend David Callisch to rent him the kitchen-less studio so he could keep his daughter's beloved cats. The newspaper reports Good and his cats got a decent deal because an average studio apartment in San Jose rents for $1951 a month, according to RentCafe. Denise Closs started to call 911. Patterson broke down the bathroom door. Jayme said he was dressed in black, wearing a face mask and gloves and carrying a shotgun. Patterson told her mother to hang up and ordered her to tape Jayme's mouth shut. He told detectives that Denise Closs struggled with the tape so he wrapped the tape himself around Jayme's mouth and head. He then taped her hands behind her back and taped her ankles together before pulling her out of the bathtub and shooting her mother in the head. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video He dragged Jayme outside, nearly slipping in blood pooled on the floor. He threw her in the trunk and drove off, pausing to yield to three squad cars speeding toward the house with flashing lights, the complaint said. Patterson took her to a cabin that he said was his, ordered her into a bedroom and told her to take off her clothes and get dressed in his sister's pyjamas. He then threw her clothes into a fireplace in the cabin's basement. Loading Whenever he had friends over, he made clear that no one could know she was there or "bad things could happen to her," so she had to hide under the bed. He sealed her under the bed with tote boxes and weights so she could not crawl out, according to the complaint. She had to stay under the bed whenever he left the house, sometimes going for hours without food, water or bathroom breaks. When his father visited, Patterson told investigators, he turned up the radio in the bedroom to cover any noise she might make. He said he assumed he had gotten away with the slayings and kidnappings after two weeks went by. He told detectives that on the night of the kidnapping he put stolen license plates on his car and removed an anti-kidnapping release cord from his trunk. He also shaved his head so he would not leave any hair behind and chose his father's Mossberg shotgun because he thought it was a common model that would be hard to trace. Patterson, who has no criminal history in Wisconsin, was described by people who knew him as a quiet and good student who participated in quiz bowl in high school. He wrote in his high school yearbook of wanting to join the Marines. On Monday, a spokeswoman for the Marines said Patterson lasted just a little more than month in the corps before washing out in October 2015. Patterson told detectives he worked at the Saputo Cheese Factory near Almena for just two days before quitting. The company did not immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press. His defense attorneys, Charles Glynn and Richard Jones, said they believe Patterson can get a fair trial, but they are not sure where. "It's been an emotional time for this community and a difficult time for this community. We don't take that lightly. But we have a job to do in protecting our client," Jones said. Patterson's relatives, including his father, Patrick, declined to comment after the hearing. After Jayme's disappearance, police collected more than 3500 tips, but no hard leads emerged. Loading Then on Thursday, a woman walking her dog spotted Jayme along a road near Gordon, a town about an hour's drive north of Barron. The woman said the girl begged her for help, saying Patterson had been hiding her in a nearby cabin and that she had escaped when he left her alone. Neighbours called 911, and officers arrested Patterson within minutes. The New York Post published photos of the cabin Monday. The images showed a shabby living area with a couch, refrigerator, an old television set and an unfinished ceiling. Exterior photographs show a lean-to loaded with firewood, a three-car garage and an empty box of adult female diapers in a trash can. A sign over the cabin's front door reads "Patterson's Retreat." Authorities have not said whether Jayme was sexually assaulted. The complaint does not charge Patterson with any form of sexual assault. The narrative in the document does not say what Patterson did with her. "The vision of the government was to make sure that the Indian heritage, the Indian culture, the Kumbh heritage which actually personifies what India is, is shown to the entire world," said Vijay Anand, an Indian civil servant and the head Kumbh official. At the entrance to the Kumbh, and throughout the 3,200-hectare (7,907-acre) fairgrounds, the faces of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh's chief minister, Yogi Adityanath himself a Hindu monk appear on posters touting government rural electrification projects, stipends for cooking fuel and pipe-borne water. A thick layer of dust is seen over the tent city set up for the festival in Prayagraj, India. Credit:AP Kumbh money has been deployed to widen roads, construct a massive temporary city with free tents and portable toilets for pilgrims, monitor more than a thousand CCTVs and construct a new airport terminal, where builders' scaffolding remained at the beginning of the festival. The budget supplied thousands of toilets and urinals, public dormitories, and hundreds of water stations, as well as police, hospitals, 24-hour pharmacies and fire and ambulance services. The expansive campgrounds hosted everything from luxury "glamping" options that cost up to 35,000 rupees ($494) per night private, tent "suites" with plush bedding and flush toilets to a cot with a thin foam mattress in a public dormitory in a high-top tent that costs 200 rupees ($2.83) per night. Kumbh money has also been spent on a marketing blitz that included a dramatic, minute-long ad broadcast on CNN, and on a Modi-directed promotional push at India's 190-plus embassies abroad. The Uttar Pradesh government directed local administrators to display a new logo with the tagline "Sarvsidhiprad Kumbh", which in Sanskrit, the language of Hinduism, means "Kumbh is everything", on publicity materials and on screens at movie theaters after India's national anthem is played. In Prayagraj, constant Hindu chants blared over loudspeakers throughout the grounds. The air was thick with smoke from cooking fires, incense and hashish, which sadhus smoke ritualistically. A boy rests in a makeshift night shelter set up for the festival. Credit:AP In time for this year's Kumbh, Adityanath led the charge to change the city's Mughal-era name from Allahabad to Prayagraj, part of a BJP Muslim-to-Hindu name-changing effort nationwide to "connect the current generation to our glorious past, and to erase the deep scars of subjugation that have badly injured our cultural psyche", according to party spokesman G.V.L. Narasimha Rao. Adityanath's government also changed the name of Faizabad district to Ayodhya, after the ancient city where Hindus believe the god Ram was born, and has echoed Modi's 2014 election campaign pledge to build a Ram temple at a site where Hindu hard-liners destroyed a 16th-century mosque in 1992. A naga sahu, or Hindu naked holy man, smokes before proceeding towards the Sangam in early January, as part of celebrations for the 45-day festival. Credit:AP The Supreme Court recently assembled a five-justice bench to hear petitions regarding ownership of the disputed site. India's government has gradually withdrawn spending for other religious groups, including a subsidy scheme for Haj pilgrims, following a 2012 Supreme Court order that cited an article in the constitution that prohibits "taxes for promotion of any particular religion". Dr. Surendra Jain, the international secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Organization, a Hindu nationalist group allied with the BJP, downplayed the religious orientation of the Kumbh. "The Kumbh is a pot which is able to contain many things, so our concept of Kumbh is all-inclusive," he said, adding that "when Hinduism is promoted, obviously humanity is promoted. The values which we call the ideals of India are the values of Hinduism." It's not the first time Indian politicians have capitalized on the Kumbh to invoke their relationship to the country's Hindu ethos. For years, the central government has given the sadhus a boost. In 1954, the Congress party-led government injected the Mela with nationalist objectives, timing Republic Day celebrations to take place during the Kumbh and setting up booths on family planning and public health, according to Australian academic Kama Maclean, author of the 2008 book Pilgrimage and Power. When Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, former Congress party Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's daughter-in-law, entered Indian politics in 2001, newspapers featured photographs of her in a sari wading into the Ganges during the Kumbh, symbolic of her adopted Hindu heritage and the washing away of her foreignness, said political commentator Arati Jerath. Pilgrims converge on the rivers to cleanse themselves as part of the large religious congregation. Credit:AP Rahul Gandhi, the Congress party leader and Sonia Gandhi's son, has been visiting Hindu temples across India in the run-up to the vote, and is planning to take a dip at the Kumbh, party officials have said. "Obviously the BJP will use this to drum up Hindu support. Congress is trying to move into that space as well, but (the Kumbh) can't be an election issue because this election is going to be fought on economic grounds," she said, adding that Indian voters "can tell the difference between a festival and their own economic reality". But for some Kumbh pilgrims, Hinduism belongs at the forefront of Indian elections. "This is a very important fight," said Reva Goyal, a 49-year-old homemaker from New Delhi. "And in this, politics and religion are mixed. I feel the BJP government has done a lot for us, and should come back into power." Narendra Giri, the head sadhu at the Kumbh, said the government's arrangements and facilities for the religious festival would "obviously affect the election", and that while previous governments had also adhered to the "guest is a god policy", the BJP's performance this year had outdone them all. It's an sentiment echoed by festival attendees. "I go to holy sites very often, but I'm used to them being very dirty. I have never seen this level of cleanliness measures at any other holy city," said Gita Mishra, 58, one of the guests at a public tent near the banks of the river. When people waiting for a spot outside the tent learned it was full, they laid blankets around the periphery to sleep in the hazy open air. Still others, including about 500 sanitation workers, pitched pup tents near a row of some of the toilets they are paid 300 rupees ($7) per day to clean. A municipal worker sweeps the streets near the festival's tent city, where public toilets and hundreds of water stations have been set up. Credit:AP The production of any Kumbh is a gargantuan task, particularly in the low-lying Indian army parade grounds in Prayagraj where the ritual baths take place. Regular summertime floods leave organizers only 40 to 50 days to erect the temporary city, according to city commissioner Ashish Goel. But this year's public provisions are unprecedented. "It's a very aspirational Kumbh Mela," Goel said. The dust plumes encompassing the camp come from the sandy riverbanks, Goel said, and not from construction, which is banned during the 55-day festival. Still, in the city center outside of the fairgrounds, brick kilns send up clouds of PM 2.5, tiny particulate matter that can dangerously clog lungs. India's cities are among the world's smoggiest. Queensland exported a record amount of coal in 2018, boosting the state's bottom line. Data from Queensland's ports revealed total coal exports of 223 million tonnes over the year to December 2018, surpassing by 2 million tonnes the record set in 2016. Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane says green activists are wrong when it comes to coal. Credit:Louie Douvis Queensland coal was exported to 30 countries and territories, including Argentina, Brazil, China, England, Finland, India, Japan, Poland, Turkey and Ukraine. Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane said the record could only be achieved through the hard work of 215,000 Queenslanders who worked in or with the coal industry. One of the architects of compulsory superannuation and a former secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has told Labor leader Bill Shorten to stand up to Industry Super funds, warning the alternative prime minister he had a duty to protect workers' savings over the vested interests of "loud underperformers". Bill Kelty, the author of the accord between trade unions and the Hawke-Keating Labor governments, said it was time for Mr Shorten to approach the $2.8 trillion sector's powerful Industry lobby honestly. "If it offends a few people that is fine," he said. "I don't think loudness is a substitute for reason. It is people's money, they should be accountable." Bill Kelty and Paul Keating in 1996. Credit: In comments that will rattle union and business board appointees of underperforming funds, Mr Kelty's intervention was backed by Industry Super chair and former Labor government minister Greg Combet. The Morrison government is at risk of losing one of its safest seats, with former independent MP Rob Oakeshott launching a carefully plotted return to federal politics after six years on the sidelines. Mr Oakeshott will contest the northern NSW seat of Cowper, which the Nationals hold on what should be an impenetrable margin of 12.6 per cent but could lose through a potent combination of the government's poll slump and the retirement of popular sitting member Luke Hartsuyker. Rob Oakeshott left the Parliament in 2013 but is mounting a comeback. Credit:James Brickwood Mr Oakeshott planned to announce his entry on Wednesday but brought it forward to Tuesday after The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age revealed his decision. The former MP will campaign on a platform of health, education and highways in the regional electorate, which stretches from Port Macquarie in the south to Coffs Harbour in the north. The seat has been held by the Nationals since 1919 with the exception of just two years in the 1960s. Media leaks about raids on Australian Workers' Union headquarters will not result in criminal charges. The Australian Federal Police referred evidence to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions last year after media outlets were tipped off in October 2017 about raids on the union's Sydney and Melbourne offices. "The AFP can confirm the CDPP has advised they will not be proceeding with a prosecution as there are no reasonable prospects of conviction," the AFP said in a statement. "The AFP considers this investigation finalised." The raids drew scrutiny because TV crews arrived at the offices before police after a tip-off from then employment minister Michaelia Cash's media adviser David De Garis. Labor's plans to increase capital gains tax and limit negative gearing will hit the nation's wealthiest and largely Liberal-held electorates, sparing those in low income rural areas or comfortably held by the ALP. A special breakdown of Tax Office data covering average negative gearing losses and the average capital gains discount enjoyed by taxpayers shows Labor's policies will hit hardest voters in areas least likely to back the ALP at this year's election. Taxpayers in the former seat of Malcolm Turnbull, Wentworth in Sydney's eastern suburbs, and those in the Melbourne seat of Higgins, held by Industrial Relations Minister Kelly O'Dwyer, are the most exposed to Labor's plans. Taxpayers in Malcolm Turnbull's former seat of Wentworth are most exposed to Labor's capital gains tax and negative gearing changes. Credit:Janie Barrett The ALP wants to raise $32 billion over the next decade by halving the concession on capital gains tax and to limit negative gearing to people who invest in new rental properties. People with existing rentals would have their investment grandfathered. With the forthcoming federal election front of mind, the major political parties are gearing up to do battle with the winners prize being government. Minor parties, including the Greens and Pauline Hansons somewhat misnamed One Nation Party, are preparing to try to win the balance of power in both Houses of Parliament but may understand they, along with other minor parties and independents, will have to settle for exercising control of the Senate. Shadow Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten talk about Labor's proposal for a National Integrity Commission. Credit:Justin McManus Even though the election is probably some five months away, it is already being suggested that central issues will include the continued health of the economy, education and health policy, protecting the environment and addressing climate change, power prices, immigration numbers, refugee policy and acknowledging and acting on the concerns of "Aussie battlers". While all of these are important matters, there is an overarching issue that is paramount to the delivery of good government and governance that is not, as yet, the principle concern of political parties. It must be. I am referring to integrity in public life, because integrity should act as a cloak over all public policies. If, as some suggest it already does, it is in many respects an opaque cloak. Accountability, openness, transparency and truthfulness are component parts of integrity and prioritising them is key to addressing the ever-widening trust deficit between Australias elected representatives and the electorate. Officials managing Australias most important river network have cast doubt on claims that a million fish were killed in this months mass die-off in the Murray-Darling system and rejected accusations that they triggered the environmental catastrophe. Hot, dry conditions in southeast Australia including two consecutive heatwaves this month has left the river system badly parched and officials on Tuesday revealed that a "red alert" has been declared for vast swathes suffering from blue-green algal bloom the natural phenomenon that induced the recent fish kill. A mass fish kill in the Darling River at Menindee left hundreds of stinking carcasses. Credit:Nick Moir Water officials from across Australia held an emergency phone hook-up on Tuesday to discuss the tragedy along a 40-kilometre stretch of the Darling River at Menindee, near Broken Hill in far west NSW. Speaking at Parliament House before the meeting, Murray-Darling Basin Authority chief executive Phillip Glyde questioned reports that about a million fish had died. A Perth girl suffered deep lacerations requiring several stitches after she was bitten by a bottom-dwelling carpet shark at North Cottesloe on Sunday morning. Isabella Brett-Jensen was swimming in waist-deep water at the popular Perth beach about 11:30am when she felt something latch onto her foot but she couldn't see anything beneath the surface. Isabella Brett-Jensen was attacked while swimming at an unpatrolled beach in Perth. Credit:9 News Perth "I was trying to wriggle it out and then I realised there was something actually suckling on my foot," she told 9 News Perth. Once back on the sand she noticed the deep bite marks on her foot and called relatives for help. A Banksia Grove man has been charged with assault after an alleged attack on a journalist outside a Perth court on Monday. The 29-year-old was charged with assault occasioning bodily harm and common assault. Dylan Griffin before his sentencing and the alleged assault on a journalist by an associate. Credit:Anton La Macchia WA Police said the man assaulted the journalist outside the Joondalup Magistrates Court, where he will reappear on the charges on February 6. The accused's associate was jailed over an animal cruelty case shortly before the alleged attack on Monday. Adam Liaws world has been turned upside down since the former lawyer discovered he was a dab hand at cooking and earned himself first place in Channel 10s cooking show MasterChef. Adam Liaw had a busy year, and he's showing no signs of slowing down. A lot has changed since more than five million people tuned in to watch him win the second series of the reality TV series in 2010 and 2018 didnt see the pace let up. With two young children, a new cookbook, a regular column for Good Food and a new television series Destination Flavour on SBS, 2018 was hectic and Liaw had been hoping to take things a little easier in 2019. But Ive just been looking at my schedule and Im pretty much fully booked for the first half of next year, he says. The First Nations peoples of Australia, and indeed all Australians, deserve better than the curious announcement by our Prime Minister last weekend that his government would force local councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on January 26. Prime Minister Scott Morrison told councils to run citizenship ceremonies on January 26. Credit:AAP At best it was a bizarre and pointless missive, at worst a public relations stunt designed to further divide this country and stir the dying embers of a culture war. There needs to be a serious and respectful conversation on when we celebrate Australia Day and the need to change the date from the hurtful and deeply divisive date of January 26. Instead, we are being subjected to debates on dress codes and threats of stripping the rights of democratically elected local governments to hold citizenship ceremonies if they choose not to hold events on the 26th. Darebin Council believes the national day to celebrate Australia should be on a different date, so the celebration can be genuinely celebratory, inclusive and meaningful. That is why in 2017 we chose to stop recognising January 26 as Australia Day. Our community told us this was an important issue for it and one they wanted its council to make a stand on. The fire at Benloch. Credit:Nine News Residents of Benloch and Nulla Vale in the Macedon Ranges have been told to monitor changes in wind speed and direction after firefighters brought a 25-hectare bushfire under control. An emergency warning was issued about the blaze, which was burning near Kitchenhams Road in Benloch, just after 2pm, urging residents to shelter indoors as homes and lives were at threat. Several hours later, the alert was downgraded to a watch and act, and authorities said the fire was under control just before 5pm. "Monitor changes, including increased wind speed, change in wind direction, smoke or poor visibility that indicate the situation is changing," the CFA advised residents. The state government wants the company responsible for the pollution of a stretch of state-owned land along the Brisbane River to remediate the site, which was formerly a tar processing plant. But those plans hit a snag when the government was forced to admit that because the company no longer existed, it could not be pursued for remediation. The Riverside Drive Parklands in West End will see several trees removed and soil excavated to deal with a contamination issue. Credit:Google Maps Brisbane City Council and a private developer are planning to remediate their own portions of a large section of West End's Riverside Drive, where toxins have leached into the soil due to years of chemical processing. A Department of Environment spokesman said on Monday the department was aware of the planned remediation works on the privately owned and council-owned land. Potentially life-saving Queensland research has come to a halt because Mexican drug lords have taken control of their field site. An international research team led by the University of Queensland has found a new class of blood pressure-regulating peptides in the venom of vampire bats. Associate Professor Fry said there was much more to be learned than feared from the unique but much maligned vampire bats. Credit:University of Queensland. But the caves where they had been collecting venom is now in the heart of Mexican drug lands, and their research could be put on hold for years. Associate Professor Bryan Fry said the bat peptides could help revolutionise treatments for conditions such as hypertension, heart failure, kidney diseases and burns. Australias ageing population has pushed more potential university students towards allied health courses, the Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre's 2019 offers have revealed. In addition, more than 12,000 allied health jobs will be expected to be created by the National Disability Insurance Scheme in Queensland. More Queensland students are applying for university courses that will lead to a career in allied health care. Credit:Virginia Star QTAC offers to prospective Queensland university students were released on Wednesday morning. Health and allied health courses make up almost one-third of the courses chosen by 16,334 prospective university Queensland students in 2019. Residents of Opal Tower face an indefinite period away from the "building site" which was once their home after the state government released an interim report detailing the ongoing works required to repair the building. While the building has been declared structurally safe, independent experts investigating the cracked western Sydney building have recommended all residents should delay moving back until further investigations have taken place by independent engineers. The state government on Tuesday released the interim report from the independent investigation into the building's failure, with professors Mark Hoffman and John Carter stating that "significant rectification works are required" to repair the building. In particular, they are concerned about a number of "damaged hob beams and in some cases panels that rest on them" on levels four and 10. The state of many of NSW's rivers is so dire that the Berejiklian government will start installing aerators to increase oxygen levels and keep vital stocks of native fish alive. The action comes as Lake Hume, one of the two main water storages on the Murray-Darling river, has suffered an apparent fishkill event although the cause is being investigated. Days after a mass fish kill in the Darling River at Menindee, hundreds of carcasses were still on the river bank near the town. Credit:Nick Moir Primary Industries Minister Niall Blair said on Tuesday that nine of these machines will be installed "as a temporary measure" to help fish populations survive the brutal combination of low river flows, algal blooms and severe heatwaves. "We're not going to die wondering - we're trying to find a solution," Mr Blair said. South Africa: Protests erupt in Zimbabwe after 150% fuel price hike Scores of citizens have taken to the streets in Zimbabwe after President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced a 150% fuel price hike. Protesters barricaded roads and burned tires in the capital Harare on Monday, two days after Mnangagwa announced a massive fuel price hike in an effort to stem a deepening economic crisis. Cash shortages have plunged Zimbabwe's economy into disarray, threatening widespread social unrest, undermining Mnangagwa's efforts to win back foreign investors sidelined under his predecessor Robert Mugabe. Police fired teargas to disperse youths protesting outside the high court in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, according to video footage from the Centre for Innovation and Technology, a local news service. Riot police in trucks patrolled downtown Harare while some shops remained closed. Mnangagwa's announcement of a 150% increase in fuel prices was greeted with shock in Zimbabwe, where unemployment is estimated at 80%. The price was increased from US$1.34 for a litre of petrol to US$3.31 with diesel surging to US$3.11 per litre. The government sets fuel prices via the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Agency. Residents of Epworth, 36km south of the capital, protested after the main labour federation called for a three-day strike starting Monday in response to the price increase. The protests came just after doctors ended a 40-day strike in the country without coming to any terms. The Zimbabwean government issued a statement in response to the protests, labelling them Western-sponsored acts. "This brazenly unconstitutional plan, which has sought financial support from some regime-change organisations based in America and Germany, among other countries, represents a serious threat to our consolidating democracy, to the rule of law in our country, and to the authority of government and the state," the statement said. - NNN This story has been published on: 2019-01-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. An injured single mother truck driver has lost her unfair dismissal claim against mining giant Rio Tinto after she refused a redeployment offer that she said would have left her children without a carer. Perth woman Elaina Tito was driving haul trucks on a fly-in, fly-out roster at Rio Tintos Mesa A Pilbara iron ore mine when she injured her neck on the job in 2013. A haul truck is loaded by a digger with material in the pit at one of Rio Tinto's Pilbara iron ore mines. Credit:Bloomberg She returned to the role in 2014 but by July 2016 aggravated the injury and had spinal surgery. She returned to work again but lasted just 90 minutes before the pain forced her to stop. Rio Tinto put her on administrative duties until 2018 when it decided, based on medical advice, that she could not safely drive a haul truck again. It started a process to find an alternative role in the company and offered her a 12-month administrative secondment, which Ms Tito declined. Workers who froze their pay to help save NSW's Port Kembla steelworks are set to lose their jobs and be replaced by overseas crews on foreign vessels, after BHP terminated two shipping contracts, maritime unions say. BHP last week revealed it was abandoning the last two Australian-crewed ships that carry iron ore from Port Hedland in Western Australia to BlueScope Steel's steelworks south of Sydney. "I thought they might have the compassion for the Australian industry to keep our jobs going": Ashley Hill. Credit:Kate Geraghty The Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers (AIMPE) and Australian Maritime Officers Union condemned the move, saying more than 70 Australian officers and seafarers would lose their jobs. BHP would use foreign crews on foreign ships to carry the same product between the two ports, the unions said. Ashley Hill, 57, who works as a third engineer for the contracted employer, Teekay Shipping Australia, said the local crews had been "shafted" after agreeing to a pay freeze in 2015 to help BlueScope achieve $200 million of cost cuts needed to save the steelworks. Want to praise someone or get something off your chest? Darts and Pats is the place to do it. A UK Labour MP has delayed having a Caesarean section to attend the Brexit vote in the House of Commons. MPs have Read More: Tulip Siddiq was due to have a Caesarean section on Tuesday but spoke to doctors about delaying her operation until Thursday. The MP appeared in the Commons sat in a wheelchair. Writing on social media Ms Siddiq said: "My decision to delay my baby's birth is not one I take lightly. "Let me be clear, I have no faith in the pairing system - in July the Govt stole the vote of a new mother. "It's my duty to represent Hampstead & Kilburn, and I will do just that." Thank you all for supportive messages. My decision to delay my baby's birth is not one I take lightly. Let me be clear, I have no faith in the pairing system - in July the Govt stole the vote of a new mother. It's my duty to represent Hampstead & Kilburn, and I will do just that. Tulip Siddiq (@TulipSiddiq) January 15, 2019 Speaker for the House of Commons John Bercow said yesterday that Ms Siddiq should be have been allowed to vote on the Brexit deal from hospital rather than having to be wheeled into Parliament. He said it was completely uncivilised to make Ms Siddiq postpone giving birth to her child in order to have her say on Theresa Mays Withdrawal Agreement. - Digital Desk & Press Association Update 9pm: MPs have rejected Theresa Mays Brexit plans by an emphatic 432 votes to 202 in a historic vote which has thrown the future of her administration and the nature of the UKs EU withdrawal into doubt. The humiliating rebuff was delivered in the House of Commons just moments after the British Prime Minister made a last-ditch appeal for MPs to back the Withdrawal Agreement which she sealed with Brussels in November after almost two years of negotiation. The 118 Conservative rebels included fervent Brexiteers like Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg and former Brexit secretaries David Davis and Dominic Raab, as well as Remainers Anna Soubry and Dominic Grieve. (PA Graphics) But Mrs May made clear she intends to stay on, setting out plans for talks with senior parliamentarians from parties across the Commons in the hope of finding genuinely negotiable solutions which she can take to Brussels. Jeremy Corbyn said the catastrophic defeat represented an absolutely decisive verdict by MPs on Mrs Mays handling of Brexit. Protesters outside the House of Commons (PA) But his hopes of ousting the PM were undermined when the DUPs Sammy Wilson said that the Unionist party will back Mrs May in her fight for survival, saying: We never wanted a change of government, we want a change of policy. And a spokesman for the European Research Group of eurosceptic Tories, chaired by Mr Rees-Mogg, confirmed that they too would back the Government. (PA Graphics) In a statement to the Commons immediately after her drubbing, the Prime Minister told MPs: The House has spoken and this Government will listen. It is clear that this House does not support this deal, but tonights vote tells us nothing about what it does support. She said she would consult with Conservative colleagues, her Democratic Unionist Party allies and senior parliamentarians from across the Commons to identify what now is required to secure the backing of the House. Theresa May arrives at 10 Downing Street, London, after losing a House of Commons vote on her Brexit deal. (Aaron Chown/PA) The PM promised to approach the talks in a constructive spirit, but cautioned that proposals would have to be genuinely negotiable and have sufficient support in this House if she was to take them back to Brussels to explore with the EU. Mrs May assured MPs that she was not seeking to run the clock down to a no-deal Brexit in March, insisting that she still hoped to take the UK out of the EU in an orderly way, with a good deal. Meanwhile Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has insisted Read More: Update 7.40pm: MPs have rejected Theresa Mays Brexit deal by 432 votes to 202 (ie by a majority of 230). The humiliating rebuff was delivered in the House of Commons just moments after Mrs May made a last-ditch appeal for MPs to back the Withdrawal Agreement which she sealed with Brussels in November after almost two years of negotiation. Responding to the defeat, Ms May said: The House has spoken and the Government will listen. It is clear that the House does not support this deal but tonights vote tells us what it does support. Nothing about how or even if it intends to honour the decision in a referendum Parliament decided to hold. She told MPs that the Government would make a statement about the way forward and table an amendable motion by Monday January 21. She also offered assurances to the Commons that Government was not seeking to run down the clock. She said: Ive always believed that the best way forward is to leave in an orderly way with a good deal and have devoted much of the last two years negotiating such a deal. Every day that passes without this issue being resolved means more uncertainty, more bitterness and more rancour. The Government has heard what the House has said tonight, but I ask members on all sides of the House to listen to the British people who want this issue settled and to work with the Government to do just that. Ms May added that the Government will make time for a confidence vote tomorrow if one was tabled. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told the House of Commons that Ms Mays catastrophic defeat represented an absolutely decisive verdict on her Brexit negotiations and said he has tabled a vote of confidence. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks after Prime Minister Theresa May lost the vote this evening. Picture: PA He said: "The result of tonights vote is the greatest defeat for a Government since the 1920s in this House. This is a catastrophic defeat for this Government. After two years of failed negotiations the House of Commons has delivered its verdict on her Brexit deal and that verdict is absolutely decisive. I hear the words of the Prime Minister but the actions of the past two years speak equally clearly. He added: The most important issue facing us is that the Government has lost the confidence of this House and this country. I therefore inform you I have now tabled a motion of no confidence in this Government. A person in the crowd holds an EU flag during a rally in London's Parliament Square as MPs considered the Prime Minister's Brexit deal. Picture: PA Labour deputy leader Tom Watson posted on Twitter: Tonight by 432 votes to 202, the PM has suffered the biggest defeat in the House of Commons in over 100 years. She is devoid of authority in the Commons, in the country, and even within her own party. She should call an immediate General Election. After the vote, former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said it was a catastrophic failure of leadership" by Mrs May. A catastrophic failure of leadership by @Theresa_May. If she has any sense of honour then she will resign. Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) January 15, 2019 Speaking after the vote, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: MPs have done the right thing tonight by rejecting the Governments bad Brexit deal. He added: What happens next will define our future for decades to come. It is absolutely vital that the Prime Minister acts immediately to take any prospect of a no-deal Brexit off the table for good. That means withdrawing Article 50. BREAKING: MPs from all sides have rejected this bad Brexit deal. What happens next will define our future for decades to come. The only sensible course of action now is to withdraw Article 50 and give British people the final say - with the option to stay in the EU.#BrexitVote https://t.co/3cBKeYCcxL Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) January 15, 2019 We then need a fundamental rethink about how we take this crucial decision. The politicians have failed and in the absence of a general election, the British public must be allowed to decide what happens next. Tom Pursglove told the Press Association that he resigned as a Conservative Party vice-chair in order to vote against the Brexit deal. The MP for Corby was appointed to the role by Mrs May in July last year. As MPs voted, noisy crowds of pro- and anti-Brexit protesters in Parliament Square could be heard inside the Palace of Westminster. MPs had been due to vote first on a series of four amendments chosen by Speaker John Bercow. But Mr Corbyn, Scottish National Party leader Ian Blackford and Tory backbencher Sir Edward Leigh opted not to move their amendments, leaving only one division. In that vote, a proposal from Conservative MP John Baron for the UK to take unilateral powers to end controversial backstop arrangements was rejected by 600 votes to 24. Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, commented after the vote saying: "If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?" European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, who had pulled out of an event in Strasbourg on Wednesday because of the vote, said in a statement: I take note with regret of the outcome of the vote in the House of Commons this evening. On the EU side, the process of ratification of the Withdrawal Agreement continues. The Withdrawal Agreement is a fair compromise and the best possible deal. It reduces the damage caused by Brexit for citizens and businesses across Europe. It is the only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. The European Commission, and notably our Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier, has invested enormous time and effort to negotiate the Withdrawal Agreement. We have shown creativity and flexibility throughout. I, together with President Tusk, have demonstrated goodwill again by offering additional clarifications and reassurances in an exchange of letters with Prime Minister May earlier this week. The risk of a disorderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom has increased with this evenings vote. While we do not want this to happen, the European Commission will continue its contingency work to help ensure the EU is fully prepared. I urge the United Kingdom to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. Time is almost up. In other international reaction, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Twitter that his Government regretted the negative result in the House of Commons. He added that Theresa Mays Withdrawal Agreement was the best possible and said a disorderly exit would be negative for the EU and catastrophic for the United Kingdom. Spain would work on contingency measures and would prioritise the rights of citizens and residents, he said. Update 7.30pm: MPs defeated John Barons amendment, which sought to give the UK the right to terminate the Irish border backstop without the agreement of the EU, by 600 votes to 24 majority 576. As MPs voted in the Commons, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeted: "Theresa May's deal is bad for our economy, for our democracy and for the country. Labour will vote against it tonight." Earlier: Theresa May calls on MPs to 'do their duty' and back her Brexit deal Theresa May has made a last-ditch plea to MPs to back her EU withdrawal plan, telling them: "I believe we have a duty to deliver on the democratic decision of the British people, and to do so in a way that brings our country together". The British Prime Minister looks set for humiliating defeat in the "meaningful vote" taking place in the House of Commons at the end of eight days of debate and two years of negotiation following the EU referendum of June 2016. Rejection of Mrs May's Withdrawal Agreement by MPs would give her until January 21 to set out her Plan B - expected to involve going back to Brussels to seek further concessions. And it is also likely to trigger a bid to force a general election by Jeremy Corbyn, who has said he will table a motion of no-confidence in the Government "soon" after it is defeated on its central policy platform. Moments before the historic vote, Mrs May told MPs: "Parliament gave the people a choice, we set the clock ticking on our departure and tonight we will determine whether we move forward with a Withdrawal Agreement that honours the vote and sets us on course for a better future. The responsibility of each and every one of us at this moment is profound, for this is a historic decision that will set the future of our country for generations. But the Labour leader called on MPs to vote down the agreement, saying: "This deal is bad for our economy, a bad deal for our democracy, and a bad deal for this country." Mr Corbyn could use a point of order in the immediate wake of Tuesday's vote to trigger a no-confidence debate as early as Wednesday. And Mrs May is expected to deliver her immediate response to the historic reverse in a statement to the Commons moments after her anticipated drubbing. (PA Graphics) Attorney General Geoffrey Cox appeared to indicate that the PM will resist pressure to tear up her plan or to seek cross-party consensus on a new approach. He told MPs that in the event of a Government defeat the Agreement would have to return to the Commons later "in much the same form with much the same content". Noisy crowds of pro- and anti-Brexit protesters in Parliament Square could be heard inside the Palace of Westminster as MPs prepared to vote at 7pm, in a process expected to culminate in a final result around 8.15. MPs were first voting on a series of four amendments chosen by Speaker John Bercow, including a call from Mr Corbyn for the Government to pursue all options to avoid a no-deal Brexit. A Scottish National Party amendment rejected Mrs May's Brexit deal, while Tory backbenchers Edward Leigh and John Baron proposed means for the UK to take unilateral powers to end controversial "backstop" arrangements. By the time Mrs May concluded the debate with a passionate plea to MPs to deliver the Brexit demanded by voters, her hopes of victory appeared vanishingly small. Assurances over the controversial "backstop" received from the EU on Monday appear to have failed to win over significant numbers of the deal's critics among the Tories and their DUP allies. While some MPs - including former Labour minister Frank Field - declared their intention to back the PM's deal, normally loyal Tories like Hugo Swire said they would not do so. Confirming that the 10 DUP MPs will not back the PM's deal, party leader Arlene Foster told a press conference in London: "We said to the Prime Minister she had to get rid of the backstop and get a Withdrawal Agreement that can be lived with. I don't think she even asked to get rid of the backstop." In the final day of debate on Mrs May's deal, Mr Cox acknowledged that the agreement reached with the EU in November was not perfect, but said he was supporting it "for wholly pragmatic reasons". "It is the necessary means to secure our orderly departure and unlock our future outside the European Union," he told MPs. Thousands of businesses with contracts based on EU law would find "the rug pulled from under (them)" if the UK left with a deal, he said. They would ask MPs: "What are you playing at? What are you doing? You are not children in the playground, you are legislators'," Mr Cox said, adding: "We are playing with people's lives." (PA Graphics) Mr Cox compared the Withdrawal Agreement to an "airlock" providing a route towards a future trade and security relationship with the remaining 27 EU states. But the Labour chair of the Brexit Select Committee Hilary Benn retorted: "The reason why many of us will vote against the deal tonight is because on the other side of the second airlock is a complete vacuum about our future relationship with our biggest, nearest and most important trading partners." Mrs May's deal came under assault from a series of MPs on both sides of the Brexit debate, with eurosceptics warning that it failed to resolve their concerns that the backstop arrangements designed to avoid a hard border in Ireland could become permanent. The Tory chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee Bill Cash called on Mrs May to "consider her position", comparing it to Neville Chamberlain's resignation in 1940 which cleared the way for Winston Churchill to take over. "Now is the time to walk away from the intransigence of the EU and our failed policy of seeking to supplicate their guidelines, their terms and their paymasters," he said. In the final Cabinet meeting before the crucial vote, Mrs May told senior ministers that the Government was "the servant of the people" and she believed "passionately" that it must deliver on the result of the referendum, in which voters opted to Leave by a margin of 52%-48%. She spent much of the day meeting Tory MPs in her Commons office in an eleventh-hour bid to bolster support. But analysis of polling released by the Best for Britain campaign for a second referendum suggested that around 60% of voters - including majorities in every region of the country - want a public vote if Parliament proves unable to decide on a Brexit deal. German foreign minister Heiko Maas said Brexit talks would continue if Mrs May's deal was rejected by MPs, but there was unlikely to be "substantial" change to the agreement. Mr Maas said: "If there were still a solution that could be presented under even greater pressure, I would ask myself why it has not been put on the table before in order to ensure that this evening's vote takes place under better circumstances. "That is why I believe that the agreement is as it stands and will not be substantially changed, but that, if things go wrong tonight, there will certainly be talks again." - Press Association A woman running massage parlours in Dublin who told gardai she thought the offering of manual relief was legal has received a fully suspended prison sentence Nan Wu (37) of Brandon Square, Waterville, Blanchardstown pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to controlling and directing the actions of prostitution for gain in the Dublin area in 2015. Judge Elma Sheahan sentenced her to two years imprisonment, but suspended the entirety of the sentence for a period of three years on condition that she keep the peace and be of good behaviour. Sergeant David Bunn told Siobhan Ni Chulachain BL, prosecuting, that a member of the public complained that a high number of male visitors were attending a massage parlour in Olivemount, Windy Arbour, Dublin. Sgt Bunn called the establishment and was offered prostitution services. He obtained a search warrant and visited the business on April 17, 2017. He identified himself as a garda to the woman who opened the door and she showed him to the treatment room which contained a naked woman and man. The woman got dressed and then provided him with the phone number of her employer, Wu. Wu was arrested and interviewed by gardai. She admitted knowledge of her employees providing sex acts for money and told gardai about a second massage parlour she owned in which similar acts took place. Sgt Bunn agreed with James Dwyer SC, defending, that there was no evidence of coercion and that one of the woman working at the parlour had told gardai I am here of my own free will and no one has threatened me. Mr Dwyer said that there was no sexual intercourse taking place at the massage parlours and that those who visited could get what might be described as manual relief. He said Wu had not directed her employees to engage in sex acts, but rather that they learned to do so from her other employees. She did not directly profit from the acts as her employees kept the money they earned from illegal behaviour. Mr Dwyer said that Wu had believed that what her employees were doing was legal. She had once sacked an employee for having sex with a client. He argued that the lack of coercion meant the crime fell on the lower end of the scale regarding offences of this type. He said that the Criminal Assets Bureau was also bringing proceedings against Wu. Wu has no previous convictions and lives with her two children. She is originally from Dalian in China and has been living in Ireland for 17 years. Judge Sheahan said the aggravating factor in the case was the seriousness of the offence. She said the mitigating factors were Wu's plea of guilty, her previous good character and good work history, her loss of well paid employment and her young family. Judge Sheahan noted that as a result of the Criminal Assets Bureau inquiry any benefit that Wu obtained from illegality would not remain in her possession. Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice has criticised the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar for speaking publicly about his efforts to cut back on his consumption of meat. Sometimes politicians need to study up on what they say, Mr Fitzmaurice told Newstalk Breakfast. He said that the Taoiseachs comments could have an adverse effect on the agri industry which was worth 12billion. A lot of rural Ireland relies on that. Saying something like that may have a direct impact. Hes the CEO of the country. Were an agri-based country, the best at what we do. Recently the Taoiseach had commented that he was trying to cut back on meat consumption in a personal effort to help climate change. Mr Fitzmaurice did not like the signal this sends out. It sends a mixed message. The Taoiseachs comment could have an adverse impact on someone trying to create jobs in the agricultural sector, he said. It wouldnt be something I would be shouting out. Former British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has said the backstop needs to "come out" of Thresea May's Withdrawal Agreement with the EU in order to allow Brexit. "(The backstop) needs to be surgically removed," he said after Mrs May lost tonight's vote on her Brexit deal by a large margin of 230 votes. Mr Johnson said the margin of defeat (230 votes) was bigger than he had expected. Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson said the result of the vote gave Theresa May a massive mandate to go back to Brussels and renegotiate. A total of 432 Mps votes against the deal, to 202 who voted in favour. Asked by the BBC whether Mrs May was the right person to lead the party and country, Mr Johnson said: The Tory Party had a go at all that, we all had a go at all that in December. That is not the issue. The issue is not who does it, the issue is what to do. He added that no-deal was not at all off the table, saying: We should not only be keeping the good bits of the deal, getting rid of the backstop, but we should also be actively preparing for no-deal with ever more enthusiasm. Meanwhile, Democratic Unionist leader Arlene Foster has commended the British Parliament over the defeat of Theresa Mays withdrawal deal. Parliament has acted in the best interests of the entire United Kingdom, she said. The House of Commons has sent an unmistakable message to the Prime Minister and the European Union that this deal is rejected. Mrs May will now be able to demonstrate to the Brussels negotiators that changes are required if any deal is to command the support of Parliament. We will work with the Government constructively to achieve a better deal. That is our focus. Whilst some may wish to use this defeat to boost their political ambitions, we will give the Government the space to set out a plan to secure a better deal. Reassurances whether in the form of letters or warm words will not be enough. The Prime Minister must now go back to the European Union and seek fundamental change to the Withdrawal Agreement. We want an orderly exit from the European Union with a sensible deal which works for Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Earlier: DUP to support May in confidence vote tomorrow The DUPs Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson (pictured below) has confirmed the party would vote with British Prime Minister Theresa May in tomorrow's confidence vote in the House of Commons. The motion follows defeat of Mrs May's Brexit plan this evening, by a huge majority. Mr Wilson told the BBC: We will vote with the Government, we will vote against the Labour Partys confidence motion. We want to see the Conservative Government continuing to deliver on Brexit we never wanted a change of government, we wanted a change of policy back to what the Prime Minister promised in the manifesto she stood on, and the promises she made in subsequent speeches. Earlier: Taoiseach urged to 'stand firm on backstop' as May loses Brexit vote Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald has urged Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to stand firm on the backstop in the wake of the defeat of the Brexit vote tonight. Theresa may lost the vote on a Withdrawal Agreement by a massive 230 margin, by 202 votes to 432. Irelands people, Irelands economy and Irelands peace process all need to be protected as we go forward now, Mary Lou McDonald said. The Taoiseach and the Tanaiste and our partners at a European level need to stand firm and not move away from or attempt to dilute the backstop. We need to say clearly to the British that if they wish to Brexit then thats a matter for themselves but any Brexit agreement needs to recognise, understand and protect the people, the economy and the peace process on this island. Brexit crisis has deepened further tonight. No Deal crash out is completely reckless & not in our peoples, households or businesses interests. Backstop is the bottom line and is not up for negotiation. Michelle ONeill (@moneillsf) January 15, 2019 'Higher prices, less choice' Meanwhile, the director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium said tonights vote will be a cause for concern across the Northern Ireland business community. Aodhan Connolly said: Northern Ireland businesses desperately need certainty about the UKs future trading relationship with the EU and will be severely disadvantaged by a no deal. A no-deal Brexit means that Northern Ireland households will face higher prices and less choice on the shelves, something they can ill afford. We need politicians to coalesce around a workable solution that protects consumers from the costs and disruptions due to the loss of tariff-free and frictionless trade we currently enjoy with partners in the EU. We are now closer than ever to the possibility of a no-deal that will be a disaster for Northern Ireland. Earlier, Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney confirmed the Irish Government had agreed an approach to no-deal Brexit legislation. A number of memos were discussed at Tuesdays Cabinet meeting which included the Common Travel Area, medicines and transport connectivity. Speaking after the Cabinet meeting, Minister Coveney said: While all eyes are on the House of Commons tonight, it is important the Governments planning continues for all outcomes, including no deal. Todays discussion at Cabinet took this work forward in the important areas of transport connectivity and medicines, with memos brought to Government by (Transport) Minister (Shane) Ross and (Health) Minister (Simon) Harris respectively. We also agreed an approach to no-deal Brexit legislation. Finally, I updated the Cabinet on developments with our Common Travel Area, which will continue in all circumstances. A no-deal Brexit will have a significant impact on Ireland these measures being taken by the Government are designed to limit the damage. It remains our view that the only way to secure an orderly withdrawal is to ratify the Withdrawal Agreement. A pensioner who put a bomb on a bus bound for Dublin, and made hoax bomb threats during the Queen of Englands State visit to Ireland, has opened an appeal against his conviction in the Irish language. Donal Billings (67), with an address at St Bridgets Court, Drumlish, County Longford, was found guilty by the non-jury Special Criminal Court of possessing an explosive substance at Longford railway station car park on May 16, 2011. Billings was further convicted of making false reports on May 16 and May 18, 2011, that bombs had been placed at Busaras and Sinn Fein's headquarters in Dublin and that two mortars were set for Dublin Castle. He was also found guilty of making a false report on May 20 that two bombs had been placed in the toilets at Cork airport. The Queen of England was visiting Ireland at the time. Sentencing him to eight and a half years imprisonment, Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding said Billings was "perfectly entitled to hold a low opinion" of Queen Elizabeth and her visit to Ireland but "not entitled to express such an opinion by engaging in criminality". He was given concurrent jail terms for making false reports. Billings, whose trial was heard in both Irish and English, is conducting his appeal through Irish also. It is the first case - before President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice George Birmingham, Ms Justice Marie Baker and Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy - to be heard in Irish since the Court of Appeal was established in 2014. It requires the swearing in of two Irish interpreters. Irish language rights Counsel for Billings, Martin Giblin SC, submitted that the State failed to uphold his client's Irish language rights without limitation. Advancing his arguments in Irish, which were translated into English for the court, Mr Giblin said the Explosive Substances Act 1883 had never been translated into Irish. He said the Special Criminal Court failed to protect his clients Irish language rights when it refused an application to provide an overnight transcript of proceedings in the Irish language. A transcript was provided in the English language, even though it was within the States abilities to provide one in Irish also, he submitted. Mr Giblin said his clients Irish language rights were decimated and destroyed. He said his clients trial was unfair under Article 38 of the Constitution and that he did not get a trial in due course of law. He wished to stress that his clients Irish language rights were independent of his fair trial rights, which were the subject of further grounds. Ronan Munro SC, also for Billings, further submitted that there was insufficient evidence that the bomb was placed on the bus in Longford. Also advancing his arguments in Irish, which were translated for the court, Mr Munro said the charge of possession should have been thrown out at the close of the prosecutions case. The hearing resumes on Wednesday. Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Garnet Orange SC, is yet to make submissions. During case management last year, Mr Justice Birmingham commented that he was having enough difficulty finding three judges to speak English let alone Irish, in reference to the shortage of judges the court was facing at the time. The Special Criminal Court heard that a phonecall was made to Longford garda station on May 16, 2011. The caller said there was a bomb on a Dublin-bound Corduff travel passenger bus, a second bomb on a bus at Busaras and a third bomb at Sinn Fein headquarters in Dublin. The Corduff travel bus was stopped on Station Rd, Maynooth, and searched by gardai, who found a suspicious object, comprised of gunpowder and a two-litre bottle of petrol, in the luggage compartment. Mr Justice Hunt said that Billings had placed a highly dangerous explosive on a public transport vehicle containing an innocent driver and many passengers. This was an "outrageous, highly irresponsible and dangerous act", the judge said, which "recklessly exposed passengers, staff and members of the emergency services to very significant risk of serious injury or death". The bomb, the judge added, was intended to give credence to further hoax calls Billings planned to make. A further phonecall was made on May 18, threatening two mortars were set at Dublin castle for 8pm that evening. The time and place coincided with a state banquet in the castle for Queen Elizabeth. The caller said, "I'm a member of the Republican Brotherhood, Squad A. Two mortars are set for Dublin Castle at 8pm." "This is for the Queen of blood and war of Iraq." Searches were carried out but nothing was found. A third phonecall, made at 3.15pm on May 20, threatened two bombs at Cork airport. Queen Elizabeth was due to fly out that afternoon from the airport. After a search, nothing was found. The investigations led to Billings being identified as a suspect. Referring to Billings garda interviews, Mr Justice Hunt said that the "lies told by the accused were rather obvious and unsophisticated". Billings has two previous convictions, from Northern Ireland in 1973, for possession of explosives. An exhibit is being launched today to highlight the estimated 2,500 people diagnosed with lung cancer in Ireland every year. The Irish Cancer Society is launching its Mega Lungs exhibit in The Blanchardstown Centre in Dublin to educate people on the disease. They are urging people to become aware of the signs and symptoms of lung cancer. According to the NCRI Annual Report, increases in female lung cancer rates will substantially outnumber male cases in coming decades with projections showing a 176% increase for female cases. Know the symptoms and see your doctor if you're worried: https://t.co/ubXHPgf6bb pic.twitter.com/xS0itqcGBi Irish Cancer Society (@IrishCancerSoc) January 14, 2019 The society says the walk-in model of the human lungs is a unique way of learning more. Aoife McNamara, Information Development Manager, Irish Cancer Society, said there is a worrying trend of people presenting at A&E with symptoms. "We are also seeing older patients and those from areas of higher deprivation are more likely to be diagnosed in an emergency department. "Unfortunately, a late stage lung cancer diagnosis can mean treatment options are very limited and survival rates are much lower. Most people who quit smoking go it alone. Cold turkey is the least effective and most difficult way to quit. Support from the HSE QUIT team doubles your chances of success. Visit https://t.co/NeRrq23tgZ or call 1800 201 203 for information. #quittowin @HSEQuitTeam @HSELive pic.twitter.com/TZPjyZzKAE Irish Cancer Society (@IrishCancerSoc) January 9, 2019 She added: This trend doesnt need to continue; being lung aware and conscious of symptoms can mean being diagnosed earlier. "When lung cancer is diagnosed at stage I or II, two-thirds of patients survive at least a year compared with just one-quarter who are diagnosed with a later stage lung cancer. "If you have a persistent cough, difficulty breathing or are wheezing, its really important that you speak with your doctor. A man given a suspended sentence for attacking his ex-partner as she was collecting their two-year-old daughter from a creche, has been sent to jail following an appeal by prosecutors. Matthew Kelly (26), with an address at Clara House, Main Street, in Roundwood pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to his ex-partner in Roundwood, Co Wicklow on November 17, 2017. He was given a wholly suspended two-and-a-half year sentence by Judge Michael OShea at Bray Circuit Criminal Court on July 26, 2018. The Director of Public Prosecutions successfully sought a review of Kellys suspended sentence on grounds that it was unduly lenient. The Court of Appeal agreed today and accordingly jailed him for 12 months. Giving judgment in the three-judge court, President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice George Birmingham said the attack occurred near a creche which the little girl had just started attending. The appeared to be tension between Kelly and his ex-partner, the judge said, and a difficulty arose at the collection stage. Kelly, who had his daughter in his arms, put her down and punched his ex partner in the mouth with a closed fist. He repeatedly punched her to the head and body after she had fallen to the ground. The victim impact report referred to being kicked on the ground. In the aftermath, Kelly went to his local garda station and made admissions. Mr Justice Birmingham said it was important to note that the injured party had obtained a safety order from the District Court, which was in force at the time of the assault. The sentencing judge described the attack as cowardly, vicious and violent. He said the question of whether Kelly would have to serve any time in custody was extremely marginal. Kelly had no previous convictions and a good work record. The Circuit Court heard that he was suffering from depression and anxiety and had attended for counselling regularly. Counsel for the DPP, Eoghan Cole BL, submitted that the sentencing judge erred in suspending the sentence in its entirety. He said the judge attached too much weight to Kellys mitigating factors but personal circumstances only travel so far. He said the judge didnt attach any weight to the need for deterrence, particularly where a safety order had been breached. He said the injured party was entitled to expect the safety she had obtained from the courts and the fact Kelly breached a safety order, moved the case into a different category. Mr Justice Birmingham said the court regarded it as a very serious offence given the nature and location of the assault. It was committed within the presence of the school community, and in the presence of his own child. In the Court of Appeals view, the fact that such a serious assault was committed against someone who had invoked the protection of the courts by seeking and obtaining a safety order, moved the case into a different category. Mr Justice Birmingham, who sat with Ms Justice Marie Baker and Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy, quashed Kellys sentence and imposed a new two-and-a-half year term with all but the final 12 months suspended A man who held over 77,000 worth of heroin having built up a drug debt has been sentenced to four and half years. Garrett Hanley (33) of Oliver Bond House, Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to having heroin, with an estimated value of 77,301 and cannabis with a value of 2,100 at his home on May 12, 2015. The court heard that heroin was found, following a garda surveillance operation, in a gas main at Hanley's home, while the cannabis was found in a wheelie bin. His five previous convictions include a five-year jail term for having 292,707 worth of heroin in August 2010. He was released from this sentence in February 2013. Today Judge Karen O'Connor suspended the final 18 months of the four and half year sentence. She accepted evidence that Hanley had not come to garda attention since his arrest and that he had been holding the drugs because of a debt he had built up. It was a significant amount of heroin. This type of offending leads to significant destruction to both families and individuals in our society, Judge O'Connor said. The judge said she had no alternative but to impose a custodial sentence as Hanley had been assisting with and contributing to the supply of drugs to our society. She ordered that Hanley engage with the Probation Service upon his release from prison and attend all addiction and mental health services that may be recommended. Relatives made desperate attempts to save children trapped in a burning portacabin during a devastating fire at a Dublin halting site. A wooden pallet was placed at the window of the unit to allow relatives reach inside and search for signs of life. Dublin Coroners Court heard harrowing evidence from surviving residents of the Glenamuck Halting Site of how children were retrieved from the bedroom of the burning portacabin through the window. Jim Connors Junior, who was not present in court due to the traumatic nature of the evidence, described in a deposition how he reached inside and grabbed a child. Mr Connors was in the kitchen of Thomas and Sylvia Connors portacabin on the night of the fire, which broke out around 4.30am. The children went to bed at 8pm. Thomas was smoking his weed. All the adults were drinking in the kitchen. It was a good time, not a word of an argument. It was 2am when I was leaving and we were all drunk, Mr Connors said in his statement. Later, he was woken by the screams of his wife Katie. He saw smoke and flames and ran to help. He kicked in the door. I went inside and got hit by flames. I could feel myself burning and had to get back out, he said. He broke two windows in an attempt to let the smoke out. I ran to get a pallet and put it at the window and reached inside. I couldnt feel anyone. Then I grabbed a child and reached back. I dont know who I handed the child to. The inquest heard from Kathleen Connors McDonagh, a sister of Thomas who became visibly upset in the witness box as her statement was read out. The court heard that she was handed a six month old infant, baby Mary. She ran with the baby into her own chalet. She placed the baby in her bed and ran back outside to see if she could be of any further help. I ran around to mine and put her into my bed. I didnt even really look at the child, I dont remember her crying, Kathleen Connors McDonagh said. Within minutes, she said she noticed flames coming from the front door of her chalet. Her son John was standing outside and he said Mam, Mary is not okay. She rushed to go back inside the burning chalet to save the baby, but firefighters stopped her. Ten victims perished in the fire. They were Thomas Connors (27) his wife Sylvia (30) and their children Jim, five, Christy, three, and six-month-old Mary. Willie Lynch (25) and his partner Tara Gilbert (27) who was pregnant, their daughters Jodie, aged nine, and Kelsey, age four also died. The tenth victim was Jimmy Lynch (39) a brother of Willie. The inquest continues with further evidence from relatives at the scene this afternoon. Gardai have issued a renewed appeal for information on whereabouts of a missing Dublin man. 18-year-old Dylan Keogh was last seen in the Clontarf area on Friday, January 11 between 9.30pm and 10.30pm. Dylan is described as being 5' 8" with a medium build, long black hair and brown eyes. He has a scar on the left-hand side of his forehead. When last seen Dylan was wearing a navy 'onesie' black runners and a blue bandana on his forehead. Anyone with information is asked to contact Ballymun Garda Station on 01 666 4400, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111 or any garda station. Gardai are appealing for witnesses after man was seriously injured in a crash in Dublin last night. It happened at around 10pm when the motorbike he was driving hit a van on Cappagh Avenue in Finglas and caught fire. Fianna Fail has threatened to withdraw its support for the Government unless it ensures large increases in Local Property Tax (LPT) bills are stopped. The opposition party accused the Government of "playing games" over property tax, which is to be reviewed later this year, and called for it to publish its plans as soon as possible Local property tax (LPT) is based on the market value of a house, but the rapid increase in prices has prompted concerns about the hikes in tax homeowners will have to pay. In 2015, the LPT being paid by homeowners was frozen until 2019. A review of the system is underway and the Government says it is due to report in the first quarter of this year. Fianna Fail's finance spokesman Michael McGrath said: Legislation will be required this year and this is an issue which should not be allowed to gather dust. Local authorities will be worried about their funding. If we have to press the issue, we will press the issue. We are setting out our position. Mr McGrath accused the Government of playing games with the issue, increasing public concern. "We have the spectre at the moment of Government ministers publicly calling for changes that they themselves are responsible for bringing about. We're seeing Shane Ross saying one thing, Joespha Madigan saying another thing," he said. The Government need to be coherent on this issue and agree on a collective position. we're just seeing games at the minute. The party's housing spokesman Darragh O'Brien called on the Government to be upfront about possible increases. "This review should have been published already. Fine Gael has been playing games with this, people are unsure where they stand - both local authorities and homeowners. I get a sense that they (Fine Gael) are trying to time this in advance of a local and European election to say, 'Aren't we great? We're not increasing the property tax'. "People see through these games. It's more of the spin and substance piece. Publish the report, let the Dail debate it, and let's move on and get certainty around the LPT." In the Dail, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan also called on the Government to clarify its position as soon as possible arguing that a site value tax system is preferable to the current model, which is based on property prices. What exactly is the Government planning to do, legislatively or otherwise, on property tax? Will the Taoiseach consider undoing the mistake made six or seven years ago and introducing a site value tax rather than the formal property tax, which seems to be being undone by his own Cabinet before our eyes? he asked. In response, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe tried to reassure the public that any changes to the LPT will be "affordable and predictable". He added that no one will have to pay this year, with the first bill due early next year. "The intention is not to increase the yield from the local property tax, so we will have to make changes in the band and in the rate as well so people see no increase, or perhaps a modest increase or decrease in 2020," he said. I can assure the Deputy that all members of the Cabinet are eager to come up with a regime that continues to be fair to everybody, he said. Update 1.43pm: Fianna Fail has accused the Government of playing games over property tax, which is to be reviewed for the first time this year. Local property tax (LPT) is based on the market value of a house, but the rapid increase in prices has prompted concerns about the hikes in tax homeowners will have to pay. In 2015, the LPT being paid by homeowners was frozen until 2019. There is no real reason why the Government have not published the LPT review, which was in fact due by the end of 2018. The public need to know where they stand. - @DarraghOBrienTD Fianna Fail (@fiannafailparty) January 15, 2019 A review of the system is under way and the Government says it is due to report in the first quarter of this year. Fianna Fail housing spokesman Darragh OBrien called on the Government to be upfront about possible increases. He said: This review should have been published already. Fine Gael have been playing games with this, people are unsure where they stand both local authorities and homeowners, I get a sense that they (Fine Gael) are trying to time this in advance of a local and European election to say, Arent we great? Were not increasing the property tax. People see through these games. Its more of the spin and substance piece. Publish the report, let the Dail debate it, and lets move on and get certainty around the LPT. Fianna Fail finance spokesman Michael McGrath said: We have the spectre at the moment of Government ministers publicly calling for changes that they themselves are responsible for bringing about. Were seeing Shane Ross saying one thing, Joespha Madigan saying another thing. The Government need to be coherent on this issue and agree on a collective position, were just seeing games at the minute. Was on @TodaySOR earlier about local property tax and need to ensure that there is no increase next year. Tax needs to be reformed to ensure no massive increase due to revaluation later this year. Listen in here. https://t.co/a94fu5aQrl Darragh O'Brien (@DarraghOBrienTD) January 14, 2019 Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe made efforts on Monday to reassure the public that any changes to the LPT will be affordable and predictable. He added that no one will have to pay this year, with the first bill due early next year. The intention is not to increase the yield from the local property tax, so we will have to make changes in the band and in the rate as well so people see no increase, or perhaps a modest increase or decrease in 2020, he said. - Press Association Earlier: Minister: Increases to local property tax will be 'moderate and affordable' Update 7.36am: Increases to the local property tax will be moderate and affordable, according to the Finance Minister. The Government still has not decided how much the tax will increase by. The matter is being reviewed - with Culture Minister Josepha Madigan calling for more affluent areas to pay less tax. Another Dublin-based Minister has said local councils should continue to decide how much people pay in any area. At the moment the charge is due to increase when there is a property price review in 2020. Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe says decisions will be made later in the year. He said: "Any changes will be ones that will be affordable and predictable. "These are bills that are due to come in one years time and I understand exactly the anxiety that people will have about these bills if they were to become clear towards the end of this year and were due to be paid early next year. "That is why I work to bring proposals to Government to bring that kind of clarity to it." Minister Donohoe says at the moment, he is examining the options available. "I am well aware of the very significant effect that higher house values could have on future local property tax liability. "I also know and it's obvious that while people's incomes have grown they clearly have not grown in line with the growth in house prices. "Any change if that happens on the local property tax will be moderate, understandable and affordable." Digital Desk A 50-year-old Ennis father was the getaway driver for his sons who set upon members of another settled traveller family in a busy Ennis town centre in two daylight violent attacks. In graphic CCTV footage shown at Ennis Circuit Court, James Sherlock is seen at the wheel of a white van on Enniss OConnell Street as his son, Declan Sherlock (23) is seen chase, catch up and then strikes a man lying on the footpath 10 times across the head and body with a long wooden pole. The attack took place at 6.10pm on July 28 July 2017 on the crowded street and the victim, Sean Slattery (29) is dragged into a Vodafone store by a worker there to prevent the attack continuing. The CCTV then shows three other offenders on the Sherlock side, including Mr Sherlocks 18 year old son, Jordan running down the street and jumping into Mr Sherlocks van after they had carried out an attack on members of the Molloy family, Thomas (26) and James (20) of Ballaghboy halting site, Ennis outside the nearby Temple Gate hotel. The attacks by the Sherlocks - all formerly of Dromard, Ennis - and two others on the Molloys were reprisals for an attack by James, Michael Molloy (25) and Martin Molloy (19) on Damien Sherlock (27) who was knocked off by his bike and assaulted earlier in the day at OConnell Square, Ennis. Judge Gerald Keys described James Sherlocks actions as despicable in facilitating his children to carry out the attacks. Mr Sherlock isnt facing a charge for driving on the date but he has pleaded guilty to charges from a separate feud incident which took place three days later. On the feud incidents before him, Judge Keys said: It is absolutely outrageous that this carry on should be allowed. What has happened here is just unbelievable. He said: I think that these people think that they are a law onto themselves - that they dont have any responsibility towards society and that they think that they can behave towards one another whatever way they wish and that we should ignore and accept it and allow them carry on the way they want to carry on. There were 11 people before the court resulting in a heavy Garda presence and Judge Keys rejected an application by counsel for two of the accused, Brian McInerney BL that pleas of mitigation could be heard on an adjourned date. Judge Keys said that he was rejecting the application in order to cut down on legal aid costs from the case for the State. He said: I am very conscious that this is costing huge expense to the State with all of the people before the court on legal aid - in other words everyone who is working and paying their taxes are paying for this. He said: While I have no objection to people being afforded legal representation there comes a point when you look at the previous convictions, the constant re-offending, the constant outlay for the tax-payer who has to pay the bill. If somebody doesnt say stop, the whole thing will fall apart . Judge Keys said that if he did adjourn the cases it means that the State and the tax-payer will be burdened with having extra security in the court because of the way these people behave towards one another. Judge Keys stated another day would add to the legal aid bill "and I dont think the tax payer should have to pay for that. I have to protect society and the tax-payer before this goes out of control completely". In his victim impact statement, Sean Slattery, who has no connection to the feud but is a brother of Thomas Molloys partner, said: I cant go up the road for fear of being cut upI am seriously afraid that these people will kill me. Representing Jim Molloy and James Sherlock in the case, Brian McInerney said: Peace is abroad, there are no further difficulties between these two families. He said that no one really knows the seed of the dispute between the two sides. Mr McInerney said that there is unlikely to be a repeat of what happened on July 28th 2017. He said: Fault lies on both sides. Wrong lies on both sides. Partial rightness lies on both sides but the reaction to be wronged was equally wrong and two wrongs dont make a right. Mr McInerney said that James Sherlocks wife died in tragic circumstances and he has to rear the children. Mr McInerney said: Mr Sherlock is fiercely overprotective of his family and involved himself when he shouldnt have done so. Mr McInerney said that Mr Sherlock used to visit his wifes grave on a daily basis but has now moved up with his family to Carrick on Shannon in Co Leitrim in order to remove himself and his family from Ennis. Mr McInerney said: He is gone from Ennis for good. Mr McInerney said that while it is wholly unrealistic to suggest that all of the Sherlocks and Molloys sit around Christmas dinner table and give each other Christmas presents a long time has passed between the last incident and today. Judge Keys adjourned the cases to February to fix a date for sentence. A Dublin father-of-three who robbed an elderly man of 2,500 while suffering a manic episode has received a fully suspended sentence. Alan Behan (27) with an address in Benmadigan Road, Drimnagh pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to one count of robbing cash from then 87-year-old Robert Lynch outside a Bank of Ireland branch in Walkinstown, Dublin, on August 26, 2016. Judge Karen O'Connor sentenced Behan to four years imprisonment for the offence, but suspended the entirety of the sentence. Detective Garda Kevin O'Shaughnessy told Maddie Grant BL, prosecuting, that Mr Lynch visited a Bank of Ireland ATM in Walkinstown on the day in question and withdrew 2,500. As he was walking back to his car, Behan appeared and grabbed hold of him, demanding he hand over the money. As Mr Lynch struggled to protect the cash in his pocket, he fell to the ground before Behan made off with the cash. Mr Lynch was extremely afraid during the incident and suffered a small cut to his arm but has made a full recovery, the court heard. He did not wish to make a victim impact statement, Gda O'Shaughnessy said. Behan was identified by gardai on CCTV footage and arrested a few months after the offence. He has 17 previous convictions, including dangerous driving, drink driving, aggravated burglary, criminal damage and assault. James Dwyer SC, defending, said his client was extremely remorseful and had asked gardai if he could apologise personally to Mr Lynch prior to the case being heard. This was arranged at a previous court date and Mr Lynch had accepted Behan's apology with incredible graciousness, the court heard. Mr Dwyer said that Behan had 600 in court to compensate Mr Lynch and had vowed to pay back all the money he robbed. Behan apologised face to face to his victim outside the courts. The court heard Behan has been living in temporary hostel accommodation with his partner and three children. He suffers from significant mental health issues, including anxiety and bipolar disorder, Mr Dwyer said. Medical records were handed up to court which said Behan was suffering a manic episode and was not of sound mind at the time of the robbery. At the time of the offence, he had not taken his medication and was under the influence of cannabis and other drugs, the court heard. In the letter of apology, Behan said he was sorry for his actions and disgusted at himself. He said he thinks about the robbery of Mr Lynch every day. I wish I could take it back, Behan wrote in a letter read out in court. Ever since I committed this crime, I've tried to make up for it every day by doing good things for people. Judge O'Connor noted Behan had made the choice not to take his medication and despite his mental state, had the wherewithal to choose his victim carefully. He didn't follow a young man who might have been able to put up more of a fight, the judge said. A bankruptcy official pursuing dealings over a Dublin 4 house once bought by businessman Sean Dunne will have to allow a company to inspect some documents as part of its defence to High Court proceedings over the property, a judge has ruled. However, official assignee in bankruptcy Chris Lehane is entitled to maintain a claim of privilege over certain other documents among the 288 sought by Cypriot-registered Yesreb Holdings, Mr Justice Robert Haughton said. Yesreb acquired the house called Walford on the Shrewsbury Road in 2013 from a trust set up by Mr Dunne for his wife Gayle in 2005. It had been bought that year by Mr Dunne for a record 58m. In 2016, Yesreb sold it for 14.25m Celtic Trustees Ltd which is the sole trustee of the Merdon Trust and whose settlor is financier Dermot Desmond. Mr Dunne was declared bankrupt here and in the US in 2013 over debts of 164m. His Irish bankruptcy was extended last October for 12 years over what a judge said was his "willful and deliberate" failure to co-operate with Mr Lehane who oversaw his estate. Mr Lehane had already brought proceedings against Gayle Dunne over the alleged fraudulent transfer to her by her husband of a hotel called the Lagoon Beach in South Africa in an attempt to defeat creditors of Mr Dunne. Mr Lehane says it was not until 2016 he was in a position to prove Mr Dunne also had an involvement with Yesreband Walford must therefore still have had a connection to the family. The Dunnes initially denied having any connection with Yesreb but later asserted it had been owned by Sean Dunne's son John, having been gifted to him by Gayle. The official assignee argued a "cloak" was thrown over the Walford transactions and that he (Mr Lehane) was given misinformation which the Dunnes strongly denied. Mr Lehane is now also bringing proceedings against Yesreb, with Celtic Trustees as notice party, in relation to the sale of the property. Celtic Trustees has brought its own separate action against Mr Lehane claiming, among other things, breach of privacy over the alleged leaking of confidential material to a newspaper concerning an agreement to buy Walford. The cases are being managed by Mr Justice Robert Haughton who on Tuesday ruled Yesreb, in order to properly defend the action against it, was entitled to inspect certain categories of documents over which the official assignee asserts privilege but not over others. The judge said a claim of litigation privilege over documents that came into being earlier than mid-to-late 2016 was not made out. Yesreb was entitled to inspect those documents. The judge accepted Mr Lehane's submission that different considerations applied to documents created at the time, shortly before, and after, the date he (Lehane) took his further proceedings. He was also entitled to maintain privilege over certain internal notes/documents. A campaign to ensure that everyone born in Ireland is entitled to Irish citizenships is underway after a number of high profile attempts to deport children. The Dail is to debate a Bill which would restore the eligibility of all people born here to claim citizenship. The solidarity group, who are bringing forward the Bill say it would undo the "Trump-style citizenship laws" which came into force following the 2004 referendum on the matter. In October, there was widespread criticism after it emerged that Eric Zhi Ying Xue, a nine-year-old boy living in Bray, Co Wicklow, was facing the threat of deportation to China, despite having been born in Ireland. Eric Zhi Ying Xue "All children should have equal access to citizenship regardless of their background," said Solidarity TD Paul Murphy. He said the most recent case of Eric had outraged an entire community in Bray. "At the time the Minister for Health Simon Harris said that Eric is Irish and has the same basis of being in the Wicklow community as he did. Our Bill now gives Minister Harris the opportunity to end any further cases of Irish-born children being deported. Speaking ahead of a Dail debate on the issue on Thursday, Gino Kenny said the vast majority of people would find it "absurd" to deport a child who has lived in Ireland all their lives. He also dismissed the notion that more people would travel to Ireland if the law is relaxed. "The idea that hundreds of thousands of people are going to come here for citizenship is ridiculous," he said. Tina Ndlovu, who has been living in direct provision for the past three years highlighted the fact that her son doesn't have Irish citizenship despite being born here. "I am first and foremost concerned about kids who face deportations. They are Irish in reality, they are even learning Irish in school, they have adjusted to Irish culture. However, they are denied Irish citizenship," she said. Government no deal Brexit emergency plans for Rosslare Europort which are seen as crucial to ensuring Ireland's continued access to continental Europe may not be ready for up to five years. Labour leader Brendan Howlin made the claim as he urged the Government to reveal the exact details and timelines of its Brexit contingency plans instead of simply re-stating top-line initiatives to the public. Speaking to reporters at Leinster House as British MPs prepared to vote on the UK-EU Brexit deal, Mr Howlin said the reality is time is running out to avoid a no deal crisis. While welcoming the Government's decision to begin drawing up legislation to protect Ireland, he said serious concerns remain over how long the protections will take to implement. And noting concerns over Rosslare Europort in his own Wexford constituency, Mr Howlin said there are fears some of the Brexit defences will not be in place for as long as five years. It's fairly late in the day now. In the transport side of things, I went down to Rosslare last week, and I spoke to the ferry companies down there. There seems to be no actionable action happening. "There's great plans for a new customs facility there and I understand the indicative drawings are going to be prepared, but the port authorities tell me they should have it in place between three and five years from now. "Now, obviously there's going to be an emergency happening at the end of March, and it really will be all hands on deck. But we really need to have indicative planning. "I talk to customs officials down there, and they don't know how many officials are they getting. They pointed out the bar area in Rosslare port is apparently going to be taken over by the Office of Public Works, but right now, 73 days to Brexit, it's still a bar. "That concerns me greatly," he said. Struggling British fashion retailer New Look has agreed a restructuring with debtholders to cut its debt by 1bn (1.1bn) as it seeks to position the group for a return to profitability. Last March New Look, which is owned by South African investment firm Brait, staved off a potential collapse into administration when British creditors and landlords backed a plan enabling it to close 60 UK stores. It said, yesterday, it had secured agreement for a debt-for-equity swap proposal to reduce its long-term debt from 1.35bn to 350m together with a new capital raise of 150m funded by the issuance of new bonds. [This] agreement represents a critical step in our turnaround plans and lays the foundations to secure the future and long-term profitability of New Look by materially deleveraging our balance sheet and providing us with the financial flexibility to better attack our future, said executive chairman Alistair McGeorge. He said that a delevered balance sheet and a more flexible capital structure would allow New Look to better navigate the tough retail environment. New Look said that UK like-for-like sales fell 2.3% in its second quarter but were up 0.9% in the third. It forecast earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for its 2019 financial year of 84m from its core UK business and a loss of 27m for the non-core business. Braits shares plunged more than 21% on the back of the debt deal announcement. The agreement will see Braits stake in New Look fall from around 90% to between 18% and 30%. New Look operates 28 stores in Ireland and 25 in the North. Earlier this month the retailer confirmed the closure of one of its central Belfast stores, with the loss of 70 jobs. New Look opened its first store in 1969 and expanded to have almost 600 in the UK and 300 in Europe, Asia and China, before being hit by a tough trading environment and growing competition from online shopping. Brait paid 1.9bn to buy New Look from private equity firms in 2015, but it has struggled to keep up with fast-growing online rivals like Asos and Boohoo. Reuters and Irish Examiner Shares in Monte dei Paschi di Siena were suspended after sliding by 8.5% on news of a stark ECB warning for the Italian bank. The ECB had flagged funding and profitability risks as well as a weakened capital position in a letter to Monte dei Paschi, the bailed-out lender revealed late last week. The regulator also told the Tuscan lender to boost provisions against bad loans in the coming years. Traders said the request for fresh loan write-downs was damaging for the stock and could also have negative implications for other lenders. Monte dei Paschi said the ECB had told it to put aside more money to cover impaired loans by 2026, in line with rules requiring eurozone banks to perform full write-downs within seven years for new loans that turn sour after April 2018. A request to apply such a rule to existing loans was unexpected, analysts said, adding that it raised doubts over whether the ECB may make similar demands to other banks. Even after a record 24bn sale of bad loans, Monte dei Paschi problem loans as of last September were equivalent to almost a fifth of its total lending. Provisions covered 56.4% of existing problem loans. Banca Akros analyst Luigi Tramontana calculated that Monte dei Paschi would need to book 8.7bn in additional provisions to fully cover existing problem loans, though that did not take account of possible recoveries. The ECBs request comes as a surprise to us, Mr Tramontana said, downgrading the stock to neutral from buy. Bankers say that a successful turnaround is essential to turn it into an attractive merger target, giving the Italian state a way out as demanded by EU law on state aid. Under the terms of the bailout agreed with the European Commission, Monte dei Paschi must meet given targets at set deadlines or adopt offsetting measures. Additional cost cuts risk further complicating the banks recovery efforts. Italys government must draw up a plan this year to liquidate its stake in Monte dei Paschi. Cabinet undersecretary Giancarlo Giorgetti was quoted by Italian newspapers the government would make a decision on the banks future in two to three months. Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena is preparing to sell covered bonds and will contact possible investors as soon as next week, a source said. Monte Paschi is attempting to issue the debt after it was unable to complete the second tranche of a bond sale last year amid market turmoil. Reuters and Bloomberg Newmont Mining will buy rival Goldcorp in a deal valued at $10bn (8.7bn), creating the worlds largest gold miner and cementing a return of mergers and acquisitions to the industry. The transaction comes just three months after Barrick Golds move to buy Randgold Resources in a $5.4bn transaction, which instantly spurred speculation that rivals would have to respond. The two huge gold deals have the potential to spark investor interest after the industry lost favour following years of lacklustre bullion prices, bad investments, and disastrous deals. Just two weeks ago, Mark Bristow, the new chief executive of Barrick, said the industry is heading for irrelevance unless there are major changes. Goldcorp shares surged 7.5% at one stage; while Newmont shares fell more than 8%. Newmont and Goldcorp were clearly not willing to sit back and let Barrick take the limelight, said Kieron Hodgson, a natural resources analyst at Panmure Gordon in London. Gold mining companies are turning to M&A as a way to kickstart growth and secure mine reserves after a decade of cutting back on exploration spending, according to Adrian Hammond, who covers African gold companies for SBG Securities. Investors have punished the industry in recent years and Newmont shares are about half the value from a peak in 2011. Companies are struggling to compete for lower costs whilst trying to replenish their reserve base, so acquiring assets has become the easier alternative, Mr Hammond said. Newmont will pay a premium of 17% to the weighted average share price from the last 20 days and also plans to pay two US cents for each Goldcorp share. The deal will create a company that runs mines in the Americas, Australia, and Ghana and exceeds Barrick-Randgold in scale, producing about 7.9 million ounces of gold a year. It also rivals Barricks purchase of Placer Dome as the gold industrys biggest takeover. That deal had a final value of about $9.9bn when it was completed in 2006. Newmont and Goldcorp said they will sell up to $1.5bn in assets over the next two years, echoing a similar Barrick pledge to concentrate on the best-performing mines. Newmont also promised initial cost savings from the merger of $100m a year. The promise of unloading assets, something Barrick is also expected to do, will have repercussions for the industry as a host of mines are likely to be put up for sale. Bloomberg The government has sharply rejected a fresh attack by the European Commission (EC) to remove Ireland's ability to set its own 12.5% corporation tax rate. A new proposal, published on Tuesday by the Commission seeks to remove national vetoes on matters relating to tax. This was despite Brussels moved to delay the implementation of the most controversial elements of the proposal to 2025. Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe was unequivocal in his rejection of the proposal. Taxation is a sovereign member state competence and decisions at [European] Council on tax matters require unanimity, a spokeswoman for Mr Donohoe said on Tuesday. Ireland does not support any change being made on how tax issues are agreed at EU level. Ireland is not alone in its opposition as a number of other EU countries including Denmark and Sweden are expected to take a similar stance. Fianna Fail's Michael McGrath said his party are completely opposed to any proposal which would see the situation change from the status quo. This is an issue we highlighted last week. The EU Commission is proposing that the requirement for unanimity around corporation tax policy within the union would be replaced with a system of qualified majority voting," he said. It is not in Ireland's national interest that there would be any change in decision making on corporation tax. It would cost us jobs, investment and it would cost us much-valued corporation tax revenue. The EU Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs, Pierre Moscovici, formally unveiled his blueprint on Tuesday for a transition to qualified majority voting on EU taxation policy matters. A former French Finance Minister, Mr Moscovici has long sought to break Ireland's ability to set its corporation tax rate at 12.5% The proposal seeks to see member states moving swiftly to developing qualified majority voting decision-making when it comes to measures that improve cooperation in fighting tax fraud and evasion, as well as issues in which taxation supports other policy goals, including fighting climate change and improving public health. The Commission then seeks the introduction by the end of 2025 of qualified majority voting for voting on major tax projects, such as the common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB) and new system for the taxation of the digital economy, which it says are urgently needed to ensure fair and competitive taxation in the EU. An original draft of the Commissions proposal had a more ambitious timeline for the second phase the end of 2020 according to reports. A Commission proposal last March for the introduction of a digital tax levied at the rate of 3 per cent on EU-based digital sales of multinational companies has been blocked by opposition from Ireland, Sweden and Denmark. France and Germany were the main proponents of the measure. Dublin City Council has given the green light to developer, Harry Crosbie for a new eight storey 185 bedroom hotel at Vicar Street in the Dublin Liberties in spite of some local opposition. A spokesman for Mr Crosbie said on Tuesday that it is hoped that construction work on the Vicar St Hotel will commence on the project in the next number of weeks and that the hotel will be open for business in 2020. The spokesman said that the hotel will add to the growing restoration of the Liberties. The spokesman also confirmed that Mr Crosbie is also working on a Vicar Street South in conjunction with Wexford County Council. The new venture in Dublin, when operational will create 80 jobs and the spokesman said that the hotel development will create a new way for the public to enjoy a live show. He said: We will create a new 'rock and room' concept with our exclusive promoter Peter Aiken. We will upgrade the venue to ensure its continued status as Dublin's premier mid-size venue. Walls Construction, which worked with Mr Crosbie on the original Point Depot and when it was transformed into an area, are to construct the hotel. One of the conditions of planning is that the hotel firm pay Dublin City Council 487,407 towards public infrastructure for the area. A report accompanying the planning application stated that the development will contribute significantly towards the implementation of a Core Strategy of the City Development Plan in respect of regeneration, urban design and economic and tourism development. The report also stated that the development can provide a catalyst and dynamic for the regeneration and redevelopment of the Liberties area and will enhance the attractiveness and diversification of the citys tourist accommodation offer. Failte Ireland also made a submission with the City Council in support of the application. However, a number of local residents - supported by People Before Profit TD, Brid Smith - lodged objections against the plan. In total, twelve objections have been lodged against the plan. The residents of Catherine Street told the City Council that the development would cause much distress to the residents of the area - an area, they say, that has had continuous development for the past two years. Many of the residents of Michael Mallin House are opposing the plan and in an objection, they stated: We, the residents of Michael Mallin house believe the height of the proposed development is not in proportion with the surrounding structures being twice the height of our flats as well as towering over houses located on Catherine St and Ash Street. In her objection, Ms Smith stated that the application does not represent development sympathetic to an urban residential community bound by new student accommodation, a public house/music venue, a homeless hostel and two new hotels in the immediate vicinity. In the joint objection with Cllr Tina McVeigh, Mr Smith pointed out that we are in the depths of a housing crisis that is having a catastrophic effect on our society. She stated: Rather than more hotels, apart hotels or luxury student accommodation, we urge our city planners to exercise their duty of care and refuse planning permission to any further developments that do not positively contribute to the stock of residential housing. Objectors now have the option of appealing the Council decision to An Bord Pleanala. An alleged bogus objector succeeded in delaying improvements at a telecoms tower in Ballsbridge in Dublin for almost six months. Last year, Cignal Infrastructure Ltd lodged plans for a base station to boost the coverage for Vodafone, Three, and Eir in the D4 area. The base station is located on the rooftop of an office and apartment block, called Number One Ballsbridge. In August, Dublin City Council gave the plan the go-ahead in spite of opposition to the proposal by an objector, Andy Reid, with an address at Upper Rathmines Road. Mr Reid claimed the installation would be an eyesore. The plan was then stalled after he lodged an appeal to An Bord Pleanala. Mr Reid paid the 220 fee and told the appeals board the development will make the building too high, it is high enough as it is. However, the appeals board has thrown out the appeal after using rarely used powers under the Planning and Development Act 2000 when it was unable to establish the bona fides of Andy Reid. Cignal raised concerns over the objection after calling to the Rathmines address and finding that the objector hadnt lived there. Our concerns were really raised when we established that there was no record of the individual named in the appeal letter living at the address given, a Cignal spokesman said. We are relieved that An Bord Pleanala investigated our concerns and have dismissed the appeal. Nevertheless, it has still delayed commencing the project by almost six months, he said. Over 640,000 used cars were sold in Ireland last year. That is 3% less than the previous year, according to the new DoneDeal Motor Industry review for 2018. Volkswagen was the most popular used car make in the last 12 months with just under 88,000 changing hands. Martin Clancy from DoneDeal says more and more people are opting for the German brand. He said: "Volkswagen is again the most popular used car make of 2018. "A total 87,992 changed hands in the used car market and that means one in every seven used cars is a VW now." TORONTO - A new study indicates dust from homes in Ford McMurray, Alta., had normal levels of indoor contaminants a year after a devastating forest fire hit the city, suggesting residents did not face an elevated health risk in the aftermath of the blaze. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Builders work on a new home in the Beacon Hills area after wildfires last year destroyed most of the neighbourhood in Fort McMurray, Alta. on April 21, 2017. New research shows Fort McMurray homes have normal levels of indoor toxins despite the wildfire that ripped through part of the area nearly three years ago. Arthur Chan, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Toronto and one of the study's authors, said house dust his team analyzed about a year after the fire that led to region's evacuation in 2016 was lower than in many other Canadian cities. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Todd Korol TORONTO - A new study indicates dust from homes in Ford McMurray, Alta., had normal levels of indoor contaminants a year after a devastating forest fire hit the city, suggesting residents did not face an elevated health risk in the aftermath of the blaze. Arthur Chan, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Toronto, said pollutants in house dust his team analyzed actually contained fewer toxins than homes in many other Canadian cities. "We don't see any cause for alarm," Chan said. "We found that the levels are below what the guidelines considered as risky." The results were published last week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Chan said he and two other researchers spent three weeks going house to house in July 2017, about 14 months after the blaze, sucking up dust from bedrooms and living rooms areas with the highest exposure with commercial grade vacuums. They later analyzed what they collected in a lab. The team went through more than 60 houses for the study. The researchers were driven to perform their work after residents raised safety concerns in wake of the massive wildfire that forced 88,000 people from their homes. Chan said the research was believed to be the first to look for the retention of "fire-derived pollutants" indoors. "That's partly because these kinds of fires are rare and it's hard to mobilize quickly to go into the community to do the study," Chan said. The research team was examining the house dust for the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are found in high concentrations in burned forests, and heavy metals that are found in high concentrations in ashes from burned buildings. They found trace elements of the heavy metal arsenic in house dust in neighbourhoods that were heavily damaged by fire compared to non-damaged neighbourhoods, but the levels weren't above Alberta's health guidelines, Chan explained. The researchers found no evidence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Fort McMurray house dust. "We still don't know why, but we think maybe people did a very good job cleaning or maybe from this event there isn't that much of an impact indoors," Chan said. "Whatever it is, it is minimizing the health risk." He said he hopes his results informs rebuilding and recovery efforts after wildfires. "We expect this will be an important set of results for the future because there are likely going to be more wildfires because of climate change and difference in land uses," he said. Chan and his team are working on several other related studies. They have gone back to Fort McMurray three other times to look at long-term levels of pollutants inside homes as well as seasonal effects. They are also working with a lung specialist who is conducting a parallel study looking at the residents of the same houses Chan's team has examined. "The idea is to compare what's around you to what's in you," Chan said. CALGARY - The Crown says a second-degree murder charge against a Calgary senior accused in his wife's death has been withdrawn following his death. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Siegfried van Zuiden, right, and his wife Audrey pose in this undated handout photo. A Calgary man who was found unfit to stand trial for killing his wife of nearly six decades has died after more than two years in legal limbo. Fred van Zuiden's godson Vince Walker says the 88-year-old died Sunday at the Rosehaven Care Centre in Camrose, Alta., about a three hour drive from his longtime home. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO - Vince Walker CALGARY - The Crown says a second-degree murder charge against a Calgary senior accused in his wife's death has been withdrawn following his death. Fred van Zuiden was found unfit to stand trial in the death of his 80-year-old wife Audrey, whose body was found in their home in October 2016. Court heard he had dementia and therefore could not understand the charge against him or even recognize his lawyer. Van Zuiden was 88 when he died at a secure care home in Camrose, Alta., on Jan. 6, but loved ones had hoped he would pass away without the murder charge attached to his name. Crown prosecutor Ken McCaffrey says he withdrew the charge as an administration step. He says he would have done so sooner had there been guarantees that van Zuiden posed no risk. "This is a very heartbreaking case and I certainly would have stayed the charge or withdrew the charge earlier if I had had those guarantees," McCaffrey said Monday. "But from my perspective, the primary focus is the protection of the public." McCaffrey said he hasn't dealt with a case like this in his 26 years as a criminal lawyer and other prosecutors from across Canada have called asking about it. The van Zuidens were married nearly six decades. They ran a sailboat business together and had no children. Close friends have described them as soulmates and have said he never would have intentionally hurt his wife. "The family has now come to find closure during these difficult few years," van Zuiden's nephew, Robert Vlessing, said in a statement. Van Zuiden, who was born to a Jewish family in Holland, chronicled his flight from the Nazis during the Second World War in his memoir: "Call Me Mom: A Dutch Boy's WWII Survival Story." "We will remember Fred for the full and accomplished life he had with Audrey and as the man of passion, bravery, honour, and respect that he truly was," said his godson, Vince Walker. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Four stories in the news for Tuesday, Jan. 15 SAUDI TEEN GRANTED ASYLUM IN CANADA TO SPEAK TODAY Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun arrives at Toronto Pearson International Airport, on Saturday, January 12, 2019.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young A Saudi teen whose flight from her allegedly abusive family captured global attention will give a public statement in Toronto this morning. Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun was granted asylum in Canada after her plight captured global attention on social media. The 18-year-old ran from her family while visiting Kuwait and flew to Bangkok, then barricaded herself in an airport hotel room and tweeted that she feared for her life if she returned home. She alleged that her father was physically abusive to her and tried to force her into an arranged marriage. FEDS FACE SCRUTINY OVER BUS-SAFETY STANDARDS The federal government faces questions today about its plan to increase safety on commercial buses following last week's deadly crash in Ottawa that killed three people and injured nearly two dozen more. The fresh scrutiny comes after Transportation Safety Board chair Kathy Fox took aim Monday at what she saw as the government's failure to act on earlier recommendations to increase "crashworthiness" rules for buses. Those recommendations sprang from the TSB's investigation into another Ottawa bus crash in 2013, in which a city bus broke through a warning gate at a rail crossing and hit a moving passenger train, killing six people on the bus. B.C. JURY EXPECTED TO BEGIN DELIBERATIONS TODAY A British Columbia judge has told jurors they will have to decide whether a man who confessed to killing a 12-year-old girl could have obtained details about the crime from police or media reports. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Austin Cullen completed his instructions to the jury Monday night in the trial of Garry Handlen, who confessed to the 1978 murder during a police undercover operation. Cullen said a jury foreman would be selected Tuesday morning before deliberations begin. Monica Jack was last seen in Merritt while riding her bike and her remains were discovered in the area 17 years later. EX-MP SVEND ROBINSON TO ANNOUNCE POLITICAL PLANS Former New Democrat MP Svend Robinson will announce today whether he is making a political comeback after saying a month ago he is strongly considering a return to federal politics. Robinson represented a Vancouver-area riding in Burnaby for 25 years before leaving politics in 2004 after he admitted stealing a diamond ring from an auction, saying he was under too much strain at the time. In a news release, Robinson says he will make the announcement on whether he is returning to politics outside the home in Burnaby he lived in as a boy. REPORTS ON NOVA SCOTIA PRIVACY BREACH TO BE RELEASED A pair of reports to be released today are expected to shed more light on how the personal information of 700 people became exposed through Nova Scotia's freedom-of-information website last spring. The Liberal government asked Nova Scotia auditor general Michael Pickup and provincial privacy commissioner Catherine Tully to investigate what it described as a privacy breach in April. Personal information ranging from social insurance numbers to thousands of documents meant only for the eyes of the applicants were accessed, according to the province. ALSO IN THE NEWS: Ontario Premier Doug Ford will sit down with GM executives in Detroit today for his first face-to-face meeting since the company announced the Oshawa, Ont., plant closure in November. The second-degree murder trial continues today for Dennis Oland in the death of his father, Richard Oland. Edward Downey, who was found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of Sara Baillie and Taliyah Marsman, will make a court appearance today in Calgary to set a sentencing date. The Canadian Real Estate Association will release its latest housing figures for December and year-end. OTTAWA - Critics of NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh say his performance in a weekend TV interview is a sign he may not be prepared for the challenges of the election year ahead. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 14/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh walks to another home while door knocking for his byelection campaign, in Burnaby, B.C., on Saturday January 12, 2019. Federal byelections will be held on Feb. 25 in three vacant ridings - Burnaby South, where Singh is hoping to win a seat in the House of Commons, the Ontario riding of York-Simcoe and Montreal's Outremont. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck OTTAWA - Critics of NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh say his performance in a weekend TV interview is a sign he may not be prepared for the challenges of the election year ahead. His supporters shrugged it off as an inconsequential moment that only those within the "Ottawa bubble" actually care about. During an appearance on the political show CTV Question Period, Singh appeared to be unaware of a news story that made a lot of headlines last week. Singh was asked how he would respond, if elected prime minister, to the recent statement by China's Canadian ambassador Lu Shaye, that Canada and its Western allies' calls for the release of two Canadians detained in China is rooted in "white supremacy." "Sorry, who accused who of white supremacy?" Singh asked his interviewer. He later told the Toronto Star he didn't hear the initial question. Host Evan Solomon repeated it in full and asked how Singh would have responded if he were prime minister. "I don't know if there is any evidence of that suggestion," Singh said, then quickly pivoted to talking about U.S. President Donald Trump. The performance spawned a social-media backlash from NDP supporters and foes alike. Karl Belanger, the NDP's former national director, said Singh's response to the China question is not a big problem on its own, but he believes these kinds of things can add up. Whether he didn't hear the question properly or he wasn't fully briefed, Belanger thinks Singh should have been able to handle it better. "Frankly, it's not helpful to have answered the way he answered because it feeds into a narrative that Jagmeet Singh is not ready to play at the same level as the other main party leaders," Belanger said. Singh, elected the NDP leader about 15 months ago, is in the political fight of his life as he seeks to win a seat in the House of Commons for the first time. He is currently devoting almost all his time to that campaign ahead of the Feb. 25 vote but has said even if he doesn't win he will continue to lead the party into next fall's general election. British Columbia NDP MP Peter Julian, who has been canvassing the riding alongside his leader, said Burnaby voters like Singh because, compared to the candidates from other parties, he has a lot to say on the issues that are most important to people in the riding, like housing affordability, the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and education. "We're certainly seeing, both with the phone calls we're making and the door to door, very strong support," said Julian, who insisted he's heard absolutely nothing about Singh's response on the China question. "It's just not something that people are talking about in Burnaby South and that's, I think, indicative as well of the difference between the kind of issues that are talked about in the Ottawa bubble and the types of issues that people are actually talking about." Belanger said Singh absolutely has to win the byelection. "Failure is not an option. Despite what some might say, he must win if he wants to remain leader and lead the NDP in the next general election," he said. Nationally the NDP is at around 16-per-cent support in polls, which supporters argue is good by historical standards. One party insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged there's pressure on Singh, but said there were times in the NDP's history when it would have "kill(ed) to be hovering around 16 per cent." However the NDP hasn't polled that low in an election since 2004, when it won just 19 seats, fewer than half the 44 seats won in 2015. The insider said the party expects more people to tune in as the October general election gets closer. They're also confident Singh is going to take the Burnaby South seat, which NDP candidate Kennedy Stewart won by just over 500 votes in the 2015 election. Singh is running against Liberal candidate Karen Wang and Conservative hopeful Jay Shin. The Greens have decided not to field a candidate. MONTREAL - A Quebec man accused of suffocating his ailing wife had inquired about medically assisted death for her a year earlier but was informed she did not qualify because of her advanced Alzheimer's diagnosis, a jury heard Tuesday. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Michel Cadotte, accused of murder in the 2017 death of his ailing wife in what has been described as a mercy killing, is seen at the courthouse in Montreal on Monday, January 7, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson MONTREAL - A Quebec man accused of suffocating his ailing wife had inquired about medically assisted death for her a year earlier but was informed she did not qualify because of her advanced Alzheimer's diagnosis, a jury heard Tuesday. Michel Cadotte, 57, has pleaded not guilty to one count of second-degree murder in the death of Jocelyne Lizotte, his wife of 19 years who was found dead in a Montreal long-term care facility in 2017. Jocelyne Lizotte is shown in this undated court evidence handout photo. The impact of Alzheimer's was front and centre at the opening of the trial Monday of a Quebec man charged with killing his wife, who was suffering from the disease. As jury selection began in the case of Michel Cadotte, many prospective jurors said they could not be impartial given their own experiences caring for loved ones with the neurodegenerative disease. Cadotte, 57, has pleaded not guilty to one count of second-degree murder in the Feb. 20, 2017 slaying of Jocelyne Lizotte. The 60-year-old woman was found dead at a long-term care facility in Montreal where she was in the later stages of Alzheimer's. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO - Quebec Superior Court "On that day, Michel Cadotte chose to take her life," prosecutor Antonio Parapuf said as he delivered a summary of the Crown case. The prosecution contends that at around noon on Feb. 20, 2017, as Lizotte was in her bed on the fourth floor of the facility, Cadotte put a pillow on her face. "By applying and maintaining pressure, he caused her death by suffocation," Parapuf said. Lizotte, 60, had suffered from Alzheimer's for about a decade at the time of her death and had lived at Centre Emilie Gamelin since Jan. 24, 2014 a little more than three years. "Her health had deteriorated to a point where she could no longer take care of herself, could no longer communicate, and did not recognize her relatives," Parapuf said. "Lizotte was in a state of great vulnerability." Meanwhile, Cadotte wasn't handling Lizotte's health problems very well, the prosecutor said. On the morning of the slaying, he was supposed to go to work with Lizotte's brother, Sylvain. Instead he went to the centre, and when a nurse tried to enter the room at 12:45, Cadotte blocked the door. Fifteen minutes later, he told an attendant to call 911 and that his wife was dead before going outside to smoke. He later told the head nurse he'd suffocated his wife, the jury heard. In the moments after the crime, he allegedly contacted his brother-in-law Sylvain Lizotte by text message. "Sorry brother-in-law, I know I've caused you hurt, but I cracked," he wrote in a text read out by the prosecutor. He also posted messages to his Facebook page. The jury heard that in February 2016, Cadotte had inquired about a medically assisted death for Lizotte. "In the presence of three members of the medical personnel, he was told she was not admissible," Parapuf said. Lizotte did not qualify because her mental state did not allow her to consent to the procedure and because she was not considered to be at the end of her life. A doctor who treated her after she was admitted to the facility and who pronounced her dead is among the witnesses scheduled to testify. "She will explain that given the advanced stage of Alzheimer's, the objective was to keep her comfortable," Parapuf said. Four employees of the long-term care centre and several police officers are also expected to testify in support of the prosecution's claim that Cadotte intended to kill Lizotte that day. The first witness was a Montreal police crime scene technician, who described what she and a partner found inside the room. A pillow found inside the room was shown to the eight-man, four-woman jury and entered into evidence. The trial is being presided over by Quebec Superior Court Justice Helene Di Salvo. Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version said the jury heard testimony Monday. BEIJING - Chinese President Xi Jinping's government is sparing no expense to its international reputation in its determination to force Canada to back down over the case of a Chinese telecommunications executive it detained last month. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Flags of Canada and China are placed for the first China-Canada economic and financial strategy dialogue in Beijing, China, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Jason Lee/Pool Photo via AP BEIJING - Chinese President Xi Jinping's government is sparing no expense to its international reputation in its determination to force Canada to back down over the case of a Chinese telecommunications executive it detained last month. While Beijing formally denies any connection, the arrest of two Canadians on vague national security charges and the re-sentencing of a convicted Canadian drug smuggler to death on Monday point to a determined campaign of intimidation and retribution. And while global perceptions of China's adherence to free trade and rule of law may take a beating, for Xi and other highly nationalistic Communist leaders, the stakes are simply too high. "The Chinese will stop at nothing because it's a huge loss of face, for both the Chinese government and Xi Jinping in particular," said Willy Lam, an expert on Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Canada detained Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. The U.S. wants Meng, who is also the daughter of Huawei's founder, extradited to face charges that she committed fraud by misleading banks about the company's business dealings in Iran. China responded nine days later by arresting former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor. On Monday, a Chinese court sentenced Robert Lloyd Schellenberg to death, overturning a 15-year prison term handed down earlier. The actions fit a pattern of retaliation against nations that offend China, which sometimes extends to their citizens inside the country. Past instances have shown China willing to endure long freezes in relations and subsequent damage to its national image. China suspended its bilateral trade deal with Norway and restricted imports of Norwegian salmon when the Nobel peace prize was awarded to political prisoner Liu Xiaobo in 2010. Britain and other countries were retaliated against over meetings with the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, considered a dangerous separatist by Beijing, and in 2014, a Canadian couple was detained in northeastern China and charged with espionage following Canada's arrest of a man accused of stealing U.S. aviation secrets for China. Analysts say they have little doubt Kovrig and Spavor's cases are related to Meng's, and the handing down of tougher sentences on appeal is rare enough to arouse suspicion. "This really hurts China" and its efforts to promote its influence around the world, said David Zweig, a Canadian who directs the Center on China's Transnational Relations at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "Xi Jinping has been talking so much about promoting soft power ... I certainly think that it hurts China's soft power and its argument that it supports the rule of law," Zweig said. Retaliating against Canada, widely seen as a benign influence on the global order, also offers fewer dividends for China than confronting the U.S., which is regarded by many in the international community as at least as much of a bully as China, Zweig said. "China doesn't win any points by pushing around Canada," he said. However, Beijing's dismissive attitude toward Canada seems very much in line with its binary view of the world as divided into "big" or powerful nations that need to be deferred to, and "small" ones which China can afford to push around, said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at London's School of Oriental and African Studies. China is picking on Canada "because they can," said Tsang. "It will have lots of negative effects on China's standing in the world and international perceptions of China." He said Beijing's handling of the case shows its refusal to recognize the concept of an independent judiciary, something unknown in China, where the ruling Communist Party controls the courts. As the daughter of the founder of Huawei closely connected to China's powerful military and considered something of a national treasure Meng is afforded special status, Tsang said. While he predicts further steps by Beijing to pressure Canada, Tsang said he doubts they will have any bearing on the result. "It will have no impact in terms of how the Canadian government deals with the Meng case," he said. International observers also point to the strikingly different ways in which the cases are being handled by the two countries. While Meng has been afforded a lawyer and released on bail to her Vancouver mansion, Kovrig and Spavor are being held in cells with only minimal consular access. Canada has also complained that as a former diplomat, Kovrig should be accorded a degree of immunity. The timing and circumstances of Schellenberg's resentencing are also being called into question. While his case was on appeal, the speed with which the new hearing was held, with only four days' notice, drew criticism from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a subsequent sharp rebuke of him by Beijing. Underlying China's behaviour is the apparent conviction that Meng's detention was a political act that must be responded to in kind. Given the limited information about the cases allowed by government censors, Chinese have "no sense that Ms. Meng was grabbed for anything other than political reasons," Zweig said. "And if it's completely political, then I guess in their viewpoint, kidnapping people is just tit-for-tat," he said. On Beijing's frigid streets Tuesday, public opinion seemed to be running strongly in the government's favour. "It shows China is standing up" to Canada, said teacher Liang Reufen, adding that she hopes the matter will not be "elevated to a political level." Finance worker Huo Yong said politics were already inextricably tied up in the case. "We should pressure them since they use politics to contain our economic growth," said Huo. "My attitude is, 'whoever bullies us, we should bully them back.'" Christopher Bodeen has covered politics in China and Taiwan for The Associated Press for more than two decades. Brandon University is eyeing a tuition fee increase to help pay for a major software upgrade that will address certain gaps in the course registration process and other shortcomings that have become points of frustration for students and staff. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us Scott Lamont, vice president of administration and finance for Brandon University, speaks during a town hall for university staff about overhauling some existing software systems for the university. (Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun) Brandon University is eyeing a tuition fee increase to help pay for a major software upgrade that will address certain gaps in the course registration process and other shortcomings that have become points of frustration for students and staff. The proposed overhaul would allow BU to manage student records and improve communication using an integrated system known as Enterprise Resource Planning that it argues will bring the post-secondary institution in line with modern-day industry standards. The system would replace BUs custom-built software, which has been in place since the 1970s, and cost the school between $3.5 million to $8 million, while adding several hundreds of dollars in tuition fees over the course of a students academic career once installed. "It is a transformational process, just even in terms of going from something that looks like it was built in the 1970s, 1980s, to going to something that looks like today," said BU registrar Andrea McDaniel, who serves on a university steering committee that will work on the software upgrade. BU held a town hall Monday to explain the years-long process to students, faculty and staff. Scott Lamont, vice president of administration and finance for Brandon University, speaks during a town hall for university staff about overhauling some existing software systems for the university. (Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun) Having had a similar experience several years ago at Bishops University in Sherbrooke, Que., McDaniel said the current system at BU is unable to deliver the basic functions that students should expect, whether its registering for classes through their mobile device or having the right course information all in one place. She said the system cant tell a student how much a course will cost until they have actually registered for it and cant recognize when a student is repeating a class to get a better mark, meaning a staff member has to manually check to make sure it doesnt appear twice on a students transcript. The same applies when confirming a student has met all of the requirements to graduate, which can lead to "unpleasant surprises," McDaniel said. "The students should be able to go in at any time and be able to see where theyre at in their program, what theyve got left, whether theyre meeting their GPA requirements, all of those things. We want to be able to offer that," she said. The full transition could take between five to seven years, with the upfront costs paid back over seven to 10 years. In order to cover the estimated $500,000 in ongoing maintenance once the system is in place, the university has suggested increasing tuition fees by $5-$7 per credit hour, adding between $600 to $840 to the price of a four-year degree. The added charge would be applied to a student's technology fee. Scott Lamont, vice president of administration and finance for Brandon University, speaks during a town hall for university staff about overhauling some existing software systems for the university. (Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun) "From our perspective, we want to make sure that students are getting value for their money and that whats being asked of them isnt unreasonable," said Brandon University Students Union president Justin Shannon. Although the added costs will be a "burden" on students, he said the new system will also benefit them. On top of the concerns cited by McDaniel, Shannon said the current software wont tell students where they are on a class waiting list, meaning the only way to find out is by contacting the professor directly. "Its clearly very antiquated," he said. "Its frustrating for students and it makes just everything more difficult." BU has hired the firm CampusWorks to help the university throughout the entire length of the project, up until the system is up and running. The company will be paid $1.1 million for its work and a recommendation for a software package is expected to be presented to the schools board of governors a year from now. The university has considered a new system in the past, but BU vice-president of administration and finance Scott Lamont said the technology has become more affordable in recent years. He said the process will not involve any job losses, adding that rising enrolment, management cuts, salary negotiations and increases to international student fees will be used to help budget for the system upgrade. And like the staff and students at BU, Lamont has also had his own challenges navigating the current system. "Its difficult for us right now," he said. "I cant by myself go into our computer system and do queries of data in order to be able to determine what our trends are, whether theyre financial trends, or student trends, or maintenance trends, or any of these sorts of things. I cant get that information." As for the tuition hike, Lamont said provincial legislation requires that fees in Manitoba remain the lowest in Western Canada. Students shouldnt expect to see an added charge until the actual costs for the system are incurred by the university. "There has to be a value proposition for students as well, and so we believe that this will make their experience better, not only for them directly as theyre interacting with the system, but also for professors and for staff and so on, so that the experience that they have as students will be better for the investment that the university makes and the investment that the students make in it," he said. "And so the university is making a contribution towards the project and students will be making a contribution towards the project, so everybody is participating and everybody is benefiting." BU will hold two more town halls Jan. 22 and 25, followed by four days of sessions with the consultant between Feb. 5-8. mlee@brandonsun.com Twitter: @mtaylorlee Vaping is one of the likely causes behind a growing number of suspensions in the Brandon School Division this semester, Supt. Marc Casavant said. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 15/1/2019 (883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us Supt. Marc Casavant speaks during a Brandon School Division board meeting on Monday evening. (Melissa Verge/The Brandon Sun) Vaping is one of the likely causes behind a growing number of suspensions in the Brandon School Division this semester, Supt. Marc Casavant said. With suspensions for the first semester of the school year on track to rise for a fourth year in a row, he said that vaping "is clearly something that has hit the schools this fall fairly hard." From September to mid-January, there were 179 total suspensions. Last school year, there were 183 suspensions from September to the end of January. With more than two weeks still remaining this month, its likely that the 183 suspensions will be surpassed. The 179 suspensions is already a jump from where it sat back in 2016-17 at 137, and the 76 recorded in 2015-16. When students vape, theyre often doing it with a group of other kids, Casavant said, leading to more suspensions. "One could look at the numbers and say thats because theres larger groups getting suspended for doing things," he said. The same could also ring true when it comes to assaults, he said, adding that when a fight happens at school there might also be bystanders taking a video of it and posting it online, leading to more students getting into trouble. Of the suspensions this school year, 60 were drug- and alcohol-related, of which seven occurred in elementary schools. The elementary school suspensions are concerning, Casavant said. "Whenever kids start to experiment with that sort of thing, it lends itself to them wanting to continue or getting hooked on trying more serious drugs," he said. Before the student returns to school in the division, theres a re-entry program they take part in where parents come in with the child and talk about what their needs are and what the division can do to help them be successful, Casavant said. Then, plans are put in place to help them. At the end of January of last year, there were 70 drug- and alcohol-related suspensions which was an increase from the 38 recorded during this timeframe in the 2016-17 school, and from 11 the year before that. Then Brandon School Division assistant Supt. Greg Malazdrewicz said he suspected it mirrored what was going on in the larger community. Casavant said he believes that is still true. "The drug activity and violence is up in the community if you look at police reports, so its a direct reflection of what were experiencing in our schools." A report with more detailed statistics about the suspensions in the division is set to be released by the division at the end of this month. Board chair Linda Ross said that she didnt have anything to add beyond what Casavant had to say. mverge@brandonsun.com Twitter: @Melverge5 Ross Ramsey is executive editor and co-founder of The Texas Tribune, a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. This analysis originated at texastribune.com. Contact Ramsey at rramsey@texastribune.org. Birthday wishes Call 281-422-8302 or email david.bloom@baytownsun.com to wish someone a happy birthday. We will print your birthday wish on Page 2 of The Sun. Happy Birthday Wishes The Undead Archives I have finally salvaged my pre-Blogger TDR archives and added them into Blogger. They are almost totally in the form of one giant post for each month. And the formatting strayed from the originals. Sorry. But historians everywhere can rejoice that this treasure trove of my thoughts is restored to the world. PR Newswire WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2019 WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. News & World Report, the global authority in education rankings, today unveiled the 2019 Best Online Programs rankings for adults looking to advance their education and career goals. Speaking to a greater interest in online programs, this year's rankings evaluate 1,545 programs up from 1,490 last year including both bachelor's and graduate programs in fields like nursing, education, business and engineering. The Best Online Bachelor's Program is Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, moving up one spot from last year to reclaim the No. 1 rank. Schools at the top of this list generally have lower indebtedness, with the average debt of graduates at the top 10 online bachelor's programs being about $19,000. The Best Online Graduate Nursing Programs list increased to 179 programs this year, and Johns Hopkins University moved up four spots to the top of the list. The University of Florida joins Clemson University in a tie for No. 1 in graduate-level education. Columbia University and the University of Southern California maintain their respective No. 1 ranks for online graduate programs in engineering and computer information technology. "Online programs can offer a flexible learning environment for students who have to balance classes with working a full-time job, caring for their family or other responsibilities," said Anita Narayan, managing editor of Education at U.S. News. "The Best Online Programs rankings allow students to compare accredited programs and find those that best fit their education interests and career goals." Aside from the rankings, U.S. News publishes year-round editorial content on accredited programs, paying for school, career advancement and more. Prospective students can also use the Online College Compare tool to search and compare programs. Using data gathered directly from each institution, U.S. News is the only publication to evaluate online degrees at the program level rather than the school level. The methodologies are based on factors including student engagement, faculty credentials, and student services and technology. Only degree-granting programs at regionally accredited institutions that are offered primarily online were considered. 2019 U.S. News & World Report Best Online Programs Bachelor's Programs1. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (FL)2. Arizona State University3. Ohio State UniversityColumbus (tie)3. Oregon State University (tie) Graduate Programs MBA1. Indiana UniversityBloomington (tie)1. University of North CarolinaChapel Hill (tie)3. Carnegie Mellon University (PA) Business, non-MBA1. Indiana UniversityBloomington2. University of Southern California (tie)2. Villanova University (PA) (tie) Computer Information Technology 1. University of Southern California2. New York University3. Virginia Tech Criminal Justice1. University of NebraskaOmaha2. University of CaliforniaIrvine3. Sam Houston State University (TX) Education1. Clemson University (SC) (tie)1. University of Florida (tie)3. Utah State University (tie)3. Virginia Commonwealth University (tie) Engineering1. Columbia University (NY)2. University of CaliforniaLos Angeles (tie)2. University of Southern California (tie) Nursing1. Johns Hopkins University (MD)2. Ohio State University3. St. Xavier University (IL) For more information, visit Best Online Programs and share the rankings using #BestOnlinePrograms on Facebook and Twitter. U.S. News will also host the "Workforce of Tomorrow" summit May 22, 2019 in Washington, D.C. Committed to examining and advancing solutions for a STEM-skilled workforce, the U.S. News STEM Solutions Presents: Workforce of Tomorrow conference is the preeminent conference for leaders in education, policy and workforce development. To learn more, visit USNewsSTEMsolutions.com. About U.S. News & World ReportU.S. News & World Report is the global leader in quality rankings that empower people to make better, more informed decisions about important issues affecting their lives. A digital news and information company focused on Education, Health, Money, Travel, Cars and Civic, USNews.com provides consumer advice, rankings and analysis to serve people making complex decisions throughout all stages of life. More than 40 million people visit USNews.com each month for research and guidance. Founded in 1933, U.S. News is headquartered in Washington, D.C. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-news--world-report-announces-2019-best-online-programs-rankings-300778127.html SOURCE U.S. News & World Report PR Newswire HILTON HEAD, S.C., Jan. 14, 2019 HILTON HEAD, S.C., Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The center offers adults an eight-week intensive outpatient program (IOP) for addictions, trauma, and other conditions, based on Pia Mellody's renowned Meadows Model of Developmental Immaturity. "Our team has over 30 years' combined experience in outpatient services and four years' experience with our flagship, first ever outpatient facility, program in Scottsdale, AZ. We are extremely excited to be able to offer this same IOP model to the Hilton Head community," said Jim Corrington, Executive Director of Outpatient Services for Meadows Behavioral Healthcare. "Whether someone needs a step down from a residential program or is appropriate to directly admit to an IOP level of care, this all-inclusive, world-class program offers the benefit of The Meadows quality of care for trauma and addiction. With direct oversight from The Meadows Senior Fellows, the clinical content mirrors the time-tested approach of The Meadows inpatient programs in Wickenburg, AZ, and 12-step recovery." The Meadows Outpatient Center of Hilton Head offers a seamless transition as an aftercare alternative from its sister inpatient program, Magnolia Recovery Center, also located in Hilton Head, SC. The center highlights a host of modalities, including a progressive Brain Spa featuring neurofeedback and other offerings; trauma-sensitive yoga; EMDR; somatic experiencing; art therapy; group and individual therapy; and family sessions. Danielle LaPointe, LPC, Executive Director of Magnolia Recovery Center, will oversee the Hilton Head IOP. "In some of the fastest growing residential communities in the Southeast, the need for addiction specialists has never been greater. And, we're up for the challenge," LaPointe shared. "At both Magnolia Recovery Center and The Meadows Outpatient Center of Hilton Head, we have the ability to treat someone with the most severe and complicated addiction detoxifications, to someone who is simply looking to learn more about why they use alcohol and drugs. Our medical and therapeutic teams are highly qualified in establishing an individualized and comprehensive treatment plan to help someone obtain sustained recovery from any substance." "We are centrally located between Chatham County of Georgia and Beaufort County of South Carolina, which makes our outpatient services available to anyone from active duty service men and women to retirement community members to young families," she added. "We believe that our treatment approach can help reduce the employment issues, criminal recidivism, divorce rates, domestic violence, lethal DUI accidents, and fatal overdoses in our community. When you get to the root of these behavioral problems, there you can find healing. We believe that there is hope for all that have found themselves in the grips of active addiction." About Meadows Behavioral Healthcare The Meadows was created as an addiction treatment center more than 40 years ago at a former dude ranch in the lush Sonoran desert northwest of Phoenix, Arizona. Over the years, The Meadows has grown and changed to meet the demonstrated needs of patients. Today, The Meadows is one of numerous highly specialized treatment programs in the Meadows Behavioral Healthcare family, with one mission: To provide our patients the tools necessary to overcome the challenges of emotional trauma, addiction, eating disorders, and related mental health conditions as part of a comprehensive treatment process that promotes sustained personal recovery in collaboration with referral sources and families. The Meadows Behavioral Healthcare system is a network of behavioral healthcare programs, individualized addiction recovery centers, and acute psychiatric care centers located throughout the United States. For more information on the Meadows Behavioral Healthcare continuum of treatment services, please visit http://www.meadowsbh.com or call 800-244-4949. About Magnolia Recovery Center Magnolia Recovery Center offers upscale accommodations in a beautiful, serene environment, surrounded by beaches ideal for healing and escaping the chaos of addiction. We specialize in treating co-occurring mental health disorders, like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and others, as well as in treating process addiction interactions, like disordered eating and gambling addiction. We are also able to cater to the needs of professionals and their unique treatment needs. For more information on the inpatient treatment services offered by Magnolia Recovery Center, please visit http://www.magnoliarecoverycenter.com or call 843-473-3350. SOURCE Meadows Behavioral Healthcare Reciba en su email: noticias de ultima hora, analisis tecnicos o el cierre de mercado Email no valido Nombre requerido Recibira las informaciones mas relevantes del dia en tiempo real Que informacion desea recibir? Noticias de Ultima hora Boletin Cierre de Mercado Boletin analisis tecnico Boletin Fundsnews Debe seleccionar un tipo de boletin Acepto la Politica de privacidad Debe aceptar la politica de privacidad Responsable EMPRESAS DEL GRUPO WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Finalidad La remision de informacion, novedades y promociones Establecimiento o mantenimiento de Relaciones Comerciales. Legitimacion Consentimiento del interesado. Interes legitimo en el desarrollo de la relacion comercial Destinatario Empresas del Grupo WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Derechos Acceso, rectificacion, supresion, limitacion, oposicion y portabilidad Informacion adicional Politica de Privacidad de nuestra pagina Web + INFORMACION BNP leader Monirul Haq freed on bail UNB, Dhaka : Monirul Haque Chowdhury, an adviser to BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and party's candidate from Cumilla-10 constituency in the December-30 election, was released from jail on Tuesday on bail. The BNP leader, who had been undergoing treatment at Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj, walked out of the jail after two months and 22 days, said his lawyer Advocate Nazmus Sadat. He said Monirul secured interim bail from the High Court in two cases filed in connection with the petrol bomb attack on a bus in Chouddagram upazila of the district on February 3, 2015 that killed eight people. He was shown arrested in the two cases filed under the Anti-terrorism Act and Special Powers Act- with Sadar Dakkhin Police Station. He then secured bail in the anti-terrorism case. On January 7 last, the High Court granted him bail in the case filed under Special Powers Act. SIGN UP TO GET BLACKLISTED NEWS DELIVERED RIGHT TO YOUR INBOX Enter your email address: Three criminals were arrested from city\'s Pallabi area by CID Police with forged seals, logo and signatures of Prime Minister, ACC Chairman and NSI Director General. This photo was taken from CID office on Tuesday. Volkswagen in partnership with Drive Dry is urging South Africans to celebrate life responsibly in 2019 by changing #MonatiHaoFeli (the party doesn't stop) to #MonatiWaFela (the party does stop). Image supplied by motorpress.co.za Nomuzi Mabena in one of her staged December social posts. December in South Africa typically sees a culture of the party doesnt stop, #MonatiHaoFeli, until it does, #MonatiWaFela. This month, as South Africans are making their new years resolutions, Volkswagen in partnership with Drive Dry, a Diageo South Africa initiative, seek to make a positive change when it comes to drinking and driving by urging people to pledge to #VWDriveDry in 2019 in order to make the party stop before their life does.The #MonatiWaFela campaign which kicked off in December 2018, saw popular hip-hop artist Nomuzi Mabena who goes by the stage name Moozlie, posting images on her social media pages which were indicative of drinking and driving. She was seen getting behind the wheel shortly after partying, making stops at a popular fast food outlet at 2am with a red beer cup, sharing her secrets on avoiding metro police, and blatantly drinking what appears to be gin, all whilst behind the drivers wheel. Her holiday culminates in a heart-stopping live Instagram video, whilst Moozlie is talking about her dreams for 2019. Within seconds there is a sudden screech and crash and the audience realises that she has been in a car accident. For 12 hours after the accident is shared across social media, fans speculated and contemplated the reality of what they had just witnessed.After an agonising day of her fans imagining the pain she and her family must be going through and reflecting on their own beliefs and behaviours, Volkswagen, Moozlie and Drive Dry released a video which revealed the truth about the accident. The crash and all subsequent posts leading up to it were staged in order to drive a powerful message home.With another December of devastating road fatalities, many caused by drinking and driving, Volkswagen and Drive Dry wanted to create an impactful campaign that will make South Africans wake up to the realities of the behaviours that are condoned on social media. The campaign aims to inspire drivers to make a behavioural change and think twice before drinking and driving. The campaign also hopes to encourage friends and family to speak out against their loved-ones when they identify signs of drinking and driving.We wanted to showcase the journey and the consequences that can occur when drinking and driving is condoned. It is time for us as South Africans to take a pledge and make the change to ensure safer roads, said Nomuzi Moozlie Mabena.By tapping into the insights of social media behaviour, we wanted to create an introspective campaign, where South Africans could reflect on condoning drinking and driving. The seemingly harmless behaviour at the time can have detrimental effects on road users around you and your loved-ones that you leave behind, commented Andile Dlamini, head of VWSA Group Communications.There have been close to 14,000 road fatalities in South Africa every year, for the last three years. Drinking and driving, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), has caused 58% of those fatalities.With these kinds of statistics, our mandate is even more pertinent than ever. Our goal is to contribute to the WHO target of reducing harmful drinking by 10% by 2025. If one person decides to make a change in their behaviour, that one change could be one less fatality on our roads, and every life counts, said Lebogang Mashigo, Alcohol in Society Manager at Diageo SA.Take the pledge and make the change to Drive Dry in 2019. Share your pledge by hashtagging #VWDriveDry on social media. NEWSWATCH: In response to the #MeToo movement, Gillette has released an ad called 'We Believe' that plays on its 30-year old tagline, 'Best a Man Can Get' as a call for men to hold each other accountable and to lead a better example for the 'men of tomorrow' to help put an end to 'toxic masculinity', such as bullying, sexism and sexual harassment. Boys will be boys? Isnt it time we stopped excusing bad behavior? Re-think and take action by joining us at https://t.co/giHuGDEvlT. #TheBestMenCanBe pic.twitter.com/hhBL1XjFVo Gillette (@Gillette) January 14, 2019 I've used @Gillette razors my entire adult life but this absurd virtue-signalling PC guff may drive me away to a company less eager to fuel the current pathetic global assault on masculinity. Let boys be damn boys. Let men be damn men. https://t.co/Hm66OD5lA4 Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 14, 2019 the only ones lauding the Gillette ad work in media/advertising. everyone else sees it for what it is: a smarmy, condescending virtue signal aimed at the hardworking decent men they been price-gouging for years. GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) January 15, 2019 Look @gillette, I know your heart is in the right place. But there's a line. And that line is where my razor blades start issuing me moral instruction.https://t.co/W5QbNIIKSS John Noonan (@noonanjo) January 14, 2019 .@Gillette's new campaign thoughtfully and critically examines what "The Best a Man Can Get," the brand's iconic tagline, means today. A must watch. https://t.co/5WKmfferhl Arianna Huffington (@ariannahuff) January 15, 2019 Once again, I'm very much okay with this shift in cultural standards. "Be a good human" is getting ever-more commercially viable. I'm down with a future where it's cool to be protective and proactive at making the world better. https://t.co/iYsGxBQ9QF Mika McKinnon (@mikamckinnon) January 14, 2019 The comments under the @Gillette toxic masculinity ad is a living document of how desperately society needs things like the Gillette toxic masculinity ad. Seriously: if your masculinity is THAT threatened by an ad that says we should be nicer then you're doing masculinity wrong. Andrew P Street (@AndrewPStreet) January 15, 2019 We are taking a realistic look at whats happening today, and aiming to inspire change by acknowledging that the old saying Boys Will Be Boys is not an excuse. We want to hold ourselves to a higher standard, and hope all the men we serve will come along on that journey to find our best together. #NewCampaign: Giant Films' Ian Gabriel on the new Carling Black Label ad Giant Films recently completed an ad for Carling Black Label offering a fresh take on masculinity... #FairnessFirst: All you need to know to #unstereotype advertising The Unstereotype Alliance launched at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity last year and has just joined Twitter... Read more: The Procter & Gamble company has received much backlash on social media, following its tweet on Monday, 14 January:Many have threatened to boycott the brand and are accusing it of insulting its own user base.However, the response has been mixed, as the ad has also received some positive feedback.According to the Daily Mail , the majority of those who spoke out against the ad are mens rights activists and some took issue with the fact that the shaving brand's ad was directed by a 'feminist' woman.Pankaj Bhalla, Gillettes brand director for North America, said in a statement that the company felt compelled to address an important conversation.Gary Coombe, president of Proctor & Gambles global grooming business, added that the company hopes to help deliver positive change that will matter for years to come.We knew that joining the dialogue on modern manhood would mean changing how we think about and portray men at every turn. #BizTrends2019: Africa is one of the major players in the global economic future New APO Group CEO, Lionel Reina, told Bizcommunity.Africa that the continent's major asset is its young and dynamic population, who believe they can affect change and be conducive to Africa's development and success. New APO Group CEO, Lionel Reina. , the leading global media relations consultancy and press release distribution service formerly known as the African Press Organization, announced the appointment of Reina in December 2018 as its new CEO. He is the former vice president and general manager of the Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region at Orange Business Services (OBS), the B2B division of French telecoms company Orange. APO was was founded in 2007 by a former French-Gabonese journalist, Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard, who wanted to address journalists need for access to continent and country relevant information and data. APO Group has since become an influential and reputable media relations consulting firm in Africa and the Middle East serving and advising over 300 multinational companies, organisations, governments and individuals doing business in Africa related to Africa. APOs clients includee Facebook, Uber, Marriott, Hilton, Orange, DHL, Philips, Coca-Cola, Siemens, Canon, PwC, EY, McKinsey & Company, flydubai, DP World, to name but a few. Here Reina answers our questions on Africas future in 2019: What can we look forward to on the African continent in 2019? What can we look forward to on the African continent in 2019? APO Group , the leading global media relations consultancy and press release distribution service formerly known as the African Press Organization, announced the appointment of Reina in December 2018 as its new CEO. He is the former vice president and general manager of the Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region at Orange Business Services (OBS), the B2B division of French telecoms company Orange.APO was was founded in 2007 by a former French-Gabonese journalist, Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard, who wanted to address journalists need for access to continent and country relevant information and data. APO Group has since become an influential and reputable media relations consulting firm in Africa and the Middle East serving and advising over 300 multinational companies, organisations, governments and individuals doing business in Africa related to Africa. APOs clients includee Facebook, Uber, Marriott, Hilton, Orange, DHL, Philips, Coca-Cola, Siemens, Canon, PwC, EY, McKinsey & Company, flydubai, DP World, to name but a few.Here Reina answers our questions on Africas future in 2019: What are the key cultural shifts and trends driving change? What are the key cultural shifts and trends driving change? How will Africa lead? How will Africa lead? What are the key factors driving growth, economic development and political change on the continent? What are the key factors driving growth, economic development and political change on the continent? What gives you hope in Africa today? What gives you hope in Africa today? Africa has experienced significant growth in recent years and the continent is home to six of the top 10 fastest growing countries in the world. GDP in Africa has grown in real terms every year since 2009 for example, manufacturing production in Africa has more than doubled over the past decade. Not to mention, Africa will represent 40% of humanity in 2100.At APO Group, this has resulted in an increase in our activity as we support more and more international companies in their development by advising them and helping them to get their visibility across Africa. Our customer portfolio grows by an average of 25% per year. The African continent is now entering in a new phase in its development with the continuous growth of its population, the development of new technologies and infrastructures all allowing for the doors to be open for the rest of the world.First of All, Africa's growth is driven by a young, dynamic and entrepreneurial population with an ever-increasing number of active women. For instance, today, the proportion of women entrepreneurs is more and more important: 25% of start-ups in Africa are founded or run by women, compared to 17% in the United States. Africas labour force will increase from 620 million in 2013 to nearly 2 billion in 2063.These new generations are pushing the continent towards new technological development. The digital revolution should also be viewed as a driver of development. New technologies are spreading at a sustained pace in Africa with mobile Internet penetration expected to rise from 26% to 38% of the population during the 2016-2020 period. A development that opens up the field of possibilities in terms of education and youth employment and gives hope for indigenous and steady growth. The expansion of new technologies is essential for the development of countries and we, through the firms we support in their development, are aware of the enormous progress made by Africa in this field.Finally, Africa is increasingly investing in sustainable development. Africa is the continent that contributes the least to greenhouse gas emissions but is the one that suffers the most from the consequences such as droughts and flooding. In a continent where soil resources are very important, climate change can have dramatic consequences. Sustainable development is therefore one of the priorities and that is why the African Development Bank has decided to invest massively in renewable energy: $12 billion over the period 2016-2020.Africa is one of the major players in the global economic future, with exciting opportunities for global and African based companies to build large and profitable businesses across the continent. By 2020, the Africas collective GDP is expecting to reach $2.6 trillion. The real challenge for African economies is obtaining 'inclusive growth'. As of today, only 18% of Africas total Trade represents Trade amongst African countries (65% in the European union). Africa should unify and trade together to better the economy.Indeed, the continent is entering a new phase in its early development and must now join forces to make it happen and to assert its weight in international decisions. Some actions have already been taken in this direction such as the African Continental Free Trade Area, decided in March 2018. Africa must continue and accelerate the implementation of common policies within the continent, as Europe has done before.The increase in demography - Africa will double its population by 2050; the rate of urbanisation and the emergence of a middle class that consumes more locally, are all positive signs that show the development of a dynamic internal market and therefore great opportunities for local businesses and regional trade. Africa is a continent with a fast-growing urbanising population with big unmet needs. A recent McKinsey report shows that Africa is the Worlds next big growth market which is a trillion-dollar opportunity to industrialise this continent, to meet its rising domestic demand and create a bridge-head in global export markets.The issue of public governance remains also central to reducing dependency. This requires governments that are proactive and able to act over the long term to develop growth factors in an indigenous way. Africa has all the keys to success, but it absolutely must structure itself and strengthen the union and common policy of the continent's countries.The continent's major asset is its young and dynamic population who believe they can affect change and be conducive to Africas development and success. Africa has some of the most prestigious information and communication technology training institutions in the world. The best universities have recently established themselves in Rwanda (NYU, Harvard, London School of Economics).Africa is now attracting $500 million in annual investment in start-ups in 2018, which is a good example of the dynamism of its population. In the same way, the appetite of investors for the African private equity industry remains high as we see it at APO Group. We are also there to provide our clients with the appropriate information to help them make the best investment decisions at the right time.*APO Group CEO, Lionel Reina, was interviewed for #BizTrends2019 by Bizcommunity.com Africa editor, Louise Marsland. For Immediate Release, January 15, 2019 Contacts: Andrea Santarsiere, Center for Biological Diversity, (303) 854-7748, asantarsiere@biologicaldiversity.org Larry Campbell, Friends of the Bitterroot, (406) 821-3110, lcampbell@bitterroot.net Arlene Montgomery, Friends of the Wild Swan, (406) 886-2011, arlene@wildswan.org Gary Macfarlane, Friends of the Clearwater, (208) 882-9755, gary@friendsoftheclearwater.org Josh Osher, Western Watersheds Project, (406) 830-3099, josh@westernwatersheds.org Petition Seeks Montana Trapping Ban for Imperiled Northern Rockies Fishers Trapping Poses Serious Threat to Reclusive Carnivores MISSOULA, Mont. Five conservation groups filed a rulemaking petition today asking the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission to ban trapping of Northern Rockies fishers along the Montana-Idaho border. Trapping is a serious threat to this small and isolated fisher population. Too many Northern Rockies fishers have died an untimely death in Montana traps in the past decade, said Andrea Santarsiere, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. Its time for the state to protect these imperiled carnivores instead of caving to the wishes of a few trappers. From 2002 to 2016, 186 fishers were reportedly killed in traps set for other species in Idaho and Montana, while 243 fishers in Idaho were released alive or in unknown condition. Montana does not record information on fishers trapped but released alive. Scientists have long considered trapping a grave threat to Northern Rockies fishers, but Montana still allows the practice. Idaho prohibits intentional fisher trapping. The state of Montana has a constitutional obligation to protect and preserve our natural resources for present and future generations, said Josh Osher, Montana director for Western Watersheds Project. The trapping of the Northern Rockies fisher threatens the continued survival of this imperiled species and must be stopped immediately. Northern Rockies fishers are limited to a single, small population in the Cabinet and Bitterroot mountains along the border of western Montana and northern Idaho. Fishers belong in the Bitterroot ecosystem, said Larry Campbell of Friends of the Bitterroot. Their numbers are dwindling, and their habitat is increasingly being destroyed. Stopping the loss of individuals to trapping is the most direct and cost-effective step to reducing the threat of fisher extirpation. These catlike carnivores are opportunistic predators, and one of very few species that successfully prey upon porcupines. Neither Montana nor Idaho has accurate fisher population estimates. Fishers are imperiled in the northern Rockies from habitat destruction coupled with trapping, said Arlene Montgomery, program director at Friends of the Wild Swan. The state of Montana should be doing all it can to protect its rare wildlife, not facilitate its demise. Fishers have slow reproductive rates, so it can take them a long time to rebound from high mortality. Even though scientists have found that fishers are extremely vulnerable to trapping, the number of fishers reportedly caught in traps has recently dropped. This may indicate a decline in the fisher population. Idaho and Montana share a unique, native fisher population in the Clearwater, Bitterroot and Clark Fork River Basins, said Gary Macfarlane, the executive director of Friends of the Clearwater. Trapping in Montana will harm fishers in Idaho and hamper the recovery of this rare species. Todays petition was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Bitterroot, Friends of the Wild Swan, Friends of the Clearwater and Western Watersheds Project. The wildlife commission has 60 days to respond. For Immediate Release, January 15, 2019 Contact: Noah Greenwald, (503) 484-7495, ngreenwald@biologicaldiversity.org Lawsuit Launched Over Trump Administration Failure to Protect 9 At-risk Species Protection Wrongfully Delayed for Sierra Nevada Red Fox, Red Tree Vole, Eastern Gopher Tortoise WASHINGTON The Center for Biological Diversity today filed a notice of intent to sue the Trump administration for failing to protect nine imperiled species under the Endangered Species Act, including the San Francisco Bay Delta population of longfin smelt and the Puerto Rico harlequin butterfly. The eight animals and one plant live in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Oregon, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Todays notice also covers the Berry Cave salamander, Hermes copper butterfly, Sierra Nevada red fox, red tree vole, gopher tortoise, magnificent ramshorn snail and a large flowering shrub called marron bacora. The Trump administrations appalling hostility toward protecting our wildlife is driving these species toward extinction, said Noah Greenwald, the Centers endangered species director. We can save creatures like the Sierra Nevada red fox, but we have to act quickly before they disappear. This is the second notice to sue the administration that the Center has filed in less than a week. Last weeks notice covered 26 species for which the administration failed to make determinations and provide protection or designate critical habitat. All nine species in todays notice have been found to warrant protection as threatened or endangered species. But their protections have been delayed under a provision of the Endangered Species Act that allows the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to withhold protections if they are making expeditious progress listing other species. Yet the Trump administration is not making expeditious progress in listing species, which makes delaying protection for the nine species illegal. To date, the administration has only listed 16 species the fewest protected by any administration in its first two years since the Reagan administration, when James Watt was Interior secretary. By comparison, the Obama administration listed 72 species and the Clinton administration listed 196 during their first terms. The Trump administrations foot-dragging is putting rare animals and plants at risk of disappearing forever, said Greenwald. Just last year a freshwater snail known as the Ozark pyrg went extinct while waiting for protection. Even if species do finally get protections, the delays are likely to make recovery more difficult and expensive. If the administration does not list the species under the Endangered Species Act, the Center will file suit in 60 days. Species Background Sierra Nevada red fox The Sierra Nevada red fox lives in remote, high mountains in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges of California and Oregon. The Center petitioned for protection of the fox in 2011 and filed a lawsuit in 2013 to force the Fish and Wildlife Service to issue a decision on the animals protection. The fox has suffered drastic population declines due to logging, grazing, poisoning, trapping and off-road and over-snow vehicles. Only around 70 adult foxes are known to survive in California, and the size of the small Oregon population is unknown. Red tree vole, North Coast population The North Coast population of red tree vole is a distinct population of the red tree vole that is only found along Oregons northern coast. Red tree voles live nearly their entire lives in trees. They have been nearly wiped out by a long history of logging and wildfires in the North Coast, including the Tillamook and Clatsop state forests. Puerto Rico harlequin butterfly This small, dark-brown butterfly with black and deep orange markings is associated with rare soil types likely related to the nectar plants it needs for feeding. The butterfly is only known from the Mariaco Commonwealth Forest and the coastal cliffs in a small area in Quebradillas, where it is severely threatened by urban sprawl. Only a handful of individuals have been seen in recent years, and the harlequins status following Hurricane Maria is unknown. Eastern gopher tortoise Gopher tortoises have shovel-like front legs and strong, thick back legs to help them dig intricate burrows, which are used by more than 360 other species. Gopher tortoises in Louisiana, Mississippi and western Alabama are already protected under the Endangered Species Act, but those in eastern Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina still await protections. The tortoises need large, unfragmented long-leaf pine forests to survive. They are severely threatened by development-caused habitat loss and fragmentation, which limits food availability and options for burrow sites. It also and exposes them to mortality from being crushed in their burrows during construction, run over by cars or shot. Longfin smelt Longfin smelt were once one of the most abundant fishes in the San Francisco Bay and Delta; historically they were so common that their numbers supported a commercial fishery. Due to poor management of California's largest estuary ecosystem, which has allowed excessive water diversions and reduced freshwater flow into the Bay, the longfin smelt has undergone catastrophic declines in the past 20 years. Magnificent ramshorn This snail is endemic to the lower Cape Fear River Basin in North Carolina. It is currently extinct in the wild because of massive alteration of its historic habitats by dams, development and pollution. Two captive populations keep hope alive, but stream restoration is badly needed to restore this species to the wild. What Happened After months of hardship caused by a deepening currency crisis, protests in Zimbabwe have started to heat up. The cost of gasoline and diesel in Zimbabwe more than doubled overnight sending prices for consumer goods skyrocketing as well after the government suddenly hiked fuel prices. In response, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions called for citizens to strike by staying at home for three days starting Jan. 14. While the strike was largely limited to the country's two largest cities, Bulawayo and the capital city of Harare, a number of altercations between protesters and security forces have raised the situation's intensity by several degrees. Civilians have erected barricades to disrupt the daily commutes of those who ignored the call to strike, leading to faceoffs with security forces. In some locations around Harare, police even resorted to the use of live ammunition, leading to several fatalities and numerous injuries. Still, the protests seem relatively contained, and security forces appear to be in control of the situation. Why It Matters Zimbabwe's currency crisis continues to pressure the government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who overthrew longtime strongman Robert Mugabe to gain power a little over a year ago. The Zimbabwean economy is inherently weak, but the decision to raise fuel prices in an effort to stave off energy shortages has focused citizens' anger on Mnangagwa and his administration. The government is actively searching for a solution to the crisis, but its severe lack of foreign currency means there is little it can do. Meanwhile, the hike in fuel prices is pushing up the costs of consumer goods, further reducing the purchasing power of Zimbabwean citizens and causing unrest. These price increases have already led to panic buying, and several stores were looted during protests on Jan. 14. As the population's access to basic necessities continues to shrink, the Zimbabwean government will face increasing difficulty in trying to control them. Background Zimbabwe's economy has continued to deteriorate over the past two years, largely reversing the initial recovery that occurred after the country overcame its problems with hyperinflation in 2009 by abolishing the Zimbabwean dollar. Since then, Zimbabwe has used various foreign currencies to conduct business primarily the U.S. dollar and the South African rand, as well as others. However, the country simply doesn't have sufficient reserves of foreign currencies to continue purchasing necessary imports and paying out wages. In September 2018, Zimbabwe's foreign currency reserves amounted to a mere $200 million, which is significantly less than the buffer the country needs to comfortably continue essential operations. What's more, that amount is far less than the country's growing backlog of foreign payments, which ballooned to $700 million in October 2018. Zimbabwe's use of foreign currencies as well as its dependence on foreign markets for fuel, food and other necessary goods has led to a longstanding negative trade balance. Over time, that trade deficit has strained the government's finances beyond their limits, causing the country's economy to spiral out of control. KSA's crackdown on dissidents may hinder plan to attract tourists Saudi Arabia\'s crackdown on dissidents and perceived enemies has undermined its aspirations for openness. The Washington Post : The treasures are strewn over a swath of Saudi Arabia bigger than Lake Ontario, rising from the desert: a rambling Nabataean necropolis, a field of soaring stone pillars, a lonely Ottoman railway station, and graffiti, lots of it, inscribed over millennia on honey-colored boulders and red mountain rock. It is a unique and unruly mix of natural beauty and ruins that trace thousands of years of human settlement and the caravan routes of incense traders and pilgrims. But the site has struggled to find an audience beyond this cosseted kingdom, apart from the locals, intrepid tourists and archaeologists who have been sifting through the area's civilizational silt for years. Now, Saudi Arabia's leaders say they have finally decided to let the world in. The attractions, around the city of Al-Ula, are the cornerstone of a planned effort to invite foreign tourists to the kingdom, beyond the millions of religious pilgrims who visit Saudi Arabia's holy sites every year. Like many changes underway in the country, the plan is mostly aimed at boosting the economy by tapping sources of revenue beyond oil. The ambitious initiative, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, would be challenging in the best of times - relying on the government to abandon its wariness of foreign visitors and on the outside world to revise its perceptions of Saudi Arabia as a forbiddingly conservative society. But recently, the challenge has only become more acute. The government's crackdown on dissidents and perceived enemies has undermined its own aspirations for greater openness. The killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul in October led to international criticism of the crackdown and of the crown prince, who was widely blamed for ordering the killing. Saudi Arabia says Mohammed did not know about the plot, although it involved his most senior aides. After the killing, some foreign companies and organizations distanced themselves from Mohammed's initiatives, including projects promoting the arts, tourism and culture that have been embraced by thousands of Saudis. "Tourism has great potential in the kingdom because it is so underdeveloped," said Kristin Smith Diwan, a scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. "Saudis are especially hungry for more public spaces and cultural growth. But there are social barriers and fears to overcome in attracting an international clientele." "Jailing women activists doesn't help," she said, referring to the nearly eight-month detention without trial of Saudi Arabia's most prominent women's rights advocates. "Brutally killing a prominent journalist doesn't help." Saudi officials are pressing ahead with the crown prince's initiatives and hoping that high-profile cultural events might temper the criticism from abroad. The government recently introduced an electronic visa system that allowed hundreds of foreign visitors in December to attend a motor-sports event in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, that included concerts by Western and Arab musicians. The plans to develop Al-Ula are the centerpiece of the tourism initiative. Officials leading the development effort believe that they can lure a mix of cultural tourists and eco-travelers from the West, visitors from the Persian Gulf, and Saudis eager to broaden their view of national heritage to include a pre-Islamic history suppressed for decades by the country's leaders and religious conservatives. "We always knew we had an important historical site. But nobody knows about us," said Ahmed al-Imam, a tour guide from Al-Ula whose family has lived for generations in the area, a place rich with culture but struggling with high unemployment. "We are hoping for more opportunities," he said. A royal commission created by the crown prince is working quickly to prepare the site to receive visitors within the next few years. Resorts are being planned, residents are receiving training to work with tourists, and teams of archaeologists and researchers are conducting surveys of historical sites and environmental features over roughly 9,000 square miles. A winter festival, currently underway, is a soft opening of sorts for the site, with appearances by international musicians and artists. Amr al-Madani is the chief executive of the commission and is Al-Ula's tireless booster, shuttling back and forth to the remote site several times a month with an army of assistants and prospective developers. The first visitors he hopes to lure are Saudi citizens, resident expatriates and regional visitors. Within four years, the aim is for half of the site's visitors to live within a six-hour flight from Saudi Arabia, he said. The best-known attraction is the Nabataean necropolis Madain Saleh, a sister city to Petra, in neighboring Jordan, consisting of more than 130 tombs with columned facades carved into rock. But fewer people are aware that the area around Madain Saleh contains Bronze Age tombs, the ancient capital city of Dedan or evidence of the southernmost outpost of the Roman Empire. A San Francisco television station, KUSI has accused CNN of dropping an appearance by one of KUSI's reporters, Dan Plante, after learning his reporting did not fit their anti-border wall narrative. To get to the bottom of this accusation, Bill O'Reilly brings in Dan Plante to get his side of the story and question whether or not CNN intentionally did not have Mr. Plante on the network. Plus, hear hard facts from Dan Plante's experience at the border that continues to prove walls work and have worked since the start of the nation. Watch the free clip above, get your FREE 30 day trial here to watch the full show. Muslim pilgrims perform the farewell circling of the Kaaba, the cubic building at the Grand Mosque, marking the end of the hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Aug. 16, 2018. Malaysias anti-graft agency said Tuesday it had arrested the former chairman of a state fund whose mission is to help Muslims save for their pilgrimage to Mecca following an investigation into alleged money laundering. Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim, who chaired the Tabung Haji fund, and his brother, Abdul Latif Abdul Rahim, were both detained by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and were to be charged Wednesday, MACC officials said. [MACC] today detained Baling Member of Parliament Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim, together with his brother Abdul Latif Abdul Rahim, in relation to the investigation of corruption and money laundering after receiving the go ahead to charge them from the Attorney-Generals Chambers, the agency said in a statement. The duo will be charged at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court tomorrow (Jan. 16) under the MACC Act of 2009 and the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism and Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act of 2001, it added. MACC Chief Commissioner Shukri Abdull confirmed the arrests to BenarNews without elaborating. Meanwhile, a source close to the investigation who asked to not be identified said investigators had summoned Abdul Azeez on Tuesday to question him about money-laundering allegations. We believe that he received a huge sum of money from contractors who sought projects with the previous government, the source told BenarNews. Bribes and funds tied to money laundering allegedly totaled 140 million ringgit (U.S. $34.1 million). Abdul Azeez chaired Tabung Haji under the previous government of Prime Minister Najib Razak, who lost power when his Barisan Nasional coalition was upset in the May 2018 general election. Najib faces dozens of criminal charges tied to allegations that he took millions of dollars from the beleaguered 1MDB state development fund. Days after new Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad took the reins of government, investigators raided properties linked to Abdul Azeez, recovering 1.2 million ringgit ($292,000) in domestic and foreign currencies along with jewelry and luxury watches, the Malay Mail reported. Ongoing investigation The brothers arrests followed an investigation dating back to September 2018 when a magistrate approved MACCs request to remand them for six days as it investigated Tabung Haji contracts. In addition, MACC has investigated other leaders of the fund as well. On Dec. 14, Trurich Resources Sdn Bhd, a plantation company, lodged a police report accusing three former Tabung officials of making misleading statements over two overpriced palm oil plantations in Indonesia, according to a statement from the firm. Ismee Ismail, the former CEO of Tabung Haji, and two ex-chief executive officers of the funds plantation arm, along with two Indonesians were accused of misleading the company in the purchase of the palm oil plantations, the statement said. Five days later, a Malaysian court ordered a four-day remand for Adi Azuan Abdul Ghani, Tabung Hajis chief operating officer, who is suspected of using his position to employ an interior decorator appointed by the fund to do renovation work at his residence. MACC sources who requested anonymity told BenarNews that Adi was being held for receiving a gratuity in the form of a home renovation valued at 400,000 ringgit (U.S. $95,700). The bribe was allegedly given as a kickback after a company secured a project valued at 15 million ringgit ($3.6 million). One month earlier, Tabung Haji itself lodged two police reports against Ismee and Abdul Azeez along with several other senior management personnel alleging financial misconduct. Abdul Azeez disputed the police reports, saying they were made with bad intentions. 10th edition of Chobi Mela raises its curtain February 28 Entertainment Report : The 10th edition of Chobi Mela, the most prestigious photography festival in Asia is scheduled to be launched on February 28. This was announced at a press conference yesterday held at Driks new gallery in the capitals Panthapath area where the organisers updated the media on upcoming festival programme. The festival will continue with many happenings till March 9. At the press conference, Festival Director Shahidul Alam presented an overview of the upcoming festival and introduced the newly formed Chobi Mela advisory board members. Members include prominent Indian economist and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, former deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank Khondokar Ibrahim Khaled, human rights activist Khushi Kabir, Nepali publisher, writer and editor Kunda Dixit, Indian photographer Raghu Rai, economist Rehman Sobhan, literary critic, activist and historian Prof Serajul Islam Choudhury and human rights activist and former advisor to the Caretaker government Sultana Kamal. Shahidul Alam also shared that eminent writer Arundhati Roy from India will be visiting upcoming Chobi Mela to give an artist talk. Defendants Jakub Fabian Skrzypski (orange vest, left) and Simon Magal attend their indictment in Wamena District Court in Papua, Indonesia, Jan. 14, 2019. The trial of a Polish man accused of aiding separatist rebels in Indonesias easternmost Papua province began Monday after the defendant was compelled to attend, his lawyer said. Jakub Fabian Skrzypski, 39, and Simon Magal, 30, an alleged Papuan separatist, appeared in Wamena District Court after Skrzypski reportedly refused to come to court last week. A December hearing was adjourned after the Polish national requested a translator. Jakub finally went to court after being forced to do so by the public prosecutor, one of his lawyers, Latifah Anum Siregar, told BenarNews. Chief prosecutor Ricarda Arsenius said the defendant had been persuaded to come, not forced. Initially he objected. But after we persuaded and gave an explanation, Jakub wanted to be present in court, he said. Reading from a 14-page indictment, prosecutors said Skrzypski first visited Papua in 2007 as a tourist, but with an agenda of meeting armed separatists and to convey the Free Papua issue to the European world in the form of journals or his writing. Skrzypski and Magal, his co-defendant, often communicated over the Messenger application and the Polish national came to Papua a second time in mid-2018, the indictment said. Defendent Jakub Fabian Skrzypski went to Wamena and met with some people in the headquarters of the TNP OPM [in] Puncak Jaya, Ricarda said, using an acronym armed Papuan separatists. On 15 July 2018, defendant Simon Magal asked defendant Jakub, can West Papuan fighters work with Poland on procurement of weapons? and Jakub answered, I know, I am trying to meet something. The defendants are expected to respond to the charges at the next court session on Jan. 21. Skrzypski, arrested on Aug. 26, 2018, in Wamena, is the first foreigner indicted on a treason charge in Papua, according to Siregar. Article 106 of the Criminal Code is an allegation against those suspected of committing treason. And article 55 of the Indonesian Criminal Code is known as participation, meaning that the crime was carried out jointly, she said, explaining criminal code articles cited in the indictment. If found guilty, the two could face up to 20 years in prison, or a life sentence. Two French journalists, Thomas Dandois and Valentine Bourrat, were investigated for treason in 2014 but eventually sentenced to two and one-half months in prison for misusing a tourist visa. Foreign media access is restricted in Papua and West Papua, Indonesias two easternmost provinces, which make up about one-fifth of Indonesias land mass. The region is one of Indonesias poorest, with low literacy rates and high rates of infant and maternal mortality. In early December, a Papuan separatist group claimed responsibility for an attack that left 19 construction workers dead. The victims had been building roads and bridges in remote Nduga Regency. Jakub Fabian Skrzypski (right), and Simon Magal are seen in the holding cell at Wamena District Court in Jayawijaya, Papua, Jan. 14, 2019. (Courtesy of Latifah Anum Siregar) Jakub Fabian Skrzypski (right), and Simon Magal are seen in the holding cell at Wamena District Court in Jayawijaya, Papua, Jan. 14, 2019. (Courtesy of Latifah Anum Siregar) When visited by a BenarNews reporter at Jayawijaya police jail last week, Skrzypski denied being involved in arms smuggling or propaganda on behalf of Papuan rebels. I am not a blogger or filmmaker, journalist or activists. I am not a military trainer and I do not have that background. I am not an arms dealer, Skrzypski told BenarNews on Jan. 9. He complained of poor conditions in detention and said police had little evidence against him. The cells are very small and the bathroom is not taken care of. The water is filthy. The detention room is cold and there are mosquitos, he said. During interrogation, police kept showing a photo of him in Switzerland and one of him shaking hands with someone as evidence, he said. What do those photos prove? Are they trying to trap me for some political reason, their own ambition, or personal gain? he asked. I have just eaten the best Chinese meal I have ever tasted in the best hotel I have ever stayed in with the best view in the world. That may seem quite a claim but we are talking about the Shangri-La in Paris which overlooks the Eiffel Tower and is home to the Michelin-starred Shang Palace restaurant. If you only ever get to stay at one luxury hotel in your life make sure it is this hotel, which has 100 rooms and suites, three restaurants (two of which are Michelin-starred), two bars and four historical events and reception rooms, as it truly is bucket list material. In the evenings, the Eiffel Tower, which seems within touching distance from the Shangri-La, is lit up and on the hour its lights twinkle which is quite a magical spectacle to witness. Due to the hotel's great location, it is the perfect base for a trip to the City of Love. The hotel is located on avenue d'Iena in the 16th arrondissement of Paris close to the Trocadero and in an area with the highest concentration of museums in Europe. They include Palais Galleria, Palais de Tokyo, Museum of Man, Museum of Modern Art and Marmottan Monet Museum. The rooms are simply stunning (try and get an Eiffel Tower view room as nothing compares to that experience) and you could be very easily tempted to lock yourself away in yours and immerse yourself in the luxury surroundings. The elegant marble bathroom itself is a sight to behold. You will find yourself wanting to just sit in your room, or on the terrace with a glass in hand gazing at the magnificent structure. It is hard to believe that Paris's most iconic monument was originally just a temporary structure put up by Gustave Eiffel for the Exposition Universelle in 1889 on the centenary of the French Revolution. But this city has so many landmarks and attractions that you need to explore it. Think not only the Eiffel Tower but the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, the catacombs and much, much more. For the kids big and small don't forget Disneyland Paris. But make sure to give yourself a lot of time in the hotel. From the minute you arrive and are greeted by the super attentive doormen you know this is a really special place. Expand Close Shang Palace Shangri-La / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Shang Palace Shangri-La Passing by two Ming Dynasty-inspired vases flanking the main entrance, this sets the tone from the outset for Asia-meets-Paris elegance. The grand lobby with its marvellous marble staircase (quite a busy spot for photographs and selfies) is an amazing sight and when you walk into the hotel you can feel the sense of history and get a vision of the hotel's past use. It was built in 1896 as the home of French imperial Prince Roland Bonaparte, great nephew of the famous Emperor Napoleon. And nods to its past are everywhere you look. In its bar, Le Bar Botaniste the herbs and flowers used in the creative cocktails honour Bonaparte's passion for botany, illustrated by his herbarium, which included over 2.5 million samples. In recent weeks, the hotel has opened a new pop-up bar called SONG, which is nestled in a suite with a terrace facing the Eiffel Tower and overlooking the City of Light. It promises to transport guests back to the enchanting Shanghai of the 1930s. Head barman Clement Emery has created a range of signature cocktails and the bar also offers tasting experiences of Glenfiddich single malts. When I say the avant-garde mixologist's cocktail ingredients at the hotel are unique, they include Malabar white pepper, Aomori black garlic, Sicilian sumac, Kentucky tobacco, curry plant, calamansi, pistachio sap and sweet clover. Expand Close Spa at Shangri-La Paris / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Spa at Shangri-La Paris As mentioned, the Shangri-La has three restaurants with three different styles of cuisine. They include the two Michelin star L'Abeille, which is a gourmet French restaurant and La Bauhinia, which offers French and South-East Asian contemporary cuisine. I dined at Shang Palace, which is a traditional Chinese, Cantonese-inspired restaurant and rightly holds one Michelin star, the only Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant in France. A second one can't be far away judging by the culinary excellence of Executive Chef Samuel Lee. Highlights included fried Gillardeau special oysters accompanied by caviar, sauteed prawns with three kinds of pepper, ginger and spring onions and glazed Peking Duck which was cooked to perfection and served with pancakes and all the trimmings you expect. And to walk off all those extra calories you will clock up there is no better city than Paris. One good place to start is the Musee du Louvre, which is the building which houses the most famous collection of art in the world. You could easily spend a day or many more walking around the 782,910 square feet exhibition space looking at all the sculptures, artefacts and paintings. Apparently if you ever have 100 days to spare, you could probably squeeze in every piece of art, but you could only spend 30 seconds on each piece - and that's if you were there all day, every day. Expand Close Shangri-La Paris / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Shangri-La Paris The most famous of these is, of course, the Mona Lisa, but be warned it can become quite crowded with people looking at da Vinci's masterpiece or taking a selfie in front of it. Best to book your tickets online for the museum as I am told queues can get lengthy, or even better, invest in a museum pass which costs as little as 48 for two days and gives free entry to over 50 museums and monuments, some of which cost as much as 18 for a single ticket. I covered tens of thousands of steps in a few days checking out the Louvre and walking up the Eiffel Tower. You can climb almost 700 steps to the second floor and then you have to get an elevator to the top but the view is mesmerising on a clear day. With all that exercise, I decided to treat myself to a massage at the Chi, The Spa in the Shangri-La, which is located in what were once Prince Roland Bonaparte's stables. Its 15x6m swimming pool is bathed in natural daylight thanks to enormous glass windows, as is the fitness room. The massage I opted for was the Chi Yu Signature Massage. The Organic Pharmacy signature massage is designed to stimulate the circulation of blood flow, decongest the muscles and relax the mind. Massage oils used include Rosemary and Grapefruit. It was one of the best and most relaxing massages I have ever had. In fact, I fell asleep twice during it and yet the therapist managed to sort out a few knots that were causing me trouble in my back. Those few days in Paris rate as one of the best breaks I have ever had in my life and central to that was the Shangri-La. Little wonder that Forbes magazine described it as the best luxury hotel in Paris. Travel Factfile Shangri-La Hotel, 10 avenue d'Iena, 16th arrondissement, Paris. Room rates start at 800. Check out www.shangri-la.com/paris/shangrila/ Aer Lingus flies up to four times daily from Dublin to Paris, Charles De Gaulle with one-way fares starting from 34.99 including taxes and charges. For further information visit aerlingus.com. To plan your trip and find out what to see and do, visit the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau website at https://en.parisinfo.com/ A museum pass is worth buying (48 for two days or 62 for four days) as it gives you free entry to over 50 museums and monuments around Paris - https://en.parisinfo.com/paris-professional/74551/PARIS-MUSEUM-PASS You can also buy them at welcome points located in the City Hall and in Gare du Nord. More than 25 top Parisian show venues are prolonging the festive season and offering you one free place for every ticket purchased. Bookings are open on the website at www.showtimeinparis.com/en The Belfast Telegraph has teamed up with Turespana ahead of the Holiday World Show on January 18-20 to find out what Northern Irelands most popular Spanish holiday destination is. But if you think its all sun and sangria, you can think again! Lots of places may say it, but Spain really DOES have something for just about everyone. A land of extreme contrasts and diversity, Spain is a rich tapestry of world famous cuisine, breathtaking coastlines, adrenaline-soaked adventure, renowned art and stunning architecture; not to mention home to some of the best festivals and fiestas that can be found anywhere on the globe! Clearly Spain is close to many of your hearts, because almost 900 of you voted in our survey to wave the flag for your favourite Spanish spot. And the winner? Heres a clue Its one of the worlds major cities in terms of culture, arts, fashion and commerce, an incredibly vibrant city that offers a feast for the senses and one which overflows with iconic architecture and is a true shoppers paradise it could only be Barcelona! Heres the top 10 1. Barcelona 2. Lanzarote 3. Costa Del Sol 4. Majorca 5. Tenerife 6. Salou 7. Madrid 8. Malaga 9. Seville 10. Alicante Read more about Spain's top destinations here. The good news for holidaymakers is that flights to Spain are short and affordable. There are six airlines (Aer Lingus, Ryanair, Jet2, Thomas Cook, TUI and Easyjet) flying to 14 different Spanish destinations, direct from either Belfast International Airport or Belfast City Airport. Take your pick from Malaga, Lanzarote, Alicante, Girona, Tenerife Sur, Reus, Fuerteventura, Ibiza, Almeria, Gran Canaria, Menorca, Palma de Mallorca, Barcelona and Valencia. For more information or ideas on planning a trip to Spain, visit Turespana at the Holiday World Show at the Titanic Exhibition Centre between January 18-20. You can also visit www.spain.info PM Theresa May has warned of catastrophe if her deal is rejected today The shambolic chaos that's surrounded Brexit for months has suddenly morphed into something approaching panic or hysteria. People, whether for or against Brexit, have suddenly realised that the critical vote on the Prime Minister's much-maligned deal is now only hours away. Theresa May has warned of catastrophe if her deal is rejected today, which, at the time of writing, seems likely. And those opposed to it use no less vivid and scary language about the state of the nation if it is passed. Meanwhile, groups of hostile and conspiratorial MPs are meeting in shadowy corners plotting to do the Government down if they can. And Sir John Major, who is bitterly opposed to Brexit, says there is no happy ending to falling off a cliff. In short, Parliament is in the grip of turmoil as never before. A motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister is expected if her plan fails. And there is talk that the furniture removers could be moving into 10 Downing Street before the end of the week. A momentous week lies ahead for Westminster. And a nerve-racking one for the Prime Minister personally. I trust Mr May will have a large Scotch at the ready for her in case of emergencies. Is Commons Speaker John Bercow a hero of Parliament, or a serious pain in the neck? Bercow has attracted admiration and fury in equal measure for allowing a pro-Remainer amendment that seriously depletes the Government's authority over dealing with Brexit if the Prime Minister's deal is defeated. No other Speaker in living memory has endured such a rocky ride. His impartiality has been questioned and he has been openly accused of siding with Remainers at the expense of the Government, while he and his supporters claim he is merely trying to protect the interests of backbenchers. He has not surrendered an inch in the face of some of the ferocious barrage of criticism aimed at him, insisting he is not going beyond his authority and continually expressing his conviction: "I am right." And, although he is said to have ignored the advice of parliamentary clerks, Bercow has now acquired the support of Jeremy Corbyn. Whether he can withstand the level of criticism he has attracted remains to be seen. But he has certainly made his mark on the chair - even if his critics regard that mark as a blot. "The law is a ass, a idiot." Those immortal words, uttered by Mr Bumble in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, could hardly be better exemplified than in the bizarre case of the so-called "speedboat killer" Jack Shepherd, whose vessel capsized on the River Thames while his companion Charlotte Brown died in the water. He was charged with manslaughter, convicted and sentenced to six years in prison. But he broke the terms of his bail (itself an imprisonable offence) and disappeared before the trial ended - it nevertheless went ahead in his absence. It is beyond belief that the law allows him to appeal against conviction despite being a criminal fugitive from the law. What is even more breathtaking is that he can use public money in the form of legal aid to pursue his appeal. "Monstrous" is the word I'd use for it. But that's not the half of it. On top of all that, one of the lawyers has said that it is not his job to help the police. Who are these snooty lawyers, who think they are a cut above the rest of us? It is, in my opinion, the duty of us all to help the police where we can. Confidentiality between solicitor and client must surely take second place to doing one's public duty. It would be a good thing if Parliament could spare a moment from Brexit to close up some of these glaring loopholes. Mr Bumble was right: "The law is a ass." I confess to being surprised - even in these ultra-feminist days - that Fiona Bruce was awarded the coveted job of hosting the BBC's flagship Question Time programme. I would have put my money on Nick Robinson, the BBC's former political editor, being given the job. However, I am happy to concede that Bruce's maiden stint on the programme last week was hugely impressive. Admittedly, she did permit some dreadful bores in the audience to drone on for far too long, but that can easily be remedied in future programmes. But the high point for me was when Bruce commented: "If this is the Government being in control, what does out of control look like?" Brilliant. Good luck to her. Last word on Brexit: French statesman Charles de Gaulle said that politics was far too important a matter to be left to politicians. I agree. And I reckon that, if the Brexit negotiations had been conducted by hard-headed, no-nonsense captains of industry, the whole thing would have been done and dusted ages ago: no divas, no flouncing out, no melodramas. Life is full of risks and sadly two men, both of them experienced in walking in the Mournes, lost their lives in the mountains at the weekend. While others walking and climbing noted that there were severe gusts during the day, there is no indication that was the cause of the fatalities. The family of one of the deceased, Robbie Robinson, were at pains to point out that he died as a result of a freak accident, a slip on a patch of muddy ground which sent him tumbling to his death. When we hear of deaths on the mountains or the sea, our first thoughts are that people had gone out unprepared or ill-equipped for the conditions. That was not the case here. Mr Robinson had climbed all over the world and his family were adamant that it was happenstance, not the prevailing conditions, which was to blame for his death. As ever, in this case special note must be taken of the work of the Mourne Mountain Rescue Team, which attended both accidents and another incident in which a walker broke an ankle. Their expertise and courage in sometimes appalling conditions has to be applauded at every opportunity. Of course, it is correct that in the wake of tragedies walkers and climbers are reminded of the necessity of taking every precaution when venturing into the mountains. They must take appropriate clothing and equipment, note the weather forecast and leave information with a friend about when they intend to set out, the route they intend to take and when they expect to return. Then, in the case of mishap, rescuers have a good indication of where they are. What has to be remembered is that the Mourne Mountains are among Northern Ireland's greatest natural assets and annually attract thousands of walkers and climbers of all grades of experience and fitness. All are perfectly entitled to take advantage of the magnificent mountains and should not be denied that opportunity just because there is an inherent danger. Of course, they should know their limitations and ideally should be part of a rambling group which will enable them to gain further experience from those who have been going to the mountains for years. Sadly, tragedies will happen no matter how sensible the precautions and in this instance we extend our condolences to the bereaved of two men who died doing something they loved. US President Donald Trumps nominee for attorney general has defended his decision to send a memo to the Justice Department criticising the special counsels Russia investigation. William Barr said he was simply trying to warn senior Justice Department officials against stretching a statute to conclude that the president had obstructed justice. The comments came at his Senate confirmation hearing, where he sought to provide assurance he would not undermine Robert Muellers investigation into Russias ties with Donald Trumps 2016 presidential campaign. William Barr sent a 19-page memo arguing against potential obstruction of justice charges to Trumpas personal defense lawyers and Jared Kushneras defense team. If DOJ ethics lawyers recommend his recusal based on these facts, Barr should commit to following their guidance. Rep. Ted Deutch (@RepTedDeutch) January 15, 2019 He said he does not believe Mr Mueller, a friend of 30 years who once worked for him at the Justice Department, would be involved in a witch hunt as Mr Trump has labelled it. And he said he believed former attorney general Jeff Sessions was right to recuse himself from matters involving the special counsel probe a decision Mr Trump railed against during Mr Sessions time in the office. Mr Barr told the Senate Judiciary Committee he raised his concerns about Mr Muellers investigation into whether the president had tried to stymie the Russia probe at a lunch last year with deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mr Mueller and oversees his work. Mr Rosenstein did not respond and was sphinx-like, Mr Barr recalled. He said he followed up with a memo to Mr Rosenstein in June that argued that Mr Mueller should not be able to interview the president about his decision to fire James Comey as FBI director. He said there were other instances in which he had given advice to the Justice Department, such as cautioning against a prosecution of Democratic senator Robert Menendez. Expand Close William Barr being sworn in before the Senate Judiciary Committee (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp William Barr being sworn in before the Senate Judiciary Committee (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Mr Barr also told senators that it is vitally important that Mr Mueller be allowed to complete his investigation, and said he believes Congress and the public should learn the results. He also insisted that Mr Trump never sought any promises, assurances or commitments before selecting him to be the countrys chief law enforcement officer. In releasing written evidence before the hearing, the Justice Department moved to pre-empt the most significant questions Mr Barr is likely to face from Democrats on the panel among them, whether he can oversee without bias or interference the final stages of Mr Muellers probe, and whether he will permit the findings to be made public. I believe it is in the best interest of everyone the president, Congress, and, most importantly, the American people that this matter be resolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work, Mr Barr said. The special counsel is required to report his findings confidentially to the Justice Department. Mr Barr stopped short of directly pledging to release Mr Muellers report, but he expressed general support for disclosing the findings, whatever they may be. For that reason, my goal will be to provide as much transparency as I can consistent with the law, Mr Barr said. I can assure you that, where judgments are to be made by me, I will make those judgments based solely on the law and will let no personal, political, or other improper interests influence my decisions. President Donald Trumps nominee for attorney general has asserted independence from the White House. William Barr said he believed that Russia had tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, that the special counsel investigation shadowing President Trump is not a witch hunt and that his predecessor was right to recuse himself from the probe. The comments by Mr Barr at his Senate confirmation hearing departed from President Trumps own views and underscored Mr Barrs efforts to reassure Democrats that he will not be a loyalist to a president who has appeared to demand it from law enforcement. You must have the integrity, the strength, and the fortitude to tell the president no, regardless of the consequences. In short, he must be willing to defend the independence of the Justice Department. a@SenFeinstein to Trump Attorney General nominee William Barr pic.twitter.com/zxhgy1EkaC Senate Democrats (@SenateDems) January 15, 2019 Some Democrats are concerned about that possibility, citing a memo Mr Barr wrote to the Justice Department before his nomination in which he criticised special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation for the way it was looking into whether President Trump had obstructed justice. Sen Dianne Feinstein of California, top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Mr Barr the memo showed a determined effort, I thought, to undermine Bob Mueller. The nominee told senators he was merely trying to warn Justice Department officials against stretching a statute to conclude that the president had obstructed justice. President Trump has repeatedly slammed Mr Muellers investigation, calling it a witch hunt, and lambasted and ultimately pushed out his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for removing himself from the matter because of his work with the 2016 Trump campaign. I will not be bullied into doing anything that I think is wrong, whether it be by editorial boards, Congress or the president, Mr Barr told senators on the Judiciary Committee. He said that, at 68 years old and partially retired, I feel that Im in a position in life where I can do the right thing and not really care about the consequences. Mr Barr repeatedly praised Mr Mueller, who has been investigating whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin to sway the election, and said he would not undermine his work. He called him a friend of 30 years and said he could not imagine that Mr Mueller would do anything that would justify his firing. I dont believe Mr Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt, he said when asked by the Republican chairman of the committee, Sen Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. At issue for Democratic senators is whether Mr Barr can oversee without bias or interference the final stages of Mr Muellers probe into potential ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign. Ms Feinstein said the nominees past rhetoric in support of expansive presidential powers raises a number of serious questions about your views on executive authority and whether the president is, in fact, above the law. Mr Barr would oversee the final stages of the investigation. He said he would consult with ethics officials on whether he would need to recuse because of a critical unsolicited memo to the Justice Department last year, but the decision would be ultimately his. Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun was accepted as a refugee in Canada (Australian Broadcasting Corporation via AP) A Saudi woman accepted as a refugee in Canada has said in an Australian television interview that she expected her experience would inspire other women to flee her homeland. Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, 18, told Australian Broadcasting Corp in an interview recorded in Toronto and broadcast in Australia on Tuesday that she hoped that the international attention on her flight from oppression in Saudi Arabia will be a catalyst for change. I think the number of women fleeing from the Saudi administration and abuse will increase, especially since there is no system to stop them, Ms Alqunun said. Im sure that there will be a lot more women running away. I hope my story encourages other women to be brave and free. I hope my story prompts a change to the law, especially as its been exposed to the world. This might be the agent for change, she added. Expand Close Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun being interviewed in Toronto (Australian Broadcasting Corporation via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun being interviewed in Toronto (Australian Broadcasting Corporation via AP) Ms Alqunun fled her family while visiting Kuwait before flying to Bangkok. Once there, she barricaded herself in an airport hotel to avoid deportation and tweeted about her situation. On Friday, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would accept Ms Alqunun as a refugee. Her situation has highlighted the cause of womens rights in Saudi Arabia, where several women fleeing abuse by their families have been caught trying to seek asylum abroad in recent years and returned home. Expand Close Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, 18, as she arrived at Toronto Pearson International Airport (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, 18, as she arrived at Toronto Pearson International Airport (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP) Ms Alqunun said she felt like I was born again when she was met at Toronto airport on Saturday by Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland. It was something amazing. There was a lot of love and hospitality, especially when the minister welcomed me and told me I was in a safe country and had all my rights, Ms Alqunun said. Ms Alqunun said she was upset by news that her family had issued a statement saying they disowned her. How could my family disown me simply because I wanted to be independent and escape their abuse? It really upset me, Ms Alqunun said. When asked why she had fled her homeland, Ms Alqunun replied: I wanted to be free from abuse and depression. I wanted to be independent. I wouldnt be able to marry the person I wanted to. I couldnt get a job without permission. Several other countries, including Australia, had been in talks with the UNs refugee agency to accept Ms Alqunun before she flew to Canada. Australian media reported that UNHCR had withdrawn its referral for Ms Alqunun to be resettled in Australia because Canberra was taking too long to decide on her asylum. Flags flew at half-staff and people signed condolence books at municipal buildings across Poland as the nation mourned the stabbing death of the mayor of port city Gdansk. In Gdansk, people placed flowers and candles and signed a condolence book at the town hall, where mayor Pawel Adamowicz had his office since he was first elected in 1998. Expand Close There has been an outpouring of grief on the streets of Gdansk (AP Photo/Wojciech Strozyk) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp There has been an outpouring of grief on the streets of Gdansk (AP Photo/Wojciech Strozyk) In the capital Warsaw, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and members of his cabinet stood for a moment of silence in Mr Adamowiczs honour before their weekly meeting. Meanwhile, interior minister Joachim Brudzinski said police have arrested three people who had called for more killings following the assassination of Mr Adamowicz, who died on Monday after being stabbed during a charity event. Mr Brudzinski described those arrested as internet trolls and unbalanced. The assailant stabbed Mr Adamowicz three times in the heart and abdomen while on stage during a charity event on Sunday evening. Expand Close Pawel Adamowicz was stabbed three times (Carmen Jaspersen/dpa via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Pawel Adamowicz was stabbed three times (Carmen Jaspersen/dpa via AP) He then told a crowd of thousands he did it in revenge against the opposition Civic Platform party, which was in power when he was imprisoned in 2013 for bank robberies. Mr Adamowicz was a long-time member of Civic Platform but left it in 2015. Officials have identified the assailant as 27-year-old Stefan W from Gdansk who left prison in December after serving more than five years for bank robberies. Justice officials said he needed psychiatric examination and that a psychiatrist assisted at his questioning on Monday. The killing plunged the politically divided country into shock and grief and brought Poles into the streets for solemn vigils on Monday night. It also threatened to exacerbate a tense political situation in the country, with Poles bitterly divided between supporters of the ruling right-wing party Law and Justice and critics who accuse it of creating a climate of intolerance and eroding democratic standards. They have primarily focused their criticism on the partys reshaping of the judicial system and its use of public media as a political tool. Some Poles put some of the blame for the assassination on the right-wing ruling Law and Justice party, which has often employed harsh language to denounce its critics, among them Mr Adamowicz. Government officials and some independent observers called for caution, noting the assailants criminal record and suspected psychiatric problems. Celebrities are using social media to reflect on the last decade in the latest online challenge. A number of famous faces have been joining in with the #10YearChallenge trend, posting photos from 2009 and 2019. American talk show host Ellen deGeneres has collected almost two million likes on her side-by-side comparison. Actor Kevin Hart said that the challenge told him he has an old mans face. Hollywood actress Jessica Biel said she missed her old blonde hairstyles when she reflected on how she had changed in the last decade. Oscar winner Viola Davis also shared her decade-apart snaps with her followers. Actress Kate Hudson pointed out her much shorter hairstyle in her contribution to the trend. Hunger Games star Elizabeth Banks took a look back even further, posting photos that were 11 years apart and declaring blondes do have more fun. Reese Witherspoon reflected on the last decade with almost identical red carpet snaps. Actress Isla Fisher made note of how her life has changed in the last 10 years, pointing out that she was diaper-free in 2009. BBC presenter Reggie Yates has hardly changed his camera poses in the last decade. Kunal Kapoor, Amyra Dastur in Koi Jaane Naa Directorial debut of Amin Hajee, the psychological thriller, went on floors last week. After his stint as an actor and screenplay writer, Amin Hajee finally dons the directors hat with Koi Jaane Naa. The psychological thriller, produced by Bhushan Kumars T-Series, went on floors last weekend and will continue in Panchgani. Talking about his directorial debut, Amin says, Ever since I can remember I have always wanted to direct my own film, right from when I assisted Mazhar Khan on Gang in 1988, which was a life changing experience. But then I began a journey of dancing and acting, a journey I loved, but the best thing that happened to me was when I got signed for Swades by Ashutosh Gowarikar and Aamir Khan Productions. Aamir and Ashutosh have been instrumental throughout my journey in films, in pushing me to achieve much more than I thought possible, their belief in me has driven me forward. Theresa May has warned MPs that voting against her Brexit deal could lead to a united Ireland in a last ditch attempt to push it through parliament. The warning comes as MPs prepare for one of the most historic and significant votes in British history, when the PM's Withdrawal Agreement goes before the House of Commons on Tuesday night. Read More Many commentators have already predicted Theresa May's deal will be voted down, with Labour, scores of Tory Brexiteers and her partners in government, the DUP, already stating they will not support it. Earlier this week, there was an exchange of letters between the UK and the EU, which offered more reassurances over the temporary nature of the backstop - a continual stick point of the Brexit negotiations. The backstop mechanism is designed to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland in the event of a no-deal Brexit by keeping Northern Ireland in the EU's customs union and parts of the single market. It would remain in place until a permanent solution is found. Read More The DUP, however, are firmly against the backstop as they see it as Northern Ireland being treated differently than the rest of the UK and said the EU's letter of reassurance contains nothing legally binding. If the PM's Withdrawal Agreement fails, the UK could be facing a no-deal scenario, another vote, or even a general election - an option Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has mooted. In a last gasp move to rally support for her deal, the Prime Minister has warned that to vote against it could be the break-up of the United Kingdom. "And to those who think we should reject this deal in favour of no deal, because we cannot get every assurance we want, I ask what would a no-deal Brexit do to strengthen the hand of those campaigning for Scottish independence - or indeed those demanding a border poll in Northern Ireland? Surely this is the real threat to our union," she said. The warning, however, does not seem to have won over opponents of Theresa May's deal. Tonight will be historic but for the wrong reasons. We will oppose the toxic backstop & vote against the WA. Itas time for a sensible deal which governs our exit from the EU & supports all parts of the UK. Arlene Foster #WeWillMeetAgain (@ArleneFosterUK) January 15, 2019 On Tuesday DUP leader Arlene Foster accused Theresa May of not trying to get rid of the Northern Ireland backstop in recent discussions with Brussels. Mrs Foster spoke at a Brexiteer event in London which was also attended by former Brexit secretaries Dominic Raab and David Davis. Mrs Foster told the audience she had deja vu having come to London to argue against the Withdrawal Agreement before the Meaningful Vote was pulled in December. "We said to the Prime Minister she had to get rid of the backstop and get a Withdrawal Agreement that can be lived with," Mrs Foster said on Tuesday. "I don't think she even asked to get rid of the backstop." With 100 Conservative MPs expected to join in opposition to vote against the Withdrawal Agreement, one of its supporters, Environment secretary Michael Gove, refused to say if he expects it to pass. "The real danger is if people do not vote for the government this evening, we face either a no-deal Brexit, with the short-term economic damage that would bring, or worse: no Brexit at all," he said. "We know there are people in the House of Commons and outside who have never made their peace with this decision, who want to overturn it." There are a total of 14 amendments to the motion tabled, with the speaker to accept only a portion of them to be debated and voted, before the final ballot on the overall motion expected late on Tuesday night. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has already stated he will table a no-confidence motion in the Government "within minutes" of a defeat for Mrs May. There is a call for the Scottish Government to review how children with complex needs are supported (Ben Birchall/PA) The Scottish Government has been urged to review how local authorities are supporting children and young people with complex and high level needs. It comes as part of a campaign by an alliance of providers to improve services for vulnerable children and young people. The Scottish Childrens Services Coalition (SCSC) cited a decline in the number of children with additional support needs (ASN), such as autism, dyslexia and ADHD, receiving a coordinated support plan (CSP). A CSP is a legal document requiring services such as education, health and social work to join forces to give a child or young person the support they need. It provides some guarantees of entitlement to additional resources and legal redress, placing statutory duties on local authorities to review and ensure the provisions contained within it are being met. While those with ASN come disproportionately from the most deprived neighbourhoods, they have a lower proportion receiving a CSP when compared with those from the least deprived neighbourhoods. SCSC said this raises concerns that those from deprived communities who are entitled to a CSP are not receiving this legal support. According to statistics, in Scotland between 2012 and 2018 there has been a decline among those with CSPs from 0.51% to 0.29%. It is key that we target the resourcing to achieve those on those in the most deprived communitiesLynn Bell, Love Learning Scotland The SCSC has encouraged the Scottish Government to undertake a review of how CSPs are being implemented by local authorities. It comes amid concerns the drop in the number of CSPs is due to authorities being more reluctant to provide them than previously. According to figures published by the Scottish Parliament, there has been a fall in average spend per pupil by local authorities on additional support for learning education from 4,276 in 2012-13 to 3,548 in 2016-17, amounting to 728 per pupil a 21.9% cut in real terms. Lynn Bell from Love Learning Scotland, a member of the SCSC, said: It is clearly of some concern that we are experiencing a decline in the use of CSPs, which is to support those with the most complex needs. This is despite an increase in the numbers of those requiring such support and is in contrast with south of the border where the number of those with the equivalent of a CSP is close to 20% for those with special educational needs while in Scotland it is only 1% for those with additional support needs. The disparity in those with a CSP between those in the least and most deprived areas is also worrying, as if we are to close the educational gap, it is key that we target the resourcing to achieve those on those in the most deprived communities. We are also concerned about the disparities that exist between local authorities on such support, which clearly raises concerns about how such a policy is being implemented and a lack of standardisation of who is identified as having ASN and who get a CSP. It is vital that the Scottish Government urgently undertake a review of how CSPs are being implemented by local authorities. A Scottish Government spokesman said: We want all children and young people to receive the support they need to reach their full potential. The Additional Support for Learning Act places duties on education authorities to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils. The legislation on the use of coordinated support planning is clear. To support understanding of the legislation, including the use of non-statutory planning mechanisms, and the extension of rights to children and young people, the statutory guidance on additional support for learning was updated and published in January 2018. Parliament acted in the best interests of the UK by rejecting Theresa May's withdrawal agreement, the DUP leader Arlene Foster said. She was responding after 432 MPs voted down the deal with 202 in favour. A huge majority of 230. Pre-empting Jeremy Corbyn's subsequent motion of no confidence in the Government, the Prime Minister immediately offered to begin cross-party talks on gaining Commons support on an alternative should she survive the challenge. Read More "The House of Commons has sent an unmistakable message to the Prime Minister and the European Union that this deal is rejected," Arlene Foster added. "Mrs May will now be able to demonstrate to the Brussels negotiators that changes are required if any deal is to command the support of Parliament." The DUP has said it will support the Government in the no confidence motion in the Commons saying it wants a change in policy not administration. "We will work with the Government constructively to achieve a better deal. That is our focus. Whilst some may wish to use this defeat to boost their political ambitions, we will give the Government the space to set out a plan to secure a better deal," continued Foster. "Reassurances whether in the form of letters or warm words, will not be enough. The Prime Minister must now go back to the European Union and seek fundamental change to the Withdrawal Agreement. "We want an orderly exit from the European Union with a sensible deal which works for Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Read More Ireland must be protected in Brexit Sinn Fein called on Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to ensure there was no dilution of the backstop. Irelands people, Irelands economy and Irelands peace process all need to be protected as we go forward now," said party president Mary Lou McDonald. The Taoiseach and the Tanaiste and our partners at a European level need to stand firm and not move away from or attempt to dilute the backstop. We need to say clearly to the British that if they wish to Brexit then thats a matter for themselves but any Brexit agreement needs to recognise, understand and protect the people, the economy and the peace process on this island. Naive to say better deal available The SDLP said the economy of Northern Ireland must be protected. "There is no such thing as a good Brexit but if we are forced to leave the EU then Northern Ireland must to be protected through a backstop," said leader Colum Eastwood. "The naive belief in Westminster that a better deal can be negotiated with Brussels is merely postponing the inevitable. That fact remains - there is no way to avoid a hard border in Ireland if Northern Ireland leaves the customs union and single market. That is why a backstop is essential. The SDLP have said this from day one. "Northern Ireland's economy and stability can't be sacrificed because politicians in London have failed to recognise the obvious." Delay Brexit and get better deal The UUP said the Government should delay Brexit and extend Article 50 in order to renegotiate a better deal. "The debate has clearly shown that there is no desire amongst the majority of MPs for a no deal Brexit," said party leader Robin Swann. The EU's claims that they want to defend the Belfast Agreement must now be backed up by actions that reflect their responsibility. The backstop needs dealt with and they know it. If they continue with their present intransigence, everyone will end up in a place where no-one wants to go. We want the right deal for the country, a sensible deal and a deal which creates a positive trading relationship with the EU in the future which doesn`t undermine the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom or the principle of consent which is at the heart of the Belfast Agreement. Time for the people to decide Alliance's said given the "unrealistic expectations" involved, the people should be given the chance to have their say again. It is now clear the only coherent way forward is to have a Peoples Vote," said Naomi Long. "Democracy is an active process, and given what we now know and the ongoing deadlock, the people of UK must have the right to have their say. The Green Party also called for a People's Vote while the TUV said the Prime Minister should tell the EU to bin the backstop or it would be no deal. Labour MP Tulip Siddiq is wheeled through the chamber while MPs vote on the Prime Ministers Brexit deal in the House of Commons, London. A heavily pregnant MP who postponed a Caesarean section in order to vote on the Withdrawal Agreement was brought into the Commons in a wheelchair. Labours Tulip Siddiq was wheeled into the chamber ahead of the first vote on Tuesday night, on an amendment brought by Tory MP John Baron for the UK to take unilateral powers to end controversial backstop arrangements. The Hampstead & Kilburn MP could be seen in the chamber chatting to other MPs including fellow Labour MP Stella Creasy and Conservative Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom. Thank you all for supportive messages. My decision to delay my baby's birth is not one I take lightly. Let me be clear, I have no faith in the pairing system - in July the Govt stole the vote of a new mother. It's my duty to represent Hampstead & Kilburn, and I will do just that. Tulip Siddiq (@TulipSiddiq) January 15, 2019 Earlier in the day Ms Siddiq, 36, had written on Twitter thanking people for support after her decision was first reported by the Evening Standard. She said: My decision to delay my babys birth is not one I take lightly. Let me be clear, I have no faith in the pairing system, in July the Govt stole the vote of a new mother. Expand Close Labour MP Tulip Siddiq is wheeled through the chamber (House of Commons/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Labour MP Tulip Siddiq is wheeled through the chamber (House of Commons/PA) Its my duty to represent Hampstead & Kilburn, and I will do just that. SNP health spokeswoman Philippa Whitford said Ms Siddiq was due to have a Caesarean section because she has a high risk pregnancy and gestational diabetes. Dr Whitford told the Commons on a point of order after the Brexit vote: I have to say as a doctor to put our colleague at risk and her baby at risk because we cannot have a method of allowing those who are sick or pregnant (to vote) is disgraceful. Her decision came after controversy in the summer when Tory Chief Whip Julian Smith ordered Tory Party chairman Brandon Lewis to break a pairing agreement with Lib Dem deputy leader Jo Swinson while she was on maternity leave during a crucial Brexit vote. Pairing agreements are used when MPs cannot make it to the Commons for votes for medical and other reasons. It means someone from the other side also does not vote to ensure there is no unfair advantage caused by their absence. Theresa May later said Mr Smith had made an honest mistake and had apologised. Theresa Mays plan could go down to one of the heaviest defeats of modern times (PA) Theresa May is braced for a potentially crushing Commons defeat for her Brexit deal after an eleventh hour appeal for support apparently failed to win round critics. On a historic day at Westminster MPs will finally deliver their verdict on the Withdrawal Agreement hammered out with Brussels on Tuesday evening. With more than 100 Tory MPs having declared their opposition to the plan, there was speculation the Government could go down to one of the heaviest defeats of modern times. The Prime Minister has insisted she is focused on winning the vote telling Conservative rebels on Monday evening they risked handing the keys of No 10 to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. However The Daily Telegraph quoted one Cabinet source as saying it would be hard for her to carry on if she lost by more than 100 votes. The Leader of the House Andrea Leadsom insisted Mrs May was determined to continue fighting for her agreement in the best interests of the country. Anything that looks like that level of disruption would incredibly bad both for the country and for Brexit, she told BBC2s Newsnight. So I think the Prime Minister will remain determined to deliver on this deal. Her purpose is to leave the European Union in line with what people voted for. She could not be clearer about that. The deal suffered its first official parliamentary defeat in the House of Lords on Monday night as peers voted by 321 votes to 152 a majority of 169 to reject it. Mr Corbyn indicated he was finally ready to table a vote of no-confidence in the Government if it loses in the Commons. Dont be concerned, its coming soon, he told a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Expand Close Jeremy Corbyn his signalled he is ready to table a vote of no confidence in the Government (Danny Lawson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jeremy Corbyn his signalled he is ready to table a vote of no confidence in the Government (Danny Lawson/PA) It would appear unlikely Labour can muster enough votes to force a general election, with both Tory rebels and the DUP indicating they would continue to back the Government in a confidence vote. However Downing Street has given little indication as to how the Prime Minister intends to proceed if she is defeated. Under the terms of an amendment passed last week, she must table a motion on her Plan B by Monday although in practice she is unlikely to want to wait that long. Some reports have suggested she could fly to Brussels possibly as early as Wednesday in an attempt wring further concessions on the crucial issue of the Northern Ireland backstop. But that could prove problematic if she has suffered a massive defeat, with EU leaders reluctant to give ground if they believe it is simply impossible for her to get the deal through the Commons. Alternatively, she could to bring back the deal to the House for a second or possibly even a third time in an attempt to wear down the opposition. Some MPs claimed to have detected some movement towards her position after she addressed a private meeting of Conservatives MPs at Westminster on Monday evening. So far, however, the numbers contemplating backing the deal would appear to fall far short of what is needed to affect the final outcome. The British people are ready for us to move beyond division and come together. pic.twitter.com/WfIqHPoARW Theresa May (@theresa_may) January 14, 2019 Mrs May will make her final appeal when she winds up five days of debate in the Commons before MPs head to the division lobbies. Voting is due to begin at 7pm and could continue for around two hours, depending on how many amendments Speaker John Bercow calls before the final meaningful vote on the deal. Speaking in the Commons on Monday, Mrs May acknowledged the deal was not perfect but urged MPs to give it a second look. With some pro-Remain MPs backing moves to take control of the parliamentary timetable if she is defeated, she warned any attempt by the House to thwart Brexit would be a subversion of our democracy. When this deal is voted down, let us not continue to flog this dead horse. Instead we must get brexit right and seize the opportunities before us pic.twitter.com/AosSRdSclS Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) January 14, 2019 On Monday, Conservative former ministers Nick Boles, Sir Oliver Letwin and Nicky Morgan put forward a plan to give Parliament control over the Brexit process. Their European Union Withdrawal Number 2 Bill would give the Government three weeks to seek a compromise that can get through the Commons and allow the UK to leave the EU on March 29 as planned. If that failed, the Liaison Committee made up of senior backbenchers who chair Commons committees would be given the job of coming up with its own compromise deal, which the Government would be legally required to implement if approved by MPs. However, Liaison Committee chairman Sarah Wollaston poured cold water on the proposal, saying backbenchers constitutionally cannot take over conducting a complex international negotiation. Picture taken with permission from the twitter feed of @Vikjas85 of police arrested a man Tulse Hill station, south London, on suspicion of attempted murder. A machete-wielding man who was Tasered by police at a south London train station has been detained under the Mental Health Act. The 59-year-old was initially arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and possession of an offensive weapon over the incident at Tulse Hill on Monday evening. Police on Tuesday said the suspect, from Croydon, had been detained under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act after he was assessed by specialist medical staff. A video widely shared on social media appears to show a man wielding a machete above his head before he is Tasered and falls to the ground. Man arrested in connection to the Tulse Hill knife incident last night has now been detained under the Mental Health Act. Especially grateful for the support from our @MetPoliceUK colleagues for their great work during this incident https://t.co/ppaKW7g95b pic.twitter.com/koywTw1IxW British Transport Police (@BTP) January 15, 2019 He was then pictured surrounded by several police officers as he lay on the ground. Assistant Chief Constable Robin Smith, from the British Transport Police, said: This would have been a particularly frightening incident for those passengers at the station or on board trains at Tulse Hill station. I am especially grateful to our Metropolitan Police colleagues who did a great job in detaining this man. Police, who were called to the station just after 6.30pm, said there were no reported injuries. Conor Fortune said he was on a Thameslink train travelling away from central London when he heard a male voice shouting quite loudly at the station. Expand Close The man was detained at Tulse Hill, in south London (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The man was detained at Tulse Hill, in south London (PA) The train conductor then told passengers not to get off because there was a dangerous man on the platform, he said. The 39-year-old, from south-west London, said: After several minutes of being sat on the platform, the driver announced that we were being held and she shut the doors as a precaution and advised nobody to get off as there was a dangerous man on the platform. She informed us the police had been alerted and were responding. Ash New, who commutes into central London from Tulse Hill every day, said he arrived at the station on his way home after the man had been detained. The 27-year-old, who lives a few minutes from the station, said he saw police officers with bags collecting evidence on the opposite platform. He also saw a number of people who looked a bit shaken as they were being spoken to by police. He said: I think there was a lot of confusion. People were not really sure what was going on. Theresa May's Brexit deal has been rejected by Parliament by a majority of 230. Immediately after the result Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tabled a motion of no confidence in the government. Theresa may said if the government got support they would work with MPs across the Commons on finding a deal. Read More The DUP's Sammy Wilson has said the party will support the government saying they want a change in policy, not administrations. He said the EU had "hard questions to answer," predicting the EU will quickly see the reality and will reconsider options. In a statement DUP leader Arlene Foster added: "Parliament has acted in the best interests of the entire United Kingdom... the House of Commons has sent an unmistakable message to the Prime Minister and the European Union. "We will work with the Government constructively to achieve a better deal. That is our focus. Whilst some may wish to use this defeat to boost their political ambitions, we will give the Government the space to set out a plan to secure a better deal. "Reassurances whether in the form of letters or warm words, will not be enough. The Prime Minister must now go back to the European Union and seek fundamental change to the Withdrawal Agreement. "We want an orderly exit from the European Union with a sensible deal which works for Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Two hundred and two MPs voted in favour of the deal with 432 against. Of those voting against the government 118 were Conservative. All 10 DUP MPs also voted against. Lady Sylvia Hermon voted in favour. The PM said: The House has spoken and the Government will listen. Here's how events unfolded: Investigations continue after two bodies were discovered (Joe Giddens/PA) Investigations are continuing after a young couple were found dead in a flat. Police are currently treating the deaths of the couple, named locally as 23-year-olds Derek Hurles and Nicole McGeachin, as unexplained. Officers were called to Stoneside Square in the south side of Glasgow following reports of concern for a person at around 10.10am on Monday morning. They discovered two bodies when they entered the property. The deaths are currently being treated as unexplainedPolice Scotland The fire service was also asked to attend and sent four appliances to the scene. Post-mortems will be carried out to establish the cause of death. A police spokesman said: At around 10.10am on Monday police were called to a report of concern for a person at Stoneside Square. Emergency services attended and on arrival officers discovered two bodies within a property. The deaths are currently being treated as unexplained. The Scottish Parliament is set to mount its own probe into the Scottish Governments handling of complaints made against former first minister Alex Salmond.(Jane Barlow/PA) The Scottish Parliament will mount its own investigation into the fallout from sexual misconduct allegations against former first minister Alex Salmond. Holyrood is to set up a special committee, which will look at the Scottish Governments handling of the complaints strenuously denied by Mr Salmond as well as the former first ministers dealings with his predecessor Nicola Sturgeon. The move was unanimously agreed by all parties at a meeting of the Parliamentary Bureau on Tuesday. Holyrood officials will now consider the membership of the committee and what the remit should be for the probe. A Scottish Parliament spokeswoman said: Bureau members unanimously agreed to create a new committee of inquiry. Officials have been asked to prepare options on its remit and membership and these will be discussed at a future meeting of the bureau. Scottish Conservative interim leader Jackson Carlaw said afterwards: Im pleased that the Parliamentary Bureau has decided today to back the Scottish Conservative proposal for a Holyrood inquiry into this affair. An investigation has been botched, two complainants have been let down and hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money has been wasted. These are clearly matters for the Scottish Parliament to investigate and the inquiry must be able to examine what went wrong and why this was allowed to happen. BREAKING: The Scottish Parliament is to launch an inquiry into the handling of, and fall-out from, sexual harassment complaints against former First Minister Alex Salmond. Parliament will now get the chance to probe this matter fully. pic.twitter.com/cBCAyQV5pF Scottish Conservatives (@ScotTories) January 15, 2019 Labour leader Richard Leonard agreed the inquiry was the right decision and a positive step forward. He added: Full transparency in this matter is essential in order for the public to have confidence in the First Minister and the Scottish Government. That means full public and parliamentary scrutiny. At all times it is essential to remember that at the centre of all of this are two courageous women who put their faith in a system that has badly let them down and we must never lose sight of that by safeguarding the duty of care to them and their access to justice. Confirmation of the probe comes two days after Ms Sturgeon confirmed she will refer herself to the panel of independent advisers to consider whether her actions breached the ministerial code of conduct. She previously told MSPs she only became aware of the allegations which date back to Mr Salmonds time as first minister when the pair met for talks at her Glasgow home on April 2 last year. A key aide to the former first minister has said Ms Sturgeons chief of staff Liz Lloyd suspected a complaint had been made the previous month. Geoff Aberdein, who served as Mr Salmonds chief of staff during his time in office, has revealed he met Ms Sturgeons aide Liz Lloyd twice in March last year. At the second meeting in late March he said Ms Lloyd confirmed she suspected the Scottish Government had received an official complaint about Mr Salmond. Mr Aberdein said: She made clear she did not know the full details of any potential complaint and had not alerted the First Minister to her suspicions about a potential complaint. A spokesman for Ms Sturgeon said there was quite clearly a vendetta against Ms Lloyd. Expand Close Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon (right) and her chief of staff Liz Lloyd. (stefan Roousseau/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon (right) and her chief of staff Liz Lloyd. (stefan Roousseau/PA) Supporters of the SNP leader have already warned there has been an attempt to smear her with suggestions she was aware of the sexual misconduct probe before her meeting with Mr Salmond. Ms Sturgeons spokesman said: Liz is the subject of what is now quite openly being briefed as a vendetta. He added: Quite clearly there is an agenda at play here in terms of Lizs involvement, that has been made abundantly clear by the other side. He stressed Ms Lloyd will co-operate fully with any inquiry under the ministerial code referral, which will look into the issue which she is involved in. The spokesman added: Were in a process where are dealing with something that is the subject of an ongoing police investigation and is also now subject to the First Ministers referral under the ministerial code. Were not going to be saying or doing anything that could be seen jeopardise or prejudice that in any way either of those processes. Looking for in-depth reporting on labor issues? You're in the right place. Subscribe to The Chief and get stories that cover every side of civil service in New York City and beyond. You can sign up in minutes for immediate access. MPs could have repeated votes on Theresa Mays Brexit deal, according to Scottish Secretary David Mundell, who described Tuesdays Commons crunch as an initial vote. With the House of Commons set for a historic vote on the Prime Ministers deal for leaving the EU, Mr Mundell suggested that the Government would hold more votes if they lose tonight as expected. Speaking on College Green in Westminster, he told BBC Radio Scotlands Good Morning Scotland programme: My feeling now is that theres a significant number of MPs who feel that they need to in this initial vote vote against the deal. The obvious option following this vote - if it wasn't to go through - is to revisit the voteDavid Mundell, Secretary of State for Scotland Pressed about his comments on an initial vote, he added: I think that everybody has to reflect on the outcome of the vote. Ive said before, and Im still very clear, that the obvious option following this vote if it wasnt to go through is to revisit the vote, he added. I dont want to see a situation where there are repeat votes. I do see that there are a number of people who clearly want in the vote tonight to register their position and view on the deal, but I hope that if there is another vote on this their actual thought process will be one of: What are the alternatives?' Asked about whether anything had changed since the vote was delayed in December, Mr Mundell said: There was the publication of letters, there was the December council and indeed some and I concede a small number (of) people have declared that they would now vote differently than they would have. On Monday, Mr Mundell said that while the Prime Ministers deal is not perfect, he will vote for it, while the Prime Minister issued a last-ditch plea for MPs to back her. Expand Close Prime Minister Theresa May issues her latest statement on Brexit to MPs in the House of Commons in London (House of Commons/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Prime Minister Theresa May issues her latest statement on Brexit to MPs in the House of Commons in London (House of Commons/PA) Mrs May warned MPs would be behaving with the height of recklessness if they rejected her Withdrawal Agreement when no alternative deal was on offer which was negotiable and respected the 2016 referendum result. Her hopes that a letter from European Council president Donald Tusk and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker making clear the backstop was not a threat or a trap would win over wavering MPs look set to be dashed, as the Democratic Unionist Party which props up her minority administration dismissed it as meaningless. More than 100 Tory MPs have also declared their opposition to the plan, amid speculation the Government could suffer one of the heaviest defeats of modern times. Mrs May has insisted she is focused on winning the vote telling Conservative rebels on Monday evening they risked handing the keys of No 10 to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. SNP MSP Joan McAlpine said: There is an enormous irony that the UK Government is fighting tooth and nail against putting any proposals directly to the public but the Tories think they should rerun the vote in Westminster until they get the result they want. The UK Government has had over two years to negotiate with the EU and has failed to agree a deal that satisfies anyone. David Mundells suggestion that the Tories will just rerun the vote until they get the result they want is insulting and frankly he is living in fantasy land if he thinks Theresa Mays deal is going to be pushed through. It is expected to be a long day in Parliament (Dominic Lipinski/PA) MPs will gather later for a vote on Theresa Mays Withdrawal Agreement, after more than two years of talks with the EU and months of parliamentary and intra-party wrangling on both sides of the Commons. There is also the minor matter of just 10 weeks remaining until Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29. The business end of events will be Tuesday evening when voting takes place, following the last of five days of debate. Here are some of the approximate times of events during the day: 0930: The Cabinet gathers in Downing Street for its regular Tuesday morning meeting. It is likely to last for several hours. Expand Close Theresa May is expected to heavily lose tonights vote (Ben Birchall/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Theresa May is expected to heavily lose tonights vote (Ben Birchall/PA) 1250: The last day of the Brexit debate will be opened by Attorney General Geoffrey Cox. 1830: Theresa May will close the debate with a speech from the Dispatch Box. It is expected to be heavy on the people expect and the eyes of the world are upon us type rhetoric. 1900: Voting will begin, starting with backbench amendments and culminating in the meaningful vote on the Withdrawal Agreement itself. It could be as late as 10pm according to some guesses. Speaker John Bercow will reveal which amendments he has selected for a vote as the final day of debate starts on Tuesday, with Hilary Benn already having dropped his. After the meaningful vote takes place: Mrs May is expected to make a statement to the House of Commons. Bob Geldof, who received an honorary doctorate from the University of Limerick yesterday Best-selling Irish author Marian Keyes has been presented with an honorary doctorate alongside Sir Bob Geldof at the University of Limerick. The writer, whose father Ted died four weeks ago, described how she had become a socialist activist over the last few years. She said: "I was always a feminist and a socialist in my principles, but I was afraid to challenge the status quo. "The Ireland I was brought up in, women were supposed to keep their mouths shut and be good. I am so thrilled to be brave enough to call out what I see is injustice from time to time." Former rocker and prominent Remain campaigner Sir Bob Geldof described Brexit as a "serious mistake" and said he believed Theresa May would lose today's crucial vote in Westminster. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said that he is still hopeful for a deal on the UK's withdrawal from the EU. Commentators believe the Prime Minister's Withdrawal Agreement is likely to fail in the House of Commons vote today, but the Taoiseach refused to comment on what he thought should happen next. "I think it's important that we allow the British political system the time to make that decision," he said. "I hope the vote will be in favour, that the Withdrawal Agreement will be ratified by Westminster and we can get straight into talks on the future relationship." Mr Varadkar added he had "no desire to threaten the union". Mr Varadkar added that although he remained optimistic, his government is making preparations for a no-deal Brexit. "We'll have further preparations at cabinet tomorrow for no-deal Brexit. I still think a no-deal Brexit is unlikely, but we need to be prepared for it nonetheless," Mr Varadkar said. "I shouldn't pretend to anyone that any country can be fully prepared for Brexit, there is no good Brexit and a no-deal Brexit will have a very significant impact on Ireland, Britain and Europe. "We will be prepared, but I'm not going to say to you that everything is going to be fine, of course there will be interruptions and negative impact but we'll be as prepared as we possibly can be." Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney said he hoped yesterday's letter from the EU to Mrs May would provide reassurance and clarity to MPs in Parliament ahead of today's vote. "People shouldn't feel threatened by it (the backstop); some people have painted the backstop into something that it's not," he said. "This week is going to be a really significant few days. This is a time where Ireland has to hold its nerve. We're most impacted by Brexit of all the EU states. "We need to stay close to the British government and EU partners - but shouldn't respond in knee-jerked or any panicked way." The well-known American evangelical writer Philip Yancey has helped launch the new monthly online and print editions of the Church of Ireland Gazette The well-known American evangelical writer Philip Yancey has helped launch the new monthly online and print editions of the Church of Ireland Gazette. He has contributed to the first three editions of the new format, the inaugural one of which appeared this month. Some 15 million copies of Yancey's books have been sold worldwide, including two of his best-known titles, The Jesus I Never Knew (1996) and What's So Amazing About Grace (1998). He has visited Northern Ireland several times and was a keynote speaker at a clergy meeting of the Church of Ireland some years ago. The new monthly edition of the Gazette was welcomed by the Church of Ireland Primate Archbishop Richard Clarke. He said: "I wish the Gazette every success as it sets out on its new path. "This new style of Gazette could be a valuable resource for the Church in the changed times in which we live." Rev Earl Storey, the editor, said: "The way we receive news is constantly developing, and we are aiming to secure the best future possible for the Gazette." Published by the Church of Ireland Press, it began as a monthly magazine in 1856, but became a weekly publication in 1880. Though funded by the Church of Ireland, it has long retained a sturdy editorial independence in not only reporting news about its parent churches, but also about the worldwide Anglican communion and other denominations. It has challenged many of the developments within the Church of Ireland, and has provided a lively platform for many different views in its letters and comment pages. One observer noted: "The Gazette has been required reading for those who want to know what is happening in the Church of Ireland and in the world of religion in general." The new format will also fall in line with the Presbyterian Herald and the Methodist Newsletter, both of which are published monthly in a magazine format. MPs have rejected Theresa Mays Brexit plans by an emphatic 432 votes to 202 in a historic vote which has thrown the future of her administration and the nature of the UKs EU withdrawal into doubt. The humiliating rebuff was delivered in the House of Commons just moments after the Prime Minister made a last-ditch appeal for MPs to back the Withdrawal Agreement which she sealed with Brussels in November after almost two years of negotiation. The 230-vote margin of defeat was by far the worst suffered by any Government in a meaningful division since at least the First World War and in normal circumstances would be enough to force a Prime Minister from office. But there was little doubt in Westminster that Mrs May would hang on and was likely to survive a motion of no-confidence tabled by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Mrs May now has until January 21 to set out a Plan B expected to involve going back to Brussels to seek further concessions, with the clock ticking on the scheduled date of Brexit in just 73 days time on March 29 . In a statement immediately after her drubbing, Mrs May said: The House has spoken and this Government will listen. She offered cross-party talks with MPs across the House to determine a way forward. If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is? Charles Michel (@eucopresident) January 15, 2019 Attorney General Geoffrey Cox appeared to indicate that the PM will resist pressure to tear up her plan or to seek cross-party consensus on a new approach. He told MPs that in the event of a Government defeat the agreement would have to return to the Commons later in much the same form with much the same content. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told the House of Commons that Mrs Mays catastrophic defeat represented an absolutely decisive verdict on her Brexit negotiations and said he has tabled a vote of confidence. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) Moments before the crunch vote, Mrs May told MPs: Parliament gave the people a choice, we set the clock ticking on our departure and tonight we will determine whether we move forward with a Withdrawal Agreement that honours the vote and sets us on course for a better future. The responsibility of each and every one of us at this moment is profound, for this is a historic decision that will set the future of our country for generations. But the Labour leader called on MPs to vote down the agreement, saying: This deal is bad for our economy, a bad deal for our democracy, and a bad deal for this country. The no lobby for the Government's motion... pic.twitter.com/dc6IMzGpHv Debbie Abrahams MP (@Debbie_abrahams) January 15, 2019 As MPs voted, noisy crowds of pro- and anti-Brexit protesters in Parliament Square could be heard inside the Palace of Westminster. MPs had been due to vote first on a series of four amendments chosen by Speaker John Bercow. But Mr Corbyn, Scottish National Party leader Ian Blackford and Tory backbencher Sir Edward Leigh opted not to move their amendments, leaving only one division. In that vote, a proposal from Conservative MP John Baron for the UK to take unilateral powers to end controversial backstop arrangements was rejected by 600 votes to 24. Expand Close Labour MP Tulip Siddiq is wheeled through the chamber (House of Commons/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Labour MP Tulip Siddiq is wheeled through the chamber (House of Commons/PA) Heavily pregnant Labour MP Tulip Siddiq, who postponed her planned Caesarean in order to vote, attended the Commons in a wheelchair. A puppet of Theresa May outside the Houses of Parliament (Yui Mok/PA) Theresa May has told senior ministers she believes passionately that they must take Britain out of the European Union, ahead of what is expected to be a devastating parliamentary rejection of her Brexit plans. The Withdrawal Agreement secured by the Prime Minister in Brussels in November looks set to go down to one of the heaviest Commons defeats in modern history, after a last-gasp appeal to Tory rebels fell on deaf ears. But Mrs May made clear she would not back away from Brexit in response, telling the Cabinet the Government is the servant of the people and must deliver on the result of the 2016 referendum in which voters opted to Leave by 52%-48%. She told colleagues at the weekly meeting in 10 Downing Street that she will respond quickly if her deal is rejected by MPs. Opening the final day of debate in the Commons, Attorney General Geoffrey Cox said that in the event of a Government defeat the agreement would have to return in much the same form with much the same content. Jeremy Corbyn has told Labour MPs he will table a motion of no confidence in the Government soon after a defeat, in the hope of triggering a general election. Mrs May will make her final appeal to MPs in a statement closing five days of debate ahead of a series of votes, culminating with MPs final judgment on her plan at around 8.30pm. Speaker John Bercow has allowed debate on an amendment tabled by Mr Corbyn to ditch Mrs Mays plan and pursue every option to prevent the UK leaving the EU with no deal. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) Also selected for debate were an SNP amendment to reject the Brexit deal and proposals by Tory backbenchers Sir Edward Leigh and John Baron for the UK to take unilateral powers to end controversial backstop arrangements. Labours Hilary Benn pulled an amendment which would have blocked both the PMs deal and a no-deal outcome, saying it was vital to get the clearest expression of view from MPs on the Governments proposals. Assurances over the backstop received from the EU on Monday appear to have failed to win over significant numbers of the deals critics among the Tories and their DUP allies. Confirming that the 10 DUP MPs will not back the PMs deal, party leader Arlene Foster told a press conference in London: We said to the Prime Minister she had to get rid of the backstop and get a Withdrawal Agreement that can be lived with. I dont think she even asked to get rid of the backstop. In a statement, the DUP said its support was conditional on legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement to deliver an end date for the backstop arrangements, designed to avoid a hard border in Ireland. It is thought that Mrs Mays response to a defeat will take the form of an oral statement to the Commons immediately after the division. Reports suggested a call from Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd at Cabinet for an immediate indicative vote to rule out a no-deal Brexit in the event of defeat met strong resistance from other ministers. As campaigners from both Remain and Leave camps staged demonstrations outside Parliament, Mrs May was meeting MPs in her Commons office in a last-ditch bid to persuade them to back her deal. She is understood to be focusing her efforts on Tory backbenchers, rather than trying to reach out for support from other parties. Expand Close Anti-Brexit campaigners drove effigies of Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and David Davis past the House of Commons (Yui Mok/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Anti-Brexit campaigners drove effigies of Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and David Davis past the House of Commons (Yui Mok/PA) German foreign minister Heiko Maas said Brexit talks would continue if Mrs Mays deal was rejected by MPs, but there was unlikely to be substantial change to the agreement. Mr Maas said: If there were still a solution that could be presented under even greater pressure, I would ask myself why it has not been put on the table before in order to ensure that this evenings vote takes place under better circumstances. That is why I believe that the agreement is as it stands and will not be substantially changed, but that, if things go wrong tonight, there will certainly be talks again. A no-confidence vote could come as early as Wednesday if Mr Corbyn tables a motion as a point of order in the immediate aftermath of the meaningful vote. But it appears unlikely that Labour can muster enough votes to force a general election, with Tory rebels and the DUP indicating they would continue to back the Government in a confidence vote. The British people are ready for us to move beyond division and come together. pic.twitter.com/WfIqHPoARW Theresa May (@theresa_may) January 14, 2019 The Prime Minister has insisted she is focused on winning the vote, telling Conservative rebels on Monday evening that they risked handing the keys of No 10 to Mr Corbyn. However the Daily Telegraph quoted one Cabinet source as saying it would be hard for her to carry on if she lost by more than 100 votes. The deal suffered its first official parliamentary defeat in the House of Lords on Monday night as peers voted by 321 votes to 152 a majority of 169 to reject it. Downing Street has given little indication on how the Prime Minister intends to proceed if she is defeated. Under the terms of an amendment passed last week, she must table a motion on her Plan B by Monday. Some reports have suggested she could fly to Brussels possibly as early as Wednesday in an attempt to obtain further concessions on the backstop. Expand Close Anti-Brexit and Pro-Brexit protesters fly flags outside the Houses of Parliament (Yui Mok/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Anti-Brexit and Pro-Brexit protesters fly flags outside the Houses of Parliament (Yui Mok/PA) But that could prove problematic if she has suffered a massive defeat, with EU leaders reluctant to give ground if they believe it is impossible for her to get the deal through the Commons. Alternatively, she could opt to bring the deal back to the House for a second or possibly even a third time in an attempt to wear down the opposition. Dominic Raab said Brexiteers like him could back a deal if aspects such as the backstop were dealt with. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) The former Brexit secretary told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: I made clear when I resigned that there were three aspects that needed to be addressed. The backstop is clearly one of them and I want to see very clearly the Withdrawal Agreement linked to a best-in-class free trade agreement. If we could do those two things, someone like me would say that, actually, we could vote for it. The Sinn Fein leader has urged Irish Premier Leo Varadkar to stand firm over the backstop after MPs voted down the proposed withdrawal deal. Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit plans were rejected by 432 votes to 202 by the House of Commons on Tuesday night. Amid the resulting uncertainty over how the United Kingdom will leave the European Union, Sinn Fein president Mary-Lou McDonald pressed the Taoiseach to stand firm on the backstop. Taoiseach needs to stand firm on backstop - Mary Lou McDonald TD https://t.co/swxTqoPwGu #brexit pic.twitter.com/Fxj6LyK7Ou Sinn FAin (@sinnfeinireland) January 15, 2019 Irelands people, Irelands economy and Irelands peace process all need to be protected as we go forward now, she said. The Taoiseach and the Tanaiste and our partners at a European level need to stand firm and not move away from or attempt to dilute the backstop. We need to say clearly to the British that if they wish to Brexit then thats a matter for themselves but any Brexit agreement needs to recognise, understand and protect the people, the economy and the peace process on this island. Expand Close Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (Tom Honan/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (Tom Honan/PA) Speaking earlier on Tuesday, Mr Varadkar said he hoped MPs in the Hose of Commons would vote in favour of the Withdrawal Agreement, but emphasised it is a matter for them. He added: I dont think it would be in Irelands interest for me to be interfering in their internal politics. Sinn Feins deputy leader Michelle ONeill tweeted that the Brexit crisis has deepened further tonight. Brexit crisis has deepened further tonight. No Deal crash out is completely reckless & not in our peoples, households or businesses interests. Backstop is the bottom line and is not up for negotiation. Michelle OaNeill (@moneillsf) January 15, 2019 No deal crash out is completely reckless and not in our peoples, households or businesses interests. Backstop is the bottom line and is not up for negotiation. After 18 months of painstaking work, one of Northern Ireland's best examples of an original mud-walled house has been completely restored. The 18th century Frizzell's Cottage in Co Armagh has been brought back to life thanks to a 334,000 legacy gift to the National Trust. The trust said that new tenants will help secure its survival for many years to come. The Grade B1 listed building, which stands at the entrance to the 17th century Ardress House near Portadown, is believed to have been originally constructed around 1740, with a few later alterations in the 1950s. The cottage passed to the trust in 1996 but was last lived in during the 1980s, by two elderly sisters called Frizzell. During the following years, time was not kind to the old mud-walled building. It became overgrown with vegetation, was scorched by fire damage and boarded up with metal grills. As the building fell into a state of disrepair, it was added to the 'at risk' register of listed buildings in Northern Ireland. National Trust project manager Rhona Irvine said: "We worked in conjunction with Chris McCollum, heritage building surveyor, and builder Robert Weir to restore this hidden gem using traditional techniques and materials, such as mud-brick and thatch. "Many of the mud-bricks needed to be replaced and we were fortunate to have a team of enthusiastic staff and volunteers spend a day on site mixing clay with straw and water, vigorously 'puddling' this together with their feet, before putting the mixture into moulds to make the new bricks. "Other conservation works to restore the cottage included roof timber repairs, followed by re-thatching, lime render, new sash windows, doors and floors and a new extension to the side and the rear. "Over the past year-and-a-half every care was taken to maintain the features surviving at Frizzell's Cottage that reflect the period style of the region and we've maintained the several notable vernacular features like the brace beam across the central bay and the jamb wall with spy hole." Rhona said Frizzell's Cottage is now "a beautiful building that respects the character and tradition of the original design". "Now the property incorporates modern-day comforts to create a unique two-bedroom property and is a cosy, unique home to our tenants," she added. "When people think of the National Trust they often picture palatial houses and grand estates. "In reality, the trust looks after a rich variety of places and spaces, from coast to countryside, to traditional cottages and ancient monuments. "This is one of Northern Ireland's few remaining mud-brick cottages and the aim of the project was to securing its survival for many years to come." For more information, visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/ardress-house There were muted cheers outside Parliament as Theresa Mays proposed Brexit deal was rejected by MPs. Crowds of protesters on both sides of the Brexit divide had gathered on College Green throughout the day to await the outcome of the vote. But many of them had left by the time the vote took place. The majority of those present wanted to see Mrs Mays deal voted down. Expand Close An anti-Brexit campaigner (Jonathan Brady/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp An anti-Brexit campaigner (Jonathan Brady/PA) A group of gilets jaunes protesters chanted Bye bye EU, bye bye to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, while pro-EU demonstrators sang You can stick your Brexit up your arse. The exchange was peaceful, although police and security staff were present. One group of Remain protesters kept up a steady racket with a bell and a bass drum they dubbed The Liberty Bell with the words Save Our Sovereignty above it. Brexiteer David Hurlibut, 62, from Ipswich, said: Its not being true to the referendum. We may as well stay in the EU. Remainer John Wilkins, 64, from Crediton in Devon, also wanted to see the deal blocked. Expand Close A pro-Brexit suppporter clashes with police officers (Steve Parsons/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A pro-Brexit suppporter clashes with police officers (Steve Parsons/PA) The Government hasnt managed to find a solution to the Irish border and no one is happy with the agreement, he said. Remainer Tony Singh, 53, said: No one will support a trade deal thats detrimental to the interest of the UK. In nearby Parliament Square a platform and two screens were set up by those campaigning for a peoples vote. A float with a sculpture of Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and David Davis with the words Brexit is a monstrosity circled the area. The demonstrations ahead of the vote were calm, although a small number of gilets jaunes protesters verbally abused police, calling them EU Police and EU fascists. Scores of mourners have gathered for the funeral of former Belfast Lord Mayor Ian Adamson. Dr Adamson, who passed away last week aged 74, was buried at Roselawn Cemetery after a funeral service at Conlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. The Irish President Michael D Higgins was among the many dignitaries to attend the service. He comforted Dr Adamson's widow Kerry outside the church. He had been invited to Northern Ireland by Dr Adamson on a number of occasions to speak at historical events. President Higgins described the ex-Lord Mayor as someone who "never ceased to remind us that we are all but migrants in time and his scholarship highlighted our shared history, shared identities, shared vulnerabilities and migratory roots." The former mayor's close friend, musician Van Morrison, sang the unionist intellectual's favourite song - Into The Mystic - in front of a hushed congregation at the church. Read More A politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Known for his passion for culture, he founded the Ulster-Scots Language Society in 1992 and also spoke a number of other languages, including Irish. Close friend Wesley Hutchinson said: "He offered an alternative model to the sectarianism and violence that blighted everyday life for so many. He effected a sea change in loyalist opinion in extending their imaginative co-ordinates in time and space." Expand Close Eddie Irvine former formula one racing driver who is originally from Conlig arrives for the funeral of former Mayor of Belfast Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian church. Pic by Peter Morrison / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Eddie Irvine former formula one racing driver who is originally from Conlig arrives for the funeral of former Mayor of Belfast Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian church. Pic by Peter Morrison Ulster Unionist Party leader Robin Swann was also at the service, as was former Formula One racing driver Eddie Irvine, whom Dr Adamson sponsored at the beginning of his career. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Wife Kerry during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson arrives at Conlig Presbyterian church. Pic by Peter Morrison Dr Adamson's wife Kerry is comforted after the funeral service by DUP leader Arlene Foster. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson arrives at Conlig Presbyterian church. Pic by Peter Morrison Irish President Michael D Higgins arrives for the funeral of former Mayor of Belfast Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian church. Pic by Peter Morrison Leader of the UUP Robin Swann attends the funeral of former Mayor of Belfast Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian church. Pic by Peter Morrison Eddie Irvine former formula one racing driver who is originally from Conlig arrives for the funeral of former Mayor of Belfast Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian church. Pic by Peter Morrison Pacemaker Press 14/1/2019 Wife Kerry with Michael D Higgins during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker A photo of Dr Ian Adamson on the order of service for the funeral of former Mayor of Belfast Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian church. Pic by Peter Morrison The hearse carrying the coffin of Dr Ian Adamson arrives at Conlig Presbyterian church. Pic by Peter Morrison Jim Wilson and Mairtin O Muilleoir during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 14/1/2019 Family and Friends during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. A politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Known for his passion for culture, he founded the Ulster-Scots Language Society in 1992 and also spoke a number of other languages, including Irish. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 14/1/2019 Jackie McDonald during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. A politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Known for his passion for culture, he founded the Ulster-Scots Language Society in 1992 and also spoke a number of other languages, including Irish. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 14/1/2019 Wife Kerry during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. A politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Known for his passion for culture, he founded the Ulster-Scots Language Society in 1992 and also spoke a number of other languages, including Irish. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 14/1/2019 Jim Wilson during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. A politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Known for his passion for culture, he founded the Ulster-Scots Language Society in 1992 and also spoke a number of other languages, including Irish. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 14/1/2019 Van Morrison during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. A politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Known for his passion for culture, he founded the Ulster-Scots Language Society in 1992 and also spoke a number of other languages, including Irish. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 14/1/2019 Michael D Higgins during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. A politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Known for his passion for culture, he founded the Ulster-Scots Language Society in 1992 and also spoke a number of other languages, including Irish. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 14/1/2019 Wife Kerry with Alasdair McDonnell during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. A politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Known for his passion for culture, he founded the Ulster-Scots Language Society in 1992 and also spoke a number of other languages, including Irish. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 14/1/2019 Family and Friends during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. A politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Known for his passion for culture, he founded the Ulster-Scots Language Society in 1992 and also spoke a number of other languages, including Irish. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 14/1/2019 Family and Friends during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. A politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Known for his passion for culture, he founded the Ulster-Scots Language Society in 1992 and also spoke a number of other languages, including Irish. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 14/1/2019 Family and Friends including Eddie Irvine during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. A politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Known for his passion for culture, he founded the Ulster-Scots Language Society in 1992 and also spoke a number of other languages, including Irish. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 14/1/2019 Wife Kerry during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. A politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Known for his passion for culture, he founded the Ulster-Scots Language Society in 1992 and also spoke a number of other languages, including Irish. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 14/1/2019 Wife Kerry during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. A politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Known for his passion for culture, he founded the Ulster-Scots Language Society in 1992 and also spoke a number of other languages, including Irish. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Pacemaker Press 14/1/2019 Wife Kerry during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. A politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Known for his passion for culture, he founded the Ulster-Scots Language Society in 1992 and also spoke a number of other languages, including Irish. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 14th January 2018 Funeral for former Belfast Lord Mayor Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian Church in Co. Down. The 74-year-old who died last week was a Ulster Unionist Party politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Dr Adamson's wife Kerry follows his coffin as it leaves the church after the service. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 14th January 2018 Funeral for former Belfast Lord Mayor Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian Church in Co. Down. The 74-year-old who died last week was a Ulster Unionist Party politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Dr Adamson's coffin leaves the church after the service. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 14th January 2018 Funeral for former Belfast Lord Mayor Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian Church in Co. Down. The 74-year-old who died last week was a Ulster Unionist Party politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Dr Adamson's wife Kerry follows his coffin as it leaves the church after the service. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 14th January 2018 Funeral for former Belfast Lord Mayor Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian Church in Co. Down. The 74-year-old who died last week was a Ulster Unionist Party politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 14th January 2018 Funeral for former Belfast Lord Mayor Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian Church in Co. Down. The 74-year-old who died last week was a Ulster Unionist Party politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Dr Adamson's wife Kerry is comforted after the funeral service. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 14th January 2018 Funeral for former Belfast Lord Mayor Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian Church in Co. Down. The 74-year-old who died last week was a Ulster Unionist Party politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. SDLP's Alasdair McDonnell pictured outside the church after the service. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 14th January 2018 Funeral for former Belfast Lord Mayor Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian Church in Co. Down. The 74-year-old who died last week was a Ulster Unionist Party politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Belfast musician Van Morrison, who sang during the service, pictured outside the church. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 14th January 2018 Funeral for former Belfast Lord Mayor Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian Church in Co. Down. The 74-year-old who died last week was a Ulster Unionist Party politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Irish President Michael D Higgins pictured after the funeral service. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 14th January 2018 Funeral for former Belfast Lord Mayor Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian Church in Co. Down. The 74-year-old who died last week was a Ulster Unionist Party politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Dr Ian Adamson coffin leaves the church after the funeral service. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 14th January 2018 Funeral for former Belfast Lord Mayor Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian Church in Co. Down. The 74-year-old who died last week was a Ulster Unionist Party politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. F1 racing star Eddie Irvine(right) helps carry the coffin from the church after the service. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 14th January 2018 Funeral for former Belfast Lord Mayor Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian Church in Co. Down. The 74-year-old who died last week was a Ulster Unionist Party politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. F1 racing star Eddie Irvine(right) helps carry the coffin from the church after the service. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 14th January 2018 Funeral for former Belfast Lord Mayor Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian Church in Co. Down. The 74-year-old who died last week was a Ulster Unionist Party politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Loyalists Jim Wilson(left) and Jackie McDonald pictured at the funeral in Conlig. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 14th January 2018 Funeral for former Belfast Lord Mayor Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian Church in Co. Down. The 74-year-old who died last week was a Ulster Unionist Party politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. F1 racing star Eddie Irvine pictured at the funeral in Conlig. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 14th January 2018 Funeral for former Belfast Lord Mayor Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian Church in Co. Down. The 74-year-old who died last week was a Ulster Unionist Party politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. F1 racing star Eddie Irvine pictured at the funeral in Conlig. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 14th January 2018 Funeral for former Belfast Lord Mayor Dr Ian Adamson at Conlig Presbyterian Church in Co. Down. The 74-year-old who died last week was a Ulster Unionist Party politician, medical doctor and historian, Dr Adamson served as Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1996/7, high sheriff in 2011 and was an Assembly member for the constituency of East Belfast from 1998 to 2003. Former unionist politician Bob McCartney pictured at the funeral in Conlig. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Wife Kerry during the Funeral of Dr Ian Adamson at Clonlig Presbyterian Church on Monday. Pic Colm Lenaghan/ Pacemaker "He was a truly remarkable man. He knew so much about so many things and he spread a lot of good. He taught me a lot," said Mr Irvine, who carried Dr Adamson's coffin during the service. Dr Adamson helped establish the Somme Heritage Centre, which commemorates the sacrifices paid in the trenches by so many from the north of Ireland. He gave close family friend Sonia Irvine, Eddie's sister, his university medical books when money was tight. She paid an emotional tribute to him. "Ian will be deeply missed by our family, who flew from different parts of the world to show our love and respect for a truly inspirational man," she said. A Portrush man has been described by his solicitor as a "connoisseur of cannabis" A Portrush man has been described by his solicitor as a "connoisseur of cannabis". Jonathon David Edgar (21), whose address was given as "the vicinity of Crocknamack Road" at Coleraine Magistrates Court, is charged with possessing cannabis; having the Class B drug with intent to supply; possession of Diazepam and having an extendable baton at Crocknamack Road, all on December 30. He appeared at Coleraine Magistrates Court yesterday via video link from Maghaberry Prison, where he has been on remand in relation to the charges. Defence solicitor Sam Barr said the defendant admitted having cannabis for his own use but denied intent to supply. But he added: "He is adamant he was not involved in dealing." Added the solicitor: "He is somewhat a connoisseur of cannabis and they were all different variations and strains". Refusing bail, Judge McNally said Edgar had "blatantly disregarded" the fact that he had appeared in court on December 10 on similar charges. MPs have rejected Theresa Mays Brexit plans by an emphatic 432 votes to 202 in a historic vote which has thrown the future of her administration and the nature of the UKs EU withdrawal into doubt. The humiliating rebuff was delivered in the House of Commons just moments after the Prime Minister made a last-ditch appeal for MPs to back the Withdrawal Agreement which she sealed with Brussels in November after almost two years of negotiation. The 118 Conservative rebels included fervent Brexiteers like Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg and former Brexit secretaries David Davis and Dominic Raab, as well as Remainers Anna Soubry and Dominic Grieve. The 230-vote margin of defeat was by far the worst suffered by any Government in a meaningful division since at least the First World War and in normal circumstances would be enough to force a Prime Minister from office. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) But Mrs May made clear she intends to stay on, setting out plans for talks with senior parliamentarians from parties across the Commons in the hope of finding genuinely negotiable solutions which she can take to Brussels. Jeremy Corbyn said the catastrophic defeat represented an absolutely decisive verdict by MPs on Mrs Mays handling of Brexit. He announced he has tabled a motion of no confidence in the Government, which will go to a Commons vote on Wednesday which could force an early general election if it wins the support of more than 50% of MPs. Expand Close Protesters outside the House of Commons (PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Protesters outside the House of Commons (PA) But his hopes of ousting the PM were undermined when the DUPs Sammy Wilson said that the Unionist party will back Mrs May in her fight for survival, saying: We never wanted a change of government, we want a change of policy. And a spokesman for the European Research Group of eurosceptic Tories, chaired by Mr Rees-Mogg, confirmed that they too would back the Government. Mrs May who said she expected to survive Wednesdays vote has until January 21 to set out a Plan B, with the clock ticking on the scheduled date of Brexit in just 73 days time on March 29. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, who had cancelled travel plans in order to be in Brussels for the aftermath of the vote on Wednesday, voiced regret at the defeat of what he termed the best possible deal. He said in a statement: The risk of a disorderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom has increased with this evenings vote. While we do not want this to happen, the European Commission will continue its contingency work to help ensure the EU is fully prepared. I urge the United Kingdom to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. And European Council president Donald Tusk asked in a tweet: If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is? If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is? Charles Michel (@eucopresident) January 15, 2019 In a statement to the Commons immediately after her drubbing, the Prime Minister told MPs: The House has spoken and this Government will listen. It is clear that this House does not support this deal, but tonights vote tells us nothing about what it does support. She said she would consult with Conservative colleagues, her Democratic Unionist Party allies and senior parliamentarians from across the Commons to identify what now is required to secure the backing of the House. The PM promised to approach the talks in a constructive spirit, but cautioned that proposals would have to be genuinely negotiable and have sufficient support in this House if she was to take them back to Brussels to explore with the EU. Mrs May assured MPs that she was not seeking to run the clock down to a no-deal Brexit in March, insisting that she still hoped to take the UK out of the EU in an orderly way, with a good deal. Expand Close Theresa May arrives at 10 Downing Street after the vote (Aaron Chown/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Theresa May arrives at 10 Downing Street after the vote (Aaron Chown/PA) And in a message to MPs she said: Every day that passes without this issue being resolved means more uncertainty, more bitterness and more rancour. The Government has heard what the House has said tonight, but I ask members on all sides of the House to listen to the British people who want this issue settled and to work with the Government to do just that. Mr Corbyn said: I hear the words of the Prime Minister but the actions of her Government in these past two years speak equally clearly. Jeremy Corbyn has called a vote of #NoConfidence in Theresa Mayas Government. Hereas why. With us? Add your name here: https://t.co/DwjYE2sqGn pic.twitter.com/Q08ZdgBLY9 The Labour Party (@UKLabour) January 15, 2019 She is only attempting to reach out now to try to keep her failed deal alive after it has been so roundly rejected by Parliament on behalf of the people of this country She cannot seriously believe that after two years of failure, she is capable of negotiating a good deal for the people of this country. On the most important issue facing us, this Government has lost the confidence of this House and this country. Arch-Brexiteer and former foreign secretary Mr Johnson told the Press Association: I was slightly surprised by the scale of the defeat, but I take no particular pleasure in it. I would never rejoice in the idea of a Conservative government being defeated on anything. Tonight has made it clear that the current Withdrawal Agreement is dead. The government must now go back to Brussels and negotiate a #BetterDeal without the backstop pic.twitter.com/l8Xd3ogCa1 Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) January 15, 2019 Mr Johnson added that the vote gave Mrs May a massive mandate to go back to the EU and call for a new approach that would allow the UK to properly take advantage of Brexit. In further signs of Tory tensions, Tom Pursglove told the Press Association that he had resigned as a Conservative Party vice-chair in order to vote against the Brexit deal. The MP for Corby was appointed to the role by Mrs May in July last year. The no lobby for the Government's motion... pic.twitter.com/dc6IMzGpHv Debbie Abrahams MP (@Debbie_abrahams) January 15, 2019 As the historic vote took place, noisy crowds of pro- and anti-Brexit protesters in Parliament Square could be heard inside the Palace of Westminster. MPs had been due to vote first on a series of four amendments chosen by Speaker John Bercow. But Mr Corbyn, Scottish National Party leader Ian Blackford and Tory backbencher Sir Edward Leigh opted not to move their amendments, leaving only one division. In that vote, a proposal from Conservative MP John Baron for the UK to take unilateral powers to end controversial backstop arrangements was rejected by 600 votes to 24. Expand Close Labour MP Tulip Siddiq is wheeled through the chamber (House of Commons/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Labour MP Tulip Siddiq is wheeled through the chamber (House of Commons/PA) Heavily pregnant Labour MP Tulip Siddiq, who postponed her planned Caesarean in order to vote, attended the Commons in a wheelchair. A victims campaigner suffering from ill health has been given new hope in his legal fight to secure an inquest into the loyalist killing of his son more than 21 years ago. Senior judges in Belfast allowed Raymond McCord's appeal against a decision to put the challenge on hold, his lawyers said on Tuesday. The 65-year-old, who arrived at the Royal Courts of Justice hours after being released from hospital, praised the judiciary for their handling of the case. Mr McCord said: "The Lord Chief Justice and his colleagues showed real compassion towards me. I believe this brings me a step closer to finally achieving an inquest into my son's murder." Raymond McCord Jnr, 22, was beaten to death before his body was dumped at a quarry outside north Belfast in November 1997. The killing was carried out by an Ulster Volunteer Force gang based in the Mount Vernon area of the city. Despite a series of preliminary hearings, an inquest has yet to get underway. Delays have been linked to investigations into paramilitary crime attributed to the UVF unit who operated in the Mount Vernon estate. In 2007 a major Police Ombudsman investigation established Special Branch officers colluded with the gang behind Mr McCord Jr's murder and a series of other killings. Lawyers for the victim's father have issued judicial review proceedings against the PSNI, the Coroner's Service and the Department of Justice. They are seeking a declaration that his human rights have been breached. Last year the challenge was put on hold due to other legacy-related cases. But according to Mr McCord's legal team the Court of Appeal ruling means his application for a judicial review can now go ahead. The campaigner is currently on a waiting list for a gallbladder operation. He revealed that he spent the night in an accident and emergency ward, on a drip for pain relief, before attending court. "This is a great result for my family who have endured 21 years of delay, and for victims in general," he added. Outside court his solicitor, Ciaran O'Hare of McIvor Farrell, claimed the situation was inexcusable. "Mr McCord is now 65 years old, he has fought for justice for over 21 years and his health is in decline," Mr O'Hare said. "He is doing everything in his powers to advance the inquest into his son's murder." Theresa Mays plan could go down to one of the heaviest defeats of modern times (Victoria Jones/PA) Theresa May appears to be heading for one of the heaviest Parliamentary defeats in modern history after a last-gasp appeal to Tory rebels over her Brexit deal fell on deaf ears. More than 100 of her MPs around a third of those who sit on the green benches for the Conservatives are thought to oppose the Prime Ministers Withdrawal Agreement ahead of Tuesday nights meaningful vote. With just hours to go there seems little sign that opponents within her party let alone her parliamentary foes will swing behind the deal hammered out with Brussels when they enter the voting lobbies. Environment Secretary Michael Gove would not predict a win for Mrs May, telling BBC Radio 4s Today programme that he did not know how the vote would go. He reiterated the warning made by several ministers that remaining in the EU was worse than leaving without a deal and suggested there were people in the House of Commons and outside who have never made their peace with this decision to leave. He also defended the Northern Ireland border backstop, the most divisive part of the deal, saying it was deeply uncomfortable for the EU. He continued: If it is a trap for anyone, its a trap for the EU. Why? Because the European Union said at the very beginning of this process that there would be no cherry-picking, the four freedoms of the single market were indivisible. But we have picked a whole bowl of glistening cherries, we have free access to the European market with no tariffs and no quotas but at the same time we say that European citizens have no freedom of movement. The Prime Minister has insisted she is focused on winning the vote telling Conservative rebels on Monday evening that they risked handing the keys of No 10 to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. However the Daily Telegraph quoted one Cabinet source as saying it would be hard for her to carry on if she lost by more than 100 votes. The deal suffered its first official parliamentary defeat in the House of Lords on Monday night as peers voted by 321 votes to 152 a majority of 169 to reject it. Expand Close Jeremy Corbyn his signalled he is ready to table a vote of no confidence in the Government (Danny Lawson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jeremy Corbyn his signalled he is ready to table a vote of no confidence in the Government (Danny Lawson/PA) Mr Corbyn indicated he was finally ready to table a vote of no-confidence in the Government if it loses in the Commons. Dont be concerned, its coming soon, he told a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer offered no more clarity on Tuesday morning, telling Today: The timing will be down to Jeremy Corbyn but he has already indicated that it will be soon. It would appear unlikely that Labour can muster enough votes to force a general election, with both Tory rebels and the DUP indicating they would continue to back the Government in a confidence vote. However Downing Street has given little indication as to how the Prime Minister intends to proceed if she is defeated. The British people are ready for us to move beyond division and come together. pic.twitter.com/WfIqHPoARW Theresa May (@theresa_may) January 14, 2019 Under the terms of an amendment passed last week, she must table a motion on her Plan B by Monday although in practice she is unlikely to want to wait that long. Some reports have suggested she could fly to Brussels possibly as early as Wednesday in an attempt to obtain further concessions on the crucial issue of the backstop. But that could prove problematic if she has suffered a massive defeat, with EU leaders reluctant to give ground if they believe it is simply impossible for her to get the deal through the Commons. Alternatively, she could opt to bring back the deal to the House for a second or possibly even a third time in an attempt to wear down the opposition. Some MPs claimed to have detected some movement towards her position after she addressed a private meeting of Conservatives MPs at Westminster on Monday evening. So far, however, the numbers contemplating backing the deal would appear to fall far short of what is needed to affect the final outcome. Dominic Raab said Brexiteers like him could back a deal if aspects such as the backstop were dealt with. The former Brexit secretary told Today: I made clear when I resigned that there were three aspects that needed to be addressed. The backstop is clearly one of them and I want to see very clearly the Withdrawal Agreement linked to a best-in-class free trade agreement. If we could do those two things, someone like me would say that, actually, we could vote for it. Mrs May will make her final appeal when she winds up five days of debate in the Commons before MPs head to the division lobbies. Voting is due to begin at 7pm and could continue for around two hours, depending on how many amendments Speaker John Bercow calls before the final meaningful vote on the deal. Labour MP Hilary Benn has pulled his amendment to the Governments Withdrawal Agreement motion which would have rejected both the PMs deal and leaving the EU with no deal. Mr Benn, who is chairman of the Commons Exiting the European Union Committee, had Tory support for his proposal but tweeted that he had decided to act because its vital that we now get the clearest expression of view from the House on the Governments deal. Michael Stone is restrained be security staff at Parliament Buildings (PA) Notorious loyalist killer Michael Stone must serve a further five and a half years in prison before he can be considered for release, the High Court ruled today. Judges held that the Department of Justice had wrongly determined the Milltown Cemetery bomber is now eligible to seek freedom from jail. Their verdict, in a legal challenge mounted by the sister of one of Stone's victims, came as his case was set to go before the Parole Commissioners. That hearing has now been put on hold pending any appeal against the ruling. Mr Justice McCloskey, sitting with Mr Justice Colton, said a six-year period the ex-UDA man spent out on licence before he launched an attempt to murder Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness at Stormont in 2006 should not count towards his 30-year minimum term of imprisonment. Expand Close An injured man is aided by mourners, including Sinn Fein vice president Martin McGuinness, left, at Milltown Cemetary (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp An injured man is aided by mourners, including Sinn Fein vice president Martin McGuinness, left, at Milltown Cemetary (PA) He forfeited the benefits of that exceptional release by opting to commit further serious terrorist offences, the judges pointed out. Quashing the Department's decision, Mr Justice McCloskey confirmed: "The earliest date upon which Mr Stone might be released on parole licence will fall around July 2024." Judicial review proceedings were issued by Deborah McGuinness against calculations of his life sentence tariff. Her brother, Thomas McErlean, was among three mourners murdered by Stone in an infamous bomb attack on an IRA funeral at Milltown in west Belfast in March 1988. Expand Close Loyalist prisoner Michael Stone. (PA Archive) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Loyalist prisoner Michael Stone. (PA Archive) Outside court an emotional Ms McGuinness expressed relief and delight at the outcome. "I just took this case to ensure Michael Stone served his sentence in full. "He was given 30 years in custody and I wanted certainty that he will do that." Stone, 63, was also the gunman in another three separate killings. Expand Close Michael Stone walking free from the Maze prison back in 2000 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Michael Stone walking free from the Maze prison back in 2000 Milkman Patrick Brady was murdered in south Belfast in November 1984, 12 months before joiner Kevin McPolin was shot in the head in Lisburn, Co Antrim. In May 1987 Dermott Hackett, a bread server, was found dead in his van between Drumquin and Omagh. He had been shot up to 16 times with a submachine gun. The loyalist killer was freed under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement in 2000. Just over six years later, however, he was returned to jail following a botched attempt to enter Parliament Buildings armed with explosives, knives and an axe. Expand Close Stone carrying out his attack at Milltown Cemetery in March 1988 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Stone carrying out his attack at Milltown Cemetery in March 1988 He denied it had been a bid to kill the Sinn Fein politicians, instead claiming it was an act pf performance art. In 2013 he was told that he must serve the remainder of a 30-year sentence imposed for waging a sectarian murder campaign. Stone's case was referred to Parole Commissioners on the basis that he has now served the minimum term. However, Ms McGuinness claimed the Department unlawfully included the six years he spent out on licence before the attack on Stormont. Her legal team insisted he should not be considered eligible for release until 2024 - when a full 30 years will have been served in custody. Expand Close Mourners panicking at Milltown Cemetery, Belfast, after a gun and hand grenade attack was launched by loyalist Michael Stone / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mourners panicking at Milltown Cemetery, Belfast, after a gun and hand grenade attack was launched by loyalist Michael Stone They argued it was required for a sentence imposed to punish and deter Stone from any future offences. Backing Ms McGuinness's case, Mr Justice McCloskey said: "The Belfast Agreemen afforded to convicted terrorists such as Mr Stone the opportunity to demonstrate that they were worthy of the exceptional benefit of significantly accelerated release from sentenced custody. "Those, such as Mr Stone, who have elected not to do so forfeit this benefit and revert to their pre-release status." He concluded: "The calculation of Mr Stone's earliest release date must make no allowance for the period of approximately six years which elapsed between the date of his exceptional early release from prison and the date of his subsequent further detention." The road was closed at around 7.45am this morning and diversions are in place. The Whitehouse Road in Londonderry has been closed due to a security alert. The road was closed at around 7.45am this morning and diversions are in place. In #Derry / #Londonderry #Whitehouse Road is CLOSED due to a security alert and diversions are in place. There are no further details at present. Trafficwatch NI (@TrafficwatchNI) January 15, 2019 Police said they are examining what is believed to be a firearm that was found in a field in the area. Whitehouse Road, Derry/Londonderry closed while police examine whatas believed to be a firearm. Item was found in a field in the area. Diversions got traffic are in place. NI Road Policing and Safety (@NIRoadPolicing) January 15, 2019 Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he believes a no-deal is unlikely (Tom Honan/PA) The Taoiseach has rejected accusations from the opposition that the Irish government is being secretive about its no-deal Brexit planning. Leo Varadkar also said he believed a no deal was still unlikely, despite the Irish government pushing ahead with its contingency planning in the event of the UK crashing out of the EU without agreeing a deal. Mr Varadkar made the comments in the Irish parliament on Tuesday afternoon ahead of the vote on Theresa Mays Withdrawal Agreement in the UK parliament on Tuesday evening. I still believe a no deal is unlikely but I think we have to be prepared for it, or at least prepared as any country possibly can be.Taoiseach Leo Varadkar He was responding to criticism by Micheal Martin, the leader of Fianna Fail the main Irish opposition party. Mr Martin said: The Government has treated the Dail and the public shabbily and badly when it comes to sharing its plans in the event of a no-deal Brexit. I think you should treat the Oireachtas and the public with greater respect. He added: What is the big secret? What is behind the reluctance to share basic information with people in terms of a no-deal Brexit? Mr Varadkar replied: I really dont accept the deputys charge. He said the opposition was due to the briefed on Tuesday afternoon to update parliamentarians on the governments plans. Four memos relating to a no-deal scenario were debated by Irish ministers at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning. They related to the common travel area, medicines, transport and potential Brexit legislation. Expand Close (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (PA Graphics) An omnibus big Brexit bill containing 17 separate draft laws is being prepared so they can be rushed through the Irish parliament if needed. These draft laws were approved by ministers during the meeting. Mr Varadkar said: I still believe a no deal is unlikely but I think we have to be prepared for it, or at least prepared as any country possibly can be. He reiterated that the Withdrawal Agreement was the only alternative to leaving without a deal. The Withdrawal Agreement is the only agreement on the table and its an agreement that has been supported by 28 governments including that of the UK, he said. Of course well allow the democratic process to take its course in Westminster. Theyll vote on the Withdrawal Agreement and four amendments and well review the position tomorrow in consultation with our EU colleagues. A so-called paedophile-hunting group went to the Coleraine home of a man and filmed him, a court has heard. Harold Burke (59) of Quilly Road is charged with two counts of attempted sexual communication with a child and two of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity. He is also accused of possessing 370 rounds of .22 ammunition in suspicious circumstances. The charges relate to July and August last year. At Coleraine Magistrates Court yesterday, defence solicitor Ciaran Shiels said one of the police objections to bail was in relation to concerns for the safety of the defendant in the community. Mr Shiels said Burke had "never received a threat" and said the "only difficulties he encountered" were last year when a "hunter group attended and videoed him, with his elderly mother, at his home". Mr Shiels said Burke had been interviewed in December in relation to new allegations made by a "Dublin-based hunter group". A prosecution lawyer said the case file was "nearing submission" but phone triages were still pending. The prosecutor said a full transcript of interviews was also nearing completion. Mr Shiels said it "seems that the goalposts are continually shifting" and said the defendant should be released on bail. District Judge Liam McNally said he was concerned that Burke had spent five months in custody but on the basis of the defendant's record the likelihood of offending was "very strong". Burke was remanded in custody until February 11. A boy has been charged after reports of a machete being brandished at pupils outside a school in Co Armagh. The 14-year-old a former student at the school was arrested outside Lismore Comprehensive School in Craigavon on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon. It has been reported the weapon was believed to be a machete. A PSNI spokesman said: A 14-year-old male has been charged with possessing an article with a blade in a public place, threats to kill and resisting police. As is normal procedure, all charges will be reviewed by the PPS. The charges are in relation to an incident at the Brownlow Road area of Craigavon on Tuesday morning. The boy is due to appear at Craigavon Magistrates Court on Wednesday. The alleged incident happened as a group of pupils were being escorted from the main building to a nearby leisure centre for a PE lesson. The school said no pupils were injured. Principal Fiona Kane said the correct procedures were followed. It was textbook supervision everything was done professionally, she told the BBC, adding they did not believe there was any weapon left on the school premises. The school added in a Facebook post: We would like to reassure all parents and guardians that following a safeguarding concern this morning that all steps have been followed. A past student was involved in an incident outside our school premises. Police contacted and following up. Police are now leaving school premises. Students are all safe and following normal timetable until 3.15pm today. We would appreciate your support in ensuring normality as the school day continues. Thank you for your continued support. The scene at Castleview in Killyleagh, Co. Down after the gun attack last year. Pic: Jonathan Porter/PressEye Five people have been arrested in a PSNI burglary probe in which shots were fired at a Co Down flat. The incident happened on January 14 last year. Shots were fired at a window in the Castleview property in Killyleagh. Reports at the time said up to a dozen men had gathered outside the home before the incident. While the two men inside were not hurt, they were said to be left badly shaken. Local representatives said they did not believe there was a sectarian motive. Three people were arrested and later released by police pending further investigation. On Tuesday, five men aged 57, 42, 33, 25 and 21 were arrested on suspicion of aggravated burglary, possession of a firearm with intent, possession of an offensive weapon with intent, criminal damage and intimidation. Police also conducted a number of searches seizing drugs from a property in Comber. A 26-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of a number of drugs offences. Arlene Foster has said there was never a hard border in Ireland but rather security needed to prevent terrorism. "And even in those circumstances we weren't able to stop them," said the DUP leader. Mrs Foster told an event in London there was never a hard border on the island and how it was upsetting to hear the Prime Minister talk of the "borders of the past". Explaining how while there was border infrastructure during the Troubles she said that was for "completely different reasons". 'It is a bit of a nonsense, frankly, to talk about a hard bordera - DUPas Arlene Foster pic.twitter.com/UQBohB0Dzu RTA News (@rtenews) January 15, 2019 "It was for the reasons of security and even then terrorists were able to come and go at their pleasure," she told the BBC. Calling for the backstop to be binned, she said she believed there were administrative and technology options which could pave the way forward for border checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic in order to prevent the need for infrastructure. . @DUPleader explaining to me her comment that "we never had a hard border" during the Troubles - more on @BBCevex later pic.twitter.com/bBqNJj0b5C Mark Devenport (@markdevenport) January 15, 2019 Arlene Foster was speaking ahead of the historic meaningful vote in parliament on the Prime Minster's withdrawal agreement. She accused Theresa May of not trying to get rid of the backstop in discussions with Brussels. Mrs Foster spoke at a Brexiteer event calling for a "better deal" in London which was also attended by former Brexit secretaries Dominic Raab and David Davis. Read More She said there was no need for the backstop as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar vowed not to erect a hard border on the island of Ireland. "As someone who lived through the Troubles," the DUP leader said, "we never had a hard border." "There were 20,000 soldiers in Northern Ireland and they could not hermetically seal the border in Northern Ireland "So it is a bit of a nonsense to talk about a hard border." Backstop does violence to the union. Arlene Foster She said technology should be considered as an option for checks along the border adding: "The borders of the past were there for a completely different reason. They were there to stop terrorists, they were there to stop the flow of Semtex as opposed to the flow of powdered milk." She said it was also "distasteful" when the Prime Minister talked of a no-deal Brexit changing life in Northern Ireland. "For people who talk about the borders of the past it does quiet upset those of us who live in Northern Ireland where progress has been made in a very meaningful and tangible way," she said. "We need to choose reason and hope as oppose to fear and narrowness and look to the future in a positive way." Read More Her comments sparked a huge kick back online. Sinn Fein South Down MP Chris Hazzard shared a picture of a fortified border post from the Troubles era. "What absolute nonsense; Im guessing she never attempted to cross the border then?!," he tweeted. Arlene Foster just said in London today that there anever was a hard bordera in Ireland - what absolute nonsense; Iam guessing she never attempted to cross the border then?! pic.twitter.com/Hk1n7dsHrM Chris Hazzard (@ChrisHazzardSF) January 15, 2019 Alliance leader Noami Long described the comments as a "complete denial of reality". The SDLP described the comments as "recklessly letting facts get in the way of a good soundbite". Newry and Armagh MLA Justin McNulty said: "A border existed since partition and it existed primarily as a customs border. It sought to prevent the carrying of goods across the border without paying excise duty. It was only in the 1970s the militarised border appeared and this lasted for over 30 years. The people of Ireland, north and south do not want to go back to any form of border on this island. Mrs Foster and her colleagues have blindly followed the right wing pied pipers Jacob Reese Mogg, David Davis and Boris Johnston into a Brexit cul-de-sac. Responding to some of the criticism on Twitter, South Belfast MLA Christopher Stalford said: "We know why there was a harder border during our recent history and it had precious little to do with trade policy. Secondly, if the Provos had tried to murder your father and escaped over it, maybe your perspective would be different." Speaking at the press conference, Mrs Foster said she had "deja vu" having come to London to argue against the withdrawal agreement before the meaningful vote was pulled in December. "We said to the Prime Minister she had to get rid of the backstop and get a withdrawal agreement that can be lived with," Mrs Foster said on Tuesday. We want a deal that does not break up the UK. Arlene Foster She said the backstop "does violence to the union, it separates us from the rest of the United Kingdom". Confirming that the 10 DUP MPs will not back the PMs deal, Arlene Foster added: We said to the Prime Minister she had to get rid of the backstop and get a Withdrawal Agreement that can be lived with. I dont think she even asked to get rid of the backstop. She said Monday's letter from the EU did not change the legally binding withdrawal agreement and therefore her party could not support the deal. "And I regret that because I want a deal with the European Union. I think the EU wants a deal with the UK. They want a deal that works and so do we. "But we want a deal that does not break up the UK." The Wessex arrives at Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast, where it will soon be on permanent display The Wessex arrives at Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast, where it will soon be on permanent display The Wessex arrives at Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast, where it will soon be on permanent display A Wessex helicopter that once stood guard at the entrance to RAF Aldergrove now has a new home in Belfast. From Easter the chopper will go on public display at Crumlin Road Gaol. Yesterday the RAF workhorse, which was retired from service in 2002, made the short journey to the city - not by air, but on the back of a lorry down the M2. It was a morning of mixed emotions for RAF community relations officer, Wing Commander Tara Scott, who has walked past the aircraft each day during her three-and-a-half years in the role. She said: "It's been a resident here (at Aldergrove) for well over 15 years and has been a symbol, something the RAF has always done by tradition. "I suppose a lot of us would have taken it for granted. It was part of the furniture and we'll be sad to see it go. "But the time had come and we're delighted, at the end of the RAF centenary year, to be sending it as a gift to Crumlin Road Gaol, where it will have a new home on display to the public. "Visitors will now have the chance to learn the history of the helicopter that served the RAF for over 40 years." The machine was part of a batch of 30 built by Westland Aircraft Ltd at Yeovil in Somerset. Ms Scott added: "It's certainly the end of an era. "It's really seen a lot of service, not only in moving troops, which was its main role, but also in search and rescue missions and bringing the occasional VIP in and out of the country. "We're looking forward to seeing it returned to its former glory. "It's a recognisable noise people will remember from the history of Northern Ireland and this will be a great opportunity for the public to find out more about them and the role these aircraft fulfilled in the RAF." After the Troubles, the Wessex worked alongside the Coastguard and mountain rescue teams here, dealing with callouts. Phelim Devlin, director of Crumlin Road Gaol, said: "We are always looking at ways to develop our visitor attraction and we've been on the lookout for a Wessex for some time. There aren't too many about and we're delighted to have taken delivery of this one. "We want to allow the public to explore the role the Wessex played, not only in the Troubles, but also in the search and rescue role it would have been heavily involved in. "When Tara contacted us that this one might be available, we jumped at the opportunity, and hopefully once we've given it a makeover to restore it, it will prove a great addition to the attractions we have on offer at Crumlin Road Gaol." Mr Devlin said that the Wessex would have been a regular visitor to Girdwood barracks, just behind the gaol. "To have one of the last remaining arrive here to place on display for people to enjoy is a wonderful addition for us," he added. "We're looking forward to having it ready for the new summer tourist season and we're very thankful to the RAF for entrusting it to us." Organizers said they had many requests to bring back the Ironman, as a way for people to feel "normal" again after more than a year of the unsettling pandemic. Shanghai (Gasgoo)-- On January 15, Magna celebrated the opening of a new engineering center which is part of its joint venture with Beijing Electric Vehicle Co. Ltd (BJEV). The joint venture brings together Magna's vehicle engineering know-how and BJEV's local strength to develop a next-generation smart electric vehicle architecture for the Chinese market. Executives from both companies were joined by local government officials in a ceremony held in Zhenjiang, China. The engineering center, operating under the name Magna Blue Sky NEV Technology (Zhenjiang) Co., Ltd, will have approximately 420 employees. The joint venture will also be set up to offer engineering services to other potential customers. We are excited to be working with BJEV to deliver advanced engineering solutions to further enable electric mobility in China, said Karl Stracke, President Fahrzeugtechnik & Engineering Magna Steyr. This facility marks the start of our collaboration and first project supporting both companies electrification strategy in the region. Zheng Gang, General Manager of BAIC BJEV said, Collaboration is the trend of automotive industry. Being the owner of core EV technologies, BJEV has become the dominant market leader with complete product portfolio. Through the cooperation with Magna, BJEV will greatly enhance its product quality and brand to the next level. As part of the JV, executives from both companies also announced the groundbreaking of the new NEV test center, which will be approximately 12,000 square meters. The test center is expected to be open by September 2019. In June 2018, Magna and BJEV announced they would jointly engineer and build premium electric vehicles for customers in China. The new electric vehicles are scheduled to be launched in 2020. A group of head teachers in Co Londonderry have written to parents warning of the increasing financial pressures faced by schools. A group of head teachers in Co Londonderry have written to parents warning of the increasing financial pressures faced by schools. The letter, signed by 25 principals in the Limavady area from the controlled, Catholic maintained, integrated and Irish Medium sectors, emerged yesterday. In it, principals call on politicians to return to Stormont to address the ongoing school budget crisis. Before Christmas it emerged that 446 schools - nearly half of in Northern Ireland - were facing budget deficits in 2018. The letter warns parents budgets have been slashed by 10% per school, which they stress has come amid "unprecedented financial budgets" over the past four years "Before this reduction (of 10%) was made schools were struggling to address the educational and emotional needs of our schools," the head teachers write. The "inevitable outcome" of these cuts include "increased class sizes", more school costs for parents/staff to pay for, reduced levels of already-stretched teaching and support staff, they claim. "If funding is not increased, we will not be able to continue to deliver the high quality educational standards that we have been accustomed to", they continue. Calling on politicians to put their difficulties aside, the head teachers urge parents to join them in their campaign. "As a group of principals we feel that you, the parents, need to be aware of the profoundly negative impact that these cuts are having on your children's education," they explain. "We would like all of our parents to get behind our schools and to use whatever influence that you might have to encourage our political representatives to move this situation forward." In response, a Department of Education spokesperson said it continues to request additional funding each year but stressed it does not determine the final outcome. "Overall budget allocations...must be funded from available resources and are decided by Ministers," they added. A lawyer for a man who was arrested with 23,000 in a suitcase at Belfast International Airport in August has said the matter has been going through the courts for too long and is "becoming unconscionable". John Gilligan (right), with an address at Greenfort Crescent in Dublin, has been on remand in custody since last summer on a charge of attempting to remove criminal property from Northern Ireland. Gilligan (66) appeared at Coleraine Magistrates Court via video-link from Maghaberry Prison yesterday. The defendant was arrested while attempting to board a flight from Belfast International Airport to Spain. At the time the National Crime Agency said officers recovered around 23,000 (20,000) at the scene. Yesterday Gilligan, who was wearing a fleece jacket, was clutching documents as he entered the video-link booth in the prison. He confirmed his name and that he could see and hear the court. A prosecutor said material which had been awaited from the National Crime Agency has now been received. He requested a further two-week adjournment for an update. District Judge Liam McNally said it was "certainly a bit more progress". A defence lawyer argued there had been "no real substantive progress", but the judge countered: "That quite simply is not correct." Judge McNally said he was told that all "outstanding" material in connection with the case had now been received by prosecutors. The defence lawyer said that in effect there was "no real substantial, definitive, timetable" in the case. The lawyer said the case had been going on "too long" and the delay was "becoming unconscionable". Gilligan asked if he could address the court but the judge said no and that he had counsel who could speak for him in court. The defendant was remanded in continuing custody and the case was adjourned to the end of the month. The Irish Parliament in Dublin is preparing to hold additional sittings in March as the UK is due to leave the EU (Maxwells/PA) Preparing for Brexit has dominated the Irish Governments legislative plan for the spring. Chief Whip Sean Kyne said the legislative programme covers only the period from January to March due to the exceptional circumstances brought about by Brexit. An additional plan will be unveiled in March, the same month when the United Kingdom is expected to leave the European Union. Minister @SeanKyneTD said: "The legislative programme published today reflects the Governmentas careful and considerate planning for Brexit. The omnibus bill for Brexit is, I believe, one of the most extensive bills to be considered by the Oireachtas". https://t.co/QOqOT6YpmV https://t.co/LeJ4VqQtxP MerrionStreet.ie #StaySafe #HoldFirm (@merrionstreet) January 15, 2019 The spring programme includes a Brexit omnibus bill, which Mr Kyne described as one of the most extensive bills to be considered by the Oireachtas. He said it comprises vital legislation across 17 elements that will need to be enacted prior to Brexit in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Expand Close The European Parliament site in Strasbourg, France (PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The European Parliament site in Strasbourg, France (PA) While the possibility of introducing a number of Brexit-related bills was considered, we believe a single, standalone bill that contains a number of parts is the most efficient and effective way of preparing for Brexit, he said. The bill will focus on areas including healthcare, transport, social welfare and employment as well as specific all island issues such as public transport and energy. It represents months of work by officials from across Government and, in particular, from the Department of Taoiseach and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In addition, many of the provisions will be provided for through statutory instruments that will be ready for signing should they be required in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Mr Kyne also revealed that he believes it is likely that the Dail will be required to hold additional sittings in March. Senior officials from the Department of Taoiseach and I will work with the Dail Business Committee and with the various parties and groups in the Dail to ensure the passage of this substantial legislation ahead of Brexit, he said. While Brexit is dominating the spring programme, Mr Kyne said work will continue on other legislation, including constitutional amendment bills to facilitate referenda including a referendum on extending the right to vote in presidential elections to Irish citizens abroad and the referendum to change the law regarding divorce. There is also an Electoral Amendment Bill to enable the number of MEPs for Ireland to increase. Northern Irelands business community urged politicians from all parties to work together to find a solution to avoid disaster for the province after the draft Withdrawal Agreement was rejected. Business groups in Northern Ireland who supported the agreement expressed frustration with the continued uncertainty and expressed alarm over the prospect of a no-deal Brexit. Read More Ann McGregor, the chief executive of the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, called on politicians to find an alternative to the draft agreement to avoid a no-deal. She said that while the chambers members did not all agree on what a Brexit agreement should involve, she said all wanted to avoid a messy and disorderly no-deal. To achieve this we therefore need an agreement that will secure the transition period and protect jobs, she said. As businesses wait to see what happens next in Parliament, it is crucial that those at Westminster move beyond tactical manoeuvring and look at all the options in order to avoid a no-deal scenario. She said firms were in the dark on too many aspects of life after March 29. This has already led to many businesses taking action pausing on recruitment and investment, stockpiling goods, and relocating factories in other parts of the EU. In fact, a third of NI Chamber members are currently putting growth and investment plans on hold in the absence of clarity from Westminster. There is however nothing to stop government acting decisively on areas within their control, such as migration and customs procedures. For businesses, its not about political personalities or procedures, its about results. They want this long and laborious chapter of Brexit to come to a swift conclusion. The endless Westminster back-and-forth only causes business frustration to mount further. Cause for concern Business groups and the Ulster Farmers Union had formed an unprecedented coalition - in opposition to the DUP - to campaign in favour of acceptance of the proposed deal. Aodhan Connolly, director of the NI Retail Consortium, said the result was a cause for concern for businesspeople with Northern Ireland now closer than ever to a disaster no-deal. Northern Ireland businesses desperately need certainty about the UKs future trading relationship with the EU and will be severely disadvantaged by a no-deal," he said. A no-deal Brexit means that Northern Ireland households will face higher prices and less choice on the shelves something they can ill afford. He urged politicians to find a workable alternative which would protect consumers from the costs of losing the benefits of frictionless trade with the EU. We are now closer than ever to the possibility of a no-deal that will be a disaster for Northern Ireland. Time running out Tina McKenzie, the NI policy chair of the Federation of Small Businesses, said NI was now running out of time to avoid a no-deal. She said the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal would be deeply damaging for small businesses, causing disruption to supply chains, increasing costs and stifling investment. She called a no-deal something which we simply cannot countenance and called on politicians to sharpen their focus and do their utmost to reach agreement in the 10 weeks left before March 29. No deal can't be accepted Glyn Roberts, the chief executive of Retail NI, said that while imperfect, the draft withdrawal agreement was to be preferred to crashing out without a deal. The Government now needs to work on a cross-party basis with Labour and other opposition parties to reach a broader agreement for a withdrawal deal and secure the transition period, protect jobs and a positive future relationship with the EU. It is vital that Labour Party leadership meets with the representatives of the business community in Northern Ireland to move this process forward. Parliament needs to make it crystal clear that no-deal will not be accepted given the disastrous impact this would have on the economy of Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. The British Irish Chamber of Commerce director general John McGrane said: With 70bn worth of trade sustaining 400,000 jobs hanging in the balance, the Chamber urges parliamentarians on all sides to come together to find a way forward that avoids this outcome. Former INLA man Dessie O'Hare has pleaded guilty to charges of assault and false imprisonment in Dublin. O'Hare, who was known as 'The Border Fox', appeared at the non-jury special criminal court in th city yesterday. The 62-year-old, of Slate Rock Road, Newtownhamilton, Co Armagh, admitted to assaulting John Roche, causing him harm, at The Towers, Garter Lane, Saggart, Co Dublin on June 9, 2015. He also pleaded guilty to falsely imprisoning Martin Byrne at Rathcoole and Saggart on the same date. Sean Guerin SC, defending, told the three-judge court that a trial would not be required and Mr O'Hare could be arraigned on two of the counts. The barrister said he would ask the court to take two other counts into consideration at the appropriate time. When the registrar read the two counts on the indictment to O'Hare and asked him how he was pleading, he replied "guilty" to both. Shane Costelloe SC, prosecuting, said Mr Guerin had informed him that there were some outstanding matters on his side of the house. Following this, Mr Guerin said his client has had some engagement with "professionals" and the defence wanted to have up-to-date professional assistance for the sentence hearing. Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding, sitting with Judge Patricia Ryan and Judge Ann Ryan, remanded the defendant on continuing bail until April 3, when he will be sentenced. There has been 12,248 recorded assaults on PSNI officers in the last decade. Police officers in Northern Ireland suffer an average of 3,000 assaults a year, according to new figures. Statistics obtained by BBC NI via a Freedom of Information request show there has been 17,248 recorded assaults on PSNI officer since 2012. This is compared to 2,278 assaults on ambulance staff and 677 assaults against fire and rescue service personell. Assaults can range from being spat on or shoved, to being punched or beaten up. There has been several high profile attacks on police officers in Northern Ireland in recent years. In September last year, officers came under attack with bricks and bottles thrown by a crowd of 30 drunken youths during disturbances in Portadown. Two months later, officers were targeted by a masked gang of up to 40 people in Larne. Bottles, fireworks and a petrol bomb, which failed to ignite, were thrown during the trouble, which police said was "orchestrated and carried out by a criminal gang under the badge of the south east Antrim UDA". One serving police officer said members of the public just see a "faceless uniform" and not the person. "I've been punched, kicked, bitten, had things thrown at me, been hit by bottles," he told the BBC. "Members of the public have spoken to me saying: 'You're a police officer, that's what you signed up for.' That's not what I signed up for. It's part of the job, I understand that, but we're people too. "I have to go home at the end of a shift, I have a family at home that want me to come back. Members of the public just see a uniform, a faceless uniform." Mark Lindsay, chairman of the Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said the justice system must do more to prevent attacks on police. "Police officers are out there doing their job protecting society and quite frequently they come across the worst elements of society," he said. "I think there has to be an element of the criminal justice system taking this more seriously." Judiciary NI said sentencing was a matter for each judge and is made on the circumstances of each case. "In calculating the appropriate sentence for the offence, the judge will have considered a range of factors," they added. Mr Byrne with his wife Bernie and children Padraig, Shane and Blinne The grieving family of a Camlough man who died in the Mournes at the weekend have spoken of their devastation over the loss of a loving husband, father and grandfather who had "an extraordinary way with people". Father-of-three and grandfather-of-six Sean Byrne (63), a keen amateur photographer, had been walking with a friend to take pictures on Wee Binnian on Sunday when the tragedy occurred, his family said. Speaking yesterday, his wife of 42 years Bernie said the loss was "very raw". She added that the family understood the wind conditions had played a part in the fatality. Reliving the day of the tragedy, she told the Belfast Telegraph: "He was getting better after an illness he had 10 years ago, he'd made a great recovery. "He was fit and healthy, and the walking was more about photographing landscapes. "He had a big interest locally. He loved the Mournes, all of the things about them. "He was out with his friend, who also liked to photograph. "They really had a passion for the history of the area. "His friend does aerial landscapes, it's only a hobby and they just love it. "He said he was only going out for a short time and would be back for lunch. He said: 'It's to be good in the Mournes today, so we'll get some nice photographs'. "It was going on for 2.30pm and I said: 'That's a very late lunch he's talking about'. "Then the police pulled up. They said there had been an accident and he had fallen, but they weren't sure how he fell. "I was very shocked, and yet I knew when the policeman was there that that's what he's going to say. "We understand it's something to do with the wind conditions. "Then I thought: 'It's not happening, tomorrow I will wake up and it will be some sort of bad dream'. "It's not easy - I will look into the face of any one of my children and my grandchildren and I will see him, and in his brother and sisters. The whole family is supporting each other." She added that her husband "had an extraordinary way with people" and was "always known as a fun person". "He just had a way with him that people took to," she said. "He loved hurling, Irish; he wasn't an Irish speaker himself but he made sure all his children were." Mr Byrne lived beside his elderly parents Pat (93) and Rose (87), and several of his nine siblings. Before his retirement he worked delivering home fuels in the family business, Byrne Fuel. Sean's sister Mairead Robb (54) said that the friend who had accompanied her brother to the Mournes on the day of the tragedy was "devastated". And she told how her brother, who was treasurer, photographer and a trustee of his local hurling club Craobh Rua, did voluntary work installing security systems in the homes of local elderly people. She said: "We are just devastated, but you have to get on with it. The weather was good that morning, but then it changed." In a statement on behalf of the family, Mairead added: "Sean was a dedicated, loving husband to his wife Bernie, a fantastic father to Padraig, Blinne and Shane and his daughters-in-law Hilary and Lucy. His six grandchildren adored him. "He was the fun-loving granda that we would all love to have. "This love of fun and craic extended to all his nieces and nephews and their children. "To his 93-year-old father and his 87-year-old mother he was the son next door that they could call on at any time, day or night. "To us, his six sisters and two brothers, he was a best friend to every one of us. "He was a great member of the community, respected and admired by everyone. "We as a family are devastated and we are extremely grateful to the Mountain Rescue Service and his very close friend, who were with him at the time. "And we want to thank the community for their support at this time." Mr Byrne's body was expected to be returned to his Camlough home yesterday evening for a two-night wake. His family say that his funeral will take place at 11am tomorrow at St Malachy's Church in Carrickcruppen. SDLP MLA Justin McNulty, Sinn Fein MLA Conor Murphy and Craobh Rua Hurling Club extended their sympathies to Mr Byrne's family. Arlene Foster has said that Theresa May faces defeat in the House of Commons today because her Brexit plan is "a bad deal". MPs will vote tonight on the Withdrawal Agreement with the DUP and Tory rebels set to join the Opposition parties to defeat the Government. The DUP leader last night told the Belfast Telegraph: "This is a historic day for the UK. It is a critical time in politics. The DUP will be standing up for Northern Ireland. Our MPs will vote against the Withdrawal Agreement. "The Withdrawal Agreement is set to be rejected by MPs on all sides of the House because it is a bad deal for the UK." Read More In a last minute effort to win the support of the DUP and hardline Tory Brexiteers, Mrs May yesterday published a joint letter from European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in which they said if the backstop were used it would be for the "shortest possible period". However, the DUP insisted that only changes to the deal's legal text would suffice. Mrs Foster, who is in London today, said: "With the backstop removed, the Withdrawal Agreement would attract much greater support in parliament. "Placing a border in the Irish sea which creates a trade barrier between parts of the UK is unacceptable to unionists." Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald described the stakes as "very high" as MPs prepare to vote on the deal. She accused "many in the British political establishment" of playing "a game of chicken with Ireland and with Irish interests", and condemned that as "a disreputable way to carry out your politics". She branded the DUP "reckless and irresponsible" over the Withdrawal Agreement. Ulster Unionist leader Robin Swann described it as a "seismic day" which would set the direction of British politics "for months, if not years, to come". He said: "If by some chance the Prime Minister's deal were to pass the House of Commons, the backstop would undermine the economic and constitutional integrity of the UK and cast the principles of the Belfast Agreement aside." Mr Swann said it would be reckless for Mrs May to try and engineer a scenario where the only options were a bad deal or no deal. Instead, he urged the Government to seek to extend Article 50 "to create the space for further negotiations with the EU to achieve a deal which actually respects the economic and constitutional integrity of the UK and the principles of the Belfast Agreement". Alliance deputy leader Stephen Farry said: "The exchange of letters changes little of substance. The backstop is not something over which any reassurances are necessary. Rather it should rightly be seen as a necessary protection and potential opportunity for Northern Ireland. "Instead of being so defensive about it and trying to appease those who are irrational, the Prime Minister should have been making the positive case for the backstop. "Any attempt by amendment with the support or encouragement of the Government to change or quality the backstop would nullify the Withdrawal Agreement and would be an act of bad faith." Sinn Fein insisted the backstop could not be set aside or diluted. Speaking in Stormont after meeting with other party leaders, Ms McDonald said: "There is no such thing as a good Brexit but the backstop is the bottom line. "Anyone who imagines that can be unpicked or diluted or set aside isn't dealing with the political realities. "The DUP position on Brexit is reckless and irresponsible. It certainly is not in the interests of the people of the north of Ireland." Urging the safeguarding of the backstop, she said: "The basic protections agreed for Ireland are not to be reopened or renegotiated and neither the people of Ireland or our agreements can become collateral damage in a disastrous Brexit. "Whatever transpires at Westminster it is essential that Irish interests are protected; that the economy is protected and that the Good Friday Agreement is protected in all its parts." Commenting on Sinn Fein's meeting with the DUP, Ms McDonald said she had a "good conversation" with Mrs Foster, but said she did not detect any shift in the party's positions. "I think that is a very great pity, I don't believe that is a sustainable position from their point of view," she added. From left: Dr Rosemary Hamilton CBE, NI co-chair, US-Ireland Research and Development Partnership; Dr Irina Tikhonova, School of Pharmacy, QUB; Grainne Lennon, InterTradeIreland; Dr Mark Mooney, Institute for Global Food Security, QUB; Dr David Simpson, Centre for Experimental Medicine, QUB; and Dr Susan Joyce, School of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, University College Cork A transatlantic research funding body set up more than a decade ago to strengthen US-Irish relations has passed the 60m mark. The US-Ireland Research and Development Partnership has awarded a total of 60.41m to 49 projects since it was first launched 12 years ago. Latest awards include 750,000 to three Queen's University agri-food teams. Projects include Target-TB, a partnership with University College Dublin to control the cause of bovine tuberculosis (TB), a huge financial burden to the agricultural sector. Other link-ups include teams from Queen's working with Tyndall National Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology, University College Cork and the University of Tennessee. Grainne Lennon from cross-border body InterTradeIreland said: "The US-Ireland Research and Development Partnership helps to stimulate higher levels of innovation and accelerate both economic development and leading-edge research. "We are pooling research expertise from academic institutes in Northern Ireland, Ireland and the US and leveraging additional investment to support projects that will undoubtedly benefit each of our jurisdictions. "The partnership has made 49 research awards and approved over 60m of funding to a wide range of projects since it was first launched 12 years ago. "It is a tangible legacy of the peace process and despite the current uncertainty surrounding Brexit, tri-jurisdictional collaborations are still very much taking place." One of Northern Ireland's most senior business figures has called pursuit of a no-deal Brexit "an affront to rational thinking" as the draft withdrawal agreement is voted on by MPs today. Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to lose, with at least 64 Conservative MPs saying they intend to vote against it. But in a joint statement with Republic of Ireland business organisation IBEC, the CBI in Northern Ireland said a no-deal scenario in the event of the deal being rejected would bring an "immediate and unprecedented economic shock". A no-deal must therefore be avoided, they said, calling on MPs to support the draft. CBI Northern Ireland director Angela McGowan said: "Many firms across Northern Ireland simply could not cope with a no-deal Brexit. Not only would it do significant harm to jobs, investment and living standards, but it would put at risk the all-island economic model that has been an important factor in driving local prosperity. "Moreover, it brings with it unnecessary risk to the Good Friday Agreement, which has been the foundation of social, economic and political progress. "The assurances that business have been crying out for are broadly provided for in the withdrawal agreement - ignoring that in pursuit of no-deal isn't just economic recklessness, it's an affront to rational thinking." But the agreement has been rejected by MPs across the House of Commons, including the DUP, whose 10 MPs have vowed to vote against it. Their main objection is to the backstop, which would come into force to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland in the event of a failure to reach a trading agreement. The backstop would leave Northern Ireland subject to some EU rules, with checks on certain goods coming into the province from Britain. The DUP and other MPs have said the arrangement threatens constitutional integrity. But IBEC and the CBI said the backstop was an insurance policy. For business on the island of Ireland the backstop provides a safety-net insurance policy, which would ideally be rendered obsolete by a comprehensive EU-UK agreement on their future relationship involving arrangements better than the backstop. They said ratification of the agreement was vital to allow trade talks to progress. Agreement on future relations should facilitate frictionless trade and just-in-time supply chains to continue operating post-Brexit. For business in Ireland and Northern Ireland, and especially SMEs that predominantly trade in the all-island economy, it is vital the future relationship should include an ambitious deal on services. Aodhan Connolly, director of the NI Retail Consortium, said we, as the only part of the UK with a land border with the EU, stood to lose out most in the event of a no-deal. Id urge MPs to think of Northern Ireland as they decide what lobby to walk through, he said. Ayear ago, Bitcoin was trading at 16,000. Today, it's 3,600. So was it all just a bubble? Yes, say some. No, say others. "Demand has fallen, no question," says Peter Nagle, the co-founder of the Cork-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitcove.ie. "There was an element of a bubble involved. But while there's been a big drop in price, there have been before too. It's cyclical and interest is still there." This year, analysts say, will go some way to sorting things out. But the last few months in Ireland have not been particularly promising. Towards the back of 2018, the country's highest-profile project - Ireland's 'Crypto Coast' initiative - petered out for a variety of reasons, according to one of its founders, Reuben Godfrey. Meanwhile, a succession of court cases and high-profile hacks placed Bitcoin and Ethereum in a negative light, associating them with the proceeds of crime rather than efficient alternative payments. And there appears to be a line of small-time investors that dabbled in cryptocurrencies for the first time in 2018, only to get financially burned. "People got overly excited and now they're overly depressed," says John Gleeson, a Dublin-based Bitcoin trader and writer. "It's dropped a lot, but it's the fourth time it's dropped 85pc or more. A lot of what happened is related to the false promises of other alt-coins that have come to light. But if you bought and held Bitcoin for any longer period than two years ago, you're actually up." How many people actually own or have traded Bitcoin? Some industry practitioners estimate it at around 100,000. "We've dealt with around 40,000 ourselves in Ireland," says Peter Nagle, whose firm helps people to buy and sell Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple and other cryptocurrencies. "But there are lots of different services out there." One difficulty in estimating the size of the Irish crypto market is a policy of non-engagement by banks and conventional equity-trading firms. None of the major financial companies that people usually go to will deal in crypto-assets such as Bitcoin. "Goodbody does not advise on or invest in cryptocurrencies on behalf of clients and does not have any plans at this time to offer access to that asset class," a spokesman for the brokerage told the Irish Independent. Other main brokers here have a similar rule. This doesn't mean that Irish investors using such companies don't invest in cryptocurrencies. Within mainstream financial firms, some funds have allocated percentages for what are called 'alternative strategies'. This sometimes includes crypto-related enterprises or funds, although brokerages here say that they don't provide advice on such entities. The biggest problem in tackling crypto assets, bankers say, is its unregulated status. The rules aren't transparent or reliable enough, nor is there an administrative chain of responsibility that regulated investors can live with. In the US, some institutions are moving to address this. The owner of the New York Stock Exchange, Intercontinental, is launching a new crypto-focused exchange called Bakkt to let people buy, sell and spend digital currencies like Bitcoin. Its big draw is that it promises to be regulated, giving a degree of assurance to those interested in cryptocurrencies. (It is still waiting for approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission). Because of this, and the bluechip array of investors it has assembled (including Microsoft), it has just raised $182m in funding. But even if cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin become more acceptable as traded commodities, they still face the enduring problem that cryptocurrencies have had since the beginning: when, if ever, will ordinary people feel they can use the technology? From the effort to setting up a Bitcoin wallet to finding somewhere you can actually spend it, cryptocurrencies are simply out of bounds for the vast majority of ordinary people. "We have a cryptocurrency ATM in Cork and are going to put one in Galway and then hopefully in Dublin," says Bitcove.ie founder Peter Nagle. The idea is to let people exchange euros for Bitcoin and vice versa. But even if this works, it's not clear that people have many options to use cryptocurrencies for the kinds of activities they associate with conventional money. While retailers such as Microsoft's Store and Overstock.com have accepted Bitcoin-compatible payment systems (such as Coinbase) for a while, most online retailers do not. For example, two-thirds of Irish shoppers use Amazon, but the web giant doesn't take cryptocurrencies. In some respects, things have actually gotten worse. The influential online payment firm Stripe recently stopped processing Bitcoin payments because it took too long for transactions to go through. The lack of regularised commerce that involves cryptocurrencies places an inordinate spotlight on shadier activities where crypto is front and centre. So when the Luas.ie website was hijacked earlier this month, most people learned that the hackers were seeking a Bitcoin to unlock it. Fraud, too, is a problem. Because so much activity around cryptocurrencies is unregulated, scams and flim-flam operations are common. Last year, US authorities undertook hundreds of formal crypto fraud investigations with 50 cases taken. The high-profile digital coin BitConnect went bust in dramatic fashion last year following a cease-and-desist order from US regulators. The enterprise, which had been valued at over 2bn, is being pursued for losses of almost 1bn. Market analysts say that much of this was invested by ordinary people, lured by the promise of getting rich quick on a rising crypto market. But it's not all doom. Among the scepticism and doubt lies enthusiasm for the most important enabling technology behind cryptocurrencies - blockchain. Here, business looks brisk. Dozens of Irish institutions have committees or steering groups committed to integrating more blockchain principles into their own systems. Banks such as AIB, Ulster Bank and Permanent TSB are trialling blockchain-based payments through schemes like Project Greenpay. "This is a big year for adoption of the technology in real life applications," says Lory Kehoe, managing director of the ConsenSys's Ireland office. ConsenSys is a blockchain company set up by one of Ethereum's co-founders, Joe Lubin. "A number of companies are bringing their solutions into the world for consumers to use," says Kehoe. That includes platforms such as Komgo, a new blockchain platform to facilitate oil and gas deals that has been launched by large multi-nationals such as Shell, Citi, BNP Paribas and ABN Amro. The venture will "seek to digitalise the trade and commodities finance sector through a blockchain-based open platform", the consortium said in a statement. "This is real," says Kehoe. "The government and public sector are getting involved too. There are now three projects that the European Commission are working on and Ireland is a part of this. The aim is to try and create standards sooner rather than later, so that by summertime there will be hundreds of companies that are part of it. We will have a functioning legal entity as to how to drive forward with the technology." Despite the upbeat assessment, ConsenSys itself has not been immune from industry pressures. The firm recently announced that it was letting 13pc of its staff go in a 'streamlining' exercise. Kehoe says that this does not extend to the recently opened Irish office, which currently employs 40 and is still hiring. "There'll soon be significant announcements from ConsenSys in Ireland as to projects with Irish companies," he says. "We're still growing in Ireland. We're a really strong team here. So the answer to whether we're downsizing here is no." Kehoe isn't alone. Blockchain, as opposed to straight cryptocurrencies, has a growing number of advocates from 'respectable' business circles. "With the amount of the institutional money entering the space and increasing involvement and adoption by such top-level financiers, it's inevitable that in 2019, blockchain, the underlying technology behind cryptocurrencies will come to the fore," says Angel Versetti, CEO of Ambrosus, a blockchain-powered Internet of Things network for food and pharmaceutical supply chains. Some services are already there, others say. "In growing numbers, consumers are trying the Rize app by live streaming company YouNow, downloading the Brave web browser, or utilising events ticketing service BlockParty which runs concerts and music festivals through their blockchain-based application," says David Wachsman, founder and CEO of Wachsman, a services firm with clients such as Coindesk and Indiegogo. "The recent sharp plunge in crypto markets ... has had a knock-on effect and has created a PR challenge for the entirety of blockchain technology. This is a short-term problem, as the actual technology continues to mature and advance with real-use cases." Wachsman's view that cryptocurrencies are set to be around for the long-term is echoed by others in blockchain businesses. "We will continue to see expansion in this area," says Brent Jaciow of Utopia Music, a blockchain-powered music tracking and attribution platform. "Some of the primary functions include enabling fractional ownership of assets, allowing the tokenisation of assets and ideas formerly impossible with traditional capital markets." Local Irish proponents haven't lost heart in cryptocurrencies. "For me, Bitcoin has never been stronger," says John Gleeson. "The network is still extremely secure and has never been hacked. We're in a cycle." Marks and Spencer may close one of its outlets Marks and Spencer has confirmed that it is consulting with staff on the proposed closure of one of its shops in Northern Ireland. The proposed closure of its outlet store at The Junction, in Antrim, is part of the firm's programme to "reshape its UK store estate". Read More Simon Layton, Head of Region for Marks & Spencer Northern Ireland said: The decision to propose the closure of our outlet store at The Junction has been a difficult one. "Supporting our hard-working colleagues is our priority. Well be speaking with them individually over the coming weeks about whats best for them. We will continue to serve our customers from nearby store. Our commitment to ongoing food expansion in Northern Ireland will continue with the opening of a new store in Carrickfergus this summer. Tuesdays announcement of 17 closures across the UK comes in addition to 38 previously announced locations, of which 30 have already shut. The retailer is on track to close 100 stores by 2022. Irish power firm Energia has announced a 12m deal to supply all public street lighting in Northern Ireland. The agreement with the Department for Infrastructure will run for one year and will involve Energia supplying all public lighting in Northern Ireland, powering around 300,000 sites. Energia, a sister company of Power NI and part of Viridian, expects to supply around 100 gigawatt hours of electricity to power the local authorities' public lighting systems over the course of the deal. DfI Roads is responsible for the maintenance of 285,500 street lights and 8,440 illuminated traffic signs. Ciara Moane, of Energia said: "We've been working with local authorities for almost 10 years to bring the benefits of lower priced electricity to communities all across Northern Ireland. We're delighted to have the opportunity to continue delivering savings to county and city councils." A Victorian linen house in Belfast city centre is to become the second largest UK hub of a multinational company seeking to expand its base here. Deloitte has signed up as the anchor tenant in a new 85m Bedford Street development, with the abandoned Ewart Building at its centre. The vacant four-storey sandstone warehouse, designed by James Hamilton for the Bedford Street Weaving Company and completed in 1870, will host a state-of-the-art Deloitte Digital and Greenhouse space. Jackie Henry, senior partner at Deloitte in Belfast, described the firm's new home as a symbol of Deloitte's commitment to the city, which will "breathe life back into one of our beautiful but neglected heritage buildings" and help create hundreds of jobs. The altered B+ listed building will be linked to an adjacent 17-storey office block by a second floor walkway. Deloitte has acquired almost half of the 213,000 square foot Bedford Square site and expects to have 1,000 employees based there by 2022, making it the company's largest UK hub by headcount outside London. Ms Henry said the significant investment reflected the firm's confidence in Belfast, which it considers to be a high-quality talent base. The grade A office development will be able to accommodate a total of 2,000 people in a prime city centre location, in addition to housing all of Deloitte's core business activities, such as auditing, taxes and consulting, as well as new areas of technological expertise. However, Ulster Architectural Heritage (UAH), which opposed the development plans in 2016, expressed fears over "substantive demolition" of parts of the building. "UAH welcomes the reuse of historic buildings, particularly buildings at risk, only when policy is followed and proposals are sympathetic and appropriate to our historic environment," said the organisation's chief executive Nicola McVeigh. But Stephen Surphlis, property director of McAleer & Rushe, which owns the site, has vowed to return the 150-year-old heritage building to its "original splendour" while providing a high-quality office environment. 'The application by MS Drayne Ltd for 99 houses next to a site between Glenavy Road and Brokerstown Road was given the green light at last week's meeting of Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council's planning committee' (stock photo) Lisburn could be set a for housing boom after the latest residential development proposed for the west of the city received planning approval. The application by MS Drayne Ltd for 99 houses next to a site between Glenavy Road and Brokerstown Road was given the green light at last week's meeting of Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council's planning committee. A bid by the same developer to build a total of 545 homes in the same area of Ballymacash is currently being considered. The Brokerstown Road area has also been earmarked as a potential residential site by Londonderry firm Eglinton Developments. The company last month launched a fresh 10m bid to build 116 homes in the area. MS Drayne Ltd is run by Michael and Stella Drayne, who run a well known dairy enterprise from their farm business on Glenavy Road. Draynes Farm, which has been producing milk since the 1930s, is a familiar name in the dairy world. The company also produces its own brand of ice cream from the Glenavy Road. Michael Drayne is also a member of the Dairy Council for Northern Ireland However, the application by MS Drayne Ltd hasn't gone without opposition. An online campaign group opposed to the escalation of housing in the area has pledged to seek a judicial review over last week's decision to approve the plan for 99 homes. In a Facebook post, 'Lisburn Residents Opposed to Housing Development at Draynes Farm Land' said its concerns centre around the availability of school places, traffic volume and flood risk. Despite the page attracting over 800 people, the application for 99 homes attracted just 42 objections. The report compiled by planning officials at Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council stated: "Based on careful assessment of the policy and all relevant material considerations the proposed development is found to be acceptable as the detailed layout, arrangement and design of the proposed buildings will create a quality residential environment and will not result in unacceptable damage to the local character, environmental quality or residential amenity of the general area." Meanwhile, the larger application from MS Drayne Ltd for 545 residential units - which was submitted in November 2017 - has just passed the consultation phase. The plan includes a mix of detached and semi-detached houses, as well as townhouses and apartments. Orthopedic spine surgeon Brandon P. Hirsch, MD, joined the CORE Institute in Phoenix in 2018. Five details: 1. Dr. Hirsch specializes in minimally invasive treatment of complex degenerative spine disorders. 2. An author of various peer-reviewed articles, Dr. Hirsch has published work in medical journals such as the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine and World Neurosurgery. 3. Dr. Hirsch is a member of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and North American Spine Society. 4. After earning his medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., Dr. Hirsch completed his residency at University of Miami Health System. 5. Dr. Hirsch underwent spine surgery fellowship training at Chicago-based Rush University Medical Center as well as NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases in New York City. Four spine surgeons discuss current trends in spine surgery reimbursement and insurance coverage. A. Nick Shamie, MD. Chief of Orthopedic Spine Surgery and Neurosurgery at UCLA School of Medicine: Firstly, we have a growing population of our baby boomers reaching the age that will demand more healthcare across the board. This will result in lower reimbursement for each healthcare sector. In spine surgery, it will be more important to show good results in order to maintain coverage for various procedures. Only the highly successful surgeries will continue to be reimbursed. Secondly, with the advent of new technologies and surgical protocols over the last few decades, we have the opportunity to treat patients in an outpatient setting more regularly than ever before. This trend will continue which will in turn lower the cost of spine care. We have to make sure to use the new technologies responsibly and only when we have shown superiority to more traditional methods. Thirdly, with the granularity of the outcomes data available to payers and patients alike, individual surgeons will be evaluated by all stakeholders based on available data. So making sure that you provide individualized and effective care for every spine patient will be an important factor for any successful surgeon. J. Brian Gill, MD. Nebraska Spine Hospital (Omaha): Over the past year, patients have had a greater responsibility for out-of-pocket expenses for medical care, with higher deductible plans becoming more of the norm to offset rising premiums. This is only going to continue for the foreseeable future as employers try to offset their costs by pushing their employees into these type of plans. Additionally, insurers are promoting these plans to employers and consumers as it shifts the risk to the patient to make the decision. Bundled-payments continue to gain traction as Medicare has launched a program for hospitals in an attempt to control costs. There is more pressure to be more vertically integrated in an attempt to control costs from start to finish for procedural episodes such as spine surgery. Ongoing reports show independent practices are continuing to dwindle as healthcare systems drive to control costs and gain market share. As a partner in an independent practice, we have to continue to work with our healthcare systems to provide value with mutual strategic goals and alliances. This year, more than any other year that I can remember, insurers have taken longer to approve procedures and imaging. There has been a greater burden of proof placed on providers to show documentation of medical records, which can be difficult to obtain at times. Additionally, the number of modalities necessary to be done has placed an undue burden on patients wasting time and money. I only see this trend continuing as insurers place roadblocks up for patients and providers. Robert Masson, MD. Founder and Medical Director of Masson Spine Institute (Ocoee, Fla.): The reimbursement decline for complex spine procedures has put a premium on quality of patients and systemwide efficiencies. We also are increasingly placing our spine surgery patients in our ASC environment with increased penetration and this is probably one of our greatest opportunities moving forward. In the world of bundled payments, abolition of narcotic overuse (finally) and big data, we have fully enacted pre-habilitation regimens preoperatively to both prepare our patients for rapid surgical mobilization and recovery, and to accentuate and validate not only the need for surgery but the intended surgical diagnostic targets, which we correlate with imaging. The clinical syndrome defines scope of surgery, not the imaging in many cases. Our success has been centered around our ability to reach our patients with success strategies and increasingly concierge-style spine health messaging while simplifying our practice focus to surgical treatment for complex spine health episodes of care. Our goal is more and more aimed towards optimization of personal functional performance in the face of a spine health crisis and it reflects in our culture, our philosophy, our messaging and ultimately the loyalty and growth of our patient base. Jocelyn Idema, DO. Orthopedic Spine Surgeon (South Hills of Pittsburgh; Washington, Pa.): Although there are many trends that could affect my practice in 2019, I find that the continual struggle with insurance companies continues to be an issue for both patient and provider alike. Many insurance companies continue to bundle and/or narrow procedures that can be done, as well as where the procedures can be done. As a result, many of my colleagues and I end up having to carry privileges at multiple hospitals and surgery centers in order to accommodate where procedures are allowed to be done. The second biggest trend that I see affecting my practice will be bundling of payments. Our spine team is continually working to stay on top of the latest changes with regard to bundling. For example, what used to be three separate codes for reimbursement is now one, thus this allows for decreased reimbursement to not only the physician but the facility as well. I have found that some facilities because of these changes, are now limiting the numbers of those types of surgeries to be done. To participate in future Becker's Q&As, contact Laura Dyrda at ldyrda@beckershealthcare.com. For a deeper dive into the future of spine, attend the Becker's 17th Annual Future of Spine + Spine, Orthopedic & Pain Management-Driven ASC in Chicago, June 13-5, 2019. Click here to learn more and register. The Veterans Affairs North Texas Health Care System in Dallas recently acquired a 4K, 3D video microscope, making it one of the only VA's in the country to use the technology, according to WFAA. Three notes: 1. Orbeye allows surgeons to perform spine surgery with a 3D guide. Bryan Wohlfeld, MD, the chief of neurosurgery at the VA, described feeling fully immersed in the surgery when using the microscope. 2. Surgeons operate while looking at a 55-inch high definition monitor. Everyone in the room, from residents to nurses, can see the live 3D video to assist the surgeon's needs. 3. The VA North Texas Health Care System records more than 7,500 procedures annually. One of the first patients to undergo surgery with the technology had his lower spine operated on. Global health officials are concerned political instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo could worsen the country's ongoing Ebola outbreak, according to Reuters. Congo's Dec. 30 election was supposed to be the country's first uncontested democratic transfer of power in nearly two decades, according to the report. However, opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi was named the winner, stirring up accusations of fraud and demands for a recount. This lack of public trust could hinder health workers' efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak, which is the country's second worst in history. "When you have political instability, public health always suffers," Jeremy Farrar, PhD, an infectious disease expert who recently visited the Congo, told Reuters. "The worst case scenario is that political instability remains, mistrust grows ... and then there's nothing to stop the epidemic getting embedded into a big urban center and taking off as it did in West Africa." As of Jan. 12, the World Health Organization reported 644 confirmed and probable Ebola cases linked to the outbreak, along with 392 confirmed and probable deaths. Ebola cases are rising in the Democratic Republic of Congo amid political instability and community unrest, according to a Jan. 14 update from the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in Minneapolis. Four things to know: 1. Health officials have reported 19 new Ebola cases since Jan. 11, with all but one case confirmed. Most of the cases occurred in the city of Katwa, one of the outbreak's latest hot spots. 2. The new infections bring the outbreak's total case count to 644 cases, 595 of which are confirmed. There have also been 347 confirmed and 49 probable deaths linked to the outbreak. An additional 121 cases are still under investigation, while 237 people have recovered. 3. On Jan. 11, locals attacked humanitarian workers who were in the city of Marabo to build an Ebola isolation center. Marabo residents reportedly opposed construction of the isolation center because they thought it would bring disease into the community, according to a United Nations news report cited by CIDRAP. 4. The country's recent election results have also led to public distrust. Health officials fear election protests in outbreak areas could hinder containment efforts. "The worst-case scenario is that political instability remains, mistrust grows ... and then there's nothing to stop the epidemic getting embedded into a big urban center and taking off as it did in West Africa," Jeremy Farrar, PhD, an infectious disease expert who recently visited the Congo, told Reuters. Medicare Part D could have saved $14.4 billion on the top 50 medications covered in 2016 if the program had been able to pay the same prices as the Department of Veterans Affairs, which often negotiates discounts, according to new analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine cited by STAT. Five things to know: 1. In 2016, annual Part D spending on the top 50 pills that were covered hit $32.5 billion in 2016. However, if Medicare had obtained VA prices, the cost would have been 44 percent lower in 2016. 2. In particular, the VA spent $1.7 billion of Gilead's Harvoni hepatitis C treatment in 2016, compared to Medicare Part D, which spent $3 billion on the drug. In addition, the VA spent about $1.2 billion on Celgene's top-selling cancer treatment Revlimid, compared to $1.8 million spent by Medicare. 3. The analysis comes as House and Senate Democrats renew the push for Medicare to directly negotiate with drugmakers. 4. "The VA is an example of how a government entity tries to negotiate in bulk for drug prices. So if you're looking how Medicare might negotiate or what might happen, this is a data point to use in those discussions," Walid Gellad, MD, one of the researchers who runs the Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing at the University of Pittsburgh, told STAT. 5. The researchers said that they only studied 50 drugs and that they did not differentiate between dosages or long-acting formulations to calculate unit prices, although most medicines were brand-only products and were priced similarly regardless of dose. After several conflict-of-interest scandals, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City will bar top executives from serving on corporate boards of drug and healthcare companies that pay them, according to The New York Times. Hospital officials said the executive board also finalized a series of reforms designed to limit the way its top executives and researchers could profit from their work at Memorial Sloan. The policy changes, announced by hospital executives Jan. 11, come as the nonprofit cancer center works to contain the fallout from several conflict-of-interest scandals. In September 2018, Jose Baselga, MD, PhD, medical oncologist, physician-in-chief and CMO of Memorial Sloan, resigned from his position after reports surfaced that he failed to disclose significant financial ties to the drug industry and other healthcare companies in more than 100 research articles. Following Dr. Baselga's resignation, the cancer center's partnership with Paige.AI also came under fire. The AI startup was founded by three insiders at Memorial Sloan, which subsequently granted the company an exclusive deal, presenting a possible conflict of interest. In October, as more reports surfaced about board memberships held by Memorial Sloan officials, Craig Thompson, the hospital's CEO, resigned from Merck's board. The drugmaker had paid him about $300,000 for his service in 2017. The policy change is just one of the steps the cancer center said it will take to overhaul its corporate relationships and conflict-of-interest policies.. The hospital board on Jan. 11 also formalized a policy that prohibits board members from investing in startup companies that Memorial Sloan helped to found. In addition, it prevents hospital employees from accepting personal compensation, equity stakes or stock options from corporate boards. The cancer center also has hired Deloitte and two law firms to help conduct an internal review of faculty membership on corporate boards, participation in companies' scientific advisory boards and all consulting relationships. "This is highly significant, especially at such a high-profile academic center. Leadership matters, and the institution has decided that their leaders should not also be concurrently leading for-profit health companies," Walid Gellad, MD, director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing at the University of Pittsburgh, told the NYT. Read the full report here. CVS Health will spend $100 million during the next five years on community health initiatives, the company said Jan. 14. Five things to know: 1. The Building Healthier Communities initiative will be funded through the combined CVS-Aetna company, as well as their respective foundations. 2. CVS will invest $20 million each year across three categories outlined in the initiative: improving local access to affordable quality care, impacting public health challenges and partnering with local communities. 3. Under the first category, improving local access to affordable quality care, CVS said it will expand its Project Health campaign. Founded in 2006, Project Health offers no-cost health assessments to detect early risks for diseases like diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. The company intends to expand the program to more underserved and underinsured communities in 2019, and hopes to address health disparities through grant funding to more than 100 free clinics. 4. CVS will also support partnerships with the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association and American Diabetes Association to address public health challenges. The company has already contributed more than $4 million to add blood pressure kiosks in highly traveled areas in specific cities. 5. Additionally, CVS and Aetna will support U.S. News & World Report's Healthiest Communities rankings, which evaluates about 3,000 communities throughout the U.S. across 10 categories. "We believe the path to better health and a better world can be reached by creating a whole new healthcare model that's more local, affordable, and easier to use. And by strengthening our local support and community engagement, we can further improve the health of our communities," said Larry J. Merlo, president and CEO of CVS, during a Jan. 14 speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. More articles on payers: 4 recent health plan data breaches The health insurance industry in 2019: 4 things to know 1 in 4 pre-Medicare adults don't think they can afford insurance next year NorthShore University Evanston (Ill.) Hospital created a pilot program to help mental health patients access care sooner after an emergency department visit, reports the Chicago Tribune. "Patients are having to wait six to eight weeks for psychiatric appointments these days. We're having very, very long wait times in general for first mental health evaluations," Yaffa Kagan, RN, a psychiatric nurse practitioner and director of the pilot program, told the publication. The new psychiatric urgent care program will connect mental health patients with a team of psychologists, nurses and social workers within 48 hours of an ED visit to provide a psychiatric evaluation. Patients will be able to attend appointments with the care team twice a week for up to three months, or until they can see a permanent mental health professional for care. NorthShore is rolling out the pilot program "very carefully, slowly, based on referrals," Ms. Kagan told Chicago Tribune. She said the psychiatric care team could eventually see one to five new patients and six to nine follow-up appointments in a typical day. A Kentucky entrepreneur launched JoePatient.com, a website that uses CMS data to help consumers navigate the complexities of hospital pricing and quality ratings on different procedures, the Courier-Journal reports. "The [healthcare] industry is putting more and more burden on the consumer" to navigate costs, insurance coverage, copays and deductibles, but they're not being given the tools to advocate for themselves, said website founder Steve Makela, a former director of strategy at Humana. The website, launched in January, provides information on hospitals across the U.S. so consumers can compare prices, read news stories about facilities and share details of their inpatient experiences. The website's launch comes after hospitals have started complying with a Trump administration order to post list prices for all their services Jan. 1. The rule requires hospitals to publish their standard charges on the internet. They also must present the information in a machine-readable format that can easily be imported into a computer system and update the information at least annually, but consumers have struggled to decipher the posted prices. Mr. Makela said he thinks the website will be successful even if only a fraction of those involved in hospital admissions buy subscriptions to his data vault. "We're presenting math and facts. [Plus] there's an opportunity here for people to really see how ridiculous hospital pricing is," he said. Consumers can browse the site for free, but premium access for 24 hours costs $2.99 and $9.99 for nine months. Mr. Makela said details on physicians and elder care facilities could be added within a year. A third of the fees from $9.99 subscriptions will be shared with three nonprofits working in Alzheimer's research, mental illness and environmental action. Global Hospitalist Solutions, a Memphis, Tenn.-based physician staffing company, has sued Santa Cruz Valley Regional Hospital for more than $1.9 million, according to the Arizona Daily Star. Green Valley (Ariz.) Hospital entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early 2017 and emerged from bankruptcy in July 2018 with a new name: Santa Cruz Valley Regional Hospital. The hospital subsequently entered into contracts with Global Hospitalist Solutions. In its lawsuit, GHS alleges the hospital fell behind on its payments. When the physician staffing company notified the hospital's CEO of the overdue payment, the hospital allegedly terminated its contracts with GHS "without cause," according to the report. The termination agreement called for the contracts to end Jan. 31. However, the hospital allegedly continued to fall behind on payments, and GHS terminated the agreement Dec. 31. In its lawsuit, GHS is demanding $1.9 million, which includes payment for all outstanding invoices, interest and the cost of bringing the suit, according to the report. Santa Cruz Valley Regional Hospital's CEO told the Arizona Daily Star he could not comment on the lawsuit. More articles on legal and regulatory issues: California AG tries to halt sale of 2 hospitals Physician assistant admits role in $1B Medicare fraud scheme 8 latest healthcare industry lawsuits Bend, Ore.-based St. Charles Health System and nurses have agreed to a tentative contract, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. The agreement limits the number of floating nurse jobs and establishes a shared governance model, allowing nurses' concerns to be addressed faster, according to OPB. Oregon Nurses Association spokesperson Kevin Mealy told the TV and radio public broadcasting network that the tentative contract also includes cost-of-living increases between 2 percent and 4 percent annually. The agreement which covers nearly 900 registered nurses at St. Charles hospitals comes after about seven months at the bargaining table. More articles on human capital and risk: New York probing union-busting claims at Hudson Valley hospital USC hospital employee seeks vote on whether to dissolve union Inflatable rocket used to criticize Washington hospital exec salaries When Eric Hargan became HHS deputy secretary in 2017, the agency did not have a coordinated effort underway to address the investment community that supports a lot of healthcare innovation. That's why Mr. Hargan on Sept. 19 unveiled the Deputy Secretary's Innovation and Investment Summit, a yearlong collaboration between agency personnel and private sector leaders. As part of the summit, Mr. Hargan said participants will attend quarterly meetings to discuss how the government's regulatory and reimbursement policies affect investment in healthcare, as well as how HHS can remove hurdles to investment and therefore accelerate innovation. "We want to see where we can foster healthy ideas to fruition, where the government might be inadvertently stifling innovation because of policies that [are] either obsolete or not necessary to [HHS'] mission of protecting the American people," he said. "If we can advance the ball and create more investment in the healthcare sector, then we want to do that." The summit hosted its first meeting Dec. 18, with 15 healthcare and private equity leaders participating. Participants are from various types of healthcare organizations, including digital health companies, life sciences companies, medical devicemakers, payers and providers. During the first meeting, the group which includes Dean Harrison, president and CEO of Chicago-based Northwestern Memorial HealthCare; Matt Hermann, senior managing director of Ascension Ventures; and Jim Rogers, chair of the department of business development at Mayo Clinic Ventures identified four areas where they see potential to spur investments in healthcare. They are: 1. Parallel reviews. Mr. Hargan said this refers to how HHS reviews innovation ideas from governing bodies within the agency for approval or reimbursement, and how, if at all, HHS can revise those processes "to create more certainty in the investment space that will enable innovation." 2. Value-based care. Advancing the healthcare industry's shift from fee-for-service to value-based care continues to be one of HHS' priorities. Mr. Hargan said private sector leaders want to discuss how the federal government can accelerate value-based care and move value-based initiatives forward more fruitfully. "The idea is that there could and should be priorities in how we move forward in this area. I think it's an area they wanted to talk about and we're willing to talk to them about," he said. 3. Consumer empowerment. Healthcare is moving more toward consumerism. Therefore, private sector leaders want to know how HHS leverages data to enable patients to be engaged in their healthcare, and if there are certain information flows and technologies that affect consumers' engagement in their healthcare, said Mr. Hargan. Private sector leaders also want to know how they can get patients more engaged. 4. Data interoperability. Private sector leaders want to discuss the federal government's involvement regarding regulations that ensure data moves from one healthcare provider to another in a secure way. Mr. Hargan said they specifically want to know how the federal government retains elements of security patients want, need and deserve, while also allowing providers to use data most effectively for patients across platforms. SUNY Upstate Medical University reportedly entered into another agreement with a longtime scientist under which the individual would complete an off-campus assignment and receive his annual $137,000 salary for six months, according to syracuse.com. The agreement, obtained by syracuse.com under a Freedom of Information Act request, shows that Nicholas Greco, PhD, the executive director of the Upstate Cord Blood Bank, left his position on Dec. 21, 2017, and received a six-month off-campus assignment before officially ending his employment June 21, 2018. Documents obtained by the publication indicate Dr. Greco was the subject of "disciplinary interrogation," but do not explain why. During the assignment, Dr. Greco was paid his annual salary of $137,419 and was required to submit detailed documents regarding his job, the blood bank and accreditation requirements to prepare a strategic plan for the Upstate Cord Blood Bank. Dr. Greco joined the Syracuse, N.Y.-based institution in 2014 to jump-start its cord blood bank program, which analyzes stem cells in the blood left behind in a baby's umbilical cord for research purposes. SUNY's $15 million cord blood bank opened in February 2017, the report states. SUNY Upstate has come under scrutiny in recent months for its use of off-campus assignments. Syracuse.com discovered the institution paid the former SUNY Upstate CEO $660,000 to "disappear" from the institution, and uncovered at least six other employees who received similar agreements to work off campus. In each case, employees were offered the off-campus assignments and subsequently banned from working on SUNY Upstate property, the report states. SUNY Upstate's interim president told officials last week the institution is scrutinizing how off-campus assignments are used and may recommend changes. Dr. Greco and the union that represented him in settlement discussions with SUNY Upstate declined to comment to syracuse.com. To access the full report, click here. Morgantown-based West Virginia University Health System tapped Todd Karpinski, PharmD, to serve as chief pharmacy officer, a newly created role, effective Feb. 18. Here are five things to know: 1. Dr. Karpinski comes to WVU Health System from The Resource Group, where he served as national director of ambulatory pharmacy. The Resource Group is a business consulting organization that is a part of St. Louis-based Ascension Healthcare. 2. He has previous experience as chief pharmacy officer and associate dean for health system practice at Milwaukee-based Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin. 3. He is a board member with the American Society of Health Systems Pharmacists and a fellow with the American College of Health System Executives. 4. The Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin named Dr. Karpinski 'Pharmacist of the Year' in 2013. 5. In his new role, he will oversee strategic planning, development and operations for all WVU Health System pharmacy services. How to Stop Picking Bad Men Contact: Melissa Hudson, 229-854-7906ALBANY, Ga., Jan. 15, 2019 / Standard Newswire / -- Melissa Hudson, MA, author of an essential Christian relationship book, "Spells of Hell: Why We Keep Choosing The Wrong Men," explains why many females are in endless relationships and marriages with men who do not value them as women. They get trapped and locked down in these situations like "caged animals" and can not get out or find a solution to the problem until it is sometimes too late."Why do females continue to choose men as mates who they know will lead them down a dark road of destruction?" The author answers this question and has amazing advice that encourages ladies to choose their mates wisely through the eyes of God. Domestic violence is on the rise because women are not picking their mates through God's eyes. Divorce rates are increasing, while the will to live for God is decreasing. Women are dying by the hands of their lovers. When will this vicious cycle end? "Spells of Hell" helps females to have self- worth, never settle for less than the best, and most importantly, seek God first before seeking a mate. God turns courtships into wonderful marriages that will last a lifetime. What God ordains, it will remain.Melissa Hudson, MA, obtained a Master's degree in English and Creative Writing, a Master's degree in Education, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. She is an educator in the public school system. Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives and Houston-based Baylor College of Medicine are restructuring the leadership team at Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center in Houston, following the departure of three executives. Baylor St. Luke's President Gay Nord, Chief Nursing Officer Jennifer Nitschmann, MSN, RN, and Senior Vice President of Operations David Berger, MD, have left their roles. T. Douglas Lawson, PhD, will become the hospital's president. Mr. Lawson will continue serving as CEO of the CHI Texas Division, which includes Baylor St. Luke's as well as 15 other hospitals. He has served as CHI Texas Division CEO since March 2018, prior to which he was president of Dallas-based Baylor Scott & White Health's North Texas Central Region and Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. Marc Shapiro, chairman of the hospital's board of directors said in a statement that the hospital faced "significant challenges" and the board felt that "aggressive action is needed to address them." In June 2018, an investigation by ProPublica and the Houston Chronicle brought to light that the hospital's heart transplant survival rate ranks near the bottom nationally, and three of nine patients who received heart transplants at the hospital during the first half of 2018 had died. The hospital suspended its heart transplant program for 14 days starting June 1, 2018, after the investigation was published. CMS halted funding for the hospital's heart transplant program Aug. 17, 2018. The hospital appealed the decision in September. More recently, CMS initiated a review of a patient death that occurred following a blood transfusion at the hospital. The patient received the wrong type of blood. "CMS's review raises concerns that are simply unacceptable to the board or the hospital's owners, CHI and the Baylor College of Medicine," Mr. Shapiro said. "As trustees for a significant public trust, it is important for the board to ensure that Baylor St. Luke's has the leadership and resources it needs to meet the challenges of today's incredibly complex healthcare environment." Mr. Lawson said in a statement that the hospital is developing a 90-day plan "that will include new initiatives in the areas of clinical excellence, patient experience and workplace culture." "We have the highest expectations of Baylor St. Lukes. The greater Houston community and beyond look to us for the highest standard of patient care and compassion, and we will live up to that expectation," he said. Editor's note: This article was updated at 2:21 p.m. on Jan. 18, 2019, to include information about the most recent CMS review at the hospital. The Trump administration is considering a plan to transform Medicaid into a block grant program, according to The Hill. Medicaid has long been an open-ended entitlement. But the Trump administration is considering issuing guidelines allowing states to receive fixed federal block grants for Medicaid spending, according to the report, which cites people familiar with the discussions. In exchange for these grants, states would get more flexibility with Medicaid. They would be able to decide how to spend grant funds and regulate who qualifies for services in the state. Conservatives have suggested a Medicaid block grant program for years, and the issue was discussed in 2017 amid Republican efforts to repeal the ACA. According to The Hill, encouraging states to apply for Medicaid block grants is sure to spark pushback from Democrats, and the legality of making such changes without congressional approval would likely be questioned. Laura Dyrda contributed to this report. More articles on healthcare finance: Colorado lawmaker seeks deep dive into how hospitals spend tax dollars Nevada providers, insurers hopeful for consensus this year on surprise billing solution Wyoming health system overcharged tribe, boosted profits 700%, tribe claims Nevada legislation to address surprise emergency bills could be closer to fruition, The Nevada Independent reported. Surprise emergency bills can occur when a patient is transported to a hospital that is not in their insurance company's network. Patients may also receive a surprise bill if they visit an in-network emergency room but are treated by an out-of-network provider. Lawmakers are expected to consider the issue in the next legislative session, and hospitals, physicians and insurers are optimistic that they can reach a consensus this year on a bill, according to the report. "I would say that we're in a better position today than we have been in the past," Bill Welch, CEO of the Nevada Hospital Association, told the Independent. "This is the first time in the 20 years that I've been doing this that I've seen the focused effort during the interim to try to bring a resolution." Multiple resolutions have been proposed. Lawmakers will reportedly consider a bill that calls for payers and payees, such as hospitals and physicians, to agree on a "reasonable" rate for out-of-network services provided or else use arbitration, as well as a proposed constitutional amendment that would limit hospital charges to 150 percent of federal Medicare rates for emergency out-of-network care. Additionally, a working group that includes various payers, hospitals and physicians has developed a bill draft request. The request includes points the group came to a consensus on for example, that patients in emergency situations will only have to pay the amount their health plan would normally require them to pay for in-network treatment but it does not include an agreed upon-reimbursement formula for emergency care, Nevada Democrat Assemblyman Mike Sprinkle told the Independent. "In the end, we got a lot accomplished, but we still ultimately didnt have one consensus piece of legislation," he said. "As soon as this bill comes out, as soon as we see the language, I'll reconstitute the working group, and we'll continue to work through the remaining issues." Access the Independent's full report here. More articles on healthcare finance: For-profit hospital stock report: Week of Jan. 7-11 Senators weigh in on plan to change billing for abortions RCM tip of the day: Don't let low-priority claims linger The CEO of Horton (Kan.) Community Hospital said the a 25-bed critical access hospital is stable despite the financial struggles of its manager, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported. Horton Community Hospital is managed by Kansas City, Mo.-based EmpowerHMS, which also operates hospitals in Tennessee and Oklahoma. Hospitals managed by the company have reported various issues in recent weeks. Hillsboro (Kan.) Community Hospital nearly had its power shut off due to unpaid utility bills. And several Oklahoma and Tennessee hospitals, including Fairfax (Okla.) Community Hospital, reported last month that they were behind on payroll. But Ty Compton, CEO of the Horton Community Hospital, told the Capital-Journal the Horton facility hasn't had the same issues reported at other EmpowerHMS facilities. "We had one paycheck, I think, that was delayed one day, maybe two days," he said. "To my understanding, our utility bills are current." He added that be believes Horton Community Hospital is "sitting in a very similar position with a lot of the other rural hospitals and that "ownership is working to make sure that our jobs are secure and that our patients in our communities have healthcare access." But Horton Police Chief John Calhoon, who has been the city's administrator, told the Capital-Journal he has had to continuously reach out monthly to local hospital leaders and often corporate leaders to get payment, although it usually comes through. EmpowerHMS is under investigation for its alleged involvement in a lab billing fraud scheme, KCUR reported, according to the Capital-Journal. The Capital-Journal said related lawsuits and reduced reimbursements have contributed to financial struggles at Empower hospitals. EmpowerHMS CEO Jorge Perez has not responded to Becker's Hospital Review's requests for comment about issues at the company's facilities. More articles on healthcare finance: Colorado lawmaker seeks deep dive into how hospitals spend tax dollars Nevada providers, insurers hopeful for consensus this year on surprise billing solution Wyoming health system overcharged tribe, boosted profits 700%, tribe claims Providers around Naples, Fla.-based NCH Healthcare System are seeing increased financial support as donors shift their gaze from the health system in light of a controversial admissions policy, according to the Naples Daily News. Four things to know: 1. NCH physicians and staff, as well as the local community, have repeatedly voiced their concerns over NCH's new admissions policy. It tasks employed hospitalists with handling more patient admissions in certain units. Allen Weiss, MD, president and CEO of NCH, has said concerns over the policy have largely been misunderstood as distressing toward physicians. 2. Still, philanthropic residents who are slimming their donations to NCH are boosting financial support at other providers like Neighborhood Health Clinic in Naples. The clinic treats uninsured and underinsured patients. Nancy Lascheid, BSN, RN, co-founder of the clinic, told the Naples Daily News, "We are seeing a slight increase in donations which are new to our clinic. Often there are notes attached referring to that [NCH] reason." 3. Neighborhood Health Clinic had a relationship with NCH; however, the relationship ended in April 2018. Ms. Lascheid told the publication NCH said it was not admitting Neighborhood patients who needed additional services. NCH-employed physicians have also claimed NCH told them to no longer volunteer at Neighborhood. 4. On Jan. 10, news surfaced that NCH canceled one of its prominent fundraisers scheduled for March. While some critics suggested the move resulted from donors pulling their support due to the admissions policy, NCH told the Naples Daily News: "Due to the generosity of its donors and an extremely successful fundraising quarter, NCH is on track to meet its donation targets for the year. We are grateful to our donors who contribute to NCH so that we can continue to provide the highest quality care to the Naples community." More articles on healthcare finance: Zuckerberg hospital is out of network with all private insurers, leaving patients with massive bills Pennsylvania hospital misses payroll for 9th time since August California medical group to shut down after Molina cancels contract A Florida woman said her husband went to the emergency room for a minor cut and was charged $5,000, according to WFTV. Linda Caldwell told the ABC-affiliated television station that she and her husband spent about 50 minutes at the Ocala (Fla.) Health's quick care center in West Marion County. She claims her husband received four stitches for a minor cut and was on his way. However, questions arose after medical bills totaled $5,000. When Ms. Caldwell examined an itemized statement, she saw that her husband was billed for a level three emergency, meaning care provided was a higher-level emergency that involved a specialist or substantial decisions, WFTV reported. Ms. Caldwell said she disputed the charges with hospital officials, her insurer and state regulators, as there had been no specialist, lab work or X-rays. She also sought help from the TV station and was able to get the issue resolved. Once a level 1 code was applied for a simple visit, the bills were lowered from $5,000 to $800. According to WFTV, Ocala Health apologized for the patient financial experience and said its team members are ready to help with confusing billing issues. "We understand healthcare bills can be confusing at times," the system said in a statement obtained by the TV station. "To help patients understand the billing process, we provide resources on our website and have a patient financial services team to assist. Another important resource for consumers is their insurance provider, since insurance coverage typically plays a significant role in determining a patient's out-of-pocket expenses. If any consumers have questions about the billing process, they can visit our website at ocalahealthsystem.com to get connected with our team." More articles on healthcare finance: Positive outlook seen for US healthcare stocks this year Kansas hospital is stable despite manager's financial struggles, CEO says Trump administration working on plan for Medicaid block grant program As Lee County (Va.) Hospital Authority negotiates to end its operating agreement with Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Americore Health regarding the shuttered Lee County Hospital, it has engaged a new potential partner in talks to reopen the facility, according to WJHL. The county parted ways with Americore after the system failed to meet multiple deadlines to reopen the hospital, which it took control of in 2015, two years after it had closed. Officials are now speaking with Johnson City, Tenn.-based Ballad Health about taking control of the hospital. Ballad is a part of the last organization to operate Lee County hospital, Wellmont Health System, which merged with Mountain States Health Alliance in 2018 to become Ballad Health. Ballad Health has a cooperative agreement with the county to provide essential health services if another company didn't open an acute care facility by 2018. "I would like to make a motion that we empower the special committee to work with Ballad to fulfill their commitments under the cooperative agreement and to discuss other matters," said Howard Elliott, commissioner of the Lee County Hospital Authority. Hand and upper extremity specialist Adam Cochran, MD joined Athens (Ga.) Orthopedic Clinic in September 2018, GwinnettCitizen.com reports. What you should know: 1. Dr. Cochran was an AOC patient as a child, but he didn't realize he wanted to be a surgeon until he was studying Poultry Science at the University of Georgia in Athens. "[W]e actually performed surgery on birds in that major, and once I did a surgery on a bird, I thought, 'Wow! I really want to be a surgeon,'" Dr. Cochran told GwinnettCitizen.com. 2. Dr. Cochran then attended the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. He completed fellowship training at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond in July 2018. 3. He primarily practices at AOC's Snellville (Ga.) Clinic, but also treats patients at AOC's Dacula, Ga.-based clinic and its surgery center in Loganville, Ga. 4. Dr. Cochran treats injuries of both the upper and lower extremities, with a subspecialty in nerve repairs. 5. At Loganville Surgery Center, Dr. Cochran performs arthroplasty surgeries, carpal tunnel releases, fracture work and other upper extremity procedures. He aims to take on more nerve-repair cases. More articles on leadership: ASC leader shares biggest pet peeve: Employees who lack initiative Dr. Blake Williamson's surgical instruction video makes '2018 Best of Eyetube' list 3 highlights Accounting firm promotes partner with ASC experience 3 highlights Here are 10 updates on ASC companies and industry-relevant companies to note: Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare CEO Ronald Rittenmeyer's said the company would "aggressively" explore outsourcing numerous positions. Private equity firm Atlantic Street Capital is forming Advanced Eyecare Holdings, an ophthalmology-facing supply and services company. Modernizing Medicine is moving into a new space in Boca Raton, Fla. Fellow Health Partners will handle billing-related functions for New York City-based Brooklyn Surgery Center after the two entered into a partnership. HCA Houston Healthcare Southwest opened a $5 million neurosciences and orthopedics center in Pasadena, Texas Cincinnati-based CEI Vision Partners acquired Toledo, Ohio-based surgical practice Retina Vitreous Associates for an undisclosed amount Dallas-based Tenet Executive Chairman and CEO Ron Rittenmeyer gave a presentation at the 37th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco Jan. 8. Read highlights from it. Dallas-based Healthcap Partners bought the Calumet City, Ill.-based Eyecare Service Partners Surgery Center and Medical Facility DaVita Medical Group affiliate HealthCare Partners acquired Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.-based Coastal Physicians Medical Group. Becker's ASC Review profiled five things to know about Nashville, Tenn.-based AmSurg. New Documentary Examines Controversy Regarding True Authorship of the Bible PATTERNS OF EVIDENCE: THE MOSES CONTROVERSY to Release in Movie Theaters Nationwide March 14, 16, and 19 Only "Is the Bible true? If not, what should I put my faith in?" -- Timothy Mahoney Contact: Jennifer Willingham, Icon Media Group, jennifer@iconmediagroup.com MINNEAPOLIS, Jan. 14, 2019 / Standard Newswire / -- Award-winning filmmaker Timothy Mahoney (Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus) is bringing evidence to light in the ongoing debate about the true authorship of the first five books of the Bible in his latest documentary: Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy. Presented by Fathom Events and Thinking Man Films, Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy is in movie theaters nationwide for three days only -- March 14, 16 and 19. In Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy, Mahoney invites viewers on a global trek to uncover the truth behind the oldest and most significant book in history--the Bible. The thought-provoking documentary features interviews with some of the world's leading experts in Egyptology, ancient Hebrew, religion and archaeology and asks hard questions in search of evidence to determine once and for all whether Moses could really have authored the Torah. Mahoney asks, "If Moses did not author the Torah, as Scripture says, then some of the Bible is true, and some is not. How can we know what to trust? Is the Bible based on history, or merely folklore?" Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy highlights one of the most groundbreaking discoveries of the modern age and presents a well-organized "pattern" to answer what could be the most important question for people of faith. With stunning cinematography and life-like recreations, Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy will captivate audiences of all ages. According to Mahoney, the biggest overarching question is whether Moses actually had the ability to write the events of the Exodus as a true eye-witness account, as is referenced in Scripture, or did the Exodus of Israel predate alphabetic writing. Most mainstream scholars believe Moses' authorship to be an impossibility due to commonly-cited historical dating systems which place the story of the exodus to 1250 B.C., hundreds of years before the invention of the alphabet in which the Torah is written. Mahoney examines the earliest forms of text including hieroglyphics, and more recently-discovered cave inscriptions found in the Sinai region which some believe links the Hebrews to an early alphabetic system and offers a new narrative about the origins of the first alphabet. "In my own search for the evidence, I had to ask myself if I believe the Bible because it's true, or because it's just what I believed because of my upbringing," says Mahoney. "Since the rest of the Bible is based on the writings of Moses, the credibility of the exodus and the rest of the Bible is directly connected to the question of Moses' authorship." About Thinking Man Films: Thinking Man Films and its publishing division, Thinking Man Media, is an international media company that creates investigative documentaries, books and curriculum. The company is led by Timothy Mahoney, filmmaker of the highly acclaimed, award-winning documentary Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus. Winner of 13 awards, the original film has been endorsed by many Christian leaders and scholars including Anne Graham Lotz, Dr. Norman Geisler and Dr. Walt Kaiser. For more information, please visit www.patternsofevidence.com More Information: Twitter: @pattevidence Facebook: patternsofevidence Instagram: @patternsofevidence Hashtag: #MosesControversy #PatternsofEvidence Press Contact: Jennifer Willingham Icon Media Group 'Hero of Harvey' Jeff Lindner is in the running to be named outstanding weatherperson of 2018 by the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH). The nonprofit is the country's leading consumer advocate for strengthening homes and safeguarding families from natural and man-made disasters. Via a Facebook poll, five finalists were selected out of a field of 70 for their leadership during the 2018 weather and disaster season as well as for their year-round contributions to disaster safety, according to a press release on Friday. Lindner, a meteorologist who has worked at the Harris County Flood Control District since 2003, provided nonstop updates during Hurricane Harvey, garnering widespread media attention. His "steady, straight advice to citizens as the flood waters rose," gave Houston-area residents the knowledge they needed to know whether or not to evacuate. Lindner's reports gave guidance on how to survive what has been described as "biblical flooding," the release says. RELATED: GoFundMe to send Houston meteorologist Jeff Lindner on vacation smashes goal What's more, Lindner was so instrumental in assisting citizens throughout Hurricane Harvey that Mayor Sylvester Turner declared May 2 as "Jeff Lindner Day" in Houston and the public set up a GoFundMe account to raise funds to send him on vacation. Lindner, a native Houstonian who graduated from Texas A&M with a Bachelor of Science degree in meteorology, promptly donated the funds to help flood victims. RELATED: Good guy and meteorologist Jeff Lindner makes good on post-Harvey donation promises The four other worthy nominees include executive weather producer at The Weather Channel, Matthew Sitkowski, and chief meteorologist at WGN-TV Chicago, Tom Skilling. Chief meteorologist at ABC 33/40 and host of WeatherBrains, a weekly 90-minute netcast that's all about weather, James Spann, and Weatherboy, the cumulative effort of a team of people from Miami to Hawaii who are passionate about connecting people with the world of weather, round out the list. The 2019 winner of FLASH's outstanding weatherperson of the year will be announced on February 1, ahead of National Weatherperson's Day. Marcy de Luna is a digital reporter specializing in social media, the famous, and food. You can follow her on Twitter @MarcydeLuna and Facebook @MarcydeLuna. Read her stories on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | Marcy.deLuna@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message A gas leak outside a Montrose bar prompted the evacuation of several pets inside a nearby veterinary clinic Monday. Houston firefighters rushed to La Grange bar on Ralph Street near Westheimer Road around 12:45 p.m. to reports of the leak. As crews worked to cap it, firefighters helped evacuate several pets from the Central Houston Animal Hospital, which could be seen in crates lining the sidewalk around the building. Firefighters left the scene around 4 p.m., and the animals were allowed back in the building. None of them were harmed, a spokesperson said. A Facebook post by CHAH stated that all appointments and drop-offs were cancelled for the rest of the day due to the evacuaton. The cause of the leak was not immediately clear. Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message A jump in class didnt stop P L Jill from making a round trip to victory lane Monday evening at Woodbine Mohawk Park. The six-year-old daughter of Kadabra-Fridays Gem, who rallied to an impressive-looking score in 1:54.1 on January 7, ascended to the Preferred ranks and survived a first-over trip to win in an equally impressive clocking of 1:54.3. Sylvain Filion got away fourth with P L Jill while Cue Hall and Dancer Hall battled to the quarter pole in :28.2. Dancer Hall cleared, but was then overtaken in the backstretch by Dunbar Hall. Filion sent P L Jill first-over going to the half, and the mare found herself chasing Dunbar Hall past the mid-way point in :57.1. They continued their tussle to the three-quarter pole in 1:26.2, but Dunbar Hall miscued as the field swung into the stretch. P L Jill shook loose and went on to win by a half-length margin over Dancer Hall. Free Willy Hanover rallied from far back to finish third. Ben Baillargeon, who recently took over the training on the 17-time winner, watched her push her lifetime earnings to $250,833 with the victory. She is owned by Prince Lee Acres, Jill Coleman and Alan Christensen. To view results for Monday's card of harness racing, click the following link: Monday Results Woodbine Mohawk Park. An upcoming auction for the downtown AT&T Building has revived the debate over whether the city of Beaumont should acquire it and tear it down to make room for riverfront development. The property at 555 Main St. has been vacant for several years. The City Council, which made a failed bid to buy the property last summer, is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to bid on it during the Feb. 11-13 online auction. Promoters such as Beaumont Main Street have urged the city to acquire the property. But at least one city councilman says he hopes opening the sale to more prospective buyers means developers will buy it before the city can. Councilman Mike Getz said the 46-year-old building has been vacant for so long because the initial asking price was around $8 million too high for local buyers. It wasnt until after the citys $1 million offer was publicized that the local business community realized the asking price could be lowered, he said. Getz said he could not discuss any parties showing interest in the property. The buildings owner declined the citys offer and put it up for auction with a $700,000 opening bid. Its unclear how much the Beaumont City Council would be willing to spend on the building, if it approves participation in the auction. More Information More about the building from its auction listing: 141,525 rentable square feet Four stories plus basement Paved parking lots Just over 3.5 acres Adjacent to the Sabine-Neches Waterway and Port of Beaumont, the nation's largest LNG export terminal Walkable dining options Former single tenant call center and "ideal call center buildout" 235 parking stalls See More Collapse Plans discussed this summer, before the failed attempt to purchase the building, were to tear it down and open the land to future development. City Manager Kyle Hayes said at the time that the administration would love to see additional restaurants down on the river. Hayes on Monday said hes withholding comment on the issue until the council discusses it at the meeting. Beaumont Main Street executive director Tom Bell said the city needs the property to make strides to redevelop its downtown. He compared the proposed project to San Antonios River Walk, where visitors can browse shops and eat at restaurants along the river while tour boats float nearby. The water feature originally was planned as a drainage and floodgate system for the city. San Antonio didnt have a river, he said. They had a ditch. What the (heck) are we doing? We have a river. Utilize it. Bell said hes heard from developers that would be interested in constructing a hotel, restaurant or other structure on the Neches River, although that sort of development likely would have to come from out of the area. Getting rid of the AT&T Building opens up huge possibilities in terms of having more going on downtown, he said. Itll help Crockett Street and have more activity on that property, too. People could be in a hotel, eating at a restaurant. Youd have the river and downtown to where its simpatico. But Getz said in this situation, its not the citys job to compete with private investors that might be interested. My ideal outcome would be for someone in the private sector to develop it and do something with it, he said. There are people in the private sector interested in doing it. I think its ridiculous the city would be put in a position to compete against the private sector. Getz said the way the building is constructed is one of many reasons tearing it down would be a loss. It was built at a cost of $9.3 million by Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. as a four-story structure that could support 16 additional floors. Getz said because of that, a developer could bring in new companies that need office space, build it up and add some sort of apartments or a hotel on top theres an endless variety of things you could do with it. And the four-acre plot of land means someone could develop the building while also allowing for other development of a restaurant or something else along the river. The city would have to put down a $25,000 deposit and submit various paperwork if the council votes to be a part of the auction, according to a memo from Beaumont CFO Todd Simoneaux. More information about the buildings auction can be found on Ten-X Commercials website. The City Council meeting starts at 1:30 p.m. in council chambers, 801 Main St. kaitlin.bain@beaumontenterprise.com twitter.com/KaitlinBain Houston-based American Ethane announced plans Monday to expand an existing Neches River terminal to support an ethane-export facility with capacity to supply about $72 billion in gas to China, a first for a U.S. company. The project also could create 1,000 construction jobs initially and as many as 200 permanent full-time jobs, the Greater Beaumont Chamber of Commerce projects. American Ethane CEO John W. Houghtaling said the company was willing to commit to the project because China has signaled its willingness to grant permits to the companys three business partners based in that country. Ethane has never been imported into China, Houghtaling said during a groundbreaking Monday. He added, We werent sure how many permits China was going to grant, but we recently got indication that all of our partners would be granted permits. That means we can build the terminal large, all at one time. Plans call for expanding Martin Midstream Partners Beaumont Neches Terminal, building a gas pipeline from Mont Belvieu and installing the equipment to load the ethane onto ships. Martin Midstream Partners operates across the Gulf Coast in the storage and distribution of natural gas. Houghtaling said American Ethane has signed contracts with Nanshan Group, Ganergy Group and Yangquan Coal Group as well as the shipping firm China Merchants Group, the countrys largest state-owned company. He said China Merchants expects to invest $4 billion in ships for the trade route. They looked at the Martins terminal and felt really good about it and its ability to meet our needs, Houghtaling said. The proximity to Mont Belvieu also helped clench Beaumont as the companys choice, he said. American Ethane will purchase gas that comes the shale gas fields to the terminal through Mont Belvieu. He also cited access to a skilled work force. S&B Engineers and Constructors, the contractor for the project, will soon begin taking applications at its career office in Nederland. Ana C. Pereda, vice president of economic development for the Greater Beaumont Chamber of Commerce, lauded the potential jobs locally. It puts us on the map and hopefully we can attract more companies, including foreign companies, she said. In a news release, American Ethane predicted 5,000 construction and production jobs would be created throughout the United States as part of an $8 billion infrastructure investment nationally. Ethane, like butane, propane and other hydrocarbon gases, is usually removed from natural gas during the refinement process. It can be used for fuel in generating electricity, but its most commonly used in the production of ethylene. A surplus of the gas in the United States has recently made it an attractive partner for countries like China as natural gas continues to replace coal as a cheap fuel. China Energy recently signed a memorandum of understanding to invest $84 billion West Virginia, which would mean more access to natural gas liquids for its manufacturing industries. Houghtaling also cited tremendous support from the government and President Donald Trump. Trump highlighted American Ethane during a visit to Beijing in 2017. A $26 billion agreement for the company to deliver liquid ethane to China was one of the 15 deals arranged at the summit. The company also had loose ties to another national story that developed in fall 2018. The Washington Post reported Konstantin Nikolaev, a Russian billionaire with investments in U.S. energy and technology companies and also a board member of American Ethane, allegedly gave financial assistance to Maria Butina, a Russian woman charged in federal court in July for acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. jacob.dick@beaumontenterprise.com twitter.com/jdickjournalism We can't seem to find the page you are looking for. You may have typed the address incorrectly or you may have used an outdated link. An extravagant swearing-in ceremony for new District Attorney Cynthia Zimmer, which hundreds are expected to attend, is getting underway at th (WB) The Chilean Senate on Wednesday once again began to debate an equal marriage bill. Former President Michelle Bachelet introduced the bill in September 2017, but the debate ended when current President Sebastian Pineras administration took office at La Moneda a few months later. Equal marriage has not been a priority for Pinera or his Cabinet, even though Chile was sued on the issue before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The Pinera administration, in fact, last October presented to the international body its interpretation of an agreement that Bachelet and the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (Movilh), the Chilean organization that filed the lawsuit in 2012, signed. The current government claimed the State through executive power could not have been forced to execute an action (through use of) another (legislative) power and the agreement never meant that the Executive, whoever the president was, should assume the commitment to promote the bill in Congress or obtain its approval. The statement was confirmed by Human Rights Undersecretary Lorena Recabarren, which generated negative reactions among opposition parties and the LGBT community. In that scenario, it was the Congress itself that reopened debate on the issue. Fire officials say it was lucky the man was able to come out on his own, and that sometimes a rescue like this can be a long and risky operation. (CNN) China's most popular gay dating app has temporarily stopped accepting new users after allegations that it put underage people at risk by letting them sign up. Blued, which says it has more than 40 million users worldwide, said in a statement Sunday that the week-long halt will enable it to review the claims and make improvements to the app. The announcement followed a report Saturday by Chinese financial news publication Caixin in which Blued was accused of failing to protect young teenagers. The report cited a researcher who said the app let boys set up profiles in which they falsely claimed to be 18 or older, exposing them to explicit content and sexual exploitation. Blued is the latest high profile app to come under increased scrutiny in China over safety concerns. Founded by a former police officer, Blued has expanded rapidly in recent years despite homosexuality remaining a delicate subject in China. The app has moved beyond straightforward matchmaking services into live-streaming and gaming. Last year, it raised $100 million in funds, and its CEO has talked about issuing shares in the company on a US stock exchange. Caixin's article questioned whether the company took enough steps as it grew to prevent underage people from using it. According to the researcher it cited, Qingdao University sexologist Zhang Beichuan, multiple high-school students said they had been pressured into having sex with older men after meeting them through the app. Zhang and the head of an unidentified Chinese LGBT community welfare group told Caixin that some underage users of Blued said they had contracted HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS, from people they met through the app. The company stressed in its statement that it has been putting resources into AIDS prevention and treatment for years and promised to do more to educate its users about the risks. "What we have done on AIDS prevention is seen by all," Blued founder and CEO Ma Baoli told CNN on Monday. "We probably are the best and we have done the most. Our priority now is to supervise and examine our content." New measures promised Ma, who also goes by the alias Geng Le, said people under the age of 18 are forbidden from using the app, in line with Chinese regulations. Blued is promising that it will improve its efforts to detect accounts set up by underage users and block illegal content. It will also increase the number of notifications warning that people have to be at least 18 to use the app. Homosexuality is no longer illegal in China, and authorities in 2001 removed it from the official list of mental disorders. But activists and experts say prejudices and discrimination persist, along with periodic government crackdowns. The Chinese government hasn't objected to gay dating apps, as long as they stick to internet rules that restrict the dissemination of pornography and politically sensitive information. A Chinese company bought US-based gay dating app Grindr in 2016. The Chinese government, which has sought tighter control of social media platforms under President Xi Jinping, hasn't so far commented on the allegations against Blued in the Caixin report. Blued said in its statement that it will continue to accept inspections by the media regulator and other supervisors. Tencent is checking ages In August, Chinese authorities said they were stepping up regulation of online gaming because of concerns about young people becoming addicted to it. Gaming giant Tencent (TCEHY) said in November it would check the identities of all its gamers in China by 2019 with the aim of limiting the hours young people spend playing. It will check gamers' IDs against police databases and block any accounts it can't verify. The country's dominant ride-hailing company, Didi Chuxing, indefinitely suspended a carpooling service on its app last year after two separate killings of female passengers by drivers. The murders caused a public outcry and increased scrutiny from the government. Gov. Doug Ducey on Monday celebrated Arizonas strong economy, new jobs and the state revenue that comes with it, but he said the state should focus on saving for the next economic downturn. By Trend Natural gas must play a key role in Europes shift to a low-carbon economy, Trend quoted Alexander Medvedev, deputy chairman of the management committee, Gazprom, as saying ahead of the European Gas Conference 2019. In Gazproms view natural gas can and must play a key role in Europes shift to a low-carbon economy. Gazprom has presented its vision of how natural gas can contribute to European climate neutrality by 2050. Natural gas can substitute coal in power generation and oil products in transportation. Thus, Europe is able to meet 2020 climate targets, said Medvedev. Further, the noted that a new elegant technological solution is introduced with hydrogen. The use of methane-hydrogen fuel in energy and transport without costly infrastructural changes will result in 25-35 percent emissions reduction, thus allowing Europe to achieve 2030 climate goals. Finally, a full-scale transition to hydrogen from methane offers the feasibility of the EUs challenging 2050 targets, added Medvedev. He pointed out that there is nearly a consensus view that global transformations will eventually boost the importance of natural gas within the group of fossil fuels as crucial ingredient of the worlds effort to shift toward less-polluting forms of energy. International Energy Agency in its New Policies Scenario regards natural gas as the fastest growing carbon fuel, overtaking coal by 2040 to become the worlds second-largest source of energy after oil. With demand growing by 1.6 percent per year, gas consumption is almost 45 percent higher in 2040 than today. Gazprom shares similar views on the future of natural gas. On 28 November 2018, the Commission presented its strategic long-term vision for a prosperous, modern, competitive and climate-neutral economy by 2050. The strategy shows how Europe can lead the way to climate neutrality by investing into realistic technological solutions, empowering citizens, and aligning action in key areas such as industrial policy, finance, or research while ensuring social fairness for a just transition. The transition to a low-carbon economy is important in order to transform the European industrial base, including the energy, manufacturing, transport and construction sectors. European energy intensive industry sectors that face international competition could be substantially disadvantaged by unilaterally imposed carbon constraints on EU industries. The European Commission has developed carbon leakage provisions and promotes low-carbon technologies through the Sustainable Industry Low Carbon programs. The 2030 climate and energy policy framework proposed by the Commission in January 2014 recognizes industrial competitiveness as a key aspect of EU climate and energy policies. This principle was endorsed by the European Council in October 2014 with a clear reference to the need to eliminate the risk of carbon leakage, as well as the importance of ensuring a stable regulatory framework for long-term industrial investments. The Council also stressed the importance of access to secure and affordable energy. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend As many as 1.2 million Turkish citizens were provided with workplaces in Turkey in 2018, which is 18 percent more than in 2017, the Turkish Employment Agency (ISKUR) told Trend on Jan. 15. In December 2018, 151,400 Turkish citizens were provided with jobs in Turkey, ISKUR said. Out of the total number of the employed in December, 63 percent are women and 37 percent are men, according to ISKUR. "Among the jobs provided in December 2018, 98.9 percent accounted for the private sector," ISKUR said. "A total of 3.509 million people were registered as unemployed in Turkey in December 2018," ISKUR said, adding that 51 percent of them are women and 49 percent are men. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov The Minister of Uzbek Foreign Affairs, Abdulaziz Kamilov, met with the Minister of Tajik Foreign Affairs, Sirojiddin Muhriddin, who arrived in Samarkand for the first ministerial meeting of the India-Central Asia Dialogue with Afghanistan on January 12. The parties stressed that the exchange of visits at the highest level in 2018 opened a new chapter in bilateral strategic partnership relations. The ministers reviewed proposals for the schedule and agenda for upcoming joint events in 2019, including at the parliamentary, governmental and other levels. It was emphasized that in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, particular importance is attached to the expansion of mutual trade, which in January-November 2018, grew by 62 percent compared to the same period of 2017. In this context, a proposal was considered to further increase bilateral trade, expand the range of mutual deliveries. The ministers also exchanged views on the practical aspects of the participation of the Tajik delegation in the Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia in Tashkent. During the conversation, the parties noted with satisfaction that the opening of borders for two countries citizens for visa-free travel for up to 30 days was warmly supported by the peoples of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The meeting also addressed other issues of bilateral relations and international politics. The talks were attended by the Ambassador of Tajikistan Sodik Imomi. Having come to power in December 2016, the current head of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, firmly stated that he intends to improve relations with neighbors. The Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced "deep changes in the Tajik-Uzbek relations." in November 2017. The interrupted air communication between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan was resumed in 2017, continued the work of the intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation and on the delimitation and demarcation of the interstate border. Since the beginning of 2018, more than 10 checkpoints have opened on the border of the two countries, and Uzbekistan has restored the Galab-Amuzang railway line. About 700,000 tourists from Uzbekistan visited Tajikistan in January-June 2018. Approximately the same number of Tajik citizens visited Uzbekistan, which indicates a positive dynamic in the development of relations between states. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov The velvet revolution will soon hit a year, but the problems of Armenia have not gone away. Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan complained that despite the political changes in Armenia, there was little activity in the country's economic life, although there were high expectations. He made this statement at a meeting with Armenian businessmen representing diaspora and urged them to invest more actively in the Armenian economy, as well as to involve businessmen from the countries in which they live. This shows that Pashinyan either does not understand what is happening or pretends that he does not understand. Political changes do not mean that activity in economic life will also increase as it happens, this requires prerequisites. The key question remains unanswered: can Pashinyan and his team manage Armenia? Can his team pursue a balanced foreign policy? Where are large-scale projects in the economic field and social transformations that are badly needed? Where will Pashinyan find a large number of new jobs in order to reduce unemployment and stop the massive outflow of the working-age population from the republic? Is his team able to prepare and carry out a program of complex transformations in Armenia, having small financial resources and a constantly growing external debt? The price of Russian gas at the border of Armenia has increased from January 1, 2019, and now Armenia is paying $ 165 per 1,000 cubic meters instead of the previous $150. Although Pashinyan tried to assure the Armenian society that the gas tariff for consumers will not increase and remain at the current point of 137 drams per cubic meter ($0.28), only few people believed it. Therefore, in the months to come tariffs for "blue fuel" may increase, thus hurting the budget of most of the population of Armenia. As many as 120,000 families who are registered in the Social Security Service database of the Ministry of Labor as low income people, suffer the most from it. Obviously, in such a situation the government will not be able to keep the gas price for the end user at the current level for a long time. There is no such money in the Armenian budget, and therefore, sooner or later, the tariff will have to be increased. Pashinyan understands that dissatisfaction in Armenian society is growing every day. Armenians want to consume more right now, and not in a ghostly future. Armenian authorities have neither the understanding of this problem nor the desire to solve it. One of the main challenges facing the Armenian economy is the lack of foreign investment. There are no investments and there will not be, because Armenia is a dead end and a vassal country that does not have any resource for development due to its isolation by the conflict with Azerbaijan. In Armenia, the agrarian sector continues to degrade. Agriculture in the country remained at the 4th-century level. In many regions and villages of Armenia, there is not even an elementary irrigation system. As long as the actors in the Armenian political field do not understand that aggression against neighboring countries is the reason that the country is stuck in its development, nothing will change and the people will always remain to stand guilty. Normal life for the Armenian citizens depends only on the Karabakh conflict resolution, and Pashinyan needs to begin implementing the list of his promises from this statement. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Abdul Kerimkhanov Despite the so-called economic revolution, Armenia stands on the brink of a social explosion. Today, the first working week of 2019 began, which we are entering with increasing concern every day, Spokesman for the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) Eduard Sharmazanov said on January 8. Listing reasons for such concern, he noted the rise in price of numerous essential goods, failure to implement the 2018 budget, the new parliament without real opposition, the weakening of Armenias position in the CSTO and the loss of the post of Secretary General of the Organization, and finally increase of gas tariff instead of Armenian-Russian brilliant relations promised by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Sharmazanov at the end pointed that this series can be extended, but Nikol Pashinyan does not consider all this a defeat. In fact, we are waiting for this kind of victory and the economic revolution, he added. More and more people in Armenia are convinced that the "velvet revolution" did not lead to anything good. Pashinyan continues to live in the thrall of illusions and do his favorite thing - populism, and puts the problems on shouldersof the Armenian people. The pime minister does not have a particular worry why Armenian citizens are taking to the streets. The situation with the people, in general, resembles a vicious circle. People took to the streets to get rid of poverty but fell into the same hopelessness. If before the poverty was hopelessly stable, today even this stability is evaporates. There is a chance to fall below even the social bottom. The national economy, the conditions for the development of entrepreneurial activity, the level and culture of management, the quality of education and health, the level of security, the volume of social capital, total unemployment and much more, pushes the Armenian citizens to a universal Armenian method of solving problems - emigration. The more beautiful Pashinyan tells about the high-tech economy and the development of information technologies in the country - the more the economy is deteriorating, and therefore, the more empty the cities and villages of Armenia are, from where people emigrate, mainly to Russia, in search of any job. Armenia can be confidently attributed to countries with a failed economy. In terms of welfare and economic development, Armenia occupies the last place in the South Caucasus. Armenian people once again made a mistake hoping that Pashinyan will be able to lead the country out of the deepest crisis. To avoid the problems the new leadership of Armenia has no choice but to withdraw from the Azerbaijani lands and establish normal relations with its neighbors. The Armenian authorities should abandon the occupation policy, execute the decisions of international organizations and withdraw their troops from the Azerbaijani lands and do not follow the path of the previous government. --- Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Southern Gas Corridor project, which envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, will be among the topics of the European Gas Conference 2019, to be held on Jan.28-30 in Vienna, Austria, Trend reports citing the events website. In particular, the conference will focus on the topics titled TAP and TANAP: Getting ready to receive gas and Developments of the Southern Gas Corridor. Moreover, one of the issues to be discussed during the event will be the Trans Caspian Pipeline project. Among other topics of the conference, there are outlook for global LNG and its Impact, as well as forecasts for natural gas demand, the development of the North-South Corridor and others. Southern Gas Corridor envisages transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe. On May 29, Baku hosted the launch ceremony of the first phase of the Southern Gas Corridor project. The gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field has already gone through the first segment of the Southern Gas Corridor - from the Sangachal terminal to the expanded South Caucasus Pipeline. The Southern Gas Corridor project aims to increase and diversify European energy supply by bringing gas resources from the Caspian Sea to markets in Europe. The Southern Gas Corridor comprises the following four projects: (i) operation of Shah Deniz natural gas-condensate field ("SD1" project) and its full-field development ("SD2'" project), (ii) the operation of the South Caucasus Pipeline ("SCP" project) and its expansion ("SCPX" project), (iii) the construction of the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline ("TANAP" project) and (iv) the construction of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline ("TAP" project) (SD2, SCPX, TANAP and TAP collectively, the "Projects"). The Projects have an estimated investment cost of approximately $40 billion. Upon completion, the SD2 project will add a further 16 bcm of natural gas per annum to 10.9 bcma (maximum production capacity) already produced under SD1 project. Total length of the newly constructed SCPX, TANAP and TAP pipelines will be around 3,206 kilometers. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) will bring new gas to Italy and boost its energy security, Trend reports citing a message on TAP AG consortiums website. Italy is a country with a high risk in terms of energy security: imports come from limited supplier countries and some long-term contracts will expire by 2020, whose terms of renegotiation have not yet been defined, said the consortium. More than 90 percent of Italys gas demand comes from abroad through pipelines, or in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG), according to the message. TAP will increase the energy security rate of Italy, increase the sources of supply, bring new gas to Italy, increasing competition and contributing to the reduction of the prices for households and businesses, said TAP AG. At the same time, TAP is using the most modern excavation technologies to minimize its environmental impact, according to the message from the consortium. Thanks to the microtunneling technology, it will be possible to operate invisibly and without any interference in human activities, said TAP AG. TAP project, worth 4.5 billion euros, is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union (EU). The project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz Stage 2 to the EU countries. Connecting with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Greek-Turkish border, TAP will cross Northern Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before coming ashore in Southern Italy to connect to the Italian natural gas network. The project is currently in its construction phase, which started in 2016. Once built, TAP will offer a direct and cost-effective transportation route opening up the vital Southern Gas Corridor, a 3,500-kilometer long gas value chain stretching from the Caspian Sea to Europe. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Leman Mammadova Baku will host next meeting of OPEC+ where the members and non-cartel countries will measure the impact of the reduction of production on the oil markets to ensure a balance between supply and demand, Azerbaijan in February, Trend reports citing Suhail bin Mohammed Faraj Faris Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy and Industry of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The minister noted that the ministerial committee for production control will examine at its meeting expected in February in Azerbaijan the commitment to the agreed reduction rate between the OPEC member countries and the independent countries abroad. Al Mazrouei stated that the oil markets are witnessing a gradual rebound, adding that the balance in production levels serves the oil producing and consuming countries. The meeting of the Joint Committee of Ministers on monitoring the implementation of the transaction within OPEC+ will be held in February-March 2019 in Baku. Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources of Saudi Arabia Khalid A. Al-Falih will attend the OPEC+ meeting expected to be held in Baku. In addition, OPEC + plans to hold a ministerial meeting on April 17-18, 2019 in Vienna. OPEC and non-OPEC producers reached an agreement in December 2016 to curtail oil output jointly and ease a global glut after more than two years of low prices. OPEC agreed to slash the output by 1.2 million barrels per day from January 1. Non-OPEC oil producers such as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan, and South Sudan agreed to reduce output by 558,000 barrels per day starting from January 1, 2017. The 5th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting was held in Vienna, Austria, on December 7, 2018. The major oil producers have reached a deal to reduce oil production by 1.2 million barrels per day at this meeting. It has been agreed to reduce daily oil production by 0.8 million barrels per day (2.5 percent) for OPEC countries in the first six months of 2019. Non-OPEC countries have agreed to reduce oil production by 0.4 million barrels per day (2 percent). The agreement came into force on January 1, 2019. The next meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC format will be held in Vienna in April next year to revise the agreement. Azerbaijan also supported the decision to reduce oil production and joined the agreement to support the process of world oil market regulation. Azerbaijan will reduce oil production from this month by 20,000 barrels as part of the OPEC+ agreement. According to the data Azerbaijan presented to the OPEC Joint Technical Committee as part of the Vienna Agreement, daily oil production stood at 790,000 barrels in December 2018, of which 721,000 fell to oil, and 69,000 to condensate. Every day 617,000 barrels of oil, 69,000 barrels of condensate and 13,400 barrels of oil products were exported. In January 2018, Azerbaijan produced an average of 814,600 barrels per day, in February 806,000 barrels, in March 794,000 barrels, in April 785,700 barrels, in May 801,000 barrels , in June - 792,000 barrels, in July 773,000 barrels, in August 774,000 barrels, in September 796,000 barrels, in October 783,000 barrels, in November 801,000 barrels. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Leman Mammadova The investment cost of the joint project of the Azerbaijani State Oil Company SOCAR and BP for the construction of a petrochemical complex in Turkey will be approximately $1.5-2 billion, General Director of SOCAR Turkey Energy Zaur Gahramanov said, Trend reports via Turkish media. He noted that the start of construction of a new petrochemical complex SOCAR in Turkey is scheduled for the second half of 2019. We expect the enterprise to be commissioned at the end of 2022, he added. Earlier, BP and SOCAR Turkey (a subsidiary of the SOCAR) signed a heads of agreement (HoA) to evaluate the creation of a joint venture that would build and operate a world-scale petrochemicals complex in Turkey. The facility would produce 1.25 million tons per annum (tpa) of purified terephthalic acid (PTA), 840,000 tpa paraxylene (PX) and 340,000 tpa benzene. The enterprise will be created in the Special Industrial Zone on the Aliaga Peninsula, where the STAR oil refinery and Petkim petrochemical complex also operate today, owned by SOCAR Turkey. The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) is one of the world's 50 largest oil companies. SOCAR's mission is to ensure the energy security of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Established in 1992, SOCAR aimed at manage Azerbaijan's oil resources on the basis of a single state policy, to improve the management structure of the oil industry and to ensure the development of fuel and energy complex. SOCAR is the sole producer of petroleum products in Azerbaijan owning over 370 filling stations in Georgia, Ukraine, Romania and Switzerland. SOCAR carries out its activity in Turkey through SOCAR Turkey. So far, SOCAR Turkey has invested over $14 billion in the Turkish economy. Meanwhile, 5,000 people work in the company, while the export potential reaches $3 billion. STAR is the biggest investment made by private sector in Turkey. SOCAR has a controlling stake (51 percent) in the Petkim petrochemical complex since 2008. Star Oil Refinery that is the first Turkey-specific Industrial Zone opened in October 2018. Refinery will supply Petkim with raw materials. It is expected that Star will launch production of its first products this month. Meanwhile, SOCAR hopes to complete the purchase of Turkish assets of the German energy giant EWE in the first quarter of 2019. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The 5th meeting of the Advisory Council of the Southern Gas Corridor will be held on February 20 in Baku, the Azerbaijani Energy Ministry told Trend. "Representatives of the countries and companies involved in the Southern Gas Corridor project, as well as a number of international organizations are expected to attend the meeting," the ministry said. The first meeting of the SGC Advisory Council was held on February 12, 2015, the second meeting - on February 29, 2016, the third meeting - on February 23, 2017, the fourth meeting - on February 15, 2018. The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority projects for the EU and envisages the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe. The launching ceremony of the first stage of the Southern Gas Corridor was held in Baku on May 29, 2018, while opening ceremony of TANAP was held on June 12, 2018 in the Turkish city of Eskisehir. The gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field has already gone through the first segment of the Southern Gas Corridor - from the Sangachal terminal to the expanded South Caucasus Pipeline. Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) have been recently connected on the Turkish-Greek border. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Azerbaijans First Deputy Defense Minister, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Colonel General Najmaddin Sadikov has departed for Brussels (Kingdom of Belgium) to attend a meeting of the NATO Military Committee that will be held within the "Resolute Support" format. The meeting will be held at the level of Chiefs of General Staff at NATO Headquarters on Jan. 15-16. Resolute Support is a NATO-led, non-combat mission to train, advise and assist the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF). It was launched on 1 January 2015, following the conclusion of the previous NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission, and the assumption of full security responsibility by the ANDSF. The Resolute Support Mission currently comprises around 16,000 personnel from 41 NATO Allies and partners. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on additional measures to improve governance in the agricultural sector on Jan. 14. According to the decree, the Agency for Agrarian Services is being established under the Ministry of Agriculture on the basis of the State Phytosanitary Control Service, the State Veterinary Service, the State Service for Registration of Plant Varieties and Seed Quality and the State Main Technical Supervision Service. According to the decree, the Agency organizes and manages veterinary and phytosanitary services, controls their quality, coordinates the activities of state agricultural development centers in this field; conducts registration of agricultural equipment, control of equipment and provides public services in this field through state agricultural development centers. The highest number of the Agency's staff is 85 people. The Ministry of Agriculture has been instructed to prepare a draft regulation of the Agency within two months and submit it to the President of Azerbaijan; within three months, approve the list of services that will be provided in the regions through state agricultural development centers, and the regulation of these services; solve other issues arising from the decree. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree to establish the Azersilah Open Joint Stock Company on Jan. 14. The company is being established on the basis of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense Industry. The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense Industry will continue to work until the state registration of Azersilah OJSC. Azersilah OJSC is a commercial legal entity which, by using advanced technologies, manufactures and exports weapons, organizes sales of weapons within and outside the country, as well as an entity coordinating the activity of enterprises based on modern standards of management and corporate governance and carrying out other work to develop the industry. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on additional measures to improve public administration in the country on Jan. 14. According to the decree, the activity of the Science Development Foundation and the Baku International Multiculturalism Center will be reorganized based on the self-financing principle. The State Agency on Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources, the Knowledge Foundation and the Center for Strategic Studies are being liquidated. The Secretariat of the Interdepartmental Commission for Protection of State Secret, the Working Group of the Azerbaijan State Commission for Combating Narcotics and Illegal Drug Circulation, the Working Group of the Azerbaijan State Commission on Affairs of Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing People, the Secretariat of the Tariff Council are being also liquidated to reorganize their activity on a voluntary basis. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Laman Ismayilova The best way to discover about a creative person by seeing where they lived and worked. Many former residences of famous Azerbaijanis have been preserved and transformed into museums with fascinating collections. Let's start our jorney on the traces of geniuses. House Museum of Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev Established in 1920, Azerbaijan History Museum is one of the oldest museums located in Azerbaijan. The largest museum in Azerbaijan, built in 1895-1896, was originally the house of Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev, the oil magnat and philanthropist who lived in the early 20th century. The Bolsheviks confiscated Taghiyev's property in 1920 when they took control over the city. Fortunately, they did not destroy the entire interior. Instead, they used it to house the National History Museum. There are two major ballrooms side by side in the second floor of Taghiyev's residence. One is based on Oriental designs [Mauritanian] and the other, on Occidental designs. The Oriental Room has enormous plate glass windows, gilded arches, highly ornamental walls, ceilings and chandeliers. The House Museums offers an exciting journey through the life of one of the most famous and respected oil magnates not only in Azerbaijan, but also in Russia and all Muslim world. House Museum of Jafar Jabbarli If you're searching for literary inspiration then visit the House Museum of prominent Azerbaijani poet and writer Jafar Jabbarli in Khizi. Born in 1899, Jafar Jabbarli was one of the Azerbaijan's most talented and prolific artists, whose works are still topical, which can be seen in his plays that are still staged, and films based on his works that are still screened. Jafar Jabbarli enjoyed great success in theater art. His works including Baku War, Devoted Sariyya or Laughter through Tears, Shah Nasreddin, Bride of Fire, Sevil, and Almaz, gained widespread acclaim among readers and viewers. Jabbarli was also committed to cinema. He believed in the development and future success of the art and along with his theater work, he became the first Azerbaijani screenwriter. The House Museum of Jafar Jabbarli is home to 520 exhibits. An outstanding representative of Azerbaijani literature lived in this house for up to 2 years. The one-storey house began functioning in 1956 as a house-museum on a public basis. Thirteen years later, it was registered as a museum. The main part of the exhibits stored here are items used by the family of Jafar Jabbarli in everyday life. The museum displays writer's books, photos from performances, archival documents and publications. Every year hundreds of people visit the museum and see exhibits related to the life and work of Jafar Jabbarli. Most of the visitors are tourists, literature lovers and schoolchildren. One of the most eye-catching exhibits is the layout of the house where Jafar Jabbarli lived, and the household items used daily by the writer's mother, Shahbike khanum. The museum also holds an ink pen belonging to the genius playwright. This year the museum will host a series of events related to the anniversary of the famous writer. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on holding the 120th anniversary of Jafar Jabbarli. In 1999, in connection with the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Jafar Jabbarli, reconstruction work was carried out in the museum, a glazed gallery was built. That same year, a grandiose monument of Jafar Jabbarli was erected in the center of Khizi city. House Museum of Samad Vurgun The house-museum of the great poet and playwright is the first museum of this format in Azerbaijan. The museum is located in a six-room apartment on the third floor of a 19th-century building. The home-museum was opened on October 6, 1975. Samad Vurgun lived in this apartment for the last two years of his life, engaged in his activities. Over the past period, the fund of the museum was expanded, new exposition units were created. About 16,000 exhibits, including memorial items of the Vurgun, original photographs, paintings, manuscripts, research works, gifts, magazines are stored in the house museum. The Poetry House, a branch of the museum, is located in the village of Yukhari Salahli in Gazakh region where the poet was born. The poet's work room, guest and bedroom remained untouched. Writing table, chairs, cupboards with books, poet's latest manuscripts are kept in the poet's office. His famous works "Vagif", "Farhad and Shirin", "Human", "Aygun" articles, speeches were once wrote at this writing table. The guest room of the poet was often visited by poets' friends - writers, composers, artists, rural workers. The founder of the Azerbaijan national opera, Uzeyir Hajibeyov, and Gara Garayev, Fikrat Amirov, Said Rustamov, also other composers, performed their works here. The last of the memorial rooms is the bedroom of the poet. Here, too, everything is preserved as it was. House Museum of Hussein Javid Huseyn Javid was one of the founders of the progressive romanticism movement in the contemporary Azerbaijani literature. His works bear the ideas of humanism, love for homeland, philosophical poems, historical drama, opening a new page in Azerbaijan's literature and drama. The house of a prominent national poet and playwright opened as a museum to honor the poet who lived here from 1920 to 1937. The museum of an outstanding poet and playwright was opened in Baku in 2002. Hussein Javid lived on the 3rd floor of this building until 1937. The museum consists of 4 rooms where more than 600 exhibits are kept, including fragments of letters to relatives, documentary photographs, publications of his works, playbills of performances. House Museum of Jalil Mammadguluzade The house-museum of the famous writer and founder of the satirical magazine "Molla Nasreddin" was opened in 1994 in honor of the 125th anniversary of the birth of Jalil Mammadguluzade. The museum is located in 5 rooms, each of which is devoted to a specific period in the life of the creator. The house museum stores about 500 exhibits. The exhibits reflect Jalil Mammadguluzades childhood, youth and education memories, school activities, his first journalistic and literary activity. There is an editorial office of "Molla Nasraddin" magazine in the house museum. Here is a map covering the spread of the works of the writer in the world. The name "Molla Nasraddin" was inspired by the 13th century Sufi wise man with a good sense of humor. His stories had a subtle humor and was very popular in public. The magazine regularly published the works of talented Azerbaijani writers and pressmen, such as M.A.Sabir, N.Narimanov, A.Haqverdiyev, M.S.Ordubadi, O.F.Nemanzadeh, Ali Nazmi, A.Gamkusar etc. The magazine was banned several times in 1912, 1914 and 1917. Despite all odds, the publication managed to stay in print over 25 years (1906-1931). House Museum of Abdulla Shaig In 1916, Azerbaijan's famous writer Abdulla Shaig moved to a five-bedroom apartment where he lived until 1957. The Abdullah Shaig House Museum was established in 1990 on the initiative of his son, literary critic, academician Kamal Talibzade. The museum presents the creative works of A. Shaig, as well as works of authors and intellectuals dedicated to the poet. His friends Najaf bey Vazirov, Suleyman Sani Akhundov, Huseyn Javid, Bulbul, Yusif Vazir Chamanzaminli, Ahmad Javad and Samad Vurgun were often guests here. The exhibition consists of four rooms. The first room is dedicated to the world fame of A.Shaig. In the second room materials about the personal life of A.Shaig, the genealogical tree, parents, family of classics, etc. are displayed. The third room tells about the pedagogical activities of Abdulla Shaig. The fourth room contains information about the social and political activities of the classic, memorial exhibits, a personal library, a desk, and a corner dedicated to A. Shaigs son Kamal Talibzade. The museums collection includes about 8,000 objects: books, photographs, manuscripts and documents, materials related to the theater, works of art. House-Museum of Mammad Said Ordubadi The house museum was founded in 1979 in the apartment where the writer lived from 1938 until the end of his life. After reconstruction in 2010, the museum exposition was enriched with new exhibits. The exposition is located in two rooms with a total area of 60 m. Currently, there are more than 600 exhibits related to the different periods of life of the prominent writer. The writer's collection of paintings, photographs, graphics and oil paintings, and books were collected in his office. The appearance of the room is preserved as it was in the last few moments of the writer's life. The second room reflects all the activity of Mammed Said Ordubadi. Here there are examples of books, manuscripts, newspapers and magazines published since the early twentieth century. The museum visitors can also get acquainted with the model of the house where the writer was born in Nakhchivan. House Museum of maestro Niyazi The Home-Museum of the great conductor and composer was founded in 1994 by the Decree and personal involvement of National Leader Heydar Aliyev. Niyazi's House Museum now stores more than 6,700 exhibits. Musical scores, photographs, bust of the conductor, as well as a portrait of Niyazi drawn by the outstanding Azerbaijani painter Togrul Narimanbayov are kept in the house museum. Maestro Niyazi has lived and worked in this apartment since 1958 until the end of his life. The apartment house consists of 5 rooms. Dining-room, bedroom and office are memorial rooms. They are preserved as they were during the time of Niyazi. The other 2 rooms are used for the exposition and artistic guest room. House Museum of Vagif Mustafazade King of Azerbaijani jazz was as a brilliant musician who made an invaluable contribution to jazz music. Throughout years, he wrote numerous jazz compositions, including fugues, preludes, ballads and scherzos, many of them written in the 1970s. He released a total of eight albums, all with different line-ups, mood and style. The apartment of the famous musician and founder of jazz-mugham genre Vagif Mustafazadeh was turned into a museum in 1989. In 1994, it became a branch of the Azerbaijan State Museum of Musical Culture. The house-museum consists of three rooms. About 1,214 exhibits including photos, posters, gramophone discs, documents, and personal belongings connected with the life and work of Vagif Mustafazade are included into the museum collection. House Museum of Gara Garayev Gara Garayev made an outstanding contribution to a treasury of world music. The legendary composer wrote nearly 110 musical pieces, including ballets, operas, symphonic and chamber pieces, solos for piano, cantatas, songs and marches, and rose to prominence not only in Azerbaijan, but also worldwide. Having synthesized Eastern and Western musical traditions, Garayev's works cover essentially all genres. A House-Museum of the legendary Azerbaijani composer Gara Garayev opened in Baku last year. The museum's collection includes personal belongings, posters, programs, photographs, books and other exhibits dedicated or belonging to Gara Garayev. The House-Museum of Gara Garayev operates as part of the State Museum of Musical Culture. --- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Laman Ismayilova In cold winter days everyone wants to feel warm inside. Art works of talented Azerbaijani artist Fidan Aliyeva will make you feel summer, even in the bitterest cold. Her fascinating paintings evoke feelings of happiness and energy. A solo exhibition of young artist has opened at White City Gallery. The opening of the exhibition was attended by prominent public figures, famous representatives of culture and art, Day Az reported. In his speech, Department Head of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Galib Gasimov stressed the talent of Fidan Aliyeva. Galib Gasimov noted that Aliyeva is a graduate of Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy (ADA). Her favorite hobby, visual arts, eventually began to occupy more and more space in her life. The hobby became for her a source of delight. Finally, she turned her artistic hobby into a profession. She took art classes in London at Central Saint Martins. In Azerbaijan, young talent was supported and directed by well-known masters of the brush. Among them, Fidan Aliyeva considers the national artist of Azerbaijan Sakit Mammadov and her art teacherTuran Mukhtarzade, a student of Sakit Mammadov. In 2016, the Museum Center hosted a personal exhibition of the artist called "Face to the Sun". In 2017, a personal exhibition of Fidan Aliyeva opened in Tbilisi. A year later, two works by Fidan Aliyeva were showcased at the exhibition of Azerbaijani artists in the Louvre. Fidan Aliyeva also took part in two joint exhibitions of artists in the "White Studio gallery" and "Art Tower" in Baku. The pro-rector of the Azerbaijan State Academy of Arts, People's Artist of Azerbaijan Salhab Mammadov emphasized that exhibition of works by Fidan Aliyeva is a feast of art and youth. Peoples Artist of Azerbaijan Sakit Mammadov praised the young artists creative work. He underlined that Fidan Aliyeva has her own art style and techniques. Honored artist Rashad Mekhtiyev, artists Turan Mukhtarzade and Jamilya Gashimova congratulated Fidan Aliyeva on the opening of the third personal exhibition.They wished Fidan Aliyeva further creative success. In turn, Fidan Aliyeva thanked all those present at the event. "I try to give the audience positive emotions. Therefore, I depict mostly flowers as they arouse the best feelings in people, call them not to be indifferent and cold, to appreciate every moment. I would like my works to awaken the desire to live. As the flowers reach for the sun, people must reach for life, not to be overcome by despair and problems," she said. Then, the guests of the event viewed the exposition, which included about 40 works. Most of the exhibited works were created by the artist in one year. Colorful impressionist paintings left no one indifferent. The exhibition caused great interest among art lovers. --- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Leman Mammadova The opening of Trade Houses is one of the important activities carried out within the expansion of the export of Azerbaijani products and promotion of the Made in Azerbaijan brand. Azerbaijan plans to establish a network of trade houses in Russia, head of Azerbaijan's Trade Representative Office in Russia Ruslan Aliyev told Trend. At present feasibility studies are being prepared, which will be carried out more actively after approval for the trade house, he noted. It is not excluded that the work will be carried out on the basis of public and private partnership, and we will involve our businessmen in this process. In the near future, we plan to open Azerbaijani wine and tea houses that are the boutiques where wine and tea products will be sold, added Aliyev. Speaking about the location of these houses, Aliyev said that the work with real estate agencies is underway, proposals are being studied in this regard. It is planned to open wine and tea houses in Moscow, Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg, he said, adding, Azerbaijani tea products are represented in the Russian market for several years. As for wine products, unlike the cheapest wine, the local premium wine has just appeared a little earlier in the Russian market. Azerbaijan has become the largest tea producer among the CIS countries. This applies not only to black tea varieties, but also to green ones. Nevertheless, the markets of foreign countries are still to be won by Azerbaijani tea, while it is popular only at home, despite its original taste. For the first time, small tea plantations yielded crops at the end of the 19th century in the South Caucasus region of Azerbaijan, but the development of local tea growing started only in 1932. In Azerbaijan tea is mainly grown in the Lankaran-Astara region. This is an area of some 5,330 sq. km. and includes Astara, Lankaran, Masalli, Lerik, Yardimli and Jalilabad regions. About 91 percent of tea production in Azerbaijan falls to the share of Lankaran. For the further development of this industry, "State Program for the Development of Tea Industry in Azerbaijan in 2017-2026" is being developed. Winery also occupies one of the most important areas in the food industry of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is famous for its high quality grape varieties. Five major wine-growing regions of the country are Shamakhi, Ismayilli, Gabala, Ganja, Tovuz. Local grape varieties in Azerbaijan include White Shani, Derbendi, Nail, Bayanshire, Gamashara, Ganja Pink, Bendi, Madrasa, Black Shani, Zeynabi, Misgali, Khindogni, Agdam Kechiemdzheyi, Tebrizi, and Marandi. Azerbaijan Wine Manufacturers and Exporters Association was established to coordinate activities between producers and exporters of wine and winery products with the support of the Export and Investment Promotion Foundation of Azerbaijan (AZPROMO) in 2016. Production of wine and wine-making products in Azerbaijan exceeded 1 million decalitres in 2017, of which 375,000 decalitres were exported. Thus, wine products from the country were mainly sent to Russia (338,000 decals) and China (27,000 decals). Azerbaijani Wine Houses are opened in foreign countries to promote national brands and exports of local products. The first wine house of Azerbaijan was opened in China this year. At present, Azerbaijani trade houses are operating in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Poland and China. It is planned to open up to 10 Trade Houses in 2019. Promotion of export-oriented local products under the Made in Azerbaijan brand in a wider geographic area also helps to attract foreign investment. The export of non-oil products will stimulate the expansion of the production of these products and will further strengthen the non-oil sector's share in the structure of the GDP. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 30 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Jan. 15, Trend reports. The Armenian armed forces were using heavy machine guns. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz The opposition Bright Armenia party condemned the pro-government majority in the National Assembly on Tuesday for not electing one of its leaders as a deputy speaker of the parliament. Deputies representing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinians My Step alliance voted instead for a senior lawmaker from businessman Gagik Tsarukians Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK). The Armenian constitution reserves one of the three posts of vice-speaker for a representative of the parliamentary opposition. Pashinian and his associates made clear last week that My Step will back the BHK candidate for the post, Vahe Enfiajian. They argued that the BHK is the second largest parliamentary force that controls 26 seats in the 132-member legislature, compared with 18 seats held by Bright Armenia. Bright Armenia leaders dismissed that explanation, saying that the constitution says nothing about the size of an opposition faction nominating a vice-speaker. They hoped that many My Step deputies will back their partys candidate, Mane Tandilian, in Tuesdays parliament vote. The parliament majority remained unconvinced, however. Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan said it will respect the results of the December 9 parliamentary elections in which the BHK finished a distant second. Accordingly, only 19 parliamentarians voted for Tandilian, who served as labor minister in Pashinians cabinet until last month. The BHKs Enfiajian was elected vice-speaker with 108 votes. Edmon Marukian, Bright Armenias top leader described the vote results as disgraceful. Also, Marukian hit out at the BHK during a debate that preceded the vote, prompting Tsarukians first-ever speech on the parliament floor. As long as we are not insulted or attacked we wont say anything to anyone. But if someone tries to insult us I will respond to that with documents and video materials, said the BHK leader. Bright Armenia and the BHK traded bitter accusations following the December elections. In particular, Marukian said that Tsarukian should leave the political arena because of his extensive business interests. The tycoon has held a parliament seat for nearly 16 years but has rarely attended parliament sessions. The two other newly elected vice-speakers, Lena Nazarian and Alen Simonian, are senior members of Pashinians bloc who actively participated in last springs velvet revolution. Despite the controversy, the three factions reached consensus on who will chair the new parliaments 11 standing committees. Mirzoyan announced that eight of them, including the committees on foreign relations, defense and economy, will be headed by My Step lawmakers. BHK representatives will run two other panels, while the remaining post of committee chairperson was given to Bright Armenia. Shanghai (Gasgoo)- WM Motor (WM), a provider of new energy vehicles and mobility solutions in China, held its first oversea seminar themed Living Cars Energize Intelligent Mobility and launched itsProject W- WM City Mobility on Demand. The announcement is not merely the start of WM's upgrades into a data-driven hardware company, but also marks a historic moment for WM in creating a new path for autonomous driving in China. Mr. Jarvis Yan, Partner and CTO of WM, and Mrs. Jane Song, Partner and Human Resource Vice President of WM attended and interacted with guests at the seminar. WM Motor's first oversea seminar at Silicon Valley, California WM will leverage on the advancement of China's intelligent vehicle infrastructure cooperative systems(IVICS) to seamlessly integrate with WM Motor's intelligent vehicle and the entire smart transportation system. Due to the complicated road conditions, China has developed the IVICS at the very beginning and has taken advantage of fast iterative wireless communication and sensor detection technologies such as 4G /5G to promote the dynamic real-time interaction of human, vehicle and road information in an all-round way, to approaching the intelligent driving. Phase I of Project W- WM City Mobility on Demand is officially activated. We have built several R&D bases worldwide and also in Silicon Valley, and will accelerate the upgrades of autonomous driving technologyto provide a shared, convenient mobility within IoT cities. Jarvis Yan, Partner and CTO, WM Motor, presents Project W to the audience With the mass delivery starting in September last year, WM has accomplished its first step as a popularizer of smart electric vehicle, and is now moving a step forward to a hardware company driven by big data. At this year's CES, WM announced a strategic partnership with Baidu to jointly develop on Level 3 autonomous driving solutions and aim for mass production by 2021. Project W indicates that WM will take full advantage of its R&D capacity in connected vehicles to further develop autonomous driving and will form alliance with global partners to realize its commercialization. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian accused Armenian media on Tuesday of systematically trying to discredit him and his government at the behest of the countrys former leaders. Pashinian claimed that many media outlets are keen to make Armenians believe that the current authorities are no different from former President Serzh Sarkisians corrupt administration and Republican Party (HHK). He seemed to blame Sarkisian and another former president, Robert Kocharian, for the propaganda campaign waged against my family and my political team. Ninety percent of the media scene [in Armenia] is controlled either by the two entities representing the former authorities or [other] forces opposed to us Most media outlets controlled by forces opposed to us are in the hands of representatives of the former regime, Pashinian said in a live Facebook transmission. Why is this important? he went on. For the simple reason that the following process is now underway in the media scene: representatives of the former regime are trying to republicanize our government and say that there is no difference, that this government is the same as the Republican one was. Pashinian insisted that his government is fundamentally different from the previous authorities first and foremost because it does not plunder the people and the state. This is the kind of change which we had dreamed about for many years, he said. The prime minister did not name any media outlets involved in the alleged smear campaign. He said only that they frequently show his, his family members and political allies private lives in a bad light. On Sunday, Pashinian took to Facebook to lambaste a scathing newspaper report about a restaurant dinner organized by him for around 90 newly elected members of Armenias parliament representing his My Step alliance. Hraparak, a Yerevan daily critical of both the current and former governments, drew parallels between the My Step get-together and Republican leaders notorious love of lavish parties. Pashinian charged that the paper is nostalgic about the corrupt Republican regime. The Hraparak editor, Armine Ohanian, dismissed the criticism. 1 big thing: Scoop Trump dressed down Mulvaney in front of leaders President Trump chastised his new chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, over his handling of shutdown talks, creating an awkward scene in front of congressional leaders of both parties, according to two sources who were present. Behind the scenes: The encounter came near the end of a meeting in the White House Situation Room on Jan. 4, these sources said. Trump had spent the meeting restating his demand for $5.7 billion for his wall. (Vice President Pence, at Trump's behest, had previously asked the Democrats for just $2.5 billion.) Mulvaney inserted himself into the conversation and tried to negotiate a compromise sum of money, according to the sources in the room. Mulvaney said "that if Dems weren't OK with $5.7 [billion] and the president wasn't OK with $1.3 [the Democratic offer] ... he was trying to say we should find a middle ground," one of the sources said, paraphrasing Mulvaney's remarks. "Trump cut him off ... 'You just fucked it all up, Mick,'" the source recalled Trump saying. "It was kind of weird." Another source who was in the room confirmed the account. That source said their impression was that Trump was irritated at Mulvaney's negotiating style. "As a negotiator, Trump was resetting," the source said. "Mick was not reading the room or the president." A White House official, who was in the room, responded to Axios' questions about the encounter: "This is an exaggerated account of the exchange that doesn't reflect the good relationship Mulvaney has built over the last two years with the president." (The official did not deny the quote we provided, but denied that it was as heated a moment as some in the room perceived it to be.) The same WH official said, "The president and Mulvaney joked about it afterwards." Between the lines: A fourth source, who was not in the room but has observed Mulvaney and Trump's interactions during previous congressional talks, told me Trump has long been irritated that Mulvaney's initial 2019 budget only requested $1.6 billion for the wall. Democrats relish pointing this out, asking the White House why they're not happy getting the money they originally asked for. The answer: Trump signed off on that budget, but as we've previously reported, Trump privately asked, in a 2018 meeting attended by Mulvaney, "Who asked for $1.6 billion?" Why it matters: Trumps willingness to humiliate his top staffer in front of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi is another reminder beyond Democratic unwillingness to fund a barrier of why shutdown talks have made zero progress: Trump exhibits little regard for the credibility of his own deputies. New York's Democratic-controlled state legislature on Monday swiftly passed a slew of electoral reform measures that will roll back some of the states arcane voting laws and increase access to the ballot box. Why it matters: New York purports itself as the country's progressive capital. But it has some of the nation's most restrictive voting laws, which depress voter turnout and routinely rank the state among those with the lowest turnout rates. The sweeping package of voting bills, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) is expected to sign into law, will put the state on par with others, including some red states that have enacted similar reforms in recent years. The measures passed on Monday would: Designate an early voting period 10 days before Election Day. Consolidate election primary dates. Last year, it was the only state that held separate federal and state primary elections. Automatically update voter registrations when residents move. Allow 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote. Lawmakers also started the process of amending the state constitution to allow same-day voter registration and no-excuse absentee voting by mail. Between the lines: This comes as Democrats, who took control of the state Senate in last year's midterm for the first time in a decade, assume full control of both legislative chambers and the governors seat. For years, Democrats have failed push through their priorities amid GOP opposition . Go deeper: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused today to meet with national security adviser John Bolton, then "took to live television instead to insult him for a lack of perspective," Bloomberg reports. Background: President Trump announced a U.S. withdrawal from Syria last month after a conversation with Erdogan, but Bolton has since said the U.S. will not pull out until certain conditions are met. They include a guarantee from Turkey that it will not attack U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters, who hold a large swathe of territory that borders Turkey. The Turkish president considers those fighters terrorists. He was infuriated by Bolton's demands, which he called a "serious mistake" in a speech to Parliament today. Although we made a clear agreement with U.S. President Trump, different voices are emerging from different parts of the administration. Trumps remarks continue to be the main point of reference for us. Erdogan Flashback: Trump said last month that U.S. troops in Syria were "all coming back, and theyre coming back now. The announcement led to the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis, confusion among the other key players in the conflict and panic from the Kurdish forces. The U.S. withdrawal timeline has since been extended to at least four months. Under Bolton's conditions for withdrawal, the U.S. could remain indefinitely. Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo both traveled to the Middle East this week to reassure allies about the Syria withdrawal, but there's still a great deal of confusion about what the U.S. plan entails. The Turkey divide: Expand chart Data: Conflict Monitor by IHS Markit as of Jan. 7; Map: Lazaro Gamio/Axios The big picture: Bloomberg's Margaret Talev reports that Bolton arrived in Ankara with "5 core conditions" for U.S. withdrawal from Syria, and she criticized an op-ed by Erdogan published yesterday in the NY Times. Erdogan who has for months been threatening an offensive into Syrian territory held by the Kurdish YPG argued that a Turkey-led "stabilization force" was needed following the U.S. withdrawal. Both sides say a Bolton-Erdogan meeting was never formally scheduled. Bolton met with lower-level officials instead. As NBC's Josh Lederman points out, Turkey's pro-government Daily Sabah has slammed Bolton and bemoaned what it calls a "soft coup against Donald Trump" in an editorial. Go Deeper: The ruling party was routed, strongman Joseph Kabila is stepping aside after 18 years, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo has a chance to complete its first-ever peaceful transfer of power. Between the lines: Things are nowhere near that simple. There are widespread suspicions that Kabila cut a deal with Felix Tshisekedi, who was declared the winner last night by Congo's electoral commission. The Catholic Church, which deployed 40,000 election observers and is one of the few trusted institutions in Congo, reportedly found that another opposition candidate, Martin Fayulu, was the "clear winner." The latest: The French foreign minister is among those questioning the official results, which he said were "the opposite to what we expected." Catch up quick: Elections should have been held two years ago but Kabila, up against term limits, clung to power in the massive, mineral-rich country of 80 million. two years ago but Kabila, up against term limits, clung to power in the massive, mineral-rich country of 80 million. Elections were delayed again, this time by a week, when an apparent arson attack destroyed most of the voting machines set to be used in the capital, Kinshasa. this time by a week, when an apparent arson attack destroyed most of the voting machines set to be used in the capital, Kinshasa. When the vote did take place on Dec. 30, two opposition strongholds weren't allowed to take part, officially because of concerns over insecurity and Ebola. After the vote, internet and texting services were cut because "fictitious results" were spreading. The key players: Kabila, still just 47, took power in 2001 after his father, Laurent Kabila, was assassinated during the brutal Second Congo War. He threw his support behind Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, who finished a distant third. still just 47, took power in 2001 after his father, Laurent Kabila, was assassinated during the brutal Second Congo War. He threw his support behind Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, who finished a distant third. Tshisekedi is the son of a longtime opposition leader. He has vowed to unite the fractious country and said he considers Kabila an ally in that effort. is the son of a longtime opposition leader. He has vowed to unite the fractious country and said he considers Kabila an ally in that effort. Fayulu, a former energy executive who surged to front-runner status in the months before the vote, has labeled the results "fabricated" and "a treachery." He called on his supporters to "stand together, as one man, to protect our victory." Be smart: Kabila had to settle for "Plan C," the FT's David Pilling writes. Plan A was to stay in power. Plan B was Shadary. "And so we come to Plan C. Bestow victory upon Tshisekedi. ... Presumably the president has received assurances that the new government will not delve too deeply into his or his entourages pecuniary affairs." the FT's David Pilling writes. Plan A was to stay in power. Plan B was Shadary. "And so we come to Plan C. Bestow victory upon Tshisekedi. ... Presumably the president has received assurances that the new government will not delve too deeply into his or his entourages pecuniary affairs." "A chaotic, unstable Congo at the center of the continent is a costly drag on African ambitions to enjoy more peace and prosperity in the decades ahead," Michelle Gavin of the Council on Foreign Relations writes in Foreign Policy, calling on leaders in South Africa and around the region to speak out. is a costly drag on African ambitions to enjoy more peace and prosperity in the decades ahead," Michelle Gavin of the Council on Foreign Relations writes in Foreign Policy, calling on leaders in South Africa and around the region to speak out. "Protests will follow. Their intensity will depend on the extent to which Congolese are simply happy to see Kabila depart," writes Matt Ward of Oxford Analytica. What to watch: These results are still preliminary. Fayulu's supporters are outraged. Appeals are likely, and violence is possible. We may not have heard the last from this chaotic election. China today significantly escalated the stakes in its brinkmanship with the U.S., sentencing a Canadian man to death in a case rooted in an unrelated extradition request from the United States. The move is another sign of a global shift to tough-guy politics. The sentence against Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian, appears to be retribution for Canada's jailing of a senior Chinese executive on a U.S. warrant for allegedly violating sanctions against Iran. Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei and daughter of the company's founder, is out on bail awaiting possible extradition to the U.S. The big picture: Beijing appears to be furious about the case. But, as we reported last week, Schellenberg is also a pawn in a larger game the new age of hostage diplomacy, in which leading countries are now imprisoning each other's nationals as part of their disputes, trade or otherwise. Robert Kagan, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, says this is a prime example of a return to the more brute-force state of global dispute settlement prior to World War II, when "trade wars became real wars." at the Brookings Institution, says this is a prime example of a return to the more brute-force state of global dispute settlement prior to World War II, when "trade wars became real wars." In his latest book, "The Jungle Grows Back," Kagan argues that nations are resorting to strongman-wins-out global politics. "I would consider this new round of hostage-taking a sign of such escalation," he tells Axios. "So, yes, it's another sign of the jungle growing back international relations becoming more conflictual as old rules of the order break down." Robert Kagan Go deeper: Review of The Jungle Grows Back Canada is embroiled in escalating disputes with two authoritarian powers, without the U.S. to lean on for support. The big picture: Ferry de Kerckhove, a longtime Canadian diplomat now at the University of Ottawa, says the disputes put Canada in a "profoundly unusual" position. "We live in an entirely different world, he says, where the Chinese and Saudis know the U.S. wont stand behind Canada. In the past three days: 1. A Chinese court sentenced Canadian Robert Schellenberg to death today for drug trafficking, a move almost certainly tied to Canadas arrest last month of Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Chinese tech giant Huawei. Schellenberg had appealed his 15-year sentence, only to have it increased to death. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned that move and said all countries around the world should be concerned that China is refusing to comply with international norms. Two other Canadians were detained days after Meng's arrest. She's facing U.S. charges tied to the alleged evasion of Iran sanctions, and is under house arrest while courts decide whether she will be extradited. Trump, meanwhile, suggested her case could be lumped in with trade talks. 2. Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland greeted Rahaf al-Qunun an 18-year-old Saudi who made international headlines last week after barricading herself in a hotel room in Thailand Saturday night at an airport in Toronto. Al-Qunun, who said shed be killed if deported after renouncing Islam, was attempting to reach Australia. Instead, Canada granted her immediate asylum. David Chatterson, a former Canadian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told CBC It was Freeland who sparked a diplomatic crisis with Riyadh last August with her tweet There has been "very little support" internationally as this has all unfolded, de Kerckhove says. "The rest of the world that loves to have Canada doesn't like to come to our defense. If the U.S. drops Canada the way Trump has, you dont expect them to rush in." Since Trump took office, de Kerckhove says, 90% of Canada's foreign policy has been focused on managing relations with the U.S. Still, Trudeau and Freeland have garnered considerable attention in their defenses of human rights, democracy and multilateralism. That growing profile is not because Canada is charging forward, de Kerckhove argues, but because others have stepped back. The bottom line: "Canada can do very little to protect the liberal international order unless we have strong leaders in Europe pulling in that direction," he says, noting the diminished political statures of Emmanuel Macron in France, Theresa May in the U.K. and Angela Merkel in Germany. "We don't have much clout and there's very little Trudeau can do." Go deeper: The new age of hostage diplomacy The Transportation Security Administration is warning that there could be more security checkpoint closures and longer lines at the screening points that are open after at least two closures over the weekend. Houstons George Bush Intercontinental closed all of Terminal B late Sunday because too many TSA workers, who are not being paid in the government shutdown, called in sick. The terminal remained closed early Monday. At Miami International Airport, a concourse was closed because of the staff shortage. TSA spokesman Jim Gregory told CNN it might be just the beginning. As we have stated previously, airports in certain locations will begin exercising consolidation options during peak periods, he said. These decisions will be made at the local level. The TSA said Monday that about 7.6 percent of TSA agents nationwide had called in sick over the weekend compared to the normal rate of about 3.2 percent. CNN reported that left managers unsure whether they would have the staff to keep the normal number of checkpoints open at Miami and Houston. The TSA said 99.1 percent of passengers nationwide got through security in 30 minutes or less over the weekend and precheck waits were five minutes or less. Nevertheless, the timeworn advice to get to the airport early is gaining poignance. Passengers are encouraged to arrive early and give themselves extra time to check in for their flights and to clear the security checkpoints, Houston airport officials said in a statement Sunday night. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association told AVweb that absentee rates for controllers, essential employees who also are not being paid, were normal. The FAA is proposing relaxing rules for flying drones over people and at night. The FAA released a draft of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Monday. The NPRM will be published in the Federal Register at a later date. A draft Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was also released laying the groundwork for public input into the myriad concerns the public might have about integration of drones into the National Airspace System. The full information package is tucked deep in the FAA website and was announced with little fanfare. In the NPRM relaxing flights over people, the FAA establishes three levels of risk based on the size of the drones and the operating circumstances. The FAA establishes the likelihood of injury if someone is hit by a drone to determine the classification of risk. Those thresholds establish whether a drone is harmless, unlikely to injure or unlikely to kill a person on the ground. Drones in the upper two categories also cant be able to cut people with spinning blades. Drones weighing less than .55 pounds will be allowed to fly over people with no additional restriction beyond the regular rules governing drone flights. The FAA says theres little risk from tiny drones and operations over people will be allowed as soon as the rule takes effect. In Category 2, manufacturers of drones weighing more than .55 pounds and up to 55 pounds will have to be able to prove a crashing drone cant cause serious injury. That threshold is an international standard based on the transfer of the equivalent of 11 foot pounds of kinetic energy when it hits someone. While mass and velocity determine kinetic force, its effect can be mitigated through technology and engineering, such as crumple zones or breakaway parts or the ability to avoid a collision. Compliance with that injury threshold would have to be proven but there will be no operational restrictions in Category 2. At the top end of the scale is Category 3, in which the drone might be capable of hurting someone (but unlikely to kill them) by hitting with a force up to 25 foot pounds of kinetic energy. The FAA proposes to mitigate the drones ability to clobber someone by restricting operations. Potentially injury-causing drones wouldnt be able to fly over any open-air assembly of people. They could be used over a closed or restricted space as long as the people inside have been notified there are drones overhead. If the drone is being used outside a closed or restricted space its not allowed to hover over people. The FAA will also allow night operations as long as the pilot is trained and the drone has an anti-collision light visible from at least three statute miles. Anything outside the new rules and drones weighing more than 55 pounds will require a waiver from the FAA. The draft rules were unveiled at a low-key event in Washington on Monday but were supposed to have been announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. She stayed in Washington because of the government shutdown and announced the proposed changes at the Transportation Research Board annual meeting. We've brought along a fresh example of a Ferrari 812 Superfast that has been touched by the tuner wand. However, before moving any further, we have to mention that purists have no reason to fret, as this Fezza only packs small mods, which can be reversed at any given time.To be more precise, the naturally aspirated V12 heart of this Fezza has been gifted with a custom exhaust supplied by IPE (the setup is comprised of a titanium muffler and x-pipe).Moreover, the Maranello machine has left its factory wheels behind for a set of custom shoes. The Italian exotic now rides on Brixton Forged PF7 Wheels, which come in 20-inch size. The rims come with a rather restrained design, which, in our book, fits the beast perfectly.And, thanks to the piece of footage below, you'll be able to get a respectable sample of this Ferrari's aural might, with that custom exhaust allowing the V12 to express all its aural feelings and emotions.Speaking of which, we'll remind you that the Italian automotive producer made the exhaust of the 812 more vocal than that of the car it replaces. The move came after many aficionados complained that the factory exhaust of the F12 Berlinetta didn't live up to the rest of the car.Of course, such aural matters are always subjective and, for a better experience, we're inviting you to turn up the volume before reaching for the "play" button below. Athens, TX (75751) Today Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 73F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 73F. Winds light and variable. Support local journalism Now, more than ever, the world needs trustworthy reportingbut good journalism isnt free. Please support us by making a contribution. (WB) Transgender advocates cheered Elizabeth Warren for coming out this week in favor of transgender inmates having access to gender reassignment surgery, which could potentially raise it as an issue for 2020 presidential candidates. Warrens new view reverses a position she stated in 2012 in opposition to access to the transition-related care for inmates. Even thought it took seven years for Warren to change her position and she only did so after she declared her intention to run for president, transgender rights supporters welcomed her evolution and newfound position. Dana Beyer, a Chevy Chase, Md.-based transgender advocate and former physician, said Warrens newfound support for transition-related care in prison is a success. I have always believed that our goal as Americans and activists is to persuade others to understand and then join us, Beyer said. Beyer added, For many people, including many trans people I know, there is little desire to support anyone in prison, particularly those who are constitutionally entitled to health care in prison to which they themselves are not entitled. In a statement first reported by ThinkProgress on Monday and later obtained by the Washington Blade, a spokesperson for the Warren exploratory committee said Warren believes transgender people should have access to gender reassignment surgery, including at correctional facilities. That statement reverses a position Warren articulated when in 2012 she was challenging then-Sen. Scott Brown for his seat representing Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate. Sen. Warren supports access to medically necessary services, including transition-related surgeries, the spokesperson said. This includes procedures taking place at the VA, in the military or at correctional facilities. During an interview with WTKK-FM, Warren was asked about a federal judge ordering Massachusetts to grant gender reassignment surgery to Michelle Kosilek, a convicted killer in federal prison. I have to say, I dont think its a good use of taxpayer dollars, Warren said at the time. Transgender advocates have made the case that transgender inmates are entitled to receive the taxpayer-funded procedure because denying them medical treatment amounts to cruel and unusual punishment a clear violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. For years after Warren was elected to the U.S. Senate, the Blade has placed requests with her office seeking comment on whether she misspoke or changed her mind on the issue, especially at at time when gender reassignment surgery emerged as a hot topic in transgender rights. As of 2015, Warren hadnt responded to the Blades repeated requests for comment. Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said she spoke with Warren in the aftermath of the 2012 remarks and is pleased with the change. We reached out to Sen. Warren after the 2012 incident, and I have spoken with her several times since, Keisling said. She has taken the time to listen, learn and evolve. Were pleased that she has affirmed her support for the Eighth Amendment right to adequate health care while in prison. The statement from Warren is also notable for expressing support for access to gender reassignment surgery through care from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. military. The Department of Veterans Affairs currently doesnt include coverage of gender reassignment surgery as part of its medical care. Litigation filed by Lambda Legal is pending before the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals challenging that exclusion. Currently, the U.S. military provides gender reassignment surgery for transgender troops as a result of court orders barring President Trump from enforcing his ban on transgender people in the armed forces. However, Trumps ban seeks to bar the U.S. military from paying for the procedure and would go into effect if courts decide to uphold the ban on appeal. In terms of the 2020 election, the statement could also raise transgender rights as an issue among the Democratic contenders seeking to unseat Trump, especially when compared to the record of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). As California attorney general, Harris represented the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation in seeking to deny gender reassignment surgery to transgender inmates Michelle-Lael Norsworthy and Shiloh Quine. According to Harris office, the California Democrat sought to bring the litigation to a conclusion that included a permanent change in state prison policy on the treatment of transgender inmates. Jillian Weiss, a transgender lawyer with a practice in LGBT employment discrimination, noted the new distinction between Harris and Warren and welcomed the Massachusetts Democrats change of heart. Im glad to hear that Sen. Warren has reversed her previous position on this issue, unlike Kamala Harris, also mentioned as a potential candidate, Weiss said. It is a sign that Sen. Warren could potentially be a true champion for LGBT rights. I note that many people had questions about President Obamas commitment to LGBT issues. As he evolved, his became the most LGBT-friendly administration in history, changing trans lives dramatically for the better. I hope to hear more from Sen. Warren about the many issues affecting the lives of trans people. Brunei Exporters first need to register with the Registry of Companies and Business Names (through the Ministry of Finance) in order to obtain a company registration number. Then, they should register with Bruneis Royal Customs and Excise Department (RCED). Afterwards, exporters will be able to make an account on the Brunei Darussalam National Single Window an online portal which streamlines all subsequent submission of documents as well as customs clearance and payments. Businesses exporting out of Brunei must provide Bill of Lading; Commercial Invoice; Customs Export Declaration; Packing List; Insurance Certificate; Export Permit; and Certificate of Origin. Cambodia Exporters first need to register with Cambodias Department of Business Registration, under the Ministry of Commerce. Cambodia uses the Automated System for Customs Data (ASYCUDA) created under the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). To register with ASYCUDA, exporters require a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN). To acquire a TIN, exporters must register with the General Department of Taxation, under the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Finally, exporters must register with the General Department of Customs and Excise. Subsequently, exporters need to register their value added tax (VAT) accounts with the General Department of Taxation (Ministry of Economy and Finance). Exporters operating out of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) must apply with the Free Zone Management Department of the General Department of Customs and Excise in Phnom Penh. Businesses exporting out of Cambodia must provide Customs Export Declaration; Commercial Invoice; Packing List; Road Transport Document (if departing by land); Bill of Lading (if departing by sea); Terminal Handling Receipts (if departing by sea); Insurance Certificate; Export Permit; and Certificate of Origin. Indonesia Exporters are required to register with Indonesias trade department and obtain a customs identification number (Nomor Identitas Kepabeanan, NIK), a personal identification number given by the Directorate General of Customs and Excise. In addition, exporting companies must already have a taxpayer identification number (NPWP) and one of the following business licenses: Trade license (SIUP) from the Ministry of Trade; Manufacturing license from the Ministry of Industry, or other licenses issued by the relevant authority; PMA license issued by the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM); or Exporter identification number (APE). Businesses exporting out of Indonesia must provide Bill of Lading, Airway bill or other transport documents such as postal receipt, cargo receipt; Commercial Invoice; Customs Export Declaration; Packing List; Export declaration of goods (PEB); Insurance Certificate; Export Permit; and Certificate of Origin. Laos All exporters must first register with the Ministry of Industry and Commerces Department of Enterprise Registration and Management. Not all exported products require a license. To determine the criteria for license requirements, Laos uses three categories based on the product for export. These are: Products which do not require a license; Products requiring a license under the automatic route; and Products requiring a license under the non-automatic route. Exporters can secure these licenses from the Department of Imports and Exports (DIMEX). Products under the automatic route are licensed for the purpose of collecting statistical information whereas products under the non-automatic route require permission from DIMEX to be exported. Businesses exporting out of Laos must provide Bill of Lading; Commercial Invoice; Packing list; Road transit document; Export Customs declaration; Copy of tax registration; and Copy of business license. Malaysia Not all goods exported from Malaysia require a license. To export goods which require a license, traders first must register with the Companies Commission of Malaysia. Once registered, a company must then apply for an export license from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). When exporting goods out of Malaysia, traders must provide Customs Export or Import Declaration; Commercial Invoice; Bill of Lading; Packing List; and Certificate of Origin Myanmar To export goods from Myanmar, a company must register itself with the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA). Fortunately for overseas companies, the DICA recently created a digital single clearance window for registration called the One Stop Service (OSS). Companies can register themselves with the DICA for up to five years. Once registered with the DICA, a company must then register itself with Myanmars Department of Trade (under the Ministry of Commerce). Registrations with the Department of Trade are limited to three year periods and cost Kyat 50,000 (US$36.50) per year. All exporters are also required to join the Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry. To export goods from Myanmar, a company must provide an export declaration form called CUSDEC2 as well as the CUSDEC4 Customs Valuation Form. Exporters also require to submit Export License; Invoice; Bill of lading; Packing list; Sales contract; Shipping instructions; Letter of credit or general Remittance or Exemption Certificate; Sample of goods; Fumigation certificate (when required); Phytosanitary certificate (when required), and Recommendation from concerned ministry (when required). Philippines First time exporters need to register with the Client Profile Registration System (CPRS) through the Philippine Exporters Confederation. The CPRS accreditation must be renewed annually, costs P1000 (US$20) and takes approximately 15 business days. For certain types of exporters, the Philippines requires additional registration. For instance, coffee exporters must register with the Export Marketing Bureau. Exporters operating out of a special economic zone (SEZ) must register with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) while companies exporting out of free port zones must register with the specific free port. Once registered, exporters will receive a Unique Registration Number, necessary for all export activity. Businesses exporting out of the Philippines must provide Packing List; Invoice; Bill of Lading; Export License; Customs Export Declaration; and Certificate of Origin. Singapore All goods exported from Singapore must be declared, though they are not subject to GST and duty. A certificate of origin can be acquired for any exported good created in Singapore through the online TradeNet platform. To begin the export process, the exporter must obtain a Unique Entity Number (UEN) by registering with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), or another relevant UEN issuance agency, which will allow the exporter to activate its Customs Account. To acquire a customs export permit, exporters may register themselves as a declaring agent or appoint a declaring agent to act on their behalf. Permit applications are submitted online through the TradeNet system. If stated in the permit conditions or if the cargo being exported is a dutiable good, certain documents must be presented to checkpoint officers at the point of cargo lodgement. In such instances, both containerized cargo and conventional cargo require the approved customs export permit and supporting documents including the invoice, packing list, and the bill of lading or airway bill, in addition to having the permit number at hand. Thailand The procedures for exporting goods from Thailand have been centralized into the online e-Customs system. In order to register for the system, the exporter must already possess a digital certificate. Once a digital certificate is in place, the exporter may proceed to register for the e-Customs system. Two separate checks need to be made before goods are exported: firstly, to identify if goods require an export permit, and secondly, to ascertain if goods are considered red line'(as opposed to green line). In terms of red line goods, extra documentation is required before the shipment can leave Thailand. These include Invoice; Export License (if required); other relevant documents (e.g. Food and Drug Administration approval, destination information, etc.). Green line goods are clear to proceed. Vietnam In order to be able to conduct export business in Vietnam, a foreign investor must register with the Department of Planning and Investment (DPI). Additionally, foreign investors who wish to engage in export activities in Vietnam are required to obtain an Investment Certificate. Companies that wish to expand their current business operations in order to engage in export activities must follow the procedures for adjusting their Investment Certificates. Certain goods require the trading company to obtain export permits from the government. Companies that export goods must submit a dossier of documents to the customs authorities. The dossier must include at least the companys business registration certificate and export business code registration certificate. Additional documents that may be requested by authorities depending on the exports in question include Bill of lading; Certificate of origin; Commercial invoice; Customs export declaration form; Packing list; and Technical standard/health certificate. Kimbrough, Robinson, Reid, Drummond: Monks Dreams(Sunnyside) The subtitle of this invaluable 6-CD set is The Complete Compositions Of Thelonious Sphere Monk. By complete, Sunnyside means that the box contains six CDs with 70 tunes that Monk wrote beginning in the early years when his music was generally assumed to be an eccentric offshoot of bebop, to the time of his death in 1982. By the end of his career, Monk was venerated and adored in music circles. He has become even more respected and better known in the decades since. After he made the cover of Time magazine in 1964 he said, Im famous. Aint that a bitch? In the decades since, he has become even more celebrated. His music is embraced despiteperhaps even because ofits eccentricities. It is in the mainstream via reissued performances by Monks own groups and countless covers by other musicians including some born long after he died. A friend of pianist Frank Kimbrough, Mait Jones, suggested the comprehensive project. Kimbrough liked the idea and hired multiple brass and reed instrumentalist Scott Robinson, bassist Rufus Reid and drummer Billy Drummond for what turned out to be a trial run at aNew York club, Jazz Standard. Intrigued by the idea, veteran producer Matt Balistaris offered to be the producer. He recorded the group at his storied Maggies Farm studio in Pennsylvania. The sessions went on for days. Sound quality, balance and depth are flawless. The claim of completeness may or may not hold up under close examination by Monk specialists. It is unlikely that anyone knows of everything that Monk wrote. For instance, he recorded Chordially for Black Lion in Paris in 1954, but it can be argued that the piece was a spontaneous invention and that he did not write it per se. Previous efforts to record complete album of Monk tunes have fallen victim to compromises, among them drastically short tracks and the incorporation of partial pieces into medleys. Here, we have a complete take of every piece. Kimbrough has a long discography of his own, though he is perhaps best known of late for his extensive work with Maria Schneiders orchestra. Here, he plays under Monks spell without ploys that could be mistaken for parody or stabs at comic effect. The box set is a major addition to his body of work. I am particularly taken with the measured thoughtfulness of Kimbroughs solo on Ugly Beauty and his puckishness in Little Rootie Tootie. Kimbrough, Reid and Drummond are among the most seasoned rhythm section players of the day. The evidence of the six Monk CDs suggests that they had an absolute understanding of the spirit of the project. On all of his horns, but notably on the tenor saxophone, Robinson further establishes his preeminence as one of the most imaginative, and daring tenor players at work today. That observation by no means downgrades his effectiveness on trumpet, bass saxophone or the formidable contrabass sarusaphone, which has a sound so low that it might be coming from the bowels of the earth. However, the tenor sax comment leads to a tip that is only slightly self-serving: watch for the Robinson album Tenormore, due out soon from Arbors. Writing the notes for it, I basked in repeated exposure to his imagination, rhythmic drive andnot so incidentallyhumor, on tenor. In the Monk box, all of that is present in abundance. Anyone ready for renewed familiarity with the extent of Thelonious Monks accomplishment as a composer will welcome this collectionand its superb playing from four seasoned improvisers. Hundreds of Christians protested outside the Haifa Museum of Art in Israel on Friday against Jani Leinonens McJesus sculpture of a crucified Ronald McDonald, conflating the American fast-food chain with the crucifixion. Yet the Finnish artist insists that he requested the work be removed last September and that it is on display against his wishes. The Art Newspaper The Russian performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky set fire to an entrance of Bank of France in Paris this weekend. The artist also condemned bankers as the new monarchs in his latest act of political performance art in France, the country that granted him political asylum in May. Pavlensky came to worldwide attention for his previous performances in Moscow, such as nailing his scrotum to the ground in Red Square and setting alight an entrance of the Federal Security Service building. A video released by the Algerian ministry of Defense showed a large military exercise in which Chinese 6x6 SM4 120mm self-propelled mortars appeared. The purchase of these vehicles was not advertised, hence the lack of details known about the number of vehicles bought and the date at which they entered in service, as well as the user units. NORINCO SM4 self-propelled mortar displayed at Airshow China 2018 in Zhuhai (Picture source: Army Recognition) NORINCO (China North Industries Corporation) had chosen IDEAS 2014 exhibition, which was held from 1st to 4th of December in Karachi, Pakistan, to unveil its SM4 120mm self-propelled mortar. Mounted on the chassis of the WMZ551 6x6 armored vehicle, the SM4 is a self-propelled mortar system capable of firing HE, pre-fragmented HE, cargo and rocket-assisted HE shells, etc. The SM4 self-propelled mortar serves as the main equipment of batteries affiliated to light mechanized infantry battalions. Its maximum firing range varies from 7,500 to 13,000 meters, depending on the ammunitions type. The SM4 is equipped with a ballistic computer that calculates gun setting data, assists the gunner in firing, stores and processes various data and commands to improve operational effectiveness. The SM4 features manual muzzle loading and anti-recoil mechanism. Two firing modes are available: pull action fuse and impact action fuse. Capable to carry up to 30 complete rounds, the SM4 has a max. rate of fire of 12 to 15 rounds per minute. A 12.7mm MG as defensive armament is mounted on the vehicle for defensive purposes. High running speed (max. on-road speed of 100 km/h), excellent cross-country performance and great maneuverability allow the SM4 to avoid counter-battery fire. Crew comfort is ensured by air conditioning and comfortable interior, plus a top fiatch that can be opened and closed hydraulically to achieve better concealment and battlefield survivability. Have any questions? Please give us a call at 541-889-5387 Online Access for Print Subscribers. Do you have a print subscription with the Argus-Press? If yes, then click here to enjoy complimentary access to our Online Content! (CNN) California Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu said he will donate more than $18,000 in campaign contributions from Ed Buck, a prominent Democratic donor who is being investigated following the second death at his home since the summer of 2017. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said a man was found dead at Buck's home in West Hollywood, California, early Monday morning. The man was identified as Timothy Dean, a 55-year-old black male from West Hollywood, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner's office. In July 2017, a man identified as Gemmel Moore was determined to have fatally overdosed at the same location, authorities said. Buck, 64, was present at the time of both incidents. Police are conducting an investigation into the more recent death as well as follow-up interviews and a secondary review of the 2017 death to better understand the two cases, authorities said. Buck has donated to a number of Democratic candidates and PACs, according to information from OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in US politics. In a statement, Lieu said he was "deeply disturbed by the latest revelations" of a second death at Buck's home, and said he would donate the funds to LGBTQ and African-American civil rights organizations. Lieu said he will donate $5,000 each to Lambda Legal and the NAACP; $3,000 each to GLAAD and The Trevor Project; and $2,500 to Equality California Institute. Illinois Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who received $1,000 from Buck in 2017, said his campaign is donating that same amount to a local charity, the Kenneth Young Center, to combat drug addiction. "I do not have a personal relationship with Mr. Buck. I have not met him, nor has he raised resources from others for my campaigns," Krishnamoorthi said in a statement. "The events surrounding the situation are tragic, and I extend my condolences to those involved and look forward to continuing to work in Congress to provide the resources to help those with addiction challenges." Two deaths in less than two years Dean worked at Saks Fifth Avenue's Beverly Hills location and was well-liked in the community, his roommate, Ottavio Taddei, said, according to KTLA. Deputies responded to Buck's home at 1:05 a.m. Monday regarding a person not breathing. They pronounced the man dead when they arrived, the Sheriff's Department said. The cause of death is unknown and will be determined by the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner. The death of Moore, a 26-year-old black man, was determined to be an accidental methamphetamine overdose, the Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner's website says. The admissible evidence in the case was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Buck was responsible for Moore's death, according to a July 2018 charge evaluation worksheet from the LA County District Attorney. The admissible evidence was also insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Buck furnished drugs to Moore or that he possessed drugs, the document states. The Los Angeles LGBT Center, an organization that provides services and advocates for LGBT people, called on Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva to fully investigate the latest death and "aggressively seek justice." "Although the investigation is in its early stages, we urge Sheriff Villanueva to keep the public fully informed as LGBT people have a considerable and urgent interest in a case that is so clearly linked to the health and safety of our community," the statement said. "The reports we have heard provide more questions than answers." Buck's attorney, Seymour Amster, told CNN that Buck and the victim had been friends for over 25 years. He said he did not believe there would be charges filed in the case. "Yes, Ed does have individuals he associates with who have problems with drugs. He tries to talk them out of it. Sometimes they bring their problems into his apartment, and that's where the problem is," Amster said. Political involvement Buck has contributed to a number of causes and races in California and beyond. In addition to $2,700 to Lieu, in 2017, he gave $10,400 to the Getting Stuff Done PAC affiliated with Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and $1,000 each to Rep. Jimmy Gomez of California, Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, Krishnamoorthi and former Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana. He also previously gave $2,700 to Hillary Clinton in 2015, $5,000 to the House Majority PAC that supports Democrats in 2014, and $1,000 to Barack Obama in 2008, according to OpenSecrets. In 2010, Buck heckled California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman at a political event, according to news reports from NJ.com at the time. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was campaigning for Whitman, then confronted Buck. "It's people who raise their voices and yell and scream like you that are dividing this country," Christie said. "We're here to bring this country together, not to divide it." An MoU securing the expansion and renovation of Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar was signed on Sunday between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. At a joint press conference in Qatar, Pompeo said: "We're all more powerful when we're working together. Disputes between countries that have a shared objective are never helpful." This was in reference to the boycott imposed on Qatar in 2017 by Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt. Al-Thani said: We have held an extended dialogue during the seven meetings of the conference of dialogue between Qatar and the United States and discussed all issues of mutual interest, in particular, the crisis between the Gulf countries, the Middle East peace process, talks on Afghanistan, the situation in Syria, and efforts aimed at combating terrorism. Al-Udeid Air Base is one of the largest U.S. bases in the Middle East with 10,000 troops and personnel. Business Aviation Flights to Africa were trending up by 8% in September 2018, according to WingX Business Aviation Monitor. The MEBAA Show Morocco returns to the Marrakech Menara Airport this year, 25-26 September 2019, to give the business aviation industry the opportunity to be part of this growing market. One company set to take advantage of the opportunities offered is AMAC Aerospace, who committed to exhibiting at the MEBAA Show Morocco during the MEBAA Show 2018 in Dubai. Speaking at the time, Kadri Muhiddin, Group Executive Chairman and CEO of AMAC Aerospace, explained the decision to be part of the MEBAA Show Morocco this year. The global business aviation market is a growing trend. Aircraft manufacturers are always updating their products making them bigger, faster, more comfortable, more economical and safer. Muhiddin continued, Africa is a growing market and Morocco is a good launch pad for the North African side. It is still in its infancy if you compare it to Europe or the Middle East. Like aircraft manufacturers, like other MROs and completion centres, we will be exhibiting at MEBAA Show Morocco to demonstrate that business aviation is accessible - to open peoples eyes and educate them. Due to its strategic location between Europe, the Middle East, and the rest of Africa, Morocco is seeing an increasing amount of movements which also include flights servicing the South American market. A new business airport will open in the country within the next few years which will complement the new FBOs by Jetex and Swissport Executive Aviation opening later in 2019. The number of business aircraft movements in the MENA region is predicted to reach 175,000 by 2020, while the number of registered aircraft is expected to increase to 1200. This sharp increase is attributable to the regions thriving economies, notably Morocco and an expanding wealthy elite using business aircraft in increasing numbers. The Moroccan government has recognised the potential for employment and development offered by the industry and is actively investing in creating an attractive environment for manufacturers to establish themselves in. The MEBAA Show Morocco has received government support, with HE Mr. Mohammed Sajid, Minister of Tourism, Air Transport, Crafts and Social Economy saying in 2018 that the MEBAA Show Morocco plays an important part in giving the industry access to these opportunities. This government support is another key attribute for exhibitors, as Muhiddin added, Our clients at the moment are all government, state rulers and politicians, so Morocco will not be any different. Its a continuation of a job that we have been doing for the last twenty years. We are in the industry to support the industry and its customers. MEBAA Show Morocco will help reinforce the importance of business aviation to local officials and prospective owners and operators, while also addressing transport issues faced by the region. The event will also feature the MEBAA Conference Morocco, featuring key business leaders and roundtables to promote discussion and share industry knowledge. Ali Alnaqbi, Founding & Executive Chairman of the Middle East & North Africa Business Aviation Association (MEBAA), said, It gives me great pleasure to welcome AMAC as an exhibitor at the MEBAA Show Morocco 2019. The opportunities offered by the industry growth and government support make North Africa, and Morocco in particular, an attractive growth market for business aviation. Dassault Aviation has appointed Jean Kayanakis to a newly created position, senior vice president, Worldwide Falcon Customer Service & Service Center Network. The new role encompasses responsibility for customer service activities, Dassaults service center network organisations, plus the Operational and Pilot Support Department. Kayanakis was most recently general manager of Dassault Falcon Service (DFS), the largest European-based aircraft service company offering tailored and comprehensive maintenance services to Falcon operators as well as charter operations and aircraft management. DFS is based at Le Bourget airport in Paris and Merignac airport in Bordeaux. This is a new, comprehensive approach to customer service at Dassault Aviation, and Jean is the right person to lead the effort. He has a complete vision of the customer service experience, a strong legacy of achievements, and he is very well appreciated by our customers and his teams, said Eric Trappier, President and CEO of Dassault Aviation. Kayanakis spearheaded development of a heavy maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility at Bordeaux-Merignac in southwest France, dedicated to supporting the Dassault Falcon 7X and 8X business jet fleet. He also led the expansion of the DFS network with satellite facilities in Nice, France; Rome, Italy; Moscow, Russia; and Lome, Togo. Under his leadership, DFS also set up and operated FalconResponse, Dassault Aviations Falcon airborne support solution, for the Eastern hemisphere. He also recently directed a major renovation of DFS FBO at Le Bourget Airport, rated in multiple surveys as the No. 1 FBO in the Paris region. DFSs Le Bourget facility is part of the Air Elite FBO network, serving a wide range of business aircraft. In the customer service role, Kayanakis takes over from Jacques Chauvet, who plans to retire this year. Purchase an online subscription to our website for $7.99 a month with automatic renewal. Each online subscription gives you full access to all of our newspaper websites and mobile applications. To cancel you may contact Customer Service @ 256-235-9253 or email JPAYNE@ANNISTONSTAR.COM For a limited time, for NEW SUBSCRIBERS ONLY a NEW ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION is just $59.99 for the first year. Existing customers do not qualify for the specials! After the first year, well automatically renew your subscription to continue your access at the regular price of $69.99 per year. Please note *Your Subscription will Automatically Renew unless you contact Customer Service To Cancel* Verizon seems to be in the middle of testing a new cloud-based service which lets users stream games on Android devices. The service is currently being referred to as Verizon Gaming, At present, the service is being tested with the NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV, although it is understood the end-goal is to make the service available on multiple Android devices, including smartphones,. The information on this comes from a new report which has in turn seen emails from Verizon confirming the service, and also screenshots that confirm how the service currently looks and operates. Advertisement According to the information, Verizon has sought the help of a limited number of testers for the program and in return for taking part each tester has been provided with an NVIDIA SHIELD device thats pre-loaded with the new game-focused app. The NVIDIA SHIELD version is being tested paired with the Xbox One controller. The service is said to be in a very early stage of development with no particular details on when it will become widely available although the current version of the test is expected to come to a close at the end of January. Following which, the testing will move to the next stage which includes making the Android version of the app available through the Google Play Store. This is not expected to be a wide release of the app it will still be limited to testers. While screenshots have been provided it remains to be seen how useful they are in relation to the end product as they show a variety of top-tier titles, including console-based games such as Red Dead Redemption and the new God of War. The latter of which is a PlayStation 4 exclusive and so it seems unlikely this will be available on Android devices leading to the suggestion this, and likely others are simply placeholders. Advertisement Theres said to be 135 games currently available through the service. Verizon has been noted explaining the interface is currently in an unfinished state with the current bout of testing more focused on the performance-related aspects of the service. Verizons testing on the NVIDIA SHIELD raises some interesting questions as the SHIELD already provides users with a game-streaming service, GeForce NOW. This is an official NVIDIA service and so it remains to be seen if the testing, of what is in effect a rival service, is going ahead with the backing of NVIDIA or whether the device is simply being used without the help of the SHIELD-maker. Advertisement The NVIDIA SHIELD is an extremely powerful Android TV device and therefore it is one of the better TV-optimized devices to test a service like this. The understanding Verizon is working on a new game-streaming service follows on from the news late last week that Amazon is also working on a similar solution. Besides the point Amazon is looking to utilize its own Web Services solution for the backend, no further details were provided on Amazons gaming answer. This is in addition to the many other streaming services already available, including NVIDIAs own, as well as other game streaming-based features and services, such as Googles Project Stream. Verizons service seems to add to the growing narrative that streaming is where many of the big companies are now placing their focus going forward and especially as a means to further capitalize on the introduction of 5G. This also seems to be the case with Verizon Gaming, as theres the suggestion this game streaming service is designed to launch alongside, or as part of Verizons 5G plans. Advertisement Verizon has been looking to launch a robust home and mobile version of 5G which includes additional elements such as live and on-demand TV. Verizon gaming might form part of the overall package. UPDATE: According to The Verge, OPPO has confirmed the development of a 10x zoom camera lens for smartphones. In fact, the source claims that the tech is quite similar to OPPOs 5x camera zoom technology that was introduced back in 2017, as expected. This technology basically utilizes a periscope-style prism in order to enable the necessary physical depth. OPPOs 10x camera is 15.9-159mm-equivalent, which essentially means it starts with an ultrawide perspective and zoom into medium telephoto perspective. The companys 10x camera zoom tech has OIS, but OPPO did not share aperture details just yet. The company has also confirmed that this technology will be shown off at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019 in Barcelona, which is starting next month. This makes sense, as the 5x camera tech was shown off during MWC 2017. In fact, OPPO claims that this technology is now ready for mass production, which was not the case with its 5x tech, so theres plenty to look forward to. EARLIER: According to the newly-released media invite, OPPO may be launching a new optical zoom technology tomorrow. OPPO invited Chinese media to attend the event, and with its media invite, its hinting that a 10x lossless optical zoom technology will be announced during that event. Advertisement During MWC 2017, OPPO did not announce a single smartphone, but it announced its 5x optical zoom technology which managed to get a lot of attention. Unfortunately, that technology did not make it to a single one of OPPOs smartphones just yet, and the company is already aiming to demo a 10x optical zoom solution. Considering that the 5x optical zoom is yet to be included on a commercial smartphone, were guessing that the companys press event will only demo the 10x optical zoom technology, while the company will not announce an actual smartphone that will be available in the near future, but it remains to be seen. This technology may actually debut at MWC 2019 as well, as 5x optical zoom technology did back in 2017. OPPO is expected to make a presence at MWC 2019, and having this timing in mind, the tech may make its way to Barcelona. Advertisement So, how will that tech work? Well, we presume that the principal is the same as with OPPOs 5x optical zoom tech, and the companys 5x setup is essentially a 5P lens, which is followed by a 90-degree angular prism. That prism directly the light to a camera sensor, which was vertically oriented in OPPOs demo back in 2017. The OIS unit is included as well, on the other end of the line, so that it kicks in even if youre utilizing 5x zoom. You can think of this technology as a hybrid optical zoom tech, as OPPO basically found a way to utilize optical zoom without having the right lenses in order to do so, and based on the companys demo, the tech works really well, which leaves us with a question, why didnt this technology make its way to a smartphone already? Well, thats a question only OPPO can answer, and that the company will hopefully answer either tomorrow, or during MWC 2019. It is quite odd that OPPO did not release a smartphone which utilizes its 5x optical zoom tech, as it has been two years at this point since the technology made its debut. Truth be said, we cannot know if the technology is any good considering we didnt have a chance of testing it out. Advertisement There is always a chance OPPO opted to skip releasing its 5x optical zoom tech to make way for a 10x optical zoom tech, of course, in which case were expecting the company to make its plans clear, and give us a timeframe of when will this technology make its way to one of its smartphones. The OPPO R19 and R19 Pro are actually expected to arrive in the near future, so those two phones would be ideal pioneers of such technology, at least the OPPO R19 Pro. Thats only a wish on our end, who knows what will happen, but we have to admit, this technology does sound interesting. LG Uplus is looking to help introduce a swath of new VR content in partnership with Google through the creation of a new fund meant to assist the search giants investment efforts, according to recent reports from LG s home region. The LG-owned mobile service provider made the announcement during this years CES 2019 event and says that its underlying goal is to invest in VR during the first half of the year. The agreement will also see content that has been invested in pushed to apps and to Googles own YouTube. Primarily, it will be showcased on LG Uplus platforms including its YouTube channel with the carrier taking responsibility for both production and planning sides of the equation in addition to the countrys commercialization rights. Google will gain global distribution rights through the contents listing on YouTube. Advertisement From carrier to media distributor Bids to shift from a complete focus on acting as a mobile service provider to providing over-the-top services such as streaming media or content production isnt necessarily unheard of but LG Upluss approach is somewhat different. US carriers Verizon and AT&T have engaged in similar tactics but have emphasized buying out or merging with other companies to kick start those efforts. AT&Ts recent activity stands out in that regard due to its acquisition of Time Warner last year and Verizon has begun efforts to diversify its services more distinctly while maintaining its corporate identity. Advertisement Part of the bid from the latter company also involves a unifying effort to bring its content- and distribution-related brands together under Verizon Media Group, including its advertising-specific firm Oath Ad Platforms. Under each circumstance, the carriers are taking advantage of a lull in traditional media platforms as consumers move to cord-cutting platforms to branch out and gain a foothold in the industrys subsequent gaps. LG Upluss approach differs only slightly in that South Koreas smallest carrier is starting itself off as an investor in media from groups that already exist and has partnered with Google to help content creators distribute content more broadly. Thats something both AT&T and Verizon are doing too but with a more direct focus distributing the media through their own platforms. LG Uplus will be taking a larger role in projects production and leaning on Googles platforms more heavily. If the provider only offered its own platforms for distribution, that may not draw in as many content providers because it would only be shown in specific areas whereas Google offers a global platform thats already established among consumers. Advertisement The VR difference Another big difference between previous partnerships for media creation and distribution is in LG Uplus bid on VR. With the promise of improved speed and latency brought by the 5G networking solutions that loom just over the horizon and VR becoming much more mainstream over preceding months, thats likely to make a big difference for the company. LG Uplus wont be competing with either of those carriers and hasnt offered any clues regarding the range of media content itself might encompass. Advertisement Regardless, it will be among the first carriers to take an interest in spreading VR-specific media that will undoubtedly play better streamed over 5G. That places the partnership at the intersection of two emergent and related technologies that are both highly anticipated and potentially revolutionary. So the partnership and media investments made could also lead to vastly improved brand recognition and awareness while also making the carrier more competitive in its own respective market. Huawei will definitely push Apple into third place in the global smartphone race, becoming the worlds second-largest handset maker in 2019, according to a recent projection and analysis conducted by TrendForce. The firm chalks up the change to Apples rising prices and failure to provide competition in the Chinese market. While the shift could be made worse by increased tension between the region and the US, it isnt solely attributable to a home field advantage either, while the new report comes shortly after other industry watchers already said they believe Huawei outperformed Apple in the second half of 2018. For 2018, TrendForce notes that Huawei managed an increase of 30% in production units rounding out at 205 million smartphones but that figure could be as high as 225 million. That would give it a global market share of around 16-percent. Apple maintained its status in the region throughout the first half of the year but saw an overall production decrease of around 3-percent year-over-year, accented by a decline of around 10 million units in China alone. TrendForce says that trend follows Huaweis decision to improve on its in-house Kirin chipsets and its more comprehensive range of devices serving different demographics and price ranges. Several Apple products were also banned in the region and the increased price of iPhones coupled with only moderate improvements is making the handsets less appealing for short-term upgrades. Advertisement Lowered expectations are Huaweis gain Huaweis gains in the market are offset by expectations of yet another poor year for smartphone sales in general. The smartphone market is predicted to fall by 3.3-percent in 2019 compared to 2018 but that may actually be fueling growth for Huawei. Thats because the decline isnt occurring evenly across all segments of the market. Amid the continued drop in sales in last year, Samsungs shipments fell approximately 8-percent year-over-year. Recent reports from IDC have aligned with TrendForce too, marking Samsungs lack of new entries in the budget and mid-range as weak points in its China strategy. While Apple is having difficulty competing at the top, Samsung is facing challenges from Huawei and other Chinese manufacturers in lower tiers where the competition is only increasing. Advertisement Huaweis strategy moving into 2019 is expected to focus on maintaining its growth in China while using similar strategies to its China approach in regions of Europe and South America. Huaweis high-value, low-cost take on devices, combined with the ongoing plateau of smartphone shipments and sales, offers the company an opportunity to replicate its model elsewhere while competing brands struggle to hold consumer interest. Allegations of spying that have been vehemently denied by Huawei and the arrest of several key executives could dampen the companies prospects as the trade war continues. It does seem likely that Huawei will continue its upward trend regardless. An invasion of Chinese smartphones Advertisement Following on the trends being set by Huawei, other Android manufacturers are predicted to continue doing well through 2019 and will maintain their fourth, fifth, and sixth position in global market share. Oppo and Vivos gains were relatively flat with 70-percent of their revenues generated in China in 2018 and the companies are predicted to focus mostly on keeping their holdings in the global market. Their total market share is expected to land at 8-percent and 7-percent respectively by year end. Xiaomi gained 32-percent over its share in 2017 for last year. Xiaomis progress into this year is predicted by the analysts to follow its aggressive move into the Indian and European markets, utilizing its Xiaomi, Redmi, Blackshark, and POCO brands. Its expected to end 2019 with 129 million units shipped compared to 123 million in 2018. Back in October, Google announced some changes to its policy regarding some apps published in the Play Store, and their permissions, for security purposes, and the company has just shared some more info regarding all that via a new blog post. Google will basically prevent developers to release applications via the Play Store that require access to SMS or Call Log, and the company is not making first steps towards that. The company has announced that its starting to remove all apps that ask for either SMS or Call Log permissions, and that the process will be completed in the coming weeks. Now, there is a way for developers to avoid this, of course, as the need to submit a permission declaration form provided by Google. In its blog post, Google said that it communicated these changes to developers via e-mail back when they were announced in October last year, and that if the developer did not make the necessary steps to prevent it from happening, its app will be removed from the Play Store. Advertisement If youre a developer, and your app does get removed from the Play Store as a result, you have several options. You can submit a new version of the application without these permissions, or complete the aforementioned permission declaration form. When you submit this form, you will get an extension until March 9 to either remove permissions, or get approved by Google, in which case your app will have access to such permissions (presuming a user has approved it, of course). Why the change? Well, it seems like Google is trying to boost security, as a number of apps misused SMS and Call Log permissions in the past, and the company is aiming to prevent that. There are quite a few apps out there that require such permissions and simply do not need them, at least not to benefit the user. Google wants to assure both developers and users that its team carefully reviews each submission, referring to the permissions declaration form. The company says that it considers a number of factors during the process, including likelihood that an average user would understand this type of app needs full access to the data, user benefit of the feature, importance of the permissions relative to the core functionality of the app, possible risks, and so on. Advertisement Some applications do need access to both your SMS and your Call Log info, of course. If you opt to use a third-party SMS app, or an alternative to your default Phone application, such applications will definitely need access to your SMS and Call Log, respectively, which is logical. Well, presuming that an app is legit, developers should not have an issue getting approved by Google, in which case their application can remain in the Play Store, and you can use it. Google says that a ton of developers already did everything that is required, and it seems like the process will be painless, for the most part, which are good news for both developers and users alike, of course. Ice universe, one of the webs most prominent mobile leakers, recently took to Twitter to add their input about some alleged misunderstandings that had apparently taken place regarding the Galaxy S10 lineup. The misunderstandings in question regard some of the features of the upcoming trio of devices. Ice universe has been pretty active in leaking the Galaxy S10 family, so its no surprise to see them standing up to set the Twitterverse right on these matters. One correction regards the camera lineup, which is to say that the two more expensive Galaxy S10 variants, at least, will actually have three cameras, and the second regards what storage and RAM standards the new phones will use. Background: According to Ice universe, the Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus will both have three cameras. The more basic Galaxy S10 Lite was not mentioned in that particular Tweet thread, which could mean that it will sport either a single camera for a more basic photography experience, or a dual camera setup like its predecessors, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus. Another misunderstanding regards storage and RAM, and this one is a bit more nebulous. Samsungs website says that the Exynos 9820 processor that will be powering some versions of the Galaxy S10 family cannot support LPDDR5 RAM standards, but can support UFS 2.1 and UFS 3.0 standards for internal storage. Ice universe says that the upcoming phones wont sport LPDDR5 RAM, which makes sense, but goes on to say that these expensive flagships will not be using UFS 3.0 storage, even though rivals like OnePlus are upgrading for 2019, and will instead fall back on the older UFS 2.1 standard that 2018 flagships used, as well as some 2017 devices. Impact: If Ice universes corrections are indeed indicative of the final state of Samsungs Galaxy S10 lineup, then you can expect storage and RAM performance thats not much different from todays phones, though it could be optimized better. The whole package will obviously be a good bit faster due to the newer processing packages on board, supposedly being the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 or Samsungs own Exynos 9820, depending on where the phone is bought. A large number of other features and design tweaks, such as a camera hole in the screen rather than a frontal notch, may well make the upgrade worth it even for Galaxy S9 owners, despite the alleged technical hiccups. Even with the same storage and RAM performance, the newer phones are bound to be quite a bit faster. The Snapdragon 855, for instance, upgrades to a whole new processor architecture version, being custom cores based on ARM Cortex A76, and each core has twice the L2 cache compared to the Snapdragon 845s cores. A 7-nanometer process will help cooling and battery life, versus the 10-nanometer process used in the Snapdragon 845. The new processors GPU, ISP, DSP, and modem are all a bit beefier as well, and the Snapdragon 855 has the unique benefit of being one of the first chips that may be able to support many iterations of commercial 5G out of the box. The Exynos chip will carry similar benefits. Naturally, Samsung could end up surprising everybody with the final product, though it should be stated that Ice universe has a stellar track record with accurate leaks. JBL came up with an impressive piece of tech that makes any car intelligent in no time while still managing to be affordable. Its 2019 so smoking is about as uncool as possible and car cigarette lighters are hence more useless than theyve ever been, at least when it comes to their primary purpose. The tech industry is here to help, with JBL arriving at Consumer Electronics Show earlier this week to showcase a brilliant gadget called the Link Drive. Behind this vague name is a rather minimalist contraption which plugs into your car cigarette lighter and infuses your surroundings with the power of Google Assistant, providing you with a more intuitive alternative to interacting with navigation solutions such as Maps while also ensuring the worlds most capable artificial intelligence companion is always ready to help while youre driving. Most importantly, it accomplishes all of those things without being distracting. Its been nearly four years since Google launched Android Auto but this particular projection platform is still having issues with third-party support, while vehicle manufacturers remain reluctant to embrace it for a variety of reasons, including outright fear that Alphabets subsidiary will be eating into their future profits, as industry insiders previously claimed. On the other hand, Google Assistants penetration is reaching unprecedented heights, with the company expecting it to be available on over a billion active devices by the end of the month. Massive market share is the best possible incentive one can give to the independent developer community, which is why having a Google Assistant in your car is now a much more attractive proposition than Android Auto support. Thats precisely the angle JBL is playing here; the Link Drive obviously still needs to be paired with an eligible Android or iOS smartphone in order to work but at least that extra step after plugging it in actually provides you with an endless pool of regularly updated apps designed for a broad range of purposes. Advertisement When set up, the Link Drive essentially acts as a Google Home unit for your car, so its interface designed solely for voice interactions is certainly much less distracting than whatever Android Auto implementation youve used in the past. While an Internet-enabled display panel embedded into your dashboard certainly has its advantages, the industry continues to debate whether the trade-offs are worth it when it comes to apps heavy on visual feedback. On the other hand, the JBL Link Drive is a much safer solution that matches Android Auto in most use cases and exceeds it in many, especially when it comes to core functionalities such as hands-free calls its two noise-canceling microphones provide a seamless calling experience and one that few smartphones can come close to seeing how hands-free operation is an afterthought for most manufacturers. While all of those features make up a solid, intuitive package that will make your car smarter than ever, what truly makes the JBL Link Drive stand out from the sea of AI-enabled gadgets presented at the latest iteration of CES is that its creators arent asking their target audience to break the bank in order to benefit from the latest technology advancements. Instead, the device is set to be priced at only $59.95, which is near the bottom of the price bracket when it comes to AI-equipped products. Any solution thats innovative, intuitive, useful, and affordable is a praiseworthy affair, perhaps even more so in the context of CES whose exhibitors are often more concerned with teasing the impossible than doing the feasible because the former simply makes for better headlines. However, theres little doubt that the JBL Link Drive is one of the highlights of this years Las Vegas-based trade show and has the potential to be a true tech hit once it becomes available for purchase this spring. The new Instant Pot Pressure Cooker may seem a bit underwhelming relative to many other products unveiled at CES but it is an instant classic simply due to the fact it answers one of the currently most important questions in the emerging smart home space. Consumer Electronics Show, the worlds largest such gathering on the planet, is traditionally the venue of choice for all sorts of bizarre technologies, from dancing robots to intelligent toothbrushes and even attempts at reviving some old and obsolete product concepts with a new twist, like adding Internet connectivity to a gramophone or releasing an HTC Android handset in 2019. Due to that eccentric state of affairs, its rare that something relatively mundane gains any traction during that January event in Las Vegas but thats precisely what Instant Brands now appears to have achieved. The company took to this years iteration of CES to unveil a promising incoming update to the Instant Pot, a popular smart pressure cooker thats now getting support for Google Assistant. As is usually the case with that kind of features, Instant Brands willingness to embrace the said artificial intelligence companion allowed it to develop a gadget that can literally cook for you if you ask it to. Because as great contemporary smart home devices are, you still arent used to saying things like hey Google, prepare some rice, Ill be home in 20 minutes. Thats precisely what an up-to-date Instant Pot model will allow you to do, adding even more versatility to its already impressive portfolio. Advertisement Given how the gadget in question has always been Internet-enabled and was originally envisioned as a relatively capable and somewhat automated appliance, the addition of Google Assistant to its skillset certainly seems like a logical move, yet few manufacturers have yet attempted to experiment with such solutions in the real world. Instant Brands does have an advantage in that its online pressure cooker has already been widely touted as a great product thats well worth the money even without being compatible with arguably the smartest digital helper on the planet, at least in terms of AI. At the end of the day, whats the point of having an always-on, always-happy-to-oblige know-it-all of an assistant if it cant cook for you? While that may be an oversimplification, its also an amazing selling point because it provides easily observable value to consumers and is hence straightforward to communicate. When you pair such appeal potential with the fact that Google Assistant is now being integrated into a proven host thats been one of the most universally praised home appliances in recent times, that certainly sounds like a recipe for success and is more than enough for Instant Brands announcement to stand out at the latest edition of CES, a trade show that certainly earned its elite status but also one thats often been criticized for being dominated by vaporware and ridiculous contraptions meant to make headlines instead of helping consumers, which is hardly commendable for whats supposed to be an event thats so centered on consumer electronics its actually named after it. Whether The new and improved Instant Pot actually ends up becoming an even greater hit with the addition of Google Assistant remains to be seen but regardless of that, Instant Brands certainly appears to be on the right track when it comes to blending functional hardware with cutting-edge AI, with its core philosophy being not to overcomplicate things, which is a concept thats been notoriously difficult for most of the tech industry to grasp. With Google Assistant already being available on a billion devices, Google Assistant Connect is aiming for the next billion While many of the announcements coming out of Las Vegas during CES 2019 are about actual products, Googles big announcement was about software that is going to allow developers to add Google Assistant support. This is how Google is going to grow the footprint of the Assistant over the next few months, years and beyond with Google Assistant Connect. During CES 2019, Google had a number of announcements regarding the Assistant. However the one that really stood out to us was Google Assistant Connect. What this boils down to is, essentially APIs that developers are going to be able to use with their product (both hardware and software), to tie in the Google Assistant. This could be just a single feature that developers could add in. This is not targeted at just smart home devices either, as Google wants the Assistant to be a part of your entire life, not just the smart home products in your home. What makes this truly unique is that developers wont need to use a low-powered device to connect the device to Google Assistant, it can be done on that product itself. This should, in theory anyways, get rid of the need for hubs. The way its done is using WiFi or Bluetooth to connect to another Google Assistant device, meaning that a developer could use something like an e-ink display to continuously show the weather or whats on your calendar, and then connect to a Google Home to get more information, like what song is playing and so forth. This is going to help the Google Assistant support all types of different devices that it didnt expect, including those from companies that may not be big partners of Google already. Advertisement The idea behind Google Assistant Connect is to get more products working with the Google Assistant, in as easy a way as possible. Based on what Google has announced so far, it appears to be doing just that. Over the past year, Google Assistants reach has expanded pretty considerably. There are now over a billion devices that use the Google Assistant though Google admits that the majority of those are smartphones and Google is looking for the next billion. With a program like Google Assistant Connect, manufacturers and developers can add the Google Assistant to just about anything. Whether thats a cheap security camera that just had an app that you could watch the feed from and now you can ask Google to bring it up on a smart display, or something thats older like a smart plug that came out before the Google Assistant debuted. Manufacturers would be able to update older products to bring Google Assistant support, which is a big deal. If Google Assistant Connect sounds like a familiar thing, that is because it is very similar to Amazon Alexa Connect. Where both are looking to get manufacturers on-board to use their AI-powered assistant for virtually everything. The only difference is that Amazons version is actually available and getting more skills available for Alexa everyday, while Googles wont be available until later this year. In fact, Google did not even provide much information about this program at CES 2019, but we do expect that to happen in the coming months likely at Google I/O in May. This was essentially just a preview for Google to say, we hear you manufacturers and it is coming soon. But when it does come, Amazon will want to watch out, as the war for the go-to digital voice assistant will be on. FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai has refused to meet with Congress in an Emergency briefing, regarding the recent scandal about carriers selling location-data. Pai blamed it on the government shutdown which is now in its fourth week even though he has not been furloughed and is still being paid. The Committee on Energy and Commerce chairman, Representative Frank Pallone requested that Pai attend an emergency briefing, so that lawmakers can find out why carriers have been allowed to sell location-data to other companies. This of course comes after the investigative piece out of Motherboard last week, where they were able to track someones phone using a bail bond agent and $300 spoiler: it was super easy and quick. In the letter, Rep. Pallone noted that bad actors are able to use this information to track anyone. He also noted that this meeting cannot wait until the government is reopened because who knows when that will be. Pai turned down the invitation to brief the committee on the issue, however. Making it clear that Pai does not feel that this is as serious an issue as members of the committee seem to think it is. Pallone said that he spoke with Pais staff over the phone who asserted that these egregious actions are not a threat to the safety of human life or property that the FCC will address during the Trump shutdown. Advertisement The government shutdown is a partial shutdown. Congress is still in session (and getting paid), and so is the FCC Chairman, meaning that Pai has no legal reason to turn down the invitation. This is something that Pallone made clear when speaking with the media as well. Stating that theres nothing in the law that should stop the chairman personally from meeting about this serious threat. As expected, Pallone and the rest of the committee, are keen to know what Pai and the rest of the FCC are planning to do to fix the issues that these carriers caused. This is another way that Pai is looking to side-step actually doing his job. He recently pulled out of an appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, due to the government shutdown though there are conspiracy theories abound that this was more about him being afraid to speak with tech enthusiasts after how he dismantled Net Neutrality. The wireless carriers AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon have been more proactive with this issue than the FCC. AT&T and T-Mobile said that they will stop providing location-data of its customers to location aggregators beginning in March. The three-month time-frame is set so that the carriers can make sure that this wont affect any other services it offers its customers, like navigation. A feature that AT&T does use, though there arent many customers that actually use it. Advertisement Verizon begun eliminating these location aggregators last year, and are virtually aggregator-free. Though, Sprint has not yet responded, so its unclear whether Sprint is eliminating its partnership with location aggregators or not. Something else that the committee likely wants to talk to Pai about. Andover, MA (01810) Today Partly cloudy. Low around 50F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy. Low around 50F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Have any questions? Please give us a call at 907-561-7737 Why are leftists thrilled by abortion? On January 7, Hillary Clinton and New York's Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced their satanic bill to allow abortions through all nine months up to birth. The intensely jubilant faces of these two Democrats while launching their baby-killing campaign was bone-chillingly evil. Clinton and Cuomo held their joined hands high in the air like an enthusiastic victorious battle-cry as they grinned ear to ear. Why were they so happy? Why are these leftist politicians barely able to contain their excitement over the thought of killing more babies? During her presidential campaign, Hillary vowed to protect animals from cruelty and abuse. And yet, Hillary is elated over her bill to allow abortion doctors to deliver a nine-month-old baby except for the head, then shove scissors into his brain to kill him. This barbaric, shameful, and evil procedure is called partial-birth abortion. In 2011, Hillary cosponsored the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act to end the slaughter of horses for their meat. Meanwhile, Hillary passionately defends Planned Parenthood, which kills babies for their meat, selling dead baby body parts intact heads sell for premium prices. Planned Parenthood has made over $100 million selling aborted baby parts. Abortion zealots fear that a conservative majority on the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade, the unconstitutional ruling that made abortion legal. Here's how abortion activist Sarah Silverman expressed the urgency of keeping Judge Brett Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court: "This is a position for life, y'all." In her sad, perverted thinking, Silverman infers that women will die if they cannot for whatever reason kill the horrible thing growing inside them even on the birth date. Eighty-five-year-old pro-abortion Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's health is failing. If she dies or retires, leftists fear that Trump's replacement will be a conservative. Panicked female abortion zealots are offering their body parts to keep Ginsburg alive. Abortion zealot Alyssa Milano offered her ribs, kidneys, and a lung to Justice Ginsburg. Notice the intense passion to do whatever necessary to freely kill babies in the womb. "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you..." (Jeremiah 1:5) Alyssa Milano through the Fuzzy Pet Foundation compassionately rescued a dog in South Korea being raised for slaughter. It appears that Milano has zero compassion for innocent babies. She is insanely committed to murdering them before birth. Also, Milano has not complained about Planned Parenthood profiting from the sales of slaughtered baby body parts. In 2018, abortion was the number-one cause of death worldwide; over 41 million children were killed before birth. Again I ask, why is this horrifying stat cause for leftists to celebrate? In a landslide, Irish voters repealed their anti-abortion laws. Many observers were uncomfortable with the eerie jubilation of thousands of women in the streets hugging while crying tears of sheer joy. Co-director of the abortion campaign Orla O'Connor said, "This is a monumental day for women in Ireland. This is about women taking their rightful place in Irish society, finally." Another Irish woman thrilled about killing babies said, "It's such a great victory for women, for men, for our future generation. It's just I'm so emotional." "And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth..." (Genesis 1:28) Despite God's command to "be fruitful and multiply," many youths vow not to have children because leftists have convinced them that childbirth is extremely destructive to the environment. Leftists foolishly believe they are smarter than God. Unquestionably, abortion is the holy sacrament of the demonic religion of liberalism. Shockingly, over 20 religious leaders gathered to bless the opening of a new Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Washington, D.C. President and CEO Dr. Laura Meyers said, "In almost every message to our staff, I talk about our doing sacred work." What is wrong with these people? How can they claim moral and spiritual high ground killing babies and selling their body parts? Insanely, a majority of the religious leaders who blessed the new dead baby chop shop are black. A disproportionately high number of aborted babies are blacks. Right-thinking black ministers have been sounding the alarm for years how blacks are aborting themselves to extinction. Leftists are in constant rebellion against God's natural order. Leftist women act as if pregnancy were God's cursed disease, as devastating as cancer, and abortion is the life-saving cure. Abortion zealots do not view abortion as a necessary evil. They are actually thrilled when a mother murders her baby. There is something strange and disturbingly evil about leftists having all the sympathy in the world for animals and not an ounce of sympathy (even disdain) for innocent unborn babies. Lloyd Marcus, The Unhyphenated American Help Lloyd spread the Truth: http://bit.ly/2kZqmUk http://LloydMarcus.com In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president's behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation. For almost three years, bureaucrats from the Obama administration, including those at the FBI and Justice, have tried to take out candidate and then president Trump with no actual evidence. Robert Mueller knew that Michael Flynn didn't violate any laws by talking with a Russian after the election, knew that Comey tried to entrap Flynn, knew that FBI agents didn't think he lied but badgered and sought to destroy and bankrupt Flynn and his family until he caved to plead to perjury. Now we learn from an article in the New York Times that the FBI started a secret investigation into whether President Trump worked for Russia even though there was no evidence that he did. The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence. Of course, they found nothing. Somehow, the Times, other media outlets, and Democrats have absolutely no concern about the abuse of power by the FBI and say it is Trump who should be investigated, even though there is no evidence that Trump did anything wrong. If the FBI is willing to destroy Trump and others surrounding him because they wanted Hillary to be president, what would it be willing to do to other people? Tyranny creeps in on secret FBI investigations, leaked when it is convenient to the plotters seeking to oust a duly elected president of the United States. Let's take a short trip down memory lane to see how all this fake news from the media started over two years ago and continues to this day. The DNC and Hillary couldn't figure out how to beat Trump based on facts and by promoting their policies, which consisted mainly of making government bigger and more people dependent on government, so they contracted out and paid over $10 million to create a fraudulent dossier about Trump and Russia. They committed a crime by filing false reports with the FEC about these expenses. They shopped the fraudulent dossier and found welcoming hands at the FBI from powerful government officials who also wanted to defeat Trump and elect Hillary, no matter what they had to do. Even though these agents couldn't verify any of the garbage in the dossier, they used it to get FISA warrants to listen in on Trump and people surrounding him. They pretended they were concerned about Russian collusion, but not once did they seek to investigate the Russian connections of Hillary, Podesta, and others. The Russian collusion story was made up from the start. Obama even gave a stand-down order to his cyber-security chief in the summer of 2016 to stop investigating Russian hacking. The FBI, intelligence agencies, the Justice Department, and others in the Obama administration colluded to insert spies into the Trump campaign to entrap them, including George Papadopoulos. While these partisan hacks at Justice and FBI were targeting Trump at every turn, they were protecting Hillary, her aides, Obama, and others from prosecution, no matter what they did. James Comey listed the crimes that Hillary and her aides committed and yet had exonerated her before she was even interviewed. Comey lied when he said no prosecutor would take her case. Not once did these partisan hacks take the criminal actions of Hillary and her aides to a grand jury for them to decide. President Obama also violated the law by corresponding with Hillary on her non-secure computer, and then he lied about it. While the media and Democrats spew forth about pretend obstruction by Trump when there was no underlying crime, they overlook many cases about actual obstruction during Obama's eight years. The computers at the IRS were destroyed, and Obama publicly said he didn't see a "smidgen" of evidence that the IRS had done anything wrong as its agents were stifling the political speech rights of political opponents. Hillary and her aides destroyed emails, smartphones, and computers. The Mueller team destroyed text messages and evidence of partisan hack agents who were fired. The DNC wouldn't let government agencies examine their computers, yet government agencies, the media, and other Democrats universally said Russians hacked the computers with no physical evidence. Why would anyone believe what the DNC says when it created the fraudulent dossier and lied to the FEC? The most obvious case of obstruction was when Obama put a stop to drug-running by Hezb'allah to appease Iran. The FBI and Justice also didn't care about multiple perjury cases with Obama, including Holder, Clapper, Brennan, and Rice. They didn't care when Obama officials illegally unmasked names. The abuse and tyrannical nature of the Obama administration has been completely obvious, yet the NYT, the WaPo, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, and others haven't cared; they supported them at every turn as they set out to destroy Trump with fake news from anonymous sources without any evidence. Despite the clear evidence that Obama controlled the Justice Department and that many people associated with Obama, including Hillary, violated many laws, the media and other Democrats say the Justice Department operated independently and no one was above the law. The fake reporting is endless. The media and other Democrats continuously call Trump an authoritarian, but he is trying to go through Congress to get funding for the wall that Democrats have voted for before. He is trying to give the power and purse back to the people as fast as he can, which is the opposite of an authoritarian or dictator. Contrast Trump with Obama, who dictatorially and unconstitutionally implemented DACA as Democrats, including the media wing of the party, cheered. I did not see Obama go to Congress for money to implement DACA even though it had to cost billions in benefits. When Obama came up billions short for Obamacare, he did not go to Congress to get an appropriation. Nope, he just illegally and dictatorially stole money from other sources to pay for the shortfall, and the media and other Democrats did not rip him for being an actual authoritarian and thief. A tyrannical government is dangerous to our freedom, and it is made much more dangerous by a complicit media complex that continuously supports an increase in power for those who abuse their power. How many individuals and families are the media and other Democrats willing to destroy to enhance their power? They were willing to absolutely destroy Brett Kavanaugh without evidence just because they were afraid of how he would vote on the courts. Several people running for president in 2020, including Warren, Booker, Harris, and Gillibrand, participated in the public hanging of Kavanaugh with no evidence. Why would anyone trust them to treat the rest of us respectfully and equally? Sweden as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's socialist role model The much maligned Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might have been on to something, although possibly inadvertently, in her interview January 6, 2019 with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes. During that interview, she said she wants to "model her socialist policies off of European countries." She qualified her statement, saying, "What we have in mind and what my policies most closely re-resemble are what we see in the U.K., in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden." This past September, Sweden held its parliamentary elections, which determine the makeup of the legislative bodies on a scheduled four-year cycle. At the highest level, these elections determine the allocation of seats in the Riksdag, the national legislative body of Sweden (also known as the Kingdom of Sweden), whose political form of governance is known as a parliamentary representative democratic constitutional monarchy. Powers of the monarch are largely ceremonial; the most well known might be handing out the Nobel prizes. That leaves the "representative democratic" component. What were the results of the latest exercise of the free democratic population's voting from September 2018? The perpetual Social Democratic Party received 28.4% of the total vote and lost 12 seats in the Parliament. The second-place Moderate Party was down to 19.8% and lost 14 seats. Third place was the Sweden Democrats, up with 17.6% and a gain of 13 seats. A naive expectation of a such democratic election process in a democratic country would be that these three front leaders with a combined 65.8% of the vote would get together and form a governing coalition. The problem is that the third-place winner, the Swedish Democrat Party, has had its 1988 origins continue to be portrayed as anti-immigrant and neo-Nazi. By the early 1990s, the Sweden Democrats had officially rejected both fascism and Nazism. They consider themselves social conservatives with a nationalistic foundation. Their party appealed to those Swedes appalled by the liberal immigration policies and subsequent social turmoil instituted by the Social Democrats. These immigration policies had opened the gates to 163,000 asylum-seekers in 2015. Liberal financial support to these immigrants (primarily from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan) at the expense of Swedish retirees' own monthly pensions and access to health care, concerns over pressure on the welfare and housing system, a shortage of doctors and teachers, and a rise in crime have led to social unrest and have become election issues. Failure of the majority of the immigrants to find jobs and assimilate into Swedish society was evident by 2016, and Sweden began to offer cash incentives for immigrants to leave Sweden for their countries of origin. Even so, the liberal ruling factions (Social Democrats-Green, Center Party, Liberals) appeared unwilling to the admit the failure and unpopularity of their immigration policies. To talk openly about it in public, or privately, was to risk being labeled a racist or Nazi. The Swedish public finally got a chance to vote on these issues in September 2018, and the Sweden Democrats ran on a platform calling for a referendum on European Union membership, a freeze on migration, and a crackdown on crime. In its official platform, the party says its anti-migrant policies are driven by "love and confidence in our country." What did winning third place in the general election get the Sweden Democrats party? They were frozen out of the next step in forming a functioning government. All the other political parties refused to acknowledge their win and refused to work with them. Democratic Sweden, extolled by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, effectively disenfranchised 17.6% of the Swedish electorate; their votes did not count with the other parties. The ruling classes determined that such views had no place in Sweden. On the U.S. political landscape, our similar voters have been labeled the "deplorables" by the Democratic Party leadership. Now, in mid-January, after four months of post-election wrangling, Sweden's Social Democrat leader, Stefan Lofven, has forged a potential deal with two centrist parties to form a government as part of an effort to deny influence to the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has defined (unwittingly?) her own socialist yearnings by offering a modern Swedish political model one in which "love and confidence in [our] country" are grounds for ostracism and political isolation. As far as I can tell, there should be no real issues between Russia and the U.S. Ukraine or Crimea is freighted with questions of local ethnicity and brutal history and should be sorted out by the parties, or at most by Europe. We have no stake. As for the defense of Europe, it is not credible that Russia has designs on an entity that so outweighs it in population and wealth. Trump was right to point out that the Europeans themselves do not believe in the threat, since they are happy to shortchange defense while relying on Russia for natural gas. Why would the Russians send tanks when shutting a valve would cripple Germany? While I have only a concerned citizen's knowledge of foreign affairs, I am baffled by the hysterical Russophobia of the MSM and the Democratic Party since the 2016 election. Like Patrick Armstrong, I am appalled at the direction taken by Russian-American relations, but neither have I given up hope. Reading Armstrong and his confreres may help lead to a path out of this potentially deadly slough of misinformation. As stated above, agree or disagree, but it is better to read Putin's own words than to have his thoughts filtered through the MSM. His speeches are far more substantive than what one gets from our own politicians. (In any case, whom are you going to believe Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi or Vladimir Putin? It's not even close.) Here one can read his 2018 Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly . Like a U.S. State of the Union address, it genuflects to multifarious interest groups, but it also places great emphasis on the importance of civil society. Putin is on the same page as the American conservatives who keep saying politics is downstream from culture. The speech also contains Putin's view of the military balance, explaining why he thinks Russia can forestall any aggression by the U.S. while spending a tenth as much. The Putin of these materials is not at all the thug of the MSM. One can read his remarks at the 2017 dedication of the Wall of Sorrow, a memorial to the victims of political repression, which, with other statements, expresses a clear understanding of need to keep green the memory of the Bolshevik tragedy. Vladimir Putin has a website that prints English transcripts of his torrent of speeches, communiques, and meetings. Putin is quite available; he meets frequently with groups of all stripes and holds news conferences that last for three or four hours. As with all politicians, total candor is improbable, but, on the other hand, he must use these events to communicate with Russia's many constituencies, so one learns at least what he wants people to think he thinks, whether or not it is what he really thinks. For those who wish to delve, here is one more recommendation. Agree or disagree, the points made by these authors are serious, and they deserve attention and discussion, not oblivion. They are not made in the MSM. In large part due to ... media malpractice, and despite the escalating dangers in US-Russian relations, in 2018 there continued to be no significant anti-Cold War opposition anywhere in mainstream American political life not in Congress, the major political parties, think tanks, or on college campuses, only a very few individual dissenters. Accordingly, the policy of detente with Russia, or what Trump has repeatedly called "cooperation with Russia," still found no significant supporters in mainstream politics, even though it was the policy of other Republican presidents, notably Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan. Trump has tried, but he has been thwarted, repeatedly again in 2018. The most recent [defense policy story] ... could be well titled 'The Blob Strikes Back' the 'Blob' being a derogatory term for the American security establishment, an amorphous being which defies easy definition and is decidedly hard to pin down, but which exerts enormous power and which seems to be impervious to outside realities, continuing along its chosen path regardless of all the disasters it confronts, and causes, along the way. ... Starting wars is something the American security establishment can cope with; ending them is something which causes it real difficulties. I typed these out as they occurred to me. I could come up with another ten pretty easily. There's some tiny coverage, far in the back pages, so that objectivity can be pretended, but most Western media consumers would answer they aren't; didn't; don't; aren't; isn't; where?; does; not; what?; never heard of it. There's a documentary that exposes Browder that he keeps people from seeing. There's a documentary that exposes Browder that he keeps people from seeing. Ukraine is much worse off, by any measurement, now than before Maidan. Ukraine is much worse off, by any measurement, now than before Maidan. The US and its minions have given an enormous amount of weapons to jihadists. The US and its minions have given an enormous amount of weapons to jihadists. What will you learn from these? Not long ago, Patrick Armstrong said, in Back to the USSR: How to Read Western News : Stephen F. Cohen is professor emeritus of Russian Studies at NYU and Princeton. He has been working the Russian beat at The Nation for several years, warning that something has gone seriously askew, and his new book of columns, War with Russia: From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate , demands attention. To recommend the lefty Nation seems a bit droll, but virtue is where you find it. Irrussianality is the work of Paul Robinson, another Canadian, who teaches at the University of Ottawa. He writes every few days on "the relationship between Russia and the West; and the apparently irrational decision making processes which dominate much of international relations." Again, everything he does is worthwhile. He also has an interesting blog roll, which I have only begun to explore. Everything Armstrong does is first-rate. His work also appears at Strategic Culture , a Russophile site that publishes dozens of authors of multifarious perspectives, but with a commonality that none is a fan of the U.S. So here we are today. Paying for our arrogance, incompetence and maybe worse. [T]he predominant theme of my career was that we had a great opportunity when the USSR disappeared to make a more cooperative world. Instead, we have steadily turned Russia into an enemy and a much more capable one than we casually assumed in the 1990s. Russia Observer is the site of Patrick Armstrong, a former analyst in the Canadian Department of National Defense. He writes a column on some current issue every week or so, plus a useful biweekly "SitRep" covering many issues in terse style. His orientation as follows: Irritated by the repetitive triviality of the press, I began searching for sources that would broaden and deepen my perspective. Indeed, I found an avalanche of web material that rarely makes it through the gatekeepers in the U.S. The quality and honesty of these varies greatly, but, to help out readers who share my unease about the information they are getting from the MSM, or even from many U.S. conservative sites, I will list a few that are worth your attention because, in my estimation, they are intelligent observers who know what they are talking about and who are trying to tell their readers the truth as they see it. I do not really understand why either nation is in Syria, and any Russian intervention in the 2016 election was trivial. In any case, of course the Russians want to influence our elections. We are the world's 800-pound gorilla (or bull in the china shop), so everyone wants to influence our elections, and who can blame these people? People all over the world live and die depending on the self-centered whims of whoever holds power in the U.S. just ask Moammar Gaddafi (" we came, we saw, he died "). Saudis, Israelis, Europeans, Brits, and many others have been meddling for decades and will continue to do so. So grow up, MSM. While I have only a concerned citizen's knowledge of foreign affairs, I am baffled by the hysterical Russophobia of the MSM and the Democratic Party since the 2016 election. As far as I can tell, there should be no real issues between Russia and the U.S. Ukraine or Crimea is freighted with questions of local ethnicity and brutal history and should be sorted out by the parties, or at most by Europe. We have no stake. As for the defense of Europe, it is not credible that Russia has designs on an entity that so outweighs it in population and wealth. Trump was right to point out that the Europeans themselves do not believe in the threat, since they are happy to shortchange defense while relying on Russia for natural gas. Why would the Russians send tanks when shutting a valve would cripple Germany? I do not really understand why either nation is in Syria, and any Russian intervention in the 2016 election was trivial. In any case, of course the Russians want to influence our elections. We are the world's 800-pound gorilla (or bull in the china shop), so everyone wants to influence our elections, and who can blame these people? People all over the world live and die depending on the self-centered whims of whoever holds power in the U.S. just ask Moammar Gaddafi ("we came, we saw, he died"). Saudis, Israelis, Europeans, Brits, and many others have been meddling for decades and will continue to do so. So grow up, MSM. Irritated by the repetitive triviality of the press, I began searching for sources that would broaden and deepen my perspective. Indeed, I found an avalanche of web material that rarely makes it through the gatekeepers in the U.S. The quality and honesty of these varies greatly, but, to help out readers who share my unease about the information they are getting from the MSM, or even from many U.S. conservative sites, I will list a few that are worth your attention because, in my estimation, they are intelligent observers who know what they are talking about and who are trying to tell their readers the truth as they see it. Russia Observer is the site of Patrick Armstrong, a former analyst in the Canadian Department of National Defense. He writes a column on some current issue every week or so, plus a useful biweekly "SitRep" covering many issues in terse style. His orientation as follows: [T]he predominant theme of my career was that we had a great opportunity when the USSR disappeared to make a more cooperative world. Instead, we have steadily turned Russia into an enemy and a much more capable one than we casually assumed in the 1990s. So here we are today. Paying for our arrogance, incompetence and maybe worse. But I haven't given up hope. Everything Armstrong does is first-rate. His work also appears at Strategic Culture, a Russophile site that publishes dozens of authors of multifarious perspectives, but with a commonality that none is a fan of the U.S. Irrussianality is the work of Paul Robinson, another Canadian, who teaches at the University of Ottawa. He writes every few days on "the relationship between Russia and the West; and the apparently irrational decision making processes which dominate much of international relations." Again, everything he does is worthwhile. He also has an interesting blog roll, which I have only begun to explore. Stephen F. Cohen is professor emeritus of Russian Studies at NYU and Princeton. He has been working the Russian beat at The Nation for several years, warning that something has gone seriously askew, and his new book of columns, War with Russia: From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate, demands attention. To recommend the lefty Nation seems a bit droll, but virtue is where you find it. What will you learn from these? Not long ago, Patrick Armstrong said, in Back to the USSR: How to Read Western News: [H]as any Western news outlet reported, say, these ten true statements? People in Crimea are pretty happy to be in Russia. The US and its minions have given an enormous amount of weapons to jihadists. Elections in Russia reflect popular opinion polling. There really are a frightening number of well-armed nazis in Ukraine. Assad is pretty popular in Syria. The US and its minions smashed Raqqa to bits. The official Skripal story makes very little sense. Ukraine is much worse off, by any measurement, now than before Maidan. Russia actually had several thousand troops in Crimea before Maidan. There's a documentary that exposes Browder that he keeps people from seeing. I typed these out as they occurred to me. I could come up with another ten pretty easily. There's some tiny coverage, far in the back pages, so that objectivity can be pretended, but most Western media consumers would answer they aren't; didn't; don't; aren't; isn't; where?; does; not; what?; never heard of it. Recently, at "The Blob Strikes Back," Paul Robinson discussed Trump's plan to withdraw from Syria: The most recent [defense policy story] ... could be well titled 'The Blob Strikes Back' the 'Blob' being a derogatory term for the American security establishment, an amorphous being which defies easy definition and is decidedly hard to pin down, but which exerts enormous power and which seems to be impervious to outside realities, continuing along its chosen path regardless of all the disasters it confronts, and causes, along the way. ... Starting wars is something the American security establishment can cope with; ending them is something which causes it real difficulties. Stephen Cohen's most recent column asks, "Do Russiagate Promotors Prefer Impeaching Trump to Avoiding War with Russia?": In large part due to ... media malpractice, and despite the escalating dangers in US-Russian relations, in 2018 there continued to be no significant anti-Cold War opposition anywhere in mainstream American political life not in Congress, the major political parties, think tanks, or on college campuses, only a very few individual dissenters. Accordingly, the policy of detente with Russia, or what Trump has repeatedly called "cooperation with Russia," still found no significant supporters in mainstream politics, even though it was the policy of other Republican presidents, notably Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan. Trump has tried, but he has been thwarted, repeatedly again in 2018. Agree or disagree, the points made by these authors are serious, and they deserve attention and discussion, not oblivion. They are not made in the MSM. For those who wish to delve, here is one more recommendation. Vladimir Putin has a website that prints English transcripts of his torrent of speeches, communiques, and meetings. Putin is quite available; he meets frequently with groups of all stripes and holds news conferences that last for three or four hours. As with all politicians, total candor is improbable, but, on the other hand, he must use these events to communicate with Russia's many constituencies, so one learns at least what he wants people to think he thinks, whether or not it is what he really thinks. The Putin of these materials is not at all the thug of the MSM. One can read his remarks at the 2017 dedication of the Wall of Sorrow, a memorial to the victims of political repression, which, with other statements, expresses a clear understanding of need to keep green the memory of the Bolshevik tragedy. Here one can read his 2018 Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly. Like a U.S. State of the Union address, it genuflects to multifarious interest groups, but it also places great emphasis on the importance of civil society. Putin is on the same page as the American conservatives who keep saying politics is downstream from culture. The speech also contains Putin's view of the military balance, explaining why he thinks Russia can forestall any aggression by the U.S. while spending a tenth as much. As stated above, agree or disagree, but it is better to read Putin's own words than to have his thoughts filtered through the MSM. His speeches are far more substantive than what one gets from our own politicians. (In any case, whom are you going to believe Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi or Vladimir Putin? It's not even close.) Like Patrick Armstrong, I am appalled at the direction taken by Russian-American relations, but neither have I given up hope. Reading Armstrong and his confreres may help lead to a path out of this potentially deadly slough of misinformation. James V DeLong is a retired lawyer, government official, and think-tank analyst. Shutdown: Who Is the Voice of the People? One of the conceits of our liberal and lefty friends is that they are the Voice of the People, the voice of the marginalized who, but for the political activism of the left, would never be heard. This conceit was probably closest to the truth when Educated Youth began advocating for the working class in the 19th century. In any industrial city, the workers, I imagine, far outnumbered the middle class until at least the middle of the 20th century. What the workers wanted, was Yes, what exactly did they want? Free education for their children, certainly; the right to organize labor unions. Wage and hour laws, for sure. But I dont think the workers were clamoring for cradle-to-grave social insurance. That was the idea of Educated Youth, implemented first by the reactionary Bismarck in Germany to steal a march on the Social Democrats. What about the Civil Rights era? Here, all of a sudden, the Voice of the People was muted, and the whole affair was cast in moral terms. Thats because the southern Negroes were a minority; if it was just a matter of The People, we would never have had a Civil Rights Act, because The People at the time were white working-class and lower middle-class GIs from World War II, children of immigrants. By the way, we still have the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 on the books. The idea there was to discriminate against blacks from the South competing for construction jobs in the northern cities. Because the moral case for civil rights worked so well in the Sixties, our liberal and lefty friends have revised and extended it to cover all manner of political issues. That is why we live today in such a tangle of identity politics and moral witch-hunts. With every new issue that our liberal and lefty friends advocate they are trying to combine the Voice of the People notion with the blacks-and-civil-rights morality play that worked so well in the 1960s. You may have noticed that our liberal and lefty friends keep getting blindsided by The People. They got blindsided in the 1970s by Richard Nixon and the silent majority. They got blindsided in the 1990s when the voters gave the Congress to the Republicans in 1994, courtesy of HillaryCare. They got blindsided by the Tea Party of 2009-10 that revolted against ObamaCare and Obamas fundamental transformation. They got blindsided by the deplorables of 2016. Golly, do you think there is a pattern here? I reckon the pattern is that the ruling class doesnt listen to the Voice of the People, but in the end The People wont take No for an answer. Lets look at a few issues in which the ruling class is determined to not to listen to the Voice of the People: Immigration. The People are obviously against it, especially illegal immigration, because immigrants compete for their jobs. But our ruling class and the activist community have spent the last half century trying to shut The People up. Another issue is health care. When you want to help the poor with a big new government program, wrote Irving Kristol many moons ago, you have to deal in the middle class, as in Social Security, Medicare, free education. But when the middle class already has health insurance, even though it grumbles about it all the time, then the middle class is not going to take kindly to HillaryCare, ObamaCare, or Bernie-AOCs Medicare for All. A third issue is the environment. I suspect that if you asked the Democrat-voting Latinos of California whether they were in favor of sky-high housing prices to protect the environment, and sky-high energy prices to transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy, they would vote in favor of wall-to-wall housing and rock-bottom energy prices. But nobody ever asked them, The People. Nobody asked the gilets jaunes, the yellow vests of France, or the Brexiteers of Britain, or the deplorables of the United States what they thought either. Photo credit: Thomas Bresson Perhaps we can get to a better politics by listening to Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) talking about the voters : ...They want a job, everybody does. They want their kids to get a good education. And they want to live in a safe community, he said. And so what I did was I showed up, and I showed up and I talked to everybody. Hes been listening, you might say, to the Voice of the People. On the question of the shutdown and The Wall we may observe that President Trump is arguing for the right for The People to live in a safe community. Our Democratic friends seem to be arguing from the immorality of denying anyone the right to come to the United States. I wonder which argument will decide the present government shutdown? Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com . Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class . Lessons from a Political Martyr If politics is anything, it is contentious. So long as men have opinions, they shall defend them, even with fervor at times. But contention is not sedition, and as Democrats calls to impeach President Trump intensify, it would appear that American politics has moved toward the latter. Both parties believe the other has betrayed its country. Those who once were rivals now are denounced as traitors. He that gathers not is himself scattered. Where this malice might lead no one knows. But if history is any guide, vindictive politics tend to escalate quickly and end well for no one, especially when guilt matters more than truth. Just ask Thomas Wentworth, the 1st Earl of Strafford. Strafford was an English noble and political figure in the decade prior to the English Civil Wars. King Charles I raised Strafford to the peerage in 1628 and then appointed him as Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1633. As Lord Deputy, Strafford zealously pursued the crowns interests, something for which he would earn the ire of Charles many enemies in Parliament. Charles recalled Strafford to England in 1639 when war broke out against Scotland; and on Straffords advice, Charles decided to invade Scotland, giving Strafford command of the army. Parliament, however, refused to grant Charles what they considered to be exorbitant war subsidies. In response, Charles prorogued the session in May 1640, and instead told Strafford to raise money through forced loans. But before Strafford could collect sufficient funds, he fell ill, halting all efforts. When a newly-convened Parliament assembled at Westminster in November 1640, many parliamentary radicals, led by John Pym, saw an opportunity to take down their enemy Strafford, and thereby weaken Charles position, which was their ultimate goal. Therefore, in January 1641, they impeached Strafford for treason. From the start, it was clear that Strafford was not to receive a fair trial. He was deprived of legal counsel, not informed of the particular charges against him, and forbidden to call witnesses in his defense. Most egregiously, many of the prosecutions witnesses had themselves been previously convicted of conspiracy against both the king and Strafford. Nevertheless, Strafford dismantled the prosecutions arguments, showing how the charges against him often contradicted themselves. Late in the trial, Pym surreptitiously acquired notes of a privy council meeting written by Sir Henry Vane. Vanes notes claimed that Strafford told Charles, You have an army in Ireland you may employ here to reduce this kingdom. In his testimony, Vane insisted that the phrase this kingdom meant England, though the context of the meeting indicated Scotland. Strafford vehemently denied ever uttering the phrase, as did the others present. Still, Pym declared this to be indisputable proof of Straffords treason. But even as many of Straffords enemies noted, treason was legally defined as acting against the person or office of the king, neither of which Strafford had done. He had served the king faithfully throughout his career. In fact, the radicals had indicted Strafford for that very reason. They had long sought to tread Charles underfoot, but Strafford had thwarted their efforts. In this way, Strafford was not the one on trial -- Charles was. Straffords defense was so persuasive that the House of Lords acquitted him on 10 April 1641. Three days later, however, Pym put forward a Bill of Attainder against Strafford, which required just a simple majority vote to execute him. The bill easily passed the Commons, and rumors spread by Pym of a conspiracy against Parliament induced the Lords to do the same. Now, it was up to King Charles to sign the attainder. The whole situation had been contrived to force Charles hand. If he were to keep his promise to protect Strafford from harm, Parliament would almost certainly revolt, plunging the country into civil war. But if Charles were to sign the attainder, he would execute his friend and advisor, and all but surrender to the radicals. In one final act of counsel to his king, Strafford argued that it was more expedient for him to die than for all England to perish in civil war. Out of duty, he said, Charles had to sign the attainder. He did. Two days later, on 12 May 1641, Strafford was beheaded. Sadly, his death but forestalled the coming civil war, in which the many others, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and King Charles himself, met the same fate. It would take a decade of rule under a military dictatorship before the monarch -- and order -- was restored. Granted, Washingtons political persecutions may not foment civil war as Englands did. But before Democrats continue with their inquisition of the Trump administration -- or Republicans canonize its fallen members -- they would all be wise to remember martyrs like Strafford. No one, regardless of their politics, ought rejoice at such tragedies. On the eve of his death, Strafford wrote a letter to his young son. He urged him to seek not vengeance but peace, that the country might not devolve into bloodshed. Were Strafford still alive, he would almost certainly say the same to America today. Mr. Josiah Leinbach is a Winston Churchill Fellow at Hillsdale College, where he studies History. China: Dystopia in Power For many years, geopolitical pundits have debated which way China is likely to go after it pulls large numbers of its population out of poverty. Following the semi-market reforms undertaken by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 and large-scale development, China has indeed brought large numbers of its population some 250 million at last count into the middle class. One theory, put forward by Reagan diplomat Jeanne Kirkpatrick, is that authoritarian dictatorships like Franco's in Spain and Salazar's in Portugal easily transform into democracies once their citizens become well-to-do and are no longer satisfied with economic freedoms alone, while totalitarian communist systems that operate on different command principles altogether do not. This debate has become even more heated, given some disturbing changes in China of late and the emergence of an American president seemingly willing to challenge Beijing's accustomed rapacious way of doing business with the West. What has happened in China, in short, is a remarkable strengthening of the state-owned sector and therefore communist party rule under Xi Jinping, who came to power in 2012. According to The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China? by Nicholas Lardy of the Peterson Institute, while in 2013, 57% of bank loans went to private companies and 35% to state-owned firms, under Xi, in 2016, these percentages were dramatically reversed to 83% for state firms and only 11% for private companies, despite the fact that most state-owned companies were loss-making and inefficient compared to private ones. Finally, in perhaps the best example of the new ascendancy of the Communist Party yet, the party changed its succession rules in 2018 to allow Xi to become president for life a clean break with Deng's admonition not to allow another disastrous cult of personality of the party chairman like that of Mao. Very little of this has seen the light in America's mainstream media, which have been happy to project yet another Trump defeat in his "trade war" with China. In this, the media are uncannily similar to Walter Duranty of the New York Times and assorted leftist "political pilgrims" who could see nothing wrong with "Uncle Joe" Stalin and his murderous regime while they starved and murdered millions. Fortunately, history cannot be falsified forever, even by the Times, and eventually, books like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago and Robert Conquest's The Great Terror and The Harvest of Sorrow appeared to provide a measure of historical justice to the victims. It seems that we may not have to wait quite so long to hear the dismal tale of Chinese communist depredations. Thanks to an intrepid journalist from an obscure Russian opposition website, we now have a remarkable exposure of dystopia in power in Xinjiang, which even George Orwell could not have imagined. The author, who wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, tells a remarkable story of total surveillance of the Muslim population, with perhaps a million or more already thrown in "reeducation" internment camps. A Kashgar communist official let slip that there are 120,000 imprisoned in these camps, while others estimate the number of prisoners between one and three million, a staggering figure in a total Uyghur population of ten million. And this may be only the beginning. A German researcher looking at official Chinese building projects has identified 78 re-education camps being built in Xinjiang, some of them as large as 25 acres. Things that may lead to an arrest and internment include reading the Koran, wearing traditional clothing, having a beard, etc. While there, Muslims are forced to eat pork and are subject to never-ending communist propaganda. There have also been more than an occasional report of torture, and some prominent Uyghurs have died in detention. Two additional aspects of Xinjiang reality that the author deals with in detail are the methods of surveillance and the nature of the "social credit" system. Surveillance of the Muslims is total, unrelenting, and high-tech. Muslims are required to install an app on their phones that makes tracking them easy and are constantly subject to iris scans, house searches, and millions of cameras following them everywhere. The Chinese have supposedly developed surveillance apps for cameras that can recognize and follow a discrete person and need only seven minutes to identify an individual in a crowd. All Muslims are divided in three categories: safe, average, and dangerous, with commensurate social credit scores. Locals believe that just being a Muslim means a low score, which severely affects one's freedom of movement. A low score makes it difficult to buy train tickets, shop at better stores, rent an apartment, and a myriad of everyday chores, to say nothing of getting a passport to travel abroad. It may be useful for U.S. officials to read this dystopian tale before they sit down with Chinese officials to discuss trade matters. A government that treats its own people this way is unlikely to have greater respect for trade partners. Alex Alexiev is chairman of the Center for Balkan and Black Sea Studies (cbbss.org). He can be reached at alexievalex4@gmail.com. The keynote address will be delivered by U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen. LA PLATA, Md. (January 15, 2019)The College of Southern Maryland (CSM) will recognize 541 candidates for 547 degrees and 250 certificates during its 20th Winter Commencement Jan. 17 at the La Plata Campus. The graduates range in age from 18 to 64, with 37 percent from Charles County, 33 percent from St. Mary's County, 23 percent from Calvert County and the remainder from out of the area. Of the associate's degree candidates, 15 percent will graduate with honors.The keynote address will be delivered by U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen. Elected to the United States Senate in 2016, Van Hollen began his time in public service in 1991 as a state delegate in the Maryland State Legislature and continued in the role of state senator for eight years before being elected to represent Maryland's 8th Congressional District in 2002. He became known as a tenacious advocate for everyday Marylanders.While in the U.S. House of Representatives, Van Hollen served as a member of the Democratic leadership and was elected by his colleagues to be the ranking member of the House Budget Committee and protect interests like Social Security and Medicare. As U.S. Senator, Van Hollen is a member of the appropriations committee.Van Hollen is a graduate of Swarthmore College, the John F. Kennedy School of Public Policy at Harvard University, and Georgetown University Law Center where he attended night school. He and his wife, Katherine Wilkens, are the parents of three children Anna, Nicholas and Alexander.CSM's winter commencement activities will begin with a Nursing Recognition Ceremony at 1 p.m., Jan. 17 in the Physical Education (PE) Center on the La Plata Campus with a reception immediately following on the upper level of the PE Center.The commencement ceremony will begin at 6 p.m. in the PE Center and tickets are required. Ticketholders are encouraged to arrive at least 30 minutes before the ceremony begins.Doors will open for guests at 5 p.m. Doors will close when the procession begins, and guests without tickets or arriving after the doors close may view the ceremony from the Fine Arts (FA) Center, which will carry a live streaming broadcast. A reception immediately following commencement will be in the Center for Business and Industry (BI), Chaney Enterprises Conference Room BI-113.In the event of inclement weather, a decision will be announced and posted at www.csmd.edu if commencement activities will be held on Jan. 18. Graduates and guests may also call the inclement weather hotline at 301-369-1999 or 800-650-4023.The safety of CSM students, guests and employees is of utmost importance. CSM will conduct bag checks at commencement, and all individuals may be subject to a bag check before entry. CSM Public Safety officials encourage guests to leave large secondary bags, diaper bags and backpacks in their vehicles or at home as these will be subject to the bag check process at the door.Due to commencement activities, the PE building at the La Plata Campus will be closed for fitness and aquatics activities on Jan. 17. Lake Charles, Louisiana (70615) Today Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 72F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 72F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph. Arlene of Fairfax,Visiting hours: From 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday (06-18-21) at the Gardinier Funeral Home, Inc., 1315 Chestnut Street, Franklin. Funeral service: Her funeral will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday at the Rockland United Methodist Church, 4357 Kennerdell Road, Kennerdell, PA, wi US House Republicans strip Iowa Congressman Steve King of his committee assignments after uproar. Washington, DC US Republican Congressman Steve Kings recent defence of white supremacy and white nationalism has provoked controversy and backlash, including from within his own party. House Democrats are organising a vote to rebuke Kings comments, while the Republican Party has stripped the hardline politician of his committee assignments in Congress. King served as chairman of the immigration and border security sub-committee, as well as Agriculture, Small Business and Judiciary committees in the last Congress, among others. We will not tolerate this in the Republican Party, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Monday, in the wake of a New York Times report in which King ostensibly defended white nationalism and white supremacy. White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilisation how did that language become offensive? King said in the New York Times interview. Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilisation? 181102172541480 In a statement released on Monday, King claimed that his quotes were mischaracterised and said McCarthys decision to remove Kings committee assignments ignores the truth. Claiming that he has denounced white nationalism and white supremacy, King said, My record as a vocal advocate for Western Civilisation is nearly as full as my record in defence of Freedom of Speech [all sic]. In a separate statement directly addressing the New York Times article, King dismissed claims that he sympathises with white nationalists or white supremacists. Under any fair political definition, I am simply a Nationalist [sic]. Brazen and crass For years, few in the Republican Party batted an eye when King railed against Muslims and immigrants, made overtly racist statements, and built ties with hardline elements of the European far right. King, an early supporter of President Donald Trump, promoted the idea of building a wall on the US-Mexico border over a decade ago and introduced legislation to end automatic birthright citizenship as far back as 2011. Christopher Mathias, a HuffPost reporter who focuses on the far right, started following King closely in late 2017 as the politicians social media activity increasingly overlapped with European far-rightists and some neo-Nazis. In December 2017, King tweeted a link to an article about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbans opposition to mixing cultures. Alongside the link, King wrote, Diversity is not our strength. In June 2018, King retweeted Mark Collett, a British far-rightist who has described himself as a Nazi sympathiser. Collett had shared an article claiming that a majority of young Italians oppose immigration. Europe is waking up, King wrote alongside that retweet. Will America in time? At that point, when King refused to apologise for promoting a Nazi on Twitter, I decided to take a longer, closer look at him, Mathias told Al Jazeera. Many of these incidents failed to prompt condemnation from fellow Republicans, but the latest King controversy has marginalised him within his own party. Its partly the fact that it was in the [New York] Times and people pay attention to the Times, and it was also that King almost lost in November, Mathias added, explaining that King has become more of toxic asset for Republicans than he was before. Because hes so brazen and crass, it gives them the opportunity to say they denounce white supremacy, when in fact most of them are busy supporting Trumps border wall. In recent years, King has travelled to Europe often to meet far-right parties and groups, including the Freedom Party of Austria, which was founded by former Nazi officers and is currently a junior coalition partner in the Austrian government. 190109155454602 He has promoted Geert Wilders, the Dutch anti-Muslim politician, and Marine Le Pen, leader of Frances far-right National Rally party. Last year, he endorsed the Toronto mayoral campaign of Faith Goldy, a far-right candidate who has made neo-Nazi remarks. Shane Burley, author of Fascism Today, says that King exemplifies white nationalists influence on the Republican Party and mainstream conservatives in the last decade. At this point, Im pretty comfortable saying Steve King is a white nationalist, Burley told Al Jazeera. From everything we can see, thats whats motivating Steve King. He added, Steve King says explicitly what [Republicans] would rather not say; the Republican Party is made up of people who want to deny the racial implications of their policies. Uncertainty and Brexit paralysis fears in UK as deadline looms Theresa Mays Brexit deal is coming to a vote before Parliament in the UK, but if it fails, the path forward becomes considerably less clear and not just for Brexit. British politicians have overwhelmingly rejected Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit agreement, complicating the UKs departure from the European Union on March 29. Members of parliament on Tuesday voted 432 to 202 to rebuff the deal, giving May a crushing defeat with a 230-margin. The House has spoken, and the government will listen, May said following the vote, even as she predicted more uncertainty, more bitterness and more rancor. The vote plunges the already divided country deeper into turmoil as it tries to solve several key issues in the Brexit process. 190114215228549 Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn called it the greatest defeat for a British government since the 1920s. Following the vote, Labour tabled a no-confidence motion in Mays minority government which will be debated on Wednesday. She cannot seriously believe that after two years of failure that shes capable of negotiating a good deal for this country, Corbyn said. But May said she still wants to fulfil her duty to deliver on Britains 2016 vote for leaving the EU. If she wins Wednesdays confidence vote she will meet the leaders of the opposition parties in a constructive spirit to discuss the way forward, May said. Given the urgent need to make progress, we must focus on ideas that are genuinely negotiable and have sufficient support in this House, she added. In her final plea to the parliament, May had said that a vote against the deal is nothing more than uncertainty, division and the very real risk of No Deal or No Brexit at all. We can choose unity over division, May said before the vote. I believe that we have a duty to deliver on that referendum vote. And to do so in a way that protects peoples jobs, and protects our security, and protects our union. Al Jazeeras Paul Brennan, reporting from London, said Brexit was raising a question over the whole principle of parliamentary democracy in Britain. Its pitting the government against parliament, and parliament against the people. What was initially a binary in-out question has now given rise to a whole kaleidoscope of complex options and uncertain outcomes, he added. Economically disastrous The country could now face a so-called no-deal Brexit that critics claim will be economically disastrous, another referendum, either on Brexit terms or whether to leave the EU at all. May, who now has three days to bring a revised plan back to parliament, will now most likely seek concessions from the EU, then put her deal to parliament a second time. However, the EU has said it will not negotiate the deal again. With the margin of her defeat, it is is more unlikely that EU would give May more concessions, Al Jazeeras David Chater, reporting from Brussels, said. There may be little Theresa May can discuss with the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. In a statement following Mays defeat, Juncker said he regretted the result of the vote. The risk of disorderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom has increased with this evenings vote, Juncker said. Tuesdays vote was initially scheduled to be held on December 11 but was postponed by May when it became clear she faced certain defeat. Last week, May warned British legislators that if the plan was rejected, a catastrophe would follow. Doing so would be a catastrophic and unforgivable breach of trust in our democracy, she wrote. The UK is poised to leave the EU on March 29, two years after it triggered Article 50, the exit clause in the EUs constitution, and kick-started arduous negotiations with European leaders over a divorce deal. However, since reaching a deal in November, the agreement has come under fire from across the political spectrum, with opponents of the EU seeking a cleaner break and pro-European legislators pressing for a second vote on membership in the bloc. A second referendum, however, has been opposed by both May and main opposition leader Corbyn. What next for Brexit? Here are the three main scenarios facing Britain while the clock ticks down to March 29, 2019 the day it is scheduled to depart the EU after 46 years: Try again: The British government and EU leaders say their agreement is the best compromise available, and despite her landmark defeat, May said on Tuesday it remained the only option. Members of her Conservative party say the deal keeps Britain too close to the EU, while opposition parties say fails to protect economic ties with the bloc. Both sides also hate a plan to keep open the Irish border, the so-called backstop, which could see Britain indefinitely follow European rules on trade. There is nothing to stop the government bringing back the same deal again and again to the House of Commons until either MPs accept it, or seek to remove May, who faces a no-confidence vote on Wednesday called by the opposition Labour Party. No deal: This is billed as the doomsday scenario that threatens to trigger a recession in Britain and markedly slow the EUs economic growth. It is the default option if the British parliament votes against the deal and there are no other solutions before March 29. Mays agreement was meant to keep trade rules between the worlds fifth-biggest economy and its largest export market almost unchanged for a transition period running to the end of 2020. Second referendum: EU supporters have been calling for another vote ever since the Leave campaign won the 2016 referendum, and demands have stepped up in recent months. There is no law keeping Britain from doing it all over again, but many question whether this would be democratic. It also threatens to be just as divisive, with opinion polls showing the country is still split over the issue. May has warned another vote would do irreparable damage to the integrity of our politics. Over 3,300 government-employed junior doctors, of a national tally of 3,700, stay away from hospitals and clinics. Nearly 80 percent of junior doctors across New Zealand have walked off work at public hospitals, after a breakdown in union talks with the government over working conditions and wages. The strike on Tuesday spotlights the difficulties Prime Minister Jacinda Arderns government faces in delivering on its promise to pour money into social services and rein in economic inequality when it took office in 2017. The centre-left governments traditional union support base says sluggish wage growth and soaring living costs have left workers struggling, with schoolteachers, nurses and court officials taking action last year to demand pay hikes. They want to have control over when we work, how we work and where we work, said Deborah Powell, the unions national secretary. We tried to resolve this without a strike but we were left with no choice. Call for more strikes More than 3,300 government-employed junior doctors, of a national tally of 3,700, are staying away from hospitals and clinics after the talks broke down last week. Some junior doctors clustered at street corners holding placards calling for better working hours, but there were no major demonstrations. Thousands of surgeries, non-essential appointments and medical services have been cancelled, although emergency and life-preserving services will continue as senior doctors, who are not part of the strike, are asked to step in. Government hospitals asked people to limit visits only to emergency situations. Junior doctors, or resident medical officers (RMOs), want to stick with existing employment contracts as they say the new terms that the government proposes would mean longer shifts and allow doctors to be moved to other hospitals without notice. Their union, the New Zealand Resident Doctors Association (NZRDA), said it had been in talks with the District Health Board (DHB) for more than a year on the new terms, in which payment for overtime, weekend and night shifts also figured. The union has already called for a second 48-hour strike on January 29 and 30, which is likely to step up pressure on the government. It is also holding talks to avert another strike this year by tens of thousands of school teachers after they rejected a pay offer. Norwegian diplomat, who took over from Staffan de Mistura, visits Damascus in latest effort to end eight-year-long war. The United Nations newly appointed Special Envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, arrived in Damascus on Tuesday for a three-day visit. Upon his arrival, Pedersen spoke to reporters saying he is looking forward to substantial and productive talks with Damascus. He is scheduled to meet Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem shortly after his arrival. For the Norwegian diplomat, this is the first visit to the war-torn country since he assumed the post, following last year resignation of his predecessor, Staffan de Mistura. Officials in the government of President Bashar al-Assad set the tone for the new envoys tenure shortly after news of his appointment in October last year. Syria will cooperate with the new UN Envoy, Geir Pedersen, provided he avoids the methods of his predecessor, Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Meqdad said, quoted by Al-Watan newspaper. Al-Assads opponents have said the change in UN envoy would have little effect on the fate of the country as international will and consensus were lacking. Pedersen is UNs fourth envoy who will attempt to find a peaceful solution to the war-torn country since the conflict erupted in 2011. Prior to his role as the UN special envoy to Syria, Pedersen was Norways ambassador to China. He also covered the role of Permanent Representative of Norway to the UN from 2012 to 2017. Pedersen was also a member of the Norwegian team to the secret negotiations that led to the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians. Political impasse Pedersens predecessors Staffan de Mistura, former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi have all been unable to halt the conflict despite dogged diplomacy and repeated rounds of talks. In August 2012, Annan had resigned as the UN and Arab League mediator after six months of fruitless efforts, complaining of a lack of support for his mission. Former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi then took over the role of the UN special envoy and in early 2014 organised the first face-to-face negotiations between the government and the opposition in Geneva. But the talks failed to achieve anything concrete and Brahimi stepped down. In early 2016, there were three rounds of indirect negotiations between the regime and the opposition groups in Geneva under the supervision of the UNs third special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura. 181221120253302 They hit an impasse over ceasefire violations and al-Assads role in any political transition. In December 2017, at the end of the eighth round of negotiations, de Mistura accused Damascus of causing the collapse of the talks by refusing to seek real dialogue with the opposition. In January 2018, a ninth round of UN peace talks was held without success in Vienna. In October 2018, de Mistura announced he was resigning for purely personal reasons. The same month, the head of the UN humanitarian task force for Syria, Jan Egeland, also quit. It will now fall to Pedersen to broker peace in the conflict, which has left more than 400,000 dead and caused millions to flee. The Syrian president, who has been in power for more than 18 years, has now reclaimed much of the territory he lost at the beginning of the war, largely thanks to the military backing of veto-wielding UN Security Council permanent member Russia. Opposition groups across Syria have little or no clout on the ground and negligible bargaining power in negotiations with Damascus. Researchers say AM580 chemical could one day be used as broad-spectrum antiviral for host of infectious diseases. Scientists in Hong Kong say they have made a potential breakthrough discovery in the fight against infectious diseases a chemical that could slow the spread of deadly viral illnesses. In a study published this month in the journal Nature Communications, a team from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) described the newly discovered chemical as highly potent in interrupting the life cycle of diverse viruses. The scientists told AFP news agency on Monday that it could one day be used as a broad-spectrum antiviral for a host of infectious diseases and even for viruses that have yet to emerge if it passes clinical trials. The spread in recent decades of sometimes deadly bird flu strains, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) have underscored the need for new drugs that can work more quickly than vaccines. 180717122327729 Broad-spectrum antivirals are seen as the holy grail because they can be used against multiple pathogens. In contrast, vaccines usually only protect against one strain, and by the time they are produced, the virus may have mutated. The HKU team tested their chemical AM580 on mice in a two-year study and found it stopped the replication of a host of flu strains including H1N1, H5N1 and H7N9 as well as the viruses that cause SARS and MERS. It also stopped the replication of the mosquito-borne Zika virus and Enterovirus 71 which causes hand, foot and mouth disease. This is what we call a broad-spectrum antiviral drug, which means it can kill a number of viruses, microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung, who led the team, told AFP. This is quite important in the early control of an epidemic. Starving the virus The study is part of a growing body of research by virologists to find drugs that avoid targeting a virus directly something which could lead to resistance. Instead, they look for compounds that interrupt the way viruses use crucial fatty acids, known as lipids, within a hosts cells to replicate. This study is science in progress an early step in an exciting new direction, said Benjamin Neuman, an expert on viruses at Texas A&M University-Texarkana who has published his own studies on starving viruses of lipids. 190102013118944 Viruses are totally dependent on supplies stolen from their hosts, and a number of recent studies have shown that treatments that interrupt the steady flow of lipids in an infected cell are highly effective at blocking a wide range of viruses, he told AFP. The next step is to test the drug on a wider variety of animals, including pigs and primates, before pushing to clinical trials, a process Yuen said could take up to eight years. The HKU team have applied for a patent in the United States. A derivative of AM580 is already being used in Japan to treat cancer, raising hopes that it will show low toxicity for humans. But Neuman warns there are drawbacks. Like many chemotherapy methods used to fight cancer, antivirals such as AM580 damage a persons cells to starve a virus. While cells can heal, much research still needs to be done on how and when to use such techniques. Unless the treatment is targeted very carefully, the potential for side effects would be very worrying, he said. Densely populated Hong Kong has the first-hand experience of deadly viral outbreaks. In 2003, nearly 300 people died from SARS and the citys densely packed apartment blocks are considered hugely vulnerable to future outbreaks. Talks called by southern African bloc comes as the constitutional court begins hearing an appeal against vote results. A southern African regional bloc has called for an emergency meeting to discuss the Democratic Republic of the Congos (DRC) disputed presidential election, as a court in Kinshasa began hearing an appeal against the results announced last week. Opposition candidate Martin Fayulu filed a court challenge over the weekend, demanding a recount, claiming that he won the presidential race with 61 percent of the vote. But the DRCs electoral commission has said Felix Tshisekedi won 38 percent of the vote and Fayulu 34 percent. Outgoing President Joseph Kabilas diplomatic adviser, Barnabe Kikaya Bin Karubi, told Reuters news agency on Tuesday that he would attend the Southern African Development Communitys (SADC) meeting scheduled on Thursday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It was not immediately clear who else from the DRC would be present or what action, if any, the 16-member bloc which on Monday called for a recount of the votes might decide to take. On Tuesday, lawyers for Fayulu urged the Constitutional Court to order a recount. The court, made up of nine judges, is considered by the opposition to be friendly to Kabila, and Fayulu has said he is not confident that it will rule in his favour. Fayulu has alleged that Tshisekedis win was the result of a backroom deal between Tshisekedi and Kabila that allows Kabila to maintain control over important ministries and the security services. Tshisekedi and Kabila deny there was any deal. The December 30 election was meant to lead to the DRCs first democratic transfer of power, but allegations of fraud cast doubt on the outcome and threatened to reawaken large-scale unrest in the vast central African country. Recount call Tshisekedis Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) also plans to file a challenge to the results of the legislative election, which took place the same day as the presidential vote, UDPS spokesman Vidiye Tshimanga said. Fayulu said he won the presidential race with over 60 percent of the votes [Jerome Delay/AP] Although the presidential candidate of Kabilas ruling coalition, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, won only 24 percent of the vote, the coalition took more than 350 of 500 seats in the National Assembly, compared with about 30 for the UDPS. This could undermine Tshisekedis ability to live up to campaign promises to break with Kabilas long tenure, which began in 2001 when his father was assassinated. The DRCs influential Catholic Church has said the presidential results were inconsistent with those gathered by its election observers. It, however, has not said whom it believes won. The UN Security Council on Tuesday called on all players in the DRC to respect the outcome of the elections. In a unanimous statement, the Council stressed the need for all concerned stakeholders to act in a way that reaffirms the integrity of the electoral process and respects the outcome of the poll, upholds democracy and preserves peace in the country. The French-drafted statement has been under discussion since last week when the Council met to discuss the outcome of the December 30 poll. France, Belgium, the United States and Britain have also expressed concern over the result of the polls. But perceived criticism from inside Africa could hold greater sway, with approval from regional partners critical for the legitimacy of the next president. The DRC is the worlds leading miner of cobalt, a mineral used in electric car batteries and mobile phones, and Africas biggest copper producer. It also mines gold and diamonds. Kanaka Durga says she was attacked by her mother-in-law minutes after returning to her home. One of two Indian women who entered an ancient Hindu hill temple in southern India this month in defiance of a centuries-old ban on women of menstruating age alleged she was beaten up by her mother-in-law. Kanaka Durga, 39, a civil servant, suffered injuries to her head and had to be hospitalised, police said on Tuesday. She claims she was attacked only minutes after she returned to her home from spending a month at undisclosed locations fearing attacks by conservative Hindu groups, police said. Bindu Ammini, 40, and Kanaka Durga, 39, the first women to enter Sabarimala temple [Reuters] We received a complaint from Kanaka Durga alleging that she was attacked by family members of her husband when she returned home after entering the temple, said Jaya Mani, the officer in charge of Perinthalmanna police station in Malappuram district, which is in the state of Kerala where the Sabarimala temple is located. Police were investigating, Mani said. A second police source said Durga had alleged she was assaulted by the mother-in-law. The mother-in-law denied the allegation, he said. Durga did not return calls seeking comment. The family members, including Durgas mother-in-law, could not be reached for comment. Sabarimala temple The Sabarimala temple has been the site of tension since Indias Supreme Court ruled in last September to end a ban on women and girls aged 10 to 50 from entering. The Kerala state government, led by the Communist Party of India, has tried to implement the court order and has said it would not give in to attempts by Hindu groups to prevent women from entering that temple. But Prime Minister Narendra Modis ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has accused the state government of showing little respect for a centuries-old Hindu tradition. In the strongest statement to date, Modi on Tuesday said: The conduct of the Kerala Left Democratic Front government on the Sabarimala issue will go down in history as one of the most shameful behaviours by any party or government. We knew that the communists do not respect Indian history, culture and spirituality but nobody imagined they will have such hatred, Modi, who is on a visit to Kerala, said. 190102072009305 The Sabarimala temple administration has refused to abide by the court ruling and thousands of devotees have blocked attempts by women to visit the temple. But on January 2, Bindu Ammini, 40, a law lecturer at Keralas Kannur University, and Durga succeeded in entering the temple through a side entrance in the middle of the night. Some other women have claimed they have got into the temple since then. Their entry sparked widespread protests and a day-long strike in Kerala led in part by members of Indias ruling party. The attack is a natural reaction of the family members, who are strong believers of the temples customs and rituals, Ammini told Reuters. Her friends told me that her family members were angry with her action. They have unleashed their anger when they saw her. The refusal places in peril a fragile truce between the warring sides in the Arab worlds poorest country. United Nations, New York Houthi rebel and Yemeni government representatives did not meet face-to-face in the port city of Hodeidah over the past week despite a recently-inked peace plan, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Monday. The UNs Patrick Cammaert has been forced to shuttle between the rebel and government sides, who had twice met together under the so-called Redeployment Coordination Committee (RDC) before those direct talks broke down, the UN said. Their refusal to sit together highlights the difficulty in implementing the UN-brokered deal, reached between the government and rebels on December 13 in Rimbo, Sweden. Dujarric said that Cammaerts meetings were aimed at finding a mutually acceptable way forward for the redeployment of forces from the three ports and critical parts of the city associated with humanitarian facilities. Under the terms of the Rimbo deal, the Houthis were expected to hand over control of the ports of Hodeidah, Saleef and Ras Isa to local security forces in liaison with Cammaert and envoys from the Saudi-backed government. However, both sides have disagreed over the wording of the agreement. Not going smoothly General Cammaert has toured Yemen, meeting with Houthi officials in Hodeidah [Abduljabbar Zeyad/Reuters] Although a ceasefire in Hodeidah has largely stuck, each side has accused the other of violating the truce. Near-daily missile fire and automatic gunfire can reportedly be heard by the thousands of civilians who still reside in the city. Elsewhere in Yemen, the Iran-aligned Houthis threatened to continue ongoing drone attacks, after a deadly strike last week on a Yemeni government military parade, stoking tensions between the warring parties amid shaky UN peace efforts. According to Dujarric, the Hodeidah talks had faced setbacks and could not be described as going smoothly, but he noted there were still hopes of re-opening the Red Sea port citys vital transit routes for aid and other supplies. While projected timelines have slipped, recent discussions have been constructive, Dujarric told reporters in New York. Cammaert continues to encourage the parties to resume the joint meetings in order to finalise a mutually agreed redeployment plan. Currently, plans are being discussed on how to facilitate humanitarian operations. The UN Security Council is expected to vote later this week on a UK-drafted resolution to expand Cammaerts team to include 75 UN monitors for an initial period of six months to oversee the Hodeidah ceasefire and troop redeployment. Last months ceasefire came after the Saudi-UAE-backed pro-government forces launched a major offensive in June aimed at driving Houthi rebels out of the city. The Red Sea port is the key transit point for food, medicine and other supplies to Yemen, where 14 million Yemenis are on the brink of famine, according to UN figures. Yemen has been wracked by violence since 2014 when the Houthis stormed south from their stronghold of Saada and overran much of the country, including the capital Sanaa where they toppled Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadis unpopular government. Fighting escalated in 2015 when Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who accuse the Houthis of being Iranian proxies, launched a military coalition that began air attacks against Houthi positions in an attempt to reinstate Hadi. Follow James Reinl on Twitter: @jamesreinl The Palestinians presented a request for UN membership in 2011, but that application never came to a vote. Palestine will launch a bid to become a full member of the United Nations, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said on Tuesday. The bid will go ahead despite the United States having said it will veto Palestines membership plans. We know that we are going to face a US veto but that wont prevent us from presenting our application, Al-Maliki told journalists. He added that the Palestinians will begin lobbying members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) in the coming weeks. The Palestinians presented a request for UN membership in 2011, but the application never came before the UNSC for a vote. Following that attempt, Palestines status was upgraded from a non-member observer entity to a non-member observer state, which allows the country to be a signatory to treaties for which the UN secretary-general is the depositary. Since then, the country has joined more than 50 international organisations and agreements, according to the Palestinian foreign ministry. Among them are the International Criminal Court and the UN heritage body, UNESCO. In 2017, Interpol approved the Palestinian Authoritys membership bid, another victory in Palestinians drive for international representation despite strong Israeli opposition. Group of 77 On Tuesday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas assumed chair for the so-called Group of 77, the biggest UN bloc of developing countries, a position that raises Palestines international standing significantly. In his address, Abbas said Israel was hampering development in the Middle East and renewed his commitment to a two-state solution. Israels continued colonisation and occupation of the state of Palestine undermines our development and capacity for cooperation, coordination and obstructs the cohesive future development of all peoples of the region, he said. 181207030621455 The Palestinian leader also said he was committed to a peaceful solution that brings an end to the occupation and the realisation of the independence of the state of Palestine with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital, living side-by-side in peace and security with the state of Israel. In recent years, Jerusalem has become an even more important point of contest between Palestine and Israel, after US President Donald Trumps decision in December 2017 to recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital and move the US embassy to the city. With that decision, Trump broke with the international consensus that the status of the city would be decided in negotiations, much to the outrage of the international community. Abbas subsequently broke off ties with the Trump administration, vowing to oppose any US peace proposal that he has warned would be biased in favour of Israel. Under Trump, the US has also cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for UN programmes benefitting Palestinians, including funds to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which was forced to scale back its education and health programmes. The General Assembly last year adopted a resolution granting the observer-state of Palestine additional rights to act as chair of the G77, a bloc of 134 countries at the UN. The US voted against that measure, arguing that the Palestinians should not be allowed to take the chair because it is not a full member-state. Pavel Fuchs, who once negotiated with Trump, accused of making a threat of violence over bad seats at 2017 inauguration. Pavel Fuchs, a Ukrainian oligarch who negotiated with Donald Trump and reportedly works with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, stands accused of making a threat of violence against a US-based businessman involved in selling him seats to the 45th US presidents inauguration. The gas and real estate tycoon was furious that two tickets he purchased for $200,000 left him and a Ukrainian member of parliament with bad seats, according to two well-placed sources speaking to Al Jazeeras Investigative Unit, a Ukrainian newspaper editor and other journalists. Fuchs allegedly warned the businessman who facilitated the purchase he wanted his money back and if he did not get it he would tear him apart. Its alleged he then issued a series of threats to others involved in the deal. The mogul was featured in the Al Jazeera investigation The Oligarchs, which aired in January 2018 and revealed that he has had at least a 10-year relationship with Trump and his son, Don Jr. 180730132437308 Then a leading Russian real-estate figure, he held talks with the Trumps between 2008 and 2010 about constructing a Trump Tower in Moscow, which was never developed. The presence of at least a dozen Ukrainian politicians and business figures, some of whom have close links to Russia, at the January 20, 2017 inauguration attracted interest from US Special Counsel Robert Mueller, according to the New York Times. The report said some of the Ukrainian guests were promoting grand bargains or peace plans aligned with the Kremlins interests. Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and the newspaper said US federal prosecutors have begun a number of other inquiries related to the Ukrainians at the inauguration. Fuchs, who was among them, tried to re-enter the US in December 2017, but was detained and deported by US border officials who revoked his visa, according to several sources. The oligarch, who owns property in New York and Miami, later claimed he had been the victim of an administrative error. It is not clear why agents refused to admit the Ukrainian, who emigrated from Russia in 2015. US officials were not immediately available for comment on whether their decision was related to the alleged threats or to his wider business activities, which have drawn the attention of Ukrainian authorities. Just found another photo of Pavel Fuchs / Fuks with Rudy Giuliani from his Russian wikipedia page. Says they met in July 2017 in New York, most likely at RGs office. https://t.co/p7s0maCM0V pic.twitter.com/N4gWYMKF08 Will Jordan (@willjordan) January 29, 2018 Al Jazeera investigation The year-long Al Jazeera investigation into Eastern European oligarchs described Fuchss role in purchasing $160m of frozen assets deemed to have been stolen from the Ukrainian state. As Al Jazeera reported at the time, the evidence suggested the seller was a fugitive Ukrainian businessman close to the pro-Russian former President Viktor Yanukovych. The businessman and the president were among those who fled at the height of Ukraines Euro Maidan revolution in 2014, with Yanukovych now widely reported to be under Russian government protection. More recently, Fuchs has been photographed with Giuliani, Trumps personal lawyer, in both New York and Ukraines second city of Kharkiv. The former New York mayors security consulting business, Giuliani Security and Safety, is providing advice on improving Kharkivs emergency services. Kharkivs residents are divided between those who are pro-Western and those who support the Russian government. Four years ago, the city nearly turned into a Russian-backed separatist enclave. Fuchs is reported to be working directly with Giuliani to set up a Kharkiv investment office in the United States. In mid-November last year, Fuchs was also allegedly refused entry to Israel. In recent days, a Ukrainian politician reported the business figure had been detained and deported from Mexico, where he arrived by private jet with another legislator. Ukraine media reports Fuchs now arrested in Mexico. Previously refused entry to Israel and US, per reports. Negotiated with Trump over Moscow tower 2008-10. Involved in shadow trade of frozen assets stolen by ex president Yanukovych. https://t.co/p1K1Ghy9SA Will Jordan (@willjordan) January 8, 2019 The oligarch has refuted the story, posting a video of himself in what appears to be Mexico and giving the finger to the fat pig who first reported he had not entered the country. This is a fake, he said. Im in Mexico. Here are the Mexicans so there are no questions. He later issued a statement in which he accused the person who first published the story, former lawmaker and businessman Mikhail Brodsky, of publishing fake news. Perhaps this was done for the purpose of further extortion of money, he wrote. Mercenary Born in Kharkiv in 1971, Fuchs earned the nickname Mercenary from his associates, according to restricted Russian interior ministry records. He built a network of businessmen close to ex-Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who was later accused by Russian authorities of presiding over the loss of $5bn from city coffers. The former mayor denied any wrongdoing and called the allegations political bullying. During Luzhkovs tenure, Fuchs made hundreds of millions of dollars from real estate and led the development of a new financial district which today dominates the skyline. The Moscow City complex has been beset with financial difficulties since its main financier, Kazakh billionaire Mukhtar Ablyazov, was charged over an unrelated $6bn fraud case, which continues. During a tour of one of his developments, Fuchs told Russian television that when he was young he beat people up. I dont like it when someone lies to me. He recounts a story about his Turkish builders. While refurbishing, I told them not to smoke, but when I arrived they were smoking. I asked them again not to smoke. And they continued smoking? asks the presenter. Yes, and they had to eat their cigarette butts, Fuchs replies. How beautiful, remarks the presenter, sarcastically. Amid rumours of commercial disputes, the real estate tycoon fled Moscow in 2015 and resettled in Ukraine. He has now been placed under sanctions by the Russian government and cannot enter the country. Despite a formal dispute with Russia, many in Ukraine suspect Fuchs of secretly operating with the consent of the Kremlin. After the overthrow of Yanukovych, Ukraines pro-Western government has been involved in a low-level, ongoing military conflict with Russia. There are several enclaves in the east of the country that are controlled by Russian troops and Ukrainians who support the Kremlin. Since Fuchss arrival in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, he has forged strong links with powerful politicians and accumulated assets previously owned by politicians and businessman close to Yanukovych. He has become a leading figure in the gas industry, owning the second highest number of extraction permits, according to ANTAC, an anti-corruption campaign group. In August, following the release of Al Jazeeras documentary, Fuchs was questioned by Ukrainian prosecutors. Their case focused on whether he or others had been involved in assisting the unidentified persons of a criminal organisation in compromising the seizure of the $1.5bn deemed stolen by former president Yanukovych. No charges have been brought so far. Neither Fuchs nor a spokesperson for Giuliani responded to requests for comment. Two sides to reportedly finalise second Trump-Kim summit details, as South Korea report doesnt refer to North as enemy. The United States and North Korea plan to hold high-level talks in Washington this week to discuss the second summit of their leaders after a prolonged stalemate in nuclear talks, according to South Korean media. The meeting, led by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean Official Kim Yong-chol, will take place either on Thursday or Friday, the Chosun Ilbo said on Tuesday, citing an unnamed diplomatic source familiar with the talks. The paper said both sides are expected to finalise the date and location of a second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who first met in Singapore in June last year. It added that the Norths envoy is likely to also meet Trump. South Korean news agency Yonhap also quoted an unnamed diplomatic source as saying Pompeo and Kim Yong-chol could meet this week. A CNN reporter, meanwhile, citing an unnamed source, tweeted that the North Korean delegation could visit the US as soon as this week but plans had not been finalised. Ahead of the possible meetings, a letter Trump sent to Kim was flown to Pyongyang and hand-delivered over the weekend, the CNN reporter added, citing the source. The White House and the US embassy in South Koreas capital, Seoul, did not immediately comment on the reports. Months-long impasse If confirmed, the meeting could mean the two sides are inching closer to a compromise after a months-long impasse over how to move forward in ending North Koreas nuclear and missile programmes. In Singapore, Trump and Kim signed a vaguely-worded pledge on denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, but progress has since stalled with Pyongyang and Washington arguing over their agreements interpretation. Pompeo, who made several trips to Pyongyang last year, planned to meet his counterpart last November, but the talks were called off at the last minute. Contact was resumed after a New Years speech by Kim, in which he said he was willing to meet Trump at any time, Cho Yoon-je, the South Korean ambassador to the US, told reporters last week. Washington and Seoul have been discussing potential US measures to reciprocate North Koreas possible steps towards denuclearisation, such as dismantling the Yongbyon main nuclear complex or intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) aimed at the US, South Korean officials told Reuters news agency. The US is considering partially easing sanctions in exchange for the North discarding and sending abroad its ICBMs, in addition to a freeze in its nuclear programme, the Chosun Ilbo said, citing the source. South Korean President Moon Jae-in, left, holds a toast with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a luncheon at the Samjiyon guesthouse in North Korea at their summit last September [Pyongyang Press Corps Pool/AP] Potential US actions could include exemptions from sanctions for inter-Korean business and tour ventures and opening a liaison office ahead of a formal launch of diplomatic relations, Seoul officials said. Those ideas are being discussed as interim measures, not as an end state, in order to expedite the denuclearisation process because the North wouldnt respond to any demand for a declaration of facilities and weapons, a senior South Korean official said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. The end goal remains unchanged, whether it be complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation, or final, fully verified denuclearisation. Enemy dropped As part of an apparent effort to continue reconciliation with its neighbour, South Korea on Tuesday stopped calling North Korea an enemy in its biennial defence document. The white paper that was published and posted on the defence ministrys website did not include the usual terms labelling North Korea as its enemy, present enemy or main enemy, The Associated Press news agency reported. The use of the terminology has been a source of animosity between the Koreas for a number of years, with the North claiming they were a provocation that demonstrated the Souths hostility. The change is likely to draw harsh criticism from conservatives in South Korea, who argue President Moon Jae-ins engagement strategy, including reductions in conventional arms, has undermined the Souths security because of the lack of a breakthrough on the Norths nuclear programme. Kim reiterated his resolve to meet Trump again during a meeting last week with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Trump also said this month he had received a great letter from Kim and would probably meet him again in the not-too-distant future. At the second summit, theyll probably focus on reaching a possible interim deal, rather than a comprehensive roadmap for denuclearisation, said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at South Koreas Sejong Institute. Whether Pyongyang is willing to abolish ICBMs, in addition to disabling the Yongbyon complex, would be key, and if so, the North will likely demand sanctions relief in return. Heres a list of deadly attacks carried out by the armed group against Kenya and its military installations. Al-Shabab is an armed group based in Somalia, fighting to topple the Western-backed Somali government. It wants to impose a strict version of Islamic law in the Horn of Africa country. The armed group has carried out several attacks in neighbouring countries, including Kenya, since Nairobi launched a military operation inside Somalia in 2011. The group used to control most parts of south and central Somalia, but since 2010, the fighters have been expelled from most major towns as the US military and a 20,000-strong African Union peacekeeping mission boosted the Somali forces. Below we take a look at the major attacks carried out by the group in Kenya 2013: In September 2013, al-Shabab fighters stormed Nairobis Westgate Mall, firing indiscriminately at shoppers and killing 67 people in a siege that lasted 80 hours. The assault horrified the world and exposed weaknesses in Kenyas security forces. 2014: In November 2014, members of Somalias al-Shabab armed group hijacked a bus in Kenya and killed 28 non-Muslims on board. What happened in Mandera today we did in revenge for what the non-believer government has done to innocent Muslims, Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, a spokesman for the group, told Al Jazeera. April 2015: Al-Shabab launched an assault on Garissa University College in Kenya, killing 148, mainly students. January 2016: Fighters from the Somali armed group assaulted a Kenyan-run military base for African Union peacekeepers, killing scores of Kenyan soldiers. January 2019: Two explosions and gunfire heard at an upscale hotel complex in Nairobi, Kenyas capital. The attack on the Dusit hotel complex which also houses offices and banks sent people fleeing for their lives. There could still be armed assailants in the building and the police operation was ongoing, reporters were told in a short briefing. After gaining asylum in Canada, Rahaf Mohammed says she was exposed to violence and locked up for months in the kingdom. Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, who was granted asylum in Canada, said she was physically and mentally abused by her family since the age of 16, forcing her to risk her life and flee the kingdom. Speaking to the media for the first time since landing in Toronto on Saturday, the 18-year-old detailed the mistreatment by her family saying she hoped her story would encourage other Saudi women to be brave and free. Last week, she fled to Thailand while visiting Kuwait with her family. Her case drew international attention on social media after she barricaded herself in a Bangkok airport hotel room after Thai authorities threatened to deport her and live-tweeted her desperate attempt to flee. My life was in danger and I felt I had nothing to lose. I wanted to tell people my story and about what happens to Saudi women, she told Canadas CBC news and the Toronto Star on Monday. Mohammed, who has dropped al-Qunun from her name after learning about her family disowning her, said she was beaten up for not praying and locked in the house for six months for cutting her hair short. I was exposed to physical violence, persecution, oppression, threats to be killed, she said. I felt that I could not achieve my dreams that I wanted as long as I was still living in Saudi Arabia. Its daily oppression, Mohammed added. We are treated as an object, like a slave. We could not make decisions about what we want. Following a 48-hour standoff at Bangkoks airport, Mohammed was allowed to enter Thailand and was then processed as a refugee by the UNs refugee agency. The teenager claimed she had contemplated ending her life during the ordeal, as her father and brother travelled to retrieve her in Thailand. I was scared of being captured, arrested and sent back home, and no one would know anything about [me], she said. Born again On Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Canada had accepted a request from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to take in Mohammed. Several other countries, including Australia, had been in talks with the UNs refugee agency to accept the Saudi citizen before she flew to Canada. She was welcomed by Canadas Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland at Torontos airport on Saturday. I feel very happy. I feel born again from feeling the love coming from everyone waiting for my arrival, she said. Mohammed told reporters she plans to learn English, rejoin school and find work in her adopted homeland. She said she hopes that her story that has garnered international attention will be a catalyst for change in Saudi Arabia. I think the number of women fleeing from the Saudi administration and abuse will increase, especially since there is no system to stop them, she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Im sure that there will be a lot more women running away I hope my story prompts a change to the law, especially as its been exposed to the world. Over 1,000 Hondurans set off for US border, calling on Trump to give them asylum after fleeing crisis at home. San Pedro Sula, Honduras It was still dark when hundreds of Hondurans set out for the border with Guatemala as part of a new caravan of US-bound migrants and asylum seekers. The economic crisis has been tremendous, with unemployment going up and corruption getting worse, Daniel Munoz, 38, from the Honduran department of Cortes, said as he joined his 16-year-old daughter and others on the second group of the caravan on Tuesday. Another group, which eventually grew to more than a 1,000 participants, left late on Monday. These are the reasons why we must migrate to another country, Munoz told Al Jazeera. The family, like so many that joined him on Tuesday morning, has seen their cost of living steadily increase in the last three years, but the amount that Munoz earned transporting sawdust was not enough to cover their bills. The cost of water and energy went up, Munoz said. There are times when we did not have enough to cover the costs. His daughter, Stephanie, hopes that she will be able to continue with her studies in the United States and attend university where she wants to study journalism, and then get a job. Youths like Stephanie face a difficult reality in Honduras where there are few opportunities for work. There are so many youths looking for work, but they are unable to find work, she said. People look, but they dont have the education that is required, she said. It makes me sad that they are unable to find work. Others caravan participants are fleeing violence or political persecution. Migrants and asylum seekers part of a new caravan leaving Honduras set off from San Pedro Sula [Jeff Abbott/Al Jazeera] Marta Grady, who departed on Monday, said she cannot endure this crisis [in Honduras] any more. There is no work here. How are we going to eat? Since [Honduran President] Juan Orlando [Hernandez] entered office things have gotten worse. There are no solutions, she told Al Jazeera. 181213175710892 The 35-year-old has owned different businesses, including selling fruit and selling fresh meat, but failed to earn enough to support her family. She began planning to leave with the caravan in December when she first learned about the caravan. We were not prepared when the first caravan left, she said, referring to the thousands of Central Americans who left the region in October of last year. Now we are ready to go. We are leaving everything. The group will make their way to the US border over the next several weeks. They will eventually join the thousands from Octobers exodus still at the border awaiting processing by US immigration authorities, who have implemented a metering system, limiting the number of asylum applications that are processed each day. Others from last years group have either crossed the border between official ports of entry, found work in Mexico or returned home. Carlos Maldonado holds a sign addressed to Trump outside the San Pedro Sula bus station [Jeff Abbott/Al Jazeera] US President Donald Trump has attempted to use the caravans as a way to sow fear among Americans and make his case for a wall on the US-Mexico border. Key parts of the US government shut down on December 22 after Trump refused to back down on his demand for $5.7bn in wall funding on the US southern border, saying there is a humanitarian crisis at the border. Critics, including Democrats, argue the wall is immoral and a vast overreaction. 181126132856413 Carlos Maldonado, a 26-year-old from Paradiso, sat next to Grady holding a sign addressed to Trump. Trump, we request humanitarian asylum, the sign read. We are fleeing gangs, extortion, sexual discrimination, violence and insecurity and corrupt politicians. Maldonado said this is the only opportunity he has. I need to take advantage of it, he told Al Jazeera. Exodus from Central America Caravans from Central America are not rare. Those fleeing hope to find safety in numbers as they travel more than 2,000km north. According to an Associated Press tally, nearly 4,000 migrants and refugees have died or gone missing along the route since 2014. 181123170408532 The Trump administration deployed thousands of active duty US troops to the border, falsely labelling the collective exodus an invasion. After a number of large caravans left Honduras in October, the Trump administration pressured the governments of Central America to stop the caravans from advancing. As a result, the governments of Honduras and Guatemala deployed military and police to the border crossing to turn back potential migrants and refugees headed towards the US. A family migrating with the Honduran caravan tails behind the rest of the group as it leaves San Pedro Sula [Jeff Abbott/Al Jazeera] In December, police and members of the US-equipped Honduran inter-agency task force, Maya Chorti, patrolled the popular routes for migrants. The officers and soldiers stopped vehicles and asked travellers for identification and whether they had a visa to travel in Mexico. Those who did not were turned back. 190107150120233 The Honduran Government announced on Monday that it would uphold laws that cover child trafficking in the region. The Honduran Directorate of childhood, adolescence, and family issued a statement that reiterating that those that try to take children out of the country without the proper documentation could face up to three years of imprisonment. Some 60 children were stopped by Honduran authorities on Monday and Tuesday for not having proper documentation, according to officials. Citizens of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua are free to travel without a passport between the four countries due to an agreement signed between the governments in 2006. Moscows sovereignty over a chain of islands seized from Japan at the end of World War II is not up for debate, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said after meeting his Japanese counterpart, adding that disagreements between the countries still obstruct the path to a peace deal. The dispute over the islands, known as the Southern Kurils in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan, has been a major obstacle in the face of a potential treaty to formally end the war. Weve brought the attention of our friends from Japan to the fact that the questions of sovereignty over the islands are not being discussed. It is the Russian Federations territory, Lavrov told reporters on Monday following the talks in Moscow with Taro Kono. I wont hide that we still have significant divergences. To start with, the positions were diametrically opposed and we have said this more than once, he added. Speaking at the start of the talks, Kono, the Japanese foreign minister, said the two countries needed to solve the territorial problem to set the stage for expanded economic and other ties. Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Takeshi Osuga said during a separate briefing in Moscow the two ministers had a serious and frank exchange. He would not comment on specifics and said Russian and Japanese diplomats would continue discussions on the issue. Setting stage for Putin-Abe meeting Lavrov had warned during their meeting that Japan would be ill-advised to unilaterally fuel speculation without a final deal in place, according to a transcript of opening remarks. We must work on a peace treaty professionally, without trying to distort the agreements reached at any intermediary stage and without escalating divisive unilateral rhetoric in the public space, Lavrov said during the meeting. 161215105806870 But the political will of our leaders to fully normalise between Russia and Japan prompts us to activate this dialogue, he said. His comments appeared to reflect Moscows efforts to temper Japanese expectations of an imminent deal on the dispute over the islands, which were seized by the erstwhile Soviet army in the final days of World War II. They also set a tough stage for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abes trip to Moscow for peace treaty negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin next week. Abe recently expressed hope that this year will mark a breakthrough in solving the dispute and spoke about an imminent change in the islands status remarks that angered Moscow. Regional focus The disputed Kuril islands, one of which lies less than 10km from Japans Hokkaido, consist of Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan and Habomai. Three are inhabited, while Habomai is a group of islets with only the presence of a border patrol. 180912152002422 Putin and Abe agreed in November to accelerate negotiations based on a 1956 Soviet proposal to return two of the islands to Japan, but Lavrovs sombre tone on Monday indicated that Japanese expectations of a quick breakthrough were premature. After his talks with Kono, the Russian diplomat said he also drew his counterparts attention to a statement by Abes political aide suggesting that solving the territorial dispute with Russia would help efforts by Japan and the United States to deter China. Lavrov called the statement outrageous, adding that it raised new questions about the independence of Japanese foreign policy. We wondered whether Japan could be independent given such reliance on the US and we were told that Japan would act proceeding from its national interests, Lavrov said. We would like to hope it will indeed be so. He said the Soviet Union had proposed returning the two islands to Japan before Tokyo struck a military alliance with the US in 1960. Lavrov noted that Russia remains concerned about the US military buildup in the Pacific, including the deployment of US missile defence components that he said create security risks for Russia and China. Dual citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to protest for 72 hours over lack of access to medical treatment, husband says. A British-Iranian woman jailed in Irans capital, Tehran, for more than two years is going on a hunger strike in protest of her treatment, her husband has said. Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of 40-year-old Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, announced the move on Monday at a press conference held in London. Nazanin called me this morning to confirm from Evin prison that she has started this hunger strike this morning. It is initially a three-day hunger strike, Ratcliffe said. He said Nazanin was taking the action to protest against prison officials, who have refused to provide her access to specialist doctors to address concerns over severe neck pains and numbness in her arms and legs. The strike could be extended if she fails to win assurances of proper medical attention, he added. A spokesperson for Irans judiciary declined to comment on the issue, the Reuters news agency reported. A breach of human rights Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in April 2016 at Tehran airport as she headed back to Britain with her daughter after a family visit. She was subsequently sentenced to five years in jail after being convicted of plotting to overthrow Irans government, a charge denied by her family and the Foundation, a charity organisation that operates independently of Thomson Reuters and the Reuters news agency. Britain has said it will not let Zaghari-Ratcliffes case rest and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he had summoned Irans ambassador on Monday to demand she had immediate access to the healthcare she needed. We all have Nazanin high in our thoughts as she starts her hunger strike today. It is a truly terrible indictment of Irans approach that she feels she needs to resort to such an ordeal. Iran must take action now, Hunt said in a series of Tweets. Today I summoned the Iranian Ambassador to demand Nazanin has immediate access to the healthcare she requires. Her ongoing detention is TOTALLY unacceptable and her treatment at the hands of Iranian authorities is a fundamental breach of human rights 1/2 Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) January 14, 2019 Iran, meanwhile, said Britains intervention was an interference in its affairs and was unacceptable, state news agency IRNA reported. Mrs Zaghari, as an Iranian national, has received necessary medical care in prison and she will continue to enjoy her right to access the medical care while in jail, IRNA quoted Irans ambassador to Britain, Hamid Baeidinejad, as saying. Dual national arrests Zaghari-Ratcliffe was released from Tehrans Evin Prison for three days in August last year and reunited with family members, including her four-year-old daughter. The temporary release came three months after the 40-year-old was summoned to court without a lawyer present under a new charge of spreading propaganda against the government. During the hearing, she was reportedly warned of an additional conviction and an extended jail sentence. Britain has advised British-Iranian dual nationals against all but essential travel to Iran, tightening its existing travel advice and warning it has only limited powers to support them if arrested. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), Iran has arrested several dual nationals who have travelled to the country in recent years. The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless. The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well. By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism. Authorities hand eviction order to the Sabbagh family of 45 people, so Israeli settlers could move into their homes. Sheikh Jarrah, occupied East Jerusalem Huddled around an electric heater on a chilly winter day, four Palestinian women sit nervously, making calls to acquaintances to ask about homes for rent in the city. We cant leave it to the last minute. We have to figure it out the Israelis can come at any time to evict us from our homes, says 31-year-old Ramziyeh Sabbagh. She is due to give birth to a baby girl in five days. My husband is in denial that we may be evicted, says Khadija Sabbagh, Ramziyehs aunt. I dont know what were going to do. We only have God at this point. Umm Alaa Skafi, who lives next door and whose family is also facing eviction, came over to check on her dear neighbour. Keep praying. Dont let your mind wander. Keep yourself busy. I am here for you. Ill make a dish and bring it over for you and your family, Umm Alaa tells Khadija. On January 12, Israeli authorities handed an eviction order to the Sabbagh family numbering about 45 people so Israeli settlers could move into their homes. The five Sabbagh brothers, their wives, children and grandchildren were given until January 23 to leave their homes. On Tuesday, lawyers representing the family said Israeli authorities agreed to freeze the eviction until a final decision was reached within a month. The families have lived there since 1956. They were forcibly displaced from their hometown of Jaffa during the 1948 Palestinian Nakba the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist militias to create the state of Israel. Having had relatives in the nearby neighbourhood of Wadi al-Joz, they settled in Jerusalem. Along with UNRWA, the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees, Jordan, which assumed control of the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, provided apartments for 28 Palestinian refugee families, including the Sabbagh family, in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood. Battle to evict Palestinians Not long after the 1967 War, in which Israel occupied East Jerusalem, settler groups began claiming ownership of a number of properties. In 2003, the groups, which claimed they had registered the lands in their names in 1972, sold the property to Nahalat Shimon, a settler company that is registered overseas. 190114084722190 Nahalat Shimon then launched a lengthy legal battle to evict several Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah. In 2009, the company evicted three families. In 2017, another family was told to leave. In November 2018, after more than a decade of legal proceedings, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected the appeal made by the lawyers representing the Sabbagh family, in which they sought to challenge the settler groups ownership of the land. The Supreme Court upheld a lower courts ruling in which it refused to open the question over who owned the land or to examine the documents put forth by the families and their lawyers, on the basis of the statute of limitations having expired. Israel wants to throw us out on the streets, but were going to keep fighting until the end, says Mohammad Sabbagh [Zena Tahhan/Al Jazeera] Weve been here for 62 years. Even if we are not the owners of the land, or the building, how are there laws that allow for the eviction of people after 62 years? says 70-year-old Mohammad Sabbagh, the eldest brother who fled with his parents to Jerusalem before the rest of his siblings were born. 190114174424431 We had one apartment in 1956. When the family grew, we built homes next door for my brothers and their families. Every stone, tile and wall in these homes is telling of the fact that we have been here for 62 years, he tells Al Jazeera. The situation were in breaks my heart. Its very, very hard, he says, his voice trembling. The Sabbagh family home in Jaffa still stands. But under discriminatory Israeli law, Palestinians, unlike Jews, cannot claim homes they fled during 1948, meaning they are barred from returning. Little hope Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem the association providing the lawyers explains there is little hope for the families. The courts have refused to even examine the files. We know that we are under Israeli occupation, dealing with the occupations courts, but were trying to postpone the eviction as much as possible, Odeh tells Al Jazeera. The general political atmosphere has encouraged the Israeli government and the settler groups to intensify their efforts particularly with this unrestricted support from the United States government under Trump, he continued. While the eviction of the Sabbagh family is the most imminent, there are at least nine other families from Sheikh Jarrah whose legal proceedings are ongoing. 190108081452049 And the case of Sheikh Jarrah is not unique. Israeli settler groups, many of which are supported by the government, have long targeted and managed to move into a number of Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem. In Silwan, south of the Old City, some 700 Palestinians are currently facing eviction and displacement. Since Israels occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967, the Israeli population living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank has risen to between 600,000 and 750,000. The figure means roughly 11 percent of Israels 6.6 million Jewish population now lives on occupied land, outside the internationally recognised borders of their state, in contravention of international law. Ignoring the law Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which defines humanitarian protections for civilians caught in a war zone, an occupying power is forbidden from transferring parts of its civilian population into the territory it occupies. This aims to ensure that occupation is temporary, to protect civilians from the theft of resources, to prohibit a de facto situation in which two groups living on the same land are subject to two different legal systems and to prevent changes in the demographic makeup of the occupied territory. Ramziyeh Sabbagh, who is nine months pregnant, lives with her ill mother, brother and his two children in their Sheikh Jarrah home [Zena Tahhan/Al Jazeera] Back in Sheikh Jarrah, the Sabbagh families are frantic with worry and fear. 190112200549340 I watched them evict our neighbours, says 55-year-old Khadija, the wife of Mohammads brother. It was horrific. They raided their homes while they were sleeping and kicked them out. I prefer death to this kind of life; this slow torture that eats away at your nerves, Khadija continues with tears streaming down her cheeks. If theyre going to evict us from here, then let them give us our homes in Jaffa back. We still have the key to our home in Jaffa. I know we will return someday. Khadijas 15-year-old daughter chuckles at her mothers remarks. Keep dreaming, she says. Iran conducts one of at least two planned satellite launches amid US criticism, but the satellite failed to reach orbit. Iran has conducted one of at least two satellite launches it plans despite criticism by the United States, but the satellite failed to reach orbit, an official said. The Payam satellite was successfully launched this morning with the Basir satellite carrier. But the satellite, unfortunately, failed to be placed in orbit in the final stage, Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi told Iranian state television on Tuesday. The rocket carrying the Payam satellite successfully passed its first and second stages, but then could not reach the necessary speed in the third one. 190114195115637 Iran had planned to send two satellites, Payam and Doosti, into the orbit. Payam means message in Farsi, while Doosti means friendship. Its unclear how the failure of the Payam will affect the launch timing for the Doosti. Jahromi wrote on Twitter that Doosti is waiting for orbit, without elaborating. Civil project The US has called Irans satellite programmes a violation of UN Security Council resolution that endorsed a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between major powers and Tehran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that the supposedly innocent satellite launched on Tuesday was actually the first stage of an intercontinental missile Iran is developing in violation of international agreements. Tehran reined in most of its nuclear programme under the deal, since abandoned by the US in May last year, but has continued to develop its ballistic missile and rocket technology. Over the past decade, Iran has sent several short-lived satellites into orbit and in 2013 launched a monkey into space. The US and its allies allege the same satellite-launching technology could be used to develop long-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Irans plans to send satellites into orbit demonstrate the countrys defiance of the resolution that calls on Iran to undertake no activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. 190113142400246 The United States will not stand by and watch the Iranian regimes destructive policies place international stability and security at risk, Pompeo said on January 3. Iran denies the accusation. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said last week that pursuing Irans aerospace programme is not against international law. The satellite is part of a civil project with purely scientific aims, foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told the semi-official ISNA news agency. Iran will wait for no countrys permission to conduct such scientific projects. Billed as the worlds biggest gathering of humanity, the eight-week festival begins in Uttar Pradeshs Prayagraj city. New Delhi, India Over 100 million people will be taking a holy dip at the confluence of two rivers in northern Indias Prayagraj city as the eight-week-long Kumbh festival began on Tuesday. The Kumbh, billed as the worlds biggest gathering of humanity, is a mass pilgrimage in which Hindus gather in specific locations along the holy rivers Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical river Saraswati for a holy dip that they believe will cleanse their sins and bring salvation. The religious event in the Uttar Pradesh state, which will continue till March 4, is being organised by the right-wing governments at both the federal and state levels in an election year. 20131148822964474 Astrology determines most aspects of the UNESCO-listed festival, including its exact date and length. Where the festival will be held depends on the positions of the planet Jupiter, sun and the Earth. E xhilarating experience It is an exhilarating experience. To be part of a sea of humanity that arrives to take a dip in the holy waters, it is humbling and joyful. You abandon your fears at the Kumbh and hopefully your sins, Gopal Mishra, a devout Hindu who has been to the festival several times, told Al Jazeera. There are six particularly auspicious days to bathe, termed as Shahi Snan, meaning a royal bath. The biggest bathing day is February 4, when approximately 30 million people are expected to take a dip. The first Shahi Snan began before the dawn on Tuesday. Naga Sadhus taking a dip during the first Shahi Snan at the Kumbh [Danish Siddiqui/Reuters] Teams will be managing crowds on the river bank. All roads leading to the Kumbh Mela grounds will be packed with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in the coming days, Bimlesh Kumar, a senior official at the government tourism department told Al Jazeera. We are expecting around 120 million people, and an additional two million foreign visitors this year. The festival will continue for 49 days. An average two million people are likely to take a dip every day, he added. Prayagraj city had been preparing for the festival for months as the government built communal areas with 20,000 beds and a tented city with 4,200 premium tents around the river. According to a report, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led federal and state governments are spending over $620m, more than triple the public money spent in 2013 on the same event. The government says 116 roads have been constructed and 524 shuttle buses deployed to transport the pilgrims. More than 122,000 toilets have been built for the attendees. On Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted to say he hoped visitors to this years Kumbh would experience Indias spiritual, cultural and social diversities. Translated tweet: Good wishes for the sacred Kumbh Mela starting at Prayagraj. I hope the devotees from India and abroad will get a glimpse of the countrys spiritual, cultural and social diversities. I wish more and more people become part of this divine and grand event. Election year mega event The relentless promotion of Kumbh by the ruling BJP coincides with the general election due in a few months. The BJPs electoral losses in five Indian states last month have shown a dip in Modis popularity. The ruling party is making renewed appeals to its hardcore Hindu nationalist base in Uttar Pradesh, Indias politically most important state, which is hosting this years Kumbh. 181120160323155 Ahead of the Kumbh gathering, BJP leader and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath changed the name of the historical city of Allahabad to the more Hindu sounding Prayagraj. The BJP has also announced the construction of a giant statue of Hindu deity Ram in the state. In contrast, the state police are cracking down on Muslims praying in open areas like parks. Earlier in 2018, the Indian government had also announced the end of a decades-long policy of giving subsidy to thousands of Muslims heading to the holy city of Mecca to perform the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Uttar Pradesh, Indias most populous state with 200 million people, sends 80 MPs to Parliaments lower house, the reason it is a politically crucial state. Opposition parties say the government is trying to hide its failures in governance and is promoting itself in the media instead of the Kumbh festival. Images of Modi and Adityanath are splashed on Kumbh promotional billboards across Prayagraj city. Kumbh is not a substitute for effective governance. The BJP often behaves like a publicity and marketing company. This holy festival has always been organised by the government. But money was never spent such lavishly, solely for advertisements of the government, Akhilesh Pratap Singh, national spokesperson of the Congress party, told Al Jazeera in Lucknow. At the moment, people want answers from them. Where are the jobs for our youth, safety for women, rule of law, industry? Its not possible for them to deflect attention from their governance failures any more, he added. Devotees take a holy dip at the Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers [Danish Siddiqui/Reuters] The Kumbh has been marred several times by stampedes. Over 800 people were killed in 1954, 40 died in Nashik western India in 2003, while 36 people died in the 2013 gathering in Allahabad (now Prayagraj). On Monday, a small fire broke out at one of the camps, although no casualties were reported. Kumbh for electoral gains? Hindu religious belief says that in a fight over an urn between the gods and the demons, a few drops of the essence of immortality spilled on to four places on the Earth, which now host the Kumbh, one of which is Prayagraj. There are three different kinds of Kumbh: an Ardha (or half) Kumbh held every six years at two locations, a Purna (or full) Kumbh every 12 years at four locations and a Maha Kumbh that happens every 144 years or after 12 Purna Kumbhs. Critics of the Modi government say a half Kumbh is being given unprecedented prominence this time and there is a conscious attempt to boost support for events that reinforce Hindu symbols appealing to the BJPs Hindu nationalist support base. Indias 1.3 billion people are about 80 percent Hindu and appeals to religion or caste are deeply ingrained in Indian politics. A report by the investigative magazine Caravan last month said the BJPs ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is attempting to drum up support for the government using the Kumbh ahead of the elections. Hindu supremacist groups such as the RSS and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) are clamouring for a government order to bypass the Supreme Court in order to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya city of Uttar Pradesh. 181213093321503 In 1992, a Hindu mob tore down a medieval mosque, which they claim stood at a contested site believed to be the birthplace of Ram. Right from the Babri mosque demolition, the right-wing in India always uses religious congregation to promote Hindutva or a militant radical strain of Hinduism backed by the current ruling party. Previous Kumbh festivals from the mid-1980s onwards have been fertile ground for making political demands, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a political analyst in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera. But the ruling BJP denies any political overtones to the festival. It is a sacred and auspicious time for Hindus. Kumbh has a special place in not just the religious but cultural life of Indians. Every government, irrespective of ideology, has been organising this festival at a mega scale, Sudhanshu Mittal, spokesperson of the ruling BJP, told Al Jazeera. Lakshmi Narayan Tripathi of the Kinnar Akhara congregation for transgender people dances and sings with followers at Kumbh [Danish Siddiqui/Reuters] On January 31 and February 1, a Dharma Sansad (religious assembly) will be held at the Kumbh by the VHP, one of the many far-right Hindu groups linked to the ruling BJP party. On the opening day of the festival, the Indian media reported slogans of Modi, you lead the fight, we are with you and the temple will be built in Ayodhya being raised on loudspeakers amid religious Hindu chants. The idea is to use Kumbh as a rallying point, says Akshaya Mukul, the author of Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India. 190110145940822 In the times of divided polity and an election year, a Hindu nationalist party like BJP will definitely extract political mileage out of it. Social media is abuzz with videos praising the BJP for its arrangements. Apparently, never before has a state administration worked so hard, Mukul told Al Jazeera. It is ironic that in a state where infants die for the lack of oxygen, arrangement of a religious fair is seen as a marker of good administration, he said, referring to a 2017 tragedy in which more than 60 infants died for lack of oxygen in a state-run hospital in Uttar Pradesh due to unpaid bills. The BJP will use this years Kumbh to the hilt and maximise benefits. It remains to be seen if it succeeds or not since it has failed in fulfilling its basic promises of jobs, education and healthcare, said Mukul. Former president to be provisionally released after judges say prosecutors failed to satisfy burden of proof. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has ordered the release of former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo after acquitting him on charges of crimes against humanity. Judges on Tuesday said that prosecutors had failed to satisfy the burden of proof over the accusations, adding their decision could be reversed on appeal. About 3,000 people were killed in the West African nation in a violent standoff during 2010 and 2011 when the 73-year-old refused to accept defeat in an election against his bitter rival and now Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara. The ICC also ordered the release of Charles Ble Goude, 47, dubbed Gbagbos Street General, who stood trial with his former boss. Gbagbo and Ble Goude stood trial on four counts of crimes against humanity for murder, rape, persecution and other inhumane acts committed by pro-Gbagbo forces in the aftermath of the disputed 2010 polls. Gbagbo requested an outright acquittal or conditional release [File: Michael Kooren/Reuters] After spending seven years in prison, Gbagbo will follow in the footsteps of his wife Simone Gbagbo, who walked away from a 20-year jail term in Ivory Coast in August when she was granted amnesty by Ouattara after seven years in prison. Tensions are high in the country where about 200 victims gathered on Monday in Abidjan to urge the ICC to keep Gbagbo in jail. We have come to officially and publicly oppose any release of Laurent Gbagbo the ICC is acting as if the victims didnt exist, Issiaka Diaby, head of a group which represents 8,000 victims, told the AFP news agency, before the ICC decision. If Laurent Gbagbo is released, we victims will not see justice, added Karim Coulibaly, 43, whose arm was amputated after he was shot during the violence. I was a driver but now I am unemployed. Im not against reconciliation but first you have to look after the victims. About 200 victims gathered in Abidjan to urge the ICC to keep Gbagbo in jail [Sia Kambou/AFP] The ICC was set up in 2002 for trials into war crimes and crimes against humanity. So far, most of its cases have involved African countries. Previous attempts at the ICC to try top politicians for crimes committed by subordinates or followers have all run into serious difficulties. In 2014, the ICCs chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, dropped crimes against humanity charges against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. Last year, former Congolese Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba was acquitted on appeal for crimes allegedly committed by his militia in the Central African Republic in 2002-2003. If Gbagbo walks out free, the ICC should rethink what it could possibly achieve, Thijs Bouwknegt, an international law specialist, told AFP. The Chinese company is facing suspicions that it controlled by the Chinese government or is required to spy for Beijing. The founder of Chinese tech giant Huawei said on Tuesday that his company would refuse to disclose secrets about its customers and their communication networks, trying to lay to rest concerns the company might spy for Beijing. Ren Zhengfei spoke in a rare meeting with foreign reporters as Huawei Technologies Ltd tries to protect its access to global telecom carriers that are investing heavily in next-generation technology. Rens comments were the most direct public response to accusations that his company is controlled by the ruling Communist Party or is required to facilitate Chinese spying. Huawei, the biggest global supplier of network equipment used by phone and internet companies, is Chinas first global tech brand. The United States, Australia, Japan and some other governments have imposed curbs on the use of its technology over concerns raised by the accusations against the company. We would definitely say no to such a request, Ren said when asked how the company would respond to a government demand for confidential information about a foreign buyer of its telecom technology. Huawei is facing heightened scrutiny as phone carriers prepare to roll out fifth-generation technology in which Huawei is a leading competitor. 5G is designed to support a vast expansion of networks to serve medical devices, self-driving cars and other technology. That increases the cost of potential security failures and has prompted governments increasingly to treat telecoms communications networks as strategic assets. The companys image suffered a new blow last week when Polish authorities announced one of the companys Chinese employees had been arrested on spying charges. Huawei announced that it had fired the employee and said the allegations had nothing to do with the company. Meng Wanzhous arrest Ren is the father of Huaweis chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested on December 1 in Canada on US charges related to possible violations of trade sanctions on Iran. Ren said he couldnt discuss the pending case but did say that Huawei obeys the law, including export restrictions, in every country where it operates. Ren expressed gratitude to Canadian justice officials for their treatment of Meng, who was released on bail and is staying in a house in Vancouver. He also expressed appreciation to her fellow jail inmates prior to her release for treating her kindly. After all the evidence is made public, we will rely on the justice system, he said. We are sure there will be a just conclusion to this matter. Two Canadians were arrested by Chinese authorities on national security charges, prompting suggestions abroad they might be hostages to secure Mengs release. On Monday, a Chinese court sentenced a Canadian to death in a drug case after a sudden retrial was ordered in his case. Asked whether he felt that Huawei was linked to accusations Beijing took hostages, Ren said he saw no connection between the Canadians and Mengs case. Decisions based on customers needs Huawei is counting on 5G to expand its business operations throughout the world [Andy Wong/AP Photo] Ren said he became a Communist Party member in the early 1980s after the state press published reports about his development of a measuring tool for an engineering project. Ren founded Huawei in 1987 to sell imported telecom switching gear to Chinese phone companies after the Peoples Liberation Army disbanded his engineering unit, according to the company. Ren said that despite his party membership, Huawei makes decisions based on its customers needs. I dont see a close connection between my personal political beliefs and our commercial decisions, he said. Although the company has been blocked from operating in the US since 2012 when legislators said the company could pose an intelligence threat, it is a lucrative company. Huawei says it expects last years revenue to exceed $100bn for the first time. Ren said this years target is $125bn. Huawei says it is employee-owned. Ren said no government entity or any other investor who isnt a current or former employee owns once cent of Huawei shares. Ren said Huawei has no research cooperation with the ruling partys military wing, the PLA. He said the company has no dedicated unit for military sales and he knew of no purchases of civilian technology by the PLA. Ren cited comments by Chinese government spokespeople who rejected suggestions, including by a vice president of the European Union, that Chinese vendors might be required to install secret backdoors to facilitate eavesdropping under a law enacted last year that requires them to cooperate with intelligence agencies. Ren said Huawei doesnt want Beijing to retaliate for foreign restrictions by hampering market access for Apple Inc and other rivals. In spite of setbacks in some countries, we are still supportive of China becoming a more open country, he said. Ivan Velasquez says he will step aside if President Morales backs away from his decision to shut down CICIG. Guatemala City The head of an international anti-corruption body has offered to step down if the Guatemalan government keeps in place the beleaguered commission it shut down last week. The fate of the UN-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) has been at the heart of a months-long constitutional crisis pitting Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, much of the private sector, and government-allied members of Congress against CICIG, head commissioner Ivan Velasquez, the Constitutional Court, social movements and opposition politicians. If the government of Guatemala guarantees that CICIG can continue until the end of its mandate, I have no issue resigning, Velasquez told Colombian newspaper El Pais in an interview published late on Monday. Under the leadership of Velasquez, a former Colombian prosecutor and judge, CICIG investigations have led to the prosecution of many government officials, including former President Otto Perez Molina, who resigned and was arrested in 2015. Elected that same year, Moraless initial support for CICIG evaporated after his son and brother were arrested and the president and his party were investigated for illegal campaign financing. Morales has denied all allegations of corruption. The Morales administrations campaign against CICIG has largely focused on Velasquez, under whose leadership CICIG began to prosecute high-level government officials. Morales claims Velasquez is biased and that the commission with him at the helm has been manipulated. 190113011157284 Morales attempted to bar Velasquez from the country in 2017 and 2018. The Constitutional Court reversed the measures, but Morales and his government have begun openly defying rulings from the countrys highest court. On January 7, Morales announced his governments immediate unilateral withdrawal from the CICIG agreement with the UN and gave the commissions international staff 24 hours to leave the country, instead of working until the commissions current mandate ends in September. The Constitutional Court ruled against the move, to little avail. The governments actions represent a serious threat to judicial independence, according to opposition politician Sandra Moran, a longtime activist and the first openly gay member of Congress. The presidents actions and behaviour have been creating an atmosphere of great tension, Moran told Al Jazeera. Were governed by the corrupt The governments latest attacks on CICIG and parallel attempts to remove Constitutional Court judges have sparked renewed protests. Thousands of Guatemalans took to the streets around the country this week. Tuesdays national day of action, the second consecutive nationwide day of protests was organised by CODECA, a campesino or peasant farmer organisation. 190109211600314 Were being governed by the corrupt, Thelma Cabrera, a national CODECA leader, told Al Jazeera Tuesday in the Guatemala City central plaza as the days protest march came to an end. Its important that as the people we go out and demonstrate our support for CICIG, she said. Thousands of Guatemalans have rallied in support of CICIG over the last few days [Sandra Cuffe/Al Jazeera] The crisis continues to unfold just as the first wave of a new caravan of Honduran migrants and refugees began crossing Tuesday into Guatemala. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly condemned the new caravan and the Central American exodus in general, but maintains good relations with the governments of both Honduras and Guatemala, despite political crises in both countries. After nearly a decade of strong support for CICIG, the US has been taking a more ambiguous position, citing support for anti-corruption efforts generally but not explicitly for CICIG. The Trump Administration is trying to block migrants fleeing Guatemala from entering the .. while at the same time cozying up to the corrupt regime thats fueling the countrys crisis. Why? The government has spent over $2 million on D.C. lobbyists, US Democratic Congresswomen Ilhan Omar said in a tweet on Tuesday. The Trump Administration is trying to block migrants fleeing Guatemala from entering the U.S. while at the same time cozying up to the corrupt regime that's fueling the country's crisis. Why? The government has spent over $2 million on D.C. lobbyists https://t.co/abDpBfo5El Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) January 15, 2019 CICIG commissioner Velasquez also pointed to Guatemalan lobbying efforts in the US as a factor in the anti-CICIG campaign that picked up steam in 2016, after Morales took office. A very aggressive smear and misinformation campaign began on social media and through lobbying in the United States by business people, Velasquez told El Pais. The Guatemalan government has not yet publicly responded to Velasquezs offer to resign. Gabonese president has rarely been seen since suffering stroke in October, leaving his country leaderless. Gabons Ali Bongo has returned to Libreville on Tuesday after months abroad recovering from a stroke, ending an absence that has spurred political turbulence. Returning from Morocco in the early hours of the morning, Bongo presided over a ceremony in the countrys capital at which ministers from the new government were sworn in, officials said. Gabon has been without an effective government for months since Bongo, 59, suffered the stroke in late October during a visit to Saudi Arabia. After initial treatment at a hospital in Riyadh, Bongo was transferred to Morocco where he spent just over six weeks, finally returning home to Libreville early on Tuesday, officials said. His return came eight days after a small group of renegade soldiers briefly tried to stage a coup before it was quashed by the security forces, who arrested the leader and killed two others. With Bongos prolonged absence, the country had been in limbo for months and officials at the presidential palace did not say whether he was back for good or will return to the Moroccan capital Rabat for further convalescence. Late on Saturday, a new government was unveiled in a video announcement from Rabat although there were no significant changes to either the cabinet or the government. All 38 ministers arrived at the beachside presidential palace in Libreville on Tuesday morning and were sworn in at a ceremony presided over by Bongo which was closed to the press, officials said. Bongo has not been seen in public since he was taken to a hospital on October 24 in Riyadh but official photos of the ceremony were due to be released later on Tuesday. It was very moving to see him, government spokesman Nanette Longa-Makinda told AFP news agency. It will certainly take him several months to fully recover his physical abilities, thats for sure, one minister said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He looks like someone who has been through a very difficult ordeal, agreed another cabinet member who was present at the ceremony. There can be no more talk about a power vacuum, a presidential spokesman insisted, echoing a phrase repeated by many ministers leaving the ceremony. But Bongos return and the ceremony did little to quieten lingering suspicions among the public in this oil-rich West African state. The circus goes on, tweeted Marc Ona Essangui, a civil society leader. When Bongo was first taken ill, the singular lack of official news along with memories of the secrecy around the death of his father Omar Bongo in 2009 had fuelled a flurry of rumours, including speculation he was incapacitated or even dead. The Bongo family has governed Gabon for five decades and has long maintained close ties with former colonial master France. Ali Bongo was elected head of state after his fathers death and he was narrowly re-elected in 2016 following a presidential poll marred by deadly violence and allegations of fraud. Presidents remarks come after a quite positive phone call with Donald Trump over the situation in war-torn Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country would set up a security zone in northern Syria as suggested by US President Donald Trump as both leaders sought to ease growing tensions. Addressing his deputies on Tuesday, Erdogan said he held a quite positive telephone conversation with Trump late on Monday where he reaffirmed a 20-mile [32-km] security zone along the Syrian border will be set up by us. Erdogan said he viewed the planned security zone in Syria positively and added its range may be extended further. 190114194841618 The president added he and Trump reached a historic understanding during the phone call, but Erdogan didnt elaborate. Trump confirmed the idea of establishing a zone around the border in a tweet earlier, referring to the proposed area as a safe zone. The phone conversation came amid heated discussions about a US decision to withdraw forces from Syria and rising tensions over the fate of the US-allied Kurdish fighters in the war-torn country. Trumps threat Bitter differences between Washington and Ankara over the Kurdish YPG militia had soured talks between the two NATO partners. Trump threatened on Twitter on Monday he would devastate Turkeys economy if its forces attacked the Kurdish fighters, who helped Washington in its fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, ISIS). Erdogan said he was saddened by Trumps tweet, but the phone call later in the day was positive. Turkey will continue to do what it has to in order to solve this issue in line with the spirit of its alliance, so long as our rights and laws are respected, he said. 190114090055032 Ankara considers the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) and its political wing the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) to be terrorist groups with ties to the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey. For weeks, it has vowed to carry out military operations against the YPG and has condemned the US for its military relationship with the armed group. The Trump administration has defended its YPG alliance and made the Kurdish fighters safety a pre-condition to the US troop withdrawal. Starting the long overdue pullout from Syria while hitting the little remaining ISIS territorial caliphate hard, and from many directions. Will attack again from existing nearby base if it reforms. Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20 mile safe zone. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 13, 2019 .Likewise, do not want the Kurds to provoke Turkey. Russia, Iran and Syria have been the biggest beneficiaries of the long term U.S. policy of destroying ISIS in Syria natural enemies. We also benefit but it is now time to bring our troops back home. Stop the ENDLESS WARS! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 13, 2019 Manbij discussed Turkeys state-run Anadolu Agency reported during the phone conversation the two leaders also discussed the need to complete a security plan for Syrias border town of Manbij to prevent a power vacuum once US forces pullout. Turkish and US troops began joint patrols in Manbij on November 1 as part of an agreement that focuses on the withdrawal of YPG fighters from the city to stabilise the region. Last month, Trumps withdrawal announcement surprised many politicians in Washington as well as Western and Kurdish allies fighting alongside the US against the ISIL group. Trumps decision was initially expected to be carried out swiftly, but the timetable became vague in the weeks following his announcement. Ottawa warns of risk of arbitrary detention after Robert Schellenberg given death penalty in sudden drug case retrial. Canada has warned its citizens of the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws in China after a Canadian man convicted of drug trafficking was suddenly retried and sentenced to death, and Beijing denied another detained Canadian diplomatic immunity. China responded angrily on Tuesday denouncing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for making irresponsible remarks. The Canadian government on Monday updated its travel advisory for China, telling citizens to exercise a high degree of caution while in the country. The update noted the highlighted the severe penalties for drug offences, including death. It came hours after a court in Chinas Liaoning province sentenced Robert Lloyd Schellenberg to be executed for drug smuggling following a day-long retrial in which the 36-year-old Canadian had declared his innocence. The court completely rejects the accused persons explanation and defence because it is completely at odds with the facts, the chief judge said in a courtroom packed with observers, including Canadian embassy officials. Schellenberg had the right to appeal to Liaoning High Court within 10 days upon receiving the ruling, according to a statement by the Dalian Intermediate Peoples Court. Trudeau said in Ottawa he was concerned China had chosen to arbitrarily apply the death penalty to a Canadian citizen. The Canadian government has said it is following the case very closely and has provided Schellenberg with consular assistance. Schellenberg was detained in 2014 and sentenced to 15 years in prison two years later. But last month, an appeal by prosecutors claiming the sentence was too lenient was suddenly given the go-ahead. Mondays retrial was scheduled with just four days notice. Analysts and rights groups said retrials were rare in China, especially ones calling for a harsher sentence. China is going to face lots of questions about why this particular person, of this particular nationality, had to be retried at this particular time, Sophie Richardson, the Washington-based China director for Human Rights Watch, told Reuters news agency. Prosecutors said Schellenberg was the principal suspect in a case involving an international syndicate that planned to send some 222kg of methamphetamine to Australia, hidden in plastic pellets concealed in rubber tyres. Two Chinese men have also been tried. One was given a life sentence and the other a suspended death sentence. But Schellenbergs lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo, said prosecutors had not produced any new evidence to justify a heavier sentence. He said he planned to lodge an appeal. China has executed other foreigners for drug-related crimes in the past, including a Japanese national in 2014 and a Filipina in 2013. Beijing considers the number of people executed in China each year to be a state secret. International human rights organisations estimate the figure at about 2,000. Beijing on Tuesday slammed Trudeaus comments. We urge the Canadian side to respect the rule of law, respect Chinas judicial sovereignty, correct their mistakes, and stop making such irresponsible remarks, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a press briefing. Hua also dismissed suggestions by human rights groups that Beijing had seized on the case to put pressure on Ottawa over Canadas arrest of a top executive of Chinese telecom giant Huawei in December. I think such remarks are malicious smearing and unwarranted accusations, Hua said, adding it is extremely clear which side is politicising judicial issues. Canada should remind its own citizens to definitely not engage in drug smuggling in China, she added. The Intermediate Peoples Court of Dalian, where Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was suddenly retried on drug charges and sentenced to death [Reuters] Canada detained Meng Wanzhou, Huaweis chief financial officer, on a US extradition request related to alleged Iran sanctions violations. Meng, which denies wrongdoing, has been released on bail and extradition proceedings are due to start next month. Chinese authorities later detained two Canadian nationals a former diplomat and a business consultant on suspicion of endangering national security, in what has been seen by analysts as retaliation for Mengs arrest. Difficult not to see a link Hua said on Monday that Michael Kovrig, a former Canadian diplomat taken into custody the day after Mengs arrest, was not eligible for diplomatic immunity as Trudeau has maintained. A senior Canadian government official said Chinese officials have been questioning Kovrig about his diplomatic work in China, which is a major reason why Trudeau is asserting diplomatic immunity. The official, who was not authorised to comment publicly about the case, spoke on the condition of anonymity. Kovrig, a Northeast Asia analyst for the International Crisis Group, was on leave of absence from the Canadian government at the time of his arrest last month. Hua told reporters Kovrig is no longer a diplomat and entered China on an ordinary passport and business visa. According to the Vienna Convention of Diplomatic Relations and international law, he is not entitled to diplomatic immunity, Hua said at a daily briefing. I suggest that the relevant Canadian person carefully study the Vienna Convention before commenting on the cases, or they would only expose themselves to ridicule with such specious remarks. A former Canadian ambassador to China, Guy Saint-Jacques, said interrogating Kovrig about his time as a diplomat in China would violate Vienna Convention protections of residual diplomatic immunity that mean a country is not allowed to question someone on the work they did when they were a diplomat. Its difficult not to see a link between the case and Canadas arrest of Meng, Saint-Jacques told The Associated Press news agency. Hua insisted the allegation that China arbitrarily detained Canadian citizens is totally groundless. Canada has embarked on a campaign with allies to win the release of Kovrig and Spavor. The United States, Britain, the European Union and Australia have issued statements in support. Trudeau called US President Donald Trump about the detentions last week and the White House called the arrests unlawful. As Brexit vote looms, protests held outside UK parliament Has Theresa May done enough to muster the support she needs to win the closing vote on Brexit? Yang Jiechi Meets with Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Alie Kabba of Sierra Leone 2019/01/15 On January 11, 2019, Member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee Yang Jiechi met with Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Alie Kabba of Sierra Leone in Beijing. Yang Jiechi noted that President Xi Jinping and President Julius Maada Bio reached important consensus during their talks on the sidelines of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation last year. We are willing to, together with the Sierra Leonean side, consolidate traditional friendship, deepen political mutual trust, strengthen comprehensive cooperation, and intensify coordination and cooperation in international and regional affairs, so as to safeguard the common interests of the two countries and developing countries. Alie Kabba expressed that President Julius Maada Bio's visit to China last year was a complete success. Regarding China as a sincere friend and a trustworthy partner, the Sierra Leonean side stands ready to promote bilateral relations for constant and forward-looking development with the Chinese side. Barr vows to allow Russia probe to continue despite presidents claim that the investigation is a witch-hunt. President Donald Trumps nominee for US attorney general, William Barr, told politicians on Tuesday that he would protect a federal probe into alleged Russian election meddling from political pressure, stressing he would bring independence to the job and not shy away from breaking ranks with the administration. I will not be bullied into doing anything that I think is wrong by anybody, whether it be editorial boards or Congress or the president. Im going to do what I think is right, Barr said at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Barr is expected to win confirmation in the Republican-controlled Senate to serve as the nations top law enforcement officer, which would put him in charge of Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 election and any possible collusion between Moscow and Trumps campaign. On my watch, Bob will be allowed to complete his work, Barr said. Democrats worry that Trumps administration may try to undercut the investigation, which has been a frequent target of the president and his allies. Barr, who was attorney general under Republican President George HW Bush in the 1990s, said his primary loyalty would be to the rule of law, not Trump. He said he did not seek out the job and was reluctant to accept when Trump offered it to him. Trump frequently criticises the Mueller probe as a witch-hunt and has denied any collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice. Russia has denied US intelligence agencies findings that it interfered in the 2016 election. Barr said he doesnt believe Mueller would be involved in a witch-hunt, adding that it was unimaginable that the special counsel would do anything in the investigation that would justify reeling it in or shutting it down. William Barr testifies at the US Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing [Kevin Lamarque/Reuters] Barr said he agreed with Muellers charge that Russian entities interfered in the election, or at least tried to do so. He said he described Mueller, a longtime friend, as a straight shooter when Trump asked about him. Mueller is due to submit a final report to the attorney general, prompting concern from some Democrats that the Trump administration will try to quash his findings. Barr said he would not let Trump modify the report and would make public as many of Muellers findings as possible. Tough questions on Mueller memo But Barr faced tough questions from Democrats about an unsolicited, 19-page memo he wrote last year that called Muellers probe fatally misconceived for examining whether Trump obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey in 2017. It does raise questions about your willingness to reach conclusions before knowing the facts, and whether you prejudge the Mueller investigation, said Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Judiciary Committees top Democrat. Barr said his memo did not question the legitimacy of the probe as a whole, but only expressed concerns that the special counsel might be improperly interpreting one aspect of the law. I think it was entirely proper, he said of the memo, saying it was not unusual for former Justice Department officials to share their views of legal matters. He said he had written a similar memo criticising the departments corruption case against Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, which ended in a mistrial in 2017. 190112054128496 Barrs views of presidential power could be important as prosecutors and Democrats in the House of Representatives, where they hold the majority, intensify investigations of Trumps personal business practices and his presidency. Barr could benefit from the fact that some Democrats view him as a better option than the man who took over the job after Trump forced out Jeff Sessions last year, acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker. During his tenure as attorney general, Sessions faced repeated attacks from Trump for recusing himself from oversight of the Russia probe after it emerged that he had met Russian officials while working with the Trump election campaign. Barr said Sessions did the right thing by recusing himself. Mueller has secured indictments against or guilty pleas from 33 people and three Russian companies, including former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Imperative to have border security On immigration, Barr said reform is long overdue and expressed support for Trumps hardline policies, including funding a wall on the US-Mexico border. Asked about the partial government shutdown, which was prompted by an impasse over funding for a border wall, Barr said he would like to see a deal reached where Congress recognised that it was imperative to have border security. Barr also said he believed so-called sanctuary cities, jurisdictions that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, were hurting law enforcements ability to safeguard the public. Sessions sued California over the policies. Barr also pledged at his confirmation hearing to support and uphold the False Claims Act, a law that lets whistleblowers file lawsuits to help the federal government recover losses due to fraud. I will diligently enforce the False Claims Act, Barr told Republican Senator Charles Grassley, marking a reversal from prior comments he made in which he declared the law was an abomination and unconstitutional. The nominee also said he favours strong enforcement of US antitrust laws and would examine statistics showing that scrutiny of mergers is at historic lows. I am for vigorous enforcement of the antitrust laws to preserve competition, he said. This is going to be an area I want to get into. Scott Morrison will travel to Vanuatu and Fiji this week hoping to mend ties amid growing Chinese influence. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison will head to the island nations of Vanuatu and Fiji this week in a landmark trip aimed at mending fences and offsetting Chinas growing influence in the South Pacific. Morrison on Wednesday will become the first Australian leader in decades to visit Vanuatu and the first ever to head to Fiji, where he is due to deliver a major speech on Friday. The trip will be focused on our security, economic and cultural partnerships, Anne Ruston, a junior minister responsible for international development and the Pacific, told AFP news agency. Australia is by far the biggest trade partner and donor in the Pacific, but its influence has waned as Beijing has extended its reach. Jenny Hayward-Jones, an analyst at the Lowy Institute, said there was a sense of panic in Canberra that Chinas growing influence in the region is now threatening Australian interests. Morrison has committed to send more Australian diplomats to the Pacific, increase investment and security cooperation and develop a military base in Papua New Guinea. Australia announced in November it would offer Pacific countries up to $2bn in grants and cheap loans for telecommunications, energy, transport and water projects. At the same time, Canberra said it would beef up defence and security ties with Pacific Islands through new joint exercises and training. In Vanuatu, local media reported that Morrison would open an Australian-backed police training college. We are having greater cooperation on police matters, the Daily Post quoted Foreign Minister Ralph Regenvanu as saying. Rising China Home to just over a quarter of a million people, the tiny chain of islands has become an unlikely geopolitical and security hotspot. Officials from Australia and the United States believe Chinese construction and investment on Vanuatu includes plans for an eventual military base that could dramatically alter the balance of power in the region. Pacific leaders are likely to try and leverage that rivalry to gain concessions and investment. But Morrisons trip has been made more difficult against the backdrop of testy relations between Australia and the Pacific Islands, amid disputes over governance and climate change. His government, facing an election in May, has downplayed the implementation of climate targets and refused to curb the extraction of coal, while many Pacific Islands see rising sea levels and intensified weather systems as an existential threat and want firm action on climate change. A recent decision to unilaterally cancel the Australian citizenship of suspected Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group operative Neil Prakash on the grounds that he also held Fijian nationality through his father has also added to tensions with Fiji. The archipelago denies Prakash is a citizen. Fijis Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, who had been criticised for his involvement in a coup but recently won the election, has played down talk of a rift. He described meeting Morrison in Sydney last year as a pleasure, adding, I look forward to seeing him again here in Fiji this week. As the first-ever bilateral visit by an Aussie PM, this will mark an historic step up in our diplomatic relationship, he tweeted. Morrisons trip follows Chinese President Xi Jinpings meeting in November with eight Pacific Island leaders before the APEC summit in Papua New Guinea. China has spent $1.32bn on concessional loans and gifts since 2011 in the Pacific region. Hundreds of Arab Christians call for the removal of a crucified Ronald McDonald museum exhibit in Haifa city. An art exhibit in Israel featuring a crucified Ronald McDonald a primary mascot of the McDonalds fast-food restaurant chain has sparked protests by the countrys Arab Christians. Hundreds of Christians calling for the removal of the sculpture titled McJesus demonstrated at the museum, where the artwork has been put on display, in the northern city of Haifa last week. The Israeli police said the rioters hurled a firebomb at the museum and threw stones that wounded three police officers. Authorities dispersed the crowds with tear gas and stun grenades. Church representatives brought their grievances to the district court on Monday, demanding that it order the removal of the exhibits most offensive items, including Barbie doll renditions of a bloodied Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Museum director Nissim Tal said he was shocked at the sudden uproar, especially because the exhibit intended to criticise what many view as societys cult-like worship of capitalism had been on display for months. It has also been shown in other countries without incident. The protests appear to have been sparked by visitors sharing photos of the exhibit on social media. Church representatives brought their grievances to the district court [Oded Balilty/AP] Christians make up a small percentage of Israels Arab population and say they face unique challenges. We need to understand that freedom of expression is interpreted in different ways in different societies, said Wadie Abu Nassar, an adviser to church leaders. If this work was directed against non-Christians, the world would be turned upside down. Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev, who has been accused of censorship for pushing legislation mandating national loyalty in art, also called for removal of the disrespectful artwork. The museum has refused to remove McJesus, however, saying doing so would infringe on freedom of expression. But following the protests, it hung a curtain over the entrance to the exhibit and posted a sign saying the art was not intended to offend. This is the maximum that we can do, Tal said. If we take the art down, the next day well have politicians demanding we take other things down and well end up only with colourful pictures of flowers in the museum. Tals comments did little to placate those who want the artwork removed. Respect religions A protester remained camped out in a tent at the museum on Monday with a sign reading Respect religions. Police watched closely as local Christians complained to reporters in front of street signs spray-painted with crosses and windows still shattered from last weeks clashes. This is very offensive and I cannot consider this art, Haifa artist and devout Christian Amir Ballan said. We will continue through peaceful rallies and candle vigils We wont be quiet until we reach a solution. Jani Leinonen, the Finnish artist behind McJesus, has also asked that it be taken down but for a different reason. He said he supports Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, or BDS, a Palestinian-led movement aimed at pressuring Israel to change its policies towards the Palestinians. The group has made significant gains in recent years, persuading a number of foreign artists to cancel performances in Israel. Tal said the museum will not bow to religious or political pressure. We will be defending freedom of speech, freedom of art and freedom of culture, and will not take it down, he said. This month marks the 90th birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr the iconic American civil rights and human rights leader who forced America to live up to its rhetorical ideals of freedom, democracy and equality. For his efforts, he was assassinated in 1968. The fallen Nobel laureate and drum major for justice vilified, ostracised and loathed in life, monitored and hunted by the government was honoured posthumously with a federal holiday in the United States. Yet, as that holiday has been diluted and repositioned into a national day of service, and Dr Kings character has been neutered and rendered a passive, innocuous and idealistic dreamer who gave rousing speeches, Americans have lost sight of the mans revolutionary philosophy. Five decades ago, Martin Luther King warned of Americas triple evils: racism, economic exploitation and militarism. These evils continue to plague the country to this day, necessitating the radical restructuring of society the black leader so urgently promoted. I am convinced that if we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values, King said in his Beyond Vietnam speech. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. Racism, the original American sin born from the enslavement of Africans and the genocide of indigenous peoples, has not abated. In his 1963 I Have A Dream speech, King said as black people were concerned, the US had failed to honour its promises written in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Instead of honouring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds. But we refuse to believe that bank of justice is bankrupt, he said. Today, the US has yet to address reparations to African Americans to repair the damage of enslavement and the continuing legacy of institutional racism, including both de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination. Open and avowed white supremacists operate in the government, engaging in whites-only policies based on a false racist theory of white genocide, with an immigration policy of ethnic cleansing, separation of migrant families and imprisonment of 15,000 children all designed to keep whites in the majority. Meanwhile, white supremacist hate groups are thriving in the streets, with a sharp increase in hate crimes and school bullying in the era of Trump. The US is a flawed democracy according to the Economists 2018 Democracy index, ranking only 25th globally in terms of political participation and culture, governmental functions, electoral process, civil liberties and pluralism. In states such as Georgia and North Carolina, white conservatives of the Republican Party employ segregation-era voter suppression tactics against people of colour and the poor, including restrictive and unjust voter ID laws, voter purges, rigged elections and votes stolen, and gerrymandered legislative districts. Despite professing to be the self-proclaimed land of opportunity, the US maintains a predatory capitalist system with pathological levels of economic inequality. In a land of abundance, only a handful enjoy its wealth. With 40 million people in poverty, the US is the most unequal advanced nation, with the least social and economic mobility in the developed world. The US profits from misery through private prisons, and a for-profit healthcare system that forces people to go bankrupt and into poverty while paying for medical bills. The wealthiest one percent owns 40 percent of the nations wealth, while the top 10 percent controls 77 percent of the wealth. While working Americans are drowning in nearly $1.5 trillion student loan debt they are unable to pay off. And as conservatives shake their heads and proclaim nothing can be done, the nation engages in policies of plunder of poor and working people, such as a $1.5 trillion tax cut almost entirely for the benefit of the top one percent. Meanwhile, Trump forces a government shutdown over his vanity border wall that leaves 800,000 federal workers without pay, and he advises furloughed workers to make adjustments and, barter with their landlords and hire an attorney. A culture of corruption precludes the US from solving its problems. Politicians are beholden to moneyed interests rather than held accountable to the public, a Harvard Business School report suggests. Laws promoting gun proliferation, environmental degradation and loyalty oaths to other nations reflect the largesse bestowed upon these politicians by lobbyists who seek to enact them. Martin Luther King, aware of the connections between injustice at home and abroad, spoke out against US proclivity for war. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems, King said. I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. Today, the US meddles in the affairs of other nations, waging drone wars and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in the name of the war on terror, assassinating people and engaging in regime change. Decades of US intervention in Central America caused skyrocketing levels of corruption and violence that fuelled a migrant crisis. Meanwhile, King predicted spiritual doom for an America that continues to spend more on war than on social uplift. Today, a nation which claims it must cut social welfare spending and cannot afford free universal healthcare or college spends trillions of dollars on defence 37 percent of world military spending and more than the next seven highest spenders combined and yet cannot account for how the military allocates that money. Rather than heed his message, America killed King, the messenger. Then, it watered down his message to render it more palatable and digestible to the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice, and prefers that we wait for a more convenient season for freedom rather than take direct action now. If America hopes to redeem itself, it must change now. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. Donald Trumps shocking victory in the 2016 presidential race caused liberals across the United States to question whether the country was indeed ready for a woman president. Since then, there has been much speculation about various female politicians and celebrities running for office, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Kamala Harris, Oprah, Michelle Obama, and others. There have even been rumours that Hillary Clinton might run again. I, however, dont see any of these women making it to the White House. I think the first female president of the US will be New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (or AOC as she has come to be known). It may take her another six years to get there, but the youngest woman elected to the US Congress will win the presidency. Here is how and why. Alexandria is not Hillary Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in the 2016 election but lost key swing states and, under our complicated and arguably unfair Electoral College system, this meant losing the presidency. But the biggest political upset in recent US history cannot simply be blamed on the unfairness of the electoral system, under which countless Democrats managed to defeat opponents stronger, and more experienced, than Donald Trump. Clinton lost the election because she failed to convince working-class voters that she would be able to understand and address their growing grievances. While she started her journey as a young, educated, idealistic feminist believing in social justice and equality, over the course of her life in the political limelight, she (and her husband) made a fortune of over $50m, including $21m in speaking fees she was paid by Wall Street businesses and other interest groups. She gradually became an unrelatable poster-child of corporate Americas greed. This, combined with the proliferation of fake news and misinformation provided by Trumps campaign were the proverbial nails in the coffin for her presidential bid. 181112150039791 Unlike Clinton and most politicians for that matter, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rejected donations from corporate political action committees, or PACs. She didnt take millions from Wall Street and then preach to blue-collar Americans that she understood their struggles. This helped her not to be perceived as a member of the Washington establishment like Clinton and her peers Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand, for example. Moreover, Clinton just offered middle-of-the-road policies that simply promised more of the same. By contrast, Ocasio-Cortez, as an out and proud democratic socialist, advocated for federally guaranteed jobs and Medicare-For-All, called for tuition-free public colleges and the dismantling of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. With this, AOC made it clear that she offers a different kind of politics that is unadulterated by corporate and lobbyist connections. This is, in fact, what helped her defeat a 20-year incumbent and the fourth-ranking House Democrat, Joe Crowley, in the Democratic race for New Yorks 14th Congressional District. After she was sworn into Congress, she continued talking about progressive policies, calling for a return to John F Kennedys 70 percent tax on the wealthiest Americans and supporting a Green New Deal, a proposed economic programme addressing climate change and inequality. If Ocasio-Cortez continues down this path and successfully rejects cooptation by PACs, working-class Americans across party lines would undoubtedly be moved to vote for her. AOC is also a master of grassroots organising and, while her actions convey that she is in touch with the challenges ordinary Americans face, her greatest asset may be her ability to connect with them in a way that feels genuine and not contrived. Millennials, for example, find AOC more relatable than any other potential presidential candidate. With her 2.37 million Twitter followers and growing, she is a skilled social media user who knows how to connect and communicate with the younger generation and will certainly be able to secure their vote. And in the coming decade, it increasingly seems that it will be the millennials who will become the most important voting bloc within the US electorate. And finally, AOC was also able to capture the attention of the press and has already shown much skill in fending off public attacks. Even before she was sworn into office on January 3, conservatives had already launched a smear campaign against her, which is indicative of how much she scares them. First, there was noise about the house she grew up in in a New York suburb; then much discussion about designer clothes she wore during a 2018 photo shoot. Just after her swearing-in, the right-wing news site The Daily Caller posted a fake picture of her in a bathtub. And then the conservative media tried to troll her with a video on the internet of her dancing in her college days. But this turned out to be a media boost for the freshman Congresswoman and she trolled them right back by making a wildly popular video of herself dancing into her Congress office. With the election of Trump and AOCs rise to stardom, one thing has become undoubtedly clear: US voters are desperate for new politics and fresh faces who can offer real change. And with her charisma, presence and political acumen, Ocasio-Cortez is able to tap into these sentiments. To put it in Trumps words, Ocasio-Cortez is a winner, she is winning. Her popularity in the press parallels Trumps during his presidential bid in 2016 when he proved true the cliche any press is good press. Yes, it was thanks to the medias obsession with him, both on the right and the left, that he remained a constant figure in the public eye, which ultimately paved the way for the unimaginable to happen his win over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. The same is already proving true for AOC. She is the Democrat that Republicans (and even some Democrats) love to hate, and she will be all the better for it. AOC will run in 2024 after eight years of Trump Alexandria is unlikely to run in 2020 and challenge Trump because she will not meet the constitutional requirement of being 35 by then. The Democratic Party is likely to nominate someone like former Texas Congressman Beto ORourke, who will stick to the traditional Democratic centre-left talking points: compromise, compromise, compromise. If that happens, Trump will certainly bully him into a corner on the campaign trail and during the debates and will go on to win the 2020 presidential election, to the despair and shame of millions of Americans. Another Trump presidency will certainly drag the country into deeper political, social and economic crises and will convince disillusioned voters once and for all that the Donald was never the man who could or even wanted to drain the swamp. It could finally be the wake-up call for millions of Americans to realise that they need to try something drastically different something radical. That something, as Ocasio-Cortez has repeatedly pointed out, could be what has already been done successfully in Scandinavian countries, for example. At the same time, these five years will also give AOC the time to understand how Washington works, build her political profile and prove herself as a house representative. She will also quietly make more allies in the Democratic Party and after her two-year-term as congresswoman is over, she may choose to move up the political ladder by running for office as a senator for her home state of New York, in order to broaden her political experience before a run for president in 2024. Yes, it will take all of that for Ocasio-Cortez to win the 2024 Democratic nomination. I would even venture to predict that she will run on a ticket with a female vice-presidential candidate, perhaps Senator Kamala Harris, if the forces that are the Democratic National Committee (DNC) permit such a scandal. Dont forget how the DNC buried Senator Bernie Sanders in his run for the nomination in 2016. But after eight years of Trumpism, I believe that America will make sure that doesnt happen again to AOC. But apart from resistance within the DNC, perhaps the greatest challenge Ocasio-Cortez will face along the way to 2024 is remaining true to herself and her principles and withstanding the ineluctable and incessant weathering of the lobbyists who effectively run Congress behind the scenes. In her 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper, she admitted she is worried about how Washington would change her because it inevitably changes everyone. If she manages to survive Washington and emerge stronger, the 2024 Democratic nomination for president definitely has Ocasio-Cortez written all over it. I, for one, will definitely vote for her. Editors note: The article has been updated to clarify that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cannot run in the 2020 presidential race because of her age. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. With two months to go until Britain is expected to leave the EU, a crucial vote takes place in parliament on Tuesday. What is the meaningful vote and why is it important? On Tuesday evening, between 19:00 and 21:00 GMT, UK MPs will vote on a deal reached by Prime Minister Theresa May with the European Union on the terms of Britains exit from the bloc Brexit. The widely anticipated vote has been dubbed meaningful because it reflects a concession made by May under intense pressure to allow parliament to ratify her plan. It is the first time MPs have the chance to vote on the agreement after two years of difficult negotiations as the clock ticks towards the Brexit deadline of March 29. The vote has been scheduled for December, but May postponed, expecting the deal to be rejected. 190114112713144 Whatever the outcome, the vote will determine how or whether the UK proceeds with Brexit, and the parliaments role in that process. However, at a deeper level, it reflects an effort by the British parliament to assert its role in one of the most important political issues facing the country in generations. Alice Lilly, a senior researcher at the Institute for Government in London, said: You can view everything we have seen in the last few days and the meaningful vote itself in terms of the tension that exists between parliament and government. That tension between legislature and executive is always going to exist but Brexit has really brought that to the fore over the last couple of years. The good news, said Oliver Patel, research associate at the University College London European Institute, is despite many criticisms of the political process in the United Kingdom, the meaningful vote indicates its constitution is working. 190112081148110 There have been so many things that have happened during the Brexit process which the executive hasnt wanted that parliament has managed to get which is how it should be. However, cautions Paul Taggart, professor of politics at Sussex Universitys European Institute, this still does not resolve the divisions among MPs about what to do next. If parliament is reasserting itself and asserting sovereignty over this process, that is pretty much constitutional in the British context but the more substantive point is what does parliament then do with that sovereignty if it cannot come up with a solution to Brexit? What are MPs voting for exactly? Pariamentarians will vote on both a withdrawal agreement and a political declaration on the framework for the UKs future relationship with the EU agreed on November 25. However, there is widespread opposition to aspects of Mays deal among MPs of all parties, reflecting deep divisions over Brexit in the country. Many members of Mays own Conservative Party are incensed by the Northern Ireland backstop an arrangement to ensure an open border with the Republic of Ireland that they say could lock the province or the entire UK into the EU permanently. Prior to the meaningful vote, MPs are also likely to vote on a string of as yet unknown amendments put forward by both supporters and opponents of Brexit that could influence the dynamic of voting and eventual outcome. This has meant that only the most foolhardy are daring to predict what will happen. How will the vote shape Brexit? The meaningful vote will ultimately determine the outcome of Britains painful Brexit saga. It will lead either to an amended withdrawal deal, a no deal Brexit that doomsayers claim will be economically disastrous, or a second referendum on these options or even whether to remain in the EU after all. If May were to lose, she will probably seek concessions from the EU, then put her deal to parliament a second time. Analysts say British Prime Minister Theresa Mays political career is on the line with most MPs expected to reject her Brexit deal [File: Alastair Grant/AP] Parliament could also hold indicative votes gauging support for alternatives to her plan such as arrangements modelled on Norways relationship with the EU. The opposition Labour Party has been pressing for another general election and threatens to engineer a confidence vote in Mays government if she is defeated but it is unlikely to win. While there is also support for a second referendum on Britains exit from the EU, it is not clear that a majority of MPs back this option. Whats expected to happen? Most observers expect May to lose the meaningful vote, and her ministers admit this is likely. However, the prime minister has made strenuous efforts to win support for her compromise and has moved between appealing to MPs hostile to Brexit and those who stridently support it. Taggart said: May has consistently tried to frame these big decisions in a way that suits her. She framed it last time as vote for her deal or there will be a no deal Brexit. That didnt seem to work. So this time she has been saying: it is my deal or no Brexit, trying in particular to mobilise Brexit supporting MPs. Patel said if May is defeated she could return to parliament with a modified deal that will be sufficient to secure the support of Conservative Brexiteers. There are a lot of Conservative MPs who dont want to vote against this deal and it might actually take less to persuade them to vote for a variant of it in the future than we can imagine especially if it were to become clear in an indicative vote that a majority of MPs support a second referendum. This means a key theme of the meaningful vote has become less about whether May will lose and more by what margin. Is May in a strong or weak position this time around? The meaningful vote was initially scheduled to be held on December 11 but was postponed by May when it became clear she faced certain defeat. Over the last two years, however, she has been in a uniquely strong position to shape the terms of Brexit, for two main reasons. First, the British political process gives unique power to prime ministers to control the way parliament does business and set the terms of debate. Second, Brexit has been such a divisive issue in the UK that the alternatives to it have been difficult to explain and understand, meaning no consensus exists about what to do. Broadly speaking, there is not a majority for any alternative but there are majorities blocking nearly every alternative, so May has been able to frame Brexit because of the inability of other people to come forward with solutions, Taggart said. Nonetheless, he added, at the end of the day this has left her weakened because while she has set the agenda she has consistently kicked the Brexit can down the road. May is the architect of the corner that she is currently sitting in. Kenya grieves for 148 lives gone too soon. My country is in shock at the cold-blooded murder of young students in their hostels and lecture halls at Garissa University College. Garissa is the place where I grew up and after Thursdays gruesome attack, life will never be the same again. The scale of the dawn attack Kenyas deadliest since the 1998 bombing of the United States embassy, which killed 213 became clear as survivors fled the buildings during the course of the day. Gunmen held hostage dozens of students and employees of the college for close to 15 hours. By nightfall the government confirmed that 148 had died, and that the siege was over. Retrieving the bodies from the university buildings started only after that. Accounts from residents and eyewitnesses to the attack suggest that the four gunmen had all the time they needed as security forces failed to respond quickly. Kenyans are asking themselves many questions. Key among them: Could the attack have been avoided? Many see it as a failure of not just intelligence, but also a result of the security forces slow response. Why did the entire siege last for close to 15 hours? they ask. Government officials say they had intelligence that al-Shabab was planning an attack on a university. Why did they then forget all about the only university in the region where majority of the groups attacks have happened? Inadequate protection Garissa University College has the single largest non-Somali population in any one place in the entire region. Its more than 800 students are from all corners of Kenya. It should have been better protected. The government ought to have learnt its lessons from the more than 100 attacks al-Shabab carried out in Kenya since October 2011. Yet it seemingly hasnt. Kenya sent its troops into Somalia in 2011 to fight the armed group, which it blamed for a string of kidnappings that had affected tourism in the country. But the northeastern part of the country has not been adequately protected, with the regions small non-Somali population there often paying the heaviest price. No sooner had Kenyan tanks, troops, trucks rolled into Somalia than al-Shabab launched a string of attacks in Kenya. It called them a revenge for Kenyas military operations in Somalia. As al-Shabab continues to lose ground in Somalia, its attacks inside Kenya are becoming more brazen, frequent and gory. The group seems to have found in Kenya the perfect ground to advance its ideology of violence and bloodshed. It has established within the country sleeper cells mainly made up of young radicalised Kenyan youth, whom its using for such attacks. This, of course, helps it to show al-Qaeda, to which it is affiliated and which is a key source of finances, that it still is a force to reckon with despite its losses in Somalia. Easy recruitment The ease with which al-Shabab has managed to get a foothold in the country has baffled many, but not the keen observer. Kenyas Muslim community, which accounts for about 11 percent of the population and lives mainly in the northeastern and coastal parts of the country, has long claimed political and economic discrimination by successive Kenyan governments. The Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) an independent transitional justice organisation created in 2008 to retrospectively investigate human rights violations and historical injustices in Kenya since independence found that the countrys Muslim community faced institutional political, social, and economic discrimination. Predominantly Muslim-inhabited areas were also found to be lagging behind in development due to an overt lack of both private and public investment. The governments reaction to the string of attack by al-Shabab did not help matters either. Kenyas Muslims, particularly those in the Somali-inhabited northeast region, faced various human rights abuses by security agencies, particularly the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU). According to Human Rights Watchs report Kenya: Killings, Disappearances by Anti-Terror Police Kenyan Muslims were subject to abuses by the ATPU, including extortion, harassment and arbitrary detention. The ATPU, the rights group said, was reportedly involved in the extrajudicial killings of suspected al-Shabab operatives and sympathisers. To the ethnic Somali population in northeastern Kenya, there is nothing new in these actions. Collective punishment The Kenyan security forces have often reacted to incidents of insecurity with one policy collectively punishing the regions inhabitants for the crimes of a few. The most heinous of pogroms carried out in the region among them the Garissa massacre of 1980 and the 1984 Wagalla massacre in Wajir were a result governments efforts to deal with banditry and clan conflicts. In just the Wagalla airstrip outside Wajir town an estimated 1,000 people were shot dead or burnt alive by security officials on an operation to stop clan conflict. As a result of decades of marginalisation, northeastern Kenya as well as parts of the coastal region lacks basic services such as paved roads, schools and hospitals. These regions suffer from poverty, high youth unemployment, rapid population growth and general insecurity. Resentment towards the government is high and radicals are able to exploit these factors. Chronic youth unemployment, for example, makes al-Shababs promise of some income attractive. Some recent government actions in the region have not been helpful either. In an effort to shore up support for a would-be government in Kismayu-Somalia one aimed at administering a buffer zone between Kenya and Somalia Kenya recruited young Kenyan-Somalis to bolster the ranks of a Somali militia allied to it. Some of these young men were picked from Garissa and Wajir towns in the region and trained at the Kenya Wildlife Service training college in Manyani at the coast before being sent to Somalia. Its believed that some of these young men ended up with al-Shabab and could be part of the gangs being used to wage war in Kenya. An audit into where these young men are and whether all of them can be accounted for might prove useful. To win the war against al-Shabab, analysts say, Kenya will have to re-think its approaches to fighting insecurity and its relations with its ethnic Somali community and Muslim population. Its only when the community is made to feel part and parcel of mainstream Kenya and used as the first line of defence that favourable results might be achieved. Originally Posted by Judy Originally Posted by Well, Trump is controlling the border. Last year, 2018, illegal border crossings were at 20 year lows. In 2017, they were at 45 year lows. There was an uptick in 2018, as you know, from this phony asylum-seeker scam and the caravans, but he's taken measures to address that. As for the drugs. Well, as you should also know, I concluded over a decade ago that the only way to stop the drugs from entering the US is to put the cartels out of business, and the only way to do that is End the War on Drugs and legalize and regulate the recreational drug trade in the US. I've seen and heard nothing to change my mind on that. In fact, the Weed legalization proves I am right. Illegal marijuana shipments across the US southern border have dropped to 12% of their former levels. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying's Regular Press Conference on January 15, 2019 2019/01/16 Q: Yesterday, the Canadian defendant Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was sentenced to be executed for drug smuggling. Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that it is of extreme concern to Canada that China has chosen to arbitrarily apply the death penalty. What is your comment? A: The Canadian side accused China of "arbitrarily" applying the death penalty, and this could not be further from the truth. Before saying these words, has he read through the information released by the Dalian Intermediate People's Court on this case? Has he studied relevant Chinese laws? The Dalian Intermediate People's Court made it very clear in the information it released. The defendant Schellenberg was involved in organized international drug trafficking and conspired with others to smuggle 222.035 kg of methamphetamine. His actions constitute drug smuggling. The prosecutors made all his criminal facts clear with concrete and adequate evidence. We all know that drug-related crime is considered a felony by the international community because of the serious social damage it could incur. It is cracked down in all countries with the strictest punishment, as is the same case in China. The true spirit of the rule of law implies that everyone is equal before the law. The remarks by the relevant person in Canada show not the slightest respect of the rule of law. We are strongly dissatisfied with that and urge the Canadian side to respect the rule of law, respect China's judicial sovereignty, correct its mistakes, and stop making irresponsible remarks. Q: Head of the Chinese Government Delegation and Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou and Head of the Vietnamese Government Delegation and Deputy Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung held in Vietnam the Plenary Meeting of the Governmental Delegation on Border Negotiation. Can you give us more information? A: On January 14, Head of the Chinese Government Delegation and Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou and Head of the Vietnamese Government Delegation and Deputy Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung held the Plenary Meeting of the Governmental Delegation on Border Negotiation in Lao Cai City, Vietnam. Representatives from relevant departments and local governments of the two countries attended the meeting. The border negotiation mechanism was established under the care and guidance of the leaders of the two Parties and two states. It has been running well for many years, enabling the two sides to maintain close communication on land border and maritime issues through meetings of heads of delegations and plenary meetings. At this meeting, the two sides spoke highly of the border negotiation mechanism's role in deepening practical cooperation, properly managing disputes and promoting the sound and stable development of bilateral relations. The two sides reaffirmed efforts to continue to implement the major consensus reached between leaders of the two Parties and two states, enhance consultation and cooperation, move forward maritime cooperation and joint exploration, jointly maintain peace and stability of the South China Sea, and strengthen cooperation on land border management and joint exploration, so as to benefit the two countries and peoples. The two sides agreed that the 1,450-kilometer land border between the two sides has become a bridge for cooperation and friendship. The China-Vietnam Land Border Joint Committee has been running smoothly. The land border management and joint exploration of the two countries have achieved positive results, and the level of legalization, institutionalization and standardization of border management has gradually improved. The two sides have continuously strengthened border control and law enforcement cooperation in the border areas to jointly crack down on various cross-border criminal activities, and the border areas of the two countries have generally maintained good order. Both sides will further strengthen port gate opening and management cooperation, move forward port gate opening and upgrading, vigorously develop port economy, step up infrastructure building and customs facilitation measures, promote people-to-people exchanges and infrastructure connectivity, so as to serve the development of border areas and increase the well-being of border residents from both sides. Another important point is that the two sides agreed that the maritime issue is the only problem pending settlement between China and Vietnam. The two sides will continue to follow through with the major consensus reached between leaders of the two Parties and two countries and the Agreement on Basic Principles Guiding the Settlement of Sea-related Issues Between the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, give full play to the governmental border negotiation mechanism and the working groups to discuss issues on maritime delimitation in the sea area outside the mouth of the Beibu Bay, on cooperation on less sensitive sea issues and on joint maritime exploration, properly manage disputes, steadily step up practical cooperation, strive for basic and enduring solutions acceptable to the two sides, and work jointly to maintain peace and stability on the sea. During the meeting, the two vice foreign ministers also held consultations on further developing bilateral relations. The two sides reviewed the positive progress made in China-Vietnam relations last year and exchanged in-depth views on further implementing the consensus reached by the top leaders of the two Parties and states, continuously advancing China-Vietnam Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation, and consolidating the momentum of sound development of bilateral relations. Q: The Canadian government just issued advice to travelers, warning them of "the risk of 'arbitrary' enforcement of local laws on Canadians traveling to China". Besides, China has also recently detained two other Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, on suspicion of endangering national security. Should Canadian travelers not be worried about the consequences of traveling to China right now? A: First of all, I want to give you a very concise reply. The Canadian government really needs to issue advice to its citizens, not for any possible danger in travelling to China, but to warn them against involving in such grave crime as drug trafficking. If anyone commits such grave crime in China, he or she will surely face severe consequences. My colleague has previously told you about the number of Canadians who have traveled to and worked and participated in exchanges and cooperation in China. The facts have proven that China is a safe place. As long as foreigners, including the Canadians, abide by laws and regulations in China, their freedom as well as safety will be fully guaranteed. So here the Canadian side is seemingly staging the play of a thief crying "stop the thief" by issuing the so-called alert. In fact, it is Canada, instead of China, that has arbitrarily detained foreign citizen under the pretext of law. China has made unequivocal clarifications on those individual cases you mentioned respectively. The facts about the reasons why these Canadians have been taken compulsory measures in each case are very clear . May I ask you, the Global Mail, to convey this message to the Canadians: China remains open to and welcomes people from all countries, including from Canada, for normal and friendly exchanges and cooperation in China. We hope that relevant persons will discard bias and malice, come to China to see more of the country and feel the friendliness, openness and cooperation of the Chinese people. Q: According to reports, before China's Chang'e-4 lunar probe was launched, NASA said it hoped the Chinese side would provide the landing location and time in advance for the purpose of scientific research, and China has offered support to it. But previously the US has put technological obstacles to China's lunar exploration program and refused to issue visas to Chinese experts for several times, disrupting the normal academic exchanges between the space experts of the two countries. What's your comment? A: As to the relevant situation of the Chang'e-4 lunar spacecraft, the Information Office of the State Council has held a press conference on that yesterday. I have seen the report you mentioned and noted that Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's Lunar Exploration Program and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, has talked about the US request for cooperation with the Chinese side in an interview with the CCTV. I remember he said that China could have chosen not to offer the relevant information to the US, but as a major country, we should act with the posture and bearing of a major state. I believe what Mr. Wu said has shown the confidence, openness and broadmindedness of Chinese aerospace engineers as well as scientists and researchers and China's confident and open posture as a major country. Scientific and technological progress is meant to serve the peace and common progress of the whole mankind. We believe that in conducting scientific and technological cooperation, countries should bear in mind the idea of advancing the development and progress of the whole mankind and adopt an open, cooperative and inclusive attitude. In such spirit, China stands ready to continuously conduct exchanges and cooperation on space exploration with the US and other countries and make greater new contributions to exploration of the mysteries of the universe and peaceful use of the outerspace by mankind. Q: After the arrest in Canada of Meng Wanzhou, China's Foreign Ministry warned of severe consequences for Canada if Ms. Meng was not immediately released. She has not yet been released. Does that warning still stand? A: China has repeatedly stated its stern position on the case of Ms. Meng Wanzhou. I believe any one with a normal sense of judgment can tell that her case is not an ordinary legal case. The Canadian side's detention of Ms. Meng Wanzhou is by no means for the sake of judicial justice but an abuse of judicial procedures. The Canadian side has to bear all the severe consequences and responsibilities for its wrongdoing. We hope that the Canadian side will realize its mistake and immediately correct it, and release Ms. Meng Wanzhou who has been unjustifiably detained. Q: In your answer to the first question, you said that China was strongly opposed to the comments of the Canadian side. Has that been formally conveyed to the Canadian government? If so, by what means? A: I have made clear China's position. The channel for communication between China and Canada is unimpeded. The Canadian side is clear about the relevant stern position of the Chinese side. Q: Rights groups and legal experts say that the sentence in the case of this Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was "highly abnormal" and the sentence was politically motivated. Is that accurate? A: Such allegation is entirely malicious slander and unjustifiable accusation. The label of politicizing legal issue can never been pinned on China and everyone knows very well who is actually doing that. Like I just said, you may carefully read the information issued by the Dalian Intermediate People's Court. Drug-related crime is a grave crime, and Schellenberg has smuggled up to 222 kg of methamphetamine. You may ask the lawyers or legal experts of any country how such grave crime would be handled if it happens in their countries? I believe that for any responsible government, the decisive measures taken against such severe crime of drug trafficking will all the more demonstrate its strong sense of responsibility and firm resolve to protect the life and security of the people. Q: According to reports, US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell wrote to several German companies, saying that any German corporation involved in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project in Russia would face a risk of sanctions. People in different sectors in Germany have expressed strong dissatisfaction with this. The Foreign Policy Spokesperson of the Christian Democratic Union Jurgen Hardt said the direct threat to German companies from the US Ambassador is unacceptable. The German Foreign Minister is planning to summon Richard Grenell to protest against it. What's your comment? A: I have noted relevant report and the reaction of the German side to this incident. I would like to say that companies of all countries have the right to make independent decision on normal exchanges and cooperation with other companies. All countries and individuals should fully respect such right. Q: In the Schellenberg case, some critics have suggested that the verdict is "arbitrary" and there was a rush to judgment, since the verdict was delivered less than 70 minutes after the trial completed. Did Robert Schellenberg receive a fair trial? A: As to whether Schellenberg has received a fair trial, you may ask any foreign journalist or the citizen of any country how such a grave crime of smuggling 222 kg of drugs should be handled? You'd better ask the legal departments for legal issues, and they will give you an authoritative answer. Could I take what you said as suggesting that China could have enforced the law in an even harsher manner? Follow-up: I think the critics were saying that the verdict was delivered too quickly. A: Schellenberg has been on trial in China for drug smuggling for some time. If you carefully read the relevant information issued by the Dalian Intermediate People's Court, you will clearly find out that he had committed drug-related crime since 2014. How much time do you think a trial should take? It doesn't matter how soon the verdict is delivered as long as it is a just one. Q: Usually Chinese court proceedings are closed, and no one is invited in, especially foreign media. How come in this case, China decided to invite lots of different foreign media organizations to come in this case? A: Regarding whom these foreign media submitted their applications to and who approved their applications, you may ask the relevant party directly. I have no specific details. But I find the logic of your question interesting. In the past, the foreign media were not allowed in, and you had a problem with that. Now, you are allowed in and you also have an issue with that. What on earth do you really want? Q: I know it was asked yesterday about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on diplomatic immunity for Michael Kovrig. But I am asking again today as Prime Minister Trudeau repeated the claim as saying that Beijing has chosen not to respect international practices and principles regarding diplomatic immunity. What is China ' s point of view on that? A: I already made my point clear yesterday. Do you really need me to repeat it again? Even I feel embarrassed for the Canadian side, because the Canadian side has got no reason and no basis to support what it said. I gave a very clear answer yesterday, and I noted that some experts in Canada also agreed that by any measure, Michael Kovrig does not have diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. I can repeat that Michael Kovrig is not a diplomat in service. He came here on ordinary passport with business visa and was taken compulsory measures by the relevant national security agency in accordance with the law for involvement in activities undermining China's national security. He does not have immunity in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and international law. Q: There are now more than a dozen nations including Canada, the US, the EU calling for the immediate release of the detained Canadians. What does China think of that? Are there any nations supporting China's actions? A: How many countries do you think support the statements made by the Canadian side? How many countries and people support Schellenberg's smuggling of 222kg of methamphetamine in China? Can you give me some names? I have noted that some Canadian officials have been going all out to encourage more of their allies to side with them. But these several countries cannot represent the international community. The mainstream of the international community is firmly against drug-related crimes. by Sumon Corraya The women belong to the Secular Institute Believers in Christ Community. The archdiocese of the capital has provided them with a home to live together. The lay sisters are active in teaching children and providing spiritual care to the sick. Dhaka (AsiaNews) The lay nuns of the Secular Institute Believers in Christ Community have dedicated their lives to bearing witness to the Gospel in slums and among Muslims. They teach catechism to Christian students and pray for the healing of the sick. "Even the [consecrated] sisters appreciate our work, said one nun, because we tirelessly preach Christian values. Every day we renew our vows of poverty, chastity and obedience." Fr. Frank J Quinlivan, Holy Cross missionary, established the institute of Catholic lay women who chose the Ordo virginum, i.e. the special form of consecration that allows women to continue their regular life without the obligation to wear the veil or live in a community. Recently the archdiocese of Dhaka gave them a house that can house five people. Before that, they stayed in a rented flat. Sobita Gomes, 76, is the group coordinator and runs a school for slum children in Dhakas Tejgaon district. As a child I wanted to sacrifice my life for Christ, she said. I wanted to be a nun, but I couldnt make it. In the end I entered this community." For her, Our way of life allows us to reach many more people and win their hearts. We can go where we want, we do not have a 'dress code', we can earn money from our profession. But like consecrated sisters, we work for Christ and are ready to sacrifice our lives for him." Like Sobita, Asha Rozario, 70, loves this life. This way I work for Christ directly. In addition to my main profession, I teach catechism to Catholic children in the church of Tejgaon and prepare them for the sacraments of the Eucharist and confirmation." In addition to teaching, the sisters are active in spiritual outreach for the sick. They lead the Rosary recitation in different Catholic areas of the capital and are part of the Liturgy Commission of the Archdiocese of Dhaka. The group has very specific plans for the future. "We would like to extend the teaching of the Christian religion to Catholic students in Muslim schools, said Sobita, because they do not receive adequate religious education there. The parents asked us." An 11-year-old boy was killed Sunday in a hunting accident in Dallas County. Authorities are not publicly releasing the boys name but said he was found dead about 5 p.m. in a shooting house in Orville. Dallas County Coroner Alan Dailey said the boy, who is from Tuscaloosa County, was in Orville with his older sister and other family friends on a parcel of land the family leases for hunting. The group split up and the boy got into a ground-level shooting house alone about 2 p.m. As it began to get dark, the older sister went to look for him. They called out to him and he didnt answer, Dailey said. She went into the shooting house and found her brother unresponsive. Dailey said investigators believe the boy died from a single gunshot wound to the head. His rifle was in there with him, he said. He was not a novice. He had hunted before. The death remains under investigation by the Dallas County Sheriff Office and the Alabama Department of Fish and Wildlife. His body has been taken to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences in Montgomery for autopsy. Everything points to it being accidental, Dailey said. The coroner said he responded to a similar accident when he first took office in 2004. In that case, a 13-year-old boy was accidentally shot and killed when his gun discharged as he was climbing down from a tree stand. I hate it for the family, he said. Its just so sad. The only total lunar eclipse of 2019 is happening next week, according to NASA. And it won't be any old eclipse, either. NASA says this one will feature a "super blood moon." But there's more. Lunar eclipses only happen during full moons, and January's full moon is sometimes called the "Wolf Moon." So that will make it a "Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse." Let's take a look at what all that really means: *The only total lunar eclipse of 2019 will happen on the evening of Jan. 20, which is Sunday. *It will be a total lunar eclipse, which means the entire moon will pass through the Earth's shadow. *The eclipse will also occur when the moon will be closest to Earth in its monthly orbit, and it will move close enough to qualify it as a "super moon." That can make the moon appear slightly bigger than normal in the night sky. *It will be a "blood moon" as well. A blood moon is simply a moon that takes on a red or orange tint as it moves into the Earth's shadow. Here's a look at the timing: The edge of the moon will start to enter the outer shadow of the Earth, called the penumbra, at 8:36 p.m. CST Sunday. It may not be very noticeable at first. According to NASA the moon will dim "very slightly" for nearly the next hour as it moves deeper into shadow. The edge of the moon will begin entering the deepest part of Earth's shadow -- or umbra -- at 9:33 p.m. CST Sunday. The moon will be completely inside the Earth's shadow by 10:41 p.m. CST, which leads to the moment of greatest eclipse, which will come at 11:12 p.m. CST, according to NASA. The moon will appear to be orange or reddish at this point. This is where the super moon factor could play in: According to NASA because the moon is closer to Earth it will move "deeper inside the umbra shadow and therefore may appear darker." The edge of the moon will begin to leave the umbra at 11:43 p.m. CST. The eclipse will end at 1:48 a.m. CST Monday. You wont often hear swag or rear end uttered from the pulpit at a funeral. But if you were going to, it would certainly be at the funeral for Larry Langford. Sure, the funeral mass for the flamboyant, charismatic and, yes, polarizing former mayor of Fairfield and Birmingham, held at St. Marys Catholic Church in Fairfield on a brisk Monday afternoon, was unabashedly spiritual. Langford, who died on January 4 at the age of 72, converted to Catholicism in 1996 and, according to speaker after speaker, was as vocal about his faith as he was everything else in his life. The program also featured, of course, a plethora of politicians and resolutions. Speakers included U.S. Representative Terri Sewell, Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin, Birmingham City Councilor Stephen Hoyt (five other councilors attended, as well) and Jose Perry represnting U.S. Senator Doug Jones, who was unable to attend the service. We all thought Larry was our best friend, said Sewell. He had big ideas we now enjoy and some take credit for. (Those last words prompted a few chuckles.) Woodfin recalled the then-mayor speaking to students in the gym at W.E. Putnam Middle School (I left that gym thinking I could be mayor, Woodfin said). He also shared a conversation he had with Langford recently during his final days at Princeton Baptist Hospital in Birmingham. He had the same fire," the mayor said. "He rattled off a gazillion ideas I should be doing, and told me to come back with a pen and notepad. Woodfin ended his remarks by asking former Birmingham mayors William Bell and Bernard Kincaid to stand. We belong to a very small club," Woodfin said. We salute a mayors mayor. Larry is safe in the arms of Jesus, said Hoyt. Sight is a function of the eyes, but vision is a function of the heart. Larry had vision not because he looked but because he could see. There were family remembrances, as well. He had swag, said Jared Smothers, one Langfords two grandsons who spoke. I went in his closet the other day and saw a couple of things I like. Grandfather taught me how to have a relationship with God and a woman, he added, evoking much laughter from those packing St. Marys pews. Yet in between the tributes, scriptures, and hymns that had St. Marys feeling more Baptist than Catholic, there was a thread of defiance aimed at those who weigh Langfords transgressions he spent eight-and-a-half years in federal prison for political corruption before a judge ordered him released on December 28 due to deteriorating health heavier than the vision that helped shaped Birmingham into what it is today and the impact he had on the lives many residents. There were many who cant stand Larry Langford, said Rev. Vernon Huguley, pastor of St. Patricks Catholic Church, who presided over the near-three-hour service. But thats okay because if you cant say, Amen, then youve got to say ouch. In the eulogy, Rev. Ocie Oden, pastor of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Fairfield and perhaps Langfords closest friend, said while most describe the former mayor as a visionary, he offered four other adjectives: He was vocal, Oden said, and he didnt care whether you liked it or not. He was vibrant, probably from all that sugar in him because he liked his sweets. He was victorious. In a [mayoral] race with 10 candidates, he won without a runoff. And he was a victim of inhumane treatment. But thank God hes been released. Full coverage of Larry Langford. Thank God none of us is the sum of our transgressions, Sewell said. Larry Langford died as he lived with dignity and distinction. Mourners began arriving for the noon service at 9 a.m., and by 10:45, the pews on the left side of the church, for non-dignitaries, was almost filled. Langfords remains sat in a wooden casket at the front of the sanctuary. Just before 11 a.m., it was opened. He wore a dark suit, accented by a gold-and-black tie. No pictures were allowed but mourners were allowed to walk closer to pay their individual respects. Almost everyone did. Lena Ferguson Powe McDonald, Langfords niece, worked for several years, alongside Langfords wife, Melva, and attorneys Tiffany Johnson Cole and Reginald McDaniel, to free her uncle. After the family processional, the most moving moment of the afternoon came when McDonald lovingly folded the materials in the casket, kissed her uncle and slowly, slowly, slowly closed it. Later, McDonald opened her own remarks with a saying familiar to those who knew Langford: The mind can only comprehend what the rear end can endure, she said, although almost everyone in the church knew that was a church-friendly version of what Langford actually said. She was critical of those who call Langfords legacy complex. Its actually very simple, she said. Uncle told you what he was going to do, and he did it. The complexity lies in your ability to comprehend and interpret it. She turned to Woodfin: He was excited about you, she said of her uncle. The best way to honor him is to reach your fullest potential. She then address the city council members in the church: He was ready for you to step up. Fairfield and Birmingham, she continued, youve got to do better. Just just lost [a Birmingham police] officer. Larry would be ashamed not of the [perpetrator], but at the people who had the possibility to impact that persons life but didnt. McDonald added that she reads all of the comments on stories published on AL.com so no one else in my family has it. So I know whats said, she continued. For those who aimed to hurt our family, you made us stronger. For those who try to make jokes out of the benefits he brought to our city, you benefit from them. But dont worry, your day will come. Langford was buried at Elmwood Cemetery. This story will be updated A judge has ruled the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act doesnt have any legal authority and the city of Birmingham doesnt have to take down its wooden screen placed around a Confederate monument in Linn Park. The Alabama Attorney Generals Office plans to appeal the ruling. The Attorney Generals Office stands by its original assessment that the Alabama Monument Preservation Act is constitutional. Therefore, we will be filing an appeal, according to the AGs statement issued Tuesday morning. Judge Michael Graffeo issued his order on Monday just before midnight. The order comes over a year after the state sued the city for violating the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act-- a law to prohibit local governments from moving historical monuments on public property that have been in place for 40 years or more. The act also prohibits renaming buildings and streets with historical names that have been in place at least 40 years. In his order, Graffeo said he "reluctantly" declares the act is void and has no legal effect or authority. "Just as the state could not force any particular citizen to post a pro-Confederacy sign in his or her front lawn, so too can the state not commandeer the city's property for the state's preferred message," Graffeo wrote. In August 2017, months after the law was enacted, then-Birmingham mayor William Bell ordered the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Linn Park covered with plastic, and later plywood, while lawyers could consider legal options. While some called for the statue to be torn down, Bell said he wouldn't break the law to remove the monument. The Alabama Attorney Generals Office quickly filed a lawsuit against the city for violating state law, but Birminghams city attorneys claimed the Memorial Preservation Act is vague and ambiguous. Attorneys for both sides argued at a hearing in April 2018 on part of the law that says protected monuments cannot be altered or otherwise disturbed. Following that hearing, both the state and city filed briefs for the court to consider before issuing a final ruling. Graffeo wrote in his Monday order, A city has a right to speak for itself, to say what it wishes, and to select the views that it wants to express." He said the state cannot restrict the citys right to free speech, writing The state acknowledges that the city is generally free to engage in government speech but explains that the act withdraws from the city the right to engage in a particular expressive message. This explanation is impermissibly content-based [the state] also cannot manipulate the citys speech for the illegitimate purpose of favoring certain content of viewpoints. Graffeo said the act violates the Fourteenth Amendment because the state was seeking at least $25,000 in fines from the city and also seeks to control what the city can build on Linn Park, but the act offers no due process. The act allows cities to apply for a waiver on certain structures, but Birmingham could not apply for that waiver because the Linn Park monument is over 40 years old. That part of the law is overbroad and unreasonable, the judge said. Graffeo filed the ruling 20 minutes before midnight, when his term as judge expired and he begins retirement. He did not seek reelection in November. He wrote, the citys conduct here is only expressive disassociation from a pro-Confederacy message. The state has not articulated an interest in penalizing this conduct other than disagreement with the message. "Under the act, however, the people of Birmingham cannot win," the judge wrote. "No matter how much they lobby city officials, the state has placed a thumb on the scale for a pro-Confederacy message, and the people, acting through their city, will never be able to disassociate themselves from that message entirely." Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said Graffeo made the right decision and the city is excited about the ruling, especially regarding the citys right to due process and free speech. He said the monuments future is still unknown, as his team is reviewing all the options available at this point. Woodfin said that while Birmingham needs to move past things that arent healthy for the city, he understands the importance of the conversation regarding Confederate memorials and monuments. He said he doesnt think the monument should be destroyed, but could possibly be moved to the Birmingham Museum of Art. Rhonda Brownstein, Legal Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center issued this statement Tuesday morning: Striking a blow to the defenders of the Lost Cause, a judge has struck down an Alabama law that prevented the removal of Confederate symbols from public land. Yesterdays ruling is the first time a court has concluded that a state cannot force a city to maintain a confederate monument that its citizens find abhorrent. Cities have long been at the forefront of our nations civil rights movements, and this ruling protects and builds on that tradition. The Circuit Court ruled that Birmingham has a constitutionally protected right to decide for itself what messages it wants to convey to its citizens and to the world. Alabamas majority-white legislature cannot force Birmingham, a majority-black city, to maintain a monument to white supremacy. This is a groundbreaking ruling that should give comfort to other municipalities throughout the South and the country that want to remove confederate monuments from public land. The SPLCs Whose Heritage report catalogs the more than 1,740 symbols of the Confederacy that remain standing today. The majority of these symbols were erected in the 1910s and 20s following the Reconstruction era, and again after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling that desegregated schools. These symbols continue to serve as tools of oppression by seeking to honor those who fought to preserve white supremacy. Gov. Kay Ivey declined to comment on the ruling. State Sen. Gerald Allen, who sponsored the act, released a statement Tuesday afternoon: Under the Constitution, judges are to be neutral umpires who apply the rule of law fairly. A judges personal beliefs, whether about politics, sociology, or history, have no bearing on how he is to apply the law. Judge Graffeo has taken it upon himself to know and declare that it is undisputed that the majority of residents of Birmingham are repulsed by the Linn Park monument, and has thus ruled the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act void. But judges are not kings, and judicial activism is no substitute for the democratic process. The Memorial Preservation Act is meant to thoughtfully preserve the entire story of Alabamas history for future generations. The law was vigorously debated for months by the people of Alabamas duly-elected representatives in the State Legislature, and passed with overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate. The Attorney Generals Office is confident that the Memorial Preservation Act is constitutional, and I look forward to the Attorney Generals appeal of Judge Graffeos ruling. Interstate 59/20 in downtown Birmingham is expected to close to traffic for 14 months beginning Monday night at approximately 9 p.m., according to the Alabama Department of Transportation, but the closure will be phased in, with some ramps closing for good on Friday night. The roadway is one of the busiest in Alabama, carrying approximately 160,000 vehicles per day. ALDOT East Central Region Engineer DeJarvis Leonard said Tuesday that the closure will be a two-week process, stretching over three weekends, allowing contractors to begin demolition of some off-ramps this weekend before the main line is closed on Monday night. There will be a transition period to get into the actual closure, Leonard said. The next step in the process is the opening of the 31st Street on ramp onto I-59/20 northbound, toward the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. Leonard said before any closures can begin, contractors will have to open the ramp. That ramp will be crucial for traffic flow through the city once the interstate closes. Full coverage of I-59/20 bridge project Unfortunately, Leonard said, the 25th Street North on- and off-ramps to I-59/20 will not be open immediately after the interstate closes. Those ramps are planned to open Feb. 4, two weeks after the initial shutdown. Once the interstate is closed, drivers heading east from Tuscaloosa/Bessemer will have to exit either at I-65, 17th Street North or Sixth Avenue North. The primary detour route for through traffic will be to I-65 North to Finley Boulevard, to travel east around the closure. Once the 25th Street ramp is opened, that will be the primary road to get back on I-59/20. Until then, Leonard said the preferred route was for drivers to take Carraway Boulevard to 5th Avenue North to get on Red Mountain Expressway and re-enter I-59/20. Drivers heading west from Atlanta/the airport will have to exit at either Red Mountain Expressway or at Carraway Boulevard, or eventually 25th Street. The main detour is Carraway Boulevard to Finley Boulevard. Drivers can get on I-65 South at Finley Boulevard to return to I-59/20 Southbound, or continue down Finley Boulevard to Arkadelphia Road and enter I-59/20 directly there. An alternate detour route is marked on 3rd and 4th Avenues South, from Red Mountain Expressway and I-65. Here is the anticipated closure schedule, assuming the 31st Street ramp opens this week: Friday night, the ramp leading from the Red Mountain Expressway (U.S. 31/280) northbound, leading to I-59/20 southbound (toward Tuscaloosa) will be closed permanently. Contractors will then begin demolition of that ramp over the weekend. That flyover ramp will not reopen until the new interstate bridges are in place. Also on Friday night, the ramp from I-59/20 southbound to Red Mountain Expressway will be closed due to construction activity taking place on the ground near the ramp. By Monday (Jan. 21) at 9 p.m., the main line of I-59/20 in both directions will be closed for an estimated 14 months. The contractors have been given 425 days to have the interstate rebuilt and reopened, beginning on the day of the closure. They will receive a $250,000 bonus for every day ahead of schedule and face a $250,000 penalty for each day beyond the allotted time period that the interstate remains closed. The contractor can receive up to $15 million in bonuses if the project is completed in 12 months instead of 14. On the weekend of January 25-28, Carraway Boulevard will be closed in the area directly under the existing I-59/20 bridges, as those bridges are demolished. Carraway is expected to remain open for most of the duration of the project and connect motorists to Finley Boulevard, one of the main detour routes around the closed interstate. The closure is planned for 9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 25 until 6 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 28. Detours will be posted directing motorists around that closure. Carraway Boulevard will close again on the weekend of Feb. 2-3. Leonard said that closure would primarily be on Sunday, Feb. 3. By the morning of Monday, Feb. 4, ALDOT hopes to have the 25th Street North ramps open, creating another option for city drivers to enter I-59/20 heading north toward the airport and Atlanta/Gadsden, and another exit for entry into the city. Leonard said the opening of the 25th Street ramps will end the transition process and the through traffic patterns are not expected to change dramatically until the interstates reopen in 2020. Local street traffic will change as contractors open and close through streets under the bridges as necessary for the demolition and construction. The contractors are required to keep at least one northbound and one southbound lane open between 15th and 18th Streets and between 19th and 23rd Street throughout the project. In addition, Carraway Boulevard is expected to remain open for most of the duration of the project, with the exceptions listed above. James Fowler, transportation director for the city of Birmingham, said city crews have been working with ALDOT and to develop a signal timing plan to adjust traffic signals at approximately 150 signals on the north side of Birmingham. Fowler said those signal adjustments would be phased in this week, leading up to Mondays closure. The city has also added additional turn lanes to Carraway Boulevard and considered other lane changes to accommodate the increased traffic volume on city streets. Were expecting some significant impacts, especially during the first couple weeks of this closure, Fowler said. Our staff, our signals division, and also our signs and markings division will be on call and available 24/7 during those times to go out and address problems if they occur. Birmingham police will also be available to direct traffic as needed around the closure, particularly in the early stages of the closure as drivers are still adjusting to the changes. Watch the full 30-minute ALDOT press conference from Tuesday below: Governor Kay Ivey on Monday ordered that all flags statewide be flown at half-staff in honor of slain Birmingham police officer Sgt. Wytasha Carter. Sgt. Carter laid down his life protecting the people of Birmingham, and the entire state of Alabama mourns this tremendous loss, Ivey said. She said the flags should be flown at half-staff until sunset on Sunday, Jan. 20. The governor earlier released this statement on Carters shooting death: We began today with the heartbreaking news that Birmingham Police Sergeant Wytasha Carter was killed in the line of duty and a second officer still remains in critical condition. On behalf of the entire state of Alabama, I offer my deepest sympathies and prayers as we all mourn the death of Sergeant Carter, which came far too soon. This is a terrible loss for Sergeant Carters loved ones, his fellow law enforcement officers and our entire state. Let us keep Sergeant Carter, his wife and children close to our hearts during this difficult time. I offer my fervent prayers to the second officer still fighting to stay alive. I also pray for the doctors, nurses and staff working to help this officer survive the tragedy. To this officer, know that the people of Alabama stand behind you. We must never forget the tremendous sacrifice that our law enforcement make each and every day. We certainly will always remember Birmingham Police Sergeant Wytasha Carter and his ultimate sacrifice for the people of Birmingham who he served so well. The ordeal began at 1:59 a.m. Sunday when officers were working a special detail dealing with a rash of car break-ins in that area. An undercover officer spotted at least two suspects who appeared to be trying door handles to see if they were locked in the 900 block of Fifth Avenue North outside the 4 Seasons Bar and Grill. The officer called for backup, and the sergeant arrived. The officer and the sergeant approached two suspects. "The officers approached one suspect and patted him down where they found what they believed to be a weapon,'' said Birmingham Police Chief Patrick Smith. They asked him about it, he armed himself and fired upon our officers. "What I can tell you is it appears our officers were unable to respond,'' the chief said. They were taken completely by surprise. We cant go into great detail because we are still in the infancy stage of the investigation. Carter, the second officer who has been on the force just under two years and a suspect were rushed to UAB Hospitals Trauma Center by Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service. Both of them were shot in very critical areas,'' the chief said of the officers. Carter was pronounced dead at the hospital. Authorities have not released the name of the surviving, but critically-wounded, officer. Smith and Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin addressed the media Sunday evening. As we continue to pray for Sgt. Carters family, please keep in mind to yield the prayers to our officer who is still in intensive care at UAB, an emotional Smith said. Trust me when I tell you hes not completely out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination. His condition is very critical and for me, as chief of police, its very difficult to look both of their families in the eye and explain to them the tragedy that weve had to endure and for one of them that their loved one will not be coming back. Its a very difficult thing. The hospitalized suspect is 31 years old. Authorities have not released his condition. The second suspect, who was handcuffed and arrested shortly after the shooting, is 18. The chief said he did not know when formal charges could be brought against the pair. The investigation is ongoing by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agencys State Bureau of Investigation. Funeral arrangements for Carter have not yet been announced. The Alabama Department of Transportation announced that the estimated 14-month closure of I-59/20 in downtown Birmingham will begin next Monday, January 21, weather permitting. The interstate through the heart of Alabamas largest city will close for more than a year as contractors demolish and rebuild the aging interstate bridges elevating the highway over downtown. The old bridges were completed in the early 1970s, according to the ALDOT web site, and were designed to handle about half the traffic volume they currently support, an estimated 160,000 vehicles per day. A roughly one-mile stretch of I-59/20 through the central business district downtown will be closed, beginning just east of the interchange with I-65 to just west of the interchange with the Red Mountain Expressway. Map of the area of Interstate 59/20 in downtown Birmingham that will close for an estimated 14 months as crews demolish and replace the bridges elevating the highway over the city streets. (Alabama Department of Transportation) Traffic will be detoured around the closed portion of the interstate via Finley Boulevard and 3rd and 4th Avenue South downtown, but ALDOT is encouraging all through traffic to use Interstate 459 as a detour to bypass downtown. Once the interstate is closed, contractors will have 14 months to have the interstate reopened or face contractual penalties. The company can receive up to $15 million in bonuses if the work is completed early. ALDOT will hold a press conference Tuesday morning to release more details about the closure. The Department has an informational web site about the project at 5920bridge.com and is promoting the ALGOtraffic web site and mobile app to update travelers on current traffic conditions. *This post will be updated. Roy Moore on Monday released the results of a polygraph test he took 13 months ago, which he maintains clears him of sexual accusations made against him by three women. Moore first revealed the exam, often known as a lie detector test, in a lawsuit he filed in December 2017 to stop the certification of the special Senate election results he narrowly lost to Doug Jones. As the dueling lawsuits between Moore and one of the accusers, Leigh Corfman, move forward, AL.com obtained a copy of the exams results. Moore also posted a statement about the polygraph on his Facebook page that includes a link where supporters can contribute to his legal fund. According to the six-page document, the exam was conducted Dec. 19, 2017, by Clyde Wolfe, president of Commercial Polygraph in Birmingham. The questions Moore was asked as well as the answers were included in the document. Each of the questions required only a yes or no answer. Moore was asked questions about Corfman as well as Beverly Young Nelson and Tina Johnson. In regard to each of the women, Moore was asked if he tried to have sex with them, touched their breasts, touched their buttocks or sexually assaulted them in any manner. To each of the questions, Moore answered, No. It is the opinion of this examiner that the subject told the truth during this polygraph examination, Wolfe wrote in the conclusion. Corfman accused Moore of sexually touching her in 1979 when she was 14 years old and he was 32. Nelson said at a New York press conference days after The Washington Post first reported on Corfman that Moore attempted to rape her in 1977 while the two were together in a parked car. Johnson said Moore grabbed her buttocks as she left his private law office to seek legal counsel a domestic issue in 1991. Moore has repeatedly denied the allegations in public statements and sworn court documents. To this day, no one but Judge Moore has sworn under oath multiple times as to the false allegations, Moores office said in a statement accompanying the polygraph exam. This polygraph extends to include questions about not only Corfman but also Nelson and Johnson as these three are the ONLY ones who have accused him of any sexual misconduct. Judge Moore has also sat for deposition. To this day Corfman and her attorneys refuse to answer questions about Judge Moores residence or vehicle and have not agreed for us to take her deposition. Judge Moore passed the polygraph. Moore has filed a motion in the Corfman lawsuit compelling her to give a deposition. The judge presiding over the case has not yet ruled on the motion. Moore attorney Melissa Isaak also entered the polygraph exam into the court file Monday. In a pre-test interview, according to the document, Moore said that he believes that he met Tina one time but he does not remember her. Moore has said repeatedly he does not remember any of the women. Results of polygraph exams are not permissible in Alabama courts. The tests are used to identify physical indicators -- such as rising blood pressure, changes in a subjects breathing and sweating palms -- that the subject may be misleading the examiner, according to a 2018 report from the BBC. The accuracy of polygraph exams is the subject of much debate, the BBC report said. Moore has said repeatedly he does not remember any of the three women - Corfman, Johnson and Nelson. At least six other women came forward during the election. Most had claims that did not involve criminal conduct, saying they had dated Moore or Moore had just asked them on a date. Moore during the campaign told Sean Hannity he did not know Corfman, but admitted to knowing two others. Moore said he knew Debbie Wesson Gibson and Gloria Thacker Deason, calling them both by their maiden names. Gibson told The Washington Post that Moore spoke to her high school civics class. "I know (Gibson) but I don't remember going out on dates. I knew her as a friend. If we did go out on dates, then we did. But I do not remember that." During the interview he also denied giving Deason wine when she was 18 and he was in his 30s. At the time, Hannity asked Moore if he remembered dating girls as young as 17 or 18 years old when he was 32. Not generally, no, Moore said. If I did, you know, Im not going to dispute anything. But I dont remember anything like that. Moore said he didnt remember dating any girl without the permission of her mother. Updated at 5:05 p.m. to include information from a Hannity interview in 2017 The Rev. Edward Markley, a Catholic priest who vandalized abortion clinics including a sledgehammer attack on a clinic in Birmingham, has died. He was 79. Markley died Monday morning, Jan. 14, at St. Bernard Abbey in Cullman, where he was a Benedictine monk, the abbey announced. On May 12, 1984, Markley used a sledgehammer to smash equipment at Birmingham Womens Medical Clinic. He was pastor of Our Lady of Shoals Catholic Church in Tuscumbia at the time. Markley was also convicted of assault in 1985 for a 1984 attack on the Womens Community Health Center in Huntsville in which he sprayed the clinic with red paint. A judge ordered Markley to pay a judgment of $2,400 to the center and two employees, but Markley refused and would not voluntarily surrender, so deputies from Madison and Cullman counties arrested him at St. Bernards Abbey and took him to Huntsville, 50 miles from Cullman. Full coverage of the abortion debate in Alabama Markley was also ordered not to go within 500 feet of the Birmingham abortion clinic that he damaged with a sledgehammer. Markley was sentenced to 10 years probation for burglary and criminal mischief, and was ordered to jail in 1985 for violating terms of his probation by taking part in anti-abortion protests in front of Birmingham clinics. The late Bishop Joseph Vath, who as head of the Diocese of Birmingham was Markleys superior, issued a statement at the time supportive of the priests actions. ''If we are convinced that abortion is the taking of innocent life according to Gods revealed word, he is not acting unjustly according to Gods law in defending the innocent unborn ones,'' Vath said. ''The right to life certainly supersedes the right to property or to privacy.'' Markley was born Sept. 5, 1939. He took vows as a monk at St. Bernard Abbey on June 12, 1960. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 10, 1966. Serving the abbey, our schools, and the Diocese of Birmingham and Archdiocese of Mobile in a variety of capacities over the years, he touched many lives with his pastoral concern, his love for following Christ, and his deep spirituality and prayer life, the abbey said in a statement posted on Facebook. He was an exemplary monk, who will be greatly missed by his brothers. He died peacefully at the abbey around 8:20 this morning, in the presence of his brother monks, who had been keeping vigil with him for several days. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey announced a major change on her staff on the second day of her new term. Former Congressman Jo Bonner will replace Steve Pelham as Iveys chief of staff. Bonner had joined the administration as a senior adviser on Dec. 1. Pelham will leave to become the vice president for economic development and chief of staff for Auburn University President Steven Leath. Pelham has been Iveys chief of staff since she became lieutenant governor in 2011. Steve has been a close friend and a trusted confidant for a number of years and has provided our office with outstanding leadership, Ivey said in a press release. When we made the transition to the Governors Office in 2017, Steve was responsible for leading the effort to make certain the Ivey Administration was up and running on day one. He has maintained that level of commitment to our organization, structure and focus to details throughout our first term together. Bonner represented Alabamas 1st Congressional District in southwest Alabama from 2003 to 2013. He resigned from Congress in 2013 to take a job as vice chancellor of government relations and economic development for the University of Alabama System in 2013. Jo brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to our administration, and I know we arent going to miss a step as my cabinet, staff and I work, every day, to honor the support and confidence the people of Alabama gave us last November, Ivey said in the press release. Ivey replaced Robert Bentley as governor in April 2017. Voters elected her to a full term last year and she took the oath to begin that term on Monday. [January 14, 2019] Skyview Capital, LLC Sells Two Units Of NewNet To ZephyrTel CENTURY CITY, Calif., Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Global investment company Skyview Capital, LLC (www.skyviewcapital.com) has sold the mobile messaging and Interact business units of its wholly-owned NewNet Communications Technologies to ZephyrTel (ZT), an ESW Capital software company dedicated to serving the global telecommunications industry. Skyview will continue to own and operate NewNet's Broadband and Payment Processing business units, which serve high-profile telco and enterprise clients worldwide. Skyview Capital formed NewNet by merging its text messaging company acquisitions into a single fully-integrated video/audio/text mobile text messaging platform. "We recognized the potential of mobile messaging for consumer and B2B applications early on and pursued a strategy that would create a successful mobile text messaging company," said Christopher Aye, Head of Mergers & Acquisitions for Skyview Capital. Skyview Capital's exiting of the two NewNet business units follows the recent sales of its other communications industry portfolio companies VoltDelta Contact Center Solutions, which was also acquired by ESW Capital and NewPace RCS Mobile Software, which Skyview sold to Samsung. To meet the requirements resulting from the expansion of its portfolio acquisitions, Skyview Capital added to the company's Operational, Business Development and M&A management teams as well as established a Dallas office. "Skyview's operational management and infrastructure including product development, rebranding, sales and marketing and research and development contributed to the successful sale of NewNet's Messaging and Interact business units to ZephyrTel," added Aye. "A recognized force in global telecommunications, ZephyrTel is the perfect new home for the NewNet Mobile and Interact business units, which are certain to become significant components to ZephyrTel's solutions portfolio," said Alex Soltani, Chairman & CEO of Skyview Capital, LLC. "Our acquisition of both VoltDelta and NewNet's Messaging and Interact units will deliver impressive telecoms technology platforms as well as an additional portfolio of blue-chip customers that will help accelerate ZephyrTel's growth trajectory and ability to further support global Telecoms operators in their digital transformation strategies," said Mike Shinya, Chief Executive Officer, ZephyrTel. About Skyview Capital, LLC: Skyview Capital is a global private investment firm headquartered In Los Angeles specializing in the acquisition and management of mission critical enterprises in the areas of technology, telecommunications, business services and niche manufacturing. By leveraging its deep operational resources and financial acumen, Skyview systematically enhances the long-term sustainable value of the businesses it acquires. To date, Skyview has successfully completed more than 25 transactions within its target market verticals. Visit www.skyviewcapital.com. CONTACT: Steve Syatt SSA Public Relations Steve@ssapr.com (818) 222-4000 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/skyview-capital-llc-sells-messaging-and-interact-units-of-its-wholly-owned-newnet-to-zephyrtel-300777858.html SOURCE Skyview Capital, LLC For the first time in 16 years, a different face is at the helm of Madison Countys top law enforcement agency. But new Sheriff Kevin Turner is no stranger to the sheriffs office. Its where his law enforcement career began nearly 27 years ago. The minute that I put that gun and badge on, I got addicted, Turner said at his swearing-in ceremony today. The minute I put that county uniform on, I felt at home. Turner took the oath of office in front of hundreds of people, some of whom had to stand outside a packed Madison County courtroom on Monday. Turner replaces longtime Sheriff Blake Dorning, who didnt seek a fifth term in last years election. Dorning was sheriff for 16 years. Farewell Message From Sheriff Blake Dorning https://t.co/BelQCz2AU6 via @Nextdoor Madison Sheriff AL (@mcsosheriffAL) January 14, 2019 Im really looking forward to taking up where Sheriff Dorning has left off and just try to make the department better in every aspect, Turner said in a recent interview with AL.com. Turner said one of the biggest challenges he and the office face is maintaining enough staff to keep up with the growing population in the Huntsville-Madison County area. Law enforcement agencies around the country are struggling with having enough manpower. Fortunately, Turner said, the office will hire 10 new deputies this spring because of budget increases approved last year by the county commission. In a final interview with AL.com, outgoing sheriff Dorning said one of Turners toughest challenges will be finding the right people for the job. The challenge that all law enforcement has is the ability to locate, attract and retain good quality employees, Dorning said recently. Its not going to be about manpower; itss not going to be about having enough cars, enough equipment; its not going to be anything like that. Its going to be finding those individuals that are truly servant-minded, that want to be a part of something which is good, that faces great adversity every day. Turner said he and his staff know they are held to a higher standard in the community. There is a lot of power that comes with putting a gun and badge on, he said. When you talk to someone and you interview someone about becoming a police officer, you know whether they just want to wear the gun and badge or they really have it in them to be a police officer. Asked how he feels about body-worn cameras for deputies, Turner said, If youre out there as a po and youre doing the right thing, you dont even know its on your chest. The sheriff said he doesnt have a firm policy on whether to release body camera videos to the public. He said he wont release video footage if it involves an ongoing investigation. The son of a longtime police officer, Turner said he knew since he was a little boy that he wanted to be a cop. In his nearly 27 years of experience, Turner has been a patrolman, violent crimes detective, gang investigator and more. Hes filled leadership roles and worked for the Huntsville Police Department and Madison County District Attorneys office. Most recently, Turner was chief investigator in District Attorney Rob Broussards office. During the swearing-in ceremony, Broussard presented Turner with a plaque in appreciation of his service. Broussard, who said Turner is one of his best friends, wished the new sheriff well. Broussard described Turner as a guy whos always treated people with dignity and respect. Longtime prosecutor Tim Gann, Madison Countys chief trial attorney, described Turner as a good man, and wished him well in his new role as sheriff. North Alabamas U.S. Attorney Jay Town, a former Madison County prosecutor, said, This community, this county will be a better place with Turner as sheriff. Broussard, Gann and Town will work closely with Turner and other local law enforcement leaders especially with the formation of a new task force thats designed to fight violent crime in the area. Announced last fall, the Huntsville Public Safety Task Force is a joint effort between local, state and federal prosecutors and law enforcement to identify, investigate and prosecute the areas most violent criminals and repeat offenders. The goal of the task force is to bring federal charges, when possible, against the targets, police said, because federal crimes often result in more prison time than state charges. Turner old AL.com two of his primary crime-fighting goals are stopping violent offenders and getting drugs, particularly heroin and meth, off the streets. Drugs and addiction, he said, are the root of most crimes. I will have zero tolerance for any drugs sold in our county, said Turner, a longtime narcotics investigator. That is one of the things that I know and I know how to make a dent in. That is something that Im passionate about. Turner said hes thankful for his family, campaign staff, the community and his staff. Im ready to get to work," he said. Im back home now. The Birmingham Islamic Society has joined with other groups and community leaders supporting Dr. Angela Davis after the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute withdrew its highest award and canceled the event set to honor her earlier this month The decision was announced Jan. 5 after concerns from Birminghams Jewish community were brought to the BCRI in late 2018. A statement posted on the BCRI website said Davis statements and public record led the board to determine she doesnt meet all the criteria for the Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award. BIS said it is joining with those supporting David and calling on the BCRI to reconsider its position. BCRIs unjust decision to cancel this award ostensibly stems from Dr. Davis' support for Palestinian human rights. Dr. Davis tireless advocacy for international causes is based on her conviction that justice is indivisible. Derived from the illuminating principle that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, this understanding has led Dr. Davis to draw parallels between the wrongs faced by African Americans in the US and the ongoing freedom struggle of the Palestinians, BIS said in a statement sent to media late Monday night. The freedom to openly criticize oppressive policies and actions of a government, domestic or foreign, and the right to participate in a non-violent boycott against such an entity, are not just constitutionally protected, but also remain cornerstones of our democracy. Unfortunately, Dr. Davis is one of many American academics and activists who have had to suffer significant punitive repercussions just for exercising these rights in favor of the Palestinian struggle for justice and peace. BIS said it hopes to have the continued support of Jewish allies through this controversy, adding the society has always enjoyed close ties with the Jewish community in Birmingham. The BCRI Monday issued an apology about how it handled withdrawing Davis award. Each member of the Board of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute deeply regrets the impact that the handling of the Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award has had on Dr. Angela Davis, the City of Birmingham, and many others who have been impacted by our handling of the award, the board said in a public statement. We are sorry. BIS said it is in solidarity with the Birmingham Committee for Truth and Reconciliation, which is hosting an event for Davis in Birmingham on Feb. 16. An event location has not yet been announced. Auburn University, UAB and the University of Alabama all had programs in the top 25 nationally in the 2019 U.S. News & World Report Best Online Programs rankings, released Tuesday. Online degree programs, also known as e-learning or distance learning programs, are defined by U.S. News as those where all required coursework for program completion can be completed through internet-based learning technologies and where all instruction is delivered to students who are separated from the instructor. Online programs can offer a flexible learning environment for students who have to balance classes with working a full-time job, caring for their family or other responsibilities, said Anita Narayan, managing editor of Education at U.S. News. Auburn University had the most top-ranked online programs of Alabama colleges and universities included in the rankings. U.S. News ranked programs offering online bachelor's degrees as well as master's programs in business, education, nursing, engineering, computer information technology and criminal justice. Online MBA programs were separated from other business programs for their ranking. The rankings evaluated degree-granting online programs at regionally accredited public, private and for-profit institutions and are based on multiple criteria including graduation and retention rates, reputation among industry and education professionals, faculty credentials, and student indebtedness among others. At Auburn, the Harbert College of Business online MBA program was tied with three other out-of-state schools for the No. 9 spot, and in the graduate business non-MBA category the program was ranked at No. 13. Auburn's online graduate engineering program was ranked No. 12, tied with LSU. Auburn's online information technology graduate program was ranked at No. 20, whiles their online graduate education program landed at No. 22, in a tie with others. UAB took the No. 12 spot, in a tie with others, for the best online bachelor's degree program in the country, leaping from the No. 77 spot last year. UABs online information technology graduate program landed in the No. 18 spot. Their online graduate nursing program ranked No. 23, tied with others. The University of Alabama's Manderson Graduate School of Business took the No. 10 spot in the best online graduate business degree, non-MBA category. Alabama's online graduate nursing program was ranked No. 12. According to U.S. News, around 3 million students took online distance education classes in either graduate or undergraduate programs nationwide. For the 2019 rankings, U.S. News evaluated 1,545 online degree programs, up from 1,490 last year. U.S. News gathers data directly from each institution and is the only publication to evaluate online degrees at the program level rather than the school level. Alabama food stamp recipients will see February benefits on their cards within the next five days, a workaround required by the ongoing government shutdown. Barry Spear with the Alabama Department of Human Resources said benefits will be on EBT cards prior to or on Jan. 20. The benefits arent an extra payment, but an early distribution to allow the government to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, during the government shutdown. The USDA announced the plan last week as concerns over Februarys food benefits grew. While the benefits will be loaded early, the expiration date will remain the same 12 months. Spear said its important people remember the early benefits must last through February. There isnt any race to use these benefits. They arent going anywhere. Once the money is on the cards, its there, he said. He advised, however, that recipients limit their purchase of perishable items including fresh fruits, vegetables and milk to what can be consumed with the time of the benefits. Some people may receive February benefits before Januarys, which are paid out through Jan. 23 Spear said the department will continue to take SNAP applications during the shutdown. Applicants wont receive the early appropriation but will receive benefits through rollover funding. The funding wasnt enough to cover all 38 million American who receive food stamps each month, but will pay for new applicants. The average household on SNAP benefits receives about $250 per month; 751,000 Alabamians receive food stamps each month. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees food stamps, is one of nine federal agencies affected by the partial government shutdown that began Dec. 22. Program benefits were funded as normal for January but would have been short for February if the workaround which took advantage of a rule that continued funding for 30 days after a shutdown hadnt been found. Gov. Kay Ivey launched her new term today with a call for a gasoline tax increase for the Alabama road system and a pledge that her administration is poised for a major announcement about the states long-troubled prisons. Ivey said much more during her inaugural address on the Capitol steps, including her belief that the states best days were ahead and her promise to serve all Alabamians, including those who voted against her. But when it comes to what Ivey said about her specific plans, her comments on the gas tax and prison issues stood out during one of the governors most high-profile speeches since taking office in April 2017. Ivey noted that Gov. Lurleen Wallace, the only other woman to serve as Alabamas governor, called on the Legislature to boost funding for roads and bridges a half-century ago. And she noted that Alabama hasnt raised the gasoline tax since 1992, a key argument made for several years by advocates for more road and bridge funding. Today, I follow in Gov. Lurleen Wallaces footsteps in many ways and make the same ask to the Alabama Legislature, Ivey said. After all, if we want to compete in a 21st century global economy, we must improve our infrastructure by investing more in our roads, our bridges and our ports. Ivey said the newly elected Alabama Legislature can be one of the most important ever by helping her tackle some of the states most pressing needs. Members of the Legislature and people of Alabama, well only have one chance to do it, Ivey said, referring to the gas tax. Its been almost three decades since we made any changes. Weve got to do it now and get it right. Ivey said Alabamas prison system has been sorely neglected for decades. The governor didnt give specifics on a plan but promised she would have more to say soon. The status of our corrections system is an Alabama problem that must be solved by an Alabama solution, and I plan to do so, Ivey said. We are revitalizing our statewide corrections system by replacing costly, at-risk prison facilities. This effort will ensure that Alabama stays committed to statewide prison reform, and we will be announcing more detailed plans in the coming days. The governor had spoken in support of a gas tax and prison construction before, so her speech today did not deviate from her previous positions. But Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, said the words still surprised him. England said he went back and read the speech to make sure he heard correctly. I never thought I would hear a Republican talk about tax increases and prisons in an inaugural address, or in the same inaugural address, said England, who is chairman of the Democratic caucus in the Alabama House. Alabamas prisons are filled beyond capacity, understaffed, plagued by violence and embroiled in a sweeping federal lawsuit over prison health care. Former Gov. Robert Bentley proposed a plan to borrow about $800 million to build several large prisons and close most existing ones. Lawmakers considered several variations of the idea but none passed. Ivey has not made a prison-building proposal to the Legislature. But the Department of Corrections, under her administration, raised concerns among lawmakers with a $10 million contract for assessment, planning and design work in anticipation of a plan under consideration to build three large prisons and close most existing ones. Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn told the Legislatures contract review committee the plan would cost close to a billion dollars. England said hes concerned that lawmakers arent more in the loop for what the Ivey administration is planning. Youre talking about spending a billion dollars and also closing facilities across the state thats going to have significant impacts on local economies, I think thats something we all need to kind of be involved in, England said. The Republican chairmen of the General Fund committees in the Alabama House and Senate praised Iveys speech today. But they said they are not sure what the Ivey administration is planning on prisons and have not been part of discussions with the administration. Ive got some concerns and questions Id like to ask, Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Range said. Albritton was named chairman of the Senates Finance and Taxation General Fund Committee last week. The prison system receives more money from the General Fund than any agency except Medicaid. Albritton said he did not want to elaborate on his concerns about prisons because he wants to talk to the Ivey administration first. Weve been working on this for three years now, Albritton said. And its quite raw and sore. I dont want to kill something by making an inappropriate statement. Rep. Steve Clouse, R-Ozark, chairman of the House Ways and Means General Fund Committee, said its possible the administration could enter contracts with private companies to build prisons and then lease and operate the facilities. Clouse said hes not sure thats what the Ivey administration has planned or how far the administration would try to go independent of the Legislature. I think thats one of the questions and thats what some people are looking for the answers to, Clouse said. I think she probably has the authority to do some type of lease program. Clouse said hes not sure how the Legislature would respond to that. I think thats a big unknown, Clouse said. How all these different questions are answered here to peoples satisfaction, its hard to gauge. I know people that have prisons in their districts, theyre probably going to be opposed no matter what the answer is. Clouse said he has not had a chance to gauge support in the House for a gas tax. He noted that neighboring states have already moved to increase their road funding, which he said might explain Iveys comments that this is the Legislatures best chance to approve an increase. I think that probably meant were going to look at it this year and maybe we need to make a move on it this year, Clouse said. Weve been talking about it now for three or four years. Bills to raise the gas tax stalled in the Legislature in 2016 and 2017 despite having support of legislative leaders. Ivey has said she is working with House and Senate leaders on a bill this year. The legislative session starts March 5. Senate General Fund chairman Albritton said its hard to gauge support for a gas tax because theres not yet a bill to provide specifics such as the amount, any mechanisms for future increases and whether lawmakers would have more say in choosing road projects. He said he believes most legislators agree that more infrastructure funding is needed. I think the recognition of the need is not quite universal but it seems to be in the majority, Albritton said. The question is, how do we fix it? As for Iveys speech overall, Albritton said the governor made a strong appearance on a cold January day that left him the impression that the four-year term she started today might not be her last. Iveys opponents tried to raise questions about her health during the campaign. Ivey has repeatedly said she is in good health. I think she showed the public of Alabama shes a strong woman, Albritton said. Clouse liked Iveys decision to recognize and share the spotlight with former governors Robert Bentley, Bob Riley, Don Siegelman and Jim Folsom. I thought she did a real good job being conciliatory toward everybody with all the former governors there, Clouse said. I thought that was real good, for all of them to be there to show unity for the state moving forward. I thought it was a very good, enlightening and motivational speech. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions did the right thing when he recused himself from overseeing the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Trump nominees to lead the Justice Department said Tuesday. Speaking during his confirmation hearing, William Barr addressed questions from Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., about Sessions recusal from overseeing the investigation, a decision that put him at odds with the president and eventually led to his exit from the department. When asked if Sessions made the right decision, Barr replied Im not sure of all the facts, but I think he probably did the right thing recusing himself. Graham replied I think (Sessions) did the right thing to recuse himself. Barr told Graham he considered the man handling the investigation, special counsel Robert Mueller, a good friend and a fair-minded person. I don't believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt, Barr said. During his opening remarks, Barr had stressed his desire to remain independent if confirmed. "If confirmed, I will serve with the same independence I did in 1991, Barr said, referencing his time as AG under President George H.W. Bush. At that time when President Bush chose me, he sought no promises and asked only that his attorney general act with professionalism and integrity. Likewise, President Trump has sought no assurances, promises, or commitments from me of any kind, either express or implied, and I have not given him any, other than that I would run the department with professionalism and integrity. The life and legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. will be celebrated in Montgomery on Friday at an event hosted by Alabama State University, Troy University and the Friends of the ASU Theatre. The 5th Annual Citywide Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will take place the Davis Theater for the Performing Arts. It will include music, dance, drama and awards. Tommie Tonea Stewart, dean of ASUs College of Visual and Performing Arts and a renowned movie and television actor, founded the event. "This event will again honor representatives of the community who are 'Keepers of the Dream' and demonstrate a concerted effort to exhibit peace, unity and love," Stewart said in a news release. This years honorees will include Brig. Gen. Edward Crowell, entrepreneur Martha Hawkins, former state Rep. Alvin Holmes and the medical practice Pryor, Winston and Johns. There will be two events, a matinee at 10 a.m. and a program at 6 p.m. Tickets are $5 for the matinee and $10 for the evening event. If being lucky means you have a wife who thinks the world of you, then Kelvin Bell is a lucky man. Healthwise, he hasnt been so lucky in recent years. Some days are better than others for Kelvin, says Martrece Bell, who fell in love with him 29 years ago. Married for the past 23 years, they have six children and live in Birminghams East Lake neighborhood. The couple are often mistaken for newlyweds. I was 17 and he was 18 when we met, Martrece says. I didnt know what love was until I met him. Because he has kidney disease, Kelvin spends three days a week at a dialysis center, where he sits for four hours as waste products are filtered from his blood. After a treatment, he is so tired and drained that all he can do is lie down, she says. And thats not like Kelvin. Martrece, a case manager with Impact Family Counseling, is devoting all her energy to finding a type O kidney donor for her husband. Hes among 2,400 Alabamians on the donor waiting list, which has an average wait time of seven to nine years. Those waiting for a match with an O blood type have the longest wait because even though type O blood is universal for donating, its not a universal recipient, she explains. And 70 percent of those waiting for a kidney in Alabama are African-American, like Kelvin. Hes been on the waiting list for nearly two years. Before he became ill, Kelvin did all of the laundry, cooking and cleaning for his large family, in addition to his job in sales for Southland International Trucking Inc., where he worked for 25 years until he couldnt do it anymore. We have five daughters, Martrece says, and every last one of them is a daddys girl. He folds all of their clothes, makes their beds, fixes their dinner plates - and mine - and takes our plates back to the kitchen. To see him some days not able to do that breaks my heart. That joy is taken from him. In 2014, when he was 44 years old, Kelvin had to have open heart surgery due to congestive heart failure. He came through the surgery well, but his creatinine numbers were elevated. He received a mechanical heart valve during the surgery, so he has to take blood-thinning medication. In early 2017, he was diagnosed with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a type of kidney disease. He was put on a steroid regimen, but it didnt work. By May of that year, he had to start dialysis. The first night was scary for Martrece and Kelvin because he wouldnt stop bleeding due to the blood-thinner. He was admitted to the hospital. Though he was on a ventilator, Martrece bent down and whispered in her husbands ear. God told me we were going to grow old together, she says. So I said, Kelvin, youre all I have besides the kids. Youve got to come back. She felt him squeeze her hand. He wasnt going anywhere. I could talk about him all day, she says. We complete each others sentences. When I ask him to tell me what hes thinking, I already know the answer. They often end up wearing the same color, even though they dont plan to match. He knows shes cold-natured, so he will warm up the car for her before she goes outside. He shows his love for her in a million little ways. The back windshield of her car is a billboard for Kelvin. My husband needs a Type O kidney, it reads, along with her cell phone number. Kelvin is on the donor lists at UAB, Vanderbilt University in Nashville and Piedmont Healthcare in Atlanta. Martrece organized two living donor drives in 2018 to try to encourage people in the community to sign up as potential donors. She also urges others to consider organ donation when a loved one dies. Donating organs, she says, can save up to eight lives. No one in her family, so far, has been a match for Kelvin. Two of their daughters are in college right now, one at Samford and one at the University of Alabama. One plans to become a lawyer, and the other is studying to be a doctor. She hopes to have her dad as a patient one day. I told her, Hell be here, Martrece says. Kelvin is the love of my life, she says. My hope is that he can return to work so we can enjoy our life, so I can have my husband back and my babies can have their dad back. My girls want their dad to walk them down the aisle when they get married. Anyone who is interested in becoming a donor can fill out a screening form at www.uabmedicine.org/patient-care/treatments/kidney-transplant/donor-form. For more information, call Martrece Bell at (205) 213-9102. Alabama taxpayers are increasingly becoming more than just spectators in the international battle pitting Airbus against Boeing for air industry supremacy. For the second time this decade, Mobile area taxpayers are on the hook for large tax breaks to support Airbus and its efforts to nudge out Boeing as the worlds largest deliverer of jet planes. On Monday and Tuesday, the Mobile County and Mobile city officials endorsed similar tax incentive packages for Airbus so that it can expand its manufacturing operations at its 116-acre campus south of downtown. Airbus plans to add 432 new jobs by 2021 as it constructs a hangar where the companys newly branded A220 family of narrow-body planes will be built. The A220, formerly called the CSeries, came under Airbus wing in 2017 when the Europe-based company struck a deal with the jets original developer, Canada-based Bombardier, which has been building the aircraft in the city of Mirabel near Montreal. That deal gave Airbus a late-year market boost as it met the companys 2018 target of delivering 800 planes. Seattle-based Boeing, by comparison, delivered 806 jets, and both companies continue to raise projections for more deliveries and more orders as competitive stakes are elevated in 2019. In Mobile, city and county officials are banking on the success of the A220, which is smaller single-aisle jet aircraft than the companys popular A320 aircraft that has been built in Mobile for the past three years. We feel like this is a good deal for Airbus, and we feel like it is a good deal for the city of Mobile, Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said. Incentive deals The incentive packages approved by city and county leaders are very much alike: The two government entities will each dole out $400,000 annually for the next 10 years or $4 million total. Both also agreed to a 10-year property tax abatement and endorsed construction-related fee waivers. A massive new hangar, which will start churning out new aircraft in 2020, will be about 210,000 square feet -- or about the same size as the hangar where Airbus presently builds the A320s. A private groundbreaking is scheduled for Wednesday. Stimpson said the incentives are worthwhile because theyre tied into a $210 million investment that Airbus is making in the project. Also, he noted the addition of 432 jobs. Airbus Mobile complex which is the only Airbus plant in North America -- currently employs 700 in direct and indirect jobs. Another 200 are expected to come aboard within the next 18 months, according to Airbus spokeswoman Kristi Tucker. The A320 Final Assembly Line, once it reaches full capacity, is supposed to provide 1,000 direct Airbus jobs, something which policy-makers touted for many months leading up to its grand opening. Tucker said that the A320 Final Assembly Lines full capacity rate is eight jetliners per month. The company is currently at four planes, and she added, We are well on target. On Tuesday, some city officials hailed the new incentive deal because it stipulates that local job candidates will receive preferential hiring treatment. We made sure there is a specific clause for Airbus to give first preference to those citizens living in Mobile, said City Councilman Fred Richardson. Unknown is how much new money that the state will provide to Airbus. Alabama Secretary of Commerce Greg Canfield said that details about the incentive package will be released during the Wednesday groundbreaking event. Jerry Underwood, a spokesman with the Alabama Department of Commerce, said that the department doesnt disclose or discuss incentives for economic development projects until a final agreement is signed. As of Tuesday morning, neither Gov. Kay Ivey nor an official with Airbus had OKd the final agreement. Underwood said he suspected that the agreement would be signed just prior to the groundbreaking ceremony, which starts at 11 a.m. The Airbus package also carries an educational component Flight Works Alabama thats being embraced by city and county officials. The City Council on Tuesday endorsed a $150,000 annual payout for Flight Works; Mobile County earlier has approved a $500,000 sponsorship for Flight Works. Being developed by Airbus and the state, Flight Works is described as an education center, workforce training center, museum and tourist attraction, all rolled into one. Expected to open later in 2019, will serve as a place for school field trips, for example, and as an administrative center for an Airbus apprenticeship program for local students. This is an opportunity for the schools in our area to have that idea of what aviation is all about, said City Councilman C.J. Small. Stimpson said he is also hopeful the new plant will help entice more suppliers to Mobile. The mayor admitted that the suppliers havent flocked to Mobile as expected when the first incentives were crafted five or six years ago. That first deal provided more than $158 million in overall economic incentives, with Mobile city and the county each responsible for around $14.5 million each. The anticipation we had for additional suppliers coming to the city, we never saw what we had hoped, Stimpson said. From a supplier standpoint to Airbus, they would much rather locate to a city where they are building two different airplanes than where they are just building one. I think you will see more suppliers seriously considering the city of Mobile. Meanwhile, Stimpson and his administration signaled some concern about the citys ability to hand out incentive packages for future economic development projects. The $400,000 annually for Airbus will be paid out of the citys economic development fund, and the mayor said it will be a challenge going forward in determining which companies should receive tax breaks. There will be a finite amount of money, Stimpson said. We certainly cannot do this for everybody. Once Airbus gets going (with the A220 plant), those who want to go on supporting Airbus, they will need to be in close proximity and the hope is they will choose Mobile. Mayor Sandy Stimpson delivers an update during a council meeting at Mobile Government Plaza in this June 2, 2015, picture. (Mike Kittrell/mkittrell@al.com) George Talbot, a city spokesman, said that the citys economic development fund is tightening, and there could be a demand for additional money. Talbot said the city anticipates an additional $3.5 million to $6 million may also be needed for new projects during the current fiscal year, which runs until Sept. 30. The city currently has $1.4 million committed to fund specific economic development cash incentive payments during the current fiscal year, which runs until Sept. 30. Therefore, we recommended via the budget that at least $4,9 million be available for projects in (fiscal year 2019), with the understanding that the number could reach $7.4 million depending on how many projects we actually land, said Talbot. He added, "Its a good problem to have to have so many active projects. Thats what you want. On the other hand, we have to be smart and strategic on how we use it. There is only so much money. Fierce competition Talbot also acknowledged the rapid change in the airline industry which precipitated the Airbus-Bombardier agreement. From Mobiles perspective, that agreement seemed to rocket to the fore last year. According to a Seattle Times analysis, Airbus would have missed its targeted goal of 800 airplanes without the deliveries of 20 former Bombardier planes last year. The company also enjoyed favorable publicity when Delta, JetBlue and startup airliner Moxy all placed orders for A220 planes. Boeing, in response to the Bombardier-Airbus deal, announced plans to purchase the commercial aircraft division of Brazilian-based Embraer and build its own lineup of small, narrow-body planes. That deal may not close under late 2019, because approval of the acquisition is contingent on the authority of the Brazilian government, which is a shareholder in Embraer. The expansion of the Mobile plant, to accommodate the Boeing-Airbus war, is likely to have more benefits for Alabama as the state attempts to position itself as a U.S. leader in aircraft manufacturing. Ivey, during her inauguration speech Monday in Montgomery, said Mobile is a top four city for the assembly of large aircraft. Said Airbus Tucker, Within a few years of combined production of A220 and A320, we will be No. 4 behind Toulouse (France), Hamburg (Germany) and Seattle based on todays known production rates. Talbot said the growth and changes in the industry will keep local and state policymakers on alert. The A220 is a great example because it came across so quickly, he said. It wasnt on anyones radar until Airbus made that acquisition. It shows you this thing will bring opportunities that you cant even see today. This story was updated at 6:16 p.m. on Tuesday, January 15, 2019, to include additional comments from George Talbot regarding the citys economic development fund. Corn, specifically heirloom corn imported from Oaxaca in southeastern Mexico, inspires the food at Becky Satterfields new restaurant, El ZunZun. Red, yellow, or blue field cornthe selection rotatesis soaked overnight and then ground into masa dough to make some 1,400 tortillas daily, as well as dishes like tamales and quesadillas. The restaurant also uses the masa to thicken batter for fried fish, encase empanadas, and bind albondigas (meatballs). Crumbled tortilla chips (made from the masa) are the coating for fried chicken in the torta sandwich called Milanesa de Pollo. Oaxacan corn is present in more than half of the dishes at the recently opened Cahaba Heights restaurant. It is the crux of our cuisine, says executive chef Angela Schmidt. Schmidt and Satterfield (El ZunZuns owner and pastry chef), go to great lengths to present Mexican food as authentically as possible, while also utilizing vegetables, meat, and cheese produced in and near Alabama. What they dont get in Alabama, they source from our neighbors to the south. Heirloom beans come from Oaxaca. Chiles, chocolate, sea salt, jelly, and other products come from throughout Mexico, most via importers who employ fair-trade practices. Even the restaurants name pays tribute to Latin America. El ZunZun is slang for hummingbird in Cuba, which is why there are hummingbirds hanging from the ceiling and represented in the restaurants logo. While the restaurants kitchen is primarily focused on Mexican dishes now, the goal is to bring in cuisine from other countries along the hummingbirds migratory route. El ZunZuns sous chef, Jorge Lugo, uses a family recipe for slow-cooked pork (carnitas). Lugo and his wife Elsa follow his fathers recipe for empanadas, on the menu as Don Chano in his honor. Instead of the typical pastry-like flour dough, masa makes the casing for these unusual but ethereal turnovers filled with stewed chicharrones (pork rind). The cooks at the restaurant, all of whom are of Mexican lineage, make three styles of mole, a classic and complex Mexican sauce. They produce chorizo sausage and more than a half-dozen varieties of salsas. The people who make our food all have stories about their moms and abuelas (grandmothers) cooking, Schmidt says. When dishes at El ZunZun spark those childhood memories, its a beautiful thing, she says. That is important to this restaurant. Dont expect the Tex-Mex cooking and unlimited chips and salsa found in what many think of as Mexican restaurants. There are no combos with interchangeable fillings, plated with rice and refried beans. ZunZuns sides, including grilled cactus and yucca fries, come separately and are best shared, family style. The scratch-made food is painstakingly prepared with top-quality imported and domestic ingredients. That commands a higher price tag than more typical Tex-Mex restaurants. Starters and sides are $4$16; lunchtime fare, including tortas, is $11$16.; and nighttime entrees (Platos on the menu) are $14$22. Think of having a meal at El ZunZun as dining in Mexico without the air travel. The menu is your passport to new takes on familiar fare and exotic flavors. Many menu items are available nowhere else in Birmingham. Topping that list are pizza-like flatbreads sold at lunch called tlayudas, which are popular street food in Mexico City. The Carnitas y Hongos Tlayuda is a thin, 13-inch corn tortilla spread with pork rendering and house-made black bean puree. Its topped with Lugos savory pork carnitas and thin-sliced mushrooms (hongos), smothered with three distinct cheeses and finished with epazote leaves. Crisped on a screen over flaming oak, its crunchy, cheesy, and meaty. Other Tlayuda options include one with meat-free queso, and another with chorizo and sweet potato. Split one with a friend as part of a meal, or share with the table for a snack or starter. Rellenos, batter-fried stuffed chile peppers, are made with chiles de agua grown for El ZunZun by Stone Hollow Farmstead in Harpersville (which also makes several Mexican-style cheeses for the restaurant). The chiles also appear in ZunZuns cheese dip, and are pickled for a torta sandwich made with Bentons country ham from Tennessee and telera bread from Springville-based Hinkles Bakery. El ZunZuns Mole Negro is made with seven kinds of dried chiles plus plantain, raisins, sesame seed, several herbs, red tomatoes, green tomatillos, onions, bread, charred chile seeds, stock, and Mexican chocolate thats all simmered together for hours to thicken. Mole Coloradito is lighter colored, but similarly complex, even without chocolate. Mole Amarillo substitutes fresh chiles for dried, and is thickened with masa instead of via slow-cooking. Suitable for vegetarians, it is the sauce for Mole Amarillo con Vegetal, one of several meat-free dishes at ZunZun. Another vegetarian dish features jackfruit in a well-seasoned marinade called adobo. Tacos ($12$16) are make-your-own. Serving fillings and toppings separately keeps the ultra-fresh tortillas at their peak, Schmidt says. Choices include house-made spit-roasted pork-and-pineapple pastor, chicken in black mole, and marinated steak with poblanos and black bean puree. El ZunZun stocks several Mexican soft drinks and non-alcohol agua frescas made with fresh fruit. The bar serves signature margaritas and other cocktails made from its extensive selection of tequilas and mezcals. Just like at Satterfields self-named restaurant in Cahaba Heights, the desserts at El ZunZun should not be overlooked. Dunk the Churrosfried donut sticks covered in cinnamon sugarin caramelized goats milk from Stone Hollow. Vanilla-caramel flan and brownies with ice cream made from Mexican chocolate both put gourmet touches on classic sweets. The thing about our food is its so flavorful, Schmidt says. Every component is carefully thought out. Eating each dish is like going on a trip. Details El ZunZun | 4105 Crosshaven Drive (Cahaba Heights) | 205.791.7711 | Hours: Mon.-Thurs., 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Closed Sundays | el-zunzun.com The presence is according to an invitation of Cambodian National Assembly Speaker, President of the APPF- 27 Samdech Akka Moha Ponhea Chakrei Heng Samrin.The 27th Annual Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum under a theme of Strengthening parliamentary partnership for peace, security and sustainable development is aim at ensuring peace, security and sustainable development.The participation of the Vietnamese NA delegation aims to affirm the countrys role and position at the forum as well as countrys diplomatic efforts to contribute to the building of peace, cooperation and development.This is also an opportunity for the members of the Vietnams National Assembly in order to meet and discuss with parliamentarians about common concerns of the region and the world.In the APPF- 27 framework, General Secretary cum Head of the National Assembly Office Nguyen Hanh Phuc had a meet ing with Cambodia's National Assembly General Secretary Leng Peng Long.At the meeting, the two leaders agreed to promote mutual cooperation in information exchage. On this occasion, Cambodia's General Secretary Leng Peng Long put forward Vietnam continues to maintain human resource training in the field of information technology, including data managers, improving qualifications for Cambodian officials. BY THE HAM- Translated by Huyen Huong President Donald Trumps Dec. 19 tweet announcing an immediate and unconditional withdrawal from Syria has rendered the United States a lame duck in the war-torn country. Although Trump and his aides clarified later the withdrawal would not happen that quickly, the fact remains that American troops will be leaving Syria in a foreseeable future, raising the question of who will fill the vacuum after US forces depart from Manbij and the area east to the Euphrates River, where they are currently deployed. First, of course, one needs to be mindful that a real vacuum could emerge if beyond withdrawing its troops, Washington retracts its military commitments to its ally in the region, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). What is referred to as east of the Euphrates is a vast area where the United States has imposed deterrence through air power and 2,000 special forces troops. The essence of this deterrence, however, is not in the number of troops but the commitment of the United States as a superpower. Should American deterrence end, the SDF whose backbone is made of the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) will obviously lack deterrence on its own against the forces in line to fill the vacuum. The first such force that comes to mind is naturally Russia and then, to some extent, the Iranian-sponsored Syrian regime, for east of the Euphrates is Syrian territory after all and the regime has clearly prevailed in the eight-year war thanks to its allies. That Turkey is also tossing its hat in the ring became evident in a Jan. 7 opinion piece in the New York Times signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and headlined Erdogan: Trump is right on Syria. Turkey can get the job done. The article emphasized the United States should cooperate with the right partners while withdrawing and claimed Turkey was the only country with the power and determination to complete the task. Ankaras business offer to Trump, undersigned by Erdogan, included the following main points: First, it called for the creation of a stabilization force that would include fighters from all parts of Syrian society and keep out elements with links to terrorist organizations. Following the US withdrawal, regions controlled by the YPG and the Islamic State would be governed by local councils, to be elected in a way that ensures the representation of all communities, under Turkeys watch. Turkish officials would advise the local councils on municipal, educational and health services. Almost half of the article was dedicated to emphasizing how strong Turkeys commitment is in the fight against IS. In a bid to boost US confidence in Turkey, the article also underlined that Turkey has no argument with the Syrian Kurds. Furthermore, in a declaration of willingness to avoid unilateral stances, it noted Turkeys intention to cooperate and coordinate its actions with friends and allies. Two main objectives defined the essence of Ankaras offer. The first is the liquidation of the YPG, which has been the chief US ally in Syria but which Ankara sees as a terrorist group for its affiliation with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the armed group in Turkey that Ankara considers a terrorist organization. The second objective is to place the entire region referred to as east of the Euphrates under Turkish influence. Covering 51,000 square kilometers (some 19,700 square miles), the region makes up 27.3% of Syrias territory. With the addition of the Afrin and al-Bab regions, which Turkey controls via proxies from the Free Syrian Army, the planned zone of influence reaches a third of Syrias territory. Following the breakout of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Ankara pursued an active policy aimed at toppling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad that fell flat when Russia intervened in 2015. Without openly saying it, Ankara now wants to keep Assads forces away from its borders. Yet the NYT article outlines a rather ambitious zone of influence that goes well beyond the pursued buffer zone." On Jan. 14, Trump caused a stir by tweeting a threat to devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds in Syria. However, in the same two tweets, he gave Ankara the green light to set up a 20-mile-wide buffer zone inside Syria along its borders. It should be also noted that Trump did not threaten military action against Turkey to protect the YPG-PKK, to which he referred as the Kurds. On Jan. 8, Trumps national security adviser John Bolton had met with Erdogans spokesman Ibrahim Kalin in Ankara. The fact that no joint press conference was held after the meeting and Bolton could not meet with Erdogan suggests that no tangible progress was achieved on the wider Turkish plan that goes beyond the creation of a buffer zone along the border. No doubt the chilly reception Bolton received in Ankara had to do with his Jan. 6 remarks in Tel Aviv. While outlining conditions for the US troops departure from Syria, Bolton said, Those who have fought with us in Syria particularly the Kurds should not be put in jeopardy by the withdrawal. Bolton, like Trump, meant the YPG. In a public rebuke, Erdogan said, Bolton has made a mistake. Those involved in the terror corridor in Syria will be taught the necessary lesson. For us, there is no difference at all between the YPG, the PKK and [IS]. The United States has long stalled us in Manbij and continues to do so. He went on to declare that Turkey had finished its preparations for a military operation, adding, We are determined to take steps against the YPG as well. We will go into action very soon to neutralize terrorist groups in Syrian territory. Should Erdogan put his words into action soon, as he says, it would mean a fresh crisis in Turkey-US ties, for Boltons remarks are not simply his personal opinion. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke in a similar vein Jan. 9 during a visit to Baghdad. Asked whether Erdogans threat of an operation against the YPG would affect the pullout of US troops, Pompeo answered negatively and added, Its important that we do everything we can to make sure that those folks that fought with us are protected and Erdogan has made commitments, he understands that. In other words, a day after Erdogan slammed Bolton and raised the specter of a military operation, Pompeo revealed that the Turkish president had given them assurances to the contrary. This squabble alone shows how unrealistic it is to expect a deal between the two sides anytime soon that would give Ankara an extensive role to the east of the Euphrates. The first stumbling block is the confidence crisis between the two countries that has deepened and ramified in recent years. In Syria, the mistrust is manifested in the US support for the YPG and Ankara being rather late in confronting IS, compared to the United States. Unless the two sides take mutual confidence-building steps to convince each other that any pledges regarding the area east of the Euphrates are sincere and genuine, Turkey could hardly enact any comprehensive plan in agreement with the United States. It would be similarly difficult for Turkey to make a move, regardless of Russia, to fill the vacuum to the east of the Euphrates without US military commitments, especially air support. The plan outlined in the NYT article is at a scale that would challenge Turkeys military, administrative and financial capacities. Meanwhile, domestically, Turkey is headed for local elections on March 31 and some voters appear inclined to desert the ruling party under the impact of the economic woes gripping the country. Should Ankara launch an extensive operation to the east of the Euphrates unilaterally in a bid to stir nationalist passions and win back those voters, it would have to risk confrontation with almost any actor on the ground. And if Ankara plans to go to the International Monetary Fund after the polls for support to salvage the economy, as some suggest, a further deterioration in with Washington over Syria would clearly not help that purpose. For the sake of argument, lets assume that bilateral problems are resolved and the United States hands over the area to the east of the Euphrates to Turkey. What will happen then to Turkeys relations with Russia, the pillar of the Astana process? For Russia, the Astana process has been a means to engage Turkey and keep it away from the United States in Syria. In a scenario where Turkey lays claim to the east of the Euphrates in agreement with the United States and flouts the regimes sovereignty rights there, will it not risk losing its gains in western Syria, including Idlib, acquired in collaboration with Russia? Moreover, given the priority that Russia gives to the survival of the Damascus regime, will it acquiesce to leaving the oil fields to the south of the region to Turkish influence? Ankaras proposed plan is detached from reality. Last year, two of Turkey's major political parties the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the opposition's Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) put aside their differences and formed an alliance to ensure their parties' victory. They then continued their oppressive and threatening policies, basically taunting the much smaller Kurdish parties to form their own alliance if they wanted change, knowing how splintered the Kurds have been historically. Now, many Kurdish movements have accomplished what seemed impossible: They have united to form the Kurdistani Election Alliance to run in the local elections in March under the umbrella of the existing pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP). The alliance is made up of the Democratic Regions Alliance, which is actually the core of the HDP in the southeast region; Kurdistan Islamic Movement (Azadi); People and Freedom Party, an Islamist group; Kurdistan Communist Party (KKP); Kurdistan Democratic Party-Turkey (KDP-T); and Revolutionary Democratic Kurdish Association (DDKD). How could such disparate groups come together? There are several factors behind it. First is the trauma inflicted on Kurds by the Ankara government, which abandoned the peace process and initiated a policy of oppression in 2015. Several Kurdish cities were razed. In early 2016, witnesses in Cizre described the situation in a UN report as "an apocalyptic picture of the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods." The report said as many as 189 women, men and children were trapped for weeks in basements without food, water, electricity or medical care. The people were killed when shelling set the buildings on fire. The buildings subsequently were razed, destroying evidence and making it difficult to identify the victims. During the state of emergency declared following the July 2016 coup attempt, thousands of civilian institutions and media organs were closed, and HDP senior officials, deputies, mayors and local administrators were detained. Another factor that united the Kurds was Ankara's appointment of civil servants as trustees to replace mayors in 96 municipalities HDP mayors who had been elected by the people. Still another factor has been Turkeys intervention in Kurdish areas of Syria. After wiping out the autonomous structure in Afrin, Turkey now threatens areas east of the Euphrates, defining Kurds there as enemies. Meanwhile, Ankara is billing itself as "the Kurds' only friend." But this policy of targeting Kurds with illegal practices is backfiring, as one can see from the emergence of the Kurdistani Election Alliance. The group is striving to change the perception rooted among some Kurds that their votes make no difference. Also helping to unify Kurds, the HDP and other movements had come together in October in response to a call to struggle against assimilation. They formed the Kurdish Language Protection and Development Platform to declare Kurdish as their official language to be taught in schools. At a time when Kurds were being fired from jobs and harassed for speaking Kurdish, the platform came out with calls of Speak Kurdish at home, in the street, in buses and hospitals. Former HDP Chairman Selahattin Demirtas, commenting from prison, urged Kurds to embrace the alliance. "The Kurdish people were unable to secure their national unity [to] protect themselves against the massacres. Their nature, culture, language and history as a whole have always been heavily attacked," said Demirtas. Expectations for the alliance are twofold: to re-win the elections in municipalities where mayors were replaced by government-appointed trustees, and to open the way to total national unity among Kurds. Azadi movement spokesman Ayetullah Ashiti told Al-Monitor, If we consider smaller parties one by one, it [doesn't seem like] many votes. But together, their synergy will be massive because our people want us to unite. We pay attention to the effect of such unity in Kurdistan geography. Imam Tascier, an HDP deputy from Diyarbakir, also spoke with Al-Monitor about the unification process. We have been struggling for this for 10 years, but Kurds could never get together. Some of those parties were established in the 1960s or 1970s but couldnt unite. It's the hardened policy of the government that disregards the [Kurdish struggle] that brought us together. This is an important message to the Kurdish people. It will have a major effect in the elections. It is also a message to the government that it cant solve the problem by marginalizing and terrorizing Kurds," Tascier said. DDKD member Mehmet Emir Eren also predicts the alliance will have a significant bearing on the elections "if handled properly." "Thousands of HDP people were imprisoned. Many people went abroad. We need people to work on the election campaign. This alliance can fill the void; it could overcome the fatigue among the people," Eren said. Parties that haven't joined the alliance include the Kurdistan Socialist Party (PSK); Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK); Rights and Freedoms Party (Hak-Par); and Hezbollahs extension, the Free Cause Party (Huda-Par), an Islamist group that had not participated in the negotiations. The nationalist Hak-Par declared it will run in the elections with independent candidates. Wide cracks remain among the Kurdish people, even among the Kurdistan Election Alliance parties. Ashiti, of the Azadi movement, attributes this to feudal trends. He said, Kurdish politics [in the past] couldnt overcome fault lines. We need a democratic system. Hopefully, this unity will be a step toward it. Still, Kurdish parties that have joined the alliance are talking of determining their own national future. There's not much difference between the HDP platform and that of Kurdistani parties. HDPs base is Kurdish. Kurds want a free and dignified life. My dreams are in Kurdish; I cant even express them in Turkish," Ashiti said. Eren agreed there are hurdles to overcome, but he also is optimistic. [Kurdish leaders] have been talking of a Kurdish alliance for years. There are many problems. Regional governments intervene. There are barriers by feudal structure and culture. But this new beginning could be a step toward unity, he said. ALEPPO The developments unfolding in Idlib and its surroundings affect several heated issues in northern Syria. Earlier this month, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched attacks against Free Syrian Army (FSA) positions in Aleppos western countryside and Idlib. After reaching a cease-fire Jan. 10, HTS expelled the FSA fighters, which withdrew to Afrin. These events might threaten the implementation of the Astana agreement between Turkey, Russia and Iran and impact stability in Idlib. Meanwhile, HTS advances are impeding the efforts of Turkish-backed factions, which are preparing for an offensive against the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) east of the Euphrates River in northeastern Syria. The FSA believes that HTS' actions in Idlib and Aleppos western countryside benefit the Syrian regime and its allies and weaken the Turkish position. The official spokesperson for the FSA-affiliated National Army in Aleppos countryside, Maj. Yusuf Hamoud, accused HTS (formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra) of obstructing the FSA factions efforts to prepare for the East Euphrates battle against the SDF. Hamoud told Al-Monitor, HTS attacked FSA locations in Aleppos western countryside, Idlib and Hamas western countryside between Jan. 1 and 9, 2019. HTS succeeded in controlling wide stretches that were in the grip of the factions. HTS advances serve the regime and its allies, Russia and Iran, harm the interests of the FSA and impede our efforts and those of our Turkish allies to clean the Eastern Euphrates areas from the SDF. Turkey views the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units, the SDFs main component, as a terror group. He added, The recent developments in the western countryside of Aleppo and Idlib in the past few days shifted our military interest toward the battles and the expansion of the HTS at the expense of FSA factions. We think this will serve the regime and Russia, which might wage a wide-scale attack soon on the HTS-controlled areas, under the pretext that HTS is on the terrorism blacklist. Hamoud noted, We will not stand idle if the regime and its allies decide to take advantage of the HTS expansion in Idlib to wage a battle to control the area. When they tried to launch a battle to control Idlib three months ago, they failed, because the US and Europe mainly Germany, France and Turkey opposed the decision. But now, the regime and its allies have an excuse they might capitalize on. Meanwhile, our preparations for the eastern Euphrates battle are ongoing, and the situation in Idlib will not affect our efforts with our Turkish allies. FSA-affiliated National Army factions clashed with HTS members Jan. 9 near the camps of the displaced in Atme in northwest Idlib. Atme is adjacent to Afrin, where the FSA are deployed. Militants from both sides were killed in the clashes and others, including civilians, were wounded. The areas that the HTS targeted Jan. 1 were under the control of Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement, a faction of the FSA-affiliated National Front for Liberation. The battles lasted four days, during which HTS seized all the locations of the movement and expelled its fighters to Afrin under an agreement signed Jan. 5. On Jan. 2, the FSA-affiliated National Army positioned in Afrin and the Euphrates Shield area in Aleppo countryside sent reinforcements to Aleppos western countryside to confront HTS. But the reinforcements were not sufficient to counter the violent attack. HTS continued advancing and took control of Atareb Jan. 6, as per the Jan. 5 agreement with the citys leadership and the FSA factions. On Jan. 7, the National Army tried to form a military operations chamber in northern Aleppo to fight the HTS there and in Idlib, but could not deter the HTS attacks. On Jan. 9, the HTS took control of the Al-Ghab Plain areas in Hama's northwestern countryside and Idlibs southern countryside after battles against Ahrar al-Sham, which is affiliated with the FSA. The battles ended with a Jan. 10 agreement that called for disbanding Ahrar al-Sham and placing the area under the control of HTS. HTS reached an agreement with the Sham Falcons and Ahrar al-Sham, both under the FSA-affiliated National Front for Liberation in Idlib. The area now falls under the administrative control of the Syrian Salvation Government, which is affiliated with the HTS. The agreement also stipulated an immediate cease-fire and removal of military barricades, in addition to a prisoner exchange. The agreement ensured HTS' control over Idlib. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu commented Jan. 10, Radical groups are attacking the Syrian opposition and we have taken necessary steps to stop these attacks. A military opposition source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that Turkey pressured HTS Jan. 10 and forced it to stop the fighting. At the same time, Turkey forced the FSA factions affiliated with the National Front for Liberation to halt fighting and sign a cease-fire on the threat of Turkish intervention. According to the source, HTS and the FSA succumbed to Turkish pressure. Hussein Nasser, director of the Syrian Counter-Extremism Center, told Al-Monitor, The FSA factions could have stopped the expansion of HTS if they were willing. Unfortunately, they will pay the price of their weak action. He added, HTS benefitted from the factions preoccupation with preparing for the potential Eastern Euphrates battle against SDF. We hope the regime and its allies will not exploit the recent developments and attack the opposition-held territories in Idlib. If this happens, the Astana Agreement between Iran, Russia and Turkey will likely collapse. Parallel rows of marble columns rise across the Syrian desert, interspersed with temples and other impressive buildings. Palmyra was an oasis in the land between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean, inhabited even in prehistoric times. After the destruction of the city's ruins by Islamic State, modern technologies are being used to restore the ancient site and its treasures. According to legend, King Solomon founded Palmyra on the spot. The city changed hands several times, seized by various Eastern and Western empires. The cultural blending in the city made it the true intersection of the Occident and Orient. Under Roman domination during the first to the third century, Palmyra grew extremely wealthy as a caravan city along the Silk Road. Luxury items and spices from China, India, Persia and the Arabian Peninsula passed through it en route to Rome. In 270 AD, Zenobia, the overly ambitious queen of Palmyra, seeking to become the empress of the entire East, inevitably clashed with Rome, which crushed her. Although Palmyra remained relatively prominent while a part of the Umayyad caliphate, seated in Damascus, the city's glory began to fade. Called the Bride of the Desert by Syrians, Palmyra, probably so called because of the native palm trees there, was almost intact when a British-Italian expeditionary team came upon it in the 18th century while scouring the region. Sketches and engravings of its monuments and decorations would influence Western tastes, contributing to the popularity of neoclassical style. Excavations of the site began during the French mandate, in the 1930s. Of note, the French archaeologist Henri Arnold Seyrig excavated the Bel temple, and the French architect Robert Amy also worked at the site. In 1980, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization added Palmyra to its World Heritage List as an early example of cultural fusion: The art and architecture of Palmyra, standing at the crossroads of several civilizations, married Greco-Roman techniques with local traditions and Persian influences, the organization's website states. Professor Maria Teresa Grassi from the University of Milan led a joint Italian-Syrian archaeological expedition in Palmyra during 2007-10. It is an exotic and magical place, but familiar to the Western eye, she told Al-Monitor. At that point, it was one of the best-preserved and most-enthralling archaeological sites in the Mediterranean region. Trouble arrived later, when the Islamic State (IS) swept through the area, twice, between May 2015 and March 2017. Members of the extremist group violated Palmyra, bombing and bulldozing some of its most beautiful shrines. At the local museum, they smashed statues found at the site. They even murdered Khaled al-As'ad, the general manager for antiquities and museums in Palmyra, for refusing to cooperate in revealing the location of certain items. The extremists' ideology did not allow them to contemplate beauty. Rather it had to be disfigured and when possible destroyed. IS members filmed and distributed their acts of destruction, shocking and outraging the world. Some of the city's most symbolic wonders have been lost forever. In rapid succession, IS destroyed the temple of Baal Shamin, the temple of Bel dedicated in 32 AD (and later turned into a church and then into a mosque), the Roman triumphal arch of Septimius Severus and magnificent tower-shaped tombs. The Great Colonnade, Palmyra's kilometer-long main axis, suffered damage along with the theater and the Tetrapylon. Many of the artifacts from the local museum that survived were stolen and sold on the black market. Illegal excavations may have unearthed artistic treasures that will never be known. The ancient city had been put on UNESCO's list of endangered sites in 2013, two years after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war. Emergency Safeguarding of the Syrian Cultural Heritage was launched the following year, with European Union funding. The project digitized inventories and archives and raised awareness about looting and trafficking. In 2016, after the first occupation of Palmyra by IS, UNESCO, European governments and cultural institutes worldwide initiated a campaign to restore its monuments. Some restoration projects are bearing fruit. For example, in 2016 Italian experts restored two badly mutilated funerary statues, gluing broken pieces together and replacing missing fragments using 3-D printing and nylon powders. Before being restituted to the National Museum of Damascus, they were displayed at the exhibition space at the Colosseum in Rome along with a reconstruction of the bas-relief from the Temple of Bel decorated with the Zodiac. IS dynamited the original. The Damascus museum joined in the collective effort, restoring the 15-ton iconic limestone lion that protected the entrance to the temple of Al-lat. Digital reconstructions are another approach in reviving Palmyra, as Millennial Cities: A Virtual Journey from Palmyra to Mosul, a current exhibition in Paris at the Institut du Monde Arabe, demonstrates. Some experts prefer more tangible approaches. For instance, in 2016 Maamoun Abdul Karim, former director of Syrian antiquities, proposed physically reconstructing destroyed buildings through anastylosis, using surviving remains. Regardless of the actual method, technology is, and will be, crucial to restoring Palmyra to life. Correction: Jan. 22, 2019. An earlier version of this article mistakenly identified Robert Amy as a German archaeologist, rather he was French. Security tension prevails in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and Israel following the latest escalation round on Jan. 7. Israel responded to a Palestinian rocket and Molotov cocktails launched from Gaza into Israel earlier the same day. The Israeli air force struck Hamas positions and the Israeli government froze the transfer of the third installment of the Qatari financial grant to the Gaza Strip. The $150 million grant aims to settle the salaries of Gaza-based Palestinian Authority employees for six months under a Qatari-Israeli deal with Hamas reached in October 2018. A week earlier, Israeli Channel 10 reported that the Israeli army announced the completion of the construction of the sea barrier off the beach of Zikim, on Gazas northern border. The barrier, which is 200 meters (656 feet) long and six meters (20 feet) high and took seven months to build, is fitted with sensors to detect the movement of Hamas infiltrators. The Israeli army noted in an official statement on May 27, 2018, that the sea barrier consists of three layers: one underwater, then a layer of boulders and on top a barbed wire fence. Israel's Defense Ministry said the underwater barrier would be impregnable breakwater. Israel's completion of the sea barrier along Gaza's west coast coincides with continued works for the construction of an underground barrier east of Gaza that started in September 2016. The underground barrier aims to cut off Hamas members from digging tunnels into Israel. Outgoing Israeli army Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot said Jan. 8 during a farewell visit to southern Israel that he hopes the underground barrier would be completed by the end of the year. Mahmoud Mardawi, a Hamas leader and former official at Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas armed wing, told Al-Monitor, Israel is aware that Hamas is developing its naval military capabilities. The movement is seeking to improve its combat experience in this field. We will circumvent the Israeli naval barricade and it will not prevent us from launching naval operations against the occupation army in any future military confrontation. In a statement on May 27, 2018, then-Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said the barrier would prevent the possibility of penetrating Israel by sea. This is another blow to Hamas, which will lose yet another strategic ability in which it invested vast amounts of money. In June 2018, Israel announced destroying a Hamas-dug undersea tunnel in northern Gaza. Al-Qassam Brigades had revealed in 2015 the details of an infiltration operation by a Hamas commando unit into an Israeli base in the coastal area of Zikim during the 2014 war on the besieged enclave. It noted that the infiltration was preceded by a survey and data collection process about the target location. The commando unit then swam and dived long distances to reach the base, where its fighters clashed with the Israeli army. Hamas military expert Rami Abu Zubaydah told Al-Monitor, The barrier will not completely prevent the Palestinians from infiltrating the Israeli army lines, but it will make their task more difficult as their swimming and diving distances are increased. Hamas' naval units are ready and on the offensive. Its members can move and operate underwater thanks to their breathing equipment. The unit has upgraded its operation methods and acquired equipment enabling its members to cross distances underwater much longer than distances crossed on land. Israeli army officers voiced concerns in June 2018 that Hamas would use its upgraded and improved naval unit in upcoming confrontations in the Gaza Strip. On July 5, 2018, Israeli TV channel Kan 11 aired a short documentary on Hamas' sea infiltrators. The documentary expressed the Israeli armys concern that Hamas has the ability to surprise it, noting that Hamas naval commando unit possesses expensive advanced equipment, boats, sea scooters and underwater mines and weapons. Military expert Eyal Levy had talked to Israeli Maariv newspaper about the threat of Hamas' naval units in 2016. He pointed to these units ability to carry out armed operations and infiltrations behind the Israeli lines within minutes by a fishing boat and to reach the pipeline on Israeli shores because of the absence of a fence around the subsea oil pipeline. Maj. Gen. Wasef Erekat, a Palestinian military expert in the West Bank and former artillery commander of the PLO forces, told Al-Monitor, The construction of the sea barrier confirms Israel's concerns about Hamas' naval military capabilities. Israel seeks to restrict the ability of the naval commando unit fighters. Armed factions in Gaza are engaged in guerrilla warfare with the Israeli army and they will search for alternatives to overcome the maritime barrier. Israel may seek to turn the underwater barrier with Gaza into unilaterally political borders, such as the eastern wall of Gaza and the separation wall in the West Bank. Palestinian Sama News website reported on Aug. 6, 2018, that Israeli security quarters believe Hamas would once again use its naval force in the coming war, and that these forces could reach the power station in Ashkelon, 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from northern Gaza, thanks to the advanced diving skills of Hamas' sea infiltrators. Over the past few years, the Israeli army has thwarted attempts to smuggle underwater weapons and diving equipment to Hamas through the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza. Said Bisharat, a Palestinian expert on Israeli affairs, told Al-Monitor, Israels rush to complete the construction of the sea barrier in seven months indicates that the Hamas naval commando unit will be the first target in any upcoming confrontation. Israel has spoken a lot about this unit and it sees it as an alternative for the Hamas tunnels that the Israeli army keeps discovering. Hamas ought not to underestimate what Israel is preparing to confront its naval capabilities. Israel is constructing physical obstacles, installing sea sensors, using technological methods, training staff and pursuing Palestinian fishermen in search of any security information about Hamas infiltrators. Israel does not hide its concern that Hamas will target its oil and gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea. This would cost it massive financial losses. For Hamas, this would be a milestone military and moral achievement. Some say the upcoming elections are mainly a lifeline to save Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from criminal conviction. Others believe that on April 9, Israels citizens will choose between perpetuating the rule of a right-wing, clerical government and supplanting it with a centrist, liberal one. President Donald Trumps much-touted ultimate deal between Israelis and Palestinians, which was supposed to prioritize resolution of the Israeli-Arab conflict, will instead merit a footnote in the annals of the 2019 election campaign, at most. Jewish politicians who roll around the word peace on their tongue, or mutter the letters o-c-c-u-p-a-t-i-o-n, are considered weird, at best, and dyed-in-the-wool leftists, at worst. Internal Palestinian struggles are also contributing their share to the growing doubt by Israelis and Palestinians of the two-state blueprint. Calls for a unilateral annexation of the West Bank by the Israeli side and for a one-state solution between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River on the Palestinian side are filling the diplomatic vacuum. The result is identical: death, violence, suffering, theft and despair. But contrary to prevailing public and political discourse, such a fate is not predestined. There is a way out of it. Indeed, the prospects of the next government, whatever its makeup, vaulting over all the obstacles and reaching the finish line of negotiations with the Palestinians are about as likely as leftist Meretz Party leader Tamar Zandberg replacing Netanyahu in the Prime Ministers Office in other words, slim to nil. A decade of rule by the settlers and their political representatives, led by Netanyahu, has deepened Palestinian mistrust of the diplomatic option. That is understandable. The most significant change in half a century of Israeli occupation, affected by the 1993 Oslo Accord and thousands of hours of negotiations in the ensuing quarter of a century, is the addition of over 300,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank. And so, the only way to convince the Palestinians and the rest of the world that the two-state solution is a viable option is to change the facts on the ground. Seeing a handful of thugs evacuated from their outlawed hilltop outposts on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank is far better than listening to numerous news reports of a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. All the political parties to the left of the Likud theoretically support a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The platform of the centrist Yesh Atid party warns that the stalemated negotiations and investments in distant, isolated settlements constitute a real threat to Israels survival as a Jewish and democratic state. The center-left Zionist Camp (before it was dismantled this month) called for renewed negotiations with the Palestinians on a permanent arrangement based on the principle of separation and two national states for two people. Even the platform of the center-right Kulanu Party, which is a member of the Netanyahu government, supports a territorial compromise (although there is currently no mention of this on the partys website). But what will these parties do if and when they win the trust of the Israeli electorate in order to restore the trust of the Palestinian public in Israels willingness to pay the price for peace, not only as lip service? Former chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, currently considered a political threat to Netanyahus victory, must address this crucial issue. As an initial step in proposing change and offering hope, these parties would have to implement an international agreement bearing the signature of none other than Netanyahu. Under the terms of the Oct. 23, 1998, Wye River Memorandum, Netanyahu committed to handing over to the Palestinians 13% of the part of the West Bank under total Israeli control (some 60% of the West Bank, known as Area C). One percent of the territory would be handed over to full control by the Palestinian Authority (PA) (what is known as Area A of the West Bank), and 12% to an area of the West Bank under joint Israeli-Palestinian control (Area B). Israel also committed to transferring 14.2% of Area B to Area A. However, under pressure from the settlers, Netanyahu got cold feet and stopped the process after handing over only 2% of Area C to Area B, and 7.1% of Area B to Area A. Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who replaced Netanyahu after the 1999 elections, committed in September of that year to an accelerated timetable for implementation of the Wye River deal (the Sharm El Sheikh Memorandum), but he was also unable to withstand the pressure of his right-wing, pro-settler government coalition partners. Handing over Area C to the Palestinians should begin with the isolated Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. A comprehensive survey at the end of 2013 showed that 28.8% of the estimated 100,000 residents of the isolated settlements east of the security fence would like to move away from them in return for monetary compensation. Surveys conducted in 2008 and 2012, also conducted by the Macro Center for Political Economics together with the Blue White Future group, indicated similar results. The 2013 survey shows that the Jewish settlers in the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea area display the most willingness to evacuate their homes as soon as possible; 43.1% would like to vacate their homes in return for compensation prior to any diplomatic agreement and regardless of such a deal. Former Israeli Shin Bet agency chief Ami Ayalon, one of the founders of Blue White Future, spoke about that with Al-Monitor this week. He referred to data showing that many Israeli-Jews support territorial concessions (to the Palestinians). For instance, said Ayalon, internal surveys he has that were conducted in late 2015 during the individual intifada period showed the willingness of some 60% of Israeli Jews to divide Jerusalem and hand over the Palestinian neighborhoods (in east Jerusalem) to Palestinian control. Another internal survey, conducted in the summer of 2018, showed that 50% of people questioned prefer the two-state solution compared with only 4% who support a one-state solution. The rest more than 40% are undecided. Unlike the unilateral 2005 Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria area of the West Bank, evacuation of West Bank isolated settlements must be coordinated with the PA. Parallel to the implementation of the Wye River and Sharm memoranda, the new Israeli government will have to launch serious negotiations with the Palestinians on resolving all the core issues of the conflict, including future borders, the fate of the settlements and of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and security measures. Any attempt to separate these two paths is a sure-fire recipe for the perpetuation of the bloody Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the apartheid regime in the occupied territories. There is no greater moral corruption and no greater threat to democracy. The parties of the left and center must unite against this threat on April 9 and on the morning after. In March 2016, Israeli society was shaken by the Elor Azaria incident, in which an IDF soldier shot to death a wounded Palestinian assailant in Hebron. The affair dominated the Israeli agenda for many months. In the summer of 2016, at the height of the scandal, Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot approached the head of the Knessets Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Avi Dichter, and asked to appear before the committee. It was no routine request and Dichter consented immediately. During that turbulent time, the struggle for Azaria's release had become a political issue dividing the left and right. From the beginning, Eizenkot held that Azaria had acted against the basic values of the Israel Defense Forces. He refused to fold even when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly abandoned him and called Azarias father to score political points. It was a tense moment for Israeli society, with wide political outrage toward the chief of staff. Demonstrations outside his office included signs and slogans denigrating him and even depicting him as the wicked Haman of the Book of Esther. Politicians led by newly appointed Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman of Yisrael Beitenu actively campaigned for Azarias release. In this volatile atmosphere, the chief of staff wisely decided to go to the Knesset to say his piece. Eizenkots appearance before the committee was charged with emotion and urgency. In his address, he warned the committee that political attacks on the IDF posed a threat not only to the Israeli military, but to Israeli society at large. Eizenkot is not known for his speeches, but in his focused and direct way, he got his message across. He used the opportunity to express his concern for the continued existence of the most Israeli institution of all: the peoples army. As the episode unfolded, Eizenkot refused to succumb to the prevailing mood on the right. He would not pardon Azaria (in his final interviews before leaving the post, he described Azaria as an antihero) and stood resolute against a barrage of vicious political attacks. Cabinet members spoke out against him last summer and claimed that his policies in Gaza had failed. Likud Knesset members like David Bitan accused him of costing Israel deterrence capabilities. Eizenkot is the ultimate symbol of a peoples army. The child of Moroccan immigrants, he grew up in the towns of Tiberias and Eilat, became an outstanding officer in the Golani Brigade and rose through the ranks until selected to command the IDF. Israels 21st chief of staff, who completed his four-year term on Jan. 15, has many important achievements under his belt. He ended the intifada of knives that broke out in 2015, oversaw attacks on Iranian targets in Syria and managed a campaign in Gaza that apparently spared countless lives on both sides. Apart from his ability as a military leader one of the best Israel ever produced, according to many military observers what may be his greatest legacy is the stately manner in which he led the army through the publicly and politically turbulent time of the Azaria affair. Eizenkot succeeded in maintaining his independence and values when faced with a political system without inhibitions and a right-wing coalition with no restraint. He stood as firm even when Netanyahu refused to back him, when faced with vitriol from the street and when dealing with right-wing politicians inciting against him. Even then, the chief of staff would not speak out against the political leadership or even the prime minister, as much reason as he had to do so. He chose not to get into political battles. He did not spend his mornings checking his popularity ratings, something several of his predecessors loved to do. As such, there was no guarantee that Eizenkot would end his term on such a high note. Despite its lack of restraint, even the far right was unable to tarnish his image and official stature, or more importantly, the legitimacy of the organization he headed. When the members of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee commemorated his parting at a closed event two weeks ago, he was embraced by left and right alike. Some Knesset members had tears in their eyes as they said their goodbyes. On the evening of Jan. 13, all the top officials from the right and the left came to bid farewell to Eizenkot in one of the most touching and unifying events in Israel over the past few years. The president and prime minister, former defense ministers and chiefs of staff, ministers and Knesset members from across the political spectrum all praised him. In their remarks, Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin focused on different aspects of his service. Happy is the nation that merited a son like you, said the president. He was apparently referring to the Azaria incident when he said, Alongside the military and professional issues, you also took a clear view on the most complex issues in society. You did not hesitate and were not afraid to deal with them, even when it resulted in criticism. Netanyahu, on the other hand, focused on security: Gadi, tremendous work has been done in the IDF under your command, and we still have much work ahead. What was it that left Eizenkot with across-the-board respect? It was apparently a combination of his focused personality, sense of his official role and authenticity, combined with a quiet style of leadership. Never once did Eizenkot give the sense that he viewed his position as a launching pad for a political career. He refused to indulge lobbyists or self-interested people, nor did he ingratiate himself with politicians. He simply went to work. It is hard not to compare the sense of unity in the way the public and political leadership alike parted from Eizenkot to the way it parted from retired Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh just a month ago. Alsheikh led the police through a volatile period of criminal investigations into the prime minister. But instead of allowing his investigators to run the process, he gave in to his personal inclinations by reacting to the prime ministers attacks against the police and himself. Alsheikh was no doubt very well suited for his position, but he got dragged into a political war against Netanyahu and ended up causing large swathes of the public to lose trust in the police. In an interview on the news show Uvda, Alsheikh was portrayed as someone who enjoyed flaunting his power. Many people believed that he wanted to get his revenge on the prime minister. Had he acted like Eizenkot and practiced restraint even when he felt abandoned by the prime minister, the end of his term could have looked very different. The challenges Eizenkot faced were no less difficult. Unlike Alsheikh, however, he managed to transcend politics and give the political class a lesson in leadership. A meeting was held in Baghdad Dec. 22, 2018, to announce the opening of a Bahraini opposition office. The February 14 Youth Coalition is a Bahraini political movement that emerged on social media in 2014. The movement called on Bahrainis to protest and hold sit-ins against the Bahraini government in light of the absence of rights and freedoms. Bahrain classified the movement as a terrorist group. An official at the February 14 Youth Coalition who spoke to Al-Monitor on the condition of anonymity believes the Bahraini opposition opened a branch in Iraqs capital city, Baghdad, because it enjoys many privileges there. This includes more freedoms and significant positive interaction with the Bahraini opposition. Baghdad represents our second homeland as a revolutionary and political opposition, the official said. The crisis between Baghdad and Manama can be traced back to head of the State of Law Coalition Nouri al-Maliki. He accused Manama of resorting to Fedayeen Hussein (a paramilitary organization loyal to the Baathist government of Saddam Hussein) to suppress the legitimate protests of Bahrainis. He also accused the Bahraini government of marginalization and discrimination against Bahraini Shiites. Immediately after Malikis statements, Bahrain summoned Nihad Rajab Askar, deputy charge d'affaires of the Embassy of the Republic of Iraq, to the kingdom of Bahrain and voiced the Bahraini government's resentment. The crisis between the two countries did not remain limited to Malikis statements. Iraqi Shiite religious figures and authorities also appeared to be supporting prominent Bahraini opposition leader Issa al-Qassem, who lives in Najaf now. The Bahraini government responded to these recent developments. Waheed Mubarak Sayyar, the undersecretary of Regional and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Affairs, said, Maliki's statements represent a blatant interference in the internal affairs of the kingdom. He added that Malikis attitude is a sign of alignment with those who seek to spread chaos, violence and terrorism, and exhibit hatred not only to Bahrain but to all Arab states. Bahraini columnist Farid Ahmed Hassan lashed out at Malikis statements in al-Watan Bahraini newspaper on Dec. 27, 2018. He noted that the flag of Iraq was placed at the podium where Maliki delivered his offensive speech against Bahrain at the meeting the previous week, which was organized by the February 14 Youth Coalition. Hassan said this means reactions should not be limited to summoning the charge d'affaires of Iraq. Bahrain classified the February 14 Youth Coalition as a terrorist group, and the rest of the GCC countries dealt with it according to this classification. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) got involved in the crisis with Baghdad, and Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash criticized the opening of an office for the February 14 Youth Coalition in Baghdad. In a tweet on Dec. 29, he said this move has set a serious precedent in interfering in internal affairs. Despite Bahrains official position and the summoning of Askar, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry has yet to take a stance. This indicates that Iraq wants to distance itself from this issue, but at the same time, this makes it easier for Baghdad to express its foreign positions through influential Iraqi political parties. Iraq could be under pressure from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia or the UAE to close the office opened by the Bahraini opposition, especially in light of lukewarm Iraqi relations with Bahrain. Yahya al-Kubais, an adviser at the Iraqi Center for Strategic Studies, predicted that these developments would push Manama to further break away from Iraq. The Iraqi government has not sponsored the opening of a Bahraini opposition office or officially hosted Issa al-Qassem. There is, however, complicity with the Shiite political party who did so. If it wanted, the state could have prevented the opening of the office and denied an entry visa to Qassem to visit Najaf. Five days after the opening of the office, Qassem arrived in the Iraqi city of Najaf from London. Bahraini authorities had stripped him of his Bahraini nationality. Qassem is expected to spend the rest of his life in the holy Shiite city. However, oddly enough, the office of Iraq's most senior Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, posted a new photo of him hosting Qassem. The move was seen as a message of solidarity and an expression of the position of Najaf's authority toward the Shia of Bahrain and the protest movement there. But these steps appear to be offset by Bahrain's fear of Qassem using Najafs forums to target the regime in Bahrain. The armed Shiite factions expressed their positions on Qassems visit to Najaf. The most striking position, however, was that of Qais al-Khazali, secretary-general of the League of the Righteous. From all of our heart, we welcome you in your country, Iraq. May you return to your beloved Bahrain triumphant, he told Qassem on Twitter. The opening of an opposition office in Baghdad contradicts the Iraqi Constitution, which is one of the principles of Iraqi foreign policy after 2003, Adel Badawi, a professor of political science at Baghdad University, told Al-Monitor. Iraq has ousted the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq based on this constitution. He added, This move will not only lead to Iraqi-Bahraini tension, but to an Iraqi-Gulf tension, which will disrupt the relations that just started cooling down. Iraq needs to reevaluate not only its foreign policy but also the steps taken by its internal parties and their implications on Iraq's foreign orientations. The Iraqi political parties foreign positions do not mirror the position of the Iraqi state. These stances rather stem from individual sectarian, religious and nationalistic policies and convictions. Thus, Iraq is set to face similar challenges in the future unless all of its foreign positions are based on Iraqs national best interest and not a partisan interest. Hosting Bahraini dissidents may also be a new hurdle affecting the foreign relations of Iraq, which is looking forward to boosting its Arab ties. American officials have chosen a unique location to host a conference on Middle East peace and stability that will focus largely on Iran. Just before he embarked on a tour of Middle Eastern countries to reassure US allies about the administrations anti-Iran policies, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the announcement that the conference will be held in Warsaw, Poland. The scheduled conference has been condemned by Iranian officials and others. In protest, Iran has summoned Warsaws top diplomat in the country. Irans Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghassemi said Jan. 13 that the actions of the Polish government in cooperating and hosting this conference is a mistake, incorrect and unacceptable, and opposed to the positions that the European Union has taken in the last few years. Ghassemi continued, Holding this conference is in some ways an American effort to cause friction and division in the European Union with respect to Iran. He said that while old Europe was trying to protect its relations with Iran, the United States was trying to drive new Europe toward adopting anti-Iranian policies. A number of countries in Europe have opposed the US decision to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and have sought to bypass US sanctions to save the deal, though still unsuccessfully so far. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted, Polish government cant wash the shame: While Iran saved Poles in WWII, it now hosts desperate anti-Iran circus. Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi tweeted a picture of a Polish cemetery in Tehran, writing in the caption that nearly 2,000 Polish citizens who fled Stalins work camps sought and were given refuge in Iran and were eventually buried in Tehran at a graveyard for Catholics. He noted that while in Iranian law, after 30 years a graveyard can be replaced, this particular one has not been touched for 77 years. Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, head of parliaments national security and foreign policy commission, said of the conference, They are provoking instability in the region. He said the United States conducted intelligence and security operations in Poland during the Cold War, and the United States uses the weakness of other countries to hold such conferences. He added, In the anti-Iranian meeting in Poland, America is trying to show its dominance in Europe; this will be a loss for Europe. Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaee, spokesman for the Guardian Council, also speculated about the reasons Poland is hosting the conference, believing it has to do with Polish desires to build a NATO base in their country, sign contracts to purchase Patriot missiles, and replace Russian natural gas with such supplies from the United States. Irans protests were not limited to politics. Authorities canceled an upcoming Polish Film Week that was to be held Jan. 27-Feb. 1, a collaboration between the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts and the Polish Embassy in Iran. Abdulreza Davari, former media adviser to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, tweeted in criticism of the decision: Cinema is a symbol of a cultural product of a nation and not governments. "Zarif maneuvering in Baghdad." That's how pro-Reform daily Etemad described a four-day visit by Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to neighboring Iraq. The top Iranian diplomat, accompanied by a large delegation comprising over 100 business leaders, attended a conference in Baghdad with their Iraqi counterparts to discuss trade. The Iranian foreign minister gave assurances to the participants that US sanctions will not affect bilateral business. But not everything was about the economy. "No country should consider its own security dependent from its neighbors," he said, as he praised mutual cooperation in the fight against terror. "The blood of young Iranian and Iraqi men has been mixed during the battle against terrorism, creating deep bonds between the two nations, which no power can break." The top Iranian diplomat met with an array of senior Iraqi figures ranging from President Barham Salih, Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi and Speaker Mohammed al-Halbusi, to party leaders Ammar Hakim and Ayad Allawi as well as Popular Mobilization Units commander Hadi al-Ameri. At home, the visit has been largely welcomed by different political camps. According to Reformist daily Iran, which represents the official views of President Hassan Rouhani's government, the trip "should have been made much earlier, especially given the critical time in the region and the US efforts to build new alliances there." The article further warned that "when infiltrating any country, the United States will try to sabotage that country's foreign relations, particularly when the other side is Iran." The paper, however, found comfort in the fact that "Iraqi politicians are wise enough to realize what serves their interests best." The same concern about Washington's influence was echoed in Etemad's editorial. "The United States is going every way to cut off Iraq's dependence upon Iranian gas, trying to deprive Iran of that leverage." The trip also took Zarif to Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Ties between the two sides experienced temporary strains in 2017 when the region held a failed referendum to seek independence from Baghdad. Former KRG President Massoud Barzani went ahead with the plan despite repeated warnings from Tehran. Still, ever since, the two have been slowly moving toward patching up the differences. Meanwhile, Rouhani is also scheduled to land in Iraq on March 11 in his first official visit to the country since he took office in 2013. The timing of the Iranian foreign minister's visit was associated with implications both domestically and internationally. At home, rumors recently had it that the minister had stepped down. The hectic days of meetings with leaders representing Iraq's diverse political spectrum were just further affirmation that he is still in the job to represent Iranian diplomacy. It also happened at a time when the United States is mounting unprecedented pressure on Tehran with wide-ranging sanctions as well as a planned "anti-Iran summit" in Poland, which has already sparked the ire of Iranians. Zarif traveled to Iraq immediately after a visit by his US counterpart, Mike Pompeo, in an apparent muscle-flexing gesture and an indication that the US-Iran arm-wrestling over influence in Iraq has no intention of dying down. The event was co-chaired by Deputy Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung, who is General Secretary of the Steering Committee for Vietnam-China Cooperation, and Chinas Deputy Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou, who is General Secretary of the Steering Committee for China-Vietnam Cooperation. Both sides exchanged views on territory and border-related issues as well as the two countries relations over the past times comprehensively, while discussing cooperation orientations to speed up the resolution of existing issues and boost the ties in 2019, thus contributing to enhancing the Vietnam-China comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership. The sides stressed the importance of territorial and border issues and related outcomes they have achieved within the framework of their governmental-level negotiations, which aims to implement agreements secured between their high-ranking leaders and promptly handle arising problems based on international law. They expressed their delights at positive results in the management of Vietnam-China border on land following three legal documents on border, ensuring border stability, security, and social safety and boosting cooperation for border socio-economic development. They agreed to coordinate in the opening and upgrade of border gates and the application of customs facilitation measures in a bid to develop their border areas. They also agreed on effective implementation of an agreement on cooperation in protecting and exploiting tourism resources within the Ban Gioc Waterfall vicinity between Vietnam and China. On the maritime matter, the two sides affirmed to abide by important common perceptions reached between senior leaders of the two Parties and countries and the Agreement on basic principles guiding the settlement of Vietnam-China sea-related issues. They agreed to promote the settlement of sea issues in line with international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982, control well differences, satisfactorily deal with issues at sea, not make the situation complicated, while promoting suitable cooperation and jointly maintaining peace and stability at sea. The Vietnamese side expressed concern over several recent complicated happenings in the East Sea as they did not favour peace, stability and cooperation in the region. The event positively assessed the results of implementing some projects such as studying and comparing Holocene sediments of the Red River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta; releasing fry and protecting aquatic resources in the Gulf of Tonkin. Participants agreed to increase exchanges to sign an agreement on cooperation in search and rescue at sea soon, and restore the hotline for offshore fishing emergencies. The two sides agreed to continue to firmly speed up the negotiation process on border delineation and win-win cooperation of working groups on issues at sea. Accordingly, the two sides agreed to optimize the Governmental-level negotiation mechanism through annual meetings, increase the number of meetings between the heads of negotiation teams and strengthen negotiation mechanisms of working groups on sea-related issues. At the same time, the two sides concurred to continue working with ASEAN countries to comprehensively and effectively realize the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and soon finalise the Code of Conduct in the East Sea in a practical and efficient manner, contributing to maintaining peace and stability in the sea. During the event, the Deputy Foreign Ministers held a meeting reviewing the two countries ties in 2018, and discussing the focus of exchange and cooperation in 2019 and issues in bilateral relations. They agreed that the bilateral relations continued growing positively in 2018 and the two sides maintained regular visits and high-level contacts. Exchanges and cooperation among localities and sectors at all levels have been carried out strongly and people-to-people exchanges were increasingly hectic. The two sides agreed to soundly implement high-level perceptions and agreement; maintain visits and contacts between Party and State leaders; carry out productively exchange and cooperative mechanisms to make it easier for Vietnamese farm produce to enter the Chinese market; and step up cooperative fields with substantial progress in 2019. They asserted to continue assisting and encouraging localities to boost exchanges and win-win cooperation and well organize friendship activities to contribute to enhancing friendship, mutual trust and understanding between people. On the occasion, Secretary of the Lao Cai Party Committee Nguyen Van Vinh received the delegations, seeking to increase cooperation between Lao Cai and Yunnan in particular and border localities of the two countries in general. The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) on Sunday asserted that the country is on the verge of designing more modern, 20% enriched nuclear fuel, sparking alarmist and inaccurate reporting in Western media. Why it matters: When Iran struck its nuclear agreement with the United States and other world powers in 2015, it was in possession of 196 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium and some 10,000 kilograms of low-enriched uranium. Under the pact, Iran agreed to forgo its production and stockpiling of 20% enriched uranium for 15 years. It also consented to reducing its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 97%, capping it at 300 kilograms. In an interview with the Iranian state broadcaster, AEOI chief Ali Akbar Salehi said that preliminary activities for designing modern 20% [enriched uranium] fuel have begun. He added that the modern fuel will increase efficiency at the US-supplied Tehran Research Reactor. The aging facility runs on 20% enriched nuclear fuel and is said to produce medical isotopes used in the treatment of up to 800,000 Iranians. Some media outlets promptly mischaracterized the claimed Iranian advance, with the Associated Press notably describing it as a modern process for 20-percent uranium enrichment for its 50-year-old research reactor signaling new danger for the nuclear deal. That reporting appears to confuse uranium enrichment with nuclear fuel fabrication the second of which is allowed under the nuclear deal. Indeed, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) restricts the enrichment of uranium on Iranian soil to 3.67%, the level needed for the production of electricity, such as at the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant. Not so when it comes to fuel fabrication, the process of turning the enriched uranium into fuel plates. Mark Fitzpatrick, a former acting deputy assistant secretary for nonproliferation at the US State Department, tweeted Monday that fuel fabrication is not prohibited by the nuclear deal. It's important to see what Salehi actually said, he added. Paragraph 7 of the accord, Fitzpatrick pointed out, stipulates that all remaining uranium oxide enriched to between 5% and 20% will be fabricated into fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor." Salehi notably spoke about the designing of new types of fuel rather than enrichment, which would be within the parameters of the JCPOA. This is because fuel plates cannot be converted back to a form of uranium that can be enriched further. Whats next: Perhaps given the characterization of his comments in foreign press, Salehi followed up his Sunday interview with another interview today with the semi-official ISNA news agency. In that interview, Salehi spoke about enrichment, repeating previous claims that the country has made technological advances despite the limitations imposed by the JCPOA. Back in September, he said that if we have to go back and withdraw from the nuclear deal, we certainly do not go back to where we were before. We will be standing on a much, much higher position. Today, the AEOI chief said that in case there is the will, Iran can resume 20% enrichment in four days. Weapons-grade uranium must be enriched to above 90%. It is unclear whether Salehis reiteration of Irans capabilities comes in response to the attention received by his initial comments or as a reaction to increasingly tough US rhetoric and continued European stalling on the unveiling of a long-promised mechanism to facilitate trade with Iran despite US sanctions. Either way, it appears that the Islamic Republic may sense a need to both domestically and internationally project at least a capability for action in the face of foot-dragging on the part of the remaining parties to the JCPOA. Know more: Be sure to read Al-Monitor Iran Pulse Editor Mohammad Ali Shabanis analysis of Iranian national security adviser Ali Shamkhanis recent warning that Europes opportunity to save the JCPOA has ended. For more on the sniping Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is facing over his outreach to Europe, see our previous coverage of those attacks. And with the JCPOA inching ever closer to collapse, do check out our coverage of the latest anti-Iran hawk to join the Trump administration. - Mohammad Ali Shabani GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Hamas says recent actions by the Palestinian Authority (PA) are designed to further separate the territories and grease the wheels for the nebulous US plan for peace in the Middle East. The Fatah-controlled PA in the West Bank has removed its staff that was managing the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. Hamas had turned over the crossing's management to the PA in November 2017 as part of a reconciliation deal brokered by Cairo. The deal barely got off the ground before stalling and has been troubled ever since. When the PA left the crossing Jan. 7 and Hamas took over again, Egypt closed the crossing to traffic trying to exit Gaza, for security reasons. Ma'an News Agency reported Egypt has said it won't reopen the crossing in both directions until the PA sends someone back to monitor the Palestinian side, though Hamas said it is discussing the matter with Egypt. The General Authority for Civil Affairs in the West Bank announced the withdrawal and accused Hamas of obstructing the PA employees' work since the reconciliation deal was reached in 2017. Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza objected to the PA withdrawing its employees, saying the move is part of PA President Mahmoud Abbas' attempt to force Hamas to hand over administration of the Gaza Strip to pave the way for the PA to take over. The movement refuses to do so, which has led Fatah to shut down its headquarters in Gaza, claiming harassment by Hamas. Hamas also believes Abbas wants to force it into submission and agree to implement the much-delayed US peace plan. The proposal has yet to be officially unveiled but is rumored to favor Israel. President Donald Trump has made numerous decisions during his presidency that negatively affect Palestinians. Still, Palestinian-Israeli negotiations have been stalled since April 2014, when Tel Aviv refused to stop building new Israeli settlements and rejected the two-state solution. Abbas accuses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of disrupting negotiations. Yahya Rabah, a Fatah leader based in the West Bank, said the PA's withdrawal from the crossing is designed to unite Palestinians by duress. Ultimately, withdrawing the PA staff aims to pressure Hamas into a Palestinian reconciliation," Rabah told Al-Monitor. The Egyptian government is aware of this decision and it was taken in coordination with Cairo. The proof is that the next day after the PA staff withdrew, the crossing opened in one direction only. The action is an indication that Cairo will not deal with an illegitimate party, he added, referring to Hamas. In Gaza, Palestinians are concerned that the PA staffs withdrawal could lead to the Rafah crossing closing for long periods of time. Rafah is considered the main crossing point for Palestinians in Gaza, and its extended closure could prevent thousands of Palestinians and their families, university students and medical patients seeking treatment from leaving. Al-Monitor tried to contact Nazmi Muhanna, general director of the Border and Passage General Department, but he refused to comment on the subject. According to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Interior in Gaza, Egyptian authorities opened the Rafah crossing for fewer than 30 days during all of 2017. The ministry didn't provide statistics for 2018, but said passenger traffic to and from Gaza had improved during the PA's management. Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told Al-Monitor, The withdrawal of the PA staff is yet another punitive measure imposed by President Abbas on the Gaza Strip that will contribute to increasing the peoples suffering and further [serve] to separate Gaza from the homeland." Abbas appears to believe that action ultimately will force Hamas to capitulate. Since April 2017, Abbas has imposed collective sanctions on the population of the Gaza Strip, forcing thousands of employees into early retirement, reducing salaries by more than 50% and cutting support to the health and education sectors, with the aim of pressuring Hamas to completely cede control over Gaza. Qassem noted that withdrawing PA staff is a hard blow to Egypt's ongoing efforts to achieving Palestinian reconciliation, saying, We have communicated with the Egyptians and they have expressed their rejection of this decision. As for Hamas options to end this crisis, Qassem said, The Egyptians want to keep the crossing open and they promised to find an appropriate mechanism and do whatever it takes to overcome this issue, stressing that Hamas next moves will be in coordination with the Palestinian [resistance] factions. Although there are no signs of Egypt intending to open the crossing permanently, an Egyptian intelligence delegation arrived in Gaza on Jan. 10 to discuss Palestinian developments, including the withdrawal of the PA's crossing staff. Hassan Abdo, a political science analyst and lecturer at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, told Al-Monitor that Abbas is trying to delegitimize Hamas completely. He said the PA is constantly inciting against Hamas, claiming the latter can never be part of the Palestinian political regime, or even part of the region. The PA, he said, is betting that the tragic situation in Gaza will push the populace to revolt against Hamas, forcing the movement to accept the PAs requirements for reconciliation and finally hand over the Gaza Strip in full. Abdo said Cairo rejects the PAs ongoing pressure on the Gaza Strip, fearing for Egypt's national security. If the situation in the Gaza Strip implodes, Egypt will be affected, given its proximity. Author and political analyst Talal Okal told Al-Monitor that withdrawing the PA employees from the Rafah crossing is indeed designed to pressure Hamas, but this decision will harm people, not Hamas itself, [and] the PA will eventually realize that it has made a mistake. Okal ruled out the possibility of negotiations anytime soon, especially as the PA and Hamas are strictly sticking to their own conditions for reconciliation. Panalplina has set up a Brexit task force and says that its Mexico-US-UK-Luxembourg freighter service will help companies create contingency operations for Brexit. The freight forwarder offers a freighter service calling Queretaro, Huntsville, Stansted and Luxembourg which it said could prove useful for shippers looking to create contingencies for the UK leaving the European Union (EU). There is widespread concern that the UKs borders could snarl up if the country leaves the EU without a deal in place to cover imports and exports. "The flight can bring in any airworthy merchandise from the Americas directly into London and then take UK goods to Luxembourg, flying over the channel and avoiding coastal borders which will most likely represent the major bottlenecks for UK-EU trade," the forwarder said. "UK-related supply chains will likely need re-engineering, and Panalpina has set up a special task force to help our customers get the answers and individual solutions they need, regardless of Brexit outcome." It added: "The uncertainties about Brexit make it challenging for any company that exports out of the UK or imports into it, to prepare adequately for the time after March 29, 2019. "We are committed to supporting our customers and partners in whatever way necessary to ensure the best possible flow of goods and information in these extraordinary times. "To this end, Panalpina is also engaged in regular exchanges with the Freight Transport Association (FTA), the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry as well as government bodies." Earlier today, the FTA warned that road operators have until the end of this week to apply for the international road haulage permits that allow them to transport goods into the European Unions (EU) 27 member states in case of a no-deal Brexit. The number of available permits is "painfully short", it added. Queretaro was added to the Panalpina freighter network last year and reflects its "growth in aerospace and the continuous adaptation of the companys Charter Network to meet evolving market needs and customer demand in Mexico". "But the addition of Queretaro to the Panalpina portfolio of destinations in Mexico has been very well received not only by its primary focus customers in the automotive and aerospace sectors in the Bajio region, but also elsewhere in the country," the forwarder said. "One example is that of customers facing the rising costs and capacity restrictions caused by the exponential growth in flight operations at Mexico City International Airport, which are affecting the efficiency of cargo operators." Erico Boehme, country head of airfreight Mexico, added: Queretaro is actually expanding its facilities for cargo and does not have any truck restrictions. It may become the ultimate alternative for large cargo aircraft in the Mexico City metropolitan area." Read more freighter operator news Sign up to receive Air Cargo News direct to your inbox for free Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier? Sign up to receive news and updates from this site directly to your desktop. Breaking News Columbia Breaking News Greenville Breaking News Myrtle Beach Breaking News Aiken Breaking News Click on the bell icon to manage your notifications at any time. Success! Please click the 'Allow' button in the 'Show Notifcations' alert in your browser if one is available. Thank you for signing up! Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page. The forum aims to form and develop bilateral partnership in organic agriculture through short-term training courses for scientists, agricultural officials, farmers, and those interested in organic agriculture. Director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Si Lam said that the locality is mobilising resources to develop agricultural production towards green and sustainable growth. From now until 2025, it will give priority to boosting organic agriculture in its advantageous products such as rice, mango, vegetables, and medicinal herbs, Lam added. Sharing cooperation prospects in organic agriculture between An Giang and Australia, Vice Chairman of the provincial Peoples Committee Tran Anh Thu stated that Australia is strong in its agricultural research, especially in biological control, pest management, farm produce supply chain management, the quality of agricultural and aquatic products, and advanced cultivation techniques of which An Giang is in demand for. Therefore, he expressed his hope that Australia and An Giang will intensify cooperation in the time ahead, through short-term courses on organic cultivation for local scientists, agricultural officials, and farmers. Alan Broughton, Vice President of the Organic Agriculture Association of Australia, said that the association will support An Giang by transferring technologies, and attracting the involvement of relevant foreign experts, scientists, and international organisations towards developing organic agriculture in the province. According to him, the organic agriculture certificate is not the end goal, but rather the essence of organic agriculture is to improve public health, restore the organic matter of soil, and reduce production costs. Vietnamnews Entering the Indian smartphone market last year, Mobiistar, a Vietnamese smartphone brand, has roped in Tonic Worldwide as its digital creative agency, post a multi-agency pitch. Having over 1000 service centres pan India providing top-quality customer experience, Mobiistar aims to be one of the leading handset brands in the sub 10k segment. The account will be handled out of Tonic's Delhi office and the team will be managing the digital strategy, social media and ORM mandate. Aniruddha Deb, CMO, Mobiistar, says, We are happy to partner with Tonic Worldwide for the digital marketing mandate. It's going to be an exciting partnership with Tonic as they are aligned with our vision for the brand and business. We are really connected with the ideas, the enthusiasm and the vibrant energy that the Tonic team brought to the table during the pitch process and we look forward to our partnership. Commenting on the account win, Tonics Chief Business Officer, Sudish Balan says, We are poised to enter exciting times as a digital partner for Mobiistar as the company is all set to aggressively enter the budget smartphone market and establish a strong foothold amongst the audiences. With our strategic understanding of the digital audiences and their consumer behavior on social, we plan to deliver the results with targeted storytelling, leading to measurable results for brand scores and sales. Research, Analytics, Data, Storytelling and Technology are the 5 key pillars that will drive our strategy for Mobiistar and we are confident that our partnership will help them gain a strong digital footprint. The agency will help the smartphone brand in leveraging its digital image through a meticulous understanding of the consumers mindset, behavior, motivations and triggers. This will help Mobiistar in creating a unique digital identity for themselves in the cluttered smartphone market. Supporting this, Tonic Worldwide has also planned multiple digital campaigns in the coming months to amplify Mobiistar's presence across digital platforms. Tonic Worldwide is an integrated digital marketing agency, with offices across India and Middle East. Having won over 85 awards, Tonic is known for its strategic, creative and innovative digital solutions. Having worked with over 200 clients across the globe, Tonic currently partners with brands such as PayPal, Sony Playstation, Aditya Birla Group, Nutralite, Sony Pictures Networks, Radio Mirchi, Flipkart amongst others. Times Network, Indias leading television broadcasting network, in partnership with NSE launched Prosperous India 2019, a pathbreaking investor awareness initiative in Mumbai, today. Encouraging Indians for a greater participation in the countrys growth story, the initiative aims to enable investors, stakeholders and public with financial freedom, prosperity and an opportunity to Rise with India. India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and holds an advantage of a rising middle class across demography. Prosperous India in its entirety is committed to improve the financial wellbeing of people with a focus to provide a platform to ensure financial security and sustainability for an investor to grow as India progresses. The launch event witnessed a fireside chat between Vikram Limaye, Managing Director and CEO, NSE and Nikunj Dalmia, Managing Editor, ET NOW on Financially Sustainable India, A Prosperous India. This was followed by a panel discussion on When India Prospers, Investors Prosper, moderated by Nikunj Dalmia with market stalwarts that included Vishal Kapoor, Chief Executive Officer, IDFC Asset Management, Manish Gunwani, CIO - Equity Investments, Reliance Mutual Fund and Lakshmi Iyer, CIO - Fixed Income & Head Products, Kotak Mutual Funds. Inaugurating the initiative, MK Anand, MD & CEO, Times Network, said, We have been championing Indias growth story with our continued commitment to encourage citizens to Rise with India. Through this initiative, we see an opportunity to educate Indians to choose investment methods, thereby empowering them to secure a strong financial future. With Prosperous India 2019, we look forward to building a financially sustainable India and contribute to Indias growth story. Commenting on the initiative, Vikram Limaye, Managing Director and CEO, NSE, said, Over the last 25 years, NSEs commitment to investor education has been a continuous and consistent effort. As Indias largest exchange, we believe that one of our key responsibility is to encourage more people to participate in Indias growth story and benefit from the growing Indian economy. The substantial increase in participation in equity and mutual funds in the recent years and broadening of the investor base is an encouraging development. We need to help our new entrance into the market and guide the investors, members and ensure all participants benefit from the market over a long term. This will keep the investors interested and drive the markets towards the sustainable growth. The NSE Prosperous India 2019 initiative with Times Network is an important development and this launch event marks an important milestone. As part of the initiative, ET NOW will host 24 on-ground forums, reaching out a wide spectrum of people across 12 cities Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Indore, Lucknow, Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, New Delhi and Surat. Prosperous India will educate the masses on investment methods and trends thus enabling them to make the best returns as India Prospers. The initiative will culminate with a grand telethon on TIMES NOW, ET NOW and Mirror NOW. 59% Indians hail Indias National Infrastructure: Ipsos MORI-GIIAInfrastructure Survey 61% feel India needs momentum ininfrastructure development, more so in local areas 64% Indians endorse privatization in infrastructure development According to a new global survey by Ipsos, a global market research agency, 59% Indians feel India has good national infrastructure of road, rail, air networks, utilities, such as energy and water and broadband and other communications. Only 14% were dissatisfied.Interestingly, India is placed 2nd in the pecking order after Saudi Arabia. This shows that humble Indians are quite happy with the infrastructure theyve got, even if it is far inferior to many other countries in reality, says Parijat Chakraborty, Country Service Lines Group Leader, Public Affairs, Customer Experience and Corporate Reputation, Ipsos India. Romania (5%) and Brazil (12%) had few batting for their countrys quality of overall infrastructure. The findings come from the latest Global Infrastructure Index survey conducted by Ipsos MORI in partnership with the Global Infrastructure Investor Association (GIIA) in 29 countries across the world, including India. Weve come a long way on energy and road. We are one of the best in broadband infrastructure. The positive feelings on these, is giving positive rub off on other areas, pushing up overall infrastructure as a whole, added Chakraborty. The survey delved deeper into consumers psyche to understand how each aspect of infrastructure is rated and collected ratings of 10 infrastructure sectors. Indians too have assessed all nuts and bolts of infrastructure. Some aspects have got high scores and some need attention. What Indians rate best?Airport Infrastructure; Digital Infrastructure; Rail Infrastructure (track and stations); Nuclear Infrastructure; Energy Generation; Motorways & Major Roads and New Housing Infrastructure/ Supply. 83% per cent Indians feel we have great Airportinfrastructure. It is 2nd in the pecking order amongst all 27 markets. Malaysia is at the top. Romanians (33%) and Hungarians (47%) have lowest satisfaction levels with their airport infrastructure. 70% Indians feel we have good Digitalinfrastructurecomprising of high speed broadband, full fibre network (FTTP), 5G. India is 2nd in pecking order after South Korea (78%), whose citizens have rated it high. Brazil (BRIC country) has only 31% rating its Digital infrastructure good. 66% Indians feel we have good Rail infrastructure (track and stations). Markets ahead of India, whose citizens have rated them high on this attribute are South Korea (71%) and Saudi Arabia (68%). Romania has only 8% satisfied with its rail infrastructure. And Serbia has only 13% vouching for its quality Rail of infrastructure. 66% Indians rate India high on Nuclearinfrastructure for generating energy, followed by the Czech Republic (61% have rated it good). Serbia (12%) and Poland (14%) have been rated lowest by their citizens on this attribute. 65% Indians, of those polled, rate India high on Energy Generation infrastructure. India is 2nd in satisfaction, below Saudi Arabia (69%), which has emerged at the top. Of late India has been hugely focusing on alternate sources of energy generation that are more environment friendly: solar energy, bio fuels, CNG etc.Only 24% Spanish people and 26% Romanians feel they have good energy generation infrastructure. 62% Indians feel we have good Motorways and Major Roads. And which country has the best ones? 77% of Saudis and 77% South Koreans feel their country has good motorways and major roads. On the flip side, only 5% Romanians think they have good motorways; and likewise, only 22% Brazilians and Czech are happy with their motorways. When we looked at New Housing Infrastructure/ Supply at least 60 per cent Indians (of those polled) felt that we have good quality of New Housing Supply. Among all markets, India is ranked 2nd, after Saudi Arabia 69% Saudis (those polled) felt their country has good new housing supply. Countries least happy with new housing supply were Brazil (20%) and Germany and Sweden, which were tied at 25%. Not so good Flood Defences; Water Supply and Sewerage and Local Roads Only 40 per cent Indians feel that our infrastructure for Flood Defences is good. Most markets have got low ratings on this attribute; except for Saudi Arabia - 58% Saudis feel their country is good on this attribute. At the bottom of the heap are Italy and Romania only 9% and 10% respectively, are happy with the quality of flood defences in their country. Only 47% of Indians polled feel we have good water supply and sewerage. Germany has 75% hailing its infrastructure for water supply and sewerage. Romanians are least happy. Only 25% are happy with the quality of water supply and handling of sewerage. Only half of Indians polled (52%) think we have good Local Road Network. Saudi Arabia (71%) and South Korea (69%) have the majority batting for its quality of local roads. And only 12% Romanians think they have good quality of local roads. Attitudes to Infrastructure 61% Indians feel as a country we are not doing enough to meet our infrastructure needs. 73% Indians agree that investing in infrastructure will be vital to Indias economic growth. Only 49% Indians feel their local area gets its fair share of Indias investment in infrastructure. 66% Indians want views of local communities to be factored in/ heard on plans for infrastructure, even if it leads to delays. 64% Indians endorse foreign investment in new infrastructure in India, if it means it sees expediency and gets built more quickly. 62% Indians agree that as a country we do not do enough to involve people in decision about which infrastructure to invest in. Parijat Chakraborty, Country Service Lines Group Leader, Public Affairs, Customer Experience and Corporate Reputation, Ipsos India, Indians are positive about how our highways, airports, rail infrastructure, telecom, energy generation have shaped up. Its Flood Defences and the mechanism to cope with local disasters that needs attention. Further, its the quality of local roads, in cities and the hinterland that needs better focus and planning. More number of Indians are not too happy with the current phase of infrastructure development. They feel it needs expediency, in local areas and endorse local participation at the planning stage for better implementation.Indias role in renewable energy and work for International Solar Alliance has added to optimism among people for Energy Generation infrastructure.Interestingly, Indians feel that privatization route can hasten development and modernization. Data has been weighted to known country population profiles. The 6-hour military-themed line-up will be telecast on 15th January 2019, and includes documentaries presented by General G.D.Bakshi. For Army Day, celebrated on the 15th of January, EPIC Channel, India Ka Apna Infotainment has just announced an engaging programming line-up. The day shall feature exclusive series that includes documentaries that celebrate the Indian army, its history and traditions, and recounts the brave who earned everlasting glory through supreme sacrifice. The day-long special airs 1 pm onwards and features episodes from the popular show Regiment Diaries; that documents the story of the various regiments that constitute the India Army. The one hour episodes included in the line-up are Punjab Regiment, Madras Engineers Group, Rajput Regiment and the Jat Regiment. Also featuring in the programming mix are two riveting documentaries narrated by, and featuring Kargil war veteran Major General G.D Bakshi. Fall of Dhaka based on the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, and Turning Point At Tololing that walks viewers through the capture of the Tololing Peak during the 1999 Kargil War; are the two specials that will be featured in the curated line-up. Content and Programming Head, EPIC Channel, Akul Tripathi said Reality is a scriptwriter beyond compare; and the stories about the Indian army and the triumphant feats of our soldiers in times of peace and war, are more compelling than anything that could be scripted. This is our small tribute to our men in uniform. Tune in to EPIC Channel on 15th January from 1 pm onwards to watch stories of the legends of Indian Army. First Partners, Indias premier business-outcome focused communications firm, today announced that it has won the public relations mandate for the Dalmia Bharat Group. Dalmia Bharat Group is an Indian conglomerate anchored primarily in the cement business with additional business interests in sugar and refractories. The Group operates Indias fourth largest cement capacity in India and is the only cement company in the world to have the lowest carbon footprint. The group has been growing exponentially in the last five years and is slated to maintain its robustness through growth, corporate social responsibility, brand identity and socio-cultural projects. First Partners won the account in a multi-agency pitch. The remit of the mandate covers all the group companies reputation and spans the conventional and digital communication spectrum for all the respective business units. Commenting on the mandate, Rashika Kaul, Head, Corporate Communications, Dalmia Bharat Group, said As we embark on an ambitious trajectory in pursuance of the next level of growth for the Dalmia Bharat Group, we were looking for communication partners who can match our speed of change and deliver intelligent, creative and outcome based execution. First Partners impressed us with their strategic insights and proven expertise in managing complex communication situations. Speaking on the appointment, Atul Ahluwalia, Founding Partner, First Partners, said We are delighted to be chosen as the public relations partners by the Dalmia Bharat Group at this very key inflexion point in their business journey. We view this not only as a recognition of the effectiveness and relevance of our business outcome communications (BOC) strategy but also as a great opportunity to partner a leading Indian brand meet their communication objectives in a unique and substantive manner. About First Partners First Partners is a full-service communications consultancy which specializes in integrating communication solutions with a single-minded focus on delivering business outcomes. First Partners team comprises of senior experts with experience in managing complex communication assignments for Fortune 500 companies and leading Indian corporates. The firm has offices in Noida, Gurugram, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata, with the execution delivery network totalling to 31 cities across India. Berger Paints India Ltd., the second largest paint company in India has rolled out their new digital campaign on New Year for their exterior paint brand Weather Coat Anti Dust. With a fresh start to the year Berger Paints urges it consumers to give a refreshing look to their house. Conceptualized by Berger Paints and HGS, the video attempts to instill how one can add freshness to their lives with a stroke of paint in their homes and spread warmth and love. The video starts showing a conflict between an old couple, where the wife gets annoyed with her husbands behaviour. In spite of continuous effort by the husband to persuade his wife, he fails to pacify her. The video concludes when the husband eventually came up with the idea to paint the wall with an apologizing message saying I AM SORRY to his wife. The video ends beautifully with a note from Berger Paints, Naye saal main rishton ko naye rango se bhare. The video also received over 4 million views across all platforms. The company believes that New Year is the time when people want to implement certain changes in their lives to give a fresh start. People often consider their relationships as the most important aspect and tend to ignore the hub where they grow and are nurtured. The message that our home too deserves a new start with a fresh coat of paint this New Year is unique in its own way. Our relationships are very delicate and always require a tender touch of love and care. A house only becomes a home when it is filled with love and happiness of our closed ones. The company urges its customers to usher the new year with a message of love and companionship to warm our hearts and spread happiness in homes. Talking about the new video Mr. Abhijit Roy, MD and CEO of Berger Paints says, With this new digital video, we wish all our esteemed customers a very happy new year. May this new year bring love, compassion for your family and encourage you to paint your imagination by adding colours to each others lives. With the onset of New Year it is just the right time to wash away our egos and misunderstanding and decorate our lives with a splash of love and warmth. Swathi Srinivasan is Group Head - Media, at Isobar. She has been recognised as the Emerging Leader of the Year 2018 within 3 months of joining the organisation. She leads one of the key media accounts in Mumbai - Estee Lauder Companies, with over 9 brands under the entity. She drives smart media solutions, insights based media strategy & decision making, promoting relevant integrations as and when applicable across brands. She was instrumental during the pitch strategy for the Estee Lauder Companies account from the presentation stage to the final transition. Apart from ELC, Srinivasan also handles key accounts such as Godrej securities solution (first brand to launch voice-enabled banner for their Mothers Day campaign), Jet Privilege, Siyarams Oxemberg and Forevermark Diamonds (which received best in class results for awareness and consideration lift during its Valentines Day campaign). How did you get into the role you are serving? While growing up, I was majorly exposed to traditional media. However, while starting my career, the world of new media as it was called then was at a nascent stage. But the scope to learn and apply the cases of reaching out to individuals was limitless. That is what attracted me to step into this world. I was keen to see how I could add to campaigns, add my creativity to help brands amplify their narrative, how they influence individuals. This freedom of endless possibilities is what excites me the most. From then on, it was a very natural progression. What particular skill sets do you think you bring to the table? While mobile media helped me unleash my creative best, and the fact that opportunities are limitless, I believe I use these opportunities (at Isobar) well to explore uncommon, out-of-the-box thinking. Being an accounting finance graduate, I particularly like to crunch numbers. Given a set of data points, I find it exciting and challenging to analyse and make constructive decisions based on it. Interpersonal skills the fact that I love meeting and talking to people helps me to understand the team, the brand team better. I always try to balance between what the brand wants, understand it - to connect brand to platform, people to ideas and build a larger ecosystem of media solutions. How did Isobar come about? In my earlier years, I realised that digital media demands unique ways of working every day, to make a difference in the approach to the medium, essential platform support with right tools is imperative. Isobar being a key leader in digital innovation in the country, offers a great backbone to drive media solutions to business problems. This is what excited and drove me to join this agile team. My journey in Isobar has been very challenging and exciting at the same time. Every business proposition we come across demands a different, alternative version of me. For me to offer and learn more, this is the ideal opportunity to pilot different innovative solutions. Icons in advertising you look up to and how they have influenced you and your work? From our industry, I look up to Mr Madan Sanglikar aka Maddy the man who is known for his humility, which reflects in the spirit of his team. I think it is important to have an example outside the industry too, I admire the maestro AR Rahmans work and his way of life rooted, yet so diverse, which reflects in his work. What are the five most productive things that you do in your everyday routine? Mediate for 30 minutes after my alarm rings everyday Jokes apart, I love my 8 hours of sleep I listen to fusion, classical music every day, no matter what Upbeat with news and current affairs I keep adding to my list in such a way that I can knock off by end of day No matter what the situation, I try to remain cool so my team remains cool Do you think a career in advertising is a viable one in the long term? Yes, I do because the digital space is so dynamic, it provides a steep learning curve, and it helps me evolve as a person, not just as a professional. I totally see myself staying here and being part of this industry in the long run. What does it take to succeed in a career like advertising? Constantly reinventing yourself. It is the only way you can learn, unlearn and relearn with new technologies, new solutions and new way of thinking. What would be your advice to youngsters planning to enter this industry? Love what you do, so you rarely feel demotivated to go to work, which eventually pushes you to give your 100 per cent in every task. Where do you see yourself in five years time? I would be having a farm house at Pondicherry and you guys should be flying down to meet me! Is there any agency/ organisation that you would like to work with in the future? If I have to think about this right now, I already feel I am on the right track. Having worked here for over 11 months, Isobar has given me the scope to channelise all efforts and energies to use it to grow businesses better. BUTTE COUNTY, Calif. - After a mass-overdose incident in Chico, Action News Now breaks down what Fentanyl is and why police are concerned with the possibility of it being on the streets. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, pharmaceutical Fentanyl is a reliever approved for treating severe pain. It is 50-100 times more potent than Heroin. Most recent cases of fentanyl-related overdoses and death in the U.S. are linked to illegally-made Fentanyl. It is sold through illegal drug markets for its "heroin-like" effects. It is often mixed with heroin or cocaine to increase its euphoric effects. Mixing Fentanyl with other illegal drugs could be deadly. According to the Oxford Treatment Center, cocaine laced with Fentanyl accounted for 37 percent of overdose deaths in 2016. Experts say cocaine is a stimulant drug that speeds up the functions that Fentanyl and opioid drugs slow down. The two drugs may counteract each other, potentially leading to cardiac and respiratory complications. Fentanyl laced with heroin is also dangerous and deadly, however, they have had similar methods of action on the brain and body as both are opioid drugs. Some grim findings from the National Safety Council, for the first time on record, say that lifetime odds of accidentally dying from an opioid overdose in the U.S. are now greater than those of dying in an automobile crash. The NSC found that the lifetime odds of dying from an accidental opioid overdose were 1 in 96. For motor vehicle accidents, the odds were 1 in 103. Lifetime odds of death for opioid overdose were greater than the risk of death from falls, pedestrian incidents, drowning and fire. CALIFORNIA - Various state and federal lawmakers have responded to PG&E's announcement that it plans to file for bankruptcy. Congressman Doug LaMalfa responded to the bankruptcy filing, saying he is not surprised by the move. "Coming through this bankruptcy, I'm sure PG&E is going to look a lot different when this is all over with," LaMalfa said. "They've already made moves with their management and I imagine their board too. One thing I think we do not want to happen is the state of California to somehow swoop in and take over the utility. I would not want our utility run by Sacramento." North State Assemblyman James Gallagher issued a statement on the matter as well, mainly defending wildfire victims. "California cannot allow PG&E to declare bankruptcy and then make fire victims stand in line at bankruptcy court," Gallagher said. "If PG&E is determined to be liable for these recent disasters, fire victims and ratepayers must be the priority. No wall street creditors should get paid until fire victims have been properly compensated." Senator Jim Nielsen has weighed in as well, stating how he will work with the government to ensure that all California residents receive reliable energy. I will work with the governor and the legislature to ensure that fire victims are prioritized and residents continue to receive reliable energy," Nielsen said. BUTTE COUNTY, Calif. - Action News Now reporter Christina Vitale spoke with a lawyer to break down what bankruptcy means for the company. PG&E is facing liabilities that reach $30 billion in damages from the Camp Fire. The business is now preparing for reorganization under Chapter 11. This means that PG&E will continue operating its gas and electric service to customers. Chico Lawyer Adam Corrells said its still pre-mature in determining what this means for PG&E moving forward. In terms of reorganization Sorrells said we can look back at their file for bankruptcy in 2001. At that time, they were about $9 billion in debt, which is much less than the debt they face currently. "There's going to be electricity that's not going to go away," Sorrells said. "If necessary, the government will step in. I know that Governor Gavin Newsom is paying very close attention to this and is going to make sure that nobody loses their power if there's not some cataclysmic problem and so I think it's more going to be an issue for people that are investors and of course for victims of the Camp Fire and the various other fires across the state." PG&E released the following statement in regards to the potential filing: "We believe a court-supervised process under Chapter 11 will best enable PG&E to resolve its potential liabilities in an orderly, fair and expeditious fashion. The process also will enable PG&E to access the capital and resources we need to continue providing our customers with safe services and investing in our systems and infrastructure." UPDATE 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019 - The Yuba County Sheriff's Office has identified the man killed in an officer-involved shooting in Linda as 45-year-old Jahmal Derrick Stewart who was reported as a transient in the Marysville area. The original 9-1-1 call regarding the assault incident was determined to be a robbery. The assault victim was an elderly man in his 70s that police say was attacked by Stewart, beaten and had his cane taken away. According to police, the victim did not know the suspect and the attack appears to have been at random. The investigation is still ongoing. --- UPDATE 11:47 pm Monday, Jan. 14, 2019: The Yuba County Sheriff's Office is investigating an officer-involved shooting that left an assault suspect dead. The Sheriff's Office says it happened around 3:30 p.m. this afternoon in the community of Linda. They say the caller reported a man beating another person with an unknown weapon. After deputies arrived, they announced on the radio that shots had been fired. The Sheriff's Office says the suspect, an adult male, was declared deceased at the scene. His identity has not yet been released. --- LINDA, Calif. (KCRA)- Authorities are investigating an officer-involved shooting in Yuba County on Monday that sent one to the hospital. Deputies responded to reports about an assault around 3:40 p.m. on Monday in the area of North Beale Road. When officers approached, the suspect who reportedly assaulted the other person turned toward officers and fired shots, according to the Yuba County Sheriff's Department. The suspect, an adult male, was declared deceased at the scene. His identity has not been released yet. NEW YORK, N.Y. - Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino is heading to prison. According to People Magazine, Mike Sorrentino began his sentence Tuesday at the Otisville Federal Correctional Institution in New York. The 36-year-old is best known for his time on MTV's reality show "The Jersey Shore." He pleaded guilty to tax evasion and concealing income last year and was sentenced to eight months in Prison. After his prison stint, Sorrentino must still complete two years of supervised released. He must also pay a $10,000 fine within 30 days and complete 500 hours of community service. CNN contributed to this article. (CNN) -The gunman who killed an officer in Northern California left behind a letter accusing the Davis police department of hitting him with "ultra sonic waves." A man on a bicycle shot Davis police Officer Natalie Corona, 22, Thursday night as she responded to a triple-car crash in the city of Davis. He was later found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In a statement Saturday, the Yolo County Sheriff's Office identified Kevin Douglas Limbaugh, 48, as the suspect in the officer's killing. Limbaugh left behind a letter, according to Davis police spokesman Lt. Paul Doroshov, who read the letter on camera to CNN affiliate KMAX. "The Davis police department has been hitting me with ultra sonic waves meant to keep dogs from barking. I notified the press, internal affairs, and even the FBI about it. I am highly sensitive to its affect [sic] on my inner ear," the letter reads. "I did my best to appease them, but they have continued for years and I can't live this way anymore." The letter is signed "Citizen Kevin Limbaugh." 'A rising star' Corona was shot multiple times, Davis police Chief Darren Pytel said. "This clearly to us looks like an ambush," Pytel said. After shooting Corona, the suspect reloaded his firearm and fired toward a firefighter and a fire truck that were also responding to the traffic collision. Then he fled. A manhunt for the shooter ended hours later when police found him dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a home in Davis. He had left a backpack at the crime scene with information that led the officers to his home, Pytel said. Corona died at the UC Davis Medical Center in nearby Sacramento. She began her service with the department as a community service officer in 2016. She finished the police academy in July and was promoted to police officer upon graduation. "She was a rising star in the department," Pytel said. She was a second-generation officer Corona's father, Merced, is a retired Colusa County sheriff's sergeant in California. He stepped down from the force in 2012 after 26 years. Payne, who also was newly hired, was in uniform and getting ready for work when she was gunned down at a Shreveport home, police Chief Ben Raymond said. No one had been arrested in the shooting, and it is not known what led to the killing, Raymond said. Payne was hired in July as an academy cadet and graduated in November. Raymond said her academy classmates grieved over her death. CHICO, Calif. - The Chico Police Department could get a financial boost in the wake of the Camp Fire. The North Valley Community Foundation is donating $500,000 to fund another police officer to serve over the next three years. Chief Mike O'Brien says he is extremely grateful but has not decided how the officer will be used. Some options include policing traffic or serving as a school resource officer. "I'm very, very excited about the potential of adding another police officer," O'Brien said. "Every police officer at this point matters. With the impacts of the Camp Fire, we're looking at 10,000-20,000 additional people that we want to keep safe in this community." The Chico City Council must accept the donation to fund the new officer and that issue is on the agenda for Tuesday night's meeting. WENN/Jaime Espinoza Celebrity The 'Foxcatcher' actress and her new boyfriend, who is 10 years her junior, show a lot of PDA as they kiss and hold hands during a romantic stroll in New York. Jan 15, 2019 AceShowbiz - Sienna Miller is dating again and doesn't seem to plan to keep it out of the public eye. The 37-year-old actress looked completely smitten with her new boyfriend Lucas Zwirner, who is 10 years her junior, during a romantic stroll in New York on Sunday, January 13. The "G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra" star and the 27-year-old gallery owner were spotted kissing while walking a dog. Wearing an oversized khaki jacket with skinny jeans and suede leopard print boots, she completed her look with a green beanie. Sienna Miller and her new boyfriend Lucas Zwirner were affectionate during a romantic stroll. Lucas kept himself warm in an orange jacket, dark pants, a blue beanie hat and white sneakers. He held a cup of what appeared to be hot drink and put his other hand on his pocket. At one point, Sienna was seen holding hands with her new man, while holding her dog leash on her other hand. The pair were holding hands while walking her dog in New York. The pair stopped and sat at the park for a while to let her dog socialize. They were caught on camera getting cuddly and affectionate toward each other as Lucas showered his girlfriend with kisses while relaxing on the park bench. The 29-year-old gallery owner planted a kiss on the 39-year-old actress' cheek at the park. According to Daily Mail which obtained photos of the two's PDA-packed outing, Lucas is a Yale graduate majoring in literature. He joined the family business to grow his father's eponymous art gallery, David Zwirner Books. It's unclear when they started dating, but Sienna took Lucas as her date at her ex-boyfriend Tom Sturridge's birthday party in December 2018. The British beauty shares a daughter, 6-year-old Marlowe Ottoline Layng Sturridge, with the actor, whom he dated from 2011 until 2015. Sienna was previously also in a relationship with Jude Law. They got engaged in 2004, but broke up in 2006 after his affair with the nanny of his children was revealed in 2005. They rekindled their romance in 2009, only to split again in 2011. Instagram Celebrity After their night out in Denver, the former 'The Bachelorette' contestant allegedly 'already wants to make plans to visit Kaitlyn again.' Jan 15, 2019 AceShowbiz - It looks like Colton Underwood won't be the only one getting a new love. After much anticipation, Jason Tartick and Kaitlyn Bristowe finally went on a date over the weekend. It appears that they had so much fun on their date that Jason already wanted to make plans to visit the former "The Bachelorette" leading lady again. "They had a really good time together and definitely agreed they are compatible and already agreed to see each other again," a source told E! News of the pair, explaining that his funny side left a good impression on Kaitlyn. "Kaitlyn loves that Jason is on the same page as her in terms of having a lot fun and they both don't take themselves too seriously." The insider went on saying that the only thing that stopped them from taking their relationship seriously was the distance, but "Jason already wants to make plans to visit Kaitlyn again." Jason and Kaitlyn had a night out in Denver on Friday, January 11 after the former asked her out during an episode of her podcast "Off the Vine". Sharing footage from their date at Howl at the Moon, the couple was seen singing along to Carly Rae Jepsen's hit "Call Me Maybe" before dancing together. "Ok... he dances with me," she captioned the video of them dancing. At one point, Kaitlyn also shared a picture of Jason embracing her from behind while kissing her head. "Gotten sniped," she wrote on the photo. They later headed to the Pepsi Center to watch the Denver Nuggets beat the Portland Trail Blazers. Prior to this, Kaitlyn was in romantic relationship with Shawn Booth. The former couple announced their split in November last year after three years together. "After three incredible years, we have decided to go our separate ways. This difficult decision comes after thoughtful, respectful consideration," they said in a joint statement. Instagram Celebrity A North Carolina resident named Kelli Britt Faulk alleges that the 'Teen Mom 2' alum chased her real estate agent mom with the gun 'like a maniac.' Jan 15, 2019 AceShowbiz - David Eason has once again landed himself in trouble involving guns. Kelli Britt Faulk, a North Carolina resident, recently accused the "Teen Mom 2" alum of pulling a gun and harassing her mother when she approached his home. "Just thought you should know that the woman you pulled a gun on was my mom. The woman in that white car was my mom which is a real estate agent who was out looking for land," the woman posted the message to David and Jenelle Evans' Facebook page. She detailed the incident in the comment section, "He chased her down with it like a maniac. My momma is nosy. And she wouldn't [sic] harm a fly." While David has yet to respond to the accusation, Jenelle already did it for him. Calling Kelli's mom "a liar," the television personality said, "David had his phone on him and nothing else. But if she comes on my property again she will be charged with trespassing and harassment. And there's no land for sale on my road... once again another lie." But Kellie didn't back down and even dubbed Jenelle an "idiot" for misunderstanding her words. "My momma doesn't want your dumpy modular house. She immediately called me and thought it was one of my best friends that did it to her," she said, explaining that she only realized it after seeing a screenshot of David's Snapchat which showed the incident. "Y'all are nothing more than crazy lunatics. Just because you're on TV doesn't make you any better than anyone else." "He even cussed her out and said he was buying every single bit of land around there... yeah like that's gonna happen," Kellie added, to which Jenelle once again denied by claiming that her husband couldn't have had a gun on him as "he had two hands on the 4 wheeler." People soon joined the back-and-forth between the two ladies, with many pointing out that Jenelle was being "delusional" because her husband once claimed to always be carrying a firearm. "David himself says he's always strapped. We know this," one fan commented. Instagram Movie New Jersey High School student Rachel Zegler lands the female lead role and will star opposite Ansel Elgort as Tony. Jan 15, 2019 AceShowbiz - Steven Spielberg's "West Side Story" has found its Maria in a total unknown. 17-year old New Jersey High School student Rachel Zegler has been cast in the female lead role for the remake, marking her film debut, Deadline reports. Zegler will star opposite Ansel Elgort who is cast as the male lead, Tony. Celebrating her casting in the movie, she took to Twitter to express her feelings, "it's official! so thankful to have the opportunity to work with one of my favorite directors and this incredible cast! and to be able to learn from the best (and one of my icons) @TheRitaMoreno is just BEYOND. Surreal!" its official! so thankful to have the opportunity to work with one of my favorite directors and this incredible cast! and to be able to learn from the best (and one of my icons) @TheRitaMoreno is just BEYOND. surreal! https://t.co/qHLTRMWWOU rachel zegler (@rachelzegler) January 14, 2019 Lily Collins also commented on the news. "Couldn't have found a better Maria for West Side Story!!" she gushingly tweeted after watching a video of Zegler sing. "Your voice is unreal, I can't stop watching this. Congrats and can't wait to see it. Get ready girl! @rachelzegler." The movie has also rounded out the principal Shark roles with three additional actors. They are Broadway veterans Ariana DeBose, who is cast as Anita, and David Alvarez, who is tapped to play Bernardo, as well as theater performer Josh Andres Rivera who is set to portray Chino. Spielberg's "West Side Story" found the actors after an international casting call that saw more 30,000 people sending their submisions. The filmmaker said, "When we began this process a year ago, we announced that we would cast the roles of Maria, Anita, Bernardo, Chino and the Sharks with Latina and Latino actors. I'm so happy that we've assembled a cast that reflects the astonishing depth of talent in America's multifaceted Hispanic community. I am in awe of the sheer force of the talent of these young performers, and I believe they'll bring a new and electrifying energy to a magnificent musical that's more relevant than ever." Zegler also said in a statement, "I am so thrilled to be playing the iconic role of Maria alongside this amazing cast. 'West Side Story' was the first musical I encountered with a Latina lead character. As a Colombian-American, I am humbled by the opportunity to play a role that means so much to the Hispanic community." DeBose feels "honored" and "so fortunate for the chance to work with this amazing cast and creative team." Alvarez said that he's "so grateful for the chance to bring my own perspective and journey to this role - as an artist, a veteran and a Latino - and to work with this incredible cast to breathe new life into these characters' experiences." Calling it "the dream for any performer," Rivera said that he feels "very fortunate to be able to portray the Nuyorican experience alongside these amazingly talented actors." Rita Moreno, the original Anita depicter who returns to play Valentina, the owner of the corner store in which Tony works, "simply cannot wait to get on set to work with this group of young actors" and pass "the baton to this next generation of Sharks!" Adapted from the original 1957 Broadway musical, the script is written by Oscar-nominated screenwriter and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner. The story revolves around the rivalry between two warring street gangs, the white Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks. The tensions get higher as Tony falls for Maria, the younger sister of the leader of the Sharks, and the two forge a forbidden bond. Filming will start in the summer of 2019. WENN/Brian To Celebrity In a video which is shared on the organization's official Twitter account, the supermodel is seen trying to inspect the booze on the offer before a staff member appears to tell her off. Jan 15, 2019 AceShowbiz - Chrissy Teigen's attempt to play bartender at the recently-wrapped Critics' Choice Awards didn't go really well. The cookbook author only got behind the bar at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California for a short while before she was "scolded" by a staff member who later told her to leave the area. In a video which was posted on the awards' official Twitter account, Chrissy was seen trying to inspect the booze on offer behind the bar. Before the mother of two could get her hands on anything and poured herself and her friend a drink, a female staff member appeared out of nowhere to tell her off and usher her away. The "Lip Sync Battle" co-host could only bow her head as she took her leave, rushing to John Legend's side who was already waiting for her. Telling the "All of Me" hitmaker what just happened, Chrissy looked noticeably embarrassed. Chrissy surely had it rough that night. In addition to getting scolded for attempting to work her mixology magic, the supermodel expressed her regret for joining her husband to the award-giving event when they were just finished partying. "Why oh why god did I agree to the people or critics choice whatever it is the night after John's party," she said. "This was a big mistake huge yes this is a fancy problem." Prior to attending the 2019 Critics' Choice Awards, John and Chrissy were celebrating the former's 40th birthday at their home in Beverly Hills, California. According to E! News, the dance floor at the James Bond-themed party was packed with people all night long, and even the couple's daughter Luna couldn't resist the temptation to dance. At one point, Chrissy was said to be taking over the DJ booth to thank their guests, who included the Kardashian family members, for coming. "Then they all sang 'Happy Birthday' to John and he loved it. Everyone seemed to have amazing night," said the inside source. WENN Music The music service partly owned by the 'Holy Grail' rapper has been accused of manipulating Kanye West's and Beyonce's streaming figures, but its lawyer is adamant the firm was 'not a suspect.' Jan 15, 2019 AceShowbiz - Jay-Z's music service Tidal is facing a criminal investigation in Norway for allegedly inflating Kanye West and Beyonce Knowles' streaming figures. Last year, editors at the country's Dagens Naeringsliv (DN) newspaper published a story alleging streaming data was manipulated, resulting in the overpayment of royalties for Kanye's "The Life of Pablo" and Jay's wife Beyonce's 2016 record "Lemonade". Executives at the firm have denied the claims, but Norwegian prosecutors have now confirmed they have opened a criminal probe into the matter. Elisabeth Harbo-Lervik, the Chief Public Prosecutor at Norway's National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (Okokrim) confirmed an investigation is underway, telling DN it is "still in its early stages." DN claim four former Tidal employees, including a Head of Business Intelligence at the Sweden-based firm, have been interrogated by prosecutors so far. Elisabeth also said executives at the premium music streaming service were yet to provide her with all the information she required. The company's lawyer, Fredrik Berg told WENN that the firm was "not a suspect" and added, "We are communicating with Okokrim. We are aware that at least one person we suspected of theft has been questioned." Jay, real name Shawn Carter, part-owns Tidal and relaunched it in 2015 with a star-studded event in New York City. Kanye, who is an old friend of the "Hard Knock Life" rapper, and Beyonce debuted exclusively on the service the following year. Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology studied streaming information obtained by DN editors from two months in 2016 to see if it tallied with payments of $2.5 million (1.8 million) and $3 million (2.2 million) made to the pair's respective record labels, sums they claim were excessive. Responding to the initial DN story, Tidal chief Richard Sanders called the allegations "false" but said the company had appointed a cyber-security firm to, "further protect the security and integrity of our data." WENN/Dan Jackman Movie One week after his ex, Angelina Jolie, hosted a party for the director and cast of 'Roma', the 'Allied' actor is celebrating Barry Jenkins' acclaimed movie with a private screening and reception. Jan 15, 2019 AceShowbiz - Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are still championing their Hollywood friends at glitzy screening parties, even though they are no longer a couple. A week after Angelina hosted a party for the director and cast of "Roma" and special guests, her ex staged a similar party to give Oscars rival "If Beale Street Could Talk" a big awards season boost. The actor made it clear Barry Jenkins' acclaimed film was his Oscars pick by hosting a screening and a reception for the movie at a private residence in the Hollywood Hills on Saturday night (January 12), on the eve of the 2019 Critics' Choice Awards. Jenkins and his stars KiKi Layne, Stephan James, Brian Tyree Henry, Colman Domingo, Finn Wittrock and Michael Beach were all in attendance for the bash and posed for pictures with their host, which have been plastered all over the Internet. Songwriter Diane Warren, Timothee Chalamet and filmmakers Catherine Hardwicke and John Ridley also turned out for the event. "If Beale Street Could Talk" picked up Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress honours - for Regina King - at the Critics Choice Awards on Sunday night, a week after it claimed the same two awards at the Golden Globes. The acclaimed movie, about a young black couple in 1970s Harlem, New York, has already picked up a string of top honours this awards season, with King receiving an armful of Best Supporting Actress honours. The movie is expected to be among those to land multiple nominations ahead of the Oscars. WENN/Dave Bedrosian Celebrity Less than four months before the disgraced producer will stand trial on sex assault charges, claims emerge that Benjamin Brafman will no longer represent him on the case. Jan 15, 2019 AceShowbiz - Harvey Weinstein is reportedly set to part ways with his high-powered attorney Benjamin Brafman as he prepares to stand trial in New York on sex assault charges. The disgraced movie mogul stands accused of raping an unidentified woman in his hotel room in 2013 and forcing another into a sex act in 2006, but he has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex, and Brafman has been fighting to have the criminal counts dismissed due to a lack of evidence. However, as the case moves forward, it appears Brafman will no longer be representing Weinstein. According to ABC News, the top attorney is set to withdraw from the producer's team of legal representatives after purportedly clashing with his client over defence tactics. A spokesperson for Weinstein did not deny the claims of Brafman's exit from the case, but insisted there was nothing to address just yet. Prior to the split, Brafman was successful in having charges relating to one of the three sexual assault incidents filed against Weinstein dropped. He then claimed to have obtained email evidence suggesting many of the statements made about Weinstein's supposed bad behaviour by his two alleged victims were fabricated, and also attacked prosecutors for putting forth a "deeply flawed indictment," accusing them of seeking to try the case in the press. Weinstein has pleaded not guilty to five counts of felony sexual assault and is free on $1 million (760,000) bail. A pre-trial conference is set to take place on March 7, ahead of his trial in May. WENN/FayesVision Movie The 'Bates Motel' actress and the 'Punisher' star will be joining Alessandro Nivola in the cast ensemble of 'The Many Saints of Newark', which production is expected to start in 2019. Jan 15, 2019 AceShowbiz - Vera Farmiga and Jon Bernthal are reportedly in talks to join "The Sopranos" prequel movie. "The Many Saints of Newark" will be set against the backdrop of the city's race riots in 1967 and chronicle the tensions between members of the city's Italian and African-American crime families. Farmiga and Bernthal's potential roles are being kept under wraps, but "Jurassic Park III"'s Alessandro Nivola was recently tapped to play main character Tony Soprano's mentor, Dickie Moltisanti, the father of "The Sopranos" character Christopher Moltisanti, who was portrayed on TV by Michael Imperioli. Soprano was portrayed by late actor James Gandolfini on the hit TV series and his character will be featured in the film. "The thing that interested me most was Tony's boyhood," series creator David Chase, who is writing and producing the new movie, told Deadline. "I was interested in exploring that. The movie will deal with the tensions between the blacks and whites at the time, and Tony Soprano will be part of this, but as a kid." Alan Taylor is directing the film, which starts production later this year. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... WASHINGTON Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker will testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 8, appearing as one of the new Democratic majoritys first witnesses as they seek to provide more stringent oversight of President Donald Trump. In a letter sent to Whitaker Tuesday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler says he is happy to have reached an agreement for you to appear on that date. Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec confirmed that Whitaker would appear. Nadler said last year that Whitaker, a close ally of Trump who has criticized special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation, would be one of his first witnesses once he became chairman. Since then, Trump has nominated former attorney general William Barr for the permanent job meaning Whitaker could potentially be out of office by the time the hearing commences. Barr was testifying before the Senate on Tuesday as Nadler made the announcement. It was unclear how soon Barr would be confirmed, but senators said it could happen as soon as next week. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Whitaker took the job in November after Trump pushed out Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump had repeatedly criticized Sessions for recusing himself from Muellers investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, which is examining ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. Trump calls the probe a witch hunt. Nadler has criticized Whitaker for not recusing himself from the Mueller probe as Sessions did. He said last month that Whitakers decision appeared to be to satisfy President Trump and not to protect the integrity of the department or its ongoing work. Beyond the criticism about his comments on the Russia probe, critics have raised questions about Whitakers involvement with a company that was accused of misleading consumers. In addition, he has faced scrutiny over whether he violated federal law because a campaign committee set up for his failed 2014 U.S. Senate bid accepted $8,800 in donations this year, while Whitaker was serving as a top Justice Department lawyer. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham opened her first State of the State address on Tuesday with a call to seize the immeasurable opportunity provided by a budget surplus to transform New Mexicos school system and set a new course for generations to come. In a 50-minute speech, Lujan Grisham showed off her sense of humor and outlined an ambitious agenda of left-leaning policy proposals touching on climate change, education and guns. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ In this moment, on this new day, we stand together on the precipice of immeasurable opportunity, Lujan Grisham said. Im ready to begin the climb, and I believe that you are, too. The audience filled with lawmakers, family members and other guests gave the new governor a rousing welcome as she entered the chambers and erupted into a brief chant of MLG as she walked away from the podium. It was an obvious reminder of the new political landscape in Santa Fe: Democrats flipped control of the Governors Office, swept every statewide race and expanded their House majority in last years general election. Lujan Grishams speech came as lawmakers began a critical 60-day session the first since a landmark court decision found that New Mexico is violating the rights of some students by failing to provide a sufficient education. Its also the first session for Lujan Grisham as governor. She succeeded Republican Susana Martinez on Jan. 1, putting Democrats in control of the House, Senate and Governors Office for the first time since 2010. Addressing both chambers of the Legislature for the first time, Lujan Grisham promised to be a good listener and said she would work to build a collaborative relationship with lawmakers. Differing response Many of her ideas drew applause from Democratic lawmakers, while Republicans sat quietly. In contrast to her Republican predecessor, Lujan Grisham said she would pursue new gun laws including stronger background check requirements and a ban on gun possession by anyone convicted of assault. She also vowed to support tighter restrictions aimed at keeping household guns away from children. With common-sense reforms, Lujan Grisham said, we can build a state where people who should not have firearms, dont, simple as that. She also said she would direct the state Department of Health to study gun violence and develop data to guide future legislation. Lujan Grisham said she would pursue universal prekindergarten to ensure students start school on equal footing, better pay for educators, and an end to high-stakes testing in New Mexico. Educators, she said, should know this state will support them and treat them with the respect they deserve and have always deserved. She also encouraged lawmakers to reshape the criminal justice system to focus on repeat offenders, not the low-level and nonviolent kids caught in a bad spot. Other priorities, she said, include making opioid addiction a qualifying condition for the medical marijuana program and expanding the reporting requirements on spending by lobbyists. Lujan Grisham also pledged to direct state agencies to develop a plan to combat climate change and pollution, and she said she will push to ramp up the money available for economic development. The new governor didnt call for legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, a priority of some Democrats. She has said previously that she would support legalization with certain conditions, including safeguards against use by children. She touched on the long-standing proposal to amend the state Constitution to authorize withdrawing more money from New Mexicos largest permanent fund to support early childhood education and services. Lawmakers, Lujan Grisham said, should explore taking a responsible pinch of additional money from the permanent fund. Republicans warn House Republicans criticized the governor Tuesday for promoting what they described as unrestrained spending and cautioned that the plan could lead to future budget problems. There seems to be no end to the appetite to spend money, said House Minority Leader James Townsend, R-Artesia, who pointed out that the governor made no mention in her speech of massive unfunded liabilities facing the states two pension funds. House GOP Whip Rod Montoya of Farmington described Lujan Grishams spending plan as a budget based on hope that could put the state on shaky financial ground if oil prices go down. Were following a repeat, basically, of the Richardson administration, Montoya told the Journal, referring to former Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat who served from 2003 through 2010. Budget priority One of the priorities of the session, of course, will be crafting a new state budget. Because of an oil boom in southeastern New Mexico, lawmakers and the governor expect to have about $1.1 billion in new money next year, or revenue beyond this years spending levels. We are aiming high, and I invite you to aim high right alongside me, Lujan Grisham said. We are going to deliver a moonshot for public education in the state of New Mexico. She peppered her speech with the occasional self-deprecating joke, including about the length of her speech, her own wind capacity as a speaker and the number of lawyers in the Legislature. In this room, there are educators, there are public safety officers, coaches, doctors, lawyers a lot of lawyers, she said, as the audience laughed. Lujan Grisham referred to her fiance, Manny Cordova, as the first Manny. Democrats jumped to their feet a few times, showering her with ovations. Some or all of the Republicans joined in occasionally, such as when Lujan Grisham offered thanks to veterans and their families. Sen. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, described the new governors State of the State address as refreshing. He said he was pleased to hear Lujan Grisham embrace renewable energy, in contrast to her predecessor. I thought it was a bold and forward-looking speech that laid out several extremely important policy priorities for the state and our citizens, Steinborn said. Extra measures The gallery overlooking the House floor where Lujan Grisham spoke behind a wooden lectern was already at capacity about an hour before the session began. Extra security measures, including a ban on firearms in the House gallery, led to some long lines as security personnel and State Police checked people for weapons. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... GRAND BOURGTHEROULDE, France French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday encouraged people to list their grievances and propose changes to the countrys economy during a grand debate aimed at appeasing the yellow vest movement, following weeks of anti-government protests. Macron formally launched a three-month national debate during a meeting with about 600 mayors and local officials in Grand Bourgtheroulde, a small town in Normandy. He said he was there to hear the concerns of the French. He started his journey with a stop in the small town of Gasny to attend a local officials meeting, where some expressed their concerns over the loss of purchasing power of retirees and civil servants. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Macron said he wants to help people in a difficult situation find their way out of poverty by making them more responsible, because some are doing the right thing, and some are messing around. The expression, using a vulgar verb in French, was highly commented on social media. The outspoken 42-year-old leader had previously made comments perceived by many French as arrogant, including when he told a jobless man that he just had to cross the street to find work or when he suggested some French workers are lazy. Macron said the yellow vest crisis was a chance to make deeper changes in the country. He notably pledged to reform the pension system this year to make it fairer because some workers currently have more benefits than others depending on their jobs. Despite a high security presence, a ban on traffic and restricted access to the town, more than 100 yellow vest protesters gathered in Grand Bourgtheroulde to express their discontent. Some brief scuffles between demonstrators and police broke out and a few people have been arrested, an AP photographer reported. Security forces used tear gas to push back protesters to a good distance from the meeting with Macron. We are being prevented from accessing the village, said protester Florence Clement. I was crossing the road with my yellow vest but I was asked to remove it because its forbidden. Macron this week addressed a letter to the French to encourage people to express their views. The consultation will take place through local meetings and on the internet. The debate will focus on taxes, public services, climate change and democracy. The French leader, whose popularity ratings hit record lows at the end of last year, hopes the process will help quell anger over his economic policies. About 84,000 people turned out last weekend for the ninth round of anti-government demonstrations across France, according to the French Interior ministry. The yellow vest movement, born in November from discontent over a tax hike on diesel fuel, has expanded to encompass demands for wider changes to Frances economy to help struggling workers. Protesters have denounced Macrons pro-business policies as favoring the rich. The movement is named for the fluorescent garments all French motorists are required to keep in their vehicles. ________________ Oleg Cetinic and Francois Mori in Grand Bourgtheroulde contributed to the story. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... BEIJING China expressed its strong dissatisfaction with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday over his criticism of a death sentence given to a Canadian accused of drug smuggling at a retrial that followed a chilling of relations over the arrest of a senior Chinese technology executive. Trudeau should respect the rule of law, respect Chinas judicial sovereignty, correct mistakes and stop making irresponsible remarks, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. We express our strong dissatisfaction with this, Hua told reporters at a daily briefing. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Her comments are the latest sign of a sharp cooling of China-Canada ties since Canada detained Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. The U.S. wants Meng extradited to face charges that she committed fraud by misleading banks about the companys business dealings in Iran. The Liaoning provincial court in northeastern China announced the death sentence for 36-year-old Robert Lloyd Schellenberg on Monday. Schellenberg was detained more than four years ago, went on trial in 2016 and was initially sentenced to 15 years in prison in November. The Chinese media began republicizing Schellenbergs case after Mengs detention. Within weeks, an appeals court suddenly reversed the earlier decision, saying the sentence was too lenient, and scheduled Mondays retrial with just four days notice. The court gave no indication that the death penalty could be commuted, but observers said Schellenbergs fate is likely to be drawn into diplomatic negotiations over Chinas demand for Mengs release. Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada has asked China to spare the life of Schellenberg. We believe it is inhumane and inappropriate, and wherever the death penalty is considered with regard to a Canadian we speak out against it, Freeland said. Freeland said she had a very emotional conversation with Schellenbergs father on Monday. Schellenbergs defense lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo, said his client plans to appeal the verdict. I cant tell you the relationship between Mr. Schellenbergs last appeal procedure and sensitive events which happened in Canada, Zhang said, but he described the timing of Schellenbergs appeal and retrial as very significant. He declined to elaborate on the significance or to comment specifically on whether recent developments were linked to Meng. Zhang, a Beijing-based lawyer who has taken on several high-profile cases involving foreigners arrested in China, previously represented Phan Sandy Phan-Gillis, an American woman convicted of espionage and deported back to the U.S. in 2017. Questions have swirled over the courts rapid retrial and sentencing of Schellenberg. Zhang said while the courts actions were all lawful, they were also abnormal. Among the unusual features of the proceedings, according to Zhang: the public nature of Schellenbergs December appeal, the swift scheduling of the retrial and the fact that the court announced its sentence just one hour after the trial ended Monday. Trudeau suggested on Monday that China was using its judicial system to pressure Canada over the arrest of Meng, who is also the daughter of Huaweis founder. All countries around the world should be concerned that Beijing is acting arbitrarily with its justice system, Trudeau said. It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply a death penalty, Trudeau said. Canada later updated its travel advisory for China, urging Canadians to exercise a high degree of caution due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws. Hua dismissed such concerns, saying the 222 kilograms (489 pounds) of methamphetamine that Schellenberg was accused of smuggling merited the harsh penalty. When facing such a serious drug smuggling crime, I think any responsible government that takes resolute measures to deal with the case just reflects the responsible attitude and strong determination of the government in protecting the lives and safety of its people, Hua said. A Chinese man convicted of involvement in the same operation was earlier given a suspended death sentence. Describing the case as highly politicized, the human rights group Amnesty International urged that Schellenbergs sentence be revoked. The sudden retrial and apparent rush to judgment has highlighted the numerous flaws in Chinas judicial system, China researcher William Nee said in a statement. Since Mengs detention, China has arrested two Canadians in apparent retaliation. Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, were both arrested on vague national security allegations. A Canadian teacher was detained but released. Hua on Monday denied Kovrig was eligible for diplomatic immunity as Trudeau has maintained. A senior Canadian government official said Chinese officials have been questioning Kovrig about his diplomatic work in China, which is a major reason why Trudeau is asserting diplomatic immunity. The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly about the case, spoke on condition of anonymity. Kovrig, a Northeast Asia analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank, was on a leave of absence from the Canadian government at the time of his arrest last month. Ren Zhengfei, Mengs father and Huaweis founder, told foreign reporters on Tuesday that he doesnt believe the death sentence and arrests of the Canadians are related to Mengs detention. Personally, I dont see a connection between these cases and Meng Wanzhou, he said. Canada has embarked on a campaign with allies to win the release of Kovrig and Spavor. Freeland thanked countries and organizations Germany, France, the Netherlands, the European Union, the United States, Britain, Australia, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia for publicly coming out and speaking against these arbitrary detentions. And that is very important. Last week, Poland arrested a Huawei director and one of its own former cybersecurity experts and charged them with spying for China. The move came amid a U.S. campaign to exert pressure on its allies not to use Huawei, the worlds biggest maker of telecommunications network equipment, over data security concerns. ___ Gillies contributed from Toronto. Associated Press writer Christopher Bodeen contributed from Beijing. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... HARARE, Zimbabwe Zimbabwes police and military patrolled the streets of the capital, Harare, Tuesday as a helicopter fired tear gas at demonstrators blocking a road and burning tires on a second day of deadly protests after the government more than doubled the price of fuel in the economically shattered country. Eight people were killed Monday when police and military fired on crowds, according to Amnesty International. But Zimbabwes government said that three people were killed, including a policeman who was stoned to death by an angry crowd, according to Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa. The anti-government demonstrations amounted to terrorism, said Mutsvangwa on state television Tuesday night. The protests were well coordinated by Zimbabwes opposition, she said. She urged people to return to work and said the government forces would guarantee their security. She also said the government intends to pay an allowance to government workers to cushion them from the effects of the fuel price rise. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ As Zimbabwe was rocked by the protests, President Emmerson Mnangagwa was in Russia and met President Vladimir Putin, to request loans and investment. Police and soldiers went door to door and barged into homes in Mabvuku and other Harare suburbs and assaulted people, according to Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights and witnesses. Many males in Mabvuku went into hiding to avoid being beaten, said residents. The opposition MDC party said its headquarters was attacked. This has been Zimbabwes biggest unrest since deadly post-election violence in August. Witnesses also reported violence in the eastern city of Mutare, where people attacked passenger buses and destroyed some shops. Mutare was quiet by late Tuesday and there were reports of security forces going from home to home in that city and assaulting men suspected of participating in the protests. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp were disabled. Businesses and schools were shut down and public transport vehicles grounded in most of the country despite government assurances that security would be provided. The government over the weekend announced a price of $3.11 per liter (0.26 gallons) for diesel, and $3.33 per liter for gasoline. That makes gasoline in Zimbabwe the most expensive in the world, based on data from GlobalPetrolPrices.com . The site says Hong Kong had the highest price for a liter of gasoline on Jan. 7: $2.04. Lives were lost, police officers were injured, property was damaged and more than 200 people were arrested, said Owen Ncube, the state security minister. He blamed the main opposition MDC party and some civil society groups for stoking violence in an attempt to topple the government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took power after longtime leader Robert Mugabe was forced to resign in November 2017. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions had called for a three-day national shutdown to protest against the fuel price increase announced by Mnangagwa, who then left for Russia on a multi-nation trip to try to attract international investment and loans. He is set to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. As details are released about the inauguration for Navajo Nation President-elect Jonathan Nez, Vice President-elect Myron Lizer and other elected officials, the two incoming leaders are reflecting on their success and working to piece together an administration. Every inauguration is different. I think for this one, its exciting. The momentum is there, Nez said in an interview on Thursday in Window Rock, Arizona. Nezs ascent to the presidency caps a political career that started with him serving as vice president for the Shonto Chapter in Arizona, earning a seat on the Navajo County Board of Supervisors and being elected to three terms on the Navajo Nation Council. As for Lizer, taking the oath of office will complete his transition from the private sector to a place in the political spotlight. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Its new, but just like anything, you put your best foot forward and you lead yourself toward the process, Lizer said on Thursday. As part of his shift, Lizer resigned in December as president of the Navajo Westerners Ace Hardware stores and lumberyards, which he has owned and operated for several years. The two men have been interviewing candidates for administration cabinet posts and expect to announce their appointees soon. Our goal is to get all our political appointees in place, Nez said. Hit the ground running, is what weve been campaigning on. The incoming administration also will review initiatives launched by the outgoing Russell Begaye administration, to determine which of those will continue and which need re-evaluation, he said. Nez also wants his administration to communicate and listen to members of the 24th Navajo Nation Council, who will be sworn in on Tuesday, as well. During the campaign, Nez and Lizer listened to peoples concerns about issues ranging from behavioral health services and housing to roads and more control over natural resources. Those are among the issues the administration looks forward to addressing, Nez said. Were up for the challenge, Nez said. Formalities will surround Tuesdays ceremony with the addition of inaugural addresses by Nezs wife, Phefelia Herbert-Nez, and by Lizers wife, Dottie Lizer. The inclusion of the incoming first and second ladies is a first for an inauguration and demonstrates the administrations focus on families, Nez said. Lizer added both women provided outstanding support to the campaign by attending meetings and interacting with constituents. Theyre in this, too, he said. Fort Defiance, Ariz., hosts inauguration Radio broadcaster L.A. Williams and former council delegate Leonard Chee will serve as the masters of ceremony when the event starts at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Bee Holdzil Fighting Scouts Events Center in Fort Defiance, Arizona. The inauguration is open to the public, and the doors open at 7 a.m. The Tohatchi Veterans Organization and the JROTC teams from Tohatchi and Pinon high schools will post the colors at the start of the ceremony. Council delegate Amber Kanazbah Crotty will give the invocation, and council delegate Tom Chee will give the welcome address. Nez, Lizer and members of the 24th Navajo Nation Council will be sworn in by Navajo Nation Supreme Court Chief Justice JoAnn B. Jayne at noon. Associate Justice Eleanor Shirley will administer the oath of office to the members of the Navajo Board of Election Supervisors, the Navajo Board of Education and the Kayenta Township Commissioners. The new council will consist of incumbents and new members. Returning to the council are Kee Allen Begay Jr., Nelson S. BeGaye, Nathaniel Brown, Amber Kanazbah Crotty, Seth Damon, Herman M. Daniels, Raymond Smith Jr., Otto Tso and Edmund Yazzie. New members are Elmer P. Begay, Paul Begay, Eugenia Charles-Newton, Mark A. Freeland, Pernell Halona, Jamie Henio, Vince James, Rickie Nez, Wilson C. Stewart Jr., Charlaine Tso, Daniel E. Tso, Eugene Tso, Thomas Walker Jr., Edison J. Wauneka and Jimmy Yellowhair. The ceremony will be streamed live at ustream.tv/channel/navajo-nation-council. An inaugural reception featuring music performances by Levi Platero, Adero, The Good Ol Boys, Sunburnt Stone and Cornerstone is set for 6 p.m. at the Bee Holdzil Fighting Scouts Events Center in Fort Defiance. Noel Lyn Smith covers the Navajo Nation for The Daily Times. She can be reached at 505-564-4636 or by email at nsmith@daily-times.com. 2019 The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) Visit The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) at www.daily-times.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... TEHRAN, Iran An Iranian satellite-carrying rocket blasted off into space Tuesday, but scientists failed to put the device into orbit in a launch criticized by the United States as helping the Islamic Republic further develop its ballistic missile program. After the launch, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo repeated his allegation that Irans space program could help it develop a missile capable of carrying a nuclear weapon to the mainland U.S., criticism that comes amid the Trump administrations maximalist approach against Tehran after withdrawing from the nuclear deal. Iran, which long has said it does not seek nuclear weapons, maintains its satellite launches and rocket tests do not have a military component. Tehran also says they dont violate a United Nations resolution that only called upon it not to conduct such tests. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ The rocket carrying the Payam satellite failed to reach the necessary speed in the third stage of its launch, Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said. Jahromi said the rocket had successfully passed its first and second stages before developing problems in the third. That suggests something went wrong after the rocket pushed the satellite out of the Earths atmosphere. He did not elaborate on what caused the failure, but promised that Iranian scientists would continue their work. Iran had said that it plans to send two nonmilitary satellites, Payam and Doosti, into orbit. The Payam, which means message in Farsi, was an imagery satellite that Iranian officials said would help with farming and other activities. Its unclear how the failure of the Payam will affect the launch timing for the Doosti, which means friendship. Jahromi wrote on Twitter that Doosti is waiting for orbit, without elaborating. Tuesdays launch took place at Imam Khomeini Space Center in Irans Semnan province, a facility under the control of the countrys Defense Ministry, Jahromi said. Satellite images published last week and first reported by CNN showed activity at the launch site. Given the facilitys launching corridor, the satellite likely fell in the Indian Ocean. Iranian state television aired footage of its reporter narrating the launch of the Simorgh rocket, shouting over its roar that it sent a message of the pride, self-confidence and willpower of Iranian youth to the world! The TV footage shows the rocket becoming just a pinpoint of light in the darkened sky and not the moment of its failure. The Simorgh, meaning phoenix in Farsi, has been used in previous satellite launches. It is larger than an earlier model known as the Safir, or ambassador, that Iran previously used to launch satellites. Ahmad Motamedi, the chancellor of Tehran Amirkabir University of Technology, which designed the satellite, told the semi-official Mehr news agency that Jahromi already has ordered them to design another satellite. Now, we have earned plenty of experience and we will be able to make a new satellite quicker, he said. Over the past decade, Iran has sent several short-lived satellites into orbit and in 2013 launched a monkey into space. Iran usually displays space achievements in February during the anniversary of its 1979 Islamic Revolution. This year will mark the 40th anniversary of the revolution amid Iran facing increasing pressure from the U.S. under the administration of President Donald Trump. Pompeo has said that Irans plans for sending satellites into orbit demonstrate the countrys defiance of a U.N. Security Council resolution that calls on Iran to undertake no activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Pompeo alleged in a statement Tuesday that the vehicle that Iran tried to put into orbit uses technology that is virtually identical and interchangeable with those used in ballistic missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles. He said the U.S. is working with its partners to counter the entire range of the Islamic Republics threats, including its missile program, which threatens Europe and the Middle East. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promptly slammed Iran over the launch, accusing Tehran of lying and alleging that the innocent satellite was actually the first stage of an intercontinental missile Iran is developing in violation of international agreements. Iran denies wanting nuclear weapons. A 2015 nuclear deal it struck with world powers limited its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. However, Trump pulled America out of the deal in May. While United Nations inspectors say Iran has honored the deal up to this point, the country has threatened to resume higher enrichment. On Tuesday, Iranian state television aired footage of nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi apparently from a previous interview warning Tehran could raise the its enrichment of uranium instantly. In a matter of four days we (are able) to start, he said. ___ Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Aron Heller in Jerusalem contributed to this report. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... The Pentagon will extend its mission along the southern border for eight months, the department said Monday, marking a significant lengthening of President Donald Trumps involvement of the military in his effort to curb migration from Latin America. Acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan approved a request to provide the Department of Homeland Security with assistance though Sept. 30, 2019, the Pentagon said in a statement. Previously, the deployment of active duty forces along the border, which Trump ordered before the November midterm elections, was due to end Jan. 31. The Pentagon is transitioning its support at the southwestern border from hardening ports of entry to mobile surveillance and detection, as well as concertina wire emplacement between ports of entry, the statement said. U.S. troops will also provide aviation support, the statement added. It was not immediately clear how many additional troops the extended mission might require. Spokesmen for the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for details about the extended assignment. The Pentagon has about 2,300 active-duty troops assisting the Department of Homeland Security on the southern border, down from a height of 5,900, a U.S. military spokesman, Mike Kucharek, said last week. About 1,100 soldiers and Marines are assigned to border support in California, with an additional 600 troops in Texas and 650 in Arizona. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ The troops have helped place obstacles along the border and have supported Border Patrol personnel. There are also National Guard troops taking part in activities along the border. In one major sign of the mission winding down, the military last month withdrew all troops from South Texas, including at a base camp in the border town of Donna, where hundreds of soldiers were based temporarily in November. The military closed the camp shortly before Christmas, about five weeks after Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited soldiers there. The extension comes as Trump considers declaring a national emergency that could allow him to use military construction funds to build his border wall. Mondays announcement did not immediately appear to be linked to that possibility, which would potentially produce an end to a standoff between the president and Democratic lawmakers that has resulted in an extended government shutdown. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... WASHINGTON A panel of Republican leaders voted unanimously Monday to keep veteran Iowa lawmaker Steve King off of House committees, a firm rebuke to a influential opponent of illegal immigration who sparked outrage last week after openly questioning whether the term white supremacist was offensive. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said the decision by the Republican Steering Committee, which seats lawmakers on House committees, followed his own recommendation and was meant to send a message about the GOP at large. That is not the party of Lincoln, he said of Kings comments. It is definitely not American. All people are created equal in America, and we want to take a very strong stance about that. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ King, who was elected to a ninth term in November, served on the House Judiciary, Agriculture and Small Business committees in the last Congress. The decision to effectively strip him of those posts came as House Democrats pondered rebukes of their own and as leading Republicans across the party spoke out against him. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said there is no place in the Republican Party, the Congress or the country for an ideology of racial supremacy of any kind, while Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, the partys 2012 presidential nominee, called on King to resign. The recent controversy began when King asked in a New York Times interview published last week, White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization how did that language become offensive? It followed a long string of remarks disparaging of immigrants and minorities, as well as a seeming embrace of far-right foreign politicians and parties that have been openly hostile to those same groups. King, in a statement, said, Leader McCarthys decision to remove me from committees is a political decision that ignores the truth. . . . Ultimately, I told him, You have to do what you have to do, and I will do what I have to do. King did not speak to reporters after leaving an hourlong meeting with McCarthy on Monday evening, before the steering vote. House Democrats could bring up a measure condemning King as soon as Tuesday. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the partys No. 3 leader, on Monday said he would introduce a resolution to express disapproval of Mr. Kings comments and condemnation of white nationalism and white supremacy in all forms. I do so invoking the words of another King, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who, if he had been allowed to live, would be celebrating his 90th birthday Tuesday, he said on the House floor. Dr. King counseled that, We are going to be made to repent, not just for the hateful words and deeds of bad people, but for the appalling silence of good people. But for some Democrats, Clyburns reproach of King which would be similar to the action taken against Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., after he shouted you lie at President Barack Obama during a September 2009 speech on health care did not go far enough. Assistant House Speaker Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., the fourth-ranking Democratic leader, called Kings comments blatantly racist and said every action we should take should be taken and expressed support for a formal reprimand or censure. This needs to stop, he said. Enough with him getting away with this stuff. This is nonsense. Two Democrats Reps. Bobby Rush of Illinois and Tim Ryan of Ohio separately filed resolutions to censure King and indicated that they would force a vote on them this week. Censure is a rarely invoked punishment for conduct bringing dishonor on the House, the most serious punishment that can be levied on one of its members short of expulsion. Kings words and actions have been a frequent subject of controversy, but never before have they prompted any concrete sanction. Shortly before the November election, King lashed out at the media after The Washington Post reported that he had met with members of a far-right Austrian party with historical Nazi ties after flying to Europe for a trip financed by a Holocaust memorial group. Republican leaders largely remained silent. This time, more Republicans than ever are speaking out against King, and last week a prominent state senator announced that he would seek to unseat King in the 2020 Republican primary. Reacting to the loss of Kings committee posts, the challenger, Randy Feenstra, said Monday that voters had lost their seat at the table because of Congressman Kings caustic behavior. King is a figure of prominence in the House GOP, not only due to the controversies he has stoked but also as a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, a leader in opposing legalized abortion and chairman of the Conservative Opportunity Society, an internal caucus of right-wing House Republicans that meets regularly. After the Times interview was published, King issued a statement trying to clean up the controversy and later spoke on the House floor to say that he had made a freshman mistake by taking a reporters call and that the comments were snippets taken out of context of a large conversation. That conversation, he said, was about how did that language get injected into our political dialogue? Who does that? How does it get done? But members of both major parties have become increasingly weary of the repeated cycle of offense and outrage surrounding King. Among those speaking out against King this time include Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the most prominent black Republican in Congress. McConnell on Monday became the highest-ranking Republican to speak out against King. I have no tolerance for such positions and those who espouse these views are not supporters of American ideals and freedoms, McConnell said in a written statement to The Washington Post. Rep. Kings statements are unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position. If he doesnt understand why white supremacy is offensive, he should find another line of work. Also Monday, the leader of the Anti-Defamation League called on Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and McCarthy to censure King and remove him as the top Republican on a House Judiciary subcommittee. Jonathan Greenblatt, the groups chief executive and national director, said in a letter to the House leaders that it was the second time that he had made such a request. When it comes to Rep. King, we are beyond substantive disagreements. Rep. King has brought dishonor onto the House of Representatives, Greenblatt wrote. By censuring King, he added, you will make clear that his actions were deeply offensive, wrong, and that the U.S. House of Representatives will not tolerate anti-Semitism or bigotry in any form. Democratic leaders, managing a House majority, have been cautious in their comments on King. Censures of House members in the recent past have been done on a largely bipartisan basis following extensive investigations by the House Ethics Committee. Pelosi said Friday theres interest in doing something about King but declined to discuss specifics. The last censure took place in 2010, under Pelosis first speakership, when Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., was rebuked on a 333-to-79 vote for financial misdeeds. Seventy-seven Democrats and two Republicans opposed censure. Rush said a serious response was warranted by Kings repeated statements: The U.S. Congress cannot be a platform for Steve King and those of his ilk. From Charleston to Charlottesville to Chicago to California, there is no home for this behavior, especially the floor of the United States House of Representatives. Anything short of censure, he added, would be shallow. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE Ridership on New Mexicos commuter rail system has tumbled so far during the past decade that legislative analysts now recommend closing or limiting service at one station in downtown Bernalillo. At the least, analysts said, the state should avoid opening new stations and focus instead on efforts that would trim travel times and make the Rail Runner Express more competitive with commuting by car. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ The legislative report, issued Monday, found that ridership on the train fell last year to its lowest level since service to Santa Fe began about a decade earlier. Ridership totaled 787,000 trips in fiscal 2018, a 37 percent decrease from its peak of about 1.2 million trips in 2010. Analysts working for the Legislative Finance Committee recommended that the state focus future funding on core needs such as upgrading rail track to allow for higher train speeds in rural areas rather than building new stations. They suggested, for example, that potential ridership doesnt appear strong enough to warrant new stations at the Balloon Fiesta Park or the Albuquerque International Sunport. Ridership hasnt increased even as four new stations have come online over the past nine years, they said. In fact, analysts said, the state and Rio Metro the agency that operates the Rail Runner should close or limit service at the downtown Bernalillo station, which is the least-used and just a mile from one of the most-popular stops, at U.S. 550 in Sandoval County. Analysts also suggested the state encourage dense, mixed-use development around transit stations, if market conditions will support it. Im not certain theres an easy solution, Sen. Carlos Cisneros, a Questa Democrat and vice chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, said in an interview. The immediate priority, he said, should be completing safety improvements required by the federal government. Rio Metro says it has pieced together a $60 million plan to make the upgrades. No one at Mondays meeting of the Legislative Finance Committee suggested shutting the train down an idea thats surfaced occasionally. A 2015 study said that selling the Rail Runner wasnt feasible. But lawmakers didnt sound optimistic about reversing the drop in ridership. Im not sure anything is going to increase ridership unless we have an increase in population, said Sen. Clemente Sanchez, D-Grants. Cisneros said ridership levels appear to track gasoline prices. When fuel is cheap, he said, people drive rather than ride. Legislative analysts said Monday that the Rail Runners limited schedule, frequency of service and long travel times are commonly cited as reasons people dont ride. Core improvements that address those complaints should be a priority, they said. Sen. Mark Moores, R-Albuquerque, said it typically takes him about 50 minutes to drive from his home to the Roundhouse half as long as when he took the train, when accounting for transportation to and from the station. Basically, it doubles your commute to the Capitol from your house, he said. The train was launched in 2006 under the administration of then-Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat. It connects Belen, Albuquerque and Santa Fe. After strong initial interest, the Rail Runners ridership has consistently decreased since 2010, said Brian Hoffmeister, an analyst for the Legislative Finance Committee. Fares are low, he said, and the train remains a cost-effective alternative to commuting by car. But there just isnt that much traffic congestion in central New Mexico, Hoffmeister told lawmakers. The state built a $1 million stop for University of New Mexico sporting events, he said, but it hasnt been used since 2011. Terry Doyle, director of the Rio Metro transit agency, said he will seek state funding this year largely as a match required to secure federal grants for core improvements to the train system. The requests include about $600,000 to improve the trains Wi-Fi for passengers and $2.4 million to help upgrade traffic signals to cut travel times between Belen and Santa Fe by eight minutes. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. Life has not been easy for Jazmine Grajeda, 19, the third-eldest of eight children born into a Santa Fe family. When she was 5, her mother went to prison and her father sent her to live with her grandmother. Several years later, her mother got out of prison and was able to get custody of her children again. But for the next eight years of my life, my parents were unable to provide me with the consistency and stability that I needed in my life, she said. At age 14, she says, she was kicked out of the family home. She subsequently dropped out of high school after one semester. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ I began working to support myself, and at the age of 16 I got emancipated. Then at 17, I gave high school another try, and I will get my diploma in May. Grajeda tearfully related her experiences Monday during the grand opening of Albuquerques first drop-in center focusing on mental and behavioral health support and prevention. She was one of a group of young people who helped to design the program, called Youth BLAST, for Building Lives Around Self Truth, operating out of the Johnny Tapia Community Center at Wells Park, 500 Mountain NW. New Day Youth and Family Services will oversee the day-to-day operation of the drop-in center, while a host of community partners will provide specific on-site services throughout the week. Grajeda said she was able to overcome her past and set and reach new goals with the help of staff members at New Day and at Health Leadership High School, where she is a senior. There are many other Albuquerque youths who are going through similar challenges, and with Youth BLAST, they can receive the support they need to succeed, she said. The Youth BLAST pilot program is being funded for two years by $300,000 from the Bernalillo County Behavioral Health Initiative, a voter-approved tax. The city of Albuquerque is donating space in the community center to house the program, which will operate each Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from noon to 7:30 p.m., said Ali Moore, director of the Community Connections for New Day Youth and Family Services. The drop-in center is geared for young people ages 16 to 22 who are in transition from adolescence to adulthood, Moore said. It is intended to take away all barriers that prevent young people from gaining access to support services and meaningful youth opportunities, including the resumption of their education and exploration of employment and career possibilities. Young people, she said, can get services without needing a formal referral, insurance or a custodians or a parents consent. Just as important, Moore said, the facility is a much-needed, all-inclusive safe place where young people can go to meet one another and have a sense of belonging. The facility will provide snacks and a kitchen to cook food, and it will maintain a donation closet with school supplies, personal hygiene products and survival gear, such as sleeping bags, for homeless youths. Young people, including Grajeda, were involved in every component of program development and determining what strategic partnerships would be beneficial, as well as influencing policies and procedures, Moore said. Among the community partners are Pegasus Legal Services for Children; Warehouse 508, offering art and literary programs; Centro Savila, providing bilingual case management and therapeutic services; University of New Mexico Truman Health Services, delivering sex education and HIV and Hepatitis C testing; and Street Safe New Mexico, which does outreach for exploited women who live and work on the streets and are in need of safety planning. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. The death of a man in southwest Albuquerque that detectives were investigating as suspicious last week has been determined to be a suicide, according to police. On Jan. 10, officers were called to a home on 64th and Churchill SW for a reports that man had shot himself. When they arrived they found a man lying in the doorway, dead, with a gun next to him, according to officer Simon Drobik, a spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department. He said the woman who reported the death had some inconsistencies in her statements so homicide detectives began investigating. They executed search warrants and conducted interviews. On Monday, Gilbert Gallegos, another APD spokesman, said the death has been reclassified as a suicide. He did not identify the m ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. A holding company created by a New York private equity firm has acquired Albuquerque-based ticketing software company HoldMyTicket for an undisclosed sum. Its the second New Mexico acquisition in four months for Aquiline Capital Partners, the company behind Fullsteam Operations LLC. In September, Fullsteam purchased Albuquerque-based software firm Event Rental Systems, also under undisclosed terms. Aquiline and Fullsteam have not yet responded to a request for comment. In a news release, Fullsteam CEO Michael A. Lawler called HoldMyTicket a great company that enables Fullstream to enter the event ticketing space. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ The software package is first class, and we believe they are in a great position for growth in the coming years, said Lawler HoldMyTicket CEO Wes Edling said the Fullsteam transaction closed a few days before Christmas. He said he plans to stay in his position and that HoldMyTicket will hire additional developers, sales and marketing personnel over the coming year. Were remaining a New Mexico business, and everyone will remain on staff, said Edling. (Fullsteam) will invest back into our company, and help synergize resources across the other companies they acquire. HoldMyTickets services include online sales, event management and on-site scanning technology, according to the companys website. Edling told the Journal HoldMyTickets 2018 revenue was around $15 million. In 2016, it was about $7.5 million. Rob Weinstein, CEO and co-founder of Event Rental Systems, said his companys deal with Fullsteam will allow Event Rental Systems to add to the companys 13-person team and explore new markets. Currently, the company automates business services for party rental companies. He said Event Rental Systems grew quickly before the acquisition and that revenue is up more than 50 percent year-over-year, though he declined to provide the actual figures. In a May 2018 news release, Aquiline described Fullsteam as a new holding company with a mission to acquire software and payments businesses across a range of vertical markets. Our goal is to create the leader in integrated software and payments in our focus markets, said Aquiline Chairman and CEO Jeff Greenberg in the release. Aquilines other acquisitions through Fullsteam include Georgia-based formal wear software company BridalLive, California-based self-storage software firm DOMICO and Connecticut-based equipment rental software company Rental Management Inc. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Federal officials plan to ease restrictions on flying small drones over crowds and at night, which would give a boost to the commercial use of unmanned aircraft. The Federal Aviation Administration outlined draft rules Monday that would let drone operators do those things without a special waiver from current rules. For example, waivers for night flights would no longer be needed for operators who go through special training and put anti-collision lighting on their drones. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Its not clear how long it might be before the FAAs easing goes into effect. The FAA said it wont take final action until it finishes another regulation regarding remote identification of small drones, which analysts say could be years away. Critics have charged that the FAA has stymied the commercial use of drones by taking the rigid approach to safety involving airliners and applying the same standard to the operation of small drones. Regulators say they are trying to balance the commercial possibilities of drones with the potential threat they pose to safety and privacy. Companies including CNN and insurance provider State Farm have won waivers to operate drones over people and out of the view of the devices operator. Pro-drone groups, however, argue that forcing companies to get waivers from the FAA is holding back beneficial technology for use in agriculture, energy and many other industries. A major trade group of drone users praised Mondays development. Brian Wynne, president of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, said that allowing widespread operations over people without a waiver will allow more operators to harness the great potential of unmanned aircraft. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, whose department includes the FAA, sought to straddle the commerce-versus-safety debate. The department is keenly aware that there are legitimate public concerns about drones, Chao said in remarks to a transportation group. The rules released Monday, she added, will be a major step forward in enabling the safe development, testing and deployment of drones in our country. The proposal to let operators fly drones over crowds or at night without a special waiver will be put out for public comment as soon as possible. In its draft rules, the FAA proposed to divide drone operations by weight, the potential for each unmanned vehicle to cause injuries if it crashes, and other factors. Drones under 55 pounds (25 kilograms) would be permitted to fly over people if, on contact they would not produce severe injuries. Drone manufacturers could meet that standard by adjusting the weight, speed and materials they use, the FAA said. The FAA is grappling with questions such as whether to set minimum separation distances and maximum speeds for small drones weighing less than 55 pounds. The agency is not currently considering setting so-called stand-off distance requirements, which would require that small drones stay a certain distance from people. The agency said using precise numbers would be too burdensome to operators. The United Kingdom sets minimum distances, and Canadian and European regulators recently proposed them. The agency is also working on a process to let owners of national-security sites, amusements parks and other places petition the FAA for a ban on drones near their properties. Rogue drones have been used to carry bombs on battlefields, to deliver contraband to prisoners, to interfere with firefighters and, last month, to cripple the operations of a major airport, Gatwick in London. Last year, Congress approved a measure that will let the government develop a system to identify and hack or shoot down drones that authorities deem threatening. ___ David Koenig can be reached at http://twitter.com/airlinewriter .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. Central New Mexico Community College was put on lockdown while Albuquerque police looked for an armed suspect nearby Monday afternoon, according to the colleges Facebook page. Around 1:10 p.m. the University of New Mexico announced police had arrested the suspect. He was described as a black man, 5 feet 10 inches tall wearing a black hoodie, black pants and black shoes, according the UNM and CNM. It was not immediately clear why police are looking for the man or what he did. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... SANTA FE, N.M. Former University of New Mexico law school associate dean and congressional candidate Antoinette Sedillo Lopez said she would push to expand health care access and protect victims of domestic violence after being appointed Monday to a vacant Senate seat. The Bernalillo County Commission voted unanimously to appoint Sedillo Lopez to the Albuquerque-based Senate District 16 seat that was vacated when Cisco McSorley resigned last week to work as probation and parole director in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grishams administration. Sedillo Lopez, a Democrat who was sworn in shortly after being appointed, told commissioners during a special meeting to fill the vacancy she could hit the ground running as a state senator. I have the mind for this, I have the passion for this, and I can meaningfully contribute to the senate for my district and for our state, Sedillo Lopez said. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ She told the Journal later in the day she planned to take part in Senate Democrats meeting with Lujan Grisham on Monday evening and had already been working on proposed legislation for the 60-day session due to her involvement with the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Its a wonderful time to join the state Senate because we have a governor who wants to get things done and we have resources, Sedillo Lopez said. During Mondays meeting, Bernalillo County Commission Chairwoman Maggie Hart Stebbins noted that the commission was moving quickly on the appointment to ensure that the Senate district had a representative when the legislative session begins at noon today. In all, 19 candidates applied for the Senate seat, which McSorley had held since 1997. Sedillo Lopez also ran last year for the open Albuquerque-based 1st Congressional District seat, coming in third in a six-way Democratic primary race that was won by Deb Haaland. Haaland went on to defeat two general election opponents and was sworn into office earlier this month. During her bid for Congress, Sedillo Lopezs platform included extending legal protections for so-called Dreamers whose parents brought them to the U.S. illegally, enacting Medicare health care coverage for all, expanding renewable energy and raising the federal minimum wage. She was raised in the Los Chavez farming community south of Albuquerque and spent 27 years as a professor at UNM, including eight as director of clinical law programs and associate dean for clinical affairs with a focus on social justice and civil rights issues. Sedillo Lopez becomes the eighth woman in the 42-member state Senate, which still has one other vacancy. City Editor Martin Salazar contributed to this report .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... SANTA FE Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is asking for options not just one candidate as she considers who will replace Democrat Howie Morales in the state Senate. The three counties within Morales old district Grant, Catron and Socorro each nominated the same person to fill the vacancy: Gabriel Ramos, a Democrat from Hurley. But Lujan Grisham notified the counties in a letter over the weekend that she wants at least two more candidates, with one from each of the individual counties. State law, she said, calls for the county commission in each county to submit one name, and the governor is to pick someone from the list of names submitted. That language suggests the law was aimed at generating multiple candidates, she said. Lujan Grisham told reporters Monday that she isnt necessarily opposed to appointing Ramos, but she wants choices. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ This is intended to make sure we meet the spirit of the law, Lujan Grisham said. Morales, D-Silver City, left the Senate after winning election as lieutenant governor. He and Lujan Grisham, both Democrats, took office Jan. 1. Both Morales and Ramos are from Grant County. Senate District 28 covers a chunk of southwestern New Mexico. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... PHOENIX A former top prosecutor in Phoenix was hired Monday by a health care facility to investigate the circumstances into how a patient in a vegetative state gave birth after she was sexually assaulted. Police are conducting a separate criminal investigation. Former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley said Monday that his review for Hacienda HealthCare will focus on patient-security procedures and management practices to ensure patients dont suffer harm in the future. They gave me assurances that they wanted to not just find out what happened, but they (also) wanted to correct the situation, he said. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ The 29-year-old victim has been in Haciendas care since she became incapacitated at age 3 after suffering a near-drowning. She gave birth Dec. 29. The child will be taken in by the mothers family. The sexual assault has triggered not only a police investigation but reviews by state regulatory agencies. Hacienda CEO Bill Timmons resigned a week ago after news surfaced of the sexual assault. A nurse who cared for the victim during her delivery said in a 911 call that she was unaware that the patient was pregnant. Investigators are gathering DNA from all men who worked at the facility. A lawyer representing the victims family has said the family was outraged at the neglect of their daughter. Unlike police, Romley will not have subpoena power to force employees to give DNA samples. Still, he said he would encourage any employee to cooperate with investigators. Romley said he made it clear to Haciendas board that he will not bury any wrongdoing he may uncover. I call it as I see it, and if not, I walk away, Romley said. Romley said his review will include examining how visitors enter Haciendas buildings, whether doors are locked, reviewing safety audits and complaints, and trying to speak with the chief executive who recently quit. The former prosecutor also said he will ask doctors who cared for the victim why they didnt know sooner that she was pregnant. Romley is known for leading a team of prosecutors who pressed cases against Catholic priests in a sex abuse scandal about 15 years ago. The Hacienda facility serves infants, children and young adults who are medically fragile or have developmental disabilities, according to its website. ___ Follow Jacques Billeaud at twitter.com/jacquesbilleaud. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE A key New Mexico legislative budget panel unveiled a $7 billion spending plan for next fiscal year that would use tax dollars from a spike in oil production to increase teacher salaries, send more money to classrooms with high numbers of at-risk students and add at least 10 days to the states current school year in response to a landmark court ruling on education funding. In all, the Legislative Finance Committee budget plan released Monday would increase year-over-year state spending by $670.8 million or 10.6 percent and would earmark more than three-fifths of the additional spending for public schools statewide. Learning activities for students are going to increase considerably under the proposed spending infusion, Sen. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, chairwoman of the Legislative Education Study Committee, told a news conference at the state Capitol on the eve of a 60-day session, which starts at noon today. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ However, although the budget proposal is similar in many ways to a separate plan rolled out last week by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, it also contains several important differences. Notably, the legislative budget blueprint would not appropriate an estimated $300 million to pay off a backlog in state film rebates, an action that Lujan Grisham has proposed, along with eliminating an annual cap on film subsidy spending, to invigorate the states film industry. A legislative economist said the state would be spending roughly $200,000 per film industry job if the annual cap were eliminated. In addition, the new Democratic governor, who was sworn into office Jan. 1, has proposed earmarking $75 million for a state closing fund thats intended to spur economic development by luring out-of-state companies to New Mexico. The legislative budget plan includes only about $4 million for the program. Lujan Grisham, speaking to reporters gathered for her first Cabinet meeting, said its natural for the executive and legislative branches to see things a bit differently at the outset of budget talks. In some areas, she said, the two proposals this year share broad priorities but differ on the details. Our budget should be different than the LFC budget, Lujan Grisham said. Its a different perspective. There are places where I think we are aligned, while the numbers are a bit different. She and Olivia Padilla-Jackson, the governors pick to head the state Department of Finance and Administration, said the administrations proposal would maintain higher reserve levels, would be more aggressive on education and would address serious understaffing in some state departments. But they said they dont believe theyre too far apart from the proposal by legislators. We are completely open to working with every member of the Legislature, Lujan Grisham said. We are ready and willing to negotiate. Meanwhile, Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, urged caution despite the unprecedented state revenue growth, saying 45 cents out of every state dollar spent is now attributable to the states energy industry. We have an awful lot of eggs in one basket, Smith said. This state is so heavily reliant on oil and gas. Some Republican lawmakers agreed with those comments, calling the proposed spending increases in both the Legislature and governors budget plans too aggressive in light of the historic volatility of oil and gas prices. The honest truth is both of these budgets are way overspending, Rep. Jason Harper, R-Rio Rancho, told reporters. Were just setting ourselves up to cut education again. School funding Public school spending already makes up 44 percent of the state budget, and that figure would go up under both budget recommendations. The LFC budget plan would increase public school spending by $416.6 million or 14.9 percent and would use some of that money to raise minimum starting teacher pay to $40,000 a year up from $36,000 and give all educators a 5.5 percent salary increase. School principals would get an even larger pay hike. In addition, the states funding formula for public schools would be adjusted so more money would flow to districts with large populations of Native American, disabled and low-income students, along with English-language learners. Also, an existing K-3 Plus program that provides summer school for roughly 300 low-income or low-performing schools statewide would be expanded to include fourth- and fifth-grade students. Top-ranking legislators expressed confidence Monday that the education package, which will be introduced as stand-alone legislation, would sufficiently address a July 2018 ruling by a state judge that New Mexico was failing to meet its constitutional requirement to provide a sufficient education to all students. Retired District Judge Sarah Singleton gave lawmakers and the governor an April deadline to come up with a plan to comply with her ruling. I think this budget has addressed exactly what the judge asked us to do, said Senate President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen, a Las Cruces Democrat. Some groups involved in the court case have called for a funding increase in the $1 billion range, but House Speaker Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, said that would not be a responsible approach. There is simply no way for $1 billion to be absorbed by the states 89 school districts in a year, Egolf said. Raise for state workers After nearly a decade of little or no salary growth, other state workers would pocket larger paychecks under the legislative budget plan rolled out Monday. Rank-and-file state employees would get a 4 percent salary bump, and judges would receive a 6 percent salary increase. In addition, the plan calls for $27.2 million to be spent during the coming budget year to increase how much money the state pays into the retirement accounts of teachers and state workers. Both of the states two large public retirement systems have seen their unfunded liabilities increase in recent years, and a June 2018 downgrade of the states credit rating was due largely to concern over the pension funds financial situation. Meanwhile, the LFC budget plan also calls for about $400 million to be spent on state and local road projects, and additional one-time spending on other infrastructure projects. That money would come from surplus state dollars, not from issuing new state bonds. Even with the ramped-up spending, nearly $1.5 billion would be set aside in cash reserves in case projected state revenue levels do not materialize. The governors budget plan and the Legislatures recommendation will serve as blueprints of sorts as lawmakers get to work coming up with a final budget for the fiscal year that starts in July. Journal Capitol Bureau reporter Dan McKay contributed to this report. Comparison of budget plans The budget recommendation released Monday by the Legislative Finance Committee is largely similar to a separate plan proposed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Here are some key similarities and differences between the two proposals: Similarities Both call for an increase in the public school funding formula for at-risk students, including Native Americans, English-language learners and those with disabilities. Salaries for teachers and state workers would go up under both plans. Teachers would get a 5.5 percent raise under the LFC plan and a 6 percent hike under the governors plan. Taxpayer-funded retirement contributions for teachers and state workers would increase under both plans. Differences The LFC plan would not appropriate funding to pay off an estimated $300 million backlog in state film rebates; the governors plan would. A state closing fund for economic development would get $75 million under the governors plan and just $4 million under the LFCs recommendation. State prekindergarten programs would get about $25 million more under Lujan Grishams plan than under the LFC proposal. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... What happens in Santa Fe only makes sense in Santa Fe should replace New Mexico True as our state slogan, or maybe we should try Your money is a terrible thing to waste, except in Santa Fe. New Mexico is in the rare position of having a budget surplus. This is the direct result of keeping government spending in check and months of higher than expected oil prices. Our $1.1 billion surplus comes after three years of near insolvency, where the state had to steal from every school board that tucked away a few dollars under the mattress. These one-time dollars are being treated as income well have every year because amnesia and irresponsibility are making the rounds in Santa Fe. Democrat leaders are suggesting we spend nearly every extra dollar and increase annual spending by 10 percent. Not stopping there, they want to increase income taxes on the middle class and raise the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon. All of this on top of their idea to raid the permanent fund and to give 25 percent of our surplus to Hollywood executives. Not finished yet, they want to remove any limit of taxpayer dollars to Hollywood going forward. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Is this what New Mexico voters wanted when they gave unchecked power to a single party in November? We dont think so, and therefore wed like to make the case for a more reasonable set of priorities. First and foremost We think that raising taxes on New Mexican families and businesses makes absolutely no sense when we have a $1.1 billion surplus. While they are debating how much to give Hollywood, we believe a portion of the surplus should go back to New Mexican taxpayers in a rebate. Second We have an historic opportunity to invest one-time dollars in our children and our schools. We want to give bonuses to teachers and return monies swept from schools when oil revenues were down. Third Our over-stressed and under-funded roads desperately need a substantial investment to get us back on track after several lean budget years. Fourth We need to raise our yearly education budget by 4 percent to increase classroom funding and teacher pay. Democrat leaders are suggesting a 10 percent increase, which is not only unsustainable, its just plain irresponsible. Such an increase would force us to raise taxes as soon as the crude oil market adjusts down again. We all hope that oil revenues stay strong, but years of market volatility cannot be ignored. We believe these concerns are New Mexicans top issues, not a $200 million handout to Hollywood. Santa Fes spending priorities should reflect yours, instead we get a constant parade of bad investments such as the Rail Runner, the Spaceport, a super computer and now Hollywood Welfare. House Republicans hold 24 seats so the Democrats can tax and spend without restraint and have indicated their intention to do so. Voters will need to hold them accountable when they raise your taxes, reduce services or steal from school reserves. Our proposals are good for all New Mexicans and merit bipartisan support. Santa Fe logic, however, places a higher priority on Hollywood millionaires than on your community. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... RIO RANCHO, N.M. The PARCC education assessment has met its demise. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Jan. 2 ordered the states Public Education Department to terminate New Mexicos use of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers standardized test, commonly known as PARCC. The executive order called on the PED still without a permanent director to work with key stakeholders to identify and implement what Lujan Grisham called a more effective, more appropriate and less intrusive method for assessing school performance and have it comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. The development of the new approach will include teachers, administrators, parents, students and recognized professionals and experts in student assessments, aiming at a sounder methodology for evaluating New Mexico schools, ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ This is the first of many steps we will take to transform education in this state, Lujan Grisham said in a news release. High-stakes tests like PARCC do our schools a disservice, and we are about empowering our school system. Including those who will be most empowered by a better assessment in the process will help us build something better from the ground up, as opposed to a test mandated from on high. In her second executive order, Lujan Grisham called for an end to using PARCC in teacher evaluations, with PED tasked with incorporating into its analysis a variety of proven means of measuring teacher efficacy. The governor also announced that Lt. Gov. Howie Morales will take on the duties of cabinet secretary at the Public Education Department until the administration identifies a full-time appointee to lead the agency. Among those in the Cabinet Room when the governor issued the executive orders was a Rio Rancho teacher, Billie Helean of Maggie Cordova Elementary. The view in Rio Rancho The executive orders delighted Rio Rancho High School Principal Sherri Carver and Cleveland High Principal Scott Affentranger. Im glad PARCC is going away, Carver said. (I) never liked the test to be included in teacher evals. Good teachers will continue to do what they do best, which is teaching, no matter what evaluation system is in place. Carver said she was concerned about whether PARCC would be continued for the remainder of this school year because, We are gearing up (for the upcoming testing period). Affentranger said he believed most educators were pleased with the governors actions. The PARCC test took students several hours to complete and, arguably, was not a great reflection of what they were being taught, therefore student motivation to do well was not high, he said. When growth in the PARCC was made part of the evaluation system, that upset most educators and was one of the reasons we have been calling the evaluation system unfair. I dont think the removal of PARCC will have any negative effects in teaching and learning. He said many people would like to see the ACT test considered as a way to evaluate high schools. RRPS Superintendent Sue Cleveland said the new governors decrees were anticipated. Most of the original PARCC consortium states are no longer using the exam, Cleveland said. We know that the (PED) will be working with districts on a new plan for student assessment. We look forward to working with them as we recognize the value of having an instrument that helps to measure student understanding and improve instruction. District 9 state Sen. John Sapien (D-Sandoval, Bernalillo counties) applauded the changes. I am confident that her efforts will only help us identify the best practices to ensure that our children are given the tools to continue to succeed in their educational endeavors, he said. The school grading and teacher evaluation systems relied on flawed algorithms, which were never tested to prove accuracy, never peer-reviewed. Looking ahead, he said, The current system will be reformed and help our teachers become better educators and not just be penalized for missing days at work due to illness or family tragedy, or for a test that was administered on their past students proficiency. There was dissension District 60 State Rep. Tim Lewis, a Republican and Cibola High School teacher, wasnt as happy. I would never hold PARCC as being perfect, but needlessly casting it aside will cost a lot of time and millions in funding, he said. As a teacher, I know the law requires us to asses our students to help ensure they are learning. What the new test looks like in the future, and will it better serve our students, is unknown. Also, stating it was deeply disappointed, Educators Elevating New Mexico, a nonpartisan educators group, released a statement following Lujan Grishams executive order. Todays announcement was a sign of disrespect towards (sic) so many of our states teachers, students and families many of whom have not been consulted or listened to on these decisions of great importance for our kids, the statement said. From Clovis to Gallup, from Gadsden to Des Moines, we have all worked incredibly hard to improve student achievement and we are proud to have a statewide assessment, as required by federal law, that measures actual college and career readiness. EENM said the governor didnt consult it or other educator groups that represented rural communities and high-performing teachers. The myth that the teachers union speaks for all teachers must come to an end once-and-for-all, the statement said. Later in the week, EENM sent a letter listing 11 reasons among them, millions of dollars to be spent creating a new assessment for its opposition. It was signed by 64 state educators, including seven with RRPS. New Mexico teachers are left with no answers to the questions that impact our students and families and classrooms the most. Anxiety is high, uncertainty is high, and anger and low morale will likely follow, EENM added. Teachers unions on-board State teachers union presidents expressed excitement and approval over the end of PARCC. Teachers no longer have to fear testing, said Betty Patterson, president of NEA-NM and a Rio Rancho resident with grandchildren in Rio Rancho schools. They can go back to teaching students in their classes and not just doing test prep, she said. Students can stop worrying about the test. Many special-education teachers can feel free to meet IEPs (individual education plans) and students needs. Teachers need to be encouraged to be creative again! American Federation of Teachers New Mexico union President Stephanie Ly found it extremely encouraging that Lujan Grisham had acted on a major promise and showed that educators and communities will be empowered to use our expertise and experiences to create and implement assessments and instruction that better serves our students. (This) is a victory for students, families and educators, she said. Katherine Grandstrand kgrandstrand@aberdeennews.com There are 10 states and a whole neighboring country where recreational marijuana use is legal, but using pot when traveling could get South Dakota residents in legal trouble when they get back home. South Dakota charges ingestion of drugs separately from possession, meaning someone can be charged with a crime if a blood or urine test comes back positive for marijuana or other drugs. If somebody somehow has drugs in their system, under South Dakota law, its a crime, said Chris White, Brown County states attorney. It all comes down to prosecutorial discretion. Possession of a small amount of marijuana 2 ounces or less is a misdemeanor in South Dakota, as is a drug test that comes back positive for marijuana. Other forms of marijuana, like hash, are charged as felonies. Any substance thats illegal in South Dakota that somebody has in their system while theyre in South Dakota could be a violation of South Dakota law, White said. Tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive compound in marijuana, is fat-soluble, which means traces stay in the system long after impairment, said Jamie Milbrandt, Avera Addiction Care Center counselor. Impairment can last up to 24 hours, but it could be weeks before a drug test comes back clean. If it is just a one-time, small use, then it may be out in a few days, Milbrandt said. But if it is part of the issues that we have is that its really high-grade THC that were seeing so it does stay in the system a lot longer. So it could be two weeks to four weeks before someone has it out of their system. Cannabidiol CBD is also getting a lot of press lately. Its an oil that can be extracted from marijuana or hemp and can be found in products like lotion or mascara. Medically, its showing some promising effects for treating seizures or anxiety. Cannabidiol generally wont show up in a drug test, Milbrandt said. Urine and blood tests look for THC. In South Dakota, CBD is currently only legal with a prescription. Legislativechanges Two years ago, Sen. Justin Cronin, R-Gettysburg, proposed a bill that would have removed altered forms of marijuana from the felony possession by ingestion list, citing fiscal concerns. That bill was tabled in committee at the request of Cronin. The January 2017 average daily count of state prison inmates with the most serious offense being ingestion of a controlled substance was 263, Cronin told the judiciary committee in February of that year. While he didnt have any specific proof, he didnt think marijuana use was the biggest problem for most inmates, Cronin told the committee. His research indicated about $4 million would be saved annually in corrections- related costs for the 263 inmates. I was thinking there would be a lot bigger number, Cronin said during the committee meeting. He could not be reached for comment for this story. Then-Rep. Dan Kaiser, R-Aberdeen, was a sponsor of the bill in the House. By putting up this bill, it would have brought more continuity to the marijuana laws and make everything Class 1 misdemeanors, he said. Im assuming it got tabled because it has the word marijuana in it. Typically, because it riles both sides up so much, even if youre trying to do the right thing that everyone would agree on when you talk to them ... publicly, it looks terrible, because youre signing onto a marijuana bill. (People say,) Oh my God, theyre pro-pot. Cronin said in his 2017 testimony that he received hundreds of calls from across the country from people assuming he was trying to legalize marijuana in South Dakota. Kaiser, who is a sergeant on the Aberdeen Police Department, said the bill quickly fell off his radar after it was tabled. Lawmakers have until Jan. 28 to introduce drafts of new bills during the 2019 session. Getting caught Someone would have to show signs of impairment for the Aberdeen Police Department to intervene and request a drug test, said police Capt. Eric Duven. In a driving-under-the- influence case, for example, someone would have to violate traffic laws and then present signs of alcohol, marijuana or other drug use, he said. But someone pulled over for DUI who blows over the legal limit could also have a blood draw. And if theres marijuana in their system, they could also be charged with possession by ingestion. There is a Canadian company thats working on a breath test to check for actual marijuana impairment, rather than traces of previous use, Milbrandt said. Both American and Canadian jurisdictions are testing it. I think thats a huge push and a really good thing that theyre doing, Milbrandt said. I think it will be helpful, especially for DUI situations. No one from the police department will go knocking on someones door demanding a drug test after theyve gotten back from vacation in California, Duven said. Essentially, someone would have to violate another law and then be asked to take a drug test to get charged with possession by ingestion of marijuana if they used in a place where its legal, White said. A blood test is generally only requested in DUI cases or if there was a fatal crash, Duven said. Workconsequences Most workplaces have rules and regulations regarding the use of substances whether it be alcohol, marijuana or prescription drugs while on the job, Milbrandt said. You could have a prescription for a medication, but if you take it at work and it impairs your work, an employer can have discretion about that, she said. The same goes for marijuana use. There are no laws limiting drug testing in South Dakota, so someone using marijuana off the clock and out of state could be asked to take a drug test once he or she got back to work, according to information from Dawn Dovre, spokeswoman for the state Department of Labor and Regulations. But employers should be consistent with their drug testing policies, she wrote. If employees feel their rights have been violated by a drug test, they could take legal action through a private attorney, Dovre wrote in an email. There are no laws in South Dakota that require or disallow reporting a work-related positive drug test to authorities, she wrote. But Duven couldnt think of an instance during which an employer had reported a worker for possession by ingestion, he said. Victoria Lusk vlusk@aberdeennews.com A mobile home fire Tuesday morning left a Leola area man without a home. It was called in about 10:45 a.m. near the intersection of 109th Street and 363rd Avenue at the mobile home belonging to Larry Kolb, said Dave Ackerman, McPherson County sheriff and Emergency Management director. Kolb was not injured, nor was his dog, Ackerman said. The house burned completely, and nothing is salvageable, he said. The Leola Fire Department was still on scene at 1 p.m. It was too early to determine the cause of the fire, Ackerman said. Area farmers offered their equipment for assistance, he said. Ackerman said he reached out to the American Red Cross to help Kolb. Victoria Lusk vlusk@aberdeennews.com The South Dakota CPA Society is sponsoring Ask A CPA from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, according to a news release. Ask A CPA is a call-in program that connects the public to certified public accountants to answer questions about business and personal tax matters, planning for year-end, general business and accounting issues, referrals and other financial concerns. Online resources, which includes information on the new tax law, can be found at www.sdcpa.org. Call in at 1-888-373-2727. Staff reports GREAT FALLS- $175,000 is the annual salary the new Great Falls Public School Superintendent could be making. When compared to other school districts across Montana, it's slightly higher. It could be up to $12,000 more. We spoke with both Missoula County and Yellowstone County School Districts and their superintendents make $165,000 and just over $162,000 respectively. Their salary depends upon their qualifications and what benefits they negotiate. For example, if a candidate opts not to take health insurance the district normally pays for, some of that money could go back in their paycheck. "Just as an example, Candidate A may say well I want 175,000, and I want these benefits. Candidate B, whoever's selected may also say well I'll go for a smaller salary, 160,000, but I want more benefits, said Jan Cahill, Chairman of the Great Falls Board of Trustees. Depending on who's elected, the biggest jump will be about $10,000 from the current superintendent salary of $165,000. The superintendent contract is for three years. If all goes well, the Great Falls Board of Trustees says their contract could get extended. The board will be electing Tammy Lacey's replacement Wednesday at a special school board meeting at 5:30 p.m. Here's a look at those candidates once again. Candidate, Gregory Nyen is currently serving as the Superintendent of Schools for the District of Waupaca in Wisconsin. Candidate Thomas Moore already works in the Great Falls Public School System, as Assistant Superintendent grades 7-12. As for Jon Konen, he currently serves as K-6 Principal at Lincoln Elementary. Seguin, Texas (78155) Today Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. A stray afternoon thunderstorm is possible. Low 72F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. A stray afternoon thunderstorm is possible. Low 72F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Roya Hakakian in Tablet: Among the worlds endangered minorities, Iranian Jews are an anomaly. Like their counterparts, their conditions categorically refute all the efforts their nation makes at seeming civilized and egalitarianand so they embody, often without wanting to, all that is ugly and unjust about their native land. But Irans Jewish community does something more. It also embodies the nations hope, the narrative of its resistance and struggle for a better futureone that has been on the brink of arriving ever since the revolution in 1979. To understand why Jews continue to remain in Iran is to understand the tortured tale of Iran. Nowhere else can the stubborn continuity of a minority stand as a metaphor in the elegy of a nations downfall. The metaphor is apt because it is born out of a paradox. And contemporary Iran is nothing if not an enigmatic paradox. The worlds only Shiite theocracythe archenemy of Israelled by Holocaust deniers, is still home to some 10,000 Jews. Time and again, leading journalists have used this fact to make a partisan point. They have gone into synagogues, sat across from one of the few savvy representatives of the community, and asked the same tired questions: Are you afraid? Are you mistreated? Do you like Israel? Only to return to broadcast the same tired answers: We are not afraid. We are treated very well. We only pray to Jerusalem, but belong to Iran. More here. Charles Derber and Yale Magrass in AlterNet: On October 1, 2014, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that a Burger King franchise in Ferndale, Michigan, near Detroit, had bullied a part-time worker, Claudette Wilson, by sending her home two hours early for not positioning pickles correctly on her burgers. As Judge Arthur J. Anchan put it, the company illegally sent Wilson home for failing to put pickles on her sandwiches in perfect squares. Such absurd but intimidating and humiliating bullying of a very low-paid worker was retaliation aimed at intimidating Wilson from continuing her efforts to organize low-wage Burger King workers. A few days earlier, she had stopped at the store to ask workers coming off their shifts to fill out a questionnaire about their wages. A manager had written her up for violating the stores loitering and solicitation policy, something that Judge Anchan also said was protected activity and thus illegal. Wilson said she had not done the pickles quite perfectly because of her anger about the earlier unfair treatment. The story gets bigger because Wilson was one of several workers, including Romell Frazier, who were members of a group called D15, part of the Fast Food Forward Network trying to unionize Michigan Burger Kings. Wilsons pickle problem was really part of a larger and more serious pickle faced by the workers. The Michigan Burger King franchisee was systematically going after workers who were part of D15 and threatening them with sanctions, including firing. More here. Ismail Muhammad at the Paris Review: The literary world was then (as it is now, perhaps) hungry for representative black voices; as Hutchinson writes, Many stressed the authenticity of Toomers African-Americans and the lyrical voice with which he conjured them into being. This act of conjuring lured critics into reflexively accepting the book as a representation of the black Southand Toomer as the voice of that South. As his one-time friend Waldo Frank remarked in a forward to the books original edition, This book is the South. Cane transformed Toomer into a Negro literary star whose influence would filter down through African-American literary history: his interest in the folk tradition crystallized the Harlem Renaissances search for a useable Negro past, and would be instructive for later writers from Zora Neale Hurston to Ralph Ellison to Elizabeth Alexander. For Toomer, however, this close identification with black folk culture, and the Negro in general, was inimical to his own self-conception. He largely attempted to evade conventional modes of racial identification. As he pursued a career as a writer, the young artist began to articulate an idiosyncratic and highly individualistic notion of race wherein he was American, neither black nor white, rejecting these divisions, accepting people as people. more here. SAN DIEGO Over 40 crew members of the guided-missile destroyer USS Rafael Peralta were the first to pilot the updated Advance Warfare Training (AWT) curriculum inside the Navys newest combat systems trainer, Combined Integrated Air and Missile Defense/Anti-Submarine Warfare Trainer (CIAT), onboard Naval Base San Diego (NBSD), Jan. 8-11. The Center for Surface Combat Systems (CSCS) officially opened the CIAT during a ribbon-cutting ceremony in December and is planned to deliver tactical training to all San Diego-based Baseline 9 warships. The overall purpose of CIAT is to capitalize on advances in virtual technology to deliver a warfighting laboratory that is realistic, relevant, and just as complex as the threat environment our deployed ships are sailing into, said Lt. Cmdr. Reisheid Dixon, CSCS Det. San Diegos officer in charge. The CIAT facility currently provides Navy watchstanders a state-of-the art training environment to detect and engage the entire spectrum of naval combatants. With an emphasis on realism, it is engineered in every detail to replicate a naval warships actual combat suite. The feedback from Rafael Peralta is overwhelmingly positive. We are honored and thrilled to be the first warship through CIAT, said Cmdr. Aaron DeMeyer, commanding officer. Its clear that even this first iteration of the CIAT curriculum is far better than any training we could develop on the ship. Moving away from pre-packaged training scenarios, the virtualization of the trainer is completely customizable by CSCS instructors. Evaluators can now employ advanced enemy tactics, reduce visibility, degrade weapons systems, overwhelm the radars with clutter returns, and in the end, force every single watchstander in the combat information center to adapt. The first CIAT students were able to experience these advanced training capabilities. This is by far the most realistic level of complexity and integration that our ships training team has faced, said Lt. j.g. Anthony Pronchilo, fire control officer. Chief Operations Specialist Anna Penrod, anti-air warfare coordinator, has been through the AWT curriculum in the past, but not like this. The CIAT has so many features, she explained. This was our teams first opportunity to combat a reactive threat or fight through an electronic attack. I know full well the next time we see this challenged battlespace may be on deployment. There is a steep learning curve for every training event in CIAT, said Lt. Aaron Van Driessche, CSCS Det. San Diegos course supervisor for AWT. Many of our students are seeing complex enemy tactics for the first time but its critical that they face these combat challenges now. We need to begin training ships for the worst case scenarios because when a ship leaves the pier, its mission could depend on it. The CIAT is also equipped with a full debrief room capable of replaying all scenarios. CSCS instructors can break-down, in exact detail, every choice made by a ships combat team. The debrief room allowed us to articulate the full PBED process plan, brief, execute and debrief, said Lt. Wayne Badstuebner, tactical action officer evaluator. With the ability to relive every scenario in the debrief, the feedback loop was instantaneous, and their team was maturing with every run. This multimission and shore-based trainer also executes training at a lower cost compared to training live on shipboard systems. CSCS CIAT is a game changer, said Capt. David Fowler, commodore, Destroyer Squadron 23. It provides the most realistic combat systems training of any system to date. The full potential of CIATs capabilities are yet to be experienced. Aveiro-based architecture practice FRARI - Architecture Network has completed a home-office that belongs to the architect Maria Joao Fradinho, the founder of the firm. Called Arch House, the 300-square-metre home-office is situated on a 940-square-metre lot, located on the outskirts of Ilhavo, Portugal. The land is located "by the door" of Vista Alegre, a place beloved by the architect, whose name is due to its origin, Vista Alegre Porcelain Factory, one of the most important industries in the region, and the country. It is in this factory that the author is inspired, because "that place so requested," said the architect. The architect took references from industrial architecture to materialize the dwelling as a uniform body, coated with metallic materials and where the interior is independent of its outer casing. The Arch House follows the continuity of the neighbour buildings, with the main facade ensuring the alignment with the consolidated pre-existence. However, it is stylized to allow the permeability of light and views, in a symbolic game of association with the presence of the Arch, which marks the entrance to the place of Vista Alegre. This debugging work creates the "crowning" of this facade, and assumes itself as a drawing of any child - My house! The theatricality of this facade gives name to the project, but this one is not defined by this alone. The house recedes in relation to the described urban facade, creating a semi-private space of internal protection - a front patio - that allows the main facade to be completely open, made of large glass windows. The patio is the moment of rupture of the outside environment, preparing us for the new reality of the interior. It is a "bridge" linking two seemingly contiguous but truly different realities. "The entrance hall is a small "wooden box", where we fell cosy and welcome, but immediately after we are marvelled by the light and the high ceiling of the living room," said the firm. It was important for the architect to guarantee this process of transition from the public to the private, as well as ensuring adequate privacy in the interior, because of the maximum exposure desired. Inspired by ship containers, the volume set with which the interior is developed, creates a total height in some areas, recreating the great industrial environment of a main ship. This set of different roof heights widens the spaces and makes them more comprehensive, providing a visual relation between the various places in the house. This way, it is ensured the feel of a single space occupied by smaller elements, which are distributed trough the building in a "sliding" movement along its length, creating a rhythm that breaks the monotony of the outer body of the building. In a shameless way, the back facade is fully glazed in order to relate with the green backyard, ensuring the direct relation with the outside. All the boxes inside get the chance to relate to this facade with the same hierarchy, as they all are turned into the same big window. Due to construction restrictions, the basement floor designed for the atelier wasnt built. This decision forced a global redesign but it was ensured the minimum changes to the original project of the house. The Arch House is, therefore, the combination of these three assumptions: the theatricality of the urban facade, the complexity of the pretended use versus the industrial inspiration and the limitations of the plot, that, together, makes this house a complex and unique piece of architecture! Project facts Name of the project: Arch House Architect Studio: FRARI - Architecture Network Architect: Maria Joao Fradinho Location: Aveiro, Portugal Completion date: 2018 Total construction area: 300 m2 All images ITS Ivo Tavares Studio > via FRARI - Architecture Network Kerma Expo 2019 earth architecture is an international platform. A celebration of earth ,art, culture and architecture. "The concept behind it is to bring the earth together by reviving the earth architecture in karma and in Sudan in general." Introducing Sudanese and Nubian culture to the world and a history of a civilization that is 10,000 year old, the earthen based civilization is considered to be the oldest human settlement in Africa. The ancient kingdom of Kerma (2500-1500 B.C) to the clay brick town of Alkhandag, and Coral buildings of the old city of Suakin are all incredible example of earth based architecture in Sudan. However, with modern living requirements and the influence of industrialization and foreign culture and technology, Earthen Techniques have taken the back seat in the construction industry. The local ancient history of Sudan is finally attracting international attention the Meroe Royal Baths's shelter designed by Kere Architecture is an example. Image Kerma Expo This event is organized by the Sudan Architecture Forum (SAF). Along with The European Union, the Government of the North State and the University of Khartoum. SAF is an open platform established in 2013 with the first Forum under the name Potter Forum. SAF as an independent, non-profit, non-discriminatory body aims to have an impact on the built environment in Sudan by highlighting the most pressing issues of architecture today with a focus on architecture in Sudan and supporting high impact initiatives concentrating on the built environment. SAFs current initiative aims to revive Earthen Architecture in Sudan and reintroducing it as a viable solution to many of the issues facing the built environment today while taking into account the new advancements that have been made in this field. As part of a wider perspective proposal. Image Kerma Expo The Kerma expo will be taking place in two locations, the first part in Khartoum 28 and 29 of January 2019 there will be a syposum Symposium.pdf with speakers from all around the world discussing several topics including earth architecture and Sustainability. 31st of January 2019 - 7th of February the Expo will take place in Kerma, Northern State Sudan. Throughout the event several distinguished guests will present talks and workshops. Guests of Honor: Prof. Charles Bonnet, Switzerland Alejandro Aravena, Chile Prof. Herman Bell, United Kingdom Keynote speakers: Dr. Adil Sharagg, USA Dr. Luyanda Mpahlwa, South Africa Prof. Muntasir Eltayeb, Sudan Prof. George H. O. Abungu, Kenya Dorah Modise, South Africa Speakers: Rick Lindsay, Australia Auroville Eai, India Patricio Cevallos Salas, Ecuador Made in Earth, India Patricia Jara, Ecuador Meh Badri, South Africa Pedro N. Montero Gosalbez, Spain Image Kerma Expo The event in Kerma is filled with talks presented by all honorary guests, visits to historical sites, and hand on workshops. To attend the event you must register using this form. Accompanying the event are two competitions and Architecture Design Competition and a Photography Competition. For more information regarding attending the event you can contact SAF. Top Image Kerma Expo > via Kerma Expo and Sudan Architecture Forum There are lots of articles and essays about new archaeology finds that are of interest to modern Pagans and Heathens out there, more than our team can write about in depth in any given week. Therefore, the Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up. Here are our favorite picks this month. A small, Roman-era statue of the Goddess Venus estimated to be around 2000 years old is considered one of the Worthing Museums best finds. It was found sometime in the 1960s in a flower bed and turned over to the museum last month. The small figure, just about a fingers length, was turned over to the museum by Albert Neal in December. His brother originally found the statue while digging in their mothers flowerbed. * * * Researchers using the teeth of horses they were able to extract and analyze DNA from believe the majority of the horses were male. The teeth came from horses that were part of Viking burials from 17 different sites in Iceland. Trying to determine the sex of horses is often difficult without having complete, intact and very well-preserved skeletons. The ability to use DNA in this way may offer information more easily for researchers. * * * In other horsey news, a stable located just outside of the ancient city of Pompeii that had previously been excavated in Italy in the 1900s has been re-discovered. The remains of several horses were preserved in the same manner as the people who perished in the city). One complete horse still with saddle and harness has been unearthed as part of the find. The city of Pompeii was destroyed around 79 A.D. when Mount Vesuvius erupted releasing a pyroclastic flow that engulfed the Roman city and famously preserving the inhabitants in their poses by a flash heating. * * * News of a newly discovered circle of ancient standing stones in Scotland was released last week. The stone circle thought to be between 3,500 and 4,500 years old consists of 10 stones, each about 3 feet (1 meter) high, standing in a circle about 25 feet (7.7 m) across. The monument is located in a patch of farmland near the village of Alford, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Aberdeen. The circle is an excellent example of what is known as a recumbent stone circle, a style unique to the northeast of Scotland and the south-west of Ireland. One of reason it is so exceptional is due to all the stones being present. Usually when circles like this are found, only several stones remain. This style of stone monument has a large recumbent stone lying on its side between two upright stones, or flankers, in the southwest of the circle. * * * The BBC reports a temple dedicated to the God Xipe Totec in central Mexico has been discovered. On the site, they also have uncovered a ceramic statue of the God and two large skulls carved from volcanic stone that may the earliest depictions of Xipe Totec, dating somewhere between 900-1150 A.D. The name Xipe Totec translates as Flayed Lord or Flayed One and is often depicted as wearing the skins of those he had skinned. He was also said to represent fertility and regeneration. * * * Although in the previous finding DNA was recovered from horses teeth and then used to determine the sex of the animal, The Boston Globe reports that the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) researcher have discovered a way to extract genetic samples by utilizing tooth enamel that contains relatively little DNA. The technique has been described for several year in forensic science but has now been used on samples as old as 7,000 years. * * * In other archaeological DNA news, a new study in Australia shows that ancient DNA can be used to reliably link Aboriginal ancestors to their living descendants, and giving them a better opportunity of reclaiming the human remains that have been held by museums around the world. This new study offers up the possibility of making it much easier to use genetics to proactively return ancient remains to their communities. * * * An ancient tomb in Chinas Shaanxi Province has been discovered. The cluster of a dozen tombs are dated 304-439 A.D. which is also known the Sixteen Kingdoms period. Archaeologists have identified new burial customs not seen before. Further the arrangement of the tombs suggest a familial connection, and once again DNA testing will be employed to confirm the theory. Most of Carmen's time is spent in the Western Gazette newsroom, where he reports on student issues, London trends, and local events. He is currently in his fourth-year of Honours Specialization in Media, Information and Technoculture. Follow Carmen Mallia Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today Change your passwords. Switching may foil hackers, and if you have a password manager, you need to remember only the password to get in to your vault. Again, secure Wi-Fi is key. Nag your friends and family to get a password manager. OK, Schalit didn't exactly say you should nag, but when I told him I had tried, without success, to get family members to use this form of protection, he didn't disagree that nagging is appropriate, so I took that as an affirmation. Use two-factor authentication if you can. It's another layer of security. It keeps bad guys out by asking for a second verification besides your password. It may be a PIN you have set up, a number sent to your phone or a fingerprint. It sends a text, calls you or asks for a pass code. Check your accounts - credit card and checking. Morris monitors his carefully every two weeks. Although this can't prevent a problem, it can alert you to one. If your credit card has this feature, ask to be notified about unusual purchases. Sometimes, those who have compromised your credit card will put through a charge of a dollar or two. Once they realize they have a valid account, they will try a big charge. With an alert system - text, call or email - you can prevent false charges, although you probably will have to get a new credit card. The Southern District of Florida blog was started in 2005 by David Oscar Markus , who is a criminal trial and appellate lawyer in Miami, Florida. He frequently practices in federal courts around the country, including his hometown, the Southern District of Florida and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a former law clerk to then-Chief Judge of the District, Edward B. Davis. If all of this sounds a bit familiar, we understand. Iowas own conversion of its Medicaid program to managed care has had its own implementation problems. Services have been cut, and doctors and hospitals have seen many of their claims go unpaid by the managed care organizations, sometimes for years. The fact is, it took until late last year just to get a reliable estimate on the financial impact of converting to managed care. So, we ask, why add a new requirement with the potential to cause even more dislocation? Advocates for this kind of requirement say it is aimed at able-bodied adults, not at the disabled who rely on Medicaid for their health care but also to be able to function in society, live independently and, yes, to work. But advocates for the disabled have expressed concerns nonetheless. One worry weve heard is how an able-bodied adult might be defined and whether people who are disabled might get caught up in this. In war and peace, blacks often were the last hired, first fired, as an old saying of the civil rights movement goes, unable to enjoy the benefits of long-term employment except as a last resort. As opportunities in employment, job training and union membership opened up nationwide, particularly in the civil rights revolution of the 1960s, black leaders found it made more sense to ally with other ethnic groups to try to expand opportunities for everyone. Black Americans did not invent what is often called identity politics today. They only found ways to turn it into a tailwind for progress instead of a headwind against their aspirations. The impact of that shift in polls is evident in one taken by Lake Research Partners in 2013, which found 66 percent of African-Americans favored a pathway to citizenship for immigrants, including the undocumented, quite the opposite of Trumps hard-line, build-that-wall approach. And need I mention black and Hispanic voters overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton over Trump 89 percent of black voters and 66 percent of Hispanic voters and his message to African-Americans of, What have you got to lose? As we have seen under Trumps divisive policies, they could lose a sense of unity as Americans around a commonly shared American dream of opportunity. City Planner Aric Schroeder said the city only had until Monday, the FCC orders effective date, to put its design guidelines into effect. The citys standards were modeled after a plan in Dubuque. Waterloos 12-page, small-cell design guidelines note the city would prefer to see the equipment in industrial and commercial areas and highway rights-of-way and not located in residential areas and parks. The city also would prefer equipment be placed on existing utility poles and not placed on ornamental street lights or sign poles. Mayor Quentin Hart shared concerns about the citys loss of local control and the short time frame to put guidelines in place but added, We dont have a lot of choice with this. Many cities across the country have voiced similar concerns about the FCC order and some, notably in the San Francisco area, have passed ordinances attempting to keep the equipment out of residential areas for visual and potential health concerns. Waterloo resident Cheryl Christiansen said she believed the radio waves from the equipment will cause brain and heart tumors. She said that will help leverage an additional $120 million in private investment. She proposed $11 million over the next two budget years to help the states regional mental health care delivery systems offer expanded services. She also proposed giving the regions more time to spend down their capital balances and increase spending that can be carried from one year to the next, and budgeted for four more psychiatric residency positions at the University of Iowa for doctors who will practice in rural communities. There may still be more to do, so Im asking everyone in this chamber to work with me to ensure that we have sustainable funding that will keep our mental health system strong, Reynolds said. Absent was any new funding for water quality projects. She highlighted legislation passed in 2018 for water quality improvement projects that included an estimated $270 million over 11 years, starting with $4 million in the current budget year and $8 million in the budget year that begins July 1. That spending jumps to $27 million the following year. In other business, the board approved listing for sale a house at 5643 Kimball Ave., south of Orange Elementary, and seeking bids for removal of asbestos from the former Longfellow School. During a public hearing related to the house, former owner and developer Buzz Anderson asked about the timeline of any potential sale, which would also include moving it off the property. Its our preference to move forward as quickly as we can, said Superintendent Jane Lindaman, noting they usually receive bids for about three weeks. She added, Having that house gone might determine the traffic patterns at the school as Anderson develops the surrounding land. If no bids are received, the district would seek permission from the Waterloo Historic Preservation Commission to demolish the house. The board also accepted donations totaling $13,633 from the Waterloo Community Foundations LORAL Trust for six reading-related projects at four district schools. They include Bunger Middle School, Dr. Walter Cunningham School for Excellence, and Kittrell and Highland elementary schools. WATERLOO --- A roundtable discussion of various reports describing socio-economic disparities in the metro area will be held today. Hosted by the Waterloo Human Rights Commission, the event is planned for 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Jubilee UMC Resource Center, 1621 E. Fourth St. The group is scheduled to discuss disparities, share current actions being taken and strategize ways to close the socio-economic disparities. Included in the discussion is Mayor Quentin Hart, Cary Darrah of the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance and Chamber, Gwenne Berry of the University of Northern Iowa, Latonya Graves of the NAACP, Allen Robinson, John Berry, Ph.D. of Tri-County Child & Family Development Council, Abraham Funchess of the Waterloo Human Rights Commission and Deborah Berry of KBBG Radio. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Morocco and the European Union (EU) signed on Monday in Brussels, new fisheries agreement including the maritime waters of the Moroccan Sahara, which is a setback for the pro-polisario European lobbyists who tried in vain to block the deal, diplomatic sources in Brussels said. The agreement covers the fishing zone from parallel 35 to parallel 22, from Cap Spartel in northern Morocco to Cap Blanc in southern Morocco. It was signed by Fouad Yazough, ambassador director general for bilateral relations at the ministry of Foreign Affairs and Romanian ambassador Odobescu Lumini?a Teodora, whose country is chairing the rotating EU presidency and Aguiar Machado Joao, director general for maritime Affairs at the European Commission. The signing ceremony was held in presence of Mrs. Zakia Drouich, secretary general of Moroccan ministry of Fisheries. This agreement, which had already been inked on July 24 in Rabat, is part of the multidimensional strategic partnership between the two parties. It specifies the fishing zones, the access conditions for the European fleet to Moroccan waters and increases EU annual financial contribution from 40 million to 52.2 million (+30 pc). The agreement also enhances the benefits of local inhabitants of the southern provinces of the Kingdom, pledges to ensure Moroccos sustainable fishing and protect its marine environment. The signing of this accord by the EU deals a hard blow to the European lobbyists hostile to Morocco and its territorial integrity. These pro-polisario advocates spare no efforts to undermine the long-standing partnership set between Morocco and the EU in various fields. Morocco-EU fisheries agreement will enter into force after its adoption shortly by the European Parliament, which should also endorse the Morocco-EU farm deal currently being finalized. Court records show Birden is suspected of another shooting. +2 One arrested in Dec. 4 shooting WATERLOO | A Waterloo teen has been arrested in connection with an early December shooting t In 2015, he was arrested for intimidation with a weapon and felon in possession of a firearm in the Dec. 4, 2015, shooting at West Second and Allen streets that injured Donald Harris. He was 17 at the time, and within a year prosecutors asked the court to temporarily dismiss the case because of difficulty locating witnesses for trial. Two months later, Birden, his brother and others were hanging out outside a Logan Avenue home waiting for a friend when a sport utility vehicle drove by and the occupants began shooting. +4 Waterloo teen tells of brother's death in 2016 shooting WATERLOO One of the last things Raymond Birden Jr. heard his brother say was a warning. Birden would later recount for a jury seeing muzzle flashes and running from the shots. He saw Brown jerk when a bullet hit him, and he loaded Brown into his fathers Audi and headed for the hospital. Brown was pronounced dead at the hospital. Authorities said Shavondes Martin was in the front passenger seat of the SUV during the shooting, and Doncorrion Spates and Armand Rollins were in the back seat. The driver, Jacques Williamson, pleaded to a lesser charge, and during a February trial a jury found Spates guilty. Shavondes Martin and Rollins were acquitted. OSAGE An Osage man has pleaded to one of two original charges in an attack on a girl in April in which he threw her into a ditch in rural Mitchell County. Timothy Eugene Hines, 43, on Tuesday entered an Alford plea not admitting guilt but acknowledging a plea agreement is in his best interest to a charge of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse resulting in injury in Mitchell County District Court. Defense attorney Letitia Turner said Hines opted for an Alford plea in part because he had no memory of the event. She said they had explored an intoxication or diminished capacity defense but ultimately ruled it out. Court records show a relative told investigators Hines had been taking Xanax pills without a prescription at the time of the attack, and investigators found a marijuana pipe. As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors will drop a third-degree kidnapping charge, Turner said. Hines, who had been out on bond, was taken into custody following the Tuesday plea pending sentencing, which has been set for March. The charge is punishable by up to five years behind bars and 10 years on the sex offender registry, and prosecutor Aaron Murphy said he plans to seek prison time for Hines. The New York Times reported President Trump privately on several occasions during 2018 that he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Nothing would make Vladimir Putin happier. The administration up to now has not disputed the bombshell revelation. By James DiGeorgia The New York Times is reporting that President Trump had come close to unilaterally announcing the withdrawal of the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) only to be talked out of making a move by advisors including former Chief of Staff John Francis Kelly. The intention to withdraw from NATO is considered a bombshell since breaking up and or undermining the organization has been a top priority of virtually every Russian leader since the end of the second world and its creation. Given the previous bombshell report that the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation as to whether President Trump has been compromised by the Russians, the revelation of his repeated flirtation with ending U.S. membership in NATO is considered a bombshell. President Donald J. Trump Tweet 7/17/2018 The report of Trumps flirtation and speculation about a NATO withdrawal is in itself a big win for Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin according to Adm. James G. Stavridis, the former supreme allied commander of NATO Even discussing the idea of leaving NATO let alone actually doing so would be the gift of the century for Putin. NATOs members have been lamenting and worrying about Trumps attacks on the organization since his election has resulted in short-circuiting a 70th-anniversary celebration of the organizations creation like the one President Bill Clinton hosted in 1999. Instead, this years meeting has been downgraded to a foreign ministers gathering, over concerns President Trump would use a larger Washington NATO meeting to renew his attacks on the alliance, according to the New York Times. Neither President Trump or any cabinet member of his administration has contested the New York Times report regarding his desire to withdraw from NATO despite having a couple of days to do so. Special: Imagine an options trading service that has delivered over 4,872% in winning trade recommendations over 11 years. That's 442% a year in winning trade recommendations. Check it out! Just $49 for the first 60 days! The New York Times explosive disclosures and reporting come at a time when the 25% of the U.S. government is shut down, the special prosecutors Russian probe is center stage in the news. Regardless, Wall Street has yet to see any measurable impact or fallout from the revelations regarding President Trumps possibly being a Russian agent or from the government shutdown itself. The New York TIMES Bombshell Story FBI Opened Counter Intelligence Investigation Days After POTUS Fired FBI Director Comey. Serious concern exists as to whether President Donald J. Trump is a Russian stooge! By James DiGeorgia The FBI had enough evidence to open an investigation to determine if President Trump is a Russian agent. Thats according to a bombshell story by the New York Times released Friday night. In the days following President Trumps firing of FBI Director James B. Comey, FBI, intelligence and DOJ officials became concerned by Trumps behavior. They opened an investigation as to whether the President had been and was continuing to work on behalf of Russia against American interests according to New York Times sources including former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation. According to the New York Times Agents and senior F.B.I. Officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trumps ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the presidents activities before and after Mr. Comeys firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said. The New York Times reports that Robert S. Mueller, assumed responsibility for the investigation took over the inquiry into Mr. Trump when he was appointed, days after F.B.I. Officials opened it. That inquiry has been part of Special Prosecutor Muellers broader investigation into how Russian operatives interfered in the 2016 election and if anyone in the Trump Campaign conspired with them. Special: Imagine an options trading service that has delivered over 4,872% in winning trade recommendations over 11 years. That's 442% a year in winning trade recommendations. Check it out! Just $49 for the first 60 days! The New York Times story does not assert as to whether Mueller is still pursuing this counterintelligence investigation. Bottom line: The American people deserve to know whether President Trump is a Russian stooge. Meanwhile, some former law enforcement officials outside the investigation along with White House officials have begun to not only question whether the FBI overstepped its authority in opening this counterintelligence investigation. The revelations have set off an earthquake of criticism and concern by political, legal, foreign affairs analysts as well as millions of citizens at the same time President Trump has shut down the U.S. government. Reports from White House reporters this morning indicate the President is intending on declaring a national emergency to unilaterally steal money from disaster relief funds to build the wall he promised Mexico would pay. Worse, White House officials are indicating President Trump intends after declaring a national emergency to refuse still to open the U.S. government. As one White House reporter commented... Hes going to try to force Congress to fund his wall by continuing the lockout the 800,000 federal employees and independent contractors out of sheer spite. Hes just unwilling to allow his political opponents to appear to have won this standoff. The universitys online masters degree in information technology is the nations third best and the online graduate engineering programs moved up four places to No. 16, according to the 2019 U.S. News & World Reports ranking of the Best Online Programs. Virginia Tech engineering continues to build upon strengths to meet the demands of industry, said Julia M. Ross, the Paul and Dorothea Torgersen Dean of Engineering. As part of a global land grant institution, we are growing our commitment that spans the Commonwealth and beyond in order to fuel the workforce and academic pipelines. This is the seventh year that the masters degree in information technology has ranked in the top five and remains the top among Virginia universities. The program includes coursework in big data, software engineering, and cybersecurity. The rankings demonstrate that the master of IT program continues to be one of the best ways to prepare the countrys workforce for our growing cybersecurity needs, said Robert Sumichrast, dean of the Pamplin College of Business. Pamplin and the College of Engineering have invested in the quality of the program, using top faculty to expand the curriculum into areas such as cybersecurity and enhancing student services, Sumichrast said. These investments are consistent with Pamplins focus on business analytics and cyber. Additionally, Virginia Tech has been ranked No. 1 in the nation among online, graduate- degree programs in cybersecurity in the 2019 top ranking by Cyberdegrees.org, a Washington, D.C.-based company. Virginia Tech offers its online information technology degree collaboratively through the College of Engineering and the Pamplin College of Business. The program combines a variety of departments within these colleges, including the Department of Computer Science and the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, both in the College of Engineering; and the Department of Accounting and Information Systems, the Department of Business Information Technology, and the Department of Management, all in the Pamplin College of Business. U.S. News also ranked Virginia Tech's master of information technology program as the No. 2 Best Online Graduate Information Technology Programs for Veterans. The report assessed more than 1,500 online degree programs and evaluated select features, including student engagement, faculty credentials and training, peer reputation, student services and technology, and admissions selectivity. It considered only degree-granting programs offering 100 percent online classes. For the 2018-2019 academic year, there are 1,080 graduate students enrolled in Pamplin and 2,143 in the College of Engineering. Both colleges offers a variety of graduate programs online or through interactive videoconferencing. Kathmandu, Nepal: Considering to the deteriorating health condition of agitating senior orthopedic surgeon Dr Govinda KC, Civil society members have on Tuesday urged the government and political parties representing in the parliament to be serious to save his life. Issuing a press release on Tuesday, the civil society members have urged the government and political parties representing in the federal parliament to incorporate demands of Dr KC while endorsing the National Medical Education bill in the parliament. The appeal of the civil society has come at a time when Dr KC's heath condition begun to deteriorate. Dr. KCs 16th hunger strike enters its 8th day on Tuesday. Kim Jong-un set the mood for 2019 by sending a letter on New Year to Donald Trump for a probable meeting to discuss burning issues like denuclearization and sanctions. The US President has responded by sending a return letter to the leader of North Korea in Pyongyang by flight and delivered by hand. It seems a senior rep from North Korea could be visiting Washington soon to work out modalities of the proposed summit. US teams have already gone to a few cities to select the most suitable venue. CNN reports Moon Jae-in, the president of South Korea, is in favor of another meeting between Trump and Kim. Moon goes on to add that if Kim comes to Seoul, it will pave the way for better relations "that will firmly solidify peace on the Korean Peninsula." From Kims recent travel schedules, it is evident that he is trying to come out of isolation. North Korea is revising its strategies 2018 was a busy year for Kim Jong-un. He had the historic summit with Donald Trump in Singapore apart from meetings with Moon Jae-in and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Kim began 2019 by having another meeting with Xi Jinping and has plans to have a second summit with Trump. In the opinion of observers, the meeting with the Chinese President was to pass on a message to the world that Pyongyang is in search of partners beyond Seoul and Washington. A letter was delivered from US President Donald Trump to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over the weekend, a source familiar with the ongoing denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang told CNN https://t.co/55RukTluek CNN (@CNN) January 15, 2019 Kim Jong-un had plans to visit Seoul in December, but it did not materialize and talks with the US on the process of denuclearization kept running into difficulties. Moon Jae-in clarified that Kim had written to him in December giving reasons for his inability to visit and added that they should have more frequent meetings. South Korea's Blue House shared an extract of Kims letter with the media. Second Trump-Kim summit According to CNBC, the stage is set for high-level talks in Washington between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol, a senior official of North Korea. The purpose is to fine-tune the respective frequencies. There are possibilities that the North Korean official could meet President Donald Trump. However, there is no confirmation on this from the State Department or the White House. Incidentally, Pompeo undertook a number of trips to Pyongyang last year, but a meeting in November between him and Kim did not happen. It was supposed to have been to draw up plans for the second summit. 2018 was a quiet year with Kim suppressing the displays of his nuclear arsenal. Obviously, sanctions were hurting his countrys economy and all eyes will now be on the second Trump-Kim summit. Lady Gaga and Glenn Close have both had very busy weekends lately. Award season is off and running in Hollywoodland, and both acclaimed stars have seen a lot of each other over the last few weekends. At the Golden Globes last weekend, Lady Gaga took home Best Original Song for Shallow and the reaction of Glenn Close after being named Best Actress in The Wife was anything but shallow, inspiring memes all over the world for the esteemed senior actress. Lady Gaga had been predicted to be the winner, that night for A Star Is Born, and no one could ever claim that Glenn Close was anything but worthy for her portrayal of the subjugated, invisible spouse. Providence has a way of putting things right, and this Sunday, January 13, both ladies were called as Best Actress at the Critics Choice Awards. The honorees have more than the same hardware in common, and Lady Gaga shared a sweet story of heart and history through her mother. The occasion became a reason for women to simply appreciate one another and celebrate, as another tie also marked the night. Complimentary pair No outside ears will ever know if Glenn Close and Lady Gaga ever made the What are you wearing? query phone call to one another, but the immense talents looked regal in complementary shades even during their embrace before coming to the stage. Gaga looked elegant in her flowing pale pink, and Close was sophisticated in her blue-gray satin blazer and pleated gown. Even without their awards in hand, they were meant for their photos for the history annals. Willem Dafoe embraced the moment with as much delight as the crowd, saying, Crazy, crazy-- we got a tie! Close was named first before Lady Gaga reacted with the startled joy that she must have had when Stefani Germanotta, the schoolgirl, got her first A-list gig. Presenter Dafoe walked into the table section to give Gaga her trophy, while Glenn Close gushed that We celebrate each other, and we are proud to be in this room together! Lady Gaga gave a dash of her New York attitude when she got to her words of acceptance, reminding everyone that I can still do this with a piano background, when the music brought the cue that it was time to leave the stage. Glenn, get over here! insisted Gaga from the podium. She continued, relating that her mother would love this moment because Cynthia Germanotta and Close have become friends and the same hearts for the cause of kindness. Backstage, after preserving more precious moments in photos, Stefani told how her mother and Close had met for lunch and discovered that they shared much in common in the areas of promoting kindness, mental health services, and inclusion. Glenn Close has spearheaded numerous social and medical initiatives for the mentally ill since interceding in the life of her sister, Jessie, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after years of suffering in silence without proper treatment. Lady Gaga and her mother not only work jointly on the Born This Way Foundation but also promote combined efforts in mental health and the power of kindness, such as the #BeKindBeTheDifference campaign in support of Mental Health Awareness Month last May. The lunch date led to a trip to see Mrs. Germanottas old apartment during a sudden rain shower and more sharing of old memories. The shared smiles from this Critics Choice Awards are sure to make moms scrapbook, too. The trophy night meant for two The television world brought the first tied winners at the Critics Choice Awards for 2019. Amy Adams got the nod for her HBO limited series, Sharp Objects, and Patricia Arquette took honors as Best Actress in a limited television series for Showtimes Escape from Dannemora. Only Arquette won at the Golden Globes, but both powerhouse female actresses stood arm-in-arm on this stage, Neither of these leading ladies restrained their joy, hamming it up a bit, and giving thanks to both their cable networks and especially in Arquettes case, to her director, Ben Stiller. She praised Stiller for taking the yoke of likability away from her in the role. Many stars are finding that television is the place of most creative freedom and artistry in these cookie-cutter days of constant movie sequels and spinoffs. Familiar faces, Mahershala Ali and Regina King, refreshed their skills in accepting recognition, repeating their Golden Globe wins in the Best Supporting actor and actress categories, Ali for Green Book, and King for If Beale Street Could Talk. King once more used the power of her words to promote positivity, quoting James Baldwin with We can make America what America must become. Hard work is never completed overnight. With the spirit, commitment, cooperation, and inclusion that were represented by these awards, the creative world is making a good start. One of the challengers to Donald Trump could be Julian Castro. He boasts of an impressive track record. The City Council of San Antonio, the nations seventh largest city, elected him when he was 26. He became the youngest person to get the nod at the time. Later, when he was 34, San Antonio elected him as their mayor where he served for three terms. He is a former cabinet member of Barack Obama's government and has now announced his plans to run for president. NBC News reports his family was on the stage with him when he made the announcement in San Antonio to try for the White House in 2020. He described himself as the antidote to Trump. Democrats had projected him in that role when he became the mayor of the city. His campaign slogan is catchy - "One Nation. One Destiny". Ancestral roots of Julian Castro are in Mexico His grandmother migrated from Mexico nearly 100 years ago. It is the country that Donald Trump loves to hate and during his 2015 presidential candidacy announcement, he said Mexico was sending drug traffickers and criminals to the US. That is why he made a campaign promise to construct a permanent US-Mexico border wall to "Make America Safe Again." If Julian Castro takes over the White House, the strategy might change. BREAKING: Julian Castro, the former housing secretary under President Obama, will run for president in 2020. He's one of the most high-profile Latino Democrats ever to seek the nomination. https://t.co/azw7otFuyd The New York Times (@nytimes) January 12, 2019 Castro has drawn up an action plan. If elected, his first work will be to bring the United States back to the Paris Climate Accord. Trump had withdrawn from the accord, which is an international agreement on climate change. Its implementation is necessary to maintain the balance of nature. Castro is also worried about the fate of Puerto Rico and its people. Therefore, his first trip as a 2020 candidate will be to speak at the Latino Victory Fund summit there. He will demand an investigation into the response of the Trump administration to Hurricane Maria that devastated the region. It is expected that Democrats will highlight these issues in their campaigns. Julian Castro will face tough competition According to USA Today, it will not be a cakewalk for Julian Castro. There will be many other Democrats in the fray and he will have to compete against leaders, some of whom are quite senior. There could be women like Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, Kamla Harris and Elizabeth Warren, apart from former Vice President Joe Biden and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. Incidentally, Hillary Clinton was a contender last time but Donald Trump overcame the competition. However, it's not beyond impossible that woman could claim the White House in 2020 to become the 46th President of the United States. We and our partners: need your consent to store and/or access information on a device; use technologies, such as cookies, and process personal data, such as IP addresses and cookie identifiers, to personalise ads and content based on your interests, measure their performance and derive insights about the audiences who saw them; have a legitimate interest for the following purposes: ensure security, prevent fraud and debug; use features such as matching and combining offline data sources, linking different devices, receiving and using automatically-sent device characteristics for identification, using precise geolocation data, actively scanning device characteristics for identification. For further details, please read our cookie policy . Click on the Accept button to allow these uses or on Edit to get more details and/or reject all or part of them. You can change your choices at any time by clicking on Edit Consents at the bottom of the page. If you continue browsing by accessing another area of the site or selecting, for example, an image or a link, you express your consent to the use of cookies and other profiling technologies used by the site. Dr. Gregory Feiden tried not to get his hopes up when he learned the University System of Georgia (USG) Board of Regents would vote on a plan to replace the aging observatory at the University of North Georgia (UNG). But he and other members of UNG's physics department celebrated when the project received USG's seal of approval. "Now I can revel in the excitement," said Feiden, assistant professor of astronomy at UNG. "I think it will be wonderful on all fronts, including teaching students, educating the public and conducting research." Dr. Richard Prior, head of the physics department at UNG, said UNG needs a new, more modern observatory considering the current facility is 20 years old. Ken Crowe, assistant vice president of facilities at UNG, agreed. "It is long overdue," Crowe said. This is a proposed rendering of the new observatory. It is expected to have office space, storage space, a small classroom area, a public-access space, two bathroom, and a kitchenette. Two new telescopes with domes will anchor the building. The plan is to demolish the North Georgia Astronomical Observatory and build a state-of-the-art facility in the same spot on top of a hill about 4 miles from campus near Pine Valley, UNG's outdoor recreation complex in Dahlonega. The new facility is expected to have office space, storage space, a small classroom area, a public-access space, two bathrooms, and a kitchenette. Accompanying the new building will be two brand-new telescopes with domes anchoring the ends of the facility. "The current telescope we have is old and worn out," Prior said. Feiden agreed, explaining the 1968 telescope does not have defined sufficient pointing and guiding, and the mirror has degraded over time. This limits the scientific research UNG faculty and students can do. The new telescopes, measuring at 24 and 28 inches, will allow students to see deeper into space. Having two telescopes will also provide students the ability to study multiple aspects of stars simultaneously. "We can attach a camera to one telescope and record our data, while taking data with another instrument to the other telescope," Feiden said. The physics department ordered the telescopes last spring at the end of the fiscal year thanks to unused funds from the College of Science and Mathematics. Dr. Michael Bodri, dean of the College of Science and Mathematics at UNG, explained he also has allocated some funds for the construction of the new observatory. The estimated construction cost of the new single-level 3,200-square-foot building is about $1.4 million, which the university will fund. The new facility will give students hands-on experience working in a professional-grade observatory with high-quality research equipment, Feiden said. "We want to give them a genuine experience and prepare them for graduate school or working for an observatory," Feiden said. Prior said the new telescopes and building provide a boost to the physics program and specifically for students interested in astronomy and astrophysics. Bodri concurred. "Astronomy is one of the most popular elective classes on the Dahlonega Campus," Bodri said. Prior hopes to add another faculty member to teach astronomy in the future. "We are also moving toward offering physics majors a concentration in astrophysics," he said. UNG students, faculty and staff will not be the only beneficiaries of a new observatory. The current and future building is and will be open to the public on Friday nights following the free show in the George E. Coleman Sr. Planetarium. It is an aspect that sets UNG's observatory apart. "It is part of the university's outreach mission," Prior said. "And we have a connection to the local astronomy club." Dr. Lesley Simanton-Coogan, lecturer in the physics department and planetarium director, said the observatory complements the planetarium. "We can show people a lot of things in the planetarium that can't be seen with the naked eye," she said. "I can show them things happening far away. And I can update them on astronomy news. Plus, we are open rain or shine. But it's still nice to go outside and look at the real sky. A new observatory will help people get excited about astronomy." The University of North Georgia's (UNG) middle grades education bachelor's degree is expanding to UNG's Gainesville Campus starting this fall. The program is already on the Dahlonega Campus. The application deadline for the fall on both campuses is Jan. 28 through Feb. 1. Some of the students scheduled to start their major courses on the Gainesville Campus expressed relief at being able to earn the degree closer to home. One is nontraditional student Stacey Willingham, a sophomore from Leesburg, Georgia, who moved to Gainesville, Georgia, in November 2016. Every credit she has taken so far has been online except for her Spanish courses. "It was a huge weight off my shoulders, a huge relief," said Willingham, a mother trying to manage two jobs while raising a teenage daughter. Dr. Chantelle Renaud-Grant, associate professor of middle grades education and coordinator of middle and secondary education at UNG, said having the program in Gainesville will open more doors into the Hall County and Gainesville school systems for student teaching. Expanding the program also should enable UNG to add greater diversity to its middle grades education cohorts. Grant said this expansion has been a priority since consolidation in 2013. The program's scope of fourth through eighth grades is attractive to students, giving them flexibility in which grade they end up teaching. "This was a big project for us. Middle grades is a high-demand program," Renaud-Grant said. "We knew we had to get it to Gainesville." Students in the program have to specialize in two content areas. They start courses in their major during their junior year, when they spend 60 hours in the classroom as part of a small internship. During their senior year, they are in the classroom full time as student teachers. Renaud-Grant said UNG has averaged 40 students per year in the middle grades education cohorts. "We get a lot of good feedback from the schools," Renaud-Grant said. "Schools want to hire our students." For students like Willingham, the encouragement and support system on the Gainesville Campus has been invaluable. Told in high school that people like her don't go to college, Willingham decided to start at UNG at age 43. She didn't know how to log in via Wi-Fi for her first class, so her daughter had to teach her. Now Willingham is in two honor societies after she "never thought I would be a college student." "When I walk into a classroom, I know I'm where I'm supposed to be," Willingham said. Maria Alvarado, a sophomore from Forsyth County, chose UNG for its proximity and affordability. Picking middle grades education was about helping students during a transitional time. "I really want to make an impact on those students, because sometimes they don't have the support they need at home," Alvarado said. Michelle Adeyemi, a junior from Braselton, Georgia, will also benefit from the program being on the Gainesville Campus. Even though she was in the top 50 of 300 students in her high school graduating class, few people pushed her to excel. "I can give these students what I didn't get when I was their age," Adeyemi said. "I want our students to know they have choices in life and someone is going to be there to support them." NEW YORK (AP) A federal judge in New York has barred the Trump administration from adding a question about citizenship to the 2020 census. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman said Tuesday that while such a question would be constitutional, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had added it arbitrarily and not followed proper procedure. The ruling came in a case in which a dozen states or big cities and immigrants' rights groups argued that adding the question might frighten immigrant households away from participating in the census. The decision won't be the final word on the matter. A separate suit on the same issue, filed by the state of California, is underway in San Francisco. The U.S. Supreme Court is also poised to address the issue in February. Justin Bonomo Wins the PCA $25,000 Single-Day High Roller II for $383,650 January 15 2019 Adam Lamers There was another high roller event on the schedule at the 2019 PCA, and it came in the form of the $25,000 Single-Day High Roller II. After nearly 11 hours on the felt, Justin Bonomo claimed the title and the $383,650 first-place prize when he defeated Jesus Cortes heads-up. The year is starting to look a lot like the previous edition in 2018 when Bonomo ran over the poker world to top the career money list. After a couple of fourth place finishes in the $10,000 High Roller and the $50,000 Super High Roller yesterday, this will go down as his third cash here at the 2019 PCA. With one more $25,000 event yet to come, the American poker pro will be looking to add some more cash to his pocket before he leaves the Bahamas. It also wasn't a bad day for Jose Cortes who is coming off his largest career cash in the $100,000 Super High Roller. Cortes has re-emerged on the live poker scene in the Bahamas and is showing that he still has what it takes. Adding another $265,200 to his bankroll for his efforts will leave him walking away with a smile. Final Table Results Position Player Country Prize 1 Justin Bonomo United States $383,650 2 Jesus Cortes Spain $265,200 3 Steffen Sontheimer Germany $169,280 4 Igor Kurganov Russia $129,780 5 Nick Petrangelo United States $101,560 6 David Peters United States $79,000 The day got underway on time when eight players took their seats just after the scheduled 3:00 p.m. start. Each player started with 100,000 in chips, and it was actually Cortes who was the first elimination during the opening level. With a single reentry allowed, Cortes was able to jump back into the action and made great use of his second bullet. The tournament attracted a total of 47 entries that made up a prize pool of over $1.1 million. Many players fired off two entries by the time late registration closed after the second break, but the eliminations were fast and furious throughout the entire day. It only took another four levels after late registration closed to reach the unofficial final table of nine. Pablo Cabrera, Henrik Hecklen, and Mikita Badziakouski all hit the rail before the money bubble would burst. Final Table Summary Once Badziakouski was eliminated on his four big blind stack, the final six players were all guaranteed at least $79,000, more than three times their buy-in. Six-handed play continued for over an hour until David Peters collided with Bonomo blind versus blind. Peters shipped just over ten big blinds with seven-five suited and Bonomo snapped him off with pocket sixes. The board missed Peters completely, and he headed to the payout desk in sixth place. Just a couple of hands later, Nick Petrangelo flopped a pair and got it all in against Steffen Sontheimer's two over cards. Both the turn and river hit Sontheimer, and Petrangelo exited in fifth place. After a quick break, Igor Kurganov was unable to keep up his early run of success going. In another blind versus blind situation, the PokerStars Pro moved all in from the small with ace-eight and was called by Bonomo's king-ten suited. Bonomo turned a ten and Kurganov was forced to settle for a fourth-place finish. Three-handed play had its fair share of twists and turns, and Sontheimer rode the waves of tournament poker with multiple double ups going in his favor and against him. In the end, he found himself on the wrong side when Cortes spiked a three-outer on the turn to eliminate the German high-stakes player. Jesus Cortes That left Cortes and Bonomo to battle heads-up in what started out to be an even matchup. However, Bonomo took a sizeable lead after Cortes paid off a large turn and river bet. Cortes battled back with a double up of his own, and after briefly taking the chip lead, the pendulum swung in the other direction again. Both players were dealt a pocket pair, Bonomo's being the larger, and got all of the chips in the middle preflop. Bonomo held on for a massive double up and left Cortes with just ten big blinds. Although Cortes doubled up once, in the last hand of the night, the Spaniard shipped all in after Bonomo limped the button. Bonomo woke up with the same pocket sixes as earlier and Cortes was drawing slim with queen-five. The board ran out clean for Bonomo, and his pocket pair held on to earn him the victory. There is still more poker to come. Stay with us as PokerNews Live Reporting continues to bring you coverage of the PCA Main Event along with another $25,000 High Roller that begins today. The Stars Group owns a majority shareholding in iBus Media. Witnesses have reported seeing bodies after extremists launched an attack on a luxury hotel in Kenyas capital city. Al-Shabab the Somalia-based Islamic extremist group that carried out the 2013 Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi that left 67 people dead has claimed responsibility. It is terrible. What I have seen is terrible, said a man who ran from the scene. As night fell, gunfire continued more than two hours after the first shots were heard at the complex, which includes the DusitD2 hotel, along with bars, restaurants, banks and offices. (PA Graphics) We are aware that armed criminals are holing up in the hotel, and special forces are now currently flushing them out, said Kenyas national police chief, Joseph Boinnet, describing the assault as a suspected terror attack. A Kenyan police officer said bodies were seen in restaurants downstairs and in offices upstairs, but there was no time to count the dead. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here to do so. Another witness said he saw five bodies at the entrance. He said that other people were shouting for help and when we rushed back to try to rescue them, gunshots started coming from upstairs, and we had to duck because they were targeting us and we could see two guys shooting. Kenyan hospitals appealed for blood donations even as the number of wounded remained unclear. The violence appeared to fit the pattern of attacks al-Shabbab often carries out in Somalias capital, with an explosion followed by a group of gunmen storming the place. Security forces at the scene (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) Like the Westgate Mall attack, this one appeared aimed at wealthy Kenyans and foreigners living in the country. The hotel complex is in an affluent section of Nairobi that has large numbers of expatriates from the US, Europe and India. The attack came a day after a magistrate ruled that three men must stand trial on charges they were involved in the Westgate Mall siege. A fourth suspect was freed for lack of evidence. Story continues People rushed and some were carried, from the scene. Some ducked behind cars screaming while others took cover behind fountains and other features at the lush complex. Several cars have been burned out (AP Photo/Josphat Kasire) Ambulances, security forces and firefighters converged on the scene along with a bomb disposal unit, and vehicles were cordoned off for fear they contained explosives. Police said they blew up a car that had explosives inside. An unexploded grenade was also seen in a hallway at the complex. Al-Shabab has vowed retribution against Kenya for sending troops to Somalia since 2011. The al-Qaida-linked group has killed hundreds of people in Kenya, which has been targeted more than any other of the six countries providing troops to an African Union force in Somalia. As MPs debate Theresa Mays Withdrawal Agreement ahead of a vote in Parliament, the British public has been looking for answers online. Here are the most-Googled questions ahead of the crucial vote on Tuesday evening. 1. What time is the Brexit vote? Theresa May will wrap up five days of debate on her Withdrawal Agreement in the House of Commons with a concluding statement at the Despatch Box at around 6.30pm. Voting is likely to begin at 7pm, starting with four amendments and culminating in the meaningful vote itself. The process of voting on each amendment takes around 15 minutes, so the final result is expected around 8.15-8.30pm. 2. What is the backstop? The Irish border with Northern Ireland (Brian Lawless/PA) The backstop arrangement outlined in the Prime Ministers deal would create a single EU-UK customs area to ensure there is no hard border on the island of Ireland. This means the UK would continue to follow the EUs tariffs and rules on customs, avoiding the need for checks between the EU and UK including Northern Ireland and the Republic until a new relationship is decided. Northern Ireland would need to follow some of the EUs single market rules, including laws on goods, agricultural production, veterinary controls and state aid rules. It is this point that has led many including Northern Irelands Democratic Unionist Party and a number of Conservative backbenchers to oppose the deal. 3. What are the Brexit amendments? MPs proposed 13 amendments to the Prime Ministers deal over the course of the debate and Speaker John Bercow revealed four will be put to the vote on Tuesday evening. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyns amendment, backed by his front bench, dismisses Mrs Mays deal outright, instead calling on the Government to pursue every option to stop the UK leaving the EU without a deal. The Lib Dems added their own amendment to Mr Corbyns proposal, naming a second referendum as one of the options, but this was not selected for debate by the Speaker. Story continues Jeremy Corbyn (PA) An amendment from the SNP leader in the Commons, Ian Blackford, calls on the UK Government to respect the will of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly by scrapping the Brexit deal as it is damaging for Scotland, Wales and the nations and regions of the UK as a whole. Instead it demands an extension to Article 50 to give the UK more time to agree a course of action. Senior Tory Brexiter Sir Edward Leighs amendment says the Government should tear up the Withdrawal Agreement if the EU does not agree to end the backstop by the end of 2021. The final amendment, tabled by Conservative Leaver John Baron, will only be debated if the Leigh proposals fail. It seeks to give the UK power to terminate the backstop without permission from the EU. 4. What is Theresa Mays Brexit deal? The 585-page Withdrawal Agreement text will provide the basis of a legally binding treaty. It covers the future rights of EU citizens living in the UK and UK nationals in the EU, the 39 billion the UK owes in promised contributions, and protocols on Gibraltar and UK sovereign base areas in Cyprus. It also provides for a transition period after the UK leaves the EU in March, running to the end of 2020, with the option of a one-off extension if more time is needed to conclude an agreement on the future relationship. Crucially it also covers the backstop, intended to ensure there is no return to the hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic if negotiations on the future relationship have not been completed. 5. How will my MP vote on the Brexit deal? Every MP from the SNP, Lib Dems, DUP, Plaid Cymru and Green Party is expected to vote against the deal, as well as most Labour MPs. Labour members who have indicated they will vote with the Government include Kevin Barron, Jim Fitzpatrick and John Mann. Former Labour minister Frank Field and ex-Lib Dem MP Stephen Lloyd, both sitting as independents, have said they will back the deal. At least 81 Conservative MPs have recently said publicly that they plan to vote against the deal and some estimates put total rebel numbers as high as 113, pushing the total potential vote against the deal beyond the 400 mark. With 650 MPs in the Commons of whom the Speaker, his deputies and the seven Sinn Fein MPs do not cast a vote this puts Mrs Mays possible tally at around 240-250, low enough to break historic records for the worst Government defeat of modern times. The PM and her whips have been working through the day to bring that number down and it is always possible that critics of the deal will have a last-minute change of mind. 6. What is happening with Brexit? Protesters outside the Houses of Parliament (Victoria Jones/PA) After more than a year of negotiations, Mrs May presented her EU Withdrawal Bill to Parliament in November but it was immediately dismissed by hard Brexiteers within her own party, leading to a string of Cabinet resignations. Hours before Parliament was due to vote on the deal in December, sensing a heavy defeat, the PM delayed the vote and returned to Brussels to seek reassurances about its implications. After surviving a vote of no-confidence from her own party, Mrs May pushed the vote back to January 15 but she is still expected to lose heavily. 7. How many days until Brexit? (PA Graphics) As of Tuesday January 15, there are 73 days to go until Britain is due to leave the EU, on March 29. 8. Is the UK stockpiling food for Brexit? Some businesses and families have said they are stockpiling food as a precaution for a no-deal scenario in which it takes a lot longer for cargo to come through customs at the UK border. Tesco and Marks & Spencer, as well as companies like Premier Foods which owns Bisto, Mr Kipling and Majestic Wine have announced plans for stockpiling. Lorries arrive at the Port of Dover in Kent (Gareth Fuller/PA) Quick-thinking entrepreneurs are selling so-called Brexit survival kits of freeze-dried food for hundreds of pounds, although a Government spokesman said there was no need to stockpile items in the box, according to the BBC. In December, official documents showed the Government was drawing up plans to avoid food shortages in hospitals, although the full extent of Government plans are not known. 9. How many people voted for Brexit? (PA Graphics) A little over 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, compared with just over 16.1 million who voted to remain. Turnout was 33.6 million, meaning 52% of those taking part voted to leave. 10. What happens if there is a no-deal Brexit? A no-deal situation arises if the UK quits the EU without an agreement covering issues like the Irish border, expats rights in Europe, a future trade deal or customs and border checks. Predictions about the seriousness of leaving the EU without a deal vary, but separate assessments from Whitehall and the Bank of England in November painted a grim picture of the impact of a no-deal Brexit on the UK economy. The Bank warned Britain could be tipped into a recession worse than the financial crash, with an 8% cut in GDP, unemployment surging by as much as 7.5% and house prices falling by almost a third. A cross-Government analysis found the UK economy would be 9.3% smaller after 15 years if Britain leaves without a deal. The Sinn Fein leader has urged Irish Premier Leo Varadkar to stand firm over the backstop after MPs voted down the proposed withdrawal deal. Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit plans were rejected by 432 votes to 202 by the House of Commons on Tuesday night. Amid the resulting uncertainty over how the United Kingdom will leave the European Union, Sinn Fein president Mary-Lou McDonald pressed the Taoiseach to stand firm on the backstop. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here to do so. Irelands people, Irelands economy and Irelands peace process all need to be protected as we go forward now, she said. The Taoiseach and the Tanaiste and our partners at a European level need to stand firm and not move away from or attempt to dilute the backstop. We need to say clearly to the British that if they wish to Brexit then thats a matter for themselves but any Brexit agreement needs to recognise, understand and protect the people, the economy and the peace process on this island. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (Tom Honan/PA) Speaking earlier on Tuesday, Mr Varadkar said he hoped MPs in the Hose of Commons would vote in favour of the Withdrawal Agreement, but emphasised it is a matter for them. He added: I dont think it would be in Irelands interest for me to be interfering in their internal politics. Sinn Feins deputy leader Michelle ONeill tweeted that the Brexit crisis has deepened further tonight. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here to do so. No deal crash out is completely reckless and not in our peoples, households or businesses interests. Backstop is the bottom line and is not up for negotiation. SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei on Tuesday rejected claims his company is used by the Chinese government to spy and said he missed his daughter, who is being held by Canadian authorities, the Financial Times newspaper reported. Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's chief financial officer, was detained in Canada last month at the request of U.S. authorities who allege she misled banks about the company's control of a firm operating in Iran. Huawei had "never received any request from any government to provide improper information", the newspaper reported Ren as saying in an interview with reporters in the southern city of Shenzhen. "I still love my country, I support the Communist party, but I will never do anything to harm any country in the world," he said, adding he missed his daughter "very much". Huawei confirmed the accuracy of Ren's comments to Reuters. Ren, a former military officer who founded Huawei in 1987 and largely keeps a low profile, said he owned 1.14 percent of the company's shares. Beijing and Ottawa have been at odds since Meng's arrest, which China's foreign ministry on Tuesday called an abuse of legal procedures. On Monday, China sentenced a Canadian to death for drug smuggling, further damaging relations. Huawei, the world's biggest producer of telecommunications equipment, has been facing intense scrutiny in the West over its relationship with China's government and U.S.-led allegations that its devices could be used by Beijing for spying. No evidence has been produced publicly and the firm has repeatedly denied the accusations, but some Western countries have restricted Huawei's access to their markets. Poland said this week it could consider banning the use of Huawei products by public bodies, after it arrested a Chinese Huawei official. Ren dismissed fears over the security of Huawei's equipment, saying "no law in China requires any company to install mandatory backdoors (that could be used for spying)" and added the company had had "no serious security incidents". Story continues He also played down the risk Huawei faced from being blocked from the rollout of 5G telecoms networks by some countries. "It's always been the case, you can't work with everyone ... we'll shift our focus to better serve countries that welcome Huawei' he said, adding the company had 30 contracts globally to build 5G networks. U.S. President Donald Trump in August signed a bill that barred the U.S. government from using Huawei equipment and is considering an executive order that would also ban U.S. companies from doing so. However, Trump told Reuters last month he would intervene with the Justice Department in the case against Meng if it would help secure a trade deal with Beijing. Ren described Trump as "great" and praised his tax cuts as good for American industry. "The message to the U.S. I want to communicate is: collaboration and shared success. In our world of high tech, it's increasingly impossible for any single company or country to sustain or to support the world's needs," (Reporting by Brenda Goh; Additional Reporting by Anne Marie Roantree in Hong Kong; Editing by Mark Potter) The chocolate was liquid because it was being stored in the tanker at 120 degrees. Authorities in northern Arizona had a mess on their hands after a truck crashed on a major highway, spilling a river of liquid chocolate onto the road surface. The incident on Monday occurred on Interstate 40, about 11 miles east of Flagstaff. Clean-up crews had to pour most of the 40,000 gallons of chocolate into the highway central reservation in order to lighten the damaged tanker so it could be towed away. There is a river of chocolate blocking/flowing in the westbound lanes of I-40 at milepost 211, east of Flagstaff, the Arizona Department of Public Safety tweeted. This will be a sweet cleanup! Emergency services in Arizona help clear 40,000 litres of molten chocolate from the highway after a tanker spilled its load. (Twitter) The chocolate was liquid because it was being stored in the tanker at 120 degrees. State Department of Public Safety spokesman Bart Graves said there were no injuries and the tanker driver was not fined, or penalised as the chocolate is biodegradable. He said: A latch that connects the main truck with the trailer detached, causing the tanker to roll over. The tanker was heavily damaged in the rear so we had (to) pump out the liquid into the median so the tanker could be lifted onto a tow truck. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK The Austrian Armed Forces has used a Black Hawk helicopter to monitor avalanches and dislodge snow from trees in the state of Salzburg, as seen in this footage posted on January 11. Severe winter storms swept across Austria and parts of Germany during the week of January 11, with between 50 and 80 centimeters of snow falling over western parts of the country, according to Der Standard. Several deaths were reported across the region. Credit: Bundesheer via Storyful KATHMANDU, Jan 15: The Israel government is positive toward increasing the number of quota for Nepali workers in Israel. In a meeting with Minister for Labour, Employment and Social Security Gokarna Bista at his office in Singh Durbar today, Israeli Ambassador to Nepal Benny Omer shared that the government was positive to this effect while describing the Nepali workers as honest, hardworking and dutiful. Nepali workers are mostly employed as caregivers in Israel. On the occasion, Minister Bista opined that the cooperation in agriculture, tourism and employment generation could be enhanced between the two countries. RSS JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and businessman Avihai Stolero have offered to buy unmanned aerial vehicle maker Aeronautics (ARCS.TA) for 850 million shekels ($232 million). The news sent shares of Aeronautics up 37 percent in morning trade in Tel Aviv on Sunday. Aeronautics rejected a 430 million shekel offer from Rafael and Stolero last August. Aeronautics, which had a market value of 507 million shekels on Jan. 10, said the latest offer for all its shares would be done as a reverse merger executed through a company jointly owned by Rafael and Stolero. The company would become private and its shares delisted from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Aeronautics said it had agreed to hold talks with the potential buyers and committed to giving them exclusivity. Negotiations will take place until Feb. 15, during which time Rafael will conduct due diligence. Earlier this month, state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries [ISRAI.UL] said it was in early talks to invest in Aeronautics. In 2017, Aeronautics said the Defence Ministry had suspended the marketing and export license for one of the firm's attack drones to a significant customer in a foreign country. The company denied any wrongdoing. Israeli media reported at the time that the ministry had opened an investigation into Aeronautics over whether during a product demonstration in Azerbaijan one of its drones was used to attack a military position in the neighboring country of Armenia, and if so, who was at fault. Aeronautics manufactures unmanned aerial vehicles for military surveillance and defense purposes, as well as for the commercial sector. (Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Tova Cohen/Keith Weir) 7 Spencer Gulf news bulletin has re-branded its local news service from Southern Cross News to Nightly News on 7 Spencer Gulf and relocated production to Hobart. Local journalists will remain in the Spencer Gulf area. The change in name follows extension until 2021of SCAs regional television affiliation agreement with the Seven Network. The affiliation agreement allows broadcast of Sevens metropolitan free-to-air television content into the Tasmanian TV1, Darwin TV1, Remote Central and Eastern Australia TV2, Spencer Gulf TV1 and Broken Hill TV1 regional television licence markets. To avoid clashes with Big Bash programming, it will be broadcast in Spencer Gulf at 7:00pm weeknights on 7TWO from 14 January 2019 to 1 February 2019. From Monday, 4 February 2019, the Nightly News will be broadcast from 6:30pm weeknights on the main 7 Spencer Gulf channel. Photo: Media Spy Related Liz returns to her small town home only to discover her teen crush has alien abilities. 8:30pm Wednesday on FOX8. Butterfly Law & Order: SVU Would I Lie to You? Ray Donovan Teachers Related Bloom may set its wild, imaginative story in a small Aussie country town but it has its sights set on the world. The 6 part series which dropped on New Years Day is winning rave reviews for its originality and boldness. According to CEO Mike Sneesby, the show was greenlight not just for what it offers dramatically, but for what it does for the company brand. When we make something as a Stan Original we make it with the international market in mind, he explains. Youre effectively building your own brand while youre in original productions. Wolf Creek and Romper Stomper are 2 great examples of franchises that have iconic brands associated with them. But in terms of a big budget drama this is our first deviation. This is a brand new original creative idea. It needed to be something that on screen is unlike anything that has been created in Australia. Bloom stars Jacki Weaver, Bryan Brown, Phoebe Tonkin and Ryan Corr in the aftermath of a catastrophic flood which leaves behind a plant that restores youth. But it immediately posed all kinds of philosophical questions. They have the knowledge, the regrets and the joys that theyve had through life and so it explores that theme of What would you do if you could do it all over again, with all the knowledge youve got today?' he asks. One of the things that weve spoken about from the earlier stage of development was that it needed to be something that on screen is unlike anything that has been created in Australia. Weve always tried to focus on having some level of existing IP that we can leverage Despite its relatively small size -Stan has around 65 staff- it has enjoyed early success including No Activity landing a US adaptation. With a lot of our big budget productions weve always tried to focus on having some level of existing IP that we can leverage, Sneesby continues. One of the drivers that we set out was to say if we if we dont do a good job at differentiating our position from Nine were going to suffer the challenges of consumers asking the question, Why should we pay for a streaming service when free to airs like Nine are free? It has been really important in these early years of establishing a brand to be positioned differently because we are different. A long term plan and forging a name has been integral when you are up against giants like Netflix. Ive always said to the market we are an Australian company that was developed and created here in Australia, its run by Australians for Australians. But make no mistake, we didnt we didnt match that with an Australian view of investment. We actually took a very international view in terms of the scale of investment wed need to make. We didnt throw a bunch of money up against the wall We knew Netflix would be here, we knew Amazon would be here, we knew the studios would have to consider how they play as this market shapes up. We didnt throw a bunch of money up against the wall and say We hope that sticks if the big players come to town. Nine & Fairfax were willing to give it a crack. Quite often companies will fail not because their idea is wrong but because they dont have the depth of willingness or, quite frankly, the balls to run hard enough at the investment. Since Nines takeover of Fairfax, it is no longer a joint venture. Sneesby is coy on how long its deal with CBS-owned Showtime will continue since the arrival of 10 All Access, but remains upbeat. Our relationship with CBS has never been stronger and were always in continuous discussions around where things go and what the opportunities are. If things are right for CBS and Showtime in terms of how they position themselves in market here, theres deals to be done and well continue to have a long term and fruitful partnership. While Stans footprint is clearly local, Bloom will be taken to the world by Sony whose Australian-owned company Playmaker produced the series. We are investing in the show locally but equally Sony is investing in it from the point of view that they make the contribution for guaranteeing international sales. We rely on important partnerships. Thats how our model works. Bloom is now screening on Stan. Related Twelve Ukrainian sailors to stay in Russian detention in border case until late April RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov 16:55 15/01/2019 MOSCOW, January 15 (RAPSI) Moscows Lefortovsky District Court on Tuesday extended detention for twelve Ukrainian sailors charged with illegal crossing of Russian borders until April 24, the courts spokesperson Yekaterina Krasnova told RAPSI. The hearing was held behind closed doors. On November 25, Russian border guard officers had to engage a weapon to stop unwarranted maneuvers of three Ukrainian ships in Russias territorial waters in the area of Kerch Strait. The ships were seized while 24 crew members were arrested. Three sailors were wounded. Simferopol and Kerch courts ruled the sailors be detained. On November 30, all of them were transferred to Moscow. Russias High Commissioner for Human Rights Tatiana Moskalkova said in December that the sailors rights were not violated. Their rights to a procedure and confinement conditions as well as rights to medical care are observed as required by international and Russian laws, Moskalkova told journalists. While it remains debatable whether you should use your mobile devices while they are being charged, the danger of such a practice has been highlighted by a cellphone explosion that severely wounded a teenager in northern Vietnam on Sunday. V.M.G., a 17-year-old resident in Nam Dinh Province, was rushed to the provincial general hospital with a severely injured left hand at around 2:00 pm on Sunday, according to Nguyen Van Hung, deputy head of the orthopedic department. The patients family said he was on his bed using his mobile phone while the device was being charged. The device then suddenly blew up. He was hospitalized when the family had given no first aid to him. The explosion severed all the fingers of his left hand. Hung said the wound was so serious that it was impossible reattach those fingers. The hospital had treated several patients getting into similar incidents, according to the doctor. People should not use mobile devices when they are connected to a power outlet, he advised. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! An increasing number of Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese) and citizens of many foreign countries have been seeking treatment for their illnesses at hospitals in Vietnam. Approximately 300,000 foreigners arrived in Vietnam to undergo health checks and treatment in 2018, according to statistics from the Ministry of Health. Most of these patients are Viet Kieu and Laotian and Cambodian residents, while the others come from South Korea, Australia, the U.S., and the UK. An easy process in booking a doctor appointment and competitive cost are among the reasons for this trend. H., a 58-year-old Viet Kieu who has lived in the U.S. for four decades, said she and her two sisters decided to return to Vietnam to undergo cosmetic surgery at a hospital in downtown Ho Chi Minh City. The cost for such procedures is three to four times higher in the U.S., and we have to wait for a very long time before the surgeries are performed, H. said. Th., another overseas Vietnamese who resides in New York City, has undergone liposuction at the same infirmary. It is difficult to make an appointment for liposuction in the U.S., Th. said, adding he chose to return to Vietnam after reading many good reviews on the Internet. According to a representative of the hospital, the number of Viet Kieu seeking cosmetic surgeries at the facility has surged by two to three times over the past three years. An overseas Vietnamese woman is treated at a beauty clinic in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Tuoi Tre Dr. Nguyen Hong Huy, medical director of a dental clinic in Vietnam, said they often receive about 900 to 1,200 Viet Kieu patients during peak seasons, which come right before Christmas and the Lunar New Year holiday. We offer modern equipment, treatment meeting international standards, a long-term warranty, and reasonable prices, which attract many overseas Vietnamese, Huy elaborated. At the Oncology Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, doctors treated more than 1,220 foreign patients in 2018, most of whom came from Cambodia, China, the Philippines, and the U.S., said Pham Xuan Dung, director of the infirmary. Meanwhile, about 20 Laotian and Cambodian men arrive at the andrology department of Ho Chi Minh Citys Binh Dan Hospital on a weekly basis, according to Dr. Mai Ba Tien Dung, the departments chief. Viet Kieu, American, British, and Australian patients often come to the infirmary to undergo urological surgeries, Dr. Dung added. There is also promising potential in the treatment of infertility for overseas Vietnamese and foreigners in Vietnam, according to Dr. Ho Manh Tuong, secretary-general of the Ho Chi Minh City Society for Reproductive Medicine. Treatment results in Vietnam are similar to those in the U.S., but it is much easier to make an appointment with a competent doctor and the cost is also significantly lower, Dr. Tuong explained. An in vitro fertilization (IVF) case costs about US$20,000 in the U.S., while it is only $3,500 in Vietnam, he continued, adding that the expense for the procedure is three times higher in other Southeast Asian nations. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Administrators in Hanoi say they will be relocating people who live near a local waste treatment plant later this year after angered residents had prevented garbage trucks from entering the facility in the past few days as a way of protest. Many people in Nam Son, Bac Son, and Hong Ky Communes in Soc Son District started barricading the entrance of the Nam Son solid waste treatment complex on Friday last week, causing rubbish to pile up along many streets in the capital. The situation remained unsolved until Monday morning, before local authorities were able to convince the locals to return to their homes on the afternoon of the same day. Covering an area of 83.4 hectares, the Nam Son waste treatment plant is considered the largest facility in Hanoi with a capacity of 4,000 metric tons per day. According to the municipal Peoples Committee, local residents have been exasperated by the sluggish site clearance and relocation process around the treatment plant. Do Trong De, who lives in Nam Son Commune, said locals have had to live along with the pollution brought about by operations of the facility over the past two decades. A garbage truck was able to enter the treatment plant on the afternoon of January 14, 2019. Photo: Tuoi Tre In 2016, Hanoi chairman Nguyen Duc Chung promised to relocate all of us away from the plant by the third quarter of 2018, said Nguyen Thi Ly, another resident in Nam Son. With no action ever taken since, residents had to take matters into their own hands, Ly continued. Either the treatment complex shuts down or we are moved to a different location. We cannot keep living here as pollution and cancer will eventually kill us, she asserted. In order to deal with the issue, the Hanoi administration has required authorities in Soc Son District to finish drawing a map detailing the affected areas within a 500 meter radius from the Nam Son treatment plant. By March 30, the districts authorities will have to complete a list of affected households and suggest a way to support and relocate these residents. The relocation must be carried out within the second quarter of this year. The Soc Son administration was also tasked with explaining the situation to the locals to prevent them from blocking the treatment complex in the future. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Here are todays leading news stories: Politics -- Vietnamese Party chief and State President Nguyen Phu Trong stressed the need for courts at all levels to speed up judicial reform and improve the quality of judgment during a conference of the Supreme Peoples Court in Hanoi on Monday. Society -- An increasing number of Viet kieu (overseas Vietnamese) and people from such countries as Laos, Cambodia, South Korean, Australia, and the U.S. has been seeking treatment for their illnesses at hospitals in Vietnam. -- Competent authorities in Ha Long City in the northern province of Quang Ninh on Monday busted four speedboats as they were transporting passengers between Tuan Chau Island and Cat Ba Archipelago without a legitimate license. -- Passengers will be asked to remove their masks and sunglasses at public hall and terminals at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City to assist security supervision and management at the airdrome during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday. -- The Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee officially announced that retirement of Nguyen Thi Quyet Tam, chairwoman of the municipal Peoples Council and deputy secretary of the citys Party Committee, on Monday. -- The police department in the south-central province of Khanh Hoa on Monday initiated legal proceedings against Nguyen Vo Ngoc Bao, 19, for murdering his own mother and younger brother while being under the influence of drugs on January 5. -- The Ministry of Transport has estimated the construction of a 53.5 kilometer expressway connecting Ho Chi Minh City and Moc Bai Border Gate in Tay Ninh Province at VND10.6 trillion (US$455.8 million). -- Hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi have warned of the epidemic of measles in both adults and children as the number of patients has recently skyrocketed. Business -- Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has advised the Central Highlands province of Dak Nong to capitalize on its strengths in agriculture, tourism, and mining for its future overall development during an investment promotion conference in the locality on Monday. -- The demand for home renovation in Ho Chi Minh City has increased by more than 50 percent compared to normal days as the Lunar New Year is just a little more than two weeks away. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A group of artists will introduce more than 70 artworks to viewers and painting enthusiasts in Hanoi at an exhibition later this month, in celebration of the upcoming Lunar New Year festival, which is due in February. The annual exhibition by G39, a group of artists from the famed Bat Trang pottery village in the Vietnamese capital city, now in its fifth year, will be organized in the first-floor exhibition hall of Hang Da Galleria on Hang Da Street, Hoan Kiem District, from January 20 to February 1. Inspired by 12 Vietnamese zodiac signs, this years exhibit will be themed Hoi Dome 2019, with Hoi meaning Pig in Vietnamese, as the Lunar New Year 2019 ushers in the Year of the Pig. Hoi Dome 2019 will display over 70 paintings on such different materials as oil paint, lacquer, and acrylic. A painting by Nguyen Minh Hieu The painters used a lot of warm and brilliant colors to convey prosperity and fullness from the image of the pig, according to Le Thiet Cuong, a painter of G39 and curator of the exhibition. The exhibition is meant to not only maintain the annual drawing activity that the artist group G39 initiated and to celebrate the Lunar New Year festival, a beautiful national culture of Vietnam, but to also bring art closer to the public, Cuong said. The event will spare some space to introduce paintings about the Year of the Pig created by children. In addition, Hoi Dome 2019 will feature porcelain statues and dishes from Bat Trang Village. Visitors to the exhibition can also enjoy performances by the rock band G39 while watching the artists drawing the paintings for invited guests. A painting by 10-year-old painter Dim Below are some paintings to be featured at the event: Three paintings by Doan Hoang Lam A painting by Tao Linh A painting by Nguyen Minh Hieu A painting by Pham Tran Quan A painting by Do Dung A painting by Nguyen Hong Phuong Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union-led group consisting of young builders from north-central Vietnam has committed itself to the cause of assisting the impoverished in constructing or repairing their abodes for no fee. For four years in a row, a voluntary group of builders self-branded as Youth Craftsmen in Dong Hoi City, Quang Binh Province, has worked nonstop to mend and build houses for the destitute. What sets them apart from other construction teams is that they charge nothing for their service. This righteous act has earned them a much more amicable nickname, the Chargeless Craftsmen. Dilapidated houses? Call us! Dang Thi Chau, 60, from Duc Mon Commune, Duc Ninh Ward, Dong Hoi, is a poor woman of a desperate background. As her husband abandoned the family long ago, Chau has to rear four children by herself. When this winter came, her already dilapidated abode could no longer strain itself against the thrashings of nature, and no husband meant no mending whatsoever for anytime soon. Amid such desperation, toward the end of 2018, the local Red Cross Association timely decided to provide Chau with VND75 million (US$3,240) to repair the house. Then again, the fund quickly fell short, as Chau found out there was no way to cover the cost with it. Catching wind of the dire circumstance, Tran Manh Hoang, the local Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union secretary, immediately offered assistance. In just a matter of days, some 20 Union youths appeared, and got to work on mending Chaus house right away. The team first started by demolishing the unmendable rooftop and hulls of the house in two days straight. Afterward, every day, two of its members would linger at the house for further repairs and add-ons. More than a week later, the construction finished. To Chaus surprise, the process was touchingly free of charge. According to Hoang, this is not the first time this team, comprised of builders, has agreed to do a philanthropic job. Prior to Chaus case, the group, nicknamed Chargeless Craftsmen, had mended more than 40 other houses for the needy across the ward. Since the founding of the team, we have made it clear that it would accept tasks free of charge, Hoang affirmed. Its targets lie among poverty-stricken families, who would have no way to improve their dwellings without the funding of respective organizations. Then again, such funding can at most cover the material cost, excluding the fee to hire builders. Thus, our offering help without seeking anything in return is just the proper thing to do. What goes around comes around Not satisfied with just the mending work, the Chargeless Craftsmen have been known to erect new houses for destitute people. The team, Hoang said, even went so far as calling for additional funding, so that said houses could be reinforced aptly. Dang Thi Ba of Duc Ninh Ward used to live with her elder sister. Due to a family dispute, she was cast out, but not before receiving a small plot of land from her sister, and stimulant of VND55 million (US$2,374) in support from the Dong Hoi City administration. Even so, the lonesome woman found no way to help herself to a humble abode she always yearned for. Eventually, the Chargeless Craftsmen arrived, and quickly moved into work to construct a new house for Ba, which altogether took them a month to complete. Since then, as Ba has no family of her own, she has fondly thought of the team members as her sons. She would find every occasion the team comes back to check her house to endow them with happiness, and cookies. Once you are on the team, helping others in need shall become your one and only creed, Hoang said. Happiness and cheers from them are our greatest motivation to brace on, not monetary rewards. Willing to dedicate days to philanthropic act on monthly basis Since day one, the team has maintained a stable workforce of 30 personnel, 15 of whom are core members. All these young workers come from humble backgrounds, being seasonal masons, among other things. Team leader Tran Thanh Phuc, himself a veteran builder, is regarded as the founding father of the team. Despite his borderline destitute situation, he is still willing to offer a helping hand every time a need arises. Before long, the practice has become common throughout the team. Each month, all members are prepared to put aside some free days, so that the Chargeless Craftsmen can be mobilized in a moments notice, without fail. Though we are all poor one way or another, should we still retain strength and vigor, it falls onto us to extend a hand to the less privileged. Its the most practical act we younguns can do for others, Phuc said. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A British diplomat shared with young Vietnamese last weekend what he thought to be the key to winning a prestigious scholarship offered by the UK government, pointing out some of the candidates misunderstandings. British Consul General Ian Gibbons said on the sidelines of the Leader from Below workshop, organized by the British Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City on January 12, that Vietnamese candidates tend not to fully understand what Chevening looks for in its two main requirements: leadership and influencing skills. Chevening is the UK government's international awards scheme. It is understood that applicants have to have two main qualities: leadership and influencing skills. It is a common belief among many Vietnamese applicants that a leader must be a person on top of an organization. However, this appears to be unconvincing for Consul General Gibbons. Mostly those that I know at the top of an organization would say the whole company are leaders, he said. You can be a leader in every single aspect of the work you do in the company, because without a leader you dont have a team, and without a team you dont have an effective organization. The diplomat added that Vietnam has a huge talent pool, with the number of high-quality applications and the number of potential achievers having both gone up. To meet Chevening requirements, an individual does not need to be one of the best candidates in their field, but has to be someone able to prove their leadership and influence. These qualities are somehow different from the youths concept of a strong competitor for scholarships, Gibbons said. Some speakers, who are Chevening fellowship alumni, said at the workshop that applicants should be clear-headed about how they can contribute to their society, and how the program can help them. I think its just about the right moment, right time, and right person. I think the Chevening Scholarship Committee or other scholarship committees are looking for the most suitable one, not the best one, said Nguyen Nhu Ngoc, a 2015-2016 Chevener. She advised young people to research the criteria of each scholarship they want to apply for, and try to prove that they have met all the criteria. Several other speakers delivered the same message that each applicant must show consistency in their study and work schemes. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A Vietnam-based e-commerce platform has successfully raised US$7 million in series B funding to invest in regional expansion and onboarding new brands, the startup announced on Monday. Leflair, an online platform that sources branded goods from brands and official distributors to Vietnamese customers, particularly claimed $3 million from South Korean TV home shopping company GS Shop and $4 million from Cambodia-based Belt Road Capital Management last week, according to Deal Street Asia. The latest round has come about a year after Leflair raised $3 million in series A funding in January 2018, bringing its total financing close to $12 million. This fundraising also marks GS Shops first direct investment in Vietnams startup scene. Loic Gautier, co-founder and CEO at Leflair, said that the platform will use this latest injection to increase the flow of merchandise from South Korea, accelerating multidimensional cooperation with GS Shop. We believe cross-border is the future of e-commerce in Southeast Asia and with this additional funding our customers will soon be able to purchase even more brands from international hubs, in particular South Korea and Japan, while enjoying the same delivery experience as domestic deliveries, Gautier said. Founded in December 2015, Leflair follows the flash-sales model that has proven successful in Europe with Vente-privee.com from France being an instance. The startup offers a wide range of worldwide branded merchandise, from fashion and beauty to home, such as Calvin Klein, Botanist and Moleskin, to Vietnamese consumers at attractive prices. Leflair claims that it has grown 100 percent year-on-year since its foundation. It has so far closed a total of three rounds of investment from world-class angel investors and venture capital firms from the U.S., France, Italy, Singapore, Hong Kong and now from South Korea and Cambodia. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The Vietnam eCommerce and Digital Economy Agency under the Ministry of Industry and Trade has warned consumers against a new form of scam where customers are asked to pay for unknown products shipped to their houses from e-commerce websites, even though they did not put in any order. L.P.D., a resident in Hanois Nam Tu Liem District, has recently given her account of falling victim to such a scam to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper. D. said a package labeled as fashion accessories was shipped to her house the other day, with the recipient required to pay the shipper as the transaction was made with cash-on-delivery (COD) as the payment method. As the woman was not home at the time of the delivery, her family paid VND79,000 (US$3.4) for the package, without asking D. if it was really something she bought online or opening the parcel to see what was inside. The family must have believed that it was not worth the effort when the required payment was not too much, D. said. But as D. opened the package, she was stunned to see nothing but a small paper clip inside, and there were no fashion accessories whatsoever. The Hanoi resident reviewed all her recent activities on e-commerce websites to make sure she never made such a transaction. She also checked the address of the seller as listed on the delivery note, only to know that it was a bogus one in the northern province of Thai Nguyen. The address just does not exist and the listed phone number was not accepting calls, she said. The delivery note is seen on the package in this photo provided by L.P.D. Following further inspection, D. discovered that the seller was operating an online shop on S., a local e-commerce website. She then reported the issue to the site. Upon receiving the complaint, a representative of the company that operates the e-commerce website visited D. at her home and suggested fully refunding her the VND79,000 fee, which she rejected. While the company admitted that D. did not have an account or ever place any order on S., it denied any responsibility for the incident and blamed the mysterious seller. D. said she only opened an account on two e-commerce websites, so it could be the case that her information on these platforms was leaked to a third party. The woman added many of her friends also got into the same situation but none reported to the e-commerce watchdog as they thought the swindled money was too little. But D. filed a complaint to the Vietnam eCommerce and Digital Economy Agency, which has officially requested that S. give a specific report and explanation on her case by Wednesday. The watchdog also ordered other e-commerce websites and delivery services to review their delivery and order confirmation processes so they will not be abused by scammers. At the same time, the agency advised that consumers carefully check necessary information and the products being delivered upon receiving any delivery from e-commerce websites. Consumers should report to the Vietnam eCommerce and Digital Economy Agency should they face similar cases. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Russian General Drymanov to stay in detention on corruption charges RAPSI 13:15 15/01/2019 MOSCOW, January 15 (RAPSI) The Moscow City Court on Tuesday upheld a lower courts ruling to extend detention for ex-director of the Investigative Committee's Main Investigations Directorate, General Alexander Drymanov charged with corruption crimes, RAPSI learnt in the courts press service. The defendant will remain in jail until March 16. The general was arrested in mid-July. He stands charged with receiving two large-scale and especially large-scale bribes. The defendant pleads not guilty and calls the case fabricated. Last March, Drymanov was questioned as a witness in a case against ex-chief of the Investigative Committees Internal Security Directorate Mikhail Maksimenko. On April 20, Maksimenko was found guilty of taking two bribes and received a 13-year prison sentence. Additionally, he was fined 165 million rubles ($2.5 million). During interrogation the general denied alleged participation of Maksimenko in a corruption scheme. At present, Drymanov is not employed and lives on pension, according to his personal version. We hope you have enjoyed your complimentary access for the month. To continue viewing content on tucson.com, please sign in with your existing account or subscribe. Is it just me or does anyone else think its hilarious that the Arizona Corporation Commission recently agreed our state would be ready to con Note: Before the Stars Family History Expo in November, The Star asked readers to submit family names to see what could be found on newspapers.com. There were many submissions, so we spent 30 minutes on each to see what we could find and will present several in the coming months. Gayle (Ehrsam) Zizzo had enough information on her family to begin a search. Gayles fathers surname is Ehrsam and her mothers is Strandberg. Gayle did not tell us her parents first names, but we are reasonably sure now that they are Jesse and Eva. Her mothers family came from Sweden and settled in Nebraska. Her maternal grandfather, Albert Valentine Strandberg, was born in Nebraska in 1892, and though his father was born in Sweden, it was reasonable to assume we might find something about Gayles great grandfather in Nebraska. His name was Nels Strandberg. We found a notice of his death on May 3, 1915, in the Nebraska State Journal, which also stated that his wife died May 1, 1915. The age of Nels when he died indicates we probably have the right person. A couple weeks ago, a Southern Arizona ambulance company looked to social media for help in naming their newest therapy puppy. Tucsonans had the chance to submit their suggestions through email or in Facebook comments. And, after American Medical Response Southern Arizona received more than 100 suggestions, the puppy now has a name. Everyone, meet Zona! After filtering through the 100 suggestions, Southern Arizona employees with AMR and Rural Fire narrowed them down to four names including Zona, Takoda, Bailey and IV, according to Operations Manager Jacqueline Evans. A survey was then sent to employees to vote for the final name. The race was a close one, with only six votes sitting between first and fourth place. Zona, a goldendoodle, is now almost seven weeks old. She was born in Amarillo, Texas and makes her Tucson debut this weekend. She will be the first therapy dog for AMR in Southern Arizona, Evans said. Zona's initial training process will take about a year. Contact reporter Gloria Knott at gknott@tucson.com or 573-4235. On Twitter: @gloriaeknott Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Tucson Border Patrol Sector Chief Rodolfo Karisch has been reassigned to Texas after less than two years here. Karisch became the chief patrol agent in charge and commander of the Joint Task Force West on Aug. 20, 2017. Previously he led the Del Rio Sector in Texas and was acting assistant commissioner of the Office of Professional Responsibility for Customs and Border Protection. Border Patrol officials have not announced Karischs replacement or when that person takes over. Karischs reassignment was confirmed in a Facebook post from Pima County Sheriff Mark Napier on Jan. 11 in which he said he had to say goodbye to a dear friend and great partner. Art del Cueto, a local agent and vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, also confirmed Karisch is leaving or has left. Karisch is at least the third Border Patrol chief of the Tucson sector who in recent years has left Arizona for Texas. Contact reporter Perla Trevizo at 573-4102 or ptrevizo@tucson.com. On Twitter: @Perla_Trevizo. Lelevier, who testified during trial, declined to speak on his own behalf Butler praised the tremendous bravery of Oliver and Jaydens friends who testified during trial to what he called the nightmare they lived through. Butler said the jury answered the question of who killed Jayden, but the remaining question of why continues to torment her family and friends. Im not sure if that answer would provide any comfort, Butler said, adding that it could lead Jaydens loved ones to wonder what they could have done differently to prevent her death. Butler said Mosher was correct in saying only one person on the planet is responsible for killing Jayden, before he imposed the state-mandated sentence of life in prison with no chance of release, and the maximum sentence of 17 years in each of the sexual-exploitation charges, set to run consecutively. Lelevier was also sentenced to 1.5 years in prison for each of the remaining five charges, to be served concurrently with his other sentences Lelevier has 20 days to appeal his sentence. The justice system worked today as well as it absolutely can, said Julia Palfreyman, an attorney representing Jaydens mother. You cant bring Jayden back, but the family can certainly be relieved that (Lelevier will) never be out again and hell never be able to hurt another child again. Contact reporter Caitlin Schmidt at cschmidt@tucson.com or 573-4191. Twitter: @caitlincschmidt Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Ducey told lawmakers his starting point is the plan he offered last year, which he said was based on a study of the five deadliest school shootings of the past two decades, and is focused on prevention. One common element in those shootings, he said, was the belief they might have been prevented because there were people who had observed the soon-to-become shooters and raised questions about public safety. That led Ducey to propose his STOP plan, Severe Threat Order of Protection. It would set up a procedure to allow not just police but family members and others to seek a court order to have law enforcement take an individuals gun while he or she is locked up for up to 21 days for a mental evaluation. Senate Republicans approved the proposal last year, but only after removing provisions to allow family members, guidance counselors and school administrators to refer to the courts people they consider a danger to themselves or others. Even with that change, Eddie Farnsworth, then the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, refused to even give the measure a hearing. On Monday, Ducey said hes ready to go at it again including the STOP orders. An analyst with Homeland Security Investigations in Tucson has been indicted on federal charges of lying about his educational background. Gregg Johnson, a computer forensics analyst with Homeland Security Investigations, is accused of making false statements to the federal government by claiming on job applications that he earned a bachelors degree in sociology and a masters degree in theology, according to an indictment filed Jan. 9 in U.S. District Court in Tucson. The first of two alleged false statements came in October 2015 when Johnson applied for an internship as an HSI human exploitation rescue operative, which later converted to a position as a computer forensics analyst. He submitted a fraudulent resume and college transcript claiming he earned degrees in 2005 and 2013 from Wayland Baptist University in Texas, according to a Dec. 7 criminal complaint. Johnson said he did not have a degree during a background investigation for a security clearance two months later, according to the complaint, which was filed by a special agent with the Office of Professional Responsibility at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the parent agency of HSI. While officials of Arizona and the other six river basin states have been working on the proposed drought plan for more than three years, There will be a much more complex discussion to follow, Babbitt said. This time, we left the (major) discussion to the last moment. Next time, we cant do that, Babbitt said, referring indirectly to the Arizona Legislatures failure to pass legislation last year to get the drought plan moving. Its going to be a lot more difficult to get to the balance we all have to find. The lengthy debate over the drought plan is a proxy for the much bigger questions about the dynamics between the rivers upper and lower basins, Babbitt said. Were taking more than our share in the Lower Basin, while the Upper Basin hasnt started taking all the water its entitled to use, he said. But he declined to discuss if the state can continue growing in population and economically in the face of decreasing flows on the Colorado. It supplies 40 percent of Arizonas total water supply. Thats a subject for another lengthy discussion, after this drought plan is approved, Babbitt said. While the DCP (drought contingency plan) steering committee has spent months in delicate negotiations, the legislative language needs to be before our members and the stakeholders we represent as soon as possible to allow time for evaluation, Bradley said. The Jan. 31st deadline is crystal clear, he said. But it should be equally clear that approval from the Legislature is not to be taken for granted. The warnings come as Pinal County farmers are demanding specific written assurances in any final plan that they will get the water theyre being promised. They also want money to drill new wells to make up for some of what they will lose in Colorado River water. Rep. David Cook, R-Globe, said the Pinal County farmers he represents have no problem with reaching a deal, even with a sharp cut in Colorado River water deliveries and being forced to let 30 percent to 40 percent of their land go fallow. We need the assurances of the agricultural community that were just not entering into an agreement that can be changed or altered later on and the water not delivered, he said Tuesday. Less clear is how much power the farmers have to get what they want. Sex. Lies. Death. Life. Greed. Desperation. And, oh yes, alcohol. They all crash into each other and make for an explosive cocktail in Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, now getting a solid production at Tucsons Roadrunner Theatre Company. The play is a microscopic look at a family that truly defines dysfunctional. Roger Owen takes on the role of the patriarch, Big Daddy, who has the family gathered at his Mississippi cotton plantation to celebrate his 65th birthday. Big Daddy is rich, a bully, a cad and so verbally abusive that it is cringeworthy. He also has a soft spot for his alcoholic son, Brick, who is troubled and Big Daddy wants to know why. And there is this: He is dying of cancer, though he believes hes been given a clean bill of health. This is a complex character, and Owen infuses Big Daddy with the fury and fierceness that defines him. Sara Jackson slithers into the iconic role of Maggie, Bricks wife and a woman desperate to avoid the poverty she knew growing up, desperate to have her always-drunk husband love her and make love to her, desperate to put on a happy face so that no one senses the cracks underneath. Jackson was sultry at times, frantic at others. She made Maggies fears and frustrations palpable. Silent Meditation Awam Tibetan Buddhist Institute. Ages 18 and up. 6-7 p.m. Tuesdays. Free. 622-8460. awaminstitute.org. Other workout ideas HIIT Workout class Floor Polish Dance Studio. High-energy class to experience the environment of a group fitness class but tailored to your own needs and abilities. Ages 16 and up. Wear sneakers and bring water. 7-8 a.m. Tuesdays and Fridays. $6. 333-5905. floorpolishdance.com. Beat Cancer Boot Camp Udall Park. Ramada 3, 7200 E. Tanque Verde. Beat Cancer Boot Camp is a fitness support group for all cancer survivors and those who support them. Everyone welcomed. Ages 15 and up. Classes are eight-week sessions. 8-9 a.m. Saturdays; 5:30-6:30 p.m. Tuesdays. Through Feb. 26. $96 for two days a week; $56 for one day per week. 419-8632. beatcancerbootcamp.com. Burlesque Fitness class Floor Polish Dance Studio. No dancing or stripping, just exercises that focus on arms, legs and core muscles. Always features sexy fun music playlists. Wear exercise attire to move in, bring a yoga mat if you have one and water. Class is usually done barefoot. Ages 16 and up. 5:45-6:45 p.m. Tuesdays. $6. 333-5905. floorpolishdance.com. Stay up-to-date on what's happening Receive the latest in local entertainment news in your inbox weekly! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. Pride, the worst of the seven deadly sins, blinds us and holds us back. Dr. King taught us that forgiveness is the way to defeat pride: Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a constant attitude. Forgiveness means reconciliation, a coming together again. We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. Something my father did in the military in the 1950s still makes me proud. He was raised in Pittsburgh in an era when he had limited interaction with the African-American community. In the Army, however, he became best friends with an African-American who was being harassed by another fellow solely because of his skin color. My father, a large, powerful man, used his fists to put an end to the harassment. His friend went on to become a physician. My father says of him, He was the finest man I ever met. The Democratic leader in the House took a stronger tone, warning that a special session will be needed to make sure the services dont dry up. That is an appalling lack of consideration by the federal government and we as a state will take care of our most vulnerable people, said House Minority Floor Leader Cathy Connolly, D-Laramie. Gordon is aware of the concerns over WIC and SNAP payments but has not identified specific state funds to replace them if federal funding runs out, Gordons spokeswoman Rachel Girt said. The governors office is researching options to counter shutdown impacts if it continues, Girt said. At the Seton House a Casper program to help single-parent families that are at risk of becoming homeless get back on their feet Executive Director Deanna Frey worried about her clients if the programs dry up. Almost all her clients use WIC or SNAP benefits as they transition to stable footing, Frey said. Today, she works with 30 parents and 55 children receiving SNAP benefits, she said, and another nine children receiving WIC benefits. Seton House requires people to find employment within 60 days of entering the assistance program, Frey said, but government assistance carries families through that transition. In November, the City Council passed an amendment to the upcoming fiscal years budget that allotted an additional $1.5 million to bolster the health insurance fund, which was facing a $2.5 million hole. But Napier said at the time that the additional money will only keep the account afloat for another year. Weve got to find a solution that doesnt need a significant cash infusion each year, he said. The Council has raised rates on employees receiving health insurance just once since 2011. Since then, the annual claim costs have risen from $5.67 million to $7.91 million, according to city data. Over that time, the city raised its own share of the premiums twice a 5 percent increase in 2016 and a 14 percent jump earlier this year. Generally, as health insurance costs rise, the amount paid by both the employer and employee will also increase. Napier, who was brought on as city manager in 2017, has declined to speculate about why city employees premiums were only increased once in seven years. But he told the City Council in May that its bad news for the fund. Though the state handles no more than five of these cases per year, the federal government often doesnt refer back to the state after they take on a case, which Roseberry noted can often be settled without litigation. That bill passed unanimously. A second bill brought up by the committee would bar employers from prohibiting workers from discussing their wages. The bill would not mandate private employers to report the wages of individual employees only create penalties for those who prevent employees from discussing their wages with each other. The bill passed 8-1, with Rep. Clarence Styvar, R-Cheyenne, voting against it. The most controversial bill of the evening was HB84 a piece of legislation Connolly said looks at our own house by performing a biennial analysis of the wage gap within state government. This, she said, would give state officials a mechanism to make wage changes if they find disparities, and to apply similar standards to the states Endow program, adding a requirement that start-up companies applying for public money take measures to address the wage gap. In a press release accompanying the data, the Secretary of States office was quick to note that the data did not indicate which candidate the new Republicans had voted for. Nor is it clear to what extent organized efforts like Switch For Wyoming had an effect. The group spent broadly on digital advertising in a short period dropping $24,520 on Facebook ads from Aug. 14-21, according to a filing with the Wyoming Secretary of States office. They spent another $6,885 on a call and text program from Aug. 18-21. Gordon defeated Friess by 9,109 votes. Biteman would like to see someone bring a runoff bill as well, he said. His bill would not create such a system, because of laws dictating a bill must tackle only one topic. But if he could, he would change statute to force a runoff in primary elections between the top two candidates unless someone secured more than 50 percent of the vote. Even with his win, Biteman said, Gordon still suffers from the lingering perception of meddling in the Republican primary. Gov. Gordons got that cloud kind of over his head, Biteman said, and thats unfortunate because hes duly elected. New attempt The legislation is a revived version of a bill introduced in last years budget session. Hastily introduced, that bill failed, but the concept of a statewide lodging tax has been worked throughout the 2018 interim session and has received widespread support from both economic development professionals and members of the lodging industry. The key to the bills support, so far, has been the preservation of the local option lodging tax and the delayed phase-in of the tax. The 2 percent local option would not take effect until the expiration of any existing local lodging tax. In Natrona County, whose voters just passed a 4 percent local lodging tax, that funding will stay the same until the local option tax comes up for a vote again in 2022. That option, according to the new rules, would max out at 2 percent. The changes for local governments, however, will be a net gain. According to testimony from Brook Kaufman, CEO of Visit Casper, Natrona County currently maintains a 9 percent total rate between its sales tax and lodging tax; if the bill were to pass, that number would go up to 12 percent total, closer to the industry average. The drop in price has had mixed effects on companies. Producers, like Peter Wold, of Casper-based Wold Oil Properties, say operators can make a living when the national benchmark is at $50. But its a break-even investment rather than profitable one at those prices. Wold is one of the smaller firms, holding its own in a permitting war in the Powder River Basin. The family company has filed thousands of drilling permits in the state and was one of the first to get out in the field again post downturn, leveraging private equity dollars to drill in Wyoming when prices started to creep. In the Powder today, Wold really needs to see a $70 price to feel encouraged and to make a good return, he said. Fingers crossed, some positive projections from economists and analysts that oil will rebound as global demand burns off the surplus supply will prove true, Wold said. Were no better than anybody else at reading the reports, Wold said, of making predictions on price. But $70 oil in 2019 is what his company is hoping for, he said. Theres an awful lot of economists and they are suggesting the same thing, Wold said. Well keep our fingers crossed. For more information, contact CHCCW at 233-6000. Wednesday weaving group Art 321 has a Weaving Group which will meet each Wednesday morning from 10 a.m. to noon. There are small table looms available for in-house use or for sale for $20, tax included. If you have ever wanted to learn how to weave or to sharpen existing skills, please bring in some yarn and join the group. There is no need to sign up ahead of time, experienced weavers will be there to help you get started and the cost is $5 per attendee Quilts of Valor The Crossroads Quilters chapter of the Quilts of Valor Foundation will be meeting weekly starting Wednesday at the Central Wyoming Senior Services Center, 1831 East 4th St., in the activity room. Those who are interested in quilting with the group are welcome to attend. Dues are $5 per year but you can help make quilts without joining. For more information, contact Jan Whitney, 237-7709 or Linda Tackett, 253-0110. After school at the library Elementary-age children are invited to celebrate all things unicorn with crafts, stories, and snacks at 4 p.m., at the Natrona County Library. All supplies provided at cost. Call 577-7323 for more information. Fried chicken at the Elks Prayagraj: Pilgrims from across the world are gathering in India for the Kumbh Mela, a heady mix of spirituality, politics, and tourism that begins on Tuesday. During the eight-week festival at Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh, authorities expect up to 150 million people, including a million foreign visitors, to bathe at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna, and a mythical third river, the Saraswati. Devout Hindus believe that bathing in the waters of the Ganges absolves people of sins and bathing at the time of the Kumbh Mela, or the 'festival of the pot,' brings salvation from the cycle of life and death. A devotee prays after taking a holy dip at Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati rivers, during "Kumbh Mela", or the Pitcher Festival, in Prayagraj, previously known as Allahabad, India, January 14, 2019. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui In 2017, UNESCO declared Kumbh Mela as an intangible heritage site. The festival has its roots in a Hindu tradition that says the god Vishnu wrested a golden pot containing the nectar of immortality from demons. In a 12-day fight for possession, four drops fell to earth, in the cities of Prayagraj, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nasik, who share the Kumbhs as a result. "Kumbh is a conglomeration of spiritual consciousness and cultural heritage," Mahesh Sharma, who heads the culture ministry, said in a statement. A devotee arrives to take a holy dip at Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati rivers, during "Kumbh Mela", or the Pitcher Festival, in Prayagraj, previously known as Allahabad, India, January 14, 2019. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui Millions of pilgrims, led by naked, ash-smeared ascetics, some of whom live in caves, will plunge themselves into the icy waters during the first Shahi Snan, or Royal Bath, that begins around 4 am. The last of the arriving ascetics paraded towards temporary ashrams, or monasteries, built of corrugated steel and canvas on the eastern banks of the Ganges, many decked in fairy lights. Authorities have set up temporary bridges, 600 mass kitchens and more than 100,000 portable toilets in a pop-up city at the confluence of the rivers, which is known as the 'sangam.' Devotees sing and dance after taking a holy dip at Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati rivers, during "Kumbh Mela", or the Pitcher Festival, in Prayagraj, previously known as Allahabad, India, January 14, 2019. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui Those with cash can make their pick of luxury campsites on the river banks that offer ayurvedic spas and yoga that cost up to 32,000 rupees ($454.09) each night. Most of the pilgrims make do with more modest lodgings, sleeping in vast tents or out in the open. "I don't know where I will stay yet, but you do not often get to meet these saints and sadhus," says Rajendra Singh, a retired soldier now working as a security guard, who rode a bus from the state capital, Lucknow, about 200 km (124 miles) away. Devotees arrive to take a holy dip at Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati rivers, during "Kumbh Mela", or the Pitcher Festival, in Prayagraj, previously known as Allahabad, India, January 14, 2019. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui The government says about 100 million to 150 million people, including one million foreign tourists, are expected to attend over the eight-week festival period beginning on January 15, and the scale of the efforts to feed and house the pilgrims is immense. Young actress Prayaga Martin is known for her witticisms and one related to travel goes like this, "The earth is always moving and it our responsibility to move around it." A non-stop talker, Prayaga's trips to various corners of the globe does not follow the 'gypsy-style' journeys preferred by her generation. Prayaga, in fact, loves to travel with her family. She terms it 'Prayaga's life of happiness.' Crazy about travelling, Prayaga lists four of her favourite destinations. Stunning sights of Cape Town Words cannot describe the beauty of Cape Town, says the actress. Even an amateur photographer's snaps of the area with a mobile camera would resemble Santosh Sivan's frames, according to Prayaga. "My father often insists on visiting less-frequented destinations and my mother and I like this attitude of his," says the actress. That was how the Cape Town trip came about. "Moreover, one of father's friends lived there, which made things easy," adds Prayaga. Cape Town has two kinds of people, one at each extreme. On the one side are the super-rich and on the other very poor. "The people who reached the place as refugees are now the rulers and those who are the sons of the soil, their servants," comments Prayaga. Among the interesting spots she visited was Chapman's Peak. It a mountain from the top of which one feels he or she is standing at the edge of the world. The biggest attraction of the place is watching the sunset. It is a picture postcard scenario, according to the actress. While young, she liked drawing pictures and one of the earliest was the setting sun between two hills. At Chapman's Peak, Prayaga could experience the sight at first hand. From Chapman's Peak, Prayaga and family travelled over six hours in a mini caravan to Cango Caves. Along the route some wild African elephants intercepted; but they were lucky that the animals did not attack. Cango Caves were formed before the middle ages, says Prayaga. It was pitch dark inside and each step had to be taken cautiously. "I felt fear creeping into me, but felt relieved hearing that legendary pianist and composer Beethoven used to sing in the caves. A clear echo is heard in the caves and I too sang the Malayalam hit 'Aayiram kannumayi kathirunnu nine njan,'" says the talented star. Their next destination was Table Mount, a hill in the shape of a table. A rope ride and a cable car were the attractions there. She enjoyed all of them and returned late at night to the city. "Pubs and night life are very active in Cape Town. It seems the city and night are engaged in a love affair," comments Prayaga. She also toured the University of Cape Town. "The atmosphere of the place is very conducive to academics. We could visit the university as the son of father's friend studied there. I felt a Harry Potter effect at the place. It resembled a 'magic island,'" describes the star. In fact, entire Cape Town seemed magical. "Feeling that I too was a sorceress, I uttered the charm chanted by Harry Potter with his magic wand, 'Riddikulus,' to turn everything comical. But nothing happened. Cape Town still retained it stately beauty," reveals Prayaga. Strange traditions of Nepal Prayaga travelled to Nepal while she was an eighth standard student. "After arriving there, we wondered whether the place was not part of India. But we soon realized that it was another country in the neighbourhood. As I way very young at that time, the Nepal trip is the diary of a young girl," she explains. One tradition that she witnessed there hurt Prayaga. "A young girl, before attaining puberty, is selected as a 'Kumari,' the Goddess. It is the childs mother who learns that her daughter is a Devi when a serpent appears in her dream," the actress explains. "There are many Kumaris in Nepal. At some places they are called 'Royal Kumari' and worshipped. The Kumaris stay at a house called 'Kumari Ghar.' However, when the girl attains puberty, her divinity is considered to have been lost. When I heard these tales, I became frightened," says Prayaga. However, the charming smile of Buddhist monks in Nepal made her mind calm. Another incident still clear in Prayaga's memory is a trip on a private jet. "Mount Everest, the world's highest peak, is located in Nepal. There is a private jet service that takes tourists above Everest. During those days, I was afraid of heights. Moreover, I heard an announcement in English that I thought said that changes in weather would affect the journey. I was terrified and closed by ears with my hands. In the jet, I chanted all the prayers I knew. Even now when I close my eyes to pray, I recall that scary Everest trip," says the star. Trip to Holy Land It was only after arriving in Holy Land that Prayaga realized that most people travel there at the fag end of their lives. "I felt that the place resonated with cries of repentance and regret. At the 'Wailing Wall,' everyone hit their head and spoke about their faults. However, nobody showed emotions of pain but only relief over washing away their sins," recalls Prayaga. She also saw people scribbling 'letters to god' and inserting them in the crevices on the wall. "At the place, I felt that spirituality was something beyond fear of god or belief in Him," observes the actress. The next stop was the site of crucifixion. Prayaga soon reached the spot where Christ was buried. "There was big rush to kiss the spot. One would be lucky to spend even five seconds there. While leaving the place I saw a rosary lying on the ground and picked it up. I felt that it was something very precious and still preserve it as my most valuable item," relates the star. A visit to the Dead Sea was also part of her itinerary. "As the salinity is very high, nobody will drown in the waters, but float like dead wood. It reminds us that we are all hollow people," comments the actress philosophically. During this trip, Prayaga next travelled to Egypt. "I was stupefied by the sight of the massive pyramids. One has to see the pyramids at least once in their lives," she feels. Dubai, where nostalgia lingers Prayaga recalls every trip to Dubai fondly. "It was to Dubai that I took my first flight. It was where my birthday was celebrated while in Class I. It is still the place we head to during every holiday," she reveals. She had visited every spot in Dubai, but not Desert Safari. "That wish too was realized recently. Earlier, I thought that roller-coaster offered the biggest thrill in life, but Desert Safari changed all that. Now I feel as if I have conquered all of Dubai," says Prayaga. Prayaga has a dream; of travelling to a place covered with snow. This also will turn into a reality soon. "We are heading to Shimla for the shoot of a Kannada film," she says. "Sometimes I feel that real life is the short period spent for travels," Prayaga makes another statement reflecting deep thought. The TransGriot is available for speaking engagements, college lectures, panel discussions, media interviews, conferences or Trans 101 education efforts for your school, business or professional organizations. For local Houston area, Texas or national events, you can e-mail me at transgriot@yahoo.com For events outside the Houston metro area, I ask that my travel and lodging expenses be covered. This is separate from my speaking fee. If you are interested in having me appear as a speaker or panelist, you can e-mail me with the date and details of your proposed event. Please book as early as possible because my speaking and event calendar slots during the year rapidly fill up. Some ministers do try and keep other occupations in tandem with their government roles. Corinne Cahen, as it transpires, is active in the tourism industry. AirBnB is growing in Luxembourg and providing a nice alternative to hotels. One very attentive internet-goer discovered a pleasant three bedroom apartment, hosted by Corinne. As it happens, this Corinne is no other than Corinne Cahen, Minister of Family Affairs and Integration. Cahen's AirBnB offer is the entire three-bedroom flat in the north of Bonnevoie for a very reasonable 80 a night. In addition to the charming flat, Cahen has also said that she is available for recommendations concerning Luxembourg City, cultural activities, the country and day-trips, and of course, restaurants. In the continuing series of ministers presenting the government programme to parliamentary commissions, the Ministry of Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs had its parliamentary commission meeting. Minister Paulette Lenert is in charge of a completely new ministry and one of her predominant goals is to work on a coherent strategy for the next years, she explained on Monday morning. She acknowledged that Luxembourg's development aid will not be as groundbreaking as in some other countries, but stressed that the country will engage continuously on a higher level. Lenert cited funding of around 1% of Luxembourg's GDP. This makes Luxembourg one of only five industrialised countries that maintains such high standards. As for the countries benefiting from Luxembourg's aid, Lenert explained that there could be changes to which countries Luxembourg would support. She explained that the current list of seven countries benefiting from Luxembourg's development aid may be revised, although it's quite likely that all these countries will continue to receive aid. Lenert suggested that other countries could join that list. The decision on these countries would take place as part of an open debate in the parliamentary commission. Lenert's objective is to work on criteria allowing the commission to decide which countries are eligible for Luxembourgish aid, stating that she would like to focus on African countries in the Sahel area (Mauritania, Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Sudan, and Ethiopia). As for Nicaragua, Lenert explained that it is likely that Luxembourg may not continue its development aid as the political situation in the Latin American country is simply too unstable. The Luxembourg Consumer Association (ULC) has called for the government to revise its legislation on taxi regulations in light of price hikes. The new law on taxi regulation came into effect on 1 September. According to Statec, taxi prices fell by 4.3% between March and July 2017, but then rose by 11.2% from July 2017 until December 2018. On average, prices have risen by 6%, according to the ULC on Monday morning. The association stressed that this makes taxi rides in Luxembourg some of the most expensive in Europe. In a press release issued on Monday the ULC cited the example of other countries, which show that liberalising prices makes taxi rides more expensive. The association called for the relevant minister to launch a new study on taxis in Luxembourg and use the results of the study to revise the recent law. The taxi federation has not yet responded to the ULC's allegations, but confirmed that a meeting will take place with Francois Bausch, Minister for Transport, in three weeks. Bausch also expressed reluctance at commenting on the topic and referred to the meeting on 5 February. The minister would then discuss the issues raised by the ULC with the taxi federation (FPLTA), which include licences, geographic zones, journeys to municipalities, and the evolution of prices. SUMMER SPECIAL!!! - Sign up at 20% OFF for Full Access to all of the online content and E-Editions on the www.thewordlink.com website here! (The charge will appear as "Country Media Inc." on your credit card statement) The Trump administration wants to bring transparency to the drug supply process. The president was floated the idea of forcing PBMs in the Medicare Part D program to pass a portion of the rebates to Medicare beneficiaries at the point of sale. Patients could save upwards of $19 billion over the next 10 years. Trump has also suggested that PBMs should be legally obligated to act as "fiduciaries" to their clients. This would require PBMs to negotiate the best possible deals for their clients as opposed to structuring rebates in a solely self-beneficial way. The Trump administrated has also proposed axing the pharmacist "gag rule" -- a restriction imposed by PBMs and insurers. In many cases, a patient's co-pay is higher than the total cost of a drug. A 30-day generic prescription, as one example, might cost just $10, yet the patient faces a $15 co-pay at the pharmacy counter. Currently, pharmacists are prohibited from informing patients that it'd be cheaper to refrain from using their insurance card and instead pay the $10 directly. American patients spend millions of dollars thanks to this shady practice. Overpayments impacted one in four patients and totaled $135 million in 2013, according to a University of Southern California study. The Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs Associate Degree Board of Commissioners has reaffirmed the accreditation of Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical Colleges business programs. ACBSP accreditation certifies that the teaching and learning processes for the business, accounting and administrative office technology degree programs offered at OCtech meet the rigorous educational standards established by ACBSP. OCtech is fully accredited with no notes or conditions. At OCtech, we have a history of preparing students for good jobs and great careers, and having ACBSP visit our college and validate the outstanding work done by the faculty and staff sends a message to our community about the high quality of our business programs, President Dr. Walt Tobin said. Having no conditions or notes as a follow-up to the self-study and visit confirms a long-held belief that our academic programs are among the best in this state. I commend the division dean, Williette Waring Berry, Program Coordinator Debra Jones and the business faculty for a job well done, he said. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} American Red Cross disaster-trained volunteers are assisting an Orangeburg family whose home, located on Orangewood Drive, was damaged by a fire Monday afternoon. The Orangeburg Department of Public Safety responded to the blaze. The Red Cross is helping two adults by providing financial assistance for food, clothing and other essentials, and comfort kits containing personal hygiene items. Individuals wanting to assist with Red Cross efforts can donate by visiting redcross.org or calling 1-800-RED-CROSS. Information about volunteer opportunities is available at the same website. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The people who protect Orangeburg County rolled up their sleeves on Friday to save up to 150 lives. A friendly Battle of the Badges was held to see which agency could donate the most blood: the Orangeburg Department of Public Safety, Orangeburg County Sheriffs Office or the Orangeburg County Fire District. Its a friendly competition, ODPS Lt. Jennifer Haig said. The winner has bragging rights, she said. By the end of the competition, employees of all three agencies had donated 50 pints of blood. Each unit of blood can save up to three lives, according the American Red Cross. The department that donated the most units of blood was ODPS with 28, which was met by a hearty donation of 24 units by the Orangeburg County Sheriffs Office. The Orangeburg County Fire District stepped up and donated seven units. Haig said she began donating blood as soon as she was old enough and has taken a few breaks over the years. I really got back into it after my father needed a blood transfusion a couple of years ago, she said. Sheriffs Office Investigator Andy Hayes donated a pint of blood just after Haig. After uncovering these findings, Kochel started looking at what might cause these reactions. At first, the difference seemed to point to various levels of empathy based on race. However, after further examination, there seemed to be more to the story. Certainly I had police officers both white and black who grew up in the Ferguson area, Kochel said. They all understand how policing was when they were younger growing up there and both black and white officers talked about having bad experiences with the police. While both demographics portrayed a deep sense of empathy, black officers seemed to have a deeper connection with the issues because of their own personal experiences. After discussing her findings with other researchers, the variance seemed to suggest a difference in personal experience. It may be that you can have an appreciation from a distance of someones struggle, but you dont have a stake in it unless you too have experienced it, Kochel said. GORHAM LaVurl L. 'Cowboy' Grace, 86, formerly of Gorham, passed away on Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019, at Memorial Hospital of Chester. His body will be cremated. Graveside services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, Jan. 18, at Goodbread Cemetery with Rev. Robert Gray officiating. Military honors will be conducted by the Paul Stout American Legion Post No. 127. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Goodbread Cemetery, P.O. Box 103, Gorham, IL 62940, to which Mr. Grace was very dedicated. For more information, please visit pettettfuneralhome.com. With all the challenges Illinois faces, Democrats and Republicans must work together, and we must begin with our most basic responsibilities, Pritzker said first and foremost, passing a balanced budget. As Pritzker begins that process, Sen. Dale Fowler, R-Harrisburg, is confident hell keep Southern Illinois in mind. Ive had numerous conversations with the governor about Southern Illinois, said Fowler, whos been named to Pritzkers job creation and economic opportunity transition committee. Projects in my district, like the Cairo river port terminal, I know hes got that on his radar. The phone calls from Pritzker and his transition team have been frequent, Fowler said, and the governor has suggested hell tour Southern Illinois in March. Theres going to be tough votes coming up, but I know compromise is part of the equation, Fowler said. Im very encouraged by the ways hes reached across party lines. Still, big policy differences between Pritzker and the majority-Republican Southern Illinois caucus remain. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} A Waterloo man has been charged with murder in the death of a man found dead Friday. The body of Steven P. Becker, 35, of Fults, was discovered by an acquaintance in a home in the 100 block of Church Street Friday afternoon. He was pronounced dead of gunshot wounds to his head and right leg, according to the Monroe County Coroners Office. Kyle Roider, 30, of the Church Street address, shot and killed Becker two days earlier, according to court documents. He was charged Monday with first-degree murder and aggravated battery. Roider and Becker were acquaintances, according to Monroe County State's Attorney Chris Hitzemann. Authorities declined to discuss a motive. Roider was being held without bail. St. Louis Post-Dispatch Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 3 Sad 1 Angry 0 Amtrak's usual routes between Chicago and Carbondale will be ending in Champaign on Tuesday, Jan. 22, while Canadian National Railway continues track improvements, according to a news release from the city of Carbondale. Trains 390 and 391, both also known as the Saluki, typically operate between Carbondale and Chicago. On Jan. 22, the train will not go south of Champaign. Bus service will be provided between Carbondale and Champaign. For detailed information, including a timetable with bus service, visit amtrak.com or call 1-800-872-7245. The Southern Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 3 Sad 2 Angry 3 Facebook Billionaire Investing in a Shocking New Industry (Ad) Peter Thiel, the billionaire investor behind Facebook, PayPal, and eBay, has a new darling industry in his sights. And he's betting a massive $210 million on its success. That's not pocket change. And today, you could get in on the ground floor China Mobile Limited provides mobile telecommunications and related services in Mainland China and Hong Kong. The company offers local calls; domestic and international long distance calls and roaming services; and value-added services, such as caller identity display, call waiting, conference calls, and others. It also provides wireless Internet service, as well as digital applications comprising music, video, reading, gaming, and animation; wireline broadband services; and wireline voice services. In addition, it offers dedicated line and IDC services to corporate customers in a range of industry sectors; and basic corporate communication products comprising corporate VPMN and SMS, and tailor made solutions. Further, the company provides international telecommunications services, which includes IDD, roaming, Internet, MNC, and value added business services. Additionally, it offers telecommunications network planning, design, and consulting services; roaming clearance, IT system operation, and technology support services; value-added platform development and maintenance services; mobile data, and system integration and development services; network construction and maintenance, network planning and optimizing, and training services; electronic communication products design and sale of related products; and non-banking financial services. It also provides mobile cloud research and development services; call center services; e-payment, e-commerce, and Internet finance services; and mobile Internet digital content services, as well as operates a network and business coordination center. The company serves 950 million mobile customers and 187 million wireline broadband customers. The company was formerly known as China Mobile (Hong Kong) Limited and changed its name to China Mobile Limited in May 2006. The company was incorporated in 1997 and is based in Central, Hong Kong. China Mobile Limited is a subsidiary of China Mobile Hong Kong (BVI) Limited. Read More Funeral homes often submit obituaries as a service to the families they are assisting. However, we will be happy to accept obituaries from family members pending proper verification of the death. Go to form The researchers created an internet browser extension that automatically verifies posts authenticity. The cryptographic signature, visible under each post on the left, is hidden when running the extension on the right. Credit: Michael Nekrasov Minority and dissident communities face a perplexing challenge in countries with authoritarian governments. They need to remain anonymous to avoid persecution, but also must establish a trustworthy identity in their communications. An interdisciplinary group of researchers at UC Santa Barbara has designed an application to meet both of these requirements. Computer science and communication researchers affiliated with the university's Center for Information Technology & Society traveled to three countries to assess the challenges minority groups face in maintaining a secure, trustworthy social media presence. Based on the communities' feedback, the team designed an app for the Android operating system that would safeguard group members' anonymity as well as verify the reliability of posts coming from the group. A paper detailing the technology appeared in the Journal of Internet Services and Applications. The team, led by computer science professor Elizabeth Belding, traveled to Mongolia, Zambia and Turkey, where colleagues at local institutions connected them with members of marginalized communities. At the time, these countries offered a relatively safe alternative to other nations with restricted speech, like Russia, China and Egypt. About two weeks after the group visited Turkey, however, an attempted coup d'etat prompted the government to clamp down on political dissidence. Interviews and surveys with the general public and with members of marginalized groups in these countries confirmed that maintaining anonymity is crucial for protection. But it comes with drawbacks, as the team soon learned. "The problem with anonymous communication is you don't know if it's credible," said Miriam Metzger, a professor in the department of communication, and one of the paper's coauthors. "If you're just getting a message and you don't know who it's coming from, you're probably not going to do what that message tells you to do. Especially if it's risky." This is where SecurePost comes in. The app allows communities to create secure groups on Twitter and Facebook that let them maintain a consistent, visible presence on social media. This enables them to build up trust with their readership over time, explained Michael Nekrasov, a computer science doctoral student and lead author of the paper. What's revolutionary is that SecurePost allows a group to operate without any roster of its individual members. Additionally, the app checks the group's posts, flagging any content that lacks the proper credentials. In this way, each member is protected by their anonymity even if the group is infiltrated or hacked, all while communications from the group itself are verified as trustworthy. Naturally, these communities want a convenient, yet secure way to extend membership invitations. The research team learned that many groups used passwords for this, however sharing a password always puts the account at risk. "What we found was, people wouldn't just tell someone the password," said Nekrasov. "What they'd do is write it down or send it in a message, and that's incredibly unsafe." Instead the team developed a much more secure method for inviting a new member to the group. The process involves exchanging secure QR codes visually or over a trusted connection, a technique that uses a pair of visible, public keys and a second pair of hidden, private keys to send and receive encrypted information. This ensures the security of the invite even if a third party was witnessing the exchange, said Nekrasov, because the private key is hidden on the device of the person joining the group. Once the new member joins the group, they receive a new key pair. The private key enables them to sign posts on behalf of the group. The public key, which anyone can see and use, enables any social media userincluding those not in the groupto verify posts. This ensures that if a post is forged or modified by a social network or government, any user will be able to identify it as a forgery. Content uploaded from an account through SecurePost appears as if it had a single author with no way of identifying individual posters or a group's membership roster. It accomplishes this by hosting the group on a third-party proxy server, which masks the individual's IP address from the social network. "This means you don't have to trust some outside party," said Nekrasov. "A group can run its own server and verify everything that is going on." What's more, SecurePost attaches a cryptographic signature to the post, generated from the group member's private key. The application then automatically verifies the authenticity of this signature for anyone else running the program, regardless of their membership status in a particular group. Because the proxy server never actually receives the users' private key, the verification feature can flag content such as posts made by an impostor or someone who hacked the proxy. The team designed SecurePost with the realities of its users in mind. They produced the application for the Android operating system, which made up 86 percent of the global market share at the time. They also made it compatible with older devices, so that as of October 2017, 99.9 percent of Android devices registered with Google could run the application. This is important because many individuals in the targeted user groups use phones with older operating systems, which are cheaper to purchase. SecurePost can also operate without a continuous internet connection, a necessity in many regions where it will find use. Instead of immediately uploading content, the app stores it on the device and posts it when internet connectivity resumes. To circumvent the vulnerability this creates if authorities confiscate the device, SecurePost also encrypts all data with an application-wide password. If the user is under duress, he or she can provide a false password that wipes the app's data, including the group keys. The team hopes the software ultimately gets developed into a full-fledged product with a wider reach. "At the end of the day, we're not a company, we're researchers," said Metzger. "We can develop apps, and we can put them in the app store, but we don't have a budget for marketing them." "But we can create new systems that a company could build a business around and market," she added. "And that's the way these technologies can have a big impact." Explore further The age of hacking brings a return to the physical key More information: Michael Nekrasov et al, A user-driven free speech application for anonymous and verified online, public group discourse, Journal of Internet Services and Applications (2018). Michael Nekrasov et al, A user-driven free speech application for anonymous and verified online, public group discourse,(2018). DOI: 10.1186/s13174-018-0093-4 Who controls our democracy? I wrote the attorney general's office, and they told me to contact my legislators. I have written my legislators, but there is no solution. This is true of our congress; they receive too many letters and cannot reply. It is extremely sad that they can refuse to answer the concerns of the general public. Lobbyists have this advantage. They can pay our representatives in order to gain their attention over the vote of the people. The average person is not given this advantage by our elected representatives. I believe we the people should have the ear of congress and the power to disallow corporations to gain their favor. Congress and state legislators should not benefit from lobbyists and corporations. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt was in office, the president and congress controlled the country. There were regulations in place that helped control the nation. These balances and controls have been worn away, and we now have no protection from large businesses and corporations. The only imperative left is SSI and the powers that be would like to destroy that, along with Medicare. America was satisfied and the people felt protected with the FDR administration. Regime loyalists have taken to social media to express their anger with the handling of the crisis in Syria by the leadership reports Alsouria Net. The social media page for the Presidency of the Syrian Arab Republic Citizens Complaints Office has published a response to messages that were left in recent days and directed at the head of the regime, Bashar al-Assad. The messages, written by technical, media and cultural regime loyalist figures, complained about the deteriorating economic living situation and the increase of corruption in all regime institutions. The page blamed what it called weak people for trying to create a state of mistrust between the people and the leadership. On Monday, a response published on the social media page said that, Assad has not left a single corrupt figure without being held to account and there is nothing hidden from his eyes. It accused those it described as Islamic State members inside the country who want to destroy Syria, and pointed to upcoming legislative decrees that will be in the interest of the resilient Syrian people, in terms of demobilization, a general amnesty, and wage rises, without giving details. Since last week, pro-regime social media pages have clamored with posts that have included sharply-worded criticisms and insults of Assad government members, with even the President not being spared from reactions that blamed him for what is happening. In a message directed at him, Nabil Hamdan from Lattakia, a member of the Physiotherapy Association, asked, Mr. President, dont you see the calls from everyone in this terrible situation? Mr. President, is there anyone in your government who is going cold, or without gas or without electricity or fuel or water or babys milk or suffering high prices Can you really be oblivious to us, the families of martyrs? Hamdan threatened to commit suicide if there was no solution found to the crises raging in the regime-controlled areas. The actors Shokran Mortga, Ayman Zeidan and Bashar Ismail (known for his strong loyalty to Assad) also sent similar messages. Areas currently under regime control have almost no electricity, water, fuel, or babys milk, while Syria is also undergoing snowfall and poor weather amid the collapse of the economic situation and Syrians buying power, as well as a major increase in the price of goods. Statements from Assad government officials regarding excuses for the current crises have sparked angry reactions. While babys milk has disappeared from the markets, and the price of a packet on the black market has reached 12,000 Syrian pounds, the Interior Trade Minister said that, the health of the citizen is precious to us, which was met with criticism from pro-regime media. The lack of gas has forced restaurants to close their doors in Damascus, while those that have continued to operate have had to buy gas canisters on the black market, now sold at 12,500 pounds, rather than the normal price of 4,500 pounds. In Aleppo, the death of an infant from the cold provoked angry reactions against the Assad regime. The childs father, Shadi al-Helou, came out in a video clip on pro-regime media and spoke about the cause of the death of his child due to the absence of fuel oil and the childs inability to bear the cold. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. About Me Scott Because prophetic scriptures are found throughout the bible, it is obvious that a comprehensive, systematic approach would be useful, if not necessary, for the understanding of prophecy. Past prophecies have been fulfilled in a literal manner, as confirmed by the dating of these writings and historical records of confirmation. These past prophecies also serve as a model of how to interpret future prophecies. A literal view of prophecy clearly indicates a certain sequence of events will occur within a single generation, concluding with the Tribulation and Second Advent and these events will be obvious. The prophetic signs appear to be present in this generation and we believe these signs are revealed in the news from around the world. View my complete profile The Qatari Foreign Minister said that people in Syria were still suffering from bombardment and displacement at the hands of the regime writes Hurriya Press. Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammad bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, has said that the reasons that led to the suspension of the Assad regimes participation in the Arab League were still there. The Foreign Minister added during a joint press conference in Doha with the Chairman of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki, that, there have been no encouraging signs of normalizing relations with the Assad regime. He said that his country, still opposes the return of Syria to the Arab League and does not see any need to reopen an embassy there. He added that, the reasons that led to the suspension of the Assad regimes participation in the Arab League are still present. The Qatari Minister said that, at this stage normalization with the Assad regime is normalization with a person implicated in war crimes. He added that the Syrian people are still undergoing bombardment and displacement by the regime. Kuwaiti Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled al-Jarallah said earlier this month that his countrys embassy in Damascus would not return to operations until a decision was made by the Arab League. At the end of last month, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates announced that they were reopening their embassies in Damascus after eight years. Abu Dhabi justified this by saying that the current developments in the region make an Arab presence in Syria necessary to confront Iranian encroachment, according to statements by the Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash. The Arab League suspended Syrias membership in November 2011, months after the eruption of the Syrian revolution against the Assad regime. At the Doha Summit of 2013, the President of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, Moaz al-Khatib, took Syrias seat alongside the Syrian flag adopted by the forces and activists of the Syrian revolution. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. With the threat of a Turkish incursion, talks between the regime and Kurdish groups have begun, although results have been limited reports Enab Baladi The President of the Executive Agency of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) said that the recent Kurdish talks with the Syrian regime have not yielded a result. During a meeting between the SDC and tribal sheikhs and notables in the al-Darbasiyeh area in the Hassakeh countryside on Sunday, Ilham Ahmed said that the talks had failed because of the Syrian regimes insistence on its old policy and imposing its control over the area on the pretext of Syrian unity. Ahmed said that the Kurdish groups of northeastern Syria opened the door to negotiations with the Syrian regime a number of times but to no avail. She said that the Kurdish plans which have been put forward for discussion did not include the partition of Syria or any form of secession. Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister, Faisal Mikdad had approved holding talks in Damascus with Kurdish groups, according to the Reuters news agency last week. While he considered the results of the talks positive, he said that previous talks with Kurdish groups had not been encouraging although he expressed optimism about the current talks. The negotiations between the SDC and the Syrian regime began after the United States announced it was withdrawing forces from eastern Syria last month. Kurdish forces negotiated with the regime in order to bring forces into the Manbij city in an attempt to prevent Turkish forces from entering and implementating the decision of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who announced last month that there would be a military operation soon against the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) in Syria. Commenting on that, the President of the Executive Agency in the SDC said that, We knew from the beginning that America would not stay for long, and that is why we have relied on the resistance of our forces. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. Efforts to readmit Syria into the Arab league have increased, with Iraq leading the way reports Al-Watan. The Syria file is a major issue and the most prominent factor in regional movements and statements after the American decision to withdraw from Syria. Syrias return to the Arab League is one of the main subjects of discussion during the visit being carried out by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to Jordan. Opposition media sites have quoted Egyptian diplomatic sources as saying that the visit will witness, an exchange of viewpoints around the Syria file and put forward the problem of Syrias return to the Arab League and the current arrangements by some Arab countries to fill the vacuum left by America in Syria. Meanwhile, Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohamed Ali Alhakim said that he and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javid Zarif, had discussed means of supporting Iraqs efforts to restore Syria to the Arab League. In a joint press statement with Zarif held after their talks in Baghdad, Alhakim said, We discussed the solutions put forward to eradicate terrorism in Syria and to support the Syrian government and the unity of its territory and its sovereignty over all Syrian territory. We also discussed support for Iraqs efforts to return Syria to the Arab League. Jordanian Foreign Minister, Ayman al-Safadi, said during a meeting with his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, that his countrys priority was similarly to end the Syrian crisis and to restore the situation to normal, in order to realize the circumstances that will permit the voluntary return of refugees to their country. He said that, Jordan is bearing the burden of meeting the needs of 1.3 million of our brothers, and we encourage the return of those brothers to their homes as soon as possible. He renewed the call to return Syrians residing in the al-Rukban camp to their country, saying, The return of the al-Rukban residents to their countries is the only solution for this issue. We had successful Jordanian-American-Russian cooperation in the southwest, and we are counting on cooperation to confront the challenges in the southeast and to secure the return of the residents of al-Rukban to their cities and towns. According to a Jordanian Foreign Ministry statement, there was also discussion of invigorating efforts to reach a political solution to the Syrian crisis as well as the implications of Washingtons decision to withdraw its forces from Syria. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. Since Hezbollah deployed in Syria, 1,630 members have been killed and the group has secured large quantities of arms writes Asharq al-Awsat. Nearly seven years have passed since Hezbollah got practically engaged in the Syrian war the movements biggest challenge since its establishment in 1982. Today, as the battles calm down, the party has returned to the political work inside Lebanon, seeking to invest what it considers filed victories. Thus, the party leadership and observers have started to evaluate this experience. Perhaps the first thing to look for in any attempt to assess Hezbollahs experience in the Syrian war is the number of party members killed on the field, amid a total blackout on the matter. However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced on the wars seventh anniversary that around 122,000 members of the Syrian regime and its pro-Syrian and non-Syrian armed forces were killed, including 63,820 Syrian soldiers and 1,630 members of the Lebanese Hezbollah. As battles intensified in Syria, specifically in 2013 and 2014, the number of Hezbollah fighters there was estimated at 5,000. The AFP, in a past report, noted that elements of the party received training in Lebanon and Iran before going to the field. The number of party fighters in Syria has recently dropped significantly, in conjunction with the decline of fighting intensity. The director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul Rahman, told Asharq Al-Awsat that those were currently concentrated in the vicinity of Deir Ezzor, Bukamal, Al-Qusayr, Rif Dimashq, Syrian Badia Aleppo and Al-Qamishli airport. The movement refuses to set a date for its withdrawal from Syria. Its secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, said last summer that the pullout would be at the request of the Syrian leadership. Die Welt, a German newspaper, recently published a report on the end of Hezbollahs mission in Syria, after losing a large number of fighters on the battlefield. The newspaper noted that the party would maintain an advisory role after participating in the Syrian war with about 8,000 fighters. Opinions converge over Hezbollahs gains in the Syrian war. Supporters and opponents alike agree that the party achieved a great combat experience. The head of the Middle East Center for Strategic Studies, retired Brigadier General Dr. Hisham Jaber, said that the combat experience gained by the party fighters [during the war] cannot be provided through training organized by the party leadership. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy published in 2016 a study prepared by an IDF officer in 2014, in which he concluded that Hezbollah could pursue a more aggressive combat strategy in any future war with Israel in order to shorten the duration of the conflict. He added that the deep engagement in Syria affected the overall approach of the organization in the planning and implementation of military operations. The military gains of the party are not limited to combat experience. Military experts said that Hezbollah has probably acquired large quantities of weapons over the past years, both from Syria and Iran. Jaber noted that in the July 2006 war, Israel estimated the number of surface-to-surface missiles possessed by Hezbollah at around 20-30 thousand, but today, it puts them at around 100-150 thousand. Politically, Hezbollah considers that the most important thing it has gained from engaging in the Syrian war is to prevent what it calls terrorist organizations from reaching Lebanon, especially after the battle of al-Qusayr. Jaber said that the party also considered itself a major contributor, along with Russia and Iran, to support the Syrian regime and prevent its collapse. However, as much as the party won, it lost its popularity both inside Lebanon and on the Arab level, in addition to losing hundreds of its members. Jaber emphasized that the number of party members killed in Syria ranged between 1,500-2,000, in addition to hundreds of people with disabilities. A study by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in 2016 stated that when Hezbollah began its intervention in Syria, its priorities, strategies and rhetoric changed, and a much larger proportion of its budget was allocated to military spending. Despite the continued funding for social services, a larger proportion has been directed to families and institutions associated with Hezbollahs military infrastructure as part of the partys efforts to support its forces. Abdul Rahman told Asharq Al-Awsat that the party lost most of the popularity it enjoyed in Syria, especially in the Sunni and Shiite communities, as well as among the other components. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. George A. Knackmuhs, 76, of West Salem, IL, passed away on Friday, January 11 at Lawrence County Memorial Hospital in Lawrenceville, IL. He was born May 27, 1942, in Olney, IL, the son of Anna (Read) and Richard Knackmuhs. He married Judith Dickerson on August 2, 1986, at Little Wabash Church, and she preceded him in death on August 21, 1990. George was an Army Veteran, serving during the Vietnam War. He was a farmer and a harness horse owner. He was very involved in racing. In fact, it was his life! He is survived by one sister, Sharon Gardner, one niece, and two nephews. He was preceded in death by his wife and his parents. Visitation will be held Friday, January 18, 2019, from 10 a.m. to noon at Ingram-Meridith Funeral Home in West Salem. The funeral service will begin at noon at the funeral home with burial to follow at Little Wabash Cemetery. Military Honours will be conducted at the graveside. Family and friends are asked to dress casually for the service. Fond memories and condolences may be shared with the family at www.meridithfuneralhome.com. Ingram-Meridith Funeral Home of West Salem is honoured to be entrusted with the arrangements. Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of George Knackmuhs. (USTA) There's so much more that affects how we perceive flavor than just what's in the cup. Research into the multisensory nature of flavor perception has already been well-established in the wine and beer worlds, but The Coffee Sensoriuma research project by Brazilian scientist Fabiana Carvalhois bringing that same scientific rigor to the world of specialty coffee. And now The Coffee Sensorium needs your help. Teaming up with Professor Charles Spence, Carvalho is calling on all specialty coffee professionals and consumers to take a quick survey about flavor perception in coffee. We have covered some aspects of Carvalhos previous work that focused on specialty coffee, specifically how certain attributes of the receptacleshape, color, and weightshift flavor perception. But in this new collaborative study between the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil and the University of Oxford, UK, Carvalho and Spence are looking to expand upon that research by testing how the shape and color of espresso cups affect flavor perception across cultural lines. To glean this type of cross-cultural data, Carvalho and Spence have developed an online study to assess people's sensory expectations of an espresso coffee using only visual cues. In the study (that takes roughly 10-15 minutes to complete), participants will be presented different cup shapes and cup colors and will assess certain attributesbitterness, sweetness, acidity, etcaccording to their expectations. Since the aim of this online study is to investigate cross-cultural effects, Carvalho and Spence are making the study available to the specialty coffee community in as many countries as possible. Currently available in five languagesEnglish, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, and Koreanthe study is expected to be available in nine different tongues by the end of January, with data being collected until August. The survey is open to all specialty coffee professionals and any consumers who have been drinking specialty coffee for at least one year. Your input is extremely valuable. To take part, visit the University of Oxford Department of Experimental Psychology's official website here. Go make Science happen! Juliana Ganan is a Brazilian coffee professional and journalist. Read more Juliana Ganan on Sprudge. Top image via The Coffee Sensorium By Fabiana Carvalho: A Revolution Of Flavor Perception by Juliana Ganan Deputy general prosecutor resigns after communicating with a suspect in Kuciak's murder Facebook chat with the person who is suspected of paying for Kuciak's murder has ended his career. Font size: A - | A + Rene Vanek, deputy general prosecutor for the non-criminal division, will have to leave his post following General Prosecutor Jaromir Ciznar's decision. Vanek is being forced to resign from the post due to his communication on Facebook with Alena Zs., whom the police suspect of paying for the murder of investigative reporter Jan Kuciak, the Sme daily reported. Read also: Accused in Kuciak murder had powerful contacts Read more "General Prosecutor Jaromir Ciznar considers such an action incompatible with a function of the deputy general prosecutor, which is one of the highest posts within the General Prosecutor's Office," said Andrea Predajnova, spokesperson for the General Prosecutor's Office, as quoted by Sme. Vanek, who has served as a deputy general prosecutor since 2013, remains a prosecutor. However, it is not clear yet where he will be working. Vanek expressed regret Vanek has never had any influence over the investigation of Kuciak's murder, the General Prosecutor's Office declared, the TASR newswire reported. Vanek claimed that when communicating with Alena Zs., they were discussing simple, private matters. He never knew that Alena Zs. was her actual name, he said, adding that he has never met with her. "I am sorry," said Vanek, as quoted by Sme. "It is a big mistake, which I have paid for. It is a mistake that I was chatting with somebody unknown." His colleagues confirmed for TASR that he has always acted professionally and honestly. On the other hand, they agree he should have informed Ciznar. Did Vanek help Kocner? Read also: Controversial businessman Kocner allegedly commanded the general prosecutor Read more Vanek has previously said he never did anything in favour of controversial businessman Marian Kocner, who is accused of several economic crimes, Sme wrote. Kocner is also believed by many to be the actual orderer of Kuciak's murder, although there is no evidence. Presidential candidate Zuzana Caputova doubted Vanek's claim, saying that he helped Kocner in the case involving the waste dump in Pezinok 10 years ago. He allegedly took the last page, on which the waste dump permit was cancelled, out of the file prepared by the regional prosecutor's office in Bratislava, where Vanek was working at the time. Vanek has rejected the accusation. "I only corrected my previous statement, but only because the situation in the file had changed," Vanek claimed, as quoted by Sme, adding that he does not remember details. 15. Jan 2019 at 22:03 | Compiled by Spectator staff Ruling parties split over attitude to Russia Slovakia has not updated its security strategy since 2005. Font size: A - | A + The security strategy that Slovakia currently has in place was written in 2005. In the same year, the presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin met in Bratislava for their summit. Not long before then, Slovakia had fulfilled its ambition of becoming a member state first of NATO and then the EU. Since then, the security environment has changed dramatically, including the armed conflict in Ukraine and the Russian annexation of Crimea. The world is now dealing with completely new challenges posed by environmental issues, hybrid war and cybersecurity. All this, including local political events, confirms that passing the updated documents stressing Slovakias anchorage in the EU and stronger transatlantic partnership within NATO should be an absolute priority and the only alternative of everyone who cares about the values and the security position of our country and its citizens, the signatories of an open letter to the MPs stated back in December 5, 2018. The open letter, signed by Slovakias leading foreign policy and security experts, including people from think tanks like Globsec, MEMO98 and Stratpol, responded to yet another postponement of the parliaments passing of updated strategic documents: the Security Strategy and the Defence Strategy of the Slovak Republic. In their open letter, the signatories call on lawmakers to pass the two papers as the cornerstones defining the values and security interests of the country. The ruling cabinet and the Security Council have both approved the documents. The green light from the parliament is all that is missing for the documents to become valid. SNS refuses to talk strategy in parliament 15. Jan 2019 at 17:12 | Michaela Terenzani Only one-quarter of Slovaks earn more than 1,200 The average wage in 2018 exceeded the 1,000 threshold for the first time. For the very first time in its history, the average wage in Slovakia crossed the 1,000 threshold in 2018. This happened even though the wages grew at the slower pace than the year before, an analysis of the Platy.sk website suggests. The average wage increased by 5.6 percent year-on-year to 1,035, which is the second highest wage increase in history. Read also: Minimum wage to exceed 500 Read more The highest increase, by 6.9 percent y-o-y, was reported by the Trencin Region (955 on average) and the Zilina Region (929 on average). On the other hand, the salaries in the Presov Region (841 on average), increased the least, by only 4.8 percent y-o-y in 2018. People in Bratislava still earn the most, 1,336 gross a month. The analysis shows that 10 percent of Slovaks earn less than 605 gross, while 25 percent earn more than 1,251. Only 10 percent receive 1,648 or more. Worst & best paid jobs Working as a cleaning lady or post office worker, helping out in a kitchen, and being a carer, are the worst paid jobs, according to the analysis. Read also: Slovaks experience boom in income Read more On the other hand, IT architects, pilots, lawyers, and tax advisors are the best paid jobs. While a cleaning lady earns 515 on average, an IT architect can get 2,889 for his/her job, which is 179 percent more than Slovakia's average wage, the analysis showed. 15. Jan 2019 at 13:53 | Compiled by Spectator staff Two Bratislava university hospital clinics may collapse But the ministry and the hospital are not panicking. Font size: A - | A + Doctors and nurses have sent an open letter to MPs and the media saying that the neurosurgery clinic at Kramare Hospital in Bratislava may cease to operate properly, the Sme daily reported. "We've even had to postpone surgeries and send patients to other clinics in Slovakia," the clinic staff wrote, as quoted by Sme. They complain about working with outdated surgical equipment for years. Furthermore, the clinic lacks nurses. At the same time, the ophthalmology clinic of the hospital on Antolska Street in Bratislava's borough of Petrzalka may lose doctors. They are threatening to leave due to conflicts with the management, Sme reported. "We reject the spreading of alarm and efforts to politicise the issue," said Zuzana Eliasova, a spokesperson for the Health Ministry, as quoted by Sme. One operating table available The staff at Kramare has already had to postpone several surgeries since they can use only one of three operating tables. Two tables broke last November. "Our clinic has got into a surgical equipment emergency, which has not been seen in at least a decade," 23 doctors and nurses wrote in their letter, as quoted by Sme. Moreover, they need neuronavigation systems used for brain surgeries, having just one, older system that cannot be used for all sorts of surgeries. "For now () we are postponing the surgeries of patients with brain tumors, including children," the staff added, as quoted by Sme. Although they have demanded neuronavigation systems from 2017 and reported on the damage of operating tables in December, no public procurement has begun yet. In addition, the clinic 17 needs nurses, who would assist in brain and spinal cord surgeries. Several doctors have left the clinic for a conflict with the clinic's superintendent. Read also: Read also: Doctors have signed contracts with the state-run insurer Read more The ministry and hospital are not panicking Health Minister Andrea Kalavska (Smer nominee) met with the head of Kramare Hospital on January 14, assuring her that the clinic can provide quality health care, Eliasova said, as reported by Sme. The clinic is going to borrow an operational table until the public procurement is successfully completed, claimed Eva Kliska, a spokesperson for the University Hospital Bratislava (UNB), which administers the Kramare Hospital, as reported by the TASR newswire. It takes some time to sort out what has to be purchased, the ministry said, adding that there is insufficient medical staff due to bad relationships at the clinic. "The purchase of operating tables has been prolonged because the communication on the side of the clinic has stalled," said Jozef Raz, a secretary to the chief of staff at the Health Ministry, as quoted by Sme, adding that it may take three months to receive new tables. Despite problems at the clinic, the Health Ministry is still planning to open another neurosurgery clinic in Bratislava's district of Ruzinov. Read also: Read also: Slovak patients unhappy with hotel services in hospitals Read more Eye doctors may leave the clinic in Petrzalka As for the ophthalmology clinic on Antolska Street, which also belongs to the UNB network, eight of 20 eye doctors are threatening to quit over conflicts with the clinic's superintendent Petr Kolar. According to the doctors, Kolar makes them do the work of nurses and secretaries even though he does not come to work regularly. In addition, they claimed that he deprives them of training, Sme wrote. The doctors plan to leave on March 1 if the problem is not resolved. This may cause trouble to the hospital as not all the remaining doctors are fully certified, Sme wrote. "In case the doctors leave, another five certified doctors will come to work full-time, and the clinic is going to fully operate with the remaining four," Kliska said, as quoted by Sme. However, some see a problem with the current situation. "If eight experienced eye doctors quit, you cannot fully replace them since you cannot find such doctors overnight," said Peter Visolajsky, head of the Medical Trade Unions, as quoted by Sme. The Health Ministry is monitoring the situation at the clinic but remains calm. 15. Jan 2019 at 13:51 | Compiled by Spectator staff In his new bookGuerrilla Marketing: Counterinsurgency and Capitalism in ColombiaAlexander L. Fattal takes a detailed look at the Colombian governments efforts to transform Marxist guerrilla fighters in the FARC into consumer citizens. In doing so, he illuminates a larger phenomenon: the convergence of marketing and militarism in the twenty-first century. A recent New Yorker review called Guerrilla Marketing A sobering book on how armies burnish their brands. . . a detailed, eye-opening investigation. We sent Fattal a few questions to learn more about his research for the book, his recent reads, and his motivations to delve into this topic. Whats the best book youve read lately? The best, hmm, Ill pick two Chicago titles. Not because this is the UCP blog, really. W. J. T. Mitchells Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present and Susie Linfields The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence. Clearly I have a thing for smart, reasonably polemical books about the representation of political conflict. How did you wind up in this academic field, and what do you love about it? I became an anthropologist because I loved fieldwork. Its trite but true. What I love about academia is the relative autonomy. Right now Im finishing a short film called Limbo. It takes up some of the themes of Guerrilla Marketing by focusing on one former FARC fighter. The film was recorded in the payload of a truck that I transformed into a giant camera obscura, which became a surreal, confessional space in motion. Im not sure what other career gives you the freedom to do a project like that. Of all the books you could have written, why did you decide to write Guerrilla Marketing? I dont know, it feels like there was some magnetic force pulling me toward writing this book. My dad is in the marketing world; he runs a small paper and is always hustling folks to advertise. My mom got an MA in Art History and there were always art history books in the house. I remember going to one of her lectures as a kid and she was analyzing a tray of images. When I got access to the program that is at the heart of Guerrilla Marketing, I saw marketers creating symbolically dense images and something clicked. I was just getting into Colombian politics, and when I witnessed the first focus group that the military was conducting with former guerrillas I knew I had found the ethnographic ground for the book I wanted to write. Where do you usually write? What is your work space like? I wake up early and sit down at my desk, which is just a giant slab of wood I got from Home Depot during graduate school that sits atop two filing cabinets. Last year I got fancy and put two coats of Golden Oak stain on it. I try to keep the desk clear of clutter but inevitably there are small piles of paper and books for different projects. My first writing session tends to be my most productive: one cup of coffee, pre-breakfast. I take small pauses to glimpse different moments of the sunrise. What recent or forthcoming book from UCP are you most excited about? I cant wait to get my hands on Deadline: Populism and the Press in Venezuela (out in July) by Robert Samet. It couldnt be timelier, not only for understanding the ongoing implosion in Venezuela but also for delving deep into the relationship between media politics and populism. Im awaiting a really smart mix of theory and ethnography. Guerrilla Marketing: Counterinsurgency and Capitalism in Colombia is available now! To learn more or buy a copy, visit the books page on our site or visit your local bookstore. You can also follow the author on Twitter and check out his website for more info about his work. Size of investigative team in Kuciak's murder reduced The police president wants to prevent information leaks. The team investigating the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova has been divided into two parts. One group will deal solely with the murder, while the other will investigate the economic and corruption crimes Kuciak wrote about. Investigators will document and investigate those who commissioned the murder and the murderers themselves, said Police Corps President Milan Lucansky, as quoted by the TASR newswire, when commenting on the former. Read also: Police fail to deal with information leaks in Kuciak case Read more The work of the latter will be supervised by the Special Prosecutors Office. Information leaks to be prevented Lucansky would like to prevent the leak of information, as he said in a talk show broadcast by TV Pravda. The investigative team has been reduced and the competences divided. The leak of information impacts on the quality and speed of investigation and also whether the case will be investigated or not. I believe that there will be a time when we discover the source of the leaks, Lucansky added, as quoted by TASR. Read also: Special prosecutor now wants the original Gorilla recording Read more The police corps president also mentioned on the TV Pravda show how the investigation of the Gorilla case is continuing after the recordings were found in controversial businessman Marian Kocners safe. He plans to meet with the head of the investigative team and also with the deputy head of the National Criminal Agency (NAKA) to discuss how the case should progress. 15. Jan 2019 at 0:42 | Compiled by Spectator staff New tourist attraction: Historical train will connect Brezno and Slovak Paradise The train will connect three national parks. More information about travelling in Slovakia Please see our Please see our Spectacular Slovakia travel guide Banska Bystrica self-governing region is planning several attractions for tourists in the summer season. One of them is an historic train that will connect Brezno with two tourist localities, Jan Lunter, head of the region informed. A motor train that commuted during the era of the first republic will transport tourists from Brezno to Cervena Skala (Red Rock) and further to Slovensky Raj (Slovak Paradise), Lunter explained. It will return several times during weekend and in the evening it will transport people back to Brezno, said Lunter, as quoted by the TASR newswire. For historic train lovers The train will run from July to September. The Horehronie region has, according to regional MP Ondrej Lunter, a unique position on the border of three national parks and this train will connect these three areas. There will be also be a buffet car and a programme for kids, he said for TASR. The region is cooperating with an historic trains club. The oldest one will be from the first republic and another from the 1950s, Lunter specified. video //www.youtube.com/embed/sRmQLJAwOYA 15. Jan 2019 at 1:05 | TASR, Compiled by Spectator staff Mark Zuckerberg thinks Facebook users are stupid. At least thats what Ive concluded from reading a post on his new years challenge, in which he resolves to host a series of public discussions about the future of technology in society. The challenge itself didnt force my conclusion, though it seems to be another in a long line of PR stunts meant to make users think Facebook is addressing its missteps. It was one particular question on Zuckerbergs list that crystalized something for me: Facebook and its CEO are dishonest salesmen, and were the uninformed buyers theyre trying to dupe. Advertisement Do we want technology to keep giving more people a voice, or will traditional gatekeepers control what ideas can be expressed? Zuckerberg asks, as if the greatest challenge to free speech in our lifetime can be boiled down to a simple binary choice. The framing itself is misleading, painting technology as an unadulterated societal good that sprinkles people with First Amendment fairy dust at each login. Advertisement Advertisement I believe in technologys capacity to give voice to the voiceless. I started my career supporting democracy activists in Eastern Europe, where many inspiring opposition movements began online. But just as it amplifies, technology has the capacity to silence. Sometimes Facebook even aids in this silencing, ceding to authoritarian governments demands to block content deemed politically sensitive. The company has also been far too slow to recognize the civil rights abuses on the platform, including the proliferation of hate speech, voter-suppression efforts, and discriminatory ad targeting. While it began a civil rights audit in 2018, it undertook a parallel investigation into so-called anti-conservative bias led by a former Republican senator and a conservative think tank. Advertisement These investigations, like Zuckerbergs poorly phrased question, present a false dichotomy. Facebook wants us to believe that protecting the speech of marginalized groups and conservatives are separate issues, when at their core, they are about the equal and transparent enforcement of the platforms community standards, complete with a planned appeals process. Right now, thats unbalanced, allowing serial abusers (like, until recently, Infowars Alex Jones) to use the platform to spread hate, while their targets are deplatformed by Facebooks A.I. for minor offenses like using curse words. Without transparent enforcementas anyone who has been a target of online abuse can attestradical free speech will actually silence those it is meant to empower. Without transparent enforcement, radical free speech will actually silence those it is meant to empower. The second half of Zuckerbergs question, regarding traditional gatekeepers, reveals an ironic disdain for the group, considering that Facebook is probably the worlds largest media gatekeeper. Here, Zuckerberg is capitalizing on the fact that most Facebook users dont realize their news feed is not an organic compilation of their friends musings and trustworthy news. A recent report on news literacy released by Oxford Universitys Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that 40 percent of people dont know how the individual decisions about what news stories are shown to people on Facebook are made. Another 23 percent believe that those decisions are made by journalists at news outlets or at Facebook. Only 29 percent know the truth: that the news feed is populated by an algorithm that decides what users might like to seethat is, what will keep users on the platform, clicking on revenue-generating adsbased on their past behavior and interests. That breakdown is even more stark in users over the age of 65, only 18 percent of whom understand how their news feed operates. Advertisement Facebook is already controlling what information we consume, but most users dont realize it. The framing of the question makes clear that Zuckerberg would like to keep it that way. He wants users to believe that their Facebook feed is a choose-your-own-adventure book with infinite endings, when in reality its a horror film in which the user is being injected with a carefully crafted drug cocktail meant to maximally distract and debilitate. Deliberate misdirection is a hallmark of the Facebook experience. Of course it would manifest in its CEOs new years challenge. Advertisement To be clear, I do not reject the premise of these discussions outright. Silicon Valleys idealist bubble deserves a few more needle pricks, and America needs a reminder of what civil discourse looks like. But if Zuckerberg and his company are to experience the personal and professional growth that he claims to seek, the challenge should start by ensuring the framing of the debate is as transparent, truthful, and accessible as possible. Rather than Do you want a free Facebook, or do you want Big Bad Government and the Mainstream Media to interfere in your First Amendment Rights? (because thats essentially what the question says), he might ask: To what extent and in what areas should Facebook conduct content moderation? How can we do better to encourage discussion and free expression while protecting marginalized voices? How can we better educate users about how our service works so they can be more discerning consumers and not fall victim to disinformation campaigns? Advertisement In answering these questions, I hope that Zuckerberg turns not only to the leaders, experts, and people in our community from different fields outlined in his post, but to people outside of the Silicon Valley bubble and people who have been hurt by his companys negligence, especially minorities. Rather than putting out disinformation about critics, as the company did when George Soros voiced his disapproval of the platform, Facebook should invite them to debate. Advertisement If Facebook truly aims to connect people and support democratic discourse and not simply turn a profit, it should start by changing its relationship with its users, not only in its approach to these debates but in its daily interactions. Empower users. Give them the unadulterated information they need to make informed decisions about their news consumption and their data. Communicate with them not like a salesman trying to push a bad deal but like someone trying to help a friend through a difficult decision. Then this will be a challenge worth taking. Im ready to talk; are you, Zuck? Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. This story was originally published by High Country News and has been republished here with permission from Climate Desk. On Nov. 13, more than 200 activists protested on Capitol Hill, demanding a Green New Deala massive economic stimulus package designed to create jobs, remake the U.S. energy system, and fight climate change. Then-Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez waded into their midst, vaulting the movement to national prominence. As determined young protesters in matching brown T-shirts hunkered in front of the unoccupied desk of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, holding signs reading, Step Up or Step Aside and Green Jobs for All, Ocasio-Cortez addressed them. Advertisement I just want to let you all know how proud I am of each and every single one of you for putting yourselves and your bodies and everything on the line to make sure that we save our planet, our generation, and our future, she said, as cameras rolled. Indeed, by days end, many protesters were arrested. Advertisement Advertisement The Green New Deal is popular: According to a recent poll by Yale University and George Mason University, more than 80 percent of registered voters support the concept. But its also vague about details, and Democratic leaders are divided on how to respond. Even as newly elected progressives and activists push for sweeping policy change, the partys established power brokers favor caution. How the party resolves this discord could determine whether climate change becomes a prominent issue in the 2020 electionand what action Democrats are prepared to take on it, should their power expand. Advertisement Before taking office, Ocasio-Cortez pressed Pelosi to create a Green New Deal select committee, which would have one year to design a job-creating solution to climate change. Ocasio-Cortezs proposalcrafted in partnership with the Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats, a progressive political action committee working to get corporate money out of politicscalls the transition away from fossil fuels a historic opportunity to virtually eliminate poverty in the United States. A Green New Deal would include job-training programs in renewable energy and guaranteed employment for all Americans. Climate change is an urgent issue, said New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland, who campaigned on getting the country to 100 percent renewable energy and was an early supporter of the Green New Deal. We have to do something now. Advertisement A new generation of activists dismisses the idea that the existing power structure can address the climate crisis. The Green New Deals massive scope and ambitionto wean the entire country from fossil fuels in just over a decadecome in response to scientists evermore urgent warnings. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, nations must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050 or face increasingly catastrophic consequences. Yet the politics of climate change remain fraughteven among Democrats. Democratic House leaders firmly rejected Ocasio-Cortezs proposal for a select committee. According to E&E News, the Democratic chairs of existing committees bristled at the possibility of a new select committee usurping some of their own powers. Instead, House Speaker Pelosi reinstated the defunct Climate Crisis Select Committee, which is charged with investigating and recommending climate change solutions. However, it lacks authority to craft legislation, and its members will be allowed to accept campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry, something Ocasio-Cortez wanted to ban. Advertisement The title is the only thing about the committee that begins to acknowledge the magnitude and urgency of the crisis we are in, said Benjamin Finegan, an organizer with the Sunrise Movement. University of Oregon law professor Greg Dotson, who worked on climate policy for former California Rep. Henry Waxman, believes the partys internal disagreement is a symptom of the growing pains its experiencing as it regains power. We are in an interesting situation where the Democratic Party agrees on the most important things, which are: Climate change is happening, its caused by humans, and we have to take action to address it, Dotson said. Because theyre coming out of the minority, how exactly to do that, theyre still working on. Advertisement Advertisement Although the Green New Deal select committee would have a new and specific mission, there are other ways to advance its goals. Democrats on House committees like Transportation and Energy and Environment have expertise on key climate issues and could do similar work. Advocates should understand that theres a tremendous amount of institutional history and expertise on all the committees for even the most far-reaching goals of a Green New Deal, Dotson said. But a new generation of climate change activists, including Finegan, dismisses the idea that the existing power structure can address the climate crisis. I think that argument is politicians being politicians, Finegan said. After all, for decades, politicians have known climate change was happening, but theyve done little to stop it. Its a frustration with the old guard that some early-career Democrats, like Ocasio-Cortez and Haaland, seem to share. We should have done something decades ago, Haaland said. Advertisement To be clear, even if a new committee were created, Green New Deal legislation would have a snowballs chance in Phoenix of passing the Republican-controlled Senate, never mind being signed into law by President Donald J. Trump. Still, the debate matters: For the next two years, the most successful outcome would be for the Democratic Party to come to a view on how to address climate change and the equity issues that the Green New Deal points to, Dotson said. The sooner that happens, the better. Leadership has never been more needed: In 2018, after years of decline, carbon dioxide emissions again surged in the United States, even as climate changes impacts became harder to ignore. There are many reasons Senate Democrats and rule-of-law Republicans should be leery of Donald Trumps nominee (William Barr) to replace the attorney general (Jeff Sessions) Trump chiefly resented for his failure to be sufficiently loyal. The first and perhaps the most vital reason to be wary of Barr is that he looks to be sufficiently loyal to the president. The second is that Barr brings to the table a decades-long policy history on overincarceration, policing, asylum, and executive power that threatens to maintain Sessions crucial policieswith none of the security Sessions recusal afforded the Mueller probe. Advertisement There are also several reasons Senate Democrats and rule-of-law Republicans should at least consider supporting Barr. He is a seasoned professional, a respected lawyer, and a Washington insider with a working knowledge of government, the executive branch, and the legal culture and norms of the Justice Department. And then, finally, there is one singularly awful argument for his confirmation to which Senate Democrats and rule-of-law Republicans should pay no heed, one thats been given voice this week across the political spectrum. That argument is that they should all vote to confirm Barr because the alternative is the continued presence of acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, who was never confirmed and should never have been selected in the first instance. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Heres Mondays New York Times, for instance, noting that Mr. Barr is likely to be confirmed because Republicans control the Senate and because defeating him would leave in place the acting attorney general, Matthew G. Whitaker, a Trump loyalist whose installation in that role Democrats see as illegitimate and a threat to Mueller. In Sundays Washington Post, the parallel claim was raised that among Republicans hoping to see Barr confirmed quickly, there is a belief that Democratic anger about Whitakerboth his handling of the recusal and the court challenges to his appointments legalitywill work in Barrs favor, with a Republican involved in the discussions telling the paper that the best argument for confirming Barr is Whitaker. Advertisement The central fallacy here is that we should all be grateful for the less-awful existential threat to checks and balances posed by Barr than the spectacularly awful existential threat currently posed by Whitaker. Its a horrible logical premise, not unlike the claim that Democrats should fund Donald Trumps wall because its not as bad as a Donald Trump government shutdown, or that Democrats should accede to Brett Kavanaugh because he isnt James Ho. Well, no. Senate Democrats and Republicans of conscience should worry about the selection of Barr as AG, regardless of whether the acting AG is a longtime grifter and abusive prosecutor who is also on record opposing Marbury v. Madison. And while we should certainly be grateful that Barr is at least making public claims about the legitimacy of the Mueller probe, that doesnt make him fit for office. Advertisement Advertisement Indeed, if senators evaluate Barr primarily in comparison to Whitaker, they will be falling into a trap. Whitaker is one of the least qualified individuals to serve as attorney general in American history. He pursued a vindictive and possibly homophobic prosecution against Iowas first openly gay lawmaker. He worked for a scam patent company that was shut down by the Federal Trade Commission and that was ordered to pay a $26 million fine. He allegedly threatened a victim of the company He allegedly threatened a victim of the company as well as the founder of the website Ripoff Report.* He served as Sessions chief of staff before Trump elevated him as acting attorney general, a promotion that he likely earned by openly criticizing the Mueller probe, particularly on television, which is where he caught the presidents eye. His most notable decision in that capacity, so far, has been his refusal to recuse from the investigation even though a DOJ ethics official has advised him to do so. Advertisement Lurking in the background of all of this misconduct is the fact that Whitaker is not even legally permitted to serve. The Senate never confirmed him to serve at the DOJ in any capacity, let alone as the nations chief law enforcement officer. His presence is a likely violation of the Constitutions Appointments Clause, which requires any principal officer to be confirmed with the Advice and Consent of the Senate. The attorney general is a principal officer, and anyone who exercises the powers of the office must first obtain Senate confirmation. There is not even an argument of necessity here: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, just down the hall from Whitaker, has been Senate-confirmed and could easily fill the role. In fact, a federal statute explicitly assigns the deputy attorney general the duties of the attorney general when he leaves office. Trump violated the Constitution and ignored federal statute to install Whitaker instead and now seeks that we all solve the crisis for him. Advertisement Advertisement The gravamen of the case for Barr, then, is that he is better than the constitutionally illegitimate and wildly unqualified scammer who is currently acting attorney general. Moreover, goes the claim, its important to hustle Barr into office in order to correct for the impropriety of Whitakers ongoing service. If that argument carries the day, then Democrats and rule-of-law Republicans will effectively be rewarding Trump for appointing Whitaker in the first placeTrump fails up yet again. By selecting Whitaker, the president created leverage he now gets to exert on every member of the Senate, Republican or Democrat, who says they care about the Justice Department. It cannot be true that senators must lower their standards to remedy Whitakers indefensible and unconstitutional appointment. The fact that Barr has no known beef with Marbury v. Madison or record of lying about his academic honors does not automatically qualify him for the spot. Moreover, any senator who votes for Barr because he is better than Whitaker is acceding to Trumps lawless ploy. A better solution for disgruntled senators is to support a lawsuit filed by their colleagues Richard Blumenthal, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Mazie Hirono challenging the legality of Whitakers appointment. The courts have a duty to enforce the Appointments Clause directly. It should not fall upon senators to enforce it indirectly by rushing to confirm an unsatisfactory replacement. Advertisement Advertisement Every time Trump transforms a lawless hostage situation into a political win, he changes the rules of play. Barr represents the bare minimum a qualified attorney general brings to the table, and a confirmation hearing isnt an extra treat to be celebrated. Its the minimum that our constitutional order requires. Senators should evaluate Barr on his own merits, not next to the most unqualified attorney general ever imagined. Barr deserves at least that much respect. So does the rule of law. *Correction, Jan. 17, 2019: An earlier version of this article misstated Matthew Whitaker threatened victims of the company World Patent Marketing. Public reports indicate Whitaker threatened a single victim of the company, plus the founder of the website Ripoff Report. William Barr, the former and likely future attorney general, the wizened Washington pro, the epic pro-pardon guy, came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday and used his vast repertoire of pretty words to try to reassure the Senate Judiciary Committee, and an anxious nation, that he will be independent and principled if and when he takes over the Justice Department again. It was a bravura performance. Nothing fancy. Nothing alarming. Somber. Sober. But nothing he saidand nothing he can say nowshould spare Barr from being forced to recuse himself from oversight of the Mueller investigation after the stunt he pulled last summer with a dubious memo questioning that probes power to investigate potential obstruction of justice by the president. Advertisement In fact, if you take Barr at his word based on his opening statement, and his early responses to questions from the senators, he cant possibly be faithful both to the rule of law and to this president. There is no way to square his lofty rhetoric about keeping the Justice Department away from partisanship with Trumps previous abuses of power to try to defend himself from the consequences of his serial wrongdoing. Somethings going to have to give. I think something already may have. Barr said Tuesday that he took the job because hes in a position in life to do the right thing and not worry about the consequences. Based on his previous actions and early answers, it appears as though he accepted it to help enforce the presidents will and agenda, which in many material ways mirrors his own. Id like to help, he told Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Tuesday mornings confirmation hearing session then confirmed mostly that these ritualized public displays of bloviating by our senators arent worth two dead flies. Republicans tried initially to portray Barr as some welcome relic from the past, an adult in the room, a man with the spine necessary to push back against the president who nominated him. At other times, they didnt even bother to pretend to make the hearing about the nominee. In the first five minutes of questioning, for example, committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, used Barr as a foil to talk about supposed FBI overreach and the Page/Strzok text messages. To Graham, its clear, the problem isnt that the president of the United States may actually be a Russian asset. Its that the FBI had the temerity to inquire about it. Advertisement Democrats for their part tried to portray the nominee as a principled partisan who sees in Trump and this administration an opportunity to promote anew from a top spot the same alarming legal views that Barr has long held. And in some ways the Democrats, too, used Barr as a foil to make larger political points. About Muellers integrity. About the lawlessness of the Trump administration. About conflicts of interest within the Justice Department. There were fewer questions about recusal, at least at the start, than I expected there to be. When it came up, Barr refused to offer the same assurances that previous Attorney General Jeff Sessions had in his confirmation hearings that he would recuse himself from relevant probes if career ethics officials suggested it. This raised the eyebrows of Democrats on the committee. Advertisement Advertisement Barr sat in the hot seat Tuesday knowing he had a low bar to overcome. The Senate leans Republican 5347, and there is no reason, today anyway, to believe that he has lost or will lose any GOP votes. The Republicans inclined to vote for him now can cite his opening statement, with all its hosannas to the rule of law and integrity and character, as proof that Barr will stand up to Trump. But what, precisely, in Barrs past experience tells us that this is so? That hes an institutionalist who cherishes the pre-Trump traditions of the Justice Department? There is far more evidence, from Barrs decades of public and private work, that tells us hell be largely deferential to Trumps whims and caprices. Its clear to all that Barr is deeply entrenched as a conservative Republican in the political and legal establishment of Washington, and he acknowledged that he has seen part of his role in the past as supporting the Republican agenda. This despite his pledge, during questioning by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, in which Barr said: I will not be bullied. Advertisement Barr didnt write the memo as some sort of academic exercise or to satisfy his own vanity. This is where its good to return to his now-infamous Mueller memo. Published in June, after there was public evidence of collusion between Team Trump and the Russians, Barrs memo criticized the scope of the Russia investigation and urged the president to take a particularly aggressive posture in defending himself from Robert Mueller. That alone doesnt disqualify Barr from being the next U.S. attorney general, and Democrats shouldnt wish for that to be so. There are plenty of people Trump would be inclined to choose instead of Barr who would present a clearer and more present danger to the rule of law than Barr might. And there are plenty of other legitimate reasons to question whether Barr is the right person for the job. Advertisement Advertisement But when it comes to the Russia investigation, which will be the single most important part of Barrs portfolio in the months to come, the memo is patently disqualifying. Its not a close call, and in this case, as in most cases, its important to focus on context. In his prepared remarks, and again on Tuesday, Barr tried to discount the range and significance of the memo even though we are talking about, after all, a president under credible investigation for criminal conduct. Reasonable people can and have argued over what the memo means, and what it doesnt mean, and its in Barrs interest to argue, now, that his analysis was limited and not intended to cause trouble for Mueller. Advertisement Except that doesnt ring true. Barr didnt write the memo as some sort of academic exercise or to satisfy his own vanity. He didnt write it at the request of a newspaper, or magazine, or law review. He says he wrote it because he felt he had something important to say, to DOJ and White House officials, about how the Mueller investigation was unfolding. He wrote it as a partisan brief, a partisan affair, to curry favor with the White House, and we know that because we now know that Barr made sure the president and his men were made aware of what he had written. Barr knew that his expansive view of presidential power would delight the most authoritarian president ever. It was a job application, no matter how many times he denied it on Tuesday. Maybe for White House counsel. Maybe for attorney general. Maybe for the U.S. Supreme Court. Advertisement Advertisement Most of the attention during the hearing is and will continue to be on Barrs view toward Mueller, and in an ironic way that will shield from more public view the many other substantive reasons why Barr will be a disaster at the Justice Department. Barr helped invent mass incarceration, for example. Are we really supposed to believe hes going to help reverse it now in his charge of implementing the brand-new bipartisan criminal justice reform law? Why should anyone believe he is going to turn the department again into an institution that fights for and not against voting rights? How is Barrs view of presidential power going to translate into checks on the administrations immoral and disastrous immigration policy? What about the Trump familys graft and the Emoluments Clause? What about how Barr might defend a president who has claimed the authority to usurp the Constitutions clear delineation of powers by claiming a phony national emergency, another query he ducked during the early questioning? And so on. Advertisement You can believe what Barr wrote and said this week with his nomination on the line, or you can believe what he wrote last summer about Robert Mueller and the accountability of presidents when he was clearly auditioning to be the nations chief law enforcement official. You cant believe both. I choose to believe that the candid Barr was the one who wrote that memo and that means the Justice Department will be turned over soon to a man who doesnt need to be convinced by a corrupt White House that presidents have sweeping power. Barr says hell allow Mueller to finish his work. That doesnt mean he wont try to limit or undermine Mueller even if the two are longtime friends whose wives were said to attend Bible study together. This is Trumps Washington, and Trumps Republican Party. William Barr is clearly on Trumps team. A man who harassed Vermonts only black legislator until she resigned from office will not face any charges, Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan announced in a press conference Monday. Kiah Morris, a statehouse representative from the town of Bennington, had reported that for the past two years, she had received harassing messages online and found swastikas carved onto trees near her property. The harassment left her and her husband in a constant state of anxiety, she said, and she would report unknown vehicles or people loitering outside her home to authorities out of fear. She also believed break-ins into her car and home were racially motivated. But after a months-long investigation, the attorney generals office concluded that the main perpetrator of the harassment, an avowed white nationalist named Max Misch, could not be prosecuted because investigators could not link him to the burglariesand his speech was protected by the First Amendment. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In 2016, Morris had been granted a one-year protective order against Misch, at which point the harassment largely stopped. But in 2017, when the order expired, it began anew. In November, Morris announced she would resign from the House of Representatives, citing harassment and threats online. In Mondays press conference, meant both to announce the results of the investigation and to discuss the problem of racism in Vermont, Misch made an appearance. As the Washington Post described it: [S]uddenly [Morris] stopped talking. She took a breath and then grimaced as everyone turned to find a man in a black shirt emblazoned with Pepe the Frog an adopted meme for the alt-right standing in the back of the church. The whole room seemed to recognize him. Some gasped. Morris backed away. No, no, no! one person in the audience yelled. Out! This is not safe! yelled another. Advertisement According to the Burlington Free Press, Misch said he had arrived to tell his side of the story but later admitted he had arrived to provoke the room: I like trolling people, its fun, he told the paper. The crowd reacted by shouting him down and singing and holding up coats around Misch to form what the Free Press described as a makeshift barrier. According to the attorney generals report, Misch had not just been racist in his online harassment but was borderline threatening. Every time you attend a political rally at the Four Corners or another local venue and Im aware of the event, I will troll the hell out of you and the other subversives there, he once told her. Maybe Ill bring a friend or three with me too. In a monologue that aired on Tucker Carlsons nightly Fox News show on Jan. 2, the right-wing pundit did something out of character: He leveled a radical critique of policies supported by Donald Trump and the Republican Party. A prominent host criticizing the right on its favorite network would be surprising enough. But the nature of Carlsons commentary was shocking. In the segment, Carlson spent more than 15 minutes making an anti-capitalist argument that, in part, might fit naturally into the socialist magazine Jacobin. For generations, he said, Republicans have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking, while simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars. He added that mainstream Democrats too generally support those goals enthusiastically. The upshot was a broadside against the entire American ruling class, whose members Carlson dismissed as mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule and dont even bother to understand our problems. Despite the parties differing emphases, he said, both Republicans and Democrats maintain a deep and abiding trust in the markets power to solve social problemseven as this bipartisan consensus has unleashed unfettered market forces that have been devastating American industry and working-class families prospects for a generation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the wake of this speech, many right-wing figures broke with pro-market orthodoxy in ways that have long been unthinkable. Writing in National Review, J. D. Vance echoed Carlsons claim that we shouldnt treat the market as a religious dogma: The market is not a Platonic deity, floating in the sky and imposing goodness and prosperity from on high. It is the creation of our choices, our laws, and our democratic process. Ann Coulter went so far as to tweet her support for Alexandra Ocasio-Cortezs proposal to raise the top marginal tax rate to 70 percentand to suggest that it be applied directly to the Koch brothers. To put it mildly, the right-wing provocateur and the avowed socialist make for unlikely bedfellows. Advertisement Advertisement Carlsons monologue and the rights reaction to it raise provocative questions: Are Americans witnessing the beginnings of an inclusive populist movement that transcends traditional divisions between left and right? Should leftists who have critiqued capitalism for years now think of the host and his supporters as allies against the billionaire class? Are workers of the world uniting? Sadly for those of us hoping for radical economic reform, the answer to these questions is No. Carlson himself implicitly dismisses such hopes, declaring in the end of his monologue that only Republicans can pursue the agenda he is calling for. More than that, he argues against the libertarian claim that any deviation from market fundamentalism is a form of socialism, adding that the measures he is promoting are the only way to prevent the disaster of socialism. Advertisement The key to understanding all thisand the limits of Carlsons newfound populismis understanding who benefits and who gets left out. At bottom, his monologue is less a screed against the market than a plea for Republicans to save white Americans from the effects that unregulated capitalism has long inflicted on nonwhites. Carlson spends a portion of his case drawing these connections explicitly. He laments that trends like children born to single mothers or out of wedlock, the proliferation of crime and drugs, and high male unemployment have moved from black Detroit; Newark, New Jersey; and Baltimore to white, rural America. This is striking, he says, because rural Americans wouldnt seem to have much in common with anyone from the inner city. These groups have different cultures, different traditions and political beliefs. Usually they have different skin colors. Advertisement Advertisement This might seem like hes promoting an inclusive form of populism, one that recognizes these problems as suddenly shared along class lines and across racial ones, to be overcome jointly. Acknowledging such a shared struggle would be particularly surprising coming from Carlson, a pundit whose racist remarks about immigration have prompted some advertisers to boycott his show. Carlson is still envisioning a clear racial hierarchyand he still trusts in some version of capitalism to deliver that. Even more surprising is Carlsons implicit retrospective rejection of how conservatives have denounced inner-city black communities perceived social dysfunction for the past 40 years. Carlson has since made that position explicit, describing his turnabout as being inspired by a change in the problems scale. In an interview with Vox reporter Jane Coaston, he posits that when diagnosing black urban poverty, it was all too easy for Americans to explain away the experience of a small minority group, but now, its more difficult to ignore the same trends when they hit growing portions of the population. In other words, now that post-industrial white communities are suffering much of the same troubles as the urban black ones, long denounced as pathological, it is not enough to blame a self-destructive culture of poverty. It seems as if Carlson might be a conservative who is at last conceding that a lack of economic opportunities would do damage to family structures and life prospects in any community, black or white. Advertisement Advertisement But the way Carlsons monologue concludes reveals his true concerns. He still trusts that some version of capitalism can deliver an idealized America: A fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders dont accelerate the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement. A country you might recognize when youre old. And in case the racist implications of that last description are unclear, he adds that his vision of America would be a clean, orderly, stable country that respects itselfa kind of inverse of his infamous claim that immigrants make America poorer and dirtier and more divided. In other words, Carlson is still envisioning a clear racial hierarchyand he still trusts in some version of capitalism to deliver that. He wants to restrain the excesses of capitalism that are causing social disruption in white communities, but it is telling that to accomplish this, he does not call for any direct welfare subsidies or government job guarantees. This is because the rightaided and abetted by significant portions of the center and even the lefthas long associated these programs with nonwhites, whom they view as parasitic and morally degraded for using them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This view of welfare as the sole province of minorities is incorrect and deeply ironic, because social welfare programsstarting with the New Deal and continuing through the Great Societywere primarily oriented toward benefiting white families over nonwhites. In her recent book Family Values, Melinda Cooper provides a valuable account of how this ahistorical view of the programs came about. Strange as it may seem from Carlsons contemporary perspective, the free market push of the Reagan revolution was part of a broader attempt to assert so-called traditional values after the upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Demonizing welfare programs would become essential to the pro-family, pro-market, and anti-minority agendas that were intertwined in those years, which was exactly the time that the conservative movement became so unfailingly pro-market. Social welfare programswhich, again, had for most of the postwar era favored white familieswere cast even by nominally liberal publications like the New Republic as a source of family breakdown and social parasitism on the part of minorities. These ideas converged on the figure of the welfare queen, the black single mother who was supposedly using public funds to live in luxury while defying all moral norms. Advertisement Advertisement In this context, removing public subsidies would expose people more directly to the vagaries of the market economycreating the very unregulated system that Carlson now views as undercutting traditional norms. For years, this was seen as the best possible way to reinforce family structures. Pro-market economic thinkers like Milton Friedman and Gary Becker argued that government social welfare spending leads directly to family breakdown by loosening the bonds of dependence between parents and children. Hence, cutting the social safety net would be pro-family, because it would force people to remain close to their kin in order to maintain access to the private safety net of the household. In some ways, these thinkers have been proved correct, most clearly in the phenomenon of young adults living with their parents for much longer than in previous generationsa direct result of the decline in public funding for higher education that led students and their families to bear more of the cost of education. Advertisement In these arguments, black Americanswho for most of the countrys history had been excluded from social welfare programswere recast as virtually the sole beneficiaries of state largesse. This view was bolstered by widespread hiring discrimination in the private sector. That discrimination meant that state employment had traditionally been one of the most reliable paths into the middle class for blacks. So cuts in government spending would leave more black people trapped in the permanent underclass. Nevertheless, politicians and pundits joined in blaming the struggles of the black community on individual moral turpitude rather than the policy agenda that had so sharply tilted the playing field. Advertisement Now, public budget cuts and unfettered capitalism have begun to afflict white families and communities, as union power has declined and companies seek ever-cheaper sources of labor abroad. Just as it happened in black communities, the lack of economic opportunity has made the traditional family model more and more unattainable for whites. So now, Carlson is calling for those forces to be restrainedbut not replaced. In other words, he still shares the same stated goals as the original Reagan revolutionfamily stability and prosperity for the white majoritybut he sees that, under current economic conditions, meeting those goals today will require different tools than in the 1980s. In other words, what animates Carlsons critique is not so much his opposition to capitalist predators as his alarm at who has become their prey. What might have seemed like a more inclusive and hopeful form of populism, then, turns out to be a complaint that the tender mercies of the free market were fine when they only harmed nonwhites, but now that they are harming whites, something has to give. And this recognition, in turn, helps to clarify what populism is really about on the right. It is not about being in favor of the people in the sense of the nations general population that stands opposed to the wealthy and powerful. It is about deciding who the people are, who gets to count as worthy of concern. When black communities are collapsing, the right is happy to use victim-blaming rhetoric to justify ignoring the problemor even making it worse, through mass incarceration. When something similar happens to white communities, the same conditions are an emergency demanding state action. Despite Carlsons claim that the right-wing response to the black community was solely about population size, it is noteworthy that he does not propose a single policy targeted at struggling black communities such as Flint, Michiganmuch less toward Puerto Rico. Given Carlsons history, these omissions suggest that inner-city blacks are merely a prop for him to head off further charges of racism. In short, its clear who really counts as people in this form of populism. If we are to expect something like socialism from populists of Carlsons ilk, we should not be surprised to find that it is a socialism of a distinctly white national character. No one on the left should allow themselves to be misled on this point: Proposing to use the same tools is no grounds for alliance when those tools are being used to realize radically different visions. In the last week, weve learned several new things about past and ongoing contacts between President Donald Trump, his aides, and Russia. These revelations cast doubt on the presidents denials of collusion. Trump and his surrogates dismiss these stories, but their answers raise further questions. Those questions can and should be investigated. Here are the new developments. First: A week ago, documents filed by Paul Manaforts lawyers revealed that in early 2016, while working on Trumps campaign, Manafort shared the campaigns private poll data with Konstantin Kilimnik, an associate connected to Russian intelligence. Advertisement Second: On Friday, the New York Times reported that Trumps firing of thenFBI Director James Comey in May 2017, compounded by the presidents suspicious behavior, led the FBI to open an investigation into whether Trump was working on behalf of Russia against American interests. Advertisement Advertisement Third: On Saturday, the Washington Post reported that within the White House, Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials. Confronted with these disclosures, Trump has responded with lies. On Saturday, he called special counsel Robert Mueller and his team of prosecutors, who have run one of the most opaque investigations in history, leaking machines. Trump also suggested that he has been tougher than any other president on Russia, a claim that would have elicited laughter from Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, or the members of Congress who have forced Trump to accept sanctions against Putin. Trump also told Fox News host Jeanine Pirro that federal agents broke into the office of his former lawyer, Michael Cohena lie that Trump continues to repeat even though it has been debunked. Advertisement Some of Trumps responses, however, invite further investigation. They point to additional information that would clarify what he did with his Russian counterparts and whether hes telling the truth now. Here are four claims worth pursuing. Advertisement 1. Trump doesnt mind disclosing the contents of his meetings with Putin. On Saturday, Pirro quizzed Trump about the Post story. Why not release the conversation that you had with President Putin in Helsinki? she asked, noting that Trump could also release documents embarrassing to the FBI officials who had investigated him. Trump replied: I would. I dont care. Im not keeping anything under wraps. I couldnt care less. If Trump doesnt care, then hell release the information that Congress and his own aides have sought. He could start with the interpreters notes from his July 2017 meeting with Putin. Trumps confiscation of those notes thwarted officials from the State Department and the National Security Council who tried to find out what had transpired in the meeting. Or Trump could authorize the interpreter from his July 2018 meeting with Putinthe one in Helsinkito testify about what was said, as members of Congress have requested. These steps would show good faith. Rejecting them would show the opposite. Advertisement 2. Trump treats Putin the same way he treats other world leaders. I have a one-on-one meeting with Putin like I do with every other leader, Trump told Pirro. On Pirros program and in remarks to reporters on Monday, the president cited three such leaders: President Xi Jinping of China, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. I meet with all of them, but nobody says anything, Trump told Pirro. But I meet with Putin, and they make a big deal. Speaking to the press on Monday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway made the same pitch. Trumps one-on-one meetings with Putin, she averred, were no different from his meetings with Modi and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Advertisement Advertisement That raises an obvious question, which a reporter posed to Conway: Did the president destroy notes with other world leaders, or was this exclusive to Putin? To be more precise, was the withholding of notes and information about such meetingsfrom other administration officialsa standard practice? Was this something he did with other world leaders? Conway told the reporter that she couldnt answer that question. I have not been able to discuss this at length with him, she said. Shed better ask him. So should Congress. If Trump hasnt kept similar control of information about meetings with other leaders, thats a sign of a corrupt relationship. 3. There was nothing unusual about sharing poll data with Kilimnik. Manafort only gave him polling data. Thats handed out all the time, Trumps lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told the New York Daily News. In an interview with the Hill, Giuliani added: There is no legal protection of polling data. You can give it to anyone. Campaigns leak polling data all the time. Advertisement The idea that internal polls are handed out all the time to business associates in other countries would surprise anyone who has worked in senior positions on campaigns. Internal polls are held close because the questions are strategically useful (theyre designed to inform campaign plans, not to inform the public) and, if leaked, would be just as useful to the other side. But if Trumps campaign handed out such numbers all the time, there must be other countries whose intelligence contacts also received them. Can Trump, Manafort, or Giuliani name any such countries? Or does Russiaand its Ukrainian proxies, for whom Kilimnik also workedstand, in this respect, curiously alone? Advertisement 4. Trump was angry about the exposure of his conversation with Russias foreign minister. When reporters asked Conway why the president had seized the notes from his July 2017 conversation with Putin, she explained that Trump had been irked by a great number of leaks, especially from an Oval Office meeting in May of 2017. Contents of that leaked. And so there was great concern at the time. Advertisement Thats a remarkable answer. The Oval Office meeting in question was with Sergey Lavrov, Russias foreign minister. It took place on May 10, 2017, a day after Trump fired Comey, and it was closed to the press. In the meeting, Trump told Lavrov, I just fired the head of the FBI. He added: I faced great pressure because of Russia. Thats taken off. Trump also alarmed his aides by sharing sensitive intelligence with Lavrov. In short, the meeting was deeply incriminating. The only reason we know about its contents is that a document based on notes taken from inside the Oval Office was circulated as the official account of the meeting, according to the New York Times, which reported Trumps comments. Conways citation of this leak as the grounds for Trumps subsequent efforts to control informationparticularly by blocking the circulation of notes from his conversations with Putinraises grave questions about what Trump said to others in the White House, and to his Russian contacts, about the exposure of his comments to Lavrov. These four lines of inquiry arent baseless, biased, or idle. Theyre directly implicated by statements from Trump and his surrogates, and they can be resolved by information thats already in the possession of the White House and the Trump campaign. The president hasnt given the right answers. But hes exposing all the right questions. One of the more dramatic subplots of the very dramatic day in Britains House of Commons was Labour MP Tulip Siddiqs decision to delay a planned cesarean section so she could show up at Parliament in a wheelchair to cast a vote on Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal. Its regrettable, as many of her colleagues noted, that there were no procedures to allow her to cast a proxy vote. Its also regrettable she made this sacrifice for a vote that turned out to be not even close. Advertisement Parliament rejected the deal May had negotiated with the EU by a vote of 432202the first time a government motion has been defeated by more than 100 votes since the 1920s. One hundred and eighteen Conservatives voted against their own government. Its been clear since December that May did not have the votes to actually pass the deal, and the only real uncertainty was the margin of defeat. Following the lopsided vote, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour Party, put forward a motion of no confidence in Mays government, which will be voted on tomorrow evening. Advertisement Advertisement What happens next? Nobody actually has any idea, because the rules are being negotiated on the fly and every ultimatum, deadline, and statement of principle should be taken with a grain of salt. But there are a few possibilities. Advertisement First, despite todays historic defeat, its not out of the question that May could win tomorrows vote. Her coalition partner, the Democratic Unionist Party, which is strongly opposed to her deal, says it will support her remaining prime minister. And despite the intraparty rebellion over her Brexit deal, May comfortably won a confidence vote within the Conservative Party just last month. Disappointed as they may be in the terms she negotiated with Brussels, are Conservatives really going to abandon her if her ouster would open up the possibility of Corbyn becoming prime minister? The Guardian reports that Jacob Rees-Mogg, a right-wing MP who leads a faction of hard-line Brexiteers who rejected Mays deal, will nonetheless support her in the vote. Advertisement If May loses the vote, theres a 14-day period in which a new government can be formed. During this period, May could stay and fight or step down to let a new Conservative leader try to cobble together a workable administration. (She may have a hard time finding anyone who wants such a thankless job right now.) Given the current numbers in Parliament, theres probably no other party capable of forming a coalition. If no government can be formed within 14 days, a new general election would be called but could not be held for at least 25 working days after that. Advertisement This is a lot of time, given that the March 29 Brexit deadline is only 73 days away. If no further action is taken between now and then, Britain will leave the EU without any trade agreement with Europe. While some hard-line Brexiteers support the no deal scenario, economists have warned the consequences could be dire for an economy thats deeply integrated with the continent. Advertisement EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker tweeted following todays vote: I urge the #UK to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. Time is almost up #Brexit. Or is it? After both sides had long insisted that the March 29 deadline was set in stone, EU officials are now reportedly preparing for the possibility that Britain will ask for an extension. This could be granted, though it would have to be agreed on unanimously by EU member states. But even with unlimited time, its not at all clear that May, or whoever might replace her, could come up with a better deal than the one rejected today. The main sticking point is that no side of this debate wants to impose a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. To avoid this, under Mays proposal, the entire United Kingdom would remain in a customs union with the EU for at least a 21-month transition period after leaving the union. Nobody is a fan of this, since Britain would be bound to economic and legal policies that it no longer has a role in shaping and would be unable to negotiate its own trade deals. After the 21 months, if no solution to the Northern Irish dilemma is agreed to, Northern Ireland would remain in the customs union when the rest of the U.K. exits. Many Conservatives, particularly Mays Unionist coalition allies, are aghast at this solution, since it would effectively economically separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the country. Advertisement Advertisement It makes sense that these solutions are unpopular. But other than some vague musing about technological solutions, nobody has come up with a better idea that grants Britain full economic independence from Europe, keeps Northern Ireland fully united with the rest of the U.K., and avoids customs checks on the Irish border. In a statement following todays vote, May said that if she wins the confidence vote, she will hold meetings to identify what would be required to secure the backing of the House for her deal. This might make sense if she had lost by a handful or even a few dozen votes, but given the margin, it seems unlikely that a few tweaks or reassurances would win enough new votes to get the bill over the hump. Advertisement Renewed enthusiasm is growing among some MPs in both parties for a Norway-style Brexit deal that would leave Britain with a much closer economic relationship with Europe, though its not clear this would satisfy Brexit supporters given that the country wouldnt have full control over immigration policyone of the key selling points of the whole Brexit concept. Theres also the possibility of a new referendum: Thousands of peoples vote supporters cheered outside Parliament as Mays deal was voted down on Tuesday. But this is still a tough sell for MPs of all parties from districts whose constituents supported Brexit and would see a do-over as a betrayal. Over the next two monthsor likely longerBritains leaders are going to have to make some very unpleasant choices. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court handed a victory to American workers, ruling unanimously that independent contractors who work in transportation may not be forced into mandatory arbitration. (Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who joined the bench after argument, did not participate.) The decision is a remarkable win for labor rights from a court that typically favors corporate interests over working people. And it will allow hundreds of thousands of contractors to vindicate their rights in court, collectively, rather than in costly and unjust arbitration. Advertisement Tuesdays case, New Prime v. Oliveira, involves a dispute between a trucking company (New Prime) and one of its drivers, Dominic Oliveira. When he began work, Oliveira was required to complete 10,000 miles hauling freight for New Primefor free, as an apprentice. He was then compelled to complete another 30,000 miles as a trainee, for which he was paid about $4 an hour. Once he became a full-fledged driver, Oliveira was designated as a contractor rather than an employee. He was forced to lease his own truck (from a company owned by the owners of New Prime), buy his own equipment (from the New Prime store), and pay for his own gas, often from New Prime gas pumps. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Typically, New Prime would have to pay all these expenses. But because it classified Oliveira as a contractor, it deducted the costs from his paycheck. Sometimes, that paycheck wound up negative due to these deductions, meaning New Prime essentially charged Oliveira to work for the company. In 2015, Oliveira filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of himself and tens of thousands of other contractors. He alleged that New Prime had misclassified him as a contractor to underpay him, a violation of federal labor law. But Oliveiras contract with the company declared that all disputes must be resolved through individual arbitration, a process that is costly, time-consuming, and often unjust, favoring employers over workers. New Prime asserted that, under the Federal Arbitration Act, courts must enforce this agreement and dismiss Oliveiras claims. Thats no surprise: In recent years, SCOTUS has repeatedly used the FAA to crush labor lawsuits, deploying the 1925 law to throw class actions and labor disputes out of court. Advertisement But New Prime had a problem. The FAA generally obligates courts to enforce arbitration clauses. But it expressly excludes contracts of employment of workers engaged in interstate commerce, such as seamen and railroad employees. Everyone agrees that truckers qualify for this exception. New Prime, however, asserted that truckers who work as contractors do not have contracts of employment and thus do not qualify. And by classifying so many workers as contractors, the company believed it had worked around the FAAs exemption. Advertisement Not so, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court on Tuesday. We may see a formal distinction between employment and contractor work today. But when Congress passed the FAA in 1925, Gorsuch explained, Dictionaries tended to treat employment more or less as a synonym for work. Indeed, all work was treated as employment, whether or not a formal employer-employee or master-servant relationship existed. Citing six dictionaries from the era, as well as contemporaneous statutes and rulings, Gorsuch concluded that contract of employment was understood to encompass work agreements involving independent contractors. As a result, Oliveira, along with other truckers and transportation contractors, qualify for the FAAs exemption. His class-action lawsuit may proceed in court. Advertisement Tuesdays decision marks the triumph of the Gorsuch briefa highly technical argument designed to nab the justices vote by fixating on the text of a statute and its meaning at the time of passage. Gorsuch appears to draw heavily from two sources: the brief by Public Justice, which represents Oliveira, and an amicus brief filed by the Constitutional Accountability Center, a progressive originalist law firm. These briefs dwell on the dictionaries that Gorsuch cites and even dive into the etymology of the word employment, from its Latin roots to its evolution through French and Anglo-Norman usage in the Middle Ages. Advertisement Together, Public Justice and the Constitutional Accountability Center provided enough arcane evidence to satisfy Gorsuch that, in 1925, the word employment did not distinguish between employers and contractors. The justices preoccupation with 1925 linguistics is so extreme that it spurred Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to write a brief concurrence noting that Congress can design legislation to govern changing times and circumstances, using words whose meaning may enlarge or contract [in] scope as society progresses. Ginsburg is likely laying the groundwork for upcoming disputesmost obviously, the question of whether the phrase discrimination because of sex should be read to protect LGBTQ employees. Advertisement But those fights can wait for another day, and Gorsuch deserves credit for following his textualist principles to a liberal outcome in New Prime. Thanks to his decision, hundreds of thousands of contractors in the transportation industry may now have their day in court and join together to pursue their claims collectively. That, of course, is a right that every American worker deserves, and it is a shame that SCOTUS has warped the FAA to deny it to them. Still, New Prime is a considerable success for labor rights at a time when corporate interests dominate the Supreme Court. Armed with old dictionaries and common sense, progressive attorneys scored the biggest blow against mandatory arbitration in years. Republican leaders in the House stripped Iowa Rep. Steve King of his committee assignments Monday night in response to the Republican congressmans inflammatory and racist remarks about white supremacy. White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilizationhow did that language become offensive? King said in an interview with the New York Times last week. Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization? With outrage growing and the Democratic leadership exploring censuring King, the House GOP removed King from the powerful Judiciary Committee, which oversees immigration and voting rights, and the Agriculture Committee, a plum assignment for a congressman representing rural Iowa. King was also stripped of his seat on the Small Business Committee. Advertisement In response to the Times story, King issued a statement attempting to distance himself from his own statement, saying he reject[s] those labels and the evil ideology that they define. Its true that like the Founding Fathers I am an advocate for Western Civilizations values, and that I profoundly believe that America is the greatest tangible expression of these ideals the World has ever seen, King continued. Under any fair political definition, I am simply a Nationalist. That equivocation, however, was not enough even for members of his own party that have long accepted the Iowas congressmans racist rhetoric and association with the most abhorrent of race-based far right politics. We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies, King tweeted last year in reference to immigration. That is just a single instance of many galling statements made by the United States congressman. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Kings affection for white supremacist ideology prompted a stronger than usual rebuke from his own party, including the South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate, as well as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said Kings comments were unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position. If he doesnt understand why white supremacy is offensive, he should find another line of work, McConnell said Monday. In response, [Rep.] Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, conferred privately with Mr. King for an hour on Monday afternoon [and] called a special meeting of the Republican Steering Committee to consider removing Mr. King, the Times reported Monday. The scramble to condemn Mr. King [-] illustrated how alarmed senior Republicans are about the partys image just two months after they lost 40 House seats, most of them in suburban or diverse districts including seven in Mr. McCarthys home state of California, where the G.O.P. is on the brink of extinction. Advertisement There are signs that despite his alignment with President Trump, Kings deep-red district is turning away from him. King is entrenched in a safe GOP seat, but in the 2018 midterms very much looked vulnerable and narrowly defeated a Democratic challenger by three points50 to 47. King had won each of his two previous re-election bids by more than 20 percentage points. A Republican challenger, state Sen. Randy Feenstra, has already announced he will run against King in the 2020 GOP primary. Update, 9:45 p.m.: Rep. Steve King issues a statement on his stripped committee assignments. Listen to Slates The Gist: Get More of The Gist Slate Plus members get extended, ad-free versions of our podcastsand much more. Sign up today. Join Slate Plus Subscribe to The Gist Copy this link and add it in your podcast app. copy link copied! For detailed instructions, see our Slate Plus podcasts page. Get The Gist in Your Inbox We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again. Please enable javascript to use form. Email address: Send me updates about Slate special offers. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms Sign Up Thanks for signing up! You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time. Listen to The Gist via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. On The Gist, president Trump is far from tough on Russia, and too many news talk shows let his allies make that claim. In the interview, Jennifer Traig thought she knew what she was getting into when she became a parent, until washing diarrhea out of neckfolds came along. In her latest book, she turns to history to sort the parenting techniques and philosophies that are worth keeping from those that arent. Traig is the author of Act Natural: A Cultural History of Misadventures in Parenting. In the Spiel, Republicans are speaking out against congressman Steve King for his racist comments. But how about some action? Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at Slate.com/gistplus. Join the discussion of this episode on Facebook. Email: thegist@slate.com Twitter: @slategist Podcast production by Pierre Bienaime and Daniel Schroeder. On Thursday, Wired magazine called an all-hands meeting on the day its newsroom moved to a different floor of One World Trade Center, the headquarters of its parent company Conde Nast. At the meeting, editor-in-chief Nick Thompson announced that the magazine was cutting five positions, sources who were present told Slate. Then the entire staff was told to vacate the floor and move to their new offices. The journalists let go included senior features editor Alexis Sobel Fitts and Brian Raftery, a senior writer covering film and TV. Also laid off, per her post on Twitter, was digital producer Lydia Belanger, who had joined the magazine just two and a half months earlier. Sources confirm two members of the art staff were eliminated as well. Advertisement A Wired spokesperson confirmed to me that there had been layoffs but declined to confirm the names or the head count, saying only that it was a small number. A spokesperson for Conde Nast said last weeks layoffs were limited to Wired, with no other Conde Nast properties affected. But they come amid well-documented turmoil at Conde, whose CEO announced his resignation in November, just three months after he outlined an aggressive plan to return the company to profitability. Advertisement Advertisement These appear to be Wireds first editorial layoffs since Thompson took over as editor from Scott Dadich in January 2017 and embarked on a project to reinvigorate the tech-focused magazine. In November, the magazine did lose a team of five people who were working on its Snapchat Discover channel as part of a round of Snapchat-related cuts at Conde Nast. Advertisement In February 2018, Wired set up a paywall to its website, joining a trend of media companies prioritizing digital subscriptions over online advertising. Thompson, who came to Wired from the New Yorker, said the move was about shifting the magazines incentives from Facebook virality and page views to journalism thats valuable to readers. Given Conde Nasts corporate upheaval, its quite possible these cuts at Wired are part of the broader restructuring at its parent company, even though they werent announced as such. That may be why no source contacted for this story agreed to be identified, with each saying they were not authorized to speak publicly. Thompson also declined to comment, and even the corporate representatives declined to speak on the record. Advertisement If thats the case, Wired may be getting off rather light, with the five layoffs representing a small fraction of its staff. The magazines masthead lists 97 employees after the cuts, though that figure includes non-editorial positions, such as executive chef and VP of revenue. The editorial headcount appears to be closer to 70. Still, the layoffs and the lack of transparency surrounding them left some staffers shaken. As one Wired employee who asked not to be named said, It was real jarring to have that meeting, then literally be kicked out of your floor by contractors. New findings on ocean warming: 5 questions answered Posted on 15 January 2019 by Guest Author Scott Denning, Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Editors note: A new study by scientists in the United States, China, France and Germany estimates that the worlds oceans have absorbed much more excess heat from human-induced climate change than researchers had estimated up to now. This finding suggests that global warming may be even more advanced than previously thought. Atmospheric scientist Scott Denning explains how the new report arrived at this result and what it implies about the pace of climate change. How do scientists measure ocean temperature and estimate how climate change is affecting it? They use thermometers attached to thousands of bobbing robots floating at controlled depths throughout the oceans. This system of Argo floats was launched in the year 2000 and there are now about 4,000 of the floating instruments. About once every 10 days, they cycle from the surface to a depth of 6,500 feet, then bob back up to the surface to transmit their data by satellite. Each year this network collects about 100,000 measurements of the three-dimensional temperature distribution of the oceans. The Argo measurements show that about 93 percent of the global warming caused by burning carbon for fuel is felt as changes in ocean temperature, while only a very small amount of this warming occurs in the air. International Argo Program, CC BY-ND How dramatically do the findings in this study differ from levels of ocean warming that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reported? The new study finds that since 1991, the oceans have warmed about 60 percent faster than the average rate of warming estimated by studies summarized by the IPCC, which are based on data from Argo floats. This is a big deal. Most of the difference comes from the earliest part of this period, before there were enough Argo floats in the oceans to properly represent the three-dimensional distribution of global water temperatures. The new data are complete all the way back to 1991, but the Argo data were really sparse until the mid-2000s. The implication of faster ocean warming is that the effect of carbon dioxide on global warming is greater than wed thought. We already knew that adding CO2 to the air was warming the world very rapidly. And the IPCC just warned in a special report that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels a target that would avert many extreme impacts on humans and ecosystems would require quickly reducing and eventually eliminating coal, oil and gas from the world energy supply. This study doesnt change any of that, but it means we will need to eliminate fossil fuels even faster. IPCC, CC BY-ND What did these researchers do differently to arrive at a higher number? They have measured tiny changes since 1991 in the concentrations of a few gases in the air oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide with incredibly high precision. This is really hard to do, because the changes are extremely small compared to the large amounts already in the air. Some of these gases from the air dissolve into the oceans. The waters temperature dictates how much it can absorb. As water warms, the amount of a gas that can dissolve in it decreases thats why a soda or beer left open on the kitchen table goes flat. That same temperature dependence allowed the scientists to calculate total changes in global ocean heat content from 1991 to now, just using very precise measurements of the air itself. If this study is accurate, what does it suggest we should expect in the way of major climate change impacts in the coming decades? This study did not address climate impacts, but they are already well known. As the world warms, more water vapor evaporates from both oceans and land. This means that when big storms develop, theres more water vapor in the air for them to work with, which will produce more extreme rain and snow and resulting winds. Greater warming will mean increased water demand for crops and forests and pastures, more stress on irrigation and urban water supplies, and reduced food production. More water demand means more forest fires and smoke, shorter winters with less mountain snowpack, and increased stress on ecosystems, cities and the world economy. Because of these effects, nearly every government in the world has committed to rapid emissions cuts to limit global warming. What this study suggests is that the climate is more sensitive to greenhouse gases than we previously thought. This means that in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, emissions will need to be cut faster and deeper. How will we know whether these findings hold up? There are other groups making precise gas measurements, and many of them have data going back to the 1990s. Others will repeat the analyses made by these authors and check their results. There will also be careful work to reconcile the increased warming rate of the oceans with the Argo temperature data, the surface air temperature record, atmospheric data from balloons and measurements made from satellites. The real world must be consistent with all of the observations taken together, not just a subset. This study very cleverly used data from the composition of the air itself going back nearly 30 years. We didnt have Argo floats back then, but air samples are still available that can be analyzed decades later. Using a longer record of warming is much better for estimating the rate, because its less sensitive to year-to-year variations than a shorter record. These scientists have given us a new and independent way to assess the sensitivity of long-term global warming to changes in atmospheric CO2 levels. I expect the findings will indeed hold up, and that we will be hearing a lot more about this new method in the future. January is both Human Trafficking and Stalking Awareness Month. Trafficking and stalking are problems that continue to plague our society. Estimates show there are more than 40 million victims of human trafficking around the world, most of which are women and children. Its happening in Iowa, too. Fortunately, there are programs available to help Iowans who are survivors of this atrocious criminal activity. My office administers the Safe at Home address confidentiality program. It provides survivors of sexual abuse, domestic violence, trafficking and stalking with a substitute address to use on all their records, making it harder for their abuser to find them. We have more than 500 participants in Safe at Home enrolled statewide. Several of them have experienced human trafficking, stalking or both. One of the survivors agreed to share her heartbreaking story. Her identity, along with all Safe at Home participants, will remain anonymous: My abuser broke into my home through the sliding glass door. He held me hostage, where I was violated and assaulted. He stated that he would slowly torture my dogs in front of me and then slowly torture me if I didnt listen to him. Now only a naive rationalist would claim that politics is purely cerebral. It's also about passion, self-interest and the foibles of would-be political leaders. But for democracy to work well, we need a balance among reason, emotion and interest. When reason is in retreat and when candidates are given strong incentives to stir up ugly passions, we have a problem. This is where we are now, and President Trump is both the product of this crisis and its apotheosis. He brought home just how nonsensical and dishonest our politics have become with his assertion last Thursday about Mexico paying for his border wall: "Obviously, I never said this, and I never meant they're going to write out a check." This was shocking, even from an unrepentant liar. Trump denied ever saying something that, as David Nakamura reported in The Washington Post, he did say "at least 212 times during his campaign and dozens more since he took office." This points to the media's major shortcoming in 2016: its continuing commitment to "both sides are equally flawed" journalism, which led to its failure to portray Trump as the moral aberration he is. As Frank Bruni recently noted in The New York Times (citing the research of Harvard professor Thomas Patterson), treating Trump and Hillary Clinton "identically" in terms of their "fitness for office" was "madness." "If Elizabeth Warren, often referred to by me as Pocahontas, did this commercial from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen, with her husband dressed in full Indian garb, it would have been a smash!" Trump tweeted. Later Sunday, Trump quoted a blatantly white nationalist column written by Pat Buchanan, the former communications director for President Ronald Reagan. "The United States, as we have known it, is going to cease to exist ... And Americans will not go gentle into that good night," Trump tweeted, quoting Buchanan's piece, entitled "Memo to Trump: Declare an Emergency." In the same column, Buchanan wrote: "The more multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural, multilingual America becomes -- the less it looks like Ronald Reagan's America -- the more dependably Democratic it will become. The Democratic Party is hostile to white men, because the smaller the share of the US population that white men become, the sooner that Democrats inherit the national estate." Trump in 1999 called Buchanan a "Hitler-lover" and an "anti-Semite" on NBC's "Meet the Press." A consistent Trump theme According to a statement from the City of Sioux City Engineering Division, southbound traffic on Pierce Street will not be allowed to turn east and a detour utilizing Pierce Street, Fifth Street and Nebraska Street may be used. Parking will be restricted on the south side of Seventh Street. All traffic will be head to head on the south half of Seventh Street, including the normal street parking. STORM LAKE, Iowa -- Storm Lake police have charged a 17-year-old girl with harassment in connection with a social media conversation. According to a statement from the Storm Lake Police Department, officers responded to Storm Lake High School at 1:50 p.m. Thursday in reference to a threat. After meeting with school staff and several witnesses, investigators determined that two Storm Lake High School students, a 17-year-old girl and a 15-year-old girl, engaged in a social media conversation that escalated into harassing statements being made by the 17-year-old. A third person, whom police have identified as an 18-year-old Sioux City woman, also allegedly engaged in the online conversation and reportedly threatened to use a firearm against the 15-year-old. The 17-year-old was arrested and charged with third-degree harassment, a simple misdemeanor. She was processed and released to an adult pending a court date in juvenile court. The Storm Lake Police Department is currently searching for the 18-year-old woman with the help of the Sioux City Police Department. Copyright 2018 The Sioux City Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. SIOUX CITY -- The U.S. Marshals Service Northern Iowa Fugitive Task Force is seeking the public's help in locating the following person: * Gabriel Verbeski, 30. He is 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighs 275 pounds. Verbeski is wanted by the Iowa Department of Corrections for absconding from the Sioux City Regional Treatment Facility. In August 2013, Verbeski was charged in Woodbury County with first-degree burglary and felon in possession of a firearm. Verbeski pleaded guilty to the first-degree burglary charge and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. In 2014, Verbeski was convicted of a drug crime and received an additional two years in prison. In April 2016, an arrest warrant was issued for Verbeski in Woodbury County for escape from the Sioux City Regional Treatment Facility. In June 2016, Verbeski was located in the Morningside neighborhood after police spotted a stolen vehicle that Verbeski was thought to be driving parked behind a residence. When police attempted to make contact with Verbeski, he ran out the back door of the residence and led police on a foot pursuit before being captured. During a search of the residence, police located a 9mm semi-automatic handgun and over 10 grams of methamphetamine. Colombia Hoy Para nunca olvidar Paginas vistas en total 'Parasite' painted on a statue of Queen, Elizabeth in Kent, England Sin palabras La UE le apunta a la paz Cada vez mas solo Follow by Email Precio del Brent To get the BRENT oil price, please enable Javascript. Dolar USA Vs Euro LULA y su Pueblo Bye Bye Homenaje al genial Quino Fueron ellos Una imagen que resume Tan bajo ha caido que se deja tocar el trasero? Porky y el Nene (archiconocido narcotraficante) Ladrones al poder Asi mira el perrito a su amo Crazy Clamor popular La nueva inquisicion Bolivia Chile Hoy Eso es todo amigos! Pinerachet No More Trump Adios Macri, hasta nunca La Marioneta se desinfla Asi o mas cinico Almugre Mexico en 1794 Mas arrastrado imposible La pura verdad Solidaridad con Palestina Serie Capitalismo Espejismos de la clase trabajadora Comerciantes o delincuentes Asi es la vida USA HOY La avaricia no tiene limites Chile Hoy Asi son las cosas Mapa Electoral de Venezuela Patagonia argentina? Un aniversario mas del mayor genocidio de la Humanidad Retrato del franquismo en Espana El Chulo de Madrid Cuando la policia se roba la democracia Una imagen dice mas que mil palabras La purita verdad Asi gobierna la maldita burguesia Mi pobre clase media Como Chavez nadie Comparte La Colmena via twitter Twittear Programa de la MUD Asi o mas clarito Por que Trump no ataco Corea del Norte? Hace 15 anos Por que la OEA no se pronuncio? Una verguenza nacional La luz que nos guia La Union Europea Premio Nobel de la Paz? Feudalismo ayer y hoy Obama, el mentiroso Curiosa coincidencia Un mundo de cerdos No es extrano? La Marioneta Los ricos protestan, los pobres celebran MARICORI Y OBAMA Cuantas muertes este ano? 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Por culpa de Chavez Cerveza Polar Algun dia Colombia volvera a la ideologia de Bolivar Translate LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares? Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano... Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos: Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias. Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera. No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje. En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio. Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida. Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella. Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal. Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista. Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen. Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che? Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio. Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora. Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo. Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo. Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania. No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar. Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga. Alguna duda? Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia. OZ1 OZ2 OZ3 OZ4 Homenaje a Jason Galarraga La Victoria de Samotracia Odalisca Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008 La Sierra Nevada de Merida Nuestro precioso Churum Meru Homenaje a Picasso Autoretrato Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola? La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar. Mi profesion? Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos. Sal en la Coca Cola? A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar. De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla: Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido) azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa) Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas Mucha Cafeina Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja. Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos. Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja. En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero). Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma. La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate. Bebidas Light? Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal. Publicado por loretahur En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina: 1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias. 2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina. 3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard. 4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos. 5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla. 6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos. Ahora... sobre la margarina: 1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) . 2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias. 3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno). 4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer. 5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna. 6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo. 7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina. Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas: * No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo). * No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!! No a la guerra, Si a la Paz Misterios de la ciencia... Los costos de la guerra medicos y capitalismo... medicos (2) Quien educa a nuestros hijos? Los Medios... Sin Palabras... Chistes feministas - Cual es el problema, Eva? - Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas. - Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas... - Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti. - Que es un hombre? - Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente. - Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente. - Cual es el truco?. - Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion. - Cual? - Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer. Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas? Porque todos son unos cerdos Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas? Porque todos son unos cerdos Ellas (2)... Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1 Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije: -Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro. Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria. Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre? -Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa! VENGANZA NUMERO 2 Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris. A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita: - Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!! Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta. La mujer paso quince dias en Francia. El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla. Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es: - Y amor me trajiste mi francesita?? - Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina. VENGANZA NUMERO 3 El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion. - No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo. - Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz. Te quiero confesar algo. - Esta bien, esta bien. Habla! - He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga. - Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!! machismo y cibernetica Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston. -Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad. El simio hace la sena de OK. -Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?. El simio hace la sena de OK. -Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide. -Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!. .Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti. Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos. Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco. Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas Gol !!!! Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso! Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy! SIOUX CITY -- Within roughly three years, early dismissal of students in the Sioux City School District due to the heat will likely be a thing of the past. In recent years, elementary students from Bryant, Hunt, Riverside and Sunnyside schools have had early outs on hot or humid days in late summer or late spring, since they are the last four district schools without air conditioning systems. The six middle and high school buildings and the other elementary schools all have air conditioning. During the school board meeting on Monday, a $1.7 million project to update the mechanical systems in Riverside and Sunnyside Elementary schools was explained to board members. They approved a procedural step, by setting Jan. 28 as the time for a public hearing on the proposed plans and estimated cost of $1,682,380 for the project. The mechanical systems will be updated and air conditioning will be installed, said Brian Fahrendholz, the school district's director of operations and maintenance. The Sunnyside work is pegged at $1.2 million and will be done this year, while Riverside costs are estimated at just under $470,000, and will be done in two phases through 2020. STORM LAKE, Iowa -- A multi-block section of Storm Lake was evacuated and closed off Tuesday morning while police searched a suspicious backpack, which was left by a man who reportedly said he "was trying to change the world." A Storm Lake Police Department release said several blocks near Barton Street were closed for an hour. Police were called to a suspicious package in the 400 block of Barton Street, just before 8 a.m. Officers reported finding a backpack lying in the street near Lake Pointe Villa Housing Complex. The person calling in the backpack location told police a man placed it in the street, and said he was trying to change the world," before leaving the area northbound. The release said police closed off a three-block area around the backpack as a precaution. Residents of Lake Pointe Villa moved to the west side of the complex, to be further from the backpack, and a home in the 400 block of Barton Street was also evacuated. The 17-year-old man who had left the backpack called police, saying he was located at Storm Lake High School and needed police help. The release said the man was displaying strange behavior and beginning to undress. SIOUX CITY -- The Citizens Convenience Center, 5800 28th St., has reopened for business. The center, which accepts bulky waste, electronics and appliances, closed after an explosion at the Sioux City Landfill Dec. 27. Two men were injured in the explosion; and the scale house, a building where garbage is weighed, sustained significant damage. According to a statement from the city, household hazardous materials are not currently being accepted at the center. These materials can be taken to the Woodbury County Transfer Station, 2210 Ida Ave., Moville, Iowa. Copyright 2018 The Sioux City Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. By Andy Sullivan and Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's nominee for U.S. attorney general, William Barr, told lawmakers on Tuesday he would protect a federal probe into Russian election meddling from political pressure, stressing he would bring independence to the job and not shy away from breaking ranks with the administration. "I will not be bullied into doing anything that I think is wrong - by anybody, whether it be editorial boards or Congress or the president," Barr said at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I'm going to do what I think is right." Barr is expected to win confirmation in the Republican-controlled Senate to serve as the top law enforcement officer in the United States, which would put him in charge of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and any possible collusion between Moscow and Trump's campaign. "On my watch, Bob will be allowed to complete his work," said Barr, who completed his testimony on Tuesday although the hearing has a second day scheduled for Wednesday. Democrats worry that Trump's administration may try to undercut the investigation, which has clouded Trump's two years in office and has been a frequent target of the president and his allies. While Democrats pressed Barr on topics ranging from gay rights to racial disparities in the drug war, the session was free of the acrimonious exchanges that marked Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court hearings last fall. "Quite frankly, I thought my Democratic colleagues asked a lot of good questions," committee chairman Lindsey Graham, a Republican, told reporters after the hearing. Barr, who was attorney general under Republican President George H.W. Bush in the 1990s, said his primary loyalty would be to the rule of law, not Trump. He said he did not seek out the job and was reluctant to accept when Trump offered it to him. Story continues While he staked out a position of independence, Barr spoke broadly in favor of many of the tough immigration policies that have been pushed by Trump. He said he believed in the use of border walls, and criticized "sanctuary cities" that shield from deportation immigrants who are in the country without authorization. "We need money right now for border security, including walls and barriers," he said. Much of the questioning centered on the Mueller probe, which Trump frequently criticizes as a "witch hunt" while denying any collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice. Russia has denied U.S. intelligence agencies' findings that it interfered in the 2016 election. Barr said he agreed with Mueller's charge that Russian entities interfered in the election, or at least tried to do so. He said he described Mueller, a longtime friend, as a "straight shooter" when Trump asked about him. "I don't believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt," Barr said. If Trump asked him to fire Mueller without good cause, "I would refuse to carry out that instruction," he said. 'FATALLY MISCONCEIVED' White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders described Barr as an "honorable man" in a statement. "President Trump thinks he will be a great attorney general," she said. Mueller has secured indictments against or guilty pleas from 33 people and three Russian companies, including former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. He is due to submit a confidential report containing his findings to the attorney general, prompting concern from some Democrats that the Trump administration will try to quash it. Barr said he would not let Trump modify the report and would make public as many of Mueller's findings as possible. "My objective and goal is to get as much as I can of the information to Congress and the public," he said. Barr faced questions from Democrats about an unsolicited memo he wrote last year that called Mueller's probe "fatally misconceived" for examining whether Trump obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey in 2017. Barr said his memo did not question the legitimacy of the probe as a whole, but only expressed concerns that the special counsel might be improperly interpreting one aspect of the law. RECUSAL DECISION Barr also drew objections from some Democrats for saying he would not necessarily recuse himself from oversight of the Mueller probe if ethics officials recommended he do so. "In this context, just asking us to trust you is not enough," Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono told him. Barr said it would be improper to automatically defer to people who report to him. "I am not going to surrender the responsibilities of the attorney general," he said. Barr's insistence that he should have the last word was in contrast to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who said he would defer to the recommendation of ethics officials after it emerged he had met with Russian officials while working on Trump's election campaign. Sessions faced repeated attacks from the president after he recused himself from the Russia probe. Barr said Sessions "did the right thing" by leaving the recusal decision in the hands of career ethics officials, because he faced a conflict due to his political activities. The man who currently holds the job, Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, has not recused himself from oversight of the Mueller probe, despite a recommendation he do so. (Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Steve Holland; editing by Tomasz Janowski, Frances Kerry and Jonathan Oatis) The Taliban on Tuesday claimed responsibility for a powerful truck bomb in Kabul that ripped through surrounding neighbourhoods, killing at least four people including an Indian national, and wounding more than 100 in the latest assault on the Afghan capital. In a grim message, the militants also vowed to carry out more attacks in the city in direct response to the recent appointment of former spymaster and anti-Taliban veteran Amrullah Saleh as interior minister. Monday evening's explosion near the heavily fortified Green Village foreign compound shook Kabul and comes as diplomats ramp up efforts to end the 17-year war in Afghanistan, which by some estimates was the world's deadliest conflict in 2018. The force of the blast was felt across the sprawling city, initially causing confusion about the exact location of the attack. It shattered the windows of surrounding houses and shops. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told journalists on WhatsApp that four attackers blew up an explosives-packed truck before entering Green Village and "killing many" foreigners. Four people, including three guards and one civilian, have been confirmed dead and 113 wounded, the health ministry said. An Indian national was among those killed, India's foreign ministry said in a statement. Kabul police spokesman Basir Mujahid told AFP that most of the victims were Afghan civilians. "Seven or eight people have been injured in every house around here including myself," said resident Mohammad Aref. "When I came out, the street was full of bodies of the dead and injured." Until recently some UN staff had lived and worked at Green Village, which is heavily protected by cement blast walls. But interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said earlier the compound was now largely empty and "only a number of guards" were left. A much bigger UN compound along with Afghanistan's customs office and headquarters for the Independent Election Commission are also nearby. - 'Sabotage' - It is the second Taliban-claimed attack on a foreign compound in Kabul in recent months. In late November a vehicle bomb exploded outside the compound of British security firm G4S, killing at least 10 people. Five G4S employees were among the dead. That was followed by a suicide and gun attack on a government compound in Kabul on December 24 that killed at least 43 people, making it one of the deadliest assaults on the city last year. The latest bombing comes as US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad visits the region for further meetings aimed at bringing an end to the war in Afghanistan. Khalilzad, who met Taliban representatives last month in Abu Dhabi, is travelling to Afghanistan as well as China, India and Pakistan on the trip lasting through January 21. Afghan officials suggested the latest attack appeared to be an attempt to derail the burgeoning peace process, vowing the bombing would not go unanswered. "As we are trying to reach a regional consensus on peace, the enemy is trying to sabotage it," said National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib on social media. "I strongly condemn this attack and promise I will seriously investigate and avenge it," he added. Last month's leaking of US President Donald Trump's plan to slash troop numbers in Afghanistan, however, has threatened to derail the efforts and alarmed many Afghans who fear a return to oppressive Taliban rule. Diplomats in Kabul have long said any negotiations with the militants would likely happen as fighting continued on the battlefield -- cold comfort for Afghan civilians who have long borne the brunt of the war. Minister-in-Charge of cybersecurity S. Iswaran. PHOTO: Screengrab from Gov.sg YouTube channel Revealing the identity of the perpetrator behind Singapores worst-ever cyberattack would not be in the Republics national interest, said Minister-in-Charge of Cybersecurity S. Iswaran on Tuesday (15 January). Delivering his Ministerial Statement on the aftermath of the 2018 SingHealth cyberattack, which saw the personal particulars of almost 1.5 million patients stolen from the agencys database, Iswaran acknowledged that the identity of the attacker was known. The minister said, Appropriate action has been takenBut, for national security reasons, I will not comment further. Despite being pressed by Members of Parliament Vikram Nair and Cedric Foo the latter noted that there seems to be a vacuum as far as the sense of justice Iswaran would not provide more details of the skilled and sophisticated attacker. The 56-year-old instead urged the House to look at the totality of the governments response to the attack. For example, the incident was revealed within days, and extensive measures have been taken to plug the cybersecurity gaps. We have to exercise judgement: what is in our national interest, and whether a public attribution serves our best interests. Singapore faces cunning adversaries Health Minister Gan Kim Yong. PHOTO: Screengrab from Gov.sg YouTube channel From 27 June to 4 July, the personal particulars of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong were specifically targeted and repeatedly accessed during the cyberattack, according to the report of a Committee of Inquiry (COI) tasked with looking into the incident. Issued last Thursday, the COI report listed 16 recommendations to improve Singapores cybersecurity landscape, following 22 days of public hearings last year on the incident. Iswaran told the House that the government has accepted all of the committees proposals. The COI also highlighted system vulnerabilities and key lapses by staff at Integrated Health Information Systems (IHiS), the central IT agency for the healthcare sector. On Monday, IHiS announced that two of its senior managers have been sacked for being negligent and in non-compliance of orders during the cyberattack. Story continues Five members of the IHiS senior management, including CEO Bruce Liang, have also been given a significant financial penalty for their collective leadership responsibility. A moderate financial penalty will be imposed on two middle management supervisors, said IHiS. Meanwhile, IHiS and SingHealth, which owns the compromised patient database system, have been fined a combined $1 million by Singapores privacy watchdog for the lapses which contributed to the success of the cyberattack. Iswaran reminded his parliamentary colleagues that Singapores networks are continually probed for weaknesses, and regularly attacked. He stressed that cybersecurity is a constant battle against cunning adversaries with advanced capabilities. Plugging cybersecurity gaps In the same parliamentary sitting, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong also delivered a Ministerial Statement and apologised again to the affected patients. Gan noted that the various health agencies such as IHiS have implemented measures to improve cybersecurity. For example, Database Activity Monitoring, which blocks database queries from unauthorised sources, has been put in place for the SingHealth electronic medical record database. The Health Ministry has also initiated independent security reviews on key public healthcare IT systems. Health agencies are also experimenting with a tiered model of Internet access, including what is called a Virtual Browser, which allows access to the Internet through strictly controlled and monitored client servers. In response to the Ministerial Statements, Aljunied GRC MP Png Eng Huat noted that while the COIs report comprehensively addressed the technical side of the cyberattack, it has fallen short on damage control for the victims. He asked what the government would do to reassure the affected patients that they would not fall prey to scammers making use of their personal information. While acknowledging that Png had a reasonable concern, Iswaran said that various agencies have been been monitoring the Dark Web to see whether the compromised data has emerged. To date, there has been no evidence of that. He concluded the session by stressing that the key issue was to ensure Singaporeans continue to have trust and confidence in public sector systems. I dont think we should reduce whether we have confidence in the sense of justice to just one specific point: that theres no public attribution of the perpetrator. Related stories Workplace cultural issues need addressing: IHiS chief executive SingHealth cyberattack: Suspected malware incident in January not reported Initial responses to SingHealth cyberattack piecemeal and inadequate: Solicitor-General Discussion about wargaming and military history, primarily WWII in North Africa. Also discussion about AFV's and artillery. By Hyonhee Shin and Joyce Lee SEOUL (Reuters) - The United States and North Korea plan to hold high-level talks in Washington this week to discuss a second meeting between their leaders, South Korean media said on Tuesday, as the old enemies seek an "interim" deal to revitalizes nuclear talks. The meeting, led by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol, is due on Thursday or Friday, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported, citing an unidentified diplomatic source familiar with the issue. They are expected to finalize the date and venue of a second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the newspaper said. The U.S. embassy in Seoul referred questions to the White House. The White House offered no immediate comment on the Chosun Ilbo report, while a State Department official said: "We don't have any meetings to announce." South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted an unidentified diplomatic source as saying Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol could meet this week. The North Korean delegation could visit the United States "as soon as this week" but plans have not been finalised, a CNN reporter, citing an unidentified source, said on Twitter. Trump wrote Kim Jong Un a letter, which was flown to Pyongyang and hand delivered over the weekend, the CNN reporter added, citing the source. South Korea's foreign ministry spokesman told reporters the North and the United States were "in contact" but it was "inappropriate" to comment on plans for talks. A meeting this week could mean the two sides are nearing a compromise after months of standoff over how to move forward in ending North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. Trump and Kim pledged at their first summit, in Singapore in June, to work toward denuclearization "of the Korean peninsula". But there has been little significant progress. Pompeo, who made several trips to Pyongyang last year, sought to meet his counterpart last November, but the talks were called off at the last minute. Contact was resumed after Kim's New Year's speech, in which he said he was willing to meet Trump "at any time," South Korea's ambassador to the United States, Cho Yoon-je, told reporters last week. In Seoul, South Korea deleted a description of North Korea as an "enemy" in its defense white paper released on Tuesday, though it said its weapons of mass destruction posed a threat to peace and stability. INTERIM MEASURES The United States and South Korea have been discussing how to respond to any North Korean steps toward denuclearization, South Korean officials told Reuters. The United States is considering easing sanctions in exchange for the North's discarding and sending abroad its intercontinental ballistic missiles, in addition to freezing its nuclear program, the Chosun Ilbo said, citing its source. U.S. responses could include exemptions from sanctions for inter-Korean business and opening a liaison office, Seoul officials said. "Those ideas are being discussed as interim measures, not as an end state, in order to expedite the denuclearization process, because the North wouldn't respond to any demand for a declaration of facilities and weapons," said a senior South Korean official, who declined to be identified. "The end goal remains unchanged, whether it be complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization, or final, fully verified denuclearization." The official said a Trump and Kim meeting could happen by early March, though added: "No one knows what Trump is thinking." Kim reiterated his resolve to meet Trump during a meeting last week with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump said this month he had received a "great" letter from Kim and would probably meet him again soon. "At the second summit, they'll probably focus on reaching a possible interim deal, rather than a comprehensive roadmap for denuclearization," said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at South Korea's Sejong Institute. (Reporting by Joyce Lee and Hyonhee Shin; Additional reporting by Josh Smith, Wonil Lee in SEOUL and Matt Spetalnick in WASHINGTON; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) Gabon's President Ali Bongo was back in Libreville on Tuesday after months abroad recovering from a stroke, ending an absence that saw an attempted coup by renegade soldiers. After returning from Morocco in the early hours of the morning, Bongo presided over a ceremony at which ministers from the new government were sworn in, officials said. The oil-rich West African state has been without an effective government for months since Bongo, 59, suffered the stroke in late October during a visit to Saudi Arabia. After initial treatment at a hospital in Riyadh, Bongo was transferred to Morocco where he spent just over six weeks, officials said. His return came eight days after a small group of renegade soldiers briefly tried to stage a coup before it was quashed by security forces, who arrested the leader and killed two others. With Bongo's prolonged absence, the country had been in limbo for months and officials at the presidential palace did not say whether he was back for good or would return to the Moroccan capital Rabat for further convalescence. On Saturday, a new government was unveiled in a video announcement from Rabat although there were no significant changes to either the cabinet or the government. All 38 ministers arrived at the beachside presidential palace in Libreville on Tuesday and were sworn in at a ceremony which was closed to the press, officials said. - 'A very difficult ordeal' - Bongo has not been seen in public since he was taken to hospital on October 24 in Riyadh but a video of the ceremony was released later on Tuesday. The footage shows Bongo opening and closing the session, but there are only brief glimpses of him, shots of just a few seconds which show him seated in a wheelchair and squinting slightly. "It was very moving to see him," government spokesman Nanette Longa-Makinda told AFP. "It will certainly take him several months to fully recover his physical abilities, that's for sure," one minister said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He looks like someone who has been through a very difficult ordeal," agreed another cabinet colleague who was present at the ceremony. So far, officials have said very little about Bongo's health, with a presidential spokesman insisting things were back to normal. "There can be no more talk about a power vacuum," the spokesman said, using a phrase repeated by many ministers leaving the ceremony. - 'Circus goes on' - Before now, Bongo's only appearance was his traditional televised New Year's Eve address, recorded in Morocco, in which he said he had "been through a difficult period". Critics seized on signs of his apparent ill-health, noting the address was unusually short, his speech was slurred and his right hand seemed stiff and immobile. His long-awaited return did little to quieten lingering suspicions among the people of Gabon. "The circus goes on," tweeted Marc Ona Essangui, a civil society leader. When Bongo was first taken ill, the singular lack of official news -- along with memories of the secrecy around the death of his father Omar Bongo in 2009 -- had fuelled a flurry of rumours, including speculation he was incapacitated or even dead. The Bongo family has governed Gabon for five decades, and long maintained close ties with former colonial master France. Ali Bongo was elected head of state after his father's death and he was narrowly re-elected in 2016 following a presidential poll marred by deadly violence and allegations of fraud. Reuters SG * Peso hits lowest since May 28 * Singapore stocks track best day since May 18 * Graphic: World FX rates https://tmsnrt.rs/2RBWI5E * Asian stock markets: https://tmsnrt.rs/2zpUAr4 By Shashwat Awasthi June 15 (Reuters) - The Philippine peso fell the most in more than two months on Tuesday after coronavirus curbs were prolonged in the capital Manila and nearby provinces until end-June and quarantine measures were tightened to battle rising infections. The Philippines has the second highest number of infections and casualties in Southeast Asia after Indonesia and finds its healthcare sector stretched as it battles rising cases. President Rodrigo Duterte announced the extension of curbs on Monday. What is Hong Kongs role in a new economic world order as supply chains shift amid US-China trade war? Hong Kong would need to be nimble and find a new role as the global supply chain realigns and manufacturing bases across the border move out amid the US-China trade war, industry leaders have said. At the Asia Financial Forum on Tuesday, Victor Fung Kwok-king, group chairman of international supply chain firm Fung Group, said a major change in trade patterns was afoot, and trade flows between the superpowers would be directed to other emerging markets. Hong Kong orchestrated the global supply chain about 20 years ago and facilitated Chinas policy on market reform and opening up, he said. Its role would be to orchestrate the potential new global trade flow. Among roles the city could adopt in the new economic world order would be to adjust its services and focus on logistics and trade financing. Hong Kong has played a key part in the global supply chain, with the citys entrepreneurs investing in mainland factories. Its role would be to orchestrate the potential new global trade flow Victor Fung, Fung Group But uncertainty is growing with Hong Kong caught between Washington and Beijing as both sides lob tariffs at each other. A 90-day truce from December 1 has yet to bring any sign of a deal being reached. John Slosar, chairman of Hong Kong-United States Business Council (Hong Kong section) and the citys flagship carrier Cathay Pacific Airways, said the redistribution of the global supply chain would take time, considering it took a generation to build. Hong Kong was the worlds No 1 cargo hub with a global share of 40 per cent, and would continue to lead the market in the next 10 years, he said. Describing the city as nimble, Slosar said he was confident it would respond quickly and adapt well to changes. For sure, there will be a change factories moving out of China. But that is not going to be easy, he said, adding that Hong Kong would have to redeploy resources and expertise. Story continues Fung said the citys 300,000 small and medium-sized enterprises had plenty to do amid the uncertainty. People talk a lot about the [Belt and Road Initiative], which is about building infrastructure. What happens after the infrastructure is built, which is going to happen fairly soon? Who is going to use it? There will be a mass migration of businesses and SMEs out of China into new areas to finish the manufacture of products, and new countries of origin along the belt and road. Hong Kong entrepreneurs will play a major role in this. The belt and road plan is Chinas ambitious global trade strategy to form an alliance of more than 65 countries with trade corridors on land and sea. When asked about a comparison between Hong Kong and Singapore amid the changes, Benjamin Hung Pi-cheng, regional CEO for Greater China and North Asia at Standard Chartered Bank, said Hong Kong could be positioned as a hub to settle growing investments in yuan assets, whereas the Lion City could leverage its proximity to Malaysia and Indonesia for trade. Echoing views he had raised last year, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau Tang-wah said Hong Kong could make use of the free trade pact with Asean, a 10-country bloc in Southeast Asia which is the citys second-largest trade partner after China. This article What is Hong Kongs role in a new economic world order as supply chains shift amid US-China trade war? first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. By Renee Maltezou ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras made an impassioned appeal to parliament for support on Tuesday, the eve of a confidence vote he is expected to survive by a whisker with the backing of a handful of opposition lawmakers. Tsipras called the vote following the resignation of Defence Minister Panos Kammenos and his right-wing Independent Greeks' party over an accord to end a long dispute between Greece and Macedonia by changing Macedonia's name. As parliament opened two days of debate, Tsipras said it was a "patriotic duty" to proceed with the agreement, knowing it would have a political cost. He called on lawmakers to support him, saying his government had pulled Greece from international bailouts and a debt crisis and has more work to do in the nine months that remain before its term ends in October. "There are times that one is judged not for his words but for his acts. There are times of critical decisions and of responsibilities," Tsipras said. "Addressing you all, I urge you to speak clearly and with honesty, listen to your conscience and respect the people's interest. I call on you to give a clear response: Do you trust this government to continue?," he added. The vote is expected on Wednesday night. The prime minister said last week he could call a snap election if he failed to win a majority of 151 votes. His leftist Syriza party has 145 seats in the 300-seat chamber and the support of one independent lawmaker. Despite the resignation of Kammenos, four lawmakers from the right-wing Independent Greeks have said they will still back Tsipras. He received another endorsement on Tuesday from a member of parliament from the centrist To Potami party, reaching the 151 MP mark. The fate of the Macedonia name deal hinges on the outcome of the confidence vote, as the opposition has vowed to reject it. The deal, which was reached in June in the Prespes region, is intended to resolve a dispute that has kept Greece's northern neighbour excluded from the EU and NATO over its name. Story continues "Giving a vote of confidence tomorrow will be like saying "yes" to the Prespes agreement tomorrow, which is a great national concession," said Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of the conservative New Democracy party. "At the same time it (would) support a ragbag government with no popular mandate and with a harmful agenda." Greece argues that the name Macedonia represents a territorial claim over a Greek province by the same name, and has blocked the former Yugoslav republic from joining Western institutions. Under the deal, Macedonia will change its name to the Republic of North Macedonia, and Greece will accept it. Macedonia's parliament last week passed an amendment to the constitution to rename the country, leaving it up to Greece to ratify the deal. Greek opponents of the agreement say Macedonia's new name still represents an attempt to appropriate Greek identity. Groups opposing the deal will rally in central Athens on Sunday. (Editing by Peter Graff and Ed Osmond) Chinese workers may get 2-day weekend to go shopping, but public services users arent buying it Hebei province in northern China has proposed a 2-day weekend to stimulate consumption, but the proposal has sparked heated debate online as to whether the idea would benefit everyone. Municipalities in the province may add Friday afternoons to Saturdays and Sundays off, a directive published by the provincial government on its website said. The document, which was aimed at increasing consumption during 2019 and 2020, said employers should adopt more flexible working hours and encourage leave on non-public holidays. China to encourage its 1 billion consumers to spend to offset trade war Places that are prepared, it said, can try out a 2-day weekend. Last week, state planners announced their intention to roll out a new set of incentives this year to encourage a billion Chinese consumers to buy more items like cars and home appliances. The move comes amid an economic downturn, falling stock markets and a trade war with the United States. While some applauded the suggestion from Hebei, most web users said they doubted it would do anyone but staff in government institutions any good. The state-run Peoples Daily welcomed the proposal. One cannot work well if he does not know how to rest well. Whether encouraging off-peak holidays or flexible working hours, or the 2-day weekend, they should follow public opinion and ultimately provide for better work, it said on Weibo, Chinas answer to Twitter. Many users, however, voiced concern that access to government agencies and services would be curtailed if they were closed for an extra half-day. This would end up as privilege for civil servants. Many companies do not even guarantee two days for weekends or legal holidays, let alone 2.5 days, one Weibo user wrote. Knock-on from trade war causes retail sales growth slowdown Its already difficult getting anything done at government bodies. I think instead of taking more time off, its more important to ask government employees to rotate weekend shifts, another said. Story continues In many small and medium-sized companies, one day off is typical although sometimes workers do not even have that. On the Chinese mainland, Japan, Singapore and South Korea, the statutory working week is 40 to 44 hours long, while laws in Hong Kong and Taiwan call for at least one rest day every seven days. Yao Xianguo, head of the Public Policy Research Institute of Zhejiang University, said it was a little far-fetched to think that adding half a day to the weekend would stimulate consumption. He shared public concern over a longer waiting times at government offices. Before giving more time off, the government should clarify whether it will raise work efficiency, he said. Latest minimum wage increase will benefit fewer workers than initially thought Yao said instead of giving orders, government was better leaving the matter to employers and employees. As new technologies emerge to improve work efficiency, its possible to shorten peoples working hours, but a flexible scheme should be more based on the negotiation between the employer and employee. This article Chinese workers may get 2-day weekend to go shopping, but public services users arent buying it first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. Chinese firms are facing greater risks when they invest abroad because of rising tensions with the United States and growing security threats posed by Islamic State and al-Qaeda, a risk assessment report warns. The report, released on Tuesday, said the challenges were particularly acute in Asian and African countries, which are at the centre of Chinas global trade and infrastructure strategy, the Belt and Road Initiative. It also said the US and its allies were expected to step up efforts to counter Chinas growing influence in those countries. The report was published by Beijing-based Paitron Services and the China Overseas Development Association, a semi-official body under the National Development and Reform Commission. On the bilateral level, the US will continue to strengthen its trade protectionism, including through its economic decoupling policy to circumvent competition from China and curb Chinas development, the report said. At the same time, it will step up its assault through the technology cold war and introduce even more stringent investment review measures, export controls or extraterritorial jurisdiction tactics to contain China, it continued. We must also be aware that even if there is a temporary truce in the current tense situation between China and the US in trade, the US will accelerate its Indo-Pacific strategy and New Africa strategy in the belt and road countries to curb Chinas geopolitical influence in those countries. The report comes as Beijing and Washington are locked in disputes over trade, technology and security. Washington has accused Beijing of using government-backed investments to promote its influence abroad, creating debt burdens for countries that they will struggle to repay. But Beijing has rejected the claim, saying its financing comes with no strings attached. The report also warned that Chinese investments may face a heightened risk of terror attacks as global counterterrorism efforts may be hampered due to increasing geopolitical competition among major nations. Story continues Those risks could come from Islamic State fighters extending their influence around the world after defeats in Syria, as well as the resurgent al-Qaeda seeking to carry out attacks in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Chinas crackdown on Muslim minorities in the far western region of Xinjiang could also trigger certain pushback by internal and external extremists to plot terror attacks targeting Chinese companies and Chinese citizens overseas, the report warned. Beijing has denied the existence of mass internment camps and forced political re-education in the region, but admitted that Xinjiang was facing severe threats from separatist and extremist forces. After years of growth, Chinese overseas investment has lost momentum in the past two years, partly because of Beijings tightened control of capital outflows and closer scrutiny by Western governments of Chinas controls on its critical assets and infrastructure. Chinese investment in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America has also come under pressure amid environmental and social concerns and the debt trap it could create. The report suggested Chinese companies should be more sensitive to political risks when they invest overseas, and improve relations with local communities to reduce their vulnerability. This article Overseas investments riskier for Chinese firms as US tensions and Islamic State threats rise first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. China on Tuesday vociferously defended a court's decision to impose the death penalty on a convicted Canadian drug smuggler, escalating a diplomatic row that experts say has descended into a high-stakes game of "hostage politics". China's foreign ministry blasted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's "irresponsible remarks" after he criticised the death sentence handed to 36-year-old Robert Lloyd Schellenberg. Beijing and Ottawa have been squabbling since last month, when Canada arrested the chief financial officer of top Chinese telecom company Huawei on a US extradition request related to Iran sanctions violations. In a move observers see as retaliation, Chinese authorities detained two Canadian citizens -- a former diplomat and a business consultant -- on suspicion of endangering national security. Then authorities revisited the little-known case of Schellenberg, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in November for drug offences. A month later, an upper court took up his appeal and ordered a hasty retrial in the northeastern city of Dalian after ruling that the punishment was too lenient. The timing and swiftness of Schellenberg's sentence, and the inclusion of new evidence presenting him as a key player in a plan to ship 222 kilograms (490 pounds) of methamphetamine to Australia, raised suspicion among observers. "Playing hostage politics, China rushes the retrial of a Canadian suspect and sentences him to death in a fairly transparent attempt to pressure Canada," Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said in a tweet. Donald Clarke, a George Washington University professor specialising in Chinese law, coined an even grimmer term for the situation: "death threat diplomacy". "The Chinese government is not even trying to pretend that there was a fair trial here," he said. Trudeau expressed "extreme concern" that China had "chosen to arbitrarily" apply the death penalty. But Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying denied Beijing had politicised Schellenberg's case, calling on Canada to "respect China's judicial sovereignty... and stop making such irresponsible remarks". Schellenberg plans to appeal, his lawyer Zhang Dongshuo told AFP. "But it won't be so quick, it'll probably be some time around the middle of next week," he said. Ottawa had issued a new travel advisory urging citizens to "exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws". Beijing issued a similar response hours later, calling on Chinese citizens to "travel cautiously" after a Chinese citizen was "arbitrarily detained on the basis of a request of a third-party country", an apparent reference to Meng's arrest. - Suspect timing - China executes one or two foreigners every year -- nearly all for drug offences, according to John Kamm, director of the US-based Dui Hua Foundation rights group. Experts said retrials are rare in China, especially ones calling for a harsher sentence, but rights groups note that courts are not independent and can be influenced by the ruling Communist Party. "What's unusual is how this case shifted from extremely slow handling to suddenly rapid fire movement," said Margaret Lewis, a law professor at Seton Hall University. The rare decision to allow three foreign journalists, including one from AFP, to attend the hearing makes it "clear that the Chinese government wants (the) international spotlight on this case". "The timing is suspect and certainly his nationality makes it all the more glaring," she said. - Meng at home - Schellenberg, who claimed he was innocent and framed by an acquaintance, has 10 days to appeal to the same high court that rejected his first appeal. Lewis said the court was likely to confirm the sentence and the case would move up to the Supreme People's Court. The top court could confirm the death penalty, give him a two-year suspended death sentence that would be converted into a long prison term or reduce his punishment, she said. Clarke said: "My prediction is that the Supreme People's Court will sit on the review decision for as long as Meng's fate remains undetermined." The fate of the other two Canadians, who have been held in undisclosed locations, remains a mystery. Last week, Trudeau accused China of "arbitrarily and unfairly" detaining former diplomat Michael Kovrig and business consultant Michael Spavor, who were rounded up nine days after Canada arrested Meng. The Chinese foreign ministry rejected Trudeau's assertion that Kovrig, who now works for the International Crisis Group, still enjoyed diplomatic immunity. Meng, meanwhile, was granted bail by a Canadian court last month, allowing her to wait for the US extradition hearing in a Vancouver house. Beijing on Tuesday repeated its calls for her immediate release, calling on Canada to correct its "severe mistake". Canada is warning citizens to "exercise a high degree of caution" when travelling to China after a Canadian man was sentenced to death on drug trafficking charges. The revised advisory cautioned travellers of the "risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws," and noted that the "safety and security situation could change with little notice". The update came hours after a Chinese court on Monday sentenced Canadian citizen Robert Lloyd Schellenberg to death on drug trafficking charges after his previous 15-year prison sentence was deemed too lenient. Schellenberg, 36, had appealed against the court's original verdict. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Beijing of "arbitrarily" using capital punishment, deepening a diplomatic rift between the two countries. The sentence comes against the backdrop of Beijing's anger over the arrest in Canada of a top executive from telecom giant Huawei last month on a US extradition request related to Iran sanctions violations. Chinese authorities later detained two Canadian nationals -- a former diplomat and a business consultant -- on suspicion of endangering national security, a move seen as retaliation for the Huawei executive's arrest. Ottawa has called for the Canadians' immediate release, with the backing of the US, EU and several western nations. Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro rolled back restrictive gun ownership laws on Tuesday to make it easier for "good" citizens to use firearms against criminals, despite fears it could aggravate already staggering levels of deadly violence in his country. Keeping a core campaign promise, Bolsonaro signed a decree allowing residents in high-crime areas -- effectively the entire country -- to keep guns at home. "To guarantee the legitimate right of defense, as president, I am using this weapon," he said, indicating the pen he used to sign the executive order. Later he tweeted: "For a long time it was the State that decided who had the right or not to defend themselves, their family and their property. Today... we give Brazilian citizens the right to decide." Brazil recorded nearly 64,000 homicides in 2017, making it one of the most dangerous countries in the world outside of a war zone. According to a survey published last month by the Datafolha polling firm, 61 percent of Brazilians are opposed to generalized gun ownership, worrying it could usher in a Wild West mentality. Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old former army captain and longtime lawmaker, took office two weeks ago after being elected in October on hardline promises to crack down on crime and corruption. On the campaign trail, he often mimicked a pistol by extending the thumb and forefinger of his hand. - Armed citizens - His decree makes it much easier for adults over 25 with no criminal record to buy up to four guns and keep them at home. "I am very happy to be signing this decree, which is done so that many good people, good citizens, can from this moment ensure peace inside their homes," he said. The decree does not extend to carrying weapons -- concealed or otherwise -- in public, which remains restricted to police, public or private security personnel, and the military. What it does do is broaden the scope of who can legally possess firearms and make them more readily available. It notably applies to residents in areas with a homicide rate of more than 10 per 100,000 inhabitants -- which means every one of Brazil's 27 states, as Bolsonaro's chief of staff Onyx Lorenzoni confirmed. "This will apply to the entire country," Lorenzoni told Globo television. Bolsonaro said setting the homicide threshold gets around the "subjectivity" of a previous requirement under which a prospective gun owner needed to prove the "necessity" of acquiring a firearm. Brazil's overall homicide rate is 30.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, three times higher than the level that the United Nations classifies as endemic violence. The country, the biggest in Latin America, has a population of 210 million. - 'Violence will fall' - Bolsonaro said the decree he signed was supported by a 2005 referendum in which 64 percent of Brazilians voted against a total ban on gun sales. "The people decided to buy guns and ammunition and we cannot deprive those who wanted that at that time," he said, criticizing firearm ownership restrictions brought in under former left-wing president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is now in prison for corruption. A group that monitors violence, the Forum for Public Security, echoed the concern of many in Brazil by saying Bolsonaro's measure risks "increasing insecurity." It said that several studies have shown that an increase in the number of firearms in circulation correlated to a jump in the number of gun-related deaths. But Bolsonaro does not agree. In a television interview last week, he said that, with less restrictive gun laws, "you can be sure that violence will fall." Silvia Ramos, an analyst at the Security and Citizenship Research Center in Sao Paulo, told AFP that Bolsonaro's decree was "a very troubling move." "In a way, he is delegating public security to citizens. With this decree, he is saying, 'Go on, buy guns, and after, don't complain if murders increase... you have to use your gun!'," she said. "I think the government is responding to a very radicalized sector of the population, and is confused over freedom and security." Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison embarks on a landmark trip to the Pacific on Wednesday, hoping to mend fences and reassert Australian influence as China makes its presence felt in the region. Morrison will become the first Australian leader in decades to visit Vanuatu and the first ever to visit Fiji, where he is due to deliver a major speech on Friday. In the face of increased Chinese influence -- and, some suspect, creeping militarism -- across the Pacific Islands, Morrison's government has stepped up efforts to secure his country's historic role as a regional powerbroker. The trip will be "focused on our security, economic and cultural partnerships," said Anne Ruston, a junior minister responsible for international development and the Pacific. Australia is by far the region's largest trade partner and donor -- providing quadruple the amount of aid as the next largest donor, New Zealand -- but has seen its influence wane. In response, Morrison has committed to basing more Australian diplomats in the Pacific, increasing investment and security cooperation and developing a military base in Papua New Guinea. Jenny Hayward-Jones, an analyst at the Lowy Institute, describes a "sense of panic in Canberra that China's growing influence in the region is now threatening Australian interests." - Choppy waters - In Vanuatu, one topic up for debate will be domestic security, local newspaper the Daily Post reported, suggesting Morrison will open an Australian-backed police training college. "We are having greater cooperation on police matters," the paper quoted foreign minister Ralph Regenvanu as saying. The tiny island chain of just over a quarter of a million people has become an unlikely geopolitical and security hotspot. Australian and American officials believe Chinese construction and investment on the island includes plans for an eventual military base. Such a facility could dramatically alter the balance of power in the Pacific, compelling Washington and Canberra to reconsider its force posture -- which is currently focused on northeast Asia. Pacific leaders, well aware of their new-found desirability, are likely to try to leverage competition between powers to gain concessions and investment. But Morrison's trip has been made more difficult, coming as it does against the backdrop of testy relations between Canberra and the Pacific Islands, with disputes about governance and the importance of tackling climate change. Australia is among the world's largest polluters per capita and Morrison's centre-right government has downplayed the implementation of climate targets and refused to limit the extraction of coal. Many Pacific Islands see rising sea levels and intensified weather systems as an existential threat and would like Canberra to act. - Domestic policies - Facing a difficult election in May, Morrison could struggle to square his domestic and foreign policy agendas. It is "domestic policies that prevent Australia from following through on commitments made to Pacific island countries," said Hayward-Jones. To add to the difficulty of Morrison's trip, his government was recently embroiled in an embarrassing dispute with the government of Fiji over its decision to unilaterally cancel the Australian citizenship of suspected Islamic State group operative Neil Prakash on the grounds that he also held Fijian nationality through his father. Fiji denied that Prakash was a citizen. But Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, who had been criticised for his involvement in a coup but recently won election, played down talk of a rift. He described meeting Morrison in Sydney last year as a "pleasure," adding, "I look forward to seeing him again here in Fiji this week. "As the first-ever bilateral visit by an Aussie PM, this will mark an historic step up in our diplomatic relationship," he tweeted. Seeking reader suggestions for really tough (sentencing) questions for AG nominee William Barr | Main | First scheduled execution of 2019 stayed by Texas Court of Criminal Appeals January 15, 2019 Spotlighting continuing important debates over marijuana, mental illness and violence Regular readers know I am quite interested in the intersection of marijuana reform and broader criminal justice issues (which partially accounts for why I have this other blog and this academic center). So, it should come as no surprise that I have been following with interest the discussions and debates being stirred up by Alex Berenson's new book, "Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence." The publisher's page about the this book highlights reasons why it is getting a lot of attention and a lot of push back: An eye-opening report from an award-winning author and former New York Times reporter reveals the link between teenage marijuana use and mental illness, and a hidden epidemic of violence caused by the drugfacts the media have ignored as the United States rushes to legalize cannabis.... THC the chemical in marijuana responsible for the drugs high can cause psychotic episodes. After decades of studies, scientists no longer seriously debate if marijuana causes psychosis. Psychosis brings violence, and cannabis-linked violence is spreading. In the four states that first legalized, murders have risen 25 percent since legalization, even more than the recent national increase. In Uruguay, which allowed retail sales in July 2017, murders have soared this year. I have not yet had a chance to read Berenson's book, but I have had a chance to cover some of his commentaries and now others' commentaries taking issue with many of his claims over at over at Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform. I thought it worthwhile to flag that coverage now over here, in part because I would not be surprised to see this important debate mentioned at some point during the confirmation hearing for AG nominee William Barr if he gets asked about federal marijuana laws and policies: An especially helpfully addition to this discussion this morning comes from The Marshall Project, which has this great new piece with great contributors under the headline "How Dangerous is Marijuana, Really? A Marshall Project virtual roundtable." January 15, 2019 at 09:45 AM | Permalink Comments Its "Reefer Madness" again. been there done that. Gov. lost all credibility years ago with respect to marijuana. Now that the wolf is actually at the door, nobody believes it. Posted by: anon12 | Jan 15, 2019 5:14:15 PM Post a comment " " The area marked in orange shows unconformity between horizontal Tonto Group rocks of the Cambrian Period on top of tilted Grand Canyon Supergroup rocks. Wikipedia If you're a geochronologist someone who studies the age of our planet and its rock formations you spend a lot of time around zircons. They're durable crystals found in a variety of rocks, and because they preserve crucial data about the deep past, zircons are lovingly called "time capsules." Recently, researchers used zircons to take a crack at one of prehistory's greatest riddles. About 540 million years ago, the Cambrian Period began. An important time for life on Earth, it left a diverse fossil record behind and marked the dawn of our current eon. In many places around the world, such as the Grand Canyon, we find Cambrian rock deposits sitting right on top of rocky layers that are between 250 million and 1.2 billion years older. Needless to say, that's quite an age gap. Called the Great Unconformity, the divide between those two layers is a puzzle to scientists. What's the story there? Did millions of years' worth of rock suddenly go missing? A study in December 2018 set to find out and claims the crust was sheared away by glaciers at a time when most or all of the world's surface was coated with ice. That epic bulldozing session may have also created the right conditions for complex organisms, like our own ancestors, to flourish. The paper, "Neoproterozoic Glacial Origin of the Great Unconformity," was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Advertisement Crystal Gazing University of California, Berkeley geologist C. Brenhin Keller led the study. In an email, he writes that his team drew upon existing literature to compile a huge body of relevant info on geochemistry and rock layers. Keller says the data they amassed represented "many thousand hours of both fieldwork and analytical time, conducted by hundreds of people over many years." Zircons were the main focus. Usually, zircon crystals are created when silica-rich magma cools down. "Like any natural system, magmas are rich brews, full of other elements," study co-author Jon Husson explains via email. "And some of those elements are able to substitute [themselves] into zircon's structure." For instance, zircons often contain uranium, which slowly decays and converts into lead. So when scientists look at the composition of uranium/lead samples inside a zircon, they can figure out how old the crystal is. It's radiometric dating at its finest. Advertisement Curious Elements Keller and company reviewed the data on 4.4 billion years' worth of preserved zircon crystals. Those from early Cambrian rocks had a couple of surprises in store. Earth's crust sits on top of a layer called the mantle. A thick buffer zone that's primarily made of solid rock, the mantle separates us from the inner core of our planet. Certain elements feel more at home down in the mantle than they do on the crust. Lutetium is a good example. Just as uranium decays into lead, lutetium gradually transforms into a certain hafnium isotope over time. Keller says when Earth's solid mantle "partially [melts] ... more lutetium tends to stay in the mantle." In the process, "more hafnium goes into new magma" that's liable to get pushed through a volcano, spill out onto the surface, and become hardened rock. Elizabeth Bell another scientist who worked on the study explained via email, hafnium isotopes can therefore help us figure out just how old "the materials that melted into a magma" were. That's a helpful quality. By looking at hafnium isotope ratios in Cambrian zircons, Bell and her colleagues realized that the crystals came from magma that was once very old, very solid crust. Somehow, this raw material was driven down into the mantle or deeper into the crust, where it melted. Along the way, the well-traveled rock came into contact with cold liquid water as evidenced by a tell-tale oxygen isotope signal found in the same zircons. Advertisement Ice, Rock and Magma Since glaciers are agents of erosion, Keller's team proposes that the Great Unconformity was created when glacial activity drove a huge amount of our planet's crust into the ocean during the snowball Earth years. The so-called "snowball Earth" hypothesis claims that between 750 and 610 million years ago, glaciers periodically coated our planet, extending all the way from the poles to the equator. Wild as it may sound, the basic premise is popular among geologists (though some researchers don't think the oceans froze over at least, not entirely). Keller, Husson and Bell envision the walls of ice behaving like giant scythes. All the world's major landmasses would have been trimmed down; the typical continental crust might have lost 1.8 to 3 miles (3 to 5 kilometers) of vertical rock to the shearing glaciers. After being pushed onto the ocean floor, the displaced crustal rock was eventually subducted into Earth's mantle and later recycled. Or so goes the new hypothesis. (At this point, we should mention that the recently published study contradicts a February 2018 paper published in the journal Earth and Space Science that speculates the snowball Earth period may have happened after a time of mass erosion created the Great Unconformity.) Advertisement Life Goes On If Keller's team is correct in its hypothesis, we might have an explanation for why there aren't many meteorite impact craters that predate the snowball Earth phase. Theoretically, the grating glaciers would've stripped most of the older ones away. En route, the ice may have also opened the door for complex life-forms which didn't start to appear until about 635 to 431 million years ago to evolve. "While the snowball [Earth] itself would have been a pretty harsh environment for life, one implication of [our] study is that the erosion of this much crust could have freed up a lot of phosphorous trapped in igneous rocks," Keller explains. Phosphorous, he notes, is "a critical part of DNA and ATP" and something all contemporary organisms require. NOW THAT'S INTERESTING Sir Douglas Mawson was one of the founding fathers of the snowball Earth hypothesis. An adventurer as well as a geologist, he was the sole survivor of a three-man trek across Antarctica that began in the year 1912. At one point, Mawson had to walk alone over 100 miles (161 kilometers) of frigid terrain in order to meet up with his eventual rescuers. Education Reporter Mathew Burciaga is a Santa Maria Times reporter who covers education, agriculture and public safety. Prior to joining the Times, Mathew ran a 114-year-old community newspaper in Wyoming. He owns more than 40 pairs of crazy socks from across the globe. In the spirit of being American I would like to take this opportunity to say a kind word about two Democrats, something I very rarely do, what with being a conservative. In the first case, Hillary Clinton thanked a young veteran for his service who had asked a question of her during a presidential debate. Being a Vietnam era veteran, I really appreciate that. In the second case, Bernie Sanders abhorred the violence committed against Steve Calise and others a year or two ago while Sanders was speaking on the senate floor. I appreciate that as well, what with my being a conservative and all. It just goes to show you there is some good in all of us, liberal and conservative alike, if you just look for it. And regardless of how elections come out, etc., I will remember these two instances with affection for my Democratic friends. May we forever be countrymen, whether at odds or whether not. And when the battle ends, may we sit down together and have a cool cold one together. Amen. William T. Elliott Hot Springs Wall will not improve security GOLD: The Rapid City Council seemed to have hit an impasse over a proposal by Samuelson Development to build several four-story apartment complexes along Mount Rushmore Road just north of National American University. Supporters of the 350-unit complex spoke to the Council last week about the quality of the developers previous project. Rapid City needs additional middle-income homes to make city housing more affordable overall. Opponents spoke of the need to protect the spectacular Black Hills views from the plateau on Rapid Citys southern edge. The iconic Hills silhouette welcomes endless tourist caravans every year in ways no advertising billboard ever could. Both sides have legitimate concerns. Looking to the federal example, they could have stomped on the gas pedal and held their steering wheels out the window, signaling to their oncoming opponent they would never swerve. Instead, both sides will return to the issue on Feb. 19 after the developer has a chance to review potential accommodations. I believe there is a compromise here, Alderman Steve Laurenti said after the hour-and-a-half discussion. Hopefully, we have a product that will make everyone happy and there will be compromise by all. Hmmm. The Republican president and Democratic House could probably take a lesson here. Trump has a strange sense of honor. In April, he bestowed the same adjective on the world's most oppressive leader, North Korea's nuclear-armed dictator: "Kim Jong Un, he really has been very open and I think very honorable from everything we're seeing." Now, the president is declaring that China's dictatorship, by far the world's biggest international criminal and abuser of human rights and operator of its most extensive police state, is more honorable than his political opponents in the United States. In Trump's view, your opponents are your enemies and your actual enemies are your friends. How can you negotiate with a man who thinks like this? Reasonable people disagree over border walls and other national priorities. Opponents often dislike each other. But it's another thing to believe loyal Americans, sworn to uphold the Constitution, are less honorable than the leaders of China, which former defense secretary Jim Mattis described as a "malign actor" promoting its "authoritarian model" at our expense. If youre in need of an organ, South Dakota has you covered. This past year, South Dakota received a Gold Award for achievement during the annual American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators conference for its success in signing residents up for organ donation during regular license transactions. In 2017, South Dakotans registered as a donor or maintained their donor status in 59 percent of transactions. In 2018, it was 61 percent. Rebecca Ousley, spokeswoman for Lifesource a nonprofit dedicated to saving lives through organ, eye and tissue donation in the Upper Midwest credited much of the success to a change in state law in 2013 that simplified the process for licensing and signing up to be a donor. We think it really increased the number of people that were able to document their decision, Ousley said. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Previously, registration to become an organ donor required applicants to read multiple pages of information and sign their names in numerous locations within the document. The complexity unnecessarily discouraged people, Ousley believes. All of those pieces, we think, it was just slowing people down, she said. Simplifying the process just opened the door for people and really led to an upswing. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., emailed a statement to the Journal on Tuesday saying he would prefer the president tweeted less often. "Wounded knee is obviously a very tragic part of our states and nations history and is not something to be joked about, Thune said. How Many Cliff Houses? by John Martini Originally appeared in Outside Lands magazine, Apr-Jun 2018. A never-ending argument among local historians and San Francisco history buffs concerns the number of Cliff Houses that have stood overlooking Seal Rocks. Some say three, others five, some as many as six. It all comes down to how one defines a structure, and at what point does it change so completely that it becomes a totally different building. The history of the Cliff House is pretty straightforward, and quite melodramatic. Originally built in 1863, it was enlarged in 1868, blown up in 1887, burned down in 1894, rebuilt in 1896, burned again in 1907, and rebuilt one more time in 1908. Seems straightforward enough, but not included in this brief time line are the numerous remodelings the buildings underwent during their precipitous years hanging off the cliff face. Also muddying the historical waters is the assertion by some folks that the Cliff House actually goes back to 1858although they admit it was a different building in a different location and had a different name. It didnt help matters that, for literally decades, the Whitney Brothers displayed a large neon sign on the Cliff House reading SINCE 1858. Heres a slightly expanded version of the points listed above, along with a little historical context. 1858: A roadhouse calling itself Seal Rock House opens at the north end of Ocean Beach, snuggled against the bluffs of the future Sutro Heights, but nearly a quarter mile from Seal Rocks. It would change names often over the years, sometimes being called Long Branch House, Long Branch Hotel, then Seal Rock Hotel. However, no matter the name, it was not the site of the future Cliff House. 1863: Original Cliff House opens at the furthest west tip of land overlooking a popular destination for San Franciscans: the Seal Rocks. A relatively small structure, it was essentially a hipped-roof building with a rectangular footprint and verandas on three sides, topped by a small widows walk balcony and a towering flagpole. This first incarnation of the Cliff House didnt last long. A victim of its own popularity, it was completely rebuilt and expanded in 1868: During the 1868 remodeling, the Cliff House owners enlarged it to approximately four times its original size, adding two wings that enveloped the original rectangular structure, and leaving only a portion of the original facade on Cliff Road exposed. These were odd additions. The north wing was a sort of a mini-me version of the original Cliff House, complete with scaled down footprint, hipped roof and widows walk. The other, larger addition was an L-shaped wing surrounding the entire west and south sides of the building. Its architectural style was totally different from the original 1863 Cliff House and the north wing. Instead, the L-shaped wing had a flat roof with a raised parapet. Its larger size permitted greatly expanded viewing verandas. With only minor exterior modifications (signage, billboards, outbuildings) the 1868 Cliff House stood relatively unchanged until Circa 1883: Adolph Sutro purchased the then-seedy Cliff House in 1883 and installed a new manager to clean up the roadhouse. About this time, a minuscule castle-like addition appears at the southeast corner of the structure. Its assumed Sutro ordered this addition built, but documentation is elusive. With its crenelated parapet and pointed-arch openings, the little addition had a distinctly European feel to itsome have said Norman. It also eerily presaged the much more grandiose Victorian Cliff House that Sutro would build in the 1890s. 1894: On Christmas day, the original Cliff House with its various modifications burned to the ground. Adolph Sutro wasted little time before announcing plans for a vast new Cliff House on the same site. Construction on his seven-story Hotel de Cliff House takes over a year, and it opens in 1896: Called the gingerbread or Victorian Cliff House, Sutros elaborate structure was the shortest-lived of all the Cliff House buildings. Opening February 1, 1896, the wood frame building remained essentially unchanged during its eleven year existence. The only modifications that historians have identified involve the continued loss of exterior filigree, some alterations to window openings, and the addition of several chimneys. This structure would also be destroyed by fire in 1907: On September 7, during interior renovations, Sutros version of the Cliff House burns to the ground, leaving only a few brick chimneys standing amid the charred rubble. Sutros daughter and executrix of his estate, Dr. Emma Sutro Merritt, decides to rebuild the Cliff House once again. This time, though, given the flammable history of the site, she elected to construct her Cliff House out of reinforced concrete. It was completed and opened on July 1st 1909: This is essentially the same structure that exists today, although rebuilt several times. Designed by the Reid Brothers, who had also designed the Fairmont Hotel, this simple neoclassical-inspired structure was more similar in scale to the 1860s Cliff House than its whimsical 1890s predecessor. During the next 28 years, its exterior underwent only minor changes such as the addition of a portico and bar wing, additional outdoor lights, and the appearance and removal of latticework decor. Bigger physical change would occur in 1936-1937: The Whitney Brothers, owners of nearby Playland at the Beach, purchased the Cliff House from the Sutro Estate in late 1936 and upgraded and remodeled it as an upscale roadhouse. The most notable exterior change was the addition of large illuminated letters spelling out CLIFF HOUSE on two sides, facing towards Point Lobos Avenue and Ocean Beach. By the post-World War II years, though, the entire structure was looking a bit tired, so the Whitneys undertook a major remodeling project during 1949-1950. Clad in a stylish redwood and featuring a new fourth story dining room, the mid-century Cliff House opened in 1950: This is the Cliff House most of us Baby Boomers remember, with its towering (false) chimney, moderne detailing, and cozy bar with big windows looking at the ocean and Seal Rocks. The original 1909 building commissioned by Emma Merritt was still there, but buried under the siding, leaving only the west wall exposed. In fact, unless you walked onto the terrace to see the surviving wall, you likely would have thought this was an entirely new building. Pacific fogs and salt spray take their toll even on redwood and concrete, and by the turn of the twenty-first century it became obvious the Cliff House need a complete reconstruction. Due to decay, the top story dining room, added in 1949-1950, would have to go. There were also accessibility problems that desperately needed to be addressed. During the process of surveying the building, architects realized the core 1909 structure beneath the redwood was still structurally sound and could be upgraded to modern standards. Demolition and reconstruction took more than a year, but the reborn Cliff House opened to visitors in 2004: Todays Cliff House isnt a restoration of Emma Merritts, but rather a rehabilitation of that structure. It also includes a new wing to the north of the historic structure called the Sutro Room, which made up in square footage the demolished third story. During the project, many exterior details of the original Cliff House were restored, though, including long-lost cornices, dentils, and window openings. Also, a slightly smaller version of the illuminated 1930s CLIFF HOUSE sign was placed on the building facing Point Lobos Avenue. So, how many Cliff Houses? This is where I make enemies. I say three Cliff Houses. To clarify, three distinct Cliff House structures, but with numerous exterior facades and alterations over the decades. Heres how I count em: 1858: Seal Rock House constructed. Doesnt really count. Despite the Whitneys prominently-displayed neon sign claiming Since 1858, the Seal Rock House wasnt a Cliff House. 1863: Cliff House #1 built. 1868: Cliff House #1 expanded with two large additions. 1883c: Cliff House #1 modified with Sutros mini-castle. 1896: Cliff House #2 built. 1909: Cliff House #3 built. 1937: Cliff House #3 upgraded by Whitney Brothers. 1950: Cliff House #3 remodeled again by Whitney Brothers, with third floor added and a mid-century moderne facade. 2004: Cliff House #3 rehabilitated and exterior restored by National Park Service to approximate 1909 appearance. I realize there are some folks who will argue passionately that the 1868 and 1950 remodelings were so drastic that the end product in each case was a new structure. My response to this is two-fold: First, I checked with some architect friends. They agreed with my contention that additions and facade changes tacked onto a core structure do not turn it into a new building. Structures evolve over time as tenants continually adapt and remodel them, but unless completely torn down and replaced, it remains the same building. (You can test this theory yourself. Remodel your home, add an addition or two, slap on a new facade, and then have it reassessed by the county. The tax assessor will not consider this a new structure, but will continue to use its original construction datealbeit with a hefty increase in assessed value for your improvements.) Second, theres a logical conundrum here. If, as some claim, the 1909 structure was Cliff House #4, and the 1950 rebuild resulted in Cliff House #5, then what do we call the 2004 remodel that returned it to the 1909 appearance? Cliff House #6? Cliff House #4, Part II? Back to the Future? This is the type of debate that history nerds love to thrash out, preferably over a Steam Beer or an Irish Coffee at the Cliff Houses still cozy bistro bar. But in the end, its a kerfuffle in a teapot. Architectural definitions and remodelings aside, for 155 years the Cliff House has served tourists and locals with a timeless view of an apparently endless ocean. See you there. Read The Cliff House Story, Part One Want even more Cliff House? Visit Gary Stark's Cliff House Project South Dakota will receive $15,523 from a settlement after a 2013 data breach at a high-end department store chain, according to a press release from the Office of the South Dakota Attorney General. "The people of South Dakota work too hard to have their money taken from them," Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg said. "I am excited that the protections to be implemented under this settlement will assist in keeping South Dakotans safe going forward." Neiman Marcus Group LLC has agreed to pay a total of $1.5 million to 43 states and Washington, D.C., after 370,000 payment cards 64 associated with South Dakota consumers were compromised in the breach. At least 9,200 of those cards were fraudulently used. The company has also agreed to improve its security policies to prevent similar breaches. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 PIERRE State legislators decided Monday to revisit language in Senate Bill 22, which makes CBD oil illegal in the state unless it is approved by the Federal Drug Administration. The Senate Health and Human Services committee heard public testimony on SB 22, which also updates the state's scheduling of controlled substances in accordance for federal Drug Enforcement Administration. New from last year's list, the bill schedules most CBD oil as a Schedule IV controlled substance. CBD oil is a naturally occurring chemical and can be found in everything from hops used to brew beer to breast milk, but most notably in pharmaceuticals. It is extracted from cannabis or hemp to create medicine and supplements. Hemp is no longer regulated by the DEA, but rather by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Congress in December passed the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalizes the growth and production of industrial hemp, listing it as an agricultural product. The way SB 22 is written, CBD oil not approved by the FDA would be classified as a narcotic in South Dakota, including hemp-derived CBD oils that were available for sale in the state until September 2018 when law enforcement raided stores including two in Rapid City and told the businesses they could no longer sell the product. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} PIERRE | A South Dakota lawmaker proposed a new state program to recognize students who graduate from high school with a strong understanding of civics. The bill introduced Tuesday would create the South Dakota state seal of civics literacy program. Students at participating schools who meet the program's requirements would have a reproduction of the state seal attached to their diploma and a note added to their grade transcript. Republican Rep. Fred Deutsch, the sponsor, said the proposal was patterned after an Arizona measure and it's aimed at improving civics literacy among South Dakota students. "I want them to have a better understanding of our founding documents, a better understanding of Supreme Court cases that, you know, impact our lives," Deutsch said. "I want them to know about ... both the state and federal constitution." The proposal comes as Gov. Kristi Noem plans to bring legislation to require high school graduates to be able to pass the U.S. citizenship test. A spokeswoman for the governor, Kristin Wileman, said in an email that Noem is happy to see others recognizing the "need and value for civics education." Noem and her team will review the measure in the coming days, Wileman said. Deutsch said it would go hand-in-hand with Noem's proposal. A music video with Fallon, Bad Bunny and "Tonight" house band The Roots was filmed in San Juan's historic district and includes marching bands and dancers, the host said. "Tonight" closes with Feliciano and Ozuna singing the beloved Puerto Rican tune "En Mi Viejo San Juan" ("In My Old San Juan"). The show aims to highlight Puerto Rico's culture as well as what it still faces after the disaster, including restoration costs estimated by the government at more than $130 billion. Fallon said he's been asked by some people why he and "Tonight" took on the complicated, costly episode when he's not from Puerto Rico. He has a ready answer. "But I'm American, and we've got to step up, we've got to help each other," he said. "That's the message that Lin and Jose are sending through their charities and what they're doing." The pleased reaction from Puerto Ricans to the show's presence was overwhelming, he told the AP on Monday: "I said 'gracias' so much, my Spanish got much better." The episode reflects the show's effort to stay fresh, Fallon said. VERMILLION Performers are wanted for the South Dakota Shakespeare Festival, according to a news release. The event is looking for non-Equity performers for the outdoor production of A Midsummer Nights Dream set for June 6-9 in Prentis Park in Vermillion. Rehearsals run May 13 to June 5 at the Warren M. Lee Center for Fine Arts and Prentis Park. Professional actors, actor/musicians and teaching artists are wanted for paid positions on a four-week contract. Music will be part of the production; performers should have some optional bars of a song prepared. Eligibility for local housing and a stipend for travel is available. Music is incorporated throughout the production. Do not send unsolicited video auditions. Auditions will be held in these dates and locations: Park Squares General Auditions, Jan. 18 at 20 W. Seventh Place in St. Paul, Minnesota; a Shakespeare or classical monologue has to be in the audition package; callbacks will be held Jan. 19; more information and registration is at: minnesotaplaylist.com/classified/general-auditions-are-back-at-park-square-theatre In a similar fashion this is how our new Home Office in downtown Bettendorf has come to fruition. Working closely with the City of Bettendorf we have moved forward in a very collaborative way. Additionally, the newly formed Downtown Bettendorf Organization (DBO) and the needs of other area businesses have made our project more impactful. Investing our members equity into our new Home Office has a broad impact on further economic development in downtown Bettendorf and is helping to spur additional growth in the area. The additional property tax revenue generated from our project will benefit local schools and government for decades to come. Ascentra Credit Union was born out of Alcoa, now Arconic, and our location in downtown Bettendorf has served us well. Our new Home Office will feature elements fabricated by Kawneer, the building products division of Alcoa. Credit unions throughout our region are reinvesting in their communities in this fashion. Similar great projects are underway in Ottumwa, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Dubuque and Moline, which are creating hundreds of good paying construction jobs across our region. Of course all of this is nothing new. Local community banking institutions have operated in this manner for decades. The dynamic shift has come in the extensive consolidation of the banking industry which has led to irresponsible actions by the "Too Big to Fail" largest banking institutions and their commitment to Wall Street profits above all else. Credit unions are filling the gaps left by community bankers who have sold out to larger institutions. The need to have committed professionals living, working and volunteering in the communities they serve is needed now more than ever. The dedicated service of local community banks and credit unions goes far beyond the financial investments they provide back into our communities. Equally so is the power of these two groups working together to advocate for regulatory changes that are in the best interests of the people we serve. The Quad-Cities' first TEDxYouth event will take place from 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 16, at the Putnam Museum, 1717 W. 12th St., and there is a waiting list for those who want to attend for free. The theme will be Change Makers, and the speakers -- between the ages of 14 and 24 -- include students from Davenport Central and Rock Island high schools, Scott Community College and Augustana College. They were chosen from over 70 applicants, TEDxDavenport director Andrea Olson said Monday. TEDxYouth is focused on providing our communitys youth a platform to share new ideas, to highlight our young change makers who have the potential for pushing boundaries and transforming our region, said Olson, who organized the first TEDxDavenport event in March at the Figge, in a prior release. Started in 2009, TEDx is a program of locally organized events that bring communities together to share TED-like experiences. TED Conferences is a media organization that posts talks online for free under the slogan ideas worth spreading. Some of the talks from TEDx events have gone on to be featured on TED.com and garnered millions of views from across the globe. You can search for TEDxDavenport talks at youtube.com/user/TEDxTalks. Two people were injured Tuesday morning in a crash on U.S. 30 in rural Rock Falls. Whiteside County Sheriff's deputies were called at 6:23 a.m. to a two-vehicle crash on U.S. 30 at County Line Road, in rural Rock Falls. A vehicle traveling northbound on County Line Road driven by Melody Lerette, 65, of Dixon, Ill. failed to stop at the intersection and was struck at U.S. 30 by an eastbound vehicle driven by Buddy Bennett, 57, of Sterling, Ill., according to a news release from the Whiteside County Sheriff's Office. Both drivers were transported to an area hospital with unknown injuries. Lerette was later airlifted to Rockford. Lerette was issued a citation for failure to yield/stop at an intersection. The Whiteside County Sheriff's Office was assisted on the scene by the Lee County Sheriff's Office, Illinois State Police, Rock Falls Fire, Sterling Fire, and CGH EMS. Quad-City Times Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Among the requirements in the law, Holt said, is that ballots must be received by the county auditor on or before Election Day. If not, ballots can be counted if they arrive by the Monday after the election if they are postmarked. If there is no postmark, they can be counted if the absentee ballot has an intelligent mail bar code. However, Rep. Brian Myer, D-Des Moines, argued not counting the ballots would disenfranchise those 29 voters. We know they were in the stream of the federal postal service at the appropriate time and they came into the auditors office at the appropriate time. They should be counted, Meyer said. Meyer and the committees other Democrat, Rep. Mary Wolfe of Clinton, argued for calling witnesses after hearing from the attorneys. Under the rules adopted on a party-line vote, that decision will be made after attorneys present their arguments. If they want it to be fair, they have to have evidence presented, Meyer said. If Koethers challenge is rejected, Meyer said she and House Democrats might take the matter back to court because the outcome will make a difference to the people who voted in House 55 and maybe they didnt want Mr. Bergan as their representative. Gensol Mobility Monday said it has launched India's first electric vehicle (EV) taxi fleet, BLU-SMART, in Delhi-NCR with about 70 cars that will be ramped up to 400 vehicles by the end of March 2019. The company, which is in talks with various car companies such as Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra and Nissan for procuring EVs, has also invested over Rs 50 crore to set up charging infrastructure in various parts of the city. Also Read: Mumbai locals to get visual indicator to warn that train is ready to move "We at BLU-SMART believe that the next revolution is in the EV space... We are not a competition to current app-based cabs services (like Ola and Uber), but a mere greener alternative to them," Gensol Mobility promoter Anmol Singh Jaggi said in a statement. He added that the promoters have pumped in USD 10 million (Rs 70.92 crore) investment to fund BLU-SMART's expansion plans. BLU-SMART currently has 70 Mahindra Verito EVs on its platform with plans to scale up the number to 400 vehicles by March. "We are negotiating with Tata Motors (for Tigor EV) and in the process of getting more orders from Mahindra. We are also exploring with Nissan on the possibility of bringing the Nissan Leaf onto our platform," he said. Talking about the service, Jaggi said customers would not have to pay surge pricing during peak hours. "The pricing will be competitive with other players that charge about Rs 14-16 per km for compact sedans. We are starting with web booking and in another seven days, our app would be in place," he said. The company has invested over Rs 50 crore as capital expenditure and is setting up 65 stations, with each having up to 20 charging points across the NCR. BLU-SMART has already set up 18 such charging stations. Also Read: Many countries, including India, opened up their markets to US poultry, agricultural exports: Donald Trump Also Read: Govt eMarketplace initiative to enable women entrepreneurs sell products on its platform DES MOINES Iowa Senate Minority Leader Janet Petersen broke through the usual opening-day fare with a call for state lawmakers to address sexual assault and harassment, inside the Iowa Capitol and out. Petersen, a Democratic from Des Moines, made the plea during session-opening remarks by legislative leaders on Mondays opening day. Petersen said she was quoting the author William Paul Young when she said, I dont think there is anything that is the equivalent of sexual abuse that tears apart the fabric of the human soul. It empowers the lies of shame. She called for lawmakers to eliminate the states statute of limitations on sexual assault charges, that puts the rights of serial predators ahead of survivors. Petersen said Democrats plan to introduce legislation to eliminate limitations on sexual assault charges and civil lawsuits involving alleged sexual assault victims who are younger than 18 years old. We can fix this for the children and adult abuse survivors in this state, Petersen said. Petersen also called for a review of and possible changes to the ethics rules that govern state legislators. Donald Trump can look like a president. He can act like a president. He can talk like a president. He proved as much in last Tuesdays TV speech on getting $5.7 billion for a more secure border, and you wanted to say to him, thank you, thank you and please never wear that clown costume again. Sadly, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer gave a fist-in-the-face response to a speech that Trump did not give. Some of the fact checkers failed to check what world they live in. And the holier-than-thou media crowd discovered hate where sympathy was pouring out about every other sentence. First, lets note that Pelosi pummeled Trump for partial government shutdown maneuvers that she has tried hard to outdo. Then she said he was not facing up to humanitarian issues. She said Trump aimed to waste money on an ineffective wall when he ought to turn instead to technology and innovation. Schumer said the president had pounded on the table. Another pro tip for getting what you want: Dont loudly and publicly take personal responsibility for negative consequences that would result from a breakdown of negotiations. With cameras running, Trump boasted that everyone should blame him for a shutdown. Polls show this is exactly what the public has done, and Trumps numbers will get worse as the effects of the shutdown on families and communities become more dire. The Democratic proposal fund the government while continuing to debate border security and the wall is eminently reasonable. But Trump is scared. He went back on the original deal after the far-right commentariat went ballistic. The president must realize that having failed to get funding for the wall when his party had control of both chambers of Congress, he is less likely to get it following a blue-wave that gave Democrats the House. But Trump doesnt want Limbaugh, Coulter, et al. wailing to his base that their hero has surrendered to the snowflakes and given up on the wall, which from the beginning was more of a rallying cry than a serious proposal. Trumps numbers have always been underwater, but as long as he retains overwhelming support among Republicans, he can expect GOP senators to worry that crossing him would amount to political suicide. Today is Tuesday, Jan. 15, the 15th day of 2019. There are 350 days left in the year. 1919 100 years ago: Rock Island, Jan. 15. Complaint of persons shipping perishable products and protest from Mayor William McConochie to the Rock Island lines setting out refrigerator cars in Rock Island, instead of compelling shippers to cause their goods to be transported to Davenport. Several months ago the railroad company discontinued the practice of spotting refrigerator cars in the Rock Island freight yards for acceptance of perishable freight. For a long time shippers were compelled to take the situation as they found it, and the result was that products were frozen while being transported to Davenport. 1944 75 years ago: Moline State Trust and Savings bank will make a 10 percent payment on deferred deposit certificates, beginning Monday, it was announced today. The disbursements, to depositors prior to the bank moratorium in 1933, will total $207,590.80. This is the eighth payment on the certificates. What we know: Keystone Power Holdings is a national provider of solar projects for educational institutions as well as small and large commercial corporations. The firm has expressed interest in a solar project near Colona. Whats new: At Mondays meeting, Colona village officials voted 6-0 to approve a letter of intent for a solar facility at the citys sewage treatment facility operated by Keystone. Keystone can now begin negotiating with MidAmerican Energy and the state of Illinois. Colona would have the option of buying the solar facility at five-year intervals including at the 25-year point, when Keystone would either sell it or take responsibility for taking it down and restoring the area to what it was. The citys savings would be just under $14,000 per year; Keystone gets the benefit of tax incentives. Whats next: Mayor Rick Lack said the council would vote on a 25-year binding agreement with Keystone at a later date; public works chair Larry Swemline said he would like to bring Keystone officials to a meeting before the full council. In another matter: Council voted 6-0 to accept a settlement with the Teamsters union to resolve a personnel matter. The mayor would not comment on the issue. The action was done following a closed session. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. MOLINE Staff, families and students praised the Moline-Coal Valley School Districts dual-language program Monday. Speakers invited to Mondays school board meeting praised the dual-language program for helping students become bilingual and more culturally aware. Parents reported the program has been challenging but definitely worth it. Another parent called the Lincoln-Irving program, a blessing. Administrator Stephanee Jordan praised the board of education for prioritizing the programming and said equipping students with the ability to communicate in both English and Spanish is not just a positive for them. Its a gift to our community that we are raising bilingual children, Jordan said. During Monday evenings presentation, students and parents spoke about the dual-language program in both languages. Lincoln-Irving principal Blanca Leal invited school board members to drop by the school any time to see the program in action. Board members also heard from administrators Matt DeBaene and Kristin Sanders on the success of the READ 180 and System 44, a program that is utilized by high school and middle school students who are reading below grade level. DAVENPORT It may be in the 20s this week, but it's guaranteed to be 98 Degrees inside Rhythm City Casino at 8 p.m. May 11 when the once hot boy band of the same name takes the stage at the Event Center. Tickets for the show ($30 to $65) go on sale at 10 a.m. Jan. 21 at rhythmcitycasino.com, 844-852-4FUN or in person at The Market inside Rhythm City Casino, 7077 Elmore Ave. From 1997 to 2002, 98 Degrees sold a staggering 10 million records; scored a chart-topping single, Thank God I Found You, with Mariah Carey. And collaborated with their collective idol, Stevie Wonder, on True to Your Heart, for the 1998 animated Disney film, "Mulan," according to a tour release. Their four-million-selling album, "98 and Rising" in 1998 spawned the Top 5 favorites Because of You, I Do and The Hardest Thing. Their next album, 2000s "Revelation," which sold two million copies, peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and yielded a trio of hits, Give Me Just One Night (Una Noche), My Everything and The Way You Want Me To." Nora L. Steele, 66, of Silvis, the former operations director of the Quad Cities Area Childrens Food Program, is now scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 28 in Peoria by Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Shadid. She had been scheduled to be sentenced Thursday. On Sept. 19, 2018, Steele waived indictment and pleaded guilty to defrauding the U.S. Department of Agriculture of more than $500,000 and filing a false tax return. She faces up to 23 years in prison. QCACFP, which provided meals for at-risk youth in up to 50 sites in the Quad-Cities area each month, was forced to close its doors in November 2017. Staff and volunteer board members initiated the investigation with the FBI Springfield Division, the USDA, the Office of Inspector General, the IRS and criminal investigation in the spring of 2016. Steele pleaded guilty to defrauding the federal government of $515,617 and filing a false tax return. During her plea hearing in September, she admitted that from August 2015 through June 2017 she inflated the meal count forms at Church of Peace and QCACFP for federal reimbursement. January 15, 2019 in Utility (E) [prMac.com] Perg, Austria - Ergonis Software today released KeyCue 9.2, an update to the recently released major version 9 of the company's keyboard shortcut and emoji tool. KeyCue's original purpose is to help Mac users to learn and use keyboard shortcuts. Since version 9, KeyCue is also the perfect tool for discovering and using the constantly growing number of Emojis. While the online community loves emojis, people become more and more frustrated about the confusing multitude of slightly different emojis, which makes it tedious to choose and type the right one. This is where KeyCue 9 comes to help. KeyCue 9 shows a table of all available emoji characters and lets you insert any emoji with a click. To find out more about a certain emoji, move the mouse pointer over it to see an enlarged view and a description of the emoji's meaning. You can also enter a search term in KeyCue's find field to focus on the matching emoji characters, or choose from the list of recently used emojis. Finding and typing the right emoji has never been easier. The new version enhances the Emoji feature with an improved calculation of Emoji metrics, better horizontal spacing, and by adding the flag of the United Nations to the Emoji table. KeyCue 9.2 has also been notarized by Apple. This means that the software has been uploaded to Apple before distribution, and Apple has confirmed that all executables are signed correctly and that the app does not contain any malware. This is a security feature that all Ergonis products now carry. The new version furthermore contains a number of enhancements and improvements like improved visibility of the menu scanning progress in Dark Mode, the ability to add custom menu entries to specific submenus, and more. Visit Ergonis Software's website to learn more about the changes in this release and to download and try the new version. KeyCue helps you to use your macOS applications more effectively by displaying a concise table of all currently available menu shortcuts. You no longer need to memorize and remember key combinations; just press the command key and KeyCue tells you what you want to know. Over time, you will automatically remember frequently used shortcuts and start working more efficiently. Besides that, KeyCue is your best friend when it comes to type emojis. It shows a table of all available emoji characters and lets you insert any emoji with a simple click. You can find emoji characters by keyword or choose from the list of recently used emojis. Finding and typing your desired emoji has never been easier. KeyCue has already received many awards, including a 4.5-Mice award from MacWorld magazine. System Requirements: * Mac OS X 10.7 or newer and is recommended for macOS Mojave (10.14) Availability and Ordering: KeyCue can be purchased securely on the Ergonis Software website. The upgrade to KeyCue 9.2 is free for anyone who purchased a license for KeyCue 8 or KeyCue 9 on or after October 1st, 2017. Upgrade paths are available for owners of older licenses. All KeyCue 9 purchases (new and upgrades alike) include all subsequent 9.x upgrades at no additional cost. For information about purchases, including enterprise licenses, volume discounts, and upgrade pricing offers, see the company's web site. Headquartered in Perg, Austria, Ergonis Software Gmbh is a privately held software development company founded in 2002. With a focus on innovation, Ergonis develops ergonomic and intuitive software that boosts the productivity of Mac and PC users alike. Copyright 2002-2019 Ergonis Software Gmbh. All Rights Reserved. Ergonis products are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Ergonis Software GmbH. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. ### The government is considering credit guarantee for term loans of up to Rs 100 crore as well as interest subsidy on loans up to Rs 1,000 crore for electronic manufacturing companies under the new policy in works. According to official sources, the Ministry of Electronics and IT has proposed "credit guarantee fund" (CGF) scheme and "interest subvention scheme" (ISS) to boost electronics manufacturing ecosystem in the country under new National Policy on Electronics in works. Also Read: Mumbai locals to get visual indicator to warn that train is ready to move "There is proposal to provide credit guarantee on term loans for projects up to Rs 100 crore per borrowing unit. This will not require any collateral security and third party guarantee, for setting up a new electronics manufacturing unit or considerable expansion of an existing electronics manufacturing pant. The cover will vary on case to case basis, depending upon investments...," an official source told PTI. According to the proposal, the government will provide up to 50 per cent guarantee cover of the sanctioned loan amount, the source said. "It is proposed that Meity shall create a fund with the nodal agency for providing guarantees for the term loans. Meity shall provide funds in advance from its annual budgetary allocation to the nodal agency for utilisation under the scheme," the source added. The CGF will be created with a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore to be contributed by the government and a review of the scheme will be undertaken after second year to assess the corpus size in relation to the response from the targeted sector, as per the proposal. Besides this, the government is formulating interest subvention scheme (ISS) for electronics manufacturers. Electronics Industry has been seeking that it should be able to get term loans on par with internationally acceptable rates. Currently, the industry pays around 11-12 per cent interest on the term loans availed in India, which are available at around 5-7 per cent in other countries. The industry has been demanding an interest subvention of 4-6 per cent from the government on the term loans. "Under the proposal, ISS scheme will promote electronics manufacturing by partially reimbursing the interest of the term loan availed by the industry for plant and machinery. The scheme will include all stages of the value chain starting from raw materials. It will also include assembly, testing and packaging. Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) companies like Foxconn, Flex etc will also be eligible under the scheme," the source said. The scheme under consideration proposes to cover term loans for plant & machinery up to Rs 1,000 crore per borrowing unit with a tenure of up to 10 years, to set up new electronics manufacturing plant or for funding expansion of an existing electronics manufacturing unit. "Term loans above Rs 1,000 crore will also be eligible, however, the interest reimbursement will be provided only for loan amount of Rs 1,000 crore. Interest subsidy will be made available only on the instalments paid after start of commercial production if the proposal is approved by the cabinet," the source said. When contacted, India Cellular and Electronics Association Chairman Pankaj Mohindroo said now is a golden opportunity for India to establish a globally competitive manufacturing ecosystem and achieve the goal set by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi of making India a leading electronic manufacturing hub. "The interest subsidy or subvention will be extremely competent for setting up the mobile handsets, its components ecosystem and the entire electronics vertical. It will help the entire ecosystem to be more competitive in the global market. The credit default guarantee scheme will help startups, entrepreneurs, SMEs to set up their business without any collateral," Mohindroo said. Also Read: Many countries, including India, opened up their markets to US poultry, agricultural exports: Donald Trump Also Read: India's first electric taxi service launched in Delhi-NCR Also Read: Govt eMarketplace initiative to enable women entrepreneurs sell products on its platform U.S.P.S. should fix the problems they create Editor: In reference to the Hague mail petition article in The Post-Star by D. Lehman on Monday, Dec. 24, 2018. I started a petition concerning the mail problem in Hague because so many people openly complained to me and I care. Hague citizens were fully aware that something was amiss in March 2018. When our carrier was transferred at the end of August, people were urged to write letters of complaint. A copy of the petition was available at the Community Center in Hague, but obviously not well advertised. I was quite ill and unable to physically go around house to house. I have since heard many complaints that we didnt know or we would have signed. Heres your chance Hague citizens write, complain, dont be complacent. I was notified by Don Lehman that Channel 13, NBC in Albany, where a copy of the petition was sent, had contacted him. I told him subs were being used in Hague, not independent contractors. The spokeswoman for the Postal Service, Maureen Marion, was quoted that the service has trouble retaining people for rural routes. The rural carrier in Hague had no trouble at all being retained. She was transferred. I called everybody and on Thursday they came to our house and we talked about it. On Friday and Saturday, we talked about it again, she said, referring to a group of 10 investors. We came up with how much we all could put in and on Monday night we got together one last time. At the auction, Putorti and Erik Ross of Ross Chevrolet represented the group of investors, which comprises Francis and Cheryl Putorti; Erik and Laurie Ross; Michael and Kathy Putorti; Dan and Debbie ORourke of New Hampshire; and Tom and Patti Abbott. They won the Route 4 property with a $71,000 bid against one other bidder. After securing an LDC loan, the work really began fixing the roof and exterior first, before the bad weather hit. The building is very, very old and it was a house at one time, said Putorti, explaining that the restaurant has been part of the community since the 1920s. It has a good structure, but it needed upgrading to todays restaurant standards. The roof leaked and there was hardly any insulation." On a Tuesday tour, Putorti pointed out changes from the Roma days, where walls were taken out or windows discovered under drywall; where the old kitchen was and how the new one will flow. We will have about 125 to 130 seats, Michael Putorti said. Little, however, voted in favor of allowing voter registration to be transferred between counties, but expressed concern about it being another unfunded mandate. We also need to look at the regulation that would follow enactment of the law to assure we dont see an opportunity for voting fraud, she said. Stec and Little voted in favor of a bill that would require disclosure of all direct and indirect owners of limited liability corporations set up for the expressed purpose of making donations and state that all contributions be attributed to each member of the LLC in proportion to their ownership interest. Stec also supported moving the state primary to coincide with the federal one in June. Little voted against that bill. She said she wanted the primary election to be consolidated to August. With a June primary, the process of gathering petitions would start in February or March. This will create a challenge in upstate communities that still can expect a lot of snow and cold temperatures this time of year. The main proponents of this change are from downstate and New York City where the process of garnering signatures will be a lot easier, Little said in a statement. LAKE GEORGE Mayor Robert Blais is poised to reach the half-century mark leading the village of Lake George, as he announced Monday that he will run for a 13th term. However, he said he may not serve the full four years. Blais, 82, casually announced his decision at the end of an hour-long Village Board meeting following discussions about parking meters, use of brine in salting village streets and the wastewater treatment plant project. He said Deputy Mayor John Earl and Trustee Ray Perry have decided to seek re-election. Im more than pleased to join them, Blais said. Blais added that he is ready and willing to pass the baton. Im actively looking for someone to take my place. So if anyone out there is interested, Im willing to have them shadow with the mayor, he said. If I dont have to serve the four years, I wont be disappointed, he added. Blais said he probably would not have run again if he did not have a great board that works well together. Also serving on the five-member board are John Root and Joe Mastrodomenico, whose terms are not up this time. GLENS FALLS Northern Insuring Agency has moved its Whitehall office to Glens Falls. The insurance company, which was located at 92 Main St. in Whitehall, moved to 136 Glen St., effective Tuesday. The Glens Falls office of U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, had occupied the space. The congresswomans Glens Falls office has moved to 5 Warren St. The hours at Northern Insurings new location will continue to be 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Friday. The phone number will remain the same at 518-499-0444. The company had been thinking of making the move for about a year, according to President and Chief Executive Officer Deena Giltz McCullough. Northern Insuring Agency had expanded in St. Lawrence County and moved its office from Massena to Potsdam. Company officials then looked at growing their presence in Warren and Washington counties as part of its strategic plan. Were very excited about moving to a much more active hub and certainly Glens Falls is that, she said in a telephone interview. One of the good things about hiking is that when you are miles back in the woods or up the side of a mountain, you are generally only going to meet like-minded people who appreciate nature and the woods. So the conversations or interaction you will have are generally favorable, particularly on the lesser known trails and woodlands. I hiked Sunday in the interesting Corinth Cooperator Area, a nice area of trails in the town of Corinth near the Corinth village reservoir, and went to the top of what's known as Redmond's Overlook. (This is a nice network of easy to moderate trails, if you haven't checked it out.) It was a cold morning, and I saw only one other person on the trail, and as it worked out, we both got to the ledge overlook around the same time. We had a nice chat about hiking, and what a nice day it was despite the single-digit cold. I've only had a handful of bad encounters with people in my decades of venturing out on our region's trails, and my wife and I have had to help out a few unprepared or ailing people we have run into over the years. The commerce ministry Monday said Government eMarketplace (GeM) has launched an initiative to enable women entrepreneurs and self-help groups to sell different products on the platform. GeM is an online platform of the ministry for the procurement of goods and services by government departments, public sector units, and other agencies. Also Read: Mumbai locals to get visual indicator to warn that train is ready to move The initiative - Womaniya on GeM - seeks to develop women entrepreneurship on the margins of society to achieve gender-inclusive economic growth, it said in a statement. The initiative would enable women entrepreneurs and women self-help groups to sell handicrafts and handloom, jute and coir products, home d cor and office furnishings, directly to various government ministries, departments and institutions, it said. "Womaniya homepage [https://gem.gov.in/womaniya] will inform procurement officers in various government ministries, departments and CPSEs about the drive to promote procurement of common use goods and services from women entrepreneurs," it added. So far, 1,80,862 sellers and service providers are registered with the portal to sell 7,31,431 products and services. Also Read: Many countries, including India, opened up their markets to US poultry, agricultural exports: Donald Trump Also Read: India's first electric taxi service launched in Delhi-NCR "If people choose to stay in the neighborhood because of the ties they have to their community, that is normal, understandable, and I don't think having a source of income provision or a fair housing law precludes us from trying to make all of these neighborhoods as vibrant and economically robust as they can be," she said. The two main reasons the U.S. Supreme Court has cited as justification for the death penalty retribution and deterrence don't apply to people with serious mental illness when they are too delusional to understand what they've done or to be deterred from doing wrong, said Rhonda Thissen, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness' Virginia chapter. She is a 20-year Navy veteran, who served at sea as a nuclear-trained surface warfare officer on six ships. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, she retired with the rank of commander. "They ate and wanted to thank me," Alonso said. "They were both in the Coast Guard in Portsmouth, and she told me times were going to be tough. She gave me a hug, thanked me and started to cry. It was really emotional." The cash was play money, and the time was represented by little pom-poms, but people got to share what they believe should be the top priorities as the city develops its Denbigh-Warwick Area Plan. They also got to vote on where the city's buildings in the area the library, fire station 9, police station and municipal services office should go if they were relocated or expanded. The monochrome shot is two seeds stuck together viewed from the side. This shows the thin seed coats closely fitting the shape of the starchy endosperm inside the seed. Credit: Gary Crawford A mass of charred seeds found while clearing a home construction site in Brantford, Ontario, has been identified as ancient, domesticated goosefoot (C. berlandieri spp. jonesianum), a form of quinoa native to Eastern North America. The seeds date back to 900 B.C., and have never previously been found north of Kentucky this early in history, says Professor Gary Crawford of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), who was brought in by Archaeological Services Inc. (ASI), the archaeological consulting firm that excavated the site. Archaeological discoveries don't normally shock Crawford but this one comes close. "Finding domesticated seeds that are so old in Ontario is special," Crawford says. "The next time we find a crop in the province is about 500 A.D., and it's corn. All previous research on this species of quinoa, which is now extinct, has taken place in the central United States: Arkansas, Illinois and Kentucky." The charred seeds, about 140,000 in total, were discovered in Brantford in 2010 during a required archeological assessment conducted by Archaeological Services Inc. prior to site development. The Tutela Heights site, which has since become a housing development, yielded some stone tools, post holes, debris and the chenopod seeds. Jessica Lytle, a co-author of the resulting research paper, was one of the assessors who did the initial seed analysis and brought them to Crawford for further analysis, having studied with him at UTM. Their findings are published in the October 2018 issue of American Antiquity. The analysis took time, especially given the number of seeds and the need to document whether the whole collection was from the same crop. "This discovery raises more questions than it answers. We had to consider whether the seeds were only traded here or grown locally," says Ron Williamson, Ph.D., of ASI, another co-author. "We also had to consider whether this was the beginning of agriculture in the province. It appears not, because we don't see any evidence of local cultivation. If it were grown in the region, we would have expected to see seeds of the crop in other pits around the site, but they were confined to this specific pit. We also don't see any sign of agricultural weeds or stone tools that may have been used for cultivation. Indigenous peoples at the time exchanged certain kinds of minerals and finished stone objects over long distances, but this is the first evidence of a crop circulating in this exchange system. What meaning this plant had for local indigenous people nearly 3000 years ago still is not clear. The color seed shot shows the crop (left) and the wild/weedy relative (right). Credit: Gary Crawford Professor Crawford notes "We always wondered if they were also exchanging perishable materials. We're taking the conservative view that these seeds were traded; it would make sense that it wasn't only stone and minerals being moved around. In Kentucky, Illinois and Arkansas, this was a very important foodstuff; its nutrient value was probably similar to that of modern quinoa, which comes from South America." The researchers also explored how and why the seeds were charred. They speculate that it may have happened accidentally when the local inhabitants were attempting to parch them. "You can lightly parch seeds so they don't sprout and store them," Crawford says. "It could have been a mistake to have burned them. There was a slight oxidization of the surrounding sediment, so the soil was heated; we think they were burned in place in the pit." For Crawford, the next step in answering some of the questions will be to review seeds in his lab that were collected at other sites in Ontario to see if there are other charred seeds that may be variations of this subspecies and to examine other Ontario seed collections. Today, there is a weedy version that grows locally and he is curious whether this is a holdover from Indigenous agriculture. "All of these bits of data demonstrate that the Indigenous Canadians were knowledgeable, sophisticated and well-connected across Eastern North America," Crawford says. Explore further Picturing the past More information: Gary W. Crawford et al, AN EARLY WOODLAND DOMESTICATED CHENOPOD (CHENOPODIUM BERLANDIERI SUBSP. JONESIANUM) CACHE FROM THE TUTELA HEIGHTS SITE, ONTARIO, CANADA, American Antiquity (2018). Journal information: American Antiquity Gary W. Crawford et al, AN EARLY WOODLAND DOMESTICATED CHENOPOD (CHENOPODIUM BERLANDIERI SUBSP. JONESIANUM) CACHE FROM THE TUTELA HEIGHTS SITE, ONTARIO, CANADA,(2018). DOI: 10.1017/aaq.2018.75 Credit: CC0 Public Domain A new study released today reveals that helping lower-income high school freshman to regulate their test-taking anxiety can cut their biology course failure rates in half. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and conducted by Barnard College President Sian Leah Beilock and her research team found that brief pre-exam de-stressing strategies could reduce the performance gap often seen between lower-income and higher income students. "It's not just about what you know in a particular moment, but your perceptions of the situation, your worries also matter. Your anxiety can affect how you demonstrate what you know when it matters most," says Beilock, a nationally recognized cognitive scientist who studies the pressures children face in school. "We were particularly interested in whether we could help improve test scores in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics], an area where a broader representation of students is needed." Job opportunities in STEM fields are expanding, but students from lower-income families are often ill-prepared for them. Much of the discrepancy begins in high school, where they don't take as many STEM classes as other students, in part because they perform poorly in them. One factor may be that they're not expected to perform well, creating performance anxiety. The researchers hoped to address some of the downstream psychological consequences of this anxiety, freeing students' minds to unleash their potential. "This study shows that students' grades are not just about what they know," said Christopher Rozek, lead author on the study and a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University. "Students' emotions factor into how well they do in their classes, and schools should continue to prioritize students' emotional well-being in order to help students perform up to their potential." Close to 1,200 freshmen at a large high school in the Midwest took part in the study. They each completed emotion-regulation exercises before their mid-year and final biology exams. Those randomly assigned to the "expressive writing" intervention were asked to spend ten minutes writing about and openly exploring their feelings about the test. Beilock and other researchers have previously shown that writing about one's anxieties paradoxically reduces their burden, making them feel more manageable and freeing cognitive resources for the task at hand. Students given the "reappraisal" intervention instead tried to turn their anxiety into excitement. They read a passage explaining that physiological arousala fast heartbeat and sweaty palmsis actually the body's way of preparing for an important task and that such energy can be harnessed for success. Then they summarized what they'd just read. Previous research has shown that reappraisal, too, can improve performance. A third group of students got versions of both the expressive writing and reappraisal intervention. A final group served as a control by summarizing a passage instructing them merely to ignore their stress. The researchers were especially interested in the performance of lower-income students, those who received free or reduced-price lunch. They found that for these students, using one of the three key interventionsexpression, reappraisal, or bothinstead of the control task significantly improved exam scores. Average exam scores increased from about 57% to about 63%, reducing the performance gap between lower-income and higher-income students by nearly a third. Looking beyond exam scores, but at whether students actually passed both semesters of their 9th grade science course (versus neither or one), the results were even more dramatic. The interventions increased the passing rate for lower-income students from 61% to 82%. Again, all interventions helped them equally, and none helped the higher-income students. "We found that emotion regulation interventions reduced the substantial achievement gaps between higher-income and lower-income students on course-passing rate by more than half," explains Rozek. The researchers also asked students at the end of the year to rate their belief that emotional arousal during a test can benefit them. The emotion-regulation interventions increased lower-income students' beliefs regarding the potential benefits of stress (e.g., as energy to be used to improve performance). "Students from higher-income backgrounds were more likely to hold the belief that a little stress during tests can be helpful for performance while lower-income students were less likely to view exam stress as helpfulunless they completed the emotion regulation interventions," Rozek added. "What our research shows is that by giving those students who feel the most performance anxiety during evaluative situations in school an opportunity to think differently about their worries and anxieties, we can boost performance," Beilock says. This work shows that brief emotion regulation exercise10 minutes, twice a yearcan dramatically reduce failure rates, and that it can be readily implemented on a large scale in a working school environment. Alleviating inequalities in resources will surely be part of any solution to the performance gap. "But one other aspect that is less often focused on is how students feel in those important evaluative situations," Beilock says. She considers these exercises to be part of a toolbox of techniques that can improve the whole person. "It's something we think about at Barnard as well," she adds, "not just what our women are learning in the classroom but how we give them the motivation, the psychological tools, so that they can succeed in any situation." Rozek, now a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University who previously served as a postdoc in Beilock's research group, has an extensive background in experimental and longitudinal studies in school contexts that involve understanding the psychological factors associated with students' motivation and success. A major focus of his research has been utilizing psychological insights to increase equity in educational outcomes between students from more advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds. Beilock, who joined Barnard as its eighth president in July 2017, after serving on the faculty at the University of Chicago since 2005, has conducted extensive research on performance under pressure. She's the author of Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal about Getting It Right When You Have To (2010) and How the Body Knows Its Mind: The Surprising Power of the Physical Environment to Influence How You Think and Feel (2015). She believes anyone can benefit from expression and reappraisal in high-stress situationseven a college president. "I do some 'me-search' in addition to research," she shares. "I practice what I preach here, such as reminding myself that all the anxiety symptoms I sometimes feel in important situations are actually a sign I'm ready to go." This study is titled "Reducing Socioeconomic Disparities in the STEM Pipeline Through Student Emotion Regulation," co-authored with Gerardo Ramirez, of Ball State University, and Rachel D. Fine, of the University of Michigan. Explore further Kids benefit when parents overcome math anxiety More information: Christopher S. Rozek et al. Reducing socioeconomic disparities in the STEM pipeline through student emotion regulation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2019). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Christopher S. Rozek et al. Reducing socioeconomic disparities in the STEM pipeline through student emotion regulation,(2019). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1808589116 Provided by Barnard College Observers look on during a nuclear test in the Nevada desert in the early 1950s, one of many filmed by a secret Hollywood studio called Lookout Mountain Laboratory. Its story is chronicled by University of Illinois professors Kevin Hamilton and Ned O'Gorman through a new book and website. Credit: Image from CinemaScope footage from 1955, restored and reconstructed by Peter Kuran. Photo courtesy the Atomic Filmmakers, Santa Clarita, California. Our images of mushroom clouds came from its cameras. So did many shots of missile tests, space missions and the Korean and Vietnam wars. At one point it was the largest self-contained film studio in Hollywood, enlisting such stars as Jimmy Stewart and Marilyn Monroe, as well as Disney animators and other movie industry talent. It made an estimated 900 films. Yet the story of Lookout Mountain Laboratory was largely unknownuntil two University of Illinois professors spent 10 years piecing it together for a new book and website. The studio's story had not been fully told because it was run largely in secret, as a unit of the U.S. Air Force. Its films and photos were rarely credited and many are lost or were destroyed. No systematic effort was made to preserve its 22-year history, from 1947-69. Lookout Mountain, however, played a central role in the U.S. government's efforts to controloften unsuccessfullythe science and story around nuclear weapons in their early years, say co-authors Kevin Hamilton and Ned O'Gorman. Their book "Lookout America!: The Secret Hollywood Studio at the Heart of the Cold War" explores the studio's history and significance by way of very different fields of study. Hamilton, a professor of art and design, studies public art and new media. O'Gorman, a professor of communication, specializes in the history and rhetoric of the Cold War. In their research, the authors were struck by Lookout Mountain's sheer productivity. In just two decades, its photographers shot film footage that would require 10 years to view, as well as millions of still photos. Its globe-spanning operation handled everything from scripts to shooting to storage. "More than any other site on earth, Lookout Mountain visually chronicled the activities of the U.S. Cold War state," the authors wrote. Nearly all the Cold War's iconic images would not exist without it. Its film clips and photos have appeared in movies such as "Dr. Strangelove," in television newscasts, in documentaries such as Ken Burns' recent series on the Vietnam War. For a number of years, it shot every Bob Hope Christmas special staged at overseas U.S. military bases. An extensive collection of the studio's workover 100 films or film clips, along with some photos and documentscan be found on the book's companion website.The authors' research into the studio began when O'Gorman found a reference to a film President Eisenhower had viewed about a thermonuclear test named Operation Ivy. He found a short version online and showed it to Hamilton. They noted it was made by Lookout Mountain Laboratory. "Lookout America!" is published by Dartmouth College Press. Credit: Dartmouth College Press "We had never heard of it, didn't know what is was and so we just started digging," O'Gorman said. The resulting project sometimes took on the feel of detective work, he said. "We were just piecing together a bunch of obscure clues and starting to make connections." Their luckiest break came when they visited the abandoned Lookout Mountain facility after Hamilton contacted the property owner and found a trove of Lookout Mountain semiannual reports on microfilm. One thing that piqued their mutual interest early on was in viewing the Operation Ivy film and noting the excessive screen time devoted to operators in front of consoles. In a film about a historic test, they wondered, why that and not more "money shots" of the mushroom clouds and the drama? They eventually concluded that men in front of consoles projected an image of control. "The government began to realize that the images of the tests themselves had the capacity to create unmanageable fear and unmanageable effects," said Hamilton, now also the dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts. "Men in front of consoles was a way of arguing that America has the proper apparatus and the proper bodies and the proper authority to keep that seemingly unmanageable and fearsome technology under control." Lookout Mountain "had first dibs on telling the story, and story is a way of making order out of disorder," O'Gorman said. "They were central in controlling narratives about the bomb and they were controlling those narratives primarily for audiences who had security clearancesmostly high-level government officials. The public would see only part of the studio's work, often years later. The studio and its people also were "very, very good at what they did," O'Gorman said. "They were committed to their craft." Their engineers and technicians "problem-solved in really amazing ways," designing many new tools and techniques, Hamilton said. "They stretched through crazy time and space constraints to get things done." One example is on the book's cover: an anti-aircraft gun mount adapted for tracking missile launches with movie cameras. In telling the story of bomb tests, the studio's films often presented nuclear weapons with "a certain kind of inevitability ... making them seem almost like a force of nature," Hamilton said. At times the films seemed to suggest the government had no connection to the weapons it was actively developing, he said. The films also often downplayed how the tests affected people, O'Gorman said, whether it was Pacific islanders required to move to new islands or people in the way of nuclear fallout. Despite all that, however, control was often lacking. "Each time they did one of these tests, they never really knew what they were going to get, at least early on," O'Gorman said. One major test, Operation Castle, produced a yield that far exceeded predictions, infamously irradiating a population of Marshall Islanders, a group of Japanese fishermen and millions of square miles of the Pacific Ocean. "And for all their efforts to control the narrative, most of it didn't work," O'Gorman said. In fact, it's a central theme of the book. "It is about the foolishness of kings, so to speak, the belief that they can not only create these things but control them, both technically and narratively. And I think our story shows that they could not." Explore further Vintage US nuclear test films declassified and publicized Automobile industry body SIAM Monday said vehicle manufacturers are staring at production stoppage if there is no resolution of the issues over restrictions imposed on domestic manufacturers using imported steel. Last month, the government had extended the deadline for automobile makers to use Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certified locally produced high-grade steel till February. Also Read: Mumbai locals to get visual indicator to warn that train is ready to move The automobile manufacturers had sought a year's time, expressing their inability to source high-grade steel locally soon citing inconsistent quality. "Yes, our production will get hampered if it is not resolved. We are making representation to the government regarding the matter," Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) President Rajan Wadhera told reporters here. He further said nearly 90 per cent of the steel used in automobile production is manufactured in India and only around 10 per cent of high-grade steel, which is used for meeting safety standards among others, is not manufactured here. "These are imported from abroad as there is no economy of scale to manufacture these in India. We are talking to the government to resolve the issue," Wadhera added. Moreover, he said there were issues with the quality and consistency of locally produced such high-grade steel. Auto industry sources said there was no incentives for the foreign steelmakers to get BIS certification as volumes are low in India. In June last year with an aim to promote local manufacturing, the steel ministry had mandated BIS certification for the commodity to be sold in India. This included both for domestically produced and imported steel. For the auto industry, December 17, 2018, was set as the deadline to meet the norm but has been extended till February 17 after automakers raised their concerns over the matter. Also Read: Many countries, including India, opened up their markets to US poultry, agricultural exports: Donald Trump Also Read: India's first electric taxi service launched in Delhi-NCR Also Read: Govt eMarketplace initiative to enable women entrepreneurs sell products on its platform Credit: University of Kansas There's a juicy psychological, even romantic, angle underlying his mathematical analysis of an important Johannes Brahms composition in the new book co-written and edited by Scott Murphy, University of Kansas professor of music theory. Murphy's chapter in Brahms and the Shaping of Time (2018, University of Rochester Press) is titled "Durational Enharmonicism and the Opening of Brahms' 'Double Concerto.'" The book is part of the publisher's Eastman Studies in Music series, named for the New York university's renowned music school. In addition to his editing tasks, Murphy contributed the book's introduction and one of its nine chapters. In his chapter, Murphy analyzes the rhythmic patterns in Brahms' so-called "Double" Concerto in A Minor for Violin and Cello, op. 102, finding meaning in them that reflects the personal struggles of the composer, his friend Joseph Joachim and Joachim's estranged wife. "Brahms had a friend, Joseph Joachim, who was one of the leading violinists of the 19th century and also something of a composer," Murphy said. "The two would trade compositions back and forth. They had a friendship for decades until they got into a domestic situation. "Joachim's wife, Amalie, was filing for divorce, frustrated with the fact that her husband thought her to be unfaithful, whereas she claimed that she had not been. Joachim was prone to these flights of fancy, given even just a little bit of context, to think that, for example, 'Oh, this publisher is having an affair with my wife.' So in the divorce proceeding, Amalie turned to Brahms to support her, because Brahms had known Joachim for years and knew this side of Joachim. So Brahms wrote a letter to Amalie, supporting her side of things, stating his familiarity with Joachim's personality and his propensity for suspicion. "This letter was intended to be private. However, it came out, not only in the court proceedings but also in public. When Joachim learned of this, he was enraged, and he and Brahms had a falling out." Scott Murphy discusses his new book, "Brahms and the Shaping of Time," in Swarthout Recital Hall. Credit: Rick Hellman, KU News Service Seven years later, in the latter stages of the so-called Romantic period, Murphy said, Brahms wrote the double concerto "as something of an olive branch that he extended to his friend." Brahms wrote the work for Joachim and the cellist Robert Hausmann. And while Brahms himself played piano, Murphy said that in this analysis, the composer can be thought of as the cello part. "It starts off with the orchestra," Murphy said, "and then the cello soloist comes in and plays particularly three notes very low in the range, and the relation between what the orchestra and the cello plays is quite interesting rhythmically. "We have a situation where the cellist is coming in, and we can understand its varied durations in one of two different ways. And in the book chapter, I connect that then to the biographical idea behind the concerto, which is that we have this situation that can be understood in one of two very different ways. And so, depending on one's context, then one has a certain perception or understanding of a certain phenomenon. "And I think it's quite fitting that the violinist is not privy to the notation. The violinist is still standing there, waiting to come in. It's the cellist that is given these notes. It is given the notational truth, as it were. However, the violinist doesn't have that information. And the violinist never plays these triplets anywhere in the concerto. It's only the cello part that has them. "And so the cellist is given the notational truth, like Brahms is given the truth of the situation about his friend. Whereas Joachim, unfortunately, has less of a clear mind about this and is more easily swayed by certain changes in context." Just as a single musical note can be understood as a D sharp or an E flat, depending on its context, so, too, Murphy argues, can the duration of a note Brahms employs be understood in two different ways, depending on its context. "So that's how I apply the idea of enharmonicism in pitch to the idea of enharmonicism with duration," he said. Explore further Brussels Philharmonic hits high note with classic ringtones Upright standing grizzly bear. Credit: John Schoen Large carnivore management in Alaska should be based on rigorous science and monitoring of the status and trends of carnivore populations, according to a Perspective article published January 15 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by William Ripple of Oregon State University, and colleagues. Most government wildlife management policies around the world now recognize that apex predators have intrinsic value and provide vitally important ecosystem services. In most of Alaska hunting regulations are designed to reduce the abundance of gray wolves and brown and black bears in the hope this will increase human harvests of moose, caribou and deer. The state-wide management priority of wild ungulates over large carnivores was mandated in Alaska's 1994 Intensive Management Law. The Alaska Intensive Management efforts are not only outdated, Ripple and colleagues argue, but also implemented without effective monitoring programs to scientifically evaluate impacts on predator populations and ecosystems. According to the authors, science-based management of large carnivores will require the repeal of Alaska's Intensive Management Law and/or the adoption of management programs that adequately monitor both carnivores and ungulates. Moreover, appointments by the governor to the Alaska Board of Game, which sets hunting regulations, should include members who recognize large carnivores' importance to ecosystem function, the state's economy and wildlife viewing enthusiasts. Information campaigns and other grassroots efforts by concerned citizens and nongovernmental organizations are likely needed to remedy current unsound management practices for large carnivores in Alaska. "Enlightened scientific management at the scale of ecosystems is needed to put Alaska back on the path to avoiding past errors in predator management," Ripple says. Explore further Living with lions and tigers and bears, oh my More information: Ripple WJ, Miller SD, Schoen JW, Rabinowitch SP (2019) Large carnivores under assault in Alaska. PLoS Biol 17(1): e3000090. Journal information: PLoS Biology Ripple WJ, Miller SD, Schoen JW, Rabinowitch SP (2019) Large carnivores under assault in Alaska.17(1): e3000090. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000090 Northern goshawk on a chicken in Queen Charlotte. Credit: Caitlin Blewett Haida Gwaii's small population of northern goshawksalready of great concern to conservationistsare the last remnant of a highly distinct genetic cluster of the birds, according to a new genomic analysis by University of British Columbia researchers. "Goshawks across the British Columbia Coast appear to be declining, however, the distinct Haida Gwaii population is at a particularly high risk of extinction with such a small population size," says Kenneth Askelson, a researcher with the UBC Department of Zoology and Biodiversity Research Centre, who co-led the study. Latest counts puts the population on the archipelago at roughly 50. The genomic findings add new context and impetus to efforts to save this vulnerable pocket of goshawks, which are one of BC's most iconic birds of prey. "Accurate knowledge of geographic ranges and genetic relationships among populations is important when managing a species or population of conservation concern," said Darren Irwin, senior author on the paper. "This is a major step in drawing those boundaries for one iconic species." The diminishing population of northern goshawks across British Columbia's Coast (estimated at roughly 1,200 within B.C.), and continued habitat loss, have led to the laingi subspecies being listed as threatened under the Canadian Species at Risk Act. A released juvenile male goshawk, Datlamen, Haida Gwaii. Credit: Berry Wijdeven But debate over which individual northern goshawks should be considered part of the threatened laingi subspeciesand the crucial question of what geographic areas should be considered within their rangehas complicated conservation efforts. The paper, published today in Evolutionary Applications, is one of the first to use genomics to inspect biodiversity on Haida Gwaii. "This underscores the importance of conservation-related studies of genetic variationtoo often, biodiversity vanishes invisibly," says Armando Geraldes, who co-led the study with Askelson. Injured juvenile goshawk, Sandspit, Haida Gwaii. Credit: Josina Davis The researchers estimate the distinct population of birds may have been evolving separately on Haida Gwaii for 20,000 years. Percy Algernon Taverner (a prominent Canadian ornithologist) was the first to describe the laingi goshawk on Haida Gwaii in 1940identifying them as darker than other examples of the bird. "There may be many unique subspecies that occur only on Haida Gwaiian indication that the area is a very unique biogeographic region with many distinct lineages of species that have been poorly studied," says Askelson. Explore further New research complicates seismic hazard for British Columbia, Alaska region More information: Armando Geraldes et al, Population genomic analyses reveal a highly differentiated and endangered genetic cluster of northern goshawks (Accipiter gentilis laingi ) in Haida Gwaii, Evolutionary Applications (2018). Armando Geraldes et al, Population genomic analyses reveal a highly differentiated and endangered genetic cluster of northern goshawks (Accipiter gentilis laingi ) in Haida Gwaii,(2018). DOI: 10.1111/eva.12754 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Protecting personal information while surfing the web or using apps is a concern for many of us and successfully shielding such data can be a struggle. To tackle this challenge, the EU-funded Privacy Flag project has established a user-friendly monitoring and protection system which includes free tools for the public. Professor Andrew Charlesworth, from the University of Bristol Law School, was a co-investigator on the project and helped to develop the Universal Privacy Risk Area Assessment Methodology to investigate the compliance of apps, websites and Internet of Things deployment with EU, Swiss and US data protection laws. As a result, developers have created a smartphone application, a web browser add-on and a public website in six European languages, all connected to a shared knowledge database, to help citizens monitor and control their privacy. The evaluation tools which include an automatic alert mechanism whereby people can be notified of privacy breaches are available for free download on the Privacy Flag website. Built on a crowdsourcing model to design and select the best solution to protect privacy and data ownership, Privacy Flag promotes user awareness of how privacy can be increased and how it affects citizens and society. Professor Charlesworth said: "The Privacy Flag project and its outputs and spin-offs represent a new generation of technology-supported initiatives designed to enable citizens to understand and control the ways in which their personal data may be captured and reused in the digital environment, as well as to create support mechanisms for businesses that aim to develop and supply transparently privacy-compliant services." The EU's General Data Protection Regulation protects citizens' rights within its borders. Privacy Flag, in a bid to expand this protection, has created a voluntary system known as the Privacy Pact which enables companies outside the EU to sign up to and show their commitment to European standards. Professor Charlesworth added: "One example of the sustainability of the project's outputs is the creation of the EuroPrivacy certification scheme on data protection, designed to enable a systematic and comprehensive analysis of compliance with the GDPR, applicable to products, services and data protection management systems, and encompassing emerging technologies such as data analytics and Internet of Things." The project could also have a positive environmental impact because it contributes to reducing unwanted data flow on the internet and mobile phone networks. Currently, many apps are uploading and exploiting data not required for the app itself. Reducing this data flow could save energy and, ultimately, lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Explore further Location data as an 'identifier' of personal data Skeleton of the marine reptile Anarosaurus heterodontus CHW 189 from the private collection of Herman Winkelhorst (Netherlands). The neck of the animal is excellently preserved, but the rest is not. One possible explanation may be that this is the result of uneven colonization of the carcass by microorganisms and algae, which created a protective layer especially around the neck. Credit: Jelle Heijne/Uni Bonn It has long been known that a quarry near the Dutch town of Winterswijk is an Eldorado for fossil lovers. But even connoisseurs will be surprised just how outstanding the site actually is. A student at the University of Bonn, himself a Dutchman and passionate fossil collector, has now analyzed pieces from museums and private collections for his master's thesis. He found an amazing amount of almost completely preserved skeletons, all between 242 and 247 million years old. The good condition is presumably due to particularly favorable development conditions. These make Winterswijk, which belongs to the so-called Germanic Basin, a cornucopia for paleontology. The study is published in the Palaontologische Zeitschrift. Jelle Heijne examined exactly 327 remains of marine reptiles for his master's thesiscollected partly from public museums, but primarily from about 20 private collections. He was particularly impressed by the high quality of the finds: "Among them were more than 20 contiguous skeletons," he emphasizes. "Only very few complete skeleton finds are known from the other sites of the Germanic Basin, which stretches from England to Poland." In his study, the 25-year-old investigated the question of why the bones, which are over 240 million years old, have been preserved so well here. The reason is probably a combination of fortunate circumstances: At that time the Germanic Basin was a sea, which was extremely shallow in today's Winterswijk. This is illustrated by the fossil footprints of terrestrial animals that were found not far from the reptile bones. The region probably resembled today's Wadden Sea of the North Sea coast, but with a bottom that was not sandy but covered in lime silt. The shallow depth ensured that cadavers quickly hit the ground, where they were then covered by sediment. If dead animals float in the water for a long time and are tossed back and forth by waves and currents, the probability increases that body parts, such as tail, limbs or head, are lost. Jelle Heijne recovering a fish fossil during an excavation in Winterswijk in 2013. Credit: Privat/Uni Bonn Another important factor was a process called "Stick 'n' Peel" by paleontologists: The animal is colonized by microorganisms and algae that hold the skeleton together like a skin. "It was probably these two factors in particular that favored the occurrence of well-preserved finds," explains Heijne. In fact, there is some evidence for the Stick 'n' Peel hypothesis. For example, some skeletons lack individual larger bones, while the small bones are completeeven though the latter are usually most likely to be carried away by the water. "Such unusual patterns typically occur when a skeleton is unevenly colonized and thus protected," Heijne explains. It has long been known that Winterswijk stands out among the sites of the Germanic Basin. Nevertheless, the large number of high-quality finds is likely to surprise even connoisseurs, especially since most of the finds are not accessible to the public. "I have been a member of an association of private collectors in the Netherlands for years," Heijne explains. This was the ideal contact exchange for his study: "The collectors I approached were all proud to be able to contribute to the research on Winterswijk." Explore further Oldest-known aquatic reptiles probably spent time on land More information: Jelle Heijne et al. The uniquely diverse taphonomy of the marine reptile skeletons (Sauropterygia) from the Lower Muschelkalk (Anisian) of Winterswijk, The Netherlands, PalZ (2019). Jelle Heijne et al. The uniquely diverse taphonomy of the marine reptile skeletons (Sauropterygia) from the Lower Muschelkalk (Anisian) of Winterswijk, The Netherlands,(2019). DOI: 10.1007/s12542-018-0438-0 Thermus scotoductus cells are visible at 1000x magnification using a technique called phase-contrast microscopy. Scientists found the heat-loving microbes living in water heaters in homes across the United States. Credit: Zhidan Zhang / Penn State Microbes that thrive in some of the most extreme places on Earth have discovered another cozy place to liveinside homes across the United States. Extremophiles like those found in hot springs and thermal vents are also common in residential water heaters, according to a nationwide study that sheds new light on the extent of extremophile colonization in homes and provides insight about how the heat-loving microbes spread. "Extremophiles are a huge part of the biosphere," said Regina Wilpiszeski, a postdoctoral researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a recent Penn State doctoral recipient. "If we want to understand what life on Earth is doing, we need to understand it across the board." The researchers analyzed samples from water heaters in all 50 states, as well as Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, and found evidence of microbes in about half of the homes. They reported their findings online in the journal Extremophiles. Despite their presence, the microbes pose no health concerns for humans and water from the systems remains safe to drink. A single species, Thermus scotoductus, dominated in all the positive samples in the study, even in locations near natural hot springs that host other similar but distinct strains. "That included houses located near Yellowstone National Park, where we would expect other extreme organisms to live in the natural hot spring environment," Wilpiszeski said. "That was a surprise." Thermus scotoductus has been found in nature, at hot springs in Iceland, hydrothermal waters off the coast of Hawaii and even deep in a gold mine in South Africa. "Most of the time when you are thinking about extreme environments, you are thinking about going out into nature and into these weird and inaccessible places," Wilpiszeski said. "But the truth is we spend the vast majority of our time indoors. And we really just don't necessarily know what is living there." Water heaters offer high temperatures and low levels of organic matter, ideal conditions for extremophile microbe colonies, the researchers said. "Water heaters are unique because they are isolated from each other by cooler temperatures in water lines," said Christopher House, professor of geosciences and director of the Penn State Astrobiology Research Center and the NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium. "This study helps us learn more about how microbes are spreading and how they are inhabiting these environments we have inadvertently created for them." Cooler temperatures would not kill the microbes, meaning they could survive being transported between water heaters, scientists said. However, further study is needed to determine the exact paths extremophiles take to enter our homes. Citizen scientists submitted filters and water samples from their homes as part of a collaboration between the NASA Astrobiology Institute and the NASA National Space Grant Fellowship and Scholarship Program. Researchers analyzed DNA sequences found on the collected filters and grew cultures from the water samples. Together, these different data sets provided a novel view of the thermophilic microbes inhabiting water heaters across the nation. Analyses of the data included comparing genetic differences between samples to the physical distance between their water heater locations. Explore further Thermophiles lurking in your basement More information: Regina L. Wilpiszeski et al, Biogeography of thermophiles and predominance of Thermus scotoductus in domestic water heaters, Extremophiles (2018). Regina L. Wilpiszeski et al, Biogeography of thermophiles and predominance of Thermus scotoductus in domestic water heaters,(2018). dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00792-018-1066-z At SLACs Linac Coherent Light Source, the researchers blasted an iron sample with laser pulses to demagnetize it, then grazed the sample with X-rays, using the patterns formed when the X-rays scattered to uncover details of the process. Credit: Gregory Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory More than 100 years ago, Albert Einstein and Wander Johannes de Haas discovered that when they used a magnetic field to flip the magnetic state of an iron bar dangling from a thread, the bar began to rotate. Now experiments at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have seen for the first time what happens when magnetic materials are demagnetized at ultrafast speeds of millionths of a billionth of a second: The atoms on the surface of the material move, much like the iron bar did. The work, done at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser, was published in Nature earlier this month. Christian Dornes, a scientist at ETH Zurich in Switzerland and one of the lead authors of the report, says this experiment shows how ultrafast demagnetization goes hand in hand with what's known as the Einstein-de Haas effect, solving a longstanding mystery in the field. "I learned about these phenomena in my classes, but to actually see firsthand that the transfer of angular momentum actually makes something move mechanically is really cool," Dornes says. "Being able to work on the atomic scale like this and see relatively directly what happens would have been a total dream for the great physicists of a hundred years ago." Spinning sea of skaters At the atomic scale, a material owes its magnetism to its electrons. In strong magnets, the magnetism comes from a quantum property of electrons called spin. Although electron spin does not involve a literal rotation of the electron, the electron acts in some ways like a tiny spinning ball of charge. When most of the spins point in the same direction, like a sea of ice skaters pirouetting in unison, the material becomes magnetic. Researchers from ETH Zurich in Switzerland used LCLS to show a link between ultrafast demagnetization and an effect that Einstein helped discover 100 years ago. Credit: Dawn Harmer/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory When the magnetization of the material is reversed with an external magnetic field, the synchronized dance of the skaters turns into a hectic frenzy, with dancers spinning in every direction. Their net angular momentum, which is a measure of their rotational motion, falls to zero as their spins cancel each other out. Since the material's angular momentum must be conserved, it's converted into mechanical rotation, as the Einstein-de Haas experiment demonstrated. Twist and shout In 1996, researchers discovered that zapping a magnetic material with an intense, super-fast laser pulse demagnetizes it nearly instantaneously, on a femtosecond time scale. It has been a challenge to understand what happens to angular momentum when this occurs. In this paper, the researchers used a new technique at LCLS combined with measurements done at ETH Zurich to link these two phenomena. They demonstrated that when a laser pulse initiates ultrafast demagnetization in a thin iron film, the change in angular momentum is quickly converted into an initial kick that leads to mechanical rotation of the atoms on the surface of the sample. According to Dornes, one important takeaway from this experiment is that even though the effect is only apparent on the surface, it happens throughout the whole sample. As angular momentum is transferred through the material, the atoms in the bulk of the material try to twist but cancel each other out. It's as if a crowd of people packed onto a train all tried to turn at the same time. Just as only the people on the fringe would have the freedom to move, only the atoms at the surface of the material are able to rotate. At SLACs Linac Coherent Light Source, the researchers blasted an iron sample with laser pulses to demagnetize it, then grazed the sample with X-rays, using the patterns formed when the X-rays scattered to uncover details of the process. Credit: Gregory Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Scraping the surface In their experiment, the researchers blasted the iron film with laser pulses to initiate ultrafast demagnetization, then grazed it with intense X-rays at an angle so shallow that it was nearly parallel to the surface. They used the patterns formed when the X-rays scattered off the film to learn more about where angular momentum goes during this process. "Due to the shallow angle of the X-rays, our experiment was incredibly sensitive to movements along the surface of the material," says Sanghoon Song, one of three SLAC scientists who were involved with the research. "This was key to seeing the mechanical motion." To follow up on these results, the researchers will do further experiments at LCLS with more complicated samples to find out more precisely how quickly and directly the angular momentum escapes into the structure. What they learn will lead to better models of ultrafast demagnetization, which could help in the development of optically controlled devices for data storage. Steven Johnson, a scientist and professor at ETH Zurich and the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland who co-led the study, says the group's expertise in areas outside of magnetism allowed them to approach the problem from a different angle, better positioning them for success. "There have been numerous previous attempts by other groups to understand this, but they failed because they didn't optimize their experiments to look for these tiny effects," Johnson says. "They were swamped by other much larger effects, such as atomic movement due to laser heat. Our experiment was much more sensitive to the kind of motion that results from the angular momentum transfer." Explore further Antiferromagnetic dysprosium reveals magnetic switching with less energy More information: C. Dornes et al. The ultrafast Einsteinde Haas effect, Nature (2018). Journal information: Nature C. Dornes et al. The ultrafast Einsteinde Haas effect,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0822-7 Asian female gypsy moth. Credit: Grishin lab at UT Southwestern The European gypsy moth (EGM) is perhaps the country's most famous invasive insecta nonnative species accidentally introduced to North America in the 1860s when a few escaped from a breeding experiment in suburban Boston. The caterpillars have been slowly eating their way across the continent ever since, causing widespread defoliation. In research that could lead to better bioinsecticides to protect forests and orchards, Drs. Don Gammon and Nick Grishin of UT Southwestern have sequenced the genomes of the EGM and its even more destructive cousin, the Asian gypsy moth (AGM). Their work, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that the gypsy moth has the largest moth or butterfly genome (number of DNA base pairs) ever sequenced. "The European gypsy moth has spread as far west as Minnesota and as far south as North Carolina. The rather slow spreadabout 13 miles a yearis partly due to the fact that EGM females are flightless and must walk or be blown by the wind to disperse," said Dr. Gammon, Assistant Professor of Microbiology and a W.W. Caruth, Jr. Scholar in Biomedical Research. "In contrast, females of the Asian gypsy moth subspecies, which inhabits Asia and eastern Russia, have larger, more developed wings and can fly." If the Asian gypsy moth were to become established in the United States, it would pose an even greater economic threat due to its ability to spread more swiftly, he added. To guard against that possibility, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has surveillance programs at several ports and regularly sprays virus-based bioinsecticides in endangered forests to kill gypsy moth caterpillars. In addition to genome sequencing, the researchers conducted gene expression studies showing how the moths' genes respond to viral infection to understand how viral bioinsecticides might be improved to control gypsy moth populations. Their findings could serve as a roadmap to the insects' vulnerabilities, the researchers said. They also identified genetic differences between the EGM and AGM subspecies that likely contribute to variations in flight ability, chemical sensing, and pathogen interactions. Dr. Gammon became interested in gypsy moths during his postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Dr. Craig Mello at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In a 2014 study in the journal eLife, Dr. Gammon reported that gypsy moth cells are strikingly resistant to arboviruses that otherwise infect a wide range of fly, mosquito, and human cell types. Given the emerging threat of arboviruses such as Zika to human health, Dr. Gammon sought to understand the genetic reasons for gypsy moth cells' resistance with the hope of uncovering novel strategies to block arbovirus infection in other species. However, the gypsy moth genome had not been sequenced, a clear prerequisite for identifying moth-encoded antiviral factors. Shortly after being offered a faculty position at UT Southwestern in 2016, Dr. Gammon asked Dr. Grishin, Professor of Biophysics and Biochemistry and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator, if they could collaborate. At the time, Dr. Grishin's group had just identified two new butterfly species and was sequencing the genomes of several others. That collaboration led to today's study, done with Kyoto Prize winner Dr. Daniel Janzen, a Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania who is world-renowned for his expertise in evolutionary ecology. The Kyoto Prize is considered Japan's highest private honor for global achievement in the winner's field. "Everyone in the Northeastern United States knows the European gypsy moth, or is at least familiar with the devastation its voraciously hungry caterpillar can cause to forests," Dr. Gammon said. Next steps should include functional studies to understand how the genes work, the researchers said. "From a theoretical perspective, we would like to understand how biological diversity is generated via mechanisms of protein evolution," said Dr. Grishin, who holds the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Chair in Biomedical Science and is a Virginia Murchison Linthicum Scholar in Biomedical Research. European female gypsy moth. Credit: Grishin lab at UT Southwestern Other UTSW authors on the study include Jing Zhang, a graduate student, and Dr. Qian Cong, a former graduate student, both in the Grishin laboratory, and Emily A. Rex, a research assistant in the Gammon laboratory. The research received support from UT Southwestern's Endowed Scholars Program, the National Institutes of Health, The Welch Foundation, and the HHMI. More about gypsy moths * The EGM is currently found in Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. * The EGM is considered particularly high-risk in Kentucky. *The gypsy moth prefers approximately 150 primary hosts but feeds on more than 300 species of trees and shrubs. Some of those include: Aspen Birch Cedar Cottonwood Fruit trees Larch Oak Poplar Willow Source: USDA A breeding experiment gone awry: Gypsy moths in North America Etienne Leopold Trouvelotan amateur butterfly and moth scientistbrought the EGMs from his native France to his home in Medford, Massachusetts, in the mid-1860s. His goal was to crossbreed EGMs with the more delicate silkworm moths to produce a hardier silk producer that would inherit the EGM caterpillar trait of eating a broad range of plants. According to the Smithsonian Institution's gypsy moth page, at one time the amateur naturalist had more than a million larvae growing behind his house near what is now downtown Boston. In the late 1860s, some of the EGMs escaped and began feasting on the nearby woods. Since then, the EGM caterpillars have become major forest and orchard pests, defoliating millions of acres. Explore further New pathogen takes control of gypsy moth populations This undated handout photo from the Egyptian Antiquities Authority, shows colorful funeral paintings in an ancient tomb dating back to the Roman period, at the Dakhla Oasis in the Western Desert, Egypt. The Antiquities Ministry said Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019 that the excavations took place in the Beir Al-Shaghala archaeological site. Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, says the tombs were built in mud-brick with different architectural styles. (Egyptian Antiquities Authority via AP) Egypt says archaeologists have uncovered two ancient tombs dating back to the Roman period in the country's Western Desert. The Antiquities Ministry says Tuesday the excavations took place in the Beir Al-Shaghala archaeological site in the Dakhla Oasis. Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, says the tombs were built in mud-brick with different architectural styles. He says archaeologists uncovered ancient human remains and pottery fragments inside the tombs. They also found colorful funeral paintings on the walls of both tombs. In recent years, Egypt has heavily promoted new archaeological finds to international media and diplomats in the hope of attracting more visitors to the country. The vital tourism sector has suffered from the years of political turmoil since the 2011 uprising. This undated handout photo from the Egyptian Antiquities Authority, shows colorful funeral paintings in an ancient tomb dating back to the Roman period, at the Dakhla Oasis in the Western Desert, Egypt. The Antiquities Ministry said Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019 that the excavations uncovered two ancient tombs in the Beir Al-Shaghala archaeological site. Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, says the tombs were built in mud-brick with different architectural styles. (Egyptian Antiquities Authority via AP) Explore further Egypt archaeologists uncover tombs dating back to Roman era 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The United Nations is struggling with close to $2 billion dollars in unpaid contributions to its peacekeeping budget, with current cash balances covering less than two months of operations, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned. Guterres told UN member-states in a letter sent last week that the world body was forced to tap into a capital fund and special account to cover expenses from the regular UN budget at the end of last year. "Active peacekeeping missions are soon expected to face liquidity gaps due to late payments and increasing arrears," Guterres wrote in the letter seen by AFP on Tuesday. "As of today, arrears are nearing US $2 billion and are likely to keep growing. Current cash balances cover less than two months of operations, compared to four months last year," he added. The UN peacekeeping budget that runs from July 2018 to June 2019 totals $6.7 billion, with the United States, China and Japan paying the bulk of that amount. More than 100,000 peacekeepers are deployed in 14 missions worldwide including major operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali and South Sudan that cost more than $1 billion annually to run. Guterres said he would be making proposals in the coming months to prevent the global organization from sliding into repeated financial crises. Last year, the UN chief wrote twice to member-states to raise alarm over the world body's finances. At the end of last year, unpaid contributions to the UN budget totaled $528.7 million. While 152 out of the 193 countries had paid their dues at the end of 2018, the regular UN budget ended the year with a cash shortfall of $323 million. Addressing a UN event of the G77 bloc of developing countries, Guterres warned that the serious financial problems "if left unchecked -- will put the continued functioning of our operations at risk." Flipkart has named Amar Nagaram as the new head of Myntra and Jabong Loading the player... India's first electric taxi service launched in Delhi-NCR Gensol Mobility said it has launched India's first electric vehicle (EV) taxi fleet, BLU-SMART, in Delhi-NCR with about 70 cars that will be ramped up to 400 vehicles by the end of March 2019. The company, which is in talks with various car companies such as Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra and Nissan for procuring EVs, has also invested over Rs 50 crore to set up charging infrastructure in various parts of the city. Govt working on new policy to provide credit guarantee, interest subsidy on loans for electronic manufacturers The government is considering credit guarantee for term loans of up to Rs 100 crore as well as interest subsidy on loans up to Rs 1,000 crore for electronic manufacturing companies under the new policy in works. According to the proposal, the government will provide up to 50 per cent guarantee cover of the sanctioned loan amount, the source said. 'Right time to move on, Myntra's future is bright,' says outgoing CEO Ananth Narayanan Flipkart-owned fashion retailer Myntra today announced the exit of its CEO Ananth Narayanan after speculations ranging for nearly two months. Flipkart has now named Amar Nagaram as the new head of Myntra and Jabong, who will be reporting to the group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy. Amar, who recently moved to Myntra, is a Flipkart veteran, who has donned the roles of vice president, consumer shopping experience and director of mobile and web engineering Ola raises $21 million from Sachin Bansal at a valuation of $5.7 billion India's No. 2 most valued desi startup, Ola, has a new name among its impressive list of investors: Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal.Bansal has invested $21 million (around Rs 150 crore) in the cab hailing platform as part of an ongoing Series J round. Govt launches eMarketplace initiative to enable women entrepreneurs sell products on its platform The commerce ministry Monday said Government eMarketplace (GeM) has launched an initiative to enable women entrepreneurs and self-help groups to sell different products on the platform. The initiative - Womaniya on GeM - seeks to develop women entrepreneurship on the margins of society to achieve gender-inclusive economic growth Apple sees worst performance since 2014 in India; iPhone sales dip up to 50% At a time India is holding sway as one of the fastest growing smartphone markets worldwide, Apple's grip on the country seems to be slipping if its iPhone sales figures are anything to go by. From a 50% jump year-on-year to 2.6 million iPhone shipments in India in 2016, the past year saw the numbers plunging. Apple's India shipments are pegged at 1.6-1.7 million in 2018, up to 50% lower than the 2017 level. Trump says trade deal with China likely President Donald Trump said Monday he expects to be able to reach a trade deal with China, which is feeling the impact of US tariffs. Chinese officials said the next round of negotiations would be held in Washington between January 30 and 31. Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed on December 1 to a three-month truce in the escalating spat. PM to inaugurate Kollam bypass in Kerala today Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate Kollam bypass, built at a cost of Rs 352 crore, in Kerala today. The project will ease traffic congestion around Kollam town and reduce the travel time between Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram. OYO aims at 1mn rooms to become world's "largest" hotel chain Hospitality firm OYO Hotels and Rooms on Monday said it is working on a roadmap for 1-million room inventory from the existing count of 4.6 lakh. This will help OYO to become the "world's top player from number three now", said Aditya Ghosh, OYO CEO, India and South Asia. The company has set a target of 2.5 million rooms by 2023, its promoter Ritesh Agarwal said. The polluted waters of Manila Bay MANILA, Philippines Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu acknowledged how vast the rehabilitation works will be in Manila Bay. He specifically noted the alarming level of fecal coliform content in the waters of Manila Bay. The coliform in (Boracay) that time is almost one million MPN (most probable number) as compared sa Manila Bay 330 million. (Thats) 330% magnitude, Cimatu explained. On Tuesday (January 15), concerned agencies in the rehabilitation work convened to discuss the process. The inter-agency task force will focus first on cleaning the drainages and relocating informal settlers nearby. The DENR, however, warned that structures which do not have water treatment facility will be closed and will have to pay a fine of P20,000 to P200,000 per day. Local government units who are not working on cleaning the Manila Bay will be charged in court. Kapag hindi ginawa ang job, we will hold them accountable, warned Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano. Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) already directed Maynilad and Manila Water to expedite the construction of their respective water treatment facilities. To fast track the job, the inter-agency task force calls on the President to issue an executive order in line with the rehabilitation works in Manila Bay. Kapag napababa ang coliform sa ilang area, pwede nang mag-swim. We will try hard to bring down the 330 million to 100, Cimatu said. Marje Pelayo (with reports from Grace Casin) The post Rehabilitation works in Manila Bay to kick off Jan. 27 appeared first on UNTV News. Outcry in mainland China as Taiwans Taipei Palace Museum lends priceless calligraphy masterpiece by Yan Zhenqing to Japan The National Palace Museum in Taipeis decision to lend a 1,200-year-old masterpiece of calligraphy to a Japanese museum has prompted an outcry on the other side of the Taiwan Strait. The fragile Requiem to My Nephew, written during the Tang dynasty by Yan Zhenqing will be on display in the Tokyo National Museum from Wednesday until February 24. The ink and paper document had been preserved in Chinese imperial courts for centuries until it was taken to Taiwan by the defeated Nationalist forces at the end of the civil war in 1949. The piece was last shown to the public in 2011 in an exhibition in the Taipei Palace Museum. The state-run mainland tabloid Global Times reported that it would not receive proper protection, such as a ban on the use of flash photography, when it goes on display in Japan. However, the museum told the newspaper that the work would be protected by a glass case and denied that members of the public would be allowed to take any photographs. In mainland China, paintings from the Yuan dynasty (1271- 1368) or earlier are banned from being exhibited overseas. Yan, a Tang dynasty loyalist, is regarded as one of the greatest calligraphers in Chinese history, and composed the obituary note in honour of Yan Jiming, who was killed during the An Lushan rebellion in Hebei province in 756, along with his father Yan Zhenqings cousin and 30 other members of his family. Legend has it that the younger Yan was taken as a hostage to force his father, the governor of Changshan, to surrender but was put to death when his father refused. The family was not able to recover any of Yan Jimings remains until two years later and only his skull and one foot were recovered. In great grief and pain, Yan wrote how the nephew was born with exceptional virtue and grew to be the family pride. The note, which is believed to a draft of a more formal eulogy, shows various corrections and crossings out, but is regarded as a great masterpiece of the Xingshu, or running script, style. Story continues The news of the loan to Japan triggered an outcry on social media, with the tag Requiem to My Nephew being read 230 million times on Weibo, attracting 146,000 comments. The original Requiem to My Nephew is too precious to be allowed for exhibition outside the country. It embodies the unyielding spirit of the Yans family who lost their lives fighting rebellions, wrote one Weibo user. It embodies the grief of an uncle who had to write an obituary of his nephew while looking at his skull. It had to be relocated during war but why would it be lent to Japan for free and without proper protection? I felt so sad, wrote another user. Lets unite Taiwan by force. I cant take it any more. Despite the popular outcry, the arts world appeared less certain that the loan was unjustified. Ling Lizhong, curator of the department of painting and calligraphy at Shanghai Museum, said it was normal cultural exchange. Ling told Thepaper.cn: The Tokyo National Museum has been putting on special exhibitions of ancient Chinese calligraphy, which shows respect and love for the Chinese culture. It is very common for museums to borrow exhibits. I hope one day the piece will be exhibited in the Shanghai Museum. Shanghai Museum is currently running a special exhibition dedicated to the Ming dynasty calligrapher Dong Qichang, which includes a work by Yan Zhenqing that was borrowed from a museum in Tokyo. In 2010 it exhibited works from the Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties that included 39 pieces borrowed from Japanese museum. The Guangming Daily, one of the heavyweight party mouthpieces, carried a commentary by Zhou Juanxia from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences that argued that the work being lent by the museum in Taipei was an indispensable part of Chinas cultural heritage and would need extremely careful handling. The piece is more than 1,200 years old and it is at the end of its time in human life. We can understand the fragility of the paper and the publics anger, Zhou wrote. The practice of the National Palace Museum in Taipei is not a blessing for cultural relics. I hope the museum can put aside other factors and carefully consider loaning cultural relics. I also hope that the seal at the end of the manuscript urging future generations to safeguard this can be promise kept by generation after generation. This article Outcry in mainland China as Taiwans Taipei Palace Museum lends priceless calligraphy masterpiece by Yan Zhenqing to Japan first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. More from South China Morning Post: FILE PHOTO: President Rodrigo Duterte | PCOO/Richard Madelo MANILA, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is reopening doors for peace. Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) Board Member Avelino Andal confirmed that the Chief Executive ordered him to hold backchannel talks with the communist rebels. According to Andal, he already conveyed the Presidents message to the leaders of the leftist group which the latter positively welcomed. Actually napag-utusan ang inyong lingkod at utos mula sa presidente na kung maaari ay i-resume ang pag-uusap, Andal revealed in a phone interview. Sapagkat ang kaniyang pinagdidiinan ay bilang presidente, siya ay kaibigan at hindi kaaway ng mga rebelde, he added. Andal was a former activist and political detainee during the Martial Law regime. He was once a rebel returnee himself. In 2018, President Duterte ordered the suspension of backchannel talks with the communist rebels for the government to thoroughly assess the provisions of the agreements to be entered into by both parties. Though Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo did not confirm such backchannel order, he expresses confidence that such a move will bring positive results. What is important to me is if there is one, then the CPP-NPA at this time and for a change should listen to the president, and most likely they may at this time to the urgings of the president, he concluded. Marje Pelayo (with reports from Rosalie Coz) The post Duterte orders backchannel talks with Reds appeared first on UNTV News. China bulls may return if rally of brokerage stocks is any indication For those are anticipating a good run in mainland Chinese shares this year, the ride on brokerage stocks is an encouraging sign. A Bloomberg gauge of the 23 mainland-listed brokerages has rallied 37 per cent since a low in October, and four out of the 10 best performers on the CSI 300 Index so far this year are securities firms. The run-up on the sector, typically a leading indicator of market sentiments, could foreshadow the recovery of Chinas stocks from their world-beating decline last year. Traders optimism about brokerage stocks has stemmed from the diffusion of risks involving listed companies pledged shares, President Xi Jinpings ambition to set up a technology board in Shanghai and the securities regulators remarks to boost market liquidity. Before that, these stocks were among the most shunned last year, with the average share prices once trading at a discount to the book values. The fundamentals of the brokerage sector have improved significantly and lots of people are looking at an inflection point of the sector, said Wu Kan, an investment manager at Soochow Securities in Shanghai. There are rising expectations that trading will get more active this year and brokerages stand to benefit from that. The bet on the brokerage sector was reinforced after vice-chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission Fang Xinghai said at a weekend forum that the regulator would start the tech board and a registration system for initial public offerings that gauges demand more on the market force as soon as possible. He also said the measures were aimed at reviving trading activity in the market. China doubles quota for foreign investors, paving way for global funds to get bigger bite of A-shares amid stock market slump The fundamentals of the brokerage sector have improved significantly and lots of people are looking at an inflection point of the sector Wu Kan, Soochow Securities The average daily trading value on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stocks dropped by 19 per cent from a year earlier in 2018, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Story continues The Bloomberg gauge of Chinese brokerages slumped 31 per cent in 2018, trailing a 25 per cent drop on the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, as revenues from stock broking and investment banking businesses shrank after the regulator ramped up oversight of stock trading and shelve a plan to allow overseas-listed Chinese companies to float depositary receipts. It was the fourth consecutive annual loss for Chinese brokerages since a bubble on the stock market burst in 2015. Total revenue of the 34 listed brokerages fell about 14 per cent to 165.4 billion yuan (US$24.5 billion), the China Securities Journal reported on Tuesday. The current rally is taking Chinese securities firms to trade at an average of 1.3 times their book values, though still 42 per cent cheaper than the sectors average valuation over the past five years, Bloomberg data showed. The multiple dropped to a record low of 0.96 times in October before the financial regulator and local governments introduced joint measures to prevent bad loans from ballooning at brokerages that had been exposed to the share pledge risk. Among the sectors best performers this year, CSC Financial has jumped 38 per cent, Founder Securities 29 per cent and Southwest Securities 20 per cent. Investors including Jingxi Investment Management said the brokerages current share prices may have already factored in the optimistic expectations, and whether the run would carry on hinges on earnings. The rally is mostly driven by expectations and now you need concrete earnings to back up the logic, said Jingxis chief investment officer Wang Zheng. But any good showing of brokerage shares often indicates that the broader market wont be too bad going forward. This article China bulls may return if rally of brokerage stocks is any indication first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell has sent a letter to several German companies, warning them that they could face sanctions if they continue to work on the Russia-led Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. Germany is the end-point of the highly controversial Gazprom-led Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, which will follow the existing Nord Stream natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea. The U.S. opposes the project, as do EU institutions and some EU members such as Poland and Lithuania. Germany, however, supports Nord Stream 2 and sees the project as a private commercial venture that will help it to meet rising natural gas demand. Several European companiesENGIE, OMV, Shell, as well as Germanys Uniper and Wintershallare partners of Russias gas giant Gazprom in the Nord Stream 2 project. Germanys mass-circulation newspaper Bild am Sonntag first reported that Ambassador Grenell had sent letters to German companies warning them of potential sanctions, and used wording such as Grennel was trying to blackmail the German firms. Speaking to Reuters, the spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Berlin said that The only thing that could be considered blackmail in this situation would be the Kremlin having leverage over future gas supplies. The letter of the Ambassador, which had been coordinated by U.S. government agencies in Washington, is not meant to be a threat but a clear message of U.S. policy, the U.S. Embassy spokesman told Reuters. The letter reminds that any company operating in the Russian energy export pipeline sector is in danger under CAATSA of U.S. sanctions, the spokesman said. The news of the letter irritated many German diplomats and politicians, some of whom have always insisted that the U.S. shouldnt meddle in Germanys affairs. Before news of the U.S. Ambassadors letter broke, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said last week that sanctions against Nord Stream 2 would be the wrong way to solve the energy supply disputes and issues. According to Maas, European energy policy issues should be decided in Europe, not in the United States. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Saudi Arabia is discussing the possibility to have one interconnected natural gas grid in the region that would exchange gas and export the Kingdoms gas to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, and Oman, Saudi Arabias Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said on Tuesday. I am talking to my colleagues in Oman, Kuwait, UAE, about extending a gas grid in the region and we hope to exchange gas and we also have excess of gas which we will be exporting, Gulf News quoted al-Falih as saying at the World Future Energy summit in Abu Dhabi. As Saudi Arabia aims to develop more of its natural gas resources, it will seek to export more of its gas to its allies in the region. Weve already exported gas on a commercial basis to the UAE so more of this interconnection in energy is going to take place and, importantly, also in trading of knowhow in technology and development with renewables, al-Falih was quoted as saying. The UAE is currently importing gas from Qatar via the Dolphin gas pipeline, which continued operations even after the UAE and Saudi Arabia, alongside Egypt and Bahrain, severed ties with Qatar in June 2017, accusing Doha of sponsoring terrorism. The tiny country Qatar, which is the worlds largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter but a relatively small crude oil producer, said last month that it was leaving OPEC effective January 1, 2019, as part of a strategic plan to focus on its gas reserves and development. Saudi Arabia, for its part, has identified a lot of gas reserves and will be developing them, aiming to eliminate the burning of crude oil and liquids at utilitiescurrently a typical power plant fuel in the Kingdomby 2030, in order to free up more crude oil for exports, Gulf News quoted minister al-Falih as saying. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: A global recession is a possibility but it will hardly have a serious effect on the economy, Saudi Arabias top oil man, Khalid al-Falih, said at the Future Sustainability Summit taking place this week in Abu Dhabi. "A lot of resilience has been built into the global economy through regulatory systems. Companies and governments have built better fiscal positions," Al-Falih said as quoted by S&P Global Platts, adding "I'm not ruling out a cyclical recession, and there will be one sooner or later, but I don't see it as a big shock to the global economy and I don't see it spilling over into the global economy." Talk about the possibility of the worlds economy slipping into a recession this year has been intensifying over the last couple of months, with speculation about the United States and Germany in particular. This led Bank of America Merrill Lynch to issue an updated forecast for oil prices, noting that Brent could slide down to US$35 a barrel if the recession scenario materialized. Al-Falih, however, is not worried. He noted that oil demand will remain robust this year and that any negative impact of an economic slowdown or even recession would be short-lived. The official also said OPEC is ready to deepen its production cuts should the need arise, to make sure whatever happens to the global economy does not result in a stronger effect on oil prices. "On the supply side, we are vigilant to take appropriate response if there is an impact on demand," he said. "If you look at the OPEC+ group, our combined production is close to 52 million. Adjusting by 5% does not appear to be a challenge." Al-Falihs cool extends to renewables as well. The official told media he was not worried about renewables encroaching on oil territory, noting that efforts to tackle climate change needed to be focused on managing carbon emissions, not promoting one energy source over another." He added that renewables were only a threat to coal, which they would displace in power generation, but not to oil. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Norways exclusive right to explore for oil and gas in parts of its continental shelf are at stake in a fascinating Supreme Court case focused on a marine species: the snow crab, Reuters reports. The Supreme Court of Norway today began hearing arguments for and against the right of European fishing vessels to enter the waters around several Norwegian Arctic islands to fish for snow crab, which is considered a delicacy in Japan and South Korea. However, the decision of the court would have direct implications for Norwegian and European oil and gas exploration in the area. The question of the snow crab is a proxy for oil. Because what is valid for the snow crab is valid for the oil industry, a legal expert, Oeystein Jensen, told Reuters. The argument comes down to whether the snow crab is a sedentary species, which would mean it lives exclusively in Norwegian waters, securing an equally excusive right to only local fishermen to fish it, or a species that moves around, which would justify granting the same fishing right to fishermen from other European countries. The same, apparently, applies for oil and gas exploration as well, not because oil and gas are a moving marine species but probably because, like the snow crab, they are natural resources. The Supreme Court case is related to a lower court ruling that Norway was right in convicting a boat owner of illegal fishing of the coast of the Svalbard archipelago, Reuters recalls. The owner, Latvian Peteris Pildegovics appealed that ruling, arguing that he didnt need a Norwegian fishing license for the area, which Norway has controlled since 1920. Norway, for its part, has argued it has the sole power to issue fishing licenses for Svalbard. The court will hear arguments for three days before it renders a decision on who is right and who is wrong. Norway is not a member of the European Union, hence its argument that fishing licenses issued by the EU are invalid in Norwegian waters. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The United States has no intention of granting any further sanction waivers to Iran crude oil buyers, the U.S. special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, said this weekend, as quoted by Reuters, just as Irans top oil buyers Japan and South Korea restart their purchases of Iranian crude. Speaking on the sidelines of an oil industry conference in the UAE, Hook said We are not looking to grant any waivers or exemptions to the import of Iranian crude, adding Iran is now increasingly feeling the economic isolation that our sanctions are imposing ... We do want to deny the regime revenues. In November, when the U.S. sanctions against Iran returned, the State Department announced sanction waivers for eight major Iranian oil importers, among them China, India, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Taiwan, Italy, and Greece. However, Washington made it crystal clear these waivers were temporary and the eight countries were expected to reduce their intake of Iranian crude gradually to zero: the ultimate goal of the Trump administration with regard to Iran. Some of these importers, notably South Korea and Japan, reduced their Iranian oil imports to zero ahead of the sanctions entry into effect in a bid to maximize their chances of scoring a waiver. Now that these have been granted, these two countries, the closest U.S. allies in Asia, have still demonstrated reluctance to restart buying Iranian oil. Even so, both Japanese and South Korean officials and industry insiders have said there are plans to resume imports, albeit temporarily, this month or next. China and India also reduced their intake of Iranian oil in the past few months but have not made a secret of their preference to continue buying Iranian crude even after the expiry of the waivers. India, in particular, even announced a payment settlement mechanism for Iranian oil that may allow it to avoid breaching the U.S. sanctions. By Irina Slav More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Three U.S. crude oil cargoes are currently headed to China in what could be the first Chinese purchase of American crude since the trade war escalated last summer and since the trade-war truce of three months began in December, Reuters reported on Tuesday, quoting ship brokers and tanker-tracking data. Although crude oil is not on Chinas tariff list, Chinese buyers have been staying away from U.S. crude oil purchases since the summer of 2018, when the trade war escalated. According to EIA data, the United States didnt export any crude oil to China in August, September, and October, compared to 384,000 bpd in July and a record-high 510,000 bpd in June. After the United States and China called a trade-war truce in early December and pledged to immediately begin trade negotiations in view of possible deal within 90 days, Chinese refiners are said to have started to look for opportunities to buy U.S. crude oil until March 1, when the negotiating period expires. According to ship brokers who spoke to Reuters and to Refinitiv Eikon vessel tracking data, three cargoes left Galveston, Texas, in December and are currently heading to China. One tanker is expected to arrive in China late in January and two others are planned to arrive in late February or early March, although the final destinations could change. Related: Oil Rises After Choppy Start To The Week As of mid-December, cargo loading plans of Chinese refiners showed that appetite for U.S. crude in China continued to be weak, despite the trade-war truce. Rising freight costs for U.S. crude and the uncertainty over how the U.S.-China trade negations would unfold were the top considerations of the buyers, a Chinese analyst told Reuters last month. Unipec, the trading arm of Chinese state oil major Sinopec and Chinas largest buyer of U.S. crude oil until recently, is set to resume purchases from the United States very soon, and volumes are likely to be significant, a senior Unipec executive told S&P Global Platts in mid-December. China may have shunned U.S. crude oil since the summer, but the U.S. boosted shipments to other destinations. EIA data shows that American crude oil exports in Octoberthe latest available monthly dataset a record high of 2.326 million bpd. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Hospitality firm Oyo is aggressively putting in place a digital record system to facilitate direct data sharing of customers' arrivals and departures with various state governments as well as law enforcement authorities. The company claims to be a pioneer in such a digitisation drive in the country and the platform will not only help individual states monitor visitor movement but will also reduce the possibility of manipulating the hotel register, as in the case of manual entries, The Business Standard reported. "At this point, we have seen acceptance from the governments of Haryana, Rajasthan and Telangana of our proposed digitisation of guest entry and departure records," the daily quoted Ghosh as saying. OYO extended an offer for the above to the West Bengal government, too, on Monday. Moreover, the company has already put in place a digital register in Jaipur and pilot projects are running in the other two states that have come on board. According to Ghosh, the digital arrival and departure register aims to provide a real-time update to the respective governments on who's checking in and checking out, making this "a more efficient and transparent process" compared to the manual version. Meanwhile, Oyo is also gunning for a new accolade - becoming the world's largest hotel chain. "We will have one million rooms inventory into our fold in the near distant future. I think, it should happen in a year and a half," Aditya Ghosh, the CEO of India and South Asia, told PTI, adding that this will help OYO to become the "world's top player from number three now". The company's existing count stands at around 460,000 rooms and it hopes to scale up to 2.5 million by 2023, according to founder Ritesh Agarwal. That's not a pipe dream given that OYO is adding over 64,000 rooms every month globally. The chain has an active presence in seven countries, including Malaysia, UAE and the UK, and is planning to expand to at least 15 countries, with a focus on Asian nations. The buzz is that in the first quarter of this fiscal, OYO had added a total of 47,000 rooms in China against 34,000 in India, signalling a higher growth rate in the new market. A company official told PTI that the company currently boasts an inventory of about 180,000 rooms in China against over 164,000 rooms in its home market, however the revenue from across the border is comparatively lower. Over the next few weeks, OYO is expected to announce a fresh corporate growth plan focused on Asia and Japan, where it aims to become the largest player by the 2020 Summer Olympics. The company is reportedly in talks with property owners for agreements in Japan and with this move it hopes to tap the anticipated growth in the country's hospitality sector over the next two years. Edited by Sushmita Choudhury Also Read: Kumbh Mela 2019: All you need to know about Kumbh Mela 2019: All you need to know about auspicious dates, transport facilities, events in Prayagrajauspicious dates, transport facilities, events in Prayagraj "Albertans still need the federal government to step up and support the industry while we are trying to get through this ridiculousness of having not enough capacity to get our oil and gas to market," Albertas Premier, Rachel Notley, told media, in the latest sign of the growing exasperation in Canadas oil province regarding the only oil pipeline the federal government of Justin Trudeau has approved since it came into office. The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, however, ran into serious difficulties as environmentalists and the new British Columbian government, which came into power in 2017, firmly opposed it and continue to oppose it, turning to the courts to delay the projects final approval. Last year, the federal government bought the project from Kinder Morgan, which made it clear it was unwilling to wait around forever until all regulatory and legal hurdles were cleared in the absence of certainty this would ever happen. Canadas parliament was outraged by the US$4.5-billion move even though Trudeaus cabinet has shown its support for Trans Mountain on numerous occasions. This, however, has not been enough. The latest episode in the saga concerns a project review that the National Energy Board needs to complete and submit to the Federal Appeals Court of Canada by February 22. The review was prompted by an Appeals Court decision to cancel NEBs approval of the Trans Mountain expansion on the grounds of insufficient consultations with First Nations. In the meantime, Albertan companies are producing oil that is being stored because all pipelines are full and so are trains. As a temporary measure, Notley announced late last year Alberta will buy additional oil train capacity of 120,000 bpd, acknowledging this would not solve the pipeline capacity problem. However, Notley is not blaming it all on Trudeaus government. "The facts of the matter is that the previous government, which happened to be from a different political party, also didn't get it done," the Albertan Premier said. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Oil prices rose by roughly 2 percent early on Tuesday, recovering from Mondays loss which came after China reported weak trade data, signaling that its economic growth could be slowing down. At 10:39a.m. EDT on Tuesday, WTI Crude was up 2.34 percent at $51.69, while Brent Crude traded up 1.78 percent at $60.04. After a good start to the year earlier this month, oil prices dipped 2 percent on Monday, after weak Chinese economic data had investors, traders, and analysts worried again about an economic slowdown that could weigh on fuel and crude oil demand growth. On Tuesday, Chinas National Development and Reform Commission dispelled some fears about the economy, at least for the day, signaling that it could introduce more fiscal stimulus into the Chinese economy. According to Vanda Insights, Tuesdays rise in oil prices was supported by signs that OPEC and allies believe in rebalancing the oil market. Crude futures were stronger early Tuesday in Asia, amid comments from the Saudi energy minister at an industry conference in Abu Dhabi expressing confidence in oil demand growth and the ability of the OPEC/non-OPEC cuts to rebalance the market, Vanda Insights says. Another driver for higher oil prices early on Tuesday came from comments from the U.S. Administration over the weekend that the U.S. has no intention of granting any further sanction waivers to Irans crude oil buyers. Major stock markets across Asia opened higher on Tuesday, which also contributed to the positive sentiment on crude oil, according to Vanda Insights. Analysts, however, warn that the oil price recovery could be short-lived and could falter amid renewed worries about the pace of global economic and oil demand growth. Any price rally is unlikely to be sustainable in the first half of the year simply because the demand for OPECs oil is expected to be lower than the projected output from the organization, PVM Oil Associates strategist Tamas Varga told Reuters. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Its been well noted on my OilPrice.com posts over the past year that President Donald Trump isnt happy with where and even how much of Europe procures its natural gas. Its still been less than a year when Trump shocked media both at home and abroad with his tongue lashing of EU members and more poignantly Germany over its continued reliance on geopolitically charged Russian natural gas. As a refresher, in early July Trump lashed out at long-time, strategic ally Germany for supporting the Russian-backed Nordstream 2 gas pipeline, stating that Berlin had become a captive to Russia, while he criticized German leaders for failing to raise defense spending more. In fact, Trump unashamedly jabbed Germany in front of an international audience and a host of media just before a NATO summit in Brussels, adding that it was very inappropriate that the U.S. was paying for European defense against Russia while Germany, the biggest European economy, was supporting gas deals with Moscow. As usual, Trumps lack of tact wasn't lost on media outlets that were aghast at his tongue lashing of a U.S. ally, but perhaps his message finally resonated in Germany nonetheless. In the ensuing months, Germany back-peddled, not on its commitment to the Nordstream 2 pipeline per se, but indicated it was interested in diversifying its energy mix, including building more LNG import terminals and signing deals for U.S.-sourced liquefied natural gas (LNG). Trumps opponents and critics, especially in Europe, claimed that Trumps security concerns were merely a ploy to promulgate U.S. gas interests. However, at the end of the day, Trump has a valid concern and one that was also shared by his predecessors, both Barack Obama and George W. Bush. To date, the U.S. still maintains that it could still sanction German companies over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline still under construction which will double Russias export capacity to Germany via the Baltic Sea. Partners in gas and beyond Now it appears, that the U.S. wants Qatar to also challenge Russian gas dominance in Europe, a U.S. administration official said on Monday. According to Reuters, Deputy U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette told the news agency that the U.S. is talking with Doha about supplying Europe with LNG as it wants Germany and other countries to import Qatari and U.S. gas rather than from Russia, which now accounts for 60 percent of German gas imports. Related: Another Crucial Canadian Pipeline Runs Into Trouble Brouillette said he had discussed the issue with Qatars Minister of State for Energy Affairs Saad al-Kaabi, who is also chief executive of Qatar Petroleum, the Reuters report added. We are talking to Minister Kaabi here about other markets, specifically Europe, to the extent that we can talk to the Qataris about supplying European markets with natural gas, he said in the interview. They are very much interested in that and so are we its very connected to deliberations with others we have around Nord Stream 2. The disclosure also comes as former OPEC member Qatar, still largely ostracized by most of its Arab neighbors over allegations of terrorism funding, is also keen on investing up to $20 bn in the U.S. LNG sector, further connecting U.S. and Qatari energy interests. Closer ties between Qatar, which last month temporarily dropped to the second largest global LNG exporter behind Australia (but which will solidify that top spot as it ramps up more production within the next five years as it increases its liquefaction capacity from 77 mtpa to over 100 mtpa) and the U.S. which will be the third largest LNG exporter soon and even possibly vying with Qatar for the top spot by the mid part of the next decade, could form a partnership or understanding that could alter global gas markets. This could include presenting a united energy-geopolitical front and perhaps a cost-effective alternative to Russias decades-long gas monopoly in Europe. Yet, at this juncture, it's premature to see just if or how such cooperation could unfold, not to mention possible anti-trust allegations that would surely follow. Suffice it to say, just the thought of closer U.S.-Qatari energy ties should be enough to send shivers down Russian President Vladimir Putins spine in addition to leaving Moscow energy planners scrambling for a reply. By Tim Daiss for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: While Russias gas giant Gazprom is working to complete the Power of Siberia gas pipeline expected to begin delivering gas to China in December 2019, another Russian companythe countrys biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer Novatekis looking to boost LNG supply to the growing Asian market. While it continues to keep more than a third of the European gas market with pipeline gas supply, Russia is also increasingly looking east and aiming to take a larger portion of the booming Asian LNG demand, led by China. Novatek has one producing LNG plant, Yamal, and aims to reach a final investment decision (FID) on another one, Arctic LNG 2, this year. The Russian firm has recently signed a preliminary agreement with Japans Saibu Gas, under which the companies will consider potential cooperation in entering the end-consumer LNG market in Asia. Novatek will optimize its LNG supplies to the Asia-Pacific region by using Saibu Gass Hibiki LNG terminal in Japan. The Asia-Pacific region is a priority destination for NOVATEKs LNG projects. Our ability to use the Hibiki terminal will help diversify our customer base and increase the flexibility of deliveries to the premium LNG markets, Novateks First Deputy Chairman of the Management Board Lev Feodosyev said last month. Novatek also plans to build, with the support of Russias government, a marine LNG transshipment complex in the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russias Far East, close to the Asian markets. The construction of the Kamchatka transshipment complex will increase the efficiency of LNG deliveries from the Arctic zone by optimizing transport logistics, Novateks Chairman of the Management Board, Leonid Mikhelson, said last September. We plan to create a Russian LNG hub for shipments to consumers in the Asia-Pacific region. This investment will contribute to the development of the Northern Sea Route allowing for the optimal use of the existing Arctic tanker fleet, Mikhelson noted. Japans Saibu Gas, for its part, said this week that it would consider building two additional LNG tanks and upgrade its re-exporting capability. Thanks to LNG storage hubs closer to Asian markets, Novatek could cut shipping costs and better meet spot demand in Asia, China in particular, according to analysts who spoke to Bloomberg. Given its LNG sources are very far from Asia, storage and re-loading will enable it to capture shorter-term arbitrage opportunities, Wood Mackenzie analyst Nicholas Browne told Bloomberg. Related: Another Crucial Canadian Pipeline Runs Into Trouble Russias LNG supply focus on Asian markets is not surprising at all, considering that natural gas demand in Asia, and China specifically, will continue to grow. Chinas natural gas imports by pipeline and as LNG hit another record in December 2018 amid the Chinese governments push to have millions of households switch from coal to natural gas for heating. Total natural gas imports for full-year 2018 soared by nearly 32 percent annually to 90.39 million tons, solidifying Chinas position as the worlds biggest importer of the fuel. Novatek has yet to make the FID on the US$27-billion Arctic LNG 2 project, but analysts widely expect that it will reach FID this year. Frances Total, a partner in the operating Yamal LNG project with 20 percent, expanded last year its partnership with Novatek, and the French group now has the opportunity to buy a 10-15-percent direct interest in Arctic LNG 2. Reports have it that various other potential partners, including Saudi Aramco, are vying for a stake in Arctic LNG 2. According to Wood Mackenzie, Novatek will aim to reach FID on Arctic LNG 2 this year, and at least one new investor will join the project in 2019. The LNG project in Russia is one of the frontrunners to reach FID this year, alongside one LNG project in Mozambique, Golden Pass, Calcasieu Pass, and Sabine Pass Train 6 in the United States in what could be a record year for LNG project approvals, WoodMac says. While keeping a grip on the European gas market, Russia looks to boost LNG deliveries to the growing Asian market with storage hubs close to end-users to reduce freight costs and increase flexibility in deliveries. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Oil prices fell on Monday but regained ground on Tuesday. (Click to enlarge) (Click to enlarge) Chart of the Week (Click to enlarge) - Iraqs oil production topped 4.6 million barrels per day (mb/d) in late 2018, roughly double production levels from a decade earlier. - Iraq is the second largest oil producer in OPEC, and holds the worlds fifth-largest oil reserves, according to the EIA. - About 90 percent of Iraqs oil production comes from the massive oil fields in the south near Basra and the Persian Gulf. The remaining 10 percent comes from the oil fields in the north, some of which are in disputed territory, but most of which are run by the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan. Market Movers A Colorado Supreme Court ruling overturned a lower state court ruling that ordered state regulators to prioritize public health and environmental impacts when licensing oil and gas drilling. The state Supreme Court ruling is a win for the industry. A large crude distillation unit at ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM)s Baytown refinery has shut down for maintenance. The unit will see 280,000 bpd of refining capacity go offline for at least two months. Chevron (NYSE: CVX) was downgraded by HSBC to Hold from Buy with a $122 price target, down from $136. Tuesday January 15th, 2019 Oil prices fell on Monday but regained ground on Tuesday. Saudi Arabia: Russias cuts are slow. Saudi oil minister Khalid al-Falih told CNBC on Sunday that Russias oil production cuts are slower than Id like, although he added that the OPEC+ coalition would succeed in balancing the oil market this year. Russia has started, slower than I'd like, but they've started, and I am sure as they did as in 2017 they'll catch up and be a positive contributor to re-balancing the market, al-Falih said. Al-Falih added that the OPEC+ cuts are on track to balance the market this year. Oman says cuts can sustain $60. Omans oil minister Mohammed Al Rumhi told Bloomberg that the OPEC+ deal would likely eliminate the oil market supply surplus this year. I think 1.2 million [barrels per day] would go a long way to eliminating the inventory glut. The real test will come in the second quarter when seasonal demand picks up, he said. He added that the OPEC+ cuts could likely sustain $60 per barrel. Chinas slowdown sinks oil. Oil prices sank on Monday after gloomy trade data from China added further evidence of an economic slowdown. Both imports and exports in China fell in December. This data drives home just how negative of an impact trade war is having on the Chinese and perhaps global economy, Stephen Innes of futures brokerage Oanda said in a report. Related: Fears Of U.S. Shale Demise May Be Overblown Haynesville shale to break new records. Natural gas production in the Haynesville shale in Louisiana could soon break new production records. The Haynesville added 1.3 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) of output in 201, and could rise by an additional 0.7 bcf/d this year, according to Rystad Energy. The increases come after years of stagnation. We conclude that Haynesville Shales revival, for the second year in a row, looks sustainable. Supported by its proximity to a new LNG export terminal, gas production will continue to grow, and achieving new all-time high gas production levels should happen within a matter of months, Rystad Energy partner Artem Abramov said. Saudi Arabia plans $10 billion refinery in Pakistan. Saudi Arabia is planning to build a $10 billion oil refinery in Pakistan at the deepwater port of Gwadar. Saudi Arabia nearing U.S. LNG deal. Saudi Aramco is considering an investment in at least one of four different U.S. LNG projects and would announce a decision in the first half of this year, according to the Wall Street Journal. Aramco is considering equity stakes in the projects, all of which are located on the U.S. Gulf Coast. U.S. may not extend Iran waivers. Brian Hook, the U.S. State Departments special representative for Iran, indicated in a Bloomberg interview that the American government would be much less accommodative with sanctions waivers when they expire in May. Hook said the U.S. had already successfully cut Irans oil exports from 2.7 mb/d to just 1 mb/d. We are going to continue our path to get to zero [oil exports from Iran]. However, he hedged on when they might happen, stating that the effort to zero out Irans oil exports needs to be balanced against national security and economic interests. South Korea imports Iranian oil. South Korea began importing Iranian oil in January after previously cutting purchases to zero. The resumption in imports comes after Korea obtained a sanctions waiver from the Trump administration. U.S. issues sanctions warning on Nord Stream 2. The U.S. ambassador to Germany warned German companies that they could face sanctions if they moved forward with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Germany diplomats are reportedly displeased, suggesting the U.S. ambassador has been flouting diplomatic protocol. Related: There Is Still Room To Run For Oil Prices Corruption probes target oil trading firms. A series of separate corruption investigations have targeted a few of the worlds largest oil trading houses. Trafigura is under the microscope for alleged bribery cases in Brazil as part of the countrys sweeping Lava Jato investigation into Petrobras, Reuters reports. So too is Glencore (LON: GLEN), Vitol SA and Mercuria Energy Group. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that Glencore, in a separate case, has provided loans to an Israeli businessman with known corrupt ties to the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo related to a copper project in the DRC. Saudi and Canadian cuts drain heavy oil supply. The production cuts from Saudi Arabia and Canada have reduced the volume of medium and heavier oil around the world, at a time when light oil supply from U.S. shale is surging. Venezuelas heavy oil supply has also been plunging for more than a year. The broad trend we are seeing is that it is a short market for heavy crude, Kurt Barrow, vice president of the oil markets, midstream and downstream energy at IHS Markit, told Bloomberg. U.S. considers oil sanctions on Venezuela. The U.S. government has slapped several rounds of sanctions on Venezuela but has repeatedly stopped short of targeting the countrys oil sector, which would amount to a much harsher blow. However, the Trump administration is now considering doing just that. Until now, we have been going around the edges, a senior White House official told The Wall Street Journal, following President Nicolas Maduros second inauguration. Now its a new dynamic. We are no longer going to be tinkering along the edges. Nowadays, everything will be put on the table. By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Oil majors will spend US$208 billion on offshore drilling and other oilfield services this year, but not all sector players are positioned to benefit from the higher spending, Bloomberg reported last week, citing Rystad Energys head of oilfield service research, Audun Martinsen. Bigger oilfield service providers, unsurprisingly, would have a better chance at making the most of the recovery in offshore drilling, especially those with expertise in deepwater projects, according to Martinsen, among them UK-based TechnipFMC and Subsea 7. All in all, Martinsen told Bloomberg that Big Oil will probably approve about 110 offshore projects this year, up from 96 last year and 43 in 2016. Thats also slightly more specific than what Rystad forecast for offshore oil in a December report. What the forecast suggests is that optimism remains robust despite the oil price drop in the last quarter of 2018. Thanks to this optimism and relatively high prices, there is good news for the oilfield services sector, too. The offshore service market is like a super tanker: It takes time to accelerate. The uptick in new projects in 2017, 2018 and now 2019 will be enough to turn revenue growth positive to mid-single digits as offshore capex is set to increase due to the recent years of capital commitments. And on top of that comes expected increase in operating expenses, Martinsen said in the December report. The industry itself is cautious about the immediate future. With oil prices trading below $60/bbl, there continues to be some uncertainty on 2019 E&P spending, particularly offshore, according to the chief executive of a Norwegian oilfield surveyor firm TGS Nopec Geophysical, as quoted by Bloomberg. Related: Chinas Slowing Economic Growth Could Wreak Havoc On Oil Markets Whats more, there is still surplus offshore drilling and exploration capacity. One Wood Mackenzie analyst told Bloomberg that despite a moderate increase in demand for drilling vessels this year, some 30 percent of deepwater rigs may remain idled this year. Thats 5 percentage points down from the number of rigs idled in 2018, but still quite a lot of capacity. Judging by these expectations and projections, the recovery of the oilfield services sector will continue at a rate much slower than the exploration and production industry. Companies with greater exposure to the Middle East would benefit from the rise in offshore investment there, with Rystad expecting 30 percent of all new projects to be approved this year to be in this region, with another 25 percent in South America and 15 percent in Africa and Asia combined. The remainder of new offshore projects will be in Europe and North America combined, Rystad said. Related: Chevron And Occidental Join Bill Gates-Backed Tech Company That should be good news for oilfield service providers focused on the United States, but a Reuters report from December has suggested they are facing challenges as well. U.S. oil producers, the report said, are still trying to do more with less, which has affected negatively oilfield service providers bottom lines despite the stable increase in production. Fewer frack crews and fewer rigs are in the plans of several companies for this year--whats more, they are unwilling to pay more for the crews, rigs, and other equipment they plan to use this year. And, not to put too fine a point on it, offshore drilling in the U.S. is even slower to recover than elsewhere. These trends suggest growing consolidation in a sector already pummeled by the 2014 oil price crisis. Apparently, the recovery we saw a couple of years back when oil prices started climbing and producers--chiefly in the United States--started boosting production again, was temporary, or at least uneven. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Just a few months ago Canadian heavy crude oil producers were sending their product to storage amid a painfully deep price discount to West Texas Intermediate that ate into their margins. Chinese refiners took advantage of the cheap Canadian crude and stocked up as well while it was cheap. Now, some are worrying about a shortage of heavy crude that would interfere with the operations of Gulf Coast refineries that process more than 50 percent of the worlds heavy crude oil. Bloomberg reports some heavy crude grades such as Heavy Louisiana Sweet are already trading at a premium to lighter and typically more expensive grades because of this concern, which seems like it has further to grow. Others are shrinking their discount to Brent and WTI. In December, Albertas Premier Rachel Notley ordered a crude oil production cut in the province of 325,000 bpd to clear up stockpiles and prop up the price of the local benchmark. This worked even before the cuts entered into effect, which was at the beginning of this month, but it also coincided with OPECs latest production cut agreement. More notably, it coincided with Saudi Arabias early production cut start. Historically, when the Saudis have cut output, its heavy and medium crude, a senior analyst from consultancy Turner Mason & Co. told Bloombergs Robert Tuttle and Sheela Toben. This means lower heavy crude production in Canada has combined with the consistent decline in Venezuelan oil output, unlikely to be reversed in the observable future, and now with expected lower heavy and medium crude production from Saudi Arabia. No wonder prices are spiking. Related: Fears Of U.S. Shale Demise May Be Overblown Heavy crude, according to Bloomberg, accounts for a tenth of the feedstock of refineries around the world. Asian refiners will suffer from the shortage just as much as their U.S. counterparts if it materializes, if not more. But it will also present an opportunity for alternative suppliers of heavy crude, such as Mexican producers if the premium of the usual supplies goes high enough to make these alternative sources of crude competitive. Russia is also a large producer of heavy crude and well positioned to up its deliveries to Asian markets. While analysts expect the rally to be temporary as the refining industry gears up for the new, low-sulfur bunkering rules of the International Maritime Organization, it has certainly highlighted Canadas pipeline conundrum. There is robust demand for Canadian heavy crude from U.S. refiners, but not enough capacity to transport it across North America to the Gulf Coast cheaply. The good news for Canadian producers is that cheap or not, if the refineries need it, the refiners will buy it. The news is good for Saudi Arabia as well, as whatever heavy crude it produces will fetch more per barrel than before. Venezuela, however, is in no position to enjoy higher revenues as most of the oil it exports heads for China and Russia under cash-for-oil agreements signed in the past. Mexico would also reap some benefits despite plans by the new government to refine more crude locally than export it: these are long-term plans that need refining capacity. In short, stakeholders set to benefit from the price rise in heavy crude will likely try to make the best of it while it lasts. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: International exchange operator CME Group has teamed up with Enterprise Products Partners to launch an electronic trading platform specifically focused on spot contracts for American crude oil for export, Reuters reports. Scheduled to go live in March, the platform will offer trading in light sweet crude from Midland, Texas, home of the Permian shale play that significantly helped U.S. producers boost their output to all-time highs, turning the country into the largest oil producer in the world. The cargoes to be auctioned by Enterprise Products Partners will be loaded at the Enterprise Houston Ship Channel, CME Group said, adding The electronic auction will provide a competitive and transparent venue for firms across the world to efficiently hedge U.S. crude oil. The contracts will be priced on the basis of West Texas Intermediate futures. The crude to be sold will come from the Permian to the Gulf Coast via the Midland-to-ECHO pipeline system, which can carry 575,000 bpd of crude to the ECHO terminal in Houston, which can store up to 7.4 million barrels of oil. Last year U.S. crude oil exports hit a record 2.2 million bpd. The figure was hailed as the beginning of a new era that could eventually see the worlds top consumerand top producer for 2018 export up to almost 4 million bpd. Since then, daily export rates have fallen, especially after August when Chinese refiners began winding down their purchases of U.S. crude amid the trade war between Washington and Beijing. This year, however, could see a rebound in U.S. shipments of crude to Asia. Freight costs are down palpably, and this has made U.S. crude more competitive without other sources. Stable demand for heavy crude among Asian refiners and a possible shrinking in the availability of heavy grades from Canada and Saudi Arabia could also boost demand for U.S. oil. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: I was gonna say that if you're a fan with a celeb kissing them on the cheek when you asked for a picture/vid is a step too far but she didn't even do that, she kissed near his cheek. Boundaries respected! His fans are... a lot. Reply Thread Link i have seen con goers do so much worse than this. this is nothing Reply Parent Thread Link I can't believe this homophobic piece of shit has fans. Reply Parent Thread Link isn't that jared? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link where do you get that bullshit from? Reply Parent Thread Link Holy crap. Reply Thread Link A whole mess. Did he not agree to hold her glasses? Did she okay the kiss beforehand? Are they insecure about a marriage that does not concern them? I am confusion. Reply Thread Link Personally a kiss on the forehead seems more inappropriate than one on the cheek to me. But maybe that's just because cheek kisses are a form of platonic greeting in a lot of cultures. Reply Thread Link a forehead kiss seems... very intimate to me. Reply Parent Thread Link yup much more than a kiss on a cheek Reply Parent Thread Link I'm surprised at some of these comments here....I don't think it was appropriate the way she kissed him at all but especially the nonsense about she and others saying he looked happier with her than with his own wife. Reply Parent Thread Link she barely even kissed his cheek? she pressed her cheek against his and pursed her lips but didn't actually kiss his cheek? Reply Thread Link This woman needs help: Reply Thread Link I mean, I know the Supernatural stanbase is unhinged but...jfc. Reply Parent Thread Link This is a totally normal, rational response, what are you talking about?!!! #BloodRage Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I was thinking the same thing. Reply Parent Thread Link wow. to this day i regret and yet appreciate the insane fandom i was once involved in people are insane Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Take a chill pill Ashley Reply Parent Thread Link Fandoms were a mistake. Reply Parent Thread Link And then Jensen would leave Danneel for her! The end <3 Reply Parent Thread Link came here to say this. im cackling tbh. Reply Parent Thread Link the blue and green hearts makes me think she's a Larry so I am not surprised by this display Reply Parent Thread Link I can't wait to see what her mug shots must look like. Reply Parent Thread Link The only scenario I see myself behaving like this is if someone came for my mom. I don't understand what he did to warrant this level of loyalty. The show isn't even that good. Reply Parent Thread Link I actualy want to tweet something to her but I'm too terrfied she'll find me and kill me. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link People using the actor's middle names makes me cringe every time. Reply Parent Thread Link I mean, we all know Supernatural fans are batshit insane. So this isn't brand new information. Let them fight each other. Maybe then the show can go back to its horror roots instead of masturbatory sibling fanfic mess cum God/Angel complex. Reply Parent Thread Link lmao theyre just jealous girl got some cute pix like relax Reply Parent Thread Link Starting to remember why I noped out of this fandom...but also, where else am I gonna get comedy gold like "putting on someone else's glasses can really hurt their eyes!!!"? Starting to remember why I noped out of this fandom...but also, where else am I gonna get comedy gold like "putting on someone else's glasses can really hurt their eyes!!!"? Reply Thread Link SPN fans are the gift that keeps on giving tbh. "I hope the boys didn't get a migraine. That's really dangerous." lmao I'm sure they'll live. Reply Parent Thread Link I lost it at that line their poor eyes~~~ Reply Parent Thread Link that part sent me over the edge Reply Parent Thread Link The fandom can easily ruin the show too. They're just too much. Reply Parent Thread Link This is why I stepped way back and just stuck to fic. Reply Parent Thread Link I'm a fan of the show... but I am NOT a part of this shitastic fandom. I've got into it with crazy ass fans before and I'm so happy I am not a part of it. Reply Parent Thread Link I'm surprised they're still doing cons every year. I was actually thinking of going to one this year, but nah, I'll just keep admiring them from afar. Plus I'm sure they stay shitfaced throughout the entire thing just to cope with all the crazies they meet. Reply Parent Thread Link Saaaaamme Reply Parent Thread Link AHAHAHAHA! Is that for real? Reply Parent Thread Link He is making the same expression before, during, and after the smooch. He was unfazed and not at all visibly taken aback or uncomfortable. These people have WAY too much time on their hands/are way too invested. Reply Thread Link This, his expression didn't falter or change in ANY way. LOL at "OMG he looks SOOOOO uncomfortable and distraught omg he's gonna have PTSD now, you bitch!!" Reply Parent Thread Link Stans will deconstruct these things frame by frame to suit the narrative they preconcocted. Its batshit. A friend of mine was on the receiving end over an interaction with a different actor and there was zero similarity between what they decided happened and what did. They would not hear a word otherwise by any of the people actually present. It was bizarre how invested they were Reply Parent Thread Link Supernatural fans, man. Why do fans feel like they need to defend a stranger's marriage? Like, you don't know these people intimately. Reply Thread Link Bunch of fucking losers lmaoo Reply Thread Link we're still dealing with supernatural stans? smh don't they have mortgages to pay or something Reply Thread Link Millennials can't get hired sis, they need something to do. Reply Parent Thread Link LOL Reply Parent Thread Link yo the fandom is full of people on disability pay, or teens in college, or housewives they aint got mortgages for sure. Reply Parent Thread Link lmao Reply Parent Thread Link Lmao they wish Reply Parent Thread Link Haha none of these people have mortgages. They're all the weird girl in the back of the rented share house who never leaves her room and every time the door opens there's weird indescribable waft of BO and scented candles. Reply Parent Thread Link lol now bitch you know damn well they're still struggling to pay rent, a mortgage is nowhere in their future, even if Raven didn't have psychic powers she could see that shit Reply Parent Thread Link no they have con tickets to pay, more than once a year, and it's super pricey! Reply Parent Thread Link omggg that girl is shady for agreeing that he looks happier with her than his own wife. she probably didn't read the full comment but still. Reply Thread Link See, I don't think she was agreeing with that actually. I think the 'literally' was agreeing with the harassment from his wife's fans and wasn't even about the rest and that is why she deleted the post. That is really the only way the 'literally' makes sense. Reply Parent Thread Link that's how i read it too. Reply Parent Thread Link She barely touched his cheek lol Reply Thread Link ...ok? Im supposed to feel sorry for you? Reply Thread Link no its a joke Reply Parent Thread Link THAT'S a joke??? It's pathetic. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Thank god you informed me Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Like he wasnt loving that shit at the time. I wish I could go back to not knowing who this waste of space was. Edited at 2019-01-15 12:41 am (UTC) Reply Thread Link I laughed Reply Thread Link lol, same Reply Parent Thread Link Me too Reply Parent Thread Link it's pretty funny tbh lol people need to ease up Reply Parent Thread Link yeah, he's a comedian. is jokes. Reply Parent Thread Link Me too. Reply Parent Thread Link I actually cackled lmao Reply Parent Thread Link Same lol Reply Parent Thread Link me too. broken clock etc. Reply Parent Thread Link same lol i thought it was cute Reply Parent Thread Link same tbh it's a good jab Reply Parent Thread Link me too. she's the one talking about his D in the first place. Reply Parent Thread Link yeah. he's actually taken this breakup in stride Reply Parent Thread Link Lmao Reply Parent Thread Link Roflmao Reply Parent Thread Link I would still like to see it idc Reply Thread Link You'll have to settle for seeing Bezos' expanding heart Reply Parent Thread Link Me too all this talk why not? IDC But I will say I'm high right now and I for some reason invisioned his "one willy"having one of his protruding "butthole eyes"as the kids refer to them as Reply Parent Thread Link Just see not touch Reply Parent Thread Link Im right there with you. I bet its still nice and girthy. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Let us be the judge of that PETE Reply Parent Thread Link Whip it the fuck outt. Reply Parent Thread Link This entire thread: Reply Parent Thread Link I would be very dissapointed that I was so low down and had put myself in a sitiation where I was seeing your dick. Absolutely. Reply Thread Link i mean, i kinda see what he's saying but if you've seen enough dicks irl you p. much learn that most tall guys (not all) are big or semi big sooooooooo it's not like what she revealed was this huge mysterious surprise. Reply Thread Link maybe ari just meant that his dick looks like billy fuccillo Reply Thread Link its gonna be huuuuge Reply Parent Thread Link Lmaoooo Reply Parent Thread Link plz don't remind me of his annoying ass commercials. Reply Parent Thread Link he probably just wanted to bring it up again. getting his diq back out on the circuit Reply Thread Link i have such a horror story from being torn open from a big dick. so much blood. and two other times I was sent to urgent care but nothing as bad as the one. i just cant handle big dicks. hard fucking pass. i do not get the appeal at all Reply Thread Link I always say I know what I'm built for and big dicks aren't it. Average suits me just fine. Reply Parent Thread Link Yeah, I physically cannot handle the big ones. I finally even started asking my gyno and partners about it and the conclusion is just Im not built for big dicks. I guess someone had to be made to cherish the average to smaller sized ones LMAO Reply Parent Thread Link I only like big ones Reply Parent Thread Link oh my god, glad you recovered. tbh idg the hype for ridiculously huge dicks. they require so much more work/prep/they can hurt like hell. like...i can't even imagine dealing with it as someone w/ a vagina if my cervix was remotely low that time of the month. it ain't worth it. Reply Parent Thread Link one of my good girlfriends is always like "the bigger the better" and i'm like .... god no, my bf is part of the average spectrum and honestly that's more than enough for my tiny ass tbh. i am terrified of big dicks so hard pass. your stories just make it even worse for me omw Reply Parent Thread Link i've never been with a big dick and my friends make fun of me and act like i'm missing out and its so annoying Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I really dont get the love for long dicks. Like ok, the dick is 10 inches but if it isnt thick then its just a long pencil. Thickness matters more. And tbh big dicks arent as fun. Its easier to choke on them during oral, which ruins the fun. Tbh i like uncircumcised ones above all. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link yeah my bf asked me if i care that his dick isn't that big and im like no lol it's a perfect fit for me , anything bigger fucking hurts and i won't enjoy sex Reply Parent Thread Link Gosh! Godspeed recovery to you good sis. No wonder how often Ive had guys telling me they are afraid to "break me in" and didnt want to hurt me because they have a huge dick. One guy kept going on about his big beer can dick and not wanting to hurt me, asking me to promise if I dont get off the dick and run away. Hell, I had this fine ass dude I think is in military or used to be, he was just afraid to break me. Not bc he has a nice big dick but he appears well versed in fucking like theres no tomorrow and can tell how I can take it like tha (it was true, that's my sexual nature). ...I miss a good dick. Damnit Reply Parent Thread Link Yep, seriously. Small-ish/average dicks are just fine (no micropenises, sorry). Reply Parent Thread Link omg one time i hooked up w this tinder dude who was like 5'6" maybe like 150 lbs and i DID NOT expect the fucking schlong that was attached to him. like the sex was pretty good but at one point it was like i was being impaled, like it was going to pop out of the other end of my vag (like inside) and for like 3 days it felt like i had legit given birth. we never banged again Reply Parent Thread Link omfg i just became more lesbian Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Theyre overrated anyways. Seriously what happened to you is what I imagined would happen to me when I used to fuck guys with big dicks. Now Im A okay with my husbands average dick. Even then sometimes its too much. Big dick lovers can carry on and pray for the uterus while theyre at it too Reply Parent Thread Link oh my God what a fucking nightmare Reply Parent Thread Link Oh my god! That sounds so painful. Reply Parent Thread Link obvsly everyone is different but ime, it's not the big dick that's the problem, it's the lazy assholes attached to them. They rest on big dick laurels (thinking that's all that is necessary for a woman to enjoy herself) or just flat out HURT PEOPLE because they don't gaf about their monster peen hurting the person on the other end. Like damn, between this and other stories i've heard, yikes. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I feel you sis Reply Parent Thread Link Big dicks are fun to look at and play with... apart from that, no thanks. I cant speak about how it works with women, but Ive never understood how my fellow gays can just sit on a massive dick like its no big deal. How???? It doesnt feel good. Its hard to get in. It hurts. Average is perfectly fine. Seven inches max for me. And if its a good looking dick, I dont care about size. Reply Parent Thread Link I tried having sex with a huge dick once and it did not go in. Literally couldnt have sex with the guy. My bf is average size-wise but his dick is perfect. Reply Parent Thread Link My bf is on the smaller end of average but he has major BDE and he knows how to use it so like it's a million times better than sex with the crappy bigger guys of the past. I dated one guy that every time he just bruised my cervix and I still cringe thinking about it 9 years later Reply Parent Thread Link I have a smaller-than-average vagina and I lost my virginity to a much-larger-than-average penis and I was still bleeding a week later so you know what y'all? I'm good thanks. Reply Parent Thread Link he literally fed into the dick jokes, instigated a LOT of them on instagram and made them himself, but wild out petrus Reply Thread Link Im pretty sure he referred to her vagina as lit, so Id say theyre even. Reply Thread Link Him and John Mulaney suddenly hanging out a bunch is super weird to me Reply Thread Link They have? Is Pete sober rn? Hopefully theyre together sober. I feel like the least suspecting people youd think would relapse (John I mean, since he has a history w drugs and alcohol) sometimes get hit the hardest w it Reply Parent Thread Link i don't think so...john mulaney posted pics of pete's green room and there was like an ounce of weed in there Reply Parent Thread Link I follow John on Instagram and it seems like immediately after the breakup they were hanging out a lot. I also just assumed John still smokes weed, but I might be wrong. I thought he just didnt drink anymore. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link pete is a proud stoner and is high 24/7 so i doubt it Reply Parent Thread Link Oh yeah you are right. I just remember his segment. Bc John said smth that makes him the least suspect like he just doesn't look like it. He basically sat there at the table eating pancakes or waffles and he up leaving for the day like that. Nothing would suspect a thing. I like him and hope all is well for him. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I am convinced Mulaney was coked up as shit when he was on Seth Rogen's Hilarity for Charity Netflix thing. He kept licking his gums, rubbing his nose and seemed way more aggressive in his delivery than usual. I have noticed the licking his gums thing a lot across his talk show appearances, so to be fair, maybe that's just a natural tic he has, but the rest of it really made me pause. Reply Parent Thread Link I knew Mulaney was too good to be true and that 2018 would ruin him for me. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Why did I think this thread was about John Mayer the entire time. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Kumbh Mela 2019 is underway and will continue till March 4. Spread across 32 sq km, the Kumbh Mela venue at Prayagraj is expected to host around 150 million people from across the world. The arrangements made by the government for the event is certainly suitable for such a mammoth gathering. From 247 km of streets inside the venue and parking capacity of 5.63 lakh to 1,22,500 toilets and 58 police outposts, the Mela ground is currently a world in itself. Moreover, 2,132 medical personnel and around 20,000 police officials, including home guards, PAC companies and central para-military forces have been deployed at the Kumbh Mela venue. However, ground reality translates to something starkly different from estimates when it comes to an event of this magnitude. For instance, while there are accommodation options offered by the government for Kumbh Mela, there's only limited capacity, which means that private hotels have spiked their rates by leaps and bounds. If you are booking last minute and are not sure where to start, here are a few accommodation options at Kumbh Mela 2019: 1. Tent City The accommodation options at the Tent City include basic to luxury tents. The fares for tent accommodations at Kumbh Mela differ according to the amenities provided. You can pick a tent of your choice offered by various parties like Kalpa Vriksh, Kumbh Canvas, Vedic Tent City and Indraprastham City. A dorm at Kalpa Vriksh would cost you Rs 650 per bed per night at Kumbh Mela, while dorms range from Rs 980 on regular days to Rs 2,847 on regular days at Kumbh Canvas. Cottages at Kumbh Mela will cost you in the range of Rs 3,000 at the Tent City. If you were to opt for a cottage at Kalpa Vriksh then it would cost you around Rs 3,175 per night. When it comes to luxury stay at the Tent City, customers will need to pay a steep fee. For instance, Indraprastham City will charge you between Rs 11,999 to Rs 31,999 per night. These tents offer facilities such as king-size bed and living area. At Vedic Tent City in Prayagraj, you can opt for a luxury tent that will cost you in the range of Rs 2,500 per person per night to up to Rs 23,999 per tent per night. Their cheaper options include Rs 7,450 per tent per night and Rs 10,999 per tent per night. 2. Hotel There are hundreds of options when it comes to hotel accommodation at Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj. From government accommodations to low-budget and luxury private hotels, there are options across different budgets. Booking platforms would show you options from across the range. Alternatively, Kumbh Mela 2019 website has also listed around 100 hotels for you to choose from according to your needs. 3. Bed and breakfast If you are looking for a more homely atmosphere at the Kumbh Mela, then there are multiple bed and breakfast options on offer. There are multiple options that are approved by UP Tourism, while there are ones that do not have the stamp. UP Tourism-approved options are on the steeper side. Options here start from around Rs 2,500 and go on till Rs 10,000. Most of them are, however, in the range of Rs 2,500 to Rs 4,000. The cheaper options are the ones that do not have the UP Tourism approval. Such options at the Kumbh Mela start from Rs 900 and go on up to Rs 3,000. While options are aplenty, there is likely to be change in fare due to high demand. It is advisable that you book your stay much in advance. (Edited by Anwesha Madhukalya) Also read: Kumbh Mela 2019: All you need to know about auspicious dates, transport facilities, events in Prayagraj Editorial Director of Niche Publications Katie Green came to Observer Publishing Company in 2012 as the editor of The Almanac. In 2016, she was promoted to editorial director of niche publications, overseeing all of the O-R's glossy magazines, special sections and event publications. Gabon's President Ali Bongo was back in Libreville on Tuesday after months abroad recovering from a stroke, ending an absence that saw an attempted coup by renegade soldiers. After returning from Morocco in the early hours of the morning, Bongo presided over a ceremony at which ministers from the new government were sworn in, officials said. The oil-rich West African state has been without an effective government for months since Bongo, 59, suffered the stroke in late October during a visit to Saudi Arabia. After initial treatment at a hospital in Riyadh, Bongo was transferred to Morocco where he spent just over six weeks, officials said. His return came eight days after a small group of renegade soldiers briefly tried to stage a coup before it was quashed by security forces, who arrested the leader and killed two others. With Bongo's prolonged absence, the country had been in limbo for months and officials at the presidential palace did not say whether he was back for good or would return to the Moroccan capital Rabat for further convalescence. On Saturday, a new government was unveiled in a video announcement from Rabat although there were no significant changes to either the cabinet or the government. All 38 ministers arrived at the beachside presidential palace in Libreville on Tuesday and were sworn in at a ceremony which was closed to the press, officials said. - 'A very difficult ordeal' - Bongo has not been seen in public since he was taken to hospital on October 24 in Riyadh but a video of the ceremony was released later on Tuesday. The footage shows Bongo opening and closing the session, but there are only brief glimpses of him, shots of just a few seconds which show him seated in a wheelchair and squinting slightly. "It was very moving to see him," government spokesman Nanette Longa-Makinda told AFP. "It will certainly take him several months to fully recover his physical abilities, that's for sure," one minister said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He looks like someone who has been through a very difficult ordeal," agreed another cabinet colleague who was present at the ceremony. So far, officials have said very little about Bongo's health, with a presidential spokesman insisting things were back to normal. "There can be no more talk about a power vacuum," the spokesman said, using a phrase repeated by many ministers leaving the ceremony. - 'Circus goes on' - Before now, Bongo's only appearance was his traditional televised New Year's Eve address, recorded in Morocco, in which he said he had "been through a difficult period". Critics seized on signs of his apparent ill-health, noting the address was unusually short, his speech was slurred and his right hand seemed stiff and immobile. His long-awaited return did little to quieten lingering suspicions among the people of Gabon. "The circus goes on," tweeted Marc Ona Essangui, a civil society leader. When Bongo was first taken ill, the singular lack of official news -- along with memories of the secrecy around the death of his father Omar Bongo in 2009 -- had fuelled a flurry of rumours, including speculation he was incapacitated or even dead. The Bongo family has governed Gabon for five decades, and long maintained close ties with former colonial master France. Ali Bongo was elected head of state after his father's death and he was narrowly re-elected in 2016 following a presidential poll marred by deadly violence and allegations of fraud. Gabon's Ali Bongo has been abroad for for nearly three months recovering a stroke A group of Gabonese soldiers briefly tried to stage a coup before it was quashed by security forces Twelve people suspected to be involved in the kidnapping of the American businessman William Sean Creighton Kopko in Costa Rica have been arrested. Nine of the suspects were arrested in Costa Rica while three were nabbed in Spain, according to Television New Zealand. Its now three months since the American businessman was kidnapped in the Central American country. Kopkos family paid a ransom of nearly $950,000 in bitcoin which was demanded shortly after he disappeared. However, Kopko, who owns the online gambling platform 5Dimes, was never released and is still missing. In October last year, reports surfaced suggesting that Kopkos body had been found, but this was proven untrue. Central America to Europe According to the Spanish Civil Guard, three suspects who allegedly were the ringleaders fled Costa Rica to Cuba. In November, the three left Cuba for Spain where they were staying in Zaragoza city at the time of their arrest. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Tourists to the Central American country are advised to exercise extra caution in certain parts of Costa Rica due to crime. In particular, the U.S. State Department warns that gang activity poses a deadly risk in certain parts of the capital San Jose: Pavas and Hospital neighborhoods in San Jose Criminal assault and homicides have been reported in these areas. Gang activity, such as territorial disputes and narcotics trafficking, has been reported in Pavas in the vicinity of the U.S. Embassy. Just a week ago the Norwegian police went public asking for tips in the kidnapping mystery of a Norwegian millionaires wife. Multi-millionaire Tom Hagens wife, Anne-Elisabeth Falkevik Hagen, was abducted from her home October 31st. Per Norwegian magazine Kapital, Hagen, is Norways 172nd richest person as of 2018. Hagen is a real estate investor and the owner of an electric company. He is said to be worth over $200 million. 9 Million Euros Ransom Note As CCN reported, the kidnappers are believed to have accosted her in her own bathroom. Her husband was the first to notice her disappearance. A note demanding a ransom of nine million euros was found shortly after. Story continues This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. The kidnappers specifically demanded that the ransom should be paid in Monero. Additionally, the ransom note warned against involving the police. Having reached a dead end, the police decided to go public: Our goal is to find the woman alive and reunite her with her family. In serious crime cases, time is an important factor. We depend on tips that can help us come closer to finding Anne-Elisabeth. According to ABC, the police have released video surveillance footage. Tommy Broske, the chief police investigator, says they are already searching for the suspects caught in the footage: We have access to surveillance video showing persons moving on the outside of the building on the day in question. Featured image from Shutterstock. The post $1 Million in Bitcoin Ransom Paid, American in Costa Rica Still Missing appeared first on CCN. The cash-strapped Jet Airways has been battling headwinds for a while now, ultimately defaulting on loan repayment despite delaying salaries and vendor payments in an attempt to service its debt on time. The airline has been delaying salary payments to about 15% of its over 16,000 employees - including senior management, pilots and engineers - since last August. Sources in the know told The Economic Times that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in an audit of the carrier flagged off the withheld or delayed salary payments as a type 2 concern. The latter covers concerns that do not impact the safety of an airline directly but have the potential to do so. Also Read: Jet Airways share soars 17% amid hopes for debt crisis resolution The headline-grabbing September 2018 episode where 30 passengers on Jet's Mumbai-Jaipur flight were left bleeding after the crew forgot to turn on a switch that controls cabin air pressure springs to mind. The audit findings have been shared with the Naresh Goyal-promoted airline but it is yet to send its response, the sources added. However, the airline has categorically denied this. "Jet Airways is not in receipt of any such reports as mentioned in your query and is therefore unable to comment," an airline spokesperson told the daily. "The company continues to run normal operations, as per schedule and with appropriate safety approvals as per the DGCA. The airline is current in terms of payments as per the disbursement schedule that has been shared with the specific employee group." Last November, the loss-making carrier had promised pilots that salary dues would be paid by April. Much, however, depends on the resolution plan that gets finalised by its lenders. The SBI-led consortium has not yet agreed to a proposal to convert debt to equity in the airline. Moreover, the country's largest lender, which posted a loss of Rs 4,876 crore for the first quarter of this fiscal on the heels of an even more disappointing Q4 FY18, is unwilling to extend additional loans without covering their exposure with adequate collateral. It clearly does not want to risk a repeat of its fiasco with the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines. According to ICRA, the airline's gross debt stood at Rs 8,411 crore as on September 30, 2018, up from Rs 8,403 crore at the end of the previous fiscal. "This is despite the receipt of lease incentives during June 2018 and advances from JPPL in October 2018. The debt levels are, however, expected to increase in the near term because of the ongoing stress on profitability, unless the company is successful in its liquidity initiatives," the ratings agency said in a recent note, adding that it also has large debt repayments totalling over Rs 6,312 crore due till FY21. If the buzz is to be believed, a resolution plan seems to be in sight. Yesterday, shares of Jet Airways soared over 16% amid reports of likely finalisation of a resolution plan after the lenders' meet this week. Etihad Airways plans to increase its currently 24% stake in Jet, sources told Reuters, but that is conditional on Goyal diluting his stake. With PTI inputs Edited by Sushmita Agarwal Read More: Jet Airways share skids over 4% as former CEO Nikos Kardassis quits Naresh Goyal may hand over Jet Airways' operational reins to Etihad: Report For Immediate Release Chicago, IL January 15, 2019 - Stocks in this weeks article are The Meet Group, Inc. MEET, Tech Data Corp. TECD, Resources Connection, Inc. RECN, Wynn Resorts, Ltd. WYNN and ArcBest Corp. ARCB. Solid Relative Price Strength Adds Luster to These 5 Stocks Investors generally gauge a stocks potential returns by examining earnings growth and valuation multiples. At the same time, its important to measure the performance of such a stock relative to its industry or peers, or the appropriate benchmark. If you see that a stock is underperforming on fundamental factors, then it would be prudent to move on and find a better alternative. However, those outperforming their respective sectors in terms of price should be selected because they stand a better chance to provide considerable returns. Then again, it is imperative that you determine whether or not an investment has relevant upside potential when considering stocks with significant relative price strength. Stocks delivering better than the S&P 500 over a period of 1 to 3 months at the least and having solid fundamentals indicate room for growth and are the best ways to go about this strategy. Finally, it is important to find out whether analysts are optimistic about the upcoming earnings results of these companies. In order to do this, we have added positive estimate revisions for the current quarters (Q1) earnings to our screen. When a stock undergoes an upward revision, it leads to additional price gains. For the rest of this Screen of the Week article please visit Zacks.com at: https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/347109/solid-relative-price-strength-add-luster-to-these-5-stocks Disclosure: Officers, directors and/or employees of Zacks Investment Research may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. An affiliated investment advisory firm may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. Story continues About Screen of the Week Zacks.com created the first and best screening system on the web earning the distinction as the "#1 site for screening stocks" by Money Magazine. But powerful screening tools is just the start. That is why Zacks created the Screen of the Week to highlight profitable stock picking strategies that investors can actively use. Strong Stocks that Should Be in the News Many are little publicized and fly under the Wall Street radar. They're virtually unknown to the general public. Yet today's 220 Zacks Rank #1 "Strong Buys" were generated by the stock-picking system that has more than doubled the market from 1988 through 2016. Its average gain has been a stellar +25% per year. See these high-potential stocks free >>. 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This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Reuters AstraZeneca said on Tuesday a late-stage trial failed to provide evidence that its COVID-19 antibody therapy protected people who had contact with an infected person from the disease, a small setback in its efforts to find alternatives to vaccines. The study assessed whether the therapy, a cocktail of two types of antibodies, could prevent adults who had been exposed to the virus in the past eight days from developing COVID-19 symptoms. Romeo has been alone for a decade (AFP) After 10 years alone in his aquarium tank, Romeo, the worlds loneliest frog, has finally found his Juliet. Scientists ventured to a remote Bolivian cloud forest in search of other Sehuencas water frogs and captured five of the animals including a female dubbed Juliet. Romeo has fruitlessly called for a mate from his tank at the Cochabamba Natural History Museum for a decade. Expedition leader Teresa Camacho Badani of the Museo de Historia Natural Alcide dOrbigny in Cochabamba City said, Romeo is really calm and relaxed and doesnt move a whole lot. His mate, Juliet, is rather different, she told the BBC, saying, Shes really energetic, she swims a lot and she eats a lot and sometimes she tries to escape. Sehuencas water frogs typically live for about 15 years. MORE: Theresa May warns of unforgivable breach of trust if MPs dont vote for her Brexit deal MORE: Donald Trumps behaviour so concerning FBI opened Russia collusion inquiry When Romeo was captured 10 years ago, scientists knew his species was in trouble, but were not prepared for the fact that they would not be able to find another individual. Romeo began calling for a mate about a year after being brought into captivity but scientists were unable to find one. Last year, scientists created a dating profile for the frog in an effort to raise awareness of the species plight. The researchers now hope to breed the frog in captivity, and possibly release the children into the wild. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK By Brendan Pierson (Reuters) - Accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman once paid a $100 million bribe to former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, a former associate testified on Tuesday that he previously told U.S. authorities. Alex Cifuentes, who has described himself as Guzman's onetime right-hand man, discussed the alleged bribe under cross-examination by one of Guzman's lawyers in Brooklyn federal court. Asked if he told authorities in 2016 that Guzman arranged the bribe, he answered, "That's right." Cifuentes testified that he had told U.S. prosecutors Pena Nieto reached out to Guzman first, asking for $250 million. Cifuentes told the prosecutors that the bribe was paid in October 2012, when Pena Nieto was president-elect, he testified. Cifuentes said he told prosecutors at a later meeting, last year, that he was no longer sure of the exact amounts of the bribes, but did not elaborate. Cifuentes also said testified that Guzman once told him that he had received a message from Pena Nieto saying that he did not have to live in hiding anymore. Pena Nieto has previously denied taking bribes from drug traffickers. Reuters could not immediately reach Pena Nieto for comment. His former spokesman and other former officials did not immediately respond to messages requesting comment. Pena Nieto was president of Mexico from December 2012 until November 2018. He previously served as governor of the state that includes Mexico City. Guzman, 61, has been on trial since November. He was extradited to the United States in 2017 to face charges of trafficking cocaine, heroin and other drugs into the country as leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. Captured by Pena Nieto's government in February 2014, Guzman broke out of prison for a second time some 17 months later, escaping through a mile-long tunnel dug right into in his cell. The jailbreak humiliated the government and battered the president's already damaged credibility, though Pena Nieto personally announced news of the kingpin's third capture when he was again arrested in northwestern Mexico in January 2016. Story continues Colombian-born Cifuentes is one of about a dozen witnesses who have so far testified against Guzman after striking deals with U.S. prosecutors, in a trial that has provided a window into the secretive world of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the world's most powerful drug trafficking organization. Other witnesses at the trial have also made accusations of high-level corruption. Jesus Zambada, another cartel member, testified in November he paid a multimillion dollar bribe to an aide of current Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in 2005. The aide was not named but later Gabriel Regino, an official in Mexico City when Lopez Obrador was mayor, wrote on Twitter that an accusation of bribery had emerged against him in the trial but was false. Cifuentes earlier on Tuesday had also testified that Guzman asked an associate to pay a $10 million bribe to a general. The witness said the bribe was never paid and Guzman subsequently ordered the associate killed, though the hit was never carried out. (Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York and David Graham in Mexico City; Editing by Tom Brown and Lisa Shumaker) Donald Trumps nominee for attorney general will tell Senators at his confirmation hearing it is vitally important that Special Counsel Robert Mueller be allowed to complete his Russia investigation. William Barr is scheduled to face questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, which will include his views on the special counsels probe into Russian election medlling and potential coordination between Moscow and the presidents 2016 campaign. Mr Barr will say he has known Mr Mueller for decades, respects him and believes he should be allowed to complete his work, according to the transcript. Democrats have raised concerns about comments Mr Barr has made about the seemingly intensifying probe, including an unsolicited memo he sent the Justice Department last year criticising the special counsels inquiry into whether Mr Trump sought to obstruct justice. A controversial choice to lead the Justice Department, Mr Barr appears to hold many of the same views as his predecessor in the role, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, particularly when it comes to immigration. Mr Barr will also tell senators he believes the department should continue to prioritise immigration enforcement and the government must be able to hold and remove people who illegally enter the US, the transcript revealed. He will reportedly say the Justice Department cannot allow people to flout Americas legal system by crashing in through the back door. His comments on the Russia investigation may come as a slight relief to Democrats, after Mr Trump has complained that his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, did not protect him from the investigation. Legislatorshad demanded assurances that Mr Barr will be impartial and allow Mr Muellers investigation to continue. The latest nominee will tell the Senators Tuesday that Mr Trump did not seek any assurances or promises over the investigation before nominating him, according to the transcript. Mr Barr says the president sought no assurances, promises, or commitments from me of any kind, either express or implied, and I have not given him any, other than a promise to run the department with integrity. Additional reporting by AP William Barr has told Congress that he would protect Special Counsel Robert Muellers probe of Russian election meddling from political pressure, despite his past criticism of the inquiry. Donald Trumps nominee to become the next attorney general was grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday during his first day of confirmation hearings. He faced questions about his sweeping views on executive powers, prison sentencing, antitrust enforcement and other issues he would encounter as head of the Justice Department. Mr Barr, who was attorney general under President George Bush in the 1990s, also faced questions about an unsolicited, 19-page memo he wrote last year that called Mr Muellers probe fatally misconceived for examining whether the president obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey in 2017. It does raise questions about your willingness to reach conclusions before knowing the facts, and whether you prejudge the Mueller investigation, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the committees top Democrat, said as the hearing began. The nominee said his memo from last year did not question the legitimacy of the probe as a whole, but only expressed concerns that the special counsel might be improperly interpreting one aspect of the law. I think it was entirely proper, Mr Barr said, saying it was not unusual for former Justice Department officials to share their views of legal matters. He said he had written a similar memo criticizing the departments corruption case against Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, which ended in a mistrial in 2017. "One of the reasons why I ultimately decided I would accept this position if offered is because I'm in a position where I can be independent," Mr Barr added later in the hearings. "I'm not going to do anything that I think is wrong. I will not be bullied into doing anything that I think is wrong by anybody, whether it be editorial boards, Congress or the president. I'm going to do what I think is right." Story continues Mr Trump frequently criticizes the probe as a witch hunt and has denied any collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice. Meanwhile, Russia has denied US intelligence agencies findings that it interfered in the 2016 election. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. I dont believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt, Mr Barr said Tuesday. Responding to a question from Democrat Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, Mr Barr said he would not carry out any order to fire Mr Mueller without cause. Mr Mueller is due to submit his findings to the attorney general, prompting concern from some Democrats that the Trump administration will try to quash the report. Mr Barr vowed that he would make as much of special counsels findings public as legally possible. He also said former Attorney General Jeff Sessions did the right thing by recusing himself from the Russia probe after it emerged that he had met with Russian officials while working with the Trump election campaign. Mr Barr also addressed Mr Trumps campaign promise of a border wall stretching the entirety of the US-Mexico border, suggesting the president could somehow allocate federal funding through means besides a spending bill, without having to ask for support from Congress. Mr Barrs two-day confirmation hearing is likely to be more contentious than in 1991, when he was approved in a unanimous vote to become the next attorney general. However, his nomination is expected to win approval in the Senate, where he has broad support among Republicans who control the chamber. Mr Barr could also benefit from the fact that some Democrats view him as a better option the man who took over the job after Mr Trump forced out Mr Sessions last year, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. Additional reporting by Reuters WASHINGTON The Senate Judiciary Committee will hear Tuesday from William Barr, President Donald Trumps nominee to become attorney general. Here are seven things to watch for at the hearing: 1. Mueller investigation Barr wrote a memo in June about Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller pursuing a possible obstruction of justice charge against Trump, arguing the probe was fatally misconceived. Senate Democrats plan to press Barr on whether he will support the Mueller probe. I want to make sure that (Barr) is not going to take the position that he should just protect Trump at all costs, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, told USA TODAY. I want to hear from him that the attorney generals office is an independent entity. Barr said in a copy of his testimony released Monday that Mueller should be allowed to complete his work. Barr said the memo was written about a narrow obstruction-of-justice statute rather than about the special counsel's authority more broadly. I can assure you that, where judgments are to be made by me, I will make those judgments based solely on the law and will let no personal, political, or other improper interests influence my decision, Barr said. More: President Trump to nominate former Attorney General William Barr to replace Jeff Sessions 2. Trump and Russia The FBI began not just a criminal investigation before Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, but a counterintelligence probe, according to a report in The New York Times. Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del., said the report suggests there may have been more concerns that sparked the Mueller investigation than were publicly known at the time. Coons told reporters Monday he will focus during on whether Barr will stand up for the rule of law and the appropriate independence of the Department of Justice. Trump has repeatedly criticized the Mueller probe as a "witch hunt" and denied colluding with Russia to win the election. Story continues I never worked for Russia, Trump said Monday. "Not only did I never work for Russia, I think it's a disgrace that you even asked that question because it's a whole big, fat hoax." 3. Executive power Barr, who was attorney general from November 1991 to January 1993 and earlier served as deputy attorney general and headed the Office of Legal Counsel, holds an expansive view of the presidents executive power. In the legal counsel job, Barr wrote opinions that justified the FBI arresting fugitives overseas and the invasion of Panama and arrest of dictator Manuel Noriega. As deputy attorney general, Barr told former President George H.W. Bush he had the authority to attack Iraq without congressional approval. Barr could face an early test of executive authority if he is confirmed because Trump has threatened to proclaim a national emergency to shift funding from other departments to build the wall along the southern border. I think its important to know what kind of judgment the attorney general nominee might provide for the president on the scope of his power," Coons said. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said he was sure Barr would be asked "about his opinion about the relationship between Justice and the other parts of the executive branch, including but not limited to the office of the presidency." 4. Partisan clashes The hearing comes amid significant turnover in Trump's Cabinet, with acting secretaries at the Justice, Defense, Interior departments, along with White House chief of staff and head of the Environmental Protection Agency. The Justice Department has a role in developing administration policy over a variety of hot-button issues, including immigration and voting rights. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said several Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are running for president and "have demonstrated that they will treat almost anything like a political circus." Cruz himself is a former 2016 presidential candidate. Coons said tensions linger from the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, which he called "one of the most divisive and charged hearings" during his eight years in the Senate. But Barr helped himself by releasing a statement that answered questions and addressed concerns, Coons said. It is my hope that everyone will conduct themselves in appropriate, professional ways," Coons said. 5. Criminal justice policy Lawmakers are expected to press Barr on a criminal-justice overhaul, which in part would give judges more discretion in sentencing. His predecessor, Jeff Sessions, had been an advocate of harsh punishment, directing prosecutors to seek the toughest charges possible. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said she wants to ask about department initiatives such as criminal-justice overhaul, immigration, human trafficking and opioids. In his prepared testimony, Barr said the crime rate has fallen substantially since he last last served as attorney general in 1992, when his priority was to target violent offenders and gangs. Barr said the First Step Act, the name for the overhaul legislation, recognizes the progress made and he said he would diligently implement it. "I believe we must keep up the pressure on chronic, violent criminals," Barr said. "We cannot allow the progress we have made to be reversed." 6. Immigration Barr will testify during a partial shutdown of the federal government at more than three weeks, the longest in history. Trump and congressional Democrats are at a stalemate over immigration policy, with the president insisting on $5.7 billion for construction of a wall along the southern border. Barr said in his prepared testimony that immigration has been a huge benefit, but that the country couldn't accommodate many millions of people who would come from poorer countries if there were no restrictions. "In short, in order to ensure that our immigration system works properly, we must secure our nation's borders, and we must ensure that our laws allow us to process, hold and remove those who unlawfully enter," Barr said. 7. Justice Dept. morale problems Barr could face questions about sagging morale at the Department of Justice, which has been a target of Trumps criticism for the past two years. Trump fired his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, the day after the midterm election in November after sharply criticizing him for recusing himself from the Mueller investigation. Trump has also blasted FBI repeatedly for corrupt and incompetent leadership and investigators. Barr said in his prepared remarks that he would protect the department's integrity. "Above all else, if confirmed, I will work diligently to protect the professionalism and integrity of the department as an institution, and I will strive to leave it, and the nation, a stronger and better place," Barr said. More: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein expected to leave Justice Department after Senate confirms William Barr This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: William Barr: 7 things to watch at Senate confirmation hearing for Trump's AG pick Altria (NYSE: MO) may see its $13 billion investment in electronic cigarette leader Juul as a means of getting in front of government regulation of the devices, and Juul might view it as a way to vastly increase its distribution and marketing. But the Food and Drug Administration is hopping mad about the partnership, apparently seeing it as both companies going back on their pledge to limit teen access to e-cigarettes. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told The New York Times that Altria and Juul made specific commitments to the agency regarding what was causing the explosion of teen e-cig usage, and the investment undermines what they said. He is going to have both companies' management answer in person for their actions. Juul electronic cigarette charging in a laptop Image source: Juul Labs. Rising tide of e-cig usage According to the FDA, there is an "epidemic" of teen e-cig usage. A survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the number of high school students using e-cigs in the previous month rose 78% year over year, from 11.7% of students in the group in 2017 to 20.8% in 2018, while the number of middle schoolers rose from 3.3% to 4.9% of students in this age group. Students who identified as regular users, or those who vaped 20 or more days, jumped from 20% of high school students to 27.7% while middle school students saw an increase from 12.9% to 16.2%. It certainly looks like things are getting out of control, and to combat teen access to e-cigs, the FDA imposed new restrictions on where e-cig flavors can be sold, allowing only tobacco, mint, and menthol flavors to be sold at convenience stores, gas stations, and other locations where the general public can buy them, and limiting fruit and dessert flavors to adults-only stores, like vape shops. Pod-based e-cigs being targeted Ahead of the regulatory move, Altria announced it was withdrawing its pod-based e-cigs from the market while selling only so-called "cigalikes" until the FDA fashioned regulations. Pod-based e-cigs allow users to refill a device with flavored e-liquids, while cigalikes are designed to look like a cigarette. Juul followed by saying it would voluntarily stop selling fruit flavors like mango, fruit, creme, and cucumber at all stores, adult-only or not (though they will sill be available for purchase on the company's website). Story continues While the actions of both companies would seem to be in the spirit of what the FDA wanted, the FDA sees Altria's investment in Juul as backtracking on their commitment, because the agency views pod-style e-cigs such as those Juul sells exclusively as the root cause of the teen usage problem. Altria apparently agrees. During its third-quarter earnings conference call with analysts last October, chairman and CEO Howard Willard said, "We concluded that the driver of the recent increase we think is pod-based products and flavored products, and so we thought that the two actions that we took (removing pods and selling only cigalikes) addressed the drivers of the increased youth usage here in the short run." By investing in Juul, Altria was giving the e-cig maker, which has a better than 80% share of the market, an even broader distribution platform and potentially putting Juul devices in the hands of more teens. Juul e-cigs are the most popular with teens, possibly because of their design: They resemble an oversized thumb drive. Benefits outweigh the disadvantages The problem with the FDA's criticism of e-cigs is that they are doing exactly what manufacturers and proponents have said they would -- reducing cigarette smoking. Teen use of cigarettes has hit historic lows since it was first measured in 1991, according to a study from the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, with rates falling significantly in 2017, which also happened to be the first time e-cig usage was measured. While there may be an uptick in some casual use of e-cigs among teens due to the "cool factor" of the Juul device, many of those using e-cigs are doing so to switch from smoking, the same reason adults are switching to vaping. By restricting where and what kind of e-cigs are available, the FDA could very well undermine the positive benefits of the devices compared to traditional cigarettes. The FDA is mad at Altria and Juul, but their partnership could bring about the ultimate results the agency is looking for. More From The Motley Fool Rich Duprey has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Detroit (AFP) - Volkswagen and Ford announced a new alliance on Tuesday to jointly develop commercial vans and pickups starting in 2022, in a bid to reduce costs in the increasingly competitive auto market. The announcement came after more than six months of talks between the automakers which also included discussions about cooperation on autonomous and electrification technologies for cars of the future. The American and German giants will join forces to develop commercial vans and medium-sized pickups as early as 2022. But the deal does not involve cross-ownership, according to a joint statement. The companies also will "investigate collaboration on autonomous vehicles, mobility services and electric vehicles and have started to explore those opportunities." VW CEO Herbert Diess said the alliance "will be a cornerstone for our drive to improve competitiveness." Under the alliance, to be governed by a joint committee headed by the chief executives of the two companies, Ford will engineer and build medium-sized commercial pickups for both firms. Ford also will build large commercial vans for European customers and VW will develop a city van. The city van would be designed for the European market, while the medium-sized pickup truck would be specific to South America, Africa and Europe, Ford said. The alliance follows in the footsteps of others formed in the auto industry, which is facing rising costs, amid the drive to develop new technolgies, as well as changing consumer preferences. Honda in October invested $2.5 billion in Cruise, GM's proprietary technology subsidiary, in exchange for a 5.7 percent stake. And Toyota and Mazda plan to open a joint factory in the southern US city of Huntsville, Alabama in 2021. "The industry likely will see more kinds of collaboration like the one announced today by Ford and VW," said industry analyst Michelle Krebs of Autotrader. "A single automaker can't be all things to all customers around the globe as vehicle and technology development become increasingly more expensive." Story continues - Talks ongoing - In a conference call with reporters and investment analysts, the chief executives of VW and Ford said they were determined to continue talks on expanding the collaboration further to include new technologies and additional vehicle programs. "How, where and when this might happen, this is what we are currently negotiating with our colleagues at Ford," Diess said in prepared remarks. Among the discussions, was a potential collaboration in China on electric drivetrains. It was the second major announcement for Volkswagen, which on Monday unveiled an $800 million investment to expand its plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee to build electric vehicles. That move won the praises from US President Donald Trump, who tweeted Tuesday morning: "Congratulations to Chattanooga and Tennessee on a job well done. A big win!" VW made its announcement at the Detroit auto show Monday, as the US's premiere industry invent got under way. The automaker said it would create 1,000 new manufacturing jobs. The two automakers were scheduled for a joint appearance at the auto show Tuesday morning to announce their alliance, but abruptly canceled, choosing to release a statement and hold a conference call instead. "We don't have enough details yet to go out in front of more than 500 journalists, so we decided to call it off," Ford spokesman Mark Truby told AFP on Monday evening. Trump, who campaigned on a promise to increase US manufacturing jobs, has regularly commented on production decisions by automakers. In November, he blasted General Motors' decision to idle several plants and cut 14,000 jobs as part of a major restructuring, calling it "unacceptable" and "nasty." As many as 15 buyers have shown interest in buying SRS Limited, the Faridabad-based real estate, retail and cinema exhibition company against which insolvency proceedings have been started by banks for defaulting on a loan of Rs 1,100 crore. Those which have shown interest include asset reconstruction companies (ARCs) ARCIL and JM Financial ARC, and real estate company Omaxe Limited. Out of the 15, five are ARCs, others include real estate firms, cinema exhibition companies and individuals. Also Read: Govt working on new policy to provide credit guarantee, interest subsidy on loans for electronic manufacturers Ashok Gulla, the insolvency resolution professional (IRP), has so far received claims of Rs 1,300 crore including Rs 1,060 crore from six financial creditors, Rs 146 crore from tax authorities, Rs 81 crore from depositors and Rs 37.5 crore from operational creditors. Of the total loan of Rs 1060 crore, SRS Ltd owes Rs 628 crore to State Bank of India, Rs 224 crore to Bank of India and Rs 125 crore to Union Bank of India. SRS Limited, which is part of the SRS group that has over 300 subsidiaries, is owned by Anil Jindal. Jindal, who is the chairman and managing director, is in jail on charges of cheating and fraud. The promoters of the company are accused of diverting money from the company. An audit of the transactions of the company was ordered by the Committee of Creditors (CoC) in September. The CoC has hired Grant Thornton as transaction auditor. The CoC in its meeting during 27 December last year discussed the findings of the transaction audit submitted by Grant Thornton. The transaction audit found many inconsistencies and anomalies including the company's relationship with debtors and vendors, high debtors provisioning, non-existent debtors, unexplained write-offs of assets, etc. Read More: Interest on home, auto, MSE loans to be linked to new benchmarks like repo rate, treasury yields from April 1 Also Read: Jet Airways' delayed salaries can lead to security risks, warns DGCA With Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam at his side, Scott Keogh, CEO and president of Volkswagen Group of America, announced at the 2019 Detroit Auto Show that the automaker is investing $800 million into its assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to build a new electric vehicle. The automaker says it will add 1,000 new jobs in Tennessee to support EV production. "The shift toward electric vehicles is a trend that can be seen worldwide, and Volkswagen's decision to locate its first North American EV manufacturing facility in Chattanooga underscores Tennessee's manufacturing strength and highly-skilled workforce," said Haslam. "We obviously think electric vehicles are going to play a more and more prominent role." The first electric vehicle to roll out the doors in Chattanooga will come in 2022, and it'll be a production version of VW's ID Crozz crossover. That car's MEB platform will spawn several more electric vehicles, including one called the ID Buzz that will be inspired by VW's much-loved vintage vans. MEB production is slated to begin before the end of 2019. VW forecasts that it will sell 150,000 EVs worldwide by 2020, and it expects that number to grow dramatically in short order. By 2025, VW says it will build 1 million electric vehicles each year. China is currently the world's largest market for EVs, followed by the United States. In addition to Chattanooga, VW is building its first dedicated EV production facility in Zwickau, Germany. Volkswagen also plans EV-production at facilities in Anting and Foshan, in China, starting in 2020, and in the German cities of Emden and Hanover by 2022. Related Video: Volkswagen chose its Chattanooga, Tennessee, manufacturing plant for the company's first electric vehicle facility in North America, state officials announced Monday. The $800 million project by the German automaker is expected to generate 1,000 additional jobs. Volkswagen expects to roll out its first Volkswagen electric vehicle from the Chattanooga facility in 2022. The shift toward electric vehicles is a trend that can be seen worldwide, and Volkswagens decision to locate its first North American EV manufacturing facility in Chattanooga underscores Tennessees manufacturing strength and highly-skilled workforce, Gov. Bill Haslam said. The Volkswagen announcement comes as Tennessee's auto sector defies international trends and gains employment. General Motors announced Sunday it will produce a third vehicle, the Cadillac XT6, in Spring Hill, adding hundreds of jobs to the Middle Tennessee plant, amid a restructuring that cuts 15 percent of its workforce. Ford recently announced a reorganization expected to cut thousands of jobs in Europe. More autos: Follow Detroit auto show coverage More autos: Cadillac unveils brand's first electric vehicle Volkswagen expects to sell 150,000 electric vehicles by 2020 and 1 million by 2025. In addition to Chattanooga, the company is also building an electric vehicle facility in Zwickau, Germany, and is adding electric vehicle production to two plants in China and to two other facilities in Germany. Todays announcement is a tremendous win for Tennessee as it shows that our state continues to be a prime location for foreign direct investment, Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Bob Rolfe. An overhead view of Volkswagen's plant in Chattanooga. Volkswagen employs 3,500 people in Tennessee and at year end will have invested $2.3 billion in the facility. The Chattanooga plant produces the midsize Atlas SUV and Passat sedan and will begin building the Atlas Cross Sport, a five seat version of the model, this year. Story continues The U.S. is one of the most important locations for us, and producing electric cars in Chattanooga is a key part of our growth strategy in North America, said Volkswagen AG CEO Herbert Diess. "Together with our ongoing investments and this increase in local production, we are strengthening the foundation for sustainable growth of the Volkswagen brand in the U.S." State officials said they could not yet provide information on financial incentives for the electric production and that they are still completing negotiations. The agreement will be made public once the project is contracted. The plant has received more than $800 million in federal, state and local incentives in the past decade, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Global sales of new electric vehicles passed 1 million in 2017, which could nearly quadruple by 2020 according to a 2018 McKinsey & Co. report. China has been a leader in electric vehicle sales, with a larger market than the U.S. and Europe combined. New models are expected to be introduced amid tougher emission regulations and an emphasis on rolling back gas- and diesel-powered cars in areas including China, Norway, California, France and the United Kingdom. Volkswagen Group of America's CEO Scott Keogh will lead the Volkswagen electric vehicle management team, Diess said. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Volkswagen goes electric: Automaker to spend $800M, launch new Tennessee facility By David Shepardson DETROIT (Reuters) - Volkswagen AG said on Monday it is investing $800 million to build a new electric vehicle at its plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, as it shifts toward zero emission vehicles. The German automaker, in an announcement at the Detroit Auto Show, said it is adding 1,000 new jobs and that electric vehicle production in Tennessee will begin in 2022. German automakers have been under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to increase their investments in the United States. VW will use a modular electric toolkit chassis (MEB) in Chattanooga. VW designed MEB to be the basic building block for its EVs and is intended to consolidate all of the vehicle's electronic controls and reduce the number of microprocessors. Volkswagen is building the first dedicated EV production facility in Zwickau, Germany, starting MEB production by the end of 2019. Volkswagen will add EV production at facilities in Anting and Foshan, in China, in 2020, and in the German cities of Emden and Hanover by 2022. "We obviously think electric vehicles are going to play a more and more prominent role," said Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, who took part in the announcement. (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jeffrey Benkoe) Varian Medical Systems Inc.s VAR first-quarter fiscal 2019 results are scheduled to release on Jan 23, after market close. A strong overseas presence and product launches are likely to favor the companys fiscal first-quarter results. Last-Quarter Results In the last reported quarter, Varian Medicals adjusted earnings of $1.16 per share missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.19. Adjusted earnings however improved 11.5% on a year-over-year basis. Revenues totaled $801.6 million, which beat the consensus mark of $762.7 million. On a year-over-year basis, revenues rose 11.1% or 12% at constant currency. Which Way Are Estimates Treading? Currently, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal first-quarter revenues is pegged at $717.9 million, reflecting a rise of 5.8%. The same for adjusted earnings is pinned at $1.06. Lets discuss the factors that are likely to impact Varian Medicals upcoming quarterly results. Varian Medical Systems, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise Varian Medical Systems, Inc. Price and EPS Surprise | Varian Medical Systems, Inc. Quote Strong International Presence Varian Medical enjoys a significant global presence. Last November, the companys coveted Halcyon system has been approved by the China National Medical Product Administration. (Read More: Varian Medical's Halcyon Gets NMPA Approval in China) In October, Varian Medicals Advanced Radiotherapy Clinical School will run courses at India-based Reliance Group's flagship Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital (KDAH) in Mumbai. (Read More: Varian & Reliance Group Tie Up to Enhance Cancer Care) In September, the company collaborated with Kenyas Mediheal Group of Hospitals to expand radiotherapy access in the country. (Read More: Varian Up on Tie-Up With Kenya's Mediheal Group of Hospitals) Product Launches Last October, Varian Medical announced a new single-room proton therapy system, ProBeam 360, which enables efficient Intensity Modulated Proton Therapy and faster treatment by minimizing patient repositioning and re-imaging. Story continues Additionally, the company launched Bravos system for High Dose Rate (HDR) brachytherapy treatments, a result of five years of in-clinic research. Notably, the system is designed to improve patient and clinic experience by simplifying brachytherapy treatment. Reflective of these factors, Varian Medical has issued a solid fiscal 2019 guidance, with revenue growth expected in the range of $3.06-$3.15 billion, reflecting 5-8% growth year over year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues is pegged at $3.10 billion, within the guided range. Adjusted earnings per share are projected in the range of $4.60-$4.75. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings is pegged at $4.96, within the range. Earnings Whispers Per our proven model, a stock needs to have a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) to deliver a positive earnings surprise. This is not the case here as you will see below. Earnings ESP: Varian Medical has an Earnings ESP of 0.00%. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. Zacks Rank: Varian Medical carries a Zacks Rank #3. Please note that we caution against stocks with a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) or 5 (Strong Sell) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revision. Stocks Worth a Look Here are a few medical stocks worth considering as they have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter. PerkinElmer PKI has an Earnings ESP of +0.77% and a Zacks Rank #3. Baxter International BAX has an Earnings ESP of +1.15% and a Zacks Rank #3. DexCom DXCM has an Earnings ESP of +23.03% and a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside? Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana. Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look. See the pot trades we're targeting>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Laredo (United States) (AFP) - Mexico is just minutes away on foot, the time it takes to walk across one of the bridges that span the Rio Grande, intimately connecting Laredo, Texas to its Mexican sister Nuevo Laredo. The wall Donald Trump promises to build would slice through that, and here as elsewhere in America opinions are divided over whether it's needed. Already, the raging national debate over the president's demand for $5.7 billion to build the wall has provoked the longest government shutdown in US history, one now in its fourth week. It's a sensitive subject in a city that is more than 95 percent Hispanic and many Laredo inhabitants politely decline to comment. But Manuel Garcia Jr is happy to say what he thinks, pausing to render his opinion before attending mass at the San Agustin cathedral in the city's historic center. "I agree with Trump 100 percent," the businessman says. "I think building the wall is great, yes. I think it would help everybody in the United States bring the cost down because we are spending too much money with a lot of border patrols going up and down." "I know that a lot of people disagree on it but you gotta be honest about it, we need it," Garcia said. His ancestors came from Mexico "legally," he says, adding that that's how all immigrants should come into the country. Nowadays, he says, there is "a lot of crime" -- although he acknowledges he hasn't experienced that personally in Laredo. Laredo-born Mateo Gravena, 47, also believes a border wall is needed. "It is the appropriate thing to do," he said, his eyes shielded by sunglasses. "It's a presidency protecting its borders from foreign invaders." An emergency services contractor, Gravena says the wall is needed to stop traffickers who send women across the border with drugs. And besides, he says, why should the United States take in the overflow of people from other countries. Story continues "Why does it have to be the United States?" - 'Mixed feelings' - Views of that nature exasperate Jennifer Fanelli, an otherwise good-humored 27-year-old bus driver. She doesn't hesitate to attribute them to "racism," even when they come from people who are themselves of Mexican descent. The wall? "I'm against that," she said. "In any case they are going to find a way to come here and they come here to earn a better future." "They don't pose a threat," she added. "We have to be more human." Fanelli was born in Minnesota but after her father died she moved to Laredo, her mother's hometown. "Minnesota is pretty but there is a lot of racism, and I thought it would be different here because we are all Latinos," she said. "But it doesn't end. We as Latinos dump on the Mexicans. It just doesn't end." Homero Resendez, a 51-year-old who has lived half his life in Laredo, sees the city as a twin of Nuevo Laredo. "What we need are bridges to cross over, not walls," he said. "What the president is doing is ridiculous." A woman comfortably seated, fishing pole in hand, on the banks of the Rio Grande silently considers the issue. She asks not to be quoted by name as she weighs her feelings. On the one hand, she says, she fears "overpopulation" and thinks American citizens should be the ones benefitting from the country's bounty. But she admits that migrants take jobs Americans do not want. "I really have mixed feelings," she sighs, looking out across the river to the other side -- where just like her, local Mexicans have come to fish on a sunny afternoon. Washington (AFP) - US House Republican leaders delivered an extraordinary rebuke Monday to an Iowa congressman from their party over his recent remarks deemed as racist, with some calling for his resignation. Steve King, whose comments last week about white supremacy sparked bipartisan outrage, will be stripped of all committee assignments, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's office said. "Steve's remarks are beneath the dignity of the Party of Lincoln and the United States of America," McCarthy said. "His comments call into question whether he will treat all Americans equally, without regard for race and ethnicity." King, a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, is an opponent of illegal immigration and unabashed defender of white culture. In an interview last week with The New York Times, the 69-year-old asked how certain terms had become insulting or inappropriate. "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization -- how did that language become offensive?" said King in his latest in a long list of similar comments. The outcry was comprehensive, with the Senate's lone black Republican, Tim Scott, delivering a withering attack on King and the "silence" within the Republican Party when such remarks are made. Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell called the Iowa conservative "unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position." Others like Senator Mitt Romney went further, urging King to resign and leave the party. Amid the uproar, President Donald Trump told reporters asking about his reaction to King, "I really haven't been following it." King has used explosive racial language for years, often without consequences. In 2018 he declared that "we can't restore our civilization with other people's babies." The House speaker at the time, Paul Ryan, said he hoped King "misspoke." With pressure mounting Monday, McCarthy took action. His move, approved by the House Republican Steering Committee, effectively prevents King from putting his stamp on legislation, other than through a vote on the House floor. Story continues King called McCarthy's castigation an "unprecedented assault on my freedom of speech." King was re-elected in November for a ninth term despite caustic rhetoric about what he called efforts to supplant Europe's white Christian majority with minorities. Some Democrats mocked Republicans for their sudden outrage. "GOP leaders finally acknowledge Steve King as the blatant racist he is," congressman Earl Blumenauer tweeted. "The question is...what took them so long? He has been spewing hate for years." London (AFP) - Waving European Union flags, hundreds of anti-Brexit activists outside parliament roared with approval on Tuesday as the government's divorce deal was crushed by MPs. Massed in front of two big screens airing live coverage of the pivotal vote, the crowd of fervent pro-Europeans erupted into cheers and clapping as the result was relayed. "I'm so pleased -- but a bit concerned with what comes next," retiree Sarah Cuthbertson, 68, told AFP. "I didn't think it would be such a big majority against," she said of the whopping 230-vote margin of defeat -- the largest ever in modern British political history. Nearby, a smaller contingent of pro-Brexit activists were similarly cheered by the defeat of Prime Minister Theresa May's deal, but for different reasons. - 'Everyone hates it' - "I'm ecstatic," said Reg Kerr-Bell, 55, a retired Londoner clasping a "Leave Means Leave" placard. "No-deal is what I want to see now." But he conceded that parliament's rejection of the government's plan puts Brexit in some jeopardy. "I'm very worried they (MPs) might try to hijack the process." Deploying flags, floats and even a mock-up of the Titanic dubbed "HMS Brexit", hundreds of noisy pro- and anti-EU activists had descended on Westminster to make their voices heard ahead of the crunch vote. "The only thing so far that managed to unite the country has been this deal and how everyone hates it," Simon Fisher, 25, told AFP, draped in a "Leave Means Leave" flag. As opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn announced he had filed a no-confidence motion in the government, pro-EU supporters urged him to go further. "Unless he changes his stance on a second referendum, I don't think he'll get people on board," said Lesley Lacloche, 61, who was draped in EU attire. Some waved signs and placards like "Don't Let May Betray the UK" and "Stop the Brexit Mess". Story continues - 'Brexit is a sinking ship' - Crowds converged on the square and street opposite the Palace of Westminster -- the formal name for the Houses of Parliament and grounds -- from the early hours of the morning, under the gaze of TV cameras beaming the images around the world. In one of the more eye-catching displays, pro-EU protesters reimagined the Titanic disaster, erecting a cardboard ship, iceberg and caricature of Prime Minister Theresa May on the bow beside a life-ring. "Brexit is a sinking ship," said Bert Wander, one of the organisers. Demonstrators had lined the walkways around nearby makeshift broadcasting studios, with each side staking out their camp and no mingling on show. "I would have talked to them, but because they are abusive, no," said 65-year-old Sally Smith, pointing to the pro-EU faction. The no-deal Brexit supporter had taken the day off work to come and make her point -- by frantically ringing a bell. In the opposite camp, Louise Hummerstone, a 66-year-old potter and craftswoman wearing an EU beret, admitted that she had "lost friends" who voted Leave in the 2016 referendum. "I can understand naive voters, I completely understand people who believed the lies, but I cannot tolerate those who voted for racist reasons," she said. Despite the entrenched opposition, the atmosphere remained mainly civil as large numbers of police looked on. However, officers detained one pro-Brexit demonstrator after a face-off between the rival camps. The anti-EU protesters shouted "scum" at officers as they led the handcuffed man away. United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The United Nations Security Council is expected to approve on Wednesday a six-month observer mission to monitor a ceasefire in Yemen and oversee a pullback of forces, diplomats said. The council will vote at 9:30 am (1430 GMT) on a British-drafted resolution authorizing the deployment of up to 75 monitors, and diplomats said they expected the measure to be approved. The unarmed monitors would be sent to the rebel-held city of Hodeida and its port along with the ports of Saleef and Ras Issa for an initial period of six months. The port of Hodeida is the entry point for the bulk of Yemen's supplies of imported goods and humanitarian aid. Talks between the Saudi-backed government and Huthi rebels last month in Sweden on ending the devastating war led to an agreement on the observer force. A first group of about 20 monitors was authorized by the council last month to begin work in Yemen, but their mandate expires on January 20. The draft resolution calls on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to "expeditiously" deploy the United Nations Mission to support the Hodeida Agreement (UNMHA), led by retired Dutch General Patrick Cammaert. The UN says a ceasefire that went into force on December 18 in Hodeida has been generally holding, but there have been delays in the redeployment of rebel and government forces from the city. The Huthis control most of Hodeida while government forces are deployed on its southern and eastern outskirts. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday accused the rebels of failing to comply with the Hodeida truce agreement, after he held talks in Riyadh with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Since the Saudi-led military coalition intervened in support of the government in March 2015, the conflict has unleashed what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Nearly 10 million people in Yemen are on the brink of famine, according to UN aid officials, while 80 percent of the population -- 24 million people -- are in dire need of humanitarian aid. By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Internal Revenue Service said on Tuesday it intends to bring back more than 46,000 workers furloughed by the partial shutdown of the federal government to process annual tax returns and refunds and other tasks. The federal tax agency, part of the Treasury Department, said in a shutdown contingency plan that the employees, about 57 percent of its 80,000-member workforce, would be designated "excepted or exempt" from the shutdown. The 2019 tax filing season is set to begin on Jan. 28, with Americans having until April 15 to file their obligatory annual tax returns. Furloughed IRS employees returning to work will not be paid until government agencies reopen. The shutdown, which began with President Donald Trump's demand for $5.7 billion in funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, is now in its 25th day. Trump and Democrats in Congress show no signs of budging, raising the prospects of a lengthy impasse that could leave the president and his Republican allies in Congress vulnerable to public criticism, especially if annual taxpayers' refunds - which many people rely on financially - are delayed. The 132-page IRS contingency plan sets out a legal rationale for handling returns and refunds during a shutdown, saying those operations are similar to Social Security payments that are unaffected by the disruption. But the agency will not perform audits and other key functions until Trump and Congress agree on funding to reopen the one-quarter of the government affected by the shutdown, according to the document. The administration's plan is already the target of a lawsuit by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which claims the plan is illegal because it obligates funds that have not been appropriated by Congress. Democrats in the House of Representatives are also considering hearings on the shutdown's impact on the IRS, including the agency's ability to deliver tax refunds on time. "There is no doubt the IRS needs to get ready for the 2019 filing season that starts Jan. 28, and IRS employees want to work," NTEU National President Tony Reardon said in a statement. "But the hard, cold reality is that they've already missed a paycheck and soon they'll be asked to work for free for as long as the shutdown lasts." (Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Bill Rigby) The launch date of Nokia 9 PureView has been postponed to next month until Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. The highly anticipated Nokia 9 PureView with the world's first penta-lens camera was expected to debut later this month. However, this isn't the first time that the Finnish company has postponed the launch date. Nokia 9 PureView was also in news last year but its launch was delayed owing to the issues in the production line. The Nokia 9 PureView is expected to have five camera sensors at the back and feature a notch-less design along with an in-display fingerprint sensor. HMD Global expects to sort out its production line issues soon and launch Nokia 9 PureView in the month of February. Also Read: Honor 10 Lite launched in India; check out price, specifications Earlier last month, a well-known leakster, Evan Blass aka Evleaks, has posted a picture of what looks like a press image of Nokia 9 PureView. The images suggest that the new penta-lens phone has been code-named 'Beholder'. As per the posted picture, Nokia 9 PureView will have thin-bezel and a flat display. The images also reveal the lack of display notch. Further, according to the buzz, the phone will have a metal frame with glass panels covering the front and back sides. The Nokia 9 PureView render highlights the phones penta-lens camera with two additional cut-outs. One cutput is for the LED flash and the other one is the proximity sensor. There has been no leaks regarding the specifications of the PureView's camera system but there are enough speculations to suggest that the phone will have a Zeiss branded camera sensors in the circular form. There have been no specification leaks but some past rumours suggest that the Nokia 9 PureView will have a 6-inch display and an 8GB of RAM with 256GB of onboard storage. It will be powered by Snapdragon 845 chipset and will be water-and-dust resistant. The leak also suggests that the smartphone will be a part of Android One group of phones and will come with Android 9 out-of-the-box. The smartphone could be launched in January 2019 as per the render that surfaced last week. Meanwhile, Nokia 9 PureView won't be the only launch at MWC. The Finnish mobile company is also looking to introduce Nokia 6.2 and Nokia 8.1 Plus in India. The Nokia 6.2 and Nokia 8.1 are expected to sport a punch-hole display with a dual camera set up. Nokia 6.2 is also said to have a Snapdragon 632 SoC, coupled with 4GB and 6GB RAM options and a 16-MP primary camera sensor. Edited By: Udit Verma Also read: Oppo plans to unveil new smartphone camera with 10x optical zoom Also Read: How to send WhatsApp message to a person not on your phone contact list Also Read: Twitter to make big changes! Colour-coded replies, Facebook like updates and more By Yasmeen Abutaleb WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top U.S. lawmaker launched an investigation into pharmaceutical industry pricing practices on Monday, less than a week after he and fellow Democrats introduced legislation aimed at lowering medicine prices. Representative Elijah Cummings, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, sent letters to 12 drugmakers seeking information on price increases, investment in research and development, and corporate strategies to preserve market share and pricing power, his office said in a statement. AbbVie Inc, Amgen Inc, AstraZeneca PLC, Celgene Corp, Eli Lilly and Co, Johnson & Johnson, Mallinckrodt PLC, Novartis AG, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer Inc, Sanofi and Teva Pharmaceutical all received letters seeking information about their pricing practices. Novo Nordisk, Amgen, Celgene, and Novartis said they were reviewing the request. The other drug companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Cummings' letters focused on drugs that are the costliest to Medicare Part D, a program that helps beneficiaries of the federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled pay for self-administered medicines like those purchased at drugstores, as well as drugs that have had the largest price increases over a five-year period. They include AbbVie's Humira, the world's top-selling medicine that had a price increase at the start of the year, Johnson & Johnson's blockbuster cancer drug Imbruvica and several diabetes medications. President Donald Trump made high prescription drug prices a top issue in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and said that drug companies were "getting away with murder." The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last year rolled out a plan to lower drug prices and has introduced several modest proposals to curb medicine costs, but Democrats have said Trump and his administration are not doing enough. Several pharmaceutical companies temporarily froze prices on select drugs last year after being criticized by Trump on Twitter. But drugmakers raised prices on more than 250 prescription drugs to begin 2019. Cummings, along with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, introduced three bills last week aimed at lowering drug prices. That legislation would peg U.S. prescription drug prices to the median price from five countries - Canada, Britain, France, Germany and Japan - where drug costs are typically far lower because of government price controls. It would also allow Americans to import medication from Canada and other countries, as well as allow the HHS secretary to negotiate prices in Medicare Part D. (Reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien) Donald Trumps nominee for attorney general has contradicted the US president by saying Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian election meddling, is not involved in a witch hunt. William Barr, who will oversee the Mueller probe if confirmed to the role, vowed to allow the investigation to be completed during a grilling by US senators on Tuesday. Mr Barr called Mr Mueller a friend and said they had known each other for 30 years after being colleagues at the Justice Department, playing down the likelihood of a clash over the investigation. The 68-year-old said that it would be unimaginable that Mr Mueller would do something that demanded his sacking and promised to give the special counsel the resources he needs. Mr Barr also vowed not be biased in his handling of the Russia investigation, saying he would not let personal, political or other improper interests influence his thinking. I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong by anybody, whether it be editorial boards or Congress or the president. I am going to do what I think is right, Mr Barr told senators. William Barr, US attorney general nominee, is sworn in prior to Barr testifying at his confirmation hearing in Washington, DC Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images North America The appearance amounted to a determined attempt by Mr Barr to convince US senators and the American public that he would act fairly over the Russia probe despite being appointed by Mr Trump. The Russian election meddling investigation, which was handed to Mr Mueller after the firing of FBI director James Comey in May 2017, continues to blight the Trump presidency. As well as probing Kremlin hacking and social media interference it is looking into whether Trump campaign figures conspired with Russians to tilt the 2016 US election in their candidates favour. Mr Trump became so infuriated by his initial attorney general Jeff Sessionss decision to recuse himself from overseeing the probe that he frequently berated him in public. Mr Sessions eventually resigned the day after the November 2018 midterm elections. Story continues Mr Barr, who has already once been attorney general under George H W Bush, was nominated as his permanent replacement. If confirmed he will have the power to sack Mr Mueller, rob his investigation of resources and keep his final report hidden from public view. During his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr Barr repeatedly sought to calm any concerns that he could handle the investigation in a partisan manner. I believe it is in the best interest of everyone - the president, Congress, and, most importantly, the American people - that this matter be resolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work," Mr Barr said in prepared remarks. He said he had the utmost respect for Mr Mueller, adding: On my watch, Bob will be allowed to finish his work. Mr Barr played down concerns that he could keep the special counsels final report hidden, saying that he would provide as much transparency in consistence with the law though fell short of a promise to publish it in full. Asked if he thought Mr Mueller could oversee a witch hunt Mr Trumps favoured description of the Russia probe Mr Barr broke with the US president. I dont believe Mr Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt, he responded. Mr Barr did reveal that he had been approached to be part of Mr Trumps legal defence team in June 2017, but declined the offer due to professional and personal reasons. He said shortly after the rejection he met Mr Trump in the White House where the president asked about Mr Muellers integrity, which he defended. US Attorney General nominee William Barr attends a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington Credit: JIM YOUNG/REUTERS Mr Trump took his telephone number but did not call until the attorney general role came up, Mr Barr said. Some other responses stood out. Mr Barr said it would be a crime if any president offered a pardon in exchange for a witnesss promise not to incriminate him. The answer drew attention because Mr Trump has not ruled out pardoning Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman who was found guilty in a fraud trial and is currently in prison. Mr Barr also criticised Mr Comey's handling of the Hillary Clinton email scandal - a favoured topic of Mr Trump - and promised to look into controversial text messages between two FBI officials that critics including the president have claimed showed bias against him. Mr Barrs previous stint as attorney general he was confirmed unanimously by the US Senate then and the Republicans increased majority in that body, holding 53 seats to 47, mean he is expected to be confirmed. President Donald Trump gestures after arriving at McAllen International Airport for a visit to the southern border in McAllen, Texas, on Jan. 10, 2019. Twenty years ago, Donald Trump derided Republican firebrand Pat Buchanan as an anti-Semite, a racist and a homophobe. Now, as president, he is quoting him. Last week, Buchanan posted an article on the anti-immigration site Vdare.com that implored Trump to declare a national emergency on the southern border, "because mass migration from the global South, not climate change, is the real existential crisis of the West." Trump has publicly considered such a declaration as a way to go around Congress in order to secure funding for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. On Sunday, the president quoted a portion of Buchanan's post in a pair of tweets. The first said, "'The Trump portrait of an unsustainable Border Crisis is dead on,'" and then listed a number of immigration-related crime statistics. Buchanan did not cite the source of the data, but the context indicated it was from the Trump administration. The southern border "'is eventually going to be militarized and defended or the United States, as we have known it, is going to cease to exist. And Americans will not go gentle into that good night,'" the second tweet quoted. Trump attributed the quote to Buchanan and added, "The great people of our Country demand proper Border Security NOW!" This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. The theme of American culture being threatened by increased immigration has long been a central component of Buchanan's thinking, along with an opposition to globalization. It was a cause he championed in his failed 1992 Republican primary challenge against former President George H.W. Bush. In that campaign, he pushed for a wall on the southern border and used the slogan, "make America first again." Buchanan has been criticized for many of his comments and positions over the years, including qualified praise for Adolf Hitler's "great courage," nostalgia for the days of segregation, opposition to gay rights and claims that minorities were bringing down America's test scores. Story continues He ran for president again in 1996 on the Republican ticket and in 2000 as a Reform Party candidate. In 1999, Trump considered challenging Buchanan for the Reform Party nomination and he sharply criticized him during an appearance on "Meet the Press" that year. "He's a Hitler lover. I guess he's an anti-Semite. He doesn't like the blacks. He doesn't like the gays. It's just incredible that anybody could embrace this guy," Trump said. In his Monday tweets, the president did not include some of Buchanan's more racially charged language from the piece. "The more multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural, multilingual America becomes the less it looks like Ronald Reagan's America the more dependably Democratic it will become," Buchanan wrote in a section omitted from Trump's tweets. "The Democratic Party is hostile to white men, because the smaller the share of the U.S. population that white men become, the sooner that Democrats inherit the national estate. "The only way to greater 'diversity,' the golden calf of the Democratic Party, is to increase the number of women, African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics, and thereby reduce the number of white men," Buchanan asserted. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump tweets op-ed by Pat Buchanan, whom he derided as a 'Hitler lover' in 1999 Washington (AFP) - Standing outside the snow-covered White House on Monday, Donald Trump made an astonishing declaration for a US president: no, he has never been an agent of Russia. "I never worked for Russia," Trump told reporters on the South Lawn. "It's a disgrace that you even ask that question. It's all a big fat hoax." Trump's angry comments sought to bat down a mounting controversy over his alleged ties to the Kremlin, but the fact that he even had to issue such a denial illustrates how far the unprecedented scandal has already gone. The statement, delivered in freezing temperatures before taking off in the Marine One helicopter for a trip to New Orleans, followed two bombshell reports. One, in The New York Times, said that the FBI opened an investigation into whether Trump was acting on Russia's behalf soon after he became president. Another, in The Washington Post, detailed what it said were the unusual lengths taken by Trump to hide the contents of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This, of course, comes on top of the huge investigation led by special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who is looking into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election -- and the possibility it colluded with Trump's campaign. - Hiding interpreter's notes? - Trump was given an opportunity to respond to the report of the FBI investigation on Saturday when he gave an interview to his favorite Fox News channel. But instead of a clear cut denial, he fueled a mounting outcry in Washington by merely saying that the question was "the most insulting thing I've ever been asked." His response Monday took the entire alleged Russia collusion affair head on. "It's a lot of fake news," Trump said. He called the then-leaders of the FBI who decided to investigate him "known scoundrels, I guess you could say dirty cops." But the latest twists mean that the president -- currently embroiled in a damaging political battle with Congress over funding a Mexico border wall -- can't escape the Russia shadow, regardless of what he says. Story continues The details of the latest reports are especially shocking because they are so concrete, in contrast to the often complex and carefully withheld workings of the almost leak-proof Mueller probe. The Post story says that Trump personally acted to prevent notes taken by his interpreter during one-on-one meetings with Putin from being shared with aides. He allegedly took the notes away and ordered the interpreter not to divulge the contents. The Times report on the FBI investigation said the bureau decided to act after Trump fired the then director, James Comey in 2017. Transcripts of closed-door FBI testimony to Congress obtained by CNN show that the then head lawyer for the FBI, James Baker, said the bureau wanted to know whether Trump was "acting at the behest of (the Kremlin) and somehow following directions, somehow executing their will." "That was one extreme. The other extreme is that the President is completely innocent, and we discussed that too," Baker said in the transcript, according to CNN. The White House says that Trump has been pursued by a politicized FBI. The president repeatedly has called the probes into his dealings with Russia a "witch hunt." But Democrats and even some in Trump's Republican Party have repeatedly suggested that the administration is oddly favorable to Russian policies. They point to Trump's diplomatic assaults on European Union unity and the NATO alliance, as well as his recent comment defending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. "Like I said: a puppet," tweeted Hillary Clinton, the Democratic heavyweight beaten by Trump's insurgent campaign in 2016. She was referring to an accusation she made during a campaign debate with Trump that Putin would "rather" a puppet in the White House. However, top advisor Kellyanne Conway reiterated Monday the administration's frequent assertion that Trump has in fact been tough on Russia, one of Washington's key rivals and sometimes outright adversaries. "He has taken a lot of action," she told reporters, listing sanctions imposed on the Kremlin and US policy in Syria, among other factors. President Donald Trump repeatedly expressed to senior White House aides his desire to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, according to a report. The military alliance created in the aftermath of World War II by the United States, Canada and some European nations has been viewed as a critical bedrock against Soviet and Russian aggression for decades. But Trump has long balked at the U.S.'s NATO allies for not spending more on defense and meeting funding commitments. The revelation that the president did not see the point of the alliance and discussed withdrawing from it last year, reported in the New York Times on Monday evening, comes amid allegations that Trump deliberately concealed details of his meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, even from his own aides. It also comes amid a separate Times report that the FBI launched an investigation into Trump's administration over whether he was secretly working on behalf of the Russians. A weakened NATO is one of Putin's major geopolitical goals and fears of its eastward expansion is one of the reasons often cited for Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimea. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the NATO report. However, Trump's strong aversion to international alliances and organizations is well documented. He pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate change accord and exited a sweeping trade pact with Asian nations, as well as a deal related to Iran's nuclear weapons program. Trump has previously, publicly appeared to threaten to withdraw the U.S. from NATO if allies don't boost military spending. He has accused key NATO partners of being freeloaders and described the alliance as "obsolete." "I think it's the most insulting thing Ive ever been asked," Trump replied in a TV interview when asked about the FBI's probe. "I think it's the most insulting article Ive ever had written. And if you read the article, you'd see they found absolutely nothing." Story continues NATO was founded in 1949 and has 29 members. All have agreed to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2024. The alliance has estimated that based on current trends only half of NATO members will reach this target. "It doesn't get much worse than this," Carl Bildt, a Swedish diplomat and former prime minister, tweeted Tuesday reacting to Trump's reported NATO discussions. NATO was was founded on the principle of collective defense, meaning if one NATO ally is attacked, all NATO allies are attacked. In recent years, NATO forces have been deployed to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to act as a bulwark against Russian territorial hostility. They also help combat terrorism in Afghanistan, commercial piracy off the Horn of Africa and address global migration-related issues. More: 'Like I said: A puppet,' Hillary Clinton tweets after reports about Trump, Russia More: Trump-Putin: Top Democrat considering subpoena for interpreter's notes More: Trump: NYT report on FBI fear he worked for Russia is 'most insulting article' This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump repeatedly mulled leaving NATO military alliance, report claims Donald Trump has dismissed a proposal from a key Republican ally in congress that would end the longest US government shutdown in American history, declaring that he would never ever back down over border security. Twenty-four days into the partial shutdown, Lindsey Graham indicated he discussed the option of reopening the government temporarily as negotiations continue with Democrats. They have refused to sanction a demand from the president for $5.7bn to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. Mr Grahams idea had seen some support from Democrats, but the president declined to bite. Im not interested, Mr Trump said on Monday as he made his way to New Orleans, where he gave a speech to a farming convention. I want it solved. I dont want to just delay it. I want to get it solved. The comment came just hours after the president tweeted that he had been waiting all weekend to negotiate with congressional Democrats to reopen the government and that he believed an end could be negotiated in 15 minutes. Mr Trump last week reportedly stormed out of a White House conference room after asking Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi if she would sanction border wall funding if he approved legislation to reopen the government. Ms Pelosi refused the offer. Mr Graham had made his suggestion during an appearance on Fox News on Sunday, when he appeared to try to steer the president away from declaring a state of emergency to build the wall. He said: Before he pulls the plug on the legislative option, and I think were almost there, I would urge him to open up the government for a short period of time, like three weeks, before he pulls the plug, see if we can get a deal. If we cant at the end of three weeks, all bets are off. Having dismissed that option while leaving the White House, Mr Trump used his speech in New Orleans to say there was no substitute for a physical barrier along the southern border with Mexico. He also accused Democrats of playing politics in refusing to negotiate on the issue. Story continues They think if they stop me, itll be good for 2020, Mr Trump said of Democrats in congress. We need that barrier. If you dont have that barrier there, there is not a thing you can do. However, with the shutdown having left 800,000 federal workers without pay, there are signs that Mr Trump is beginning to lose the battle for public opinion. A Quinnipiac University poll released on Monday found that 63 per cent of voters agree with the longstanding Democrat proposal to reopen parts of the government that do not involve border security, with 30 per cent opposed. The same poll found 63 per cent of respondents also oppose using the shutdown to force wall funding, with 32 per cent supporting Mr Trumps stance. The poll also found that 56 per cent of American voters blame Mr Trump and Republicans in congress for the partial shutdown. Frustrations are beginning to build across the country, with families worried about rent and unpaid bills, while a number of services and agencies have been deeply affected. Air travellers endured long waits to get through domestic checkpoints at the worlds busiest airport, HartsfieldJackson Atlanta International, on Monday, as the number of security screeners not showing up for work continued to rise. Most Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers are required to report to work but are not being paid, meaning an absentee rate of 7.6 per cent across airports nationally. There are also signs that other Republicans have also grown weary of watching Mr Trump continue his charge for wall funding at the expense of the federal government, and some notable defections have been registered. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, for instance, raised concerns about the indefinite state of impasse. Ms Murkowski is among three Senate Republicans who have called on Mr Trump to reopen the government. Its just not good for any of us, she said during an appearance on CNN. When asked about Mr Trumps rejection of the three week offer, Ms Murkowski responded: Well, then Mr President, when are you going to help us open the government? Perhaps aware of a shifting in the mood of the nation, Mr Trump backed further away from the idea of declaring a national emergency over immigration on the border in order to appropriate funds for the wall without congressional approval. It is something Mr Trump has said he would do if required, despite Democrats calling it unnecessary and a possible overreach of executive powers. Im not looking to call a national emergency, Mr Trump said on Monday. This is so simple, we shouldnt have to. In the House of Representatives, Democrats are looking to keep the pressure up on Mr Trump by holding votes on two more bills aimed at re-opening the government. One bill would do so until 1 February, and a second would reopen it until 28 February. Neither bill, one of six having gone through the Democrat-controlled House, would provide funding for the wall. Representative Nita Lowey of New York said the bills offer additional options to end the shutdown and would give time for negotiations on border security and immigration. However, the leading Republican in the GOP-controlled Senate, Mitch McConnell, has said the upper chamber will not take up a vote on anything Mr Trump would not sign. Associated Press contributed to this report By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will lead the American delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week, filling in for President Donald Trump, two senior administration officials said. Trump, who attended last year's Davos event, had planned to go again this year but last week pulled out as he grapples with Democrats in the U.S. Congress over funding for a border wall that has led to a partial shutdown of the U.S. government. While Trump has vowed to remain at the White House for the most part until the shutdown is resolved, the senior administration officials told Reuters that the Davos event was too critical to American economic and foreign policy goals to cancel attendance by a high-ranking delegation. "It's important to note that the world doesnt stop just because the Democrats dont want to work with us to reopen the government," said one official. Democrats say they are willing to reopen the government but want to approve funding that does not include Trump's border wall, which they consider too expensive and ineffective. Mnuchin and Pompeo will be joined by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and the deputy White House chief of staff for policy, Chris Liddell, the officials said. Mnuchin, Lighthizer and Ross have been key players in Trump's policy of using tariffs and the threat of them to try to rebalance free trade agreements around the globe, particularly with China. Mnuchin and Pompeo plan to speak jointly to the opening session of the World Economic Forum on Jan. 22, a session that Trump was expected to address when he was still going. The officials said Mnuchin and Pompeo would make remarks and take questions from the audience. Mnuchin and Pompeo will also jointly host a dinner of the Group of Seven foreign and finance ministers while in Davos to discuss national security and economic issues, the officials said. Last year Trump had hosted a dinner of European business leaders while in Davos. For his itinerary in Davos, Mnuchin has close to 50 meetings set up with foreign counterparts, bankers, U.S. business leaders and other officials, one officials said. French President Emmanuel Macron will also not attend Davos this year, citing a busy schedule including debates launched in response to the "Yellow Vests" protests. (Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) The 'French security researcher' who goes by the name of Elliot Alderson on Twitter has captured the headlines in India, again! This time for pointing out that the data on Narendra Modi website is compromised. The vigilante hacker has a special love for the Indian government and some private Indian companies. His Twitter profile interestingly reads, "Worst nightmare of Oneplus, Wiko, UIDAI, Kimbho, Donald Daters and others. Not completely schizophrenic". Elliot Alderson's real name is Robert Baptiste. He had tweeted yesterday about the vulnerability in India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi's website, https://www.narendramodi.in/. According to him, PM's website was susceptible when opened not only in the staging sub-domain but also for the main website and could let anyone access the sites database. Elderson had tweeted, "A security issue has been detected on your website. An anonymous source uploaded a txt file containing my name on your websites in real-time. He also has a full access to your database. You should contact me in private and start a security audit ASAP!" Alderson also added that he was not the one who uploaded the txt file and that the hacker deleted the file from the app on his request. Hi @narendramodi, A security issue has been detected on your website. An anonymous source uploaded a txt file containing my name on your websites in realtime. He also have a full access to your database. You should contact me in private and start a security audit ASAP! Regards, pic.twitter.com/AuDupzRlrL - Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) January 14, 2019 Also Read: Twitter to make big changes! Colour-coded replies, Facebook like updates and more Taking the claims of Alderson seriously, the IT team that runs Narendra Modi's website reached out to the hacker and fixed the issue. Alderson tweeted, "Contact has been done with their team... I had a nice chat with the narendramodi.in team. They will take the appropriate measures and solve the issue." Alderson doesn't describe himself as a whistleblower. In one of his interviews to Hindustan Times he said, "I consider myself as a random guy. I am not special or whatever. As I said multiple times, I encourage people to do the same thing." "I have a standard process, nothing fancy. I am working alone. However, a lot of my followers shared what they find because nobody listen to them or they are afraid to be harassed," he had said. Other major exploits of 'Elliot Alderson' Robert Baptiste, a French developer who develops applications for Android platform, and an 'ethical' hacker, had earlier highlighted host of security issues in Aadhaar's Android application, mAadhaar. He had revealed that the developers of the app would string the biometric data in local database, the password of which could easily be obtained. He has also highlighted the vulnerability of Aadhaar in the past. Alderson also exposed mobile apps used by two of the biggest Indian political parties, Congress & BJP. He showed that both the apps share users' personal data with third parties. Alderson called Paytm out for putting the phones of its users at risk by asking them for root access to their devices. He said root access allowed Paytm to access other app information, chat details on the device. He has also raised security concerns over the security of data stored on the servers of ISRO, Indian Post and BSNL. Apart from the India centric exploits, Elderson also found some major security flaws in OnePlus phones in the past. Earlier last year, Elderson spoke about OnePlus' clipboard application featuring various keywords, indicating that the company was sending private data to its servers in China. Edited By: Udit Verma Also read: Oppo plans to unveil new smartphone camera with 10x optical zoom Also Read: How to send WhatsApp message to a person not on your phone contact list President Trump urged the president of Turkey in a phone call Monday not to mistreat Kurdish forces who have fought alongside U.S. troops against the Islamic State. The President expressed the desire to work together to address Turkeys security concerns in northeast Syria while stressing the importance to the United States that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian Democratic Forces with whom we have fought to defeat ISIS, read a statement from White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. As the U.S. begins carrying out Trumps order to withdraw the approximately 2,000 U.S. troops currently stationed in Syria, fears have mounted that Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan would take the opportunity to attack the Kurds, whom Turkey sees as a security threat. The move also leaves the Kurds open to attack from Syrian government troops backed by Iran and Russia. The sudden withdrawal was controversial within the administration and caused the departure of Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who in his resignation letter to Trump wrote, You have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours. Trump said on Sunday that the pullout is long overdue and threatened to devastate Turkey economically if they attack the Kurds, adding, likewise, [I] do not want the Kurds to provoke Turkey. Russia, Iran and Syria have been the biggest beneficiaries of the long term U.S. policy of destroying ISIS in Syria natural enemies, the president wrote on Twitter. We also benefit but it is now time to bring our troops back home. For its part, Turkey dismissed Trumps threat, saying it will not fear or be deterred by any threat. You cannot get anywhere by threatening Turkey economically, Turkish foreign minister Nevlut Cavusoglu said. More from National Review Miami (AFP) - Passengers departing Miami International Airport endured unusually long waits at security checkpoints Sunday, an indirect consequence of the partial US federal government shutdown. Since December 22, some 800,000 US federal employees have been on mandatory leave or working without pay because President Donald Trump and Congress have been at an impasse over $5.7 billion the president wants to build a wall on Mexico border. Some employees, including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents that staff airport security checkpoints, are considered "essential" and must work without pay. Many however are apparently protesting by reporting sick at an abnormally high rate. "We almost missed our flight. I wanted to eat a sandwich and now I can't. We're furious, this makes no sense," Italian Rocco Vincenzo, who was heading to the Cayman Islands before returning to his country, told AFP. Vincenzo stood in a line of cranky travelers waiting to get through security to catch their flights that stretched the length of two city blocks. "You want to travel? I'm going to stay in Italy and he (Trump) can stay in America," joked the 52-year-old laborer. With about 40 TSA agents out, Miami International Airport officials decided Friday to close one of the airport's six terminals. "Traveling in general is difficult, it's not pleasant, and this adds to the frustration," said Paul Reynolds, a 52-year-old Jamaican traveling to Kingston also waiting in line. According to spokesman Greg Chin, the wait times at Miami International remain normal and the closed terminal will reopen on Monday, staffed by TSA agents. TSA chief David Pekoske wrote on Friday that he had approved a $500 bonus for officers at checkpoints who have worked without pay in what is now the longest government shutdown in US history. "While I realize this is not what you are owed for your hard work," Pekoske tweeted, "I hope these actions alleviate some of the financial hardship many of you are facing." TOKYO (AP) The Tokyo District Court turned down a request by Nissan's former chairman Carlos Ghosn for release on bail Tuesday, prolonging his detention by weeks and possibly months. Ghosn, 64, who was arrested on Nov. 19, has been charged with falsifying financial reports in underreporting his compensation, and with breach of trust in having Japanese automaker Nissan Motor Co. shoulder investment losses and make payments to a Saudi businessman. His lawyers, who requested his release last week, appealed the rejection Tuesday. Tuesday's decision was expected since Motonari Ohtsuru, one of Ghosn's lawyers, had warned that suspects in Japan often are detained until their trials start. Ohtsuru said the complexity of Ghosn's case means it could take half a year before it goes to trial. Ghosn, who led Nissan for two decades, asserted his innocence in court last week, his first public appearance since his arrest. Ghosn says the compensation that he allegedly failed to report was neither agreed upon nor paid. Regarding the breach of trust charges, he said Nissan suffered no losses and the payments were for legitimate services. Tokyo prosecutors say they have enough evidence for a case, although they won't disclose details until the trial. On Monday, Ghosn's wife Carole Ghosn appealed for her husband's release in a letter to the group Human Rights Watch, saying the detention was "cruel and inhumane." Japan's judicial system has long been criticized for long harsh detentions, severe interrogation tactics and the lack of a presumption that suspects are innocent until proven guilty. ___ Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama On Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/yurikageyama/?hl=en A 2-year-old is safe after falling from a moving car while still strapped to a car seat, an incident captured by a witness and shared in video on social media. Facebook user Chad Mock posted footage from his dashcam of the moment of the child's fall. Roughly 15 seconds into the video, a vehicle is shown braking to turn when a door on the driver's side swings open and the toddler still in her car seat falls out. It then shows people running to the street to stop traffic and move to toddler off the road. "If it didn't happen in front of me i'd never have believed it," Mock said in a post. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Dan Schisel, a police commander in Mankato, Minnesota, where the incident occurred, said paramedics found the child was not hurt, reports the Mankato Free Press. The child's mother was driving and returned to the scene once she realized what happened, the newspaper reported. According to local station KMSP-TV, police say the toddler was properly strapped to the child seat, but the child seat was not fastened to the vehicle's seat. Police have forwarded charges of child endangerment and child restraint not fastened to prosecutors for review, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported. Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Toddler safe after fall from moving vehicle caught on video Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site. Until now, anyone who wanted a Cadillac that could seat more than five had to go bigreally bigand get the full-sized truck-based Escalade. Shoppers looking for luxury midsized seven-seaters had to shop European or Japanese brands. The new XT6 SUV debuted at the Detroit Auto Show, filling a space between the massive Escalade and the midsized XT5 five-seater. In addition to the new Lincoln Aviator, which bowed last month in Los Angeles, the Cadillac XT6 gives buyers another choice for an American-made, three-row luxury SUV. The XT6 faces stiff competition when it hits dealerships in early summerincluding the Audi Q7, BMW X5, Infiniti QX60, and Lexus RX350 L, all of which CR recommends. Outside The angular design of the new XT4 carries over on this larger SUV, including vertical lights that illuminate the front and rear. The larger XT6 gets larger, prominently featured air intakes. Underneath, the XT6 shares its fundamental structure with the GMC Acadia. There are two trim choices: Buyers who pick the Premium Luxury trim get silver-toned accents and red taillight lenses. Those who pick the Sport trim get black trim and clear taillight lenses. Twenty-inch wheels come standard, and optional 21-inch wheels are available only on the Sport trim. Inside The dashboard is similar to what drivers see in the CT6 sedan. It comes with a new rotary controller that jogsmoving side to side, like a joystickin addition to the XT4s spinning-only action. It gives drivers another option of how to choose selections on the touch screen if theyd rather not let their fingers do the walking. The three rows can seat either six or sevena middle bench seat comes standard, but one can upgrade to a pair of captains chairs. A power-folding third row and remote-folding second row come standard. Owners can choose between wood and carbon fiber trim. Heated front seats and a heated steering wheel come standard. Cooled front seats are optional, as are heated second-row rear outboard seats. But alas, the driver seat has only a two-way lumbar support. Six USB portstwo for each row of seatscome standard, as does a dual sunroof with a power shade. Story continues What Drives It Theres only one engine and transmission choice: a 310-hp, 3.6-liter V6 thats mated to a nine-speed automatic transmission. The engine gets GMs Active Fuel Management technology, which deactivates cylinders when the SUV cruises at a steady speed, in order to save fuel. All-wheel drive is optional; front-wheel drive comes standard. Safety & Driver-Assist Systems The XT6 comes with a generous amount of advanced safety technologies, including forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, blind spot warning, rear cross traffic warning, lane departure warning, and lane keep assist. Optional features include rear pedestrian warning, reverse automatic emergency braking, and a rear camera mirror similar to the one found in the GMC Sierra. CRs Take The XT6 is Cadillacs belated entry into the contemporary three-row luxury-SUV segment. We like that Cadillac has included advanced safety features as standard that were optional on the XT6s siblings from Chevrolet and Buick. More from Consumer Reports: Top pick tires for 2016 Best used cars for $25,000 and less 7 best mattresses for couples Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Copyright 2019, Consumer Reports, Inc. Tesla is under pressure now that Volkswagen, General Motors, and Ford ratcheted up their electric-car game. With these automobile juggernauts fighting for domination, competition in the electric vehicle field has never been fiercer. On Jan. 14, German automaker Volkswagen announced plans to invest $800 million to expand an electric vehicle (EV) plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The manufacturing facility will create 1,000 new jobs, and is expected to roll out its first EV in 2022, Volkswagen announced. Volkswagen Targets 1 Million Sales a Year Volkswagen has also set an ambitious goal of selling one million electric cars a year by 2025. By comparison, Tesla delivered a total of 101,312 vehicles in 2017. Thats a 33 percent increase from 2016. Despite the progress, Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk have been under fire for repeatedly missing production deadlines. GM Plans Luxury Electric Cadillac Moreover, Tesla faces mounting competition from General Motors, which plans to launch an all-electric Cadillac, as CCN reported. After cutting costs and exiting the unprofitable European auto market, GM revised its 2019 earnings projections upward. General Motors now expects to earn $6.50 to $7.00 a share well above Wall Street expectations of $5.86. Ford to Invest $11 Billion in Electric Cars Meanwhile, Ford is investing $11 billion to make electric cars by 2022, CNBC reported. While Tesla has three EV models (the Model X, Model S, and Model 3), Ford plans to eventually have 40 hybrid and fully electric vehicles in its lineup. We talked about a huge investment in electric vehicles, says Ford CEO Jim Hackett. We have 16 models that are in design and development. We have a pretty big surprise coming next year. Elon Musk on Competition: Bring It On! While most CEOs would be annoyed by the idea of such stiff competition, Elon Musk wholeheartedly welcomes it. The whole point of Tesla is to accelerate the advent of electric vehicles, Musk told 60 Minutes in December 2018 (see video). Story continues If somebody comes and makes a better electric car than Tesla and its so much better than ours that we cant sell our cars and we go bankrupt, I still think thats a good thing for the world. Tesla Stock Remains Curiously Anti-fragile If billionaire Musk doesnt sound particularly worried about Tesla, perhaps its because he has other concerns. SpaceX the rocket company Musk founded is laying off 10 percent of its 6,000-employee workforce. The layoffs are part of a plan to slash costs and streamline the business. SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said the action was necessary due to the extraordinarily difficult challenges ahead. The company is offering the fired workers a minimum of eight weeks pay and other benefits. For all the bearish talk about SpaceX and Tesla, Teslas stock hasnt suffered much. On Monday (Jan. 14), TSLA closed at $334.40, down 3.7 percent. Despite the dip, Tesla shares are still up over a five-year time horizon. Tesla TSLA stock price jan 14 Featured image from Shutterstock. The post Tesla Faces Squeeze as Volkswagen Invests $800 Million in US Electric Car Plant appeared first on CCN. This is the moment bathers run away in terror as a huge crocodile suddenly walks onto a beach and strolls down to the shoreline. An eyewitness with a smartphone filmed the American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) walking onto the beach in the Tayrona National Natural Park in northern Colombias department of Santa Marta. One group of young men, who were looking the other way, can be seen nearly walking straight into the large crocodile and end up running off in panic. National park officials reminded beachgoers the park was set up to protect wildlife as well as for people to enjoy and the presence of the crocodile was actually a positive sign. Swimmers flee as an American crocodile is spotted on a beach at Tayrona National Natural Park in northern Colombias department of Santa Marta (CEN) A sunbather evades the crocodile (CEN) However, rangers later evacuated the beach as much to save the crocodile from being bothered by curious onlookers filming it with their smartphones as to protect people from the dangerous reptile. National park director Luz Elvira Angarita said it was not unusual to see crocodiles in the area and it was a good sign for the wildlife diversity of the park. He said: Its important to remember these habitats are not just for people to enjoy, but also for the protection of wildlife species. Swimmers flee as an American crocodile is spotted on a beach at Tayrona National Natural Park in northern Colombias department of Santa Marta (CEN) The American crocodile, also known in Colombia as the Caiman Aguja, can reach lengths of 6.1 metres (20 ft) and weigh up to 907 kilogrammes (2,000 lb). They are potentially dangerous to humans but tend not to be as aggressive as some other species. Experts advise people to remain at least 20 metres (66 ft) away from them, not to provoke them and not to swim in areas where they have been seen. Around 15 live in the national park and they can be also found from South Florida and the coasts of Mexico to as far south as Peru and Venezuela but hunting, pollution and the loss of natural habits are taking their toll on numbers. By Dan Whitcomb and Jane Ross LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - More than 30,000 Los Angeles teachers demanding pay raises and smaller classes walked off the job in America's second-largest school system on Monday, marching downtown in the rain after negotiations over a new contract broke down. Students arriving at some 900 campuses across the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) were met by their teachers carrying laminated picket signs in the city's first teachers' strike in three decades. The system serves roughly 640,000 students. "It's an existential battle for the future of public education," teacher Mike Finn told Reuters outside John Marshall High School in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Feliz. Some 20,000 teachers, union members and supporters gathered outside City Hall, carrying umbrellas in a rare Southern California rainstorm and chanting. No end date has been given for the strike and the two sides have not met since union leaders said on Friday they were "insulted" by the district's latest offer. Officials for the LAUSD, which serves mostly working-class families who would lack child care if classes were canceled, kept schools open, staffed by administrators and substitute teachers. "This morning, buses rolled and breakfast was served. Los Angeles Unified schools are open and providing every student with a safe and welcoming learning environment," district officials said on Twitter. But attendance was down considerably as parents kept children home out of concern for their safety or to honor picket lines. Schools with limited staffing gathered students in gymnasiums to be supervised by a handful of administrators and substitutes. The walkout follows a wave of teachers' strikes across the United States over pay and school funding, including job actions in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Arizona. Denver teachers could vote to strike by Saturday if no deal on a new contract is reached by then. TEACHERS SEEK 6.5 PERCENT PAY HIKE The strike by United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) marks one of the largest and one of the few targeting a Democratic-controlled government in a blue state. Los Angeles County officials say the union demands are unaffordable. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Democrat weighing a run for his party's nomination in the 2020 presidential race, has largely avoided taking sides. In a video posted on Twitter, Garcetti urged the district and union to reach an agreement as soon as possible. Union negotiators have demanded a 6.5 percent pay raise, more librarians, counselors and nurses on campuses, smaller class sizes and less testing, as well as a moratorium on new charter schools. The district has countered with a proposed 6 percent salary hike with back pay and a $100 million investment to hire more staff and decrease class sizes. Teacher pay currently averages $75,000 in the LAUSD, according the California Department of Education. Los Angeles County School Superintendent Austin Beutner said Friday's offer to teachers was beefed up after newly installed California Governor Gavin Newsom increased education spending in his proposed budget. "This impasse is disrupting the lives of too many kids and their families. I strongly urge all parties to go back to the negotiating table and find an immediate path forward that puts kids back into classrooms and provides parents certainty," Newsom said in a written statement on Monday. At a news conference on Monday, Beutner urged union negotiators to return to the bargaining table and said he had asked the mayor and governor to help broker an end to the strike. (Reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Jane Ross in Los Angeles, additional reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York, Rich McKay in Atlanta and Scott Malone in Boston; Editing by Grant McCool, Bill Berkrot and Cynthia Osterman) The OECD Observer online archive takes you on a journey through half a century of public policy and world progress. Since November 1962, the OECDs experts and leading guests offer insights on the questions facing our member countries with concise and authoritative analysis, and provide our audiences with an excellent opportunity to understand policy debates and consider solutions. Each edition of the OECD Observer reports on a core theme of the OECDs on-going work, from economics and society through governance, finance, and the environment, and articles are bolstered by tables and graphs. A senior Republican congressman has been blocked by his own party from sitting on committees after his universally condemned remarks about white supremacy. Steve King, in his ninth term representing Iowa in Washington, will not be given committee assignments for the next two years, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy said. Mr King had served on the agriculture, small business and judiciary committees in the last Congress, also chairing the judiciary's subcommittee on the constitution and civil justice. Mr McCarthy, who met with Mr King on Monday to discuss his GOP future, said the comments were beneath the dignity of the Party of Lincoln and the United States of America. His remarks call into question whether he will treat all Americans equally, without regard for race and ethnicity, Mr McCarthy added. House Republicans are clear - We are all in this together, as fellow citizens equal before God and the law. Mr King, who has a history of making incendiary comments, was condemned from all sides of the House following a series of his remarks that appeared in a New York Times story last week. White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization how did that language become offensive? he asked during an interview with the newspaper. Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization? Following the publication of the article, Mr King issued a statement describing himself as a nationalist, but insisted he was not promoting white nationalism or white supremacist beliefs. On Monday, he described Mr McCarthys decision to remove him from committees a political decision that ignores the truth. He vowed to continue to point out the truth and work with all the vigour that I have to represent 4th District Iowans for at least the next two years. Several top GOP figures have move to publicly denounce Mr Kings comments. Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Monday there was no place in the Republican Party, the Congress or the country for an ideology of racial supremacy of any kind. Story continues Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz told NBCs Meet the Press what Mr King had said was stupid. I think all of us ought to be united, regardless of party, in saying, white supremacism, white nationalism, is hatred. It is bigotry. It is evil. It is wrong, he added. Meanwhile, House Democrats moved to formally punish Mr King, including James Clyburn, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, who introduced a formal resolution of disapproval late on Monday. Addressing what he called a tale of two kings, Mr Clyburn noted his resolution against the Iowa congressmans remarks came a day before the 90th birthday of celebrated civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King Jr. Illinois representative, Bobby Rush, said he will introduce a censure resolution, a more serious action to reprimand Mr King, claiming it would tell the world Congress rejected repugnant and racist behaviour. Additional reporting by AP Photo credit: University of Central Florida From Popular Mechanics Steam power may seem like a relic of the 19th century, but one company wants to bring the tech to the 21st. Specifically, space startup Honeybee Robotics is teaming up with researchers from the University of Central Florida to build a spacecraft that can soar between worlds in the Solar System forever by using steam power. Using steam power for a spacecraft, while unusual, actually makes a lot of sense. The biggest limiting factor around how long a spacecraft can operate is typically how much fuel it has onboard. Otherwise successful spacecraft, like Cassini and Dawn, often have to end their missions when they run out of fuel. This can be frustrating for scientists here on Earth because they know the other parts and components are still functioning properly and could still operate for many more years. The genius of a steam-powered spacecraft is that it could harvest its fuel from the places it would visit. Water is everywhere in the Solar System; nearly every rock floating in space has some, and it wouldnt be too difficult to harvest it with a spacecraft. Once harvested, the water would be heated into steam and ejected out the back as propellant. To test the concept of an eternal water-harvesting spacecraft, Honeybee Robotics built the World Is Not Enough prototype, which was tested at a facility at the University of Central Florida in late December, where it practiced on a mock-up asteroid surface and passed its test with flying colors. It's awesome, said UCF planetary scientist Phil Metzger in a press release. "[The prototype] successfully mined the soil, made rocket propellant, and launched itself on a jet of steam extracted from the simulant. We could potentially use this technology to hop on the Moon, Ceres, Europa, Titan, Pluto, the poles of Mercury, asteroids-anywhere there is water and sufficiently low gravity. The prototype is still in the early stages of testing, and theres no word about if or when it will actually go to space. But the project has already received NASA funding and is actively seeking additional investors, so we can expect a space test soon. At that point, space will finally experience the dawn of the steam age. Story continues Source: NBC ('You Might Also Like',) Media covering the Detroit auto show Monday gathered at a press conference to see the dramatic reveal of an Infiniti luxury electric SUV concept vehicle. But a mishap of some sort spoiled the reveal of the Infiniti QX Inspiration. Karim Habib, executive design director of Infiniti, hit the stage and announced the concept would not be coming out because of a technical problem. Ouch. The company was planning to have the vehicle available for viewing shortly on the show floor. But not before the blunder left the crowd wanting. Infiniti later tweeted, "Coming soon." This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. With a battery below the floor and electric motors on all four wheels, the Inspiration's passenger cabin is reportedly moved forward for more "lounge-like" interior space. It is said to have a low roof line sloping from front to back with small side windows. Infiniti wouldn't say how far the Inspiration can go on a single charge, but said it will offer "range confidence." No date for production has been set, and it's not certain whether the Inspiration will even be made. But Infiniti has said it plans to make only electric or gas-electric starting in 2021. More than 5,000 credentialed journalists from around the world were expected to attend the media preview. More than 750 vehicles are on display in Cobo Center in Detroit during the show with approximately 800,000 people expected to attend. The show is open to the public on Jan. 19-27. Associated Press contributed to this story. Follow Detroit Free Press journalist Amy Huschka on Twitter @aetmanshuschka. Christian Meunier, Chairman, Infiniti Motor Company, speaks at the reveal of the Infiniti QX Concept vehicle at the 2019 North American International Auto Show during Media preview days on January 14, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Snafu at Detroit auto show: Infiniti concept electric car dies before reaching the stage This is an opinion piece by Sheila Bair, former Chair of the FDIC. Elizabeth Warren has announced an exploratory committee to seek the Democratic nomination for the presidency with a finely honed platform based on economic opportunity for the middle class. She has a unifying message, extolling working families of all colors and origins to work together in their common economic interest. Her big tent rhetoric could pose a threat to President Donald Trump, who has built a political base by tapping into that same economic disaffection, but with a message that resonates primarily with voters who share his gender and race. With that misguided strategy, he has alienated working mothers, families of color, immigrant workers, and others who have been just as disadvantaged by the current system as high-school educated white males. Warren aims to bring them together in a potentially potent political coalition. Warrens critics on the right sniff that working class males will never support a socialist. But she is not a socialist. She is a Teddy Roosevelt-quoting, Oklahoman who believes in capitalism and markets. What she does want to change are government policies that have perverted our market-based system to benefit the wealthy and powerful. She is determined to make capitalism work again for everyone, as it did through the post-WWII era. Far from wanting to nationalize the system, she recognizes that government has been part of the problem by handing out benefits and favors to the privileged few. A simpler, smaller, and more accountable financial system The 2008/2009 big bank bailouts remain a symbol of the rigged system many believe our government has become. Perhaps one of Warrens biggest advantages as a candidate is her financial expertise. A longstanding critic of the current financial system, she is one of the few people in elective politics who understands that system and has a workable plan to reform it. So what does Elizabeth Warren want that system to look like? Story continues I have worked with Elizabeth Warren and her team for many years on financial issues, and this is how I believe she would reshape the banking system. First, it would be smaller and simpler. Warren is supportive of community banks and credit unions, but she wants to break up the big guys. High on her list is a modern day version of Glass-Steagall, the landmark law enacted during the Great Depression that forced a separation of investment banking from commercial banking. While Warren supported the 2010 Dodd-Frank reform law for making incremental improvements, she believes its technocratic approach is less effective and imposes more costs than fundamental structural reform. Under Warren, expect big banks enjoying the benefits of deposit insurance and Federal Reserve lending to be broken up and banned from their high-risk derivatives and securities activities. If they want access to government safety net support, they will need to be boring again. Warrens banking system would be less leveraged. Excessive borrowing by large banks was widely recognized as a key driver of the 2008 financial crisis. Warren would beef up capital requirements and curb tax subsidies for highly leveraged banks. She would also end tax incentives for banks to pay their executives with huge, performance-based bonuses that too often reward short-term risk taking while compromising the banks long-term financial health. New Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection director Kathy Kraninger speaks to media at the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection offices in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Warrens banking system would be more consumer friendly. Warren would no doubt appoint a strong head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Created by Dodd-Frank, the bureau was her brainchild but has been seriously weakened under the current administration. She would also enable banks and credit unions to partner with the U.S. Post Office in offering basic financial financial services such as checking and savings accounts in postal facilities. Roughly six in 10 are located in areas that have either no bank facility or only one branch. Postal banking would broaden the provision of low-cost financial services to under-banked communities and give them alternatives to check-cashers for basic cash needs. Finally, her banking system would be more accountable. Warrens proposed Too Big to Jail Act would set up a special unit within the Treasury Department to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. It would also require major bank CEOs to conduct due diligence each year of their organizations and certify they have found no criminal conduct. False certifications would be grounds for prosecution. In this way, Warren hopes to discipline behavior by imposing personal accountability on decision-makers. Contrast this to the approach taken after the 2008 financial crisis when the government meted out billions in fines on banks and their shareholders, but did little to prosecute culpable executives. A vision that could resonate broadly with Americans Though there will be debate over the specifics, her vision of a financial system that is simpler, smaller, and more accountable should resonate broadly with the populace. Indeed, many of my conservative friends also criticize the technocratic labyrinth of government bank oversight that concerns her. Its costs and complexity stifle competition and impede effective scrutiny by market analysts, academics, and others, thus protecting the status quo. But while conservatives may put too much faith in capitalisms invisible hand to discipline the big banks, Warren wants to add a dose of structural limits on their size and power, combined with personal accountability for their leaders. And even Adam Smith thought government regulation of banking was essential. But will she follow through? Weve heard presidential candidates campaign against Wall Street before, only to succumb to its siren song with industry-friendly regulators and tepid oversight once elected. But anyone who knows Warren knows her administration would not (at last) travel down the well-trod path of Wall Street campaign money and revolving door jobs. At her core, she sees the too-big-to-fail banks as not only threatening our market-based system, but our democracy, as well. She frequently quotes Teddy Roosevelt who viewed the corporate trusts of a century ago in the same way. She has announced that she will not accept corporate PAC or lobbyist money and plans to finance her campaign primarily through individual contributions. This aspect of her candidacy is unique and defining among the leading Democratic presidential contenders and may be even more important than the specifics of her proposals. Eschewing big institutional money in favor of grass roots support can give the American people confidence she will not only have the know-how, but the independence and integrity, to achieve a financial system that works for them. Sheila Bair is the former Chair of the FDIC and has held senior appointments in both Republican and Democrat Administrations. She currently serves as a board member or advisor to a several companies and is a founding board member of the Volcker Alliance, a nonprofit established to rebuild trust in government. Read more: Former FDIC Chair: The Fed needs to hit pause on rate hikes America has left the door wide open for bailouts Vulnerability in Americas lower income brackets poses a risk to the economy China thinks long-term on financial stability so should we Former FDIC chair: Why we shouldnt ban bitcoin Sheila Bair: Trump is going after the Bill of Rights Former FDIC chair: The Fed needs to get serious about its own digital currency Shaw Communications Inc. SJR reported first-quarter fiscal 2019 adjusted earnings from continuing operations of 28 cents per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 3 cents. Moreover, total revenues of $1.04 billion comfortably beat the consensus mark of $974 million. Adjusted earnings surged 63.6% year over year to C$0.36 per share. Total revenues climbed 8.8% to C$1.36 billion, primarily driven by wireless service revenue growth. Segment Details Wireline revenues (79.9% of total revenues) increased 0.7% on a year-over-year basis to C$ 1.08 billion. Consumer revenues remained almost unchanged at $936 million, while Business revenues increased 5% to $147 million. Shaw Communications expects its partnership with Comcast CMCSA, which not only covers broadband but also video, to drive growth in the wireline business. The company has deployed Comcasts XB6 Advanced WiFi modem, which enables faster Internet speed at home. In early 2019, Shaw Communications will start offering additional internet protocol (IP) services such as xFi and WiFi extenders. The company will also begin offering IPTV service to customers. Wireless revenues (20.1% of total revenues) surged 59.6% from the year-ago quarter to $273 million, primarily driven by higher post-paid revenue generating units (RGUs) or subscribers, and an improvement in average billing per subscriber unit (ABPU) to $41.99, up 12%. Service revenues increased 31.5% to $167 million. Equipment revenues jumped 140.9% year over year to $106 million. Shaw Communications Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise Shaw Communications Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | Shaw Communications Inc. Quote The company continues to deploy 700 MHz spectrum, which is now approximately 25% complete. The deployment of this low band spectrum improves customer experience by providing far-reaching coverage and stronger indoor wireless reception. Voice over LTE (VoLTE) is now enabled on 35 devices on Freedoms network and is available to almost 800,000 subscribers. The company completed the launch of 140 new retail locations with Walmart WMT. It is now operating in 240 national retail locations across its footprint with Loblaws, The Mobile Shop and Walmart on a combined basis. Freedom Mobile now has 600 operational retail locations. Subscriber/RGU Details In the Wireline-Consumer segment, the video cable lost 23,768 subscribers in the three months ended Nov 30, 2018. Video satellite customer count declined 28,893. Phone lines lost 15,957 customers. However, Shaw Communications Wireline Internet business gained 5,606 customers in the quarter. In the Wireline-Business Network Service segment, the video cable lost 254 customers in the quarter. However, Video satellite customers grew 558. Further, the company gained 1,248 Internet customers and 8,649 phone customers. In the Wireless Segment, Shaw Communications gained 86,067 post-paid subscribers. Post-paid customer base is now more than 1.1 million and total customer base is approximately 1.46 million. Average Revenue per Subscriber Unit (ARPU) increased 7% year over year to $38.64. Moreover, wireless post-paid churn improved from 1.64% to 1.28% on a year-over-year basis. Increase in the post-paid customer base reflects continued customer demand for premium smartphones combined with device pricing and affordable packaging options, data centric plans, and improving network and customer experience. However, the company lost 20,452 pre-paid subscribers. More than half of this loss was attributed to customer shift to higher value post-paid plans. Intensifying competition resulted in the loss of other half of customers. Notably, the companys footprint now covers approximately 16 million people or almost half of the Canadian population. Operating Details In first-quarter fiscal 2019, operating, general & administrative expenses increased 5.9% year over year to $810 million. Operating, general & administrative expenses as percentage of revenues decreased 170 basis points (bps) to 59.8%. Notably, 220 employees exited the company in the quarter, due to the voluntary departure program (VDP) under the Total Business Transformation (TBT) initiative. This led to operating cost reductions of approximately $25 million and capital cost reductions of approximately $6 million in the quarter. Operating income before restructuring costs and amortization increased 13.5% year over year to $545 million. Operating margin expanded 170 bps from the prior-year quarter to 40.2%. Segment wise, Wireline operating income increased 11.9% to $500 million. Wireline segment operating margin expanded 460 bps to 46.2%, primarily due to positive effects of the voluntary departure program (VDP). Wireless operating income jumped 36.4% to $45 million, primarily due to higher ABPU and ARPU. Wireless segment operating margin contracted 280 bps to 16.5%, primarily due to margin pressure from significantly higher equipment sales. Capital Expenditures & Free Cash Flow In the first quarter, capital expenditures decreased by $68 million year over year to $271 million. Wireline capital spending decreased by roughly $18 million, primarily due to fewer network upgrades and reduced deployment of customer premise equipment. Wireless spending decreased by almost $50 million year over year. Free cash flow was $164 million compared with $64 million in the year-ago quarter. Guidance Shaw Communications expects to increase its market share in Western Canada, driven by its expanding network into new cities throughout 2019, including Victoria and Red Deer. The company expects to expand to an additional population of 1.3 million in fiscal 2019. The company reiterated its operating income before restructuring costs and amortization guidance for fiscal 2019, which is expected to grow between 4% and 6% over fiscal 2018. Capital investments are expected to be approximately $1.2 billion, while free cash flow is likely to be roughly $500 million. Shaw Communications expects investments in the Wireless network, retail footprint expansion and deployment of low band spectrum to increase for the remainder of fiscal 2019. Management expects $140 million of operating and capital savings in fiscal 2019 related to TBT initiatives. Zacks Rank & A Key Pick Shaw Communications currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Charter Communications CHTR is a stock worth considering in the same industry as it has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Charter is expected to report on Jan 31. Story continues Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside? Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana. Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look. See the pot trades we're targeting>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Belgrade (AFP) - Several thousand people marched Saturday in the Serbian capital, the fifth consecutive weekend rally against the rule of President Aleksandar Vucic whom they accuse of authoritarianism. The protests represent the biggest challenge to Vucic's rule so far, and were first called by opposition parties after one of their leaders was beaten ahead of a political gathering in central Serbia in November. The opposition Alliance for Serbia (SZS), an umbrella of parties from across the political spectrum, accused the attackers of being supporters of Vucic's ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), a claim the authorities denied. "Serbia is slowly rising, entire towns are rising ... and our numbers will grow," actor and one of the movement's leader Branislav Trifunovic told the crowd in Belgrade on Saturday, quoted by N1 television. Several hundred people also protested in the southern town of Kragujevac and some 50 in Novi Sad in the north, Beta news agency reported. Since the first protest on December 8, the rallies were joined by students and public figures, notably artists. The demonstrators gathered in front of the faculty of philosophy and marched through Belgrade behind a large banner reading: "1 in 5 million." It was a reference to Vucic's earlier statement that he would not meet opposition demands for free media and fair elections "even if there were five million people in the street". Vucic, a hardline nationalist-turned-European, is accused by the opposition and civil society of having established autocratic rule and total control over the media, using it to campaign against opponents. Commenting earlier on the protests Vucic said he was "ready to listen to the citizens who are demonstrating but not to opposition liars." Vucic was elected president in 2017 after holding the post of prime minister. Decrease Font Size Font Size Increase Font Size Article body For months now, an Auburn University research team has been keeping close tabs on roughly 250 tagged paddlefish and smallmouth buffalo in the Alabama River in an effort to learn more about how lock-and-dam systems on a waterway impact fish movement upstream and down. In the study, led by School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences faculty Dennis DeVries and Russell Wright, they and a cadre of graduate students have tagged each fish with a tiny transmitter that pings the fishs location every 3 seconds. If the fish is in range of an array of receivers the team has placed around three Alabama River lock-and-dam systemsClaiborne, Millers Ferry and Jones Bluff the pings are registered, and the fishs location is recorded. As the tagged fish swim around the dams, the system generates thousands of data points that show where and how the fish move. That allows us to get a two-dimensional position on a relatively fine scale of where that fish actually is, Wright said. We can determine, as they approach the dam moving upstream, whether they choose a path through slower-moving water or whether they just come racing up and try to go over the spillway, regardless of water velocity. What is it about any particular area that they use that allows that fish to make it past the dam or not? Dams affect river ecosystems by altering flow and creating reservoirs. Since some aquatic species require specific river conditions to grow and reproduce properly, dams can negatively impact those populations. In a normal, uninterrupted river fish move freely upstream and downstream, DeVries said. But if you build a dam, that blocks the passageway. Many fish species migrate upriver each spring to spawn, but dams can interfere with the spawning runs, causing the fish to either turn around, spawn at the dam or not spawn at all, DeVries said. The idea is to see if theres a way to get those fish past that dam and move upriver, he said. The researchers current investigation stemmed from a smaller study they were involved with a few years ago in which the Nature Conservancy attempted to move fish past dams the same way boats manage passage: through lock systems. A lock system allows a vessel to enter a chamber where the water level can be raised or lowered to bring the boat to the top or bottom of the dam. The Nature Conservancy conducted conservation lockages daily in an effort to mitigate the effects of the dams on fish. The theory was that fish would enter the chamber downstream and exit it above the dam, thereby bypassing the obstacle. It was virtually impossible, however, to determine if that technique was effective. Thats where DeVries and Wright entered the picture. With funding from an internal Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station grant, they tagged fish with transmitters and started tracking the movement to discover whether fish were actually using the lockages. Their findings? Among the three dams, fish moved up- and downstream at Claiborne Lock and Dam only, and most of that movement was not through the lock system, but by going over a crested spillway at the dam. During high flooding, water levels are high enough that fish can sometimes make it over a crested spillway. The Millers Ferry and Jones Bluff dams, which registered no fish moving past them at all, are much higher and have only gated spillways, so that a navigational lock is the only way a fish could move upstream past these structures. Their findings demonstrated the importance of tracking fishes actual movements instead of managing them based on assumptions, so DeVries and Wright expanded the project to investigate other questions related to fish movement and populations. Were trying to see what theyre doing below the dam, DeVries said. There are areas that are shallower, deeper, higher flow, lower flow, and when we watch the movement of these fish, theyre not just going straight up the river. We want to figure out whether they are energetically optimizing their pathway up to the dam, and then, if they cant make it up over the dam, conserving energy and testing the dam from time to time. Initial funding for the expanded study came from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2016, and the scientists have received additional funding each year since, for a total of close to $3 million. The movement data from the tagged fish is giving the research team insight into how to potentially mitigate the dams negative impact. For example, the team has discovered that some fish are attracted to the still water in the lock chamber and are content to stay there, even when the water level rises above the dam. Are there things we can do to get them more efficiently into and out of the lock? Wright said. Possibly so. One option might be to install fish ladders to facilitate the natural migration of the fish over the spillway. If we can do things to the dam, the design of the dam, or the holding area that makes it easier for them to get past the dam, then at least at Claiborne, we can make a more efficient use of this crested spillway to move fish past the dam, Wright said. DeVries and Wright are focusing largely on paddlefish in the project because it is a highly migratory species, making it ideal for a dam passage study. Paddlefish also have economic value in that they produce large eggs that can replace the smaller sturgeon eggs used in caviar. One paddlefish can be worth thousands of dollars in terms of the value of the eggs, Wright said, adding that the species also is a conservation concern. Currently, six graduate students and a technician are involved in the project, performing electrofishing and gillnetting to collect fish, inserting the tags in fish, downloading data from the receivers, helping analyze that data and working in the lab with the fish and samples that have been collected. Our students are out there in a lot of really taxing, trying conditions, said DeVries. The team has tagged about 250 fish so far. Each tag costs $400 to $600. To perform the procedure, the students anesthetize a fish if necessary and make a small opening in the body cavity to insert the tag just inside. They then use sutures to close the opening, put veterinary-grade superglue on it, clean the incision, and then make sure the fish fully recovers and swims away, DeVries said. Theyre to the point where they can do the procedure in under two minutes. The students also place the receivers, which cost a couple thousand dollars each, near the three dams. They have installed receivers in the lock chambers, above and below the dams and further downriver, using concrete parking bumpers to anchor them in place. The receivers cycle through the different tag frequencies every 10-20 seconds, generating a data point every time they detect a tag ping. As a result, DeVries said the team has, millions of data points, to work with. DeVries and Wright said their project should provide significant factual data on which management decisions could help protect Alabamas fish populations. Our work will yield evidence on what impact dams are having on fish ecology right now: Are they contributing to declining populations of some species, causing genetic shifts or providing population barriers? Wright said. Documenting a problem is important. That way, if you make a judgement call about things, such as flood control versus fish passage, you at least know if there is a reason to even have this argument. Abu Dhabi (AFP) - Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia called Tuesday for a "fair" and gradual global energy transition as it unveiled an ambitious domestic renewable energy programme. Experts say energy output from renewables, especially solar and wind, is growing faster than anticipated, threatening to displace oil, gas and coal as the world's main sources of power. But Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih told a clean energy conference in Abu Dhabi that the transition must take place gradually in order to avoid "chaos". "Balancing greenhouse gas emissions will take decades," he said at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week. "It's not going to be done overnight. In the interim, ample and reliable energy sources like oil and gas will need to be made available or (the world will) risk chaos." Unveiling Saudi Arabia's clean energy programme, he said the kingdom plans to create "a global hub of renewable energy capability" over the coming decades, producing upward of 200 gigawatts of power. Falih proposed a strategy of gradually improving the quality of fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the same time as increasing renewable energy consumption. "We urgently need consensus around an energy transition strategy that is realistic, fair and pragmatic, driven by economics and technology, not a blind ideology," he said. - Dozens of energy projects - Critics accuse Riyadh of having a long history of obstructing climate action. The kingdom, along with several other countries including the United States, was accused of downplaying scientists' warnings about climate change at UN talks in Poland last month. Representatives of smaller nations imperilled by rising seas alleged that Saudi Arabia and its allies were buying time for fossil fuels at the expense of the planet. A report released last week by the International Renewables Energy Agency (IRENA) said the rapid growth of renewable energy sources was causing major shifts in international politics. Story continues It said the rapid rise of renewables is being driven by new technologies and falling costs, making them ever more competitive against fossil fuels. But Falih insisted that global demand for oil "will continue to grow for the foreseeable future." Saudi Arabia plans to generate some 59 gigawatts of electricity from solar and wind sources by 2030, he said. The kingdom, which has been exporting close to 8.0 million barrels of oil daily, currently produces virtually no energy from renewable sources. But last week it signed a deal to establish a 400-megawatt wind farm, which follows a deal last year to build a 300-megawatt solar plant. Falih said Riyadh would tender dozens of renewable energy projects every year, with at least 12 such deals slated for 2019. It will also begin to introduce nuclear power, building two reactors in the next decade with a combined production of between two and three gigawatts, he said. This strategy will help the kingdom save up to two million barrels of oil daily by 2030, he added, without providing details on the expected costs of the programme. Moscow (AFP) - Russia on Tuesday extended the detention of Ukrainian sailors captured together with their vessels off Crimea in November despite protests from Kiev and the West, defence lawyers said. Moscow's Lefortovo district court extended until at least April 24 the arrest of 12 of the 24 captured Ukrainian sailors including their commander Denys Grytsenko, defence attorney Nikolai Polozov told AFP. The other 12 were expected to be ordered to remain behind bars later Tuesday, he added. Western diplomats, Ukraine's top rights official Lyudmila Denisova and the sailors' relatives were present in court. The US embassy in Ukraine urged Russia to let those detained walk free. "Russia must release Ukraine's sailors immediately, not use them as political pawns," it said. "For over 50 days, Russia has unjustly detained Ukrainian sailors who were exercising Ukraine's freedom of navigation in its territorial waters. We are deeply concerned about their health and rights." In November Russia opened fire on three Ukrainian navy vessels as they tried to pass through the Kerch Strait from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov. The 24 Ukrainian crew members were detained, and three of them were wounded. The wounded sailors currently undergoing treatment in pre-trial detention in Russia also appeared in court. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has insisted the sailors are "prisoners of war" and should be immediately released. Russia has said the sailors will go on trial for violating its maritime borders. They face up to six years in prison for illegally crossing Russian borders, lawyers have said. Critics of the Kremlin have warned that Russia is preparing a show trial. Ukraine's Denisova said the sailors were holding up well. "True heroes," she wrote on Facebook. The capture of the Ukrainian ships was the most dangerous direct clash in years between the ex-Soviet neighbours. They have been locked in a confrontation since 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and supported an insurgency in eastern Ukraine. More than 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict. RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) The Western-backed Palestinian Authority is threatening to step up pressure on Hamas amid renewed tensions in Gaza, even as Israel allows a lifeline of Qatari aid to flow directly to the Islamic militants. The unlikely role reversal reflects the two sides' conflicting priorities. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants to reassert his authority over Gaza and scuttle any U.S. or Israeli-backed peace plan that would cement its separation from the occupied West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to preserve calm ahead of April's elections and may prefer Hamas' continued rule to a collapse of authority in the blockaded territory, home to 2 million Palestinians. The latest Palestinian tensions began in December, when Abbas dissolved the Hamas-led parliament. When Abbas' Fatah party, which was largely driven from Gaza when Hamas seized power in 2007, sought to hold anniversary celebrations earlier this month, Hamas responded with a wave of arrests while allowing supporters of one of Abbas' main political rivals to rally in public. The Palestinian Authority responded by withdrawing its forces from the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, prompting Cairo to close the crossing for anyone seeking to leave the isolated territory. The Palestinian Authority cut salaries to Hamas lawmakers and has threatened further action against the group. Hamas in turn has renewed its calls for Abbas to resign. "It's time for him to leave this post," Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, told reporters in Gaza last week. "Abbas has hurt national unity, destroyed his Fatah movement and the resistance." The Palestinian Authority's options are limited, because any cuts to the roughly $100 million in aid it provides to the territory each month would worsen the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where unemployment exceeds 50 percent, tap water is undrinkable and electricity is only available for a few hours every day. Israel and Egypt have maintained a crippling blockade of Gaza since Hamas seized power. Story continues "There is a difference between the money that is given to the government there and the money that is paid to the people directly," said Nabil Shaath, an adviser to Abbas. "Anything that goes to the people will not be touched; anything that goes to Hamas is another issue." The Palestinian Authority, which itself relies heavily on foreign aid, has in the past slashed the salaries of former government workers in Gaza and cut fuel subsidies to pay for electricity measures aimed at pressuring Hamas that took a toll on ordinary Gazans. It has also been accused of blocking large-scale reconstruction projects in Gaza that were approved by Israel. Israel, meanwhile, has been allowing Qatar to send aid directly to Hamas to allow the group to pay its own civil servants, with tranches of $15 million delivered in November and December. The latest delivery was delayed this week after a rocket was fired from Gaza. But a Hamas official said that, following Egyptian mediation, Israel agreed to deliver the aid in the coming days if the situation remains calm. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters on the talks. The Israeli prime minister's office declined to comment. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended the Qatari aid in the face of fierce criticism from within his hard-line coalition, which collapsed last month in part over anger at his Gaza policy. Renewed hostilities would open him up to even harsher criticism from his main rivals on the right. "The last thing he needs right now is in the middle of an election campaign to be focused again on Gaza and to let Hamas set the agenda for Israel, when we respond, how much we respond, how long this takes," said Reuven Hazan, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "That's why he's willing to let the money go through, and that's why he will pull whatever strings he has with the Egyptians and elsewhere to get Abu Mazen to get off his high horse, at least until April," he said, referring to Abbas by his nickname. Israel considers Hamas a terrorist organization and has fought three devastating wars against it. But Hamas has proven effective in halting rocket attacks from Gaza when it serves the group's interests, and in its absence Israel would have to contend with several armed groups, some far more radical than Hamas. Israel is also keen to preserve the separation between Gaza, from which it withdrew in 2005, and the West Bank, where it is accelerating the construction of Jewish settlements and stepping up urban raids following a series of recent deadly shootings targeting Israelis. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza territories seized by Israel in the 1967 war for their future state. They fear that the Trump administration, which has yet to release its long-awaited peace plan, may seek to create a Palestinian mini-state in Gaza while offering only limited autonomy in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority is based. For the United States and Israel, "the main goal is to rehabilitate Hamas as a partner in the 'deal of the century' and to encourage and aid the division," said Ahmad Majdalani, a senior official in Abbas' Palestine Liberation Organization. ___ Associated Press writer Fares Akram in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, contributed to this report. But while business owners remain optimistic going into 2019, investment intentions are flat compared to last year. Canadian entrepreneurs expect revenues to increase in 2019, but many are growing concerned about uncertainty surrounding the economy and labour shortages, according to a new report by the Business Development Bank of Canada. The report, Investment Intentions of Canadian Entrepreneurs, released Tuesday, looks at the 2019 investment outlook for small-to-medium sized businesses across the country. BDC interviewed more than 4,000 business owners about their investing intentions for the next year. The report found that, with the economy expected to grow by 1.9 per cent in 2019, optimism regarding business prospects for the year is still high among businesses across Canada. According to the survey, 73 per cent of respondents expect an increase in revenue, a percentage point increase from 2018. The level of confidence among businesses is the same as last year, and I think thats good news because there is a lot of uncertainty around the economy, Pierre Cleroux, the vice president and chief economist at BDC, said in an interview with Yahoo Finance Canada. But while business owners remain optimistic going into 2019, investment intentions are flat compared to last year. Thirty-two percent of respondents said they would spend less than they did last year, while 31 per cent said they would spend more. Businesses are feeling optimistic, they are still investing, but one of the reasons why they arent investing more is a shortage of labour, Cleroux said. Its getting more and more difficult to recruit people. When we asked businesses, Why arent you investing more? the number one reason is because they have difficulties in recruiting people. The labour shortage is an issue thats becoming increasingly acute, according to the report. As revenues grow, businesses are hitting capacity and struggling to find the qualified workers needed for continued growth. The labour shortage that has plagued Canada for two years is holding back investment, the report said. Story continues This is the top-cited problem in all provinces except Alberta and Saskatchewan, where many business owners are losing faith in the economy. Still, investment intentions are picking up in some provinces, including British Columbia, Manitoba and Alberta. In Alberta, the ramped-up investment is focused in the services sector, while intentions remain weak in the natural resources and construction sectors. Despite the boost to investment plans, Albertans remain the most pessimistic about the Canadian economy. Just 35 per cent of businesses surveyed reported having confidence in the economy. Its not surprising that Albertans are pessimistic, because of the oil price drop and struggling economy over the last few years, Cleroux said. Growth in Alberta is going to be around 1.5 and 1.7 per cent, when the growth used to be around 5 per cent. That is quite the difference. Quebec is most optimistic going into 2019, with 78 per cent of respondents saying they are confident in the economy, followed by the Atlantic provinces (60 per cent), Ontario (58 per cent) and B.C. (56 per cent.) Most companies that are investing plan on using revenues for new technology, a shift from last year, when the focus was largely on purchasing new manufacturing tools. According to the report, 43 per cent will invest in adopting new technologies. The way businesses are investing is different, Cleroux said. They are not investing as much in buildings and equipment. They are investing more in technology, employee training, research and development. Its a new phenomenon. Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android. UPDATE: Jan. 16 An Arkansas property manager has reversed her previously stated position that because of the government shutdown, her tenants would have to pay the full amount of their rent or face eviction. They will be getting a letter today letting them know that we would be funded and that they will continue paying the amount that they have been paying, Annette Cowen, the manager, told HuffPost. She said an official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture assured her on Wednesday that the rental subsidies she gets for her low-income tenants will still be distributed for this months rent. She manages about 50 properties across Arkansas and said 80 percent of her tenants benefit from a rural housing assistance program that pays most of their rent. She had been unable to reach her USDA contacts since the shutdown started in December and had assumed the program had lapsed. PREVIOUSLY: Some renters in Arkansas are already facing eviction, thanks to the partial government shutdown. A property manager told tenants at properties in Alma and several other towns that the shutdown has cut off a federal rental assistance program that covers a portion of their rent. Until the government opens again, you are responsible for ALL of your rental amount, the letter said, threatening eviction if tenants dont pay up by the 20th. The shutdown is creating financial stress for hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers. If the shutdown continues, low-income renters could also feel the sting. Tens of thousands of low-income households relying on the federal government to help them pay rent could lose that assistance if the shutdown persists. Many of those households include seniors and people with disabilities. Diane Yentel, the director of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, called it appalling that a landlord has already threatened to evict tenants because of the shutdown. But she said its ultimately on Congress and President Donald Trump, who said he wont sign a government funding bill that doesnt include $5.7 billion for his proposed border wall. Story continues It is incredibly reckless to risk the homes of some of our countrys poorest seniors, people with disabilities and families with children as perceived leverage for a fight that has nothing to do with them, she said. The Department of Housing and Urban Development said it cant renew some contracts with private landlords in its project-based rental assistance program, known as Section 8, which contracts with private building owners to reserve at least 40 percent of their rental units for low-income families. Project-based affordable housing supports 1.4 million households. An additional 2.2 million households use portable rental vouchers, which are funded until March. About 1,150 housing contracts under the program were up for renewal but expired in HUDs system after parts of the federal government closed Dec. 22. Those contracts include 500 expiring this month and affect roughly 40,000 households, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and two-thirds of those affected are elderly or are people with disabilities who, on average, have an annual income of less than $13,000. HUD expects an additional 550 contracts to expire in February. The National Low Income Housing Coalition created an interactive map showing where the expiring contracts are in the U.S. The only states that dont have households with Section 8 contracts that have expired or may soon expire are Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island and West Virginia. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. HUD has suggested that the rental contract expirations likely wont lead landlords to start evicting residents anytime soon. The department has asked landlords not to evict tenants and to dip into reserve funds to meet expenses, if necessary. But the low-income renters in Alma are apparently subsidized by a U.S. Department of Agriculture program for rural areas, not HUD. The property manager did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The longer the shutdown goes on, the more untenable it becomes for owners to keep scraping by without the federal funds theyre expecting and the more likely it becomes that those owners will start resorting to rent hikes or evictions of these lowest-income renters, as we are now seeing, Yentel said. A spokesperson for the USDA said the agencys rental assistance contracts with multi-family properties are funded through the end of January, but that a small number of owners may have faced a delay for Decembers payments. Its not clear what the problem is with the contract in Alma or the other Arkansas properties managed by ASC Property Management, the firm that sent the eviction threats. The shutdown is now in its 25th day the longest shutdown in U.S. history. If the government doesnt reopen before the end of February, Section 8s tenant-based voucher program will no longer have any funding. That means housing authorities wont make voucher payments to landlords nationwide when March rents are due, possibly leading to evictions. Additionally, the USDAs Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program can guarantee food stamps only through February, leading many low-income families to face the prospect of losing both housing and food assistance. Food banks nationwide are pitching in to help as many furloughed workers as possible, and theyre bracing for an influx of visitors if SNAP benefits halt. The partial shutdown doesnt appear to be anywhere near a resolution. An estimated 800,000 federal employees will not be paid until funding resumes; about 420,000 of them have been deemed essential and must continue to work. This story has been updated to include a response from the USDA and Annette Cowens revised position. HuffPost readers: Are you affected by the government shutdown? Email us about it. If youre willing to be interviewed, please provide a phone number. Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Weve lost count of how many times insiders have accumulated shares in a company that goes on to improve markedly. On the other hand, wed be remiss not to mention that insider sales have been known to precede tough periods for a business. So before you buy or sell The India Cements Limited (NSE:INDIACEM), you may well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling. What Is Insider Buying? Most investors know that it is quite permissible for company leaders, such as directors of the board, to buy and sell stock on the market. However, most countries require that the company discloses such transactions to the market. Insider transactions are not the most important thing when it comes to long-term investing. But logic dictates you should pay some attention to whether insiders are buying or selling shares. For example, a Columbia University study found that insiders are more likely to engage in open market purchases of their own companys stock when the firm is about to reveal new agreements with customers and suppliers. View our latest analysis for India Cements Want to help shape the future of investing tools and platforms? Take the survey and be part of one of the most advanced studies of stock market investors to date. The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At India Cements Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by Non-Independent Non-Executive Director N. Srinivasan for 53m worth of shares, at about 108 per share. So its clear an insider wanted to buy, even at a higher price. Its very possible they regret the purchase, but its more likely they are bullish about the company. We generally consider it a positive if insiders have been buying on market, even above the current price. In the last twelve months insiders purchased 546.50k shares for 59m. But insiders sold 40.00k shares worth 5.2m. In the last twelve months there was more buying than selling by India Cements insiders. The average buy price was around 108. These transactions suggest that insiders have considered the current price of 88.10 attractive. The chart below shows insider transactions (by individuals) over the last year. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below! Story continues NSEI:INDIACEM Insider Trading January 15th 19 If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying. Insider Ownership of India Cements Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. I reckon its a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Insiders own 8.3% of India Cements shares, worth about 2.4b. Weve certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders. So What Do The India Cements Insider Transactions Indicate? The fact that there have been no India Cements insider transactions recently certainly doesnt bother us. On a brighter note, the transactions over the last year are encouraging. It would be great to see more insider buying, but overall it seems like India Cements insiders are reasonably well aligned (owning significant chunk of the companys shares) and optimistic for the future. Therefore, you should should definitely take a look at this FREE report showing analyst forecasts for India Cements. But note: India Cements may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with high ROE and low debt. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. The goal of this article is to teach you how to use price to earnings ratios (P/E ratios). Well show how you can use Raiffeisen Bank International AGs (VIE:RBI) P/E ratio to inform your assessment of the investment opportunity. Raiffeisen Bank International has a price to earnings ratio of 5.76, based on the last twelve months. That means that at current prices, buyers pay 5.76 for every 1 in trailing yearly profits. View our latest analysis for Raiffeisen Bank International Want to help shape the future of investing tools and platforms? Take the survey and be part of one of the most advanced studies of stock market investors to date. How Do You Calculate A P/E Ratio? The formula for P/E is: Price to Earnings Ratio = Price per Share Earnings per Share (EPS) Or for Raiffeisen Bank International: P/E of 5.76 = 23.15 4.02 (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2018.) Is A High Price-to-Earnings Ratio Good? A higher P/E ratio means that buyers have to pay a higher price for each 1 the company has earned over the last year. That isnt a good or a bad thing on its own, but a high P/E means that buyers have a higher opinion of the businesss prospects, relative to stocks with a lower P/E. How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios Earnings growth rates have a big influence on P/E ratios. Earnings growth means that in the future the E will be higher. That means even if the current P/E is high, it will reduce over time if the share price stays flat. So while a stock may look expensive based on past earnings, it could be cheap based on future earnings. Raiffeisen Bank International increased earnings per share by a whopping 32% last year. And earnings per share have improved by 38% annually, over the last five years. Id therefore be a little surprised if its P/E ratio was not relatively high. How Does Raiffeisen Bank Internationals P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers? We can get an indication of market expectations by looking at the P/E ratio. We can see in the image below that the average P/E (7.9) for companies in the banks industry is higher than Raiffeisen Bank Internationals P/E. Story continues WBAG:RBI PE PEG Gauge January 15th 19 This suggests that market participants think Raiffeisen Bank International will underperform other companies in its industry. While current expectations are low, the stock could be undervalued if the situation is better than the market assumes. If you consider the stock interesting, further research is recommended. For example, I often monitor director buying and selling. Dont Forget: The P/E Does Not Account For Debt or Bank Deposits The Price in P/E reflects the market capitalization of the company. In other words, it does not consider any debt or cash that the company may have on the balance sheet. Theoretically, a business can improve its earnings (and produce a lower P/E in the future), by taking on debt (or spending its remaining cash). Such spending might be good or bad, overall, but the key point here is that you need to look at debt to understand the P/E ratio in context. Raiffeisen Bank Internationals Balance Sheet Net debt totals 30% of Raiffeisen Bank Internationals market cap. This is enough debt that youd have to make some adjustments before using the P/E ratio to compare it to a company with net cash. The Bottom Line On Raiffeisen Bank Internationals P/E Ratio Raiffeisen Bank International trades on a P/E ratio of 5.8, which is below the AT market average of 13.7. The company hasnt stretched its balance sheet, and earnings growth was good last year. The low P/E ratio suggests current market expectations are muted, implying these levels of growth will not continue. Investors should be looking to buy stocks that the market is wrong about. As value investor Benjamin Graham famously said, In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine. So this free report on the analyst consensus forecasts could help you make a master move on this stock. You might be able to find a better buy than Raiffeisen Bank International. If you want a selection of possible winners, check out this free list of interesting companies that trade on a P/E below 20 (but have proven they can grow earnings). To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. It was another proud moment for Canada: a Saudi teenager who had just been granted asylum walking through the arrivals gate at Toronto airport embraced by the countrys popular foreign minister. Wearing a grey sweatshirt emblazoned with the word Canada, 18-year-old Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun smiled at the cameras that greeted her. But she left it to Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland to do the talking. The minister presented her as a very brave new Canadian. Where we can save a single person, where we can save a single woman, that is a good thing to do, said Ms Freeland, who refused to answer repeated questions about how this decision will affect Canadas strained relationship with Saudi Arabia. And Id like to also emphasise, this is part of a broader Canadian policy of supporting women and girls in Canada and around the world. The Saudi teenager became a cause celebre for womens and refugee rights after fleeing her family during a holiday in Kuwait to seek asylum. She described her life in an interview with The New York Times as one of unrelenting abuse at the hands of her family, who live in the city of Hail, in northern Saudi Arabia. She said she was once locked in a room for six months because she had cut her hair in a way that her family did not approve of and that her family members used to beat her, particularly her brother. Two years ago, after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, her family did not seek help for her, she said. It was then she started planning her escape. Her chance for freedom came last week, when her family took a trip to Kuwait, which does not have the same restrictions on women. But once she arrived in Bangkok last Saturday, planning to travel on to Australia, she said her passport was confiscated and Thai officials threatened to return her to her family. Her brother and father arrived in Bangkok, demanding that she return with them. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Instead, she barricaded herself in a Thai airport hotel, opened a Twitter account and mounted a social media campaign for her asylum. Story continues After Thai officials relented, and the United Nations declared her a refugee, the Canadian government agreed to grant her asylum. New York Times This woman is seen in a video repeatedly telling a fellow passenger to sit down. (Screenshot: HIMAY10NENCE via YouTube) Video of a tense exchange between airline customers is going viral this week, with one of the women involved saying racism was to blame. The situation occurred on Oct. 13 at St. Louis Lambert International Airport, where NaKesha Danyel Smith, a YouTube vlogger and doula, was waiting to board a Southwest Airlines flight to New Jersey to be assist in the birth of best friends baby. As she was chatting with a male traveler about the military, a field her now-17-year-old daughter is interested in entering, This woman just walked up to us and said, Sit down,' Danyel Smith tells Yahoo Lifestyle. I was like, Who is she talking to? I am 45 years old. No one has told me to sit down in decades.' The mom-of-two filmed the woman when she refused to leave them alone. I and the gentleman were the only two black people in the area, so I wasnt sure where this would lead, she tells Yahoo Lifestyle. Meanwhile, the unidentified woman, showing no discernible emotion, tells Danyel Smith over and over again, There are seats over there, Im just telling you, there are seats over there, according to Danyel Smiths 22-minute video. Youve said that 27 times, answered Danyel Smith. I didnt ask you for a seat, maam. There are seats over there, youre having a conversation, there are seats over there, the woman said. This is a line. I am in line. Danyel Smith asked the woman to go away and why she was concerned about whether she stood or sat. The man speaking with Danyel Smiths added, Its amazing how our conversation is only bothering you. This is white privilege, said Danyel Smith. A female security guard told the woman to stop, but she persisted, even saying Danyel Smith and her friend could find seats next to each other. There are so many seats! she proclaimed. Danyel Smith told the man she feared for her life because the woman had moved physically closer. All the while, the woman kept encouraging her to sit down. Danyel Smith asked a witness to call security, and police officers escorted the woman away. Story continues Danyel Smith posted to her YouTube channel, where it was picked up by Atlanta Black Star. Altogether the video has roughly 1.5 million views. I dont know whether this woman had a mental illness or it was racial profiling because we were the only black people in line, Danyel Smith tells Yahoo Lifestyle. But her white privilege made her think she could ask me to move, for whatever reason. Danyel Smith regrets never learning the mans name. He helped by telling me to focus on him, she tells Yahoo Lifestyle. Hes military, so hes used to people screaming at him. After the woman was led away, travelers congratulated her for being calm, but expressed disappointment over Danyel Smith not showing concern for the womans mental state. The worst part is, aside from the man who was my guardian angel and the female security guard who apologized to me, no one defended me, Danyel Smith tells Yahoo Lifestyle. I was the victim, yet people were telling me I should make sure the woman was OK and that she didnt miss her flight? Danyel Smith says that after providing her contact information to gate agents in the hopes that someone would follow up with her, she boarded the flight to New Jersey in tears. Danyel Smith says she is recognized often in public now one driver rolled down his window in traffic to jokingly yell, There are seats over there! and a Walmart shopper stopped her in the aisle to chat about the video. [As a black woman], I dont go anywhere without my fully charged cellphone and a battery pack in my purse, Danyel Smith tells Yahoo Lifestyle. Ive also had to speak to my children about getting singled out in public in ways that white people may not. A Southwest Airlines spokesperson tells Yahoo Lifestyle, We were disheartened to watch the video and learn of the mistreatment of these customers by another passenger. Our employees intervened to offer assistance and diffuse the situation in a calm and professional manner, and they asked local law enforcement officers to become involved. The passenger who instigated the incident refused to cooperate, and she was eventually escorted from the airport by local law enforcement. We sincerely regret the unpleasant experience this situation created for all of our customers who witnessed the event, and most especially the two customers who were directly impacted. We are reaching out to them to offer our personal apologies and invite them back for a much more pleasant experience. Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. William Barr, attorney general nominee. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Last month, The Wall Street Journal published an explosive scoop that, like most recent mind-boggling political scandals, would have commanded headlines for weeks had it not been superseded by a dozen other explosive scandals in rapid succession. The Journal reported that William Barr, President Trumps nominee for attorney general, had sent the Department of Justice an unsolicited 20-page memo arguing against prosecuting Trump for obstruction of justice. The Journal report depicts the Barr memo as a surprise to Trump something the president learned about only after having selected Barr. After Mr. Trump offered him the job, Mr. Barr briefly told the president that he had written a memo about aspects of the Russia probe that could spur questions during his confirmation hearing, according to a person familiar with the process, the Journal reported. It wasnt immediately clear how Mr. Trump responded, but a second person familiar with the matter said the memo played no role in his decision to choose Mr. Barr. It would be troubling enough that the attorney general just happened to express a tendentiously pro-Trump opinion about his criminal case before going on to oversee it. But now a new report by CNN says the Journal had it wrong. According to a source familiar with the discussions, Barr discussed the memo with Trump prior to his nomination. So the fact that the president who believes the attorney general should be his Roy Cohn appointed a candidate who had submitted a long defense of Trump to the presidents lawyers turns out not to have been a massive coincidence. One interesting question for senators interviewing Barr today would be, just how did the original misapprehension get conveyed to the Journal? By Liana B. Baker, Mike Spector and Jessica DiNapoli (Reuters) - PG&E Corp , owner of the biggest U.S. power utility by customers, said on Monday it is preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as soon as this month amid pressure from potentially crushing liabilities linked to California's catastrophic wildfires in 2017 and 2018. PG&E, which provides electricity and natural gas to 16 million customers in northern and central California, faces widespread litigation, government investigations and liabilities that could potentially exceed $30 billion due to the fires, the company said. The most recent fire last November killed at least 86 people in the deadliest and most destructive blaze in California history. Its shares plunged 52 percent on Monday to $8.38, giving it a market capitalization of less than $4.5 billion. The stock is down more than 80 percent from late 2017, before wildfires devastated PG&E's service areas. Bond prices also fell sharply on Monday. PG&E's chief executive officer was replaced on Sunday by General Counsel John Simon on an interim basis. San Francisco-based PG&E is working on lining up roughly $5.5 billion in so-called debtor-in-possession financing to help operations during bankruptcy proceedings. The utility said the bankruptcy process would not affect electric or natural gas services for customers. Company advisers expect that it may take up to two years to emerge from bankruptcy. In theory, California politicians could avert PG&E's bankruptcy with legislative action. Last year, the state approved a law helping utilities recoup costs from fires in 2017, but not blazes in 2018. Lawmakers and regulators may both be constrained in how much more they can help PG&E, at least by allowing it to further raise electricity rates. California's average rate is 16 cents per kilowatt hour, while those in neighboring Oregon and in Washington state are about half as much, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration provided by energy consulting firm McCullough Research. The U.S. average is 10 cents per kilowatt hour. Story continues 'SIGNIFICANT LIABILITY' PG&E said in a securities filing it could potentially raise more money and avoid seeking bankruptcy protection, but argued such a move would be complex, uncertain and expensive. Moody's and Standard & Poor's recently cut PG&E's credit rating into junk territory, citing concerns about wildfire liabilities. On Monday, Moody's and S&P cut PG&E's ratings again and Fitch downgraded the California power company and its Pacific Power & Gas Co unit to junk. A bankruptcy filing could help the company deal with such fundamental problems as the prospect of continually being exposed to financial fallout from future wildfires, the company said. Many PG&E customers live near dry forests where rain has become increasingly rare - conditions for potential future blazes. PG&E's regulator, the California Public Utilities Commission, began in late December to investigate whether the company should make significant structural changes, including becoming owned by the state or splitting up its businesses. The company said it was looking for new members for its board of directors with safety experience. PG&E said it could face "significant liability" in excess of its insurance coverage if its equipment was found to have caused the Camp Fire that swept through the California mountain community of Paradise last November. PG&E's liabilities from that fire could be catastrophic if authorities determine its equipment caused the blazes. Under California law, utilities are exposed to liability from wildfires regardless of their negligence. The company decided to prepare to file for bankruptcy in part to address that issue, known as "inverse condemnation." In a regulatory filing, it questioned whether it could continue to operate in the years ahead as a so-called investor-owned utility by being exposed to that risk. Investors might avoid the company if questions around that risk remain unanswered. A federal judge last week proposed restricting PG&E from using power lines deemed unsafe during high winds in this year's fire season. Energy companies that supply PG&E could be hit by its bankruptcy. One of the most exposed is Kinder Morgan Inc , the second-largest North American pipeline operator, analysts said. PG&E plans to seek court protection from creditors around Jan. 29, the company said. It alerted employees on Monday in order to comply with California law. The company's board ousted CEO Geisha Williams and decided to undergo a restructuring at a meeting over the weekend in San Francisco, according to a source familiar with the matter. Williams had served as CEO since March 2017, before the fatal blazes. PG&E, which drew down remaining amounts on credit lines totaling $3.3 billion in November, had about $1.5 billion of liquidity as of Friday. (Reporting by Liana B. Baker, Mike Spector and Jessica DiNapoli in New York; Additional reporting by Scott Disavino in New York; Gary McWilliams in Houston and Laharee Chatterjee and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Peter Cooney) Pfizer, Inc. PFE announced that the FDA has granted priority review to a new drug application (NDA) looking for approval of tafamidis. The pipeline candidate has been developed to treat transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM), a rare and fatal illness associated with progressive heart failure. Pfizer filed two NDAs for tafamidis, one for the meglumine form (20 mg capsule) and the other for a free acid form (61 mg capsule). The priority review designation is for the meglumine form with the FDAs decision on this NDA expected in July this year. The FDA decision for the free acid form is expected in November with the filing being given a standard review period. There are two types of TTR-CM, a hereditary form and a wild-type form of the disease, which is not hereditary. According to Pfizers press release, less than 1% of people with the disease are diagnosed with life expectancy averaging three to five years from diagnosis. The NDA filings are based on data from a phase III study, ATTR-ACT, which evaluated oral daily dose of 20 mg or 80 mg tafamidis meglumine versus placebo in patients with wild-type or hereditary ATTR-CM. The ATTR-ACT study included both types of patients. Data from the study has shown that treatment with tafamidis led to a significant reduction in the combination of all-cause mortality and frequency of cardiovascular-related hospitalizations the primary endpoint compared with placebo at 30 months. Treatment with tafamidis led to a 30% reduction in the risk of mortality and 32% reduction in the rate of cardiovascular-related hospitalization compared to placebo. Tafamidis also helped in reducing the rate of decline in functional capacity, as measured by a six-minute walk test distance and also the rate of decline in aspects of quality of life compared to placebo. Shares of Pfizer have rallied 15.7% in the past year compared with the industrys 0.6% increase. Story continues Tafamidis enjoys Orphan Drug, Fast Track and Breakthrough Therapy designations in the United States for ATTR-CM Please note that tafamidis, on approval, will face competition from Alnylam Pharmaceuticals ALNY Onpattro (patisiran) and Akcea Therapeutics, Inc. AKCA/Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.s IONS Tegsedi (inotersen). Both the drugs were approved in the United States in mid-2018 for treating hereditary TTR amyloidosis or hATTR. However, while tafamidis has been developed to treat both the hereditary and the wild-type form of TTR-CM, Onpattro and Tegsedi have been approved to treat only the hereditary form of the rare disease. After Pfizer revealed that its new drug application for tafamidis has been granted priority review, shares of Alnylam, Ionis and Akcea declined more than 5%, 2% and 3%, respectively, on Monday. Tafamidis is already marketed by the brand name of Vyndaqel for the treatment of transthyretin familial amyloid polyneuropathy (TTR-FAP) in 40 countries except United States. In the United States, Pfizer received a complete response letter (CRL) from the FDA on for TTR-FAP in 2012. Pfizer currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside? Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana. Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look. See the pot trades we're targeting>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. A passenger is alleging that an American Airlines flight attendant punched him in the face and back of his head, resulting in traumatic brain injury and severe headaches, according to a new lawsuit. Gregory Lagana alleges that a flight attendant on flight 1798 from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Philadelphia on Jan. 5, 2018, pinned down his right arm and repeatedly punched him in the face and back of the head while he was seated with his seatbelt fastened. The lawsuit states Lagana suffered "scalp hematomas, abrasions, swelling, redness, bruising and defensive wounds to his hand," and he received care at Princeton Medical Center in New Jersey, including neurological, neurosurgical and chiropractic treatments. "As a result of the accident, plaintiff suffered severe, serious and permanent personal injuries, as well as mental and emotional injuries rendering him permanently and severely injured," according to the lawsuit obtained by USA TODAY, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey on Friday. An American Airlines Airbus A319 takes off from San Jose International Airport while a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 is set to depart in December 2018. The lawsuit contends American is liable for no less than approximately $161,000. American was issued a summons on Monday. We are reviewing the lawsuit and the details of the flight," American Airlines spokesman Matt Miller told USA TODAY. American Airlines declined to comment further. Lagana, a New Jersey resident, claims in the complaint that his "injuries were caused by an unexpected or unusual event." He originally booked his flights in June 2017: A United flight from Newark to Bonaire scheduled to leave Dec. 23, 2017, and an American Airlines return flight from Aruba to Philadelphia scheduled for Jan. 3, 2018. Flight delays and cancellations resulted in Lagana being rebooked on multiple flights on his return trip: Aruba to Charlotte and Charlotte to Philadelphia. The alleged altercation occurred when the flight attendant came through with a drink cart, Lagana's attorney Edward P. Capozzi of Brach Eichler, L.L.C. in New Jersey told USA TODAY. The two argued about his drink order, and the situation escalated from there. Story continues "The guy literally beat the crap out of him," Capozzi said. The lawsuit says Lagana "was not involved in any wrongdoing that jeopardized the safety of the aircraft." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Passenger claims American Airlines flight attendant punched him in face, files lawsuit Oracle ORCL made notable announcements at National Retail Federation (NRF) 2019. Oracle Retail announced collaboration with One Door in a bid to enhance retail clienteles in-store merchandising methods with advanced assortment and layout techniques. Notably, Oracle Retail Assortment Optimization Cloud Service empowered with artificial intelligence (AI) driven capabilities will be integrated with One Doors automation strength in visual merchandising cloud-based software. With the integration, the companies aim to enable retailers to optimize inventory with enhanced in-store layouts. This will allow retailers to make the most out of physical space available, consequently maximizing returns. Per Gartner as revealed by Oracle, retailers will utilize AI to automate and enhance business processes. In fact, the research firm predicts that the use of advanced personalization engines (utilized to be familiar with evolving customer tastes) is anticipated to drive profit levels of digital businesses by up to 15% by 2020. The increased spending by retailers on digitally transforming their business processes favors the prospects of the latest collaboration. Oracle Retail Gaining Traction Moreover, Oracles growing clout in retail domain, primarily in digital commerce bodes well. In fact, Oracle has been recognized as a leader by Gartner in its latest Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce. Per a latest study conducted by Oracle, 85% of Mexican consumers demand in-detail tracking of the order delivery status. In a bid to address evolving requirements, such as these, Oracle Retail solutions have been selected by Grupo Nazan. Grupo Nazan, a Mexican retailer, is engaged in selling popular footwear brands including Destroyer, Playa Mayoreo and Impuls, among others. Grupo Nazan aims to digitally transform its business by implementing the omnichannel solutions of Oracles Retail services portfolio. In fact, SkillNet, an Oracle PartnerNetwork Platinum partner, has enabled Grupo Nazan to deploy Oracle Retail Xstore services. Oracle Retail is witnessing traction in the U.K. as well with Matalan adopting digital solutions to optimize inventory assortments according to consumer preferences. The selection of Oracle Retails Assortment Planning and Merchandise Financial Planning cloud services by Matalan is a positive. Moreover, Oracle Marketing Cloud is already enabling Matalan to address higher traffic levels across both online and in-store sales channels with robust data-driven capabilities. This incremental adoption of Oracles services is anticipated to aid financial performance of the company in the foreseeable future. Story continues Oracle Corporation Revenue (TTM) Oracle Corporation Revenue (TTM) | Oracle Corporation Quote To Conclude Oracles initiatives to enhance its Retail Omnichannel product suite are in sync with the companys strategy to capitalize on the digital commerce market. The increased adoption of omnichannel solutions and innovative collaborations deserve a special mention. These efforts in the retail domain are anticipated to strengthen companys competitive position against peers like Salesforce.com CRM, SAP SAP, Adobe (especially after Magento acquisition), among others. Zacks Rank & Key Pick Oracle carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Veeva Systems Inc. VEEV, a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stock, is worth considering in the broader technology sector. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Long-term earnings growth rate for Veeva Systems is currently pegged at 19.5%. Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside? Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana. Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look. See the pot trades we're targeting>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Investors in USA Technologies, Inc. USAT need to pay close attention to the stock based on moves in the options market lately. That is because the Feb 15, 2019 $7.50 Call had some of the highest implied volatility of all equity options today. What is Implied Volatility? Implied volatility shows how much movement the market is expecting in the future. Options with high levels of implied volatility suggest that investors in the underlying stocks are expecting a big move in one direction or the other. It could also mean there is an event coming up soon that may cause a big rally or a huge sell off. However, implied volatility is only one piece of the puzzle when putting together an options trading strategy. What do the Analysts Think? Clearly, options traders are pricing in a big move for USA Technologies shares, but what is the fundamental picture for the company? Currently, USA Technologies is a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) in the Computer Integrated Systems industry that ranks in the Top 20% of our Zacks Industry Rank. Over the last 60 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current quarter has decreased from 4 cents per share to 3 cents. Given the way analysts feel about USA Technologies right now, this huge implied volatility could mean theres a trade developing. Often times, options traders look for options with high levels of implied volatility to sell premium. This is a strategy many seasoned traders use because it captures decay. At expiration, the hope for these traders is that the underlying stock does not move as much as originally expected. Looking to Trade Options? Each week, our very own Dave Bartosiak gives his top options trades. Check out his recent live analysis and options trade for the NFLX earnings report completely free. See it here: Bartosiak: Trading Netflix's (NFLX) Earnings with Options or check out the embedded video below for more details: Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research By Jessica Resnick-Ault NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices rose about 3 percent on Tuesday, along with world stock markets, supported by China's plan to introduce policies to stabilize a slowing economy, reversing the previous session's losses due to grim data in the world's second-largest economy. Brent crude rose $1.65, or 2.8 percent, to settle at $60.64 a barrel. U.S. crude futures ended $1.60, or 3.2 percent, higher at $52.11 a barrel. "Some of the fears about the economic slowdown in 2019 seem to have ebbed away," said Gene McGillian, director of market research at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut. "The market is latching on to news that suggests that the economy may be better than thought." China's National Development and Reform Commission offered some support on Tuesday, signaling it might roll out more fiscal stimulus. This countered negative sentiment from Monday when crude prices fell more than 2 percent after data showed weakening imports and exports in China. However, both oil benchmarks pared gains slightly in post-settlement trade after British lawmakers defeated Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit divorce deal by a crushing margin, triggering political upheaval that could lead to a disorderly exit from the European Union or even to a reversal of the 2016 decision to leave. Parliament voted 432-202 against her deal, raising economic uncertainty that weighed on markets. Fundamentally, output cuts from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers, including Russia, have begun to reduce fears of oversupply. The group, known as OPEC+, agreed in late 2018 to cut supply starting this month, seeking to rein in a global glut. OPEC+ have set a meeting for March 17 to 18 to monitor implementation of their pact, sources told Reuters, and another meeting on April 17 to 18 to decide on whether to extend cuts beyond the agreed six months. Story continues Further support has come from data showing the number of U.S. rigs drilling for new oil dipped slightly so far this year. Also, analysts in a Reuters poll, ahead of weekly industry data on Tuesday and a government report on Wednesday, expected U.S. crude stockpiles to have fallen for a second straight week. The rig data could signal a slowing of the swift rise in output from the United States, which became the world's top oil producer in 2018. . In the longer term, U.S. crude output is expected to rise to a new record of more than 12 million barrels per day (bpd) this year and to climb to nearly 13 million bpd next year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its first 2020 forecast. (GRAPHICS: U.S. oil production, drilling & storage levels - https://tmsnrt.rs/2GVNTmb) The market also found support in news that the U.S. will not grant further waivers to its sanctions on Iran. U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said on Saturday that Washington was not looking to grant any more waivers for Iranian oil after the reimposition of U.S. sanctions. The move could limit Iranian oil coming the market in coming months. Such positive signals and hopes for renewed U.S.-China talks to resolve trade tensions have boosted world stock markets and oil prices, but fears about global growth weigh heavily. "It would seem that the market is having a rather hard time making up its mind as to which story to believe in," consultancy JBC Energy said. (Additional reporting by Noah Browning in London, Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Edmund Blair) Seoul (AFP) - A top North Korean diplomat was travelling to Sweden Tuesday, she told reporters, as speculation mounts over the next summit between the isolated state's leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump. Choe Son Hui, a North Korean vice-minister of foreign affairs, landed in Beijing on a flight from the North Korean capital Pyongyang. "I am going to an international conference in Sweden," South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted her as saying on arrival at the airport. Choe's trip comes as expectations grow for a second meeting between Kim and Trump -- despite a lack of progress in denuclearisation negotiations -- after the North Korean leader went to Beijing, long Pyongyang's key ally, last week for talks with President Xi Jinping. South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Kim's trip to China was a sign a second US-North Korean summit was "imminent", and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo added at the weekend that: "We're working out the details". Suggestions circulating among Korea-watchers for possible venues include Vietnam and Thailand, among others. Stockholm has a long history of mediating between Washington and Pyongyang -- while the two do not have diplomatic relations, Sweden is the protecting power for US citizens in the Asian country, and Choe has been intimately involved in the US-North Korean relationship. Before she assumed her current position, she was director general of the foreign ministry's North American department. She was also among the officials who accompanied Kim to Singapore for his first summit with Trump in June. The meeting, held in a blaze of publicity, saw the two men sign a vaguely worded document in which Kim pledged to work towards "the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula". But progress has since stalled with the two sides disagreeing over what that means. Pyongyang is seeking sanctions relief and rejects demands for what it calls its "unilateral" disarmament, while Washington insists that the punitive measures must stay in place until it gives up its nuclear arsenal. Citing a diplomatic source, the South's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported Tuesday that Kim Yong Chol, Pompeo's counterpart in the discussion process, was expected to visit Washington later this week for talks. There were no reports that he had passed through Beijing. Netflix is raising its subscription prices for all 58 million of its US users, marking the first increase since 2017. The online streaming service will hike the prices of its basic service from $8 per month to $9 per month, while simulataneously raising the cost of a more premium service from $11 to $13. It marks the biggest price increase for monthly subscriptions since launching its streaming service in 2007, and the first since 2017. All new Netflix subscribers will be subject to the increased prices, while existing subscribers will see their subscriptions go up over the next three months. Netflix has made a major effort in recent years to produce original content in order to keep subscribers loyal to its platform and not switch to rivals like Amazon Prime. It has seen considerable success with series like House of Cards, Stranger Things, and The Crown, as well as films like Birdbox. A commitment to original content is the reason behind the increase in the cost of subscriptions, while also off-setting the loss caused by credential sharing. The premium service that Netflix offers provides users with high-definition streaming on up to two different devices at the same time, however account sharing is still expected to cost subscription-based streaming services $1.2bn a year. Recent figures from market research suggest more than a quarter of millenials share their account details for Netflix and other streaming services, going agains the firms' terms of service. A UK-based video software firm has developed a way to detect people sharing account details illicitly by using artificial intelligence to monitor suspicious account activity. "Casual credentials sharing is becoming too expensive to ignore. Our new solution gives operators the ability to take action," said Jean Marc Racine, chief product officer of the software's developer Synamedia. "Many casual users will be happy to pay an additional fee for a premium, shared service with a greater number of concurrent users. It's a great way to keep honest people honest while benefiting from an incremental revenue stream." It is not clear whether Netflix plans to implement the system but Mr Racine said his firm is in talks with a number of operators. Tel Aviv (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday urged Iran to quickly remove its forces from neighbouring Syria or face continued attacks on them by Israel. "Yesterday I heard the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman saying 'Iran has no military presence in Syria, we only advise them'," Netanyahu said at a Tel Aviv ceremony to install a new head of Israel's armed forces. "So let me advise them -- get out of there fast, because we'll continue our forceful policy of attacking, as we promised and are doing, fearlessly and relentlessly," he said. In a rare public confirmation on Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel had attacked what he described as "Iranian warehouses containing Iranian weapons in the Damascus international airport" over the weekend. Netanyahu added that Israel had attacked Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria hundreds of times. Israel has pledged to prevent Iran entrenching itself militarily in Syria, where its arch foe is backing President Bashar al-Assad's regime alongside Russia and Hezbollah. At the ceremony for the new chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Aviv Kochavi, Netanyahu reiterated that Israel's central security challenge was "Iran and its terror emissaries," saying the Israeli military had "prevented the military entrenchment of Iran in Syria." Tehran denies sending regular troops to fight in Syria, saying it has only provided military advisors and militia fighters from various countries. The Chippewa Indian food distribution site in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, on Dec. 31, 2018. Photo: Brittany Greeson/The New York Times/Redux President Trump on Sunday tweeted a clip from Senator Elizabeth Warrens December 31 Instagram livestream with the caption, If Elizabeth Warren, often referred to by me as Pocahontas, did this commercial from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen, with her husband dressed in full Indian garb, it would have been a smash! Trumps post had nothing to do with the substance of the video Warren spent it drinking beer, answering questions from viewers, and describing her New Years Eve tradition of watching the 1942 film Casablanca with her husband but rather sought to exploit what he saw as another opportunity to insult the Massachusetts Democrat, who in December formed an exploratory committee to run for president in 2020. Broadsides deriding Warren as Pocahontas are not new for Trump, who has dedicated at least 16 tweets and parts of several campaign rallies to their pursuit. The inclusion of Little Bighorn and Wounded Knee is new, if surprisingly so one could argue that the grab bag of incoherent Native American references from which the president draws was incomplete without them. A small outcry ensued nonetheless. Much of it focused, justifiably, on Trump making light of historical events in which hundreds of people lost their lives and, in the case of Wounded Knee, U.S. cavalrymen slaughtered upwards of 150 Lakota men, women, and children in cold blood (some estimates have this number above 300). Less apparent was criticism of the effect the presidents policies have on living Native Americans, for whom his callous and austere governance poses a more immediate threat than does insulting their forebears. The latest iteration of this threat stems from Trumps government shutdown, which is now the longest on American record. Initially viewed by his administration as leverage to force congressional Democrats to fund his U.S.-Mexico border wall, the 24-day standoff has both failed to accomplish its goal and resulted in more than 800,000 federal employees being furloughed or forced to work without pay. It has accomplished this by leaving much of the federal government unfunded, in part or in full, including several agencies vital to Americans health and safety needs, like the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration. Equally troubling and less-widely wept over are reports from many of the countrys Native American reservations, which paint a dire portrait of already-impoverished communities being sapped of their health care, food, and law enforcement resources due to the lack of funding. A sampling, first from the New York Times: On the Navajo Nation, a mostly rural reservation of red rock canyon that spans parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, the government shutdown has already been difficult, said Russell Begaye, the Navajo Nations president. A blanket of snow has covered the region, but roads are unplowed because federal maintenance has stopped. Many people are now trapped in their homes, unable to make the 20- or 50-mile journey to buy water, groceries and medicine, said Mr. Begaye. From ABC News: In New Mexico, a lone police officer patrolled a Native American reservation [Mescalero Apache] larger in size than Houston on a shift that normally has three people, responding to multiple car wrecks during a snowstorm, emergency calls and requests for welfare checks Clara Prattes 68-year-old mother had surgery to clear up vision in one of her eyes earlier this month, but the Navajo woman wasnt able to get a referral from IHS for a follow-up appointment after pressure built up in her eye In Washington state, the Seattle Indian Health Board plans to cut services if the federal shutdown continues Endangered programs include an in-patient treatment center for chemical dependency and a traditional medicine program that incorporates a sweat lodge, storytelling and drumming to help people in recovery, government affairs officer Aren Sparck said. These and other basic services are funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is housed in the Department of Interior and has been decimated by the shutdown to the tune of 2,295 furloughed employees out of 4,057. Of the countless painful ironies of this freeze is one rooted in history that the very existence of such benefits for Native tribes was originally meant as a trade-off for the vast swaths of land the U.S. government acquired from them over the centuries. The federal government owes us this: We prepaid with millions of acres of land, Aaron Payment, the chairman of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa in Michigans Upper Peninsula, told the Times. We dont have the right to take back that land, so we expect the federal government to fulfill its treaty and trust responsibility. The shutdown is costing Payments tribe roughly $100,000 per day in services undelivered, the Times adds, including money that would normally go toward keeping local health clinics staffed. Trump is totally uninterested in easing up on Warren, who has for years claimed Native American heritage and sought to prove it by taking a DNA test last year. Warrens decision drew rebuke from progressives and some Native tribes, including the Cherokee Nation: Sovereign tribal nations set their own legal requirements for citizenship, and while DNA tests can be used to determine lineage, such as paternity to an individual, it is not evidence for tribal affiliation, Chuck Hoskin Jr., the tribes secretary of state, said in October. The issue of what metrics determine Native heritage is well worth taking up. It is also not an issue with which Trump is actually concerned. Shutdown aside, the presidents record regarding Native peoples is marked by hundreds of millions of dollars in proposed budget cuts to the Bureaus of Indian Affairs and Education. These proposed cuts have been frequently overridden by bipartisan efforts in Congress, but the message from the White House is clear: One need not look as far back as Wounded Knee, Little Bighorn, or the Virginia colonies to find reason for outrage at the presidents racist insults. Trumps policies do more than enough of the heavy lifting, and they are taking shape as we speak. Paris (AFP) - The jailing this week of former communist radical Cesare Battisti, a key figure in the violent turmoil in Italy of the 1970s, has brought back memories of a time when leftist killings raged across Europe and beyond. Battisti, 64, finally returned to jail in Italy on Monday after nearly four decades on the run following his escape from prison in 1981. Ultra-leftist groups like his own sowed chaos during the period in Italy known as the "Years of Lead" -- named after the number of bullets fired -- from the late 1960s to mid-1980s. Across Europe, it was a time when radical youths sought to smash the capitalist system with a wave of bombings, assassinations, hostage-takings and plane hijackings. West Germany's Red Army Faction, whose most extreme members were known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, carried out a string of attacks on "capitalist" targets such as police and US troops. France's Action Directe group also waged attacks in the name of the proletariat, while in junta-ruled Greece militants targeted the CIA, banks and industrialists among others. In Lebanon, radicals in the diaspora set up the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) to fight Turkish interests, mostly in Europe. And the Japanese Red Army, which waged terror at home and around the world, sought the overthrow of the country's monarchy along with a global revolution. Against the backdrop of the Vietnam war, the US-backed 1973 coup in Chile, student demos and trade union battles, a tide of anti-imperialist sentiment helped spur the radicals into violent action. - Wartime legacies - These groups built links and passed weapons across borders at a time when Palestinian guerillas like the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were also flourishing. Venezuelan Carlos the Jackal, for instance -- the most-wanted terrorist of the era -- was accompanied by the German radical Hans-Joachim Klein for his spectacular hostage-taking at the OPEC headquarters in Vienna in 1975. Story continues "At the end of the 1960s, young rebels were turning to armed action with the idea of fighting the last fascists," said Mosco Levi-Boucault, a French film director who produced a series about Italy's notorious Red Brigades. Just 15 years or so after the end of World War II, ex-fascists were prime targets for leftist revolutionaries. "At the time, Italian factories still employed former fascists as foremen," Levi-Boucault said. "One of them was found with his head shaved, tied to the gates of the Fiat factory in Turin." The man survived, but he was one of the lucky ones. In the most infamous of their attacks, the Red Brigades kidnapped and murdered Italy's former conservative prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978. Historian Marc Lazar, an expert on the period from the Institute of Political Science in Paris, said the fact that democracy was still relatively new in some countries made the resort to violence seem more acceptable. In Italy, he added, leftwing militants were also out to fight the far-right which was itself waging attacks -- such as the 1969 Milan bombing that left 16 dead -- in a bid to justify a return to an authoritarian regime. The particular violence in Italy, which Lazar estimates left more than 400 people dead, came from "one-upmanship in the escalation of violence between far-right and far-left". Battisti, who belonged to the Armed Proletarians for Communism group, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1971 for shooting dead two Italian policemen. After his jailbreak he lived for years in Brazil under the protection of former leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. But the country's new far-right President Jair Bolsonaro had vowed on the campaign trail to send Battisti back to Italy. Battisti went on the run again -- but was tracked down in Bolivia last week and swiftly extradited after authorities there ignored his asylum request. Neil Dudgeon talks the ITVs shows incredible success (REX/Shutterstock) Midsomer Murders continues to be a ratings success because viewers love to watch posh people murder one another, says its star Neil Dudgeon. The 58-year-old actor, who has been playing DCI John Barnaby on the ITV hit since 2011, explained to The Telegraph: People love the humour and eccentricity and, without being snobby, theres something more sordid about working class people drinking, getting violent and killing each other in a terraced house. For the working classes, its a desperate act of necessity; with the upper classes, murder is more of a leisure activity. The majority of ordinary people like to see posh folk behaving badly. They are terribly polite and reserved and all those things, but one of them is going around garrotting people or slashing them to bits, Dudgeon said. Speaking to the Radio Times Dudgeon added that he believes the British public is enamoured with crime series because: Its like turning over a stone and all the little insects underneath running around in a panic. Neil Dudgeon and his Midsomer Murders co-star Gwilym Lee in 2014. (PA Images) The series is known for its bizarre murders, and Dudgeon said his favourite murder so far involved a victim smeared with truffle oil and mauled to death by a wild boar. When asked if he would make a good detective himself, he replied that only if he was working under the Midsomer model. If it was the Midsomer model, perhaps. In one week we might have 11 guests. One of them dead already, two others are going to die before the end of the show and three of them are national treasures. So we can narrow it down to about four suspects and then its a bit more like shooting fish in a barrel, he said. Midsomer Murders began in 1997 and has been sold to over 200 countries. The air date for new episodes of Midsomer Murders has yet to be confirmed. Read more Piers Morgan rubbishes new mental health claims Holly Willoughby berates naughty Gemma Collins Cheryls The Greatest Dancer plummets in ratings Influenza and the common cold aren't the only wintertime health threats that could impact your family this season. Bacterial meningitis is a serious illness that could kill an infected person in a matter of days if not treated promptly, and more cases are likely to be reported during the colder times of the year. Researchers found that incidents of bacterial meningitis, which is caused by common bacterial infections including streptococcus, tend to peak in the northern and southern hemispheres during the dry winter months. Meningitis is an inflammation and swelling of the membranes, or meninges, that surround your brain and spinal cord, which results in symptoms including a stiff neck, headache and fever, according to the Mayo Clinic. Infected individuals might think they're experiencing the flu as symptoms develop early on. While some meningitis cases can improve without treatment a few weeks after infection, others can potentially be fatal and require emergency antibiotics to treat them, the Mayo Clinic reported. Sick woman checks a thermometer - Getty Images In the United States, cases of the less health-threatening viral meningitis occur more often than the deadly bacterial varieties of the illness, said Dr. Robert Quigley, senior vice president and regional medical director at International SOS, a medical and travel security risk services company. "Viral meningitis is a much less aggressive type of the disease that still results in symptoms [including] generalized malaise, fever, fatigue, stiff neck and photophobia," Quigley said. "The onset and extent of symptoms with bacterial meningitis [are] so much more serious, aggressive and impactful on the person that gets the disease that they can have long-term sequelae, and they can die with it," he said. "That would be very unusual, if not unheard of, with the more common viral variety." Although a rise in cases of bacterial meningitis happens during winter and spring, Quigley added that this does not mean that there is an overall upswing in occurrence of the illness. He also noted that in recent years, there has been a significant decline in the number of cases of meningitis. Story continues "When we are seeing cases, they are during this time of year, and that's a consequence of the method of spreading, which is close contact with someone who is either a carrier or somebody who has the active disease," Quigley told AccuWeather. Getting vaccinated Vaccines can help prevent cases of meningitis, especially in adolescents and young adults who face an increased risk of contracting meningococcal disease, which is meningitis caused by the bacteria Neisseria meningitidis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). "The vaccines that we recommend for everybody in the appropriate age group are for bacterial meningitis," Quigley said. "Those vaccines cover the common serotypes [of A, C, W and Y], which are just different variations of the organism." Medical experts do not typically recommend the separate type B meningitis vaccine unless they believe a person is at risk for contracting that disease, because type B is rare, according to Quigley. It is still possible to become ill with meningitis after being vaccinated, as the vaccine doesn't provide lifelong immunity experts say. "If you do catch it, it will be less severe," said Dr. Devon Carr, a primary care physician with the Athens, Georgia-based Reddy Medical Group. "You might just have symptoms of a common cold instead of a severe case of meningitis." Preventing the illness Medical experts recommend simple practices for avoiding catching meningitis, including frequent hand washing, not sharing drinking cups with sick individuals and being cautious around individuals who are sick and coughing. "All of those common-sense best practices, which we call universal precautions, can go a long way," Quigley advised. "Make sure kids receive their routine vaccinations, including the vaccination for newborns, because there's a vaccine against strep pneumonia as well as Haemophilus influenzae type B, which is the common cause of meningitis in kids," Carr said. "As they get older, when they're adolescents, at 11, 12 and 16 is when they start receiving the meningitis vaccine." Those who intend to travel to parts of the world where meningitis is far more common, such as the "meningitis belt" in sub-Saharan Africa, are strongly urged to check with their primary care physicians on the required vaccinations before they go abroad, Quigley said. "[People traveling to these areas] need to be vaccinated with the multivalent vaccine, which is the one for the more common types of meningitis and covers serotypes A, C, W and Y," he said. For more safety and preparedness tips, visit AccuWeather.com/Ready. (Reuters) - McDonald's Corp has lost its rights to the trademark "Big Mac" in a European Union case ruling in favor of Ireland-based fast-food chain Supermac's, a decision from the EU's Spain-based Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) showed. The judgment, provided to Reuters by Supermac's, revoked McDonald's registration of the trademark, saying that the world's largest fast-food chain had not proven genuine use of it over the five years prior to the case being lodged in 2017. The EUIPO did not respond to phone calls and emails requesting comment. McDonald's was not immediately available to comment on the decision. The decision said the company can still appeal. With the revocation, Supermac's said it can now expand in the United Kingdom and Europe. The ruling also allows the Irish chain to use the "Big Mac" name on any food items it will sell. Supermac's said it had never had a product called "Big Mac" and that McDonald's had just used the similarity of the two names to block the Irish chain's expansion. "Supermac's are delighted with their victory in the trademark application and in revoking the Big Mac trademark which had been in existence since 1996," founder Pat McDonagh told Reuters in an email. "This is a great victory for business in general and stops bigger companies from "trademark bullying" by not allowing them to hoard trademarks without using them." (Reporting by Soundarya J in Bengaluru; editing by Patrick Graham) Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell on Monday became the latest Republican lawmaker to speak out against comments made by Representative Steve King last week expressing bafflement that white supremacy had become an offensive term. Rep. Kings statements are unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position, McConnell told the Washington Post. If he doesnt understand why white supremacy is offensive, he should find another line of work. I have no tolerance for such positions and those who espouse these views are not supporters of American ideals and freedoms, McConnell said. He added that there is no place in the Republican Party, the Congress or the country for an ideology of racial supremacy of any kind. In a New York Times interview last week, King asked, White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization? The nine-term Republican later tried to explain away the controversy, criticizing the Times for saying he supported an evil and bigoted ideology and claiming in a House floor speech that he had merely asked, How did that offensive language get injected into our political dialogue? Three Democratic lawmakers have sought to formally punish King for his remarks. Representatives Bobby Rush of Illinois and Tim Ryan of Ohio filed resolutions to censure King, the harshest punishment short of expulsion for a congressman, while House majority whip James Clyburn of South Carolina filed a motion that condemned Kings comments without aiming to censure him. The highest ranking House Republican, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, also condemned his Iowan colleague and said he will be having a serious conversation with Congressman Steve King on his future and role in this Republican Party. Story continues That language has no place in America. That is not the America I know and its most definitely not the party of Lincoln, McCarthy said Sunday on CBS. President Trump said Monday that he hasnt been following the controversy. More from National Review A man accused of gunning down a 22-year-old California police officer before turning the weapon on himself left behind a bizarre suicide note about "ultra sonic waves," according to authorities. Police say Kevin Douglas Limbaugh, 48, attacked Davis Police Officer Natalie Corona as she was responding to the scene of a three-car accident off Interstate-80 outside of Sacramento on Thursday evening. This 2018 booking photo released by the Yolo County Sheriff's Office shows Kevin Douglas Limbaugh. Limbaugh was convicted in a battery case and agreed in November to surrender a semiautomatic rifle. (Yolo County Sheriff's Office via AP) Limbaugh was found dead inside of his nearby home hours after the attack from what police say was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. An open-faced letter was discovered on the suspect's bed, blaming his crime on what appeared to be a bizarre conspiracy theory about the police department. "The Davis police department has been hitting me with ultra sonic waves meant to keep dogs from barking," the typed letter stated. "I notified the press, internal affairs, and even the FBI about it. I am highly sensitive to its affect [sic] on my inner ear. I did my best to appease them, but they have continued for years and I can't live this way anymore." The note was signed "Citizen Kevin Limbaugh." This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Lt. Paul Doroshov of the Davis Police Department said that Limbaugh was not involved in the car accident and described the shooting as "an ambush," NBC News reports. According to eyewitnesses, the suspect approached the scene of the crash on a bicycle as those involved were exchanging information. Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel said Limbaugh suddenly opened fire on Corona, shooting her multiple times before reloading his weapon and firing at random bystanders. No one else was injured in the attack. Firefighters attempted to rescue Corona, who was rushed to UC Davis Medical Center where she later died from her injuries. Story continues Limbaugh was arrested in September 2018 and charged with battery with serious bodily injury after he allegedly punched a co-worker in the face at Cache Creek Casino in Brooks, Calif., according to the Sacramento Bee. The newspaper reports that the case was resolved as a misdemeanor conviction, which resulted in him surrendering an AR-15 rifle to police in November. Davis officers mourned Corona following her death, describing the slain cop as a "rising star" within the department. "Natalie was just full of life and full of energy and just an absolute pleasure to be around," said Chief Pytel. "She loved being around everybody in the department." "I've heard her described by our officers tonight as our daughter, our friend, and just a sister that we all wanted," he added. "This is just an absolutely devastating loss to the police department." Corona, who followed in the footsteps of her father to become an officer, graduated from the police academy in July and was sworn in as an officer just two weeks before her death. Joni Ernst used to be a big fan of Steve King. Photo: King for Congress Now that Iowa congressman Steve King has finally gone over the brink and defended white nationalism and white supremacy, Republicans from his own state and nationally are piously denouncing the man, having suddenly discovered that hes a mite racist-y. Kings probably justified in feeling betrayed by his old friends, particularly those in Iowa who know him well. Maybe he got a bit carried away in forgetting to use code words for white, but hes been renowned during his entire congressional career for being an old-school nativist who isnt just concerned about illegal immigration, but wants restricted immigration generally at least from nonwhite countries as a matter of cultural (and by close implication racial) self-defense. That what always distinguished King and his congressional doppelganger from Colorado, Tom Tancredo (who left the House in 2009 after a long-shot nativist campaign for president). Maybe they talked about the rule of law like other opponents of immigration reform, but they were always clear that they considered all non-European immigration as a threat. Indeed, until Donald Trump came on the national political scene, King was for a while all but alone in the fever swamps on this issue. So no one paying attention should have had any illusions about Kings signature views on his signature subject, or his zest for being outrageous. Back in 2013, Sahil Kapur hit some of the lowlights: Since King came to Congress, his most over-the-top rhetorical outbursts include comparing immigrants to dogs, calling illegal immigration a slow-motion terrorist attack on the United States, claiming Al Qaeda would be dancing in the streets if Barack Obama was elected president, and declaring that racial profiling wasnt an issue in Ferguson, Mo., because protesters were from a single continental origin. That was all aside from Kings famous 2013 canteloupes remark about Dreamers, excoriated even by Republicans, as the New York Times reported at the time: In July he made the ridiculous, now notorious claim that for every child of illegal immigrants whos a valedictorian, theres another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds and theyve got calves the size of cantaloupes because theyre hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. House Speaker John Boehner reprimanded Mr. King, calling his comments deeply offensive and wrong. But it was entirely in character. In 2012 he conducted a public love-in with the infamous white nationalist Peter Brimelow at a CPAC conference, as reported at Daily Kos: Ive read your book, I just hadnt met you, said Rep. Steve King, beaming as he shook hands with white nationalist Peter Brimelow before a panel discussion Thursday. He went on to say that Brimelow eloquently wrote about the balkanization of America. Brimelow was on hand at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference to speak about how policies encouraging diversity are killing America (read: white America). He has urged the Republican Party to work on consolidating the white vote. His book Alien Nation argues that Race is destiny in American politics. This was consistent with Kings later proud identification with white racists internationally, from Canada to the Netherlands to Austria. His happy 2017 endorsement of Dutch anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders as someone who understands that culture and demographics are our destiny led me to compare King to George Wallace: The effort to marginalize the role of racial or religious bigots in cultural conservatism works best when everybodys got the memo and is refusing to say things that cross the line. But right there in Washington, within close proximity of the cameras, is at least one member of Congress who, to use a phrase sometimes said of Wallace in his heyday, just comes right out and says it: Iowas Steve King. But its only now that many of the Republicans who are excoriating King have stopped praising him. Consider Joni Ernst, who in 2016 went out of her way to praise him when he drew a Republican primary opponent: Ernsts senior colleague Chuck Grassley and current Iowa governor Kim Reynolds also came to the nativists aid when he faced intraparty opposition. You can almost understand Ernsts support for King you know, two whole years before she apparently paid any attention to the implications of his words. He was the odds-on favorite among Iowa Republicans to win the 2014 Senate nomination that ultimately went to Ernst when he demurred. So lets dont accept the idea that King was some sort of grudgingly tolerated wild man whom Republicans decided to smack down when his outspokenness got out of hand. They knew who he was, and many of them were happy to promote his obnoxious career until it began to cast an unforgiving light on themselves and their leader in the White House. London (AFP) - The Brexit deal agreed with EU leaders in December that the British parliament is voting on Tuesday is aimed at ensuring a smooth exit from the European Union on March 29. Key provisions aim to avoid a hard border between EU member Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland, protect citizens' rights and settle Britain's last bill. The Irish issue proved to be the main hurdle in intense and bitter negotiations and is the key objection for hardliner Brexiteers who are planning to vote against the deal. Following are the main points of the deal: - Irish 'backstop' - The deal outlines a "backstop" arrangement to prevent the return of border checks between Northern Ireland and Ireland if the sides fail to agree a free trade pact after a 21-month transition period. In a bid to allay British concerns that Northern Ireland would be split from the rest of Britain, the two sides agreed to an EU-UK single customs territory. Northern Ireland would follow EU single market rules on the movement of all products, including agricultural goods. With the UK applying the EU's Customs Code in Northern Ireland, Northern Irish businesses would bring goods into the single market without restrictions. The draft also stipulates that the Northern Irish economy retain unfettered access to the rest of the UK. At London's request, Northern Ireland will apply all the rules of the single market for electricity. In the single EU-UK customs territory, UK goods will enjoy tariff and quota free access to the remaining 27 EU countries. EU diplomats had expressed fears British companies could manufacture products more cheaply if they dropped EU standards. Both sides have given themselves until July 1, 2020 to outline a deal to replace the backstop. If one is not ready by then, they could extend the transition period by up to two years. At any point after the transition period, either side can rule that the arrangement is no longer necessary, but they must take the decision together. Story continues - Transition period - During a transition period ending on December 31, 2020, EU law will apply to give national administrations and businesses time to prepare for new ties. This means the UK will continue to participate in the EU Customs Union and the Single Market and little will change in practice for ordinary Britons and EU citizens. It allows Britain continued market access to the remaining 27 EU countries but it must respect the rules on free movement of goods, capital, services and labour. The British government will however lose the right to vote on any decisions taken by the 27 other member states, the European Commission and the European Parliament. - 'Citizens rights' - The draft deal preserves the rights of the more than three million EU citizens living in Britain and the one million British citizens living in the EU. EU and UK citizens, as well as their family members, can continue to live, work or study enjoying equal treatment to host nationals under the respective laws. It covers all such citizens who arrive before the transition period ends. They will maintain their right to healthcare, pensions and other social security benefits. - Brexit bill - Covering Britain's outstanding financial obligations to the bloc, it calls for a fair settlement for UK taxpayers that the British government estimates to be up to A39 billion (44 billion euros, $51 billion). - Dispute resolution - Disputes between businesses or other entities will be consulted on in a joint committee and, if no mutually agreed solution can be found, it will be resolved by an independent arbitration panel. - Gibraltar - With longstanding Spanish claims to Britain's neighbouring Mediterranean outcrop of Gibraltar, all sides sought to defuse any future tensions. The deal provides for Spanish-British cooperation on citizens' rights, tobacco and other products, environment, police and customs matters. It sets the basis for administrative cooperation for achieving full transparency in tax matters, fighting fraud, smuggling and money laundering. - British bases in Cyprus - The deal aims to ensure no disruption or loss of rights for the 11,000 Cypriot civilians living and working in the areas of the British sovereign military bases. It aims to ensure that EU law will continue to apply in the base areas, including on taxation, goods, agriculture, fisheries and veterinary and phytosanitary rules. - Other points - It oversees the UK's withdrawal from Euratom, the EU treaty on nuclear energy and protects intellectual property, including trademarks as well as more than 3,000 EU geographical indications. The latter cover regional brands such as Welsh lamb, Parma ham, Champagne, Bayerisches beer, Feta cheese, Tokaj wine, Vinagre de Jerez (Jerez vinegar). - Future ties - Separate from the divorce agreement, the two sides still have to negotiate their future relationship, particularly on trade -- a process which could take years. By Beth Pinsker NEW YORK (Reuters) - While growing up in Seattle, Enrique Rico's mom cleaned the posh homes of Microsoft employees. When Rico tagged along on sick days from school, he dreamed of having the life of a technology worker. Now, at 26, with no college degree or background in STEM, Rico is working a developer at Avvo, an online marketplace for legal services. He is a graduate of a program called Apprenti that provides education and on-the-job training for tech jobs to non-traditional recruits. "I never really thought I could do it. But once I dug deep, I gave it my all," said Rico. The Apprenti program is run by the Washington Technology Industry Association in partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor. It operates at around 50 companies nationwide with major employers including Microsoft , Amazon.com and JPMorgan Chase . During the first year of the program in 2017, 76 candidates went through the training, which includes about 400 to 780 classroom hours on the front end, compressed into 12 weeks. After a year of on-the-job training, the program will finish 2018 with 330 graduates placed into full-time jobs. The class of 2019 is on track to produce more than 700 graduates. Amazon expects its apprenticeship cohort to grow from 150 to 1,000 workers in the next few years, said Tammy Thieman, a senior program manager at the ecommerce giant. The tech industry had 2.8 million openings last year, with 50 percent of them middle-level jobs that do not necessarily require a college degree, according to Jennifer Carlson, executive director of Apprenti. The pace of hiring is lagging, however, because companies cannot find properly trained workers, she said. "This industry needed technical competency at the start - that's a paradigm shift from traditional apprenticeships," Carlson added. Apprenti focuses on veterans, women and under-represented minorities, screening about 2,000 candidates to find 700 candidates for 2019. Story continues Amazon teamed up with Apprenti after its CEO Jeff Bezos made a commitment in 2016 to hire 25,000 veterans and military spouses by 2021. But the apprenticeship program quickly broadened to find qualified workers for a vast swath of open jobs that required specific credentials. "It is not at all unrealistic that freshman going to college today come out already behind," said Amazon's Thieman. "An apprenticeship offers a model to do the learning in a compressed way and then learn the skills on the job. While veterans often have valuable skills, they usually do not have a conventional resume or workplace experience. That is why the biggest challenge currently for veterans is being underemployed when they leave the armed forces, said Chris Newsome, vice president of candidate aggregation at RecruitMilitary. "A lot of these men and women are able to find jobs, but not necessarily careers," Newsome said. New college graduates often will need to complete a program like Apprenti to be job-ready because programming languages and platforms change so quickly. Training at universities or even specialty classes at community colleges also do not quite stack up when it comes to hiring for a role such as cloud administrators which require specific certificates, Apprenti's Carlson said. Even boot camps for coding do not necessarily do the trick. Rico tried that route first, quitting his $16.50-an-hour job as a salesperson at an Apple Store to go into a coding program. But without a college degree, he did not stand much of a chance against the automated interfaces most big tech companies use to sort through applicants when hiring. DIVERSITY BOOST For smaller companies like Avvo, Apprenti is more of a mission. "The executives saw the value of a program that gets you talented engineers and does a social good," said Hunter Davis, director of engineering at Avvo. The company has about 25-30 developers currently on staff, with about 15 percent of them coming through Apprenti. "They are awesome and full of grit and willing to learn," Davis said. The leg up for Apprenti grads starts right away. Like Rico, many were previously working minimum wage jobs, with a median income of $28,000 and most without benefits. The starting salary in the Apprenti program is $45,000 during training. At six months when candidates begin their on-the-job training, the salary rises $51,000. If they get hired full-time - and almost all of them do - Apprenti grads make at least $75,000. That is a life-changing salary for most of the participants. "I have an apartment and a dog and a cat," said Rico, who is still dreaming. "Id love to get married and have kids and buy a house. I want to be my own boss. I would love to start my own company." (Editing by Lauren Young and G Crosse) Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said she doesn't plan on retiring before the presidential election in 2020 but Republicans appear to have other ideas. Donald Trumps White House and close allies have begun preparing for her replacement, with senior Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham saying he will be hell-bent on replacing the notorious liberal justice with a conservative upon her departure a move that could radically shift the balance of the court for decades. Despite the Supreme Court indicating the justice was recovering well after having two malignant nodules removed from her lung, the South Carolina Republican said on Fox News Sunday he would seek to fill the next open seat on the nations highest court with a conservative judge like the two others Donald Trump has selected during his presidency, including Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. I hope Justice Ginsburg serves for a long time, but if theres an opening on this court, Im going to be hell-bent to put a conservative to replace whoever steps down for whatever reason, Mr Graham told host Chris Wallace. My Democrat colleagues felt, when they were in charge, we should confirm judges by a majority vote, he continued. They changed the rules to accommodate President Obama, they tried to stack the court, they never thought [Hillary Clinton] would lose, so what youre going to have is Harry Reid and Chuck Schumers desire to stack the court on their Democratic watches come back to haunt them. The senator went on to note that he would urge the president to nominate a qualified conservative if Ms Ginsburg were to step down from her role on the court during his presidency. The comments arrived shortly after reports indicated Mr Trumps White House had already begun the process of laying the groundwork for vetting and selecting a conservative justice to fill the next open seat on the Supreme Court. A source told Politico the administration was taking the temperature on possible short-list candidates, reaching out to key stakeholders, and just making sure that people are informed on the process last week, even after the Supreme Court released a memo indicating the justice was in good health after her December surgery. Story continues If and when Mr Trump nominates a new conservative judge to the court, Mr Graham predicted they would get through the Senate, adding, I expect it to be along party lines. This is what happens when you change the rules, he added. This has come back to bite them, I predicted it would, and well see. MURRAY, Utah (AP) The Latest on a shooting at a Utah mall that wounded two people (all times local): 5:15 p.m. Officials with a Utah mall where two people were wounded Sunday in a gang-related shooting are acknowledging that a false fire alarm that went off seconds before the shooting created confusion. Brookfield Properties spokeswoman Lindsay Kahn said Monday in a statement that two messages were played inside the Fashion Place mall in a suburb of Salt Lake City in short succession. The first message said the original alarm was false, but a second message after the shooting told people evacuate or take shelter. Kahn said it was an unfortunate coincidence and apologized. Chicago-based Brookfield owns Fashion Place mall. Kahn says the company is reviewing security measures, but declined to disclose details. Murray Police Officer Kenny Bass said earlier Monday that the alarm has been malfunctioning for days. ___ 1:50 p.m. A Salt Lake City suburban mall where two people were wounded Sunday in a gang-related shooting has reopened and was busy Monday with shoppers who say they aren't concerned about their safety. Sean Sasso stopped by the Fashion Place mall in the suburb of Murray to do some quick shopping before going to work as a pharmacy technician. He had heard about the shooting, but says it didn't deter him because he doesn't want to live in fear. Tim and Connie Schieving went to the mall as they do each morning to walk and get exercise and say they felt extra safe with additional police presence. Police say the shooting that happened just outside the mall near the entrance was gang related, and happened after about a dozen people belonging to rival gangs crossed paths inside the mall. ____ 10:45 a.m. Utah police say they have made two arrests connected to the suburban Sal Lake City Mall shooting that wounded two people. Police said Monday they arrested two 19-year-old men but were unsure whether those men had been gunmen. Story continues Authorities say the shooting was gang related, and happened after about a dozen people belonging to rival gangs crossed paths inside the mall in the Salt Lake City suburb of Murray. Murray Police Officer Kenny Bass says an argument spilled outside the mall, turned physical and that both groups fired shots. He says a fire alarm that sent shoppers running for the exits went off by accident, the result of a prior malfunction. One victim, a woman, has been released from the hospital. A man remains hospitalized in critical condition. __ 8:15 a.m. One of two victims wounded in a Utah mall shooting is out of the hospital as authorities continue to search for the assailants. Police in Murray, a suburb south of Salt Lake City, say a woman in her early 20s was treated and released just hours after the shooting broke out Sunday afternoon. A man, also in his early 20s, remains hospitalized in critical condition. Police believe the shooting may have been gang related and are looking for three suspects. Authorities say they were described as wearing dark pants and light-colored sweatshirts or hoodies. The gunfire erupted around 1:30 p.m. at Fashion Place Mall, sending panicked shoppers fleeing. Employees and customers in some stores hid inside backrooms. It wasn't immediately clear Monday if the shopping center would be open. WASHINGTON (AP) The Latest on President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee, William Barr (all times local): 6:20 p.m. Attorney General nominee William Barr is making clear he doesn't favor politically motivated prosecutions, rejecting one of President Donald Trump's favorite rallying cries. Barr says he doesn't "subscribe to this 'Lock her up' stuff," a reference to chants encouraging the jailing of Democrat Hillary Clinton that rose to prominence during Trump rallies in the 2016 campaign. Barr says he doesn't like the appearance of impropriety that comes from injecting politics into criminal investigations. The comments are a departure from the president, who has routinely cast those who challenge him in the political arena as criminals. Barr made the remarks Tuesday during his Senate confirmation hearing. __ 2:35 p.m. Attorney general nominee Bill Barr says he would "not go after" marijuana companies in states where cannabis is legal. Barr said at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday that companies had relied on Obama-era guidance that kept federal authorities from cracking down on the pot trade in states where the drug is legal. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded that guidance, known as the Cole Memo, last year. Sessions' action came days after California's broad marijuana legalization. Since the guidance was rescinded, there has been concern about the future of the growing cannabis industry. Federal law prohibits the possession and sale of marijuana. Barr says he believes that the "current system is untenable." ___ 1:25 p.m. President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee says he would "not carry out" any order to fire special counsel Robert Mueller without cause. William Barr is testifying at his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing. His comments about an attempt to fire Mueller were in response to a question from Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware. Story continues Mueller's team is examining potential ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign. Barr says he wants Mueller to finish the investigation. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions drew the president's ire after removing himself from the Russia investigation because of his previous work with the Trump campaign. Sessions resigned at the president's request in November. ___ 1:05 p.m. Attorney General nominee William Barr says immigration reform is "long overdue" and expressed support for President Donald Trump's hardline policies, including funding a border wall. He testified Tuesday at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Asked about the partial government shutdown, in its fourth week due to an impasse over funding for a border wall, Barr says he would like to see a deal reached where Congress recognized that it was "imperative to have border security." Barr also said he believed so-called sanctuary cities were hurting law enforcement's ability to safeguard the public. His predecessor, Jeff Sessions, sued California over the policies. ___ 1 p.m. President Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general says he can't rule out jailing reporters for doing their jobs. William Barr told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that there are certain situations where a reporter could be held in contempt "as a last resort." His comment came in response to a question from Sen. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat. Barr said the situations he was envisioning would involve news organizations "putting out stuff that is hurting the country." In 2017, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he could not make a "blanket commitment" in response to a similar question from Klobuchar. ___ 11:35 a.m. Attorney general nominee William Barr says he turned down joining President Donald Trump's defense team in the Russia investigation. Barr says he personally told Trump he couldn't represent him and spoke up for special counsel Robert Mueller's (MUHL'-urz) integrity. Barr says he told the president that Mueller is a "straight shooter and should be treated as such." Barr said at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday that he took the meeting with the president after he was approached in June 2017 by the U.S. ambassador to Israel about helping Trump's legal team. Barr detailed his conversations with Trump during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mueller is investigating potential ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign. Trump has called the Russia probe a "witch hunt." ___ 11:25 a.m. Attorney general nominee William Barr says former FBI Director James Comey made the wrong decision by holding a news conference announcing he wasn't recommending charges in the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Barr made the comment during his confirmation hearing Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Barr says if authorities aren't going to bring charges, then there should not be a news conference to detail derogatory information uncovered during the probe. Comey has defended his decision. Comey's firing is part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, which also is examining whether President Donald Trump or anyone in his inner circle obstructed justice. Trump cited Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation as one of the reasons for Comey's firing, though he later suggested the Russia investigation was a factor. Trump nominated Barr, who served under President George H.W. Bush. ___ 11:05 a.m. Attorney general nominee William Barr says he would seek the advice of career Justice Department ethics officials about whether he should recuse himself from overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. Barr said during his confirmation hearing Tuesday that under department guidelines he would have to make the decision about whether to recuse himself. He says he would "make a decision on good faith based on the laws and the facts." Barr was nominated by President Donald Trump. If confirmed, Barr would replace acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, who declined to recuse himself from the investigation. Whitaker chose not to recuse himself despite the advice of a Justice Department ethics official. Democrats called for Whitaker's recusal given his past critical comments on the probe. Trump complained his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was insufficiently loyal because he recused himself. ___ 10:45 a.m. President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general says it would be an "abuse of power" for Trump to intervene in an investigation he "has a stake in." William Barr said Tuesday at his confirmation hearing he believes such an action would be a breach of the president's constitutional duties and could violate federal law depending upon the circumstances. Barr was responding to questions from California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (FYN'-styn), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, in light of a memo he wrote criticizing special counsel Robert Mueller's (MUHL'-urz) obstruction-of-justice investigation. Barr has said the memo was intended to be narrowly focused on one of Mueller's reported interpretations of obstruction. Barr also says his memo was based solely on public reporting and not any confidential information. ___ 10:20 a.m. President Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general says he doesn't believe special counsel Robert Mueller "would be involved in a witch hunt." William Barr made the comment Tuesday at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Trump has repeatedly decried the special counsel's investigation as a "witch hunt" and has suggested he is being targeted by the Justice Department. Mueller is investigating potential ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign. ___ 10:15 a.m. President Donald Trump's pick to be attorney general says he will look into how an FBI counterintelligence investigation was opened into whether Trump was secretly working on behalf of Russia's interests. Attorney general nominee William Barr says he has never heard of the FBI opening such an investigation on an American president. Barr was responding to questions from Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham on Tuesday. The South Carolina Republican asked Barr about a report by The New York Times revealing that the counterintelligence investigation was opened in the days after Trump's firing of former FBI Director James Comey. Barr is making the comments during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Trump has denied working for Russia. ___ 10 a.m. The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee says attorney general nominee William Barr's unsolicited memo criticizing the Russia investigation showed a "determined effort to undermine Bob Mueller." California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday she's also troubled by Barr's expansive view of presidential powers since he will be overseeing the special counsel's investigation into whether President Donald Trump or his associates coordinated with Russian election interference. Feinstein made the comments during the opening of Barr's confirmation hearing. Barr has defended the memo. He says it was narrowly focused on a single theory of obstruction and didn't touch the broader questions surrounding Russian election interference. Barr revealed Monday that he had sent the memo to White House lawyers and lawyers for Trump. ___ 12:10 a.m. President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee will have to navigate his confirmation hearing skillfully. William Barr will need to emphasize on Tuesday that he supports Trump's policies while assuring Democrats he will act independently and won't interfere with the special counsel's Russia investigation. The 68-year-old will face questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee about his relationship with Trump and his views on executive power. According to prepared remarks already released, Barr plans to tell senators that "it is vitally important" for Mueller to complete the investigation. Democrats have raised concerns about comments Barr has made about Mueller's probe. Last year, Barr sent an unsolicited memo to the Justice Department criticizing Mueller's inquiry into whether Trump sought to obstruct justice. Jerusalem (AFP) - A Jewish minor is to be charged in connection with the killing of a Palestinian woman last year in the occupied West Bank, Israeli police said Tuesday. Aisha Rabi, 48, died after stones were thrown at the car she was travelling in with her family on October 12. Five pupils from the Pri Haaretz religious seminary in the Rechelim settlement in the West Bank were arrested last month, four of whom were released to house arrest. The fifth suspect held in custody would be charged over the attack "in the next few days", police said in a statement. Rabi, a mother of nine, was killed near Rechelim which lies close to her village of Bidiya in the northern West Bank. She died after suffering a head injury, while her husband escaped with minor injuries. Israeli investigations into "Jewish terrorism" -- as such cases are often referred to by Israeli media -- are highly sensitive. Rights activists have accused Israeli authorities of dragging their feet in such probes compared with those into Palestinian attacks, while far-right Israelis say suspects have undergone coercement and torture. Nearly 450,000 Jewish settlers live in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which is also home to more than 2.5 million Palestinians. When the next recession strikes, it won't be as bad as the last one, J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon predicted Tuesday. "You will have a recession. It just won't be like you had the last time in ... affecting the banking system," he said in a call Tuesday with analysts after the company released its fourth-quarter earnings. The chief executive said the larger banks have been more prudent when approving new loans. It's the newer, non-bank lenders dubbed shadow banks that could have problems during a recession, he predicted. "Someone's going to get hurt," he said. "The issue there for the marketplace is going to be, we have a recession, the lender will not be there. So a lot of these borrowers will be stranded." More Money: Ask HR: My boss has body odor and bad breath. What can I do about this issue? More Money: Chick-fil-A testing spicy new menu items in select markets, considering nationwide rollout Dimon didn't forecast when he expected a downturn to occur. The company's chief financial officer, Marianne Lake, said despite some softness recently in manufacturing and capital expenditures, "the outlook for growth in the economy is still strong," especially among consumers. "It's good," Dimon agreed. Government shutdown concerns Dimon also weighed in on the partial government shutdown in an earlier call with the media. He repeated recent estimates by some economists that the government shutdown could sap all growth from the worlds biggest economy. Someone estimated that if it goes on for the whole quarter, it can reduce growth to zero, Dimon said. We just have to deal with that. Its more of a political issue than anything else. His figures aren't off, says Dean Baker, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. Christopher Belcher, a Department of Veterans Affairs employee, holds a sign during a rally to call for an end to the partial government shutdown, in Detroit, Thursday, Jan. 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) ORG XMIT: MIPS105 Furloughed workers make up about 0.5 percent of the total U.S. workforce and contribute roughly about the same to the economy, he says. That means growth has dropped 0.5 percentage point in the first quarter from the fourth, or 2 percent on an annualized basis the same level that many economists project for this year. Story continues "So, if it lasts the whole quarter, zero growth is very plausible," Baker wrote in an email to USA TODAY. Dimon's comments on the shutdown come on the same day that Delta Air Lines' CEO said the airline is losing about $25 million in business because of the shutdown. Ed Bastian told CNBC that fewer government employees and contractors are traveling, resulting in the decline. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, weighs in on shutdown fears, recession predictions News emerged from the White House on Monday that Ivanka Trump, daughter of US President Donald Trump, is to play an essential role in the identification of the US candidate for the recently vacated position as World Bank President. There are reports circulating that Ms. Trump herself has been under consideration for the role. These reports have been claimed to be false according to the White House. We have seen confirmation that the job of nominating a successor to outgoing President Jim Yong Kim (see image above) rests with a team of three individuals. Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and Ms. Trump. Ivanka Ruled out, but What Next? The announcement from White House officials that the Presidents daughter is not under consideration for the role will do little to quell the controversy that surrounds the situation. Her involvement in the process in any capacity has surprised many, especially considering her lack of experience in development finance. Much of the media headlines have been taken up by the possibility of Ivanka Trump heading a list of nominations to succeed the outgoing President. However, are we seeing this particular thread of the story obscure another Trump factor that is far more likely to play out? Since its creation following the second world war, an American nomination has traditionally held the position of World Bank President. Although, there was a strong challenge last time where Nigerian economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who opposed the eventual winner Jim Yong Kim. The truth is, the World Bank is facing the daunting prospect of a new President chosen by a US Government that hasnt hidden its suspicions of multilateral institutions. Theres fear that President Trumps choice could wreak havoc on funding allocated to projects fighting climate change. Any program that is considered supportive of Chinese initiatives could also find itself under threat. Story continues The Financial Times quoted one former senior World Bank official as saying that right now people in the bank are worried about how we protect the institution. Selection Process Will Be Transparent The World Bank board will ultimately be responsible for choosing the new President from a list of potential candidates. A list which it describes as containing a significant number of recommendations for good candidates. It has also stressed that the process will be open, merit-based and transparent. For many, this is wishful thinking. The consensus is that acceptance of a US nomination would do much to encourage the United States to remain engaged with the World Bank. It could also help to improve the current US views of multilateral institutions. While Ms. Trumps potential candidacy grabbed most of the headlines, there have been other names touted around Washington. These include the head of the US Agency for International Development, Mark Green, and Nikki Hayley, former ambassador to the United Nations. There is also the small matter of outgoing President Kims new position with Global Infrastructure Partners. Although not a major player in emerging markets at the moment, this could be set to change. GIP has suggested that once Kims one-year cooling off period is over, working with the World Bank on a number of initiatives is a possibility. Even with the official denial of Ivanka Trumps candidacy by the White House, theres still going to be plenty of Trump factor to keep headline makers happy when it comes to the World Bank situation. Featured image from Reuters. The post Ivanka Trump Dominating World Bank Presidency Story, but Do Bigger Concerns Lie Ahead? appeared first on CCN. Effigies of Prime Minister Theresa May, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, Environment Secretary Michael Gove, and former Brexit secretary David Davis, are driven past the Houses of Parliament in London, ahead of the Brexit vote. Photo: Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images Nearly two long years ago, when the U.K. began its negotiations with the E.U. over the terms of Brexit, Prime Minister Theresa May asserted that she would fight for the best deal possible for Britain, but that no deal was better than a bad deal she wouldnt hesitate to walk away if Europe didnt give her a divorce Britons could live with. To Mays right, hard-line Brexit supporters were confident that E.U. negotiators in Brussels would give the U.K. whatever it wanted, because they needed Britain more than Britain needed them. To her left, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was courting Leave voters with visions of a better Brexit deal for the common man than Mays Conservative government was likely to make. Now, with the Brexit due date less than three months away, things have changed. May, who didnt support Brexit in the first place, is desperately trying to get a relatively bad deal through Parliament, warning of the perils of no deal but describing the worst-case scenario as no Brexit at all. Corbyn is still stumping for his better deal even though most of his party would rather have a second referendum but is primarily fixated on his quixotic ambition to unseat May and form a Labour government. The hard Brexiteers, meanwhile, are past claiming they could make a better deal than May and have moved on to claiming that no deal is no big deal. Mays proposed agreement, which she and European leaders have underscored ad nauseam is the best deal possible, comes before Parliament for a vote today, where it is almost guaranteed to fail. U.K. legislators were set to vote on it last month, but May canceled the vote rather than see her plan go down by a triple-digit margin. After surviving a confidence vote within the Conservative party, which inoculates her against being ousted for a year, the prime minister is now willing to go through the motions of losing this vote as the next move in her ongoing game of chicken with Parliament. In an impassioned speech set against the backdrop of a china factory in the Leave-voting industrial city of Stoke-on-Trent, May pleaded with MPs to give her deal a second look. No it is not perfect, she said. And yes it is a compromise, but, I say we should deliver for the British people and get on with building a brighter future for our country. In a private meeting with Tory lawmakers, she also stressed that passing her deal was the best way to prevent Corbyn from becoming prime minister. To sweeten the pot, Mays government has indicated that it would accept an amendment to her proposal that would let Parliament vote on whether to extend the 21-month post-Brexit transition period and on whether to implement the backstop provision designed to prevent a hard border in Ireland in the event that the U.K. and E.U. fail to reach a final trade agreement before that period ends. Thats just one of many amendments that have been proposed, some feasible and some not. Andrew Murrison, the chair of the Northern Ireland affairs committee, has tabled one that would impose a definite end date to the backstop arrangement, in hopes of wooing Tories and Democratic Unionist Party MPs who see it as a trap that would leave the U.K. stuck in the E.U. customs union indefinitely. That amendment is unlikely to pass today, but could form the basis for an eventual compromise as zero hour bears down on lawmakers. The other problem with Murrisons amendment is that the E.U. has preemptively shot it down. Downing Street published an exchange of letters on Monday between May and the E.U.s two most senior officials, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council president Donald Tusk, in which the Europeans refused to put a 12-month time limit on the backstop but offered other assurances that they were serious about avoiding that worst-case scenario and that it would only be temporary if it did come to pass. If (honestly, when) Mays deal fails in Parliament, her next move will likely depend on the margin of her defeat; in any case, she has no good options. She can go back to the E.U. for more assurances and keep trying to whip votes before March 29, which is unlikely to make much difference as there simply is no deal that would satisfy both the E.U. and the nativist Tory rump. She can revoke the U.K.s notice of intent to leave the E.U. and thereby delay the Brexit date, which she has said she wont do. Or she can resign as party leader and let a hard-Brexit Tory like Boris Johnson find out the hard way that no, he cant get a better deal than she did. Her rivals, meanwhile, will make moves of their own. Corbyn has said Labour will call a vote of no confidence in the government after helping vote down Mays plan, at the moment we judge it to have the best chance of success. His party cant win that vote on its own, though, nor is it at all certain that Corbyn could assemble a majority in Parliament if he did manage to topple Mays cabinet. In that case, a snap election would be forced. If Labour somehow manages to form a government, its grand strategy going forward is to delay Brexit so it can negotiate some more. Parliament could also take matters into its own hands and wrest the Brexit agenda from the governments hands, possibly forcing through an alternative plan along the lines of Norways relationship with the E.U. This, however, would be a constitutional struggle, representing what political scientist Philip Cowley described as one of the most fundamental shifts in (the) relationship between the government and parliament since 1642. The battle over Brexit has already tested that relationship considerably. Its also straining the conventions that govern parliamentary procedure in Westminster, such as the partisan neutrality of the Speaker of the House of Commons, who has been accused of tipping the scales against Brexit. The upshot of all this turmoil is that the U.K. is looking more and more likely to face a no-deal Brexit at the end of March, whether or not anyone wants it. Even while repeatedly insisting that this was an extremely unlikely scenario, the government spent the past several months preparing for the U.K. to crash out of the E.U., attempting to clarify its impact on immigration and other policy areas, and stockpiling food and medicine in anticipation of import controls with Europe and chaos at the ports in April. On Sunday, it came out that the Ministry of Defense had dispatched military planners to several other government departments to help with contingency planning. Private businesses in the U.K. are also increasingly operating under the assumption that there will be no deal, while households are starting Brexit stockpiles of their own. Perhaps the most telling sign of impending disaster is the growing comfort with which pro-Brexit hardliners have begun talking about it. International trade secretary Liam Fox said on Monday that leaving without a deal would not be difficult, but survivable and not national suicide as it has been described. Like May, Fox sees no Brexit as a worse outcome than no deal. Former Brexit minister David Davis, who resigned last year after the plan May unveiled for Brexit wasnt hard enough for his liking, told Der Spiegel in a testy interview last week that we should not be afraid of no deal, comparing it to walking away from the purchase of a car or a house that one finds too expensive. Davis described warnings of the potential impact of no deal as mostly scare stories. Private-citizen Brexiteers are also increasingly eager to get out of the E.U. with or without a deal. In a recent poll, 76 percent of Conservative party members said they preferred no deal to Mays deal, illustrating the stark division between the Tory base and its leadership. Reporting on Sunday from Boston, England, where 75.6 percent of residents voted Leave, the Washington Post found ardent Brexit supporters receptive to Daviss assurances that the no-deal horror scenarios were baseless scaremongering. In its vox populi piece, the Post also talked to Rosalind Watson, a Birmingham woman who had come to London for a pro-Brexit demonstration, whose commentary on a no-deal scenario spoke volumes: Robert Farley Security, If a hostile power (lets say Iran, for sake of discussion) appeared to be on the verge of mating nuclear devices with the systems needed to deliver them, Israel might well consider a preventive nuclear attack Israels Nuclear Weapons: The Worst-Kept Military Secret on the Planet Key point: There is no question that Israel could consider using its most powerful weapons if the conventional balance tipped decisively out of its favor. Israels nuclear arsenal is the worst-kept secret in international relations. Since the 1970s, Israel has maintained a nuclear deterrent in order to maintain a favorable balance of power with its neighbors. Apart from some worrying moments during the Yom Kippur War, the Israeli government has never seriously considered using those weapons. The most obvious scenario for Israel to use nuclear weapons would be in response to a foreign nuclear attack. Israels missile defenses, air defenses, and delivery systems are far too sophisticated to imagine a scenario in which any country other than one of the major nuclear powers could manage a disarming first strike. Consequently, any attacker is certain to endure massive retaliation, in short order. Israels goals would be to destroy the military capacity of the enemy (lets say Iran, for sake of discussion) and also send a message that any nuclear attack against Israel would be met with catastrophic, unimaginable retaliation. (This first appeared several years ago.) But under what conditions might Israel start a nuclear war? Nuclear Pre-emption If a hostile power (lets say Iran, for sake of discussion) appeared to be on the verge of mating nuclear devices with the systems needed to deliver them, Israel might well consider a preventive nuclear attack. In the case of Iran, we can imagine scenarios in which Israeli planners would no longer deem a conventional attack sufficiently lethal to destroy or delay the Iranian program. In such a scenario, and absent direct intervention from the United States, Israel might well decide to undertake a limited nuclear attack against Iranian facilities. Story continues Recommended: 5 Worst Guns Ever Made. Recommended: The Worlds Most Secretive Nuclear Weapons Program. Recommended: The Fatal Flaw That Could Take Down an F-22 or F-35. Given that Iran lacks significant ballistic missile defenses, Israel would most likely deliver the nuclear weapons with its Jericho III intermediate range ballistic missiles. Israel would likely limit its attacks to targets specifically linked with the Iranian nuclear program, and sufficiently away from civilian areas. Conceivably, since it would be breaking the nuclear taboo anyway, Israel might target other military facilities and bases for attack, but it is likely that the Israeli government would want to limit the precedent for using nuclear weapons as much as possible. Would it work? Nuclear weapons would deal more damage than most imaginable conventional attacks, and would also convey a level of seriousness that might take even the Iranians aback. On the other hand, the active use of nuclear weapons by Israel would probably heighten the interest of everyone in the region (and potentially across the world) to develop their own nuclear arsenals. Nuclear Transfer One of Israels biggest concerns is the idea that a nuclear power (Iran, Pakistan, or North Korea, presumably) might give or sell a nuclear weapon to a non-governmental organization (NGO). Hamas, Hezbollah, or some other terrorist group would be harder to deter than a traditional nation-state. Even if a terrorist organization did not immediately use the weapon against an Israeli target, it could potentially extract concessions that Israel would be unwilling to make. In such a scenario, Israel might well consider using nuclear weapons in order to forestall a transfer, or destroy the enemy nuclear device after delivery. This would depend on access to excellent intelligence about the transfer of the device, but it is hardly impossible that the highly professional and operationally competent Israeli intelligence services could provide such data. Why go nuclear? The biggest reason would be to ensure the success of the strike; both the device itself and the people handling the device would be important targets, and a nuclear attack would ensure their destruction more effectively than even a massive conventional strike (which might well accompany the nuclear attack). Moreover, committing to the most extreme use forms of the use of force might well deter both the NGO and the originating state (not to mention any states that facilitated transfer through their borders; hello, Syria!) from attempting another transfer. However, the active use of nuclear weapons against a non-state actor might look to the world like overkill, and could reaffirm the interest of the source of the nuclear device in causing more problems for Israel. Conventional Defeat The idea that Israel might lose a conventional war seems ridiculous now, but the origins of the Israeli nuclear program lay in the fear that the Arab states would develop a decisive military advantage that they could use to inflict battlefield defeats. This came close to happening during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, as the Egyptian Army seized the Suez Canal and the Syrian Arab Army advanced into the Golan Heights. Accounts on how seriously Israel debated using nukes during that war remain murky, but there is no question that Israel could consider using its most powerful weapons if the conventional balance tipped decisively out of its favor. How might that happen? We can imagine a few scenarios, most of which involve an increase in hostility between Israel and its more tolerant neighbors. Another revolution in Egypt could easily rewrite the security equation on Israels southern border; while the friendship of Saudi Arabia seems secure, political instability could change that; even Turkish policy might shift in a negative direction. Israel currently has overwhelming conventional military advantages, but these advantages depend to some extent on a favorable regional strategic environment. Political shifts could leave Israel diplomatically isolated, and vulnerable once again to conventional attack. In such a situation, nuclear weapons would remain part of the toolkit for ensuring the survival of the nation. Conclusion It is unlikely, but hardly impossible, that Israel could decide to use nuclear weapons first in a future conflict. The best way to prevent this from happening is to limit the reasons why Israel might want to use these weapons, which is to say preventing the further proliferation of nukes. If Israel ever does use nuclear weapons in anger, it will rewrite the diplomatic and security architecture of the Middle East, and also the nonproliferation architecture of the world as a whole. Robert Farley , a frequent contributor to TNI, is a Visiting Professor at the United States Army War College. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. Read full article We often see insiders buying up shares in companies that perform well over the long term. Unfortunately, there are also plenty of examples of share prices declining precipitously after insiders have sold shares. So well take a look at whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in Mirza International Limited (NSE:MIRZAINT). What Is Insider Selling? It is perfectly legal for company insiders, including board members, to buy and sell stock in a company. However, such insiders must disclose their trading activities, and not trade on inside information. We dont think shareholders should simply follow insider transactions. But equally, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether. For example, a Harvard University study found that insider purchases earn abnormal returns of more than 6% per year. See our latest analysis for Mirza International Want to help shape the future of investing tools and platforms? Take the survey and be part of one of the most advanced studies of stock market investors to date. The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Mirza International While no particular insider transaction stood out, we can still look at the overall trading. The chart below shows insider transactions (by individuals) over the last year. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below! NSEI:MIRZAINT Insider Trading January 15th 19 If you like to buy stocks alongside management, then you might just love this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them). Does Mirza International Boast High Insider Ownership? Looking at the total insider shareholdings in a company can help to inform your view of whether they are well aligned with common shareholders. Usually, the higher the insider ownership, the more likely it is that insiders will be incentivised to build the company for the long term. Mirza International insiders own 74% of the company, currently worth about 7.2b based on the recent share price. Most shareholders would be happy to see this sort of insider ownership, since it suggests that management incentives are well aligned with other shareholders. Story continues So What Do The Mirza International Insider Transactions Indicate? The fact that there have been no Mirza International insider transactions recently certainly doesnt bother us. While we feel good about high insider ownership of Mirza International, we cant say the same about the selling of shares. Therefore, you should should definitely take a look at this FREE report showing analyst forecasts for Mirza International. If you would prefer to check out another company one with potentially superior financials then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. india bitcoin cryptocurrency crypto Despite a plethora of sometimes unclear regulations and restrictions, large businesses and banks in India are still embracing cryptocurrency or at least some of the technology that underpins it as a more reliable way to reconcile accounts, make payments, keep proper records, and manage internal funds. According to a report in the India Times, a number of Indian corporations are currently trialing blockchain technology as a means of record keeping. Top Firms in India Eye Blockchain for Payments Despite the traditionally hostile stance of the Reserve Bank of India on cryptocurrency exchange activities and its recent announcement that it will not be launching the mooted Digital Rupee, cryptocurrencies still appear to have a future in India. In the light of revelations that a lack of proper record keeping contributed to the IL&FS takeover, more large businesses are apparently willing to explore alternatives which will ensure that all financial records and contracts are properly documented. Using blockchain technology for record-keeping practically removes the possibility of discrepancies, and it is this security functionality that makes it especially useful for large corporations with multi-level data flow. While still in its testing stage, sources quoted by the India Times say that the results look promising. According to them, if final results are impressive, the corporations involved have plans to scale up the whole process to cover wider areas. unilever blockchain india Some of the big names reportedly making such moves include Hindustan Unilever, ABG Shipyard, HDFC Bank, and Reliance Industries. Right now, several pilot tests are running which use DLT strictly as a record keeping tool with hopes of balancing the books either at the end of the quarter or at the years end. Although there is no publicized timeline yet for the testing and proposed scale-up, stakeholders expect that blockchain technology will have a big future in the Indian corporate space. Story continues Speaking to the India Times, Sai Venkateshwaran, a Partner and Head of CFO Advisory at KPMG India, said: Apart from greater efficiency and accuracy, [blockchain technology] has the potential to bring enhanced levels of transparency for group treasury management and also cost savings. Crypto Refuses to Go Away Significant restrictions by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may yet prove to be a challenge for such nascent implementations, but many experts are of the opinion that these restrictions can be circumvented if corporations keep transactions strictly in house. In addition to high levels of cryptocurrency fraud taking place in India, regulatory concern also falls on the space because of perceived problems with taxation and accounting compliance. Despite this, according to the report, corporate stakeholders remain convinced that getting regulators on their side in an economy projected to surpass the US by 2030 is only a matter of time. Images from Shutterstock The post Indias Biggest Conglomerates Explore Blockchain for B2B Payments appeared first on CCN. Investors in Apache Corporation APA need to pay close attention to the stock based on moves in the options market lately. That is because the Jan 18, 2019 $40 Put had some of the highest implied volatility of all equity options today. What is Implied Volatility? Implied volatility shows how much movement the market is expecting in the future. Options with high levels of implied volatility suggest that investors in the underlying stocks are expecting a big move in one direction or the other. It could also mean there is an event coming up soon that may cause a big rally or a huge sell-off. However, implied volatility is only one piece of the puzzle when putting together an options trading strategy. What do the Analysts Think? Clearly, options traders are pricing in a big move for Apache shares, but what is the fundamental picture for the company? Currently, Apache is a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) in the Oil and Gas Exploration and Production United States industry that ranks in the Bottom 4% of our Zacks Industry Rank. Over the last 60 days, two analysts have increased their earnings estimates for the current quarter, while seven have dropped their estimates. The net effect has taken our Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current quarter from 61 cents per share to 42 cents in that period. Given the way analysts feel about Apache right now, this huge implied volatility could mean theres a trade developing. Oftentimes, options traders look for options with high levels of implied volatility to sell premium. This is a strategy many seasoned traders use because it captures decay. At expiration, the hope for these traders is that the underlying stock does not move as much as originally expected. Looking to Trade Options? Each week, our very own Dave Bartosiak gives his top options trades. Check out his recent live analysis and options trade for the NFLX earnings report completely free. See it here: Bartosiak: Trading Netflix's (NFLX) Earnings with Options or check out the embedded video below for more details: Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. (Reuters) - About 400 U.S. Food and Drug Administration staffers have returned to their posts from furlough, including some food inspectors and support professionals, Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a tweet on Tuesday. Gottlieb's comments come as the longest U.S. government shutdown, triggered by President Donald Trump's demand for $5.7 billion from Congress to fund a wall on the border with Mexico, reached its 25th day. The FDA employees returning to work, mostly without pay, include about 100 staff focused on inspections of high-risk medical device manufacturing facilities, about 70 focused on inspections of high-risk drug manufacturing facilities and about 90 focused on inspections of high-risk biological manufacturing facilities, Gottlieb said https://twitter.com/SGottliebFDA/status/1085220506792534017. About 150 of the returning staffers are involved with inspections of food deemed potentially high risk, Gottlieb said. Those would include seafood, baby formula and some fruits and vegetables. Reviews to determine whether new medicines warrant approval are also likely to be impacted by the shutdown. "We expect drug manufacturers could face near-term regulatory gridlock and the potential for a backlog of delayed filings, meetings, and regulatory decisions that could extend even beyond the end of the shutdown," RBC Capital Markets analyst Brian Abrahams said in a note, adding that Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Celgene Corp are among drugmakers that could be adversely affected. Drug applications requiring user fees will continue to be reviewed if submitted prior to the start of the shutdown, as the agency would be able to use carryover funding from 2018, Gottlieb said. That would not include certain medicines, such as allergy treatments. Aimmune Therapeutics Inc said on Monday that review of its peanut allergy treatment was being delayed. Calls to the FDA seeking comment were met with messages saying the various spokespeople were on furlough status and unable to take the call. Gottlieb, who has been tweeting updates on work at the FDA during the shutdown, indicated on Monday that the agency would restart some inspections by largely unpaid staff. He said the agency has funding that would last about five weeks and will focus on critical activities. "We continue to operate the programs using carryover user fees, and we'll prioritize work that impacts public safety, as this is our foremost priority," Gottlieb said. Without funding, Gottlieb warned, programs aimed at bringing cheaper generic drugs and biosimilars to market would be impacted. (Reporting by Tamara Mathias and Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; editing by Bill Berkrot) Were around halfway through the January transfer window, and besides Chelseas swoop for Christian Pulisic, most of the Premier League Big Six have yet to make any major moves. The Spin has identified the positions where each Big Six side need reinforcementsand suggested some players who are (or should be) on their radar! Liverpool, who desperately need some more cover at Centre-back. Virgil Van Dijk is the only fit senior centre-half right now, with Fabinho filling in at the back against Brighton. Jurgen Klopp has admitted its unlikely theyll buy anyone in January, but someone like Burnleys James Tarkowski or Bournemouths Nathan Ake would fit the bill nicely. Manchester City are deep in every department except defensive midfield: weve already seen this season how they suffer without Fernandinho and they should be thinking about his long-term replacement. Wolves Ruben Neves has been discussed, as has Lyons Tanguy Ndombele. But if they can fight off PSG, Barcelona and Real Madrid, they should do everything they can to land Ajaxs Frenkie De Jong, who would be a perfect Fernandinho successor. Tottenham need to back Mauricio Pochettino with transfer spending if they want to keep the managerand they are short on numbers in midfield. They are also reportedly in the hunt for Frenkie De Jong and Bournemouths David Brooks would definitely do well in the central role at Spurs. Maurizio Sarri has admitted hed like Chelsea to do some January business and the common consensus is that the Blues need a goalscorer. Gonzalo Higuain is being widely tipped to link up with Sarri once again but what Chelsea could really do with is some more options on the wing: Barcelonas Malcolm could be a great fitand could be part of a swap deal with Willian. Arsenal have only kept one clean sheet in their last 15 league games and they probably could do with a new centre-back. Unai Emery has said he will only make loan deals in this window, but the Daily Mail are among those claiming Wolves defender Conor Coady is on their wishlist. But he might also be wanted by his former club, Liverpool! And finally, Manchester United are in fabulous form under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, and they dont really need a lot of reinforcements. But defence is probably the area that could use a tune-up and the No. 1 target is reportedly Napolis Kalidou Koulibaly. The Frenchman could be what they need to push into the top four! For more on the beautiful game follow @FCYahoo on your favorite social channels. The revolution will be televised. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images There are 101 new House members in the 116th Congress. Approximately 99 percent of these fresh-faced lawmakers do not identify as socialists. Thirty of the newly elected Democrats have joined their partys pro-business caucus which now boasts roughly as many members as its progressive one. For all the chatter about a tea party of the left, the Democratic center held in 2018: With a handful of exceptions, Establishment-backed incumbents triumphed in their primaries, while swing-district moderates prevailed in November. But the corporate media doesnt want to talk about that. In its single-minded quest to maximize shareholder value, the for-profit Fourth Estate has been suppressing centrist ideas in favor of socialist ones. The bourgeois press hasnt run a word on House freshman Ben McAdamss all of the above energy policy even as its published near-daily features on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs Green New Deal. The major networks have ignored Jeff Van Drews thoughts on improving the Obamacare exchanges, even as theyve given Ocasio-Cortez a prime-time platform to call for nationalizing the health-insurance industry. Major newspapers have buried the New Democrat Coalitions plans for real corporate tax reform, while devoting multiple columns to the socialist congresswomans extemporaneous reflections on soaking the rich. These editorial choices havent merely exaggerated the lefts influence within the Democratic Party theyve actively increased it. Ocasio-Cortez has translated her disproportionate media coverage into disproportionate power, extracting coveted committee appointments from the House leadership, and policy commitments from her partys 2020 hopefuls. Which is to say: The corporate media has been manufacturing dissent. Of course, for-profit news outlets do not actually have an anti-capitalist bias. Ocasio-Cortez secured privileged access to such influential platforms by first establishing her own. The congresswomans mastery of social media has won her a massive, personal audience of extremely online millennials whose eyeballs just happen to be more valuable to advertisers than (virtually) any other demographics. Major news outlets havent put AOC in their spotlights because they admire her ideology, but because they covet her audience. Mainstream coverage of Ocasio-Cortez has (typically) treated her policy views with suspicion, if not contempt. But adversarial publicity is good publicity for a freshman House member (and a long-marginalized socialist movement). Ocasio-Cortez may have had to build her own social-media megaphone to attract 60 Minutes attention but once she did, that program provided her with an even louder megaphone. As prime-time appearances have swelled her following, AOCs influence has reached unprecedented heights: Over the past month, her Twitter account has generated more interactions than Americas five most prolific news organizations combined. For this reason, among others, the objective consequence of mainstream reporting on AOC has been to push the Democratic Party in her direction (as the New York Times just objectively reported). Through the sheer power of her Twitter dunks, the congresswoman has turned the corporate media into an agent of socialist change. Chart: Chris Canipe/Axios; Data: CrowdTangle This development complicates the conventional left-wing critique of American mass media. In Noam Chomskys influential account, our nations corporate-owned news outlets perform a system-supportive propaganda function analogous to that of state-owned media in one-party dictatorships. Of course, in our liberal democracy, this propagandistic effect isnt achieved through overt coercion, but by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship. Dissent isnt (usually) suppressed, but elite gatekeepers guard the boundaries of respectable opinion. This is less oppressive than authoritarian modes of policing public discourse, but it might also be even more effective: As Chomsky argues, the smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. During the run-up to George W. Bushs invasion of Iraq 16 years ago, this critique looked quite compelling. But today, like so many of the apps on your smartphone, Chomskys theory is overdue for an update. In 2019, market forces arent limiting the spectrum of acceptable opinion, so much as theyre expanding it. There is a purely editorial argument for covering Ocasio-Cortez closely. A millennial bartender ousting a ten-term Democratic incumbent is newsworthy by the most conventional definition; as is the spectacle of a first-term congresswoman cheering on an occupation of her party leaders office. Whats more, Ocasio-Cortezs policy ideas concern some of our nations most pressing (and under-discussed) challenges, while her fish out of water political persona is the stuff of which Hollywood films were once made. In publicizing all the alienating (but heretofore invisible) aspects of how Congress works to her digital constituents, AOC has made many of them feel genuinely represented in the halls of power for the first time in their lives. She is the downwardly mobile millennials ambassador to Congress and evinces no interest in assimilating to that foreign culture. Nevertheless, its hard to imagine this argument would have prevailed in the pre-digital age. Back when editorial judgement was centralized in the prestigious newsrooms of legacy media outlets and editors-in-chief had (relatively) little data about which topics piqued reader interest its doubtful that the mainstream press would have chronicled the every move of a freshman congresswoman with far left views. In other words, if the American media were less beholden to market pressures, it would (almost certainly) be giving less coverage to AOCs calls for decommodification. The corporate medias obligation to maximize ad revenue by maximizing viewership combined with its newfound ability to see the infotainment market through Chartbeats all-knowing eyes has left it no choice but to elevate its opposition. Of course, one could make a similar argument about media coverage of Donald Trump in 2015. And many have. For all the spurious analogies that centrist pundits have drawn between the far right and socialist left, it is true that Ocasio-Cortez and Trump both owe their power to the way social media has undermined elite gatekeeping. As Twitter mobs have wrested control of the Overton window from system supportive elites, theyve opened our national conversation to more egalitarian economic ideas but also to less egalitarian racial ones. Weak parties and decentralized media enabled a Bronx bartender to oust a complacent incumbent, and force Congress to confront the scale of action necessary for averting ecological catastrophe; but they also allowed a Queens con man to commandeer the nuclear codes. To this point, however, commentary on the decline of elite gatekeeping has focused almost exclusively on that latter consequence. Some of the most influential diagnoses of our democracys present woes have prescribed stronger party Establishments and less democratic intraparty governance as necessary tonics. Ocasio-Cortezs emergence invites the hope that a better remedy is possible. Perhaps, we can replace manufactured consent with inconvenient truths (instead of alternative facts), a discredited Establishment with earnest reformers (instead of cynical demagogues), and corporate technocracy with some approximation of genuine self-rule (instead of authoritarian populism). Perhaps. Could it have been an alien probe? (Getty Images) The head of Harvards astronomy department says that the interstellar object Oumuamua could really be an alien probe possibly one that is no longer working. Avi Loeb, head of Harvards Astronomy department, said that while radio scans of the object showed nothing, there were still signs it might have been created by intelligent aliens. The objects brightness changed by a factor of ten as it spun hinting that it could be a cigar or pancake shape, which is extremely unusual for asteroids, Loeb said. The space object, a visitor from another star system, was scanned by the alien-hunting SETI project. The fact that there are no radio signals from the object could simply mean that its no longer operating, Loeb told Israels Haaretz news. MORE: Theresa May warns of unforgivable breach of trust if MPs dont vote for her Brexit deal MORE: Donald Trumps behaviour so concerning FBI opened Russia collusion inquiry Loeb said, We have no way of knowing whether its active technology, or a spaceship that is no longer operative and is continuing to float in space. In the interview, he said that there could be signs of extraterrestrial life everywhere, as soon as humans leave the solar system. Loeb said, As soon as we leave the Solar System, I believe we will see a great deal of traffic out there. Possibly well get a message that says, Welcome to the interstellar club. Or well discover multiple dead civilizations that is, well find their remains. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Continuing its streak of contract wins from customers within the U.S. federal government, Harris Corporation HRS recently announced that it has secured a $75-million order from the Marine Corps (USMC). Such contract wins are expected to enhance the companys top line, which witnessed a compound annual growth rate of 16.7% from fiscal 2015 to fiscal 2018. The deal is part of the Navy Portable Radio Program five-year IDIQ (indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity) contract. Per the agreement, Harris will provide MUOS (Mobile User Objective System) narrowband satellite communication upgrades to the agencys Falcon III AN/PRC-117G manpack radio fleet. The company will also provide allied devices for the AN/PRC-117G radios presently fielded by the USMC, including antennas. This would enable the radios to support satellite communication while moving, when connected to the MUOS satellites. Harris boasts a leading position as a technology innovator, aiming to solve customers mission-critical challenges in more than 100 countries. The company has been continuously investing in the development of MUOS and related advanced waveforms to increase the capability of AN/PRC-117G radios. Notably, the software upgrade will enable the Marines to access cutting-edge MUOS satellite constellation that provides satellite communication to allow them to talk and easily share data anywhere in the world. It will provide the Marines with improved voice and data communication facilities with more users, even in harsh environments. The MUOS upgrade will also enable interoperability with other U.S. Department of Defense and associated users that deploy it in the future. Harris solutions are used by customers in public safety, air traffic management, space and defense. It announced plans to invest more than $125 million in internal R&D in Florida in fiscal 2019, encouraging high-paying jobs. This order will help to bolster the Rochester-Finger Lakes economy while ensuring that the Marines have the most advanced radios. Further, the companys business operations will be augmented by its previously announced plan to merge with L3 Technologies, Inc. LLL. The combined entity L3 Harris Technologies will be a global defense technology leader, creating more opportunities for employment and investment growth. Owing to proper execution of operational plans, Harris shares have gained 35.7% on an average compared with 1.4% growth recorded by the industry over the past two years. Story continues Harris currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Better-ranked stocks in the industry include InterDigital, Inc. IDCC and Ubiquiti Networks, Inc. UBNT, both carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. InterDigital has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 15%. Ubiquiti has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 14%. Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside? Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana. Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look. See the pot trades we're targeting>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research When Sonia Hernandez explained the Los Angeles teachers' strike to her 10-year-old son with autism, he almost started to cry from distress. "I don't want the teachers to miss school," Daniel told her, his voice changing tone as he immediately stood. "I don't want to go to another class. I want to be in the same classroom with my same classmates." The disruption triggered by the strike that began Monday in the nation's second-largest school district could set back Daniel and thousands of other children with developmental disabilities who need special education and consistency, parents told USA TODAY. About 62,500 students with special needs attend schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District School, said associate superintendent for Special Education Beth Kauffman. Students with developmental disabilities from autism to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) sometimes need one-on-one aides and services such as behavioral and speech therapy at school. Each follows an individualized education plan defining their goals and needs. But, on Sunday, the day before the strike began in the pouring rain with picketing and protests, some parents told USA TODAY that schools had not provided information about alternate lesson plans that would support their students with disabilities. With three sons on the autism spectrum who attend district schools, Hernandez stayed home with her kids Monday because she worried the strike arrangements would not be safe for them. Automated phone calls notified her that schools planned to group students in auditoriums with supervision, but Hernandez said her boys would be at risk without staff to monitor and help them. Her oldest son Sebastian, 12, has an aide and needs assistance even in small groups. "They're not the best communicators," Hernandez said. "They're not ready to say, 'I'm sick,' 'Somebody pushed me,' 'Somebody kicked me.'" Story continues The boys instead worked on assignments from their teachers and did some reading, said Hernandez, not that staying at home reduced their anxiety from facing an uncertain situation at school. It would be naive to think the district would bring in substitute teachers trained to work with kids with autism, she said. During the strike, Kauffman said students with disabilities who need to be in smaller settings will be accommodated. Special education students who mostly follow the general education curriculum, however, will remain with their peers. Based on student needs, Kauffman said, the district sent 200 administrators and staff with experience in special education to support students with disabilities. Kauffman said principals should have communicated with parents to let them know the district would meet special education needs throughout the strike. Early Monday morning, Meshell Baylor did not know if the bus would come to take her son Justin, 18, to his district special needs school. When it arrived, she asked the regular aide what would happen with the strike. She said he told her the students would do group activities in a group setting with substitutes. Baylor said she called the school about 10 times from work to check in on Justin, who has autism, but kept getting disconnected. Eventually, Baylor said she emailed the school and got a response from the principal. He assured her that he was fine and sent a picture of him drawing. But, Baylor said she didn't know her son's substitute teacher, the teacher's background, or if the same teacher would be with him all week. "I'm literally in the dark for right now," Baylor said. Justin relies on repetition, Baylor said, so he must continue going to school and needs the teachers and aides he regularly sees. Changes to his schedule throw him off and can make him upset and frustrated for the whole day, she said, meaning he'll need to be redirected with activities such as coloring. More: Tacos for teachers: Food trucks show up to support protestors during LAUSD teacher strike More: Los Angeles teachers plan to strike Monday. Here's what you need to know Meanwhile, Baylor's younger son Christopher, 14, stayed home at his instructional aide's recommendation. Baylor said the aide called her before the school day, telling her the middle school had limited staff for a large student population. But, Christopher will return to school tomorrow, however, because of attendance requirements, she said. When Leslie Blanco asked her daughter Diamond, 12, what she did at middle school on Monday, Diamond told her they did not do much at all. The seventh grader has a learning disability, Blanco said, and usually takes home enough homework to last two days. She finished all of her assignments from last week and didn't get any new ones Monday. Kauffman, who worked with special needs students on Monday, said students seemed to be happy and engaged. "Learning is taking place and they're getting their breakfast, they're getting their lunch, they're safe," she said. "Things are looking pretty good at the schools. It seems like it's very organized." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What happens to the 62,500 students with special needs during Los Angeles teachers' strike? Vienna (AFP) - Around 60 guests were evacuated from an Austrian hotel and holiday apartment house early Tuesday after the buildings were engulfed by an avalanche, rescue services said. "It was lucky the avalanche didn't occur four hours earlier when all of the guests were in the dining room," said Heribert Eisl, of the mountain rescue team in Ramsau am Dachstein, a village in the central Styria region where the accident happened at 1:00 am (0000 GMT). The dining room was filled with snow up to one metre (three feet) below the ceiling, he told a news conference. The avalanche shattered the hotel's windows and overturned vehicles in the car park, but no-one was injured, Eisl said. "We hadn't expected the avalanche to wreak such damage," he continued. A number of areas in the Austrian Alps have been on high avalanche alert for the past 10 days as a result of heavy snowfall across the west and centre of the country since early January. In some regions, more than three metres of snow has fallen. The army has been called in to help clear roads and roofs and evacuate residents in the wake of the bad weather, which has also affected southern Germany and parts of Switzerland. A grieving widow has blasted a hospital after her husband died from pneumonia 36-hours after being sent home from A&E without a simple blood test that could have saved his life. Rob Walker, 61, was referred to Sandwell Hospital after he visited his GP complaining of difficulty breathing and a painful cough on November 28, 2017. But a consultant discharged the dad-of-one without reviewing his blood test results and prescribed antibiotics for a chest infection. His wife Maggie, 60, said she was told by the doctor it was lucky he hadnt suffered a heart attack and sent him away from a packed ward where patients were waiting in corridors. Rob Walker, 61, died of pneumonia 36 hours after he was sent home from Sandwell Hospital which a coroner said could have been prevented with a simple blood test. (SWNS) But she was forced to dial 999 the following evening after his condition began to deteriorate and he was readmitted to the hospital in West Bromwich, West Mids. Mr Walker, of Tipton, West Midlands, was diagnosed with respiratory failure and he died in the early hours of November 30 as a result of pneumonia. An inquest found the grandfather-of-two died as a result of neglect and the NHS trust which manages the hospital has now admitted liability for his death. Maggie says she hopes lessons can now be learned from her husbands death after the dismissive consultant failed to properly investigate her husbands symptoms. Rob Walker, 61, died of pneumonia 36 hours after he was sent home from Sandwell Hospital which a coroner said could have been prevented with a simple blood test. (SWNS) She said: The last few days of Robs life were terrible. He was so unlike himself. He struggled to breathe and could hardly speak. He was usually so fit and healthy. I could not comprehend what was happening when he was readmitted and placed in intensive care. To be told to say goodbye to my husband and lose him less than a minute later was a total shock a day previously I had been told that he just had a chest infection. I have been left absolutely devastated by the loss of my husband, best friend and soul mate. Rob was one of lifes good guys. None of our family can believe he has gone. Maggie instructed medical negligence lawyers at law firm Irwin Mitchell to investigate the care he received from Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust. Story continues It emerged the consultant who sent Rob home had not reviewed the results of blood tests, which showed he had a severe infection. Had the results been known, Rob would have more than likely been admitted, an internal hospital investigation found. Medical staff had not seen a letter from the GP referring Rob to hospital which said he potentially had pneumonia or a blood clot in the his lungs. The Trust has since admitted liability acknowledging that had Rob received appropriate treatment, he would, on the balance of probabilities, have survived. Rob, a maintenance electrician, and Maggie had been together for 47 years and married for 42 years. An internal investigation found there was no robust system in place in A&E for communicating blood tests had been requested or for obtaining and reviewing results in a timely fashion. It added Rob should have been admitted or recalled to hospital once his test results were known. Black Country Coroner Zafar Siddique wrote to the Trust to raise his concerns and demand a review of the process for blood tests and ensuring referral letters are read. Lindsay Tomlinson, specialist medical negligence lawyer and partner at Irwin Mitchell, said: This is a tragic case where the lack of a proper process for reviewing blood results by hospital staff has ended in devastating circumstances. Subsequent investigations have found that Rob was badly let down and his death could have been avoided something that has been incredibly difficult for his family to try to come to terms with. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK By David Brunnstrom and David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A partial U.S. government shutdown over President Donald Trump's demand for $5.7 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border entered its 22nd day on Saturday, making it the longest shuttering of federal agencies in U.S. history, with no end in sight. Trump, holed up in the White House with Congress adjourned for the weekend, warned of a much lengthier impasse and blamed the Democrats. "Theyre the ones that are holding it up," he said during a telephone interview with Fox News on Saturday night. "It would take me 15 minutes to get a deal done, and everybody can go back to work." Democrats say Trump shut the government in a "temper tantrum" by refusing to sign bipartisan funding legislation last year that did not include money for his wall. The closure, which began on Dec. 22, broke a decades-old record by a 1995-1996 shutdown under former President Bill Clinton that lasted 21 days. (Graphic on government shutdowns - https://tmsnrt.rs/2ASK2RN) Federal workers affected missed their first paychecks on Friday, heightening concerns about mounting financial pressures on employees, including air traffic controllers and airport security officials who continue to work without pay. Roughly 800,000 federal workers did not receive paychecks that would have gone out on Friday. Some have resorted to selling their possessions or posting appeals on online fundraising sites to help pay their bills. Miami International Airport said it will close one of its terminals early over the next several days due to a possible shortage of security screeners, who have been calling in sick at twice the normal rate. A union that represents thousands of air traffic controllers sued the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday, saying it had violated federal wage law by failing to pay workers. It is at least the third lawsuit filed by unions on behalf of unpaid workers. Story continues The head of the U.S. Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting Trump, has warned employees that financial stress can lead to depression and anxiety. "Keep an eye out for warning signs of trouble," Director R.D. "Tex" Alles wrote in a memo seen by Reuters. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), responsible for airport security screening, said its rate of unscheduled absences rose to 5.6 percent on Saturday from 3.3 percent a year ago but that security standards have not been compromised. The FAA, which oversees air traffic controllers, said on Saturday it had seen no unusual rates of sick leave among its controllers and no disruptions to air traffic control operations. To support its workforce, the TSA said it was processing pay for employees who worked on the first day of the shutdown and announced $500 bonuses for uniformed screening officers. Trump is considering a possible national emergency declaration that would end the shutdown and allow him to obtain his wall funding by circumventing Congress. But on Saturday, he told Fox News' Jeanine Pirro that he would rather Democrats take action, adding that he was waiting at the White House ready to cut a deal. "I want to give them a chance to see if they can act responsibly," Trump said, calling the situation at the nation's southern border a "humanitarian crisis." "They think it's politics. I think it's bad politics. This country wants to have protection at the border," Trump said. Democrats, who call a wall an ineffective, outdated answer to a complex problem, have passed several bills in the House of Representatives to reopen the government without funding for Trump's barrier. But the legislation has been ignored by the Republican-controlled Senate. Trump originally promised Mexico would pay for the wall, which he says is needed to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs. But Mexico has refused. U.S. government departments including the Treasury, Energy, Commerce and State departments, shut down when funding lapsed on Dec. 22. Funding for other portions of the government, including Congress and the Department of Defense, was approved, allowing them to continue regular operations. Trump has repeatedly described the situation at the Mexico border as a "humanitarian crisis" as speculation has increased this week that he would circumvent Congress to begin building his signature wall - a move that would be sure to draw a court challenge from Democrats who say the barrier would be barbaric and ineffective. Instead, the president urged lawmakers to provide him the $5.7 billion he is seeking for border security. A national emergency would allow Trump to divert money from other projects to pay for the wall, which was a central promise of his 2016 campaign. That, in turn, could prompt him to sign bills that restore funding to agencies that have been affected by the shutdown. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom, David Morgan and David Shepardson in Washington; Additional reporting by Ginger Gibson in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Jonathan Oatis) Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa addresses the Republican state convention in Des Moines, Iowa on June 16, 2012. WASHINGTON The House was scheduled to vote Tuesday on a formal rebuke of Rep. Steve King, who has received bipartisan condemnation for his comments in which he questioned why phrases like "white supremacist" are offensive. In a rare move, House Democratic leaders are coalescing behind a vote of disapproval put forth by Rep. James Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat and an African American, a senior Democratic aide said Monday. The vote is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. It is not clear yet if Republicans will support the measure. However, a handful of prominent Republicans said King should leave Congress and top House Republicans voted Monday not to assign King any committees in the new Congress. King was previously on the Judiciary, Agriculture and Small Business committees. The Iowa Republican had been the chairman of the immigration and border security subcommittee on the Judiciary Committee when Republicans controlled the House. "The House Republicans denounce his language. We do not believe in his language and weve decided that he will not serve on any" committees, GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters Tuesday. He said it was up to the Iowa Republican whether he should resign. But Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the No. 3 House Republican went further, echoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, "I think that he should find another line of work," she said. GOP Sen. Mitt Romney has also called on King to resign. White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization how did that language become offensive? King said in an interview with The New York Times last week. Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization? The Clyburn resolution, titled "Rejecting White nationalism and White supremacy," invoked Kings comments and condemned such words as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values that define the people of the United States. Story continues King remained defiant, accusing the GOP's McCarthy of making an "unprecedented assault" on his recent to free speech. He also suggested his comments had been misinterpreted. Steve King (@SteveKingIA) | Twitter "Rep. Kings statements are unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position. If he doesnt understand why white supremacy is offensive, he should find another line of work," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the only black Republican in the Senate, wrote a Washington Post op-ed titled: "Why are Republicans accused of racism? Because were silent on things like this." Democrats won control of the House of Representatives, 235-199, with the help of a coalition of women, African Americans and Hispanics. They ushered in the most diverse class yet breaking records for the number of women and minorities. At the same time the House GOP became less diverse, seeing a decline in the number of women and the loss of the sole African American Republican woman in the House, Mia Love of Utah. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer applauded Republican leaders for their strong actions against King Tuesday. I think they did the right thing, he said. I think theyre very concerned about their party being perceived as a Steve King party. There were some disagreements among Democrats over how far to go in taking action over King's comments. Hoyer said he will vote for Clyburns resolution, but the party is still discussing the censure option, acknowledging that it could open a Pandoras box. It is a big deal to be censured, he said. Two Democratic lawmakers have introduced resolutions that would censure King, a more formal practice that requires him to come to the well of the House to hear his the statements of disapproval. It is not clear if those will also be voted on, however, one resolution introduced by Rep. Bobby Rush, an African American, is considered "privileged" so it is set to come up this week and Democratic leadership will be forced to decide to let it go through or table it. Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio has also offered a more narrow censure resolution. Rush said Tuesday he was disappointed that the Republicans response to King is much stronger than the Democratic response to King. He said he cant vote for Clyburns resolution because its not strong enough. Minimally, King should be censured, and if he continues, he should be expelled from the Congress, he said. Steve King has made a career out of being a racist and he needs to be called out as such, he said. Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, the first Republican to join Rep. Tim Ryans censure resolution and a member of the steering committee that stripped King of his committees, told USA TODAY he tried to have a man to man conversation with King when he made stupid comments about immigrants in 2013. My point was that when you say stupid things, it splashes on all of us, Joyce tsaid. He said, well, he gets good publicity out of it. I said, well you need to think about other people here because its not right. I cant believe you say these things, but its not right and you shouldnt say those things. He knows what hes doing and he continues to do it and he should be held accountable for it," Joyce said. A resolution of disapproval is rare but not unprecedented. In 2009, the last time Democrats had control, they passed a resolution of disapproval directed at Rep. Joe Wilson for yelling "You lie!" when then-President Barack Obama was speaking. Trump Monday said "I haven't been following" the controversy surrounding King. On Tuesday, McCarthy finished his press conference and walked out of the room without answering a reporter's question about whether the president shared his views on King. Contributing: Nicole Gaudiano, Deborah Berry Related: Rep. Steve King gets a GOP challenger, Iowa state Sen. Randy Feenstra In Donald Trump era, a GOP leader looks to recast his party's image with black voters Donald Trump calls former aide Omarosa a 'dog,' triggering outrage This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: GOP condemnation rises over Rep. Steve King's white supremacy comment; House to vote on rebuke By Nick Carey and Joseph White DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co's strategy to make its luxury Cadillac marque its lead electric vehicle brand is the automaker's final opportunity to turn the unit around and make it a success, a top executive said on Monday. "We don't have any chances left with taking Cadillac to a really new place," newly appointed GM President Mark Reuss told Reuters on the sidelines of the Detroit auto show. "This is pretty much it." "So we really have to hit the ball here," he added. "It's my job to make sure we do." In a move first reported by Reuters, GM said on Friday that a Cadillac would be the first vehicle built on the No. 1 U.S. automaker's "BEV3" platform to challenge electric carmaker Tesla Inc . Tesla's market capitalisation is higher than GM's, even though Tesla has never posted a full-year profit. Reuss did not elaborate on what would happen if the multi-year effort to make the Cadillac brand more profitable failed. But GM has demonstrated repeatedly over the last two years a willingness to exit unprofitable markets and kill weak car lines in North America. In November it put five North American factories, including four in the United States, on notice for closure and cut almost 15,000 jobs. GM has struggled for years to make Cadillac more competitive. Last spring the automaker replaced veteran auto executive Johan de Nysschen as head of the Cadillac brand. Appointed in 2014, he outlined bold plans to reshape Cadillac's lineup with a $12 billion product programme. He moved Cadillac's headquarters to New York in 2015, saying the brand's executives should be closer to the urban customers who had for years shunned it. In a belated bid to catch up with rapidly shifting U.S. consumer preferences, Cadillac said in 2017 it would shrink its lineup of sedans and add sport utility vehicles and hybrid and electric vehicles. Story continues Cadillac U.S. sales fell more than 1 percent in 2018. Late Sunday GM unveiled its new 2020 Cadillac XT6 SUV that goes on sale later this year and will be built in Spring Hill, Tennessee. GM said in 2017 it planned by 2021 to introduce a new dedicated flexible electric vehicle architecture and an advanced battery system to support the development of at least 20 new models in the United States and China. Much of Cadillac's future growth is expected to come from China, the world's largest car market. Reuss said "one of the first" fully electric Cadillac models using the new platform would be on the market around 2022. He said it was too early to tell how long it would take for Cadillac's entire lineup to become electric, but he anticipated a combination of electrified and combustion engine models "for quite a few years" to come. "All I'm focussed on is what we're doing right now" Reuss said, "and getting momentum back in Cadillac." (Additional reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) Judge Jesse Furman called Wilbur Rosss rationale for the citizenship question a sham. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images In a big if temporary victory for civil-rights advocates, New York federal judge Jesse Furman put a hold on the Trump administrations plans to introduce a citizenship-status question for the 2020 Census. The proposal was pretty clearly designed to discourage participation in the Census by those, citizens or not, who fear federal government scrutiny, and would most definitely reduce the official count of Latino households. That in turn would have a vast ripple effect on all sorts of matters in which Census statistics are relevant, from formulas for the distribution of federal funds to congressional and state legislative redistricting. What condemned the citizenship question in Furmans eyes wasnt so much its effects as the patently dishonest rationale Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross offered for it, as CNBC reports: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had argued that the question was necessary in order to uphold certain provisions of the Voting Rights Act. In striking down the proposed question, the court held that this justification was a sham. It follows that a court cannot sustain agency action founded on a pretextual or sham justification that conceals the true basis for the decision, U.S. District Court Judge Jesse Furman wrote. Not much doubt about that. But Furmans decision will be appealed immediately to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and the case will almost certainly land in the lap of the U.S. Supreme Court before final Census plans are in place. An awful lot rides on the ultimate resolution. GENEVA (AP) World Economic Forum executives say Germany's Angela Merkel, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and Shinzo Abe of Japan will be among dozens of heads of state and government attending its annual Davos event. Forum executives offered a preview Tuesday of the Jan. 22-26 gathering of political, business, cultural, academic and other elites, with founder Klaus Schwab saying a "re-moralization" of globalization is needed. He said globalization produced many "winners" over the last generation or so. "But now we have to look after the losers, after those who have been left behind." The forum says 65 heads of state and government including Jair Bolsonaro, who is expected as part of his debut overseas trip as Brazilian president and about 40 heads of international organizations like U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will be on hand. WEF president Borge Brende said 37 heads of state or government will be from Europe and Eurasia alone. Overall, more than 3,000 people are expected. President Donald Trump had planned to attend but withdrew amid the U.S. government shutdown. Other top U.S. officials are expected including heads of the Commerce, State and Treasury departments. Today well look at Generic Sweden AB (STO:GENI) and reflect on its potential as an investment. Specifically, well consider its Return On Capital Employed (ROCE), since that will give us an insight into how efficiently the business can generate profits from the capital it requires. First of all, well work out how to calculate ROCE. Next, well compare it to others in its industry. Finally, well look at how its current liabilities affect its ROCE. Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE) ROCE measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. Generally speaking a higher ROCE is better. In brief, it is a useful tool, but it is not without drawbacks. Author Edwin Whiting says to be careful when comparing the ROCE of different businesses, since No two businesses are exactly alike. How Do You Calculate Return On Capital Employed? Analysts use this formula to calculate return on capital employed: Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) (Total Assets Current Liabilities) Or for Generic Sweden: 0.28 = kr4.9m (kr41m kr9.1m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2018.) Therefore, Generic Sweden has an ROCE of 28%. See our latest analysis for Generic Sweden Want to help shape the future of investing tools and platforms? Take the survey and be part of one of the most advanced studies of stock market investors to date. Does Generic Sweden Have A Good ROCE? When making comparisons between similar businesses, investors may find ROCE useful. We can see Generic Swedens ROCE is around the 24% average reported by the IT industry. Setting aside the comparison to its industry for a moment, Generic Swedens ROCE in absolute terms currently looks quite high. As we can see, Generic Sweden currently has an ROCE of 28% compared to its ROCE 3 years ago, which was 10.0%. This makes us think the business might be improving. Story continues OM:GENI Last Perf January 15th 19 When considering ROCE, bear in mind that it reflects the past and does not necessarily predict the future. ROCE can be deceptive for cyclical businesses, as returns can look incredible in boom times, and terribly low in downturns. ROCE is, after all, simply a snap shot of a single year. Since the future is so important for investors, you should check out our free report on analyst forecasts for Generic Sweden. Generic Swedens Current Liabilities And Their Impact On Its ROCE Liabilities, such as supplier bills and bank overdrafts, are referred to as current liabilities if they need to be paid within 12 months. The ROCE equation subtracts current liabilities from capital employed, so a company with a lot of current liabilities appears to have less capital employed, and a higher ROCE than otherwise. To check the impact of this, we calculate if a company has high current liabilities relative to its total assets. Generic Sweden has total assets of kr41m and current liabilities of kr9.1m. Therefore its current liabilities are equivalent to approximately 22% of its total assets. The fairly low level of current liabilities wont have much impact on the already great ROCE. What We Can Learn From Generic Swedens ROCE With low current liabilities and a high ROCE, Generic Sweden could be worthy of further investigation. Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking at a few good candidates. So take a peek at this free list of companies with modest (or no) debt, trading on a P/E below 20. I will like Generic Sweden better if I see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. If you've been stuck searching for Sector - Precious Metal funds, consider Franklin Gold & Precious Metals A (FKRCX) as a possibility. FKRCX has a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 2 (Buy), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance. Objective We note that FKRCX is a Sector - Precious Metal option, and this area is loaded with different options. Sector - Precious Metal funds typically invest in companies that are involved in the mining and production of precious metals like gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. Because stocks in this environment often trade as leveraged bets of the underlying commodity--they are tied to the prices of the metal--these equities tend to be volatile. History of Fund/Manager FKRCX is a part of the Franklin Templeton family of funds, a company based out of San Mateo, CA. The Franklin Gold & Precious Metals A made its debut in May of 1969 and FKRCX has managed to accumulate roughly $537.38 million in assets, as of the most recently available information. The fund is currently managed by Steve M. Land who has been in charge of the fund since April of 1999. Performance Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of -2.37%, and is in the top third among its category peers. If you're interested in shorter time frames, do not dismiss looking at the fund's 3-year annualized total return of 8.37%, which places it in the top third during this time-frame. When looking at a fund's performance, it is also important to note the standard deviation of the returns. The lower the standard deviation, the less volatility the fund experiences. The standard deviation of FKRCX over the past three years is 35.29% compared to the category average of 17.79%. The standard deviation of the fund over the past 5 years is 34% compared to the category average of 17.76%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade. Story continues Risk Factors It's always important to be aware of the downsides to any future investment, so one should not discount the risks that come with this segment. In FKRCX's case, the fund lost 37.73% in the most recent bear market and underperformed its peer group by 1.89%. This could mean that the fund is a worse choice than comparable funds during a bear market. Investors should not forget about beta, an important way to measure a mutual fund's risk compared to the market as a whole. FKRCX has a 5-year beta of -0.06, which means it is likely to be less volatile than the market average. Because alpha represents a portfolio's performance on a risk-adjusted basis relative to a benchmark, which is the S&P 500 in this case, one should pay attention to this metric as well. Over the past 5 years, the fund has a positive alpha of 2.94. This means that managers in this portfolio are skilled in picking securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns. Expenses Costs are increasingly important for mutual fund investing, and particularly as competition heats up in this market. And all things being equal, a lower cost product will outperform its otherwise identical counterpart, so taking a closer look at these metrics is key for investors. In terms of fees, FKRCX is a load fund. It has an expense ratio of 1.02% compared to the category average of 1.36%. From a cost perspective, FKRCX is actually cheaper than its peers. Investors should also note that the minimum initial investment for the product is $1,000 and that each subsequent investment has no minimum amount. Bottom Line Overall, Franklin Gold & Precious Metals A ( FKRCX ) has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively strong performance, worse downside risk, and lower fees, this fund looks like a good potential choice for investors right now. For additional information on this product, or to compare it to other mutual funds in the Sector - Precious Metal, make sure to go to www.zacks.com/funds/mutual-funds for additional information. Want to learn even more? We have a full suite of tools on stocks that you can use to find the best choices for your portfolio too, no matter what kind of investor you are. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Detroit (AFP) - Automakers Ford and Volkswagen on Monday called off a joint appearance at the Detroit auto show set for the following day during which they were widely expected to announce an alliance. The two car giants have been in discussions over a partnership to develop self-driving and electric technologies. But a source close to the talks told AFP that they had so far only produced a deal over commercial vehicles. A highly-anticipated announcement at the US's premiere auto show in the Motor City was called off late Monday, and the two sides planned a conference call with reporters instead. "We don't have enough details yet to go out in front of more than 500 journalists, so we decided to call it off," Ford spokesman Mark Truby told AFP. Earlier in the day, Ford Chairman Bill Ford had told reporters that discussions were going well but that they would have "more to say later this week." Both Ford and Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess appeared optimistic about a potential partnership. "Volkswagen is a really big car company worldwide... but we are not as big in small commercial vehicles," Diess told the Detroit Free Press newspaper. "So we decided to join forces there. And we will become very, very competitive together in this segment -- which consists of small commercial vans and small and midsize pickup trucks." A potential Ford-VW alliance would follow in the footsteps of others formed in the auto industry -- including Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi, and Honda's alliance with General Motors to develop autonomous technologies. An anti-Brexit demonstrator holds an EU umbrella outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, January 14, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Clodagh Kilcoyne This post has been updated. Members of Parliament (MP) rejected Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal for leaving the European Union (EU). A total of 432 MPs voted against the deal and 202 MPs supported the deal. The prime minister is set to head back to Brussels in yet another attempt to secure concessions from the European Union on the deal something EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has repeatedly said he is not willing to do. It is not perfect but when the history books are written, people will look at the decision of this House and ask, Did we deliver on the countrys vote to leave the EU, did we safeguard our economy, security or union or did we let the British people down?' May said yesterday in the House of Commons. The leader of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, tabled a motion of no-confidence against Theresa Mays government moments after the vote was finalized. READ MORE: Its more likely Brexit will not happen on 29 March, than no-deal EIU Although, politicians will be able to suggest amendments to reshape the deal, rejecting the deal means opening the UK up to a number of outcomes. The five main possible outcomes if the deal is rejected are: A second Brexit referendum A vote of no confidence Another general election A major renegotiation of the Brexit deal A no-deal Brexit A second Brexit referendum Peoples Vote members pose in a campaign stunt near the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, January 14, 2019. Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville May said in December 2018 there wouldnt be a second referendum on leaving the EU. However, there is now a distinct possibility that it could happen. One of the worlds most respectable think tanks, the Economist Intelligence Unit, gave a second referendum a 30% probability and said that another vote on severing ties with the bloc could be called to break the political deadlock on how to proceed. A political deadlock is now likely as the nation goes back to the drawing board. There is not enough time to hold a referendum before March 29, which is when Brexit is meant to happen. This would require an extension to Article 50 the official notification that Britain would leave the EU and thereby starting a two-year process to discuss a deal. Story continues According to the rules of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, a fresh piece of legislation would have to be created in order to allow the referendum to happen. That includes the rules of the referendum and who would be allowed to vote. The Electoral Commission would then have to consider and advise on what the referendum question would be. This is actually a lot more difficult that at face value. Thomas Colignatus, an econometrician and teacher of mathematics, wrote for the London School of Economics how even the original question was flawed. Former prime minister David Cameron even changed the question in the original referendum due to bias fears. But if the government decides against another referendum, it could lead to either a renegotiation of the current deal, a no-deal Brexit, a vote of no confidence, or another general election. Vote of no confidence British Prime Minister Theresa May delivers a speech during a visit to the Portmeirion factory in Stoke-on-Trent, Britain January 14, 2019. Photo: Ben Birchall/Pool via REUTERS May survived a significant rebellion by her own MPs to continue as prime minister back in December 2018. That means she cannot be challenged as leader for another 12 months from that date. However, politicians are still able to call a formal vote of no confidence in the government something the Corbyn said he would do and did. The are several outcomes from a vote of no confidence. If the government wins, then May and her cabinet stay in place. If it loses, under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, there will be a question of where to go next is there a clear, viable alternative government? If the answer is yes, May is likely to resign and a new prime minister is appointment. At the moment, there does not look thats the case, due to the level of Conservative party in-fighting for the last couple of years. So if the answer is no, another question is raised can the government win a confidence vote in 14 days? If the answer is yes, then the government can continue but will likely have modified policies. If the answer is no, then a general election is likely. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Another general election May could call a general election to try and break the political deadlock around her Brexit deal. However, this is highly risky for her and the party. The last snap general election in 2017 had initially pipped the Tories to win by a landslide victory. However, on polling day, Mays Conservative party haemorrhaged its majority to create a hung parliament. The Tories then had to make a deal with Northern Irelands Democratic Unionist Party to gain enough seats to create a confidence-and-supply agreement to give Mays cabinet enough support to push items through parliament. If more than two thirds of MPs approve another general election, the government would have to ask for an extension to Article 50, therefore delaying Brexit, in order to hold another vote. If MPs reject another general election, it still leaves the government with the same other options a renegotiation of the current deal, a no-deal Brexit, a vote of no confidence, or a second referendum. Brexit deal renegotiation EU leaders have repeatedly said that they could do nothing more to help May convince MPs to back the Brexit deal. They also have said they are not renegotiating the deal they have now. However, MPs can still propose to negotiate a new Brexit deal that goes beyond small tweaks and amendments. This would likely require an extension of Article 50, in order to give both sides time to start from scratch. It would also mean the government can start a process of changing the definition of exit day in the EU Withdrawal Act and MPs would get a chance to vote on that. According to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), Mays Brexit agreement with the bloc will leave the UK 100bn ($128.3bn) worse off by 2030. The report entitled The Economic Effects of the Governments proposed Brexit Deal, was commissioned by the Peoples Vote, who are campaigning for a second referendum on whether the UK should leave the EU. No-deal Brexit If worse comes to worst a no-deal Brexit would happen. This is when Britain crashes out of the EU without any detailed rules and regulations on how the UK and bloc would operate with one another on everything from immigration, trade, and taxes. In November last year, the Bank of England said that in a no-deal Brexit scenario, the UK economy could shrink by about 8% within a year an economic shock more severe than the global financial crisis of 2008. There have been a number of warnings from the government and others, from the last few years, that a no-deal Brexit would also lead to a shortage of medical supplies, food, and chaos at the borders for both goods and people. READ MORE: Its more likely Brexit will not happen on 29 March, than no-deal EIU Sony Pictures has shared two teasers trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home, the much-anticipated follow up to 2017s Spider-Man: Homecoming. Fans have been pestering Tom Holland for the first look footage for months now, and it was rumoured to be dropping just after the first teaser for Avengers: Endgame arrived, but it failed to materialise. Today the star revealed one of the trailer during a live stream on his Instagram account. The international trailer can be watched above, while the domestic trailer can be found below. Both contain lots of different footage. Both trailers show Jake Gyllenhaal in character as super-villain Mysterio for the first time, in this new film from Homecoming director Jon Watts. The domestic trailer begins with Peter Parker doing a press conference with Marisa Tomeis Aunt May and Jon Favreaus Happy Hogan turns up to flirt with her. It then cuts to Peter packing for a school trip to Europe and him deliberately leaving his Spidey suit behind. The first teaser for Spider-Man: Far From Home is here Cut to him with Michelle/MJ (Zendaya) and best pal Ned (Jacob Batalon) as they head to Venice, Italy, before later, in a Paris hotel room, Nick Fury knocks Ned out with a tranquilliser dart to recruit Spider-Man for a mission. Jake Gyllenhaal has Mysterio Both trailers end with Mysterio and Spider-Man fighting alongside one another to defeat Hydro-Man, (the actors name is still undisclosed) in London, begging the question of how much a villain Gyllenhaals character will actually be in the movie. His look stays pretty faithful to the classic comic book costume including the fishbowl helmet. Now weve been given our first look at Spider-Mans first screen outing since his appearance in Avengers: Infinity War, were still none-the-wiser as to when this sequel takes place. The presence of Peter Parker and Nick Fury, who were both turned to dust by Thanos in Infinity War, suggests this may be set before the events of that film, making it another prequel in the vein of Ant-Man and The Wasp. Story continues Theres also a new poster for Far From Home which plays on the films globe-trotting themes. Passport stamps and touristy-stickers for Prague, Berlin, London, Venice, and the Swiss Alps are plastered over Spider-Mans masks, suggesting theyll be locations visited in the film. Spider-Man: Far From Home teaser poster (Sony Pictures) Spider-Man has been riding high of late, with Sonys animated Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse winning huge critical acclaim, and a bunch of awards and nominations. It was named the Best Animated Movie of the year at the Golden Globes last week, and its also up for the same prize at the BAFTAs in February. Heres the official synopsis: Peter Parker returns in Spider-Man: Far From Home, the next chapter of the Spider-Man: Homecoming series! Our friendly neighborhood Super Hero decides to join his best friends Ned, MJ, and the rest of the gang on a European vacation. However, Peters plan to leave super heroics behind for a few weeks are quickly scrapped when he begrudgingly agrees to help Nick Fury uncover the mystery of several elemental creature attacks, creating havoc across the continent! Spider-Man: Far From Home is coming to cinemas in July, 2019. Read more McAvoy casts doubt on AvengersX-Men crossover If Marvel posters told the truth First Republic Bank (FRC) came out with quarterly earnings of $1.29 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.24 per share. This compares to earnings of $1.10 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of 4.03%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this San Francisco bank would post earnings of $1.20 per share when it actually produced earnings of $1.19, delivering a surprise of -0.83%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times. First Republic Bank, which belongs to the Zacks Banks - West industry, posted revenues of $810.75 million for the quarter ended December 2018, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.59%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $699.16 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates three times over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. First Republic Bank shares have lost about 2.9% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 3%. What's Next for First Republic Bank? While First Republic Bank has underperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Story continues Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for First Republic Bank was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $1.19 on $803.90 million in revenues for the coming quarter and $5.28 on $3.43 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year. Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Banks - West is currently in the bottom 40% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Geneva (AFP) - A slowdown in fighting in Yemen's Hodeida province has allowed the UN to deliver more than 3,000 tonnes of food to two areas for the first time in six months, the World Food Programme said Tuesday. Tuhayta and Darahimi districts in southern Hodeida last received humanitarian aid in July, when a WFP truck delivering relief goods was "hit," agency spokesman Herve Verhoosel said, without elaborating on the nature of the July incident. The deliveries so far to the districts include more than 3,300 metric tonnes of food. "This can be thanks to an inconsistent de-escalation over recent days following the December peace talks in Stockholm," Verhoosel said in a statement. The rebel-held port in Hodeida city -- through which more than 80 percent of imports and humanitarian aid pass -- was for months the main front line in the Yemeni conflict after government forces launched an offensive to capture it in June from Iran-backed Huthi rebels. Yemen's government forces are supported by a Saudi-backed coalition. The United Nations has said the Hodeida truce has largely held since it came into force on December 18 but there have been delays in the agreed pullback of rebel and government forces. Since the Saudi-led military coalition intervened in support of the government in March 2015, the conflict has killed nearly 10,000 people and unleashed the world's worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations. UN officials say 80 percent of the population -- 24 million people -- are in need of aid and nearly 10 million are just one step away from famine. King Mohammed VI visited, on Monday, several projects launched in 2014 by the Sovereign to rehabilitate and upgrade the old medina of Rabat, Moroccos capital city. The royal visit shows the importance the Monarch grants to the conservation of the architectural identity of the Rabat medina, a UNESCO world heritage site, the promotion of its cultural & tourist landmarks and the improvement of the living and working conditions of its inhabitants. During his tour, the King visited the Bab Chellah street, leading to the Mohammed V schools and the Great mosque, the Souk Essabat street and Bab El Bahr. The sovereign also visited El Melh square and Sabbaghine street still under restoration. The rehabilitation & upgrading of the Rabat old medina will cost the North African Kingdom 57.4 Million. Several projects have been completed. These include the revamping of Lagza street, the rehabilitation of the Kasbah of Oudayas wall, the renovation of El Marsa avenue, the development of community sport fields in Bab Chellah, the building of a shopping arcade and the consolidation of El Mellah cliff. But other projects are under construction. These include public squares overhauling, the restoration of the wall from Bab Laalou to Bab El Had, the strengthening of old buildings, the renovation of old hotels and the building of craftsmen area. On this occasion, the Moroccan Sovereign handed the keys of eco-friendly Pedicabs to the operators of this new service, which is available in many tourist cities around the world . Morocco has launched a large-scale program seeking to restore old medinas in several cities including Casablanca, Marrakesh, Fez, Meknes, Essaouira, Sale and Tetouan. Posted by North Africa Post North Africa Post's news desk is composed of journalists and editors, who are constantly working to provide new and accurate stories to NAP readers. JPMorgan Chase & Co.s calling for Canadas currency to retreat to C$1.35 per U.S. dollar by the middle of 2019, revising its previous forecast of C$1.30. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) anticipates a brawl between deeply divided U.S. lawmakers over the yet-to-be-ratified United StatesMexicoCanada Agreement (USMCA) that will cause a weaker for longer US$0.74 loonie. The bank is calling for Canadas currency to retreat to C$1.35 per U.S. dollar by the middle of 2019, revising its previous forecast of C$1.30. Analysts Daniel Hui and Patrick Locke hold out little hope for bipartisan cooperation in ratifying the new North American trade deal, citing the current tension over the partial U.S. government shutdown as evidence the Democrats and Republicans are unlikely to find compromises. This clearly signals that the relationship between the White House and Democrats (now governing the House) is off to a poor start, they wrote in a research note on Tuesday. We now believe that NAFTA 2.0/USMCA ratification will prove a lot bumpier than most market participants realize. The loonie fell to its lowest level since May 2017 in late December. Stronger oil prices helped lift the currency about 2.6 per cent in January into its current US$0.75 range. Hui and Locke noted in previous research that they are 70 per cent confident U.S. politicians will finalize the USMCA deal this year. But they give a slim 20 per cent chance of a swift and straightforward ratification. The biggest risk is U.S. President Donald Trump initiating a withdrawal from the current NAFTA agreement as a tactic to force Democrats to accept the new deal, they note. Such a scenario, which would trigger a six-month countdown before the actual withdrawal, would create a great degree of uncertainty for industry and financial markets, and would create a Brexit-like cliff-edge, Hui and Locke wrote. In our assessment, an activated NAFTA 1.0 withdrawal approval has a 60 per cent probability. The bearish loonie forecast is based in part on the expectation that the currency will remain vulnerable to oil in a way that it hasnt been the in the past few years, if prices remain close to the post-2014 crash average of US$46 per barrel. Story continues Hui and Locke add that a more dovish Bank of Canada compared to the U.S. Federal Reserve will also contribute to a growing spread between the loonie and the greenback in the year ahead. While it may be that markets gradually reprice some chance of ongoing policy normalization both in the U.S. and in Canada, it is now reasonable to expect US-CA spreads to gradually widen over 2019, like it did over the course of 2018, they wrote. Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android. TNI Staff Security, The U.S. Air Forces original plan was for the F-22 to be its high-end air superiority fighter while the F-35 was designed to be primarily an air-to-ground strike aircraft, but one which could defend itself. F-22 vs. F-35: Which Stealth Fighter Wins in a Shootout? Key point: The answer is that the F-35 cannot match the F-22 as an air superiority fighterit was never designed as such. Lockheed Martins F-35 Joint Strike Fighterwhich is built in three versionsrecently completed its developmental test phase and is operational with the U.S. Air Force and Marine Corps. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy will soon join the ranks of JSF operators with the F-35C carrier variant, which is scheduled to become operational later this year or early 2019. (This first appeared last year.) The Navywhich refused to accept anything other than the final Block 3F configurationis the last of the three services to adopt the aircraft, which the Marines adopted first in 2015 with the F-35B jump-jet variant. Meanwhile, for the Air Force, the F-35A conventional takeoff version is rapidly becoming its mainstay fighter. Indeed, with the production of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor having been terminated at 187 aircraft and the Air Force seriously considering the retiring its Boeing F-15C Eagle fleet, the JSF might be pressed into the air superiority role. But how does the F-35 stack up against the F-22 as a fighter? Recommended: The Fatal Flaw That Could Take Down an F-22 or F-35. Recommended: Smith & Wesson's .44 Magnum Revolver: Why You Should Fear the 'Dirty Harry' Gun. Recommended: 5 Best Shotguns in the World (Winchester, Remington and Beretta Make the Cut). The answer is that the F-35 cannot match the F-22 as an air superiority fighterit was never designed as such. The U.S. Air Forces original plan was for the F-22 to be its high-end air superiority fighter while the F-35 was designed to be primarily an air-to-ground strike aircraft, but one which could defend itself. Thus, while the Raptor was designed with a very high degree of stealth, exceptional kinematic performance and extreme maneuverability, the JSF was designed to be stealthy, networked and have exceptional sensors, but with aerodynamic performance only comparable to a F-16 Fighting Falcon or F/A-18 Hornet. Thus, the aircraft are designed to be complementary to each other. Story continues However, the Air Force did not get its way. Former U.S. Defense Secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gatesneither of whom foresaw the rise of great power challengers to the United Statesdiscounted the need for air superiority, and as a result, truncated the F-22 buy at 187 aircraft. That is less than half the fleet sized the Air Forces analysis and stated requirements called for. Indeed, most studies at the time showed that a minimum of 381 Raptors were needed to ensure American air superiority. With only 187 aircraft produced, the Air Force had to adapt. The service cut down on the number of primary authorized aircraft per squadron and skimped on the backup aircraft inventory, training and test plane fleets. Instead of having 10 squadrons of 24 aircraft plus two backup jets, the Air Force has 21 aircraft plus two backup jets in six operational squadrons while test and training assets have been cut to the bone. In fact, the Air Forces elite Weapons School and its operational test units at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada have to share about a dozen F-22s between them because there are not enough planes to equip those critical units. The shortage forced the Air Force to innovate. The services operational testers and Weapons School instructorsas well as frontline fighter pilotsdevised ways so the F-22 could work together with conventional fourth generation fighters like F-15 so that the two types of jets could work together as an effective team. The combination of the F-22 with fourth generation jets made all the aircraft flying more effective by allowing all of the aircraft involved to best use their strengths. The F-22 brings stealth, situational awareness and sheer performance to the fight while the F-15C brings a massive load out of missiles combined with a incredibly powerful radar. But with the F-15C likely being retired in the coming years, the F-35 will have to step up. The Air Force expects that the F-35, with its stealth and sensors, will be able to fill the gaps between flights of F-22s during a large-scale engagement. The F-35 does not have the sheer speed and altitude of the Raptor, but it does have excellent sensors and stealth, which does afford its decent capability against non-stealthy aircraft. The Air Force is planning on installing Link-16 onto its Raptor fleet to enable machine-to-machine communications between the F-22 and F-35, though the original plan had been to use the JSF Multifunction Advanced Datalink. Ultimately, the Air Force does need a new air superiority fighterparticularly for the Pacific theater. The service is currently studying a new extremely long-range Penetrating Counter-Air (PCA) fighter that would replace the F-22 and F-15C as Americas primary air superiority aircraft. However, it is likely that the F-22, F-35 and PCA will all serve together in the coming decades. But at the end of the day, the F-35 is no F-22 substitute. Read full article By Tatiana Bautzer and Carolina Mandl SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Corruption-ensnared Odebrecht SA [ODBES.UL] has proposed that creditors take over its sugar and ethanol unit, Atvos Agroindustrial Participacoes SA, in exchange for reducing Odebrecht's huge debt load, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter. The move is the latest sign of the radical way in which Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht, best known for its engineering and construction operations, is remaking itself to renegotiate 70 billion reais in consolidated debt. Accused of bribing politicians and executives to get contracts throughout Latin America, Odebrecht made a deal two years ago with U.S, Brazilian and Swiss authorities, paying a record $3.5 billion in fines to settle charges. Atvos has about 12 billion reais ($3.25 billion) in debt with various lenders, including state-controlled Banco do Brasil SA , Caixa Economica Federal and development bank BNDES, as well as private Banco Bradesco SA , Itau Unibanco Holding SA and Banco Santander Brasil SA . Another creditor is U.S. investment management firm Lone Star Funds, one of the sources added. A debt-for-equity swap would give Atvos more time to recover without selling plants, a potential alternative to paying off debt. Both sources, who requested anonymity because the talks are private, said this week that a sale of Atvos' assets would not be enough to pay off all outstanding debt. The sources added that a final decision has not yet been made regarding a swap and that an agreement to transfer Atvos ownership may not be reached. Atvos is Brazil's second largest ethanol company after Raizen, a joint venture of Royal Dutch Shell and energy firm Cosan . Atvos' net debt is equivalent to about 10 times its annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. By comparison, debt for the sector's best-run companies is double EBITDA or less. Story continues In preliminary discussions with creditors, Odebrecht said it wanted lenders to swap most of their debt in Atvos for control of the company, but family-owned company Odebrecht wants to keep a minority stake. The sizes of the stakes have yet to be determined, the sources added. The largest chunk of Atvos debt is held by state-controlled banks, mainly Banco do Brasil and BNDES, one source said. Banco do Brasil, Caixa Economica Federal and Banco do Brasil declined to comment on the matter. Odebrecht, Itau, BNDES and Lone Star Funds did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The ethanol company has crushing capacity of 37 million tonnes of sugar cane per year, but has been operating at a much lower level due to financial problems. In the 2017/2018 crop, Atvos processed 25.8 million tonnes, according its annual report. Odebrecht hired consultancy Canaplan to assess how much debt Atvos' cash flow could handle, and the firm will present a report to lenders about a new business plan. In November, the corruption-ensnared conglomerate hired advisers to restructure a portion of its bank and bond debt. (Reporting by Tatiana Bautzer; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe) John Lasseter (Credit: People) John Lasseter, the Pixar co-founder who quit the company following numerous allegtions of sexually inappropriate behaviour, was grilled by employees at his new company, according to reports. Lasseter attended what was later described as a heavy town hall meeting at Skydance Animations Los Angeles headquarters, following intense scrutiny after his appointment as head of the studios animation arm was announced last week. Variety reports that Lasseter received blunt questions, many of them from younger female employees on the team, about how he will behave in his new role. The report goes on to say that Lasseter, the director of movies like Toy Story and Cars, admitted to wrongdoing, committing himself to proving he had reformed. The companys CEO David Ellison was also said to have been the subject of several pointed questions from staff. Lasseter took an extended sabbatical from Pixar last year, after several complaints of inappropriate touching and treatment of female employees emerged, along with instances of drunken behaviour at company events and premieres. (Credit: Pixar) The animator and producer later admitted to having made missteps. I especially want to apologise to anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of an unwanted hug or any other gesture they felt crossed the line in any way, shape or form, he said at the time. No matter how benign my intent, everyone has the right to set their own boundaries and have them respected. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Following his appearance at Skydance HQ, the chief of Paramount Animation, which has worked closely with Skydance on recent projects, and has four upcoming, has said that its staff, which is largely female, does not have to work with Lasseter. Mirielle Soria also had a town hall event with her employees, with Variety reporting that Soria told her staff that if Lasseter requested input, they are free to decline participation. Neither company has commented on the meetings. Last week, Ellison said in a leaked memo to staff that the decision to employee Lasseter had not been entered into lightly. Story continues While we would never minimise anyones subjective views on behaviour, we are confident after many substantive conversations with John, and as the investigation has affirmed, that his mistakes have been recognised, he said. But the decision was quickly condemned. A statement from the Times Up campaign said: Skydance Medias decision to hire John Lasseter as head of animation endorses and perpetuates a broken system that allows powerful men to act without consequence. Read more Hugh Grant pleads for return of stolen script Devastating Game of Thrones fan theory emerges Aquaman tops $1 billion Theresa May could be on her way back to Brussels for further talks (Getty) The EU is ready to restart Brexit talks if the withdrawal agreement is rejected by MPs as expected, according to two senior German politicians. The prime ministers RAF plane is reportedly on standby to whisk her to Brussels in the event of a crushing defeat in the Commons. And German foreign minister Heiko Maas has confirmed there could be further talks if the vote goes wrong. Udo Bullmann, the leader of the centre-left group in the European parliament and a fellow member of Germanys social democrats, also said he understands that further talks will take place. The European institutions are prepared for the touch downs in Brussels and are prepared for additional conversations, he said. European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker will also race back to Brussels on Tuesday night from the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The decision has caused controversy in Spain, where he has been accused of snubbing the countrys prime minister who is due to speak in Strasbourg on Wednesday. President Juncker would have liked to have attended the debate but there are circumstance youre aware of, like a vote in another country thats decisive in terms of being a member of the EU, said European commissioner, Pierre Moscovici. Im talking about Brexit. President Juncker needed to be in BrusselsIts just to do with the duties of the president because of this specific emergency. However, Berlin have hit back at claims that German chancellor Angela Merkel is trying to help May win a major new concession from the EU that would sway Tory sceptics. Merkel believes there is more the EU can do once the vote is over as no deal would be a disaster for everyone, and they agreed to talk after it, a source told the Sun newspaper of a conversation between Merkel and May on Monday. A German government spokesperson said Merkels words had been wrongly reflected by the report. Maas also warned the EU was is about to make a major concession to break the deadlock in London. Story continues The agreement stands, as it is, he told reporters at the European parliament in Strasbourg. German foreign minister Heiko Maas (Reuters) I doubt very much that the agreement can be fundamentally reopened. If there were a better solution, it would already have been put forward. The EUs formal response to the vote will be set out by its chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, on Wednesday morning to the European parliament. One option being prepared for in Brussels is a possible request for an extension of Article 50, which would delay Brexit beyond the current date of March 29. Esteban Gonzalez Pons MEP, vice-chair of the parliaments EPP group, said: The EPP is not against the extension of Article 50. If the prime minister of the UK were to need more time, then it will certainly not be the EPP group which would oppose granting additional time. But this would be need to be additional time denominated in weeks rather than months. That is significant as the EPP is the EUs largest political family and counts Barnier, European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and European council president Donald Tusk amongst its members. READ MORE: EU leaders give solemn backstop reassurances to May ahead of Brexit vote However, Philippe Lamberts of the European parliament Brexit steering said May would have to be clear what she wanted from the extension. He said: More time for a referendum? Sure. More time for a general election? Sure. More time to think about it? No.If the parliament is not able to make up its mind, ask the people. Bullmann, the leader of Labours group in the European parliament, also called for British voters to have the final say over the process through a referendum or elections. And he said: I have severe doubts that in the given situation you would find a Brexit majority in the population of the UK because this is the situation in which the people see the bill not that crazy narratives they were told about. They see the reality. The more they see the reality the more they will question if its a good deal. READ MORE: European Commission hits out at claim its trying to punish the UK over Brexit ANKARA (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday he had discussed a safe zone which Turkey would set up inside Syria along the length of their border, during a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump which he described as positive. Trump, who announced he was pulling U.S. troops out of northeast Syria last month, suggested in a tweet on Sunday creating safe zone, without elaborating. "The safe zone issue, including a safe zone along Turkey's borders that will be formed by us - an issue that I have brought up since the Obama era - was reiterated by him as 20 miles," Erdogan told members of his AK Party in parliament. He later told reporters that the zone could be extended beyond 20 miles, but did not say by how far. Turkey has promised to take over the fight against Islamic State in Syria following the U.S. withdrawal. However, bitter differences between Washington and Ankara over the Kurdish YPG militia had soured talks between the two NATO partners. The YPG has been a main U.S. ally in the fight against Islamic State, but Turkey views it as a terrorist organization and an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey. Monday's call between the two leaders came after Trump threatened Turkey with economic devastation if Turkish forces attacked the YPG militia. Erdogan said he was saddened by Trump's tweet but that the phone call later in the day was positive. Trump's threat to devastate Turkey's economy also sparked concern among investors, sending the lira down as much as 1.6 percent on Monday. Erdogan said he and Trump had agreed to improve economic ties during their phone call. "Turkey will continue to do what it has to in order to solve this issue in line with the spirit of its alliance, so long as our rights and laws are respected," he said. "We reached a historic understanding with Trump last night." (Reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun, Ali Kucukgocmen and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Sarah Dadouch; Editing by Dominic Evans) Energizer Holdings, Inc. ENR has provided preliminary results for first-quarter fiscal 2019. Additionally, the company announced that it will provide full results for the first quarter on Feb 5, 2019. Per the preliminary results, the companys top line depicts a slip of 0.2% to $572 million from the prior-year quarters tally of $573.3 million. Further, organic sales depict an improvement of 1.7% to $9.9 million for the quarter under review. Moving on, adjusted EBITDA is projected to be $157-$163 million, slightly up from $156.8 million recorded in the prior-year quarter. Also, adjusted EBITDA for the twelve months period ending Dec 31, 2018 is anticipated to be $399-$405 million. Further, earnings before taxes for the quarter is anticipated to be $90-$95 million, down from $119 million registered in first-quarter fiscal 2017. Adjusted earnings before taxes is expected to be $124-$130 million compared with $124.7 million reported in the prior-year quarter. Both these projections include an unfavorable impact from foreign currency translation of about $10 million. We note that currency headwinds have been a threat to the companys performance. In fact, gross margin contracted 50 basis points (bps) during fourth-quarter fiscal 2018. Going ahead, Energizer anticipates gross margin to contract 30-70 bps for fiscal 2019. Also, currency headwinds (excluding Argentina) are likely to hurt net sales by 1-1.5% in the fiscal. Such headwinds have caused the companys shares to decline 23% in the past three months, against the industrys growth of 2.3%. Nevertheless, Energizer focuses on driving productivity by the execution of improvement initiatives, streamlining international organization and optimizing manufacturing footprint. In a recent development, the company has shifted production from its Chinese alkaline battery manufacturing unit to its Singapore facility. This has driven increased cost savings, owing to improved efficiency and scale at this facility. The company expects these projects to boost gross margin rate and lower SG&A expenses in the near future. Additionally, the company has been actively pursuing strategic acquisitions to expand base and gain market share. In this regard, Energizer recently completed the acquisition of Spectrum Brands Global Battery and Portable Lighting Business (announced in January 2018), which will help enhance its international footprint and broaden manufacturing capabilities. It will also accelerate innovation, widen product range and lead to cost efficiencies. Also, Energizers Nu Finish acquisition is likely to aid the top line to the tune of about 30-40 bps. We hope that such aspects are likely to boost investors optimism in this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock. 3 Hot Stocks Awaiting Your Look Newell Brands, Inc. NWL has a long-term earnings growth rate of 4.9% and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Ollies Bargain Holdings, Inc. OLLI has a long-term earnings growth rate of 24.8% and a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Tupperware Brands Corporation TUP has a long-term earnings growth rate of 12% and a Zacks Rank #2. Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside? Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana. Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look. See the pot trades we're targeting>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Shares of Embraer (NYSE: ERJ) have been tossed about recently, as the company's plans to form a commercial aviation joint venture with Boeing (NYSE: BA) have spurred a series of lawsuits, court injunctions, and a potential government veto. However, Boeing and Embraer agreed to terms for the joint venture last month, and the Brazilian government recently approved the proposed transaction. While additional lawsuits are likely and more regulatory approvals are needed, investors can now have greater confidence that Boeing and Embraer will eventually be able to consummate their commercial aviation joint venture. What Boeing and Embraer plan to do Embraer has found it increasingly difficult to compete against Airbus and Boeing in recent years, because of the massive economies of scale enjoyed the two aircraft manufacturing heavyweights enjoy. While Embraer specializes in smaller planes, its rivals have offered big discounts when necessary to persuade most airlines to stick with the larger jets they sell. That said, Embraer has a family of recently redesigned commercial jets covering the 70- to 130-seat segment of the market. Boeing doesn't have any products in that size range, putting it at a disadvantage to Airbus, which now has the A220 family of jets for the 100- to 150-seat market. Thus, joining forces could be a win-win for Boeing and Embraer. Boeing plans to pay $4.2 billion for an 80% stake in Embraer's commercial aviation business, which will be operated as a joint venture, with Embraer holding the remaining 20%. An Embaer E190-E2 parked in front of a hangar Boeing is on track to buy 80% of Embraer's commercial jet business. Image source: Embraer. The two companies expect to achieve $150 million of annual cost synergies within three years, as Boeing capitalizes on its purchasing scale. In the long run, Boeing's powerful global sales force should drive increased order activity, enabling higher production rates. The joint venture moves closer to being a reality Story continues Earlier this month, Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's new president, expressed doubts about whether the Boeing-Embraer joint venture was structured well. He seemed particularly concerned about a provision that would allow Embraer to sell its 20% stake to Boeing. That situation led to renewed concern about whether the Brazilian government might exercise its right to block the transaction. However, Boeing and Embraer quickly addressed Bolsonaro's concerns. As a result, Brazil approved the joint venture arrangement last week. Shortly thereafter, Embraer's board of directors ratified its support for the deal. The remaining steps include winning shareholder approval and regulatory clearance. Barring any unexpected surprises, Boeing and Embraer expect to complete the transaction later this year. Important questions remain It's been more than a year since Boeing and Embraer were first rumored to be considering some sort of business combination and six months since they signed their preliminary joint venture agreement. However, neither side has revealed the details of the purchase agreement yet. Of the $4.2 billion in cash that will change hands, Embraer expects to net about $3 billion after taxes and transaction costs. But that figure could change if Boeing and Embraer are able to reduce their transaction-related expenses. Furthermore, the new joint venture will assume some of Embraer's debt, but Embraer hasn't specified how much. These details are important for Embraer shareholders. The commercial aviation business has historically generated the bulk of the company's profit, and Boeing will own most of this business. However, Embraer's market cap is just $4.3 billion today, and it has a little more than $3 billion of cash and investments to offset its debt of $4 billion. Depending on the terms of the Boeing transaction, Embraer could potentially pay down all of its debt other than what is transferred to the new joint venture, while still leaving extra cash that could be returned to shareholders. One newspaper report has suggested that Embraer may pay out $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion as a special dividend -- nearly $10 per share of its U.S.-listed American depositary receipts. That would be a big windfall for shareholders. But until the joint venture deal is completed and Embraer confirms how it plans to use the extra cash, it's too early to celebrate. More From The Motley Fool Adam Levine-Weinberg owns shares of Embraer. The Motley Fool recommends Embraer. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that 70% of adults in New York have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, a threshold he said the state would celebrate by easing many of its remaining social distancing rules and shooting off fireworks. Joaquin El Chapo Guzman once paid a $100 million bribe to former Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto, a witness has claimed in court. Alex Cifuentes, who has said he was a close associate of Guzman for years, discussed the alleged bribe as part of the accused Mexcan drug lords trial. Asked if he told authorities in 2016 that Guzman arranged the bribe, he answered, Thats right. Mr Pena Nieto, commonly known by his initials EPN, was president of Mexico from December 2012 until November 2018. He was previously governor of the state of Mexico, which includes Mexico City. The former Mexican president could not immediately be reached for comment. A spokesman for Mr Pena Nieto has previously denied clims that he has taken any bribes, calling the accusations false. Cifuentes is a Colombian trafficker who has himself pleaded guilty to US drug charges and is cooperating with prosecutors. Federal prosecutors objected a number of times to questions about alleged bribes from Guzman's defence team. Sometimes these objections were sustained by Judge Brian Cogan. Guzman, 61, has been on trial in federal court in Brooklyn since November. He was extradited to the United States in 2017 to face charges of trafficking cocaine, heroin and other drugs into the country as leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. A lawyer for Guzman, Jeffrey Lichtman, said in his opening statement on the first day of the Brooklyn trial that Guzamn was a scapegoat for the alleged real leadre of the cartel, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada Garcia. Hes blamed for being the leader while the real leaders are living freely and openly in Mexico, Mr Lichtman said at the time. Mr Lichtman claimed that Zambada had been left free because he allegedly bribes the entire government of Mexico including up to the very top, the current president of Mexico - meaning Enrique Pena Nieto. The office of Mr Pena Nieto denied that accusation as "false". Guzman's trial is expected to last a few more weeks. Reuters contributed to this report Kinshasa (AFP) - DR Congo's Constitutional Court on Tuesday began examining an appeal against presidential election results that gave victory to opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi, in a packed, heavily guarded courtroom. The appeal was lodged by Tshisekedi's primary rival in the race, Martin Fayulu, a former oil executive, who came second in the official results. Armed officers and police in riot gear patrolled the streets around the court building in the capital Kinshasa and carried out identity checks on anyone entering the premises. Official results released on Thursday by the Independent National Election Commission (CENI) gave Tshisekedi 38.57 of the December 30 vote, against Fayulu's 34.8 percent. Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, the candidate backed by outgoing President Joseph Kabila, came a distant third with 23.8 percent. Fayulu called the results an "electoral coup", forged in backroom dealings between Tshisekedi and Kabila, who has been in power since 2001. The court began its hearings at 11:30 am (1030 GMT), two hours later than scheduled, which were also carried live on radio and television. Fayulu claims that he garnered 61 percent of the ballots, with his camp claiming 8,648,635 votes. In the few opinion polls conducted before the vote, he had been tipped as the clear favourite. "What has been declared is anything but the true result," Fayulu's lawyer, Albert Fabrice Puela, told AFP. - Pushing for a recount - The country's top court has eight days to rule on the matter from the date that Fayulu's appeal was lodged, on January 11. But its nine judges are not due to sit on Wednesday and Thursday, which are public holidays. The influential Roman Catholic Church, which says it deployed 40,000 observers to monitor the elections, has also dismissed the official outcome as not reflecting the true result, while holding back from saying who it thinks won. Thousands of electoral documents, leaked to international media including the Financial Times and Radio France internationale, backed Fayulu's claim to be the true election winner. Story continues Figures attributed to CENI and the Catholic Church showed Fayulu winning between 59.4 percent and 62.8 percent. Those figures were based, respectively, on a count of 86 percent and 43 percent of the total votes cast. The figures show that "Martin Fayulu was the clear winner of the Democratic Republic of Congos presidential elections last month," the Financial Times reported. The UN Security Council on Tuesday called on all players to respect the outcome of the landmark elections. While noting that disputes persist, the council encouraged all sides to "preserve the generally peaceful climate of the elections." Fayulu's lawyers want CENI's official results declared invalid and a full recount but at the same time wish to avoid the whole vote being declared null and void, as that would allow Kabila to stay in power until a fresh election is organised. Lawyers for Tshisekedi, as well as the electoral commission, are calling on the court to confirm the published results. - Doubts about the court - Meanwhile, Kabila claims his supporters won nearly 350 seats in the 500-seat National Assembly, which under the constitution would give his party the power to designate the country's prime minister. So even if the court confirms Tshisekedi as president his CACH coalition, which won 50 seats, would be forced into some kind of power-sharing deal with Kabila's camp. Both Fayulu and Tshisekedi have expressed scepticism at the result of the parliamentary elections. Many observers doubt the independence of the Constitutional Court's nine judges, some of whom are former Kabila allies. The DRC's political crisis erupted two years ago when Kabila refused to step down at the end of his constitutional term in office, sparking protests which were brutally repressed. The vast, unstable country has never had a peaceful transition of power since gaining independence from Belgium in 1960. It became a battlefield for two regional wars in 1996-97 and 1998-2003, and the last two presidential elections, in 2006 and 2011, were marked by bloody clashes. Tamiflu, a drug prescribed to treat the flu, can reportedly cause severe nightmares in kids. Doctors weigh in on what might be going on. (Photo: Getty Images/Tetra Images) With more than 6 million people sick with the flu, according to CDC data, were officially in the thick of flu season. And, with that, doctors are regularly prescribing Tamiflu to patients to try to speed up recovery and lower the odds that people will have serious complications from the illness. But theres one thing people should be aware of before they take the drug: It can cause hallucinations and nightmares. In early January 2018, a 6-year-old in Florida began hallucinating after taking the drug and attempted to jump from a second-story window. Weeks later, another young girl in Florida suffered from hallucinations and seizure-like symptoms. To see her have no light behind her eyes, no recollection, no nothing, was just Ive never been panicked like that in my life, her mother, Winnie Duffy, told NBC 2. The internet is also filled with stories of kids having nightmares while on Tamiflu. I see it all the time. Its very common nightmares especially, Gina Posner, MD, a pediatrician at Memorial Care Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, Calif., tells Yahoo Lifestyle. Tamiflu (generic name: oseltamivir phosphate) works in a very specific way. In order for the influenza virus to spread and cause disease, it must replicate in our cells and then leave the cells to infect other cells, Jamie Alan, PhD, an assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Michigan State University, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. Tamiflu works by not allowing the influenza virus to bud off the cell and leave the cell to infect other cells. While hallucinations and nightmares are known side effects, experts dont know exactly why this happens. Theoretically, Tamiflu cannot easily get into the brain, Alan says. However, we know that Tamiflu enters the brain because we do see these kinds of side effects in patients. One theory is that if the brains protection, the blood-brain barrier, is compromised by inflammation from an infection like the flu, then the drug can cross into the brain, she says. Mouse studies have shown that Tamiflu can get into the brain if the blood-brain barrier is compromised, Alan points out. Story continues This isnt just something that happens with kids adults can and do experience it too, but its often on a less extreme level, Alan says. In mice, we can detect higher levels of Tamiflu in younger mice compared to older adult mice, she explains. One hypothesis is that the blood-brain barrier might be less developed in children; therefore, more Tamiflu can cross into the brain in younger patients. Unfortunately, theres only so much you can do about this, other than provide extra TLC to your child. If the symptoms are super-severe, I tell parents to stop giving their children the Tamiflu, Posner says. Another option Alan suggests: You can ask your doctor about Xofluza, a newer drug that works against influenza that isnt reported to have these side effects. Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. By Tom Hals WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) - A Delaware judge said on Tuesday Papa John's International Inc must turn over internal documents to the company's founder who has been seeking to reassert control over the pizza delivery chain after he resigned as chairman in July. John Schnatter, who owns about 30 percent of the company, has been seeking the documents to try to show the company was mismanaged and to determine if he was improperly pushed out. The founder of the third-largest pizza delivery chain resigned in July following a Forbes story that he had used a racial slur on a media training conference call. Schnatter said the comment was mischaracterized and since then he has battled the company in court. On Tuesday, Chancellor Andre Bouchard of Delaware's Court of Chancery ordered the company's directors to turn over documents and communications, including text messages on personal devices, related to Schnatter's firing. The order covered some messages between directors and their lawyers. Both sides said in statements they were pleased with the ruling. The company noted the judge narrowed the scope of the document requests, while Schnatter called it a vindication of his right to the information. The ruling comes as Papa John's is working to identify potential buyers for the company, which has drawn the interest of private equity investors. Bouchard rejected the company's argument that Schnatter did not deserve the documents because it claimed he was seeking them for his personal gain, not for the benefit of shareholders. The judge said Schnatter's testimony during a one-day trial led credence to his concern that he was forced out before the board investigated the Forbes story. The judge also noted he had a right to investigate why the company would quickly abandon him as the long-standing face of the company, which raised questions about management and oversight. Schnatter also sued the board in August for breaching its fiduciary duties and causing what he said was "irreparable harm" to the company. In November, the company reported a smaller-than-expected decline in quarterly comparable sales in North America, helped by new advertising aimed at moving past its split with Schnatter. (Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Tom Brown) Danny Dyer (Credit: BBC) After Danny Dyers momentous appearance on Who Do You Think You Are? in 2016, during which he discovered he was of royal lineage, hes set to discover a further bombshell about his family tree. It turns out that the EastEnders star is related to a saint. Thanks to expert genealogists, Dyer discovered that his 22th great grandfather was Edward III, and that he is also distantly related to Thomas Cromwell and Elizabeth Seymour. But now, in a new factual show called Right Royal Family for the BBC, he will discover that hes descendant from a French saint too. Im a direct descendant from a saint, he says on the show. Saint Louis IX, who was the King of France in, I think it was the 12th century, I cant remember now. Yeah, he was a saint. I think theres only 2000 saints ever, and he was allowed to have children he had 11 children, and yeah, Ive got his blood knocking about, so make of that what you will. Its just so much to take in. Im related to a saint. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Dyer has also hit back at those who have criticised the show on social media, of dumbing down historical matters, but having only seen the trailer so far. I think you need to be a fan of mine, to really, really want to invest in it, he told Digital Spy. Theres been a little bit of bad press around this without people even watching a second of it. About how the BBCs dumbing down history just because, I dont know why, maybe because Ive got a working-class accent or whatever they want to say. I dont get it. Judge it after youve watched it at least. I think people are maybe bored of that boring history formula, you know, and I think its a different way to learn. I try to be funny as much as I possibly can, and I like to embrace every historian with a big cuddle at the beginning that will make them settle down, and then just have an old chinwag about Medieval history. It airs on January 23. Read more Why Gemma Collins left Dancing On Ice show early EastEnders guest star on Silent Witness Matthew Rhys lands HBO drama role Beijing (AFP) - A small green shoot is growing on the moon in an out-of-this-world first after a cotton seed germinated on board a Chinese lunar lander, scientists said Tuesday. The sprout has emerged from a lattice-like structure inside a canister since the Chang'e-4 lander set down earlier this month, according to a series of photos released by the Advanced Technology Research Institute at Chongqing University. "This is the first time humans have done biological growth experiments on the lunar surface," said Xie Gengxin, who led the design of the experiment. The Chang'e-4 probe -- named after a Chinese moon goddess -- made the world's first soft landing on the moon's "dark side" on January 3, a major step in China's ambitions to become a space superpower. Scientists from Chongqing University -- who designed the "mini lunar biosphere" experiment -- sent an 18-centimetre (seven-inch) bucket-like container holding air, water and soil. Inside are cotton, potato, and arabidopsis seeds -- a plant of the mustard family -- as well as fruit fly eggs and yeast. Images sent back by the probe show a cotton sprout has grown well, but so far none of the other plants has taken, the university said. Chang'e-4 is also equipped with instruments developed by scientists from Sweden, Germany and China to study the lunar environment, cosmic radiation and the interaction between solar wind and the moon's surface. The lander released a rover, dubbed Yutu-2 (Jade Rabbit), that will perform experiments in the Von Karman Crater. The agency said four more lunar missions are planned, confirming the launch of a probe by the end of the year to bring back samples from the moon. China wants to establish a lunar research base one day, possibly using 3D printing technology to build facilities, the Chinese space agency said Monday. Investors' first impressions of Constellation Brands' (NYSE: STZ) fiscal third-quarter results weren't positive, as Wall Street chose to focus on its disappointing short-term earnings outlook. Specifically, the alcoholic beverage giant said struggles in its wine and spirits segment, plus some extra costs related to its Canopy Growth (NYSE: CGC) investment, will lead to slower profit growth than it had predicted back in October. Yet there was much more to this report than just the headline sales and profit numbers. Below, we'll look at a few highlights from the conference call that CEO Rob Sands and his team held with investors to put those metrics into perspective along with Constellation's wider growth ambitions. Two smiling men clinking their beer bottles together Image source: Getty Images. Market share updates Corona Premier, Corona Familiar, and Modelo Especial achieved winning spots as the top three high-end U.S. beer industry share gainers for the quarter while Constellation's overall beer business was the most significant share gainer in the U.S. beer market during this time frame. -- Chief Operating Officer Bill Newlands The beer business is still firing on all cylinders, with shipment volume jumping 14% on strength in mainstay brands like Modelo Especial and Corona Extra, as well as in its recently introduced Corona Premier. The success of that launch is especially good news, management explained, because it gives the company a powerful tool to attack the huge light beer market that's long been dominated by the likes of Anheuser-Busch InBev. On the other hand, the wine and spirits segment shrank to mark a worsening from the prior quarter's slight increase. Management had hoped that innovative releases and extra marketing support would produce better results, but these initiatives didn't pan out. "We're disappointed with the performance of our wine and spirits business," Newlands said, "as we're facing challenges at the low [price] end of the portfolio." Story continues Cannabis reaching new highs We believe the emerging cannabis space represents one of the most significant global growth opportunities of the next decade, and frankly, our lifetime. An opportunity that is opening up much more rapidly than originally anticipated. -- Newlands The 30%-plus stake that Constellation Brands owns of Canopy Growth injects some uncertainty into its short-term earnings. The investment value will change with Canopy's shifting share prices, for example, leading to lots of non-cash charges tied to this volatile stock. And while the path of the new recreational cannabis industry's development is highly uncertain, executives say they're gaining confidence that this partnership will ultimately be a big win for Constellation Brands shareholders. As support for that bullish reading, executives cited the recent passage of the U.S. farm bill, which opens the door for the production of industrial hemp, including cannabidiol. Canopy Growth plans to be a major player in that emerging market. Cash returns are rising Our cash generation profile is strong as we expect our business to produce over $2 billion of operating cash flow annually. This positions us to quickly delever back into our targeted leverage range and return cash to our shareholders. -- Chief Financial Officer David Klein Several positive trends point to spiking cash returns to shareholders over the next few years. The company is wrapping up the massive investment project in its Mexican brewery network, for one, and that spending has lifted capacity high enough to easily meet beer demand for the foreseeable future. Robust earnings and free cash flow should allow management to quickly pay down the debt it took on to fund the Canopy Growth purchases, too. While still investing in growth initiatives, especially those aimed at extending the beer business's market share winning streak, Constellation Brands believes it can return $4.5 billion -- representing about three-quarters of its operating cash flow -- to investors through dividends and stock buybacks over the next three years. "We believe that Constellation provides the best combination of growth and cash returns to shareholders within the [consumer packaged goods] space," Klein said. Investors' initial reaction to the report implied they weren't sold on that idea. But the real test will be whether the company's earnings power can keep expanding at a double-digit rate in 2019 and beyond, just as it has for each of the last five fiscal years. More From The Motley Fool Demitrios Kalogeropoulos has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends BUD and Constellation Brands. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. DENVER Environmental activists here were dealt a blow Monday when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled against a closely watched case that would have required the state to prioritize health and environmental concerns in oil and gas permitting. But with a newly Democratic legislature and governor in the state promising to take another look at the fracking debate, environmentalists are optimistic that they can pursue a successful strategy in the statehouse. This decision really validates everything that weve been saying, that this state is not prioritizing public health and safety, and that regulations are not sufficient, said Anne Lee Foster of Colorado Rising, a group opposed to the hydraulic fracturing drilling technique known as fracking. Weve shown that this is a real issue impacting Coloradans every day, and were going to keep fighting until the end. Its in the hands of the legislators now, she added. Mondays decision caps a five-year legal fight brought by six youth activists from Boulder County. The activists, led by Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, filed a petition with the states oil and gas regulatory body in 2013 asking that new permits be suspended until a comprehensive scientific study could show that new activity would be safe. When the petition was denied, the activists sued and ultimately won a favorable decision in the Martinez case in the states Appeals Court last spring. But Mondays Supreme Court ruling overturns that interpretation, leaving existing policy in place. The state, the court found, was right to continue to interpret permits by weighing cost-effectiveness and technical feasibility against adverse effects on health and the environmental. The case was closely watched along Colorados Front Range, where the fracking boom has put wells near playgrounds, parks and schools (Extraction Oil and Gas infamously installed a fracking site just 1,360 feet from the largely minority Bella Romero Academy in Greeley.) Concerns about worsening air quality and health effects, such as increased cancer risks, have led to lawsuits and community actions, including an unsuccessful ballot measure in November to increase well setbacks, requiring that they be located at least 2,500 feet from occupied buildings. Story continues Anti-fracking protesters in Colorado rally earlier this month for a moratorium on new oil and gas wells. (Photo: Helen H. Richardson via Getty Images) The advent of hydraulic fracturing which involves shooting pressurized liquid into shale formations in the early 2000s allowed companies to reach untapped reservoirs of oil and gas. Colorado now has more than 56,000 active oil and gas wells, producing more than 1.7 million cubic feet of natural gas, the sixth most in the country. The oil and gas industry applauded the Martinez case decision. The ruling will continue to allow for development, while also protecting our environment, Dan Haley, president and CEO of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association, said in a statement. Those who filed this lawsuit have said they want to ban oil and natural gas development in Colorado, so were happy to see the Supreme Court strike down this extreme effort and shortsighted agenda, he added. But the relief may not last long. A blue wave in the November midterm elections hit Colorado especially hard, installing Democratic majorities in the statehouse and throughout the administration. New Democratic Gov. Jared Polis campaigned on giving communities a larger voice in fracking decisions, a promise he reiterated in his State of the State address last week. Its time for us to take meaningful action to address the conflicts between oil-and-gas drilling operators and the neighborhoods that they impact, Polis said. We will work to make sure that every community has clean air and water. And this is a vital quality-of-life issue for Colorado families. In a statement Monday, Polis said that he was disappointed in the courts ruling and that it only highlights the need to work with the Legislature and the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission to more safely develop our states natural resources and protect our citizens from harm. Polis had previously pushed a number of anti-fracking ballot measures, including a 2,000-foot setback (while running for governor this year, Polis did not endorse the larger setback) and an environmental bill of rights. In a compromise with then-Gov. John Hickenlooper in 2014 that took the measures off the ballot, Polis helped create a task force to weigh local control and environmental impacts. Activist groups like Colorado Rising have asked Polis for a moratorium on new drilling, which is unlikely to happen, but they say theyre encouraged that Democrats could reinvigorate that debate. Democrats have discussed a number of potential bills that would codify the demands of the Martinez case or give local communities more power to say no to drilling (a state Supreme Court decision in 2016 barred townships and counties from passing fracking bans). As with the 2014 commission, any new debate is likely to be closely watched by states like Texas and Pennsylvania, which are dealing with their own fracking booms. State House Speaker KC Becker, a Democrat from Boulder, said that the court ruling puts the decision back into the hands of lawmakers to take action, and we are committed to addressing this concern in this legislative session. Communities in every corner of our state want to know that their health and safety are being prioritized when it comes to oil and gas operations, she added. In an interview, Martinez, now 18, said the court ruling reaffirmed that newly elected Democrats needed to listen to community concerns. If these politicians dont recognize their responsibility to work with us and the people affected by this crisis, well vote you out, he said. Even though Colorado politicians have usually been hesitant to regulate the lucrative fossil-fuel industry, Martinez said the rising tide of health concerns should elevate the debate. Its getting fucking personal. Its coming into Boulder County, where my family lives, where my little brother and my little sister go to school, Martinez said. This isnt about the environment and air and water; this is about the health of our people and protecting what we love. Related Coverage Study Identifies More Than 6,600 Fracking Spills Over 10-Year Period Kids Suing Trump Over Climate Change Get A Boost From Grandpa Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Many investors are still learning about the various metrics that can be useful when analysing a stock. This article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE). Well use ROE to examine Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd (SGX:S63), by way of a worked example. Over the last twelve months Singapore Technologies Engineering has recorded a ROE of 23%. Another way to think of that is that for every SGD1 worth of equity in the company, it was able to earn SGD0.23. Check out our latest analysis for Singapore Technologies Engineering Want to help shape the future of investing tools and platforms? Take the survey and be part of one of the most advanced studies of stock market investors to date. How Do You Calculate Return On Equity? The formula for return on equity is: Return on Equity = Net Profit Shareholders Equity Or for Singapore Technologies Engineering: 23% = 547.16 S$2.4b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2018.) Most readers would understand what net profit is, but its worth explaining the concept of shareholders equity. It is all earnings retained by the company, plus any capital paid in by shareholders. You can calculate shareholders equity by subtracting the companys total liabilities from its total assets. What Does Return On Equity Mean? ROE measures a companys profitability against the profit it retains, and any outside investments. The return is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. A higher profit will lead to a higher ROE. So, all else equal, investors should like a high ROE. That means ROE can be used to compare two businesses. Does Singapore Technologies Engineering Have A Good ROE? Arguably the easiest way to assess companys ROE is to compare it with the average in its industry. Importantly, this is far from a perfect measure, because companies differ significantly within the same industry classification. As you can see in the graphic below, Singapore Technologies Engineering has a higher ROE than the average (9.0%) in the Aerospace & Defense industry. Story continues SGX:S63 Last Perf January 15th 19 That is a good sign. I usually take a closer look when a company has a better ROE than industry peers. One data point to check is if insiders have bought shares recently. The Importance Of Debt To Return On Equity Most companies need money from somewhere to grow their profits. That cash can come from issuing shares, retained earnings, or debt. In the case of the first and second options, the ROE will reflect this use of cash, for growth. In the latter case, the debt used for growth will improve returns, but wont affect the total equity. That will make the ROE look better than if no debt was used. Singapore Technologies Engineerings Debt And Its 23% ROE Although Singapore Technologies Engineering does use debt, its debt to equity ratio of 0.15 is still low. The combination of modest debt and a very impressive ROE does suggest that the business is high quality. Careful use of debt to boost returns is often very good for shareholders. However, it could reduce the companys ability to take advantage of future opportunities. The Bottom Line On ROE Return on equity is one way we can compare the business quality of different companies. A company that can achieve a high return on equity without debt could be considered a high quality business. All else being equal, a higher ROE is better. But when a business is high quality, the market often bids it up to a price that reflects this. It is important to consider other factors, such as future profit growth and how much investment is required going forward. So you might want to take a peek at this data-rich interactive graph of forecasts for the company. Of course Singapore Technologies Engineering may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have high ROE and low debt. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. [January 15, 2019] Helpshift Delivers Year of Record Company Growth and Innovation in Digital Customer Service Helpshift, the company revolutionizing the customer service industry, today announced the close of a record-breaking fiscal year that included new customers and partnerships, industry recognition and the launch of transformational new products, including asynchronous messaging across web and mobile. A Strong Finish to 2018 In 2018, more brands than ever relied on Helpshift's AI-based conversational platform to deliver fast, efficient, messaging-based support to their customers 24/7. In the past 12 months, Helpshift added business to consumer brands across industries to its roster, including mobile payment company Square, fleet management company KeepTruckin, and meal kit delivery company Home Chef. Additionally, Helpshift: Doubled its revenue year-over-year, with the top 100 customers doubling their individual spend on new features such as bots and AI Made G2 (News - Alert) Crowd's 2019 list of top 100 software products out of more than 60,000 companies Moved into a new, larger San Francisco headquarters Expanded its global footprint, with a new office in India and new satellite offices in New York, Pittsburgh and Chicago, with imminent plans to open two European offices in Q1 Asynchronous Messaging and Automation Drive Growth After launching asynchronous messaging across web and mobile in 2018, brands are now seeing stunning levels of automation without compromising customer satisfaction. "It's been encouraging to see such rapid adoption of our new messaging and AI and bot capabilities, and I am blown away by the level of automation that we're driving today - in most cases north of 50 percent," said Linda Crawford, CEO of Helpshift. "While our digital-first customers have been quick t adopt these technologies, we're also seeing large global enterprises recognize the benefits. The market is waking up to our modern approach to supporting consumers, which will drive accelerated growth for Helpshift in 2019." With Helpshift messaging, consumers can start their support session in a live chat window but leave the chat without having to worry that their history will be deleted. Instead, they can move to a different device and pick the conversation back up at their convenience. With asynchronous messaging for web and mobile, brands can: Support customers either in real time or whenever the customer service team has bandwidth, without the customer having to wait online to get help. Prioritize urgent issues with live support without requiring customers with non-urgent issues to wait around in a chat window for an agent to become available. Issue email and push notifications to the customer when an agent has responded that brings them back to the chat to pick up right where they left off. Keep the customer's full conversation history in the chat window - across devices and different support sessions. Further improve the experience with bots that can help customers self-serve or collect basic information to make the interaction with the human agent more efficient. "Enterprises have started to focus on outcomes over interactions through digital and business transformation initiatives," said Esteban Kolsky, principal and founder of ThinkJar, an advisory firm and think tank focused on customer strategies. "As consumers continue to shift to digital channels and raise their expectations, organizations that are outcomes-first will drive the transition to digital and will rely on AI and bots to deliver better value to their clients. Vendors who support this model will lead the way for organizations to transform and focus on their customers more intently." Brands can see Helpshift's automation and asynchronous messaging demoed live this week at NRF 2019 in New York ( Cisco's (News - Alert) booth #2254), and Customer Contact Week in Nashville (booth #304). About Helpshift Helpshift bridges the disconnect between conventional customer service channels - such as email and phone support - and a growing consumer base that does more on mobile phones and has a strong preference for messaging as the primary mode of communication. Through Helpshift's AI-powered customer service platform, companies can resolve issues more efficiently, boosting customer satisfaction in the process. Companies such as Xfinity Home, Microsoft (News - Alert) , Tencent, Supercell and hundreds of other leading brands use the Helpshift platform to provide messaging-first customer support. Helpshift is installed on two billion devices worldwide and serves more than 820 million active consumers monthly. To learn more about Helpshift, visit helpshift.com and follow @helpshift on Twitter (News - Alert) . View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190115005262/en/ [ Back to the Next Generation Communications Community's Homepage ] Sen. Chuck Grassley listens during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh in September. (Photo: Michael Reynolds/Pool/Getty Images) WASHINGTON Shes a bartender from the Bronx. He is a farmer from Iowa. She is 29. He is 85. She routinely wins Twitter by trolling Republicans. He recently posted a photo of a pork chop on Instagram. She is new to Washington, having won her first election to public office in the November midterms. He has been on Capitol Hill since the Ford administration. This is not a love story. It is instead a story of two chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate, that are diverging drastically, not only in political power but demographic composition. The bartender from the Bronx is, of course, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents a remarkably diverse incoming House class. Having taken over the lower chamber of Congress, the incoming Democrats are proposing an unapologetically progressive program that includes everything from a Green New Deal to impeaching the motherfucker, as newcomer Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich, said of President Trump on her very first day in office. The farmer from Iowa is Sen. Chuck Grassley, who represents Congress not as some would like it to be but how it has long been. Much as Ocasio-Cortez and her peers may want to get rid of Trump and they are not shy about wanting precisely that they will have to contend first with the Senates second oldest member. Sitting in his Senate office on the day before the 116th Congress began, Grassley sipped from a glass of what appeared to be apple juice as he looked back with Yahoo News on two years of full Republican control of Congress. In doing so, he reminded of how he had become one of Trumps most reliable and effective allies on Capitol Hill. Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., heads for member-elect briefings on Capitol Hill in November. (Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP) Fresh from confirming a record number of conservative judges as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Grassley is now moving to head the nearly-as-powerful Senate Finance Committee, where he will fight off Democratic attempts to force the release of Trumps tax returns. Along with colleagues like Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, he forms a seasoned Republican firewall against the young Democratic firebrands. Story continues Grassleys longevity, as well as a loyalty to the Republican Party, have not gone unnoticed. On the same day that Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortes became new members of Congress, Grassleys own influence was underscored when he was made president pro tempore of the Senate, a position that puts him three heartbeats away from the presidency, as he noted in a Des Moines Register op-ed. Grassley embodies a paradox that has become increasingly rare in Washington: a party loyalist whose loyalty cannot be taken for granted. Democrats hoping that his Midwestern decency might lead him to buck Trump have been disappointed. Republicans who expected him to unquestioningly follow party leaders have sometimes found themselves surprised. Late last year, for example, Grassley defied Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in taking up criminal justice reform instead of confirming more judges, as McConnell wanted him to do. Not only did that legislation, known as the First Step Act, mark the most significant rethinking of sentencing guidelines and rehabilitation policies since the early 1990s, it received an astonishing 87 votes in the Senate. One of those votes belonged to McConnell, who for once found himself following Grassleys lead. Sen. Chuck Grassley tells President Trump he needs to leave to cast a vote in the Senate during the signing ceremony for the First Step Act on Dec. 21. Grassley said he had not missed a vote since 1993. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images) McConnells rare reversal was a tacit concession of just how much Grassley has done for him, and for Trump. He is remarkably easy to underestimate, which works inevitably to his advantage. That has been the case for nearly the entirety of his career. Iowas Grassley Gets Last Laugh on His Detractors, went the headline of a 1985 article ahead of his first Senate reelection campaign. Once confident that they were going to retake his seat, Democrats were less sure he was a one-term rube who had the dumb luck to run for the Senate in the Reagan landslide year of 1980. He would in fact win the 1986 reelection, and the five Senate contests after that. The slights have never quite ceased. Last summer, during the fight over Brett Kavanaughs nomination to the Supreme Court, lawyer Michael Avenatti who represented one of the women accusing Kavanaugh of sexual assault declared on Twitter that Grassley was far too stupid to lead one of the most influential committees in Congress. If derision of that kind bothers Grassley, he does not show it in public. Not only did he win the Kavanaugh fight, but he worked with White House counsel Don McGahn and McConnell to confirm 84 other judges to the federal bench, including Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court along with Kavanaugh. Trump may never get his border wall with Mexico, but the young, conservative judges he and Grassley have successfully confirmed could form a resilient barrier against the progressive policies of legislators like Ocasio-Cortez for a generation. Sen. Chuck Grassley at a Senate Budget Committee hearing in 1985. (Photo: Terry Ashe/Life Images Collection/Getty Images) But ask Grassley about his greatest accomplishment, and he will bring up the judges only after the First Step Act. Touted as a rare bipartisan success, First Step is for Grassley less evidence of political comity than of political process properly executed, Congress not living up to some mythical standards but Congress working exactly as it should. Heavens, he says, Midwestern accent growing strong. Just think of the steps we had to take. McConnell had, after all, prevented a similar measure from coming to the Senate floor in 2016. And after the presidential election, the effort seemed dead for sure, given Trumps forceful, if vague, law-and-order platform. It was during the congressional lame duck session following the election that Grassley ran into Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on the Senate floor and told him he wanted another try at the bill. Grassley thought correctly, it would turn out that they would have an ally in the presidents son-in-law, Jared Kushner, someone who could eventually override and even overturn Trumps own impulse for toughness over compassion. For two years, Grassley and Durbin each labored to placate his own caucus while making sure that the other side was not alienated by either too much reform or too little. The final obstacle was McConnell. In a phone call with the Senate majority leader, Grassley made the case that the 116th Congress would see plenty of judges through with Graham as the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee, but that criminal justice reform was more urgent. McConnell relented, his choice made easier by Sen. Jeff Flakes declaration that he would hold up all judicial nominees until protections for the investigation into Russian electoral interference were put into place. An already iconic photograph from the bills passage shows Grassley embracing Sen. Cory Booker, the progressive Democrat from New Jersey who has as much in common with Grassley as the Atlantic City Expressway does with an unpaved country road. First Step was not an outlier, Grassley argues. His staff is eager to point out that during his time as chairman, 61 bipartisan bills advanced to the full Senate, and 34 of those became law. A four-page handout listing his Senate Judiciary accomplishments begins with judicial nominations, but devotes far more space to bipartisan legislative accomplishments. From left, Sens. Chuck Grassley, Cory Booker, Dick Durbin and Mike Lee after the passage of the First Step Act on Dec. 19. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images) Yet the judges are inarguably what Grassleys turn as Senate Judiciary chairman will be remembered for. More circuit court judges 30 in all have been confirmed by Grassley and Trump than by any other president during his first two years in office. There have been 53 district court judges, too, in addition to the two successful Supreme Court picks. The White House was all set to move quickly on judges, Grassley says, praising the Trump administration for getting nominees up here from the White House much faster than they did under Obama or under George W. Bush. He does not mention that President Barack Obamas nominees were effectively stalled by McConnell, a strategy that gave Trump openings on the federal bench to fill. Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee found Grassley to have an issue by issue approach, as a senior aide to one Democrat on the committee put it. Aside from working with Durbin and Booker on the First Step Act, he advanced legislation with the committees ranking Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, that would protect young athletes from predators like Larry Nassar, the disgraced former doctor for USA Gymnastics. Trump eventually signed that bill into law. Democrats knew that Grassley was going to advance Trumps judges. What they wont forgive him is the manner in which he did so. After decades of putting himself out to be bipartisan guy, he was willing to destroy every norm we have in the committee for how we vet judicial nominees, said the Democratic aide, who requested anonymity in order to speak frankly. Anything McConnell asked him to do to get judges through, he would do it. Grassleys adversaries charge that his decision to advance circuit court nominees without blue slips endorsements from home state senators, customarily needed for a judicial nominee to proceed was a gross abrogation of the congressional norms he supposedly reveres. Grassley also held hearings in panels that often divided time between two judges, limiting the ability to question each one. And he scheduled one hearing during a Senate recess, which led to Democratic howls of outrage. At times during the Kavanaugh hearings, Grassley seemed genuinely pained by Democrats appeals to precedent. Yet he ultimately cast those appeals aside, earning fulsome praise from Trump. Chuck Grassley holds up a smartphone timer to show Sen. Cory Booker how long he has been speaking during the Kavanaugh hearings in September. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) Grassley has been a wrecking ball when it comes to rules and norms of judicial confirmations, says Nan Aron of the Alliance for Justice, a group that advocates for a more liberal judiciary. He has dispensed with Senate advice and consent responsibilities. This argument confounds Grassley, who like many Republicans sees Democrats resorting to high-toned rhetoric about the sanctity of institutions because it suits their political ends. Ive been listening too many years both under Republican and Democrat presidents that we arent doing enough to keep the judicial branch well supplied with qualified people. So I was trying to meet that, Grassley says, moving to the edge of his chair as he grows animated in defense of his record. Nobody can raise the issue of not enough oversight, he argues, except something that maybe crops up at the last minute. There were more than a few such last-minute surprises among the judges sent by the White House to Capitol Hill. Matthew S. Petersen of the Federal Election Commission admitted under questioning from Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., that he had never tried a case in a brutally uncomfortable four-minute exchange that became an unlikely social media sensation. Brett Talley, a Harvard Law graduate, was rated not qualified by the American Bar Association: He had written several horror novels, but had also never tried a case. Jeff Mateer had branded transgender youth instruments of Satans plan while also condemning same-sex marriage. All three withdrew. The senior Democratic staffer held out some hope for working with Graham, despite his performance at the Kavanaugh hearings. Grahams proximity to Trump, the staffer speculated, could give him the latitude to tell new White House counsel Pat Cipollone to make sure that the judicial nominees sent to Capitol Hill during the 116th Congress make for fewer viral videos than their predecessors in the 115th. One of those picks could be a third seat on the Supreme Court. Recent concerns over the health of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg have some fearing that Trump could soon have that chance. If he does, Grassley thinks the White House should stick to the Kavanaugh playbook. I would advise the president to keep by his campaign promise to nominate judges from a list provided by the Heritage Foundation, Grassley says. I think hed be in worse trouble if he tried to pick someone who is not on that list. A ferocious opposition to a third partisan pick to the high court does not trouble him. They have realized that they went overboard in trying to defeat Kavanaugh, Grassley says of his Democratic colleagues. If we have another Supreme Court vacancy, I dont think theyre going to act in the same terms. Sen. Chuck Grassley walks through the Capitol in September. (Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Now, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Grassley is likely to remain at once reverent of the institution of Congress and loyal to the Republican Party. His vote along with that of the committees Democrats could use a 1924 law to force President Trump to release his tax returns. Grassley has no interest in doing that. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked Hatch, the committees outgoing chairman, to release Trumps taxes, and he is expected to make the same request of Grassley. Their only justification for wanting [Trumps tax returns] is that other presidents since Nixon have done it, Grassley says, but what about the presidents before Nixon, where it wasnt big deal? Democrats do hold out hope that, on the matter of Trumps taxes, they can appeal to Grassleys previous interest in tax-exempt organizations. But even as he touts his own past work with Democrats, Grassley laments how the grassroots in each party are shredding the very possibility of consensus. With the House turning blue in Novembers midterm election, the possibility of legislative gridlock is near certain. Also certain is that the Senate will remain a safe chamber for Trump, as long as old-timers like Grassley are in charge. Plodding though he may be, he has shown a remarkable ability to advance the presidents agenda, in large part without attracting the enmity of his Democratic colleagues, who admire his resilience even as they reject his positions. He is the hardest working member of Congress, says Garrett Ventry, a former Grassley staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Grassley works. Grassley delivers. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: See our 2018 year-end features >>> Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg attends his retrial at the Dalian Intermediate People's Court in Dalian, northeastern China - CCTV Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, has accused China of "arbitrarily" using capital punishment after it sentenced a Canadian citizen to death on drug trafficking charges. The case has increased tensions between the two countries, coming weeks after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, a top Chinese telecoms executive, at the request of the US. Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, 36, was initially given a 15-year prison sentence last November, but after an appeal a high court ruled the sentence was too lenient. Schellenberg had declared his innocence during the day-long retrial on Monday insisting: "I am not a drug smuggler. I came to China as a tourist". However a judge in the northeast city of Dalian said Schellenberg, who was detained in December 2014, played a "key part" in an international drug trafficking syndicate that planned to send some 222 kilogrammes (490 pounds) of methamphetamine to Australia. Intermediate People's Court of Dalian, where the trial for Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was held Credit: REUTERS/Stringer Schellenberg said he had come to China after travelling through Southeast Asia, and that a friend recommended as a translator a man named Xu Qing, who swept him up in what turned out to be a smuggling gang. Speaking after the sentencing on Monday, Mr Trudeau said: "It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply the death penalty, as in this case facing a Canadian." The sentence comes against the backdrop of Beijing's anger over the arrest in Canada of Ms Meng, a top executive from telecom giant Huawei, last month on a US extradition request related to Iran sanctions violations. The 46-year-old, who is also the daughter of the company's founder, was granted bail in December. However the case has soured China's relations with both Canada and the US. Chinese authorities have since detained two Canadian nationals - a former diplomat and a business consultant - on suspicion of endangering national security in a move seen as retaliation over the Huawei executive's arrest. Story continues China has executed other foreigners for drug-related crimes in the past, including a Japanese national in 2014, a Filipina in 2013 and a Briton in 2009. However experts said retrials are rare in China, especially ones calling for a harsher sentence, leading to speculation the move has been influenced by the diplomatic rift between Beijing and Ottawa. Schellenberg can appeal against the sentence in an upper court. "China has the ability to grant clemency, and this will be used as another pressure tactic against Canada," said Hugh Stephens, distinguished fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. Beijing has repeatedly denied any links to Canada's arrest of the Huawei executive. Last week, Mr Trudeau accused China of "arbitrarily and unfairly" detaining former diplomat Michael Kovrig and business consultant Michael Spavor, who were arrested nine days after Canada arrested Ms Meng. Mr Trudeau suggested that Mr Kovrig still enjoyed diplomatic immunity, an assertion rejected by the Chinese foreign ministry on Monday. BEIJING (Reuters) - Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig, being held in China on suspicion of endangering national security, is not entitled to diplomatic immunity, China's foreign ministry said on Monday. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday chastised China over the detention of two Canadians following the arrest of a senior Chinese executive at the request of the United States. Trudeau also accused China of "not respecting the principles of diplomatic immunity" in one of the cases. Asked about Trudeau's comments, China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that the "relevant Canadian person" should "earnestly study" the Vienna Convention before speaking, so as to "not become a laughing stock". "No matter how you look at it, Michael Kovrig does not have diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention," she said. Kovrig is not now serving as a diplomat and had entered China on his most recent trip on a regular passport and business visa, she said. Kovrig was one of two Canadians detained in China days after the Dec. 1 arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co [HWT.UL], in Vancouver, at the request of the United States. The other Canadian held in China is businessman Michael Spavor. China has not directly linked its arrest of the two Canadians with Meng's arrest in Canada. It says the two men are being investigated in accordance with Chinese law. But Beijing-based Western diplomats have called the detentions a clear reprisal for Meng's arrest and have said the two are "political hostages" being used as leverage by Beijing. Huawei, the world's largest supplier of telecommunications network equipment, has become the focus of intense scrutiny by Western countries concerned about its relationship with the Chinese government. The United States has suggested the company's equipment could be used by Chinese authorities for spying. U.S. authorities allege Meng deceived international banks into clearing transactions with Iran by claiming that two companies that did business with Iran were independent of Huawei. However, corporate filings and other documents found by Reuters in Iran and Syria show that Huawei is closely linked to both firms. (Reporting by Michael Martina; Writing by Christian Shepherd; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) Beijing (AFP) - China on Tuesday vociferously defended a court's decision to impose the death penalty on a convicted Canadian drug smuggler, escalating a diplomatic row that experts say has descended into a high-stakes game of "hostage politics". China's foreign ministry blasted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's "irresponsible remarks" after he criticised the death sentence handed to 36-year-old Robert Lloyd Schellenberg. Beijing and Ottawa have been squabbling since last month, when Canada arrested the chief financial officer of top Chinese telecom company Huawei on a US extradition request related to Iran sanctions violations. In a move observers see as retaliation, Chinese authorities detained two Canadian citizens -- a former diplomat and a business consultant -- on suspicion of endangering national security. Then authorities revisited the little-known case of Schellenberg, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in November for drug offences. A month later, an upper court took up his appeal and ordered a hasty retrial in the northeastern city of Dalian after ruling that the punishment was too lenient. The timing and swiftness of Schellenberg's sentence, and the inclusion of new evidence presenting him as a key player in a plan to ship 222 kilograms (490 pounds) of methamphetamine to Australia, raised suspicion among observers. "Playing hostage politics, China rushes the retrial of a Canadian suspect and sentences him to death in a fairly transparent attempt to pressure Canada," Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said in a tweet. Donald Clarke, a George Washington University professor specialising in Chinese law, coined an even grimmer term for the situation: "death threat diplomacy". "The Chinese government is not even trying to pretend that there was a fair trial here," he said. Trudeau expressed "extreme concern" that China had "chosen to arbitrarily" apply the death penalty. Story continues But Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying denied Beijing had politicised Schellenberg's case, calling on Canada to "respect China's judicial sovereignty... and stop making such irresponsible remarks". Schellenberg plans to appeal, his lawyer Zhang Dongshuo told AFP. "But it won't be so quick, it'll probably be some time around the middle of next week," he said. Ottawa had issued a new travel advisory urging citizens to "exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws". Beijing issued a similar response hours later, calling on Chinese citizens to "travel cautiously" after a Chinese citizen was "arbitrarily detained on the basis of a request of a third-party country", an apparent reference to Meng's arrest. - Suspect timing - China executes one or two foreigners every year -- nearly all for drug offences, according to John Kamm, director of the US-based Dui Hua Foundation rights group. Experts said retrials are rare in China, especially ones calling for a harsher sentence, but rights groups note that courts are not independent and can be influenced by the ruling Communist Party. "What's unusual is how this case shifted from extremely slow handling to suddenly rapid fire movement," said Margaret Lewis, a law professor at Seton Hall University. The rare decision to allow three foreign journalists, including one from AFP, to attend the hearing makes it "clear that the Chinese government wants (the) international spotlight on this case". "The timing is suspect and certainly his nationality makes it all the more glaring," she said. - Meng at home - Schellenberg, who claimed he was innocent and framed by an acquaintance, has 10 days to appeal to the same high court that rejected his first appeal. Lewis said the court was likely to confirm the sentence and the case would move up to the Supreme People's Court. The top court could confirm the death penalty, give him a two-year suspended death sentence that would be converted into a long prison term or reduce his punishment, she said. Clarke said: "My prediction is that the Supreme People's Court will sit on the review decision for as long as Meng's fate remains undetermined." The fate of the other two Canadians, who have been held in undisclosed locations, remains a mystery. Last week, Trudeau accused China of "arbitrarily and unfairly" detaining former diplomat Michael Kovrig and business consultant Michael Spavor, who were rounded up nine days after Canada arrested Meng. The Chinese foreign ministry rejected Trudeau's assertion that Kovrig, who now works for the International Crisis Group, still enjoyed diplomatic immunity. Meng, meanwhile, was granted bail by a Canadian court last month, allowing her to wait for the US extradition hearing in a Vancouver house. Beijing on Tuesday repeated its calls for her immediate release, calling on Canada to correct its "severe mistake". Black Mirror might delve into some deep and dark ideas about the evolution of technology, and the way society consumes it, but its co-creator wants viewers to spend more time enjoying it rather than overanalysing it. Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones are the creative team behind the Channel 4-turned-Netflix TV series which recently released its latest episode Bandersnatch onto the streaming service. The Create Your Own Adventure format allows viewers to choose what decisions and directions the lead character, a young programmer called Stefan (Fionn Whitehead) should take as the feature-length story unfolds. The concept has earned mixed reviews from critics and viewers alike but Brooker says the worst reaction has been people taking it too seriously. I only get annoyed when people think that Black Mirror takes itself more seriously than it actually does, he told Yahoo Movies UK. I think this is a very playful story that weve done here and I think sometimes people lose sight of that and take it too seriously, so sod those people! He added: I hope they take the film seriously but I think that they think were trying to sort of make some grand statement on humankind. Credit: Netflix / Black Mirror Will Poulter, one of the stars of Bandersnatch, quit social media for mental health reasons not long after the special episode hit Netflix. He cited recent experiences and went on to talk about receiving responses and criticisms from viewers, which suggests he had been targeted with negative feedback from Black Mirror fans. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Black Mirror will return for a fifth season which will include four new episodes and feature the likes of Miley Cyrus. Details are being kept under wraps for what to expect but the show should return to Netflix this year. Charlie Brooker and Asim Chaudhry at the Bandersnatch launch (Netflix) Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is available to stream on Netflix now. Read more James McAvoy casts doubt on an X-Men/Avengers crossover Stars who hated being in Marvel movies Samuel L Jackson drops Avengers 4 spoiler Kevin McKenzie captured video of a young black man being arrested at a Memphis mall for wearing a hoodie sweatshirt just moments before he too was arrested for defending the young man. (Photo: Facebook/Peggy D. McKenzie) Two men who made headlines in November after they were arrested in a case of alleged racial profiling have had all charges against them dismissed. One of the men had been apprehended for violating the malls no hoodie dress code, and the second man had been detained shortly after for defending him and for filming the incident. But the man who was filming, Kevin McKenzie, told Yahoo Lifestyle its not satisfying to have the charges dropped against him and Montavious Smith, the man who was wearing the hoodie. The mall-to-prison pipeline is still intact, said the former journalist, who posted his video to Facebook right after the Nov. 3 incident took place in order to publicize what he calls an injustice. At the time, McKenzies wife, Peggy, said on Facebook that her husband had the most shocking, infuriating, humiliating experience when he witnessed Smith and his friends being followed by an older white male security guard, then quickly being confronted, handcuffed and escorted out of the Wolfchase Galleria mall in Memphis, Tenn. McKenzie said his antenna went up, especially since Smith, who is a father, did not even have his hood up. So McKenzie decided to intervene and capture it all on his cellphone. Thats when security guards turned their attention to him, he told Yahoo Lifestyle. The guard said, Youre in violation of mall policy. So you can be asked to leave too, so you might want to put your phone up. But McKenzie refused. Thats when he found himself in a similar predicament being handcuffed and detained. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. The incident caused an uproar in the community. It made its way to a group of white women who decided to take a trip to the Wolfchase Galleria a few weeks later all wearing hoodies to prove a point. If they were able to get away with the same transgression that got Smith kicked out and arrested, they reasoned, then it was a clear case of racial profiling. They wrote on Instagram that they were able to walk around the mall with their hoods on. If a security guard asked them to remove their hoods, they did. Story continues This is blatantly unfair, and we knew nothing would happen to us. We knew before we even started, one of the women, Sherry Ennis, told Yahoo Lifestyle at the time. These are young men that did nothing wrong. All these men did was go to the mall and wear hoodies and be African-American, she said. McKenzies video also made its way to Team ROC, a division of Jay-Zs Roc Nation devoted to fighting racial injustices. Team ROC was able to secure two lawyers to defend Smith and McKenzie pro bono, according to the Grio. The attorneys were able to get the charges dropped last week. They also met with mall officials to try to change a dress-code policy many suspect targets black youth. The new policy states, Hoodies are acceptable as long as the guests face remains visible. Dania Diaz, Roc Nations managing director of philanthropy, told Yahoo Lifestyle, Our goal is to use our shared resources to combat injustice and amplify the need for universal equality, so were glad to have rallied around Montavious in his time of need, and were thrilled that the charges against him have been dismissed. She said Roc Nation is also incredibly appreciative to officials at the Simon Property Group which owns Wolfchase Galleria for collaborating with them to change the dress-code policy. Smith told Yahoo Lifestyle hes grateful that the charges against him were dismissed. The last couple months havent been easy for me and my family, but Im looking forward to turning this negative situation into an educational opportunity for local and national communities alike, he said in a statement. But McKenzie isnt as optimistic and feels the problem is a systemic one. Young African-American men are still vulnerable to being racially profiled and criminalized for ordinary behavior like wanting to go to the mall to buy some clothes, he said, noting that there are millions of people that face this every day for behavior that should have never been criminalized in the first place. McKenzie continued: When the Wolfchase mall folks announced they didnt want the charges to be pressed any further, it wasnt up to them anymore. The criminal justice system had already dropped it into the machine. He said it was then up to the prosecutors to decide whether he and Smith were criminal defendants and its that very system that needs to be dismantled, he said. He was, however, impressed with the four white women who helped demonstrate the racial profiling theory he put forth. He contacted them in January, thanking them for their support and action, Shannon Arthur, one of the four hoodie-wearing friends, told Yahoo Lifestyle. She also expressed her relief at the charges being dismissed. Im happy that Mr. Smith and Mr. McKenzie can now put this behind them, she said. I understand that Wolfchase mall has revised their clothing policy. I hope the new policy is consistently enforced with all members of our community. Yahoo Lifestyle reached out to Simon Properties, owners of the Wolfchase Galleria, for comment, and will update this post when we hear back. Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. Three-and-a-half-year-old Alfie Lamb, who was crushed to death by an electric car seat because his mothers boyfriend was annoyed that he was making too much noise, a court at the Old Bailey in London heard. A three-year-old boy was crushed to death by an electric car seat because his mothers boyfriend was annoyed that he was making too much noise, a court has heard. Stephen Waterson, 25, who was in the front passenger seat, deliberately pushed his chair back twice in anger at the noise and fuss when he knew Alfie was in the rear footwell, the Old Bailey was told. Alfies mother, Adrian Hoare, 23, who was in the seat behind her son, is charged with manslaughter alongside Waterson. Razor brand Gillette is being criticised over its new advert, which aims to tackle toxic masculinity. It features male characters in a variety of scenarios, including harassing women at work and in the street, fighting and playground bullying, and calls on men to be the best a man can be. Some including broadcaster Piers Morgan and comedian Ricky Gervais suggested it was inappropriate for a shaving company to be making a politically-charged message, and others have taken issue with the portrayal of men. Theresa May is facing a historic defeat in Parliament as MPs gear up for a vote on her Brexit deal. More than 100 Conservatives and the DUP have publicly said they will vote against the deal. The Prime Minister is expected to head back to Brussels in an attempt to seek concessions in the event of a defeat. After 10 years alone in his aquarium tank, Romeo, the worlds loneliest frog, has finally found his Juliet. Scientists ventured to a remote Bolivian cloud forest in search of other Sehuencas water frogs and managed to capture five, one of whom has now joined Romeo. The frog had been calling for a mate from his tank for a decade. A hard up mum, known only as Clair, called police after her 37 Dominos order was cancelled. Stock image. (PA) A skint mum who splashed out 37 on Dominos pizza for her family called the POLICE when the order was cancelled. The woman, known only as Clair, ordered the slap-up feast for her three children aged 15, 13, and five despite having just 44 in her bank account. But the kids were left in tears when the oven broke at the Dominos outlet in Plymouth, Devon. The pizza chain apologised but was unable to process the refund until the next day meaning Clair did not have enough money left to feed her family. Clair was left with just 7 in her bank account after a refund failed to process for five days. Stock image. They ended up having crisps and things for dinner and went to bed hungry and upset. Clair said: I phoned the police to ask if they could help, I was nearly crying. They said there was nothing they could do and I had to phone Dominos. The manager didnt even offer for me to go to the other store. I said can I come and collect the money back from them and they said no they cant do that. I had 7 left in my account. The mum and her family were forced to eat crisps and things for their dinner after the order was cancelled. Stock image. (PA) I used the last of my money to pay for the order that they accepted, they left it an hour before phoning me up to tell me I couldnt have the order because the oven had broke. I explained I had no more money, I said so you going to leave my kids with no food to go hungry, thats it then, they dont get to eat tonight. To make matters worse, it took a further five days for Clairs bank to process the refund into her account. She added: I really, really wish I wasnt there to see the disappointment on my youngest sons face, not to mention the fact that they were hungry and upset. They took 37 and left us left us with nothing. When I said I would call the police to ask for them to help me she just replied okay then and that was it. A spokesperson for Dominos said: Our store oven broke, so we apologised and refunded the customer the following morning. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK A trio of bungling burglars who stole more than 20 cars in 16 raids totalling 500,000 have been jailed. Kieran Gordon, Joshua Birch and Imad Kaid snapped door locks to force their way into at least 16 homes mainly in Sandwell and Dudley between February and September last year on the hunt for keys to high-value cars. The trio aged 22, 22 and 21 respectively made off with more than 20 cars, often new Audi, Mercedes and Range Rover models, during the overnight raids in quiet residential streets and cul-de-sacs. Many of the cars were later recovered by West Midlands Police. Kieran Gordons fingerprints were found on piles of collectible comics abandoned in a holdall after police stopped the stolen Nissan Juke he was travelling in. (West Midlands Police) A Nissan Juke taken from outside a home in Netherton, in the early hours of April 24 was seized following a pursuit three days later, and despite the driver and passengers fleeing they left evidence that would lead to their downfall. Officers found a holdall inside containing collectable comics stolen during the theft of an Audi in Ribberford Close, Cradley, on 27 April on which Gordons fingerprints were found, plus items stolen from St Josephs Close, Droitwich, on the same morning. Birch, of Lea Bank Road in Netherton, was arrested on April 28, he was found in possession of an Audi key from the Cradley break-in and images on his phone showed Gordon asleep in the Nissan Juke. He re-arrested on May 25 and Gordon, pf Mill Road in Cradley Heath, was questioned on June 1. Pictures uncovered by police show Joshua Birch posing in a stolen Volkswagen Golf (West Midlands Police) Gordon and Kaid, of Coleman Hill Avenue, Colley, were arrested on November 21 after an attempted break in. They were stopped in Kaids A3 driving away from the scene and a Vauxhall Corsa stolen days earlier was recovered nearby. A search of Kaids home later found a stolen Macbook, on which Kaid had changed the profile name on the device to Robin Banks. They were both charged with conspiracy to commit burglary and conspiracy to steal motor vehicles along with Birch. Detectives also found a picture of Gordon asleep in a stolen vehicle. (West Midlands Police) The trio all pleaded guilty. Birch, Gordon and Kaid were jailed for five years four months, five years, and four years 10 months respectively. Story continues Detective Constable Darren Barnes, of West Midlands Police, said: These individuals were causing a lot of misery to residents across Sandwell, Dudley and further afield and people can certainly sleep more soundly knowing that they have been put behind bars for a significant period of time. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Cannabis investors saw a pair of notable moves in popular stocks on Monday, with Canopy Growth CGC moving 11% and Aurora Cannabis ACB adding nearly 7% on the back of exciting deals for both companies. Canopy Growth on Monday received a license from New York that will allow the Canadian company to process and produce hemp in the state. The move is a part of larger efforts from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Senator Charles Schumer as well as Canopys own hopes to break into the U.S. market. In a company press release, Canopy cited Cuomos help in creating the Hemp Research Pilot Program and Schumers leadership in passing the recent U.S. farm bill as being instrumental in getting the deal done. The 2018 edition of the farm bill legalized the production of hemp in the United States. A final location for Canopy Growths New York site will depend on a board vote, but the company is currently evaluating a number of spots in the Southern Tier of the state, according to CNBC. Canopy plans to invest up to $150 million in the location, which it hopes will be capable of producing tons of hemp annually. Schumers office added in its own release that the companys investment is a true win-win for Canopy Growth, who will be positioned at the forefront of Upstate New York's industrial hemp revolution, and for the Southern Tier's economy and farmers, which will receive a major shot in the arm in new good-paying jobs. Meanwhile, fellow Canadian marijuana producer Aurora Cannabis announced Monday that it is acquiring British Columbia-based Whistler Medical Marijuana for about $132 million. Whistler is a recognizable brand in Canada and received one of the countrys original 10 licenses to produce marijuana. It was also the first marijuana company to earn organic certification in Canada. This transaction adds an iconic, organic certified BC-based brand with exceptional traction and a significant price premium in both the medical and retail markets, said Aurora CEO Terry Booth. Story continues On top of its recognizability, Whistler offers Aurora a unique opportunity to expand internationally, as it already sells medical cannabis derivatives to Australia and the Cayman Islands. Whistlers second production facility is expected to be completed this summer and will have a capacity of over 5,000 kilograms per year. Canopy Growth and Auroras deal-making spread optimism to the rest of the marijuana industry during the weeks first trading session. The ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF MJ gained 1.7% on Monday, underscoring hopes for more major deals that can add legitimacy to the young business. Today's Stocks from Zacks' Hottest Strategies It's hard to believe, even for us at Zacks. But while the market gained +21.9% in 2017, our top stock-picking screens have returned +115.0%, +109.3%, +104.9%, +98.6%, and +67.1%. And this outperformance has not just been a recent phenomenon. Over the years it has been remarkably consistent. From 2000 - 2017, the composite yearly average gain for these strategies has beaten the market more than 19X over. Maybe even more remarkable is the fact that we're willing to share their latest stocks with you without cost or obligation. See Them Free>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research A Canadian man has been sentenced to death in China for drug smuggling as diplomatic tensions between the two countries escalate. In a sudden retrial, a court in north-eastern Liaoning province said it had given Robert Lloyd Schellenberg the death penalty after rejecting his plea of innocence and convicting him of being an accessory to drug smuggling. It gave no indication that the penalty could be commuted, but Schellenbergs fate could become intertwined in diplomatic negotiations over Chinas demand for the release of a top technology executive. The Chinese press began publicising Schellenbergs case in December after Canada detained Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, at the request of the United States. Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was sentenced to death at his retrial on Monday (Picture: AP) Washington wants Meng the daughter of Huaweis founder extradited to face charges that she misled banks about the companys business dealings in Iran. She is out on bail in Canada and awaiting a bail extradition proceeding next month. In the meantime, China has arrested two Canadians in apparent retaliation for Mengs arrest. Both Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, were arrested on vague national security allegations. A Canadian teacher was detained but released. MORE: Theresa May warns of unforgivable breach of trust if MPs dont vote for her Brexit deal MORE: Donald Trumps behaviour so concerning FBI opened Russia collusion inquiry Schellenbergs aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones, said her nephews death sentence was a horrific, unfortunate, heartbreaking situation. She added: It is our worst case fear confirmed. It is rather unimaginable what he must be feeling and thinking. Amnesty International says there were at least 993 executions in 23 countries in 2017 (Picture: Amnesty International) Amnesty International recorded at least 993 executions in 23 countries in 2017 and at least 2,591 death sentences in 53 countries in 2017. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said he was concerned that China chose to arbitrarily apply the death penalty to one of his countrys citizens. Story continues Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was detained by Canada at the request of the US (Picture: AP) Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has spoken out against the sentence (Picture: AP) Schellenberg was detained more than four years ago and initially sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2016. But last month an appeals court agreed with prosecutors who said the sentence was too lenient, and scheduled Mondays retrial with just four days notice. Schellenbergs lawyer Zhang Dongshuo said his client now has 10 days to appeal. Mr Zhang said he argued in the one-day trial on Monday that there was insufficient evidence to prove his clients involvement in the drug smuggling operation. He added that prosecutors had not introduced new evidence to justify a heavier sentence. This is a very unique case, Mr Zhang said. Schellenberg had been initially given a a 15-year jail sentence before his retrial (Picture: AP) He said the swiftness of the proceedings with a retrial held so soon after it was ordered was unusual, but declined to comment on whether it was related to Mengs arrest. Schellenberg had been prepared for a more severe punishment so he maintained a calm demeanour in court, Mr Zhang said. The court ruled that Schellenberg was recruited to help smuggle more than 222kg of methamphetamine from a warehouse in Dalian city to Australia. A Chinese person convicted of involvement in the same operation was earlier given a suspended death sentence. In 2009, China executed a Briton, Akmal Shaikh, on charges of smuggling heroin despite his supporters protest that he was mentally ill. On Friday, Poland arrested a Huawei director and one of its own former cyber security experts and charged them with spying for China. Canada has issued a warning to its citizens about travelling to China after a Canadian man was sentenced to death on drug charges amid worsening diplomatic tensions. The Canadian government told travellers to exercise a high degree of caution in the country, highlighting Chinese authorities arbitrary enforcement of local laws and the death penalty. The foreign ministry issued the updated advisory hours after Robert Lloyd Schellenburg was sentenced to execution in a sudden retrial, two months after he was jailed for 15 years for drug smuggling. An appeals court in the northeast province of Liaoning had ordered the retrial within weeks of Canadas arrest of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. The court ruled Schellenburgs initial jail term was too lenient, but Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau suggested Beijing was using its judicial system to apply pressure over the executives detention. It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply a death penalty, Mr Trudeau said. Canadas updated travel advisory noted that Chinas penalties for possession, use, production or trafficking of illegal drugs are strict and include the death penalty. Penalties can be assigned arbitrarily, it added. Schellenburg, 36, was arrested more than four years ago and first went on trial in 2016. He was convicted of involvement in an international drug-trafficking operation that planned to smuggling 220kg of methamphetamine from a warehouse in the Chinese city of Dalian to Australia. The Canadians lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo, said prosecutors had introduced no new evidence to justify a heavier sentence during Mondays retrial, during which Schellenberg maintained his innocence. His client would appeal, he added. Mr Zhang described the case as unique and said the one-day proceedings had been unusually swift, but he declined to comment on any connections to Ms Mengs arrest. Story continues Schellenbergs aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones, said her familys worst fears had been realised. Our thoughts are with Robert at this time. It is rather unimaginable what he must be feeling and thinking, she added. It is a horrific, unfortunate, heartbreaking situation. Chinas foreign ministry rejected criticism of the sentence, telling Mr Trudeau to respect the country's sovereignty. The state-run Global Times newspaper dismissed suggestions that Beijing was attempting to pressure Canada over Ms Mengs case, complaining of unreasonable speculation that showed rude contempt for Chinese law. Public opinion in Canada has claimed recently that China is politicisng Schellenbergs case, but what Canada is doing is actually politicising law, said an editorial published on Monday. Human Rights Watch accused China of playing hostage politics. Executive director Kenneth Roth said Schellenbergs rushed retrial and death penalty was a fairly transparent attempt to pressure Canada into releasing Ms Meng. The executive, who is the daughter of Huaweis founder, was arrested at Vancouver airport on 1 December at the request of the US. American authorities have accused Ms Meng of using a subsidiary company to circumvent sanctions against Iran and have requested her extradition to face fraud charges. Her arrest outraged China and has caused tensions between Beijing, the US and Canada. Schellenberg is the third Canadian to run afoul of Chinese law since Ms Mengs arrest. Former diplomat Michael Kovrig and business consultant Michael Spavor are both held on suspicion of endangering state security. On Monday, Chinas foreign ministry said authorities had determined Mr Kovrig was not entitled to diplomatic immunity, rejecting a complaint from Canada that Beijing was flouting longstanding protocols. Zachary Keck Security, Is that a problem? Boeing's F-15X Could Be a Killer in the Sky (But It Won't Have Stealth) Purchasing such a non-stealthy fighter would be a huge departure for the U.S. Air Force. Since 2002, the USAF has only bought fifth-generation fighters. This has made some observers skeptical of the idea that the U.S. Air Force is interested in such a plane. Boeing is considering producing a new advanced version of its F-15 Eagle for the U.S. Air Force, according to various news reports. Defense One was the first to report the news. On July 16, Defense Ones Marcus Weisgerber revealed that Boeing is quietly pitching the U.S. Air Force on the new F-15X model. Weisgerber noted that the company appeared to be trying to replicate the strategy it used to convince the Trump administration to purchase more F/A-18s. (This first appeared last August.) The Defense One report only had a few details about the ways in which the F-15X would differ from earlier models of the airplane. Dubbed the F-15X, the new variant of the venerable jet offers more modern flight controls, cockpit displays, and radar, Weisgerber wrote, citing military and industry sources. He added that it would also pack more firepower, including two dozen air-to-air missiles. On July 25, The Drives Tyler Rogoway provided a more detailed follow up about the proposed new jet. According to Rogoways sources, the idea for the more advanced F-15 did not originate from Boeing. Instead, a year and a half ago the U.S. Air Force approached both Boeing and Lockheed Martin about fielding a new cost-effective aircraft to help reverse the shrinking size of the Air Forces fleet. The Air Force wanted a plane that was cost-effective both in terms of operation and acquisition, very low-risk, and most of all, it would need to be non-disruptive to the larger F-35 procurement initiative. This would complement rather than help replace some of the F-35s. The purpose, according to Rogoways sources, was to provide a better high-low capability combination. That is, a recognition that not all missions will require stealthy fifth-generation aircraft like the F-22 and F-35. Cheaper fourth-generation aircraft like a new designed F-15 would be better for carrying out a host of different missions, such as dealing with terrorist and militant groups. Story continues As far as the F-15Xs specifications, Rogoways sources describe the aircraft as a single seat variant of the latest F-15 advanced Strike Eagle derivativethe F-15QA destined for Qatarbut it will also integrate many of the features and upgrades that the USAF intends (or intended as it may be) to include on its nearly four-decade-old F-15C/D fleet. He adds that it also includes a flat-panel glass cockpit, JHMCS II helmet mounted display (HMD), revised internal wing structure, fly-by-wire controls, [and] APG-82 AESA radar, as well as the Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System (EPAWSS) electronic warfare and electronic surveillance suite, among other features. The Drive report confirmed the Defense One article on one point: the plane will pack a ton of firepower. Among its configurations will be twenty-two air-to-air missiles, eight air-to-air missiles and twenty-eight Small Diameter Bombs (SDBs), or seven larger two-thousand-pound bombs with the same eight air-to-air missiles. That compares to just eight air-to-air missiles for the F-15C/D Eagle. Recommended: Forget the F-35: The Tempest Could Be the Future Recommended: Why No Commander Wants to Take On a Spike Missile Recommended: What Will the Sixth-Generation Jet Fighter Look Like? One feature the F-15X will not have is stealth. It will continue to be a fourth-generation fighter with no low-observable enhancements. In other words, this would not be the plane to fight on the front lines of any conflict with a capable adversary like Russia or China. Purchasing such a non-stealthy fighter would be a huge departure for the U.S. Air Force. Since 2002, the USAF has only bought fifth-generation fighters. This has made some observers skeptical of the idea that the U.S. Air Force is interested in such a plane. Noting the F-15X reports, Dave Majumdar said that Its amazing this Boeing sales pitch is being swallowed hook, line and sinker by the trade press . . . The Air Force will never buy this jet. He added: It is useless inside heavily defended airspace if we are dealing with any sort of real military force. And if the United States is simply targeting terrorist or insurgent groups, then a plane like the F-15X would be an expensive extravagance. If the Air Force is interested in the F-15X, its also fair to question whether they could be purchased without cutting into the procurement of the F-35. After all, defense budgets are limited. Furthermore, this would not be the first time that interest in the F-15 has come at the expense of the F-35. Israel also appears set to purchase more F-15s instead of additional F-35s. Zachary Keck (@ZacharyKeck) is a former managing editor of The National Interest. Read full article Trading on Smarkets suggest a delay to Brexit is inevitable. Pic: Smarkets It is now more than 83% likely that the UK wont leave the European Union by 29 March, according to betting exchange Smarkets. The peer-to-peer trading website, which prices bets like a commodity, also says it is now 99% likely that the vote on prime minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal will fail in Tuesday evenings meaningful vote in the House of Commons. All forecasts are pointing to a historically bad defeat for May, a Smarkets statement said. Traders on Smarkets make it 23% that fewer than 200 MPs support the deal. READ MORE: The five main possible outcomes if the Brexit deal is rejected May has increasingly warned that the choice is between her deal and a no-deal Brexit, with traders on the website now suggesting that the chance of the UK leaving without a deal is just 10%, close to all-time low levels. The prime minister has warned those who oppose the deal that they risk letting the British people down. That said, at 45%, Smarkets still favours the UK leaving the EU over an extension or revocation of Article 50, which triggered the two-year Brexit negotiation process. MPs will vote at 7pm local time tonight on the deal. Despite a last-ditch attempt on Monday to get her MPs to support the deal, it is widely expected to be defeated. Attorney general nominee William P. Barr said Tuesday afternoon that he would support a federal law prohibiting the recreational use of marijuana by in all 50 states even those that have legalized it at the state level. During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barr argued that the U.S. governments increased tolerance for marijuana in recent years has been a mistake. Under questioning by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Barr said the current discrepancy between federal law and state laws is untenable. We either should have a federal law that prohibits marijuana everywhere, which I would support myself. Because I think that its a mistake to back off on marijuana. However, if we [dont] want a federal approach, if we want states to have their own laws, then lets get there and lets get there the right way, Barr told Booker. Attorney general nominee William Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. (Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP) Barr, who was tapped by President Trump to lead the Justice Department, had previously held the same position under former President George Bush from 1991 until 1993. Critics of Barrs tenure argue that his support for harsh drug laws contributed to the epidemic of mass incarceration while supporters applaud his role in the war on drugs. Since the 1990s, 10 states and the District of Columbia have legalized the recreational use of marijuana and 33 states have legalized medical cannabis. Early last year, Jeff Sessions, who resigned as attorney general in November, rescinded the Cole memo from 2013, which had effectively allowed states to determine their own cannabis laws sparking fear that the Trump Justice Department would start prosecuting marijuana businesses and customers in states where the drug had been legalized. When Booker asked Barr whether he thought Sessions was correct in rescinding the Cole memo, Barr said it was important not to upset the interests and expectations of the businesses and investors who have entered the legal marijuana industry. However, I think the current situation is untenable and really has to be addressed. Its almost like a backdoor nullification of federal law. To me its a binary choice. Either we have a federal law that applies to everybody Barr said, before being interrupted by Booker. Story continues How would you address that? Do you think its appropriate to use federal resources to target marijuana businesses that are compliant with state law? Booker asked. No, Barr responded. I said Im not going to go after companies that have relied on the Cole memorandum. Later in the hearing, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., asked again if he intends to use the limited federal resources at his disposal to enforce federal marijuana laws in the states where the drug has been legalized. No, I thought I answered that by saying, to the extent that people are complying with the state laws distribution and production and so forth, were not going to go after that. But I do feel we cant stay in the current situation, he said. You can imagine any kind of situation. Can an existing administration and an attorney general start cutting deals with states saying, Were not going to apply the federal law. Some gun law or some other thing saying, Were not going to apply it in your state. Barr said it is incumbent upon Congress to decide whether marijuana law will be established and governed by a federal government or state-based system. This is breeding disrespect for the federal law, he said. Mason Tvert, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, said he was pleased with some of what Barr said on the stand. Were pleased to see that the nominee intends to respect state marijuana laws and refrain from interfering with policies approved by state lawmakers and voters, Tvert told Yahoo News. The American public is clearly in support of ending marijuana prohibition and strongly believes the federal government should not interfere with state marijuana laws. The administration has respected that thus far and we hope that will continue under the next attorney general. Trump signed the bipartisan 2018 farm bill into law last month. It legalized the hemp plant, which is nearly identical to marijuana but does not contain THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the psychoactive component that gets people high. Hemp does, however, contain CBD (cannabidiol), another ingredient found in marijuana that has been used to treat anxiety. A recent poll from the Pew Research Center found that 62 percent of Americans think that marijuana use should be legalized reflecting an overall upward trend in recent decades. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: See our 2018 year-end features >>> William Barr, President Trumps nominee for attorney general, told senators at his confirmation hearing Tuesday that he doesnt believe Robert Mueller is involved in a witch hunt contradicting what Trump has been saying almost since it began. He pledged to allow the special counsel to complete the Russia investigation without interference. It is in the best interest of everyone the president, Congress and, most importantly, the American people that this matter be resolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work, Barr said in his opening remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee. I will follow the special counsel regulations scrupulously and in good faith, and on my watch, Bob will be allowed to finish. Mueller is thought to be in the final stages of his investigation into the Trump campaigns possible collusion with Moscow and whether the president himself obstructed the probe. Barr, though, did not fully commit to releasing Muellers findings to Congress and the public saying he would release as much as I can. William Barr the nominee for attorney general, is sworn in before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. (Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP) Barr, who served as attorney general during the George H.W. Bush administration, also said he probably agreed with former Attorney General Jeff Sessions decision to recuse himself from overseeing the Russia probe, a move that enraged Trump. I am not sure of all the facts, Barr said, but I think he probably did the right thing recusing himself. Sessions was closely involved in Trumps 2016 campaign. Presiding over his first public hearing as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., began by raising concerns over the recent report that the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump was acting as an agent of Russia. He brought up the text messages between former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, which Trump and other conservatives say showed anti-Republican bias within the Department of Justice. Graham read several of the text messages aloud and asked Barr to commit to investigating the matter. Story continues Do you promise me as attorney general, if you get this job, to look into seeing what happened? Graham asked. Yes, Mr. Chairman, Barr replied. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., await the confirmation hearing Tuesday of William Barr, nominee for attorney general. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the committee, told Barr that it was important that the next attorney general be able to strongly resist pressure, whether from the administration or Congress, to conduct investigations for political purposes. You must have the integrity, the strength and the fortitude to tell the president No, regardless of the consequences, she said. Democrats on the committee questioned Barr over an unsolicited June 2018 memo he sent to White House lawyers criticizing Muellers obstruction investigation. In the 19-page memo, Barr argued that Muellers obstruction of justice probe was fatally misconceived. Barr said that his memo was based on personal speculation about the probe and not on any classified information. He said that he discussed the Mueller investigation with Trump but not in any particular substance. President Trump has sought no assurances, promises or commitments from me of any kind, either expressed or implied, and I have not given him any, Barr said. William Barr addresses the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. (Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP) Barrs assurance that he doesnt consider Muellers probe a witch hunt came in response to this question by Graham: Do you believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt against anybody? Barr responded: I dont believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt. Barr said he has no problem with the president asking the DOJ to open cases in which he has no political or personal interest. But he said the attorney generals obligation is not to take any action unless the DOJ reaches its own independent conclusion that is justified under the law. I am not going to do anything I think is wrong, and Im not going to be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong, he said. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: William Barr, President Trumps nominee for attorney general, went to great lengths Tuesday to assure senators of his commitment to letting special counsel Robert Mueller complete his investigation. I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong by anybody, whether it be editorial boards or Congress of the president. I am going to do what I think is right, Barr said, in response to a question by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. But Barrs remarks also seemed directed at someone else: President Trump, who detests the special counsels probe and is widely believed to have chosen Barr because of his expansive views of presidential power and prerogatives. William Barr, President Trumps nominee as U.S. attorney general, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill on Jan. 15, 2019. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque /Reuters) The Senate Judiciary Committees questioning of Barr in contrast to the way Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was challenged at his confirmation hearing in October was relatively cordial, and he is widely expected to be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, with or without support from Democrats. But in going on the record, under oath, about his commitment to independence, Barr may have been sending a message to Trump. His testimony could be read as drawing a line in the sand for the president, who pressured his previous attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to reverse his recusal from overseeing the Mueller probe and eventually drove him to resign. If confirmed, I will not permit partisan politics, personal interests or any other improper consideration to interfere with this or any other investigation, pledged Barr, who headed the Department of Justice under President George H.W. Bush. Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., questions Barr at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP) Durbin and the ranking Democrat on the committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., pressed Barr on whether he would permit Mueller to finish his probe of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and possible obstruction of justice in Trumps firing of James Comey, the director of the FBI. Trump has regularly denounced the investigation as a witch hunt. In response to a question from the judiciary committees chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Barr said, I dont believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt. Story continues Barr added that he had worked closely with Mueller and considered him a good friend. Feinstein asked Barr to commit to providing Mueller with the necessary funds and resources to finish his investigation, and not to fire Mueller without good cause. Barr agreed to abide by each of those requests. He also said he would allow the public and Congress to see the report Mueller is expected to conclude in the next few months as much as I can reserving the right to redact or amend portions of it. Democrats have raised the question of Barrs independence in light of a memo he wrote and circulated last summer, as a private citizen, that by some readings suggested that a president is inherently immune to a charge of obstructing justice. In his opening remarks, Barr discussed that and said that this was not what his memo meant. The memo did not address or in any way question, he said, the special counsels core investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Nor did it address other potential obstruction-of-justice theories or argue, as some have erroneously suggested, that a president can never obstruct justice. William Barr during the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) Durbin asked a question that seemed more directed at Barrs state of mind than his judicial philosophy: In light of how Trump treated Sessions, how he has lashed out against federal judges and the FBI and forced out many members of his administration: Why do you want this job? Because I love this department and all its components, including the FBI, and I think theyre critical to preserving the rule of law, he answered. What would be your breaking point? When would you pick up and leave? When is your Jim Mattis moment, when the president has asked you to do something you think is inconsistent with your oath? Durbin persisted, referring to the defense secretary who resigned last month over Trumps precipitous decision to withdraw forces from Syria. Doesnt that give you some pause? It might give me pause if I was 45 or 50 years old, but it doesnt give me pause right now, because I had a very good life. I have a very good life, I love it, Barr, who is 68, responded, adding, and I am not going to do anything I think is wrong. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: During his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, attorney general nominee William Barr was asked by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., whether his Justice Department would jail journalists for doing their jobs. Barr, President Trumps pick for the nations top law enforcement officer, said he could envision a situation where a news organization or individual journalist could be held in contempt of court. I think that, uh, you know I know there are guidelines in place, Barr said after a seven-second pause. And I can conceive of situations where, uh, you know, as a last resort, and where a news organization has run through a red flag or something like that, knows that theyre putting out stuff that will hurt the country. There might there could be a situation where somebody could be held in contempt. Klobuchar, whose father was a longtime journalist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, told Barr that she would like his answer to the committee in writing, noting that she had asked former Attorney General Jeff Sessions for the same during his confirmation hearings in 2017. Trump has had an adversarial relationship with the media throughout his presidency, disparaging critical stories as fake news and floating the idea of prosecuting journalists and news outlets that publish them. Trump has also openly mused about changes to libel law to make it easier for the subjects of news stories to sue. And last year, the White House temporarily revoked press credentials for CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta following a contentious exchange with Trump at a press conference. William Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters) But presidential clashes with the press predate Trump. During President Barack Obamas administration, the Justice Department subpoenaed telephone records of Associated Press journalists and named Fox News correspondent James Rosen as a potential co-conspirator in separate leak cases. The Obama DOJ also refused to drop a case involving New York Times reporter James Risen that began during the George W. Bush administration. (Risen refused to testify about his confidential source in the federal investigation of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling. Risen lost a Supreme Court appeal, but then-Attorney General Eric Holder ultimately decided not to force his testimony.) Story continues If Donald J. Trump decides as president to throw a whistle-blower in jail for trying to talk to a reporter, or gets the F.B.I. to spy on a journalist, he will have one man to thank for bequeathing him such expansive power, Risen wrote in an op-ed three weeks before Trumps inauguration. Barack Obama. Last June, law enforcement officials seized years worth of phone and email records of a Times reporter, Ali Watkins, in a leak investigation of James Wolfe, the former director of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee and Watkins ex-boyfriend. (Wolfe was charged with lying to FBI investigators about his contacts with reporters.) New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet called the seizure a troublesome development. Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of democracy, and communications between journalists and their sources demand protection, the paper said. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.: Handling complaints about co-workers personal hygiene is a common challenge for employers and HR. Here are two of the questions Ive received on the topic. Q: What should I do about a colleague who doesnt wash his hands after going to the bathroom? Anonymous Taylor: I cant think of many issues in the workplace as sensitive as personal hygiene. Dealing with this problem can be uncomfortable, awkward and downright embarrassing. Because this is a tricky one, you should immediately involve your human resources department, which is trained to handle such sensitive conversations. While you might be appalled by your colleagues behavior (as you should be), the real issue is one of public safety. Bad hygiene can impact the health and well-being of co-workers and your companys customers and clients. According to research conducted by Blue Cross Blue Shield, when employees dont wash their hands, illnesses from the common cold to the flu to gastrointestinal infections can be spread to co-workers and cause them to miss work or be less productive when they do come to work while sick. And not a week goes by when we dont learn of a major outbreak of E. coli or Salmonella in which the suspected cause is a food worker who failed to wash his or her hands after using the restroom. Sadly, many of these outbreaks do more than sicken people they actually kill people, particularly children, the elderly and those whose immune systems are compromised from other illnesses. In short, an employee failing to wash his or her hands is a serious matter that could be a violation of company policy. Public-health campaigns have led to more hand-washing, but theres still a gap between those who say they wash their hands after using a public restroom and those who actually do it. If you see that someone isnt washing his or her hands, talk to HR about your concerns. Sometimes a personal hygiene issue stems from cultural norms or a medical condition. Q: My boss has body odor and bad breath. What can I do about this issue? Anonymous Story continues Taylor: Again, HR is your best ally. Many workplaces have dress codes or policies that include personal hygiene requirements. These requirements would be discussed in any conversation that HR has with a boss who has body odor or bad breath. Sometimes a personal hygiene issue stems from cultural norms or a medical condition. If this is the case, HR will respond empathetically while addressing the issue professionally. Q. Can a company fire a new employee within a 90-day probationary period without write-ups? Chris Taylor: If an employee works in an at-will state and there is no employment contract or collective bargaining agreement, an employer can fire the employee within the first 90 days without any warning or write-ups. Before offering details, let me define a few terms. At-will means that an employer or employee can terminate their relationship at any time and for any reason, except for unlawful ones such as discrimination or retaliation. Employment is at-will in all states except Montana. A probationary period is a set time to give an employer the opportunity to determine whether a new hire has the required skills and abilities and is a good fit with the job and company. The length of time for this varies from company to company, although 90 days seems common. A write-up also referred to as written warnings, disciplinary action or counseling forms is used to document an employees violation of company policy and issues with job performance. As a new employee, you may want to review your companys policies to determine whether its practices include verbal or written warnings before termination within the probationary period. Monitor your own performance by asking for and documenting feedback from your supervisors. Employers should be mindful that there is nothing magical about the number 90. Sometimes, performance issues manifest themselves in less or more time. And firing an employee during a probationary period does not provide greater protections against a wrongful termination lawsuit or discrimination complaint. Companies should clearly communicate to applicants and new employees the purpose of their probationary period and whether they are an at-will employer. As a matter of good faith, supervisors should give ongoing feedback to help probationary employees understand whether they are meeting the expectations of the job. No employer hires a worker thinking its not going to work out. But if termination is necessary, it should be done in a way that follows the employers practices, as well as state and federal law. Have a question? Do you have an HR or work-related question youd like me to answer? Submit it here. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ask HR: My boss has body odor and bad breath. What can I do about this issue? Canada's market share-leading cannabis company, Canopy Growth (NYSE: CGC), has long said it won't enter the U.S. market until there's a legal pathway to do so federally. The passage of the new U.S. Farm Bill in December gives it what it was waiting for. On Jan. 14, the company struck a deal with the state of New York to process hemp, a strain of cannabis that's low in the psychoactive chemical cannabinoid tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), to create hemp-based consumer-goods products. What's happening The negative attitudes toward marijuana have been easing over the past decade, and that's led to approval of legal marijuana in 33 states, including 10 states that have passed laws creating adult-use, recreational marijuana markets. Marijuana buds in front of a U.S. flag. IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES. The growing acceptance of marijuana has been fueled in part by stories and experiences stemming from the potential medical benefits of cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive cannabinoid found in hemp and other engineered cannabis strains. In fact, all but four states have laws on the books that allow patients to possess CBD, either through CBD-specific legislation or broader medical marijuana laws. Nevertheless, marijuana remains illegal federally in the U.S., and that's not only hamstrung companies interested in creating cannabis-based consumer-goods products, but it's also prevented companies operating within specific states from conducting business across state lines. The potential for a federal crackdown on marijuana isn't the only reason large cannabis companies, including Canopy Growth, have steered away from doing business in America. Marijuana is now legal nationwide in Canada, but Canadian companies listed on Canadian stock exchanges are prohibited from conducting business in countries where that business is illegal at the federal level. Rather than risk delisting, Canopy Growth and its peers decided to play it safe and focus their attention on Canada and other global markets, such as Germany. Story continues The U.S. Farm Bill signed into law in December doesn't change marijuana's legal status in Washington, D.C., but it does change the laws for hemp. The Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2018 that's included in the Farm Bill legalizes hemp, defining it as an "agricultural commodity," so that hemp and hemp products will no longer be scheduled, controlled substances in the United States. This move paves the way for companies to increase hemp farming and processing, and importantly, it lets them create hemp-derived products, such as beverages and edibles. A big splash New York has given Canopy Growth a license to process and produce hemp, and in return, Canopy Growth will invest between $100 million and $150 million to help establish a "hemp industrial park" that can process "tons of hemp extract on an annual basis," according to Canopy Growth. The revenue impact of Canopy Growth's move into New York will depend on how the FDA will regulate hemp-based products, says GreenWave Advisors' Matt Karnes. Nonetheless, Karnes thinks Canopy Growth could enjoy a big splash, given that "many mainstream product manufacturers seek to include a hemp-based CBD additive" in their products. GreenWave Advisors estimates that medical and recreational marijuana sales in New York may total $2.7 billion within five years. But the market potential could be much bigger if products made in the Empire State are able to flow easily throughout America. The Agricultural Marketing Resource Center estimates the total retail value of all hemp products in the U.S. was $820 million in 2017, and New Frontier Data pegs U.S. CBD sales at $367 million in 2017, up 40% from 2016. Since beer, wine, and spirits giant Constellation Brands (NYSE: STZ) owns 38% of Canopy Growth and has extensive distribution and marketing know-how, this move into New York could be game-changing if barriers fall and CBD products manufactured in the New York are allowed to flow freely throughout the nation. What's next Canopy Growth says it's evaluating "a number of sites" in New York to build its first extraction and processing facility outside Canada and that it will update investors on its plans "within 100 days." Canopy Growth will be an anchor business in the to-be-created industrial park, but it's unlikely to be the only tenant. The intent is for the site to serve as a hub for hemp innovation that includes multiple players. For that reason, investors ought to expect additional third parties to announce similar plans in New York during the coming year. More From The Motley Fool Todd Campbell has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. His clients may have positions in the companies mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Constellation Brands. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. SpaceX announced it was letting go of around 10 percent of its employees on Friday. CEO Elon Musk and COO and President Gwynne Shotwell delivered the bad news in an all hands meeting on Friday at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. SpaceX headcount stands over 6,400 after the restructuring, according to two laid-off employees. SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell and CEO Elon Musk choked up breaking bad news about layoffs at an all-hands meeting in Hawthorne, California, last Friday, according to three people who attended or viewed the meeting via video. Musk and Shotwell acknowledged that the broad restructuring at SpaceX meant the company would have to lay off some employees with whom they'd rather not part ways. The company still employs about 6,400 people, according to two people who were laid off. In a statement, SpaceX said: "To continue delivering for our customers and to succeed in developing interplanetary spacecraft and a global space-based Internet, SpaceX must become a leaner company." The layoffs come as SpaceX is gunning to become a powerhouse in telecommunications and transforming the business of aerospace with promises of re-usable rockets and engines. It is in the midst of raising a targeted $500 million round of venture funding that would value the company at $30.5 billion, making it one of the most valuable start-ups in the world. The company is aiming to run its first cargo mission to Mars by 2022, and to send humans there in a 2024 mission. On Friday, the company told employees to go home and check their inboxes to learn if they were personally getting a pink slip, and said that SpaceX would be closed over the weekend. Attendance at all-hands meetings is not required at SpaceX, so some people first learned about the layoffs through a company-wide email. The company emailed separation agreements starting on Friday evening, and offered employees assistance with resume-writing and job searches, among other severance benefits. Story continues Two terminated employees said the layoffs appeared to be throughout the organization, and no single team or region was disproportionately affected or eliminated. SpaceX confirmed that it still employed more than 6,000 and that the workforce reduction applied across all teams. According to a WARN notice filed with the state of California on January 11th, the company let go of 577 employees at its Hawthorne facility alone, where SpaceX is focused on developing its re-usable Raptor engines to power its massive rockets. Employees at other SpaceX facilities were also laid off. The workforce reduction surprised some SpaceX insiders, but others suspected it was coming, these people said. In May 2018, Shotwell told CNBC's Morgan Brennan that SpaceX was profitable despite "financially rough years" such as when one of its Falcon 9 rockets exploded in 2016. Shotwell said at that time that SpaceX was "raising funding kind of bit by bit. We're being very picky about who invests in the company. They have to share our long term vision." Demand for SpaceX launch and telecommunication services is high. Increasingly, startups are launching small satellites to gather data and aerial images of the Earth. Other businesses are launching or maintaining satellite constellations to deliver internet and broadcast services to people where ground-based systems aren't installed, or aren't effective. SpaceX is developing its own satellite constellation, Starlink, which would put thousands of low-cost satellites into low-Earth orbit and cover the planet with internet services. SpaceX is also building a massive new Starship and Raptor engines to transport people and cargo to other planets. Musk has said he wants SpaceX to enable the colonization of Mars . The layoffs were tempered by a technical triumph for the company. Over the weekend, SpaceX Dragon returned safely from a mission to bring supplies to the International Space Station, and research and data back down to scientists on earth, according to a NASA statement . The completion of this mission marked the "first nighttime splashdown and recovery for the Dragon." In other words, SpaceX can land its re-usable spacecraft in the middle of the ocean in the dark in the middle of a broad restructuring. Here's SpaceX's full statement on the layoffs: "To continue delivering for our customers and to succeed in developing interplanetary spacecraft and a global space-based Internet, SpaceX must become a leaner company. Either of these developments, even when attempted separately, have bankrupted other organizations. This means we must part ways with some talented and hardworking members of our team. We are grateful for everything they have accomplished and their commitment to SpaceX's mission. This action is taken only due to the extraordinarily difficult challenges ahead and would not otherwise be necessary." More From CNBC Antarctica losing six times more ice a year than 40 years ago (Getty) Antarctica is melting away and coastal areas could see sea level rises of several metres as the melt rate is six times higher than 40 years ago, researchers have warned. A new study found that the melt rate of Antactic ice has increased from 36 billion tonnes in 1979-90 up to 228 billion tonnes from 2009-17, say researchers. Eric Rignot of the University of California at Irvine told CNN, Antarctica is melting away, not just in a couple of places. The researchers used data from satellite radar and high-resolution aerial photos. MORE: Theresa May warns of unforgivable breach of trust if MPs dont vote for her Brexit deal MORE: Donald Trumps behaviour so concerning FBI opened Russia collusion inquiry The researchers believe that sea levels have already risen by half an inch due to the Antarctic melting and it will get worse. Rignot said, As the Antarctic ice sheet continues to melt away, we expect multi-metre sea level rise from Antarctica in the coming centuries. Even areas previously thought to be stable are melting, Rignot said. Rignot said, The Wilkes Land sector of East Antarctica has, overall, always been an important participant in the mass loss, even as far back as the 1980s, as our research has shown. This region is probably more sensitive to climate than has traditionally been assumed, and thats important to know, because it holds even more ice than West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula together. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Reuters Every week, Mamadou Diagouraga comes to the Muslim section of a cemetery near Paris to stand vigil at the grave of his father, one of the many French Muslims to have died from COVID-19. While France is estimated to have the European Union's largest Muslim population, it does not know how hard that group has been hit: French law forbids the gathering of data based on ethnic or religious affiliations. But evidence collated by Reuters - including statistical data that indirectly captures the impact and testimony from community leaders - indicates the COVID death rate among French Muslims is much higher than in the overall population. Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN is soon going to ink a deal to lease space in the New York City Chrysler Building, per reports. The news comes on the heels of the announcement that the Chrysler Building has been put on sale by its owners, Tishman Speyer and the Abu Dhabi Investment Council. Reportedly, the retail giant plans to lease 10,000 square feet of space in the renowned Midtown Manhattan skyscraper for building a large store. The purchase of the tower would also include the Trylons retail and office space next door. The move aligns with Amazons motto of expanding business in New York, providing better services to customers, accommodating rapid growth and leveraging the areas diverse high-technology talent pool. Share Price Performance Amazons strengthening of its retail position with the help of global footprint expansion and distribution strength remains a key growth driver. Moreover, robust Prime program and its benefits continue to aid Amazons retail business. In addition, rapid expansion of grocery, increasing AWS regions and its growing adoption will continue to aid Amazons cloud momentum. Also, rising number of Alexa compatible devices is a major catalyst. Shares of Amazon have steadily trended up over the past year. The stock has returned 24% against its industrys decline of 7.1% in the said period. Strengthening Competition With this new space in New York, Amazon is likely to have a competitive advantage against tech bigwigs such as alphabet and Apple, which have also been expanding their presence in the city. Notably, Google is leaving no stone unturned to bolster its presence in the city on the back of office expansion. Reportedly, the company has announced its plans to double talent hiring in the city over the next decade in order to expand employee base. Further, the company is aggressively looking for expansion of its Chelsea Market property by about 300,000 square feet. Amazon is way ahead of Alphabet as it is establishing its next U.S. headquarters in Long Island City, NY. Also, its expected employee strength is significantly more than that of Googles 14K. Story continues Amazon has been expanding on a global basis in a bid to maintain supremacy. In this regard, the company is investing more in fulfillment, technology and content. Although increased expenses may hurt the companys bottom line in the near term, we believe that these measures are necessary to maintain its dominance in this highly competitive market. Amazon.com, Inc. Price and Consensus Amazon.com, Inc. Price and Consensus | Amazon.com, Inc. Quote Zacks Rank & Other Stocks to Consider Currently, Amazon carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Other top-ranked stocks in the broader technology sector include TripAdvisor, Inc. TRIP, Groupon, Inc. GRPN and Wayfair Inc. W, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Long-term earnings growth rate for TripAdvisor, Groupon and Wayfair is currently pegged at 14.1%, 3% and 18%, respectively. Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside? Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana. Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look. See the pot trades we're targeting>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Alaska Air Group, Inc. ALK posted disappointing traffic figures for December 2018. Load factor (percentage of seats filled with passengers) declined as traffic declined more than capacity. Consolidated traffic, measured in revenue passenger miles (RPMs), declined 0.4% year over year to 4.49 billion. On a year-over-year basis, consolidated capacity (or available seat miles/ASMs), dropped 0.3% to 5.46 billion. As a result, consolidated load factor contracted 10 basis points (bps) year over year to 82.2%. For 2018, the carrier generated RPMs of 54.67 billion (up 4.5% year over year) and ASMs of 65.34 billion (up 5.3% year over year). Load factor was pegged at 83.7% compared with 84.3% a year ago. Alaska Air Group, Inc. Price Alaska Air Group, Inc. Price | Alaska Air Group, Inc. Quote Additionally, Alaska Air updated its guidance for fourth-quarter 2018, results of which will be disclosed on Jan 24. This carrier anticipates fourth-quarter revenue per available seat mile (RASM) of 12.82-12.84 cents compared with 12.70-12.80 cents mentioned previously. The revised RASM guidance implies approximately 5.1% year over year increase. The company also estimates cost per available seat mile (CASM), excluding fuel and special items, to be 8.95-8.97 cents in the final quarter of 2018, up 3.2%. Per the previous guidance, the metric was expected between 8.97 cents and 9.01 cents. Meanwhile, Alaska expects fourth-quarter fuel costs per gallon to be $2.35, up 17.5% compared with $2.36 mentioned earlier. Zacks Rank & Other Key Picks Alaska Air currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). A few other top-ranked stocks in the Zacks Transportation sector are Spirit Airlines, Inc. SAVE, Azul S.A. AZUL and Fly Leasing Limited FLY, each currently sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Shares of Spirit Airlines and Azul have gained 50.7% and 71.5%, respectively, in the past six months. Meanwhile, Fly Leasing boasts an impressive earnings history, outpacing the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters, the average being 13.5%. Story continues Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside? Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana. Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look. See the pot trades we're targeting>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research WASHINGTON During much of his confirmation hearing, William Barr presented himself as independent-minded and unworried about any pressure that might come from President Donald Trump if they were to disagree. But when the subject of immigration came up, Barr on Tuesday sounded very much like the man who nominated him to be attorney general but eventually clarified his stance when pressed further on the matter of a border wall. We need a barrier system on the border in order to get control of the border, he told lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The federal government has been partially shut down for more than three weeks because President Trump demanded that his proposal for a border wall be funded before he would agree to any budget deal with Congress. Democrats who control the House refuse to budge on Trumps request, arguing that his wall proposal is impractical and a waste of money. More on Barr: What you need to know about Trump's attorney general nominee More on the shutdown: White House tries to bypass Pelosi on shutdown talks, but moderate Democrats rebuff offer The subject came up during the confirmation hearing when Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst asked about crimes committed in her state by illegal immigrants and the flood of methamphetamine that come into Iowa and the rest of the U.S. from Mexico. After his initial response, Barr seemed to make a point of repeating several times that a barrier was needed to stem these problems. Later, when asked about how the shutdown should be resolved, he repeated the need for a barrier. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., sought to clarify Barr's view: "Are you advocating a wall? "I am advocating a barrier system," Barr said. "In some places it may not be necessary to have a wall." Harris pointed out that most illegal drug trafficking occurs at ports of entry into the U.S. Throughout his testimony, Barr repeatedly said that he would remain independent from the White House. Former attorney general Jeff Sessions was subjected to frequent ridicule by Trump because he chose to recuse himself from oversight of the special counsels investigation into collusion by the Trump campaign with Russia in the 2016 election. I will not be bullied by anybody into doing anything wrong," Barr said. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: AG nominee William Barr: 'In some places it may not be necessary to have a wall' The requested page is currently unavailable on this server. Back to [RTHK News Homepage] Earnings estimates for SunCoke Energy Inc. SXC have been revised upward over the past 90 days, reflecting analysts confidence in the stock. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2019 earnings of the company has moved 22.2% north to 44 cents in the said period. The company, which is among the largest coke producers in North America, supplies high-quality coke to major steel producers. SunCoke Energy has a capacity to produce 4.2 million tons of coke per annum, accounting for 30% of total U.S. coke production. Lets focus on the factors that make SunCoke Energy an attractive stock at the moment: Price Appreciation: Shares of SunCoke Energy have inched up 11.8% compared with its industrys gain of 0.6% over the past month. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). VGM Score: The stock has a favorable VGM Score of B. Here V stands for Value, G for Growth and M for Momentum, with the score being a weighted combination of all three factors. Back-tested results show that stocks with a VGM Score of A or B coupled with a favorable Zacks Rank offer the best investment bets. Earnings Estimates & Surprise Record: The companys 2019 earnings are pegged at 44 cents, reflecting nearly 2.3% year-over-year growth. Its bottom line surpassed the consensus mark in the last four reported quarters, with the average being 302.65%. Steady Cash Flow: SunCoke Energys long term, fee-based, take or pay contracts ensure a steady cash flow. The new advanced technology used by the company results in production of larger and stronger coke, ensuring steady demand for coke from the steel producers. Domestic Coke Fundamentals: SunCoke Energy is well poised to gain from positive domestic coke fundamentals. Limited domestic supply alternatives and unattractive import choices make it a preferred choice for steel producers. In addition, the company provides critical logistics support to steelmakers and utility companies through its strategically located terminals and modern facilities. Other Stocks to Consider Other top-ranked stocks from the Zacks Oil & Gas sector include CONSOL Coal Resources LP CCR, Warrior Met Coal Inc. HCC and NextEra Energy Partners, LP NEP, each flaunting a Zacks Rank of 1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. CONSOL Coal Resources pulled off average positive surprise of 23.56% in the trailing four quarters. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2019 EPS moved 1.4% up over the past 60 days to $2.13. Warrior Met Coal delivered average four-quarter beat of 0.62%. The consensus mark for 2018 EPS has been revised 14.7% upward over the past 60 days to $6.00. NextEra Energy Partners came up with average four-quarter earnings surprise of 99.08%. The consensus estimate for 2019 EPS has been upwardly revised by 8.5% over the past 60 days to $2.04. Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside? Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana. Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look. See the pot trades we're targeting>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research With the earnings season in focus again, investors are eagerly waiting for the quarterly results, more so as the fourth-quarter reporting cycle reflects the companies full-year performances. However, we note that the Zacks Consumer Staples sector has been somewhat troubled over the past year, by hurdles like elevated input and freight costs along with intense competition. Unfortunately, a lot of consumer staples companies, including food, beverage, cosmetic and cleaning material companies, have been grappling with escalated commodity and transportation costs. Also, several players are facing heightened competition, which has created significant pricing pressure, compelling companies to undertake aggressive promotional activities. All these factors have kept margins of many consumer staples companies under pressure for a while now. Owing to these hurdles and tariff-related risks stemming from trade war with China, the consumer staples sector has tumbled 14.1% in a year compared with the S&P 500s drop of 5%. Further, the sector is placed among the bottom 32% out of the 16 Zacks sectors. Nevertheless, the Zacks Consumer Staples sector is anticipated to witness bottom-line growth of 0.3% this season, while the top line is expected to increase 0.9%, per the latest Earnings Preview. Certainly, the space that is popular as the defensive zone among investors is not devoid of bright spots. Are There Any Prospective Winners in the Space? Despite the aforementioned barriers, there are many players in this space that appear lucrative this season, thanks to their efforts to counter the odds. Notably, companies have been trying all means to stay firm on the back of solid pricing initiatives, focus on innovation, product launches and diversification. Also, prudent takeovers, divestitures and alliances have helped many companies refine their portfolio. These positives along with stringent cost-containment and productivity enhancement efforts do paint a bright picture for some consumer staples players amid the otherwise not so rosy landscape. On that note, we used the Zacks methodology and identified consumer staples stocks that are poised to beat earnings estimates this reporting cycle. Our research shows that for stocks with the combination of a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) and a positive Earnings ESP, the chance of a positive earnings surprise is as high as 70%. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before theyre reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. 5 Stocks With Solid Chances to Beat Investors can count on Archer Daniels Midland Company ADM, one of the leading food processing companies. The company delivered average positive earnings surprise of 26.9% in the trailing four quarters. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings in the quarter is pegged at 92 cents. The company, which is scheduled to announce fourth-quarter 2018 results on Feb 5, has an Earnings ESP of +2.45% and a Zacks Rank #1. You can seethe complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Newell Brands Inc. NWL, which is expected to report fourth-quarter 2018 results on Feb 15, is also a solid bet. It has long-term earnings growth rate of almost 5%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings in the quarter under review is pegged at 41 cents. The company delivered average positive earnings surprise of 36.3% in the trailing four quarters. This manufacturer and marketer of consumer and commercial products has an Earnings ESP of +13.11% and a Zacks Rank #1. You may also consider Colgate-Palmolive Company CL, which has a Zacks Rank #3 and an Earnings ESP of +1.02%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings in the quarter is pegged at 73 cents. The company hasnt missed earnings estimates even once in the trailing four quarters. It has long-term earnings growth rate of 6.9%. This global consumer products manufacturer is slated to come out with fourth-quarter 2018 results on Jan 25. Kimberly-Clark Corporation KMB, with a Zacks Rank #3 and an Earnings ESP of +0.70%, also deserves a place in your portfolio. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings in the quarter is pegged at $1.68. The company has delivered average positive earnings surprise of 1.9% in the trailing four quarters. It has long-term earnings growth rate of 6.2%. This manufacturer and marketer of a wide range of consumer products is scheduled to come out with fourth-quarter 2018 results on Jan 23. Another lucrative option is Monster Beverage Corporation MNST, which is a marketer and distributor of energy drinks and alternative beverages. The stock has a Zacks Rank #3 and an Earnings ESP of +0.31%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings in the quarter is pegged at 40 cents. The company registered positive earnings surprises in the preceding two quarters. It has long-term earnings growth rate of 16%. The company is likely to release fourth-quarter 2018 results on Feb 27. Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside? Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana. Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look. See the pot trades we're targeting>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Volkswagens plant in Wolfsburg, Germany. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer Volkswagens 2015 emissions-cheating scandal may be disappearing in the rearview mirror for US consumers, but Germans saddled with affected diesel cars have yet to see a cent of financial compensation. VW has agreed to pay over $25bn (19.4bn) in compensation to car owners, states, and dealers in the US, as well as buy back some half million affected diesels. In VWs homeland of Germany, the company has so far gotten off with simply offering a cheap software upgrade for 2.8 million polluting diesels unlike the more expensive engine overhaul offered to US drivers. Class action lawsuits made up of a collective of individual claimants did not exist in Germany until 2018, when the government approved what is called a Musterfeststellungsklage, or model declaratory proceeding (MDP). The countrys first such suit will be against Volkswagen, and around 383,000 consumers have now joined the proceeding. Sarah Hoare from the Consumer Rights Association (VZBV), which is representing the consumers, estimates that the suit could last for around two years. Then individual claims cases could take another two to three years. The German version of the class action is quite different than the US suit. People must be represented by consumer rights organisations in this case the VZBZ and the judge will only decide whether or not Volkswagen is at fault and should compensate car owners. This case is about whether a company has acted unlawfully, Hoare from the VZBV told Yahoo Finance UK, adding that the court first needs to establish that VW owes damages caused by their manipulation of the emissions software in the cars. The Higher Regional Court of Braunschweig will not order the payment of damages to the persons concerned in its judgment. If the court rules that Volkswagen should compensate consumers, the claimants then need to bring individual suits against the car company, in which they claim a specific amount of damages based on the loss of value of their cars. Story continues The consumer rights association assumes that a company, which has been convicted in a designation claim, may, considering its public reputation, signal readiness to reimburse the damages without the need for a second claim. As the partial government shutdown enters its third week, no one seems to have any answers on how it may end even the people driving the negotiations. President Donald Trump remains dug in on his request for more than $5 billion for a wall along the Mexican border, while House Democrats maintain that they will not fund it. Without their support, he cannot go through the usual channels to ensure the funding becomes law. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has floated tentative compromises to no avail, suggested that the President temporarily re-open the government while lawmakers hash out negotiations, but the President did not like that idea. That was a suggestion that Lindsey made but I did reject it yes. Im not interested, he said. I want to get it solved. I dont want to just delay it. I want to get it solved. Below are the three main ways the shutdown showdown could end although none seem likely given the partisan gridlock that has seized the nations capitol. Trump and Pelosi cut a deal on immigration In the past, government shutdowns have rarely ended with a clear-cut victory, instead leading to some kind of compromise where each side gives something. In this case, that would be some but perhaps not all of the money Trump has requested for the border wall, in exchange for something like protection for people brought to the U.S. illegally as children. A group of senators, led by Graham, discussed just such a compromise last week, but the White House rejected it. Trump announced in 2017 that he would phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protected the so-called Dreamers, and he reportedly would like to wait until the Supreme Court rules on the phase-out before negotiating on it. Right now, any further negotiations to actually solve the problem seem to be, quite literally, off the table. No meetings between Republicans and Democrats are scheduled for this week. Why its unlikely: Trump rejected a similar compromise in 2018. Story continues Republican senators get cold feet Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he will not bring a bill to end the shutdown up for a vote unless Trump says hell sign it. But even if he did, it would require both Democrats and Republican support to reach the 60-vote threshold to pass the upper chamber. Trump would presumably veto the bill, meaning it would then have to get two-thirds of each chamber to override the president. Several Republican senators facing reelection in 2020, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, called last week to re-open the government without Trumps border wall funding, leading some strategists to speculate that more could follow suit. But nothing about this scenario seems likely at the moment. Not only because Congress has overridden fewer than ten percent of Presidential vetoes in U.S. history, but because McConnell has shown no inclination to bring up these bills. So far has been staying out of the fray when it comes to negotiations, maintaining that the burden is on the Democrats and the White House to reach an agreement. Why its unlikely: Polls show Republicans still side with Trump on the shutdown and the wall. Trump declares a national emergency In the past week, Trump has floated the idea of using declaring a national emergency and using his executive powers to subvert the legislative branch and build the border-wall unilaterally. Legal experts have said he is on shaky ground here, but it was only after Republican lawmakers pushed back on the idea that Trump seems to have backed down. Im not looking to call a national emergency, he told reporters Monday. This is so simple we shouldnt have to. Others in his party, however, are cautioning that doing so may be the best way for the President to tell his voting base he did everything in his power to try and build the border wall, even if it ends in a protracted court fight. I think everyone would rather a deal [with Congress], said Brian Ballard, a Republican lobbyist and vice chairman on the Republican National Committees finance team. But I dont think a deal is possible. Why its unlikely: Trump could have done it already easily, but he hasnt. With reporting by Abby Vesoulis in Washington Jihadist News Articles Analysis Multimedia Social Network Jihad Western Jihadist Digest Free Articles Financial Jihad Full Translation Groups Afghan Taliban (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) Ahrar al-Sham Islamic Movement Al-Nusra Front Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) Ansar al-Islam Ansar al-Sunnah in Jerusalem Ansar Beit al-Maqdis Ansar Dine Ansar Jerusalem Hezbollah Islamic Jihad Union Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan Islamic State Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS) Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) Jabha East Africa Jabhat Fateh al-Sham Jaish al-Fath Lashkar-e Toiba Pakistani Taliban (Tehreek-e Taliban) Shabaab al-Mujahideen (The Young Mujahideen Movement) Taifetul Mansura The Levantine Front Turkestan Islamic Party Leaders Abu Musab Abd al-Wadud Abu Yahya al-Libi Adam Gadahn Anwar al-Awlaki Ayman al-Zawahiri Hakimullah Mehsud Mullah Omar Mustafa Abu al-Yazid Usama bin Laden Abu Baseer al-Wuhayshi Countries Afghanistan Algeria Australia Austria Bangladesh Belgium Bosnia and Herzegovina Burma Burundi Canada Chechnya China Denmark Egypt Eritrea Ethiopia Europe Finland France Germany India Indonesia Iran Iraq Israel Italy Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kuwait Lebanon Libya Mali Mauritania Morocco Niger Nigeria Norway Pakistan Palestinian Territories Russia Saudi Arabia Somalia Spain Sweden Syria Tunisia Turkey Uganda United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uzbekistan Yemen Burkina Faso Philippines Ireland Her story is seldom told. Yet in the annals of Cuban history, she is seen both as an activist and the islands own Betsy Ross. Emilia Teurbe Tolon is credited with embroidering the first Cuban flag in 1850. She was also the first woman to be deported from the island because of her affiliation to the Cuban struggle against Spanish rule. She was a woman who was ahead of her time, said Luis Perez Tolon, the films producer and director, who is one of her descendants. Her unique story is the topic of a documentary that will launch the 2019 film series by UM Libraries Cuban Heritage Collection (CHC) in a special screening at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 17, 2019 at the Shalala Student Center. The screening will be followed by a conversation between Perez Tolon and Lillian Manzor, UM associate professor and chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. CHC director Elizabeth Liz Cerejido said the film is a vivid example of the Collections curated approach to programming, as the films focus on the central role women have played throughout Cubas history helps contextualize the gender-related themes explored in the CHCs current exhibition about representations of women in the artists book collection. With Emilia, we launch our first film series that will include documentaries that focus on a range of issues and from an interdisciplinary perspective pertinent to Cuba and Cuban diasporic studies, she said. Emilias story is told by Cuban-born Perez Tolon, who narrates the video. For him Emilia is a personal journey, and a search for ancestral roots. I grew up hearing stories about my grandfathers great aunt Emilia who sewed the first Cuban flag, he said. Even though Emilias face graced a Cuban postage stamp, he lacked details of her life. It was not until 2010 when her remains were found buried in a cemetery in Madrid, Spain and returned to the island that he was able to trace her life story. Perez Tolon visited Cuba, Spain, and New York to piece together Emilias life. Born in Matanzas, Emilia married a well-known poet and journalist Miguel Teurbe Tolon who was a nationalist and freemason whose writings put him at odds with the Spanish rulers. He left Cuba for exile in New York City. Emilia was deported in 1850 for conspiring against Spanish rule. She joined her husband in New York City where they continued their efforts to free their country from Spanish rule alongside other exiles. It was there that she embroidered the red, white and blue flag with the lone star that was recognized as the official flag in 1869. Perez Tolon, a respected producer who worked for many years at Discovery Latin America, said that Emilias contribution went beyond embroidering the Cuban flag. She was also a great philanthropist. She left all her wealth for the education of poor children, he said. RTHK: MP delays birth for Brexit vote A British legislator has postponed giving birth in order to vote on the government's divorce deal with the European Union. Tulip Siddiq, 36, was due to have a Caesarian section on Tuesday, but doctors agreed to delay the operation until Thursday so that she can vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's highly unpopular withdrawal agreement. The opposition Labour MP plans to be pushed through the voting lobby in parliament in a wheelchair. "If my son enters the world even one day later than the doctors advised, but it's a world with a better chance of a strong relationship between Britain and Europe, then that's worth fighting for," she told the London Evening Standard newspaper. A source in May's Conservative party said it had offered to "pair" Siddiq, meaning a rival MP agreed not to vote to ensure her absence did not affect the outcome. But Siddiq said she did not trust the informal system after the Conservatives broke a pair for a new mother MP last year. Labour colleagues asked John Bercow, the speaker of the lower House of Commons, if Siddiq could have a proxy vote, but he said this was not in his power as such a voting system has not been implemented. Bercow said he would like the procedure known as "nodding through" - where an MP who is on the parliamentary estate but physically unable to cast their ballot has their vote counted - extended to Siddiq's hospital bed in north London. The new baby boy will be a great-grandson of the founding father of Bangladesh. Siddiq is the grand-daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first president of Bangladesh. Her aunt is Sheikh Hasina, who was sworn in as Bangladesh's prime minister for a record fourth term last week after a crushing election victory marred by deadly violence and claims of widespread rigging. (AFP) This story has been published on: 2019-01-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. In what was promised during the last elections in the Himalayan kingdom, the Bhutanese government recently formed the fourth Pay Commission after the approval of the King. Also read: Can the new Bhutan government guarantee pay hike? The time-bound autonomous Pay Commission comes into immediate effect which was one of the first decisions, the government took since assuming office in November, reports kuensel. The report quoting a press release from the Cabinet Secretariat stated that as provided under Article 30 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Bhutan and as approved by His Majesty, The King on the recommendation of the Lhengye Zhungtshog, the Royal Government is pleased to establish a time-bound autonomous Pay Commission with immediate effect. Lyonchhen Dr Lotay Tshering, Foreign Minister Dr Tandi Dorji and Finance Minister Namgay Tshering met with the members of the commission last week and asked for recommendations based on in-depth analysis, the report added. The government suggested the pay commission if it could consider ways to incentivize special skills, recognitions such as academic excellence, and awards for special contributions, and extraordinary performance of the public servants in addition to regular enhancement of benefits. The fourth pay commission will examine and recommend the government on salary, allowances, benefits, and other emoluments for civil servants and other relevant public servants, the report added. Notably, the taskforce members for the commission have been selected from among cross-sectoral agencies for their wide experience and competence. Royal Monetary Authority Governor Dasho Penjore is the chairperson of the eight-member commission. The latest significant city wanting a CCA is San Diego, where Republican Mayor Kevin Faulconer the other day announced support for an alternative to SDG&E as the best means to fulfill the citys pledge of running on 100 percent renewable energy by 2025. Not surprisingly, Californias Public Utilities Commission, which regulates the big utilities and has long favored them over their customers, keeps throwing obstacles in the path of CCA expansion. In January 2018, it passed new rules that essentially delayed establishment of new CCAs for a year. As that time expired, the commission adopted new, higher levies on CCA customers as a way to compensate the existing utilities for expenses of previous power plant construction and long-term power purchase contracts they signed during the energy crunch almost 20 years ago. Never mind that consumers actually paid for all that via their monthly bills. We are updating the formula because everyone agrees it is broken, newly termed-out Commissioner Carla Peterman, a Jerry Brown appointee, said at the time of the vote. But not everyone agrees. Some activists, especially in the San Diego area, believe the new, higher charges significantly more there than whats paid by consumers leaving PG&E and Edison are excessive. Napa Police sent out a Nixle message shortly before 2:30 p.m. Monday asking the public to avoid the Freeway Drive/Laurel Street area due to police activity. Officers were investigating a report received at 2:10 p.m. of someone pointing a gun out of the window of a black truck in front of Napa Premium Outlets, Lt. Chase Haag reported. No gunshots were heard, nor did police locate anyone who heard gunshots, he said. While the incident was being investigated, students at the Napa Valley Language Academy on Kilburn Avenue were notified to stay inside as a precaution, Haag said. The caution was lifted about 2:50 p.m. after police searched the area and determined it to be safe, he said. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. VACAVILLE A man who was a suspect in a double stabbing and home arson on Monday evening, and was shot by a Fairfield police officer later Monday night, has died from his injuries, according to Vacaville police. Police said the suspect, Nathaniel Holland, 38, of Vacaville, was found hiding in a heavily wooded creek area in the 1000 block of Mason Street around 10:45 p.m. by a Fairfield police K-9 unit. The suspect then attacked the dog with a knife and was shot, Vacaville police said. Vacaville police said the dog was taken to a veterinary hospital and is expected to survive. Police didnt say if Holland died at the scene or at a local hospital. The first call came in at 6:40 p.m. Monday. Officers responded to a home in the 1200 block of Alderwood Way for a report of a stabbing as well as a house fire. Police said officers found out that Holland was seen running from the scene, and later investigation determined an argument with a 43-year-old woman led to the stabbing and fire. According to police, Holland then allegedly stabbed the woman and a 16-year-old girl who tried to intervene. Police said Holland then doused the inside of the home with gasoline with two teenage boysages 12 and 15and a four-year-old girl inside, started a fire and fled. Interim Chief Executive Officer John Simon said the step is needed to achieve an orderly, fair and expeditious resolution of PG&Es liabilities from the devastating 2017 and 2018 Northern California wildfires. In a separate statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the utility said its liability from the fires could be more than $30 billion, not including possible punitive damages or fines. The statement said PG&E Co. and its parent holding company, PG&E Corp., have $1.4 billion in cash on hand, $1.4 billion in wildfire liability insurance for the current year and $840 million in insurance for the previous year. Simon said the utility expects to obtain an additional $5.5 billion in bank loans by the time it files its bankruptcy petition. State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said in a statement, PG&Es announcement that it will declare bankruptcy is not good news, but we will all work hard to make the best of a bad situation. Wiener said he is confident PG&E will be able to continue to provide reliable energy during the bankruptcy proceeding. He also suggested the bankruptcy provides an opportunity to create a publicly owned electric utility in San Francisco. A right-wing activist recently expelled from Twitter for inflammatory remarks about a Muslim member of Congress entered the grounds of a St. Helena-area home belonging to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday afternoon, according to the Napa County Sheriffs Office. The incident was an apparent protest against the top-ranking House Democrat, according to a reporter for The Daily Beast who live-tweeted the encounter. Sheriffs deputies arrived at the Pelosi-owned home in the 1000 block of Zinfandel Lane at 12:20 p.m. and found a man and woman outside on the lawn, according to sheriffs spokesperson Henry Wofford. He identified the woman as Laura Loomer, a self-described nationalist and pro-Donald Trump partisan. The encounter came about 20 minutes after Will Sommer of The Daily Beast began posting pictures and updates to Twitter describing Loomer, accompanied by an unknown number of people, jumping a fence onto the Pelosi property and chanting Nancy, Nancy! before walking toward the house. Later, Loomer said she tried to open the door to Pelosis house only to find it locked, Sommer reported. Barbara Parker Snook Born in Santa Cruz, CA on January 9, 1928, Barbara , 90, died on November 20, 2018 in Elk Grove, CA under the loving attention of her caregivers and sons. She was raised on a small ranch in north Napa with her parents Blanche Wells and Charles Parker and four siblings. She attended Salvador Elementary School, Napa Junior High and Napa High School, graduating in 1946. Barbara attended San Jose State where she met and married Hal Snook. They moved back to Napa and lived on the property where she grew up. Barbara and Hal had three wonderful sons, Keith, Larry and Randy. When the boys got older, Barbara returned to college and graduated with a Masters degree from Sonoma State University. She became a reading specialist with the Napa Valley Unified School District and loved her work. In the summers, she and Hal traveled in their RV to Wyoming to quarry fossil fish. They also traveled to Alaska, going fishing for salmon on the Kenai River. There, Barbara befriended a native Alaskan woman and learned how to smoke salmon using her original recipe. She became well known for her smoked salmon and for her Christmas cinnamon rolls which she generously gave as presents. Barb and Hal started Wappo Gems and Minerals where she did both lapidary work and custom silversmithing. They were very active for years in the Napa Gem and Mineral Club. She was also a talented quilter and belonged to the Napa Valley Quilters. Barbara made a quilt for every member of her family, including all her grandchildren. The Santa Rosa diocese is the latest across the nation to release lists of priests accused of sexual misconduct. Several of the priests in the report had previously been disclosed in reports from other dioceses where they served. Unlike reports from some other dioceses, the Santa Rosa report offered few details of the accusations against the priests, nor did it offer details on which churches most of the priests served in, so it was not immediately clear if others on the list had Napa County connections. In many cases, the report said, the alleged abuse happened outside of the Santa Rosa Diocese or before the priest was in ministry. The report says there are six additional priests who face allegations, but for various reasons they were not named. In three cases the proper authorities investigated and found the allegations not substantiated. One of these remains in ministry, Vasa wrote. In two cases the allegations came to the Diocese or Religious Community to which the accused belonged, and those entities have not yet determined the suitability of releasing the names. In one case the nature of the event described does not indicate that abuse occurred. Two others face accusations as well, but they are at the bishop or archbishop level and are under investigation directly by the Vatican. The Diocesan Review Board set up by Vasa to review accusations does not have the authority to investigate priests at that level, he said. After reading last weeks curious letter to the editor from Kenneth Larsen of Calistoga ("Thank Trump for removing us from Paris Accord," Jan. 10), I was disturbed enough to pull out pencil/paper (actually sit down at the computer) and write a response. Mr. Larsen heaped praise on Donald Trump for pulling us out of the Paris Climate Accord, essentially saying that America had done enough and it was time for the rest of the world to do their part. He sincerely thanked the President for encouraging Americas dedication to the development of shale oil as a clean, cheap source of electrical power generation. Cheap, maybe. Clean? Leaves me wondering in what fantasy world he is living, especially since last year he witnessed first-hand the results of climate change right there in his own backyard. I recently became a first-time grandfather and am totally excited, on one hand, about having this darling new addition to our family. On the other, I am forced to seriously contemplate the future of the earths environment within which she will some day find herself. This contemplation leaves me frightened for her and for the rest of the planets grandchildren to come. Trinchero said the family first made dessert and generic table wines. In the early 1960s, the winery began shifting production to varietal wines. Our first real success came with our release of an Amador County Zinfandel. At the time Zinfandel was mostly used as the base wine for generic reds. We produced it in a Cabernet style as a singular varietal and it was a tremendous success, said Trinchero. The turning point for Napa Valley came in the 1970s, after people in America discovered wines made in California were as good as the ones from Europe, he said. In 1972, Rogers brother, Bob Trinchero, who was then the winemaker at Sutter Home Winery, created White Zinfandel. He experimented with Sutter Homes Deaver Vineyard Zinfandel by draining juice from the vats. His intention was to give more tannins and color to the Red Zinfandel. The drained clear juice was then fermented it into a dry white wine. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms would not accept Sutter Home marketing the wine as Oeil de Perdrix because the name implied a foreign origin. Trinchero then added White Zinfandel to the name and the ATF approved the label. Meeting the partners parents and family for the first time is without a doubt one of the most nerve-racking things to do in a developing romantic relationship. For Kenyan babe Tanasha Donna, it was not any different as her man, Diamond Platnumz, finally took her to meet his mother, Mama Dangote. According to the Bongo star, the petite Kenyan radio presenter was scared as F*** when she met her in-laws over the weekend. The musician posted video clips of the meet up at his palatial home in Tanzania dubbed State House. In one video, Tanasha can be seen trying to muster enough courage to get past the door. When she finally does, Tanasha is welcomed by Diamonds elder sister, Esma Platinumz, who hugs her. In the second clip, Tanasha was once again spotted looking quite nervous as she stalls on the door leading to the kitchen where Mama Dangote was. Somebody met my family for the first time leoshe was Scared as F..?? wrote Diamond Platnumz. The videos end with the family sharing a meal at the dining table. Check them out below. The Napa County Office of Education, along with Napa Valley Unified, St. Helena Unified and Calistoga Joint Unified School Districts, and other community partners, invite local businesses to participate in the interactive 8th grade career fair, "Inspire Napa: Dreams Start Now!" The Inspire Career Fair will be held at the Napa Valley Expo on March 21. This Career Fair will reach more than 1,000 Napa County 8th grade students. The mission of Inspire Napa is to motivate students to pursue their occupational dreams within their own community. The registration deadline is March 10. Info: Gillie Miller, gmiller@napacoe.org, or 707-253-6831. South Africas Minister of Communications Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams has deleted a tweet where she told Vodacom to just shut up. The tweet followed a public dispute between Vodacom and Please Call Me inventor Kenneth Makate. Makate has been in negotiations with Vodacom for several years over the reasonable compensation he must receive for his part in launching the Please Call Me service on Vodacoms network. The Constitutional Court ruled that Makate must be compensated by Vodacom. Following a deadlock in negotiations, Vodacom said last week that it was paying out reasonable compensation to Makate. Makate denied a deal was reached with Vodacom, however, and said: I havent reached any deal with Vodacom, I was dumped with some determination that the deal was done. Tweet war This set of events led to Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi to say on Twitter that people must stand by Nkosana Please Call Me Makate against this bully called Vodacom. Lesufi stated than Makate must be protected from Vodacom and that the company must pay him by the end of the month of face the wrath of the nation. Vodacom replied to Lesufi on Twitter and stated that a decision to pay Makate reasonable compensation has been made based on the Constitutional Court order. Claims that Vodacom is disrespecting decisions of courts is false and ill-informed, said Vodacom. Vodacoms statement was replied to by Ndabeni-Abrahams on Twitter, where she stated the company must just shut up. Do the right thing, talk to Makate instead of this poor PR stunt, she said. Dont talk to us until you have reached a settlement with his team. Many Twitter users reacted negatively to the ministers tweet, saying it was unnecessary and was not a how a government minister should conduct themselves. While Ndabeni-Abrahams initially defended her tweet, telling Twitter users she is allowed to engage with companies that fall under her departments jurisdiction on social media platforms, her tweet telling Vodacom to shut up was deleted from her account within hours. A screenshot of the deleted tweet is shown below. MyBroadband contacted the department of communications for comment on the matter, and asked if the deleting of the tweet indicated the minister retracted her statement, but it did not reply to questions. Now read: Strict new rules for Bitcoin owners in South Africa The South African Reserve Bank has published a consultation paper on policy proposals for cryptocurrency assets, detailing its recommended regulatory approach to Bitcoin and other tokens in South Africa. This paper currently only offers recommendations and is open to comment from the public until 15 February 2019. The Intergovernmental FinTech Working Group (IFWG), which includes members from Treasury and the SARB, formed a Crypto Assets Regulatory Working Group to construct recommendations for the regulation of digital assets in South Africa. This consultation paper is a product of this working group, and addresses the possible advantages and disadvantages of cryptocurrency in a South African context including its ability to be used for criminal activities and its impact on financial services. Upon conclusion of the consultation phase, the regulatory authorities will specify the way forward through a policy instrument such as a guidance note or position paper aimed for first quarter of 2019, the paper stated. The IFWG and Crypto Assets Regulatory Working Group is of the view that regulatory action should not be delayed until the most appropriate regulatory approach has become clear, but to rather act and amend as innovation evolves. Proposed regulations The regulations proposed in the paper aim to help monitor the purchasing and selling of cryptocurrency, with a major focus on improving compliance with existing financial security legislation. Under these new rules, all cryptocurrency asset trading platforms, custodial service providers, and payment service providers will be required to register with the IFWG and comply with AML/CFT provisions of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act. These platforms include Bitcoin exchanges, trading centres, and cryptocurrency ATMs. Additionally, the government recommends that cryptocurrency service providers monitor user transactions especially large transactions which may be linked to terrorist activity. Regulatory authorities did add that they would not impose any market entry conditions for registered entities. Where companies and service providers do not comply with these requirements, the government recommended that administrative sanctions be imposed. The Crypto Assets Regulatory Working Group said it would continue monitoring the state of the cryptocurrency market, especially businesses and users situated in South Africa. Reuters recently reported that Google moved 19.9 billion (R317 billion) through a Dutch shell company to Bermuda in 2017. According to the report, the subsidiary in the Netherlands is used to shift revenue outside the United States to Google Ireland Holdings, an affiliate based in Bermuda. Bermuda is a tax haven, partly because companies which are incorporated in the country pays no corporate income tax. The scheme used by Google, dubbed Double Irish, is a base erosion and profit shifting corporate tax tool used by US multinationals to avoid corporate taxation on their international profits. According to Wikipedia, it is the largest tax avoidance tool in history, and by 2010 it was shielding $100 billion annually in US multinational foreign profits from taxation. Google South Africa dodging tax questions Googles international tax avoidance includes South Africa, and asking the company whether it pays tax in South Africa is not a question it wants to answer. Instead of simply saying whether it pays any taxes locally, Google SA provided the standard international response. We pay all of the taxes due and comply with the tax laws in every country we operate in around the world, Google South Africa told MyBroadband. Google, like other multinational companies, pays the vast majority of its corporate income tax in its home country, and we have paid a global effective tax rate of 26% over the last 10 years. The company refused to answer any further questions on paying taxes in the country, including whether it pays VAT or corporate tax in South Africa. MyBroadband asked SARS spokesperson Sicelo Mkosi whether Google should pay taxes in South Africa, but he said they do not give opinions on taxpayers. In respect of Google, the information you have requested relates to confidential taxpayer information, Mkosi said. Not illegal Andrew Wellsted from Norton Rose told BusinessTech in 2014 that in South Africa, as in the UK, tax residents are subject to South African tax on their worldwide income. However, Wellsted pointed out, entities which are not tax residents in South Africa are only subject to income tax in respect of income which arises from a source within the country. The laws in South Africa are very similar to the laws in the UK with the result that it is possible that a company may earn revenue which is generated in South Africa or paid by South African residents, without it being subject to South African tax. This is because the income in question may not fall within the source rules specifying when non-residents are subject to tax in South Africa, Wellsted said. If a non-resident company like Google is able to structure its business in such a way that its revenue streams are not sourced in the country, that revenue will not be subject to tax regardless of whether the people who pay the company may be residents of that country. In a nutshell, this means that even though Google is getting money from South Africans for ads, because the business is not sourced at Google South Africa which directs the business offshore the company is not taxed accordingly. For Google to be taxable, not only would it have to earn income from UK [or SA] residents, but that income would have arisen from a source within the [country], Wellsted said. So, in legal terms, Google and companies which operate their business similarly, are not doing anything illegal. Now read: The top Google search trends in South Africa for 2018 Students selected for the 2019 Southeast Iowa Bandmasters Association (SEIBA) High School Honor Band and Jazz Band will perform in concert Saturday at the SEIBA Honor Band Festival at Iowa City West High School in Iowa City. The middle school honor band will perform at 5 p.m. followed at 6 p.m. by the high school bands. The following Muscatine High School students were selected: Phil Smith (Bassoon), Tyler Gordon (Percussion), Jonathon Hughes (French Horn), Ethan Sherer (Tuba), Kim Frisbie (Trombone), Madison Keller (Clarinet), Katie Clove (Clarinet), and Andy Kundel (1st alternate Baritone Saxophone). Odysseus Orr (Trumpet) and Justin Hughes (Bass Trombone) were selected for the jazz band. Auditions for the bands were held Saturday, Jan. 5, in Fairfield, Iowa where 15 MHS band members competed against about 350 other high school music students. MHS had nine band members compete against 70 other students for spots on the jazz band. For more information about MHS Bands, contact Jeff Heid, director of bands at 563-263-6141. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Muscatine Charities awarded $11,100 to Lutheran Services in Iowa. The funding will help support its early childhood services programs. Funding will go two programs that provide "in-home parenting education resources for Muscatine County families with children ages 0 to 5," according to a news release. The Healthy Families America program will receive $9,600 and the remaining $1,500 will fund the Parents as Teachers program. We are so grateful to Muscatine Charities for this support of our programming, said Nancy Krause, LSIs Director of Early Childhood Services in the release. This funding will significantly support new parents in Muscatine County as they build happy, healthy homes for their young children. The programs are available to families for free and encourage families to build parenting skills and confidence through regular home visits from an LSI parent educator and support group sessions with other community families. LSI is one of Iowas largest human services agencies with focuses on child abuse prevention, services for families and youth in crisis, services for people with disabilities, and refugee services. For more information, visit LSIowa.org or Facebook.com/LSI.iowa. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 July 16, 1923-January 10, 2019 PLEASANT PRAIRIE, Iowa Donald H. Cawiezell, 95, of Pleasant Prairie, Iowa, passed away Thursday, January 10, 2019, at his home. Donald was born in Pleasant Prairie on July 16, 1923, to Arthur and Ora (Welsch) Cawiezell. Don graduated from Muscatine High School in 1942. He proudly served his country in the United States Army during World War II. In 2017, he was inducted into France's Legion of Honor. Don married Eunice H. Altmann on November 27, 1955, in Pleasant Prairie. He retired from the Rock Island Arsenal in 1980 after 38 years of service and farmed in Muscatine County. He was a member of the Walcott Community Club, Blue Grass American Legion Post #711, where he served as the Chaplain for 35 years, and the 500 Club. He was a member and past president of the Durant Senior Citizens. He enjoyed playing cards. Visitation will be held on Sunday, January 13, 2019, from 2-5 p.m. at Bentley Funeral Home in Durant. Funeral services will be held on Monday at 10:30 a.m. at the funeral home. Cities and counties are responsible for matching every $20 of BRSA grant money with $1 of their money. The law requires local governments to identify the projects they will do before the funds are disbursed. What do Montanans get for the 4 -cent per gallon tax increase? In Yellowstone County this summer, about eight miles of county roads will get asphalt overlay, according to Tim Miller, head of the county road department. BRSA projects include work on 64th Street West, Coburn Road, Shepherd-Acton Road, Scandia Road and 80th Street West. The overlay work costs about $200,000 per mile, so the BRSA will allow the county to complete 2 miles that wouldnt otherwise get resurfaced. Its been a great thing for the county, Miller said. In Billings, the city will use this year's BRSA money for overlays and chip seals on city streets, according to Jennifer Duray, deputy public works director. Last year, the BSRA allocation funded road projects at 24th Street West and Central Avenue, in Briarwood and Cedar Park. Over time, the law will direct 65 percent of the BRSA revenues to local government road projects and 35 percent to the MDT to match the federal funds. The MDT doesnt receive any state general fund dollars, and none of the state fuel tax flows into the general fund. Size 8 looks set for the next phase of her Christian journey as an evangelist. Barely a month after graduating from Bible School, the newly ordained Evangelist Size 8 Reborn has hit the ground running and is days away from hosting her first crusade. Dubbed The Revival Crusade, the event will be held at the Riruta Stadium on January 20. Entry is free. Size 8 shared the news with her fans on social media with a poster of the upcoming crusade. The Revival Crusade with Evangelist Size 8 Reborn at Riruta stadium hapo BP from 3 pm. Entry free, read part of the poster. Size 8 Reborn further shared a brief story of her journey from singing secular music to being called by God to be used as a vessel to spread the word. Who God calls, He justifies. He uses anything for His will and His glory. He is not a respector of persons. It doesnt matter your past. God calls you before you are born and sets you apart for His glory. Like Paul the apostle a MURDERER OF THE CHRISTIANS met Jesus on His way to Damascus and became one of the most radical witness of Jesus Christ. So has God called Linet Munyali Muraya from the heart of SINFUL MUSIC AND THE WORLD to be His mouth piece an evangelist to Kenya and the world. Father I finally accept your call to go out fully and represent you. To God be the glory. Let your will be done. Wrote Size 8. The ever-inspiring musician and television presenter graduated from the Harvesters Global Church bible training school in Ridgeways off Kiambu Road in early December. Police reports: Woman wanting help gets busted instead A woman who walked into the Butte police station wanting help getting her things from her ex-boyfriends place in Butte was arrested for allegedly having attacked him there earlier and stealing his weed. The former boyfriend told police that Talia Morning Star Oulman, 20, came to his residence in the 1000 block of East Front Street on Saturday night, grabbed his phone, broke it and then punched him in the face. Oulman came to the police station later asking if officers would help her retrieve her things from the residence. They said no and cuffed her instead on misdemeanor complaints of theft, tampering with a communication device (the mans phone) and partner/family member assault. The theft complaint was for allegedly stealing the mans medical marijuana, but she wasnt arrested for drug possession because she, too, has a medical marijuana card, police said. Oulman, who said she was homeless after getting kicked out of the residence, was still in jail late Monday morning. Just who is this man from Missouri? If we had the checklist that they used at Warm Springs, we might have known, Kimmo Virtaneva said. He was like the poster child for schizophrenia. Mika was also a young man whose smile could light up the room. His creativity was sought after by students in Hamiltons MAPS Media Institute. He served on the board of directors for Literacy Bitterroot and the teen-based Community Cooking Connections. Last January, he suffered his first psychotic breakdown at his parents home, which started his downward spiral. The Virtanevas had never seen anything like it. We thought he was having a seizure, Monica Virtaneva said. He was shaking. He was not making sense when he was speaking. He didnt know who we were. He didnt know who he was. The couple tried to get him into their car so they could take him to the hospital. When his mother attempted to take hold of one of his arms, Mika punched her. From there, the couple pushed him outside. It was cold out there, she said. We thought maybe the cold air would wake him up. He used a shovel from outside to break the window and then threw himself through the glass. He cut himself on way back inside. Tuesday, Jan. 15 SKATING SESSIONS The High Altitude Center will be open from 6 to 7 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday evenings for open speed-skating sessions. These sessions are open to skaters of all abilities from first-time skater to experts. Informal instruction is offered and speed skates are available for use during the sessions. There is no session fee. Details: Tina, 406-494-4018 or Facebook at Butte High Altitude Skating Center. Sky show includes lunar eclipse TWIN BRIDGES The Cottontail Observatory in Twin Bridges will be open to the public on Sunday, Jan. 20. Hot coffee, hot chocolate and hot apple cider will be available. The control/class room of the observatory will be heated. Telescopes will be set up and pictures will be taken. For more details, call the observatory at 406-842-7722. If any teacher, scout troop, or group would like a presentation on the eclipse, contact Joe Witherspoon at 406-842-7722. A schedule of the eclipse on Jan. 20 is listed below. All times are local. Full moon rises at 4:58 p.m. Penumbra first visible on the moon at 8:10 p.m. Partial eclipse begins at 8:34 p.m. Total eclipse begins at 9:41 p.m. Middle of totality, 10:12 p.m. Total eclipse ends 10:44 p.m. Partial eclipse ends at nine minutes before midnight Penumbra last visible at 12:15 a.m. on Jan. 21 Moon sets at 7:35 a.m. Library to hold special event ANACONDA In celebration of Martin Luther King Jr., the Anaconda Coalition for Tolerance Education will sponsor a special presentation from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 22, at the Hearst Free Library, 401 Main St., Anaconda. If the person successfully makes it through treatment, the case is dismissed and the charges disappear from the record; if they dont, sentencing will ensue and they will likely be supervised through the Montana Department of Corrections. Pretrial diversion programs like this one arent new to Montana a few counties across the state utilize versions of them to get addicts treatment sooner, including Yellowstone, Custer and Ravalli. The MCAA statewide legislation is pulling from these existing programs to create the best possible version that would aim to save the entire state money, time and prevent future crime. There isnt a final draft of the MCAA proposed legislation yet, as Fitch said specifics are still being honed out. But he hopes to have a final draft and a bill sponsor to propose it in the next few weeks. For Fitch, the importance of the statewide program is a little closer to home. He said in Beaverhead County, hes seen an incredible growth in the number of Child and Family Services cases hes filing ten times the number of cases he was when he started as county attorney and they are mostly meth-related. He hopes this pretrial diversion program can get addicts the help they need sooner, in turn protecting families sooner. There are victims of the drug problem everywhere. If we dont try to do something about it, were not doing our job, Fitch said, referring to county attorneys across the state. I know I am a prosecutor, but Im trying to make the world a better place. I really am. Love 3 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. HPV tests detect these high-risk types of the virus. An HPV test can be carried out concurrently with a Pap smear, or it can be done independently of the Pap. The HPV tests are recommended every five years for women ages 30 to 65. HPV vaccines help to prevent infection from both high-risk viruses that can lead to cervical cancer and lower-risk viruses. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all boys and girls receive the HPV vaccine at age 11 or 12. The vaccine is also recommended for boys because males too are at risk for HPV and related diseases. A two-dose vaccine is administered at ages 11 to 14; those receiving the vaccine later than 14 years of age receive a three-dose vaccine. The vaccine can be administered to people up to age 26. These vaccines dont protect against all HPV types, so women are advised to obtain routine Pap and HPV screens even though theyve received the vaccine. A majority of women diagnosed with cervical cancer either has never had a Pap test of havent had one in the past five years. These tests are carried out in primary care clinics by physicians or mid-level providers such as a nurse practitioner or physicians assistant. Disclaimer : The views expressed in the forum are the views of the user writing the post, and not that of moneycontrol.com. You agree, by accessing this forum, that moneycontrol.com bears no liability for any posts on this forum or, any losses suffered by following any advice posted on this forum. moneycontrol.com operates this real time, open, unmoderated, private forum for users to exchange information and to discuss various investing techniques. moneycontrol.com or, its personnel do not post anything, or vet the content posted, on this forum. moneycontrol.com reserves the right to deny service to anyone. You, and not moneycontrol.com, assume the entire cost and risk of any trading you choose to undertake. You are solely responsible for making your own investment decisions. If you choose to engage in such transactions with or without seeking advice from a licensed and qualified financial advisor or entity, then such decision and any consequences flowing therefrom are your sole responsibility. Construction Sector in Georgia In 2014-2017, construction sector has been the fastest growing sector (57%) of Georgias economy. On the one hand, fast growth of construction sector strengthens Georgias economy and creates additional employment opportunities, but, on the other hand, this process causes certain problems. Reasons for these problems are high concentration of constructions (80%) only in Tbilisi and Batumi, weak regulations and bad practice of issuance of construction permits.In the first half of 2018, construction sector decreased by 0.3. Decreased number of permits issued for increase of K2 coefficient caused this reduction. As a result, the share of construction sector in Georgias economy has decreased from 9.3% (2017) to 8.6%.71 600 contracted employees work in GEL 1 461 is an average nominal monthly salary in construction sector and this figure is only behind average salary in finance sector. Fast growth of construction sector leads to higher salaries. Since 2010, an average nominal salary has doubled in this sector.construction sector, which is 9.6% of contracted employees working in all sectors.In July 2018, the Parliament of Georgia adopted . In parallel to enforcing this Code, currently existing regulatory documents will lose their power. The Code mostly has a general character and defines the sphere of regulation. After adoption of this Code the Government should adopt 14 by-laws. The Code will be in full effect from 1 January 2022. However, local municipalities will have time to develop their plans until 1 January 2028.new Construction CodeAccording to the World Banks Doing Business Index, Georgia ranked #27 in the world in terms of construction regulations. The World Bank considers quality control of constructions the weakest sides of Georgia.Zoning agreements frequently cause In the end of 2017, Tbilisi City Halls zoning council was abolished and its functions were transferred to Urban Development Service of Tbilisi City Hall. As a result, number of permits issued for increase of K2 coefficient decreased. In the first half of 2018, only 53 permits were issued.so called chaotic development of Tbilisi.In 2014-2016, compared with 2009-2013, permits for Moreover, a possibility to raise K2 coefficient increases corruption risks, which is directly reflected in connections of the members of Tbilisi City Hall zoning council with construction business and politicians.increase of K2 coefficient has increased by 54%.During 2006-2016, construction permits for This means that construction area will significantly increase in future, which is good if not one issue: 51% of construction permits are issued in Tbilisi and 28% - in Adjara.building of 63.4 million m2 have been issued.According to the census conducted in 2014, Tbilisi was the most densely populated territory in Georgia with 2 199 persons living on one km2 on average. 79% of construction permits were issued for living purpose.There are many large, medium and small enterprises in There are 43 large, 281 medium and 6 620 small enterprises in this sector. Although 43% of employees work in small enterprises, salaries are two times higher in large enterprises.construction sector. There are no signs of monopoly or oligopoly in construction market.Real estate sales have a growth trend. In 2017, sales increased by 11%. The highest growth rate (34%) was in Adjara, mainly in Batumi.In 54% of ongoing constructions are located in these districts too.Tbilisi 43% of real estate sales are concentrated in Saburtalo and Vake.During the last three years, real estate prices have been stable In Tbilisi. The prices in USD have increased only by 1.6% and by 7% - in GEL. In Tbilisi the most expensive real estate (USD 1 124 per 1 m2) is in Mtatsminda district and the cheapest one is in Samgori (USD 547).Another interesting issue is In 2017, 63% of public procurement was spent on construction works.participation of large construction companies in public procurement and their links with politics, including donations made in favor of political parties.Companies connected with political donors often win public contracts through Before 2012, all large construction companies, except those that were linked with Bidzina Ivanishvili, have been donating to the UNM. Since 2012, after the change of government, construction companies have not donated anything to the UNM. However, some of them became donors of the GD - new ruling party. During 2011-2018, construction companies, which had a status of large enterprise as of 1 November 2018, have donated up to GEL 2 million to various political parties. During the same period, these companies have received GEL 700 million from public tenders and GEL 90 million through simplified public procurement.simplified procurement process. This contains corruption risks. State Senate President Scott Sales wants to send $8 million of the Montana taxpayers' money to the feds to help build a wall on the border between Mexico and the United States. Really? Senator Sales doesnt support the the use of municipal bonds to improve Montanas infrastructure, but hell spend $8 million to build a wall along the borders of Arizona and Texas? Scott Sales grew up in Boise, Idaho, and moved to Montana in 1990. Maybe we should just build a wall between Idaho and Montana? Bob Tutskey, Missoula You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 5 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2 More than a century after Montana celebrated womens suffrage and sent the first female representative in the nation to Congress, the state may finally do away with a long outdated requirement that women seeking a marriage license first submit to a blood test. Missoula Rep. Kim Dudik, a Democrat, has a bill in the Legislature that would at last abolish the premarital blood test for Montana brides. Last week, House Bill 136 was referred to the Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Bloomfield Republican Rep. Alan Doane. Rep. Connie Keogh, D-Missoula, and Theresa Manzella, R-Hamilton, are western Montanas female committee members on the 19-member commission. They should rally their colleagues to get this bill passed out of committee and forwarded to the floor without undue delay. While there once may have been good reason to require women to be tested for rubella immunity, those reasons are no longer relevant. A possible threat made on social media by a Melstone High School student was determined to be unfounded, according to the school superintendent, and classes will resume as normal after the officials closed the school Tuesday. School officials were alerted to the possible threat Monday night, superintendent Brett Scott said Tuesday, prompting a cancellation of classes and extracurricular activities. "We just received a threat that came to us from social media about the possibility of (the student) shooting up the school," Scott said. "Due to it being so late, we couldn't verify or deny that it was a true threat. I just thought it was in the best interest of our students, our staff, to just cancel school to give us ample time to do our due diligence." Law enforcement investigated the incident and told school officials Tuesday morning that the student's social media comments had been taken out of context, Scott said. "It was more or less a misunderstanding that some people took seriously," he said. "We take all threats seriously, so that's why the decision was made." A proposed tuition freeze will likely be a point of debate as lawmakers consider Gov. Steve Bullock's request for an additional $26.8 million for campuses of the Montana University System a 7.1 percent increase for the biennium. Monday, the education appropriations subcommittee of the Montana Legislature heard an overview of the proposed budget along with comments from lawmakers that shed light on the days ahead. After the meeting, Chair Llew Jones shared some of the public higher education issues he anticipates legislators will discuss in the coming weeks. Jones, a Republican from Conrad, said lawmakers likely will debate whether more taxpayer money should go toward a tuition freeze and the parameters for a freeze should they agree one is prudent. "Money is a scarce resource, right?" Jones said. According to the Montana Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education, funding reductions from 1992 to 2006 "forced large increases in tuition, making the relationship of tuition to median income out of sync." However, in an overview about student access to education, the Commissioner's Office notes the Montana University System ranks No. 1 in the West for the smallest percentage increase in 12 years, with a series of tuition freezes. Lawmakers introduced bills Monday to extend a pair of Native language preservation programs and supplement federal grants for programs serving English learner students with state and local funding. The bills come out of the State-Tribal Relations Interim Committee, which met between the 2017 and 2019 sessions, and are supported by the Montana School Boards Association, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation and the Fort Belknap Indian Community Council, among others. Rep. Sharon Stewart Peregoy, a Democrat from Crow Agency, sponsored the English learner bill, which would require the state to at least partially match federal grants to programs for students with limited proficiency in the English language. The bill would make $500,000 available to the Office of Public Instruction to match federal money if passed, equal to the amount of federal money the state received in 2017-18 to fund programs for students with limited English proficiency. The intent is to, at the end of the day, help students do well academically, Stewart Peregoy said. Her bill is House Bill 18. Flathead National Forest Supervisor Chip Weber would rather not be working from his Kalispell living room. I live five minutes from the office, so I can get there easily, Weber said from his home last week as the federal government shutdown headed into its third week. These people are very mission-driven. They want to get back to work. Theres so much work to do and theyre not being allowed to do it. Weber said about half a dozen of his colleagues are excepted from the federal furlough, meaning their jobs must go on although they arent getting paid. The rest of the national forests roughly 160 full-time-equivalent staff are ordered to stay home, not check email, or do any of their regular duties. So that means someone has sent emails to hundreds of wildland firefighters asking if they are available for work this summer, but no one is on hand to start training and certification classes. Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation fire trainers are at work. But the advanced fire management classes needed by incident commanders go through an interagency training program led by the federal government. After seven years, Black Coffee Roasting Co. is losing a local outlet. Effective next month, the local coffee roaster will no longer supply coffee to Providence St. Patrick Hospitals Grounds & Grains cafe. The hospital is switching to Starbucks to supply its beans. According to hospital spokesperson JoAnn Hoven, the changeover date is Feb. 14. When that happens, it will end what Black Coffees owners, Matt McQuilkin and Jim Chapman, describe as a strong partnership. They were actually one of our first accounts, McQuilkin said. Without talking numbers, they're a really good account. They've been a great account for us, in that it's been a regular coffee order. "We've gotten to know and really like them," he said of the shop's employees, "and I think that they like our company and then the management on the Missoula level has been really wonderful to us over the years as well. He and Chapman said they were notified of the change last week. PM Speaks About all-time high number of tourists By Gvantsa Gabekhadze Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze has stated that in 2018, Georgia hosted 8,679,544 international visitors.For a small country like ours, it is a unique achievement, indeed, and what it means above all else is that Georgia's visibility and attractiveness are growing in leaps and bounds. Georgia's guests familiarize themselves with our unique culture to be reassured that our unique culture is part of common European civilization, he said.He said that it is positive that the world's most reputable organizations and publications, in 2018, numbered Georgia among the safest and tourist-friendly countries.In the same vein, according to the Numbeo global crowd-sourced portal, Georgia ranked 5th among 125 countries in 2018. The UN World Tourism Organization ranked Georgia 4th in the world, and 2nd in Europe, as one of the fastest-growing destination in the world.And that is exactly why tourism is one of our country's key directions. Georgia has great potential for stepping up this direction, and our Government is doing its best to transform Georgia into one of the exceptional destinations on the world's tourist map, he said.Bakhtadze stated that now Georgia must channel all its efforts toward the rapid bettering of its tourism infrastructure and services.We need developed tourism infrastructure not only in Tbilisi but also in the regions, especially in those Georgian regions previously lacking in prioritizing tourism. We will foster the creation of new tourist attractions and encourage additional investments in less developed regions, he stated.According to statistics for the first three quarters of 2018, tourism claimed 7.6% of the country's GDP, marking an almost 20% year-over-year growth. In 2017 as a whole, tourism held 6.8% of the GDP. In other words, the year-over-year growth was almost 12%, Bakhtadze said. Credit: CC0 Public Domain White blood cells, also known as monocytes, play a key role in the immune system's response to infection. They have been shown to fuse and form multinucleated giant cells (MGCs) during inflammatory reactions, or in response to introduced materials such as medical implants, but little is known about the mechanisms underlying the fusion process and its functional significance. A collaborative study has shown that different monocyte subsets have varying propensities to fuse in response to inflammation. The study, led by Siew-Cheng Wong from the A*STAR Singapore Immunology Network and Peter Monk from the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, examined the fusion capacity of three different human monocyte populations. By sorting cells using flow cytometry, they purified classical, intermediate and nonclassical monocytes, which are defined based on the proteins found on their surface. "These subsets have different activities in diseases such as tuberculosis and so we expected to see significant differences in their capacities to form giant cells" said Wong. Siew-Cheng Wong and colleagues found that upon exposure to ConA, a sugar-binding protein that stimulates the production of fusion-triggering pro-inflammatory molecules, intermediate monocytes were able to fuse faster than the other monocyte subsets. These intermediate monocyte-derived MGCs were also larger than those derived from the other populations. To determine what subset-specific factors could be influencing MGC formation, in classical, intermediate and nonclassical monocytes, they examined the expression of various tetraspaninsproteins with four transmembrane domains that have been implicated in many membrane fusion events. Although they were able to block intermediate monocyte cell fusion by targeting the tetraspanin CD63, they did not find a significant correlation between the expression of other tetraspanins and MGC formation. ConA exposure increased the production of the cytokine interleukin-1 in this subset, suggesting that pro-inflammatory signals contribute to the fusion process. Analysis of other fusion-related membrane proteins showed that DC-STAMP, a protein with seven membrane-spanning domains that is involved in the maintenance of self-tolerance, was the only one that was expressed at significantly higher levels in intermediate monocytes than in both of the other subsets. The higher expression of DC-STAMP could be related to the greater fusion capacity of intermediate monocytes. The different propensity of monocyte subsets to fuse could have important implications for the treatment of disease and medical implant rejection. Further studies into different mechanisms of fusion in different contexts will help determine whether MGCs exacerbate inflammation or contribute to the removal of debris from tissues. "By further understanding the fusion potential and mechanisms of monocyte subsets, we hope to learn how to harness these cells effectively to fight disease [and] prevent autoimmune reactions and medical implant rejection", concludes Wong. Explore further A class of white blood cells becomes more inflammatory as they get older More information: Thomas C. Champion et al. Monocyte Subsets Have Distinct Patterns of Tetraspanin Expression and Different Capacities to Form Multinucleate Giant Cells, Frontiers in Immunology (2018). Thomas C. Champion et al. Monocyte Subsets Have Distinct Patterns of Tetraspanin Expression and Different Capacities to Form Multinucleate Giant Cells,(2018). DOI: 10.3389/FIMMU.2018.01247 Credit: Bill Kuffrey/public domain Human beings can configure their faces in thousands and thousands of ways to convey emotion, but only 35 expressions actually get the job done across cultures, a new study has found. And while our faces can convey a multitude of emotionsfrom anger to sadness to riotous joythe number of ways our faces can convey different emotions varies. Disgust, for example, needs just one facial expression to get its point across throughout the world. Happiness, on the other hand, has 17a testament to the many varied forms of cheer, delight and contentedness. "This was delightful to discover," said Aleix Martinez, cognitive scientist, professor of electrical and computer engineering at The Ohio State University, and study co-author, "because it speaks to the complex nature of happiness." The differences in how our faces convey happiness can be as simple as the size of our smiles or the crinkles near our eyes, the study found. The study also found that humans use three expressions to convey fear, four to convey surprise, and five each to convey sadness and anger. Those are the findings of a new study published online in the journal IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing. "Happiness acts as a social glue and needs the complexity of different facial expressions; disgust is just that: disgust," Martinez said. The findings build on Martinez's previous work on facial expressions, which found that people can correctly identify other people's emotions about 75 percent of the time based solely on subtle shifts in how blood flow colors a person's nose, eyebrows, cheeks or chin. In this study, Martinez and co-author Ramprakash Srinivasan, a doctoral student at Ohio State in Martinez's lab, assembled a list of words that describe feelings821 English words, to be exact. They then used those words to mine the internet for images of people's faces. Professional translators translated those words into Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Farsi and Russian. To avoid bias, they used each word to download an equal number of images. They plugged the words into search engines popular in 31 countries across North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia, and ended up with approximately 7.2 million images of facial expressions across a variety of cultures. The study did not include countries from the African continent or other remote parts of the world because of the limited number of candid images available from those areas. Psychologists have debated how to classify human emotion for centuries. An ancient Chinese textdating back as early as 213 B.C., then modified over the yearsdescribed seven "feelings of men" as joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, disliking and liking. Martinez, whose research interests intersect both engineering and the behavior of the human brain, thought there had to be more than just seven or eight. "To think that humans are only capable of eight emotions is absurd," he said. "We are complex creatures. What about the different forms of joy? We experience the world on a much deeper level than just eight emotions." Martinez and Srinivasan hoped to identify the facial configurations that convey emotion across cultures. Based on computer algorithms, they found that the human face is capable of configuring itself in 16,384 unique ways, combining different muscles in different ways. They took the 7.2 million images their searches yielded and sorted them into categories, looking for those that expressed emotion across cultures. Martinez figured they'd find at least a few hundred. They found only 35. "We were shocked," Martinez said. "I thought there would be way, way more." Since the number of universal expressions was smaller than expected, they wondered if most expressions of emotion were culture-specific. The result of this study surprised them even more. Analysis of the same dataset of 7.2 million images showed there are only eight expressions that are used in somebut not allcultures. These eight expressions convey positive and negative affect, but not emotion categories like joy and anger. The researchers concluded that most facial expressions of emotion are universal, that there are only a few dozen of them and that a large number of them are used to express joyfulness. More information: Ramprakash Srinivasan et al, Cross-Cultural and Cultural-Specific Production and Perception of Facial Expressions of Emotion in the Wild, IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing (2018). Journal information: IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing Ramprakash Srinivasan et al, Cross-Cultural and Cultural-Specific Production and Perception of Facial Expressions of Emotion in the Wild,(2018). DOI: 10.1109/TAFFC.2018.2887267 Co-existence of rHSCs and pHSCs in bone marrow with the latter sensitive to chemotherapy but the former surviving chemotherapy and restoring the HSC pool. Credit: Mark Miller, Stowers Institute for Medical Research New research from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research has identified the backup for an important biological systemthe hematopoietic system, whose adult stem cells constantly replenish the body's blood supply. The finding provides evidence that hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) consist of different functional populations of cells, including "primed" cells, which are ready at a moment's notice to be activated to produce red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets, and "reserve" cells, which come into play when there has been damage to the first-line stem cells. "Under severe stressradiation or chemotherapy that injures blood cells, including primed hematopoietic stem cellsthat's when reserve cells kick in," says Linheng Li, Ph.D., an Investigator at the Stowers Institute and senior author of the study. Reserve HSCs could hold the key to understanding how blood cells repopulate after severe injury depletes the bone marrow that produces blood cells. This concept may provide an insight for understanding treatment-resistant leukemia cells. The study appears online January 15, 2019, in the journal Cell Reports. Every second, two million new blood cells are churned out by the amazing, regenerative HSCs that reside in the core of most bones. Only a fraction of these cells actively move through the cell cycle at any given time; the rest lie in an inactive or quiescent state, which was once believed to protect them from harm. However, several studies have shown that the majority of these quiescent HSCs are sensitive to DNA damage from chemotherapy. Over a decade ago, Li suggested that a special population of HSCs that are resistant to damage might still reside in the bone marrow, hidden in some unexplored niche. In this study, Meng Zhao, Ph.D. (now a faculty member at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China), Fang Tao, Ph.D., Zhenrui Li, Ph.D. (now a fellow at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital), Aparna Venkatraman, Ph.D., and Xi C. He, M.D., undertook a series of experiments using a mouse model to prove that these cells exist. A key experiment utilized a cell surface marker to isolate reserve and primed HSCs. The researchers transplanted reserve HSCs or primed HSCs into recipient animals. After the engraftments were established, they treated recipient mice with the chemotherapy agent 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). While the primed HSCs reflected by their derived blood cells began to decline after treatment, the reserve HSCs' derivatives were unscathed. "In effect, we showed that hematopoietic stem cells have functionally distinct subpopulationsone that acts under normal conditions, and the other that acts under times of stress," says Li. Next, the researchers examined bone and marrow from transplanted mice, labeling the reserve cells with fluorescent tags and studying them microscopically to pinpoint their location in the bone marrow. With Sarah Smith, Ph.D., from the Stowers Microscopy Center, they spotted the fluorescently labeled cells lurking in a specialized niche along the inside surface of the bone, adjacent to a population of cells known as N-cadherin+ bone-lining cells, which was reported by the Li team in 2003 as the first niche identified to support HSCs. In the current study, Tao and colleagues found that these N-cadherin+ bone-lining cells are mesenchymal or skeletal stem cells with the potential to produce bone, cartilage, and fat. Therefore, N-cadherin may be used as a marker to isolate skeletal stem cells and may have potential uses in bone and cartilage regenerative medicine. These N-cadherin+ bone-lining cells appear to protect the reserve cells from injury by feeding them survival factors like the aptly named stem cell factor and others. When the researchers depleted these support cells, the reserve cells were no longer able to survive chemotherapy treatment. "Interestingly, we found that N-cadherin+ cells lining the bone are also resistant to chemotherapy, while stromal cells in the central marrow are sensitive to chemotherapy, which allows N-cadherin+ cells to better support the reserve stem cells," said Tao, who, along with Zhao, is co-first author on the study. Other coauthors include Jay Unruh, Ph.D., Shiyuan Chen, Christina Ward, Pengxu Qian, Ph.D., John M. Perry, Ph.D., Heather Marshall, Ph.D., and Jinxi Wang, M.D., Ph.D. The work was supported by funding from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research to L.L. and a grant to the University of Kansas Cancer Center from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under award number P30CA168524. Additional support included National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFA0103403, 2018YFA0107203) to M.Z.; Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India overseas associateship to A.V.; and the National Institutes of Health award numbers R01AR059088 and R01DE018713 to J.W. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Lay Summary of Findings Blood-forming adult stem cells reside deep in the bone marrow and are responsible for regenerating the body's blood supply including red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. In a study published online January 15, 2019, in the journal Cell Reports, Stowers Institute for Medical Research scientists from the laboratory of Linheng Li, Ph.D., and collaborators investigated how these cells, despite being sensitive to DNA damage, manage to repopulate blood cells after chemotherapy or injury has depleted their numbers. The researchers report that a subset of blood-forming, or hematopoietic, adult stem cells called "reserve" hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are resistant to chemotherapy. These reserve HSCs are located in a specialized niche, composed of cells on the inner bone surface expressing the molecule N-cadherin, in mouse bone marrow. The finding advances the understanding of HSC biology and may open new avenues for treating blood diseases like leukemia and autoimmune disorders. Explore further Stem cell study offers clues for optimizing bone marrow transplants and more More information: Meng Zhao et al. N-Cadherin-Expressing Bone and Marrow Stromal Progenitor Cells Maintain Reserve Hematopoietic Stem Cells, Cell Reports (2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.12.093 , Journal information: Cell Reports Meng Zhao et al. N-Cadherin-Expressing Bone and Marrow Stromal Progenitor Cells Maintain Reserve Hematopoietic Stem Cells,(2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.12.093 , www.cell.com/cell-reports/full 2211-1247(18)32053-9 Credit: University of Maine Better prediction of the emergence, spread and evolution of the environmentally transmitted pathogen that causes anthrax is the focus of a National Science Foundation award to the University at Albany, State University of New York and the University of Maine. Wendy Turner, University at Albany assistant professor of biological sciences, is leading the research team on the four-year, nearly $2.5 million project. Co-principal investigator is Pauline Kamath, UMaine assistant professor of animal health. They will be joined by scientists from the University of Pretoria, University of Namibia, University of Oslo and University of Hohenheim. Anthrax is a serious infectious disease caused by the bacteria Bacillus anthracis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The bacteria is an environmentally persistent pathogen that naturally occurs in soil, and can infect wild and domestic herbivore animals that inhale or ingest spores in soil, plants or water. The variation in anthrax outbreaks worldwide hinders successful prediction and response, according to the researchers. There is a lack of understanding of the factors driving geographic differences in the ecology of the pathogen, as well as the pattern of disease outbreaks. The scientists will conduct research in two national parks in southern Africa that differ in the timing and severity of anthrax outbreaks. They will investigate the roles of host, pathogen and environment to understand how the pathogen-host interaction evolves and contributes to the differences in anthrax occurrences in the two study areas. In Etosha National Park, Namibia, there are smaller outbreaks annually during wet seasons that primarily affect zebra. In Kruger National Park, South Africa, larger outbreaks tend to affect browsing kudu in dry seasons about every 10 years. The project will focus on host and environment processes to understand how tradeoffs in pathogen survival and transmission affect pathogen diversity, host resistance and disease incidence, and ultimately, how these processes may drive host-pathogen coevolution. The research, using genomics, and statistical and dynamic modeling, has implications for public health, agriculture and biosecurity. It also could add to the understanding of other epidemic and emerging diseases that similarly have a variety of transmission modes, high environmental survival and wide host range. Researchers will build models predicting anthrax transmission dynamics across ecosystems. The research will facilitate development of predictive tools to better manage public health and related policies for complex, multihost zoonotic diseases, such as anthrax. Humans can contract anthrax if they come in contact with infected animals or contaminated animal products, according to the CDC. In addition, people can develop the disease if the spores are inhaled, or enter the bloodstream through a wound, or by ingestion or injection. The CDC notes that an anthrax vaccine for animals developed in 1937 reduced the incidence of the disease in humans. More than a decade later, a human vaccine for the disease was developed. Throughout the 20th century, anthrax has been weaponized, including during wartime and, most recently, as a form of bioterrorism. Explore further Researchers report strategy for preventing the anthrax bacterium from absorbing iron Fears over a drug that can be used to treat alcohol addiction are unfounded, according to its first ever systematic review, led by academics at The University of Manchester. Though the study found no evidence of any serious side effects linked to Naltrexone, many doctors hold back from prescribing the drug, often citing liver toxicity as a reason. The review of 89 placebo controlled randomized clinical trials of naltrexone is based on 11,194 participants published in BMC Medicine. Lead author Dr. Monica Bolton, who conducted the research as part of her Master's degree at Manchester said: "Though naltrexone is licensed for the treatment of alcohol addiction, it remains under-utilized. "And that has devastating consequences for individuals, health and social services in the UK and around the world. "As far as we know there is only one contraindication: painkilling opiates, such as codeine. These should not be taken with naltrexone, as it works by blocking opiates in the brain. "Up to 58% of alcohol-dependent people in England want to reduce their drinking, and this drug could help them succeed. "It is cost effective and could reduce deaths." According to the Office of National Statistics there were 7,697 alcohol-specific deaths in the UK in 2017, or 12.2 deaths per 100,000 population. The Department of Health estimates the NHS costs of alcohol related problems as 3.5 billion every year. Dr. Alex Hodkinson from The University of Manchester said: "Previous research shows that naltrexone is prescribed to less than 0.5% of those eligible. "And only 11.7% of those diagnosed with more severe forms of alcohol dependence received relevant drug therapy in the 12 months following diagnosis. "Like all drugs for alcohol addiction, the chaotic nature of being an addict means this drug is simply not prescribed as much as it should be. "It's also a cultural issue: there is a reluctance to prescribe one drug to combat addiction in another substance. "Our review also shows that fears over side-effects are unfounded." Naltrexone is being investigated for a range of other conditions such as other addictions, gambling and other impulse control disorders. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that at a very low dose, it may also be able to treat a range of immune-modulated conditions including Crohn's disease, HIV, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). In the UK, around 1,400 NHS prescriptions for LDN are issued per year while over 12,000 people have received a private prescription in the last 10 years. However, Dr. Bolton argues that more research is needed to understand if the drug is effective for these conditions. She said: "As it is safe, cheap and long out of patent, naltrexone would seem an excellent candidate for repurposing for a whole range of conditions. "That is why it is imperative to find ways to fund clinical trials to test if it might one day be possible to license it. "The problem is, it is extremely difficult to repurpose existing drugsand naltrexone is just one example of many wasted opportunities to treat people and save the NHS money." Explore further Drug combo shows promise in treatment of depression and addiction Credit: CC0 Public Domain Truck drivers in sub-Saharan Africa are especially vulnerable to infection with HIV due to contact with multiple sexual partnersoften including sex workersalong their trucking routes. Accessing HIV testing can be a challenge for truckers due to their mobility and long working hours, as well as concerns about confidentiality and stigma. CUNY SPH researchers Dr. Elizabeth Kelvin, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and DPH candidate Matthew Romo are exploring HIV self-testing as a way to increase testing rates in this high-risk population. The researchers led a randomized controlled trial that assessed whether alerting truckers via text message about the availability of HIV self-testing at clinics located at major transit hubs in Kenya would increase HIV testing rates. The results were published in the journal BMC Public Health. The study found that, among truckers who were not accessing HIV testing regularly, receiving text messages about the availability of HIV self-testing in these clinics significantly increased HIV testing rates compared to receipt of text messages about the availability of HIV testing In general (not self-testing). However, HIV testing rates remained low even among those in the intervention. Making HIV self-testing kits available at clinics is only a partial solution to increasing testing rates in this hard-to-reach population, Kelvin says. "To reach more truck drivers we may need to bring HIV self-testing kits to them at the truck stops," she continues. "Text messaging could also be used to alert people about that kind of an outreach program to increase uptake." Kelvin and Romo recently published a similar study among female sex workers in Kenya and found that those who were notified about the availability of HIV self-testing via text message were also significantly more likely to come to a clinic for HIV testing compared to those who received text messages about HIV testing in general. Explore further Promoting HIV self-testing via text message to sex workers in Kenya More information: Elizabeth A. Kelvin et al. Announcing the availability of oral HIV self-test kits via text message to increase HIV testing among hard-to-reach truckers in Kenya: a randomized controlled trial, BMC Public Health (2019). Journal information: BMC Public Health Elizabeth A. Kelvin et al. Announcing the availability of oral HIV self-test kits via text message to increase HIV testing among hard-to-reach truckers in Kenya: a randomized controlled trial,(2019). DOI: 10.1186/s12889-018-6345-1 Credit: CC0 Public Domain A new study published today by researchers at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH) finds that for-profit ownership of nursing school programs is significantly associated with lower performance on a national nursing licensure exam than public and nonprofit programs. The study found that graduates of for-profit nursing programs were more likely to fail the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) on the first try compared to peers who had attended public or nonprofit schools. Students who fail can try again, but they cannot get an entry-level nursing job until they pass the test, said Patricia Pittman, Ph.D., the lead study author and a professor of health policy and management at Milken Institute SPH. For this study, Pittman and her colleagues first tracked the number of U.S. nursing programs and graduates by ownership type from 2007 through 2016. The researchers found a 14-fold increase in the number of graduates from for-profit nursing school programs during the study periodand a five-fold jump in the total number of for-profit nursing programs. Next, the team gathered data on first-time nursing exam pass rates for graduates and sorted them by degree and by ownership status during a five-year period from 2011 through 2015. Performance trends revealed wide variation within the for-profit sector, although, on average, pass rates among for-profit programs declined over the study period, while public and nonprofit programs' pass rates stayed about the same. Descriptive analysis of five years of pooled data across the three degree types (Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Associate Degree in Nursing, and Practical Nurse) found that, on average, public programs had a first time pass rate of 88 percent, nonprofits 84 percent and for-profits 68 percent. After controlling for school, program, socioeconomic factors and other indicators that can affect performance, for-profit ownership status was still a significant predictor of lower NCLEX pass rates. The regression models indicate that for-profit nursing programs had pass rates that were 7 percentage points lower than public programs. Nonprofit programs also had lower pass rates than public programs, but the magnitude of the difference was smaller at 2 percent, the authors said. "Many states and accreditation agencies consider an NCLEX pass rate of at least 80 percent as a minimum quality threshold for nursing programs," Pittman said. "Our study found that for-profit nursing programs were nearly twice as likely to have failed to meet that 80 percent threshold as compared to public programs." This study used the NCLEX pass rates as a measure of a nursing school's quality, an imperfect yardstick to be sure, Pittman said. However, she adds that it is one of the few ways to gauge a nursing school's ability to prepare newly minted nurses for the demands of an entry-level job. The findings suggest that nursing leaders and policymakers must take a hard look at the performance of all nursing programs, not just those in the for-profit sector. For example, Pittman said that not all states require accreditation at the nursing program level, and that accreditation could help ensure that all nursing schools meet a higher bar in performance standards. In addition, states could also require nursing programs to publicly report their NCLEX pass rates, she said. Such disclosure could help prospective students size up the value of a nursing program regardless of its ownership status. The study, "The Growth and Performance of Nursing Programs by Ownership Status," was published online January 15 in the Journal of Nursing Regulation. Explore further Key factors for family satisfaction with nursing homes More information: Patricia Pittman et al, The Growth and Performance of Nursing Programs by Ownership Status, Journal of Nursing Regulation (2019). Patricia Pittman et al, The Growth and Performance of Nursing Programs by Ownership Status,(2019). DOI: 10.1016/S2155-8256(19)30011-0 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Fever is known to help power up our immune cells, and scientists in Shanghai have new evidence explaining how. They found in mice that fever alters surface proteins on immune cells like lymphocytes to make them better able to travel via blood vessels to reach the site of infection. Their work appears on January 15 in the journal Immunity. "One good thing about fever is that it can promote lymphocyte trafficking to the site of infection, so you will have more immune cells in the infected region that will get rid of the pathogen," says Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology (SIBCB) Professor and senior author JianFeng Chen. To get to an infection, white blood cells need to adhere to the blood vessel and then transmigrate into the infected tissue or lymph node. During this step, molecules known as integrins are expressed on the surface of lymphocytes. Integrins are cell adhesion molecules that control lymphocyte trafficking during inflammation. Chen and colleagues discovered that fever increases the expression of heat shock protein 90 (Hsp 90) in T lymphocytes. This protein binds to a type of integrin on the lymphocytes4 integrinswhich promote lymphocyte adhesion to the blood vessel and ultimately to expedited migration to the site of infection. The researchers learned that fever-induced Hsp90 binds to the integrin tail and induces integrin activation. Moreover, one Hsp90 can bind to two integrins leading to a clustering of integrins on the lymphocyte surface. As a result, the clustered integrins activate a signaling pathway that promotes lymphocyte transmigration. "Our findings show that this mechanism not only applies to lymphocytes but also to innate immune cells like monocytes," says Chen. "It is a general mechanism that can apply to lots of different immune cells expressing 4 integrins." The team also used animal studies of bacterial infection and other fever models to confirm their findings. When the pathway between the Hsp90 and integrin was blocked, study mice died quickly. They also learned that this mechanism is very temperature-specific. "In this paper, we found the Hsp90 can only be induced at a temperature above 38.5C," says Chen, explaining how the mechanism is targeted and effective, yet reversible. The researchers also believe other stresses, not just fever, can induce Hsp90 expression. "That's why we think that in different situations, such as autoimmune disease and cancer, this Hsp90-4 integrin pathway may be involved," says Chen. In autoimmune disease, aberrant trafficking of immune cells to different organs or tissues may lead to disease. "But if you block this pathway, you can maybe inhibit the trafficking of the immune cells during chronic inflammation or in autoimmune diseases," he says. Explore further Integrins losing their grip drive activate T cell immune responses More information: Immunity, ChangDong et al:" Fever Promotes T Lymphocyte Trafficking via a Thermal Sensory Pathway Involving Heat Shock Protein 90 and 4 Integrins." DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2018.11.013 Journal information: Immunity , ChangDong et al:" Fever Promotes T Lymphocyte Trafficking via a Thermal Sensory Pathway Involving Heat Shock Protein 90 and 4 Integrins." www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext 1074-7613(18)30495-3 Credit: CC0 Public Domain Young children experiencing deprivation and neglect in institutional settings have impaired memory and executive functioning at ages 8 and 16 compared with peers placed early in quality foster homes, report investigators at Boston Children's Hospital. The study, interpreting the latest findings from the randomized controlled trial, the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "This study shows us that the effects of deprivation and neglect in early childhood continue well into the second decade of life, providing strong evidence that early experience has a long-term impact on cognitive functioning in adolescencea very important period of social and biological development," says Mark Wade, Ph.D., of the Division of Developmental Medicine at Boston Children's Hospital and the paper's first author. An estimated 8 million children worldwide live in institutions. The long-running BEIP study compares psychosocial, cognitive and brain outcomes in children raised in Romanian orphanages, versus those adopted early in life by carefully vetted foster families and children who were never in institutions. An analysis last fall reported high levels of mental health problems when institutionally-reared children reached adolescence, in particular difficult behaviors such as rule-breaking, excessive arguing with authority figures, stealing or assaulting peers. But these problems were reduced among children placed early with foster families. The new analysis focused on cognitive functioning, in particular memory and executive functioning. "Executive functioning includes several cognitive processes that help individuals be more goal-oriented and solve problems," explains Wade. "It is important in academic achievement and social functioning in childhood, and is also related to long-term occupational attainment, income and other aspects psychosocial well-being." The findings: Children in all groups, institutionalized or not, improved on several measures of memory and executive functioning as they got older (from age 8 to 16). Among institutionalized children, even those eventually placed in foster care, early impairments in attention, short-term visual memory, spatial planning and problem solving (all components of executive functioning) among persisted through adolescence. The gap in spatial working memory between ever-institutionalized children and those raised in the community widened by adolescence. There was one note of hope: When institutionalized children were placed early in quality foster care, early difficulties in visual-spatial memory and new learning diminished by adolescence, making them indistinguishable from other children by age 16. "Institutionally-reared children start out with more difficulties, but when they are assigned early to positive caregiving environments, they may demonstrate some catch-up on certain aspects of executive functioning," says Wade. "A safe, nurturing, and cognitively stimulating environment in a family-based setting is critical to children's long-term success, and may help some who struggle early get back on track during adolescence." EEG predictor? The study also found that an EEG measure of brain activity at age 8, namely higher resting EEG alpha power, predicted better executive functioning at ages 8, 12, and 16. "This may point to a neural mechanism that supports children's cognitive development," says Charles A. Nelson, Ph.D., director of the Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience at Boston Children's Hospital and senior author on the paper. Explore further Study of children in Romanian orphanages tells cautionary tale about family separation More information: Mark Wade et al. Long-term effects of institutional rearing, foster care, and brain activity on memory and executive functioning, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2019). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Mark Wade et al. Long-term effects of institutional rearing, foster care, and brain activity on memory and executive functioning,(2019). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1809145116 Stained images of human skin 72 hours after wounding. (left) A control wound treated with PBS, (right) a wound treated with spermine. Credit: A*STAR Skin Research Institute of Singapore After a flesh wound, skin cells march forward to close the gap and repair the injury. Findings from a team led by Leah Vardy at A*STAR's Skin Research Institute of Singapore now demonstrate how a carefully regulated set of molecular cues helps coordinate this healing migration. Vardy was particularly interested in a trio of organic molecules known as polyamines, which play a role in cellular proliferation. "They are well studied in cancer, but much less is known about how changes in their levels can drive normal cellular behavioural changes," says Vardy. An enzyme called AMD1 facilitates the conversion of one polyamine, putrescine, into two other polyamines, spermidine and spermine. As this step is essential in determining the final balance of the three molecules within the cellular environment, Vardy's team examined what happens to AMD1 levels during wound healing. To model skin damage, they put a scratch on a sheet of cultured human skin cells, and observed a spike in AMD1 levels among cells near the edge of the wound within an hour of the injury. Although initially diffuse, AMD1 expression became more strongly focused within the outermost rows of cells over the next several hours. The researchers then subjected the cultured cells to a gene expression-modulating treatment that greatly reduced their ability to produce AMD1. This resulted in markedly slower healing in the experimental wound model, which the researchers attributed to the imbalance in the relative levels of putrescine, spermidine and spermine. Closer analysis of the treated cells confirmed this, revealing a 2.7-fold increase in putrescine and a two-fold reduction in spermine levels, while spermidine levels remained relatively unchanged. Strikingly, when Vardy and colleagues compensated for this imbalance by adding spermine back to the damaged skin cell cultures, they observed a clear increase in the rate of wound closure. "Low putrescine and high spermine levels are required for cell migration at the wound edge," explains Vardy. They further determined that these polyamines appear to coordinate a reorganization of the cytoskeletal proteins that provide the infrastructure for cell migration during the wound healing process. Vardy believes that this process may be disrupted in patients whose wounds won't heal after injury, and she is now looking into the potential for polyamine-based therapeutics for wound care. "We are currently addressing the mechanism by which spermine promotes cell migration," she says, "and working with clinicians here in Singapore to determine how polyamine levels are altered in non-healing wounds." Explore further Investigators study how a protein factor contributes to cancer cell migration More information: Hui Kheng Lim et al. Polyamine Regulator AMD1 Promotes Cell Migration in Epidermal Wound Healing, Journal of Investigative Dermatology (2018). Journal information: Journal of Investigative Dermatology Hui Kheng Lim et al. Polyamine Regulator AMD1 Promotes Cell Migration in Epidermal Wound Healing,(2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.jid.2018.05.029 Mozzies feed on many native species, including the Nankeen Night Heron. Credit: Janis Otto/flikr Ross River virus is Australia's most common mosquito-borne disease. It infects around 4,000 people a year and, despite being named after a river in North Queensland, is found in all states and territories, including Tasmania. While the disease isn't fatal, it can cause debilitating joint pain, swelling and fatigue lasting weeks or even months. It can leave sufferers unable to work or look after children, and is estimated to cost the economy A$2.7 to A$5.6 million each year. There is no treatment or vaccine for Ross River virus; the only way to prevent is to avoid mosquito bites. Mosquitoes pick up the disease-causing pathogen by feeding on an infected animal. The typical transmission cycle involves mosquitoes moving the virus between native animals but occasionally, an infected mosquito will bite a person. If this occurs, the mosquito can spread Ross River virus to the person. Animal hosts Ross River virus has been found in a range of animals, including rats, dogs, horses, possums, flying foxes, bats and birds. But marsupials kangaroos and wallabies in particular are generally better than other animals at amplifying the virus under experimental infection and are therefore thought to be "reservoir hosts". The virus circulates in the blood of kangaroos and wallabies for longer than other animals, and at higher concentrations. It's then much more likely to be picked up by a blood-feeding mosquito. Kangaroos are a common sight around Australias coastal wetlands. Credit: Dr Cameron Webb (NSW Health Pathology), Author provided Dead-end hosts When we think of animals and disease we often try to identify which species are good at transmitting the virus to mosquitoes (the reservoir hosts). But more recently, researchers have started to focus on species that get bitten by mosquitoes but don't transmit the virus. These species, known as dead-end hosts, may be important for reducing transmission of the virus. With Ross River virus, research suggests birds that get Ross River virus from a mosquito cannot transmit the virus to another mosquito. If this is true, having an abundance of birds in and around our urban environments may reduce the transmission of Ross River virus to animals, mosquitoes and humans in cities. Other reservoir hosts? Even in areas with a high rates of Ross River virus in humans, we don't always find an abundance of kangaroos and wallabies. So there must be other factors or animals yet to be identified as reservoirs or dead-end hosts playing an important role in transmission. Ross River virus is prevalent in the Pacific Islands, for instance, where there aren't any kangaroos and wallabies. One study of blood donors in French Polynesia found that 42.4% of people tested had previously been exposed to the virus. The rates are even higher in American Samoa, where 63% of people had been exposed. Stop mozzies biting with insect repellents. Credit: Elizaveta Galitckaia/Shutterstock It's unclear if the virus has recently started circulating in these islands, or if it's been circulating there longer, and what animals have been acting as hosts. What about people? Mosquitoes can transmit some viruses, such as dengue and Zika between people quite easily. But the chances of a mosquito picking up Ross River virus when biting an infected human is low, though not impossible. The virus circulates in our blood at lower concentrations and for shorter periods of time compared with marsupials. If humans are infected with Ross River virus, around 30% will develop symptoms of joint pain and fatigue (and sometimes a rash) three to 11 days after exposure, while some may not experience any symptoms until three weeks after exposure. To reduce your risk of contracting Ross River virus, take care to cover up when you're outdoors at sunset and wear repellent when you're in outdoor environments where mosquitoes and wildlife may be frequently mixing. Explore further Risk of Ross River virus global epidemic This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The American College of Physicians (ACP) today released the seventh edition of its Ethics Manual, published as a supplement to the current issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, ACP's flagship journal. New or significantly expanded sections of the ACP Ethics Manual include precision medicine and genetic testing, research and protection of human subjects, telemedicine, electronic communications, social media and online professionalism, electronic health records, and physician volunteerism. The manual also revisits issues that are still very pertinent and in which ACP has maintained long-standing positions, such as on end-of-life care and physician-assisted suicide, physician-industry relations, and complementary and integrative care. "The intersection of medicine, the law, and social values can pose challenging ethical dilemmas for patients and their physicians," said ACP President Dr. Ana Maria Lopez, who is also the former chair of ACP's Ethics, Professionalism, and Human Rights Committee. "We believe that the ACP Ethics Manual can help clinicians, educators, researchers, and policymakers to consider and resolve ethical issues, thereby also enhancing trust in the medical profession among patients and the public." The manual is intended to facilitate the process of making ethical decisions in clinical practice, teaching, and medical research and to describe and explain underlying principles of ethics, as well as the physician's role in society and with colleagues. "The focus of the manual continues to be patient-centered and based in the critical importance of fostering strong patient-physician relationships," said Lois Snyder Sulmasy, JD, director of ACP's Center for Ethics and Professionalism. For example, in the guidance for telemedicine, the ACP Ethics Manual states: .... The benefits of increased access to care through telemedicine must be balanced with risks from the loss of the in-person encounter, e.g., misdiagnosis potential; over-prescribing; absent in-person interactions including the therapeutic value of touch, body language; and continuity of care.... In an accompanying editorial, J.S. Blumenthal-Barby, Ph.D., MA, and Bernard Lo, MD, write: "The American College of Physicians and the authors of the Ethics Manual have provided helpful, specific guidance on many difficult ethical issues that internists face in everyday practice as well as providing an explanation of the ethical principles and professional obligations that justify these recommendations." The ACP Ethics Manual is developed primarily for doctors but has been widely used by educators, policymakers, and patients, and is often cited in medical and ethical literature. The first ACP Ethics Manual was published in 1984. This seventh edition is an update of the 2012 sixth edition and was developed by ACP's Ethics, Professionalism, and Human Rights Committee. ACP's Board of Regents reviewed and approved the manual. Explore further ACP's Ethics Manual examines emerging issues in medical ethics TWIN FALLS Two garages and four vehicles were destroyed by a fire early Tuesday morning, Twin Falls fire officials said. Three fire engines responded to the two garages in the 100 block of Shoup Avenue West at about 12:20 a.m., the Twin Falls Fire Department said in a statement. Additional fire units, including some from the Rock Creek Fire District, were called in to fight the blaze, the department said. Eight fire units and 22 personnel ended up working against the fire. The fire was brought under control at about 12:45 a.m. No injuries were reported, but both structures and four vehicles were a total loss, the department said. Heat from the fire also damaged three nearby homes, the department said. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 6 Sad 3 Angry 0 TWIN FALLS The Twin Falls School District is looking at ways to revamp some of its high school math class offerings. The school board heard a presentation Monday night about math curriculum including a proposed flowchart for math course sequences but didnt take action. Twin Falls School District math department leaders created a proposal that includes two pathways for students traditional and integrated. Theyre also looking at future textbook upgrades. Traditional is the current system where most students learn about one math topic at a time, such as through taking an algebra or geometry class. Integrated includes multiple math topics taught during the same school year. The Idaho Standards Achievement Test in math for 10th grade is an integrated approach, said L.T. Erickson, secondary programs director for the Twin Falls School District. Having a similar approach to math classes could help students on standardized tests, he said. If the school board approves the change, a decision would be made about which pathway is best for each student. The change would also eliminate some remedial courses. It would definitely be raising the bar for all of our students, Erickson said. Berreths fiance, Patrick Frazee, 32, was arrested Dec. 21 at his home in the Colorado town of Florissant on charges of murder and solicitation of murder. Woodland Park police said they found evidence at Berreths home to make them believe she may have been killed there. Frazee is thought to be the last person to see Berreth alive. He told police that he met with Berreth on the afternoon of Thanksgiving to pick up their 1-year-old daughter for a visit. Kelso and his brother, Tony, dont smoke. But they choose to come to The GR every other Friday to enjoy a beer and eat some lunch. Despite getting headaches from the smoke, Kelso says he likes The GRs atmosphere and convenient location on Kimberly Road. Still, for other customers, the freedom to smoke is a big deal. I wish I didnt smoke, said Rod Adams of Wendell. I wish nobody smoked. That being said, Driving a truck, it is almost part of my character, he added. On my free time, if I went to a bar that said No Smoking, I wouldnt go into that bar. Ken Major says he goes to The GR twice a day. Hes been smoking for around 50 years. If The GR were made to go smoke-free, Major said hed pay money to have a covered area out back where he could light one up. No ordinance has come forth to the City Council at this time, but after the two listening sessions, City Manager Travis Rothweiler plans to address the board. My plan is to share what is reported at those hearings with the Council, and then ask the Council what they would like to do, Rothweiler said. TWIN FALLS Seed-oo. Sye-doe. See-doe. Sid-oo. See-ay-doe. S-I-E-D-O? The debate on how to pronounce SIEDO is effectively over. On Monday, Southern Idaho Economic Development Organization announced that it is dropping the last word of its name. From now on, it will no longer use the acronym SIEDO, but will be known as Southern Idaho Economic Development. There wasnt a consistent opinion about how that was pronounced, Executive Director Connie Stopher said. Stopher, who arrived here from Oregon in March 2017, was told different variations of how to pronounce the old name. And a state official even called it See-ay-doe, though most locals pronounced it more like Sid-oo or See-doe. The new name, Stopher said, should tell people, no matter where youre from, what we are and what we do. Southern Idaho Economic Development has also changed its tagline, logo and website to better reflect what its about. The new website offers a quick job-search feature and links to highlight its rural services. Ugandan journalist Patricia Kigula had been working for National Television Uganda for four years, when she realized something was off about how the media portrayed women.I was baffled by how little the media talked about certain issues, particularly those concerning women and young people, Kigala told Magdalene in an email interview recently. The Kampala-based journalist was recently in Jakarta as one of the speakers in a discussion on women and journalism held by the women organization Kapal Perempuan.Women and young people were continuously excluded from conversations in the media, except to reinforce negative stereotypes that women are a homogeneous people wives, mothers, teachers, social workers who are only interested in TV drama, fashion and the likes, she added.She said that most young people and women were no longer watching television because there was nothing there for them and they felt misrepresented. The film industry is no better. Kigula said most movies portray women as gold digger, vulnerable, and depending on male figures for strength and survival. Growing up in a patriarchal society makes it difficult to acknowledge and speak up about what women think or feel, she said.The situation drove her to found Black, No Sugar , a YouTube channel featuring discussion on issues affecting women in Uganda in March last year. The talk show is hosted by scientist Joanne Nvannungi, lawyer Elizabeth Kemigisha, and architecture Yvonne Adikini.They also come from different cultural background and have different perspectives on various issues, which is important for us to learn to engage respectfully and to exercise empathy, said Kigula.So far there are 19 videos covering various issues some of which are still considered taboo in Uganda, from accesses and side effects of contraceptives, speaking out on sexual harassment, to pleasurable sex.I want it to be a platform for young women to learn from each other, and for the world to notice them and the work that they do. I also want it to be a message to our community thatwe are more than just the stereotypes and theres room for women in our media space, leadership, and work, she said.The name connotes the way some people want their coffee served, but it also has a special meaning, she said: Black because we are black women, and No Sugar because we do not sugar coat the issues we speak on. Basically, we call a spade a spade.The recent episode on mental health was one of her favorite, she said, as she can relate to it and because the issue transcends gender, sexuality, race or religion.Mental health issue is something that we all most likely have to face, whether it affects us personally or our family members or friends. Yet no one ever really tells you how to deal with depression or anxiety in the same way they would tell you to go see a dentist when you have an issue with your teeth, said Kigula.While the channel is targeted at young people aged 18-35 in her country, Kigula said it also gives a glimpse of the modern-day Uganda to the world.The purpose of this channel is also to expose the international audiences to who we are as Ugandans and as Africans our lives and experiences. We are not poor, always at war, uncivilized and ridden with diseases as most international media will have the world know about Africa, she said.Read about what happens to women who gives birth in Indonesian jails and follow @bunnnicula on Twitter. Maley said that while the agency already solicits feedback from Wisconsin entrepreneurs, the sole purpose of this committee will be to identify new approaches, programs and resources for them. Maley said the new committee is expected to make formal recommendations to the WEDC board, lawmakers and the governor for improving and enhancing Wisconsins entrepreneurial ecosystem. The agency is run by the governing board, members of which are named by the governor and lawmakers. Various measures have placed Wisconsin at or near the bottom of states for small-business startups. Last year, Wisconsin was ranked 50th in startup activity, for the third straight year, by the nonprofit Kauffman Foundation. On Tuesday, Evers will address and take questions from the board of the Wisconsin Technology Council at Madisons Exact Sciences Corp. The fast-growing biotech firm is led by one of Evers top advisers for his gubernatorial transition, Kevin Conroy. For now, creating committees is among a limited array of options for Evers to influence the strategy and direction of WEDC. The apartments are the citys second experiment with the Housing First model of addressing homelessness in which tenants are admitted with little or no conditions and support services are voluntary. Heartland has made changes to building access and installed additional security cameras, among other things, to address safety concerns, which city officials say are sometimes attributed to unwanted guests. OKeefe said Heartland has also increased its spending on security from $145,000 annually to $226,000 so as to have one security person there around the clock. Soglins proposal would enable Heartland to hire a second private security person who would be at the apartments between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. on weekdays and 24 hours on weekends. Another proposal to spend more on social services at Tree Lane Apartments is likely to be introduced to the City Council in February, OKeefe said. Currently, the city pays $50,000 of the $165,000 annual budget for support services there. The DNR was telling owners of large feedlots they would need to take additional steps to ensure that nutrient pollution didnt run into public waters. Concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs said they were protecting water quality by growing strips of vegetation downhill from the stored feed to stop pollutants. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had been prodding DNR to insist on more effective technology. Feed bunkers can sprawl over an acre or more, and the Wisconsin Dairy Business Association complained that it would be too costly to cover them to keep rain from carrying pollutants downhill. The dairy association said DNR had overstepped its authority on feed storage and areas where calves are housed in hutches. In its lawsuit, the association also argued that all DNR regulation of CAFOs was illegal and should be ended. In a settlement, the association dropped its demand for an end to CAFO regulation, and the DNR ended its efforts to improve feed storage and calf hutches. An environmental law firm for two organizations opposed to a controversial power line through southwest Wisconsin has assembled an A-plus team of energy experts, including a former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, to bolster its case. The Environmental Law and Policy Center is representing the Driftless Area Land Conservancy and the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation in their efforts to block the $500 million line between Dubuque and Madison. Known as Cardinal-Hickory Creek, the project is a joint venture of American Transmission Co., Dairyland Power Cooperative and ITC Midwest, who say it will help deliver low-cost wind energy from Iowa and western Wisconsin, save Wisconsin ratepayers between $23.5 million and $350 million over the next 40 years, and create numerous other reliability and public policy benefits. Its up to the Public Service Commission to decide if the project is needed and in the best interest of Wisconsin residents, who will cover 15 percent of the project costs. Ten school districts in south-central and southwest Wisconsin are among 22 districts in the state that have been honored for giving increased access and better performance in Advanced Placement programs. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction said the 22 districts are on the College Board honor roll for Advance Placement, an honor roll that has 373 districts on it from across the country. "We can be proud of the strong AP programs available across the state, offering our young people challenging course work that advances their preparedness for college and career," said State Superintendent Carolyn Stanford Taylor. "The efforts of these schools to increase AP access is commendable, and offers a jump start for all of our students' post-secondary studies," she said. Area school districts named to the ninth annual AP District Honor Roll include Baraboo, Lake Mills, Mauston, Milton, Mount Horeb, Platteville, Portage, Reedsburg, Waterloo and Westfield. For the Lake Mills, Milton, Mount Horeb, Platteville, Reedsburg and Waterloo districts, this is a continuation of being on the honor roll from past years. The remaining dozen districts on the honor roll this year include Grantsburg, Green Bay, Hamilton, Merrill, Omro, Oostburg, Osceola, Pewaukee, River Falls, Valders, West De Pere and Winneconne. Want to see more like this? Get our local education coverage delivered directly to your inbox. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. A 21-year-old man stole a car on Saturday night as the owner was taking pictures of the car, an Audi and drunkenly sped in reverse through a Downtown alley until crashing into another vehicle, according to Madison police. Denver T. Baker, of Sun Prairie, was arrested on suspicion of several crimes related to the incident on Hawthorne Court, said Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain. Around 11:50 p.m., the owner of a 2014 Audi S7 Premium Quattro purchased several months prior for $85,000 was on the second level of the State Street Parking Garage taking photos of his car, DeSpain said. A friend of the owner was by the car keeping watch on it when a group of three men approached, and Baker got into the drivers seat, DeSpain said. He said the car was put in reverse and driven backward in Hawthorne Court fast enough to cause smoke to come from the tires, prompting people in the alley to seek cover. The Audi slammed into a parked car, stopping it before it got to nearby University Avenue where many pedestrians were on the sidewalk, DeSpain said. Security camera footage of the incident shows a man casually getting into the vehicle and waiting a few seconds before taking off. A controversial apartment building for the homeless was swarmed by police Monday after they got a tip that a homicide suspect in Chicago was staying there. Angelo Myers, 48, was later taken into custody on a homicide warrant from Chicago. Myers is at Dane County Jail, awaiting extradition to Cook County Illinois, the Sheriff's Office said. "He had been staying at 7933 Tree Lane and was taken into custody without incident at that property," police spokesman Joel DeSpain said. The address is for the Tree Lane Apartments, an $11.7 million housing complex for formerly homeless families, that has seen numerous police calls since it opened in June. The Madison Police SWAT team, criminal intelligence officers, the community police teams from the West and Midtown districts and the West neighborhood resource officer all assisted in the arrest. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The man accused of shooting a 21-year-old Sun Prairie man to death last year shot the victim once in the back of the head and twice in the back, a Dane County medical examiner testified Monday. Dr. Agnieszka Rogalska, Dane County deputy chief medical examiner, testifying Monday at the first-degree intentional homicide trial of Daniel Lieske, said Jesse Faber was shot at least five times. The first three wounds were almost certainly the two to his back and the one behind his left ear, she said. Rogalskas testimony came as Lieskes attorneys prepare to try to convince a jury that Lieske shot Faber in self-defense on Jan. 16, 2018, at Lieskes rural Marshall home. Faber also had gunshot wounds to his right flank and left hand, Rogalska said. A bullet also might have grazed his right hand to make a sixth wound. Although the right flank wound, which pierced Fabers liver and kidney, could have been fatal in any other case, Rogalska said its highly unlikely it was fatal to Faber because that wound most likely came when he was already dead or nearly dead, following the shots to his back and head. She was likely left hanging between two and five minutes. Slow response to call lights continues to be a problem, the report states, specifically when youths need to use the restroom because there are no toilets in their rooms. Several youth reported they urinated and defecated in their garbage cans due to the slow response time from staff. While not required by the court order, the monitor also recommended staff conduct welfare checks every 15 minutes when youth inmates are confined to their rooms as a suicide prevention practice. The settlement in Briggs lawsuit was the largest in a civil rights lawsuit in state history. It came on the same day lawmakers in the state Senate voted to shutter Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake. Former Gov. Scott Walker eventually signed into law legislation that is set to close the prisons by Jan. 1, 2021, and replace them with county and state-run facilities. Lawmakers are considering moving the closures back by as much as six months to accommodate counties that would need to build or renovate youth facilities under the new law. According to the report, there are currently 140 inmates living at the facilities, down from about 170 in February. Much more must be done GENOA U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service mussel biologist Megan Bradley has been working without pay since the longest government shutdown in U.S. history began more than three weeks ago. The animals Bradley has been rearing at the Genoa National Fish Hatchery to restore mussel populations native to the Upper Mississippi River some of them federally endangered are too important to let die. Bradley, who has been studying mussels for 12 years and has been with the Fish and Wildlife Service for three, begins the morning as usual with chores: clean the tanks, feed the fish, make sure water is flowing and the oxygen stores are full. But theres no room for error. Colleagues she would normally consult at the La Crosse Fish Health Center if disease broke out have been furloughed because of the shutdown. Funds, including those for fish food that must be ordered a month in advance and will run out in two months, have been frozen. Bradley and her colleagues are on their own. They follow the news from Washington, wonder when government funding will be restored, and continue their work. Its stressful being used as leverage for someone elses priorities, Bradley said. She loves her job and assumes the back pay will arrive, but if this goes on long enough, youre going to have to find another job that pays the bills. The shutdown The government shutdown has taken a toll on federally funded science across the country, including on research and resource management along the Mississippi River. Hundreds of federal scientists and support staff have been forbidden to work or are working in skeleton crews without pay, including those at federal wildlife refuges along the Mississippi River. Interagency planning meetings for river restoration have been canceled or hampered. Delays in data analysis, seen by state partners as minor inconveniences for the time being, could have consequential ripple effects if the shutdown continues much longer. The impasse leading to the government shutdown began when President Trump demanded Congress fund a U.S.-Mexico border wall, or he would refuse to sign appropriations bills needed to fund nine out of 15 federal departments beyond Dec. 21. After Democrats took control of the House in the new congressional year, they proposed separating immigration issues from funding to restore government operations. That approach received some Republican support in the House but not the Senate. Trump has threatened to declare a national emergency so he can bypass congressional approval for the wall. Science on the river Meanwhile, an estimated 800,000 federal workers missed their first federal paycheck Friday, including Bradley and her hatchery colleagues in Genoa and about 90 employees at the Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center in La Crosse. The center, UMESC for short, is run by the U.S. Geological Survey and is a hub for aquatic and river ecosystems research, including invasive carp species, as well as a source of scientific support for other agencies.Scientists there work on topics from persistent environmental contaminants that move through aquatic systems into wildlife and climate change impacts on amphibians to the effects of nutrient-driven dead zones on fish and plants that live below the rivers surface. Theyve also worked on hand-held devices that detect invasive carp DNA in fish bait samples and have adapted the technology to identify other species. Sharing data and research with federal, state and academic scientists, as well as the public, is a big part of their mission. The Genoa fish hatchery works primarily on restoring Mississippi River mussel populations decimated by water pollution and commercial overfishing. North America has the highest diversity of freshwater mussels in the world, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and many of them are concentrated in the upper Midwest. Mussels play an important role in repackaging phytoplankton so that the tiny organisms can be used by other animals up the food chain. They also filter out toxic chemicals including heavy metals and petroleum-based pollution. The mussels Bradley works on are endangered or threatened, and have distinct life cycles that hatcheries scientists are trying to optimize in house. Mussels in the wild use food-like appendages to lure certain fish species into carrying their larvae. Bradley scuba dives in the river during the summer to extract larvae from river mussels, which she then sprays into the gills of host fish. The larvae grow within the gills until theyre ready to detach, when theyre about the size of a speck of glitter. Bradley collects the baby mollusks and grows them in tanks until theyre old enough to reproduce, and releases them into the wild. The process takes between one-and-a-half to almost four years, depending on the species. Bradley also studies a species of larvae that latch onto mudpuppies, a type of Wisconsin salamander. These facilities produce science that shapes resource management, promoting clean rivers that enhance recreational value for the public, said Roger Haro, River Studies Center director at the UW-La Crosse. These are interconnected support systems, Haro said. When you decouple one from the other, all of this stops. The centers are also training grounds for the next generation of environmental scientists, including local undergraduate and graduate students who gain valuable experience in areas including water quality analysis, invasive species management and fish culture, Haro said. And theres a human and professional cost to the shutdown. Not only have these people spent years honing specific and unique areas of expertise, Haro said, but they also work extremely hard and provide a public service. The shutdown sends the message that their work is expendable, he said. Canceled meetings The shutdown is also having an effect on the Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program, the first comprehensive large-river monitoring, research and ecosystem restoration project in the world. The program, run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, spans 1,200 river miles and partners with federal agencies and state natural resource departments from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Missouri.Although the Corps is funded for the fiscal year, upcoming planning meetings that require the presence and expertise of federal counterparts from the Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculture have been canceled or put on hold, said Marshall Plumley, the restoration programs regional manager. The Fish and Wildlife Service in particular is a key partner because some of the restoration projects take place on national refuges under its jurisdiction, he said. A meeting this week in Dubuque, Iowa, to identify and discuss criteria for future restorations had to be scrapped because about a third of the attendees couldnt make it, Plumley said. Committee members last met to evaluate project indicators almost a decade ago. The quarterly meeting in February to discuss existing feasibility and restoration projects is up in the air.Gretchen Benjamin, a large river specialist at The Nature Conservancy, is trying to launch a similar interagency restoration program on the lower Mississippi River. Benjamin traveled from La Crosse to Vicksburg, Miss., for a planning meeting Wednesday, but the team leader from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wasnt able to make it. Shes still furloughed, Benjamin said. But if we dont have this meeting, were going to get behind and miss important deadlines. Trickle-down effects The Upper Mississippi restoration program also conducts resource monitoring across six field stations in five states. Data from river samples, collected year-round, go back more than 30 years. The data is used by to gauge the long-term health of the river. Despite the shutdown, monitoring continues at the field stations, which are run by state partners funded under Army Corps grants.While some monitoring parameters including temperature, acidity and dissolved oxygen levels can be read on site, others including nitrogen and phosphate loading, which drive rampant algal growth, must be analyzed at the Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, said Jim Fischer, Wisconsin DNR field station leader in La Crosse. Because UMESC has been closed since the shutdown, Fischers team, normally based at the center, had to move its equipment to the local DNR office, including the airboat, ice augers, sampling bottles and water quality meters used to take winter water samples. The relocation and sample analysis delays are inconvenient, Fischer said, but nothing they havent dealt with before. Its a different story if the government shutdown persists, said Mel Bowler, Iowa Department of Natural Resources fisheries specialist at the Bellevue field station. Field samples have a limited shelf life, Bowler said. No amount of freezing or formaldehyde will preserve them after a few months. If the 150 samples they collected this and next week cannot be used, that would be a waste of manhours, he said, but a task theyd want to repeat rather than break more than 30 years of continuous data. And theres always a tipping point. If the shutdown went on long enough that people at UMESC and other federal scientific posts had to go find other jobs after several months of not getting paid, its questionable whether theyd reopen the center, said John Chick, team leader at the Great Rivers field station in Illinois. The science at UMESC is beyond what we do here, Chick said. If the center goes, so do the field stations, the economy of the small towns that depend on field stations, and the continuous resource monitoring program itself. That would be devastation. Jennifer Lu is the La Crosse Tribune environmental reporter. You can reach her by phone at 608-791-8217 and by email jennifer.lu@lee.net. Chiefs comments Speaking about the length of time Nabors was on leave, Racine Police Chief Art Howell said Friday in an emailed statement, Per established protocol and consistent with best practices established by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, it was procedurally appropriate to wait until the conclusion of criminal proceedings prior to revealing, or otherwise taking action on the internal component of this investigation. Had grounds for termination or other serious disciplinary action been established through the internal investigative process, formal charges would have been advanced to the PFC (Police and Fire Commission). No such grounds were identified through the investigative process; therefore, no formal complaint or referral will be advanced to the PFC, Howell said. However, Howell added that similar to promotions and general disciplinary actions, the use-of-force report and other documentation in connection with the investigation will be forwarded to the PFC for review and final disposition. Additional training Per a consultants recommendation, all Racine Police officers have received updated training on subject control techniques since the 2015 incident at Park, Fridays news release stated. Dear Editor: "MTI right: Collective bargaining is issue for School Board candidates" is a great editorial. Your point about the employer hearing the worker's perspective is true on multiple topics. Who knows better what is happening on the line or in the office/classroom than one who is present and working carrying out the employers mission whatever that may be. A few years ago, at Congressman Mark Pocans request, I attended the White House Conference on the Worker's Voice. There were about 100 participants from virtually every occupation: autoworkers, domestic workers union, nurses, et al. President Obama, VP Biden, the secretary of labor all participated. Your editorial about the value of the workers voice says it all: Every employer should engage in discussion with their employees, and the employer would benefit tremendously from doing so. The best means to accomplish this is collective bargaining, where the employee-elected representative speaks for the employers employees. In the classic Italian movie comedy Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Sophia Loren plays a poor Neapolitan housewife who gets into trouble with the police for selling black-market cigarettes. Facing a jail term, she comes up with an interesting way to keep her freedom. Italian law, at least according to the movie, prohibits imprisoning a woman while she is pregnant or for six months after she gives birth. So Lorens character makes sure she stays pregnant year after year. Donald Trump also may be facing criminal prosecution, having been shown to be a key player in the criminal conspiracy that caused his lawyer, Michael Cohen, to plead guilty to two felonies. Of course, there are numerous other ongoing investigations of criminal activity for which Trump might also be guilty. However, unlike Lorens character, pregnancy is not an option for Trump (although I think he just might be narcissistic enough to want to impregnate himself if it were a biological possibility). Current Department of Justice policy is thought to preclude indicting a sitting president. Therefore, instead of getting pregnant, getting re-elected might be Trumps way to continue to evade the legal consequences of his actions. The biggest lie ever told in American politics is the claim that Donald Trump cares about working people. He never has. He never will. As a bankruptcy-prone business mogul, Trump always financed his lavish lifestyle at the expense of the workers and contractors he screwed over. Now he is doing the same thing as president. That was made abundantly clear last Friday, when the government shutdown that Trump engineered denied 800,000 federal employees their paychecks. Cheating, scamming, and ripping off workers is a Donald Trump tradition that goes back decades. Federal workers are just Trumps latest victims, said Public Citizen President Robert Weissman as the deadline for paying the workers passed. For decades, Trump repeatedly didnt pay those who worked for him, and now that hes in the White House, little has changed. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers and employees of federal contractors are suffering the same fate because of the Trump shutdown. This attitude toward victims and this notion that seeking justice, seeking information is a nuisance a burden on the system are part of a nationwide problem of victim-blaming that persists despite significant social pressure and an ongoing fight toward measurable, systemic improvements. The same attitudes endemic to the rise of movements like Me Too and Times Up are the attitudes that cow victims into the background, afraid that if they come forward to report their attacker to seek justice they will not be believed, viewed as a nuisance a pest. Criminals have constitutional rights, but some in our society continue to view treating victims with the same respect as just a burden on the system. So would strengthening victims rights burden the legal system? In reality, many of the rights within Marsys Law for Wisconsin already exist in our state in some form. As the first state to pass a Crime Victims Bill of Rights and after passing a state constitutional amendment recognizing victims rights in 1993 we already have the infrastructure and dedicated resources to enforce these laws. The difference is that under our legislation, victims will be able to invoke the Wisconsin Constitution to secure all of their rights as they navigate the difficult legal process, rather than see the rights of the accused automatically trump their own. Ald. Allen Arntsen, District 13, said the properties would be a great addition to the city's park system. "Its so much of relatively untouched lakefront property really close to downtown and really, accessible from anywhere," Arntsen said, noting its accessibility to the Beltline. Acquiring the properties have been a longtime goal of the Parks Division and the city. The city also has right of first refusal for the property, which was agreed on when the city purchased adjacent land from the Wisconsin Medical Society in 1996. The owner and the city have been negotiating sales terms over the past few months, Knepp said. It has been a longstanding goal of the city to assemble this property as an expansion of Olin Park, Knepp said. Both the citys Comprehensive Plan and Park and Open Space plans, which were adopted in 2018, identify the properties as parkland. If the resolution is adopted by the City Council, Knepp said the Parks Division expects that a review of the Olin Park Master Plan would occur within the next 10 years. Until then, the land would be managed in a way similar to the adjacent existing northern end of Olin Park. Despite Republicans' firm opposition to the proposal, Evers said he will make his case directly to people throughout the state in hopes that they will ask their elected officials to support it. "We're not going to burn the Capitol down here," Evers said. "We're going to disagree." After clashing initially over Evers' plans for the state's economic development agency, Fitzgerald said it was a "huge victory" to hear from the governor that he will not take away resources from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation in his first budget. Evers had said on the campaign trail that he planned to dissolve WEDC. "The caucuses impressed upon us how important WEDC is and the fact that while it had a shaky start, it is now being successful and its highly audited as they said, so they feel comfortable with the way it is," Evers said. Because the agency will oversee the state's multibillion-dollar deal with Foxconn, Evers said he will continue to push for it to be transparent and accountable. Vos said Republicans agree with Evers on that. President Donald Trump often points to farmers as among the biggest winners from the administrations proposed rollback of federal protections for wetlands and waterways across the country. But under longstanding federal law and rules, farmers and farmland already are exempt from most of the regulatory hurdles on behalf of wetlands that the Trump administration is targeting. Because of that, environmental groups long have argued that builders, oil and gas drillers and other industry owners would be the big winners if the government adopts the pending rollback, making it easier to fill in bogs, creeks and streams for plowing, drilling, mining or building. Government numbers released last month support that argument. Real estate developers and those in other business sectors take out substantially more permits than farmers for projects impinging on wetlands, creeks, and streams, and who stand to reap the biggest regulatory and financial relief from the Trump administrations rollback of wetlands protections. But Trump and his administration put farmers front and center as beneficiaries of the proposed rollback because of the strong regard Americans historically hold for farming, opponents say. Trump was scheduled to speak today [Macau time] to a national farm convention. The administration understands good optics in surrounding themselves with farmers, in proposing the rollback, said Geoff Gisler, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. Surrounding themselves with folks that would represent the industries that actually benefit would not be as good an optic. Backers have been really happy to have farmers be the face of it, said Kenneth Kopocis, the Environmental Protection Agencys deputy assistant administrator for water under the Obama administration. But the building industry, oil and gas and others with lower profiles in the campaign are going to be some of the big beneficiaries. The more than 300-page financial analysis the administration released last month when it formally proposed the rollback appears to starkly quantify that disparity. Of 248,688 federal permits issued from 2011 to 2015 for work that would deposit dirt or other fill into protected wetlands, streams and shorelines, the federal government on average required home builders and other developers to do some kind of mitigation pay to restore a wetland elsewhere, generally an average of 990 times a year, nationwide, according to the governments analysis. In all, other industries and agriculture obtained an average of 3,163 such wetlands permits with some kind of extra payment or other mitigation strings attached each year. Farmers represented just eight of those on average in a year, according to the administrations figures. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which administers the wetlands protections with the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Association of Home Builders confirmed Friday that developers and other industries, not farmers, have felt the biggest impact from the federal wetlands protections and would get most of the financial breaks under the rollback. The residential construction industry does pull more wetlands permits than farmers do, Liz Thompson, spokeswoman for the National Association of Home Builders, said in an email. The Trump administrations pending rollback of wetlands protections could be a benefit to builders who will see some relief in terms of cost and time. That said, builders will still be regulated and will still be the industry that pulls the largest number of 404 permits which are very costly, Thompson wrote, referring to the section of the Clean Water Act dealing with the regulatory enforcement and permits. The administrations proposal greatly narrows what kind of wetlands and streams fall under federal protection. If it is formally adopts it after a public comment period, it would change how the federal government enforces the landmark 1972 Clean Water Act and scale back a 2015 Obama administration rule on what waterways are protected. Environmental groups say millions of miles of streams and wetlands would lose protection. Trump signed an order in February 2017 directing the rollback. With farmers as well as homebuilders by his side, Trump called the waterways protections then in force a massive power grab targeting nearly every puddle or every ditch on a farmers land. The farm bloc has been one of the most loyal to Trump, despite farmers complaints that the administration has favored oil and gas producers over corn ethanol farmers, and their worries over a trade war with China. Acting EPA head Andrew Wheeler surrounded himself with farm bureau representatives and farm-state Congress members in signing the rollback proposal last month. In Tennessee, Wheeler, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and farm industry leaders from Washington stood in front of tractors and U.S. flags last month to urge farmers to campaign for the rollback. The EPA has done its job, now all of us in this room have to help to get this over the finish line, Zippy Duvall, head of the American Farm Bureau Federation, told the Tennessee farm crowd then. Farmers who support the rollback call the federal protections of wetlands and creeks a burden, and insist farmers know best how to protect their property. Environmental groups, public- health organizations and others say its impossible to keep the countrys downstream lakes, rivers and water supplies clean unless upstream waters are also regulated federally. The targeted regulations also protect wildlife and their habitats. The Clean Water Act permits deal with work that would dump dirt or fill into a wetland or waterway. Breaks for farmers long have been written into the law, so that a farmer doesnt need permits for ordinary ongoing farming that, for instance, sends some soil running off into a wetland. The American Farm Bureau Federation one of the most active promoters of the scaling back of the Clean Water Acts reach says the 2015 Obama version of the rule could force farmers to pursue costly wetlands permits and mitigation for routine plowing and other farm work. Its just really a nightmare for farmers to have to navigate, said Don Parrish, the senior director of regulatory relations at the agriculture trade group. It can cost them the use of the land, generally they have to stop using their land if they run afoul of it. If you could see me, Id be laughing at that claim, Kopocis, the lead Obama water official behind the 2015 rule, said by phone yesterday. Every single exemption or exclusion that agriculture had was preserved in the Obama administrations 2015 work on the wetlands rule, he said. In an email, Cindy Barger, an Army Corps of Engineers official involved in the proposed regulatory change, confirmed that the rules targeted by the Trump administration had kept the regulatory relief for farmers. Compared to other industries, as wetlands protections currently stand, the agricultural industry has less economic exposure because of the permit exemptions, Barger said. The gain for farmers would be the Trump administrations attempt to streamline definition of protected wetlands, meaning farmers wouldnt have to consult experts to know if an area is protected, she said.Ellen Knickmeyer, Washington, AP In Rochester, New York, a maker of furnaces for semiconductor and solar companies is moving its research and development to China to dodge President Donald Trumps import taxes a move that threatens a handful of its 26 U.S. jobs. In Californias San Joaquin Valley, the CEO of a company that makes precision parts for the biomedical and chip making fields jokes bitterly that hes running a nonprofit and might have to cut jobs. And west of Detroit, a metal stamping company that supplies the auto industry is losing business to foreign rivals because Trumps steel tariffs have raised metals prices in the United States. Trump frequently boasts that the taxes hes imposed on imports steel and aluminum and nearly half of all goods from China have showered the U.S. Treasury with newfound revenue. We are right now taking in billions in Tariffs, he tweeted last month. MAKE AMERICA RICH AGAIN. Yet tariffs like Trumps account for barely 1 percent of federal revenue. Its actually companies like Linton Crystal Technologies in Rochester, Accu-Swiss Inc. in Oakdale, California, and Clips & Clamps Industries in Plymouth, Michigan, that are paying the price for his trade wars. Tariffs tend to swell the cost of these companies materials and leave them at a competitive disadvantage to foreign rivals unburdened by import taxes. And their exports can be taxed when other countries retaliate with their own tariffs. Wars are messy, said Todd Barnum, chief operating officer at Linton Crystal Technologies. All the troops get hurt. Back in December 2017, Trump gave those companies and others a gift when he signed a measure that slashed the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. The next month, though, he started slapping tariffs on imports beginning with solar panels and dishwashers, before moving on to steel and aluminum and then hitting USD250 billion in Chinese goods. Thank you for the tax cut, said Jeff Aznavorian, president of Clips & Clamps. However, Im not going to be benefiting because Im not going to have any profits to pay tax on. For his company, tariffs have completely undermined everything good that those tax cuts brought. The higher costs resulting from Trumps tariffs have yet to inflict much overall damage to a still-robust American economy, which is less reliant on international trade than most other countries are. Fueled by lower taxes, the economy grew at an impressive 3.4 percent annual rate from July through September after having surged 4.2 percent in the previous quarter. And employers added 2.6 million jobs last year, the most since 2015. And while numerous companies are hurting from the presidents confrontational trade stance, some are benefiting from it. An aluminum smelter in Missouri reopened under new ownership this year, for instance, and credited the aluminum tariffs for reducing foreign competition and bringing 450 jobs to New Madrid County. But for many businesses, the tariffs are escalating costs, creating hardships and magnifying uncertainty. The Institute for Supply Managements manufacturing index plunged last month to its lowest point in more than two years partly because of the tariffs. And the Federal Reserve appears increasingly worried that damage from the trade war will undercut the economy. The potential costs of Trumps tariff campaign became clear early this month when Apple warned that trade hostilities with Beijing were hurting its business in China a key reason why its first-quarter revenue would fall below expectations. Its not going to be just Apple, Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White Houses Council of Economic Advisers, acknowledged to CNN. Companies with significant sales in China will be watching their earnings downgraded next year until we get a deal with China. Trumps tariffs are, in theory, supposed to help U.S. producers by raising the prices of goods their foreign competitors ship from abroad. But tariffs, a tax paid by importers, can backfire. They tend to hurt American companies that buy foreign goods for resale or for use as components in U.S.-made products. Many U.S. importers face a wrenching choice: They can pass their higher costs on to their customers and risk losing business. Or they can absorb the extra costs themselves and sacrifice profits. And tariffs, of course, invite retaliation. The European Union, Canada, Mexico and others have retaliated against U.S. products as payback for Trumps steel and aluminum tariffs. China has imposed tariffs on $110 billion in American goods. Among the products on Beijings hit list are American soybeans, an important export among Trump supporters in the U.S. heartland. To ease the pain, the administration last year handed farmers relief worth $11 billion money that reduces the trade wars contribution to the Treasury. Peter Meyer, head of grain and oilseed analytics at S&P Global Platts, said the payments allowed soybean farmers to recoup their losses from the trade war. But the damage could prove longer-lasting. Before the trade hostilities erupted, China bought 60 percent of U.S. soybean exports. Now, its turning to Brazil and other countries for soybeans. It takes you months to years to cultivate a client and only weeks to piss them off, Meyer said. The concern now is that weve pissed off the Chinese and theyre going to go away. Linton Crystal Technologies is being walloped by tariffs both coming and going. The components it sends to an assembly plant in Dalian, China, are subject to import taxes when they arrive in China. And the assembled furnaces it ships back to Rochester for sale are hit with Trumps tariffs at the U.S. border. The U.S. import tax on a $2 million furnace amounts to $500,000. So, in desperation, the company has decided to move operations to China to avoid the tariffs. And it plans to lay off four or five American workers. It just doesnt make any sense for me to ship it back here so I can be penalized half a million dollars, Barnum said. In the meantime, the higher costs are hurting Lintons business. It expects revenue to drop 25 percent in 2019. Accu-Swiss, which buys imported stainless steel on the tariff list, is negotiating with customers to split the higher costs. Its also trying to make its operations leaner. It has, for example, reengineered its California factory so production can continue at night when the lights are off and employees are gone. Still, it, too, expects a 25 percent drop in revenue this year. Im just hoping against hope that this thing will go away, said CEO Sohel Sareshwala. Im just sustaining myself, almost becoming a nonprofit organization. Clips & Clamps, the Michigan auto supplier, buys steel from U.S. producers that dont have to pay the tariffs. But domestic steel suppliers have been able to sharply raise their prices because Trumps tariffs have priced out foreign competition. I am losing business to competitors outside the United States, Aznavorian said, and I am losing it due to raw materials pricing. Initially, Sareshwala and Aznavorian say, they assumed that Trumps metals tariffs were just a negotiating tactic, intended in part to pressure Canada and Mexico to embrace a new North American trade pact. But the tariffs remained intact even after Trump signed a revamped regional agreement in November. My jaw dropped, Aznavorian said. I thought, Youve got to be kidding me. Now, he cant tell whether the tariff squeeze is ever going to end. The uncertainty is horrible, he said. Paul Wiseman, Washington, AP The local government yesterday approved a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery course at the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST), which course planners say will recruit predominantly from the local population. The aim, according to Dr Billy Chan, director of MUSTs Center of Excellence for Medical Professional Development, is to train a cohort of young professionals to address medical issues that are prevalent in Macau. We managed to get the approval from the government today after years of working toward it, Chan told the Times yesterday. This is almost a historical moment. To produce doctors here, we have to nurture young people. We are sending the message that we can have these courses [in Macau] and its exciting. The course will start small, recruiting between 35 and 50 students at its inception, most of them coming from local high schools. It will not initially focus on the recruitment of overseas students. We are focused on training Macau professionals. If we wanted to have international students then this course would be much larger. We want to produce good students for the local community, explained Chan. With English and Chinese as the languages of instruction, the course will last for six years, including one year of internship. Chan says that organizers hope the course can start in time for the next academic year this fall. Not all medical professionals in the city are equally enthused about the course. Rui Furtado, former president of Association of Macau Portuguese-Speaking Physicians, expressed reservations about the capacity of Macau to recruit physicians with the ability to teach, given the difficulty in hiring qualified medical practitioners to work at the local hospitals. Furtado also noted that Macau lacks the diversity to have such a degree since local patients dont exhibit enough pathologies to set up a medical school. A medical degree is not made with patients suffering from flu or pneumonia, he told Radio Macau. It is made with patients with diverse pathologies. Chan disagrees. He told the Times that there are plenty of qualified medical practitioners in the city and course planners have the ability to cherry-pick from abroad to fill any gaps. Moreover, he said that the students will be instructed [in particular] to handle issues that are prevalent in Macau, like respiratory conditions, heart attacks and strokes, which are also common in Asia. The latest degree is the fourth medicine-related bachelor at the educational institution, following the Bachelor of Biomedicine, the Bachelor of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Bachelor of Pharmacy in Chinese Medicine. The director of the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), Helena de Senna Fernandes, said that sites suspected of hosting illegal inns have been under inspection. Just last month, the government set up an interdepartmental working group to study the possible criminalization of the operation of illegal inns. Speaking on the sidelines of the traditional blessing ceremony of a gastronomy event yesterday, the official explained that the bureau also aims to have heavier measures to penalize these illegal inns operators. We have never stopped the inspections. Basically, the inspections are being carried out every day. When the police force spotted some illegal guesthouses, they would inform us to follow up, including sealing the houses, and cutting the water and electricity supply. Regardless if its the police or us, we are doing our own work, said Fernandes. The official noted that operators of these illegal inns are not local residents. Thus if these operators refuse to pay fines amounting to a minimum of MOP200,000, these operators may opt to leave Macau for good. She noted that this would be of limited consequence for these non- residents, thus questioning the effectiveness of such a measure. We have to consider how to make illegal guesthouse punishment more effective. Our secretary [Alexis Tam] has already made his stance [clear] regarding illegal guesthouse criminalization. Lets give a little bit of time to the government, let the government do what we need to do, she said. Officers working on frontline duties also think that there should be a bigger deterrent effect. We, including our secretary, think that criminalization is one [such method with a stronger deterrent effect], [but] its not singularly decided by us. We have already expressed our stance, the official stressed. The bureau has already issued penalties in the over 1,000 cases, and according to the official, hundreds of offenders have already paid the penalty, with the majority of these offenders being non-local residents. Meanwhile, commenting on the functionality of old shops in the city, some of which have operational problems, Fernandes said that the government is creating a series of measures for these shops to be passed onto the next generation. The government cant promise 100 percent that all of the old shops can continue their businesses, but the government will work with the public regarding this matter, she explained. We saw that the cultural fund launched a program helping the old shops to conduct renovation, and helping the designers to do some new designs for the old shops to make the old shops more modern, Fernandes added. When asked whether the bureau has plans to impose an international tourists tax similar to recent measures in Japan that require departing tourists to pay MOP75 Fernandes said that further research was still required. First cooking show with UNESCO chefs The Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) will hold its first cooking show that is open to the public with chefs from the UNESCO Creative Cities of Gastronomy, with a budget of MOP3.5 million. Themed Possibilities of Gastronomy and Creativity, the forum will take place from Jan. 19 to 21, with presentations and discussions on January 21. The outdoor culinary demonstration is a highlight of the International Gastronomy Forum, Macau 2019. In a traditional blessing ceremony held yesterday at AnimArte Nam Van, MGTO director Helena de Senna Fernandes said that the event aims to enhance the citys position in gastronomy. During the weekend, the event will feature some 30 chefs from 20 Creative Cities of Gastronomy, including Macau, in addition to two candidate cities from China. As the host city, Macau will conduct five cooking performances during the two days, inviting local celebrity chefs such as Jacky Lam (honored by the SAR with the Medal of Merit for Tourism in 2017), Joseph Tse (executive chef of three Michelin star restaurant, The 8) and Tam Kwok Fung (executive chef of Wing Lei Palace restaurant). There will be also ten gastronomy booths, four with drinks, and three eateries, presenting local dishes, drinks and more, brought by local food and beverage industry operators. All food will be free, while the food prepared by the chefs from Creative Cities of Gastronomy will be distributed in limited portions, on a first-come first-serve basis. LV A decades-old Iranian Boeing 707 military cargo plane reportedly carrying meat from Kyrgyzstan crashed yesterday while trying to land west of Irans capital, killing 15 people on board and leaving a sole survivor, authorities said. The crash of the jetliner marked just the latest aviation disaster for Iran, which hoped to replace its aging fleet under terms of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. But instead, President Donald Trumps withdrawal from the accord in May scuttled billions of dollars in planned sales by Airbus and Boeing Co. to the Islamic Republic, only increasing the danger for passengers in Iran planes. The aircraft, which bore the paint scheme of the Iranian air forces civilian Saha Airlines, was an making emergency landing around 8:30 a.m. yesterday at Fath Airport, an airfield controlled by Irans powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. The plane skidded off the runway, crashed through a perimeter fence and into a residential neighborhood. Iranian state television aired images of smoke-charred homes and the fuselage of the aircraft lying on the ground in the neighborhood. Nearby was one of its landing gears, torn away. Small fires burned around it. The plane was meant to land at the nearby Payam International Airport, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Tehran, the Iranian capital. Authorities did not immediately offer a reason for the crews decision to land instead at Fath Airport. That airport is some 10 kilometers southwest of Payam. Its runway is some 1,100-meters long, compared to Payams 3,600 meters. In November, a commercial airline reportedly mistook Fath for Payam, but was able to abort its landing. Irans state-run IRNA news agency later quoted an anonymous aviation official saying yesterdays doomed flight likewise mistook Fath for Payam. Pirhossein Koulivand, the head of the countrys emergency medical services, said that of the 16 people on board the plane, only the flight engineer was known to have survived. IRNA reported all 15 bodies of the crew who died had been recovered by yesterday afternoon. Irans air force said in a statement that the fate of the crew, including their possible martyrdom, is under investigation. It wasnt immediately clear who owns the plane, though Gen. Shahin Taghikhani, an army spokesman, told state TV that the plane and its crew were Iranian. Iranians often use the word martyrdom for those who die in war or national service. The plane reportedly was carrying a cargo of meat from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstans capital, to Iran. Since 2016, Iran has been importing meat from Kyrgyzstan, usually via Saha. It imported 150 tons in 2016 and 350 tons in 2017. Saha Airlines operated one of the worlds last commercial flights of the Boeing 707, which was first manufactured in 1958 and helped usher in the jet age. The four-engine, narrow-body aircraft were built until 1979. Maintenance information regarding the Boeing 707 that crashed Monday was not immediately available. However, Iran has struggled to obtain parts for its aging fleet of airlines, nearly all purchased during the time of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Saha Airlines Boeing 707s suffered a previous fatal crash in April 2005, when a flight coming from the Kish island crash- landed at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran, killing three passengers. Iran has suffered a series of major aviation disasters in recent decades. Its last major crash happened in February 2018, when an Aseman Airlines ATR-72 brought back into service only months earlier after being grounded for seven years crashed in a foggy, mountainous region of southern Iran, killing all 65 people aboard. In January 2011, when an Iran Air Boeing 727 broke to pieces on impact while trying an emergency landing in a snowstorm in northwestern Iran, killing at least 77 people. In July 2009, a Russian-made jetliner crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran, killing all 168 on board. A Russian-made Ilyushin 76 carrying members of the Revolutionary Guard crashed in southeastern Iran in February 2003, killing 302 people. In February 1993, an Iranian airliner with 132 people aboard collided with an air force jet after takeoff from Tehrans main airport, killing everyone on the two aircraft. And in July 1988, the USS Vincennes in the Strait of Hormuz mistook an Iran Air flight heading to Dubai for an attacking fighter jet, shooting down the plane and killing all 290 people aboard. Nasser Karimi, Jon Gambrell, AP Navy divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder of a Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea in October, Indonesian officials said YESTERDAY, in a possible boost to the accident investigation. Ridwan Djamaluddin, a deputy maritime minister, told reporters that remains of some of the 189 people who died in the crash were also discovered at the seabed location. A spokesman for the Indonesian navys western fleet, Lt. Col. Agung Nugroho, said divers using high-tech ping locator equipment started a new search effort on Friday and found the voice recorder beneath 8 meters (26 feet) of seabed mud. The plane crashed in waters 30 meters (98 feet) deep. The device is being transported to a navy port in Jakarta, Nugroho said, and will be handed over to the transportation safety committee, which is overseeing the accident investigation. This is good news, especially for us who lost our loved ones, said Irianto, the father of Rio Nanda Pratama, a doctor who died in the crash. Even though we dont yet know the contents of the CVR, this is some relief from our despair, he said. The 2-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta on Oct. 29, killing everyone on board. The cockpit data recorder was recovered three days after the crash and showed that the jets airspeed indicator had malfunctioned on its last four flights. If the voice recorder is undamaged, it could provide valuable additional information to investigators. Navy chief Rear Adm. Harjo Susmoro said the voice recorder was found just 50 meters (164 feet) from where the data recorder was located. He said the voice recorders signal, designed to last 90 days following a crash, would have stopped in about 15 days. The Lion Air crash was the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people died on a Garuda flight near Medan. In December 2014, an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea, killing all 162 people on board. Lion Air is one of Indonesias youngest airlines but has grown rapidly, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations. It has been expanding aggressively in Southeast Asia, a fast-growing region of more than 600 million people. AP A former Canadian diplomat detained in China last month does not enjoy diplomatic immunity, a Chinese spokeswoman said yesterday, rejecting a complaint from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the mans rights were being denied. Trudeau said last week that Chinese officials were not respecting the diplomatic immunity of Michael Kovrig. He was arrested along with Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor on vague national security allegations after a top Chinese executive with telecommunications network equipment giant Huawei was detained in Canada on Dec. 1 at the request of Washington. However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters that Kovrig is no longer a diplomat and entered China on an ordinary passport and business visa. According to the Vienna Convention of Diplomatic Relations and international law, he is not entitled to diplomatic immunity, Hua said at a daily briefing. Kovrig, a Northeast Asia analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank, took a leave of absence from the Canadian government. Washington wants Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou the daughter of the companys founder extradited to face charges that she misled banks about the companys business dealings in Iran. She is out on bail in Canada and awaiting a bail extradition proceeding next month. Chinas ambassador to Canada accused the country last week of white supremacy in calling for the release of the two Canadians, while describing the detentions as an act of self-defense. However, Hua said the allegation that China arbitrarily detained Canadian citizens is totally groundless. On Friday, Poland arrested a Huawei director and one of its own former cybersecurity experts and charged them with spying for China. That comes amid a U.S. campaign to exert pressure on its allies not to use Huawei, the worlds biggest maker of telecommunications network equipment, over data security concerns. Polands move has raised concerns over the safety of its nationals in China, although Hua appeared to brush off such worries, emphasizing Chinas desire for the sound and steady development of relations with Poland. As long as the foreign citizens in China abide by Chinese laws and regulations, they are welcomed and their safety and freedom are guaranteed, Hua said. AP Cuban premium hand-rolled cigars are becoming quite popular in China, which is considered the most important emerging market for at least one particular company. In an interview with Xinhua, Jose Maria Lopez, development vice president of Habanos S.A., said the company will seek to expand and diversify its presence in China in 2019. China has the potential to be in the medium term the first market for Habanos S.A. and there are great possibilities to increase sales in China, Lopez said. According to official figures, China became the third largest market worldwide for the company in 2017 after Spain and France, with an increase in sales of 33 percent from 2016. Premium cigars in China was an undersized segment until a decade ago because there was preference for cigarettes, said Lopez, adding that an increasing fondness of Chinese consumers for handmade tobacco has emerged in recent years and Cuba is currently the top producer in the world. Due to the growing demand, Habanos S.A. reached an agreement with the China National Tobacco Corporation in the summer of 2017 to increase sales and work together to promote knowledge of and develop a taste for Cuban cigars in China. The Chinese consumer prefers our most exclusive and premium products with an authentic admiration for the Cohiba brand, which is our most important trademark and greatest exponent of luxury within the Cuban cigar market, Lopez said. Between 40 and 50 percent of the Chinese demand is concentrated in the Cohiba brand, which is very high. One of our intentions when we talk about developing the tobacco culture in that country is to educate the Chinese consumer that not all cigars are Cohiba, he said. Habanos S.A. also sells another 26 brands of cigars and each of them has its own characteristics, flavors and different price ranges, according to the senior executive, adding that it is the companys focus to make these brands widely known to the Chinese consumers. According to Lopez, sales of Cohiba with respect to other brands is much higher in China than in other countries in Latin America and Europe. With the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration through which domestic imports are made to the Chinese mainland, growth rates between 20 and 30 percent per year are expected, according to Lopez. Based on the collaborations that we are having, without doubt we trust that, with a relationship of mutual benefit, we will be able to grow in the market, said Lopez. Habanos S.A. plans to continue growing in three other marketing channels that have been identified in the Asian nation. The company has shops in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also working to attract customers through the China Duty Free Group in the two regions. Lopez told Xinhua the company is working on an exclusive product for 2020 to commemorate the Chinese Spring Festival as a sign of the growing demand and constant expansion of sales in the Asian nation. We believe that we have a very interesting idea to satisfy the expectations and interests of Chinese consumers in a moment so special for them as the celebration of the New Lunar Year, he concluded. Founded in 1994, Habanos S.A. is dedicated to commercializing hand- made Cuban premium cigars. Its distribution network includes 144 sale points on the island and over 700 additional establishments in more than 150 countries around the world. MDT/Xinhua A Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesperson reported that an unknown suspect is being sought after a local family reported an intrusion into their home. The case occurred on the afternoon of Saturday, Jan. 12 around 4 p.m. when the daughter from a family of three living in the apartment arrived home after work and saw that the entrance gate had been unlocked. According data released yesterday by the PJ during a press conference, the daughter was the last person to leave the apartment that morning around 10 a.m. and she is certain that she locked the gate and doors. Seeing the gate unlocked, she initially thought that her parents were in the house. As she entered, she noticed movement and noise coming from the toilet. She reported to police that she knocked on the door and called for her parents but nobody replied. At the same time, she reached her parents on the phone and realized that they were not in the house, and that the person in the toilet was a stranger. Scared, she left the apartment. Once she was out, she remembered that the apartment had a surveillance camera system installed that she could use to view a live feed on her mobile phone. She decided to turn on the system and a few minutes later she saw the man walking around the house. Although the family told the police that they did not notice any items or valuables missing from the apartment, the case is being treated as unlawful entry in apartment with the purpose of robbery. In a separate case, the PJ caught a man suspected of fraud regarding currency exchange. The case was reported on Jan. 11 by the security staff of the Venetian Macao, who were alerted by noise coming from one of the rooms in which a brawl was happening. Arriving at the scene, the PJ officers confronted two men who were fighting inside the room. One of them explained that he had intended to exchange RMB11,000 for HKD12,100 but after handing the cash to the suspect for him to count, the suspect tried to scam him by keeping it and saying that it belonged to him and that the victim had no way to prove otherwise, leading to the brawl. After questioning, the suspect admitted to the police that he was involved in an illegal scheme of currency exchange and that he had intended to scam the victim. He was taken into custody and presented to the Public Prosecutions Office and charged with fraud. In preparation for Chinese New Year, Sands Cares Ambassadors helped to clean the homes of approximately 100 elderly residents living alone at Seac Pai Van public housing in Coloane on Saturday. The spring-cleaning is one in a year-long series of celebratory activities leading up to the 10th anniversary of the Sands Cares Ambassador program in August 2019, which will have the theme Spreading Love and Embracing Our Community. It is the 10th year in a row that volunteers from Sands China have visited the homes of elderly residents living alone at the Peng On Tung Tele- Assistance Sands China Ltd. President Dr. Wilfred Wong, who participated in Saturdays activity said, the elderly, in particular, are treasured members of the community, and it is our collective responsibility to help care for them in their golden years. With cleaning supplies in hand, nearly 150 Sands Cares Ambassadors also gave out Chinese New Year gift packs purchased from Fuhong Society of Macau, which contain useful staples like oil, grain and noodles. MGM presents first art exhibition of the year MGM is presenting Celebrating Life Ju Ming Living World Sculpture Selling Exhibition to kick start the companys first public art project of the year. From now until April 7, the renowned artists Living World series will be exhibiting at MGM Cotai. The series features Jus survey on human relationships with an emphasis on the aesthetic concept of merging art into life, as cited in a press release by the gaming operator. Living World series is one of the most iconic series of Ju Ming, conveying Jus exploration on human sentiments using vivid and lively images and postures, with a number of works particularly depicting traditional family values. MGM exhibits over 40 pieces of unique wood carving works by Ju, including painted wood, black and white painted wood, as well as wood relief sculptures. Guests at the Macau Forum, including lawyer Paulino Comandante, expressed their doubts about criminalizing illegal guesthouse operations. Comandante suggested that the government should first amend Macaus law with particular focus on improving the requirements for property owners and real estate agents so that they are careful about to whom they rent out their houses. He also proposed that the government enhance promotional campaigns to tourists and collect information from illegal guesthouse websites. The lawyer proposed that the Macau government consider issuing licenses to guesthouses. IAM advisor criticizes housing transportation non-coor dination Lam U Tou, member of the advisory council of the Municipal Affairs Bureau, believes that Macaus public housing projects did not take into consideration public transportation when they were built, according to a report by Macao Daily News. Lam criticized the government for never having considered the overall transportation situation when designing public housing projects. He also noted that this oversight has been frequently covered by the Housing Bureau with public funds. Lam also proposed that public housing project transportation conditions should be a key element in future considerations on public housing. Restoration of Science Center to cost MOP100m Renovation works of the exterior of the Macao Science Center could cost some MOP100 million, after it was damaged by the two strong typhoons that hit the SAR in 2018. According to Liu Chak Wan, chairman of Shareholders of the Macao Science Center, the project is costly as it requires re-designing and re-installing the fixtures. If you only fix it piece by piece when it falls, then it would be very cheap if you just supplement it. Yet this wont guarantee that more pieces would drop off next year, so we took them all this time so we could replace them, which is what makes the project more expensive, said Liu, as cited in a TDM report. The revamp project is set to be concluded within a year. IC notifies police over unlicensed construction works The Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) has notified the police that they must compel the managers of the Kun Iam Tong temple to stop unlicensed construction works. In a statement issued yesterday, the IC states that it met with the temples management on Jan. 9. At that time, the person responsible for the temple pledged to strictly respect the law. However, the IC visited the site over the weekend and found that the construction works were still ongoing, causing damage to this heritage building. Regarding the fact that the temple did not follow a previous embargo order issued by the IC, the bureau says that it will strictly follow [up on] the matter and take steps to assert the legal responsibility of this action. The bureau also warns that causing damage to heritage sites is a crime. Man arrested for robbery The Judiciary Police arrested a mainland man yesterday suspected of robbery in a hotel room in Cotai. The victim was a mainland woman working as a sex worker. The suspect contacted the victim thorough mobile chat to meet in a hotel room. During the meeting, the woman was tied up by the man and two of his affiliates. The suspects took the womans jewelry and cash, and forced her to transfer RMB20,000 to the arrested man. The other two suspects are still at large. In 2018, Beijing handled a total of 5,900 applications for residency submitted by Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan residents, according to mainland reports. In addition to these, 618 people were given permanent residency in China due to their high- level professional skills. Last year, on Sept. 1, China issued a document announcing a new regulation which would allow residents of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan to apply for residency in the Chinese mainland. Until now, the exact number of applications submitted by residents from the three regions had yet to be disclosed by the mainland Chinese authority. However, according to a news report by Macau Daily News, as of Sept. 8 of 2018, Zhuhai claimed to have received a total of 2,111 applications submitted by residents from the three regions, with 1,100 being Macau residents. As of Sept. 8, approximately 2,000 Macau residents had applied for residency across various cities in mainland China. Last week, Chinas Ministry of Education, together with other mainland authorities responsible for Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan affairs, issued a new document announcing that residents from these three areas could apply to become teachers at non-tertiary schools in the mainland. Anyone interested in becoming a teacher at a mainland non-tertiary school must hold a residency permit in addition to their travel card to mainland China. They must also pass mainland Chinas teaching exams, and have qualified mandarin skills. Finish this article for as low as $1 when you purchase a day pass. Just click the sign up button to purchase. If you are already a subscriber, just click log in to continue reading. A local academic says that much more research is needed on the findings of his latest study that revealed widespread support for democratic ideals among Macau students but he would not be the one to do it. Ieong Meng U, an academic and lecturer at the University of Macaus Department of Government and Public Administration, told the Times last week that the preferences of young people toward democracy was not the original purpose of his research and it would require further studies to verify his findings. Published last month, Ieongs study sampled 825 students in the city and found that the majority supported the idea of universal suffrage and had a preference for a minimal definition of democracy. The study also showed that most believed it was important to live in a democratic system and agreed with the view that student leaders in the neighboring territorys Umbrella Movement were fighting for democracy. Building on his previous work exploring authoritarianism and the Chinese political landscape, the paper challenged the traditional view that Macau residents especially the youth are more concerned with economic and quality of life issues rather than political ones. However, Ieong insists that there is still much more work to be done. The questionnaire was originally about the influence of social media on young people, he explained, adding that the revelations about widespread support for democracy were not expected. Of course, as a political scientist, I am interested in what the youth think about democracy, but it was not the original point of my research. One conclusion of the study was that over 90 percent of the respondents ranked the pursuit of universal suffrage as five or above on the 10-point scale, with 10 representing the highest preference and with a mean score of 6.67. However, according to Ieong, we only have one dimension of understanding peoples opinion on democracy because [the study] did not look at the meaning given to democracy [by Macau people]. The academic said that those in China and the West hold differing views about what constitutes democracy as a political form of governance. He said that studies in the mainland have shown that Chinese people overwhelmingly regard their system as democratic, but they use an alternative definition of democracy. In the traditional concept of democracy, the will of the people is expressed via elected institutions and that supports the legitimacy of the government. However, the alternative, known as guardianship democracy or performance legitimacy, suggests an alternative view whereby the accomplishments of an administration or party can legitimize rule. Some scholars have criticized the theory as a form of indoctrination to disguise authoritarian rule. Ieong, who specializes in the study of authoritarianism, said that he agreed that the idea of guardianship is not enough to constitute democracy. However, he insists that he does not represent the opinions of other people and it is their freedom to interpret democracy like that. He argued that it is unclear which definition of democracy the Macau respondents used in their ranking on the 10-point scale. People in Macau want democracy not for the same reasons as in Hong Kong. In Macau, people are dissatisfied with the government, which they feel cant address some of the social problems [in the city]. Macau people want more say in decision-making and the mechanisms behind it, he said, adding that this did not necessarily translate to universal suffrage. Theoretically, performance legitimacy is sustainable, but thats very difficult. [] There is a contradictory outcome. On the one hand, the government can say it is boosting economic development, but on the other there may be violations of individual freedoms. An example of where it has worked is Singapore. Although more research is needed on the topic, Ieong said there are no plans for follow-up studies. Instead, he wants to continue his research on authoritarianism and the political landscape of mainland China. International observers have highlighted a recent rise in the authoritarian tendencies of Chinese President Xi Jinpings administration. In spring last year, Xi reversed decades of government policy by abolishing term limits for the countrys top post. The country has also upped online censorship, expanded internment and re-education camps from Xinjiang to Hainan, and is planning for the implementation of a social credit ranking system that will monitor the behavior of its 1.41 billion people. Asked about whether he feels authoritarianism is on the rise, Ieong said, I generally follow the consensus of my colleagues the presidency in China is becoming more authoritarian thats the basic logic. But we need more data and perspective to see the trend. On Wednesday, the day after his national address promoting a border wall, President Donald Trump noted that, Israel put up a wall and its 99 percent effective. Israel has in fact erected three walls in various areas, the best known of which was built along and inside the West Bank to control Palestinian movement. Trump did not specify which wall he was referring to, but his comment left many wondering if immigrants are to Trump what Palestinians and Israelis are to each other. If so, we have a problem far more serious than whether or not to build a wall. We have a president who does not see the differences between their conflict and ours. Until Trumps comment, I understood his anti-immigrant compulsion as if, by analogy, immigrants were Trumps Jews: the scapegoats for every problem from disease to crime to terrorism and the ruination of society. His election campaign and presidential anti-immigrant efforts were frighteningly similar to the early verbiage of anti-Jewish fascism in Europe. But his reference to Israels wall raises new concerns about his own mental model. Are migrants not just unwelcome, but our visceral enemies? Whether their behavior is harmful or helpful, is their very presence a threat? Are they inherently less than human? In 2014, when state officials were developing their plan to relieve crowding, Nebraskas prisons housed 5,130 inmates in facilities that were designed to hold 3,275 roughly 157 percent of capacity. Corrections Director Scott Frakes expressed optimism last year that prison officials would meet the deadline, but its not clear whether he still believes that to be the case. A department spokeswoman said last week that Frakes was out of the office and not available to answer questions. Ebke said the report submitted to lawmakers was not very helpful and fell short of its purpose of telling the Legislature whats needed to solve the problem. This is something we should be thinking about now, rather than waiting until 2020, she said. Nebraska Board of Parole Chairwoman Rosalyn Cotton said board members are working to parole more inmates but arent going to compromise public safety to do it. Asked whether she thinks that the board will make the deadline and if it needs more resources from lawmakers, Cotton said, We will continue to do the best we can. Cotton said part of the crowding problem is driven by inmates who are released on parole, reoffend and get sent back to prison, even after theyve completed rehabilitation programs. CALmatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California's state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to Commentary. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. will share information about its Community Wildfire Safety Program with customers in northern Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties at an open house Thursday, June 20. No formal presentation is planned, so customers can drop by Embassy Suites SLO , 333 Madonna Road, San Luis Obispo, anytime between 6 and 8 p.m., a company spokesman said. We welcome the Duterte administrations ambitious plan to carry out a major P47-billion cleanup of Manila Bay, the most polluted body of water in the country due to domestic sewage, toxic industrial effluents and waste from factories and shipping operations. Over the decades, the pollution of the natural harbor has become emblematic of how we, as a people, have failed miserably to protect our environment and preserve it for our children. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources, which will lead the effort, says the government will show the same political will that enabled it to undertake the massive rehabilitation of the popular tourist destination of Boracay Island. Given the daunting task ahead, it will have toand do so much more. Urban planner and architect Felino Palafox Jr. in a radio interview, spoke of the magnitude of the effort involved. The catchment area of the bay, he said, is 1.7 million hectaresthe size of 26 Singapores or 1,700 Boracays. In its campaign, which officially begins Jan. 27, the DENR warns that establishments found polluting the waters of the bay could face closure. But the problem isnt only the hundreds of businesses that discharge untreated wastewater, it also involves tens of thousands of squatters who live by the shore and the various waterways that flow into the bay. Results of a recent water sampling showed that restaurants, medical facilities and even the zoo leaked massive amounts of wastewater that end up in the bay. River mouths contained an average of 330 million MPN (most probable number) fecal coliform, way above the baseline level of 100 MPN.Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu, who oversaw Boracays cleanup, says the Manila Bay rehabilitation project will begin with discussions of a multi-year master plan with various partner agencies. The DENR will also work with local government units, given that the bay spans parts of Metro Manila, Central Luzon and the Calabarzon region. LGUs are expected to step up their efforts because it is their constituents that will benefit most from a rehabilitated bay, Cimatu says. The administrations cleanup is in line with the 2008 Supreme Court decision ordering 13 government agencies to clean up Manila Bay and restore its water quality to Class SB or safe for recreational activities such as swimming. It is a long road ahead, but if the administration can clean up Manila Bay and ensure that it remains clean, it will have done what no other administration before it has doneand that is a legacy worth leaving. Lightning strikes west of Uniontown on Monday night as a storm passes over the Palouse. Rain fell in Lewiston and the surrouding area Tuesday, amounting to about 0.24 inches at the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport, according to the National Weather Service in Spokane. Moscow got 0. Foldable phones are on the way and it looks like foldable PCs may also be coming soon. Royole showed off the worlds first smartphone with a foldable glass display at CES last week. Samsung may unveil its upcoming folding phone as soon as February 20th. Now Microsoft has started including hints in Windows 10 builds suggesting that the company is developing a version of its operating system for foldable devices. The moves not a big surprise. Rumor has it that Microsoft has been working on its own dual-screen and/or foldable devices for a while, although its unclear at this point if the company will bring it to market or if Microsoft is just developing software for third-party hardware. Meanwhile Intels Tiger Rapids reference design could pave the way for dual-screen Windows computers, and Lenovos Yoga Book C930 is already a thing you can buy if you want a dual-screen laptop (where one screen is an E Ink display that you can use as a virtual keyboard). But at this point Windows isnt really optimized for this sort of device, where you may want apps, taskbars, and other items to adjust to different layouts depending on how youre using a device: is it folded in half for use like a tablet, unfolded for use like a larger tablet, or propped up for use like a notebook with a touchscreen keyboard? The Verge reports that sources familiar with Microsofts Plans say that the company is indeed working on a version of Windows thats optimized for those sorts of scenarios. And odds are thats what were seeing in the latest build notes. Unfortunately thats about all we know for now. In recent years, Microsoft has made a habit of previewing upcoming features and soliciting help from the community in testing them. But there are certain things that the company continues to develop behind closed doors and so far foldable support seems to be one of those things. Share this article: Share this: Facebook Twitter Reddit Pocket Tumblr Pinterest LinkedIn Email Scientists have long known that pains intensity is difficult to measure because people experience pain differently. In the case of 17-year-old Sarah Taylor, doctors struggled to understand her levels of pain from childhood arthritis and fibromyalgia. Its really hard when people cant see how much pain youre in, because they have to take your word on it and sometimes, they dont quite believe you, she said. Some scientists working with Taylor are now trying to develop an objective way to measure pain. They are measuring the reaction inside Taylors eyes when she reports pain and when she does not. Dr. Julia Finkel is with Childrens National Medical Center in Washington. She invented an experimental device that is being used with Taylor. Pain hard to measure Doctors have traditionally asked patients to rate their pain on a scale of one to 10. That can be a problem, however. Medical workers can estimate babies pain from their cries and movements. But the pain one person rates as seven, for example, might be four to someone who is more tolerant of pain. These differences make it difficult to show how well new medicines to ease pain really work. The question is especially important because of the increasing and deadly misuse of painkilling drugs in the United States. Taylor said, Its frustrating to be in pain and you have to wait like six weeks, two months, to see if the drugs working. She uses a combination of medications, acupuncture and exercise to ease pain. Dr. Francis Collins is the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). His agency is trying to develop what he calls a pain-o-meter. The goal is to be able to find out what kind of drug will be most effective for a patient. David Thomas is with NIHs National Institute on Drug Abuse. He noted, Were not creating a lie detector for pain. He said, We do not want to lose the patient voice. Now, scientists around the country are using brain studies, pupil reactions and other methods in research supported by the NIH. There wont be a single signature of pain, Thomas said. He predicted that several different methods will create something of a fingerprint of pain. NIH estimates that 25 million people in the U.S. experience daily pain. Sarah Taylor of Potomac, Maryland, is one of them. She was very young when, her joints started aching. She had bad headaches and swelling of the spine. Then, two years ago, she was found to have fibromyalgia, a condition of pain all over the body. Recently, a researcher worked with Taylor using the pupil-tracking device attached to a smartphone. Dr. Finkel directs pain research at the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Childrens National Hospital. She noted that the eye is a window to pain centers in the brain. She said that some nerves send pain signals that affect muscles of the pupils. Finkels device follows the pupils reactions to light and other stimulation that is not pain. The goal is to find differences that might permit the measurement of the intensity of pain. Finkel also said the presence of some kinds of drugs can be detected by other changes in a resting pupil. In December, the Food and Drug Administration announced it would help a company that Finkel started, called AlgometRx, develop a device to carry out fast drug tests. Other scientists want to look deeper into the brain. Scientists with Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital have found that brain images using an MRI can show changes in the brain linked to pain. They suggest that patterns of inflammation in the brain can be linked to fibromyalgia and back pain. Other researchers are studying the brain waves linked to pain and how areas of the brain light up with different kinds of pain. The NIH is interested in discovering the biological markers that let some people recover from severe pain while others have long-term pain. Im Mario Ritter Jr. Lauran Neergaard reported this story for AP. Mario Ritter adapted it for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor. _________________________________________________________________ Quiz - US Health Agency Wants to Measure Pain Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story tolerant adj. able to accept or deal with something frustrating adj. causing feelings of anger or annoyance acupuncture n. a method of easing pain or illness by placing needles into a persons skin at special places pupil n. the round center of the eye stimulation n. to make something more active signature n. a feature in the appearance or qualities of a natural object formerly held to indicate its utility in medicine pattern n. something that happens in a regular or repeated way inflammation n. a condition in which part of the body becomes red, swollen or painful We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page. The New York City train system has a new unofficial stop for people who love grammaror even just have questions about it. English language expert Ellen Jovin has put together an unusual classroom. There is a foldable table, books, a smile and a deep knowledge of grammar. She calls it Grammar Table. Jovin sits at the table in the subway and on city streets. She smiles and waits for people to come by with grammar questions. Usually, she catches the interest of a lot of people. Hello! Welcome to Grammar Table! Grammar Table! I love it. I love it! Its hot. More than one billion people in the world speak English. Another two billion are in the process of learning it or trying to. But English grammar rules frighten many even native English speakers. Jovins mission is to help people who find themselves afraid of or confused by the world of English. Jovin is a linguist. She has worked to spread her love for the English language for a long time. She has taught grammar to business professionals and writing at universities. She is also a published writer. Jovin also owns a business communication training company with her husband. Online and traditional classes are her life. But she decided to make things interesting and take her knowledge to the streets and subways of New York. "I put the sign up and it took 30 seconds for someone to come up and ask me a question: How many words do I think Donald Trump knows? Though that is more of a political question, Jovin believes understanding language structure rules will help people around the world understand each other better. On one recent day, a man came up to Jovins Grammar Table with a question about nouns. "But I have read that its a collective noun. Is that what youre calling it? Yeah. So, its a special case. We can make special cases, right? Or do you want everything to be consistent?" The Grammar Table appeals to all kinds of people for whom English is filled with mysteries: students and older people, engineers and house cleaners, actors and even other language experts. Some of the most popular questions, Jovin says, are about commas. "For example, if I say, He ordered salad, spaghetti and soda, right before the and, you can put a comma if you want in English. And its called the Oxford comma or sometimes the serial comma." New York subway riders have accepted Jovin with warmth and interest. Musicians, policemen and even English teachers often stop by for a friendly chat. Walter Skrepnick is a teacher of English literature. He recently shared his thoughts about Grammar Table. "Things like that that deal with language, that deal with culture its refreshing from some of the other things that go on." But not all questions are about English or even in English. Jovin can speak and understand several languages: Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, French, Chinese, Korean and Japanese. And she is trying to learn a few others, too. Im Alice Bryant. Nina Vishneva reported this story for VOA News. Alice Bryant adapted it for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor. ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story grammar n. the set of rules that explain how words are used in a language subway n. a system of underground trains in a city mission n. a task that you consider to be a very important duty confused adj. unable to understand or think clearly linguist n. a person who studies the way languages work consistent adj. continuing to happen or develop in the same way comma n. a punctuation mark that is used to separate words or groups of words in a sentence chat n. a light and friendly conversation literature n. written works (such as poems, plays, and novels) that are considered to be very good and to have lasting importance refreshing adj. pleasantly new, different or interesting Tens of thousands of teachers went on strike Monday in Los Angeles, California. The teachers acted after contract negotiations failed. "Students, we are striking for you," said teachers union President Alex Caputo-Pearl. He spoke to a cheering crowd of teachers marching in the rain. Los Angeles is the second-largest school district in the United States. Members of United Teachers Los Angeles voted last year to call a strike if the union and school district failed to reach an agreement. The teachers want higher wages and smaller class sizes. Months of negotiations between the two sides ended without a deal. It follows teacher strikes in other states. Substitutes working for striking teachers The union has 35,000 members. Schools are open in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which serves 640,000 students. The school district has hired hundreds of substitute teachers to work during the strike. The union calls that irresponsible and has called on parents to consider keeping students home or join marchers. The district argues that the union's demands could lead to financial ruin. The school system says it expects a $500-million deficit this budget year. Billions of dollars are required for payments and health care for retired teachers. Negotiations were suspended in December, and re-started this month, but little progress was evident in the contract dispute. The union rejected a district offer Friday. It proposed to add almost 1,200 teachers, guidance professionals, health care workers and librarians and reduce class size by two students. The offer also included a proposed six percent pay raise over the first two years of a three-year contract. The teachers union wanted a 6.5 percent increase at the start of a two-year deal. The union also wants considerably smaller classes, now often filled by more than 30 students. The union is demanding more nurses, librarians and counselors to "fully staff" schools. The 'Red4Ed' movement Teachers are hoping to build on the "Red4Ed" movement that began last year in West Virginia and moved to five other states. It spread from conservative states with "right to work" laws, which limit the ability to strike, to the more liberal West Coast, with strong unions. Such actions energized Los Angeles teachers, Caputo-Pearl said before the strike. The labor union argues that the school district has $1.8 billion that could be used to finance the pay and staffing increases. The district said that money is meant for retiree benefits and other costs. School district Superintendent Austin Beutner asked Friday for California Governor Gavin Newsom to get involved to try to avoid a strike. The union says Beutner, an investment banker and former Los Angeles deputy mayor, and school board members are trying to privatize the district. The union says Beutner and the school board support calls for school closures. It says they are turning public schools into charter schools. Charters are privately operated public schools that compete for students and financial support. Beutner has said his plan to reorganize the school district would improve services to students and families. He and his supporters on the board want to create an education system with public and charter schools under the same leadership. Im Caty Weaver. The Associated Press reported this story. Caty Weaver adapted it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor. _________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story hire v. to give work or a job to (someone) in exchange for wages or a salary substitute n. a person or thing that takes the place of someone or something else benefit n. money that is paid by a company or by a government when someone dies, becomes sick or stops working staff v. to supply (an organization or business) with workers librarian n. a specialist in the care of books, magazines, documents and other records We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page. Amanda Bacons eating disorder was growing worse. She had lost 60% of her body weight and was consuming about 100 calories a day. Success! An email has been sent with a link to confirm list signup. East Cocalico Township Police DUI EAST COCALICO TWP.: Austin C. McManus, 24, of Denver, was arrested Oct. 27, 2018, on two counts of DUI, one count of hit and run and summary traffic violations after he hit a parked car while driving under the influence of marijuana, police said. State police DUI BRECKNOCK TWP.: Samantha Rivera, 24, of Lancaster, was charged after her vehicle crashed into an embankment Jan. 1 in the 300 block of Lauschtown Road, police said. Lancaster city police BURGLARY LANCASTER: A resident of the 500 block of Reynolds Avenue reported hearing a crashing sound and finding a glass pane on the front door broken and the deadbolt unlocked between 9:16 and 10:15 p.m. Jan. 5, police said. Nothing was reported stolen, they said. LANCASTER: A resident of the 300 block of South Broad Street reported that his rear kitchen window was pushed in between 10:30 p.m. Jan. 10 and 7:30 a.m. Jan. 11, with a 52-inch and 32-inch TV, lottery tickets and an unassembled Mongoose bicycle still in its box taken, police said. ROBBERY LANCASTER: Residents of a home in the 700 block of South Lime Street reported that between 2 and 3 p.m. Jan. 4, two people entered their home and demanded money, with one displaying a handgun, police said. They reported that the suspects fled after being given an undisclosed amount of cash, and that investigation continues. LANCASTER: A resident of the 200 block of West Orange Street reported that at 7:31 p.m. Jan. 4, four masked people forced their way into his apartment demanding his weed and money, police said. They reported that the resident said he thought he knew one of the people from a party and called his name, at which the intruders fled, taking a broken smartphone that had been on the kitchen table. "The rehabilitation of Baguio City has been long overdue." The rehabilitation of Manila Bay by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources is most definitely a good move, but whether or not Secretary Roy Cimatu is up to it is another question altogether. Manila Bay, famous for its sunset, it more than a cesspool-how President Rodrigo Duterte described Boracay before its 60-day closure and rehabilitation. Santa Banana, Manila Bay has become one septic tank! It stinks! Just how the DENR will rehabilitate it is the big question. I ask this because the rehabilitation of Boracay and other resorts in Palawan and Mindoro have always been a joint effort not only of the DENR but the Department of Tourism (because the world-famous sunset is a tourist attraction) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (because it spans so many LGUs). * * * To my mind, though, a bigger, more daunting task is the rehabilitation of Baguio Citythe summer capital of the Philippines. It would be challenging because it would not be just a simple cleanup. It would also be about making the city accommodate the more-than-one-million visitors during peak seasons. Over the Christmas holidays I decided not to go to Baguio when I learned that it would take me nine to 10 hours to reach the placeat Edsa-like traffic at that. A cousin told me that upon checking in at their hotel, all they could do was stay in because of the nightmarish traffic. This is why I only stay at Camp John Hay when I am there. So what other new things can be experienced in Baguio City? Even the smell of the pine trees is gone.In dire need of rehabilitation is Burnham Park. There used to be a time when visitors could loiter around it and paddle boats. Mines View Park is another place. It has become an obstacle course of shops, food stalls and ambulant vendors. Meanwhile, Wright Park used to be a place where tourists can ride horses. Baguio is a dying city. So many establishments are built without any real planning at all. Even well-known hotels and restaurants have no parking spaces. When I was still in grade school, Baguio City was in its prime. Our family always visited the city in the summer. I saw the tourist attractions in their glory. I am saddened at what Baguio City proper has become due to neglect and indifference. * * * Good thing there is that development of Alphaland, Baguio Mountain Lodges. Residents call it the Forbes Park of Baguio City. I must congratulate Alphaland chairman and CEO Bobby Ongpin for the development. The project is surrounded by an eight-foot perimeter fence; there are security guards to ensue safety. * * * During the first year of the Duterte administration, the Finance Department had plans of privatizing some 47 casinos of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez and Pagcor chairman Andrea Domingo agreed that being a gaming regulator, Pagcor, a state agency, should not be in the gaming and casino business. Thats a clear conflict of interest. The plan, however, has remained just that. I wonder why. In the first year of a tougher school immunization requirement in Pennsylvania, state records show two increases one in students getting fully vaccinated before starting classes, and one in students being exempted from the requirement. Starting at the beginning of the 2017-18 school year, regulators shortened a grace period for students who were not fully immunized from eight months to five days. Statewide, the reports show the number of students using the grace period dropping from 24,724 the previous year to 6,531, or from almost 11 percent to 2.5 percent. In Lancaster County, the drop was from 2,023 to 359, or from almost 17 percent to 3 percent. Pennsylvanias annual immunization reports cover only kindergarten and seventh-grade students, so the actual number of students affected is much higher. What's required These are the diseases Pennsylvania students are required to be vaccinated against. Chickenpox* Diptheria Hepatitis B Measles Meningococcal disease** Mumps Polio Rubella Tetanus Whooping cough *Unless they have evidence of immunity **Starting in seventh grade Meanwhile exemptions rose, from 2.3 percent to 3.6 percent of students statewide, and from 8.6 percent to 9.5 percent in Lancaster County. Exemptions may overlap meaning a parent can claim a student exemption on more than one ground but because theres no way to tell if they do, LNP is assuming they dont. The reports also show that the number of students denied admission to school because they hadnt met the requirement or gotten an exemption rose from zero in 2016-17 to 11 in 2017-18 in Lancaster County, and from 96 to 193 statewide. That said, the 2016-17 school year had the lowest number of students turned away in the past decade both locally and statewide. All students, including the Amish, homeschoolers and those in cyber charter schools, are required to have certain vaccinations by the start of classes unless they are exempted. Biggest factor Exemptions are available on medical grounds, which require a doctors approval, and religious and philosophical grounds, which require a one-line explanation and a parent or guardians signature. The sharply controversial philosophical exemptions are the most-used, at 1.7 percent of students statewide and 6.6 percent in Lancaster County. For the 2016-17 year, those percentages stood at 0.8 statewide and 5.9 in the county. Pennsylvania is one of just 18 states that allow philosophical exemptions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Several attempts here to limit nonmedical exemptions have died. Exempted students may be excluded from school if theres an outbreak of vaccine-preventable disease. Only three counties, all of them rural, had higher overall rates of exemptions: Mifflin at 13 percent, Potter at 12.1 percent, and Juniata at 9.9 percent. In Lancaster County, 1.1 percent of students had medical exemptions and 1.8 percent had religious exemptions. No changes planned Pennsylvania Department of Health spokesman Nate Wardle said in an email that overall, its happy with the rates reported in 2017-18, and is not considering changing the requirement. Many vaccine rates for the state, as well as numerous counties, went up from prior years, he wrote. It is very important that people consider getting immunizations. These immunizations are designed to be safe, effective, and to prevent very serious illnesses. The Department of Education had a similar response, with spokesman Eric Levis writing, The updated requirements help school districts meet their responsibility to provide a healthy and safe learning environment for their students. Robert Hollister, superintendent of Eastern Lancaster County School District, said in an email that it has a handful of exemptions each year, but hasnt seen them jump. Our parents have been great and responsible, he wrote, but the philosophical exemption is troubling when the absence of vaccination creates a clear and present danger to othersespecially our more medically fragile students. At Ephrata Area School District, spokeswoman Sarah McBee reported its seeing a steady decline in the number of students who are missing the required vaccinations or documentation to be in compliance with state regulations. When the exemption date draws closer every year, parents and guardians are contacted directly and are rarely met with opposition, she wrote. When families choose to avoid immunization, she said, its usually based upon religious or cultural beliefs. Alice Yoder, Lancaster General Healths executive director of community health and collaboration, praised school districts for their work. Childhood vaccination is still one of the most effective public health strategies to control and prevent disease, she wrote. GREAT animation and article about herd immunity from @statnews's @hoganalex and @HelenBranswell! Want more? Explore FRED Measles to see how herd immunity works in your city: https://t.co/XrgplPD2lp #VaccinesWork https://t.co/xIf5tJ5Cph Pitt Public Health (@PittPubHealth) January 18, 2019 Previous reporting on school immunization rates 2016-17: Vaccination gap between Lancaster County, rest of Pennsylvania continues to grow 2015-16: What the latest school immunization reports say about Lancaster County 2014-15: More Lancaster County parents are objecting to immunization 2013-14: Opting out of vaccines: County private schools exemption rates are much higher than state average A Berks County man sobbed as a judge sentenced him to at least 6 months in prison for crashing an ambulance he was driving, killing a passenger inside and another driver in 2016. Never did I want to hurt anyone. My life has been about helping others, said 22-year-old Jeffrey R. Gable in court Monday. Gable was driving a non-emergency transport ambulance with Doris Waltz, 60, of Elizabethtown, inside on Route 30 in Salisbury Township. He veered into opposing traffic and collided head-on with a car driven by Jason Oswald, 43, of Manheim Township. Both Waltz and Oswald died, according to officials. Gable, of Mohnton, was released on unsecured bail since charges were filed in August 2017. In court Monday, Assistant District Attorney Jared Hinsey arranged a plea deal which downgraded two vehicular homicide charges to involuntary manslaughter. Gable also pleaded guilty to aggravated assault by vehicle, two counts of recklessly endangering another person and a few traffic citations. President Judge Dennis Reinaker accepted the plea and sentenced Gable to 6 to 23 months in prison and 8 years of probation. He will be eligible for work release. Reinaker called it a very difficult case for everyone involved. Close to 20 friends and family members of Waltz and Oswald huddled in the court room. Oswald had a magnetic personality, said friend Brandon Arms. He is survived by his wife and two children, ages 12 and 10. We are left with an emptiness that lasts everyday while your life continues, Arms said to Gable. A representative for Waltzs family read a statement. Waltz, full of faith and hope used a wheelchair. Just before she was killed, she had a doctors appointment to discuss a knee surgery to help her walk. She had a zest for life. We miss her, the statement said. Defense attorney Chris Patterson told the court that Gable does not remember the crash. Every day, every time weve talked, hes expressed remorse, Patterson said. Gable, dressed in a dark suit, apologized to the families. Just 4.3 percent of Lancaster County seventh-graders have ever had chickenpox, according to the latest report from the Pennsylvania Department of Health. For kindergartners, the percentage is only 0.9 percent. Statewide, the rate is 1.3 percent of seventh-graders and 0.7 percent of kindergartners. Chickenpox is also called varicella, and the vaccine against the very contagious viral disease was first licensed for U.S. use in 1995, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Before then, the CDC said, almost everyone had chickenpox by adulthood. While chickenpox is usually mild, the CDC said, it can be serious in infants under 12 months of age, adolescents, adults, pregnant women, and people with weakened immune systems. The virus stays in the body and can cause a painful rash called shingles years later; the CDC reports that about 1 million people a year get shingles, mostly those over 50 years old. Pennsylvania requires students to get the chickenpox vaccine unless they can prove immunity to the disease. The reports dont show how many students have had other diseases theyre vaccinated against, which include whooping cough, measles and polio. Henry Norwood Barney Ewell was an Olympic champion, an internationally famous sprinter and the greatest athlete Lancaster city has produced. He broke the world record for the 50-yard dash in 1940 and won a gold medal and two silver medals at the 1948 Olympics. Ewell would be the perfect person to honor by renaming Lancaster Square for him after its renovation, said Jeremiah Miller, coordinator of alumni affairs at McCaskey High School, Ewells alma mater. Miller is part of the Barney Ewell Legacy Committee. On Tuesday morning, the committee held a media conference at the Hotel Lancaster, on the squares north side, to call for renaming the square Ewell Olympic Plaza. WATCH: Campaign launched for 'Ewell Olympic Plaza' The Olympics are an impeccable symbol for modern-day Lancaster, Miller said. The plaza could include a statue of Ewell, which would be the first such tribute to a black American in Lancaster County. If that were to move forward, the committee has committed to raising money for it, member and former Mayor Art Morris said. The committee has broached its idea with the city and has launched a petition drive. Information will be posted on the McCaskey alumni website and supporters will be gathering signatures at Central Market on Saturday, Jan. 26, Miller said. Naming process City officials have promised the square, once it's overhauled, will have a new name. Details of the selection and evaluation process are still being worked out, said Randy Patterson, city director of economic development and neighborhood revitalization. The other formal proposal that's been made is Thaddeus Stevens, the Civil War-era statesman and abolitionist. Gettysburg-area resident Ross Hetrick, founder of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, made that recommendation to City Council in November, calling Stevens a fearless champion for human rights and education. Other possibilities, such as "PlazaLanc" or "Rose Court," came up when consultant Mahan Rykiel was gathering public input for the Lancaster Square concept plan unveiled late last year. Any name must be approved by the mayor and at least five of seven City Council members. There will certainly be opportunities for public input along the way, Patterson said. At present, it would be premature to comment on the merits of particular proposals, he said. Petition drive Ewells generous spirit and humility were remarkable, Morris said. The former mayor was co-captain of the McCaskey track team in the 1960s. Barney came to most of our meets, he said, adding: Those who knew Barney loved Barney. He was a real inspiration to me, said Ewells nephew, Ron Ford, a committee member and former county commissioner. Ewells daughter, Denise, said her fathers legacy means, to me, the enrichment of so many lives. The committee consists of Miller, Morris, Ford, and philanthropist Ken Stoudt. It has been promoting recognition of Ewell through the Barney Ewell Project, launched in 2017. Among its efforts were Barney Ewell Week honoring Ewell's 100th birthday in February 2018; and last October's installation of a state historical marker honoring Ewell on the McCaskey campus. The price tag to buy the recently logged Camp Furnace Hills Girl Scout camp in northern Lancaster County has been set: nearly $1.5 million. The Girls Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania council has informed seven parties interested in buying the 190-acre wooded property they have until Feb. 28 to put up the money and enter into a sales agreement. Two land trusts and at least two grassroots groups have wanted to save the camp in some form, or at least save the property from development. After Feb. 28, the property in Clay and West Cocalico townships will be opened for sale to the general public through a New York realty company. Asking way too much Those trying to keep the property for use by Girl Scouts or protect it from development reacted negatively to the announced sale price. I think theyre asking way too much after the damage theyve done, said Candi Dirian, a Brickerville resident who helped form the Friends of Camp Furnace Hills. She was referring to heavy logging that was recently done on the formerly forested property. They have no interest in selling to any group that wants to keep it as a camp, Dirian said. The Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania stripped that land for the sole purpose of making money. They dont care about the environment, the people who live around the property and the people who care about it. Theyre setting all these camps up for failure. That area is now changed forever. Its disheartening to see, Dirian added. We will not give up Two land trusts lining up grants to buy the property had requested the council not log the property. Another group, the Furnace Hills Camping Association, put out a news release titled, Mega Non-Profit Gives Up On Local Kids. Founder Will Haggans, a father of two Girl Scouts in Manheim, said the group would not give up in its efforts to buy the camp. He said the next step would be to reach out to the community and ask for additional donations on the groups GoFundMe online crowdfunding page. But he said that a lack of cooperation from the Girl Scout council in his groups efforts to purchase the land may push the organization to seek other land in the area that could be used for camping by kids. In the end, we are doing all of this for kids and the community and we will not give up, Haggans said. Camp was founded in 1947 Amy Mountain, spokeswoman for the council, referred all questions to Brian Bullard, owner of Timberland Realty in Falconer, New York. Bullard did not return an e-mail or messages left at his office and on his cell phone. The camp has served Girl Scouts in Lancaster and Lebanon counties since 1947. Amid declining membership and revenue, the council voted last November to sell 190 of 240 acres of Camp Furnace Hills and all of Camp Echo Trail in York County. Fifty acres of Camp Furnace Hills containing some buildings will be retained for Girl Scout programs for at least three years. Dozens of unsolved homicides in Lancaster County will get a closer look under a new investigative unit, the county's district attorney's office announced Tuesday. District Attorney Craig Stedman hinted at the unit last week at a news conference after Raymond Rowe pleaded guilty to raping and killing Christy Mirack in 1992. The same type of DNA analysis used to find Rowe could be used on other cold cases, the district attorney's office said. Mirack's murder had been unsolved for over 25 years. It was cracked after the district attorney's office worked with Parabon Labs to match DNA from the original crime scene to Rowe through a genetic testing database. Stedman budgeted $10,000 for similar DNA analysis work in 2019, enough to be able to work on two cases, according to the district attorney's office. DNA and genealogy work costs between $3,000 and $5,000, the office said. However, other homicide scenes don't have DNA, or only have traces or mixed samples, which can be much more difficult to match, the district attorney's office said. Many existing homicide case investigations have already involved DNA work. This is not magical technology that fits all cases, Stedman said in a news release. As pleased as we are with the outcome in the Rowe case, we must all be aware that wont be the norm going forward, much as we wish it to be. However, the resolution in Christys case gives hope that it can be done: The hard work of devoted investigators can pay off even decades later. Cases will be selected based on police input, case circumstances and prior work, the district attorney's office said. Cases under new DNA reviews will not be publicized as that could jeopardize the investigation. Staffing the unit will not require extra expenses but consist of a designated team of investigators working on unsolved cases, according to the release. The unit will be run by Assistant District Attorney Christine L. Wilson and Lancaster County Detectives Larry Martin, Christopher Erb and Detective Sgt. Jeffrey Bell. They will work with other county investigators, including Pennsylvania State Police Cpl Shawn Kofluk and Trooper Chad Roberts and Lancaster city police Captain Mike Winters. The district attorney's office also said an investigative grand jury will be utilized to hear testimony in cases under review. A grand jury that started in March 2017 wrapped up in December. Charges were filed in four unsolved homicide cases. The jury has subpoena power but cannot make indictments. A standing-room-only crowd crammed the Morgan Program Center at the Manheim Township Public Library as the conditional use hearing for the controversial Oregon Village development got under way Monday evening. This is a tedious process, warned township solicitor Stacey Brubaker. And so it proved, as the Manheim Township commissioners spent more than an hour determining who would have party status in the hearing, a qualification that allows someone to testify and cross-examine. It was not until around 8 p.m. that the hearing began. Commissioners were to hear testimony until about 9 p.m., then continue the proceedings at their next meeting, scheduled to take place at the library on Jan. 28. No vote was taken Monday. Oregon Village is being proposed by members of the Hurst family, owners of the Oregon Dairy supermarket complex on Oregon Pike. The project would be built there and on the abandoned former Shawnee Resort site nearby. It would include 550 housing units, 55,000 square feet of retail space, a 120-room hotel, a restaurant and a convenience store. An expanded supermarket would replace the existing one. In December, by a 3-1 vote, the township planning commission recommended approving the application. That action is advisory; the commissioners have final say. If the commissioners approve the conditional use application, that's not the end of the road, Brubaker said. The developers then have to go through the subdivision and land development approval process. The commissioners turned down an earlier version of the project. It has since been redesigned and resubmitted. Opponents say the project will overwhelm its surroundings. They worry about roads clogged with traffic, loss of farmland and a decisive change in the character of the area. I think the turnout was tremendous tonight, said Mary Haverstick, spokesperson for Respect Farmland, a citizens group that opposes the development. Citizens took the time to come out, and I think the commissioners are going to pay attention to that. Party status The commissioners gave party status to about a dozen people. They included owners of neighboring properties, nearby businesses, two residents of Landis Homes, and Linford Good, representing the Landis Homes organization itself. Party status was denied to a number of township residents deemed to live too far away. And it was denied by split votes to the Manheim Township Historical Society and to Respect Farmland, Haverstick's group. Party status is reserved for those most directly affected by a proposed development, such as the adjacent properties, Brubaker said. Having a general concern about traffic, farmland preservation and so forth isn't sufficient, she said. However, individuals not granted party status are still allowed to speak during a public comment period after testimony. Attorney Caroline Hoffer, representing the developers, said neither group had a direct interest, because the proposed project is not in the township's historic overlay district, nor is it on land zoned agricultural. That's fine, Haverstick said: Eventually, we'll get up to the microphone and the citizens will get their say. The proceedings were complicated by problems with the microphones and speaker system set up in the room. Audience members repeatedly complained they couldn't hear what was being said. Acknowledging the problem, the commissioners took a short break to reposition the speakers and increase the volume. Developers presentation The developers presentation kicked off with landscape architect Joel Young of Rettew Associates, who sought to demonstrate the development's compliance with township rules. Under Hoffer's questioning, he said the property is within growth boundaries identified by Manheim Township, the Inter-Municipal Committee, and places2040, the comprehensive plan adopted by Lancaster County in October. Limiting sprawl is among the objectives of the overlay ordinance with which Oregon Village is seeking to comply. That objective would be met, Young contended: By building Oregon Village, he said, we are limiting sprawl elsewhere in the townshp and county. What does it feel like to have a conversation with the dead? For starters, its nothing like the movie The Sixth Sense, says Tyler Henry, star of the E! television show Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry. Henry describes the experience as a walking daydream. I always say my sixth sense uses the other five senses to communicate, Henry says. That might materialize as a faint smell, a quiet sound or a vision. The trick, Henry says, is separating the feelings that are messages from his day-to-day experiences. Being able to really listen to your body, and listen to your mind, and being able to identify what is yours and whats not, Henry says. I think thats really the key of being a good medium. On his reality show, Henry is known for being the medium-on-call for celebrities, from actors Chrissy Metz and Megan Fox to musicians such as Moby and Iggy Azealia. But through Henrys latest endeavor a touring stage show hell give readings to everyday people. Henry will visit the Strand Theatre at the Appell Center for the Performing Arts in York on Wednesday. Henry says he first became aware of his abilities at age 10, when he had a feeling his grandmother was going to die. Just a short while later, his family received a call with the news of her death. Initially, his mother brushed off the premonition, not sure what to make of it. But Henry kept having these strange experiences, mostly as dreams. Some were about people he knew, and others of those he didnt. For the latter, hed later find they were connected to individuals he was meeting during the day. Because he was raised by a conservative family in a similarly conservative part of California, sharing his gifts posed particular challenges. He had to confront his father when he turned 16 and wanted to pursue a career as a medium. I told him what a medium was, and he didnt even know what it was before, at that point, Henry says. So, it was a really transformative experience for him. Now, Henry says, his parents are his biggest fans. His mother is a fixture of Hollywood Medium, often seen chatting with him in the car as she drives him to appointments. Starring in a television show wasnt how he planned to use his gifts, though. He graduated high school at 16 with the goal of becoming a hospice nurse, to comfort those near death and their families. But word began to spread of his abilities as far as Southern California, where he eventually moved. Given the area, his clientele began to include celebrities. His first famous client was Sarah Paulson, known for her work on American Horror Story and the new M. Night Shyamalan movie Glass. It was a total shock, and it was a phone reading, so the entire time my hand was shaking, Henry says. When I got off the phone, my palm was all sweaty. It was intense. Henrys first television appearance was in 2015 on an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The following year, Hollywood Medium debuted just after Henrys 20th birthday. As Henrys profile grew larger, so did criticisms about the validity of his work. Skeptics claim he utilizes cold reading and hot reading techniques to give the illusion of receiving personal information. Cold reading employs guessing information based on context clues, and hot reading utilizes previously researched information unbeknownst to the client. Some critics even say Henrys work is exploitative of people who are grieving. Henrys response to the criticism is that each industry has individuals with less-than-pure intentions that can make a bad name for the whole group. I think in sharing my readings, being validation-based has really been my focus. My goal is to bring up specifics so that the person leaves knowing they heard from their loved one, Henry says. After the first season of Henrys show aired, he received more than 175,000 requests for private readings. I knew that unless I planned on cloning myself, theres no way its possible to do all these readings, Henry says. But I did know that a good compromise would be to hit the road, go across the country, and try to read people in group audiences. Henry says the first half of his show focuses on the life lessons hes learned as a medium. He goes into the audience to do readings in the second half. Where he is pulled is random, so buying tickets in the front row doesnt necessarily guarantee a reading. In fact, Henry often finds himself running all over the theater. I always say its like a workout, Henry says. The fourth season of Hollywood Medium will debut in February. Henrys celebrity clients on the upcoming season include Jill Zarin from The Real Housewives of New York and actress Rebel Wilson. Henry says there will be more behind-the-scenes footage in this season, including an episode where celebrity medical practitioner Dr. Drew scans Henrys brain during a reading. Henry also is working on a second book, the followup to 2017s Between Two Worlds. Hes also hoping to set up a charity or scholarship for children who have lost a loved one. I just see a lot of kids who have experienced loss and there just arent a lot of resources for people in that age range who experience this, Henry says. And people who are able to maintain amazing grades and maintain that academic excellence while still going through personal devastation, to me is just like incredibly inspiring, and I think that should be rewarded. Has Gov. Tom Wolf been watching a lot of late-night TV? The selection of musical performers for his inaugural celebration sure makes it look that way. The Wolf Inaugural 2019 Committee announced today that Philadelphia hip-hop icons the Roots will headline the governor's "Moving Pennsylvania Forward" inaugural celebration on Jan. 15. The event will be 7-11 p.m. at the Farm Show Complex and Expo Center in Harrisburg. Tickets are $100 general admission and $50 for students and seniors. They are available on Wolf's official inauguration website. The Roots' most recognizable faces are drummer Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson and rapper Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter, who met while attending a performing arts high school in Philadelphia. Trotter went on to study at Millersville University. The band has released music since 1993, but made its breakthrough with the album "Things Fall Apart" in 1999. The Roots have served as Jimmy Fallon's house band on late-night TV since 2009, first on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" and now currently on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon." "See how it delivers in this year's election." In 1997, when I got on board then Vice President Eraps second presidential quest (the first was in 1992, when then-Senator Estrada initially ran for president, then midway through the campaign slid to a more modest vice presidential run with Danding Cojuangco, and won), I was asked to accompany him in his pre-campaign trips. Erap would accept invitations left and right, from Rotary to Lions, to fiesta celebrations, where most often, his charisma would shine with the masa. I saw that popularity particularly strong in Mindanao. So in the summer of 1997, about a year before the elections scheduled May of 1998, I sat down with the vice president in the kitchen of his tastefully decorated mansion in Greenhills. There I proposed that we construct what I described as a Fortress Mindanao. I explained it thus: In 1992, when he assessed that his chances for the presidency was a long shot, he negotiated with then candidate Eduardo Cojuangco of the NPC, whose campaign needed an extra boost. At the time, Dandings running-mate was Senator Sonny Osmena, while FVRs veep was the brother, Gov. Lito Osmena. LDPs Monching Mitra had Celing Fernan, the resigned Chief Justice who took the political plunge. The surveys showed Fernan was an easy win, with 56 percent of the national vote, while the brothers Osmena were in the 20-point bracket each. To cut a long story short, some say with the intercession of a powerful religious group, Danding jettisoned Sonny, who was only too willing to give way and re-run as senator, and a Danding-Erap tandem was announced. That was a game-changer. Danding lost, but Erap won as VP. FVR won in a closely contested race with the late Miriam for the presidency. Analyzing the 1992 numbers, I noted that Erap won in all of Luzon, lost to Fernan in the Visayas, and won marginally in Mindanao, where Fernan and Lito Osmena, being Bisaya, got substantial numbers. In the looming 1998 presidential contest, as of the summer of 1997, the looming candidates were: Joe de Venecia and Renato de Villa in FVRs then undecided corner; GMA and Ed Angara for the LDP; Senator Raul Roco, possibly a rerun for Miriam Defensor Santiago, and a Liberal Party still egging Manila Mayor Fred Lim to try for the jackpot. Except for Miriam, all were from Luzon. Miriam was Ilongga; no one was from the Bisaya-speaking majority who populate Central Visayas, half of Eastern Visayas, and 80 percent of Mindanao (a majority of Muslims are quite conversant with Bisaya as well). But Erap, although pure Tagalog, was a retired movie star, and had legions of admirers in Mindanao, both Christian and Muslim. So I explained to Erap that of all the putative candidates for 1998, he had the best chances of making a formidable fortress in Mindanao. Since his Balance Luzon showing in the previous elections was quite strong, his only rival for that huge swath of votes was GMA. Concede Bicol to Raul, Pampanga to Gloria, Pangasinan to JDV, Batangas to Rene, and Panay to Miriam, my calculation showed. NCR would be a market vote that would be contested by Erap and GMA. (The LP and Tita Cory hadnt launched Lim yet).There was another reason for shoring up strength in Mindanao so it becomes impregnably an Erap fortress. At the time, many parts of Mindanao were cheating fields. Neutralize the command votes and the products of chicanery, I explained to the intently listening vice president. And so for the next many months prior to the official campaign period, candidate Erap went from town to town in Mindanao, using his Augusta chopper. An example is: Overnight Davao City, chopper to Cateel, Baganga, Manay and Mati in Davao Occidental, then overnight land trip to rest overnight in Davao City, all in one days hard work. The candidate was driven. The expected outcome showed in the election results. Erap won overwhelmingly, with 40 percent of the national vote, with JDV a far second. My only real worry was GMA, who lived in Iligan City for a few years of childhood, and spoke Bisaya. When she, like Erap in 1992, did not take her chances on a presidential run and became JDVs running mate, I heaved a sigh of relief. The coast was clear for an Erap victory. Now fast-forward to 2015. On January 8, in the board room of Marco Polo Hotel in Davao City, Sonny Dominguez, Bebot Alvarez, Bingbong Medialdea, Bong Go and I were closeted with Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. Sec. Sonny and I discussed the potential baluarte or fortress where wooing the voters for a Mindanaoan candidate with Cebuano roots would come from. Mindanao has 23 percent of the national vote. Through the years its population grew as more and more migrants from Visayas and even Luzon migrated to its verdant fields and typhoon-free clime. Further to 2019, with the Build, Build, Build program having started and now in full swing, think of the benefits it has wrought on Mindanao. In a recent land trip from Davao to Butuan, our family driver who was born in Tugbok in Davao City, and whose father used to work in our farm there, was telling me about the infrastructure projects all over the island. I saw for myself the massive highway-widening of the Davao-Agusan highway, part of the Pan-Philippine network. Mindanaoans in fine have never seen this kind of attention that they are getting from the national government. How can Mindanao ever forget this president, born in Cebu and who grew up in Davao, and until now, without fail, leaves the confines of the palace in Manila for the comforts of his modest house in Davao each and every week? Fortress Mindanao is baluarte de Duterte. See how it delivers in 2019. And hopefully, with peace finally reigning in the second largest island of the country, both from the Muslim secessionist and communist insurgencies, Mindanao by 2022 and beyond, will be Fortress Mindanao for a long, long time. LAist only exists with reader support. If you're in a position to give, your donation powers our reporters and keeps us independent. Our reporting is free for everyone, but its not free to make. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe Legendary Broadway actress Carol Channing died early Tuesday morning, her publicist told Broadway World. She was best known for doing shows like Hello, Dolly! and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes on Broadway, but called Southern California home in her later years -- the 97-year-old died at her home in Rancho Mirage. She was beloved for her effervescent personality and her distinctive voice. You can see that in this 1966 TV special, where she took viewers on a comedic tour of L.A. Channing winkingly praises the city's beaches alongside its cars, smog, and drive-in restaurants. She dispenses Los Angeles facts while playing up her ditzy persona. Her tour includes: Wilshire Boulevard The L.A. County Museum of Art The Los Angeles Music Center The Chinese Theatre A studio lot The Original Farmers Market And a traffic-aborted mission to see Dodger Stadium There are also multiple, ahem, culturally insensitive (cough racist cough) moments in this 1966 video. You'll get Channing donning a stereotypically Asian outfit as stereotypically Asian music plays when she visits the Chinese Theatre. Then, at the Farmers Market, the entire "joke" of the scene appears to be the audience laughing and Channing reacting awkwardly to the way an Asian person answers a question. The video makes for an interesting look back at '60s Los Angeles -- and at dated attitudes. Beyond the racial elements, a lot of the jokes are based around a dumb blonde persona that Channing is playing up. In real life, she scored one of the highest recorded results on an IQ test, according to Broadway World. For more of a look back at Channing, watch this trailer for the 2012 documentary, Carol Channing: Larger Than Life. You can also read more about her life in this obituary from NPR. LAist only exists with reader support. If you're in a position to give, your donation powers our reporters and keeps us independent. Our reporting is free for everyone, but its not free to make. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe An unearthed 2018 federal search warrant reveals that the FBI's corruption investigation into activities connected to Los Angeles City Councilmember Jose Huizar reaches much deeper into City Hall than previously known. Huizar, his family, and his staffers are named in the warrant. Authorized in July and returned in November, its existence was tweeted Saturday night by Seamus Hughes, a counterterrorism expert at George Washington University. Judging by the warrant, the corruption probe revolves around high-rise development projects in downtown Los Angeles funded by Chinese investment companies. Although the warrant was issued under several federal crime statutes, including money laundering and bribery, the investigation is ongoing. No individual or company has been publicly arrested or charged with wrongdoing and a mention in the warrant is not evidence of crimes. But the warrant paints a broad picture of the bureau's investigation into City Hall, one that reaches into the L.A. Department of Building and Safety and the Board of Public Works, touches at least two other council members or their staff, and names a former deputy mayor to Mayor Eric Garcetti. "There's no question that money talks. According to the Supreme Court, it's entitled to talk, advertise, and spend money on political campaigns," said Clayton Dube, who heads USC's U.S.-China Institute. "The difference is foreign money. Foreign money is not supposed to be in the political mix, and that's a potential issue. When I saw the story (in the Los Angeles Times), I said to my wife, 'It's interesting that the companies named are all Chinese companies.'" Read on to see what we know and don't know at this point. WHERE DID THE FBI LOOK FOR EVIDENCE? The warrant executed asks Google Inc. for communications and other data from a Gmail account held by Raymond Chan, a longtime L.A. Department of Building and Safety employee, who headed the division for three years before he retired in 2016, initially drawing an annual pension of over $160,000. After leaving the building department, Chan served in the mayor's office as Garcetti's deputy mayor for economic development before leaving in June 2017. Since departing the mayor's office, Chan has emerged as an active political donor in local politics. His contributions have gone to Huizar and four other sitting L.A. council members, according to city election records. WHAT POTENTIAL CRIMES ARE THE FBI INVESTIGATING? The warrant suggests the FBI is looking for evidence of several federal crimes: conspiracy, bribery and kickbacks concerning federal funds, deprivation of honest services, extortion, money laundering, and structuring a financial transaction to evade a reporting obligation. Companies named in the warrant indicate federal agents are interested in development projects that need approval from the City Council, some of which received financial aid in the form of taxpayer dollars. HOW FAR INTO CITY HALL DOES THE PROBE REACH? In a word, deep. Prior to this warrant's publication and based on a search of Huizar's office and home, we knew the FBI was investigating the councilman. The warrant corroborates that by naming him, his mother and brother, and multiple current and former Huizar office staffers. KPCC/LAist reached out to Huizar's office and was referred instead to his attorneys. The response: "We have nothing to add." The warrant also seeks records involving Councilman Curren Price, whose 9th Council District touches parts of the Figueroa corridor, the Exposition Park area, and South Central Los Angeles. Reached by email, Price's communications director Angelina Valencia offered the following statement: "Councilmember Price has not spoken to any investigators and is not aware of any of the matters listed in the warrant. However, he will cooperate fully in any investigation." The document also names Council President Herb Wesson's chief of staff, Deron Williams; Lincoln Lee, who headed L.A.'s code enforcement division until he retired in 2016; and Joel Jacinto, a Garcetti appointee to the city Board of Public Works. And then there's Raymond Chan, the man whose email account was searched. Chan worked for the city's building and safety department for more than three decades. Mayor Garcetti appointed him the interim head of Building and Safety in 2013. Chan was named the permanent director the next year. After he left that post, he spent a year as deputy mayor for economic development in Garcetti's office. Asked about the warrant on KPCC's Take Two, Garcetti said "it doesn't matter who you are or what your title is, city employees need to be held to the highest ethical standards. And my expectation is that anybody asked will help the FBI with this investigation." Chan couldn't immediately be reached for comment. Reached by email, Council President Wesson's assistant chief deputy Ed Johnson wrote: "No one has contacted our office about any of this. We have no information other than what has been reported." WHO ELSE DOES THE WARRANT NAME? Also named in the warrant are several other names tied to Chinese-based real estate companies. Among them are Wei Huang, a billionaire developer who Jose Huizar commended in a 2014 council resolution, and Mason Situ, general manager of developer Shenzhen Hazens. And then there are the development companies themselves, all mainland Chinese companies. Four are named in the search warrant, including Oceanwide Holdings, Greenland USA, Wei's Shenzhen New World and Situ's Shenzhen Hazens. The warrant also specifies it seeks information on "other foreign investors not yet identified." Oceanwide is responsible for Oceanwide Plaza, the billion-dollar, three-tower complex across the street from the Staples Center. It's set to open later this year, and comes with 504 condominiums, a five-star hotel, and lots of L.A. Live-like retail. It also features an LED screen that is 100 feet tall and a block long. Greenland USA is finishing work on the shiny, four-tower Metropolis development perched over the 110 freeway. It also cost $1 billion to build. Three towers are condos, one of them the Hotel Indigo. The hotel and tallest of the residential towers are reportedly for sale, according to Curbed LA. Shenzhen New World wants to build what would become the tallest building in Los Angeles. The company purchased the L.A. Grand Hotel, named in the warrant, in 2010, and announced plans in June to erect a 77-story building with condos, apartments, and hotel rooms, converting the existing hotel into apartments. In 2011, the company purchased the Sheraton Universal Hotel, in Universal City, also named in the warrant. Shenzhen Hazens proposes razing the Luxe Hotel, also named in the warrant, located at 1020 S. Figueroa St., and replacing it with a twin-towered commercial, residential, and hotel development, with 435 condos, 300 hotel rooms, and 80,000 square feet of commercial space. Hazens also owns the LAX Sheraton. WHAT HAPPENS NOW? As with any federal corruption investigation about potential foreign influence in U.S. politics, the wheels turn slowly. Until the FBI finishes the investigation, it's a waiting game. In Brooks formulation, the lower-level, normal negotiation is constantly crushed by the two towers of ego, that is, Trump and Pelosi. Two towers of ego? As if they were equivalent? As if one tower were not immensely taller than the other? Trumps immense ego prods him regularly to claim to know more about nearly everything than nearly anybody. Before he was elected, he claimed that I alone can fix it. It is impossible to picture such a statement from Nancy Pelosi. Every politician needs sufficient ego to even run for office, but to imagine equivalence between the egos of Trump and Pelosi is the sort of questionable analysis that makes it possible to imagine that their two positions on the southern border wall are mere differences of opinion that can be easily negotiated, if only their egos didnt stand in the way. Further, a false comparison between Trumps ego and Pelosis diverts attention from just how bad an idea a border wall is. Vos said he would prefer to work from the governors budget request, as is done typically, but said it would be an awful lot harder if revenue from the Medicaid expansion is built into it. Wisconsin is one of 17 states that havent taken federal funding to expand Medicaid to people who make up to 133 percent of the poverty level, a move that would have saved the state $1.1 billion from 2014 through 2019, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. People who make more can get subsidies on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. The decision by former Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans to expand coverage to all people below the poverty line shifted about 63,000 adults off Medicaid while allowing about 130,000 childless adults onto the program. Discover Wisconsin is shining the spotlight on three Wisconsin chefs. Cheese Trifecta premieres Saturday, Jan. 19 on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Chromecast, Smart TVs and discoverwisconsin.com . The episode was produced in partnership with the Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin and Discover Mediaworks. In this episode of Discover Wisconsin, three Wisconsin chefs are challenged to a cheese trifecta. Nathan Berg, head chef of the Lakely Restaurant at the Oxbow Hotel in Eau Claire, is tasked with concocting three different dishes using Kammerude Gouda manufactured by Comstock Creamery in Comstock. Luke Zahm, chef at Driftless Cafe in Viroqua, creates three tantalizing plates using Glacier Penta Creme Blue Cheese from Carr Valley Cheese. The last chef in the mix is Chef Adam Siegel of Lake Park Bistro in Milwaukee, who whips up three incredible dishes using Widmers Aged Brick Cheese and Brick Cheese spread. - Catriona Gray sang her hit song Were In This Together during her guesting in a radio program - It was an impromptu performance since she had to sing the remix version - This attracted a lot of positive reactions from netizens PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed Several videos of Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray while singing a remix version of her song, Were In This Together are not circulating and making noise on social media. KAMI learned that the Pinay beauty queen became the guest in the radio program of Sway Calloway in America where she was asked to sing live. Catriona first listened carefully to the music then started singing her hit song which described her journey in Miss Universe. According to Sway, he was not surprised that the beauty queen can manage to show the beauty of her voice given that the request was impromptu. He even emphasized that he knew Catriona has a Masters Certificate of Music Theory which she acquired few years ago. That song was so beautiful. And I know you have a Masters Certificate of Music Theory from Berklee College of Music so you have a beautiful voice, obviously, the host quipped. Upon watching the newly-crowned queens remix version of the song, netizens could not help but praise her for having such a wonderful talent. PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read KAMI news there too. Use the search option to find us. Read KAMI news while saving your data! Here are the comments from social media users: She's just the perfect package I think. It makes me really proud to be a Filipina. She embodies everything that a woman should be. I can see that she will be a hollywood actress... Mabuhay ka Catriona! Oh my she's got it all. Go on ahead Miss U. This is the reason why we always support you since your Miss World Philippines days. Beauty, wit, talent and sophistication. We love you, Cat! Kinuha mo na lahat ng kagandahan, katalinuhan at mga talent. Baka gusto mo mamigay mamsh. Here is a copy of the video: Here is the full interview that has more than 400 thousand views already: In a previous article by , an unseen footage in Miss Universe 2018 showed the other side of Catriona. Catriona Gray is a Filipina-Australian beauty queen who brought the fourth Miss Universe crown for the Philippines. She is now based in New York to fulfill her obligations as the new titleholder. POPULAR: Read more news about Catriona Gray! Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! A random man (played by our actor Roi) is asking people to help him with transportation money and seems like no one believes him or cares about his trouble. But then we met Tatay Kariton who counts every peso and he did a really touching thing on HumanMeter! Source: Kami.com.ph - An audio recording of Kris Aquino threatening the life of Nicko Falcis surfaced online - The actress-host addressed the controversy in her Instagram post - According to her, she was just bluffing and trying to annoy Nicko when she made those comments to him PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed Kris Aquino took to social media to address the audio recording where she could be heard cursing and threatening the life of her former business manager, Nicko Falcis. KAMI learned that Kris explained her side of the story in her social media post. According to the actress-host, she was just bluffing when she said that her family would have Nicko killed if he comes back to the Philippines. The Queen of All Media added that her siblings are not capable of having people killed. She also pointed out that she has been estranged from her brother, former President Noynoy Aquino, for almost a year now. Kalurx kasi yung in much need of a workshop because yung voice acting kulang (at least ako drama queen ang pintas ng trolls and may guessing game na kung kailan papatak ang tears on TV) sorry ha, but last time i saw him face to face when i asked for his resignation which he willingly signed, together with a quit claim & NDA, gusto akong kurutin ni R.A. because i was maldita and said- YOU ARE SO ANNOYING, PLEASE ENROLL IN A WORKSHOP? 2 hours kang trying to cry, until now walang tears! sabay irap & walk out... alam naman nya binubwisit ko lang ang life nya that Sept 27... Diba nga magmula nung Sunday night in April, di na kami nagusap ni brother, sa irita nya with me? Honest ako, ive seen Noy once in 9 months- in kuya joshs hospital room- they were all so worried parating sya & i was still in St Lukes & the guy who was responsible for the recording knew that. #awkward My 3 meek & mild, simple, super prayerful sisters will do harm? Wag naman bilugin ang utak ng tao. You & i know that was a bluff provoked by anger & fear because of my awful health diagnosis. Hindi naman ako nahihiya umamin, again R.A. and A.G. na present in the Sept 18 confrontation didnt know where to look because ayaw nilang matawa, kasi nasabi ko: im not my brother, im not my sisters, because we all know- im not mabait... R.A. took meticulous notes from the face to face mtg. A.G. said: Madam, stating the obvious ka naman dun sa: im not mabait. R said: Alam mo, inulit mo yung that bar with matching hampas ng credit card bill and yung Coke souvenirs from Atlanta 8 times nakakaloka ka! i know i should be repentant pero ang hirap talaga kasi nga magnacum laude sya na inside out ng life ko alam. So i know he knew his level of guilt & my inability to make good on my threat... Sadly, this has been 1 badly orchestrated demolition job being funded by personalities out for political revenge... ill own na kasalanan ko to. Diba kung ang tabihan mo may kuto, sure nang mahahawaan ka? Unforgivable for me? their timing- now that i am so physically weak. oh well, bilog ang mundo, Kris wrote. PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read KAMI news there too. Use the search option to find us. Read KAMI news while saving your data! As reported previously by KAMI, Nicko Falcis also accused Kris of paying to support anti-Duterte social media posts. Kris Aquino is known as the Queen of All Media due to her success as a movie star, TV actress, talk show host, brand endorser, and social media celebrity. Her son Bimby is her child with ex-husband James Yap. Her older son, Josh, is Kris child with former partner Philip Salvador. POPULAR: Read more news about Kris Aquino! Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! This video will tickle your mind and ignite your critical thinking as the HumanMeter team test your logical thinking through the following Tricky Questions. Check out our videos on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel! Source: Kami.com.ph "How the bay area looks like, smells and moves is how the outside world will judge us." Yesterday, Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Roy Cimatu hosted a Manila Bay stakeholders conference to discuss the terms of reference for the proper and responsible (finally) implementation of the 2008 Supreme Court orderfor the cleanup, rehabilitation and restoration of the 1984-square kilometer bay area with a 140-kilometer coastline extending all the way from Batangas in the south to Bataan in the north. Considered the countrys heartland, the area is our administrative capital, hosts our major industrial, commercial and service enterprises and is home to over half of our growing population. It is the countrys face to the world, the mirror of our soul and standing as a nation. Inevitably, how the Manila Bay area looks like, smells and moves is how the outside world will judge us. Thus, it was not surprising that after Secretary Cimatu made a preliminary presentation of the Manila Bay cleanup program, President Duterte immediately ordered that the same be undertaken with dispatch, instructing in the process the allocation of P47 billion to fund the enterprise over a five-year period. He also designated Cimatu and DILG Secretary Eduardo Ano as the principal convenors of a soon-to-be established Task Force to include at least 21 national and local government agencies and business, civic and peoples organizations in an effort to mobilize all stakeholders in this enormous undertaking. It is well that the co-convenors are steeped in strategic, organized mobilization having served as armed forces chief at some point in their careers. As gleaned from the reports, they have divided the entire area into four sectors and made an inventory of the main sources of waste flowing to or being thrown into the bay area starting with the most visible and essentially violated areas along Roxas Boulevard/R10 from Paranaque in the south to Manila (Smokey Mountain) in the north. In the first walk through done by Secretary Cimatu and members of the task group tracing the waste water flow along the Estero San Antonio Abad down to theoutfall at the Manila Yacht Club, it was obvious that establishments in the area were either discharging their waste directly to thewithout any treatment or if such cleaning was undertaken at all it was inadequate to say the least. And we are talking here of government assetsManila Zoo and its improvements as well as malls, eateries and private offices which were supposed to be inspected regularly by the sanitary inspectors of each and every local government unit or even the DENR itself. And we are just talking here of one estero in a very limited area (not even one square kilometer) along a very small (not even 500 meters) portion of the main thoroughfare facing the bay. And just the sewage flow at that. Multiply that with the hundreds if not thousands of, canals and waterways in the entire bay area, the thousands of establishments and millions of households and you will have an idea of the gargantuan task faced by the task force in the effort to reverse years of neglect and restore the Manila Bay area to its earlier state as one of the most beautiful bays in the world. It is abundantly clear as well that government cannot do the clean up alone. This is an undertaking which should involve all and not just those in the bay area but the entire country if we are to make this truly a legacy program we can all be proud of. Which is why the all-stakeholders conference convened by Secretary Cimatu yesterday is a most welcome first step in this journey of a thousand steps for a cleaner, better and more livable bay area.That the huge Hanjin shipbuilding/shipyard complex in Subic is one operation we can ill afford to go under is beyond question. At its peak, the facility employed 30,000 workers many of them highly skilled, brought in millions of dollars in foreign exchange revenue, hundreds of millions in taxes, jumpstarted the establishment of a network of suppliers and small enterprises in the Subic/Olongapo area and pushed the country as the fourth-largest shipbuilding nation in the world. In conjunction with our much sought after seafarers (we have 300,000 at any given time manning the global shipping industry), Hanjin and the other ship builders in Balamban, Cebu and even our smallish shipyards in Navotas and Batangas were well on the way to leveling up the country to being a truly principal maritime nation. But like all such huge undertakings there comes a time when turbulence comes. This is one of them and we are now faced with a Hanjin under receivership. Although the $440-million debt issue surrounding Hanjins petition for court-approved receivership will not in any manner or form affect the health of the countrys banking system contrary to the fears raised by some people who should know better, it remains a problem which government must engage to resolve. It is well that the consortium of bank lenders have come around to advise that they have, together with the relevant government agencies, banded together to iron out a possible rescue operation. That should be worked out with all permissible dispatch. I have no doubt that the consortium and government will be able to secure some kind of a solution sooner than later. The more immediate task at this point is how to save the remaining jobs still available at the shipyard and, yes, the proper and responsible termination of those who have been working at the facility for years. It behooves government as well as enterprises, in and around Subic/Olongapo, including the SBMA, to prioritize these workers in their search for new openings. Perhaps the DOLE can help fast track the process of reintegrating these workers into the job market by having the inventory of those employed loaded into their placement websites the better for possible employers to take their pick. What may save the situation is the governments accelerated Build, Build, Build program, especially in the Central and Northern Luzon areas where I presume most of the Hanjin workers live. The training and retraining programs may also be of help as well as the continuing call for overseas work. At this point, without compromising on other concerns such as security saving jobs while saving Hanjin has become a gauge of how well webut government in particularrespond to crisis situations such as what befell this once-mighty shipbuilder. - Penn Badgley and Shay Mitchell are both in Manila now to promote their series - They are starring in an American thriller entitled You which can be watched via Netflix - The first thing they did was to try the famous Filipino food called halo-halo PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see KAMI news on your News Feed The stars of the new Netflix series entitled You have already arrived in Manila and they immediately tried Filipino cuisine called Halo-halo. KAMI learned that Penn Badgley and Shay Mitchell, who both play important roles in the said thriller, decided to visit the Philippines to meet the press and their fans. They also have the objective of promoting the aforementioned Netflix original to the avid Filipino movie watchers. One of the things that the fans noticed about the two was their willingness to try halo-halo which was served in a large-sized bowl. The Instagram account of Netflix Philippines even posted a photo of them while savoring the moment. Why.. halo-halo there. Guess Penn finally got his fix Keep a watch out for more YOU sightings, the caption wrote. According to Penn, the Filipino food that he just ate was a bit sweet for him in the morning but he commended its nice taste. PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read KAMI news there too. Use the search option to find us. Read KAMI news while saving your data! Tomorrow, January 15, the two prominent celebrities will be having a fan meet at The Greenbelt Gallery in Greenbelt 5. In a previous article by , Netflix for the first time included a Filipino graphic novel entitled Trese. Penn Badgley and Shay Mitchells You is an American psychological thriller series which was produced by Warner Horizon Television. It was announced as a Netflix Original on December 3, 2018. Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news! A random man (played by our actor Roi) is asking people to help him with transportation money and seems like no one believes him or cares about his trouble. But then we met Tatay Kariton who counts every peso and he did a really touching thing on HumanMeter! Source: Kami.com.ph PayMaya is an electronic wallet that stores Philippines pesos which a client can redeem at a face value. The money service is regulated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. In 2016, PayMaya account services got recognized as the Worlds Best Online Payment Solution at the 9th Emerging Payments Awards staged in London. Interestingly, the card can be used to shop online, buy tickets, stream music, buy games, pay bills, and book flights. Any resident in the Philippines can use the app to send money anywhere within the country to GCash and Padala. There are services for both virtual and physical PayMaya card. Image: pixabay.com (modified by author) Source: Original If you are wondering how to get PayMaya card Philippines, do not worry since this article will guide you through the whole process. For your information, upgrading your account gives you an opportunity to transfer money to other PayMaya users and withdraw cash from any Bancnet ATM using your physical card. The truth is that the process of acquiring both physical and virtual cards is affordable and straightforward. Acquiring a valid PayMaya card is fast and easy. How to create a PayMaya account on Messenger (on an Android phone)? Open your Facebook Messenger app from your smartphone. On the Messenger search box, type @PayMayaofficial to open up the PayMaya chat thread. On the bottom left side corner of your screen, click on the PayMaya menu. Tap on the My money button and choose the Create account option.. Enter an active phone number (any Philippine-based mobile number should work), and confirm your number before continuing. Tap ok if correct. You will then receive an SMS verification code on the mobile number you have used. Enter the code in the field provided. Immediately, you will receive a PayMaya notification indicating that the account set up was successful. Now that your account is ready, you can load it with cash to pay bills and load airtime among other purposes. In order to send money to other Messenger users, you will need to upgrade your account. On the same note, it is necessary to download the PayMaya app and link to the Messenger account if you want to have a MasterCard or a virtual card for online shopping. To enjoy all the PayMaya services, you will need to download the upgrade form, print it, and complete it by filling all the essential details. How to link an existing account? Open the Messenger app on your Android Smartphone. Type @PayMaya Official on the search thread. Tap on the menu situated at the lower-left side of the chat box and select My money". After that, select the link an account option and tap on it. To log in into the PayMaya account, key in your correct details. Allow PayMaya and Facebook to access your account. Finally, you will receive a confirmation message that your account is successfully linked. How to create a PayMaya account using a Smartphone Download the free app from your Google Play Store (applicable for android and IOS Smartphones). After a successful download, open the app and tap on register". Fill in your name, email address and phone number in the fields provided to register. Ensure that you have entered your official name and an active phone number. Also, create a password that you can easily remember as instructed. After a short time, you will receive a verification code from PayMaya. Enter it in its appropriate field. After that, preview your card by tapping on the view card button. Key in your physical address and birth date. Activate your account by loading it with some cash. To add money into your account, login into your add money channel and then choose your preferred add-money channel. After that, apply for a free PayMaya card upgrade to enable you to enjoy their services. If you are using an IOS Smartphone, log in into the PayMaya app, and then tap on more. Finally, tap on the upgrade for free option". If you are using an android phone, open the drawer and then tap on the upgrade for free option. Then, enter all the required details for a successful upgrade. READ ALSO: How to write a concept paper for college? PayMaya card for businesses The PayMaya business is a transaction app which accepts prepaid card payment, credit, and debit cards, hence upgrading your business status. Interestingly, the card has minimal transaction rates of up to 4% per transaction and has no monthly fees. However, you can only receive your funds on the next day in local banks like Metro Bank, Security Bank, East-West Bank, BDO, and Union Bank. To sign up for this card, you need to; Visit the PayMaya business page and click on get started. Download the client application form (QR product and other products). Download the terms and conditions document. Download the confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement (CNDA). Download the secretarys certificate for corporations. Fill the personal information form, and then upload the scanned copies. Fill in the information about the company. Send the original copies for the application form, terms and conditions, and the CDA to PayMaya headquarters. Upload the remaining documents, confirm, and then click on submit. Remember that all applicants must be reviewed and approved to acquire the card. How to acquire a physical PayMaya card in the Philippines? If you are not the internet kind of person, you can always order a prepaid Pay Wave card at 200 Philippines Pesos. After ordering, fill in the PayMaya card delivery details with your reliable contact information. The physical card will be delivered within three to five days after the application depending on your location. After receiving your card, it is important to link it via your PayMaya app following the process below. Tap on the app and then tap on the main menu. Then, tap on the my cards option. After that, tap on the link card option and key in the 16 digits, expiry date, and CVV code found on your physical card. Remember to double check. After submitting your request and signing in on your physical card, you can comfortably use it. PayMaya card number A valid PayMaya card has 16 unique digits. Valid thru" or expiry date indicates until when you can use your card (month and year). Security code or CVV2 (Card Verification Value) is also a three digit unique number which acts as a password. The Pay Wave details are the same as the virtual PayMaya card except that the CVV code of a physical card is printed at its back. That is all you need to know if you wanted to learn how to get PayMaya card Philippines. The best thing about the physical card is that it has 100% approval, no annual fees, and no application forms needed. Secondly, a linked card can be for online and offline applications. Also, if you misplace or lose it, you can deactivate it using the PayMaya app. The visa card contains an EMV chip and sends an SMS notification after every transaction for security purposes. On the same note, the card reflects equal account balance as your virtual PayMaya account. Lastly, the Pay Wave card is acceptable locally and internationally as far as the dealers accept debit or credit cards. READ ALSO: How to apply for SSS How to type enye in laptop? Maternity Leave in the Philippines, explained Source: Kami.com.ph How can a person supposedly be voted in to office by the people of this country (maybe not, big business electoral vote?) be such a despicable example of the best this country has to offer? What kind of president puts people he is supposed to protect into such turmoil? Over 800,000 government employees out of work, tax refunds in jeopardy, the beauty of our national parks in danger due to lack of staffing/funds, food stamps could be cut to millions. How could anyone, possibly believe he was going to make Mexico pay for his border wall? How gullible can anyone be? I wonder how many of those 800,000 employees, or the other people affected by his madness, voted for this idiot. Trump is a billionaire who has no idea what it takes for the average person to survive. The only thing he wanted to make great again was himself. Egotistical doesnt begin to describe him. Just because he has the title President doesnt mean he is invincible. He is doing great damage to this country. Whats next? Our schools? Transportation? Senior care? Lets not even get started on leaving millions without any health care. There has to be some way to get him out of office before he ruins this country and leaves us open to all kinds of horror from those who will do our country great harm. I served in the U.S. Army during the height of the Cold War. I was stationed a few kilometers from the East German border and a few kilometers from the then Czech border. On numerous occasions I had the opportunity to be up front and personal with what was referred to as the Iron Curtain. This physical structure separated the free world from what President Reagan referred to as the Evil Empire. Being near and looking at this physical barrier brought on, for me, actual physiological symptoms that were so severe that I needed to get away from there as quickly as possible. It was as close to being in the presence of real evil as I have ever encountered. For decades the world challenged the Soviet Union, to tear down that wall. How will the world and history judge the United States if we build such a barrier that will be perceived by some as inherently evil? I have seen evil and I pray that we as a nation are guided to do the right thing for all peoples of this small and fragile world. James Henkes, Racine Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Leo said that TEFAP deliveries could end after February as a result of the shutdown too, but hes uncertain. In an emailed statement to The Journal Times, a Food and Nutrition Service spokesperson said that the USDA is hopeful that the February solution announced (last) week provides Congress with enough time to enact a full year appropriation. While we would explore all options in case the lapse continues, we are hopeful that Congress will provide appropriations legislation that the president can sign. The food stamp situation The partial government shutdown, which began Dec. 22 and is now the longest in history, should have cut off the USDAs funding after Dec. 21. However, through what Taivalkoski called a federal loophole, the USDA was able to approve SNAP funding through the end of next month. That same loophole cant be used again in February, Taivalkoski said. At President Trumps direction, we have been working with the administration on this solution And we want to assure states, and SNAP recipients, that the benefits for February will be provided, Perdue said in a Jan. 8 statement. Jaymes Rose, another seventh-grade student, said that after the training he wants to help ease conflicts between classmates, using laughter. It feels good to hear people stop arguing because theyre too busy laughing, he said. Student help Bodi said that after the training, the students can serve as junior counselors. These 28 student leaders will be a resource to help me settle friendship disputes, she said. Mitchells Directing Principal Demetri Beekman said he wants the students involved in the PLC training to help build a positive change in the culture and climate in the building. I hope it contributes to a peaceful mentality, where students think before they act, he said. Beekman would also like to see the students take the things they learn at school and use those tools in their interactions within the community. Marybeth Zuhlke, one of PLCs founders, said she knows of a student who used what he learned during a workshop to facilitate a more peaceful environment in his home. All those auditioning must commit to attending the show, dress rehearsals and practice schedule. Students should bring a list of all conflicts to the audition. The show dates are May 3-11. Planetarium program planned at Gifford Elementary CALEDONIA The program Cowboy Astronomer is scheduled to be presented from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 24, and Tuesday, Jan. 29, in the Planetarium at Gifford Elementary School, 8332 Northwestern Ave. The Cowboy Astronomer is an entertaining blend of star tales and Native American legends, combined with constellation identification, star-hopping, and astronomy tidbits all told from the unique viewpoint of a cowboy astronomer who has traveled the world while learning the sky along the way. Cowboy humorist, Baxter Black, provides light-hearted narration for this evening show. Reservations are requested. For more information or to make reservations, call 262-619-4587 or email John Surendonk at John.Surendonk@rusd.org and include name, phone number and number of seats requested. News items and photographs about education always are welcomed for publication in A+. Typed contributions no more than 250 words must be submitted within 60 days after the event occurs. Direct submissions to Sharon Knox, newsroom assistant, The Journal Times, 212 Fourth St., Racine, WI 53403; emailed to sknox@journaltimes.com. Email photos in JPG format, 300 DPI or 1 MB to: journaltimes@gmail.com. Include to the attention of A+ in the subject line. Further information about the A+ section is available by calling Knox at 262-631-1767. Because of space constraints, we reserve the right to edit for length or clarity. MILWAUKEE Milwaukee PBS is holding its annual Milwaukee PBS KIDS Writers Contest for the 25th year. The contest is designed to promote the advancement of childrens literacy skills through hands-on, active learning. The Milwaukee PBS KIDS Writers Contest is for children in kindergarten to third grade. Students create their own stories and illustrations and submit their original work. The entry deadline is Friday, March 15. Judging is planned for April. Winners will be notified, and their names will be posted on the Milwaukee PBS website. Every entrant will receive a certificate of participation, a free pass for one visit to the Betty Brinn Childrens Museum in Milwaukee and other small thank-you prizes. For more information on Milwaukee PBS KIDS Writers Contest, including entry rules and resources, go to MilwaukeePBS.org/Learn. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 PattayaA Belarusian model who sensationally claimed she had proof of Russian efforts to help Donald Trump win office appeared in court Tuesday for the expected start of her trial over running a sex training course in Thailand. Anastasia Vashukevich, known by her pen name Nastya Rybka, has been held in custody since a police raid in the sleazy seaside resort of Pattaya last February. Vashukevich looked sombre as she arrived at the court alongside her seven co-defendants, who are on trial for multiple charges including soliciting sex. She had traveled to Thailand after becoming embroiled in a political scandal with Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska, a one-time associate of US President Trumps disgraced former campaign director Paul Manafort. In a peculiar tale she set off a scramble for details after promising to reveal missing puzzle pieces on claims the Kremlin aided Trumps 2016 election victory. No material has been released to substantiate her claims, which critics have dismissed as a publicity stunt. Police alleged the risque seminar, led by self-styled Russian seduction guru Alex Kirillov, was effectively breaching Thai decency laws. Kirillov, who has served as a spokesperson for the mostly Russian group, told reporters he believes they were set up. I think somebody ordered [our arrest]... for money, he said as he arrived at court. The group have pleaded not guilty, saying they were only training people on how to seduce men and women and not participating in sexual activity.Supporters of the defendants say the seminar was geared towards offering romance and relationship advice. Vashukevich and Kirillov have expressed fear of being deported back to Russia and at one stage called on Washington for help. But Vashukevich later blamed the US for their imprisonment. Both Washington and Moscow have publicly shrugged off Vashukevichs story, which the US State Department described as bizarre. Vashukevich, who has penned a book about seducing oligarchs, also faced legal problems in Russia. Deripaska won an invasion of privacy lawsuit against her in July after a video apparently filmed by the model showed the tycoon vacationing with an influential Russian deputy prime minister. Kremlin-connected Deripaska and Manafort, Donald Trumps ex-campaign manager, did business together in the mid-2000s. Manafort has since been convicted in the US of financial crimes related to political work he did in Ukraine before the 2016 election as well as witness tampering. He has also admitted to providing polling data to a Russian with intelligence ties during the 2016 presidential race. MOUNT PLEASANT A Mount Pleasant man is facing felony charges after he was accused of sexually assaulting two 10-year-old girls last year. Wayne R. Paul, 56, of the 5300 block of 16th Street, is charged with two counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child under the age of 13. Each count carries a maximum sentence of up to 60 years in prison. According to the criminal complaint: On Dec. 22, a Mount Pleasant Police officer was called to investigate the alleged sexual assaults of a girl, who said the assaults occurred in the 5300 block of 16th Street. The 10-year-old girl reported that a neighbor, Paul, had sexually assaulted her. The girl said the assaults began in the summer of 2018 and continued through December. She said Paul had touched her in personal areas and kissed her on the mouth. At first, she said she did not tell anyone because she was afraid. She also said Paul told her not to tell. The girl also said that Paul had touched her 10-year-old friend. When interviewed, the friend admitted that Paul had touched her too. The second girl said Paul asked the two girls to cuddle with him in his room, but they refused. EAST TROY A Franklin man has been charged in connection to the alleged killing of men from Racine and Milwaukee and leaving their bodies in a burn pit in rural Walworth County. The suspect, 43-year-old Matthew J. Neumann of the 9400 block of South 29th Street, has been charged with one count of first-degree reckless homicide and hiding a corpse. Two men who reportedly worked for Neumann have been reported as missing since Jan. 2, according to police. The victims had not yet been positively identified as of Tuesday, but Assistant Chief Kevin Magno of the Franklin Police Department confirmed that one victim was from Racine and the other was from Milwaukee. Finding the bodies According to the criminal complaint, a woman saw what appeared to be a lifeless body in Neumanns truck at his home on Jan. 2. Police reported that another witness said they heard Neumann say he had shot someone over a pack of squares referencing a pack of cigarettes. That night, Neumann reportedly returned to his home smelling heavily of diesel fuel. Walls and fences aren't just about love. They're also about fear. Trump knows all about fear. He feeds on it. He argues that immigrants and refugees are dangerous, even deadly. According to him, these people aren't coming to cut lawns but to kill cops, not to clean our homes but to violate our wives and daughters, not to care for our elderly but to rob us blind. Good luck selling that nonsense. Immigrants might be spookier if millions of Americans weren't inviting them into our homes, giving them access to our gated communities and handing them our children. Here's the weird part: Even if you agree that there's a crisis and a wall can solve it, Trump is the wrong person to make that case. For one thing, he has no moral standing. The real magnet on the U.S.-Mexico border isn't welfare but work -- jobs provided by American employers who, in violation of the law, hire illegal immigrants who work hard, don't complain and don't act like they're doing the boss a favor by showing up. Trump properties have previously hired illegal immigrants as construction workers, housekeepers, cooks and wait staff. Now that the owner occupies the Oval Office, his businesses are being more careful. Last summer, his Mar-a-Lago club requested several dozen visas to bring in foreign workers. If this approach sounds familiar, it should. It's basically what President Donald Trump has been doing in the Middle East since taking office. With the exception of the Iran nuclear deal -- admittedly a big exception -- Trump's approach of working with allies against common enemies while reducing America's military footprint is a continuation, not a repudiation, of Obama's second-term foreign policy. This means that America will have to rely more on its allies. As Pompeo put it: "We ask every peace-loving nation of the Middle East to shoulder new responsibilities for defeating Islamist extremism wherever we find it." There is a downside to this approach: The autocrats in the Middle East also know how much the U.S. needs them. It makes it much harder for the U.S. to help these countries make the transition to democracy. Instead of addressing this problem, Pompeo spoke around it. "As we seek an even stronger partnership with Egypt, we encourage President Sisi to unleash the creative energy of Egypt's people, unfetter the economy, and promote a free and open exchange of ideas," he said. "The progress made to date can continue." Among new government realignment proposals will be the merger of the Department of Environmental Quality and the Energy Office, along with consolidation of three safety-inspection programs. Nebraska is "strong and growing," Ricketts told state senators and a balcony largely filled with invited guests and spectators, but "our No. 1 industry, agriculture, is grappling with low commodity prices" along with high property taxes. "Since 2013, farm income in Nebraska has been cut by over 60 percent," he said. "Property tax relief is the No. 1 priority Nebraskans want as I travel the state," the governor said. During the past decade, he said, local property taxes have risen more than 57 percent. Ricketts said he will partner with Linehan in proposing the constitutional amendment to establish a 3 percent cap on the growth of property taxes levied by local government while also recommending a $51 million hike in direct property tax reduction provided through the state's property tax credit relief fund. The governor's accompanying budget proposal would continue to apply the brakes to the growth of state spending, with a 3.1 percent growth rate essentially adhering to his administration's 3 percent goal. German automaker Volkswagen said Monday its factory in Tennessee will be the focus of an $800 million investment in the company's manufacturing of electric vehicles in North America, a sign of a growing push into the electric car market by European companies. Volkswagen made a couple of announcements that it will expand its plant in Chattanooga and create 1,000 jobs there as the factory gears up for electric vehicle production beginning in 2022. The company issued a news release and disclosed the expansion at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The factory in Tennessee's fourth largest city will produce a vehicle using a modular chassis the company has said will help build electric vehicles for the mass market. Volkswagen currently builds two vehicles in Chattanooga, the midsize Atlas SUV and the Passat sedan. The company announced in March a $340 million investment in Chattanooga to build the five-seat version of the Atlas, the Atlas Cross Sport. Volkswagen said last week it posted an annual sales record in 2018. The company has paid more than more than $31 billion in fines and settlements after it was caught installing software that let cars cheat on U.S. diesel emissions tests. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 NEW YORK A hedge fund-backed bid to buy Gannett Co., the publisher of USA Today and several other major dailies, is renewing fears of consolidation and job losses as well as a decline in the quantity and quality of news coverage in the already battered newspaper industry. MNG Enterprises, better known as Digital First Media, offered $1.36 billion on Monday for Gannett, saying in a letter that it can run the company more profitably via tight cost controls and consolidation of operations such as printing and administration. Gannett said its board will review the proposal. Investors gave the deal a vote of confidence, immediately pushing Gannett stock up more than 20 percent to almost $12, the amount Digital First is offering. The proposed deal is the latest indication newspapers aren't done suffering from the punishing effects of the internet. Over the past decade, U.S. papers have struggled as giants like Google and Facebook siphoned off readers and advertising dollars. As she continued to write and to talk to women, she realized people her age have the opportunity to do that all the time, often through the loss of spouses and friends, physical abilities and more. We all keep appointments we do not make, she says. Happiness is still a choice. Its not genetics. Its not our external circumstances. She interviewed women in Lincoln and beyond, telling the stories of how they paddle through the challenges of aging and also how they find the joys. I tried to find women who had something to teach, she says. Women Rowing North is not a how-to book, she says. Its an honest book: You can feel both lucky and unlucky ... grumpy and not grateful and unwilling. The opposite is also true, she says. And it is what she found in the stories women told and in her own story of aging in America. Contentment, possibilities, growth. What Im trying to do is cultural education. Your happiness as you age does not lie in trying to stay beautiful or deciding youre going to buy a second home, but in what you have internally or the relationships you have in the world. BrusselsThe Frenchman accused of murdering four people at the Jewish museum of Belgium had links with other jihadists, including those behind the Brussels and Paris attacks, investigators say. At least one lawyer wants to see if defendant Mehdi Nemmouche sheds more light on such links during his trial that opened last Thursday for the May 24, 2014 museum shooting spree. The first opportunity may come on Tuesday when Nemmouche begins testifying in his defence in a Brussels criminal court. Guillaume Lys, the lawyer for the French Association of Victims of Terrorism, hopes his cross-examination may yield more detail about the November 13, 2015 Paris attacks. Our goal is to be able to have more information about the links between these people and others whom we know and who committed other acts, said Lys, who represents a civil party in the trial. The following links have already been established by investigators: Weeks before the Jewish museum attack, Nemmouche was in regular telephone contact with Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the presumed mastermind of the Paris attacks that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds more. Abaaoud was killed in a police shootout days after those attacks. The calls took place in January 2014, when Nemmouche had just left Syria and was preparing to travel to southeast Asia via Turkey. His trip would take in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand. The two men are believed to have fought together in Syria in 2013. When the Brussels suicide bombings killed 32 people and wounded hundreds on March 22, 2016, both Nemmouche and Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam were in the same prison in the Belgian city of Bruges. Abdeslam had been arrested in Brussels just days before after being on the run since the Paris massacre several months earlier.AFP Belgian investigators in the prison on the day of the bombings heard the two men talk to each other with voices raised as their cells were not next to each other.Nemmouche told Abdeslam that a Brahim and a Sofian had died in the bombings at Zaventem Airport, the main international airport outside Brussels. For investigators, these first names correspond to those of the airport suicide bombers Ibrahim El Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui, also known as Soufiane Kayal. This information suggested to investigators that the pair knew the attackers. Nemmouche shared other links with Najim Laachraoui, who was also believed to be one of the bomb makers for the Paris attacks. Four French journalists have identified the two as among their jailers after they were kidnapped in Syria in June 2013 and released on April 18, 2014. Investigators also found an audio file attributed to Laachraoui from a computer seized near an alleged hideout of the Brussels bombers. It was believed he recorded it in February or March 2016. The Belgian jihadist was heard suggesting kidnapping celebrities in order to exchange them for brothers in prison, including Nemmouche. The kidnapped French journalists also identified as another of their jailers Salim Benghalem, a French jihadist leader who was believed to have been killed in Syria at the end of 2017. Frances Le Monde newspaper said he had duties that were more important than those of Nemmouche as he was suspected of having played a key role in dispatching jihadists from France. In France, Benghalem gravitated toward the Buttes-Chaumont jihadist network, named after a park in Paris. There he reportedly met the Kouachi brothers, who carried out the January 7, 2015 attack against the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people. He also met Amedy Coulibaly, the man who the next day murdered a female police officer before killing four people at a Kosher supermarket in Paris on January 9. Will requiring developers to put in more trees and more green space in parking lots be good for older neighborhoods or a deterrent to redevelopment? It depends on who's answering the question. City planners say proposed rules requiring more trees and green space between the street and parking lots and islands of trees or grass in large parking lots for both businesses and apartment complexes will make Lincoln a more attractive community, the kind that draws and keeps young workers. The additional green space and trees, often already provided by developers at the city edge, will make older neighborhoods better, said Collin Christopher, a city planner, during a public hearing on the proposed rules at Monday's City Council meeting. But local developers say the proposed rules will hurt older neighborhoods, inhibiting redevelopment of businesses on smaller lots, those most likely to be located in older areas of the city. The new screening and shade tree requirements for shallow lots reduce the amount of land that can be used for the development, for parking, for vehicle movement, building size, and will deter development in older neighborhoods, said Ann Post, a Lincoln attorney representing Speedway Motors, a large Lincoln-based property owner and developer. On the other side, federal public defender Jessica Milburn asked for 30 years. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} "I think that everyone knows, regardless of the sentence imposed here today, Mr. Hughes isn't getting out. He'll die there," she said. Milburn said Hughes realized the "magnitude and insidiousness of this crime" and the severity of his actions when he threatened suicide during a standoff with police who came to arrest him. To which Gerrard said: "That would've resolved this issue for him, but not these victims." According to court records, investigators with the Department of Homeland Security and the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office went to Hughes' house in the Arnold Heights neighborhood Dec. 13, 2017, to serve a search warrant after an investigation tied his computers to online videos discovered by investigators in New Zealand. For four hours, Hughes barricaded himself inside with a gun until he surrendered and was arrested. In court documents, a sheriff's investigator said they left with thumb drives, CDs and heavily encrypted hard drives, and a search uncovered three videos of child pornography. Turnover of protective services workers at the state penitentiary dropped to 30 percent. Doug Koebernick, Nebraska inspector general of corrections, provided some perspective, saying that at some prisons, the turnover rate is as high as 48 percent, with many having turnover above 40 percent. At Community Corrections Center-Lincoln, turnover is down to 10 percent, but at the Community Corrections Center-Omaha, it's 44 percent. It's 48 percent at the Omaha Correctional Center and 47 percent at the Diagnostic and Evaluation Center in Lincoln. And there are positions at a number of prisons that just aren't filled, he said. It's an improvement, he said, but last year was at all-time highs, so there had to be some improvements, Koebernick said. In his annual reports, he has talked about the "new normal," in which people get accustomed to things getting so bad that when there's a little improvement they get excited. "But we really shouldn't be (excited) until it gets back to what it was five, six, eight years ago," he said. Frakes said staff assaults also decreased most quarters in fiscal year 2017-18, with no assaults resulting in serious injuries January through June 2018. A Lincoln senator wants to involve state senators in witnessing state-sponsored executions and increase transparency of the process. "We are in charge of the laws, and because of that I think we have the highest duty to make sure that the laws are carried out in the most appropriate and transparent way possible," said Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks. The bill (LB238) would require that two members of the Legislature be present to view an execution from the time the condemned prisoner enters the execution chamber to the time he or she is pronounced dead or the execution is halted. During that time, no one would be allowed to obstruct the view of the witnesses to the execution process. During the execution of Carey Dean Moore in August, about 15 minutes into the procedure, the curtains closed and did not open again for 14 minutes. That was six minutes after Lancaster County Attorney Pat Condon pronounced Moore dead at 10:47 a.m., and 29 minutes after the first lethal injection drug, diazepam, was administered at 10:24 a.m. "I think that what happened this last time was totally shocking to me," Pansing Brooks said. "I don't believe they (prison officials) followed the law and if they need it more clearly written, this shouldn't be surprising. 100 years ago, Jan. 15, 1919 MATTOON -- The Mattoon YMCA held its annual meeting and election of officers last night. Officers re-elected for the coming year include J.W. Bledsoe, president; C.W. Kincaid, vice president; W.E. Fye, treasurer; and J.H. Nims, secretary. The report of General Secretary Sharkey showed 5,572 baths taken during the past year, 9,930 beds used, while 7,423 men attended religious meetings of the association. The YMCA closed its year with a membership of 528. Secretary Starkey reported making 14 trips on soldier trains during the year, and giving much time to YMCA army work. The YMCA is working with the canteen force in caring for returning soldiers who need beds or use of the building... CHARLESTON -- Roy Barnes, a well known Charleston young man, has received a threatening letter by mail that demands that the sum of $50 be left at a designated place one night this week or else Barnes would be assaulted. The matter has been placed in the hands of local authorities for investigation. The letter commanded Barnes to place $50 in a tin can and deposit the can and money in a pile of refuse at the rear of his father's livery barn at 616 Seventh Street. The letter has been given to the police and information passed on to the postal department for federal investigation. 50 years ago, 1969 MATTOON -- The final report of the feasibility study of medical needs of the Coles County area was presented to members of the Mattoon and Charleston hospital boards at a dinner meeting last night at the U.S. Grant Motor Inn. The Chicago firm of Jensen, Halstead and Rummel presented the report after being engaged by the Mattoon Memorial Hospital Board to study the areas medical needs. The firm will present the final report to the full boards of both hospitals soon. A joint statement by the boards will be presented in the near future MATTOON -- The architectural firm of Jensen, Halstead and Rummel has been hired by the Mattoon school board to design two kindergarten-primary centers and other facilities to be considered by school district voters sometime this year. Approval of the Chicago firm came during a regular board meeting last night. The retention of the firm comes days after the announcement of the school districts intention to go to voters with a bond proposal to be financed by a property tax increase CHARLESTON -- Coles County States Attorney L. Stanton Dotson today announced the appointment of Ronald Tulin of Elmhurst as first assistant states attorney. Tulin, 29, was graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in finance. In February 1968 he was graduated from DePaul University with a law degree. Since 1965 he has been employed as a supervisor with the Social Security Administration in Chicago. 25 years ago, 1994 Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. MATTOON -- A life-threatening wind-chill factor overnight stopped most outdoor activity yesterday. The National Weather Service issued a wind chill advisory for last night of 40 to 50 degrees below zero, said Jim Closson of the Emergency Services and Disaster Agency in Mattoon. Coles County Memorial Airport officials reported wind gusts of up to 20 mph yesterday. The wind chill was 18 below by mid-afternoon. By 9 p.m., CIPS in Mattoon reported a temperature of minus-1 and a wind chill of 29 below to 37 below zero MATTOON -- The proposed expansion of the Sears store at the Cross County Mall, announced a year ago, is on hold until the mall owners generate $2 million in financing. Sears is still prepared to move into the mall space vacated in June when Kmart opened a new store on the south side of Illinois Route 16. Sears store Manager Ken Peters said when the financing is in place, the earliest the remodeling project could begin is in March. The current Sears store occupies about 17,000 square feet of space. The remodeled store will provide about 72,000 square feet. 100 years ago, Jan. 16, 1919 MATTOON -- Army Sgt. O.A. Kimrey, aged 30 years, a member of the 160th Depot Brigade at Camp Custer, Mich., died at that camp at 9:30 o'clock yesterday morning from influenza-pneumonia. Mrs. E.G. Kimrey of Mattoon, mother of the young soldier, was called to Camp Custer on Monday to see her son. He had been sick for a short time only. Sgt. Kimrey was born near Cooks Mills. He moved to the Detroit area about three years ago. Sgt. Kimrey is survived by his parents, the widow, Mrs. Reta Kimrey, now living at Columbus, Ohio, a son, and two brothers and two sisters... SHELBYVILLE -- The Shelby County board of supervisors, meeting at the courthouse yesterday, was confronted by an unusual claim when George E. Braden of Findlay exhibited a wolf scalp and presented an affidavit to the effect that he had killed the wolf, after capturing it within the bounds of the county and within the last 60 days. Under a former rule of the county board, adopted when wolves made their appearance near Shelbyville and did considerable damage two or three years ago, Mr. Braden's claim for a bounty of $25 was allowed... SPRINGFIELD -- With applications for automobile licenses 20 percent ahead of any previous year, the issuance of a record-breaking number during 1919 is forecast by the secretary of state's office. For the first 14 days of January, more than 60,000 licenses were issued. Last year's record was 389,761, but the number this year is expected to go beyond 450,000. The ending of the war and increased popularity of the automobile is given as the cause. 50 years ago, 1969 CHARLESTON -- Plans for the Lincoln Reservoir suffered a possible setback yesterday when no funds were set aside for the project in President Johnsons request to Congress to provide $1.16 billion for water projects in Illinois. Included in the request, however, was $3.3 million for flood control at the Shelbyville reservoir. William Browning, managing director of the Charleston Chamber of Commerce, said the project still could receive funds if President-elect Nixon submits a request for funding after he takes office if the request is submitted by March.,. MATTOON -- Members of the crew of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, struck by fire and explosion this week, continued to notify relatives in the Mattoon area of their safety. In Mattoon, Mr. and Mrs. James H. Bell received a cablegram yesterday from their son, Radar Chief James H. Jack Bell, telling them he had not been injured in the disaster. Bell, 39, has served on the Enterprise for several years. Mr. and Mrs. Horace Champion of rural Mattoon received a telephone call from their son, John R. Dick Champion that he was not injured and was now in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Mr. and Mrs. Eldon Burley of rural Toledo received a call at 6 a.m. today from their son, Jerry, who said he had escaped unharmed MATTOON -- Army Sgt. J.R. Watson Jr., son of Mr. and Mrs. J.R. Bob Watson of Mattoon, has been selected as an honorary delegate to the inauguration of President-elect Richard M. Nixon on Monday. Sgt. Watson will act as an usher, seating congressmen on the platform with Nixon. He is a 1963 graduate of Mattoon High School and a graduate of Southern Illinois University. Sgt. Watson is presently stationed at Ft. Meyer, Va. 25 years ago, 1994 Sunday. No paper. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 LINCOLN Freezing rain is causing crashes in Central Illinois early Tuesday due to icy roads. The National Weather Service in Lincoln reports conditions should improve later in the day, but the morning commute will be affected in many areas. A Hazardous Weather Outlook has been issued for Coles, Shelby and several other counties. "A weak weather system will produce patchy freezing drizzle this morning. Slippery roads and walkways can be expected this morning, especially for the morning commute. Conditions should improve late this morning," the weather service said. Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Mark Holley said multiple vehicles have gone off roads on interstates 74 and 57 north of Urbana Emergency services calls in Coles County included an accident on Illinois Route 316 and a report that Madison Avenue in Charleston was ice covered. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. A four-mile stretch of a northbound lane of Interstate 55 between Lincoln and Atanta in Logan County has been closed since about 5 a.m. State Police say it may remain closed for several more hours. Details or reports of injuries have not yet been released, but police confirm at least two semi trucks were involved. In DeWitt County, a garbage truck was reported to be involved in a crash and was turned on its side on Revere Road near Clinton. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Those were some of the crashes reported throughout the area due to patchy, freezing drizzle and fog that have created hazardous driving conditions. Forecasters say the weather system also will produce a mix of freezing rain and snow on Wednesday night and Thursday morning and motorists may experience similar occurrences on the Thursday morning commute. GALLERY: Snow blankets Mattoon, Charleston area Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 ROCKFORD Nearly 5,500 students who received scholarships last year through Illinois' taxpayer-funded private school scholarship program will have to apply again as the program enters its second year, program officials said. The Empower Illinois program began accepting applications Tuesday, The Rockford Register Star reported . Priority will be given to students from families living on less than $45,510, which amounts to 185 percent of the federal poverty level, those living in poorly performing school districts, students who have siblings already in the program and kids who received scholarships last year although they are not guaranteed to receive continued funding. The program aims to assist low-income families by offering scholarships that cover 50 percent to 100 percent of the cost of sending a child to private school. Critics say the program takes money away from public schools and benefits the wealthy. Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who took his oath of office on Monday , said during his campaign that he wants to end the program. Empower Illinois is one of the organizations overseeing the Tax Credit Scholarship program, which was made available through the Invest in Kids Act. Lawmakers approved the $75 million tax credit program in a 2017 school funding overhaul. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. The program's first year ran into technical issues after the online registration system shut down following high demand. Republican State Rep. Joe Sosnowski of Rockford said he hopes the program will complete its five-year pilot. "By that time, hopefully people will see the value in it," said Sosnowski, who is also the director of institutional advancement for Rockford Christian Schools, which had students receive funds from the program last year. The program is funded through private donations. Donors expect to receive tax credits, an incentive from Illinois that encourages participation. Sosnowski said this year's fundraising efforts may have suffered following Pritzker's statements. "I'm sure that's caused some uncertainty," he said. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 NEOGA -- The cause of an evening Jan. 7 house fire that injured a man is still unknown. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Assistant Chief Alan Baker said the Neoga Fire Protection District has listed the cause of the fire at 737 Franklin St. as unknown and turned the case over to the Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office. The fire occurred in the attached garage of the house. Baker said the injured homeowner was recently released from Springfield Memorial Hospital after being taken there for treatment of burns sustained in the fire. Contact Rob Stroud at (217) 238-6861. Follow him on Twitter: @TheRobStroud Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. MATTOON -- It has been months since the Mattoon School District was accepted into the state's competency-based pilot program, and extensive work has already been made in the schools to figure what that means for the district. The district was accepted into the Competency-Based Pilot program along with a growing number of school district's through Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) early in the fall. Already, the district has made steps toward implementing the competency-based system, which includes more individualized learning as well as better readiness beyond the classroom. The most visible strides the district has made so far has been in the work vocational areas of the high school. Beyond offering skills to the Mattoon High School students that come and go from programs like the agriculture, healthcare, building trades and child occupational programs, the district is in the process of offering more clear career pathways for these students, starting in the next school year, with curriculum that could lead to a head start on a career in whatever field these students are interested in tackling through dual credit programs, many of which the high school has already set up. More recently, changes OK'd by the Mattoon school board have been made to the academic structure of the agriculture courses focusing on pathways that might lead to careers including potentially agriculture mechanics. Christy Hild, Student Services director, said all of this work tied into the competency-based program and part of a general initiative the district has been dabbling with for years with programs like the building trades program, which is "teaching beyond the classroom walls." Erin Clifford, family consumer sciences teacher, said the vocational teachers are doing what they have done but with an actual pathway for students to get into the workforce in those select fields. Big plans have already been set up for childcare courses at the high school for the next school year. As previously reported, it was announced that the Franklin School would offer a tuition-based preschool class. With this, the program also is open to high school students looking to get into early education as their career. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. These high school students will be enrolling in dual credit curriculum through Lake Land College. Up to 40 students enrolled in family and consumer science early childhood development courses for these students. Erin Clifford, high school teacher heading up the childcare occupational courses, said these students will get more hands-on experience in the field before even leaving high school. Clifford added the competency-based pilot has allowed vocational teachers the opportunity to flesh out what they are already doing with an actual pathway for students to get into the workforce in those select fields. This is only one piece of the pie, though. Hild stressed the school district is focusing on three points: Increase opportunities for all students. Personalize learning through interests and pacing. Expand learning beyond classroom walls. For the ISBE, the focus is on individualized learning. According to them, students in competency-based systems have to demonstrate mastery of skills and concepts in order to advance instead of the traditional model of seat time, simply making it through to the end. This might mean one student is learning more advanced concepts in math while other students learn more remedial concepts, but all in the same classroom. Elementary education in Mattoon has already implemented these practices in the classroom. For instance, students are separated out into different reading groups based on their reading skill level. Taking part in this program, the district has been working on expanding the scope of these practices to the middle school and high school. As a part of their application to take part in the grant, though, Mattoon wanted to open up pathways through the district to give students a feel for where they want to go outside of high school. This includes expanding learning programs outside the high school like the building trades program and other dual-credit programs to get a real hands-on understanding of certain career fields. Contact Jarad Jarmon at (217) 238-6839. Follow him on Twitter: @JJarmonReporter Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Solicitor General Jose Calida The Office of the Solicitor General on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the petition filed by opposition lawmakers led by Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, insisting the legality of the extension of martial law in Mindanao. In a 50-page comment, Solicitor General Jose Calida argued the anti-martial law petition should be dismissed for lack of merit. Calida said the factual bases to extend the duration of the martial law in Mindanao under Proclamation No. 216 for another year or until December 2019 still existed, contrary to allegations of petitioners.According to him, rebellion, a key requirement for declaration of martial law under the Constitution, persisted in Mindanao. The chief state lawyer cited the official report from the Armed Forces that cited ongoing rebellion of the Daesh-Inspires groups and its local and foreign allies, particularly the Daulah Islamiyah and also of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New Peoples Army forces in Mindanao. He revealed that the Daesh-inspired groups have shifted their strategy from establishing a Wilayat to global insurgency or rebellion and that they continue their recruitment and radicalization activities teaching their new members how to launch deadlier attacks and to sow chaos and instability that will extremely endanger the public. He said: Based on the AFPs end of first semester data, the Abu Sayyaf Group has a total of 424 members with 473 firearms. They are scattered all over Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi and Zamboanga covering 138 barangays. The Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters has 264 members with 254 firearms and affecting 50 barangays. The DI has a reach of 16 barangays and is composed of 59 members of the Maute group with 61 firearms, 6 members of the Maguid Group with 10 firearms, and 85 members of the Turaifie Group with 20 firearms. The total barangays affected are 204.Calida also cited the attacks by the said groups from January to December last year as well as the consistent influx of foreign terrorists in the country who are primarily responsible for the conduct of trainings to local terrorist fighters, especially in making improvised explosive devices and motivating locals to serve as suicide bombers. Besides the terrorist groups, he also cited the ongoing rebellion of the CPP-NPA and their attacks in Mindanao last year. In the present case, it is apparent that the NPA continues to rise publicly and take up arms against the Government. From Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2018, there have been a total of 369 NPA-initiated violent incidents. 193 of these were committed in Mindanao alone, read the comment. With these data, Calida argued that the extension of martial law for another year was necessary to provide public safety in Mindanao. He pointed out that the cessation of Marawi siege and President Rodrigo Dutertes announcement in October 2017 that the war-torn city was already liberated from terrorists could not be the sole basis to lift the martial law proclamation. The chief state lawyer said the argument of petitioners that martial law already served its purpose when the Marawi siege ended was already rebutted by the High Court in its earlier ruling on the second extension of the proclamation. MATTOON -- Local Republic officials said they are wary of some of the ideas that new Gov. J.B. Pritzker presented in his inauguration address on Monday. However, they welcomed Pritzker's talk of a balanced budget, bipartisanship and a "renaissance to Downstate Illinois," as well as his background in business. State Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon, said he feels that Pritzker's proposal for a $15 minimum wage is "an issue where reasonable people can disagree," adding that the minimum wage is better designed for part-time workers than family income earners. Righter said he is hopeful that Pritzker's economic proposals will be broader than just the minimum wage idea. Righter, who represents District 55, said he is also concerned about Pritzker's proposal to legalize, regulate and tax the sale of recreational cannabis. He said cannabis can be a gateway drug to the use of various illegal drugs, so the state needs to have a "thorough, hard debate" before approving legalization. Still, Righter said he is going to "take a wait and see attitude" to Pritzer's work as governor and will await what agenda he sets for his term in office. Righter said he is encouraged by Pritzker's talk of bipartisanship and of having a balanced budget. "I do like the talk of having a balanced budget," Righter said. "That would be good news for everybody." State Rep. Chris Miller, R-Oakland, also voiced concerns about Pritzer's proposals for a $15 minimum wage and recreational cannabis legalization. Miller, who represents the 110th District, said he is also dubious whenever a Democrat brings up a new tax plan, so he is skeptical about Pritzger's proposal to overhaul the tax system. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} "Anytime a Democrat talks about any of that stuff, they are talking in code language," Miller said. For Miller, these mentions of a new "fair tax system" is code for "we are going to try to figure out more creative ways to extract more tax dollars from all of the people in Illinois." If they keep this template, he said they are going to see the state's out-migration grow. That being said, Miller has not written off Pritzker yet, noting that believes the new governor to be a "reasonable and decent man." Miller said he trusts Pritzker's background in business. "I am hopeful because as long as we are upright there is hope," Miller said. "Pritzker is a businessman. He knows how business operates." He said he simply hopes the governor is "getting good advice and is listening to other people and other ideas." Coles County Republican Party Chairman Travis Coffey said he feels that a balanced budget is the main issue from Pritzker's speech that needs to be addressed. "I hope we can balance the budget without raising taxes," Coffey said. "Springfield doesn't have an income problem. It has a spending problem." Coffey also said he welcomed the new governor's comments about using a bipartisan approach and added that he is open to some of his other proposals if handled properly. A minimum wage increase should be considered but perhaps be more specific to areas where the cost of living is highest, Coffey said. He also said he sees climate change as more of a federal issue but welcomes efforts to protect the environment with a "balance" with business progress. Attempts to contact county Democratic Party Chairman Paul Wieck for comments on Pritzker's address were not successful. From the Archives: Past inaugurations of Illinois governors Contact Dave Fopay at (217) 238-6858. Follow him on Twitter: @FopayDave Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 Following US exit from the 2015 nuclear deal, the regime in Iran is depending on their relations with the European Union to continue to be good and expanding, and that the EU will carry on its support for the accord with Tehran. So, the reactions of the Iranian regime to these measures is surprising such as Parliamentary Director General for International Affairs and Assistant to Speaker of Majlis Ali Larijani, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, who seemed to resort to threats when he tweeted, Having strong relations w/ #Europe is part of #Iran foreign policys logics. But West should face a shock to realize we wont remain in one-way tunnel of the current #JCPOA at any cost. Now, safe Europe for #terrorists & #MEK has to get a logical, prudent but shocking message. Also on Twitter, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif criticized Denmark, Netherlands and France for sheltering members of the MEK,. Accusing Iran wont absolve Europe of responsibility for harboring terrorists, he posted. Member of the Iranian Majlis (parliament) Alireza Rahimi, said, We must not consider these chain allegations as unassociated, and called for European ambassadors to be summoned and issued warnings. It is necessary for the Foreign Ministry to summon the ambassadors of Denmark and the Netherlands, and provide necessary explanations in this regard, demanding they not allow a number of extremist European states to damage or downgrade relations with Iran Iran analysts question whether the regime will ever end its support of terrorism in other countries, but it seems clear to the Iranihttps://english.mojahedin.org/i/newsen/26826an people that the terror attacks will not stop. they believe that because the regime has no solution for its current crises, it must export domestic oppression and exporting terrorism abroad to deflect the peoples attention from regimes corruption and mismanagement. The Iranian Resistance emphasizes the need to adopt a firm policy aimed at preventing the mullahs terrorism in European countries and abroad. In fact, the Iranian resistance President Maryam Rajavi issued a statement that focuses on this very issue. Pompeos visit will continue with stops in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The tour will wrap up on Monday and Tuesday in Oman and Kuwait. Pompeo told Al Arabiya that three things [we are] working on, different for each of our partners around the world. But Americas here and this is important to us; Middle East stability, destroying ISIS, completing the destruction of the caliphate, are very important missions for the United States. And countering Iran, the threat from the worlds largest state sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran, is something President Trump has identified as one of his top priorities. We are determined to do that, we will do it with our partners in the Middle East. This is a mission for the world. Its incredibly important and we are determined to do it. I want to make sure that I got a chance to swing through the region one more time. I have been here a lot in my life and I come back one more time and reassure them that America is committed to this and talk about how were going to execute it. He also discussed the Ministerial in Warsaw, saying, We will have countries from Asia, Africa, Western Hemisphere countries from South America; this will be a broad coalition aimed at Middle East stability. Well talk about how we counter terror, there will be focus on Iran. There will be conversations about financial systems and how we ensure that financial systems dont sponsor terror. There will be broad conversations with a large group, dozens and dozens of countries we expect to attend over the course of the ministerial. Its the first time we have put together a ministerial this way and we think it will show the whole world that there is a broad determination to make life better here and take the terror regimes down in the region. When asked about America withdrawing from Syria, he said, America supports fights against terror all around the world. Sometimes we do it with US soldiers, sometimes we do it with forces from partner countries. Sometimes we do it in other ways, diplomatic means, economic means, financial means, building up coalitions. There are many tools in the power projection arsenal, and so no terrorist, no Iranian should believe that the fact that a couple of thousand US soldiers are going to be redeployed out of Syria, in any way diminishes our commitment. Pompeo explained that America wants the Iranian people to know that we want a better life for them, and the Iranians people voices to be heard. He said, We want a real democracy in the Islamic Republic of Iran. And a real democracy doesnt support Hezbollah, a real democracy doesnt support Shiite militias in Iraq. They are reducing Iraqi independence; a real democracy wouldnt be active in Yemen in the way that they are by underwriting the Houthis today. We want the Iranians peoples voices to be heard, and so we dont want them to fear us. We want them to know that we are here, we hear them, and we want a better life for the people in Iran as well. He also talked about the millions of people who have had to flee their homes because of the conflict in Syria and said that the mission is to create the political conditions so that those people can return and they can once again restore power to the people in Syria as well. He added that he was heading to Saudi Arabia where he would have another set of constructive conversations. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an important partner of the United States, they have been very helpful to us on multiple things that matter to the American people and I am convinced that partnership will remain strong, he said, and called it a mutually beneficial relationship that would create stability in the Middle East. I am convinced the kingdom will be a great ally he concluded. Hook explained that the sanctions have definitely weakened the Iran Regime, denying the mullahs billions of dollars of revenue through the loss of oil exports and that eight months after Donald Trump announced he was leaving the Iran nuclear deal Iran is facing a liquidity crisis and the collapse of the rial. Hook also stated that there would be no more oil sanctions waivers for Irans buyers once the current ones expire in May, showing that the US is going to get even tougher on Iran and choke off its sources of income. Hook told a news conference in Abu Dhabi: Iran is now increasingly feeling the economic isolation that our sanctions are imposingWe do want to deny the regime revenues. Eighty per cent of Irans revenues come from oil exports and this is (the) number one state sponsor of terrorism. We want to deny this regime the money it needs. He reiterated this during a panel discussion at the Atlantic Councils 2019 Global Energy Forum, noting that he was pleased that countries that received the oil imports, like China, have cut their oil imports. According to a report released Saturday by the Atlantic Council, Iran had reportedly sought to evade sanctions, including turning off their transponders on their oil tankers to stop their movements being tracked. In the report, Hook said: The Iranian regime, which is an outlaw regime, certainly tries to evade sanctions. We have, I think, organized the interagency in a way to make sanctions enforcement a big priority. And we have had a fair amount of success with it, The US sanctions on Iran, which came into place in August and November last year, came after the US withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which Trump said was biased in Tehrans favour and failed to protect against the Regimes malign behaviour, including its ballistic missile programme. Hook emphasised that the US wants an improved deal with Iran, which is why they will put pressure on Iran to return to the negotiating table. Iran has so far refused to renegotiate its nuclear accord, but may soon be forced to choose between a new deal or the end of the Regime. The possible years-long detention of Robert Levinson is indicative of the fact that Irans targeting of American visitors is a longstanding issue, but the news about Michael White has raised additional concerns about whether Tehrans animosity toward Western travelers and dual nationals may be accelerating. IranWire gave additional credence to that notion on Saturday when it reported that Iranian state media had resumed the production and broadcast of a documentary series peddling conspiracy theories about an infiltration network that is linked to Western intelligence agencies and committed to facilitating the soft overthrow of Irans theocratic regime. In actuality, the regimes description of this network is so broad as to potentially implicate anyone who expresses dissent or espouses more progressive social attitudes than those of regime authorities. Accordingly, IranWire observes that the television series, Out of Sight, is transparently selective about the information that it reveals to the audience. The most recent episode of the now nine-part series yielded international backlash over its inclusion of footage from the arrest of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe at Tehrans Imam Khomenei airport. The charity coordinator for the Thomson Reuters Foundation was detained in April 2016 as she was about to leave, along with her two-year-old daughter, from a trip to visit family members. The Out of Sight broadcast and other Iranian propaganda portrays her as a spy on the basis of her past affiliation with the BBC, which Tehran blames for fostering dissident attitudes through its Persian service and the training of local journalists. However, Zaghari-Ratcliffes professional role at the BBC and at the Thomson Reuters foundation was unrelated to journalism, training, or media production. Furthermore, as IranWire notes, the authorities public claims about espionage and infiltration appear to mask the more genuine motives that have been acknowledged in somewhat less public forums. Some Iranian officials openly connect her continued detention to an unrelated financial claim against the UK, the article states. In other words, theyve openly admitted to holding her as collateral. This is in line with an accusation that has been leveled against the Islamic Republic by family members and advocates for many of the foreign citizens and dual nationals that have been taken prisoner in recent years. And in most of those cases, the regimes charges of espionage are as implausible and unsubstantiated as in the case of Zaghari-Ratcliffe, or even more so. The Princeton University graduate student Xiyue Wang, for instance, was handed a 10-year sentence after authorities took issue with him accessing documents from a public library, even though his research had been approved through official channels and the documents in question were unrelated to modern Iranian politics and society. Pleading his case from her home in the United States, Wangs wife has described him as a hostage, thereby adopting the language already appended to other prisoners including those who have previously been released as part of agreements between the Iranian government and their countries of origin. In January 2016, Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian and three other individuals were released just ahead of the implementation of the Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. In exchange, the US released seven Iranian nationals who had been convicted of sanctions violations, as well as dropping charges against 14 others. Additionally, the White House arranged the repayment of a decades-old debt, releasing a portion of it to Iran in cash on the day of the swap, in what critics of the Obama administration described as a ransom payment. Last week, Rezaian testified in US federal court as part of the lawsuit he has filed against the Iranian government. Seeking compensatory damages for long-term effects on both his physical and his psychological health, Rezaian described the torture that he experienced in Evin Prison, where he spent a month and a half in solitary confinement, during which time he was released from his cell only for daily interrogation sessions. These details have helped to focus attention on the hardships that are almost certainly being faced by all Western nationals now in Iranian custody, especially in the aftermath of the regimes apparent renewal of its commitment to confronting and stoking resentment against infiltration networks. Michael Whites mother, having only recently learned of his fate, is also seeking to increase public awareness and issued a statement to that effect on Friday. In it, she explained that her son recovered from cancer prior to his latest trip to Iran, but that it has since returned, raising concerns that he could die in prison. These concerns are amplified by the long history of Iranian authorities denying medical treatment to prisoners, especially political prisoners. Although Whites military background and apparent lack of Iranian heritage might imply that the charges against him could be legitimate, this notion is perhaps undercut by his mothers account, which notes that he has traveled to Iran repeatedly and without incident in recent years to visit his Iranian girlfriend. In confirming his arrest, Iranian authorities gave no indication of what, if any, charges they had filed against him, or what evidence they had drawn upon to justify the arrest. In any event, the legitimacy of the regimes case against White will have little to no bearing on the risk posed to him by the conditions of Iranian prisons, or by the potentially escalating impulse to put pressure on Western hostages. The effects of that pressure are evident in the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who may have contracted breast cancer subsequent to her detention. This has yet to be confirmed, as she has repeatedly been denied transfer to a hospital where she can received specialized medical care. Regardless of whether the lumps in her breast are cancerous, the prisoner is reportedly in need of specialized care because of neurological problems she has developed over the past two years. Even prison doctors have acknowledged the need for Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other political prisoners to receive medical transfers, but their appeals have fallen on deaf ears. In an effort to bring more public attention to the situation, Zaghari-Ratcliffe and at least one other prisoner the renowned human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh reportedly began a hunger strike on Monday. The previously-announced protest action is expected to last for at least three days, although it may be extended if the women feel that their demands are not being listened to. The regimes response so far has been hostile, with Zaghari-Ratcliffe being barred from her weekly phone calls to her husband in the United Kingdom. The Center for Human Rights in Iran reported that similar punitive measures were extended to other inmates at the womens ward of Evin Prison, who are now permitted only 10 minute calls three times per week, as opposed to 20 minute calls. Additionally, the timing of those calls is now set exclusively by the authorities. These blanket restrictions are likely intended to promote resentment among the broader prison population, thereby putting more pressure on Zaghari-Ratcliffe to cancel the protest. But the CHRI report indicates that so far, the punishment had only generated more sympathy and additional acts of solidarity before the hunger strike even began. Sotoudeh and another political prisoner, the Bahai educator Azita Rafizadeh, have indicated that they will forgo phone calls entirely until Zaghari-Ratcliffes rights are reinstated and the broader restrictions are removed. This is expected to generate a sympathetic response, since all three of the protesting inmates are mothers to young children. On the other hand, this same fact may enhance the effectiveness of telephone restrictions as a pressure tactic, especially if the short-term public response is not enough to force the authorities hand. The emerging battle of wills between mistreated inmates and prison authorities could have significant implications beyond the long-term well-being of those prisoners who are seeking outside medical attention. For example, Sky News reported on Monday that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps approached Zaghari-Ratcliffe last month and suggested that she could be released if she agreed to return to the UK and act as a spy for the Islamic Republic. At a press conference following one of their last phone calls, her husband Richard Ratcliffe explained that she refused the offer but was terrified of the potential consequences. Such tactics are very likely to be used against other European and American nationals who come into contact with Irans hardline authorities. And this is especially concerning at a time when there seems to be a greatly increased risk of Iranian terrorism against Western targets. On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times made reference to some of the recent threats in the context of a report on the prosecution of Majid Ghorbani and Ahmadreza Mohammadi Doostdar on espionage charges. From 2017 to 2018, the pair had monitored Jewish groups and affiliates of the leading Iranian opposition group, the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran. The report notes that the men appeared to be assembling target packages for Iranian operatives, thereby setting the stage for plots like those that were thwarted in Albania last March and at the Paris rally of the National Council of Resistance of Iran on June 30. Whether or not the Islamic Republic succeeds in turning prisoners into assets for further bombing or assassination plans, the exposure of these plans points to the same growing animosity that is on display in ongoing arrests and prosecutions, as well as the resumption of propaganda broadcasts targeting Western nationals. Rezaee, who unsuccessfully ran for the presidency in 2009 and 2013, made these comments at a conference entitled Jihadists of Sacred Defense and Construction of the Country. He said that Iran could not rely on foreign governments to help Iran, mainly because of the extensive US sanctions that were reimposed on Iran last year. The 64-year-old said: People are asking who is going to think about us and help us? They are addressing this question foremost to the IRGC and [Basij] forces whose experience and glories could open roadblocks. Rezaee continued: The bureaucratic and management system of running the country has gotten stuck in mud, and under the enemys economic bombardment, it is deteriorated and in chaos We cannot stand idly by and surrender (to the enemy; i.e. the U.S.) Rezaee was appointed the chief commander of IRGC in 1981 during the Iran-Iraq war, despite having no military training. He is most well known for his use of human waves to cross minefields, a strategy that resulted in the mass loss of life, and many critics say that his lack of military knowledge prolonged the war to eight years. He was not replaced until 1997. Many of those in the Iranian Regime who oppose Rouhanis Administration, claims that the government is ignoring Supreme Leader Ali Khameneis principle of economic resistance in the face of the US sanctions and that Rouhani has taken no steps to address the sanctions. Rezaee is one of the most vocal. He believes that the IRGC would be capable of running the economy because they can create a breakthrough in this economic war. However, the IRGC, which already controls a massive economic empire in Iran, has been criticised by many who see their economic role as a major impediment to economic reform as well as a source of nepotism and corruption. In 2017, Rouhani called the IRGC, the government with rifles. It is likely that this would be a way for Iran to increase its military spending and reduce accountability. Aside from murder and frustrated murder, Daraga Mayor Carlwyn Baldo, the alleged mastermind behind the killing of AKO-Bicol Party-list Rep. Rodel Batocabe has been charged with an administrative case before the Office of the Ombudsman. The case was filed by the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group. Batocabe was slated to run against Baldo in the mid-term elections in May. Baldo was earlier charged with murder for the killing of Batocabe and his aide, Senior Police Officer Orlando Diaz, and the wounding of seven others last Dec. 22, 2018, during a gift-giving activity in Daraga. Baldo, however, has denied the allegations. Meanwhile, Batocabes murder has prompted the Commission on Elections to place Daraga under its control until the end of the election period.Aside from Daraga, the Comelec also placed Cotabato City under its control after the southern city was bombed on New Years Eve. The bombing left at least two people dead. Under the law, the Comelec can place any area under its immediate control if there is a history of or there is a prevailing intense political rivalry among contending parties, as these could lead to violence. Once an area is under Comelec control, the commission is given full control and supervision over law enforcement agencies and military officers assigned to the said area. The election period officially began last Sunday, Jan. 13. U.S. President Donald Trump walks before speaking to the media as he returns from Camp David to the White House in Washington U.S. President Donald Trump walks before speaking to the media as he returns from Camp David to the White House in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts By Jeff Mason and Doina Chiacu WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he never worked for Russia, his first direct denial after a media report that the FBI in 2017 investigated whether he acted against U.S. interests. Trump also disputed a Washington Post report that he had concealed details about his meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and confiscated his interpreter's notes. Congressional Democrats raised the possibility of subpoenaing the translator. The New York Times reported on Friday that the FBI opened the investigation after Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey raised concerns that the president posed a threat to national security. After the report emerged, Trump attacked the FBI and the Times, but he did not issue a specific denial about working with Russia until Monday. "Not only did I never work for Russia, I think it's a disgrace that you even asked that question because it's a whole big fat hoax," Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a trip to Louisiana. Trump's relations with Russia and Putin have clouded his presidency from the beginning and he has long dismissed the federal investigation into whether his 2016 campaign worked with Russia to sway the election as a hoax and a "witch hunt." The Republican president renewed those charges on Monday, saying the officials who initiated the FBI investigation were "known scoundrels" and calling Comey a "bad cop." Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to take over FBI investigations involving Trump and Russia in May 2017 after Trump fired Comey. Several former Trump top aides, including national security adviser Michael Flynn and campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and several Russians are among dozens caught up in Mueller's probe. Comey confirmed the existence of an FBI counterterrorism probe related to the presidential election in testimony before Congress in 2017. Story continues 'NO BIG DEAL' On Saturday, the Post reported Trump took notes that his interpreter made during a 2017 meeting in Hamburg with Putin that also was attended by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Trump also told the interpreter not to talk to other administration officials about what was said in the meetings, the Post said. "I just don't know anything about it," Trump said on Monday of the interpreter's notes. He said he had a successful meeting with Putin, adding: "We have those meetings all the time, no big deal." Democrats said, however, they thought it was a very big deal and expressed concern about the report on the interpreter. "It's disturbing, of course. If it's true it's disturbing and we want to get to the bottom of it," U.S. Representative Eliot Engel said in an interview with CNN on Monday. Engel said the House Foreign Affairs Committee he chairs is working with the Intelligence Committee to discuss a possible subpoena of the Trump-Putin interpreter. He said he would prefer not to do that, but added: "We may have no choice." "She has to be heard from, under oath, before our committee," Representative Gerry Connolly, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said on CNN. Asked whether the committees also are considering asking Tillerson to testify, Engel said they were casting a wide net but no decisions had been made. Republicans and White House officials have defended Trump's actions, saying he had been the victim of a number of leaks. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded Moscow led a propaganda and hacking campaign designed to tip the 2016 White House race to Trump. Russia has denied interfering. Trump repeatedly berated his former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, from recusing himself from the Russia investigation because he had worked on Trump's presidential campaign. The president's nominee to fill Sessions' job, William Barr, will pledge to protect Mueller's investigation, according to prepared testimony released before his confirmation hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday. (Reporting by Jeff Mason and Doina Chiacu; Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Bill Trott and Peter Cooney) Does cannabis have a permanent effect on the brain? (Getty) Dabbling in cannabis as a youngster can have long-lasting effects on the brain, with scientists finding that smoking the drug once is enough to alter brain structure. Teenangers who had smoked cannabis once or twice by the age of 14 had more grey matter in areas related to emotion and memory. The finding is a concern, because teenage brains are supposed to be getting rid of surplus cells and tests showed that the increased brain volume was linked to poor performance in IQ tests. Researchers scanned the brains of 46 European young people, and found excess grey matter in the amygdala and hippocampus, linked to emotions and memory. MORE: Theresa May warns of unforgivable breach of trust if MPs dont vote for her Brexit deal MORE: Donald Trumps behaviour so concerning FBI opened Russia collusion inquiry Lead scientist Professor Hugh Garavan, from the University of Vermont, said: Consuming just one or two joints seems to change grey matter volumes in these young adolescents. The implication is that this is potentially a consequence of cannabis use. Most people would likely assume that one or two joints would have no impact on the brain. One possibility is theyve actually disrupted that pruning process. Prof Sir Robin Murray Professor of Psychiatric Research, Kings College London (IoPPN), said: Previous studies of brain structure have been contradictory with some suggesting that heavy use is associated with decreased brain volumes, some no effect, and some the opposite. However, it remains a small study and it is very surprising that persistent brain changes could result from the use of cannabis (or any other recreational drug) only once or twice. Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK Saudi teen Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun walks with Thai immigration authorities at a hotel inside Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand January 7, 2019. Thailand Immigration Police via REUTERS DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's embassy in Thailand has denied reports that Riyadh had requested the extradition of a young Saudi women seeking asylum in Thailand, the embassy said on Twitter. Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, 18, who fled from her family and barricaded herself inside a Bangkok airport hotel to prevent Thai authorities expelling her, was allowed to leave the airport after talks with the United Nations refugee agency late on Monday. She arrived in Bangkok on Saturday from Kuwait, saying she feared her family would kill her if she was forced to go home. (Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Robert Birsel) The Delhi police on Tuesday, 15 January, detained a man for questioning in connection to an anonymous email sent to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, threatening to kidnap his daughter, Hindustan Times reported. Kejriwal on Wednesday, 9 January, received an anonymous mail which said, We will kidnap your daughter. Do what you can to protect her, according to NDTV. The man was detained in Uttar Pradesh and is being brought to Delhi for interrogation, a senior police official said to the Hindustan Times. The arrested is a graduate, preparing for the civil service examination. Investigation is underway by the cyber cell of Delhi police, the official said. Kejriwals daughter Harshita works for a multinational company in Gurugram, according to the Hindustan Times. The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) on Sunday, slammed the Delhi police over its failure to hold the culprits accountable. The commission views this as an extremely serious matter where the family of the elected head of the state is being openly threatened and the police has failed to nab the culprits, the notice sent by DCW Chairperson Swati Maliwal read, according to ANI. The Delhi Police immediately deployed a Personal Security officer (PSO) for Kejriwals daughter and the case was handed over to the cyber cell for investigation, reported ANI. This is not the first time the AAP leader has been under attack. In November last year, a man had assaulted Kejriwal with chilli power inside the Delhi Secretariat. (With inputs from Hindustan Times, NDTV and ANI) . Read more on India by The Quint.RSS & BJPs Nehru-Netaji Cosplay: Irony Dies a Thousand DeathsLatest News: Two Security Personnel Injured in Ceasefire Violation . Read more on India by The Quint. A Davao City court turned down prosecutors request for the issuance of a hold departure order against Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, who is facing libel raps before the said tribunal. All told, this court finds that accused Antonio Trillanes IV is not a flight risk and that he will abide with the conditions imposed for his provisional liberty including his appearance before this Court when required, Davao City Regional Trial Court Branch 54 Judge Melinda Alconcel-Dayanghirang said in an order dated Dec. 12, 2018 released on Tuesday. The judge noted that Trillanes travels were allowed by Senate President Vicente Sotto III. While it is true that the accused has already left the country on December 11, 2018 and thus beyond the reach of this Court, however, the said travel is supported by Travel Order 2018-SR-090 dated October 8, 2018 issued by Senate President Vicente Sotto III. The accuseds succeeding travel on January 27 to February 10, 2019 is likewise with authority of the Senate President, the magistrate said. The court explained that from its viewpoint, the trips or speaking engagements abroad cannot be equated to flight or the voluntary withdrawal by the accused in order to avoid continuance of the criminal proceedings. Trillanes, meanwhile, pleaded not guilty to the four libel cases filed against him by President Rodrigo Dutertes son, Paolo, as he appeared before a local court in Davao City. Trillanes said the cases were a form of harassment. The senator said he flew to Davao to show that he was ready to face his accusers. He added that he chose not to defer the arraignment to demonstrate that we are recognizing the authority and jurisdiction of the Davao courts. The libel cases were filed by the younger Duterte, the former Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte, and the Presidents son-in-law, lawyer Maneses Carpio whom Trillanes linked to alleged drug smuggling and extortion. Trillanes earlier posted bail of P96,000 for the libel cases. Mga harassment cases lang po ito talaga just to inconvenience me para ma-distract ako. Pero di ako madi-distract, I will continue with my mandate as a member of the opposition, he told reporters.(These are all harassment cases just to inconvenience and distract me. But will not be distracted. I will continue with my mandate as a member of the opposition.) Nandirito tayo ngayon sa Davao para harapin ito, para ipakita natin na hindi natin tinatakbuhan o tinatalikuran ang mga ganitong hamon, he added. (We are here in Davao to face this, to show that we will not run or turn our back from these challenges.) This is actually the first time that Trillanes set foot in Davao City, the Presidents hometown, since he was declared persona non grata a year ago after saying it was the most dangerous Philippine city. Trillanes, however, said Davao that residents were surprisingly warm but he understood that some were hurt by his opposition stand. Asked if he felt safe in the city, Trillanes said he was surrounded by police officers and the media so its difficult to do anything malicious. Triallanes said he would return to Davao for the trial if his schedule allows. The senator is facing separate sedition and coup detat cases for leading failed mutinies against former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo when he was still a Navy officer. The president, however, revived those cases after he withdrew the amnesty for the senator. BJP President Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath performed aarti at Triveni Sangam in Prayagraj on Wednesday, 13 February. Crores flocked to the Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj for the second shahi snan on Monday, 4 February. The day marked the mauni amavasya. The 49-day Kumbh Mela commenced on 15 January and will end on 4 March. This year, the Ardh Kumbh Mela is being held after six years. UP Finance Minister Rajesh Aggarwal said, roughly Rs 2,800 crore has been earmarked for the Kumbh Mela More than 140 million pilgrims and tourists are expected to attend the mela this year Representatives from 192 countries are slated to attend the mega event All You Need to Know About Kumbh Mela 2019 This years mela the Ardh Kumbh Mela being celebrated after six years, has over 1.22 lakh toilets, 250 km of new roads, 22 pontoon bridges and over 40,000 LED lights. The Ganga Pandal set up at the venue has a capacity of 10,000 people. A tent city consisting of more than 2,000 tents has been set up. The grand event is held in Haridwar, Ujjain and Nasik, apart from Prayagraj. Ardh Kumbh is organised on a rotational basis in the four riverside cities of Haridwar, Prayagraj, Nasik and Ujjain. Under the Kumbh-related works, 671 peoples welfare projects have been completed during the last one and a half years under the Prayagraj Mela Authority. Also Read: What You Need to Know About UP Govts Kumbh Mela Preparations Fire Breaks Out in Kumbh Mela Premises, Probe Ordered A fire broke out on Monday at the Digambar Akhada premises of the Kumbh Mela, due to a cylinder blast. A police official said that the fire was doused and no loss of life or injury was reported. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has ordered the fire department and officials in charge of the event to inspect all the camps. A government spokesman told IANS that Adityanath directed the fire department to take all steps to ensure there was no repeat of Monday's episode. Story continues In Pictures: Ardh Kumbh Mela 2019 Devotees Take Holy Dip on Makar Sankranti Thousands of devotees thronged the Kumbh Mela site, in the wee hours of Tuesday, and took holy dip at Sangam to mark the onset of the Kumbh Mela on the occasion of Makar Sankranti. Elaborate security arrangements are in place and pontoon bridges have been constructed to lead the visitors to the five-kilometre bathing ghat at Sangam. Personnel have been deployed at all entry and exit points of these bridges to maintain order. Union Minister Smriti Irani at Ardh Kumbh Mela Union minister Smriti Irani takes holy dip at Sangam. Union minister Smriti Irani takes holy dip at Sangam. Airtel to Provide Digital Experience to Kumbh Mela Visitors Telecom major Bharti Airtel has announced that it would roll out digital features for Kumbh Mela visitors such as virtual reality, online streaming of events and better internet connectivity. Airtel smartphone customers would also be able to stream the proceedings of the event on the Airtel TV app. "A special channel, dedicated to Kumbh Mela 2019, has been created to on the Airtel TV app to bring all the action excitement from the event to the smartphone screen. " - Bharati Airtel in a statement Airtel has tied up with VR Devotee, a devotional content provider, to bring this exclusive content to Airtel TV app, it said. Kumbh is an Important Part of India's Spiritual Heritage: President Kovind President Ram Nath Kovind greeted devotees and pilgrims as the 49-day long Kumbh Mela commenced on Tuesday, 15 January. As the Kumbh Mela begins, greetings to fellow citizens and to pilgrims from across the world. The Kumbh is an important part of Indias spiritual and cultural heritage,president Kovind said via Twitter. Appreciate efforts of the Union and Uttar Pradesh govts in this logistically massive exercise, he added. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. PM Modi Greets Devotees Via Twitter Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted a video on Twitter after the Shahi Snan ceremony began, marking the official beginning of the fair. The "Shahi Snan" is considered among the most significant components of the Kumbh Mela, and is supposed to begin at a certain hour. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Randeep Surjewala Tweets About the Beginning of 'Ardh Kumbh Mela' This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Kinner Akhara Chief Laxmi Narayan Tripathi Arrives at Kumbh Mela 2019 Kinner Akhara or transgender akhara chief Laxmi Narayan Tripathi arrived at Kumbh Mela on Tuesday. Kinner Akhara took 'Shahi Snan' or dip in holy water as a part of the Makar Sankranti celebrations. Raj Dy CM Sachin Pilot Extends Wishes to Devotees & Organisers of Kumbh Mela Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan and state Congress President Sachin Pilot greeted devotees and organisers of Kumbh Mela in Uttar Pradeshs Prayagraj. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. 13 Akharas Were First to Take Part in Shahi Snan Sadhus of 13 akharas (seven Shaiva, three Vaishnava, two Udasina, and one Sikh) who have traditionally participated in the Kumbh Mela, were the first to take the holy bath known as ''Shahi Snan''. Kinner akharas or transgender akhada chief Laxmi Narayan Tripathi also took part in the Shahi Snan' or dip in holy water earlier on Tuesday. Sadhus, Mystics Evoke Curiosity Among Kumbh Devotees The Kumbh Mela, which kicked off early on 15 January with thousands taking a holy dip at the confluence of Ganga and Yamuna rivers and the mythical Saraswati, is seeing numerous sadhus and mystics, whose varied looks and practices are evoking curiosity among those who have descended on this historic city. The by-lanes of Prayagraj as well as the five-kilometre stretch of the bathing ghats is flooded with evoking sights as holy men and seers display their unusual practices in full glory. Seated at one of the tents near the pontoon bridges that lead the visitors to Sangam is a holy man making show of his nearly three-metre long moustache, which he claims to have grown without interruption over the past decade. In Pictures: Sadhus Celebrate Makar Sankranti, Take 'Holy Dip' in Sangam Also Read: In Photos: A Glimpse of Prayagraj A Day Before Kumbh Mela Visible Push for Ram Mandir at Kumbh Mela A slew of hoardings welcoming devotees to the Kumbh Mela in this historic city of Uttar Pradesh call for the construction of a grand Ram temple at the disputed Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya. Thousands of saints who have descended here from across the country are also making a strong pitch for a grand Ram temple. In their conversations with devotees, as well as in their open addresses, they were heard calling for the intervention of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre. UP Min Claims Kumbh Being Held in 'Prayagraj' After 350 years A UP Cabinet minister claimed that the religious congregation being held in Prayagraj is taking place after 350 years as the holy city was renamed Allahabad in the past. Religious Affairs Minister Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary told PTI that it's perhaps for the first time since Independence that proper arrangements (of milk, ghee, food, blankets and firewood) have been made for the seers, ashrams and akharas. "Nearly 350 years ago, the name of Prayagraj considered a prominent centre of Hindu culture and Sanatan Dharma was changed to Allahabad. However, last year, under the leadership of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, it was decided that Allahabad should be renamed as Prayagraj, as mentioned in ancient Indian texts including the Vedas. On 16 October, the Uttar Pradesh cabinet had approved a proposal to rename the historic city of Allahabad as Prayagraj. Over 16 Lakh Take Holy Dip at Kumbh on Makar Sankranti More than 16 lakh devotees took a holy dip at the Sangam on the auspicious occasion of Makar Sankranti marking the onset of the Kumbh Mela. "We were expecting about 10 lakh to come for the dip in the first half of the day, but the numbers have already crossed 16 lakh by 2 pm," an official told IANS. The Akharas that went for the Shahi Snan so far are Maha Nirvani, Atal, Niranjani, Anand, Juna, Avahan, Panchagni, Nirvani Ani, Digambar Ani, Nirmohi Ani and Naya Udaseen. The Akhras that are still awaiting are Bada Udaseen and Nirmala. Soon after midnight, throngs of devotees who have gathered here for the fair from within the country and abroad began proceeding towards the bathing ghats. Ganga in Kumbh Mela Brims at All Time High The Kumbh-2019 is being organised at a time when the volume of water of Ganga is at its highest in the last decade, The Times of India reported. The level of Ganga at Phaphamau, which is the entry point of the Mela ground, was recorded as 77 metre on 14 January, the daily reported citing data provided by the Central Water Commission (middle Ganga-Yamuna sub-division). This level of water stood at 76 metres during the mahakumbh in 2013. Similarly, the level at the venues exit point at Chatnag was recorded as 71.95 metre compared to 71.6 metre in 2013. 2.25 Crore Devotees Attend Kumbh's 'Shahi Snan', Says UP CM Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Tuesday, 15 January, said 2.25 crore devotees attended the first 'shahi snan' of Kumbh in Prayagraj on Makar Sankranti. "About 2.25 crore persons attended the first 'shahi snan' in Prayagraj which is a record. I thank all the visitors, religious leaders, common man and officials for the smooth conduct of the mega event," the CM said in a statement issued here on Tuesday. He said the state government was committed to providing best facilities in the ongoing 'Kumbh' festivities. Rlys to Make Announcements in 6 Languages, More to Be Added Soon The railways has started public announcements for Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj in six languages to benefit the non-Hindi speaking passengers which is likely to continue beyond 4 March when the mela ends, a senior railway official told on 16 January. The system, which runs on software specially designed for this purpose, auto-records an announcement, which is then translated by the specially developed software in six languages: English, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannad, Tamil, Malayalam. "We realized very early in our preparations for the Kumbh Mela that we would be needing such a multilingual announcement system at the actual time when the Mela would be in progress" said North Central Railway (NCR) spokesperson Gaurav Krishna Bansal. President Kovind Offers Prayers President Ram Nath Kovind offered prayers at the Kumbh Mela on Thursday, 17 January, on the third day of the event. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath and Governor Ram Naik were also present at the venue. President Ram Nath Kovind offers prayers at the Kumbh Mela. Saints to Meet in Ayodhya After Kumbh, Begin Ram Temple Construction: Akhada Parishad President Akhada Parishad President Narendra Giri told ANI, After the end of the Kumbh Mela, we have decided that all saints will meet in Ayodhya and the construction of the Ram temple will start." "The BJP is not interested in constructing the Ram temple as they want to keep this issue alive for election." Giri added. Devotees Throng Sangam for Holy Dip on Paush Purnima Braving intense chill, scores of devotees took a dip in River Ganga in Prayagraj on Monday, 21 January on the occasion of Paush Purnima the second auspicious bathing day of the Kumbh Mela. From Sunday, 20 January night itself, the Sangam area was buzzing with activities, as devotees started arriving, while security forces maintained a close watch on the movement of pilgrims and visitors in the mela venue. The Purnima or full moon day will also mark the beginning of Kalpwas (the period of austerity) at Kumbh Mela. Elaborating on the significance of Paush Purnima, Swami Adhokshanand said, Paush Purnima is a significant day for Hindus which falls on the full moon day of Paush in the Hindu calendar. On this day, devotees from different parts of the country assemble at Sangam to take a holy dip. Even Lord Krishna had said that in the Hindu calendar, he represents the month of Paush, he said. Yogi Adityanath-Led Uttar Pradesh Govt to Hold Cabinet Meeting on Sangam The Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government will hold a Cabinet meeting on the banks of Sangam in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj (erstwhile Allahabad), The Times of India reported. According to the report, the meeting will take place on either on 29 January or 4 February. The ministers are also stated to be taking a holy dip into Ganga. Govt Expecting More 15 Cr Devotees by the End of 6-Snan: CM Adityantah Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on 24 January, said that the government is predicting over 15 crore devotees to flock to Kumbh Mela by the end of the six snan, (holy-dip). Only two snan (holy-dip) have been performed so far and more than 3 crore devotees already participated in them. I am confident that by the end of all six snan, the Prayagraj Kumbh Mela would have the record of bringing together over 15 crore devotees, Yogi told ANI. Rain Troubles Kumbh, Pilgrims on 'Slippery Ground' Early morning rains brought trouble for thousands of pilgrims at the Kumbh Mela on Friday even as the winter chill intensified in the city and neighbouring areas in Uttar Pradesh. A western disturbance has been bringing scattered rains to the region for the past two days, and Friday's downpour added to the woes as most part of the 'Kumbh Nagar' turned slippery with mud and water logging at many places. UP Cabinet Holds Meeting at Kumbh, Ministers Take Dip in Sangam Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath and almost all his senior ministers took a dip at the Sangam in Prayagraj following a unique Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, 29 January, at the venue of the Kumbh Mela itself. At the meeting, the BJP-led government approved the construction of the 600-km Ganga Expressway to connect Prayagraj to western Uttar Pradesh in a better way. The state government said the expressway, which will cost Rs 36,000 crore, will be the longest in the world. Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said apart from all Cabinet ministers and some junior ministers, sadhus also took the holy dip on the historic day. The ministers had travelled from the state capital Lucknow, where the Cabinet usually meets at regular intervals. The meeting was held at the "integrated control and command centre" set up at the sprawling Kumbh Mela venue. Apart from a nod for the Ganga Expressway project, the Cabinet also gave necessary approvals for the Bundelkhand Expressway and the Purvanchal Expressway which have already been announced. (PTI) Second Shahi Snan at Kumbh On the eve of the second shahi snan on Monday, 4 February, crores have reached Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj as the day marks the mauni amavasya. The third shahi snan will be held on Basant Panchami. Here are some early morning pictures from the ground. Devotees take a dip in river Ganga in Kumbh mela. Devotees take a dip in river Ganga in Kumbh mela. Hindu Devotees arrives on the eve of the Mauni Amavasya during the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad on Sunday. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Why is Mauni Amavasya' at Kumbh Mela Important for Devotees? Hear from the devotees who travel all the way to Allahabad to take a dip in river Ganga on Mauni Amavasya to understand why this day is important for them. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Devotees Throng Kumbh for Holy Dip on Mauni Amavasya The day began as early as 3 am for scores of devotees who were seen making a beeline for the Sangam the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati on foot as entry of vehicles was restricted in the vicinity of Kumbh Nagari, the sprawling 32,000-hectare township that has come up on the banks of the river. Yeh Kumbh nahi asan bas itna samajh lijiye thanda pani hai aur dupki lagana hai (Mind you, this Kumbh is no easy task, the water is cold and you have to take the plunge), said Ravish Vajpayee, an aspiring poet, who was just out after taking the holy dip in one of the many ghats. And though mauni' means silent', the chants of Har Har Ganga' and 'Ganga Maiya ki Jai' grew only louder at the break of dawn when Naga Sadhus, a martial order of ascetics who roam naked with ash smeared on their bodies, dancing and singing moved in a procession with religious leaders sitting atop decorated chariots for the holy dip at the Sangam. Many devotees take a vow of silence on this day. Sadhus of 13 akharas (seven Shaiva, three Vaishnava, two Udasina, and one Sikh) who have traditionally participated in the Kumbh Mela will be the first to take the holy bath. Minor Fire Breaks Out in Kumbh A fire broke out broke out in two tents during the Kumbh Mela 2019 on Tuesday, 5 February. The fire is under control and no injuries have been reported. Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath Perform 'Aarti' at Triveni Sangam BJP President Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath performed aarti at Triveni Sangam in Prayagraj on Wednesday, 13 February, ANI reported. . Read more on India by The Quint.RSS & BJPs Nehru-Netaji Cosplay: Irony Dies a Thousand DeathsPM Inaugurates National War Memorial, Says Cong Blocking Rafale . Read more on India by The Quint. Choose your country to get an overview of the legal status and resources on homeschooling with a list of local contacts that can help you find out about mandatory homeschool requirements. Select a country or click on the map below. Dr Johannes Klinglmayr from the Linz Center of Mechatronics in Austria is developing a smartphone app to help shoppers choose food products that conform to their own version of sustainability. One of the problems for sustainable consumerism is getting reliable data, he said. The app is designed to be used when someone is standing in front of a supermarket shelf, and allows people to assess the difference brands for between similar products such as pasta. It works via Bluetooth, matching the customers location with a database of product information. The app allows someone to see how each one matches their own preferences, which theyve pre-programmed into the app. To do this, Dr Klinglmayr and his team on the ASSET project used some 25 sustainability criteria to tag products with, including environmental factors such as being free from palm oil as well as health concerns such as being sugar-free. We have to take the word apart and give people the ability to build their own criteria, Dr Klinglmayr said. The point is that everyone has a different understanding of sustainability, but on some levels there is overlap. For one shopper, he explains, sustainability could mean organic food, while for another it means food that was sourced locally, or has a small carbon footprint, or was produced whilst upholding workers rights. But all four of those sustainability criteria would prompt a shopper to buy a product made locally, in an area he or she feels familiar with. This means that four shoppers could have different understandings of sustainability, but end up buying the same product in the shop, he said. 'One of the problems for sustainable consumerism is getting reliable data.' Dr Johannes Klinglmayr, Linz Center of Mechatronics, Austria Organic Dr Klinglmayr believes this type of information could be more helpful than relying only on food labels, which he says have become so diverse as to risk creating confusion. In Austria, for instance, there are 30 different labels that call an egg organic, he said. The app has already been trialled by the COOP shop in Estonia and WinklerMarkt in Austria. ASSET looked at information on all food products in the Estonian shop, excluding tobacco and alcohol. In Austria, the products used included common shopping items such as tea, milk and pasta. Dr Klinglmayr said initial indications were that the app had been appreciated by shoppers and that data from the trials is now being analysed to see if a business case could be built for the app moving forward. He says that ASSET is part of a wider trend to improve product data and share the information with customers, whatever the end form of that turns out to be. In general, I strongly encourage widely spread implementation within the EU of a transparent product information system, he said. Opaque One hard-to-assess criteria of sustainability is what goes on in companies that form the opaque supply networks around the world that bring goods to shoppers and which can allow brands and companies to hide behind distant suppliers. Much of this data, about which factories are working for which companies, and which brands are produced where, is available if you know where to look. But a lot isn't published publicly, or when it is there is so much data that even the companies themselves don't know where to start. Laureen van Breen, program manager with open analysis platform WikiRate, which gathers data from companies at various points along global supply chains and publishes it in an online database, says there is a lot of information about supply chains that could be made transparent, if the right systems are in place. Van Breen coordinates a project called ChainReact, which aims to make supplier networks easier to understand and more responsive. This includes identifying responsible and irresponsible corporate behaviour, and making it easier for workers to report problems. One important feature of ChainReact and WikiRate is sharing research with companies, trade unions and NGOs, and developing tools for them to make use of the information. With this project, we're able to connect companies (to supply chain data), van Breen explained. Working with the UKs University of Cambridge, ChainReact has developed an app for whistleblowers known as The Whistle. The Whistle makes it easier for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to collect grievance reports from workers, to improve transparency along the supply chain. Theresa Heithaus, ChainReacts co-coordinator, says NGOs are already using the data gathered by ChainReact. The pressure group Clean Clothes Campaign, a network of NGOs and labour unions in the garment industry, has for instance used supply chain data in talks with trade unions, with the aim of improving working conditions. Slavery Another NGO, the Walk Free Foundation, used ChainReact data to analyse the effect the UKs Modern Slavery Act was having on company behaviour in order to advise the Australian government on the development of the country's own anti-slavery legislation. Through WikiRate, ChainReact gathered information about over 500 companies, to see whether for instance they had a training programme to raise employee awareness of modern slavery, or a whistle-blower system. ChainReact also looked simply at which companies were legally complying with the act, which turned out to be a shockingly low percentage, says Van Breen. Van Breen says the NGOs work shows the important of ethical supply chains goes well beyond Europe and will always be relevant. We don't really have a geographic limit, she explained. Supply chains are global. The research in this article was funded by the EU. If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media. TABLE GROVE -- Illinois State Police said a train pulling tanker cars filled with isopropyl alcohol derailed along US Rt. 136 on Sunday night in McDonough County. The BNSF train reportedly lost two cars off the tracks between Adair and Table Grove, and a third car lost its wheels. Police closed Rt. 136, and the Illinois Department of Transportation will be establishing a detour for motorists. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. The Fulton County ESDA said the derailment was at the county line about four miles west of Table Grove, and that no cars were leaking any material. Additional road closures included 600 North in Fulton County and 950 North near Adair in McDonough County. Emergency response crews from Fulton and McDonough counties and the Illinois State Police were at the scene. It was unknown if there were any injuries. Fulton County ESDA said the scene did not require a Hazmat team, as no spill occurred. The agency said as of 9 p.m. a team from BNSF was about 2-3 hours from arriving from at the scene. The cause of the derailment was not known late Sunday. The road closures are expected to last at least 24 hours. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 DECATUR Litigation that could solidify or reverse the result of the Macon County sheriff's race is awaiting assignment of a judge to oversee the case. Its been nearly a month since Jim Root, the GOP sheriff candidate, petitioned the Macon County Circuit Court to name him to the office after a race that saw Democrat Tony Brown win by a single vote, 19,655 to 19,654. Both were top lieutenants in the department, where they each have served for many years. The case has since been moved out of Macon County to prevent any conflict of interest. Brown began his tenure as sheriff on Dec. 1. Root and local Republicans spent several weeks gathering evidence of multiple errors they said were made during the election, hoping to persuade a judge that the wrong person was named sheriff. Root and Republicans have raised a number of issues since a Nov. 30 discovery recount, a nonbinding process that the losing candidate can undertake to find evidence that would prompt a judge to order a full recount. Issues cited by Root include: Two ballots for Root in Hickory Point Precinct 1 were, for reasons still unknown, not counted on election night; A ballot for Root was not counted. On it, the voter placed an X next to the names of the candidates for whom he or she wished to vote, rather than darkening the box next to the candidate's name. A ballot that was originally marked as an undervote a ballot on which not all races received a vote was marked as a vote for Root. It was found during the second discovery count on Dec. 16. Two votes for Brown were not initialed by any election judge as required by the Election Code. Under state law, a recount must be ordered by the court system. Root is responsible for the cost, even if the election results are overturned. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Root is not seeking a full recount. Instead, he asked the court to include the two uncounted ballots with the final election results and to implement a full manual recount of Election Day ballots cast in Hickory Point Precinct 7, where the other ballots at issue were cast. Root and Republicans will have to continue their wait for their day in court. Initial plans were for Champaign County Judge Thomas Difanis to oversee the case. Brown's attorney, Christopher Sherer of Springfield, filed a motion late last week to substitute the judge. The petition did not give a reason for seeking a different judge, but noted that each party is entitled to one substitution of judge without cause. Sherer, when reached Monday afternoon at his office, said it is his policy to not comment on pending litigation. Now it is up to Karle Koritz, chief judge of the 6th Judicial Circuit, which includes Champaign, DeWitt, Douglas, Macon, Moultrie and Piatt counties, to assign a new judge to the case. The legal maneuvering began shortly after the original petition was filed on Dec. 19 by Root's attorney, John Fogarty of Chicago. The next day, Macon Countys Presiding Judge A.G. Webber referred the matter to then-Chief Judge Richard Broch, who assigned the case to Diganis. It is unknown how long it will take before a new judge is assigned to the case. Through his secretary, Koritz said he does not comment on ongoing cases. Fogarty did not return a message left Monday on his cell phone. Root declined to comment. Brown did not immediately return a message. Contact Ryan Voyles at (217) 421-7985. Follow him on Twitter: @RVVoyles Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 2 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. DECATUR Members of the Decatur City Council expressed their welcome and excitement for Scot Wrighton to become city manager Monday night in a special meeting, when they unanimously approved his contract. "This was a long process but it was very important to this council to find the right person to lead this city in the future, so we're very excited," said Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe. "I feel very fortunate that Scot Wrighton has agreed to be our city manager, and we hope he that it is a very long tenure with us." Wrighton's contract was approved with a 6-0 vote. Councilman Bill Faber was absent. He later told the Herald & Review he was home sick but he "fully supports the new manager." Wrighton will earn a $185,000 salary in his first year of the contract. The council will perform annual reviews of his performance each December, the contract stipulates, at which time the council could decide to give Wrighton a raise. The terms remain largely intact from the city's previous contract with former City Manager Tim Gleason with some notable exceptions: There is no expiration date, but after five years from his start date, Wrighton would no longer be eligible to receive a 20-week severance if the council decided to fire him. Gleason left the top city executive job in July to take the same position in Bloomington. Gleason's move to Bloomington came three months after council members approved a two-year contract with a 6 percent raise. At the time of his departure in July, Gleason's salary was $176,507. In his new position, Gleason's salary matches Wrighton's at $185,000. Deputy City Manager Billy Tyus is doing the job on an interim basis until he moves on to a deputy city manager position in Bloomington under his old boss in Decatur, Gleason, on Feb. 7. Tyus' last day as interim city manager is Feb. 6. The city council will need to install a new interim staff member at the job if Wrighton starts later than that. Last week, Wrighton said he was hoping to start work in Decatur in late March. Wrighton is still finishing up his job as city manager of Streator, a position he's held for more than four years. He was also city manager there from 1987-1994. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Moore Wolfe said Monday night the council was still working out details of the transition. Wrighton's contract also allows him to do consulting work on vacation days with clients that are based outside of Illinois. The work must also pose no conflict of interest to the city. After Monday's special meeting, Moore Wolfe said the council was comfortable with allowing Wrighton to do consulting on his own time. "Actually we think it's an asset," the mayor said. "It's always good to get perspectives globally. Having someone whose eyes are not always focused on Decatur can really open some other opportunities." After the meeting, Wrighton said since he took a city manager role in a venture in India a project in which private developers built and managed what was essentially a new city he has advised overseas clients on matters related to managing local governments. "This council has been very generous in letting me continue to do that, but on my own time, my own vacation," Wrighton said. The incoming city manger added it was the ethical thing to do to limit clients to outside the state. Wrighton has so far only advised clients who operate outside the country, he said. Wrighton said one factor that drew him to the job was that the council was a hardworking group committed to delivering for the city. "It's also clear there's a lot of people ... stakeholders in the community want to come together to make a difference in the community and see Decatur grow," Wrighton said. "And there's strong staff, a lot of depth and institutional knowledge. That's a great combination." Wrighton's contract also gives him 20 vacation days his first year as the city's top executive. He will earn 25 days each year after that, and can carry over one week of vacation between years. In his predecessor's initial contract, Gleason was not able to earn 25 days of vacation until serving 10 years in the position. In the Decatur contract that was approved last year, Gleason received 25 days of vacation. Under Decatur's form of government, the city manager is the head municipal executive, responsible for hiring and firing employees and overseeing all city operations and departments. Elected city council members set goals and general directives for the city manager to carry out. Wrighton also was as the city manager of Kirksville, Missouri for nine years; on the faculty of the University of Georgias Carl Vinson Institute of Government for six years; and as the city manager of the private development in Lavasa, India. He became village administrator of Mount Zion when he was 26. In his discussions so far with the council, staff and community leaders, Wrighton said he was excited to get going. "I think we're off to a great start," he said. Contact Tom Lisi at (217) 421-6949. Follow him on Twitter: @tommylisi Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 2 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. A Filipino companys acquisition of the shipbuilding business of the debt-ridden Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Philippines will be beneficial to the ongoing modernization efforts of the Philippine Navy. This was disclosed by Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana when asked Tuesday if it is possible that HHIC-Phil can be tapped for the ongoing Self-Reliance Project of the country. We still lack complete information about it so I will defer any comment. Anyway, our economic managers are looking into it. [It] would be good if a local company would acquire and operate it to support our Navy modernization, Lorenzana added in a text message. The defense chief, however, said dealing with the matter is still up to the countrys economic team. It [is] up to them to decide but that is the ideal set up, he said. Lorenzana earlier said that the DND will monitor those who have expressed interest to invest in HHIC-Phil as it is near the Philippine Navys major docking and anchorage area of its large naval vessels. Hanjin revealed that it has USD1.3 billion outstanding loansUSD400 million from Philippine banks and USD900 million from South Korean lenders. According to Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, HHIC-Phil filed a petition Tuesday last week at the Regional Trial Court in Olongapo City to initiate voluntary rehabilitation under Republic Act 10142, otherwise known as An Act Providing for the Rehabilitation or Liquidation of Financially Distressed Enterprises and Individuals. With this, Hanjin has sought help from the government to find investors that can take over the operation of its shipyard in Subic, as well as to help its employees, who have taken the brunt of the companys financial woes. In December 2018, the company laid off more than 7,000 workers. Meanwhile, opposition lawmaker and Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano warns on security implications on possible Chinese takeover of Hanjin Philippines after it has declared bankruptcy. Hanjin is the largest Philippine shipyard which is located in Subic. The Chinese takeover of Hanjin then allows unlimited access to a highly strategic naval and maritime asset of the country. This may have repercussions on our national security, Alejano said. Alejano made the statement as he cited reports that two Chinese shipbuilding firms are interested to take over the operations of Hanjin in the Philippines. One of the Chinese firms is state-owned, he said. Alejano also echoed the concern of former Philippine Navy Chief Vice Admiral Alexander Pama on the Chinese takeover of Hanjin. Pama said the takeover could lead to China using Subic as a naval base and maritime facility.Alejano shared a similar view, especially given the geographic location of Subic and Chinas history of illegal occupation of our territory. I share the sentiments of Vice Admiral Pama. The Hanjin shipyard in Subic is facing the West Philippine Sea which could provide China easier access in our territory. Their resupply missions for their troops in reclaimed islands would be faster and monitoring of fishing activity in our waters would be less challenging. China could also base their assets in the area for intelligence gathering and monitoring of activity in our waters, Alejano said. The lawmaker called on the government to seriously consider the impact of allowing Chinese firms to take over the largest shipyard in our country. This seemingly commercial venture could be taken advantage to pursue the interests of China in the West Philippine Sea, said Alejano. As this developed, the Department of Labor and Employment assured affected workers of Hanjin Heavy Industry that they will get their separation pay, which is equivalent to one-month salary per year of service. Thousands of workers of the ship building firm were displaced after the Korean shipbuilder declared bankruptcy and applied for rehabilitation. Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said affected workers will get their separation pay, which is equivalent to one-month salary per year of service. The Subic Shipbuilder Corporation (SUSHICOR), Hanjins general contractor in shipbuilding, has given us assurance that their workers will get their separation pay and fulfill their labor obligations under the supervision of DOLE Region 3, Bello said. Aside from ensuring assistance to the affected workers, DOLE through its regional office in Region 3 and Bureau of Local Employment will conduct profiling of workers for the provision of appropriate services and interventions necessary for their possible re-employment as most of the Hanjin workers are highly skilled and in-demand in the country and in abroad. We need to profile the workers first to know their specific skills, preference of assistance whether employment, livelihood or training for other skills to better match them with available job opportunities, including available jobs offered under the Build Build Build program of the President, Bello said. The labor chief also said that he will meet with Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Transportation (DOTr), and Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for the possible re-employment of the Hanjin workers in the various projects of the government. As of January 15, 2019, there are about 3,800 workers who are still employed under reduced working days to finish two more ships in Hanjin within the first quarter of 2019. These are employed by 17 contractors who will apply for retrenchment once their contracts with Hanjin is completed. SPRINGFIELD Billionaire J.B. Pritzker took the oath Monday as governor, giving Democrats nearly unprecedented power at the Statehouse after four years of divided government only worsened the economic woes of a state billions of dollars in debt. He used his speech in part to call on more resources for downstate Illinois and faced criticism from Republican leadership about his tax plan. "At 200 years old, Illinois is still a young promise," said Pritzker, who became the state's 43rd executive six weeks after its bicentennial. "We must begin a new century with new maturity and enough foolishness to believe we can make a difference. That starts with leadership that abandons single-minded, arrogant notions. No, everything is not broken." The 53-year-old heir to the Hyatt hotel chain defeated Republican predecessor Bruce Rauner in November. Throughout his four years in office, Rauner clashed with Democrats who dominate the legislature, contributing to the longest stretch without an annual budget of any state since the Great Depression and driving the state's credit rating to the brink of "junk" status. Pritzker offered a cooperative future while blaming the stalemate on Rauner and his insistence that only a complete reboot could fix "broken" Illinois. He also said he sees an Illinois "of possibility and promise. Thats the Illinois I know, one whose people are fearless and audacious." The governor during his speech at the Bank of Springfield Center also said the state "must bring a renaissance to downstate Illinois which has been deprived of some basic resources for education and business building that are taken for granted elsewhere in our state." Said the governor: "To begin, we will work to deliver high-speed broadband internet coverage to everyone, in every corner of Illinois. Today every new job and every student is dependent upon connectivity, and no part of our state should be left out." State Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, in a statement said: The people of downstate Illinois have been overlooked and neglected by the states leaders for years. Im thrilled the governor sees the same promise and resilience that I see in them. Manar serves on the governor's transition team. Decatur Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe and Illinois AFL-CIO President and former Decatur Mayor Mike Carrigan also are on committees. Circumstances have set the bar low for Pritzker success. Rauner's demand for his business-friendly, anti-union agenda in exchange for a state spending plan hit a buzz-saw in the Democrats who controlled the General Assembly. Chicago Democrat Michael Madigan took the gavel last week for his 18th term as House speaker, a tenure covering all but two years since 1983. The longest serving speaker of a state House in U.S. history brought with him near-record legislative majorities. In the past 140 years, the 74-44 Democratic House majority is second only to the party's strength in 1965-67, and the Senate's 40 Democrats to 19 Republicans matches the 2013-15 count and, as a percentage, falls behind only the Democrats' 1935-37 majority. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Pritzker repeated pledges to create a long-desired capital construction plan to fix roads and bridges and to make a push in the just-begun General Assembly to legalize the recreational use of marijuana and its hoped-for $1 billion in annual tax revenue. And Illinois' flat-rate income tax system, which turns 50 this year, is unsustainable, according to Pritzker, whose $3.2 billion net worth ranked him 251st on Forbes' wealthiest 400 Americans last fall. He reiterated his promise to change the state Constitution to create a progressive system that forces the rich to pay a greater percentage of income. "Our regressive tax system ... has the middle class paying more than double the rate the wealthy pay. That's not fair, and it also doesn't pay our bills," Pritzker said. "Today our state's fiscal instability affects every single person who lives and works in Illinois, whether you earn millions or the minimum wage." Illinois GOP Chairman Tim Schneider released a statement Monday that said Pritzker's plans will not be effective at stemming the population loss and other challenges. Its clear that Gov. Pritzkers agenda will be the same agenda that has dragged our state down for decades borrow, tax, spend, repeat. Over the course of the election and again today, Pritzker promised billions of dollars in new spending, programs, and regulations, all of which our state cannot afford," he said. Illinois taxpayers know well the fiscal foibles, which predate Rauner's term. Overdue bills total $7.5 billion and a $130 billion shortfall in what the state owes to its pension plans continues to haunt politicians who repeatedly short-changed it. The Rauner administration last fall predicted the current state budget will fall $500 million short at the end of the fiscal year June 30, although tax revenues in the first six months of the budget year ran 10 percent ahead of the previous year. After Monday's inauguration, Democrats comprise Illinois' entire statewide slate. Incoming Lt. Gov. Julianna Stratton and Attorney General Kwame Raoul were inaugurated. Secretary of State Jesse White, 84, took the oath for an unprecedented fifth term. Beginning second terms were Treasurer Michael Frerichs and Comptroller Susana Mendoza, who shortly after her November re-election entered a crowded field to replace retiring Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in February's election. Pritzker during his speech also pointed to the cooperation of Taylorville residents after a dangerous tornado swept through the community in December. Pritzker visited the scene shortly after. From the Archives: Past inaugurations of Illinois governors Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 DECATUR Local Republican lawmakers and organizers are hoping they can find agreement on some legislation with new Gov. J.B. Pritzker while they try to rebuild a state party that lost big at the ballot box in November. "I hope that we can find some common ground, Republicans and Democrats, to work on the issues that will bring Illinois back to our rightful place in the national economy," said state Rep. Dan Caulkins, a Decatur Republican who won the open seat in the 101st House District in November. But many of the legislative priorities Pritzker made in his inaugural address Monday are anathema to the GOP platform, like a graduated income tax that sets higher marginal rates for residents with high incomes, and a $15 minimum wage policies that area Republicans believe will drive businesses and residents out of Illinois. A graduated income tax would need approval from voters and three-fifths of the General Assembly, since it requires a change to the Illinois Constitution. If such a move succeeded, Mahomet Republican Sen. Chapin Rose said it only hurts the state's ability to retain residents. "People that can, will move, and they (already) have," he said. Republicans across the state are using the state's loss of residents as an argument that high taxes, particularly local property taxes, are driving the trend. The U.S. Census has estimated the number of residents in Illinois has shrunk for five straight years. The state lost more than 45,000 people between 2017 and 2018, according to the latest data. "It doesn't look like there's going to be any resolution to anything anytime soon," Macon County Republican Party Chairman Bruce Pillsbury said of the state's financial woes. If Democrats in Springfield "can continue on the status quo of spend all the time and create new programs instead of cutting spending, if all we try to do is tax our way out," more residents will leave the state. Area Republican lawmakers identified one potential source of bipartisanship: a capital spending bill that would provide much needed funding for local roads, bridges and, potentially, public buildings as well. "I think there's a lot of willingness among Republicans" to cut a deal on infrastructure, Rose said. "Anyone who's driven in and around Decatur knows how badly our roads are in need of repair." Mattoon Republican Sen. Dale Righter, who also pointed to infrastructure as a measure his party members could work with Pritzker on, said that bipartisan support also will depend on a plan that spreads projects around the state. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} "If the governor sends the signal through the plan that he puts out that he appreciates Interstate 24 or IL 50 down in the southern part of my district, or U.S. 45, are just as important as some of the roadways in Chicago, the governor will get strong interest form the Republicans on that," Righter said. But Republican lawmakers will enjoy almost no control over the levers of power in Springfield; in addition to Pritzker, Illinois Democrats won a super majority in both chambers of the General Assembly. Local GOP leaders say how the party in Illinois moves forward is a common internal debate among Republicans. "One is the narrative that the reason Republicans didn't do well is because we are too conservative, too strident," Righter said. "The other narrative is Republicans are trying to act too much like Democrats, and voters can't tell the difference." Righter said he believes his party suffered in state office elections due to the unpopularity of President Donald Trump and ex-Gov. Bruce Rauner in suburban Chicago districts. "Republicans always need to evaluate what they're saying to voters, but there's a danger here in overreacting," Righter said. For his part, Caulkins, a freshman in Springfield, would like to help remake the party. "For the most part, this is a conservative part of the state," he said of the southern half of Illinois. "You see the values, the cultures, the neighborhoods, the cities" reflect more conservative politics that can make the party more relevant. Rose said his party needs to keep their platform to simple things that resonate. "I think Republicans need to be for lower property taxes, for better schools, against gun trafficking and (for) economic growth," he said. "And if you do those things, I think folks will respond." In the November elections, Republicans in Macon County made historic gains that benefited primarily U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis of Taylorville and GOP candidates for county office, including County Clerk Josh Tanner, Treasurer Ed Yoder and the county board, which now holds 12-9 Republican majority. "I don't think the Republicans could be any happier with how Macon County is shaping out after the election," said Dustin Chapman, treasurer of the Macon County Young Republicans. Chapman said the state GOP does not need a major shakeup. "I fully think we need to focus on trying to get no new taxes and really trying to turn the state around to make it more business friendly, and quite frankly , more friendly to residents," Chapman said. "Because it can't keep going how it's going." Contact Tom Lisi at (217) 421-6949. Follow him on Twitter: @tommylisi Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. DECATUR -- A 17-year-old Decatur male needed hospital treatment after he was roughed-up and robbed at gunpoint Monday night while walking in the 1000 block East Prairie Avenue, according to police. Detective Sgt. David Pruitt with the juvenile division of Decatur Police said the robbery happened around 8:30 p.m. after the victim was approached by two men aged between 18 and their early 20s. They pointed a silver handgun at him and basically roughed him up during the robbery, said Pruitt. He described the victim as being treated at HSHS St. Marys Hospital for minor cuts. DECATUR A man who switched barcode labels in a Decatur store and tried to walk away having paid 48 cents for items valued at nearly $300 was caught before he made it out the door, police said. The 34-year-old man was intercepted by staff Sunday evening at the Walmart store at 4625 E. Maryland St., and later arrested there by Decatur police. A sworn affidavit said he was booked on a preliminary charge of retail theft while having a previous theft conviction, which is subject to review by the Macon County State's Attorneys Office. The affidavit quoted the man as telling officers he had been told about a scam involving swapped barcodes and wanted to see if it would work. The affidavit described how he switched codes from Kool-Aid packets for a KitchenAid food mixer and a Lego toy set together valued at $298.97. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Officers then asked (the man) what he thought when the items rang up as only 48 cents, to which he replied, I thought it was my lucky day, the affidavit said. The man remained in the Macon County Jail on Monday night in lieu of posting $5,000 bail. If he makes bail, he is ordered to stay out of all Walmart stores. 2018 mug shots from the Herald & Review Contact Tony Reid at (217) 421-7977. Follow him on Twitter: @TonyJReid Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Isn't it ironic that Trump's boasting of protecting our border security would endanger the United States of America by crippling the entire security of our country? His government shutdown has sent a message to other world powers that we are now at the most vulnerable and insoluble national situation since the Cuban missile crisis. His shutdown has also had a major impact on the FBI, border patrol, prisons, airports, TSA agents and Homeland Security. His rhetoric has been biased only toward the immigrants at the border of Mexico. He is losing his dominance over the military with his outrageous actions. Why is he not targeting the Canadian border? Because they do not speak and read Spanish; he considers them as equals to Americas citizens. It is blatant racism. Now he hangs in the balance of saving the fate of our government employees, and the security of our country. His delusional decisions will take our country back into the dark ages, and our future inhabitants will suffer the consequences for centuries. Terry Lopuch Helena Love 3 Funny 6 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2 On Thursday, Sen. Daines repeated Trumps story that we need a wall on the southern border to stop the smuggling of meth. That is incorrect; according the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, most drugs are smuggled across the border at ports of entry, not overland. Also on Thursday, Sen. Tester asked for a vote on the Senate floor to end the government shutdown. Mitch McConnell refused to call for the vote, suddenly eager to discuss Israel. What did Daines do in that moment? Nothing. And that, Im afraid, is all we can expect from Daines nothing, unless it benefits him personally. Week one of the 66th session of the Montana Legislature kicked off on Monday, Jan. 7. The immediate and looming issue as the first order of business each session was adopting the House rules. The Montana Constitution establishes that the Legislature has to adopt rules for our chamber to operate during the next 90 days. As a member of the House Rules Committee, and as a member of the House chamber, I heard a lot of discussion about the rules, especially about the process of moving a bill through the House. If you have ever watched the proceedings in Helena, you know that it is very difficult to get a bill passed and signed into law. That is as it should be. These laws affect all Montanans and should be thoughtful, considerate and sound. The other main topic of discussion was how committees are established. In the end we voted to adopt rules to enhance fairness and transparency. Now its time to get to work. Washington state lawmakers are taking another run at climate change legislation, including plans to abandon southeast Montanas Colstrip power plant by 2025. The states Legislature convenes this week with an ambitious plan from Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee to respond to climate change. Phasing out coal power entirely within six years is an early step, but only a first. Inslee wants all fossil fuel power, including electricity from gas, eliminated within 26 years. Washington residents are big customers of the coal-fired Colstrip power plant, with roughly 1.8 million people drawing electricity from utilities owning shares of Colstrips four units. Already, there are plans to shutter Colstrips two oldest units no later than 2022, but Washington banning coal power completely by 2025 would signal an earlier end to Colstrip than anyone has previously been willing to suggest. Climate change demands an early response, said Reuven Carlyle, a Democratic state senator from Seattle. Carlyle will carry the governors climate change plan in the Washington Senate where he thinks odds for approval are favorable. Democrats control the House and Senate by a few votes, though a carbon tax put to voters in November failed. Before the committee Tuesday, Sands credited a bipartisan and survivor-centered approach for the work that led to the bills introduction. Were proud of the work thats been done together and were also recognizing that we are not quite where we need to be yet, Sands said. And this bill will lead us in that way. If passed, the bill allows sexual assault survivors the choice to submit written consent to release their evidence kit for analysis. From there, the health care facility receiving consent to submit the kit to law enforcement must contact the cases investigating or jurisdictional law enforcement agency within 24 hours. Law enforcement would then take possession of the kit within five business days of collection. After taking possession, law enforcement must then submit the kit with a police report to a publicly accredited crime lab for testing no more than 30 days after reception. The bill notes that, in court proceedings, failure of law enforcement to meet the time limit does not constitute grounds to exclude evidence obtained from a kit. Marijuana will, at last, have beneficial use once the law allowing the use of the weed for medical purposes is enacted, Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said on Tuesday. Arroyo, one of principal authors of the Medical Cannabis Act, revealed she herself had tried using cannabis patches to alleviate the pain caused by her neck problem. Arroyo is suffering from cervical spondylosis of age-related wear and tear of the spinal discs in the neck. As you know I am an author of that [medical marijuana bill]. I really believe in medical cannabis. As you know I have my problem here [cervical spine] and when Im in a country that allows it, I put a pain patch but here in the Philippines, I cannot do it, Arroyo told reporters. So I authored that bill because I believe that it can help me and many other people but there was a lot of objection to the bill from the House and from the Senate. Thats why we are just letting the legislative process take its course, Arroyo added. House Bill 6517, or an Act Providing Filipinos Right Access to Medical Marijuana, is currently awaiting approval on second reading.Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano III, the main author of the bill, expressed hope that the measure will be approved soonest. It is time for us to decide based on evidence. Around the globe, controlled clinical trials assessed the safety and efficacy of marijuana and its naturally occurring compounds, proving the therapeutic and palliative effects of cannabis. Twenty-seven countries have legalized medical cannabis and 33 states plus Washington DC have passed laws legalizing medical cannabis in the United States, Albano said. He also thanked Arroyo for her open support for the measure. Albano said the bills proponents have nothing in mind but to provide relief to terminally-ill patients who are in pain. In 2017, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act allows medical laboratories to cultivate marijuana for medical experiences and research purposes. BOZEMAN A Bozeman hospital has paid out $10 million to settle a federal lawsuit that accused its radiology department of fraud. The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports that recently unsealed court documents show Bozeman Health Deaconess Hospital paid about $7.2 million to the U.S. government and nearly $239,000 to Montana. The hospital also paid $2.5 million to the law firm that represented Bozeman radiologists Frank Rembert and Michael Paradise, who filed the lawsuit nearly three years ago. The suit claimed the hospital made millions of dollars in fraudulent claims to government health care programs as part of an illegal kickback scheme to keep a monopoly on radiology services in Gallatin County. A hospital spokeswoman says the defendants listed in the case deny all allegations and any wrongdoing. Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Montana has been at or near the top in suicide rates for nearly four decades. Suicide has a heavy impact on youths, as the second most common cause of death. There were 27 youth suicides in Montana from January 2014 to March 2017. Seven occurred in the greater Helena area. Whitmoyer said Mountain-Pacifics goal is to reduce that number to zero. In 2017, Mountain-Pacific received a $50,000 grant from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana for a project to establish a youth task force that develops messaging and strategies that increase awareness of problems facing teens. These issues include stress, relationship issues, bullying and the stigma around mental health. We wanted to use a format that is compelling to students, Whitmoyer said, regarding the social media approach. HOSA wound up being a perfect partnership to promote better mental health. Tanner Duncan, who co-advises HOSA alongside Helena Bosch, said he felt the group had enough discussions revolving around mental health to acknowledge the significance of a resource like the Lets Talk! app. The photos are meant to spread the word on the app as a resource for those who need it, Duncan said. BROWN , Katharine, A., age 87 of Helena, passed away on Saturday, January 12, 2019. Services are pending at this time and will be announced when arranged. Please visit www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer the family a condolence or to share a memory of Katharine. AXTMAN, Dolores V. Dode, age 89 of Helena passed away Friday, January 11, 2019. The Rosary will be prayed at 6:00 p.m. today, January 15th at Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home, 3750 N. Montana Ave. A Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 12:00 p.m. on Wednesday, January 16th at SS Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church, 120 W. Riggs Street in East Helena. A reception will follow the Mass in the fellowship hall of the church. Burial will follow the reception at the Montana State Veterans Cemetery at Fort Harrison. In lieu of flowers, memorials in Dodes name are suggested to Tri Lakes Volunteer Fire Department, 3200 Spokane Creek Road, East Helena, MT 59635. Please visit www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer the family a condolence or to share a memory of Dode. For Thomas, the biggest question moving forward is how much hemp processing will happen within Montanas borders. It is Phillips' goal to process hemp locally and keep the business and value in-state. Part of the whole thing this plant has to offer is its environmental benefit," Phillips said. "The further it gets away from its source, the less that benefit is." Phillips is moving forward and expanding in her third year of growing. She will proceed carefully, not planting more than she can reasonable recoup. Phillips is currently working with people who want her hemp hurd for animal bedding and cold-pressed seed for biofuel. Im shooting for several different plots," she said. "Maybe a total of 100 acres. Phillips said she believes the research and verified data Montana Tech produces will help encourage company investment in the product. She said this research is integral to building the complicated infrastructure around hemp. When asked about her struggle for water rights, Phillips said she was glad she went through that ordeal. aaba wrote: The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple that mirrored those of the Mesopotamians and therefore may have studied the works of other cultures, an advantage that might explain why they eventually adopted more advanced masonry techniques. A The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple that mirrored those of the Mesopotamians B The early Greeks designed a mud-brick temple mirroring a Mesopotamian one C The mud-brick temples of the early Greeks mirrored a Mesopotamian design D The early Greeks' mud-brick temples mirrored the Mesopotamians' E The mud-brick temples of the early Greeks mirrored those of the Mesopotamians OA is B prep-scholar I can hardly understand why option B is better than option A. Could anybody explain me, please?Thank you very much bonjour_india wrote: Can you help me with this question please. I am not sure what triggered the Parallism in this sentence . Thanks Hey mSKR Can you help me with this question please. I am not sure what triggered the Parallism in this sentence .Thanks a corporation commits a crime whenever one of its employees commits a crime, if the employee acted In many nations, criminal law does not apply to corporations, in the United Stated today a corporation commits a crime whenever one of its employees commits a crime , if the employee acted within the scope of his or her authority and if the corporation benefited as a result does not apply is committing a crime its it was while acting acted I don't think use of different tense should be called as parallelism issue In many nations, criminal law does not apply to corporations, but in the United Stated today,within the scope of his or her authority and if the corporation benefited as a result.Step: split the sentence into small chunks ; remove unnecessary wordsbutso the core of sentence is ==Subject Verb , conjunction BUT SUBJECT VERB ( Dependent clause) i.e.:criminal law does not apply to corporations , BUT a corporation commits a crime whenever one of its employees commits a crimeBy now , you have understood the core of sentence and its meaning.how about we keep this option on hold for now and lets see if we can reject other options easily?Ok 1st part we have : criminal lawto corporations(B) a corporationwhenever one of its employees committed a crime, if those employees were actingI would not reject it directly just because it is in continuous tense. i will reject because the meaning is non sensical tense wiseIf X happens , then Y happensIf X happens, then Y is happening --> it may make sense in some scenario but at least in this scenario its better to use both in same tense ( present tense to display information . we donot use +ing because some action is not happening continuously).Some people say it as parallelism, I would say it as wrong tense.For me parallelism issue means if both parallel parts are using the same structure elementsIf X happens, Y is happening - i wont say it as parallelism issueIf X happens, Y might have happened - no parallelism issue - both sides have nouns and verbsWhen X happened , I went by car ,boat and by walk --> i would say this as parallelism issue because on parallelism marker : by car, boat( sentence element - preposition "by") is missing.(C) corporations commit a crime whenever one ofemployees does, on the condition that the employee acts= its has no antecedent(D) corporations commit crimes whenever an employee of those corporations commit a crime, if- wrong tense(E) the corporation whose employees commit a crime, commits a crime, whenever the employee- wrong tensewrong options are rejected because of tense issues/SV agreement issue ,. But it doesn't matter to our end result of getting the right answer.In summary, Once you understand the meaning and core structure, you can see the right and wrong options more easily. Sometimes even 2 options are grammatically correct and same as meaning wise. You would be able to make a decision why one option is better than others.I just noticed that even Expert in this post has not used the parallelism error in his explanation .(sometimes we may not even know what could be the name of this error but it would not hurt our chances of getting the right answer as far as we 1. extract the meaning 2. understand the structure )I hope it helps. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pedro Resources Ltd. (TSXV: PED.H) (the Company) announces that the definitive purchase agreement entered into with Colorado Vanadium Corp. (Colorado Vanadium), and its shareholders, has been terminated effective immediately. In connection with the proposed acquisition of Colorado Vanadium, no funds were advanced to Colorado Vanadium or any of its related parties and the Company did not assume any contingent liabilities or guarantees. For further information concerning the definitive purchase agreement entered into with Colorado Vanadium, readers are encouraged to review the Companys news release of July 16, 2018. The Company has requested that trading in its common shares resume on the TSX Venture Exchange, and will issue a further news release once the effective date for the resumption has been confirmed. Following the resumption of trading, the Company expects to resume its review of potential strategic transactions and acquisition opportunities. This review may include transactions outside of the resource sector, and the Company will provide further information on this review as it progresses. For further information, contact Glenda Kelly, Corporate Communications, at 403.830.1436 or visit the Companys website at www.pedroresources.ca. On behalf of the Board, Pedro Resources Ltd. Glenda Kelly, Director Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under the applicable laws. English French Elis closes the acquisition of Curantex GmbH in Germany Saint-Cloud, January 15, 2019 - Elis, an international multi-service provider, offering textile, hygiene and facility services solutions across Europe and Latin America, continues its expansion strategy in its key markets and closes the acquisition of 100% of Curantex GmbH and Curantex GmbH & Co. KG ( Curantex ) in Germany. The Curantex plant, located in Erkelenz, in North Rhine-Westphalia, serves clients in the Healthcare segment: Hospitals and Nursing homes (Flat linen, Workwear and Residents clothes). Curantex is a family business that generated revenues of c. 14 million euros in 2017. The acquisition, which further expands the existing Elis network in the area of Cologne, will allow the optimization of the existing plants located in the Western Germany, where the density of population is very high and where Elis already operates 5 plants dedicated to Flat linen and 2 plants dedicated to Workwear. Commenting on this announcement, Xavier Martire, CEO of Elis, declared: "The acquisition of Curantex enables Elis to extend its network in the very dynamic region of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. It enables Elis to continue consolidating the Healthcare market with a high-quality asset and an attractive portfolio of clients. The rapid integration of this family company, with a family member remaining as co-general manager, will contribute to the continuation of Elis' profitable growth." Contact Nicolas Buron Investor Relations Director - Phone: +33 1 75 49 98 30 - nicolas.buron@elis.com Audrey Bourgeois Investor Relations - Phone: +33 1 75 49 96 25 - audrey.bourgeois@elis.com English French PRESS RELEASE 15 January 2019 Aeroports de Paris SA Traffic at Paris Aeroport up by 3.8% in 2018, at 105.3 million passengers 2018 Full Year Traffic Paris Aeroport handled a total of 105.3 million passengers in 2018, an increase of 3.8% compared to the previous year. Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport welcomed 72.2 million passengers (+4.0%) and Paris-Orly Airport 33.1 million (+3.4%). Excluding the impact of the first semester strikes, the increase in traffic for Paris Aeroport would have been +4.5%. Traffic increased by 3.0% over the 1st half of the year and by 4.5% over the 2nd half. International traffic (excluding Europe) was up (+6.0%), with a growth in the following destinations: North America (+8.7%), the French Overseas Territories (+8.6%), the Middle East (+5.8%), Asia-Pacific (+5.8%), Africa (+4.2%) and Latin America (+1.2%); European traffic (excluding France) was up (+3.8%); Traffic within France was down (-1.7%); The number of connecting passengers has reduced by 2.5%. The connecting rate stood at 21.7%, down by 1.4 points. Passenger traffic at TAV Airports, 46.1%-owned by Groupe ADP, increased by 31.4% in 2018 to 151.6 million passengers, including, from May 2018, traffic of Antalya airport, in which TAV Airports took a stake. Passenger traffic at Santiago, 45%-owned by Groupe ADP, has risen by 8.8% in 2018, with 23.3 million passengers welcomed in 2018. Passenger traffic at Amman Airport, 51%-owned by Groupe ADP, has increased by 6.4% in 2018 to 8.4 million passengers. Traffic in December 2018 In December 2018, Paris Aeroport saw 8.1 million passengers; an increase of 3.2% compared to December 2017. 5.6 million passengers travelled through Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (+3.7%) and 2.5 million through Paris-Orly Airport (+2.0%). International traffic (excluding Europe) was up by 5.1%, with a growth in the following destinations: North America (+10.0%), the French Overseas Territories (+5.7%), Latin America (+4.0%), Asia-Pacific (+3.8%), Africa (+3.7%) and the Middle East (+1.4%); European traffic (excluding France) was up (+3.6%); Traffic within France was down (-2.8%); The number of connecting passengers increased by 2.4%. The connecting rate stood at 24.1%, down by 0.2 points compared to December 2017. Passenger traffic at TAV Airports, 46.1%-owned by Groupe ADP, increased by 4.3% in December 2018. Passenger traffic at Santiago, 45%-owned by Groupe ADP, has risen by 9.7% in December 2018. Passenger traffic at Amman Airport, 51%-owned by Groupe ADP, increased by 9.3% in December 2018 to 0.6 million passengers. Passengers 2018 % change 2018/2017 December 2018 % change 2018/2017 Paris-CDG 72,229,723 +4.0% 5,622,774 +3.7% Paris-Orly 33,120,685 +3.4% 2,502,888 +2.0% Total Paris Aeroport 105,350,408 +3.8% 8,125,662 +3.2% Santiago 23,303,384 +8.8% 2,155,698 +9.7% Amman 8,425,026 +6.4% 629,805 +9.3% Istanbul Ataturk 67,981,446 +6.0% 5,097,708 -2.2% Antalya 31,566,217 +22.0% 852,700 +13.7% Ankara Esenboga 16,732,651 +5.8% 1,161,437 -20.7% Izmir 13,425,547 +4.7% 923,236 -8.7% Milas Bodrum 4,185,961 +19.5% 87,876 -14.6% Gazipasa 1,215,627 +48.0% 31,345 +4.1% Medinah 8,144,790 +4.3% 696,099 -4.9% Tunisia 2,490,607 +47.9% 72,652 +51.1% Georgia 4,400,224 +20.4% 278,515 +20.8% Macedonia 2,342,541 +15.5% 170,689 +13.4% Zagreb (1) 3,336,310 + 7.9 % 214,865 + 4.5 % Total TAV Airports (2) 151,593,705 +31.4% 9,587,122 +4.3% Total TAV Airports restated (3) 155,821,921 +10.4% 9,587,122 -3.5% 1. Groupe ADP and TAV Airports have, a shareholding of 21% and 15%, respectively, in Zagreb Airport. To be compliant with TAV Airports presentations, Zagreb Airport traffic figures are integrated into the TAV Airports group traffic figures. 2. TAV Airports has taken a stake in Anlalya Airport since May 2018. To be compliant with TAV Airports' presentations, the % change presented above takes into account Antalya traffic just from May 2018. 3. Restated figures taking into account Antalya's traffic on a like-for-like basis for 2017. Aircraft Movements 2018 % change 2018/2017 December 2018 % change 2018/2017 Paris CDG 480,945 +1.1% 38,947 +4.6% Paris Orly 229,052 +0.0% 17,575 +2.6% Total Paris Aeroport 709,997 +0.8% 56,522 +4.0% Santiago 151,257 +7.7% 14,043 +7.2% Amman 76,889 +3.8% 5,970 +9.2% Istanbul Ataturk 454,046 +2.6% 35,730 -1.3% Antalya 186,222 +23.9% 6,436 +20.4% Ankara Esenboga 109,838 +3.0% 7,919 -19.3% Izmir 84,095 +2.8% 6,088 -6.2% Milas Bodrum 27,467 +20.0% 608 -10.6% Gazipasa 8,042 +45.6% 264 +11.9% Medinah 60,665 +4.5% 4,868 -3.3% Tunisia 16,196 +34.8% 623 +31.7% Georgia 44,122 +16.4% 3,148 +15.8% Macedonia 19,750 +8.9% 1,414 +2.9% Zagreb 43,688 +5,1% 3,060 +5,1% Total TAV Airports (1) 1,024,496 +23.9% 70,158 +6.4% Total TAV Airports restated (2) 1,054,131 +7.8% 70,158 -1.6% 1. TAV Airports has taken a stake in Antalya Airport since May 2018. To be compliant with TAV Airports' presentations, the % change presented above takes into account Antalya traffic just from May 2018. 2. Restated figures taking into account Antalya's traffic on a like-for-like basis for 2017. Geographic split Paris Aeroport (Paris-CDG and Paris-Orly) 2018 % change 2018/2017 Share of total traffic Dec. 2018 % change 2018/2017 Share of total traffic France -1.7% 15.4% -2.8% 15.7% Europe +3.8% 43.8% +3.6% 41.2% Other International Of which +6.0% 40.8% +5.1% 43.1% Africa +4.2% 11.4% +3.7% 12.5% North America +8.7% 10.4% +10.0% 10.0% Latin America +1.2% 3.0% +4.0% 3.6% Middle-East +5.8% 5.2% +1.4% 5.3% Asia-Pacific +5.8% 6.5% +3.8% 6.8% French Overseas Territories +8.6% 4.3% +5.7% 5.0% Total Paris Aeroport +3.8% 100 % +3.2% 100 % Paris Aeroport (Paris-CDG and Paris-Orly) 2018 % change 2018/2017 Dec. 2018 % change 2018/2017 Connecting Passengers (1) 11,403,753 -2.5% 995,365 +2.4% Connecting rate +21.7% -1.4 pt 24.1% -0.2 pt Seat load factor 85.6% +1.7 pt 82.6% -1.1 pt 1. Departing passengers Investor Relations: Audrey Arnoux, Head of Investor Relations +33 1 74 25 70 64 - invest@adp.fr Press contact: Lola Bourget, Head of Medias and Reputation Department +33 1 74 25 23 23 Groupe ADP develops and manages airports, including Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris-Orly and Paris-Le Bourget. In 2017, the group handled through its brand Paris Aeroport more than 101 million passengers and 2.3 million metric tonnes of freight and mail at Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly, and more than 127 million passengers in airports abroad through its subsidiary ADP International. Boasting an exceptional geographic location and a major catchment area, the Group is pursuing its strategy of adapting and modernizing its terminal facilities and upgrading quality of services; the group also intends to develop its retail and real estate businesses. In 2017, group revenue stood at 3,617 million and net income at 571 million. Registered office: 1, rue de France, 93 290 Tremblay-en-France. Aeroports de Paris is a public limited company (Societe Anonyme) with share capital of 296,881,806. Registered in the Bobigny Trade and Company Register under no. 552 016 628. groupeadp.fr The Manila International Airport Authority on Tuesday reminded departing air travelers, especially those bound for Hong Kong, not to bring banned items in their belongings. The MIAA issued the advisory days after a Filipino student going to Canada was arrested and detained in an airport in Hong Kong after a restricted item was found in his luggage. The student, whose name was withheld, was intercepted in Hong Kong airport last Jan. 8, 2019 for bringing extendable batons in his check-in baggage. The Philippine Consulate General earlier appealed to Filipino passengers entering or transiting Hong Kong to refrain from bringing prohibited items, particularly stunning devices in their carry-on or check-in luggage as these are considered as arms under the firearms and ammunition ordinance of Hong Kong.Meanwhile, immigration agents arrested a Malaysian who was barred to leave the country with a bogus Philippine passport at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). The fake Filipino was identified as Toong Yuen Chin who was held at the NAIA terminal 3 when he tried board an Air Asia flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. BI-Port Operations Division chief Grifton Medina said Chin used a counterfeit Philippine passport under the assumed name of Jacky Cruz Chin which he presented to the immigration officer who became suspicious when the said passport could not be encoded by the passport reader. Latvian English Riga, Latvia, 15 January 2019. Mogo Finance and its group companies (the "Group"), specialized in used car financing, announce changes in the Management Team as part of the envisaged corporate progress. Following the successful expansion of its geographical footprint, the Group is now further focusing on operational excellence. With effect from 14 January 2019, Edgars Egle stepped down from his position as CEO of Mogo Finance and handed over responsibility to Modestas Sudnius as his successor, who had been Co-CEO since 1 November 2018. Edgars Egle will accompany the change until the end of March as a Member of the Board. The Board of Directors would like to thank Edgards Egle for his valuable contribution to the development of the company and wishes him all the best for his future career and private life. Under his leadership, Mogo Finance grew its business from initially five to 13 countries in Europe and became the top of mind brand in used car financing. The appointment of the HUB 1 Regional Manager and former Lithuanian Country Manager Modestas Sudnius marks a further step towards continuing Mogo Finance's successful track record. The Board of Directors is convinced that Modestas Sudnius with his extensive experience amongst others in establishing operations in Lithuania in 2013 will be valuable contribution to the further development of the operational excellence of Mogo Finance. Within four years' time Modestas Sudnius steered Lithuanian operations to become a leading profitable used car finance company and further on successfully managed HUB 1 which consists of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia and Armenia. For more information, please contact: Mogo Finance (CFO) Email: maris.kreics@mogofinance.com Maris Kreics +371 66 900 900 Aalto Capital Email: sven.pauly@aaltocapital.com Sven Pauly +49 89 898 67 77 0 Notes to Editors: Mogo Finance is one of largest and fastest growing secured used car financing companies in Europe. Recognizing the niche in used car financing underserved by traditional lenders, Mogo Finance has expanded its operations to 13 countries issuing over EUR 320 million up to date and running a net loan portfolio over EUR 130 million. Mogo offers secured loans up to EUR 15,000 with maximum tenor of 84 months making used car financing process convenient, both for its customers and partners. Wide geographical presence makes Mogo unique over its rivals and diversifies revenue streams. Mogo Finance operates through its own branch network, more than 1,500 partner locations and strong online presence. Physical footprint makes Mogo Finance top of mind brand in used car financing. Established in 2012, headquartered in Riga, Latvia and operates in: Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Georgia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Albania, Belarus, Armenia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. www.mogofinance.com IMPORTANT INFORMATION The information contained herein is not for release, publication or distribution, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa or any other countries or otherwise in such circumstances in which the release, publication or distribution would be unlawful. The information contained herein does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of, the bonds in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration, exemption from registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. Persons into whose possession this announcement may come are required to inform themselves of and observe all such restrictions. This announcement does not constitute an offer of securities for sale in the United States. The bonds have not been and will not be registered under the Securities Act or under the applicable securities laws of any state of the United States and may not be offered or sold, directly or indirectly, within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons except pursuant to an applicable exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the Securities Act. This announcement does not constitute a prospectus for the purposes of Directive 2003/71/EC, as amended (the "Prospectus Directive") and does not constitute a public offer of securities in any member state of the European Economic Area (the "EEA"). This announcement does not constitute an offer of bonds to the public in the United Kingdom. No prospectus has been or will be approved in the United Kingdom in respect of the bonds. Accordingly, this announcement is not being distributed to, and must not be passed on to, the general public in the United Kingdom. The communication of this announcement as a financial promotion may only be distributed to and is only directed at (i) persons who are outside the United Kingdom or (ii) investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (the "Order") or (iii) high net worth companies, and other persons to whom it may lawfully be communicated, falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order (all such persons in (i), (ii) and (iii) above together being referred to as "Relevant Persons"). Any invitation, offer or agreement to subscribe, purchase or otherwise acquire such securities will be engaged in only with, Relevant Persons. Any person who is not a Relevant Person should not act or rely on this announcement or any of its contents. PROFESSIONAL INVESTORS ONLY - Manufacturer target market (MIFID II product governance) is eligible counterparties and professional clients only (all distribution channels). No PRIIPs key information document (KID) has been prepared as the bonds do not constitute packaged products and will be offered to eligible counterparties and professional clients only. Austin, Texas, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Unhealthy has become the new normal in Texas and across the country. Preventable chronic diseases have become epidemics, threatening to bankrupt our state and erode our quality of life in Texas. The declining health of Texans is the result of a highly complex, wide-sweeping societal crisis that requires urgent, bold, and innovative action. The Its Time Texas Community Challenge, is hosted by the nonprofit Its Time Texas, is working to make healthier lifestyles accessible to all Texans. The annual statewide healthy competition runs now through March 3, 2019 and encourages individuals to eat healthier, get physically active, reduce stress and take steps toward improving their health. By working together at the individual and community levels, we aim to mobilize people to make significant changes at all levels of our society to influence the extent to which people have access to and opportunities to live healthier lives, said Baker Harrell, Ph.D., Its Time Texas founder & CEO. At 33 percent, Texas has the 14th highest adult obesity rate in the nation. Together, we are working to reduce obesity rates and related chronic disease for all Texans and your involvement in the Community Challenge will make this possible in communities across the state. The 2018 Its Time Texas Community Challenge impacted more than 1.6 million Texans, drawing participation from residents in 209 Texas communities. The Community Challenge inspired more than 3,648,807 minutes of physical activity across our state. Joining the Its Time Texas Community Challenge is free and open to everyone. Individuals, mayors, schools and school districts, employers, and businesses can earn points on behalf of their communities for making healthy choices, like taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or participating in a group workout. Because of the Its Time Texas Community Challenge, I was motivated to start a weekly exercise regime, said San Antonio resident Marva Gonzales. I was even motivated to try out new exercise classes at my gym. Also, if I ever do not feel like exercising, I will remember the Challenge and then get inspired to do at least a two-mile walk! The competition is tracked and measured via Healthy Selfies #CommunityChallenge and submissions to the Community Challenge website. The websites leaderboard will be regularly updated with new submissions and points earned, firing up a competitive spirit in communities across Texas. At the end of the eight weeks, the winning community and school district in each size category will receive funds to put towards future health-related projects. Individuals will also be eligible for prize giveaways throughout the challenge. Participants reasons for joining the Community Challenge range from getting in shape for an upcoming trip, to being able to keep up with family and kids, to just needing an extra kick of motivation to start the new year on a healthy foot. I am doing it for me and for my community. Most importantly, I am doing this for my children. I want to be around as long as I can to enjoy them and the families they start and grow, said Melissa Cervantes, a Brownsville resident who has participated in the Community Challenge for two years in a row. I am demonstrating to my family and children that living a healthy lifestyle is what our bodies deserve. I am grateful that I can now read a book to my 3-year-old son without running out of breath. If you are capable of walking, running, etc., do it, because there are so many who wish they could, but cannot. Our capable body is a blessing. Find out more about the 2019 Its Time Texas Community Challenge here and put your health first! About Its Time Texas: Its Time Texas is the nonprofit that champions, convenes, and catalyzes the movement for a healthier Texas by making healthy lifestyles more accessible to all Texans. Our programs and partnerships empower Texans to lead healthier lives, build healthier communities, and contribute to a healthier state. Its Time Texas mobilizes and equips individuals, businesses, and institutions to take proven actions that result in significantly healthier people, healthier places (including homes, schools, and employers), healthier products and services, and healthier policies. Learn more at www.itstimetexas.org, like us on Facebook @ItsTimeTX and follow along on Twitter @ITSTIME. New York, NY, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- With the rollout of a redesigned and reimagined website, John Tucker said Kaplan Lawyers PC is taking advantage of an opportunity to show what the New York law firm is all about. Tucker is the director of claims management at Kaplan Lawyers PC, which helps clients in New York that have been injured because of someone elses negligence. He said that most people feel overwhelmed before they come to the Kaplan Lawyers PC offices, not just because of their injury, but also because the legal system can be intimidating. Our goal is to put people at ease, Tucker said. We do things differently than many other firms. We meet clients on their terms. We wanted to accomplish the same thing with the new incarnation of our website. Tucker said that every aspect of the site - https://www.kaplanlawyers.com/ - was approached with the user in mind. From the programming to the language we used, the user is our priority, Tucker said. We wanted it to be easy to navigate and understand. There are so many obstacles in life for someone suffering from a serious injury, the last hurdle they should have to face is finding a firm that will stand up for their rights. Tucker said that todays potential clients start their search for an attorney online, and having a quality, engaging online presence is essential for a law firm. Kaplan Lawyers PC handles several types of injury claims, including cases involving vehicle accidents, truck accidents, premises liability, medical malpractice, nursing home neglect, workplace injuries and construction worker accidents. Representatives of the firm regularly make trips to clients homes to accommodate their needs and work with them on their cases. Tucker believes this client-centric approach reflects the guiding principle of the firm. Were extremely proud of the results we get for our clients, Tucker said. But we know that the quality of our services and the closeness of our relationships is vital to our success. Were thrilled to be able to relaunch a website that encapsulates our values. About Kaplan Lawyers PC The attorneys at Kaplan Lawyers PC help clients in legal matters ranging from personal injury claims to workers compensation disputes. They have locations in New York City, Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau County and Suffolk County. Visit the new Kaplan Lawyers PC website, https://www.kaplanlawyers.com/ , to learn more. Attachments Dublin, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Kuwait Commercial Vehicle Market By Vehicle Type (Light Commercial Vehicle, Medium Commercial Vehicle, Heavy Commercial Vehicle & Bus), By Fuel Type (Diesel, Gasoline & Others), By Application, Competition Forecast & Opportunities, 2013-2023" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Kuwait commercial vehicle market is forecast to reach $ 940 million by 2023 Growing demand for commercial vehicles in the country can be attributed to increasing number of construction and infrastructure development projects, improving road infrastructure and stabilizing crude oil prices. oreover, surging demand for buses for public transportation, worker's transportation and for the transportation of school and university students across the country is expected to positively influence the country's commercial vehicle market in the coming years. Rising logistics demand from e-commerce sector and growing presence of Indian and Chinese players in the bus segment is also expected to positively impact the country's commercial vehicle market through 2023. Why You Should Buy This Report? To gain an in-depth understanding of commercial vehicle market in Kuwait To identify the on-going trends and anticipated growth in the next five years To help industry consultants, commercial vehicle distributor, distributors and other stakeholders align their market-centric strategies To obtain research-based business decisions and add weight to presentations and marketing material To gain competitive knowledge of leading market players To avail of 10% customization in the report without any extra charges and get the research data or trends added in the report as per the buyer's specific needs Some of the major companies operating in Kuwait commercial vehicle market are Toyota Motor Corporation Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation Isuzu Motors Kuwait Co Hyundai Motor Company MAN Truck and Bus Mercedes-Benz Volvo Ashok Leyland Hino Motors Ltd. Tata Motors Limited Key Topics Covered: 1. Product Overview 2. Research Methodology 3. Analyst View 4. Voice of Customer 4.1. VOC - Light Commercial Vehicle 4.1.1. Factors Influencing Purchase Decision 4.1.2. Aided/Unaided Brand Recall 4.1.3. Brand Switching/Brand Switching Attributes 4.1.4. Brand Satisfaction Level 4.2. VOC - Medium Commercial Vehicle 4.3. VOC - Heavy Commercial Vehicle 4.4. VOC - Bus 5. Kuwait Commercial Vehicle Market Outlook 5.1. Market Size & Forecast 5.1.1. By Value & Volume 5.2. Market Share & Forecast 5.2.1. By Vehicle Type (Light Commercial Vehicle, Medium Commercial Vehicle, Heavy Commercial Vehicle & Bus) 5.2.2. By Fuel Type (Diesel, Gasoline & Alternate Fuels) 5.2.3. By Application (Construction, Logistics, Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) & Others) 5.2.4. By Region 5.3. Market Attractiveness Index (By Vehicle Type) 5.4. Market Attractiveness Index (By Region) 6. Kuwait Light Commercial Vehicle Market Outlook 6.1. Market Size & Forecast 6.1.1. By Value & Volume 6.2. Market Share & Forecast 6.2.1. By Vehicle Type (Light Duty Truck, Pickup Truck and Van) 6.2.2. By Fuel Type (Diesel, Gasoline & Alternate Fuels) 6.2.3. By Application (Construction, Logistics, Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) & Others) 6.2.4. By Company 6.3. Market Attractiveness Index (By Vehicle Type) 7. Kuwait Medium Commercial Vehicle Market Outlook 7.1. Market Size & Forecast 7.1.1. By Value & Volume 7.2. Market Share & Forecast 7.2.1. By Tonnage (7.5-12 Ton & 12-16 Ton) 7.2.2. By Fuel Type (Diesel, Gasoline & Alternate Fuels) 7.2.3. By Application (Construction, Logistics & Others) 7.2.4. By Company 7.3. Market Attractiveness Index (By Vehicle Type) 8. Kuwait Bus Market Outlook 8.1. Market Size & Forecast 8.1.1. By Value & Volume 8.2. Market Share & Forecast 8.2.1. By Vehicle Type (Light Bus, Medium Bus & Heavy Bus) 8.2.2. By Fuel Type (Diesel, Gasoline & Alternate Fuels) 8.2.3. By Company 8.3. Market Attractiveness Index (By Vehicle Type) 9. Kuwait Heavy Commercial Vehicle Market Outlook 9.1. Market Size & Forecast 9.1.1. By Value & Volume 9.2. Market Share & Forecast 9.2.1. By Tonnage (16-25 Ton & Above 25 Ton) 9.2.2. By Fuel Type (Diesel, Gasoline & Alternate Fuels) 9.2.3. By Application (Construction, Logistics & Others) 9.2.4. By Company 9.3. Market Attractiveness Index (By Vehicle Type) 10. Import-Export Analysis 11. Market Dynamics 11.1. Drivers 11.2. Challenges 12. Market Trends & Developments 13. SWOT Analysis 14. Policy & Regulatory Landscape 15. Economic Profile 16. Competitive Landscape 17. Strategic Recommendations For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/p4zqxc/kuwait_commercial?w=12 Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. SANTIAGO, Chile, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ITAU CORPBANCA (NYSE: ITCB; SSE: ITAUCORP) announced that it filed today with the Chilean Financial Market Commission a Material Event Notice reporting that the Board of Directors unanimously rejects allegations that resulted in a fine by the Chilean Superintendency of Banks and Financial Institutions (Superintendencia de Bancos e Instituciones Financieras or SBIF). Nevertheless, the Board decided not to file a claim against SBIF Resolution N101 issued on January 4, 2019. The Material Event Notice is also available on the companys corporate website at itau.cl/investor-relations . About Itau Corpbanca ITAU CORPBANCA (NYSE: ITCB; SSE: ITAUCORP) is the entity resulting from the merger of Banco Itau Chile with and into Corpbanca on April 1, 2016. The current ownership structure is: 38.14% owned by Itau Unibanco, 28.57% owned by the Saieh Family and 33.29% owned by minority shareholders. Itau Unibanco is the sole controlling shareholder of the merged bank. Within this context and without limiting the above, Itau Unibanco and CorpGroup have signed a shareholders agreement relating to corporate governance, dividend policy (based on performance and capital metrics), transfer of shares, liquidity and other matters. The bank is the fifth largest private bank in Chile and will result in a banking platform for future expansion in Latin America, specifically in Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Central America. Itau Corpbanca is a commercial bank based in Chile with operations also in Colombia and Panama. In addition, Itau Corpbanca has a branch in New York and a representative office in Madrid. Focused on large and medium companies and individuals, Itau Corpbanca offers universal banking products. In 2012, the bank initiated a regionalization process and as of the date hereof has acquired two banks in Colombia -Banco Corpbanca Colombia and Helm Bank-, becoming the first Chilean bank having banking subsidiaries abroad. The merger with Banco Itau Chile and the business combination of our two banks in Colombia, represent the continued success of our regionalization process. As of November 30, 2018, according to the Chilean Superintendency of Banks, Itau Corpbanca was the fifth largest private bank in Chile in terms of the overall size of its customer loan portfolio, equivalent to 10.3% market share. As of the same date, according to the Colombian Superintendency of Finance, Itau Corpbanca Colombia was the seventh largest bank in Colombia in terms of total loans and the eighth largest bank in Colombia in terms of total deposits, as reported under local regulatory and accounting principles. As of October 31, 2018, its market share by loans reached 4.7%. Proclamation 2019 names Learning A-Z Raz-Plus as a resource for Grades K5, bringing blended learning curriculum to students statewide DALLAS, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Learning A-Z today announced that Raz-Plus ELL Texas Edition has been included in the Texas State Board of Education 2019 Proclamation Adoption list for English Language Arts and Reading instruction for Grades K5. Raz-Plus is an award-winning curriculum that offers an extensive collection of digital curriculum resources and tools to help improve the literacy skills of every student, at every level. The Raz-Plus ELL Texas Edition meets the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) as well as the English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS) required for K5 literacy curriculum in Texas schools. The Raz-Plus ELL Texas Edition curriculum is currently being used with great success in thousands of classrooms across Texas. Maria Rosas-Soto, a dual-language teacher in the Ysleta Independent School District in El Paso, said, I used Raz-Plus and the ELL Edition for guided reading in the classroom and for at-home practice. A lot of my students were beginning ELLs and by the end of the year, they scored Advanced High on the TELPAS test." The Texas adoption signals a sea change for content delivery and literacy instruction in Texas schools, said Patrick Marcotte, president of Learning A-Z. With the adoption of Raz-Plus ELL Texas Edition, digital curricula and digital content have taken their place alongside traditional print resources to provide core instructional content. We are thrilled to help Texas districts and schools individualize learning and meet the academic needs of students through a blended approach to reading instruction, practice, and assessment. A blended learning platform that provides effective teacher-led instruction, developmentally appropriate reading practice, formative assessment, and data-driven reporting, Raz-Plus provides the opportunity for schools and districts to customize their ELA implementations and not be limited to one static textbook. Raz-Plus includes thousands of materials available to teach literacy, with a large online library of leveled books. The ELL Edition supplements Raz-Plus with thousands of resources designed specifically to support English language learners. A sample of additional product resources includes: Close Reading Packs and Passages Comprehension Skill Packs ELL Leveled Reader Packs Foundational books with lessons and student activities Classic novels with lesson plans and supporting student activities Lesson plans and activities that align to popular trade books. Raz-Plus strengthens the connection between what is being taught and what students are practicing. It offers resources available in printable, projectable, online, and mobile formats. To learn more about Raz-Plus ELL Texas Edition, visit https://www.learninga-z.com/site/lp2/texas-instructors/ . About Learning AZ Learning A-Z is a literacy-focused PreK-6 educational provider of technology-enabled learning solutions. Our products blend traditional teacher-led instruction with robust online resources to make teaching more effective and efficient, practice more accessible and personalized, assessment more strategic and automated, and learning more informed and proactive. Our suite of products includes: Raz-Plus, Reading A-Z, Raz-Kids, Headsprout, Science A-Z, Writing A-Z, and Vocabulary A-Z. Learning A-Z products are used by more than 7 million students in more than 170 countries. Learning A-Z is a business unit of Cambium Learning Group, Inc. For more information, please visit www.learninga-z.com or find us on Facebook or Twitter . About Cambium Learning Group, Inc. Cambium Learning Group is an award-winning educational technology solutions leader dedicated to helping all students reach their potential through individualized and differentiated instruction. Using a research-based, personalized approach, Cambium Learning Group delivers SaaS resources and instructional products that engage students and support teachers in fun, positive, safe and scalable environments. These solutions are provided through Learning A-Z (online differentiated instruction for elementary school reading, writing and science), ExploreLearning (online interactive math and science simulations and a math fact fluency solution), Voyager Sopris Learning (blended solutions that accelerate struggling learners to achieve in literacy and math and professional development for teachers), and VKidz Learning (online comprehensive homeschool education and programs for literacy and science). We believe that every student has unlimited potential, that teachers matter, and that data, instruction, and practice are the keys to success in the classroom and beyond. Come learn with us at www.cambiumlearning.com . CALGARY, Alberta, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Catherine Rothrock, the Chief Economist for the Government of Alberta is the guest of the CPBI Southern Alberta Region for a special Annual Economic Update luncheon on Tuesday January 22, 2019 at the Fairmont Palliser Hotel in Calgary, Alberta. The Alberta Treasury Board and Finance analyzes economic trends and develops forecasts to support budget and fiscal planning for the government. Many in Alberta have been hurt by the impact of falling oil prices and its cascading effects on the Alberta economy. Will the Federal governments purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline finally bring Alberta oil to market? The recent forced cut in oil production is starting to show unforeseen impacts as businesses up and down the supply chain react to new artificially tighter price differentials. As the Chief Economist for the Government of Alberta, Catherine will present key themes and risks affecting the global economy, as well as, Albertas economic performance and outlook. Anyone, including media, who would like to attend this special luncheon session on Tuesday January 22, 2019 at the Fairmont Palliser Hotel in Calgary can register online by visiting www.cpbi-icra.ca . Founded in 1960, the Canadian Pension & Benefits Institute is a national, not-for-profit organization that specializes in providing members and non-members alike with industry-related educational sessions across Canada in the pensions, employee benefits and investment sectors. Media contact: Name Krista Frayn Number 587-435-2724 Email albertasouth@cpbi-icra.ca VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ICC International Cannabis Corp. (CSE: WRLD.U) (FWB: 8K51) (OTC: KNHBF) ("ICC" or International Cannabis or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a Letter of Intent (the LOI), pursuant to which the companies will complete a Definitive Purchase Agreement (the Definitive Agreement) on or before March 1, 2019, to acquire 49.9% of Wayland Group Corp.s (CSE: WAYL)(FWB: 75M)(OTCQB: MRRCF) (Wayland) international assets and licence portfolio, as further described below (the Transaction). Waylands international assets and licences will be held in a subsidiary (the International Subsidiary), owned by Wayland and International Cannabis. The International Subsidiary will include key management from Wayland. Upon closing of the Transaction, International Cannabis will acquire a 49.9% interest in the following operations, partnerships, licences and asset exposure: German Cannabis import license, indoor medical cannabis cultivation license application, 820,000 ft2 facility with 50,000 sq. ft. certified packaging/distribution center (replacement cost of 110M Euro), annual production of over 2,400 kg of CBD isolate, 165 hectares of CBD cultivation operations, as well as a three-year agreement to supply medical Cannabis to 2,200 pharmacies. The 820,000 ft2 Ebersbach Facility has a replacement cost of 110M Euro. Of the many applicants for German medical THC cultivation licenses, only two have a completed facility and of those that do, the largest is 14,000 sq. ft. or 1.7% the size of the Ebersbach Facility. Swiss cannabis cultivation operation, with 60,000 square foot cultivation facility, proprietary genetics portfolio available for export, THC distillate import capabilities and material revenues from Haxxon AG operations; Leading candidacy for one of seven medical cannabis licences to be issued by the Italian government, as well as an ownership interest in a joint venture to produce Cannabis products; Maltese license to manufacture finished-dose medical Cannabis; Colombian licences for THC/CBD production, extraction and export and pending access to a EU-GMP certified API facility for Cannabis distillate processing; Leading candidacy for UK-based medical Cannabis import license, Australia late stage medical Cannabis applicant; Leading candidacy for the first Argentinian Federal Medical Cannabis licence, approval expected in early 2019, existing supply agreements for CBD products; and Integration of Waylands European operations teams into the International Subsidiary. COMBINED HIGHLIGHTS Upon successful completion of the Transaction, International Cannabis and Wayland will jointly hold or have access to the following: Distribution or supply agreements with over 39,000 corporate and independent pharmacies; 30,000 kg EU-GMP medical Cannabis import agreement over a three year term with Wayland; 16 licences, spanning, 12 countries and four continents; 820,000 square feet of clean room cultivation space; 2,400 kg of CBD isolate produced in 2018; Eugene Beukman, Chief Executive Officer and a Director of International Cannabis, stated: This is a watershed acquisition for International Cannabis; adding cannabis operations in a variety of high profile jurisdictions, all while increasing exposure to high growth marketplaces including Germany and the Asia Pacific theatre. This acquisition will solidify ICC as a global Cannabis leader, with exposure to a broader range of countries than any competitor to date. ICC will have the most robust portfolio of international cannabis assets to date and is well on its way to accomplishing its mandate to be the largest vertically integrated Cannabis Company in the world. International Cannabis will work with Wayland to expedite a comprehensive integration of its experienced operations team into the International Subsidiary. GERMANY Upon closing of the Transaction, International Cannabis will control 49.9% of a German medical Cannabis import license, as well as a three-year supply contract to provide 9,000 kg of dried Cannabis flower to an established German licensed importer and distributor of Cannabis to over 2,200 pharmacies. International Cannabis will also acquire a 49.9% interest in the Ebersbach Facility, located in Dresden, Germany. The Ebersbach Facility is equipped with 820,000 square feet of clean room cultivation space. In addition, the Ebersbach Facility is poised to receive EU-GMP certifications for narcotics import and wholesale in Q1 2019. CBD isolate production from the Ebersbach Facility totalled 2,400 kg in 2018. The Ebersbach Facility has a replacement cost of 110M Euro. The Company anticipates that it will be a leading applicant for a German indoor medical THC cultivation license and it will control a 500-hectare outdoor CBD cultivation operation. Of the many applicants for medical THC cultivation licenses, only two have a completed facility and of those that do, the largest is 14,000 square feet or 1.7% the size of the Ebersbach Facility. In Q4 2018, the Waylands German CBD operations completed its inaugural harvest. Leveraging proprietary harvesting and drying systems, designed to optimize yield from industrial hemp, the harvest yielded 120,615 kg of dry hemp flowers for processing into resin. International Cannabis will have direct exposure to contract production manufacturing of CBD products, including soft gel products and tinctures. In September 2018, the Companys 49.9% owned subsidiary, Mariplant GmbH distributed its first batch of CBD capsules to pharmacies in Germany. The German patient population for medical Cannabis is experiencing exponential growth, with over 79,000 patients now active, up from approximately 800 in 20171. SWITZERLAND Pursuant to the Transaction, International Cannabis will acquire a 49.9% interest of Haxxon AG (Haxxon). Haxxon operates a 60,000 square foot production facility located just outside of Zurich. The Company plans to upgrade Haxxons existing facilities, with planned capital expenditures of approximately $4.2m to increase Haxxons production capacity significantly. Through the Companys partnership with Swiss based BBI, International Cannabis is on track to become the first commercial THC production license holder in Switzerland. BBI is a medical plant producer based in Thurgau Switzerland, which previously held two Swiss THC research licenses. This license will permit International Cannabis, BBI and Wayland to produce Medical cannabis for the Swiss marketplace, under the Swiss Medic regulatory framework. Forthwith, through its partnership with BBI, International Cannabis has access to a catalogue of proprietary genetics, specifically developed for outdoor cultivation on South America sites. In addition, International Cannabis now has access to the framework for the only successful import of THC distillate from Canada to Switzerland to date. Switzerland has robust healthcare expenditures of upwards of 50b Euro per year, as well as annual Cannabis and hemp product sales of over 85m Euro. UNITED KINGDOM International Cannabis will acquire a 25.45% interest in Theros Pharma Ltd. (Theros). Theros is an early-stage company that has successfully imported Cannabis to the UK for patients with a prescription for medical Cannabis. International Cannabis interest in Theros affords the Company access to the growing UK market for sale and distribution of its products. Recent UK legislation allows for the prescription of Cannabis from a medical specialist via a regular pharmacy model. The UK had healthcare expenditures of over 220b Euro in 20171. Access to this burgeoning market, with National Health Service insurance coverage for medical Cannabis to ensure patient outcomes, is a key strategic element of International Cannabis vertically integrated distribution mandate. International Cannabis plans to leverage its interest in Theros to augment its existing European distribution network of over 36,000 pharmacies. ITALY International Cannabis will be a leading candidate for one of seven medical Cannabis licences to be issued by the Italian government. The Company will acquire an interest in a strategic joint venture between Wayland and CBD Italian Factory SS, a Group San Martino company. Group San Martino is large-scale agricultural company in the Piedmont region of Italy, who boasts considerable regional relationships and existing infrastructure, including a biogas electricity plant. The joint venture partners will collaborate to produce high-quality Cannabis products in Italy. The joint venture will combine revolutionary technology by Rockwell Automation, paired with existing infrastructure in Piedmont, Italy, including agricultural expertise and biogas electricity. This will allow the sustainable production of quality CBD and THC products from a naturally derived fuel source. A flagship component of the joint venture will be its relationship with the University of Eastern Piedmont; the University will develop a research centre for the betterment of Cannabis products for humans and animals. Its initial research will focus on producing high CBD content for medical purposes, which will lead to further studies into high THC content and medical applications. MALTA As a result of the Transaction, International Cannabis will acquire control of a license to manufacture finished-dose medical Cannabis in Malta. The Maltese license will be awarded by the Medicines Agency, and the LOI for a license was granted from Malta Enterprise, the country's official economic development agency. The Maltese license will permit the Company to supply its Maltese operation with raw materials that will then undergo advanced post processing to create pure Cannabis distillates, allowing for true pharmaceutical manufacturing. Commercial production of distillates is integral for the Company, as it advances the timeline for delivery of its full suite of products to European markets where such products are legal. International Cannabis will receive an initial allocation of 2,750 square metres of industrial space for its Maltese medical Cannabis manufacturing operations. COLOMBIA International Cannabis will acquire a 49.9% interest in Gardina Pharmaceutical SAS, formerly Colmed (Gardina), a licenced producer of THC cannabis in Colombia. Gardina holds claim to four licences for cultivation and processing on a 125-hectare leased land package in Ibague, Colombia. In Colombia, International Cannabis and Wayland will engage in year-round, outdoor THC Cannabis cultivation, pending completion of certain infrastructure investments. In addition to its existing Colombian operations, International Cannabis is planning to construct 415,000 square feet of processing, clone and vegetation greenhouse facilities to support outdoor Cannabis flower production. It is expected that a minimum of two full harvests will be achieved per year, operating in an ideal climate. ARGENTINA As part of the Transaction, International Cannabis will acquire 49.9% of 819 hectares of developed agricultural land in Argentina. The Company will be a leading candidate for the first Federal Medical Cannabis licence in Argentina, with approval expected in 2019. International Cannabis Argentinian interests include existing supply agreements for CBD products. AUSTRALIA International Cannabis will gain increased exposure to the Asia Pacific theatre through the acquisition of a 24.45% interest in Tropicann Pty. Ltd. (Tropicann), a newly formed, privately owned Australian company located in Darwin, Northern Territory. Tropicann is an Australian late stage medical Cannabis applicant, with sponsorship support from the Government of Australias Northern Territory. International Cannabis plans to partner with industry leaders in Australia's expanding Cannabis industry. With the acquisition of an interest in Tropicann, the Company will reinforce its position in the burgeoning Asia-Pacific marketplace. OPERATING TEAM Wayland has cultivated a highly experienced European operations team, which boasts upstream, downstream, logistics, construction and distribution capabilities. As a result of the proposed Transaction, International Cannabis will gain access to Waylands advisory board members. International Cannabis will confer with Waylands advisory board to develop optimized production and distribution strategies, branding campaigns, as well as the continued penetration of new Cannabis and CBD markets and verticals. The jointly owned International Subsidiary will include key management from Wayland. TERMS Under the terms of the Agreement, International Cannabis will acquire 49.9% of Waylands international portfolio of assets and Wayland will receive 300,000,000 shares of International Cannabis that trade under the symbol WRLD.U on the Canadian Securities Exchange, at a deemed price of USD $0.43 per share (the Issue Price). Based on the Issue Price, once complete this Transaction will value Waylands international business at approximately USD$258,000,000. The transaction is expected to close on or around March 1, 2019 and is subject to a number of conditions including certain regulatory, stock exchange and securityholder approvals and other conditions, completion of satisfactory due diligence by International Cannabis and Wayland, Wayland and International Cannabis each receiving fairness opinions, the completion of a reorganization of Waylands international assets and the finalizing of a Purchase Agreement. The transaction is subject to a finders fee. ICC International Cannabis, through its subsidiaries, has operating assets and is developing a world-class platform for cultivation, extraction, formulation and distribution across the globe in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Poland, Switzerland, Germany, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Malta, Colombia, Argentina, Australia, South Africa and Lesotho. ON BEHALF OF THE ICC INTERNATIONAL CANNABIS CORP. BOARD OF DIRECTORS Eugene Beukman Eugene Beukman CEO, Director +1 (604) 687-2038 info@intlcannabiscorp.com Learn more about ICC by visiting our website at: https://intlcannabiscorp.com/ Stay up to date with everything happening at ICC by following or liking us on: Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ICCWRLD/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/ICC_WRLD LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/icc-wrld/ THE CSE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR ADEQUACY OF THIS RELEASE. Notice Regarding Forward Looking Information: This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "continue", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or information that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. This information is only a prediction. Various assumptions were used in drawing the conclusions or making the projections contained in the forward-looking information throughout this news release. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to: political changes in Canada and internationally, future legislative and regulatory developments involving cannabis in Canada and internationally, the Companys ability to secure distribution channels in international jurisdictions, competition and other risks affecting the Company in particular and the cannabis industry generally. The forward-looking information contained in this release is expressly qualified by the foregoing cautionary statements and is made as of the date of this release. Except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward- looking information to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, or otherwise. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 14, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GoldQuest Mining Corp. (TSXV:GQC) GoldQuest or the Company) announces today the appointment of Dave Massola as Chief Executive Officer of the Company, effective January 15, 2019. Mr. Massola has served as the Companys Vice President, Corporate Development since October 2016. Dave Massola brings a wealth of experience to the role, with over three decades of international mining experience. Mr. Massolas experience includes strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, capital raising and risk management. In addition to his time with the Company, this includes 20 years with BHP-Billiton at the Escondida Copper Mine in Chile, the Island Copper Mine in British Columbia and the Ekati Diamond Mine in the Northwest Territories. As Vice President and CFO of De Beers Canada, Mr. Massola contributed to the development of two diamond mines in northern Canada. As Senior Vice President of Finance and CFO of GlobeStar Mining, Mr. Massola was key in the financing, construction and operations of GlobeStars Cerro de Maimon Mine in the Dominican Republic and negotiated its subsequent sale. Mr. Massola was also the President and CEO of Continental Nickel Ltd. while it was developing a mine in Tanzania and led negotiations for its subsequent takeover. The Companys current Chief Executive Officer, Bill Fisher, will be continuing as non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Company. Patrick Michaels, of the Board of Directors commented On behalf of the Board of Directors, we wish to thank Bill Fisher for his valued service as CEO and Executive Chairman of GoldQuest. We look forward to continuing to work with Bill as non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Company. The primary purpose of the management changes is to conserve capital, as discussed in the Companys October 29, 2018 news release. Pursuant to its agreement with Mr. Massola, the Company will issue 1,000,000 stock options with a term of five years and an exercise price of $0.15 to Mr. Massola, subject to approval by the TSX Venture Exchange. The stock options will vest as follows: on the date of grant, on the six month anniversary from the date of the grant and on the one year anniversary from the date of the grant. About GoldQuest GoldQuest is a Canadian based emerging mineral development company with projects in the Dominican Republic traded on the TSX-V under the symbol GQC.V and in Frankfurt/Berlin with symbol M1W. For further information, please contact: GoldQuest Mining Corp. Dave Massola (416) 583-5605 Forward-looking statements: Statements contained in this news release that are not historical facts are forward-looking information that involves known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the appointment of Mr. Massola and the terms thereof, Mr. Fishers change of role, conservation of capital, and the business of the Company. In certain cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", seeking, continues, "has proven", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "potential", "likelihood", "appears", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "at least", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "will, may", "could", "would", "should", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and other factors include, among others, risks related to the Company's ability to conserve capital and to continue as a going concern; risks inherent in mineral exploration; risks related to operations in foreign countries; delays in obtaining governmental approvals; government regulation of mining operations; environmental risks and the timing and possible outcome of litigation. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could affect the Company and may cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, do not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. All statements are made as of the date of this news release and the Company is under no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions that the Company believes to be reasonable, including expectations that the Company's activities will be in accordance with the Company's public statements and stated goals; that there will be no material adverse change affecting the Company or its properties; that all required approvals will be obtained and that there will be no significant disruptions affecting the Company or its properties. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 14, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC (KSF) and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have until January 31, 2019 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP), if they purchased the Companys shares between March 2, 2017, and August 10, 2017, inclusive (the Class Period) or traceable to its March 3, 2017 Initial Public Offering. This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. What You May Do If you purchased shares of Snap and would like to discuss your legal rights and how this case might affect you and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, contact KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or via email (lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com), or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-snap/ to learn more. If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court by January 31, 2019. About the Lawsuit Snap and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On August 10, 2017, Snap disclosed disappointing Q2 results including ongoing lower-than-expected growth in daily active users (DAU), a key user engagement metric. During the earnings conference call, the Company admitted to using growth hacking or sending push notifications to users to stoke their access levels, and hence boost user metrics. On this news, the price of Snaps shares plummeted $1.94 per share, or approximately 14%. The case is In Re Snap Inc. Securities Litigation, No. 2:17-cv-03679. About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC KSF, whose partners include former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is a law firm focused on securities, antitrust and consumer class actions, along with merger & acquisition and breach of fiduciary litigation against publicly traded companies on behalf of shareholders. The firm has offices in New York, California and Louisiana. To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com . Contact: Motorists advised on new traffic scheme posted January 15, 2019 at 11:05 pm by Joel E. Zurbano January 15, 2019 at 11:05 pm Authorities on Tuesday advised motorists to expect a stop-and-go traffic scheme along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue and other parts of Metro Manila during the state visit of Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena to the country from Jan. 15 to 19. Maithripala was scheduled to arrive in Manila Tuesday. In its advisory, the Metro Manila Development Authority stated that possible traffic disruptions could be experienced in the vicinity of Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay City, roads in Makati Citys central business district, Pasig commercial district, Manila City and Quezon City when the Sri Lankan leaders vehicle convoy passes by. A full stop of traffic would be observed and be opened immediately as convoy passes through, the MMDA advisory stated.Maithripala is visiting the Philippines at the invitation of President Rodrigo Duterte. The occasion is the first high-level visit by a foreign government leader to the country this year. Assistant Foreign Affairs Secretary Elmer Cato said Maithripala will be holding bilateral talks with Duterte and will also visit the Asian Development Bank in Manila and the International Rice Research Institute in Los Banos. COMMENT DISCLAIMER: Reader comments posted on this Web site are not in any way endorsed by Manila Standard. Comments are views by manilastandard.net readers who exercise their right to free expression and they do not necessarily represent or reflect the position or viewpoint of manilastandard.net. While reserving this publications right to delete comments that are deemed offensive, indecent or inconsistent with Manila Standard editorial standards, Manila Standard may not be held liable for any false information posted by readers in this comments section. SEATTLE, Jan. 14, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- US BioTek Laboratories (US BioTek) announced today the appointment of a new President and CEO, Jack Frausing. Frausing assumes the leadership from co-founder and current president Raymond Suen and his co-founder and wife Margaret Suen, the current executive vice president. The addition of Frausing is the first step in an overall plan to invest significantly to expand the the companys testing and reporting capabilities, as well as expand sales and marketing to reach and service a growing customer base. Raymond and Margaret will continue to be active in the business to facilitate a smooth transition. Headquartered in Shoreline, Washington, US BioTek is a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) accredited testing facility that provides a variety of immunology and chemistry profiles to clinicians worldwide. In December 2018, the Suens partnered with Pike Street Capital, a growth-oriented private equity company, which acquired a majority interest in US BioTek. Were thrilled to have Jack on board, given his proven experience in building global sales operations and distribution networks, said Paul Caragher, Partner at Pike Street Capital. The company has already established itself for quality, accuracy and great customer service, and were looking to build on those strengths in the coming months. Frausing has nearly 30 years of global experience in sales and commercial leadership. Most recently he led global sales for Radiant Vision Systems, a leader in sophisticated imaging technologies for light measurement, manufacturing integrity, and surface quality for the worlds leading industrial OEMs and suppliers. Margaret and I have taken so much pride in building US BioTek and we believe Jack is the right leader for the next phase of growth, said Raymond Suen. One of the reasons we partnered with Pike Street Capital was their desire to invest in the team and business. US BioTeks planned expansion comes at a time of growing demand for specialty testing services for food-related allergies and intolerances. More than 170 foods have been reported to cause allergic reactions, and up to 15 million Americans have food allergies, including 5.9 million children under age 18, according to Food Allergy Research & Education, the worlds largest nonprofit organization dedicated to food allergy awareness, education, research and advocacy. While most food allergies arise in childhood, at least 15 percent of food allergies are first diagnosed in adulthood. About US BioTek Laboratories Headquartered in Shoreline, Washington, US BioTek Laboratories, Inc. is a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) accredited testing facility that provides a variety of immunology and chemistry profiles to clinicians worldwide. With over 30 years experience in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay technology, our dedicated team of experienced scientists and technicians utilize the latest research and technologies. More information is available at www.usbiotek.com BOCA RATON, Fla., Jan. 10, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ADT Inc. (NYSE: ADT), a leading provider of monitored security and interactive home and business automation solutions in the United States and Canada, today announced the acquisition of Advanced Cabling Systems, one of the leading technology integration companies in the mid-south. Advanced Cabling Systems will join forces with Red Hawk Fire & Security. Headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas, and founded in 1997, Advanced has regional offices in Lowell, Arkansas, Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Ozark, Missouri specializing in the installation and service of integrated systems including structured cabling, fire alarm systems, audio/video, CCTV, access control, intrusion detection, intercom/paging systems, nurse call and infant protection systems. The addition of Advanced is part of our focus on commercial growth and underscores both ADTs and Red Hawks focus on leveraging technology to deliver superior customer service and support to commercial and enterprise-level organizations, particularly those with multiple U.S. locations, said ADT Commercial Executive Vice President Dan Bresingham. Starting as a structured cabling company and evolving with technology, Advanced Cabling Systems now offers a full range of integrated systems and has earned exceptional customer loyalty as a fire and security integrator. The move is positive proof that aligning with ADT elevates Red Hawks ability to showcase its products and services to a wider range of clients while increasing our overall geographic footprint and dedicated technician workforce to be the premier single point of contact for all our customers fire, life safety and security needs, said Senior Vice President, Red Hawk Fire & Security, ADT Commercial, Michael McWilliams. At Advanced our focus on technology and customer service is why we know that aligning with the most recognizable brands in the fire and security industry will allow us to better serve existing and new commercial customers, said President of Advanced Cabling Systems Michael Kennedy. About Advanced Cabling Systems Advanced Cabling Systems specializes in the installation and service of systems including structured cabling, fire alarm systems, audio/video, CCTV, access control, intrusion detection, intercom/paging systems, nurse call, infant protection systems and is headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. https://advancedcabling.com. About Red Hawk Fire & Security Red Hawk Fire & Security, now a part of ADT Inc., installs, tests, inspects and maintains a broad portfolio of life safety and security solutions using the latest technologies and advanced systems integration for enterprise level access control, video surveillance systems and physical security equipment. An industry leader with over 1,300 employees and a national footprint, the company serves more than 50,000 commercial facilities in financial services, retail, education, healthcare and manufacturing. Red Hawk Fire & Security is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida and their website is http://www.redhawkus.com . About ADT: ADT is a leading provider of monitored security and interactive home and business automation solutions in the United States and Canada. Making security more accessible than ever before, and backed by 24/7 customer support, ADT is committed to providing superior customer service with a focus on speed and quality of responsiveness, helping customers feel safer and empowered. ADT is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida and employs approximately 19,000 people throughout North America. Contact Investor Relations: Jason Smith ADT investorrelations@adt.com Media Relations: Adam Feigen - ADT afeigen@adt.com Third, with America shirking its historic global trade partnerships, research is replete that Russia, China and India are now seizing the opportunity to fill the vacuum and are extending their spheres of influence with heretofore American allies and trading partners. Fourth, due to the trade war, U.S. agricultural sales to China are running $3.2 billion behind last years sales, U.S. sales of pork, soybeans and other food products to China will fall nearly 40 percent next year and net farm income to fall 13 percent this year; Iowa will lose $1.4 million in revenue. Fifth, investors and traders from 60 worldwide stock markets have concluded recent stock market volatility and wild price swings are directly related to rising trade war skepticism. The uncertainty of Trumps next action and not knowing whether he will reverse any policy to appease his Republican base and Fox News economic advisors isnt calming investors. Sixth, in the past six months Trump has assigned four different people to negotiate with China (i.e., Wilbur Ross, Lawrence Kudlow, Steven Mnuchin and Robert Lighthizer). Our allies leaders of trade rely on long-term relationships versus short-term appointees; no one likes continual change. For example, most people assume that propaganda is designed to influence less educated and less intelligent people. That is false. Propagandas greatest influence is on educated people who believe themselves to be smart and informed. The question is asked: Who is more influenced by propaganda, the professor or the peasant? The correct answer: the professor. Propaganda is most effective when people are influenced by mass media, but still remain isolated. The exact position that our culture is gravitating toward. So the actual news is that Trump had a meeting with Democrats and walked out when they refused to negotiate. An opinion would state if that was good or bad, and perhaps, even postulate reasons for what happened. To say that he stormed out is not news or opinion, it is an example of propaganda. At a certain levels, most modern journalists are propagandists. They are also a textbook example of who is influenced by it. They think they are very smart, they want to make a difference, and, according to new research, they are remarkably isolated. But what about us? Justice Harvey Uhlenhopp was a lawyer, district court judge and member of the Iowa Supreme Court from 1970 until his death in 1986. As a young lawyer who began practicing in Clear Lake in 1981, I had the pleasure several times to meet Uhlenhopp and hear him speak. Uhlenhopp was very intelligent, understood the law and knew what was required to be a successful district court judge and justice of the Iowa Supreme Court. Uhlenhopp, in 1958, was instrumental in amending the Iowa Constitution to provide for the merit selection of judges instead of voting for judges based upon their political party. In 1962, Iowa voters approved Uhlenhopp's constitutional amendment and, as they say, the rest is history. For the past 55 years, judges in Iowa have been selected by commissioners that contain an equal number of members appointed by the governor and selected by the practicing attorneys licensed in Iowa. A senior judge also is on each Judicial Nominating Commission. Uhlenhopp believed it was important to have lawyers on the Judicial Nominating Commission who would have special knowledge of the job and candidates, including their judicial temperament, understanding of the law and work habits in deciding cases. CLARION A North Iowa man was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison after a guilty plea to five counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. Timothy Roberts, 49, of Rowan, pleaded guilty to five counts of felony sexual exploitation of a minor on Nov. 9. He admitted to the promotion, dissemination and possession of child pornography. Roberts was sentenced Friday in Wright County District Court to up to five years in prison on each of the charges, with two of the terms to run consecutively, for a total of up to 10 years in prison. He will also serve a 10 year special sentence under the supervision of the Iowa Department of Corrections, similar to parole, and is required to register as a sex offender. The case was initiated by a Cyber Tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The tip was forwarded to the Wright County Sheriffs Office for investigation by the Iowa Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. The Wright County Sheriffs Office was assisted in the investigation by the Iowa Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and the Webster County Cyber Crime Unit. North Iowa mugshots of 2018 Contact Courtney at 641-421-0534 or on Twitter @CourtneyFiorini. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. OSAGE | An Osage man pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in an attack on a girl in April in which he threw her into a ditch in rural Mitchell County. Timothy Eugene Hines, 43, on Tuesday entered an Alford plea not admitting guilt but acknowledging a plea agreement is in his best interest to a charge of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse resulting in injury in Mitchell County District Court. Hines, who had been out on bond, was taken into custody following the Tuesday plea pending sentencing, which has been set for March. The charge is punishable by up to five years behind bars and 10 years on the sex offender registry, and prosecutor Aaron Murphy said he plans to seek prison time for Hines. Murphy said had the case gone to trial, testimony would show that Hines was driving the 14-year-old girl from Mason City to Osage on April 17, 2018, when he began rubbing her thigh and started taking back roads, eventually ending up on Lime Kiln Road. The girl became freaked out by Hines behavior and left the vehicle and began walking away when he parked, Murphy said. He said Hines followed her, pushed her into a ditch and ripped her shirt open. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The girl escaped and went to a nearby house for help. Law enforcement: Osage man kidnapped, assaulted 14-year-old girl OSAGE - An Osage man has been arrested for kidnapping and assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Mitchell County. FOREST CITY | A man who planned to sell marijuana to Waldorf University students has been given probation on a felony charge of drug possession with intent to deliver. Jonah P. Remker, 24, who now lives in Owatonna, Minnesota, pleaded guilty to the charge last year. He was given a deferred judgment during his sentencing on Jan. 11. Man given probation for role in Forest City marijuana selling venture FOREST CITY | A 21-year-old who admitted to giving his roommate $200 to help him start a ven Remker was put on probation for five years. A $750 civil penalty was suspended. Remker, along with Isaiah P. Craig, 21, was arrested after a search warrant was executed on March 19 at the apartment they shared in the 100 block of Bob Johnson Drive, according to the Forest City Police Department. Both men were juniors at Waldorf at the time. They also were members of the university's track team. Police found more than 42.5 grams, or about a tenth of a pound, of marijuana in a closet in Remker's room, plus a hand-written agreement signed by three people listed under aliases, according to a criminal complaint. Police say the agreement states how much each person was to receive from drug sales. GARNER | A Leland man accused of taking items -- including checks and gift cards -- from the mailboxes of rural Hancock County residents has been given a suspended 25-year prison sentence. Carl Douglas Werstein, 36, was put on probation for five years during his sentencing on Jan. 9. He was ordered to complete all recommended substance abuse and mental health treatment recommendations. A $750 fine was suspended. One misdemeanor count of third-degree theft and one misdemeanor count of fourth-degree theft were dismissed through a plea bargain. Leland man arrested for stealing mail from rural residents GARNER | Christmas cards, a copper cooker, new Asics shoes, checks and gift cards are among Between December 2017 and March 18, 2018, Werstein allegedly stole from 12 different mailboxes sometimes multiple times. Christmas cards, a copper cooker, new Asics shoes, checks and gift cards were among the items Werstein was accused of taking. Law enforcement said the stolen items ranged from less than $100 in value to $995, including several worth more than $200. Werstein was sent to prison in 2002 for Cerro Gordo County convictions of first-degree theft, third-degree burglary and forgery, according to online court records. He's had no other felony convictions in Iowa until now. Aboitiz Power Corp. plans to supply electricity to the planned $4.4-billion integrated iron and steel project of HBIS Group Co. Ltd. of China, Huili Investment Fund Management Co. Ltd. and Steel Asia Manufacturing Corp. in Misamis Oriental province. These things build citiesAn integrated steel mill that have economies of scale would be consuming anywhere from 300 megawatts to 600 MW. Its a game changer if thats real, Aboitiz Power chief operating officer Manny Rubio said. Aboitiz Power is one of the countrys biggest power producers. The company has a portfolio of investments in power generation, distribution and retail electricity services. It owns hydroelectric, geothermal and solar power generation facilities and coal-fired power plants that can supply the power requirements of the steel project. It is an opportunity to supply, for everyone, its a game changer if thats going to happen. The Philippines needs that, he said. Rubio said new power projects for completion this year would drive Aboitiz Powers future growth. He said these would include the 600-MW GN Power Dinginin project, 300-MW plant of Therma Visayas Inc. and 68-MW Manolo Fortich hydroelectric power plant. Rubio said the company also continued to look at overseas expansion.We are always on the lookout. Weve always said were always exploring in Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar and weve been talking about it for quite some time and those will bear fruit one way or the other, the executive said. HBIS, Huili Investment Fund, Steel Asia and Phividec Industrial Authority, earlier signed an agreement to build an integrated iron and steel project in Misamis Oriental province. Huili Investment Fund will fund the first phase of the project costing $3 billion and involving the establishment of two blast furnace plants, The first phase will cover the production of 4.5 million tons of hot rolled coil and 600,000 tons of slabs. FOREST CITY | A Forest City man accused of using an air rifle to shoot out the window of a school bus occupied by children has received a five-year suspended prison sentence. Martin Sherman Tindall, 33, was put on probation for five years during his Jan. 11 sentencing on a felony conviction of intimidation with a dangerous weapon. He entered an Alford plea to the charge. In an Alford plea, a defendant does not admit guilt but acknowledges prosecutors likely can prove their case. A $750 fine was suspended, but Tindall was ordered to pay $510 restitution to the Forest City Community School District. He also must complete all recommended mental health and substance abuse treatment. The school bus was traveling south on Clark Street on a route to pick up students and take them to school on the morning of Jan. 5, 2018, when a pellet went through a window and landed in a female's hair, according to a criminal complaint from the Forest City Police Department. No one was injured. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Democratic lawmakers say they plan to introduce legislation to require Colorado oil and gas regulators to make health and the environment their top priority, in response to Mondays long-anticipated court ruling that says the state must give more weight to other factors. Republicans and industry advocates cautioned against smothering one of the largest economic drivers in a state long considered a leader in safe energy production. The Colorado Supreme Courts unanimous decision said regulators are required to foster the development of oil and gas resources while enforcing property rights and protecting public health and the environment but only after weighing the cost-effectiveness and technical feasibility of those protections. Democrats controlling both chambers of the Legislature called the ruling an invitation to amend the law in order to accomplish what Xiuhtezcatl Martinez of Boulder and five other teenagers sought in 2013. Thats when the young people, who later sued state regulators, asked the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to halt all oil and gas production until determining it could be done without impairing Colorados atmosphere, water, wildlife and land resources, and does not adversely impact human health, and does not contribute to climate change. Regulators declined, leading to split decisions in lower courts and Mondays ruling by the state Supreme Court. It is up to the Legislature to make sure we finally prioritize health and safety when it comes to oil and gas operations, state Sen. Mike Foote, D-Lafayette, told Colorado Politics after the high courts ruling. We need to put health and safety over corporate profits. Foote said Democratic lawmakers are ready to enact sweeping updates to the law that governs the commissions mission, including proposals blocked in recent years when the GOP controlled the state Senate. The Martinez language is a good start, Foote said, referring to the rule initially proposed by Martinez and her fellow plaintiffs. But you can do much more. Theres plenty of room for improvement. It looks as if the other shoe is about to drop for Colorados business community as Democrats have taken over the Legislature since their victories Nov. 6. Some quarters of commerce and industry are uneasy about what might come next especially the states oil and gas industry, despite its success defeating a proposal on the November ballot that industry supporters say could have shut down drilling statewide. For the first time in four years, Democrats control both chambers of the Legislature and the Governors Office. The former Republican-led Senate stymied efforts to impose new mandates on business on behalf of employees. Ditto attempts to crack down on fracking and oil and gas exploration. Now business has lost that Republican buffer. Business leaders wont publicly acknowledge a case of the jitters, however. The Colorado Business Roundtable is approaching the legislative session with a sense of optimism, renewed purpose and a strong desire to work collaboratively with Gov. Jared Polis and new legislative leadership, said President Jeff Wasden. The Colorado Petroleum Council is optimistic that reasonable legislative proposals can work in concert with Colorados thriving natural gas and oil industry, said Executive Director Tracee Bentley. If anything, such business groups might be counting on Polis free-market instincts as an internet entrepreneur and self-made multimillionaire to head off any legislation thats unfriendly to business. Gov. Polis is a businessman and understands many of the issues facing Colorado businesses, Wasden said. We have had the opportunity to work with then-Congressman Polis on issues such as immigration and trade. We have a great working relationship and found the governor listened to our concerns and suggestions. Gov. Polis has a be bold mentality, and one common theme we have heard from our board is the innate desire to swing for the fences and have a significant impact. We have a great opportunity to take decisive action on key issues such as early childhood education, attainable housing, transportation and workforce. Polis pragmatism was arguably on display last fall when, as a gubernatorial candidate, he declined to embrace ballot proposals to raise taxes for education and to curtail drilling. The subtext for business leaders now may be that the governor will use his clout as party standard bearer, and if needed, his veto pen to head off aggressive new mandates on business. A number of such mandates likely will be introduced this year if last years session is any guide. In 2018, measures posed by Democrats, who held the majority in the House, were shot down by Senate Republicans in response to complaints from major business policy and advocacy groups. One proposal was for family and medical paid leave insurance for employees, funded by an employee-paid premium and administered by employers. Another would have mandated employee leave for voting, and a couple of bills aimed to rein in employers in arbitration with employees. Its worth noting, however, that a number of bills opposed by business also were stopped in the Democratic-controlled House in 2018. The family leave bill will be back. Polis mentioned it in his State of the State Speech last week Nothing in that speech gave small-business owners any immediate alarm, except for purposely leaving out the cost of his expanded paid leave proposal, said Tony Gagliardi, longtime Colorado director for the National Federation of Independent Business. Hed be amazed at how many small-business owners already provide paid leave. Wasden said, We are very encouraged on issues such as family and medical leave that the bill sponsors have a true desire to get input from business leaders. The governors health-care agenda is admirable, Gagliardi said, and we look forward to working with him to address the costs of providing health care. The question surrounding his plan is: How do we pay for such ambition? In the main, however, his speech hit on all the points meaningful for his supporters without unduly worrying others, which is to his credit. Meanwhile, Colorados oil and gas industry comprising $30 billion-plus of the states economy is bracing for more efforts to restrict drilling. The industry says the public has spoken loud and clear, defeating last falls Proposition 112 by a 13-point margin. The citizens initiative would have significantly increased mandatory drilling setbacks from houses, schools and other properties. The measures supporters say it failed only because the industry spent millions of dollars in negative advertising to assure its defeat. Bentley was cautious and measured at the prospect of more legislation. Our goal must be to balance record consumer demand, environmental protection and affordability for every Colorado family, she said. We will evaluate any proposal with an eye to balancing environmental progress with a need for affordable, reliable energy for working families. At the end of the day, business advocates say they have to keep moving forward regardless of which party is in charge at the Capitol. Every new legislative session, irrespective of its political makeup, comes with its own set of challenges and opportunities, said Mike Kopp, a Republican former state Senate minority leader who now is president and CEO of Colorado Concern business group. We see a very capable set of new leaders who have demonstrated great bipartisan successes in the past. The focus of our energy will be to work in this space, particularly as it relates to what may be the states greatest public policy challenge: Creating solutions that can solve our traffic congestion difficulties. Or, as Gagliardi put it: As always, NFIB is open to working with any group in efforts to allow for good, well-thought-out legislation. Issues such as health care and a good business climate are non-partisan issues as far as NFIB is concerned. Teller Historic and Environmental Coalition received a grant from the Colorado Historic Fund to continue renovation on the Midland Depot in Divide. Signs went up this year at the Penrose Library in downtown Colorado Springs to ban camping to crack down on people sleeping outside the library. Colorado Springs, CO (80903) Today Clear to partly cloudy. Low 64F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Clear to partly cloudy. Low 64F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Globe Business, the enterprise information, and communications technology arm of Globe Telecom Inc. has teamed up with the Tuguegarao to provide fast and reliable internet to the Cagayan capital. The Tuguegarao city government signed up for Globe Business Direct Internet, which allows the local government unit to offer constituents fast and reliable internet access supported by a robust and broad international and domestic network. Globe Business senior vice president Peter Maquera said the company was privileged to have been chosen by Tuguegarao. We are very excited for the partnership as this pushes us to strive for excellence and commit to our purpose to help build our nation, he added Globe Business Direct Internet allows enterprises to maintain a direct and secure connection between offices for data, voice, and video application needs. It also offers an excellent level of support to make sure that clients get secure and dedicated connectivity.Aside from the need to have fast and reliable internet connectivity to effectively cater to the communication needs of all offices in the City Hall, the project also aims to extend its reach to public schools, specifically the students and teachers, Tuguegarao Mayor Jefferson Soriano said. We commend Globe Telecom, specifically Globe Business, for partnering with us in making this project a reality. We expect the same solid support and service delivery for the implementation of the future projects that will benefit the people of Tuguegarao, he said. The partnership with Tuguegarao is also in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal No. 9, which emphasizes the need for investment in infrastructure and innovation, identified as crucial drivers of economic growth and development. FILE - In this July 14, 2010, file photo, the Gannett Co.headquarters sign stands in McLean, Va. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that MNG Enterprises, better known as Digital First Media, is preparing to bid for newspaper publisher Gannett Co. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) Pakistan's top court on January 14 ordered a fresh medical report into the condition of a mentally ill prisoner on death row, an NGO representing him said, days after his execution was temporarily suspended. The case of Khizar Hayat, a former police officer sentenced to death in 2003 for killing a colleague and who has spent more than 15 years in custody, has attracted widespread attention from rights groups and the United Nations. The Supreme Court of Pakistan on January 12 suspended Hayat's execution. "The case was adjourned until the Special Medical Board examines Khizar and files their report before the court," the Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), a rights organization that is representing Hayat, said in a press release. It added that the court had "strongly reprimanded" jail authorities for failing to follow prison rules. On January 13, UN experts had urged Pakistan against carrying out an "arbitrary execution." "During his trial, no evidence or witnesses were called in his defense and no questions were asked regarding his mental health, although he was later diagnosed with a mental health condition and has been receiving treatment for the past 10 years," they said. Government doctors had diagnosed Hayat as suffering from schizophrenia in 2008. Based on reporting by AP and dpa CHARBOLAK, Afghanistan -- The weeklong fighting in Charbolak, a rural district in Afghanistans northern province of Balkh, has attracted little attention elsewhere. As the Taliban and Afghan security forces spent the past week in pitched battles in Charbolak, the claims of casualties on both sides only attracted a passing mention in Afghan and international media. But one family paid a heavy price for living on a dangerous Afghan front line. Muhammadullah, 65, is badly wounded. Last week he lost two daughters, and two of his other four children were injured. He lost his house in the crossfire between government soldiers and Taliban insurgents in the once-sleepy village of Timorak. Rival Afghan combatants often prefer to fight and launch attacks within populated areas, invariably killing and maiming civilians. The bang was sudden, and it knocked me out, Muhammadullah said of the artillery shell strike that reduced his living room to rubble. When I regained consciousness, I saw that the roof had caved in and there was blood everywhere. Speaking to Radio Free Afghanistan in a crowded hospital in Mazar-e Sharif, the capital of Balkh Province, he said his family were trapped for hours until neighbors managed to dig them out the next day. Two of his teenage daughters died that day, but he wasnt able to attend their funerals as he was rushed to the hospital alongside his 7-year-old son, Hidayatullah, and 5-year-old daughter, Amena. One of my sons is in mental shock after the tragedy. The rest of my family is also devastated, he told Radio Free Afghanistan on January 15. While Muhammadullah, who like many Afghans goes by one name only, survived the attack, he is paralyzed and might not walk again. Elsewhere in the same hospital, his 35-year-old son, Qudratullah, is tending to Amena in the orthopedic ward. He blames the government forces for ruining their lives in an attack that was supposed to target alleged Taliban positions some 2 kilometers away. It was a massacre, but neither the provincial governor nor the police chief has even bothered to visit us, he told Radio Free Afghanistan. Even the lawmakers representing us in the central parliament and the provincial legislature did not bother to share our grief. Fear pervades Charbolak following the fighting. Last week, the Taliban began their offensive armed with laser weapons and night-vision goggles and attacked security posts in Timorak, which sits along a highway connecting Balkh to neighboring Jowzjan Province. Scores of soldiers, insurgents, and civilians have died in the fighting, which has also destroyed houses and livelihoods. The Taliban have also reportedly captured more than a dozen government soldiers. However, it was not possible to independently verify rival claims of casualties and advances. Muhammad Ali, a resident, says they are fed up with the Taliban and a predatory government militia masquerading as local police. We want the government to pay attention to our suffering. Why is it not able to end our misery and oppression? he asked. Why cant they end insecurity and prevent the Taliban [from overrunning territories]? Residents say the Taliban now control most of Charbolak, where the governments presence and control are confined to a few compounds in the district center. Locals say the insurgents are now so emboldened that they set up makeshift checkpoints along the Balkh-Jowzjan highway to look for government workers and extort commercial vehicles. Charbolak is very dangerous for anyone connected to the government, Muhammad Nabi, a government employee, told Radio Free Afghanistan. It is increasingly difficult for government workers and civilians to even get around. In Mazar-e Sharif, Balkh police chief Muhammad Akram Sameh says the situation in Charbolak is improving and government forced have killed more than 30 insurgents. But civilians in Charbolak are desperate. Dozens of families have already left for the relative safety of Mazar-e Sharif, some 40 kilometers to the east. Back in his hospital bed, Muhammadullah doesnt know how he will pick up the pieces to build a life again. Abubakar Siddique wrote this story based on reporting by Mujibur Rahman Habibzai in Charbolak, Afghanistan. The Fremont Public Schools Board of Education bid farewell to longtime board member Grady Wells and welcomed new board member Mike Petersen at its monthly meeting on Monday night. The board also elected officers and organized committees on Monday during its first meeting of 2019. Sandi Proskovec was re-elected unanimously as board president and Dan Moran was re-elected as vice president. Todd Hansen was re-elected as secretary. Proskovec thanked Wells for his 14 years of service on the FPS board. His consistent focus on what is best for kids and his unwavering character to always do the right thing has made him a great board member, she said. His perspective, sense of humor and his smile will be greatly missed from this table. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Wells thanked the teachers and board members for their work and said hed still be involved in the school system. Fremont Public Schools Superintendent Mark Shepard introduced Petersen, who won the spot on the school board during the November election, officially starting his term Monday night with his parents, wife and two children in the audience. Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. and four other lenders on Tuesday downplayed the impact of their exposure to the multi-million-dollar debt of shipbuilder Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Philippines, which recently sought corporate rehabilitation. The total exposure is only 1 percent of RCBCs assets of P614 billion and less than 2 percent of the P387 billion total net loans, RCBC said in a disclosure to the stock exchange. RCBC was responding to a statement by global debt watcher Moodys Investors Service that the exposure to Hanjins debt would be credit negative. Moodys said of the five Philippine banks that lent money to Hanjin, RCBC could be the most affected because it had the largest exposure to Hanjin at $145 million. RCBC said the five lenders had a parent guaranty from Hanjin Korea, which secures the exposure of HHIC Philippines. RCBC confirmed that given its exposure to Hanjin, its net non-performing loan ratio of 1.2 percent as of September 2018 would increase. The banks balance sheet, with capital of P84 billion as of September 2018, is in a strong position to absorb these provisions. Even with this default, the banks capital adequacy ratio of 17.3 percent as of September 2018 remains very strong, well above regulatory minimum and can still support medium-term growth, RCBC senior vice president and corporate information officer Ma. Christina Alvarez said. BDO Unibank Inc., the countrys largest lender in terms of assets, said it was not expecting its exposure to Hanjin to have a material effect on the banks business, operations and/or financial condition. The Hanjin exposure represents only 0.15 percent of the banks total loan portfolio and as such is not considered a material amount, said BDO, which reportedly had $60-million exposure to Hanjin. Moodys said in a report that it considered the exposures of BDO, Bank of the Philippine Islands, Land Bank of the Philippines, Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. and Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. to Hanjin be credit negative because it would reduce their profits. The exposures are credit negative for the five Philippine banks because they will need to incur additional credit charges related to HHIC-Phil, which will reduce their profit, Moodys said.BPI said its exposure to Hanjin amounted to only $52 million or 0.20 percent of its total loan book. We have partially provisioned for this and additional provisions in 2019 is manageable, BPI said. All five banks enjoy investment grade ratings of Baa2 with stable outlooks from Moodys. Metrobank, which reportedly had $72-million loan to Hanjin, also belittled the impact of its exposure to the Korean shipbuilder. Metrobanks exposure is low relative to our total assets of P2.1 trillion. We have adequate provisions and we do not see any significant impact to our operations, Metrobank assistant corporate secretary Laarni Bernabe said in a filing. State-run Land Bank of the Philippines president and chief executive Alex Buenaventura confirmed that the bank had an $85-million exposure to Hanjin. Well have to address the problem. But the good news is we can recover the assets. The shipyard is worth $1.2 billion and the total exposure of the creditors is less than $400 million. Down the road, we hope to recover our exposure, Buenaventura said. Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said the banks exposures to Hanjin would not significantly affect the banking industry as a whole but the problem needed to be resolved. We have to address it. There are assets to be had, and well, this is a difficult problem to be worked through by the banks, Dominguez said in an interview. Its going to hurt but its certainly not going to end up hampering them, but its going to hurt... Its still early days. The banks have agreed to work together and see how we can move forward from here, he said. A Lincoln teen was arrested following an incident on Sunday night. According to the Fremont Police Department, at approximately 4:40 a.m. a 17-year-old male from Lincoln was arrested on suspicion of disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct and being a minor in possession following a disturbance complaint at a residence in the 1700 block of N. Keene Avenue. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The male is accused of banging on the door of a residence where he was not staying nor invited to be at. When officers arrived the male appeared to be under the influence of an alcoholic beverage. The male was taken into custody and was belligerent to arresting officers, allegedly using racial slurs toward them and threatening them with bodily harm. The male was eventually taken to Lincoln and released to his mother. Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 1 Sad 1 Angry 3 Thanks for visiting ! The use of software that blocks ads hinders our ability to serve you the content you came here to enjoy. We ask that you consider turning off your ad blocker so we can deliver you the best experience possible while you are here. Thank you for your support! If you are looking for a stock that has a solid history of beating earnings estimates and is in a good position to maintain the trend in its next quarterly report, you should consider Alaska Air Group (ALK). This company, which is in the Zacks Transportation - Airline industry, shows potential for another earnings beat. This airline has seen a nice streak of beating earnings estimates, especially when looking at the previous two reports. The average surprise for the last two quarters was 3.98%. For the last reported quarter, Alaska Air came out with earnings of $1.91 per share versus the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.80 per share, representing a surprise of 6.11%. For the previous quarter, the company was expected to post earnings of $1.63 per share and it actually produced earnings of $1.66 per share, delivering a surprise of 1.84%. Price and EPS Surprise With this earnings history in mind, recent estimates have been moving higher for Alaska Air. In fact, the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) for the company is positive, which is a great sign of an earnings beat, especially when you combine this metric with its nice Zacks Rank. Our research shows that stocks with the combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) or better produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time. In other words, if you have 10 stocks with this combination, the number of stocks that beat the consensus estimate could be as high as seven. The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a version of the Zacks Consensus whose definition is related to change. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier. Alaska Air currently has an Earnings ESP of +1.42%, which suggests that analysts have recently become bullish on the company's earnings prospects. This positive Earnings ESP when combined with the stock's Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) indicates that another beat is possibly around the corner. We expect the company's next earnings report to be released on January 24, 2019. Story continues When the Earnings ESP comes up negative, investors should note that this will reduce the predictive power of the metric. But, a negative value is not indicative of a stock's earnings miss. Many companies end up beating the consensus EPS estimate, but that may not be the sole basis for their stocks moving higher. On the other hand, some stocks may hold their ground even if they end up missing the consensus estimate. Because of this, it's really important to check a company's Earnings ESP ahead of its quarterly release to increase the odds of success. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Jan 15 (Reuters) - Venture Global LNG Inc urged U.S. energy regulators on Tuesday to approve construction of its planned Calcasieu Pass liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in Louisiana by Jan. 22. Venture Global told the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in a filing it was "ready to commence construction of this multi-billion dollar project as soon as authorized by the Commission." "We have made very significant financial commitments to our vendors and suppliers, acting in reliance on the expectation the Commission will act on a timely basis in accordance with its established schedule," Venture Global said, noting that schedule called for a decision by Jan. 22. The Calcasieu Pass facility is designed to produce about 10 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG, or about 1.3 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of natural gas. One billion cubic feet is enough gas to fuel about 5 million U.S. homes for a day. Calcasieu Pass, which is expected to cost an estimated $4.5 billion to build, is one of dozens of LNG export terminals that companies are seeking to build in the United States, Canada and Mexico over the next decade to meet growing global demand for the fuel. The United States, which was a net importer of LNG before shipping its first cargo from the lower 48 states in February 2016, is expected to become the third biggest exporter of the super-cooled fuel by capacity by the end of 2019, behind Australia and Qatar. Looking at only the plants currently under construction, U.S. LNG export capacity is expected to rise to 8.9 bcfd by the end of 2019 and 10.3 bcfd in 2020 from 5.1 bcfd now. World LNG trade totaled about 42 bcfd in 2018. Venture Global, which is also developing the 10-MTPA Plaquemines LNG export facility in Louisiana, said it expects Calcasieu Pass to enter service in 2022 and Plaquemines in 2023. Plaquemines is expected to cost an estimated $8.5 billion to build. Venture Global said it has secured binding 20-year LNG offtake agreements from units of Royal Dutch Shell PLC , Edison SpA, Galp Energia SGPS SA, BP PLC , Repsol SA and Polish Oil and Gas Co (PGNiG) . Venture Global said its liquefaction systems will use technology from General Electric Co's Baker Hughes unit. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino Editing by Tom Brown) The construction of the P10.5-billion North Luzon Expressway Harbor Link Segment 10 will be completed this month, Public Works Secretary Mark Villar said Tuesday. We are happy to announce that the NLEx Harbor Link Project will be accessible to the public by January. When this is completed, travel time from C3 in Caloocan and NLEx will be reduced to 10 minutes, Villar said. Villar said the agency acquired 100 percent of the site of the NLEx Harbor Link Project Segment 10 as of December 2018, after a span of one year and seven months. NLEX Harbor Link Segment 10 is composed of the 5.65-km elevated expressway traversing NLEx from MacArthur Highway in Karuhatan, Valenzuela City, passing through Malabon City and C3 Road, Caloocan City, and the 2.6-km section between C3 Road, Caloocan City and R10, Navotas City. The elevated expressway will reduce the travel time from NLEx Valenzuela City to R10 from 23 minutes to just 11 minutes via Balintawak-Edsa Monumento, and from 26 minutes to just 13 minutes via Balintawak to A. Bonifacio/C3 Road. The next phase will connect it to R10 and reduce travel time from Port Area in Manila to Quezon City to approximately 10 minutes, Villar said. The DPWH is also undertaking the finishing works on concreting the additional 600-meter segment which would make 2.7-kilometers of Mindanao Ave. extension accessible within the first quarter of 2019.The project was started in the 1980s but was stopped for decades due to right-of-way issues. We are happy that it was during the term of President Duterte that we are able to deliver this project, Villar said. The P118-million project which is now 87.78 percent also involves construction of drainage and slope protection, reinforced concrete box culvert, and street lighting, Villar said. Resumed in 2017, the construction resulted in the additional 700-meter road section from P. dela Cruz Street to MGM Road which was completed in June 2018, making 2.1-kilometers accessible by the public. Upon completion of the additional 600-meter segment, DPWH will be working on right-of-way issues along the missing 500-meter gap which will soon complete the full 3.2-kilometer stretch of the Mindanao Ave. Extension, Villar said. The completion of the 8-lane Mindanao Ave. Extension is our utmost priority as it will greatly reduce travel time by linking North Caloocan to North Luzon Expressway and Quezon City and improve traffic flow in the cities of Novaliches, Valenzuela and Caloocan City, he said. The Harbor Island in Corpus Christi Bay where the Carlyle Group, one of the world's top private equity firms, and its partner, the Port of Corpus Christi, plan to build an onshore U.S. crude export terminal capable of fully loading supertankers known as Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs), is seen in Corpus Christi Bay, Texas, U.S. December 19, 2018. Picture taken December 19, 2018. REUTERS/Collin Eaton By Collin Eaton CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS (Reuters) - Booming U.S. oil exports have set off a scramble to build Gulf Coast ports to handle more than 3 million barrels per day in new supplies expected over the next five years. Of seven proposed oil-export projects, nowhere is the opportunity greater or the competition more fierce than in Corpus Christi, Texas, where three firms are vying to open the state's first deepwater port. Commodities trader Trafigura [TRAFGF.UL] has taken an early lead with a planned offshore facility that has an easier path to regulatory approval and faces fewer objections from environmentalists. Its chief competitor - a partnership of investor Carlyle Group and the Port of Corpus Christi to build an onshore port - has responded by petitioning regulators to kill Trafigura's project. Port lobbyists have cited past criminal allegations involving the firm in other countries and potentially "catastrophic" environmental impacts. Rising demand for new ports follows a 2015 decision by the U.S. Congress to lift a 40-year ban on crude exports after advances in drilling techniques sparked a rapid rise in domestic shale production - especially in Texas. The United States had been the world's top oil buyer for decades, and its port infrastructure was built to import rather than export. Now, surging exports threaten to overwhelm existing ports as U.S. production is projected to hit 12 million barrels per day (bpd) this year, up from 9.35 million in 2017.(U.S. crude producers send more shale oil to the world : https://tmsnrt.rs/2H48vJp ) "We've got a wave of oil headed toward the coast," said Jeremiah Ashcroft III, chief executive of Lone Star Ports LLC, the Carlyle-backed company formed to develop its Corpus Christi project. Only one U.S. facility, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, can fully load supertankers capable of carrying 2 million barrels. The Corpus Christi port - the closest to the most prolific shale fields in Texas - exports less than 1 million bpd, and its harbor is too shallow to fully load supertankers. Story continues The market ultimately may support more than one new deepwater port, but the first firm to build near Corpus Christi will have the best shot at cutting long-term deals with producers expected to ship an estimated 2.1 million bpd to the region through new pipelines set to open this year. "Right now, there's only enough room for one project," Ashcroft said. Carlyle plans a $1 billion port to handle 1.4 million bpd. Trafigura, which has not disclosed its planned investment in the port, would handle much less, at 500,000 bpd. But Trafigura's operation would siphon off revenue from the Port of Corpus Christi and Carlyle's project because Trafigura would serve shippers offshore, before they reach the harbor. Carlyle declined to make an executive available for an interview and referred questions to Lone Star. Trafigura said in a statement that its port would leave room for other projects because it would handle only a portion of the expected new oil flows. A third competitor, pipeline operator Magellan Midstream Partners LP, plans an export terminal on the Corpus Christi harbor, near Carlyle's proposed site. But Magellan faces a roadblock because port officials last year agreed to work exclusively with Carlyle. Magellan said in a statement that it has not decided whether to build the project. Companies including Kinder Morgan Inc, JupiterMLP and Tallgrass Energy have also proposed offshore ports along the Gulf Coast. BRAZIL CHARGES Carlyle said last October that it could open its facility by late 2020. But that assumes its plan for dredging to accommodate supertankers will not require a full environmental review, which is sought by opponents and could take two years. As Carlyle and the Port have tried to navigate those obstacles, port lobbyists have petitioned regulators to halt Trafigura's project. In an August letter, the port's law firm called on the U.S. Coast Guard and the Maritime Administration to reject Trafigura's application, citing a "criminal history." The letter from Baker Wotring LLP pointed to the trader's 2006 guilty plea for selling a U.S. company oil from Iraq that Trafigura falsely claimed had been authorized under a United Nations humanitarian aid program. U.S. companies at the time were barred by government sanctions from buying Iraqi oil except through the program. After the regulators declined the port's request, its law firm in December raised bribery allegations brought earlier that month by Brazilian prosecutors against two former Trafigura executives. The firm asked regulators to halt Trafigura's work until the allegations were "fully investigated." Trafigura said in a statement that its management had no knowledge of any improper payments made to employees of Brazil's state-run oil firm Petrobras. Trafigura did not comment on the port law firm citing its guilty plea involving Iraq oil sales. Last month, five Corpus Christi area lawmakers asked Texas Governor Greg Abbott to veto Trafigura's application on environmental grounds, citing a risk of "catastrophic crude oil spills" and "excessive air emissions." Federal rules require state governors to sign off on offshore ports. Abbott has made no decision, a spokesman said. Lone Star's Ashcroft said onshore terminals are safer than offshore projects because oil spills are more easily cleaned up in harbors than in open water. Trafigura said it chose to go offshore to ensure supertankers can safely and efficiently load cargoes and that its application will be reviewed by more than 30 government agencies. BATTLE FATIGUE Carlyle is essential to building the Port of Corpus Christi's crude export business. Port officials started pursuing federal approval to dredge its harbor 28 years ago, but Congress only recently approved $59 million, a fraction of what's needed. "We don't have 28 years; we have two," said Sean Strawbridge, chief executive of the Port of Corpus Christi Authority, referring to its timeline for readying the port for new oil flows. Port officials last year sought to kickstart the dredging by issuing $217 million in bonds. That money will allow it to start dredging to a 54-foot draft - not deep enough for supertankers. If Trafigura's port wins approval, it could take business from the Port of Corpus Christi. Port revenues could fall by about 12 percent, estimated investment researcher Morningstar Inc., a loss that could hurt its efforts to finance dredging not covered by the government or Carlyle. In October, Carlyle agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to cover the dredging needed to get achieve a 75-foot draft in the outer harbor to accommodate supertankers. 'ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER' Environmentalists favor offshore ports over what they consider the harmful impact of dredging harbors. The newly formed Port Aransas Conservancy in south Texas has argued Carlyle's plan would endanger sea turtle nesting areas, dump silt onto nearby islands, and threaten shellfish that reach estuaries through the ship channel. Trafigura has countered environmental concerns about its offshore operation by proposing to tunnel under sand dunes and wetlands to install a pipeline instead of digging a trench through environmentally sensitive areas. "Sea turtles are always an issue with dredging" because it brings in salt water, said Jayson Hudson, a regulatory supervisor at the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, which oversees permitting for Carlyle's project. He called Trafigura's horizontal drilling plan a "good option for avoiding permanent impacts." Dredging the harbor, by contrast, would have wide-ranging impacts, said John Donovan, president of the Port Aransas Conservancy. "We're very much against what we consider to be an environmental disaster that the Port's plans for Harbor Island would entail," he said. (Reporting by Collin Eaton in Corpus Christi, Texas; editing by Gary McWilliams and Brian Thevenot) Money sent home by Filipinos working overseas rose 2.8 percent in November 2018 to $2.32 billion from $2.26 billion a year earlier, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Tuesday. The BSP said in a statement the November figure brought total cash remittances in the first 11 months of 2018 to $26.1 billion, up 3.1 percent from $25.3 billion registered in the same period in 2017. Data showed cash remittances from both land-based ($20.5 billion) and sea-based workers ($5.5 billion) recorded increments of 2.8 percent and 4.1 percent for January to November, respectively. The bulk of cash remittances in the 11-month period came from the US, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Japan, United Kingdom, Qatar, Canada, Germany, and Hong Kong. Personal remittances, which include non-cash items, also grew 2.4 percent in November 2018 to $2.6 billion. On a cumulative basis, personal remittances in January to November reached $29.1 billion, or 2.9 percent higher than the level posted a year ago.The growth in personal remittances during the first eleven months of 2018 was supported by remittance inflows from land-based OFs with work contracts of one year or more as well as remittances from sea-based and land-based OFs with work contracts of less than one year which increased by 2.8 percent and 4.0 percent, respectively, BSP Deputy Governor Maria Almasara Cyd Tuano-Amador said. The Bangko Sentral predicted that full-year remittances would increase 3 percent in 2018, taking into consideration the pace of global economic growth. Remittances reached a record $28.06 billion in 2017, up 4.3 percent from $26.90 billion in 2016. The higher cash remittances in 2017 were supported by the increase in transfers from both land-based and sea-based workers. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is traveling to Canada for hernia surgery, according to a court filing from his attorneys. The surgery, which is connected to injuries Paul suffered when he was attacked by a neighbor while doing yard work in 2017, will be done in Ontario, the Associated Press reports. The choice to undergo treatment in Canadawhere health care is publicly funded and universally providedis ironic considering Paul, a Republican, is a staunch opponent of Obamacare and champions free-market principals. Medical tourism, however, can offer savings between 20 and 90 percent, Market Watch reports, depending on which country you choose. Patients Beyond Borders estimates that 1.4 million Americans took advantage of more affordable healthcare systems abroad in 2017. The neighbor who attacked Paul, Rene Boucher, reportedly tackled the senator when he became frustrated with Paul repeatedly stacking debris near their property line, leaving Paul with broken ribs. Boucher pleaded guilty to assaulting a member of Congress and was sentenced to 30 days in prison in June 2018. Federal prosecutors are appealing for a longer sentence. Russia is reportedly planning to replace the U.S. dollar with Bitcoin as its reserve currency in a bid to limit the impact of US sanctions imposed on the country. Last week, the cryptocurrency news site Micky quoted a Russian economist with ties to the Russian government as saying that U.S. sanctions on the country are forcing Russia and certain oligarchs to dump U.S. assets and U.S. dollars and invest hugely in Bitcoin. Vladislav Ginko, an economist at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, a state-funded institution, said the transition from dollars to Bitcoin could begin in February. I believe that [the time] is coming when other countries will start doing that and Russia has a brilliant chance to invest into heavily oversold Bitcoin, Ginko said. Congress has imposed sanctions on Russia following the assertion of US intelligence agencies determined that the country interfered with the 2016 Presidential election and again in the wake of the poisoning of former Russian military officer Sergei Skripal. Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed interest in Bitcoin, saying last June that the cryptocurrency has its place in the world. A report in the Telegraph said that from dollars to Bitcoin may involve an intermediary cryptocurrency, likely a token created by a Russian bank, before Russia could buy Bitcoin through a crypto exchange. On Monday, Mickey also reported a large and unusual increase in the volume of OTC Bitcoin purchases placed by Russian nationals, indicating further interest in Bitcoin inside Russia. Bitcoin was trading at $3,649.78 late Monday, up 4% in the previous day. * About 2 mln bbls of Iranian condensate to arrive in Jan - source * About 960,000 bbls to arrive this week - source * Resumption of S.Korea's Iran oil imports after four months * S.Korea has not imported oil from Iran since Sept (Adds details, background) By Jane Chung SEOUL, Jan 14 (Reuters) - A South Korean oil buyer is set to receive about 2 million barrels of Iranian condensate in January, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday. The cargo marks the first Iranian oil import by South Korea in four months after the world's fifth-largest oil buyer halted imports before the U.S. reimposed sanctions on Iran in November. The first cargo of about 960,000 barrels of condensate, a type of light crude oil typically produced in association with natural gas, is expected to arrive this week at the port of Incheon, said the source, who declined to be named due to sensitivity of the matter. The Silvia 1, a vessel carrying 955,000 barrels of Iranian oil, is set to arrive in South Korea on Jan. 15, trade flow data from Refinitv Eikon showed. A second cargo of 990,000 barrels will arrive later this month, the source said. In November, South Korea won a temporary waiver from the United States to purchase a limited amount of Iranian oil. The U.S. reimposed sanctions on Iran's oil sector in November to pressure the country to end its nuclear programme and to curtail its support for Syria and militants in Yemen. South Korea can buy up to 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian oil under the sanctions waiver, mainly condensate, according to industry sources. South Korean oil buyers were expected to restart oil purchases from Iran in late January or early February, the head of SK Innovation, owner of South Korea's top refiner SK Energy, told Reuters last week. South Korean buyers of Iranian crude and condensate include SK Energy and SK Incheon Petrochemical, owned by SK Innovation, Hyundai Oilbank Corp and Hanwha Total Petrochemical Co. (Additional reporting by Florence Tan in SINGAPORE; Editing by Christian Schmollinger) The Disaster Artist (Credit: A24) James Franco has settled a lawsuit with one of his former film students, who said that he had drafted several early drafts of his movie The Disaster Artist. According to Variety, Ryan Moody filed his suit in March last year, against Francos company Rabbit Bandini Productions and Point Grey Pictures, run by Seth Rogen, which co-produced the film. Moody, who met Franco when he was a student at the actors film class at UCLA, said that he was asked to adapt the book about the famously disastrous making of the movie The Room, directed, written by and starring Tommy Wiseau. However, Moody added that, after working full-time on the project for four months, Point Grey Pictures forced him off the project in favour of more established writers, and made him sign away the rights to his work for only $5000 (around 3890). He claims he was told that if he didnt do so, he would never work with either Rogen or Franco again, and was promised work on another project called On The Bus instead. But the film never got off the ground. Moody says he was also offered an associate producer credit on The Disaster Artist, but found when it was released, it was not there. Lawyers for the defendants said that he was not misled into signing the contract, and and sought to have the lawsuit dismissed. Moodys lawyer Brian Grossman told Variety yesterday: The lawsuit has been resolved. He did not disclose the terms of the settlement. The movie, a modest financial success, was critically acclaimed, winning James Franco a slew of international awards and a Golden Globe. It also won a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination at the Oscars. Read more Hugh Grant pleads for return of stolen script Devastating Game of Thrones fan theory emerges Aquaman tops $1 billion (CORRECTS to show BASF not located in 14 Riverside Drive as indicated by office complex's website) * Fleeing office workers say some colleagues still inside * Doors of hotel blown off, gunfire ongoing * Police treating it as a terrorist attack By George Obulutsa and Baz Ratner NAIROBI, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Gunmen blasted their way into a hotel and office complex in the Kenyan capital on Tuesday, killing at least seven people and sending workers diving under desks from an attack claimed by Somali Islamists al Shabaab. Police warned the "terror attack", which echoed a 2013 assault on a Nairobi shopping centre, may be ongoing, with assailants still inside the upscale 14 Riverside Drive complex. Nairobi is a major expatriate hub, and the compound attacked houses offices of various international companies "The main door of the hotel was blown open and there was a human arm in the street severed from the shoulder," said Serge Medic, the Swiss owner of a security company who ran to the scene to help when he heard of the attack from his taxi driver. Medic, who was armed, entered the building with a policeman and two soldiers, he said, but they came under fire and retreated. An unexploded grenade lay in the lobby, he said. "One man said he saw two armed men with scarves on their head and bandoliers of bullets," Medic told Reuters, as gunfire echoed in the background. Kenya has often been targeted by al Shabaab, who killed 67 people at the Westgate shopping centre in 2013 and nearly 150 students at Garissa university in 2015. Al Shabaab says its attacks are revenge for Kenyan troops stationed inside Somalia, which has been riven by civil war since 1991. More than three hours after Tuesday's attack began, small groups of workers were still being taken out by officers escorting them to armoured vehicles. Foreign security advisors on the site scrambled to make sure their clients were safe. GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS Kenyan police chief Joseph Boinnet said the attack began with an explosion targeting cars followed by a detonation from a suicide bomber. As he spoke, a Reuters reporter on the scene reported heavy gunfire then an explosion shortly afterwards. Story continues At least seven people were killed and eight wounded, hospital officials and witnesses told Reuters. A security guard said four bodies had been carried out in bags at the ICEA insurance company's offices. Two further bodies were put into bags at I&M bank, said a medic, and one person died at MP Shah hospital. A woman shot in the leg was carried out and three men emerged covered in blood. Some office workers climbed out of windows. Many told Reuters that they had to leave colleagues behind, still huddled under their desks. "There's a grenade in the bathroom," one officer yelled as police rushed out from one building. "We heard a loud bang from something that was thrown inside. Then I saw shattered glass," Geoffrey Otieno, who works at a beauty salon in the complex, told Reuters. "We hid until we were rescued." INTERNATIONAL COMPANIES Al Shabaab, which wants to overthrow the weak, U.N.-backed Somali government and impose strict Islamic law, quickly said it was responsible. "We are behind the attack in Nairobi. The operation is going on," Abdiasis Abu Musab, the group's military operations spokesman, told Reuters by telephone in Somalia. According to its website, 14 Riverside is home to local offices of international companies including Colgate Palmolive , Reckitt Benckiser, Pernod Ricard, Dow Chemical and SAP, as well as the dusitD2 hotel, part of Thai group Dusit Thani. Kenya is a base for hundreds of diplomats, aid workers, businessmen and others operating around east Africa. The Australian embassy is across the road from the compound. "I just started hearing gunshots, and then started seeing people running away raising their hands up and some were entering the bank to hide for their lives," a woman working in a bank in the complex said, adding she heard two explosions. Kenyan television featured appeals for blood from local hospitals and showed police cordoning off the route to ensure vehicles could move quickly. Red Cross ambulances ferried victims away. Kenyan troops, concentrated in south Somalia, originally went into Somalia to try to create a buffer zone along the border. They are now part of an African Union peacekeeping force. (Additional reporting by Katharine Houreld, David Lewis, John Ndiso, Hereward Holland, Humphrey Malalo and Duncan Miriri in Nairobi and Feisal Omar in Mogadishu; writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Andrew Cawthorne) As the partial government shutdown continues into its third week, the defense industry trade group and at least one government contractor are warning that the stoppage is beginning to take its toll. Investors would do best to hold tight and weather the storm for now, though the ongoing fight can be viewed as a warning about uglier battles looming on the horizon. Numerous federal agencies have been closed since Dec. 22 after Congress and the White House were unable to agree on a spending bill. The Pentagon was one of a number of agencies that already had its fiscal 2019 funding secured and has not been directly affected. That means we are unlikely to see a repeat of what happened when the entire government was shut down in 2013, when contractors crafted plans to furlough thousands of workers while the negotiations played out. Still, the industry is feeling the pinch. The Aerospace Industries Association in a statement said that there are "ripple effects." For example, with the Departments of State and Commerce closed, contractors can't get export licenses needed for certain weapons sales and transfers. An aerial view of the Pentagon The Pentagon is not shut down, but contractors are still feeling a pinch. Image source: Getty Images. In addition, research projects at NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other agencies are stalled. Much of that research is a combination of in-house work and third-party contracts. Overall, government contractors are estimated to be losing as much as $200 million per day due to the shutdown. "Every day the shutdown lasts, the impacts grow and become more difficult and more expensive to fix," AIA CEO Eric Fanning said in the statement. "It's time to get these dedicated public servants back to work." Uneven impact Generally speaking, during a shutdown outside contractors working on specific projects can continue work to a point where civil servant participation becomes necessary. But the government services businesses that provide IT, consulting, and related work to a range of agencies, including those impacted by the shutdown, face the difficult choice of either continuing to pay their workers to sit home, or cutting off funds at the risk of losing employees. Story continues For large contractors, such as Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Boeing, that have massive contracts with NASA and elsewhere, the work is likely complex enough that it can continue uninterrupted. Others, like Leidos Holdings (NYSE: LDOS) and General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), the two largest government IT vendors, should have enough scale and resources to ride out payment delays. But some smaller contractors might not be so lucky. Execs at Science Applications International (NYSE: SAIC), for example, on Jan. 7 told investors that the government is nearly $50 million behind in payments, adding that payroll for workers affected by the shutdown comes to $10 million per week. SAIC, which is in the process of acquiring Engility Holdings (NYSE: EGL), is particularly exposed to this shutdown because its fiscal year closes at the end of the month. If the shutdown continues well into January, or if the government is slow to get back up and running and reimburse contractors, the company could fall short of the consensus analyst estimate of $1.13 billion in quarterly revenue. "If we get through this quickly, they could catch up," SAIC CEO Tony Moraco said at during a pre-planned investor event. But given the current stalemate in Washington, the company appears to be working hard to prepare investors for a negative impact. Other similarly sized or smaller contractors, including CACI International, ManTech International, and Perspecta, could also feel the effects of a prolonged shutdown, though all of them are well past the end of their fiscal years and therefore should have more time to recoup lost revenue. Tread carefully At some point the current shutdown will end, and the federal government is likely to catch up on the contractor payments it missed. Investors should be mindful of the potential impact on the current quarter and not overreact, but there should be no permanent damage. Still, investors should take heed. The 2020 fiscal year budget negotiation, which does include the Pentagon, is on the agenda for the months to come, and there's been nothing out of Washington in the last six weeks to suggest that larger deal will come easy. Lawmakers need to reach an agreement to avoid a return of budget caps, which could cost the Department of Defense upwards of $100 billion in spending annually. If that were to happen, no contractor, no matter how big, would be immune. There's an argument to be made that the shutdowns could eventually be a net plus for contractors. Longtime industry analyst Byron Callan, a managing director with Capital Alpha Partners, in a note following the SAIC meeting said Washington budget battles over time could make it harder for the government to recruit and retain skilled individuals, potentially deepening the reliance on third parties. But that possibility is not immediate. For now, investors in contractors as big as Lockheed and as small as SAIC should batten down the hatches and hope lawmakers find a way to compromise. More From The Motley Fool Lou Whiteman owns shares of Perspecta Inc. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. (Bloomberg) -- The organizers of last years Google walkout to protest sexual harassment arent satisfied with what tech companies are doing to change their policies -- and theyre taking those concerns to social media. The group launched a campaign on Tuesday, via Twitter and Instagram, pushing to end forced arbitration, which can limit employees legal options in cases of workplace discrimination. Posts on the social media platforms throughout the day will address the impact of forced arbitration on tech workers and share interviews with survivors and experts, the group said. "A handful of tech companies attempted to separate harassment from discrimination by making arbitration optional for only individual cases of sexual harassment and assault," the group End Forced Arbitration wrote in blog post. "The change yielded a win in the headlines, but provided no meaningful gains for worker equity." Thousands of Google employees walked out of offices around the globe in November to protest how the Alphabet Inc. unit has handled sexual misconduct by some of its top executives. The movement was sparked by a New York Times report that said Google gave millions of dollars to some executives in secret exit packages after they were accused of sexual misconduct. One of the top reform requests the group made was to end the forced arbitration in harassment and discrimination cases, which requires employees to resolve their dispute privately rather than in court. Mandatory arbitration clauses have come under harsh scrutiny as the #metoo movement gathered steam last year. The Google group says forced arbitration affects at least 60 million workers in the U.S. and that ending the practice is the gateway change needed to transparently address inequity in the workplace. After the protests in November, Google changed some policies on sexual misconduct and made arbitration optional for individual sexual harassment and sexual assault claims. It also pledged to provide more information to staff about such investigations and the outcomes, and expand mandatory training on the issue, addressing some of the issues workers asked for in staging the walkout. Story continues The Google group says that not much has changed in the past two months. Google is still sending out employment offer letters with the old arbitration policy, the group says. Google said it has modified offer letters for new hires to include the change, which is reflected in a new company policy that declares sexual harassment and sexual assault claims arent required to go to arbitration. Last week, Alphabets directors were sued by shareholders for approving a $90 million exit payment to Andy Rubin, the creator of the Android mobile software. The suits, which are the first critiques aimed directly at the Alphabet board, claim it helped cover up Rubins alleged misconduct and similar misbehavior by other executives. To contact the reporter on this story: Krista Gmelich in New York at kgmelich1@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Molly Schuetz, Andrew Pollack For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. * Mannheim finds Qualcomm patent suit to be groundless * Qualcomm, in earlier German case, won ban on some iPhone sales * Patent battle plays out in United States, China and Germany FRANKFURT, Jan 15 (Reuters) - A patent lawsuit filed by Qualcomm Inc against Apple Inc was thrown out by a German court on Tuesday, in a reversal for the U.S. chipmaker after it won a recent court ban on the sale of some iPhones in the country. The regional court in the city of Mannheim dismissed the Qualcomm suit as groundless in an initial verbal decision, saying the patent in question was not violated by the installation of its chips in Apple's smartphones. Qualcomm, waging a worldwide patent battle with Apple, said it would appeal after winning a separate case before a court in Munich in December that enabled it to enforce a ban on the sale of older iPhones in Germany. "Apple has a history of infringing our patents," said Don Rosenberg, Qualcomm's executive vice president and general counsel. "While we disagree with the Mannheim court's decision and will appeal, we will continue to enforce our (intellectual property) rights against Apple worldwide." Apple declined to comment on the Mannheim decision. It referred to a statement issued in response to the Dec. 20 ruling in Munich, against which it is appealing. Apple said at the time that, while a decision on the Munich appeal is outstanding, it would no longer stock the iPhone 7 and 8 at its 15 retail outlets in Germany, although its newer models would remain on sale. All of its models remain available through carriers and resellers. Gravis, the leading Apple reseller in Germany, said on Tuesday it continued to stock the full range of iPhones. Apart from the German order, Qualcomm has also secured a ban on the sale of some iPhones in China. Apple, which is also contesting that ruling, has continued to offer its iPhones in China but made changes to its iOS operating system following the order. Qualcomm, meanwhile, faces a U.S. antitrust case brought by the Federal Trade Commission which accuses it of abusing a monopoly on mobile chip technology in a trial that could have a major impact on the smartphone industry. If the government prevails in the trial that began on Jan. 4, Qualcomm could be forced to change its practices for licensing a trove of patents to device makers like Apple. Apple is closely watching the FTC case, as it has its own pending lawsuit making similar claims against Qualcomm. (Reporting by Douglas Busvine Editing by Keith Weir) Mississippi's state healthcare system ranked dead last in America on a 2018 scorecard by The Commonwealth Fund . It has the 46th highest unemployment rate in the country (4.7 percent), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics ' most recent data . Mississippi also came in last in a 2018 ranking of the level of education of the people living in each state by WalletHub . The telling rankings make Mississippi a good place to test the efficacy of universal basic income, or free cash handouts, and that's what one group is doing with a pilot project for struggling black mothers. The Magnolia Mother's Trust is giving 20 black Mississippi moms who live below the federal poverty line $1,000 a month for one year to spend however they see fit. On of the supporters of the program is Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, via funding for the advocacy organization, the Economic Security Project , which gave $75,000 to get the program off the ground. The first checks went out to 16 women in December, and thanks to a recent anonymous donor, 20 moms are in the pilot as of January. The program is the brainchild of Aisha Nyandoro , the CEO of Springboard To Opportunities , a Jackson , Mississippi-based organization that helps families living in affordable housing . "We have all seen the [rankings] ... and we are well aware of our history of slavery, segregation and inequity along racial lines," wrote Nyandoro in an op-ed for the Jackson -based Clarion Ledger. "But there is another story from Mississippi's history I do not think we tell often enough of low-income, black women who organized to create stronger communities and better outcomes for their people." That story is personal to Nyandoro: "My grandmother was born a sharecropper and only through other social service organizations she was able to pivot our family out of poverty," she says in an NBC Left Field short documentary released in December . Story continues Can a universal basic income be a tool for closing the racial wealth gap? The moms in the program each have an average annual income of less than $11,032 (including other subsidies like food stamps and subsidized housing), which puts them below the poverty index, Nyandoro tells CNBC Make It , and they range in age from 25 to 46 with an average of two children each. The decision to only include black mothers was considered and intentional. "You cannot have a conversation about economic justice without talking about racial and gender justice," Nyandoro explains to CNBC Make It. "African American mothers are at the center of this narrative." The pilot program is an example of universal basic income, in which a government gives all its citizens cash, regardless of employment status, with no stipulations as to how it can be spent. "Families need more cash. A minimum wage job simply does not provide enough income to support a family, and the system for obtaining supplementary benefits is stressful, dehumanizing, and time-consuming," says a post on the Springboard Opportunities website describing the program. "Our hope is that with a little extra breathing room and not constantly having to operate in survival mode, our families will have an opportunity to dream about goals for their own lives and, just like the incredible women before them, become leaders who help organize for change in their communities," Nyandoro wrote in the Clarion Ledger. The idea of UBI has been getting an increasing amount of attention in recent years. In 2016, tech titan Elon Musk told CNBC universal basic income would be a necessity because automation would put so many people out of work. Facebook FB CEO Mark Zuckerberg , billionaire Richard Branson and Y Combinator president and self-made multimillionaire Sam Altman have all publicly voiced support for cash handouts as well. Silicon Valley start-up incubator Y Combinator is currently "in the planning and piloting phase" of its own study , Alex Nawar, its basic income research manager tells CNBC Make It. UBI has even hit politics: Venture capitalist Andrew Yang is running for President in 2020 on the at ticket largely centered on the idea that all American citizens between the ages of 18 and 64 should be paid $1,000 per month. And in Stockton, California, Mayor Michael Tubbs, 28, has launched the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, or SEED , a universal basic income test program for the city. Researchers will randomly select 100 Stockton recipients who meet initial qualifications (occupy a residence within the city, be at least 18 years old and live in a neighborhood where the median income is at or below $46,033) to get $500 a month for 18 months . Stockton is "close" to selecting the candidates for the pilot program, Daniel Lopez, public information officer for the office of the mayor, tells CNBC Make It, and by Feb. 15, Stocktonians who are participating in the program should have their first deposits. Magnolia Mother's Trust is the result of a partnership between Springboard Opportunities and the Economic Security Project, which is also collaborating on the Stockton UBI program. Nyandoro raised additional money for the Mississippi program through private philanthropy. Of course, there are objections to the idea of a universal basic income : namely that it is expensive and will remove motivation to work. Because the program is new, Nyandoro knows it is a risk. "Nothing quite like it has ever been tried before, and we do not have data and numbers to prove to funders this model will work. But what we do have are the stories and words of our families who have told us this is what they need, and we believe them," Nyandoro writes . For example, recipient LaKeshia Jones, a mom of four, who works as a nanny with unpredictable hours, says the money can offer security for her family. "For the most part, I want to save it, so I know I will have money when I need it," Jones told Rewire.News . "I'll be able to pay the bills on time and not have to get extensions. In the future I know the kids want to start doing more things at school and I'll be able to pay for that. I'll be able to pay for a tutor for my son. It's going to help a lot." One in nine U.S. workers gets paid too little to lift them out of poverty, even when working full time. But one program is hoping to give 16 Black moms more financial freedom: But not all moms felt that way. Out of 110 women eligible for the cash payment, only 37 entered the lottery, NBC Left Field reported. That's in part because the increase income would mean a decrease in benefits from other federal subsidy programs. "The reality is in this country it is virtually impossible to exit poverty. And that is because all of our benefits are punitive. So whenever you have an increase in income, your benefits automatically decrease," Nyandoro says to NBC Left Field . What is really changing for these women living in extreme poverty who have opted to take part in the program is they are able to decide what to do with the cash. Fundamental to the idea of universal basic income is the idea that individuals know what they need and will make the best decisions for themselves and their family. "We believe all people have the strength and capacity to be the authors of their own lives," Nyandoro writes in the Clarion Ledger . So The Magnolia Mother's Trust seeks "to continue the story of dignity, empowerment and collaboration that also defines Mississippi." See also: Facebook co-founder's new $10 million initiative to test if cash handouts will help fix America This California city's 27-year-old mayor will give residents $500 free cash per month Presidential hopeful Andrew Yang is giving this New Hampshire mom $1,000 a month to show cash handouts work Like this story? Like CNBC Make It on Facebook ! More From CNBC (Bloomberg) -- Autonomous driving startup Zoox Inc. named former Intel Corp. executive Aicha Evans as chief executive officer, months after the dramatic exit of co-founder Tim Kentley-Klay. Evans spent 12 years at Intel, and was most recently a senior vice president and chief strategy officer at the giant chipmaker. She will start Feb. 26 as Zoox CEO and a board member, the Foster City, California-based company said Monday in a statement. Zoox fired Kentley-Klay in August, which the Australian native said came without a warning, cause or right of reply. Kentley-Klay took to Twitter to criticize the board for their decision, charging that the directors were optimizing for a little money in hand at the expense of profound progress. Zoox raised an additional $500 million last July, giving it a $3.2 billion valuation at time. Instead of retro-fitting existing cars with fancy sensors and smart software, Kentley-Klay and co-founder Jesse Levinson, have said they wanted to make an autonomous vehicle from the ground up. The startup aims to create a fully driverless vehicle ready for the road by 2020. Mobility is approaching a major inflection point, and Zoox has set itself apart from entrenched players as the only company creating a solution purpose-built to meet the needs of a fully autonomous future, Evans said in the statement. I look forward to helping the companys exceptionally talented team continue to grow as we unlock more technical and commercial milestones. Zoox in December became the first company to win approval to transport members of the public in its driverless test vehicles in California. To contact the reporter on this story: Krista Gmelich in New York at kgmelich1@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Andrew Pollack, Alistair Barr For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. SAO PAULO, Jan 15 (Reuters) - French commodities trader Louis Dreyfus Co vaulted ahead to third place in the rankings for Brazil's biggest soy exporters in 2018, locked in a virtual dead heat with China's COFCO, according to annual shipping data. Bunge Ltd continued to top the rankings, while Cargill Inc remained in second place, according to data from shipping company Williams compiled by Reuters. Brazil, the world's largest soybean exporter, shipped a record 84 million tonnes of the oilseeds in 2018 after harvesting its largest crop ever, with most of it going to China. Nearly all local exporters did more business with China, which sought to replace U.S. soy with Brazilian beans, because of its trade dispute with the United States. The final standings confirm that grain handlers, which improved logistics and farmer relationships in Brazil, reaped rewards from the U.S.-Chinese trade war. "The combination of these initiatives enabled us to respond immediately to greater Chinese demand," said Luciano Souza, ADM grains director. A Dreyfus executive said last month that those two factors was their formula for success, helping the company notch 28.6 percent export growth. Increased competition between trading houses is beneficial for soy growers as it brings liquidity to the market, noted Bartolomeu Braz, head of soybean and corn grower group Aprosoja Brasil. Third-ranked Dreyfus exported 10.98 million tonnes of soybeans in 2018, just edging out COFCO, whose shipments totaled 10.96 million tonnes, a 17.8 percent rise from the previous year. The two commodities firms unseated fifth-ranked Japanese general trading firm Marubeni Corp, which ranked third in 2017. Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) ranked sixth, staying ahead of Singapore's Olam International, whose exports rose 225.4 percent increase to 6.65 million tonnes, the data showed. COFCO did not have an immediate comment. Bunge and Cargill declined to comment. Bunge kept its lead after increasing foreign sales of soybeans by 9.2 percent to 17.73 million tonnes, while Cargill raised soybean exports by 1.4 percent in 2018, to 12.15 million tonnes, according to Williams. Story continues The market still remains dominated by a handful of multinationals, said producer Elso Pozzobon, who grows soybeans in the town of Sorriso. "If there is competition among them, there will be a benefit passed on to us," Pozzobon said. TRADER 2018 2017 CHANGE BUNGE 17.737.264 16.244.640 +9.19 CARGILL 12.156.755 11.989.733 +1.39 DREYFUS 10.985.868 8.542.959 +28.60 COFCO 10.964.534 9.305.858 +17.82 MARUBENI 9.344.546 9.955.045 -6.13 ADM 8.565.959 7.967.685 +7.51 OLAM 6.649.238 2.043.177 +225.44 Source: Williams (Reporting by Jose Roberto Gomes Writing by Ana Mano) Investing.com - Chinese stimulus might just be the thing to frustrate gold bugs' yearning for new highs above $1,300 this year. Fears over the Brexit deal vote outcome for Britain were expected to push gold futures higher on Tuesday from its previous settlement of 1,291.30 per troy ounce. But the yellow metal fell as investors boosted equity prices instead in response to a plan by Beijing's National Development and Reform Commission to make the first quarter a good start to the year: coded language for an economic stimulus. Gold futuresfor February delivery on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange settled down $2.90, or 0.2%, at $1,288.40 a troy ounce. The high for the day was $1,294.70. Gold cracked the $1,300 resistance on Jan. 4, reaching an intraday high of $1,300.40, before falling back. The spot price of gold, meanwhile, traded down $1.80, or 0.1%, at $1,289.76 by 3:26 PM ET (20:26 GMT). "The Brexit vote was initially on the minds of traders for today, but the China factor turned out to be bigger," said George Gero, precious metals analyst at RBC Wealth Management in New York. Equities and other risky assets such as crude oil rallied on Tuesday at the expense of safe havens such as gold as analysts estimate there could be as much as 2 trillion yuan ($296.21 billion) worth of cuts in federal taxes and fees under the Chinese stimulus measures to be unveiled in coming months. Aside from that, local governments could issue another 2 trillion yuan in special bonds to fund key projects. Britain's parliament, meanwhile, rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's divorce plan from the EU in a widely-expected move, forcing her to come up with a backup plan. If nothing is approved by March 29, Britain would make a no-deal departure from the bloc, which could pose dire economic risks. In other Comex trading, palladium futures fell by 65 cents, or 0.1%, to $1,281.35. Patinum futureswere down 30 cents at $802.20. Story continues Silver futures fell 0.4% to $15.63. In base metals, COMEX copper rose 0.3% to $2.64 per pound. Related Articles Oil Hits Two-Month High as China Truce Signals Brighter Outlook Silver Is the Outcast Among Precious-Metals Outcast to Start 2019 Oil Rises 3% on 'Visible' OPEC Cuts; IEA Suggests 'Gradual' Recovery Lunaticoutpost.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program , anaffiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.Amazon, the Amazon logo, MYHABIT, and the MYHABIT logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.Don't be a pest to the forum.No profanity in thread-titles or usernamesNo excessive profanity in postsNo Racism, Antisemitism + HateNo calls for violence against anyone..This website exists for fun and discussion only. The reader is responsible for discerning the validity, factuality or implications of information posted here, be it fictional or based on real events. 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REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson By Tracy Rucinski and Allison Lampert (Reuters) - Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval of aircraft such as Boeing's (BA.N) MAX and new routes like Southwest Airline Co's (LUV.N) Hawaii launch are on hold due to the U.S. government shutdown, delaying commercial operations. On Monday, Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) said its plans to launch service to Hawaii early this year are on hold because the FAA groups that oversee the route authorization process are on furlough. In a statement, Southwest said it will not announce any timelines for selling or operating flights to Hawaii until it receives the necessary authorization. A partial U.S. government shutdown over President Donald Trump's demand for $5.7 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border entered its 24th day on Monday. Talks between Trump and congressional Democrats remained stalled even as some of his fellow Republicans called on the president to cut a deal, as tension mounted nationwide. The partial government shutdown is also affecting the certification program for U.S. business jet maker Gulfstream Aerospaces new G600 corporate plane, along with other facets of our business, a company spokeswoman said on Monday by email, without providing further details. Savannah-based Gulfstream, a division of General Dynamics Corp. (GD.N) had previously expected to obtain FAA certification or approval for the G600 by late 2018. The long-range business jet, which can fly nonstop from London to Los Angeles, is expected to enter service this year. Meanwhile, no. 1 U.S. carrier American Airlines Group Inc (AAL.O) said it has taken delivery of two new MAX 8, but the planes are sitting idle in Tulsa, Oklahoma awaiting FAA approvals required for commercial operation. American, with a fleet of around 950 aircraft, said it did not see any impact from the delay on its flight schedule or customers. A spokesman for United Airlines (UAL.O) said the No. 3 U.S. carrier is waiting for FAA service to be restored so it can enter one 737 MAX 9 and one used Airbus A319 (AIR.PA) into service. Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), which is also awaiting FAA certification of new aircraft, did not immediately reply to a request for details. Analysts said they did not expect a major impact on large airlines' capacity as a result of FAA certification delays, but will be awaiting management comments about the effect of a prolonged shutdown on travel and operations during fourth-quarter conference calls. (Reporting by Tracy Rucinski in Chicago and Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and James Dalgleish) NEW YORK, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ABM (ABM) , a leading provider of facility solutions, was recently awarded a contract to provide custodial services for Cherokee County School Districts 42 schools and ancillary facilities. Located in the northern suburbs of metro Atlanta, Cherokee County School District (CCSD) is the recipient of many prestigious state and national recognitions and accreditations. The ABM Education team is providing day and night custodial services for the school districts 5.1 million-square-feet-of-space that 4,800 teachers and staff and 42,000+ students use throughout the year. ABM is excited to partner with CCSD to positively impact the learning environment by ensuring clean, attractive and healthy facilities, says ABM Education Senior Vice President of Operations Trey Brock. Our goal is to build value for CCSD, while enabling teachers and staff to concentrate on what they do best educate young minds. We are proud to welcome the ABM team to Cherokee, says CCSD Superintendent of Schools Dr. Brian Hightower. Their willingness to go the extra mile while also taking care of the day-to-day custodial needs will positively contribute to ensuring our facilities are top-rated learning environments. The partnership with CCSD expands ABMs footprint in Georgia, as well as its national custodial services portfolio. ABM, which works with more than 500 K-12 school systems, colleges and universities throughout the U.S., has educational facility services expertise in custodial services, energy management, maintenance services, parking, landscaping and more. For more information, visit https://www.abm.com/education/ . CONNECT WITH ABM ABOUT ABM ABM (ABM) is a leading provider of facility solutions with revenues of approximately $6.4 billion and more than 130,000 employees in 350+ offices throughout the United States and various international locations. ABM's comprehensive capabilities include janitorial, electrical & lighting, energy solutions, facilities engineering, HVAC & mechanical, landscape & turf, mission critical solutions and parking, provided through stand-alone or integrated solutions. ABM provides custom facility solutions in urban, suburban and rural areas to properties of all sizes - from schools and commercial buildings to hospitals, data centers, manufacturing plants and airports. ABM Industries Incorporated, which operates through its subsidiaries, was founded in 1909. For more information, visit www.abm.com . Story continues CONTACT Media: Jennifer Miller (404) 926-4212 jennifer.miller@abm.com Username: Password: or Register Back to Forum Thread Rating: 1 Vote(s) - 5 Average 1 2 3 4 5 Page: 1 2 3 WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. She Man lop guest User ID: 453356 01-15-2019 07:18 AM Post: #1 WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. Advertisement WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. Pelosi Has Police Remove Them. Self-described investigative journalist Laura Loomer brought a handful of illegal immigrants to the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Monday. Pelosi who has been unwavering in her opposition to funding a wall along the southern border, which she's classified as an "immorality" reportedly had Loomer and the illegals removed from her property. Loomer, accompanied by illegal immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico, lugged a tent onto Pelosis multimillion-dollar vineyard estate, freelance journalist Nick Monroe reported Monday. In large red letters, the word "immorality" was written across the tent; there were also photos of murder victims of illegal immigrants hanging from the front of the tent. Livestreaming the event, Loomer took the time to read each of the victims names and reiterate that these folks were not welcome in "sanctuary state California." The controversial journalist even went to check if the Pelosis had locked their front door, since, according to a sarcastic Loomer, "only bigots lock their doors." "Come on, you can't say everyone is welcome here and then lock your door," said Loomer, upon finding the doors locked. "You're killing us, Nancy! You're killing us!" Police officers were soon called to the property and asked for identification from the illegals and Loomer and company. "I was told IDs were racist," Loomer repeatedly tells the officers. "I'm so confused." The officers removed the illegals from Pelosi's property and had them ticketed instead of being detained, per the House Speakers order. One of the men accompanying Loomer told viewers, I'm pretty sure the illegals, here; I'm pretty sure they feel like theyve been set up. Earlier this month, Pelosi notably called Trumps proposed southern wall an immorality. "The fact is, a wall is an immorality. It's not who we are as a nation," Pelosi told reporters. We are not doing a wall. Does anybody have any doubt? We are not doing a wall," she added. As previously reported by The Daily Wire, Pelosi has a wall surrounding the California property Loomer visited on Monday: According to a report from right-wing outlet The American Mirror in 2018 (see photos, here), and begrudgingly backed by left-wing fact-checking site Snopes, Pelosi has a barrier around a multimillion-dollar property she and her husband own in Napa Valley. According to The Washington Post, the estate was worth around $5 million in 2011, and brought in "at least $5,000 worth of grape sales from the vineyard, according to financial disclosure forms for 2010." (Nancy and Paul Pelosi, by the way, are estimated to be worth somewhere between $58.7 and $72.1 million.) The government is currently in a partial government shutdown as Democrats refuse to sign onto funding to protect our southern border with a physical barrier. RELATED: Nancy Pelosi Says 'A Wall Is An Immorality.' James Woods Asks The Perfect Question. Read More: Donald Trump Illegal Immigration Immigration Nancy Pelosi Southern Border https://www.dailywire.com/news/42171/wat...stigiacomo Self-described investigative journalist Laura Loomer brought a handful of illegal immigrants to the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Monday.Pelosi who has been unwavering in her opposition to funding a wall along the southern border, which she's classified as an "immorality" reportedly had Loomer and the illegals removed from her property.Loomer, accompanied by illegal immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico, lugged a tent onto Pelosis multimillion-dollar vineyard estate, freelance journalist Nick Monroe reported Monday. In large red letters, the word "immorality" was written across the tent; there were also photos of murder victims of illegal immigrants hanging from the front of the tent.Livestreaming the event, Loomer took the time to read each of the victims names and reiterate that these folks were not welcome in "sanctuary state California."The controversial journalist even went to check if the Pelosis had locked their front door, since, according to a sarcastic Loomer, "only bigots lock their doors.""Come on, you can't say everyone is welcome here and then lock your door," said Loomer, upon finding the doors locked. "You're killing us, Nancy! You're killing us!"Police officers were soon called to the property and asked for identification from the illegals and Loomer and company."I was told IDs were racist," Loomer repeatedly tells the officers. "I'm so confused."The officers removed the illegals from Pelosi's property and had them ticketed instead of being detained, per the House Speakers order.One of the men accompanying Loomer told viewers, I'm pretty sure the illegals, here; I'm pretty sure they feel like theyve been set up.Earlier this month, Pelosi notably called Trumps proposed southern wall an immorality."The fact is, a wall is an immorality. It's not who we are as a nation," Pelosi told reporters. We are not doing a wall. Does anybody have any doubt? We are not doing a wall," she added.As previously reported by The Daily Wire, Pelosi has a wall surrounding the California property Loomer visited on Monday:According to a report from right-wing outlet The American Mirror in 2018 (see photos, here), and begrudgingly backed by left-wing fact-checking site Snopes, Pelosi has a barrier around a multimillion-dollar property she and her husband own in Napa Valley.According to The Washington Post, the estate was worth around $5 million in 2011, and brought in "at least $5,000 worth of grape sales from the vineyard, according to financial disclosure forms for 2010." (Nancy and Paul Pelosi, by the way, are estimated to be worth somewhere between $58.7 and $72.1 million.)The government is currently in a partial government shutdown as Democrats refuse to sign onto funding to protect our southern border with a physical barrier.RELATED: Nancy Pelosi Says 'A Wall Is An Immorality.' James Woods Asks The Perfect Question.Read More: Donald Trump Illegal Immigration Immigration Nancy Pelosi Southern Border LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 453356 01-15-2019 07:32 AM Post: #2 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. Activists Jump Nancy Pelosis Mansion Wall With Illegal Immigrants, Demand Entry To Her Home Right-wing activists stormed the security wall surrounding House Speaker Nancy Pelosis California mansion and demanded access into the building Monday. The group was led by Laura Loomer, an activist who has been at the center of many stunts, including interrupting congressional hearings and chaining herself to the doors of Twitters New York offices. Loomer was joined by a small group of alleged illegal immigrants from Guatemala. Loomer and her accomplices carried a large banner with the faces of notable Americans who have been killed by illegal immigrant crime over the recent years attached to its surface. (RELATED: Trump: If Democrats Think A Wall Is Immoral, They Should Do Something About The Vatican) https://dailycaller.com/2019/01/14/activ...sion-wall/ Right-wing activists stormed the security wall surrounding House Speaker Nancy Pelosis California mansion and demanded access into the building Monday.The group was led by Laura Loomer, an activist who has been at the center of many stunts, including interrupting congressional hearings and chaining herself to the doors of Twitters New York offices.Loomer was joined by a small group of alleged illegal immigrants from Guatemala. Loomer and her accomplices carried a large banner with the faces of notable Americans who have been killed by illegal immigrant crime over the recent years attached to its surface. (RELATED: Trump: If Democrats Think A Wall Is Immoral, They Should Do Something About The Vatican) LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 433529 01-15-2019 07:42 AM Post: #3 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. She seems to have alzheimer's disease and should be put in a home for old people Top US Democrat shows these symptoms - "Signs of Mild Alzheimers Disease In mild Alzheimers disease, a person may seem to be healthy but has more and more trouble making sense of the world around him or her. The realization that something is wrong often comes gradually to the person and his or her family. Problems can include: Memory loss Poor judgment leading to bad decisions Loss of spontaneity and sense of initiative Taking longer to complete normal daily tasks Repeating questions Trouble handling money and paying bills Wandering and getting lost Losing things or misplacing them in odd places Mood and personality changes Increased anxiety and/or aggression Alzheimers disease is often diagnosed at this stage. Signs of Moderate Alzheimers Disease Forgetfulness infographic icon Share this infographic and help spread the word about what memory problems are normal and not. In this stage, more intensive supervision and care become necessary, which can be difficult for many spouses and families. Symptoms may include: Increased memory loss and confusion Inability to learn new things Difficulty with language and problems with reading, writing, and working with numbers Difficulty organizing thoughts and thinking logically Shortened attention span Problems coping with new situations Difficulty carrying out multistep tasks, such as getting dressed Problems recognizing family and friends Hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia Impulsive behavior such as undressing at inappropriate times or places or using vulgar language Inappropriate outbursts of anger Restlessness, agitation, anxiety, tearfulness, wanderingespecially in the late afternoon or evening Repetitive statements or movement, occasional muscle twitches Signs of Severe Alzheimers Disease People with severe Alzheimers cannot communicate and are completely dependent on others for their care. Near the end, the person may be in bed most or all of the time as the body shuts down. Their symptoms often include: Inability to communicate" https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-are-...rs-disease Pelosi is a TOTAL HYPOCRITE like the rest of here millionaire democrat peers.She seems to have alzheimer's disease and should be put in a home for old peopleTop US Democrat shows these symptoms -"Signs of Mild Alzheimers DiseaseIn mild Alzheimers disease, a person may seem to be healthy but has more and more trouble making sense of the world around him or her. The realization that something is wrong often comes gradually to the person and his or her family. Problems can include:Memory lossPoor judgment leading to bad decisionsLoss of spontaneity and sense of initiativeTaking longer to complete normal daily tasksRepeating questionsTrouble handling money and paying billsWandering and getting lostLosing things or misplacing them in odd placesMood and personality changesIncreased anxiety and/or aggressionAlzheimers disease is often diagnosed at this stage.Signs of Moderate Alzheimers DiseaseForgetfulness infographic iconShare this infographic and help spread the word about what memory problems are normal and not.In this stage, more intensive supervision and care become necessary, which can be difficult for many spouses and families. Symptoms may include:Increased memory loss and confusionInability to learn new thingsDifficulty with language and problems with reading, writing, and working with numbersDifficulty organizing thoughts and thinking logicallyShortened attention spanProblems coping with new situationsDifficulty carrying out multistep tasks, such as getting dressedProblems recognizing family and friendsHallucinations, delusions, and paranoiaImpulsive behavior such as undressing at inappropriate times or places or using vulgar languageInappropriate outbursts of angerRestlessness, agitation, anxiety, tearfulness, wanderingespecially in the late afternoon or eveningRepetitive statements or movement, occasional muscle twitchesSigns of Severe Alzheimers DiseasePeople with severe Alzheimers cannot communicate and are completely dependent on others for their care. Near the end, the person may be in bed most or all of the time as the body shuts down. Their symptoms often include:Inability to communicate" LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 483727 01-15-2019 07:43 AM Post: #4 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. don't make me laugh. she's not a journalist's arsehole laura loomer a journalistdon't make me laugh. she's not a journalist's arsehole LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 482373 01-15-2019 07:48 AM Post: #5 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. (good little video;) https://youtu.be/06x_H6Aw_zM Nancy Pelosi has a WALL! @JennyHatch(good little video;) LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 483737 01-15-2019 07:50 AM Post: #6 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 483727 01-15-2019 07:52 AM Post: #7 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. laura looney needs to take down her walls and take in the illegals she used to shame Pelosi hahaha Banana Phone lop guest User ID: 482936 01-15-2019 07:54 AM Post: #8 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 474477 01-15-2019 07:55 AM Post: #9 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. The whole idea of your home being equivalent to an entire country is a f*cking asinine argument LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 453356 01-15-2019 08:14 AM Post: #10 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06x_H6Aw_zM LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 474477 01-15-2019 08:16 AM Post: #11 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. yeah no sh*t you live in a house surrounded by walls doesn't mean you exist there in a vacuum by yourself walls always come down and are bypassed think you can just lock yourself up behind a wall? got another thing coming trumpass LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 408320 01-15-2019 08:17 AM Post: #12 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 08:16 AM) yeah no sh*t you live in a house surrounded by walls doesn't mean you exist there in a vacuum by yourself walls always come down and are bypassed think you can just lock yourself up behind a wall? got another thing coming trumpass I see you're a fan of the Gestapo. I see you're a fan of the Gestapo. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 433529 01-15-2019 08:18 AM Post: #13 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 08:14 AM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06x_H6Aw_zM Democrat Pelosi has the cops deport the illegal immigrants from her property! Democrat Pelosi has the cops deport the illegal immigrants from her property! GrimShaw Asinus Asinum Fricat User ID: 470470 01-15-2019 08:19 AM Posts: 31,635 Post: #14 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. What ambulance will Loomer be chasing tomorrow? Will she star in a porno for fame next? LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 474477 01-15-2019 08:21 AM Post: #15 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 08:17 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 08:16 AM) yeah no sh*t you live in a house surrounded by walls doesn't mean you exist there in a vacuum by yourself walls always come down and are bypassed think you can just lock yourself up behind a wall? got another thing coming trumpass I see you're a fan of the Gestapo. Wow, didn't take you long to pull that card that's exactly what happens when you let people like Trump into power first he builds a wall and then tells you he needs to see inside got it? trumpass? Wow, didn't take you long to pull that cardthat's exactly what happens when you let people like Trump into powerfirst he builds a wall and then tells you he needs to see insidegot it? trumpass? Advertisement Back to Forum A team of researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) reports in the American Journal of Managed Care that virtual video visits, one form of telehealth visit used at the hospital, can successfully replace office visits for many patients without compromising the quality of care and communication. Virtual video visits are personal video chat communications between a health professional and patient using a computer or tablet via a secure application. Karen Donelan, ScD, a senior scientist at the MGH-based Mongan Institute Health Policy Center and lead author of the paper, which has been published online, says, "Some of the participants in our study were parents of children who needed multiple frequent visits or older patients for whom travel was difficult to arrange. It did not surprise us that they found virtual visits more convenient, but we were impressed that nearly all perceived the quality of care or communication to be the same or better than at the traditional and familiar office visits." The MGH TeleHealth Program was launched in 2012 after 10 years of successful experience developing TeleNeurology. Virtual video visits were offered beginning in 2013, and the program has continued to grow since then. At the time this study was conducted, established patients in several departments or divisions - including psychiatry, neurology, cardiology, primary care, and oncology - were eligible for virtual video visits for follow-up care. The current study reports on survey responses from 254 patients after their first visit and from 61 clinicians who participated in the first full year of the program. Among the key findings of the study: 79 percent of responding patients who participated in the program felt that finding a convenient time for a follow-up virtual video visit was easier than for a traditional office visit. 62 percent of responding patients reported the quality of virtual video visits was no different from that of office visits, and 21 percent thought virtual visits' overall quality was better. 59 percent of health professionals providing virtual video visits agreed that, for the patients selected for these visits, virtual visit quality was similar to that of office visits; one third thought office visit quality was better. Patients and health professionals differed on their perceptions of the "personal connection" they felt in these visits: 46 percent of clinicians said they thought office visits were better, compared to 33 percent of patients. 68 percent of patients rated virtual video visits at 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale, and patients who rated the visits lower were generally concerned about technical issues they experienced during their first use of the system. Those issues were usually resolved at the time of the visits with technical assistance Clinicians reported that virtual video visits are superior to office visits for timely scheduling of patient appointments (70.5 percent) and for visit efficiency (52.5 percent). They did caution that these visits are not appropriate for all patients in all situations. The authors note that their study may have important lessons for a future in which several different modes - such as text, video, online, home and office visits - are available for patient-clinician communication. While 89 percent of patients with virtual video visits said their clinical issues could have been addressed in traditional office visits, 60 percent indicated that telephone calls, 31 percent indicated secure email and 20 percent responded that text messaging might also have been options. As these other modes of care are explored and studied, researchers will be assessing how best to tailor these visits to the needs of patients. Lee Schwamm, MD, director of the MGH Center for TeleHealth and of the MGH Comprehensive StrokeCenter and executive vice chairman of the Department of Neurology, has used virtual video visits extensively in his own practice and is senior author of the American Journal of Managed Care report. "Our findings confirm what I felt in my gut, which is that what patients' value most is uninterrupted time with their doctor, and they put up with all the other challenges required to come see us," he says. "Telehealth gives them more of what they want most and gets rid of the stuff they don't want. With a telehealth visit, 95 percent of the time spent by the patient is face-to-face with the doctor, compared to less than 20 percent of a traditional visit, in which most time is spent traveling and waiting. Seen through that lens, our results are not surprising." ### Schwamm is a professor of Neurology, and Donelan is an associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. The co-authors of the American Journal of Managed Care paper are Esteban A. Barreto, MA, and Carie Michael, SM, Mongan Institute; Juan Estrada, MSc, MBA, MGH Neurology; Janet Wozniak, MD, MGH Psychiatry; Adam Cohen MD, Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Hospital; and Sarah Sossong, MPH, Flare Capital Partners. Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with an annual research budget of more than $900 million and major research centers in HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, genomic medicine, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology, photomedicine and transplantation biology. The MGH topped the 2015 Nature Index list of health care organizations publishing in leading scientific journals and earned the prestigious 2015 Foster G. McGaw Prize for Excellence in Community Service. In August 2018 the MGH was once again named to the Honor Roll in the U.S. News & World Report list of "America's Best Hospitals." Username: Password: or Register Back to Forum Thread Rating: 1 Vote(s) - 5 Average 1 2 3 4 5 Page: 1 2 3 WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 406166 01-15-2019 09:29 AM Post: #31 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. Advertisement LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 09:11 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 09:09 AM) It's implied by your support for the left, sh*t weasel. nazis were a right wing party know your history bro please don't post any further with me, you are incapable Nazi were not right wing. Right wing= free market. I don't think Hitler was a libertarian. Nazi were not right wing. Right wing= free market. I don't think Hitler was a libertarian. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 423870 01-15-2019 09:40 AM Post: #32 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 09:11 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 09:09 AM) It's implied by your support for the left, sh*t weasel. nazis were a right wing party know your history bro please don't post any further with me, you are incapable I don't recall asking your permission, asshat. I don't recall asking your permission, asshat. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 483727 01-15-2019 09:45 AM Post: #33 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 09:17 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 09:11 AM) nazis were a right wing party know your history bro please don't post any further with me, you are incapable Nazis were all about the socialism and "progressive" agendas being espoused by the left. They liked big government, just like you. You have so much more in common with them than any "Trumphumper" or "Trumpass," as you like to call them. WTF is wrong with you tRumplovers? WHY are you so damn stupid? WTF is wrong with you tRumplovers?WHY are you so damn stupid? LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 423870 01-15-2019 09:52 AM Post: #34 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. -Free car for everyone -Vegetarian -Anti smoker -Massive Govt. spending -Total control of media -Constant propaganda Now WHO does that sound like to you? udis Philosopher User ID: 319844 01-15-2019 09:53 AM Posts: 28,010 Post: #35 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 08:14 AM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06x_H6Aw_zM Laura Loomer is a COLOSSAL SHITSTARTER! But She PUNKED out Nancy Pelosi's AssFoSure! Laura Loomer is a COLOSSAL SHITSTARTER!But She PUNKED out Nancy Pelosi's AssFoSure! This Claim Is Disputed Pending Fact Checkers. udis The Ministry Of Thought Crime. Does Not Approve Of Your Thoughts! LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 406166 01-15-2019 10:55 AM Post: #36 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 09:45 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 09:17 AM) Nazis were all about the socialism and "progressive" agendas being espoused by the left. They liked big government, just like you. You have so much more in common with them than any "Trumphumper" or "Trumpass," as you like to call them. WTF is wrong with you tRumplovers? WHY are you so damn stupid? Haha you have no counter argument because it's 100% true! Haha you have no counter argument because it's 100% true! LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 483765 01-15-2019 11:06 AM Post: #37 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. A wall will not stop people from seeking asylum, which is legal. And the reason most of the people are coming in. The "Illegals" are the ones who came here legally & over stayed their visas. Think with your brain instead of your emotions. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 406166 01-15-2019 11:15 AM Post: #38 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 11:06 AM) A wall will not stop people from seeking asylum, which is legal. And the reason most of the people are coming in. The "Illegals" are the ones who came here legally & over stayed their visas. Think with your brain instead of your emotions. Those seeking asylum are supposed to stop in the first country they cross into. Why are these "asylum seekers" not staying in Mexico once they escape Central America? They want free sh*t. Those seeking asylum are supposed to stop in the first country they cross into.Why are these "asylum seekers" not staying in Mexico once they escape Central America? They want free sh*t. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 472419 01-15-2019 11:24 AM Post: #39 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. The Daily Caller traveled to Obamas D.C. neighborhood to find out if the 10-foot wall existed. What did we find? Obama does not have one wall. He has many. He has barricades. He has armed guards entirely blocking the suburban road where he lives. Multiple cement and iron barricades block the road leading up to the Obama mansion. A Secret Service car and agent keep people from entering the stretch of road on both ends approximately 1,000 feet in both directions. (RELATED: Trump: If Democrats Think A Wall Is Immoral, They Should Do Something About The Vatican) https://dailycaller.com/2019/01/04/obama...ailycaller Protect a home, protect a nation. Rich Congressional Democrats and their apologists love their walls. Pelosi isn't the only hypocrite:The Daily Caller traveled to Obamas D.C. neighborhood to find out if the 10-foot wall existed. What did we find? Obama does not have one wall. He has many. He has barricades. He has armed guards entirely blocking the suburban road where he lives. Multiple cement and iron barricades block the road leading up to the Obama mansion. A Secret Service car and agent keep people from entering the stretch of road on both ends approximately 1,000 feet in both directions. (RELATED: Trump: If Democrats Think A Wall Is Immoral, They Should Do Something About The Vatican)Protect a home, protect a nation. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 481292 01-15-2019 11:24 AM Post: #40 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 11:15 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 11:06 AM) A wall will not stop people from seeking asylum, which is legal. And the reason most of the people are coming in. The "Illegals" are the ones who came here legally & over stayed their visas. Think with your brain instead of your emotions. Those seeking asylum are supposed to stop in the first country they cross into. Why are these "asylum seekers" not staying in Mexico once they escape Central America? They want free sh*t. Meth Meth LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 483765 01-15-2019 12:04 PM Post: #41 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 11:15 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 11:06 AM) A wall will not stop people from seeking asylum, which is legal. And the reason most of the people are coming in. The "Illegals" are the ones who came here legally & over stayed their visas. Think with your brain instead of your emotions. Those seeking asylum are supposed to stop in the first country they cross into. Why are these "asylum seekers" not staying in Mexico once they escape Central America? They want free sh*t. Legally, Mexico does not qualify for being a "safe third country". If the United States had a safe third country agreement with Mexico, it would be different. Legally, Mexico does not qualify for being a "safe third country". If the United States had a safe third country agreement with Mexico, it would be different. LoP Guest lop guest User ID: 423870 01-15-2019 12:16 PM Post: #42 RE: WATCH: Laura Loomer Brings Illegal Immigrants To Nancy Pelosi's Home. LoP Guest Wrote: (01-15-2019 12:04 PM) Legally, Mexico does not qualify for being a "safe third country". If the United States had a safe third country agreement with Mexico, it would be different. f*ckin' Lawyers a big part of the problem--as usual. f*ckin' Lawyers a big part of the problem--as usual. Back to Forum Vinaconex elects CEO of Vihajico as chairman Dao Ngoc Thanh, CEO of Vihajico, the investor of Ecopark, and representative of An Quy Hung Co., Ltd., was elected as chairman of Vinaconex. The new chairman of Vinaconex The extraordinary shareholders meeting to elect members to the board of management and the board of supervisors of Vietnam Construction and Import-Export JSC (Vinaconex, code: VCG) took place on January 11, 2019 after changing the companys shareholder structure. Since the auction two months ago, there are three big shareholders owning more than 5 per cent of VCG stakes, including An Quy Hung (57.71 per cent), Star Invest (7.57 per cent), and newly-established Cuong Vu Real Estate Co., Ltd., which has just bought 21.3 per cent of VCG stakes from Viettel last week. At the meeting, Vinaconex shareholders have elected Dao Ngoc Thanh, general director of Viet Hung Urban Development and Investment JSC (Vihajico), the developer of the Ecopark urban area, representing An Quy Hung, as chairman of Vinaconex. In addition to being general director of Vihajico, Dao Ngoc Thanh is also chairman of Cotana Group (CSC) and vice chairman of APEC Investment JSC (API). The new Vinaconex chairman said that Vinaconex will be one of the top three construction businesses in Vietnam. We need to find a way to put the Vinaconex brand on the top of all buildings, said Thanh. Besides Thanh, Nguyen Xuan Dong (chairman of An Quy Hung), Duong Van Mau (deputy general director of Vinaconex), Nguyen Huu Toi (chairman of Vinaconex 12), Bui Tuan Anh (assistant of Vinaconex 12s chairman), Nguyen Quang Trung (deputy general director of Phu Long Real Estate JSC), and Than The Ha (deputy general director of Vinaconex cum chairman of An Khanh New City Development Joint Venture Company) are also new members of Vinaconexs BoM. Meanwhile, the Board of Supervisors will contain Nguyen Xuan Dai and Le Dinh Vinh, two members proposed by Cuong Vu Real Estate. The shareholders meeting has also approved the resignation of seven BoM members, including Nguyen Duc Chi, Do Trong Quynh, Tran Tuan Anh, Nguyen Anh Tung, Pham Van Hai, Le Dang Dung, and Nghiem Phuong Nhi. Five members of the BoS, including Dang Thanh Tuan, Kieu Bich Hoa, Vu Hong Tuan, Nguyen Thi Quynh Trang, and Bui Anh Vu resigned. At the end of last November, two of the three big shareholders of Vinaconex, State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) and Viettel Group, announced fully divesting their VCG holdings at the initial price of VND21,300 ($0.93), VND3,000 higher than the market price. The offer drew in numerous investors, including newly-established companies, companies with small charter capital, who registered to buy hundreds of millions of shares. Eventually, An Quy Hung spent VND1.9 trillion ($82.6 million) to successfully buy SCICs VCG shares. Cuong Vu also poured a couple trillion dong to acquire the entire VCG holding of Viettel. Some time later, Star Invest spent over VND830 billion ($36.1 million) to acquire 34 million VCG shares from foreign investors and become a big shareholder of Vinaconex. VIR Thiruvananthapuram: Breaking yet another 'gender' barrier, a woman Monday started scaling Agasthyarkoodam the second highest peak of Kerala where the fair sex had been barred owing to an age-old tribal custom. K Dhanya Sanal, armed with a recent high court order which lifted the 'unofficial' ban on entry of women to the peak, began the arduous journey along with male trekkers through the traditional forest path from Bonacaud, located about 50 km from here. Dhanya, spokesperson of the Defence Ministry here, was the only woman in the first batch of 100 trekkers who set out to scale the 1,868-metre lofty peak, known for its panoramic beauty and unique biodiversity. Clad in jeans and shirt and carrying a travel bag, Dhanya seemed content and confident as she manoeuvred her way through the 22 km-long forest path. "The journey is to understand the forest more and share the unique experience with others," she said before starting the journey. Dhanya and others during their journey Agastyarkoodam, located in the Neyyar Wildlife Sanctuary, opened for the annual trekking for the first time after the Kerala High Court ruled last November that no gender-based restrictions would be imposed on trekkers. The local Kani tribes living on the foothills have opposed the scaling of the lofty peak by women. They had staged protests against permitting women to the peak, but did not attempt to stop the trekkers, including Dhanya, in view of the court order. Over 100 indigenous people, including women, gathered at Bonacaud, the pick-up station, and sang folk songs as a mark of protest. "We staged the protest to express our pain and anguish at breaking the customs of the Agastya hills. We never attempted to check the trekkers...because we respect the court order," Mohanan Triveni, state president, Adivasi Mahasabha told PTI. According to Kanis, the mountain range is the holy abode of their deity 'Agastya Muni', the mythical Hindu sage who is believed to be the guardian of the inhabitants. Women are traditionally not permitted to climb the peak, where his idol is located. The Kerala Forest Department, which organises the trekking programme, said a total of 4,700 people had registered this year, of them 100 were women. More women are expected to trek the peak in the coming days. A total of 100 trekkers assembled at the Bonacaud estate from where they were divided into five groups of 20 members each Monday morning, officials said. The department also arranged for canteen facilities at the base stations of Bonacaud and Athiramala and the service of women guard, they said. Though guidelines of the forest department specifically permit physically fit women above the age of 14 years to participate in the annual trek, there was opposition from some quarters to women's entry. In 2015, a women's group noticed that forest officials had promulgated a notification excluding women and children below the age of 14 from participating in the trek that include an overnight stay in a base camp at Athirumala. Pennoruma, an organisation headed by M Sulfath, and Anweshi led by former Naxalite leader K Ajitha joined another organisation, Women Integration and Growth Through Sports. They moved court to fight against the gender bias. The Kerala High Court on November 30 last year observed, "In case, permission is being granted for trekking in the year 2019, it is made clear that restrictions shall not be imposed only on the ground of the gender of the trekker." The trekking by women in the men-only Agasthyarkoodam has garnered media attention as the development comes days after three women of menstruating age trekked Sabarimala and offered prayers at the Lord Ayyappa temple, defying the traditional restrictions imposed on them. Agasthyarkoodam is a reserve forest and a UNESCO heritage site. The 47-day trekking programme to the peak will continue till March 1. Barron, Wisconsin: The Wisconsin man accused of kidnapping a 13-year-old girl after murdering her parents then holding her hostage for months, sometimes under his bed, told police he picked his victim after seeing her get on a school bus, prosecutors said on Monday. Authorities said Jake Patterson, 21, had confessed to killing Jayme Closs' father with a shotgun while the teen and her mother hid in a bathtub, then killing the mother after forcing her to help duct-tape her daughter's mouth shut. The October discovery of the parents' bodies in the family home in rural Barron, Wisconsin, with the door blasted open and their daughter gone, sparked a search by hundreds of police officers and thousands of volunteers. That ended Thursday when Closs escaped after 88 days and sought help from a woman walking her dog. At a brief hearing in Barron County Circuit Court on Monday, Patterson appeared via live video from jail, wearing an orange jumpsuit and glasses. He had a copy of the criminal complaint in front of him and calmly offered brief yes-or-no answers to questions from the judge. Patterson will be held on $5 million bail and is scheduled to appear in court again on February 6. He faces first-degree murder charges for the killings of James and Denise Closs, as well as kidnapping and burglary counts. Authorities have not yet explained why Patterson felt so drawn to Closs that he committed a double murder to capture her. Jake Patterson, 21 appears in a police booking photo in Barron Wisconsin. Asked whether Closs was the victim of sexual abuse, Barron County District Attorney Brian Wright declined to comment. Prosecutors said additional charges stemming from Douglas County, where Patterson's house is located, remained possible. "We're so grateful for Jayme and her safe return, and now it's time for us to obtain justice for her," Wright said. Defence lawyers did not address reporters after the hearing. Weeks of preparation Patterson told police that he spotted the teen outside her home while he was driving to a short-lived job at a local cheese factory. She was getting on the school bus, and "he knew that was the girl he was going to take," according to court documents. He prepared for the abduction by buying a ski mask, shaving his head so as not to leave any hair evidence and replacing his license plates with stolen ones. Twice he drove to the house but was scared off after seeing lights on and people there, prosecutors said. Jayme Closs told police she was awakened on October 15 when the family dog began barking and got her parents up as a car entered their driveway. Dressed in black, Patterson shot James Closs through the front door while Jayme and her mother, Denise Closs, barricaded themselves in a bathroom, authorities said. After kicking down the door, Patterson ordered Denise Closs to tape up her daughter, then shot her dead and dragged Jayme into the trunk of his car, he told police. On the way to his cabin in Gordon, Wisconsin, about 66 miles (106 km) north of Barron, Patterson drove past several police cars responding to reports of the shooting, according to the criminal complaint. During her months in captivity, Patterson often trapped Closs under his bed for hours when he left the house or had visitors, using plastic boxes and barbells to make it harder for her to get out, he told police. He threatened violence if she tried to escape. Closs managed to push her way out on Thursday after Patterson said he would be away for a few hours, she told police. She put on a pair of his shoes and walked outside, where she encountered the woman walking her dog. A "Welcome Home Jayme" sign displayed for Jayme Closs on Friday in Barron, Wisconsin. Photo by Kerem Yucel / AFP The two then approached a neighbour's house to call police. While they waited for officers to arrive, the neighbour, Peter Kasinskas, retrieved his gun and stood watch at the door in case her captor was searching for her, according to the Duluth News Tribune. Soon after, police stopped Patterson, who told investigators he had been driving around looking for Closs. Kabul/New Delhi: An Indian national was among four people killed in a car bomb blast in Afghanistan's capital on Monday, India'a External Affairs Ministry said on Tuesday. More than 110 people were wounded in the attack near a heavily fortified foreign compound in Kabul. The identity of the victim was withheld by the Indian government. New Delhi: Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat on Tuesday warned Pakistan that India will not hesitate in carrying out strong action against inimical moves, asserting that its forces were giving enemies along the Line of Control a "befitting reply" and inflicting heavy losses. Gen Rawat also said India's neighbour on the western border continues to support terrorism. The Army is ensuring dominance along the LoC and will continue to do so, he assured. "Our forces are giving a befitting reply to our enemies along the Line of Control. They are suffering heavy losses. I am warning our enemy (across the LoC) that we will not hesitate in carrying out strong action against any inimical action," he said while addressing Army personnel on the occasion of Army Day here. "We are ensuring moral dominance along the border in Jammu and Kashmir," he said. The Indian Army has ensured heavy damage to terrorists in the the state, Gen Rawat said. Youths in Jammu and Kashmir are being terrorised and forced to take up arms, he said. "We do not want that people in J&K are disturbed. Our neighbouring country has a hand in these activities. Terrorists are being trained and given arms by our neighbouring country, which is being termed state-sponsored terrorism globally," the Army chief said in an obvious reference to Pakistan. Referring to the border with China, he said the armies of both India and China have issued new guidelines to their respective forces. "Efforts are on to maintain peace and tranquillity along the (eastern) border. But we will keep reviewing the situation. Our soldiers will not allow any compromise in guarding the border in the eastern sector," Gen Rawat said, adding that the orders given by the government will be strictly followed. Discussing the situation in the Northeast, Gen Rawat said the situation is peaceful in the region and the Army is carrying out regular anti-insurgency operations. He also urged Army personnel and their families to be careful in using social media which he said is being used for radicalisation. Referring to criticism of the Army's pyramidal structure, the Army chief said, "For us, the VIP is the jawan who faces the enemy along the LoC." Gen Rawat also talked about coordination with the Navy and the Air force. "We will achieve decisive victory along with the Navy and the Air Force in case of a war," he said. The Army, he asserted, was carrying out major restructuring and modernisation of the Army. "The security challenge facing the country will become more complex in the coming years. We will have to keep enhancing our combat prowess so that we can defeat our adversaries. I assure that we will keep the trust reposed on us by the people of the country," the Army chief said. Thiruvananthapuram: The prime minister's trip to the state ended on a jarring note when local MP Shashi Tharoor, MLA V S Shivakumar and Mayor V K Prashanth were not included in the list of those who were to enter the temple for darshan at Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple along with Narendra Modi. The incident happened soon after the PM unveiled the plaque of the Swadeshi Darshan Project, which is aimed at developing the basic facilities in and around religious institutions across the country. Governor Justice P Sathasivam and state Devaswom minister Kadakampally Surendran accompanied Modi inside the shrine. Th PM unveiled the plaque of the Swadeshi Darshan Project at the temple in the presence of Governor P Sathasivam, CM Pinarayi Vijayan, Union Minister of State for Tourism Alphons Kannanthanam and Tharoor himself. Tharoor immediately tweeted his displeasure on key functionaries being sidelined for the PM's temple darshan. It seems that under the BJP even God must serve a political purpose & members of other parties must not be allowed to worship in the Prime ministerial presence! https://t.co/OuxbyxRdAb Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) January 15, 2019 The ministry of tourism's Swadeshi Darshan Project aims for integrated development of tourist circuits based on themes that showcase the rich cultural, historic, religious and natural heritage of the country. Meanwhile, the prime minister offered prayers at the centuries-old temple, known as one of the 108 'divyadesams' of Lord Vishnu. Modi, who entered the sprawling shrine through the eastern entrance, spent about 20 minutes there. Earlier, while speaking at a function at neighbouring Kollam district, the Prime Minister said he would seek blessings of Lord Padmanabhaswamy for the "welfare of people of Kerala and other parts of the country". Swadesh Darshan Officials said that under the Swadesh Darshan project, the Ministry of Tourism had sanctioned Rs 92.22 crores during 2016-17 and a majority of the work under this project was carried out at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple. The construction of the heritage walk footpath, bio toilets and bathrooms, renovation of the Padmatheertham temple tank, electrification and setting up of security systems have been completed at the shrine, dedicated to Lord Padmanabha, under the initiative. Recognising the tourism potential of the state,the Centre has sanctioned seven projects in Kerala under the Swadesh Darshan and PRASHAD schemes for about Rs 550 crore. The PM later left for New Delhi. The centuries-old temple, dedicated to Lord Padmanabha, had hogged media attention in 2011 after its four underground cellars revealed gold ornaments, vessels, jewels and precious stones worth thousands of crores of Rupees during an inspection. An architectural splendour in granite, the temple was rebuilt in its present form in the 18th century by the erstwhile Travancore Royal family, for whom Lord Padmanabha (Vishnu) is their family deity. Read more about the temple Kollam: Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially declared open the much-awaited Kollam bypass on National Highway-66 here on Tuesday. The 13-km-long, two-lane bypass, with a project cost of Rs 352 crore, will cut the travel time between Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram districts and is expected to decongest the traffic in Kollam town. The bypass has three major bridges over the Ashtamudi Lake, with a total length of 1,540 metres. Dedicating the bypass to the nation, Modi said only 56 per cent of the rural habitat was connected with roads in the country when he came to power in 2014. Tomorrow, Kollam bypass will be dedicated to the nation. For Kollam, it is a long cherished dream come true. When this Govt assumed office, only 23% of the works were in finished state. We kept our word of completing it in 1000 days, and finished the remaining 76% in 2.5 years. pic.twitter.com/K8geCKnEqp CMO Kerala (@CMOKerala) January 14, 2019 "On the banks of the Ashtamudi lake, I sense the recovery from the (August, 2018) floods. But we will have to fight harder. I congratulate you all on the completion of the bypass," he said. "In our country, we often see many infrastructure projects getting stalled after inauguration. A huge amount of public money goes to waste," the prime minister said, adding that he evaluated the development projects and engaged in meetings with all departmental secretaries and state chief secretaries. "Some projects get delayed for more than 20-30 years. It is a crime towards the common people," he said. "When we assumed office, only 56 per cent of rural habitation was connected to roads and today 90 per cent have connectivity. Very soon it will be 100 per cent." Kerala Governor P Sathasivam presents a memento to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Photo: R S Gopan The prime minister said foreign tourist arrivals went up in the country from 70 lakh in 2013 to one crore in 2017, adding that foreign exchange earned due to tourism went up from $18 billion to $27 billion in the said period. "India was among one of the fastest-growing tourist destinations in the world in 2017," he said. 'Ease of living is the goal' The prime minister also said that the priority of his government was to provide ease of living to citizens. "Ease of living is the commitment of my government and it was with this commitment that we gave the final sanction for this by-pass in January 2015. Now this has been completed. Several projects are in various stages of progress in Kerala," he said. "The last man in the queue is my priority... We have set aside Rs 7,500 for the fisheries sector besides launching a cashless insurance scheme for the poor," added Modi. "We have launched two special projects to develop tourism in heritage and religious places in Kerala and sanctioned Rs 550 crore for it." 'We fulfilled our promises' The chief minister said his government had fulfilled the development promises made to the prime minister when it came to power in the state. "Now I can proudly say that Kerala has fulfilled the promise given to the prime minister when we came to power. All these developments are for the welfare of the people," he said. Meanwhile, Pinarayi Vijayan was upset when a section of the audience chanted Lord Ayyappa hymns when he was speaking. "There are certain niceties to be observed in conduct during public meetings and all have to follow it," said an angry CM and then continued with his speech. This was the prime minister's third official visit to Kollam. Modi's first visit to the district was in December 2015, when he had unveiled the statue of former Kerala chief minister R Sankar. He had also visited Kollam in April 2016, hours after the Puttingal fire tragedy that claimed over 100 lives. Modi, who earlier arrived at Thiruvananthapuram in a special plane, was welcomed by Kerala Governor Justice (retd) P Sathasivam, Pinarayi Vijayan, officials and other leaders. Kochi: The Kerala government on Tuesday told the high court there was no "hidden agenda" of the state or police in the "pilgrimage of two women devotees" to Sabarimala on January 2. The government also alleged that a prominent political party and its supporters were implementing their "political agenda of denying right to women of all age groups to enter" the Lord Ayyappa temple. The state government stated this in an affidavit filed by it after a division bench of justices P R Ramachandra Menon and N Anil Kumar had on January 8 sought to know whether the two women of reproductive age, who had entered the shrine on January 2, had any "hidden agenda." The government said the state and its instrumentalities including police had only an "open agenda" in the matter of pilgrimage of two women devotees to Sabarimala on January 2 and it was the implementation of the Supreme Court order permitting entry of women of all age groups into the Lord Ayyappa temple. The government said the allegations regarding its "hidden agenda" were "perpetrated by right wing elements to perpetuate their political ends and the same is not supported by any cogent reason or bonafide apprehension." "If the said two women devotees were not permitted to proceed with their pilgrimage to Sabarimala when there was no threat perception to them, the same would have impinged upon the fundamental rights guaranteed to them under Articles 14, 17,2I and 25 of the Constitution of India, (as held by the Supreme Court in the case)," it contended. The government submitted that a prominent political party and its supporters and right wing elements have a "political agenda" of denying the right of women of all ages to enter Sabarimala temple "by taking recourse to all sorts of illegal methods and criminal acts to prevent the entry of such women into the temple." It is also practically not possible to ascertain the antecedents and genuineness of all the devotees visiting Sabarimala, the government said. Violence involving BJP-RSS and the ruling CPI(M) rocked parts of Kerala during the January 3 hartal with several houses and shops of rival leaders and workers being attacked over the entry of two women into the Sabarimala shrine, breaking a centuries-old tradition. Malappuram: Kanakadurga, who along with Bindu made history by becoming the first women below the age of 50 to enter the Sabarimala Lord Ayyappa temple following the Supreme Court order, was attacked by her mother-in-law on Tuesday. After days of hiding, Kanakadurga made her first public appearance at the Arppo Arthavam (hailing menstruation) event in Kochi on Monday and had returned home on Tuesday morning. Kanakadurga, an employee of the civil supplies department, lives at her in-laws' house at Angadippuram in Malappuram district along with her husband Krishnanunni, two children, and mother-in-law Sumathi. Fearing public protest after her Sabarimala entry, she went on hiding with police protection. Soon after she reached home, there was a war of words between Kanakadurga and Sumathi, and the latter hit her on the forehead with a piece of log. Kanakadurga has sought treatment at the government district hospital, Perinthalmanna. The Perinthalmanna police have registered a case under IPC section 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means) and 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint) against her mother-in-law. Sumathi has also sought treatment at the same hospital, alleging that Kanakadurga attacked her. However, there has been no injury marks on her body and the police are yet to register her complaint. Meanwhile, hospital sources said that Kanakadurga would be shifted to Manjeri Cedical College for CT scan and further tests. Kochi: The gang engaged in human trafficking found Munambam to be an ideal location for launching the trip to Australia owing to the virtual absence of surveillance and security checks in the area. Around 600 fishing boats operate from the region, mostly from the port. However, several other vessels are moored at other areas. The gang is believed to have fled on one such boat. Facts revealed so far The following information has been collected regarding the gang: 1. There are 13 families in the group. Of the 41 persons in total, four are carrying and there is an infant too. 2. The gang members flew in via Delhi and Chennai to Kochi. 3. They lived in resorts at Cherayi posing as tourists. 4. Pooja, a woman believed to be part of the gang, gave birth at a private hospital in Chottanikkara on January 1. She had informed the hospital authorities that she had arrived from New Delhi. 5. The gang members stocked medicines and dry fruits that would last a month from various shops in Cherayi. 6. The gang took care not to arouse the suspicion of the local people in any manner. 7. It is believed that the escape was on a boat named Devamatha purchased from a Kovalam native. 8. The gang abandoned several bags that contained food stuff and even two gold bangles. 9. It is believed that the bags recovered from the Kodungallur temple also belonged to this gang. Coast Guard to probe The police have recovered more bags belonging to the gang. The vehicles used were also found. Statements of many local people were recorded. Evidence was collected from the lodges the gang stayed in. A search has been launched to locate the boats in which the gang is travelling. The Coast Guard is carrying out the search, while the Navy has informed that it is keeping track of the developments and would join the operation if any suspicious object is found. Trafficking in the past Incidents of human trafficking from Kochi shores were reported earlier too, but probe into the matter reached nowhere. Official sources said that no evidence was unearthed regarding the gang from those arrested. Naval authorities stress that Kochi cannot be termed as a centre of human trafficking. In the past, the police had nabbed some people who were camping at Munambam planning to flee abroad. The arrested belonged to Bangladesh. A probe was conducted by the local police into the affair but the file was closed after the Intelligence Bureau took up the case. The police are now clueless regarding the fate of the investigation. Speculations galore According to the police, no clear evidence has emerged regarding human trafficking. Only some assumptions have been made, said officials. It has to be established why the bags and other items were abandoned at various spots. It is felt that the gang was planning to escape to Australia on the basis of the statements collected from those arrested two years ago. Frequent reports of people being trafficked in this manner emerge from Sri Lanka. Australia is the nearest place where one can settle down without too many hassles, said a police officer. A boat worth Rs 1 crore The police found that the gang purchased 12,000 litres of diesel from Munambam. Locals said it was strange that suspicions were not raised over this huge purchase. But it is pointed out that boat of 100 feet length would have fuel tank of 6,000 litres capacity and provision to store an equal amount in addition. Pump owners would not have been suspicious as filling this quantity of fuel is a normal practice. Similarly, big boats have facilities to store water and food. It is estimated that a boat of 100-110 feet would cost Rs one crore to 1.10 crore. But it is believed that the gang used a vessel costing Rs 25-50 lakh. It is also rumoured that the boat was bought from a man hailing from Thiruvallur in Tamil Nadu. Meanwhile, the police are checking the call details of the mobile towers in the area where the gang lived. However, no suspicious calls have been detected. It is felt that the gang did not use mobile phones and had prepared a clear plan before reaching Munambam. More evidence unearthed The police have found bags abandoned at the South Gate at Kodungallur which were presumably used by the gang. Similar bags recovered from Munambam were thoroughly checked at the police station there. With the assumption that the gang members left Kerala coast only a couple of days ago, authorities are hoping to trace their boat in the high seas. People engaged in shipping activities say anybody can reach Australia from Kerala with a safe boat having enough fuel, food and experienced sailors. However, the trip is risky, especially if the navigators lack enough experience. Damage to the boat, rough sea and pirates are the dangers involved. In case the boat does not reach the destination as planned, the fuel and food may run dry. The travellers may suffer from diseases and lack of proper medical care and drugs may even cause mass fatalities. Moreover, many countries refuse to accept such passengers citing stringent international maritime laws. Do you jot down your thoughts and scribble up a verse? Do you have that writer's notebook which you intend to show the world? Here is a place to showcase it all. If you can write a blog or make a video, login to season 2 of Onmanorama blogging contest. February 28, 2019 is the last date for submitting your entries. Onmanorama, one of the top news websites in South Asia, is hosting the second edition of its blogging contest for college students. If you can write or make a video on anything you see, feel, love, hear, enjoy or condemn, this is the forum. Impress the jury with your style, tone and clarity. The writings should be in English and well within the bounds of propriety and public conduct no abuses, intended hurt or filth-throwing. Who can take part The contest is open to all college students, professional colleges included. The contestants should be in the 18-30 age group. The contestants should be Indians or persons of Indian origin. Participants can register for the contest by sharing their blog along with scanned copies of the college identity card, contact number and mail ID. A student can send only one entry. For video blogs, the entries can be made as individual or as a team. However, the entry has to be submitted in the name of one student only and all correspondence will be made with that student only. Credits to other team members maybe added in the video. The videos should not have been published anywhere else and shared privately to Onmanorama via Google Drive or YouTube. Once the registration is closed, an expert panel will select the top blogs and those will be published on the site. The panel will also select a winner each from the two categories Blog and Video Blog. They will be given attractive prizes and listed on the site with their photos and other details. Grab your chance to hog limelight. Thiruvananthapuram: Industries minister E P Jayarajan might be of the opinion that it was the 2004 tsunami that devastated Alappad, and not the mineral sand mining. But the Assembly Committee on Environment thinks otherwise. Thanks to unbridled mining, Alappad panchayat is now less than even 100 metres wide in certain areas, the committee said in its report tabled in the Assembly on February 2, 2018. The village, sandwiched between Arabian Sea and T S Canal, was once seven kilometres long and at least a kilometre wide, it added. The nine-member bipartisan committee, chaired by CPI MLA Mullakkara Ratnakaran, laid the blame squarely on thoughtless mining. Mining activities have stripped the coastal village's capacity to withstand sea erosion. If tsunami decimated the village, it was because the natural mud mounds so common in Alappad were lost to unscientific mining practices, the report said. The committee, after collecting evidence from local inhabitants and revenue officials, concluded that it could not be disputed that Alappad had lost 80 sq km of area after mining had begun. Along with the vanished areas were gone wetlands, wells and other water sources that fed Alappad, the report said. Many had lost their livelihoods, and over 5,000 people have already left the place. Central PSU India Rare Earths Limited and the state-owned Kerala Metals and Minerals Ltd have been carrying out mining activities at over 160 hectares spread over Vellanathuruth village in Alappad panchayat and Ponmana and Ayanivelikkulanagara villages in Panmana panchayat for many decades. They have permission to continue mining till 2020. Mining activities have stripped the coastal village's capacity to withstand sea erosion. Corporate arrogance Though the LDF government now seems suspicious, the Assembly committee found many of the concerns raised by local inhabitants to be true. For instance, the Centre has prohibited constructions of any kind in coastal regulation zones. The committee but came across a large godown of KMML in the prohibited area. The committee also noticed certain authoritarian tendencies in the running of the mining companies. A temple and a school had been relocated by the company without the knowledge of the local people. All this shows that there is basis for the complaints raised by the people in the area, the report said. Unfulfilled promises There are many restorative measures that the companies have not even taken up. When they were granted the nod to mine the area, it was mandated that the excavated area should be divided into separate grids and transformed into green zones. This has still not been done. Also, the companies were supposed to plant mangroves along the fringes of water bodies in the area. Not only has Alappad lost its natural mangrove forests, the casuarina (kattadi) trees planted to prevent sea intrusion too has been lost, the report observed. The companies were also asked to refill the excavated areas and bring them to the same level as non-excavated patches. Government officials themselves have testified before the committee members that refilling had not been done. The mining operations look so callous that some of the villagers are yet to be compensated for the land taken away from them for mining. The report termed as naked violation of mining rules the presence of dark viscous paste-like garbage along the Alappad coast. Not only has Alappad lost its natural mangrove forests, the casuarina (kattadi) trees planted to prevent sea intrusion too has been lost The committee had also called for a six-month break in between sea wash mining activities, or the excavation of minerals deposited on the beach by the sea waves. Nonetheless, sea wash mining continues unabated. IRE officials state that the mining plan for collecting beach wash mineral sand per annum has been approved by Indian Bureau of Mines and Atomic Mineral Directorate. The company also stated that the sea wash collection was being done only at a small portion while the rest of the area had sea wall protection. Triumph of local resistance Industries minister E P Jayarajan was of the opinion that it was the 2004 tsunami that devastated Alappad, and not the mineral sand mining. When we met the company officials in 2017 to know the reason for this massive shrinkage of land mass in Alappad, we did not get any clear answers, said Mullakkara Ratnakaran. Reason why the committee recommended a study by an expert group to analyse the exact cause of the Alappad phenomenon. The committee's remarks also serve as a rebuke to those who said that the protests were a recent phenomenon. The IRE's decision to construct IIT Chennai-designed groynes (structures to prevent sea erosion along shores) in stretches where erosion is extreme is the triumph of the public agitation against the activities of the company," the report noted. The wild pranks played on the bride or the groom on the wedding day by their close friends and kin is a trend that evolved slowly in Kerala. However, the vogue of freakish jokes, of late, has grown to an extreme level that it goes overboard quite often, leading to unpleasant scenes and even clashes. In view of rising instances of such unruly scenes at wedding venues over ragging rituals that cross the limits, the Kerala police have issued warning against disrupting the law and order situation by wedding day pranks. Instances of bullying bride and groom on their wedding day by a group of friends have often led to criticisms from various quarters. In a note posted on Facebook, the Kerala police said that such incidents, in the recent times, have turned out to be breaking the laws and often end up in scuffle between the wedding parties. Wedding day ragging has become so common these days that the videos of such incidents are viral on the social media. Recently, a groom made his entry to the wedding venue in a coffin, to the utter shock of the bride and her family. In another video, a groom was seen overturning the table at the feast in a rage after being mocked by his friends. Such incidents are being criticized on the social media for its arrogant nature which even hurt the bride, the groom and their familes. The Kerala police, in its Facebook post, observes that incidents of bullying and ragging mar the happiness and excitement of the wedding day and often disrupts the law and order situations. At times it crosses the lines and turns into something crass and dangerous as well. The police say that such incidents, taking place in the name of wedding celebrations, have now become a major social evil. On the wedding day, the bride and groom are forced, like ragging in a college, to perform strange antics. Waylaying the couples car and making them walk for miles, replacing their footwear with battered and old ones, making them ride a bicycle or travel in a goods carrier or even an earth mover, bursting crackers on their way are done as part of a wedding day jokes, observes the police. The FB post says that such incidents may at times lead to unfortunate episodes as well. Consuming alcohol, causing public nuisance by bursting fire crackers or conducting road shows cause trouble between the wedding parties and the people in the locality. The police stressed that lots of complaints about such wedding jokes are being filed at various police stations. It noted that such funny instances done for amusement turns into sadistic pleasure when one finds happiness in others discomfort. These instances of wedding day bullying have become so common and popular in Kerala these days. It is in fact the past actions of the groom which prompts his friends to take revenge on his wedding day, noted the police in the post. He may have bullied his friend on the latters wedding day and now he pays the price for it. In many cases, wedding day bullying ends up in scuffle and sometimes even the marriage gets shattered. There have been instances when such ragging has caused severe mental distress for the bride and thus sought a divorce on the wedding day itself. Besides, these people fail to understand the pain and struggle suffered by the couples parents as well. It is often the relatives and people of the locality who choose to remain silent, despite having a problem with the behavior of the friends, which helps the trouble makers thrive, wrote Kerala police on its Facebook page. The post ends on a note of advice that such fun, organized by the friends for the couple, shouldnt cast a shadow over the lives of the newly wedded bride and groom. City-Cost - Jan 15, 2019 - 17:21 | Feature With a back catalogue of over 350 flavors of KitKat, Nestle Japan Ltd. has set the bar high when it comes to satisfying Japans feverish appetite for new forms of the snack brand. So much so that taking things to the next level has lead the confectioner to create or seek out altogether new kinds of chocolate upon which to base their latest releases. 2018 saw Nestle Japan become the first in the world to commercialize pink ruby chocolate through its premium version of the snack with the release of the Sublime Ruby KitKat in January that year, ahead of Valentines Day celebrations. And the maker has romantic couples in its sights once again in 2019, this time tapping into the core of rumbling Valentines passions with the Sublime Volcanic KitKat which hit shelves of the brands boutique-style KitKat Chocolatory on Tuesday. At a launch event held in Tokyos Chiyoda Ward on the day of the release, Nestle unveiled to the press the KitKat Chocolatory Sublime Volcanic ( ), made with volcanic chocolate -- a new kind of chocolate created using a rare type of cacao, accounting for only 0.2% of world production, cultivated on volcanic islands. Japanese KitKat is the lighthouse and is increasingly successful with not only Japanese people but also consumers from all over the world including inbound tourists who are visiting Japan more and more each year, Cedric Lacroix, Nestle Japans Confectionary Business Group Managing Executive Officer, told press during the launch. Today, we continue this tradition and this role as an innovation driver and would like to share with you, I would say, a completely new concept in the world of chocolate which we call volcanic chocolate. (Cedric Lacroix from Nestle Japan introduces the Sublime Volcanic KitKat to press) To create the new premium KitKat, Nestle teamed up with London-based Firetree Chocolate Ltd. whose owner, Martyn ODare, was also present at the launch. Ive worked mainly with West African cocoa and Central American cocoa but over the years I occasionally came across a spectacular tasting bean and a curiosity for this bean and its unique flavor stayed with me, said ODare of the beginnings of a journey that took him to meet farmers on volcanic islands in Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and The Philippines, whose harvests account for less than 1.5% of global cacao production. But in the age-old adage of quality, not quantity, its in the lava-rich soils of these volcanic islands that the farmers cultivate what ODare refers to as the super premium cocoa used in the Sublime Volcanic KitKat. For me, its a bit like wine. Firstly, its all about where it grows. Not so much the type of tree but where it grows. And we see that this kind of cacao grows on volcanic islands. I think the head start, and the difference in the taste, comes from the soil. Between just growing it (cacao) for commodity and growing it for a really superb taste, is an investment of maybe an extra 100 days a year which is a big investment, continued ODare before going on to say that residents of the islands are even more excited than he to actually put cocoa on the map and join with Nestle in producing this volcanic chocolate from the ring of fire. Responsibility for moulding the volcanic chocolate into sublime KitKat form once again fell on the shoulders of Chef Yasunari Takagi, the patissier who has been overseeing the Chocolatory and premium range of KitKat since the project began in 2003. (Chef Yasunari Takagi on the right) Chef Takagi, who describes the taste of the new KitKat as the taste of the earth, brings to the nations shelves then a Sublime Volcanic KitKat that comes in a series of three flavors -- Vanuatu (Malakula Island), Papua New Guinea (Karkar Island), The Philippines (Mindanao Island) -- each bringing their own personality to proceedings, and in a packaging that creators feel will deliver the happy vibes and raise the mood on Valentines Day. (Japanese rugby union star Akihito Yamada and his wife / model Laura taste the new KitKat and pose for the press during the launch event in Tokyo) Individual bars of the Sublime Volcanic retail at 400 yen (exc. tax), a box set of the three flavors is 1,300 yen (exc. tax) and are available at KitKat Chocolatory nationwide from today as well as some 50 pop-up stores and online. Online pre-sales of the new KitKat began in December 2018. U.S. President Donald Trump spoke over phone with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday following recent bickering between Washington and Ankara, said the White House in a statement, Trend reports citing Xinhua. The two leaders discussed several bilateral issues, including the U.S. troops' withdrawal from Syria, said the White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders in the statement. "The President expressed the desire to work together to address Turkey's security concerns in northeast Syria while stressing the importance to the United States that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian Democratic Forces," added Sanders. The spokesperson also revealed that U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford will meet with his Turkish counterpart on Tuesday to continue "consultations with Turkey on Syria." On Sunday, Trump tweeted that the United States would "devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds" amid the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. He also suggested the creation of a 20-mile (32 km) safe zone in Syria. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Monday hit back at the threats against Turkey, claiming that "economic threats against Turkey will get nowhere." Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: The latest statement of US President Donald Trump greatly upset Turkey, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, Trend reports referring to the country's media. Erdogan noted that he held a telephone conversation with Trump, during which a number of issues were discussed, including the creation of a security zone in northern Syria, which Turkey intends to create on its own. Erdogan also noted that Turkey is determined to fight terrorism in Syria's north. Turkey is a reliable country for refugees, he said. "There were over 300,000 ethnic Kurds among the Syrian refugees who arrived in Turkey and this is a clear indication that Turkey does not quarrel with ethnic Kurds," he added. US President Donald Trump has recently stated on his Twitter page: "Starting the long overdue pullout from Syria while hitting the little remaining ISIS territorial caliphate hard, and from many directions. Will attack again from existing nearby base if it reforms. Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20 mile safe zone...." --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: In Turkey, a law has entered into force giving the right to free treatment to those who want to get rid of smoking addiction, Trend reports via Turkish newspaper Resmi Gazete. The report noted that during the first stage that began on Jan. 15, about 300,000 people who want to quit smoking will be provided with free medications from the Turkish Ministry of Health. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ratified the relevant law on Jan. 14, the report said. The new law totally bans the advertisement of tobacco products in Turkey. All tobacco products will be sold in the same packaging with no logos, or other inscriptions of producers. Turkeys former deputy prime minister Recep Akdag said in November 2017 that Turkey will expand the ban on the sale of tobacco products. Turkey has banned smoking in public places since 2008. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Inter-departmental consultations between Russia and the United States on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty have started in Geneva, Trend reports referring to TASS. The Russian delegation is led by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov while the US delegation is headed by Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Andrea L. Thompson. This will be their first encounter since Thompsons appointment. The consultations will be held behind closed doors. As Ryabkov told journalists on Monday, Russia is ready for serious work with the United States at the upcoming consultations and urges Washington to give up advancing any ultimatums and preconditions. The current round of consultations is being held amid plans announced by US President Donald Trump to withdraw from the INF Treaty. Also, US Secretary of State Pompeo announced on December 4 that the US would stop adhering to the treaty unless Russia returned to compliance with it within 60 days. Therefore, in early February, Washington may start the countdown of its withdrawal from the treaty. The Japanese governments position on a peace treaty with Russia and sovereignty over the Southern Kuril Islands remains unchanged, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday commenting on the talks between the Russian and Japanese foreign ministers in Moscow, Trend reports referring to TASS. "The legal position of our government remains unchanged," Suga said commenting on whether Tokyo still considers the Southern Kuril Islands as "indigenous Japanese territories." "At the meeting in Moscow the sides particularly outlined their stances and a serious exchange of views was held. However, we agreed with the Russian side not to disclose the talks content." Earlier, a spokesman for the Japanese Foreign Ministry told TASS that the Japanese government believes that Moscow and Tokyo intend to hold serious negotiations on a peace treaty and bring this issue to a close. The talks in the Russian capital made it possible to prepare the upcoming visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Moscow and a new bilateral summit due on January 22, the diplomat said. At the meeting in Singapore on November 14, 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to intensify Russian-Japanese talks on concluding a peace treaty based on the Joint Declaration signed on October 19, 1956. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed on Monday that Moscow was not going to discuss its sovereignty over the Southern Kuril Islands. Of Tears and Laughter. Conclusion of Tractates Makkot and Yoma Adapted by Rabbi Eli Block Kehot Publication Society, 2017 An Inner Perspective: From the Kabbalistic Writings of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson Adapted by Rabbi Eli Block Kehot Publication Society, 2018 There are different approaches to translation, each of which presents different challenges. The simplest of these involves literally translating individual words. When pointing and gesturing fail, we can usually look to resources like Google Translate and bilingual dictionaries for help with this sort of translation. Compared to literal translation, literary translation is a more advanced approach, which takes the poetry of prose and verse into consideration. What matters here is more than just meaning: literary translation concerns itself with sound, meter, wordplay, and aesthetics. And those concerns often constrain the translators options so that it takes real ingenuity to preserve the nature of the original. The literary translator needs to look out for nuance and listen for the music inherent in a well-crafted sentence. To move beyond literary translation is to work with language that is not there to draw attention to itself, but rather to elucidate, to persuade, to move, to inspire. What matters here is not the exact words, but the texts broader message. Think of how marketing campaigns are translated. As commercials and billboards travel across countries and culture, agencies employ wildly different tactics to achieve the same end. Performing this kind of translation effectively requires a deep understanding of both the texts purpose and its intended audience. Rabbi Eli Block is a master of this third kind of translation. In An Inner Perspective, he takes on the monumental challenge of bringing the writing of the Rebbes father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, to an English-speaking audience. At first, translating Rabbi Levi Yitzchaks writing seems daunting because his work deals with such fine distinctions and arcane ideas. He believes that no aspect of the Torah is incidental. He elucidates textual nuances in the Chumash by exploring slight variations in spelling, phrasing, or punctuation; he clarifies statements from the Zohar that most Torah scholars consider incomprehensible; he investigates the significance of details in Talmudic discussions that most people would disregard as inconsequential. But all of those translation challenges pale in comparison to this one: most of Rabbi Levi Yitzchaks writings were lost or destroyed by Soviet authorities who arrested and imprisoned him for promoting Jewish religious practice. All that survived were the cramped marginal notes he wrote in a collection of Torah books toward the end of his life, while exiled to Almaty, Kazakhstan. Other translators have tried to tackle challenging texts by supplementing literal translation with copious explanatory footnotes. But while these translations may feel more faithful to their original works, their bulkiness obscures the beauty and elegance of the original expositions. Perhaps because of the paucity of surviving material, Block has taken a bolder approach, fashioning Rabbi Levi Yitzchaks thoughts into a series of short essays. As a result, the reader is able to appreciate the spiritual inspiration and creative conciliation that are the hallmarks of Rabbi Levi Yitzchaks writings. For example, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak often discusses the Masoretic notes about the Torah, which cover subjects like variant spellings, unusually sized letters, and the number of words that appear in a given section. One might wonder why these analytics of the Torah were even compiled in the first place. And yet, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak attributes significance to each observation. For example, the word matnotmeaning giftsis spelled twice in Tanach in truncated form, without the letter vav: first, in Genesis 25:6, where the verse states, . . . to the sons of Abrahams concubines, Abraham gave gifts, and then in Proverbs 15:27, where the verse says, He who hates gifts will live. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak explains that the omission of a vowel in these verses indicates that the gifts in question are somehow deficient. Thus, we can extrapolate that the gifts that Abraham gave to the sons of his concubines in Genesis were the impure forces of sorcery. And the gifts that the book of Proverbs tell us to reject are those that are impure, imperfect, or insincere, as they ultimately bring no blessing to the receiver (p. 9). In the books first essay, Block demonstrates that Rabbi Levi Yitzchak analyzes a number of texts about Abraham and Isaac in terms of their primary spiritual pathways: he suggests that Abraham was a man of chesedexpansive kindnesswhereas Isaacs philosophy revolved around the character trait of gevurahmeasured restraint and discipline. He goes on to use that as a framework for interpreting the binding of Isaac in a way that resonates deeply with the modern age: Abrahams kindness binds and tempers Isaacs natural severity (p. 30-32). Later, Block offers a stunning illustration of Rabbi Levi Yitzchaks analytical approach in an essay regarding the four cups of wine that we drink during the Passover seder (p. 56-66). In the Talmud, three rabbis discuss the harmful spiritual effects of organizing things in pairs and therefore question whether we really should drink two pairs of cups at the Passover seder. The rabbis offer three possible answers: Rabbi Nachman says that on the seder night, G-ds intense vigilance protects the drinker from harm; Rava explains that the structure of the seder renders the grouping into a set of three with the final cup standing alone so that the four cups do not combine in a negative way; and Ravina says because the cups are drunk over a long period of time (rather than in close succession), each one is considered individually. To many, this Talmudic discussion will appear technicalperhaps even bizarre. Yet Rabbi Levi Yitzchak reads into this passage and offers deep insight into how to achieve true spiritual freedom. G-d is represented by unity, and pairs represent the challenge that creation poses to G-ds unity. Why then would the sages institute four cups of wine as a symbol of our freedom? Rabbi Levi Yitzchak recasts the three opinions of the Talmudic sages as a response to three challenges to the unity of G-d. The first cup represents the unchallenged unity of G-d. The second, third, and fourth cups represent the distancing of self from G-d via thought, feeling, and action. Rabbi Nachman, a sage whose expertise was in civil law, responds to the challenge of action that distances an individual from G-d. He notes that on the seder night, our appreciation of G-ds overwhelming presence protects us from this spiritual pitfall. Rava, a sage who is often identified with Abraham, addresses the challenge of ungodly emotions. On the seder night, the cups combine for good but not for evil: only the primary positive emotion of kindness reigns dominant while other darker emotions are sublimated. Finally, Ravina, one of the final editors of the Talmud, whose very name suggests the word binah (understanding), addresses the intellectual challenge to G-d. Emotions are subjective, easily swayed by surrounding circumstances. But the mind has the power to be objective and to divorce itself from outside influences. The mind can choose to distance itself from G-d but is also free to choose to bond with G-d. Thus, he solves the problem of pairs by arguing that each cup should be considered individually. In this example, we see the hallmarks of Rabbi Levi Yitzchaks thinking. No detail is incidental; even the names of the sages are keys to unlocking the meaning of an enigmatic Talmudic passage. And the resolution involves a general concept that is fleshed out by the precise details of the text. In Of Tears and Laughter, Block adapts two of the Lubavitcher Rebbes Talmudic exegeses into essays, using the same translation approach which served him so well in his adaptation of Rabbi Levi Yitzchaks writings. But the Rebbes insights have been rendered in English before: We already have a translation of the Likutei Sichot which collects many transcripts of his lectures. So one might be forgiven for thinking that Of Tears and Laughter makes no great contributionIn fact, even dilutes the Rebbes work. Indeed, these were my concerns when I first read Of Tears and Laughter. So I went back to read the the original source material. The text in Likutei Sichot is written in the style of classic Talmudic discourse: questions nested within questions, side points explored and elucidated. It is a testament to the Rebbes exhaustive and far-reaching scholarship. But for most readers, these fascinating meanderings and careful reconciliations of apparently contradictory details will obscure the big insight that brackets the Rebbes writing: the theory of everythingthe profound unity that pervades all of Torah thought. As the Rebbe sees it, all opposing views in Torah must ultimately be reconcilable because they are outgrowths of a singular point of truth. In order to bring that central argument into focus, Block carefully prunes the Rebbes winding tendrils of thought to help the reader see the recurring themes in the Rebbes writings. Of Tears and Laughter analyzes a well-known Talmudic anecdote in which Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues pass the site of the Beit HaMikdash and see foxes wandering its ruins. Rabbi Akivas colleagues cry, but Akiva laughs. The Rebbe analyzes the difference in their reaction and in doing so, provides us with a powerful way to embrace hope and optimism in the face of tragedy and loss. One of the delights of reading these two books side by side was that they revealed how Rabbi Levi Yitzchaks teaching influenced the Rebbes thought, and how the Rebbe went about elucidating his fathers concise teachings. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak demonstrated that every detail is significant. And his son, the Rebbe, went on to demonstrate that the significant is not esoteric or pedantic. Rather, it points to a profound unity and changes the way we think about G-d, Judaism, and our world. Unfortunately, the magic and the majesty of these books is marred by the misuse of many words. Often, synonyms are incorporated without regard for their nuance, slowing comprehension and robbing the reader of pleasure. These essays were masterfully crafted; the language deserved better editing. Still, despite those flaws, these are books that will enlighten you and, more importantly, deeply influence the way you study Torah. It may take effort to read them, but that effort will be well rewarded. Pyongyang calls for abandoning military exercises involving foreign forces on the Korean Peninsula, North Korean Ambassador to Russia Kim Hyun Joong said Tuesday, Trend reported citing Sputnik. "In order to eliminate military hostility between North and South Koreas in a fundamental way and turn the Korean Peninsula into a lasting and eternal peace zone, it is necessary to abandon conducting military exercises with foreign forces because North and South Korea agreed to follow the path of peace and prosperity," Joong said at a dinner marking the occasion of the New Year at the Embassy of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in Moscow. Joong went on saying that it was also necessary to abandon foreign strategic weapons on its territory. The ambassador stressed that multilateral negotiations should be conducted with the aim to establish a system of peace on the Korean Peninsula through close cooperation with the countries that had signed an armistice agreement. Millions of pilgrims began bathing on the first official day of Indias Kumbh Mela on Tuesday, the worlds largest religious festival where politics play an important role ahead of a general election this year, Trend reports referring to Reuters. During the eight-week festival at Prayagraj in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, up to 150 million people, including a million foreign visitors, are expected to bathe at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna, and a mythical third river, the Saraswati. Devout Hindus believe bathing in the waters of the Ganges absolves people of sins and at the time of the Kumbh Mela, or the festival of the pot, it brings salvation from the cycle of life and death. A highlight is the appearance of the Naga sadhus, or ascetics, who worship Shiva and bathe on the first day of the festival. Many sadhus belong to monastic orders called Akharas and some live in remote caves, stepping out only for the Kumbh Mela, generally held once every three years in four cities across India. Shortly before dawn on Tuesday, the first naked, ash-smeared ascetics, the Panchayati, plunged into the water amid cries of har har Mahadev, or everyone is Mahadev, another name for Shiva. It is out of this world, said Varun K Seth, a saffron-clad sadhu. When you get in the water, you feel like you are alive. Members of the largest monastic order at the festival, the Juna Akhara, raced down to the water carrying tridents and spears as police held back throngs of spectators. The river gives us immortality, said a naked sadhu from the Juna Akhara as he reapplied a coating of ash on his body after bathing. Mexico is preparing for the expected arrival of a new caravan of undocumented Central American migrants at its southern border, official sources said Monday, Trend reported citing Xinhua. A U.S.-bound caravan is scheduled to depart from Honduras on Tuesday, according to Alejandro Encinas, deputy minister of Human Rights, Migration and Population at the Interior Ministry. To tackle the year's first wave of organized migration, officials convened a meeting in Tapachula, Chiapas, the southern Mexican state that serves as the point of entry for migrants heading north. The idea is to avoid violent incidents seen late last year when hundreds of migrants rushed to a Mexico-Guatemala border crossing in an attempt to get into Mexico at any cost. "We hope there is order, security and regulation," said Encinas, adding that those able and willing to show the proper paperwork won't have any problem getting in. Mexican officials have also been in contact with authorities in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, he said. "The countries of origin also shoulder responsibilities and we hope they will fulfill their responsibilities," Encinas told reporters. Honduran media reported unknown organizers have publicized the caravan on social networks, instructing would-be asylum seekers to gather on Jan. 15 at the bus station in the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula. In mid-October, a caravan set out from the same city and was joined by others on its journey to the U.S. border. Officials say some 6,000 migrants eventually concentrated along Mexico's border with the United States which has taken a more anti-immigrant stance. The U.S. embassy in Honduras has been posting messages on Twitter to discourage migrants from undertaking a "voyage that is destined to fail." Thousands of Hondurans who made the journey as part of the first caravan "returned regretful," the embassy said. The Honduran government urged its citizens not to join the caravan. Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister for consular and migratory issues, Nelly Jerez, said citizens should "stay at home and seek opportunities in this country where God had us be born." "More than 2,000 Hondurans are in a shelter in Mexico, but remain in a precarious situation despite all the humanitarian aid," said Jerez. The Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan to Pakistan and IQRA University will organize a Seminar on From Martyrdom to Independence in Islamabad on Jan. 17, Trend reports referring to Pakistan's Dispatch News Desk (DND) news agency. The seminar will be held at IQRA University, Islamabad Campus. The event will officially commence with recitation from Holy Quran. Vice President of IQRA University Mohammad Islam will deliver the opening remarks followed by a short video on the topic. Former Special Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Ex-Ambassador of Pakistan to Afghanistan, Kuwait and Nepal Syed Abrar Hussain, Chancellor of Iqra National University Obaid Khan, and Chairman of the Senate's Standing Committee and Convener of Pakistan-Azerbaijan Friendship Group in Senate Senator Talha Mahmood will also address the participants. The seminar will end with the address by Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ali Alizada and vote of thanks. Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi was appointed Tuesday morning as the Israel Defense Forces' chief of staff, replacing Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, Trend reports referring to Haaretz. Kochavi was promoted from deputy chief of staff by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a ceremony at the Israeli army headquarters in Tel Aviv, also attended by Eisenkot. Kochavi, born in 1964, grew up in Kiryat Bialik in northern Israel. Kochavi studied Philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Public Administration at Harvard and International Relations at Johns Hopkins. He's the first vegan chief of staff. "I take this job upon myself in sacred reverence, I take it as an honor," said Kochavi."It is an honor received with the help of others who are deserving of gratitude. To my parents who gave me my first compass, a moral compass." "Soldiers and officers, the IDF is my second home," he said. "I love the organization and its soldiers. I intend to act together with the General Staff, in cooperation with all the levels of the organization, from a deep understanding of the strength of the people within it. Each soldier is a valuable asset that we have been entrusted with, and it is our duty to care for our charges. Similarly, we are responsible for the memory of the fallen, the support of grieving families, the wounded and the return of the missing." "Now, as it is my turn, and I have received the responsibility of leading the army, I commit to dedicating all my energy, with a critical and demanding approach, to strengthening our defensive wall, to training for present and future threats which focuses upon strengthening our attack capabilities towards our enemies, and presenting an army that is deadly, efficient and modern, that preserves its mission and it's uniqueness," added the incoming chief of staff. "Like every soldier who enlists, I also vow to dedicate all my efforts to the defense of the homeland. Now as chief of general staff, when in front of me are the foundations of the national security and the good of the nation, I swear it anew. To the general staff, good luck to us all." The European Union and the Canadian government have awarded 8.4 million ($9.6m.) to the Israeli-led international iReceptor Plus project to improve genomic and health-data sharing, the consortium behind the initiative announced on Monday, Trend reports referring to Jerusalem Post. Led by Bar-Ilan University, the iReceptor Plus consortium is composed of more than 20 partners from nine countries and promotes human immunological data storage, integration and controlled sharing for a range of clinical and scientific purposes. The four-year project aims to develop a platform to integrate distributed repositories of adaptive immune receptor repertoire sequencing (AIRR-seq) data to enable improved personalized medicine and immunotherapy in cancer, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, allergies and infectious diseases. The project will make data more standardized and accessible... Until now each lab and each company has built their own, usually private, sequencing datasets, iReceptor Plus coordinator and Bar-Ilan University Associate Prof. Gur Yaari told The Jerusalem Post. Through our system, we will enable them to have the same standards and equal access to the data. And then, each institute and company can decide alone which data they want to share and with whom. You can then conduct large-scale studies with meta-analysis, studies featuring many different groups and combine all this data together. The project received 7.85 million ($9m.) from the EU through its Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, of which Israel is a member, and a further 800,000 ($917,000) from the Canadian government. We will offer a totally new class of biomarkers to support novel treatments, Yaari added. The ability to share and compare AIRR-seq data will also promote the discovery of biomedical interventions that manipulate the adaptive immune system such as vaccines and other immunotherapies. In addition to Bar-Ilan University, Israeli participants in the project include the University of Haifa, the Rabin Medical Center, the data-storage company Infinidat and the project-management firm Interteam. Representatives from partner institutions, including research institutions and clinical entities from Europe and North America, gathered Monday in Eilat to initiate the project. Through its many academic, clinical and industrial partners, iReceptor Plus network databases will be established at several international sites to demonstrate the projects effectiveness in clinical and biopharma-use cases. The British Parliament voted Tuesday to reject Prime Minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal, negotiated between London and Brussels last autumn to set the terms of the countrys departure from the European Union, which is presently scheduled for March 29 of this year. The final vote was 202 for and 432 against, Trend reported citing Sputnik. "It is clear that the house does not support this deal, but tonight's vote tells us nothing about what it does support," May said in the Commons immediately following the vote. She further noted that a confidence motion would be voted on the following day. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn called the vote "a catastrophic defeat for this government." "No deal must be taken off the table, a permanent customs union must be secured, and people's rights and protections must be guaranteed," Corbyn said. "Her governing principle of delay and denial has reached the end of the line. she cannot seriously believe that after two years of failure, she is capable of negotiating a good deal for this country." Corbyn subsequently called May's government "incompetent" as he called for a vote of no confidence in that government. Scottish National Party (SNP) leader in Parliament, Ian Blackford, called for the immediate suspension of Article 50, which sets the March 29 deadline. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini on Tuesday accused the European Central Bank of attacking Italys banking system, saying its request for local lenders to put aside more money to cover impaired loans could cost 15 billion euros, Trend reports referring to Reuters. Salvini, who heads the far-right League, said in a statement that the ECB move showed that the EUs banking union was creating instability and said more transparency was needed to dispel any suspicion the central bank was politically motivated. Earlier on Tuesday, a source told Reuters the ECB will give the banks it supervises a target date to fully provision for their bad debt. The move surprised some investors and particularly spooked Italian lenders. A top Chinese military official on Tuesday called for efforts to strengthen trust between China and the United States, but said Beijing would not tolerate outside interference in Taiwan affairs, Trend reports referring to South China Morning Post. General Li Zuocheng, the PLAs chief of the Joint Staff Department, made the remarks during a meeting with Admiral John Richardson, the US chief of naval operations, in Beijing. Richardson is in China on a three-day visit that also includes a stop in the eastern city of Nanjing, headquarters of the Peoples Liberation Army Eastern Theatre Command. The two military leaders also had a deep exchange of views over Taiwan and the South China Sea, according to a statement released by the Chinese defence ministry. Li warned that China would defend its sovereignty at all costs. The Taiwan issue is a matter of Chinas internal affairs which concerns Chinas core interests and the feelings of the Chinese people across the Taiwan Strait, and China will not allow any outside interference, Li said, according to the statement. If anyone wants to separate Taiwan from China, the Chinese military will safeguard the national unity at all costs so as to protect Chinas sovereignty and territorial integrity. But Li also said military ties were a key component of China-US relations, and called on both sides to improve communication. The ups and downs experienced during the 40 years since the establishment of Sino-US ties have shown that the mutual interests between China and the US far outweigh the differences, and that cooperation is the best choice for both sides, said Li, who is also a member of the Central Military Commission, the militarys ruling body. The two militaries should respect each other, strengthen mutual trust and communication, properly manage risks, and work to make military exchanges a stabiliser of the Sino-US relationship, he said. Under US President Donald Trump, Washington has increased its support for self-ruled Taiwan with renewed arms sales and upgraded contact between officials, drawing repeated protests from Beijing. Chinese President Xi Jinping sees reunification with Taiwan as central to his vision of the nations rejuvenation and said Beijing would not promise to abandon the use of force to achieve this, in an address earlier this month. Relations with the US have also deteriorated over Chinas military build-up in the contested South China Sea, where two warships came close to collision in September. During the meeting, the US Navy commander said the United States highly valued a constructive, results-oriented relationship between the two militaries, according to the Chinese statement. He also expressed willingness to increase high-level military exchanges, strengthen mutual understanding and reduce the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculation. It is Richardsons second visit to China since he became the US Navy chief in 2015. His last visit in 2016 focused on frictions over the South China Sea. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is in New York on Monday for a takeover of the chairmanship of the Group of 77 (G77) developing countriesmc Trend reports citing Xinhua. Abbas is expected to attend a ceremony at UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday for the handover of the G77 chairmanship from Egypt to Palestine for the year 2019. Upon arrival in New York on Monday, Abbas met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Guterres congratulated the State of Palestine for assuming the G77 chairmanship and expressed his wishes for a successful year for the group, said Guterres' press office after the meeting. Guterres reiterated that the two-state solution is the only viable option to sustainable peace in the region, said the office. The G77, which got its name from 77 founding members, is a group of 133 developing countries at the United Nations. China aligns itself with the group, whose aim is to promote collective economic interests of the members and to try to have a bigger say in the world organization. In this file photo taken on June 12, 2018 US President Donald Trump (R) gestures as he meets with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (L) at the start of their historic US-North Korea summit, at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore. - US President Donald Trump said January 6, 2019 negotiations are underway on the location of the next summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. AFP U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday negotiations are underway on the location of his next summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, while remaining evasive on its timing. Trump, who held a historic summit with Kim in Singapore in June, said earlier in the week he had received a "great letter" from the North Korean leader but declined to reveal its contents. "We are negotiating a location," he told reporters before boarding a helicopter for the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, where he said he would be discussing a trade deal with China. "It will be announced probably in the not too distant future," he said of a summit with Kim. "They do want to meet and we want to meet and we'll see what happens." "With North Korea, we have a very good dialogue," Trump added, saying he had "indirectly spoken" with Kim. The latest letter from Kim came after the North Korean leader warned in a New Year's speech that Pyongyang may change its approach to nuclear talks if Washington persists with sanctions. Trump said Sunday the sanctions remain "in full force and effect" and would do so until the United States saw "very positive" results. At the first summit between the longtime adversaries in June, Trump and Kim agreed to work toward the Korean peninsula's denuclearization but with little apparent agreement on what that means. The United States has been pressing for North Korea to get rid of its nuclear weapons before any easing of economic pressure. Kim, whose family has ruled North Korea with an iron fist for 70 years, wants immediate economic benefits and a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War. Trump has cast his first summit with Kim as a major diplomatic victory, and on Sunday repeated his claim that there would be war in Asia had they not sat down to talk. "Anyone else but me, you would have been at war right now ... You right now would have been at a nice big fat war in Asia with North Korea if I hadn't been elected president." But progress has stalled since the Singapore summit with the two sides disagreeing over the meaning of their vaguely-worded declaration, and the pace of US-North Korean negotiations has slowed, with meetings and visits cancelled at short notice. Culminating in late 2017, the North has carried out six atomic blasts and launched rockets capable of reaching the entire US mainland, but has now carried out no such tests for more than a year. (Yonhap) Georgia will continue combatting the stink bug infestation in 2019, announces the government of Georgia, Trend reports referring to Agenda.ge. A list of measures that will be implemented in 2019 to fight the pest were approved at todays government commission meeting that was led by Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze. The measures includes more effective steps, including the improvement of communication with the population, read the press release published by the government of Georgia. More specifically, the farmers will receive SMS messages that will inform them about planned measures on a certain day. Last year the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) offered $3.5 million to Georgia to help the country combat the stink bug infestation problem. USAID gifted over 17 tractors to the Georgian National Food Agency in Abasha, in Georgias Samegrelo region in 2018 for the same reason. The brown marmorated stink bug, which damages crops, is widespread in Georgia and a real nuisance to Georgian farmers. The pest was first reported in Georgia in 2015. In 2016, the bugs destroyed a significant portion of the hazelnut harvest in western Georgia. 2017 was even more devastating and struck a wider area. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Elnur Baghishov - Trend: Chief of the General Staff of Irans Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Bagheri will visit Baku on Jan. 16 at the invitation of the Azerbaijani Defense Minister Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov, accompanied by a high-ranking military delegation, the Iranian Embassy in Azerbaijan told Trend on Jan. 15. Major General Mohammad Bagheri will meet the Azerbaijani prime minister and speaker of the parliament. During his two-day visit to Baku, Bagheri will hold talks on development of the Iran-Azerbaijan relations and cooperation in defense sector, joint border cooperation and fighting terrorism. An agreement on military and defense cooperation between the two countries is planned to be signed at the end of the visit. Bagheris visit is going to be the first visit of a chief of the General Staff of Iran to Azerbaijan. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Elnur Baghishov Trend: Both Europeans and the Asians expect the special financial mechanism to be determined between Iran and the EU in connection with foreign investments in the Iranian petrochemical industry, Hossein Ali-Morad, head of the investment department of Iran's National Petrochemical Industry Company, said. The companies willing to invest in the Iranian petrochemical industry expect the determination of the special financial mechanism. These companies will make final decisions after Special Financial Mechanism has been determined, Ali-Morad added, Trend reports referring to ISNA. Besides European companies cooperate with Iran in supply of equipment and making short-term and long-term investments, the companies from Asian companies like Japan, South Korea and China expect the outcome of the special financial mechanism predicted by Europe. So, they should continue to actively operate in the Iranian market, he said. Ali-Morad does not confirm that foreign companies leave Iran's petrochemical market because they want to see the result. The foreign companies will outline their policy and take steps, he said. After the US announced about withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in May 2018, Iran and the EU have begun to discuss the creation of a special financial mechanism between the two sides. Some media outlets predict that the special financial mechanism between Iran and Europe will be launched in January. Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov took part in the ceremony of handing over automotive equipment to the State Border Service of the Kyrgyz Republic on Tuesday, Trend reports referring to kabar.kg. The aid was rendered in accordance with the implementation of the Agreement between the governments of the Kyrgyz Republic and the Russian Federation on the provision of technical assistance to Kyrgyzstan as part of the process of joining the Eurasian Economic Union, the press service of the Kyrgyz Presidents Office of the Republic reported. The information on the equipment was presented by Chairman of the State Border Service of the Kyrgyz Republic Ularbek Sharsheev. The President noted that Kyrgyzstan highly appreciates the aid that Russia provides not only in the field of border security, but also in other important areas of cooperation. The leader thanked the Russian side, Russian President Vladimir Putin for strengthening the bilateral relations and ensuring regional security. We very much value strategic partnership and alliance with Russia, and highly appreciate support. We will continue to contribute to the strengthening of cooperation within the framework of the EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union) for the future of Kyrgyzstan and Russia, Jeenbekov told. The event was attended by Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Kyrgyzstan Andrey Krutko and Advisor to the Federal State Institution Directorate for the Construction and Operation of the Rosgranitsa Objects of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation Mikhail Semenov. As part of an intergovernmental agreement, Russia allocates about $ 48.58 million for technical equipment and engineering equipment for the Kyrgyz section of the EAEU border, including outside checkpoints. The Russian side completed deliveries of automotive and special vehicles in the number of 125 units, including high-mobility vehicles for transporting people and goods, towing vehicles, backhoe loaders, truck cranes, ambulances, special purpose vehicles, and drilling installations. The value of the state contract is $ 3 million. In addition, 11 complexes of buildings and structures for border divisions are being commissioned, most of which were commissioned in 2018 and January 2019. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Huseyn Valiyev Trend: Azerbaijani postal operator Azerpoct LLC has announced a tender for the purchase of parcel boxes. The participation cost is 300 AZN. Those who wish to participate in the tender can submit their bids, supported by a bank guarantee in the amount of one percent of the bid amount, until 6:00 pm February 11, 2019. The bid opening procedure will take place at 15:00 on February 28, 2019. Address: Baku city, U. Hajibeyli Street, 72. For more information: (+99412) 493-56-00 (internal 240). Contact: Oqtay Ismayilov. ($1-1.7 AZN on January 15) Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.15 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: Southern Gas Corridor project, which envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, will be among the topics of the European Gas Conference 2019, to be held on Jan.28-30 in Vienna, Austria, Trend reports citing the events website. In particular, the conference will focus on the topics titled TAP and TANAP: Getting ready to receive gas and Developments of the Southern Gas Corridor. Moreover, one of the issues to be discussed during the event will be the Trans Caspian Pipeline project. Among other topics of the conference, there are outlook for global LNG and its Impact, as well as forecasts for natural gas demand, the development of the North-South Corridor and others. Southern Gas Corridor envisages transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe. On May 29, Baku hosted the launch ceremony of the first phase of the Southern Gas Corridor project. The gas from the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field has already gone through the first segment of the Southern Gas Corridor - from the Sangachal terminal to the expanded South Caucasus Pipeline. The Southern Gas Corridor project aims to increase and diversify European energy supply by bringing gas resources from the Caspian Sea to markets in Europe. The Southern Gas Corridor comprises the following four projects: (i) operation of Shah Deniz natural gas-condensate field ("SD1" project) and its full-field development ("SD2'" project), (ii) the operation of the South Caucasus Pipeline ("SCP" project) and its expansion ("SCPX" project), (iii) the construction of the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline ("TANAP" project) and (iv) the construction of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline ("TAP" project) (SD2, SCPX, TANAP and TAP collectively, the "Projects"). The Projects have an estimated investment cost of approximately $40 billion. Upon completion, the SD2 project will add a further 16 bcm of natural gas per annum to 10.9 bcma (maximum production capacity) already produced under SD1 project. Total length of the newly constructed SCPX, TANAP and TAP pipelines will be around 3,206 kilometers. --- Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.15 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: Natural gas must play a key role in Europes shift to a low-carbon economy, Trend quoted Alexander Medvedev, deputy chairman of the management committee, Gazprom, as saying ahead of the European Gas Conference 2019. In Gazproms view natural gas can and must play a key role in Europes shift to a low-carbon economy. Gazprom has presented its vision of how natural gas can contribute to European climate neutrality by 2050. Natural gas can substitute coal in power generation and oil products in transportation. Thus, Europe is able to meet 2020 climate targets, said Medvedev. Further, the noted that a new elegant technological solution is introduced with hydrogen. The use of methane-hydrogen fuel in energy and transport without costly infrastructural changes will result in 25-35 percent emissions reduction, thus allowing Europe to achieve 2030 climate goals. Finally, a full-scale transition to hydrogen from methane offers the feasibility of the EUs challenging 2050 targets, added Medvedev. He pointed out that there is nearly a consensus view that global transformations will eventually boost the importance of natural gas within the group of fossil fuels as crucial ingredient of the worlds effort to shift toward less-polluting forms of energy. International Energy Agency in its New Policies Scenario regards natural gas as the fastest growing carbon fuel, overtaking coal by 2040 to become the worlds second-largest source of energy after oil. With demand growing by 1.6 percent per year, gas consumption is almost 45 percent higher in 2040 than today. Gazprom shares similar views on the future of natural gas. On 28 November 2018, the Commission presented its strategic long-term vision for a prosperous, modern, competitive and climate-neutral economy by 2050. The strategy shows how Europe can lead the way to climate neutrality by investing into realistic technological solutions, empowering citizens, and aligning action in key areas such as industrial policy, finance, or research while ensuring social fairness for a just transition. The transition to a low-carbon economy is important in order to transform the European industrial base, including the energy, manufacturing, transport and construction sectors. European energy intensive industry sectors that face international competition could be substantially disadvantaged by unilaterally imposed carbon constraints on EU industries. The European Commission has developed carbon leakage provisions and promotes low-carbon technologies through the Sustainable Industry Low Carbon programs. The 2030 climate and energy policy framework proposed by the Commission in January 2014 recognizes industrial competitiveness as a key aspect of EU climate and energy policies. This principle was endorsed by the European Council in October 2014 with a clear reference to the need to eliminate the risk of carbon leakage, as well as the importance of ensuring a stable regulatory framework for long-term industrial investments. The Council also stressed the importance of access to secure and affordable energy. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.15 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: The Joint OPEC-non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) will convene in the Azerbaijans capital of Baku on March 17-18, Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo said in a statement, Trend reports citing Bloomberg. Ministers will then meet in Vienna on April 17 to 18 to decide whether the cutbacks should be extended beyond their scheduled expiry in the summer, according to the message. OPEC officials will meet to discuss the framework on Feb. 7 to 8, and representatives from their non-OPEC partners will follow-up the consultations on Feb. 18 to 19. The charter will be finalized in order to be considered by ministers at their meeting in April, Barkindo said. OPEC and non-OPEC producers reached an agreement in December 2016 to curtail oil output jointly and ease a global glut after more than two years of low prices. OPEC agreed to slash the output by 1.2 million barrels per day from January 1. Non-OPEC oil producers such as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan, and South Sudan agreed to reduce output by 558,000 barrels per day starting from January 1, 2017. OPEC and its partners decided to extend its production cuts till the end of 2018 in Vienna on November 30, as the oil cartel and its allies step up their attempt to end a three-year supply glut that has savaged crude prices and the global energy industry. The 5th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting was held in Vienna, Austria, on December 7, 2018. The meeting participants decided to adjust the overall production by 1.2 million barrels per day, effective as of January 2019 for an initial period of six months. The contributions from OPEC and the voluntary contributions from non-OPEC participating countries of the Declaration of Cooperation will correspond to 0.8 million barrels per day (2.5 percent), and 0.4 million barrels per day (2 percent), respectively. --- Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.15 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) will bring new gas to Italy and boost its energy security, Trend reports citing a message on TAP AG consortiums website. Italy is a country with a high risk in terms of energy security: imports come from limited supplier countries and some long-term contracts will expire by 2020, whose terms of renegotiation have not yet been defined, said the consortium. More than 90 percent of Italys gas demand comes from abroad through pipelines, or in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG), according to the message. TAP will increase the energy security rate of Italy, increase the sources of supply, bring new gas to Italy, increasing competition and contributing to the reduction of the prices for households and businesses, said TAP AG. At the same time, TAP is using the most modern excavation technologies to minimize its environmental impact, according to the message from the consortium. Thanks to the microtunneling technology, it will be possible to operate invisibly and without any interference in human activities, said TAP AG. TAP project, worth 4.5 billion euros, is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union (EU). The project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz Stage 2 to the EU countries. Connecting with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Greek-Turkish border, TAP will cross Northern Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before coming ashore in Southern Italy to connect to the Italian natural gas network. The project is currently in its construction phase, which started in 2016. Once built, TAP will offer a direct and cost-effective transportation route opening up the vital Southern Gas Corridor, a 3,500-kilometer long gas value chain stretching from the Caspian Sea to Europe. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Details added (first version posted on 18:20) Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Sara Israfilbayova Trend: Azerbaijans Trade House opened in Dubai on Jan. 15, Trend reports referring to the Azerbaijani Ministry of Economy. A special information office will operate in the Trade House, where anyone can get detailed information on Azerbaijan, including tourism. The opening of the Trade House will contribute to increasing export of non-oil products to the UAE, promote Azerbaijani goods and expand bilateral trade between the countries. There will be more than 600 products, including fruits and vegetables, dried fruits, nuts, tea, jams, fruit juices, lemonades, canned food, vegetable oil, milk and dairy products, confectionery, makeup products, etc., in the Trade House. The Azerbaijani delegation headed by Minister of Economy Shahin Mustafayev, as well as UAE officials attended the opening ceremony. Speaking at the event, Mustafayev stressed that the opening of Azerbaijans Trade House in Dubai testifies to the importance attached by the heads of both countries to the trade and economic ties, as well as UAEs interest in the Azerbaijani products. The minister stressed that relations between Azerbaijan and the UAE, based on mutual respect and friendship, are developing successfully. Mustafayev said that one of Azerbaijans first trade representatives abroad was appointed in the UAE and export delegations were sent to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah in 2017-2018. In turn, UAE Minister of Economy Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansoori said the opening of Azerbaijans Trade House in Dubai is an important step in the development of bilateral economic relations. According to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee, trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates amounted to $48.84 million in January-November 2018, which is 50.8 percent more than in the same period of 2017. Export of goods from Azerbaijan to the UAE amounted to $19.16 million (an increase of 31 percent), while import was $29.68 million (an increase of 67.1 percent). --- Follow the author on Twitter: @IsrafilbekovaS Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Sara Israfilbayova Trend: Azerbaijans Trade House opened in Dubai on Jan. 15, Trend reports referring to the Azerbaijani Ministry of Economy. A special information office will operate in the Trade House, where anyone can get detailed information on Azerbaijan, including tourism. The opening of the Trade House will contribute to increasing export of non-oil products to the UAE, promote Azerbaijani goods and expand bilateral trade between the countries. There will be more than 600 products, including fruits and vegetables, dried fruits, nuts, tea, jams, fruit juices, lemonades, canned food, vegetable oil, milk and dairy products, confectionery, makeup products, etc., in the Trade House. The Azerbaijani delegation headed by Minister of Economy Shahin Mustafayev, as well as UAE officials attended the opening ceremony. Speaking at the event, Mustafayev stressed that the opening of Azerbaijans Trade House in Dubai testifies to the importance attached by the heads of both countries to the trade and economic ties, as well as UAEs interest in the Azerbaijani products. The minister stressed that relations between Azerbaijan and the UAE, based on mutual respect and friendship, are developing successfully. Mustafayev said that one of Azerbaijans first trade representatives abroad was appointed in the UAE and export delegations were sent to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah in 2017-2018. In turn, UAE Minister of Economy Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansoori said the opening of Azerbaijans Trade House in Dubai is an important step in the development of bilateral economic relations. According to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee, trade turnover between Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates amounted to $48.84 million in January-November 2018, which is 50.8 percent more than in the same period of 2017. Export of goods from Azerbaijan to the UAE amounted to $19.16 million (an increase of 31 percent), while import was $29.68 million (an increase of 67.1 percent). --- Follow the author on Twitter: @IsrafilbekovaS Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 Trend: The Iranian parliament will discuss the issue of raising a $5 billion loan from Russia, Mohammad Mehdi Mofatteh, a rapporteur of the parliaments ad-hoc budget review committee, told reporters. Putting this issue on the agenda of the parliament was approved by the members of the budget committee, Mofatteh added, Trend reports referring to IRNA. The plans about Russia's providing a $5 billion loan to Iran were first announced in 2015 during Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novaks visit to Tehran. If the loan is approved, these funds will be allocated for infrastructure projects, he added. Mofatteh stressed that the planned export of 20 percent of the energy produced at the Bushehr nuclear power plant abroad was also raised in the discussions of the budget for the next year (the Iranian new year will start on March 21). For this purpose, 12 trillion rials (about $285 million) may be allocated, he added. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 Trend: The 5th Azerbaijan International Conference of Beekeepers will be held in Baku Jan. 26-27, Trend reports with reference to the Agriculture Ministry Jan. 15. At the conference, representatives from Germany, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine and Georgia will share their experience with local beekeepers. Representatives of the relevant government agencies, public associations and businessmen will also participate in the event. Preventing bee diseases, increasing the yield in beekeeping and supplying beekeeper products to Azerbaijani and foreign markets will be discussed at the conference. The event will be held in the Dubai International Hotel in Baku. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: As many as 1.2 million Turkish citizens were provided with workplaces in Turkey in 2018, which is 18 percent more than in 2017, the Turkish Employment Agency (ISKUR) told Trend on Jan. 15. In December 2018, 151,400 Turkish citizens were provided with jobs in Turkey, ISKUR said. Out of the total number of the employed in December, 63 percent are women and 37 percent are men, according to ISKUR. "Among the jobs provided in December 2018, 98.9 percent accounted for the private sector," ISKUR said. "A total of 3.509 million people were registered as unemployed in Turkey in December 2018," ISKUR said, adding that 51 percent of them are women and 49 percent are men. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Elnur Baghishov, Sara Israfilbayova Trend: Azerbaijani and Iranian investors are interested in cooperation in joint projects, Iranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Javad Jahangirzadeh told Trend. He said Iranian businessmen are interested in entering the Russian market and other post-Soviet countries via Azerbaijan, because there are no customs duties between the CIS countries or they are insignificant. "Iran is interested in cooperation with Azerbaijani entrepreneurs working in Russia," said Jahangirzadeh. The ambassador also noted that trade between Iran and Azerbaijan may grow in the future. Further, the Iranian ambassador stressed that in 2018, the president and other Iranian officials visited Azerbaijan, and this is shows that relations between the countries are at a high level and they may develop even more in the future. "We must work to ensure that relations between the countries develop even more in 2019," he said. "We have joint investment projects and progress in achieving our goals." The ambassador noted that from the point of view of political relations, 2018 was a very successful year. Commenting on the construction of a railway as part of the International North-South Transport Project, the Iranian ambassador noted that the work in this direction is progressing in a positive way. The ambassador reminded that last December a meeting was held between Azerbaijans Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev and Minister of Roads and Urban Development of Iran Mohammad Eslami, during which constructive discussions took place. "Iran's Astara Terminal is presently operating," the ambassador said. "However, it will take 1.5-2 years for the full functioning of the terminal." Azerbaijans trade turnover with Iran amounted to $395.1 million in January-November 2018, according to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee. Compared to the same period last year, the trade turnover between the two countries grew 42.1 percent. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 By Elchin Mehdiyev Trend: The conference entitled Topchubashov. Security Conference: Security Issues in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union was held in Baku on Jan. 15, Trend reports. The conference has been organized by the M.A. Topchubashov Scientific and Surgical Center. The foreign and local political experts and other guests attended the conference. During the conference, panels entitled Assessment of Security Strategies of the Eastern European Countries and Balancing Security at Borders: Post-Soviet Countries were held. While delivering speech, political analyst Andreas Umland stressed that after the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), there were conditions for the creation of a new coalition in Eastern Europe, as well as for the post-Soviet countries to join international organizations such as NATO and the Council of Europe. Umland stressed that after the collapse of the USSR, relations were established between Azerbaijan and Turkey. He said that being a NATO member, Turkey has had an impact on ensuring the security of this cooperation. In turn, political expert from Poland Adam Richard stressed that after the collapse of the Soviet regime, Soviet troops were withdrawn from Poland and the country joined NATO. Poland has formed its own security structure, he added. The security of Eastern European countries is important for Poland. Poland attaches great importance to the cooperation with neighboring countries and partners in the field of security. The conflicts existing in the post-Soviet countries, including the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, pose a threat to security, Richard said. These problems should be solved to ensure safety. Estonian expert Merle Maigre spoke about cyber security and said that cyber security is one of the main challenges of the modern period. "We must pay special attention to this issue, she said. Information technologies affect all spheres of our life. We talk on the phone every day, use the internet. Anyone can be subject to a cyber attack." A cyber attack poses the same threat as a physical attack, Maigre said. From this point of view, a cyber security strategy must be an integral part of each country's national security. While delivering speech, head of the Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan Tural Ganjaliyev spoke about the activity of the community and stressed that as a result of the Armenian occupation, more than one million Azerbaijanis were expelled from their native lands. "Despite we have undergone ethnic cleansing by the Armenians and they destroyed the burial of our ancestors, our monuments, we are ready to live together with the Armenians if the conflict is resolved within the international law and Azerbaijans territorial integrity," Ganjaliyev said. The Armenian community must understand that its happy life can be ensured within Azerbaijans territorial integrity, he said. We are also ready for constructive negotiations with the Armenian community, Ganjaliyev added. The sooner the Armenian community understands this, the better it will be. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 Trend: Azerbaijans First Deputy Defense Minister, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Colonel General Najmaddin Sadikov has departed for Brussels (Kingdom of Belgium) to attend a meeting of the NATO Military Committee that will be held within the "Resolute Support" format. The meeting will be held at the level of Chiefs of General Staff at NATO Headquarters on Jan. 15-16. Resolute Support is a NATO-led, non-combat mission to train, advise and assist the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF). It was launched on 1 January 2015, following the conclusion of the previous NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission, and the assumption of full security responsibility by the ANDSF. The Resolute Support Mission currently comprises around 16,000 personnel from 41 NATO Allies and partners. Details added (first version posted at 20:13, Jan.14). Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 Trend: President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on additional measures to improve governance in the agricultural sector on Jan. 14. According to the decree, the Agency for Agrarian Services is being established under the Ministry of Agriculture on the basis of the State Phytosanitary Control Service, the State Veterinary Service, the State Service for Registration of Plant Varieties and Seed Quality and the State Main Technical Supervision Service. According to the decree, the Agency organizes and manages veterinary and phytosanitary services, controls their quality, coordinates the activities of state agricultural development centers in this field; conducts registration of agricultural equipment, control of equipment and provides public services in this field through state agricultural development centers. The highest number of the Agency's staff is 85 people. The Ministry of Agriculture has been instructed to prepare a draft regulation of the Agency within two months and submit it to the President of Azerbaijan; within three months, approve the list of services that will be provided in the regions through state agricultural development centers, and the regulation of these services; solve other issues arising from the decree. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 Trend: Speaker of the Armenian parliament Ararat Mirzoyan made a statement during his speech at the Armenian parliament about the fictional "massacre" of the Armenians, spokesperson for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Leyla Abdullayeva told Trend on Jan. 15. Abdullayeva was commenting on newly appointed Speaker of the Armenian parliament Ararat Mirzoyans statement that "massacre was carried out against Armenians in Baku in 1990." "The words 'as a nation which historically faced with violent actions, we cannot tolerate violence against any national minority' are an unsuccessful attempt by the Armenian speaker to convince others of the truthfulness of the lie in which he believes, she added. The Armenian speaker, who made such a statement, cannot be unaware of the ethnic cleansing that has been purposefully committed against the Azerbaijanis by Armenian nationalists over the past two centuries, she said. Abdullayeva stressed the bloody events committed by the Armenians over the past decades. "Armenia, which was patronized by the ruling circles of the Soviet Union, carried out an aggressive policy against Azerbaijan in 1988-1991, she said. As a result, civilians were killed, settlements were destroyed and plundered. On September 18, 1988, about 15,000 Azerbaijanis living in Azerbaijans Khankendi city, were forcibly expelled from the city and their houses were burned. As a result of ethnic cleansing during this period, about 250,000 Azerbaijanis from 185 Azerbaijani villages in Armenia were subjected to aggression and were forcibly expelled from their native lands, she added. As a result of the Khojaly genocide committed by the Armenian armed forces on the night of Feb. 25-26, 1992, 613 civilians were killed, among whom were children, women and the elderly. She noted that as a result of Armenias aggression policy, more than one million Azerbaijanis became refugees and IDPs. We recommend that the Armenian speaker before making statements once again pay attention to the well-known historical events, to their sad consequences and make statements not for stirring up hatred between nations, but for peace, progress and future development in the region, she noted. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 Trend: The ceasefire monitoring at the contact line between the troops of Azerbaijan and Armenia, in the direction of Tartar district, held in accordance with the mandate of Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Jan. 15, ended with no incident, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry told Trend on Jan. 15. The Personal Representatives field assistants Ghenadie Petrica and Martin Schuster carried out the monitoring from the territory of Azerbaijan. The Personal Representatives field assistants Michael Olaru and Simon Tiller carried out the monitoring on the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan occupied and controlled by the armed forces of Armenia. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15 Trend: Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 30 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Jan. 15, Trend reports. The Armenian armed forces were using heavy machine guns. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Reports from Tehran say police has been firing tear gas to disperse anti-government demonstrators around the citys main university Monday afternoon. Meanwhile, Tehran's local governor has labelled the demonstrators, who are mainly university students, as "opportunists," and claimed that the situation is under control, ISNA reported. As videos on social media show demonstrations in downtown Tehran near Tehran University, Mehr news agency quoted Iran's Police Chief Hossein Ashtari as warning that "demonstrators will need a permit for any gathering." Scores of videos posted on social media on Monday December 31, particularly on Twitter, show groups of students taking part in protest demonstrations around the university. So far there no reports of any police action against the protesters. Some of the slogans chanted in these demonstrations call on "inefficient officials" to resign. Meanwhile in other slogans, demonstrators encourage each other to be brave: "Don't be scared, We are all together." Social media users have pointed out that there are tight security measures in place and demonstrators have been moving back and forth along Enghelab (Revolution) Avenue adjacent to the university. A twitter post by a user writing under the alias Stig says "It has already started in Tehran and a few other cities. Let's get out with your family and co-workers. Whatever your complaint may be, it will eventually turn into a regime change." Demonstrations near the Tehran University followed two days of protests so far at the Azad University compound in north-western Tehran where 9 students were killed and tens of others injured in a university bus accident that has been attributed to university officials' negligence. The police chief's comment about a permit for demonstration came while during 40 years of clerical rule in Islamic Republic, no party or political group in Iran has been given a permit to hold a protest demonstration. In another development, Alimohammad Naeeni, an IRGC adviser, has said that Iran will be facing two major crises in the next Iranian year (March 2018-March 2019). One is parliament elections, which according to Naeeni "can pave the way for civil disobedience," and the other one is a deepening economic crisis as a result of economic pressures. He added that the Islamic Republic's enemies have been focusing on labor unrests in Iran in recent months. Naeeni's remarks are in reference to hundreds of protests demonstrations in various parts of Iran during the past year by teachers, workers and other groups protesting against social injustice and economic hardships. Calls for protests have also been made using social messaging platform telegram which is widely used by millions of Iranians in spite of the ban imposed on the popular app. Recently, a culture ministry official has said that up to 45 million Iranians use Telegram, adding that Telegram has replaced the Iranian state-run TV's status as the country's national media. Demonstrations in Tehran continue as other protest moves have been also going on elsewhere in the country, such as this one in Isfahan in protest to the shortage and mismanagement of water resources. The tweet says the protest took place on Monday. Radio Farda cannot verify the exact venue and date of this protest. Irans general prosecutor has hit back at a labor leader for two days in a row, saying there was no torture during his detention and he has lied to cover-up his crimes. Mohammad Javad Montazeri did not say what crimes the labor leader is accused of, except a vague reference to membership in illegal organization, without providing details. He was speaking on state television on Tuesday. Esmail Bakhshi, a worker at the Haft-Tapeh sugar mill in southern Iran led protests for unpaid wages in October-November 2018 and was arrested along with other workers. After his release from prison he accused intelligence ministry agents of torture. Initially, his accusations created a wave among Islamic Republic officials, many promising to investigate the matter. But government officials and the hardline judiciary changed tact once the uproar died down and now is not only denying the accusation of torture but pointing the finger at the labor activist as a criminal. International human rights organizations and United Nations bodies have accused Iran of prisoner rights violations and torture on many occasions, but Tehran insists it does not violate universal rules. LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - A British-Iranian aid worker who has been jailed in Tehran is going on hunger strike in protest at her treatment, her employer and her husband said. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 40, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in April 2016 at a Tehran airport as she headed back to Britain with her daughter after a family visit. She was sentenced to five years in jail after being convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran's clerical establishment, a charge denied by her family and the Foundation, a charity organization that operates independently of Thomson Reuters and Reuters News. "Nazanin called me this morning to confirm from Evin prison that she has started this hunger strike this morning. It is initially a three-day hunger strike," her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said. He said Nazanin was taking the action to press demands for access to specialist doctors to address health concerns and to be allowed such treatment as they prescribed. A spokesman for Iran's judiciary declined to comment. Britain has said it will not let Zaghari-Ratcliffe's case rest and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he had summoned Iran's ambassador on Monday to demand she had immediate access to the healthcare she needed. "Her ongoing detention is TOTALLY unacceptable and her treatment at the hands of Iranian authorities is a fundamental breach of human rights," Hunt wrote on Twitter. "We all have Nazanin high in our thoughts as she starts her hunger strike today. It is a truly terrible indictment of Irans approach that she feels she needs to resort to such an ordeal. Iran must take action now." Iran has said that the trial and the verdict are in the hands of the judiciary. Monique Villa, CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, said it was "extremely shocking to see our colleague...going on hunger strike to protest at her inhumane treatment." Britain has advised British-Iranian dual nationals against all but essential travel to Iran, tightening its existing travel advice and warning it has only limited powers to support them if detained. Moscow's Lefortovsky District Court has extended the arrest of eight Ukrainian sailors detained following the Kerch Strait incident until the end of April, an Interfax correspondent reported. "The court ruled to extend the period of arrest of Roman Mokriak, Yevhen Semydotskiy, Andriy Oprysko, and Serhiy Tsybyzov by three months, until April 24, 2019," Judge Albina Galimova read from the ruling on Tuesday. A few minutes later, Judge Sergei Ryabtsev has announced a similar ruling with respect to another four sailors: Andriy Shevchenko, Bohdan Holovash, Serhiy Popov, and Volodymyr Tereshchenko. The defense lawyers asked the court to decline the investigators' motions. If the court rules on a different measure of restraint for the sailors, the Ukrainian embassy is ready to provide them with housing, according to notes attached to their cases. The court sessions were held in camera at investigators' request. At the beginning of the hearings, the court declined to grant petitions filed by the defendants' lawyers to transfer the cases to a military court, because, according to the defense, the sailors are prisoners of war. The defense lawyers will appeal the extensions. Mokriak's lawyer Ilya Novikov said that he had already filed a brief complaint. The court is expected to decide on extending the arrest of another 16 sailors by three months on Tuesday. Ukraine will never return to the Russian yoke, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said, commenting on the promises of a number of Ukrainian politicians about the establishment of the earliest peace in Donbas. "Now some politicians promise that they will immediately bring peace. Peace does not depend on Ukrainian politicians. They can only bring defeat, only surrender, only Ukraine's surrender and return to the Russian yoke. We, Ukrainians, will never allow this happen again," Poroshenko said at the end of a thanksgiving service for the tomos of autocephaly and the formation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Lutsk on Tuesday. The head of state stressed that Ukraine is following its own path to Europe. About 70 parishes of the former Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP) have come under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), Peoples Deputy of Ukraine of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc Partys faction, presidential representative to the Verkhovna Rada Iryna Lutsenko has said. A statement published on her party's website says that she announced this at a meeting of the conciliation board of parliamentary factions and groups in Kyiv on Tuesday. "The duty of Ukraine is [not only] to preserve interfaith peace, but also to provide for a transparent model of such swapping of parishes in our democratic society The head of state notes the importance of the initiative by the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada to support and introduce a bill that will ensure the fundamental right of religious communities to change their subordination," Lutsenko said. As reported earlier, on December 15, 2018, the Unification Assembly was held in Kyiv, during which the Orthodox Church of Ukraine was established to be headed by Metropolitan of Kyiv and All of Ukraine Epiphanius (born Dumenko). On January 5, 2019, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew signed the Tomos on the bestowal of the status of autocephaly for the PCU, and on January 6 handed the document to Metropolitan Epiphanius. As of January 5, 2019, more than 40 parishes of the former UOC MP joined the OCU, and on January 13 their number reached 62. According to UOC MP estimates, it had 11,393 parishes in Ukraine in late 2012. Yuliya Tymoshenko, leader of the Batkivschyna party, has called to create a strong professional army in Ukraine and ensure Ukraine's accession to NATO. "In today's world, its very difficult to protect your borders alone. NATO spends $1 trillion a year to be able to fulfill its obligations to 29 member countries and protect them at any moment. Russia spends $66 billion, and Ukraine$3 billion. We can either [join] the collective security system to be protected, or stand alone, and anyone will be able to take us in their hands as they wish. We need to be strong and join the collective security system," she said at the Freedom of Speech program on ICTV in the evening of January 14. Tymoshenko said she believes Ukraine needs a strong modern professional army built in line with NATO standards. "Are you aware that at the end of last year almost 30,000 contracted servicemen left the army because they could not exist under the conditions they were offered? And a new contract, which has already been developed by our Military Cabinet and servicemen, will be passed into law," she said. The Boryspil International Airport has not yet reached the final agreements with Austria's low cost airline Laudamotion, which has been under control by Ireland's low cost airline Ryanair since August 2018, on the launch of flights to Vienna starting from February 2019, Director General of the Boryspil International Airport Pavlo Riabikin has said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine. "It is pleasant to state that at the beginning of the year we should have a new carrier. The airline Laudamotion announced the start of flights from Boryspil airport to Vienna five times a week from the beginning of February," he said. According to Riabikin, there is no contractual relationship between the airport and the airline, both parties are at the stage of approving the conditions. As reported, Laudamotion announced the launch of the Kyiv-Vienna flight in middle of December 2018. In August 2018, Ryanair announced the completion of the acquisition of 75% of Laudamotion shares, having previously bought 24.9% of the airline's shares in the spring. According to the information on the website, the Laudamotion fleet consists of 19 aircraft manufactured by Airbus, and the airline services flights to 49 destinations in 18 countries. Its headquarters is located in Vienna, but it also develops bases in Stuttgart and Dusseldorf, planning to transport 5 million passengers in 2019. Boryspil International Airport is the main airport of Ukraine, occupying a total area of about 1,000 ha. The airport has two runways: one with a length of 4,000 meters and a width of 60 meters, and the second with a length of 3,500 meters and a width of 63 meters. Four passenger terminals, postal and cargo handling complexes are located on the territory of the airport. Armen Sarkissian introduces his vision on future cities during visit to Masdar City While on an official visit in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian on January 15 visited the Masdar City. Masdar City is one of the worlds most sustainable urban communities, a low-carbon development made up of a rapidly growing clean-tech cluster, business free zone and residential neighbourhood with restaurants, shops and public green spaces. Masdars philosophy of urban development is based on the three pillars of economic, social and environmental sustainability. Masdar City is a greenprint for the sustainable development of cities through the application of real-world solutions in water, energy efficiency and the reduction of waste. At the same time, Masdars technology and education complex, in cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, opens new education prospects for different countries, including for Armenian students. Accompanied by Masdar Citys Executive Director Yousef Ahmed Baselaib, the Armenian President toured the City, was interested in its projects and programs, their implementation prospects and innovative ideas. The President also met with Armenian students of Masdar Maria and Arik, was interested in their education process and future programs. This is not just a city, but a combination of different ideas and approaches. This is both a city and scientific-research, educational center, but also a business and a foundation. This is also a great investment. In the past there were 10-11 Armenian students here. Unfortunately, their number is less now, just three students. But if we organize everything right, these students can return to Armenia in one or two years and apply the same ideas in Armenia, Armen Sarkissian said, stating that these ideas in the 21st century will have a major place. I think this is a good example of a center with which we should definitely cooperate and create the Armenian example which will not be the same, but will be better, he said. The President also answered the questions of reporters and shared his vision about a future city. It must have several components, he said. One of the components is very important to have the latest technologies. Secondly, we must have a vision which will move ahead 20-40 years, we need to imagine where the world will be in several years and build the grounds which will take you there. And thirdly, to use our heritage, experience. You need to go back to your roots, understand how people lived in your territory and not to ignore that experience. "New Yerevan Comes Out" exhibition - History of poster art in Yerevan (video) With the support of the Ministry of Culture of Armenia, at the initiative of the Culture and Art for Peace NGO, an exhibition titled "New Yerevan Comes Out" will open at the AGBU Hall on January 15, 2019. The exhibition will feature the history of poster art in Yerevan with posters dedicated to the capital and its life. The exhibition titled "New Yerevan Comes Out" is being held within the framework of the events dedicated to the 2800th anniversary of Yerevan. It aims to demonstrate the development of urban culture in Yerevan through poster art, from the pre-Soviet era to nowadays. The poster art in Yerevan has recorded the cultural life of the capital, an important component of social and civic education, voiced Yerevan's problems and tried to offer solutions. The exhibition will be opened till the February 15th. Will prices for services of APPA company rise in Armenia? - Demonstration in front of government (video) A group of citizens protesting in front of the government building against the rise in prices for services of APPA company. Sargis Yengoyan, the participant of the demontration, noted that it was officially stated that it would not go up, but he is not so sure. "We have negotiated with the leadership of the Central Bank. We were at a round table with insurance directors, as well as with the director of the Motor Insurers' Bureau. We have been given promises that have not been fulfilled yet. Negotiations revealed that the situation will gradually deteriorate, and the prices for the services of APPA company will rise in Armenia." According to the demonstrator, the problem is that APPA company previously signed contracts with their programs with a small commission. And now they use the French ASWA program. "These days we have ASWA program, which requires a very big commission for its service. It takes 1-1.5 billion AMD for annual service. Meanwhile, we have an official note that our old Lite Insurance is ready to do it with just 18 million drams." Heads of auto insurance companies said they probably would increase the prices, but, according to Sargis Engoyan, if they say probably, it means they will. The demonstrators demanded a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan, which did not take place, but officials from government met with the protesters. The demonstrators expressed their concern, and the government officials proposed to submit a written version of the problem to the Government. PACE to observe the early parliamentary elections in Armenia With Ucom's level up tariff plans subscribers have unlimited access to Tiktok, Spotify and Coursera PACE rapporteur welcomes Azerbaijans release of Armenian captives and Armenias handing over of mine-maps to Azerbaijan Armenia/Azerbaijan: Statement by High Representative Josep Borrell on the latest developments Pashinyan to publicly apology to Khachatryans During EURO 2020 Ucom subscribers to take part in the uMeter voting and draw USA to continue to press for the return of Armenian prisoners of war and detainees: Philip Reeker Post-war Prospects for Nagorno-Karabakh: Crisis Groups new report Ucom-1 team was recognised the winner of the 2021 futsal tournament of the Galaxy Group of Companies: The award ceremony took place COVID 19: 11 deaths Statement of the Foreign Ministry of Armenia regarding the criminal prosecution against the Armenian prisoners of war by Azerbaijan The Coronavirus-Related Situation in Armenia UCOM introduced new level up packages of voice service President Michel has discussions with President Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Acting Prime Minister Pashinyan of Armenia COVID19:108 new cases Ucom launches "Hello, summer" offer and presents "U!hoo" kids magazine Google Ad 182 hearing aids and 2 buses by benefactor Mikayel Vardanyan for students of Special Educational Complex Statement by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group What our Homeland, Armenia and Artsakh will be like depends on us. President Armen Sarkissians message on the Republic Day Ucom Digital lab students keep on getting high-quality technical education Aharon Sahakyan is appointed governor of Kotayk Marz of Armenia 3503 tests were done yesterday Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Covid 19: 323 recoveries and 11 deaths Efforts by prosecutors and law enforcement to address hate crime in Armenia: ODIHR seminar We urge Turkey to respect these calls: Head of the Mission of the Republic of Armenia to the European Union Prisoners of war in the aftermath of the most recent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan COVID 19: 7 deaths. The release of all Armenian detainees is essential for building confidence and trust Helena Dalli PACE to observe the early parliamentary elections in Armenia With Ucom's level up tariff plans subscribers have unlimited access to Tiktok, Spotify and Coursera PACE rapporteur welcomes Azerbaijans release of Armenian captives and Armenias handing over of mine-maps to Azerbaijan Armenia/Azerbaijan: Statement by High Representative Josep Borrell on the latest developments Google Ad Pashinyan to publicly apology to Khachatryans During EURO 2020 Ucom subscribers to take part in the uMeter voting and draw USA to continue to press for the return of Armenian prisoners of war and detainees: Philip Reeker Post-war Prospects for Nagorno-Karabakh: Crisis Groups new report Ucom-1 team was recognised the winner of the 2021 futsal tournament of the Galaxy Group of Companies: The award ceremony took place COVID 19: 11 deaths Statement of the Foreign Ministry of Armenia regarding the criminal prosecution against the Armenian prisoners of war by Azerbaijan The Coronavirus-Related Situation in Armenia UCOM introduced new level up packages of voice service President Michel has discussions with President Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Acting Prime Minister Pashinyan of Armenia COVID19:108 new cases Ucom launches "Hello, summer" offer and presents "U!hoo" kids magazine Google Ad 182 hearing aids and 2 buses by benefactor Mikayel Vardanyan for students of Special Educational Complex Statement by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group What our Homeland, Armenia and Artsakh will be like depends on us. President Armen Sarkissians message on the Republic Day Ucom Digital lab students keep on getting high-quality technical education Aharon Sahakyan is appointed governor of Kotayk Marz of Armenia 3503 tests were done yesterday Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Covid 19: 323 recoveries and 11 deaths Efforts by prosecutors and law enforcement to address hate crime in Armenia: ODIHR seminar We urge Turkey to respect these calls: Head of the Mission of the Republic of Armenia to the European Union Prisoners of war in the aftermath of the most recent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan COVID 19: 7 deaths. The release of all Armenian detainees is essential for building confidence and trust Helena Dalli Actualiza tu navegador Este navegador ya no es compatible. Para visitar EL PAIS con la mejor experiencia, actualizalo a la ultima version o descarga uno de los siguientes navegadores soportados: SPRING CREEK Spring Creek Association residents will have the opportunity to meet with their tract representative on the board of directors in town hall meetings scheduled for the end of the month. Property owners will learn about key initiatives, strategic plans and top priorities for 2019, including next steps for water, road maintenance, internet issues and more. Each night at 6 p.m. from Jan. 28 through 31, tract directors will meet their constituents at the Fairway Community Center at 401 Fairway Blvd. On Jan. 28, Joshua Park, Tract 100 Marina Hills, will host the first meeting of the week. Terry Lister of Tract 200 Vista Grande is scheduled for Jan. 29; Patricia Plaster, Tract 300 Sunset Ridge on Jan. 30; and Paddy Legarza, Tract 400 Palace Heights on Jan. 31. Residents are encouraged to bring their comments, concerns and ideas to the town hall meetings. For more information on the meetings, call 775-753-6295, email the association at frontdesk@springcreeknv.org or send a message through Facebook. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Editor: What next, Americans and Corporate America? Fences with barb wire on top of them and sentry guards all around our reservations again? Why do you profess that this wall is all about keeping the good and hardworking Mexican/Hispanic people out of these United States? There are 565 Sovereign Nations in America, some 25,694,928 Indigenous people in Mexico, and roughly 30 million Indigenous people in South America and yes, North America, Mexico and South America was and still is Indian Country, historical fact. For over five centuries, 500 some years, through hate, lies, deceit, corruption and failure to understand that our people were only trying to protect their homeland, not just here in these United States, but as well in Mexico and South America. Did America help tear down the Iron Curtain? Did America help tear down the wall in Germany? Yes, it was good Americans who at one time helped tear down those fences with barb wire on top along with army sentry guards that were around the reservations, now it almost seems as if America and Corporate America now want to resurrect those fences. When the white men first encountered the Indians, they found the natives lived a peaceful life where the men hunted and fished all the time, the women did all the work and no one paid any taxes. The white men then set out to improve on the situation by civilizing these savages and teaching them how they should live. Within a few years, the Indians were either at war, enslaved, drunk or dead from smallpox. The Indians, as Columbus called the people he found in the Caribbean, were not from India at all. He called them that because he thought he had landed in the East Indies off the coast of India. At any rate, the name stuck, and since then, so far as most people are concerned, they are called Indians. Some politically correct do-gooders have come up with the name Native Americans when speaking about Indians. Indians are no more or no less native American than I am. All our ancestors came here from someplace else. My grandfather was born here in Dayton. My father was born in Nevada, and I was born in Nevada. We all are native Americans. A more suitable name for the Indians living here would have been American Indians. RENO Two men were killed and one injured Saturday when their boat sank during a fishing trip at Topaz Lake. The injured man was admitted to Carson Valley Medical Center for treatment of hypothermia and later released. According to the Nevada Department of Wildlife, the boat began to take on water approximately 150-200 yards from shore and the three men attempted to swim to shore. None of them were wearing life vests. Scott Wise, a 47-year-old Yerington resident, realized quickly that he would not be able to make it to the shore, turned back and held on to the partially submerged boat. He was rescued approximately 30 minutes later. Tragically, 45-year-old Bert Peterson of Sparks and 50-year-old Jesse Gregory, also of Sparks, both drowned when they succumbed to exhaustion and the cold water, NDOW reported. Petersons body was found Saturday evening. Gregorys body was found in 22 feet of water on Sunday. NDOW game wardens coordinated with Douglas County Sheriffs Office, Douglas County Search and Rescue, Washoe County Search and Rescue, and the East Fork Fire Department to recover the bodies. MURRAY, Utah (AP) A shooting at a suburban Salt Lake City mall that sent hundreds of panicked shoppers fleeing started as an argument between rival gang members inside the mall and later erupted in gunfire outside, leaving two people wounded, police said Monday. Two 19-year-old men were arrested on suspicion of attempted aggravated murder, but investigators are not yet sure if either of them fired the shots that hit the victims, who were also involved in the brawl, said Kenny Bass, a police spokesman in the Salt Lake City suburb of Murray. Shots were fired by the both sides, and those injured were believed to be people with the gangs. No bystanders were hit or injured, Bass said. Compounding the pandemonium, a fire alarm at the Fashion Place mall that had been malfunctioning for days went off inside the mall, sending people running for exits, Bass said. Shoppers reported hearing the alarm after the shooting started about 1:30 p.m. and evacuation orders over a loudspeaker, while employees said they hunkered down in stockrooms and waited. One of the two victims, a woman in her early 20s, was treated and released hours after the shooting broke out, Bass said. ELKO An 81-year-old Canadian woman was killed Saturday morning in a collision on U.S. Highway 93 north of Wells. According to the Nevada Highway Patrol, Oscar Vandenbossche, 82, from Osoyoos, British Columbia was driving south in a Toyota RAV4 at about 8:30 a.m. Mr. Vandenbossche attempted to pass a slower vehicle in the dense fog and collided head on with a Dodge truck traveling northbound on U.S. 93 pulling a horse trailer with three horses, said Trooper Jim Stewart. The truck was driven by Chad Jones, 27, of Pendleton, Oregon. He sustained minor injuries while the horses in the trailer had no visible injuries. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Maryann Vandenbossche was riding in the front passenger seat of the Toyota. She died at the scene. Oscar Vandenbossche was flown to University of Utah where he is in critical condition. Both occupants were wearing their seat belts. The crash, which closed the highway for about two hours, occurred during a third day of foggy conditions and freezing fog in parts of Elko County. Five vehicles crashed on U.S. 93 south of Wells on Friday morning, closing that portion of the highway for three hours. No one was injured, according to NHP. ELKO Nevada colleges are partnering to bring training to Nevadas rural farmers and ranchers. Great Basin College and Western Nevada College Specialty Crop Institute will offer the Elko County Producers Workshop on Jan. 19 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Great Basin College. Cost is $25, with lunch included in the registration fee. Online registration is available at www.wnc.edu/specialty-crop-institute. The workshop will explore several topics including recordkeeping from simple paper journals to new cellphone technologies, farmers markets, farm boxes, and sales and marketing. It will also include a producers meeting for farmers to bring their questions, challenges and new ideas for brainstorming. ELKO Bristlecone Audubon will meet at 7 p.m. Jan 18 in room 208 of the DCIT Building at Great Basin College, 1050 Chilton Circle. Ed Nickel, retired GBC professor, has made videos of his bird, landscape and other pictures many times and has occasionally shared them with the Bristlecone Audubon members. This month he will be giving a short presentation on how those have been created using his iPad and free/inexpensive apps. Obviously, the process starts with the pictures he enjoys taking as one of his favorite hobbies. But just taking the pictures serves little purpose if they are not displayed in some way for others to enjoy. Although he has printed some of his pictures, with mounting and framing, that can get very expensive and only a few people ever get to see them in that format. So, compiling videos of the pictures and short clips then posting them on the Internet is an inexpensive way to make use of his photos and then make them available to a larger audience. As will be shown in the presentation, these videos are very easy to make and dont take a lot of expensive gear or software to do a creditable job. The most recent such project was one about the 2018 fires in the Ruby Mountains as a thank you to all who helped contain the damage and are now working to mitigate that damage. Anyone who wants to learn how to turn photos into a story for all to see might be interested in this presentation. As an added bonus the photos he will be using are from a birding trip to Monterey Bay. Everyone is welcome to attend. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Senator Joni Ernst has been recognized as a U.S. Wind Champion by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). AWEA presents U.S. Wind Champion Awards to members of Congress from both parties who show consistent and strong leadership in support of the American wind industry and the jobs it creates. "Iowa is a leader in wind energy production, producing 37 percent of our electricity using wind. The industry is boosting our economy and creating jobs and new business opportunities across the state. In places like Newton, wind has created new manufacturing jobs, and at Iowa Lakes Community College, we're training the next generation of wind technicians. I'm honored to receive the Wind Champion Award; let's keep developing this great energy source!" said Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) "We're honored to recognize Senator Ernst as a U.S. Wind Champion. Her steadfast support for wind power and Iowa's wind workers contributes to the robust industry growth we see today," said Tom Kiernan, CEO of AWEA. "And because wind farms generate reliable revenue for neighboring landowners and communities, the Senator's wind power leadership also directly strengthens Iowa's farming economy." In 2017, wind farms generated 37 percent of the electricity produced in Iowa, a larger share than any other state. Looking ahead, Iowa wind power is poised to grow substantially with over 4,000 megawatts of new wind power capacity under construction and in advanced development, according to AWEA's most recent quarterly market report. Wind power employs nearly 8,000 Iowa workers and the state's wind industry represents over $14.2 billion in private investment. For Iowa farmers, wind energy is a drought-proof cash crop generating land lease payments totaling $20-25 million each year. As wind power continues to grow in Iowa, the state will see these economic benefits expand. The U.S. is a global leader in wind power thanks to world-class natural resources and technological innovation. For Americans across the country, wind power leadership translates to economic opportunity, homegrown energy, and cleaner air. A record 105,000 Americans work in wind power, affordably and reliably supplying over 6 percent of U.S. electricity. Using more wind power reduces air pollution, saving Americans an estimated $8 billion each year in healthcare costs. Photos of Sen. Ernst receiving the U.S. Wind Champion Award. Sen. Ernst highlighted the success of Iowa wind power in a video celebrating American Wind Week 2018, which took place last August. For a library of up-to-date images of wind energy, please use this link. AWEA is the national trade association of the U.S. wind energy industry. We represent 1,000 member companies and over 100,000 jobs in the U.S. economy, serving as a powerful voice for how wind works for America. Members include global leaders in wind power and energy development, turbine manufacturing, and component and service suppliers. They gather each year at the Western Hemisphere's largest wind power trade show, the AWEA WINDPOWER Conference & Exhibition, next in Houston, May 20-23, 2019. Find information about wind energy on the AWEA website(Opens in a new window). Gain insight into industry issues on AWEA's blog, Into the Wind(Opens in a new window). And please join us on Facebook(Opens in a new window), and follow @AWEA on Twitter(Opens in a new window). A pioneering motorsport team, Craft Bearings, has adopted ABB REACT 2 inverter and energy storage solution to help achieve its most ambitious target yet - to become the first team in Dakar Rally history to reduce its use of traditional diesel generators and be 100 percent solar powered for the service and support team. Working in close collaboration with its partner, SoliTek, ABB's efficient REACT 2 solar storage solution, has been installed as part of an off-grid solar installation on the Craft Bearings multipurpose Service truck. The set-up is being used to harness enough solar energy during the day to support the service and ancillary team as they undertake essential repairs to the race cars at night, as well as supply power to the team's bivouacs, media and IT center. The Dakar rally, which is currently underway in Peru, 6th to 17th January 2019, is known and respected as one of the most challenging and toughest events in motorsport. Often the routes take in mountainous and rocky terrains combined with extreme heat and dry conditions in very remote locations. As such, all the crews require access to remote power, which has traditionally been supplied by diesel generator sets. For the 2019 event, the Craft Bearings team has set itself an ambitious target of reducing its dependence on temporary diesel power. It is aiming to generate 100 percent of its energy needed for service and supporting infrastructure in its multipurpose truck from solar, taking advantage of the South American climate. To support the team, six bifacial solar panels measuring 10sqm have been installed on the roof of the main service lorry and include the latest photovoltaic (PV) panels, supplied by SoliTek. These new generation PV panels are ultra-durable and toughened to withstand the terrain in South America and can absorb the suns energy from the front side and rear side. This enables the panels to produce 25 percent more energy than one-sided solar panels. This energy efficient hybrid power system features ABB's market leading technology, REACT 2, selected because of its higher IP class and large storage capacity. The ABB team also installed a frequency converter, ABB ACS355 drive, in order to control the 3-phase compressor and avoid over limits of the system. The modular solution, along with the inclusion of a high-voltage Lithium-Ion battery (200 V), with a long life and a storage capacity of up to 12 kWh, delivers more reliability and up to 10 percent more system efficiency compared to lower voltage alternatives (48 V). This technology therefore makes it ideal to harness the sun's energy in South America and use it productively in such challenging and remote locations as seen in the Dakar Rally. During times of reduced sunlight, ABB also provided two external battery blocks to harness and utilize the stored energy. It is estimated that the current system will enable the service and support team to work for full two days without using any external power sources. Giovanni Frassineti, Global Product Group Manager for ABB's solar inverter business said: "This latest installation demonstrates how solar can be used and adapted across a number of competitive applications to promote cleaner and greener energy. We are very excited to see how the team perform and wish them all the best in Peru." As demand for smarter solutions and connectivity continues, the Craft Bearings team will also take advantage of ABB Ability with REACT 2 to deliver intelligent control over their storage needs and manage their energy production and consumption during the race. This means the team principals will be able to control peaks and troughs in the energy flow and should be able to meet their 100 percent solar energy target for the coverage of service energy needs. Antanas Juknevicius, professional rally driver for Craft Bearings commented: "We are very much looking forward to this year's competition and hope to have full power and independent power for the duration of the race from solar. We want to be the brightest and quietest crew in Dakar." ABB (ABBN: SIX Swiss Ex) is a pioneering technology leader in power grids, electrification products, industrial automation and robotics and motion, serving customers in utilities, industry and transport & infrastructure globally. Continuing a history of innovation spanning more than 130 years, ABB today is writing the future of industrial digitalization with two clear value propositions: bringing electricity from any power plant to any plug and automating industries from natural resources to finished products. As title partner in ABB Formula E, the fully electric international FIA motorsport class, ABB is pushing the boundaries of e-mobility to contribute to a sustainable future. ABB operates in more than 100 countries with about 147,000 employees. www.abb.com Gazprom disrupts technical consultations on gas transit via Ukraine MFA The ministry says its team is preparing for all possible scenarios of further developments, not only the tripartite talks at a political level. If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter Akhmetov's DTEK buys two energy distributors from Russian VS Energy for US$ 250 mln expert DTEK plans to buy five more regional energy distribution companies from VS Energy. If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter From Tibet to the 'Nine Dragons', Vietnam's Mekong Delta is losing sand A boat transports coconuts past a collapsed house damaged by landslide along the Mekong River in Ben Tre Province, Vietnam, December 18, 2018. Photos by Reuters/Kham Upstream damming and extensive sand exploitation in the Mekong River are causing locals to struggle with a rapid pace of erosion. In the dead of night, the entire front half of shopkeeper Ta Thi Kim Anhs house collapsed. Perched on the sandy banks of the Mekong River, it took just a few minutes for one half of everything she owned to plunge into its murky depths. "Our kitchen, our laundry room, our two bedrooms, all gone," said Kim Anh, speaking amongst the twisted metal and rubble of her house, from which she still sells eggs, soap and instant noodles to villagers in Ben Tre, a province in Vietnams Mekong Delta region. "Wed be better off living in a cave instead," said Kim Anh, who has used coconut husks and old tires to reinforce the riverbank under her home. Upstream damming and extensive mining of the Mekongs riverbed for sand is causing the land between the sprawling network of rivers and channels near the mouth of one of the worlds great rivers to sink at a pace of around 2 cm (0.75 inches) a year, experts and officials said. The 4,350 km (2,700-mile) river, known as the Lancang in its upper reaches, flows from Chinas Tibetan Plateau along the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, through Cambodia and finally Vietnam, where it forms the delta known in Vietnam as the "Nine Dragons." Reuters visited three provinces straddling different branches of the delta, where it has supported farming and fishing communities for millennia. A boy plays with a ball in front of collapsed houses damaged by landslide along the Mekong river in An Giang Province, Vietnam, December 17, 2018. Across the region, local authorities are struggling with a rapid pace of erosion that is destroying homes and threatening livelihoods in the Southeast Asian countrys largest rice-growing region. A key cause is the years of upstream damming in Cambodia, Laos and China that has removed crucial sediment, local officials and experts said. That sediment, vital for checking the mighty Mekongs currents, has also been lost due to an insatiable demand for sand - a key ingredient in concrete and other construction materials in fast-developing Vietnam - that has created a market both at home and abroad for unregulated mining. "Its not a problem of the lack of water, its the lack of sediment," said Duong Van Ni, an expert on the Mekong River at the College of Natural Resources Management of Can Tho University, the largest city in the Mekong Delta region. 'Sand never reaches us' At this time of year the waters of the Mekong used to flow into Vietnam as a milky-brown crawl, locals and officials said. Now, the river runs clear. And without fresh sediment from upstream, the deeper riverbed creates stronger currents, which in turn eat away at the banks of the Mekong, where those who rely on the river for their livelihoods have their homes. Men sit at their collapsed houses damaged by landslide alongthe Mekong River in Can Tho city, Vietnam, December 17, 2018. The problems began when China built its first hydropower plants in the Upper Mekong Basin, said Ni at Can Tho University. That left Laos, Cambodia and Thailand as the main source of sediment for the Mekong in Vietnam, he said. Sand mining in Cambodia boomed over the last 10 years, fueled in part by demand from wealthy but cramped Singapore, where it is used to reclaim land along its coast, and culminating in a government ban of all Cambodian sand exports in 2017 under pressure from environmental groups. Hydroelectric projects have continued, however. Earlier this month, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen opened a $816 million hydroelectric dam in Stung Treng Province, near the border with Laos, built by companies from China, Cambodia and Vietnam. The new dam is the Southeast Asian countrys biggest hydroelectric project to date and will have a catastrophic impact on fisheries and biodiversity in the Mekong River, environmental groups have said. Hun Sen has dismissed criticism of the project, which he says benefits Cambodia and its people. "Since China built hydropower plants, new sand almost never reaches us," said Ni. "If we use up the sand we have here, there will be no more." Chinas Foreign Ministry said in response to Reuters questions that it "pays great attention to the concerns and needs of downstream countries on the Mekong," adding that its regulation of water flows from hydro dams "has already become an important instrument in preventing floods and droughts." Singapores Ministry of National Development said in a statement emailed to Reuters the city state imports sand on a commercial basis from various countries. "We have stringent controls to ensure that suppliers obtain sand in accordance with the source countrys laws and regulations," it said. Slingshots and sand thieves A crane moves sand from a ship on Mekong River in Hau Giang Province, Vietnam, December 19, 2018. Regional officials in southwest Chinas Yunnan Province have defended the building of dams on the Mekong there as "fully legally compliant." Downstream, however, the problem is made worse by thieves who illegally mine for sand, usually at night. "The unlicensed sand miners are very quick and devious," Nguyen Quang Thuong, vice head of Ben Tre Provinces agriculture department, told Reuters in a recent interview. "They escape very fast, so having groups of local people helping out the authorities is very helpful." One such group in Ben Tre, some of whom are as old as 67, have been using homemade weapons such as slingshots and rudimentary catapults to drive the sand thieves away. "We patrol 24/7, and in the first few months we managed to get rid of 90 percent of the thieves," said Nam Lai, one of the group. "Since 2018, none of them dare to go near our shore." Still, activists and environmental groups worry that on the Mekong, which runs through six countries with competing needs to exploit the rivers hydroelectric potential, the damage has already been done. Pianporn Deetes, at the International Rivers campaign group, who has worked on the Mekong for two decades, said there was a lack of political will among the countries that share the river to acknowledge the cross-border impact of such projects. "Without the recognition of the existing problems, I dont think there is any hope," she said. Two Vietnamese designers Nguyen Cong Tri (L) and Phuong My will showcase their collections at the New York Fashion Week (NYFW) next month. Photo acquired by VnExpress Two renowned Vietnamese designers will showcase their collections at the New York Fashion Week (NYFW) next month. This is the first time Vietnamese designers have been invited to introduce their latest collections at one of the Big Four fashion weeks in the world. The official website of the NYFW, which is usually held in February and September each year as a semi-annual series of events generally lasting seven to nine days, has released an official list of designers for its upcoming show in February. For the very first time, Vietnamese designers Nguyen Cong Tri and Phuong My are on the list. Tri, a leading name in Vietnams fashion scene, is set to join hands with New York-based Kate Young, one of the most in-demand stylists in Hollywood, for the upcoming event. "Each of his collection is state-of-the-art and a fascinating story to be told," the NYFWs official website writes in its introduction to Tri. The 41-year-old designer has become widely known since he dressed global celebrities like Rihanna and Gwen Stefani. Three Cong Tri designs worn onstage by Katy Perry in her concert in Montreal, Quebec in September 2017. Photo acquired by VnExpress My, 31, whose collections highlight the beauty of Asian women, has also gained fame in the fashion industry at home and abroad. "Designer Phuong My is well-known for her signature silhouette featuring hour glass, cocoon shape in the lower parts of dresses that highlight the beauty of womens shape," an official description posted on the NYFWs official website. Phuong My showcases her design at the Vancouver Spring Summer Fashion Week on September 17, 2018 for the first time. Photo acquired by VnExpress The New York Fashion Week will begin on February 8 and is scheduled to wrap up on February 16. In the 10 years since 2009, Vietnamese coastguards have confronted over 5,000 foreign vessels that illegally entered the nation's territorial waters. The Vietnam Border Defense Force turned away 3,100 boats and detained 2,000 others, Senior Lieutenant-General Nguyen Trong Nghia, deputy head of the armys General Department of Politics, said at a conference held in Hanoi by the Ministry of National Defense to review its functioning over the last decade. Besides safeguarding territorial sovereignty, the coastguards also coordinate with the Ministry of Public Security to prevent drug-related crimes, smuggling, trade fraud, and human trafficking, he told the meeting Monday. They have handled around 115,000 cases in the last decade, seized 12.8 tons of drugs, nearly 500,000 tons of coal, 45,000 tons of minerals, and 46.3 million liters of gasoline and oil. They also seized more than 1,000 guns and VND3.1 billion worth of counterfeit money and rescued nearly 1,600 trafficking victims. National Assembly chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan hailed the Vietnam Border Defense Forces performance, underlining the importance of the maritime boundary, saying it plays a key role in ensuring the nations stability and development. Vietnam has a long coast stretching 3,260 km (2,025 miles). Patients infected with measles are treated in Saigon's Hospital for Tropical Diseases on January 14, 2018. Photo by VnExpress/Le Phuong One Saigon hospital is treating 60 to 70 measles patients a day, 50 times higher, year-on-year. The number of measles patients admitted to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Saigon, one of the citys top public hospitals, has been rapidly increasing within the last three months, said Huynh Thi Thuy Hoa, head of the hospitals General Medicine Department A. From October to December last year, the number of measles hospitalizations increased from 76 to 270 cases, she added. "The hospital is currently treating 65 measles cases, in which over half are children and pregnant women. The current number of measles patients doubled from last months and is 50 times higher compared to January last year," said Hoa. The high number of patients has overloaded the department, which has only 55 beds for in-patients, she added. She said she expected even more measles patients in the coming days and weeks, and the hospital has therefore devised plans to increase the number of beds, relocating children and adult patients to separate areas for better treatment. Children vaccinated at nine months need to be re-vaccinated nine months later to reinforce their immunity against measles, Hoa said. In 2014, a measles epidemic broke out in Hanoi with a record-breaking 1,700 cases, of which 14 people died. Measles is a highly contagious viral disease that spreads through the air when infected people cough or sneeze. Symptoms include fever, coughing, runny nose, inflamed eyes and red, flat rashes on the skin. In Vietnam, measles outbreaks are frequent, especially in colder months. In 2016, Vietnam became the fourth country in Asia after Japan, India and China to successfully produce a measles-rubella vaccine on its own. An ambulance was dispatched to the Indochina Riverside Towers in Da Nang City to carry the body of an Indonesian man. Photo courtesy of Da Nang Police Da Nang police are investigating the death of an Indonesian citizen staying in a luxury apartment in the city. Sjahrial Hery, 61, was found dead Sunday night in the toilet by a housekeeping staff at the Indochina Riverside Towers in Hai Chau District. The staff entered the 12th floor apartment after she knocked on the door and received no response. Hery was director of a wood trading company and had lived at the rental apartment building for several years. Recently, his health had deteriorated and he frequently went to the hospital for treatment, initial investigations found. Da Nang police said the body of the deceased was being kept at the citys mortuary and local authorities were working with the Embassy of Indonesia in Vietnam to notify the next of kin, media reports said. An autopsy will be carried out to identify the cause of the death. Da Nang, Vietnams third largest city, is one of the most visited destinations in the country, with 2.87 million foreigners touching down last year, a 23.3 percent jump from a year ago. Artisans are putting finishing touches on giant pigs that will dominate Saigons famous flower street to welcome Tet. With three weeks to go before the famous Nguyen Hue Flower Street opens in downtown Saigon, one of the citys major annual attractions to celebrate the Lunar New Year, artisans at a facility run by Nguyen Van Tong in HCMCs District 12 are working round the clock to complete decorating pig statues. The flower street will open to tourists on February 2, two days before Lunar New Years Eve and the zodiac animal of the coming year is the pig. The Year of the Pig will start on February 5. Tongs workshop is responsible for designing a pig family of nine that will greet and welcome visitors at the entrance of the flower street. Workers have completed shaping the father pig, who is 2.9 meters tall. This pig will wear the Vietnamese long dress ao dai and a striped scarf khan ran, typical mens attire in the southern region in the old days. A 2.6-meter-tall mother pig takes shape at the hands of artisans. The mother pig will also wear an ao dai and a conical hat, which have been a cultural symbol of Vietnamese people for centuries. Tong, whose workshop is designing mascots for Tet display on the Nguyen Hue walking street for the third year in a row, applies yellow paint on a happy pig. He said the pigs will be painted with two main colors, red and yellow, symbolizing luck, wealth and prosperity. "It has taken nearly two months for artisans in my workshop to finish all the giant pig statues," Tong said. Besides Tongs workshop, a group of other artisans are in a hurry to finish decorating 30 pig statues at the Van Thanh Tourist Area in Binh Thanh District. Colorful pigs of various shapes and sizes are waiting to move to the Nguyen Hue flower street. The last step to get the pigs ready is a paint spray that will help avoid scratches and fading when they are displayed on the flower street. According to artisans, drawing eyes for the mascots are the most important and challenging step because it can affect the nuances and expressions on the pigs face. Since its debut in 2004, Nguyen Hue Flower Street has become a major attraction, drawing thousands of people every day during the Tet occasion. Tourists launch sky lanterns along a railway next to the Shifen train station of Pingxi Line in New Taipei, Taiwan. Photo by Shutterstock/NH 11 illegal Vietnamese migrant workers have been caught hiding in a cargo truck in Taiwan's Taitung County. The Central News Agency reported Monday that nine of the immigrants were among the 152 who went missing in a dramatic vanishing act last month, citing county police. The 11 people were discovered when the cargo truck was stopped on Heping Road in Pingnan Township. Police got suspicious on detecting movement under the black tarp that the truck was covered with. One of the 11 had absconded from his workplace, one woman had entered Taiwan illegally on a tourist visa and the other nine were the aforementioned missing tourists. The 11 Vietnamese nationals were not able to provide proper identification documents, local police reported. They told police they were on their way to do some weeding on a farm when they were detained. They were dressed in farming work clothes with rain boots, police said. However, initial investigations have revealed that most of the detained people werent hired by local farmers, but by brokers who rented land for planting, police said. Last month, news of the 152 Vietnamese tourists who vanished in Taiwan made global headlines, shocking the public and authorities in both Taiwan and Vietnam. They initially went to Taiwan via a special visa program with simplified procedures. Later investigations showed several of the missing tourists were actually looking to stay and work in Taiwan illegally. In response, Taiwanese authorities temporarily suspended visa applications of the travel agencies responsible for the missing tourists, and shortened the length of visas issued to Vietnamese, among other measures. As of last Sunday, 70 of the 152 Vietnamese tourists were still at large in Taiwan. Authorities have said they will be deported and banned from re-entry for an unspecified amount of time for violating Taiwans Immigration Law. In recent years, Taiwan has emerged as a promising destination for Vietnamese workers looking for jobs overseas. Last year, Vietnam sent around 65,000 workers to Taiwan, nearly half of all the workers it sent overseas. Vietnam needs to create an enabling environment for private players to drive the next wave of energy investments, the World Bank said. In the report titled "Maximizing Finance for Development in Vietnams energy sector" issued Monday, the bank called for a new approach to financing electricity and gas investments to fit the countrys changing macroeconomic and sectoral contexts. "Given the limited fiscal space (official developmental assistance capital) and the reduction of concessional financing available going forward (due to Vietnams recent middle-income status), it will be important for Vietnam to step up mobilizing alternative capital resources for the electricity and gas sectors," Ousmane Dione, the banks country director for Vietnam, said . The Government should comprehensively address the constraints currently impeding the flows of domestic and cross-border private capital into two of the most strategic segments of the Vietnamese economy, electricity and gas, he added. Franz Gerner, the World Banks lead energy economist, said: "We observe a large interest from private investors to participate in the vast growing energy market in Vietnam, especially in renewables and LNG development." "They are willing to invest as long as the projects are well-structured and bankable," he said. "What investors need is a transparent and stable regulatory environment which incorporates a proper risk-sharing mechanism among all parties." Vietnams electricity sector would require on average $10 billion annually frontloaded through 2030, higher than the average of $8 billion in 201115, according to the bank. The envisaged expansion of the gas sector requires total investment of around $20 billion between 2015 and 2035. The most valuable brand was military-owned mobile network Viettel at $2.8 billion last year. Photo by VnExpress Vietnams five most valuable brands were worth a combined $8.1 billion in 2018, up $2.3 billion or 39 percent against 2017, Brand Finance estimated. The most valuable brand was military-owned mobile network Viettel at $2.8 billion last year, up 9 percent from $2.57 billion 2017, said the UK brand valuation company. The 47th most valuable telecom brand in the world has operations in Laos, Cambodia, Haiti, Mozambique and Peru. In second place was Vinamilk, the countrys largest dairy company by far, which was worth $1.9 billion, up 39 percent. State-owned Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) was in third place after increasing its brand value by 84 percent to $1.34 billion. In fourth and fifth places were Vinhomes, the real estate subsidiary of Vietnams largest private conglomerate Vingroup, and Sabeco, Vietnams biggest brewer, at $1.18 billion and $950 million respectively. Samir Dixit, CEO, Asia-Pacific of Brand Finance, said: "Branding is the most critical asset of every business. It is difficult to predict the performance and behavior of customers, but the only thing that remains a constant is the brand." Brand Finance's valuation criteria uses several metrics. The value accorded to each brand is a summary of its financial strength. Each brand also gets a brand rating, which indicates its strength, risk and future potential relative to its competitors. Anti-dumping investigations has officially commenced against steel imported from China. Photo by VnExpress Vietnam has begun anti-dumping investigations against aluminum products imported from China. The Ministry of Industry and Trade has commenced the investigation, with the period for assessing damage being January-December 2018. Local manufacturers had earlier complained that aluminum imports from China had caused damage to domestic production, resulting in falling profits, squeezed prices and increased inventories. Four of them demanded an anti-dumping investigation for a period of 18 months counting back from January 2018 into aluminum and non-alloy aluminum imports from China, alleging the dumping margin was at 35.58 percent. They also suggested an equivalent anti-dumping duty. According to the Foreign Trade Management Law, a temporary anti-dumping tariff can be imposed retrospectively for up to 90 days from the date it starts applying. The ministry's Department of Trade Protection has warned that organizations and individuals in the process of signing contracts related to the import, distribution and use of the investigated goods should anticipate the possibility of an anti-dumping tax with retrospective effect. Last year so much cheap Chinese aluminum poured into Vietnam that the Vietnam Customs made a written request to tighten import of this item and check for fraudulent import declarations meant to avoid tax. Official data shows that China accounted for 30 percent of Vietnams aluminum imports, a rate that has tripled in the last two years. Report all errors to DonSurber@GMail.com Oh, and if you see me driving my red 2010 Mustang GT convertible, please wave. Hi, I am a retired newspaperman. I wrote 3 books on Trump and the media . I live in Poca, WV, with my wife of 43 years, Lou Ann. I grew up in Cleveland. Three kids. Grandfather. As clear skies fade away and a storm approaches, Dan Lingo tosses up a serve while playing tennis against Terry Feigenbutz, back left, and Todd Benson at Moscow Middle School on Tuesday afternoon. In an effort to get outdoors and remain socially distant during a pandemic year, the three men have been a part of The Pandemic Tennis Club since last April. After a pair of firearms-related initiative petitions failed to earn spots on the November 2018 ballot, our hunch was that those measures would be resurrected in the 2019 session. We were right: As legislators gather in Salem this week for swearing-in ceremonies and other work before the Jan. 22 opening of the session, at least 11 bills dealing with firearms are likely to be introduced. Some of the proposals will sound familiar to anyone who tracked last year's initiative petitions: In particular, some of the provisions included in Senate Bill 501 echo parts of Initiative Petition 44, which would have required guns to be secured with trigger locks or in a locked container when they weren't in use. IP 44 also would have required gun owners to report stolen weapons to the police within 24 hours of the theft, or whenever the gun owners should have reasonably known about the theft. Those provisions are resurrected in Senate Bill 501, which has been introduced by Sen. Rob Wagner, D-Tualatin, and Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Lake Oswego. As it turns out, those provisions might be among the least controversial portions of Senate Bill 501, which is attracting considerable attention already in Salem. Laser light About 10:38 p.m. Sunday, Linn County 9-1-1 dispatch was notified by the Federal Aviation Association that a green laser light had been directed toward a plane in the general area. Deputies attempted to identify the source of the light, but were unsuccessful. CORVALLIS POLICE Computer scam At 4:13 p.m. on Friday an officer was dispatched to a home in the 4800 block of Southwest Hollyhock Circle for a cold theft report. A woman said she had clicked on a pop-up ad that appeared on her computer saying the machine had a virus and directing her to call a phone number to have the problem fixed. The woman lost $1,499 in the scam. No suspects were identified. DUII crash Colin Lee Seeger, 20, of Salem was arrested on charges of drunken driving and reckless driving after reportedly hitting the median and crashing his 2012 Honda Accord on Third Street near Southeast Lilly Avenue about 1 a.m. on Friday. Seegers blood alcohol level reportedly measured 0.13 percent. BENTON COUNTY SHERIFF But there are still consequences, for travelers and employees For travelers, delays and scheduling uncertainty Experts say longer security lines and flight delays are the two biggest problems flyers may face -- and the delays may not always come when people expect them. "These delays can be felt in many ways," Schiavo said. "For example, you may have trouble with connecting flights if your initial flight is delayed. Also, you're not going to be allowed a takeoff until they have a landing spot at your destination airport. That's the way it works. And if an airport has a shortage of workers, and your destination airport has a delay in flow control, you may have to wait." Schiavo says she hasn't really seen these kinds of issues manifest themselves yet. But just in case she recommends having backup travel plans and getting to the airport really, really early. For employees, no pay and a higher workload While "essential" or "excepted" government workers will eventually get paid, that's little comfort when you've gone weeks without a paycheck. Sometimes that leaves workers no choice. A two-day trial has been set for a Lebanon man who allegedly crashed a stolen truck into another vehicle while fleeing police near Philomath last month. Cameron Scott Avery, 27, faces felony charges of second-degree assault, attempting to elude police, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and possession of a stolen vehicle, as well as misdemeanor counts of animal abuse, resisting arrest, attempting to elude, reckless driving and criminal mischief. Avery has pleaded not guilty to all charges. A 2014 Dodge Ram flatbed driven by Avery crashed head-on into a 2003 Toyota Camry driven by a 60-year-old Philomath resident on Highway 20 near Woods Creek Road on Dec. 16, according to a police report in the case. Avery was being pursued by Benton County sheriffs deputies and Philomath police officers after the vehicle he was driving was identified as stolen. Both men were hospitalized for treatment of injuries incurred in the collision, and two dogs were reportedly hurt. Following a brief hearing on Monday, Judge David Connell scheduled a two-day jury trial in the case for Feb. 11 and 12 in Benton County Circuit Court. A preliminary hearing was set for 8:30 a.m. on Feb. 7. When Orris returned home, they moved back into Albany where their three daughters, Judy, Barbara and Marta, were born over the next eight years. Joyce was a full time mother and grandparent. She served as Cub Scout Den Mother and a Girl Scout Leader. She supported all of her children in a variety of school, church, and extracurricular activities. She enjoyed camping with the family, particularly the Sunday picnic outings to Cascadia and fishing/camping at Clear Lake resort. She was always very fond of her aunts, uncles and cousins, on both the Stellmacher and Eastman sides of her family. The year they were married, Joyce and Orris joined the Whitespires United Presbyterian Church. In 1967, they became members of the United Presbyterian Church of Albany, when the two church congregations merged. She served the church in many ways, including holding Elder and Deacon positions. She had strong faith which carried her throughout her life, and enabled her to endure hardships and still provide quiet guidance and inspiration to her friends and family. In their later years, Joyce and Orris particularly enjoyed traveling in their RV, visiting their children and sites throughout the West. They had good friends and traveling companions on many adventures with the Ready Roamer Good Sam Travel Club and Willamette Rollers Elks RV Club. Matt Bennett, the chef and owner of Sybaris in downtown Albany, will travel to New York City to cook the very first Oregon Truffle Feast at the Beard House on Friday. This is Bennetts third time cooking at the Beard House, and he likened the experience to playing at Carnegie Hall or winning the Super Bowl. The thing that Im looking forward to this time is doing the Oregon truffle there. Its never been the focus of a dinner, Bennett said. Oregon truffles arent well-known on the East Coast, he said. The Oregon Truffle Feast is sold out with 80 guests and a waiting list, said Janel Bennett, Matt Bennetts wife and fellow Sybaris owner. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} According to the Beard Houses website, Bennett will amp up his French-inflected Northwest cuisine with decadent, local black and white truffles, and fine Oregon wines will round out this culinary ode to the Beaver State. Sybaris served the same dinner on Sunday and is scheduled to do so again on Tuesday. Both local dinners sold out. The Beard House is named after James Beard, an Oregonian who became a leading authority on cuisine, a cookbook author, mentor to other chefs and a television personality. The family of a Canadian man who has been sentenced to death in China say their "worst fears" have been realised. Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was given a 15-year jail term in November but, on Monday, a court said the sentence for drug smuggling was too lenient. The ruling is likely to worsen a diplomatic row between the countries. Last month, Canada arrested a top official at the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, on a request from the United States. The detention of Ms Meng, 46, last month angered China and soured its relations with both Canada and the US. Following Schellenberg's death sentence, Canada has updated its travel advice for China, urging citizens to "exercise a high degree of caution due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws". Schellenberg's aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones said the death sentence was "a horrific, unfortunate, heartbreaking situation". "It is our worst case fear confirmed," she added. "It is rather unimaginable what he must be feeling and thinking." Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the ruling. "It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply the death penalty," he said in a statement. China's foreign ministry said it was "strongly dissatisfied" with Mr Trudeau's remarks, and said Canada should respect China's sovereignty. Schellenberg has 10 days to launch an appeal and his lawyer told Reuters news agency that he would probably do so. What is Schellenberg's case about? The Canadian, who is believed to be 36, was arrested in 2014 and accused of planning to smuggle almost 500lb (227kg) of methamphetamine from China to Australia. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in November but, following an appeal, a high court in the north-eastern city of Dalian on Monday sentenced him to death. RELATED | China Sentences Canadian, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, to Death "I am not a drug smuggler. I came to China as a tourist," Schellenberg said just before the verdict was announced, the AFP news agency reports. China is believed to execute more people annually than any other country, but is highly secretive about the number. Human rights group Amnesty International puts the figure in the thousands - more than the rest of the world's nations put together. A number of foreigners have been executed for drug-related offenses in the past, including British man Akmal Shaikh, who was executed in 2009 despite claims he was mentally ill, and an appeal for clemency from the UK prime minister. What's the bigger picture? Relations between China and Canada have deteriorated rapidly since the arrest of Ms Meng in Vancouver on 1 December. She was granted bail by a Canadian court several days later but remains under constant surveillance and must wear an electronic ankle tag. Ms Meng, who is the daughter of Huawei's founder, is accused in the US of using a subsidiary of the company called Skycom to evade sanctions on Iran between 2009 and 2014. She denies any wrongdoing and says she will contest the allegations. In the weeks that followed her arrest China detained two other Canadian citizens. Former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor face accusations of harming national security. China has denied the detention of the two men is tied to Ms Meng's arrest, but many analysts believe it is a tit-for-tat action. Donald Clarke, a specialist in Chinese law at George Washington University, said that Schellenberg's death sentence appeared to be "an unprecedented step in China's diplomacy". "I have seen cases I considered unjust before, but I cannot recall a previous case that looked so clearly unconnected to the defendant's guilt or innocence," Prof Clarke told the BBC's Chinese service. China began working hard to push Schellenberg's case to international prominence, taking the highly unusual step of inviting foreign journalists into the court, the BBC's John Sudworth in Beijing reports. And despite the Canadian's insistence that he is innocent, his retrial lasted just a day, with his death sentence being announced barely an hour after its conclusion, our correspondent says. An editorial in the nationalist state-backed Chinese newspaper Global Times on Tuesday said "unreasonable speculation" in Western media linking his case to Ms Meng's showed "rude contempt toward Chinese law". "The trial will also send the message that China won't yield to outside pressure in implementing its law," it said. However, back in December, the editor of the Global Times warned that China would "definitely take retaliatory measures against Canada" if Ms Meng were not released. Hu Xijin said in a video posted on the Global Times website: "If Canada extradites Meng to the US, China's revenge will be far worse than detaining a Canadian." China criticizes Trudeau comments on death penalty case BEIJING (AP) China expressed its strong dissatisfaction with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday over his criticism of a death sentence given to an alleged Canadian drug smuggler at a hastily conducted retrial that followed a chilling of relations over the arrest of a senior Chinese technology executive. Trudeau should respect the rule of law, respect Chinas judicial sovereignty, correct mistakes and stop making irresponsible remarks, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. We express our strong dissatisfaction with this, Hua told reporters at a daily briefing. Her comments are the latest sign of a sharp cooling of China-Canada ties since Canada detained Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. The U.S. wants Meng extradited to face charges that she committed fraud by misleading banks about the companys business dealings in Iran. The Liaoning provincial court in northeastern China announced the death sentence for Robert Lloyd Schellenberg on Monday. Schellenberg was detained more than four years ago, went on trial in 2016 and was initially sentenced to 15 years in prison in November. The Chinese media began republicizing Schellenbergs case after Mengs detention. Within weeks, an appeals court suddenly reversed that decision, saying the sentence was too lenient, and scheduled Mondays retrial with just four days notice. The court gave no indication that the death penalty could be commuted, but observers said Schellenbergs fate is likely to be drawn into diplomatic negotiations over Chinas demand for Mengs release. Trudeau suggested on Monday that China was using its judicial system to pressure Canada over the arrest of Meng, who is also the daughter of Huaweis founder. All countries around the world should be concerned that Beijing is acting arbitrarily with its justice system, Trudeau said. It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply a death penalty, Trudeau said. Canada later updated its travel advisory for China, urging Canadians to exercise a high degree of caution due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws. Hua dismissed such concerns, saying the 222 kilograms (489 pounds) of methamphetamine that Schellenberg was accused of smuggling merited the harsh penalty. When facing such a serious drug smuggling crime, I think any responsible government that takes resolute measures to deal with the case just reflects the responsible attitude and strong determination of the government in protecting the lives and safety of its people, Hua said. A Chinese man convicted of involvement in the same operation was earlier given a suspended death sentence. Describing the case as highly politicized, the human rights group Amnesty International urged that Schellenbergs sentence be revoked. The sudden retrial and apparent rush to judgment has highlighted the numerous flaws in Chinas judicial system, China researcher William Nee said in a statement. Since Mengs detention, China has arrested two Canadians in apparent retaliation. Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, were both arrested on vague national security allegations. A Canadian teacher was detained but released. Hua on Monday denied Kovrig was eligible for diplomatic immunity as Trudeau has maintained. A senior Canadian government official said Chinese officials have been questioning Kovrig about his diplomatic work in China, which is a major reason why Trudeau is asserting diplomatic immunity. The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly about the case, spoke on condition of anonymity. Kovrig, a Northeast Asia analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank, was on a leave of absence from the Canadian government at the time of his arrest last month. Ren Zhengfei, Mengs father and Huaweis founder, told foreign reporters on Tuesday that he doesnt believe the death sentence and arrests of the Canadians are related to Mengs detention. Personally, I dont see a connection between these cases and Meng Wanzhou, he said. Canada has embarked on a campaign with allies to win the release of Kovrig and Spavor. The United States, Britain, European Union and Australia have issued statements in support. Trudeau called U.S. President Donald Trump about their case last week and the White House called the arrests unlawful. Last week, Poland arrested a Huawei director and one of its own former cybersecurity experts and charged them with spying for China. The move came amid a U.S. campaign to exert pressure on its allies not to use Huawei, the worlds biggest maker of telecommunications network equipment, over data security concerns. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde Since the Knights of Columbus recently became a political issue, I've seen a constant refrain on social media that goes something along the lines of: "What do you mean, the pancake breakfast guys?" The point being: Could you be picking on nicer guys? But the Knights' goodness goes far beyond breakfast items. The Knights of Columbus are about virtue and service. The United States -- and the world -- would not be the same without them. The Knights became an issue when two Senate Democrats questioned a judicial nominee about his membership in the Knights. Hawaii Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard deserves some kind of adult-in-the-room award for resisting such a cheap attack. "While I oppose the nomination of Brian Buescher to the U.S. District Court in Nebraska, I stand strongly against those who are fomenting religious bigotry, citing as disqualifiers Buescher's Catholicism and his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus," she wrote. Her op-ed was courageous and important, as religious bigotry is not a passing issue. It's an ideological position that would have people who take their religious duties seriously relegated to a second class, punished for truly exercising their religious liberty. Think of the Little Sisters of the Poor having to go to the Supreme Court to protect their rights during the Barack Obama administration, or the City of Philadelphia severing ties with Catholic Social Services. DEAR ROMANTIC: From what you have written it seems that you may be more in love with the idea of romantic gestures than you are with the man you have. Many women would be thrilled to have someone who drowns them with compliments and shows his love in other ways. If you are truly worried that you will be bored if you marry him or -- worse -- turned off, then please, turn him loose so he can find someone who appreciates him for who he is, and you can meet someone who will make your dreams come true. DEAR ABBY: My friend who was suddenly widowed two years ago continues to insert her late husband into every conversation with friends and strangers alike. She's still depressed, grieving and searching for significance, and she shares it all in person and online. Early on, she had counseling but no longer feels it necessary. She claims it helps her to talk about him constantly. Most of us close to her avoid the elephant in the room. I find myself apologizing for her in group gatherings I take her to. People try to offer sympathy, but are surprised when they realize he's been gone two years. I endure with love, but wonder if this is the best path. Personally, I want to let him rest in peace. But that's hard when he's always "in the room." Advice? -- WANTING TO MOVE FORWARD By Damali Mukhaye The minister of education Janet Museveni has accused the striking staff for being Ungrateful despite the efforts by government to increase their salaries. In her message at the graduation, Kataha said that her ministry is working on the new salary structure and the money is ready further asking the staff to stay calm. She says underlying ministries including the public service will immediately release the money once the new structure is ready. Meanwhile President Museveni has also re-affirmed his commitment to increasing the salaries of Academic Staff and non-academic staff in all public universities. He however asks lecturers to be patient noting that his pledge to increase their salaries can only be done in phases since there are other sectors which also need urgent attention. The teaching and the non-teaching staff from the nine public universities in Uganda are currently on a sit down strike until government fulfils its pledge to pay their salary arrears which amount to shs 29 billion. Teaching and non-teaching staff in all public universities have laid down their tools over 29billion and 4.3 billion salary enhancement and have vowed to only return once the money is reflected on their personal accounts. The size of the federal workforce has remained pretty flat since 1960s, increasing by about 8 percent from 1962 to 2012. Meanwhile, both the U.S. population and the congressionally mandated rules and regulations have more than doubled in size. Federal spending has grown exponentially during that time, due to entitlement spending pensions, health care and welfare and the increasing inclusion of nongovernmental actors via outsourcing and contracts. In the face of looming retirements in the federal service, agencies are concerned about how to attract and retain the next generation of workers. Some of my research focuses on public service motivation the desire to serve the public and the society, a trait that government workers possess at higher levels. Many forgo opportunities in private sector, because they care deeply about the mission of their agency and their role in serving the public. In a 2015 study, I examined work motivations and turnover intentions of young workers in the U.S. federal agencies. While they are similar to their older counterparts in terms of their work motivations, they are much more likely to consider leaving their jobs. Problems in hiring and retention would most likely be exacerbated by the shutdown, as well ongoing issues such as weakening civil service protections; salary freezes or delay in appointments; and attacks on certain agencies. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The condemnation order was upheld by our building commissioner. [Bruce] subsequently sued us in the St. Francois County court to prevent the condemnation of his home at that property. He has never lived there. He has never been on the property. We prevailed in that suit here locally. He filed an appeal. We prevailed with the appellate court. So when that was complete, we then started moving forward with getting the condemnation taken care of. It just took a while. Ramping up the process Beavers emphasized that the city of Farmington is serious about addressing derelict properties around town and have even ramped up the process over the last couple of years. Sometimes we get in those situations where we have an out-of-town property owner or a property owner that believes that the home is not of a condition that we demonstrate and prove that it is, he explained. That it is a danger to the community and adversely affects the property values of the surrounding property owners in our town and it creates a public nuisance. According to Beavers, the derelict properties are often a haven for animals and sometimes children and teenagers enter the properties to perform what he described as elicit activities. A computer search revealed that Triplett has previous felony convictions which prevented him from owning or possessing firearms. On Jan. 4 an undercover officer made contact with Triplett. The report states that Triplett and the undercover officer discussed the photos of him with the guns. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The report also states that Triplett gave the officer a small amount of marijuana, and the officer observed a large amount of cash in Tripletts possession. During the officer's visit with Triplett, the report states that Triplett made a call and arranged with an individual to purchase meth, marijuana, and mushrooms that the individual planned to resell. The report also states the officer observed meth, meth paraphernalia, and an AK-47 style rifle leaning against the wall while in the basement living area where Triplett was staying. Based on the information provided, the report states that a search warrant was executed at the Hilltop Road residence in Park Hills. The homeowner, Michael Mobley, 53, was shot and killed by the Missouri State Highway Patrol during the execution of the warrant. The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has drafted National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction (2018-2023) for addressing the problem of drug and substance abuse in the country, dumping a long-pending draft policy on the matter. Components of the Action Plan The components of the National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction (2018-2023) are: The Action Plan aims to employ a multi-pronged strategy involving education, de-addiction and rehabilitation of affected individuals and their families to address the issue. The Action Plan focuses on preventive education, awareness generation, counselling, treatment and rehabilitation of drug-dependent people, besides training and capacity-building of service providers through the collaborative efforts of the Centre, state and NGOs. Several measures like coordination with implementing agencies for controlling the sale of sedatives, painkillers and muscle relaxant drugs, holding awareness generation programmes and checking online sale of drugs by stringent monitoring by the cyber cell are proposed under the Action Plan. The Action Plan also proposes awareness generation through social, print, digital and online media, and engagement of celebrities, besides strengthening the national toll-free helpline for drug prevention. The Action Plan calls for persuading principals, directors, vice chancellors of educational institutions to ensure that no drugs are sold within/nearby the campus. The Action Plan also aims at increasing community participation and public cooperation in the reduction of demand by involving Panchayati Raj institutions, Urban Local Bodies, Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan and other local groups like Mahila Mandals, self-help groups etc to tackle the menace of drugs. A steering committee would be constituted under the chairmanship of the secretary, Social Justice Ministry, and with representatives from the Ministries of Health, Human Resource Development, Women and Child Development, Home Affairs, Skill development and Entrepreneurship to monitor the effective implementation of the Action Plan. The Action Plan proposes module for re-treatment, ongoing treatment and post-treatment of addicts of different categories and age groups and database on substance use. The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in collaboration with the National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre (NDDTC) under the AIIMS, is conducting a national survey on the extent and pattern of substance abuse. India celebrates Army India on January 15. Army Day is celebrated to salute the valiant soldiers who sacrificed their lives to protect the country and its citizens. Why January 15? It is in recognition of Field Marshal Kodandera M. Cariappa taking over as the first Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army from General Sir Francis Butcher, the last British Commander-in-Chief of India, on 15 January 1949. Rise of Women Power For the first time in the history of Indian Army, Lieutenant Bhavana Kasturi will lead the Indian Armys Service Corps (ASC) contingent and Captain Shikha Surabhi, a female officer, will be leading the Armys Daredevils Motorcycle Display team comprising 33 men riding nine bikes in a pyramid formation. Indian Army Indian Army traces its origin to the Military Department which was created within the Government of the East India Company at Kolkata in the year 1776. With the motto of service before self, Indian Army is on the mission to ensure national security, national unity, defend the nation from external aggression and internal threats, and maintain peace and security within its borders. India-Myanmar bilateral army exercise, IMBEX 2018-19, has begun at Chandimandir Military Station which houses the headquarters of the Western Command. Objectives of the IMBEX 2018-19 It is the second edition of the IMBEX. The objectives of IMBEX 2018-19 are: Train the Myanmar delegation for participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations under the UN flag. Training the Myanmar Army delegation on tactics, procedures, expertise and methodology required by contingents of the member nations for serving in UN peacekeeping operations. Provide opportunities to the army personnel of both the nations to serve effectively in UN missions by providing understanding about each others training, tactics, procedures and best practices. India is one of the largest contributors to the UN peacekeeping force and has a rich experience of serving in UN peacekeeping operations. This expertise will be shared with the delegation from Myanmar. This delegation would form the core group of trainers who will further impart training to Myanmar Army personnel who are likely to serve in UN peacekeeping operations. United Nations Peace Keeping Force United Nations Peace Keeping Force are employed in areas of armed conflict to maintain or re-establish peace. The UN Peacekeeping Forces would be employed only when both parties to a conflict accept their presence. Often referred to as Blue Helmets, the peacekeeping operations are authorised by the United Nations Security Council which is authorised by the United Nations Charter to maintain global peace. On Tuesday, Wolf contended that divided government is working pre-kindergarten enrollment, high school graduation and employment are up, while the prison population, crime and the uninsured rate are down and he urged Pennsylvanians to help renew faith in the states future. I ask you to choose hope over hopelessness, empathy over apathy, Wolf said in his inaugural address. I ask you to choose action over passivity. I ask you to take the future of our commonwealth into your own hands and help lead us forward. The election left him with more Democratic allies in the Legislature than before, and he seems happy with his new lieutenant governor, John Fetterman, after a first term spent barely speaking with outgoing Lt. Gov. Mike Stack. Fetterman, 49, was sworn in about two hours before Wolf, in the Senate chambers. A somber Fetterman wore a black suit and tie, a contrast to the sleeveless work shirts, cargo shorts and boots the 6-foot-8, bald and goateed Fetterman was accustomed to wearing as mayor of the down-on-its-luck steel town of Braddock, near Pittsburgh. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Chief Justice Thomas Saylor of the state Supreme Court administered Wolfs oath of office, using a 19th century Bible from Wolfs family. By Ritah Kemigisa The National Agricultural Advisory Services Executive Director, Dr Samuel Mugasi, has hit back at the finance minister Matia Kasaija who recently labelled the NAADS program a waste of governments money. While launching the regional agro-led industrialization initiative in Fort Portal, Kasaija said NAADS and operation Wealth creation are costing government a lot of money and have no impact. Now the NAADS boss Dr Mugasi tells KFM that much as the program has not registered a 100% performance, it has done a lot that has impacted the lives of many people in Uganda. He cites the increased production of Tea in south Western Uganda, Fruits in the northern Region, coffee, grain and dairy as some of the achievements the program has registered. Mugasi adds that his team is always on ground implementing the program. HARRISBURG Deborah Martin Berkoski felt like she was all thumbs when she tripped on wet steps and dropped her plate of thumbprint cookies on the ground just as she was leaving home for the 103rd Pennsylvania Farm Show. She went back in her Conestoga farmhouse, prepared a second plate of cookies and came to the Farm Show. Hours later, she won first prize in the Pennsylvania Farm Show thumbprint cookie contest. Thank God I made extra cookies, said Berkoski, one of the Farm Shows most frequent baking contest winners. It paid off. Berkoski beat 17 other bakers ages 5 to 91 to win $150 and a blue ribbon. Other winners were Elizabeth Pokrivka of Seven Valleys, second prize and $100; and Sharon Kurtz of Emmaus, third prize and $50. Ribbons went to Shelley Pokrivka of Seven Valleys, fourth prize, and Sally Reinhoehl of Schuylkill County, fifth prize. Thumbprint cookies, popular during the Christmas season, are made with a shortbread dough that is formed into balls and rolled in finely chopped nuts. The name comes from the fact that bakers use their thumbs to make an indention into each cookie, then fill that crater with jam. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram The Committee to Protect Journalists joined more than 20 rights organizations and the #KeepItOn Coalition to call for authorities in Zimbabwe to restore internet and social media services, commit to maintaining internet access, and encourage accountability from telecommunication and internet service providers to respect human rights. The letter, addressed to Kazembe Kazembe, Zimbabwes minister of information communication technology and cyber security, emphasized how internet disruptions inhibit journalists ability to contact sources, gather information, and file stories. The letter also detailed the additional social and economic costs of internet outages, as well as how such disruptions run contrary to international law. The government in Zimbabwe should take action to ensure a free and open media environment, which means swiftly reestablishing internet and social media access, said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal. African governments too often use internet disruptions as a tool to stifle the free flow of news and commentary. Read the full letter here. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram Washington D.C., January 14, 2019The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned the harsh sentence imposed on journalist Hamed Aynehvand and called on Iran to stop persecuting the media for doing their job. On December 25, Aynehvands lawyer, Hossein Bayat, told the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) that the journalist was sentenced to six years in prison by Judge Mohammad Moghiseh of Branch 28 of Tehrans Revolutionary Court on charges of propaganda against the state and assembly and collusion against national security. His lawyer said he will appeal the sentence. Political writing that Aynehvand published in several media outlets in Iran, including the government-owned daily newspaper Iran, and news websites based abroad such as Gooya, Zeitoon, Iran Global, were used as evidence against him by the judge, according to the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), which cited a friend of the journalist who requested anonymity. CHRI, citing the friend, reported that the journalist was denied a lawyer of his choosing by the judiciary and the Revolutionary Court, and that he was tried and convicted without the presence of his lawyer. Hamed Aynehvands sham trial and harsh sentence demonstrate the flawed nature of the Iranian justice system, said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour from New York. We call on the authorities not to contest his upcoming appeal. Agents of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps intelligence unit arrested Aynehvand on June 28, 2018, as he was leaving the National Library in Tehran and kept him in solitary confinement at Evin prison for a month and a half, CHRIs report said. As of January 14, CPJ was not able to obtain updated information about his location or his health status. Eight journalists were found to be imprisoned in Iran in direct relation to their work at the time of CPJs December 2018 prison census. Aynehvand was not included on the 2018 prison census because CPJ was not aware of his case at the time. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram New York, January 15, 2019 The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned the Honduran Supreme Courts decision to uphold a 2016 ruling sentencing journalist David Romero Ellner to 10 years in prison on criminal defamation charges. It is absurd that David Romero Ellner should face a decade in prison simply for his reporting, said CPJ South and Central America Program Coordinator Natalie Southwick. Rather than punishing reporters for doing their jobs, the Honduran government should take action to join the growing international movement to abolish criminal defamation laws and should stop jailing journalists when civil remedies are available. On January 11, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a lower courts conviction and sentencing on charges that Romero defamed former prosecutor Sonia Inez Galvez Ferrari in his journalistic work, according to news reports. Romeros journalistic work has frequently alleged corruption in President Juan Orlando Hernandezs administration. In 2015, he reported on alleged corruption in the countrys social security administration, including the use of funds from the system to finance Hernandezs 2013 presidential campaign. He will likely be jailed within a week of the sentence, according to reports. TUESDAY, Jan. 15, 2019 (HealthDay News) -- People who develop type 2 diabetes before they turn 40 are twice as likely to be hospitalized for mental illness as those who develop the blood sugar disease after 40, a new study shows. About 37 percent of all hospitalization days in the under 40 group were due to mental illness, the researchers noted. Mood and psychotic disorders were the most common conditions. Mood disorders includes depression, bipolar depression and self-harm. Psychotic disorders include delusions, hallucinations and schizophrenia, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Not surprisingly, physical conditions also landed this group in the hospital more often. The study showed rates of kidney disease that were nearly seven times higher in younger people with type 2 diabetes. The risk of hospitalization for heart disease or stroke was twice as high, and the risk of hospitalization from infection was nearly doubled in the young-onset group. The study authors suspect there are a number of reasons why the younger group with type 2 diabetes is more at risk of hospitalizations for mental and physical ills. "The early onset of disease, long disease duration, poor control of risk factors [in part due to delayed treatment intensification] and suboptimal self-care are some of the factors that contribute to this high risk of hospitalization in youth-onset diabetes," explained study co-author Dr. Juliana Chan. She said the psychological burden that comes with managing diabetes may activate stress hormones, which can worsen control of blood sugar, add to obesity and cause inflammation. Inflammation can affect the central nervous system and may "worsen psychological well-being," Chan said. She's director of the Hong Kong Institute of Diabetes and Obesity at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Prince of Wales Hospital. Chan said there's a known connection between diabetes and depression. But it's not clear which condition comes first. It's also possible that the conditions contribute to each other. Dr. Joel Zonszein, director of the clinical diabetes center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, said this study is "a wake-up call. What's going on in Hong Kong is what's going to be taking place in this country." Zonszein added that "type 2 diabetes is becoming more prevalent in younger people, and it's more aggressive and harder to treat than in the past. It used to be extremely rare to see diabetes in someone under 65." Type 2 diabetes is a condition that causes high blood sugar levels. If untreated, high blood sugar can lead to a number of complications, such as heart disease, kidney disease, infections and vision problems, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two major risk factors for the disease are obesity and not getting enough physical activity. For the new study, Chan and her colleagues looked at health information on more than 400,000 people with type 2 diabetes in Hong Kong. Nearly 21,000 were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes before the age of 40. Just over 200,000 were diagnosed between 40 and 59 years, and just under 200,000 were diagnosed at age 60 or older. The researchers found that someone diagnosed before age 40 could expect to spend nearly 100 days in the hospital by his or her 75th birthday. Good control of modifiable risk factors was associated with a decrease to 65 estimated days in the hospital up to age 75. Modifiable risk factors are things such as blood sugar levels, cholesterol and blood pressure. According to Zonszein, "These are people who are getting very sick from complications of diabetes and mental illness compared to people that get type 2 diabetes when they're older. We need to keep young people healthier." Chan explained that "diabetes is a complex disease and it is not just about medications and medical follow-up. Diabetes imposes a lot of demands on a person who needs to be educated, empowered and engaged in order to change their lifestyle and learn how to cope with the disease." She added that health care providers, governments, insurers and society need to work together to help "support these individuals to make the management of this lifelong condition more user-friendly, affordable and sustainable." The report was published online Jan. 15 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. More information Learn more about type 2 diabetes from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mildred 'Millie' Ida Korger Dec. 14, 1933-Jan. 12, 2019 A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 11 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 17, at St. Isidore Catholic Church in Columbus, with the Rev. Joseph A. Miksch celebrating the Mass. Interment will be at St. Bonaventure Cemetery in Columbus. There will be a CDA rosary at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 16, with visitation to follow from 4-6 p.m. at St. Isidore Church. There will also be a vigil service at 6 p.m. at the church. Visitation will continue from 10-11 a.m. on Thursday at the church. Memorials are suggested to the wishes of the family to be distributed later. Millie was born Dec. 14, 1933, at St. Mary's Hospital in Columbus, to John and Marcella (Mueting) Roddy. She attended St. Bonaventure High School, graduating in May 1951. On Sept. 7, 1953, she was united in marriage to Donald Red Lee Korger at St. Bonaventure Catholic Church. She went with her husband to San Antonio, where he was stationed in the Air Force. They lived in Texas until Don was sent overseas. Millie then moved back to Columbus, where she gave birth on July 3, 1954, to their first child, Dave. Millie and Dave lived with her parents until Don returned from service. Their second child, Larry, was born in Columbus prior to moving to Milford, where Don attended Milford College. During this time, their first daughter, Kathy, was born at the Seward Hospital. After Milford, they returned to Columbus and were blessed with four more children, Susie, Steve, Tim and Dan. Together, Don and Millie lovingly raised their seven children, and were blessed with more than 50 years of marriage. They were also blessed with many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, whom they loved dearly and were very proud of. We've known what our strengths are. We know what we want to feature. We know how to get everybody involved, he said. And so we can write specialized parts for everyone." Schwebach is in her fourth year at Central Community College. Next year she wants to play trumpet in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln marching band. She said she hopes the Tempest Winds will help her get back into the groove of marching. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Its very similar to other marching band groups outside of high school. They all pretty much follow the same structure, Schwebach said about indoor marching. Theyre usually a lot better performance-wise as everyone has to carry their own weight. The group meets on Sundays for six-hour rehearsals at the CCC-Columbus gym. Klee said indoor marching is different than out of the field because there are typically fewer people, less space and less time. While a typical marching band performance lasts anywhere from six to nine minutes, these indoor sets only go for four and a half. The groups uniforms come from Columbus Public High School, whose marching band wore them a couple of years ago. Klee said the outfits are perfect for the kind of show the group is putting together. An Omaha man facing two misdemeanor offenses failed to appear before Judge Frank Skorupa Monday morning in Platte County Court resulting in a bench warrant being issued. Carlos E. Loarca-Escobar, who was being detained in the Douglas County Department of Corrections prior to posting bond, is charged with driving under suspension before being reinstated and having no valid operators license, both Class III misdemeanors. Under state law, the defendant could face a maximum of three months imprisonment, pay a $500 fine, or both. A bail bond guaranteeing the defendants appearance in court was set by Skorupa at $2,500, with a 10-percent option which will be collected by the arresting agency or a court of jurisdiction in the county of the arrest what its made, court records show. Loarca-Escobar was arrested on Dec. 8, 2018, when an officer with the Columbus Police Department on routine patrol at about 10:04 a.m. observed a black Ford Fusion traveling southbound in the 2400 block of 26th Avenue with no visible license plate on the front of the car, according to a warrantless arrest affidavit. The vehicle subsequently allegedly avoided a traffic signal in the area of 26th Avenue and 23rd Street by driving through the Bank First parking lot at 2530 23rd St. The Prime Time Awards are voted on by each of the three members of the Prime Time Podcasts. The awards look at the impact on the cigar industry. Today, we unveil our choice for 2018 Small Company of the Year. This award factors things such as innovation, ability to continue to deliver quality product, and impact to the industry. Crowned Heads, the Nashville Tennessee-based company co-founded by Jon Huber and Mike Conder is the Prime Time teams selection for 2018 Small Company of the Year. Founded in 2011, Crowned Heads has a well-established a healthy portfolio of regular production lines. While the company is no stranger to producing limited edition lines, this year the company used those lines to round out a strong portfolio, both satisfying its consumer base and showcasing its strength in innovation. Many of these releases fell under the radar, but each delivered something special. Concurrently, Crowned Heads continued to maintain excellence with its regular offerings. Right out of the gate in 2018, Crowned Heads fans were treated to a collaboration the company participated with Altadis U.S.A with the Montecristo Ciudad de Musica. Collaborating with a large company like Altadis might have surprised a lot of Crowned Heads fans, but not only was the project embraced, it delivered one of the better Montecristo releases in recent years. Working on a project for the Montecristo brand represented a huge opportunity for a company like Crowned Heads and the company came through with flying colors. There were special limited releases and each brought something unique to the table. The Four Kicks Mule Kick 2018 and Headley Grange Black Lab showcased the Connecticut Habano Maduro wrapper. Its a less than common wrapper that is used on the Four Kicks Maduro. The company also took its Connecticut box-pressed line, Le Careme, and made it in the iconic Cuban Belicoso-Finos size. Perhaps the most surprising move was the release of the Connecticut Shade Luminosa Gigantes LE 2018, the companys first foray into a 6 x 60. Traditional annual limited releases also continued. Las Calaveras and the TAA release, The Angels Anvil each showcased new releases for the fifth year in a row. As in prior years, each line featured a previously unreleased blend. Crowned also released a new limited Mexican San Andres line called the Crowned Heads Court Reserve XVIII as a tribute to its fans. While Crowned Heads has had long-time relationships with manufacturing partners Tabacalera La Alianza and My Father Cigars S.A., the company also expanded its horizons in terms of production. This year Crowned Heads teamed up with La Gran Fabrica Drew Estate to produce the Ohio-regional Buckeye Land, and announced it has been working with boutique factory Tabacalera Pichardo in Esteli, Nicaragua to produce the Thompson Cigar exclusive, Juarez. Crowned Heads was well-represented on each of the Prime Time Teams End of Year lists. The company tied for three spots on the Cigar Coop Countdown of the best cigars of 2018. It was represented on Bear Dupliseas Top 10 Cigars of the Year on #ElOsoFumarTakes, and two spots on Aaron Loomis Top 25 Cigars for 2018 on Developing Palates. Honorable Mentions: Aganorsa Leaf, Southern Draw The full vote results appear here. Photo Credit: Cigar Coop As Washingtons governor, Inslee continues to champion the environmental cause. Immediately after securing the governorship in 2013, he worked with members of both parties to meet the states greenhouse gas emissions targets. Inslees budgets included investments in clean energy projects and created University of Washingtons Clean Energy Institute. He issued executive orders to diversify the states energy portfolio and transition from coal-fired electricity to cleaner energy sources. Clearly, Inslee is taking a calculated risk by focusing on climate change, when he could run on a multitude of issues like his fellow competitors in the Democratic primary. The issue of climate change was barely even mentioned during the last presidential race. Hopefully, Inslees presence as a candidate will keep that from happening again. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that ordinary Americans, subjected to increasingly bizarre and devastating weather events, care about addressing the issue of climate change. A recent Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans feel that global climate change is either extremely or very important. The survey also reveals that 75 percent of Democratic voters believe that climate change is an issue that they care deeply about. By Damali Mukhaye President Museveni has asked fresh graduates from Makerere University and other universities to become musicians or comedians as an alternative if they fail to get employment. Speaking during the 69th graduation ceremony, Museveni advised graduates from the college of humanities and social sciences to focus on management skills since they can also become managers while others should join the music or comedy industry like MP Kato Lubwama. According to the president, graduates in science-related disciplines should not cry of unemployment since the country needs more than 80,000 doctors to achieve the World Health Organization goal and yet the current doctors are only 5000. CAMEROUN :: Cameroon: On Paul Biya new Batch of Creatures After his Soviet Style reelection, the president has now nominated a new government staffed with new creatures and particularly, Jean de Dieu Momo and Celestine Ketcha Courtes who epitomize the kind of creatures the president excelled at creating. These individuals display sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies the Biyas regime appreciates. They are very good at shameless and cynical self-promotion and acquiring social status at the expense of everybody around them. They first appear at charming, assertive, Intelligent, exciting, and entertaining. This addiction to performative self-aggrandizement, however, is very hard to sustain. Indeed, Biyas creature is a construct of deception and self-deception. Mr. Momo was nominated in Biyas government for abandoning a career in human rights activism to give the president a new political virginity he does not deserve. Mr. Momo is clearly following the mantra that in your twenties, if you are not a rebel, you have no heart and, in your forties, if you are still a rebel, then you have no brain. On the other hand, Celestine Ketcha Courtes, won a seat in government by entrapping a prominent French political figure visiting the country of the perpetual old lazy king Paul Biya (85 years), and making her wear a Sandja bearing the effigy of the dictator. A few months later, she was promoted to Minister of Housing in his bloated government, despite her dual citizenship, in a country where the regime has literally declared a war against dissidents, activists, and real opponents, often in spite of them holding a nationality (of survival). Like what One must always be wary in the tyrannies of all these sulfurous characters with the debonair appearance, which gravitate in the circles of the Francophonie by appearing like women or political men of convictions (whether they are from the ruling party-state or its satellite opposition). This is Cameroons Paul Biya. More than 36 years that lasts! What all these foolish Creatures failed to realize is that their acts and behaviors are indeed self-sabotaging. It is all based on appearances and unproductive behaviors and activities. They will never achieved anything of values and they should consider themselves lucky if they do not end up in prison or confine to the dustbin of history. The eastern side of Newfoundland is in for some wet and slippery weather Tuesday, with a winter storm warning in place for the Connaigre and Burin peninsulas and winter storm watches in effect for Gander, Bonavista, Clarenville and parts of the Avalon Peninsula, including St. John's. "Evening rush hour could be a little tricky on the northern Avalon," Derm Kearney, from Environment Canada's Gander weather office, told The St. John's Morning Show on Monday. A low-pressure system is expected to bring snow mixed with ice pellets to St. John's and area, changing to rain with a risk of freezing rain in the afternoon, according to Environment Canada. The Avalon Peninsula could have five to 10 centimetres of snow, Kearney said, with a bit less for the eastern part of the peninsula, including St. John's and Mount Pearl. Terry Roberts/CBC Winds are also expected to be fairly strong into tomorrow afternoon, Kearney said, at about 80 km/h, dropping out in the evening. Clarenville/Bonavista also getting snow, wind Similar winds are expected tomorrow afternoon and evening in Bonavista and Clarenville, where the combination with snowfall will reduce visibility. "Up towards Clarenville/Bonavista, things will be kind of getting interesting tomorrow evening, because winds will be picking up along with the snow and it's also a chance of going over to some freezing rain and pellets there as well," Kearney said. Environment Canada Around Bonavista and Clarenville, snow mixed with ice pellets is expected to begin in the morning. Up to 10 centimetres of snow is expected during the day in the Bonavista, Clarenville and Gander areas, with more continuing into the night. Storm warning for Burin and Connaigre Hazardous conditions are expected on the Burin and Connaigre peninsulas, Environment Canada said, where winter storm warnings are in place for Tuesday. Snow in the areas may change to rain over the southern part of the Burin Peninsula. "The southern part of the Burin might not see as much snow as the north," Kearney said. The southern part of the Burin should get five to 10 centimetres of snow, he said, with the northern part and the Connaigre getting up to 15 centimetres. Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador A Regina couple took a chance on a stray dog and ended up falling in love. Jason Hubbs and Loralyn Koffler-Hubbs met Chance, a very sick stray, while in South America on a cruise. It wasn't the couple's intention to adopt him they were just trying to do something to help him out but now he's a part of the family. Stumbling upon Chance During a cruise stop at Port au Montt, Chile, Jason suggested visiting a fish market. That's where they met the lonely stray. Most stray dogs the couple saw in South America were well taken care of. They had shiny coats and were a bit overfed. That's why this dog stood out. He had mange and scabies. "We couldn't physically leave him," Loralyn said. Loralyn Koffler-Hubbs Choosing a name The couple learned that locals couldn't afford the vet bills to care for the dog. When they first called to try to find someone to take care of the dog, they were speaking with a woman who kept referring to him as "their dog." "After that, we looked at each other and said, 'I guess it's our dog.' We got to do what's right. No questions asked," Jason said. After a visiting the vet, the couple made some negotiations to keep the dog for a month and eventually take him home. This all happened within three hours of meeting the dog. Loralyn Koffler-Hubbs When they took him to a local vet, he was so sick that he had to be sedated and put on IV fluids for the first three days. They said they named the dog Chance because they found a vet who took a chance on them and now Chance is taking a chance on the couple. Journey to new home The couple arranged for Chance to be neutered and given vaccinations so he could be allowed into Canada. After rearranging their flights and filling out the proper paperwork, they were able to take Chance home with them instead of making a separate trip. Their airline was accommodating to Chances needs, including cooking fish for his first meal in Canada and checking that the cargo temperature was comfortable for him. Hubbs said he heard from many people during their trip home who had similar stories about adopting dogs from abroad. Story continues "The customs individual in Toronto waived the entrance fee for an animal. Air Canada waived the fee for us to travel with a carrier. They also waived one of our extra bag fees to help us out with some of our extra expenses," Jason said. Adopting to Canadian life There are challenges with helping Chance acclimatize to a new culture and new country, let alone humans. "He's never formed a bond with another human being. He's never had a name. He's never had a home. He's never had any trust with any other human beings. That's a huge problem for him," Loralyn said. Eight weeks later, Chance has improved a lot but has a long way to go. He is in constant pain because of mange, which Loralyn likens to shingles for humans. His sores he has are still healing, making his skin very sensitive. "Going outside in the cold air is absolute agony for him." Currently the couple is working on trust with Chance. "He's trying to be closer to us, which we find encouraging, but we've got a long way to go before we can just get him out for a walk," Loralyn said. Loralyn Koffler-Hubbs Becoming part of the family Chance is the couple's fourth dog, but the first from outside Canada. So far the couple's three other dogs have seemed to accept their new brother, but Chance is still unsure of them. Loralyn has already bought matching sweaters for the day all of their four dogs can go out for a walk. Some of the couple's friends have dropped off treats for Chance. Someone even brought a dog bed. Loralyn Koffler-Hubbs "We have a friend from Chile who came over and spoke Spanish to Chance because he's used to hearing the Spanish language. She baked us empanadas on behalf of Chance for Christmas," Jason said. He said the couple has done all they can to help strays, both locally and internationally. "We're at our max right now. Some other people will have to step up and do some adopting throughout the world," Jason said. Nunavut's Qulliq Energy Corporation has applied to the territorial government for approval to build a new $13-million headquarters for staff in Baker Lake. The new building would replace three that Qulliq Energy currently leases in Baker Lake, and bring the 45 staff members working there together under one roof. Qulliq Energy Corporation is the sole power utility in Nunavut, and is owned by the territorial government. The largest building Qulliq Energy uses in Baker Lake is leased from the Nunavut government. That lease is set to expire at the end of August 2020, leaving 27 Qulliq Energy employees without a space to work, explained Bruno Pereira, the corporation's president and CEO. "We have our headquarters in Baker Lake, but there's a shortage of space. We want to keep those people in Baker Lake," he said. "If there's no office for those people, we can't have those bodies in Baker Lake. "There is no other facility [in Baker Lake] that can accommodate 27 people," he said. "This gives us an opportunity to bring everybody together, people who were working in makeshift offices." One of those makeshift offices is a renovated three-bedroom home, which isn't really suitable for the corporation's needs, Pereira said. Alex Brockman/CBC Qulliq Energy's application lays out four options for the future of the corporation's head offices, with the new building owned by Qulliq Energy listed as the best of the four. The headquarters would be for staff already based in Baker Lake, and no one working for Qulliq Energy in Iqaluit will be transferred to the new facility, Pereira said. If approved, the planning and design process for the building would begin this April, with construction starting in the summer of 2020 and be complete in 2021. Since the project costs more than $5 million, it needs ministerial approval before it can go ahead. If approved, it would likely add an extra 0.35 cents per kilowatt hour to power bills for customers throughout the territory beginning in 2021/22. Story continues But ultimately, owning the building will lead to savings for ratepayers in the long run, since it will cost less to buy than to lease the buildings, Pereira said. In a media release issued Wednesday, Jeannie Ehaloak, the minister responsible for the energy corporation, said she'd make her decision after reviewing the application and consulting with the territory's Utility Rates Review Council. That approval process is expected to take about 90 days. The province's new cap-and-trade program will see Nova Scotians paying a bit more at the pump starting this month. The price of gasoline will increase by .94 cents per litre and diesel will go up by 1.2 cents per litre starting on Jan. 4. Heritage Gas customers can also expect to pay more starting today, with an increase of about one per cent on their natural gas bills. The province has said the price of heating oil will also rise by about a penny per litre due to the cap-and-trade system. When asked whether prices would rise in early January, a spokesperson for Imperial Oil said he could not comment on future prices. "All of the folks that are participating will be putting a surcharge in place," said Heritage Gas president John Hawkins. "Now, not everyone would necessarily decide to show that on the bill. We've decided to make it explicit on the bill so that customers are aware of what that surcharge is and how it will affect their cost." Nova Scotia Power rates will increase this year, but not due to the cap-and-trade program. Spokesperson Tiffany Chase said electricity rates for 2019, which include a 1.7 per cent increase, were approved in 2016. The province has said electricity rates are expected to increase by about one per cent by 2022 under the cap-and-trade plan. ATHENS, Greece (AP) Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Sunday he will ask for a vote of confidence in Parliament this week after the country's defense minister, who leads the coalition government's junior party, resigned over the Macedonia name deal. Panos Kammenos announced his resignation and said his right-wing Independent Greeks party is quitting the government after meeting with Tsipras on Sunday morning. Tsipras appeared confident when speaking to the press Sunday that he would be able to find the needed 151 votes and survive both the confidence vote and the Macedonia name change vote, since the group led by Kammenos had only seven seats. Tsipras said he had a "frank discussion" with Kammenos, whom he thanked for his government partnership, and announced that Admiral Evangelos Apostolakis, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will become the country's new defense minister. Greece and Macedonia agreed last June to a deal that would change the name of Greece's northern neighbor to North Macedonia. In exchange, Greece would lift its objections to the country joining NATO. The deal ended a dispute that had been going on since the early 1990s but it is opposed by conservatives like Kammenos, who feel that Tsipras gave away too many concessions. Macedonia's parliament ratified the deal on Friday. Now Tsipras needs only a majority in the 300-seat Greek parliament to ratify the accord. Tsipras already has the backing of his 145-strong Syriza parliamentary group. The prime minister also seems assured of the support of two, and possibly three, Independent Greeks, an independent conservative, at least two and up to four lawmakers from centrist party To Potami, an independent socialist and possibly one lawmaker from the small Centrist Union. That makes a minimum of 151 and potentially 155 votes in favor of the deal. In a press conference that followed his resignation, Kammenos made it clear that he and his party will vote against the government confidence motion, as well as the Macedonia name deal, when it comes up for ratification. Story continues He admitted, however that he is only assured of three votes, his own and two other lawmakers, one of whom, Maria Kollia-Tsaroucha, the deputy defense minister, will resign along with him. Two other lawmakers, one an ally who is not a party member, have long declared they will vote for the Macedonia name deal. Kammenos harshly criticized the remaining two allied lawmakers, Tourism Minister Elena Kountoura and Deputy Agriculture Minister Vassilis Kokkalis, who are both on trips abroad. Neither one has stated their position on the confidence motion but Kokkalis has said he will vote against the Macedonian name change. In the Macedonian capital of Skopje, Macedonian Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov told a press conference Sunday that he has been "assured" by a Greek government official that Athens remains "strongly committed" to completing its part of the name change deal. ___ Konstantin Testorides contributed from Skopje. An Edmontonian sent a Hawaiian to Alaska: How the cross-border pizza party took off Edmontonian Michael Cormier was on the phone with a pizza joint in Anchorage, Alaska, last Thursday, valiantly trying to fend off a recommendation to order a Reindeer Pizza. The air traffic controller was placing an order for pies to be sent to colleagues working at Anchorage's Ted Stevens international airport, a cheesy show of support for the American air traffic controllers are contending with a government partial shutdown. But that act of comfort food solidarity has since snowballed across the country, with operators across the country delivering slices across the border as a show of support for their American colleagues. "I knew there was a shutdown and I heard they weren't getting paid," Cormier said in an interview Monday with CBC Radio's Edmonton AM. "I didn't believe it. "And I thought well, it would be nice if I could just do something to show them that not everybody has forgotten that they're out there working when other people aren't, so I arranged them some pizza." It took a while for Cormier, an air traffic controller with Nav Canada in Edmonton, to find a place that would accept a Canadian credit card and get the idea cleared with airport security, but soon his colleagues were chowing down on some fresh pies. "I'm sort of a pepperoni guy but he picked Hawaiian, meat lovers and some sort of barbecue chicken," Cormier said CBC Radio's Edmonton AM. "We actually had to talk them out of ordering a reindeer pizza. It sounded a little bit too exotic to me." With few other U.S. government services running due to the shutdown, some 10,000 American air traffic controllers have been working without pay since late December. Their union filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington on Friday, asking for an order compelling the government to pay them what they're owed. In addition to Anchorage, Cormier collected enough to buy pies for controllers in Salt Lake City, Utah. Story continues Then, as they say in airport lingo, it took off from there. The next thing we knew, our members were buying pizzas left, right and centre. -Peter Duffey Peter Duffey, the head of the Canadian Air Traffic Control Association, said other facilities across Canada decided to join in. "The next thing we knew, our members were buying pizzas left, right and centre for the colleagues in the U.S," Duffey said Sunday in a phone interview. "As it stands right now, I believe we're up to 36 facilities that have received pizza from Canada, and that number is growing by the hour." Duffey estimated that as of Sunday afternoon, some 300 pizzas had been received by American controllers, many of whom took to social media to express their gratitude. Duffey said many union members had been looking for a way to show solidarity with their American colleagues, who have been working without pay due to the partial shutdown. "Air traffic control is a very stressful job," he said. "They say you have to be 100 per cent right, 100 per cent of the time. People just don't need to be reporting to work with the added stress of worrying about how to pay their mortgages and grocery bills on top of it." Cormier said there's a bond between Canadian and American air traffic controllers since the two work closely together to manage cross-border airspace. Air traffic controllers provide essential services and are unable to suspend work or take any other job action during the government shutdown, he said. He wanted them to be recognized for working hard without a paycheque. "Not a lot of people were aware they were working and it's not the kind of job where they could slack off," Cormier said. "They were doing the job the same as they did every day of the year, 24 hours a day and somebody should actually notice what they were doing. "That was the whole idea. If you worked with someone and you knew they weren't getting paid, wouldn't you buy them lunch?" With files from the Canadian Press While a snowstorm shut schools in central Newfoundland, the mixed bag of weather resulted in flooding on many streets around St. John's on Tuesday. The heavy rain started early Tuesday afternoon after about five to 10 centimetres of snow had fallen, starting earlier in the day and within an hour, water started pooling on streets. Several roads, including Carpasian Road, Torbay Road and Water Street, were flooded and several cars had become stuck or stalled in the water. Sarah Nolan and Jim Evans, employees at a business on the corner of Newfoundland Drive and Torbay Road, had front row seats to some of the most significant flooding. "For the last 15 minutes to about 40 minutes, it just progressively got worse," Evans said "And you can't open it up for [the water] to run anywhere I'm surprised there's not more cars out there broke down." Submitted/CBC The build up of water on Newfoundland Drive slowed traffic as vehicles became stuck in flooded streets during the evening rush hour. "It's absolutely awful, this car's been here over an hour now, no one's coming, they're blocking traffic," Nolan said. Difficult conditions St. John's Mayor Danny Breen said Tuesday's conditions were "extremely challenging," and city crews are continuing with street widening operations into Wednesday morning and clearing out filled catch basins. "It came on very quick, and that kind of snow packs on to the road quickly. Then, as you're dealing with that, then it turns to rain and there was a tremendous amount of water that was moving there," he said. "It was a challenging day for our staff and they're continuing to deal with it it's still pretty messy around, but they're making progress." Breen said salting the roads is the next step to prepare for the cold temperatures Tuesday night. "It takes about three hours to salt the streets of the city, so you have to be on top of that and that's something that our staff will be monitoring overnight," he said. Story continues But as crews began the work of salting the streets, one city vehicle slid and struck a utility pole on Goodview Street, in the downtown area, knocking out power to some streets. There were no injuries, but the city said there will be a workplace accident investigation into the incident. Freezing to come CBC meteorologist Ashley Brauweiler said it was the sheer volume of precipitation that caused problems in St. John's. Ten centimetres of snow fell in just two hours at the St. John's airport Tuesday morning, before changing through freezing rain to rain, with more than 18 mm of rain falling on top of the earlier snow. But all that water could turn to ice. "Things are going to get cold as we get through the night tonight, so everything all that standing water that's left will likely freeze," said Brauweiler. Rain will change back to flurries through Tuesday night and as the wet weather moves away, the colder temperatures will move in behind, Brauweiler said. Winter 'having its way' Additional workers with the City of St. John's were brought in to deal with the water. "Extra crews are out attending catch basins in areas that are prone to flooding," said Lynnann Winsor, deputy city manager, department of public works, in an email. "Snow-clearing crews continue to widen city streets and open up catch basins." Allison Sheppard of Environment Canada's Gander weather office told CBC's St. John's Morning Show earlier Tuesday, "it's going to be a mess for everyone today." "Absolutely, winter is having its way with us today for sure. Another downside of the heavy rain? The snow that fell earlier in the day is now even heavier to shovel. It keeps snowing and snowing Sheppard said the snow will continue through the day, with winter storm warnings in effect for the central Newfoundland area. "It's going to be pretty heavy," she said. "We're looking at amounts anywhere between 20 and 30 centimetres for them today before they taper to flurries this evening." Bruce Tilley/CBC Mid-morning on Tuesday the RCMP warned drivers that the Trans-Canada Highway on the Avalon peninsula is snow covered, slippery, with limited-to-zero visbility. Stay off the highway unless it's an emergency, urged police. It's going to be a mess for everyone today. - Allison Sheppard The Clarenville area looks much the same, with snowfall expected to be heavy at times, with anywhere from 15 to 25 centimetres today, and then another 15 tonight before the snow diminishes to flurries. "Once that snow gets started, it's really going to pick up, so it's going to get messy quickly." Merit NL/Twitter People can also expect strengthening northwesterly winds, causing blowing snow and reducing visibility. The winds will be gusting to about 80 km/h in most areas, but will be stronger near Bonavista and Clarenville and coastal regions, to about 100 km/h. Read more articles from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar. Pic: Reuters The Irish government on Tuesday stepped up its no-deal Brexit planning just as MPs in Westminster were preparing to vote on prime minister Theresa Mays deal with the European Union. Ministers discussed four areas of concern at a cabinet meeting, including what legislation would be needed to prepare for a no-deal scenario, the medicine supply, transport connectivity, and the Common Travel Area with the UK. Legislation will be required to mitigate the effects of a no-deal Brexit across some 21 diverse areas, including copyright law, railway safety, broadcasting and health insurance. Most of these issues will be dealt with in one single omnibus bill, Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar said. The bill will not be published until late February, and will be considered by Irish parliament in March. While all eyes are on the House of Commons tonight, it is important the governments planning continues for all outcomes, including no deal, said Simon Coveney, the deputy prime minister and foreign minister. READ MORE: The five main possible outcomes if the Brexit deal is rejected A no-deal Brexit will have a significant impact on Ireland these measures being taken by the Government are designed to limit the damage. It remains our view that the only way to secure an orderly withdrawal is to ratify the Withdrawal Agreement. Despite the planning, Varadkar on Tuesday faced criticism from Fianna Fail, the party which props up his government in Irelands parliament. Its leader Micheal Martin said that parliament had not been kept adequately informed and that a contingency planning document published in December was too light on detail. Planning The Irish government reaffirmed that, even in a no-deal scenario, its goal is to see the continued operation of the Common Travel Area, which for decades has seen Irish and UK citizens freely live, work, and study in each respective country. The Common Travel Area predates the EU and is not dependent on it. Story continues At least 60% of medicines used in Ireland either come from or transit through the UK, something that has prompted careful consideration by Irelands health ministry. Though agencies do not anticipate an immediate impact on medicine supplies should there be a no-deal Brexit, some 24 medicines have been added to a watchlist to ensure continuation of supply. READ MORE: Irish business groups warn against devastating consequences of no-deal Brexit Meanwhile, ministers also discussed the route that 21bn (19bn) worth of Irish goods take to continental Europe, which sees them travel via the UKs road and ports network. Known as the landbridge, this route has been subject to significant fears, since the majority of the trade is in time-sensitive products such as agri-food. Based on consultations with the shipping sector, Irelands transport ministry has determined that it would be possible to ship goods directly to continental Europe. The moves come ahead of Tuesdays meaningful vote, in which Mays deal is widely expected to be defeated. Dublins financial district. A no-deal scenario would profoundly exacerbate the problems of Brexit for Ireland. Pic: Reuters A no-deal Brexit would have devastating economic consequences for the whole island of Ireland, leading groups from both sides of the border have warned ahead of Tuesdays House of Commons vote on UK prime minister Theresa Mays Brexit deal. Calling a no-deal scenario an affront to rational thinking, the groups said that it would immediately put jobs and businesses at risk, and jeopardise years of positive economic development and integration across the island. In a joint statement, leading Irish business group IBEC and the Northern Ireland branch of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said that Mays deal would limit post-Brexit disruptions to the two-nations economy, while a no-deal outcome would result in an immediate and unprecedented economic shock. Their intervention comes after Mays last-ditch attempt to get her MPs to support the deal, which is widely expected to be defeated in Tuesdays meaningful vote. Many firms across Northern Ireland simply could not cope with a no-deal Brexit, said Angela McGowan, the director of the CBIs Northern Ireland branch. Not only would it do significant harm to jobs, investment and living standards but it would put at risk the all-island economic model that has been an important factor in driving local prosperity. Around a third of Northern Irelands exports make the easy and seamless hop across the border to Ireland, with nearly 75% coming from small businesses. READ MORE: Fear swirls around Brexit hitting the lifeblood of Northern Irelands economy Northern Ireland firms also heavily depend on ports in Ireland for their trade with businesses in the rest of the UK. Meanwhile, a leading Irish think tank warned in December that a no-deal Brexit would almost halve Irish economic growth in 2019. For its part, the Irish government has said that such a scenario would have profound political, economic and legal implications for the country. READ MORE: Irish government publishes no-deal Brexit contingency plan Story continues Both business groups also pointed to the need to protect the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which has been key to the peace and stability seen on the island of Ireland in the past 20 years. In the 30 years before it was signed, clashes between unionists and republicans known simply as the Troubles took the lives of more than 3,600 people. Protecting the achievements of the Belfast-Good Friday Agreement and the resulting all-island economic benefits is vital, said Fergal OBrien from IBEC. The withdrawal deal includes important provisions to minimise economic disruption and avoid a hard border. A no-deal outcome would profoundly exacerbate, rather than resolve the many difficult challenges that Brexit presents. Opinion / Interviews Zimbabwe government hospital doctors have been on strike for the past 36 days, plunging the public health sector into deep crisis, which has led to the near-collapse of the health delivery system. But on Friday, a surprise meeting between the doctors and First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa managed to break the ice for discussion between government and the striking doctors. No deal was, however, brokered and, contrary to post meeting utterances by the first lady, the doctors have not gone back to work.Everson Mushava (EM) managed to get hold of Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA) secretary general Mthabisi Bhebhe (MB) to get details of the outcome of the doctors' engagement with the first lady and other issue relating to the strike. Below are excerpts from the interview.EM: On Friday, your members had a meeting with First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa. What were the issues and what was the result of the meeting?MB: She was pleading with us to go back to work while government looks into our problems and we felt it was a half-baked offer. She does not hold an official government position and like anyone else, she is just an interested party. We are directly employed by the Ministry of Health and if we have any disgruntlement, we know whom to approach. We cannot approach the President over promises made by the first lady. Yes, she has influence on him, but the proper channel is that she will have to direct our concerns to the Health ministry, which employs us. The Health minister should then take the issues to Cabinet and a decision is made, that is legally binding. The Ministry of Health manages everything about our concerns. It would have made more sense if the promise by the first lady was made by the President himself. Nonetheless, it was a good initiative that such a meeting occurred, but let me reiterate that no agreement was reached and the strike is still going ahead until our demands are met.EM: One of your demands is to be paid salaries in United States dollars. Has government made a commitment to meet the demand before and what was the outcome?MB: An agreement was made a long time back in 2014 that government would pay our on-call allowances at a rate of US$10 per hour, but steps to fulfil the agreement were never made. Between 2014 and now, government never talked about it. There was no commitment. Every year, we had an industrial action over the same issue. This year, however, is the longest we have been on strike; so far 36 days and the industrial action is still going on. There is no solution over old promises.EM: Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga was tasked to resolve the issue. Have you met him in person to negotiate your demands since he was given the task?MB: The VP never made an effort to meet us. We were negotiating with the Health Services Board. The HSB is our employer. It is responsible for our welfare and work conditions. Every decision regarding our issues is made by the HSB, which presents them to the Ministry of Health. The HSB is playing ground, this is where everything starts and ends and this is provided by the Health Services Act. The HSB is the governing body for all health workers, that is why we say negotiations should be done by the HSB as has been the case. It has the mandate to do so, but the problem has been the way it was handling the negotiations. We believe it was misrepresenting issues to the VP and trying to portray us as devils in this. The HSB has not been negotiating in good faith. We hold the HSB liable and responsible for the delay in resolving this industrial action. They decided to take us to court to force us to return to work without meeting our demands. It made the situation difficult for proper negotiations. We cannot negotiate when the other party is back-stabbing.EM: Have you alerted the HSB of your reservations on the way it has been handling the issue?MB: We told them that the way they were handling the issue was delaying rather than solving the problem in the health services. It was out of desperation that the doctors engaged in job action. The doctors had tried their best to have honest engagements with their employer, but the process and outcome were frustrating.EM: President Emmerson Mnangagwa cut off his annual leave to reportedly attend to the crisis in the health sector. Has he made an effort to meet you?MB: No, but we have met a lot of representatives from the President's Office and the latest development was the meeting on Friday with the first lady.Now there is something on the table, the ice has been broken and now the fighting spirit is no longer there. People want to negotiate. She has pacified the situation. The meeting helped a lot; people are getting to understand our grievances. Like I said before, the only problem is that she is not a government worker and cannot make legally binding decisions, which is the reason why we are still on strike. The first lady has done her part - she should now direct our concerns to our parent ministry to make concessions.EM: Health minister Obadiah Moyo looked keen to negotiate with you and come up with a solution during the early days of your strike, what happened to his zeal and how are you going along with him?MB: The minister is good with words and offers, but no tangible solutions. He was only appealing to us to go back to work with nothing, yet the situation in hospitals urgently needs redress. People cannot go back to work by word of mouth. We want concrete measures to bring long-term sanity to the health sector, not piecemeal solutions.EM: There seems to have been a feeling that Chiwenga was using a hardline stance to negotiate with you. What do you think was the result of such actions?MB: We were engaging with him through the HSB. We only got to know of his views through his utterances that gave us an impression that he was not interested in negotiations, but force. We thought the mood for negotiation had been abandoned. We felt provoked by his utterances where he described junior doctors as mere students. We believe his utterances were as a result of misrepresentations from the HSB. This is why we were glad when the first lady offered to get our side of the story. We had been demonised without anyone making an effort to understand our concerns.EM: Right now, government has appealed to student doctors to apply for jobs to fill in the vacancies left behind when it made an undertaking to suspend you. Is such a move legal?BM: It is not procedural. That is why even the student doctors rejected the offer, a move that forced the first lady to get involved. They invited students who just finished school, whose results are not yet out. The ministry was trying to recruit doctors who have not passed their examinations.Furthermore, we are all on one page, senior, junior and student doctors. We have similar demands. News / National by Staff reporter Amnesty International said it is alarmed by the repressive measures the Mnangagwa led Zimbabwe government has taken in response to the protests, including shutting down the internet to prevent people from supporting or organising protests.Muleya Mwanayanda Amnesty's Deputy Director for Southern Africa, said the organisers of the national shutdown are not a threat to anyone.He said: "Years of political and economic mismanagement has brought Zimbabwe's economy to its knees."Millions of Zimbabweans are terrified about the knock-on effects that the fuel increases will have on their daily lives, including for food and healthcare."The Zimbabwean authorities must ensure that people are able to express their views freely and safely and must promptly investigate in an independent and impartial manner allegations of police shootings of protesters."The police must use force only when strictly necessary. Even then, they must exercise restraint at all times and use the lowest level of force needed. Firearms may only be used as a last resort, and when strictly unavoidable, to protect life."Amnesty is alarmed by the repressive measures the government has taken in response to the protests, including shutting down the internet to prevent people from supporting or organising protests. The police and military have also reportedly subjected people who were protesting to beatings and other forms of ill-treatment.Muleya Mwanayanda added, "The organisers of the national shutdown are not a threat to anyone all they have done is call for people to stay at home as a way to protest peacefully against the fuel increases."Instead of threatening those who criticise the government, the authorities should focus on addressing the root causes that are leading people to the streets and focus on building an inclusive economy for all Zimbabweans."There have been reports of police stations being torched, shops looted, private property destroyed and the headquarters of the main opposition party, MDC, burned down, Zanu-PF offices were also torched. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu Embattled Econet Wireless Boss Strive Masiyiwa has taken to Facebook to explain why his company complied with government directive to shut down internet the whole of Zimbabwe.Masiyiwa said when a directive is issued there is no other way but to follow it."This morning I was informed that the authorities in Zimbabwe have directed all internet services to be shut down." Masiyiwa said. "As it was a written directive issued in terms of law, non-compliance would result in immediate imprisonment of management on the ground."Masiyiwa further said last week he received a similar directive in the Democratic Republic of Congo and he complied."Last week we were issued with a similar order in DRC and we complied as directed. Whenever such directives are issued, management call in the legal teams and review them in terms of law."On Tuesday Zimbabwe was plunged into a countrywide blackout of internet as soldiers were deployed in residential areas to arrest residents suspected to have participated in Monday's violent protests. News / National by Staff reporter exiled Former G40 Kingpin Professor Jonathan Moyo last week made a jibe on telecommunications guru Strive Masiyiwa saying that Masiyiwa is a Bond-note billionaire, a reference to the local currency that is used in Zimbabwe.According to a report in Forbes, Masiyiwa of Zimbabwe is richer than a year ago, worth an estimated $2.3 billion, up from $1.6 billion last year.He's richer due to a rise in the share price of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe and a new investment that boosted the value of his stake in fibre-optic and satellite-services firm Liquid Telecom.Masiyiwa has so far founded four different business that are valued at more than $13 billion. Four of his business ventures had become what are know as unicorns:- Econet Wireless Zimbabwe $3.2 billiion,- Cassava Zimbabwe $3.8 billiion,- Liquid Telecom $2.5 billion,- and Aitel Nigeria, which he started is now worth over $4 billion. He sold his started. He sold his stake in the business about two years agoOther well known businesses that he started such as Mascom Botswana and 2Degress New Zealand are also closing in on the billion dollar status.Buffeted by plunging stock prices and weaker currencies, the number of African billionaires has shrunk to just 20, down from 23 a year ago.Four people fell off Forbes' annual list of the continent's richest since last year while one returned to the ranks after a four-year absence. All but four members of the list have smaller fortunes than a year ago.For the eighth year in a row, Aliko Dangote of Nigeria is Africa's richest person. His estimated $10.3 billion net worth, however, is nearly $2 billion less than a year ago, primarily due to a roughly 20% drop in the stock price of Dangote Cement, his most valuable asset.The continent's second richest is Mike Adenuga, also of Nigeria, worth an estimated $9.2 billion. Adenuga owns Globacom, which is Nigeria's third-largest mobile phone network, plus oil exploration firm Conoil Producing, extensive real estate holdings in Nigeria and a network of 12 000 cellphone towers.His net worth has climbed dramatically from $5.3 billion in January 2018 as a result of more detailed information provided by him about his assets.Number three in Africa is diamond heir Nicky Oppenheimer of South Africa.His grandfather founded diamond mining firm DeBeers, which Nicky ran and then sold to mining giant Anglo American for $5.1 billion cash in 2012.He is currently worth an estimated $7.3 billion, down from $7.7 billion a year ago.In a per country ranking, Egypt and South Africa are tied with five billionaires each, followed by Nigeria with four and Morocco with two.Forbes found one billionaire each from Algeria, Angola, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.The three South Africans who fell off since last year's list are Stephen Saad, founder of generics drug firm Aspen Pharmacare; Desmond Sacco, chairman of iron ore mining company Assore Group; and Christoffel Wiese, founder of retailer Pepkor and former chairman of furniture retailer Steinhoff International, which acquired Pepkor in 2015. Steinhoff is still reeling from an accounting scandal that was disclosed in December 2018, and shortly afterwards Wiese stepped down as chairman of the company.The fourth dropoff is Onsi Sawiris of Egypt, who owns a stake in Netherlands-based fertilizer and chemical producer OCI N.V. All four fell off due to a decline in the stock price of their main asset.Nigerian cement mogul Abdulsamad Rabiu, who runs and owns the BUA Group, returns to the list for the first time since 2015.He merged his Kalambaina Cement firm into publicly traded Cement Company of Northern Nigeria, which he controlled, in late 2018. Rabiu now owns 97% of the list entity.Kalambaina, which operates a new cement production facility, started selling cement in mid-2018. Separately, Rabiu's OBU Cement recently expanded its operations, adding a new production line.Two of the 20 billionaires are women: Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angola's former president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos; and Folorunsho Alakija of Nigeria.Dos Santos' fortune declined to an estimated $2.3 billion, down from $2.7 billion a year ago, primarily due to a drop in value of her stock holdings in oil firm Galp and communications firm Nos - both in Portugal - and a decline in the value of Angolan mobile telecom firm Unitel, of which she owns 25%.Nigeria's Alakija owns a stake in one of the most productive oil fields in Nigeria, currently operated by Chevron. Her net worth dropped due a decline in the value of the oil field, in part because its production has leveled off.Altogether the 20 African tycoons are worth $68.7 billion, down from $75.4 billion for last year's list. However, the average net worth for each list member this year has climbed to $3.4 billion from $3.3 billion in early 2018.. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu The Nelson Chamisa led MDC has appealed for help to the international community to amplify the plight of Zimbabwe who are reportedly being arrested, tortured and killed by soldiers in communities." We are being butchered in the townships by Soldiers. Internet has been shutdown to prevent the world from helping us. This is an appeal for help to the International Community." The MDC Deputy Treasurer General Charlton Hwende said in an appeal to USA's Donald Trump, UK's Teresa May and African Head States.Hwende further said Zimbabwe has degenerated into a fully fledged military dictatorship."Shutting down Internet just confirms that our regime is now a fully fledged military dictatorship. We need a leadership that shut down our political and economic problems."To appease civil servants who are on industrial action, government on Tuesday awarded salary adjustment to them saying it's a package that will assist them to survive while negotiations are still ongoing between labour and the employer. Hwende also blasted this move saying it does not heal the real problem on the ground."Mnangagwa's government has just awarded a 5-22% salary adjustments for civil servants only for January to March this is like drinking GV to cure a headache." Hwende said. "The solution lies in addressing the fundamental National Question of legitimacy. Even songs from protesters they want their vote restored." News / National by Staff reporter ALROSA, the world leader in diamond production, yesterday announced it was launching operations in Zimbabwe.This was announced during President Emmerson Mnangagwa's visit to Moscow, Russia."Today, we see opportunities for a new stage of our partnership. We are ready to develop new joint projects for diamond exploration and extraction. We also seek to support Zimbabwe in the development of its diamond mining industry in line with industry's best practices. We are happy to share with our partners a wealth of experience in the field of mineral exploration and diamond mining, including the industry self-regulation and responsible business," Alrosa CEO Sergey Ivanov said.Negotiations held in 2018 by Alrosa and the Zimbabwe government resulted in a decision to start operationsAlrosa will implement projects for exploration and mining operations with a view to establish joint diamond and other ore mining enterprises.In this regard, Alrosa (Zimbabwe) Limited was established on December 6, 2018, in Harare. Within the few months, Alrosa experts, including geologists and mining engineers, will be in the country to start operations. News / National by Staff reporter BULAWAYO's first diaper manufacturing project, which is being developed at a cost of more than $2 million, is failing to take off due to foreign currency shortages to import critical raw materials.In an interview last week, Masters Diapers Zimbabwe director Mr Nigam Desai said their investor, a Mauritian company which was registered in South Africa, has indicated that they will pull out of the project by the end of March if they fail to access the required foreign currency allocation from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe."We have made several contact attempts through our banks directly with the Reserve Bank and we even had a visit by the Governor of the Reserve Bank who had assured us that funds would be put in place. This was in November and until now they are telling us that they're attending to the matter, so we have not had any positive feedback," he said.Mr Desai would not be drawn into disclosing how much they had applied for from the Central Bank citing professional reasons."It's now going to be six months with our machines sitting idle, we are not generating any income, our staff are sitting, we have our overheads that are accumulating on a monthly basis."This game of waiting is now coming to a point where our investors in December asked for an update and resolved that if nothing changes by the 30th of March, they would then pull out of Zimbabwe because it would be about nine months from the time the machines came in up to March," he said.The raw materials that include glue, palp and tapes would be imported from around the world from countries such as China, America, India and Singapore. Mr Desai said it takes three months for the raw materials to land in the country and even if the required forex allocation was advanced this month, the consignment would arrive in April before production at the factory begins.The project was earmarked to begin between November and December last year."So, we are actually trying to engage all the departments in the Ministry of Industry where we have spoken to Honourable Modi (Deputy Minister)."We have also spoken to banks and sent letters to the Reserve Bank and we are trying to engage with every sector to say that guys our investors have come in."They did not wait for the situation (economic) to improve in Zimbabwe, they heeded Government's call that the country is open for business," he said.Mr Desai challenged responsible authorities to play their part in fostering foreign direct investment into the country. Once it starts producing, Masters Diapers Zimbabwe intends to export 60 to 70 percent of its product to countries like Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo.He said his organisation has requested ZimTrade, the country's national export development and trade promotion agency, to do a market research for the foreign market with indications of a readily available market.In anticipation that production at the Bulawayo factory would begin as planned, the manufacturing firm had sent some of its staff to South Africa for training and they have been there for five months."We can't send them back for training because we can't access foreign currency from the banks." Directly and indirectly the company was looking at employing 30 to 40 people on a single shift. Mr Desai said they were also facing challenges in getting raw materials coming duty free on account of the intent to export."We have put in our application through our association (Zitma), they have made a presentation to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development to get us onto the rebate."Our application has been in there for five months now and Zimra have come and done the ground work but we're not getting any positive feedback."It seems where the Government is saying 'we are open for business' within the system everything is taking so long. Are we "Zimbabwe" really open for business? It's the question investors are asking," he said. News / National by Staff reporter THE High Court has ordered a group of people allegedly resettled at Storny Croft farm in Umguza district to vacate the property.The ruling by Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Martin Makonese follows a court application by a commercial farmer, Mr Kindness Ndlovu, seeking an eviction order against the illegal settlers.Mr Ndlovu through his lawyers Mutuso, Taruvinga and Mhiribidi Legal Practitioners filed an application at the Bulawayo High Court citing Harold Nyathi, Phenias Ngwenya, Voti Mathema and Dumisani Masuku, who are the representatives of the affected families, the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement Perrance Shiri, Police Commissioner-General Godwin Matanga, the officer commanding police in Matabeleland North and Umguza Rural District Council, as respondents."It is ordered that every single person occupying Storny Croft Farm, Lower Khami in Umguza district be and hereby evicted. The Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement and Umguza RDC be and hereby ordered to cease and desist from allocating land to anyone within Storny Croft Farm without the knowledge and consent of the applicant," ruled Justice Makonese.Mr Ndlovu, in his founding affidavit, said he is the rightful owner of the farm through a deed of transfer."The respondents and all persons who are in illegal occupation of the applicant's farm have no legal authority from the applicant or his late colleague to occupy the property," he said.Mr Ndlovu said the respondents were purportedly claiming possession of his farm despite the farm not having been acquired by the Government in terms of the Lands Acquisition Act. He said Nyathi, Ngwenya, Mathema and Masuku were members of a committee representing the illegal settlers at his farm.Mr Ndlovu said he initially approached the Lands Ministry to assist in the eviction of the illegal occupiers of his farm but could not get any help."All available remedies to cause the illegal settlers to be removed have yielded only violence. The illegal settlers are violent towards me and my employees," he said.The respondents did not challenge the court application prompting the judge to grant a default judgment in favour of Mr Ndlovu.Recently, Minister Shiri said Government would not tolerate any more illegal farm occupations. He said those who do not heed the warning would face the full wrath of the law as police were now on standby to deal with all perpetrators. News / National by Staff reporter THE trial of former Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko's daughter-in-law, Nomagugu Mphoko, who is facing charges of extortion, has been postponed to January 21.Nomagugu (36) allegedly ordered 15 Choppies Supermarket managers in Bulawayo to unlawfully dispense more than $30 000 cash from their Point of Sale (POS) machines after threatening them with either deportation or dismissal.Nomagugu, who was initially jointly charged with her husband Siqokoqela, appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Ms Sithembiso Ndlovu yesterday facing 49 counts of extortion.She is out of custody on $200 bail and will next jointly appear with her husband who is facing charges of allegedly hijacking the Choppies retail business and "looting" more than $50 000 worth of cash and goods from the outlets countrywide.Prosecuting, Mr Alfonse Makonese said sometime in June this year, Nanavac Investments trading as Choppies Zimbabwe issued a directive to all its supermarket managers against giving out cash realised from sales to individuals whose arrangement is to replace the equivalent through swiping at Point of Sale machines.The court heard that between 13 and 29 June this year, Nomagugu went to the complainants, some of whom are Indian nationals, and demanded cash during which she also threatened to either get them fired or deported if they refused to comply. She would then swipe the equivalent of the money received using different bank cards."Upon being advised of the directive against such transactions, the accused would threaten the shop managers with loss of employment and deportation from Zimbabwe. She would also tell the complainants that her husband is the owner of the company and that they were mere employees under his authority," said Mr Makonese.The court heard that as a result of the threats, the complainants acceded to Nomagugu's demands and gave her the money."The accused person derived the advantage of easily accessing cash which is hard to come by. Her conduct resulted in loss for Nanavac Investments in that being a retail business, the company's outlets rely heavily on cash to pay critical suppliers, including arranging for foreign payments with local banks," said Mr Makonese.The cash which was unlawfully collected by Nomagugu from the 15 shops amounts to $30 230.The money was looted on different occasions from Choppies shops in Bulawayo's Central Business District, Luveve, Pumula East, Entumbane, Bellevue, Nkulumane and Lobengula suburbs. Nomagugu is being represented by Professor Welshman Ncube of Mathonsi Law Chambers. News / National by Staff reporter Government has warned members of the public against infringing on the rights of others by blocking roads and causing chaos by forcing work bound people to return home.The authorities have also castigated people abusing social media by posting inflammatory statements agitating Zimbabweans to engage in violence and unsanctioned demonstrations. According to Government, those engaging in such acts will face the full wrath of the law when arrested.In an interview, Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister Cain Mathema said people should follow the country's laws. This comes after reports that some rowdy youths were this morning burning tyres and blocking roads in areas such as C-Junction in Chitungwiza, in Rugare, Damafalls, Epworth, Mabvuku, Kuwadzana, Kuwadzana Extension, Chiremba Road and along Harare-Bulawayo Road, among others.Several people were also left stranded after commuter omnibus crews were not operating in and around the city."We want people to follow the law. Nobody has the right to block people from using the Zimbabwean space. The Zimbabwe Republic Police will act on such people."We understand why they are doing this, they are saboteurs. All we are saying is that don't interfere with the freedom and rights of others," Minister Mathema said.On Sunday, the Zimbabwe Republic Police deployed officers in all residential areas, shopping centres and the Central Business District to conduct patrols, surveillance and stop and search following some social media articles agitating Zimbabweans to engage in violence and unsanctioned demonstrations.Social Media abusers face arrest In a statement, Minister Cain Mathema implored Zimbabweans to disregard the social media posts."My ministry assures all peace loving citizens and visitors that the Zimbabwe Republic Police has deployed officers in all residential, shopping centres and CBD to conduct patrols, surveillance, stop and search and in the process account for unruly elements who may try to disturb the tranquil environment which is prevailing in the country," he said."May I urge Zimbabweans to continue undertaking their various social and economic activities as usual. Members of the public should feel free to access services from various entities without any hindrance."In the same vein, said Minister Mathema, transport operators should continue to offer services to potential passengers as stipulated in their Road Service Permits and Route Authorities. He urged drivers to report any acts of intimidation and incitement to commit violence to the police for swift action to be taken. News / National by Staff reporter VIOLENCE instigated by MDC-Alliance and its associates in the non-governmental sector left a trail of destruction in Harare, Bulawayo and other cities yesterday. They also used social media to threaten people who intended to go to work.Hooligans barricaded roads, burnt cars and stormed schools where they beat up teachers.They looted supermarkets, stoned or torched police and private vehicles and buses. They beat up police officers trying to ensure law and order. Most affected were Harare, Bulawayo, Chitungwiza and Kadoma.In Harare, the rowdy elements terrorised high-density suburbs like Epworth, Rugare, Kuwadzana, Highfields, Mbare, Glen Norah and Budiriro. Others barricaded the Harare-Bulawayo highway near Kuwadzana Extension, where they burnt a bus. In a clear act of extortion, the rowdy protestors, none of them fit to be workers or motorists affected by the fuel price increase, also demanded "passage fees" from motorists ranging between $2 and $5. They also interrogated motorists demanding to know their particulars, where they were going and why.Those suspected of going to work were beaten up. A security guard was severely beaten up in Mufakose after thugs saw him seeking transport to go to work. The mob asked motorists questions like, "where are you getting fuel? Is life easy for you?"At Machipisa Shopping Centre in Highfield, TM supermarket was emptied, shops and pharmacies damaged. In Chitungwiza, they barricaded Hunyani Bridge and denied vehicles passage unless they paid at least $2.At Makoni Shopping Centre, they looted Chicken Inn and pelted OK Supermarket with stones. In Bulawayo, protesters turned parts of the city's western suburbs into no-go areas as they set up barricades, make shift roadblocks, burnt tyres and attacked police and other law enforcement agents. A police car was burnt down in Pumula, while Choppies supermarkets in New Lobengula and Entumbane were burnt.The Pumula and Lobengula West branches were looted. Protestors burnt tyres and barricaded streets using drums, trolleys and stones, forcing police to fire tear gas. There were reports of looting from shops in Nkulumane, Lobengula, Pumula, Emganwini and other areas. By 11am, all shops in the city centre had closed. Parents rushed to schools to pick up their children as the protests intensified.In Tshabalala, protestors stoned Tshabalala Housing Office and Clinic and looted shops. At the home of Zanu-PF Bulawayo provincial chair for the Women's League Eva Bitu in Sizinda, the hooligans burnt three cars and broke windows."They came at around 11am and started throwing stones and threatening to burn the house. I immediately jumped over the precast wall and sought refuge at a neighbour's house. I am told they stoned all the windows, destroyed the precast wall and pushed my Ford Ranger into the street before burning it. They returned and burnt down a Nissan Hardbody and a Toyota Vitz which were parked inside the yard," said Bitu.In Bulawayo's CBD, youths moved around throwing stones, coercing people to go home. Police responded by firing teargas. Bulawayo Mayor Councillor Solomon Mguni was caught in the mayhem while on his way to the High Court for the opening of the 2019 legal year. Bulawayo Provincial Education director Mrs Olicah Kaira said schools closed early as parents withdrew their children due to the violence."We went around the schools in the morning to check on the situation and we found a few children and teachers had turned up, but we could tell that everyone was not at ease. I also felt unsafe. We then went back to the office and at provincial level we heard that parents were pulling their children out of school and we were also seeing what was happening outside and what comes first is safety for everyone," she said.In Kadoma in Mashonaland West Province, MDC-Alliance protestors burnt a Zanu-PF district office in Rimuka. There were no Demonstrations in Chinhoyi, Chegutu, Karoi and Kariba. Peace prevailed in the Midlands Province. Provincial Affairs Minister Senator Larry Mavima yesterday applauded the people of Midlands for being peaceful in the face of provocation by the opposition. In southern parts of the country covering Masvingo and Matabeleland South provinces, it was peaceful with people going about their daily chores.National police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Paul Nyathi warned the demonstrators against violence. "We want to warn and categorically state that police will ensure that arrests are effected particularly in Bulawayo and Harare, where we have seen groups of youths and syndicates burning vehicles, barricading roads with tyres and stones, looting shops, attacking law enforcement officers and intimidating members of the public. What they are doing is unlawful."We have got video clips which are now subject to investigation and arrests will certainly be effected. We are aware that there are people who are using the social media to encourage people to engage in all sorts of violence and threatening people," said Chief Supt Nyathi.Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) president Mr Sifelani Jabangwe said the closure of businesses due to the riots was bad for business."The lost hours are bad for business; we are losing production time. We hope the authorities will come up with a strategy that will help the situation because right now what we face is the whole situation being taken over by criminal elements and at that stage what we will have is tragedy, particularly looking at women and children."We believe people have the right to protest but they must protest peacefully without trying to force others to join in, without damaging property because it will not help the issue at hand," he said News / National by Mandla Ndlovu MDC Youth Leader Happymore Chidziva has warned ZANU PF that by burning the MDC Headquarters Morgan Richard Tsvangirai House they are provoking a response from the people.MDC Headquarters were burnt down yesterday in the evening by unknown assailants after assaulting the security personnel there."The MDC Youth Assembly has received news from our security personnel at Morgan Tsvangirai house that the Headquarters was set on fire by armed individuals riding unmarked vehicles."Chidziva said."We want to warn Zanu PF youths that our silence does not mean weakness, neither does exercising restraint mean we cannot defend ourselves."Chidziva said this is not the first time that ZANU PF has tried to burn down their building."This is not the first time that Zanu PF has deployed it's militia to bring down our party building."Today, citizens and various civic groups demonstrated, angered by continued price hikes, in particular following the ridiculous announcement on new fuel prices by Mnangagwa, demanding action on his failed leadership."The MDC YA position is very clear, citizens have a right to demonstrate peacefully as enshrined in section 59 of the Zimbabwean constitution."Chidziva further emphasized that a party they will stand in solidarity with the protesting citizens during this 3 day stayaway."As a social democratic party whose values are freedom, justice and solidarity, we will stand in solidarity with the people and we will not shy away from that revolutionary task bestowed on our shoulders."On Monday citizens all over the country took to the streets and overpowered police officers before burning police buildings and looting shops. News / National by newZWire President Emmerson Mnangagwa has defended this week's steep fuel price increase amid violent protests which rocked Harare and Bulawayo on Monday.Mnangagwa announced a 150% fuel price increase on Saturday in a bid to dampen surging demand and address pricing distortions caused by the weakening of the country's unofficial currency. Before the increase, Zimbabwe had some of the lowest fuel prices on the continent, lower than Africa's number two producer Angola. Fuel consumption has spiked, exerting pressure on the country's diminished foreign currency reserves.The price increase precipitated violent protests after the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) called for a three-day country-wide job starting Monday.Speaking to reporters in Moscow, where he is on a three-day visit, Mnangagwa said the fuel price increase was justified."The recent price increase was necessary and remains necessary. Before two days ago, the price of fuel was about 60 cents per litre, the lowest in the region," Mnangagwa said.Acknowledging the disapproval which greeted the price increase, which piles more misery on consumers who have seen the cost of living spiking since his re-election last July, the president repeated his government's commitment to economic reforms."You must realise that Zimbabwe is going through both political and economic reforms and these things do not come easily. It will take time for things to settle and results to be seen."Mnangagwa's trip, which will also take him to Kazakhstan, Belarus and Azerbaijan, ending with his appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland has drawn sharp rebukes from his critics who accuse him of leaving the country at a time when he should be dealing with the economic turmoil.Images of Mnangagwa arriving in Moscow and alighting from a hired Boeing 787 Dreamliner that costs thousands of dollars per hour, as protests reached a crescendo back home, made for bad optics and did not help the already dark public mood.On Monday, police fought running battles with protesters, some of whom blocked roads, looted shops, forced businesses to close and torched cars, including police trucks.In a statement late Monday, State Security Minister Owen Ncube said the protests had "resulted in the loss of life and property, including injury to police officers and members of the public."Over 200 people were arrested during the protests, Ncube said. News / National by Bloomberg Police clashed with protesters in the Zimbabwean capital as the main labor-union confederation began a three-day national strike after the government more than doubled fuel prices to the highest in the world.The stay-away comes as a foreign-exchange shortage has sparked scarcities of everything from fuel to bread, caused doctors to stay away from work and companies to cut or cease production because they can't import raw materials.The main industry body said in a letter to the government that businesses across the southern African nation are on the brink of collapse."The house is burning," the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries said in a letter to the Industry Ministry.Residents in the Harare suburbs of Epworth and Mabvuku erected barricades of stones as police fired teargas to disperse protesters. Most of the city's public transport was at a standstill, with fewer shops than usual open for business and schools asking pupils to return home."So far the stay-away has been effective," Peter Mutasa, president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, said by phone. "We think it's an act of courage by people who have stayed away. Considering that the strike call was made on a weekend, this has been a success."Prices DoubledThe ZCTU, which represents most labor unions in the southern African nation, started the action two days after the state more than doubled the cost of gasoline to $3.31 a litre and diesel to $3.11 a litre. The gasoline price compares with a global average of $1.08 a litre with Hong Kong, at $2.04, being the highest, according to GlobalPetrolPrices.com.Still, the fuel can be bought with a quasi-currency known as bond notes because they trade at a discount to hard currency on the black market even though the government insists that they trade on par. Electronic money also trades at a discount. Diplomats and tourists can by fuel for hard currency at a lower rate at designated filling stations.The roots of the crisis lie in a 2009 decision to abolish the Zimbabwe dollar in favor of the use of other currencies, primarily the US dollar.Industries in Zimbabwe have been denied access to foreign currency since October and companies have been forced to obtain dollars illegally on the black market, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries said in the letter. It urged the government to permit interbank trading of foreign exchange,.Zimbabwe doesn't have enough foreign exchange to fund imports and pay workers, many of whom are refusing to accept salaries in electronic money or so-called bond notes.Forex Constraints"Most of the companies do not have raw materials that go beyond January as most of our suppliers cut us out of stock, and it is only payment in foreign exchange that will unlock supply lines," CZI President Sifelani Jabangwe said in the letter.Already the country's biggest company by market value, brewer Delta Corp. has said it would only accept payment in foreign currency before the central bank promised to find it sufficient foreign exchange. Fast-food company Simbisa Brands Ltd. said last month it would give customers a discount if they paid in hard currency.The government plans to reintroduce its own currency within 12 months, the state-controlled Herald newspaper reported on Saturday, citing Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube. The CZI said the country need its own currency and wants a clear time frame as to when this will happen.While the crisis deepens, President Emmerson Mnangagwa is due to be away for two weeks with a trip spanning Russia and Azerbaijan to the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.While Mnangagwa has come under criticism for the state of the economy he is under little threat. He was put in power by the military in November 2017, replacing Robert Mugabe who was in power for 38 years, and won a disputed election last year after which six people were killed by the military during protests.Still, protests today were widespread."I think if nothing happens now after this ridiculous fuel price hike we Zimbabweans deserve what we get," said Hamukwandi Mungofa, a 54-year-old self-employed mechanic in Harare, the capital. "I am for a national shutdown." News / National by AFP Police fired teargas as angry protesters barricaded roads with burning tyres and rocks in Zimbabwe on Monday, after the government more than doubled the price of fuel over the weekend.At least 13 people sustained gunshot wounds during protests against the shock price hike, said one doctors' association.Protesters turned back drivers and blocked buses from carrying passengers in Zimbabwe's two main cities of Harare and Bulawayo. An AFP journalist saw protesters looting a supermarket.The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights said it had "received widespread reports of protesters who have sustained gunshot wounds after being shot during the ongoing nationwide protests".Thirteen cases had been reported by midday in and around Harare, it said in its statement. The extent of the injuries were still being assessed, it added.Residents in Bulawayo said police fired teargas "indiscriminately" along city centre streets and into some residential areas. Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, is seen as an opposition stronghold.Shops and banks pulled down their shutters in downtown Harare as riot police patrolled the streets and a military helicopter flew over the capital.President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Saturday night announced a more than 100-percent rise in the price of petrol and diesel in a bid to improve supplies as the country battles its worst gasoline shortages in a decade.Among the protesters at the Bulawayo demonstration was the celebrated writer Philani Nyoni."We have suffered enough," he told AFP, describing the government's decision as "stupid".'We have suffered enough'Zimbabwe's economy has been in a slump for more than a decade, suffering cash shortages, high unemployment and recently a scarcity of staples such as bread and cooking oil.In his televised address late Saturday, Mnangagwa said the prices of petrol and diesel would more than double to tackle a shortfall caused by increased fuel usage and "rampant" illegal trading.Petrol prices rose from $1.24 a litre to $3.31, with diesel up from $1.36 a litre to $3.11 starting Sunday - one of the highest pump prices in the world.The main labour alliance, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has called for a three-day stay-at-home strike, accusing the government of lacking empathy for the already overburdened poor.Police tweeted on Monday that it had "noted with concern that the ongoing protests have turned violent", warning that "anyone caught on the wrong side of the law will face the full wrath thereof".The government meanwhile accused the strike organisers of pushing a political "regime change" agenda and of "subversive political activities"."It has become obvious that there is deliberate plan to undermine and challenge the prevailing constitutional order," government spokesperson Nick Mangwana said in a statement late on Sunday.'Subversive political activities'He accused unnamed opposition parties of disguising themselves as civic groups and of sponsoring civil unrest.But the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Nelson Chamisa said: "We have a national crisis which is descending into a humanitarian crisis".Mnangagwa took over from long-time ruler and autocrat Robert Mugabe following military intervention, before winning the presidency in a July election the results of which were disputed by the opposition."We want Mnangagwa to know our displeasure in his failure," said another Bulawayo protester, 22-year-old Mthandazo Moyo."Mugabe was evil but he listened," he added.Mnangagwa announced a package of measures to help state workers following strikes by doctors and teachers over poor pay.Doctors in state hospitals went on a 40-day strike beginning early December demanding salaries be paid in US dollars. They also called for improved work conditions.Teachers unions called a strike last week for better pay, but their calls went largely unheeded.Mnangagwa had on Saturday also announced "a package of measures to cushion government workers".But he warned that the government would come down hard on "elements bent on taking advantage of the current fuel shortages to cause and sponsor unrest and instability in the country".President Mnangagwa is currently on a tour of European countries. He was in Russia on Monday and will finish his tour attending the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.When he took over from Mugabe, Mnangagwa pledged to revive the moribund economy and end the country's international isolation. News / National by Staff reporter PROTESTERS in Kadoma set the ZANU-PF offices on fire during the skirmishes which occurred countrywide.Local sources say protesters torched the ruling party's building in retaliation against ZANU-PF youths who were allegedly beating up protesters with the support of the local police.This is just one of the many cases of fires which ravaged the country today as part of the #ShutdownZimbabwe demonstrations which turned violent in some areas. News / National by Staff reporter THE Zimbabwe National Army has taken full charge of the security in Harare, Bulawayo and Chitungwiza following a fuel demo staged by citizens.Three military trucks headed to Chitungwiza Monday late afternoon, where a police station was reportedly under siege from protesters.What started off as a stay away ended up being a looting spree in many suburbs in Harare and Bulawayo. Roads were also blocked by youths who demanded extortion fees to let motorists through.Earlier the police had fired warning shots and teargas as a protest strike against the fuel Increase as well as economic policies.The strike follows days of unrest over the government's failure to pay to deal with the economic woes bedevilling the country.The deployment of the military came one month after an official report said police and soldiers used "unjustified and disproportionate" force to kill 6 people during election protests in 2018. The report also said opposition leaders had incited violence ahead of the deployment of soldiers in Harare last year.The military's deployment Monday was criticised by the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a group of several non-governmental organisations. News / National by newzimbabwe POLICE engaged in running battles with protesters in Bulawayo Monday as the country's second largest city was effectively shut down by angry locals protesting against the government's fuel price hikes.The protests erupted around 9am in the morning with commuter omnibuses barred by protesters from ferrying passengers into the city centre, in response to calls for a stay away demonstration by labour unions and activists.In high density suburbs like Cowdray Park, Nketa, Nkulumane most commuters were stranded as rowdy protesters used boulders, bins to blocks most of the roads forcing commuter omnibus operators from servicing their routes.A handful of protesters responded to social media messages distributed Sunday calling for people to gather at the Bulawayo City Hall to march in protest against the fuel price increases.The group of about 100 placard waving protesters, who were singing the popular protest song, "Into Oyenzayo Siyayizonda (We do not like what you are doing) marched from the City Hall towards Tredgold Building which houses the Bulawayo Magistrates courts.The protesters broke down barricades that had been put up along Herbert Chitepo in preparation for the opening of the 2019 legal year at the Bulawayo High Court.Two female police officers and two judiciary officials fainted as a result of tear smoke while scores of people including one elderly woman walking near the High Court were injured in the melee."These riot police officers are being overzealous. How can they throw tear gas at the High Court where there are other police officers. They must be under the influence of drugs because this behaviour is strange," said one of the ZRP officers.The official opening of the High Court was delayed for almost three hours while the ceremonial parade was cancelled due to tense situation in the city.MDC youth leader and ward 1 councillor Mlandu Ncube, who was part of the protesters, said the demonstrations will continue until President Emmerson Mnangagwa steps down from power."We will continue to protest until President Emmerson Mnangagwa steps down," vowed Cllr Ncube.The ZRP was forced to deploy anti-riot police and water canon to try and quell the protests.Tear gas canisters were fired wantonly forcing protesters and onlookers to disperse.Shop owners were left counting the costs after Choppies outlets in Pumula East and Entumbane were looted while a pharmacy at Nkulumane shopping centre was also ransacked and some of its stocks looted.A police vehicle was also overturned in Pumula East suburb.At about midday, the city centre resembled a ghost town as police had dispersed people and shops had shut down operations. News / National by Staff reporter The government says the opposition MDC Alliance and its allies are behind the violence that rocked some parts of the country today leading to loss of life and damage to property.In a statement this evening, Minister of State for National Security Owen Ncube said they have since activated all its security organs and investigations are underway."The prevailing situation in the country is a culmination of a well orchestrated series of events by the MDC Alliance working in cahoots with NGOs, Civic Society, youth organisations, pressure groups and individuals. Regrettably, this has resulted in the loss of life and property including injury to police officers and members of the public. We express our deepest condolences to the bereaving families," said Ncube.Over 200 unruly elements were arrested in connection with the violence, which authorities said were well-planned.He added that the Government was aware of meetings organised by the Crisis Coalition from December 3-7 last year to foment disturbances in the country."These meetings were coordinated by Crisis Coalition and some identified foreign agents. There were other meetings such as the one held in 11th January 2019 in Belvedere, whose agenda was to plan for the disturbance of peace and render the country ungovernable."Pursuant to the nefarious agenda, the MDC Alliance activated its notorious terror groups which include the so called Democratic Resistance Committees and the paramilitary Vanguard," he added.The Minister also said the timing of today's events, which come as President Emmerson Mnangagwa is in Eastern Europe, is meant to "undermine (kudira jecha) the ongoing re-engagement efforts of the President to market Zimbabwe at the high level for a such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland."Minister Ncube confirmed that more than 200 people have so far been arrested in connection with the violence.He urged members of the public to go about their normal day to day activities without fear as their security is guaranteed. News / National by Staff reporter Anti-riot police here had to be called to disperse hundreds of disgruntled protesters who heeded calls for a national shutdown protest against deepening economic crisis in the country.The protest was mooted by local activists and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) after President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Saturday evening announced a sharp fuel price increase as an answer to shortages of the product.Analysts have raised fears the fuel price hikes will likely trigger the price shocks in all basic commodities and services as the economy continue to tank.Social media played a crucial role in mobilising people here to join the demonstration that had been dubbed Shutdown Bulawayo.True to the mantra, Bulawayo was indeed shut down as police in some instances had to fight running battles with the disgruntled masses particularly in the high density suburbs like Pumula, Nketa, Entumbane, Makhandeni and Nkulumane.As early as 5am some roads leading to the city centre from the high density suburbs had been barricaded, with commuter omnibuses and some private vehicles also being effectively blocked from ferrying people.Commuter omnibus operators and crew were part of those who stopped motorists from ferrying stranded commuters, forcing many to foot kilometres to their various work stations across the city.A survey by Daily News showed that police had a torrid time dispersing the protestors composed mainly the youth as they faced resistance and retaliation in some high density suburbs such as Pumula South and Nketa forcing the law enforcers to flee.Reports also indicated that some retails shops in the high density suburbs were looted while a private vehicle belonging to an identified police officer was burnt to ashes.As if that was not enough, a Zanu-PF labelled double cab belonging to Zanu-PF provincial women chair Eva Bitu was also set in flames by angry protestors at her house in Tshabalala as they argued she was part of the government that was causing untold suffering to them.With sporadic protests taking place mostly in the high density suburbs, the mother of all was in the Central Business District which literally forced business to stand still and effectively shut down.The protest started at the Large City Hall around 9am as planned. The crowd steadily grew in numbers as many people joined along the way as they walked past the busy Tredgold magistrate courts area. So daring was the crowd that they forced themselves into the blocked section at the Bulawayo High Court where the Deputy Chief Justice Elizabeth Gwaunza was meant to officially open the 2019 legal year.Armed police could not help but watch as the crowd sang and danced in front of them before proceeding to government complex Mhlanhlandlela which had been closed.However, realising that the protest was fast getting out of hand the police who arrived in a truck later reacted by indiscriminately firing teargas at the protestors causing further mayhem in the streets.In a bid to contain the outburst, the alert police moved from one street and avenue to another firing teargas in development that saw business in the CBD being forced to shut down. By around 11am approximately no shop was open as most of the business instructed their employees to knock off.On the other hand police patrol increased and surprisingly they continued throwing teargas at people who were visibly on their way home.Many especially women could be seen lying on pavements after being choked by the huge dose of teargas that was continuously being churned out by the inconsiderate police officers.The police further faced potions of resistance on such busy areas as 6th avenue, 3rd and parts of Lobengula, Herbert Chitepo, Joshua Nkomo and Fort streets as the protesters burnt tyres and splashed barricades all over.Children at many schools in the city were forced to abandon lessons in the morning after it turned out that protest had already begun.Roads leading to the high density suburbs were swamped with people who were walking back home after all transporters were blocked from ferrying passengers. News / National by Staff reporter President Mnangagwa early this morning left for Russia on the first leg of a whirlwind five-country tour that will take him across Eurasia and then to Switzerland, as part of his international engagement and re-engagement drive.The Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces will in the coming days hold high-level talks in Moscow, Astana (Kazakhstan), Minsk (Belarus), Baku (Azerbaijan) and Davos (Switzerland).The first four stops are within the context of bilateral engagements, while in Switzerland the President will head Zimbabwe's delegation to the World Economic Forum. This will mark the second time the country participates at the WEF following last year's debut attendance after President Mnangagwa declared Zimbabwe was open for business.The visits to Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Belarus - on the other hand - embody the engagement and re-engagement thrust that has characterised President Mnangagwa's foreign policy since November 2017.Zimbabwe has long-standing political ties with Russia, and the drive now is to unlock the economic value that a partnership with a global power offers a country that seeks to establish an upper middle-income economy by 2030.Relations with Belarus have been growing in recent years, most notably from the time then Vice President Mnangagwa engaged investors in Minsk in 2015, and this year's visit to that country will add momentum to the blossoming co-operation.Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are "virgin" territory when it comes to economic ties with Zimbabwe.Harare established diplomatic ties with Astana and Baku in 2008 and all the parties feel establishment of solid economic ties is overdue.RussiaWith a Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement and a Zimbabwe-Russia Joint Commission already established, Moscow provides a "known quantity" as far as inter-nation ties are concerned.One of the major issues on the table when President Mnangagwa meets Russia's President Vladimir Putin will be the US$3 billion Darwendale platinum project, a joint mining and beneficiation venture.Launched in 2014 under the previous regime, President Mnangagwa's new administration wants to give impetus to a project that had stalled, but is now ready to become productive.According to information at hand, the feasibility study for phase one was presented mid-last year, and that segment of the project is expected to be completed in early 2019. Phase one will cover building of the plant, and surface and supporting infrastructure at a cost of US$500 million.Phase two has been scheduled for March 2019 to October 2030, and will include construction and commissioning of a smelter as the mine churns out 16 tonnes of ore. Under the third phase (2030-2039), production should increase to 25 tonnes.Besides platinum, the Darwendale claim holds gold, nickel, copper, palladium and rhodium.The leaders of Zimbabwe and Russia, and their delegations, will also grapple with issues pertaining to the stalled DTZ-OZGEO partnership, which has interests in mining and agriculture, use of the Yamal 402 satellite, tourism promotion, mining equipment, technical co-operation and energy.Other major highlights are the interest of Alrosa - which accounts for 28 percent of global diamond extraction - in coming into Zimbabwe and capacitation of the recently-launched Zimbabwe National Geospatial and Space Agency.BelarusZimbabwe and Belarus have enjoyed diplomatic ties since 1992, following the break-up of the Soviet Union, but it has only been in recent times and with President Mnangagwa taking a proactive role that the nations have seen these relations expanding into the economic sphere.Information at hand shows that Belarussian leader President Alexander Lukashenko invited former president Mr Robert Mugabe to Minsk several times, but the latter never set foot there.As VP and now as President, Zimbabwe's new leader has set about correcting that, exposing Zimbabwe to the potential benefits of accessing Belarus' sound technical knowledge of mining and agricultural equipment.Now, Zimbabwe and Belarus have MoUs that cover mining science, technology and innovation; trade and economic co-operation; procurement of agri-equipment and fertiliser supply.President Mnangagwa has already secured a US$120 million export credit line for the supply of machinery and equipment for agriculture, dam construction and mining and will be hoping that talks with President Lukashenko in coming days will enhance this co-operation.Equipment from Belarus has seen Hwange Colliery's monthly output rise from 50 000 tonnes to 250 000 and that of the Zimbabwe Mining Development Company to 40 000 carats of diamonds.With President Mnangagwa returning to Minsk, anticipation is high that headway will be made in securing agreements that cover higher, tertiary and vocational education; establishment of Joint Committee on Trade and Economic Co-operation; extradition; and - of course - greater collaboration in agriculture.AzerbaijanIn the 11-odd years that diplomatic ties have existed between the two countries, there have been no bilateral political or economic exchanges.That is starting to change.In December 2018, Azerbaijan's government opened up four scholarships for Zimbabwean students at undergraduate/graduate/doctoral level and for medicine/residency.Four may be very little, but from small beginnings come great things.Now Azerbaijan would like to sign MoUs with President Mnangagwa's Government in tax administration activities and promotion and reciprocal protection of investments.Baku is looking at co-operation in the fields of mining, energy, tourism. Harare, on its part, is looking at interesting Baku in investing in polished granite goods and finished tobacco products.And Azerbaijan is rich in oil and gas.KazakhstanKazakhstan is the size of Western Europe. Over the past decade its economy has grown at a rate of at least eight percent per annum. The country has the world's 11th largest proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas.Any country would want to cultivate economic ties with such an emerging giant, and President Mnangagwa is standing on the front line as Astana looks to deepen ties with African nations.During his talks with President Nursultan Nazarbayev, President Mnangagwa - according to insiders - could focus on mining, food processing, fertiliser, petrochemicals, and education and training.There is great potential for Zimbabwe to export citrus fruits, coffee, tea and tobacco to the Eurasian power and in turn benefit from that country's expertise in agriculture and mining.Besides that, President Nazarbayev has done wonders in transforming Kazakhstan into a market economy, something that President Mnangagwa has set about doing for Zimbabwe since his ascension to the top job. News / National by Staff reporter BULAWAYO residents are objecting to attempts by the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) to take over the city council-owned owned thermal power station arguing this was against the spirit of devolution.ZPC recently applied for an amendment of the Bulawayo Power Station license to give it a 20 -year license to enable it to produce 120 megawatts of power to be fed into the national grid.According to the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority, residents and other interested stakeholders have up to January 17, to lodge objections. According to Zera, ZPC intends to boost electricity generation from the current 90MW to 120MW in the next two decades once its application is approved. Council has been battling to regain control of the station which was handed over to Zesa more than two decades ago."It is in this regard that there is a need for ZPC to do proper consultations with residents and the BCC who are the key stakeholders to this very important asset. ZPC has not been transparent in the manner they have been declaring actual incomes accumulating from Bulawayo Power Station," Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA) acting coordinator Emmanuel Ndlovu said.Ndlovu also argued attempts to nationalise the Bulawayo Power Station ran against the spirit of devolution as enshrined in the Constitution."Hence the nationalization of the power station will be the violation of the principles of devolution and thus acting ultra-virus to the constitution.Therefore, it defeats the whole purpose of devolution if ZPC proceeds to amend their license and nationalise Bulawayo Power Station which is an essential asset to Bulawayo metropolitan province," Ndlovu added.Local governance expert Davison Muchandenyika said the Bulawayo and Harare thermal power stations were local authority assets which must not be tampered with without consent from key stakeholders."They (power stations) can't be transferred at zero cost," he said."A proper asset evaluation must be done if it's going to be sold. If for a leased, councils should determine/yearly rentals. No need for national agencies to decide on behalf of the BCC."India in November last year extended a $23 million credit loan facility to the ZPC to boost power generation at the Bulawayo Power Station. ZPC currently operates four coal-fired power stations, Hwange, Bulawayo, Munyati and Harare thermal stations, and the hydro powered Kariba South Power Station. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu The MDC organizing secretary Amos Chibaya has called upon the structures of his party to join the three day mass protest organized by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions."Noting the arrogance by the government reflected especially in Mthuli Ncube,Nick Mangwana and Energy Mutodi's statements, it is clear to the MDC that Zanu PF is unrepentant." Chibaya said. "They see nothing wrong with the decisions they made in recent times even when results show that they have worsened the people's plight."The National Organising Department of the MDC hereby calls all the structures of the MDC to join peaceful action called by the ZCTU and other citizen movements."Chibaya said MDC is a party of the workers hence the decision to join hands is solidarity with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions."We are all suffering the same way the workers are suffering. In any case the MDC is a party of the working people, the workers struggles are the MDC struggles. All structures are therefore urged to be in solidarity with the action."Chibaya further called upon MDC members to observe peace and respect the rights of other citizens."We however emphasize that all party members be peaceful and respect the rights of those not participating in the strike."Protestors all over Zimbabwe engaged in a mass uprising which started peaceful but became violent as the day progressed.In Bulawayo police were overpowered and they had to seek reinforcement. Teargas was thrown at residential areas and water canons sprayed protestors.In Harare two people were shot by the police officers and ten were injured.In Epworrth roads were closed with burnt tyres. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu Exiled former Minister of Youth Patrick Zhuwawo has warned President Emmerson Mnangagwa that ZANU PF legislators are plotting to impeach him.Writing in his Zhuwawo Brief on Monday Zhuwawo said, "You already know that most of the ZANU PF legislatures are itching to impeach you as you correctly observed on Wednesday 30 May 2018. The mass action is spurring them on to save the nation and their constituents from further suffering and to also protect their jobs."Zhuwawo said Mnangagwa has failed to uphold the constitution and those are the grounds that will be used to impeach him."Grounds for your impeachment in terms of Section 97(1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe for (a) serious misconduct , (b) failure to obey, uphold and defend the constitution ,and (c) willful violation of the constitution are being prepared."Zhuwawo further urged Mnangagwa to follow the example of former President Robert Mugabe and accept his fate to save the lives of Zimbabweans."As your impeachment looms, it is in your best interest that you accept it and contain your die hard sycophants from engaging in conduct that will be attributed to you in both local courts and International courts of justice."You must take a leaf from President Mugabe who chose to save lives by accepting your treachery in November 2017.The nation need to move forward with dialogue to institute necessary reforms and restore legitimacy as the basis for resolving the economic crisis."Last year there were reports that Vice President Constantino Dominic Nyikadzino Chiwenga is plotting with ZANU PF officials and members of parliament to impeach President Emmerson Mnangagwa soon after elections.During the harmonized elections campaign President Mnangagwa warned ZANU PF members for plotting to impeach him and told them that he has all the information of their plots.Zhuwawo is in exile after fleeing the bloody the coup that ended Robert Mugabe's 37 years of rule. News / National by newzimbabwe TEACHERS under the firebrand Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) Friday hired street kids to blow vuvuzelas and also bang pots as they continued pressing for US dollar wages outside Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube's New Government Complex offices in Central Harare.The educators from one of country's most militant teachers unions have been picketing Ncube's offices for days and have vowed not to leave if their demands were not met.Assisted by surprise allies in their wage demand cause, the teachers staged a three hour drama, with their new found friends blowing vuvuzelas noisily while blocking the main entrance to the giant building.Government has pledged a 10 percent rise for all those in its payroll but this has been flatly rejected by the teachers who dismiss it as an insult. News / National by Staff reporter Government is finalising modalities to decentralise issuance of passports and civil registration documents to districts in order to decongest provincial offices, it has been learnt.Policymakers are currently simplifying business processes as the country moves towards achieving upper middle-income status by 2030.Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister Ambassador Cain Mathema told The Sunday Mail recently that Government's ultimate goal is to ensure that people get key documents at district level."We are going to decentralise issuance of passport, birth certificate and national identity documents to the lowest district level," he said."Issuance of passports will be increased because it is every Zimbabwean's constitutional right to obtain the travel document."The whole administration of systems in Home Affairs ministry will be computerised."In a separate interview, Registrar-General Mr Clemence Masango said the mulled plans are long overdue."Passports are only being issued at provincial offices. However, by year-end, we expect to have opened passport issuance offices at Chitungwiza and Murehwa district offices," he said.It is believed that Treasury has suspended funding new public-sector projects pending the implementation of those that have already been approved.Construction of the Murehwa passport office, Mr Masango said, is already underway."But we expect to be able to open the Chitungwiza office soon. We have approached the local authority so they can assist with accommodation (for staff)," he said.Overall, Government plans to decentralise the issuance of the documents to all the country's 72 districts.The Registrar-General's Office, which currently has 206 sub-offices offices countrywide, is also moving towards computerising all its operations."People will pay the fee online, apply online and then download the form to present it physically to passport offices for capturing of biometrics. This also minimises chances of corruption."We get reports of touts who assist people to jump the queue or ask for payment to facilitate quick processing of documents. "If application is done online, we reduce such incidences."He said plans were on course to introduce an electronic queue management system and install CCTV cameras to help monitor performance and movement of staff at the registry offices. News / National by Staff reporter Mass protests proposed by the combined force of civil servants, labour unions and the opposition MDC Alliance have plunged President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zanu-PF party into panic, amid fears the unfolding economic crisis could morph into a fully-fledged uprising of November 2017 proportions.Political observers opined in interviews last week that this could have been the reason why the president cut short his leave.Zimbabwe is in the throes of a debilitating economic crisis that has sparked widespread labour unrest and general despondency in the populace that has been thrust into poverty and despair owing to the sudden loss of value of the country's surrogate currency - the bond note.Workers' salaries were recently devalued four-fold by the tacit concession by authorities that the bond note is not equivalent to the United States dollar when the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe announced that the two currencies could no longer be housed in the same account.The announcement immediately sent the bond note spiralling downslope to as much as 1 to 6 against the US dollar as attempts by Finance minister Mthuli Ncube to claim the two still traded at par failed to convince the market.Prices of goods and services responded accordingly and soon basic commodities were priced four times higher than the previous US dollar rate and even products such as cement which used to cost $10 bond immediately shot up to over $30 bond or USD$10. The situation has not changed to date.The workers soon became agitated beginning with doctors who demanded to be paid in US dollars, followed by teachers and the rest of the civil service who are now demanding same.The government has called a meeting tomorrow with representatives of all civil servants in the hope of stemming what could degenerate into a mass labour unrest which labour unions and the opposition MDC could capitalise on to stage mass protests that they have already planned.Despite the meeting called by the government tomorrow, the Zimbabwe Teachers' Association (Zimta) last night formally declared its members would not be reporting for duty when schools open on Tuesday. They cited the systematic erosion of their salaries, sharp rise of prices of basic commodities and transport fares and the charging of many goods in US dollars.Zimta president Richard Gundane said government had failed to address any of their grievances and concerns despite previous engagements and discussions."Our members are unable to report for duty with effect from the 8th of January 2019 due to incapacitation," Gundane said."To enable the teacher to report for work and to subsist, we demand payment of salaries in US dollars."Doctors have been on strike for the past 36 days over similar demands while the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and the MDC have called for protests over the deteriorating economic situation in the country.Sources said the panicky Mnangagwa government was now desperate to find ways to stop imminent unrest in the country as this would make it vulnerable, considering the manner in which Mnangagwa came into power through a military coup in November 2017.The sources said there were fears that low-ranking security personnel, feeling the pinch of the economic meltdown might subtly support the protests and render the security situation in the country volatile."The government is now panicking. There are threats from every corner - from its workers demanding salaries in US dollars to industry where companies producing utility goods are demanding payment for goods in the greenback," the source said."Mnangagwa has been projecting himself as a reformed person and it will be difficult for him to use brute force to deal with the protests. The ghost of the August 1 shooting is still haunting him and he is desperate for ways to resolve the crisis."Zanu-PF, the source added, was now desperate to blame MDC leader Nelson Chamisa, who refused to recognise Mnangagwa's leadership, for the looming unrest, saying it is his plot to make the country ungovernable.Mnangagwa was last week forced to abort his leave to work with his deputy, Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga, to resolve a strike by doctors which has gone beyond a month, collapsing the public health sector in the country.The striking doctors met First Lady Auxillia last Friday, but the meeting failed to bring a solution to the crisis, that enters into its 37th day today.Mnangagwa's return to work came reportedly after a meeting of the Joint Operations Committee, largely made up of the security apparatus, which recommended his immediate return to avert a situation that has become a security threat caused by the deteriorating situation in the country.Yesterday, soldiers were reportedly manning major hospitals as the crisis in the health sector deepened following the decision by doctors last week to close even the emergency units to maintain pressure on government.Mnangagwa also fears that the protests could be politicised and force him out of power. His spokesperson, George Charamba, who was unreachable last night, last week warned opposition parties against getting involved in the doctors' strike.Charamba's warning came after Chiwenga last week claimed the doctors' strike was now pursuing a political agenda, an allegation flatly rejected by the doctors.Just before the Christmas holiday, economist and former MDC legislator Eddie Cross implored the Zanu-PF leader to immediately resolve the country's economic crisis or risk a military action to topple him from power.According to political observers and sources who spoke to The Standard yesterday, fear was the reason why government has called for a meeting with all labour unions and stakeholders tomorrow. Teachers had proposed to start their strike tomorrow and sources said tomorrow's meeting was meant to try to pacify the workers and avoid the strike which would likely have far-reaching consequences on Mnangagwa's rule.Local Government minister July Moyo, who is the acting Labour and Social Welfare minister, together with several Cabinet colleagues will meet all labour unions at the National Social Security Authority building in Harare tomorrow.It is also that fear, according to sources, that has forced Zanu-PF youths to release a statement advising Mnangagwa to flash out and fire government officials suspected of sabotaging his policies.Asked to comment on claims that Zanu-PF was in panic mode, party spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo said: "I am not spokesperson of the opposition, you can ask them. They are the ones who are saying so."But Zanu-PF youth league national commissar Godfrey Tsenengamu yesterday said the ruling party was only concerned that workers' grievances were not being raised using proper means and channels. He said the youths were opposed to rioting, not demonstrations. He warned workers to stay out of politics."We admit there are economic challenges in the country, but if workers decide to take the political route and manipulate the system for regime change, it is our duty as Zanu-PF youths, we have an obligation to defend our electoral victory," Tsenengamu said. 1. Yes. Its important to address the problem before it gets worse. A bond is needed. 2. Yes. Its fine, as long as the bond isnt too large. The city doesnt need more debt. 3. No. A bond issue would just put the problem back on the taxpayers. Not acceptable. 4. No. Certificates of obligation, targeting the worst roads, would be a better choice. 5. Unsure. Its hard to say without knowing the details of what a bond would entail. Vote View Results News / National by Staff reporter SUSPENDED Chief Magistrate Mr Mishrod Guvamombe has been granted $3 000 by Acting Chief Magistrate Munamato Mutevedzi.Guvamombe was yesterday arrested for alleged criminal abuse of office after he offered work-related attachment to former Cabinet ministers Saviour Kasukuwere and Supa Mandiwandira at the Harare Magistrates' Courts where they are appearing for alleged corruption.Kasukuwere and Mandiwanzira are law students at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), but have pending criminal charges before the same court, raising fears that their daily presence in the court's registry department could jeopardise their trial.Guvamombe spent the night at Rhodesville Police Station cells and appeared in court Saturday.Mr Guvamombe was ordered to report thrice a week to the police and not to interfere with state witnesses.He was represented by his lead lawyer Mr Jonathan Samukange on the ruling of the court. News / National by Staff rpeorter GOVERNMENT has suspended the purchase of condition of service vehicles for all ministers, with the money now being used to purchase a fleet of new ambulances for public health facilities, Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube has said.In the spirit of austerity, Government is aggressively cutting non-essential expenditure and redirecting spending towards social service delivery and infrastructure development.Further, authorities are strongly pushing for procuring vehicles for parliamentarians from local car assemblers.Already, the President, his Deputies, ministers and all senior bureaucrats have taken a 5 percent pay cut as part of the austerity measures.Government has 21 Cabinet Ministers, 14 Deputy Ministers and nine Ministers of State.Cabinet Ministers were usually given an executive car and two off-road vehicles as part of their condition of service.Deputy Ministers were, however, entitled to an executive car and one off-roader.Speaking during a town hall meeting organised by Global Shapers Community Harare on Friday, Prof Ncube said Government is serious about austerity."By the way, our strategy for showing how we are using resources also shows in the way we are making savings."I have said to all the ministers, my colleagues and all the Members of Parliament, that we shouldn't have these fancy cars."We have not authorised the purchase of a car for a minister in Zimbabwe. None!"I have said to them, you know I need the money to buy ambulances, I need ambulances and that is what I am going to buy with the savings from the cars for the ministers; that is what I am going to do," said Prof Ncube."So we are very serious about this austerity, about walking the talk, about meeting the people of Zimbabwe halfway, about using their 2 percent taxes properly."The 2 percent tax is not about paying to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, it's about us giving back to the people what they contributed in the first place and covering the areas where we think we can create the right type of goods for everyone to benefit from," he said.A study on emergency and ambulance service commissioned by Government last year established that owing to the shortage of ambulances, nearly 30 percent of road traffic accident victims die before reaching a health care facility.The study also established that transit time for patients in ambulances ranges between four to five hours, leading to unnecessary loss of life.All Government ambulances, the study revealed, lacked basic equipment including oxygen, delivery packs for pregnant women in transit, resuscitation equipment, masks, intravenous lines for drips, intravenous stands and trolleys.In most cases, unqualified staff assist patients during transit because of the shortage of ambulance technicians.The study recommended that all 63 districts in the country's health system should have at least two functional ambulances and qualified personnel.Government will potentially save millions of dollars from suspending the purchase of ministerial vehicles.A 2018 Land Rover Discovery retails for between US$52 000 and US$68 000, while Mercedes Benz E 300 sedan costs around US$52 000.A fully equipped emergency ambulance sells for between US$200 000 and US$225 000.Minister Ncube said Government will continue to insist on purchase of locally assembled vehicles for parliamentarians in order to save foreign currency."Someone made a very passionate plea about the purchase of cars, I agree with you totally. I would like everybody to buy local."We have Willowvale plant and other facilities that we need to support. I do not want to be allocating resources to import more and more cars when we have locally assembled cars that we should be buying and supporting local jobs."I agree with that, that certainly is a priority and I am pushing for that to be the case."Zanu-PF legislators have turned down parliamentary vehicles. News / National by Staff reporter About 1 000 young people will this year enrol for apprenticeship training at various State institutions as Government resumes the programme abandoned in 2015 to pave way for (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) STEM Advanced Level scholarships, it has emerged.STEM was terminated in 2017 following allegations of malfeasance at the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef), a body that administered the facility.Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Amon Murwira told The Sunday Mail that close to $10 million would be channelled towards the apprenticeship program.He said recruitment of apprentices was almost complete."So far we have recruited 967 and we are left with 33 because the target is a 1000. These were taken across the 10 provinces and they are across all disciplines such as electrical engineering, and so forth."We are using the money which was released from A Level STEM scholarships plus more that was budgeted this year. Again this is a Zimdef activity because that is its purpose under the manpower development plan," said Minister Murwira.The apprenticeship program, which facilitates traineeships of technicians in various industrial entities was stopped to pave way for STEM that suffered abuse after funds were channelled to support students in private schools.The initiative intended to benefit students in Government schools with each getting $1 000 in fees payment, but indications were that some students in private learning institutions received over $4 000.Minister Murwira said Government was now deliberately moving towards capacitating students with industrial skills."Apprenticeships are done to equip the students with the practical skills so that when they graduate they will be ready to work. We are creating industrial parks right now so that students can develop their ideas into products there," he said."What we are focusing on now is trying to source credit for graduates so that they can start businesses.Zimdef was established in 1984 to finance programs incidental to skills development in the country.In 2016, the then minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Jonathan Moyo was arrested following allegations of pilfering the fund.At least $400,000 was allegedly embezzled.His deputy, Dr Godfrey Gandawa, ZIMDEF chief executive Mr Frederick Mandizvidza and ZIMDEF principal finance director Mr Nicholas Mapute were also implicated in the scandal. News / National by Staff reporter ACTING Prosecutor-General Mr Kumbirai Hodzi alleges that some senior officials are trying to interfere with State witnesses involved in the case of suspended chief magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe who appeared in court yesterday.Guvamombe, who was hauled before the court on charges of criminal abuse of office, has since been granted $3 000 bail coupled with stringent conditions after appearing before Harare magistrate Mr Munamato Mutevedzi.He was arrested on Friday on allegations of offering industrial attachment to two former Cabinet Ministers Saviour Kasukuwere and Supa Mandiwanzira at the Harare Magistrates' Court in full knowledge that the duo were facing charges of corruption before the same courts. The ex-ministers are studying law at the University of Zimbabwe. In an interview yesterday, Mr Hodzi said a police report has since been made."As far as the chief magistrate is concerned, we have gathered that there are some influential people that have been attempting to interfere in his case. There are witnesses who were being forced to change their statements. We want to assure the public that this case will be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law."The acting PG said he was not in a position to name the culprits for fear of jeopardising ongoing investigations."Investigations are continuing and we don't want to jeopardise the process. I can assure the people that we are on top of the situation and we will not be intimidated."The PG's Office, Mr Hodzi added, has made headway in unravelling some of the criminal networks involved in grand corruption."We now have an idea of what we are dealing with and we have made some breakthroughs. In the fullness of time, everything will be revealed. These cartels include members of the judiciary, the media and NPA officials."Mr Hodzi said his office is also looking into allegations by top Harare lawyer Advocate Slyvester Hashiti of corruption in the judiciary."Mr Hashiti made serious allegations pertaining to corruption of the judiciary. I have asked him to come forward with the information and we will do all we can to act on any matter that is brought forward," he said.Yesterday, Mr Mutevedzi granted Guvamombe bail after he ruled that the State, which was represented by Messrs Michael Reza and Zivanai Macharaga, failed to submit compelling reasons to deny bail. The State unsuccessfully claimed that Guvamombe was likely to interfere with witnesses once released.State witness Mr Clemence Mashawu of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP)'s Anti-Corruption Unit, who is the lead investigating officer in the case, alleged that the accused had threatened some witnesses. Mr Mashawu also claimed that Guvamombe had also directed Harare provincial magistrate Elisha Singano to give him key case files.But the defence, led by Mr Jonathan Samukange, who was assisted by Messrs Farai Nyamayaro, Arnold Taruvinga and Steady Kachere, said the case files were meant to assist in preparing the accused's defence.Guvamombe was ordered to surrender his passport and prohibited from traveling 50 kilometres out of Harare. He will also report thrice a week at Harare's Criminal Investigations Department (CID). Further, he was ordered to surrender surety of property worth more than $30 000.Guvamombe will appear for routine remand on 25 January. News / National by Staff reporter MUTARE town clerk Joshua Maligwa, who was last month slapped with a $120 000 lawsuit for allegedly defaming Shitazburg Enterprises director Anderson Mwashita, has filed a notice to defend himself.Maligwa allegedly described Mwashita as a fugitive from justice, whose company reportedly swindled the local municipality of $330 000.The Mutare town clerk, who is being represented by Messers Bere Brothers, filed the notice recently at the Mutare High Court circuit."Summons were served on the defendant on December 19, 2018," the application read."Take notice that the defendant (Joshua Maligwa) has entered an appearance to defend the above action."Shitazburg Enterprises reportedly failed to supply water pipes in a botched transaction after council had made the necessary payment.Mwashita, in December last year, filed the lawsuit at the Mutare High Court through his lawyer, Mvere Chikamhi.The lawsuit comes after Maligwa had engaged police and the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission to help recover the $330 000 from Mwashita.Maligwa was quoted in the lawsuit as saying that Mwashita's whereabouts were unknown, but that the police would soon catch up with him.In the lawsuit, Mwashita said that he was not on the run and had already approached police over the matter."The plaintiff (Mwashita) approached the police and realised that the information was false, as there was no other report which was pending and was not being required by the police. The defendant's statements are defamatory as they can be interpreted to mean that the plaintiff is not a law-abiding citizen and is always running away from the police," part of the suit read.Mwashita said his image had been tarnished and that negatively impacted on his business."Plaintiff, Mwashita, is a businessman and his image has been tarnished as all his business colleagues now believe he is a parson who cannot be trusted as he is a fugitive from justice. Since the publication (of the utterances), the plaintiff has lost a number of contracts and clients as people now believe he is a fugitive from justice," the suit reads."Wherefore the plaintiff's claim is for: (a) payment of $120 000 being damages of defamation of character, (b) 10% collection commission, (c) interest at the prescribed rate from the date."Shitazburg Enterprises reportedly won a tender to supply water pipes to Mutare Municipality in 2010.Council paid the company $330 000 as deposit to supply the pipes, but the local authority claims nothing has been delivered to date. News / National by Editorial - newsday THE 10% salary increment government offered to civil servants is ludicrous, unfortunate and shows that government does not consider its workers a key component in its transformation.Whether Treasury does not have ways to raise enough cash to cushion government workers or not, we believe that more needs to be done to boost morale among the thousands of government workers who have toiled for so long to get their employer to deliver a service to its suffering citizenry.Why government decided to repay the civil servants by offering worse than peanuts is beyond comprehension. Does this inspire confidence to the citizens and the outside world keen to do business with Harare?It boggles the mind how the brains behind the Vincent Hungwe-led Civil Service Commission, Cabinet ministers and top government officials could come up with such an offer.The decision to relegate the working majority to penury could explain why government does not seem to care about the arbitrary price increases of basic commodities, cash crisis, foreign currency shortages and fuel crisis, among other economic ills.No doubt, a job boycott is looming, as civil servants haggle with government over salary adjustments in a clear indication that all is not well in Rome.This is despite the fact that medical doctors have finally returned to work after a long-running job action that paralysed operations in the public health sector; this after the salary negotiations between the government and civil servants, who were offered a paltry 10% pay rise, collapsed amid indications that they could embark on industrial action next week. It is an open secret that the cost of living of ordinary people has been on a steep rise and their earnings have been significantly eroded.It is quite clear that President Emmerson Mnangagwa's regime has no capacity to deal with this problem, hence they need all stakeholders. This could include the opposition, which enjoys a modicum of international goodwill, to join hands and work together to improve the economy, which is currently in free-fall.Matters were always going to come to a head at the rate at which things are going, and there is no alternative, but to confront the problem head-on. This calls for unity of purpose. If our political leaders, indeed, had the interests of the people at heart, then they have no option, but come to the table and thrash out a deal that will usher the country out of its current economic logjam.How on earth the government will insist on the unrealistic 1:1 parity between the United States dollar and the surrogate bond note is anyone's guess.Yet, the situation on the ground offers a different reality and against that backdrop, civil servants' demands for a minimum wage of $1 733 for the least paid civil servant make sense.The majority of civil servants earn money that is not even enough to send one child to a decent school, and this is the reality that our political leaders must be seized with if they are sincere.Right now, ordinary people using public transport require a minimum of $10 per day to and from work when their salaries are only sufficient perhaps for those who use just $1. Against this backdrop, the government offer of a 10% pay rise, which translates to only $41 for the least paid civil servant, is a mockery.What is quite clear is that unless the Zanu-PF regime strikes some kind of workable deal with the opposition, the situation will either continue to deteriorate, or will be resolved just temporarily if not addressed from its roots. News / International by BBC British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal has been rejected by 230 votes - the largest defeat for a sitting UK government in history, BBC reported.MPs voted by 432 votes to 202 to reject the deal, which sets out the terms of Britain's exit from the EU on 29 March.Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has now tabled a vote of no confidence in the government, which could trigger a general election.Mrs May said she would make time for a debate on the motion on Wednesday.Mr Corbyn said the confidence vote would allow the Commons to "give its verdict on the sheer incompetence of this government".A Democratic Unionist Party source has told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg they will back Mrs May in a confidence vote.If MPs vote to back a no confidence motion, the government, or anyone else who can command a majority, would get 14 days to win a further confidence vote. If they can't win that, a general election will be then held. - The Rwandan government have banned the use of skin-whitening products in the country - This is coming after the government launched a campaign against skin-bleaching, describing it as unhealthy - Government officials and police are currently patrolling markets in provinces across the nation and seizing skin-lightening and bleaching products from vendors PAY ATTENTION: Click "See first" under the "Following" tab to see Briefly news on your News Feed! While many countries continue to launch campaigns creating awareness about the dangers of bleaching, the Rwandan government has taken the bold step to ban all skin-whitening and bleaching products in the country. This is coming shortly after the president, Paul Kagame out-rightly condemned the the use of the products in November, urging Rwandas ministry of health to take action. In response to a Twitter user who voiced concern over the issue. He was quoted saying: Quite unhealthy among other things. Includes use of prohibited chemicals," adding that the ministry of health look into it urgently. A while ago, the country had launched a campaign against the use of bleaching products, citing the health hazards as a major reason. The country's Standards Board warned the public about the use of products that contain hydroquinone, one of the prohibited ingredients in ordinary commercial cosmetics. PAY ATTENTION: Save mobile data with FreeBasics: Briefly is now available on the app Paul Kagame condemned the used of bleaching products According to reports, Rwandan police said they seized more than 5,000 banned bleaching products including lotions, oils, soaps and sprays from beauty shops across the country in December 2018. READ ALSO: Zuma family shares #ANC107 celebration photos and South Africans are freaking out Rwanda's ban on bleaching products comes after Ghana implemented a ban on the skin lightening creams in 2017, following Ivory Coast's ban in 2015. According to a 2011 report by the World Health Organisation, around 25% of women in Mali, 77% of women in Nigeria, and 59% in Togo regularly use skin-lightening products. Still on skin bleaching, a while ago, it was reported the news of how many Nigerians were outraged after American reality star, Blac Chyna announced her visit to Nigeria for a pool party and to also sell her bleaching products. Chynas coming to Nigeria to showcase her range of bleaching products did not go down well with Nigerians as they have taken to their Twitter handles to call her out. Despite the outrage expressed and push-backs from the government, Nigeria still remains the African conutry with the highest percentage of women who use these products. Enjoyed reading our story? Download BRIEFLY's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major South African news! Source: Briefly.co.za Joe Ford is a self-described "64-year-old navy veteran of the Vietnam era and houseless in the tundra." He wrote for The Guardian about what its like to live in Alaska without a permanent house. It sounds tough, but he loves it. I recently watched a good movie with my family called Leave No Trace, and the dad in the movie reminds me a bit of Mr. Ford. All in all, though, I prefer a campfire-roasted porcupine that I killed and butchered (recently, one who had smacked my dog with his tail, embedding 15 quills in the mutt's snout), slathered with highbush cranberry ketchup, foraged chickweed salad with mushrooms on the side, a hot cup of stinging nettle tea to wash it down and a handful of wild blueberries for dessert. Bugs, sticks, sand and assorted forest floor debris sometimes makes it into my vittles but, as the family I encountered in my travels through Canada some years back said when I pointed out that their kid was eating dirt: "It's clean dirt." And the bugs are protein! Anyway, I get to devour the feast creekside watching fish sex. No, it's not the latest Netflix series, it's actual salmon spawning in the water 10ft from my tent. My living room floor gets a fresh gold carpet when fall colors take over and the tree branches go bare. Daylight starts fading fast closing in on the autumnal equinox and stays in decline till winter solstice, bottoming out at around five and a half hours here. So, I use rechargeable LEDs (a gift from a friend) to read and write by and a headlamp for more active endeavors like ice fishing or splitting firewood. My toilet is a hollow cottonwood stump and I bathe with a kettle of hot creek water. Some places along the highway offer showers but they cost money and contribute to ecocide, so I clean my crotch in the creek occasionally. But personal hygiene is not a priority. I have dirt under my fingernails, belly button lint, maybe some toejam. I often smell like wood smoke from my campfires. My cologne: eau de burnt alder. Instead of washing my clothing layers come cheap from thrift shops I air it out, hanging it on a tree branch for a snowstorm or two, then turn it inside out and put it back into rotation. My most recent essay film, Visual Disturbances, premiered in the open access journal [in]Transition yesterday. This open access journal features peer reviewed academic video essays and showcases a wide variety of film and media analysis. Visual Disturbances uses some cutting-edge eye tracking visualizations to explore how film audiences both perceive and mis-perceive movies. A few readers may remember my 2007 Disney mashup, A Fair(y) Use Tale. That film, in its own small way, helped open up the video essay genre by sampling commercial films for educational purposes. Visual Disturbances is a very different kind of film but relies on the precedent set by A Fair(y) Use Tale and the diligent work of scholars, attorneys, archivists, and activists to bring Fair Use into the 21st century. For Visual Disturbances, I should give a very special shout out to attorney and UC Irvine Professor Jack Lerner. His students at UC Irvine's Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic reviewed the film and wrote a valuable opinion letter regarding its Fair Use status. That letter ultimately helped procure an Errors and Omission insurance policy that helps protect the film from frivolous copyright shake downs. Visual Disturbances uses 187 unlicensed clips (down from the 385 clips used in A Fair(y) Use Tale!) from commercial films to explore how audiences watch a movie. Cinema suffers from a basic problem telling a story: the medium captures too much visual information from reality. Thus, early on, Hollywood filmmakers developed a series of tactics for subtly focusing audience attention on key narrative details. Directors skillfully used framing, lighting, lenses and camera movement to gently guide the audiences' gaze around the frame. Editing protocols then smoothly arranged space and carefully signaled temporal changes to bind the hundreds of fragments that constitute a film into an easily legible narrative whole. And not surprisingly, these tactics steered audience attention so that we "see" the same movie as everyone else. What happens, however, when a filmmaker chooses to ignore these rules or, even better, to subvert them? Where do audiences look and are they "seeing" the same film? Visual Disturbances uses psychologists Dan Simons and Christopher Chabris' (of The Invisible Gorilla fame) concepts of inattentional blindness and change blindness to explore how audiences perceive and mis-perceive cinematic images. In particular, the film focuses on the French filmmaker Jacques Tati and how his films purposely betray our perception. Tati only made a handful of films over his career and they seem deceptively simple on the surface. Yet, repeated viewings reveal alternative (and sometime bizarre) readings of narrative events. Visual Disturbances suggests that Tati's method for staging action promoted a kind of visual blindness and that select filmmakers across film history have intentionally utilized this technique as a stylistic option. To reveal this hidden film style, Visual Disturbances employs a variety of research methods: mixing audience focus groups with historical and industrial research, original filmed material combined with formal analysis of existing films as well as cutting edge eye-tracking visualizations. My Bucknell colleagues Aaron Mitchel and Nathan Ryan (and students Taylor Myers and Alexander Murph) helped me use eyetracking technology to examine how audiences watch and re-watch a movie. Do Hollywood's narrative techniques compel us to see the same thing over and over? And does Tati's more open style encourage audiences to "wander" around the frame and discover new material? WatchVisual Disturbances to find out! Trades in Upper Tamakoshi shares cancelled after surge The Nepal Stock Exchange on Monday cancelled trades in Upper Tamakoshi shares after prices rose more than 50 percent exceeding limits set by the bourse. Noted racist congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) may finally face consequences for being an open white supremacist and anti-Semite. Who knew there would ever be a line this guy could cross? He's gotten away with it forever. House Republican leaders are reportedly trying to remove Steve King from the Judiciary Committee and his other panel assignments on Monday night, after his latest pro-white supremacy remarks. King is an ally of Donald Trump on the racist border wall, an idea which King has touted for longer than Trump. King has been saying awful things about immigrants and anyone who isn't white forever. As recently as last November, "top Iowa Republicans like Senator Charles E. Grassley endorsed Mr. King for re-election even after a House Republican denounced him as a white supremacist," the NYT reports. In an interview with The Times published last Thursday, King said this: "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization how did that language become offensive?" Guess that was kind of offensive. Trip Gabriel and Jonathan Martin at the NYT: House Republican leaders will try to remove Representative Steve King of Iowa from the powerful Judiciary Committee and his other panel assignments on Monday night as the party officials scrambled to appear tough on racism and contain damage from comments Mr. King made to The New York Times questioning why white supremacy is considered offensive. Mr. King's own party leadership moved against him throughout the day, with the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, suggesting Mr. King find "another line of work" and Senator Mitt Romney saying he should quit. In an attempt to be proactive, the House Republicans stripped him of the coveted Judiciary and Agriculture Committee seats in the face of multiple Democratic resolutions to censure Mr. King that are being introduced this week. Those measures will force Republicans to take a stand on whether to go along with the House Democratic majority's attempt to publicly reprimand one of their own. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, conferred privately with Mr. King for an hour on Monday afternoon. Mr. McCarthy called a special meeting of the Republican Steering Committee on Monday night to consider removing Mr. King from Judiciary which has jurisdiction over immigration, voting rights and impeachment and Agriculture, which is a prized committee for Iowans, according to two Republicans familiar with the plans. Rep Tim Ryan D-OH & Rep Bobby Rush D-IL have both introduced resolutions of censure tonight against Rep Steve King R-IA Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) January 15, 2019 This isn't enough. His colleagues need to refer Steve King's history of racist comments to the House Ethics Committee, investigate as is procedure, and then vote to expel him. No half-measures. https://t.co/dwXceMBwEN Charlotte Clymer?? (@cmclymer) January 15, 2019 Pelosi on the remarks of Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and possible discpline which awaits him: Pelosi: One way or another Mr King's words will not go uncondemned Pelosi on a resolution of disapproval not being a formal House mode of punishment: I don't think the degree of it matters Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) January 15, 2019 July 2016: "Congressman Steve King Makes White Supremacist Comments on Live TV, Then Doubles Down" This isn't new. https://t.co/6HWnWkSUk9 Kia Makarechi (@Kia_Mak) January 15, 2019 Democrats @RepBobbyRush @RepTimRyan have just given notice on the House floor of resolutions to censure Steve King for his racist statements. The 2-day clock starts NOW for @SpeakerPelosi to set a time for consideration of the resolutions. https://t.co/hjqac4xNwG K Tully-McManus (@ktullymcmanus) January 15, 2019 Here's what Jim Clyburn is gonna say on the House floor tonight re: the resolution of disapproval on Steve King's white supremacy comments. "A tale of two kings." pic.twitter.com/IqCTYA2WEl Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) January 15, 2019 Yahoo! JAPAN Yahoo! JAPAN California's MeToo Laws: Here's What Your Business Should Know California passed more than a dozen measures to bolster the #MeToo laws in 2018, many dealing with public entities and private citizens. However, there are two notable laws that businesses should keep in mind moving forward into 2019. Violations of these could result in fines and potentially a lot of bad press. Nondisclosure Agreements for Settlements Involving Sexual Claims Though nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) are rightfully used to keep private information private, some entities have taken the use of these too far, and are using NDAs to protect private information that, quite frankly, is illegal or would normally be considered public information. That is no longer the case in California. In September 2018, then-Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 820, which went into effect January 1, 2019. This law forbids nondisclosure provisions in settlements involving claims of sexual assault, sexual, harassment or sexual discrimination. This law applies to both public and private companies, and adds on to the current law which forbids settlements that restrict the disclosure of information that would lead to felonious sex offender violations. It's unclear what the penalty will be for violating this law, but presumably it will be nullifying the now-illegal NDA. Another prong of this same law allows an accuser to shield his or her identity, and any information which might lead to the discovery of that identity, so long as the case does not involve a government agency or public official. Lastly, the law allows for either party to request settlement amounts remain sealed. Board of Directors Companies with boards should also keep in mind the other, more highly publicized law which Governor Brown also enacted back in September. This law requires publicly held companies based in California to have at least one female on their boards of directors by the end of 2019. In addition, depending on the size of their boards, additional females may be required by the end of 2021. Financial penalties will apply for noncompliance, ranging from $100,000 to $300,000, depending upon the violation. Though there are some similar European laws in effect, this is the first of its kind here in the U.S. According to California state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, about a quarter of the state's publicly traded companies still don't have one women on their board. So if your company is in this 25 percent, consider making a Board change soon, or expect to face stiff penalties. If you have any concerns about your company's compliance with these, or any other laws, contact a local business and commercial attorney. Investing in some legal advice on these new laws could save you considerably in the long run. Related Resources: In response to the recent Republican-led tax reformwhich reduced corporate taxes from 35% to 21%many companies have responded by handing out surprise bonuses, increased 401(k) matches, and various wage bumps. For a company like Patagonia, however, the tax cuts have been labeled irresponsible, a symbol of the federal governments reckless apathy. In response, Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario recently announced that the outdoor clothing company will donate its $10 million tax-cut windfall to its preferred partners in battling climate change. Instead of putting the money back into our business, were responding by putting $10 million back into the planet, Marcario writes. Our home planet needs it more than we do. No stranger to public spats with the President, the company has positioned the move as a protest of sorts, both in opposition to the administrations position on the particular issue at handdescribed by Marcario as woefully inadequate and just evilas well as to the tax cuts themselves. Being a responsible company means paying your taxes in proportion to your success and supporting your state and federal governments, which in turn contribute to the health and well-being of civil society, she writes. Taxes protect the most vulnerable in our society, our public lands and other life-giving resources. In spite of this, the Trump administration initiated a corporate tax cut, threatening these services at the expense of our planet. Yet if the goal of this public act is to somehow stick it to the administration or highlight the inadequacy of the federal government on this or that pet priority, Marcario fails to see the striking irony that perseveres amidst the posturing. Alas, taken from a different perspective, Patagonias outspoken advocacy serves to strengthen one of the lesser known arguments for lower corporate taxes. Surely the more common arguments have to do with returning economic power to the boots-on-the-ground decision-makers for the causes of economic growth and efficiency. Business owners know how to spend the money better than the federal government, proponents will say. It was upon arguments such as these that the latest bill was passed, and after roughly a year, the results have spoken. The $1.5 trillion tax overhaul that President Trump signed into law late last year has already given the American economy a jolt, at least temporarily, writeJim Tankersley and Matt Phillips in the New York Times. It has fattened the paychecks of most American workers, padded the profits of large corporations and sped economic growth. Yet in highlighting such benefits, we shouldnt forget that the resulting actions are not only economic in nature. Yes, economic power is returning to actual human hands, but that also means its returning to the actual human hearts and minds that drive them. Giving companies greater control of their revenue doesnt just allow them to shift surface-level decisions about wages and product development and capital investment; it allows them to tailor their corporate cultures and philanthropic habits. It gives them more flexibility to fuel social causes that extend well beyond company walls or the more typical shareholder priorities. If a business truly wants to be socially conscious or socially responsible in some way other than increasing and improving employment or better serving the needs of their customers, such cuts are an asset. Whether we agree or disagree with Patagonias policy preferences or social priorities, the freedom for such an enterprise to more freely express, experiment with and cultivate its own culture and contribution is essential for a flourishing society. We should be glad that Patagonia now has greater freedom to use its profits for causes and purposes it actually believes itthat it can steward more of its output according to its own stated values. Indeed, if Marcario truly believes that the efforts and spending priorities of the Trump administration are woefully inadequate, and, further, that their basic beliefs about climate change are just evil, why would she want to cede more of Patagonias resources toward such a contrary agenda? Wouldnt she prefer to funnel that $10 million toward her companys own idealistic vision and preferred strategies and objectives? Prior to the Republican tax bill, that same $10 million could very well have been used for increased coal and oil subsidies, never mind a wall between the United States and Mexico. Would this be more or less irresponsible, in Marcarios view? The option is there, if she wants to return it. According to Patagonias progressive vision, such a realization will likely mean very little. Such firms will still prefer a government that takes these responsibilities off of their hands and co-opts and coerces ideological dissenters into supporting the purported vision. As Marcario notes, being a responsible company surely does entail paying our taxes and following the laws of the land. But it ought to mean much, much more. The argument about moral efficiency matters. Whatever the merits of Patagonias supposed protest, it inadvertently demonstrates the quiet strength of economic power, rightly returned. Image: Patagonia Wood Sign, Dave Dugdale (CC BY-SA 2.0) The government has the right to remove children who are homeschooled from their parents custody if authorities believe their parents will not teach children tolerance, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled last week. The Wunderlich family had claimed German authorities violated their innate human rights by denying them custody and forcibly enrolling their children in public schools to further their social integration. But the ECHR disagreed. Nearly three dozen police and social workers stormed the familys home in August 2013 when the parents, Dick and Petra Wunderlich, refused to stop homeschooling their four children. Homeschooling faces tight legal constriction in Germany, which permits the practice only for children who suffer severe illnesses, the children of diplomats, and child actors. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) described the ruling of the court that set the motion in process the Darmstadt Family Courts decision of September 6, 2012 which held that the Wunderlich family risked damaging the childrens best interests in the long term, because not attending a government-run school prevented them from learning social skills such as tolerance. The court found that the children needed to be exposed to influences other than those of their parental home to acquire those skills, the ECHR added. Officials claimed they had feared the Wunderlich children had no contact with anyone outside the family and that their father might kill them because he once referred to them as his property rather than that of the State. Armed with those allegations and a desire to enforce its social values, the state leapt into action. The children had to be carried out of the house individually with the help of police officers after they had refused to comply with the court bailiffs requests to come out voluntarily, the ECHR notes. Assessments later determined that the children faced no physical danger, did not have poor educational attainment, and had contacts outside the family. Yet the government ruled the family relationship symbiotic. Officials returned the children to their home three weeks later after the parents promised to send them to public school. To assure the Wunderlichs did not flee the country, the court denied the parents full custody, specifically the right to determine where their children lived. Should they move to a nation that allows homeschooling, like neighboring France, the court promised criminal prosecution. The family said the ruling violated their right to raise their children according to their own beliefs and appealed all the way to the ECHR which ruled against them on Thursday, January 10. It is small consolation that the ECHR ruled the fact that a child could be placed in a more beneficial environment for his or her upbringing will not on its own justify a compulsory measure of removal from the care of the biological parents. (Emphasis added.) If public authorities reasonably believe children run the risk of abuse, they have the right to intervene even if that belief proves false. However, the ECHR went further than that. In the courts mind, the enforcement of compulsory school attendance, to prevent social isolation of the applicants children and ensure their integration into society, was a relevant reason for justifying the partial withdrawal of parental authority. The states concern that Christian parents may raise intolerant children whose values isolate them from most of their peers justifies their forcible removal from parental custody, the court seems to indicate. Furthermore, the ECHR ruled that the State should take measures to rehabilitate the child and parent, where possible. To this end, the court notes that the children were returned to their parents after the applicants had agreed to send their children to [government-run] school. State officials are right to return children to their parents once those parents agree with the governments aims. This ruling conflicts with inalienable human rights recognized by Christian and secular authorities. Parental rights in education are fundamental The Christian tradition holds parental rights to outweigh those of political authorities. As those first responsible for the education of their children, parents have the right to choose a school for them which corresponds to their own convictions. This right is fundamental, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Public authorities have the duty of guaranteeing this parental right and of ensuring the concrete conditions for its exercise. Reflecting this Christian influence, Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights states that the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions. Article 8 bars officials from interfering in family life except as deemed necessary in a democratic society for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. Christians should affirm the right of parents to raise their children according to their own religious beliefs, even if the ECHR will not. The state should not use its monopoly on power to overrule Christian religious principles. Moreover, empirical evidence weighs against the ECHRs decision. Homeschool children are more tolerant than their peers: Studies In a 2014 study, Albert Cheng compared the level of political tolerance of homeschooled students with those who attended public schools. He asked college students if they would allow the government to bug the phones, ban the books, or prohibit from living in their neighborhoods members of disfavored political groups. After performing multivariate analysis, Cheng found, Those [college students] with more exposure to homeschooling relative to public schooling tend to be more politically tolerant. Late last year, the OIDELs Freedom of Education Index 2018 tested this proposition by comparing its FEI ratings against the OECDs measure of social cohesion. The NGO found a positive tendency for homeschooling to increase tolerance, but with a low correlation. The report concluded, We cannot affirm that freedom of education has a negative effect on social cohesion. Mike Donnelly, an attorney with the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), said the data prove that allowing parents more choices in educating their children is an overall positive. Protecting the right of parents to homeschool is a necessary ingredient in a democratic, free country, he said. Conversely, a country that does not promote freedom of education is intolerant and not truly pluralistic. German authorities physically removed crying, clinging children from their parents in order to prevent them from being manhandled. They prevented their parents from regarding them as property by temporarily making the children wards of the state. And they preemptively crushed potential intolerance by denying a family the right to raise its children according to its own educational and religious beliefs. If the German government wants to prevent schooling from forcibly denying children opportunity, it might begin with its own schools. The OECD found in 2000 that Germanys two-track educational system furthered social inequality by denying educational opportunities to some children. And the problem persists, both due to families socioeconomic background and the strain placed on finite resources by population growth largely driven by immigration. By forcing all children into government-run schools, the government may be doing more harm than that alleged against the Wunderlich parents. (Photo credit: Alliance Defending Freedom.) Today marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Here are five facts you should know about the killing of the civil rights leader in Memphis, Tennessee. 1. The killing of King in 1968 was the second attempt on his life. A decade before he was assassinated, King was nearly stabbed to death in Harlem when a mentally ill African-American woman who believed he was conspiring against her with communists, stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener. He underwent emergency surgery, and remained hospitalized for several weeks but made a full recovery. The doctor who performed the operation said, Had Dr. King sneezed or coughed the weapon would have penetrated the aorta. . . . He was just a sneeze away from death 2. On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated by the #277 man on the FBIs Most Wanted Fugitives list. In 1967, James Earl Ray escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary by hiding in a truck transporting bread from the prison bakery. On the day of the assassination Ray took a room in boarding house that had a view to the motel. King and his entourage frequently stayed at the Lorraine Motel while staying in Memphis. 3. King was on the balcony of the motel when he was shot. He was hit by a .30-06 caliber rifle bullet that entered his right jaw, traveled through his neck, severing his spinal cord, and stopped in his shoulder blade. Civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy cradled Kings head while Marrell McCollough, an undercover Memphis police officer, used a towel to stop the flow of blood. King was taken to St. Josephs where doctors attempted emergency surgery before pronouncing him dead at 7:05 p.m. He was 39 years old. 4. News of Kings assassination prompted major outbreaks of looting, arson, and violence, resulting in death and major property damage in more than 100 American cities. Altogether, 43 men and women were killed, approximately 3,500 were injured, and 27,000 were arrested. Not until over 58,000 National Guardsmen and army troops joined local state and police forces did the uprisings cease. As historian Peter B. Levy says, during Holy Week 1968, the United States experienced its greatest wave of social unrest since the Civil War. 5. After a two-month long, international manhunt, Ray was captured on June 8, 1968 at Londons Heathrow Airport. On March 10, 1969, Ray pleaded guilty to Kings murder and was sentenced to 99 years in Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. No testimony was heard in his trial. Ray later recanted his confession and claimed he was the victim of a conspiracy. Members of Kings family, including his son Dexter, publicly met with Ray in 1977 and began arguing for a reopening of his case. (The government investigations concluded Ray was the lone assassin). Later that same year Ray became the #351 on the FBIs Most Wanted Fugitives list after he and six other convicts escaped from the prison. He was recaptured three days later and given another year in prison, bringing his sentence to 100 years. North Dakota lawmakers again wrestled with the states medical marijuana law Monday, amid some frustration that the drug isnt yet available to patients almost two years after the state enacted the voter-approved statute. Fargo Democratic Rep. Pam Anderson, an early medical marijuana proponent, pushed a bill adding several conditions that would qualify for the drugs use, including autism, anxiety disorder and Tourette syndrome. It would also allow people from other medical marijuana states to obtain the drug here and expand the types of health care providers who could approve its use for patients. "I think what we passed last time ... for the most part was a good bill," Anderson said. "What I think we're all trying to do now is really make it better." Rep. Todd Porter, R-Mandan, questioned the reciprocity portion of Andersons bill, noting that Minnesotas medical marijuana program has a whole different set of rules for a drug thats still considered illegal at the federal level. Almost three dozen states and the District of Columbia have approved comprehensive public medical marijuana/cannabis programs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. GRAND FORKS -- Residents of Grand Forks got a bare-bones look at Altrus new hospital Monday as Altru staff showcased a dozen patient room mock-ups fashioned from multicolored pieces of foam in a warehouse. The mock-up rooms were built to scale to be as real as possible, Luke Diekman with JLG Architects said. Mondays event included mock-ups of operating rooms, intensive care units and labor/delivery rooms. The hospital held the event off site because the health care provider didnt have the space on its campus for the showcase, said Josh Kehrwald, senior project manager with JLG. Since JLG established the warehouse space in June, the company has been meeting once a month with Altru staff to gather feedback on the new rooms and workspaces, Diekman said. The mock-ups were designed to help staff get a better sense of their future workplace, according to JLG representatives. Its easier than looking at lines on paper, Kehrwald said. The new rooms will be a little bit bigger than the rooms on Altrus existing campus, Kehrwald said. However, the new facilitys rooms will have less variability in their design to improve workflow for hospital staff. Peggy was first and foremost a devoted mother who loved and cared for her children. The pride she had for them was evident when she told others of her large family of seven boys and four girls. She wanted everyone to be happy and get along and loved the noise of family as they gathered at her home. She was a great cook and was especially proud of her delicious borscht soup, kuchen, and various kinds of jelly. There was always dessert. She liked the outdoors, camping, walking on the beach, and going back home to her family farm to relive childhood memories. She enjoyed reading, dancing, yard work, and cooking. She always looked her best because of her interest in hair, makeup, clothes, and jewelry. She loved to shop. Memories of her holding grandchildren and great-grandchildren and singing little songs to them hold a special place in our hearts. She loved babies. Her determination and strong will got her through the many trials in her life and she leaves this world with grace and pride. We are thankful for the life she lived, and we treasure the legacy she leaves with us. Her wish has come true and she is in her heavenly home with her parents, brothers, and sisters. The telemedicine company Teladoc is opposed to a bill in North Dakota that its representatives say would be restrictive and have a "chilling effect" on patients and providers. The North Dakota Board of Medicine brought forth a bill that would require a telemedicine provider to do an initial video examination or have the patient exam done with another licensed provider. Bonnie Storbakken, executive secretary of the state Board of Medicine, previously said the requirement would protect patients in allowing them to verify for themselves that they are being treated by a licensed doctor, as well as set up a "framework" for telemedicine providers in the state. Under the bill, once a physician-patient relationship is established after the initial visit, then it's the discretion of the physician in deciding how to visit with and diagnose patients. Proponents of the bill say it would protect patients, while critics say it could decrease access. Last year, in North Dakota, Teladoc completed 1,500 virtual visits in North Dakota and saved companies and employees in the state more than $700,000 in health care costs, according to Claudia Tucker, Teladocs vice president of government affairs. Staff of Province 2 ministries protest against secretary slapping incident The employees of all ministries in Province 2 halted their works on Monday, demanding investigation into the alleged assault on Industry, Forest and Tourism Secretary Bidyanath Jha by Financial Affairs and Planning Minister Bijay Yadav. "If passed, HB1208 will allow our teachers to recoup some of the investment that they make in our students," Archuleta said. Elroy Burkle, executive director of North Dakota Small Organized Schools, told lawmakers he is supportive of the idea, but the appropriation is "far short" and is worried some districts may not receive funding under the program. "If were grossly unfunded, theres going to be some schools that are not going to be reimbursed," he said. Russ Ziegler, assistant director of the North Dakota Council of Educational Leaders, said "nearly all" of the districts in the state reimburse teachers for classroom items as long as proper district protocol is followed. With about 11,000 licensed full-time public teachers and 784 private teachers in North Dakota, according to data from the state Department of Public Instruction, only a quarter of teachers would be funded under the program, Ziegler said. Ziegler said they, instead, support an increase in districts' per pupil payments and on-time funding, which could result in salary increases. BILLINGS Wildlife advocates are asking Montana officials to ban trapping along much of the state's border with Idaho to protect a cat-sized predator living in old-growth forests. Representatives of five environmental groups said in a petition submitted Tuesday to Montana wildlife commissioners that trapping is a serious threat to the Northern Rockies fisher. The fanged predators that feed on porcupines once ranged at least five states. They're now limited to an area straddling the Montana-Idaho border. Federal wildlife officials say at least 100 of the animals were killed in Montana between 2002 and 2016. Idaho prohibits trapping fishers, but 86 were killed by trappers accidentally in that time period. Federal wildlife officials in 2017 said fishers were not in danger of extinction despite worries about habitat loss and trapping. Love 5 Funny 0 Wow 2 Sad 3 Angry 3 Some state Republican legislative priorities require questioning. The 66th Montana legislative session is only a few days old, and we have already seen a head-scratching priority come from the majority party. Montana Senate President Scott Sales has announced that he will be sponsoring a bill to appropriate $8 million of state money toward building the wall. Never mind that our state revenue fell to such extreme lows in 2017 that the governor had to call a special session to address the crisis, and our social service net in Montana has lacked essential funding for the better part of a decade. Thousands of Montanans are at risk of being thrown off their only avenue for health care, many children dont attend preschool because families cant afford it and our states infrastructure is aging at an alarming rate. This money needs to stay in Montana. That $8 million could provide preschool for 400 kids. That $8 million could provide water and sewer projects in communities across the state. That $8 million dollars could account for 1/3 of the cost of the states share for Medicaid. I was interested to hear that Montana State Senate President Scott Sales came up with the brilliant plan to donate $8 million of Montana tax money to Trump's campaign to build a wall. If the government statistics are correct, we need a wall as protection from the six potential terrorists who tried to enter the United States last year through our southern border along with the families seeking asylum. Since there are those narrow-minded Montanans who would object to using our tax money to help the president get his wall instead of funding our state programs, I have a humble suggestion. I propose that Sales pledge any money he makes as a legislator ($90.64 per day salary, plus $114 per diem a day) be donated specifically for the border wall. He should use his influence as the state senate president to encourage all the other legislators to donate their salaries as well. Perhaps Sales could suggest we shut down our state government in sympathy with the president. After all, if part of the federal government is shut down, using Sales' logic, shouldn't our Legislature shut down too? Carlson received more than 100 units of blood and blood products in the days following the shootout. His heart stopped multiple times on an operating room table. He was not released from Wyoming Medical Center for more than a month. Carlson said he had applied for and received a medical retirement as a result of the injuries he sustained in the shootout. Carlson said the physical injuries he suffered will keep him from being able to return to work as a patrol officer. He has a bullet still lodged in his knee, is unable to lift the toes of one foot, and suffers from scarring on his heart and nerve damage across the left side of his body. Although Chief Keith McPheeters offered him his choice of jobs, Carlson said, he didnt see a future for himself with the department. The officer has become depressed, anxious, irritable and easily agitated since the shootout, a marked change from his typically more laid-back attitude, he said. He has not received a formal medical diagnosis regarding his psychological struggles, he said, but his counselor told him she wouldnt be surprised if he were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. How Buffalo Bill took on the Wild Bunch will be the next topic of discussion by Jeremy Johnston at the Pahaska Corral of Westerners. The meeting will be held on Monday, Jan. 28, at the Governors Room in the Irma Hotel in Cody, Wyoming, beginning with a no-host dinner starting at 6 p.m. and followed by the presentation around 7 pm. Both the meal and the program are open to the public; however, due to limited seating, nonmembers must RSVP by emailing Jeremy Johnston at jeremyj@centerofthewest.org. After bandits attempted to rob the bank in Cody, Wyoming, the newspapers blamed the famed Wild Bunch. When asked about the outlaws, Buffalo Bill told the reporters, We want them dead rather than alive! Despite Buffalo Bills efforts to kill them, literally after the failed bank job and dramatically within reenactments of their train robberies in Buffalo Bills Wild West, the fame of the Wild Bunch continued to flourish and expand. Throughout the 20th century, the iconic image of western train robbers (including the Mormon boy from Utah who achieved international fame under the pseudonym Butch Cassidy) eclipsed the great engineering achievement of linking the East Coast with the West Coast at Promontory Point in 1869. WASHINGTON Wyoming's representative, Rep. Liz Cheney, on Tuesday called on Rep. Steve King to resign, exposing a rift among GOP leaders as the controversy over the Iowa Republican continues coming to a head. "I agree with Leader McConnell actually. I think he should find another line of work," said Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican. That was a reference to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who on Monday said if King did not know what was wrong with white supremacy and white nationalism, as he said in a recent New York Times article, he should get out of politics. "I think you've seen now repeated - this wasn't the first time - but his language questioning whether or not the notion of white supremacy is offensive is absolutely abhorrent. It's racist. We do not support it or agree with it," Cheney said. Other Republicans, notably Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, have also called on King to resign. This, he noted, was well below the 20 percent deficit facing the Legislature at the start of last year's budget session, which saw massive spending cuts. Were not out of the woods yet," said Scott. "We have to be careful, but were not facing a disaster. Bebout said in a Monday interview with the Star-Tribune that there were a number of tax reforms on the table this session, as well as some other bills that could help address some of the gap. However, much of the burden would fall on funding for K-12 education. The bigger issue is when you look down the road, in this case four years out, theres a structural deficit," said Bebout. "Were trying to get that number as best we can its a guestimate so far but its looking like $400 million over the biennium, and mostly for K-12 education. Though Bebout said the state's rainy day funds could cover between six and eight years of funding gaps, thats not the way to run a government he said. For now, the righting of Wyoming's finances will come in pieces; even in areas like former Gov. Matt Mead's $148 million supplemental budget, whose recommendations are currently being debated in the JAC. The Fort Robinson Outbreak Spiritual Run, on its face, commemorates a historical event the escape of ancestors of the Northern Cheyenne from captivity at Fort Robinson in Nebraska on Jan. 9, 1879. The 400-mile relay run has been trodden by Northern Cheyenne youths for more than 20 years. As children have gotten older, their leadership has been essential to the run, and to the fabric of the tribe. Its truly powerful to see the young people starting to step up, said Lynette Two Bulls, an organizer for the run. But this year they were missing one of their own. Henny Scott, a 14-year-old girl who participated in the run for several years and was slated to again this year, was found dead on Dec. 28, weeks after being reported missing. Her death has galvanized advocates aiming to highlight alarming rates of missing or murdered Native American women. Leonard Lundby, with the Montana Fire Alliance and chief of the Manchester Volunteer Fire Department west of Great Falls, said that while he doesn't want to see fireworks stands shut down, the state's neediest volunteer departments can't afford on their own to cover volunteers. "It is only meant to help the poorest of the poor fire departments to provide and pay for workers' compensation coverage for their volunteers. We're asking for a chance to do this, and lest you think that fireworks don't impact fire service in Montana and its ability to provide services, I would invite you to ride on any of my engines on the Fourth of July or the week leading up to the Fourth of July. I assure you it will change your mind," Lundby said. Rich Cowger, chair of the Montana State Fire Chiefs' Association and chief of the Columbus Rural Fire District, said many of the smaller departments in the state debate "do we put fuel in the trucks or do we buy workers compensation for our folks that protect our people?" Cowger said the money would not be used to subsidize larger departments who can afford the coverage. Several people involved in the fireworks industry spoke in opposition to the bill Monday in the House Taxation Committee. Poudel calls for enquiry into Deubas role in aircraft deal Senior Nepali Congress leader Ram Chandra Poudel on Monday said that the alleged involvement of party President Sher Bahadur Deuba in the controversial wide-body aircraft purchase deal will be established only after a thorough probe. Humanities Montana and Red Lodge Ales will host the Think & Drink program Informed Citizen with journalists Erika Fredrickson and Ed Kemmick from 6 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday. The program will be in Sams Taproom at Red Lodge Ales. The event is part of the Hometown Humanities initiative bringing free, public humanities programs to a rural Montana community for a year. According to a news release from Humanities Montana, the public is invited to join in a discussion about how journalists across the country are looking for new models to revive independent media in small and mid-sized towns, how social media has changed media, the line between financial support and editorial oversight, and other hazards and joys of a free press in a democracy. Fredrickson is a journalist and the former arts editor for the Missoula Independent. She spent 10 years there covering the local arts scene and writing in-depth cover stories until Sept. 11, 2018, when Lee Enterprises shut the paper down. She now works as a freelance writer, editor and podcaster. Kemmick is a 40-year newspaper veteran who published the online-only newspaper Last Best News in Billings from 2014 to 2018. He is an author, editor and musician. Funding for the program is provided by Humanities Montana through grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Montanas Cultural Trust, and private donations. Humanities Montana strengthens communities through stories, conversation and reflection. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Marcus Bass, executive director of the N.C. Black Alliance, speaks at a Jan. 11, 2019 rally at the federal building in Raleigh, protesting an unresolved 2016 investigation of irregularities in the 9th U.S. Congressional District. (CJ photo by Don Carrington) Republican Rep.-elect Mark Harris says he expects a state court will certify him the winner of the disputed 9th U.S. Congressional District election. He will go to Washington despite what he considers political interference by a Democratic-controlled state elections board to scuttle his victory.In an exclusive interview Friday with Carolina Journal, Harris said he received positive feedback from North Carolina's Republican congressional delegation during a teleconference call with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, and the National Republican Congressional Committee.Some congressional Democrats have said they won't seat Harris. They've vowed to go to court if necessary to block him. Harris said some election board Democrats may have intentionally delayed his certification to give their party a chance to gain the seat.Wake County Superior Court officials said Friday no hearing date has been set on Harris' petition to have the court declare him the winner over Democrat Dan McCready, who trails by 905 votes in the unofficial count. Monday is the deadline for all sides to file their legal arguments with the court.Getting state certification is the key, Republican lawmakers told him. Even though the U.S. House has the authority to call for a new election, Harris cited statements from members in Congress in both parties that elections should be run by the states."It raises serious suspicions about what was going on that now leaves me unable to be in Washington at one of the most crucial times for our country," he said, citing the partial government shutdown.Harris noted the possibility that Democrats Andy Penry and Joshua Malcolm, former chairmen of the Bipartisan State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement, might have neglected their duties as neutral, quasi-judicial arbiters.The state elections board refused to certify the results, and ordered an investigation into alleged election fraud. A Jan. 11 evidentiary hearing was canceled after a court order dissolved the board due to its unconstitutional structure.Harris noted the three-judge panel's order took Malcolm to task for failing to meet court deadlines. This left voters disenfranchised without an elected representative, the judges wrote. It influenced the judges' decision to dissolve the board even though results in the 9th District and a handful of local races hadn't been certified.Residents of the 9th District "are being taxed without representation, and it is a crying shame that we can see political things such as this begin to get in the way of what is happening," Harris said.Penry resigned Dec. 1 after nasty social media attacks he launched against Republicans surfaced.Gov. Roy Cooper tapped Malcolm to succeed Penry. Malcolm and the state elections board failed initially to fully disclose communications between Malcolm and Jens Lutz, a Democratic member of the Bladen County Board of Elections, about alleged absentee ballot irregularities in Bladen County. Malcolm also failed to disclose the potential conflict of interest at board meetings.Cooper appointed Lutz chairman of the Bladen County elections board in April 2018. Lutz unexpectedly resigned in December after making a series of allegations about lax security measures at the county elections board. He's refused to comment publicly on those charges.Lutz is a former business associate with Leslie McRae Dowless, the GOP political operative named a person of interest in allegedly widespread and possibly illegal ballot harvesting for Harris. That is the act of obtaining absentee ballots en masse and submitting them to elections officials. By law only the voter, near family members, or guardians may submit those votes. Dowless denies any wrongdoing. Both Lutz and Dowless have criminal records.Bobby Ludlum, the current Bladen County Board of Elections chairman, refutes all of Lutz's claims, and affidavits of others alleging improprieties, in a sworn affidavit Harris plans to file with the court Monday to support his petition for certification.Malcolm's flip-flopping also has been questioned.In 2016 the board accepted a motion from Malcolm dismissing a challenge by Dowless. Dowless said absentee ballot violations by the Bladen County Improvement Association helped Cooper defeat incumbent Republican Gov. Pat McCrory. Malcom said there weren't enough questionable votes to change the outcome of Cooper's win.But after the November 2018 election, Malcolm made the motion not to certify Harris' win even though there weren't enough votes at issue for McCready to defeat Harris.Harris said no one has told him why his certification was denied, even though the McCready campaign didn't ask for a recount. Nor was a challenge of the results issued by the legal deadline. Moreover, all the election boards in the counties comprising the 9th District validated their vote totals.Harris said he doesn't regret hiring Dowless. Harris said he knew Dowless helped an opponent in the 2016 GOP congressional primary deliver unusually high absentee votes, and Bladen County officials who vouched for Dowless were credible.Although Dowless is the subject of a 2016 report about ballot harvesting the state elections board sent to the U.S. Attorney's Office to investigate, Harris said after two years Dowless has not been charged with any crimes, and the court system considers a person innocent until proven guilty. He said some of the 2018 affidavits against Dowless are starting to crumble amid media investigations (see here, here, and here).Friday morning, about three dozen protesters rallied outside the state elections board office in Raleigh. They marched to the federal courthouse to deliver more than 200 petitions calling for Robert Higdon, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, to meet with Bladen County community members and give answers about the 2016 investigation. Many in attendance said they lived outside of 9th District. Some were from South Carolina.Marcus Bass, executive director of the N.C. Black Alliance, was among the speakers claiming votes were stolen, and law enforcement officials aren't investigating fully.If it happened in Bladen County, and the 9th District, it could happen elsewhere, Bass said.Jen Ferris of Progress North Carolina complained about voter ID laws, gerrymandered voting districts, and changes to polling places and early voting hours.Ferris told the sign-waving, chanting protesters.Meanwhile, a Washington Post report released Saturday said some of the 9th District residents who worked with the U.S. Attorney's Office on the 2016 report are frustrated. They say nothing was done to publicize the alleged ballot harvesting before last year's election or make people aware of prosecutors' interest in Dowless.Harris said he was blindsided by the 2016 report, first released publicly just before Christmas, and was disturbed the elections board waited so long to release it, depriving candidates of information to consider in hiring decisions. Despite his misgivings about the elections board, he says the staff has treated him fairly. He continues to support the investigation, and said he is unaware of any misconduct by his campaign. President Trump is moving toward his 2024 candidacy as per all indications from his enlightening address to the NC GOP on June 5, 2021. Considering this political vector as a distinct possibility: What is your electoral pleasure as an integral cog in this Representative Republic? No Vote: Mr. Trump will never be president again as we boldly march toward a Socialist society. Yes Vote: Mr. Trump was the best president since Ronald Reagan, and we need a real leader, who is fully cognitive of that responsibility in these tumultuous times.. Richard Gathercole, alleged to be the "AK-47 bandit who robbed a Nebraska City bank in 2014, was set to enter a plea Tuesday but instead asked for a different court-appointed attorney and more time to prepare for trial. U.S. Magistrate Judge Cheryl Zwart denied the motion for a new attorney after a closed-door meeting with Gathercole and his current attorney, Jon Braaten. Gathercole now is set for trial March 25 on a six-count indictment in connection with the robbery of $90,000 at First Nebraska Bank and his arrest in Dawson County in 2017. The 40-year-old from Roundup, Montana, was arrested June 19, 2017, at a gas station near Lexington following an earlier shootout with a Kansas Highway patrolman, a high-speed chase and a carjacking. In the indictment, Gathercole was accused of being in a stolen pickup and in possession of an improvised explosive device with six containers and two homemade detonators with handwritten labels the day he was arrested. He also was accused of the holdup, one in a series of bank robberies and attempted robberies across five states that law enforcement believe to have been committed by the suspect dubbed the AK-47 bandit because of the rifle he brandished when he went in the banks. Reach the writer at 402-473-7237 or lpilger@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJSpilger. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Shell service stations are to carry a new range of food-to-go products including sandwiches and wraps created by chef Jamie Oliver. The Jamie Oliver Deli by Shell range comprises more than 80 products that will launch into 500 Shell service stations from the end of this month. Alongside salads, sushi, hot pots and a kids mealbox are items including: Black pepper mayo BLT: With tomato, bacon, crispy lettuce with black pepper mayo; With tomato, bacon, crispy lettuce with black pepper mayo; Mediterranean roast veg & ricotta wrap: With one portion of daily fruit and veg, this rainbow wrap includes roast veg and ricotta; With one portion of daily fruit and veg, this rainbow wrap includes roast veg and ricotta; Smoked cheese & slaw spicy chipotle chicken sandwich: With chipotle ketchup, slaw, smoky cheese, chicken and fresh spinach; With chipotle ketchup, slaw, smoky cheese, chicken and fresh spinach; Horseradish & red onion tuna mayo sandwich: With sweet-pickled red onion, fresh rocket and a punchy mayo. The front-of-pack on all products features traffic-light labelling showing the fat, saturated fats, sugar and salt content. Shell said the launch followed an IPSOS Mori survey of more than 2,000 adults that showed 56% of UK drivers wanted healthier choices at forecourts. The company said the range contained more fruit, veg and colour to meet this demand. Across the UK were seeing a growing trend towards healthier food, but it has to taste good and be convenient, said Shell retail executive vice president Istvan Kapitany. Working with Jamie and his team, this exciting new range has been designed to give our customers the choices they want when theyre on the move. Oliver said food-on-the-go was becoming a bigger, more normal part of busy, modern lives. Its essential we make it more enjoyable through better-quality ingredients and exciting flavours, he added. Oliver marked the launch of the Deli by Shell range by sampling the products with London cabbies at their shelter in Russell Square. The shelter is one of only 13 remaining in London that were built in the 19th century to offer shelter and wholesome food to hansom cab drivers. BURBANK, Calif.The ANME Founders Show wrapped its two-day run Monday, with exhibitors showcasing new products as well as strengthening relationships with colleagues. Doc Johnsonone of the original Founderswas front and center in the main ballroom, showcasing additions to several collections, including Kink by Doc Johnson, Main Squeeze and The D. Ryann Brooks, marketing coordinator for Doc Johnson, noted the mega-manufacturer continuously pays attention to customer feedback, which recently led to the creation of the Squirting Cumplay Cock in the Kink range. Other additions are three new wrist/ankle cuffs made of hemp and fully adjustable thanks to included pull tabs, as well as a Flex Extender for the ranges fucking machine. The Crystal Jellies line got an update with new shapes and new packaging, while The D collection added two new shapes, the Uncut D and the Fat D. Some of the biggest additions were to the companys Main Squeeze and Man Squeeze lineups. Adult performers Katrina Jade, Lela Star and Ariana Marie were all molded for their own strokers while, based on the success of the first model based on a social media star, @playmateiryna, Doc Johnson added versions molded from @ana.lorde, @viking.barbie and @brittanya187 (display pictured above). We really rely on analytics, and our new social media stars in the Main Squeeze line are those who really have not just followers, but also engagement, interaction and more, explained Thao Dipolito, marketing manager for Doc Johnson. Combined, the new models boast more than 30 million social media followers, and @brittanyaq187 is in the Top 50 accounts on Instagram. For fans of men, the Man Squeeze added three new models molded from popular performers: Sean Cody exclusive Randy, and William Seed and Ryan Bones from Men.com. In addition to strokers molded from their asses, the mens penises also were molded for dildos. Other performers releasing Doc Johnson dildos molded from their cocks are Xander Corvus and Jason Luv. Continuing its partnership with Doc Johnson, Foria also was featured in the booth, this time introducing their new For Intimacy Vape Pens and new massage oils. Foria is a company focused on womens sexual wellness by creating products that features botanicals and sun-grown and organic CBD. The Vape Pens come in three flavors, each designed for use at various states of sexual arousal: during foreplay (Cocoa Mint), during sexual activity (Tropical Bouquet) and during recovery (Forest Spice). Each pen contains 200 mg of CBD. In the Earthly Body booth, company reps showcased the latest scents of their popular Hemp Seed 3-in-1 Massage Candles. The summer scents are Island Fever, Tropical Bliss and Bikini Bombshell. Island Fever features notes of tropical pineapple, island mango and sheer musk, while Tropical Bliss blends cool coconut, papaya and sweet bourbon, and Bikini Bombshell combines the aromas of sparkling pink champagne, green hibiscus and sandalwood. Topco Salesanother of the Foundersalso was set up in the main ballroom, and buyers and attendees were treated to its new Jackhammer Multi-Sensation Pussy & Ass masturbator. The piece is designed to deliver a realistic sexual experience with ultra-realistic tugging, squeezing and pulling on command. A wired remote control helps the masturbator heat up to a lifelike temperature and power through six functions of vibration and massage functions. Made from Topcos proprietary CyberSkin material, the piece features two openings, and comes with a bottle of CyberSkin Water-based Lubricant, bonus warming ward and more. Also on display in the booth was the new Lure Sleep-Well Collection. The essential oil, diffuser and spray can be used together to create a relaxing sleep environment by relaxing the mind and body. The spray and the oil can be placed on sheet, pillows and comforters without leaving any stains. In the Nasstoys booth, company reps met with buyers to display the expanded dual layer dong collection RealCocks. Icon Brands debuted its new Fisting Trainer System, considered one of the first training kits specifically for fisting in the pleasure products industry. The collection boasts the previously released The Finger and The Grip and now features the Two-Fisted Grip. Among the popular items in the Blush Novelties booth were the new soft BDSM/fetish line Temptasia, and the additions to the Avant range of brightly colored and uniquely shaped dildos and plugs. The ANME Founders Show is scheduled to return in July. Visit ANMEFounders.com for more information. Anti-porn crusaders are celebrating Donald Trumps nomination of William Barr, 68, to be the next Attorney General of the United States, fondly recalling Barrs first term as the countrys top law enforcement officer from 1991 to 1993, when Barr led a campaign of anti-porn prosecutions and was praised by President George H.W. Bush for the superb job he did cracking down on obscenity, according to a report in the conservative Washington Examiner newspaper. Senate confirmation hearings for Barr open Tuesday, January 15, at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Donna Rice Hughes, president of the anti-porn group Enough is Enough, applauded Barrs nomination, saying in a press release that Trump had pledged to appoint an attorney general to aggressively enforce federal obscenity, child pornography, sexual predation, and sex trafficking laws. In a 1991 speech, Bush 1 praised Barrs legal crusade against porn sold through the mail, saying "We have virtually eliminated that horrible mail order obscenity business. Imagine the indiscriminate mailing of hard core pornography into American homes?"One victim of the government's crackdown on adult mail-order businesses was the fledgling Adam & Eve, as related in Philip D. Harvey's excellent book, The Government Vs. Erotica. But Barr left the AGs job several years before the advent of the World Wide Web made online porn readily and available to anyone with an internet connection. Patrick Trueman, former head of the Justice Department Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, also praised Barr for expanding his focus beyond illegal child pornography, and aggressively attacking mainstream porn involving adults as well. He didnt take the easy route, which is just to prosecute child pornography, Trueman told The Examiner. I have been in his office one-on-one talking about the issue of obscenity, and I can say he was very sincere about it." Barr himself has been open about his views regarding obscenity and other forms of sexual immorality, writing in a 1995 article published by the journal The Catholic Lawyer that the purpose of American government should be to impose a transcendent moral order with objective standards of right and wrong that flows from Gods eternal law. We have lived through 30 years of permissiveness, the sexual revolution, and the drug culture, Barr wrote, as quoted by The Daily Beast. We have had unprecedented violence. We have had soaring juvenile crime, widespread drug addiction, and skyrocketing venereal diseases. In the article, Barr condemned secularists who through legislative action, litigation, or judicial interpretation... continually seek to eliminate laws that reflect traditional moral norms... chipping away at laws designed to restrain sexual immorality, obscenity, or euthanasia. But Hustler publisher Larry Flynt said that Barr poses a threat to the porn industry, saying, "they cant keep our streets clean, so they want to keep our minds pure by dictating our reading habits. Free Speech Coalition spokesperson Mike Stabile told the Examiner that Trumps appointment of Barr could be a way for Trump to draw attention away from his own connections to porn, such as his affair with AVN Hall of Famer Stormy Daniels. "We've long worried that Trump's anxiety about his porn connections would cause him to over-correct, Stabile said. After all, what better way to distract evangelicals and anti-porners from your relationship to porn and porn stars than to attack it? Photo By C-SPAN/Wikimedia Commons Public Domain Politics in full play as accusations fly over tainted jet purchase deal In most of Nepals high profile corruption cases, politics has a crucial role to playand this is evident once again after the credibility of a parliamentary committees investigation into two Airbus aircraft purchase deal came into question. On July 11 of last year, AVN Hall of Famer Stormy Daniels was arrested in the middle of a stage performance at the Sirens strip club in Columbus, Ohio, as AVN.com reported at the time. She was charged with violating a rarely-enforced local law that prohibits nude or semi-nude performers from initiating any sort of physical contact with audience members, after she motorboated a female undercover vice officer during her show, and used "her bare breasts to smack patrons. But the three misdemeanor charges against her were dropped in less than 24 hours, as Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs called the arrest a mistake. And now, six months later, Daniels has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the four police officers who orchestrated her arrest: Shana Keckley, Whitney Lancaster, Mary Praither and Steven Rosser. According to a report Monday by The Columbus Dispatch, Daniels lawsuit seeks $2 million in damages from the officers. At the time of her arrest, Daniels had already become a controversial national figure, regularly appearing in news headlines thanks to her lawsuit against Donald Trump over a $130,000 hush money deal designed to stop her from talking about a sexual encounter that she had with Trump in 2006. Shortly after the arrest in July, Daniels attorney, Michael Avenatti, claimed that the arrest was politically motivated, orchestrated by the officers out of their support for Trump. Avenatti, however, is listed only as a consulting attorney on Daniels lawsuit against the Columbus officers. The suit was filed by two local attorneys, Chase Mallory and Daniel Sabol, according to the Dispatch report. Subsequent news investigations appear to support Avenattis initial claims that Daniels arrest was planned in advance, possibly for political reasons. As AVN.com reported, internal police emails obtained by a local news outlet showed one of the officers, Keckley, boasting that the arrest was all over CNN as well as sharing news clippings about Daniels' performance days before Daniels arrived in Columbus. In one email about the arrest, Keckley tells another officer, Youre welcome!!!!! ... Thank me in person later. The lead detective in the arrest, Rosser, was shown, in a series of his own social media posts, to be an outspoken supporter of Trump. Rosser posted a series of pro-Trump memes to an account on which he used an alias, with one of the memes including a Cops for Trump/Pence logo. In September, the Columbus Police Department appeared to acknowledge that there may be substance to the claims of political motivations in Daniels' arrest, in that he shut down the vice unit entirely as the department conducted a comprehensive review of the vice cops activities. The FBI also reportedly opened an investigation in September into why the arrest happened. In addition to demanding $1 million in compensatory damages from the officers, plus another $1 million in punitive damages, Daniels' lawsuit asks the court to declare that the arrest violated her constitutional rights, according to ABC News. Photo By ABC News YouTube Screen Capture A new, proposed internet censorship law being pushed in India by the government of 68-year-old Prime Minister Narendra Modi (pictured above) would force social media sites to remove any content that the government deems unlawful, under an expansive definition that includes porn, as well as any other posted material determined by authorities to be defamatory, indecent, immoral, hateful or threatening to the public order, according to a Los Angeles Times report on the prospective law. Under the proposed amendments to the current Information Technology Act in the country of more that 1.3 billiona population almost equal to one of every five human beings on Earthany social media platform with more than five million users would be required to maintain an office in India with personnel on staff who could respond quickly to government demands to remove the supposed unlawful content, according to the Times report. Content deemed to violate the rules would be required to be taken down within 24 hours of notification by the government. According to a definition posted online by the Indian government last week, unlawful material includes anything that could be seen as grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, pedophilic, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically objectionable, disparaging, relating or encouraging money laundering or gambling, or otherwise unlawful in any manner whatever. And thats not all. The definition also covers political speech, including any content that threatens the unity, integrity, defense, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order, or causes incitement to the commission of any cognisable offense or prevents investigation of any offense or is insulting any other nation. The supposed purpose of the law was to control the spread of online fake news, which has posed a life-threatening problem in India, where last year an online hoax spread through rural regions of the country claiming that gangs of kidnappers were abducting children in large numbers. The stories, which had no basis in fact, led to riots, beatings and even lynchings, including the brutal killing of a 63-year-old woman who reportedly had stopped on her way to a religious service to give some candy to a group of children, only to have onlookers decide she was one of the imagined kidnappers. There are about 300 million Facebook users in India, and while the social media giant already bans porn, as AVN.com has reported, Twitter which has tens of millions of Indian users, according to Reuters, does not. The encrypted text messaging app WhatsApp also has 200 million users in India and was the main vehicle for the spread of last years child kidnapping rumors. The Indian government, however, says that the law, set to take effect on January 31, will make social media safer for all users, with Information Technology official Gopalakrishnan S. telling Reuters, rather implausibly, This is not an effort to curb freedom of speech, or impose censorship. Photo By World Economic Forum/Wikimedia Commons A rare copy of Britains most notorious porn novel has surfaced after an expert in rare books came across the 139-year-old edition of Fanny Hill by chance while cataloging a box of cigarette cards, according to a report in The Daily Mail. Now, the copy of the book, which for more than two centuries was one of the worlds most widely banned works of literature, will go on sale at auction January 22 in England. Originally titled Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by its author, John Cleland, who wrote the book as he sat in a London debtors prison in 1748, the book was banned in Britain a year later for itsrelative to its erafrank and explicit descriptions of sexual acts and intimate body parts. In the United Kingdom, the ban remained in place through the 1960s, finally being lifted when that decade wrapped up. "They called it the Swinging 60s but clearly erotic literature like this was viewed as too obscene to be seen by the masses half a century ago, said John Spencer, the antiquarian books expert who discovered the 1880 copy of Fanny Hill said, as quoted by the BBC. These days, after the likes of Fifty Shades of Grey, it's probably viewed as rather tame. It demonstrates just how much times have changed." In fact, Singapore finally lifted its ban on Fanny Hill in 2015. Written as series of letters by a wealthy Englishwoman, the narrator tells the story of her scandalous youth when as a naive country girl from Englands north, she moved to London and became a prostitute, describing her sexual adventures in painstaking detail. But Clelands prose has long been noteworthy for its complete lack of dirty words to describe sex acts, forgoing even such clinical terms as penis or vagina. Instead, the fictional woman of pleasure in the novel tells her story using extravagant, inventive and often flowery metaphors, describing her breasts, for example, as two hard, firm, rising hillocks, and a womans posterior as luxurious tracts of animated snow that splendidly filled the eye, till it was commanded by the parting or separation of those exquisitely white cliffs. Male sex organs received similar treatment, with one characters penis described as a mighty machine, and a scrotum as that storebag of natures prime sweets, which is so pleasingly attached to its conduit pipe from which we receive them. Cleland, a fervid, unhinged writer, conceived of Fanny as a hyperactive observer of bodies, wrote the literary journal The Paris Review, in a recent evaluation of the novel. No detail is too insignificant to mention, especially where it pertains to a body thats prone, aroused, or drowsily available. Since the ban on the book was lifted in the U.K. four decade ago, Fanny Hill has come to be considered a literary classic of sorts, frequently taught in university English courses. But not everyone sees it that way. If anyone tries to tell you that John Clelands Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure is a highbrow literary classic, dont believe them, said a recent essay on the novel in the literary journal Ploughshares. This 18th-century novel, one of the first major English-language pornographic novels, is pure smut. Theres minimal time spent between sex scenes, which feel increasingly repetitive as the book goes on: difficulty of initial penetration, check. Quickening toward an explosive mutual climax, check. An immediate round two: check and check. Spencer said that the copy of Fanny Hill he recently discovered also contained a newspaper clipping from the 1960s, giving an account of a police raid that seized 20,000 copies of the pornographic book from a publisher who dared to defy the ban on Fanny Hill. Photo By Wikimedia Commons Public Domain A reading of what is in Wikipedia about the history of the border between the U.S. and Mexico is not only recommended but it should be required reading prior to anyone deciding what should be done and/or not done as it relates to the wall. Visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_barrier. Since its inception in 1924, the U.S. Border Patrol aims to protect migrants, help them to seek asylum in case they need to and deport them in case they dont have a valid reason to be in our country. And, in recent decades laws have been enacted that further ensures the safety and territorial integrity of the U.S. They're included in the Immigration and Nationality Act. Unlike the flow of escaping immigrants from the Southern Hemisphere to the United States, when Germany got divided up between the Allies and Soviet Russia after World War II, the flow of escaping immigrants was one way: toward the Allied controlled half of Germany. The Soviets set up a formidable wall and other barriers to prevent people from escaping from East Germany. Since it was all one country originally with the people all speaking German, it was natural for the Allies to accept the inflow of Germans coming from East Germany. Syracuse teen admits to robbing Byrne Dairy in Auburn AUBURN A Syracuse teen pleaded guilty to robbing an Auburn convenience store with a loaded Strods described English as a "lost kid" who hung out with the wrong crowd and got into trouble. He noted that there wasn't a bullet in the chamber of the gun when in the store. He said English has turned his life around since the incident and currently has a full-time job. In hopes of encouraging English, Strods requested that his sentence be lowered so the majority of his adult life wouldn't be spent in state prison. The pre-sentence report indicated that English was a documented gang member, which Strods took issue with. Strods said English has denied any affiliation with gangs and the DA's office was asked not to say that he had gang involvement. He additionally requested all references to gang activity in the pre-sentence report be redacted. But Grome said there was information that indicated English had gang involvement. She added that he was involved in a gang-related shooting in Syracuse just days prior to his arrest in Auburn. "I regret everything I did," English said on Tuesday. Fandrich stuck with the previous agreement and sentenced English to eight years in prison on each of his felony counts, which will run concurrently, as well as five years of post-release supervision. English was also ordered to pay $215 in restitution and an order of protection was put in place for the victim. English, who was previously out on $100,000 bond, was handcuffed and led out of the courtroom by members of the Cayuga County Sheriff's Office. Staff writer Megan Ehrhart can be reached at (315) 282-2244 or megan.ehrhart@lee.net. Follow her on Twitter @MeganEhrhart. Love 0 Funny 3 Wow 0 Sad 3 Angry 7 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Cayuga County's public power agency is taking steps toward brokering electricity throughout the county, including an effort to line up a private operator for the controversial power generation facility owned by the city of Auburn but currently not being used. The Cayuga County Public Utility Service Agency recently released a request for proposals for consultants to develop a strategic plan that would outline things such as rate payments or organizational structure, agency officials said at its monthly meeting last week. The RFP was made as part of a $250,000 Clean Energy Community grant the county received from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority last year. Of that award, $80,000 was dedicated to CCPUSA for the development of a strategic plan. Cayuga County public utility to develop strategic plan to broker electricity AUBURN Cayuga County's public power agency is working to develop a strategic plan that wou "We've been trying on a small-scale budget to become an entity, and we've done a lot of legwork over the last 10 years and are looking to get involved with a couple of other projects to stand up and do that," CCPUSA Chairman and Cayuga County Legislator Paul Pinckney, R-Aurelius, said. Once CCPUSA is able to buy and sell electricity, Pinckney said, the agency's ultimate goal is to offer low-cost power as an economic development incentive to attract business, particularly manufacturers, to locate in Cayuga County. Since October, all of that has changed. "'Simple,' 'easy,' 'convenient' are the three buzzwords (for the new system)," Huber said. Participants now have an eWIC card that operates like a debit card at WIC-approved vendors. Huber said it's simple because there are no more paper checks; easy because there is no more sorting WIC groceries from regular groceries or by person at checkout; and convenient because participants can choose items from their benefits that they need and want when they go to the store, as items are no longer linked together. At checkout, participants simply swipe their card, enter a pin, all WIC items come off their grocery bill, and they pay for the rest. "Now, they have freedom and they have control, which they didn't really have before," Huber said. "One of the biggest things, too: Shopping now is so much more discrete. ... We've gotten a lot of great feedback from participants just saying how nice it is to now go shopping and not have people necessarily know they're using WIC anymore." While Cayuga County and all seven of its WIC vendors five in Auburn and one each in Cato and Moravia had fully integrated the eWIC system in October, the whole state hopes to be on the system by May, Huber said. The USDA has mandated that all states comply with eWIC by 2020. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Stacker compiled data for all films on Netflix to bring you the very best the streaming service has to offer, using IMDb user ratings and Meta In an interview Monday, Helming acknowledged that New York has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the country and agreed that reforms are needed to improve access. But she criticized the pace the Democratic-led Senate advanced the package she said it was "rushed" and expressed concerns about technical flaws with the bills. Her main criticism, though, was the cost to implement early voting and other reforms. "They're costly unfunded mandates that are going to be pushed down on our counties and that translates into higher taxes for the residents," she said. Helming cited the New York State Association of Counties' estimate that implementing early voting could cost up to $1 million for each county outside New York City. Stephen Acquario, executive director of the New York State Association of Counties, explained in a statement Monday that there are other costs to consider, such as the need for staffing and securing early voting locations. With the property tax cap in place, Acquario said counties can't afford new costs associated with early voting and other election reforms. He called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers to include funding in the 2019-20 state budget to cover the costs of implementing early voting. Democrats hailed the passage of the bills. Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins joked at the beginning of a press conference Monday afternoon that they were there to "urge our Republican colleagues to take up our bills" an acknowledgment of the conference's past struggles in advancing election reform proposals. Stewart-Cousins noted that other states already have early voting and allow same-day voter registration. "It's time for New York to catch up so that we can actually lead," she said. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Advocates praised the quick action on the electoral reform package. A coalition of activists joined Democrats for the press conference. Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause/NY and a founding member of the Let NY Vote coalition that pushed for early voting and other bills, called the reforms long overdue. "For years, New Yorkers have been demanding efficient, equitable and accessible elections and, finally, on the first full day of the legislative session both the Assembly and the new Senate majority, responded with a robust package of voting reforms, making clear their commitment to democracy," Lerner said. Nepal Investment Bank holding talks to recover money withdrawn by Sumargi Responding to written instructions from the central bank, Nepal Investment Bank said that it had started consultations with its legal advisors to bring back the money withdrawn by controversial businessman Ajeya Raj Sumargi on the basis of an interlocutory interim order issued by the Supreme Court on December 25. "That's just silly," he said by phone. "I would hope that we would not run our government that way." Antonacci didn't side with Democrats on every election reform bill. The most notable change is legislation to make New York the 38th state to allow early voting. The bill would create a nine-day early voting period that would end the Sunday before Election Day. The bill passed 48-13 in the state Senate. Antonacci joined 12 other GOP colleagues who voted against the measure. He has raised concerns about early voting before, such as the implementation costs and whether it would achieve its intended goal of increasing turnout. Antonacci also opposed a bill sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins to consolidate the federal, state and local primaries. The federal primary election and the state and local primary election have fallen on different dates in the past. Last year, the elections were held in late June and mid-September, respectively. The bill sponsored by Stewart-Cousins, a Westchester County Democrat, would consolidate the primaries. The primary election would be held on the fourth Tuesday in June. The United Nations Security Council is expected to approve on Wednesday a six-month observer mission to monitor a ceasefire in Yemen and oversee a pullback of forces, diplomats said. The council will vote at 9:30 am (1430 GMT) on a British-drafted resolution authorizing the deployment of up to 75 monitors, and diplomats said they expected the measure to be approved. The unarmed monitors would be sent to the rebel-held city of Hodeida and its port along with the ports of Saleef and Ras Issa for an initial period of six months. The port of Hodeida is the entry point for the bulk of Yemen's supplies of imported goods and humanitarian aid. Talks between the Saudi-backed government and Huthi rebels last month in Sweden on ending the devastating war led to an agreement on the observer force. A first group of about 20 monitors was authorized by the council last month to begin work in Yemen, but their mandate expires on January 20. The draft resolution calls on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to "expeditiously" deploy the United Nations Mission to support the Hodeida Agreement (UNMHA), led by retired Dutch General Patrick Cammaert. The UN says a ceasefire that went into force on December 18 in Hodeida has been generally holding, but there have been delays in the redeployment of rebel and government forces from the city. The Huthis control most of Hodeida while government forces are deployed on its southern and eastern outskirts. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday accused the rebels of failing to comply with the Hodeida truce agreement, after he held talks in Riyadh with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Since the Saudi-led military coalition intervened in support of the government in March 2015, the conflict has unleashed what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Nearly 10 million people in Yemen are on the brink of famine, according to UN aid officials, while 80 percent of the population -- 24 million people -- are in dire need of humanitarian aid. Retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert, center, leads the United Nations Mission to support the Hodeida Agreement The United Nations is struggling with close to $2 billion dollars in unpaid contributions to its peacekeeping budget, with current cash balances covering less than two months of operations, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned. Guterres told UN member-states in a letter sent last week that the world body was forced to tap into a capital fund and special account to cover expenses from the regular UN budget at the end of last year. "Active peacekeeping missions are soon expected to face liquidity gaps due to late payments and increasing arrears," Guterres wrote in the letter seen by AFP on Tuesday. "As of today, arrears are nearing US $2 billion and are likely to keep growing. Current cash balances cover less than two months of operations, compared to four months last year," he added. The UN peacekeeping budget that runs from July 2018 to June 2019 totals $6.7 billion, with the United States, China and Japan paying the bulk of that amount. More than 100,000 peacekeepers are deployed in 14 missions worldwide including major operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali and South Sudan that cost more than $1 billion annually to run. Guterres said he would be making proposals in the coming months to prevent the global organization from sliding into repeated financial crises. Last year, the UN chief wrote twice to member-states to raise alarm over the world body's finances. At the end of last year, unpaid contributions to the UN budget totaled $528.7 million. While 152 out of the 193 countries had paid their dues at the end of 2018, the regular UN budget ended the year with a cash shortfall of $323 million. Addressing a UN event of the G77 bloc of developing countries, Guterres warned that the serious financial problems "if left unchecked -- will put the continued functioning of our operations at risk." UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says contributions to peacekeeping operations are lagging Singapore insisted Tuesday it would still cane a British man convicted of drug smuggling despite a plea from London not to proceed with the punishment. Yuen Ye Ming was sentenced by a Singapore court last year to 20 years in jail and 24 strokes of the cane after he was convicted of drug-related offences, including trafficking, consumption and possession. Flogging with a rattan cane, a legacy of British colonial rule, is a common punishment in Singapore and the city-state rarely backs down in applying the law. Yuen was first arrested in August 2016 for drug-related offences and was convicted last year but released on bail pending sentencing, Singapore's interior ministry said. While out on bail, he was arrested again for similar narcotics offences, the ministry said. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt had asked his Singaporean counterpart during a visit to the city-state this month that Yuen be spared caning, a spokesman for Britain's foreign ministry said. "We strongly oppose the use of corporal punishment, such as caning, in all cases," the spokesman said. "The Foreign Secretary personally raised this with the Singaporean Minister for Foreign Affairs earlier this month." But Singapore insisted the punishment would be carried out. "Yuen committed the crimes while he was in Singapore, and must bear the consequences of his actions in accordance with our laws," the interior ministry said. While caning dates back to colonial rule, Britain abolished it as a punishment for criminals decades ago. Singapore has in the past rejected allegations from rights groups likening caning to torture. In 2015, two young German men were sentenced to caning and jail time for vandalising a metro train. Swiss national Oliver Fricker was also sentenced to caning and jail time in 2010 for vandalising a metro train. Flogging with a rattan cane, a legacy of British colonial rule, is a common punishment in Singapore Russia on Tuesday extended the detention of Ukrainian sailors captured together with their vessels off Crimea in November despite protests from Kiev and the West, defence lawyers said. Moscow's Lefortovo district court extended until at least April 24 the arrest of 12 of the 24 captured Ukrainian sailors including their commander Denys Grytsenko, defence attorney Nikolai Polozov told AFP. The other 12 were expected to be ordered to remain behind bars later Tuesday, he added. Western diplomats, Ukraine's top rights official Lyudmila Denisova and the sailors' relatives were present in court. The US embassy in Ukraine urged Russia to let those detained walk free. "Russia must release Ukraine's sailors immediately, not use them as political pawns," it said. "For over 50 days, Russia has unjustly detained Ukrainian sailors who were exercising Ukraine's freedom of navigation in its territorial waters. We are deeply concerned about their health and rights." In November Russia opened fire on three Ukrainian navy vessels as they tried to pass through the Kerch Strait from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov. The 24 Ukrainian crew members were detained, and three of them were wounded. The wounded sailors currently undergoing treatment in pre-trial detention in Russia also appeared in court. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has insisted the sailors are "prisoners of war" and should be immediately released. Russia has said the sailors will go on trial for violating its maritime borders. They face up to six years in prison for illegally crossing Russian borders, lawyers have said. Critics of the Kremlin have warned that Russia is preparing a show trial. Ukraine's Denisova said the sailors were holding up well. "True heroes," she wrote on Facebook. The capture of the Ukrainian ships was the most dangerous direct clash in years between the ex-Soviet neighbours. They have been locked in a confrontation since 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and supported an insurgency in eastern Ukraine. More than 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict. Russian security service officers escort a detained Ukrainian sailor to a Moscow cout which extended the pre-trial detention of 12 of the 24 captured seamen As prosecutors failed to land the scalp of yet another former national leader accused of crimes against humanity, the question echoed in the hallways of the International Criminal Court: is it fit for purpose? The acquittal on Tuesday of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo over post-electoral violence that killed 3,000 people was the latest in a series of blows for beleaguered ICC prosecutors. The court in The Hague was set up in 2002 to try the world's worst crimes, after years when the only route to justice for atrocities in countries like Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia was separate tribunals. Hamstrung from the start by the refusal of the United States and Russia to join, the court has since faced criticism for the fact that it has mainly taken on cases from poorer African nations. But the biggest challenge to the court comes from apparent overreach -- trying and failing to add top level leaders like Gbagbo to its trophy cabinet. "It compromises the faith in the ability of the Prosecution to bring cases against the most responsible in atrocity contexts and to satisfy expectations of victims and survivors," Carsten Stahn, professor of international criminal law at Leiden University, told AFP. Last year, former DR Congo warlord and ex-vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba was acquitted on appeal for crimes allegedly committed by his militia in the Central African Republic in 2002-2003. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta also saw charges of crimes against humanity over electoral bloodshed dropped by the ICC's prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, in 2014. The spotlight particularly falls on Gambia's Bensouda as the Gbagbo trial was the first real fruit of her own work at the ICC since taking over from previous prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. "Kenyatta and Bemba were warning shots. Gbabgo confirms the picture," added Stahn. "A clear lesson from these experiences is that there is a need for more thorough investigations leading to a sequence of cases per situation. Going immediately after high-ranking officials creates a strong risk of losing cases." - 'Serious questions' - The court has had more success targeting lower level war crimes suspects such as Congolese rebel warlords Thomas Lubanga and Germain Katanga, and Malian jihadist Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, found guilty of attacks on Timbuktu's fabled shrines. But Mark Kersten of the University of Toronto said the Gbagbo case would leave "serious questions about the ability of the ICC to successfully target and prosecute state actors." "No single case will make or break the ICC or the prosecutor?s office," he said, adding however that "the prosecutor?s office needs to convince the Court?s constituencies ? especially victims, survivors, and states ? that their personal, financial, and political investments into the ICC are worth it." Marta Bo, an international law researcher at the Hague-based Asser Institute warns "one should refrain from basing an opinion about the Court based only on this one decision." - 'Africa not targeted' - Perhaps the only bright spot in the Gbagbo debacle was that it would undermine one abiding public conception about the ICC, analysts said. "One positive that the prosecutor may be able to take from this is that it undermines the notion that the ICC unfairly targets ousted African leaders," said Kersten. Stahn agreed that "the decision makes it harder to claim that the ICC is biased against Africa. It is demonstration of the application of high fairness standards towards the defendants." The ICC also faces broader problems in asserting its legitimacy. Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir, accused of genocide and war crimes by the ICC over the conflict in Darfur, has for years evaded justice as member states have refused to arrest him even when he has travelled to their territory. Hindering the ICC is the fact that it does not have its own police force and is therefore dependent on member states to carry out arrests. Yet a greater threat still may come from the United States as the administration of Donald Trump pursues an increasingly isolationist course that scorns international institutions. US National Security Advisor John Bolton warned last year that the United States would arrest ICC judges if the court pursued US servicemen over alleged war crimes in Afghanistan. Acquitted: Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo in court Tuesday Kenya's president Uhuru Kenyatta, the first sitting head of state to appear before the ICC, was acquitted in 2014 Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir is accused of genocide US National Security Advisor John Bolton has warned hr eould arrest ICC judges if the court pursues US servicemen A year after Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic was killed in a drive-by shooting in Kosovo, his unsolved murder continues to haunt this tense and crime-ridden corner of Europe, where the main suspect is still on the run. The 64-year-old was struck down by six bullets in January 2018 outside his party headquarters in the Kosovo city of Mitrovica, where the Ibar river draws a line between a mainly ethnic Albanian community in the south and Serbs in the north. The bleak city is still a hotbed of tension 20 years after Kosovo broke away from Serbia in a separatist war, a move Belgrade has never accepted. Like most of the Serb minority in Kosovo, Ivanovic did not recognise Kosovo's independence. But the articulate politician but was considered rare among his ilk for efforts to build bridges with Kosovo Albanians, whose language he also spoke. His strong criticism of Belgrade's policies made him a frequent target of the scathing campaigns of Serbia's scathing pro-government tabloids, as well as of the local political allies of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. But it also cast him as a symbol of resistance among Serbian opposition groups, who will march through Belgrade in his honour on Wednesday, the first anniversary of his death. Ahead of the demonstration, which comes amid a series of anti-government protests in Serbia, a mural was painted in Belgrade depicting Ivanovic's face with a sombre gaze, next to his words: "One cannot live in an atmosphere of fear". - 'Wild West of the Balkans' - After his death, Serbian authorities were quick to suggest the murder was fuelled by ethnic hatreds. However, many Serbs say they believe the murder was more likely linked to Mitrovica's criminal underworld. Ivanovic had long maintained that crime, not ethnic divides, was the biggest curse in impoverished Mitrovica. Dubbed the "Wild West of the Balkans," the city's northern half is said to be a smuggling hub for goods ranging from drugs to petrol. In off-record comments to the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) that were made public after his death, Ivanovic described how "informal centres of power" were calling the shots in North Mitrovica. He named Milan Radoicic, a well-known Kosovo Serb politician and Belgrade ally, as one of the key players. In late November, Kosovo special police attempted to arrest Radoicic, whom they suspect was connected to Ivanovic's murder. Although they arrested three other Serb suspects, including two policemen, in North Mitrovica, when they got to Radoicic's house, he wasn't there. The 40-year-old's whereabouts remain unknown, though he is widely believed to have taken refuge in Serbia. Speaking to Serbian media after the raid from an unknown location, he insisted he had "nothing to do with Oliver Ivanovic's murder". - Lie detector tests - Radoicic has enjoyed a rapid rise in Kosovo Serb politics in recent years, becoming the second highest ranking member of the main "Srpska lista" party in June 2017. Locals say he was present at nearly every important meeting in Mitrovica, though they are hesitant to talk about him publicly. "I had been unemployed for years and everyone told me to go to Milan (Radoicic)," said one man who requested anonymity, explaining that the quid pro quo was his vote for Srpska lista. Radoicic's alleged role in the Ivanovic murder has now become the latest strain in Serbia and Kosovo's bitter relations. The politician has received strong backing from Belgrade throughout the ordeal, with the Serbian president previously describing him as a leader who "protects Serbia in Kosovo". Since the police raid, Vucic has kept up his defence of Radoicic, recently telling public broadcaster RTS that he "not only did not kill (Ivanovic), but he did not participate in logistics, help or anything else." As evidence, he said Radoicic had passed a lie detector test. Rada Trajkovic, an ethnic Serb politician in Kosovo, blasted Vucic for coming to his defence. "At this decisive moment, which must define relations with Kosovo, the president of Serbia sets in motion all the resources and apparatus of the state to defend and protect a suspect for a Serb crime against a Serb in northern Kosovo," she told local newspaper Danas. "It seems almost incredible." Over in Pristina, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has also been urging Serbia to cooperate in the murder investigation and not become a "haven" for Ivanovic's assassins. But as with most matters of dispute between the bitter neighbours, few have hope of a rapid resolution. The murder of Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic in January 2018 has still not been solved Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic was a strong critic of Belgrade's policies The Kosovan city of Mitrovica is still a hotbed of tension 20 years after Kosovo broke away from Serbia in a separatist war The survival of a key nuclear arms control treaty was cast further in doubt Tuesday after the US and Russia blamed each other for pushing the agreement to the brink of collapse. Senior diplomats from both countries met in Geneva amid widespread concern over the fate of the bilateral Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which successfully put an end to a mini-arms race after it was signed in 1987. US President Donald Trump said in October that his country would pull out of the deal unless Russia stops violating it. Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to develop nuclear missiles banned under the treaty if it is scrapped. "The meeting was disappointing as it is clear Russia continues to be in material breach of the Treaty and did not come prepared to explain how it plans to return to full and verifiable compliance," US Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, Andrea Thompson, said in a statement. "Our message was clear: Russia must destroy its noncompliant missile system," she said. Thompson will be in Brussels on Wednesday, where she plans to brief NATO allies on the INF talks. - US 'fully' to blame - Russia hosted the negotiations at its mission in Geneva and Moscow's delegation was led by deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov. Ryabkov said that if the deal is ditched, "responsibility for this fully and completely rests with the American side," according to quotes published by Russian news agencies after the talks. He added that said the parties had failed to agree on anything and Washington did not appear to be in the mood for more negotiations. "We are forced to acknowledge that there is no movement forward," Ryabkov was quoted as saying. "We are ready for dialogue on the basis of equality, mutual respect, (and) without putting forward ultimatums." - 60 day deadline - Last month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington would withdraw within 60 days from the Cold War treaty limiting mid-range nuclear arms if Russia does not dismantle missiles that the US claims breach the deal, which include Russia's 9M729 system, also known by the designation SSC-8. The INF was a bilateral treaty between the US and the then Soviet Union, so it puts no restrictions on other major military actors like China. Pompeo has also said the US was not prepared to cede this advantage to a rival and noted that American concerns about Russian compliance pre-date the Trump administration. Washington's top diplomat has accused Russia of shrugging off dozens of warnings from senior US officials over the past five years about the SSC-8. Ryabkov said Tuesday's talks in Geneva centred on SSC-8 system but that US demands regarding the missile were unacceptable. The landmark treaty was signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev and led to nearly 2,700 short- and medium-range missiles being eliminated. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has described the INF as "arms control at its best" but warned last month that the collapse of the agreement appeared likely. The landmark nuclear treaty was signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev and led to nearly 2,700 short- and medium-range missiles being eliminated A top North Korean diplomat was travelling to Sweden Tuesday, she told reporters, as speculation mounts over the next summit between the isolated state's leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump. Choe Son Hui, a North Korean vice-minister of foreign affairs, landed in Beijing on a flight from the North Korean capital Pyongyang. "I am going to an international conference in Sweden," South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted her as saying on arrival at the airport. Choe's trip comes as expectations grow for a second meeting between Kim and Trump -- despite a lack of progress in denuclearisation negotiations -- after the North Korean leader went to Beijing, long Pyongyang's key ally, last week for talks with President Xi Jinping. South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Kim's trip to China was a sign a second US-North Korean summit was "imminent", and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo added at the weekend that: "We're working out the details". Suggestions circulating among Korea-watchers for possible venues include Vietnam and Thailand, among others. Stockholm has a long history of mediating between Washington and Pyongyang -- while the two do not have diplomatic relations, Sweden is the protecting power for US citizens in the Asian country, and Choe has been intimately involved in the US-North Korean relationship. Before she assumed her current position, she was director general of the foreign ministry's North American department. She was also among the officials who accompanied Kim to Singapore for his first summit with Trump in June. The meeting, held in a blaze of publicity, saw the two men sign a vaguely worded document in which Kim pledged to work towards "the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula". But progress has since stalled with the two sides disagreeing over what that means. Pyongyang is seeking sanctions relief and rejects demands for what it calls its "unilateral" disarmament, while Washington insists that the punitive measures must stay in place until it gives up its nuclear arsenal. Citing a diplomatic source, the South's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported Tuesday that Kim Yong Chol, Pompeo's counterpart in the discussion process, was expected to visit Washington later this week for talks. There were no reports that he had passed through Beijing. Choe Son Hui was among the officials who accompanied North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to Singapore for his first summit with US President Donald Trump in June North Korean leader Kim Jong Un went to Beijing, long Pyongyang's key ally, last week for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said Washington and Pyongyang are 'working out the details' of a second Trump-Kim summit Musahar girl champions the cause of ending child marriage in community When Radhika Saday Musahar turned 16, her parents decided to marry her off. She was just a 10th grader at a local school. Gabon's Ali Bongo was back in Libreville on Tuesday after months abroad recovering from a stroke, ending an absence that has spurred political turbulence. Returning from Morocco in the early hours of the morning, Bongo presided over a ceremony at which ministers from the new government were sworn in, officials said. Gabon has been without an effective government for months since Bongo, 59, suffered the stroke in late October during a visit to Saudi Arabia. After initial treatment at a hospital in Riyadh, Bongo was transferred to Morocco where he spent just over six weeks, finally returning home to Libreville early on Tuesday, officials said. His return came eight days after a small group of renegade soldiers briefly tried to stage a coup before it was quashed by the security forces, who arrested the leader and killed two others. With Bongo's prolonged absence, the country had been in limbo for months and officials at the presidential palace did not say whether he was back for good or would return to the Moroccan capital Rabat for further convalescence. Late on Saturday, a new government was unveiled in a video announcement from Rabat although there were no significant changes to either the cabinet or the government. All 38 ministers arrived at the beachside presidential palace in Libreville on Tuesday morning and were sworn in at a ceremony presided over by Bongo which was closed to the press, officials said. - 'A very difficult ordeal' - Bongo has not been seen in public since he was taken to hospital on October 24 in Riyadh but official photos of the ceremony were due to be released later on Tuesday. "It was very moving to see him," government spokesman Nanette Longa-Makinda told AFP. "It will certainly take him several months to fully recover his physical abilities, that's for sure," one minister said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He looks like someone who has been through a very difficult ordeal," agreed another cabinet colleague who was present at the ceremony. "There can be no more talk about a power vacuum," a presidential spokesman insisted, echoing a phrase repeated by many ministers leaving the ceremony. But Bongo's return and the ceremony did little to quieten lingering suspicions among the public in this oil-rich West African state. "The circus goes on," tweeted Marc Ona Essangui, a leader within civil society, leader. When Bongo was first taken ill, the singular lack of official news -- along with memories of the secrecy around the death of his father Omar Bongo in 2009 -- had fuelled a flurry of rumours, including speculation he was incapacitated or even dead. The Bongo family has governed Gabon for five decades, and long maintained close ties with former colonial master France. Ali Bongo was elected head of state after his father's death and he was narrowly re-elected in 2016 following a presidential poll marred by deadly violence and allegations of fraud. Gabon's Ali Bongo has been abroad for for nearly three months recovering a stroke The jailing this week of former communist radical Cesare Battisti, a key figure in the violent turmoil in Italy of the 1970s, has brought back memories of a time when leftist killings raged across Europe and beyond. Battisti, 64, finally returned to jail in Italy on Monday after nearly four decades on the run following his escape from prison in 1981. Ultra-leftist groups like his own sowed chaos during the period in Italy known as the "Years of Lead" -- named after the number of bullets fired -- from the late 1960s to mid-1980s. Across Europe, it was a time when radical youths sought to smash the capitalist system with a wave of bombings, assassinations, hostage-takings and plane hijackings. West Germany's Red Army Faction, whose most extreme members were known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, carried out a string of attacks on "capitalist" targets such as police and US troops. France's Action Directe group also waged attacks in the name of the proletariat, while in junta-ruled Greece militants targeted the CIA, banks and industrialists among others. In Lebanon, radicals in the diaspora set up the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) to fight Turkish interests, mostly in Europe. And the Japanese Red Army, which waged terror at home and around the world, sought the overthrow of the country's monarchy along with a global revolution. Against the backdrop of the Vietnam war, the US-backed 1973 coup in Chile, student demos and trade union battles, a tide of anti-imperialist sentiment helped spur the radicals into violent action. - Wartime legacies - These groups built links and passed weapons across borders at a time when Palestinian guerillas like the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were also flourishing. Venezuelan Carlos the Jackal, for instance -- the most-wanted terrorist of the era -- was accompanied by the German radical Hans-Joachim Klein for his spectacular hostage-taking at the OPEC headquarters in Vienna in 1975. "At the end of the 1960s, young rebels were turning to armed action with the idea of fighting the last fascists," said Mosco Levi-Boucault, a French film director who produced a series about Italy's notorious Red Brigades. Just 15 years or so after the end of World War II, ex-fascists were prime targets for leftist revolutionaries. "At the time, Italian factories still employed former fascists as foremen," Levi-Boucault said. "One of them was found with his head shaved, tied to the gates of the Fiat factory in Turin." The man survived, but he was one of the lucky ones. In the most infamous of their attacks, the Red Brigades kidnapped and murdered Italy's former conservative prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978. Historian Marc Lazar, an expert on the period from the Institute of Political Science in Paris, said the fact that democracy was still relatively new in some countries made the resort to violence seem more acceptable. In Italy, he added, leftwing militants were also out to fight the far-right which was itself waging attacks -- such as the 1969 Milan bombing that left 16 dead -- in a bid to justify a return to an authoritarian regime. The particular violence in Italy, which Lazar estimates left more than 400 people dead, came from "one-upmanship in the escalation of violence between far-right and far-left". Battisti, who belonged to the Armed Proletarians for Communism group, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1971 for shooting dead two Italian policemen. After his jailbreak he lived for years in Brazil under the protection of former leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. But the country's new far-right President Jair Bolsonaro had vowed on the campaign trail to send Battisti back to Italy. Battisti went on the run again -- but was tracked down in Bolivia last week and swiftly extradited after authorities there ignored his asylum request. Battisti, who spent around a decade in Brazil, arrived back in Rome from Bolivia after an international police squad tracked down one of the key figures in Italy's violent turmoil of the 1970s Huawei's reclusive founder Ren Zhengfei stepped out of the shadows Tuesday to give a rare media interview, forcefully denying accusations that his firm engaged in espionage on behalf of the Chinese government. The company he founded more than 20 years ago has been under fire in recent months with the arrest of Ren's daughter and Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Canada, the arrest of an employee on spying charges in Poland, and a worldwide campaign by Washington to blacklist it. A former Chinese army engineer, Ren denied that Huawei passed information along to the Chinese government. "I love my country, I support the Communist Party. But I will not do anything to harm the world," Ren told a group of foreign reporters, according to Bloomberg News. "I don't see a close connection between my personal political beliefs and the businesses of Huawei," he said. Huawei faces unprecedented challenges to its business amid a global campaign by Washington to push nations to reconsider using the telecom giant's equipment in their cellular networks over security concerns. Australia and New Zealand banned its gear last year and a top British operator moved to remove its existing equipment, while concerns grow in Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and other countries. Last month Canada arrested Ren's daughter Meng on a US extradition request related to Iran sanctions violations. Ren said he missed his daughter very much and denied any regular contact with the Chinese government, according to the Financial Times. Some analysts say Beijing's ferocious response to her arrest points to the high-level connections that Washington alleges. Chinese authorities detained two Canadian citizens -- a former diplomat and a business consultant -- on suspicion of endangering national security soon after Meng's arrest in a move widely seen as retaliation. Then authorities revisited the little-known case of Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in November for drug offences. On Monday he was sentenced to death in a hastily arranged retrial -- China has denied any of the cases are connected to Meng's situation. In December President Donald Trump said he could intervene in the US case against Meng if it helped seal a trade deal with China -- a statement that displeased Canada, which has denied politics played a role in Meng's arrest. - 'Trump a great president' - "Trump is a great president. He dares to massively cut taxes, which will benefit business," Ren said at the roundtable with reporters. "Huawei is only a sesame seed in the trade conflict between China and the US," he said, according to Bloomberg. Ren told reporters Huawei would deny any request from Beijing to share sensitive information from its clients. Huawei has long rejected such Western accusations, saying there was "no evidence" it poses a threat to the national security of any country. But this month Poland arrested a Huawei employee suspected of spying for China. The firm swiftly sacked the employee Wang Weijing, who led Huawei's sales team in Poland, and said "his alleged actions have no relation to the company". Ren said he was not worried about the bans by some countries and forecast Huawei's revenue would grow to $125 billion in 2019. "Huawei is not a public company, we don't need a beautiful earnings report," he said. "If they don't want Huawei to be in some markets, we can scale down a bit. As long as we can survive and feed our employees, there's a future for us," he said, according to Bloomberg. Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said the firm would deny any request from Beijing to share sensitive information from its clients Hundreds of Hondurans have set out on a trek to the United States, forming another caravan that US President Donald Trump cited Tuesday to justify building a wall on the border with Mexico. "A big new Caravan is heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras," Trump tweeted Tuesday. "Only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe! Stop playing political games and end the Shutdown!" As the procession left the town of San Pedro Sula under a steady rain Monday night, one of the migrants summed up their plight: "We are leaving because there is crime and no work," said Juan Garcia, 52. Many said they had answered an anonymous social media posting referring to a January 15 migrant caravan leaving Honduras' second city. Most are young men, but the caravan also includes older people, including women carrying children. Some had wrapped themselves in the blue-and-white Honduran flag. "In this country, there is nothing. Only unemployment, corruption, violence, extortion, which is why we fled the country," said Darwin Omar Reyes, 19, from the capital Tegucigalpa. More than 500 people set out from the center of San Pedro Sula, which is 180 kilometers (110 miles) north of the capital Tegucigalpa. It was from the same transport hub that some 2,000 Hondurans left on October 13 in the first of a series of US-bound caravans. That and other migrant flows from El Salvador and Guatemala came to total some 13,000 people. - Tougher border policies - More than half turned around and went home, eventually. Hundreds -- down from much larger numbers late last year -- remain at the Mexican border with the United States, held back by tougher border policies under Trump and support among his base for his proposed border wall. Marlin Alcantara, 31, said from among a group of people in the back of a pick-up truck that she was fleeing domestic violence and had documentation that would support her entry to the US. She was travelling with two daughters aged nine and 13. "My particular case is delicate. We were victims of my mother's husband. The miserable man is in prison now but it's not enough. The worst thing is that she is on his side," said Alcantara. "That's why I made the decision to go," she said. Kevin Ramos, 18, worked at a coffee plantation in western Honduras before he was made unemployed two months ago. "With God's help, we can get a job in the United States," he said. He said his father had urged him to join the caravan. Many said they had lost hope under President Juan Orlando Hernandez. "We don't want that president, who is destroying our lives," said Javier Moran. Hernandez's rise to power in 2014 elections provided a surge of hope for Hondurans, but Moran said that a year into his second term, that hope had dissipated. - Living in shelters - According to Honduras' embassy in Mexico, around 2,500 Hondurans from earlier caravans are currently living in shelters in Mexico, and that only about 3 percent of them are likely to achieve their goal of asylum in the United States. The Honduran foreign ministry estimates that, in all, around 13,000 Hondurans arrived in Mexico in recent months, of which around 7,200 voluntarily returned to their country after being blocked at the Mexico-US border. A total of 11 migrants had died. The first caravan, on October 13, sparked a Twitter-borne stream of anti-migrant invective from the US president. Trump has refused to sign off on budgets for swaths of government departments in a showdown with Democrats over funding for his border wall project, leading to the longest government shutdown in US history. The president has made the migrant caravans one of his main targets as part of his broader anti-immigration drive in mid-term elections last November. Hondurans bound for the US gather outside a bus station in San Pedro Sula, north of the capital Tegucigalpa Honduran migrants taking part in the caravan walk through Santa Rosa de Copan on their way to the border with El Salvador Honduran migrants heading to the El Salvador border on their way to the United States Honduran migrants leave San Pedro Sula as part of a caravan heading to the United States Hundreds of Hondurans have set out on a trek to the United States, forming another caravan that US President Donald Trump cited Tuesday to justify building a wall on the border with Mexico. "A big new Caravan is heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras," Trump tweeted Tuesday. "Only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe! Stop playing political games and end the Shutdown!" As the procession left the town of San Pedro Sula under a steady rain Monday night, one of the migrants summed up their plight: "We are leaving because there is crime and no work," said Juan Garcia, 52. More than 500 people set out from the center of San Pedro Sula, which is 180 kilometers (110 miles) north of the capital Tegucigalpa. It was from the same transport hub that some 2,000 Hondurans left on October 13 in the first of a series of US-bound caravans. That and other migrant flows from El Salvador and Guatemala came to total some 13,000 people. More than half turned around and went home, eventually. Hundreds -- down from much larger numbers late last year -- remain at the Mexican border with the United States, held back by tougher border policies under Trump and support among his base for his proposed border wall. Trump has refused to sign off on budgets for swaths of government departments in a showdown with Democrats over funding for his border wall project, leading to the longest government shutdown in US history. The president has made the migrant caravans one of his main targets as part of his broader anti-immigration drive in mid-term elections last November. Hondurans bound for the US gather outside a bus station in San Pedro Sula, north of the capital Tegucigalpa Greece's parliament on Tuesday began a two-day debate on a confidence vote called by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras after his coalition collapsed in a row over a planned name change deal with Macedonia. "My conscience demanded that we exploit a historic opportunity, even if it entails political cost," the PM told the chamber. Tsipras called for the vote -- to be held on Wednesday night -- following the resignation of his ally and defence minister Panos Kammenos, head of the small nationalist ANEL party, after four years in coalition government. Tsipras' leftist Syriza party has 145 deputies in the 300-member parliament, but could win the confidence vote with just 120 votes if enough lawmakers abstain. The government "has another nine months and very important tasks to carry out," Tsipras said. "I ask parliament to renew its confidence in the government that took the country...out of the crisis," he said. A number of independent MPs, some from Kammenos' own party, have also pledged to support the government. Kammenos had been threatening for months to resign over the Macedonia deal, which aims to end a 27-year dispute between the two neighbours. Macedonian lawmakers last week approved a constitutional revision to rename their country the Republic of North Macedonia, but the agreement will only come into effect with the backing of the Greek parliament. Left unsolved, the dispute would have been a "burden" to regional stability, Tsipras said. "I am certain that what we are doing is right...(and) patriotic," Tsipras said. "There comes a time when each of us is judged by history," he said. His conservative opponent Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of the New Democracy party and ahead in opinion polls, said the name agreement was "damaging" as it "cedes" the use of Macedonian language and identity to Skopje. "We deserve better," Mitsotakis said. "The country needs a new government, we've lost too much time." The European Union and NATO have hailed the deal, which would lift Greek objections to Macedonia joining both organisations. The proposal faces resistance in Greece, which has a northern province of the same name just across the border, because of what critics see as the implied claims to Greek land and cultural heritage. For most Greeks, Macedonia is the name of their history-rich northern province made famous by Alexander the Great's conquests. In many cities in northern Greece, posters were put up overnight to urge local lawmakers to vote against the deal. "Will you betray our Macedonia?" the posters read, each bearing the name and picture of local MPs from the Syriza and ANEL parties. Tsipras said conservative officials were part of a campaign to sway lawmakers into rejecting the deal. "Do you think you will intimidate lawmakers? They will not be terrorised," he told Mitsotakis. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' leftist Syriza party has 145 deputies in the 300-member parliament, but could win the confidence vote with just 120 votes if enough lawmakers abstain Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called the confidence vote after his coalition fell apart in a row over a planned name change deal with Macedonia Elderly women across Russia are often seen selling their hand-knitted wares on pavement corners for a few rubles to supplement meagre pensions. Now a new Instagram project aims to change the public perception of their homely skills by promoting "granny chic" and help the women sell their knitted mittens, socks and other items online. Grandmother and participant Nina Lozhkova said she'd long wanted to sell her knits. "But it's a bit humiliating to sell things by the metro. Here, I feel like I am a creator and not a poor person," the 58-year-old said of the Instagram initiative, Granny's. Lozhkova, who has a six-year-old grandson, is one of around 40 retirees to have so far joined Granny's, which is based in the northwestern city of Saint Petersburg. More than 5,000 people follow the project's Instagram account, @russiangrannies, which displays a sleek selection of stylish photos of adults and children in knitted clothing. "By buying our wares you are supporting someone's grandmother," it says, revealing, too, some heart-warming details about the knitters themselves, their lives, families and past careers. Aged between 55 and 87, its enterprising pensioners can earn between $450 and $1,000 (390 and 870 euros) a month. An average monthly pension in Russia is about $200. Behind the Instagram account is Yulia Aliyeva, a 27-year-old who recently quit a job working for the city administration to launch Granny's. "Of course, the fact that grandmothers can make money online smashes stereotypes," said Aliyeva, whose 85-year-old grandmother is one of the knitters. "All of them say that if it was not for the project, they would not be able to do this by themselves," she told AFP. - Keeping afloat - Many Russians have to work past the state pension age to afford living costs, or rely on financial help from their children. Last year, President Vladimir Putin sparked a huge outburst of public anger by opting to gradually raise the state pension age by five years, to 60 for women and 65 for men. Yelena Tretyakova, the first pensioner to join Granny's, is already retired so the state pension age changes will not affect her. But she said that the knitting project was still crucial to keeping her afloat. "If you are retired it is nearly impossible to find a job," said the 56-year-old, who helps her daughter raise a 14-year-old disabled son. "And my situation is even more complicated -- I can only work from home," said Tretyakova, whose monthly pension is around 150 euros. With the help of Instagram, she said she earns up to 70,000 rubles ($1,005) a month, a "huge" amount for her, by knitting jumpers and other often expensive items. - 'Sacred role' of grannies - As word spreads, new women have joined the project from regions as far away as the Urals and northern Russia. The site offers a range of clothing and accessories, some priced as little as a few dollars, while other more luxurious items sell for up to around $180. The most expensive are usually made of merino or Peruvian wool. Sometimes the women use the online site to directly sell the knitwear they have already created, charging a price they themselves have set. Others knit the specific orders placed by customers, in which case Aliyeva sets the price, buys the necessary wool and takes 10 percent commission. Besides helping the elderly women, Aliyeva said she wanted to draw public attention to the "sacred role of the Russian grandmother." "Traditionally in Russia, grandmothers play an important role -- they babysit grandchildren, make tasty food and knit socks," she said. "But their pensions are small, their post-work social life is pretty much over and it is very hard for them to find a job." Knitter Yelena Tretyakova was the first pensioner to join Granny's, launched by 27-year-old Yulia Aliyeva to support elderly women in Russia Grandmother Nina Lozhkova, 58, said the Granny's project, which helps knitters sell their wares online, had been decisive in getting her selling her creations A senior Chinese military official warned the US Navy Tuesday against any "interference" in support of Taiwan's independence, saying that Beijing would defend its claim to the island "at any cost". General Li Zuocheng, a member of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during a meeting in Beijing with Admiral John Richardson, the chief of US naval operations. China sees Taiwan as part of its territory to be reunified, despite the two sides being ruled separately since they split in 1949 after a civil war won by Mao Zedong's communists. The self-ruled island has its own currency, flag and government, but is not recognised as an independent state by the UN. Beijing has said it will not hesitate to use force if Taipei formally declares independence, or in the case of external intervention -- including by the United States, the island's most powerful unofficial ally. "The Taiwan issue is an internal matter of China, concerns China's fundamental interests and the national feelings of the Chinese people, and no outside interference will be tolerated," Li Zuocheng said in a statement released by the Ministry of Defence. "If anyone wants to separate Taiwan from China, the Chinese army will defend the unity of the motherland at any cost," he told the the US Navy chief. In recent months, US Navy ships have repeatedly passed through the Taiwan Strait, which separates mainland China from the island. Beijing views any ships passing through the straits as essentially a breach of its sovereignty -- while the US and many other nations view the route as international waters open to all. A recent US law encouraging mutual visits between US and Taiwanese officials has also angered Beijing. Washington, which broke diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979 to recognise Beijing remains the island's most powerful ally, and its main arms supplier. Taiwan commissioned two US Perry-class guided missile frigates into the Taiwan Navy in November 2018 Market for cosmetic products looks good Korean and Japanese brands hold a large share of the cosmetics market in Nepal. According to a Korean cosmetics merchant, monthly sales of Korean and Japanese beauty products total around Rs2.5 million. Ximiso, Miniso and Mumuso brands of cosmetics have gained significant popularity in the Nepali market within a short period of time. The Frenchman accused of murdering four people at the Jewish museum of Belgium had links with other jihadists, including those behind the Brussels and Paris attacks, investigators say. At least one lawyer wants to see if defendant Mehdi Nemmouche sheds more light on such links during his trial that opened last Thursday for the May 24, 2014 museum shooting spree. The first opportunity may come on Tuesday when Nemmouche begins testifying in his defence in a Brussels criminal court. Guillaume Lys, the lawyer for the French Association of Victims of Terrorism (AFVT), hopes his cross-examination may yield more detail about the November 13, 2015 Paris attacks. "Our goal is to be able to have more information about the links between these people and others whom we know and who committed other acts," said Lys, who represents a civil party in the trial. The following links have already been established by investigators: - Abdelhamid Abaaoud - Weeks before the Jewish museum attack, Nemmouche was in regular telephone contact with Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the presumed mastermind of the Paris attacks that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds more. Abaaoud was killed in a police shootout days after those attacks. The calls took place in January 2014, when Nemmouche had just left Syria and was preparing to travel to southeast Asia via Turkey. His trip would take in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand. The two men are believed to have fought together in Syria in 2013. - Salah Abdeslam - When the Brussels suicide bombings killed 32 people and wounded hundreds on March 22, 2016, both Nemmouche and Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam were in the same prison in the Belgian city of Bruges. Abdeslam had been arrested in Brussels just days before after being on the run since the Paris massacre several months earlier. Belgian investigators in the prison on the day of the bombings heard the two men talk to each other with voices raised as their cells were not next to each other. Nemmouche told Abdeslam that a "Brahim" and a "Sofian" had died in the bombings at Zaventem Airport, the main international airport outside Brussels. For investigators, these first names correspond to those of the airport suicide bombers Ibrahim El Bakraoui and Najim Laachraoui, also known as Soufiane Kayal. This information suggested to investigators that the pair knew the attackers. - Najim Laachraoui - Nemmouche shared other links with Najim Laachraoui, who was also believed to be one of the bomb makers for the Paris attacks. Four French journalists have identified the two as among their jailers after they were kidnapped in Syria in June 2013 and released on April 18, 2014. Investigators also found an audio file attributed to Laachraoui from a computer seized near an alleged hideout of the Brussels bombers. It was believed he recorded it in February or March 2016. The Belgian jihadist was heard suggesting kidnapping celebrities in order to exchange them for "brothers" in prison, including Nemmouche. - Salim Benghalem - The kidnapped French journalists also identified as another of their jailers Salim Benghalem, a French jihadist leader who was believed to have been killed in Syria at the end of 2017. France's Le Monde newspaper said he had duties that were more important than those of Nemmouche as he was suspected of having played a key role in dispatching jihadists from France. In France, Benghalem gravitated toward the "Buttes-Chaumont" jihadist network, named after a park in Paris. There he reportedly met the Kouachi brothers, who carried out the January 7, 2015 attack against the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people. He also met Amedy Coulibaly, the man who the next day murdered a female police officer before killing four people at a Kosher supermarket in Paris on January 9. Investigators want to probe links between Mehdi Nemmouche, depicted in a court sketch and accused of a 2014 attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels and fellow jihadists behind the Paris attacks along with those in the Belgian capital Left, a picture from the Islamic State online magazine Dabiq purportedly showing Abdelhamid Abaaoud, presumed Paris attacks mastermind killed in a shootout days later and, right, a French police picture of jailed Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam Interpol handout picture of Najim Laachraoui, one of the suicide bombers at Brussels' Zaventem airport and also linked to the Paris attacks The British parliament is split into cross-party factions over the EU divorce deal. Parliament is to finally vote Tuesday on whether to support or vote against the agreement struck between Prime Minister Theresa May's government and the European Union. Here are the main camps in the Brexit battle among members of the 650-seat lower House of Commons: - FOR - The government: Everyone on the government payroll must back government policy -- or resign. Gareth Johnson quit his junior government post on Monday but there was no last-minute flood of resignations. Heavyweight cabinet Brexiteers like Michael Gove and Liam Fox are backing the deal for now. May loyalists: Backbench Conservative MPs who are firmly behind the government and are happy with the deal. Alarmingly few in number. Change-of-heart Conservatives: With decision time approaching, a handful of Tories have changed their minds in recent days. George Freeman, May's former policy chief, has come into this camp in recent days. Get it done: Conservative MPs who have reservations but just want to get a deal done and feel it is the least bad option. May's Downing Street office hopes to swell their ranks in the final hours. - AGAINST - Conservative hardcore Brexiteers: Led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, this faction also includes former foreign secretary Boris Johnson and former Brexit secretaries David Davis and Dominic Raab, who believe the deal delivers vassalage rather than independence. Rees-Mogg's European Research Group triggered a vote of no confidence in May in December, but she won and secured her leadership for another 12 months. Labour Party: Most Labour lawmakers are pro-EU and will follow the party line. Leader Jeremy Corbyn wants to defeat the deal, then launch a vote of no confidence in the prime minister and trigger a general election, in which he would campaign to go ahead with Brexit, but renegotiate the deal. If this plan fails, the party is open to backing a second Brexit referendum. The bulk of MPs supporting the People's Vote campaign, which calls for a second Brexit referendum -- in the hope of stopping Brexit -- comes from the Labour backbenches. Other opposition parties: The 35 Scottish Nationalists, 11 pro-EU Liberal Democrats, plus four Welsh nationalists and the sole Green MP are pro-EU and anti-Conservative. DUP: May relies on the 10 Democratic Unionist Party MPs for a majority in parliament but they remain firmly against the deal, despite attempts to reassure them over the Irish border. Conservative hardcore Remainers: A chunk of pro-EU Conservative backbenchers who also support the People's Vote campaign. They are led by former attorney general Dominic Grieve. - WAVERERS - Labour MPs in Leave-voting seats: May's best chance of victory could lie in persuading them to back the deal. She met with some Labour pragmatists last week and there are signs that they could be persuaded. No-deal dilemma: Conservative and Labour MPs who have problems with the proposed deal but are also scared by the prospect of no-deal as the alternative. Will they blink first? The British parliament is to finally vote on whether to support or vote against the agreement struck between Prime Minister Theresa May's government and the EU Prime Minister Theresa May warned MPs that rejecting her Brexit deal would lead to "paralysis" that could see Britain stay in the EU Prime Minister Theresa May published further assurances from the EU on the eve of a crucial parliamentary vote on her Brexit deal Image: Getty At $560 a week, Canberra has reached rental boiling point, and its pushing lower income earners and investors out. Canberra has been named Australias most expensive capital city for those renting houses, bumping Sydney off the podium for the first time in 11 years, the latest Domain Rental Report has revealed. Whats happening? Asbestos removal scheme: The median weekly asking rent for Canberra increased 3.7 per cent in the year to December 2018 as the Mr Fluffy asbestos removal scheme pushed residents into rental accommodation as their homes were rebuilt. More than one thousand (1,022) properties were eligible for a government buyback or demolition. New residents moving in: And as the asbestos removal scheme took affect, new residents were lured from interstate and overseas by Canberras job prospects, universities and major infrastructure projects, Domain senior research analyst Nicola Powell said. High income population: The high-income earning workforce has also helped to drive rents higher, making it increasingly unaffordable for lower income households, Powell continued. Land tax: With investors slugged with higher rates and land taxes, it is also likely landlords are passing on the additional costs to tenants, or opting for high yielding short-term leases in order to recover costs. Board director at the Real Estate Institute of the ACT, Hannah Gill said changes to land taxes are a contributor to rising rents. Supply constraints: Continuing, Gill noted that there are more first-home buyers and owner occupiers than investors in the capital city and this is also affecting the number of properties available to rent. Stock isnt being replaced as fast as its required. The perfect storm Describing it as the perfect storm, Gill said investors will struggle to recover costs and be forced to drive up rents. Tenants Union ACT executive director Deb Pippen also warned that the changing landscape is making it increasingly difficult for those on lower incomes to afford to rent. Story continues Theres a lack of supply of affordable housing in Canberra [and] more people are looking for rentals at that end of the market, she told Domain Media. Vacancy rates in Canberra have been low for many, many years and it means there arent enough vacant properties for it to be a healthy market. How does Canberra stack up? Image: Domain While Canberra has the most expensive weekly rents for houses, Sydney holds the title of the most expensive rental market for units. Image: Domain Make your money work with Yahoo Finances daily newsletter. Sign up here and stay on top of the latest money, news and tech news. Now read: Sydney no longer the most expensive city to rent in Australia Now read: Labors proposed negative gearing reforms given green light by major consulting firm Now read: The 5 property red flags you NEED to know Photos: Getty Do Australians think the country needs more people? Only three out of every 10 believe so, a survey by the Australian National University has revealed. As the federal government and opposition grapple with their migration policies ahead of the next election, ANU researchers have uncovered a dramatic decline in support for population growth. With Australias population a little over 25 million, more than 2000 adults were asked late last year whether they thought the country needed more people. Only 30.4 per cent of respondents believed Australia needed more people, compared to 69.6 per cent who felt the country did not. Support for a big Australia has fallen significantly since a similar question was asked eight years prior in 2010, when nearly half (45.8 per cent) of respondents felt the country needed more people. Why the drop? ANU lead researcher Nicholas Biddle said the most common reasons for why Aussies didnt want more people were cost of housing (nearly 90 per cent); overcrowded cities and traffic congestion (84 per cent); and support for training Aussies rather than bringing over skilled people from overseas. Associate professor and ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods associate director Nicholas Biddle. (Source: Australian National University) Concerns about the impact of population growth on the environment were also expressed by respondents. Biddle noted that policy and social context would always be an influencing factor on Australians perception on population growth. Most people are now supportive of cultural diversity as a by-product of population growth, he said. On the other hand, geopolitics, defence and population pressures overseas are less likely to factor into someones decision than they might have in the past. Aussies are most likely to support a more populated Australia if it meant increases to our skills base, mitigated the impacts of an ageing population and increased economic prosperity. Indeed, a survey by the Scanlon Foundation found that the majority of Australians (82 per cent) were in support of immigration despite population and infrastructure concerns. Story continues But they do not want population growth to cause crowding, affordability or job security issues, nor at the expense of our natural environment, Biddle said. In October last year, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian called for a breather on the states migration levels. But economic modelling commissioned by the Property Council of Australia found that halving migration levels would cost the NSW economy $130 billion and 200,000 jobs. Who does and doesnt support a bigger Australia? The 15 per cent drop since last year was largely attributable to falling support levels among men, who were nonetheless still more likely than women to think Australia needed more people. Younger Aussies (aged 25 to 34) had the greatest levels of support for an increased population, with 42.2 per cent in favour of growth. People with higher levels of education and those born overseas particularly migrants from non-English speaking countries demonstrated strong support for a bigger population. Greens voters were most likely to think Australia needed more people. Coalition voters had the lowest levels of support of the major parties, with Labor voters somewhere in between. Those who said they would vote for another party or candidate had the lowest levels of support (20.2 per cent). with AAP Make your money work with Yahoo Finances daily newsletter. Sign up here and stay on top of the latest money, news and tech news. Read next: Halving migration would cost the NSW economy $130bn and 200,000 jobs Read next: 82 per cent of Australians see the benefits of immigration Read next: Scott Morrison plans to cut immigration amid population concerns YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. The Russian Foreign ministry has sent a note to the Azerbaijani embassy over the discriminatory treatment towards Russian citizens at the airports of Baku, ARMENPRESS reports, RIA Novosti informs. The Azerbaijani embassy in Moscow has received a note from the Russian Foreign Ministry over discriminatory treatment towards its citizens in Azerbaijan based on ethnic belonging, a diplomatic source told Ria Novosti. On January 11 spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova hoped that Azerbaijan will stop discrimination against Russian citizens of Armenian origin and will not ban their entry into Azerbaijan. During the briefing Zakharova particularly focused on the discriminatory attitude of Azerbaijani leadership towards Russian citizens based on their ethnicity. During the last year we were informed about at least 16 cases when Russian citizens were banned to enter Azerbaijan due to their ethnicity. Those citizens were forces to wait and later sent back to Russia without any explanation, Zakharova said. Zakharova told reporters that the deportation of Russian citizens from Azerbaijan for ethnic reasons is a gross violation of the rights of those persons. I have seen many reports about this, including in social networks. A similar incident was also registered during the holidays, but we have also seen similar cases in the past. We have regularly raised this issue before the Azerbaijani leadership, we have said that unfortunately such cases become a tradition, incorrect and bad tradition, Zakharova said. She added that the Russian authorities have urged Azerbaijan several times to stop that behavior since its not acceptable from the viewpoint of Russian-Azerbaijani relations. The Azerbaijani authorities have assured that the issue will be solved and we hope it will really happen, she said. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. A Yerevan court of general jurisdiction was examining the motion of the Special Investigation Service (SIS) of Armenia on prolonging the pre-trial detention of 2nd President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan by 2 months on January 15, ARMENPRESS reports Vahagn Muradyan, an official of the Prosecutor Generals Office, told the reporters. During the court session the motion of the SIS to prolong Robert Kocharyan pre-trial detention by 2 months was being examined. The court asked questions to the investigator, prosecutors, the advocates presented their objections, but they have not finished yet. The session has been delayed and will take place on January 16, 11:00, Muradyan said. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian parliament will continue discussing the issue of chairmen of Standing Committees during January 16 session, ARMENPRESS reports Speaker of the National Assembly Ararat Mirzoyan said after the session. My Step bloc will chair 8 Committees, Prosperous Armenia Party 2 committees and Luminous Armenia Party 1 committee. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev has sent a congratulatory message to Nikol Pashinyan on the occasion of being appointed Prime Minister of Armenia. As ARMENPRESS was informed from the official website of the Prime Minister of Armenia, the message runs as follows, Honorable Nikol Vovayevich, Please, accept my sincere congratulations and best wishes on the occasion of your appointment to the post of the Prime Minister of Armenia. I wish your active efforts in the responsible position to foster the comprehensive development of Armenia and to strengthen its international reputation, as well as to bring to life the good goals. I am confident that the mutually beneficial relations between Astana and Yerevan based and friendship and understanding will continue to strengthen for the sake of the development of our peoples. Honorable Nikol Vovayevich, I wish you good health, welfare and success in the responsible position, and peace and prosperity to the friendly people of Armenia. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan has extended condolences to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the deadly plane crash in the countrys Alborz province, the governments press service said. In the cable, the Armenian prime minister expressed condolences and support to the President Rouhani and the good people of Iran, wishing patience, resilience and strength to the families of the victims, and speedy recovery to the injured, the press service said in a statement. A Boeing 707 cargo plane crashed in the Iranian province, killing 15 on board. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan Maghe Sankranti being observed today Maghe or Makar Sankranti is being observed throughout the country on Tuesday. On the day, people of Hindu communities take holy dips into rivers and ponds, worship at various temples and relish delicacies like ghee, yam, Khichadi and sweets like Chaku and sweets made of sesame and molasses. YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. While on an official visit in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian on January 15 visited the Masdar City, the Presidential Office told Armenpress. Masdar City is one of the worlds most sustainable urban communities, a low-carbon development made up of a rapidly growing clean-tech cluster, business free zone and residential neighbourhood with restaurants, shops and public green spaces. Masdars philosophy of urban development is based on the three pillars of economic, social and environmental sustainability. Masdar City is a greenprint for the sustainable development of cities through the application of real-world solutions in water, energy efficiency and the reduction of waste. At the same time, Masdars technology and education complex, in cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, opens new education prospects for different countries, including for Armenian students. Accompanied by Masdar Citys Executive Director Yousef Ahmed Baselaib, the Armenian President toured the City, was interested in its projects and programs, their implementation prospects and innovative ideas. The President also met with Armenian students of Masdar Maria and Arik, was interested in their education process and future programs. This is not just a city, but a combination of different ideas and approaches. This is both a city and scientific-research, educational center, but also a business and a foundation. This is also a great investment. In the past there were 10-11 Armenian students here. Unfortunately, their number is less now, just three students. But if we organize everything right, these students can return to Armenia in one or two years and apply the same ideas in Armenia, Armen Sarkissian said, stating that these ideas in the 21st century will have a major place. I think this is a good example of a center with which we should definitely cooperate and create the Armenian example which will not be the same, but will be better, he said. The President also answered the questions of reporters and shared his vision about a future city. It must have several components, he said. One of the components is very important to have the latest technologies. Secondly, we must have a vision which will move ahead 20-40 years, we need to imagine where the world will be in several years and build the grounds which will take you there. And thirdly, to use our heritage, experience. You need to go back to your roots, understand how people lived in your territory and not to ignore that experience. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Armenian President Armen Sarkissian, who is in the United Arab Emirates on an official visit, on January 15 met with UAE Minister of State Sultan Al Jaber in Abu Dhabi to discuss the cooperation prospects in different economic sectors, the Armenian Presidential Office told Armenpress. President Sarkissian said although Armenia is a small country, Armenians are global and closely connected nation. And when he, as a President, talks about cooperation he means not only Armenia, because Armenians, the Armenian business are everywhere in the world thanks to which the cooperation potential is significantly growing. The officials agreed that as a first step the UAE delegation will visit Armenia to get acquainted with the opportunities, hold discussions and put the existing proposals on practical basis. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. Inter-departmental consultations between Russia and the United States on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty have started in Geneva today, reports TASS. From the Russian side the consultations are attended by deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov, while the US delegation is headed by Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Andrea L. Thompson. The consultations will be held behind closed doors. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. The OSCE mission has conducted a planned ceasefire monitoring in the Artsakh-Azerbaijan line of contact southeast from the village of Leonarkh, Martakert. The monitoring was conducted in accordance to an agreement between the government of Artsakh and the OSCE, the foreign ministry of Artsakh said. Field Assistant to the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office (CiO) Mihail Olaru (Moldova) and Personal Assistant to the CiO Personal Representative Simon Tiller (Great Britain) conducted the monitoring from the positions of the Artsakh military. The monitoring passed as planned, but the Azerbaijani side failed to lead the OSCE mission to its frontline positions. The OSCE mission was accompanied by Artsakhs foreign ministry and defense ministry officials. Field Assistant to the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office (CiO) Ghenadie Petrica (Moldova) and staff member of the Office of the CiO Personal Representative Martin Schuster (Germany) conducted the monitoring from the opposite side. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, ARMENPRESS. The speeches of Lusavor Hayastan faction about the Deputy Speaker position are not addressed to Prosperous Armenia faction, they are rather addressed to the My Step faction, the faction that does not have candidates for this position, Lusavor Hayastan leader Edmon Marukyan told lawmakers. The parliament must elect three deputy speakers today. By law, one of the three seats of deputy speaker must go to the opposition, and the two opposition parties Lusavor Hayastan (Luminous Armenia) and Prosperous Armenia have nominated their candidates pending confirmation. Yesterday we had very interesting discussions. Our Prosperous Armenia colleagues tried to respond to us with their speeches. An idea was voiced that Lusavor Hayastan is an opposition to the other opposition. I would like to dispel your doubts. Our speeches arent addressed to you. It would be unreasonable to address them to you. You have a candidate for deputy speaker, therefore you will vote for your candidate. Our speeches are addressed to the faction that doesnt have a candidate for this position, Marukyan said. He emphasized that they arent giving a fight against the Prosperous Armenia party. We arent giving a fight with you. We are fighting with the [government], and you are getting in between, Marukyan said. Marukyan said if lawmakers want to have an oppositionist deputy speaker then they must confirm their candidate Mane Tandilyan. Mane Tandilyans nomination didnt happen artificially to cause debates. We nominated her for real, he said. We must look at the path of the party. This is our approach. I fear that if your option doesnt overcome this obstacles that are created today, then we might not have an oppositionist deputy speaker, Marukyan said. He added that even if the situations escalates then there should nothing personal should be sought. The second sitting of the new parliament has kicked off. Today, the confirmation hearings of the three Deputy Speakers will take place, as well as committee chairs. The ruling My Step Alliance has nominated MP Alen Simonyan and MP Lena Nazaryan to be the two Deputy Speakers. By law, one of the three seats of Deputy Speaker must go to the opposition, and Prosperous Armenia and Luminous Armenia parties have nominated their MPs Vahe Enfiajyan and Mane Tandilyan for the position. During the January 14 inaugural sitting, lawmakers installed Ararat Mirzoyan as Speaker. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, JANUARY 14, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Georgia Mamuka Bakhtadze sent a congratulatory to Nikol Pashinyan on being re-appointed Prime Minister of Armenia, the Armenian PMs Office told Armenpress. Your Excellency, On behalf of the Georgian government and personally myself let me sincerely congratulate you on your appointment as Prime Minister of Armenia. I am confident that under your leadership Armenia can successfully carry out progressive reforms which will contribute to further development and stability in our region. On behalf of the Georgian government I want to once again reaffirm our support in this important process. I hope the ties between our countries, which are based on traditional friendly relations, will further deepen and strengthen in the future. Once again accept my sincere congratulations and deep respect to you, reads the congratulatory letter. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, JANUARY 14, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian, who is in the United Arab Emirates on an official visit, met with Minister of State Sultan bin Ahmad Sultan Al Jaber in Abu Dhabi, the Armenian Presidential Office told Armenpress. During the meeting the two officials talked about the cooperation opportunities in different sectors of the economy, as well as implementing joint programs. The Armenian President noted that major and little success was recorded within the course of years, but the potential is much greater. As a prospective cooperation direction the President mentioned the fields of tourism, infrastructures and services, stating that Armenia can make differing proposals in this field, particularly, ecotourism, historical tourism. According to Armen Sarkissian, the IT and telecommunications sectors, as well as the financial sphere, energy, renewable energy fields, also can serve as an effective platform for cooperation. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, JANUARY 14, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian on January 14 arrived in the United Arab Emirates on an official visit, his Office told Armenpress. The visit launched with a meeting with His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. During the meeting the Armenian President thanked for the warm reception and stated: The relations between Armenia and the United Arab Emirates began under the leadership of your father, late UAE President Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. We highly value the warm relations between our countries and peoples and are ready to further deepen and expand them. The two officials also discussed the whole spectrum of the Armenian-UAE relations, as well as attached importance to the activities of the inter-governmental commission aimed at boosting the current rates of trade-economic cooperation, which, according to them, is a favorable platform to observe the two markets, make investments in different spheres and also follow the process of reforms and innovations taking place in the economies of the two states. Highlighting the great potential in the commercial sector, the Armenian President considered prospective the cooperation opportunities in the fields of agriculture, renewable energy, chemical industry, information and communication technologies. Armen Sarkissian said Armenia views the UAE as an important bridge to the Gulf region and other countries, adding that in its turn Armenia can also act as a bridge for the UAE to the countries and markets of the CIS and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). The two officials also talked about the great cooperation potential in culture, science, education and tourism sectors during the meeting. Photo by wam.ae Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan The Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini will share his country's experience of chairing the Arctic Council during his visit to Iceland on January 13-15, Special Adviser to the Foreign Minister Riikka Taivassalo told RIA Novosti. Iceland will take over as the Chair of the Arctic Council in May. "Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini will visit Iceland on January 13-15. The visit will be hosted by Icelandic Minister for Foreign Affairs and External Trade Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson. During his visit, Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini will also meet with President of Iceland Gudni Thorlacius Johannesson and Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament of Iceland Aslaug Arna Sigurbjornsdottir, as well as members of the Foreign Affairs Committee," the Finnish Foreign Ministry said in a press release. The discussions will focus on relations between Finland and Iceland and on topical international matters, Riikka Taivassalo said. "Arctic issues will also feature prominently in the discussions. Iceland will take over as Chair of the Arctic Council from Finland in May. During its term as Chair, Finland's main priority has been to accelerate the implementation of concrete measures to reduce black carbon emissions. Finland is happy to note that Iceland is committed to pursuing efforts to cut black carbon emissions," the press release reads. "My main message to Iceland is that they can rely on support from Finland in preparing their chairmanship program. The Arctic region is shared by all of us, and we all have to work together on its behalf," the press release cites Minister Soini as saying. Timo Soini will also visit the University of Akureyri where he will speak about Arctic cooperation and discuss Arctic matters with experts. Akureyri is a major center for Arctic research in Iceland and the country's second largest urban center after the Reykjavik metropolitan area. [#VIDEO] El actor Robert de Niro recorrio la ciudadela inca de Machu Picchu pese a la lluvia https://t.co/XPpcdum4HC pic.twitter.com/hV029DtT6N Italian firm puts forth pre-conditions to resume work on Melamchi project The Italian contractor of the Melamchi Water Supply Project, which has remained uncertain since the latest fiasco, has hinted that it could resume works if the government agrees to fulfill its demands in advance. "I have never denied that when I was a member of CyM , a business based in Moquegua region, it provided services to some firms that built the South Interoceanic Highway. I have never denied that, " the Head of State expressed. Furthermore, the top official indicated he is not scared about the possible investigations that may be carried out at Congress or the Prosecutor's Office regarding the agreement his family business had signed with Conirsa, as there were no irregularities. "If there are doubts and there is a basis, then proceed with the investigation. We are not afraid at all. There is an intention to confuse (the people) since if an investigation is carried out, no irregularities will be found," he added. Moreover, President Vizcarra ruled out having lied or lacked transparency when he was asked about an alleged link to Odebrecht during a conference at the Government Palace. At that time, the Head of State was simply asked if he had provided services to Odebrecht. Finally, the top official said this statement would settle the matter. (END) RMCH/CCR/DTK/MVB President Martin Vizcarra on Tuesday reaffirmed CyM Vizcarra a firm he had been part of never provided services to Odebrecht , adding these statements are intended to confuse Peruvian citizens by falsely claiming he was linked to the Brazilian construction company.Published: 1/15/2019 Afamado actor Robert De Niro escalo esta manana el Huayna Picchu y luego recorrio la ciudadela Inca de Machu Picchu https://t.co/5klss9iHwo (Video: Percy Hurtado) pic.twitter.com/tavh754GD9 Titular del @MindefPeru, Jose Huerta, despide a Cascos Azules que partiran a mision de paz en Republica Centro Africana https://t.co/NyiwnPVtMA (Foto: ANDINA/Mindef) pic.twitter.com/LGjCSIva2v If it wasn't for ???? Peruvian help, Dakar won't be the same! Si no fuese por la ayuda de los ???? Peruanos el Dakar no seria lo mismo!#Dakar2019 pic.twitter.com/Ed1BaUXp5L Furthermore, he pointed out former CEO Marcelo Odebrecht's statement had been the starting point of a strong collaboration between Peru and Brazil. Thus, progress was made in the probe, and the Inca country's ex-presidents as well as political leaders like Fujimori were found to have been associated with the corruption-tainted company. The prosecutor went on to add that Odebrecht's former top executive in Peru Jorge Barata's statement consolidated the case since he had indicated former Heads of State Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) , and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018) , as well as Keiko Fujimori , were implicated in the matter. 11:00 | San Juan de Marcona (Ica region), Jan. 15. While in automobiles it appears to be almost a foregone conclusion that Qatar's Nasser Al-Attiyah (Toyota) will take the title. This leg of the race was a 323-km (200-mile) stretch that started and ended in the coastal town of San Juan de Marcona and was one of the most complicated stages of this year's rally, with almost 100 km over dunes and another 200 km over very rocky terrain. The race started in foggy weather that caused one portion of the stage to have to be canceled. The first motorcycle rider to cover the route was Quintanilla, who began the day in the lead spot but ended in fourth place in the general classification, after losing time because he had to blaze the trail for the following riders through the difficult landscape. The result was that both Brabec and Australia's Toby Price (KTM), along with France's Adrien Van Beveren (Yamaha) surpassed the Chilean in the rankings, although the four top riders are separated by less than 10 minutes, overall. "It was a question of time, whereby they overtook me. The idea was that Ricky would not get (further ahead) than I can recover. On Tuesday, the situation will be reversed. I'll set out from behind and I have the chance to recover time," said Quintanilla. In autos, Al-Attiyah has practically clinched the Rally, given that he has been so far out in front in his Toyota since the third stage. Frenchman Sebastien Loeb , who began the day as the Arab's main rival, had a difficult run, with his car experiencing electrical failures on a couple of occasions that caused him to lose about half an hour. The winner of the stage was Stephane Peterhansel , also from France, followed by Spaniards Nani Roma and Carlos Sainz , both driving for Mini, in second and third place, respectively. It was Peterhansel's second stage win in this year's Dakar and his 76th during his career participating in the Rally, a circumstance that enabled him to recover the second place in the general classification, albeit about half an hour behind Al-Attiyah. Efe Agency: All rights are reserved. It is expressly prohibited reproduction without prior written permission from the Efe agency. (END) EFE/RMB/MVB Loading... The seventh leg of the 2019 Dakar Rally through the Peruvian coastal desert heated up in the motorcycle competition, where U.S. rider Ricky Brabec (Honda) moved back into the lead, unseating Chile's Pablo Quintanilla (Husqvarna).Publicado: 15/1/2019 In cracking down on ride-sharing apps, government sides with taxi operators The question surrounding the legality of ride-hailing apps such as Tootle and Pathao that provide bike-taxi services have long been a subject of controversy. Former Chief Justice Karki among civil society members expresses solidarity with Dr KC Former Chief Justice Sushila Karki among 20 other individuals from civil society has expressed their solidarity with Dr Govinda KC on Tuesday. Dr KC has been staging his 16th hunger strike demanding reforms in countrys medical sector in Nepals eastern district Illam since January 8. Shakya is the founder CEO of beed, an international management consulting and advisory firm. He is the author of Unleashing Nepal and Unleashing The Vajra. Elected representatives demand to control liquor sales in Doti Peoples representatives from Doti have demanded the authorities to control the sales and consumption of liquor in the district. They have put pressure on the authorities to declare their local units an alcohol-free zone. Brushing off rumours, experts say there are no cases of swine flu Cases of seasonal influenza are higher than expected this winter but there is nothing life-threatening, say health authorities, brushing off rumours about swine flu. The experts regularly process specimens from across the country and update the influenza laboratory surveillance information at the Global Influenza Surveillance System. Bibeksheel Sajha Party blames Ujwal Thapa for party split Bibeksheel Sajha Party has said that the party was split intentionally. A Central Committee meeting of the party held for two days at its party office in Bakhunldole concluded that then coordinator Ujwal Thapa split the party deliberately. Addressing the drain Nepal has much to gain from the skills and knowledge of students who have studied in Australia Universal Background Checks Don't Work, so Why Do We Want More of Them? By Rob Morse. January 11th, 2019 Original Source Ive made mistakes before and Ill probably make some again. That is why its important to be aware and skeptical as we try new ideas. There is a time for persistence and a time to ask if youre headed in the right direction. All that came to mind as I read about the US House of Representatives proposing universal background checks for firearms owners. These background checks have failed too many times to try them again. The fundamental failure of a background check is that it looks backward. Mass murder is not a long-term career path. Background checks cant stop a first-time mass murderer. Here are the most recent examples. 2018 The mass murderer who killed 12 people at a country western bar in Thousand Oaks, California passed his background checks..several times. The mass murderer who killed 11 people in a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania synagogue passed his background checks for each weapon he owned. The mass murderer who killed four people in an Annapolis, Maryland newspaper office purchased his firearms legally and passed his background checks. The student who killed 10 people in his El Paso, Texas high school stole his guns. He took the legally owned guns from his father without permission, so background check laws would not have stopped this murder. The schizophrenic who murdered 4 people at a Waffle House restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee was disarmed after he make threats. In a federal lawsuit the murderers father said he was never told that his son was a prohibited person and not allowed to have guns. The murderer at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida passed his background checks even though he had many psychological counseling sessions and had been reported to the school, to local police, and to the FBI. 2017 The murderer at the church in Sutherland Springs, Texas killed 27 people after passing his background checks. He should have been barred from getting a gun since he was treated for mental illness, convicted of domestic violence, and dishonorably discharged from the US Air Force. The Air Force never submitted his criminal records to the national background check system. The murderer at the Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas killed 59 people after buying his firearms legally and passing a background check for each gun he used. I could go on for hundreds of examples but I fear you wouldnt read them. If this is what background checks do for us, then we should run from them rather than embrace more of the same. It is clear that background checks dont stop mass murders. Do mandatory background checks reduce other violent crimes? No other state does gun-control as much and as hard as California. California is rated the first in the nation for gun-control. Background check requirements were imposed in California three decades ago and should have worked there if they would work anywhere. Sociologists and criminologists published a report in the Annals of Epidemiology where they compared California to other states which hadnt mandated background checks. Neither mandatory background checks nor firearms prohibition for misdemeanor crimes reduced gun homicide or suicide in California. In fact, the California homicide rate rose by 16 percent from 2014 to 2016. California gun-control doesnt work. Why do politicians propose failed ideas over and over? For the politician, background checks dont have to make our streets safer. All they have to do is sound good on TV. Most of us dont do our homework. We buy our ideas the same way we buy knives on the shopping channel at 2 in the morning. We buy gun-control because it sounds good and is sold with enthusiasm. Mass murderers and other criminals dont follow our gun laws. Stop pretending they do because our gullibility is getting us killed. Here is the downside to gun-control and background checks. Licensed concealed carry holders are among the most law abiding and non-violent groups of people on the planet. Law abiding citizens use legally owned firearms for self-defense thousands of times a day. Disarming even a few honest gun owners will leave more of us as disarmed victims of criminal violence. That costs lives. There are no exemptions in our gun laws for need. There is no exemption for the young woman who has a stalker and suddenly needs a gun for protection. There is no exemption for the sexual assault victim who now wants a firearm to feel secure when she is home alone. It is illegal to give these innocent and honest people a tool for self-defense until the state approves. The victims needs come second after the state has its mandatory background checks..and its fees. The time to stop and turn around is when you realize youve made a mistake. Universal background checks sound good but cost lives. Back to Top * "Most Popular Intellectual Property Law Blawg" of all time according to Justia rankings , May 2021. * "Most Popular Copyright Blawg" of all time according to Justia rankings , May 2021. * PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the World Intellectual Property Review's "Influential Women in IP" of 2020. * PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2018. * IPKat founder and Blogmeister Emeritus Jeremy Phillips listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2014. * Recommended by the European Patent Office as reading material for candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations, 2013. * Listed as "Top Legal Blog" in The Times Online, March 2011. 2010 ABA Journal 100. * One of the only two non-US blogs listed in the Blawg100. * Court Reporter Top Copyright Blog award winner, November 2010. * Number 1 in the 2010 Top Copyright Blog list compiled by the Copyright Litigation Blog, July 2010. * Selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs as of 2010. * Top Patent Blog poll 2009: 3rd out of 50 in the "Favourite Patent Blog" poll and 2nd out of 50 in the "Most-read" poll. Blog of the Year, 20 August 2008. * ComputerWeekly IT Law and Governance, 20 August 2008. This item is available in full to subscribers. Attention subscribers We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription. If you are a digital subscriber with an active subscription, then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you've not yet logged in to your account on this new site. If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free website account by clicking here. Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing. French-based weather data company Sencrop has closed a $10 million Series A round led by BpiFrance, the French national equity investment fund. NCI Waterstart, Nord Capital, and The Yield Lab, in addition to current shareholders Demeter, the private equity firm and European digital startup backer Breega Capital, also invested in the round. The round follows a $1.4 million seed round in 2016. This marks The Yield Lab Europes first investment in a French startup. The new round of funding will be used to accelerate Sencrops international development by expanding its network of weather stations, as well as its growing community of farmer users. We will also use the proceeds to deepen and strengthen our IT and data analysis to improve the data that we collect and to use it in combination with other sources of data. Thats how we provide farmers with the ability to make decisions, Martin DuCroquet, general director and co-founder at Sencrop, told AgFunderNews. The fundraising process was relatively easy according to DuCroquet, who noted the importance of The Yield Lab joining its investor line-up to provide connections to the US market. He hopes to gain insight into the US market and agtech industry as the company continues its expansion plans. This round gives us two types of investors. Digital investors dedicated to the tech industry with a digital mindset giving us the capacity to better understand how to accelerate our digital product and to make it easier for farmers, DuCroquet explains. The second kind of investors bring value on the agtech industry side like The Yield Lab to help us make network connections with key players. The startup claims to serve farmers in 10 countries throughout Europe with the largest network of agro-weather stations and sensors on the continent. Servicing agricultural operations of all different scales and types with its annual subscription-based service, the devices track air temperature, hygrometry, rainfall, leaf wetness, and wind speed. It also collects data from publicly-available sources to integrate into its algorithm. By analyzing this information, Sencrop hopes to help farmers, winemakers, arborists, and vegetable growers advance their farm management strategy by limiting sanitary expenses, all while reducing agro-weather and agro-environmental risks to crops. We are very proud to be a part of the Sencrop adventure and plan to go the distance, supporting this European AgTech startup in their next stage of growth. The agriculture industry is rapidly adapting technological, data-driven solutions, making it an increasingly important subject. France and its innovative startups have a key role to play here, and Sencrop is ideally positioned to take the lead, Jason Bigeard, investment director at Bpifrance, said in a press release announcing the funding. Launched in 2016, Sencrop began at the Lille, France-based EuraTechnologies business-accelerator. DuCroquet contributes a portion of the startups success to being able to tap into Europes diverse market. CEO Michael Bruniaux is also a co-founder. Europe is one continent, but it has several different agricultural markets. France is different from Germany, which is different from Spain, which is different from the Netherlands and so on. Our ability to enter into different European countries at the same time and to attract buyers from different mindsets has been key, he explains. Our investors saw this positively because you have to approach each country differently and this can be hard for others to do. One of the primary reasons that DuCroquet and Sencrop have been able to take a nimble approach to tapping various European markets has to do with the companys product. The sales cycle is easy. From the moment where we meet a prospective client to when we sign them up is not a very lengthy process. Installation of the product is virtually instantaneous, he says. Our goal is to give farmers a tool to detect issues as early as possible and to create a collaborative tool by gaining feedback from the users, seeing how farmers compare data among themselves, and tailoring our platform to their needs. The startup has also garnered attention for a number of awards like being selected by the Village by CA accelerator for young innovative companies and receiving a SIMA Innovation Award in 2017 in recognition of contributions to the agricultural world. Sencrop also received a SIVAL silver medal in 2019 and is a member of the Hardware Club. Image: Sencrop website The Ecumenical Patriarchate published the text of Tomos on autocephaly of Orthodox Church of Ukraine on January 14. The document is available in English, Greek and Ukrainian languages as the website of the patriarchate reported. we recognize and declare this Autocephalous Church, established within the boundaries of the sovereign territory of Ukraine by means of this signed Patriarchal and Synodal Tomos, as our spiritual daughter, and recommend that all Orthodox Churches throughout the world acknowledge and commemorate it by the name Most Holy Church of Ukraine with its see in the historic city of Kyiv, without being henceforth entitled to establish bishops or found extraterritorial altars in regions, the document says. According to the text of Tomos, the Autocephalous Church of Ukraine knows as its head the most holy Apostolic and Patriarchal Ecumenical Throne, just as the rest of the Patriarchs and Primates also do. On October 11, the Synodus lifted the anathema from Filaret, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyivan Patriarchate, and Makariy, Primate of Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Filaret stated that the United Jubilee Bishops' Council would take place soon to create a unified Ukrainian local church. The ceremony of signing of the Tomos took place on January 5, 2019 in Istanbul. On January 6, 2019, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew handed the Tomos on autocephaly and bishops crosier to Head of Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church Epiphaniy. The same day, Tomos landed in Kyiv. On January 10, Tomos on autocephaly for the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church which was earlier signed by the Synod in Istanbul, has returned to Ukraine. Related video: Now, the enterprise is at the stage of the complete transformation of the electronic constituent of the aircraft Antonov state enterprise intends to resume the assembly of the heavy transport aircraft An-124 Ruslan at the end of 2019. Serhy Omelchenko, the First Deputy Director-General of Ukroboronprom made such statement as TSTS reported. We actively cooperate with a few international companies, which produce the aviation technology. Now we are at the final state of the complete transformation of the electronic constituent of this aircraft. And we hope that it will be finally adopted by the engineering and design group of Antonov to begin the assembly of the first plane this year, Omelchenko noted. The assembly will be held without the use of the Russian components. As we reported Ukraine and NATO will continue the cooperation on the Strategic Airlift Interim Solution program on the fulfillment of the strategic transport air cargo flights. The Strategic Airlift Interim Solution program is the union of 14 countries, which use An-124-100 Ruslan planes for support of the operations of the NATO and the EU. Besides, Ukraine and Canada negotiate on the possible joint use of Ukraine's middle-class Antonov aircraft. Oleksiy Svistilnikov, a Ukrainian sailor who went missing from MV Ocean Lion vessel on December 19 Assol Ukrainian sailor from Odesa Oleksiy Svistilnikov went missing from MV Ocean Lion (IMO 929624, Liberia flag) which was cruising in the Indian Ocean heading to Singapore, as a charity organization Assistant Fund for sailors Assol (Odesa) reported. The wife of the missing sailor appealed there earlier. A 38-year-old Svistilnikov arrived on the ship on August 9, 2018 under a labor contract with a Greek company Primerose Shipping CO LTD, employed as the third mechanic. As his wife was told, on December 19, the sailor went missing in the Indian Ocean. Last time his colleagues saw him in the evening before; the crew noted that Svistilnikov went missing in the morning, when the sailor did not report for duty. Nobody heard or saw anything suspicious at night. For today, there is no official information or documents about the ship owner or the crew, concerning the confirmation of the incidents location, the results of search and rescue operation and investigation report. Olexiy worked in Primerose Shipping CO LTD for six years, his colleagues considered him a professional, the expert in his field, and a peace-loving and responsible man. Ukraines Consul to Singapore, who arrived on board right after the ship called at the port, passed the crews testimony to his wife. This is not the first time the crew members go missing on Ocean Lion. As it appeared, on January 17, 2014 when the vessel was on a raid near New Orleans (U.S.), the chief mate from Odesa went missing. The search and rescue operation was unsuccessful. Despite the fact that blood traces were found on the clothes of some crew members, the investigation did not bring any results. Volodymyr Poluyev has been the team member since the very day of the TV channel's foundation in 2013; currently, he hosts The Pulse and Vechirniy Praim shows Let there be freedom of speech in Ukraine! (Volodymyr Poluyev) 112 Agency Kyiv hosted the 23rd ceremony of the national program Man of the Year and the respective award in Ukraine. Volodymyr Poluyev, the reporter and the TV host of 112 Ukraine TV channel appeared among the candidates. Poluyev ended up in the top three of the candidates in the 'TV Journalist of the Year' category. Volodymyr Poluyev has been the team member since the very day of the TV channel's foundation in 2013; he started as an editor, then as a correspondent. He witnessed the entirety of events of the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine. Currently, he hosts The Pulse and Vechirniy Praim shows. Besides, he's been the brand voice of the TV channel, as the viewers hear it every day. 'It's nice being the laureate of this prize because it once again stresses how much the TV channel's work means. There's a huge team behind every TV host, and it's the 112 Ukraine TV channel's team that we've been regularly telling our viewers about', the TV host said. The Man of the Year award goes to those considered the best in various areas of life. The list of candidates includes politicians, social activists, diplomats, beneficiaries, artists and media workers who contribute to Ukraine's development. Besides, Athens faulted Russia for recognizing the former Yugoslav Republic as Republic of Macedonia being aware of the sensitivity of the Greek nation in this regard Open source Greek Foreign Ministry accused Russia of interference in the internal affairs after the comment of the Russian establishment on renaming of Macedonia, as the website of the Greek Foreign Ministry reported. We expect Russian Foreign Ministry to refrain from such statements in the future, as they are considered as interference in Greeces internal affairs, the message says. Russian Foreign Ministry condemned renaming of Macedonia and urged to consider this issue at the UN Security Council. The Greek establishment informed that Moscows comment is not compatible with the level of friendly relationships between the countries. Russias statement on the political development of the internal affairs in friendly countries do not comply with the level of the relationships between Greece and Russia, the statement says. The representatives of the establishment noted that Russias comment ignores the Greek diplomatic institutions and is considered as an interference in the internal affairs of the state. Besides, Athens faulted Russia for recognizing the former Yugoslav Republic as Republic of Macedonia being aware of the sensitivity of the Greek nation in this regard. Earlier, on January 11 the Macedonian Parliament approved amendments to the constitution which provides for renaming of the Republic of Macedonia to the Republic of North Macedonia. Deputy Head of the National Police of Ukraine expressed hope that the two authorities will cooperate effectively The number of OSCE monitors coming to Ukraine during this year's presidential election will make about 850 members. Arsen Avakov, Ukrainian interior minister reported that as quoted by the press office of the Ministry. Besides, the Ukrainian side created a special work group that aims to provide public security and legality of the electoral process. The group is headed by Ivan Stoiko, the counselor to the Minister. 'We're ready to provide full-fledged cooperation for the work of OSCE observers. The coordination staff of the Interior Ministry is already operative; local staffs are being created. We're doing everything for the election to take place honestly, fairly and according to the European standards', he wrote on Facebook. Oleksandr Fatsevych, Deputy Head of the National Police of Ukraine expressed hope that the two authorities will cooperate effectively. 'Currently, we don't see any risks or obstacles to providing security of the OSCE observers across entire Ukraine. We've got enough forces, and that's our direct responsibility. The police are paying maximum effort so that the election in Ukraine are held totally secure, without any obstacles - neither for OSCE observers nor for Ukrainian citizens. I'm sure we will be able to provide security and live up to the tasks we have', he said. The presidential campaign in Ukraine began on December 31, and the election day is March 31. The delegations of 112 Ukraine and NewsOne TV channels came to the European Parliament in Brussels. They went for an information campaign there, rallying against the censorship and pressure against the media in Ukraine. Every MEP got a presentation kit, which included the printed and digital materials about the situation with two of Ukraine's TV channels - as well as a box of chocolates, wrapped in the 'sweet covers', which 'the Ukrainian government is trying to use to cover the worrisome real state of affairs when it comes to freedom of speech in this country', as the delegation members put it. 'One cannot measure freedom for sure, but one can surely feel when someone tries limiting it'. These are the words written at an insert put in every presentation box. 'We repeatedly spoke about the support of our TV channels by the European community; we met with the representatives of the European Parliament and even hosted them at the office of 112 Ukraine TV channel. Today, we organized a unique event of international significance. For the first time of independent Ukraine, all members of the European Parliament received quite an original present, through which they can get to know more about freedom of speech in Ukraine. With this rally, we hope to turn the attention of all European politicians to the problems of journalists during the electoral campaign in Ukraine. There can be no fair election without the freedom of speech in the country', said Artem Marchevsky, General Producer of 112 Ukraine TV channel. 112 Ukraine is an informational and analytical TV channel which broadcasts 18,5 hours per day on air and uses modern technologies to be the first channel to provide the unbiased information on important and interesting events going on in Ukraine and in the world. This is mentioned in the respective statement by Artem Marchevskyi, the Chief Producer, and Yehor Benkendorf, Director General of 112 Ukraine. Seoul: The United States and North Korea plan to hold high-level talks in Washington this week to discuss a second summit of their leaders, following a prolonged stalemate in nuclear talks, a South Korean newspaper said on Tuesday. The meeting, led by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol, would happen on Thursday or Friday, the Chosun Ilbo said, citing an unnamed diplomatic source familiar with the talks. Both sides are expected to finalise the date and location of a second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and the North`s envoy is likely to meet Trump, the paper said. There was no immediate comment from the White House. Asked about the report, a State Department official said, "We don`t have any meetings to announce." If confirmed, this week`s meeting could mean the two sides are nearing a compromise after a months-long standoff over how to move forward in ending North Korea`s nuclear and missile programmes. Pompeo, who made several trips to Pyongyang last year, sought to meet his counterpart last November, but the talks were called off at the last minute. Contact was resumed after Kim`s New Year`s speech, in which he said he was willing to meet Trump "at any time," South Korea`s ambassador to the United States, Cho Yoon-je, told reporters last week. INTERIM MEASURES Washington and Seoul have been discussing potential U.S. measures to reciprocate North Korea`s possible steps toward denuclearisation, such as dismantling the Yongbyon main nuclear complex or intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) aimed at the United States, South Korean officials told Reuters. The United States is considering partially easing sanctions in exchange for the North`s discarding and sending abroad its ICBMs, in addition to a freeze in its nuclear programme, the Chosun Ilbo said, citing the source. Potential US corresponding action also includes exemptions from sanctions for inter-Korean business and tour ventures and opening a liaison office as a prelude to a formal launch of diplomatic relations, Seoul officials said. "Those ideas are being discussed as interim measures, not as an end state, in order to expedite the denuclearisation process because the North wouldn`t respond to any demand for a declaration of facilities and weapons," a senior South Korean official said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. "The end goal remains unchanged, whether it be complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation, or final, fully verified denuclearisation." The official said a second summit between Trump and Kim might happen in late February or early March, though "No one knows what Trump is thinking." Kim renewed his resolve to meet Trump again during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing last week. Trump also said this month he had received a "great" letter from Kim and would probably meet him again in the not-too-distant future. "At the second summit, they`ll probably focus on reaching a possible interim deal rather than a comprehensive roadmap for denuclearisation," said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at South Korea`s Sejong Institute. "Whether Pyongyang is willing to abolish ICBMs, in addition to disabling the Yongbyon complex, would be key, and if so, the North will likely demand sanctions relief in return." GENEVA: The UN food agency delivered emergency food and vouchers for over 9.5 million people in Yemen in December, just shy of its 10 million monthly target in the famine-threatened country, a spokesman said on Tuesday. Yemen`s nearly four-year war and economic collapse have left 15.9 million people, 53 percent of the population, facing "severe acute food insecurity", and famine looms if immediate action is not taken, a survey said last month. "We were at a bit less than 10 million because the actual situation slowed down a bit the distribution in some areas. The security is not as good as expected in some areas," World Food Programme spokesman Herve Verhoosel told a Geneva news briefing. "Some of our trucks were also stopped for longer than usual in some security checkpoints." Verhoosel later clarified that the figures represented food aid that was "dispatched" to local distribution centres across Yemen but not all had been handed out to recipients yet. The WFP, which got supplies to 7-8 million Yemenis in November, is trying to reach as many as 12 million people at risk of starvation. In December it said that some food aid meant for Yemenis was being stolen and sold in some areas controlled by the Iran-aligned Houthi militia. UN-brokered peace negotiations between the Saudi-backed Yemen government and the Houthis held in Stockholm last month yielded a shaky ceasefire deal in the lifeline port city of Hodeidah. In January, the WFP managed to deliver food to more than 10,000 families in two hard-hit areas of Hodeidah - Tahita and Duraihmi - for the first time since July, thanks to a reduction in fighting, Verhoosel said. "The truce is inconsistent, there are still some sporadic problems in and around Hodeidah." Washington: Ivanka Trump, US President Donald Trump`s daughter and senior adviser, will help choose the new World Bank President, the White House has said. Jessica Ditto, a White House spokeswoman, said on Monday that Ivanka Trump was asked because "she`s worked closely with the World Bank`s leadership for the past two years", The New York Times reported. Ivanka Trump, who had been rumoured to be a contender for the position herself, will not be a candidate, Ditto said. But she will assist the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and the acting White House Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, in choosing a successor to Jim Yong-kim, the current president of the World Bank who announced his resignation last week. Administration officials are expected to begin the interview process for the job on Tuesday. The White House did not provide any names of contenders. Ivanka Trump, Mnuchin and Mulvaney will make recommendations to the President, who will nominate a candidate for the position. Member countries of the World Bank will then vote on the nominee. Traditionally, the American President`s pick is accepted and Europe chooses the leader of the International Monetary Fund because both institutions were founded during World War II. Jim, a former Dartmouth College president and a global health expert, was selected for the post by former President Barack Obama in 2012. Bangkok: The Thai police have arrested an Indian man and 27 Thai women in connection with a fake-marriage registration scam that enabled Indians to get residential visas in the country. The Indian man, Wikrom Layerhi, was arrested on charge of being a broker to arrange for Thai women to register fake marriages with Indian nationals, the National daily cited Lt. Gen. Surachate Hakpal, Immigration Bureau Chief and Deputy Head of the Technology Crime Suppression Centre, as saying on Monday. Surachate said that the arrested women were hired for 8,000 to 10,000 bahts each, adding that these women never stayed with the Indians with whom they had registered their marriages. One of the women was 70 years old and had a family, including children, Surachate said. Police officials said they checked more than 8,000 Indians living in Thailand and found that 127 of them unlawfully obtained residential visas, which have been revoked. Thirty-six of the 127 men had been deported, according to authorities. Washington: Raj Shah, an Indian American spokesman in the White House Press Office, has left President Donald Trump`s administration and joined an arm of a Florida-based lobbying firm, officials said. Shah, a former researcher at the Republican National Committee, will lead the Media Group, the press wing of Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm with offices in Florida and Washington, The New York Times quoted the officials as saying on Monday. He will work with Jamie Rubin, a Democrat who was a spokesman for Madeleine Albright, the former Secretary of State. Shah served in the Trump White House beginning in January 2017 as Deputy Assistant to the President, Deputy Communications Director and Deputy Press Secretary. His portfolio recently included helping prepare Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh for his Senate confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court. His departure comes as the White House press and communications teams have been depleted. Several aides have moved on to roles at government agencies or have left the administration entirely. Washington: President Donald Trump has attributed the partial government shutdown, which is now into its 24th day, to the opposition Democrats who have blocked his proposal of USD 5.7 billion in Congressional funding to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. He also said that he will "never ever back down" when its comes to keeping the American people safe. The partial government shutdown, which is the longest ever, has left more than 800,000 federal government workers out of work across the key departments. "The government remains shut down for one reason and one reason only, the Democrats will not fund border security, our safety, our national security," Trump said on Monday while addressing to a rally of farmers in Louisiana. Referring to his visit to the Mexico border last week, Trump said illegal aliens not only from Mexico, but also from other nations enter the country from the southern border. "People come from many countries. When I was at the wall the other day, Border Patrol said they have 150 people they caught that day who weren't from Mexico. I said that's a strange statement," he said. "They said no, these are the people that weren't from Mexico and I was surprised. Three were from Pakistan, four from another Mideast, two Mideast countries and many were from other countries including China, countries all over the world. "150 of the people, as he said, were not from Mexico. Now they caught, many, many more but that's 150 people coming from countries that you wouldn't believe," Trump said. He said the Democrats will not approve the measures he needs to keep America safe. "We can't do that. We can't do that because this is of paramount importance to our country and again, I could take it nice and easy. I could enjoy myself. I could relax. I have been in the White House because I think it's very important to be there," he said. He alleged that the Democrat leaders went on a nice wonderful vacation over the weekend. "They had a great time but I would have loved to have been with them. I didn't like the look of it. I would have loved to have been with them but we have a very big problem. This should have been done by other presidents just like the moving of the embassy to Jerusalem should have been done. It was promised by many other presidents," the US President said. Trump insisted that the US needed a wall all around, all the length of the border. "We have got to stop the drug packers bringing drugs to poison our people," he said, arguing that walls, as being said by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are not immoral. "I've travelled around the world and the biggest wall I have ever seen is around the Vatican. Now you can't tell me that the wonderful priests and officials of the Roman Catholic church including the Pope are immoral. They have a wall. Why can't we?" he said. Asserting that the defense of the nation is his highest and most important duty, Trump said when it comes to keeping the American people safe, he will never ever back down. "I didn't need this fight. This is a real fight. We are dealing against people who think if they can stop me from building the wall again, we've already done a lot of work but they think that's a good thing for 2020 because they're not going to win. "They think if they can't stop me from building the wall that's good. This is the reason why they don't want the wall built because they all know it works, they all approved it numerous times," he said. Washington: Donald Trump has sent a letter to Kim Jong-un, a media report said Tuesday, days after the US President said he received a "great letter" from the reclusive North Korean leader, amid talks about a second summit between them on denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. Kim and Trump held a historic meeting in Singapore on June 12 last year where they issued a vague goal for the "complete denuclearisation" of the Korean Peninsula without describing when and how it would occur. The letter delivered over the weekend comes after President Trump said early this month that he had received a "great letter" from Kim and was looking forward to meet the North Korean leader for a second time in the "not-too-distant future". The letter comes as the two sides negotiate details of a second meeting between the two leaders. It was flown to Pyongyang and delivered by hand, the CNN reported, quoting a source familiar with the ongoing talks between Washington and Pyongyang on denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. North Korea's former spy chief Kim Yong Chol - one of Pyongyang's top negotiators - could visit Washington as soon as this week to finalise details of the upcoming summit, it said. The CNN previously reported that US scouting teams had visited Bangkok, Hanoi and Hawaii as they search for a location for the second summit. Last week, South Korean President Moon Jae-in threw his support behind another Trump-Kim meeting, saying it - along with a visit by Kim to Seoul - would be a turning point "that will firmly solidify peace on the Korean Peninsula", the report said. "We will not loosen our guard until the promise to denuclearise the Peninsula is kept, and peace is fully institutionalised," Moon said. Trump's announcement of receiving a letter from Kim had come after the North Korean leader warned that Pyongyang may change its approach to nuclear talks if Washington persists with sanctions. Earlier, the US president expressed satisfaction over the progress in talks with the North Koreans, saying he is in no rush for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. "We're getting along fine. I'm not in any rush. I don't have to rush. All I know is there's no rockets, there's no testing," he said. Trump said his administration was not getting any credit for this peace initiative which has averted the world from a major war. After years of isolation, Kim held a number of diplomatic summits in 2018, meeting with Moon, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Last week, he made a surprise visit to Beijing to meet again with Xi, a meeting which indicated that China remains a major player in any future action to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula. NEW DELHI: Google dedicated a doodle to Indian military surgeon-turned-entrepreneur and restaurateur Sake Dean Mahomed on Monday, January 15. In 1810, after moving to London, Mahomed opened the Hindostanee Coffee House, Britains first Indian restaurant. "A man of many talents, Sake Dean Mahomed was an entrepreneur who made a name for himself by building cultural connections between India and England. On this day in 1794, he became the first Indian author to publish a book in English and later, to open an Indian restaurant in Englandushering in what would become one of Great Britains most popular cuisines. Mahomed went on to find success as the The Shampooing Surgeon of Brighton, opening a spa in the British seaside town that attracted the rich and royal," writes Google. Mahomed was born 1759 in Bengal Presidency, modern day Patna. His father worked with the East India Company and practised alchemy. At age 10, following the death of his father, Mahomed was then taken under the wing of Captain Godfrey Evan Baker, an Anglo-Irish Protestant officer. He went on to serve as a trainee surgeon in the Army of the British East India Company. In 1782, after resigning from the Army, he moved to Britain. Eight years later, he opened the first Indian restaurant in Britain. The Epicures Almanackan early London restaurant guidehailed Hindostanee Coffee House as a place for nobility to enjoy hookah and Indian dishes of the highest perfection. Mahomed was later forced to close the restaurant in 1812 following financial constraints. "Moving his family to the beachside town of Brighton, he opened a spa named Mahomeds Baths offering luxurious herbal steam baths. His specialty was a combination of a steam bath and an Indian therapeutic massagea treatment he named 'shampooing' inspired by the Hindi word champissage meaning 'a head massage.' He also published a book about the therapeutic benefits of the treatment with testimonials from his patients. In 1822, King George IV appointed Mahomed as his personal shampooing surgeon, which greatly improved his business. A portrait of Mahomed hangs in the Brighton Museum, commemorating this man who helped merge the cultures of his two homelands," it added. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday allowed an NGO to make the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) a party in a plea seeking direction to messaging application WhatsApp for complying with data localisation norms with regard to its payment services. The plea filed by NGO Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change (CASC) said Whatsapp has not fully complied with the circular of the RBI which prescribed data localisation norms. The NGO has also sought direction to restrain the messaging platform from proceeding with its payment service unless it fully complied with the provisions of the RBI. A bench of Justices R F Nariman and Vineet Saran asked advocate Virag Gupta, appearing for the NGO, to file an application seeking to make RBI as a party to the plea in a week's time. At the outset, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for the Centre said that RBI needs to be made as party in the petition as the issue pertains to data localisation. The bench also allowed the NGO to file an rejoinder affidavit within two weeks. In their counter-affidavits filed by WhatsApp and the Central government, they have stated a grievance officer for India has been appointed by the instant messaging service company. The NGO has referred IT (Intermediary) Rules of 2011 and IT (reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules 2011 wherein provision is made for appointment of grievance officer. The NGO further said in its affidavit that it will be a paradox if data localisation norms are prescribed in India but companies are allowed to keep data officers in USA. On August 27 last year, the apex court had agreed to examine a plea alleging that WhatsApp does not comply with the Indian laws including the provision for appointing a grievance officer. WhatsApp reportedly has over 200 million users in India and almost one million people are "testing" its payments service. India is one of the largest bases for the Facebook-owned company that has over 1.5 billion users globally. In its plea, the CASC said that to open a bank account, a customer needs to comply with KYC norms laid down by the RBI and various other formalities. "WhatsApp is a foreign company with no office or servers in India. To run Payments Service in India, WhatsApp is obligated to have its office and payments in India. "Moreover, it is also required to have a Grievance Officer for users in India. Yet, it is being allowed to continue with its payments and other services, without any check," the plea claimed. The petition also alleged that the social media giant does not comply with tax and other laws of India, but its reach was such that it is used by everyone, be it a commoner or even the judges of the apex court. The plea, filed through advocate Virag Gupta, said that every user has a number on WhatsApp but the messaging platform has no number through which its user can contact it for any grievance redressal. Pointing to alleged cases of internet-based crimes, it claimed that the growth of such incidents was directly proportional to the growth of the user base of messaging services like WhatsApp. New Delhi: Popular Tv host, Raghu Ram, best known for his stint in reality show 'Roadies', tied the knot with longtime girlfriend Natalie Di Luccio in December 2018. Raghu shared a snippet from his extravagant wedding and we bet you will never get enough of it. Sharing the video on Instagram, Raghu wrote, "This glimpse of the most amazing 3 days of our lives gives me major #Feels! So much love! So much fun!! Thank you @dsilvafilms More coming soon #NatRag #TuKaregiShaadi Cinematography: @dsilvafilms Wedding planner: @tabithaweddings Raghu got engaged to Natalie in August 2018 in Toronto, Canada.Television actor Karanvir Bohra and his wife Teejay Sidhu, who share a close bond with Raghu, were invited to the ceremony. Teejay took to her Instagram page and shared a couple of pictures from the day. Captioning one of the pictures, she wrote, "The main reason we were in Toronto to see two of our dearest friends get engaged. Raghu You have always been one of the people I love most so sweet, so kind, so intelligent, and so funny (especially at 8am!!) ?? If anyone deserves happiness, its you and Im so glad you found it with Natalie. (Arent Canadians awesome?) You guys are so great together! ?? Biggest hug ever to you.. ? @instaraghu @nataliediluccio. Earlier in March, Raghu introduced Natalie by sharing a post on his Instagram account. "You once told me that you needed to believe in magic. Well, here's your proof. You walked into my life a year ago today... and impossibly, everything inside me changed! I feel love. I feel happy. I feel hope. I feel again all because of you! It has been a beautiful year of love, laughter & adventure. Happy anniversary, baby! Keep believing in magic. And that happily ever after is now. I love you," he said. Natalie also shared a picture with Raghu on her account and wrote, "Happy anniversary to the one who makes my heart sing. I love you Scooby-Doo." Raghu and his wife separated in 2016 and got officially divorced in January 2018. After getting legally divorced, the two took to their respective Instagram handles to share photos of their wedding day and their divorce day with unusually cool captions. Raghu and Natalie first met in 2016 for the song 'Aankhon Hi Aankhon Main'. Natalie was previously in a relationship with television actor Ejaz Khan for four years. Mumbai: Actor Arshad Warsi, one half of the indomitable Munna-Circuit duo of Rajkumar Hirani's 'Munna Bhai M.B.B.S', says it is wrong to jump to conclusions about the filmmaker as a #MeToo story has emerged against him. Arshad, who played Circuit in Hirani's 'Munna Bhai' series, says he has never seen even one thing wrong with the filmmaker. Asked about a woman`s allegation that Hirani sexually assaulted her during the shoot of 'Sanju', Arshad told IANS here, "For me, to pass any sort of judgement or come to a conclusion is absolutely wrong because I don`t know exactly about the case. I don`t know how much truth is there or how credible this accusation is. Has the proper investigation been done? I don`t know about all that. "I personally don`t like to jump to conclusions and pass my judgement and suddenly start looking at a person differently. I cannot do that, it`s not right to do that. What I feel about Raju? I think he is a fabulous gentleman. He is a lovely guy. My association with him is so long, and I have never seen one wrong thing about him." Arshad, who has worked with the director in films like 'Lage Raho Munna Bhai', said he has never seen Hirani behave inappropriately. "I have never seen him behaving badly or doing anything incorrect. So, suddenly hearing this, you think, 'How is this possible?'. I cannot say anything till it is all 100 per cent there... One cannot jump to a conclusion. It is not fair," added the actor, who was here to promote his forthcoming release 'Fraud Saiyyan'. According to a HuffPost India article on Sunday, the woman claimed that Hirani sexually abused her on more than one occasion over a six-month period between March and September 2018. The 56-year-old filmmaker has denied the allegation. New Delhi: Popular Telelvision actress Ankita Lokhande, who became a household name with Ekta Kapoor's daily soap 'Pavitra Rishta', is all set to make her debut on the big screen with 'Manikarnika: Queen Of Jhansi'. Apart from her debut film and her sizzling Instagram photos, Ankita is making headlines for her marriage rumours. The buzz is Ankita, who has been in a relationship with Vicky Jain, will reportedly tie the knot with him in 2019. The duo has been spotted together many times. In fact, Vicky was present at Ankita's birthday along with Kangana, Mouni Roy, Arjun Bijlani and others. Bombay Times quoted a source saying, "After her breakup with Sushant, Ankita found her soulmate in Vicky. The couple is seen at many parties together and has also travelled to various holiday destinations. All of their friends know about the relationship. Ankita is also very close to Vicky's family and is often spotted with his sister. Currently, she is occupied with her film promotions, but she is planning to get married in 2019." Speaking about it, Ankita told Bombay Times, "If it happens, I will let you know and invite you for the wedding. I cant say anything right now, but there are no such plans, yet. I am just focussing on work at the moment." Without revealing much about Vicky, she said, "He is a very nice guy. He is a businessman from Bilaspur. Yes, I am in love and you will get to know about it when the time is right." She also made it quite clear that marriage is not in the cards any time soon and quipped, "Love is really important for me, because I believe in it. I believe in giving love to everyone, including my family, dogs and myself, and not just the person I get married to. Relationships are very important, because thats the bond you share with someone and thats how love grows between people. Marriage has always been my dream. I have always wanted to get married. But at this point, my priorities have changed. I am really looking forward to more films." Previously, Ankita was in a steady relationship with her 'Pavitra Rishta' co-star Sushant Singh Rajput. The two dated each other for almost six years before heading for a bitter breakup. NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday launched a series of projects in Odisha including the Balangir-Bichhupali railway line which has been built at the cost of Rs 115 crore. He inaugurated the renovation and restoration works of Nilamadhav and Siddheswar Temple in Boudh district, laid the foundation stone for the permanent building of Kendriya Vidyalaya at Sonepur to be built at an investment of Rs 15.81 crore and also flagged off a new train on Balangir-Bichhupali route during his visit. He also dedicated a Multi-Modal Logistics Park (MMLP) in Jharsuguda. The MMLP, constructed at a cost of Rs 100 crore, will facilitate export-import and domestic cargo including, private freight traffic. It is located adjacent to the Howrah-Mumbai line which is 5 km from Jharsuguda railway station. Many important industries including steel, cement, paper are located around the facility and will benefit from it. The 15 km Balangir-Bichupali new railway line would connect coastal Odisha with the western parts of the state synchronising development across the state. It will reduce travel time from Bhubaneswar and Puri to cities like New Delhi and Mumbai. The line would also benefit many small, medium and cottage industries in Odisha and open up opportunities for the mining sector in the state. The Nilamadhav and Siddheshwar temple in Gandhaharadi (Boudh) which are to be renovated are some of the earliest instances of Odishan temple architecture celebrating western Odisha's 'Hara-Hari' cultural fabric. New Delhi: Huawei's sub-brand Honor launched the Honor 10 Lite in India on Tuesday. The Flipkart-exclusive phone will go on sale on January 20. The 4+64GB variant of the phone has been priced at Rs 13,999 while the 6+64GB variant will be available at Rs 17,999. Honor India has tweeted: The time to stay #24HrInStyle is finally here ladies & gentlemen! Get ready to buy the stunningly stylish #HONOR10Lite at INR 13,999 (4+64GB), INR 17,999 (6+64GB). The style statement smartphone will be available exclusively on @Flipkart on 20th January, 12 noon! Save the date! pic.twitter.com/8hpgb51fHL Honor India (@HiHonorIndia) January 15, 2019 Paytm is offering upto Rs 1,350 as cashback, Reliance Jio is offering cashback of Rs 2,200 while Mobikwik is offering 15 percent Supercash of upto Rs 1500. This is the first time the smartphone maker is ditching wide-notch design in favour of a 6.2 inch dewdrop-style notch, which would render over 91 percent screen-to-body ratio to the device. It houses a 24MP selfie camera with 8-scenes recognition, AI Beauty and 3D portrait lighting. It has 13MP +2MP Dual AI cameras. Under the hood the phone is powered by home-grown Kirin 710 processor. The device Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered smartphone features an updated EMUI 9.0 Operating System (OS). The phone will be available in blue, midnight blue and black colour options. Honor 10 Lite is the successor to Honor 9 Lite that was launched in India last year. New Delhi: Huawei's sub-brand Honor is set to launch Honor 10 Lite in India on Tuesday. The phone will be launched at an event in Delhi starting 11.30 am. Honor will livestream the event on its social media page. Honor India has tweeted: Less than an hour to go for the most stylish launch for the newest member of the #HONOR family! Time to welcome #HONOR10Lite and turn on the #24HrInStyle swag! Tune in to the Facebook live 11.30AM onwards FB : https://t.co/GJ9ypzrVyt pic.twitter.com/SLcCcZPEzN Honor India (@HiHonorIndia) January 15, 2019 As per IANS reports the phone will come with a 24MP selfie camera, home-grown Kirin 710 processor and a dewdrop notch display. This is the first time the smartphone maker is ditching wide-notch design in favour of a dewdrop-style notch, which would render over 91 per cent screen-to-body ratio to the device, the sources added. The upcoming smartphone would feature Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered features and an updated EMUI 9.0 Operating System (OS). The smartphone would be equipped with scene detection technology with AI on both rear and front cameras. Honor 10 Lite is the successor to Honor 9 Lite that was launched in India last year. With IANS Inputs Kolkata: Students of Jadavpur University on Tuesday staged a protest on the campus of the versity, demanding the expulsion of Professor Kanak Sarkar over his derogatory remarks on a Facebook post. Claiming Professor Sarkar to be a repeat offender, the students said that he is influencing young minds. "We want his expulsion as he is influencing young minds and we don't want misogynistic environment here. He's a repeat offender," they said. Professor Kanak Sarkar is under fire for making a controversial comparison of a virgin girl to a sealed "bottle of cold drink or a packet of biscuits". He also termed the boys who do not know about their wife being a virgin as 'fools' and asserted that a "virgin wife is like angel". Sarkar in his controversial post wondered why somebody would be "willing to buy a broken seal while purchasing a bottle of cold drink or a packet of biscuits? A girl is born sealed from birth until it is opened... A virgin girl means many things accompanied with values, culture, and sexual hygiene," he said in his post. He added that "to most boys, a virgin wife is like an angel." A professor of International Relations, Sarkar also stressed on celibacy and virginity as part of ethics and morality in a Facebook post. Facing flak on social media, the professor deleted his post. However, he also maintained his stand stating that he has 'freedom of speech'. His post was shared widely on social media with netizens calling him out. Taking note of his controversial comments, the university promised to take action against him while the National Commission for Women asked the West Bengal Director General of Police to investigate and take appropriate action in the Jadavpur University professor for giving "misogynistic" lessons to his students. On January 2, Kerala's Kanakadurga along with Bindu created history by becoming the first women in their 40s to enter the Sabarimala temple premises and offer prayers. Kanakadurga faced massive protests to reach the temple and even after the prayers when she was on her way back home. But when she would have thought that she is safely home, she was allegedly beaten up by her mother-in-law. Kanakadurga on Tuesday filed a police complaint against her mother-in-law alleging that she thrashed her with a stick after Kanaka came back home from the temple visit. The case has reportedly been registered under Section 341 and Section 324 of the Indian Penal Code IPC. After she was allegedly beaten up, Kanakadurga was admitted to a government hospital in Perinthalmanna. As per reports, the policemen who were on duty in front of her house took her to the hospital.. She is reportedly fine now. After the two women had successfully entered the shrine on January 2, they had been hiding from protestors. They had been staying at undisclosed locations under the protection of the authorities. After they offered prayers at the temple, the tantri (chief priest) of the Lord Ayyappa temple had held a "purification" ritual and closed doors to the sanctum sanctorum. However, the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) had pulled him up and sought an explanation from him. Since the Supreme Court ruled in late September to allow women in menstrual age to enter the Sabarima temple, there have several instances of violence across the state. Protesters have even clashed with police to prevent women from entering the temple. Thiruvananthapuram: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday offered prayers at the centuries-old Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, known as one of the 108 'divyadesams' of Lord Vishnu. PM Modi, who entered the sprawling shrine through the eastern entrance, spent about 20 minutes there. Earlier, while speaking at a function at neighbouring Kollam district, the Prime Minister said he would seek blessings of Lord Padmanabhaswamy for the "welfare of people of Kerala and other parts of the country". Governor Justice P Sathasivam and state Devaswom minister Kadakampally Surendran accompanied PM Modi inside the shrine. Thiruvananthapuram: Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple. #Kerala Governor Palanisamy Sathasivam also present. pic.twitter.com/eIl5X8VLDo ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 Before the darshan, PM Modi inaugurated the multi-crore developmental works carried out at the shrine as part of the union government's flagship Swadesh Darshan Scheme, which is aimed at developing the basic facilities in and around religious institutions across the country. He unveiled at the east gate, a plaque on the project "Development of Spiritual Circuit: Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple-Aranmula-Sabarimala", being implemented under the Swadesh Drashan Scheme of the Union Tourism Ministry. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Minister of State for Tourism, Alphons Kannanthanam and Shashi Tharoor, MP, were among those present during the occasion. People and party workers gathered on both sides of the road leading to the shrine to have a glimpse of the Prime Minister. Officials said that under the Swadesh Darshan project, the Ministry of Tourism had sanctioned Rs 92.22 crores during 2016-17 and a majority of the work under this project was carried out at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple. The construction of the heritage walk footpath, bio toilets and bathrooms, renovation of the Padmatheertham temple tank, electrification and setting up of security systems have been completed at the shrine, dedicated to Lord Padmanabha, under the initiative. Recognising the tourism potential of the state,the Centre has sanctioned seven projects in Kerala under the Swadesh Darshan and PRASHAD schemes for about Rs 550 crore. After the temple visit, Modi left for New Delhi. The centuries-old temple, dedicated to Lord Padmanabha, had hogged media attention in 2011 after its four underground cellars revealed gold ornaments, vessels, jewels and precious stones worth thousands of crores of Rupees during an inspection. An architectural splendour in granite, the temple was rebuilt in its present form in the 18th century by the erstwhile Travancore Royal family, for whom Lord Padmanabha (Vishnu) is their family deity. BENGALURU: Amid reports that six to eight Congress MLAs were ready to cross over to the BJP after two independent MLAs withdraw support from the HD Kumaraswamy-led government in Karnataka, a senior leader of the saffron party said on Tuesday that lotus will blossom in the Congress-JD(S)-ruled southern state soon. Commenting on the fast-paced political developments in Karnataka, BJP's Ram Shinde said, ''They (two independent MLAs) must have thought that they should join BJP that received the mandate instead of those who formed an unnatural alliance.'' ''I'm getting a feeling that the 'Operation Lotus' will be successful in the coming days,'' Shinde said. BJP's Ram Shinde on 2 Independent MLAs withdraw support from Karnataka govt: They must have thought that they should join BJP that received the mandate instead of those who formed unnatural alliance. I'm getting a feeling that Operation Lotus will be successful in the coming days pic.twitter.com/5D9P1DlrUH ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 Reactions from the senior BP leader came amid reports that some lawmakers of the ruling coalition have gone incommunicado and were willing to cross over to the BJP. However, dismissing any threat to the Congress-JDS dispensation in the state, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy earlier on Tuesday said that his government was 'stable' and he was "totally relaxed". Seeking to put up a brave front, Kumaraswamy said, "I know my strength. My government is stable. Don't worry." "Whatever are the episodes in our Kannada (TV) channels going on from last one week I am enjoying it," he added. Taking a swipe at the BJP, the Karnataka Chief Minister said, "What is going to happen? If two independents declare support (to BJP). What will be the numbers? I am totally relaxed." Earlier, triggering a political storm, two Independent legislators - H Nagesh and KPJP's R Shankar - wrote a letter to Governor Vajubhai Vala announcing withdrawal of their support to the seven-month-old Kumaraswamy government in Karnataka. Both the Congress and the BJP have been accusing each other of trying to lure legislators. While the BJP reportedly flew its 104 lawmakers to Delhi and later to a resort in Gurugram late on Monday, the Congress-JD(S) accused the former of luring its MLAs by offering bribes and other perks. However, BJP state chief BS Yeddyurappa rubbished reports that his party was attempting Operation Lotus to topple the state government. Operation Lotus is a reference to BJPs alleged bid to lure several opposition MLAs to defect to ensure the stability of its then government headed by Yeddyurappa in 2008. He said there was no truth in the charge and instead alleged that the Congress-JD(S) combine was trying to woo his party MLAs. In the 224-member Assembly, BJP has 104 members, Congress-79, JDS 37, BSP, KPJP and Independent one each, besides Speaker. BSP, KPJP and an Independent are supporting the coalition. BENGALURU: Two Independent MLAs, H Nagesh and R Shankar, on Tuesday withdrew support from Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy-led government in Karnataka amid allegations of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attempting to topple the state government. However, the CM has yet again said that there is nothing to worry and that the government remains stable. After withdrawing support, Independent MLA R Shankar said that he had taken the step as he wants a change in the government. "Today is Makar Sankranti, on this day we want a change in the government. The government should be efficient, so I am withdrawing my support (to the Karnataka govt) today," he said. 2 Independent MLAs, H Nagesh and R Shankar, withdraw their support from Karnataka govt. pic.twitter.com/C34u3BNFOb ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 H Nagesh also said that the government failed in providing good and stable government. "My support to a coalition was to provide a good and stable government which utterly failed. There's no understanding among coalition partners. So, I decided to go with BJP to install stable government and see that it performs better than this coalition," he said. However, dismissing any possibility of a crisis in government, Kumaraswamy said that he is relaxed and is enjoying the developments. "If 2 MLAs withdraw their support, what will be the numbers? I'm totally relaxed. I know my strength. Whatever is going on in media in the past week, I am enjoying," he said. Congress also claimed that the Karnataka government is in no danger. "We have been saying that BJP is luring our MLAs through money and power but their attempts to destabilise the government will fail. Our government is stable," Deputy Karnataka CM G Parameshwara said. In the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, the current government has been formed with 80 Congress MLAs, 37 JDS, one BSP and two Independents. The BJP with 104 MLAs as needs the support of at least 14 more MLAs to make come to power. Congress leader Siddaramaiah also attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking why the BJP leaders were being allowed to "destabilise" the state government. Mocking the Modi government's slogan of "Saaf Niyat, Sahi Vikas", Siddaramaiah tweeted: "'Mr Saaf Niyat' Narendra Modi, is allowing your disgraceful BJP Karnataka leaders to destabilise government a 'Saaf Niyat' towards democracy?" The former CM also tweeted: "your PR slogans do not hide your actual `niyat` and your `sahi vikas` should go beyond developing resorts. First show your niyat to people." Meanwhile, a five-star hotel in Mumbai has reportedly turned into a battleground as some Karnataka Congress and some Independent MLAs are residing there. The security at the hotel has also been hiked with senior officials of Karnataka Police present at the premises. An ex MLA (BJP) Nelmangla Nagraj is said to be coordinating with the dissenting legislators. Srinagar: Two security personnel were injured after Pakistan violated ceasefire on Tuesday along the Line of Control (LoC) in Sunderbani and neighbouring sectors of Jammu and Kasmir. One army and one BSF jawans were injured in the cross border firing by Pakistan in Sunderbani sector of Rajouri district, police said. The injured security personnel have been shifted to the Army hospital for treatment. The Indian Army is currently retaliating to the firing. Earlier in the day also Pakistani Army had violated ceasefire in Hiranagar and Sunderbani sectors of Jammu and Kashmir. In Hiranagar sector, one Border Security Force (BSF) personnel had sustained injuries due to the cross-border firing. (With inputs from agencies) SRINAGAR: PDP chief and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti on Tuesday hailed the local Kashmiri terrorists as "sons of soil" and said that sincere attempts should be made to save them. The PDP chief also appealed to the Centre to engage with the local Kashmiri terrorists to end the "gun culture" in the terrorism-hit state. "Right now, talks should be held with Pakistan and separatists. Similarly, the terrorist leaders should also be called for talks as it is they who have the guns and only they can end the gun culture," she told reporters in Anantnag after a party function. PDP Chief and former J&K CM Mehbooba Mufti: I've always said that the local militant is the son of the soil. Our attempts should be to save him. I believe, in Jammu and Kashmir, not only Hurriyat but those with the guns should also be engaged with, but not at this time. pic.twitter.com/zMcMGp3jda ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 "I believe at some stage, talks will have to be held with Hurriyat Conference and terrorists as well," she said. The PDP chief, however, said that it was "too early (for talks with terrorists)". Mehbooba said it was everyone's duty to prevent local terrorists from walking on the path of violence. "Right from the time I came into politics in 1996, I have been saying that local terrorists are sons of the soil and our maximum efforts should be to save them because they are assets. If an encounter breaks out, the two people (terrorists and security forces) come face to face and no one can do anything about it then," she said. The PDP president had on Monday questioned the timing of filing of chargesheet in the 2016 JNU sedition case, in which seven Kashmiris have been named, saying the students were being used to score political points ahead of Lok Sabha elections. "No surprises here. We are months away from the 2019 general election and like always, using Kashmiris to score extra political points with the Indian electorate has become somewhat of a pre-requisite," she had said in a series of tweets. "Timing of the charge sheet couldn't be any more suspicious. When UPA was in power, it decided to send Afzal Guru to the gallows and to this day, J&K is paying a price," she said. (With PTI Inputs) SRINAGAR: The Border Security Force (BSF) officer, who was injured d in sniper attack from across border in Samba sector of Jammu and Kashmir, died on Tuesday. Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad took a hit in sniper fire from across the border at about 10:50 am. Prasad and his patrol party were out for "carrying out border domination" along the International Border. "Pakistani snipers opened fire at them, leading to grievous injuries to the officer. Prasad was rushed to a medical facility in Satwari in Jammu where he later succumbed to his injuries," an official said. The Border Security Force (BSF) is tasked to guard the India-Pakistan International Border in the Jammu region of the state. NEW DELHI: Army chief General Bipin Rawat said on Tuesday said that the Indian Army will not hesitate in taking strong action against terror activities along the Western border that the country shares with Pakistan. "The country along our western border is providing support to terror groups, we are dealing with them effectively. Indian Army will not hesitate to take strong action to deal with terror activities," the Army chief said. "We are ensuring moral dominance along border in Jammu and Kashmir," he said while addressing Army personnel on the occasion of Army Day here. He also added that new guidelines are being followed to maintain peace and tranquillity along the border in the eastern sector. "We will keep reviewing the situation along the eastern border. Our soldiers will not allow any compromise in guarding border in eastern sector," he said, referring to the border with China. Speaking at event on Army Day, the chief also assured the personnel that the Army is carrying out major restructuring and modernisation. PRAYAGRAJ: Thousands of devotees and sages took the holy dip - Shahi Snan (Royal Bath) -- on the first day of Kumbh Mela 2019. Devotees took a dip in River Ganga at the site of Triveni Sangam -- the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna and Saraswati rivers -- on Tuesday morning, on the auspicious occasion of Makar Sankranti. WATCH: Live coverage of Ardh Kumbh 2019 from Prayagraj with Zee News More than 15 crore people are expected to descend at Praragraj for the 55-day-long Kumbh Mela which will end on March 4. The auspicious bathing days of the 2019 Kumbh Mela are Makar Sankranti (January 15), Paush Poornima (January 21), Mauni Amawasya (February 4), Basant Panchami (February 10), Maghi Poornima (February 19) and Mahashivratri (March 4). Security has been beefed up and the Kumbh administration is prepared for the expected crowd, officials said. Security personnel have been deployed at all entry and exit points of these bridges to maintain law and order. Apart from the UP police, Paramilitary and Army officers along with BSF, RAF, CISF, SSB, NDRF, Civil Police, PAC and Home Guards have been deployed. Photo Gallery: Millions participate in first Shah Snan of Kumbh Mela 2019 More than 20,000 police personnel, who are teetotallers and consume only vegetarian food, have been deployed by the Uttar Pradesh Police. India is known as the land of villages, but are all these villages really and completely child-friendly? The real picture is not reflective of an idyllic rural environment. In most of the villages, children are used as a medium to earn for the family - they toil in farms, in family-run enterprises and at home. In the course of earning their daily bread, these children lose their childhood. In an attempt to save childhood, and empower children, Nobel Peace Laureate Mr Kailash Satyarthi launched a first-of-its-kind initiative - Bal Mitra Gram (BMG), or child-friendly village on January 14, 2001. The first BMG was established in Papdi village by him. As a social movement geared towards creating an empowered ecosystem in villages where the rights of children are protected, BMGs were initiated as a platform to recognise and nurture the leadership potential in children, implemented by Kailash Satyarthi Childrens Foundation. Children participate actively in the decision-making process through Bal Panchayats (Children's Parliament) which is a powerful platform of leadership in action and also have an active voice in the Gram Panchayats (Village Parliament). Issues that beset children like child marriage, child trafficking, child labour, lack of quality education and health malnourishment are tackled in BMGs. Impact The US Department of Labour and Global Development Network had awarded BMGs as Best Practice Model in 2012. At least 540 BMGs are functional in India, while the social movement has also transcended borders with 500 having been scaled in Nepal and 40 in Uganda. The model has prevented migration of thousands of child labourers to metropolitan cities and has been instrumental in initiating a social and educational upsurge in rural India. Deprived children have now become change makers of their societies and regions, and are helping others to overcome their stigmatised past. On the 19th anniversary of Bal Mitra Gram, their efforts have led to the withdrawal of over 10,500 children from child labour and retention of over 50,000 children in schools. Bal Panchayats (Childrens Parliament) which works in coordination with Village Gram Panchayats have been able to pressurise authorities to build roads, school buildings, expedite rural development and appoint hundreds of teachers besides fighting corruption and social menaces like sexual exploitation, caste discrimination, child marriage and labor. The Bal Panchayats in these BMGs have been able to facilitate building of 14 schools, renovate 40 school buildings and upgrade 70 schools from primary to secondary. Adding to the list, BMG has also led the appointment of 100 regular teachers and a smooth supply of blackboard and other material in 240 schools. The rural movement which has successfully reached out to over 6.55 lakh children has catalysed social leaders like Champa and Lalita Duhariya. BMG Changemakers Thirteen-year-old Lalita Duhariya, from Alwar district of Rajasthan has set a classic example to demolish caste and gender discrimination practice and work towards a fairer and more egalitarian society. As a member of the Bal Panchayat, she started fighting against caste discrimination in her school. She persuaded children attending school to share their meals without caste coming in the way. She achieved success during the festival Makar Sankranti, which engages celebration of inter-caste religion. She led a team of Bal Panchayat members and encouraged all villagers to share their meals during festivals. Her efforts helped in reducing caste prejudice in village. Now all villagers speak to each other and share their grievances. They now say its our village from its our caste. Twelve-year-old Champa Kumari is the President of Bal Panchayat in BMG Jamdar, Jharkhand. She comes from a family where even children have been forced to work in Mica mines to support their families. The former child labourer is now a seventh grade student. Many families in her village practice child marriage. In the past, Champa has been threatened by members of her community for her efforts in foiling child marriages. She continues undaunted in her campaign for the rights of children. 14-year-old Surjeet Lodhi lives with his grandparents and two siblings in Sahwa BMG, Ganj Basoda, Madhya Pradesh. Faced with incidents of daily abuse and violence inflicted by his alcoholic father, Surjeet resolved to speak up. He fasted until his father pledged to stop consuming alcohol. Surjeet is now the Vice-President of the Bal Panchayat in his BMG. He leads the anti-alcohol campaign in his BMG. As a result of his struggle, illegal liquor shops were closed and two people have been penalised for running an illegal shop. He now dreams of becoming a politician one day. Fifteen-year-old Kavya has emerged as a social leader who is leading from the front in her fight against social evils like child marriage. She had successfully foiled her own marriage with the help and support of Mahila Mandal (Womens Council) of Bal Mitra Gram a child-friendly village, associated with Kailash Satyarthi Childrens Foundation. Kavya stood against her parents decision to get her married, when they received a proposal from a good family. Rather, she chose and decided to study and finally convinced her parents to stop her from getting married. After gaining support from the Mahila Mandal in her fight against her marriage, she has become a social worker in Siddalingapura Bal Mitra Gram (BMG) or child-friendly village and leads awareness campaigns against the menace of child marriage. Silvy Kalra is a communications professional and a women and child rights activist. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.) NEW DELHI: In a big setback for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Supreme Court on Tuesday denied permission to it to conduct rath yatras in West Bengal on the ground that it may disturb the social fabric in the state. The apex court, however, said that the state unit of BJP can conduct meetings and rallies and directed it to take fresh permission from the state authorities. SC refused to give a go ahead for the BJP's Yatra in West Bengal. The Apex Court, however, said that the BJP state unit can conduct meetings and rallies. SC said, if BJP comes out with a revised plan of fresh Yatra, that may be considered afresh later. pic.twitter.com/TbvYiRQply ANI (@ANI) 15 January 2019 While passing its order, the top court said that if BJP comes out with a revised plan for conducting rath yatras across the state, the same may be considered afresh later. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked BJP's state unit to submit a revised schedule of its proposed 'Rath Yatra' with the authorities and seek necessary approvals. Supreme Court also directed the West Bengal government to decide on BJP's application for 'Rath Yatra' keeping in mind ''the fundamental right of speech and expression.'' The top court had on Tuesday issued a notice to the West Bengal government for restraining the BJP from holding its proposed rath yatras in the state and posted the matter for hearing on January 15. The BJP had moved court seeking permission to hold the campaign 'Save Democracy Rally', which would cover 42 parliamentary constituencies in the state ahead of the 2019 general elections. It had challenged the December 21 order of a division bench of the high court which had set aside the order of a single judge allowing the yatra. In the plea, the BJP had said that their fundamental right to hold a peaceful yatra cannot be withheld. The party had planned to launch the yatra from three districts of the state. The high court's division bench had earlier sent the case back to the single judge to hear it afresh and also to consider intelligence inputs by state agencies. The order of the division bench had come after hearing an appeal moved by the West Bengal government challenging the order of the single judge. In the plea filed in the apex court, the BJP's West Bengal unit had contended that authorities cannot abridge their right and they have a duty to facilitate them in exercising their democratic right. They had alleged that the state government was repeatedly "attacking" the fundamental right of citizens due to which different petitions were filed challenging the activities of the state government in denying permission to different organisations and the top court has allowed the citizens to organise their events. It had claimed that earlier also, permission was denied several times at the last moment to "harass the BJP" which later moved the high court and that the party "is facing such political vendetta since 2014 in West Bengal". As per the earlier proposed schedule, the rallies were to be flagged off by BJP president Amit Shah from Bengal's Cooch Behar district on December 7, Kakdwip in South 24 Parganas on December 9 and from Tarapith temple in Birbhum on December 14. (With Agency Inputs) New Delhi: Former Delhi High Court judge Kailash Gambhir on Tuesday wrote to President Ram Nath Kovind against the recommendation of the Collegium to elevate Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dinesh Maheshwari to the Supreme Court. Urging President Kovind to prevent 'another historical blunder' from being committed, Gambhir said, "I write to you as having been a proud member of this vibrant judiciary, which has withstood the tests on its credibility every now and then, but I am afraid may not survive this time. It will be another black day when there will be supersession of 32 Judges who are senior to Justice Sanjeev Khanna and many of them may be no less meritorious and men of integrity than him. The legacy that we all are so proud of and which the collegium, so scrupulously wants to preserve will become nothing but an unfortunate irony. " Last week, the Supreme Court Collegium recommended the names of Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, the chief justice of the Karnataka High Court, and Justice Sanjiv Khanna of the Delhi High Court for elevation as judges of the apex court. The five-member Collegium headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi took the decision in its meeting on January 10 to recommend the names of justices Maheshwari and Khanna for their elevation to the Supreme Court. The decision of the Collegium, comprising justices A K Sikri, S A Bobde, N V Ramana and Arun Mishra, was made public on the apex court's website on Friday. The apex court, which has a sanctioned strength of 31 judges, is presently functioning with 26 judges. The decision put on the website noted the issue of elevation of judges was deliberated on December 12, 2018, when Justice M B Lokur was also a member of the Collegium. Justice Mishra became a member of the Collegium after Justice Lokur retired on December 30. According to the website, after extensive deliberations on January 5 and 6 this year, the newly constituted Collegium deemed it appropriate to have a fresh look on the issue of elevation of judges in the light of the additional material that became available. Justice Maheshwari was appointed a judge of the Rajasthan High Court on September 2, 2004 and was transferred to Allahabad High Court on July 19, 2014. He was elevated as Chief Justice of Meghalaya High Court on February 24, 2016 and was thereafter transferred to Karnataka High Court on February 12, 2018. He has been functioning there since then. Justice Maheshwari stands at Sl. No. 21 in the combined seniority of high court judges on all-India basis. Justice Khanna was appointed a judge of the Delhi High Court on June 24, 2005 and since has been functioning there. He stands at Sl.No. 33 in the combined seniority of high court judges on all-India basis. If elevated, Justice Khanna would become chief justice of India after Justice D Y Chandrachud in 2024. (With inputs from agencies) Here's the full text of former Delhi HC judge Kailash Gambhir's letter: To, The Hon'ble President of India, Rashtrapati Bhawan, Delhi, India. Respected Sir, I write this letter to your Excellency with a heavy heart. On the evening of llth January, 2019 there was breaking news on all the news channels that the Collegium of the Hon.ble Supreme Court of India had recommended the elevation of Hon'ble Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, Chief Justice, Karnataka High Court and Hon'ble Justice Sanjeev Khanna, Judge, Delhi High Court to the Hontle Supreme Court of India. At first, I disbelieved the said piece of news, especially concerning the elevation of Hon'ble Justice Sanjeev Khanna not only superseding three Judges senior to him from Delhi High Court, who are also f high merit a. impeccable integrity but also superseding more than 30 Judges in All India Seniority. However, to verify the veracity of the news. I kept on changing the channels and found the news to be correct, questioning my own incredulity. On legal news websites there was a detailed coverage of this event, including the decision of collegium placed on the website of Suprerne Court of India. To reiterate what you may be aware, it states that the collegium has discussed names of Chief Justices as well as senior puisne Judges of the High Courts, eligible for elevation to the Supreme Court and is of the considered view that at present the said two persons are more deserving and suitable in all respects than other Chief Justices and Senior puisne Judges of High Courts for being appointed as Judges of the Supreme Court of India. The decision of the collegium also refers to certain decisions taken by it on 12th December, 2018 but since the required consultation could not be undertaken as the winter vacation of the court intervened and by the tirne the Court reopened, the composition of the collegium underwent a change. To be honest, the said news breaking all traditions has sent shockwaves to the entire legal and judicial fraternity. This is appalling and outrageous that such a earth shattering decision has been taken to supersede as many as 32 Judges which include many Chief Justices, casting aspersions on their intellect, merit and integrity. We all know that Hon'ble Justice Sanjeev Khanna, son of late Honb'ble Justice D.R. Khanna also happens to be the nephew of the highly respected man in the legal world, late Hon'ble Justice H.R. Khanna. The talk in the legal corridors is that the elevation of Justice Khanna is with a view to pay respect to the legacy left by his great uncle and is a tribute to his great ideals, principles, judicial philosophy and most of all, to the courageous stand taken by him in the Habeas Corpus case. We all know that Justice Khanna stood as a rock in his known dissenting a. minority voice and refused to bow down to the majority voice of four senior most Judges who went on to compromise the life and liberty of citizens, permitting unrestricted powers of the government for detention during emergency. It is said that Justice Khanna knew that when he signed his dissenting judgrnent that he was signing away his future Chief Justiceship. As a fait accompli, when the time came Justice Khanna was superseded and in his place Justice M.H. Beg was appointed as Chief Justice of India. Justice Khanna resigned so as to give a slap on the face of all those votary of playing with the independence of the judiciary and to respect the seniority of Judges. Many term the supersession of Justice H.R. Khanna as a black day in the history of Indian Judiciary. In December, 1978 his full size portrait was unveiled in the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Court No. 2 and to this day, nobody else has had the singular honour of having their portrait put up in the Supreme Court during their lifetime. It is not far long ago that Hon.ble Justice Gogoi was one of the four Judges of the Supreme Court who held an unprecedented press conference to flag some of the pressing problems they faced with the then Chief Justice of India. While addressing the media, it was said that "unless this institution is preserved, democracy will not survive in this Country. It was also said that "democracy will not survive without free judiciary... I humbly urge your Excellency to kindly ponder over as the head of our largest democracy in the world with a robust judiciary and having remained a part of the legal fraternity, and see yourself that the way the present collegium of five eminent senior Judges have superseded almost 32 Judges, how will the democracy and independence of judiciary in the country survive. It cannot be forgotten, that it is just one and a half month back the then collegium members of Supreme Court had superseded Hon'ble Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and now out of the blue, he becomes more deserving and suitable within such a short gap. I write to you as having been a proud member of this vibrant judiciary, which has withstood the tests on its credibility every now and then, but I am afraid may not survive this time. It will be another black day when there will be supersession of 32 Judges who are senior to Justice Sanjeev Khanna and many of them may be no less meritorious and men of integrity than him. The legacy that we all are so proud of and which the collegium, so scrupulously wants to preserve will become nothing but an unfortunate irony. In the light of the aforesaid, I humbly pray that the credibility and independence of the judiciary be preserved and let another historical blunder be not committed. With highest personal regards, Sincerely yours Justice Kailash Gambhir, (Retd.) Prayagraj: Sea of devotees on Tuesday descended in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj to attend the first Shahi Snan (royal bathing) of Kumbh Mela 2019 on January 15 also celebrated as Makar Sankranti. Magnificent processions of seers and their disciples and members of various 'akharas', smeared in ash, took part in the ritual. WATCH: Live coverage of Ardh Kumbh 2019 from Prayagraj with Zee News In the Shahi Snan, sadhus, sages and devotees, took a dip in River Ganga in Prayagraj, at the site of Triveni Sangam the confluence of three rivers Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati to cleanse their sins. The bathing tithi started at around 4.00 am and will continue till 5.00 pm. There are a total of six auspicious days for the Shahi Snan, depending on the alignment of stars, where the devotee would take a dip to wash away their sins. The Kumbh Mela 2019 will witness more than 15 crore people descending at the holy site for a dip at Triveni Sangam. Reuters photo About 13 'akharas' will be participating in the on Tuesday's Shahi Snan, with each being allocated about 45 minutes by the Kumbh administration. The Sanyasi Akhara was the first to begin the ceremonial bath. Of the 13 'akharas', seven are Shaiva and three each are Vaishnava and Udaseen, said Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad (ABAP) president Narendra Giri. 'Akharas' may be categorised into three categories based on the deities they worship -- Shaiva, Vaishnava and Udaseen, he added. The 'akharas' were formed following efforts by the eighth-century Hindu seer Adi Shankaracharya to unite organisations of ascetics to protect the 'sanatan' way of life. The auspicious bathing days of the 2019 Kumbh Mela are Makar Sankranti (January 15), Paush Poornima (January 21), Mauni Amawasya (February 4), Basant Panchami (February 10), Maghi Poornima (February 19) and Mahashivratri (March 4). Security has been beefed up and the Kumbh administration is prepared for the expected crowd, officials said. "For the first time, three women units have been deployed at the Kumbh Mela site to specially cater to our women pilgrims. A Foreign Help Desk has also been running 24/7 because there is a greater interest among foreigners. We are expecting a unit from MEA to arrive tomorrow to address queries foreign visitors may have," K.P. Singh, DIG Kumbh Mela, told reporters here. Apart from the UP police, Paramilitary and Army officers along with BSF, RAF, CISF, SSB, NDRF, Civil Police, PAC and Home Guards have been deployed. A pandal set up for Kumbh Mela near Digambar Akhada in Prayagraj caught fire after a cylinder exploded at the kitchen in Digambar Akhada on Monday, triggering panic just a day before the fair officially opens. The fire was later brought under control. NEW DELHI: The Government of India (GoI) on Tuesday strongly condemned Monday's deadly attack in Afghanistan's capital Kabul in which several people, including an Indian national, were killed. ''India strongly condemns the horrific terror attack in Kabul yesterday in which an Indian national and many others lost their lives. We express our sincere condolences to the families of the victims of this cowardly attack and wish early recovery to the injured,'' a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said. The MEA further informed that the Indian Embassy in Kabul is taking steps for repatriation of the mortal remains of the Indian national killed in the deadly attack. ''The Indian Embassy in Kabul is taking steps for repatriation of the mortal remains of the Indian national. India calls for the perpetrators of this heinous attack and those who provide them shelter to be brought to justice expeditiously,'' the MEA statement said. MEA: The Indian Embassy in Kabul is taking steps for repatriation of the mortal remains of the Indian national. India calls for the perpetrators of this heinous attack and those who provide them shelter to be brought to justice expeditiously. https://t.co/jwefErZjsP ANI (@ANI) 15 January 2019 At least 4 people died and more than 100 injured after a bomb exploded in a place frequented by foreigners. The Afghan Taliban on Tuesday claimed the responsibility for a truck bomb attack in Kabul that left at least four dead and over 100 wounded. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement that attackers on Monday night blew up a truck laden with explosives before entering Green Village compound in Kabul, Efe news reported. "Based on the initial information in this attack, tens of foreign invading forces and their Afghan supporters were killed," Mujahid said, without specifying the number of victims. The Taliban said that after the first explosion, four other suicide bombers entered the area - referred to as "the intelligence nest" - where fighting went on for several hours. Mujahid said several civilians in nearby houses suffered light injuries due tothe impact of the explosion but added that "civilians were not the target". However, Kabul Police spokesperson Basir Mujahid said four persons were killed and 113 wounded in the attack. He also denied the Taliban`s version of a clash with suicide bombers after the explosion. "There was no armed attack by suicide bombers after the first bombing. After the blast, the area was secured by our security forces (...) The situation in the area is normal," the police official said. Kabul in recent months has witnessed a large number of attacks against all types of targets, from members of the Shia minority to workers involved in the October 20 parliamentary elections along with candidates and voters. The last such attack happened in late December on a government building which left 48 dead. Since the end of the NATO combat mission in January 2015, the Afghan government has been losing ground to the Taliban. The government barely controls 56 percent of the country, according to data from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction of the US Congress. As India marks its 71st Army Day on Tuesday, the country also remembers the bravehearts who not just fought for the motherland but even laid their lives in the line of duty. They took on the enemies and displayed unparalleled bravery whether on land, at sea, or in the air. And for their service to the motherland, they were awarded with Param Vir Chakra, the highest gallantry award for armed forces personnel. Among the first three winners of Param Vir Chakra were Major Somnath Sharma, Lance Naik Karam Singh and 2/Lieutenant Raghoba Rane. Major Sharma of Kumaon regiment and Lance Naik Karam Singh of the Sikh regiment were awarded Param Vir Chakra (Posthumous) for an act of gallantry in Jammua and Kashmir. In 1950, Naik Jadunath Singh of the Rajput Regiment was awarded the gallantry honour posthumously. He took on the enemy while guarding a forward section post, despite most of his men getting injured in an onslaught. What looked like an impending defeat was turned into victory due to his leadership and supreme heroism. Company Havildar Major Piru Singh of the Rajputana Rifles got the honour in 1952. He was directed to attack the enemy and capture a hill occupied by them. Despite losing most of his men, he managed to capture two trench and was later shot in the head by the enemy. Captain Gurbachan Singh Salaria of Gorkha rifles received the gallantry honour in 1962. During an operation to clear up a road block, Captain Salaria killed 40 personnel of the enemy and knocked out two armoured cars. He made the enemy flee the area. In the same year, Major Dhan Singh Thapa of Gorkha Rifles was awarded the Param Vir Chakra. He was in command of a forward post in Ladakh, which came under attacked by Chinese army. Under his command, the army unit repulsed the army attack and caused heavy losses to the enemy. Later when the Chinese troops returned with tanks, he got out of his trench and killed many of them. Subedar Joginder Singh of the Sikh Regiment also received the gallantry honour the same year. In another Chinese aggression, Subedar Singh took on two waves of attacks, and later charged the advancing third wave of Chinese soldiers, inflicting major losses to the enemy. Major Shaitan Singh of the Kumaon Regiment received the award in 1963. While commanding a company of an Infantry Battalion at Razangala, he came under attack from Chinese forces who used heavy artillery, mortar and small arms. He moved from one platoon post to another to encourage his men, and give a befitting response to the enemy. After he got seriously wounded, he ordered his men to leave him to his fate in order to save their lives. The next Param Vir Chakra was given in 1965 to Company Quarter Master Havildar Abdul Hamid of 4 Grenadiers posthumously. He took on Pakistani soldiers with his gun mounted on a jeep, under intense enemy shelling and tank fire. He knocked out several army tanks. His act of bravery inspired his comrades to beat back the heavy tank assault by the enemy. Lieutenant Colonel Ardeshir Burzorji Tarapore also got the honour posthumously the same year. Under his leadership, the armymen destroyed at least 60 enemy tanks at the cost of just nine tanks casualty. The operation lasted for six days and he led it from the front. 2/LT Arun Khetarpal of 17 Horse unit received the honour posthumously in 1972. He physically over ran the enemy, capturing their infantry and weapon crews at pistol point. He went on to personally destroy four enemy tanks. Major Hoshiar Singh of Grenadiers was also decorated with the honour in 1972. He was ordered to capture an enemy locality, which was held in strength by them. During the operation, he indulged in hand to hand fight with the enemy and under his leadership, the unit repulsed all attack inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy. Another braveheart, Lance Naik Albert Ekka, got the Param Vir Chakra (posthumous) the same year. He was part of a company given the charge to capture Gangasagar on the Eastern Front from the enemy. During the operation, he indulged in hand to hand fight with the enemy and later even crawled to the army location and destroyed their guns to save his fellow armymen. He ensured the success of the attack. 1972 was the year of bravest, as Flying Officer Nirmal Jit Singh Sekhon was also awarded with Param Vir Chakra the same year. On December 14, 1971, Srinagar airfield was attacked by a wave of six enemy Sabre aircraft. Flying Officer Sekhon was on readiness duty at the time. In spite of the mortal danger of attempting to take off during the attack, Flying Officer Sekhon took off immediately and engaged a pair of the attacking Sabres. In the fight that ensued, he secured hits on one aircraft and set another on fire. He was eventually overcome by sheer weight of numbers. His aircraft crashed and he was killed. Naib Subedar Bana Singh of Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry got the Param Vir Chakra in 1988. He volunteered to be a member of a task force to clear an intrusion in the Siachen Glacier area at an altitude of 21,000 feet. Moving from trench to trench and lobbing hand grenades, he cleared the post of all intruders. Major Ramaswamy Parameswaran of Mahar Regiment also received the honour in the same year. While returning from a search operation in Sri Lanka, his column was ambushed by a group of militants. He encircled the militants from the rear and took them by surprise. Even after being shot in the chest, he continued to guide his men till he breathed his last. In 1999, the gallantry honour was given to Captain Vikram Batra of Jammu and Kashmir Rifles posthumously. In an operation as part of Operation Vijay, Captain Batra killed five enemy soldiers in a hand to hand fight at point black range. He achieved a near impossible task in the face of heavy enemy fire. The same year, Lieutenant Manoj Kumar Pandey of Gorkha Rifles got the Param Vir Chakra (posthumous). He was a part of series of attacks during Operation Vijay, forcing back the intruders with heavy losses. Rifleman Sanjay Kumar of 13 Jammu and Kashmir Rifles got the honour the same year. During an operation to capture a point in the Mushkoh Valley, he indulged in hand to hand combat and even chased the enemy, using their machine gun and killed many of them even as they fled. Yogender Singh Yadav of 18 Grenadiers was also awarded with Param Vir Chakra. He was part of leading team of Ghatak platoon tasked to capture Tiger Hill. He took charge and fixed rope for his team to climb up the hill. Amid intense firing, he crawled up to the enemy position, sustaining multiple injuries. The Param Vir Chakra is awarded for most conspicuous bravery or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, in the presence of the enemy. Circular in shape, made of bronze, one and three eighth inches in diameter. On obverse, there are four replicas of Indras Vajra with the State Emblem (including the motto) embossed in the centre. On its reverse, it shall have embossed Param Vir Chakra both in Hindi and English with two lotus flowers between Hindi and English. NEW DELHI: In a veiled attack on Pakistan, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Tuesday said that "our western neighbour" was ceaselessly supporting terrorists and warned that India will achieve "decisive success" if war is forced on it. "If our nation is forced into a situation of war, decisive success will be ours," Gen Rawat said while addressing the 71st Army Day Parade here. Warning that security challenges will be more complex in future, the Army chief said, "There is a need to enhance our professional skills to deal with any danger." Gen. Rawat said that a new policy had been adopted on the border with China and the armies of the two countries told to maintain peace. Referring to action taken in the wake of unending firing by Pakistani troops, he said, "We have been giving a befitting reply to the enemies on the Line of Control (LoC) that has led to heavy loss of lives and logistics." Accusing Pakistan of helping terrorists, Gen Rawat said, "I warn the enemy that we will not hesitate to take heavy action in reply to what they are doing against our country. "Not only is our neighbouring country supporting terrorism but it is also providing arms and facilitating training to terrorists. That country (Pakistan) has been included in the category of countries sponsoring terrorism, " the Army chief said. He said the Army's anti-infiltration operations were on and would continue. On terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, Gen Rawat said his men had caused heavy losses to the militants with the help of other security agencies. Asserting that the Army was determined to crush terrorism, Gen Rawat said terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir were in a "hopeless" situation. "The result is that the terrorists are now threatening teenagers to take to arms in Jammu and Kashmir. We don't want that terrorists continuously keep threatening citizens." He said the situation in the northeastern states was "under control" and that focused intelligence based operations by Army and Assam Rifles were on. The Army was also training paramilitary forces and police in Maoist affected areas. Gen Rawat also talked about "revolution in military affairs" to make the war strategy modern. To deal with future challenges, he said the 1.9 million strong Indian Army had adopted the techniques of "collective" changes in weaponry and its "reorganisation" was on. "The aim of our capacity is being increased in a rapid way. Army's modernization is being done. We have been successful in procuring new weapons and in the technique to work in darkness." Gen Rawat said the Army had added projects like K-9 Vajra gun, Prahaar missile system, mine protected vehicles and Aakash missile system. The Army chief also advised soldiers and their families to use social media very carefully. The Army Day is celebrated to commemorate the day when Field Marshal M. Cariappa took over as Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army from General Sir Francis Butcher on January 15, 1949. In view of life-threatening thunderstorms and lightning during the pre-monsoon season, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has decided to implement an end-to-end prediction system for predicting thunderstorms or lightning by April 2019. "Last year, during the pre-monsoon season a series of thunderstorm or dust storm affected the northern states and claimed about 200 lives. Hence, the IMD will be implementing an end-to-end prediction system for predicting thunderstorms or lightning by April 2019," Ministry of earth sciences said in a release on Monday. Union Minister of Science and Technology, Earth Sciences, Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said that the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) and IMD are already working on prediction tools for thunderstorm or lightning. "IITM Pune has already installed 48 lightning sensors around the country which can locate the thunderstorm/lightning activities in real time. The institute has also developed a mobile app called `DAMINI` to give alerts on impending lightning activity over the area," Vardhan said while addressing the media here. Vardhan also informed that currently IITM Pune and IMD are developing a new website for IMD along with the mobile apps for farmers and city forecasts. "These new tools will help IMD to disseminate forecasts and warnings on time," he said adding the new website and apps will be ready for launch by June 2019. Vardhan said that the IMD, in a bid to further strengthen its observational network will install "10 new X-band weather radars" over north-west Himalayas (Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand) by end of this year. Also, as per the earth sciences ministry, 11 more C-band radars will be installed by IMD over the plains of India including one over Andaman Nicobar Islands and one over Lakshadweep Islands by 2020. "In addition, IMD is installing 200 Automated Weather Stations (AWS) at District Agromet Units for providing weather services to farmers and another 200 AWS will be installed over major cities and towns for providing city-specific weather information and forecasts, it said. "On the specific request from Kerala Government, IMD will also be installing 100 new AWS including rain-gauges to monitor weather activities in the state," Vardhan`s office said. In another initiative, Vardhan informed that IITM Pune with the help of IMD and Mumbai Municipal Corporation is installing a new dense rain-gauge network over Mumbai with 200 rain-gauges. In addition, 4 X-band radars will be also installed so that a merged rainfall data set at 2-kilometre resolution will be prepared and made available to the public in real time. "This facility will help the city administration and general public to know the prevailing rainfall situation in the city in real-time. For this purpose, a mobile app has already been developed," the Minister said. SRINAGAR: Expressing solidarity with those named in the 2016 Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) sedition case, PDP president Mehbooba Mufti has questioned the timing of the filing of the chargesheet by Delhi Police and blamed the ruling BJP at the Centre for trying to score political points by implicating seven Kashmiri students in the case. These seven are among the 10 students, including former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar, charged by the Delhi Police for allegedly shouting anti-India slogans during an event on the university campus on February 9, 2016, to commemorate the hanging of Parliament-attack mastermind Afzal Guru. "No surprises here. We are months away from the 2019 general election and like always, using Kashmiris to score extra political points with the Indian electorate has become somewhat of a pre-requisite," the Peoples Democratic Party chief said in a series of tweets. Mehbooba Mufti: Jo ki (chargesheet in JNU sedition case) bilkul ghalat hai. Aisa mehsoos ho raha hai ki 2019 ke elections ki tayari mein J&K ke logon ko phir se mohra banaya jaa raha hai. unko istemaal kiya ja raha hai. Vote ki rajniti ho rahi hai https://t.co/c5neNJ2HXM ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2019 "Timing of the chargesheet couldn't be any more suspicious. When UPA was in power, it decided to send Afzal Guru to the gallows and to this day, J&K is paying a price," the former J&K chief minister said. "Wonder how many more Kashmiris, along with their families, will have to pay a price to secure the political fortunes of national parties," she said. The PDP chief further said that the charges pressed against those named in the chargesheet are false and appear to have been done with a political vendetta against Kashmiris. ''We shook hands with BJP as they had the mandate to have talks on Jammu and Kashmir issue just like AB Vajpayee Ji held talks with Hurriyat and Pakistan. But PM Narendra Modi Ji couldn't walk on the path of Vajpayee even though he had the mandate,'' Mehbooba said accusing the BJP of not following the coalition dharma. The reactions from the PDP president came hours after the Delhi Police filed a 1200-page log chargesheet naming former JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya and several others for shouting anti-national slogans during an event at the varsity campus in 2016. The accused have been charged with offences under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 124A (sedition), 143 (punishment for being a member of an unlawful assembly) and 120B (criminal conspiracy). The chargesheet filed by Delhi Police is based on the video clip provided by Zee News along with the CCTV footage obtained from the university, mobile footage and documentary evidence. KOLKATA: Jadavpur University professor Kanak Sarkar is facing attack from all quarters for making a controversial comparison of a virgin girl to a sealed "bottle of cold drink or a packet of biscuits". He also termed the boys who do not know about their wife being a virgin as 'fools' and asserted that a "virgin wife is like angel". Sarkar in his controversial post wondered why somebody would be "willing to buy a broken seal while purchasing a bottle of cold drink or a packet of biscuits? A girl is born sealed from birth until it is opened... A virgin girl means many things accompanied with values, culture, and sexual hygiene," he said in his post. He added that "to most boys, a virgin wife is like an angel." A professor of International Relations, Sarkar also stressed on celibacy and virginity as part of ethics and morality in a Facebook post. Facing flak on social media, the professor deleted his post. However, he also maintained his stand stating that he has 'freedom of speech'. "Supreme Court has repealed section 66 A of IT Act and given freedom of expression in Social Media. When Taslima Nasrin wrote against a particular religion we supported her Freedom of Expression... I have not written anything against any person, individual or anybody without any evidence or proof or any reference," he said in another Facebook post. His post was shared widely on social media with netizens calling him out. So much for being professor of jadavpur university. Shame. sandeep chandna (@cssandeep) January 15, 2019 This gentleman here, Jadavpur professor Kanak Sarkar, has now compared virgin women to "sealed bottles". He argues that men shouldn't want anything less than virgin brides, just like they wouldn't buy a bottle or a packet with a "broken seal". Honestly, I'm past surprise now. pic.twitter.com/9hWKwq2DDW Shreya (@ShreyaTeresita) January 13, 2019 This. Remarks by a professor of Jadavpur University @JUFET People like him 'teach' and mould our future. This is what we want to be taught? pic.twitter.com/cwLYLVSgPD Devlina Ganguly (@DevlinaGanguly) January 13, 2019 Taking note of his controversial comments, the university has promised to take action against him. "I was not there. I have returned last night. We will take all steps as per law," Jadavpur University vice chancellor Suranjan Das said. The National Commission for Women has also asked the West Bengal Director General of Police to investigate and take appropriate action in the Jadavpur University professor for giving "misogynistic" lessons to his students. NEW DELHI / MUMBAI: Petrol breached the Rs 76 mark in Mumbai on Tuesday morning, a day after it crossed the Rs 70-mark in Delhi. According to Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) website, petrol was being sold at Rs 76.05 per litre following a hike of 28 paisa in Mumbai, while diesel price stood at Rs 67.49 per litre, after an increase of 31 paisa. In the national capital, petrol and diesel prices were at Rs 70.41 per litre, after an increase of 28 paisa and Rs 64.47 per litre, post 29 paisa hike, respectively. In Chennai, petrol and diesel prices were Rs 73.08 per litre and Rs 68.09 per litre respectively. In Kolkata, petrol was being sold at Rs 72.52 per litre, while diesel Rs 66.24 per litre. This is the sixth consecutive day of increase in rates and seventh hike this month. Rates vary from state to state, depending on the rate of local sales tax or value-added tax (VAT). Prior to that, rates had cooled to a year's low of Rs 68.29 for petrol and Rs 62.16 in case of diesel. This followed a decline in rates on almost all days since October 18, 2018. In all, the petrol price has fallen by Rs 14.54 per litre since October 18, 2018, while diesel price declined by Rs 13.53 per litre in two and a half months. With agency inputs New Delhi: Veteran actor Anupam Kher's latest venture 'The Accidental Prime Minister' released on January 11, 2019. The film opened to a mixed review with some hailing the performances while others calling it an average entertainer. The film will now release in Tamil and Telugu languages on January 18, 2019. The makers have shared the two new posters as well. Noted film critic and trade analyst Taran Adarsh took to Twitter and shared the details. He wrote: #TheAccidentalPrimeMinister to release in #Tamil and #Telugu on 18 Jan 2019... #TAPM posters in local languages: 'The Accidental Prime Minister' movie is based on the 2014 memoir of the same name by Sanjaya Baru. The film has been directed by Vijay Ratnakar Gutte and written by Mayank Tewari. The political drama features Anupam Kher in the titular role of former PM Manmohan Singh. The film also features Akshaye Khanna, Suzanne Bernert, Aahana Kumra and Arjun Mathur to name a few. New Delhi: Kangana Ranaut is one actress who doesn't believe in mincing her words. The actress is known to wear her heart on her sleeves and speak her mind out when needed. It is no hidden secret that due to her 'valorous' attitude, the actress has been cornered by many celebrities of the tinsel villa. Kangana also was the first celeb from the industry who extended her support to Tanushree Dutta in the MeToo incident and also came out in support of the woman who had accused Vikas Bahal of sexual harassment. She even shared her own unpleasant experience of working with him. During a chat with Pinkvilla, Kangana was asked if she is a 'lonesome wolf' of Bollywood, to which the actress once again took a dig at Roshans. She also slammed filmmaker Karan Johar for allegedly singling her out and ex Aditya Pancholi for filing a lawsuit against her. "People resonate and identify with me. When the whole nepotism thing happened, Karan Johar went on record and apologized to me. When I began shooting Manikarnika, there were never-ending open letters. When I faced uneasy accusations from one quarter and I was sent a notice, there was an outrage. Though I was not a big star, and I was having this conflict with a co-actor, I did find people supporting me," she said. She added, "I did feel cornered after Simrans failure. Filmmakers Karan Johar, Ketan Mehta, and Rakesh Roshan singled me out for criticism. The industry was having intense meetings to put me in my place. The industry was having this intense discussion to make sure that I was put in my place. Probably that was the only place when I felt suffocated. I still feel suffocated when I think about it." The three-time national award-winning actress continued, "Ketan Mehta went to Economic Offences Wing (EOW) and Aditya Pancholi filed a case. Rakesh Roshan continued to say he would reveal something. However, all of this did not go anywhere." On the work front, Kangana is promoting her upcoming biographical 'Manikarnika: Queen of Jhansi'. The film also features television actress Ankita Lokhande, Atul Kulkarni, Suresh Oberoi among others and is slated to arrive in theatres on January 25, 2019. New Delhi: Last year, Priya Prakash Varrier took the entire internet by storm with her 'wink' act. And now, she is all set to make her debut in the Hindi film industry with 'Sridevi Bungalow'. On Monday, the first trailer of the film was dropped by the makers, and unfortunately, within hours of its release, the film has found itself in troubled waters. In the trailer, Priya is seen playing the role of an actress by the name of Sridevi, who appears to be very lonely. The end of the teaser has a shot of bathtub with a woman's feet hanging out of it lifelessly. The scene is eerily similar to that of Sridevi's death last year since the legendary actress passed away due to accidental drowning in a bathtub during her stay in Dubai's Jumeirah hotel. Minutes after the trailer was unveiled, the makers started to face the flak by the audience who felt that the film is a mockery of late superstar Sridevi's life. Watch the trailer here: Sridevi's husband and filmmaker Boney Kapoor has sent a legal notice to the team. Confirming the same, 'Sridevi Bungalow' director Mambully told Cinestaan.com, "We received a legal notice from Mr Boney Kapoor last week. And we will face it. I want to My film is a suspense thriller. I told him (Boney Kapoor) that Sridevi is a common name. My film's character also happens to be an actress. We will face it (the legal case)." On the other hand, Priya has refused to accept or deny that the film is inspired by the life of Sridevi. In the meantime, Priya is rumoured to be a part of Karan Johar's upcoming period-drama 'Takht'. She was in fact seen clicking pictures with cast Ranveer Singh and Vicky Kaushal sometime back. Earlier, she was also speculated to play a key role in Rohit Shetty's 'Simmba', which, however, turned out to be a hoax. New Delhi: 'The Accidental Prime Minister', which delves on former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's tenure, has been cleared for release in Pakistan with minor cuts, Pakistan's Central Board of Film Censors (CBFC) said on Tuesday. The film will release in the country on January 18. "The film has been cleared with minor excisions," CBFC chief Danyal Gilani told IANS via social media. Starring Anupam Kher as Manmohan Singh, the film, directed by Vijay Ratnakar Gutte is based on an eponymous book by Sanjaya Baru, who was the former Prime Minister's media advisor. Jayantilal Gada of Pen, the film's presenter, is glad the film is releasing in Pakistan. "PEN Studios is happy to announce that our one-of-a-kind political film, 'The Accidental Prime Minister', has got a green signal from Pakistan. Pakistani movie-goers will be able to enjoy the film. I always admired Imran Khan as a brave cricketer, and now I respect him as a Prime Minister too," Gada told IANS. "I am also thankful to Pakistan's Censor Board chairman for approving our film," Gada added. I would like to wish all of you a very happy new year. You think I am two weeks late? Oops, I forgot to tell you that I am wishing you a Thiruvalluvar New Year, based on a calendar that starts with the birth of the Tamil poet who gave us the Thirukkural, the omnibus of couplets on everything from God and ethics to conjugal pleasure. To the Tamils, he is like Jesus Christ. A press release from Kamal Haasan's Makkal Needhi Maiyam party announced that the superstar-turned-politician launched a diary for the Year 2050 of the Thiruvalluvar calendar. If the news was not noticed in other parts of the country, it is symbolic of the kind of ignorance that can fan tensions across India, as it did last week when an immigration official at the Mumbai International Airport refused approval to a scientist from Madurai in Tamil Nadu on the way to the US because he could not speak Hindi. The fact is that there are dozens of languages in India and Hindi is "a" not "the" national language. Nor is it mandatory to speak it. And there are several new year days in India: the Parsees have their Navroze, the Tamilians themselves also mark another new year in April, the Muslims have their Hijri year and the Telugu and Kannada speakers their Ugadi, and so on. India is a multicultural republic and English is a link language. It is true that in the newfound days of exuberance after Independence in 1947, there was a widespread belief that Hindi would be India's official language but both pragmatism and politics have changed things. Jawaharlal Nehru promised the South that Hindi will not be imposed on those who do not want it. It is a different matter that Amitabh Bachchan's movies have done more than Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in promoting Hindi in the South. But then, that is voluntary. Meanwhile, English not only links India, but it has also re-emerged as the international business language thanks to the emergence of the US and computers as major economic forces. Even the French and the Japanese learn English, shedding their cultural insularity. So why should Indian officials not celebrate it? India's IT revolution has been supplemented by the IT-enabled services boom and English has played a major role in both as the former colonial master's language turned an export earner. Uttar Pradesh was once ruled by Mulayam Singh Yadav, who opposed English education. But last year, the state government announced plans for English medium education in 5,000 government-run primary schools. The BJP government simply decided to expand a scheme started by Mulayam's son Akhilesh Yadav during the Samajwadi Party's recent rule in the state. In such a context, it is bizarre to say the least when a Mumbai immigration official steadfastly refuses to work in English for PhD student Abraham Samuel, who tweeted to glory as he whined on Twitter to all who would hear and received much support and empathy. India's government officials, especially those involved in public dealings such as the passport office, immigration, and transport departments, need to be trained and educated on how to deal with citizens in a multilingual nation, not to speak of foreigners. I have fond memories of landing at the Los Angeles International Airport, where it is a delight to see immigration officials speak Tagalog from the Philippines, Arabic, and Hindi/Punjabi in addition to languages like Spanish. If the US could do that for foreigners, surely we could do something for our own varied citizens. On that note, here is wishing you all a Happy Pongal, which coincides with the start of a Thiruvalluvar Year. And do remember, if you are not familiar, that Pongal is Tamil Nadu's harvest festival. Punjab has its own harvest festival in April with Baisakhi, as do some other parts of India. Our crops are different, our festivals and new year celebrations fall on different dates and we speak different languages and follow different religions. It is time for sarkari babus to know that diversity is important for Indian unity. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.) Parents of two children, who had died after consuming food at high-end restaurant in Karachi in Pakistan in November 2018, have sought closure of the case. Appearing before the Sindh High Court on Monday, the parents said that they had forgiven the owners of the Arizona Grill restaurant, said a report in Pakistan-based Geo News. They told the Sindh High Court that they did not want any further action against the restaurant owners. The Geo News report added that their lawyer informed the court that the parties had agreed for an out-of-court settlement. The court directed the lawyer to submit before it a copy of the agreement between the parents and the restaurant owners. In November, the family had gone for dinner at the popular Karachi eatery, following which they allegedly suffered from food poisoning. Though they were rushed to a hospital, the children died while receiving treatment while their mother remained hospitalised for long. The kids reportedly had a candy outside the restaurant and later consumed milk after reaching home. Authorities had initiated a thorough probe to ascertain if the food poisoning was caused by restaurant food, candy or the milk they consumed at their home. Samples of their vomit and blood stains on their clothes were sent for forensic tests. The Arizona Grill restaurant also issued a statement with regard to the incident, wherein they claimed that Karachi police officials moved on after conducting their investigation at the eatery. Healthy and nutritious food are the fundamental pillars of any restaurant. Arizona Grill proudly upholds these values and provides every customer with safe and healthy food. Last night, the esteemed police officers of Karachi conducted their investigation, and moved on after clearing the restaurant. We wish them well on the finding of the root cause and upon hearing the dreadful news, Arizona Grill would like to offer their heartfelt condolences, read the statement. Following the incident, authorities had conducted raids at the restaurant and its godown. Report in Dawn News had claimed that meats that expired in 2015 were recovered during the raids. Almost 80 kg of rotten meat was recovered during the raids. Do you want to manage your remote workers effectively? If yes, you are in the right place. In this article,... Stiri pe aceeasi tema - Deputy Prime Minister Dan Barna said that the simple motion that the social democrats want to table against the Minister of Investments and European Projects, Cristian Ghinea, is an "muscle-flexing exercise", noting that he is satisfied the work he has done in preparing the National Recovery and - Artists in the fields still affected by COVID-19 restrictions will qualify for benefits of 41.5% of the average gross salary under a measure passed by the government on Thursday, the Minister of Labour and Social Protection Raluca Turcan, wrote on Facebook on Thursday. "Under the emergency - Am depus astazi oficial PNRR, a scris, Cristian Ghinea, pe Facebook, luni dupa-amiaza. Intr-un clip video, ministrul a explicat ce inseamna PNRR si care sunt principalele capitole ale documentului. Am trimis PNRR la Bruxelles, adica in sistemul informatic al Comisiei Europene. La ora 15.30 am terminat - Minister of Interior Lucian Bode has stated his confidence in the vaccine against COVID-19 in a video posted on his Facebook page, with the messages #CeContineVaccinul [What the vaccine contains] and #ImpreunaInvingemPandemia [Together we defeat the pandemic]. "Even though I went through the - CHISINAU, 10 mai - Sputnik. Pasiunea pentru calatorii si ciclism l-a adus pe Stefan Gincu aproape de capatul pamantului. Cel putin acolo isi doreste sa ajunga cu bicicleta, dar mai exact la Cabo da Roca, Portugalia, care este considerat punctul extrem vestic al continentului Eurasia. Nu i-a ramas - Retirees who have received smaller pensions than they should have, as a result of miscalculations made by state officials, can get their money back for the entire period miscalculated, after the president promulgated the law eliminating the statute of limitations in these cases, mentioned, on Thursday, - The Council of the European Union on Tuesday adopted the regulation for the establishment of the Cyber Centre in Bucharest, the Minister of Finance, Alexandru Nazare, made the announcement on Facebook. "The Council of the European Union today adopted the regulation establishing the Cyber Centre - The subway protest, even if spontaneous, is illegal under the state of alert, said on Friday the Minister of the Interior, Lucian Bode, in northwestern Oradea, according to AGERPRES. He specified that he actually asked the Ministry of Interior (MAI) to enforce the law, stressing at the same Teama de Regulamentul Disciplinar Petrolul spera sa nu se repercuteze in vreun fel asupra echipei, a clubului, tentativa de mita a fostului vice-presedinte, Mihai Dogaru! Acesta a recunoscut ca a vrut sa-i ofere in nume propriu, arbitrului Sorin Antonie, o suma de bani (5000 de euro, se pare), pentru a-l convinge sa ajute echipa Aerostar Bacau in meciul de la [citeste mai departe] Burning cars are seen at the scene where explosions and gunshots were heard at the Dusit hotel compound, in Nairobi, Kenya, on Jan. 15, 2019. (REUTERS Photo) UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday condemned the "terrorist attack" in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi that killed at least six people, his spokesman said in a statement. Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman, said Guterres is following developments closely and extends his condolences to the families of the victims and wishes those injured a swift recovery. The UN chief expresses his solidarity with the people and government of Kenya, Dujarric added. Earlier Tuesday, al-Shabab fighters struck an upmarket hotel and office complex in Nairobi, killing at least six people and injuring several others. The attackers were armed with rifles and grenades. Huge explosions followed by gun shots rent the air as they stormed the complex. UN General Assembly President Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces also condemned the attack, expressing solidarity with the victims and their families as well as with the government and the people of Kenya. "There is no justification for using terror and violence against innocent people," she said through her spokeswoman Monica Grayley. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 06:31:30|Editor: yan Video Player Close MINSK, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei said on Tuesday that Belarus and Austria are in favor of building bridges in Europe, not new dividing lines. Belarus and Austria aim to reduce confrontation and strengthen stability in Europe and the world, and the two countries proceed from the philosophy of building bridges, not new dividing lines in Europe, Makei told local media after the meeting with his Austrian counterpart Karin Kneissl. Makei noted that Austria firmly maintains its status as one of Belarus' main investment partners and plays an important role in the modernization of several sectors of the Belarusian economy. Kneissl, Austria's federal minister for Europe, integration, and foreign affairs, stressed the importance of meetings and negotiations in Minsk as well as the further development of dialogue between Austria and Belarus. During the meeting, the ministers discussed prospects for the development of bilateral relations in various fields, the interaction of the two countries in international organizations, and the cooperation between Belarus and the European Union. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 06:26:27|Editor: yan Video Player Close NAIROBI, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Kenyan government said Tuesday security situation in the country is under control after an unknown number of terrorists attacked an upmarket hotel and office complex in the capital, Nairobi, and killed at least six people. Fred Matiang'i, Cabinet Secretary for Interior and Coordination of National Government, said that security teams have evacuated scores of Kenyans and other nationalities from the buildings after a nine-hour operation. "We are now in the final stages of mopping up the area and securing evidence and documenting the consequences of this unfortunate event," he told journalists on Tuesday evening. "I can now report that the country is now secure and that the nation remains calm, that Kenyans and all our visitors are now safe," he added. The DusitD2 Complex which houses several multi-national offices and hotel is located in the leafy Riverside area of Westlands, Nairobi. About four gunmen armed with rifles and grenades drove to the 14 Riverside Drive at around 3 p.m. local time and staged a deadly attack, leaving a trail of destruction. Police said the gang arrived at the entrance of the DusitD2 hotel and alighted before one of them started to shoot aimlessly. The gang first shot and seriously wounded two students who were walking out of the hostel. The gunshots alerted police guarding the nearby Australian embassy. The officers rushed there and engaged the gunmen in a gunfight deflating the saloon car that they had. It was at that point that one of the attackers lobbed a grenade at three cars that were parked at the main barrier, setting them on fire. They were burnt to ashes. The terrorists then proceeded to the main hotel lobby where one of them detonated an explosive device he had on his body. His limb was blown out of the lobby to the main corridor about 40 meters away. "We have secured all the buildings that had been affected. The situation is under control and the country is safe. Terrorism will never defeat us. We will not surrender or bend," vowed Matiang'i. Joseph Boinnet, Inspector General of Police, said the terrorists began their onslaught by setting ablaze three vehicles at the I&M Bank parking lot before moving to the DusitD2 complex. At the entrance of the hotel, Boinnet said the assailants carried out a suicide explosion, injuring several people. "This criminal activity commenced at about 3 o'clock in a coordinated fashion that began with an attack at I&M Bank with an explosion that targeted three vehicles on the parking lot and suicide explosion in the foyer at Dusit hotel where a number of guests suffered severe injuries," said Boinnet. He pointed out that a multi-agency special security team had made progress to regain control of the hotel where the gunmen are holed up. "Owing to swift and targeted response by our security agencies, the situation has been largely contained and six out of the 7 floors of the hotel building have been secured," said Boinnet. Al-Shabab terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying its fighters conducted a terrorist attack in upmarket Kenya, killing 47 people inside the hotel. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 06:16:23|Editor: yan Video Player Close YAOUNDE, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Thirty-six passengers were abducted by gunmen on Tuesday along the Buea-Kumba highway in the Southwest, one of the two war-torn English-speaking regions of Cameroon, according to locals. "Two transport buses left Kumba for Buea and were stopped at Ediki village by gunmen. All passengers were ordered to step down and hand over their identification cards. They were then taken to the bush to an unknown destination. The bus drivers were ordered to return to the bus stop in Kumba," Samuel Asong, a driver who witnessed the incident, told Xinhua. Movement along the highway has been halted and the search for the hostages has been launched, according to local authorities. Cases of kidnapping are on the rise amid escalating conflict in the troubled English-speaking regions of the largely French-speaking African country. In November, a group of 79 school children was kidnapped in Bamenda, the most populous city of Northwest, another English-speaking region. The Cameroonian government has blamed armed separatists for the rampant abductions but the separatists insist they are staged by government to tarnish their "struggle for independence" internationally. The United Nations estimates that more than 430,000 people have been displaced internally since government forces started clashing with armed separatists in November 2017. The separatists are fighting to secede from Cameroon and create a nation called "Ambazonia" in the two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest. A Yemeni mother holds her malnourished child as they wait for treatments in a medical centre in the village of Al Mutaynah, Tuhayta province, Yemen, on Nov. 29, 2018. (AFP/Photo) UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Inroads are being made in delivering humanitarian aid to millions of people in war-stricken and famine-threatened Yemen thanks to a cease-fire, the chief UN spokesman said on Tuesday. "The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says the 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan for Yemen aims to reach some 15 million people," Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman, told reporters at a regular briefing. The World Food Programme (WFP), aiming to reach 12 million of those people, has been able to reach thousands of families south of Hodeidah, Yemen's major Red Sea port city, he said. "They have received aid for the first time in more than six months." "More than 10,000 families in the communities of Al Tuhayat and Al Darayhimi were reached with more than 3,300 metric tons of food thanks to the recent cease-fire deal," Dujarric said, adding they were the first humanitarian shipments delivered since July 2018 when a WFP-contracted truck was hit in the area. Such attacks on humanitarian aid vehicles led to a slowdown of aid. However, he said that the agency scaled up the delivery of food and food vouchers last month to around 8 million people throughout the country. In the coming weeks, the WFP aims to reach 12 million people to help avert famine in the country. The aid agencies have provided supplies to 1,400 newly displaced people in Taizz governorate, south of Hodeidah, while 42,000 people in Hajjah governorate, just northeast of Hudeidah, will receive hygiene kits, the spokesman said. He also pointed out that the World Health Organization provided supplies for three months for the Ibb (city) blood bank, southeast of Hudeidah. Agencies of the UN have been warning for several weeks that the embattled country faces famine if aid doesn't reach the victims. Shiite Houthi rebels, allegedly backed by Iran, have been battling Sunni Yemen government troops, backed by Saudi Arabia, since 2015. Last month, the world organization mediated a cease-fire and helped establish the Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC) with representatives of both sides to negotiate withdrawal of their troops from Hudeidah, its port and two minor ports, to facilitate aid shipments. Dutch Gen. Patrick Cammaert, chairman of the technical talks, "shuttled" between opposing members of the RCC who refused to meet face-to-face. But now published reports say the talks are deadlocked over interpretation of details in the cease-fire accord known as the Stockholm Agreement. Already a deadline has passed for more expansive talks to begin, as called for under the Stockholm Agreement. While the reports say Jordan has acquiesced to host the talks, no date has been given for opening of discussions. The International Crisis Group, a neutral nongovernmental organization think tank, says the talks are on the brink of collapse. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 04:51:01|Editor: yan Video Player Close NAIROBI, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Kenyans on Tuesday took to social media to encourage and support victims of a terror attack that happened at a hotel and office complex in Nairobi's upscale suburb of Westlands. At least six people were killed and several others injured after al-Shabab terrorists struck an upmarket hotel and office complex in Nairobi on Tuesday, the police and witnesses said. The victims of the attack, some who had locked themselves up in toilets and offices while others hid in rooms took to social media to share what was happening. "I am hiding in the bathroom on the first floor of Grosvenor buildings. Terrorists are going room to room. Help," Ron Ngeno, a worker in one of the complexes, tweeted. He added, "If I die, please tell my family I love them. I love you Caleb, Mark and Carol." Several such messages on social media were widely circulated, with the one from Ngeno touching Kenyans the most. "Shocking but keep the faith. You aren't going nowhere. Caleb, Mark and Carol will still see you today evening," Peter Sergoi told Ngeno. "We are really praying for you brother. Please stay safe. God will protect you. You will come out alive," Embakasi responded. "You are not dying. We pray you and everyone else to be rescued. Don't give up. A lot of effort to rescue you all is underway," Anna Lorna replied Ngeno. Many citizens reassured the victims through social media under the hashtag #RiversideAttack, especially after top police unit recce squad arrived at the scene. "To all caught up in this incident at Riverside. Help is on the way. The recce squad has arrived. Stay hidden, stay safe, put phone on silent, keep praying." said Kuisan Macharia. And when news came that Ngeno and several other victims had been rescued, social media exploded in joy as Kenyans thanked the police and citizens who had spread the word about their predicament and positions. On the streets, some Kenyans resorted to prayers as others wondered what Kenya had done to deserve another attack while memories of the previous ones are still fresh in their minds. Police assured citizens that specialised officers had responded to the attack and asked the public to keep off the scene and motorists to avoid roads near it. "Police wish to confirm that there has been an attack incident along 14 Riverside Drive. The area has since been cordoned off and motorists are advised to use alternative routes to facilitate smooth operations of the police. The National Police specialised units are on site at 14 Riverside Drive to engage the attackers," said the National Police Service in a statement. Somali terror group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack. Al-shabab terrorists timed it with the third anniversary since they staged an onslaught at a camp for Kenyan soldiers located near southwestern Somalia town of El Adde, where scores of Kenyan soldiers were killed. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 04:46:00|Editor: yan Video Player Close NICOSIA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Year of the Pig will be celebrated in style and pomp, the Cyprus-China Art, Culture and Education Center revealed on Tuesday, promising three days of vibrant and colorful festivities ahead the turn of the Chinese year on Feb. 5. "The festivities will bring traditional Chinese Spring festivities and rituals to the community of Cyprus," said Han Meimei, director of the Educational Center in a statement. Festivities will include live multicultural performances on stage by a Chinese Acrobatic Troupe, a dance group performance by the Cyprus Overseas Chinese, a special Chinese New Year food show, a food culture photo exhibition and a New Year fireworks show. "The Chinese New Year is the most important festive celebration of Chinese culture. It is celebrated all over the world by Chinese families and communities," said Han. The events will involve the Chinese Friendship Association Cyprus, the Strovolos Municipality, the International Exchange and Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China, the Chinese Embassy in Cyprus, the Chinese Cuisine Association and the Larnaca Municipality. The first event will be held on Jan. 20, at the Strovolos Municipality square with a 30-stall bazaar offering Chinese souvenirs and much more. A culinary journey will be made on Jan. 22, as the food and culture photo exhibition Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage will take place alongside an acrobatic performance and a fireworks show. The festivities will move the following day to the capital Nicosia and also to Larnaca's municipal theatre, to bring to the people of the two sister-cities Chinese souvenirs, culinary delights, fashion accessories for traditional Chinese clothing, festive decorations, calligraphy, Chinese painting and crafts and much more. "Our goal of organizing this event is to increase awareness of the Chinese culture and developments in Cyprus, as well as to provide an opportunity for the community to enjoy the happiness of the Chinese New Year," Han said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 04:40:58|Editor: yan Video Player Close MADRID, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- A group of scientists in the Center of Investigation of Molecular Medicine and Chronic Illness at the University of Santiago de Compostela (CiMUS) have managed to create nanoparticles (particles between 1 and 100 nanometers (nm) in size) that can penetrate a lethal brain tumor to direct drugs into the cancerous cells. In a document published by the BBVA Foundation (who helped sponsor the project) on Tuesday, CiMUS explained that the experimental therapy has been successfully tested on human tumors implanted in mice, with the results published in the specialized publication "Advanced Therapeutics". The investigative team, led by Dr. Marcos Garcia Fuentes, created nanoparticles able to attack gliobastoma multiforme (GBM) which are the most common and lethal brain tumors, with five-year survival rate of less than 5 percent. "The tests with mice have given very good results, with the mice which only received chemotherapy having tumors twice the size of those who received a treatment of chemotherapy and nanoparticles," explained Dr Garcia Fuentes. The new treatment does not only reduce the toxicity of current anti-cancer drugs, but also allows them to be transported into the interior of the cancerous cells with greater ease. "The secret of this material is that it becomes insoluble in the acid atmosphere of the digestive tract, allowing it to be ejected from the system," added the researcher. The use of medication capable to silence the genes which can cause tumors could be vital in developing personalized cancer treatments, but they are still not widely used due to problems with stability and transport within the body. CiMUS hope that this new therapy, which has been developed in collaboration with the Carlos III Health Institute and the University of Nottingham (Britain) could be used to treat other tumors, such as melanomas. "If everything goes well and we are able to get the support of companies, we will be able to start clinical trials with human patients within 4 or 5 years," explained Dr. Garcia Fuentes. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 04:35:52|Editor: yan Video Player Close ABU DHABI, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) said Tuesday that the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman are mulling a Gulf natural gas network by integrating their gas pipelines. Suhail Al Mazroui, minister of energy and industry of the UAE, was quoted by the UAE official news agency WAM as saying that the linkage will follow the model of the Gulf power grid linkage. He added that later on the linkage would stretch to include Kuwait and Bahrain, in a move expected to enhance the energy security in the Gulf region. Mazroui expected the relevant studies to be finalized soon. On the expansion of the power grid linkage of the Gulf states, the UAE minister said his country has already had plans for the commercial linkage with Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, which is expected to start soon. There is also plan for a linkage with Ethiopia in a bid to build a network that stretches among the countries in Asia and Africa, he said. Mazroui voiced optimism about the balance of the oil markets and the energy sector in general soon, by injecting new investments into this vital field. Under the Energy Strategy 2050, the UAE aims to increase the use of solar energy by raising the rate of solar energy from its power generation to up to 44 percent during daytime, Mazroui explained. He added this is the part of the UAE bid to strike a balance between the use of gas and solar energy. Photo taken on Nov. 26, 2018 shows three Ukrainian naval ships seized by Russia. (Xinhua/Sputnik) MOSCOW, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Moscow's Lefortovsky District Court on Tuesday extended the pre-trial detention for 12 Ukrainian sailors charged with violating Russian borders in the Kerch Strait until April 24, Russian news outlets reported. On Nov. 25, Russia seized three Ukrainian naval ships and 24 sailors on board attempting to sail through the Kerch Strait from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov. Moscow accused them of illegally crossing the Russian border, which Kiev denied and urged Moscow to release the captured sailors. The court hearing was reportedly held behind closed doors. It remains unclear for the moment whether the other 12 sailors will submit to the same court ruling. The Russian Security Service (FSB) said in December that the Ukrainian sailors could not be seen as prisoners of war as they were actually faced with criminal charges, and relevant investigation had been forwarded to its central office. Consular access has been granted to all the Ukrainian sailors, who were also provided with lawyers, translators and the right to make phone calls, the FSB said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 04:15:45|Editor: yan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that multilateralism is the only way to address the shared challenges of mankind. The Group of 77 and China demonstrated strong leadership throughout 2018 and proved once again to be a central force in demonstrating that multilateralism "is the only way to address our shared challenges," said the UN chief at the handover ceremony of the chairmanship of the Group of 77 (G77) and China from Egypt to Palestine for the year 2019. "Despite many obstacles and challenges, ranging from climate change to rising inequality and fast changing and new technologies, we have made important progress over the past 12 months. Under the Egyptian presidency, the Group of 77 and China have been at the heart of that progress," he added. Speaking of the group's contribution to climate action, the secretary-general said that the group's consistent and exemplary stance helped to get a positive result at the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP 24) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Katowice, Poland. Talking about the leadership of Egypt, the UN chief said that "Egypt's leadership and advocacy on finance for developing countries to meet their climate action commitments were highly effective." "The Group of 77 and China continued to make sure that resilience and adaptation remain high on the global climate agenda," he added. The UN chief also commended the group's role in the newly adopted migration compact, noting that G77 countries "also played a positive role in the negotiations that led to the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration." "In 2018, the strong support of the Group of 77 and China was instrumental in securing consensus among member states on an ambitious reform agenda and on the different proposals that it contained," he said. Guterres also gave thumbs-up to the group's support to the reform of the UN development system, noting the support was "critical." "You have also continued to demonstrate your strong commitment to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with nearly 30 countries conducting Voluntary National Reviews of implementation in 2018. Members of the G77 initiated important resolutions on development during the General Assembly and in other fora," he said. The UN chief also expressed his thanks to the group for its role and help in advancing the reform of the peace and security pillar and the management of the Secretariat. He expressed his hope for continuing to work closely with the G77 and China in 2019 "under the historic leadership of the State of Palestine," noting that climate action must be at the forefront, and G77 countries are on the front lines. "Multilateralism continues to come under intense pressure from many sides, and we cannot take the advances we have made for granted. We must press on and keep up the momentum won over the past weeks and months," he added. The G77, which got its name from 77 founding members, is a group of 133 developing countries at the United Nations. China aligns itself with the group, whose aim is to promote collective economic interests of the members and to try to have a bigger say in the world organization. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 04:00:34|Editor: yan Video Player Close ADEN, Yemen, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's security forces on Tuesday launched an anti-terror operation against the al-Qaida militants in the southern province of Abyan, killing seven militants, a government official told Xinhua. The security forces backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) attacked the al-Qaida hideouts in Mudiyah district of Abyan province, sparking a fierce shootout with the group's militants, the official said on condition of anonymity. During the clashes that lasted about three hours, seven militants were killed and four others were wounded at the scene, the official said. He added that six members of the UAE-backed Yemeni troops were injured during the operation in Abyan. Local residents told Xinhua that warplanes launched a number of airstrikes against al-Qaida-held areas in Abyan just a few hours after the start of the anti-terror military operation. They said that huge explosions were heard in the same places that witnessed armed confrontation with the security forces earlier in the day. Elsewhere in Abyan, Munir Abu Yamamah, a senior security commander backed by the UAE, survived an assassination attempt in Mahfad town. A security official said that a group of gunmen ambushed Yamamah's motorcade and clashed with his bodyguards, without causing casualties. The Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) network, which mostly operates in eastern and southern provinces, has been responsible for many high-profile attacks against security forces in the country. Provinces of Abyan and Shabwa, former main strongholds of AQAP, have also been the scene of sporadic attacks or heavy clashes between UAE-backed security forces and al-Qaida militants from time to time. The AQAP, seen by the United States as the global terror network's most dangerous branch, has exploited years of deadly conflict between Yemen's government and Houthi rebels to expand its presence, especially in southeastern provinces. U.S. President Donald Trump (L) meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16, 2018. (Xinhua/Lehtikuva/Heikki Saukkomaa) MOSCOW, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Kremlin denied Tuesday allegations that U.S. President Donald Trump could be acting as a Russian agent. "This is a conspiracy theory, which has no relation to reality," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the Argumenty I Fakty newspaper. "The United States found itself in a unique situation: both the society and the government are divided, and as a result of this Trump has to work in difficult conditions," he added. On Friday, The New York Times reported that U.S. law enforcement bodies had launched an investigation into whether Trump could be acting as a Russian agent against U.S. interests intentionally or unwittingly, in particular, when he sacked FBI head James Comey in 2017. Trump himself denied these allegations on Monday. "I never worked for Russia. Not only did I never work for Russia, I think it's a disgrace that you even asked that question because it's a whole big fat hoax. It's just a hoax," Trump told reporters in Washington. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 03:00:20|Editor: yan Video Player Close BUCHAREST, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Two men died on Tuesday due to influenza, bringing to nine the total number of deaths caused by the disease in the current flu season, according to Romanian Health Minister Sorina Pintea. The last two deaths were a 40-year-old man from western Arad county and a 17-year-old boy in southern Teleorman county. The latter was also suffering from the RSV lung infection and had other pre-existent medical conditions. "Every death is worrying us. None of those who died were vaccinated," added the minister, but stating that there is no basis to declare a flu epidemic at this moment. Medical experts said again the vaccine is the solution to get rid of the flu virus. "The only measure that can prevent flu is vaccination. Medicinal folk recipes, juices are totally useless, the only prevention is vaccination," Catalin Apostolescu, spokesman of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases Matei Bals in Bucharest, was quoted as saying by local media. He added they recommend the entire population to avoid hospital visits, saying that people have mobile phones and can easily communicate with sick relatives. In Romania, the vaccination rate is only 8 percent, which places the country the third from the last among the European states after Estonia and Latvia. The highest vaccination rate is in Britain, with 71 percent. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 02:45:16|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close US attorney general nominee William Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. Jan. 15, 2019. The US Senate started Tuesday the confirmation hearing of President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee William Barr, focusing on the ongoing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation and its final results. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barr said the president would not be allowed to "correct" the final report Mueller is expected to submit to the Justice Department at the conclusion of his investigation. (Xinhua/Ting Shen) WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Senate started Tuesday the confirmation hearing of President Donald Trump's attorney general nominee William Barr, focusing on the ongoing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation and its final results. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barr said the president would not be allowed to "correct" the final report Mueller is expected to submit to the Justice Department at the conclusion of his investigation. "That will not happen," Barr told lawmakers, responding to earlier claim by Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani that Trump's legal team should be permitted to correct the report. Barr said that he wouldn't allow himself to be influenced or "bullied" by anyone, "whether it be editorial boards, or Congress or the president." "I'm not going to do anything that I think was wrong, and I won't be bullied into doing anything that I think is wrong," Barr said. He also insisted that he would allow Mueller to complete his probe and would work to make the findings public in accordance with the law, noting that he doesn't believe Mueller "would be involved in a witch hunt." "Under the regulations, Bob Mueller could only be terminated for good cause and frankly it's unimaginable to me that Bob would ever do anything that gave rise to good cause," Barr said. "I believe right now the overarching public interest would be for him to finish." "I believe the Russians interfered, or attempted to interfere, in the election and I believe we have to get to the bottom of it," Barr said. In his prepared written testimony released on Monday, Barr also said he believes "it is in the best interest of everyone -- the President, Congress, and, most importantly, the American people -- that this matter be resolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work." Once confirmed, Barr would assume oversight of Mueller's probe into the alleged Russia meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections and ties with the Trump presidential campaign, as well as potential obstruction of justice by the president during the FBI investigation. It will also be up to the attorney general to decide whether the final report of the Mueller probe is released or partially released to Congress and the public. Trump, who has repeatedly slammed the Mueller probe as a "witch hunt," nominated Barr last month to fill the void left by Jeff Sessions, who recused himself early in his tenure from the Russia probe and resigned at Trump's request one day after Nov. 6 midterm elections. "I think he will serve with great distinction," Trump said at the time, describing Barr as "a terrific man, a terrific person" and "my first choice from day one." In the wake of nomination, a New York Times report said Barr has long advanced a vision of sweeping presidential powers and has criticized aspects of the Russia investigation, including suggesting that Mueller hired too many prosecutors who had donated to Democratic campaigns. At Tuesday's hearing, Barr committed to seeking the advice of career Justice Department ethics officials on whether he should recuse himself from the Mueller probe because of his past comments, while stressing that he would make the decision himself "in good faith" and based on the laws and facts. Barr, 68, a Republican and corporate lawyer, served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush. After graduating from George Washington University's law school, Barr served for the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1970s and later worked in the Reagan White House before leaving for private practice. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush appointed him to lead the Justice Department's powerful Office of Legal Counsel, later elevating him to deputy attorney general and then attorney general. After the Bush administration, Barr spent most of his time in telecommunications, joining GTE in 1994 and staying on after it merged with Bell Atlantic to become Verizon Communications Inc. He now works at Kirkland & Ellis as a lawyer. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 02:45:15|Editor: ZD Video Player Close Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks at Justice and Development Party's parliamentary meeting in Ankara, Turkey, on Jan. 15, 2019. Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that his country would establish a safe zone in northern Syria, following a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump amid a row over Turkey's threat to attack the U.S.-backed Kurdish militia in Syria. (Xinhua/Mustafa Kaya) ANKARA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that his country would establish a safe zone in northern Syria, following a phone call with U.S. counterpart Donald Trump amid a row over Turkey's threat to attack the U.S.-backed Kurdish militia in Syria. In a speech to lawmakers of his ruling Justice and Development Party in the parliament, the Turkish leader said that Ankara will establish a 32-km safe zone inside northern Syria after his phone talks with Trump. Erdogan spoke on the phone with Trump on Monday, in an effort to ease the tensions after the U.S. leader warned Ankara against attacking Kurdish fighters in Syria. Trump threatened on Twitter that he would "devastate" Turkey's economy if Turkish forces attack the U.S.-backed Kurdish group People's Protection Units (YPG), who helped Washington in its fight against Islamic State (IS) in Syria. "Messages from Trump's social media account have saddened me and my friends," Erdogan said on Tuesday, referring to Trump's tweet who shocked the Turkish leadership as their country is suffering already from an economic slowdown following a financial crisis last summer, which Ankara blamed on "foreign forces." The war of words between the two NATO allies followed Trump's surprising decision last month to withdraw 2,000 US troops from northern Syria, potentially leaving the Kurdish militia under threat as Ankara mulls a new offensive there. Erdogan told lawmakers that Turkey regards Trump's offer of building a 32 km safe zone in Syria "positive," adding that the zone could even go deeper if an agreement is reached. "I think we have reached an understanding of historical importance with U.S. President Trump (on Syria), and Turkey will do its part in this regard," he said. Kurdish fighters control around half of the 900-km Turkey-Syria border. Turkey considers the YPG an offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighting for Kurdish autonomy in southeast of Turkey. In an apparent bid to calm the U.S. president's concerns, Erdogan stated that Turkey's top priority in Syria is to fight the remnants of IS. The Turkish president said Monday that the safe zone in northern Syria would be cleared of militia groups, without providing further details. Turkey has been proceeding with a military buildup at the Syrian border for a possible incursion, which would be the third by the Turkish army inside Syria. "We have said for years that a secure zone or a buffer zone at the Syrian border would ease Turkey's national security concerns. We have to see now how this zone will be set up and how it will work," a Turkish security source told Xinhua. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, didn't elaborate if Turkey would still seek to launch a cross-border operation in northern Syria, after the Trump-Erdogan phone call. Some analysts believe that Erdogan, known for his aggressive remarks, did not to respond to Trump's threats, signaling a detente with Trump for the sake of seeking cooperation on the Syria issue. "Erdogan did the right thing by playing down Trump's threat to devastate Turkish economy," Tulin Dalaoglu, a journalist and expert on the U.S.-Turkey ties, told Xinhua. "This does not make Turkey seem weak against Trump, but shows Erdogan acting in a rational manner watching out for Turkey's best interests," Dalaoglu said. Trump has established an interesting relationship with Erdogan, and it seems that Erdogan understands the U.S. leader well, she said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 02:00:00|Editor: yan Video Player Close JERUSALEM, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday met with Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Hiroshige Seko to discuss ways to enhance economic ties. The meeting was also attended by Israel's Economy and Trade Minister Eli Cohen, said the Israeli Prime Minister's Office in a statement. Netanyahu told Seko that Israel wants to "see more trade, more tourism and more investments in both directions." He added that Japanese investments in Israel have witnessed a sharp increase to reach 5 billion U.S. dollars, and keep growing rapidly. Seko arrived in Israel earlier the week for a three-day trip, heading the largest ever Japanese delegation to visit Israel that includes some 150 representatives from 90 Japanese firms. The two sides will discuss cooperation in the fields of cybersecurity, digital health, and artificial intelligence. In May 2017, Israel and Japan formed the "Japan-Israel Innovation Network" to jointly promote economic cooperation. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 01:44:58|Editor: yan Video Player Close GENEVA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- CERN is planning to build the next-generation circular collider with a 100-km superconducting accelerator ring, even larger than the world's existing largest particle collider, the Geneva-based particle physics research center revealed on Tuesday. Publishing a Conceptual Design Report (CDR) on the Future Circular Collider (FCC), CERN said the project would "benefit the particle physics community throughout the twenty-first century". "The FCC's ultimate goal is to provide a 100-km superconducting proton accelerator ring, with energy of up to 100 TeV, meaning an order of magnitude more powerful than the LHC," said CERN Director for Accelerators and Technology Frederick Bordry. Succeeding the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is already the world's largest and most powerful particle collider and so far the largest machine, the FCC is designed to use new-generation high-field superconducting magnets to offer a wide range of new physics opportunities such as reaching energies of 100 TeV and beyond. That would allow precise studies of how a Higgs particle interacts with another Higgs particle, and thorough exploration of the role of the electroweak symmetry breaking in the history of our universe, according to CERN. The discovery of the Higgs boson at the LHC opened a new path for research, as the Higgs boson could be a door into new physics. Detailed studies of its properties are therefore a priority for any future high-energy physics accelerator. In addition, the FCC may help with experimental evidence beyond the Standard Model to account for observations such as dark matter and the domination of matter over antimatter. By providing electron-positron, proton-proton and ion-ion collisions at unprecedented energies and intensities, with the possibility of electron-proton and electron-ion collisions, the FCC would enable Europe "to be in a position to propose an ambitious post-LHC accelerator project at CERN by the time of the next Strategy update". According to the design report, the total cost for the FCC could amount to 24 billion euros (27.3 billion U.S. dollars), including four billion euros for an ultra-high intensity lepton collider, 15 billion euros for a 100 TeV energy frontier hadron collider, and five billion euros for the 100 km tunnel infrastructure. The whole facility is expected to offer a research program of seven decades. "While presenting new, daunting challenges, the FCC would greatly benefit from CERN's expertise, accelerator complex and infrastructures, which have been developed over more than half a century," said Bordry. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 01:39:55|Editor: yan Video Player Close BUCHAREST, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Western Balkan region will be one of the priorities of the Romanian presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU), besides Brexit and migration issue, said Romanian President Klaus Iohannis on Tuesday. "We reiterated our common support for EU's policy of merit-based enlargement to the Western Balkans, according to the capacity of each country in the region to fulfill the accession criteria," Iohannis told a joint press conference with his visiting Slovenian counterpart Borut Pahor. "We highlighted the fact that the Western Balkan region will be one of the priorities of the Romanian Presidency of the European Union Council," he added. According to him, Brexit has drawn the attention of the entire Europe and the subject will remain for long very high on the EU agenda. "We are expecting the results in the British Parliament...We both want Brexit to begin with an orderly withdrawal, that is through the approval of the agreement to be voted upon and we are looking forward with great interest to the outcome of the vote this evening," Iohannis said. "We expressed our commitment to a cohesive and united Union. The motto of the Romanian Presidency - Cohesion, a common European value - strongly reflects this vision. The May 9 Summit in Sibiu will be a key moment in the process in the process of defining the Union's future priorities. We want the Sibiu meeting to be a framework for a consensual discussion among the member states, that will generate a clear vision for the EU's strategic agenda," Iohannis said. In his turn, the Slovenian president said that the EU must continue to consider its enlargement and cannot deny the Western Balkan states the hope that one day they will be able to join this European project. According to him, the Brdo initiative, co-chaired by Slovenia and Croatia, will have its summit in Tirana of Albania before the Sibiu summit. The summit will be driver of hope and confidence that the Western Balkan states can solve many bilateral subjects among them, in order to guarantee security in the region and to become attractive for potentially joining the EU, said Pahor. The Slovenian president is on an official visit to Romania, being the first foreign senior leader in Bucharest after the country officially launched its presidency oft the EU Council late Thursday. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 01:34:54|Editor: yan Video Player Close ATHENS, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The tugboat Andreas, which was intercepted after a large-scale operation by Greek authorities on Dec. 6, 2017 off the coasts of the island of Crete, carried a total of over 12 tons of processed cannabis and 258,000 Captagon amphetamine tablets, it was announced here on Tuesday. The total value of the above shipment was around 150 million euros (171.5 million U.S. dollars). The 12 tons of processed cannabis is the largest quantity confiscated in Greece to date, according to a press release by the Hellenic Coast Guard. According to scientists, Captagon is a synthetic amphetamine with unique chemical complexities. This drug has been associated with Islamic State (ISIS) fighters in recent years. The vessel, which was kept in the port of Agia Galini in southern Crete, has been thoroughly examined over the past few weeks. Initially, the authorities had found only about half of the drugs hidden in special compartments. After an auction, the ship's new operators were about to transfer it from Crete to a British port for necessary repairs and conversions. However, shortly before leaving Crete, the Drug Administration of the Hellenic Coast Guard was notified that another batch of drugs was found inside the ship. The six crew members of the ship, all Syrian nationals, have been arrested. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 01:14:51|Editor: yan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The UN General Assembly has decided to commemorate the centenary of the founding of the International Labor Organization (ILO). In a resolution adopted on Tuesday, the General Assembly decided to devote one day, during its current annual session, to the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the ILO. It further decided, as part of the commemoration, to convene a high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly on April 10. The resolution, drafted by Belgium and Jamaica, commended the positive contributions that the ILO has made during its 100 years of promoting social justice. The ILO is a UN agency that sets international labor standards and promotes social protection and work opportunities for all. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 01:09:49|Editor: yan Video Player Close NAIROBI, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Police and counter terrorist forces are still fighting on Tuesday evening to regain control of a hotel and office complex in the center of Nairobi following an attack at the place. Inspector-general Joseph Boinnet said the police were still battling the terrorists on Tuesday evening, and had not confirmed the number of those killed, injured or rescued from the scene. "We are aware that the armed criminals are holding up in the hotel and specialists' forces are currently flashing them out," he said. A helicopter has been seen flying low at the scene and some Kenyan hospitals are appealing for blood donations. Foreign embassies in Kenya issued security alerts to their citizens following the terrorist attack, for which Somali militant group al-Shabab claimed responsibility. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 01:04:48|Editor: yan Video Player Close NAIROBI, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Some 10 years ago, an enthusiastic Nairobi resident George Muteshi bought several stocks at the Kenyan bourse after visiting a brokerage firm for advice. He bought the stocks of leading telecommunication firm Safaricom and those of two banks, expanding his portfolio after having purchased the shares of power generating firm Kenya Electricity Generating Company during an Initial Public Offers (IPO) in 2006. "I spent 50,000 shillings (about 495 U.S. dollars) on the three stocks, adding to the 200 dollars I had spent earlier on the power firm share. My aim was to hold onto the stocks, wait for the prices to rise and cash in," said the accountant. His plan worked well with the telecom shares, which he sold when prices went up and bought again. However, to date, he is still stuck with the other three as prices are too low. On Monday, Muteshi was surprised that the shares had been listed under unclaimed assets by the government's Unclaimed Assets Authority, after having forgotten about them for years. "The shares prices declined below the buying price and I decided to forget about them hoping things will change for the better but they worsened. This made me lose interest in the market," he recounted on Tuesday. Muteshi's plight captures that of many ordinary Kenyans who have kept off the bourse despite initial enthusiasm following several IPOs at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE). Many of them are counting losses after buying various stocks, especially through IPOs, hoping to cash in when prices rise. However, years later, a number of the stocks are trading below their IPO prices heaping losses on the investors. The result is that the interest that the ordinary citizens had developed into the market died out as stock prices declined amid a drought of IPOs at the NSE. "Business bulletin was my favorite segment of the 9 p .m. news sometime back when I had interest in what's happening at the bourse after buying Kengen shares through an IPO sometime in 2006. I would monitor the stock prices to see how much I had gained," said government worker Joseph Mwombo. Today, he no longer checks about the on-goings at the stock market as the share trades below the IPO price, and he is still stuck with it. "I would not invest in the stock market any time sooner. Not when I am yet to recoup my money nearly 20 years later," he said. In 2018, most stocks at the NSE, especially those of blue chips that ordinary Kenyans had invested in, took a beating, with most investors reaping losses as the shares ended the year lower than they started in January. Data from the market showed that out of the 60 stocks listed at the market, only seven picked capital gains in 2018, as the rest tumbled by up to 87 percent in value. A number of blue chips are, however, clawing back lost group currently. Analysts attributed a number of reasons for the decline in Kenyan stocks, which include losses posted by the firms, corporate governance issues a number of them face and low dividends offered to investors. The collapse of some stock brokerage firms in the country in the recent past made investors lose their investments, instilling fears in potential investors and making others disinterested. Investing at the stock market, however, needs great patience, according to Rufus Mwanyasi, the director of Canaan Capital Ltd. He notes that patience - a virtue which many small investors lack - ranks high as an important ingredient to achieving market success. About 4 percent of Kenyans have bought shares at the Nairobi stock market, a recent survey by the Oxford Business Group showed. Up to 80 percent of shares traded at the bourse every day are moved by foreigners, with Kenyan, mainly corporates like banks, accounting for the rest. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 00:34:42|Editor: yan Video Player Close LONDON, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Despite a recent decline, China will remain the prime destination for Asia-Pacific (APAC) exports for several years to come, the British think tank Oxford Economics said on Tuesday. According to Oxford Economics researchers, APAC economies have been highly integrated with China's economy since the country's WTO accession in 2001. Given their geographic proximity, APAC countries even have stronger trade links with China than with the rest of the world. "While China has become a principal final destination for many APAC exports, what's more striking is that China is also the largest import source for most APAC countries," they said in a study. China plays an increasingly significant trade role for Asian countries such as India or Vietnam, which strive to increase income level and stimulate industrial development. "Participating in Asia's supply chain and penetrating the Chinese market are key to helping industrial sectors succeed," the report added. Meanwhile, trade dependence on China is also growing outside of Asia, the report showed. "Resource-rich emerging countries outside of Asia, such as Chile, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Russia, have high export intensities with China, exporting large amounts of energy and commodities there," it said. The researchers added that these countries' "export intensities with China are even higher" than those of many Asian countries. Furthermore, countries "such as Russia and Argentina have higher import than export intensities given that they import even larger amounts of manufactured goods from China compared to the energy and commodities they export," it said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 00:34:42|Editor: yan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Security Council on Tuesday asked the parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to resolve their electoral disputes through legal channels. The members of the Security Council noted that disputes have been lodged before the Constitutional Court, said the council in a press statement. "They encouraged all concerned stakeholders to preserve the generally peaceful climate of the elections, and to take up any reservations or disputes through the proper mechanisms and processes provided for in the constitution of the DRC and its electoral law." The council members urged all parties to refrain from violence, and stressed the need for them to act in a way that reaffirms the integrity of the electoral process and respects the outcome of the poll, upholds democracy and preserves peace in the country. The council members further appealed for the pursuit of national unity and peacebuilding, including through political dialogue among all stakeholders. They reiterated their full respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the DRC and their continued support and commitment for the consolidation of peace, stability and development in the DRC. DRC elections were long overdue. A political agreement on Dec. 31, 2016 allowed President Joseph Kabila, who has been in power since 2001, to stay on after his term of office had expired, on the condition that elections would be held within 2017. But elections were delayed on the grounds of logistics, triggering unrest. In November 2017, the country's electoral commission published an electoral calendar for the combined presidential, legislative and provincial elections for Dec. 23, 2018. The elections were held on Dec. 30. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 00:34:42|Editor: yan Video Player Close DAR ES SALAAM, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The government of Tanzania and Bharti Airtel Limited, an Indian global telecommunications services company based in New Delhi, India, on Tuesday signed an agreement including raising the East African nation's shareholding in the mobile phone operator to 49 percent from 40 percent. A statement issued by the Directorate of Presidential Communication at State House in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam said the agreement was signed between Tanzania's Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Palamagamba Kabudi and Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal and witnessed by President John Magufuli. Before the agreement, the global telecommunication company owned shareholding of 60 percent. The statement said Bharti Airtel has also agreed to give dividends to the government of Tanzania to the tune of 10 billion Tanzanian shillings (about 4.4 million U.S. dollars) that Tanzania had not received for the past 10 years. According to the statement, Bharti Airtel has written off a debt amounting about 1 trillion Tanzanian shillings that Tanzania owed the telecom firm. Bharti Airtel will also contribute 2.3 billion Tanzanian shillings to social corporate responsibility. "The agreement has opened a new cooperation chapter between Bharti Airtel and Tanzania. This agreement has written new history," said Mittal. "This is the kind of investment that we prefer. Airtel has been in Tanzania for the past eight, nine years but the country was not benefiting," Magufuli said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 00:24:38|Editor: yan Video Player Close BERLIN, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The growth of the German economy slowed down by 0.7 percentage points to 1.5 percent in 2018, the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced on Tuesday. German economy has thus grown for the ninth consecutive year. But the growth has "lost its momentum", after 2.2 percent in 2016 and 2017, according to Destatis. Germany's exports continued to increase in 2018, but not as strongly as in the previous year, when exports and imports grew by 4.6 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively. Price-adjusted exports of German goods and services were 2.4 percent higher than in 2017, while German imports went up by 3.4 percent in the same period. The fall in growth could primarily be attributed to "Germany's key industry, the automotive sector, which is not getting its problems under control," explained Claus Michelsen, an economist at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW). German car manufacturers are still struggling with the consequences of the WLTP (Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicle Test Procedure) recertification of their models, which appears to be "putting the brakes on the economy as a whole," Michelsen explained. The German economy has also suffered from record low water levels in the country's rivers, caused by a long and especially dry summer in 2018. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) has estimated that the weak performance of the automotive industry and the bottlenecks in inland waterway transport caused by the low water levels alone reduced Germany's GDP by around 0.5 percent. In 2018, positive growth impulses came primarily from the German domestic market, according Destatis. Private consumer spending increased by 1.0 percent and government spending was up 1.1 percent. However, these increases were also lower than in the previous years. Looking ahead, the IfW expects the elimination of negative factors like the introduction of WLTP and the low water levels to "leave room for an intermediate sprint in the first half of 2019." DIW expert Michelsen sees the pace of growth of the German economy "normalizing" after a period of boom, and expects a "decent growth rate" if risks such as a chaotic Brexit, a new national debt crisis in the euro zone or a trade war between the United States and other economies do not materialize. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 00:14:33|Editor: yan Video Player Close CHENGDU, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The number of Fortune 500 companies that have investment in Sichuan had increased to 347 in 2018, a major indicator of the province's appeal to overseas investors, its governor Yin Li said. The amount of overseas capital invested in the province grew by 10 percent last year, Yin said in the provincial government work report, delivered at the provincial people's congress. According to the provincial department of commerce, by the end of June 2018, Fortune 500 companies set up 211 directly-funded companies in Sichuan, which reported total operation revenue of 246 billion yuan (about 35.9 billion U.S. dollars), up 10.44 percent year on year. Overseas capital is invested in industries of manufacturing, leasing and commercial services, retail and wholesale, real estate and information and computer service and software in Sichuan, the department said. Yin forecasts the provincial GDP to surpass 4 trillion yuan for 2018, up 8 percent year on year. Sichuan remains a major destination for overseas investment in China's central west. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 00:09:32|Editor: yan Video Player Close ROME, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Italian law enforcement has busted a 14-member people and tobacco smuggling ring that ran high-speed vessels carrying migrants and cigarettes from Tunisia to Sicily, Finance Police announced Tuesday. "Criminal association dedicated to the exploitation of illegal immigration (and) tobacco smuggling dismantled," the Finance Police tweeted. "14 arrests made, assets worth over 3 million euros (3.4 million U.S. dollars) seized." The gang was made up of Italians and Tunisians and was headed by a Tunisian national who "organized multiple transports by sea over the past two years, reinvesting large sums of illicitly gained money in the purchase of a farm, a shipyard and a luxury waterfront restaurant" in Sicily, the Finance Police said in a statement. The gang ferried 10-15 migrants from Tunisia to Sicily per trip, charging them 3,000 euros per capita for the crossing, according to the statement. The ringleader was known to police because he was arrested in 2012 for drug and arms trafficking, and had been plotting to blow up a Carabinieri military police station with dynamite, Italian news agency ANSA reported, citing wiretaps in which the suspect described his plan to set the explosives. The investigation -- codenamed Black Beard after the gang leader's thick black beard -- uncovered "the illegal entry into Italy of several non-EU citizens, some of whom were provided with fake work contracts, as well as seven trips in which the crime ring smuggled several tons of cigarettes into the country, making illicit profits of hundreds of thousands of euros," the statement said. Last week, Italian authorities arrested 15 members of a Tunisian and Italian gang that smuggled criminals, terrorists and tobacco from Tunisia to Sicily. (1 euro = 1.14 U.S. dollars) Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-16 00:09:32|Editor: yan Video Player Close ABUJA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Terror group Boko Haram has launched fresh attacks on two villages in Nigeria's troubled northeast region, according to multiple sources on Tuesday. The terrorists on Monday evening torched shelters and camps of those displaced by earlier Boko Haram attacks in Rann, a town over 170 km to Maiduguri, capital of the northern state of Borno, two military sources who preferred to be anonymous told Xinhua by telephone. They also attacked Damasak village, located in a remote part of Borno, late Monday, a non-military source said. In Rann, the terrorists burned down a hospital, a school, and government buildings. They also attempted to take over a military base in the area, Xinhua's sources said. A heavy gunfight ensued between troops and the terrorists but they were overpowered by the superior firepower of the military, one military source said. Many internally displaced persons taking refuge in a camp in Rann had fled the area due to the gunfight between troops and the terrorists. No official statement has so far been released by the military or Nigerian authorities on the latest attacks. Boko Haram has been trying since 2009 to establish an Islamic state in northeastern Nigeria. The group has so far killed about 20,000 people, forcing the displacement of millions of others in the most populous African country. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 23:54:26|Editor: yan Video Player Close BUDAPEST, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Hungary initiated an infringement procedure against Austria on Tuesday over changes introduced by the government in Vienna to the country's child benefit system. The Hungarian government believes the new system, effective from Jan. 1, could negatively affect thousands of Hungarians working in Austria whose children are still in Hungary, according to official sources here. The changes, approved by the Austrian parliament, mean that the level of child benefit will now be calculated according to living costs in the child's country of origin and not to those in Austria. "The Hungarian government will turn to the European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility Marianne Thyssen in order to start an infringement procedure against Austria because of its new family allowance regulation," Pal Volner, Hungarian state secretary of the Ministry of Justice, said here, quoted by the Hungarian news agency MTI. The reform has already been criticized by the European Commission, and the Austrian government has admitted that it could be blocked by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). "If the infringement procedure does not take place, Hungary is ready to turn to the ECJ," Volner said. "The Hungarian government considers the interests of Hungarian workers as a priority, and will do everything necessary to stop those working abroad from suffering violations of their rights," Volner said. According to Volner, Austria pays only about 56 percent of what it should pay in terms of allowances. "The Hungarian government has given a diplomatic notice to the Austrian government on Jan. 7, in which we have detailed that with its new regulations, Austria failed to comply with the European directives," Volner underlined. "Since no action followed our move, we had to turn to the commissioner," Volner explained. The changes would affect around 150,000 children living outside Austria -- many in Hungary and neighboring Romania -- who have at least one parent working and paying social insurance contributions in Austria. The Austrian government says that the current levels of child benefit -- which can be up to 223 euros (255 U.S. dollars) per child per month -- are "disproportionate" for children in neighboring countries where the cost of living is much lower. The current level for a three-year-old child in Hungary will fall from 172 euros a month to 97 euros. The reform was one of the key election promises of the Austrian right-wing coalition, which came to power in 2017. It is projected to save more than 100 million euros for the state budget each year. (1 euro = 1,14 U.S. dollar). Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 23:49:20|Editor: yan Video Player Close by Dana Halawi BEIRUT, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese analysts are mostly optimistic about the outcome of the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit due to be held in Beirut later this week. "This summit comes at a timely manner because when a country like Lebanon is facing an economic crisis, it needs a safety net and diplomacy to support its efforts to get out of the crisis," Sami Nader, director of Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs in Lebanon, told Xinhua. Nader said that Lebanon must integrate with the international community to be able to overcome the various threats it is facing, especially on the Israeli front. "This summit is an opportunity to do so," he added. Lebanese economist Ghazi Wazne said that the summit will strengthen Lebanon's economic and financial ties with the Arab world, especially after the slowdown in Lebanon's trade with Arab countries. "Holding the summit in Lebanon reflects that there is Arab interest in this country," he said. The Lebanese government also hopes to take advantage of the summit to send out a message that the country is safe and stable for foreign investors, despite the stalemate in forming a government since the parliamentary elections in May 2018. Caretaker Minister of State for Planning Michel Pharaon said that holding the summit in Lebanon and the participation of Arab countries will imply that Lebanon's security situation is stable. "The success of this summit is in the interest of Lebanon because it also creates an atmosphere of economic stability in the country," Pharaon said. Caretaker Economy Minister Raed Khoury also said that the timing of the summit is important because Lebanon needs to build its image as a country capable of attracting investments. "Also, Lebanon needs to play a role of being a platform for rebuilding Syria. This summit will help Lebanon to reach its goal," he said. Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at Byblos Bank, said that holding the summit in Lebanon will imply that the country is capable of organizing such big events at a high caliber. "Other nearby countries have been capable of benefitting from this opportunity. Now it is time for Lebanon to return to the map of countries that are successful to organize big summits and events," he said. However, Lebanese political analyst Rafic Nasrallah does not seem to be upbeat about the outcome of this summit. "I believe this will be a protocol summit only and no effective results will come out," he told Xinhua. Nasrallah noted that the recommendations which were issued during previous Arab summits were not implemented. Nasrallah cited the 3-billion-U.S. dollar military aid that was supposed to be unlocked by Saudi Arabia to Lebanon a couple of years ago. "Saudi Arabia did not deliver this aid to Lebanon because of its concerns over Hezbollah's activities in the country and the region," he said. Hezbollah is backed by Iran, Saudi Arabia's top rival in the region. On the absence of Syria from the summit, Lebanese analysts interviewed by Xinhua held different opinions about its impact. Syria is not able to take part in the summit because the Arab League (AL) passed a decree on Nov. 12, 2011 to suspend Syria's membership. The AL said it froze Syria's membership because its government failed to stop violence against civilian protesters back in 2011. Nasrallah believes that the impact of Syria's absence from the summit is very negative. "Lebanon will benefit the most if Syria takes part in the summit," he said, adding that Syria is Lebanon's gateway to the rest of the Arab World. "Syria will have big projects when it starts with its rebuilding plan, which can be a great benefit to Lebanon," he said. Nasrallah said that Lebanon should have invited Syria to the summit even if the AL has frozen its membership. "Lebanon could have taken an initiative to invite Syria," he said. Nasrallah added that Lebanon should have refused to host this summit in the first place to avoid any negative impact on its ties with Syria. Meanwhile, Nader believes that while Lebanon has an interest in normalizing its ties with Syria, it is more interested in forging a decent relationship with the Arab League. He said that Lebanon cannot take the decision by itself to normalize its ties with Syria ahead of the AL. "This decision should come from the Arab League," he said. Nader said that Syria did not send any signal that it wants to normalize its ties with Lebanon. "How can we normalize ties with a country that has placed our prime minister and other key Lebanese leaders on the terrorist list?" he asked. The Combating Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Commission in Syria placed late last year Lebanon's Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri and other key political figures on its list for allegedly wanting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 23:29:12|Editor: yan Video Player Close ROME, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Italian police seized over 115 kilograms of pure cocaine in the southern port of Gioia Tauro in a major operation against the 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate, authorities said on Tuesday. The drug was hidden aboard a cargo ship inside a container carrying paper reels from San Antonio in Chile. The ship reached Gioia Tauro after a stopover in the Panamanian port of Rodman, and its final destination was the port of Livorno in central Italy. The cocaine seized would have been worth about 23 million euros (26.3 million U.S. dollars) on the market, Italy's finance military police and customs agency carrying out the operation said in a statement. The Gioia Tauro port in the Calabria region is considered a major hub for international drug trafficking, and is allegedly under the control of the 'Ndrangheta, currently seen as the most powerful of Italy's three traditional mafia organizations. According to Italy's anti-drug services, most of the cocaine smuggled in Europe has been delivered from South America to Gioia Tauro port in latest years. "Almost two tons of cocaine have been seized at the Gioia Tauro port alone in 2017," finance police explained on Tuesday. "According to the analysis of the Central Directorate for Anti-Drug Services (DCSA), this would amount to 80.98 percent of all cocaine seized across the country in the year," they added. In its annual report released in mid-2018, the DCSA said Gioia Tauro confirmed to be the main entrance for cocaine to Italy. "The analysis of seizures (of cocaine) carried out in this port area in the last 5 years shows an increasing trend with a peak in 2017." Italy's finance police on Tuesday also sounded an alarm on allegedly unabated efforts of the 'Ndrangheta to find new entry points to the European continent. "It seems likely the 'Ndrangheta local branches -- which have almost become sole agents for Latin America drug traffickers in Europe -- are constantly looking for new harbors with a relevant traffic volume and, at the same time, more tenuous controls," they wrote. Police mentioned the ports of Rotterdam in the Netherlands and of Antwerp in Belgium as examples. In early December, Italian police coordinated an international anti-mafia operation that busted a major 'Ndrangheta drug smuggling and money laundering ring in Europe. Some 90 suspects -- 70 of whom were Italian nationals -- were arrested in cooperation with police forces in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 23:04:09|Editor: yan Video Player Close BERLIN, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Germany's Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) plans to put eight decommissioned military storage facilities for material and ammunition back into service, the defense ministry announced on Tuesday. According to the German defense ministry, "changed security policy framework conditions" would increase storage requirements for spare parts and operating materials for the "entire spectrum of weapons and equipment used by the German Federal Armed Forces." The plan that will be implemented between 2020 and 2031 includes five storage facilities for military equipment as well as three ammunition storages in five German states. The reactivation of the facilities will require around 600 additional soldiers and investments of around 200 million euros (228 million U.S. dollars). "More staff and materials also mean more need for further infrastructure," the defense ministry stated. In the coming years, the German Armed Forces are expected to increase the number of soldiers from today's 180,000 to 203,000 by 2025, the German newspaper Bid reported in November last year. The additional forces will mainly be employed as part of the NATO Response Force (NRF), ensuring cyber security and other European projects. Germany has been under international pressure to increase its military budget. "If you look at NATO, where Germany pays 1 percent and we are paying 4.2 percent of a much bigger GDP, that's not fair," U.S. President Donald Trump criticized. Last year, Germany's defense spending was 1.13 percent of its GDP, far below the 2 percent NATO target that was agreed by member states in 2014. Member states have to reach that target by 2024. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 22:59:08|Editor: yan Video Player Close TOKYO, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The number of Japanese workforce will decrease by 20 percent from 2017 to 2040, as the country's population continues to decline, and women and the elderly face increasing difficulty in finding jobs amid sluggish economy, a government study showed Tuesday. The study was conducted by a research group of the Japanese labor ministry, which called for setting up more policies for employment boost and promotion of artificial intelligence as measures to deal with labor shortage, local media reported. The panel on employment policies estimated that the number of workers in Japan will decrease from 65.3 million in 2017 to 60.82 million in 2025 and 52.45 million in 2040. According to the study, the number of male workers in 2040 will decline by 7.11 million from 2017, while that of female workers will decrease by 5.75 million. By industry, the decliners will be led by the wholesale and retail sector as the workforce is expected to drop by 2.87 million from 2017 to 2040, followed by mining and construction with a 2.21-million decrease, and manufacturing, down by 2.06 million. Increase was only expected in the medical and welfare sector, as its workforce in 2040 is estimated to increase by 1.03 million, reflecting the country's aging problem. The research did not take into consideration the expected expansion of foreign labor under the new visa system from April this year, a move made by the government to help tackle serious labor shortages. The government has announced that Japan is expected to accept up to 345,150 foreign workers under the new scheme over a five-year period starting April 2019, including 60,000 in nursing care. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 22:49:05|Editor: yan Video Player Close LJUBLJANA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Slovenian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GZS) assessed ahead of Tuesday's Brexit deal vote in London that there is a one fifth chance of a no-deal scenario and that this could reduce Slovenian exports. The GZS's analytics department estimates that Slovenian exports of goods to the UK rose by 11 percent to 615 million euros in the past year, while exported services were up nine percent to 210 million euros. In case of a no-deal Brexit, however, goods exports could fall by up to one fifth in a year, although they would later probably rise again, the Slovenian Press Agency STA reported Tuesday, citing GZS. A similar reduction would also be experienced by Slovenian exports to other EU member states with close trade ties to the UK, the chamber predicted. A no-deal Brexit would present a strong blow in particular to the movement of people, goods, services and capital, with cooperation already being affected by the current uncertainty. A direct impact has been felt above all by multinationals and regional companies with a two-way value chain and in particular involving Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. Indirectly affected are the supplier companies, meaning also a number of Slovenian companies. A no-deal Brexit would also mean the reintroduction of border checks and thereby a fourfold increase in the time needed to cross the border. Slovenian hauliers conduct 40 million euro worth of transport for British clients a year, the GZS said, while also highlighting additional costs related to the diverging of standards for products and services. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 22:44:05|Editor: yan Video Player Close TRIPOLI, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Libya's eastern-based army on Tuesday announced the launch of a comprehensive military operation against terrorism and crime in the south of the country. "In response to the call of our people in the south, which is suffering from all kinds of terrorism and crime, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Khalifa Haftar, issued an order to launch a comprehensive military operation in the region," the army said in a statement. The operation aims to protect people from terrorists and criminal groups who are working with foreign countries and pose threats to the Libyan identity, said the statement. The operation aims to protect and secure the people against terrorists, whether the Islamic State (IS) or al-Qaida, and criminal groups in the south to change ... the Libyan identity, the statement said. The operation also aims at securing oil, gas and water supply resources and to combat crime and illegal immigration, it added. In March 2018, the Libyan army carried out a similar operation, mainly in the form of airstrikes, against members of the Chadian armed opposition in Libyan territory. Libya is divided between two governments, one in the east and the other in the west. The army is allied with the eastern-based government. "Yellow Vests" protesters shout slogans near the Arch of Triumph in Paris, France, on Dec. 8, 2018. Riot police fired tear gas and water cannon at "Yellow Vests" protesters marching in Paris on Saturday in the fourth week-end action despite President Emmanuel Macron's series of concessions. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen) PARIS, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- With the "yellow vest" social rebellion showing no sign of abating, French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed to build a "new contract" for the nation with which he hopes to "transform anger into solutions" and defuse the month-long street protests that had shaken his leadership. In a long letter addressed to the French people and published by his office late on Sunday, Macron invited discontented people to participate in a three-month consultation, which he called "an unprecedented initiative", and of which he would "draw all the conclusions". Widely criticized for his top-down governing style and "arrogance problem", Macron now called for an open debate with "no banned issue". "We won't agree on everything, which is normal in a democracy. But at least we'll show we're a people which is not afraid of talking, exchanging, debating," the president wrote. "However, we must ask ourselves questions to go further." Accordingly, he raises a series of questions over taxes, green energy, institutional reform and citizenship -- the national debate's main themes to be discussed during meetings in town halls across French cities. Struggling to win back his authority, the head of state expects the French themselves to come up with adequate alternative responses to their own complaints, which they had already expressed in "grievance books" opened up by mayors of 5,000 communes. "Your proposals will therefore make it possible to build a new contract for the nation, to structure the action of the government and Parliament, but also France's positions at European and international level," he pledged. The 41-year-old ex-investment banker stressed that the debate "is neither an election nor a referendum", telling the French "I have not forgotten that I was elected with a project, with major objectives to which I remain faithful. "We will not go back on the measures we have taken to correct this in order to encourage investment and make work pay more," he stressed, referring to pro-business economic reforms, including the wealth tax, known as ISF. "They have just been voted on and are just beginning to take effect. Parliament will assess them in a transparent manner," he said, as protests continue to mount against his policy, which critics say favors the rich. With an eye on this spring's European election -- a crucial contest for the pro-European Macron to defend his political craftiness -- he is betting on the proposed three-month debate and face-to-face meetings with people to quell social unrest and help him regain the initiative. He pledged to make the consultation's conclusions public within a month of the end of the debate on March 15. However, doubts linger as to whether these conclusions would be directly translated into more participatory democracy to shape the government's policy as promised by Macron. To Jean-Michel Aphatie, a political analyst, "Undoubtedly, it is a good debate ... but full of surprises. "This debate was decided without much thought to respond to 'yellow vest' crisis. Emmanuel Macron decided to do it but has he measured all the implications, especially regarding his legitimacy to solve the crisis? It's not sure," he told the local broadcaster Europe1. "Can he apply solutions that he does not believe in? No, it's stupid ... But does he have the means to refuse what could emerge from the majority following the debate?" he asked. Macron, who came to power in May 2017 on promises of a new and fair recipe for the eurozone's leading power, has witnessed tough months marked mainly by the "yellow vest" movement, a nationwide protest against his way of governing, which started as a campaign against a surge in fuel prices and high living costs. Despite capitulating over plans for fuel taxes and offering 10-billion-euro (11.46 billion U.S. dollars) concessions to improve the French people's daily life, the president is still struggling to defuse the anger. The 9th weekend action in row lured more than 80,000 people on Saturday, a turnout higher than a week earlier. One of the "yellow vest" representatives, Benjamin Cauchy, wrote on Twitter, "The letter (is about) a debate whose outcome is already known. Emmanuel Macron is letting us know this will serve no real purpose. What a lack of respect." Speaking to BFMTV news channel, Jordan Bardella, head of the far-right National Rally's list for the European election, said "it's a lot for nothing." "Emmanuel Macron is very disconnected from everyday realities. People are asking for more dignity, more democracy, fiscal peace and a significant decrease in taxes ... The French want an end to massive immigration. And again, Macron does not take that into account," he said. In the northern French commune of Bourgtheroulde, Macron will officially kick off the national debate on Tuesday. This will be the first meeting of his planned tour of town halls around the country. An Elabe poll, released last Wednesday, found that only 40 percent of citizens intend to take part in the debate. Another poll conducted by Odoxa found that 70 percent of French people believed that the debate would not be useful. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 21:43:40|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close LONDON, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- British MPs have been warned again to rule out the possibility of a no-deal Brexit on the eve of Parliament's vote on the Brexit deal due late on Tuesday, with British media widely predicting a defeat for the deal. "As MPs prepare to vote on the government's Brexit deal, we urge them to remember they hold the future of the British automotive industry -- and the hundreds and thousands of jobs it supports -- in their hands," Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), said in a statement on Tuesday. "The just-in-time nature of automotive means the impact of 'no deal' will be felt, not in months or weeks, but hours," Hawes said, rejecting a managed no-deal as a "fantasy". "We would face immediate delivery shortages, disruption, additional costs and uncertainty. Both government and parliament have a responsibility to take no-deal off the table or risk destroying this vital UK industry," Hawes said. The vote in Parliament will finally come after the government postponed it in December amid fears that Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal could suffer a crushing defeat. May has warned that the country would be in "uncharted" territory if MPs reject the deal. However, opposition MPs and politicians from her own Conservative Party have threatened to oppose the deal, which makes a no-deal Brexit more likely than ever. A research paper published by the University of Bristol has warned that UK companies, already suffering from the sting of the Brexit impact, could see their value decrease further in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The impact of the Brexit referendum reduced the value of UK companies by an average 16 percent, with those domestically-focused being hit the hardest, according to a new analysis published by the university on Monday. Researchers used stock market data for 297 UK firms and bookmakers' Brexit odds during the referendum campaign to estimate the direct impact of political uncertainty related to Brexit on all major British companies. Piotr Korczak, reader in finance at the School of Economics, Finance and Management at the University of Bristol, said "The referendum result started a period of unprecedented political uncertainty: it is difficult for companies to plan, investment is put on hold, and consumers cut spending. Ultimately the economy slows down while everyone waits to see what will happen. "We would expect to see the same trends if there's a no-deal Brexit. This prolonged uncertainty is likely to see the value of UK companies decrease even further," Korczak said, adding that "most affected are likely to be financial firms and consumer-facing sectors operating mainly in the domestic market. Firms with international operations should be less affected." Experts have also warned that a no-deal Brexit will cause further uncertainty and, ultimately, may lead to companies moving their business activities overseas to ensure stability. The latest survey published by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and the accountancy firm PwC on Monday predicted overall business volumes of financial services to fall during the first quarter of 2019. Rain Newton-Smith, CBI's chief economist, said: "A combination of macroeconomic and Brexit uncertainty, regulatory compliance and global market volatility are taking a toll on the UK's financial services sector. Financial services are a bellwether for the wider economy. The persistent weakness in optimism and the deterioration in expectations sound a warning for the outlook." Under the current Brexit deal, nothing would change when Britain ends its EU membership on March 29, 2019, with a 21-month transition period aimed at giving Brussels and London more time to work out a permanent trading relationship. However, if a no-deal scenario happens, there will be a clean cut from the EU and both will trade on World Trade Organization (WTO) terms. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 21:33:36|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close A protester burns tires in a highway from Harare to Bulawayo in Warren Park of Harare, Zimbabwe, Jan. 15, 2019. An uneasy calm prevailed in some parts of Harare following Monday's violent demonstrations after fuel price hikes announced by Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Saturday. (Xinhua/Shaun Jusa) by Zhang Yuliang, Tichaona Chifamba HARARE, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- An uneasy calm prevailed in some parts of Harare follwoing Monday's violent demonstrations after fuel price hikes announced by Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Saturday. The government has blamed the main opposition party MDC Alliance and its perceived allies in the non-governmental sector for the mayhem which left an undisclosed number of people dead and both state and private property destroyed as some demonstrators turned to looting and security agencies allegedly shot at crowds. Unconfirmed reports put the number of dead countrywide at five. Mnangagwa announced fuel pump prices of 3.11 U.S. dollars per liter for diesel and 3.31 dollars per liter for petrol with effect from midnight Saturday. Prior to the increases, diesel was selling for around 1.40 dollars per liter while petrol was going for 1.38 dollars per liter. Foreign missions and other registered foreign bodies and tourists will fuel at designated points at the price of 1.24 dollars per liter for diesel and 1.32 dollars per liter for petrol upon production of proper identification documents. Some police vehicles and private buses were burnt and shops looted as violent groups protesting against the increases moved around in many of the city's high-density suburbs ordering businesses and schools to close. On Tuesday Morning, Harare's central streets remained empty as people stayed at home following Monday's violence. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and some civic leaders had called for a three-day shutdown following the announcement of the fuel price increases, arguing that ordinary people were being subjected to more suffering. Pictures and videos taken in the country's second largest city, Bulawayo, showed people burning tires and looting goods from shops. Minister of State for National Security Owen Ncube said Monday night that the State had activated all its security organs to deal with the situation. "The prevailing security situation in the country is a culmination of a well orchestrated series of events by the MDC Alliance working in cahoots with NGOs, civic society, youth organisations, pressure groups and individuals," said the minister. "Regrettably, this has resulted in the loss of life and property, including injury to police officers and members of the public. We express our deepest condolences to the bereaved families. Full investigations are underway," Ncube said. He also said the demonstrations were intended to undermine Mnangagwa's ongoing re-engagement efforts to market Zimbabwe at high level fora such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Mnangagwa left Zimbabwe Monday morning for a four-nation tour of Eastern Europe before he heads to Davos. "The events of the past 24 hours have been characterized by a well-coordinated criminal behavior, destructive and violent pattern which included the barricading of roads, harassment of innocent members of the public, burning of cars, disruption of children's lessons in schools, forced closure of business entities, attempts to overrun police posts, destruction of property, unlawful possession and discharging of firearms in public, attacking tollgates and robbing them of cash as well as looting of shops," Ncube said. "In short, this was terrorism and total breakdown of rule of law and order which had nothing to do with the constitutional right of citizens to demonstrate peacefully as enshrined in Section 59 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe," he added. He said the government had activated all security organs to restore law and order and protect life and property and so far more than 200 people had been arrested in connection with the disturbances. "Government urges members of the public to go about their normal day to day activities without fear as their security is guaranteed," he said. Many people opted to stay at home Tuesday after many of them were forced to walk long distances back home on Monday after failing to get transport. The internet access in Harare was cut Tuesday morning, which made internet users facing difficultly to access the web. The block on mobile internet and social media started on 9 a.m. local time. People could still use laptops and computers to access internet before the access was completely down on about 11:30 a.m.. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 21:18:31|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BERLIN, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- German chancellor Angela Merkel has dismissed reports of the British newspaper The Sun that claimed that Merkel had offered help beyond the current EU position on Tuesday. According to a government spokesman in Berlin, the content of a telephone conversation between Merkel and May has been misrepresented by the British newspaper. Merkel has made "no assurances beyond what was discussed in the European Council in December and what is set out in the letter from Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk," the spokesman said. A senior figure in the British government had described the telephone conversation as a sign that the German chancellor would be willing to make extra concession to avoid a no deal scenario. "Merkel believes there is more the EU can do once the vote is over as no deal would be a disaster for everyone, and they agreed to talk after it," the British government source told The Sun. The British parliament will vote on the Brexit agreement negotiated by May's government with Brussels Tuesday evening. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 21:18:29|Editor: zh Video Player Close GUANGZHOU, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's import and export volume in 2018 rose 9.7 percent year on year to more than 30 trillion yuan (4.4 trillion U.S. dollars), a record high amid the complex circumstances mainly thanks to the country's robust ang resilient private sector. "Private enterprises contributed more than half to China's foreign trade growth in 2018, a bright spot of China's foreign trade development," said Li Kuiwen, spokesperson of the General Administration of Customs. This indicates the private sector's stronger presence in driving China's foreign trade. Song Ziqiang, head of the import and export department of Kingfa Technology Co., Ltd., said his company had achieved over 10 percent growth in both imports and exports in 2018. "In particular, our exports of biodegradable plastics, a high value-added new material, rose 117 percent year on year, accounting for about a third of such products in the European market," Song said. As a private new material enterprise in the southern Guangdong Province, Kingfa uses more than 4 percent of the company's annual sales revenue for research and development in high-performance new materials such as special plastics and carbon fiber. "With high-tech innovation and government support for private companies and the real economy, we are confident to realize high-quality development this year," said Song. New trade forms and business models, including cross-border e-commerce, are showing greater vitality, according to Gu Xueming, head of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce. "The effect of China's foreign trade transformation and structural adjustment will be further demonstrated," Gu said. The official data shows that China's total retail imports and exports via cross-border e-commerce management platforms of customs increased by 50 percent in 2018. "Tariff cuts have attracted more overseas quality commodities to China, and consumer goods for daily use have become one of the import priorities," said Huang Hongying, vice president of Vipshop Holdings Ltd., a Chinese online discount retailer. "The expanded imported consumer goods market brings new opportunities for e-commerce platforms. Our foreign purchases are estimated to exceed 10 billion yuan in the future," Huang said. China's home appliance marker Galanz exported its products to more than 70 countries and regions along the Belt and Road in 2018. About 3 million microwave ovens were exported. Demands in Southeast Asia have increased significantly, according to Liang Zhaoxian, president of the company. Domestic appliances are one of China's major export products. Under the Belt and Road Initiative, the company plans to build more branches along the routes and bring more quality products and services to customers, he said. China's robust economy and improved services have also provided a strong impetus for foreign companies to invest in the country. More than 60,000 foreign-funded enterprises were set up in China last year, up 69.8 percent compared with 2017, according to the Ministry of Commerce. In 2018, Guangdong, a major hub for foreign trade, attracted tens of billions of dollars of investment in petrochemical projects from Germany chemical company BASF SE and U.S. energy giant ExxonMobil. Foreign companies including Toyota, Shell and Hitachi also expanded their investment and production in the province. "Our efforts in boosting foreign capital use and creating a better business environment have made a significant contribution to Guangdong's stable development of foreign trade," Yang Yong, deputy director of the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 21:13:27|Editor: zh Video Player Close CHINGOLA, Zambia, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- There is vast potential in Zambia's manufacturing sector for further cooperation with China, an industry group said on Tuesday. Chinese enterprises could establish manufacturing plants in Zambia to help enhance economic growth in the southern African nation, said Fred Musonda, president of the Chingola Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In an interview with Xinhua, Musonda said as China celebrates 70 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China and 55 years of cooperation with Zambia this year, exploring the vast potential of Zambia's manufacturing sector should anchor the relationship. Acknowledging that China has been a strategic partner for Zambia in the development of various economic sectors, the official said that exploring the manufacturing industry will go along in value addition to the southern African nation's raw materials, a move which will steer economic growth and job creation. Zambia has abundant natural resources that require value addition, which could be achieved through the establishment of manufacturing plants, he said. According to him, Zambian enterprises have learned from participating in business fairs in China, such as the Canton Fair held last year, he said, urging local enterprises to emulate the work culture of Chinese businesses in order to achieve the much needed development. The official said Zambian enterprises should take advantage of various trade fairs held in China each year in order to learn from China's economic culture. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 21:08:26|Editor: zh Video Player Close Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with visiting Finnish President Sauli Niinisto at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 15, 2019. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing) BEIJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- China can provide broad business opportunities for the commercialization of Finland's technical innovation as it has a vast market, Premier Li Keqiang told visiting Finnish President Sauli Niinisto Tuesday, saying China will vigorously protect intellectual property rights. "China and Finland complement each other on cooperation in areas of economic technology and share broad prospects, " Li said during a meeting with Niinisto at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. "We will spare no efforts to protect intellectual property rights as it not only caters to China's own needs of transforming its development model but also helps it learn advanced technology and concepts," he said. China stands ready to further cooperate with Finland on cargo, service and technology, jointly address climate change and work on green development and clean technology, said Li. He said China firmly supports the European integration process and has always viewed the European Union (EU) as an important force to maintain world stability and promote free trade. China looks forward to a new round of China-EU leaders' meeting to push bilateral cooperation to a higher level, Li said. He expressed the hope that Finland can contribute to China-EU relations and EU unity and prosperity as the Nordic country will assume the rotating EU presidency in the second half of this year. For his part, Niinisto said he has seen China's progress every time he has visited the country, which has brought opportunities to Finland and other countries. Noting that China is becoming a force for stability in today's world, he said Finland attaches great importance to relations with China and China's vast market. Finland would like to enhance cooperation between enterprises of both countries, especially small and medium-sized companies, as well as in the areas of climate change, technological innovation and clean energy, he said, adding that Finland will work with China to jointly safeguard the multilateral trading system. Also on Tuesday, Chinese top legislator Li Zhanshu met with Niinisto. Li, chairman of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said since the establishment of diplomatic relations, China and Finland have adhered to mutual respect, equal treatment and mutually beneficial cooperation, becoming a model of peaceful coexistence and friendly exchanges between countries of different cultures, sizes and development levels. He said China stands ready to implement the consensus reached by the two heads of state and promote bilateral exchanges and cooperation to a new level. The NPC is willing to intensify exchanges with the Parliament of Finland at various levels to promote cooperation in economy and trade, innovation, environmental protection and winter sports, said the top legislator. Niinisto said he expects to advance the future-oriented new-type cooperative partnership between Finland and China to yield more practical results through the visit. Finland is ready to help China in hosting a successful 2022 Winter Olympic Games, he said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 20:33:20|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ADEN, Yemen, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- A total of four children were injured on Tuesday when mortar shells fired by the Houthi rebels landed on displacement camps in Yemen's Red Sea coastal city of Hodeidah, a security official told Xinhua. "A number of mortar shells fired by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels hit tents of internally displaced people in Khukhah district of Hodeidah," the security source said on condition of anonymity. The shells landed randomly and burned some tents, he added. A fragile cease-fire deal in the lifeline port city of Hodeidah was reached between the Yemeni rival parties in the UN-brokered peace negotiations in Stockholm, Sweden, last month. The UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths told the Security Council last week that his team will continue to cement the truce in Hodeidah and will move forward to achieve a comprehensive peace agreement. Saudi Arabia is leading an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after the Houthi rebels forced him into exile and seized much of the country's north, including the capital Sanaa. The four-year war has killed more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, displaced 3 million others and pushed the country to the brink of famine. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 20:33:20|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BERLIN, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- German federal prosecutor's office said on Tuesday that they're investigating a suspected spy for Iran in Germany's army Bundeswehr. The 50-year-old suspect is a German-Afghan national and was caught on Tuesday in western Germany. His arrest warrant was issued on Dec. 6 last year. He was accused of working for an Iranian news service and supplying sensitive information for it, according to Deutsche Presse Agentur. The suspect was a translator and a cultural advisor for the federal army. Further details of the suspect was not disclosed. A spokesman for German defense ministry confirmed the arrest, saying a member of Bundeswehr was in suspicion of his ties with Iran. So far there is no response from the Iranian side over the news. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 20:23:18|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close NEW DELHI, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Two independent lawmakers, H Nagesh and R Shankar, Tuesday withdrew their support from the local coalition government in India's southwestern state of Karnataka, officials said. The exit of the two lawmakers from the Janta Dal-Secular (JD-S)-Congress combine came amid local media reports that opposition BJP was trying to poach disgruntled legislators to bring down the local government. Nagesh told media that there was "no understanding between coalition partners." "Hence, I decided to go with the BJP for a stable government," he said. However, Shankar blamed performance of Karnataka Chief Minister for his withdrawal. "Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy failed on several fronts. That's why we have decided to withdraw the support," Shankar told a news channel. The defection of the two lawmakers have brought down the number of the ruling coalition from 118 to 116. The halfway mark stands at 113. In the 224-member Karnataka lawmaking body (Assembly), the Congress party has 80 lawmakers, the JD-S has 37, Bahujan Samaj Party one and two are independents. The BJP has 104 lawmakers. Over the last two days, there have been allegations of attempted poaching from the Congress and the BJP camps. The BJP has shifted its 104 lawmakers to Gurugram near Delhi. Political analysts say, for BJP to stake claim, at least 12 lawmakers will have to resign. Meanwhile, Kumaraswamy said he was watching the developments in a relaxed mood. "If two MLAs withdraw support, what will be the numbers? I'm totally relaxed. I know my strength. Whatever is going on in media in the past week, I am enjoying," Kumaraswamy said. Last year, Kumaraswamy became Chief Minister of Karnataka after stitching an alliance with Congress party. Prior to his elevation to the state's top post, BJP leader B S Yeddyurappa was sworn in as the chief minister. However, he announced his resignation after two days, minutes before he was supposed to prove his majority in the lawmaking body. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 20:08:16|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close VALLETTA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has accused NGOs operating search and rescue vessels in the Mediterranean of unwittingly encouraging human smugglers to send more people out to sea. Addressing the Maltese Parliament on Monday evening, Muscat said that while Malta had no problem with NGOs rescuing migrants at sea, it was unacceptable for them to advertise their position outside Libyan waters. "There are instances when some of these NGOs try to make a political point by attempting to reach migrant boats before the Libyan coastguard even though the people on board may not be in a precarious state," Muscat said. This, he said, often led to diplomatic disputes as the NGOs would then attempt to find an alternative port to disembark any rescued migrants. In his statement to parliament about the recent migrant dispute, which saw 49 migrants remain stranded for weeks on two NGO ships, Muscat again insisted that the Libyan coastguard was doing a good job and needed to be allowed to work. However, the prime minister did acknowledge that more needed to be done to improve the conditions and human rights of migrants kept in Libyan detention centres, an issue Muscat said he had raised with Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj during his visit to Malta last week. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 20:03:15|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close LONDON, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May is "widely expected" to be defeated in the Tuesday parliament vote on the Brexit deal she has advocated, local media reported. An overwhelming majority of British media forecast that the Members of Parliament (MPs) are going to vote against the deal reached between the British government and the EU after a five-day debate. The BBC said that many of May's own MPs are expected to join opposition parties to vote against the deal. MPs will also be able to suggest amendments that could reshape the deal before voting starts at around 1900 GMT. The crucial voting came amid tension as May called on the MPs to vote for the sake of the nation and Brexiteers said the deal would risk trapping the country in the EU. Financial Times on Tuesday said May's last-ditch attempt to shore up her Brexit deal appeared to be doomed. "In Downing Street, there was a mood of impending disaster, with some allies of the premier claiming the vote could be lost by 200 votes or more," it said. Sky News reported that May is facing a huge defeat and a vote of no confidence from the government. It said senior MPs are predicting a defeat for the prime minister of between 100 and 200 votes, which is likely to be followed by Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn calling a vote of no confidence from the government. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 19:58:14|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ULAN BATOR, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Bank of Mongolia, the country's central bank, on Tuesday issued a silver coin to celebrate the traditional Chinese Year of the Pig. The commemorative coin, which is marked 10,000 Mongolian tugriks (3.7 U.S. dollars), has a 38.61-mm diameter and contains 31.1 grams of pure silver. It depicts a Mongolian bodon, or wild boar in English. The coin is available at the Treasury Fund of the central bank at a cost of 400,000 Mongolian tugriks (150 U.S. dollars) per piece, the bank's spokesperson Ariun Dagva told Xinhua. The Year of the Pig begins Feb. 5, according to the Chinese lunar calendar. Since 1972, the Bank of Mongolia has been issuing gold, silver and bronze coins depicting the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, endangered animals, Olympic athletes and other well-known figures, as well as historical events or anniversaries. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 19:58:14|Editor: zh Video Player Close TIANJIN, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Mars Incorporated, a U.S. global manufacturer of confectionery, pet food and other food products, has recently signed an agreement to set up a pet food plant in north China's Tianjin, local authorities said Tuesday. Mars Inc. and the management committee of Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area signed an investment cooperation agreement on a pet food plant project last Friday. The investment of the project is over 100 million U.S. dollars, with registered capital of 40 million U.S. dollars, according to the management committee. The new plant aims to become one of the most advanced pet food plants of Mars Inc. across the world, producing high-end and diverse pet food for Chinese customers and also research and develop more high-end products. Covering around 110,000 square meters, the project is expected to produce more than 250,000 tonnes of products every year. Mars Inc. is a family-owned business that has been making diverse products and offering services for people and pets for over a century. The company owns many world-renowned brands such as Snickers, Dove and Royal Canin. "The Chinese pet market is expected to boom in the coming 10 years, with an annual increase of 30 percent," said Zhu Danpeng, a food industry analyst, adding that Mars Inc. is one of the earliest international giants to enter China's pet food industry and establishing a plant in Tianjin can lay the foundation for its future development. China's pet market reached nearly 60 billion yuan last year, and the figure is estimated to increase to 100 billion yuan by 2022, according to a research report. File photo shows South Sudanese citizens in Khartoum celebrate the signing of the final deal on power-sharing and security arrangements between South Sudan's conflicting parties, in Khartoum, capital of Sudan, Aug. 5, 2018. (Xinhua/Mohamed Khidir) JUBA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- A senior South Sudanese official on Monday said the international community is now keen to finance the implementation of a peace deal thanks to the commitment by warring parties to pursue reconciliation. Michael Makuei Lueth, minister of information and broadcasting, said the government has already prepared a budget as requested by donors to fund the upcoming Transitional Government of National Unity (TGoNU) in May. "They are positively responding and they are only waiting for us to avail them with our budget. It's us the government actually processing the budget, the opposition did not give us their budget," Makuei told reporters in Juba. He added that this came as results of improving relation between the South Sudanese government and the troika countries which comprise of Britain, United States and Norway. According to Makuei, the warring parties require about 60 million U.S dollars for security arrangements that will involve setting up of cantonment sites, training of unified forces and transportation of troops. "On the other hand the government of South Sudan is working hard to make sure that we deposit some cash and we will see how much the government deposits," he said. Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir mediated the revitalized peace deal between South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Khartoum that led to the eventual signing of the final agreement in Ethiopia in September. South Sudan descended into civil war in late 2013, and the conflict has created one of the fastest growing refugee crises in the world. A peace agreement signed in 2015 to end the violence was again violated in July 2016 when the rival factions resumed fighting in the capital, Juba, forcing Machar to flee into exile. The United Nations estimates that about four million South Sudanese have been displaced internally and externally. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 19:18:07|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close JERUSALEM, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday urged Iran to "get out of Syria fast." "I'm telling you, get out of there fast. We won't stop attacking," Netanyahu said during a ceremony, in which he appointed Aviv Kochavi as the new military Chief of Staff. Netanyahu dismissed as "a lie" the earlier remarks of Hassan Firouzabadi, a senior military advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader, who said Iranian "military advisers" will stay in Syria to defeat terrorists. He also rejected a comment made earlier in the day by Iranian Communications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi on Tehran's failed attempt to place a satellite into orbit. "They are lying now that they supposedly send an innocent satellite into space, but actually they want to achieve the first stage of an intercontinental missile, contrary to all international agreements," Netanyahu said. Iran and its proxy, namely the Lebanon-based Shiite military of Hezbollah, are Israel's main enemies, the Israeli prime minister noted. "We promise to hand a crushing punch against both close and distant enemies," he said, adding that in the upcoming decade, Israel will complete building fences across all its borders. On Sunday, Netanyahu confirmed that Israel had attacked multiple Iranian sites in Syria over the weekend, in a rare public acknowledgment of such airstrikes. Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria over the past years, saying the attacks aimed at Iranian military sites and weapon convoys to Hezbollah. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 19:03:05|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen addresses the opening ceremony of the 27th Annual Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF-27) in Siem Reap, Cambodia, on Jan. 15, 2019. The forum focuses talks on politics, security, economy, trade issues and cultural cooperation. (Xinhua/Li Lay) SIEM REAP, Cambodia, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni said in a royal message on Tuesday that dialogue and international cooperation are vital to solve global issues. The monarch's message was read during the opening ceremony of the 27th Annual Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF-27) here. "We are now entering a new era of international relations, characterized by an evolving multipolar world order that is challenged by interconnected and complex issues. No single country, no matter how powerful it is, can address global issues alone," Sihamoni said. "We need dialogue and international cooperation to solve them, whether they are climate change, natural disaster, poverty and inequality," the monarch said. He said the forum was important to discuss emerging international issues, share common concerns and perspectives, and to seek holistic solution to those issues and challenges. Meanwhile, Sihamoni said multilateralism and the rules-based international system are under threat due to rising unilateralism, protectionism, extremism, nationalism and populism in different parts of the world. "We need to be resilient and work together to promote an open, inclusive and rules-based multilateralism system. We need to build stronger international partnerships to realize the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030," he said. The APPF-27 kicked off here on Tuesday, focusing talks on politics, security, economy, trade issues, and cultural cooperation. The four-day forum brought together more than 200 parliamentary delegates from 21 countries. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 19:03:05|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close SUVA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu is not interested in a security treaty with Australia as this will affect the country's Non-Aligned status, a Vanuatuan government minister has said. According to Vanuatu's Daily Post on Tuesday, Vanuatu's Foreign Minister Ralph Regenvanu said in an interview with the newspaper that "Vanuatu is not interested in an exclusive security treaty with any one country," as this agreement would affect Vanuatu's Non-Aligned status. And this stance was not aimed specifically at Australia. The Vanuatu minister made the comments ahead of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's official visit to the island nation later this week. The newspaper has learned that Australian officials asked for a security treaty with Vanuatu during Vanuatuan Prime Minister Charlot Salwai's official visit to Australia last year, but Regenvanu said that Vanuatu has not responded positively yet. Reganvanu ruled out the possibility that Vanuatu would change its Non-Aligned status, saying that there would be no prospect of a change in Vanuatu's Non-Aligned status. However, the minister said that doesn't rule out an agreement dealing with internal security, law and order, or humanitarian deployments. He made it clear that there were many areas that the two countries could improve cooperation, coordination and understanding. Reganvanu also regards Morrison's visit as a positive sign towards action around climate change. The Australian prime minister is expected to cut the ribbon on an Australian-funded Police training college facility during his two-day visit from Wednesday. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 18:53:04|Editor: zh Video Player Close KAMPALA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Uganda's electricity generation agency on Monday said plans are underway to commission the Chinese constructed Isimba Hydropower Plant in the central part of the country along River Nile. Uganda Electricity Generation Company Limited (UEGCL) said in a statement that current physical progress of the 183 Megawatt Isimba power plant is estimated at 98.5 percent. "For sure, the progress of the Isimba HPP (Hydropower Plant) is incredible," said Proscovia Njuki, chairperson Board of Directors UEGCL. Njuki said the contractor, China Water and Electric Corporation Limited, has moved fast to ensure that three out of the four generating units are on the national grid. She was concluding a routine appraisal of the 568 million U.S. dollars power plant located in Kayunga district. According UEGCL, the power plant is scheduled to be launched on Jan. 24. Construction of the plant started in 2015, after Uganda secured a loan from China Export Import Bank. Uganda got the loan to address the country's power shortage, which economic experts said was stalling economic development. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 18:53:03|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close MANILA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said on Tuesday that it has noted a significant increase in the number of incidents of trafficking of illicit drugs using mail and parcel courier services. PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino said that in 2018 his office has intercepted a total of 35 incidents involving foreign express delivery and domestic courier services to transport illicit drugs, an increase of 775 percent from four incidents in 2017. Aquino said 672 million pesos (roughly 13 million U.S. dollars) worth of illegal drugs, including 94.67 kilos of methamphetamine hydrochloride, 16,713 ecstasy tablets and 1,109.5 grams of marijuana kush sent through foreign and domestic courier services, were intercepted in 2018. Moreover, Aquino said PDEA also arrested a total of 1,612 high-value targets in the past year, among them 43 government employees, 57 elected officials and 15 uniformed personnel as well as 53 foreigners. "Smuggling of dangerous drugs through courier services is one of the modus/means used by drug syndicates to ensure the supply of illegal drugs in the country," Aquino said in a statement. Out of the interdiction operations conducted, Aquino said 27 were interception of packages containing illegal drugs that originated from California, the United States, he added. The PDEA established three Airport Interdiction Units, three International Airport Inter-Agency Drug Interdiction Task Groups, and 12 Seaport Interdiction Units in its regional office in order to address drug smuggling using vulnerable seaports and airports in the country, he added. Since 2015, Aquino said the total estimated market value of illegal drugs concealed inside packages that were intercepted by PDEA, with the support of local law enforcement agencies and foreign counterparts, amounted to 966.3 million pesos (roughly 19 million U.S. dollars). "PDEA remains vigilant to ensure packages containing illegal drugs are intercepted and kept from being delivered," Aquino said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 18:43:01|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close KAMPALA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Uganda's ministry of health on Tuesday said it is going to recruit over 15,000 people who will be trained as community health workers in villages across the east African country. Ruth Acheng, minister of health, said the recruitment drive follows the approval of the Community Health Extension Workers Policy by Cabinet on Monday. Aceng said the recruitment aims at intensifying efforts on prevention of communicable diseases and non-communicable diseases. According to the ministry, the recruits will be trained on how to identify sick people, conduct home visits and community outreach services, such as carrying out routine immunisations, HIV counselling and testing among others. Experts say community health workers are a crucial link to health care at the household level. Uganda already has some community health workers facilitated by non-governmental organizations. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 18:38:00|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close MOSCOW, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Kremlin denied Tuesday allegations that U.S. President Donald Trump could be acting as a Russian agent. "This is a conspiracy theory, which has no relation to reality," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the Argumenty I Fakty newspaper. "The United States found itself in a unique situation: both the society and the government are divided, and as a result of this Trump has to work in difficult conditions," he added. On Friday, The New York Times reported that U.S. law enforcement bodies had launched an investigation into whether Trump could be acting as a Russian agent against U.S. interests intentionally or unwittingly, in particular, when he sacked FBI head James Comey in 2017. Trump himself denied these allegations on Monday. "I never worked for Russia. Not only did I never work for Russia, I think it's a disgrace that you even asked that question because it's a whole big fat hoax. It's just a hoax," Trump told reporters in Washington. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 18:32:58|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close WELLINGTON, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The New Zealand food industry on Tuesday called for tougher penalties to punish people sabotaging food following Australia's strawberry needle crisis last year which severely damaged the industry there, and similar cases happened here in New Zealand. "Sabotaging food is akin to economic terrorism. It poses a real risk to the public, it causes massive cost to industry and huge wastage of food," said Greg Hartfood from Retail New Zealand. A farm supervisor who allegedly put needles in strawberries did so out of spite, according to Australia's Brisbane court. The industry association is urging the government to follow Australia's lead and substantially increase penalties for people who tamper with food products in New Zealand. New Zealand Food and Grocery Council chief executive Katherine Rich said: "Consumers want to know that their food is safe and I think we do need much strengthened penalties." National MP Nathan Guy is calling for maximum penalties to be increased from 10 to 14 years of imprisonment, adding cases like those could cripple an entire industry. "We want to send a very strong message it's not welcome in New Zealand," Guy told local media. However, Food Safety Minister Damien O'Connor said earlier the current laws are fit of purpose and don't need changing. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 18:32:58|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close PHNOM PENH, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn will attend the ASEAN ( the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Foreign Ministers' Retreat (AMM Retreat) in Chiang Mai, Thailand on Jan. 17-18, said a foreign ministry's statement on Tuesday. At the AMM Retreat, ASEAN foreign ministers will touch on various priority areas of common interests that ASEAN will be carrying out in 2019 in the ASEAN community building processes, the statement said. It added that they will also discuss ways to work together towards a more resilient and people-centered ASEAN Community as well as to intensify relations with external partners for mutual prosperity. As the rotating chairman of ASEAN in 2019, Thailand adopted the theme "Advancing Partnership for Sustainability", which is in line with ASEAN's common objectives in promoting sustainable development goals, the statement said. ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 18:27:57|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Oregon has witnessed a three-time hike in the number of federal employees filing for unemployment benefits during the partial government shutdown, a local TV news outlet reported Monday. About 1,900 federal workers in the U.S. western state filed for benefits in the first three weeks of the shutdown, almost 322 percent more than in the same period last year, Portland-based TV channel KATU said. In comparison, Oregon Employment Department (OED) sources were quoted by the channel as saying that a 16-day partial shutdown in 2013 saw about 500 federal workers claiming similar benefits. An OED official said employees of the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management bear the brunt in the state. The partial federal shutdown, ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump in December 2018 after he failed to get money from Congress for the U.S.-Mexico border wall, has directly affected about 9,600 employees working for federal agencies in Oregon. Those federal workers either were put on furlough or worked with no pay during the shutdown, KATU said. Trump has been fighting with Congress over the past weeks for 5.7 billion U.S. dollars to fund the border wall that he claims would keep out illegal immigrants from Central America. The shutdown, which affected a quarter of federal agencies, has outlasted all the previous 20 such closures to become the longest in the country's modern history. According to an estimate by S&P Global Ratings on Friday, if the shutdown lasts another two weeks, it will cost the economy more than 6 billion dollars. The White House and the Democratic congressional leaders have held several rounds of negotiations over border security and wall funding, the sticking point in the shutdown, but have appeared to get no closer to solving the budget impasse. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 18:22:55|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close WELLINGTON, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Antarctic ice sheets are under threat, according to a new research on Tuesday led by New Zealand and U.S. scientists who calls for concrete action to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the study underscored just how sensitive the ice sheet is to climate change, according to Richard Levy of GNS Science and Victoria University of Wellington and Stephen Meyers of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who jointly led the research team. "We've long known that the way the Earth moves in space influences climate," Levy said, adding, "If we fail to reach emissions targets, the Earth's average temperature will warm more than two degrees, sea ice will diminish, and we will jump back to a world that hasn't existed for millions of years." The research confirms a connection between those astronomical changes and changes in the size and extent of the Antarctic ice sheets. "It highlights that parts of the ice sheets that sit in the ocean are particularly sensitive to changes in the tilt of our planets axis," Levy said, adding it also raises serious questions about how these changes will affect Earth in the future as carbon emissions rise. "Antarctica's vulnerable marine-based ice sheets will feel the effect of our current relatively high tilt, and ocean warming at Antarctica's margins will be amplified," he said. The study's co-author Tim Naish of the Antarctic Research Centre at Victoria University of Wellington said urgent action is needed on cutting emissions, and it needs to happen on a national and global level. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 18:22:55|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close BEIJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's new yuan-denominated loans stood at 1.08 trillion yuan (about 160 billion U.S. dollars) in December 2018, up 499.5 billion yuan year on year, central bank data showed Tuesday. The amount of new loans was slightly down from 1.25 trillion yuan in November, according to the People's Bank of China (PBOC). The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, rose 8.1 percent year-on-year to 182.67 trillion yuan at the end of December. The M2 growth was up from 8 percent registered a month earlier and flat with a year earlier. The narrow measure of the money supply (M1), which covers cash in circulation plus demand deposits, rose 1.5 percent year-on-year to 55.17 trillion yuan by the end of last month. For the whole 2018, new yuan loans reached 16.17 trillion yuan, up 2.64 trillion yuan year on year. The increase tripled the added yuan loans in the previous year, Zhu Hexin, deputy governor of the PBOC, told a press conference earlier Tuesday. New yuan loans made to households reached 7.36 trillion yuan last year, while those to non-financial enterprises and government institutions totaled 8.31 trillion yuan. Newly-added social financing, a measurement of funds that individuals and non-financial firms get from the financial system, stood at 1.59 trillion yuan in December, up 3.3 billion yuan year on year. The number for 2018 was 19.26 trillion yuan, down 3.14 trillion yuan from 2017. As China is likely to face more complicated circumstances, the central bank will maintain a prudent monetary policy, neither too tight nor too loose, this year, keeping ample market liquidity and reasonable growth in social financing, according to Zhu. Business Sheikh Mohammed praises Emirates Airlines' contribution to Dubai economic success "Not only have we effectively safeguarded the health and wellbeing of citizens and residents, we have also weathered the economic impact of the crisis. Thanks to the vision of our founding fathers, combined with our robust institutions and public services, have enabled us to counter the COVID-19 challenge' Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 17:32:42|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close NEW DELHI, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- India on Tuesday strongly condemned the terror attack in Afghanistan capital Kabul, in which at least four people, including an Indian national, lost their lives and many others were injured on Monday. "We express our sincere condolences to the families of the victims of this cowardly attack and wish early recovery to the injured. The Indian Embassy in Kabul is taking steps for repatriation of the mortal remains of the Indian national," said an official statement issued by India's external affairs ministry. Through the statement, India called for the perpetrators of this heinous attack and those who provide them shelter to be brought to justice expeditiously. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 17:02:33|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close LOS ANGELES, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- More than 32,000 Los Angeles teachers and staff took to the streets on Monday to demand smaller class sizes, more support staff at schools and better pay. It was the first strike by Los Angeles teachers in 30 years. Despite cold rain, the teachers carrying signs saying "On Strike for Our Students" stood in picket lines Monday morning, demanding smaller class sizes, more nurses, counselors and librarians, higher wages for educators and more accountability for charter schools. "Today is the beginning of a new day for our students! We're on strike because our students and our classrooms cannot wait any longer," United Teachers Los Angeles tweeted. "We cannot continue on without the nurses, counselors and librarians our students need." Weeks of heated negotiations between the United Teachers Los Angeles union and the Los Angeles Unified School District went nowhere, leading to the teachers' strike. "Of course we want a pay raise, but the main issues are class size reduction and to end the privatization of public schools with unregulated charter growth," a veteran teacher was quoted by reports as saying. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 16:52:29|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close MANILA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- A new World Health Organization (WHO) Asia-Pacific Centre for Environment and Health in the Western Pacific Region will open this year in Seoul, South Korea, the WHO announced on Tuesday. Shin Young-soo, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific, and Minister of Environment of South Korea Cho Myung-rae and Mayor of Seoul Park Won-soon signed the agreement to open the centre on Tuesday in Seoul. The centre will foster healthier and safer environments and strengthen community resilience to climate and environmental change in the WHO Western Pacific Region, said the WHO in a statement. "Environmental pollution and climate change are among the greatest threats to health in our region. With the establishment of the WHO Asia-Pacific Centre for Environment and Health in the Western Pacific Region, we will be able to step up our support to countries so that they can better protect people's health. Having the centre in Seoul will offer mutual benefits to WHO and the government of Korea and City of Seoul," Shin Young-soo said. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 16:47:28|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close SINGAPORE, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Two related companies which involved in the worst data leak in Singapore's history were fined 1 million Singapore dollars (about 740,000 U.S. dollars) in total, Singapore's Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) announced here Tuesday. PDPC imposed financial penalties on Integrated Health Information Systems Pte Ltd ("IHiS") and Singapore Health Services Pte Ltd ("SingHealth") for breaching their data protection obligations under the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), according to a press release issued by the PDPC. SingHealth's patient database system suffered cyberattack in mid 2018, which led to the disclosure of personal information of 1.5 million patients, including Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. In investigating the largest data breach case in the country's history, PDPC found that IHiS1 had failed to take adequate security measures to protect the personal data in its possession and thus has imposed a financial penalty of 750,000 Singapore dollars (about 556,000 U.S. dollars). A financial penalty of 250,000 Singapore dollars has also been imposed on SingHealth as the owner of the patient database system. PDPC also recognized that both organizations were victims of a skilled and sophisticated threat actor bearing the characteristics of an Advanced Persistent Threat group, using numerous advanced, customized and stealthy tools. In a statement on Tuesday, SingHealth's CEO Ivy Ng apologized to patients and accepted the PDPC fine. "We are making changes to enhance our cyber-security governance structures and improve management oversight of our critical systems," she said. SingHeath is Singapore's largest healthcare group. Founded in 2000, it consists of four public hospitals and five national specialty centers. IHiS was appointed by SingHealth to operate its patient database system. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 16:37:24|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close LUSAKA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Zambian Vice President Inonge Wina on Monday called on security divisions to thoroughly investigate the kidnapping and deportation of a Russian gemstone miner in Copperbelt Province. Sergey Kuznetsov, who worked for Gemcanton Emerald Mine in the Lufwanyama district, was last week deported from the country in unclear circumstances. He told local media that he was abducted from the mine premises by foreign security guards employed by the mine, and bundled into a vehicle which drove him to the airport. Wina said that security divisions should investigate the whole matter as it is a scandal and has potential to undermine the security of the country, according to the state broadcaster, Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 16:37:24|Editor: zh Video Player Close SHIJIAZHUANG, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- North China's Hebei Province has planned to lift all impoverished counties out of poverty this year, amid the country's targeted poverty alleviation campaign. Governor Xu Qin made the announcement when delivering a government work report at the ongoing provincial legislative session. In 2018, Hebei announced that 25 counties were no longer listed as poor, and 648,000 people shook off poverty. Another 330,000 impoverished people will be lifted out of poverty this year, said Xu in the report. Poverty reduction has been high on the agenda of the Chinese government, which aims to eradicate absolute poverty by 2020. Huo Xi'e, a provincial political advisor who listened to the report, said poverty alleviation had reached a crucial point, and people's health issues should be addressed at this point. Huo, a hospital president in Feixiang District in the city of Handan, said to address the problem, the medical expenses of poor inpatients in her hospital have almost been fully covered by healthcare and medical subsidies. Figures show that those who fell into poverty again because of high medical bills dropped from 1.38 million in 2016 to 214,000 in November 2018 in Hebei Province. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 16:22:21|Editor: zh Video Player Close BEIJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's new yuan loans saw a stable increase last year as the financial sector stepped up efforts to support the real economy, particularly for small firms. New yuan-denominated lending amounted to 16.17 trillion yuan (2.39 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2018, 2.64 trillion yuan higher than a year ago, Zhu Hexin, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, said Tuesday. "The increase tripled the amount of the previous year," Zhu noted at a press conference. By the end of December, China's total outstanding loans rose 13.5 percent year on year, up 0.8 percentage points from 2017. Financing for small and private enterprises improved. In the first 11 months, small loans increased 17.1 percent year on year, and the number of small firms that secured bank lending gained 28 percent from the end of 2017. Bond issuance by private enterprises surged 70 percent year-on-year in November and December. "Financial risks were generally eased, and the macro leverage ratio remained stable," Zhu said. "As China is likely to face more complicated circumstances, the central bank will maintain prudent monetary policy, neither too tight nor too loose, this year, maintaining ample market liquidity and reasonable growth in social financing. "On that basis, measures will also be taken to ensure financial stability, further reduce risks and stabilize the macro leverage ratio." Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 16:22:20|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close A man entertains people with his skills of manipulating fire during a traditional winter festival in old part of Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, on Jan. 14, 2019. Every year at the end of Poush, the ninth month of the Bengali calendar (Jan. 14 or 15 in Gregorian calendar), people in old part of Bangladesh capital Dhaka celebrate "Sakrain" festival, also known as Ghuri Utsob or Kite festival. (Xinhua/Stringer) Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 16:12:20|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Scientists from Washington State University (WSU) on the U.S. western coast are using a robot system to help elderly people suffering from dementia or other impairments complete most-needed tasks in their daily life. The WSU scientists invented the Robot Activity Support System, or RAS, to create a smart home environment for disabled senior citizens to live independently, as the robot is trained to complete daily activities such as walking the dog, taking medication with food and water, and watering household plants. With the help of sensors installed in the WSU smart home, RAS navigates through rooms and around obstacles to find people on its own, offers on-screen instructions to teach people to do simple tasks, or even helps its owners get their medication or grab a snack in the kitchen. RAS is the first robot that the researchers at the WSU Center for Advanced Studies in Adaptive Systems (CASAS) are trying to incorporate into their smart home environment, where the robotic system can determine where the homeowners are, and what they want or are doing. The WSU scientists published their study in a recent edition of the journal Cognitive Systems Research. "RAS combines the convenience of a mobile robot with the activity detection technology of a WSU smart home to provide assistance in the moment, as the need for help is detected," said Bryan Minor, a researcher at the WSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Statistics show that about 50 percent of adults aged 85 or over need assistance in their daily care, and it could cost an estimated 2 trillion U.S. dollars annually in the United States. "Upwards of 90 percent of older adults prefer to age in place as opposed to moving into a nursing home," said Diane Cook, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and CASAS director at WSU. She said the WSU scientists hope their smart home technologies like RAS would make it easier for elderly people with memory problems or other disabilities to live a normal life on their own. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 16:12:19|Editor: zh Video Player Close NANJINGJan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The governor of east China's Jiangsu Province said on Monday that Jiangsu's GDP grew at 6.7 percent in 2018, surpassing 9 trillion yuan (148 billion U.S. dollars) for the first time. Previously, Guangdong Province's GDP ranked first among China's provincial-level economies, reaching 8.99 trillion yuan in 2017. Guangdong will announce its 2018 GDP in an official work report later this month. Wu Zhenglong, the governor of Jiangsu, said in the annual government work report at the opening meeting of the annual session of the Jiangsu Provincial People's Congress that Jiangsu's GDP grew from 8.59 trillion yuan in 2017 to 9.2 trillion yuan in 2018. Jiangsu's economy has been bolstered by the development of new technologies, new industries, and new forms of business modes. In 2018, 8,000 Jiangsu-based enterprises were recognized as national high-tech enterprises. The number of national and provincial key laboratories in Jiangsu reached 171, Wu said. The production of urban rail trains, new energy vehicles, 3D printers, and smart televisions have become Jiangsu's booming industries with outputs maintaining a year-on-year growth rate of 107.1 percent, 139.9 percent, 51.4 percent, and 36.4 percent, respectively in 2018, the governor said. He said the provincial government has set a GDP growth target of 6.5 percent for 2019. Separating the different strands of New York City 'Women's March' activity has been a difficult undertaking this year, with a handful of similar-but-purportedly-different events planned for Saturday, January 19th. The coexistence of multiple demonstrations has sparked speculation that the women's movement lost steam to internal bickeringa stale and sexist trope that arguably oversimplifies a murky situation. Still, the whole thing is worth unpacking, because maybe you just want to know where in the heck you're supposed to show up, and when. First, though, a note on how these marches function: Women's March, Inc.the national group run by Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez, and Bob Bland, who spearheaded the 2017 Women's March that drew thousands of protesters to Washington, D.C. the day after Donald Trump's inaugurationhas its own march scheduled, again in the capitol. Other organizers, including local Women's March chapters and assorted grassroots groups, plan sister marches: independent satellite actions that occur in tandem on the designated march day. (Seemingly, the Saturday closest to the original date: January 21, 2017.) This year, as in both previous years, New York City's march has been coordinated by an organization called the Women's March Alliance, which bills itself as adamantly unaffiliated with Women's March, Inc. However, the city also has its own Women's March chapterWomen's March NYCwhich planned its own rally this year. With so much overlap in languageeveryone seems to deploy some version of "Women's March" in their brandingand in messaging, the various relationships are difficult to untangle. Heading into this very crowded weekend, here's what you need to know. There are three Women's March-related events on Saturday Here, look, we made a helpful itinerary for you: The Women's Unity Rally, brought to you by Women's March NYC and the New York Immigration Coalition 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Foley Square Women's March on NYC, brought to you by the Women's March Alliance (heretofore WMA) 10 a.m. to ???, entry points located at 72nd & Columbus, 72nd & Central Park, and for participants with disabilities and who use American Sign Language, at 61st & Broadway Non-March for Disabled Women, brought to you by Rise and Resist with support from Women's March NYC 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Grand Central Station Signs from the 2017 Women's March on NYC. (Sai Mokhtari/Gothamist) What's the difference between these events? The Unity Rally, according to Women's March NYC director Agunda Okeyo, will be equal parts celebratory and pragmatic. Women's March NYC brought together dozens of groups (including their co-chair, the New York Immigration Coalition, composed of 200 organizations advocating for immigrants) to create a policy platform in line with the Women's March Unity Principles. It touches on reproductive justice, immigrants' rights, environmental justice, disability rightsa "progressive wishlist and vision for 2019," Okeyo told Gothamist. The coalition has lined up celebrities, musicians, and politicians to speak on the issues presented in the platform. Although it doesn't always feel like it, women have made a lot of gains in recent years, Okeyo explained: The New York State legislature counts 10 new women lawmakers this year, and with the IDC ouster at polls this fall, a legitimately Democratic majority. Meanwhile, a record number of women joined the U.S. Congress in 2019, and Democrats took back the House. These achievements deserve applause, Okeyo noted, but they also mean action time has arrived. "We want to bring people back to understanding that this is a movement, and as much as we want to keep the energy high," she explained, "we also want to make sure people understand that ... we have work to do. 2020's coming up, nothing is promised, we have to make sure we're focused," both on a national and state level. Think of the Unity Rally as a politically actionable event, an unveiling of a progressive legislative agenda for New York. It has no planned march component. The Women's March on NYC, meanwhile, will be the same rally-followed-by-mass-march model you've seen, and likely participated in, for the past two years. There will be speakers, there will (probably) be pussy hats, there will be a lot of grumpy scoffing as people grow impatient with the speeching and rattle the gates, there will be a period of cathartic slogan screaming. You know this drill! As always, the march is meant to highlight "the fundamental civil rights of women regardless of faith, sexual identity and preference, race, cultural or religious background, or political affiliation." At a press conference on Friday, WMA founder Katherine Siemionko said she anticipates around 100,000 participants, and declared this year's theme "your voice, your power"NYC setting an example for the rest of the country that "we have to keep moving forward." The Non-March for Disabled Women comes to you courtesy of Rise and Resist, in collaboration with local disability justice activist Jennifer Bartlett. Bartlett, whose cerebral palsy can make it difficult for her to walk, attended the original Women's March on NYC in 2017, but told Gothamist that a lack of signage and a lack of accommodations made the march prohibitively difficult for her to navigate. Having spoken with other people who had similar complaints about the accessibility efforts made at the march, Bartlett and Rise and Resist decided to hold a separate event specifically for people with disabilities, in solidarity with the Unity Rally. The Non-March for Disabled Women will be "indoors, warm, near an accessible elevator stop," Bartlett said, without marching, but with "access to food and bathrooms." It's intended to emphasize disability justice: That people with disabilities "deserve the same respect and opportunities as non-disabled people," as the event's Facebook page puts it. Leaders of Women's March, Inc., from left: Carmen Perez, Bob Bland, Tamika Mallory, and Linda Sarsour. (Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock) Why not merge these into a single, intersectional event? Confusion about the specific nature of these various groups persists in part because everyone deploys the same "Women's March" wording. Yet the basic idea behind the Women's March movement involves local, grassroots groups independently coordinating marches on their own, standing in solidarity with the national organization, but not as part of it. The Women's March Alliance stands (or, stood) in support of the intersectional feminist platform popularized by Women's March, Inc. in 2017, but has lately worked to distance itself from the organization led by Mallory, Perez, Sarsour, and Bland. The apparent reason: The recent allegations of anti-Semitism that have dogged Women's March, Inc. Mallory and Perez have been accused of telling a colleague that "Jewish people bore a special collective responsibility as exploiters of black and brown people" at a 2016 meeting, and of bullying a former co-founder over her Jewish faith. Additionally, Sarsour, Perez, and Mallory have been linked to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakahn, whom the Anti-Defamation League has labeled "America's Leading Anti-Semite." The Southern Poverty Law Center has dubbed Nation of Islam a hate group because of that ideology, and because of the NOI's virulently anti-LGBT rhetoric. In February, Mallory appeared at a Saviour's Day event with Farrakahn, posting on social media from the venue. During his speech, Farrakahn called the "powerful Jews" his "enemy," and congratulated himself for pulling "the cover off of that Satanic Jew." He also acknowledged Mallory by name, and the association prompted widespread demands for an apology and disavowal of Farrakahn. Speaking to Gothamist, Sarsour emphasized that "the Women's March has unequivocally rejected anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia," and pointed to a series of statements posted to the Women's March homepage. The first, dated March 6th, reads: "Minister Farrakahn's statements about Jewish, queer, and trans people are not aligned with the Women's March Unity Principles," and, "Anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and white supremacy are and always will be indefensible." Responding to the Saviour's Day incident directly, Mallory wrote an op-ed for News One, explaining that organizing obligates her to "go into difficult spaces," to work with people whose ideology she may find disagreeable, and that her record should speak for itself. Anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism and white supremacy are and always will be indefensible. Please read our statement: pic.twitter.com/bRFqAGf81t Women's March (@womensmarch) March 6, 2018 Many have voiced dissatisfaction with the leaders, who have not severed ties with Farrakahn, even as they reject his rhetoric. As a result, some regional chapters of the movement have edged away from the national organization in recent months. That would seem to be the case with the WMA. Women's March Alliance is the only permitted March in #NYC and we need you to show up for women's rights. The January 19, 2019 march will be diverse and inclusive. https://t.co/JfWtzhGKqg NYCWomensMarch (@nycwomensmarch) December 27, 2018 So: about the "infighting" The WMA did not directly address Gothamist's request for comment on its reported feud with Women's March, Inc., instead sending a link to their Friday press conference. Yet Siemionko has spoken to the NY Daily News and to amNY about the allegedly strained relations, saying Sarsour tried to strong-arm the national organization's way into planning the New York march. "Linda said, 'You put us on your leadership board or we'll hold a counter march,'" Siemionko told the Daily News. "And I said, 'I don't put up with bullying.'" According to Sarsour, that's not how the conversation went at all. Sarsour says she approached Siemionko as an intermediary on behalf of Women's March NYC, which wanted to plan something for the 19th. The organizations set up a phone call for October 5th, which Sarsour described as "cordial," to discuss the proposalnot an ultimatum, and not an insinuation that any of the national leaders would take the reins in NYC, Sarsour said. "We went to Katherine to ... see what it would look like if Women's March NYC chapter members would join a committee to organize the Women's March New York City march," she explained. She wanted to help a local chapter, run by women of color, get "a seat at the table so they can help make sure that their concerns, their interests that impact them in their communities are reflected," Sarsour continued, adding: "I think that's quite fair and just." According to Sarsour, Siemionko seemed amenable, and said she'd need a few days to get an answer from her board. After follow-up emails and text messages (which Gothamist has reviewed, and which track with Sarsour's account) went unanswered over the next week, Sarsour texted Siemionko on October 13th, writing, "We haven't heard from you so we are assuming that the Alliance does not want to move forward with one March. Please let me know if that's accurate." Without any response, Sarsour told Women's March NYC to go ahead with their plans: "What am I supposed to say to black women, immigrant black women?" she said. "I can't say 'don't do a march,' that is not my place." Asked to comment on Sarsour's version of events, the WMA sent Gothamist this statement: "Women's March Alliance has been honored to host the Women's March on New York City every year since its inception. At no point did the Women's March, Inc. local chapter in New York City reach out to work with Women's March Alliance. We don't even know who they are. We find it sad that Women's March, Inc. does not support women's rights and has attempted to divide New York City by a hosting a competing rally. On Saturday January 19th, there will be only one Women's March on NYC. That is the march hosted by Women's March Alliance, as it is every year." Sarsour, meanwhile, made the same argument of Siemionko: That she seemed inclined to paint Women's March NYC as anti-Semitic by association, when in fact, Women's March NYC has worked with contingents from local Jewish communities in planning their Unity Rally. For her part, Okeyorecall, the director of Women's March NYChas picked up on popular confusion about the two-march plan. Her chapter, she said, had tried to merge with WMA, and "they didn't want to or didn't respond." However, she added, "There's no feud [with the WMA] on my side." Rather, January 19th has been designated the day for action, with over 200 sister marches to occur nationwide. Women's March NYC didn't want to miss that. Meanwhile, organizers behind the Non-March for Disabled Women say they've had a frustrating time coordinating with the WMA on concrete plans to increase not only accessibility, but also disability justice and inclusion at the march. Additionally, Bartlett says, her requests that the organization involve more people with disabilities in its planning process, on its board, and in leadership have not been given satisfactory acknowledgment. (In an email to Gothamist, Siemionko refuted this, writing that, "Our march is extremely inclusive and supportive of those with disabilities," ticking off a number of adjustments organizers had made, including: cordoning off a two-block area in front of the stage for people with disabilities, with a separate entrance; having "identifiable ASL interpreters on stage and around the march route"; wheelchair assistance; "speakers representing those with disabilities"; an accessible stage.) Bartlett, however, noted that access and disability justice constitute two separate issues. In order to make sure everyone still has the opportunity to comfortably participate in Saturday's actions, Bartlett and Rise and Resist decided to simply hold a separate event focused on disability rights, and tailored to participants' needs. Their Non-March has the support of the local Women's March NYC chapter. Which Women's March should I attend? All of which is to say, you have options this year: As Okeyo pointed out, if the idea behind the day's activations is to celebrate the fact that women have choices, and to involve them in local activism, then people can simply pick the event that appeals to them most. It doesn't need to be a competition. "I hope that we can try to single out ways that we can actually hear each other and also speak our truth," Okeyo said. "Because we're in this together and this is it. That's the energy we're trying to bring to the rally that we're going to have on the 19th. It's like, come on folks, let's get in here, let's roll up our sleeves, we're all family here. We come from different places, we might eat different foods, but we're still at the same table." Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 15:32:07|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close SEOUL, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- High-level talks between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States were expected to be held in Washington this week to discuss the second DPRK-U.S. summit, Yonhap news agency reported Tuesday citing diplomatic sources. The unnamed diplomatic source was quoted as saying it was known that Pyongyang and Washington were in talks to hold a senior-level dialogue, noting that given the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's schedule, the possible date for the high-level talks would be from Thursday to Friday. Pompeo reportedly cut short his Middle East trip for a family funeral. He was forecast to attend the Global Chiefs of Mission Conference scheduled for Wednesday to Thursday in Washington D.C. Yonhap estimated that there was a possibility for Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the DPRK's ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) Central Committee, to visit Washington from Thursday to Friday to discuss with Pompeo the date and venue for the second summit between top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump. Kim and Trump already expressed their willingness to meet again after holding the first-ever DPRK-U.S. summit in Singapore in June last year. Pompeo and his DPRK counterpart were supposed to hold a meeting in New York in November last year, but it was cancelled at the last minute. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 15:27:05|Editor: zh Video Player Close CHONGQING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- One of the cotton seeds carried to the moon by China's Chang'e-4 probe is the first ever to sprout on the moon, according to scientists of a mini biosphere experiment on Tuesday. After making the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon, China's Chang'e-4 mission pioneered the first mini biosphere experiment on the moon. Professor Xie Gengxin, of Chongqing University and chief designer of the experiment, said a canister installed on the lander of the Chang'e-4 probe contained the seeds of cotton, rapeseed, potato, and arabidopsis, as well as eggs of the fruit fly and some yeast, to form a simple mini biosphere. Images sent by the probe showed that a cotton sprout had started to grow, though no other plants were found growing. The cylinder canister, made from special aluminum alloy materials, is 198 mm tall, with a diameter of 173 mm and a weight of 2.6 kg. It also holds water, soil, air, two small cameras, and a heat control system, said Xie. More than 170 pictures have been taken by the cameras and sent back to Earth, according to the team. Why were these species chosen? Xie said potatoes could be a major source of food for future space travelers. The growth period of Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant related to cabbage and mustard, is short and easy to observe. Yeast could play a role in regulating carbon dioxide and oxygen in the mini biosphere, and the fruit fly would be the consumer of the photosynthesis process. Researchers used biological technology to render the seeds and eggs dormant during the two months when the probe went through the final checks in the launch center and journey of more than 20 days through space. After Chang'e-4 landed on the far side of the moon on Jan. 3, the ground control center instructed the probe to water the plants to start the growing process. A tube directs natural light on the surface of the moon into the canister to allow the plants to grow. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 15:27:05|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ISTANBUL, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- A four-year-old girl drowned on Tuesday when a boat carrying migrants to a Greek island sank off Turkey's Aegean coast. The inflatable boat began to leak near the resort town of Kusadasi in the southwestern province of Aydin, the NTV broadcaster said. The Turkish coast guard rescued a total of 40 migrants, NTV said, adding the search was continuing in the sea as it was not immediately clear how many people were on the boat. A total of 398 migrants have attempted to reach Greek islands via Turkey in the first 15 days of this year, according to figures released by the Turkish coast guard. A total of 26,678 migrants on their way to Europe were blocked off Turkey in 2018, up from 21,937 in 2017, with the Aegean Sea remaining the favorite route, the data showed. Turkey signed a deal in March 2016 with the European Union to help reduce the flow of illegal immigration. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 15:12:02|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ISLAMABAD, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- At least eight laborers were killed and several others went missing as a passenger van got buried by a landslide in Pakistan's north Kohistan district, local reports said Tuesday. The landslide completely buried the van at a main highway late on Monday night, and the rescue operation started early on Tuesday morning by authorities and volunteers. Police said that the van was carrying about 12 laborers who were on their way home from work. Rescue teams had recovered eight bodies after digging through the piles of mud and rock manually, and the remaining people will be recovered by removing the debris with heavy machinery summoned at the site by the rescue officials. Police said that the landslide was caused by heavy rains and snowfall that hit the area last week. The highway was closed for the traffic following the accident, blocking the country's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province's road link with north Gilgit Baltistan region. This was the second road blockage in the area over the last week. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 14:16:55|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- The White House said on Monday that Ivanka Trump, advisor and daughter of President Donald Trump, is not under consideration for the next president of the World Bank. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney have asked Ivanka Trump to "help manage the U.S. nomination process as she's worked closely with the World Bank's leadership for the past two years," White House spokeswoman Jessica Ditto said in a statement. However, "reports that she is under consideration are false," Ditto said. The White House statement came after The Financial Times reported last week that Ivanka Trump had been floated as a possible candidate to head the World Bank. The report said other candidates under consideration include David Malpass, under secretary for international affairs of the U.S. Treasury Department; Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; and Mark Green, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development. The World Bank last week outlined the selection process for the next president to replace Jim Yong Kim, who suddenly announced an early departure from the multilateral development bank. Nominations for the next president shall be submitted between Feb. 7 and March 14, and the bank's board of executive directors aims to select a new president before spring meetings in April. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 14:11:52|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close TIJUANA, Mexico, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Nusly Antunez is one of the migrants still at El Barretal, a nightclub-turned emergency shelter for undocumented immigrants since December in Mexico's border city of Tijuana. The nightclub was turned into a refuge after an initial shelter had been quickly filled to capacity as successive caravans of migrants crossed Mexico in late fall to reach the U.S. border. The only memento of the life Antunez left behind some 4,700 km away in Catacama, eastern Honduras, is a green backpack, which she considers to be a kind of lucky charm. In October, Antunez packed her clothes in the backpack and slung it over her shoulder to join her husband Adidson Moya and hundreds of others on a caravan headed to the U.S. border. Three months later, the 23-year-old hair stylist no longer has the clothes she lugged with her. They were stolen during the long journey through Mexico. But she has held on to the backpack just as she holds on to her hopes of securing asylum in the United States. "It makes me angry when they tell me to throw it away. No, I am not throwing it away because I brought it from there, it's very special to me," Nusly told Xinhua as she lifted the amulet to show it better. The migrant caravan has created a controversy in the United States, with the administration of President Donald Trump taking a harsh stance on illegal immigrants and planning to build a border wall to fend off the migrants. Embassies of the United States have also discouraged such caravans. At its peak, the emergency shelter housed nearly 3,000 Central Americans fleeing poverty and violence. The number of migrants at the shelter have been dropping at a rate of 50 to 100 people a day. At the last weekend of December, about 1,400 migrants still slept and ate at El Barretal. Now only about 600 migrants remain. Outside the tent where she sleeps, Nusly said she and her husband will look for work in Tijuana , which sits across the border from the U.S. city of San Diego, California, while they wait their turn to apply for asylum in the United States. They are No. 1,746, a number she knows by heart, on the long list of would-be refugees hoping to convince U.S. immigration agents of their need for protection, in her case from drug-related crime. "We were fleeing from the drug traffickers. They are looking to kill me and my family. My father is a drug trafficker there and they have threatened me because of him. That's the truth," she said. "I did not want to leave my country," she added. According to Mexico's National Coordinator of Civil Protection, David Leon, the population at El Barretal dwindled as some migrants decide to accept Mexico's offer of work. Others have opted to return to their countries, and still others to try their luck at crossing illegally. Mexico's government offered to regularize the immigration status of Central Americans who wanted to stay and work here. Some 2,100 migrants were issued a special permit by the National Immigration Institute (INM), and another 800 are in the process of receiving it. "I have been coming to Tijuana every week and every week I have found cases of young people who regularize their status, find a job and start working in some industry or service center," said Leon. At the shelter, Salvadoran David Juarez said he is now working as a construction worker and plans to stay on in Tijuana. Honduran migrant Karina Vazquez is employed in cleaning but hasn't given up the idea of crossing the border. In a separate development, Mexico's Deputy Interior Minister for Human Rights, Migration and Population Alejandro Encinas said Mexico is preparing for the expected arrival of a new caravan of undocumented Central American migrants that is scheduled to depart from Honduras on Tuesday. But Leon said El Barretal will eventually run out of occupants and close, though there is no precise date. "We will be very sensitive to and tolerant of the migrant phenomenon, because this administration's immigration policy is to respect, help, offer a friendly hand to our Central American brothers who migrate due to questions of poverty, of violence," he added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 14:01:49|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close SIEM REAP, Cambodia, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The 27th Annual Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF-27) kicked off in Cambodia's Siem Reap province Tuesday, focusing talks on politics, security, economy, trade issues and cultural cooperation. Under the theme of Strengthening Parliamentary Partnership for Peace, Security and Sustainable Development, the forum brought together more than 200 parliamentary delegates from 21 countries including Australia, Russia, China, Japan, Canada, Chile, Singapore, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Laos. Speaking at the opening ceremony, Cambodian National Assembly's President Samdech Heng Samrin said the APPF-27 would offer opportunities for the participants to identify and discuss matters of common concern and to highlight them in a global context. "The APPF also provides opportunities for parliamentarians of the Asia-Pacific region to examine the political, social, and cultural developments resulting from economic growth and integration," he said. "I believe that the forum will contribute further to enhancing peace, security and development in the Asia-Pacific region." Addressing the ceremony, Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen said the Asia-Pacific region and the world are confronting issues such as trade war, war, terrorism, cross-border smuggling, climate change, natural disasters, food insecurity and poverty. "These issues are posing threats to the security and sustainable development of the world," he said. Hun Sen said the forum would offer a good opportunity to the participants to discuss political, social and economic issues, as well as global challenges in order to seek ways to achieve peace and sustainable development for all. A day before the opening ceremony, the Meeting of Women Parliamentarians of APPF-27 was held here, discussing ways to promote gender equality and empowerment of women and girls for sustainable development and shared prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 13:46:44|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- A letter from U.S. President Donald Trump has been sent to Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), over the weekend, U.S. media reported on Monday. The letter "was flown to Pyongyang and delivered by hand," reported CNN citing an anonymous source whom the cable network said was familiar with the ongoing negotiations between the two sides. It has also been reported that Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) Central Committee, may meet U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later this week in Washington. Washington and Pyongyang have been working on details of the expected second Trump-Kim meeting. Kim said last week during his stay in China that his country will make efforts for the second summit to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community. Trump said earlier this month that he expected to meet Kim in the "not-too-distant future," after receiving a "great" letter from the top DPRK leader. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said at a daily briefing on Friday that China always encourages the DPRK and the United States to meet each other half-way and resolve their own concerns through dialogue and consultation. "China will as always play a positive role to this end," Lu added. The relations between the DPRK and the United States improved last year. Trump and Kim had their first summit in Singapore in June. Meanwhile, differences between the two sides remained over key issues including the scale of denuclearization, U.S. sanctions and whether to issue a war-ending declaration. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 13:36:43|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close TRIPOLI, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Libya's eastern-based House of Representatives or parliament on Monday condemned members of Lebanon's Amal Movement for desecrating the Libyan national flag, demanding the Lebanese government and Arab League clarify their positions. "The House of Representatives condemns and denounces in the strongest terms the attack on the Libyan flag, the symbol of Libya's independence and sovereignty, by members of Amal movements in the Lebanese capital Beirut," the parliament said in a statement later Monday. On the same day, Libyan foreign ministry voiced a decision to boycott the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit in Lebanon this weekend over the flag incident. "We have been forced to boycott this summit and refuse to participate in its work" because Lebanon was unable to guarantee "the appropriate climate" for it, the ministry said in a statement. Social media published the footage of some angry Lebanese young people, believed to be members of the Amal Movement, tearing and stepping on the Libyan flag before burning it. The Shiite Amal Movement blamed Libya for the disappearance of its founder, Musa al-Sadr, during his visit to Libya in 1978. Lebanon's Amal Movement announced earlier this month that it would prevent the Libyan delegation from entering Lebanon to attend the Arab economic summit with a plan to launch nationwide protests and close the airport. In a letter to Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Siala, Lebanese Caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil expressed earlier on Monday his regret on Libya's refusal to participate in the Beirut summit, saying the actions against the Libyan delegation do not reflect his position or the position of his country. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 13:31:38|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close KUALA LUMPUR, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah ascended the throne of Malaysia's Pahang state on Tuesday, ahead of the country choosing its new head of state. Sultan Abdullah took his oath in front of some 1,600 guests, comprising royal families, state government leaders and community leaders, according to state news agency Bernama. The succession of Sultan Abdullah as the state ruler was decided by the Pahang Royal Council in a meeting held last Friday. The council unanimously agreed to appoint Sultan Abdullah to replace his father, who was reported to be ill and was no longer able to carry out his duties and responsibilities as ruler. The move places Sultan Abdullah as a potential candidate for the next king, carrying the title of Yang di-Pertuan Agong who functions as the nation's constitutional monarch. The selection of the next king has become a widely discussed topic after Sultan Muhammad V of Kelantan stepped down on Jan. 6. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with nine sultans, who head their respective states and act as religious leaders, taking turns to serve as king for a five-year term. Less than two weeks ago, when Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his plan to cancel the L train shutdown, he helpfully suggested that the MTA board should probably have an emergency meeting about the dramatic change. "I am calling on them to have a meeting, have a meeting right awaymake it a public meeting, hear the plan," the governor said. Despite New York City Transit Authority head Andy Byford's response that there was "no point in having a meeting before the regularly scheduled meeting on the 24th, the MTA rushed out an announcement this past Sunday that yes, there would be an emergency meeting on Tuesday at noon, and here we are. According to the release, the board will be briefed by the engineering consultants WSP "on the alternative L Train design modifications to the original tunnel restoration plan, also designed by WSP...WSP will be recommending to the Board that it pursue the modified plan as a better alternative, as it does not require a total shutdown of L train service." There will be no vote today, which is necessary for the plan to move forward, but you can bet on an interesting discussion involving safety issues and how exactly this new plan will work. Watch the hearing below, and refresh this page for updates from the meeting. Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer began the meeting by urging the MTA board to answer the safety questions around the new plan. "We're very concerned because of what we read in the New York Times today," Brewer said. As for the confusion following Cuomo's announcement, Brewer noted, "This is better than Law & Order, which we all watch, in terms of intrigue." William Vega said he was speaking on behalf of his neighbors and business owners in Williamsburg. "A lot of them had to make the decisions to leave their neighborhood, my neighbors had babies, children, elderly to take care of, and they're wondering, was that decision made too early?" Vega urged the board to do the proper amount of due diligence before approving the new plan. "We're relying on this fine committee to give us accurate information," Vega said. "When that confidence is lost that makes personal decisions and business decisions much more difficult." [UPDATE: 12:50 p.m.] Acting MTA Chairman Fernando Ferrer kicked off the non-public portion of the meeting by calling for a review of the MTA's contracting process, adding that he wanted to see the design-build process used systemwide. If were going to undertake a major project and spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the process, lets build something better, he said. In this case, WSP, Jacobs, and Judlauthe original design and construction teamwill continue to handle the same aspects of the alternate L train plan. Ferrer also vowed that a third-party consultant would review any safety and environmental considerations and report back to the MTA board. Lastly, Ferrer announced that the new plan would fall under the purview of the MTAs Capital Construction division, rather than NYC Transit. MTA managing Director Veronique Hakim will be "directly responsible for supervision" of the plan. [UPDATE: 1:04 p.m.] Jerry Janetti, the senior vice president of WSP, the main engineering consulting firm that helped come up with the original shutdown plan, and worked with Cuomo's academics on the new plan, recommended moving forward with Cuomo's plan. "What we're doing is something different than was looked at before," Janetti said, referencing the Times' report on Tuesday morning that showed that other plans similar to Cuomo's that would rack the cables along the tunnel had been deemed too dangerous. Jenetti said the new plan required 60 percent fewer bolts drilled into the tunnel wall to support the cable racks, and that 60 percent of the bench wall is in good enough shape to leave alone, based on "a nondestructive testing team" review that took place two weeks ago. Forty percent of the wall will either be reinforced with fiber reinforced polymer, or steel, or demolished altogether. As for the toxic silica dust that the drilling and and demolition would create, Janetti pointed out that other construction projects, such as the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and the Queens Midtown Tunnel, had silica mitigation plans "designed to address silica mitigation prior to being open to the public, so it's opened in a safe way before the public enters a project site." Janetti said that these kinds of mitigation efforts are "going on in many subway stations around the city," but did not say which ones. Janetti asserted that the new plan would last "decades." "This is a generational investment, not a Band-Aid." [UPDATE: 1:24 p.m.] Asked whether the last minute change could hurt the MTAs ability to get bids in the future, Ferrer responded, I dont think so. As an institution we have to be open to new ways of doing things, he added. This is put our money where our mouths are time. Susan Metzger, another board member, noted, You dont know yet how much silica you are going to be dealing with. As a consequence, we dont yet have a specific mitigation plan. Clean up at the end of work night, clean up silicia? Warren Goodman Judlau safety director: not first time weve dealt w/ silicia. Workers will clean as they go. Will all residue be totally gone? Im confident we can capture and remove the dust. Just your friendly neighborhood transit reporter (@s_nessen) January 15, 2019 [UPDATE: 1:41 p.m.] Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, who also serves as an MTA board member, questioned whether the authority would be able to complete the necessary work during nights and weekends. The general understanding, she said, is that workers only get three or four hours of actual wrench time, because the set up and the take down takes awhile. Ferrer directed that question to NYC Transit President Byford, whod shared a stage with Trottenberg to explain the necessity of the full shutdown during numerous public meetings. We now typically get started at 10 p.m., so getting at least 5 hours of wrench time, which is a good amount of time. I mean I guess we can decide whether five hours is good or not, but okay, responded Trottenberg. The DOT Commissioner also wondered why WSP didn't think of the cable-racking revelation before. "I got bookshelves in my house so it's not like the concept of a rack is an exotic one, did no one look at it then?" Trottenberg asked. "Is some other document gonna emerge that shows it was looked at? I'm just curious." "There was no other racking system that was evaluated at that time that I'm aware of," Janetti admitted. "Even though at that time there were other systems that had them?" Trottenberg added. "I think that some of the examples that I gave in London, Riyadh, those were all under design, racking systems were used at the time," Janetti said. Andrew Saul, an @MTA board member, joins by phone (recovering from surgery) to say he wants to see a report from a qualified, independent consulting firm before voting on this plan. Citing money spent, time spent, contracts given out, Saul calls this, an MTA disaster. Shumita Basu (@shubasu) January 15, 2019 [UPDATE 1:51 p.m.] Andrew Saul, one of two MTA board members who are missing todays briefing for back surgery, has called into the meeting to lament the MTAs handling of the very radical change. From what I see, we have the same people who made the initial decision, with three years of work, and now were getting an evaluation of a complete change of plans by the same parties that originally advised the board, Saul said, adding that this appeared to be another MTA disaster. In response, the MTA President Patrick Foye reiterated that a new third-party consultant would be reporting directly to the MTA board. .@MTA Board Member Charles Moerdler says (pounding the table) the board was never presented with this alternative. We are not empty suits! We know what were doing! Says he agrees with @NYGovCuomo: the MTA needs a good, hard shake-up. Shumita Basu (@shubasu) January 15, 2019 [UPDATE: 2:18 p.m.] Real estate developer Scott Rechler, who was appointed by Cuomo in 2017, bemoaned the "adversarial" relationship between consultants and the MTA. "They're afraid to share these ideas, they're just moving forward," he said. "When we get through this, this should also cost a lot less than closing down the tunnel during the major reconstruction." "To me the biggest factor going forward in terms of this working or not working, is the silica factor," Rechler added. Board member Carl Weisbrod, who is appointed by the mayor, wondered why the MTA was now trusting the same consultants who had given the MTA bad advice five years ago. For the life of me I do not understand how we can have a set of contractors and advisors and experts who gave us potentially the wrong advice in 2015," Weisbrod said. "At least one option is we made the wrong decision in 2015, and yet we have that exact same team with a very few other experts now evaluating that very same decision...It seems to me to have the same team being our validators now, is a direct conflict of interest." Weisbrod said he thought the people conducting the independent review of the new plan should be appointed by the board and wholly separate from the MTA's management, and that the board should have an "in camera" review of both plans, without management being present. MTA Managing Director Veronique Hakim did not agree to allow the board to select the independent monitor. Im a little concerned about hitting the ground running pretty fast, she said. [UPDATE: 2:45 p.m.] Board member Andrew Zuckerman wondered why the MTA is removing L train repair signage (and information from the MTA's website), and telling the public that the shutdown has been averted, given that there has been no formal board vote yet. "Can you explain why we've stated 'averted' in the past tense, given that...I'm not sure we have decided this path yet?" Zuckerman asked. "I think that was the term that was used in the original announcement, and I think we just mimicked it," Hakim answered. "What is our decision making process? Have we decided to do this path? I'm confused." Zuckerman continued. "I have stated a number of times already in this meeting that a third partrty team will be engaged to report to the board and me, all of us, on what the best path forward is," Ferrer said. "We have to do that relatively quickly," Ferrer added, "but that's for the board to consider at the appropriate moment when we have those people on board." UPDATE 2:53 p.m. In a remarkable moment just now, Trottenberg tried to get acting MTA chairman Freddy Ferrer to clarify if the decision to avoid the L train had actually been made, and whether the board would get a vote. He would not deliver a straight answer. You can read the full exchange below: TROTTENBERG: As the MTA has gone off and put up signs that said L train shutdown averted, the board has had no vote on changing the contract or any of the terms here. Is the decision made? Do we have any actual role here? Im not hearing that we do? FERRER: I can address that commissioner. See there isnt a change in a contract before us because there is no actual change to a contract at this point. Once there is, I am happy to have that brought before the board if I am still acting chairman. Thats my job, thats my responsibility to consider it. If we have to consider an amendment to a contract or any other action, at the appropriate moment that will be brought before us and well vote yes or no and abstain. TROTTENBERG: So youre saying we could vote no. What would that mean? The L train shutdown isnt averted. FERRER: You vote whichever way you like. Ive never suggested how you should vote. TROTTENBERG: You think in the end it will be the boards decision? FERRER: Thats what Im saying. TROTTENBERG: Maybe its premature to announce it before the board has made a decision, isnt it? FERRER: Decision on what? Youre asking about a contract. Stop, stop. Lets not conflate these things. Youre asking about board action relating to a change in a contract. If there is any other service change than we will deal with that at the appropriate moment. TROTTENBERG: But will those service changes be subject to the review of the board? FERRER: [Frustrated sigh] VERONIQUE HAKIM: Contracts come to the board based on our procurement guidelines. Change orders at certain levels come to the board. Service changes I think the term in the board approved service guidelines is major service changes also comes to the board. TROTTENBERG: This seems like this is a major service changes. If were making major changes to the contact in terms of scope, in terms of price tag, in terms of liability, those are things that come to the board. Im not saying we wouldnt be in favor of all of this, Im just confused: Does this plan need approval by the board or not? I am confused about it. FERRER: The purpose for this meeting was to share information. Once there is a change, a plan, it becomes before the board again. Were not going away. TROTTEBERG: So if the signs says shutdown averted, it should have a footnote that says subject to board approval?" FERRER: [His mic appears to be cut here, and his comments are inaudible. He then he moves on to a different board member]. After Pat Foye, the MTA president, touts the "huge" benefits Cuomo's plans would have for L train commuters, Ferrer jumps in again. "Let me say the final thing I'm gonna say on this subject hopefully. Look, if you're for inconveniencing 275,000 people, say so! if you're not, then, then that's OK too." Several board members have asked expressed feeling sidelined. DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg asks: if the new @MTA signage says Shutdown Averted, does it need a footnote saying *Pending Board Approval? Shumita Basu (@shubasu) January 15, 2019 [UPDATE 3:10 p.m.] Three hours after it began, the meeting adjourns with Ferrer promising to solicit recommendations for the independent panel from the board members in an "expedited" fashion. Where is George? Ask this software to look at the crowd George is a zebrafish. Along with Tom and 98 other mates, George swims freely in a laboratory tank at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown (CCU), in Lisbon, Portugal. A camera records from above a video of all the animals' comings and goings. Question: is it possible to identify, from the video images, which fish is which at every moment? Yes, says Gonzalo de Polavieja, principal investigator of the Collective Behavior Lab, who with his team has built a software, called idtracker.ai (where "ai" stands for artificial intelligence, or AI) that can do the job quickly and with extreme accuracy. Their results were published in the journal Nature Methods. "The ultimate goal of our team is understanding group behavior", points out de Polavieja, whose preferred names for the fish, when he explains his work, are George and Tom. We want to understand how animals in a group decide together and learn together". And for that, it is mandatory to extract very high quality data from the videos (such as position and shape of each of the animals, as well as their individual paths) without mistakes. Recognizing each individual among dozens of very similar ones would be impossible to accomplish for a human brain - or for that matter, a conventional computer program. "We would just go crazy trying", says de Polavieja. For large crowds, without artificial intelligence in the mix, even a powerful computer might have to run the program for years to get results. And these would probably not be very accurate. That's where idtracker.ai comes in. The new software, adds de Polavieja, supplies the quality data that is absolutely needed to be able, in a second phase, to understand the rules that drive the animals' collective behavior. Working in Spain four years ago, before joining the CCU, de Polavieja published, also in Nature Methods, a first version of the software, which did not resort to artificial intelligence. The results were much more modest. "We could track ten animals back then", he says. De Polavieja and his co-authors, Francisco Romero-Ferrero, Mattia Bergomi, Robert Hinz and Francisco Heras have now tested the new AI version with groups of 30, then 50, then up to 100 zebrafish. "We didn't test more than 100 because our tank is not big enough for that". Nonetheless, using another approach to record the images, they showed that the software can identify up to 150 individual fish with very little loss of accuracy. "I didn't believe we could reach those numbers; it was a surprise", notes de Polavieja. "I thought there wouldn't be enough information in the images." Deep learning Idtracker.ai is composed of two so-called deep-learning neural networks and a few more conventional algorithms. A deep-learning neural network is a computer simulation of real networks of neurons in the brain that are capable of learning from experience. Using the video images of the zebrafish in the tank, the first network in the chain is trained to tell whether every little blob visible in the images corresponds to just one animal or to several. With this output, the second neural network is then trained to assign a name (or number) to each blob that contains just one fish - in other words, to effectively identify each individual fish. The recognition is based on the unique features of each zebrafish. "People think zebrafish are all alike, but this proves they are in fact all different from each other", notes de Polavieja. Lastly, two conventional algorithms are used. "One is to gain some certainty about the [few individuals whose] identities are still somewhat uncertain", says de Polavieja "and the other to know which animal is which when their paths cross" - that is, when their trajectories appear superimposed on the video. The results speak for themselves: it takes about an hour for idtracker.ai to identify each and every one of the 100 zebrafish in the video at all times with almost 100% accuracy! "If you show the network a random part of the video it has never seen before and ask it: 'who is this?', the network will correctly assign the right name - or number - to that fish 99.997% of the time", says de Polavieja. And if you ask it where George, or Tom, or any other zebrafish is at a given moment, it will find it in the crowd almost beyond the shadow of a doubt. The team also tested the software with fruit flies, medaka fish (Japanese rice fish), ants and mice. It also works, though with smaller numbers of individuals. "Zebrafish are the best" for these studies, says de Polavieja. On the other hand, "mice are more difficult because they tend to cluster and deform". "This is the first time such high quality data has been obtained for 100 fish", concludes de Polavieja. The team has now used the data supplied by idtracker.ai - which is freely available to everyone from http://www. idtracker. ai - to extract a set of rules that explain, in a large measure, zebrafish behavior in groups. They describe their results in another paper, which they have posted on bioarxiv.org and have submitted for publication in a scientific journal. As for possible applications, this software and others like it allow (or will allow) for tracking persons, or to identify a given person in a crowd based on information about his or her physical appearance. "There is now a whole industry for this type of software", says de Polavieja. "People are applying these [AI] techniques to develop other similar tracking tools. But before we proved we could do it in animals, it was hard to believe it was even remotely possible." ### This story has been published on: 2019-01-14. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 13:16:34|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close VIENTIANE, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Lao government is cooperating with a Chinese firm on a clean agriculture development project aimed to expand trade opportunities between the two countries, local daily Vientiane Times reported on Tuesday. Under a cooperation agreement, Meixiang Agriculture Development Co; Ltd from China's Heilongjiang province will provide 90 million yuan (around 13 million U.S. dollars) to support the project over nine years. Lao Deputy Director of Department of Agriculture under Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Bounchanh Kombounyasith revealed the details on last Friday at a ground breaking ceremony for construction of fruit and vegetable greenhouses. The ceremony was attended by Lao Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Phouangparisak Pravongviengkham, agriculture officials and the company's representatives. Bounchanh explained the project will carry out fruit and vegetable production through clean agriculture in capital Vientiane as well as the provinces along the Laos-China railway line. The project will also strengthen and update the knowledge and skills of technical staff and farmers, especially on techniques for green agriculture and the building of modern greenhouses to enable the export of produce to China, local daily quoted Bounchanh as saying. Initially, the project will build five modern greenhouses as a model in capital Vientiane which each one covering 3,000 square meters and producing 50,000 kg of 20 to 30 kinds of crops. Besides expanding clean agricultural production, Bounchanh said the greenhouses will utilize solar energy and underground watering systems as well as modern equipment to boost production and quality standards. He also stressed project was part of the government's strategy to expand organic farming development to 2025 and its 2030 vision for sustainable clean agriculture production. "Presently, clean agriculture production is in high demand, so the project will help support better standards of production for domestic consumers and exports," he pointed out. Lao government is particularly looking to increase the quality and yields of sweetcorn, dry cassava, bananas, watermelons and rice for export to China which are expected to increase when the Laos-China railway is completed. Phouangparisak hoped the project will be a model for knowledge exchange and techniques between the two nations as well as a center for Lao students' learning on clean agriculture development. According to a Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry reported in 2018, the nation had about 50,000 hectares available for clean agriculture development. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 11:07:44|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close MEXICO CITY, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Mexico is preparing for the expected arrival of a new caravan of undocumented Central American migrants at its southern border, official sources said Monday. A U.S.-bound caravan is scheduled to depart from Honduras on Tuesday, according to Alejandro Encinas, deputy minister of Human Rights, Migration and Population at the Interior Ministry. To tackle the year's first wave of organized migration, officials convened a meeting in Tapachula, Chiapas, the southern Mexican state that serves as the point of entry for migrants heading north. The idea is to avoid violent incidents seen late last year when hundreds of migrants rushed to a Mexico-Guatemala border crossing in an attempt to get into Mexico at any cost. "We hope there is order, security and regulation," said Encinas, adding that those able and willing to show the proper paperwork won't have any problem getting in. Mexican officials have also been in contact with authorities in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, he said. "The countries of origin also shoulder responsibilities and we hope they will fulfill their responsibilities," Encinas told reporters. Honduran media reported unknown organizers have publicized the caravan on social networks, instructing would-be asylum seekers to gather on Jan. 15 at the bus station in the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula. In mid-October, a caravan set out from the same city and was joined by others on its journey to the U.S. border. Officials say some 6,000 migrants eventually concentrated along Mexico's border with the United States which has taken a more anti-immigrant stance. The U.S. embassy in Honduras has been posting messages on Twitter to discourage migrants from undertaking a "voyage that is destined to fail." Thousands of Hondurans who made the journey as part of the first caravan "returned regretful," the embassy said. The Honduran government urged its citizens not to join the caravan. Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister for consular and migratory issues, Nelly Jerez, said citizens should "stay at home and seek opportunities in this country where God had us be born." "More than 2,000 Hondurans are in a shelter in Mexico, but remain in a precarious situation despite all the humanitarian aid," said Jerez. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 10:52:42|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close NEW YORK, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Retail will be the fastest among the industries in terms of artificial intelligence adoption, industry players said Monday. "Technology will continue to strip friction from brick-and-mortar retail and AI will become retailers' go-to technology," Deborah Weinswig, CEO and founder of U.S. retail and tech consultancy Coresight Research, said at a panel discussion on artificial intelligence revolution during the National Retail Federation (NRF) 2019 Retail's Big Show, "Retail will adopt AI technology the fastest in the next three years," said Weinswig, as AI adoption rate by the industry is estimated at 54 percent over the next three years. That surpasses the adoption rate in banking, manufacturing and healthcare, which have largely utilized the high-end technology in recent years. Weinswig said data also showed that the retail industry ranked first in spending in AI with 3.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, followed by the 3.3 billion U.S. dollars for the Banking industry. She said AI has underlined key aspects of retail ecosystem, including communication, optimization, rationalized inventory and experiential retail, with technologies adopted the most including rule-based reasoning, machine learning, natural language processing, and machine vision. AI has helped retailers improve customer experience without adding staff, thanks to smart chatbots able to respond to customer requests, AI voice recognition blurring the difference between the computer and human interface, and data analysis to predict customer preferences and make recommendations, according to Weinswig. AI-powered dynamic pricing enables retailers to not only set precise price for their products, but also to change prices rapidly in response to competition and demand, she said. China's e-commerce giant JD.com attributed its growing cross-border retail business to AI technologies and strategic partnership with Google, Tencent and Walmart, said Hui Cheng, head of robotics research, Silicon Valley Research and Development Center of JD.com. He said that AI has enabled the company to achieve same or next-day delivery, and gain the flexibility to fulfill hundreds of millions of orders during peak sales. Besides, data-driven AI solutions also allow JD.com to make accurate demand prediction, new product development, optimized inventory placement and transportation, according to the researcher. "AI is not only the brain, but also the hand, the mouth and the feet and everything in between including the heart (for retail business)," he said. Edward Park, senior vice president of U.S. clothing brand Guess Inc., mentioned the upgraded customer experience at the company's AI-driven concept store in Hong Kong. The store, co-built with China's e-commerce giant Alibaba in July, 2018, incorporated advanced technologies into offline shopping. Customers in the AI-powered store can select clothes shown on the digital screens of the store, which will be prepared for them in the fitting room. The fitting room is equipped with "magic mirrors" which provide 360-degree views with digital technologies. The mirrors also allow customers to choose a different size or even new items to try without leaving the fitting room, and offer three mix and match recommendations based on a model of Alibaba with customers browsing and shopping history. What's really cool about this store itself is that "each item in the store is enabled with a carried Bluetooth RFID and the motion sensors which enable all movements to be tracked and to be analyzed" for the store's traffic patterns and customers' interest, Park said. Weinswig also predicted that China would be the top country, followed by the United States, in AI spending from 2017 to 2022, because of its massive investment, presence of large tech firms such as Tencent and Alibaba, supportive government policies and a huge amount of data based on its large population. RFID, or radio-frequency identification, is a technology to record the presence of an object using radio signals, which can be used for inventory control by identifying and tracking tags attached to objects. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 10:47:42|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro on Monday said he will attend this year's World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos to present a "different Brazil." The forum, scheduled for Jan. 22-25 in Switzerland, will be the first international event for Bolsonaro, who took office on Jan. 1. Bolsonaro said via Twitter that he is "confident and glad about this great opportunity" to present world leaders a "different Brazil." "I will show our desire to trade with the whole world, cherishing economic freedom, bilateral agreements and fiscal health. With these pillars, Brazil will advance towards full employment and prosperity," Bolsonaro said. The president will undergo another surgery after the forum to remove a colostomy bag attached after he survived a stabbing attack during his campaign rally last September. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 10:47:42|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close TRIPOLI, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Libya on Monday launched its first model police station here to enhance security by addressing local conflicts and strengthening municipal capacities, the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) said. The move, with the help of the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU), "marks the return of state authority in Tripoli and its police, to combat crime and disorder in partnership with the communities," the UNSMIL said in a statement. The initiative is part of a three-year EU-funded program implemented by UNDP (UN Development Programme) with an aim to help Libyan authorities protect citizens, provide better services, and create jobs and entrepreneur opportunities, the statement added. At the launch ceremony, Libyan Interior Minister Fat'hi Bashagh expressed the hope to establish similar projects in other Libyan cities. EU Ambassador to Libya Alan Bugeja stressed the importance of well-trained police officers, modern facilities and equipment for establishing efficient police forces, adding that the project aims "to deliver on both these aspects as well as strengthen the trust of the local community in the police." Despite signing a UN-sponsored political agreement later in 2015 by the Libyan political factions and the appointment of a unity government, Libya still suffers insecurity and chaos and remains politically divided. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 10:32:40|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close YORBA LINDA, United States, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- The 40th anniversary of the establishment of U.S.-China diplomatic relations is very significant, "and we look forward to marking the 50th anniversary of President Nixon's trip to China in 2022," said Jim Byron, vice president of Richard Nixon Foundation. Byron made the remarks in an interview with Xinhua after a commemorative concert held Sunday night at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California, the birthplace and burial site of Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States. The Richard Nixon Foundation, a privately supported and nonprofit nonpartisan institution, owns the 8.2-acre (33,184-square-meter) campus and buildings comprising the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, and jointly operates the Library and Museum site with the National Archives. Byron said the U.S.-China relationship, which evolved since Nixon's farsighted trip to China in 1972, had become "the most important bilateral relationship in the world" in the past four decades. "We have today more trade between the United States and China than almost any other nation, we have the most interconnected economies, so I think that to recognize 40 years is significant," Byron said. "What President Nixon acknowledged was that even though we may face challenges, it's more important that we are talking today... because the world is a safer place as a result of that," he added. Dedicated to informing and educating the public about the life, legacy, and times of President Nixon, Byron hailed the efforts of the two peoples in maintaining the good relationship between the United States and China, which laid a solid foundation for bilateral relations in the future. "I think that our people will continue to be friends and that's what I think is most important," he said, adding that culture exchange is a key to enhancing understanding. "There's tremendous cultural interaction between the United States and China as you can see this evening, we have the Pacific Symphony playing I love you China, followed by America the Beautiful. I think that speaks volumes," Byron smiled. About 350 guests attended the concert of the Pacific Symphony, who made their debut performance in China in 2018. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 10:07:35|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close DETROIT, United States, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S. tariff hikes on imports and countermeasures by countries are a concern for automakers who attended the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) held here. Asked if the U.S. tariff hikes would affect his business, Genesis Global Brand Chief Manfred Fitzgerald said it is definitely something that his company has to address. "We will put all options on the table. We have to see what is the best business model going forward." In his comments on the tariff issue, U.S.-based CEO of FCA Mike Manley said in an interview following a new car debut: "I'm pleased that we're entering into a period where the discussions are going to start up again and we'll see what happens there." Speaking of the company's development strategy, Manley said, "our strategy has always been to try and put our capital where we think we can be successful. We're successful in our U.S. operations, we're going to continue to do that going forward." "When we took the decision three years ago to realign to segments where we're growing and areas where we thought there was better pricing, clearly it's worked out well for us," he added. As for the Chinese market, Manley said it is a relatively small part of the business for FCA, but it really represents a significant opportunity. "What we're working on is how to unlock that opportunity for us. We saw a drop in the Chinese market first time in 30 years last year. I think this year will be flat. But still (China is) the number one market in the world." Suggesting the auto business is transnational in a globalized world, Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota Motor North America, said, "Tariffs will be difficult for us. There is no such thing as an American made car." At the same time, he tried to remind Washington of what the auto industry means to the U.S. economy, saying "This industry is extremely important to the U.S. economy, so it's important that we're able to compete with the rest of the world and keep costs down." The annual Detroit auto show this year opened Monday and will last through Jan. 27. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 09:52:30|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close CANBERRA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Australian nursing home residents are being administered psychotropic drugs for years at a time, an expert has warned. In a submission to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, which will begin in Adelaide on Friday, University of Tasmania researcher Juanita Westbury said that more than 60 percent of nursing home residents were taking at least one psychotropic every day. The most common drugs were antipsychotics developed to treat schizophrenia, anti-depressants and benzodiazepines licensed for short-term use only because of "side effects of drowsiness, language impairment, cognitive impairment (and) falls." "Residents were often on doses of antipsychotics for years," Westbury told News Corp Australia on Tuesday. "And frequently they were on multiple agents or not taken off doses before giving them another, different drug. "When taken by people with dementia, antipsychotics increase the risk of stroke, death from any cause, heart arrhythmias and pneumonia and also cause metabolic and movement disorders." Ian Yates, chief executive of the Council on Ageing, supported Westbury, saying the commission must address the issue "because it is systemic, unlike physical and sexual violence." "We have seen a significant shift from physical restraints to chemical restraint in the past decade, or even longer, so now it is hidden. "Residents in aged-care homes are being turned into zombies to manage their behavior. It is a lazy practice, it is ignorant and it masks real health issues a person might have." Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the commission in September 2018, saying that evidence of systemic neglect and abuse in the sector could not be ignored. The Royal Commissioners will deliver their final report by April 2020 with an interim report due in October 2019. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 07:42:10|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- An armed man was dead after being shot by police in a rescue operation for two women he took hostage at a UPS processing facility in U.S. eastern state of New Jersey on Monday, the authorities said. The suspect, identified by authorities as Williams Owens, 39, was shot during a rescue operation in Logan Township, the state's Attorney General's Office said in a press release. "Multiple members of the law enforcement fired at the man, who was armed with a handgun," the release said. Both hostages worked for UPS and neither suffered injuries, Gloucester County Prosecutor Charles Fiore told a press conference. The suspect entered the UPS facility around 9:00 a.m. and fired shots though no one was struck, said Fiore. UPS said in a statement that the building, located in an industrial district of the south New Jersey township of 6,000, is a bulk mail processing facility. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 07:25:37|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Staff members release migrant birds into the wild at the Poyang Lake national natural reserve in east China's Jiangxi Province, Jan. 14, 2019. Sixteen rare migrant birds, including one oriental white stork, two whooper swans and three mandarin ducks, were released into the wild in Jiangxi on Monday. (Xinhua/Wan Xiang) The two big federal jails in Manhattan and Brooklyn that together hold about 1,800 men and women have not been allowing attorneys to visit clients as regularly as they did prior to the partial federal government shutdown, according to public defenders. David Patton, Executive Director of the Federal Defenders of New York, said the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyns South Slope has been most heavily affected. He claimed there have been seven days since January 4th when legal visiting hours were shut down or delayed in Brooklyn, and three days when the same thing happened at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan. "Attorney visitation has been sporadic and often shut down or canceled which means that attorneys can't meet with their clients," he explained. "Keep in mind these are pretrial detainees, so the people being housed in these detention centers, most of them have not been convicted of anything. Their cases are pending and so meeting with their lawyers to review evidence to discuss options in their case is vital." Patton also said that some inmates have complained about not getting medications and that family visits have also been curtailed, too, leading a few inmates in Manhattan to go on a hunger strike. He did not have an exact number, but said they were all in one unit. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Correctional Center, who did not want to be identified, said most of the 93 inmates in one unit skipped lunch on Monday to protest a halt in social visits, but that they resumed eating at dinner after staffers explained to them that family visits were canceled because two elevators broke down. He said the elevators are now in the process of being repaired for family and friends. He also said there was only one day, not three, when attorney visits at MCC were curtailedand only for part of the day. But he said that wasnt because of the shutdown. He said this happens occasionally because staffing levels have never been sufficient and that absentee rates have not increased since the shutdown started. Patton also said clients claim medication is not being provided regularly at MCC because of the shutdown, and he provided a transcript from a recent court hearing where a prosecutor also complained of the problem. The MCC spokesman denied this. Patton claimed social and legal visits have both been curtailed at MDC in Brooklyn. He shared a January 14th email from Adam Johnson, an MCC attorney who wrote about the facility across the river: "Due to staff shortages secondary to the shutdown, legal visiting at MDC Brooklyn is currently suspended today, January 14, 2018. The email added, "We regret the inconvenience and will notify you immediately once visiting resumes." Another federal public defender told the New York Times, which first reported the story, that her client and others are participating in a hunger strike inside MCC. They have already refused a mealI believe they refused breakfast and lunch, attorney Sarah Baumgartel told the paper. A spokesperson at the Brooklyn facility did not respond to questions about changes in legal and family visits. The federal Bureau of Prisons did write back about MCC in Manhattan: "Visiting has been affected by problems with the elevators; they are working to resolve the issue as soon as practicable. The delivery of medications has not been affected." Beth Fertig is a senior reporter covering courts and legal affairs at WNYC. You can follow her on Twitter at @bethfertig. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 07:17:07|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close GENEVA, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) on Monday warned that high avalanche danger will be encountered over a wide area, including the ski resort of Davos, where the annual World Economic Forum meeting is going to start next week. According to WSL, important Swiss winter tourism areas like Davos, Klosters, Grindelwald, Engelberg and Andermatt was warned of the highest avalanche risk rating of "level 5". What's more, areas above 1,800 meters were cited as being at very high risk of large or extremely large natural avalanches due to the unstable snow pack. Swissinfo, the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, reported that on Monday, two workers trying to set up explosives for a controlled avalanche in canton Valais were hit by a natural one. As the result, one died, the other was able to dig himself out, the Swissinfo reported, adding that two skiers in Valais were also swept off piste but were able to free themselves from the snow, and another skier in canton Fribourg was injured after being buried three meters deep. Earlier this month, two people were killed and one injured in separate avalanches in Swiss ski regions. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 07:12:26|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Students of an elderly college perform for the senior citizens at an elderly care institution in Taiyuan, north China's Shanxi Province, Jan. 14, 2019. The performance was held to celebrate the China's Spring Festival in advance. (Xinhua/Cao Yang) Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 06:52:05|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (L) shakes hands with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during their meeting at the UN headquarters in New York, Jan. 14, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is in New York on Monday for a takeover of the chairmanship of the Group of 77 (G77) developing countries. Abbas is expected to attend a ceremony at UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday for the handover of the G77 chairmanship from Egypt to Palestine for the year 2019. Upon arrival in New York on Monday, Abbas met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Guterres congratulated the State of Palestine for assuming the G77 chairmanship and expressed his wishes for a successful year for the group, said Guterres' press office after the meeting. Guterres reiterated that the two-state solution is the only viable option to sustainable peace in the region, said the office. The G77, which got its name from 77 founding members, is a group of 133 developing countries at the United Nations. China aligns itself with the group, whose aim is to promote collective economic interests of the members and to try to have a bigger say in the world organization. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 05:26:47|Editor: yan Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump spoke over phone with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday following recent bickering between Washington and Ankara, said the White House in a statement. The two leaders discussed several bilateral issues, including the U.S. troops' withdrawal from Syria, said the White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders in the statement. "The President expressed the desire to work together to address Turkey's security concerns in northeast Syria while stressing the importance to the United States that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian Democratic Forces," added Sanders. The spokesperson also revealed that U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford will meet with his Turkish counterpart on Tuesday to continue "consultations with Turkey on Syria." On Sunday, Trump tweeted that the United States would "devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds" amid the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. He also suggested the creation of a 20-mile (32 km) safe zone in Syria. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Monday hit back at the threats against Turkey, claiming that "economic threats against Turkey will get nowhere." The United States and Turkey have been quarreling recently regarding the Kurdish militia in northern Syria, a U.S. ally in the anti-Islamic State campaign but seen as a terrorist group by Ankara. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 02:36:03|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (R), Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping's special representative Yang Jiechi (L), also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Jan. 14, 2019. (Xinhua/Wu Huiwo) ABU DHABI, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, on Monday met with Chinese President Xi Jinping's special representative Yang Jiechi here, and discussed means to further bilateral cooperation and the Belt and Road Initiative. The crown prince said that Xi's visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last year has upgraded the bilateral cooperation to a higher level. He stressed that under the Belt and Road Initiative, the UAE is willing to implement, together with China, all the consensus between the leaderships of the two countries, enhance cooperation and coordination in international affairs, and boost the comprehensive strategic partnership. Xi paid a visit to the UAE in July 2018, the first by a Chinese head of state in 29 years to the Arab state. The two sides agreed that both countries will strengthen their in-depth cooperation in various fields, and promote continuous development of bilateral ties. Yang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, said his visit is to help implement the consensus reached during Xi's historic visit. "China will join hands with the UAE to maintain the momentum of frequent high-level visits and make China-UAE ties closer," he said. Yang highlighted that bilateral cooperation, especially under the Belt and Road Initiative, has been proceeding smoothly, and both sides will guarantee all the related coordination to realize more practical fruits and benefit the two countries' people. Meanwhile, the two sides also agreed on more work on anti-terrorism for mutual interests and regional stability. Yang is now on his official visits to the UAE, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon scheduled from Jan. 13 to 19. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-15 02:05:58|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Hakim speaks at a joint press conference with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian (not in the picture) in Baghdad, Iraq, on Jan. 14, 2019. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Monday that his government granted one billion euros (1.15 billion U.S. dollars) loan to Iraq to support reconstruction and stability efforts in the areas destroyed by the war against the extremist Islamic State (IS) militants. (Xinhua/Khalil Dawood) BAGHDAD, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Monday that his government granted one billion euros (1.15 billion U.S. dollars) loan to Iraq to support reconstruction and stability efforts in the areas destroyed by the war against the extremist Islamic State (IS) militants. "France has decided to allocate a loan of one billion euros to Iraq to contribute to the reconstruction and stabilization efforts in the country," Le Drian told a joint news conference with his Iraqi counterpart Mohammed al-Hakim. "France has always been on the side of Iraq in war and peace, and now in reconstruction of the country," he said, adding that France has to continue its humanitarian assistance in areas that were under control of IS group. For his part, al-Hakim said that "many political and economic issues have been discussed (with Le Drian), including the entry of French companies into Iraq to participate in reconstruction efforts, as well as cooperation in cultural, educational fields." Al-Hakim also said that the two sides discussed the situation in Syria and stressed that it should stabilize and that all the areas in Syria must return to government control. The French chief of diplomacy arrived in Baghdad earlier in the day on an official visit and held a meeting with al-Hakim as well as the Iraqi President Barham Salih, Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi and the Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi. A statement by Abdul Mahdi's office said that the premier received the French minister and the two held a meeting, during which Abdul Mahdi hailed France's support to Iraq "in its war against Daesh (IS group), and its coordination in supporting security and stability in the (Middle East) region." Le Drian said that "Iraq has become a key player in stability and France will go forward with the partnership and cooperation with Iraq," the statement said. France is part of a U.S.-led international coalition tasked with helping the Iraqi security forces in the fight against IS militants by carrying out airstrikes against the IS in Iraq and Syria and providing military equipment and training to Iraqi forces. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-14 23:15:08|Editor: Li Xia Video Player Close HANOI, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 200 delegates, including leaders of national tourism organizations (NTOs) of ASEAN members and the regional groupings partners gathered in Vietnams northern Quang Ninh province on Monday, touching upon measures to speed up sustainable tourism development. At the 49th meeting of NTOs of countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which opened on Monday in Quang Ninhs Ha Long city, the delegates also highlighted contributions of tourism sector to gross domestic product. The meeting kick-started various activities of the five-day 38th ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF). Addressing the meeting, Nguyen Trung Khanh, general director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, said tourism sector makes contributions to better political and cultural understanding, and closer bilateral and multilateral cooperation not only among regional countries, but also among nations in the world. Themed ASEAN: The Power of One, the 38th ATF with the expected participation of some 2,000 delegates is to intensify cooperative regional efforts to promote ASEAN as one tourist destination for international visitors, and to promote intra-block tourism. The delegates are to focus their discussions on standardization and development of human resources, improvement of competitive edges, and inclusive and sustainable development in tourism sector, according to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism. The forum will also provide a platform for the sales of regional and individual tourism products of ASEAN member countries through a 3-day international travel fair named TRAVEX with the participation of 610 corporate sellers and 290 buyers. The sellers are from Vietnam and other nine ASEAN state members, and the buyers are from 32 countries and regions, mostly those in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Vietnam hosted roughly 15.5 million international arrivals in 2018, up 19.9 percent against 2017, with the highest growth of 44.3 percent in the number of visitors from South Korea, followed by Finland, up 24.9 percent, and China, up 23.9 percent, according to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism. Specifically, Quang Ninh alone received 5.2 million foreign visitors, up 22.1 percent. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-14 22:29:50|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Li Zhanshu, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee and secretary of its leading Party members' group, presides over a meeting to study a recent speech made by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, on Party governance at the third plenary session of the 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the CPC and the spirit of the CCDI session, in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 14, 2019. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing) BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- The leading Party members' group of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) met Monday to study a recent speech made by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, on Party governance. Li Zhanshu, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee and secretary of its leading Party members' group, presided over the meeting and delivered a speech, said a statement issued after the meeting. Xi's speech at the third plenary session of the 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of CPC pointed out the direction and set the agenda for the campaign to comprehensively and strictly govern the Party and fight corruption, the statement said. Senior legislators agreed that lawmakers should follow Xi's speech and the spirit of the CCDI session in terms of their thinking and actions, the statement said. The leading Party members' group and Party committees of NPC at all levels should continue to uphold the Party's overall leadership, thoroughly implement Xi's instructions and decisions made by the CPC Central Committee, and improve the management of Party organizations within the NPC, it said, adding that senior officials should set the example in this regard. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A Tallahassee women found guilty of prostituting a child for 13 years had her sentencing pushed back. Celeste Chambers was found guilty of one count of human trafficking by a parent, legal guardian, or person with custody along with four other counts. Monday in court the judge granted the hearing of two motions, which includes a motion for a new trail and a motion filed against jury misconduct. The prosecution explains why they pushed back the sentencing. "We want to delay sentencing, so that we can address those two motions, before we do sentencing so that the defense will not be deprived of their D day rate," said Anna Norris, Felony Division Chief in Leon County. The motion hearings and sentencing will be on Feb. 11 at 2:30 p.m. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - The Tallahassee Fire Department said a fire at a home resulted in three of five residents being transported to a hospital for treatment of injuries. TFD said the injuries happened Tuesday as the residents were evacuated from a fire in the 3500 block of Lakewood Drive North. The first fire crews on the scene reported that flames were showing through the roof of the front of the single-family home. The fire was extinguished before it overtook the entire building. The cause of the fire is under investigation. The Tallahassee Police Department, Leon County EMS, City of Tallahassee Utilities, and the American Red Cross all assisted. Emeril? I haven't heard that name in years, not since the late '90s, when celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse regularly invaded my home via the Food Network and my mother bought red sauce with his mug plastered across the jar. Granted, I am not particularly up on the culinary scene, so it's possible that Emeril and Wolfgang Puck have been hanging out without me. Still, I was nonetheless surprised to learn that the chef opened his first New York City restaurant last week: I mean, the man owns 12 food palaces, and you'd think at least one of those would be here. But no, Emeril quietly opened his first NYC venture, Rodos, in the lobby of Hotel Henri in Chelsea since January 8th. Its menu: Greek/Cajun fusion fare. BAM. According to the NY Post, Rodosa joint venture with restaurateurs Yiannis Chatiris and Eleni Vareli, and Emeril's hospitality group, We Love Foodoffers "healthy Greek fare with a splash of New Orleans decadence," which is not really a flavor profile I can imagine, but okay. Emeril told the outlet that partnering with Chatiris was, out of some 75 NYC restaurant deals he's been pitched, the only one that felt right. Also, it seems the chef could not resist the opportunity to really kick it up a notch with some seafood. "I'm inspired by the food and the people of Greece," Emeril told the Post. "I'm a fanatic about fish and so are the Greeks. That's why the food there is so magical. They are surrounded by the sea and the things that come out of the sea are incredible." BAM is that ever true. Emeril owns four restaurants in New Orleans, sure, but how much experience does he have with Greek cuisine? This is a question worth asking, and one I cannot answer, although Google suggests he can tell you how to make saganaki and Greek-style lamb kebabs and Greek stuffed eggplant, BAM. Chatiris, however, is Greek, and owns his own restaurant Mykonos Blue in Hotel Hayden on West 28th Street: According to the Post, his primary "challenge was to mix the richness of Emeril's dishes with lighter Mediterranean fare." This after tasting Emeril's Thanksgiving gumbo, which Chatiris called "fantastic" and "like nothing [he'd] ever tasted," BAM, but so heavy it nearly gave him a heart attack. Diners can reportedly expect some sort of culinary balance, with a menu that reportedly "features classic Greek food, like lavraki, grilled branzino with kritamos leaves, ladolemono and capers, along with Lagasse's signature dishes, like Louisiana crawfish stuffed clams." Huh! Do these cuisines complement, or do they compete? I can't really picture it, but then again, I never gleaned very much from Emeril's cooking show. Other than the notion that throwing a handful of herbs at whatever my mother was making and shouting BAM would definitely always be appreciated, of course. I suspect that may be what's going on here, and honestly, sounds fun. OCALA, Fla. (WTXL) Seven people are behind bars, accused of operating a human trafficking ring in Florida involving a Marion County teen who investigators say was used as a "sex slave." St. Petersburg police say six men and a woman have been arrested after an 8-month long investigation. The investigation began on May 9, 2018, when a Louisiana law enforcement agency contacted the St. Petersburg Police Department with information that a missing 17-year-old boy from Louisiana was at a mobile home in St. Petersburg. Investigators believe the victim was lured through Discord, an online gaming app that allows users to communicate directly with each other. When they arrived at the mobile home, they found the missing teen and another 16-year-old boy living in the trailer, along with four adults identified as Mark Earl Dennis, Andrew Barry Dennis, Curtis Lee Gruwell, and Michael Wayne Schwartz. Police say Mark Dennis claimed to the the 16-year-old's biological father, but had no documentation, so both teens were removed from the home. Further investigation confirmed that Mar Dennis was not the teen's father. In fact, the teen had gone missing from Marion County 11 months earlier. Investigators say a woman the boy knew befriended him and introduced him to Mark and Andrew Dennis. In May 2017, the boy's mother found a note from him telling her not to try to find him. Lured with the promise of a better life, police say the then 15-year-old boy was moved into a "filthy trailer." According to WFTV, the trailer was covered in animal feces. Over the next year, police say the teen "was introduced to sadomasochism and used as a sex slave by Mark and Andrew Dennis, Gruwell, Schwartz, and their associates Michael Ray Blasdel and JR Gauthier." During that time, the child did not attend school or receive medical care. After police removed the teens from the trailer in May 2018, they say Mark and Andrew Dennis, Curtis Gruwell and Michael Schwartz moved from St. Petersburg to Lehigh Acres, Lee County. With the assistance of the Marion County Sheriffs Office and the Lee County Sheriffs Office, detectives took six of seven suspects into custody on Monday. Tuesday morning, the last remaining suspect turned himself in. Police say the boy is now receiving special care designed for human trafficking victims. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Farm Share, a Florida-based food nonprofit, is offering food assistance to federal employees impacted by the partial government shutdown. Farm Share is allowing affected families to pick up a weeks worth or more of food that can be used to feed the family for the duration of the shutdown or as long as they continue to be in need. The organization is providing healthy and nutritious fruits, vegetables, rice, proteins, and other non-perishable food products. Farm Share views the effects of the prolonged partial government shutdown on the livelihood and wellbeing of federal employees in the same manner we do a natural disaster. Therefore, given the unknown duration of this event, were working diligently to plan and implement relief efforts aimed at helping those affected families and individuals throughout Florida, stated Farm Share Chief Operation Officer Stephen Shelley. Any federal employee and their families can contact Farm Share via phone to request food assistance. Farm Share is also reaching out directly to federal employers affected by the shutdown to offer assistance in setting up food distributions at their place of employment. This includes the TSA, Coast Guard, National Parks, and other employers needing Farm Shares assistance in setting up relief distributions for their employees. If your family needs help, you can call the following numbers for assistance: TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A proposed bill would make a financial literacy course a graduation requirement for Florida high school students. SB 114, or the Dorothy L. Hukill Financial Literacy Act, would require all high school students to take a half-credit course focusing on "financial literacy or money management skills." If passed, the law would pertain to students all entering the 9th grade in the 2019-2020 and all other high schoolers thereafter. The class will be required to inform students about a variety of topics to include how to open and manage bank accounts, how to manage debt, and balancing a checkbook. "Requiring educational instruction in financial literacy and money management as a prerequisite to high school graduation will better prepare young people in this state for adulthood by providing them with the requisite knowledge to achieve financial stability and independence," the bill reads. The bill was filed by Sen. Travis Hutson, a Republican senator for the Palm Coast. Florida would be one of 17 states to require a financial literacy course to get a high school diploma if the bill is passed. Team helping homeless praised by First Minister Minister for North Wales intervenes in Christmas incident This article is old - Published: Tuesday, Jan 15th, 2019 First Minister Mark Drakeford has praised a team helping homeless people in Wrexham during a visit to the town, with the new Minister for North Wales citing an incident on Christmas Eve of growing vilification of vulnerable people in society. The Community Care Hub, which has benefited from Welsh Government funding, provides health and social care services to rough sleepers together with housing and welfare advice and a range of other services. The hub was founded in 2016 by Wrexham GP Dr Karen Sankey, Dewi Richards, a mental health manager at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board and Tanya Jones from homeless charity The Wallich. It holds weekly drop-in sessions with a number of organisations, including the health board, Department for Work and Pensions and Wrexham Council. The hub now supports more than 100 people who are homeless, sleeping rough or have mental health or substance misuse problems. The First Minister commented: As the weather turns colder it is vital the right support is available for people who are homeless and sleeping rough. Weve recently announced 1.34m to tackle rough sleeping in Wales this winter, including 54,000 for the Community Care Hub, in Wrexham. The multi-agency approach here, with everyone available in one place to provide vital advice and support is exemplary. There are a number of complex reasons why people find themselves homeless and it is important they have the opportunity to access the right support at the right time as they do here. I would like to thank all those involved in this project for their hard work and dedication. Dr Sankey said: I am delighted with what the community care collaborative has achieved at the hub in partnership with AVOW and the Salvation Army, working with a wide range of voluntary and statutory sector partners. The hub is an innovative model of primary care offering an accessible, holistic, person-centred approach that meets the health and wellbeing needs of some of the most vulnerable people in our community. The success of the hub has attracted funding support from the Welsh Government, the Steve Morgan Foundation, the Waterloo Foundation and the Allen Lane Foundation, enabling the collaborative to employ care navigators one of whom was a hub user in its early days. Working with the health board, we are exploring how the model could be replicated as an alternative model of primary care provision for the wider community. Major Roger Batt, Salvation Army Divisional Commander for NW England & North Wales: I am so pleased that First Minister, Mark Drakeford has come along to Wrexham Salvation Army to see for himself what a vital service the care hub is providing to people experiencing homelessness in and around the town. The fact that visitors who may have primarily just dropped in to the church to get a hot meal and a change of clothes can also get to see a GP, go to the harm reduction surgery or get advice on benefits while theyre here is just brilliant. The care hub is really helping to reconnect people to the support they need to overcome homelessness and I am full of admiration for everyone involved in the partnership for making it such a success. We asked the First Minster and the new Minister for North Wales what more can be done for the homeless on top of the existing services and funding. The First Minister Mark Drakeford spoke about putting the issue front and centre of government, and how he has seen more people come through his door when holding surgeries than anything else. Speaking of his experiences of the hub in Wrexham he appeared to have directly taken the feedback from an individual who had pointed out to him I have done more this one morning in seeing people than I would have in two months if I tried to trail around the system going to all of these people individually. The Minister for North Wales, Ken Skates AM, explained how he was worried over the growing vilification of homeless people. Mr Skates explained how in Wrexham town centre on Christmas Eve he saw such social tensions with a woman selling the Big Issue being verbally abused and intervened. You can hear their full responses in the below video: Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addresses the third plenary session of the 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 11, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Tao) Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, on Friday called for efforts to advance Party building, and demanded "greater strategic achievements" in full and strict governance over the Party. Xi, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks at the third plenary session of the 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the CPC. He called for consolidating and developing a "sweeping victory" in the fight against corruption. Efforts should be made to make sure officials don't dare to, are unable to and have no desire to commit corruption, to improve Party and state oversight systems, and to ensure the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress and major decisions of the CPC Central Committee are resolutely implemented, so as to greet the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) with great achievements, Xi said. Members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning and Han Zheng attended the meeting. The meeting was presided over by Zhao Leji, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the CCDI. Noting achievements in Party building since the 19th CPC National Congress that included the "sweeping victory" in fighting corruption, Xi said the Party is now "radiating with more vitality in the new era." He summed up some of the invaluable experience in disciplinary inspection and supervision over the past 40 years of reform and opening-up. The authority of the CPC Central Committee and its centralized, unified leadership must be firmly upheld, and the governance over the Party must precede the governance of the country and it must be strict, Xi said. The people-centered approach must be upheld, Xi continued, adding that it was also necessary for cadres to continue innovating, keep working hard, and fight against inaction and corruption. Six Tasks Xi called for continuous efforts to advance full and strict governance over the Party as this year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the PRC and is key in finishing building a moderately prosperous society in all respects to achieve the first centenary goal. He laid out six tasks: The spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress needs to be further implemented. The Party's political work must be strengthened to ensure unity of the whole Party and strict implementation of its orders. Excellent conduct must be encouraged to ensure joint efforts for building a moderately prosperous society. Fight corruption with strong resolve to consolidate and develop the "sweeping victory." Improve the supervision systems and strengthen the sense of responsibility. Address corruption and malpractices that occur on people's doorsteps to safeguard the people's immediate interests. Healthy Comradeship Xi urged officials to correctly uphold the authority of the CPC Central Committee, and firmly resist illicit intervention and profit-seeking by central-level leaders' family members, their work staff, and people who claim to have connections with them. He stressed maintaining healthy comradeship within the Party and enforcing the system of democratic centralism. Officials should also take the lead in establishing a healthy working relationship and not use public resources as a tool of building clout or underhand connections to seek illicit gains. Those who play a key role in this regard, Xi said, are members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the CPC Central Committee. Xi also stressed building an "iron army" of disciplinary inspection and supervision officials who are loyal, clean and have strong sense of responsibility and removing the "bad apples" from them. Presiding over the meeting, Zhao called on Party organizations at all levels to unify their thinking and action with the spirit of Xi's speech. On behalf of the CCDI standing committee, Zhao delivered a work report titled "faithfully fulfil the obligations stipulated in the CPC Constitution and the Constitution of the country, and strive for high-quality development of disciplinary inspection and supervision work in the new era." Fight Not End "Although China's campaign against corruption has made sweeping victory, it is not the time to lie back," said Xin Ming, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee. Last year, the list of "tigers" referring to senior officials taken down on corruption charges continued to expand. Fifty-one officials at or above the provincial/ministerial level were among a total of 621,000 people punished by CCDI and the National Supervisory Commission. And increasing attention was paid to minor offenses of officials. About 1.1 million officials were interviewed and cautioned for slight violations, about 63.6 percent of the total cases disciplinary inspectors handled in 2018. Last year, 1,335 fugitives were sent back to China. Among them, 307 were former Party members and officials, mostly involved in graft cases. "The tough stance against corruption should not and will not ease," Xin, the professor, said. (Source: Xinhua) The 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the Communist Party of China (CPC) adopted a communique at its third plenary session held from Friday to Sunday. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addressed the session, while other Party and state leaders, including Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, and Han Zheng, attended the meeting. A work report of CCDI, delivered by Zhao Leji, head of the CCDI, was passed at the session, according to the communique. CCDI members agreed that it is an important political task for all the Party members to carefully study and implement Xi's speech delivered at the session, the communique said. The top priority of the CCDI's work in 2019 remains firmly safeguarding Xi's status as the core of the CPC Central Committee and the whole Party, as well as the authority and centralized, unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee, the communique said. CCDI will work to make "greater strategic achievements" in full and strict governance over the Party and consolidate the "sweeping victory" of the campaign against corruption, according to the communique. The communique listed eight priorities for 2019. CCDI will continue to study and implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and upgrade the education campaign with the theme "staying true to our founding mission." It will take up resolute actions against the practice of formalities for formalities' sake and bureaucratism. The institution of disciplinary inspection and supervision will be innovated to enhance the effectiveness of governance. It aims to make breakthroughs in regular and long-term supervision. Inspection on the implementation of political rules will be intensified, and the strategic structure of disciplinary inspections improved. CCDI will direct its anti-graft actions to key projects, fields and posts, particularly departments and sectors where power is centralized and money and resources are intensive. The efforts to address corruption and malpractices that occur on people's doorsteps will be continued so the people will have a stronger sense of fulfillment, happiness and security. CCDI will develop an "iron army" of disciplinary inspection and supervision officials who are loyal, clean and have a strong sense of responsibility. (Source: Xinhua) New York City's Office of Special Enforcement is suing a Manhattan real estate brokerage firm for $21 million, accusing the company of using at least 130 apartments for illegal short-term Airbnb rentals. The units, which would have presumably been available to NYC residents had they not been turned into more lucrative short term "hotel rooms," were allegedly scattered across 35 residential buildings, including one entire building in East Harlem. The lawsuit names the Metropolitan Property Group and several of its agents for their role in carrying out a massive commercial listing scheme over the last three years. According to the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement, the group used various fake identities to advertise the approximately 250 listings through more than 100 host accounts. Over and over again, well-meaning visitors are being misled by sophisticated businesspeople into booking illegal rentals," Christian Klossner, Executive Director of the Mayors Office of Special Enforcement, said in a statement. "Only with better data and cooperation from the booking websites can we efficiently identify and shut down these operations." The Metropolitan Property Group, led by CEO Sami Katri, had previously come under scrutiny after renters reported that they'd been charged a fee by the firm's brokers for apartments that were listed as no-fee. The brokerage has an F rating from the Better Business Bureau. Katri did not immediately return Gothamist's request for comment. The lawsuit comes just a few weeks after a federal judge blocked part of Mayor Bill de Blasio's attempted crackdown on the home-sharing services, which would have required that the companies disclose sensitive information about their users. The mayor has pledged to challenge the ruling, and to put a "strong data regimen in place" for the companies. The city currently estimates that about one-third of listings on the top five online booking platforms for short-term vacation rentals are placed by commercial renters. In some neighborhoods, there may be one commercial Airbnb listing for every five vacant apartments. For its part, Airbnb has continued to assert that commercial renters are not a widespread problem, and are in fact the fault of the city for not creating a regulatory framework that legalizes home sharing. "This case is a clear example of just one thing: the ongoing need for a comprehensive, statewide bill that would provide for strict recourse against the few bad actors while protecting the rights of thousands of regular New Yorkers who are responsibly sharing their home, Josh Meltzer, the head of northeast policy for Airbnb, said in a statement to Gothamist. Meanwhile, the Times spoke with some business conference attendees staying in an Airbnb in one of the buildings named in the lawsuit, who did not seem to care much one way or another whether their hosts were regular New Yorkers or a vampiristic brokerage firm. I know there are sometimes issues with Airbnb hosts and regulations, Stan Zylowski, a 46-year-old software company CEO based in Arkansas, told the paper. Im a platinum Marriott member of 25 years, but hotels in this city are just too expensive. NEW YORK, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via CannabisNewsWire -- CannabisNewsWire (CNW), a multifaceted financial news and publishing company, announces its participation at the second annual Cannabis Capital Conference , taking place January 15-16. Hosted by leading financial media outlet Benzinga, this years Cannabis Capital Conference is being held in beautiful Miami Beach, Florida. CNW is proud to serve as a media sponsor and the official newswire of the conference. CannabisNewsWire directors are in attendance at the event this week. The Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference is a premier convention in the cannabis space, and we are pleased to be part of heightening its awareness throughout the investment community, said Jonathan Keim, communications director of CannabisNewsWire. This conference draws leading cannabis innovators, investors and entrepreneurs from all across North America, and it is a privilege to attend and network among them. Prior to the main event on Jan. 16, the Cannabis Capital Conference kicked off with a cannabis executive retreat on Jan. 15 and a pre-retreat networking reception the evening before. Conference events taking place throughout the day on Jan. 16 include panel discussions, exclusive investor presentations, speed-networking and more. More than 500 participants in attendance include both public and private cannabis companies, institutional investors, retail investors and the media. About CannabisNewsWire (CNW) CannabisNewsWire (CNW) is a specialized information service that (1) aggregates cannabis news, (2) provides CannabisNewsBreaks that quickly updates investors in the space, (3) enhances corporate press releases, (4) helps companies with distribution and optimization of social media, and (5) delivers comprehensive corporate communication solutions. CNW is uniquely positioned in the cannabis market with a strong team of journalists and writers who can help private and public companies reach a wide audience of investors, consumers, journalists and the general public through our ever-growing dissemination network of more than 5,000 key syndication outlets. CNW is bringing unparalleled visibility, recognition and content to the cannabis industry. For more information, please visit https://www.CannabisNewsWire.com . Please see full terms of use and disclaimers on the CannabisNewsWire website applicable to all content provided by CNW, wherever published or re-published: http://CNW.fm/Disclaimer Corporate Communications Contact Senator Danny Carroll's Legislative Update By Senator Danny Carroll FRANKFORT - The first week of the Kentucky General Assembly's 2019 Regular Session is in the books. We had a productive few days in Frankfort and leave in good spirits about what is to come this session.This week, the Senate's activity involved some procedural measures. We welcomed everyone back to Frankfort to swear in members and confirm the Senate Leadership. Senator Robert Stivers (R-Manchester) will remain the Senate President and Senator David Givens (R-Greensburg) will serve as the new Senate President Pro Tempore. We were also thrilled to officially welcome Senator Matt Castlen (R-Owensboro) and Senator Robby Mills (R-Henderson) as our newest members. Other tasks included confirming new committee appointments and adopting the Senate rules for the 2019 session.Additionally, the Senate introduced legislation regarding electronic campaign filing, a constitutional amendment moving the statewide election date, and school safety.Bills must be presented at a public committee meeting and passed with a majority vote before heading back to the Senate to be voted on by the entire Senate body. Once the Senate approves a Senate bill, it heads to the Kentucky House of Representatives where the same process occurs. The Senate has to agree to any changes the House makes to the bill before it is submitted to the Governor for his approval and is finally signed into law.We have listened to the feedback of our constituents and the Senate majority has several priority bills that we would like to see ratified during the 2019 Regular Session. Following the tragic 2018 shooting at Marshall County High School, legislators formed the bipartisan School Safety Working Group, which I am honored serve on, for the purpose of developing a solution to better ensure the safety of our schools in Kentucky. Senate Bill 1, the School Safety and Resiliency Act, sponsored by Senator Max Wise (R-Campbellsville), was drafted as a result of the findings of the working group. I am proud to be a co-sponsor of this bill. The Senate Majority is encouraged by the overwhelming support of this proposed legislation and we look forward to continuing discussion with the House on how to address this critical issue. We still have much work to do in this area!The Senate was able to pass five bills out of chamber in the initial week of session. By the third day, Senate Bill 5, sponsored by Senator Chris McDaniel (R-Taylor Mill) was passed out of the chamber by a 31-4 vote. This bill is a proposed amendment to the Kentucky Constitution to move the elections of statewide constitutional offices to even-numbered years. Several bills were voted on Friday morning. Senate Bill 4, sponsored by Senator Damon Thayer (R-Georgetown) requires candidates to file all campaign finance reports electronically. Senate Bill 50, sponsored by Senator Robby Mills (R-Henderson), relates to the reporting of prescriptions designed to induce an abortion. I signed on as a co-sponsor of this bill. Senate Bill 8, sponsored by Senator Steve West (R-Paris), relates to the quality of teacher tribunal hearings by requiring the chair to be a trained attorney in teacher employment law. Lastly, we passed Senate Bill 3, sponsored by Senator John Schickel (R-Union). This measure, also known as School Board Decision Making (SBDM) reform, redefines the minimum parent teacher representation on school councils and grants superintendents the ability to hire principals.Due to a constitutional requirement, the General Assembly will adjourn for 3 weeks following the conclusion of the first part of session. The Senate will return to session on February 5. In the meantime, we will continue to discuss legislative issues in committee meetings. I am working to finalize several pieces of legislation, which I plan to file, including a bill to provide greater protections to our seniors living in assisted living facilities, a bill that will increase the pool of current and retired law enforcement officers available to work as school resource officers, and a voter ID bill. I am also working on a bill that will help protect police officers, firefighters, judges, social workers, prison guards, and others, who due to the nature of their role in the criminal justice system are at greater risk of retaliation, by controlling the release of their Personal Identifying Information (PII) by public agencies. The bill also includes provisions to protect their families.Bill summaries, amendments, and resolutions, in addition to the next day's committee meeting schedule and agendas, are updated daily on the Kentucky Legislature's home page at www.lrc.ky.gov throughout the session, with final adjournment scheduled for March 29.If you have any questions or comments about these issues or any other public policy issue, please call me toll-free at 1-800-372-7181 or email me at danny.carroll@lrc.ky.gov. You can also review the Legislature's work online at www.lrc.ky.gov. Judge: Papa John's Founder Entitled to Records By The Associated Press DOVER, DE - A Delaware judge has ruled that the embattled founder of the Papa John's pizza chain is entitled to corporate records that the company has refused to turn over to him.John Schnatter sued Papa John's International Inc. last year, claiming he needs the records to inform himself in order to fulfill his corporate duties, and to ensure that other directors are doing the same.The company argued that Schnatter, who was pressured to resign as chairman in July, wanted the records to further his own self-interests.The two sides eventually resolved disputes over 13 of 17 categories of documents.The judge ruled Tuesday that the company failed to prove that Schnatter's purpose for seeking to inspect the remaining four categories of documents was improper. Paducah Woman Faces Drug Charges in Graves County By West Kentucky Star Staff FOLSOMDALE - A Paducah woman was arrested Monday on methamphetamine and marijuana charges. According to the Graves County Sheriff's Office, a deputy conducted a traffic stop on a minivan in Folsomdale early Monday morning. During a roadside interview with the driver, the deputy allegedly detected the odor of suspected marijuana coming from the vehicle, and a search was conducted. During the search, the deputy reportedly found suspected marijuana, numerous drug paraphernalia items and methamphetamine. Kristen Owen, of Paducah, was arrested and lodged in the Graves County Jail. Owen is charged with improper equipment, failure of owner to maintain insurance, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of methamphetamine. Traffic Stop Leads to Arrest of Paducah Teen By West Kentucky Star Staff MCCRACKEN COUNTY - An early morning traffic stop led to a Paducah teen's arrest on drug charges.According to the McCracken County Sheriff's Office, Tuesday at approximately 1:30 am, deputies observed a car traveling east on Oaks Road with the front right tire blown. Deputies said the vehicle was producing sparks and a loud noise.Deputies identified the driver as 18-year-old Jacob Feltner, of Paducah. During a search of the vehicle, deputies allegedly found a syringe containing methamphetamine, and other items of drug paraphernalia.Feltner was arrested and lodged in the McCracken County Regional Jail. He's charged with careless driving, possession of meth and possession of drug paraphernalia. Feltner was currently out on bond for unrelated offenses. Paducah School Board Members Sworn In By West Kentucky Star Staff PADUCAH - Dr. Felix Akojie and Mary Hunter Hancock, newly elected members of the Paducah Board of Education, were sworn in prior to the board meeting on Monday.Dr. Akojie is beginning his 16th year on the board. Hancock was elected to her first term.Originally from Madison, Mississippi, Hancock graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Mississippi with a degree in finance in 2002. She was employed as a credit analyst for AmSouth Banks Healthcare Division in Nashville, TN. She became a Paducah resident in 2004 after marrying Blann Hancock. They have three children, all of whom are enrolled in Paducah Public Schools. She is employed by Hancocks of Paducah and is a co-owner of Barre Co. Paducah. Mrs. Hancock is currently chairman of the Easter Seals Board of Directors, of which she has been a member for the last eight years, and served as past president of the Charity League of Paducah. She is a member of Broadway United Methodist Church.Dr. Akojie joined the WKCTC biology department faculty in 1991. He earned his PhD in biochemistry in 1985 from the University of Ife in Nigeria and did postdoctoral studies in chemistry at Loyola University in Chicago and immunology at the University of Vienna in Austria. He previously taught at the University of Ife and the University of Benin medical schools. He and his wife Patricia have four grown children, all graduates of PTHS. Dr. Felix Akojie was first elected in 2003 and has served as vice chair of the board from 2005 through 2008 and again in January 2014 until present.At the January 14 meeting he was elected to continue as Vice Chair, with Dr. Carl LeBuhn serving as Chair. Mercy-Lourdes Hospital Hosts MLK Celebration Today By West Kentucky Star Staff PADUCAH - Mercy Health Lourdes Hospital is hosting its 28th annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Celebration this afternoon.The program is called, Move Your Mountains and Ascend to the Mountaintop, and will begin at 3:30 pm at the Borders Community Room, inside the Marshall Nemer Medical Office Building.The keynote speaker is Dr. Anton Reece, President of West Kentucky Community and Technical College. Samuel Snacks Hawkins will provide spoken word.Refreshments will be served. The program is free and open to the public.Martin Luther King, Jr., was born on January 15, 1929 but the holiday is observed this year on Monday, January 21. Local Officials Head to China for Economic Talks By West Kentucky Star Staff PADUCAH - Paducah Mayor Brandi Harless and Ballard County Judge-Executive Todd Cooper are preparing for a trip to China where they will discuss economic opportunities with representatives from the company purchasing the Wickliffe paper mill.Harless and Cooper are set to leave Thursday for three days of meetings with Shanying International Holdings, the parent company for Global Win and Phoenix Paper. Shanying invited Cooper and Harless to attend a conference for global employees, business partners, government officials, and guest speakers.Global Win signed a letter of intent in August to purchase the former Verso Corporation paper mill in Wickliffe, with a $150 million investment expected to create 500 full-time jobs. Since that time, Global Win and local leaders have been working together, leading up to the coming trip.This is an incredible opportunity to have face-to-face conversations with a company that sees the valuable resources and skilled workforce available in western Kentucky," Harless said. "I look forward to discussing potential new partnerships for additional economic development opportunities that will benefit this entire region.Ballard County Judge-Executive Todd Cooper said the reopening of the mill will be a big economic boon to the area. With the signing and closure of the sale for the former Verso mill, it brought hope for the entire region surrounding Wickliffe. The decision for the purchase of the paper mill was the beginning of a tremendous economic development boost and will bring employment opportunities for area residents, contractors, vendors, and other companies. He said.Making this trip to China will further strengthen relationships with the executives investing in the Wickliffe mill, and additionally fortify the economic well being of a significant portion of western Kentucky, said Vivek Sarin, executive officer and co-leader of the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development. City Releases Education, Enrichment Survey Scores By West Kentucky Star Staff PADUCAH - The City of Paducah has released more results from their National Citizen Survey with the latest information focusing on Education & Enrichment.Questions are related to preschool, K-12, and adult education, along with library services, religious events and opportunities, as well as cultural, arts, and music activities.One of the questions asked residents to rate the opportunities to attend cultural, arts, and music activities in Paducah. This question has had significant increases in positive results since the question was asked in the 2013 poll. In that year, 50% of respondents gave a positive response. That number increased to 69% in 2016 and to 75% in the 2018 survey. The city says the new figure is higher than the benchmark, a comparison to other cities across the nation that recently took this survey.In a press release, Mayor Brandi Harless said, Providing a variety of arts, cultural, and music activities is an important aspect of Paducahs quality of life. Our partner organizations are responsible for making this possible. I want to thank them for the enriching programming that they offer.Another result in the Education & Enrichment facet relates to the McCracken County Public Library. It received ratings of 81%, 82%, and 87% positive results in the 2013, 2016, and 2018 surveys, respectively. Regarding K-12 education, the positive results are trending upward with the results increasing from a 64% in the 2013 survey to 79% in the most recent survey.City Manager Jim Arndt said, The National Citizen Survey provides a snapshot of our community in time. Seeing these vital categories such as education, library services, and access to cultural, arts, and music activities consistently increase is an indicator of the vibrancy and overall health of our community. These results also show that numerous agencies and organizations are striving to be the best that they can be in providing services and opportunities.The National Citizen Survey, which asks questions about a communitys livability, was mailed earlier this year to 1500 randomly-selected households within the Paducah city limits. Each question on the survey is connected to one of eight facets: Safety, Mobility, Natural Environment, Built Environment, Economy, Recreation & Wellness, Education & Enrichment, and Community Engagement.For more information including Paducahs survey instrument and reports, click the links below.On the Net: If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now! Submit WAYNE, N.J., Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Konica Minolta Healthcare Americas, Inc. is providing support to Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the New Jersey Society of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation for a series of CME-accredited, ultrasound hands-on workshops as part of the UGPLearningHub educational platform. Supported by an educational grant and in-kind contribution of ultrasound machines by Konica Minolta Healthcare, participating physicians can receive up to 4 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Center for Continuing Medical Education, is one of the largest medical school-based CME Accredited Providers in the state of New York. Founded in 1976, the institution is committed to enhancing patient care through education. In 2017, over 700 national and international CME activities provided by Albert Einstein College of Medicine were attended by nearly 48,000 physicians and over 26,000 allied healthcare professionals. By supporting Albert Einstein College of Medicine's initiative to enhance patient care, UGPLearningHub programs can now offer physicians CME credits that will help advance their knowledge and expertise in MSK, says Courtney Ernst, Manager of Ultrasound Training and Education, Konica Minolta Healthcare. While ultrasound-guidance is an essential tool for MSK practitioners performing these procedures, operating an ultrasound system is highly dependent on the users skill and experience. Proficiency in ultrasound-guidance is a learn by doing process, and therefore Konica Minolta is dedicated to supporting education and hands-on workshops that will further advance the availability and quality of these procedures. CME credits are an important aspect of a physicians ongoing education and improvement in delivering quality patient care. In some states, physicians are required to meet a specific number of credits annually to maintain accreditation for seeing and treating patients. The UGPLearningHub provides the opportunity for ongoing physician education and professional development by leveraging the educational programs of leading academic institutions such as Albert Einstein College of Medicine along with the technical and clinical knowledge of leading experts. The next CME-accredited ultrasound workshop in 2019 will be held in late January. For more information on upcoming workshops, please visit KM-University at www.km-university.com . Accredited Provider About Albert Einstein College of Medicine For more than 5 decades, Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Einstein) has exemplified excellence in medical research, teaching, and patient care. Established in 1955, and guided by the vision of Professor Albert Einstein, the College was one of the first medical schools to integrate bedside experience with classroom study. Einstein also led the way in the development of bioethics as an accepted academic discipline in medical school curricula, and was the first private medical school in New York City to establish an academic Department of Family Medicine, as well as a residency program in internal medicine with an emphasis on womens health. Today, Einstein is one of the nations premier institutions for medical education, basic research, and clinical investigation. Educational Collaborator About New Jersey Society of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation The NJ Society of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation is the state medical society representing specialists in the field of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R). They are called physiatrists (fizz ee at' trists). Physiatrists focus on restoring function. They care for patients with acute and chronic pain from musculoskeletal problems such as back and neck pain, headaches, tendinitis, pinched nerves and fibromyalgia. They also treat people who have experienced catastrophic events resulting in paraplegia, quadriplegia, amputation, or traumatic brain injury; as well as those who suffer from orthopedic conditions such as arthritis, sciatica and herniated discs, and neurologic disorders such as strokes, multiple sclerosis, polio, cerebral palsy, and ALS. Commercial Supporter About Konica Minolta Healthcare Americas, Inc. Konica Minolta Healthcare is a world-class provider and market leader in medical diagnostic imaging and healthcare information technology. With over 75 years of endless innovation, Konica Minolta is globally recognized as a leader providing cutting-edge technologies and comprehensive support aimed at providing real solutions to meet customers' needs and helping make better decisions sooner. Konica Minolta Healthcare Americas, Inc., headquartered in Wayne, NJ, is a unit of Konica Minolta, Inc. (TSE:4902). Contact: Mary Beth Massat Massat Media 224.578.2388 mbmassat@massatmedia.com Thank you for Reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Dublin, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Malaysia Solar Inverter Market (2018-2024): Market Forecast by Power Rating, by Types, by Verticals, by Regions, and Competitive Landscape" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Malaysia Solar Inverter Market revenues are projected to grow at a CAGR of 7.0% during 2018-2024 Government incentives along with several upcoming solar power plants in Malaysia would accelerate the demand for solar inverters over the years to come. Additionally, government subsidies and schemes such as Feed in Tariff and Net Metering are expected to further boost the demand for solar inverters in the residential and commercial verticals in Malaysia. In recent years, Malaysia has made major reforms and introduced new schemes to promote renewable energy sources in the country. Solar energy has been allotted the largest government budget and support amongst all renewable sources of energy. Additionally, government schemes and grants for the promotion of solar energy along with growing awareness for renewable energy would also propel the growth of solar inverter market in Malaysia over the coming years. Peninsular Malaysia captured the majority of the market revenue share by region in the overall solar inverter market in 2017 due to rapid urbanization and high population density in the region. Moreover, upcoming solar power projects under the Large Scale Solar (LSS) programme would further strengthen the solar power generation capacity in the Peninsular Malaysia region as most of the projects are proposed to be constructed in the state of Selangor, Kedah, and Perak. As a result, the market for solar inverter would also grow substantially during the forecast period. The report thoroughly covers Malaysia Solar Inverter Market by power rating, types, applications and regions. The report provides an unbiased and detailed analysis of the on-going trends, opportunities/high growth areas and market drivers, which would help stakeholders to devise and align market strategies according to the current and future market dynamics. Key Highlights of the Report: Historical Data of Malaysia Solar Inverter Market Revenues and Volume for the Period 2014-2017. Market Size & Forecast of Malaysia Solar Inverter Market Revenues and Volume for the Period 2018-2024F. Historical Data of Malaysia Solar Inverter Market Revenues and Volume by Power rating for the Period 2014-2017. Market Size & Forecast of Malaysia Solar Inverter Market Revenues and Volume by Power rating for the Period 2018-2024F. Historical Data of Malaysia Solar Inverter Market Revenues by Types for the Period 2014-2017. Market Size & Forecast of Malaysia Solar Inverter Market Revenues by Types for the Period 2018-2024F. Historical Data of Malaysia Solar Inverter Market Revenues by Verticals for the Period 2014-2017. Market Size & Forecast of Malaysia Solar Inverter Market Revenues by Verticals for the Period 2018-2024F. Historical Data of Malaysia Solar Inverter Market Revenues by Regions for the Period 2014-2017. Market Size & Forecast of Malaysia Solar Inverter Market by Regions for the Period 2018-2024F. Market Drivers and Restraints. Market Trends and Developments. Players Market Share. Company Profiles. Strategic Recommendations. Markets Covered By Power Ratings Below 10 kW 10 kW - 100 kW 100.1 kW - 1 MW Above 1 MW By Types Central Inverter String Inverter Micro Inverter By Verticals Residential Commercial & Industrial Utility By Regions Peninsular Sarawak Sabah Companies Mentioned ABB Malaysia Sdn Bhd Fronius International GMBH Huawei Technologies Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. Jiangsu GoodWe Power Supply Technology Co., Ltd. Omnik New Energy Co., Ltd. Schneider Electric SE SMA Solar Technology AG SolarEdge Technologies Ltd. SolaX Power Co., Ltd. Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/t7g8gf/malaysia_solar?w=12 Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. The British Empire on which the sun never sets The French Empire For a decade we have been revealing the incongruity of the French desire to re-establish its authority over its old colonies. This was the logic behind the nomination by President Nicolas Sarkozy of Bernard Kouchner as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Kouchner replaced the French Revolutionary idea of The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen with the Anglo-Saxon notion of Human Rights [1]. Later, his friend President Francois Hollande declared, during a Press conference on the fringes of the UN General Assembly, that it was time to re-establish a mandate over Syria. The great grand-nephew of ambassador Francois George-Picot (of the Sykes-Picot agreement), ex-President Valery Giscard dEstaing, spoke of this even more clearly. This should help us better to understand the desire of President Emmanuel Macron to continue the war against Syria, without the United States. There has always been a colonial party in France which crosses all political parties and acts as a lobby in the service of the wealthy class. Just as in every period when it becomes difficult for unscrupulous capitalists to crush the national work-force, the myth of colonial conquest resurfaces. If the Yellow Vests revolt, let us continue with the exploitation of men by other men on the backs of the Syrians. The French Empire bestows civilisation Long ago, this form of domination hid, according to the words of Jules Ferry under whose auspices Francois Hollande consecrated his son mandate [2] behind the duty of bestowing civilisation . Today, it aims at protecting the people whose elected leaders are qualified as dictators . France is not the only ancient colonial power to act in this way. Turkey quickly followed on. The Ottoman Empire Three months after the attempted assassination and aborted coup detat of July 2016, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave his inaugural speech from the university which bears his name (RTEU). He delivered a list of the ambitions of the Turkish Republic since its creation and those of his new regime [3]. Making an explicit reference to the National Oath (Misak- Milli) [4], which was adopted by the Ottoman Parliament on 12 February 1920, he justified his irredentism. This Oath, which was the foundation of the passage of the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic, lays claim to the territory in the North-East of Greece (Western Thrace and the Dodecanese) [5], all of Cyprus, the North of Syria (including Idlib, Aleppo and Al-Hasakah), and the North of Iraq (including Mosul). Currently, the Empire in re-formation already occupies the North of Cyprus (the pseudo Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ), the North-West of Syria, and a small part of Iraq. For all these areas, where the Turkish language and currency apply, prefects ( wali ) have been nominated, and their offices are situated in the White Palace of Ankara. The Ottoman Empire is founded on the ignorance of its subjects. It has closed schools in the Arab world. The British Empire As for the United Kingdom, it has been hesitating for two years about its future after the Brexit. A little after the arrival of Donald Trump at the White House, Prime Minister Theresa May went to the United States. Speaking to the representatives of the Republican Party, she proposed re-establishing the Anglo-Saxon leadership of the rest of the world [6]. But President Trump has been elected to liquidate these imperial dreams, not to share them. Disappointed, Theresa May then travelled to China in order to propose that President Xi Jinping share control of international exchanges. The City, she said, was ready to ensure the convertibility of Western currencies into Yuan [7]. But President Xi had not been elected to do business with an heiress of the power which had dismantled his country and imposed on the Chinese their opium war. Theresa May tried a third version with the Commonwealth [8]. Some of the ex-colonies of the Crown, like India, are today enjoying powerful growth and could become precious commercial partners. Symbolically, the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Charles, was raised to the Presidency of this association. Mrs. May announced that we are on our way to a Global Britain. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph on 30 December 2018, the British Minister for Defence, Gavin Williamson, published his analysis of the situation. Since the fiasco of the Suez Canal in 1956, the United Kingdom has implemented a policy of decolonisation, and has withdrawn its troops from the rest of the world. Today, it conserves permanent military bases only in Gibraltar, Cyprus, Diego Garcia and the Falklands , to give these islands their imperial title. For the last 63 years, London has been oriented towards the European Union, invented by Winston Churchill, but to which, initially, he never imagined that England would belong. The Brexit tears this policy to shreds . From now on, the United Kingdom is back as a global power . London is planning to open two permanent military bases. The first will probably be in Asia (Singapore or Brunei), and the second in Latin America - most likely in Guyana, in order to participate in the new stage of the Rumsfeld-Cebrowski strategy of the destruction of those regions of the world which are not connected to globalisation. After the African Great Lakes , the Greater Middle East , its time for the Caribbean Basin . The war will probably start with an invasion of Venezuela by Colombia (pro-US), Brazil (pro-Israeli) and Guyana (pro-British). Taking no notice of the smooth speechifying of the French, the English built an empire with the collaboration of multinational companies in the service of which it placed its army. They divided the world into two parts, which may be summed up as follows - the sovereign was the King of England (and therefore submitted to political tradition over here ) and the Emperor of India (in other words subjected to the private East India Company and unlimited autocrat over there). Decolonisation was a corollary of the Cold War. It was forced on the States of Western Europe by the duopoly of the USA and the USSR. This held during the time of the unipolar world, but now meets no obstacles since the US withdrawal from the Greater Middle East . It is difficult to anticipate what form this future colonisation will take. Long ago, it was made possible by the huge differences in the level of education. But today ? CONGRATULATIONS TO ABHS CLASS OF 2021: With a class of 447 graduates, Anchor Bay High had three graduation ceremonies, with two on June 5 and one on June 12. The top 10 in the class are Meghan Elizabeth Kunkle, Giana Marie Maniaci, Alaina Kiehl, Jonathan Taylor, Emily Appleton, Lauren Zidzik Saint Petersburg, FL, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Apotheca Biosciences (OTC PINK: PCFP), a developer of cutting-edge medical products, nutraceuticals, drug formulations and cannabis delivery technologies for the health care and consumer care industry, is pleased to announce information pertaining to our pharma-grade new isolate and full-spectrum CBD product line called ProMED. The success behind ProMED is the strategic partnerships that have been formed by Apotheca Biosciences for the past 4 years dating back to 2014 when the very first farm bill was passed. Apotheca Biosciences has been on the cutting edge of formulations and strategic partnerships, dedicated to the very best products and formulations that give the consumer of our product piece of mind that they are getting the very best CBD products on todays market. One of our strongest strategic partnerships is with the great state of Kentucky and The Kentucky Department of Agriculture (KDA). Every single plant is extracted under the strict guidelines of the (KDA) Industrial Hemp Pilot Program. Every step from seed to sale is accounted for and documented. We utilize a CO2 extraction that allows us to draw the CBD from the plant material and filter out unnatural substances, maximizing pure CBD concentration with 0% THC. In addition, we will go a step further and place QR codes on every single product to provide a (COA) Certificate of Analysis on the spot to any customer! In addition every single product will be laser etched with a batch number that will match the (COA). ProMED CBD will always provide a superior product by making sure we are the leader in transparency. ProMED CBD product line will consist of the very highest grade of pure CBD rich products such as tinctures, which come in isolate and full spectrum. ProMED is also launching a full line of pain creams. All pain creams will come in a 3.4oz air pump dispenser, for exact dosing control. In addition to providing exact dosage we will also offer our Pain Creams in isolate and full spectrum, once again giving the consumer a complete lineup of CBD products. In addition to creams and tinctures, ProMED is adding CBD Soft Gels to our product lineup. Our soft gels are medical grade and will come in isolate and full spectrum. ProMED will offer this in 25mg and 50mg soft gels for severe symptoms. Sleep Aid and Pain Relief ProMED is very proud of our special formulated CBD sleeping Aid. This product is generating a lot of excitement and truly provides the best relaxing sleep to consumers. This will come out in dry tab form and will contain 25mg of CBD along with other proprietary ingredients. We have saved our most exciting products for last as ProMED CBD is an industry leader and we intend to prove this with our newly FDA registered OTC Sport Pain Cream and OTC Pain Balm. The FDA has put new pathways for registering products for approval and ProMED CBD is taking advantage of all these pathways with one of the very first approvals through the FDA for CBD products. ProMED has decided to offer its FDA approved pain cream in a 3.4oz air pump dispenser to promote exact dosage consumption by consumer. In addition ProMED will offer the FDA approved OTC Sport Pain Cream with higher amounts of CBD starting at 500mg in the air pump dispenser. This medical formulated cream will provide instant relief to not only athletes, but also to consumers with severe pain. While ProMED was in the design and development stage of our FDA approved 500mg CBD Sport Pain Cream we also decided to listen to what the consumer wants and will begin the process of registering our brand-new OTC Pain Balm with the FDA. Exciting Future Products ProMED CBD is diligently working on many exciting new products that will be launching this year. Our new water-soluble products with our new nanotechnology will deliver pure CBD to any beverage such as coffee, beer, wine, soda or any liquid! Water soluble products will launch second quarter this year which will include energy drinks, chill drinks, coffee and Soda infused CBD. ProMED CBD is also launching a CBD Pet line of CBD pet treats for all pets, not just dogs! Our pet line is being developed now and should launch mid-year 2019. Some of our most exciting news is pertaining to our cosmetics line which will consist of CBD anti-aging creams, CBD Coffee in K Cups, CBD Shampoo and conditioners which are sulfate free and many more products! Apotheca Biosciences is at the forefront of medical technologies with the development of a CBD pain patch for the healthcare and consumer care industry. This acquisition will provide knowledge and expertise to the development of this CBD product, along with our other products. Our pipeline of products includes transdermal, sublingual, and nasal delivery technologies for precise and controlled dosing of cannabinoids. Apotheca Biosciences is a pioneering biotech company with an emphasis in research and development in addition to the creation of high-grade nutraceuticals and cosmetics. The health of our customers takes precedence and our solid business strategy ensures focus on customer well-being. Our goal is to lay the groundwork and continue research of cannabinoid receptiveness in patients and create nutraceuticals that reflects our strategy and research. For more information on Apotheca Biosciences, please visit www.apothecabiosciences.com About Apotheca Biosciences Inc. Apotheca Biosciences, a biopharmaceutical company, through its divisions, engages in 1) the discovery, development, and commercialization of therapies for the treatment of opioid addiction, sleep disorder, PTSD. Alzheimer's and inflammatory diseases worldwide, 2) develops and manufactures medical devices for precise dosing, and 3) direct to business and consumer CBD enhanced supplements, formulations and cosmetics. The pipeline of products includes, transdermal, sublingual, digestive technologies and medical devices for precise and controlled dosing of cannabinoids. Products such as CannaDERME, a transdermal technology using nano-emulsion for fast absorption of cannabinoid compounds for the general pain market. To request further information about Apotheca, please email info@apothecabio.com, or visit its website at http://www.apothecabiosciences.com/, or visit it on FB @apotheca and Twitter @apotheca Forward-Looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements covered within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements relate to, among other things, plans and timing for the introduction or enhancement of our services and products, statements about future market conditions, supply and demand conditions, and other expectations, intentions and plans contained in this press release that are not historical fact and involve risks and uncertainties. Our expectations regarding future revenues depend upon our ability to develop and supply products and services that we may not produce today and that meet defined specifications. When used in this press release, the words "plan," "expect," "believe," and similar expressions generally identify forward-looking statements. These statements reflect our current expectations. They are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, changes in technology and changes in pervasive markets. This release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 27E of the Securities Act of 1934. Statements contained in this release that are not historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain. Actual performance and results may differ materially from that projected or suggested herein due to certain risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, ability to obtain financing and regulatory and shareholder approval for anticipated actions. The longer the shutdown lasts, the longer this district will feel its lasting negative economic effects, Williams said. When he had a chance to vote to reopen the government, he didnt even show up to vote to consider the bill, and once the bill was on the floor of the House for a vote, he voted against it. There is always a significant focus on economic development and several projects are anticipated this year, Swartzwelder said. Currently, a large solar project Walnut Farms has filed an application and plan for review. We have also received an application from Tuckers Recreation Park for a significant expansion for recreation vehicle camping and supporting infrastructure. This is a celebration of the 400th anniversary of several key historic events, and they include the first representative legislative assembly in the New World, the first reported Africans to arrive, the first English women to arrive, the first official English thanksgiving in North America and the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit of the Virginia colony, he said. A voicemail for the spokesman of the Department of Justice was full. Criminal cases are expected to continue despite the partial government shutdown, according to the Department of Justice contingency plan. Its unclear whether or not the spokesman has been furloughed because of the shutdown. SEATTLE, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Biome Grow Inc. (CSE: BIO) began trading on the OTCQB on January 2, 2019 with the ticker symbol BIOIF. While the company was already listed on the OTC Pink exchange, the move to the OTCQB exchange could significantly expand its presence in the U.S. capital markets. The OTCQB introduces more stringent reporting standards and is generally trusted by more individual and institutional investors. We are excited to upgrade Biomes U.S. listing to the OTCQB Venture Market, said CEO Khurram Malik in the press release announcing the upgrade in listing from the OTC Pink exchange. This is an important step and milestone for the company as it aims to increase its presence among American retail and institutional investors. This move will provide investors with additional liquidity and increased trading capacity. Prior to the uplisting, the company also secured The Deposit Trust Company (DTC) eligibility in the United States. The DTC is a necessary prerequisite for the electronic settlement of common shares of stock in the United Stateswithout it, investors have a hard time efficiently buying and selling shares. With both of these in place, the company has made its stock available to any U.S. investors looking for exposure to the space. Expanding Investor Access Theres little doubt that cannabis stocks have been growing in popularity. While there have been peaks and valleys, Google Trends shows that the term cannabis stocks has been trending higher over the past two years across the United States. The two biggest spikes occurred when California legalized recreational cannabis in January 2018 and when Canada legalized recreational cannabis in October 2018. Canada has become the undisputed leader in the global cannabis industry thanks to its robust federal regulatory environment. In fact, many companies with operations in the United States have opted to list on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) before any of the U.S. exchanges. These trends have made it difficult for some U.S. investors to purchase the cannabis stocks without buying stock on a foreign exchange . The good news is that these trends are starting to change. The OTC Markets exchanges have become a popular place for Canadian companies to dual-list their stock, particularly on the OTCQB and OTCQX exchanges. While many companies have OTC Pink listings, the lack of liquidity and reporting standards are a no-go for many U.S. investors trying to build portfoliosand particularly, institutional investors that are held to higher standards. Looking Ahead Biome Grow Inc. (CSE: BIO) (OTCQB: BIOIF) is well positioned within the Canadian cannabis markets. With its new U.S. OTCQB listing, the company could reach a greater number of U.S. investors looking to invest in Canadas nascent industry without buying stock on foreign exchanges. Investors may want to keep an eye on these trends as the uplisting could open the door to greater liquidity over time. The move also marks another step on the companys journey to become a leading cannabis conglomerate in Canada. With a diverse portfolio of operating businesses, the company provides investors with exposure to multiple parts of the industry, including high-end brands that are well positioned as the country moves into the recreational market. For more information, visit the companys website at www.biomegrow.com Disclaimer The above article is sponsored content. Emerging Growth LLC, which owns CannabisFN.com and CFN Media, has been hired to create awareness. Please follow the link below to view our full disclosure outlining our compensation: http://www.cannabisfn.com/legal-disclaimer Please follow this link to read the full article: https://www.cannabisfn.com/biome-opens-the-to-u-s-investors/ About CFN Media CFN Media (CannabisFN) is the leading agency and financial media network dedicated to the global cannabis industry, helps companies operating in the space attract investors, capital, and publicity. 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Please follow the link below to view our full disclosure outlining our compensation: http://www.cannabisfn.com/legal-disclaimer/ Frank Lane 206-369-7050 flane@cannabisfn.com W-JCC has 12 days built into the school calendar in the event of inclement weather; five school days have been canceled so far this school year. The first two were a result of Hurricane Florence in September, the third in October as a result of Hurricane Michael, and two in December after the heavy snow. W-JCC has made up for some of that missed time by shifting two half-days into full days, including Jan. 24 next week. Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, said the General Assembly has done a commendable job retrofitting meeting rooms to allow for the recording and streaming of committee meetings. But the work of ProgressVA to give citizens insight into subcommittee meetings has been vital to the cause of transparency in the state government, Rhyne added. "He failed to consider several important aspects of the problem; alternately ignored, cherry-picked, or badly misconstrued the evidence in the record before him; acted irrationally both in light of that evidence and his own stated decisional criteria; and failed to justify significant departures from past policies and practices," Furman wrote. Illinois Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush said Monday that he'll introduce a censure resolution over the Iowa Republican's remarks to the New York Times. The paper quoted King as asking how the terms "white supremacy" and "white nationalism" became offensive. UW Launches Center for Design Thinking UW Department of Computer Science Associate Professor Amy Banic is one of the co-directors of the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurships Center for Design Thinking, which will work with faculty, students and businesses to apply design thinking and explore possibilities. Tools such as HoloLens and virtual reality headsets, holographic displays and 3-D printed materials will allow for teaching and creating in a different way. (UW Photo) Great ideas -- from products to apps -- only go so far if they dont appeal to consumers with a desirable and functional design. Thats where the University of Wyomings new Center for Design Thinking comes in. The center will be located in the new Engineering Education and Research Building, which opens for classes this fall. The Center for Design Thinking is an important part of the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurships (IIE) efforts to boost entrepreneurship on campus and across the state. Every automobile starts off as a sculpture. Every app is a blend of visual arts and computer science. The idea is to start to bring those two communities together to get students thinking along those lines of blending the aesthetic together with the technical, says College of Engineering and Applied Science Dean Michael Pishko. Design thinking is a methodology that provides a solution-based approach to solving complex problems and creating desired outcomes that benefit the end user. It involves five stages: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. Co-directed by Department of Visual and Literary Arts Assistant Professor Brandon Gellis and Department of Computer Science Associate Professor Amy Banic, the Center for Design Thinking will work with faculty, students and businesses to apply design thinking and explore possibilities. Bringing the art and engineering people together creates an opportunity for a well-rounded and designed project that keeps the consumer in mind as a primary goal, Gellis says. Its really an interdisciplinary innovation space. The center will be a place where those from different disciplines can work and learn together. To teach design thinking, the center will offer cross-disciplinary courses, tutorials and workshops. Were focusing on a curriculum for design thinking, Banic says. Students from other backgrounds can take these courses together. It can create a skill set that will allow someone to be truly innovative and look at problems in different ways. The center will include prototyping materials, such as virtual reality technology, microcontrollers and art supplies. Those teams that are ready for the next phase of development can move on to the Student Innovation Center located in the same building. Banic and Gellis plan to create design competitions for students that will work in conjunction with the entrepreneurial and startup challenges currently in existence. They also plan to offer design-a-thons -- multiday events for students, researchers and industry leaders that will bring them together to work on innovating new solutions. In addition, the center will work with researchers to integrate design-thinking principles. Research can lead to growth in intellectual property and even additional startups and entrepreneurship efforts, Banic says. The center will serve as a hub where students, faculty, researchers and industry can all come together. Its sometimes hard for researchers to engage with industry, and industry might have a difficult time engaging with academia, Banic says. As part of the center, we want to lower those barriers. Partnering with the UW Art Museum, the center also will offer K-12 family workshops centered on design thinking. That creates this excitement and energy for kids to get more engaged in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics), Banic says. They might be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, or family members may realize its never too late to start a business or innovate. It creates that maker spirit among the families and the community. Wyomings wide-open frontiers are home to outside thinkers hungry for a challenge. They share a spirit of adventure, restless curiosity and wonder. The world needs more cowboys, and UWs IIE calls on innovators from throughout the state as it works to instill entrepreneurial thinking to empower the leaders of tomorrow. Adding needed programs and curriculum that draw together all UW colleges, business services and entrepreneurship competitions, the IIE serves as the universitys front door for the states entrepreneurs. UW Art Museums Vogel Collection to be Exhibited in Entirety for First Time Richard Franciscos Sixty-Seven and a Half Inches from the Floor is among works from the exhibition The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Wyoming. The exhibition will be on view at the University of Wyoming Art Museum Feb. 9, 2019-March 21, 2020. (UW Art Museum) For the first time, the University of Wyoming Art Museums collection of works from the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel national gift program, Fifty Works for Fifty States, will be exhibited in its entirety from Feb. 9, 2019-March 21, 2020. The exhibition is titled The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Wyoming. In 2008, with the help of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Vogels launched the national gift program, Fifty Works for Fifty States, which distributed 2,500 works from the Vogels collection throughout the nation, with 50 works going to a selected institution in each of the 50 states. The UW Art Museum was selected as the Wyoming designee, and the exhibition celebrates this extraordinary gift to Wyoming. The works included in the UW Art Museums collection are representations of the Vogels interest in minimalist, conceptualist and post-1960s art. This is the first time this collection has been shown in its entirety at the UW Art Museum; a selection was exhibited in 2011. Public film screenings of two documentaries about the Vogels and their collection are planned in conjunction with the exhibition. The first screening is Herb & Dorothy Thursday, Feb. 28, from 6-8 p.m. A second film, Herb & Dorothy 50x50, will be screened later this year. Screenings are free and open to the public. The Vogels are wonderful examples of the impact art lovers can make in building a collection, even on a limited budget, says Marianne Eileen Wardle, director of the UW Art Museum. Were lucky to have these exciting works here. It will be wonderful to have them on view for so long, and I hope that people will return again and again. Maybe visitors can take inspiration from the Vogels and start collecting for themselves. The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States is a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the National Gallery of Art, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. For more information, call the UW Art Museum at (307) 766-6622, visit the website at www.uwyo.edu/artmuseum, or follow the museum on Facebook and Instagram. Through its Museum as Classroom approach, the UW Art Museum places art at the center of learning for all ages. Located in the Centennial Complex at 2111 E. Willett Drive in Laramie, the museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday hours are extended to 7 p.m. Admission is free. About the Vogel Collection Beginning in 1962, Dorothy and Herbert Vogel used their modest income as a postal clerk and librarian to amass a vast and uniquely perceptive collection encompassing over 4,000 works of contemporary art. The Vogels befriended many young artists -- several at the beginning of their careers -- and often purchased works on paper in order to store them more easily in their small apartment. The strengths of the collection include minimal and conceptual art, especially drawings, but also moves beyond those categories to highlight post-1960s developments in art. (Jan. 14, 2019) -- As the UTSA family returns today for the start of spring semester classes, evidence of the 50th anniversary celebration will surround them online and off. Today marks the official reveal of a new 50th anniversary website and the special 50th anniversary issue of Sombrilla Magazine. The universitys Main and Downtown Campuses are also draped in new signage heralding the way for a special celebration. For months a 50th anniversary committee of more than 30 faculty, staff and students from across the university, chaired by Marjie French, UTSA vice president for external relations and chief development officer, has worked to prepare for the yearlong celebration. Special 50th anniversary celebrations will take place at UTSAs signature events throughout 2019 in addition to a unique birthday celebration on June 5, 2019, and a special alumni gala in September. At the same time, the UTSA Office of University Communications and Marketing, a team of 25 professionals in storytelling, digital media, design, advertising, photography, videography, social media and media relations, has been working with the UTSA Libraries and others across campus to piece together the universitys history and develop resources for the community-wide celebration. Their work, which represents thousands of hours over six weeks, including more than 200 hours in the University Archives, is culminated in discoveries, historic photos and videos, a timeline, memories, personal stories and a commemorative magazine on the UTSA 50 website. The history of UTSA is so much richer than most people realize, said Joe Izbrand, UTSA associate vice president for communications and marketing and chief communications officer. There are a few storylines that have been told over and over again, but theyre really just the tip of the iceberg. From our teams viewpoint as storytellers, its quite surprising that in the short 50-year span of the university so much interesting history threads through the UTSA story. When the community begins to explore the rich timeline we have produced, we believe they will be equally surprised. Sombrilla Magazine editor Michael Edwards added, Over the past few months Ive learned that history is a series of breadcrumbs. Because UTSA is so young, a lot of its past hasnt been viewed in a broad, historical context. When the UCM team got to work, it began to look at individual moments and artifacts. For example, a misidentified item in the University Archives (the ceramic U-T-S-A letters in The Story of UTSA in 50 Objects) took on added dimension when UCM found a photograph that tied the letters to their actual place and time. Then a newspaper article serendipitously added more to the story. And ultimately, everything took the team downtown to Hemisfair Park to the building where the first UTSA president set up his office. They even found the holes on the building where the letters had once been screwed into place. It was a pretty exciting moment to pull all of that together and have the history become tangible, said Edwards. While in the archives, UCM learned that it truly was a group of remarkable people who had a dream about creating a public university in San Antonio back in the 1960s. Those leaders stayed focused and driven in their effort. Without them, the idea, which had been floated for more than a decade, would have continued to get reworked, watered down and ultimately again and again fall flat, said Edwards. Izbrand added, You see that theme of individuals with focused determination resurface throughout UTSAs history and in the legacy of its senior leadership. The history tells us that UTSA would not have made such enormous strides in such a short time without the laser-focused vision of its presidents. Throughout 2019, UTSAs 50th anniversary website will be updated with fresh pieces of history. 'Runners and their friends are encouraged to regularly visit the website to view new timeline additions, meet other Roadrunners, learn about upcoming anniversary celebrations and watch historical videos. UTSA students, faculty, staff and alumni are also encouraged to contribute to UTSAs history by sending their stories, their photos and snaps of their memorabilia to 50years@utsa.edu and by sharing them on social media using the hashtag #UTSA50. A single story from one member of the UTSA community might not seem significant but when put together with a series of stories studied holistically, the universitys history comes to life and its impressive, said French. As UTSA draws closer to its official birthday on June 5, 2019, a number of special celebrations are planned. Check the 50th anniversary events calendar for more information. Experience survival horror like never before in the 8th major installment in the Resident Evil franchise - Resident Evil Village. With detailed graphics, intense first-person action, and masterful storytelling, the terror has never felt more realistic. CALGARY, Alberta, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vogogo Inc. (CSE: VGO) (Vogogo or the Company) announces today that effective January 14, 2019, MNP LLP (MNP) has tendered its resignation and Dale Matheson Carr-Hilton Labonte LLP has been appointed as the successor auditor of the Company. Vogogo made this change as a result of a change in industry focus by MNP. In accordance with National Instrument 51-102 Continuous Disclosure Obligations (NI 51-102), the Company has filed a Notice of Change of Auditor. To the Companys knowledge, there were no reportable events as such term is defined in NI 51-102 between the Company and MNP. About Vogogo Inc. Vogogo currently operates its cryptocurrency mining activities in Quebec. This includes mining for cryptocurrencies for its own account and within mining pools. As it continues to embrace blockchain technology, Vogogo is exploring opportunities in all aspects of the cryptocurrency segment. For further information please contact: Jordan Greenberg Chief Financial Officer (647) 715-3707 The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the content of this news release. Register for a FREE account to keep reading! Register now for a FREE account to keep reading. No cost and no credit card required! Access up to 5 articles per month when you register, or get unlimited access to all of our content online starting at $1.99 now! Already registered? Click the log in link below Catapult grand finale The students final project for the first semester is a catapult unit, one of the things students said they most wanted to do in the class when they were surveyed last year. They each will create catapults using craft sticks, rubber bands and a spoon to launch a marshmallow onto a target, going through the engineering design process to test, tweak and retest their designs. The unit will commence with a grand tournament, with the students unleashing their catapults. They are having great discussions about what changes will change different variables (forces, directions, height, distance, RCI fifth-grade STEAM teacher Michelle Minter said in an email to the Observer. Welcome Guest! You are here: Home Education & Career Turkey Scholarship Program 2019 applications open for foreign students Applications for the 2019 Turkey Scholarships can be submitted from January 15 to February 20 Ankara: International students across the globe can apply for the annually-awarded Turkey Scholarships starting Tuesday till Feb. 20. According to the Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB), foreign students who want to study at prestigious universities in Turkey may apply online. With international opportunities available and thorough experience in the field of education, Turkey awards scholarships to international students every year, Anadolu Agency reported. Given to the most qualified students, Turkey Scholarships are financed by the Turkish government. The scholarship aims to cement cooperation between countries and promote a mutual understanding between people. Applications for the 2019 Turkey Scholarships can be submitted from Jan. 15 to Feb. 20 and are available for all international students across the world. The applications can only be made through "www.turkiyeburslari.gov.tr". International candidates should submit their required information or documents through the application system on this website. The application is free of charge. Scholarship applications made by regular mail, courier or by hand will not be accepted. The students will also be able to track the status of their applications on the website. The candidates wanting to pursue their undergraduate, post graduate and doctorate educations in Turkish universities are eligible to apply for this program, according to Anadolu Agency. In 2018, some 135,000 students applied for the Turkey Scholarships. There are a total of 17,500 scholarship students from 160 countries in Turkey who currently benefit from this program. Turkey launched this program in 1992 and YTB has been coordinating it since 2012. Every year, Turkey awards this scholarship to an average of 7,000 students. After the application process, students are invited to interview in nearly 100 locations worldwide. Candidates who are successful in their interviews, which are conducted by scholars and YTB experts, come to Turkey and take Turkish classes in their first year. Afterwards, they are placed at universities in the direction of their preferences. The Turkey Scholarships include accommodation, food and monthly pocket money, as well as insurance plus flights to Turkey and back home. For all the latest News, Opinions and Views, download ummid.com App . Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. ON THE MOVE: Citadel Securities Names Culek COO; Cowen Adds Trio Citadel Securities has appointed Matt Culek to chief operating officer after over six years at the market maker. Based in Chicago, Culek will serve as COO as of December 2018. He assumes a title left vacant after former COO Scott Johnston became chief administrative officer at Citadel (hedge fund) business, in June last year. Culek joined Citadel Securities in 2012 and served as COO of Citadel Execution Services for four years before taking on the same role for the equities and options business for five months until May 2017. Daniel Sanders, one of BofA's most senior equities professionals in London, has moved. Sanders, who was co-head of equities trading for EMEA, moved to New York in October 2018. His move was not reported at the time. In his new role, Sanders is understood to be heading execution services trading for the Americas region. BAML insiders say Sanders was one of the longest serving equities professionals at the bank in London. He joined Merrill Lynch in 2001 - just six years after the bank bought Smith New Court, the UK's largest independent stock broker, and had been in a senior equities trading role since at least 2012. If you have a new job or promotion to report, let me know at jdantona@marketsmedia.com The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Jeffrey Mooney has been named Associate Director of the Office of Clearance and Settlement in the agencys Division of Trading and Markets. Mooney joined the SEC staff in 1996 and has served in a variety of roles, most recently as Assistant Director for the Office of Clearance and Settlement. He also served as a Senior Special Counsel in the division from 2000 to 2009. Also at the regulator, Daniel Kahl has been named Deputy Director of the agencys Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE). Kahl has been with the SEC for over 17 years, serving as OCIEs Chief Counsel since February 2016. He will continue to serve as Chief Counsel while also assuming this additional leadership role in OCIE. As a Deputy Director, he will be based in Washington, D.C. Kahl joined the SEC in April 2001, most recently serving as OCIEs Chief Counsel, where he advised leadership on legal, strategic, and policy matters regarding the agencys National Exam Program. Before joining OCIE, Mr. Kahl led the Division of Investment Managements Office of Investment Adviser Regulation. Earlier, Mr. Kahl was an attorney at the Investment Adviser Association, FINRA, and the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA). 1 2 3 next For more information on related topics, visit the following channels: The Arabian Business Community (ABC), a leading Bahrain-based business portal, has generated a record 5 million business referrals to companies in 2018. The ABC, which has 14 databases covering the entire GCC region, generated 1,689,449 potential business leads on the Bahrain portal alone during 2018. The Bahrain portal, has established itself as the go-to resource for company and contact information in the kingdom by providing the most comprehensive search parameters for individuals looking for companies across any one of 160 business categories, said a statement from Bahrain-based Al Hilal Group. The 2018 figures represent a 19 per cent increase in business referrals on 2017, it stated. "ABC Bahrain attracts over 1,100 unique users generating almost 5,000 business referrals each day to the thousands of companies listed on our Bahrain database. These referrals are potential targeted business leads as our visitors are searching for companies offering dedicated products and services across specific business areas ranging from Consumer and Commercial to Construction, Industry and Oil & Gas sectors, said Kamal Al Yousif, the commercial manager for Al Hilal Group. According to Al Yousif, the enquiries on the ABC Bahrain database reflect current market trends as searches in various categories indicate market trends. "The year 2018 has seen a significant increase in the number of searches for accountants and auditors as the country prepared itself for VAT. Conversely there has been a slowdown in the number of individuals searching for cars, auto parts and services reflecting perhaps more challenging year for those sectors," remarked Al Yousif. "Searches for companies in the construction sector have shown an increase with more individuals searching for companies dealing in aluminum, ceramics, bricks and blocks and building materials than in 2017," he stated. ABCs ranking in the minds of visitors is reflected on Google. ABC Bahrain appears on page 1 of most google searches for individual companies in Bahrain. "A companys profile on ABC complements their own website and, in many cases, ranks higher than their own social media platforms," observed Al Yousif. This is a clear indication that ABC is driving more traffic to a companys ABC profile page than their own social media, he added.-TradeArabia News Service WINNEMUCCA, Nev., Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Paramount Gold Nevada Corp. (NYSE American: PZG) ("Paramount or the Company) announced today that the permitting process for its proposed Grassy Mountain Gold Mine continues to progress on schedule with the States Technical Review Team (TRT) having reviewed and accepted two additional baseline reports. Paramount CEO, Glen van Treek commented: The continuing acceptance of our baseline reports is extremely encouraging as we continue building on our momentum to get the proposed Grassy Mountain mine permitted with all regulatory authorities, Federal, State and County. We are on track to achieve our next permitting milestone with the filing of the Conditional Use Permit ('CUP') with the Malheur County Planning Department within days. The TRT has reviewed and accepted the Geology and Soils Baseline Data Report (BDR) as complete. This report characterizes the baseline conditions for a wide array of geologic factors which will be used in applications ranging from construction through to reclamation. The Aquatic Resources BDR was also reviewed and accepted by the TRT which includes representatives of several State regulatory agencies: the Department of Fish and Wildlife; the Department of Environmental Quality; the Department of State Lands; and the DOGAMI. The Aquatics Resources BDR characterizes aquatic resources in the study area prior to the start of proposed mining operations. A summary of all baseline data reports to date for the Grassy Mountain gold project are as follows: 16 of the 23 baseline reports have been reviewed and accepted by the TRT; 2 additional reports have been submitted with acceptance by the TRT pending; 2 reports are being updated at the request of the TRT and will be resubmitted; 2 reports are currently being completed by Paramount, with submission to the TRT to follow; and The Mined Land Reclamation BDR, the final report, will be filed as part of the Consolidated Permit Application. These baseline reports are critical components of the Consolidated Permit Application which Paramount expects to file with DOGAMI later this year. The Bureau of Land Management also requires the baseline data reports for its Environmental Impact Statement. To stay informed of future press releases, subscribe to our E-Alerts Program and to learn more about our projects visit the projects section of our website . About Paramount Gold Nevada Corp. Paramount Gold Nevada is a U.S. based precious metals exploration and development company. Paramounts strategy is to create shareholder value through exploring and developing its mineral properties and to realize this value for its shareholders in three ways: by selling its assets to established producers; entering into joint ventures with producers for construction and operation; or constructing and operating mines for its own account. Paramount owns 100% of the Grassy Mountain Gold Project which consists of approximately 11,000 acres located on private and BLM land in Malheur County, Oregon. The Grassy Mountain Gold Project contains a gold-silver deposit (100% located on private land) for which results of a positive PFS have been released and key permitting milestones accomplished (see press release dated May 24, 2018). Additionally, Paramount owns a 100% interest in the Sleeper Gold Project located in Northern Nevada. The Sleeper Gold Project, which includes the former producing Sleeper mine, totals 2,322 unpatented mining claims (approximately 60 square miles or 15,500 hectares). Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking Statements This release and related documents may include "forward-looking statements" and forward-looking information (collectively, forward-looking statements) pursuant to applicable United States and Canadian securities laws. Paramounts future expectations, beliefs, goals, plans or prospects constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other applicable securities laws. Words such as "believes," "plans," "anticipates," "expects," "estimates" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although these words may not be present in all forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements included in this news release include, without limitation, statements with respect to: production estimates and assumptions, including production rate and grade per tonne; revenue, cash flow and cost estimates and assumptions; statements with respect to future events or future performance; anticipated exploration, development, permitting and other activities on the Grassy Mountain project; the economics of the Grassy Mountain project, including the potential for improving project economics and finding more ore to extend mine life; and mineral reserve and mineral resource estimates. Forward-looking statements are based on the reasonable assumptions, estimates, analyses and opinions of management made in light of its experience and its perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances at the date that such statements are made, but which may prove to be incorrect. Management believes that the assumptions and expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things: the conclusions made in the PFS; the quantity and grade of resources included in resource estimates; the accuracy and achievability of projections included in the PFS; Paramounts ability to carry on exploration and development activities, including construction; the timely receipt of required approvals and permits; the price of silver, gold and other metals; prices for key mining supplies, including labor costs and consumables, remaining consistent with current expectations; work meeting expectations and being consistent with estimates and plant, equipment and processes operating as anticipated. There are a number of important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to: uncertainties involving interpretation of drilling results; environmental matters; the ability to obtain required permitting; equipment breakdown or disruptions; additional financing requirements; the completion of a definitive feasibility study for the Grassy Mountain project; discrepancies between actual and estimated mineral reserves and mineral resources, between actual and estimated development and operating costs and between estimated and actual production; and the other factors described in Paramounts disclosures as filed with the SEC and the Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta Securities Commissions. Except as required by applicable law, Paramount disclaims any intention or obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this document. Paramount Gold Nevada Corp. Glen Van Treek, President, CEO and Director Christos Theodossiou, Director of Corporate Communications 866-481-2233 Twitter: @ParamountNV Antonio Sanabria (22 ans) aurait ete propose a lOM, qui etudie son dossier. Selon France Football, lattaquant du Betis Seville a ete suggere au club phoceen pour renforcer son secteur offensif. Peu en reussite cette saison (14 apparitions, dont 7 titularisation, pour 2 buts), lattaquant paraguayen avait inscrit 8 buts en 17 rencontres de Liga, la saison passee. Il pourrait etre lobjet dun pret avec option dachat. Triple murder trial underway after more than three years of delays MELBOURNE, Fla., Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dermatology + Plastic Surgery is on the forefront of anti-aging aesthetic care by combining two board certified physicians and two innovative techniques Y-Lift and Renuvion by J-Plasma. The unique synergy of these treatments offers superior results for men and women who want to look their best without extensive surgery, scarring and downtime. Performed by dermatologist Dr. Anita Saluja, the Y-Lift technique is an alternative to dermal fillers or a liquid facelift. The Y-Lift focuses on two key support structures of the face the cheekbone and the jawline and restores volume to naturally lift the skin. Dr. Saluja uses dermal Juvederm fillers to carefully sculpt these areas of the face in a 45 minute procedure. Y-Lift results last one to three years. In addition to lifting and sculpting the face with the Y-Lift technique, Dr. Novo addresses loose skin in the neck area and aging facial skin with the Renuvion by J-Plasma treatment. The procedure uses a combination of radiofrequency energy and cold helium plasma to gently heat tissues for combined skin tightening and resurfacing benefits. Jowls and wrinkles are also greatly diminished. Dr. Anita Saluja and Dr. Rebecca Novo are two female specialty physicians who focus on helping their patients create their Best Self by combining their expertise through treatments at their practice, Dermatology + Plastic Surgery in Melbourne, Florida. Dr. Saluja is a board-certified Dermatologist and top 1% nationally recognized injector who specializes in preventative and aesthetic skin issues. Dr. Novo is a Plastic Surgeon with extensive training in aesthetic procedures of the face, breasts, and body. Anti-aging is one of the most common reasons that men and women seek the skill, experience, and philosophy of Dr. Saluja and Dr. Novo. People are now seeking procedures that are less invasive, require minimal downtime and produce natural results. For more information or to schedule an interview, contact Dermatology + Plastic Surgery today at 321.241.1160. About Dermatology + Plastic Surgery Led by Dermatologist Anita Saluja, MD, and Plastic Surgeon Rebecca Novo, MD, Dermatology + Plastic Surgery is a modern synergistic practice that provides advanced, personalized cosmetic dermatology and plastic surgery treatments to produce natural results that make you look and feel your best self! The office is located at 6559 North Wickham Road, Suite C-105 in Melbourne, Florida. CONTACTS: Dr. Anita Saluja | Dr. Rebecca Novo (321) 241-1160 A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/735d5248-c3e2-4a8a-b7c6-c7d86e4b8fe0 MBABANE Turmoil lurks for head teachers and parents come next week Tuesday when schools open for the first term. This is because many pupils in public schools will find themselves without stationery. The pounding headache for head teachers, parents and the pupils alike, will emanate from the fact that stationery suppliers have put their foot down and relayed that they would not be rendering their services to public schools, as a majority of the learning institutions were in arrears. According to the chairperson of Eswatini Stationery and Book Trade Association, Hezekiel Mabuza, a vast number of schools were in arrears with many of their members. He said the outstanding balance by some schools were from the past academic year. Mabuza was quick to also highlight that not all schools were having trouble settling their balance with the stationery providers. The entrepreneur said most of the schools that stood to go haywire when the academic calendar commences next week, were those located in rural areas. He said: Schools in the rural areas have a low intake and when they get the grants, they fail to settle our outstanding balances. Most complain that they are heavily indebted. This, Mabuza said, was a trend with schools that solely depended on government for their revenue. Mabuza said most of the challenges for stationery suppliers were from primary schools, as they were the ones depending mostly on government for the free primary education (FPE) grants. Currently, government pays about E560 per pupil enrolled under the FPE programme. A pupil in the lower Grades (Grade I III) studies about seven subjects. Per subject, each pupil needs a class work exercise book and a test exercise book. This tallies to about 14 exercise books and seven books per pupil, while between Grades IV VII, the number of stationery required triples as the scholars will require an exercise book for taking notes, class work and tests. The country has about 652 primary schools and about 240 000 pupils are said to be enrolled under the FPE programme. Meanwhile, the challenges faced by schools stationery suppliers were further confirmed by a stationery and book supplier located in Manzini. The businessman acknowledged that there were schools that owed his entity. The entrepreneur said the amount owed to his stationery shop was around E300 000. Imagine if someone owes you this amount for the whole year while you also have to pay rent, suppliers and remunerate staff; it just sends you under (sic), the businessman said. He further said while they had these bills that were outstanding, they also had to pay tax to Eswatini Revenue Authority (SRA) despite that they did not get the money immediately. This, the businessman said, was quite frustrating such that they had to seek loans to have running capital. The entrepreneur further highlighted that not all schools were indebted to them. He said big schools (which are those with a high intake) were paying on time and or met their agreements of settling each bill within stipulated months. An estimated figure for stationery and books, according to the businessman, varies between E1 000 and E5 000 per pupil depending on the grade that particular pupil is enrolled in. The stance by some of the stationery suppliers comes at a time when there is a stand-off between the Ministry of Education and Training with head teachers. The ministry last week relayed to schools that there should be no additional fees paid by parents. This, according to the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Training, Dr Sibongile Mtshali, was because head teachers had failed to adhere to a procedure laid down by the ministry when seeking to charge top-up fees. MANZINI A kombi driver became a hero when he noticed a girl walking in a strange manner, only to find that she had been severely assaulted, allegedly by her stepmother. The kombi driver had the courage to approach the young girl while she alighted from the vehicle and enquired about her funny walk. It turned out that the nine-year-old girl had been subjected to severe physical assault, allegedly by her stepmother. The driver of the kombi, which was from Mafutseni to Manzini, is said to have also seen the bad marks on the childs back and noted that she walked with difficulty. She was travelling with her younger brother. The child was in so much pain and the kombi driver managed to notice that. He stopped the kombi and approached the child, and pulled up her clothing. After questioning the child, the police were contacted and they later arrested the stepmother, who had severely assaulted the child with a broomstick all over the body, a well-placed source alleged. The woman was questioned by the police and later charged with contravening the Child Protection and Welfare Act, and further locked up at the Mafutseni Police Station. It is suspected that the assault happened when the girl, together with her brother, had visited their father over the school holidays. The woman, who will not be named for now pending her court appearance, was taken to court yesterday. However, arresting officers were turned back as a Social Welfare report, which had to be part of the statements in the docket was missing. The cops were ordered to take the child to the Social Welfare offices for interviews, together with the childs father and biological mother. Upon arrival at the offices yesterday, the father of the child, Linda Mkhabela, was found seated outside while police conversed with officers from the Social Welfare department. PIGGS PEAK Civil servants have only one option in their quest for the cost-of-living-adjustments (CoLA) to accept that it will not come anytime soon. The civil servants have been demanding an increase in their cost of living but government has been offering a zero per cent increase which in laymens terms, means no increase. The Prime Minister (PM), Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini, while officially opening the Cabinet retreat at the Piggs Peak Hotel and Casino, said government did not have the means yet to meet the CoLA demand. We would like to appeal to all civil servants to bear with us on the issue of cost-of-living-adjustment (CoLA), said the PM. He also called for responsible thinking as well as logical behaviour among all those who were affected by the current financial state of affairs faced by the country. The PM said everyone had the duty to put the country first. We therefore appeal for calm and understanding, he said. programme The PM further revealed that government had put together a solid programme for the cabinet retreat. This is the first retreat for the PM and his cabinet. Dlaminis keywords for the retreat are solid economy recovery roadmap. He stated that the aim of the retreat was for the presentation and deliberations of building the economy of Eswatini, external and internal strategic interventions as well as unlocking opportunities in the financial sector and fiscal prudence. Dlamini also said in the wake of the economic downturn, the country was facing, everybody was expected to play a role in the quest for a tangible turnaround and cabinet ministries had the unavoidable duty to lead the way. He said it was not possible to get proper delivery without proper planning. The PM also noted that the unbecoming fiscal challenges would continue but that leadership was doing all it could to contain the situation. Principal Secretaries from various ministries as well as the attorney general (AG), also attended the retreat. A pastor who prayed during the official opening of the retreat likened the new cabinet to the biblical Daniel. pastor The pastor, who was identified as Mhlanga, said Daniel was a man of integrity, who feared God and was very prayerful. Interestingly, Daniel is also the same man who was thrown into a lions den but instead of the canines eating him alive, they let him be. In comparison with the 2018 retreat, which was opened by the former PM Sibusiso Dlamini, the current PM was brief. Both PMs mentioned the benefits of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) as well as collection of revenue from the Eswatini Revenue Authority (SRA). MANZINI ENHI nurses are up in arms as their colleagues who are expatriates are set to lose their jobs just for not being emaSwati. This comes after the Eswatini Nazarene Health Institution (ENHI) Principal Human Resources Officer, Stephen Dlamini, told all the expatriate nurses under the institutions that their contracts will not be renewed when they expire. According to a letter which the principal human resources officer issued to send the institutions decision to the expatriate nurses, he told them during the first week of December 2018, yet their contracts expire between the first and forth month of 2019. The letter is titled; Contract none renewal notice and it informed the expatriate nurses that the ENHI would not be able to continue to renew their employment contracts when they expired. This is due to government localisation restrictions, reads part of the letter. contacts Through the letter, the principal human resources officer emphasised that when their contacts expire, it would be their last day under ENHI employment. However, in the same letter, Dlamini commended the expatriate nurses for the loyalty they dedicated to the institution over the past years. He also wished them all the best in their future endeavours. A source close to the matter claimed that there were already three expatriate nurses whose contracts had expired and had not been renewed. concerns The insider said the nursing staff had raised their concerns with management but they had not been given clear answers. In fact, it is against labour laws which protect people against employment discrimination on the basis of their national origin, the inside source said. Again, he said the expatriate nurses were given the notice towards the end of their contracts yet they had families in the country. He said some had children who were in school and if they lost their employment, how were they going to prepare to change schools in such a short period of time as they had to go back to their home countries. Most importantly, the expatriate nurses do not have gratuity, which they could use to start a new life back home, the source added. He added that the matter was one of the burning issues they have with administration, that also prompted last weeks meetings which saw operations of Raleigh Fitkin Memorial (RFM) Hospital being affected. MANZINI Police were the called as teachers crammed the Manzini Magistrates Court and turned the appearance of their vocal SNAT GC members into a political rally. This took place yesterday morning during the brief court appearance of Njabulo Njefire Dlamini and Mcolisi Ngcamphalala, who are members of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) General Council (GC). Dlamini, who is SNAT Big Bend Brach Secretary, was charged for allegedly obstructing police officers when executing their duties. According to the charge sheet, last Friday near Lamvelase Clinic, Dlamini allegedly pushed and blocked police officers when trying to arrest Ngcamphalala. Dlamini removed Constable Nkentjanes appalettes, reads part of the charge sheet. Charges On the other hand, Ngcamphalala, who is a vice president of SNAT Big Bend Branch, was slapped with two charges. In the first count, he was charged with jaywalking. The charge sheet alleges that last Friday near Lamvelase Clinic, he was a pedestrian and allegedly conducted himself in a dangerous manner to himself and other road users. It said he allegedly did this by crossing the road without due care. Meanwhile, in the second count, Ngcamphalala was charged for allegedly resisting arrest. According to the charge sheet, he allegedly resisted a lawful arrest which was effected by Constable Nkentjane. A statement which was recorded by the police suggested that the accused person allegedly crossed the road instead of using a pedestrian crossing and further refused to take a ticket. It said this was after he was told that he was not obliged to pay admission of guilt. At a round 9am, the teachers gathered by Manzini Magistrates Courts reception and they started singing and dancing to political songs and slogans. Some of the songs they sang were directly attacking the police for arresting their leaders. armed At that time, a few police officers who were present in the court premises. However, as the noise caused by Dlamini and Ngcamphalalas supporters became intense, two police cars arrived, with armed officers on board. The officers were armed with batons. By that time, the teachers were getting ready to go inside Court III where the matters were to be heard. The teachers were silent when they walked through the court passage but when they entered Court III, they murmured the song titled; Senzeni na? Meanwhile, some female teachers cried at the top of their voices. When Magistrate Mthokozisi Dlamini, who presided over the matters, was about to enter the courtroom, the court orderlies had a hard time tryin to stop the teachers from singing. As a result, the court orderly who was escorting the magistrate had to bang the door several times so that everyone in the courtroom could be quiet. trial During their appearance, the accused persons, who were represented by Lawyer N Nxumalo, pleaded not guilty to all the counts. As a result, they were remanded out of custody until February 5, 2019 pending trial date setting. Immediately after they were remanded out of custody, their supporters murmured the song again and the female educators wept as they left the courtroom. It took them about five minutes to get out of the structure and proceedings were disturbed even in the other courts. Upon getting out of the building, they sang and danced to political songs. As they were toyi-toying along the corridor, they met a heavy police presence. However, that did not deter them from continuing with their toyi-toyi and they eventually assembled at the magistrates courts car park, where SNAT President Mbongwa Dlamini addressed them in full view of the armed police officers. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canadas innovation performance has declined in recent years and is falling further behind the U.S. and other developed countries, despite decades of costly innovation programs by successive federal governments, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank. In fact, the current federal government allocated a staggering $8.2 billion to various innovation programs in its 2017 budget to encourage venture capital investment and create innovation superclusters, among other things. Canadas relatively poor innovation performance over a rather long period of time suggests that these government-dominated, top-down programs dont work, said Steven Globerman, Fraser Institute resident scholar, professor emeritus at Western Washington University and co-author of Innovation in Canada: An Assessment of Recent Experience . The study finds that Canadas innovation performance has deteriorated recently compared to the U.S. and other developed countries. In fact, Canadas relative ranking on the Global Innovation Index and the Global Competitiveness Reporttwo key innovation indicesis the lowest it has been since 2011 and 2008, respectively. That means the innovation gap between Canada and other developed countries is growing. Crucially, innovationdeveloping new products or new ways of doing thingsis key to increasing productivity and raising living standards for all Canadians. Clearly, the bureaucratic top-down approach to fostering innovation has failed despite the many billions Canadian taxpayers have paid for these programs over the years, Globerman said. Governments should focus on creating the right economic conditions within which entrepreneurs and businesses are incented to pursue innovation on their own. MEDIA CONTACTS: Steven Globerman, Resident Scholar Fraser Institute To arrange media interviews or for more information, please contact: Bryn Weese, Senior Media Relations Specialist (604) 688-0221 ext. 589 bryn.weese@fraserinstitute.org Follow the Fraser Institute on Twitter | Like us on Facebook Saskatoon StarPhoenix Headline News Sign up to receive daily headline news from the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. Email Address There was an error, please provide a valid email address. Sign Up By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You may unsubscribe any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. Postmedia Network Inc. | 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4 | 416-383-2300 Thanks for signing up! A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Saskatoon StarPhoenix Headline News will soon be in your inbox. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again Bobby Simpson (center) of Salem was elected president of the Missouri Cattlemen's Association at the 51st Missouri Cattle Industry Convention and Trade Show held Jan. 4-6 in Columbia. All 2019 officers elected were, from left, Matt Hardecke, treasurer; Marvin Dieckman, president-elect; Bobby Simpson, president; Patty Wood, vice-president; and David Dick, secretary. Posted Tuesday, January 15, 2019 1:14 am Mathnasium of Salmon Creek center director Autumn Smith knows the feeling students get when they are stuck on a math problem. She taught pre-algebra, algebra, and geometry at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Vancouver for 12 years and saw that many of her students were lacking the fundamental skills necessary to solve math problems. Mostly fractions and multiplication tables. If you are coming into my class as a seventh or an eighth grader and you dont know your multiplication tables or fractions, doing algebra is really difficult when everything that Im teaching takes five or six more thought processes for a student to really understand, Smith said. Theres so many reasons why kids get behind in any subject, but math is one of those that just builds so much on what happened before. If you dont have those things, then youre just lost in class. This is where Mathnasium comes in. Parents drop their children off at the center for an hour and the instructors teach math in a way that makes sense to each student. Smith said there are more than 900 Mathnasiums worldwide. Hers is the first one to open in Clark County. We assess so we can find that point where they understand and dont understand so we can build an individualized learning program for each student, Smith said. We send out messages to teachers to make sure they know that their student is working with us so we can bridge that gap between school and here to make sure that what Im teaching and what my instructors are teaching is going to blend with what theyre learning at school. Parents can try out Mathnasium for free for the first week. If its a good fit for their child, they can get started on a paid membership. Prices will vary based on the number of sessions. Evan Christian, a sixth-grader at Thomas Jefferson Middle School has been coming to Mathnasium for about a month. I look forward to coming here and learning math, he said. Its helpful because you understand it a lot more. You feel good. Instructor Phong Hoang is a senior at Washington State University Vancouver. He enjoys helping students build confidence in their math solving skills. Every single time that a student comes in, I want them to learn something, of course, but I want them to walk out with some confidence in that subject. Whatever theyre learning, whatever it is, he said. Sometimes, it just clicks to them. Maybe it is my help at first, but once they get it, they just zoom through all the work, Hoang added. Its not really me; its them. Im glad that they got it. Im just there to give them a little hint. The challenge with math is not only getting the right answer but also showing each step it takes to get there. Technology today is making that easier. Smith encourages her students to use the Photomath application, which not only solves the problem but also shows all the work. If you can see the answer, if you can see the steps and practice it the correct way, then youre learning more than if you tried to do the problem and you did it the wrong way, she said. Doing 20 problems the exact same way, but incorrectly, that is driven into your brain as the way to do it. And so when you get to class the next day and the teacher is helping you correct that mistake, your brain is going No. Thats not how we learned it. Thats foreign now. Thats when frustration and low self-esteem creeps in. Students see a D or F on the top of their paper and it makes them feel like a failure. When youre struggling so hard with something and you have so much pressure to do well at it and not the tools to do it with, then you just keep on beating yourself up until theres no self-esteem left in that area, Smith said. So thats part of what we try to do here is build the confidence of the students so that they want to go into their classroom and show that they know it. Being able to be one of those people who share it builds that confidence which builds the enthusiasm which builds a love, and then you get knowledge and deeper knowledge. {{tncms-inline content="

Mathnasium of Salmon Creek

Address: 1218 NE 88th Street in Vancouver

Phone number: (360) 553-1737  

Website: salmoncreek@mathnasium.com

Business hours: Open 2:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday and Monday

" id="f155f5ef-ae0a-4a64-af7c-49f181cc38d6" style-type="fact" title="If You Go" type="relcontent"}} Posted Tuesday, January 15, 2019 12:53 am Residents of the Highgate Senior Living Center in Vancouver received a special visit from students in Karen Moses fourth-grade class at South Ridge Elementary School in Ridgefield. According to Ridgefield School District, the students wrote letters and sent photos to residents of the senior center a few weeks before the visit. During art class, they made decorative yarn Christmas trees and gift-wrapped them. The students also wrote handmade cards. On the day of the visit, the students were paired with a senior citizen. After a half hour of conversation, the students presented the gifts and performed a song they had learned for a school concert. The kids just sat and visited with them for about half an hour, Moses said in a news release. It was amazing! The kids did such a nice job conversing with them. This is all part of Moses and her students celebrating kindness in the classroom each month with an event called First Friday Friendship Fiesta. Although this is typically a classroom event, Moses said her students wanted to take these acts of kindness a step further by impacting people in the community. Visiting the senior center was a way to impact our community, Moses said. The Highgate residents were delighted by the students visit. And members of the First Friday Friendship Fiesta made its circle of friends a little wider. Posted Tuesday, January 15, 2019 1:26 am A proper start to a new year in Clark County politics should begin with the opening line of our state constitution: All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed ... Resolution number one is for our elected officials to remain mindful they work for the people. They should have our approval before they enact new policies, ordinances or laws. Resolution number two is for politicians to keep the promises they made on the campaign trail. Resolution number three is for government to live within its means. State legislators should reject Governor Jay Inslees proposed $54.4 billion two-year state operating budget that includes a new $3.7 billion capital gains tax. This represents a whopping 25 percent increase over the previous $43.7 billion state budget. A robust economy has resulted in historic revenues. Budget writers should craft a no-new-taxes budget and sock a little away in our states rainy day fund for when things arent so rosy. Resolution number four is for elected city and county officials to stop raising property taxes by rejecting the annual 1 percent property tax hike. More money is rolling into government bank accounts from unprecedented growth in new construction. Local governments see increases in their portion of sales tax and more revenue from higher property values when new construction replaces bare ground. Resolution number five is for all of the new residents who moved here from California and Oregon. They should remember why they left their home state to come here, and then vote accordingly in Washington. Resolution number six is for our elected community leaders to start planning new bridges today that actually relieve traffic congestion. Resolution number seven is for Clark County leaders to get off the dime and implement the Freight Rail Dependent Uses policy now allowed under Washington State law. In 2017, this Growth Management Act reform bill passed the Legislature with unprecedented bipartisan support. It was like handing a silver platter of new manufacturing jobs to Clark County. Its not the only magic bullet but its a good start to bring thousands of new jobs to our region. Its been 15 months since the effective date of this measure. Lets get it done! Resolution number eight is for citizens to re-engage in local government. Ask your neighbor to join you at an upcoming school board meeting, city council or county council meeting. Pay attention to what your elected officials are doing. Thank them for their service. In a respectful manner, let them know when you agree and when you disagree. Resolution number nine is to return civility to our public discourse. One of the best things about serving in the Washington State Legislature was the decorum and genuine respect for the institution by its members. Civility starts with us. Conduct political discussions with intellectual honesty and cogent arguments. Leave the insults and name calling behind. Lets be the change we want to see. Resolution number 10 is for all of us to do our part to keep this great economy rolling. Shop at a local hardware store. Dine at a neighborhood restaurant. Use local financial institutions. Support the businesses that are the backbone of this community. Lastly, have a little bit of fun, every day! {{tncms-inline content="

Liz Pike is a retired Washington State Representative who served three terms, from 2012 to 2018. Today she operates Shangri-La Farm, a small-scale organic farm in Fern Prairie outside of Camas with her husband Neil and also teaches oil painting classes. She can be reached at 360-281-8720 or pikeadvertising@comcast.net. Her column, "View from the right side" can be found once a month in The Reflector. 

" id="06569aa2-0b00-48aa-8a9d-3074f5a6a88c" style-type="bio" title="About the writer" type="relcontent"}} Posted Tuesday, January 15, 2019 1:22 am I just read the article in the Dec. 26 The Reflector titled Local lawmakers worry Inslees bridge money could lead to light rail. Well of course its going to. Our local lawmakers cant be that shocked about this. Inslee has been all for light rail, but yet the people of Southwest Washington for some unknown reason keep voting him in office. One guy told me, light rail will come to Vancouver, the people just need to vote on how we will pay for it. Posted Monday, January 14, 2019 7:53 am Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler is hosting her first telephone town hall of the year this Wednesday, Jan. 16, at 5:35 p.m. According to a release from her office, the Battle Ground resident will give updates on government funding and Southwest Washingtons legislative priorities before fielding call-in questions. Anyone interested in listening or hoping to have their question answered should call 1 (877) 229-8493 and use the passcode 116365 at any point during the town hall. If youd like to receive a call when this and any future town hall is about to begin, sign up under the town hall section at herrerabeutler.house.gov. You can also contact Herrera Beutlers Vancouver office to be put on the call list: (360) 695-6292. Posted Monday, January 14, 2019 7:44 am For one local lawmaker, making sure the government works for taxpayers maintains her top priority moving into her second term at the statehouse. Rep. Vicki Kraft, R-Vancouver, sat down with The Reflector ahead of the 105-day session that began Monday. First elected in 2016, she is back for another two years after defeating Democrat Tanisha Harris last November. This year marks the first time Kraft will serve as a ranking member on the House Local Government Committee, something she was excited to take on in 2019. She spoke positively of local government entities in Clark County, specifically on how they do a good job on reaching out to state lawmakers with their concerns. Now in her second term, Kraft had the chance to reflect on what she learned during her freshman years. One of the first things she learned was the importance of bipartisanship, something especially important given that Republicans have only 41 of 98 seats in the House this year. During the 2017 session, the Senate had a slim GOP-favored majority while the House leaned Democrat. Kraft commented that the dynamic gave her a year to focus on the bipartisanship before the legislature moved more to Democrat control, giving examples of working on sex trafficking legislation as well as her bill providing reprieve for disabled veterans in building accessible housing solutions as some of that work. If I was not approaching things in a bipartisan fashion that could be hindering, Kraft remarked. She noted that working across the aisle gave her insight on how lawmakers of any party work. My stand on issues has not changed and it wont, but what I also have found through this process is I really, honestly believe that the people that are up there (in Olympia) by and large are there because they care about people, Kraft said, explaining that although lawmakers approaches differed their overall goal was still solving constituent problems regardless of party affiliation. Kraft added that in the first term she learned the importance of defining priorities to make sure the work got done. You really want to make sure you know whats important for your citizens, what you want to run and try to really focus on, because its going to take a lot of focus to get all the way from the introduction of a bill to governors signing, she said. In some cases, a constituents suggestion might not lead to legislation that year, as she stressed a quality of outcome over speed. Kraft said the first part of any good work as a legislator was listening to constituents and their concerns. Ultimately I feel like as representatives we are in some senses facilitators of a solution, Kraft said. I dont have to be the person that runs for the solution for that constituent if there is already somebody else working on policy that addresses that issue. Private-sector experience Kraft saw similarities between that facilitator role and her previous private-sector experience where she managed accounts for businesses, finding out the business issues and how best she could address their need. Kraft gave examples of her work, noting one issue faced by a constituent she met while doorbelling on her first terms campaign. The constituents daughter who had a fairly severe disability had been moved to a lesser level of funded care after she turned 18 which Kraft said wasnt in line with the individuals need. Through conversations with the state Department of Social and Health Services Kraft was able to get them to take a closer look at the constituents needs, allowing for a higher level of service provided. Another case dealt with work at the Department of Financial Institutions spurred on by another constituents issue. Though she couldnt definitively say her work led to it, the department did end up decreasing fees following her taking on the constituents concern. Since government is supposed to be serving our public and our citizens, Kraft said that representatives need to help the agencies understand what our (constituents) need. Kraft said that helping citizens was her favorite part of the job, be it through policy or casework, reiterating that her top priority was ensuring fiscal responsibility and accountability with taxpayers money. I dont take it lightly that you have to work very hard for your money, Kraft remarked. She said that being on the House Appropriations Committee would give her better insight on bringing the states budgeting more in line with the type of household budgeting her constituents were likely to do themselves. Kraft said one of the biggest challenges heading into the new session would be pushing back on new taxes that will be considered, especially given the greater amount of revenue the state has collected as a result of a strong economy. We have the money and we need to do a better job on controlling spending, she said. Dublin, Jan. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient/ API Market by Type (Innovative, Generic), Manufacturer (Captive, Merchant), Synthesis (Synthetic, Biotech), Product (mAb, Hormone, Biosimilar) Drug (OTC, Rx), Therapy, and Region - Global Forecast to 2024" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global APIs market is estimated to reach USD 245.2 billion by 2024 from USD 182.2 billion in 2019, at a CAGR of 6.1% during the forecast period. The increasing incidence of chronic diseases, growing importance of generics, and the increasing uptake of biopharmaceuticals are some of the major factors driving the growth of the global APIs market. On the other hand, the unfavorable drug price control policies across various countries and the increasing penetration of counterfeit drugs are expected to restrain the growth of this market in the coming years. The biotech APIs segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. On the basis of type of synthesis, the APIs market is categorized into synthetic APIs and biotech APIs. The synthetic APIs segment is estimated to account for the largest share in 2019. However, the biotech APIs segment is expected to grow at a higher rate over the forecast period. Factors such as growing demand of biotech drugs due to their specificity in action, advancements in biotechnology, increase in demand for monoclonal antibodies, and their similarity with the natural biological compounds found in the human body influence the growth of this segment. The monoclonal antibodies segment is expected to account for the largest share of the global biotech APIs market. Based on product, the biotech APIs market is segmented into monoclonal antibodies, hormones & growth factors, cytokines, fusion proteins, therapeutic enzymes, recombinant vaccines, and blood factors. In 2019, the monoclonal antibodies segment is estimated to account for the largest share of the biotech APIs market. Factors such as the increasing incidence of cancer, increasing investments in R&D, technological advances in genetic sequencing and target gene selection, and reduced side effects as compared to chemotherapy are responsible for driving this market. North America to dominate the market during the forecast period. In 2019, North America is expected to dominate the market, followed by Europe. The major factors driving the overall growth of the APIs market in this region include the growing incidence of preventable chronic diseases, increasing government focus on generic drugs, rising demand for biologics and specialty drugs, and technological advancements in the manufacturing processes of APIs. This market segment is expected to grow at a modest rate due to a combination of economic and healthcare severity measures and the introduction of low-cost, generic versions of branded drugs. Key Topics Covered: 1 Introduction 1.1 Objectives of the Study 1.2 Market Definition 1.3 Market Scope 1.4 Currency 1.5 Limitations 1.6 Stakeholders 2 Research Methodology 2.1 Research Data 2.2 Market Size Estimation 2.3 Market Breakdown and Data Triangulation 2.4 Market Share Estimation 2.5 Assumptions for the Study 3 Executive Summary 4 Premium Insights 4.1 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients: Market Overview 4.2 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market, By Type 4.3 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market, By Type of Manufacturer 4.4 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market, By Type of Synthesis 4.5 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market, By Type of Drug 4.6 Geographic Snapshot: Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market 5 Market Overview 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Market Dynamics 5.2.1 Drivers 5.2.1.1 Increasing Incidence of Chronic Diseases 5.2.1.2 Technological Advancements in API Manufacturing 5.2.1.3 Growing Importance of Generics 5.2.1.4 Increasing Uptake of Biopharmaceuticals 5.2.1.5 Growing Adoption of Artificial Intelligence-Based Tools for Drug Discovery 5.2.1.6 Adoption of Organ-On-Chip Models in Drug Development 5.2.1.7 Growing Focus on Precision Medicine 5.2.1.8 Growing Investments in Real-World Evidence By Pharmaceutical Companies 5.2.2 Restraints 5.2.2.1 Unfavorable Drug Price Control Policies Across Various Countries 5.2.2.2 Increasing Penetration of Counterfeit Drugs 5.2.3 Opportunities 5.2.3.1 Emerging Biosimilars Market 5.2.3.2 Highly Potent Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients 5.2.3.3 Emerging Markets 5.2.3.4 Emerging Technologies 5.2.4 Challenges 5.2.4.1 Product Differentiation - A Major Concern for API Manufacturers 5.2.4.2 High Manufacturing Costs 6 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market, By Type 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Innovative Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients 6.2.1 Growing Number of New Molecular Entities Gaining Regulatory Approval to Drive Market Growth 6.3 Generic Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients 6.3.1 Government Initiatives Supporting the Adoption of Generic Drugs to Boost Market Growth 7 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market, By Type of Manufacturer 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Captive API Manufacturers 7.2.1 High Manufacturing Flexibility and Assurance of Product Quality Have Driven Focus on Captive Manufacturing 7.3 Merchant API Manufacturers 7.3.1 Merchant API Manufacturers Market, By Type 7.3.1.1 Merchant Innovative API Manufacturers 7.3.1.1.1 Impending Patent Expiries and Increasing Costs of Innovative Drugs May Restrain Market Growth 7.3.1.2 Merchant Generic API Manufacturers 7.3.1.2.1 Low Manufacturing Cost of Generics Likely to Drive the Growth of This Segment 7.3.2 Merchant API Manufacturers Market, By Type of Synthesis 7.3.2.1 Merchant Synthetic API Manufacturers 7.3.2.1.1 Need for Specialized Manufacturing Capabilities has Resulted in Expansion Among Market Players in This Segment 7.3.2.2 Merchant Biotech API Manufacturers 7.3.2.2.1 Complexity of Manufacturing Biotech APIs has Driven Focus on Partnerships Between Companies and CMOS 8 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market, By Type of Synthesis 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Synthetic Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients 8.2.1 Synthetic Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market, By Type 8.2.1.1 Innovative Synthetic APIs 8.2.1.1.1 The High Value of Innovative APIs to Drive the Growth of This Segment 8.2.1.2 Generic Synthetic APIs 8.2.1.2.1 Initiatives to Promote the Penetration of Generics to Bring Down Healthcare CostsA Major Growth Driver 8.3 Biotech Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients 8.3.1 Biotech Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market, By Type 8.3.1.1 Innovative Biotech APIs 8.3.1.1.1 Growing Demand for Innovative Biopharmaceuticals to Drive the Market for This Segment 8.3.1.2 Generic Biotech APIs 8.3.1.2.1 Increasing Demand for Biosimilar Drugs Due to Their Cost-Effectiveness to Drive the Growth of This Segment 8.3.2 Biotech Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market, By Product 8.3.2.1 Monoclonal Antibodies 8.3.2.1.1 Growing Applications of Antibody-Drug Conjugates in the Treatment of Cancer to Drive the Growth of This Segment 8.3.2.2 Hormones & Growth Factors 8.3.2.2.1 The Growing Incidence of Hormonal Disorders to Drive the Market for This Segment 8.3.2.3 Cytokines 8.3.2.3.1 Interferons and Interleukins Boost the Immune System and Have Important Applications in Cancer Treatment 8.3.2.4 Fusion Proteins 8.3.2.4.1 Growing Applications of Fc Fusion Proteins in Biopharmaceuticals to Drive the Growth of This Segment 8.3.2.5 Recombinant Vaccines 8.3.2.5.1 Growing Prevalence of Infectious Diseases has Boosted Vaccine DevelopmentA Positive Indicator of Growth 8.3.2.6 Therapeutic Enzymes 8.3.2.6.1 Growing Significance of Enzymes in Therapies for Cancer and Pain Management to Drive the Growth of This Segment 8.3.2.7 Blood Factors 8.3.2.7.1 Growing Incidence of Hemophilia to Drive the Growth of This Segment 8.3.3 Biotech Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market, By Expression System 8.3.3.1 Mammalian Expression Systems 8.3.3.1.1 Ability of These Systems to Carry Post-Translational Modification to Drive the Market for This Segment 8.3.3.2 Microbial Expression Systems 8.3.3.2.1 Ability of These Expression Systems to Provide High Expression Levels of Proteins to Drive the Market for This Segment 8.3.3.3 Yeast Expression Systems 8.3.3.3.1 Advantages Such as Efficient Protein Secretion, Simple Purification, and Endotoxin-Free Products to Boost Demand 8.3.3.4 Insect Expression Systems 8.3.3.4.1 Efficient Post-Translational Modifications Provided By These Systems to Boost Their Demand 8.3.3.5 Other Expression Systems 9 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market, By Type of Drug 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Prescription Drugs 9.2.1 Growing Disease Prevalence is Expected to Drive the Prescription Drugs Market 9.3 Over-The-Counter Drugs 9.3.1 Sales of Otc Drugs Have Risen Due to Innovations, Promotion of Self-Medication, and Increased Access 9.4 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market, By Potency 9.4.1 Low-To-Moderate Potency Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients 9.4.2 Potent-To-Highly Potent Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients 10 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market, By Therapeutic Application 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Communicable Diseases 10.2.1 Global Health Impact of Communicable Diseases and Increasing Antimicrobial ResistanceKey Market Drivers 10.3 Oncology 10.3.1 Increase in Global Spending on Cancer Medication to Boost the Market for This Segment 10.4 Pain Management 10.4.1 Increasing Demand for Innovative and Advanced Pain Medications is A Major Growth Driver for This Market 10.5 Cardiovascular Diseases 10.5.1 Growing Incidence of Cardiovascular Diseases Owing to Sedentary Lifestyles is A Major Growth Driver 10.6 Diabetes 10.6.1 High Global Prevalence of Diabetes to Drive the Growth of This Segment 10.7 Respiratory Diseases 10.7.1 High Global Prevalence of Respiratory Diseases to Drive the Growth of This Segment 10.8 Other Therapeutic Applications 11 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Market, By Region 11.1 Introduction 11.2 North America 11.2.1 US 11.2.1.1 Increasing Expenditure on Medicine is Expected to Drive the APIs Market in the Us 11.2.2 Canada 11.2.2.1 Support From Government Organizations is Driving the Growth of the APIs Market in Canada 11.3 Europe 11.3.1 Germany 11.3.1.1 Germany to Dominate the Market in Europe 11.3.2 France 11.3.2.1 Emergence of Pharmerging Markets in Asia May Hinder Market Growth in France 11.3.3 UK 11.3.3.1 Growing Adoption of Generics Will Drive the Growth of the UK Market 11.3.4 Italy 11.3.4.1 Italy's Share in the Global Merchant APIs Market is Expected to Remain Stable Over the Forecast Period 11.3.5 Spain 11.3.5.1 Spanish Market has Been Typically Dominated By Branded Drugs 11.3.6 Rest of Europe 11.4 Asia 11.4.1 Japan 11.4.1.1 Japanese Government Aims to Boost the Use of Generics By 2020 11.4.2 China 11.4.2.1 Government Policies to Increase Medicine Access and Affordability Will Support Market Growth 11.4.3 India 11.4.3.1 India is A Leading Producer of Generics 11.4.4 South Korea 11.4.4.1 Government Initiatives to Introduce Full Medical Coverage for Major Chronic Diseases Likely to Drive This Market 11.4.5 Rest of Asia 11.5 Rest of the World 12 Competitive Landscape 12.1 Overview 12.2 Market Player Ranking 12.3 Competitive Leadership Mapping 12.3.1 Vanguards 12.3.2 Dynamic Differentiators 12.3.3 Innovators 12.3.4 Emerging Players 12.4 Competitive Situation and Trends 12.4.1 Product Launches 12.4.2 Expansions 12.4.3 Acquisitions 12.4.4 Other Strategies 13 Company Profiles 13.1 Pfizer, Inc. 13.2 Novartis AG 13.3 Sanofi 13.4 Boehringer Ingelheim 13.5 Bristol-Myers Squibb 13.6 Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. 13.7 Eli Lilly and Company 13.8 Glaxosmithkline PLC 13.9 Merck & Co., Inc. 13.10 Abbvie Inc. 13.11 F. Hoffmann-La Roche 13.12 Astrazeneca For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/5fw6rr/245_billion?w=12 Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. Posted Monday, January 14, 2019 7:43 am Enzos Acres co-owner Dawn Rennie was taking part in an online meeting when a car came crashing into her office. Shortly after noon Jan. 9 first responders arrived at the dog training business location on South Parkway Avenue where a 2009 Hyundai Genesis had gone through the storefront. Battle Ground City/Police spokesperson Bonnie Gilberti said the car was pulling into a parking space but accelerated forward. The driver, Carmen Ochoa of Portland, had a prosthetic from the knee down that likely got stuck on the accelerator, leading to the crash. According to the police report no citations were given to Ochoa. Rennie said the driver was a long-time client of the business. Given the orientation of her desk Rennie didnt see the car coming before the crash. I heard it first and didnt know what it was, and then realized everything behind me had fallen on me and that there was a car next to me, Rennie remembers. Two employees came into her office before she was aware of what actually happened. I was in total shock, Rennie said. Her employees helped remove from the debris to help her exit the office. Rennie was evaluated by fire and medics but did not need additional treatment, Gilberti said. Rennie said she has visited the doctor a few times since the accident, receiving whiplash, bruising and some pain but nothing serious. Only one dog was with Rennie at the time of the accident, her sons, who was not injured, just scared from the crash, she said. The Parkway Avenue location is fairly new for Enzos Acres, as Rennie said they had moved in last fall. She didnt have an estimate of damages but noted outside of the storefront wall furniture in her office was destroyed. Im very thankful that it wasnt any worse and that nobody got seriously injured, Rennie said. Posted Monday, January 14, 2019 7:35 am A registered sex offender from Oregon was arrested on a voyeurism charge last week based on an incident where he was allegedly caught taking an upskirt photo of an underage girl during a wedding in La Center last August, court documents and reports from Portland media show. On Jan. 8 Carl Rainey, 31, of Portland, was arrested on a charge of first-degree voyeurism according to Clark County Superior Court documents. The arrest follows an October warrant issued in the case for the August incident. According to probable cause documents, Rainey was noticed attempting to take an upskirt photo of the underaged girl by one of the photographers at the wedding hosted at La Center Community Park. The photographer had seen Rainey get the attention of the girl then distracted her as he attempted to take a photo between her legs. The photographer confronted Rainey about the incident, the document stated, at which point the suspect became agitated and ran out of the ceremony. The bride went after Rainey, demanding his phone, but he fled on foot with his father, Rodney Rainey, following him. According to the probable cause document, Rodney Rainey had told responding officers that his son was not taking upskirt photos, instead saying he dropped the phone and the flashes of light seen were from an accidental button press, not an intentional snapshot. Fox 12 Oregon reported that Rainey had previously pled guilty in 2013 to a similar incident at a Gresham Fred Meyer, where he took photos of a mother and daughter over a changing room door. According to the news outlet Rainey served four months in jail and five years of probation that expired prior to the August incident. Posted Tuesday, January 15, 2019 1:48 am Junior Amy Eells took first place in Battle Ground High Schools ninth Poetry Out Loud competition in December with her recitation of The Flash Reverses Time by A. Van Jordan, advancing her to the next round of the competition. Eells will represent Battle Ground High in the regional finals at 5 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 24 at ESD 112, 2500 NE 65th Ave., Vancouver. BGHS junior Katt Gamblin finished in second place with her recitation of Brenda Shaughnessys I Have a Time Machine. Sophomore Alison Marlin took third with the poem Revenge by Letitia Elizabeth Landon. Poetry Out Loud has become a pre-winter break tradition at Battle Ground High School, where a very difficult academic endeavor is celebrated and enjoyed, event coordinator and BGHS teacher Heather Smithline said in a press release from the district. Were pretty proud of the event, and are very appreciative of the judges, parents, teachers, principals, and fellow students who showed up to cheer on the reciters. Students memorize classic or modern poems that they recite before a panel of judges. The competition is set up like a spelling bee: students first compete in the classroom, with winners moving on to a school-wide competition. The winners at the school level have the opportunity to advance to regionals, state, and nationals. Judges at the competition were BGPS deputy superintendent Denny Waters; BGHS English and literature teacher Kathy Ferrier; Clark County Poet Laureate Christopher Luna; professional development manager for Digital Learning at ESD 112 and Fisher Poet contributor Katherine Livick; BGHS assistant principals Heather Ichimura and Scott Yingling; and serving as the events accuracy judge was BGHS English teacher Julie Main. The regional competition, presented by ESD 112 in partnership with the Washington State Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Poetry Foundation, is part of a national program that encourages high school students to learn about poetry through memorization, performance and competition. Clearfield, PA (16830) Today Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 44F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 44F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Home >Police Enforcement > Checkpoints and Stops > Federal Appeals Court: No Need For Passenger ID In Traffic Stop THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN IS NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION IN OR INTO AUSTRALIA, CANADA, ITALY, DENMARK, JAPAN, THE UNITED STATES, OR TO ANY NATIONAL OF SUCH JURISDICTIONS NB Private Equity Partners Announces Monthly NAV Update for December 2018 15 January 2019 NB Private Equity Partners Limited (NBPE or the Company), a closed-end private equity investment company, today announced an updated Net Asset Value (NAV) for the month ended 31 December 2018. Key Highlights Monthly and annual NAV development: (Returns in $USD) Month 31 Dec-18 YTD Total return NAV development per Share1 (1.1%) 4.3% NAV development per Share (1.1%) 1.2% 31 December 2018 NAV per Share of $17.66 (13.87) decreased $0.20 (0.13) from $17.86 (14.00) NAV per Share at 30 November 2018 NBPEs NAV decrease of $9.6 million during the month of December included: $7.6 million of other unrealised losses, or $0.16 per share, attributable to losses from public securities, realisation adjustments and mark-to-market adjustments $2.6 million decrease in NAV attributable to value changes to other assets and liabilities during the month $1.2 million of accrued cash and PIK interest from the income investment portfolio, or $0.02 per share $0.6 million of unrealised losses attributable to the receipt of new valuation information, or $0.01 per share Portfolio Valuation The value of NBPEs private equity portfolio as of 31 December 2018 was based on the following information2: 20% of the private equity fair value was valued as of 31 December 2018 14% in private direct investments 6% in public securities 2% of the private equity fair value was valued as of 31 October 2018 1% in private direct investments 1% in fund investments 78% of the private equity fair value was valued as of 30 September 2018 74% in private direct investments 4% in fund investments Portfolio Commentary During December, NBPE funded $21.2 million to two new direct equity investments in Hivory, a European telecommunications company, and Plaskolite, a manufacturer of acrylic sheet products. NBPE also funded an additional investment of $8.1 million to an existing portfolio of Italian middle-market companies. The largest realisation was a result of a secondary sale of legacy fund interests. NBPE sold 14 legacy fund interests and in total will receive proceeds of $19.4 million from the sale. At closing, NBPE received approximately $9.4 million and recorded a receivable at 31 December 2018 for a fund interest which closed in January and for the portion of the proceeds which are subject to a 12 month deferral. Income investments distributed $2.6 million during the month, consisting of interest receipts and principal repayments. NBPE also received $1.6 million from direct equity investments consisting primarily of dividends and other returns of capital received from Telxius and QPark. The most significant valuation change during December was the result of public valuation declines; NBPE recorded an unrealised loss of $7.4 million in the value of its direct equity investments. Private company valuations have not yet been updated to December, but there was an announcement of a pending realisation, with Veritas Capital announcing the sale of Standard Aero which is expected to close in the first half of 2019. For further information, please contact: NBPE Investor Relations +1 214 647 9593 Kaso Legg Communications +44 (0)20 3603 2803 Charles Gorman nbpe@kl-communications.com ABOUT NB PRIVATE EQUITY PARTNERS LIMITED NBPE is a closed-end private equity investment company with class A ordinary shares admitted to trading on the Premium Segment of the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange. NBPE has 2022 and 2024 ZDP Shares admitted to trading on the Specialist Fund Segment of the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange. NBPE holds a diversified portfolio of direct equity investments, direct income investments and fund investments selected by the NB Alternatives group of Neuberger Berman, diversified across private equity asset class, geography, industry, vintage year, and sponsor. LEI number: 213800UJH93NH8IOFQ77 ABOUT NEUBERGER BERMAN Neuberger Berman, founded in 1939, is a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager. The firm manages a range of strategiesincluding equity, fixed income, quantitative and multi-asset class, private equity and hedge fundson behalf of institutions, advisors and individual investors globally. With offices in 20 countries, Neuberger Bermans team is more than 2,000 professionals. For four consecutive years, the company has been named first or second in Pensions & Investments Best Places to Work in Money Management survey (among those with 1,000 employees or more). Tenured, stable and long-term in focus, the firm fosters an investment culture of fundamental research and independent thinking. It manages $315 billion in client assets as of September 30, 2018. For more information, please visit our website at www.nb.com. This press release appears as a matter of record only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase any security. NBPE is established as a closed-end investment company domiciled in Guernsey. NBPE has received the necessary consent of the Guernsey Financial Services Commission. The value of investments may fluctuate. Results achieved in the past are no guarantee of future results. This document is not intended to constitute legal, tax or accounting advice or investment recommendations. Prospective investors are advised to seek expert legal, financial, tax and other professional advice before making any investment decision. Statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are based on current expectations, estimates, projections, opinions and beliefs of NBPE's investment manager. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, and undue reliance should not be placed thereon. Additionally, this document contains "forward-looking statements." Actual events or results or the actual performance of NBPE may differ materially from those reflected or contemplated in such targets or forward-looking statements. 1 Assumes reinvestment of dividends on the ex-dividend date and reflects cumulative returns over time period shown. 2 Please refer to the valuation methodology section of the monthly report for a description of the Managers valuation methodology. While some valuation data is as of 31 October 2018 and 30 September 2018, the Managers analysis and historical experience lead the Manager to believe that this approximates fair value at 31 December 2018. Attachments It seems that President Donald Trump is still in his television show mode (when he would prophetically tell contestants that they were fired). Residents in the community have been asking for it for years, and now they have it. Click here and then look to the right side for the sign up to the morning newsletter for The News Herald, and you can get the top headlines de All Summit Academy schools have been closed for the past two days due to a social media threat. School officials are working with law enforcement agencies to get to the bottom of the issue. After taking a year off due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Detroit Sports Commissions Xenith Prep Kickoff Classic is back on for the 2021 season. Spot the falling prices and you are likely to see the FTSE100 index move downward. This is exactly how commodity markets operate and there are several factors that can affect it. There are also some major currency pairs that tend to be affected by inflation Home to impressive volcanoes, tropical waters, and mountainous peaks, Central America is an adventure park for thrillseekers and outdoors enthusiasts. On my first trip to Central America, I discovered some of the most daring and breathtaking activities on offer. From swimming with whale sharks in Mexico to zip-lining in Costa Rica, these five outdoors activities are sure to spice up your trip. 1. Swimming with whale sharks in Mexico One of the best places to experience swimming with whale sharks is in Mexico where there are large communities of the majestic creatures. The two best places in Mexico to swim with whale sharks are Cancun and Cozumel where Isla Holbox, Isla Contoy and Isla Mujeres are the most popular locations. Here, many companies offer a money back guarantee. Image credit: JimmyDominico on Pixabay You might find yourself a little frightened at first due to the size of whale sharks (hence the name) and their surprising agility, but they are relatively harmless and feed off plankton. As on any trip where you interact with nature or animals, it is important to respect the whale sharks' natural environment and behave so as to make as little impact as possible. Seek out the most responsible company, looking out for warning signs such as whether they feed the sharks and whether they allow tourists to touch the sharks. According to PADI, tourists should keep a distance of nine feet away from the head and 13 feet from the tail of a whale shark. Tourists who ignore expert recommendations not only risk impacting the sharks normal behaviour but may cause the animals to bank or dive, ruining the experience for everyone. As long as you behave responsibly, this is a breathtaking activity worth putting on your bucket list in Central America. 2. Climbing a volcano in Guatemala Climbing a volcano may not be at the top of everyone's bucket list but it is a must-do activity when visiting Guatemala. There are many volcanoes to choose from so your selection will depend entirely on your fitness and comfort levels. Without a doubt, Acetenango is the hardest volcano to climb in Guatemala with a steep two-day ascent. Acetenango used to be one of the most worthwhile volcano hikes in the country, offering spectacular views of the highly active volcano Fuego. However, since Fuegos eruption last year which killed over 100 people, some hikers have reported that the view is not the same due to ash clouds. Image credit: Benbenjoe on Pixabay Other popular volcanoes include Tajumulco, San Pedro and Pacaya. Tajumulco is the biggest volcano in Central America, possible to hike in one day, however, hikers should be aware that there is a risk of altitude sickness. Meanwhile, San Pedro is a difficult but relatively simple climb (the fee you pay to enter the national park includes a guide) which rewards hikers with stunning views over Lake Atitlan. Lastly, Pacaya is one of the easier hikes. I am certainly not the fittest individual but I was able to climb Pacaya. One of three active volcanoes in Guatemala, Pacaya may reward climbers with views of sensational lava eruptions, though this cannot be guaranteed. If you are eager to get down and dirty, camping on some volcanoes is possible. This way, you can witness volcanic eruptions at night which are even more impressive, and, better yet, it means that you can travel at your own pace and enjoy the views. 3. Caving in Belize Belize is home to some incredible caves worth checking out. The most famous caves are the Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave (nicknamed the ATM cave), the Barton Creek Cave and the Crystal Cave. The first two are suitable for people of varying abilities while the Crystal Cave caters to experienced cavers. Each holds their own charm and offers different experiences. The Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave gives the opportunity to see history up close: skeletons of human sacrifices and fragments of pottery and tools dating back to 250 and 909 A.D. On the other hand, you can canoe or tube through the Barton Creek Cave while admiring stalagmites and stalactites. At the end of this tour, you can swim under the waterfall, offering a more relaxed caving experience than the ATM cave. For those who want to push themselves more, the Cystal Cave is difficult from the start, requiring a hike through the tropical forest and rappel for 15 feet into the cave entrance before you can begin caving. Once inside, you will face further challenges. This is a difficult but spectacular caving opportunity which should be considered by those who are fit and experienced in caving. 4. Zip-lining in Costa Rica The longest zip line in Latin America is at Monteverde in Costa Rica at a heart-stopping 1590 meters in length. All in all, the cost of riding the zipline includes 11 zip lines, a swinging rope bridge, the chance to rappel, two superman cables and a mega Tarzan swing (swings to a height of 148 feet). Image credit: JanBartel on Pixabay You can bring your GoPro but you will need to bring the mount too, as these are not provided. You will kick yourself if you are unable to film this once in a lifetime experience, trust me. 5. White water rafting in Costa Rica There are several rivers you can choose to raft on in Costa Rica including Naranjo, Sarapiqui and Rio Balsa, with the Grade III-IV and above offering the most action and adventure. Image credit: Rebecca Barnes White water rafting is a chance to experience some action and adventure in a country where there are reasonably strict safety rules, decreasing the chances of something going wrong. You might fall in but that is all part of the fun and it should not be too hard to get you back in the raft again. An activity suitable for those travelling solo or as a group, this was one of my favourite experiences from my time travelling in Central America. Prices will change depending on whether you opt for a full or half day and it is worth checking to see if meals are included in your trip. Overall, this is a great activity no matter how experienced you are, offering excitement and fun in a truly beautiful landscape. the midst of its sixth mass extinction of plants and animals. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the planet is currently in Yet, unlike past mass extinctions that were caused by natural events such as huge volcanic eruptions, asteroid strikes, and climate shifts, the current wave is almost entirely a man-made disaster. With this scary reality in mind, here are a selection - and by no means all - of the species in peril as we enter 2019. Northern White Rhino Save the Rhino In March, the worlds last male Northern White Rhino, Sudan, passed away in Kenya. According to, the 'sub-species' is now 'functionally extinct'. Image Credit: Flickr- Artisit Unknown Only Sudans daughter and granddaughter remain, living under the protection of armed guards away from poachers. Scientists were able to collect genetic material from Sudan, which could be used in future IVF. Nevertheless, the future of this rhinoceros species is uncertain. Vaquita WWF The vaquita is the worlds rarest mammal the(World Wildlife Fund) believes that there are fewer than 30 left in our oceans. This is a decline of over 92% in the last 22 years. Image Credit: Skeeze on Pixabay The porpoise species is only found in the northern Gulf of California and fishing nets have been the main cause of its decline. Climate change has also played a role, through altering habitat conditions and food chains. Amur Leopard Image Credit: 3342 on Pixabay 84 Amur leopards remain Approximatelyin Russia's 'Land of the Leopard' National Park, making it one of the most endangered big cats on the planet. Poaching, deforestation, forest fire and new road constructions are just some of the factors threatening this subspecies. Sumatran and Javan Rhinos Sumatran Rhino Rescue It isnt only the northern white rhino we should be concerned about. According to, there are only around 80 Sumatran rhinos remaining in Borneo and Sumatra. This is due to rhino horn poaching, deforestation, and the introduction of invasive species. According to WWF, this rhino 'once roamed as far away as the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas in Bhutan and eastern India, through Myanmar, Thailand, possibly to Vietnam and China, and south through the Malay Peninsula'. However, the rhinos have now become extinct in these places. Image Credit: S.Ellis and the International Rhino Foundation on Wikimedia Commons 70 Javan rhinos In addition, there are only aroundremaining in Indonesia, all of which reside in one national park, meaning that their long-term survival is uncertain, due to lack of genetic diversity. This national park is also vulnerable to the damage of potential tsunamis, as well as rising sea levels, putting the species at even further risk. Saola Did you know that unicorns exist in Asia? Image Credit: The Nation from Reuters/ Claro Cortes IV The Soala, otherwise known as the Asian unicorn, is an antelope-like creature, native to the Vietnamese and Laotion mountains, that has only been documented a handful of times in the wild. It wasnt discovered until 1992. WWF Its nickname derives from its rarity, and not because it has only one horn it actually has two. They have been classified byas 'critically endangered'. Sunda and Chinese Pangolin Image Credit: Ms. Sarita Jnawali of NTNC on Wikimedia Commons IUCN Red List. These two subspecies of pangolin are the two types of pangolin listed as "critically endangered" on the healing tonic Hunted for its scales, which are deemed medically beneficial in Asia, its high-end meat and its blood, which is considered a, it is the most trafficked animal in the world, despite most people never having heard of it! ASAP! (Asian Species Action Partnership) have begun a new national strategy to help save this beautiful animal. The Hawksbill Turtle up to 80% Over the last century, the Hawksbill turtle population has dropped byand they are now critically endangered. Image Credit: Skeeze on Pixabay Despite being protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, humans continue to be their biggest predator - the turtles are still illegally hunted for their shells and their meat. Giant Ibis holds near-mythical status for bird-watchers, naturalists and conservationists This enormous Ibis is Cambodias national bird whichdue to its rarity less than 300 remain in Northern Cambodia. critically endangered It has been listed as, owing to the high probability of its continuing decline, primarily due to human disturbance and hunting. Last year also saw the end of the Poouli, a songbird native to Hawaii, together with the extinction of the Brazilian songbirds the Alagoas Foliage-gleaner and the Cryptic Treehunter. Spixs Macaw Brazil also saw the extinction of the- the bird that inspired Rio -in the wild, although 60-80 of the bright blue parrots still remain in captivity. Image Credit: Sunira on Wikimedia Commons recent interview In a, c onservation worker John Rendall, said that "in 50 years, 60% of the world's wildlife has vanished". WWF Thesays: "To stop the decline of the natural systems that support us and all other animals on the planet, we need real change, all over the world. "The challenge we face is to try to find ways of meeting the needs of our growing population while protecting nature and preventing climate change. Everyone-governments, businesses, communities and individuals - has a part to play in coming up with this new plan - a global deal for nature." here Read more from the Envrionment section Salida, CO (81201) Today Partly cloudy. Low 57F. SSE winds shifting to WNW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy. Low 57F. SSE winds shifting to WNW at 10 to 15 mph. You can find your client key on your subscription renewal statement or call us at the Mountain Mail at 719-539-6691. Which Should I Choose? Consider Your Passion For a Career For Travelling Why Not Learn Both? Learning a language is no small undertaking. Many people find that languages are one of the most difficult things to learn . The process requires a lot of discipline and retraining your brain. If you're going to learn a new language, you want to make sure that your hard work is going to pay off.Most people who decide to learn a new language either want to learn a lingua franca (a common language that people speak to communicate with one another) or a niche language (a language native to very few countries and not often spoken outside of those countries). Learning either of them opens up new opportunities and deciding which route is the best for you largely depends on how you intend to apply this new language in your life.Some people learn a language simply because it's on their bucket list. If this sounds like you, it mightn't matter which type of language you choose. As long as you're motivated and have an interest in the language or choose a language that's commonly described as relatively easy to learn, you're setting yourself up for a smooth journey.If you intend to use a new language to set up a new life in a new country or to properly appreciate the art and culture of a place, learning a niche language might be more helpful. Scholars of Japanese culture might as well master the Japanese language especially if they intend to go to Japan for an extended period of time. Learning a new language to increase your career prospects is a fantastic idea. If you've ever had a look through online job boards , you've probably seen jobs asking for employees with language skills. When learning a new language for a career, both the lingua franca route and the niche language route are good ideas. It all depends on what you intend to do with your career.International companies have a strong preference for people who are fluent in a lingua franca because these people can help bridge gaps and forge connections to strengthen relationships with overseas partnerships. People who speak a lingua franca can do more in more parts of the world.On the other hand, people who speak a niche language are highly valuable when it comes to specific countries and are usually harder to find. If a company wants to open up a manufacturing plant in Hungary, they might need someone who is highly fluent in Hungarian, a language commonly considered to be difficult , to get the job done.Travellers need to know how to communicate with natives in the country they're visiting. It's helpful when purchasing something in a store, ordering a meal at a restaurant, or securing accommodation for the night. It's necessary in case of an emergency. If you need to speak with local authorities or get help, you're going to have a difficult time if you can't find a common language to speak.In most parts of the world, it's not hard to find someone who speaks English. After all, it's the most common lingua franca. Despite that, you don't want to take for granted that you'll be able to find someone who speaks English when you're in an urgent situation. It helps to keep a translator app on your phone for emergencies or learn some useful phrases in that particular language.Research the lingua franca languages used in areas of the world you intend to travel to . If there aren't a lot of English speakers, learn the lingua franca used in a given region. In areas like the middle east, Persian and Hindustani are widely spoken as second languages and native languages. Knowing these languages will make your life easier.You dont necessarily need to learn one or the other. There are instances in which knowing both a niche language and a lingua franca will help you cover all your bases. If you travel frequently or work overseas, its best to know as much as possible. There are numerous benefits to learning a second, third, or even fourth language . Communication is one of the most invaluable tools that human beings have. Anything you can do to maximize your ability to communicate is a worthwhile pursuit. Welcome back pirates! As you make your return to campus The East Carolinian has created a forum that centers around topics within the community where readers can express their experiences and concerns. With the new guidelines set in place by East Carolina University do you feel as these precautions will keep you safe? Survey Unlimited website access 24/7 Unlimited e-Edition access 24/7 The best local, regional and national news in sports, politics, business and more! With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. OP-ED: Put your mouth where your money is: Get involved with the student fee process UNC Chancellor Carol Folt announced her decision to step down from her position at the end of the academic year, on Monday, Jan. 14. Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2019 KINGSVILLE (January 15, 2019) The National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America (NAVTA) gives a Student Chapter of the Year award to one deserving group. This year, that student chapter is from Texas A&M University-Kingsville. Known officially on campus as the Vet Tech Club, the organization is still in its infancy, formed just three years ago. The group is made up, not only of vet tech students, but also others in the pre-vet program or those just interested in animals. The Student Chapter of the Year award is given to a NAVTA student chapter that works to promote the field of veterinary technology/nursing and demonstrates involvement in community service. Under the direction of advisors Tiffany Pope, BS, LVT and Dr. Clayton Hilton, the students in the chapter work hard to uphold the ideals set forth for NAVTA student chapters. Each year, they host high school students for an FFA veterinary science invitational, so they can practice their skills prior to the area competition. The group also holds fundraisers that benefit organizations like Heifer International. They donate their time to local animal shelters and hold car washes, work to clean up the parks and have clothing drives. With job growth estimated at 52 percent through 2020, the veterinary technician program at Texas A&M-Kingsville is due to graduate its fourth class at commencement in May. In 2011, the average salary for a veterinary technician was $31,570 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics with an hourly wage of $15.18. The highest salaries were with the federal government, where veterinary technicians earned an average of $48,020 per year. -TAMUK- Letter to the Editor The efforts been renewed to bond for a new school. . Let me state the problem Everybody, including me, wants a new school, nobody wants to ... The collection is one of the finest from the Macallan house and comprises prestigious spirits including the Exceptional Oak Casks, Spiritual Home, Curiously Small Stills, Finest Cut, Natural Color and Peerless Spirit. Sold at the Whiskeys Auctioneers December edition, the Macallan spirits in question included the 50-Year-Old, 55-Year-Old, 57-Year-Old and 60-Year-Old variants from the Six Pillars ensemble. The sale also marked a new record, one that was previously held by four bottles from the same series that were auctioned for $349,000. Commenting on the record-breaking sale, Iain McClune, director of Whisky Auctioneer, said: We are beyond delighted to feature these exceptional bottles in our auction. They represent the absolute pinnacle of rare whisky collecting and investing. Our most recent auction result illustrates that the very highest end of the secondary market, which was once the preserve of the traditional auction house and its attendees, is now accessible via online auction. A positive development that makes the buying and selling of whisky an easier and more straightforward process that is open to all. Other sales at Whiskey Auctioneers December edition included the Hibiki Arita Decanter, which fetched $22,000 and a Bruichladdich 1960 Sherry Cask 100 Proof that yielded $12,800. Based in Scotland since 1824, The Macallan Estate has a global reputation as one of the worlds finest distillers of single malt whisky. Changes to the SunCommercial's back end processing means the e-edition is getting a facelift. The biggest change is the e-edition, by default, is now presented in Text view. Given the rising cost of property and car insurance and the Legislatures repeated failures to address it, a campaign to go around Tallahassee might succeed with Florida voters. Trying to reform insurance through the Florida Constitution, however, would be like trying to kill every python in the Everglades. There are too many details. As CEO of Correct Craft, a marine manufacturer that has operated in the Sunshine State for more than 90 years, I can speak firsthand to how valuable boating is to our state. On top of the nearly 700 jobs we have created in Florida not to mention the additional 700 people we employ across the country our leadership in pioneering efforts like our new Watershed Innovation subsidiary allows us to bolster the local economy in other ways. Last September, the subsidiary kicked off a project with the University of Central Florida to develop a an aluminum fishing boat with electric propulsion. Airbnb has unequivocally rejected the [boycott, divestment and sanctions] movement and we remain deeply committed to our more than 20,000 hosts in Israel, Airbnb said in a statement released Tuesday. We have worked with the Florida State Board of Administration on this matter, we remain committed to the more than 45,000 Airbnb hosts in Florida who share their homes with over 4.5 million visitors, and well continue to do all we can to support our community. George Anthony has a 14-pound halo on his head to keep his spine stable. He said he did not have a seizure and cited the cars mechanical failure. He also said the accident was not a cry for help. I have been convinced that this is a battle worth fighting, and my life is defined by fighting battles worth fighting, Hastings said. Should it become clear that this cancer which has invaded my body cannot be defeated, I will tell you so. Its been unusual in the past for employees to get such large pay increases when they fill in a job temporarily. For years, district policy limited any pay increase, whether for a temporary assignment or a promotion, to 10 percent. But that led to complaints that outside job candidates could earn much more than those who worked in the district. So in 2017, the district dropped the cap and allowed existing employees to have their salaries reviewed to see if they were being paid competitively. Thats led to at least 19 district administrators getting pay raises of between 12 percent and 21 percent in the past two years. Four Broward County students were arrested in one week in September for similar actions one threatened to shoot up his school and another posted a picture of an air pellet rifle on social media. Three of those students said they didnt really mean it and two of them blamed bullying. Cruz is due back in court Wednesday for a hearing on a related case last November he was accused of attacking the Broward deputy who supervises him at the main jail. In most criminal cases, defendants are ordered to have no contact with the victims. Defense lawyers want a new deputy to watch over Cruz, but the Sheriffs Office has indicated that it does not want to reward Cruz for attacking a deputy. DeSantis, who had sharply criticized the sugar industry during his campaign, unveiled a sweeping plan last week to protect water, including money to deal with the blue-green algae that has devastated beaches and coastal wildlife. As for the water management district, he said We need a fresh start so we can move forward together as Floridians united." Adderley said he had not yet met Tony, but has no ill feelings about his situation. He said that he has heard only good things about the new sheriff and that Tony talking with him was probably the least of Tonys concerns during his first days on the job. That level of racism and bigotry has no place in Floridas politics, said Vetnah Monessar, state director for Emgage, a nonprofit focused on civic engagement among Muslim Americans. Muslims are part of the fabric of this country. We demand that Commissioner Taub apologize to her constituents and the general public. This week, more than 80,000 South Florida families will receive the long-overdue compensation they are guaranteed under the constitution when the state takes their private property, said Robert Gilbert, lead attorney for the homeowners. For nearly two decades, the Department of Agriculture tried to deprive these citizens of their constitutional rights. We fought this battle in the courts and overcame every obstacle the Department put in our path. A more recent wave of migrants to Europe as of 2015 are coming from Muslim majority countries like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan that propagate deeply anti-Semitic stereotypes on all levels of society, she continued. There are understandable concerns in the Jewish community that the new immigration can further exacerbate rising anti-Semitism if the issue is ignored or glossed over. That is why we advocate that governments take the issue of integration and language classes more seriously in terms of the values that are being inculcated in the new arrivals. This includes knowledge of Jewish life in Germany and respect for the essential nature of the German-Israeli relationship, which Chancellor Merkel has declared to be raison detat for the German government. Fighting anti-Semitism and promoting democracy requires a substantial boost in curricula development and teacher training in Germany, not just in programs for immigrants, but also for German schools in general. I hope the Iranian emplacement of missiles on Syrian bases is being raised by the prime minister with an eye to coordinating an approach on this issue at least with the Russians, he said. The Russians want the U.S. out of Syria, and the question is whether it is possible to get the Russians to pressure [Syrian President Bashar] Assad not to permit Iranian missiles on Syrian bases prior to our withdrawal. This is a case of a British passenger that landed in Israel after his entry had been denied for various reasons. At the time, it was decided that he had to coordinate his entry prior to his arrival in Israel, said Israels Population and Immigration Authority, reported Haaretz. The passenger landed in Israel and set facts on the ground. It was therefore decided to bar his entry. We saw that on the Gazan border, Israel responded by developing an underground barrier that goes down to a depth of tens of meters, to deal with the tunnel threat, noted Israeli. But Hamas is trying to overcome the barrier with rockets. If we look at the north, we see that there, too, Hezbollah is working to get over the barrier with tens of thousands of projectiles. This is the negative aspectthe other side always looks for a way around the fence, he said. I think the first Broadway show I saw on Broadway was 42nd Street. I was there in New York for the nationals for dance. I wasnt really into [seeing a Broadway show]. But then that curtain rose and there were all those feet tap dancing. I think my parents must have witnessed my eyes, they must have just lit up. I sat up in my seat. They probably thought, Oh no. Shes got the bug. The nightspot is located in the former Bel-Air Hotel in South Beach. Visitors will be greeted by cigar rollers as they enter the 9,000 square-foot space which will have four bars including a daiquiri bar with an Old Havana tropical vibe. In the middle of the main dining room, there will be the Pitbull Voli bar named after the rappers vodka brand. The upper levels will have VIP areas including one called the Dale! Room which will be the entertainers private area with a bar and bathroom. On a Facebook thread, a poster named Jaclyn Syroney wrote: I was on the cruise and saw him hit the concrete dock. It was around 11:30 a.m. The workers were amazingly fast acting and tried to keep him alive, but Im pretty sure he was dead on impact. There were also fast acting of removing his body and covering up the area so people wouldnt see it. Royal Caribbean handled this situation with utmost respect for the passenger and the family. Toward the end of the 19th century, owner George Wood took an interest in dairy farming and the family began a small processing plant in Wawa, Penn., in 1902. As home delivery of milk declined in the early 1960s, Grahame Wood, Georges grandson, opened the first Wawa Food Market in 1964 as an outlet for dairy products. Warwickshire Police and Crime Commissioner Philip Seccombe. INSURANCE data that claims Henley is the countrys hotbed for burglary has been greeted with derision by the Warwickshire Police and Crime Commissioner Philip Seccombe, who described the survey as headline-grabbing. The historic town has topped a list of crime hotspots compiled by MoneySuperMarket. It was a surprise for many that the gem of a market town, which boasts the remains of an ancient motte-and-bailey castle, a market cross and its own court leet, beat towns like Ilford in Essex and Cheadle in Greater Manchester to the title as Britains most burgled abode. The information was based on a review of 2.5 million home insurance quotes Henley endured 50.46 claims per 1,000 insurance quotes in the last two years. But the crime commissioner isnt sure the figures add up. Mr Seccombe said: It was something of a surprise that Henley should be singled out in this way, as it is not somewhere that has been identified as a particular hotspot for burglaries in official crime data. This latest headline-grabbing data is based on insurance quotes of which there may be multiple for the same address and in any case, does not cover all claims for insurance or indeed burglaries where no claim is made. There will likely be many areas across the country with much higher burglary rates than Henley but this is not reflected by these statistics. It is therefore very difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions from the data other than it has been very effective at getting publicity for that particular insurance brokers website! I have held the chief constable to account in the past when there have been noticeable rises in the numbers of burglaries reported in particular areas and I will continue to do so in the future. Tackling burglary remains something that I know Warwickshire Police takes very seriously, wherever it occurs, and it is why they have successfully undertaken specific operations to tackle residential burglary and car-key break-ins over the past 18 months. We can also all do our bit to make our homes less vulnerable to burglary and this is why I fund a number of initiatives, particularly in our more isolated rural areas, to help homeowners better secure their properties. Id encourage everyone to do an audit of their home security and take advantage of the excellent crime prevention advice on the Warwickshire Police and Warwickshire Rural and Business Watch websites. Equally, if anyone sees suspicious activity in their local area, I would urge them to report this to the police. Henley resident and parish councillor Bill Leech said: I was surprised when I saw the survey when it was published. There are a great deal of facts and figures and one might be a little concerned but for me car crime is the real issue in the town. Shares is the leading weekly publication for retail investors. It is packed with investment ideas, news and educational material to help build and run portfolios and get more from your money. Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists. How do you feel about the first half of 2021, locally? I think the city and county are heading in the right direction. I'm disappointed with 2021, so far. How do I get back to the home page? View Results A more recent publication of this set of statistics is available. Latest publication: Index of turnover in industry 2021, April Published: 15 January 2019 Turnover in manufacturing increased by good 9 per cent According to Statistics Finland, turnover in manufacturing in the August to October period was 9.4 per cent higher than in the corresponding period of the year before. Domestic sales grew by 5.3 per cent and export turnover by 12.5 per cent from one year ago. Three months' year-on-year change in turnover in manufacturing (C) sub-industries (TOL 2008) Turnover went up from the corresponding period of the previous year in all manufacturing (C) sub-industries . Growth was strongest in the chemical industry, 18.4 per cent, and in the electrical and electronics industry, 14.0 per cent. The slowest growth was recorded in the textile, clothing and leather industry, 0.6 per cent, and in the food industry, 1.4 per cent. Three months' year-on-year change in turnover in main industrial categories (TOL 2008) The turnover of all main categories of manufacturing industries grew year-on-year. Turnover growth was strongest in the industry of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply, 11.9 per cent. Turnover in water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities increased by 3.6 per cent, and in mining and quarrying by 0.8 per cent compared with the previous year. The index of turnover in industry describes enterprises whose main industry is manufacturing. The calculation of the indices is based on the Tax Administrations self-assessed tax data which are supplemented with data obtained with Statistics Finlands sales inquiry. The monthly turnovers of manufacturing enterprises can vary considerably, especially in the metal industries. The variation is mainly due to invoicing practices. The final invoice for major machinery deliveries and projects may be recorded in the sales of one month, even if the delivery had required the work of several months or years. Industries of enterprises have been revised in the data released in January Starting from this statistical release the latest industries defined by the Business Register have been taken into use in the turnover and wage and salary indices. The industry corrections are visible as revised data in some of the published industries for the years 20172018. The effects of the changes are taken into consideration in statistics production so that no breaks occur in the time series of the published index series. The interpretation of the statistics also remains unchanged in the renewal. Revisions to annual changes in industries are presented under Revisions in these statistics. Source: Index of turnover in industry 2018, October, Statistics Finland Inquiries: Maija Sappinen 029 551 3348, Kirsi-Maaria Manninen 029 551 2681, myynti.teollisuus@stat.fi Director in charge: Mari Yla-Jarkko Publication in pdf-format (364.6 kB) Updated 15.1.2018 Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Index of turnover in industry [e-publication]. ISSN=1798-596X. October 2018. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 17.6.2021]. Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/tlv/2018/10/tlv_2018_10_2019-01-15_tie_001_en.html Stay up to date on COVID-19 Get Breaking News Sign up now to get our FREE breaking news coverage delivered right to your inbox. Algiers, Jan 15, 2019 (SPS) - In a joint statement issued at the conclusion of a working visit to Algeria by the South African Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. Ms. Lindyou Sisulu, the two countries emphasized the need to end colonialism in Western Sahara and allow the Saharawi people to exercise their right to self-determination. The declaration emphasizes that Morocco, after its admission to the AU, is obliged to respect the principles and objectives enshrined in the Constitutive Act of the Union. Abdelkader Messahel and Sisulu expressed the support of their countries for the efforts of the Personal Envoy of the Secretary General of the United Nations for Western Sahara, Horst Kohler, to lead both parties to the conflict (Morocco and the Frente POLISARIO) to continue the negotiations in good faith and without prior conditions. SPS 125/090/TRA Shaheed Alhafed, January 14, 2019 (SPS) President of the Republic, Secretary General of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, received Monday the representative of UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Algeria, Hamdi Bukhari, following the end of his duties, in the presence of President of the Sahrawi Red Crescent, Buhbeini Yahya, and assistants of the UN official. The President of the Republic expressed his thanks and appreciation to the UNHCR and the fruitful work done by its office in Algeria in order to alleviate the human suffering of Saharawi refugees. For his part, Hamdi Bukhari praised the constructive cooperation and support he received from the Sahrawi authorities and institutions to carry out his noble humanitarian mission. The UN official had been received by Prime Minister Mohammed Wali Akeik, who expressed the gratitude of the Saharawi authorities to UNHCR for the valuable efforts it exerted to ease the suffering of Sahrawi refugees. In recognition of his great role in raising awareness about the situyation and humanitarian needs of Sahrawi refugees, the Sahrawi Red Crescent provided a shield of humanitarian excellence to Hamdi Bukhari. (SPS) 062/SPS/TRA Bouzakarn (Morocco), Jan 08 2019 (SPS) - The Association for the Protection of Sahrawi Prisoners in Moroccan Prisons expressed its deep concern over the grave and inhumane situation of the Sahrawi political prisoner Mohamed Tahlil. The Association highlighted that the Sahrawi political detainee, a member of the Gdeim Izik group Mohamed Tahlil jailed in solitary confinement in the southern Moroccan prison of Bouzkarn, is still isolated from the outside world and deprived of the most basic rights despite his "deteriorating health" status. It appealed conscientious people and human rights organizations, to intervene urgently in order to save the life of the said prisoner and to enable him enjoy his full and harmonious human rights and legal status as a Sahrawi political detainee. The Sahrawi political prisoner Mohammed Tahlil is serving a 20-year prison sentence after the unfair trial of the Gdeim Izik detainees, which took place from December 26, 2016 to July 19, 2017, the longest trial in the history of unfair political trials in Morocco and Occupied Western Sahara. 125/090/TRA Medford, NJ (08055) Today A few passing clouds. Low 52F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight A few passing clouds. Low 52F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Nancy Madsen has written for newspapers in Watertown, N.Y., and Mankato, as well as for PolitiFact Virginia at the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Richmond, Va. Nancy is a graduate of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., and Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y. TylerFairbank/iStock (WASHINGTON) -- President Donald Trump flatly denied Monday that he's ever "worked for Russia" in response to a news report that the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into whether he was an agent working on behalf of Russia against American interests. The report said law enforcement officials were concerned about his behavior after he fired FBI director James Comey. "I never worked for Russia and you know that answer better than anybody," Trump told reporters as he was leaving the White House for a trip to New Orleans. "Not only did I never work for Russia, I think it's a disgrace that you even asked that question because it's a whole big fat hoax," Trump said. The New York Times first reported the story, including details about how officials were concerned about the president's behavior before and after he fired Comey. The purpose of the FBI's counterintelligence program, as defined by the agency itself, is to neutralize national security threats from foreign intelligence services and in the past, countering Russian efforts has been its primary mission. Trump has long battled allegations of ties to Russia, the focus of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. About the same time as Trump was talking Monday morning, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton re-tweeted a video of herself from her final presidential debates with Trump, in which she calls Trump a "puppet" for Russian President Vladimir Putin and he interrupts, "No puppet, no puppet -- you're the puppet." "Like I said: A puppet," Clinton said Monday. (WASHINGTON) -- Trump went after the FBI Monday, attempting to cast the bureau and the alleged counterintelligence investigation as "dirty" and his move to fire Comey as "a great thing [he] did for [the] country." "The people doing that investigation were people that have been caught, that are known scoundrels there, I guess you could say are dirty cops," Trump said, mentioning fired deputy director Andrew McCabe and former FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. "Let me tell you something, when people see that, you have an angry country. Because the whole thing is a hoax. It is a big hoax and it is very bad for our country," Trump said. John Cohen, former acting undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security and an ABC News contributor, said there would be multiple levels of review to ensure an investigation like this was warranted before it would've been opened. "While the president seeks to paint this as a politically motivated action by a few rogue agents, that's just not how it works," Cohen said. Opening a counterintelligence investigation specifically looking at the president would be an "extraordinarily serious undertaking," Cohen said, and wouldn't have been done without senior career officials' approval. "There are too many safeguards within the Justice Department to allow it to be done for political purposes," Cohen said. "The only way it would be opened on the President of the United States is if it was reviewed at the highest levels." While it remains to be seen what the results of the reported investigation would be, or whether it's still ongoing, the former DHS official said counterintelligence investigations are not meant to be concluded quickly, but meant to provide the U.S. intelligence community with the maximum amount of information on how the foreign actor is operating and use that information for the agency's own goals. They often go on for years without any type of action, Cohen said. "It remains to be seen what the results of the investigation are, but with that said -- this is highly unusual and we are in uncharted and very dangerous waters," Cohen said. The first time Trump was publicly asked about the report -- and whether he currently or ever had worked for Russia -- on Saturday night by Fox News by host Jeanine Pirro, Trump denounced the story as "the most insulting" ever written about him but didn't directly answer the question. Adding to questions about his relationship with Russia, the president was also asked on the White House South Lawn about Washington Post reporting over the weekend that said the president went to great lengths to conceal the details of several of his meetings with Putin, including on one occasion taking possession of the notes made by an American interpreter, the sole attendee other than Trump and the Russian president. Trump wouldn't say whether he intended to hand over the notes, which House Democrats are considering subpoenaing. "It is a lot of fake news. It was a very good meeting. It was a very successful meeting. I have those meetings with everybody. I just know nothing about it. It was a very, very successful meeting," Trump said. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Jeffrey Jackson is the managing editor of the Owatonna People's Press. He can be reached at 507-444-2371 or via email at jjackson@owatonna.com You are the owner of this article. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28: 29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbff4959788)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff52d6e38)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbff4959788)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff52d6e38)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7fbff4961458)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff52d6e38)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff52d6e38)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7fbff441b738)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7fbff4fd8530)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7fbff4fd8530)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
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"It will run for full five years under the leadership of CM HD Kumaraswamy. But another MLA Zameer Ahmed of the Congress admitted, "Around five MLAs of our party are in Mumbai. We will not sit silently if attempts of poaching are made, even we are in touch with some BJP MLAs. We had talked with 2-3 of our MLAs while other MLAs' phones are off. I can assure you no one will leave." Meanwhile, BJP MLAs from Karnataka who have camped themselves in Gurugram on Monday evening said that they had assembled to strategise for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and had not run away fearing poaching by the ruling Congress-JDS alliance. Speaking to ANI, Shashikala Jolle, an MLA from Nippani constituency, said: "There are 104 BJP MLAs and we are together. We have been called here to strategise for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. There are no talks of forming the government. If there is anything, our leaders will tell you." Another BJP lawmaker Poornima Srinivas said that the BJP does not need to disrupt the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) alliance government, claiming there are internal rifts among their ranks and they will fall out soon. "JD(S) and Congress both lacked the number to form the government. So they formed an alliance. Now, there are fights between them. There is no need for us to ensure a premature end for their reign," the MLA from Hiriyur constituency said. The charges of horse-trading were triggered after three Karnataka Congress MLAs visited Mumbai earlier on Monday, reportedly along with some BJP MLAs. This was followed by the Congress alleging that the BJP was trying to poach the ruling party's MLAs to destabilise the JDS-Congress alliance government in Karnataka. However, Karnataka BJP unit chief BS Yeddyurappa refuted those charges, saying that his party had nothing to do with the three Congress lawmakers' Mumbai visit, and accused the Congress-JDS alliance of poaching bid. Later in the day, Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy accused Yeddyurappa of fabricating stories, adding that there is no need for the Congress-JDS alliance to poach on any party's lawmakers. Al Jazeera quoted the British Prime Minister, who was addressing a gathering at a factory in the northern city of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, as saying: "What is important is that we deliver on the result of the referendum." London: Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday said that she was looking forward to quick results over Britain's withdrawal from the European Union (EU) while opposing a second referendum over the issue. The Prime Minister also added that if the Parliamentarians tried to reject her deal of exiting the EU, then they would have to either leave without making a deal or not leave EU at all. The British parliamentarians are set to vote on the government's deal on Tuesday (January 15). In 2016, over 50 per cent of the UK electorate voted to leave the EU, following which the British government had triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, beginning the country's process of exiting the European bloc. According to the withdrawal agreement, the UK is scheduled to leave the bloc on March 29, 2019, after which it will move into a 21-month long transitional period with the EU. May, who dismissed the prospects of a second Brexit referendum, had halted the parliamentary vote on the deal on December 10 last year to put forth concerns voiced by British MPs with her European counterparts. She made a whirlwind trip to the EU, visiting Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium to meet with European leaders for the same. However, the European Commission (EUCO) reiterated that the deal will not be renegotiated. The British Prime Minister also survived a no-confidence motion initiated by her disgruntled lawmakers of the Conservative Party over her handling of the Brexit negotiations. At present, the Prime Minister is facing a crunch in the Parliamentary votes on her government's deal to leave the EU, as some of the members of the British Parliament are in favour of a complete break with the EU, while the others are demanding either a second referendum or a light break with the EU, maintaining key economic and policy structures, Al Jazeera reported. Speaking at a pre-budget discussion on expectations for education, entrepreneurship and employability, the Minister said tax on certain components in the education sector can be reviewed based on strong reasoning. New Delhi: Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla on Tuesday said the government is open to reconsider the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rates on certain components in the education sector. "Though there is demand for tax cuts from all sectors and large revenue is needed to run the country, you can come up with your recommendations for reviewing GST on certain components in the education sector," he said at a roundtable jointly organised by consulting group StratFirst and industry body Assocham. "If there is strong reason to review the tax rate on certain components, I assure you we will take it up with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley," Shukla said. StratFirst, which is an interactive interface for public and private players in the knowledge sector, has provided first of its kind platform for pre-budget discussion in the education sector. It also came out with a joint report with the Assocham. The report, which advocates lowering the cost for both students and educational institutions, said all ancillary services to higher educational institutions have been made taxable under the GST increasing the cost of education by about seven per cent. Services like transportation and admissions are generally outsourced so that institutions can focus on providing quality education. "It is proposed to partially exempt GST on outsourced services in higher education from 18 per cent to 5 per cent, to create low-cost educational institutions that offer services at all levels -- primary, secondary and higher education," the report said. The report also suggested a scheme on the lines of Ayushmaan Bharat for the education sector as well to provide the benefit of education to the masses of the country. The bright students must be rewarded under such schemes, it said. "I congratulate StratFirst India and Assocham on organising an excellent discussion on Budget Expectations for the 3E's -- Education, Entrepreneurship and Employability. Fostering conversations in these key sectors, involving all stakeholders is the only way forward in resolving vital issues which will help India claim its rightful place in the new world order," JNU and Melbourne University professor and Padma Shri Amitabh Mattoo said. Further, the participants recommended tax sops to attract quality employment in education. "It was noted during the conference that India lacks more than two million teachers. To motivate people to join teaching as a profession, it is proposed that teachers, professors and researchers be eligible for a special tax regime," a release said. Taxable income for employees of educational institutions can be calculated after giving a standard deduction or raising a threshold exemption limit for them, it said. "We are very glad to see the level of interest and more specifically the convergence of thought between the government and private sector in helping to boost education, entrepreneurship and employability in India. We are looking forward to presenting the report from today's discussion to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley," StratFirst India Brand Consultant Nancy Jain said. (StatePoint) This season, there is no better place to celebrate a love of music than outdoors. Here are five ways to make it happen: Steve Bull started on the pole of the T.A.Ward Construction 270 Sprint Feature and claimed a green to checkered win as his competition was eli Michael Hill International reported a 1.3 percent decline in December quarter sales, with only its Canadian business reporting improved sales in the key pre-Christmas period. The jewellers latest update shows that November and December sales from continuing operations increased 2.9 percent from a year earlier, and were up 1.3 percent on a same-store basis. But those gains were led by a 10.5 percent improvement in its Canadian sales the firms second-largest market. Pre-Christmas sales in Australia, where it gets more than half its revenue, fell 1 percent, while New Zealand sales were down 1.6 percent. Quarterly group sales from continuing operations were down 1.3 percent, and down 2.9 percent on a same-store basis. For the half-year, sales fell 4.2 percent to A$309.5 million and were 6 percent lower at A$292.7 million on a same-store basis. Gross margins for the half held up at 62.7 percent, despite increased costs caused by a weaker Australian dollar, the company said. Chief executive Daniel Bracken acknowledged that, despite the significant improvement since the first-quarter, the company had more work to do to strengthen the business and evolve its strategy. The companys performance during the key November and December trading period was encouraging, he said in a statement to NZX. A refined approach to our event and promotional activities resulted in a lift in sales during our two busiest months. This was a good outcome in a challenging retail environment. Michael Hill shares last traded at 64 cents, having fallen about 52 percent during the past year. Bracken, who only joined the Brisbane-based firm in November, is rebuilding his executive team as he implements a new strategy which was started last year to reposition Michael Hill as a differentiated multi-channel brand. The company shut its decade-old US chain last year, is closing down its three-year-old Emma & Roe business, and is focusing more on on-line sales and proprietary, branded products. Today the company said e-commerce sales at A$8.1 million were 59 percent higher than a year earlier and accounted for 2.6 percent of group half-year sales. Branded collection sales were 11 percent higher and accounted for 20 percent of half-year group sales, up from 18 percent last year. Todays report shows December quarter sales in Australia fell to A$106.9 million, down 4.6 percent from a year earlier. They were down 7 percent for the half-year at A$172 million. New Zealand quarterly sales were down 4.8 percent at NZ$41.8 million, and 5.9 percent lower for the half-year at NZ$65.6 million. Canadian sales increased by 4.5 percent to C$49 million in the December quarter, leaving them 0.3 percent ahead at C$72.9 million for the half-year. The firm said it had 309 Michael Hill stores at Dec. 31, having opened six new stores and shut three that were under-performing in the half. It shut four Emma & Roe stores in the September quarter. Two stores and the website continue operating while their closure is negotiated with landlords. On a same-store basis, those outlets delivered A$3.7 million of sales in the half-year, up 6.5 percent from the year before. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: 17th June 2021 Morning Report 16th June 2021 Morning Report Investore Property Limited (NZX: IPL) Divestment of Dunedin Property 15th June 2021 Morning Report 14th June 2021 Morning Report Tower Limited (NZX: TWR) Update on Financial Impact of Canterbury Floods SkyCity Entertainment Group Limited (NZX: SKC) Earnings Guidance for FY21 Result 11th June 2021 Morning Report Precinct Properties New Zealand Limited (NZX: PCT) Announces $284 Million Revaluation Uplift 10th June 2021 Morning Report Big data analytics firm Catalyst and parts of New Zealand's tiny astronomy community are mounting a last-ditch effort to keep New Zealand a full member of an international project to build the world's most powerful telescope. Catalyst chief executive Don Christie sees proposals for reduced involvement in the Square Kilometre Array as wasting a low-cost opportunity for New Zealand's burgeoning IT sector, especially given the government's policy aim of making IT the country's second largest export earner by 2025. Indications from the Beehive are that the door is being left ajar for a reversal of last April's decision to seek a downgraded 'associate membership' of the SKA project. But its backers fear that exploring a reduced involvement will seal New Zealand's exclusion from a project of a scale the country is rarely offered a chance to join. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment continues to advise Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods that benefits from the SKA are too small to justify anything more than associate membership of the international organisation that will run the project. Woods announced in July last year that full membership of the SKA was "off the table" and that only associate membership would be pursued. New Zealand had hoped remote rural locations would be chosen for some of the telescope's 'array' of electronic sensors but sites in Australia and South Africa won out. "The minister has made a decision and trying to get that rolled back is hard," Christie told BusinessDesk. "But particularly because of the very strong alignment with the government's digital policies around high-performance computing, big data and all that sort of thing, we are really looking for a rethink and to get them to realise there will be no better project to align with all those other strategies that they have. "The players in New Zealand are not yet ready to give up because the governance structure is still under negotiation and the world treaty they'll be moving to is still being negotiated," said Christie. However, answers supplied by Woods's office from MBIE officials indicate the government is committed to "explore" associate membership between now and the formal establishment, in 2020, of the international organisation that will run the SKA. "In April last year the minister decided that the case for full membership of the SKA was not sufficiently strong to justify the level of public investment required," MBIE said. The government is now in a "wait-and-see phase". Negotiations on associate membership have yet to start and rules for how the SKA would operate were "critical to whether New Zealand firms will actually benefit from the project". Rules for building the telescope, tendering construction contracts and sharing intellectual property have yet to be determined. Even beyond those decisions, there is "still some time" since tenders would need to be issued and construction would not immediately commence. "As the process develops we are continuing to invest in SKA design work. A number of New Zealand firms and institutions have benefitted from this work, and have co-invested alongside the government. Thats already provided benefits to those firms and institutions, and for the development of ICT capability in New Zealand more broadly." However, NZ SKA Alliance director Dr Andrew Ensor from Auckland University of Technology warned that timetable could well be too late. "This is the first time New Zealand's been part of a big international collaboration" of this kind, said Ensor. "My concern would be that if we're in the project and eventually drift away, bigger countries will ask 'why did we bother?'" That could harm the country's chances of being invited into similar projects, he said. Christie said Catalyst is already gaining substantial spin-offs from its involvement in "the largest science project in the world". "We're effectively designing the infrastructure for processing a ton of data and even right now we're taking the software we're developing and applying that to our own client infrastructure and that's all open source. We're also building private cloud infrastructure for New Zealand customers", including Spark and Sky Television. "If we took MBIE's position, we wouldn't get out of bed to play rugby because there are far more rugby players in the world than there are in New Zealand. If you want New Zealand to be a place where talent will move to and interest in the sciences, this is one of the projects." Full membership of SKA would cost New Zealand $2.3 million a year in fees and more than $20 million a year in operating costs, with the lion's share of contracts going to SKA member countries. "This project is still very much in its early stages and the research and development will have to continue with plans to triple its size," Christie said. (BusinessDesk) Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: 17th June 2021 Morning Report 16th June 2021 Morning Report Investore Property Limited (NZX: IPL) Divestment of Dunedin Property 15th June 2021 Morning Report 14th June 2021 Morning Report Tower Limited (NZX: TWR) Update on Financial Impact of Canterbury Floods SkyCity Entertainment Group Limited (NZX: SKC) Earnings Guidance for FY21 Result 11th June 2021 Morning Report Precinct Properties New Zealand Limited (NZX: PCT) Announces $284 Million Revaluation Uplift 10th June 2021 Morning Report Press Release January 15, 2019 P1.2 BILLION, 30 MONTHS, BANNED CONTRACTOR: RECIPE FOR ANOMALIES, POE SAYS OF ROCKWELL BRIDGE Sen. Grace Poe today said the selection of a previously banned Chinese contractor, the cost and the length of time of construction of the Rockwell Bridge are recipes for anomalies to happen. On Monday, Poe filed Senate Resolution No. 984 urging the Senate Committees on Public Services and Public Works to look into the merits of replacing the 673-meter bridge which is a "perfectly-working bridge" to be constructed by an appointed tainted Chinese construction firm amid concerns that such will not bring relief to motorists. "The government should ensure that the interest of the public, first and foremost, is safeguarded and protected, and as such should exercise due diligence, conduct viability studies and exhaust all possible alternatives prior to the development of any infrastructure project that will paralyze traffic and business in high-density areas," Poe said in filing the resolution. Poe had noted that China Communications and Construction Corp., the project's contractor, was banned by the World Bank in 2009 for bid-rigging, bribery and corruption in relation to projects funded by the multilateral lender. The company was also involved in massive land reclamation and dredging activities in the disputed areas in West Philippine Sea. Poe said it was unclear how the proposed widening to a four-lane bridge will increase the road network capacity when the end of the bridge in Mandaluyong side lands on a two-lane street. The bridge connecting Estrella Street in Makati and Pantaleon Street in Mandaluyong was to close in September last year but the government deferred the plan to give way to the Christmas rush. The bridge's closure will push through on January 19 to pave the way for the dismantling of the bridge and the construction of a wider lane bridge. "There is a need to closely scrutinize the plan of our government agencies with respect to public infrastructure to give due consideration to the motorists and residents in the affected areas," Poe added. Poe raised her "strong objection" to the project, saying the 30-month closure starting on January 19 was too lengthy, especially as regards the impact it would cause to the already congested traffic conditions in the metro. Although the P1.2 billion project was a grant from the Chinese government, Poe cast doubts on it, saying she does not believe in any gift "with no strings attached." Poe believes that the Philippines may be used as a reference for the tainted Chinese contractor to regain its reputation. Poe also said that the government should closely look into the Chinese workers that will be employed once the project commences. Press Release January 15, 2019 Koko to govt agencies: 'use our kokotes,' buy and use excess veggie supply to aid social programs Reacting to news reports that there was an oversupply resulting in falling prices of vegetables in Benguet and other areas in the Cordilleras, Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III proposed a "creative solution to this welcome dilemma" through the Department of Agriculture's (DA) purchase of the excess harvest and distributing them to the DepEd, DSWD, and other agencies to supplement feeding and assistance programs. "It's actually good news that we have extra food supply at low prices in the market. Let's make more good news by distributing these vegetables to schools, families and other beneficiaries that need food," the lawmaker noted. Pimentel suggested that the DA take the lead in purchasing the vegetables, then coordinate transport and distribution with the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) to reach schools, barangays, orphanages, homes for the elderly, and needy areas upon proper coordination with DepEd and DSWD. "Those of us in government should use our kokotes. I'm sure the DA and other agencies have the funds, personnel, and capacity to make this happen. Buy the vegetables cheap, help sellers and merchants dispose of their excess supplies so that nothing goes to waste, then boost government social programs. This can be a win-win situation for all." The Mindanao-born legislator noted that during the last quarter of 2018 the DA was able to address vegetable shortages in Metro Manila by facilitating the transfer and purchase of excess supplies from Mindanao. Pimentel said the Agriculture Department even extended a multi-million peso loan to the local farmers association in Bukidnon due to the skid in harvest prices. "We need imaginative minds with imaginative solutions to pressing social problems. There should also be more inter-agency cooperation. The DA has done something similar before, and it should take the lead in assisting other executive departments in worthwhile projects that have direct benefit to people." Press Release January 15, 2019 HONTIVEROS BILL PUSHES UNIVERSAL SOCIAL PENSION FOR SENIOR CITIZENS Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros is pushing for a Senate bill which will create a universal social pension system for all senior citizens (or those 65 years old and above), to help elderly Filipinos and their families better meet their daily needs. Hontiveros, who serves as vice-chair of the Senate Committee on Health and Demography, filed Senate Bill No. 2138, or the "Lingap Para kay Lolo at Lola Act," which seeks to amend Republic Act 7432 (Expanded Senior Citizen Act of 2003) as amended by Republic Act 9994 (Expanded Senior Citizen Act of 2010). "By providing income security in the form of universal pension for senior citizens, we not only assist them with their basic needs such as food and health, and help prop-up low income families, we also create a tool to share the proceeds of growth across all of society," she said. Under the bill, the government will create a social pension system which provides assistance to all senior citizens aged 65 years and older. Senior citizens who are aged 60 to 64 and are classified as indigent will also receive assistance. The bill likewise expands the monthly stipend received by senior citizens from P500 to P1,000 "to help them better cope with daily expenses and medical needs." According to Hontiveros, the universal pension system for the elderly better offers more advantages for the country than the existing means-based approach in relation to developing the country's pension system and increasing the number of Filipinos with pension coverage. She said a universal pension system is simple, effective, ensures security for Filipinos with low-income, and reduces "instances of corruption and clientelism at the grassroots level." Likewise, Hontiveros said that a universal pension system preserves the dignity of senior citizens by making the pension a right, and not a mere state handout. She added that such a system will enjoy a broad base of support from the public and thus can be implemented with low administrative costs to government. Hontiveros said that the bill will not only benefit senior citizens but will also affect younger members of their households, citing a 2016 study which showed that over half of Filipino senior citizens live with relatives who have a difficulty in making ends meet. She also said that greater protection for the elderly is becoming more and more relevant as the country's population continues to age, noting the Philippine Statistics Authority's projection that the number of Filipinos over the age of 60 will triple from 7.6 million in 2015 to 22.6 million in 2045. Sen. Bam to DBM: Don't resort to delaying tactics, use MPBF to cover 1st month of salary hike Instead of resorting to delaying tactics, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) must look for ways to deliver the government's obligation to increase salary of its workers, according to Sen. Bam Aquino. "Kung ayaw may dahilan, kung gusto may paraan," said Sen. Bam as renewed his call to the DBM to use the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund (MPBF) for the salary hike of government workers. "Delay is not an option. The Budget Department should find ways to deliver on its duty to implement the fourth tranche of salary increase for public servants," added Sen. Bam. Sen. Bam contended that the MPBF is enough to cover the first month of the fourth and final part of the salary increase for government workers under the Salary Standardization Law (SSL). In the 2018 budget, the MPBF is close to P100 billion while the salary increase requirement for January 2019 is less than P5 billion. "Hindi naman natin hinihingi sa DBM na pondohan ang buong taon kundi ibigay lang ang unang buwan ng umento sa sahod habang inaantay na maipasa ng Senado ang 2019 national budget bago matapos ang Enero," said Sen. Bam. Sen. Bam said the salary increase could ease the burden of Tuesday's oil price hike due to increase in world oil prices that could lead to further rise in prices of goods. "Huwag na sanang pag-antayin ng DBM ang mga manggagawa sa gobyerno. Napakalaking tulong ng salary increase para sa ating government workers para kayanin ang pagtaas ng presyo ng langis at lalo pang pagmahal ng presyo ng bilihin," added the senator. On Monday, Sen. Bam filed a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that the DBM should utilize the MPBF for the fourth instalment of the salary increase for government workers. Aside from Sen. Bam, fellow opposition senators -Minority Floor Leader Franklin Drilon, Francis Pangilinan, Antonio Trillanes, Leila de Lima and Risa Hontiveros - signed Resolution No. 982. In his Resolution, Sen. Bam insisted that the DBM is authorized to release and pay the salary increase immediately, without the need for further approval from Congress. Press Release January 15, 2019 SENATE OKS BILL DECLARING JAN. 17 A NON-WORKING HOLIDAY IN OLONGAPO CITY, SUBIC Senator Sonny Angara on Monday lauded the Senate's approval on third and final reading of a bill declaring January 17 as "James Leonard Tagle Gordon Day," a special non-working holiday in Olongapo City and the Subic Bay Freeport Zone to commemorate the life and contributions of the city's first elected mayor. Angara, chairman of the Senate Committee on Local Government, said the measure was in recognition of Gordon's invaluable service to uplift the lives of the people of Olongapo City through his exemplary leadership. "This would allow Olongapo City residents to honor on his birth anniversary their first elected mayor, whose exemplary leadership continues to provide hope and inspiration not only to the people of the city, but to all Filipinos," Angara said. Last year, the Senate adopted a joint Congressional resolution declaring every January 17 as James Leonard Tagle Gordon Day in commemoration of his 101st birth anniversary. The resolution was introduced by Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri and sponsored by Angara. Gordon, the father of Senator Richard Gordon, was born an American on January 17, 1917 but chose to stay in the Philippines as a Filipino citizen when his family returned to the United States. He was the son of John Jacob Gordon and Veronica Tagle, a daughter of Filipino patriot Jose Tagle, hero of the Battle of Imus in Cavite province during the Philippine revolution. Gordon was an entrepreneur and businessman when Olongapo was still a reservation under the American control. He was one of the organizers of the Olongapo Civic Action Group that worked on the general improvements of the city. He was one of the founders of the Olongapo Rotary Club, Olongapo Knights of Columbus and the Olongapo Businessmen's Association. He and his wife, Amelia Juico Gordon, and some friends established the Olongapo Boys Town and Girls Home in 1969, an orphanage for abandoned children of Filipino-American parents. According to the joint resolution, Gordon was a patriot who led the move to make Olongapo free from the US rule. Despite being half American, Gordon exposed the abuses and harassment suffered by Olongapo residents under the US military rule. In fact, Gordon was "part of the Philippine panel that negotiated and compelled the US authorities to relinquish Olongapo to the Philippine government," the resolution read. Olongapo was turned over to the Philippine government on December 7, 1959, the same day President Carlos P. Garcia signed the executive order making it a municipality of Zambales. Elected mayor of Olongapo in 1963, Gordon lobbied in Congress for the passage of a bill to convert the municipality into a city. In 1966, then President Ferdinand Marcos signed Republic Act 4645 converting Olongapo into a chartered city. Gordon was gunned down on the first floor of Olongapo City hall by an escaped inmate of the National Penitentiary on February 20, 1967. New ship World Explorer This includes in-depth exploration of the most popular Arctic locations as well as the most remote regions, such as the Russian Arctic. As earlier reported, a new ship, World Explorer, will be making its Arctic debut on charter by Quark. Six new itineraries The 2020 season consists of six new itineraries and several returning favorites. Among the new routes is 'Four Arctic Islands: Spitsbergen, Jan Mayen, Greenland and Iceland. The 18-day journey on the recently renovated Ocean Adventurer will offer Arctic wildlife, picturesque fjords and the volcanic island of Jan Mayen. 'Under the Northern Lights: Exploring Iceland & East Greenland' features the best of East Greenland and the most comprehensive exploration of this region on a 14-day voyage aboard the new World Explorer. Included is a visit to Northeast Greenland National Park, the world's largest national park. Additional expedition landings are planned in Iceland. Disko Bay 'Essential Greenland: Southern Coasts and Disko Bay' is a 15-day itinerary with in-depth exploration of one of Greenlands most remote regions, bringing together visits to picturesque villages, Norse ruins, stunning landscapes and a glimpse into the ancient and modern cultures of Greenland. 'Best of the Western Arctic: Canada and Greenland' delves into the culture and wildlife of both the Canadian Arctic and West Greenland on a 20-day expedition that also explores their ties to Northwest Passage history. 'Jewels of the Russian Arctic: Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya' is a 16-day voyage that takes travelers through the mountains of Novaya Zemlya and the wildlife sanctuary of Franz Josef Land. Soaring, ice-capped peaks and polar bears are highlights. Extreme Russian High Arctic 'High Arctic Odyssey: Remote Russian Archipelagos' explores the extreme regions of the Russian High Arctic in a 22-day experience of ice-draped coastlines rarely visited by tourists. The voyage travels from the heavily glaciated Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land to the isolated islands of the icy Kara Sea and, if possible, will make landfall at the islands of the remote Severnaya Zemlya. North Pole Also in 2020, Quark will reprise its iconic 14-day voyage to the North Pole aboard the nuclear-powered icebreaker 50 Years Of Victory. From crushing through multiyear ice to hot-air balloon rides at 90 N and spotting walruses, seals, whales and polar bears via helicopter, this is a one-of-a-kind trip. The agreement was signed today in Rome by the respective CEOs of Fincantieri (Giuseppe Bono), CDP (Fabrizio Palermo) and Snam (Marco Alvera). Innovative energy sources Among the focus areas are projects to build infrastructure for the supply, transformation and use of liquefied natural gas and alternative energy sources in maritime transport within port facilities or coastal areas. Research, development and implementation of maritime transport systems based on new technologies (turbines for LNG modules, containment and management of liquid and gaseous methane systems) and innovative energy sources (LNG, hydrogen, fuel cells) are also key. In the engineering area, the cooperation will share operating models and best practices between the respective engineering and construction departments. And when it comes to energy efficiency, initiatives are envisaged to reduce consumption, with a particular focus on the naval and industrial sectors. Sharing technical skills As part of the agreement, Fincantieri and Snam will share their technical skills by launching dedicated workshops. CDP will provide financial support in line with its institutional mission to back projects that have a positive impact on the country. 'Environmental sustainability is fast becoming a significant megatrend,' Bono said. 'This agreement will allow us to enhance our wealth of experience and expertise in such a rapidly growing area. Its a trend that impacts every industry, including the shipping sector, and as such we welcome this important agreement between three Italian powerhouses, with the aim of increasing the positions of acquired leadership.' The parties may define subsequent binding agreements. The collaboration's plans for sustainable technologies applied to maritime transport align with the provisions of Italy's National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan Proposal. New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/14/2019 -- Based on the VAE Emulsion industrial chain, this report mainly elaborate the definition, types, applications and major players of VAE Emulsion market in details. Deep analysis about market status (2018-2026), enterprise competition pattern, advantages and disadvantages of enterprise Products, industry development trends (2018-2026), regional industrial layout characteristics and macroeconomic policies, industrial policy has also be included. From raw materials to downstream buyers of this industry will be analyzed scientifically, the feature of product circulation and sales channel will be presented as well. In a word, this report will help you to establish a panorama of industrial development and characteristics of the VAE Emulsion market. Request for sample copy of VAE Emulsion market report @ https://www.marketexpertz.com/sample-enquiry-form/9484 Major Players in VAE Emulsion market are: - Sumitomo Chemical - Wacker - Beijing Sinopec - Vinavil - Anhui Wanwei Group - Celanese - Dairen Chemical - Sinopec Sichuan - US Adhesives - Shanxi Sanwei - Showa Denko A quick look at the VAE Emulsion industry trends and opportunities The latest market intelligence study on the VAE Emulsion market applies the best of both primary and secondary research techniques to bring to light the growth rate of the VAE Emulsion market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026. The comprehensive study covers hard to find facts about the market landscape as well as its growth prospects in the years to come. Most importantly, the research report includes vital statistics about the major vendors occupying a strong foothold in this industry. Besides this, in order to calculate the market share, the study takes a closer look at the selling price of the product across different regions. Make an Enquiry for a Fast Response of VAE Emulsion Market Click https://www.marketexpertz.com/make-enquiry-form/9484 Knowing the trends influencing the VAE Emulsion industry performance The latest industry intelligence report on the VAE Emulsion market performs a cautious examination of the current business environment and competitive landscape of the VAE Emulsion market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026. For stakeholders, field marketing executives and product owners planning to maintain a competitive edge the market assessment report brings to light essential impression about the growth rate, share and size of the industry during the estimated period. Deep dive into an array of elements including but not limited to the value proposition, product positioning, and targeting and industry segmentation have been described through resources such as charts, tables, and info graphics. Purchase/Buy VAE Emulsion Market report and avail 15% free customization on the report at https://www.marketexpertz.com/checkout-form/9484 VAE Emulsion Market segment by Region/Country including: - North America (United States, Canada and Mexico) - Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Spain etc.) - Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and Southeast Asia etc.) - South America Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Chile etc.) - Middle East & Africa (South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia etc.) Knowing the trends influencing the VAE Emulsion industry performance Based on the in-depth analysis the research also brings to light major facts pertaining to the vital aspects such as market share, size, and growth rate. Deep dive into other aspects including the investment feasibility, demand and supply, import and export status, supply chain management and growth prospects narrates a lot about what the business environment will be like for the forecast period,2018 - 2026. All the vital statistics in the report are explained with the help of resources such as tables, charts, and info graphics. Get Access to Full summary of this report@ https://www.marketexpertz.com/report-detail/vae-emulsion-market The research provides answers to the following key questions: - What is the estimated size of the VAE Emulsion market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026? What will be the growth rate of the industry during the estimated period? - What are the prominent driving forces likely to impact the progress of the industry across different regions? - Who are the major market players occupying a strong foothold in the VAE Emulsion market? What are the winning strategies adopted by them to stay ahead in the competition? - What are the potential opportunities for the VAE Emulsion market for the forecast period, 2018- 2026? - What are the key trends expected to shape the development of the industry over the coming years? - What are the key restraints and challenges likely to hinder the growth of the VAE Emulsion market worldwide? Key elements from table of content: 1 VAE Emulsion Introduction and Market Overview 2 Industry Chain Analysis 3 Global VAE Emulsion Market, by Type 4 VAE Emulsion Market, by Application 5 Global VAE Emulsion Production, Value by Region (2018-2026) 6 Global VAE Emulsion Production, Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2018-2026) 7 Global VAE Emulsion Market Status and SWOT Analysis by Regions 8 Competitive Landscape 8.1 Competitive Profile 8.2 Sumitomo Chemical 8.2.1 Company Profiles 8.2.2 VAE Emulsion Product Introduction 8.3 Wacker 8.3.1 Company Profiles 8.4 Beijing Sinopec 8.4.1 Company Profiles 8.5 Vinavil 8.5.1 Company Profiles 8.6 Anhui Wanwei Group 8.6.1 Company Profiles Continue... About MarketExpertz Planning to invest in market intelligence products or offerings on the web? Then marketexpertz has just the thing for you - reports from over 500 prominent publishers and updates on our collection daily to empower companies and individuals catch-up with the vital insights on industries operating across different geography, trends, share, size and growth rate. There's more to what we offer to our customers. With marketexpertz you have the choice to tap into the specialized services without any additional charges. Contact Us: John Watson Head of Business Development Market Expertz | Web: www.marketexpertz.com Direct Line: +1-800-819-3052 E-mail: sales@marketexpertz.com News: www.marketexpertz.com/market-news New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/14/2019 -- Qyresearchreports include new market research report Telecom IoT to its huge collection of research reports. This report focuses on the global Telecom IoT status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the Telecom IoT development in United States, Europe and China. Telecom Internet of Things market is considered as the fastest growing market and it provide enhanced connectivity solutions to numerous smart devices. Technology plays an important role in the development of Telecom Internet of Things market and especially with the innovation of Internet of Things. Internet of Things comes with the concept that everything around should be electronically integrated and interconnected. Telecom operators are now using digital platforms that combine connectivity, analysis, mobile, security and cloud to support business and all these empowers great revenue opportunity for them. The growing adoption ofintelligent transportation systems(ITS) is expected to be one of the major factors that will have a positive impact on the growth of this market in the coming years. In addition to enabling operators to gather, analyze, and distribute networked resources,ITSalso helps reduce the impact of traffic congestion by providing greater visibility and improving communication among passengers. Investments towards the development of such smart solutions will bolster the growth prospects of the telecom IoT market. For instance, one of the leadingautomotivemanufacturers General Motors has recently supported the ride-sharing service provider Lyft by making an investment of about USD 500 million towards the development of IoT projects that help provide efficient public commuting services. For more info, get sample report for FREE here: https://www.qyresearchreports.com/sample/sample.php?rep_id=1878417&type=S The Americas is estimated to be the major revenue contributor to the market throughout the next four years. The increasing adoption ofIoT products and servicesby several enterprises in countries such as the US to improve business efficiency and investments from the US government towards the development ofsmart citieswill drive market growth in this region. In 2017, the global Telecom IoT market size was xx million US$ and it is expected to reach xx million US$ by the end of 2025, with a CAGR of xx% during 2018-2025. The key players covered in this study AT&T China Mobile Deutsche Telekom Ericsson Verizon Communications Vodafone ... The study objectives of this report are: To analyze global Telecom IoT status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. To present the Telecom IoT development in United States, Europe and China. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their development plan and strategies. To define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market and key regions. Browse Complete Research Report at: https://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/global-telecom-iot-market-size-status-and-forecast-2018-2025.htm Table of Contents 1 Report Overview 1.1 Study Scope 1.2 Key Market Segments 1.3 Players Covered 1.4 Market Analysis by Type 1.4.1 Global Telecom IoT Market Size Growth Rate by Type (2013-2025) 1.4.2 Connectivity Technology 1.4.3 Network Management Solution 1.4.4 Services 1.4.5 Others 1.5 Market by Application 1.5.1 Global Telecom IoT Market Share by Application (2013-2025) 1.5.2 Smart Buildings and Home Automation 1.5.3 Capillary Network Management 1.5.4 Industrial Manufacturing and Automation 1.5.5 Vehicle Telematics 1.5.6 Transportation, Logistics Tracking and Traffic Management 1.5.7 Energy and Utilities 1.5.8 Smart Healthcare 1.5.9 Others 2 Global Growth Trends 2.1 Telecom IoT Market Size 2.2 Telecom IoT Growth Trends by Regions 2.2.1 Telecom IoT Market Size by Regions (2013-2025) 2.2.2 Telecom IoT Market Share by Regions (2013-2018) 2.3 Industry Trends 2.3.1 Market Top Trends 2.3.2 Market Drivers 2.3.3 Market Opportunities 3 Market Share by Key Players 3.1 Telecom IoT Market Size by Manufacturers 3.1.1 Global Telecom IoT Revenue by Manufacturers (2013-2018) 3.1.2 Global Telecom IoT Revenue Market Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018) 3.1.3 Global Telecom IoT Market Concentration Ratio (CR5 and HHI) 3.2 Telecom IoT Key Players Head office and Area Served 3.3 Key Players Telecom IoT Product/Solution/Service 3.4 Date of Enter into Telecom IoT Market 3.5 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion Plans ... List of Tables and Figures Table Telecom IoT Key Market Segments Table Key Players Telecom IoT Covered Table Global Telecom IoT Market Size Growth Rate by Type 2013-2025 (Million US$) Figure Global Telecom IoT Market Size Market Share by Type 2013-2025 Figure Connectivity Technology Figures Table Key Players of Connectivity Technology Figure Network Management Solution Figures Table Key Players of Network Management Solution Figure Services Figures Table Key Players of Services Figure Others Figures Table Key Players of Others Table Global Telecom IoT Market Size Growth by Application 2013-2025 (Million US$) Figure Smart Buildings and Home Automation Case Studies Figure Capillary Network Management Case Studies Figure Industrial Manufacturing and Automation Case Studies ... About QYResearchReports QYResearchReports delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYResearchReports feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market. Contact Us: Brooklyn, NY 11230 United States Toll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA) Tel: +1-518-618-1030 Web: http://www.qyresearchreports.com Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com San Jose, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/14/2019 -- "Tamper evident labels market forecast, trend analysis & competition tracking global market insights, 2018-2028" is a comprehensive research report covering various facets of the tamper evident labels market apropos to sales and demand scenario. The tamper evident labels market report includes analysis on various dynamics impacting the growth of the tamper evident labels market. Various factors such as drivers, challenges, trends, and opportunities circling the tamper evident labels marketplace are assessed and included in the report. The tamper evident labels market report offers past data assessment current tamper evident labels scenario and forecast highlights on tamper evident labels market for a 10 year period (2018-2028). The tamper evident labels market report is systematically drafted for the reader's convenience. Chapter 1 Executive Summary This chapter in the tamper evident labels market report includes tamper evident labels market overview, market analysis and wheel of opportunity. The chapter provides a gist of key aspects influencing the market's growth. It also covers analyst recommendations and analysis. Chapter 2 Market Overview Definition of tamper evident labels, significance of tamper evident labels adoption and a detailed tamper evident labels market segmentation (market structure). Get Sample Copy of this report @ https://www.xploremr.com/connectus/sample/3063 Chapter 3 Market Dynamics This extensive chapter in the tamper evident labels market report includes Porter's five forces analysis, various macro-economic factors impacting tamper evident labels sales, forecast factors, and list of active participants. This chapter also provides packaging industry outlook, cost analysis, pharmaceutical industry outlook and value chain analysis. It also provides PESTLE analysis. Chapter 4 Tamper Evident Labels Market Analysis This Chapter in the tamper evident labels market report includes volume projections, size estimations, year-on-year projections, absolute dollar opportunity assessment and regional pricing analysis of tamper evident labels. Chapter 5 Tamper Evident Labels Market by Material Type This chapter provides intelligence on the demand and sales of tamper evident labels with respect to the material used in their manufacturing. Analysis on various material such as paper and plastic is covered. Plastic tamper evident labels such as vinyl, polyester, polypropylene and polyethylene are also assessed and covered. Chapter 6 Tamper Evident Labels Market by Technology Type This chapter in the tamper evident labels market report offers market intelligence on various technologies adopted in the tamper evident labels. Analysis on technologies such as RFID, barcode, NFC tags and other (holograms) is provided here. Chapter 7 Tamper Evident Labels Market by Pattern Type This comprehensive chapter of the tamper evident labels market report covers y-o-y growth projections and volume and value estimations on tamper evident labels pattern types including VOID, checkboard, and destructible patterns. Chapter 8 Tamper Evident Labels Market by End Use Industries This chapter in the tamper evident labels market report includes detailed analysis on the adoption and demand of tamper evident labels across variety of industries such as pharmaceuticals, automotive, food, beverage (alcoholic and non-alcoholic), CDEG, transport and logistics and others (agriculture and chemicals). Chapter 9 North America Tamper Evident Labels Market This chapter provides a brief introduction to the tamper evident labels market in North America region. The tamper evident labels market across Canada and the United States is covered here. Moreover, tamper evident labels market segmental snapshot across these countries is also provided. Chapter 10 Latin America Tamper Evident Labels Market This chapter covers intelligence on sales and adoption of tamper evident labels across key countries such as Chile, Peru, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. Year-on-year growth and overall growth rate of the tamper evident labels market across these countries during the said period is provided here. First Time Buyer, Get Discount on this report @ https://www.xploremr.com/connectus/check-discount/3063 Chapter 11 Europe Tamper Evident Labels Market This section of the tamper evident labels market report includes detailed assessment on sales of tamper evident labels across European countries such as EU-4, United Kingdom, Benelux, Nordic and Eastern Europe. This chapter also covers segmental analysis during the said period. Chapter 12 CIS & Russia Tamper Evident Labels Market This chapter in the tamper evident labels market report covers unbiased intelligence on the adoption rate and sales scenario of tamper evident labels for the period of forecast. This chapter also includes various factors influencing the demand for tamper evident labels along with various macros. Chapter 13 Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ) Tamper Evident Labels Market Major countries such as Greater China, India, ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand and South Korea are assessed with respect to sales and demand for tamper evident labels. Various growth parameters revolving around the APEJ tamper evident labels market are also covered. Chapter 14 Japan Tamper Evident Labels Market This analytical chapter includes y-o-y growth, forecast highlights and overall scenario of tamper evident labels market in Japan. Dynamics influencing the growth of the Japan tamper evident labels market are revealed. Chapter 15 Middle East and Africa (MEA) Tamper Evident Labels Market In-depth assessment on key countries such as GCC countries, Iran, Turkey, Israel and South Africa is provided here. The growth of the tamper evident labels in MEA across these countries is revealed providing intelligence on key revenue pockets. Chapter 16 Market Structure Analysis This chapter provides a brief layout on the market presence of key players. The chapter also reveals revenue shares of tier 1, 2, and 3 players operating in the tamper evident labels market along with revenue share bracket with respect to sales of tamper evident labels. Chapter 17 Competition Analysis This chapter provides a complete competition dashboard, profitability index, gross margin analysis, competition developments and thorough competition deep dive. It includes profiles of various key players involved in the manufacturing of tamper evident labels. Chapter 18 Assumption and Acronyms This chapter of the tamper evident labels market report covers assumptions taken into consideration while carrying out tamper evident labels market forecasting. It also includes assumptions regarding currency denominations (US $ Mn) and abbreviations. Chapter 19 Research Methodology Primary research and secondary research are carried out simultaneously to arrive at appropriate market numbers. These numbers along with information from external sources such as company filings, market observers, financial data, press releases etc., are triangulated to achieve a higher degree of accuracy. . , . " " . , , . - ... New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/15/2019 -- The latest report Stalinite Market discusses everything a business owner needs to know about the Stalinite market for the forecast period, 2018 to 2026. The document offers an insight into what the target customer's needs and wants. Industry experts have extracted data from various sources on size, share, growth rate, production volume, production capacity, import and export status, distribution channels and more and have analysed it thoroughly. By properly assessing the competitors and their offerings the study aims at empowering business owners to step ahead. Request for Sample Copy of Stalinite Market Report @ https://www.marketexpertz.com/sample-enquiry-form/28106 Scope of the Report: The research methodologies used for evaluating the Stalinite market are inventive and also provides enough evidence on the demand and supply status, production capability, import and export, supply chain management and investment feasibility. The investigative approach applied for the extensive analysis of the sale, gross margin and profit generated by the industry are presented through resources including tables, charts, and graphic images. Importantly, these resources can be easily integrated or used for preparing business or corporate presentations. Estimating the potential size of the Stalinite industry: Industry experts conducting the study further estimate the potential of the Stalinite industry. Such information is important for firms looking to launch an innovative service or product on the market. Industry experts have measured the total volume of the given market. Researchers have calculated the industry in terms of sales by the competitors and end-user customers. Data on the entire size of the Stalinite market for a particular product or a service for the forecast period, 2018 to 2026 covered in the report makes it valuable. This information reveals the upper limit of the Stalinite industry for a specific product or service. Attracting the target audience: First, the comprehensive report finds out why customers need a certain product or service. The study focuses on what problems a certain product and service can solve. Apart from target demographics industry experts weigh up on the factors including audience type, as well as others vital attributes about the target customer segment. Major Players in Stalinite market are: - Saint Gobain - NSG Group - Virginia Mirror - Guardian - AGC - Fuso - Taiwanglass Group - Dlubakglass - Press Glass - Romag Buy Stalinite Market Research Report @ https://www.marketexpertz.com/checkout-form/28106 Most important types of Stalinite products covered in this report are: - Physical Toughened Glass - Chemically Toughened Glass Most widely used downstream fields of Stalinite market covered in this report are: - Building - Automobile - Others Market segment by Region/Country including: - North America - Europe - China - Japan - Middle East & Africa - India - South America - Others The market intelligence study for the Stalinite market further provides an inside-out overview of necessary aspects associated with the product classification, important definitions, major orders and other industry-centric parameters. An underlying part of the study also maps the important factors associated with the recent events such as mergers and acquisition, collaboration and new product launches. In addition, the research lays down a robust groundwork for obtaining a vast amount of information that potential customers can use to increase their profits and reduce costs. The inclusion of data on market segmentation by type, application, and geography offers clarity presents an analytical picture of, what manufacturers are aiming for. The research provides answers to the following key questions: - What is the estimated growth rate of the Stalinite market for the forecast period 2018 - 2026? What will be the market share and size of the industry during the estimated period? - What are prime factors expected to drive the Stalinite industry for the estimated period? - What are the major market leaders and what has been their winning strategy for success so far? - What are the significant trends shaping the growth prospects of the Stalinite market? - What are the key challenges expected to restrict the progress of the industry for the forecast period, 2018 - 2026? - What the opportunities product owners can bank on to generate high profits? There are 13 Chapters to deeply display the global Stalinite market. - 1 Stalinite Market Overview - 2 Global Stalinite Market Competition by Manufacturers - 3 Global Stalinite Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2013-2018) - 4 Global Stalinite Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2013-2018) - 5 Global Stalinite Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type - 6 Global Stalinite Market Analysis by Application - Continue Read More @ https://www.marketexpertz.com/industry-overview/stalinite-market Key Points from TOC 8 Competitive Landscape 8.1 Competitive Profile 8.2 Saint Gobain 8.2.1 Company Profiles 8.2.2 Stalinite Product Introduction 8.2.3 Saint Gobain Production, Value ($), Price, Gross Margin 2013-2018E 8.2.4 Saint Gobain Market Share of Stalinite Segmented by Region in 2017 8.3 NSG Group 8.3.1 Company Profiles 8.3.2 Stalinite Product Introduction 8.3.3 NSG Group Production, Value ($), Price, Gross Margin 2013-2018E 8.3.4 NSG Group Market Share of Stalinite Segmented by Region in 2017 8.4 Virginia Mirror 8.4.1 Company Profiles 8.4.2 Stalinite Product Introduction 8.4.3 Virginia Mirror Production, Value ($), Price, Gross Margin 2013-2018E 8.4.4 Virginia Mirror Market Share of Stalinite Segmented by Region in 2017 Continue About MarketExpertz Planning to invest in market intelligence products or offerings on the web? Then marketexpertz has just the thing for you - reports from over 500 prominent publishers and updates on our collection daily to empower companies and individuals catch-up with the vital insights on industries operating across different geography, trends, share, size and growth rate. There's more to what we offer to our customers. With marketexpertz you have the choice to tap into the specialized services without any additional charges. Contact Us: John Watson Head of Business Development Market Expertz | Web: www.marketexpertz.com Direct Line: +1-800-819-3052 E-mail: sales@marketexpertz.com News: https://www.marketexpertz.com/market-news Rockville, MD -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/15/2019 -- The demand for processed food and beverage products is rising globally, creating a huge demand for food colors. Annatto is directly extracted from plants and thus does not contain any harmful chemical as that in the synthetic or artificial food colors. With the increasing preference for natural food colors in the food processing industry, government regulations towards consumption of artificial food colors is expected to drive the Annatto Market Growth globally. With natural origin and coloring property, annatto has also found applications in the textile industry as a dyeing ingredient. However, annatto contains some residual proteins that may cause Ig-E mediated reaction, which is expected to restrain the growth of the global annatto market. Besides, availability of other natural food colors such as cochineal and turmeric are expected to hamper the demand for annatto globally. Claim Sample Report For FREE: https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=1353 Bixa Orellana L. Annatto plant majorly grown in the tropical countries is the primary source of annatto in the form of dried seeds. Annatto has found major applications in the food industry. Annatto is used as a condiment and for food coloring (imparts red or orange color to food products and beverages). Annatto's characteristics such as good heat stability and water and oil solubility are increasing the adoption of annatto globally. Properties such as flexibility applicability of the annatto including spices, culinary food, dairy products, dyes, cosmetic products, etc., have made annatto one of the consumer preference among other natural color ingredients. The governments of various countries have imposed stringent regulations on the use of artificial or synthetic food colors, which is expected to propel the demand for annatto, a natural form of food color, globally. The countries in Latin America such as Peru and Brazil are the leading producers of annatto. A majority of the production is exported to North America, where the demand for annatto is estimated to be high. Global Annatto (Bixin/Norbixin) Market: Regional Outlook The U.S. annatto market is expected to account for high market share among all the countries in the world, majorly driven by high production of processed food in the country. The North America annatto market is followed by Western Europe. Request Full Report with TOC: https://www.factmr.com/report/1353/global-annatto-bixinnorbixin-market Latin America is the major producer of annatto, but majority of the annatto is exported to North America, the primary export destination. Eastern Europe, Latin America and MEA markets are estimated to show sluggish growth for annatto market over the forecast period. Global Annatto (Bixin/Norbixin) Market: Key Players Examples of some of the key players in the global annatto market are: Wild Flavors, FMC Corporation, Amerilure, Inc., Monterey Bay Spice Co., Hansen Holding A/S, Vinayak Ingredients (India) Pvt. Ltd., DDW The Colour House, Kalsec Inc., AICA COLOR SAC, Aarkay Food Products Ltd. Brief Approach to the Research Our analysis will follow a modeling-based approach and triangulation methodology to estimate the data covered in this report. A detailed market understanding and assessment of the applications, types, forms, and end users of the product segments covered in the study is followed by carrying out a demand-side approach to estimate the sales of target product segments, which is then cross-checked with the supply-side assessment of value generated over a pre-defined period. The statistics and data are collected at the regional level, consolidated and synthesized at a global level to estimate the overall market sizes. Ask Industry Expert about this Report - https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=AE&rep_id=1353 About FactMR FactMR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market insights reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports. Contact Us FactMR 11140 Rockville Pike Suite 400 Rockville, MD 20852 United States Email: sales@factmr.com Web: https://www.factmr.com/ Blog: https://factmrblog.com/ Read Industry News at - https://www.industrynewsanalysis.com/ San Jose, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/14/2019 -- Coal handling system market forecast, trend analysis and competition tracking global market insights, 2018 -2028 is an extensive compilation of covering various facets of coal handling system with respect to adoption and sales. The coal handling system market report provides vital insights on various dynamics influencing the growth of the coal handling system market. The coal handling system market includes historical data, present coal handling system scenario and future insights on growth of coal handling system market. Forecasts on coal handling system market are carried out for a ten year period (2018-2028). The coal handling system market report is systematically drafted for reader's convenience. Chapter 1 Executive Summary This chapter in the coal handling system market report includes key findings, summary on vital statistics, analysis and recommendations and wheel of fortune describing segmental outlook. Chapter 2 Market Introduction The market introduction chapter in the coal handling system market report provides detailed segmentation or market structure. Get Sample Copy of this report @ https://www.xploremr.com/connectus/sample/3071 Chapter 3 Market View Point This chapter in the coal handling system market report includes analysis on macroeconomic factors impacting demand for coal handling system. It also covers opportunity assessment and market dynamics such as drivers, trends, opportunities and trends impacting coal handling system market growth. It also covers supply chain analysis, PESTLE analysis and Porter's five forces model. Chapter 4 Price Point analysis This chapter covers coal handling system pricing assessment along with analysis on factors influencing the costing and pricing of coal handling system. Chapter 5 Coal Handling System Market Analysis This analytical chapter covers coal handling system market volume projections, overall coal handling system market size, year-on-year growth analysis, key regulations, absolute dollar opportunity and value chain analysis. It also covers coal handling system market assessment across regions. Chapter 6 Coal Handling System Market by Product Type This chapter covers intelligence on sales and adoption of various types of coal handling system such as stackers, conveyors, reclaimers and loaders to name a few. Key trends and developments impacting the use of coal handling system types are also included. Chapter 7 Coal Handling System Market by End Use This chapter in the coal handling system market report includes analysis on use of coal handling system across various industrial applications. The chapter provides statistics on sales of coal handling system across end uses such as thermal power plants and coal mines. Market attractiveness index of each end use apropos to adoption of coal handling system is also provided. Chapter 8 North America Coal Handling System Market This chapter covers assessment on key regulations, pricing analysis, regional trends and adoption of coal handling system across countries such as Canada and the United States. Segmental snapshot is also provided in the chapter. Chapter 9 Latin America Coal Handling System Market This chapter covers information on demand and sales of coal handling system across countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Chile. Key regulations impacting the growth of coal handling system market in Latin America are also covered in the chapter along with regional trends. Chapter 10 Europe Coal Handling System Market This chapter in the coal handling system market report covers extensive analysis on various facets impacting the coal handling system market in Europe. Sales forecasts of coal handling system across European countries such as EU-4, United Kingdom, Benelux, Nordic and Eastern European countries are provided here. Chapter 11 CIS & Russia Coal Handling System Market Vital insights on demand and sales of coal handling system across CIS and Russia along with coal handling system segmental outlook and regional trends are covered in this chapter. First Time Buyer, Get Discount on this report @ https://www.xploremr.com/connectus/check-discount/3071 Chapter 12 Japan Coal Handling System Market This chapter in the coal handling system market report covers assessment of various regional drivers, and challenges impacting the demand and growth of coal handling system market in Japan. The chapter provides a detailed outlook on the future of the Japan coal handling system market. Chapter 13 Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ) Coal Handling System Market Analysis on demand and growth of coal handling system market across countries such as China, India, Australia and New Zealand, ASEAN and South Korea is covered in this extensive chapter. Various facets revealing the lucrativeness of APEJ in the coal handling system space are included in the chapter. Chapter 14 Middle East and Africa (MEA) Coal Handling System Market Analysis on coal handling system market across countries such as Turkey, GCC countries, and South Africa is included in this chapter. Detailed assessment on use of various types of coal handling system across these countries is covered. Chapter 15 Competition Landscape This chapter incudes coal handling system market structure analysis, company share assessment, and various aspects of key players involved in manufacturing of coal handling system. The chapter incudes profiles of 12 key players in the coal handling system market. Chapter 16 Assumptions and Acronyms This chapter includes information on assumption considered while researching on coal handling system at a global level. It also offers information on various acronyms used in the report. Chapter 17 Research Methodology This section provides information on report methodology used to carry out the research. It includes primary and secondary research techniques. Information from external sources including SEC filings, press releases, company news, investor reports, and other sources is gleaned. Northbrook, IL -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/15/2019 -- According to the new market research report "Battery Packaging Market by Type of Battery (Lithium-ion, Lead-acid), Level of Packaging (Cell & Pack Packaging, Transportation Packaging), and Region (APAC, North America, Europe, South America, Middle East and Africa) - Global Forecast to 2023", The battery packaging market is projected to grow from USD 20.6 billion in 2018 to USD 36.2 billion by 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12.0% during the forecast period. The growth of the battery packaging market can be attributed to the increased consumption of batteries in the automotive, energy storage, and consumer electronics industries. Don't miss out on business opportunities in Battery Packaging Market. Speak to our analyst and gain crucial industry insights that will help your business grow: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/speaktoanalystNew.asp?id=140916712 Based on type of battery, lithium-ion battery packaging is expected to account for the largest share of the battery packaging market during the forecast period. Lithium-ion batteries have higher efficiency, energy density, and cycle life compared with other types of batteries. Electric Vehicles (EVs) are replacing Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles. The adoption of EVs is fueling the demand for batteries, which subsequently is driving the battery packaging market. Due to their superior performance characteristics, they are preferred in the energy storage application. Browse and in-depth TOC on "Battery Packaging Market" 124 - Tables 35 - Figures 149 - Pages View more detailed TOC @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/battery-packaging-market-140916712.html The cell & pack packaging segment is expected to dominate the global battery packaging market during the forecast period. Significant capital investments are being made by leading lithium-ion battery manufacturers globally. For instance, most leading Asian battery manufacturers, such as Samsung, LG, SK Innovation, and GS Yuasa, have planned investments in various parts of Europe (Poland, Hungary). In 2018, Tesla identified 2 new strategic locations to establish lithium-ion battery plants, one in Europe, and the other in Shanghai. All these factors are resulting in the increasing demand for batteries, which is expected to drive the market for battery packaging during the forecast period. The Asia Pacific region is expected to hold the largest market size in the battery packaging market during forecast period. The Asia Pacific region is estimated to account for the largest share of the battery packaging market during the forecast period due to the presence of leading battery manufacturers in this region. This region is home to some of the leading battery manufacturers including Panasonic, Samsung, GS Yuasa, Exide, and LG, among others. APAC holds the largest share of the global automotive market. The region has made significant investments in the renewable energy generation space, which have further increased the consumption of batteries. For instance, in India, the government is installing 40GW of grid connected rooftop solar capacity. This is expected to be completed by 2022. Request for Free Sample Report @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=140916712 Nefab Group (Sweden), United Parcel Service Inc. (US), DHL (Germany), Zarges Group (Germany), Heitkamp & Thumann Group (Germany), FedEx (US), Rogers Corporation (US), DS Smith (UK), Smurfit Kappa (Ireland), and Umicore (Belgium) are some of the leading players operating in the battery packaging market. Recent Developments: - In June 2018, UPS opened a new shipping center in Arlington, Texas (US) by investing USD 200 million. This facility created employment for around 1,400 workers to facilitate shipments. This expansion comes as a strategic investment by UPS to improve its efficiency and connectivity across UPS hubs and transportation network. - In May 2017, UPS constructed a new distribution center in Edgerton, US. This development helped the company expand its Kansas operations and facilitate smoother shipments. - In January 2017, H&T Nevada (US), a business unit of H&T, started its production facility in Gigafactory jointly with Tesla (US). This new production facility is embedded in the production line of Tesla, creating a synergy. This development helped H&T increase its market presence in the cell packaging segment. Browse Adjacent Markets @ Chemicals Market Research Reports & Consulting About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 7500 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve. MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "Knowledgestore" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. Contact: Mr. Shelly Singh MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA : 1-888-600-6441 Email:sales@marketsandmarkets.com Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/battery-packaging-market.asp Visit Our Website: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com With operations winding down at the large El Barretal migrant shelter in eastern Tijuana and nowhere else to go, families still waiting on La Lista are becoming increasingly desperate to present themselves to U.S. immigration officials and ask for asylum. Immigrants who arrive at the Mexican entrance to San Ysidro sign up for an informal waiting list and take a number scribbled out on a scrap of paper they carefully guard, sometimes for months while they wait for their turn in line. If our number is not called tomorrow, we will have no other place to go, said Victoria Rodriguez of Honduras, who said she was going to physically wait in line Tuesday even though there were about 50 people in front of her and the U.S. only takes a dozen or so people a day to consider for asylum. Were stressed. Im stressed. The kids are sick and weve been waiting for two months. My kids arent getting any better and the rain isnt helping, she said. Advertisement Rodriguez said she was told by shelter coordinators since Jan. 1 the shelter would close on Jan. 15. But, she found out Monday her family may be able stay an extra week, if they dont get across into the United States, as planned. Thank God, she said. God has carried us this far. As Monday nights downpour drenched their last remaining belongings and mud began puddling at their feet, Victoria, her husband and their two young children packed to leave El Barretal, their home for the last few months. The muddy conditions Monday were a reminder of the familys arrival in Tijuana when about 6,000 members of a Central American caravan arrived near the U.S. Mexico border, overwhelming city resources. Heavy November rains turned a city-run shelter near the border into a mud pit. The Rodriguez family fled Honduras after another family member was found killed near their home and after receiving death threats and demands for money from gangs. Near the border Monday, dozens upon dozens of other families had similar stories as they waited for their turn in line. One single mother had been waiting with her youngest child, a 6-year-old, since last week when a warehouse shelter near the border was shuttered by Mexican federal police because of health concerns. Todays the day, said Claudia Hernandez, keeping her daughters spirits up with silly dances. I just feel it. Advertisement Her daughter entertained a large group of people waiting for their turn with Chuchuwa a dance for children that involves a series of commands like saluting, making a fist, throwing your head back, and walking like a penguin. Then, as children do, she repeated it so many times, a Mexican immigration official joked he would offer to take the pair across himself if she chose a different song to play. In Tijuana, migrants themselves take turns guarding the list in a notebook with the help from Mexican immigration officials who alert shelter authorities when a familys number in line is nearing so they know to make their way to the border. But for days, Hernandez has refused to leave the immediate border area for another shelter because she did not want to miss her name being called or accidentally give up her spot in line. Advertisement Monday her determination paid off. Hernandez and her daughter piled into a van late Monday afternoon, exchanging glances with other migrants, none of whom knew what was coming next. What number has been called and how many people they processed for the day quickly spreads by word of mouth across Tijuana from shelter to shelter each day. The makeshift system does not guarantee anyone will be granted asylum. It only allows for an initial presentation to U.S. immigration officials, which is required under international law. The actual process is long and difficult, and receiving asylum under U.S. law is rare. Back at El Barretal, hundreds more will wait for their number to be called in coming weeks, even if they have to relocate while they wait. Advertisement Catherine Lizbet Orellana Ramos from El Salvador is number 1949 while U.S. officials on Monday called number 1708 to 1728. If people knew what we did to get here and why we did it, they would see why we arent giving up so easy, said Ramos, who is about one-month pregnant. My boyfriends brothers body was dumped right outside his door. We walked here through rain and hungry and scared. Well wait. Pacific Gas and Electrics almost inevitable announcement came Monday: The states largest utility, facing massive potential liabilities from recent wildfires that its poorly maintained equipment may have triggered, will file for bankruptcy on Jan. 29. In November, at least 86 people died and nearly 14,000 homes burned in the Camp fire in Butte County, and while no cause is confirmed, Cal Fire is investigating a PG&E tower and transmission lines. This possible culpability in the deadliest, most destructive blaze in California history didnt surprise outside watchdogs, who have faulted the utilitys corner-cutting on safety issues for years. A series of unsafe decisions literally blew up on PG&E in 2010, when a segment of its aging natural-gas pipeline exploded in San Bruno, a San Francisco suburb, killing eight people and destroying 38 homes. In 2016, a jury in a federal trial found PG&E guilty of five felonies for shoddy maintenance practices that led to the explosion and a sixth for obstructing the federal investigation into the disaster. PG&E may survive its corporate bankruptcy it used a 2001 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing to deal with liabilities from the 2000-2001 energy crisis and emerged three years later in 2004. But even if a new PG&E emerges with a culture that cares more about safety than about investors dividends, Californians still have this profound reason to worry: The California Public Utilities Commission remains responsible for the safety of power utilities customers, and it has shown it cant be trusted. The PG&E-related disasters might never have happened if the CPUC had done its job of careful oversight. This is backed up by a 2015 National Transportation Safety Board report on the San Bruno disaster, which assailed the CPUC for its failure to appreciate the safety risks of a pipeline that relied on faulty molds that dated back to its 1956 installation. A 2015 investigation by KQED, the Northern California PBS station, was even more damning. It detailed the cozy relationships between regulators including then-CPUC President Michael Peevey and utility executives. For one example of many, it cited 2011 emails in which a top CPUC official casually kibbitzed with a senior PG&E executive on how the utility should play damage control in response to a critical San Francisco Chronicle article involving the San Bruno pipeline. Even though CPUC staff was charged with auditing PG&Es pipeline inspections, CPUC officials had no complaints when PG&E began laying off gas-safety inspectors in the years before the pipeline exploded. Meanwhile, PG&Es records claimed that the aging pipeline which had never been pressure-tested was in excellent condition. Advertisement Regulators were pretty much in bed with the utilities, doing their bidding for them, state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, told KQED at the time. This continued after Peevey was replaced by Michael Picker. Consider the $1.6 billion fine that a Picker-led CPUC imposed on PG&E in 2015 for the San Bruno disaster. More than half the fine $850 million was for improvements to its natural gas transmission system that PG&E would have had to do anyways. But the blame for tolerating PG&Es amoral culture goes even higher than Peevey and Picker. Newly retired Gov. Jerry Browns legacy should be tarnished by his mixed history of making the CPUC more transparent about its dealings with utilities, including vetoing six reform measures in one day. Picker is saying the right things now. In the aftermath of the incredible December report that PG&E falsified pipeline inspection reports for five years after the San Bruno disaster, the CPUC announced it would force major changes at the utility. But it is far past time that the Legislature, with the support of new Gov. Gavin Newsom, make a similar decision about the CPUC. The enabler of PG&Es perfidy must pay for its failed oversight. Twitter: @sdutIdeas Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion William Barr, President Trumps nominee for attorney general, promised Monday to permit special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to complete his investigation into Russias meddling in the 2016 campaign and vowed to be as transparent as possible in releasing the findings. Barrs pledge, a day before he faces a Senate confirmation hearing, came as President Trump became the first U.S. president to publicly deny that he secretly worked for Moscow against American interests, pouring scorn on media reports that raised fresh questions about his unusual conduct with Russian officials. I never worked for Russia, Trump told reporters indignantly outside the White House before flying to New Orleans for a speech to the American Farm Bureau. I think its a disgrace that you even ask that question because its a whole big fat hoax. Trump has long denied any collusion with Russia, but recent news reports disclosed that the FBI specifically sought to determine whether he received direction from Moscow after he took office, and revealed that he had collected a translators notes of his conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin in July 2017, leaving no official record. Advertisement The FBIs initial counterintelligence inquiry became part of the special counsel investigation into whether the Trump campaign illegally assisted a Kremlin-backed operation during the 2016 presidential race that sought to undermine U.S. democracy and ultimately to help swing the election to Trump. Muellers team has indicted 33 people so far, and several of Trumps top former aides including his former national security advisor, his former campaign chairman and his former personal lawyer have pleaded guilty or been convicted of felony crimes, although not for conspiring with Moscow. Democrats had signaled that they intended to grill Barr, a longtime Republican lawyer and former U.S. attorney general, about his plans to supervise Mueller if he was confirmed, and would seek a vow from Barr not to fire or undermine the special counsel. In prepared testimony released Monday, Barr sought to deflect those concerns. He called it vitally important that Mueller complete his investigation and said his goal would be to release Muellers findings to Congress and the public to dispel questions about any improper coordination with Russia. I believe it is in the best interest of everyone the president, Congress, and, most importantly, the American people that this matter be resolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work, Barr said. The country needs a credible resolution of these issues. If confirmed, Barr said, I will not permit partisan politics, personal interests, or any other improper consideration to interfere with this or any other investigation. I will follow the special counsel regulations scrupulously and in good faith, and on my watch, Bob will be allowed to complete his work. Barr said he had the utmost respect for Mueller, noting they have been friends for 30 years and that they worked together when Barr headed the Justice Department from 1991 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush. Barr also said his goal would be to provide as much transparency as possible after Mueller completed his report. Trumps aides have suggested they may try to classify the report, or try to rewrite it, before any release to Congress and the public. Advertisement I can assure you that, where judgments are to be made by me, I will make those judgments based solely on the law and will let no personal, political or other improper interests influence my decision, Barr added. Under Justice Department guidelines, the attorney general must report to Congress when the special counsel investigation is completed. Part of the report would include any instances in which the attorney general disagreed with a course of action being sought by Mueller. Barr pledged to give priority to protecting the integrity of elections by ensuring the full might of our resources are brought to bear against foreign powers who unlawfully interfere in the electoral process. He also sought to explain a 20-page memo he wrote to Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein last year in which he argued the special counsels investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James B. Comey in May 2017 was fatally misconceived. Advertisement Democrats have pointed to the memo as evidence that Barr may not be able to approach the investigation with an open mind. My memo was narrow in scope, Barr said, and focused on a specific obstruction-of-justice theory under a single statute that I thought, based on media reports, the special counsel might be considering. He noted the memo did not address other theories and did not assert that the president could never obstruct justice. Barr, 68, said he did not pursue the nomination as attorney general and was reluctant to be considered because he was partially retired and nearing the end of his long legal career. Advertisement He said he agreed to be nominated because I believe strongly in public service, revere the law, and I love the Department of Justice. It will be his fourth Senate confirmation hearing and he is expected to pass muster although the Judiciary Committee and the Senate have changed dramatically since Barr last appeared. He won unanimous support from the committee, then controlled by Democrats, in 1991 as Bushs nominee for attorney general, and then won approval by a voice vote on the floor, signifying overwhelming support. He is likely to win some Democratic votes this time, but partisan rancor is far more pronounced. The committee chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), is an ardent Trump ally who was credited with or blamed for rescuing the embattled confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh in the committees last high-profile hearing. At least two Democrats on the panel, Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey, are expected to run for president in 2020. Advertisement Barr has a robust view of presidential power and is well respected in Republican circles for his conservative legal views. Career officials in the Justice Department expressed relief at his nomination he was viewed as a steady and reliable hand to take over as the nations top law enforcement official. If confirmed, Barr would replace Matthew Whitaker, who has served as acting attorney general since Trump forced Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to resign a day after the Nov. 6 midterm election. Although Sessions carried out Trumps policies at the Justice Department, the president repeatedly attacked him for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. Whitaker, who was Sessions chief of staff, quickly ran into political trouble for having a thin prosecutorial resume and for making comments critical of Mueller before he joined the Trump administration in October 2017. Whitaker refused to recuse himself from the special counsel investigation despite the recommendation of a career Justice Department ethics lawyer. Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks(WASHINGTON) -- Native American leaders are calling on President Donald Trump to apologize for comments he made on Twitter invoking the Wounded Knee Massacre and the Battle of Little Bighorn that he made while attacking Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Sunday. Trump made fun of an Instagram video Warren released on New Year's Eve in which she drank a beer on camera. He tweeted, If Elizabeth Warren, often referred to by me as Pocahontas, did this commercial from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen, with her husband dressed in full Indian garb, it would have been a smash! The National Congress of American Indians condemned the remarks, saying the memory of the two events, in which hundreds of Native Americans were killed by U.S. Army soldiers, should not be used as a rhetorical punch line. We condemn in the strongest possible terms the casual and callous use of these events as part of a political attack. Hundreds of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho people lost their lives at the hands of the invading U.S. Army during these events, and their memories should not be desecrated as a rhetorical punch line, Jefferson Keel, the NCAIs president, said in a statement released Monday. Rodney Bordeaux, chairman of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, criticized the president for what he called a racist and disrespectful tweet about this brutal incident. President Trump should remember that the United States has broken and continues to dishonor the treaties of peace made with our nation and other tribal nations of this country, and he should apologize immediately to the people of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and other Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota nations for his shameful and ignorant misstatement, Bordeaux added. Warren has come under fire for her handling of the question of whether she could claim Native American ancestry, even taking a DNA test last year in an effort to prove her ties to the Cherokee Nation. Trump has insulted Warren on several occasions by deriding her as Pocahontas and making fun of her DNA test results, which indicated she had between 1/32nd and 1/1024th Native American ancestry. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. William Barrs nomination as President Donald Trumps attorney general was in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Barrs past commentary on special counsel Robert Mueller s investigation was front and center. Here are some key moments from the hearing. Wont commit to recuse if ethics officials recommend it. The big question hanging over this hearing is not so much whether Democrats can defeat Barrs nomination - which seems unlikely - but instead whether they can extract key statements or even concessions. Advertisement Perhaps the biggest concession would be parameters under which Barr would recuse himself from oversight of Muellers probe. Jeff Sessions recused himself, given his role on the Trump campaign, and ethics officials recommended that acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker recuse himself, based on his past commentary critical of Mueller. Whitaker has not recused himself. Some Democrats have said Barr should recuse himself, based on his criticism of the probe, but Barr wasnt making any early promises. When asked by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., whether he would abide by ethics officials advice, unlike Whitaker, Barr wouldnt commit to it. I will seek the advice of the career ethics personnel, but under the regulations, I make the decision as the head of the agency as to my own recusal, Barr said. Earlier, though, Barr said that Sessions was, in fact, correct to recuse himself. I dont have all the facts, but I think he did the right thing by recusing himself, Barr told Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the committees chairman. Importantly, that recusal is what soured the relationship between Sessions and Trump. Now Barr says he agrees that it was the right call. That might not mean hell recuse himself, but its a notable departure from the Trump line. One wonders what the president, who routinely decried Sessionss recusal and called it a lack of loyalty, thinks of that statement. (Barr, notably, said in his opening statement that Trump sought no promises about such things - either explicitly or implicitly.) I dont believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt. Speaking of ways in which Barr splits with Trump, heres another one Graham extracted: Barr doesnt think Muellers investigation is a witch hunt. Advertisement I dont believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt, Barr said when Graham asked him that direct question. Barr is both a critic of aspects of the Mueller probe and Muellers friend, which is a compelling dichotomy. He has taken care, though, to emphasize that his criticisms arent about Mueller as a person. On Trump: I will not be bullied. Trumps criticisms of Sessions and his heavy-handed comments when other government officials run afoul of him - combined with Barrs expansive view of executive authority - have led to questions about whether he would be Trumps stooge, effectively. Advertisement But Barr sought to argue that he is in a unique position, as someone in the twilight of his career, to be completely independent. I feel Im in a position in life where I can do the right thing and not really care about the consequences. In the sense that I can be truly independent, Barr said. He added: I had a very good life. I have a very good life. I love it. But I also want to help in this circumstance, and I am not going to do anything that I think is wrong, and I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong. ... Im going to do what I think is right. Will investigate Strzok, others. Advertisement Graham started the hearing by saying he hoped Barr would right the ship over there at the Justice Department, but it wasnt immediately clear to what he was referring. Then Graham made it clear: To begin his questioning, he brought up Peter Strzoks and Lisa Pages anti-Trump texts - among other allegedly biased misdeeds within the Justice Department - and then explicitly asked whether Barr would look into all of it. Barrs response: Yes, Mr. Chairman. . . . I was shocked when I saw them. It seemed as if Barr was acceding to Grahams request to open a specific inquiry, which is notable, given that part of the opposition to Barr is rooted in his saying it is okay for a president to request specific investigations, even into his political opponents (as long as the decision is made on the merits). A Democratic measure rebuking Republican Rep. Steve King for his comments about white supremacy won easy approval Tuesday in the House. In a twist, the nine-term Iowa congressman was among those supporting the measure of disapproval, which was adopted, 416-1. King said he agreed with Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, the resolutions sponsor, that white supremacy is an evil that cannot be ignored. Kings racist comments have been widely condemned by members of both parties in recent days. The ideology of white supremacy never shows up in my head, King said in a speech from the House floor. I do not know how it could possibly come out of my mouth. Advertisement Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois was the sole lawmaker to oppose the measure, saying the House should take the more serious step of censuring King for his repugnant and racist behavior. Any measure short of censure is shallow, Rush said. Steve King has made a career of making racist statements. That is the only thing he is known for and this pattern of rabid racism must be confronted head on by the House of Representatives. The vote came as Republicans dialed up the pressure on King, with one GOP leader suggesting Tuesday that the veteran lawmaker leave Congress. Id like to see him find another line of work, Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-highest Republican in the House, told reporters. It was the most explicit call from a senior Republican for King to leave and the latest GOP effort to inspire him to quit over an article in The New York Times last week, where he was quoted saying: White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization how did that language become offensive? Republicans looking to avoid worsening the partys relationship with blacks and minorities quickly condemned Kings remarks as racist. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., wrote an op-ed saying that any GOP silence in the face of Kings remarks would be a blemish on the party and the nation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky condemned King. And tellingly, Republicans refused to say whether they support Kings re-election effort. On Monday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced that King would not be given any committee assignments, the prized seats at the policy table where lawmakers represent their constituents. King served on the Agriculture, Small Business and Judiciary committees in the last Congress, and he chaired Judiciarys subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice. King vowed to continue to point out the truth and work with all the vigor that I have to represent 4th District Iowans for at least the next two years. Advertisement House Democrats moved to formally punish King. Clyburn, the third-ranking House Democrat and the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, introduced a formal resolution of disapproval late Monday. Addressing what he called a tale of two Kings, Clyburn said the Iowa lawmakers remarks were offensive because they embraced evil concepts. Invoking the memory of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. whose 90th birthday is Tuesday Clyburn called on colleagues from both parties to join me in breaking the deafening silence and letting our resounding condemnation be heard. But other Democrats were pushing for a stronger punishment, censure. Advertisement As with any animal that is rabid, Steve King should be set aside and isolated, Rush said Monday as he introduced a censure resolution. A third Democrat, Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, introduced a separate censure resolution against King. It doesnt matter if youre a Democrat or Republican, we all have a responsibility to call out Rep. Kings hateful and racist comments, Ryan said, noting that the white supremacy comments were not the first time King has made headlines for inappropriate language. They all returned to a long string of Kings remarks that have drawn rebukes. Advertisement The text of Rushs censure resolution lists more than a dozen examples of Kings remarks, beginning with comments in 2006 in which he compared immigrants to livestock. McConnell, in his statement, said he has no tolerance for the positions offered by King, and said those who espouse these views are not supporters of American ideals and freedoms. Rep. Kings statements are unwelcome and unworthy of his elected position. If he doesnt understand why white supremacy is offensive, he should find another line of work. One Republican did not join the chorus of criticism. Asked about Kings remarks Monday, President Donald Trump said, I havent been following it. King said Tuesday hes been misunderstood. He said of his colleagues, I thought you knew me well. Advertisement The Republican said he was advocating for Western civilization, not racism, in the Times interview. He said he rejects the ideology of white supremacy, adding that he comes from a family of abolitionists who paid a price with their lives to make sure that all men and now all women are created equal. Kings position in the GOP had been imperiled even before his remarks about white supremacy. Shortly before the 2018 midterm elections, in which King was running, Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, then the head of the GOP campaign committee, issued an extraordinary public denunciation of him. King has already drawn a primary challenger for the 2020 election: Randy Feenstra, a GOP state senator. Feenstra said Monday, Sadly, today, the voters and conservative values of our district have lost their seat at the table because of Congressman Kings caustic behavior. A federal judge blocked the Trump administration Tuesday from asking about citizenship status on the 2020 census, the first major ruling in cases contending that officials ramrodded the question through for Republican political purposes to intentionally undercount immigrants. In a 277-page decision that wont be the final word on the issue, Judge Jesse M. Furman ruled that while such a question would be constitutional, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had added it arbitrarily and not followed proper administrative procedures. He failed to consider several important aspects of the problem; alternately ignored, cherry-picked, or badly misconstrued the evidence in the record before him; acted irrationally both in light of that evidence and his own stated decisional criteria; and failed to justify significant departures from past policies and practices, Furman wrote. Ross explanations for his decision were unsupported by, or even counter to, the evidence before the agency, the judge said. Advertisement Among other things, the judge said, Ross didnt follow a law requiring that he give Congress three years notice of any plan to add a question about citizenship to the census. The ruling came in cases in which 18 states, the District of Columbia, and 15 big cities or counties, and immigrants rights groups argued that the Commerce Department, which designs the census, had failed to properly analyze the effect the question would have on households where immigrants live. A trial on a separate suit on the same issue, filed by the state of California, is underway in San Francisco. The U.S. Supreme Court is also poised to address the issue Feb. 19, meaning the legal issue is far from decided for good. We are disappointed and are still reviewing the ruling, Justice Department spokeswoman Kelly Laco said in a statement. In the New York case, the plaintiffs accused the administration of Republican President Donald Trump of adding the question to intentionally discourage immigrants from participating, which could lead to a population undercount and possibly fewer seats in Congress in places that tend to vote Democratic. Even people in the U.S. legally, they said, might dodge the census questionnaire out of fears they could be targeted by a hostile administration. The Justice Department argued that Ross had no such motive. Ross decision to reinstate a citizenship question for the first time since 1950 was reasonable because the government has asked a citizenship question for most of the past 200 years, Laco said. Advertisement When Ross announced the plan in March, he said the question was needed in part to help the government enforce the Voting Rights Act, a 1965 law meant to protect political representation of minority groups. Furman, appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama, said, Finally, and perhaps most egregiously, the evidence is clear that Secretary Rosss rationale was pretextual, meaning Voting Rights Act enforcement was not his real reason. New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office was among those that litigated the lawsuit, called the decision a win for Americans who believe in a fair and accurate count of the residents of our nation. Officials in Massachusetts, one of the states participating in the litigation, applauded the ruling. Advertisement The census is meant to count every person residing in the United States, and attempting to frighten immigrant communities into not responding was a clear and deliberate effort to depress the count in states like Massachusetts, said Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, a Democrat. Ross said politics played no role in the decision, initially testifying under oath that he hadnt spoken to anyone in the White House on the subject. Later, however, Justice Department lawyers submitted papers saying Ross remembered speaking in spring 2017 about adding the question with former senior White House adviser Steve Bannon and with then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked Ross from being deposed, but let the trial proceed, over the objections of Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. Advertisement The constitutionally mandated census is supposed to count all people living in the U.S., including noncitizens and immigrants living in the country illegally. The Census Bureaus staff estimated that adding a citizenship question could depress responses in households with at least one noncitizen by as much as 5.8 percent. That could be particularly damaging in states like New York or California, which have large immigrant populations. Justice Department lawyers argued that the estimate was overblown and that, even if they were true, that didnt mean Ross exceeded his legal authority in putting the question on anyway. However, Furman said, Ross violated the law by falling short on requirements that his agency consider all important aspects of a problem, study evidence, make a decision rationally based on that evidence, comply with all laws and articulate the real reasons for its conclusion. Advertisement The administration faces an early summer deadline for finalizing questions so questionnaires can be printed. Associated Press Writers Bob Salsberg in Boston and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report. The number of pedestrians killed by cars spiked last year in the city of San Diego. Thirty four people died in 2018 after being hit by a vehicle, up from 17 victims the previous year, according to statistics provided by the San Diego Police Department. The bloodshed comes despite efforts by Mayor Kevin Faulconer to improve safety at a number of dangerous intersections as part of the citys Vision Zero program to eliminate all traffic-related fatalities and severe injuries by 2025. Vision Zero has collected the accident data from San Diego police only for the past three years. Its very alarming to see that pedestrian fatalities have actually doubled, said Maya Rosas, policy director for the transportation nonprofit Circulate San Diego, which has pushed the city to invest in pedestrian safety. Clearly the city is trending in the wrong direction when it comes to achieving its Vision Zero goals. Advertisement The mayor has made important commitments that Circulate asked for last year, she added, but clearly thats not enough. Clearly, much more needs to be done to save lives. The Mayors office did not return several requests for comment. It is imperative that we make the appropriate investments that protect the health, safety and well-being of our citizens, said Councilwoman Barbara Bry. These statistics are heart-breaking and they should compel us to do everything in our power to protect our citizens. At the same time, pedestrians and bicyclists saw increases in serious traffic-related injuries. The number of pedestrians who were severely hurt rose to 93 last year up from 75 in 2017, while such injuries for bikers increased to 23, up from 19. The surge in deaths and injuries comes as a growing number of people have also landed in emergency rooms after crashing one of the hundreds of dockless electric scooters that have been dropped by start-up companies across the city. This is now a public health mandate, said Nicole Capretz, executive director of the Climate Action Campaign, a San Diego-based nonprofit that advocates for bicycle and pedestrian improvements. It is essential that we redesign our streets to be safe for all modes of travel. There is no excuse and no time to waste. We know what to do. It is just a matter of political will. Officials said the city has made significant improvements to nine of 15 crash-prone locations its committed to overhauling by summer. Upgrades include installing pedestrian countdown timers and high-visibility crosswalks. Advertisement Safety enhancements, city officials said, have been rolled out at these intersections: El Cajon Boulevard and Mississippi Street; 45th Street and Market Street; Ash Street and Front Street; Mira Mesa Boulevard and Westview Parkway; Marbury Avenue and Mira Mesa Boulevard; Streamview Drive and College Avenue; 4th Avenue and Ash Street; Imperial Avenue and 62nd Street; Imperial Avenue and San Jacinto Drive. The city has also made some investments in bicycle safety. Since Faulconer became mayor in 2014, the city has installed about 56 miles of new bike lanes, roughly 28 miles of street with lanes running in both directions. The mayor also recently announced that the city recently started construction on about 9 miles of long-awaited protected bike lanes downtown. No bicyclists were killed in car accidents in the city in 2018 or 2017, according to the police department statistics. Three were killed in 2016. Advertisement Weve been encouraged not to see any fatalities in the last two years, said Andy Hanshaw, executive director of the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition. Theres been a lot more bike lanes added, but we cant delay these projects. They have to be implemented now. Those are alarming pedestrian numbers, he added, and we have to do more to take action to fix dangerous areas where those accidents are occurring. Hanshaw said that the coalition and Circulate San Diego have started meeting with city officials to help launch a public education campaign around improving safety on roads and sidewalks. Its moving forward, he said. Its got to be a priority in the citys budget and everyones mind to protect peoples safety first and foremost. Advertisement The citys Vision Zero campaign has struggled to get off the ground since it was first embraced in 2015. The campaigns task force rarely met and is now potentially being rolled, along with the Bicycle Advisory Committee, into a newly created mobility board. While the citys Vision Zero website provides some data on crashes and locations, the city has aimed to expand the amount of information available to the public, including monthly reports. The police department has said its beefed up enforcement details of targeted streets with a focus on bicycle and pedestrian safety. However, a City Auditors report from last year found such efforts had yet to result in an increase in the number of tickets written for the most risky behaviors exhibited by drivers and pedestrians. While a number of major cities have made progress on Vision Zero campaigns, Southern California has struggled to rein in deadly accidents. Los Angeles, for example, recently identified more than 80 streets and intersections to target for safety upgrades this year as it continues to grapple with mounting pedestrian deaths. Advertisement Advertisement Twitter: @jemersmith Phone: (619) 293-2234 Email: joshua.smith@sduniontribune.com A gas line in Normal Heights sheared by a contractor Tuesday afternoon, prompting a dozen residents to evacuate the area, was repaired early Wednesday morning, a utility spokeswoman said. The utility company was called shortly after noon after the 2-inch natural gas line on Hawley Boulevard near Adams Avenue was broken, said Joe Britton, a San Diego Gas & Electric Co. spokesman. When crews arrived, they found gas blowing from the line. No one was injured and no ill health effects were reported. Police shut down streets in the area and nearby residents were initially told to shelter in place, said fire department spokesman Jose Ysea. Advertisement Eventually, 12 people were told to evacuate their homes as crews worked to shut off the gas line. It took utility personnel about four hours to halt the leak, after which they began working to fix the broken pipeline, Britton said. Crews worked through the night to repair the damaged gas line and competed the work early Wednesday, SDG&E spokeswoman Helen Gao said. After service is restored, workers will be going into the neighborhood to help customers with re-lighting pilot lights, she said. City News Service contributed to this report. Twitter: @karenkucher Advertisement (619) 293-1350 karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com UPDATES: 5:35 a.m.: This article was updated to show that repairs had been completed. Advertisement 5:45 p.m.: This article was updated to show crews halted the leak and were working to fix the break. This article was originally published at 1:45 p.m. A man was punched and knocked to the ground while trying to intervene in a couples argument Monday night in Ocean Beach, but returned after running away and stabbed the other man in the back, police said. The bizarre incident happened a few minutes before 6:50 p.m. on Newport Avenue between Bacon and Cable streets, San Diego police Officer John Buttle said. According to police, the victim, a man in his 20s, was arguing with his girlfriend when the suspect tried to intervene in the dispute. During the confrontation, the suspect, described as a man between 30 and 40 years old, slapped the victim, Buttle said. The victim retaliated by punching the suspect, knocking him to the ground. Advertisement The suspect then ran off, but reappeared a short time later, allegedly stabbing the victim in the back as he ran past him, Buttle said. The victim was taken to a hospital with a wound that was not believed to be life-threatening, Buttle said. The suspect remained at-large as of early Tuesday morning, and his description was not immediately available. Twitter: @Alex_Riggins (619) 293-1710 alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com Advertisement UPDATES: 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 15: This article was updated with additional details. This article was originally published at 10:10 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 14. A two-alarm fire caused significant damage to a historic hotel in Coronado late Monday and fire officials later determined it started in the hood ventilation system of a restaurant kitchen in the complex. The fire was reported at the El Cordova Hotel on Orange Avenue near Adella Avenue shortly before 11:30 p.m. The blaze also damaged Miguels Cocina, one of four restaurants in the Spanish Village-style hotel complex. Built as a retirement home in 1902, the building was converted into a hotel in 1930. The fire is still under investigation but it appeared to have started in the kitchen area and spread to the floor of one of the hotel rooms above it, Coronado Fire Battalion Chief Perry Peake said Tuesday. Advertisement The fire also made its way to the buildings attic, he said. Crews from San Diego, National City as well as federal firefighters were called to assist in putting out the fire. Coronado Fire Chief Jim Lydon said Wednesday that investigators determined the fire originated within the hood system ventilation duct area over the cooking surface in the restaurant. Coronado police helped nine hotel guests evacuate from the building and they were moved to another property, the battalion chief said. No one was injured. The fire caused an estimated $450,000 in damage about $300,000 to the structure and $150,000 to its contents. Peake said hotel rooms were damaged, as was the buildings roof and the restaurants kitchen. A spokeswoman for the hotel said in an email Wednesday that Miguels Cocina will be closed until further notice. She said most of the hotels rooms have been reopened but three suffered significant fire, smoke and water damage that will take time to repair. Firefighters worked to try to minimize damage to the hotel, which sits in the heart of Coronado, across the street from the Hotel del Coronado. Advertisement According to the hotels website, the El Cordova Hotel was originally built as a retirement mansion house for wealthy industrialist Elisha Babcock in 1902 before being converted to a Spanish Village hotel in 1930. The complex has a courtyard swimming pool and 12 boutique shops on site. Peake said crews were keenly aware of the significance of the hotel to the community. The firefighters worked very hard to make sure we didnt lose part of Coronados history, he said. Advertisement Twitter: @karenkucher Advertisement (619) 293-1350 karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com UPDATES: 2:10 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details. Advertisement This article was originally published on 9:15 a.m. on Jan. 15. A judge on Tuesday blocked a question about citizenship status from appearing on the 2020 census, ruling that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross ignored, cherry-picked or badly misconstrued evidence when deciding to add the query. The decision by Judge Jesse Furman will almost certainly be reviewed by the Supreme Court. The case was brought by a coalition that alleged the question would deter immigrants from participating in the population count and dilute left-leaning states political power. New York was among the states that sued. Furman criticized Rosss decision-making process, noting that the governments own census experts had found that the citizenship question would reduce the counts accuracy. He failed to consider several important aspects of the problem; alternately ignored, cherry-picked, or badly misconstrued the evidence in the record before him; acted irrationally both in light of that evidence and his own stated decisional criteria; and failed to justify significant departures from past policies and practices, Furman wrote. Advertisement Those violations are no mere trifles. The fair and orderly administration of the census is one of the Secretary of Commerces most important duties, as it is critical that the public have confidence in the integrity of the process. Secretary Ross violated the public trust, the judge added. The government will begin printing census forms in June, meaning the case will likely be fast-tracked to the nations highest court. Department of Justice spokeswoman Kelly Laco hinted at an appeal. We are disappointed and are still reviewing the ruling. Secretary Ross, the only person with legal authority over the census, reasonably decided to reinstate a citizenship question on the 2020 census in response to the Department of Justices request for better citizenship data, to protect voters against racial discrimination, she said. Our government is legally entitled to include a citizenship question on the census and people in the United States have a legal obligation to answer. Reinstating the citizenship question ultimately protects the right to vote and helps ensure free and fair elections for all Americans, Laco added. Furman frequently expressed frustration with government lawyers who tried 14 times to halt the case. Those efforts were unsuccessful and the judge presided over an eight-day trial without a jury in November. The case revealed that Ross had consulted with President Trumps former top adviser, Steve Bannon, about the citizenship question. That contradicted Rosss own testimony before Congress in March 2018 when he denied hed consulted with anyone in the White House about the move. Evidence also revealed that Ross had spoken with then-Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach about the question. Kobach made a name for himself by pushing bogus claims of widespread voter fraud by undocumented immigrants. Advertisement When the Trump administration shamefully tried to add a question about citizenship to the U.S. Census, New York stood up and said no way, no how to that blatant attack on immigrants. The reckless, discriminatory question was an attack on our values of tolerance and acceptance and would have undermined the accuracy and the legitimacy of Census data, which determines representation in Congress and the distribution of billions of dollars in federal aid, Gov. Cuomo said. New York is proud to welcome immigrants with open arms because we know that our diversity is our greatest strength. This decision is a triumphant victory for New York in our crusade against federal assaults on immigrants. With the Statue of Liberty raising her torch in our Harbor, we will never stop fighting for New Yorkers. State Attorney General Letitia James, whose office led the coalition of states that sued, said the citizenship question would only undermine immigrant communities. Inciting fear in our residents is not only immoral, but also ill-conceived, she said. Burning tires blocked the streets as outraged Zimbabweans marched in the nations main cities Monday to protest the governments sudden and jarring move over the weekend to more than double fuel prices. President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced in a televised address late Saturday night that his administration was increasing gasoline prices the next day to $12.51 per gallon to combat fuel shortages driven by rampant illegal trading. According to the website Globalpetrolprices.com, that makes Zimbabwes gasoline the most expensive in the world, with Hong Kong coming in a distant second. Diesel prices were also raised to $11.77 per gallon. The unexpected move sparked quick and widespread frustration among weary Zimbabweans who have endured months of fuel and food shortages. Advertisement As Mnangagwa touched down in Russia for an official visit, police clashed with protesters in Harare and the southern city of Bulawayo, and soldiers were deployed in parts of the capital, according to the Associated Press. The countrys largest labor union federation called for workers to stay home in a three-day national shutdown. More than a year after authoritarian leader Robert Mugabe was forced out of office, many Zimbabweans are fed up with their new governments failure to deliver any meaningful change. A student looks at a burning barricade during a demonstration Monday in Bulawayo after the president announced he was doubling gas prices. (ZINYANGE AUNTONY / AFP/Getty Images) Mnangagwa, a longtime member of Mugabes ruling ZANU-PF party, pledged to overhaul the hollowed-out economy when he was elected in July, but his critics regularly say they are worse off now than they were under his predecessor. Many are still out of work. Doctors just ended a weeks-long strike over pay, and teachers and civil servants have warned they may do the same. For months, Zimbabweans have waited for hours in lines for gas and faced empty shelves at markets as cash shortages have left many basic goods in scarce supply. The demonstrations that kicked off Monday raised the specter of the sort of violent crackdown that marred Mnangagwas victory in July, when the army opened fire on demonstrators in downtown Harare, killing six. Civil society leaders and the countrys main opposition called for demonstrations to remain peaceful Monday, but police and state media condemned protesters for resorting to violence, accusing them of looting and illegally blocking roads. Police spokesperson Charity Charamba said in state media that police had gathered video footage of the demonstrations and warned they would arrest anyone found on the wrong side of the law. Advertisement Mahr is a special correspondent. Two members of Chechnyas LGBTQ community have died as a result of police torture and at least 40 have been arrested since the end of December in a new crackdown on gay people in the mostly Muslim North Caucasus republic, activists said Monday. The new purge comes after global condemnation of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrovs crackdown on the LGBTQ community. Since 2016, Kadyrovs security services have arrested hundreds of gay men and lesbians and subjected them to beatings and electric shocks. Human rights groups have detailed accounts of police torture and abuse from victims and accused the Kremlin which oversees the restive Russian republic of turning a blind eye to Kadyrovs repression. In Chechnya, a new ski resort cant overshadow accusations of human rights abuses The new round of arrests began on Dec. 29, when police in the Chechen region of Argun arrested the administrator of a page on the Russian social media site VKontakte used by the LGBTQ community across Russias North Caucasus region, according to Igor Kochetkov, the director of programs for the Russian LGBT Network. The group is a St. Petersburg-based nongovernmental organization tracking abuses against the Chechen gay community. Advertisement The groups sources reported that police had detained both men and women and prevented them from leaving the region by taking their passports, Kochetkov said. The group also reported the two deaths. The network said it learned about the arrests in early January. The Russian authorities are unwilling not only to stop the persecution, but also to acknowledge the fact of illegal detentions, tortures and killings of LGBT people in Chechnya, the group said in a statement on its website. The Russian LGBT Network has reported helping at least 150 gay men flee Chechnya as a result of last years purge. Many of those who fled Chechnya sought asylum in Europe and the United States. I ask everyone who is still free to treat this message seriously and get out of the republic as soon as possible, a Jan. 10 message on VKontakte page said. Kadyrov, who has a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has denied the allegations of human rights violations in Chechnya. In a television interview last year, he insisted there were no gay people in his republic. Kadyrovs spokesman, Alvi Karimov, said Monday the Chechen leadership was not involved in the detentions and called the reports of a new purge untruth and misinformation. Chechen regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov, shown at the Kremlin in 2016, has said his republic has no gay people. (Pavel Golovkin / Associated Press) All places of detention in the Chechen Republic are part of Russias federal prison system, Karimov told the Russian news agency RBK. Advertisement Kadyrov, who has ruled the mountainous republic with an iron fist for more than a decade, has stayed in Putins favor by crushing regional insurgents while pledging allegiance to the Kremlin leader. Russia has fought two bloody wars with Chechnya since the breakup of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin has funded a massive rebuilding of Chechnya, particularly the capital, Grozny, which was nearly flattened after a decade of brutal fighting with Russia. Kadyrov has also been accused of playing a part in the assassination of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in central Moscow in 2015 and the earlier death of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who reported extensively about corruption in Chechnya and its close relationship with the Kremlin. In 2017, the U.S. sanctioned Kadyrov for supporting extrajudicial killings and an anti-gay purge. Ayres is a special correspondent. Advertisement sabra.ayres@latimes.com Twitter: @sabraayres On the eve of lawmakers vote on her proposed Brexit deal, British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday urged them to back the plan or risk catastrophic harm to the countrys faith in democracy and paralysis in Parliament. Speaking in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, which voted overwhelmingly in 2016 to leave the European Union, May said that if the House of Commons rejects the deal Tuesday, it will significantly increase the chance of Britain crashing out of the EU with no deal on the table or of Brexit not happening at all. We all have a duty to implement the result of the referendum, the prime minister said during her speech at a pottery factory in central England. She said of lawmakers who plan to vote against her deal: I ask them to consider the consequences of their actions on the faith of the British people in our democracy. Advertisement This was Mays last-ditch bid to win over any members of Parliament who are wavering over whether to vote against the government, or support the deal she agreed to following months of negotiations with the remaining 27 EU members. She also released a letter from EU leaders that attempted to give assurances about one of the biggest sticking points: how to avoid a hard border between the Republic of Ireland, a member of the European Union, and Northern Ireland, which will leave the EU along with the rest of the United Kingdom. But with the clock ticking down on the Tuesday evening vote, it seems increasingly certain that the arithmetic simply is not in her favor and she will not secure the 320 votes needed to push the deal through. May had already delayed the vote from Dec. 11 to try to increase the odds of passage. It would be the surprise of the century if she did win the vote, said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. Maybe [her speech] swayed a few people who were willing to budge anyway. But to be honest, I think everyones views are pretty much set now. More than two years after the British public voted by a 52% majority to leave the European Union in a nail-biting referendum, the country stands at a critical tipping point. There are fewer than 75 days left before the March 29 deadline, when Britain is expected to formally leave the bloc, but the gulf between politicians over what that divorce should look like appears wider than ever. Without a majority in Parliament to depend on, and with Mays own Conservative Party deeply fractured over the issue of what Brexit should look like, if indeed it should happen at all, the prime minister needs support from lawmakers from across the political divide to get her deal through. Advertisement Numerous members of the main opposition Labor Party as well as the Liberal Democrats have vowed to vote down the deal, with many of them also calling for a second referendum. At least 100 of Mays own Conservative members of Parliament have said they will not back her, along with the 10 members of Parliament from the Democratic Unionist Party out of Northern Ireland. Mays government depends on support from the Democratic Unionists to maintain a parliamentary majority, but they are deeply unhappy with the so-called backstop plan, which seeks to avoid any border reemerging between Ireland and Northern Ireland that could threaten the hard-fought peace process there. The backstop agreement would come into effect only if Britain and the EU cannot agree to a future trade agreement. Under the current contingency plan, the whole of the U.K. would remain in an EU customs union until a more permanent solution is found. Northern Ireland would remain linked to some rules of the EU single market. Advertisement The Democratic Unionists argue that such differences between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. could damage the union. Other critics oppose the fact that the backstop has no time limit and Britain could not leave it unilaterally. Pro- and anti-Brexit supporters hold placards and flags outside the Houses of Parliament in central London on Monday. (Tolga Akmen / AFP/Getty Images) In a further setback Monday, assistant whip Gareth Johnson who was responsible for trying to get lawmakers to fall into line resigned his post, saying the Brexit deal was not in the national interest and that he had to place his loyalty to my country above my loyalty to the government. More than 10 members of Mays government have quit over Brexit in the 2 years since she became prime minister. Ive certainly never seen anything like this in my lifetime, professor Bale said. And I couldnt really point to anything after 1945 of this nature. It really is chaos. Advertisement May says she believes the deal delivers on what the British public voted for it secures the rights of the 3 million EU citizens living in Britain and the 1 million British nationals living in the EU, while also enabling the country to regain control over its borders, money and laws. But the crux of the deal is a compromise that has fundamentally left no one happy. Die-hard Euroskeptics feel it keeps Britain too closely tied to EU rules, and ardent remainers dont want to sever ties at all. Former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said he anticipated May would get one of the biggest parliamentary beatings any British prime minister has ever had in history. Whilst [the deal] says it takes us out of the European Union, it actually leaves us trapped in many aspects of it, he said. Advertisement If May does not secure majority backing for her deal, various scenarios could play out. May will probably dash to Brussels to seek further assurances and minor tweaks to her deal from EU leaders, although they have repeatedly said that this is the best offer Britain is going to get. May will have three days to return to Parliament with a Plan B, which could then be voted on. Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn could call a no-confidence vote in the government; if he won, it could trigger a general election. Advertisement Or Brexit could go ahead without a deal, despite prominent business leaders and financial analysts warning that would be a potentially catastrophic outcome for the countrys already shaky economy. Alternatively, the March 29 deadline could be delayed to allow more negotiating time, an idea that seems to be gaining traction. But that would probably increase calls for a second referendum. On Monday, protesters in support of the so-called Peoples Vote campaign gathered outside Parliament to protest what they see as a disastrous Brexit deal and demand the British public be given the right to vote to either accept the plan or remain in the EU. In a speech later in the day in the House of Commons, May warned against blocking Brexit: That would be a subversion of our democracy, saying to the people we were elected to serve that we were unwilling to do what they instructed. Advertisement Of course, there is also the risk that May herself could resign after battling for years to unite the country around a shared vision of Brexit. For all the talk of her resilience and doggedness, shes only human, Bale said. Most other prime ministers, faced with the kinds of humiliations and knock backs shes had, would have gone months if not a year ago. Weve got used to the idea that she somehow will never give in, but maybe she will. Tuesdays vote is scheduled to take place about 7 p.m. with a result expected soon after. Advertisement Boyle is a special correspondent. Its been a long 2 years since Britons narrowly voted to leave the European Union and to many, it feels like a short 2 months before that momentous decision is to take effect, on March 29. Here are some scenarios going forward after Tuesdays crushing parliamentary defeat for Prime Minister Theresa Mays plan for the terms of Brexit, Britains planned exit from the 28-member bloc. No confidence Within moments of the parliamentary vote, the head of the opposition Labor Party called for a vote of no confidence in Mays government. Though wounded, she looked fairly well-positioned to survive. The prime minister could also step down voluntarily, but shes endured a series of humiliations without raising that as a prospect. May could also call for a general election. She became prime minister after the Brexit referendum in 2016. Delayed departure After the 2016 vote, Britain triggered Article 50 of the EUs principal treaty, starting a two-year countdown clock for departure. But May could ask the EU for an extension beyond March 29, which the bloc, seeking to avoid even greater chaos, would likely grant. At least one parliamentary faction has already called for a postponement. Advertisement Tweaking the deal Before Tuesdays vote, the EU firmly ruled out any substantive changes in the negotiated accord, saying the deal that Parliament rejected was the only one on offer. May could return to Brussels to search for some small concessions and bring those before British lawmakers for another vote. But mere tweaks would be unlikely to change the outcome in Parliament. Second referendum May has argued passionately that putting the question to a referendum once again would undermine Britains democracy, so shes unlikely to support a do-over Peoples Vote. But the re-vote idea, which would need parliamentary approval, has considerable public support. The EU would be unlikely to object if British voters backed away from the earlier decision; its highest court ruled late last year that Britain could unilaterally change its mind about leaving. But bitter domestic divisions over issues like sovereignty and immigration would likely roar to the fore as they did in the original Brexit vote, which was decided by a slim 52% to 48%. Crashing out Leaving the EU with no accord in place crashing out -- has been described by economists as a doomsday scenario, highly disruptive to trade and likely to set off a deep recession in Britain, while also harming economies on the Continent. British consumers might face heavy expense and scarcity of goods that were previously freely available, such as certain medications. Most lawmakers oppose crashing out, although for very different reasons. But the parliamentary mechanism for preventing it is unclear. laura.king@latimes.com @laurakingLAT Vowing I will not be bullied, President Donald Trumps nominee for attorney general asserted independence from the White House on Tuesday, saying he believed that Russia had tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, that the special counsel investigation shadowing Trump is not a witch hunt and that his predecessor was right to recuse himself from the probe. The comments by William Barr at his Senate confirmation hearing pointedly departed from Trumps own views and underscored Barrs efforts to reassure Democrats that he will not be a loyalist to a president who has appeared to demand it from law enforcement. He also repeatedly sought to assuage concerns that he might disturb or upend special counsel Robert Muellers investigation as it reaches its final stages. Some Democrats are concerned about that very possibility, citing a memo Barr wrote to the Justice Department before his nomination in which he criticized Muellers investigation for the way it was presumably looking into whether Trump had obstructed justice. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Barr the memo showed a determined effort, I thought, to undermine Bob Mueller. The nominee told senators he was merely trying to advise Justice Department officials against stretching the statute beyond what was intended to conclude that the president had obstructed justice. Advertisement Though Barr said an attorney general should work in concert with an administrations policy goals, he broke from some Trump talking points, including the mantra that the Russia probe is a witch hunt, and said he frowned on Lock Her Up calls for Hillary Clinton. Trump has equivocated on Russian meddling in the 2016 election and assailed and pushed out his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for recusing because of his work with the Trump campaign. Barr stated without hesitation that it was in the public interest for Mueller to finish his investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin to sway the presidential election. He said he would resist any order by Trump to fire Mueller without cause and called it unimaginable that Mueller would do anything to require his termination. I believe the Russians interfered or attempted to interfere with the election, and I think we have to get to the bottom of it, Barr said during the nine-hour hearing. He said that, at 68 and partially retired, he felt emboldened to do the right thing and not really care about the consequences. If a president directs an attorney general to do something illegal, he said, an attorney general must resign. I will not be bullied into doing anything that I think is wrong by anybody, whether it be editorial boards or Congress or the president, Barr told the hearing. Consumed by the partial government shutdown, Trump remained out of sight at the White House but also kept an eye on the news coverage of the hearing and told aides he was pleased with how Barr was handling himself, said two White House officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal conversations. On other topics, Barr echoed in part the presidents hardline immigration stance and said the Justice Department would not go after marijuana companies in states where the drug is legal. He also would not rule out jailing reporters for doing their jobs, saying he could envision circumstances where a journalist could be held in contempt as a last resort. Barrs hearing continues Wednesday with a lineup of character witnesses, including former Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Advertisement Barrs confirmation is likely, given that Republicans control the Senate. Even some Democrats have been looking to move on from acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, who declined to remove himself the Russia probe and has faced scrutiny over his private dealings. But he nonetheless faced skeptical questions from Democrats over whether he could oversee without bias or interference the remainder of Muellers probe. Feinstein said the nominees past rhetoric in support of expansive presidential powers raises a number of serious questions about your views on executive authority and whether the president is, in fact, above the law. Under questioning, Barr voiced a more moderate view, saying a president who ordered an attorney general to halt an investigation would clearly be committing an abuse of power if not necessarily a crime. Barr said under questioning from Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, that he wouldnt interfere with a Mueller request to subpoena Trump for his testimony if there was a factual basis. But he also said he saw no reason to change Justice Department legal opinions that have held that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Advertisement Barr called Mueller a friend of 30 years and said it is vitally important that Mueller be allowed to complete his investigation. I dont believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt, he said when asked by the panels Republican chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The special counsel is required to report his findings confidentially to the Justice Department. Barr said he expected to produce his own report to Congress and said it was his goal to release as much information as possible to the public, though he stopped short of a direct pledge. He also noted the Justice Department does not typically disclose information about people it investigates but does not prosecute. He also disclosed having discussed Mueller with Trump during a meeting in 2017 when Barr declined to join his legal team. He said he and his wife had been sort of looking forward to a bit of respite and I didnt want to stick my head into that meat grinder. Advertisement Trump wanted to know what Mueller, who worked for Barr when he led the Justice Department between 1991 and 1993, was like. He was interested in that, wanted to know what I thought about Muellers integrity and so forth and so on, Barr said. I said Bob is a straight shooter and should be dealt with as such. He also defended his decision to send an unsolicited memo to the Justice Department in which he criticized as fatally misconceived the theory of obstruction that Mueller appeared to be pursuing with regard to Trump, including the special counsels investigation into presidents firing of former FBI director James Comey. He said he raised his concerns at a lunch with the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller and has overseen his work. Rosenstein didnt respond and was sphinx-like, Barr recalled. He followed up with the memo in June. Advertisement Barr also sent the document to White House lawyers and discussed it with Trumps personal attorneys and a lawyer representing Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, among others. Barr said the memo was narrowly focused on a single theory of obstruction that media reports suggested Mueller might be considering. He said he would consult with ethics officials on whether he would need to recuse because of the memo but the decision would be ultimately his. Associated Press writers Chad Day, Jonathan Lemire and Colleen Long contributed to this report. Extremists stormed a luxury hotel in Kenyas capital on Tuesday, setting off thunderous explosions and gunning down people at cafe tables in an attack claimed by Africas deadliest Islamic militant group. A police officer said at least 15 people had died. It is terrible. What I have seen is terrible, said Charles Njenga, who ran from a scene of blood, broken glass, burning vehicles and pillars of black smoke. Al-Shabab the Somalia-based group that carried out the 2013 attack at the nearby Westgate Mall in Nairobi that left 67 people dead claimed responsibility for the carnage at the DusitD2 hotel complex, which includes bars, restaurants, offices and banks and is in a well-to-do neighborhood with many American, European and Indian expatriates. A Kenyan police officer said 15 bodies had been taken to the morgue. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. The U.S. State Department confirmed that an American citizen was among those killed, but did not release the victims identity. Al-Shabab asserted that 47 people were killed but its Shahada news agency post gave no details. Advertisement Authorities sent special forces into the hotel to flush out the gunmen. Late Tuesday night, about eight hours after the siege began, Interior Minister Fred Matiangi said all of the buildings affected had been secured and that security forces were mopping up. I would like to reiterate that the situation is under control and the country is safe, he said. However, more gunfire was heard about an hour later, Kenyan broadcaster NTV reported. Some family members said they had been in touch with loved ones still hiding inside the complex, waiting to be rescued. Early Wednesday, Kenyas Interior Ministry said a tweet that all buildings had been secured and there was no further threat to the public. To God be the Glory. We have been rescued. Over 50 people in my group. No injuries Thank you all for the support and prayers. Thanks You KDF, tweeted a Kenyan businesswoman, Aggie Asiimwe Konde. KDF stands for the Kenya Defense Forces. Authorities did not say how many attackers there were or what happened to them though Kenyas Citizen TV aired security-camera footage that showed at least four heavily armed men in dark-colored, paramilitary-style gear. A police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media said bodies were seen in restaurants downstairs and in offices upstairs, but there was no time to count the dead. A witness who gave his name only as Ken said he saw five bodies at the hotel entrance. Other people were shouting for help and when we rushed back to try to rescue them, gunshots started coming from upstairs, and we had to duck because they were targeting us and we could see two guys shooting, he said. Advertisement The coordinated assault began with an explosion that targeted three vehicles outside a bank, and a suicide bombing in the hotel lobby that severely wounded a number of guests, said Kenyas national police chief, Joseph Boinnet. Survivors reported hearing a shattering blast and saw people mowed down by gunmen as they sat in a cafe. Victims were left slumped on tables. We were changing our shifts, and that is when I heard a loud blast and people were screaming, said Enoch Kibet, who works as a cleaner at the cafe and managed to crawl out a basement gate. I couldnt believe I was alive. The blast was so loud and shook the whole complex. Kenyan hospitals appealed for blood donations even as the number of wounded remained unclear. Advertisement Associated Press video from inside the hotel showed Kenyan security officers searching the building and scared workers emerging from hiding while gunfire could still be heard. Some climbed out a window by ladder. One man got up from the floor where he appeared to be trying to hide under a piece of wood paneling, then showed his ID. As officers searched luxury fashion displays, wounded people were carried away on stretchers. Like the attack at the Westgate Mall, this one appeared aimed at wealthy Kenyans and foreigners. It came a day after a magistrate ruled that three men must stand trial in connection with the Westgate Mall siege. Al-Shabab has vowed retribution against Kenya for sending troops to Somalia to fight it since 2011. Tuesdays violence came three years to the day after al-Shabab extremists attacked a Kenyan military base in Somalia, killing scores of people. Advertisement The al-Qaida-linked group has killed hundreds of people in Kenya. In the deadliest attack, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for an assault on Kenyas Garissa University in 2015 that killed 147 people, mostly students. The latest carnage demonstrated al-Shababs continued ability to carry out spectacular acts of bloodshed despite a dramatic increase in U.S. airstrikes against it under President Donald Trump. Tourism an important source of revenue in Kenya, East Africas largest economy has suffered because of the violence. Gunfire could be heard for hours after Tuesdays attack began. Some people ducked behind cars, screaming, while others took cover behind fountains and other features at the lush complex. A bomb disposal unit was called in, and police blew up a car they said had explosives inside. A grenade was seen in a hallway. Advertisement Dozens of people were rushed to safety as plainclothes officers went from shop to shop in the complex. Some people held up their hands to show they were unarmed. A Kenyan intelligence official said the country had been on high alert since November, with information about potential attacks on high-profile targets in Nairobi. The official was not authorized to talk to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity. Despite the repeated attacks, the Kenya-Somalia border remains porous, with al-Shabab extremists able to easily bribe their way across, according to a U.N. panel of experts. The hotel complex, owned by Thailands Dusit International chain in Nairobis Westlands neighborhood, is about a mile (2 kilometers) from Westgate Mall on a relatively quiet, tree-lined road in what is considered one of the most secure parts of the city. The hotels website says it is cocooned away from the hustle and bustle in a secure and peaceful haven. Advertisement On Monday, the hotel promoted its spa by tweeting: Is your new year off to a rough start? Associated Press writers Abdi Guled in Nairobi, Kenya, and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed. A multimedia art exhibit showcasing stories from the Little Saigon District, an area in San Diegos City Heights neighborhood, is launching Friday at Fair@44. The project, a partnership among Media Arts Center San Diego, the AjA Project, Little Saigon Foundation and El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Association, is meant to start conversations about the Vietnamese-American experience as well as draw attention to the district and its culture. The idea is to create dialogue about this community and to have something that they can be proud of thats beautiful, said Natalia Valerdi-Rogers, community production manager at Media Arts Center San Diego. One of the projects stories that stuck with her is that of a Vietnamese immigrant who started a newspaper for the community. Advertisement She came here to have a sense of freedom and choice, Valerdi-Rogers said. It was important for her to establish the newspaper here and help people communicate, find jobs and build a community that was stronger. For Michael Tran, Little Saigon Committee Chair, the project is a way to bridge the gap between generations in the Vietnamese community and start conversations about difficult topics. For the past year and a half, project organizers have worked with Vietnamese-American college students to conduct oral history interviews in the community and tell those stories with both videos and photos. They hope to add work by local high school students as the project continues. Rizzhel Javier, a teaching artist with the AjA project, curated the installation. The students she worked with told her that they wanted to show who they are as a community outside of war. My main goal is for my students to find a way to comfortably talk about who they are, where they came from, and for the community to recognize some of the underrepresented communities in San Diego such as the Little Saigon District, Javier said. Those who visit the Little Saigon Stories exhibit are invited to contribute their stories to the project as well. The districts businesses are about 70-percent Vietnamese-owned, according to Beryl Forman of the El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Association. established Advertisement The mobile exhibits grand opening, a free event from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday, will include food vendors and performances by local artists, and the installation will be available for viewing through mid-March. The exhibit will also be on display at the San Diego Tet Festival from February 1-3. Immigration Videos On Now New developments in family separation case 9:53 On Now A San Diego woman volunteered as a medic in Texas helping migrant families 2:35 On Now Immigration policy protests in Carlsbad nearly cancelled after permit issue 1:38 On Now When children are separated from their parents at the border, here is where they go next On Now Prospects of a deal for 'Dreamers' may hinge on separating Trump from hard-liners on his staff On Now What is DACA? On Now Border wall prototype contractors selected On Now Video: Ukrainian boxer wins asylum in U.S. On Now 30 apprehended after Border Patrol agents discover tunnel On Now Video: Kurdish diaspora prepare to vote on independence Advertisement Follow me on Facebook for live updates about immigration news kate.morrissey@sduniontribune.com, @bgirledukate on Twitter Free testing is available for anyone exposed to tuberculosis in two different North County locations. The county public health department said Tuesday that potential exposures occurred at the Palomar College Rancho Bernardo Center between Aug. 20 and Sept. 26 and at the La Posada de Guadalupe Mens Shelter in Carlsbad between Sept. 15 and Jan. 3. Health officials released no information on the age, gender, occupation or current medical condition of either person who tested positive for the bacterial disease, saying only that the two cases are not related. Tuberculosis spreads through the air, but only through close and prolonged contact. Transmission is unlikely unless two people spend hours together indoors. Usually about four hours of exposure is necessary for an infection to move from one person to another, but transmission time decreases to about one hour for those with compromised immune systems. Infection is much less likely in open spaces such as waiting rooms or common areas of buildings. Advertisement The symptoms of tuberculosis infection include persistent cough, fever, night sweats and unexplained weight loss. Infection can be cured with antibiotics. Palomar College will offer free testing the week of Jan. 28 at its campus student health centers on its San Marcos and Rancho Bernardo campuses. La Posada de Guadalupe will offer testing on Jan. 23 from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. For more information, call Palomar College at (760) 891-7530, La Posada de Guadalupe at (760) 929-2322 or the county Tuberculosis Control program at (619) 692-8621. Its the health departments second tuberculosis warning of 2019. Last week, public health officials warned the public of an exposure at the Sons & Daughters of Guam Club in San Diegos Lincoln Park neighborhood. Other recent warnings have followed exposures at Southwestern College, Viejas Bingo near Alpine, Innovation High School in Chula Vista, Urban Corps San Diego, UC San Diegos main campus in La Jolla, the Vista Detention Center, North County Court Services and the Las Colinas Detention Center in Santee. Though additional cases may still be reported, the current 2018 tuberculosis case count countywide is 224. There were 237 and 258 cases reported in 2017 and 2016 respectively. Advertisement Health Playlist On Now Video: Why aren't Americans getting flu shots? 0:37 On Now Video: Leaders urge public to help extinguish hepatitis outbreak On Now San Diego starts cleansing sidewalks, streets to combat hepatitis A On Now Video: Scripps to shutter its hospice service On Now Video: Scripps La Jolla hospitals nab top local spot in annual hospital rankings On Now Video: Does a parent's Alzheimer's doom their children? On Now Video: Vaccine can prevent human papillomavirus, which can cause cancer 0:31 On Now 23 local doctors have already faced state discipline in 2017 0:48 On Now EpiPen recall expands On Now Kids can add years to your life paul.sisson@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1850 Twitter: @paulsisson A man who beat and stabbed his girlfriend to death in their bedroom while her two children were downstairs in the couples Mountain View apartment was sentenced Monday to 16 years to life in state prison. Damon Edwards, 42, was convicted in November of second-degree murder in the Aug. 25, 2017, death of 38-year-old Mickette Smith. Damon Edwards (Courtesy photo) He was also convicted of two misdemeanor counts of child abuse. Advertisement Deputy District Attorney Mary Loeb said the victim was stabbed five times, had three broken bones and suffered blunt force trauma to her head. The morning of the murder, Loeb said the defendant came running down the stairs of the Mayberry Street apartment and told the children not to go upstairs before he ran out the door. The children found their mother dead upstairs about 9:15 a.m. and called 911, according to Loeb. Edwards was arrested that night at 7:30 p.m. . A proposed homeless shelter in Venice faced a legal challenge Monday from a homeowner and business group that claims the controversial project was jammed through with insufficient review of the environmental effects on nearby schools and residences. The Venice Stakeholders Assn. lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accused the city of Los Angeles and the Coastal Commission of violating the California Environmental Quality Act and the Coastal Act by signing off on the 154-bed tent shelter in December without more extensive study. For the record: A previous version of this article referred to a potential shelter site in Westminster. It is in Westchester. The group is seeking an injunction to stop the $5-million project, which the city plans to open at an abandoned bus yard this spring. Westside City Councilman Mike Bonin said he was disappointed that the Venice group was against a solution to the beach towns homelessness crisis. Advertisement We face a stark choice between providing housing and shelter or allowing the proliferation of sidewalk encampments in our neighborhood, Bonin said. By fighting against solutions, [the plaintiff] perpetuates the problem and makes it exponentially worse. Mark Ryavec, president of the Venice group, said the city had ignored more appropriate shelter sites in Westchester and West Los Angeles. He also said the city could build or master-lease shared housing, with two homeless individuals to a room, for far less than the city plans to spend on shelter beds and permanent supportive housing. Were not arguing about solutions, only location, Ryavec said. We dont accept theres any necessity to offer the housing exactly where people are on the street. The Venice project is one of the most contentious of 15 city shelters that Mayor Eric Garcetti has promised by years end as part of his A Bridge Home program. L.A. voters have committed more than $1 billion to providing shelters and housing for homeless people, but where to put them has erupted as an explosive issue in San Pedro, Sherman Oaks and Venice as Garcetti considers a possible presidential bid in 2020. Venice has 850 people without homes, making it one of the most concentrated homeless enclaves in Los Angeles County. Most of Venices homeless population lives on or around the boardwalk or in cars, tents and campers in the streets. Homeless people in the Venice shelter would sleep in a tent holding 100 adult beds and nine trailers for youth. Bathroom and shower trailers, storage units, a pet run and outdoor dining space would complete the project. Alex Comisar, Garcettis spokesman, said the mayor remained fully supportive of the proposed Venice shelter. Advertisement The city has taken careful steps to move this site forward in a way that balances community participation with the need to stand up more bridge housing now, Comisar said. The lawsuit said the Venice site is near homes that are particularly susceptible to the noise, traffic and parking that will result from opening a shelter. It also contended that the site will act as a magnet for other homeless encampments and individuals who will create more environmental and social problems. gholland@latimes.com Advertisement Twitter: @geholland A two-alarm fire caused significant damage to a historic hotel in Coronado late Monday and investigators are trying to determine how it started. The fire was reported at the El Cordova Hotel shortly before 11:30 p.m. The blaze also damaged Miguels Cocina, one of four restaurants in the Spanish village-style hotel complex. Built as a retirement home in 1902, the building was converted into a hotel in 1930. The fire is still under investigation but it appeared to have started in the kitchen area and spread to the floor of one of the hotel rooms above it, said Coronado Fire Battalion Chief Perry Peake. Advertisement The fire also made its way to the buildings attic, he said. Peake said crews from San Diego and National City as well as federal firefighters were called to assist in putting out the fire. Crews remained at the site Tuesday. Coronado police helped to evacuate nine hotel guests from the building, and they were moved to another property, the battalion chief said. No one was injured. The fire caused an estimated $450,000 in damage about $300,000 to the structure and $150,000 to its contents. Peake said four or five hotel rooms were damaged, as was the buildings roof and the kitchen in the restaurant. Firefighters tried to minimize the damage to the historic hotel, which sits in the heart of Coronado, across the street from the Hotel del Coronado. According to the hotels website, the El Cordova was built as a retirement mansion for wealthy industrialist Elisha Babcock and turned into a hotel after his death. The complex has a courtyard swimming pool and 12 boutique shops. Peake said crews were keenly aware of the significance of the hotel to the community. Advertisement The firefighters worked very hard to make sure we didnt lose part of Coronados history, he said. Kucher writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune. karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @karenkucher When Los Angeles teachers went on strike Monday, they followed a wave of strikes and demonstrations by teachers around the country. In some ways, the L.A. strike is similar to those earlier actions. But there are also some big differences, as The Times reported earlier this month. The strike comes at a time when the L.A. teachers union is struggling against legal and political challenges to its influence and the increasing number of privately run charter schools, which compete with district-run schools for enrollment. Here is a breakdown: Why does the L.A. teachers union find itself at a crossroads? For decades, United Teachers Los Angeles was the most influential force in the politics of the school system. But it has been unable, in recent elections, to match the campaign spending fueled by wealthy donors who support charter schools. These privately operated, mostly non-union schools now serve about 1 in 5 students enrolled in L.A. public schools. L.A. has more charters than any other school system. Advertisement The rapid growth of charters has created an alternate constituency of parents who support charters and may resent the dark way the union casts their schools. FULL COVERAGE: LAUSD teachers strike In 2017, for the first time, charter-backed candidates won a majority on the L.A. Board of Education. A Supreme Court ruling last year also has deprived UTLA, along with other California unions, of the right to collect fees from all teachers within its jurisdiction. Union membership and the accompanying dues that fuel campaigns essentially have become optional. How does the L.A. strike fit into national movement? Many of those strikes occurred in red states, including Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arizona, where teachers were widely perceived as victims of conservative Republican machinations. In Kentucky, Republican Gov. Matt Bevin said that striking teachers would be responsible for unsupervised children being sexually assaulted, ingesting poison and beginning to use illegal drugs. He also accused teachers of being stupid and selfish in fighting for higher pay and against cuts to their underfunded pensions. It turned out that many Kentuckians identified with teachers. Teachers in Kentucky and elsewhere were able to take their issues directly to the state Capitol the source of funding and, in the eyes of many, the source of blame for budget shortfalls that caused suffering for teachers and students alike. Advertisement In conservative places, teachers were successfully fighting for liberal values. And laws against strikes turned out not to matter so much. Teachers enjoyed such strong public support that authorities did not dare enforce the laws. How is the L.A. strike different? An us-versus-them construct does not translate readily to California, where unions are among the states most powerful special interests. And L.A. teachers must face off against a district whose leaders, including Supt. Austin Beutner, echo their unions demand for increased state and federal funding for schools. Union President Alex Caputo-Pearl and other union leaders are trying to put forward a complex argument on funding. While they argue that the state needs to do much more, they also says that L.A. Unified is hoarding a fortune and that district leadership is choosing to starve its schools. Advertisement Meanwhile, financial experts brought in by L.A. Unified have reached different conclusions supporting the districts assertion that it faces potential insolvency in two to three years, even without meeting most union demands. Harvey Weinsteins attorney Benjamin Brafman is expected to ask a New York judge for permission to be relieved as legal counsel for the Hollywood mogul in his rape and sexual assault trial, according to sources familiar with the case. The move could delay Weinsteins trial, which is slated for May. It would likely take a new attorney considerable time to get up to speed on a highly complex case with potentially dozens of witnesses. Since December, Weinstein has agitated for a more aggressive approach that seeks to undermine not only the two women accusing him of rape but also the dozens of women accusing him of sexually inappropriate conduct over four decades in Hollywood. After months of letting his lawyer set the tone, Weinstein has begun talking to other people, including media movers and shakers, the sources say. Advertisement For Brafman to exit the high-profile proceedings, he will need Justice James Burkes approval. Two sources familiar with the inner workings of the proceedings of the case, involving allegations that Weinstein raped two women, said the attorney intended to file the paperwork soon. Last month, the judge rejected a motion by Brafman to dismiss charges of sexual assault against Weinstein. For months, Weinsteins legal team had attacked the reliability of his accusers and questioned the conduct of the New York Police Department and prosecutors. Despite hundreds of pages of dismissal motions, Burke quickly dismissed the motion. Weinstein has been under intense scrutiny since October 2017, when dozens of women came forward to accuse him of a wide array of misconduct. He was arrested by the NYPD in May and charged with six counts of sexual assault in Manhattan. Prosecutors said he forced former actress Lucia Evans to perform oral sex on him in 2004; attacked another woman, Mimi Haleyi, in 2006; and sexually assaulted an unidentified woman in a hotel in 2013. The Times typically does not name women who make accusations of sexual assault, but Haleyi and Evans have publicly told their stories. Prosecutors dropped the charge related to Evans accusation in October after questions about inconsistencies in her testimony. Brafman argued that Evans perjured testimony poisoned a grand jury against the producer and called for all charges to be dismissed. In court filings, Brafman also has pointed to email communications that took place between the remaining accusers and Weinstein after the dates of the alleged assaults. In one case, Brafman claims, an accuser attended a movie screening with Weinstein mere hours after she said he assaulted her in 2013. Advertisement Brafman has also alleged misconduct by police during the Weinstein investigation and accused prosecutors of presenting an incomplete case to the grand jury. In a six-page decision, Burke rejected each of Brafmans arguments. There was no basis for Brafmans accusations of law enforcement malfeasance, according to the ruling, and Burke found that the charges presented in the Grand Jury were supported by competent evidence and the proceedings were properly conducted. He also ruled the dismissal of the charge stemming from Evans accusation had no bearing on the other charges. The discovery of the email communications between Weinstein and his accusers that took place after the alleged assaults were not grounds for dismissing the indictment either, Burke ruled. The judge deemed witness credibility as an issue to be determined at trial. Advertisement In addition to the charges he faces in Manhattan, Weinstein also remains the target of several civil lawsuits and faces potential prosecution in Southern California. Police in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills have built assault cases against Weinstein, and those cases have been presented to the Los Angeles County district attorneys office for consideration of possible charges. richard.winton@latimes.com Twitter: @lacrimes The Los Angeles teachers strike began with rain, but at least there was food. Taco truck operators showed up some schools to provide teachers with food. Its L.A. What else are you going to bring? Victor Fernandez said. Its tacos. Nobody hates tacos. About 50 people picketed outside the Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts. Advertisement Among them were husband and wife Tirsa and Steve Farah, who had a cart offering free coffee and conchas to picketers. Tirsa said her mother has been a teacher at Garfield High School for 30 years now. They chose this location because it was near her business, Tirsas Mexican Cafe. I couldnt not do it, Tirsa, 33, said of being out at the protest. This is history in the making. Her family is full of educators. She wore red lipstick, a red bandana and red apron in support of the strike. Tomorrow, she said she plans on joining her mother at Garfield High to offer treats and coffee to the early morning picketers. Theyre the heroes, she said of the teachers. Taco trucks are driving to schools and feeding hungry teachers on strike. pic.twitter.com/jFtXt3xc5b Steve Saldivar (@stevesaldivar) January 14, 2019 Victor Fernandez, with the International Socialists Organization, dressed as a taco talks to a reporter about the teachers strike pic.twitter.com/NOb0xgKqV7 Steve Saldivar (@stevesaldivar) January 14, 2019 The Taco for Teachers fund used to pay for the taco trucks, was started by The Democratic Socialists of America and the International Socialists Organization. Their GoFundMe page raised more than $13,000. Advertisement More taco trucks are scheduled to visit schools in El Sereno, Boyle Heights, Venice and North Hollywood. Yarenny Einentel, a 15-year-old freshman at Elizabeth Learning Center in Cudahy, came to school Monday because she was curious about what would happen on the first day of a planned massive strike by teachers. High school students were given reading and math assignments to do in the gym, she said. Unimpressed, she called her mom to pick her up and doesnt intend to show up the rest of the week. Instead, she said, Ill probably sleep. Inside the schools main office, a line of parents and guardians came to pick up their children by midmorning. Advertisement One parent, who didnt want to share her name, said her ninth-grader son wanted to be picked up. Were not doing anything, he told her over the phone. As thousands of teachers and supporters rallied in the streets to protest conditions and pay at Los Angeles Unified School District, some students and administrators described auditoriums and classrooms with fewer pupils and little actual instruction. At Reseda High, only about half of the schools 1,350 students came Monday, said school Principal Melanie Welsh. In the schools auditorium, about 100 students mostly ignored the large screen, which showed former First Lady Michelle Obama singing Beyonces Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it) on a segment of Carpool Karaoke with talk show host James Corden. At Venice High School, all the students were told to go the gym and were later sent to different classrooms, said special education assistant Charles Feldman. In one classroom, students looked at their phones or talked to each other, not doing much as far as any learning, Feldman said. At Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, high school students were directed to the auditorium. Attendance at the school, which normally has 2,000 students, was down by about half on Monday, officials said. One girl outside could be heard saying, Im leaving. This is so boring. Authorities detained a 30-year-old Citrus College student suspected of threatening to shoot up the school on Tuesday, leading to a more than six-hour lockdown of the Glendora campus. The incident began about 11:15 a.m., when Terrell Lee Bennett called 911 saying he was on his way to the college, according to the Glendora Police Department. The campus and surrounding streets were locked down as several law enforcement agencies, including a regional SWAT team, were called to the scene. Authorities found the mans car in a campus parking lot and began a room-to-room search of the college The Los Angeles County sheriffs bomb squad did not find explosive devices on campus, the Police Department said. Bennett, of Chino, surrendered and was taken into custody about 3:40 p.m. Police identified him as an online student who was scheduled Tuesday for an in-person class. Advertisement Terrell Lee Bennett was taken into custody Tuesday after a shooting threat at Citrus College. (Glendora Police Department) Police said that suicide-by-cop appeared to be a possible motive based on Bennetts statements. During the incident, Citrus College urged people to stay away. If you are not on campus, stay away. Go to the nearest room, turn off lights, lock door, and remain quiet. Remain locked down until an All Clear has been issued, the college tweeted. Azusa Pacific University also went on lockdown temporarily because of its proximity to Citrus College. Both schools canceled classes Tuesday afternoon for the rest of the day. The lockdown at Citrus College was lifted about 6 p.m. Foothill Transit lines 188, 281, 284 and 488 were rerouted because of the lockdown, the transit agency said on Twitter. The agency said riders should expect delays. URGENT: APU Community at the Azusa campus: Please shelter-in-place. The campus is on lockdown. If you are on campus, please remain where you are. If off campus, please stay away from the area. Glendora PD is investigating a threat at Citrus College. Updates to follow. AzusaPacific (@azusapacific) January 15, 2019 Navy Personnel Command which oversees the Navy brigs where military prisoners are held has pushed back against a congressmans claims that a SEAL charged with multiple war crimes is being held in irregularly harsh conditions. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, sent a letter to President Donald Trump last week to draw attention to the plight of Edward R. Gallagher, a Navy SEAL being held in a Miramar brig on charges of premeditated murder and shooting civilians during a 2017 Iraq deployment. Gallagher is undergoing a general court martial in San Diego. The trial phase is scheduled to begin Feb. 19. Hunter, who had weighed in during Gallaghers arraignment the week prior, met with the SEAL on Jan. 7 for up to an hour. Advertisement In his letter to Trump, Hunter said that conditions in the brig were not appropriate for an American war hero with 19 years of service. Hunter said, for example, that Gallaghers children were forced to wear hospital gowns during brig visits so that they may not bring unwanted attention from any of the other inmates. In a lengthy statement in response to questions from The San Diego Union-Tribune about the issues raised by Hunter, Cmdr. Karin Burzynski, a spokeswoman for Navy Personnel Command, said Navy Consolidated Brig Miramar was only following regulations. For all of the claims (Hunter) raised, the brig is in compliance with all directives, regulations, policies and national standards, Burzynski said in an email. Among those regulations, she said, was a visitor dress code. All Naval Consolidated Brigs have visitation clothing requirements, which are derived from Navy uniform regulations and the host installation civilian clothes policy, she said. Burzynski said hospital gown-like smocks are offered at the brig so that visitors can proceed with their scheduled visits while conforming to the civilian attire policy. Records are not required or kept of visitors who arrive in inappropriate attire and are offered a smock, she said. However, it is believed that during one visit, SOC Gallaghers 9-year old son was asked to wear a smock over his tank-top, which he did without incident. Reached by phone Monday, Gallaghers wife, Andrea Gallagher, declined to comment on the visit. Advertisement Another charge levied by Hunter was that the only rooms in which Gallagher could speak to his lawyers allegedly have cameras, guards and most likely microphones. Burzynski denied this outright. There are no cameras or listening devices in the attorney-client rooms, she said. She did say, however, that visits might be observed by a correctional specialist outside the room through a glass view port in the door. Advertisement This provides a measure of safety for all individuals and ensures no passing of contraband or other illicit activity, Burzynski said. At no time during a legal or official visit will acoustical privacy be violated. Gallaghers motion to be released from pretrial confinement was denied Thursday by Capt. Aaron Rugh, the Navy judge overseeing the court martial. Contact Andrew Dyer via email or Twitter. The Pentagon announced late Monday that its mission at the southern border launched at the request of President Trump shortly before the 2018 midterms would continue through most of the year. In a short statement, the Defense department said Pat Shanahan, the acting secretary of defense, had approved a request from Homeland Security for continued support at the border. DOD is transitioning its support at the southwestern border from hardening ports of entry to mobile surveillance and detection, as well as concertina wire emplacement between ports of entry, the statement said. Details as to what the militarys mission entails, beyond the stringing of concertina wire, remain vague. Advertisement For example, mobile surveillance and detection, as cited by the Pentagon, is military-speak for guards. Its looking to be sentries, said Army Lt. Col. Jamie Davis, a spokesman for Shanahan, in an email. However, the composition and sourcing is being developed and when that is complete well have a better idea of what that will be. Marine 1st. Lt. Fredrick Walker, a spokesman for the joint-force at the border in California, said the majority of the 1,100 service members currently serving at the border in California were assigned to Marine and Navy bases in San Diego County. In addition to engineering support how the military describes the placement of concertina wire troops at the border are engaged in medical and air support of Customs and Border Protection agents and migrants. DOD is continuing to provide aviation support to transport CBP personnel in and around CBP-designated locations in California, Walker said in an email. DOD is also maintaining the capability to provide emergency medical support to CBP personnel and migrants, as required. Some units have returned to their bases, however. Following the completion of some border hardening missions, DOD, in coordination with CBP, has returned certain engineering, logistics and headquarters elements to their home bases, Walker said. The military mission at the border could change again in reaction to the ongoing government shutdown and the presidents efforts to construct a wall on the border. During a televised Oval Office speech on Jan. 8, Trump stopped short of declaring a national emergency at the border, an action that would unlock broad presidential powers to redirect military funding to the construction of a wall. Advertisement A potential declaration of a national emergency was on the table for most of last week. Then Trump backed off the idea Monday in comments to White House reporters. Regardless of how the political fight over the wall plays out, the military wont be leaving the border any time soon. DOD will continue to ensure we have the right force at the right time in the right location to meet CBP needs, Walker said. Advertisement Contact Andrew Dyer via email or Twitter. Get ready for the worlds cheesiest advertisement. A Taco Bell billboard in Canada will dispense free nacho cheese, but youd better get your bowl of tortilla chips ready. The gooey goodness will only be offered for a very limited time on one day. The Best Mexican Restaurant in Every State Advertisement Kicking off the year with a nacho cheese-dispensing billboard means that 2019 will be as crazy as ever for us, Veronica Castillo, head of marketing at Taco Bell Canada, said in a press release. Plus, our fans know its impossible to deny the appeal of warm, gooey, zesty nacho cheese, and we couldnt agree more. The cheese-dispensing will occur on Jan. 19 from 11:30 am until 2:30 pm EST, right next to Taco Bells location at 482 Queen St W in Toronto, while supplies last. Taco Bell Canada did not immediately respond to a request for comment on just how the free cheese will be distributed, but honestly, were hoping the billboard has a built-in cheese drinking fountain. Eaters are encouraged to bring any snack they like for the ultimate nacho cheese upgrade. Or come empty-handed: A limited number of free samples of the chains new Nacho Cheese Naked Chicken Chalupa will be handed out at the billboard. If you cant make it to the Toronto Taco Bell to see the billboard, drown your sorrows in the Orange Cream Pop Freeze, a sort of Creamsicle in a cup that has just returned to the restaurants menu. And then read through the 25 things you didnt know about your favorite fast-food chains. Advertisement View slideshow If youre looking for Shakespeare in San Diego, head to the Old Globe. New plays? Check out La Jolla Playhouse. But if youre a fan of farce, theres no local theater better for the fast-paced comedies than North Coast Repertory Theatre. Over the past 15 years, the Solana Beach theater has built a loyal following for these silly, door-slamming shows, like this months Moon Over Buffalo, which opened Saturday night. The Ken Ludwig backstage comedy has all the elements necessary for a crowd-pleasing show a strong cast, a good door-lined set, well-paced direction and the effervescent atmosphere required to keep its lightweight script aloft. Moon is the fourth farce Matthew Wiener has directed at North Coast, beginning with Ludwigs similar backstage comedy Lend Me a Tenor in 2011. Comparing the two, Wieners direction of Moon is much stronger, more uniform, naturalistic and less over the top. Advertisement Set in 1953, Moon is the story of a failing touring repertory company headed by married actors George and Charlotte Hay. At a theater in in Buffalo, N.Y., the tour collapses after the Hays daughter, Rosalind, leaves the company following a breakup with the tour manager, Paul; George impregnates the new ingenue, Eileen; and Charlotte decides to leaves George for their attorney, Richard. Add to this a bottle of whiskey, an unexpected visit from film director Frank Capra and a case of mistaken identity and youve got enough high jinks for two hours of laughs. North Coast Rep newcomers Arthur Hanket and Katrina Ferguson steal the show as the battling spouses George and Charlotte. Theyre both ebullient and expansive in their engaging show people performances and theyre naturals at the punchy, period-style dialogue. Hanket also pulls off believably an extended and difficult drunken scene. Back for her fourth farce at North Coast is Jacque Wilke as the Hays headstrong and exasperated daughter Rosalind. Wilke co-starred in Wieners Lend Me a Tenor eight years ago, and in 2008 she made a memorable local breakthrough in the farce Dont Dress for Dinner, also at North Coast Rep. Matthew Salazar-Thompson returns for his third farce at North Coast, starting with Ludwigs Leading Ladies in 2006. In Moon, he plays the Hays lovesick but amiable lawyer, Richard. Completing the cast are Roxane Carrasco as Charlottes hard-of-hearing mother, Ethel, whos the tour costume manager. Josh Braaten plays tour manager Paul. Arusi Santi is Rosalinds tongue-tied new boyfriend, Howard; and Brittney Bertier is the unexpectedly pregnant actress Eileen. As he has for all of North Coasts farces, resident scenic designer Marty Burnett created the show-within-a-show set: a tidy backstage area with a central turntable to show the action that occurs onstage at Buffalos Erlanger Theatre. The only misstep in Wieners fleet-footed stage direction is repeatedly sending the actors through the wrong doors clearly labeled dressing rooms and stage right. Advertisement Matt Novotny designed lighting, Elisa Benzoni created costumes and Melanie Chen Cole designed sound. Theres nothing surprising or groundbreaking in North Coasts tried-and-true formula with Moon, but its a solid entry in the companys long history of farce. Moon Over Buffalo When: 7 p.m. Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Through Feb. 10. Where: North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach Advertisement Tickets: $45-$56 (discounts available) Phone: (858) 481-1055 Online: northcoastrep.org Advertisement pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com. Twitter: @pamkragen Louie Anderson has turned his life growing up in Minnesota with a sweet-hearted mother, loud-mouthed father and house full of 10 siblings into a 40-year comedy career that has taken him from late-night stand-up stardom to award-winning turns as an actor. Andersons stand-up comedy show at the historic Balboa Theatre in downtown San Diego on Saturday, Jan. 19, will be a career retrospective, a project the comedian has been working on for a year. Ive been mining the best of Louie Anderson through all 40 years, Anderson, 65, said in a phone interview. From my first jokes to the jokes Im doing right now. Ive got some really new stuff that I feel like is as good as any of my stuff from before. Anderson started his career as a counselor to troubled children before turning the ups and downs of his own childhood into a stand-up comedy routine that won him the 1981 Midwest Comedy Competition. Henny Youngman, the Take my wife, please funnyman and host of the competition, hired the young comedian as a writer. Advertisement The big man with a big heart got his big break in 1984 when he made his national television debut on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Two decades later, Comedy Central named him one of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time. As a television actor, hes won Emmy awards for his roles on Life with Louie and Baskets. Over the decades, Anderson has made stand-up appearances on late night television with generations of hosts, including the Tonight Show with Carson and Jay Leno, Late Night with David Letterman, Conan OBrien and Seth Meyers and the Late Show with Letterman and Stephen Colbert. His latest stand-up special, Big Underwear, deals with the challenges of getting healthy, coping with technology and becoming like our parents. On television, hes guest starred on Grace Under Fire, Touched by an Angel, Chicago Hope, Ally McBeal and Scrubs. His movie credits include Ferris Buellers Day Off and Coming to America opposite Eddie Murphy. He served as host for a reboot of the Family Feud TV game show from 1999 to 2002. Andersons Saturday morning animated series Life with Louie based on his own childhood won him two Emmys. Hes been nominated three times for an Emmy for his role as Christine on Baskets with Zach Galifianakis, winning for supporting actor in a comedy series in 2016. Hes written three books about his family. The F Word offers tips on how to survive your family. Dear Dad collects letters from Anderson to his late father that range from touching to outrageous. His latest, Hey Mom updates his late mother on his triumphs, disappointments and continuing struggles with food, drugs, gambling and depression. His fourth book, Goodbye Jumbo Hello Cruel World, provides self-help advice to those dealing with self-esteem issues. Q: You talk a lot in your act about growing up one of the youngest of 11 kids in Minnesota. Who was the funniest person in your family? How did they influence your comedy? A: My brother Roger was the funniest outwardly. He always was known to tell two, three or four jokes every time you saw him. He was much funnier than I was. He influenced me quite a bit. Advertisement Q: How is your Christine character on Baskets like your mom? What parts of your sisters personalities show up in the character? What would your mom have thought of Christine? A: Shes a lot like my mom. All the nuances, tiny glances, sighs and inward stuff. Thats definitely all my mom. And my sister Lisa is in there, too. A couple of my sisters can have a real mean look. When theyre not happy, they furrow their brows. Youre in trouble, and you know it. I stole that from them. My mom would love the fact that she was being honored, but she would also have to tell me the things Im doing wrong. Well Louie, you almost have it right, but . It runs in our family. Know-it-all-ism I call it. Advertisement Q: Do you remember the first time you ever got a laugh? When did you decide you wanted to become a comedian? A: I never was going to be a comedian. I did this on a dare. We were at a comedy club. I said, These guys arent funny. And my friend said, If you think youre so funny, why dont you sign up for next week. So I went to the guy, and I said, When do you do this again? And he said, Next Friday. So I went down there. That was Oct. 10, 1978. Mickey Finns in North Minneapolis. And here I am. Q: Henny Youngman was an early mentor of yours. What did you learn from him? Who were your other comedy heroes and role models when you were first starting out? A: His work ethic had the biggest influence on me. He said, Just do your jokes. But I was more of a person that wanted to tell stories. I didnt want to just present jokes. But I did have a bunch of one-liners when I started my act each time. I got that from him and his work ethic. Advertisement The funniest guy I ever saw was Jack Benny. I loved that he underplayed everything, much like my mom. Bob Hope was a huge influence on me. When Im loud in my act, Im definitely doing Bob Hope. I just loved his timing. Rodney (Dangerfield) just had so many jokes, and they were so good. Im always trying to write the best Louie Anderson Rodney joke I can. Once I saw a Richard Pryor perform, I wanted to do more stuff from my heart. Really open up and try to do stuff that bordered on sad. Really funny but tragic at the same time. Advertisement Q: What do you remember from that November night in 1984 when you were on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson for the first time? How did you feel? How did you do? Did you realize then how much that moment would change your life? A: Id been practicing. When I got to L.A., I had nine Tonight Shows prepared already. I really wanted to be on the Tonight Show. I knew that I was Tonight Show material. I just felt it. I walked out and killed it. I was very prepared. I even did an ad-lib off Johnnys monologue. Johnny talked about how McDonalds had just changed its sign to say a billion people served. I walked out and I said, I was just at McDonalds and that sign changed again. I know Johnny really appreciated that. I was done. I took a bow. Went behind the curtain. Im walking to my dressing room and they start yelling at me, Johnny wants you back out there! Get out there! So I ran back and went out there. He called me over, shook my hand and made me take another bow. Thats when I knew Id done a good job. Advertisement Q: Can you describe the feeling of being completely in the groove when youre on stage? What does it feel like to have an audience in the palm of your hand? A: Its a powerful feeling. You have to be very careful not to milk it. You have to move on, re-establish yourself and build it up to that crescendo again. Thats my favorite thing. When I can get a groove going and I bring it and bring it and bring it. Q: Can you tell when youre losing an audience? How do you know? What do you do? Advertisement A: You dont have much more than 60 seconds before you can lose the audience. I dont care how famous you are. The audience is your true geiger counter for laughter. If theres something radioactive there, theyre going to go after it. I always think theres an electricity between you and the audience while youre out there. And you can lose it. Q: Some comedians use the craft to expel demons. Others to exact revenge on tormentors. Is comedy about being laughed with rather than laughed at? How much of comedy is about turning the tables and controlling the laughter? A: I try to laugh with my audience. I try to say, Hey, arent we all pathetic? I just put myself out there as the main pathetic person. I cant stop eating, but I have to because Ive already eaten everything. Advertisement Im laying it out there. Thats the Richard Pryor effect. If youre honest enough about it all, its really rewarding. It is healing. I feel very good out there on stage. Ive never enjoyed doing stand-up more. Ive never appreciated my audience more. I just cant tell you how lucky I feel and how humble and grateful I am right now. Q: This question is for Christine. How would you describe your fashion sense? How would you describe Louies fashion sense? A: Ill let Christine answer that. I like to just live to be seen. I like to wear something thats going to make people smile and make me smile, too. Advertisement Louie is a kid who is getting dressed on his own for the first day of school and doesnt know really what to wear. Q: Youve had an incredible career. Is there anything you regret doing? Anything you wish you had done? Anything you still want to do? A: You know what I wish I would have done most of all? I wish I would have stuck to my guns about what I wanted to make and not let people push me around with what they thought I should do. I always tell people to be fearless, stick to your guns and just be yourself. Its the only real thing that will ever work for you. Q: Youve been doing stand-up comedy for 40 years. Youve played San Diego many times. What can people expect from your show at the Balboa Theatre? Advertisement A: Theyre going to get all my stuff that theyre looking forward to. From the San Diego Zoo bit that was on my second special all the way to the stuff Im working on right now. How difficult it is being a food addict. Some new family stuff that Ive re-mined. But mostly theyre going to get a taste of all 40 years. Louie Anderson When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 19 Where: Balboa Theatre, 868 Fourth Ave., Gaslamp Quarter Tickets: Starting at $45 Advertisement Phone: (619/760/858) 570-1100 Online: sandiegotheatres.org/louie-anderson/ MacDonald is a freelance writer. World-renowned conductor Edo de Waart, a familiar face to many classical music aficionados here, is set to make more appearances locally as the San Diego Symphonys new principal guest conductor. The appointment is a first for the symphony and takes effect during the 2019-20 season, when de Waart will conduct the orchestra for three to four weeks out of the year. Currently the music director of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, de Waart has signed on for three years. De Waart, 77, will join another world-renowned conductor, Rafael Payare, as one of the top musical leaders in the San Diego orchestra. Last year, Payare, 38, was named the San Diego Symphonys new music director after longtime conductor Jahja Ling retired after 13 years. Payare is currently the music director designate and officially assumes his new role July 1, but he took the podium this past weekend to conduct the orchestra as part of the symphonys monthlong Hearing the Future festival. I have known Edo de Waart for more than 35 years and have always admired his music making, Martha Gilmer, San Diego Symphony CEO, said in a statement. When he first worked with the San Diego Symphony in January 2015, there was an immediate mutual respect. I have heard from many of the musicians how much they value the work they do together in rehearsals as well as concerts, which is the highest compliment an orchestral musician can pay. Rafael Payare and I came to the mutual conclusion to affirm this relationship with the title of principal guest conductor. I could not be more thrilled that Edo de Waart will be a vital part of the artistic life of the San Diego Symphony. Advertisement During the past five seasons, de Waart was a frequent guest conductor at many San Diego Symphony concerts. He opened the symphonys 2018-19 season with pianist Joyce Yang. In a review of that concert, Union-Tribune classical music freelance reviewer Christian Hertzog said: When de Waart took the podium, magic happened. Strings soared, winds purred, and brass shone. Transitions were seamless. Besides his role with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, de Waart is conductor laureate of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Earlier, he was music director of the San Francisco Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and chief conductor of De Nederlandse Opera. Edo de Waart is without question one of the preeminent conductors of our time, Payare said in a statement. As conductors, we often do not find ourselves in the same city at the same time. However, we were both together in San Diego in September, and had the opportunity to spend some time in conversation together. I believe that his relationship with this orchestra will have an important artistic impact, and I am very happy that he is committed to working with the orchestra every year to enhance and sustain their artistic achievement. Shortly after Ling announced his retirement, de Waart began making frequent appearances locally as a featured guest conductor with the San Diego Symphony. He was one of nearly a dozen conductors who were believed to be in contention to replace Ling. In a 2016 Union-Tribune interview, when asked what he thought of the possibility of leading the San Diego orchestra, he said: Well, if you like to be (a) music director and an orchestra like the San Diego Symphony was offered to you, youd have to be sort of a loony to not want it or not look at the possibility. But, he quickly added, Im not a spring chicken, so it would be a limited engagement. It wouldnt last 50 years! I dont want to be music director when Im 90, and nobody else would want that. I have a great belief now in faith, that things happen as they have to happen. De Waart who makes his first appearance with the San Diego Symphony this year on March 1 and 2, conducting Mahlers Symphony No. 4 said of his new role: It is a privilege to accept this position with San Diego, and such an exciting time to be collaborating with the leadership and artistic team, as well as Rafael Payare. Throughout the past few years conducting the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, Ive gotten to know some of the wonderful musicians and I love their energy and focus and look forward to working together with Rafael Payare to take the orchestra to the next level. Advertisement Twitter: @outdoorlivingsd michael.rocha@sduniontribune.com Two of downtown Escondidos best-known restaurants, Continental Delicatessen and Vinz Wine Bar, are now history. The deli closed on Saturday after 52 years in business and 11-year-old Vinz held its last call on Monday. Owners Vinnie and Machelle Griffin were forced to quickly shutter the side-by-side eateries at Grand Avenue and Kalmia Street over the past few days after they were served last week with an eviction notice for unpaid rent. Vinnie Griffin acknowledged the restaurants had struggled to make ends meet in recent years. But he said hed worked tirelessly since September to find an investment partner or a new tenant to assume the lease. But the landlord, he said, decided to move in a different direction. Its been a battle these past five months to try to keep this thing going ... a big roller-coaster, Griffin said. Machelle will be happy to be done with the headaches but it will be sad for me to not be coming in here every day. Advertisement Diners enjoy one last lunch Monday at Vinz Wine Bar in Escondido, which was slated to close at 9 p.m. Monday after 11 years in business. (Pam Kragen/San Diego Union-Tribune) On Monday, everything was half-off at Vinz. Even under gray and rainy skies, a line of longtime customers was waiting outside when the doors opened for lunch at 11:30 a.m. Ten-year customer Garry Kinsella of Escondido picked out three bottles of wine to purchase for his home wine collection and was still mulling what hed order for his final lunch at Vinz. I loved it here, Kinsella said. The owners were local, the food was good and the service was friendly. Vinnie was a good guy and Ive known all the bartenders over the years. Part-time Escondido resident Kathy Nowak came into Vinz on Monday for one last Margherita pizza, her favorite item on the menu. Ive been coming for six or seven years, Nowak said. It was a cozy, small place and friendly. We didnt eat anywhere else downtown. I guess now well have to try someplace new. Vinz Wine Bar in Escondido on closing day, Jan. 14. Owners Vinnie and Machelle Griffin closed the business and an adjacent restaurant, Continental Deli, over the past few days. (Pam Kragen/San Diego U-T) Five-year customer Paul Katz of Escondido was also shopping for bottles of wine on Monday. He said he would miss the Wagyu burgers and the decent wine selection. He worried that the closure of both restaurants would further increase the seemingly blighted look of downtown. Advertisement But appearances can be deceiving, according to Michelle Geller, the citys economic development director. Although there are a handful of vacant large retail buildings on Grand Avenue including the shuttered Yardage Town, A Bird Haven and Drapers & Damons stores the streets vacancy rate is just 10. 9 percent, just slightly above what she calls the typical rate to be expected. Geller said two large properties downtown are likely to be leased in the next three to six months. And she predicts a bustling downtown once the former Palomar hospital property nearby is bulldozed for a planned 450-home and commercial development. Geller said shes sorry Vinz and Continental Deli wont be there when that time comes. Vinnie has always been an institution in Escondido, Geller said. Hes actually ridden out a lot of the tough times that weve had. Were really sad to see him go and wish him the best. Advertisement Jars of pickled vegetables and sauerkraut for sale on a table by the door of Continental Delicatessen in Escondido, which closed Saturday after 52 years in business. (Pam Kragen/San Diego Union-Tribune) Continental Deli first opened on Escondido Avenue in 1967 and it relocated to 120 S. Kalmia St. in 1984. In its early days, it was more of a German/European deli and market. The Griffins purchased the business in 2001 and it gradually transitioned into more of a sandwich/salad shop and pizzeria. Griffin said the recession hit the deli hard in 2007, with business dropping off 40 percent virtually overnight and it never fully recovered. But that didnt stop him from opening his dream business, Vinz Wine Bar, in the vacant space just across the patio at 201 E. Grand Ave. in February 2008. He came up with the idea for Vinz in the mid-1990s during a visit to Oregons wine country. There he found a restaurant that sold wines by the bottle with a hot and cold buffet. Advertisement I thought, this is exactly what Escondido needs, he said. Vinz got off to a rough start with a paperwork problem that prohibited the Griffins from selling wine until its liquor license was properly assigned. Over the years, they expanded their license to serve cocktails, expanded their menu from cheese trays to a full menu, built a dog-friendly patio and added live music. But it wasnt always smooth sailing and there were financial problems off and on over the years. Last summer, the Griffins said they hit another stumbling block when the state tax payment for their liquor license renewal was mailed to the wrong address. When the check didnt arrive on time, the license was temporarily suspended. For the week or so until the suspension was lifted, Vinz Wine Bar was closed, idling its 23 employees and digging the Griffins further into the hole. Even after it reopened, Griffin said there was no way to dig out so he started looking aggressively for investors until the clock ran out. Advertisement On Monday, Griffin was shuttling back and forth between the two businesses, talking to customers at Vinz, fielding phone calls from well-wishers and meeting with equipment dealers at the deli. Much of the restaurants equipment will be sold at auction. Some will be stored. Griffin said hes scheduled for a court hearing Tuesday morning where he hopes to negotiate a bit more time to evacuate the property because theres 18 years of memories Im going through here and it is taking a little bit of time. Whats next? Griffin said theyll rest a bit after nearly two decades of seven-day workweeks. Then hell start looking for jobs in the food, beverage and wine distributing industries. He also hasnt ruled out the possibility of one day opening another restaurant somewhere else. Well see what happens, he said Monday. I loved being around all the people here. Im going to miss that the most. Advertisement Machelle Griffin and Vinnie Griffin were the co-owners of Vinz Wine Bar and Continental Delicatessen in Escondido. (Courtesy) pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com Just three days after Food Networks Restaurant: Impossible renovation team finished making over Escondidos Rosies Cafe, producers announced theyll return next week for a three-day shoot at another North County restaurant. The Incredible Cafe a 25-year-old family-run breakfast/lunch eatery in Rancho Bernardo will be the next recipient of a whirlwind makeover courtesy of Chef Robert Irvine and a team of designers and volunteers. On Jan. 22, the TV production crew will arrive at The Incredible Cafe in the New Mercado shopping center. Irvine will spend a day assessing the restaurants operations. Then it will close on Jan. 23 for a 36-hour makeover valued at more than $10,000. In order to accomplish the whirlwind television event, producers have put out a call for local construction and renovation companies that would like to participate in the renovation. Local diners are also needed to take part in post-opening meals. Advertisement The TV series which ran from 2011 to 2016 and was renewed this month sends the veteran British chef into a failing American restaurant where he studies its menu, business practices, decor, concept and cleanliness and teaches the owner how to rightsize the menu, rework the recipes, market the business and better train the staff. Restaurant: Impossible will air on Saturday nights on Food Network and is slated to return for its new season on April 20. Its not clear when the Rosies or Incredible Cafe episodes will air, but last week Irvine posted a video on social media in the alley behind Rosies, which underwent its makeover Jan. 9-11. In the video, Irvine said he was eager to start the first day of season filming, so presumably the Rosies makeover will be the first episode. For the Incredible Cafe makeover episode, producers are now seeking volunteers who would like to take part in renovation painting, crafting, constructing, cleaning or decorating. They are invited to apply for a position on one or more of the three work shifts: Noon to 7 p.m. Jan. 23; 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. Jan. 23; and 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Jan. 24. Applicants must be 18 or older and must wear work clothing with no visible logos. Workers will not be paid but will receive free meals. To be considered, apply by noon Jan. 20 to this email address: rivolunteer@levitylive.com. Include the words 1402 VOL Request in the subject line and in the body of the email include your full name, email address, cellphone number and skill set related to the renovation. Producers are looking for skilled contractors, electricians, plumbers, upholsterers and painters. A confirmation email will be sent to all those accepted for the production. Reservations are also being taken for local residents who would like to dine at The Incredible Cafe when it reopens at 7 p.m. Jan. 24. For consideration, apply by noon Jan. 18 to this email address: rivolunteer@levitylive.com. Include 1402 Re-Open Reservations in the emails subject line and in the body of the email include your with full name, email address, cellphone number, party size and the names of the people in your party. Although participants will be filmed, there is no guarantee they will be seen on-air. Advertisement pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com Plans to lower the speed limit to 30 mph on Coast Highway 101 in Leucadia got the green light Monday from the Encinitas Traffic & Public Safety Commission. I think its a great thing and I will support it, Commissioner Darius Degher said just before the boards unanimous vote to accept a report prepared by the citys traffic engineer, Abraham Bandegan. Degher added that hed actually love to see the speed limit, which currently is set at 35 mph, drop to 25 mph instead of 30 mph. But Bandegan said the citys recent study of roadway conditions wouldnt support it and thus any speeding tickets issued for exceeding that limit would be unenforceable. The 30 mph proposal next goes to the City Council for approval. Its scheduled to be considered Wednesday as part of the councils consent calendar -- items that are typically approved in a single vote without comment. If the council gives the proposal its initial blessing as expected that night, the speed limit could change next month, Bandegan said. Advertisement Lowering the speed limit is the latest in a series of changes the city is making to the roadway in the wake of a December collision. While on an early morning bike ride, Roberta Walker -- the executive director of the Cardiff 101 Main Street Association, and an advocate for improving bicycle and pedestrian safety -- was struck by a truck. She sustained severe head and spinal injuries in the early morning collision, and has undergone multiple surgeries. Last week, the City Council approved adding four raised crosswalks, some extra signage and rumble strips along Leucadias part of Coast Highway to reduce vehicle speeds and improve safety conditions, particularly in areas where cyclists and motorists are forced to share a lane. These new changes are expected to be temporary because the city is scheduled to start a long-planned, major overhaul of the roadway later this year. That $30 million project known as Leucadia Streetscape involves reworking a 2.5-mile stretch of Coast Highway from La Costa Avenue to A Street, adding six traffic circle roundabouts, as well as bike lanes, sidewalks, parking areas and new landscaping. The design work is expected to be completed in July, and the City Council plans to debate project funding options at its Feb. 20 meeting. At Mondays traffic commission meeting, Bandegan said that the city cant arbitrarily lower the roadways speed limit in an effort to make the route safer for cyclists. In order to issue speeding tickets and have them held up in a court of law, cities need to set their roadway speed limits using whats known as an 85-percentile speed, or the rate of speed that many vehicles are already doing on a roadway. Encinitas can slightly round up or down a figure to the nearest 5 mph, and it can drop the speed limit by 5 mph because of special conditions. One qualifying condition is the existence of sharrows -- special pavement markings along southbound Coast Highway that allow bicyclists to share a vehicle lane with motorists because there isnt space for a designated bike lane, Bandegan said. The recent roadway study had an 85-percentile speed of 36 mph in one northbound section and 33 mph in one southbound section. Rounding rules would result in a proposed speed limit of 35 mph, but the city is able to legally make a case for dropping that by 5 mph to 30 mph because of the special roadway conditions, including the sharrows, he said. Once the city has installed the new flashing crosswalks and the rumble bar strips that the City Council approved last week, it can conduct another traffic study and see if vehicle speeds have lowered enough to justify a 25 mph speed limit, he said. However, Bandegan added that he didnt think those changes would lower vehicle speeds that much. Advertisement An option that hes looking into, he said, is establishing a business district zone similar to a school zone, where the city could set the speed limit lower because of the high amount of activity in the area. Despite concerns raised by some residents about how the city is funding its Sustainable Santee Action Plan, the Santee City Council last week agreed to add $25,000 to its contract with the outside company that is helping it craft its state-mandated climate action plan. In 2017, the City Council approved an agreement with LSA Associates, Inc. to finish the plan before May 31 at a cost of $132,885. With the bump, the city said the final cost will not exceed $157,845. The city needs the plan to meet state requirements and to receive funding from the regions planning agency, the San Diego Association of Governments. The draft plan has been finished and a draft environmental impact report is in the works. Santee is poised to have its plan ready for the public and City Council approval before this summer, one that shows how it plans to meet California regulations. Advertisement Those include a requirement for cities to reduce emissions to 1990 levels, or 15 percent below the 2005 levels, by 2020. The 324,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide released in Santee in 2005 must be cut to at least 275,400 metric tons. The state has also ordered that by 2030, greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced to 40 percent below the 2005 levels and by 2050 to 80 percent below those levels. Of 18 cities and San Diego County, 11 have adopted climate action plans and others are in stages of developing plans, including La Mesa and Lemon Grove. Santee began drafting its climate action plan in 2014, with the city paying nearly $107,000 in general fund money to Atkins North America Inc. Work was stopped with Atkins in 2016 when the city discovered that more work was going to be needed that hadnt been budgeted for such as the environment impact report. Santee also received a grant in 2014 from San Diego Gas & Electric for about $35,000 toward a climate action plan. Atkins work was integrated with the current draft plan being finalized with LSA Associates, according to the Santee Development Services Department. Several speakers said they were unhappy the city has been paying for the consultants report with money from HomeFed Corp. HomeFed contributed $93,000 to the city toward the climate action plan and the EIR. HomeFed Corp.s Fanita Ranch is a housing development planned for 2,600 acres of rolling hills in the north part of the city. Its most recent plans show nearly 3,000 homes on the site. Advertisement I am absolutely in support of the climate action plan, said resident Evlyn Andrade-Heymsfield. (But) there is a perceived conflict of interest when the company that needs approval (for the climate action plan) is funding the work. They will need approval for (the plan) for Fanita Ranch. Her sentiments were echoed by several other residents, including Michelle Perchez and Van Collinsworth of the environmental group Preserve Wild Santee. Citizens do look at the monetary contribution by HomeFed since its the majority of the amount thats required to pay LSA Associates, Perchez said. It does represent from the citizens point of view a conflict of interest. It appears that developers and the city are locked into a mutual relationship with an assured outcome, which is the approval of Fanita Ranch. Collinsworth has been pushing the city to move on its climate action plan even as he has been part of several lawsuits involving Fanita Ranch for nearly two decades. Advertisement He was also behind the 2020 ballot initiative that, if passed, would allow Santee residents to decide the fate of high-density housing projects that do not comply with the citys general plan. Mayor John Minto explained to those who questioned the city using HomeFed money that we are trying to be a fiscally conservative council. It is not uncommon for a city to require a developer to offset some of the anticipated effects of a project by contributing to a city need, such as helping fund road improvements. City Councilman Rob McNelis said he applauded staff for finding alternative sources of funding and assured residents that just because one developer in particular has contributed a large portion toward the plan, HomeFed wont get to dictate the final outcome of this. Advertisement Minto jokingly told Collinsworth that if Preserve Wild Santee has another $24,000 they could give to us, wed take your money, too. If anybody wants to give us money, well take that, too. Weve got to get this done. Advertisement karen.pearlman@sduniontribune.com A string of less-than-civil exchanges last year during the public comment period at some El Cajon City Council meetings has prompted officials to change the rules. Some speakers used their 3 minutes at the dais to confront and engage in shouting matches with members of the audience. Otheres made unfounded accusations about members of the City Council. At an Oct. 23 meeting, one speaker memorably unleashed a torrent of sexually-laced obscenities at City Councilman Ben Kalasho and his wife, Jessica. As Kalasho shouted to City Attorney Morgan Foley to get the speaker to stop, City Councilman Gary Kendrick, the vice mayor at the meeting with Mayor Bill Wells absent, was banging the gavel, unable to turn off the speakers microphone. Advertisement I will be the first one to say that things got out of control, Kendrick said. I was trying to restore order, but I couldnt find the mute button and I didnt know what to do. In response to that meeting in particular, the City Council on Tuesday is prepared to finalize proposed changes to the rules governing the way public speakers address elected officials at meetings. At a meeting earlier this month, the council and Foley reviewed several parts of the El Cajon Municipal Code that deal with how public meetings are conducted and the decorum expected of members of the public. They noted the need to remain compliant with the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. El Cajons bylaws will change to reflect that speakers must use their time at the dais to speak about city-related issues and not as a way to interact with the audience. Additionally, the citys bylaws also currently say that public speakers are not supposed to speak to council members directly, but rather address the body as a whole. Speakers have been required to get permission from the mayor or whomever is leading the meeting before speaking to an individual council member. But that policy will change. Speakers will now be allowed to address a council member directly, without the need to go through the mayor though Wells said he has never enforced the rule. Speakers will also not have to share their full names and addresses as they have been requested to do in the past. That can have a chilling effect for people who are afraid of retaliation for things they say, Kendrick said. Its also important for people speaking up here to know that they are not going to be harassed by other members of the public. Advertisement Everybody has to feel safe in the public forum with no intimidation. They are our eyes and ears in the city and they need to feel comfortable talking to us. The mayor has been flexible in making people feel safe. Its hard for some people to step up and talk to the City Council. We dont want them any more nervous than they already may be. The council discussed the use of profanity used by some residents. Last year, when addressing Kalasho with a personal attack, a public speaker used vulgar language that stunned the City Council, city staff and audience members. Wells said a certain amount of profanity is OK, but if people are not staying in decorum, I will stop and ask them to clean up their language. If they cant control it, they will be stopped. The rule is you cant censor peoples speech until it starts disrupting the meeting, Wells said. That concept is pretty fluid. Advertisement Foley said that a speaker using critical language or engaging in conduct that actually disrupts the meeting or hypothetically something that would stop the business of government would be silenced. The City Council may also recommend a cool-down period be given to those who are agitated and asked to stop speaking, with the mayor asking for a brief public recess before allowing the meeting to continue. Advertisement karen.pearlman@sduniontribune.com A German court on Tuesday threw out one patent infringement lawsuit that Qualcomm brought against Apple in the ongoing legal war between the two tech companies. A Mannheim tribunal found that iPhones with Intel cellular modems do not infringe on a Qualcomm transistor patent. We are happy with the decision, Apple said in a statement. We regret Qualcomms use of the court to divert attention from their illegal behavior that is subject of multiple lawsuits and proceedings around the world. Qualcomm said it would appeal the ruling. Advertisement Apple has a history of infringing our patents, said Don Rosenberg, Qualcomms general counsel, in a statement. The Mannheim court interpreted one aspect of our patent very narrowly, saying that because a voltage inside a part of an iPhone wasnt constant, the patent wasnt infringed. We strongly disagree. In December, a separate German court in Munich found that older model iPhones did infringe on a Qualcomm envelope tracking patent and banned their sale in Germany once Qualcomm posted a $1.5 billion bond, which the company did earlier this month. Apple is appealing. It pulled iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 models off the shelves of its own retail stores, but an Apple spokesperson said the iPhones models remain available currently at third-party retailers. Newer iPhone models arent included in the ban because they were launched after Qualcomm filed suit. Apple is engaged in a fierce legal battle with Qualcomm over patent licensing fees, which Apple contends are too high because of Qualcomms monopolistic business practices. Apple, through its contract manufacturers that make iPhones, stopped paying patent royalties to Qualcomm nearly two years ago. Qualcomm responded by filing several patent infringement lawsuits in courts across the globe, including in Germany and China. The San Diego company is seeking injunctions that would ban the sales of infringing iPhones. Besides a victory in the Munich court, Qualcomm won a patent infringement ruling and injunction late last year against older iPhones in China for infringing on two Qualcomm software patents. Apple updated its operating system for iPhones, which it claims works around Qualcomms patents. It continues to sell all iPhone models in China, which Qualcomm contends is in violation of the court order. Advertisement Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Trade Commissions antitrust lawsuit against Qualcomm continued this week in a U.S. District Court in San Jose. The FTC is expected to wrap up its case Tuesday. It alleges Qualcomm illegally coerces smartphone makers to pay too much in patent fees by threatening to cut off modem chip supply. The FTC served up testimony from Apple, Intel, Samsung, Lenovo, BlackBerry and others to support its case. Qualcomm is expected begin calling its witnesses Tuesday afternoon. The trial is scheduled to conclude in early February. Meanwhile, Apples lawsuit against Qualcomm which is similar to the FTC case is slated for trial on April 15. Advertisement Business mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com; Advertisement Twitter:@TechDiego 760-529-4973 Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site. 0108263 License for publishing multimedia online Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349 Home to more than 100,000 solar installations, San Diego is one of the nations leaders when it comes to renewable energy. But according to a just-released report, there are many more locations where the suns energy can be harnessed. A nonprofit based in Northern California released a solar siting survey that identified 500-megawatts of locations with potential for large-scale solar deployments within the city limits of San Diego and pinpointed more than 120 prospective locations that could be home to projects of a minimum of 1-megawatt. In total, the survey found more than 75 percent of the sites were found on parking lots and parking structures places officials at the Clean Coalition, based in Menlo Park, said are often overlooked when it comes to solar installations. Almost everybody thinks about solar in built environments as being on rooftops, said Craig Lewis, the groups executive director. But three-quarters of all the siting potential in urban and suburban environments is actually on parking lots and parking structures almost nobody has any sense of that. Advertisement All the sites identified in the survey, the Clean Coalition said, could create enough local solar capacity to take care of the average power needs of about 500,000 homes during peak solar production hours when the sun is shining. Using Google Earth and other metrics, Clean Coalition staffers pored over San Diego on a block-by-block basis, looking for potential locations. It then broke down the results by ZIP code. The survey identified the Mission Valley shopping area in ZIP code 92108 as a prime location for parking lots, zeroing in on 38 potential sites estimated to deliver a little more than 48-megawatts through potential solar installations. Solar in parking lots in ZIP codes 92145 around Miramar and 92154 in the southern part of San Diegos city limits also scored high, at 39-megawatts at 82 sites and 33-megawatts at 34 sites, respectively. Fifty-six sites with flat roofs in 92154 have the potential to generate 38-megawatts. The biggest potential for parking garage solar was found at two sites in ZIP code 92101, located in downtown, totaling 3.1-megawatts. This is definitely incentive to get property owners to start realizing that theres this immense, untapped potential out there, Lewis said. Advertisement The survey, paid for as part of a grant by the U.S. Department of Energy, comes as San Diego looks to meet the aims of its Climate Action Plan that calls for all electricity used in the city to be from renewable sources by 2035. The solar survey is also for policymakers so they understand the city of San Diego can get to its 100 percent renewable energy objective with a big chunk of it coming from local renewables, as opposed to just hauling energy in from afar, Lewis said. The 500-megawatts in overall siting potential is measured in alternating current. As Lewis explained, solar power generates energy though direct current. But since the grid operates on alternating current, solar has go through an inverter to make the switch. The Solar Siting Survey, which evaluated opportunities based on the interconnection potential for each identified site, also determined if the minimum size of a site were reduced by half (from 1-megawatt to 500- kilowatts), the number of locations in San Diego would double. Advertisement And if the minimum size were reduced to 100-kilowatts, potential solar sites would increase by a factor of four. The siting survey comes out as California integrates more renewables into its power mix. When the sun is out, solar in the Golden State can generate so many megawatt-hours of electricity that wholesale energy prices can drop to zero or into negative territory. That puts strain on the grid, and the California Independent System Operator (the organization which oversees the operation of about 80 percent of the states electric power system) sometimes has to send the excess solar to neighboring states like Arizona or curtail it altogether. Advertisement Will even more solar in places like San Diego exacerbate the problem? Lewis pointed to energy storage projects such as batteries that can store energy that can be used later in the day as one long-term solution. Storage has been criticized by some as being too costly. My response to that is, as the market expands, just like any other market, then costs come down, Lewis said. Advertisement Business rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1251 Twitter: @robnikolewski The Auckland Council Mangere-Otahuhu local board chair, Lemauga Lydia Sosene, says Aucklands Samoan population will benefit from New Zealand increasing the minimum wage this April. Last month, the New Zealand Government announced the minimum wage would go up to NZ$17.70 in April, on its way to reaching $20 by 2021. The Government is determined to improve the wellbeing and living standards of all New Zealanders as we build a productive, sustainable and inclusive economy, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said. The increase will result in an extra $48 per week a boost which for NZs lowest earners could be dramatic. Chairperson Lemauga knows many of those lowest earners are of Pacific heritage, majority of which in NZ are Samoan. In her district of Mangere-Otahuhu, 60 per cent are Pacific peoples, and Lemauga said they are the most deprived. When you have a community that has a number of socioeconomic challenges how do we get the resources in to provide opportunities that will give quality outcomes to the community? She said the minimum wage increase is a good start to lifting vulnerable families out of poverty but there needs to be education that goes with it. Its about giving more resources to the parents to get their children to school and feed their families, she said. We need deliberate strategies to help families. Affordable housing which is accessible to all families are important, and good jobs play a role too, Lemauga said. In Mangere-Otahuhu, the Auckland International Airport and Middlemore Hospital are two large, positive employers that people could work for and make a good living. But coupled with high levels of deprivation are Samoan families obligations to their extended family in Samoa. Lemauga said ideally, sending money home is a choice each family should make for themselves. If the family feels strongly, has a strong connection and wants to help their family back home like in Samoa, thats their call, she said. Some families will be able to do that quite comfortably and some will not. She said some families may only be able to contribute ten dollars to a request for help paying faalavelave or for everyday needs because their costs in New Zealand are high. In Samoa you can live off the land and off the sea. In New Zealand you have to pay for all your basic livings costs so those are some quite big challenges for some families. Last week, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr Sailele Malielegaoi suggested that families struggling with basic infrastructure likely have family abroad they can lean on. Lemauga said while many people wont be pleased he said it, she understands why. As a Samoan born abroad, she feels a deep responsibility to help her family. When you understand where youve come from, that your forefathers left Samoa to go to another country so you can have a better life when you understand that then something rekindles back to your country and you think gosh, we need to do something. Of course [Tuilaepa] is going to get criticized because families are different, Lemauga said Some families have done very well. I still say though, it is their call. If they can fesoasoagi their family back here, thats got to be a good thing. The Land Transport Authority (L.T.A.) has awarded six contracts valued at $2.37 million for roads in Upolu and Savaii. The tenders for the various road construction projects were approved by the Cabinet last December for the Financial Year 2018-2019. According to Ministry of Finance tender documents, the Capital Lot 02 for Upolu which was approved December 20, 2018 for the Aleisa Road totaled $295,396.48 and has been awarded to R&R Construction Company Limited. For the extension of the Fasitoo-uta road, Ah Liki Construction Co. Ltd has been awarded $648,082.27 to undertake the road-works, while Ulia Construction has won a contract for $500,000 for the Salamumu Road. Savaii has two road projects for the Eveeve road in Fusi and the Saleaula road. Big Island Construction Ltd has won a $354,073.50 for the Eveeve road while Apia Lua Ltd awarded $525,607.50 for the Saleaula road. Unsuccessful bidders for the road works in Upolu included King Construction, Lee Transport, Lucky Construction, Silva Group, Samoa Works & Engineering Ltd, T&N Toleafoa, and, Webster Works & Infrastructure. For the two road works in Savaii, local firms O.N. & Sons Construction, Sakalafai Contractors, Savaii Civil Operations and T.M. Transport were the unsuccessful bidders. It is unclear when the projects will start, as Transport Authority Chief Executive Officer Galumalemana Taatialeoitiiti Tutuvanu-Schwalger, did not respond to emails sent by the Samoa Observer at the time of going to press. The Government has awarded a $6.40 million tala contract to Zheng Construction Co. Ltd to build the National Emergency Operations Centre. The tender was approved last month. Other companies that vied for the tender included Pacific Engineering Projects Ltd, Fletcher Construction Co. Ltd, Jiangsu Geology & Engineering, Schwarz Construction Co. Ltd and Ah Liki Construction Co. Ltd. Zheng Construction Co. Ltd is owned by Peizheng Wang and Jie Xue of China and Feagaimaleata Lei Sam of Ululoloa. The Center, which comes under the Disaster Management Office, is part of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. According to Ministry of Finance tender documents, the contract amount is $6,403,975.44 and the implementing Agency is the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. M.N.R.E. Chief Executive Officer, Ulu Bismark Crawley, has not responded to questions from the Samoa Observer at the time of going to press. The Center will serve as a disaster coordination centre and is responsible for ensuring the ongoing coordination, development and implementation of Disaster Risk Management programmes and activities in Samoa. The Zheng Construction Co. Ltd also won a $10.5 million contract as part of the waterfront project last year. These would cover the outdoor performance area in front of the F.M.F.M.I.I. Government Building, which can be changed into a government events facility and a pedestrian walkway from the Clock Tower to the waterfront edge. Associate Minister, Lealailepule Rimoni Aiafi, has called for tougher penalties for anyone charged and found guilty of first degree murder. The current sentencing under the Crime Ordinance Act has it that anyone convicted or enters a guilty plea will automatically receive a life imprisonment in jail, he said. However, there is a condition that after ten years, this murder defendant will be eligible for parole so in reality this murder defendant will only serve ten years in jail yet he has taken what is most precious in this world a life, said Lealailepule, who is the Associate Minister of Communications and Information Technology. His comments follow the sentencing of Simanu'a Manuele of Falefa and Toamua who pleaded guilty to two charges of murder and was given a life imprisonment sentence by the Supreme Court. Speaking to the Samoa Observer, Lealailepule said the Crimes Ordinance Act should be amended, and made reference to the recently concluded murder case. The accused is sentenced to life imprisonment and Im under the impression that two murder charges mean 20 years in order for him to be eligible for parole." And I disagree, even 20 years is lenient, considering what took place. The horrific acts by this young man calls for harsher penalties." Fair enough, but for how long under our current laws allows for a murder defendant to serve 10 years in jail, and then he or she is eligible for parole and to be honest this is ridiculous, he added. Lealailepule said the Court, in this instance, arrived at a sentenced that is based on the charge The judges hands are tied and that is why I highly recommend amending the laws. Looking at the murder case this week, opened my eye and looking at it from outside, the law is too lenient given the sort of crime committed." Two people lost their lives and this defendant gets 10 or 20 years then hes eligible for parole. He should be jailed for the rest of his life, given the circumstances of the case, he added. According to the Association Minister, the custodial sentence should be set at 40 years before the murderer is eligible for parole. Life means life or at least 40 years in jail then the murder defendant will be considered for parole. When asked about his views on the revival of death penalty for horrific and vicious murder cases, Lealailepule said that will not happen in Samoa. We are a Christian State and that will never be allowed under any circumstances, but the point I want to get across is that the law is too lenient and that has to change, he said. The Chief Executive Officer of the Samoa Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Lemauga Hobart Vaai, supports the Government in preferring to consult the private sector before increasing minimum wage. While of course our support depends on consultation with our own members, we do support what the Prime Minister is saying, he said. Parts of the private sector are different, so if government is conducting robust and strong consultation practices then thats good. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry is Samoas national private sector organisation, which supports businesses with technical assistance, networking and a united voice on business matters. Last month, Government approved a salary increase for the public sector in accordance with recommendations by the Remuneration Tribunal. Pension benefits also increased, starting with 10 per cent this month and eventually reaching 30 per cent in a few years. Back then, Tuilaepa made similar comments about being careful with private sector salaries. We dont just look at the salaries of government employees but also consider the private sector, he said. If the raise is too much, this will have an impact on the businesses, hence the Government is cautious, he said. Re: Gabbards strong support in Samoa Thats an interesting conclusion to assume because Gabbard was born in American Samoa that this would be a good thing for Samoa. Obamas father was born in Kenya, his relatives still lived there, but what did Obama do for Kenya or any country in Africa. Last I looked the US companies are still exploiting countries in Africa, including Kenya, for resources. I dont expect if Gabbard wins that it will have any impact on Samoa what so ever. She could do things for Samoa now, as could the Rock, but they dont, so why would this be any different if they became president of the U.S. They are Americans with some Samoan ancestry, not Samoans with some American ancestry. Ueni Small shop owners in the villages, market vendors and ordinary Samoans who sell basic food items like pork buns on the streets for a living have a legitimate complaint. A few weeks before the Governments ban on single-use plastic bags becomes effective, the question of a workable alternative to allow these small business owners to continue their operations has been raised. And rightly so. The truth is simple enough. If you are going to take away something the masses have relied upon for years to make life easier, it is a must that you have to provide an alternative. In this case, in the bid to protect our environment against the negative impact of plastics, the Government is following a growing global movement to get rid of single-use plastics. Last year, the Chief Executive Officer, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (M.N.R.E.), Ulu Bismarck Crawley, made an important announcement. This issue is too large for us to sit by without taking any action. By making these changes as a nation, our positive impact will be felt not only by us in Samoa, but also by our global community, he said. Samoa is proud to make this announcement as we enhance our Blue Pacific and join the global fight to restore our ocean and address damage caused by plastics. At the time of the announcement, the Government suggested reusable paper bags and reusable cloth bags as alternatives to plastic bags. Since the announcement, multiple public consultations have also come up with other ideas about the implementation of the decision. But not everyone is at ease. On page 2 of the Samoa Observer on Monday, market vendors said that while they accept the decision is good for the environment, they believe it is imperative for the Government and backers of the plan to come up with a better and cheaper alternative for their small operations. We are small businesses, said Moulu Viliamu, who owns a pork bun stall. Unlike the bigger wholesales and big shops, we cannot afford reusable tote bags that they have shipped in. What we can afford are paper bags. But he also pointed to another issue, saying that paper bags are not good quality for his type of business. We know that plastic bags are bad and switching to reusable bags is a good thing but we question how well this was really thought out. Of course this will work great with the bigger companies and businesses that can easily afford it, but what about us? Shop owner, Aotoa Leiataua Elia, raised another extremely valid point. Partly the reason why some of us are having trouble with coming to terms with the new law, is because there are still some unanswered questions we have, Aotoa said. Do we have any other options beside paper bags? And who will be able to provide them for us? Ladies and gentlemen, these are valid questions. They are legitimate questions that should have been answered a long time ago. In Samoa today, not many people would dispute the reasons for the plastics ban. Its fair to say that the majority of our people accept that these plastics do more harm than good. For instance, these plastics often end up on the streets, on our shores, in the seas and making our otherwise beautiful environment look ugly. In some cases, they end up buried in the soil. The toxic chemicals from them ruin the environment, and it washes back out to the sea destroying our precious marine life. And thats not all. Some plastics end up in the fish we eat. This is horrible but the problem is not confined to Samoa. Statistics tell us that at least eight million tonnes of plastics leak into the ocean on an annual basis, with at least 51 trillion micro-plastic particles less than 5mm in diameter already in our oceans. Studies now show that fish consumed by humans are ingesting the tiny ocean plastics, with 75 per cent of the worlds tuna landings from Pacific waters and national fish consumption in the Pacific is three to four times the global average, there is cause for concern. We couldnt agree more. The ban on single use plastics is a great start. But there are legitimate concerns that must be addressed. The questions raised by the market vendors and small shop owners are excellent and requires the Government and the private sector to come together to discuss a solution. Have a wonderful Wednesday Samoa, God bless! The Government is moving to the next phase of the proposed development of a biomass gasification plant at Mulifanua. Public notices put out by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) in recent editions of the Samoa Observer point to the development. The Ministry, in a public notice titled Planning Notification of Proposed Developments, advised that the Planning and Urban Management Agency has received applications for development consent for four projects. These include the reclamation at Matautu-tai by Apia Marine Service, a new administration office building (with car-park, and fence) at Tuanaimato by the MNRE, a storage warehouse by Formosa Apia Samoa Limited, and the development of a biomass gasification plant at Mulifanua. The MNRE has appealed to the public, who have objections to the propose development, to contact their office. In light of the above, any persons who may be affected by any of the above development applications, may make a submission by way of objection or otherwise to the Agency. The submission must state how the objector would be affected by the granting of development consent, stated the public notice. The public has until January 31 to make submissions to the Ministry. The proposed biomass gasification plant at Mulifanua has been on the cards and is a pet project of the Samoan Government, which has in recent years announced its intention to move into renewable energy technology. It is understood the Mulifanua plant will be used to generate power to support the countrys electricity grid. The concept of biomass-generated electricity is not new to Samoa. According to the UNDP website, a biogas project in Samoa came out from a regional project called PIGGAREP Pacific Island Greenhouse Gas Abatement through Renewable Energy Project. The project was funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), with the UNDP as implementing agency and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) as implementing partner. The project covered eleven Pacific island countries and has provided feasibility studies, training, awareness and renewable energy projects across the Pacific since 2008. As a follow up of PIGGAREP, Denmark funded renewable energy projects in the Pacific through the Small Island Developing States SIDS DOCK programme, which strived to transform SIDS energy sectors into catalysts for sustainable, economic development. One project that benefitted from the Danish funding was Samoas biogas project. It is understood the invasive Merrimia vine, which according to the UNDP and the MNRE killed over 60 per cent of Samoas forests, was proposed as the fuel for bioenergy in that project and would have enabled Samoa to produce biogas energy systems through the burning of the vine. Legal Home Growing of Marijuana Proposed in Washington State Positive changes are afoot for adults in Washington....finally. Homegrown cannabis is a simple request for adults in Washington. Photo: Salem-News.com (OLYMPIA, Wash.) - Legislation in Washington State has been pre-filed which would legalize home growing of marijuana by adults age 21 and older. The bills, HB 1131 and SB 5155, would legalize small home grows of 6 plants per adult 21+ to a maximum of 15 plants per housing unit as defined in Washington law. Landlords could prohibit home growing by their tenants. Of the 11 states that have reformed their marijuana laws, including Washington DC, Washington State is the only state that does not permit legal unlicensed growing of (non-medical) marijuana by the adult general public. The bills have no requirement for permits or tracking consistent with the other states laws and the Washington state Constitution. Sales of homegrown cannabis would not be allowed and would continue to be a criminal act. Homegrow Washington provided the initial bill language and sought legislative support, including seeking sponsors and co-sponsors. HB 1131 is sponsored by Representative Brian Blake (D), and is co-sponsored by Representatives Drew MacEwen (R), Laurie Dolan (D), Jim Walsh(R), and Shelley Kloba (D). SB 5155 is sponsored by Senator Maureen Walsh (R) and is co-sponsored by Senators Bob Hasegawa (D), Sam Hunt (D), and Rebecca Saldana (D). The bills will be introduced in the legislature on Monday, the first day of session. LINKS: Homegrow Washington anticipates additional co-sponsors from both parties in both houses to sign on by Tuesday afternoons deadline. Homegrow Washington is an affiliation of home grow activists who hold no business interests in the cannabis industry. _________________________________________ In a jolt to the seven-month-old Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress coalition government in Karnataka, two Independent legislators, R. Shankar and H. Nagesh, on Tuesday said they were withdrawing support. "I had extended support to the JD-S-Congress coalition expecting good governance, but have been disappointed," Shankar told the media. Shankar, a legislator from Ranebennur Assembly segment in Haveri district, belongs to the regional Karnataka Pragnavantha Janata Party, while Nagesh is an Independent from Mulbagal constituency in Kolar district. The two Independents shared with the media their letter to Karnataka Governor Vajubhai R. Vala withdrawing their support to the coalition. The development came amid an ongoing political war between the coalition partners JD-S and Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over alleged poaching of Congress legislators by the BJP. Senior Congress leader K.C. Venugopal told reporters here that he was confident of the Independents rethinking their decision. "The Independents have every right to withdraw their support, but we're confident they will be with us," Venugopal said after a meeting with state unit Congress leaders. Responding to the development, Congress leader and Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara blamed the BJP for trying to "topple" a "stable" government. "BJP is trying to sway the legislators with money power. Their aim is to topple the government, but we are confident of retaining our stability as we have the support of all our legislators," Parameshwara told the media here. In the 225-member Karnataka Assembly, the Congress has 80 MLAs including the Speaker, the JD-S 37 and the BJP 104. While the BJP has denied the poaching allegations, it has kept 99 of its 104 legislators at a private resort in Gurugram, adjoining the national capital, state unit spokesman Vamanacharya said. "A total of 99 legislators are currently at a private resort, while the other five are in Delhi itself and in touch with us," he told IANS here. Prime Minister Narendra Modi Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Tuesday the Centre is striving hard for the development of eastern India, including Odisha, as he launched projects worth Rs 1,550 crore. "We have either inaugurated or laid the foundation stones of projects worth Rs 1,550 crore. They are aimed at improving education, connectivity, culture and tourism," he said at Bolangir. "When a region has good connectivity, it positively impacts all sectors, especially tourism," he added. Odisha has become a tourism hub for all types of tourists and the Centre has been engaged in developing the heritage sites in the state over the last four years. The projects that were inaugurated include the 28.3 acre Multi-Modal Logistics (MMLP) Jharsuguda, the Balangir-Bicchupalli new railway line, doubling of Barpali-Dungaripali and Bolangir-Deogaon road line along with electrification of 813 km of Jharsuguda-Vizinagaram and Sambalpur-Angul lines. The Multi-Modal Logistics Park (MMLP) at Jharsuguda is built at a cost of Rs 100 crore. It will facilitate EXIM and domestic cargo, including Private Freight Traffic. The Prime Minister also laid foundation stones for renovation and restoration works at Asurgarh Fort in Kalahandi. He inaugurated a bridge between Therubali-Singapur Road station and Passport Sewa Kendras at six places -- Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Puri, Kandhamal, Bargarh and Bolangir -- through video conferencing. "With the inauguration of six new Post Office Passport Seva Kendras, now the people of Odisha wouldn't have to travel very far to get their passports," he said. He also laid the foundation stone for a permanent building at Kendriya Vidyalaya, Sonepur. Mahwait governor affirms to support public hospitals in province [15/January/2019] MAHWAIT, Jan. 15 (Saba) Mahwait governor Faisal Ahmed Haidar on Tuesday stressed on the importance of doubling efforts to support the public hospitals to provide services the best in the province. During his visit to the public hospital in al-Tawilah area, the governor was briefed on the progress of the work, services and needs provided by the hospital for patients. Haidar praised the hospital's staff on more efforts be intensified to see the patients' conditions and take care of them, stressing that their humanitarian efforts reflect the level of steadfastness and to take responsibility to face challenges experienced by Yemen. saba The Canadian stock market is modestly higher Tuesday morning after a somewhat listless start. Energy, information and healthcare shares are leading the market up. Consumer discretionary shares are weak, while financial, industrials and materials shares are turning in a mixed performance. Worries about Chinese have slightly eased with the Chinese finance ministry and the central bank speaking about implementation of larger tax and fee cuts for small firms and manufacturers and adherence to prudent monetary policy to support growth. Strong buying in energy stocks thanks to higher crude oil prices is aiding the market's rise to higher levels. The benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index is up 35.14 points, or 0.23%, at 15,010.67, around 44 points off the day's low of 14,966.46. The Capped Energy Index is up 1.5%. Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ.TO), Suncor Energy (SU.TO), Cenovus Energy Inc. (CVE.TO), Imperial Oil (IMO.TO), Vermilion Energy Inc. (VET.TO), PrairieSky Royalty (PSK.TO) and ARC Resources (ARX.TO) are up 1 to 2%, while Husky Energy Inc. (HSE.TO) is rising 2.6% and BayTex Energy Corp. (BTE.TO) is climbing up 3.7%. Crescent Point Energy (CPG.TO) is declining 3.7% after the company slashed its 2019 capital budget by 30%, citing recent decline in oil prices as the reason for the lower guidance. Magna International Inc (MG.TO) is down 1.3% after the company announced that its 2019 revenue will be impacted by the sale of its fluid pressure and controls and stronger dollar. The Capped Information Technology Index is up nearly 1%. Shopify Inc. (SHOP.TO) is rising more than 3.5%, Kinaxis Inc. (KXS.TO) is up 2.1%, CGI Group Inc. (GIB.A.TO) is advancing by 1.3% and Sierra Wireless Inc. (SW.TO) is adding 1.15%. Among materials shares, Barrick Gold Corporation (ABX.TO) is down 1.7%, Franco-Nevada Corporation (FNV.TO) is declining 1.1% and Goldcorp Inc. (G.TO) is down 2.1%, while Teck Resources (TECK.B.TO) is advancing by 1.2% and First Quantum Minerals (FM.TO) is up 1.6%. The Capped Healthcare Index is up 2.1%. Aurora Cannabis Inc. (ACB.TO) is up 5.3%, Canopy Growth Corporation (WEED.TO) is rising 2.3%, Bausch Health Companies is adding 1.2% and Extendicare (EXE.TO) is up 1.6%. Cronos Group Inc. (CRON.TO) and Aphria (APHA.TO) are down 2.4% and 1.1%, respectively. Among bank stocks, Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS.TO), Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM.TO) and National Bank of Canada (NA.TO) are down 0.4 to 0.5%, while Bank of Montreal (BMO.TO) is modestly higher. In economic news, a report from the Canadian Real Estate Association said national home sales fell 2.5% in December, from a month earlier. The U.S. stock indices are notably higher, with technology stocks turning in a fine performance. On the U.S. economic front, a report released by the Labor Department showed a modest decrease in producer prices in the month of December. The report said the producer price index for final demand dipped by 0.2% in December after inching up by 0.1% in November. Economists had expected prices to slip by 0.1%. A separate report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed New York manufacturing activity grew at its slowest pace in over a year in the month of January. The New York Fed said its general business conditions index slumped to 3.9 in January after tumbling to a revised 11.5 in December. Asian ended mostly higher on Tuesday with investors reacting positively to Citigroup's results and news about China's measures to counter slowing growth. The Chinese finance ministry said that it would implement larger tax and fee cuts to help reduce burdens for small firms and manufacturers and the central bank said that it would stick with its prudent monetary policy to support growth. Markets in Europe are mostly higher even as traders continue to watch the developments on the Brexit front. In commodities, crude oil futures for February are up 1.16 or 2.3% at 51.67 a barrel. Gold futures for February are down $2.75, or 0.21%, at $1,288.55. Silver futures for March are down $0.091, or 0.58%, at $15,595 an ounce, while Copper futures for March are up $0.003, or 0.11%, at $2.638 per pound. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com A summary of some of the widely followed stories on cryptocurrency and blockchain during the past 24 hours. Danish Tax Agency authorized to Collect User Data from Crypto Exchanges Skattestyrelsen, the Danish Tax Agency, announced it has been authorized by the country's Tax Council, Skatteradet, to collect data including identification information such as names, addresses and CPR numbers. Three Danish crypto exchanges must now provide information to the Tax Agency on all purchases and sales of crypto currencies made by their customers from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2018. ETC Labs forms team to oversee Ethereum Classic projects development Ethereum Classic (ETC) Labs launched a new dedicated core team called ETC Labs Core to oversee the development of Ethereum Classic projects, ETC blockchain and support for these. Last week, U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Gate.io had said a 51 percent attack occurred on the Ethereum Classic (ETC) blockchain, which saw the attacker transferring a total of 40,000 ETC in total valued at about $200,000 in four of the total seven rollback transactions detected. HSBC settled $250 bln worth trades on blockchain last year Asia-focused lender HSBC said it settled $250 billion worth of forex trades using blockchain in the last year. Since February, HSBC has settled over 3 million forex trades and made over 150,000 payments using the distributed ledger . The bank used its FX Everywhere platform to co-ordinate payments across its internal balance sheets. Malaysia implements Cryptocurrency and ICO regulation Malaysia's Finance Minister YB Tuan Lim Guan Eng announced that cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings have come under regulation on Tuesday. The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) said it will issue guidelines to regulate offering and trading of digital assets. The relevant regulatory framework is expected to be launched by the end of the first quarter. Spanish utility Iberdrola uses blockchain to track Renewable Energy Spanish energy utility Iberdrola is using blockchain technology to track renewable energy to provide a guarantee to its consumers that the energy it supplies is 100 percent renewable. The use of this technology also contributes to accelerating the decarbonization process. Current Prices As of this writing, Bitcoin is up 3.29 percent or $116.61 at $3656.89 on Coinbase. Ethereum is climbing $10.31 or $12.05 at $128.97. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Technology News President Donald Trump told the nation Tuesday that "a big new Caravan" is heading up to the U.S. Southern Border from Honduras. He broke the news on Twitter. The timing of the fresh caravan offered new ammunition in Trump's fight with Congress over border wall funding. Democrats' refusal to provide $5.7 billion in funding for the wall has led to a partial shutdown of the federal government. Trump warned that the drones favored by Democrats won't be enough to stop the next caravan of migrants, arguing only a wall can stop them. "Tell Nancy and Chuck that a drone flying around will not stop them. Only a Wall will work. Only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe" he tweeted. Trump, who has been pushing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to negotiate a compromise that will allow some of the wall to be built, called on congressional Democrats to "stop playing political games and end the government shutdown," which is now in its 25th day. Trump said in a later tweet that polls are now showing that people are beginning to understand the humanitarian crisis and crime at the border. "Democrats will soon be known as the Party of Crime," according to Trump. "Ridiculous that they don't want Border Security." A new caravan of around 500 migrants has formed in Honduras to escape from the violent city of San Pedro Sula and started its trek to the U.S. border, reports said. This is in addition to thousands of Latin American migrants who have been impatiently waiting in shelter camps in the Mexican border city of Tijuana to cross the border hoping for a new life. Police used tear gas against a larger group of migrants who tried to jump over the border wall last month, sending women and children running back to the Mexican side. Some others were arrested. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Bay Street is likely to open on a cautious note on Tuesday with traders tracking news about Brexit vote and quarterly earnings reports from U.S. and Canada. Higher crude oil prices may trigger buying in the energy space. Reports about the Chinese government's steps to revive growth are likely to aid sentiment. On Monday, the benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index ended up 36.35 points, or 0.24%, at 14,975.53, after scaling a low of 14,880.98 and a high of 14,997.86 intraday. In company news, Magna International Inc (MG.TO) announced that its 2019 revenue will be impacted by the sale of its fluid pressure and controls and stronger dollar. Crescent Point Energy (CPG.TO) has slashed its 2019 capital budget by 30%, citing recent decline in oil prices as the reason for the lower guidance. Asian ended mostly higher on Tuesday with investors reacting positively to Citigroup's results and news about China's measures to counter slowing growth. The Chinese finance ministry said that it would implement larger tax and fee cuts to help reduce burdens for small firms and manufacturers and the central bank said that it would stick with its prudent monetary policy to support growth. After opening on a firm note, most of the markets in Europe have turned easy today with traders looking ahead to the vote on Theresa May's Brexit deal. It is widely expected that May will lose the vote, with some analysts predicting one of the biggest defeats for any British government. In economic news from Europe, a report from Eurostat showed eurozone's merchandise trade surplus decreased strongly in November, as the growth in imports outpaced that of exports. The trade surplus fell to EUR 19 billion from EUR 23.4 billion in the same month last year, the report showed. Exports increased 1.9 percent year-on-year and imports rose 4.7 percent. Trade within the euro area grew 1.5 percent year-on-year. On the economic front from the U.S., data on producer prices in the U.S. for the month of December, is due at 8:30 AM ET. The Empire State manufacturing survey report is also due at 8:30 AM ET. Meanwhile, in commodities, crude oil futures for February are up $0.79, or 1.56%, at 51.32 a barrel. Gold futures for February are down $2.85, or 0.22%, at $1,288.45 an ounce. Silver futures for March are down $0.088, or 0.56%, at $15.598 an ounce, while Copper futures for March are up marginally at $2.637 per pound. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Market Analysis Malaysia's Finance Minister YB Tuan Lim Guan Eng announced that cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings have come under regulation on Tuesday. As per the Capital Markets and Services (Prescription of Securities) (Digital Currency and Digital Token) Order 2019, crypto currency service providers and exchanges are required to obtain authorization from the country's Securities Commission, which will work with the central bank to ensure compliance. The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) said it will issue guidelines to regulate offering and trading of digital assets. The guidelines will establish criteria for determining eligible crypto issuers and exchange operators, set disclosure standards and best practices in price discovery, trading rules and client asset protection. Those dealing in digital assets will be required to put in place anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML / CFT) rules, and cyber security and continuity measures. The Securities Commission said that in order to implement the regulatory framework on digital assets, it will coordinate with the Bank Negara Malaysia, the country's central bank, to ensure compliance with laws and regulations. The relevant regulatory framework is expected to be launched by the end of the first quarter. "Any person offering an ICO or operating a digital asset exchange without the Securities Commission 's approval may be punished, on conviction, with imprisonment not exceeding 10 years and fine not exceeding RM 10 million ($2.44 million]," The Star quoted Finance Minister Lim as saying. Meanwhile, Malaysia's central bank made it clear that cryptocurrencies are not legal tender. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News German stocks opened higher on Tuesday after the U.S. earnings season began on a positive note and China signaled more stimulus measures in the near term to counter slowing growth. Investors looked ahead to the vote on British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal later in the day. It is widely expected that May's Brexit proposal will face a certain defeat in parliament. The benchmark DAX was up 59 points or 0.54 percent at 10,915 in opening deals after declining 0.3 percent the previous day. Lender Commerzbank climbed 2 percent and Deutsche Bank jumped 2.8 percent after Citigroup posted a fourth-quarter profit that beat analysts' estimates. Deutsche Post rallied 2.7 percent after it issued a statement with comments on report about upcoming pricing regulation. Nordex Group shares jumped 4.7 percent. The company said that it received new orders for more than 4.75 GW in 2018, up over 73 percent compared to the previous year. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Today's Daily Dose brings you news about the approval of the world's first device for treatment of premature babies and newborns with an opening in their hearts; the impact of the U.S. government shutdown on Aimmune Therapeutics; Array's BEACON CRC trial results; and Exelixis' expanded FDA approval for Cabometyx tablets. Read on Amplatzer Piccolo Occluder, the world's first device for treatment of premature babies and newborns with an opening in their hearts, a common congenital defect, has just won the FDA approval. Developed by Abbott (ABT), Amplatzer Piccolo, which is even smaller than a small pea, now offers hope to premature infants and newborns who need corrective treatment, and who may be non-responsive to medical management and high risk to undergo corrective surgery. ABT closed Monday's trading at $68.27, down 1.07%. The FDA will commence the review of Aimmune Therapeutics Inc.'s (AIMT) Biologics License Application for AR101, an investigational biologic oral immunotherapy for the treatment of peanut allergy in children and adolescents ages 4-17, only when the U.S. government shutdown and lapse in appropriations has ended. The partial government shutdown which began on December 22, 2018, and is still continuing, is the longest in the country's history. The Company submitted the Biologics License Application for AR101 on December 21, 2018. The FDA granted AR101 Fast Track Designation for peanut allergy in September 2014 and Breakthrough Therapy Designation for peanut allergy in ages 4-17 in June 2015. Last month, DBV Technologies S.A. (DBVT) withdrew its Biologics License Application for Viaskin Peanut for the treatment of peanut allergy in children four to 11 years of age. The decision to withdraw the application was based on feedback from the FDA, which concluded that BLA, submitted on October 18, 2018, lacked sufficient detail regarding data on manufacturing procedures and quality controls. AIMT closed Monday's trading at $24.30, down 5.19%. DBVT closed the day's trading at $7.92, down 0.63%. Array BioPharma Inc. (ARRY) has reported encouraging updated results from the safety lead-in of its BEACON CRC trial. BEACON CRC trial is evaluating the triplet combination of BRAFTOVI, MEKTOVI, and ERBITUX in patients with BRAFV600E-mutant metastatic colorectal cancer. The results showed that mature median overall survival was 15.3 months for patients treated with the triplet. The updated confirmed overall response rate remains 48% and updated median progression-free survival remains 8.0 months, added the Company. Commenting on the study results, Victor Sandor, Chief Medical Officer, Array BioPharma, said, "We are delighted with the updated results from the BEACON CRC safety lead-in. Following consultations with the FDA and European Medicines Agency, we initiated an amendment to the BEACON CRC protocol to allow for an interim analysis based primarily on confirmed ORR and durability of response endpoints, which we believe could support an accelerated approval with positive results. We anticipate top-line results from this interim analysis in the first half of this year". ARRY closed Monday's trading at $17.07, down 3.61%. In after-hours, the stock was up 8.38% to $18.50. ASLAN Pharmaceuticals' (ASLN) phase 1b/2 clinical trial of Varlitinib plus gemcitabine and cisplatin in first-line biliary tract cancer has demonstrated an objective response rate of 60% and disease control rate of 100% n 300mg dose cohort. Patients in the study received oral Varlitinib twice daily (BID) at a dose of either 200mg or 300mg plus gemcitabine (1000mg/m2) and cisplatin (25mg/m2) on days one and eight of a three-week cycle. The data will be presented during a poster presentation at the upcoming American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium (ASCO GI) in San Francisco on 18 January 2019, the Company noted. ASLN closed Monday's trading at $3.41, down 3.94%. Shares of Bio-Path Holdings Inc. (BPTH) plunged over 15% in after-hours trading on Monday, after the Company priced an underwritten public offering of 8.59 million shares of its common stock at $0.13 each. The aggregate gross proceeds from the offering are expected to be about $1.1 million, and the offering is expected to close on or about January 17, 2019, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. H.C. Wainwright & Co. is acting as the sole book-running manager for the offering. BPTH closed Monday's trading at $0.20, down 12.96%. In after-hours, the stock plunged 15.08% to $0.17. The FDA has approved Exelixis Inc.'s (EXEL) Cabometyx tablets for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who have been previously treated with Bayer/Onyx's Nexavar (sorafenib). Cabometyx, available in 3 strengths of 20mg, 40mg, and 60mg, is already approved in the United States for the treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma. The drug is also approved in the European Union, Norway, Iceland, Australia, Switzerland, South Korea, Brazil and Taiwan for the treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) in adults who have received prior VEGF-targeted therapy, and in the European Union for previously untreated intermediate- or poor-risk advanced RCC. Cabometyx generated $324.0 million in net product revenue in full-year 2017 and $428.3 million in the first nine months of 2018. EXEL closed Monday's trading at $22.86, down 3.79%. In after-hours, the stock was up 5.29% to $24.07. Pfizer Inc.'s (PFE) New Drug Applications for Tafamidis for the treatment of transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy have been accepted for priority review by the FDA - with a decision expected in November 2019. The two NDAs are based on two forms of Tafamidis - meglumine salt and free acid. PFE closed Monday's trading at $42.37, down 1.19%. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Signal Mountain, TN -- (ReleaseWire) -- 01/15/2019 --The Southeastern Cave Conservancy, Inc. recently received a donation of more than 2,300 acres in Northwest Georgia from an anonymous donor, as well as additional acreage from the Georgia-Alabama Land Trust, Inc. Together, the donated property constitutes most of the failed development called the Preserve at Rising Fawn, located at Johnsons Crook in Dade County, Georgia. The property includes more than 30 known caves, stands of hardwood trees in a stunning landscape, and a diverse ecological environment supporting wildlife of all kinds. This donated land will be named the Charles B. Henson Preserve at Johnsons Crook, honoring the memory of Chuck Henson, a long-time caver and benefactor to the Conservancy. His recognition of the risks of development to the fragile systems of Johnsons Crook and the opportunity for conservation began the efforts to protect the land and make the preserve a reality. For over six years, Georgia-Alabama Land Trust worked to protect many parcels in the failed development as they became available, through the acquisition of land and through conservation easements. It now holds a permanent conservation easement on all of the land in the Henson Preserve. The Land Trust's Johnson's Crook Project was accomplished through private and corporate donations, and support from foundations such as the Open Space Institute's Northwest Georgia Land Protection Fund. Open Space Institute's Northwest Georgia Land Protection Fund is made possible with funding from the Lyndhurst Foundation and the Benwood Foundation. The Northwest Georgia Land Protection Fund seeks to build capacity of land trusts working to protect ecologically significant landscapes in northwest Georgia. "I can't tell you how thrilled I am that this project all came together," said Katherine Eddins, Executive Director of Georgia-Alabama Land Trust. "The importance of preserving Johnson's Crook first came to my attention fifteen years ago, and it has been gratifying to see land once slated for development preserved in its natural state." "The partnership with the Land Trust has made it possible for this natural resource to be protected and enjoyed forever by cavers, hikers, and other outdoor enthusiasts," said Ray Knott, Executive Director of SCCi. "The Conservancy wants the Henson Preserve to be an asset to Dade County and the North Georgia community." The Conservancy will work with community partners to develop a master plan for the Henson Preserve. "Conserving this amount of land comes with a lot of responsibility and cost. Stewardship, trails, and basic recreation structures can be costly. We will need the input and support of many partners to make the Henson Preserve a North Georgia destination," stated Knott. About The Southeastern Cave Conservancy, Inc. The Southeastern Cave Conservancy, Inc. (SCCi) protects more than 170 caves on 4,500 acres in six southeastern states. To learn more about SCCi and wild cave conservation, visit www.SaveYourCaves.org. The Georgia-Alabama Land Trust, Inc. is a nonprofit conservation organization that actively works to protect and steward land. They are the largest land trust that services the Southeastern region of the United States. For more information on protecting land in Alabama and Georgia, visit www.GeorgiaAlabamaLandTrust.org. Weather Alert ...The Flood Warning continues for the following rivers in North Carolina... Contentnea Creek Near Hookerton affecting Greene, Pitt and Lenoir Counties. For the Contentnea Creek...including Hookerton...Minor flooding is forecast. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Turn around, don't drown when encountering flooded roads. Most flood deaths occur in vehicles. Additional information is available at water.weather.gov/ahps. ...The Flood Warning is now in effect until early Saturday afternoon... The Flood Warning continues for the Contentnea Creek Near Hookerton. * Until early Saturday afternoon. * At 10:00 AM EDT Wednesday the stage was 13.3 feet. * Flood stage is 13.0 feet. * Minor flooding is occurring and minor flooding is forecast. * Recent Activity...The maximum river stage in the 24 hours ending at 10:00 AM EDT Wednesday was 13.4 feet. * Forecast...The river is expected to rise to a crest of 13.3 feet this afternoon. It will then fall below flood stage Saturday morning. * Impact...At 13.0 feet, Minor flooding of low lying areas adjacent to creek can be expected. Several homes threatened by water in northwest Greene County near HWY 58. && Moscow court upholds detention of Russian research scientist charged with treason RIA Novosti, Vladimir Pesnya 17:38 15/01/2019 MOSCOW, January 15 (RAPSI) The Moscow City Court on Tuesday upheld extension of detention for the Central Research Institute for Engineering Technology (TsNIImash) scientist Viktor Kudryavtsev, who stands charged with treason, until March 20, according to the courts press service. Earlier, the defendants lawyer Ivan Pavlov told RAPSI that investigators banned visits to the researcher after Kudryavtsev refused to make a deal with them envisaging guilty plea and testifying against his student. Kudryavtsev is charged with disclosure of classified information to the Belgian Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamic, his another attorney Yevgeny Smirnov told RAPSI previously. Investigators claim that the researcher has transferred information via email from an unmarked computer. However, the scientist has not worked with such secret documents since late 90s, according to the lawyer. The 74-year old researcher pleaded not guilty and refused to testify in the case, Smirnov added. Tokyo Trial's intimate artistic representation moves to Nanjing From:Shine | 2019-01-14 19:29 Li Bin talks about hispainting of the Tokyo Trial for visitors at the China Art Museum in Shanghai recently. The exhibition of a 168-meter-long, 4-meter-high panorama about the Tokyo Trial has concluded at the China Art Museum in Shanghai and will move to the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre, Shanghai oil painter Li Bin told Shanghai Daily. The large oil painting will be modified based on advice from some local artists and researchers and will be exhibited in Nanjing on July 7, the 82nd anniversary of the July 7, 1937, which is believed to be the official start of Japan's invasion of China. It was painted over three and a half years based on meticulous research and assistance from the Shanghai Federation of Social Science Associations and Shanghai Jiao Tong University to mark the 70th anniversary of the judgment on Japanese leaders accused of war crimes. Therefore, it is the first to show more than 400 of the people who took part in the trials, including judges, prosecutors and the accused. Li said that he watched 7,000 minutes of video material of the trials and asked experts from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Center for the Tokyo Trial Studies to identify the figures that he decided to paint. The exhibition also had more than 100 photographs, including some provided by the national archives of the United States and Japan, with others from public and private collections and from relatives of those involved. It also contained excerpts from the judgment documents and detailed illustrations of the people in the painting. Li said by combining all those materials, he wished to help visitors learn history in a short period of time. Scholars said that Lis practice of integrating the painting with historical facts was an innovative attempt to present the history and academic findings to the public in a direct and shocking way. But artists also pointed out that the other materials had distracted visitors attention from the painting and also decreased the artistic aesthetic to some extent. Li said all the advice was very precious and helpful for him to modify the painting before being re-exhibited. Prosecutors strive to forfeit assets of Moscow Region district ex-head to the state RAPSI 15:39 15/01/2019 MOSCOW, January 15 (RAPSI) Prosecutors would file a lawsuit to forfeit assets of ex-head of the Moscow Regions Serpukhov District Alexander Shestun charged with abuse of power to the state, the spokesperson of Russias Prosecutor Generals Office Alexander Kurennoy told journalists Tuesday. Shestuns assets are preliminary estimated at 10 billion rubles ($150 million), and this property status does not correspond to his income, Kurennoy said. Shestun is the owner of 676 real estate items in the Moscow Regions Serpukhov district, 2 recreation facilities and 22 cars, he stated. According to case papers, between 2008 and 2014, the Serpukhov District administration headed by Shestun illegally transferred four land plots in a local village to the company Center. Damage caused by these actions was estimated at 62 million rubles (about $925,000), investigators claim. Shestun was put in detention. The former official pleads not guilty. He could face up 10 years in prison if convicted. Sberbank seeks bankruptcy of Russian citizen for his $94 mln debt RAPSI, Vladimir Burnov 12:23 15/01/2019 MOSCOW, January 15 (RAPSI) Sberbank has filed a bankruptcy petition against Russian citizen Sergey Chernov owing 6.3 billion rubles ($94 million) to the financial organization, according to the Orenburg Region Commercial Courts records. There are six bankruptcy claims against Chernov registered by various Russian banks including the debtors petition for his own bankruptcy. In his own application Chernov reports his 7.6 billion-ruble debt ($113 million). In August 2018, the Moscow Commercial Court dismissed a bankruptcy claim against Chernov lodged by the Bank Rus. The bank demanded to recover a 199.8-million-ruble ($3 million) debt from the man. Rantoul, IL (61866) Today Mainly clear. Low around 55F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Mainly clear. Low around 55F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph. To many, being an executive in the Walt Disney Company would be a dream job. As the firms senior network engineer, Oscar Rodriguez oversaw the installation and management of hundreds of computer servers, including those supporting Disney California Adventure, the Downtown Disney District and ESPN Zone restaurants. I always say Disney is the happiest place on earth, and it is the happiest place on earth to work for as well, but it just wasnt for me, said the Rancho Santa Fe resident. It was a little too slow for me. ... We didnt have much to do, so I decided to start my own business. Rodriquez left the theme park giant in 1998 to start his own firm, WorldEdge Technology, which specializes in supporting computer systems employed by businesses. Originally, my mission was just to establish a small business and keep it running, Rodriguez said during a recent interview at a Rancho Santa Fe coffee shop. I made it a point in my life to say Im going to spend time with my kIds and thats going to be my priority. ... I offered computer services to small- and medium-sized businesses. Now that he and his wifes two children have graduated from Torrey Pines High and are attending college, Rodriguez said he is expanding the business with an emphasis on preventing security breaches at medium- and large-sized companies. In particular, the firm offers assistance in combatting cyber-ransom, in which individuals illegally access a businesss data base, encrypt the information so it cannot be read, and demand money from the company to decrypt the data. Sixty to 70 percent of the businesses that get hit with ransom ware go out of business within the next year because they cannot recover from it, Rodriguez said. I consider it being at war with these people because theyre hitting us so hard and its hurting the economy big time. ... We have found ways to decrypt the material so you dont have to pay the ransom. Rodriguez said his staff has grown to 11 employees and he expects that number to escalate. He plans to open an office in New York in the coming months, followed by one in Chicago. Our goal is to grow nationally, and once we establish that, were going to go international, Rodriguez said. Were going to go all over the world, but were going to start with Europe. ... Were focusing on the biotech world here in San Diego. They have a lot of presence in Europe so thats why we want to start with Europe. Such expectations do not appear unrealistic given Rodriguezs nearly lifelong immersion in the world of information technology. In forging his career path, Rodriguez followed in the footsteps of his father, George Rodriguez, a computer programmer for NASA and later an IBM representative. Born in Texas, Oscar lived in several places in the U.S as a boy, stemming from his fathers NASA assignments. Then, Rodriguez said, he was about 8 or 9 when his dad took a job in Chile at Aura, one of the largest space observatories in the world at the time. When George Rodriguez joined IBM in Chile, his son, then a high school student, began working with him. He was opening up offices all over Chile for IBM, Rodriguez said. Oscar returned to the U.S. to attend college at Cal-State Fullerton, then launched his career by working for airlines as an operations specialist. After stints at several airlines, Rodriguez brought his skills to the health-care industry. He worked for Baxter Healthcare and Regency Health Services before taking the Disney job. He and his wife decided to move from San Clemente to Rancho Santa Fe about a dozen years ago because his business performed well in this area and his wife worked for a biotech here. The success of WorldEdge enables Rodriguez to contribute to nonprofit causes, including the United Cerebral Palsy of Orange County and the Legal Aid Society of San Diego. Now, the 54-year-old entrepreneur is preparing to take his business, which will be rebranded, to the next level. We want to grow to the point where its international and its an engine that drives itself, he said. In our world, theres so many of us (IT businesses) that the competition is fierce out there. We dont know everything. ... We do have the expertise to do the research and figure things out. ... Well come in and well become more of a strategic consultant for these businesses. Were able to provide funding for these businesses to help pay for training and IT. Were able to bring in significant amounts of money to these businesses. Fine dust pollution has reached disastrous proportions, with ultrafine dust levels at their highest since environmental authorities began tabulating such data in 2015. Authorities issued a fine dust alert in Seoul and surrounding Gyeonggi Province and other major cities, and people nationwide are trapped in the smog and have nowhere to go. The prospects for future generations are horrifying. Studies show fine dust not only damages the respiratory system, but also harms the brain, raising the chance of dementia, seriously impacting the growth of children and raising the suicide rate. Fine dust slows down the growth of lungs in children and causes the quality of sperm in men to deteriorate. It causes more deaths than AIDS, lung disease and malaria combined. Poor countries typically suffer from high levels of fine dust pollution unless they are so poor that they have no industry at all, while advanced countries typically do not. Yet Korea ranks 12th among 224 countries that are worst affected by fine dust. China is accused of being largely responsible for the pollution that blanketed Korea on Sunday. Last Friday, ultrafine dust levels in Beijing surpassed 100 /. But China claims that it has improved air quality remarkably in recent years while Korea has seen a deterioration. In 2013, the Chinese government drew up a five-year plan to cut down on air pollution, and it has made huge strides. Average ultrafine dust levels in Beijing fell from 89 / in 2013 to 58 / in 2017. Still, there is no denying that Chinese air pollution is drifting into Korea, and for Beijing to deny that it bears any responsibility, as it did last week, stretches credulity. Environment Minister Cho Myung-rae accused China of misquoting data to its advantage, and Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon said, "Research shows more than 50 to 60 percent of fine dust [in Korea] comes from China." The difference is that China has taken active measures to cut down on air pollution. From 2016 to 2017, China switched 4.74 million coal-fired boilers to gas or electric, with the government covering 90 percent of the costs. People refusing to adhere to the switch were fined 20,000 yuan. Also, 20 million aging automobiles were scrapped, and in 2016 alone, some 10,000 factories were shuttered and 5,600 had their business licenses revoked. Korea on the other hand is doing very little except blame China for all its woes. In a meeting led by Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon in November last year, the government vowed to treat the fine dust problem as a national crisis. But the only steps it has taken has been to control the use of official vehicles, cleaning up streets, curbing the number of days aging diesel cars can be driven and limiting coal-fired power. The majority of this year's W880 billion in budgetary spending to deal with fine dust is allocated to subsidies for electric and hydrogen vehicles (US$1=W1,123). These measures may help in the long run, but they merely patch over the worst problem. If the government is really serious, it needs to get to work on trucks and heavy construction equipment, which emit 11 times more fine dust than diesel cars. Out of 170,000 pieces of construction equipment that are more than 10 years old, only 1.7 percent are equipped with emission controls. If Korea achieved just half of what China has accomplished, people would not be wheezing and coughing and shaking their heads in disbelief right now. Vote In The Primaries It Is Important! Who would rather have less choices? Who would rather have others determine a smaller pool for you to choose from? Like when parents offer their... Congratulations Graduates And Those Who Helped Them! Its that time of year when college and high school seniors, along with eighth graders, are getting ready to celebrate the completion of a major... Welcome Guest! You Are Here: US Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas): I understand from whats been testified to the Forest Service and the BLM [Bureau of Land Management], you want very much to work on the issue of climate change. We know theres been significant solar flare activity, and so is there anything that the National Forest Service or BLM can do to change the course of the moons orbit, or the Earths orbit around the sun? Obviously that would have profound effects on our climate. Jennifer Eberlein, associate deputy chief for the National Forest System, responded that she would have to follow up with you on that one, after a brief pause. Gohmert: Well, if you figure out a way that you in the Forest Service can make that change, Id like to know. Your Excellency, Most Reverend Sir, Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, Your Excellencies, the Ambassadors, Honourable Marshal, Honourable Prime Ministers, Excellencies, Most Reverend Bishops, Honourable Ministers, Madam Justice of the Constitutional Court, Generals, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my great pleasure to welcome you to our fourth joint New Year`s meeting. 2018 is over, a year rich in numerous events, out of which the most significant, truly momentous ones for us, were undoubtedly the celebrations of the centenary of regaining independence. I wish to thank you warmly for making our jubilee visible also in your home countries; it was often an occasion for grand festivities and joy. See also: Presidential couple, diplomats pay homage to late Gdansk mayor Last year we commenced our 2-year-long, non-permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council, whereas in Katowice we presided over the session of the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its successful outcome was reflected in the adoption of the so called Katowice Rulebook, which was possible thanks to the readiness for compromise demonstrated by all parties participating in the negotiations. I would like to thank your countries for cooperation and for expressing acknowledgment of our good and effective organization of the Katowice conference. The year 2018 was marked, once again, by high level of my international activity. Throughout the whole year I paid 26 foreign visits, and met with more than 20 international leaders who visited Poland. I feel personal satisfaction with the fact that my visits and discussions with foreign partners, apart from the political content, are also enhancing our security, including the energy one, and producing tangible economic benefits. I am glad that last year turned out, once again, positive for Poland in that respect. We joined the group of developed economies, with our GDP reaching 5%, and Polish businesses recording a systematic growth in exports. Furthermore, last year, we managed to sign long-term contracts for LNG supplies which are significant for our energy security. That will allow for an effective diversification of energy supply sources, not just for Poland but for the whole region as well. It is one of the elements of cooperation we are developing within the framework of the Three Seas Initiative. I am pleased that at the meeting in Bucharest last year, the Initiative received stronger political support. We have also launched the process of implementing joint projects. I hope that this year we will be able to finalize works aimed at setting up the Three Seas Fund. That will constitute a major step in achieving more efficiency in the implementation of common economic and infrastructure-related projects. Just like every other year, an important and fixed item on the agenda of my visits were meetings with my compatriots living outside their homeland. I am pleased that in the year of the 100th anniversary of regained independence I was able to meet with Poles living in such places as Chicago or Vilnius, whereas in the course of the historic first official presidential visit to Australia and New Zealand I was meeting Polish community inhabiting Sydney as well as Auckland and Wellington. Ladies and Gentlemen, While 2018 was the year of celebrating our independence, the year 2019 is going to be the one of the centenary of the reborn and independent Polish diplomacy. One hundred years ago, in 1919, Poland actively started to establish diplomatic relations. I am pleased that your missions are preparing numerous anniversary events. Rest assured that I am supportive of these celebrations and stand ready to take patronage over them. Excellencies, Polish diplomacy is ready to consistently support good multilateral cooperation. The already quoted COP24 conference in Katowice as well as international events scheduled to take place in Poland this year, such as the conference on the Middle East and the Berlin Process Summit on Western Balkans, constitute our contribution to the development of multilateral diplomacy. We believe that this kind of diplomacy is feasible and that it can be effective. Nevertheless, it must be based on good bilateral relations, built on trust and international law. International law should be the tool for solving contentious issues. Diplomacy is the source of peace as long as it is based on international law. The matter of the value of peace is obviously connected with a historical reflection provoked by the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of WWII and the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, which both fall in 2019. This year we are also going to commemorate other anniversaries of importance for Polish historical memory: that of the Battle of Monte Cassino, as well as that of the heroic fights of the division commanded by General Stanisaw Maczek in the territories of Belgium and the Netherlands. I intend to pay my personal tribute to the Polish soldiers of those days in order to show our contribution to the building of a free world, as well as a safe and peaceful Europe. The heroism of Polish soldiers at Monte Cassino and in the fields of Normandy and Flanders secured us the right to decide about the security order in Europe. While occupying our deserved place in the family of European nations, we want to actively join in the building of a common Europe. A historical source of our contribution to the discussion about EU`s future is the heritage of the Union of Lublin, the 450th anniversary of which will be celebrated this year. The Union, entered into on 1 July 1569, at the session of the Sejm in Lublin, established a new state the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It came into being thanks to the union agreed on by the Polish, Lithuanian and Ruthenian, or in today`s terms the Belorussian and Ukrainian, gentry. In that way, we jointly set an example to the then Europe showing that it was possible to achieve more than just a peaceful coexistence of various political traditions, cultures and religions. We proved something much more valuable: in the era of wars dividing the Old Continent, we demonstrated that a prudent and courageous policy founded upon the virtue of justice and led by the sense of common good is capable of creating an economic and political superpower and a mighty political force which the then Commonwealth was. Those sources of the European unity were referred to by John Paul II when in his speech in St Peter`s Square he set the path from the Union of Lublin to the European Union. And he added that Poland's entry into the structures of the European Union, with equal rights to the other countries, is for our nation and for the neighbouring Slav nations an expression of historical justice and, on the other hand, can constitute an enrichment for Europe. Europe needs Poland. Poland needs Europe!. It was also in the diversity of experiences, traditions and cultures that the Pope saw a chance for greatness, making it also clear that In the process of the continent's integration, it is of capital importance to remember that the union () must consist above all in an agreement about the values which must find expression in its law and in its life. We treat seriously the obligation imposed on us by John Paul II for we feel co-responsible for the future of the Community and wish for it to find the harmony of values as soon as this year. The nearest opportunity to do that will be provided by political changes connected both with the European Parliament elections, as well as the end of term of the incumbent European Commission and that of the President of the European Council. A new leadership of the main EU institutions should largely embark upon the task of bringing the European Union closer to its citizens and restoring the stability and internal balance which Europe whose absence is felt so much nowadays. Today is the time for the Republic of European Nations. Ladies and Gentlemen, We also define our geopolitical position through the membership of the North Atlantic Alliance, which celebrates its 70th anniversary this year. I would like the year 2019 to demonstrate to the world that NATO is a real alliance which ensures defence capabilities across its entire territory and effectively deters potential aggressors. Having said that, we must not forget that NATO has one more dimension to it it is a keystone of strong transatlantic bonds. It shows that the civilization community to which Poland belongs extends on both sides of the Atlantic. For that reason, strengthening of the transatlantic bonds sets, and will continue to set, the main direction for our thinking about security. When joining NATO 20 years ago, Poland at the same time clearly declared that it is only within the structures of the Western world that it sees its place on the geopolitical map of Europe and the world. Only NATO, based on the principle of allied solidarity, can provide a real guarantee of military security to Poland, to the region and to the entire West. Over the last 3 years, also thanks to the diplomatic efforts and active leadership of Poland, the North Atlantic Alliance has been implementing important and necessary measures adapting it to negative developments in the security environment. The last Summits of the Alliance: in Wales, Warsaw and Brussels produced landmark decisions. We have returned to construing NATO mainly as a guarantor of security for its members. We have started actions aimed at ensuring an equal potential of NATO on all its flanks. We have undertaken true efforts to restore to the Alliance effective deterrence capabilities and the capacity to defend the territories of its member states. It is a positive start to the further adaptation of NATO to new geopolitical realities. We are determined to continue cooperation with the Allies whose forces have been deployed to Poland and to other countries of our region. Let me use this opportunity and extend my profound gratitude to representatives of these countries. Last September, in Washington, I signed the renewed declaration on strategic cooperation with the United States. We hope that our enhanced partnership will result in a growing presence of US forces. I have no doubt that a close Polish-American military cooperation is the best response to the complex and long-term security threats, not only to Poland and the Eastern flank, but also to the entire NATO. Ladies and Gentlemen, The transatlantic bond, like every bond binding close but independent states, requires a responsible approach by each party. We count on the United States not only maintaining but, in the context of Poland, also extending the scope of its partnership for the sake of Europe`s security. The development of offensive capabilities by the countries who wish to destroy the existing international order, which builds on respect for the adopted principles and international law, demands strategic farsightedness and prudence. Stable and peaceful Europe is not only in the interest of the Europeans, but also of America, of the United States. Security across the entire transatlantic area is indivisible. To us, the Euro-Atlantic and the European strand in the security and defence cooperation remain to be inseparable and mutually complementary. Given the context of the existing threats, we will also, as part of NATO`s Eastern flank, consolidate the cooperation of the Bucharest 9. The meetings held so far have undoubtedly confirmed that it has grown to be the most important format of cooperation for the countries of the region, devoted to the subject of military security. Ladies and Gentlemen, Poland is an active member of the international community and speaks out in matters of global importance. We have just started the second year of our membership in the UN Security Council the only worldwide entity whose decisions are legally binding for the states, and whom the international community gave the right and obligation to react in order to defend international peace and security. Poland treats its membership of the Council, first and foremost, as a huge obligation towards the international community and therefore it gets actively involved in its forum in such matters as: solving the conflict in Ukraine, protection of civilian population, respect for international law, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, prevention of conflicts and genocide. Last May, I had a chance to chair a high-level meeting on the strengthening of the role of international law. I wish to assure you that Poland is fully committed to the fulfilment of tasks arising under the UN Security Council agenda. In 2019, we will be active in presenting our priorities which will be reflected in the agenda of the August presidency of Poland in that body. Our activeness in the UN forum demonstrates itself also through Poland`s bid for membership in the Human Rights Council in 2020-22. Poland advocates a holistic definition of human rights, encompassing not merely social and economic rights, but also the inalienable civil and political rights. 70 years ago, UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It has a universal quality and formulates the concept of human rights which is valid until this day. We want to be actively involved in the works aimed at their promotion and protection. We do hope that our bid will be positively received during the voting and that a representative of Poland will be included among the Councils members. Ladies and Gentlemen, Contemporary diplomacy comprises also the economic diplomacy. Also this year I will dedicate much time acting for the sake of promoting Polish businesses or, speaking in broader terms, of the Polish economy worldwide. As soon as next week, I will attend the Davos Economic Forum where, along with the top-level delegation, I will hold talks concerning Poland`s activeness in the global economy. Poland is a dynamically developing European country. It is an active member of the international community, carrying out its activities on all continents. I wish to assure you that the development of relations, including the economic ones, with non-European states alike, is of huge importance to us. We perceive it as a challenge and an opportunity at the same time. We are aware that in order to benefit from the economic development in many regions of the world, in terms of trade, investments or technology and development, we need to assume a more proactive attitude. Rest assured that we are going to strive at creating optimum conditions to ensure a profitable investment cooperation. I encourage your embassies to organize business forums for Polish and international entrepreneurs. Even in the global digital economy, nothing can replace direct contacts and direct conversations. Excellencies, the Ambassadors, All Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, In conclusion, I would like to wish all those present a prosperous New Year 2019, full of challenges which will turn out successful. May the upcoming months be the time for forging and implementing ideas which will contribute to the prosperity of our states and societies. All the best in the New Year! North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's right-hand man is believed to be on his way to Washington to discuss the agenda and venue of Kim's next summit with U.S. President Donald Trump. A diplomatic source said U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo, who returned to the U.S. on Monday from a visit to the Middle East, will meet with Kim Yong-chol, the head of the North's United Front Department, later this week. The source added the meeting will take place in Washington, "so there is a strong chance of Kim Yong-chol meeting Trump." The U.S. and North Korea have yet to fix a time and place for the summit but are aiming for next month. Pompeo told CBS News on Sunday that the two sides are "working out" the details. "The U.S. has been discussing with the [South] Korean government the possibility of a partial easing of sanctions in exchange for North Korea giving up its intercontinental ballistic missiles and freezing its nuclear weapons development," the source said. The U.S. is gradually inching away from demands for full denuclearization in an attempt to get any result at all out of Trump's loudly trumpeted diplomatic engagement. Mark Wilson/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Rick Gates, a former Trump campaign official and longtime business associate of Paul Manafort, is still cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller, suggesting Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling during the 2016 campaign is marching forward. A joint status report filed Tuesday states that Gates continues to cooperate with respect to several ongoing investigations, and accordingly the parties do not believe it is appropriate to commence the sentencing process at this time. Gates pleaded guilty in February 2018 to charges of conspiracy against the U.S. and lying to federal authorities about his work prior to joining the Trump campaign with Manafort, who served as the campaign's chairman for six months in 2016. The charges were brought by Mueller as part of his investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election. Gates plea agreement has precipitated nearly a year of cooperation in the special counsels probe. His crimes carry a maximum penalty of more than five years in prison, but Gates could earn a lesser sentence if a judge deems his cooperation worthy of leniency. The extent and content of Gates cooperation remain largely unknown. The next status update is due March 15. The special counsels office indicted Gates and Manafort twice. The first round of charges in Washington, D.C., in the fall of 2017 contained 12 counts of conspiracy, foreign agent registration violations, and other crimes. A second round of charges filed in Virginia months later centered around Manafort and Gates past lobbying and financial activities, including tax fraud and money laundering. Both initially pleaded not guilty, but Gates succumbed to the mounting legal and financial pressure in February 2018 and struck a plea deal with prosecutors. Manafort fought the Virginia charges at trial in August, where a jury found him guilty on eight counts of tax and financial crimes. During that trial, Gates testified against his former boss, describing to jurors his role in hiding millions of dollars in more than a dozen offshore accounts from United States tax collectors, adding that he did so at Manafort's direction. Gates also admitted to embezzling "several hundred thousand" dollars from Manafort. Ahead of a second trial in Washington in September, Manafort struck a plea agreement of his own. That deal fell apart within weeks after prosecutors accused him of lying. Manafort is scheduled to face sentencing in the Virginia case in February. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Thank you for reading the Philadelphia Tribune. You have exhausted your free article views for this month. Please press the "subscribe" button below and see our introductory price of $0.25 per week for 13 weeks. Otherwise, we look forward to seeing you next month. One mild Sunday evening last year, Harvey Figgs walked into Mortons the Steakhouse at the King of Prussia Mall craving the ribeye, his favorite steak. He was turning 59, children and grandchildren by his side. The group more than a half-dozen came to celebrate the man they said was a stand-up guy who had a wonderful work ethic, and finished the night with a chocolate sundae with a flickering candle on top. The next morning, after a weekend of heavy rain, Figgs reported to work: a demolition job in fast-changing Brewerytown. The vacant corner property at Jefferson and Bailey Streets had long been a neighborhood nuisance. The propertys new owner, Rollup LLC, registered to Valery Kravets and Alex Yevtushenko, reportedly had plans to build new housing in its place. Figgs, a regular foreman for Gama Wrecking Inc., had been hired to take down the nearly 2,900-square-foot building by hand. It collapsed on top of him only minutes after he stepped inside, dropping him from the second floor and crushing him with scrap and bricks. "He hollered, Help me! Help me! Help me!' Anthony Baker, Figgs brother-in-law, told the Inquirer and Daily News in June. And a bunch of other guys and I tried to dig the rocks off but it was so many bricks that you just couldnt get to him. By the time investigators arrived, Figgs had died. A man working with him was able to escape uninjured. Figgs, a contractor with more than 20 years of experience, is one of at least two dozen workers who have been killed on a Philadelphia construction site in the last three years. Investigators still do not know for certain what caused the building, at 2621 W. Jefferson St., to fall. The Department of Licenses and Inspections determined that a previous fire had damaged the buildings joists. Additionally, L&I said, the joists were not cut at an angle that would have prevented the buildings masonry wall from falling even if the floor collapsed. Yet the department has never attributed the collapse to the fire, said Karen Guss, a spokesperson for L&I. An investigation by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration did conclude that more could have been done to protect the workers' safety. In a 10-page report issued last month, OSHA cited Gama Wrecking for three violations, amounting to a penalty fine of $45,656. Two violations were designated as serious, meaning the hazard was so severe that it would most likely result in death or serious physical harm. The third was classified as willful, meaning an employer either knowingly failed to comply with a legal requirement ... or acted with plain indifference to employee safety. According to the report, Gama failed to shore up or brace walls or floors a requirement of working within a damaged structure that is being demolished. By failing to put a system such as beams on the walls or scaffolding, Gama was issued a willful and a serious violation. Additionally, OSHA issued a serious citation for Gamas failure to use a guardrail, safety net, or personal fall-arrest system, such as a body harness, at a construction site where the vertical drop was greater than six feet. Gama did not respond to requests for comment. Kravets and Yevtushenko of Rollup also did not return calls. Brock Atkins, an attorney with the Tucker Law Group who is representing Figgs' family, said family members are still trying to figure out who is responsible for the accident. We are glad that OSHA has discovered some of the wrongdoing that happens when contractors cut corners, Atkins said, adding that it has been a tough year for the family. No litigation has been filed, he said. As Philadelphia has experienced a development boom in the last decade, the construction risks have come into clearer focus. At least 135 people have been killed at construction jobs in Philadelphia since 2008, according to data provided by OSHA. The causes of death range from falls down an elevator shaft to electrocution. Most building collapses in Philadelphia do not result in fatalities. And many buildings, L&I has said, collapse on their own. Still, with an aging housing stock portions of which have not been maintained the city has had numerous buildings collapse during construction in recent years, including, in December, a Francisville property that sent two workers to the hospital. The worst recent collapse in Philadelphia killed seven people at the Salvation Army building at 22nd and Market Streets in 2013 an incident that sparked procedural changes when it comes to demolition. According to the L&I spokesperson, Gama had been hired to help clean up rubble from the Salvation Army incident with Figgs working at the site. Gama had not experienced a fatality on a job site before Figgs' death in June, OSHA data show. But the company, licensed by Philadelphia, had been cited by the agency multiple times since 2014. In April, two months before Figgs was killed, OSHA opened an investigation into a property Gama was working on in South Philadelphia. Eventually, the agency found that Gama had failed to use personal fall-arrest systems the same thing that OSHA said led to Figgs' death. As the Peapod by Giant truck pulled up, June Henion, 81 and Richard Henion, 84, opened their front door and waited for Cameron Whitelock to lug in their groceries. Whitelock knew where to place the water bottles so June and Richard would not have to move them. He knew to pass the popsicles to Richard, who was ready to put them into the freezer. After three back operations, June said she prefers delivery during her recovery. Once the pain in her right leg subsides, she said, she is going to check out Walmart's pickup option when it launches nearby because the prices might be lower. The willingness of consumers such as the Henions to try buying groceries online has helped fuel a fiercely competitive market, and one that analysts expect to grow. The Food Marketing Institute and Nielsen predicted this year that 70 percent of consumers will regularly shop for groceries online by 2022 or 2024. The biggest players in the Philadelphia region last month were Instacart with 33.8 percent market share, Walmart Online Grocery with 22.8 percent, and Peapod with 16.2 percent, according to Earnest Research, an analytics company that derived the data from credit and debit card transactions. Peapod and Giant have the same corporate parent. Michael Maloof, a senior grocer analyst at Earnest, called the Philadelphia region "on the more competitive side of the markets that we're looking at. It's still up for grabs." Though Giant and its competitors anticipate an increase in online grocery shopping, 84 percent of adults report never ordering groceries online, according to a July 2018 Gallup report. Just 4 percent of consumers order groceries online for pickup or delivery at least once a week, the poll found. Consumers are hesitant to have "someone else pick out their groceries. We typically like to look at our produce and look at our meat," said Stephanie Cegielski, a spokesperson for the International Council of Shopping Centers. "People aren't necessarily quite ready to give up all of that control." Still, retailers in the $700 billion grocery sector must invest in online, said Lauren Gilchrist, director of research in the Philadelphia office of JLL, a commercial real estate firm. "It's something people are trying to figure out because the grocery segment is so huge," Gilchrist said. "The company who can deliver a seamless experience can potentially win the day in market share." Retail giants have been expanding online. When Amazon.com Inc. paid $13.7 billion last year for Whole Foods Market, analysts expected the Seattle company to dominate the market with its quick delivery services. More than 1,000 Kroger stores have delivery through Instacart and a ClickList pickup service. Target Corp. last year acquired Shipt, a grocery delivery start-up, for $550 million and continues to expand into urban areas. >> READ MORE: Amazon-Whole Foods: A year later, what's changed? Costco Wholesale Corp. now sells meal kits from Blue Apron. Walmart works with DoorDash to deliver to what they predict will be 40 percent of U.S. households by the end of the year. Tom Ward, vice president of digital operations for Walmart U.S., has said that 90 percent of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart store. Peapod, which was founded in Chicago in 1989, has felt the heat. Frans Muller, CEO of Ahold Delhaize, the parent of Giant and Peapod, said on a recent earnings conference call that he was dissatisfied with the company's 8 percent growth in online sales in the U.S. Giant started delivering with Peapod in 2011 and among the ordering options is a flat delivery fee of $7.95 for orders over $60 and a $2.95 pickup fee. When asked about delivery errors, Brand declined to provide a rate and said the company provides substitutions or exchanges when needed. Justin Hadwin, Giant/Martin's director of e-commerce, knows his team is competing among a buffet of options and that customers have "high expectations." "If you deliver something to a customer and it's not perfect, you really have failed them," he said, while standing in a Giant warehouse attached to its store in North Coventry Township, near Pottstown. Items are arrayed in a way that makes it easier for employees to get customers exactly what they ordered. Whereas in a grocery store, products are usually arranged by brands, the warehouse purposefully separates them so the employees bagging the orders don't accidentally grab the wrong item. To fill an order of 31 items, Giant employee Fran Howard strapped the bar code scanner around her finger and then attached a display around her wrist. This is where the customer's order appears, item by item, instructing her which aisle to head to, which shelf to look at, and what quantity to grab. After scanning each item to make sure it's correct, she placed it in the box. Howard grabbed everything the whole milk, chicken salad, pack of burgers, mint chocolate chip ice cream with the same precision. Referring to her scanner, Howard said: "This is like my brain, my heart, my blood flow. This is everything." Unlike the store for customers, the Peapod warehouse is "not about appearance," said Tim Weighknecht, a Giant store manager. "The customer getting deliveries at home doesn't necessarily care how pretty this is. They care can they get it accurate and fresh and on time." Later that afternoon, Nick Dippolito opened his front door for his family's first Giant grocery delivery order. "I've been trying to get my wife to do it for a while," said Dippolito, 40. "This is really the first time we're, like, 'Well, do you try to drag three kids food shopping every week?'" The couple decided that delivery would be easier. Once the food was all inside, Whitelock, the driver, asked him to check the eggs to make sure none was cracked. "If you ever find anything wrong, the expiration date a little too close to your liking, bread's a little smushed, don't be afraid to call," Whitelock said, adding that customer service would "gladly help you out. They'll do anything to make you happy." In 2016, when Philadelphia enacted the tax on sweetened beverages, Mayor Jim Kenney issued a news release claiming that it will improve the education, health, and prosperity of children and families all across our city for years to come. Kenneys reference to improving health alluded to the theory that, by raising the cost of soft drinks, the tax would decrease their purchase and consumption. To that end, although the 1.5-cent-per-ounce tax was imposed on the beverage distributors, it has resulted in increased prices charged to consumers. In September 2018, the National Bureau of Economic Research issued a report on the impact of the beverage tax. Among other conclusions, it found that, while purchases of taxed beverages fell in Philadelphia, city residents had increased their purchases of soft drinks outside of the city. But the story doesnt end there. According to Philadelphias supermarket proprietors, city residents are not limiting their suburban shopping to soft drinks. Instead, many who travel to the suburbs to purchase sweetened beverages are also buying all of their groceries outside the city. The Philadelphia supermarket operators report that this entirely predictable consumer behavior has caused them substantial financial loss. Among those is Jeff Brown, president and CEO of Browns Superstores, Inc., which owns seven ShopRite and Fresh Grocer stores in Philadelphia. On Jan. 2, Browns Superstores, Inc. announced that it will close the ShopRite located near the city limits on Haverford Avenue. It blames the beverage tax for causing overall sales to drop 23 percent and yearly losses of about $1 million. It also reports that, due to the tax, sales at its other Philadelphia stores are down 15 percent. The 111 employees at the Haverford Avenue store have been offered employment at another of the Browns stores in the region. While Browns has not laid off employees since the tax took effect, it has reduced its workforce by 200 by not filling those jobs when employees left. Even though employees at the closing ShopRite can keep their jobs, once they leave employment, their positions will be eliminated. In addition, Browns employs more than 600 workers with criminal records that effectively make them unemployable elsewhere. How many of those employees will be affected by the closure is not presently known. The announcement of the store closing elicited multiple reactions by Kenneys office that range from incoherence to sheer arrogance. First, Kenney spokesperson Mike Dunn pointed out that the tax is levied on beverage distributors who have the option to absorb the cost. "The soda companies, the bottlers, and the beverage industry at-large are multibillion-dollar companies, "Dunn said. They dont have a need to pass this tax on. They can pass on a portion of it, or they can cover the cost themselves. But wait. When the tax was passed, didnt Kenney announce that it would improve the health of Philadelphians? And isnt that goal to be achieved by raising the price of sweetened beverages to discourage their purchase and consumption? If so, instead of blaming the beverage distributors for passing on the cost of the tax to consumers, why isnt the Kenney administration thanking them for helping improve public health? And then we have Mayor Kenney lashing out on KYW Newsradio 1060. Jeff Brown is a cry baby, basically, the mayor said. He added that if you cant run a supermarket without soda sales, then something is wrong with your business practices. Put aside the question about what Kenney knows about running a supermarket. Instead, ask why he thinks it is a good idea to demean a man who has invested the time, effort, and financial resources to operate seven tax-revenue-generating and job-providing stores in the city? Has the mayor considered the effect that his public verbal abuse of Brown will have on others who may be thinking of locating their businesses in Philadelphia? Has it occurred to him that his behavior may well induce entrepreneurs to steer clear of the city? If negative sales trends continue, Philadelphia-area residents should expect more grocery store closures. And no amount of blame-shifting by the mayor will stop it. George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor who practices law in Philadelphia. He is a regular contributor to the American Spectator and blogs at knowledgeisgood.net. kignet1@gmail.com. Hoyt William Bangs, 64, of Berwyn, a building-supply company owner whose passion was carpentry, died Saturday, Jan. 12, of pancreatic cancer at Paoli Hospital. Mr. Bangs liked to build things. Whether developing a company or renovating a home, he set the bar high for quality, his family said. Quality doesnt cost. It pays, he liked to say, according to his relatives. He loved architectural details from the 1920s, such as beautiful wooden moldings. For the last eight years, operating from a workshop behind his house, he embellished his own home in Berwyn and those of customers on the Main Line and in Harrisburg. The Berwyn house was his masterpiece. Though built in 1958, he redid it over 30 years to look like one from the 1920s, with stained glass windows, hand-made wooden garage doors, and copper embellishments on the outside. His true passion was building with wood, his family said. He loved to put a keystone above every door. He loved making things look regal. He loved to take a plain-looking home and give it some beautiful features. Born in Rockford, Ill., to Nesbitt Hoyt Bangs Jr. and Elizabeth Van Wagner Bangs, he graduated from Trinity High School in Camp Hill after his family moved to central Pennsylvania. He earned a bachelors degree in accounting from Elizabethtown College. In 1978, intent on a career in telecommunications, Mr. Bangs moved to Philadelphia and joined International Business Machines Corp. He sold phone systems in the sales territory east of the Mississippi River, but found that his heart wasnt in it. He wanted to build [something] more on his own, said son Hoyt Van Wagner Bangs. In 1993, Mr. Bangs bought the Budding Co., a building supply business with retail outlets in Horsham and Camp Hill. The firm sells lumber, masonry, and hard landscape products to contractors and do-it-yourselfers. In 1982, he met Alice Persons at a beach bar in Avalon, N.J. They were married in 1983, and together renovated many residential properties, including a beach house in Stone Harbor. In 1985, their son was born. That year, Mr. Bangs bought Horsham Valley Airways Inc. in Montgomery County. According to its Experian business data report, the firm provides helipad, flying field, and airport terminal services. He redid the helicopter hangar and worked on helicopters for clients including NBC. He also purchased the Capital City Airport in New Cumberland, Pa., and refurbished the entire airport before selling it in 2009 so he could focus on home renovation projects. In 1988, he bought the Hoffman Lumber Co., a building supplies retailer in West Chester. After a fire in 1994, Mr. Bangs helped rebuild the company at Union and Franklin Streets. He sold it in 2000. Later in life, Mr. Bangs became savvy on social media. He and his son set up a website for the Budding Co. The firm now markets products to an international audience. In the fall of 2018, Mr. Bangs was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. During his last days, he summoned friends and family to celebrate the lessons he had learned. At the end of the day, be true to yourself and God, and have fun building whatever youre interested in, he said. In addition to his wife and son, he is survived by a sister and two brothers. A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 19, in the Chapel of St. David's Episcopal Church, 763 S. Valley Forge Rd., Wayne. Burial is private. Contributions may be made to Gabrielles Arts Scholarship at www.gabriellesartscholarship.org. Gabrielle Simpson Cerminaro, 20, an artist and Conestoga High School graduate, died in 2011 of several rare medical conditions. William Barr, President Donald Trumps nominee for attorney general, spoke before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday in the first of two sessions, making his case that hes qualified to replace the fired Jeff Sessions. Barr is no stranger to confirmation hearings, having served as attorney general from 1991 to 1993 under former President George H. W. Bush. But the 68-year-old will faced tough questions about his past views of special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russias meddling during the 2016 election, which he will oversee if hes confirmed. During his opening remarks, Barr assured senators that he thinks Mueller should be permitted to finish his investigation. I believe it is in the best interest of everyone the president, Congress, and, most importantly, the American people that this matter be resolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work, Barr said. Barr was forced to answer questions about an unsolicited memo he sent to the Justice Department last year criticizing Muellers inquiry into potential obstruction of justice by Trump, which Barr characterized as fatally misconceived. Barr told senators he would not fire or interfere in Muellers investigation without good cause, even if Trump ordered him to do so. I would not carry out that instruction," Barr said. Here are the highlights from the hearing: Barr: I wont go after marijuana companies Barr told senators that he would not go after companies that sell pot in states that have legalized either medical or recreational marijuana. During his tenure as attorney general, Sessions rescinded the Cole Memo, an Obama-era guidance that prevented the federal government from going after companies or individuals in states that have passed marijuana laws. "My approach would be not to upset settled expectations, Barr said. Investments have been made, so there has been reliance. However, I think current situation is untenable. Its almost like a backdoor nullification of federal law. Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware have all legalized the sale of marijuana for medical reasons. Barr added that he supports a federal pot ban, telling New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, I think its a mistake to back off on marijuana. Barr says he would not fire Mueller without good cause Barr told senators that he would not fire Mueller without good cause, even if Trump ordered him to do so. Assuming there was no good cause? Barr said, I would not carry out that instruction. Barr added that he would resign rather than do something he felt was unlawful, a position he thinks every government official should share. Barr says Rosenstein is sticking around Barr told senators he has no plan to oust Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if he is confirmed. In fact, Barr said he had asked Rosenstein to stay in his role during the transition from acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. Rod and I have been talking about his plans. He told me he viewed it as a two-year stint, Barr said. I asked him to stay for a while, and he said he would He has no concrete plans, I have no concrete plans in terms of his departure. Were going to sort-of play it by ear. Multiple news outlets reported last week that Rosenstein was expected to leave his post after Barrs confirmation. Barr backs Trumps proposed border wall During a second round of questions that began shortly after 12:30 p.m., Barr told senators that he backs the president proposal for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. "I feel it is a critical part of border security that we need to have barriers on the border. We need a barrier system on the border to get control, Barr said. Part of that is illegal immigration but a big part of it is preventing the influx of drugs." Barr also echoed Trumps own comments on the need to change immigration laws, and said hes inclined to support a Republican bill that would punish undocumented immigrants who have committed a crime. Barr: I wont be bullied by Trump or anyone Trump has attacked the Justice Department repeatedly during his first two years in office. So Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin asked Barr the obvious question: Why does he even want the job? "Well, because I love the department and all its components, including the FBI. I think they are critical institutions that are essential to preserving the rule of law, which is the heart beat of this country, Barr said. And I feel that I'm in a position in life where I can provide the leadership necessary to protect the Independence and the reputation of the department and serve in this administration." Barr also told Durbin his age and experience running the Justice Department make it easier to stand up to anyone who might try to coerce him into changing is views, whether it be a newspaper editorial or the president himself. I am not going to do anything that I think is wrong, and I will not be bullied into doing anything I think is wrong, Barr said. Im going to do what I think is right." Barr wont commit to following the advice of ethics officials Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) asked Barr if he would recuse himself from handling Muellers investigation if ethics officials determined there could be a conflict due to his past statements about the Russia probe. I will seek the advice of the career ethics personnel, but under the regulations, I make the decision as the head of the agency as to my own recusal, Barr said. I would certainly consult with them, and at the end of the day I would make a decision in good faith based on the laws and the facts that are evident at that time. Trump repeatedly criticized Sessions for making the decision to recuse himself, tweeting on several occasions that Sessions should stop Muellers investigation. Jeff Sessions should be ashamed of himself for allowing this total HOAX to get started in the first place! Trump wrote on Twitter in December. Barr admits talking about Muellers investigation with members of the White House Barr admitted to Feinstein that he spoke about Muellers investigation with members of the White House, but said it was not in any particular substance. Barr offered to go into more details about the people and content of those conversations, but Feinstein declined, as her time had concluded. Barr also denied reports that Trump wanted to add him to his legal team, saying he had just once conversation with the president in 2017. Thats the only time I met him before I talked to him about the job of attorney general, which is obviously not the same as representing him, Barr said. Barr: I dont believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch-hunt Faced with questions about Mueller by Graham, Barr said he considered the current special counsel a good friend who was fair-minded and had his trust to run an unbiased investigation. I dont believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch-hunt, Barr said. Trump has repeatedly called Muellers investigation a witch hunt, and has attempted to undermine the investigations public creditability. Barr agreed with Graham that Sessions was correct to recuse himself from overseeing Muellers investigation (something Trump repeatedly chastised) and praised current deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein. Barr also promised Graham he would look into anti-Trump text messages exchanged between former FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, saying he was shocked when he saw them. Feinstein asks Barr if he has strength to stand up to Trump During her opening remarks, ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) questioned whether Barr had the strength to stand up to Trump, pointing out the presidents repeated calls to investigate his political rivals, such as former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Do you have that strength and commitment to be independent of the White House pressures that you will undoubtedly face? Feinstein asked rhetorically. Will you protect the integrity of the Justice Department above all else? A 46-year-old truck driver from New York was indicted last week for allegedly causing the death of a 60-year-old Cinnaminson man in a hit-and-run accident last year. Sean Cole, who was charged with second-degree vehicular homicide and second-degree leaving the scene of a fatal accident, was arrested Monday at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he was returning from a trip to Jamaica, said Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina. Cole was driving a tractor-trailer on Jan. 21, 2018, when he rear-ended a Dodge Grand Caravan driven by John Farino, Coffina said. The crash, on Interstate 295 in Westampton, forced the minivan off the highway and into some trees. Farino was pronounced dead at the scene. Cole continued driving for about 10 minutes before calling 911 and reporting he hit something but claiming he did not know what it was, Coffina said. One of the two remaining sections of the old Tappan Zee Bridge across the Hudson River was taken down with controlled explosions Tuesday morning. The demolition operation was supposed to take place Saturday, but it was postponed due to high winds. The cantilever steel bridge, which opened in 1955 and became a poster child of crumbling infrastructure, has been replaced by the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, named after the former governor of New York and the father of the current governor, Andrew Cuomo. The new bridge, linking New Yorks Rockland and Westchester Counties and carrying I-287, was closed for the demolition work, causing traffic headaches in the area. Heres the section coming down just before 11 a.m. The explosions were supposed to take place at 10 a.m., but were delayed. The last remaining section of the old bridge is to be taken down without explosives later this year. TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) The migrant caravan that was seized upon by U.S. President Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2018 midterm election has quietly dwindled to a few hundred people, with many having gone home to Central America or put down roots in Mexico. Despite the hard-line immigration rhetoric by the Trump administration, however, many others nearly half, according to U.S. Border Patrol arrest records have sought to enter the U.S. illegally. About 6,000 Central Americans reached Tijuana in November amid conflict on both sides of the border over their presence in this Mexican city across from San Diego. As of Monday, fewer than 700 migrants remained at a former outdoor concert venue in Tijuana that the Mexican government set up as a shelter to house the immigrants. Where have they all gone? The U.S. Border Patrol has made about 2,600 caravan-related arrests in its San Diego sector, said spokesman Theron Francisco, indicating that nearly half have crossed into the U.S. illegally. Families are typically released with a notice to appear in immigration court. Mexican officials say about 1,300 caravan members have returned to Central America. Mexico has issued humanitarian visas to about 2,900 others, many of whom are now working legally there with visas. Francis Lopez is among the migrants who have stayed in Mexico. The 26-year-old former clothing factory worker said he and his wife made a snap decision to leave their home in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula when the caravan left in October. He had hoped to join a relative in Florida but is having second thoughts about seeking asylum after an American attorney told him he had a weak case and may be detained until a judge orders him deported. "It's a loss of time, a loss of time that you can never recover," Lopez said. Javier Diaz of El Salvador, who is working as a taxi driver in Tijuana on a visa, said the caravan offered strength in numbers enough safety to avoid paying a smuggler at least $8,000 to reach the United States. Diaz, a 44-year-old former construction worker who fled for economic reasons and to escape violence, said he had hoped to reach the United States to make enough money to support his wife and five children in El Salvador but Mexico was better than going home. "If Mexico deports me today, I will be in Mexico again tomorrow," Diaz said Monday amid sporadic rain at the shelter. "If I can go to the United States, better." The diminished presence of the migrants in Tijuana came as hundreds of Hondurans left the violent city of San Pedro Sula this week in a new caravan hoping to reach the United States or Mexico. News of this latest trek north came as Trump has been working to convince the American public that there is a "crisis" at the southern border to justify construction of his long-promised border wall. Trump's demand for billions of dollars to build the wall has resulted in a standoff with Congress that has forced a partial government shutdown. "A big new Caravan is heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras. Tell Nancy and Chuck that a drone flying around will not stop them. Only a Wall will work," Trump tweeted Tuesday, referring to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer. Caravans have taken place over the years though on a smaller scale, organized to draw attention to migrants' rights and usually not reaching the border. The ones that formed last year gained attention for their larger numbers and after Trump began seizing on them for political purposes. In the lead-up to last fall's elections, Trump frequently referenced the caravans, warning that they posed a national security risk and deploying active-duty troops to the border in anticipation of their arrival. Opponents criticized the move as an abuse of presidential power. The latest caravan began Monday night with many women and children boarding buses bound for the Guatemalan border. Others started walking and hitchhiking under a steady rain. More followed Tuesday morning trying to catch up. Some pushed toddlers in strollers or walked holding older children's hands. Honduran media reported that the country's authorities had reinforced the border with Guatemala to make sure everyone had proper documents. Children must carry passports and written parental authorization to leave the country, and parents could face up to three years in prison if found to be taking a child without the right documents, Security Minister Julian Pacheco was quoted as saying. Migrants fleeing Central America's Northern Triangle region comprising Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala routinely cite poverty and rampant gang violence as their motivation for leaving. Bartolo Fuentes, a migrant advocate accompanying the new caravan, said Tuesday that migration from Honduras will not stop until those chronic problems are resolved. "People leave every day," he said. "Every day 300, 400 people go. The caravan has been like a constant river of people to Mexico, to the United States." Among them is Honduran Angel Eduardo Cubas, who now sits in limbo in Tijuana, hoping to find work in Mexico. The former school security guard left his family behind, hoping to reach Florida for a job that would allow him to send money home. To others embarking on the journey, his advice was to "keep the faith and don't lose heart." Cubas said he could tell others that the trip isn't worth it, because it hasn't turned out well for him, but they would come anyway. "We don't all have the same luck," he said. "It's gone badly for me, but I met others along the way who are already (in the U.S.) and had better luck." ___ Martinez reported from San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Associated Press writers Christopher Sherman and Maria Verza in Mexico City and Jill Colvin in Washington contributed to this report. BEIJING (AP) China expressed its "strong dissatisfaction" with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday over his criticism of a death sentence given to a Canadian accused of drug smuggling at a retrial that followed a chilling of relations over the arrest of a senior Chinese technology executive. Trudeau should "respect the rule of law, respect China's judicial sovereignty, correct mistakes and stop making irresponsible remarks," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. "We express our strong dissatisfaction with this," Hua told reporters at a daily briefing. Her comments are the latest sign of a sharp cooling of China-Canada ties since Canada detained Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States. The U.S. wants Meng extradited to face charges that she committed fraud by misleading banks about the company's business dealings in Iran. The Liaoning provincial court in northeastern China announced the death sentence for 36-year-old Robert Lloyd Schellenberg on Monday. Schellenberg was detained more than four years ago, went on trial in 2016 and was initially sentenced to 15 years in prison in November. The Chinese media began republicizing Schellenberg's case after Meng's detention. Within weeks, an appeals court suddenly reversed the earlier decision, saying the sentence was too lenient, and scheduled Monday's retrial with just four days' notice. The court gave no indication that the death penalty could be commuted, but observers said Schellenberg's fate is likely to be drawn into diplomatic negotiations over China's demand for Meng's release. Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada has asked China to spare the life of Schellenberg. "We believe it is inhumane and inappropriate, and wherever the death penalty is considered with regard to a Canadian we speak out against it," Freeland said. Freeland said she had "a very emotional conversation" with Schellenberg's father on Monday. Schellenberg's defense lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo, said his client plans to appeal the verdict. "I can't tell you the relationship between Mr. Schellenberg's last appeal procedure and sensitive events which happened in Canada," Zhang said, but he described the timing of Schellenberg's appeal and retrial as "very significant." He declined to elaborate on the significance or to comment specifically on whether recent developments were linked to Meng. Zhang, a Beijing-based lawyer who has taken on several high-profile cases involving foreigners arrested in China, previously represented Phan "Sandy" Phan-Gillis, an American woman convicted of espionage and deported back to the U.S. in 2017. Questions have swirled over the court's rapid retrial and sentencing of Schellenberg. Zhang said while the court's actions were all lawful, they were also "abnormal." Among the unusual features of the proceedings, according to Zhang: the public nature of Schellenberg's December appeal, the swift scheduling of the retrial and the fact that the court announced its sentence just one hour after the trial ended Monday. Trudeau suggested on Monday that China was using its judicial system to pressure Canada over the arrest of Meng, who is also the daughter of Huawei's founder. "All countries around the world" should be concerned that Beijing is acting arbitrarily with its justice system, Trudeau said. "It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply a death penalty," Trudeau said. Canada later updated its travel advisory for China, urging Canadians to "exercise a high degree of caution due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws." Hua dismissed such concerns, saying the 222 kilograms (489 pounds) of methamphetamine that Schellenberg was accused of smuggling merited the harsh penalty. "When facing such a serious drug smuggling crime, I think any responsible government that takes resolute measures to deal with the case just reflects the responsible attitude and strong determination of the government in protecting the lives and safety of its people," Hua said. A Chinese man convicted of involvement in the same operation was earlier given a suspended death sentence. Describing the case as "highly politicized," the human rights group Amnesty International urged that Schellenberg's sentence be revoked. "The sudden retrial and apparent rush to judgment has highlighted the numerous flaws in China's judicial system," China researcher William Nee said in a statement. Since Meng's detention, China has arrested two Canadians in apparent retaliation. Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, were both arrested on vague national security allegations. A Canadian teacher was detained but released. Hua on Monday denied Kovrig was eligible for diplomatic immunity as Trudeau has maintained. A senior Canadian government official said Chinese officials have been questioning Kovrig about his diplomatic work in China, which is a major reason why Trudeau is asserting diplomatic immunity. The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly about the case, spoke on condition of anonymity. Kovrig, a Northeast Asia analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank, was on a leave of absence from the Canadian government at the time of his arrest last month. Ren Zhengfei, Meng's father and Huawei's founder, told foreign reporters on Tuesday that he doesn't believe the death sentence and arrests of the Canadians are related to Meng's detention. "Personally, I don't see a connection between these cases and Meng Wanzhou," he said. Canada has embarked on a campaign with allies to win the release of Kovrig and Spavor. Freeland thanked countries and organizations Germany, France, the Netherlands, the European Union, the United States, Britain, Australia, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia for "publicly coming out and speaking against these arbitrary detentions. And that is very important." Last week, Poland arrested a Huawei director and one of its own former cybersecurity experts and charged them with spying for China. The move came amid a U.S. campaign to exert pressure on its allies not to use Huawei, the world's biggest maker of telecommunications network equipment, over data security concerns. ___ Gillies contributed from Toronto. Associated Press writer Christopher Bodeen contributed from Beijing. (File Photo) LUSAKA, Jan. 15 (ChinaMil) -- The Ministry of Defense of Zambia conferred the International Cooperation Medal on the 11 members of the 21st Chinese military medical team to aid Zambia on Monday. The medal-awarding ceremony was held at the Zambian Army Headquarters in recognition of the outstanding contributions made by these Chinese military medical experts. Senior officers from the Zambian Ministry of Defense and Lai Bo, Charge d'Affaires ad interim of the Chinese Embassy in Zambia, attended the medal-awarding ceremony. Major General Dennis Alibuzwi, Deputy Commander of the Zambia Army, spoke on behalf of the Zambian Government, the Defense Ministry and the Armed Forces at the ceremony, and expressed his heartfelt gratitude to the Chinese team for providing constant and enormous medical assistance to Zambia. He said he hopes the friendship between the two countries will continue to develop and the cooperation in various fields will be further expanded and deepened. In his speech, Lai recounted that Chinas Defense Ministry has started to send military medical teams to Zambia since 1984, and up to now a total of 277 Chinese military doctors have performed medical aid missions at the General Hospital of the Zambian Defense Force located in Lusaka. Lai spoke highly of the 21st Chinese military medical team for their outstanding jobs and their contributions to enhance the friendship between the two countries and their militaries. He congratulated the 11 team members on being awarded the medal. Xia Yang, head of the 21st Chinese military medical team to aid Zambia, said that all the team members have fulfilled their mission and completed the foreign aid medical mission successfully during their tenure. He said the Chinese military medical team is grateful for the enormous help from the Zambian Government, the Defense Ministry, the General Hospital of the Zambian Defense Force and the Chinese Embassy in Zambia. It is learnt that the 11 Chinese military doctors are personnel of many Chinese hospitals from departments including cardiology, orthopedics, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, stomatology, general surgery, blood purification, gastroenterology, radiology, and medical engineering. They arrived in Zambia on January 11, 2018 for the one-year aid mission. The 22nd Chinese military medical team to aid Zambia has arrived in the African country recently. BERLIN (AP) Bad weather continued to afflict parts of Europe on Tuesday with avalanches in Austria striking buildings and roads but resulting in no injuries. An overnight avalanche in Ramsau, central Austria, slammed a hotel. All 60 visitors and staff, most of whom were from a Danish ski club, got out of the building unharmed. Niels Leth-Soerensen, chairman of the Hobro Skiklub, praised the hotel staff in Ramsau and local rescue teams for swiftly evacuating all guests to another hotel. Leth-Soerensen who himself was part of the party, said on the club website that the 200-year-old hotel had never been hit by an avalanche before. In a series of dramatic videos posted on Swiss news portal 20 Minuten, a group of soldiers posted to the Davos area ahead of next week's World Economic Forum narrowly escaped harm from an avalanche triggered by a controlled explosion. The soldiers can be heard yelling and seen running as masses of snow hurtle toward the base area where they are standing and filming. Warmer, wetter weather after days of heavy snowfall has increased the risk of avalanches in parts of southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In Bavaria, snow melt flooded several roads and some basements in the town of Harburg as the Woernitz river swelled overnight. Dozens of people have already died in avalanches and weather-related accidents in the region since the start of the year. HARRISBURG Gov. Tom Wolf took the oath of office Tuesday for a second term as Pennsylvania governments chief executive, urging faith in the states ability to rise above ideological divides to fix problems together while embracing tolerance and diversity. In his speech outside the state Capitol, the mild-mannered Democrat noted that his administration, working with a Republican-led legislature, was able to achieve major policy changes in the last four years, including legalizing medical marijuana, relaxing the states iron grip over alcohol sales, and beginning to rein in public pension costs. But Wolf, 70, avoided specifics about his priorities for the next four years, sticking to broad descriptions of what he considers progress: continuing to increase funding for public education, creating opportunity for residents to find jobs, and working toward criminal justice reform. Today, I ask you to choose hope over hopelessness, empathy over apathy. I ask you to choose action over passivity, Wolf said. He took the oath of office from Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas G. Saylor, using the Wolf familys mid-19th-century Bible. Added Wolf: Let us have faith in what we can fix together, what we can achieve together what we can build together. Though Wolf was the main attraction at Tuesdays inaugural events, which were to culminate in the evening with a party at the Farm Show complex, all eyes early in the day were on Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. Fetterman, 49, the former mayor of a down-on-its-luck steel town near Pittsburgh, is often described as one of the states most unconventional elected officials, in both looks and persona. Unabashedly progressive in his views, he has spent much of his political career advocating for reducing poverty and bolstering equality, regardless of the zip code of ones birth. Until Tuesday, his trademark wardrobe consisted of jeans or cargo shorts and a Dickies-style work shirt. But he swapped that for a charcoal suit, white dress shirt, and black tie for his swearing-in ceremony in the Senate. In his remarks on the Senate floor, Fetterman struck a similar tone to Wolf, pledging to strive for a spirit of bipartisanship as his wife, Gisele, and their three children looked on. He made a point of introducing his general-election opponent, Republican Jeff Bartos, as a dear friend." Still, reality may not be quite as smooth. Wolf and Fetterman still will be dealing with solidly Republican majorities in both legislative chambers. Though the GOP lost seats in the last election largely ones held by moderate Republicans in the Philadelphia suburbs the returning legislature is expected to be more conservative. How Wolf, once characterized as Americas most liberal governor, maneuvers around that new political landscape will be watched closely. In his speech Tuesday, Wolf said he wanted to commit to combating discrimination against the LGBTQ community, fighting climate change, and further improving voting access and security. Still, among the governors first challenges will be the state budget. A recent analysis by the states Independent Fiscal Office projected a $1.7 billion shortfall in the fiscal year that begins in July. In an interview Tuesday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman (R., Centre) called Wolfs speech well done. He said he wasnt bothered that the governor stuck to broader themes rather than outlining an agenda. Thats the way it should be, Corman said. Its a day for Pennsylvania. Its a hopeful day. A day of ceremony." Im sure as we move along, there will be differences, Corman added. And how we handle those differences will define how successful we are. If we work like we did the last two years, and find ways to compromise on big issues, we will get some significant things done for the people of Pennsylvania. If we focus on our differences like we did the first two years, we wont get things done for the people of Pennsylvania. Wolfs first 18 months in office were weighed down by deeply entrenched disagreements between his administration and Republicans who control the legislature. Much of the fight centered on Wolfs first budget proposal, which included a bold proposal to raise the income and sales tax rates and use the money to reduce local property taxes. The legislature believed Wolfs plan would hit taxpayers too hard in the pocketbook. The two sides battled for months, leading to a historic nine-month budget impasse that soured political relations and strained schools and institutions that provide services for those in need. Realizing his administration was not going to win using a combative approach, Wolf switched tactics midway through his first term, homing in on issues and policies on which he and the legislature could find common ground. He and legislative Republicans ushered through changes to pension benefits for future state and public school employees, legalized medical marijuana, boosted funding for public schools, strengthened animal welfare laws, and broke the states long-held monopoly on the sale of wine. The two sides also pushed through restrictions on gun access for some people facing domestic-violence allegations, as well as measures aimed at improving the criminal justice system. As Wolf described it Tuesday: The accomplishments of the last four years arent my accomplishments. These are our accomplishments. Pennsylvanians have earned the right to feel optimistic about our future. During his 16-minute speech, Wolf paused to recall what he described as the toughest day in his four years as governor: the day last October he learned of the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. The governor recalled how he and his wife, Frances, rushed from Beaver County to the shooting scene, where they also encountered legislative leaders from both parties. In that moment, we werent Republicans or Democrats. And, for that matter, they werent legislative leaders and I wasnt the governor, Wolf said."We were just like everyone else, feeling helpless and heartbroken." But in the days that followed, the people of Pennsylvania lifted us all up, Wolf said. He later added: We all came together. We all did what we could. We all leaned on each other. We all found the strength to carry on. ... Thats the Pennsylvania we should all want." Matthew Oropeza was following his routine on the night of Jan. 5 when he drove his two dogs to Gold Star Park in South Philadelphia and let them run unleashed. But that Saturday night, Drew Justice and his fiancee, Kristi Buchholz, were walking their black shih tzu shortly after 9 p.m. on the sidewalk outside the park when Justice yelled out to Oropeza to put his dogs on leashes, Buchholz told police. What did you say? witnesses said Oropeza responded. Say it to my face. That comeback, detailed in a police affidavit obtained by the Inquirer and Daily News containing statements from witnesses and Oropeza, signaled what came next: an encounter that resulted in the death of Justice. Police last week charged Oropeza with involuntary manslaughter, simple assault, reckless endangerment, and making terroristic threats. According to the affidavit, Justice walked into the park and Oropeza approached him. Oropeza told police that he didnt know Justice but didnt appreciate his comment. Justice, the document says, raised his hands, and Oropeza beat him to the punch with a quick left jab. Oropeza said he watched him fall back and hit his head on the ground. Oropeza, witnesses told police, then gathered up his dogs and left the park through the Wharton Street entrance. You have to call an ambulance, one witness told him. Oropeza, the witness said, waved her off, slid into a gray 2016 Honda Civic, and drove away. Police responding to a report of a person screaming found Justice with another person on top of him pumping his chest in an attempt to perform CPR. A pool of blood was spreading around his head. He was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 9:51 p.m. The Philadelphia Medical Examiners Office ruled that Justice, a 38-year-old data management programmer who lived across the street from the park, died from a blunt impact trauma injury to the head." He was buried in a private ceremony last week. Oropeza, 24, had moved into an apartment on the 1600 block of South 16th Street in July with his girlfriend and their 2-month-old son. In the months since, he would regularly walk in the park, bounded by Wharton, Marshall, Manton, and Sheridan Streets between Sixth and Seventh, with their dogs: Coco, a fluffy, white shih tzu, and Bentley, a brown German shepherd/border collie mix. Court records show that Oropeza, who lived in Delaware County between 2013 and 2018, had been arrested there twice for fighting in Brookhaven in 2013 and in Ridley Township in 2016. In his statement, Oropeza told police the fatal confrontation with Justice was not his first dispute in Gold Star Park over his habit of walking his dogs without leashes. He said he had a verbal run-in with another man about the same issue Jan. 1. Justice was a 1999 graduate of George School, a Quaker high school in Newtown, Bucks County. He earned a bachelors degree in computer science from Philadelphia University in 2003. Buchholz, his fiancee, is a lawyer and a board member of the Passyunk Square Civic Association. The associations website says she is active in organizing events and fundraising for Gold Star Park. The couple were to be married in April, according to their online wedding registry page. Oropeza, who is free on bail, is scheduled to have a preliminary hearing Jan. 30. In Pennsylvania, involuntary manslaughter is a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to five years in prison. I dont want to overstate this. But John Fetterman, inaugurated Tuesday as lieutenant governor, offers a possibility of change in public service that needs to be acknowledged. Why? Because the most striking thing about Fetterman isnt what gets most notice. Its not his size, his tattoos, his signature dark work clothes, or his visage, which can range from gentle giant to imposing biker-bar bouncer. Its his life choices. And the fact that those choices led to elected statewide office. In decades of covering politics, Ive not encountered a story such as his. This 49-year-old York County native, since grad school he holds graduate degrees from the University of Connecticut and Harvard has done public service at hands-on levels. Big Brothers Big Sisters in Connecticut, AmeriCorps in Pittsburgh, a GED program in Braddock, then 13 years as Braddock mayor fighting to salvage the wreck of a small former steel town near Pittsburgh at a salary of $150 a month. (An 8-year-old to whom he was a Big Brother lost both parents to AIDS. Fetterman promised the boys mother before she died that hed get her son into college. The boy since graduated from Washington & Jefferson College in Western Pennsylvania. Now, 25 years after they met, he and Fetterman are still in touch.) Not to sugarcoat here, but Fettermans career path is righteous, and rarely a fast track to higher office. He calls himself a social worker who accidentally ended up as lieutenant governor. Its the unvarnished truth, he says. Im as surprised as anyone. His unconventional style, different voice, and pattern of public service caught my attention during his improbable (and failed) 2016 U.S. Senate primary run. I wrote then that statewide voters at some point might listen to different voices. Maybe they did. On Tuesday, Fetterman chucked his normal wardrobe for a newly purchased charcoal suit (from a big and tall mens store near Braddock), a new white dress shirt with 48-inch sleeves, and an extra-long black tie, to take his oath of office in the Senate chamber. And, yes, his office, which pays $166K per year, gets ridiculed as worthless and unnecessary, its duties limited to chairing the state Board of Pardons, presiding in the Senate (with a vote in case of ties), and if necessary serving as governor. But stay tuned. Dont expect a disappearing act. Expect Fetterman to use his pardons gig to push criminal justice reforms. And Gov. Tom Wolf has asked him to look at legalizing marijuana. In a pre-inaugural sit-down with Fetterman and his Brazilian-born wife, Gisele a former undocumented immigrant in New York from ages 7 to 19 the couple, parents of three young children, talked about whats ahead. Gisele, like her husband of 11 years, is all about service. They met after she read of Fettermans work as Braddock mayor and wrote him asking how to help. She ended up in Braddock, then became the mayors wife. She since founded the Braddock Free Store and a food rescue service (both of which have expanded) and For Good Pittsburgh, which includes an incubator for female-owned businesses. Shes clearly got a sense of humor. Shes adopted the acronym SLOP, Second Lady of Pennsylvania. Im gonna own it, she says. She, too, is interested in criminal justice reforms, especially making childrens visits to inmate parents easier. And when I ask Fetterman why he shouldnt be viewed as just another pol looking to use a stepping-stone office for future political gain, he says this: Depending on how cynical a view someone wants to take, I spent four terms working in a completely marginalized and largely forgotten community because I genuinely believe in the sanctity of public service. And with respect to this [LG] role, Im very much aware of its constitutional limitations. But I also know theres a lot that can be accomplished, that Gov. Wolf deserves a good partner, someone who understands we have a lot of things we can tackle here in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Fetterman is eschewing the lieutenant governors residence. Says the state doesnt owe him housing. Hes renting a house within walking distance of the Capitol. Why do I think he could bring change to public service in a state where so much public service has earned a bad name? His example. His life choices. And the possibility he influences others. I brought Luis Berrios some red seedless grapes, and a card from one of the many readers moved by his stunning response of forgiveness to the people who shot him. Id first met him in November at Temple University Hospital after a bullet had pierced his back during an attempted robbery outside his Philadelphia home. The 35-year-old lay in his hospital bed, attached to multiple machines and craving food grapes especially, he told me while being fed through a tube. It was during those long weeks in the hospital that, first in his head and then on paper, he drafted and redrafted a letter to the men, who have yet to be apprehended, who shot him and ran off with nothing. Im not mad, Im not angry, he wrote. Im not looking for vengeance. Im not looking for you at all. Im sad, Im sad that you shot me and that you hurt me. The grace in those words, which I wrote about, touched many people. His aunt Wilma Berrios, who stopped by while I was visiting on Monday, was proud of her nephew, even if she wasnt sure she could do what he did. Luis Berrios is now back home, but the men are never far from his thoughts. Partly, he admits, because hes afraid. Of being just steps from where he was shot, of being dependent on the many security cameras affixed to his house that offer only a fleeting sense of safety. But also because hes decided that even if the men who shot him never see the letter, hed like to get it into the hands of other young men who might be headed down the same path. My hope is that my shooters see it," he said. "Will they confess? Probably not. But this is just not for my shooter, its for that young bull who has a gun, its for that guy who just spent $250, his last $250, on a gun, and he just thinks hes, like, the man. For that person who thinks, Im broke, lets go rob somebody. I want them to understand that theyre changing lives out here, that they changed my life. For so many, the consequences of gun violence are either life or death. Not Berrios, who spends his recovery peering through cameras and his bedroom window. He is a reminder of what happens to many more whose lives are forever changed by wounds less obvious. The bullet that scrambled Berrios insides didnt affect his ability to walk or talk, even if the breathing tube turned his voice into a gravelly whisper. Doctors say another six months and he can hopefully reclaim his life and job at Philadelphia Technician Training Institute, where he first learned welding and then got a job to place others in the trade. But how long before the nightmares stop? Before he can overcome the fear that rushes in when his mind goes back to the cold night of Nov. 12, when he fell to his knees and begged the 911 operator not to let him die? The officers who responded scooped him into their car and took him to the hospital. Berrios doesnt know their names, but hed like to thank them someday for saving his life. Hed like to move, maybe to another neighborhood. His family thinks he should go live with his mom in Florida. But trauma travels. On the rare occasions that he does leave his house, mostly for doctors appointments, he cant help but search peoples faces on the street and wonder if they know something. When he sees someone who he is almost sure is one of his assailants, he doesnt call police, because he knows how many black and brown mens fates have been sealed by little more than an almost sure. Hes never sought mental health services, he concedes. But now he wishes he had someone to talk to, a professional. In the meantime, he wants to make copies of his letter, and have friends help him hand them out and post them around the neighborhood. Even if it never gets to the guys who tried to rob him, maybe someone might read it and put down their gun. The problem really hit home for Dave Krieger the now-former editorial page editor of the Daily Camera in fast-growing Boulder, Colorado when a lawyer friend sent in a letter to the editor questioning what was happening at his hometown newspaper. The attorney said he didnt understand why the price of his subscription was just jacked up 20 percent when the actual paper kept showing up with fewer and fewer pages. Krieger knew exactly why, but at that moment it dawned on him that most citizens in Boulder didnt know what he knew: That the newspapers shrinkage was the direct result of a distant Wall Street hedge fund that through its investment vehicle with the Orwellian-like dishonest name of Digital First Media had since 2013 been sucking money in full vampire-squid mode out of the Daily Cameras newsroom revenue stream. Much of the cash that formerly paid reporters, editors and photojournalists instead went into the pocket of billionaire Randall Smith as Smith added to his collection of multi-million-dollar mansions around Palm Beach and the Hamptons (said at one point to be 18 thats not a typo and counting). The daily paper is the communitys storyteller, Krieger, a 60-something veteran of a half-dozen newsrooms, thought to himself, and weve never told this story. So Krieger sat down to write an editorial pleading for help, and what happened next was truly astounding. Randall Smith read it, saw the error of his ways, sold his mansions, and moved into a modest ranch house as he used the real-estate proceeds to hire a small army of investigative reporters that has begun exposing corporate greed and venal politicians from Key West to Kalamazoo. Ha ha, just kidding ... everything in that last sentence was made up. What happened in real life is the Daily Camera refused to published the editorial about its corporate owners, and Krieger was fired a couple of days later when he published it on a blog. And for Americas news consumers, reality is probably about to get even worse. Digital First Media, a sister firm called MNG and their hedge-fund parent the Smith-led Alden Global Capital have launched a hostile takeover bid to gain control of Americas other biggest owner of daily newspapers, Gannett. The takeover bid, which financial experts believe has a good chance of success, would implant DFM/Aldens money-siphoning brand of vulture capitalism at 300 newspapers from coast-to-coast. Industry experts predict a number of these local news organizations the primary source of civic information in most of these communities will be drained dry and die within five years, maybe less. Consolidation (and the cost-cutting that comes with it) remains the dominant strategy in the daily newspaper industry, wrote long-time industry watcher Ken Doctor. If revenue continues to drop at or even near double-digit levels, the consensus thinking is that radically reducing expenses through consolidation is about as good a card as anyone has to play. Thats already been a losing hand for places like Boulder and it could be for Camden County, N.J., or Wilmington, Del., two nearby communities whose Gannett-owned newsrooms are at risk from Randall Smiths bloody knife of consolidation if the hostile takeover succeeds. Over the last two-plus years, more Americans than ever have been talking about the threats to a free press and what that means for a functioning democracy because of something else: The presidency of a man who calls journalism the enemy of the people, echoing Stalin. And to be clear, the danger posed by Donald Trumps bluster and the climate of hostility and distrust it creates is a very real, very serious problem. But theres also a case that the psychic wounds of a Trumpian war on the press arent the same as the tangible decline in the number of journalistic watchdogs in places like Boulder or a Wilmington. In other words that Randall Smith is doing more right now to keep Americans uninformed than Trump is. From Boulder, Krieger told me the job cuts imposed by DFM to keep profit margins at a sky-high 20 percent even amid the challenging markets for both advertising and circulation left key sectors of Boulder, a high-tech university town coping with the rising costs and environmental hazards of population growth, along with income inequality, uncovered by the citys main news source. For example, he noted the Daily Cameras owners eliminated the job of business editor and one of two business reporting slots even as the citys high-tech start-up culture boomed. The newspaper barely covers the basic beats like City Hall or the school board while complex issues like the pollution from 60,000 daily vehicles and their long commute into Boulder because middle-class workers cant afford homes in the city lie beyond the reach of the few, overworked reporters. DFMs subsidiary called Prairie Mountain Publishing still technically prints a separate paper in nearby Longmont, Colo., but there are no longer journalists embedded there; that town is covered remotely, and less frequently, from Boulder. There are a ton of issues to be investigated in Boulder, and a ton of great journalism can be done if you had a staff with a couple of dozen young reporters and you sicced them on these issues, Krieger told me. But thats not even a consideration with DFM, Alden and Smith calling the shots. Instead, you get what DFM did to the Delaware County Daily Times, where the Alden crew sold the newspapers longtime headquarters in Upper Darby (to become a CubeSmart storage facility) and moved the operation into a former CVS pharmacy and bicycle-repair shop in Springfield Township, which was easy to do after they reduced the staff in just six years from 112 employees to only 25, a 78 percent drop. You can bet that Delcos corrupt and contented Republican political machine, which has controlled and occasionally pilfered the government since the Civil War, jumped for joy at the lack of scrutiny. Youve probably heard that the economics of legacy newspapers is pretty hopeless in the internet age. But the truth is a lot more complicated. For now, thanks to the brutal cost-cutting, DFMs newsrooms in the Philadelphia area are reaping an annual profit margin of 30 percent (!), which rivals the era when newspapers had a monopoly on news. You can still get William-Randolph-Hearst-level stinking rich in the newspaper game ask people like Randall Smith or Chicagos Michael Ferro, who still gets paid $5 million a year to advise Tribune Publishing after a) running it into the ground and b) leaving just ahead of sexual harassment allegations. The dirty little secret is that DFM learned at least for now that it can sell longtime readers an inferior (or, to use the technical term, crappier) newspaper and only 10 percent of reach each year will cancel. Do the math, though, and its clear that much of America outside the biggest cities will become news deserts by the early 2020s, after Smith and his fellow hedge-funders have sucked out every last drop. This is the lumber company trying to buy the national park, said Jim Friedlich, CEO and executive director of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, the non-profit parent of the Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com. You might think that Friedlich or me, for that matter would be jumping for joy at the gutting of our business rivals in the Philadelphia suburbs, but journalism isnt really like that. We thrive on the competition, and so do the readers who benefit when reporters are fighting for scoops. Theres a growing body of research that people who live in news deserts get socked with things like higher taxes because no ones watching. What can you do? Not much, unfortunately. Boulders Krieger noted back on May when protests over job cuts at the DFM-owned Denver Post fell on deaf ears that hedge funds are publicly answerable to no one. Protests designed to influence public opinion, he wrote, are doomed to fail if Alden does not care about public opinion. Concerned readers should support healthy news organizations that value journalism along with, or ahead of, profits and pray that Gannett finds the business savvy to beat back the DFM/Alden takeover. And while youre at it, light an extra candle for civic democracy in these United States. A question that the Trump administration wants to add to the 2020 census asking for residents' citizenship status is unlawful, a federal judge in New York ruled Tuesday. In adding the question, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, who oversees the census, overstepped his authority, did not adequately justify his reasoning, and violated federal law, U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman wrote in his order. Furman blocked the question from the 2020 census. In a startling number of ways, Secretary Rosss explanations for his decision were unsupported by, or even counter to, the evidence before the agency, the judge wrote. "For instance, he sought to justify his decision on the ground that no one provided evidence that reinstating a citizenship question on the decennial census would materially decrease response rates. But that assertion is simply untrue. The Census Bureau itself calculated last year that adding a citizenship question was likely to lead to a decrease in questionnaire responses in noncitizen households. Over objections from the Census Bureau about depressed counts and increased costs, the Trump administration said in March it wanted to add the question to collect better citizenship data for enforcement. Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Philadelphia are among the 18 states, and 15 cities and counties, along with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, that sued the administration in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. They argued that the question would deter immigrants from answering census questionnaires, leading to an undercount of the states' populations. The allocation of hundreds of billions of federal dollars, the number of seats each state receives in the U.S. House, and the boundaries of voting districts are all at stake in the 2020 census. Pennsylvania receives about $2,100 in federal funds per person and New Jersey about $1,960, according to a 2017 report by the George Washington Institute of Public Policy. More than 260,000 noncitizens live in the eight-county region in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, including roughly 106,000 in Philadelphia, according to census estimates. Mayor Jim Kenney on Tuesday called the judges ruling a huge victory for Philadelphia and other cities across our nation. In a statement, Kenney said a citizenship question would have politicized an essential element of our democracy. Because the Census Act directs the government to use information in administrative records when possible instead of asking direct questions in a census, the secretary violated federal law, the judge ruled. The secretary showed a preference for survey answers in a census "when the data gained from available administrative records would have been adequate indeed, better, the judge wrote. He also violated federal law when he failed to tell Congress in a report about the 2020 census that he wanted to add the citizenship question, according to Furman. The judge heard testimony in the case last month. Local governments have filed six other lawsuits challenging the citizenship question. The issue is expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court this year. The fabulous life of Saudia Shuler Philadelphias Instagram-famous Camel Prom Mom, who became a viral sensation in 2017 after hosting a lavish Dubai-themed prom send-off for her son featuring foreign luxury cars, three tons of sand, and, yes, a rented dromedary just went from glammed up to jammed up. On Tuesday, the 44-year-old single mother pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges and admitted she collected Social Security disability payments for years while failing to report income that would have made her ineligible. In all, prosecutors said, Shuler illegally took home nearly $37,000 in benefits between 2014 and 2018 while hosting the posh parties that rocketed her to notoriety. This is serious stuff, U.S. District Judge Juan R. Sanchez cautioned her during a hearing in federal court in Center City. You could go to jail for 30 years. Do you understand that? Voice quavering, she gulped before she replied. Yes, she said. That three-decade sentence Sanchez referenced is the maximum penalty Shuler could face. In all likelihood, her punishment will amount to far less at a sentencing hearing in May. Federal guidelines call for less than a year in prison, her lawyer Tariq El-Shabazz said. And he is likely to press for even less, citing his clients charitable work including a 2017 Christmas block party featuring a gyrating, hip-hop Santa, ice sculptures, and a toy giveaway for hundreds of children in her North Philadelphia neighborhood. She was doing a lot of things for the good of the community at her own expense, he said. And as many people that loved her for doing it, there were people that hated her for it people who actually wrote in letters and filed complaints that got this investigation started. El-Shabazz said the timing of his clients indictment last year was no coincidence. One month before, she made national headlines again for another prom send-off party she hosted. Based on the movie Black Panther, it featured a caged panther, a catered dinner, fashion consultants, and actors dressed in elaborate costumes representing the two sub-Saharan nations featured in the film. It was one of 24 events she said she hosted in 2018, including a Cinderella-theme send-off with a horse-drawn carriage and a James Bond homage complete with helicopter ride for young prom dates. The total tab, Shuler told the Inquirer and Daily News at the time, was north of six figures. Questions about how she could afford such over-the-top opulence seemed to follow her from fete to fete. Most of it, Shuler said, came from charitable donations. The original Middle Eastern-themed soiree she threw for her son a party with a price tag close to $25,000 was funded by money she had saved over the years while running her soul food restaurant, Country Cookin, on the 2800 block of North 22nd Street, she said. I work hard," she told the newspapers in 2017. "This aint no drug money. This aint none of that. This is all from muscle. But Shuler was also collecting government benefit checks while reporting to the Social Security Administration that she was unable to work due to a series of maladies including thyroid cancer, a stroke, and being hit by a car. She told the newspapers that she had vowed that if she lived to see her son reach his senior year of high school, she would go all out. El-Shabazz said Tuesday that Shuler never set out to be a disability cheat. The way its been portrayed is that this was some grand scheme to defraud the government, he said. But theres no question she had a stroke. Theres no question she was in rehab. Theres no question that when she actually applied for benefits, she did it from her rehab bed. What she actually pleaded guilty to was not informing the government when her circumstances changed. Shuler declined to comment as she left the courtroom Tuesday with her lawyer. He carried an $8,200 check the first installment of the $37,000 debt to the government she will have to repay. On Tuesday morning, at the tail end of a groundbreaking ceremony for a new housing complex for people coming out of addiction and homelessness, Sister Mary Scullion leaned into the microphone. One other little note I just want to say is that this buildings ready to go. Were ready to get under construction," said the president and executive director of Project HOME, the citys preeminent housing, poverty, and homelessness services organization. And we need one piece of paper signed" by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. "And because of the government shutdown, were waiting. It was a last-minute delay for a project located in the physical heart of Philadelphias opioid crisis that has already been five years in the planning. Project HOME has been working to build apartments in a former elementary school at 1920 E. Orleans St. in Kensington, just blocks from the neighborhoods last major homeless encampment. Now, with the building purchased, private funding lined up, and approval from local housing authorities, all that remained was for HUD to authorize subsidies for the 42-unit complex. City officials learned those papers hadnt yet been signed a few days ago, said Liz Hersh, director of Philadelphias office of homeless services. We knew that there were the ripple effects" of the government shutdown, she said. But the longer the government shutdown goes on, the longer the impact. Its so frustrating. This has been a long journey as it is." Still, a small crowd gathered in bitter cold on Orleans Street on Tuesday to celebrate the end of the planning stages of the Maguire Homes project. Project HOME already runs several housing complexes for people in recovery, but Maguire is the first in Kensington. Project HOME really wanted to be a partner in what is going to be a long recovery, said Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez, who represents the neighborhood. We can improve quality of life and also help folks caught up in this devastation. Its not an either-or, it is an and." Neighbors on Orleans had long pushed to find a new use for the empty school especially in recent years, as addiction drew scores of homeless people to the neighborhood. Our entire block has been vigilant in protecting this building," said Liz Carpenter, the block captain, whose church also does addiction outreach in the neighborhood. We were worried that this might become one of those encampments. It will be key, she said, for Project HOME to provide resources for the buildings tenants, something to take them outside their addiction. Scullion said thats exactly what her organization aims to do. The building will be geared toward people who have been in recovery for some time but need support to maintain sobriety. Some tenants, she said, will still be in outpatient treatment for addiction; others will need help seeking employment or education. Tenants will likely be recruited through a lottery and the citys homeless intake process, and from temporary shelters. People in active addiction living in the long-running Emerald Street encampment just a few blocks away would likely not be eligible, at least not yet, for an apartment at Maguire. That camp is set to be cleared at the end of the month. Hersh said the city, as when it cleared previous encampments, is working to place Emerald Street residents in treatment slots, low-barrier shelters that dont require sobriety, or another Project HOME complex for people who are a little further on in their recovery. In the past, camp residents have also been accepted into Pathways to Housing, a housing program that doesnt require sobriety. Hersh said theres a dire shortage of housing in the city for people in early recovery. A traditional recovery house is really designed to be short-term, she said. Its a steppingstone. This is permanent supportive housing," she said of Maguire. "Once people are in, they can stay as long as they need to. Katie Dougherty, who lives in another Project HOME building, said she needed that extra support after six years in addiction, some spent living on the streets of Kensington. I have been in several recovery houses before," she said. I needed more than just a bed to sleep in. After almost four years in West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer, Iliyaas Muhammad returned to the Philadelphia area and noticed something was missing in American ginger ale: the ginger. During his time away, hed grown accustomed to traditional beverages that were flavored with the root. So he decided to make his own. Muhammad was encouraged by his wife, Hadia Muhammad, who was born and raised in Mali. The couple met while Iliyaas was serving in the Peace Corps, and she drew from her familys recipes to develop a line of ginger-based drinks that the couple began selling in 2011 under the name Really Reel Ginger. They now make the drinks in four flavors that they sell seven days a week at Reading Terminal Market. The drinks come in four flavors: mint and lemon; mint, lemon, and hibiscus; mint and tamarind; and baobob, an African citrus fruit. The drinks are vibrant, mildly sweet, and herbaceous, and during cold and flu season, the Muhammads tout the healing properties of ginger as an anti-inflammatory and antiviral agent. They also sell versions that contain no added sugar, as well as bags of handmade ginger hard candy. Allison Steele Really Reel Ginger, $5 and $7 online or at Reading Terminal Market, 51 N. 12th St., reallyreelginger.com. The U.S. Navy's top officer, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, is in Beijing this week (January 13-16) to meet his counterpart Vice Adm. Shen Jinlong and other military leaders. He will also visit naval institutions in the eastern city of Nanjing. Tension is the new normal Richardson's visit is being widely watched as tensions between China and the United States are on the rise amid the ongoing trade war. Despite widening differences on a number of key issues, the visit is seen as a sign that the existing mechanism of high-level military exchanges is still working, alongside the willingness of both sides to keep an open dialogue in a more direct manner. It's the second meeting for Richardson and Shen. They met previously at the 2018 International Seapower Symposium in the United States. The two have held discussions via video teleconference three times, the most recent of which was on Dec. 18. The consensus now seems that both sides have accepted a kind of new normal, with more restraints to manage their differences as frictions occur. Risk reduction-oriented dialogue Though the two militaries have signed the agreements on the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), U.S.-China naval confrontations have become more frequent, especially in the South China Sea, resulting in many near collisions between naval warships during so-called U.S. freedom of navigation operations. Both sides have expressed their deep concerns about the potential for real confrontation as a consequence of mistrust and miscalculations. The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) in the Atlantic Ocean, May 4, 2012. /VCG Photo The goal of the visit is to continue a results-oriented, risk-reduction focused dialogue routine exchange of views is essential, especially in times of friction, in order to reduce risk and avoid miscalculation," says Richardson. Strengthening the strategic communication between the two navies and effectively controlling the risks of maritime security are in the common interests of both sides and contribute to the healthy and stable development of military to military relations, says Senior Col. Wu Qian, spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of National Defense. PLA blue water navy building speeds up The last decade has seen a major shift for China's Navy from coastal defense to greater responsibilities in the deep sea. The country is increasingly concerned about the safety of its sea lanes and the security threat to its claimed waters and airspace. The PLA Navy has greatly increased open-sea training exercises in the West Pacific Ocean and has been on a rapid building and acquisition program. China held the biggest naval parade in the South China Sea near Sanya, Hainan province, China, April 13, 2018. /Xinhua Photo The U.S. is showing greater concern that its status as a maritime superpower is being challenged by China and is accusing China of military threats, ignoring norms, and cyberespionage. Experts say Richardson's visit is unlikely to create any concrete new agreements and the key to risk-reduction still lies in how the two navies implement what they have already agreed on. And the U.S. needs to accept the reality of a rising Chinese navy speeding up construction in the deep blue sea. Queen Village, now in the throes of a restaurant boom, will see the opening of Cry Baby Pasta on Friday, Jan. 18 at Third and Bainbridge Streets. It marks a return to the Philadelphia restaurant scene for Bridget Foy and husband Paul Rodriguez. Not that they left by choice. The nearby restaurant founded by her parents Bridget Foys, at Second and South Streets burned down in October 2017. While waiting for Bridget Foys to be rebuilt and open later this year, the couple worked last summer in Upstate New York and traveled to Italy with another couple, chefs David Gilberg and Carla Goncalves, who ran Koo Zee Doo, a Northern Liberties BYOB. From that experience, the couples came up with the idea for Cry Baby, whose Italian menu includes house-made pastas, sides, starters, bruschettas, and large plates. The location, which housed the landmark Judys Cafe for three decades, was last Ansill and then Ela. Cry Baby Pastas 55-seat dining room has a 12-seat oak bar and five-seat drink rail. Theres a full line of spirits, six craft beers by the draft, four wines on tap (about $8 a throw), 35 wines by the bottle, and an Italian-inspired cocktail menu (about $10 each). It will be open daily. Bar starts at 4 p.m. and dining room opening at 5. Kitchen will stay open till 10 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, till midnight Friday and Saturday. Lunch and brunch are on the way. Foy was a tot when her parents, John and Bernadette, named the old East Philly Cafe after her. She literally grew up in the business and the neighborhood, which, she says, qualifies her to run a local restaurant. The South Street Headhouse District counts eight restaurant and bar projects on the way. Besides Cry Baby Pasta and Bridget Foys, there are the new Fiore (757 S. Front St.), an all-day Italian restaurant, and Aurora Grace, a bakery-cafe (517 S. Fifth St). Due to open in the next two weeks is Neighborhood Ramen (617 S. Third St.) Down the road are GiGis and a second restaurant from the owners of Southwark (at Fifth and Bainbridge Streets) and Bloomsday Cafe (414 S. Second St. across from Head House Square). Yong Kim, whose Bluefin sushi restaurants in East Norriton and Bala Cynwyd routinely appear on many aficionados' best-of lists, has been eager to open in Center City. Soon, he may get his wish. Kim confirmed to me the rumor that he is in negotiations for a stand inside Reading Terminal Market, which has been sushi-less since Tokyo Sushi Bar closed in May 2014. The exact location is the former 12th Street Cantina, which buttoned up in November after 36 years. Market general manager Anuj Gupta said he had no signed leases with any new merchants. Another vacancy will be in play on Thursday as longtime vendor Carmens Famous moves its cheesesteak and hoagie operation across the aisle. DETROIT (AP) At first glance, this year's edition of the North American International Auto Show might look like any other from the past: Gleaming vehicles, bright lights and flashy displays trying to lure spectators to their offerings. But after traversing Cobo Center's massive exhibition space and ticking off the automakers, you'll notice what's not there: namely BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Audi or Mazda. Those brands had been mainstays of the Motor Citys celebration of the auto industry. But they are pulling out not just from Detroit but shows worldwide because of a bad date for their vehicle launch cycle, a declining bang for their buck, or bigger buzz from solo events or digital campaigns that go straight to consumers. In response, auto shows are retooling to remain relevant: moving their events on the calendar or amping up the customer experience by offering test tracks and collecting data on visitors. Detroit auto show chairman Bill Golling is helming the city's last winter show before NAIAS prepares its move next year to the more weather-friendly month of June. Warmer temperatures will allow for test drives of new vehicles and autonomous and vehicle-to-vehicle technologies, as well as reduced time and costs for setup and teardown. "We can now give additional time and give that experience to the consumers," Golling said. "Not only test drives of the product itself but the technology will be available to test drive it, the autonomy, the connected cars. They can't get that over the internet." As companies have left, so have automotive reporters. The show had just under 4,600 journalists this year, but normally has more than 5,000, organizers said. As for public attendance, Detroit has drawn around 800,000 for the past several years. Representatives for the auto shows in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago say they don't release attendance figures. A spokesman for the New York show would only say that it has drawn more than a million attendees every year for the past 15 years, and Los Angeles says hundreds of thousands attend annually. Chicago Auto Show General Manager Dave Sloan says attendance is "pretty consistent," but BMW and Mercedes-Benz have pulled out of next month's show. He's quick to add that others, such as Jaguar Land Rover, are increasing their show floor space. "We're concerned about it," he conceded. "We're doing everything we can to try and show them that performance." Those efforts include installing indoor test tracks and outdoor test drives, he said, because "butts in seats is a great way to show off your vehicles." Still, the overall trend continues for companies to explore other promotional paths, and "not just for auto shows but globally in all different industries," said Sam Abuelsamid, a senior analyst with Navigant Research. Big companies are increasingly moving toward getting away from announcing new products, making major announcements ... where theyre fighting for attention with 15-20 other companies and [instead] doing standalone events. Many automakers reject an all-or-nothing proposition. Detroit-based General Motors got good exposure for the 2016 Chevrolet Equinox small SUV outside of any auto show. GM president Mark Reuss said its hard to get the right exposure in the right medium at an auto show, but he sees a balance. "I don't think it goes away," he said of the shows. "It's important that we're here and doing big things in Detroit." Luxury makes Volvo Cars and Jaguar Land Rover are skipping the Geneva auto show in March. Volvo said it's continuing to "move away from traditional auto industry events to focus on bespoke activities to introduce its new cars, technologies and services to media and consumers." Last year, Volvo unveiled the new model of its V60 wagon not at an exhibition center, but in the driveway of a home in suburban Stockholm. Bjorn Annwall, Volvo's senior vice president of strategy, brand and retail, said last year that "automatic attendance at traditional industry events is no longer viable we must tailor our communications based on how the options complement our messaging, timing and the nature of the technology we are presenting." "We are not saying never to car shows. We expect industry events like the Geneva Motor Show to continue evolving and we may return in future." Volkswagen officials say it was important to be in Detroit this year, even though its Audi and Porsche were not. "For us, it's a must," VW CEO Herbert Diess said. He acknowledged that "shows are declining" globally, but affirmed the automaker's decision to stick with the Motor City. "I just had a walkthrough the show I had a good impression," he added. "There's a lot of new product being shown here, so why not?" Associated Press writers David McHugh and Mike Householder contributed to this article. Boss stepping down from Pirate football Perryville football will have a new boss on the sideline this fall.Thats because the current one is moving on.Blane Boss, the Pirate football coach for the previous four seasons, Piranha boys win opening meet of the year, girls finish third The Perryville Piranhas kicked their first meet off with a bang Saturday.The boys earned first overall with 254 team points finishing ahead of the Ste. Genevieve Stingrays who finished with 214 BARB AGUIAR/Special to the Herald Rob Henson and his wife Jennifer, officers with the Salvation Army in West Kelowna, are keeping their eyes and ears open for ways to help the community. Were not here to reinvent the wheel, were here to support the wheel, said Rob. A US-based Ghanaian musician, Charles Taylor well-known as Ras Bobo has been arrested for an attempt to smuggle to the United States a substance believed to be cocaine. Charles Taylor was reported to be apprehended by security agents at the HartsfieldJackson Atlanta International Airport at the last checkpoint before he could board a Delta AirLine on his way to the US. According to the security sources, he concealed the whitish substance weighing 15.5 grams in both sides of a briefcase he was carrying. But after he was arrested, Charles Taylor revealed that he was traveling back to the United States after he has finished performing on his dubbed concert in Mexico, Pachuca. He further explained that because the trip was for just a few days he decided not to travel with heavy luggage and therefore bought the briefcase at Pachuca, from roaming vendors. Taylor said he did not know the briefcase contained the substance but however, investigations about the briefcase and its whitish substance are still underway and Ghanapage.com will do well to bring updates on the story. Source: ghpage.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is poised to go head-to-head with the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the contest for the Ayawaso West Wuogon Parliamentary seat. The seat became vacant following the demise of Hon. Emmanuel Kyeremanteng Agyarko, the long-term Member of Parliament for the area, on Wednesday, November 21 last year. The Electoral Commission (EC) would open and receive the nominations for the by-election on Thursday, January 10 to Saturday, January 12, 2019. The EC has disclosed the by-election will be held on Thursday, January 31, 2019. Speaking to sit-in host Nana Yaw Kesseh on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo', the former District Chief Executive of the Upper Denkyira West, Ambrose Amoah Ashyia stated optimistically that the Ayawaso West Wuogon seat will be for the NDC after the by-election is held. According to him, the NDC is working hard to clinch a landslide victory saying "we are very confident that this time we will win Ayawaso West Wuogon". Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The National Democratic Congress (NDC) says it will postpone the party's flagbearer election which was slated for 26th of January, 2019, to a later undisclosed date. According to the hierarchy of the opposition party, this will help them properly streamline the processes for the election which was stalled because of a court case brought against the party by some NDC faithfuls. Speaking on Okay FM's 'Ade Akye Abia' program, General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia explained that the postponement is very necessary, adding that the party leadership will meet to decide on a new date for the flagbearer election. He also confirmed that the party and it's two members who secured an injunction against the party's upcoming elections ahead of election 2020, have agreed to settle the matter out of court. Abdallah Issah and James Kabu Nartey-Oman sued the party in December over the guideline governing the January 26 presidential primary which has set GHc 300,000.00 filing fee for aspirants. When the case came up in court Monday, counsel for the NDC, Samuel Cudjoe told the Accra High Court presided over by Mrs. Georgina Mensah-Datsa that they want to attempt an out of court settlement with the two party members. He requested for three days to initiate and conclude the settlement, and file the terms with the Court on Thursday for adoption. Christopher King and Victor Adawudu who represented the two plaintiffs confirmed having agreed to negotiate and settle the matter out of court. Justice Mensah-Datsa consequently adjourned the case to attempt a settlement. The injunction caused the party to halt the vetting of the aspirants for the January 26 primary. In the substantive case, the two are seeking a declaration that the published guidelines for the conduct of the primary by the NDC in 2019 was null and void. According to them, the introduction of specific eligibility criteria as conditions for presidential candidates were at odds with the latter and spirit of the NDC constitution. They want the court to declare that the procedure adopted by the NDC via the National Executive Committee (NEC), in the preparation and presentation of the guidelines, together with the amendments without prior consultation of the National Council of Elders, were unlawful. The two are also seeking order directing the NDC to conduct its 2019 presidential election in a free, fair, transparent and inclusive manner in accordance with the NDC constitution was also sought. Aspirants Notwithstanding the injunction, seven aspirants filed their nomination before the deadline. They included Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Kingsford Sumani Bagbin; former Vice Chancellor of University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Joshua Alabi; former President John Mahama, ex-Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Sylvester Mensah and businessman Nurideen Iddrisu, former Minister of Trade and Industry, Ekwow Spio-Garbrah and a cadre, Goosie Tanoh. According to the programme of activities published by the party, after the filing, aspirants will be vetted between 21st and 22nd December, 2018, followed by balloting on 22nd December, 2018. Between 22nd and 24th December, 2018, the party will receive appeals, if any, before homing in for the presidential primaries on Saturday, 26th January, 2019. Source: Isaac Kwame Owusu/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected] Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Metropolitan Chief Executive for Tema, Mr. Felix Mensah Nii Annang-La, has forecasted that the 49 per centrating that President Akufo-Addo scored in the recent poll on his approval rating by the University of Ghana will improve. He predicted that it will move above the 53 percent votes he used to win the 2016 election by the end of 2019. In the first two years of the administration of the President, we have concentrated attention on correcting the disorder that his predecessor left for him, and some of the corrections have not been popular. Take the reforms in the banking sector for instance, many people have temporarily lost their jobs but you know what our elders say; it takes bitter medicine to cure illness. Now that we have all swallowed the bitter medicine to cure the sickness that Mahama left this country in, the way is clear for President Akufo-Addo to roll out his programmes. I can assure you that by the end of this year, the University of Ghana will report that the Presidents approval rating is above 53 per cent. Mr Annang-La made the forecast on the sidelines of a programme,where his alma-mater, Manhean Jumior High School celebrated him in Tema New Town. Alumni of his former School, Manhean Junior High School, formerly Manhean Junior Secondary School (MAJUSEC), organised the programme where he was given a citation for making the school proud through his elevation in politics. The citation also acknowledged his sense of industry which led to a phenomenal transformation of the infrastructural endowment of Tema under his leadership. According to the Tema Metropolitan Chief Executive, the opposition NDCs observation that President Akufo-Addo was losing his voter appeal because the little over 49 per cent of the votes he got in that poll represented a reduction in the 53 per cent that he got in the 2016 election was a jaundiced argument. Well in the 2016 election, the NDCs John Mahama also had some 44 per cent of the votes, but in the UG poll has dropped to 33.3 per cent, and so rather than the NDC making those claims, I think it would be more proper for them to be mourning because their man is also losing votes even in opposition. He said that the two previous years were the most turbulent for the NPP government, and so if even in these most turbulent years, Mahama could not become popular enough to lead polls, then it is clear that President Akufo-Addo will easily win the 2020 election the MCE said. The Tema MCEs claims were refuted by the NDCs firebrand executive member for Tema East, Stephen Ashitey Adjei, alias Moshake. When the MCE jumps into conclusion that President Akufo-Addo will win 2020 because Mahama is not popular, then he really is not analysing well. First and foremost, there is no way the NDC is electing Mahama to lead us again in 2020. We are electing Mr Alban Bagbin, Moshake said. According to him, if Mr Bagbin were to be paired against President Akufo-Addo in any poll, the results would have been different. Mr Bagbin would have beaten President Akufo-Addo by a wide margin. President Akufo-Addo did so well because he was pegged against Mr Mahama., Moshake said. Mr Adjei who is also an alumnus of MAJUSEC said that, rather than claiming that President Akufo-Addo would be re-elected by a 53 per cent margin in 2020, the NPP government would do itself a lot of good if it were to concentrate on improving the lives of the people and pray that the NDC did not elect Bagbin as its candidate for 2020. He however at the Tema New Town campus of MAJUSEC called on society to honour the MCE and joined his colleagues to give him a standing ovation. The MAJUSEC old boys and girls awarded the MCE with a citation for hoisting high the image of MAJUSEC and also developing Tema. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye, the Speaker of Parliament, has advocated for a special quota for womens representation in Parliament and that matters relating to gender were of very much concern to him. Today by global standards Ghana is in the last fifth category of women representation in Parliament. And we cannot compare ourselves in any way with Rwanda. Ghanaians deserve better, he said. Prof Oquaye said this on Monday at the opening on the 70th Annual New Year School and Conference (ANYSC) at the University of Ghana (UG). And even as the Affirmative Action Bill is before Parliament now, I think it is good for us to examine it carefully and come out with ideas as to maximise the political influence of women in our dear nation, the Speaker said. It is my wish that we should have special seats created for women to contest alone, so as to give them opportunity to come to Parliament. The 70th ANYSC, on the theme: Building Strong Institutions for Democratic Consolidation in Ghana, is being organised by the School of Continuing and Distance Education (SDCE) of the College of Education, University of Ghana, in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development. Prof Oquaye urged political parties to also have quotas for women in that regard and advocated that the district assemblies one-third of members reserved for the President appointees at a given time be reserved for women. He said it was important for Ghanaians to examine from time to time the trajectory of their political history and the things that had passed through until this time, adding; after all the unexamined life is not worth living. He said constitutional order was definitely akin to strong institutions and the rule of law. Weve got human rights provisions of unlimited nature, weve got provisions for legislative oversight of executive action, which we can say are weak in many ways because Members of Parliament are also members of the executive in many ways, Prof Oquaye said. And particularly it becomes more of an apparent of a politician to become a Minister rather than to become a Member of Parliament. And for the member to seek not the eye of the Speaker but the eye of the President, in such circumstances, I think it is better for us to reverse to 1979 where you could either be a Member of Parliament or a Minister. He noted that the power of the President was too strong, not regarding any particular person but in terms of the constitutional arrangement. On elections, Prof Oquaye said during an election year prayer camps were often being flooded with people praying to God for peaceful election, which showed that Ghanaians were not sure of their constitutional and other legal arrangements. Do we have the best practices by way of electoral laws of our country? I have said and I continue to say that our laws are very porous in this regard, he said. Of cause we would need to examine decentralization and for that matter issues regarding elections; the party system being applied and the influence of money on election generally. Prof Atsu Aryee of the Department of Political Science, University of Ghana, who delivered the keynote address, said strong institutions and democratic consolidation were mutually reinforcing. He said institutions should not only be seen as entities or structures but also as rules, enforcement mechanisms and norms adding that building strong institutions for democratic consolidation entails reconstructing the Ghanaian state and society to internalize the values of developmental governance capacity. Prof Ebenezer Oduro Owusu, the Vice-Chancellor of UG, in a speech read on his behalf, noted that the University continues to make significant efforts to help build stronger institutions in the country and seeks to use the 70th ANYSC celebrations as well as other platforms, to further strengthen these efforts. Prof Michael Tagoe, the Provost of the College of Education, and Dean of SDCE, UG, said corruption was a threat to Ghanas democracy. Corruption undermines the sanctity of democratic consolidation as it erodes the foundation of trust that individuals have in political leadership and institutions. Corruption becomes a barrier to sustainable development when precious resources are mismanaged, and funds are diverted into private pockets. Prof Yaw Twumasi, the Chairman of the UG Governing Council, who chaired the function, lauded the role of the ANYSC in Ghanas socioeconomic development over the past 70 years. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Hajia Alima Mahama, the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, says the election of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) on partisan basis would be a key solution to the winner takes all syndrome plaguing Ghanas democratic environment. She stated that the practice where ruling party had the privilege to nominate MMDCEs would end; making way for inclusive governance with all political parties enjoying a level playing field to present a candidate for election on a universal adult suffrage basis. Hajia Mahama said this at a meeting to sensitise and create a better understanding on the election processes among the representatives of the various political parties, on Monday in Accra. The forum on the theme, Electing MMDCEs for Improved Local Decentralisation and Good Governance, was also used to discuss the proposed national road roadmap for the elections, expected to take off on 2021. The Minister, however, explained: Although this is not the only solution to completely solve winner takes-all syndrome; with this system, when a Party wins an election, the President will not have to appoint the MMDCEs. Definitely, some MMDCEs seat will be occupied by the opposition parties and this will deepen the democracy and bring inclusiveness. Hajia Mahama said the Ministry had consulted all key stakeholders on the best possible ways of having local leaders elected on partisan basis. The only obstacle, she said, was working with the key institutions to work on the amendment of article 55(3) of the 1992 constitution. The article, which is an entrenched article, states that, "Subject to the provisions of this article, a political party is free to participate in shaping the political will of the people, to disseminate information on political ideas, social and economic programmes of a national character; and sponsor candidates for election to any public office other than to the District Assemblies or lower local government units." Hajia Mahama said an amendment to this article was critical if MMDCEs would be elected on partisan basis through a universal adult suffrage system. "As an entrenched Article, a national Referendum is required for it to be amended, she explained. A draft Bill for amendment of the article has been approved by Cabinet and sent to the Speaker of Parliament who has sent it to the Council of State for advice. The Council of State has given its advice and the Attorney General has since gazetted the Bill". She said that the Ministry was collaborating with key institutions including the Electoral Commission and the National Commission for Civic Education to ensure that the public was adequately sensitised to ensure a successful referendum in September 2019, alongside the District Assemblies election. The other institutions include the Parliamentary Select Committee on Local Government, Information Services Department as well as Civil Society Organisations. Hajia Mahama mentioned that another area of institutional strengthening aimed at consolidating democratic governance was the implementation of the National Public Sector Reform Strategy (NPSRS 2018 - 2023). Dr Eric Oduro Osae, Dean of Studies and Research at the Institute of Local Government Studies, also said the election of MMDCEs on partisan basis would help reduce the winner-takes all situation because no Political Party could win all the seats. The opposition will use the Local Government as a training ground to inform people what they would have done if they won elections, he said. It would also provide the Government with alternatives ideas to reshape their policies because democracy thrives on opposition If the Government was able to implement the intended policy, he said, it would stop acrimonies in elections because political parties would have another opportunity in that of the MMDCEs to be in government. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Investigations have revealed that Emmanuel Amofa, 27, who was killed by police at Agbogba on suspicion that he was an armed robber, is innocent. Information gathered by The Finder indicates that the report of the investigations conducted by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service exonerating the victim has been submitted to the Attorney-Generals Department. The investigations found that Amofa, who met his untimely death on Monday, April 16, 2018, was not armed and kept pleading that he was not an armed robber. The investigations corroborated the autopsy report, which indicates that Amofa was shot at close range by police at Agbogba. This means that the police could have arrested him even if he was a robber. Apology and compensation for the family According to information, the investigative report recommended an apology and compensation for the family. No action taken against implicated police officers Strangely, the report recommended more training for the police officers who killed the innocent man instead of interdiction and prosecution. Autopsy report The autopsy report revealed that Amofa suffered a broken leg, had his front teeth out and was shot at close range. The autopsy report also showed that he was molested and severely beaten by the police. But the police claimed the deceased was part of an armed robbery gang that was chased by the police. The police said they received a distress call between 2 and 3am on Sunday, theyr which a patrol team was called in to respond. According to the police, in the process, they encountered three suspected armed robbers, including the deceased, who was carrying a locally manufactured pistol. The police said in an attempt to search the late 27-year-old, he struggled with the police officers and took to his heels. According to police, the operational men managed to demobilise him, with Amofa sustaining gunshot wounds, and was rushed to the hospital, but he passed on before they got to the hospital. The police denied accusations that they brutalised the deceased after the two suspects they accosted jumped the wall into the nearby cemetery. According to police, the other two persons, who were later arrested, have been granted bail by the police. But some eyewitnesses said the deceased was unarmed at the time he was being chased by the police. He was not wielding a gun or any weapon; the police killed him deliberately and allowed the criminals to escape, one of them said. Another eyewitness said he saw the late Amofa and the police exchanging words when he told them he was innocent. They wont listen to him and they tortured him until he ran into the building opposite the bar. They shot after him and all I saw later was his dead body being dragged towards the police vehicle, the witness added. Amofa was hanging out with his friends at a pub after they had observed the one-week celebration of the death of their peer. The police patrol team, upon their arrival at the scene, alleged that one of them was wielding a gun. Amofas friends then bolted, leaving him behind as the police allegedly assaulted him several times. He scaled a wall into a house across the road in an attempt to escape. He was, however, chased by the police, who shot at him several times. He was eventually hit by a bullet and his body was dragged out of the house. The family of the deceased insisted that he is not an armed robber, and accused the police of deceit and extra judicial killings. The family is incensed by reports that their son was shot because he is an armed robber. When we were shown his body, you could tell he has been assaulted. There was little change in his form, just that his head looked swollen. From the story that has been put out there by the police, you can clearly see the police has something to hide. We, as a family of the deceased, are not going to lay this matter to rest until the perpetrators are brought to book, Amofas elder brother vowed. We the family are traumatised, the deceaseds sister added. I have four brothers. My dad was expecting my brothers to carry his coffin two in front, two behind. But look at us, she lamented. She reiterated the vow to get justice no matter what, stating that they are not going to rest; trust me, even if it will take my last blood". Elder sister of the victim, Nana Akua Amofa told journalists at a press conference that Amofa had never in his entire life held a gun and that he was not an armed robber as claimed by the police. She said her younger brother and his friends were subjected to undue beatings and torture by the police, and when he attempted to scale the wall of his fathers carpenter friends house to seek refuge, the police opened fire behind him. According to her, Amofa managed to scale the wall and entered the house of his fathers friend, but the police followed him there, and despite his plea for mercy, he was murdered in cold blood. She has, therefore, tasked the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to initiate an investigation into the matter and bring the killer cops to book to face the law. The father of the deceased was equally inconsolable, saying, I am really bereft of a suitable way of expressing my emotion. I am so devastated it seems the world around me has crumbled. I am not worried about his death, but if the boy had actually stolen something or gone on an armed robbery mission, then I will have no (qualms) about it. One man can hardly defeat a dozen. Assuming that you caught him, beat him up; (but) why shoot him? Why shoot him? he questioned repeatedly. Source: The Finder Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Police in Dubai has confirmed that the Chief Executive Officer of troubled gold dealership firm, Menzgold, Nana Appiah Mensah popularly known as NAM 1 has been arrested. However, contrary to reports that he was arrested on Saturday, January 13, Dubai officials claim he has been under arrest since December 7, 2018 over a botched gold transaction. A statement from the Ghana Police Service and signed by Director-General/Public Affairs, indicate that Ghanaian officials have visited NAM 1 in the custody of Dubai police". Engagements with Dubai authorities on the next steps have commenced and the police administration assures the public that due process will be followed," the statement added. NAM 1, is at the centre of heated controversy since the closure of his gold collectible firm in September last year. A warrant for his arrest was issued by a circuit court in Accra on 9 January after he failed to pay back monies owed to investors in his 'failed' company. Read a copy of the police statement below: Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Ghana Health Service (GHS) on Monday launched the World Health Organisations Trauma Care Checklist to be integrated into emergency service delivery in all healthcare facilities across the country. The Trauma Care Checklist, which is a simple tool designed for use in emergency units, and emphasizes the key life-saving elements of initial trauma care, is developed to help improve the quality of services offered in health facilities, save lives and prevent disabilities in patients. Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, who launched the tool in Accra, said although true that timely emergency care saves lives and reduces disability, there was currently a great global disparity in access to emergency care. He indicated that injury was responsible for more than 10 per cent of the global burden of diseases, killing more people each year than HIV, malaria and tuberculosis combined, and more than 90 per cent of those deaths occurred in low and middle-income countries. If fatality rates from severe injury were the same in low and middle-income countries as they were in high-income countries, between 1.5 and two million lives could be saved every year, he said. Dr Nsiah-Asare said the checklist, therefore, reviewed key actions at two points, which involved immediately after the primary and secondary surveys, and before the health team leaves the patients bedside. He commended the Ministry of Health, the AO Alliance, an International NGO, and the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, for the collaborative launch of the tool, saying it would help strengthen partnership at all levels of the health sector for sustained implementation as soon as possible. With the tool, a systematic approach to every injured person ensured that life-saving interventions were performed to ensure that no life-threatening conditions were missed, he said. Dr Nsiah-Asare, however, said the GHS had already put in place lots of measures to improve emergency care, and the introduction and use of Trauma Care Checklist was one of such actions to complement existing services. The Service, he said, was looking forward to agencies and partners of Health to come on board and support in the roll over and train health personnel across the country for the effective implementation and use of the tool. Dr Wilfred Addo, the Representative of AO Alliance, for English Speaking Africa, lauded the GHS for the initiative to integrate the use of the tool into emergency care as early as possible to improve care of patients. He explained that although the WHO Trauma Care Checklist was first launched in August 2016 at the World Trauma Congress in New Delhi, India, and has been effectively used in countries including Canada, Colombia, Viet Nam, Rwanda, Australia, Thailand and Pakistan, it was adopted and further developed by the AO Alliance to suit the African contextual needs. The tool was developed and validated through a large global collaboration, review actions at two critical points to ensure that no life-threatening conditions were missed and timely, life-saving interventions were performed, he said. He said the tool was, therefore, appropriate in any setting delivering emergency care for the injured and could be easily adopted to local needs. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video First Sky Group, owners of First Sky Construction, First Sky Commodities and Volta Serene Hotel have donated an amount of One million Ghana cedis to the National Road Safety Commission and the Ministry of Roads and Highways to help curtail road accidents through education and road safety campaigns. The company, which has over the years spent a total of ten million Ghana cedis to support the treatment of patients with kidney failure at the Renal Dialysis Unit of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in line with its Corporate Social responsibilities; have contributed massively to the development of various church projects including the yet to be constructed National Cathedral. Speaking at the 16th Anniversary Celebration of the company, which recently introduced two new subsidiaries, Serene Insurance Company and First Sky Bitumen Processing Limited, Founder and Chairman of the Group, Eric Seddy Kutortse said their donations fall in line with the companys objective of bringing relief to humanity, creating jobs and supporting governments programmes and policies. According to Mr. Kutortse, contrary to general perception that private business men and women are only profit driven individuals who seek to enrich themselves, his company is founded on sound Christian principles and operates within the laws of the country. I say this with reverence to our Almighty God that First Sky Group since its inception to date has never been involved in any scandalous or corrupt practices that seek to short-change this nation. That is not to say we have not been exposed to such temptation but for the love of our nation, the fear of the Lord and our salvation has kept us away from such evil practices and we give all glory to God. Four years ago, during such similar occasion I made the same statement that we have a stainless record on corruption; this attracted the attention of one of the anti-corruption agencies in Ghana, and the revenue agency which investigated my companys activities for five years, and thanks be to God, nothing untoward was found about us. We will continue to uphold sound Christian principles in all our business ventures and operate within the laws of the Republic of Ghana, he said. Revealing some projects the group intends to undertake this year, Mr. Kutortse said the company plans to finance the establishment of a kidney transplant centre at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. The First Sky Group is collaborating with the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital to at all cost bring a team of specialists from Birmingham UK to Ghana to carry out kidney transplants for a number of patients. These visits by the UK team will lead to the medical knowledge and skill transfer to our local surgeons in the short term. In the medium term however, our goal is to finance the establishment of a kidney transplant centre at the hospital to help stem the tides of our countrymen suffering such ailment and thus spending thousands of our foreign exchange earnings to seek such health services outside the country, he disclosed. Reading a speech on behalf of President Nana Akufo-Addo, Chief of Staff Frema Opare thanked the First Sky Group CEO for his numerous contributions to government especially the recent donation of GHC2 million towards the construction of the National Cathedral. The thanksgiving service, an annual event organised by the First Sky Group was graced by the Okyehene, Osaagyefo Amoatia Ofori Panin II, former President Jerry John Rawlings, Minister of Roads and Highways Amoako Atta, the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God Ghana, Rev. Prof Paul Frimpong Manso, the over two thousand working staff of the company including friends and well-wishers. Source: MAXWELL OSEI BONSU/[email protected] Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Trades Union Congress (TUC) on Monday proposed a 15 per cent downward adjustment of utility tariffs to reflect wages and salaries of Ghanaians. Mr Kwabena Otoo, the Director in charge of Research and Policy at the TUC, made the proposal at a public hearing, organised by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), in respect of the 2019 Major Tariff Review for Electricity and Water in Accra. Mr Otoo said Ghanaians were not supposed to suffer for the 21 per cent energy losses by utility service providers and urged the PURC to consider the general low wages of Ghanaians. He noted that data from the Ghana Statistical Service pegged Ghanaian workers wages at an average of GHC800.00 per month, saying: it would be suicidal for the PURC to accept the upward tariff adjustments proposed by the utility service providers. He added that the public sector earnings for 2019 went up by only 10 per cent therefore it was prudent for the PURC and utility companies to consider these dynamics before adjusting tariffs. Mr Otoo said it was unacceptable for service providers to pass on their technical and commercial losses onto consumers, and thus, asked the PURC to ignore the proposals. He lashed out at some bad government policies in the energy sector, particularly independent power purchase agreements signed with energy investors, resulting in excess power capacity in the system, which had been repackaged for utility consumers to pay the extra cost, describing the situation as unfair to consumers. Commenting on the take-over of ECG by the Power Distribution Service Ghana Limited on February 1, Mr Otoo said the new arrangement should not in any way burden utility consumers with tariff increment. Mr Ishmael Agyekumhene, the Chairman of the PURC Technical Committee, who presided over the meeting, said the PURC would go into caucus meeting to consider the tariff adjustment proposals made by the utility service providers and chart the way forward. He said the PURC would announce new utility tariffs soon, but would be implemented from February 1, this year. Were reminded to strike a fair balance between consumers on one side and utility service providers on the other side, and were insisting on prudent cost, he added. He said the Commission would consider a number of factors before agreeing to up tariff adjustment or otherwise. He asked Ghanaians to collaborate with the PURC and utility service providers to clamp down on illegal power connection and waste in the system, noting that, the energy sector could have either positive or negative impact on the Ghanaian economy depending on how we manage it. Representative from the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo), Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) and Enclave Power Company Limited (EPC) made various presentations to justify their proposed tariff adjustment in order to reflect their operational costs. The ECG proposed 23 Ghana pesewas upward tariff adjustment per kilowatt hour (23p/KWh), GRIDCo 4.897 Ghana pesewas per kilowatt hour (4.897p/KWh), NEDCo 43 Ghana pesewas per kilowatt hour (43p/KWh) and EPC proposed 26 Ghana pesewas per kilowatt hour (26p/KWh) for the 2019 Utility Tariff Review. However, the GWCL was silent on any upward utility tariff review. The forum created a platform for stakeholders in the energy sector, including utility service providers and consumers to deliberate on the proposed utility tariffs for consideration. The public hearing, which is required by law, had already been held in Tamale and Kumasi. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC), on Monday, assured the public that it would strike a fair balance between utility service providers and utility consumers in determining new utility tariffs. The Commission said it would ensure prudent cost in the tariffs determination, adding that it would announce the tariffs before the end of January, but its implementation would start from February 1, this year. Mr Ishmael Agyekumhene, the Chairman of the PURC Technical Committee, announced this at a public hearing in respect of the 2019 Major Tariff Review for Electricity and Water organised by the Commission in Accra. He said the Commission would consider a number of factors before agreeing to an upward tariff adjustment or otherwise. Mr Agyekumhene, who presided over the meeting, said the PURC would go into caucus meeting to consider the tariff adjustment proposals made by the utility service providers and chart the way forward. He asked Ghanaians to collaborate with the PURC and utility service providers to clamp down on illegal power connection and waste in the system noting that, the energy sector could have either positive or negative impact on the Ghanaian economy depending on how we manage it. Representatives from the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo), Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) and Enclave Power Company Limited (EPC) made various presentations to justify their proposed tariff adjustment in order to reflect their operational costs. The ECG proposed 23 Ghana pesewas upward tariff adjustment per kilowatt hour (23p/KWh), GRIDCo 4.897 Ghana pesewas per kilowatt hour (4.897p/KWh), NEDCo 43 Ghana pesewas per kilowatt hour (43p/KWh) and EPC proposed 26 Ghana pesewas per kilowatt hour (26p/KWh) for the 2019 Utility Tariff Review. However, the GWCL was silent on any upward utility tariff review. Mr Kofi Ntow Owiredu, the GRIDCo Manager in charge of Market Operations, in his presentation, outlined some investments the company had made in infrastructural development from 2016 to 2018 to boost its operations. He mentioned investments in power transmission lines to enhance transmission capacity, network, bulk supply points, primary sub-stations, interconnectivity stations, and plans to expand its facilities this year to boost productivity. Mr Ebenezer Baiden, an Energy Economist with the ECG, made a case for upward tariff adjustment for the electricity distributor, noting that, after February 1, the Company would cede its power distribution to the Power Distribution Services (PDS) Ghana Limited under the Concessionaire arrangement. In that regard, he said, the ECG would sell bulk power and lease its assets to the PDS while it received lease payment. The forum created a platform for stakeholders in the energy sector including; utility service providers and consumers to deliberate on the proposed utility tariffs for consideration. The public hearing, which is required by law, has already been held in Tamale and Kumasi respectively. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video IRAN: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Targets General Qassem Soleimani 01/15/19 Source: Radio Farda Iranian Quds Force Chief Commander Major General Qassem Soleimani has been on the receiving end of both comments by Israel and a critical letter by former Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. In a letter, Ahmadinejad accused Soleimani of acting as a go-between in favor of the brother of Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, recommending that the authorities release him. Ahmadinejad is referring to Mehdi Jahangiri, vice president of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the Tourism Finance Department, and one of the founders of Tourism Bank. Mehdi Jahangiri was charged with financial corruption and arrested in October 2017 in the city of Kerman. "The arrest was predictable," Eshaq Jahangiri wrote on Instagram. "I do not have precise information on the reason or manner of the arrest." Eshaq Jahangiri maintained in his October 6, 2017, post, "I hope my brother's arrest is not political abuse and that justice, the fight against corruption, and the rule of law apply the same to everyone." Mehdi Jahangiri defended his economic activity at the time as "clean" and "beneficial to the country," but the chief commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Sarallah forces, who was responsible for the arrest, called him a "source of corruption." During the last presidential election, in May 2017, a number of ultraconservative heavyweights accused Mehdi Jahangiri of lobbying. In his latest letter, Ahmadinejad revived the case, accusing Soleimani of interfering in the process of law in favor of the vice president's brother. "It is said that you have interfered in the case of the vice president's brother, and, by recommendations to related authorities, paved the way for his release," Ahmadinejad wrote. Without mentioning his sources, Ahmadinejad blamed Soleimani for applying favoritism in Jahangiri's case but setting the scene for the arrest of a former deputy president in executive matters, Hamid Baghaei. "By wrongly accusing Baghaei (Ahmadinejad's deputy) of receiving some money from you, our faithful, revolutionary, and servant brother suffered a great injustice," Ahmadinejad wrote. "Time and again," he continued, "we called you to step forward and testify about your allegations against Baghaei, but you never relented and left our numerous correspondence unanswered." Soleimani had implicated Baghaei, who is currently behind bars, in a case which led to accusation of pocketing millions of dollars intended to be distributed among African leaders during the 16th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement countries in 2012 in Tehran. Based on the Court of Appeals verdict published on March 17, 2018, Baghaei received 3,766,000 euros and $590,000 from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to be distributed among heads of African countries attending NAM summit. IRGC commanders said the money was paid to Baghaei in cash, a day after President Hassan Rouhani's inauguration ceremony. Ahmadinejad and former officials of his administration have repeatedly dismissed the claims as "imaginary" and "unfounded." "Even if the accusation against Baghaei were true, one might ask, 'Am I responsible or is Soleimani (for the vanished millions of euros and dollars)?" Ahmadinejad asked. In his latest letter, he said, "The media say that you have made sacrifices and are fighting against injustice in Syria and other places, yet one might ask why you have kept mum against such great injustice in your own country." Baghaei is currently serving his 15-year sentence. He has also been ordered to return more than $1 million to the treasury. Ahmadinejad's letter coincides with Israeli IDF Chief's comments about Suleimani, who heads the IRGC's extraterritorial operations. In a recent interview with The New York Times ahead of his retirement, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot said, Soleimani had mobilized 3,000 of his men in Syria, along with 8,000 Hezbollah fighters and another 11,000 foreign Shi'ite troops to fight n Syria. By January 2017, Eizenkot said, he received unanimous permission from the security cabinet to step up strikes in Syria to near daily occurrences. In 2018 alone, he said, Israel dropped 2,000 bombs on Iranian targets. Suleimani attempted to retaliate to the ramped-up Israeli campaign by launching 30 rockets at northern Israel last May, but Eizenkot said not a single one reached its target, the Times of Israel reported on January 13. Meanwhile, prominent hardline commentator Mehdi Mohammadi charged in a post on his social media accounts, that "attacks and accusations against Soleimani are part of a project, which is in line with the IDF Chief's remarks against the Iranian commander". Paxton, IL (60957) Today Clear skies. Low near 55F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Clear skies. Low near 55F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph. In 1970, American artist James Turrell began a decades long project to turn a crater in the Arizona desert into a center for experiencing and contemplating light. An ambitious masterwork for an artist whose body of work has become a testament to many visually entrancing and disorienting effect light have on a given space, the Roden Crater project is part immersive art installation and part celestial observatory located far from any possible manmade light pollution. Given the massive scale of the project and its remote location, the Roden Crater has been largely overlooked in Turrell's body of work until now. After having recently profiled the project, the Wall Street Journal reported today that Kanye West has donated $10 million to the Turrell Art Foundation to further fund the Roden Crater. West had described the site as "life changing" after visiting in December and explained his motivation for the donation as wanting it to be "experienced and enjoyed for eternity." And while we have come to expect weird spontaneous left-field moves from West as the norm, a multi-million dollar art grant still manages to raise a few eyebrows. Skeptical of West's seemingly altruistic patronage, many were quick to point out that the move may actually be part of the rapper's ongoing feud with Drake. Drake cited Turrell as an inspiration for the "Hotline Bling" music video, a statement which actually forced Turrell to make a clarifying statement that he wasn't involved in the creation of the video in any way. While it is unlikely that anyone would come outright and say that this is a way West is using to get back at Drake, the weird millionaire mind games of making a big donation to your enemy's favorite artist just so you can hold over their head that they Turrell said he was "thrilled" by the development sounds exactly like the kind of shit Kanye would pull. Photo via Getty Kemira Forms Joint Venture in South Korea Jan. 14, 2019 - Kemira has signed an agreement to establish a joint venture Kemira Yongsan Chemicals Co. Ltd ("NewCo") in Ulsan, Republic of Korea, with Yongsan Chemicals, a privately-owned chemicals company in South Korea. Forming a joint venture in South Korea is an important step in expanding Kemira's presence in Asia Pacific and driving profitable growth in the region. NewCo will produce dry polyacrylamide ("DPAM"), cationic monomer Q9 ("AMD") and other chemicals, which are used for retention and drainage in packaging and paper production, as well as in wastewater treatment and in sludge dewatering. With the NewCo's production site, Kemira will provide customers premium quality DPAMs supported by backward integrated high-quality AMDs. This ensures a sustainable and cost-effective manufacturing capability, effectively fulfilling customer needs and requirements. It is also an important addition to balance the increasing demand for Kemira's dry polymers globally. "The joint venture accelerates our strategy and strengthens our position as a leading global polymer producer. It supports Kemira's future growth, especially in Asia pacific region by providing additional polymer capacity, securing our capacity utilization and supporting our customers better with our global delivery capability," says Nichlas Kavander, SVP, Pulp & Paper, APAC. Kemira's will make a multi-million investment in the joint venture and will have 35% minority share of the established company. Kemira is a global chemicals company serving customers in water-intensive industries. To learn more about Kemira, please visit www.kemira.com . SOURCE: Kemira We're Bringing Hot Aliens Back, So the Hot Vampire Reboot is Imminent By Genevieve Burgess | TV | January 15, 2019 | Roswell, New Mexico on The CW at 9:00pm ET. Series premiere. This is a new take on the same book that spawned the series Roswell back in the very early aughts, but this time theyre folding in immigration issues as well. After returning to her hometown of Roswell, New Mexico, the daughter of undocumented immigrants discovers her teenage crush is an alien who has kept his unearthly abilities hidden his entire life. She protects his secret as the two reconnect, but when a violent attack points to a greater alien presence on Earth the politics of fear and hatred threaten to expose him. Its the CW so give it three episodes and there will be a secret society and a cult that somehow operate in parallel yet distinct ways. This Is Us on NBC at 9:00pm ET. Third season winter premiere. Drunk History on Comedy Central at 10:00pm ET. Sixth season premiere. Temptation Island on USA at 10:00pm ET. Fourth season premiere. Id say the most morally bankrupt reality series is back on the air! but we all know that ALL reality series are the most morally bankrupt reality series except that British one with the cakes and the one where Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman let nice people make things on TV. Submit your other exceptions below but Im sticking with those two. Corporate on Comedy Central at 10:30pm ET. Second season premiere. Not Using Shampoo Isn't Why Your Partner Is Gross | Trailer For Netflix's 'Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes' Genevieve Burgess is a Features Contributor for Pajiba. You can follow Genevieve Burgess on Twitter. Header Image Source: The CW Do you appreciate the work we do as the only independent media outlet dedicated to serving OU students, faculty, staff and alumni on campus and around the world for more than 100 years? Then consider helping fund our endeavors. Around the world, communities are grappling with what journalism is worth and how to fund the civic good that robust news organizations can generate. We believe The OU Daily and Crimson Quarterly magazine provide real value to this community both now by covering OU, and tomorrow by helping launch the careers of media professionals. If youre able, please SUPPORT US TODAY FOR AS LITTLE AS $1. You can make a one-time donation or a recurring pledge. In this Oct. 25, 2018 file photo, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., speaks during the New York Senate debate hosted by WABC-TV, in New York. Gillibrand is expected to take steps toward launching a presidential campaign in the coming days by forming an exploratory committee, according to several people familiar with her plans. Mayor Billy Barlow gave his fourth state of the city address Monday night in front of a standing-room only crowd in the city's council chambers. Barlow touted a number of accomplishments in recent years, calling the state of the city "strong" and praising city and community leaders for their efforts. Other names considered along the way were Leigh Read County, which would have been for a territorial legislator, and Harrison County, possibly after President William Henry Harrison, according to the history center. In January 1845, the state legislature went for the citrus-based moniker that we use today. It is one thing to weigh in on an election, on local and state matters, etc., but it is quite another to take such a lead of responsibility. I think most everyone wishes to move beyond the old days; in my humble opinion, your taking responsibility helps that process. As I am coming to know the Sentinel in my relatively short time here already, I want you to know that the Sentinel has taken a big jump in my book and I appreciate you all doing so very much! Well done Sentinel, very well done! I dont think that the pastor representative Kim Daniels has the intention of teaching about religion objectively. I think she has to put that in that bill so that it gets voted on favorably and it passes the Florida legislature, Williamson said. One hundred years after U.S. soldiers killed and maimed hundreds of Sioux men, women and children at the Wounded Knee massacre, Congress formally apologized in 1990 by expressing its "deep regret on behalf of the United States." On Sunday night, President Donald Trump used that same massacre as a punchline in his latest broadside against Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the Democratic presidential hopeful whom he regularly calls "Pocahontas" in jeering reference to her claims of American Indian heritage. Critics found that message jarring, even from a president who has repeatedly ignored calls from politicians on both sides of the aisle, historians and Native American groups to stop calling Warren "Pocahontas." "+300 of my people were massacred at Wounded Knee. Most were women and children," tweeted Ruth H. Hopkins, a Dakota/Lakota Sioux writer who has contributed at Teen Vogue, the Guardian and elsewhere. "This isn't funny, it's cold, callous, and just plain racist." Trump's tweet came amid another extraordinary late-night Twitter barrage as the president - battered by public blame for the ongoing government shutdown and new bombshells about his links to Russia - also lashed out at Post owner Jeff Bezos and quoted from a racially charged immigration column by Pat Buchanan. His attack on Warren, who officially jumped into the 2020 presidential race last month, drew perhaps the biggest reaction online thanks to its invocation of a particularly disgraceful chapter of American history. In late 1890, 470 U.S. soldiers intercepted a group of Chief Big Foot's Sioux, who had been heading south across the plains toward a refuge, according to an account by Mark Hirsch, a historian at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. The soldiers led the Sioux, who had 106 warriors and roughly 250 women and children, to a camp at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. When the U.S. commander, Col. James W. Forsyth, ordered Big Foot's people to surrender their weapons on Dec. 29, 1890, shooting suddenly erupted and the soldiers surrounding the camp began indiscriminately gunning down the Native Americans. "Women and children were riddled with shrapnel. People ran, but the soldiers pursued them. Bodies were later discovered three miles from camp," Hirsch wrote. "When the smoke cleared, 146 men, women, and children lay dead. Others perished from their wounds or froze to death in the hills." Trump has already faced backlash for his use of "Pocahontas" to describe Warren, particularly after he unleashed the taunt at a November 2017 event honoring Navajo code talkers. In October, Warren released the result of a DNA test showing that she did have Native American ancestors a number of generations ago - a result that only egged the president on and also drew criticisms from the Cherokee Nation and others. Trump and his administration have accused Warren of unfairly benefiting from her claims of Native American heritage while she was a professor at Harvard, an allegation fact-checkers have debunked. For many critics, Trump's use of the mass killing at Wounded Knee - along with his reference to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where hundreds of U.S. soldiers and American Indians died in Gen. George Armstrong Custer's infamous last stand in 1876 - took his Warren attacks to a new level. "When the extent of your criminality is so transparent that your only defense is deflection through racist offensive, it is seriously time for you to leave," tweeted Honor Sachs, an assistant professor of history at the University of Colorado at Boulder who has written for The Washington Post about the history of the Pocahontas story being used by white supremacists. The National Congress of American Indians on Monday issued a statement denouncing Trump's reference to Wounded Knee. "We condemn in the strongest possible terms the casual and callous use of these events as part of a political attack," the organization's president, Jefferson Keel, said in the statement. "Hundreds of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho people lost their lives at the hands of the invading U.S. Army during these events, and their memories should not be desecrated as a rhetorical punch line." That wasn't Trump's only late-night tweet on Sunday that drew notice for its racial overtones. Shortly after his Wounded Knee messages, Trump posted two tweets quoting from a Pat Buchanan column to support his push for a wall on the southern border. Buchanan's column explicitly accuses Democrats of wanting to encourage immigration because, he writes, the party is "hostile to white men because the smaller the share of the U.S. population that white men become, the sooner that Democrats inherit the national estate." "The only way to greater 'diversity,' the golden calf of the Democratic Party, is to increase the number of women, African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics, and thereby reduce the number of white men," Buchanan writes in the column. Trump's string of Sunday night tweets came at the end of a bruising weekend inside a snowed-in White House. After the New York Times broke news that the FBI had launched an inquiry into whether the president was covertly working on behalf of Moscow, The Post's Greg Miller reported that Trump had gone to "extraordinary lengths" to keep his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin secret, even from top administration officials. A Washington Post/ABC poll on Sunday found that 53 percent of Americans mainly blame Trump and the GOP for the ongoing government shutdown, with 29 percent blaming congressional Democrats. The Washington Post's Felicia Sonmez contributed to this story. But during storm blackouts or other interruptions, the solar panels and battery could be disconnected from Dukes larger electric grid. It would then temporarily be its own, relatively small grid that enables one of the states biggest handlers of sewage to continue operating. "The fact that he's alive, that he didn't break a bone, that he didn't get hit by a car, that he survived the surgery and that he is healing so well and being so sweet it is just amazing," says veterinarian Erin Denney-Jones of Florida Equine Veterinary Services, who comes to the ranch every other day to check his wounds. "He is so brave. You can see he wants to live." I couldnt put it together until my dad said I finally get to give you this, Ferone said. It was incredible. I had worked eight hours on my first day, and this is already the best thing that couldve happened. Ive never seen an animal behave like this so I kind of guessed it was ill when it went for me, Langselius said Tuesday. But the scariest part was that it didnt let go. It bit me in the Achilles tendon really badly so it hung on for a long time. Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of UTLA, said Tuesday that members are prepared to go as long as it takes to get a fair contract. He joined picketers at the Accelerated Schools in South Los Angeles, a small charter school network whose educators stopped working Tuesday in their own strike for improved working conditions. The action is the first strike by charter teachers in California and only the second in the nation, according to UTLA. He was killed at 20 when an improvised explosive device struck the vehicle he was in April 4, 2007, while serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was stationed in Fort Collins, Colo., before being deployed to Iraq in October 2006. Our focus has been on lack of due process, the terrible injustice that occurred because due process was denied. There was abuse of power by our Lake County officials at the time and miscarriage of justice at the time, she told new Gov. Ron DeSantis and the rest of the Cabinet members when she traveled last week to the capital to speak about the case before the group, serving as the Clemency Board. As the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office investigated, multiple witnesses refused to cooperate with law enforcement. About five people had been near Tashawn, drinking and smoking marijuana, at the time of the shooting. Miami Springs Police reportedly said Brookens stuffed the watches into her body cavity and fled the hotel. The Orlando businessman who owned the watches gave chase only to have Brookens clock him in the head as he tried to stop her from hailing a taxi, according to the report. "Orlando Sentinel Now" is a midday news show features the top news and quirky stories of the day. The show airs weekdays at noon on Facebook and OrlandoSentinel.com. You can join the conversation by commenting and taking polls. Rhone argued Floridas stand your ground law should protect him from being prosecuted because Grant and the other man in the car were trying to rob him, court records show. A judge denied Rhones ask, saying the law didnt apply because Rhone was involved in criminal activity during the shooting. Grace gives [uninsured individuals] an opportunity to come here and have all the wraparound services necessary as opposed to just come into our emergency rooms, said Andy Gardiner, senior vice president of external affairs and community relations at Orlando Health. The health system donated $900,000 to support the clinics pediatrics program, which makes up about a quarter of Graces practice. The three finalists will be honored at a celebration Feb. 16, where one will be named Lakes teacher of the year. The districts top teacher will win a new car and will then complete for Florida teacher-of-the-year honors. The state announces that winner at a gala celebration held during the summer. The other state programs ranked in the top 50 on the bachelors degree list were the University of Florida, (tied with two other schools for fifth place), the University of Central Florida (14th), Daytona State College (tied with three others for 33rd place) and the University of North Florida (37th, along with four others). There are characteristics of Central Florida you dont see anywhere else. Its quite beautiful, Baker told me in 2017. I found the location to be just exquisite, giving us so much eye candy, the colors that you get. In the song, Miranda raps: What we got is love, even when the sinners hate us. We cannot let em diminish or intimidate us. We sing out. We got the rhythm and truth on our side. We cut through the divide, and we do it with pride. When reached for comment, the Diocese of Orlando said in a statement: The ride at issue is maintained by a company not affiliated with the Diocese or All Souls Catholic Church. The Diocese of Orlando, therefore, was not responsible for the maintenance of the ride or injury to the child. The Diocese is of course, however, very concerned about this unfortunate accident and the injuries sustained by (the child). The safety of all people is very important to Bishop John Noonan and we are praying for everyone involved in this situation. They will bring with them an Oculus Rift headset equipped with a Nimitz VR simulation mission that will have students work through a scenario during which they must extract Navy SEALS from a mission. "We know CPM govt never respected spirituality, but no one thought it would turn so shameful," PM Modi hits out at Kerala Govt over Sabarimala issue Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a scathing attack against the ruling CPM and the Congress over handling the Sabarimala issue. He charged that the CPM and the LDF government are sinful in Sabarimala issue. "The CPM government's conduct on Sabarimala will go down in history as the most shameful action of any government in power... We know CPM government never respected the culture, history and spirituality of a nation but no one thought it would turn so shameful, Modi said. The Prime Minister was addressing a mammoth gathering of National Democratic Alliance at the Cantonment Ground in Kollam on Tuesday. He said that the Communists never respect and this was what was found in the Sabarimala issue. Criticising the Congress-CPM conglomerate, he said that they will speak one thing in Delhi but something else in Pathanamthitta, where the Sabarimala temple is situated. He also said that the Congress will speak one language on Monday and something else on Tuesday. Prime Minister said that the BJP is the only party which has taken a clear stand in the Sabarimala issue and the party is with the people of the state and its culture. The Prime Minister also reminded the CPM about the fate of the party in Tripura and said that the days are not far away for a repeat of the same in Kerala. Prime Minister also said that when the NDA government came to power the economy was in mess and in the past four years the growth was phenomenal. Narendra Modi said that the government will take this growth forward if elected back to power. He said that union government has taken care of the sisters and brothers of Kerala. He reminisced the union government acting in the issue of the Keralite nurses who were kidnapped by the ISIS in Iraq and saving them as well as the activities when Father Tom Uzhanalil was kidnapped in Yemen. 'Walking Encyclopedia of RSS' Devendra Swarup is no more Dr Pramod Kumar New Delhi: Noted historian, senior journalist, columnist, RSS ideologue and former editor of Hindi weekly Panchjanya Devendra Swarup passed away on January 14, 2019, at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), where he was undergoing treatment since December 30, 2018. He was 93. He was unwell for some time and he was admitted in the AIIMS following trouble in breathing, where he was put on the ventilator. He, as doctors said, breathed his last at 5.24 pm following multi-organ failure. Since Devendraji had pledged body donation after his demise, his body would be handed over to a Medical College for medical research on January 15, 2019. Prior to it, his body would be kept at his residence in Mayur Vihar, where his admirers and well-wishers would pay tribute from 10.00 am to 1.00 pm. Devendra Swarupji was believed to be a mobile Encyclopedia of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He was a Sangh Pracharak for about 13 years and he enjoyed close relations with four RSS Sarsanghachalaks from Shri Guruji to Shri KS Sudarshan. He was also very close to veteran Sangh Pracharak the late Bhaurao Deoras. His journey in journalism began in 1948 from a Hindi magazine Chetna published from Banaras as an associate of its editor Atal Behari Vajpayee. Late, he edited Panchjanya along with Vajpayeeji. He always stayed away from active politics. Apart from being a scholar and historian, he had also deeply studied the framing of the Indian Constitution. His personal collection had more than 15,000 books, which he had donated to the library of Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA). He wrote about 20 books on different topics. Born at Kanth town of Moradabad District on March 30, 1926, Devendraji had primary education from Kanth and Chandausi. He was terminated from the school twice following his participation in the Quit India Movement of 1942. He became a full-timer of the RSS in 1947 when he was doing BS.c from Banaras Hindu University. He was a Sangh Pracharak from 1947 to 1960. He was in jail for six months after the ban on RSS following the assassination of Gandhiji. He joined editing of Hindi weekly Panchjanya in 1958. He did post graduation in History from Lucknow University and joined the History Department of PGDAV College as a Professor in the University of Delhi in 1964. He retired from the job in 1991. He was also president of Delhi Pradesh Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Later, he edited Panchjanya as an honourary editor from 1968 to 1972. He was jailed during Emergency. He was a Director and Vice President of the Deendayal Research Institute (DRI) from 1980 to 1994. He also edited Manthan, the house journal of DRI. He was associated with the Indian Council of Historical Research as a historian. He declined all the offers of felicitation. Indeed, an inspiring life for those who are particularly in journalism and academics. You have permission to edit this image. Edit Close Faith Rodgers/Courtesy of LifetimeOne of R. Kelly's accusers, Faith Rodgers, is now claiming that the R&B crooner is attempting to retaliate after she filed a lawsuit claiming he knowingly infected her with a STD last year. In a press conference that was live-streamed on Monday, Rodgers and her attorney, Gloria Allred,revealed to reporters that after the suit was filed Kelly, sent Rodgers a threatening" letter. Rodgers claims that in the letter, Kelly said he would release "details of her sex life and threatened to make public private text messages and photos to support his claims. Allred said the alleged letter was later posted on the now-deleted Facebook page Surviving Lies, which was set up to contradicting Kelly's accusers. Rodgers' suit against Kelly stems from a complaint filed with the Dallas Police Department in April 2018. In the complaint, Rodgers alleged that the 12 Play artist had physically and sexually abused her during the course of their eight-month relationship. But according to TMZ, earlier this month, authorities declined to press charges against Kelly in her case. Rodgers was one of the many women featured in Lifetime's explosive Surviving R. Kelly documentary. Since it aired, Kelly's lawyer Steve Greenberg has denied all allegations of his client's sexual misconduct. And speaking to Rolling Stone, Greenberg also disputed the authenticity of the letter. I have just seen the letter,' Greenberg told the outlet. It obviously was not authored or signed by Mr. Kelly, nor sent on his behalf. He doesnt write letters." Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 716-372-3121 or email nfinnerty@oleantimesherald.com. Yes. I would be the first in line. No. I don't trust that a vaccine will be safe. I plan to, but I want to wait to see effects of first doses. Not sure. Vote View Results It has puzzled me why the heck Barr wants to be attorney general again, at his age, and for someone like Trump, who revels in disrespecting his Cabinet members, like former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Barr likely has all the money he needs, and so probably doesn't want or need to be attorney general again to jump-start his earning capacity in 2021 at the age of 71. Indeed, Barrs opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee refers to looking forward to spending time with his daughters and grandchildren. The Balkans suffered several crises before one got out of control and a world war ensued. Aside from George W. Bushs attempt to rearrange the Middle East no small matter the region has been lucky. But there are just too many players in Syria not a huge country, after all to rely on luck alone. The Turks are anxious to get at the Kurds. Iran in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon want at Israel. Assad wants to settle too many scores to count, and his ally is Russia, which just delivered a fresh supply of missiles. Trump ought to hearken to Pompeos wise words: When America retreats, chaos often follows. Yet, America is retreating. Just last week the Pentagon announced that it was beginning to withdraw equipment from Syria. Farrakhan presides at an annual Saviours Day rally of the Nation of Islam. Mallorys social media posting of a photo with Farrakhan in 2015 has vanished from her Instagram, but is available here. During his 2018 Saviours rally, Farrakhan gave Mallory a public shout-out and she shared video and a photo with her followers. Mallory has called this hater of whites, Jews and gays and denigrator of women the GOAT (that stands for greatest of all time). When a landlord tries to push out a tenant by making their home unlivable, a team of inspectors and law enforcement agents will be on the ground in time to stop it, the mayor vowed. Well fine the landlords. We'll penalize the landlords. But if the fines and the penalties don't cut it, we will seize their buildings. And we will put them in the hands of a community non-profit that will treat tenants with the respect they deserve. Also, a witness who gave his name only as Ken said he saw five bodies at the hotel entrance. He said that other people were shouting for help and when we rushed back to try to rescue them, gunshots started coming from upstairs, and we had to duck because they were targeting us and we could see two guys shooting. The detentions and the heightened attention to Schellenbergs case in the Chinese media began soon after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinas Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and the daughter of its founder, on Dec. 1 at the request of the U.S. government. The U.S. Department of Justice is accusing Meng of hiding her companys ties to Iranian businesses when dealing with U.S. banks, putting the banks at risk of breaking sanctions laws. At the time China promised there would be consequences. Even though Meng is free on bail while she fights extradition, China has detained at least 13 Canadians living or traveling there, the Canadian government has said. Some have been let go but others, like Kovrig, are still in custody, under vague charges. In my dialogues with Noha, my daughter, she keeps repeating that one of the greatest achievements accomplished by the President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi was overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood from power. I replied that 6 January 2019 will be included in the list of great achievements. Noha responded by saying that in order to ensure these positive results, education is the guarantor. The president took the burden of reclaiming the Egyptian identity from the first moment when Egyptians saw him at the helm and heard him repeat "long live Egypt," not once, but thrice. Egyptians embraced this cheer after having lost it in the flood of names our country was called during different political eras where the name Egypt was absent. Egyptians have embraced the cheer out of love for the homeland. For the sake of Egypt, the president has not relented in calling for reforming religious discourse in the country. El-Sisi has been clear on his keenness for justice that does not discriminate between Egyptians on the basis religion or any other reason. The president has kept his promise; not letting any occasion pass without asserting the importance of reforming religious discourse. The recent inauguration of the Al-Fattah Al-Aleem Mosque and the Nativity of the Christ Cathedral, which was marked with bitter cold in the Egyptian desert on Christmas day, had an absolutely significant symbolic value. Amid the euphoria of the great achievement, the president did not forget to remind everybody that we want to preserve the tree of love which we have planted together today, because strife does not end. We cannot let the president struggle alone, because the states institutions, civil society, and every Egyptian, whether male or female, must carry out their duty to invest in this historical moment, which reminds us of the 1919 Revolution, the centenary of which we now celebrate. Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II entered the Al-Fattah Al-Aleem Mosque on Christmas Eve to deliver a fantastic speech, the strength of which emanates from being brief, sincere and eloquent, even though it was improvised. The speech was logical and profound. Today we are recording a new page in the book of Egypts ancient civilisation. We see the Al-Fattah Al-Aleem Mosque's minarets embracing the Nativity of the Christ Cathedral's belfries, the pope said. We see in the symbolic inauguration that Egypt cares about its soft power. The mosque and the cathedral were built simultaneously and in record time with the money and donations of Egyptians. President El-Sisi was the first to donate to the project, and the efforts and creativity of Egyptians followed. As an Egyptian citizen I stand in the mosque and I am glad on this happy occasion, which is recorded in the history of Egypt. To complete the picture, from the Nativity of the Christ Cathedral, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb made a speech saying: This is an exceptional event, and is perhaps a first in the history of Christianity and Islam. The Al-Fattah Al-Aleem Mosque and the Nativity of the Christ Cathedral will address all the attempts to destabilise the homeland and incite sectarian strife. In Islam, the state is the protector of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues. This is a Sharia rule based on a verse in the Holy Quran that commands Muslims to fight to defend the places of worship of Jews, Christians and Muslims, El-Tayeb said. We bear the responsibility of building upon this historical moment and meeting the president's call in all sincerity and honesty, away from affectation and resonant phrases. We want to protect churches and mosques through love and respect, not through fences. I hope that every governmental authority, scientific, educational, civil and media institution devises a clear plan with specific objectives and allocates the necessary human and financial resources within a specific timetable. This plan should aim at objectively revising, according to scientific bases, the curriculum in all educational stages in order to remove any form of discrimination, superiority, bigotry or incitement of hatred. I hope that a real civil education system is put into place to preserve the security and unity of Egypt and which translates the right of citizenship into a living reality. I salute the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, who has begun revising Al-Azhar's curriculum. I hope that he will find sincere assistance in order to advance education at Al-Azhar to serve the needs of man and the homeland. We do not want Muslims to protect churches out of religious duty, but we want to protect them through education, respect and love, because these are the places of worshiping God that the Christian, Muslim and Jew depend upon. What we need is to regain the genuine Egyptian culture based on respecting and celebrating pluralism. We have to remember that education does not stop at the school gates, but should be extended to all state institutions and service providers for different segments of society. The local media, private and public, should bear their responsibility as true partners in implementing the national plan to eradicate all forms of discrimination. It is important to be committed to an objective scientific approach that focuses on essence and sets its sights on the homelands interests and stay away from resonant phrases and formalities. We have to meet the president's call to take a long-awaited serious step, and I believe that we need it now in order to maintain this progress and build upon it; setting up an independent commission to eradicate all forms of discrimination by implementing the constitutions Article 53. The article stipulates that all citizens are equal before the law; they are equal in their rights and freedoms without discrimination based on religion, ideology, race, or any other reason. We want to enact laws to implement the second paragraph in the same article, which stipulates that discrimination and inciting hatred is a crime punishable by law. Among the tasks assigned to this commission is drafting a national plan for the eradication of all forms of discrimination, coordinating the efforts between all national authorities to implement the plan, and raising the awareness of its significance in eradicating all discrimination that hinders the enjoyment of Egyptians, females and males, of their rights of citizenship. One of the most important roles assigned to the commission is to coordinate national efforts to recover the appreciation of the facets of religious and cultural pluralism which have enriched the Egyptian character and instilled in it strength and fortitude throughout the ages. The commission will also observe the progress achieved in the respective fields and overcome obstacles that hinder implementation. We want the presidents wishes to come true as they were pronounced by Pope Tawadros II when he said that may God sustain His love. We want to see the minarets and belfries embrace in all parts of Egypt, and that our celebration of Christmas this year will be the model for what is to come. And long live Egypt. Search Keywords: Short link: This is the most significant vote that any of us will ever be part of in our political careers, she told lawmakers as debate ended. The time has now come for all of is in this House to make a decision, ... a decision that each of us will have to justify and live with for many years to come. Barr, who has known Mueller for three decades, considers him a friend and would become his supervisor if confirmed as attorney general, continued it would be a breach of constitutional duty for Trump to meddle or intervene in an investigation he has a personal stake in including the special counsel inquiry. Gottfried shot back: The same thing that happens with white parents who are petrified of their child showering with a black person.Im sure there are parents petrified of the thought that their little boy will use a locker room that a gay boy is using. But you know what? People have gotten used to that. All over New York, this legislation has been the law for years and Ive never heard anyone expressing a problem about it, other than some of my colleagues. Censure, which has only been used 23 times in the history of the House, would more directly call out King for his racist remarks as opposed to the disapproval measure, which condemned racism at large. "What we've experienced from this last election cycle is that every single member of Congress on the House and the Senate side is accountable not to the President of the United States or to the leadership of their own party, but to the American people," Hill said. "Ultimately, to get to a two-thirds majority, that's where that pressure is going to have to come from -- it's from people who want their representative to do the right thing, to act in their best interest, not to act on the behest of Donald Trump." The Democratic nominee who was defeated by President Trump in the 2016 election reminded Twitter followers that she predicted Trump would be a puppet to Russian President Vladimir Putin if elected. This follows the Presidents Monday denial of a New York Times report that Trumps deferential treatment toward Putin caused the FBI to consider he might have been working for Russia. Sharpton is on the radio between 1 and 4 every day with black America, he has one of the biggest platforms for black America in the country he is unequivocally connected to a base that these folks want to tap into. Thats what I saw then, and I meant it, and today when I say my plan is to serve to the end of 2021, I mean it, that is my plan, de Blasio said. But I also see an extraordinarily dynamic environment where we're seeing challenges we never saw before, were seeing dangers we never saw before, its a time when it makes sense to rethink whats going on and how to address it. Nearly three dozen journalists across the globe were killed doing their jobs in 2018, nearly twice as many as in 2017, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Christie recounts in "Let Me Finish," available in bookstores on Jan. 29, how Kushner even bashed him when they were both in the same room as Trump. Kushner was trying to convince Trump not to appoint Christie as transition chairman. Two Roman tombs have been uncovered during excavation work at Beer El-Shaghala site in Mut village in Dakhla Oasis. The walls of the two uncompleted tombs are painted in bright colours with religious scenes. Mostafa Waziri, the secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, explains that the first tomb has a 20-step staircase covered with plaster, which leads to a native made of limestone. The main hall of the tomb is made of mud brick with a vaulted ceiling that is partly destroyed. Its northern wall has two burial chambers containing a collection of human skulls and skeletons as well as clay lamps and pots. Aymen Ashmawi, the head of the Ancient Egyptian Antiquities Department, said that the second tomb has a funerary corridor that leads to a vaulted chamber on its northern wall, which holds a niche engraved with a painted scene depicting the mummification process. Ashmawy added that 10 other tombs were recently uncovered in the area. They have a very distinguished architectural style, with pyramid shaped roofs and each tomb consisting of two or three levels. Short link: For decades, politicians promised to secure the border, fix our trade deals, bring back our factories, get tough on China, move the Embassy to Jerusalem, make NATO pay their fair share, and so much else - only to do NOTHING (or worse), he wrote. I am doing exactly what I pledged to do, and what I was elected to do by the citizens of our great Country. Just as I promised, I am fighting for YOU! The President referenced the Wounded Knee Massacre, one of the darkest and most tragic chapters in the history of the Sioux Nation, to mock Senator Warren, Rosebud Sioux Tribe Chairman Rodney Bordeaux said in the NCAI statement. On behalf of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, I condemn President Trumps racist and disrespectful tweet about this brutal incident, in which an estimated 300 unarmed men, women, and children were rounded up and slaughtered. President Trump should remember that the United States has broken and continues to dishonor the treaties of peace made with our nation and other tribal nations of this country, and he should apologize immediately to the people of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and other Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota nations for his shameful and ignorant misstatement. Joaquin Guzman told me Cristian was the one who had given up my brother for the Americans to arrest him, Cifuentes testified. (He said) that we should look for him to kill him. We wake up at noon. He would ask for the messages that had been received from the city. After lunch, el senor would request his phone calls, Cifuentes said of their average routine. Cifuentes also admitted he also told the feds Pena Nieto contacted Guzman to tell him that he did not need to stay in hiding and that he wanted to work with the drug lord. They work for the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, which probes chemical accidents, the Post said. Officials from Interior Business Center, which processes the government agencys checks, scrambled on Friday to trace the money via three banks to those 30 and another two employees elsewhere in the Interior Department. The family does not have plans to get a new service dog for Hannah, and will have to check her blood sugar more often since the dog is gone. "Some measures are visible to the public and others are not," Catharine Wells, an Asheville Mall spokeswoman told the Ashville Citizen Times. "In addition to maintaining a full-time professional security team, we partner with the Asheville Police Department and hire off-duty officers to patrol the interior and exterior of the property." The operator asks the caller whos been identified as Kristin Kasinskas for her address, and the woman responds with her location. The dispatcher asks the woman if she has seen a photo of Closs, who has been widely in the news since she went missing from her home. Gumpel, a Connecticut screenwriter, said the 6-foot-10 Drake plied him with liquor and showed him pornographic pictures on the night of the sexual assault in Maine. His relationship with family members fell apart after the incident, and he still chokes up talking about the attack when he was a 16-year-old more than four decades ago. In collaboration with a French archaeological mission, Egypts Ministry of Antiquities is developing the area around the Dendera Temple complex near Luxor into an open-air museum. Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Ahram Online that nine stone blocks have been created to serve as mounts for engraved blocks, stelae and statues uncovered in the area and left in situ since their initial discovery. The displays will also include artefacts from the areas store galleries. The newly fabricated blocks have been placed in the open courtyard at the entrance of the temple, where a collection of statues of ancient Egyptian deities has been installed. Among these statues are those of the goddess Hathor, the god Bes, and the falcon god Nekhbet Waawet. Dendera Temple, one of the best-preserved ancient Egyptian temples, is built mainly of sandstone, and it was uncovered in the mid-19th century by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette. In its present form, the temple of Dendera is largely Ptolemaic and Roman, its reconstruction having taken place under the Greek Ptolemies the last dynasty of ancient Egypt (305 30 BCE) and completed some 185 years later under the Roman Emperor Tiberius. In dedicating a temple to Hathor, the Ptolemies honoured one of Egypt's most popular deities. Under Greek and Roman rule, Egyptian temples continued to have mammisi (birth house). The surviving mammisi at Dendera was reconstructed by the Roman Emperor Augustus near the ruins of the one built by the Pharaoh Nectanebo, and is adorned with reliefs added by the Roman Emperor Trajan, relating to the birth of the god Horus. It was converted into a church in the fifth century, and a Christian basilica was built in the area between it and the original birth house of Nectanebo. Short link: I said from Day One were going all the way through, and I need to see this all the way through, said Hadiyas father, Nathaniel Pendleton Sr. People like this need to be off the street, so Im happy right now. But its not over. Cops in St. Petersburg determined the victim's location in May while investigating the disappearance of a Louisiana teen. Suspects Mark Dennis, Andrew Dennis and Curtis Gruwell were found at the scene with the victim, according to Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. Mark Dennis claimed to be the childs biological father, but did not provide proof. Though kept apart by an order of protection, Barba and boyfriend Franklin Larrea, 42, are still in love and they want to be together, claimed Richman. Larrea was in the courthouse but could not sit inside the courtroom because he could be called as a witness. The 57-year-old dad allegedly stabbed his wife repeatedly in the chest and body inside their apartment on 69th Ave. near 195th Lane in Fresh Meadows about 3:50 p.m. He also lunged at his daughter, slicing her in the hands and arms, police said. (Gardiner Anderson for New York Daily News) A small mob of pedestrians were caught on video which was posted on a Facebook page for Brooklyns Kensington neighborhood -- encouraging Friedlander to drive off, even though the tow bars were deployed and a tow rope had already been attached to the vehicle. The DA has reviewed all of her prior sworn and unsworn statements and weighed them against the other evidence, Martins lawyer Mark Bederow said. They made the determination that she needs criminal counsel, which is virtually unprecedented in a case like this. These developments speak for themselves. I read about this (case) this morning, and when I walked into court, I was hoping I had nothing to do with this, one man said, drawing chuckles from his peers in Manhattan Supreme Court. Da Silva is on trial for the Aug. 24 robbery of a Citibank in Astoria in which he allegedly said he had a gun and threatened to shoot a teller if they didnt turn over cash. He fled with about $50,000 in cash. The jury started deliberations Tuesday. Peralta had served as the state senator for New York's 13th District since 2010, representing a section of Queens that included Jackson Heights and Corona. Earlier, he had served in the state Assembly for eight years. Marianne Benjamin-Williams in seen at her sentencing in State Supreme Court on Monday in New York. Benjamin-Williams, the former nanny accused of stuffing a baby wipe down the throat of a child in her care, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. (Alec Tabak for New York Daily News) Saudi Arabias stock market rose in early trading on Tuesday, as rebounding oil prices lifted its banks, while real estate and banks pulled down the Dubai index for the third straight session. Saudi Arabias index gained 0.7 percent with Al Rajhi Bank adding 1.6 percent and its biggest lender National Commercial Bank increasing 1.6 percent. Riyad Bank has chosen Goldman Sachs to advise on its merger talks with National Commercial Bank, Reuters reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter. Riyad Bank inched up 0.1 percent. But Saudi International Petrochemical(Sipchem) decreased 1.4 percent; it announced a scheduled maintenance turnaround for its International Diol Plant and the financial impact will be reflected in its first-quarter results. In Dubai, the index lost 0.7 percent. The index was weighed down by a 1.5 percent decline in the emirates largest lender Emiraes NBD and a 3.5 percent decrease in Damac Properties. Qatars index inched up 0.1 percent with Qatar Fuel gaining 1.4 percent and Qatar Navigation adding 1.3 percent. The Abu Dhabi index was inched down 0.2 percent with First Abu Dhabi Bank shedding 0.4 percent. But Abu Dhabi National Energy fell 1.1 percent, after jumping 9.9 percent earlier in the session. The firm said its total investments had reached $30 billion held across 11 countries by the end of 2018. Short link: He was busted after a package addressed to R De Sain arrived at the Apple Store in Grand Central via FedEx on July 7. An Apple employee opened the package and contacted cops. Two days later, Desain showed up to retrieve the package and was arrested. He had an additional two ounces of meth on him, according to authorities. Keeping it the price of a subway fare is working for a lot of people obviously, Mayor de Blasio said in Coney Island Monday. A lot of people are getting on the ferry and getting off where they need to be. The turncoat said an anxious Chapo was growing tired of a life spent in hiding and ordered Cifuentes assistant, Andrea Velez Fernandez who ran a modeling agency in Mexico City to bribe an unidentified government official in the hopes authorities would ease up on the intensifying manhunt. Despite knowing he would soon be hauled off to prison, Sorrentino made the most of his life post-sentencing, tying the knot with girlfriend Lauren Pesce in November and recently celebrating three years of sobriety. The trailer includes discussions about efforts to rally the medias attention and to pull people to one side of the case or another, including both medical and religious arguments over whether abortion should be legal. The song was a No. 1 hit for Toto upon its release in 1982, and has since had a resurgence in popularity thanks in part to a cover last year by Weezer spurred on by a social media campaign, and a sample on a song by Pitbull for the Aquaman soundtrack. Prime Minister Theresa May faced the prospect of a historic defeat in a vote on her Brexit deal in parliament on Tuesday plunging plans for Britain's biggest political and economic change for decades into deeper uncertainty. Barely two-and-a-half months before Britain is due to leave the European Union, May's expected defeat would open a range of outcomes, from resurrecting her deal, to leaving the EU with no deal or holding another referendum that could halt Brexit. The prime minister's hopes of keeping her widely unpopular plan alive, and staying in her job, will hinge on the scale of her expected loss: defeat by a huge margin would make it harder to take the plan back to parliament for another vote. Even before the deal comes up for a vote, the opposition Labour Party will try to derail it by forcing a through a change which would reject the divorce agreement and seek to rule out the possibility of leaving without a deal. Just hours before the vote, May was meeting Conservative lawmakers to try to persuade them to support her agreement. As Britain's deepest political crisis for at least half a century built to a head, a spokesman for May said the prime minister was standing by her deal. "The prime minister said the government is the servant of the people and she believes passionately that we must deliver on the result of the 2016 referendum," the spokesman said about a meeting with her cabinet team of top ministers. "She added that after the vote has taken place, she would respond quickly to the result." May says accepting her deal is the only way parliament can fulfil its promise to deliver on the 2016 vote to quit the EU, and failing to do so would be "catastrophic" for democracy. Her ministers pressed that message. "The British people have placed a responsibility on us," Environment Secretary Michael Gove told BBC radio. "Are we going to live up to that responsibility and vote to leave the European Union or are we going to disappoint them and damage our democracy by not voting to leave the EU?" Many Brexit-supporting lawmakers from May's Conservative Party reject the deal, particularly a "backstop" requirement that Northern Ireland stay closely aligned to EU rules to avoid the return of a hard border with EU member Ireland. Dominic Raab, who resigned as May's Brexit minister in November in protest at her plans, said the government should not lose its nerve over the possibility of a no-deal Brexit, something many employers fear would mean chaos for business. But many lawmakers said they would do their utmost to block an exit without a deal. Sterling hit a two-month high against the U.S. dollar on Monday and held near that level on Tuesday, with investors viewing a no-deal Brexit as less likely as parliament's opposition to it solidifies. TRY AGAIN? May reached the agreement with EU leaders in November, envisioning continued close ties with the bloc. The EU has repeatedly said it is not up for meaningful renegotiation. Many in May's Conservative Party say the prime minister will nevertheless probably try to win new concessions from the EU and seek another vote if she loses, even by a hefty margin. Germany's foreign minister said the EU could hold new talks with Britain after a defeat in parliament of the plan. But he ruled out significant changes. May has warned pro-Brexit lawmakers that if her plan is rejected no Brexit at all would be more likely than Britain leaving the EU without a deal. She has also warned Conservatives against allowing the left-wing opposition Labour Party to seize the initiative. Labour opposes May's deal but is formally committed to Brexit despite many party members calling for a new referendum. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, hoping to force a national election, is expected to call for a parliamentary vote of no confidence in May's government if she loses Tuesday's vote. "The Tory (Conservative) Partys botched deal will be rejected by parliament," Corbyn told Labour lawmakers on Monday. "We will then need an election to have the chance to vote for a government that can bring our people together and address the deep-seated issues facing our country." Short link: COLUMN: In Praise of Miss Wolfe - Why we need to acknowledge great teachers Omoyele Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), says if he is elected president he will strip all cor... Omoyele Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), says if he is elected president he will strip all corrupt past presidents of their national awards. Speaking at the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) BIG Debate, the publisher of Sahara Reporters, said his party will fight corruption by making the system transparent. He said all national officers who have been given national honours in the past, and have then been found to be involved in corruption, will be stripped of their national honours. There is what they call blockchain technology, there is encryption. It is very very important that, in dealing with corruption in Nigeria, we start using technology to aid prevention.There is what they call blockchain technology, there is encryption. Our biggest problem is the opaque nature of how we do our transaction in the public sphere, and the lack of transparency in the way we conduct our businesses. The moment you remove that, all the thieves will be hung out dry, because before they get anything done, we have seen it, we have tracked it, and we ensure that we nip them in the bud. If we are doing contracting, it must be transparent to all. There is no reason why an average Nigerian cannot tell how much we are making in the so-called TSA. How much is there? We are entitled to it, how is money moving? The second thing we need to do is that a lot of our assets is also publicly available. The land registry of Abuja, you cannot find it, because the whole of Abuja is owned by a few people. The asset declaration forms of public officers is something that an ordinary Nigeria can download. Without having to go through the eye of the needle. He said corruption should not be left to the police to fight alone, it should be a collective battle, suggesting that incentives should be remooved. Let us also talk about enforcement. Sometimes, when money is moving around, there is paperwork and paper trail, we have an NFIU, they know when thieves are stealing money, but if you dont put the right people there, you are wasting your time, because they would never whistleblow on these guys who are stealing. I and our party will remove everybody who has a national award, who were shown in this movie shown by CDD today, we would remove all their national awards, all the GCFRs, the GCONs, the MONs, who are involved in corruption. Sowore said he would do this so young people will know that corruption does not pay. Ibrahim Idris, outgoing inspector-general of police (IGP), like many public officers, is not bereft of controversies during the disc... Ibrahim Idris, outgoing inspector-general of police (IGP), like many public officers, is not bereft of controversies during the discharge of his duties. The ex-IGP, who clocked 60 on Tuesday, has made news headlines for many reasons good, bad and ugly. His name is, currently, on many lips and news pages regarding his years of active service. Mohammed, a former Enugu state commissioner of police, was appointed acting inspector-general of police, signalling an end to Idris reign. We take a look at seven of the controversial happenstances since he assumed office, until the time he bowed out of service. TRANSMISSION TRANSMISSION Idris transmitted waves through headlines when a video of him stuttering surfaced online. The police chief struggled to read an address as he kept repeating transmission. The IGPs performance got people questioning if he is dyslexic. While it was obvious that the video was doctored, it was also evident that Idris had a hard time reading the speech as at some point, one of his aides walked up to him to offer help. He also apologised to his audience. This soon became a nickname transmission, transmission. PARADE GONE WRONG The dust was yet to settle on Idris transmission saga when another uncomplimentary video of him popped up. In the undated video, Idris made a premature salute when he joined his fellow service chiefs to lay wreaths during the 2018 Armed Forces Remembrance Day in Abuja. NERO CUTS CAKE WHILE BENUE BURNS Owing to the heightened tension and insecurity in Benue, President Muhammadu Buhari, in January 2018, ordered Idris to relocate to the state to check the reported cases of attacks. However, Idris only spent a day in the state and returned to Abuja. Days after his return, pictures of him cutting his 59th birthday cake appeared online, while the state recorded more killings after his departure. He reminded Nigerians of the Nero, the Roman Emperor, who fiddled while Rome burned. In Nigeria, Nero cuts cake, while Benue burned. When he failed to appear before the senate, Senate President Bukola Saraki, said Idris is known to flout orders. The senate had summoned the IGP on two different occasions to brief them on the travails of Dino Melaye, senator representing Kogi west, and on the security situation in the country but he sent a representative. Again, we cannot say it is just to us because the president told us that he told him to go to Benue and the man refused to go, Saraki had said. President Buhari would later confirm that he found out late that Idris disobeyed presidential orders. IDRIS FALLS IN LOVE, MARRIES POLICE OFFICER In October 2017, Isah Misau, senator representing Bauchi central, accused the IGP of having an affair with two policewomen whom he reportedly gave special promotion. The senator said Idris married one Asta, a deputy superintendent of police (DSP), an act which he says contravenes the Police Act. Misau alleged that the police chief had a secret wedding with Asta because she was four months pregnant for him. But the IGP said no law prevents him from marrying a serving policewoman, and that he is also religiously allowed to marry up to four wives. The family of the wife also said that the wedding was done publicly and a marriage certificate was issued. TheCable fact-checked the allegations and found that Misaus claim that the marital affair is contrary to the provisions of the Nigeria Police Act is false. BATTLE WITH PEACE CORPS Idris never wanted the Peace Corps of Nigeria (PCN) and he made no attempt to disguise his position about the organisation. The PCN was involved in various controversies since the bill came to limelight at the national assembly. Idris described it as a threat to Nigerias security, saying the corps ran against laws in the process of its establishment. In June 2018, the police sealed off the PCNs headquarters in Abuja and despite two court orders and a resolution passed by the house of representatives, the police refused to unseal the office. A month later, the police and members of the corps clashed in Abuja during the 20th anniversary of the PCN. A similar occurrence also happened in 2017 After the many setbacks witnesses by the corps, Buhari, in February 2018, rejected the bill proposing the establishment of the agency. The president cited security concerns and financial burden of funding the organisation as his reasons for rejecting the bill. Idris might have had an influence on the presidents decision. NIGERIA IS SECURE Twice, despite the security challenges in the country, Idris said the country was secure. First was in September 2017, when clashes between clashes between security operatives and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) erupted in Abia and Rivers states. Idris had said there was no tension in the country after a meeting with Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo. Which country, this Nigeria? No. Nigeria does not have tension. At least you are in Abuja you have gone around there is no tension, he had said. In January 2018, despite the continued attack and unrest in several parts of the country, Idris, again, said the country was secure. I think Nigeria is well secure. I have to be frank. I think what we should be praying for is for Nigerians to learn to live in peace with each other, I think is very important, he said. TENURE EXTENSION The most recent controversy that trailed Idris is the proposed extension of his tenure. The IGP was appointed by Buhari in March 2016 and was expected to retire on January 3 when he reached the mandatory 35 years. However, Idris arrived at his office on January 3, fuelling speculations that there are plans to extend his tenure. Commenting on the extension of tenure of the service chiefs, Buhari said he had not changed them because he was being careful. He also said he was not afraid of Idris, saying he would take appropriate action. Nigerians will definitely miss Ibrahim Idris and his controversies. Salute! Walter Onnoghen, chief justice of Nigeria (CJN), and President Muhammadu Buhari met during the 2019 armed forces remembrance day in Abuj... Walter Onnoghen, chief justice of Nigeria (CJN), and President Muhammadu Buhari met during the 2019 armed forces remembrance day in Abuja on Tuesday. That was the first time that both men would be seen publicly since the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) filed six counts of non-declaration of assets against the CJN. The charges were filed after Dennis Aghanya, a former aide of Buhari, wrote a petition against Onnoghen. Among the dignitaries present at the event were: Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo; Senate President Bukola Saraki; Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the house of representatives; and Mansur Dan-Ali minister of defence. Below are photos: British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit divorce deal may not be, as one opposition lawmaker called it, "as dead as the deadest dodo,'' but it is definitely ailing. It looks very likely that Britain's Parliament will reject the agreement in a vote scheduled for Tuesday. If that happens, May has until the start of next week to come back to Parliament with a Plan B _ and Britain has just 10 weeks until it is due to leave the bloc, with or without a deal, on March 29. Here's a look at what might happen if lawmakers vote down the deal. SECOND TIME LUCKY If the deal is rejected by a narrow margin, the government could try again, re-submitting the agreement to Parliament after tweaking it or winning some soothing words from the EU to assuage lawmakers' concerns. But while EU leaders have offered "clarifications'' to the deal, they insist the 585-page withdrawal agreement cannot be reopened. Any further assurances they give are likely to fall far short of demands by pro-Brexit lawmakers, who want to alter or drop the "backstop,'' a guarantee for the Irish border that would bind the U.K. in a customs union with the EU after Brexit. The EU says that there can be no deal without the backstop to guarantee an open border along the U.K.'s only land frontier with an EU member state. The EU would likely be more receptive to a softer Brexit deal that saw Britain remain part of the bloc's single market for goods and services. But May says she will never agree to such a plan and it's unclear whether a majority of lawmakers would support it. DELAY BRITAIN'S EXIT With Parliament split, there is increasing speculation that Britain might seek an extension to the two-year exit process that is due to expire on March 29. Even if a withdrawal deal is approved soon, there may not be enough time for Parliament to pass all the legislation that needs to be in place by Brexit day. Some ministers are urging May to delay Brexit and then consult lawmakers in a series of "indicative votes'' to see if a majority can be found for a new plan. And various factions of lawmakers are exploring ways to use parliamentary rules to wrest control of the Brexit process from the government. A delay would likely also be needed in the event of two other possible scenarios: a general election, or a second referendum. Any delay to the date of Brexit would require unanimous approval from leaders of the EU's remaining 27 member states. HOLD AN ELECTION If the deal is defeated by a big margin, Prime Minister Theresa May will face pressure to resign. But she has vowed to carry on, and there is no way her Conservative Party can evict her as leader _ after a failed no-confidence vote in May's leadership by Conservative lawmakers in December, she is safe from another challenge for a year. The main opposition Labour Party says it will try to trigger an election by calling a no-confidence vote in the whole government. But the vote will fail unless some members of the governing Conservatives or the government's allies from the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland rebel and side with the opposition. If the government lost a no-confidence vote, it would have 14 days to overturn the result by winning lawmakers' confidence in a new vote _ possibly with a new prime minster, if May was persuaded to quit. Barring that, there would be an election, a process that takes five to six weeks. SECOND REFERENDUM The campaign to revisit Brexit in a second referendum _ driven largely by supporters of the losing "remain'' side in the 2016 referendum _ has been gathering steam as the pitfalls and complexity of the divorce process become clear. The government is firmly opposed, but has warned that it is increasingly likely that the decision to leave the EU could be reversed if May's deal is rejected. It's unclear whether a majority of legislators would support a new referendum, or what the question would be. Many pro-EU politicians want a choice between leaving on the proposed terms and staying in the EU, but others say leaving without a deal should also be an option. There's a strong chance any new referendum would be as divisive as the first. NO DEAL "No deal'' is the outcome few want _ but it is also the default option. If the divorce deal is not approved, altered or put on hold, Britain will cease to be an EU member at 11 p.m. London time on March 29. The Bank of England has warned that tumbling out of the bloc with no deal to soften the exit could plunge Britain into its deepest recession in nearly a century, and businesses warn the sudden end to longstanding trading agreements with the EU could see gridlock at British ports and shortages of food and medicines. Short link: The Action Alliance (AA), a party formed by Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State 14 years ago, has adopted Atiku Abubakar of the Peop... The Action Alliance (AA), a party formed by Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State 14 years ago, has adopted Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party as its presidential candidate in the February 16 election. The national chairman of the party, Kenneth Udeze, disclosed this at a press conference in Abuja on Monday. We are for Atiku/Obi leadership and we are glad to work with all believers of true federalism and efficient administration of governance at all levels to accomplish this as we approach the forthcoming elections, Mr Udeze said. The National Executives Committee (NEC) of our party are on the same page concerning our support for Atiku, same with all our state chapters in this matter. We hereby restate out position through this medium that AA as a certified and active member of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) have not for a moment reconsidered or wished to alter that position. For your information, AA moved the motion for the adoption of Atiku as the Presidential Candidate of CUPP, and we are on it to the end, he said. The national chairman said the support for Mr Abubakar and his running mate, Peter Obi, was a support for the growth of the countrys democracy and the required restructuring of the country. Mr Okorocha formed the AA in 2005 and planned to run for president on its platform in the 2007 elections. He was a founding member of the PDP on whose platform he ran for the governorship primary in Imo State in 1999 but lost to Achike Udenwa who flew the flag of the party. He later dumped the PDP for the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) where he was a presidential aspirant in 2003. After a few years in ANPP, Mr Okorocha floated the AA where he hoped to actualise his presidential ambition, but in a dramatic move abandoned the new party to return to the PDP. While in PDP, he showed interest in the 2007 presidential race and ran for the primary. He emerged runner up to the winner, former President Umaru YarAdua. In September 2007, Mr Okorocha unsuccessfully aspired to become the national chairman of the then ruling party. He later defected to the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) on whose platform he ran for governor in Imo State in 2011 and won, beating the incumbent, Ikedi Ohakim of the PDP. Ahead of the 2015 election, the governor again dumped APGA for the newly-formed All Progressives Congress (APC) following the successful merger of three other opposition parties and a section of APGA which he led. In APC, he also attempted to become its presidential candidate but was beaten alongside others by President Muhamadu Buhari at the partys primary in Lagos in 2014. Mr Okorocha came a distant fourth having mustered only 624 votes. While Mr Okorocha sojourned in PDP and APGA he managed to keep AA afloat and the party became handy. When APC refused to name his son in-law, Uche Nwosu, its governorship candidate for the March 2 election, Mr Nwosu moved to AA where, without contest, he was accepted and adopted as its flag bearer in the March 2 election. The APC snub has pitted the governor against the national leadership of the ruling party with both sides often exchanging verbal punches in the past months. Mr Okorocha, who is the candidate of the APC for the Imo West senatorial District, is believed to have facilitated Mr Nwosus defection to AA. While the spat with the leadership of APC lasted, the governor repeatedly said Mr Nwosu would run on the platform of another party if he was not offered the APC ticket. On Saturday, Mr Okorocha, at the APCs South East women and youth rally in Owerri, the state capital, clashed with the First Lady, Aisha Buhari, as both canvassed votes for different governorship candidates. While the governor rooted for his son-in-law, Mrs Buhari, represented by Dolapo Osinbajo, wife of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, canvassed support for the APC candidate, Hope Uzodinma, and other candidates of the party in the general elections. A vote for Buhari is a vote for progress. APC has done well and we must all support all APC candidates, the first lady said. I am happy with the crowd we saw today. It shows that Imo is APC and I want to urge all youth not to fight, avoid any form of crisis because President Buhari is a peaceful man. From what we have seen today President Buhari has won the South East the same way all our APC candidates have won. But when he rose to speak at the rally, which had Mr Uzodinma in attendance, Mr Okorocha vowed that nothing would stop Mr Nwosu from succeeding him as governor, come May 29. He said, Let me say this Madam First Lady, this time around we are not here to ask you to campaign for Buhari. What my wife has done is to tell you that Buhari is on ground. Imo victory for Buhari is designed, sealed. In Imo State, we have 47 political parties and one of the perfect alliances is Action Alliance led by Uche Nwosu. Nwosu is APC in spirit. APC owes Imo an apology because of the injustice meted to Imo people. In Imo State, Nwosu will win Imo State. It is not anti-party. We refused imposition in Imo State, he said. At Mondays press conference, Mr Udeze said Mr Nwosu still remained the governorship candidate of AA in lmo State, adding that he (Nwosu) was the one running for the election under the party, not Mr Okorocha. We shall do our best to deliver him, as he still remains the candidate to beat among all the gubernatorial candidates, he said. On this note, let me warn all our members in Nigeria, and the lmo State Chapter, in particular that we dont need any infraction in our party (and) in fact there is no room for that. It is our unshakable/unfailing resolve to work for the emergence of Atiku/Obi, in the presidential election, and that we must not only be seen to be doing, but to truly do. I will not hesitate to invoke from relevant sections of our Party Constitution to deal with erring members no matter how highly placed, as AA constitution which I swore to protect remains supremely sacrosanct. Please be warned, he said. It is not however clear if it was Mr Okorocha and his supporters, who are backing Mr Buhari for the February election Mr Udeze referred to as erring members. Mr Udeze could not be reached for comments as he did not respond to repeated calls from this reported on Tuesday morning. When contacted, Sam Onwuemedo, media aide to Mr Okorocha, said his principal was now a member of the APC and would not comment on the adoption of Mr Abubakar. When reminded that Mr Okorocha floated the AA in 2005, Mr Onwuemedo said the only link currently between the governor and AA was that his son-in-law was running for governor on the partys platform. The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, Prof Jerry Gana, on Monday raised the alarm that the nations democracy was u... The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, Prof Jerry Gana, on Monday raised the alarm that the nations democracy was under threat. Gana, a former Minister of Information, spoke at a press conference in Abuja. He said, Nigeria is facing serious challenges that are threatening her emerging democracy and good governance within the rule of law. The nation is currently facing external threats, internal insecurity and serious economic challenges. The insecurity and economic situation have worsened while the fight against corruption, which the Federal Government toasts its success is being prosecuted in a manner that tends towards the disruption of the constitutional order. That is what we are worried about. Beyond politics, all lovers of democracy in Nigeria and well-meaning people all over the world must close ranks at this time to confront this emerging trend towards the institutionalisation of cultic principles and gangsterism in the political and governance processes. He cited the prosecution of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, as the latest among other infractions which he said included the invasion of judges homes, trial of the President of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and prosecution of the President, Nigerian Bar Association. Gana added, All of the above happening at this critical time, weeks to the all important 2019 general elections tend to mark a clear indication of an agenda by the Federal Government to muzzle both the bench and the bar, under circumstances that suggest anything but due process. This worries us so much because democracy and the rule of law work together. The rule of law and social justice remain the bastion of democracy anywhere in the world. When the rule of law and social justice are violated, democracy lacks credibility and legitimacy. Sadly, such forces, if not promptly arrested and seriously contained, can easily lead to the truncation of our hard-earned democracy. Edgal Imohimi, Lagos state commissioner of police, says there would be no change of guard at the state command for now. He said... Edgal Imohimi, Lagos state commissioner of police, says there would be no change of guard at the state command for now. He said this at the command headquarters in Ikeja on Tuesday. Kayode Egbetokun, former chief security officer to Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), had been named the new commissioner of police in the state while Imohimi was redeployed to the force headquarters in Abuja. Egbetokun was Tinubus chief security officer for a few years before he became the commandant of Police Training School, Ikeja, Lagos. I am sure that you know Mr. Kayode Egbetokun; he is an old timer in the command, Imohinmi said. You all know that our first job is about order and direction; we were about concluding the handing and taking over procedure when we were instructed by our bosses from Abuja to suspend action for now. So, there will be no change of guard for now. Of course, we would keep the press briefed about any development. But I am happy, humbled that you find it serious enough for you all to come to witness what we are doing here. I consider it an honour. His statement sparked jubilation among the rank and file at the venue. Sources had revealed that Imohimi, who is said to be an ally of Akinwunmi Ambode, the incumbent governor of the state, was fired from Lagos because he did not provide adequate security at the APC rally in Ikeja last week. Violence broke out at the rally and Musiliu Akinsanya, treasurer of the National Union Road Transport Workers (NURTW), popularly known as MC Oluomo, was stabbed, while some journalists were also shot. Imohimi was deployed to Lagos on August 31, 2017, after serving as the deputy commissioner of police in charge of operations in the state. The agency was reacting to rumours on social media on Tuesday that Onnoghen was arrested. THE FULL STATEMENT The attention of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC has been drawn to the falsehood which has been spreading on the social media that the EFCC has arrested the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen. This is not only a figment of the imagination of the purveyor of the fake news, but an evil machination by the creator and carriers of the news aimed at creating anarchy in the country. For the record, the EFCC never went to the house of the CJN for arrest neither was invitation extended to him. Several calls and short messages received all point to the fact that the brains behind the fake news had one thing in mind: to act as agent of destabilization. We would not give in to their plots. One of the architect of the fake news, Femi Fani-Kayode, was quoted as saying Why have the EFCC surrounded the home of CJN Onnoghen and why are they seeking to arrest him? These people want Nigeria to burn! Buhari call off your dogs before it is too late! This is a democracy and not a gestapo state! In the name of God let this madness stop. Another arrowhead of the fake news, Yinka Odumakin shared a non-existent video which has gone viral. We want to assure Nigerians that while we would fight corruption in line with the mandate setting up the Commission, agents of darkness, in the likes of Femi Fani-Kayode, Yinka Odumakin and his cohorts, would never be able to manipulate the people against the Commission. Opposition political parties on the platform of the Coalition of United Political Parties on Tuesday set an agenda for the acting Inspec... Opposition political parties on the platform of the Coalition of United Political Parties on Tuesday set an agenda for the acting Inspector-General of Police, Muhammad Adamu. The political parties demanded the immediate release of political detainees such as Senator Dino Melaye and rights activist, Deji Adeyanju. They as well called for the reversal of the recent appointment of Kayode Egbetokun, a former security aide to a national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, as the acting Commissioner of Police in charge of Lagos State Command. The coalitions spokesman, Imo Ugochinyere, disclosed this at a press conference in Abuja. Ugochinyere, who is also the National Chairman of Action Peoples Party, was joined at the press conference by the chairmen of Action Alliance, Restoration Party of Nigeria, Coalition for Change and Green Party. He said following the appointment, the coalition had called off the nationwide protest it had earlier planned to force President Muhammadu Buhari not to extend the tenure of the former IGP, Ibrahim Idris, who attained the retirement age of 60 on Tuesday. He said opposition political parties would also cease fire for seven days to allow the acting IGP settle down and meet their demands. Ugochinyere said the acting IGP must immediately convene a meeting with leaders of all political parties in preparation for the general elections and make commitment that Police would not clamp down on opposition leaders ahead of the elections. He urged the new Police boss to discontinue what he described as indiscriminate posting and redeployment of Police officers across the country and bring to book those who unleashed violence on the family home of the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, in Ilorin, Kwara State. He said, The seven-day ceasefire is, by our estimation, long enough for the new Police helmsman to decide on the trajectory of his leadership. However, we are minded to call on the new IG to spare no efforts in restoring the image of the Nigeria Police which is currently ranked as the worst in the world. Furthermore, we call on the new Inspector-General of Police to commence immediate action to review the cases of all political prisoners held in the various Police cells across the nation, with a view to releasing them forthwith, including Mr. Deji Adeyanju who was acquitted by a court of law but is now in prison because someone does not like his political views. We also call for the release of Senator Dino Melaye, as allegations against him by the Police are different from the charges filed in court against him The new Inspector-General must, as a matter of urgency, distance the institution of the Police from the murky waters of partisan politics and shield his office and officers from being annexed by the outgoing APC. He said the call for Police neutrality was in the interest of the nation, as the Police owe every citizen protection and must not be seen as supporting any political party. Meanwhile, the opposition parties cut a cake at the press conference to Mark Idris 60th birthday. The Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria said the Central Bank of Nigeria has approved compensation for over 550,000 rice farmers affecte... The Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria said the Central Bank of Nigeria has approved compensation for over 550,000 rice farmers affected by the 2018 flood disaster. RIFAN National President, Aminu Goronyo, on Tuesday in Abuja said that the CBN governor had directed that the loan should be restructured for a period of four years. Instead of paying the loan in three instalments within a year, the loan will be restructured to be paid within four years now and be paid by instalments. Goronyo said that only the affected farmers under the RIFAN/CBN/ABP model programme would benefit from the compensation. He said that the resolution was an outcome of a meeting with the Director, Developing Finances of CBN and RIFAN executive. He said that RIFAN only championed the case of affected farmers under its care but expressed the hope that all the registered farmers under the Anchor Borrowers Programme that were affected would benefit from it. Goroyo said that the bank had also directed that a fresh loan should be given to the affected farmers so that they could go back to the field and recover their losses. RIFAN is working on the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Presidency and the CBN to compensate the victims as promised by President Mohammadu Buhari. RIFAN is also seeking assistance from the CBN to restructure the loans to alleviate the suffering of the affected farmers and make them go back to the field, he said. He said that another meeting on adequate compensation to the affected farmers in under the RIFAN/ CBN/ ABP model programme Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC) indicated that succour was on the way for farmers negatively impacted by the excessive rains of 2018. Goroyo said that the compensation programmes were being finalised by NAIC and very soon affected farmers would be paid their claims. He recalled that all the affected farmers that obtained ABP loans for the rainfall farming had appealed to the government to look into the matter. Goroyo said that inspections of the affected states showed that the flood had submerged thousands of hectares of maize and rice farmlands. NAN recalls that the flood destroyed over 100,000 hectares of rice farms in Jigawa, and affected 19,000 rice farmers across the 23 local government areas of the state. Also, Sokoto State said it lost an estimated 61,197 tonnes of rice valued at N27.5 billion because of the flood during the last cropping season. Also RIFAN, Adamawa chapter, over 5,000 of its members were affected by the flood. (NAN) Boko Haram fighters attacked a military base in remote northeast Nigeria, setting fire to shelters for those made homeless by the confli... Boko Haram fighters attacked a military base in remote northeast Nigeria, setting fire to shelters for those made homeless by the conflict, military and humanitarian . The attack in Rann, some 175 kilometres (110 miles) northeast of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, began late on Monday afternoon and forced civilians to flee. It followed a pattern by the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) faction of Boko Haram that has called into question government claims the group is virtually defeated. A similar attempt was made to take over a military base in Magumeri, 50 kilometres northwest of Maiduguri, on Sunday, a local community leader said. Rann currently hosts some 35,000 internally displaced people (IDPs), according to the International Organization for Migration. It has been repeatedly hit in the conflict, exacerbating already dire humanitarian conditions on the ground. A military source in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, said the attack began at about 5:20 pm (1620 GMT) on Monday. The terrorists took over a military position in Rann following heavy fighting, he said on condition of anonymity. Poor visibility because of seasonal Harmattan winds hampered the deployment of air force jets, and troops were forced to withdraw, he added. Camps torched The terrorists went about setting fire to camps and shelters of IDPs. Most people have fled the town into the bush but we have no details of casualties at the moment. An aid worker in Maiduguri added: We have been in touch with some aid workers in Rann, who said the town had been taken by ISWAP and camps were being burned. They had to flee towards Bulale on the Cameroon side of the border. The details are sketchy. The United Nations last week said more than 30,000 people fled after a similar attack in and around the Borno town of Baga in late December. Some 260 aid workers had also been forced to withdraw from three local government areas in northern Borno near Lake Chad, where ISWAP are known to operate. Humanitarian operations in Rann were suspended in March last year after another attack on a military base, which killed three aid workers. Two out of three health workers who were kidnapped have since been executed. Scores of people were killed in January 2017 when Nigerian air force jets mistakenly bombed the IDP camp in Rann. The Islamist insurgency began in 2009 and has killed more than 27,000. Some 1.8 million people are still homeless. Electricity generation companies have threatened to shut down power plants across the county if the federal government fails to interv... Electricity generation companies have threatened to shut down power plants across the county if the federal government fails to intervene in the challenges troubling them. In a statement on Monday, Joy Ogaji, executive secretary of the Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC), the umbrella body for the GenCos, said the decline in available generation is due to various challenges experienced by its members in the electricity market. the challenges include gas constraints, on-going maintenance of power plants and low demand by electricity distribution companies (DisCos). Ogaji saidthe challenges include gas constraints, on-going maintenance of power plants and low demand by electricity distribution companies (DisCos). Available generation capability experienced a drop due to various factors such as Gas constraints, on-going maintenance by some gas suppliers and Low load demand by Distribution Companies (DisCos) which resulted in reduced generation or outage of some power plants, the statement read. For instance; Afam power Plc (Afam VI Gas/Steam),GT12, 13 and ST10 power plants were shut down for a period of about 16 days due to a planned maintenance that was carried out by the gas suppliers on their facilities. Although Afam power Plc was duly notified about the maintenance, it resulted in a reduction of Afams available generation capability from about 490MW to 0MW. Also within this period, most of the NIPPs suffered from various gas constraints, for example Alaoji NIPP, Sapele NIPP, Olorunsogo NIPP, Omotosho NIPP, etc. Some of the companies generation capability dropped to 0 due to the outage of their power plants which was as a result of gas constraints. Case in point was Aloaji NIPP whose supply was cut off by their gas suppliers due to their inability to pay for their gas. Jebba Power plant generation capability reduced by about 110MW to 360MW due to low load demand. This reduction demand was also suffered by Egbin Power plant and FIPL-Omoku. The decline was not an act of rebellion by the GENCOS neither was it deliberate but was beyond their control. It can be traced to the various challenges experienced by the GENCOS in the electricity market such as liquidity issues, power rejection by the DisCos and Gas constraints due to the sorry state of the market. This should serve as a wake-up call to the federal government to the on-goings in the industry with regards to the GENCOS and if the actions are not taken by the necessary agencies, GENCOS will be forced to shut-down business. In August 2018, the GenCos threatened to shut down plants over the inability of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to transmit available volume of electricity generated into the national grid. The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said the current partnerships between Nigeria and Britain will be... The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said the current partnerships between Nigeria and Britain will be enhanced if he is voted into office in 2019. The former vice president, who said this in an article he wrote for the UK Sunday Express, said the incumbent, President Muhammadu Buhari, has failed to strengthen the relationship between Nigeria and its former colonial master. The article which was published on Sunday, a copy of which was also sent to NigerianEye outlined Mr Abubakars plans to invigorate the economic and cultural links between the two nations. The British Prime minister, Theresa May, in August, 2018 visited Nigeria in a bid to explore mutual investment opportunities for both nations. She is currently overseeing the tumultuous Brexit, which is the impending withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. The move follows the referendum of June, 23, 2016 when 51.9 per cent of those who voted supported withdrawal from the union. Mr Abubakar, in the piece, defended why he would be the best bet to lead Nigeria in view of the British governments foreign and investment policy rather than Mr Buhari. I foresee a new trade partnership between Nigeria and Britain, enhanced cooperation on security and counter-terrorism, and deepening our historic links of culture, family and language, Mr Abubakar said. This agenda will benefit ordinary Nigerians and Britons alike, as well as increasing mutual investment in our respective economies. He said President Buhari had his chance but the international rankings do not lie. He (Buhari) has proven himself neither a leader who can elevate the domestic situation of the Nigerian people, nor one who can inspire foreign investors and international partners, he said. The future relationship between Britain and Nigeria can be bright and prosperous but it requires a change of leadership in Abuja. He fell short of saying that Mrs Mays recent visit to Abuja recently was a wasted venture, with Mr Buhari still in power. Unfortunately for Mrs May, the government that she (May) met with led by President Muhammad Buhari cannot deliver any of this. For Nigeria to move forward, a change is required. In the four years of President Buharis Administration, Nigeria has regressed by almost every domestic and international metric. We have fallen in the World Banks Ease of Doing Business report; we have fallen in Transparency Internationals Corruption Perceptions Index; we have fallen in the World Justice Projects Rule of Law Index.n the past four years, India and others have sprinted ahead in the race to reduce poverty, he said. He said the forthcoming elections in February offer the opportunity for a change, which the British should support by ensuring credible polls are conducted. President Buhari has promised the international community that the elections would be free and fair, but there is little confidence amongst Nigerians that he will stick to this promise. What is needed is pressure from the international community to ensure that Nigerians have the right to determine their own futures, and to do so free from harassment, vote-suppression or outright fraud. As a major funder of democracy initiatives around the world, the U.K. has a real stake in this process. He also explained what an Atiku presidency means for Britain and other nations. What does this all mean for Britain, and the future relations between our nations?, he said. Taken together, my new agenda aims to increase the purchasing power of Nigerians across our country: providing economic security, improving quality of life, reducing poverty. This, in turn, provides a platform of security and certainty for (British) investors to take advantage of new opportunities for collaboration not just oil and a chance to work with a government that is serious about building a prosperous Nigeria. More Knocks For Buhari In the piece, Mr Abubakar made some uncomplimentary remarks on his main opponent in the presidential polls. President Buharis track record proves that he cannot be trusted to safeguard democracy, if left to his own devices, he must be pushed by the international community to do the right thing. President Buharis regime is tired, and a truly democratic change is needed. That means re-establishing the rule of law, the respect for the courts, and a crackdown on corruption. A real anti-corruption process is required so that Nigerians, and foreign investors, can have confidence in our domestic laws, not show trials perpetrated as crackdowns on corruption, where corrupt cronies were allowed to flourish. President Muhammadu Buhari, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), is absent at the BIG presidential debate. The de... President Muhammadu Buhari, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), is absent at the BIG presidential debate. The debate, which is ongoing at Sheraton Hotel, Abuja, had representatives from all the other political parties invited, except the APC. The debate, which focuses on Corruption and Accountability is hosted by the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), and sponsored by MacArthur Foundation. Present at the debate are the presidential candidates of African Action Congress, and Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party, Omoyele Sowore and Tope Fasua. Kazeem Afegbua, a spokesperson of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaign and spokesperson to Ibrahim Babangida, former head of state, represented the party at the debate. Paul Isamadi, national secretary of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), is currently representing Oby Ezekwesili, the ACPN presidential candidate. Buhari, the incumbent, and has not attended any presidential debate since the election season kicked off for the February 16 elections. Atiku Abubakar of the PDP has also been absent from all debates but has delegated proxies to the debates. More to follow A number of Arab human rights organisations have declared their intention to report Qatar in a memo to the United Nations Human Rights Council (OHCHR) for the alleged hacking of emails belonging to nearly 1,200 Arab and international public figures. The African Commission on Heritage and Peoples Rights, the Gulf Association for Rights and Freedoms, and the Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK announced last week that they would hold a special session at the OHCR during its next periodical meeting the discuss the matter. A statement released by the rights groups said that Qatar tried to hack the emails of politicians and public figures including the secretary-general of the Arab League Ahmed Abu El-Ghait and Egyptian business tycoon Naguib Sawiris. The statement added that these hacking operations are in violation of UN agreements, international law and freedom of speech. The allegation against the Gulf state is based on a recent investigative documentary produced by Cairo-based Insan Documentaries claiming that hackers funded by Qatar hacked into the emails of nearly 1,200 public figures from Egypt, the Middle East and other parts of the world. Insan Documentaries was co-founded by Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian-Egyptian journalist and former manager of Doha-based Al-Jazeera International in Cairo. Fahmy was arrested in December 2013 along with a number of other Al-Jazeera journalists in the aftermath of the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi for publishing false news and operating without a license, and was sentenced in June 2014 to three years in prison. Fahmy and two other Al-Jazeera journalists were later granted a presidential pardon. In June 2017, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Yemen and the government of eastern Libya announced they were severing diplomatic relations with Qatar for "its involvement in promoting terror and inciting political instability." Short link: Mohammed Adamu, assistant inspector-general of police, is currently at the presidential villa in Abuja. Adamu has reportedly been ... Mohammed Adamu, assistant inspector-general of police, is currently at the presidential villa in Abuja. Adamu has reportedly been selected to replace Ibrahim Idris who is set to retire after clocking the mandatory 35 years in service. After arriving at the villa, he moved straight to the office of Abba Kyari, chief of staff to the president. A police source had hinted of Adamus appointment on Monday evening. Adamu was a deputy commissioner of police in Ekiti state and a commissioner of police in Enugu. He has also served at the Interpol. The Mike Omotosho Foundation on Monday urged Nigerians to imbibe the value of integrity and not to sell their vote in the forthcoming ge... The Mike Omotosho Foundation on Monday urged Nigerians to imbibe the value of integrity and not to sell their vote in the forthcoming general elections. The convener of the foundation, Dr Mike Omotosho, gave the advice at the 4th Mike Omotosho Annual Lecture in Abuja. Omotosho said that Nigeria had seven core values of integrity which are: discipline, patriotism, self-reliance, social justice ,dignity of labour and religious cooperation, yet many people were not aware talk less of practising them. If we are able to live by the core values, the issues of poverty and food insecurity will be by-gone issues; even youths will have the courage to begin to understand that if they live by them, they will solve all the problems we have. Without the core values, the civil roles of people will not matter, if you talk about integrity it begins to convince you that you dont need to sell your vote. You need to look for the rightful person who will be more patriotic to vote into power, so if you have the interest of the nation at heart then that will be paramount. Omotosho urged Nigerians to imbibe the core values so as to curb electoral irregularities like thuggery, vote buying and electoral violence during elections and everyone will cooperate for the nation. He said that the lecture held annually to mark his birthday as a way of giving back to the society by addressing key issues and charting the way forward. The Force Public Relations Officer, Mr Jimoh Moshood, said it was high time Nigerians inculcated the culture of the seven core values for a better Nigeria. Moshood said that discipline which was one of the values was necessary because it was the key thing, adding that it would make people do only the right things. He said that the police had the responsibility to protect the people, and that it was their duty to continue to cooperate with the police by being disciplined. Raffles and weapons dont solve crimes, it is the culture of the people that do so; it is the culture of discipline that the police rely on to police the people because we police the people according to their culture. In Abuja for instance ,because there is a level of civilisation, the a policeman can effect the arrest of four people but in other parts of the country it takes four policemen to arrest one person so that is the situation, he said. Moshood said that there was need for traffic violators to be psychologically examined because of the way they misbehaved with impunity. This, he said, was because driving was about discipline and safety, adding that when the culture of discipline was cultivated, Nigeria would be a better place. Ustaz Adeyemi Abdul-Fattah urged Nigerians to have religious cooperation rather than tolerance, adding that the word tolerance made it sound that citizens were pain in each others necks. Abdul-Fattah said that no religion should force another anyone to convert or believe in their own religious because Nigeria was a secular nation and should remain as such. He urged Nigerians to respect and love one another and learn to have religious cooperation for the good of the nation. Mr Hamzat Lawal, Convener, Connected Development, expressed the need to practice social justice in Nigeria. Lawal said that when people were treated equally, there would not be grievances or crisis. He also expressed the need to ensure that money given for projects reached the communities that it was budgeted for. (NAN) Streets were mostly quiet on Tuesday in Zimbabwe's capital Harare and second city Bulawayo as banks, schools and businesses stayed shut, a day after deadly protests over economic hardship and a sharp increase in the price of fuel. The closures followed a call by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions for a three-day stay-at-home protest over the sharp drop in living standards caused by a dollar crunch that has sent prices soaring and caused shortages of fuel and drugs. Several people were killed and some 200 arrested during Monday's protests, which followed President Emmerson Mnangagwa's decision to hike the price of fuel in an attempt to tackle the southern African country's worst economic crisis in a decade. A human rights lawyers group said it had received reports of soldiers and police officers breaking into homes in Harare townships overnight and assaulting suspected demonstrators. "Even if I wanted to go to work, where do I get the $8 to go to and from work? It is better to tend to my field," said Malvin Chigora, a 36-year-old father of two, on his small maize field in Kuwadzana township on the outskirts of the capital. In central Harare, banks, shops and offices were closed with few people on the streets. Most public taxis were off the road. Two local journalists told Reuters the situation was similar in Bulawayo. The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZHLR), which provides free legal services, said it had received distress calls from residents in Mabvuku and Chitungwiza who were forcibly taken from their homes and made to remove barricades from roads. That tactic was used by security agents during the rule of long-time leader Robert Mugabe, who was ousted by his one-time ally Mnangagwa in a bloodless coup in November. "Of concern is the involvement of soldiers in these illegal acts who are actively participating in the cruel and inhuman treatment of residents," ZLHR said in a statement. Six people were killed in post-election violence in August after the army intervened. Zimbabwe Defence Forces spokesman Overson Mugwisi and police spokeswoman Charity Charamba said they did not have sufficient information to comment. The government has blamed the opposition and rights groups for Monday's violence. Short link: Hong Kong: CE visits Guangzhou Chief Executive Carrie Lam today visited Guangzhou and met senior Guangdong officials. Mrs Lam met Secretary of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee Li Xi and Guangdong Governor Ma Xingrui this afternoon to discuss collaboration between Hong Kong and Guangdong in the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. She thanked Mr Li for supporting the bay area development and the co-operation between the two places. Mrs Lam hopes to see pragmatic achievements from the bay area development earlier so that its residents can enjoy the opportunities brought about by the plan. Secretary for Constitutional & Mainland Affairs Patrick Nip, Secretary for the Environment KS Wong, Secretary for Home Affairs Lau Kong-wah, Secretary for Transport & Housing Frank Chan, Secretary for Food & Health Prof Sophia Chan, Director of the Chief Executives Office Chan Kwok-ki and Under Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Bernard Chan also joined the meeting. This story has been published on: 2019-01-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. The Daily News-Miner encourages residents to make themselves heard through the Opinion pages. Readers' letters and columns also appear online at newsminer.com. Contact the editor with questions at letters@newsminer.com or call 459-7574. Community Perspective Send Community Perspective submissions by mail (P.O. Box 70710, Fairbanks AK 99707) or via email (letters@newsminer.com). Submissions must be 500 to 750 words. Columns are welcome on a wide range of issues and should be well-written and well-researched with attribution of sources. Include a full name, email address, daytime telephone number and headshot photograph suitable for publication (email jpg or tiff files at 150 dpi.) You may also schedule a photo to be taken at the News-Miner office. The News-Miner reserves the right to edit submissions or to reject those of poor quality or taste without consulting the writer. Letters to the editor Send letters to the editor by mail (P.O. Box 70710, Fairbanks AK 99707), by fax (907-452-7917) or via email (letters@newsminer.com). Writers are limited to one letter every two weeks (14 days.) All letters must contain no more than 350 words and include a full name (no abbreviation), daytime and evening phone numbers and physical address. (If no phone, then provide a mailing address or email address.) The Daily News-Miner reserves the right to edit or reject letters without consulting the writer. Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said on Tuesday the United Kingdom (UK) is the biggest non-Arab investment partner of Egypt. The premier comments came during a meeting with British Ambassador to Egypt Geoffrey Adams. Madbouly highlighted that the economic reform decisions taken by Egypt have made the national economy stronger and opened up new opportunities for investment. He also thanked the British government for its keenness on increasing investments in Egypt. The premier said that he looks forward to more cooperation between the British and Egyptian universities over the coming period. He further praised underway cooperation with the British side in the fields of capacity-building and training of nurses. Meanwhile, Adams praised the economic reform decisions taken by Egypt and voiced his country's keenness to increase its investments in Egypt. He highlighted that a British company seeks to pump investments into the under-construction New Administrative Capital. The ambassador further invited Madbouly to take part in a summit on investment in Africa at the end of this year, an invitation which Madbouly promised to meet. Short link: Let us know what you're seeing and hearing around the community. Submit here (Newser) The man who fatally shot Hadiya Pendleton, the Chicago 15-year-old killed just days after performing with her high school band at then-President Obama's second inauguration, was sentenced Monday to 84 years in prison. Police said Michaeil Ward confessed to killing the teen and wounding two others in a case of mistaken identity related to a gang turf war, but his defense attorney argued that interrogation was forced, and at the sentencing hearing, Ward insisted prosecutors didn't look at all the evidence, CNN reports. "I just been found guilty and now I have to go do my life in jail because of something that all y'all had to do was take time to investigate," he said in his first public comments since being arrested, insisting his cellphone pinged in a different part of town and it would have been impossible for him to reach the area where Pendleton was killed in the time frame prosecutors gave. story continues below He also asked why the gun used in the crime was not presented, pointing at Pendleton's family as he said, "I just want to know that." But Pendleton's mother was not swayed, asking the judge for the maximum sentence and saying, "I loathe Michaeil and his very existence because every breath he gets to take is one breath more than my 15-year-old daughter was allowed to breathe. Hadiya is serving a death sentence handed down by Michaeil Ward and the family is doing life as a result of her death." She noted that the family had been planning to get Hadiya's passport the weekend she was killed as they prepared to take a trip overseas: "Instead we had to plan her funeral." The earliest Ward, who was 18 when Pendleton was killed, could be released would be in his late 90s, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. He plans to appeal his conviction, the Chicago Tribune reports. (Michelle Obama attended the honor student's funeral, and later memorably said, "Hadiya Pendleton was me, and I was her.") (Newser) Another book is coming out on Team Trump, this one from none other than Chris Christie. The Guardian has an early copy of Let Me Finish, and it highlights a part in which the former New Jersey governor accuses Jared Kushner of getting him fired from the White House as part of a political "hit job." Christie writes that Kushner is still nursing a grudge against him from events that took place 14 years agoin 2005, then federal prosecutor Christie put Kushner's father in jail for tax evasion and witness tampering. Steve Bannon ... made clear to me that one person and one person only was responsible for the faceless execution that Steve was now attempting to carry out," writes Christie. "Jared Kushner, still apparently seething over events that had occurred a decade ago. story continues below Christie did indeed get the boot as chairman of President Trump's transition team, and he says the result is that Trump ended up making bad personnel picks again and again. Christie also takes a shot at Kushner's political acumen, calling the decision to take part in the infamous Trump Tower meeting "dumb." Christie also claims that Kushner encouraged his father-in-law to fire the FBI's James Comey, assuring him that that the political fallout would be minimal. Again, Christie writes, the president was ill served by poor advice. See the Guardian for more details from the book. (Christie rankled New Jersey residents by commissioning a pricey portrait of himself.) (Newser) A federal judge in New York has barred the Trump administration from adding a question about citizenship to the 2020 census. US District Judge Jesse Furman said Tuesday that while such a question would be constitutional, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had added it arbitrarily and not followed proper procedure, per the AP. The ruling came in a case in which a dozen states or big cities and immigrant rights groups argued that adding the question might frighten immigrant households away from participating in the census. The decision, however, won't be the final word on the matter. A separate suit on the same issue, filed by the state of California, is underway in San Francisco. The US Supreme Court is also poised to address the issue in February. story continues below The proposed question, which NPR notes hasn't been asked of US households since 1950: "Is this person a citizen of the United States?" The judge faulted Ross for how he went about adding the question. "He failed to consider several important aspects of the problem; alternately ignored, cherry-picked, or badly misconstrued the evidence in the record before him; acted irrationally both in light of that evidence and his own stated decisional criteria; and failed to justify significant departures from past policies and practices," wrote Furman in his decision. Plus, the judge says Ross failed to give Congress the necessary three years' notice for new census questions. (Read more US Census stories.) (Newser) President Trump has made no secret of his disdain for NATO. Now, the New York Times reports that his displeasure has gone beyond making public criticisms. Quoting anonymous senior administration officials, the newspaper says Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to withdraw from the alliance. Trump's national security team has largely kept a check on this, but the officials quoted in the story say the president might well return to the idea if he thinks NATO allies are not spending enough. The story is getting plenty of attention for one big reason: A US withdrawal from NATO is precisely what Vladimir Putin wants, and the president has recently had to fend off what he sees as "insulting" questions about whether he has ever worked on behalf of Moscow. story continues below Critics were already lining up. "Only Vladimir Putin would be wanting the United States of America to withdraw from NATO," said MSNBC's Joe Scarborough in response to the Times report, per Mediaite. The Times piece rounds up similar quotes from those who feel the same, given that a NATO without the US would be significantly weakened and thus unable to provide much of a check on Russia's ambitions. "A geopolitical mistake of epic proportion" is how Retired Adm. James G. Stavridis, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, puts it. Trump, though, maintains that other nations aren't paying their fair share, and he reportedly "doesn't see the point" of the alliance, per the story. (Read more President Trump stories.) (Newser) Tina Adams will never realize her dream of becoming a police officer, and she might never be able to have children. Such are the consequences of the moment a drunk driver swerved off a road and struck the Quebec jogger in June 2015. Adams, now 24, suffered a traumatic brain injury, a cracked skull, a blood clot in the head, a fractured spine, broken ribs, punctured lungs, internal bleeding, and burns from electrical wires that fell on her when the driver further crashed into a utility pole, per the CBC. Nearly four years later, Adams faced 26-year-old Jordan Taylor for the first time at a Wednesday sentencing hearing. "Not only has he impacted the last three and [a] half years, but the rest of my life," she said, per CTV News. She then stunned the court and her own father by asking Taylor to join her in speaking about impaired driving at schools across Canada. story continues below Taylor, who pleaded guilty to impaired driving causing bodily harm, immediately jumped at the chance. He'd followed Adams' initial victim impact statement with a moving apology, saying he was still haunted by what had happened. "I made a big mistake to drive my car that day, and I'll never forget how much this hurt you," he said. An advocate for road safety when she's not attending John Abbott College or practicing CrossFit, Adams believes Taylor's presence at schools "would make a huge impact on students," though she admits to keeping the idea a secret until Wednesday. Taylor is expected to join Adams' tour after serving time behind bars. Prosecutors and defense attorneys have jointly requested an eight-month sentence be delivered at a new hearing on Jan. 29. (In another kind act, Canadian air traffic controllers have been gifting pizza.) (Newser) Folks in the Grand Canyon State sure get a lot of surprise invitations. Two years after an Arizona grandmother mistakenly invited the wrong "grandson" to Thanksgiving, a Phoenix man named Will Novak received an invite meant for a different Will Novak to a ski weekend bachelor party in Vermontand he's going anyway. The Washington Post reports that, thanks to a typo in the address field, Novak, 35, received an email on Jan. 7 asking him to RSVP to the party for "Angelo." Novak immediately replied, explaining the error, but he joked he'd come anyway, per FOX 10. To Novak's surprise, the guys took him up on it. "We don't know if you're serious, but we're serious. You better show up," they replied. After asking the hive mind of his Facebook friends if he should go"the consensus was an unequivocal yes," the Post notesNovak got his wife's OK to leave her and their baby behind to attend. story continues below "My wife couldn't be happier to be rid of me for a weekend," he tells CBS 5. Novak set up a GoFundMe to raise the $750 or so he would need for the trip; that amount was reached, and then some, in a few hours. The East Coast contingent has vetted Novak's social media accounts"to make sure he wasn't a murderer or, like, a serial killer," New York's Will Novak tells FOX 10and Arizona Novak says he has martial arts training "if things go south." There's also been a sweet update over the weekend on Novak's GoFundMe, which had amassed nearly $3,000 by Tuesday morning: He discovered Angelo and his soon-to-be-wife are expecting their first child, so he's donating any money over the cost of his trip to them. "At this point, if I don't get invited to be his child's godfather, I'll be livid," Novak jokes to the Post. (The original story of that Arizona grandma with an unexpected Thanksgiving guest.) The Egyptian embassy in Nairobi is calling on its citizens in the Kenyan capital to stay away from the area surrounding the site of an explosion and armed attack that took place this afternoon at the DusitD2 hotel in Nairobi's Riverside district. The embassy called on Egyptian citizens to contact the embassy (at + 254790405857) in case of any threats. The embassy also advises citizens to stay away from large gatherings over the next 72 hours. According to Reuters, suspected militants attacked a luxury hotel complex in Nairobi, with a number of people feared dead. Gunfire and blasts were heard at the compound in the Westlands district of the Kenyan capital, which houses the DusitD2 hotel as well as offices. People some with bullet wounds and covered in blood were escorted out of the building by heavily armed police, Reuters said. Short link: (Newser) A company known for its razor blades is getting shredded over a new ad encouraging men to be on their best behavior. Gillette's "We Believe," viewed nearly 3 million times on YouTube since Sunday, begins with scenes of bullying, sexual harassment, and aggressive male behavior, asking, "Is this the best a man can get?" It then references the #MeToo movement. "There will be no going back. Because we believe in the best in men. To say the right thing. To act the right way," a voice says, as scenes show men preventing sexual harassment and breaking up fights. All men should follow the good example of some "because the boys watching today will be the men of tomorrow," the ad concludes. CNN reports reactions have been "mixed, and predictably extreme," with somePiers Morgan includedvowing to boycott Gillette over the "feminist propaganda." story continues below "Way to imply men are horrid inhuman beings," reads a typical comment on the ad, with an overwhelming share of dislikes, per People. "We expected debate. Actually a discussion is necessary" to ensure "real change," Gillette's North America brand director, Pankaj Bhalla, tells CNN. He says the ad, directed by Kim Gehrig of UK-based Somesuch, "is not about toxic masculinity" but rather "men taking more action every day to set the best example for the next generation." "For us, the decision to publicly assert our beliefs while celebrating men who are doing things right was an easy choice that makes a difference," adds Gillette President Gary Coombe, per the BBC. Expect more of the same: Gillette will release other videos as part of a branding effort which will also see the company donate $3 million to US charities that support men over the next three years, per CNN. (This David's Bridal ad went over better.) (Newser) It could be a big decision in the new and legally murky realm of privacy and biometrics: A federal judge in California has ruled that police cannot force people to unlock their phones using fingerprints, facial recognition, or iris scans. The ruling was first spotted by Thomas Brewster of Forbes, who sees it as a possible landmark ruling. The case is out of Oakland, where federal authorities asked permission not only to search a property as part of an online extortion case but to confiscate the phones of anyone there and make people unlock them, through biometrics if necessary. Too much, ruled judge Kandis Westmore of the US District Court for the Northern District of California. She said the request "runs afoul of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments," which protect people from improper searches and self-incrimination, per Ars Technica. story continues below "The Government cannot be permitted to search and seize a mobile phone or other device that is on a non-suspect's person simply because they are present during an otherwise lawful search," wrote Kandis. In regard to biometrics, she cited a previous ruling that police could not compel people to turn over their passwords. If a person cannot be compelled to provide a passcode because it is a testimonial communication, a person cannot be compelled to provide ones finger, thumb, iris, face, or other biometric feature to unlock that same device, she wrote. That may seem like an "obvious" conclusion, per Gizmodo, but it's actually "a remarkable interpretation of how biometric data can be viewed," writes Rhett Jones. If the ruling withstands expected challenges, it could cement new privacy protections into law. (What about using 3D-printed fingers to unlock phones?) (Newser) Rep. Steve King, the lawmaker that Stephen King hates being confused with, has finally gone too far for his fellow House Republicans. The Iowan is being stripped of all his committee assignments after his controversial remarks about white supremacism, the Hill reports. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Monday that King, who had served on the Judiciary, Agriculture, and Small Business committees when the GOP was the majority party, will not be seated "on any committees in the 116th Congress." McCarthy said he wouldn't rule out a reprimand resolution against King, though he added that it is up to Iowans whether he remains in office, the New York Times reports. story continues below "This is not the first time weve heard these comments," McCarthy said of King's remarks. "That is not the party of Lincoln and its definitely not American." McCarthy met with King for an hour before House GOP leaders decided to kick him off the committees. "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilizationhow did that language become offensive?" King wondered in a New York Times interview last week, in which he described the Democratic Party as "no country for white men." After losing his committee seats, King claimed his remarks had been misunderstood and said McCarthy had made a "political decision that ignores the truth." (King was defended by David Duke after a controversial tweet in 2017.) (Newser) Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer has bought a house in Rhode Island, and his new neighbor is a familiar face from their days together in the Trump administration: former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the AP reports. The Newport Daily News, citing public records, reported that the sale closed Jan. 2, and Spicer paid $795,000 for the 1,800-square-foot Middletown home, which has four bedrooms and three bathrooms. Representatives for Spicer did not immediately return messages seeking comment. story continues below The house is across the street and three doors down from Flynn's home, in a neighborhood that's a short walk to the beach. Flynn is awaiting sentencing on his guilty plea to lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts. Spicer grew up in nearby Barrington. (Last month, Flynn's sentencing hearing took an unexpected turn.) (Newser) With the significant number of drugs and drug ingredients made overseas, it's hard for the FDA to provide airtight oversight. But two plants in China and India that pump out oft-prescribed blood pressure and heart medications are now on the agency's radar after FDA tests revealed trace amounts of carcinogens in drugs made there, USA Today reports. The drugs in question, many of which have been recalled: valsartan, losartan, and irbesartan, all a class of drug called angiotensin II receptor blockers, or ARBs. The plants in question: China's Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical and India's Hetero Labs, where FDA investigations have unearthed concerning equipment and procedural issues, including rusting and frayed gear (Zhejiang Huahai), equipment that wasn't regularly cleaned and sterilized (Hetero), and a failure to look into eyebrow-raising test results (both plants). story continues below The FDA has been overwhelmed by how many inspections it has to do, and so has had to pick which sites require immediate attention and which have to wait. While it used to check factories (both domestic and overseas) at least once every two years, now it prioritizes plants considered riskiest to US consumers. Meanwhile, ARB recalls have been expanding. "The last thing you'd expect when you are taking a drug of this nature is, 'I may have been exposing myself to a carcinogen for years,'" a Philly attorney representing patients who've taken drugs from the two plants tells USA Today. The paper warns, however, that patients who use these recalled products should consult with their doctors before ceasing to take the meds, as abruptly stopping could cause more immediate harm. Check the FDA site for updates on the recalls. (Teva Pharmaceuticals recently pulled back two drugs.) (Newser) California's largest utility is crying uncle. PG&E Corp said Monday it will file for bankruptcy protection as it deals with billions in possible liability costs over huge state wildfires, the Wall Street Journal reports. The utility and its main unit, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., plan to file on or around Jan. 29. "We believe a court-supervised process under Chapter 11 will best enable PG&E to resolve its potential liabilities in an orderly, fair, and expeditious fashion," said interim CEO John Simon, per NPR. He added that the bankruptcy "will enable PG&E to access the capital and resources we need to continue providing our customers with safe service." But safety is an issue that has dogged the beleaguered utility for months. story continues below State fire officials blame PG&E's power lines for causing 17 Northern California wildfires in 2017, and regulators are probing the utility's possible role in causing November's deadly Camp Fire. All told, wildfire liabilities could hit $30 billion. The state legislature might respond by protecting PG&E, but widespread anger makes that difficult. Meanwhile, CEO Geisha Williams suddenly stepped down Sunday and is set to receive severance that could top $10 million, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The utility's stock has fallen 64% since the Camp Fire started on Nov. 8. PG&E delivers electricity and natural gas to some 16 million people. (Read more bankruptcy stories.) (Newser) "People have looked away for so long, but I don't think they can anymore." So says a Nazi-looting expert about millions of works stolen during World War IInot paintings by master artists, but books once owned by Jewish families and institutions. Researchers in Europe and America are finding ways to trace the books while libraries, mostly in Germany and Austria, are trying to identify which were taken by Nazis and who they belong to, the New York Times reports. Such libraries have given roughly 30,000 books back to 600 institutions, heirs, and original owners over the past decade. "There's definitely progress, but slow progress," says Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, a Harvard University researcher. story continues below Yet challenges remain. Russians, still bitter over WWII losses, refuse to return millions of books they took from Nazis; half a million ended up in Belarus, where a professor told the Wall Street Journal in 2017 that "restitution is a bit of a taboo for us." In other countries, not all books are properly catalogued or still bear the original owner's name. On the upside, hundreds of thousands of Nazi plunderings are listed online and stories are emerging of reunited books. In 2018 a man and his father, a Holocaust survivor, flew from Israel to Germany for a 16th-century rabbinical work that delves into the Torah's commandments. The survivor's father, who once owned the book, had died in a concentration camp in 1943. "It was quite an emotional experience for my father and myself," said the grandson. (Meanwhile, Holocaust photos that went unnoticed for decades have been found.) (Newser) The proper way to toss a coin into Rome's famed Trevi fountain is to do so over your shoulder. Just don't think about what happens after that, because it's apparently quite the touchy subject. The city of Rome has traditionally given the tossed coinsthey add up to about $1.7 million a year, per the BBCto a Catholic charity, but Mayor Virginia Raggi caused a ruckus by proposing the city start keeping the money. After a swift outcry, she has quickly backtracked, and then some, reports the Telegraph. story continues below Caritas, and all the thousands of people who are helped by its members, can rest assured," she tells the Vatican newspaper LOsservatore Romano, referring to the name of the charity. "I can confirm that the coins will remain at the disposition of its charitable activities." What's more, the mayor said coins from other fountains in the city also will go to Caritas. An example of the outcry that prompted the about-face: A newspaper of an Italian bishops' conference ran the headline, "Money taken from the poorest." Legend has it that tossing a coin into the fountain ensures the tosser will return to Rome. (Tossing coins for good luck sometimes has unfortunate consequences.) One of Orion's Stars Went Oddly Dim. Now We Know Why Egypt's Minister of Higher Education Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar decided on Tuesday to reduce the punishment of a male student who appeared in a viral video hugging a female friend on campus. The students punishment has been reduced from a two-year suspension to one term. Last week, a video went viral on social media showing a male student at Mansoura University surprising a female student, who studies at Al-Azhar University, with a bouquet of flowers and kneeling in front of her in what appears to be a marriage proposal. He then embraced the young woman and lifted her off the ground. The male student was originally suspended for two years following investigations by a disciplinary committee. The minister said that the decision to reduce the punishment comes in light of "the student's young age and his future." Abdel-Ghaffar called on universities to educate students on all bylaws as well as holding awareness sessions to avoid such incidents in the future. Meanwhile, Egypts Al-Azhar University overturned a decision to permanently expel the female student, hours after the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed El-Tayyeb urged the university to reconsider its decision. The universitys disciplinary committee said in its emergency meeting that it has decided the scrap the punishment, instead opting to bar the student from sitting in for her exams this term in keenness over her educational future. Short link: President Emmerson Mnangagwa will today hold key talks with staunch ally President Vladimir Putin of Russia, with the two leaders expected to centre deliberations on key economic deals, as well as matters of mutual concern on the international arena. Among the major economic issues on the table in Moscow will be President Mnangagwas invitation to Russias diamond mining major, Alrosa, to enter the Zimbabwe market and help develop the sector. After touring Alrosas state-of-the-art facility in the Russian capital yesterday, President Mnangagwa told the media that he would formally present the invitation to Alrosa when he holds talks with President Putin today. President Mnangagwa is in Russia on the first leg of a four-nation Eurasian tour, after which he will join other influential world leaders and key investors in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. Before heading to Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Belarus, President Mnangagwa is in Moscow to concretise arrangements with firms like Alrosa, as he sets about transforming Zimbabwe into an upper middle-income economy by 2030. It is in that context that the talks with President Putin attract much importance. The Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces yesterday said, We believe that Alrosa will accept our invitation as Zimbabwe to participate in the development of our diamond industry. Im sure that Alrosa is fully aware that we had closed the diamond industry in Zimbabwe from participation by foreign companies, but this policy we reversed in October last year, just about two months ago. We now have opened a small window for foreign companies to participate in our industry as a result of realising our limited capacity both in terms of capital outlay, as well as in the application of modern technology to maximise exploitation of our diamonds in Zimbabwe. I have no doubt that tomorrow when I meet my counterpart President Putin, I hope that he is going to accept my invitation that we have the expertise here in the Russian Federation to come and partner with Zimbabwe in the development and exploitation of our industry. We believe we can make a significant contribution to the world diamond industry. President Mnangagwa emphasised that Zimbabwe and Russia shared strong ties in the realms of the economy and defence and security co-operation, and engagements between the two sides today and in future would naturally be informed by that rich history. (Economic co-operation) is the principle reason why I am here with my delegation, he said. The composition of my delegation will tell you a story: I have the Minister of Mines, I have the Minister of Agriculture, I have the Governor of the Reserve Bank, and I have the Minister of Finance. All these people are economic ministers, which tells you the story that we have come here to promote economic co-operation with the Russian Federation. On defence and security co-operation, President Mnangagwa said, this is not a new area. In actual fact, the entire liberation struggle of our country was assisted by your country, he said. So, there is a historical co-operation in respect of the military and defence and security. We are here, again, to consolidate and deepen that aspect of co-operation. Alrosas CEO, Mr Sergey Ivanov, said he had every confidence that not only would Zimbabwes economy rebound, but that the Russian diamond mining behemoth would be a part of that growth and development. He said he was not in a position to say exactly how much Alrosa was looking to invest in Zimbabwe, as this would be determined by the outcome of the talks between President Mnangagwa and President Putin, but expressed optimism that the firm would soon have an operation presence in the country. Mr Ivanov pointed out that Alrosa had opened an office in Zimbabwe just six months after its first contact with President Mnangagwas Government, and soon that operation would be staffed with the relevant experts to advance the mutual goals of developing the countrys diamond industry. We will shortly discuss opportunities to explore new fields, promising fields, in Zimbabwe and also how to produce from mature, established fields, he said. We are happy to share all expertise in diamond sorting, pre-sales preparations and all other diamonds operations that may apply here. Let me also add that we were pleased by the top-notch expertise of the representatives of the delegated ministries of Zimbabwe with whom we have worked in the past six months. There is a good pool of experts in mining and exploration in Zimbabwe, so we hope that this, taken together, will underpin better potential for Alrosa to operate in the Zimbabwe market. OVER 2 600 couples filed for divorce last year at the countrys four permanent High Court stations, a 42 percent increase from those recorded in 2017. According to statistics obtained from the High Courts Family Law division, 2 634 couples filed for divorce in 2018 compared to 1 963 in 2017. The statistics do not include unregistered customary marriages that are recognised, but can be terminated without going to court. This means that if all the marriages in Zimbabwe were registered with the courts, the divorce rate could be higher. Harare officially had 1 593 divorce cases last year, up from the 1 341 filed in 2017. The High Court in Bulawayo handled 820 divorce cases in 2018, representing a 60 percent increase from 512 cases recorded in 2017. Statistics from Masvingo High Court show that 131 couples filed for divorce in 2018, up from 110 cases filed in 2017. The Mutare High Court, which officially opened its doors to the public mid last year, received 90 summons for divorce in its first six months. Lawyers who handle divorce cases attributed the rise in marriage break-ups to financial challenges and the breakdown of the extended family system that used to play an integral part in preserving marriages. South Africa-based Zimbabwean lawyer Ms Tambudzai Gonese Manjonjo said economic hardship were contributing to the increase in divorce cases. Economic hardship splits families, she said. Some couples part ways as they seek greener pastures abroad. Such a separation will lead to divorce. Infidelity is another major reason coupled with the lack of the family support systems which provide counselling and other services to preserve unions. Legal expert Mr Savious Kufandada said most couples now marry prematurely, resulting in early break-ups. People get married at a very tender age such that they start to make some appropriate identification of suitable spouses when they are already married, he said. Herald What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 574-583-5121 or email cgrace@thehj.com. One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021 Reporter Noelle McGee is a Danville-based reporter at The News-Gazette. Her email is nmcgee@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@n_mcgee). Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry is attending on Tuesday in New York the Group 77 (G77) ceremony to mark the handover of the groups chairmanship from Egypt to Palestine, Shoukrys spokesperson Ahmed Hafez tweeted. "Egypt strove to represent the interests of the G77... we pushed forward the groups objectives and values of equality and justice for which we aspire in the international system and the United Nations," Shoukry said during the opening speech at the ceremony. The ceremony is held at the UN headquarters in the presence of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. During his speech, Shoukry highlighted that "G77 exerted tremendous efforts to reinforce the organisations ability to deal with challenges related to peace & security; especially, through developing preventive diplomacy, addressing roots of conflicts, and supporting cooperation with regional organisations." "We further focused on the priorities of eradicating poverty, youth employment and production capabilities ... and we succeeded in advancing our vision." Egypt's third time chairing the G77 is part of the country's leading role in serving the interests of developing countries and its belief in the principles and goals of the group, Hafez said. The G77 and China is the main negotiating bloc in the UN for developing countries that works on boosting the economic and development interests of its members. Short link: Reporter Debra Pressey is a reporter covering health care at The News-Gazette. Her email is dpressey@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@DLPressey). Reporter Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk). Ryan Woodward and Shantana Woodward of Pikeville, pictured here with Governor Matt Bevin and his wife Glenna, were recently named the Eastern Mountains 2018 Foster Parents of the Year. By Express News Service LONDON: British lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's divorce deal with the European Union, plunging the Brexit process into chaos and leading to a no-confidence vote in her government. Moments after the vote, Theresa May said it was only right to test whether the government still had lawmakers' support to carry on. Lawmakers will vote Wednesday in a no-confidence motion from opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn that could trigger a national election. The House of Commons' 432-202 vote against May's plan was widely expected, but it was still devastating for her fragile leadership. It came after more than two years of political upheaval and was the biggest defeat for a government in the House of Commons in more than a century. ALSO READ | EU leaders plan no-deal Brexit, leave door ajar The vote means further turmoil for British politics only 10 weeks before the country is due to leave the EU on March 29. It is not clear if it will push the government toward an abrupt "no-deal" break with the EU, nudge it toward a softer departure, trigger a new election or pave the way for a second referendum that could reverse Britain's decision to leave. May, who leads a fragile Conservative minority government, has made delivering Brexit her main task since taking office in 2016 after the country's decision to leave the EU. "This is the most significant vote that any of us will ever be part of in our political careers," she told lawmakers as debate ended. "The time has now come for all of is in this House to make a decision, ... a decision that each of us will have to justify and live with for many years to come." ALSO READ | Did south Asians change UKs destiny? But the deal was doomed by deep opposition from both sides of the divide over U.K.'s place in the bloc. Pro-Brexit lawmakers say the deal will leave Britain bound indefinitely to EU rules, while pro-EU politicians favor an even closer economic relationship with Europe. The government and opposition parties ordered lawmakers to cancel all other plans to be on hand for the crucial vote. Labour legislator Tulip Siddiq delayed the scheduled cesarean birth of her son so she could attend, arriving in a wheelchair. As lawmakers debated in the chamber, there was a cacophony of chants, drums and music from rival bands of pro-EU and pro-Brexit protesters outside. One group waved blue-and-yellow EU flags, the other brandished "Leave Means Leave" placards. May postponed a vote on the deal in December to avoid certain defeat, and there were few signs in recent days that sentiment had changed significantly. The most contentious section of the deal was an insurance policy known as the "backstop" designed to prevent the reintroduction of border controls between the U.K.'s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. Assurances from EU leaders that the backstop is intended as a temporary measure of last resort completely failed to win over many British skeptics, and the EU is adamant that it will not renegotiate the 585-page withdrawal agreement. Arlene Foster, who leads Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party May's parliamentary ally said her party voted against the deal because of the backstop. "We want the PM to go back to the EU and say 'the backstop must go,'" Foster said. Parliament has given May until Monday to come up with a new proposal. So far, May has refused publicly to speculate on a possible "Plan B." Some Conservatives expect her to seek further talks with EU leaders on changes before bringing a tweaked version of the bill back to Parliament, even though EU leaders insist the agreement cannot be renegotiated. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker returned Tuesday to Brussels to deal with Brexit issues arising from the vote, amid signals May might be heading back to EU headquarters on Wednesday. An EU official, who asked not to be identified because of the developing situation, said that it was "Important that he is available and working in Brussels during the coming hours." May had argued that rejecting the agreement would lead either to a reversal of Brexit overturning voters' decision in the 2016 referendum or to Britain leaving the bloc without a deal. Economists warn that an abrupt break from the EU could batter the British economy and bring chaotic scenes at borders, ports and airports. Business groups had appealed for lawmakers to back the deal to provide certainty about the future. Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said parliamentarians "hold the future of the British automotive industry and the hundreds and thousands of jobs it supports in their hands." "Brexit is already causing us damage in output, costs and jobs, but this does not compare with the catastrophic consequences of being cut adrift from our biggest trading partner overnight," he said. Amid the uncertainty, some members of Parliament from both government and opposition parties are exploring ways to use parliamentary procedures to wrest control of the Brexit process away from the government, so that lawmakers by majority vote could specify a new plan for Britain's EU exit. But with no clear majority in Parliament for any single alternate course, there is a growing chance that Britain may seek to postpone its departure date while politicians work on a new plan. By UNI MOSCOW: The Taliban has claimed responsibility for a car-bomb attack in Kabul that killed at least four people and injured up to 113, Afghan media reported on Tuesday. The bomb-laden car blew up near the Green Village compound, which is a secure area housing several foreign organizations, the TOLO News television network said. Afghanistan's Interior Ministry said it was treating the explosion as an act of terror. Taliban insurgents have been carrying out near-daily attacks on security personnel in the country. By AFP PATTAYA (THAILAND): A Belarusian model, who sensationally claimed she had proof of Russian efforts to help Donald Trump win office, appeared in court Tuesday for the expected start of her trial overrunning a "sex training course" in Thailand. Anastasia Vashukevich, known by her pen name Nastya Rybka, has been held in custody since a police raid in the sleazy seaside resort of Pattaya February, 2018. Vashukevich looked sombre as she arrived at the court alongside her seven co-defendants, who are on trial for multiple charges including soliciting sex. She had travelled to Thailand after becoming embroiled in a political scandal with Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska, a one-time associate of US President Trump's disgraced former campaign director Paul Manafort. In a peculiar tale she set off a scramble for details after promising to reveal "missing puzzle pieces" on claims the Kremlin aided Trump's 2016 election victory. No material has been released to substantiate her claims, which critics have dismissed as a publicity stunt. Police alleged the risque seminar, led by self-styled Russian seduction guru Alex Kirillov, was effectively breaching Thai decency laws. Kirillov, who has served as a spokesperson for the mostly Russian group, told reporters he believes they were set up. "I think somebody ordered (our arrest)... for money," he said as he arrived at court. The group have pleaded not guilty, saying they were only training people on "how to seduce men and women" and not participating in sexual activity. Supporters of the defendants say the seminar was geared towards offering romance and relationship advice. Vashukevich and Kirillov have expressed fear of being deported back to Russia and at one stage called on Washington for help. But Vashukevich later blamed the US for their imprisonment. Both Washington and Moscow have publicly shrugged off Vashukevich's story, which the US State Department described as "bizarre". Vashukevich, who has penned a book about seducing oligarchs, also faced legal problems in Russia. Deripaska won an invasion of privacy lawsuit against her in July after a video apparently filmed by the model showed the tycoon vacationing with an influential Russian deputy prime minister. Kremlin-connected Deripaska and Manafort, Donald Trump's ex-campaign manager, did business together in the mid-2000s. Manafort has since been convicted in the US of financial crimes related to political work he did in Ukraine before the 2016 election as well as witness tampering. He has also admitted to providing polling data to a Russian with intelligence ties during the 2016 presidential race. Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi held a meeting on Monday with the committee responsible for developing the Montazah district in Alexandria, giving orders to proceed with a comprehensive development of the area. The president also called for studying the best way to optimise the use of the seaside Montazah neighborhood to be a tourist destination given its unique heritage and historical urban masterpieces, as well as its distinguished geographical location and beaches. The meeting was attended by presidential aide for national and strategic projects Sherif Ismail, Tourism Minister Rania Al-Mashat, head of El-Montazah for Tourism and Investment Bahaa Tahoun, and presidential adviser for urban planning Amir Sayed, among others. Presidential spokesman Bassam Rady said that El-Sisi tasked the officials with completing all technical and engineering studies required to develop the district and promote services to attract tourists from all over the world. On Monday, authorities began to evacuate and demolish 206 cabins in Montazah after a legal dispute that started in 2013 between the Montazah for Tourism And Investment Company and cabin tenants over a failure to pay rent. Montazah was an exclusive resort for the Mohamed Ali Royal Family since 19th century till 1952, when it was first opened to the public following the 23 July revolution that overthrew King Farouk. In the 1950s, the Montazah cabins were built along some beaches in the area. Former ministers and famous public figures were among the tenants of the 896 cabins that extended over six exclusive beaches in Monatazah areas like Cleopatra beach and Aida beach. Short link: By PTI LAHORE: Pakistani security agencies on Tuesday killed two terrorists of the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group in Punjab province, who were allegedly involved in the kidnappings of an American national, a senior army officer, and the son of former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. The terrorists were also involved in the killing of senior intelligence officials. According to a statement issued by the counter-terrorism department (CTD) of the Punjab Police, the terrorists were to hit the offices of an intelligence agency on Tuesday but they were eliminated before they could act. "On Monday the CTD received credible source information that some terrorists were hiding in Faisalabad, some 150 kms from Lahore, in a rented house. A person from the neighbourhood observed suspicious activity and secretly informed the police," a CTD spokesman said. ALSO READ | Pakistan arrests top Taliban member to put pressure on militant outfit to hold talks with US He said an intelligence-based operation was jointly conducted by the CTD, Punjab and an intelligence agency at midnight. "The terrorists were warned to surrender but they started indiscriminate firing at the personnel of the raiding team. A shootout ensued. When the firing stopped, two terrorists were found dead. They were identified as Adeel Hafeez and Usman Haroon. They belong to a very dangerous network of Daesh (IS)," he said. The spokesperson further said both terrorists had planned to attack security personnel in Faisalabad, evidence from the crime scene showed. "This terrorist network has been found involved in several high profile terrorist activities including killing of officials of the intelligence agency in Multan namely Umar Mubeen and Yasir Ali, kidnapping of son-in-law of General Tariq Majeed, an American national Warren Weinstein in 2011, Ali Haider Gilani, son of former PM Yousaf Raza Gilani and Brigadier Tahir," the CTD said. Weinstein, who was abducted from Lahore, was accidentally killed in a US drone strike in 2015 on the Afghan border. The slain terrorists had also killed two police officers in Faisalabad in an attempt to kidnap a senior law enforcement officer. Two suicide jackets, one pistol, two hand grenades and live rounds of pistol have been recovered from the crime scene. The CTD said further investigation is underway. By PTI PESHAWAR: Pakistan has arrested a senior member of the Afghan Taliban here in a bid to put pressure on the militant group to come to the negotiating table to hold talks with the US, a media report said Tuesday. Hafez Mohibullah, who served as Religious Affairs Minister when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan until 2001, was held in Peshawar, the BBC reported quoting sources in the group. The US has repeatedly called on Pakistan to end "safe havens" for the Taliban on its soil. Pakistan denies backing the group to retain influence in Afghanistan. The reported detention of Mohibullah came ahead of US envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad's visit to Pakistan for a fresh round of talks with top officials to push forward a US-backed ongoing peace process in the war-torn country. Two high-ranking Taliban figures, talking on condition of anonymity, suggested the former minister had been detained to put pressure on the group into meeting Khalilzad in Pakistan this week, and crucially to agree to meet representatives of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, the report said. ALSO READ | Taliban claims deadly car bomb blast in Kabul says report "They arrested him [Mohibullah] to send a message," the report said, quoting one senior Taliban figure as saying. "There was a meeting with Pakistani officials on the upcoming peace talks which ended in arguments. Right afterwards, the authorities raided a number of houses and arrested Mohibullah. After that (Taliban leader) Sheikh Hibatullah sent a message warning everyone to be alert," said another source from the militant group's Quetta Shura or leadership council. The US wants Pakistan to encourage the militants to reach a settlement in Afghanistan and bring the 17-year war to a close. The Taliban officials have said they will only begin talks with the Afghan government once a firm date for the withdrawal of American troops from the country has been agreed. India has been a key stakeholder in the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan. India has been maintaining a policy of not engaging with the Taliban and pressing for an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace initiative to bring peace and stability in the war-ravaged country. By PTI WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has said that his trade and tariff policies have started working and many countries, including India, have opened up their markets for American poultry and agricultural products that were not allowed previously. Addressing the 100th annual convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation on Monday, he said, "India and Morocco have opened their markets to our poultry exports. We do so much for them, it's incredible. Japan opened its market to US exports of potatoes from Idaho and lamb from the great State of Texas." He also said that under the Trump administration, the US is turning all of that around with fair trade deals that put American farmers, ranchers, and in fact put America first. "That's what I'm interested in, American first," he added. For the first time in a quarter of a century, Argentina recently opened its market for American pork exports, Trump said. "They (Argentina) needed something. I said you have to open it up to pork, and they said, okay. I said, why didn't you do it before? They said, nobody ever asked us. A lot of it is that. You would be amazed. Nobody ever asked us," the US President said. Similarly, he said that beef from the US has been shipped to Brazil for the first time since 2003. "They're going to have a great new leader. They say he's the Donald Trump of South America. Do you believe it," Trump told the cheering farmers. Asserting that the US has taken the toughest ever actions to confront China's unfair trade practices that hurt American farmers and ranchers, he said,"This includes China's theft of trade secrets from American agribusiness." He said he could not believe how complicated their business is with the seeds and the genetic farming. "It's incredible. People don't know this. But your secrets were being stolen by China and, in all fairness, other countries. We want a fair deal for American farmers removing China's arbitrary bans on agricultural imports, safeguarding our intellectual property, and providing fair market access to all American producers," the US President said. Trump said the US has also made history by finalising an agreement to replace the "horrible" North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with a brand-new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, called the USMCA. Alleging that the NAFTA was one of the worst trade deals ever made by a country, he said the new landmark trade deal will increase exports of wheat from Montana, dairy from Wisconsin, chicken from Georgia, and products from farmers and ranchers all across the country. "As part of the USMCA, Canada agreed to give fair treatment to the US wheat farmers. They will now grade American wheat just like they grade their own," he said. According to Trump, over the last 15 years there has been a continual decline in the US' share of agricultural trade all throughout the world. "It's all going in the wrong direction. It's changing now. Wait till you see what happens.We do the right deal with China, you're talking about massive - and they're already backordering, right? They're already back. I told them. I said you got to start ordering. You're going to order. They're going to order, and they're already started," he said. "We're turning all of that around with fair trade deals that put American farmers, ranchers, and in fact put America first.That's what I'm interested in, American first," the US President said. By PTI KATHMANDU: India will provide special training to 62 Nepalese officials on public finance management which includes an e-payment system, accounting, internal audit and fiscal responsibility, Indian officials here said Tuesday. The training session is part of the Nepal-India Economic Cooperation Programme, the Indian Embassy said. The course on 'Global Perspectives on Public Financial Management' will be held in three batches with 20 Nepalese officials being trained in New Delhi from January 14, it said. The training will enhance the capabilities of these officials in global practices dealing with e-payment system, accounting and cash management, public borrowing system, accounting of foreign loans/grants and repayments, pension payment system, internal audit, fiscal responsibility and budget management, among others, it added. By Associated Press PATTAYA (THAILAND): A model from Belarus who claimed last year that she had evidence of Russian involvement in helping elect Donald Trump president pleaded guilty Tuesday in a Thai court in a case related to holding a sex training seminar and will be deported. A lawyer representing Vashukevich said she and seven co-defendants were given suspended 18-month prison terms and fines of 100,000 baht ($3,135), waived in view of nine months already served since the charges of soliciting and conspiracy were filed against them. All were arrested in February last year at a hotel in the seaside resort town of Pattaya, where Vashukevich and Russian self-styled sex guru Alexander Kirillov, a co-defendant, were giving a class in sexual relationships fully clothed, at least when police and reporters burst in. In this Monday, Aug. 20, 2018, file photo, Anastasia Vashukevich, leaves the Pattaya Provincial Court in Chonburi province, Thailand. A model from Belarus who claimed last year that she had evidence of Russian involvement in helping elect Donald Trump president has pleaded guilty in a Thai court in a case related to holding a sex training seminar and will be deported. A lawyer representing Anastasia Vashukevich said she and seven co-defendants would be freed Tuesday night Jan. 15, 2019, and deported. (Photo | AP) They were initially sentenced Tuesday by the court in Pattaya to three-year prison terms, but their sentences were halved because they pleaded guilty, a standard procedure in Thai trials. The soliciting charge carried a maximum prison term of 10 years, and conspiracy a maximum penalty of seven years. The lawyer, who asked not to be identified because he feared he might be breaching court rules, said the group would be freed Tuesday night and deported afterward. Vashukevich, also known as Nastya Rybka, drew international interest last year by claiming to have recordings of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska talking about interference in the 2016 U.S. election but did not make them public. Deripaska is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and also had a working relationship with Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager who was investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller and convicted last year of tax and bank fraud. In the early stages of their detention, the sex training group sent a note to the U.S. Embassy via an intermediary seeking help and political asylum. Vashukevich indicated she would turn over the recordings she claimed to have if the U.S. could help secure her release, but later withdrew the offer, suggesting that she and Deripaska had reached an agreement. Vashukevich's earlier revelation of an alleged affair with Deripaska fueled opposition allegations in Russia of official corruption and enraged the Kremlin. A public scandal erupted in early February last year when Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny published an investigation drawing on her social media posts suggesting corrupt links between Deripaska and a top Kremlin official, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko. The report featured photos from Deripaska's yacht in 2016, when Vashukevich claimed she was having an affair with him and recorded him. Thai Immigration Police Chief Lt. Gen. Surachate Hakparn said his office would take custody of the group after they were released by the court in Pattaya and put their names on a blacklist barring them from returning to Thailand. "Once we've received them, tomorrow I will contact the Russian ambassador in Thailand to arrange a date for it to take them in and buy a plane ticket," he said by phone. He said he expected to deport them by the end of next week. By AFP BEIJING: China will seek to establish an international lunar base one day, possibly using 3D printing technology to build facilities, the Chinese space agency said Monday, weeks after landing a rover on the moon's far side. The agency said four more lunar missions are planned, confirming the launch of a probe by the end of the year to bring back samples from the moon. The future launches will culminate with a mission to test equipment for an international moon research base, Wu Yanhua, deputy chief commander of China's Lunar Exploration Programme, said at a press briefing. "China, the United States, Russia and Europe are all discussing whether to build a research base or a research station on the moon," Wu said. Scientists are looking into 'whether we can use 3D printing technology' to build lunar facilities, he added. China took a major step in its ambition to achieve space superpower status when it became the first nation to land a probe on the far side of the moon on January 3. The Chang'e-4 lander -- named after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology -- released a rover that will perform experiments in the Von Karman Crater, which is located in the South Pole-Aitken Basin. The rover, dubbed Yutu-2 (Jade Rabbit), was preparing to go back to work after waking from five days of hibernation on Thursday. "It will be the first time that we are able to study the origin and formation of the darker side the moon, including the age of the moon," said Wu Weiren, general designer of the Lunar Exploration Programme. Basking the mission's success, the China National Space Administration discussed plans for future missions. The Chang'e-5 probe, originally scheduled to collect moon samples in the second half of 2017, will launch by the end of the year, Wu said. The mission was delayed after its planned carrier, the powerful Long March 5 Y2 rocket, failed in a separate launch in July 2017. Following that mission, China will launch Chang'e-6 to gather samples on the moon's south pole and bring them back to Earth, Wu said. "We will decide whether it will do it on the dark side of the moon or the near side depending on the sampling situation of the Chang'e-5. It will be followed by Chang'e-7, which will conduct a 'comprehensive exploration of the moon's south pole', including its topography, material composition and space environment," Wu told reporters. Finally, the Chang'e-8 mission will test technologies and do "some preliminary exploration for countries to jointly build a lunar research base in the future", Wu said. Ranjitha Gunasekaran By Express News Service CHENNAI: The success of Indias Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Queer (LGBTQ) community in overturning the colonial-era Section 377 that criminalised homosexuality has been a source of inspiration to the members of the community in several African countries, according to Nigerian-American writer Chike Frankie Edozien. In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled Section 377 unconstitutional in so far as it criminalises consensual sexual conduct between adults of the same sex. Edozien teaches journalism at New York University and is the author of the memoir Lives of Great Men: Living and Loving as an African Gay Man. The Lambda Literary prize-winning book, published in 2017, tells of the authors life as a gay man in Nigeria as well as of the lives of other gay men and women in African nations. Speaking at an interaction in Chennai on Monday, organised by the NGO Sahodaran, Edozien said that many members of the LGBTQ community in African nations such as Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania, have been looking at how, through the courts, they could decriminalise homosexuality. What we have learnt from the Indian example is that you can chip away at the legislation... we can build from that with small victories at a time such as marriage and adoption rights, he said, adding that the Internet was crucial in making news of the SC verdict globally available in real time. There are organisations working to scrap such laws and lawsuits going on in several African countries, he said. In Nigeria, for instance, existing law that criminalised homosexuality was strengthened in 2014 with the passage of the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act. The Act which bans same-sex marriage also bans any public displays of affection between same-sex persons. It has been widely condemned as draconian. Edozien said he knew of lesbian activists in Nigeria who were considering challenging the law by targeting the provisions that bar the word lesbian (or gay) from being used in the name of an organisation. Interestingly South Africa has progressive LGBTQ legislation that was referenced in the SC verdict. However, Edozien said that its example was often dismissed by Nigerians as resulting from its multicultural population. People can dismiss South Africa. They can dismiss something that happens in America or Britain, by saying oh thats just the west. But this is India, it is a commonwealth country. It is not the west, he explained. The world is watching. By Express News Service KASARGOD: Muhthasim CM, alias Tasleem (41), of Chembarika arrested by the Delhi police for allegedly conspiring to kill some prominent RSS leaders, including Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat, was in touch with a Mumbai-based group with links to Pakistan, said police sources. The Delhi Police had specific information on the activities of Tasleem and that was why he was arrested, they said. Interestingly, he had worked as a leader of the BJPs Minority Morcha in Kasargod, till recently. His photographs with BJP leaders of Kerala and Karnataka have gone viral in the social media. Tasleem is being questioned by the special team of the Delhi police. Elaborate fake case Tasleem has been framed in an elaborate fake case, said his brother Khader. He is in Delhi trying to find a lawyer and get Tasleem out on bail. The case against Tasleem in Delhi was not as serious as was being made out in Kasargod, he said. He will get justice in court, he said. On January 11, a special team of the Delhi Police arrested him from the house of his brother-in-law at Chattanchal. The Delhi police, with the help of the Kasargod police, had simultaneously raided his house at Chembarika and the houses of his relatives. By PTI KOLLAM: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday slammed the CPI(M)-led LDF government in Kerala and Congress-led UDF opposition over the Sabarimala women entry issue and said both fronts were two sides of the same coin. Tearing into the Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government, Modi said its conduct in the Sabarimala issue will go down as one of the "most shameful behaviours" by any party and government. Kerala has today "become hostile to the corruption and communalism" of the LDF and UDF, he said while addressing a huge gathering of BJP workers here. Modi said for the last few months, the entire nation has been talking about Sabarimala. The conduct of the Kerala LDF government on the Sabarimala issue would go down in the history as one of the "most shameful behaviours by any party and government," he said. "We know that the communists do not respect the Indian history, culture and spirituality but nobody imagined they would have such hatred," he said. Slamming the "multiple stand" taken by the Congress and the party-led opposition front UDF in the state, he urged them to clear their stand on the issue. "The UDF is no better. The Congress has multiple stands. They say one thing in Parliament but a different thing in Pathanamthitta (where the Lord Ayyappa shrine is located). They say one thing on Monday and a different thing on another day," he said. "I challenge the UDF, clearly state your stand on the issue. Your doublespeak has been exposed," Modi said, lashing out at his party's national arch rival. The BJP's stand on this issue has 'always' been clear, he said. "The actions of our party match our words. If there is one party that has been at the forefront of standing with Kerala and its culture, it is BJP," Modi said. "On one hand NDA government at the centre is working day and night for the people of Kerala. But it pains me no end that the Kerala of spirituality and tranquility, the Kerala of harmony and happiness has become hostile to the corruption and communalism of two alliances-- the LDF and UDF," he said. Alleging that both LDF and UDF were "two sides of the same coin", Modi said the Congress and Communists were talking about gender justice in the Sabarimala issue but their actions were "just opposite." "The Left and the Congress make tall claims about respect to gender justice and social justice. But their actions are exactly the opposite," he said. He accused the respective fronts of being engaged in "vote bank politics" by supporting triple talaq. Modi also criticised the Muslim League's stand on the recent 10 per cent reservation for poor sections of society. Triple talaq was a "big injustice to women" which has been banned by several Islamic nations, he said and asked why India should have the practice. "The NDA government has been working towards abolishing triple talaq. Who is opposing us on this. The Communists and the Congress," he said. "Driven by votebank politics, Congress and Communists support it. The people of Kerala should ask the LDF and UDF why are they supporting a practice that causes injustice to women," he said. On the NDA's 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections, he recalled it was passed by a 'historic' majority in Parliament. "We believe that every Indian of any caste, creed or community deserves equal opportunity. We have also made provisions to increase the number of seats in institutions so that justice is done to all sections," he said. However, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) opposed it, he said. "Do you know which party opposed it tooth and nail. It is the IUML, the second largest partner of the UDF. We want to work towards social justice but the UDF does not agree with us," he said. UDF and LDF were two sides of the same old coin which were same in corruption, casteism and communalism, Modi alleged. "They are different in name, but in damaging Kerala's cultural fabric, they are the same. UDF and LDF are different names but in political violence they are the same. Different in name, but in neglecting Kerala's yuvashakthi, they are the same," he said. He accused both party-led fronts of "ignoring the poor." Indicating that the BJP could make better strides in Kerala, he cited the example of Tripura where his party trumped the CPI (M) to form the government last year. "The UDF and LDF may laugh at us. To them I say, don't underestimate the BJP karyakarta. Your stones, your sticks, your violence cannot break the moral of the BJP karyakarta. They should see what happened in Tripura. From zero, we formed the government there. What happened in Tripura will happen in Kerala," Modi said. His government was committed to all sections of society and recalled its efforts to release Indian nurses from ISIS activists, besides Father Tom Uzhunnalil, who was held hostage by militants in Yemen. Modi also recalled the rapid strides made by the country in attracting foreign investments in the past four years. Ajay Kanth By Express News Service KOCHI: From Bangladesh and Myanmar, they reach Kolkata. The next stop is Hyderabad. The final stopover, Kochi. And their destination range from Australia and Canada to European countries like Serbia. Following the Kerala Police unearthing the international footprint of this operation, both the Intelligence Bureau and National Investigation Agency (NIA) have started probing. Shockingly, Kochi has emerged the critical lay-over for dozens of Bangladeshis and Rohingyas as they plot their illegal migration to Australia, Canada and a few European countries. The racket stops short of being a case of human trafficking as these illegal migrants are fully equipped with all valid Indian documents by the time they reach their destinations. It has been only a couple of months since the Kerala Police made a breakthrough into this illegal migration racket. In November 2018, they busted an inter-state gang that has been moving illegal Bangladeshi/Rohingya migrants from airports in Kerala after providing them with school certificates, voters ID, pan cards/ Aadhaar and, finally, Indian passports. READ | Rohingya infiltration: Alert on Kerala coast The Kerala Police team, which arrested Sumit Barua from Hyderabad who they suspect is a key player in this racket, are hoping to make more arrests in the coming days. Their apprehension is the racket involves government officers in Hyderabad, including those in the police service. Presently, Barua is in the state police custody for interrogation. Ernakulam district police chief Rahul R Nair is tracking the developments. A similar racket was busted by Uttar Pradesh police in November 2018 when five Bangladeshi migrants and their handler were nabbed and several documents including school certificates and Voters ID seized from them. There are similar rackets operating all across the country. Were investigating it in detail to ascertain the links of the rackets, Rahul added. READ | Five-member Rohingya family held in Kerala's Vizhinjam As per the details we have collected so far, over the past couple of years, many Bangladeshis have settled in Canada and Australia as Indian citizens. This fraudulent migration has been taking place for the last two years from various Indian airports; Kochi international airport is now a vital link, said DySP K S Udhayabhanu, who is heading the police team probing the case. Anyone can migrate from India using the services of this racket A senior intelligence officer said: Whether its Bangladeshis or Rohingyas, anyone can migrate from India using the services of this racket. The payment ranges between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh per person. As per our probe, at least a dozen illegal immigrants have managed to leave from the airports with the help of the racket in the last five to six months. The number could be much more. READ | Refugees in their own village The modus operandi, as explained by the investigation team: First comes the school certificate from Kolkata that establishes the Indian origin, by way of a school record, mostly up to class seven or eight. Then, the scene of action shifts to Hyderabad where residence certificates are issued. Evidently government officers seem to be involved, says the investigation team, as these documents claim domicile in a particular address for the past one year or so. It is this residence certificate that proves to be a vital cog in the wheel for issuing voters ID, Aadhaar card and an Indian passport. The kingpins of this racket evidently have influence in local police too which is required for the mandatory police verification for processing the passport application. The immigrants are also taken on a free trip to Malaysia as tourists using the documents for five to six days as a double check process and also to convince the immigration wing that they have travelled abroad earlier with the passport, the officer said. Munambam, surroundings come under scanner again Kochi: Munambam and its adjacent areas have again come under the scanner of enforcement agencies as the police have stumbled upon evidence suggesting an international human trafficking racket is operating from the area to help Tamils reach Australia in fishing boats. The human trafficking angle emerged following the latest incident on January 12 when the police recovered 19 pieces of baggage from Cherai beach and Maliankara and another 54 abandoned bags from Kodungalloor; also revealing how porous the states coastline is. President Abdel-Fattah El Sisi has issued a decree regulating the travel of senior state officials for official missions abroad. Decree no. 23 of 2019 stipulates in its first article that the permission for travel abroad for official missions and activities must be approved by the president of the republic. The decree applies to the prime minister, deputy prime ministers and ministers of defense, interior, justice and foreign affairs, as well as the heads of independent control and security agencies and their deputies. The decree also stipulates that travel abroad on official missions or jobs for officials not mentioned in first article must, especially deputy prime ministers, governors and deputy governors, the heads of national agencies, public agencies and holding companies managers, be approved by the prime minister. The decree has been published in the official gazette. Search Keywords: Short link: By Express News Service BENGALURU: In a move that is sure to put the Karnataka government on the edge, two independent MLAs H Nagesh from Mulibaglu constituency and former minister R Shankar from Ranebennur have withdrawn their support to the JDS-Congress coalition government. In a letter addressed to Governor Vajubhai Vala dated January 15, the two MLAs have requested immediate action after withdrawing their support to the HD Kumaraswamy-led coalition government. Two independent MLAs Nagesh and former minister R Shankar write to Governor of Karnataka. Withdraw support extended to @JanataDal_S - @INCKarnataka coalition government. @NewIndianXpress pic.twitter.com/2SSPknvJOz Anusha Ravi (@anusharavi10) January 15, 2019 Speaking to news agency ANI, Independent MLA H Nagesh said that he had supported the JD(S)-Congress combine to provide good and stable government which has utterly failed. Nagesh said that he has decided to support BJP to form a stable government. ALSO READ | No threat to my government, says Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy The other independent MLA Shankar said that today is Makar Sankranti and on this day he wants a change in government to an efficient one. Independent MLA R Shankar (Photo: ANI) The withdrawal of support by both MLAs comes at a time the BJP has herded all its MLAs at a hotel in Gurugram and some MLAs of the Congress have gone incommunicado. The MLAs decision comes at a time speculations of horse trading is rife in Karnataka political scenario. Even as Congress leaders continue to claim that the coalition is not under threat, AICC secretary and Karnataka incharge and KC Venugopal has been holding emergency meetings since Tuesday morning to control damage to the coalition. (with inputs from ANI) Bansy Kalappa By Express News Service BENGALURU: Amid speculation that the BJP is attempting to destabilise the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in Karnataka, BJP state president BS Yeddyurappa says the party is now fully focused on the Lok Sabha elections and confident of winning over 22 seats in the state. We have already started working on our plan to win at least 22 seats of the 28 at stake in Karnataka. Only election results will tell you how we countered these two parties and won, he told The New Indian Express. Excerpts Did Karnataka figure in the deliberations at the BJP National Council? First, I wish the people of Karnataka a happy Sankranthi. Let this festival of harvest and celestial change bring in a bounty of good for them. The plenary session was called to discuss the partys course of action in the Lok Sabha elections, and there is no question of discussing any state or region. It was a discussion on how BJP should return to power, facing the motley crowd of opposition parties. This meet is intended to boost the morale of workers and leaders. After the 3-0 defeat in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, is the BJP introspecting on its Karnataka strategy? There is no need to compare the results of these three states with Karnatakas political situation. Politics in the Hindi heartland is different from South India, especially Karnataka, where BJP is a formidable force to take on Congress and JD(S) separately or unitedly. BJP won 17 seats in Karnataka, a position which is under threat because of the Congress-JD(S) alliance. Together, the alliance vote share is higher. How do you seek to counter this challenge? The BJP is a formidable force in Karnataka. In politics, 2+ 2 does not make 4. Weve already started working on our plan to win at least 22 of the 28 seats in Karnataka. Only elections results will tell you how we won. Does the SP-BSP Bua-Bhatija alliance, as Amit Shah named it, in Uttar Pradesh have any ramifications on Karnataka? To be frank, in UP also, the Bua-Bhatija combine will not make any impact on BJPs electoral fortunes. The situation in Karnataka is totally different -- here, the BJP network and potential of workers is very strong. Both Congress and JD(S) are scared to take on BJP in Karnataka. In 2014, you had a Modi wave, this time what is your strategy for Karnataka? This time, it is Modis leadership. Along with a governance free of scandal and corruption, good work and pro-people schemes such as Ayushman Bharat Yojana and Ujala (free gas scheme) will help BJP return to power. Ananth Kumar is no longer with you, how will it affect your electoral fortunes? Definitely, we miss Ananth Kumar, who was a good organizer. Party cadre and leaders have to work overtime to fill the gap caused by his death. Unlike the Congress, BJP is a peoples party and has its own inherent strength to overcome the loss. For instance, with the death of Pramod Mahajan and Gopinath Munde, the party suffered a huge loss but recovered, and Fadnavis emerged. Congress and JD(S) are looking at 25 seats in Karnataka... (Laughing) These two parties are right in their expectations. Congress will win 5 and Janata Dal (S) will win 2 seats, which if reversed will be 25! We will win the remaining 21 seats. Will you accommodate all 17 winners of 2014? The party leadership will decide on this. How will you deal with anti-incumbency, because some of them have won for the second or third time from the same constituency? In Parliament elections, the anti-incumbency factor is inconsequential. It is the national policy and leadership which counts. Unity among party leaders and workers, along with hard work, will take care of all other factors, be it anti-incumbency or Congress-JD(S) unity. We are not bothered, our goal is to win the elections and add at least 22 seats to the BJPs national kitty. Atanu Biswas By The much-hyped Channel 4 television drama Brexit: The Uncivil War starring Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch, which aired in early January, had a tagline: Everyone knows who won. But hardly anyone knows how. Well, was the data-driven social media campaign made by Dominic Cummings, the character played by Cumberbatch, so decisive? The Britons would keep on wondering why and how they could actually break ties with European event that would redefine the history of the country. Certainly severe dissatisfaction within society might have been expressed in the Brexit ballots. Several studies show high correlation of Leave vote shares with older age, lower educational attainment, unemployment, or employment in certain industries such as manufacturing, and lack of quality of public service provision. In an interesting fictional attempt, Stanley Johnsons Brexit novel Kompromat, set in the backdrop of the Brexit vote and the US presidential election, infuses the idea that Russia might have orchestrated the destabilising of the West. Whether that is true or not, Brexit could destabilise Britain to the utmost level, for sure, especially a no-deal Brexit that looks possible. Britain had joined the European Economic Community (EEC), the predecessor of EU, in 1973. Interestingly, they didnt take any referendum for this. But strangely they always sought public opinion to continue with Europe! The United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum took place in June 1975, which voted in favour of continuing with Europe by a two-third majority. However, 41 years on, in another June, Britons issued a different verdict. Yes, the demography of the UK has changed remarkably in between. In the 2006 British drama film This is England, set in 1983 Britain, a 11-year old British boy was seen to make a racial remark to a Pakistani shopkeeper. In a dramatic shift in the tune, in an episode in BBCs recent popular comedy TV series Citizen Khan, in 2014, Mr Khan, a Pakistani immigrant to Britain living at Sparkhill in East Birmingham, was seen to be furious over East European immigrants in Britain. Mr Khan alleged that East Europeans were eating up the jobs meant for British Pakistanis. While his daughter reminded him about his own immigrant status, he firmly announces that he has been residing in Britain for 30 years, and the East Europeans are the immigrants! It might be interesting to note that the British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens who live in the UK, along with Britons who have lived abroad for less than 15 years, were eligible to vote in the EU referendum. And there is widespread speculation that Citizen Khan actually voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum, as did many of his friends of South Asian origin. Many areas having significant (say, more than 25 per cent) South Asian populations voted in favour of Leave, for eg. 56.5 per cent in Luton, 56.4 per cent in Hillingdon and 54.2 per cent in Bradford voted for Leave. Asians constituted only 4.4 per cent of the UK population in 2001, which jumped to 6.9 per cent in 2011, comprising nearly 2.5 per cent British Indians, 2 per cent British Pakistanis, and 0.8 per cent British Bangladeshis. The percentage of the South Asian community is increasing rapidly in that country, as by 2050, it is predicted that non-white people will make up almost 30 per cent of the population. The British South Asian diaspora, in general, feel themselves to be British Indian or British Pakistani, and were never absorbed into a European collective attitude. In addition, East European immigrants flooded the UK in this millenniumnet immigration from the EU to the UK was 15,000 in 2003, which jumped to 87,000 in 2004 due to Eastern enlargement, and became 184,000 in 2015. Much like the prominent Leave campaigners such as Michael Gove, the immigrants from the Indian subcontinent were dismayed by the racist immigration system that Britain had to implementpredominantly white EU migrants were allowed to freely enter the UK, while those from the Indian subcontinent were subject to visa and work restrictions, and had to pay thousands of pounds each year to extend their visa. And Brexit was an opportunity for them to level out this in-built unfairness. We all know that Leave won by a slender margin in the 2016 Brexit referendum just 51.89 per cent voted for Leave. It might be difficult to find the exact percentage of South Asians who voted for Brexit. But assuming that South Asians constituted 7 per cent of the votes cast, and 4 out of 5 (i.e. 80 per cent) among them voted in favour of Leave, 5.6 per cent of the votes favouring Brexit came from the South Asians. So the remaining 46.29 per cent votes came from the remaining 93 per cent of voters, which is 49.77 per cent of the remaining votes, just below the halfway mark! This means that without Citizen Khan highly favouring Brexit as a response to immigration from Eastern European, the greatest social, political and economic turmoil in Britain in the 21st century would possibly not have taken place! In fact, several academic researchers are examining immigration from Eastern Europe as a potential driver of support for Brexit, while the role of austerity policies since 2010 is also explored in this context. These Citizen Khans are nothing but the carry-over effects of British colonies all over the world. For centuries Britain has changed the course of history of the world through these colonies. Now, the inevitable and inseparable carry-over effects are bound to change the history of Britain in a decisive manner. Atanu Biswas Professor of Statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata Email: atanu@isical.ac.in Harpreet Singh Bajwa By Express News Service CHANDIGARH: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president and Former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Tuesday said that the party will fight the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections on the issue of performance and termed that the all the parties who are trying to form an alliance to take on Akali Dal including the rebel leaders who have left the party will only damage the Congress. Sukhbir said that their party will fight the coming parliamentary elections on the issue of performance of the BJP-led NDA Government, the previous SAD-BJP Government in Punjab and the present Congress government in the state, as the present government has done nothing. He claimed that SAD is the biggest threat to Ranjit Singh Brahmpura's SAD (Taksali) Party and all these newly formed parties and fringe groups are getting together as they cannot fight the Akali Dal alone and they will only harm the Congress and not his party. The Akali Dal has a strong and dedicated voter base. He said that in the next three months he would not rest for a day and cover the entire state addressing each "halqa" to interact with the people and make them aware of the dire situation the Congress party has pushed Punjab into. He said that the biggest issues facing the state were not being addressed by the state government. The farmer was in extreme economic distress, the common man could not afford expensive medical treatment in private hospitals, children of the state were being denied education. On the issue of swapping Amritsar with L Lok Sakha seat with BJP, Sukhbir said that discussions between both the parties were on regarding seat sharing. But said that BJP will not be given more than three seats. On question of his wife and union minister Harsimart Kaur Badal's seat to be changed from Bathinda, he said that the decision will be taken by the core committee of the party. He attacked state Congress president Sunil Jakhar and alleged that several false cases have been registered against Akali leaders under vendetta politics. "Jakhar has committed atrocities on families in Fazilka and Ferozepur and got registered false cases against families of Akali leaders" alleged Sukhbir. He also demanded a CBI inquiry to examine Jakhar's role in the large number of false cases being registered in Abohar. Former Congress MLA Joginder Singh Panjgrain joined the SAD here on Tuesday along with his supporters. Harpreet Singh Bajwa By Express News Service CHANDIGARH: Chief of the Special Task Force on drugs, Mohd Mustafa, blamed the district police in Punjab for inadequate investigations of smugglers arrested under the NDPS Act. Mustafa on Tuesday said that the STF had come across cases in which challans in NDPS cases were deliberately delayed beyond the 180-day period to aid the accused. The STF has analysed numerous bail orders and court judgments of the acquitted and identified major shortcomings in the investigation, he said. In 685 cases of acquittal, instructions have been issued to file appeals against the order in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, he added. Mustafa said a comprehensive action plan had been prepared to ensure all fugitive drug smugglers be brought to book. Directions have also been issued to keep a watch on as many as 71 major drug traffickers who are in different jails in the state. He said the force had prepared a list of 140 POs, 332 absconders and 151 parole jumpers and directions have been issued to concerned police officials in all the districts to arrest them. Prasanta Mazumdar By Express News Service GUWAHATI: The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), which pulled out of the Sarbananda Sonowal government last week protesting the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, will stage a series of protests and drum up public support against the Bill at the national level. The party will take out a protest march on January 18, followed by a 10-hour sit-in demonstration by its MLAs in Guwahati on January 24. On January 30, the party will hold several processions. By siding with the people, the AGP has already staged a series of protests against the Citizenship Bill that comes in conflict with the Assam Accord and is a threat to the Assamese and indigenous communities. While the AGP was in the government, it kept expressing its opposition to the bill. Eventually, it went to the extent of pulling out of the government on an issue that involves national (Assamese) interests, an AGP spokesman said. He said the AGP had already consulted various organisations, which are on the warpath, in order to put up a united fight against the Centres move to get the bill passed in Parliament. Meanwhile, RTI activist Akhil Gogoi, who is also a leader of peasants body Krishak Mukti Sangram Samitee (KMSS), and leaders of various protesting organisations sat on a 24-hour hunger strike on Monday. The KMSS is spearheading the anti-Citizenship Bill protests in the state. Gogoi alleged the Central government government had put the lives of the Assamese in stake by its move get the bill passed. By staging the protests, we are trying to mobilise public opinion against the bill, Gogoi told reporters. By Express News Service LUCKNOW/PATNA: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, who met Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati in Lucknow on Sunday, hailed the alliance between the two parties in Uttar Pradesh and said it had sent a good message, on Monday. He also claimed that with a gathbandhan (alliance) of opposition parties in the two states in place now, the BJPs rout in UP and Bihar in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections was certain. ALSO READ | UP, Bihar will decide who will assume power at the Centre: Tejashwi Yadav Its not just UP but the entire country where the message of alliance has gone... the people of UP and Bihar will decide who will come to power at the Centre, Tejashwi said at a joint Press conference with Akhilesh. In UP, there are 80 seats while Bihar has 40 Lok Sabha seats. Along with Jharkhand, which has 14 seats, a major chunk of 134 seats are in these states...The BJP has around 115 seats of these...with alliances, the BJP will lose 100 seats, he claimed. ALSO READ | Opposition unity at national level is need of the hour, says Tejashwi Yadav I congratulate Mayawatiji and Akhileshji for forging this alliance in the national interest. It was necessary in light of the situation in the country right now, he said. The SP-BSP alliance would help prevent the country from going into the clutches of the RSS, he added. Tejashwi Yadav, the younger son and political heir of jailed RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, met Mayawati soon after he reached Lucknow on Sunday night. Hoping that the alliance formed in Uttar Pradesh would be extended to Bihar and that all parties would work together to defeat the BJP, he claimed that people were not happy with the saffron party. Tejashwis meet however, seems to have miffed the Congress in Bihar and its leaders said they were watching. Congress will not issue any political statement on this (Tejashwis Lucknow meetings) till they (RJD) make it clear why he went to meet those who deserted Congress in forming an alliance in Uttar Pradesh, said senior Congress leader and MLC Prem Chand Mishra. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The Centres move to give 10 investigating agencies the power to intercept and monitor data on computers on Monday came under the scrutiny of the Supreme Court, which allowed a batch of petitions against the Home Ministrys order, which privacy activists claim amounts to snooping, and directed the government to file its reply within six weeks. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan and S K Kaul issued a notice to the government on a plea challenging the notification authorising 10 central agencies to intercept, monitor and decrypt any computer system. According to the December 20 notification, 10 agencies are empowered under the Information Technology Act for computer interception and analysis, officials said. Earlier, only the home ministry could scan calls and emails of people. The new order means any data in a computer can be intercepted. The agencies will also have powers to seize the devices. The 10 agencies empowered under the new order are the Intelligence Bureau, the Narcotics Control Bureau, the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Board of Direct Taxes, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, the Central Bureau of Investigation, the National Investigation Agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, Directorate of Signal Intelligence and the Delhi Police commissioner. The petitions by lawyer Shreya Singhal, her co-petitioner and Trinamool Congress lawmaker Mahua Moitra, lawyer M L Sharma, Amit Sahni and others alleged that the governments order is against the fundamental right to privacy and must be cancelled in the interest of justice. The petitioners also sought a direction prohibiting the agencies from initiating any criminal proceedings, inquiry or investigation against anybody under the provisions of the IT Act based on the notification. They alleged that the notification gives the State the right to access every communication, computer and mobile and to use it to protect political interest and object of the present executive political party. Govt order against Right to Privacy The petitions by lawyer Shreya Singhal, her co-petitioner and Trinamool Congress lawmaker Mahua Moitra, lawyer M L Sharma and others alleged that the governments order is against the fundamental right to privacy and must be cancelled in the interest of justice By PTI NEW DELHI: Justice Kailash Gambhir, former Delhi High Court judge, has written a letter to President Ram Nath Kovind against the Supreme Court collegium's recommendation to elevate Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna to the apex court by superseding 32 judges. The letter written on Monday mentions that Justice Khanna is the nephew of late Justice H R Khanna who was superseded after he gave a dissenting verdict during the Emergency by not supporting the view that even a fundamental right can be curtailed in certain circumstances. Just like Justice H R Khanna's supersession was termed as a "black day" in the history of the Indian judiciary, it would be another black day when there will be supersession of 32 judges who are senior to Justice Sanjiv Khanna and many of them maybe no less meritorious and men of integrity than him. The letter comes in the wake of the January 10 collegium recommendation for elevation of Justice Maheshwari, who is presently the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, and Justice Sanjiv Khanna, a judge in the Delhi High Court, as the judges of the apex court. Retired Justice Gambhir, a senior advocate, urged the president that the credibility and independence of the judiciary be preserved and "let another historical blunder not be committed". He said when he saw the news on TV channels on January 11 that the collegium has recommended elevation of Justices Maheshwari and Sanjiv Khanna to the apex court, at first, he disbelieved it. However, he saw that on legal news websites there was a detailed coverage of this event, including the decision of collegium placed on the website of the Supreme Court. "To reiterate what you may be aware, it states that the collegium has discussed the names of Chief Justices as well as senior puisne judges of the high courts, eligible for elevation to the Supreme Court and is of the considered view that at present the said two persons are more deserving and suitable in all respects than other Chief Justices and senior puisne judges of high courts for being appointed as judges of the Supreme Court of India. "The decision of the collegium also refers to certain decisions taken by it on December 12, 2018, but since the required consultation could not be undertaken as the winter vacation of the intervened and by the time the court reopened, the composition of the collegium underwent a change," the two-page letter stated. It added that the news breaking all traditions has sent shock waves to the entire legal and judicial fraternity and termed the "earth-shattering" decision to supersede 32 judges as appalling and outrageous. "This is appalling and outrageous that such an earth-shattering decision has been taken to supersede as many as 32 judges which include many Chief Justices, casting aspersions on their intellect, merit and integrity," it said. Justice Gambhir also wrote that Justice Sanjiv Khanna, the son of late Justice D R Khanna, and nephew of a highly respected man in the legal world, former Supreme Court Justice H R Khanna, who had given a dissent judgement in ADM Jabalpur matter. "The talk in the legal corridors is that the elevation of Justice (Sanjiv) Khanna is with a view to pay respect to the legacy left by his great uncle and is a tribute to his great ideals, principles, judicial philosophy and most of all, to the courageous stand taken by him in the habeas corpus case. "We all know that Justice (HR) Khanna stood as a rock in his known dissenting and minority voice and refused to bow down to the majority voice of four senior-most judges who went on to compromise the life and liberty of citizens, permitting unrestricted powers of the government for detention during the Emergency," the letter said. It stated that Justice H R Khanna knew when he signed his dissenting judgement that he was signing away his future chief justiceship. As a fait accompli, when the time came, Justice H R Khanna was superseded and in his place Justice M H Beg was appointed as the Chief Justice of India, it said. Justice Gambhir said Justice H R Khanna resigned so as to give a slap on the face of all those votary of playing with the independence of the judiciary and to respect the seniority of judges. Many term the supersession of Justice H R Khanna as a 'black day' in the history of the Indian judiciary, he said. He also referred to the January 12 last year presser by the then four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court, including Justice Ranjan Gogoi, the now Chief Justice of India to flag some of the pressing problems they faced with the then CJI Dipak Misra. While addressing the media, it was said that 'unless this institution is preserved, democracy will not survive in this country'. It was also said that the 'democracy will not survive without free judiciary', the letter said. "I humbly urge your Excellency to kindly ponder over as the head of largest democracy in the world with a robust judiciary and having remained a part of the legal fraternity, and see yourself that the way the present collegium of five eminent senior judges have superseded almost 32 judges, how will the democracy and independence of judiciary in the country survive. "It cannot be forgotten that it is just one-and-a-half month back the then collegium members of the Supreme Court had superseded Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and now out of the blue, he becomes more deserving and suitable within such a short gap," Justice Gambhir said. By PTI NEW DELHI: National Commission for Women chairperson Rekha Sharma will meet Jadavpur University's Vice-Chancellor on Friday to discuss the matter involving a professor who allegedly wrote a "misogynistic" social media post. The professor had written a post on Facebook on the virginity of women which he deleted later. In the post, the professor rhetorically asked whether his readers "would be willing to buy a cold drink or a packet of biscuits, if its seal was broken?" Strongly objecting his comments, Sharma Thursday wrote to Jadavpur University VC Suranjan Das and said the NCW is seriously concerned over the matter. She said that she will meet Das during her upcoming visit to Kolkata on Friday. The NCW also took suo motu cognisance of the professor's "shocking, misogynistic" lessons. It asked the West Bengal DGP to probe the matter and take appropriate action in the case and apprise the commission of it. Egypts Al-Azhar University overturned a decision to permanently expel a female student after she was filmed during a public embrace with a male friend, hours after the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed El-Tayeb urged the university to reconsider their decision. The universitys disciplinary committee said in its emergency meeting that it has decided the scrap the punishment, deciding to prevent the student from sitting for her exams this term in keenness over her educational future. According to the committee, the unidentified female student "expressed her deep regret over her actions, pledging a commitment to the student ethics and society values." The decision comes after El-Tayeb called on the disciplinary board to revise their punishment, despite describing the incident as "unacceptable and violating the community's religious and Eastern traditions." Last week, a video went viral on social media showing a man, a student at Mansoura University, surprising the female student with a bouquet of flowers and kneeling in front of her in what appears to be a marriage proposal. He then embraced the young woman and lifted her off the ground. The woman studies Arabic language at Al-Azhar University branch in Al-Mansoura in Nile Delta but the video has been taken at Al-Masnoura University. The incident triggered the two universities disciplinary boards to take action. The male student was expelled for two years, yet he can still appeal the decision. Short link: Ramananda Sengupta By Express News Service NEW DELHI: In a move unlikely to go down well with the rabidly patriarchal Taliban that hopes to return to power in Afghanistan, India and Central Asian nations have proposed attracting Afghan women to participate in the countrys public life. The first meeting of the India-Central Asia foreign ministers dialogue, with the participation of Afghanistan, in Samarkhand, Uzbekistan, on Saturday also agreed to promote inclusive Afghan-led, Afghan-owned peace process and reconciliation, and to assist in economic reconstruction of Afghanistan. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her counterparts from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan participated in the meeting. Welcoming the participation of Afghanistan as an important land link in regional cooperation, transit of goods and energy, all the ministers expressed their commitment to peace, security and stability of Afghanistan. Swaraj also said India would be happy with the participation of the Central Asian countries at the Chabahar Day International Conference in Chabahar on 26 February. US President Donald Trumps proposal to halve the American troops in Afghanistan has emboldened the Taliban, which has consistently rejected talks with the Afghan government. Last week, it called off talks with US officials led by Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad due to an agenda disagreement. Khalilzad was also in New Delhi last week as part of a tour of China, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to brief officials on his efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. India sees the Taliban as a proxy for Pakistans ISI, and has consistently refused to hold direct talks with it. Senior government officials had rejected Gen Bipin Rawats recent comments that India would be left behind if it didnt engage with the Taliban. The Army chief has no business commenting on a political decision, said an official. By PTI LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh government has allocated Rs 4,200 crore for the Kumbh Mela being held in the 'sangam' city of Allahabad, which is over thrice the budget of the Maha Kumbh in 2013, making the mega pilgrimage perhaps the costliest ever. "The UP government has allocated Rs 4,200 crore for 2019 Kumbh Mela. The previous state government had spent around Rs 1,300 crore for the Maha Kumbh, which was held in 2013," state Finance Minister Rajesh Agarwal told PTI. He said that apart from this, some other departments have also allocated funds for the mega event. Agarwal said this time the Kumbh Mela area has been doubled as compared to the previous years. This year's Kumbh Mela is spread over an area of 3,200 hectares as compared to 1,600-hectare area in the previous melas. The endeavour of the UP government has always been to enhance the facilities for the public and establishing facilities at the ground level has been a big task, the minister said. The Kumbh Mela (the festival of the sacred pitcher) is anchored in Hindu mythology. It is the largest public gathering and collective act of faith anywhere in the world. Ardh Kumbh is held in every six years, while the Kumbh Mela comes after 12 years. The Yogi Adityanath government has renamed Ardh Kumbh as Kumbh and the Kumbh as Maha Kumbh. The mela draws tens of millions of pilgrims over the course of approximately 48 days to bathe at the sacred confluence of the Ganga, the Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati river. The congregation includes Ascetics, Saints, Sadhus, Sadhvis, Kalpvasis and pilgrims from all walks of life. In all there are six auspicious bathing dates in this Kumbh - Makar Sankranti (January 15), Paush Poornima (January 21), Mauni Amawasya (February 4), Basant Panchami (February 10), Maghi Poornima (February 19) and Mahashivratri (March 4). By Express News Service BENGALURU: Kannada actor Sudeep appeared before Income Tax officials on Monday, following the raid on his residence during the first week of January. Speaking to reporters following questioning by I-T officials, he said that I-T raid was a consequence of a small mistake committed by him. I-T officials search our properties because of our mistakes. I have committed a few mistakes, and this is a warning to correct my mistakes, he said. I-T department sleuths had carried out raids on four actors and four producers on January 3 and 4. To a question, the actor said that he was not aware of the reasons for raids on other actors and producers. Over other actors refusing to issue a statement, he said,Since we are in public life we have to face questions. Backing away from answering questions sends a wrong message. By PTI MUMBAI: A day after Rajkumar Hirani was accused of sexual assault by a woman who worked with him on his 2018 film 'Sanju', his frequent collaborators Dia Mirza and Sharman Joshi on Monday described was one of the most decent persons to work within the Hindi film industry. In an article on HuffPost India, the woman, who calls herself 'an assistant', alleged that Hirani sexually abused her more than once between March and September 2018. She detailed her allegations in an email dated November 3, 2018, to Hirani's frequent collaborator and 'Sanju' co-producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Dia, who has worked with Hirani on films "Lage Raho Munna Bhai" and "Sanju", said she was "deeply distressed" by the allegations as the director was someone she respects a lot. The actor said she hopes a due official enquiry is conducted in the matter. "I am deeply distressed by this news. As someone who has known and respects Raju Sir for 15 years, I can only hope that a due official enquiry is conducted. He is one of the most decent human beings I have ever worked with and I think it would be grossly unjust on my part to speak on this as I do not know the details. As for the #MeToo movement it rightfully encourages women to speak up and seek due process," Dia told PTI. Sharman, whose portrayal of Raju Rastogi in Hirani's blockbuster "3 Idiots" became immensely popular, hoped the phase the director is going through currently will pass. "Raju Sir, is a man of immense integrity, character, honour, compassion and truthfulness, all the virtues one would imagine are non existent in people today, someone I am absolutely inspired by and have learnt from and because of whom I believe I have gone onto being a better person. All I want to say is that this too shall pass and I can imagine how demeaning it might be to even stand up for yourself in a situation such as this," the actor told PTI. After the HuffPost India article went viral on the Internet, the filmmaker released a statement in which he said he was "shocked" when the claims were brought to his notice two months ago. He said he suggested the case be referred to a "committee or a legal body" but the complainant chose to go the media instead. "I was completely shocked when these allegations were brought to my notice about two months back. I had suggested immediately that it is essential to take this matter to any committee or any legal body. "The complainant has chosen to go to the media instead. I want to very strongly state that this is a false malicious and mischievous story being spread with the sole intention of destroying my reputation," Hirani said in a statement. The development comes close on the heels of Hirani's name been dropped from the new poster and trailer of "Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga", directed by Shelly Chopra. A still from the film's teaser, which released on 27 June 2018, carried Hirani's name as co-producer. Vidhu Vinod Chopra has not yet commented. Hirani's is the latest name to be called out in India's #MeToo storm, which has engulfed many a stalwart such as Nana Patekar, Alok Nath, Vikas Bahl, Sajid Khan and former Union minister J Akbar. By Express News Service VIJAYAWADA: Governorpet police on Monday arrested the accused in the case of attacking Armed Reserve (AR) police constable near Vijayawada Railway station on Saturday night. They also seized 200 kg ganja (cannabis) worth Rs 5 lakh from his possession. According to police, Malella Ravi Kumar hails from Jabalpur of Odisha and has a criminal record. When the police found the accused roaming in a suspicious manner near the railway station, they took him into custody. During interrogation, the accused confessed to have attacked the AR constable. The victim identified as K Lakshmaiah was reportedly performing duties at Vijayawada Railway Station main gate where the accused was sleeping on the platform. When Lakshmayya asked the accused to leave the place as he did not purchase a platform ticket, Ravi claimed that he was a member of the blade batch and attacked him with a blade in his pocket. Based on the CCTV footage, we identified the accused and launched a manhunt to nab him. On Monday morning, the accused was caught red-handed while he was peddling ganja, the police said. Undertrial attempts suicide Kakinada: A person, who was convicted in a ganja smuggling case, and serving sentence at Bommuru police station, attempted suicide on Monday. The remand prisoner Nadimpalli Seetharamaraju hails from Undrajavaram in West Godavari district. The police caught him while he was transporting 200 kg ganja on Jan 12. On Monday, Seetharamaraju tried to commit suicide by slitting his throat. Anna Binoy By Express News Service KOCHI: In the 1990s, when three-year-old Katie Holland was asked what her dream was, she said, I want to dance! Decades later, one should ask Katie, now an accomplished belly dancer, the same question. She answers dreamily, I want to set up a centre in Bulgaria where I have a plot of land to do permaculture farming. I want to develop my own food, have groups of people come in for training and therapy, and perfect the dance therapy Ive been working on and researching for the past 12 years. So, basically, world domination. Not just a belly dancer with a subtle sense of humour, the UK native, who led a dance workshop at Maya Goddess of Arts studio in Kochi the other day, has developed Awakened Belly Dance which is a transformative and self-awakening dance therapy. Many people use belly dance as a way to show their bodies. For me, it is a way to move energy, like one learns to do in martial arts. In belly dancing, I can connect with my feminine energy and use it as way to empower myself. And this is important for women because it is taking the focus from outside to inside, says Katie. This led to the launch of the dance therapy, which uses music, breathwork, brainwaves and dance movements, four years ago. Her therapy sessions are directed toward achieving mental and physical positivity. When I conduct workshops, I have a lot of women coming in and they tell stories of sexual abuse, rape and mental health issues. They all have a desire to connect with their bodies, says Katie. It took Katie 12 years to develop the practice. Scientists have observed that most problems are genetic. A mother transfers all her problems to a child in the womb itself, she says. Through the lineage of the family, for both male and female, everybody is carrying everybody elses experiences. You see patterns happening in a family. After years of research and experimenting with myself, I realised it is about breaking these patterns. At the same time, I began studying the hieroglyphs. There had to be a meaning for hands being positioned in a particular way. In bharatanatyam, each mudra has a meaning. I applied the same here. I began crossing everything together, she continues. Since the launch of the therapy, Katie has been conducting workshops across parts of Asia, Bulgaria, Paris and the UK. Apart from specialising in Egyptian dance, she has also learnt ballet, tap, modern, African, samba, Bollywood, sacred Nepalese, Gurdjieff sacred movements, Sufi whirling, martial arts, bharatanatyam, Balinese and Bulgarian folk dance. Classical dance changed the way I perceived belly dance. In fact, it improved my movements. It helped me really understand about expression. And that dance is not just a physical act, it comes from the heart in a more spiritual way, she says. Katie has been learning and performing belly dance for 25 years now. I am still a student. Its a never-ending process, she says. Sinduja Jane By Express News Service CHENNAI: Patients at the Urban Primary Health Centre at Mangadu in Kancheepuram district were made to buy syringes from private medical shops around the centre on Monday as the doctor also stayed away from attending the patients. In the absence of a duty doctor in the 24-hour health centre, a nurse and a pharmacist were attending to patients who were queued up in one of the busiest centres. I was told to buy a syringe at a private medical shop, so I went and bought a syringe at a nearby pharmacy, said a 60-year-old woman in the area. When asked about it, the officials claimed it happened only on Monday as insulin syringes stock was over just then and the nurse had no other option but to make the patients buy from a medical shop. Speaking to Express, Dr T Senthil Kumar, Deputy Director of Health Services, said, The patients were asked to buy only insulin syringes as that stock was over. Usually, we make local purchase and stock it, but I was told by the nurse when I inquired that the regular supplier didnt come for the last two days as it is festival time or so. So, as there was no stock, the nurse said she asked the patients to buy. However, there are enough stocks at the nearby Block Primary Health Centre in Kundrathur. The nurse could have sent someone and got from there, but she failed to do that. He denied it was a regular business at the centre. The 24-hour Urban PHC was also functioning without doctor on the busy day. Some of the regular cases were attended by the nurse and the pharmacist there. Some patients were send back. My daughter is having fever for the last three days. I came here to check with the doctor and thought of doing a blood test. But, I was told only the doctor can prescribe the test and so, there was no point waiting here, said a mother who visited the centre. When asked about absence of doctor, Senthil Kumar said, On an average, the PHC gets close to 400 cases every day. So, we posted two medical officers. One senior medical officer went on leave, and the other medical officer who lives close by kept visiting the centre now and then due to some personal commitments, he added. Regular affair in PHSs? A medical officer, who worked in a PHC in the State, said that nurses attending patients is a regular affair in many of the PHCs. In the absence of doctors, the nurse will just distribute tablets and administer injection to old patients, who come with their previous treatment history record at the centre, he said A 24-hour health centre The local people said that since the Mangadu Urban PHC is a 24-hour centre, the lone medical officer has to take care of the affairs in the night also. Deliveries are also conducted in the centre and it is a busy centre, they said By Express News Service BENGALURU: Two people who had allegedly robbed a couple in HMT Layout, RT Nagar police station limits, on New Years Day, were arrested. Five other accused, including the maid and her husband, are absconding. The arrested have been identified as Madan and Ganesh, both from Nepal. According to police, the incident occurred on January 1. Five unidentified persons barged into the couples house and held them hostage, before making away with ornaments worth `6.5 lakh. Soon after the incident, the maid Sunitha and her husband Suresh, who are also from Nepal and had joined work just ten days earlier, fled their rooms located in the house. The identity of three others involved in the crime has also been ascertained, Chetan Singh Rathod, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) said. Akram Mohammed By Express News Service BENGALURU: In a new modus operandi, cybercriminals are misusing a feature on search engines to cheat people, the police has discovered recently. The culprits target information seekers by exploiting the suggestion given on Google and other such websites, to edit the contact details of a business listed at a location. Several complaints have been registered at the Cyber Crime Police Station, Bengaluru, where people have been robbed using the method. The miscreants target numbers of help desks of various companies found after a search on various search engines. They edit the numbers and mislead the caller, cheating unsuspecting victims. In one of the cases, a resident of Nandini Layout was cheated of Rs 38,799 after he called the helpline of an airline found after Google search to book a flight ticket. The person on the other end of the phone took my card details and OTP number on the pretext of booking a ticket and withdrew the amount, Vamshikrishna said in his complaint. Another complaint was filed by Umesh, who was trying to pay his electricity bill using Paytm. When it failed, he called a customer care number of the firm found during a Google search. However, when he called that number he was asked to divulge his debit card and OTP details. As soon as it was shared, the culprits siphoned off Rs 49,999. More than 20 such cases have been filed Officials say lack of awareness is the main reason for gullible citizens falling prey to cybercriminals. Though telephone-based vishing scams have been widely reported, people continue to lose money to those who use such modus operandi. From 880 cases registered between March 15 and Dec 31, 2017, the number of such cases grew threefold to 2,438 cases in 2018. The second most common cybercrime reported was fraudulent sale of cheap lookalikes of electronic goods on portals, followed by card skimming. Alok Kumar, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime), Bengaluru, told The New Indian Express that most of the crimes detected could be avoided if people were aware of the methods employed by fraudsters to dupe people. However, despite knowledge about these crimes, people tend to share financial information over phone. The victims consider that they are safe from such crimes until they become victims, he said, adding that most of the crimes could be avoided by not sharing any financial details with strangers. Officials tackling cybercrime also added that these criminals are coming with new techniques on a daily basis. One of the common ways is to lure people with money or attractive goods sold at a low price. People should be vigilant about such offers, a source said. Bengaluru accounts for 90% of cybercrime in state In 2018, the cyber crime police station in Bengaluru city registered 13 complaints on a daily basis. The city now accounts for 90 per cent of all the cases registered in the State. Ever since a dedicated police station was set up in Bengaluru police commissionerate limits in 2017, 7,034 cases have been registered in 18 months at the station. While 2,023 cases were filed between March 15 and December 31, 2017, 5,011 cases were filed between January 1 and December 31, 2018. Criminals on the prowl Debit/credit card fraud l Job fraudsl Card skimming l Matrimony fraud l Business opportunity fraud l Other advance scams via online sites l Lottery fraud l SIM cloning l Social media cases l E-mail spoofing Egypts flagship airliner EgyptAir said it cancelled two roundtrip flights going in and out of Germanys Frankfurt airport on Tuesday due to a planned strike at the German airport. In an official statement on Monday evening, the company said it decided to cancel the two flights due to a strike by Frankfurt airport employees which starts on Tuesday 2:00 am and ends at 8:00 pm at current local time in Germany. The walkout, which will be executed by participating workers in eight German airports, comes as workers demand 20 ($22)per hour from an average of 11.30 and 17.16.. Due to a strike by security personnel there will be significant disruption at Frankfurt Airport on 15th Jan. Security checks outside the transit area will not be staffed until 8pm and passengers will not be able to reach flights during the strike period, the official account of Frankfurt Airport tweeted. Hundreds of flights have been cancelled since the announcement. Search Keywords: Short link: New Castle, PA (16103) Today Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 43F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 43F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. National Army chief warns Pak, says ready if war is forced NEW DELHI, JAN 15 (IANS) | Publish Date: 1/15/2019 11:41:05 AM IST Attacking Pakistan but not by name, Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat on Tuesday said our western neighbour was ceaselessly supporting terrorists and warned that India will achieve decisive success if a war is forced on it. If our nation is forced into a situation of war, decisive success will be ours, he said addressing the 71st Army Day parade here. Warning that security challenges will be more complex in future, the Army chief said: There is a need to enhance our professional skills to deal with any danger. Gen Rawat said that a new policy had been adopted on the border with China and the armies of the two countries told to maintain peace. Referring to action taken in the wake of unending firing by Pakistani troops, he said: We have been giving a befitting reply to the enemies on the Line of Control (LoC) that has led to heavy loss of lives and logistics. Accusing Pakistan of helping terrorists, Gen Rawat said: I warn the enemy that we will not hesitate to take heavy action in reply to what they are doing against our country. Not only is our neighbouring country supporting terrorism but it is also providing arms and facilitating training to terrorists. That country (Pakistan) has been included in the category of countries sponsoring terrorism. He said the Armys anti-infiltration operations were on and would continue. On terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, the Army chief said his men had caused heavy losses to the militants with the help of other security agencies. Asserting that the Army was determined to crush terrorism, Gen Rawat said terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir were in a hopeless situation. The result is that the terrorists are now threatening teenagers to take to arms in Jammu and Kashmir. We dont want that terrorists continuously keep threatening citizens. He said the situation in the northeastern states was under control and that focused intelligence based operations by Army and Assam Rifles were on. The Army was also training paramilitary forces and police in Maoist affected areas. Gen Rawat also talked about revolution in military affairs to make the war strategy modern. To deal with future challenges, he said the 1.9 million strong Indian Army had adopted the techniques of collective changes in weaponry and its reorganisation was on. The aim of our capacity is being increased in a rapid way. Armys modernization is being done. We have been successful in procuring new weapons and in the technique to work in darkness. Gen Rawat said the Army had added projects like K-9 Vajra gun, Prahaar missile system, mine protected vehicles and Aakash missile system. The Army chief also advised soldiers and their families to use social media very carefully. The Army Day is celebrated to commemorate the day when Field Marshal M. Cariappa took over as Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army from General Sir Francis Butcher on January 15, 1949. Ipsos Hires Former YouGov MD as Egypt Country Manager Ipsos has appointed former YouGov Egypt MD Yasser Omar as Country Manager, based in the firm's new offices in Cairo. Omar (pictured) joins with more than 30 years' global research experience across the FMCG sector, with a focus on customer insights, business strategy, brand building and innovation. Most recently, he was General Manager (Egypt) at Feedback Market Research, prior to which he worked for YouGov as Egypt MD and MENA Qualitative Head. He began his career at Nielsen, before moving to Unilever, and in 1994 joined PepsiCo where he worked for nearly eighteen years. Initially, he served as PepsiCo's Research Director for the MENA region and Pakistan, before relocating to the US as Strategy & Insights Director - Beverages - International Markets, and being promoted to MD for Pepsi-Lipton Partnership in AMEA, based in the UAE. In a statement, Ipsos said that in his new role, Yasser will be leading the business throughout the country and playing a key role in driving the company's growth goals. Web site: www.ipsos.com . The Hainan Island (Chinanews.com/Luo Yunfei) Chinas 12th FTZ in Hainan will explore new horizons of opening up through institutional innovation on the basis of experiences from other FTZs in the country, as well as the provinces own distinguished features, said a senior official from Hainan province. In 2018, China unveiled a detailed plan to establish Southern China's Hainan province as a free trade zone (FTZ), and ultimately, a free trade port. A significant feature of the Hainan FTZ is that the zone is an island spanning more than 35,000 square kilometers, including both developed and less developed areas, while the other 11 FTZs are each around 120 square kilometers in size. This demonstrates Chinas resolution to further open up, said Sun Dahai, Deputy Secretary General of the Communist Party of China Hainan Provincial Committee. Focusing on institutional innovation, the Hainan FTZ has stepped up efforts to provide a law-based, international and efficient business environment, and build it into a pilot zone for comprehensively deepened reform and opening up since April 2018. The province has basically established a single window administrative system to facilitate international trade, by which business entities can operate the customs declaration of seven basic businesses for free as of Dec. 1, 2018, thus lowering customs clearance costs. A free trade account system was also implemented on Jan. 1, 2019, providing enterprises a cheaper overseas financing channel. Another of the Zone's priorities is to break new ground in opening up through industrial innovation. Hainan will focus on the development of tourism, modern services and high-tech products to build the island into a pilot zone for Chinas ecological progress, and also an international tourism and consumption center, noted Sun. Chinas first international medical tourism hub, Hainan Boao Lecheng International Medical Tourism Pilot Zone, was also launched. Nine preferential policies lowered import tariffs on medical equipment and drugs. On May 1, 2018, Hainan waived visa requirements for tourists from 59 countries. Total inbound arrivals had exceeded one million by the end of November 2018, a year-on-year increase of 16.6 percent. Thanks to the recently implemented duty-free policy in the province, both tourists and local residents now enjoy the average annual duty-free spending of 30,000 yuan per person. Consumption during the new year holiday in 2019 reached 129 million yuan, a growth of 19.44 percent year on year. China continues to put forward policies and institutions to help build a free trade port in Hainan in a phased manner, so as to speed up exploration of the development of free trade ports with distinct Chinese features. Its expected that Hainan will become a key gateway to the Pacific and India Oceans in the future. The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is delighted to announce the Brad Anderson Collection! This amazing new acquisition features over 16,000 original Marmaduke cartoons from 1954 to 2010, in addition to other original art, business correspondence, fan mail, books, newspaper clippings, memorabilia, merchandise and more. Brad Anderson (1924-2015) is a cartoonist best known for the long-running family-favorite, Marmaduke, featuring a lovable Great Dane. The comprehensive body of work found in this collection allows scholars and fans alike to trace the evolution of the well- known character as Marmadukes scowl turned into a smile, and as he continued to wreak havoc while remaining completely lovable. Marmaduke is one of the most beloved comic strip characters of all time. Were grateful to the Anderson family for this generous donation. As weve begun cataloging the collection, its been wonderful to see how much the characters have evolved over the years and the breadth of Andersons body of work. The accompanying correspondence and archival materials will provide interesting primary source materials for future researchers, said Curator Jenny Robb. Brad Anderson grew up drawing cartoons in Jamestown, New York and sold his first cartoon at age 15 to the aviation magazine, Flying Aces. After serving in the Navy during World War II, Anderson graduated from Syracuse University in 1951 with a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree. While working in advertising, Anderson sold cartoons to major publications such as Colliers magazine and Saturday Evening Post. We are fortunate enough to have over 3,000 examples of Andersons magazine cartoons. The Anderson family had said this about the donation, Brad Andersons wish was that his life work would find a home at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum where the collection would be in a safe environment and enjoyed by kids of all ages. Our family feels privileged to fulfil his wish and donate the works of his 75 year labor of love. Some of our special memories include his earliest published airplane drawings when he was a teenager, the water color paintings from his undergraduate years at Syracuse University, the magazine cartoons from the 1940s through the 1970s and, of course, the Marmadukedailies and Sundays over the decades. Besides the wonderful artwork displaying a wide range of his artistic styles, the collection contains lots of fan mail demonstrating the enormous popularity of the strips. For everyone who wondered if their favorite cartoonist kept the fan letter they wrote so long ago if its Anderson, he did! For such a prolific cartoonist, organizing decades of artwork is no small task. The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum will be very busy in the coming year as we work to make this treasure trove available to all to study and enjoy. The Ohio State University 110 Sullivant Hall 1813 N. High Street Columbus, OH 43210 t 614.292.0538 | f 614.292.9101 email: [email protected] website: cartoons.osu.edu blog: http://library.osu.edu/blogs/cartoons/ About the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum: The BICLM is one of The Ohio State University Libraries special collections. Its primary mission is to develop a comprehensive research collection of materials documenting American printed cartoon art (editorial cartoons, comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, sports cartoons, and magazine cartoons) and to provide access to these collections. The BICLM recently moved into its newly-renovated 30,000 sq. ft. facility that includes a museum with three exhibition galleries, a reading room for researchers and a state-of-the-art collections storage space. The library reading room is open Monday-Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 1 pm to 5 pm/ The Museum is open Tuesday-Sunday from 1 5 pm. See http://cartoons.osu.edu/ for further information. You may have noticed a significant increase in new Dunkin Donuts restaurants opening up around the Dayton area over the past few years. Dayton is definitely runnin on Dunkin. Most recently there has been a lot of buzz about a new location at 5901 Far Hills Ave. The Food Adventures Crew had the opportunity to get an exclusive tour (and tasting!) of whats being referred to as the first Next Generation Dunkin in our area! We sent our lovable in-house blogger to tackle the assignment which is near and dear to her heart. Take it away HUNGRY JAX !! Ok, I hear some of you getting ready to post about chain restaurants vs. local. We live in a delicious city full of locally owned coffee and donut shops that leave us with so many choices for good old fashioned homemade deliciousness. And its no secret that I support the donut industry in our area. But the awesome thing about this region is that there is room for all! Some of you may recall that I am a transplant from Upstate NY. We travel back and forth to see family frequently. One thing I love about Dunkin is that no matter where you go, you can count on the same products and quality to be offered. Dunkin is one of our trusted pit stops when embarking on a family road trip! I like to compare it to Catholic Mass, no matter where you go, youll know what to expect! The newest Dunkin Donuts is locally franchised by the Gilligan Company. Patrick Gilligan left a career with BP oil back in 1993 to start his own business with the goal of franchising different gas stations and restaurants. Based in Columbus, the Gilligan Company has grown its business from Columbus to Cincinnati employing over 900 people. They uphold a commitment to their employees as well as the communities that they serve. Most recently, the local Dunkins franchised by Gilligan raised $5,000 for Dayton Childrens Hospital. Just one of many ways this company has wanted to give back to the community! Ok, but enough about people and places. Lets move onto what this new Dunkin Donuts experience offers! HERES THE SKINNY ON THE NEXT GENERATION of DUNKIN DONUTS: Immediately upon entering, youll notice that they changed the layout. The donut cases, which used to be behind the counter, are now up front so that you can get and up close and personal inspection of which frosted delight youll be taking home! The aesthetics of the building is also more modern, keeping the look fresh and new. They have also increased being more energy-efficient. The company has designed these new stores to be 25% more energy-efficient. In addition, they have also switched over to a double-layered paper cup. Now you will have the same cup for both coffee and specialty hot drinks, where as before, there were the old Styrofoam cups and the brown paper cups. This change allows for staff to be more efficient when making drinks (no searching for specific cups or lids) as well as eliminating the need for a sleeve a the cups will keep your liquids hot but your hands comfortable! Dunkin has also embraced the necessity of smart phones. If you download the Dunkin App, you will be able to place mobile orders. A nice feature on this is that you can load your order earlier in the day, and the when ready to pick it up, you can click prepare my order and it will be fresh and ready with minutes of your arrival! Yet another bonus for those of us with kids or not wanting to take a long pit stop on a road trip. Whats even better is that you also have the option to either pick up in the store OR in the drive thru! The newer Dunkins have a lane specifically for mobile order pick-ups! Ok so what changes have there been to the food? Lots! There are always specials running for new products as well as the classic goods. I got to try some of the new sandwiches offered! Here is a run down of my MUST EATS for DUNKIN DONUTS: BROWN SUGAR MAPLE CHIPOTLE BACON BREAKFAST CROISSANT: Limited time only! This is their classic Bacon Egg and Cheese sandwich with a kick to it! The chipotle sauce adds the spice and the brown sugar bacon balances it out with a crispy sweetness! Not up for a change? The original Bacon Egg and Cheese Croissant is on special for 2/$5! DUNKIN DONUTS ENTIRE $2 MENU: You can indulge in a Wake Up Wrap ! These are egg and cheese tortilla wraps. You can also include bacon, sausage or ham! POWER BREAKFAST SANDWICH: This is a veggie delight! At just 370 calories, you get a Veggie Egg white scramble, turkey sausage and cheese on a multi-grain bun! A pocket sized Food Adventure. VARIETY OF DONUTS AND BAGELS: There are always the standard classics of the famous donuts from the Boston Kreme, to the Jelly and Chocolate Glazed Also, who could forget the munchkin donut holes ? And if you havent tried their bagels, give them a shot toasted with cream cheese (multiple flavors to choose from!). MUST DRINKS COFFEE!!!! For Jackie, Dunkin is really all about the coffee. Dunkin Donuts has high expectations for their coffee! With these new stores, your beverage will be treated with TLC from start to finish! For their original, dark and decaf coffee, they are now being brewed in what is called a Soft heat process. No longer will you coffee sit on top of a heating element in a glass carafe. The old process would leave coffee tasting burnt. This newer process gently heats the coffee within the thermos. There is also an indicator light letting staff know when its time to brew a fresh pot to ensure that youre always getting a quality cup! For those of you that appreciate a specialty coffee drink, youll be pleased to see that the beans will be freshly ground and each drink made fresh to your order! Additionally, if you like a chilled beverage, the Premium Pours cold beverage station is up and running. Here you can get iced coffee, cold brew, and iced tea all on tap! In addition, you can try the new NITRO Cold Brew Coffee! This is a fantastic upgrade to the traditional cold brew process as they infuse the drinks with nitrogen, creating a light tasking drink thats refreshing and will keep you running! A cool thing about this process is that there are not nitrogen tanks. Instead the system pulls the nitrogen from the air! Once again, the new location on Far Hills is the only Next Generation Dunkin in our area! But keep an eye out as the existing stores will transition eventually bringing the tasty and innovative changes across the area. So swing on over, taste some new and old goodies, and let us know what you think! Are you a Dayton Foodie? Then tune in each week for a feature article from the Food Adventures Crew. We are a blog that will leave no plate unturned. Follow Food Adventures on FACEBOOK by clicking HERE. LO Resources; CRM, PR, and Sales Products; January Training Are rates too high given where the U.S. economy is? Traders, investors, and the Fed think theyre where they need to be, given the information we have. Others believe they will head lower this year due to a slowing economy. The release of bank big bank earnings today is shedding some light on economic temperature, but recall that the word patient appeared in the recent FOMC minutes as well as in several comments by Fed Chairman Jay Powell related to the timing of potential upcoming rate hikes. (The last time we saw patient show up in Fed speak then Chairwoman Janet Yellen used it in reference to rate hikes in early 2015.) Would you patiently wait for your paycheck? U.S. government owes an estimated $5.3 billion to federal workers who have not been paid since the federal government shutdown began on Dec. 22. There are 826,531 federal workers who have gone without paychecks, with the total value of delayed wages rising at a rate of $2,000 per second. Im sure the money is in the strongbox, right? Lender Products and Services Creating PR that maximizes awareness, builds engagement and drives conversions is essential to success in todays digital marketing world. One of the benefits of working with Seroka Brand Development is its 30+ years of mortgage industry PR experience combined with its focus on metrics and analytics in executing and evaluating its PR work. Amy Hansen, Serokas VP of PR and Strategic Planning relates how Seroka monitors 5 essential metrics to measure PRs effectiveness including measuring share of voice, monitoring total potential viewership, providing social engagement data, determining website visitors obtained from earned coverage, evaluating search engine page ranking growth and much more. So, for 2019 why not TurnUpYourBrand and make Serokas PR experience your advantage. Learn more here or email info@seroka.com to schedule a free consultation. Ninety percent of the customer lifetime value is realized after the initial transaction. When salespeople earn the trust of their customers, they can become a trusted advisor. Empower your salespeople to build customers for life by blending human connection and technology. Hear from Todd Duncan and Total Expert Founder & CEO Joe Welu about shifting your sales teams mindset from commission to connection to build authentic relationships, enhance your brand and create an experience your customers cant live without. Watch the webinar: Make Financial Transactions Personal Again to Build Customers for Life. When shopping for a powerful Mortgage CRM, an intuitive and easy-to-learn system that not only addresses what you need but is also one youll use is critical. Content is King, so its imperative that your marketing is targeted, localized, and customizable based on your lending operations needs/workflow. Usherpas Launch Pad Custom Email Wizard was designed for corporate marketing teams and allows organizations to create content that aligns with their unique company vision. Marketing managers can seamlessly create marketing campaigns within the CRM without operating between multiple systems. Dont hesitate. Learn more about Usherpas Launch Pad Custom Email Wizard and how it can take your business to the next level. Whats the mortgage version of having your cake and eating it too? Well, thanks to United Wholesale Mortgage, it means having access to superb service, technology, partnership toolsAND price! UWM has dropped its rates across the board, for conventional, government and jumbo, giving the nations No. 1 wholesale lender unequaled pricing in the country to go along with everything else that makes it the most popular wholesale lender among mortgage brokers. And UWM has removed all state adjustments and all Loan Level Pricing Adjustments (LLPA) overlays. Now, not only will mortgage brokers enjoy the fastest and easiest experience by working with UWM, theyll also get their customers unmatched best rates. To learn more, visit www.UWM.com/have-it-all. I Cant Get No Borrower Satisfaction? When it comes to borrower satisfaction, just how important is peer comparison? According to Mike Seminari, Director of STRATMORs MortgageSAT Program, its the difference between throwing darts at a map and having a GPS. Being able to answer the question, Are we ahead or behind the curve? gives lenders an opportunity to allocate time and financial resources to areas that have the greatest potential for immediate financial impact, says Seminari. One lender, who had quarter-over-quarter LO Satisfaction scores of 90, 92 and 91 was quite pleased with their high scores until they found out the National Average for this metric is 95. The lender wanted to be Best-in-Class, which is 98, and knowing where they stood in comparison to their peers stoked a fire for change. Seminari suggests three actions lenders can take to begin to see their borrower satisfaction performance in context in this months MortgageSAT Tip. Training and Events for January Tabrasas free webinar The Industry Outlook 2019 will be on Wednesday, Jan 23 (11AM-12PM PST) will cover the Trump Era two years in, how the Fed closed the books for 2018, the low-down on the Digital Mortgage, and the housing markets success and swings. Register here! Join Freddie Mac on January 16th to discuss how you can automate income assessment with Loan Product Advisor asset and income modeler (AIM), its solution for automating the manual processes of assessing borrower assets and income. Fewer documents, reduced time to close and a better client experience. Register for a free webinar from the Mortgage Technology & Marketing Committee on January 17th. Loan officers will benefit with the top 5 must do activities. MBA/MW's Kickoff 2019 Dinner & Networking event on January 23rd will feature an evening of Networking for residential and commercial real estate finance professionals. This event will also include the introduction of the 2019 Board of Governors and Committee Chairs, presentation of the Outstanding Service Awards and presentation of the Years-of-Service Recognition Awards. Join MWF on January 24th as Tim Brinegar, Corporate Underwriter, discusses recent changes to the VA Refinances. Dont miss the MQAC upcoming webinar on January 24th, "HMDA: Submit with Confidence - Keys to Successful Data Integrity". On January 30th from 5:00 6:30 p.m., attend the Barriers to Accepting Homeownership event with the Urban Institute's Housing Finance Policy Center in Washington D.C. CEO Rob Chrane will be speaking. The Carolinas Connect Mortgage Expo on January 24th is approaching. Join your community of mortgage professionals at the Carolinas' largest event for mortgage originators, The Carolinas Connect Mortgage Expo. Don't miss out on our lineup of engaging events centered around networking, skill-building, and having a great time with your peers at our early year edition in Charlotte. Kick off 2019 at MBA's Independent Mortgage Bankers Conference 2019 in San Francisco, January 28-31. Hear directly from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives at the General Session: What's New with the GSEs. Plus, you'll learn about the latest program updates, leadership changes, and priorities that will impact your business and the bottom line. Capital Markets While this is not the same Federal Reserve as in the past, some industry experts believe that it wont raise short term rates until the April 30/May 1 meeting, if at all. This would break the every other meeting pattern we saw in 2018 by skipping the March 19/20 and January 29/30 meetings. Quant jocks think well see two rate hikes in 2019 and one more in 2020 although market expectations are more or less showing even one rate hike might be a stretch this year. Clearly, the markets are currently expecting the US economy to cool in 2019. Much to the relief of capital markets folks, volatility in 2019 has dropped dramatically from the end of 2018. The U.S. 10-year closed Monday +1 bp to 2.71% as Treasuries saw little movement across the curve to start the week. Headlines revolved around a disappointing trade balance report out of China that showed a surprising year-over-year decline in both imports and exports during December, stoking global growth concerns. U.S. government shutdown chatter, Trump explicitly denying he worked for Russia, and todays important Brexit plan vote in the UK Parliament will be discussion points throughout the rest of the week. And President Trump has reportedly offered to meet North Korea's Chairman Kim Jong-un in mid-February in Vietnam. Today the New York Fed Manufacturing (expected to fall slightly, it hit a 20-month low!) and the Producer Price Index (PPI was -.2% versus expectations of unchanged, core -.1%) kicked off the economic calendar. Also today are three Federal Reserve President speakers: Minneapolis' Kashkari, Dallas Kaplan, and Kansas City's George. The UK will hold a parliamentary vote for Prime Minister May's Brexit plan where a nay vote is expected with the number of nays likely to be more scrutinized. Bank earnings also continue today with JP Morgan and Well Fargo already reporting, and they werent good. We begin today with Agency MBS better by nearly .125 and the 10-year yielding 2.69%. Jobs and Personnel Moves Stearns Lending is excited to welcome Chad Schoep back to its team where he will serve as an SVP supporting the Wholesale and Non-Delegated Correspondent channel. A respected industry leader with more than 15 years of mortgage experience, he will be actively involved with strategic planning, tactical implementation, pricing, product development, counterparty risk and more. Chads previous affiliations have given him tremendous lending experience. With proven results in growing all production channels, operations management and quality improvement, his contributions will have a major impact on the Stearns culture and customer experience, said James Hecht, COO. Chads skills complement the expertise of our current executive team, further cementing Stearns Lending as an industry pillar. Were glad to have him back on board and know our broker partners will be, too. If you are a broker interested in doing business or an Account Executive interested in joining Stearns, reach out to Chad. AmCap Home Loans is expanding out West and has named Dave Bergstrom as Division President to help lead the expansion. We are so pleased to welcome Dave and his team to the AmCap family. His inspiring attitude and true grit are excellent qualities that make him a perfect fit for our company culture and vision for growth, said Garrett Clayton, AmCap CEO. Bergstrom is a 30-year industry veteran based in Southern California. Im very happy to be part of a retail organization that is committed to expanding the company in the West. The leadership, tools and technology are exactly what is needed to make a quick impact on the market throughout the western states, Bergstrom said. AmCap is currently seeking retail branches, branch managers and loan officers that would like an exciting opportunity to help fuel the expansion. If interested please submit a confidential resume to Dave Bergstrom. ACC Mortgage, the oldest Non-QM lender, is extremely proud to announce that Brian Dacy has joined the company to become its National Sales Director. ACC was founded in 1999 as a small DC regional lender and has since grown to a 21-state wholesale Non-QM company. Brian and ACCs president, Robert Senko, began their careers together 25 years ago with Cityscape Mortgage Corp., a front-runner in the securitization market. Since their collective days at Cityscape, Brian has been a leader in the industry building platforms for the likes of HSBC and First Guaranty with a combination of loyal talent and cutting-edge technology. By applying their successes and lessons from the past, Brian and Robert will utilize 50+ years of unique experience to take ACC to even higher levels with its proof of concept: ACC has the team and systems in place to deliver results for the brokers and bankers looking to grow their Non-QM business. ACC is hiring AEs and for brokers interested in becoming a partner, contact Brian Dacy. Blue Water Financial Technologies announced it has hired Travis LaMar as Managing Director, Head of Capital Markets. As a Managing Director, LaMar joins a strong data science and analytics team and brings 20 years of experience in mortgage secondary and capital markets to BWFT. He will focus on MSR brokerage, structuring solutions for MSR, and hedging solutions. Congrats! And Guaranteed Rate announced that industry veteran Joe Phalen has joined Guaranteed Rate Affinity as SVP of Strategic Growth for the mortgage origination joint venture between Guaranteed Rate, Inc. and Realogy Holdings Corp. (Photo/Xinhua) A deputy of the National Peoples Congress (NPC) of China suggested adding new terms to the countrys law on the protection of minors, to prohibit people and organizations from performing unnecessary cosmetic surgeries on children, Legal Daily reported on Jan. 15. The NPC deputy, Wang Jiajuan, suggested that lawmakers should add relevant provisions to explicitly stipulate that all cosmetic surgeries for minors, except for necessary medical reasons, are prohibited. She also suggested that they should define the legal responsibilities of guardians, companies and organizations that provide cosmetic surgery, and state severe penalties for those caught violating the new provisions. Wang is a teacher at Liaoyang No.1 Senior High School in Liaoyang City, northeast Chinas Liaoning Province. She was distraught to hear that a 19-year-old girl had recently died during a rhinoplasty procedure. A girl, so young and lively, died only because of cosmetic surgery. It's such a pity, Wang said during an interview with Legal Daily, stating that though it was an accident, it shows the risks posed by such procedures. Over recent years, the age of those contemplating cosmetic surgery has got younger and younger, said Wang, adding that the dangers associated with going under the knife are often neglected by this age group. Ive noticed that many students have undergone cosmetic surgeries such as double eyelid surgery, eyebrow tattooing, and lip lightening. Some of these kids get eyebrows tattooed while they are still in their teens, said Wang. Wang noted that plastic surgery and medical treatments for children with congenital disabilities like cheilopalatognathus should still be allowed, so that these children can live with better health and dignity. However, she added, this is not the same as getting surgery for superficial reasons. Legislation on cosmetic surgeries for minors should be introduced to ensure the strict implementation of medical plastic surgeries and outline provisions on cosmetic surgeries, said Shu Rui, an assistant to the president of the Financial Street Peoples Court of Beijing. Plastic surgery can pose an enormous risk for minors who are still developing, explained Shu, adding that the risks are even higher when the quality of providers varies so much. Early in 2015, the proportion of consumer complaints received by the China Consumer's Association regarding quality issues in medical plastic surgeries and cosmetic surgeries had grown by 6 percent compared with the previous year. In June 2017, seven major Chinese government departments, including the then National Health and Family Planning Commission, had issued an official document detailing an action plan to crack down on illegal medical cosmetic procedures, which started a strict crackdown on illegal plastic surgery. So far, over 2,700 cases have been handled. However, to date, theres no specific provision dealing with medical and cosmetic surgeries for minors in the countrys law regarding the protection of children. Hong Kong: Govt youth programme to continue The Be a Government Official for a Day programme will continue this year and be extended to cover more senior officials, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung said today. Mr Cheung made the statement at the fourth meeting of the third-term Commission on Poverty. The commissions members were briefed on the implementation and effectiveness of the programme, which debuted last year. They noted 34 senior secondary students shadowed three Secretaries and 13 Bureau Directors, and that the participating students and officials showed a positive response. Mr Cheung said in view of the enthusiastic response and positive feedback, the Government will continue to implement the programme this year and extend its scale to cover the Chief Executive, Under Secretaries, Permanent Secretaries and Heads of Departments. The 2019 programme will be implemented in two phases. The first phase will be held during the Easter holidays, with recruitment starting this month, while the second phase will be held during the summer holidays. The programme is an initiative launched by the commission under the Life Buddies Mentoring Scheme. At todays meeting, the commission endorsed an amended budget which would further provide $6.23 million to continue the implementation of the Subsidy for Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Recipients Living in Rented Private Housing programme. Members also agreed to extend the Cervical Cancer Vaccination Pilot Scheme for six months to September, and the Elderly Dental Assistance Programme for three years to February, 2022. Furthermore, they provided comments on the theme, programme and overall arrangements of the annual Commission on Poverty Summit chaired by the Chief Executive to be held between March or April. Some members also expressed views on the elderly Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme. This story has been published on: 2019-01-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Welcome to Morningstar.co.uk! You have been redirected here from Hemscott.com as we are merging our websites to provide you with a one-stop shop for all your investment research needs.To search for a security, type the name or ticker in the search box at the top of the page and select from the dropdown results.Registered Hemscott users can log in to Morningstar using the same login details. Similarly, if you are a Hemscott Premium user, you now have a Morningstar Premium account which you can access using the same login details. Suzhou in Jiangsu province (Photo/Chinanews.com) 10 Chinese provinces have so far announced their economic performances for 2018, as the local two sessions, the annual meetings of the local legislature and the local political advisory body, recently commenced. Among the many provinces that have pushed ahead in the race, Jiangsu is the province showcasing the most remarkable achievements so far. According to the provincial government work report, Jiangsu maintained medium-high economic growth last year. Its GDP growth is expected to have reached around 6.7 percent in 2018, with a total GDP of 9.2 trillion yuan. It marks the first time a Chinese province has achieved a GDP of 9-trillion-yuan, with a figure more substantial than the national economic total of Australia the 13th largest economy in the world. Guangdong province is also likely to join the 9-trillion-yuan club this year. Its GDP hit 8.99 trillion in 2017, and also ranked first in China for 29 consecutive years. The only question remaining is whether Guangdong's GDP could have already surpassed 10 trillion yuan. Yin Li, governor of the southwestern province of Sichuan, announced that their GDP may have exceeded 4 trillion yuan in 2018, securing an 8-percent growth. Sichuan is likely to become the second province in China to cross the 4-trillion-yuan GDP mark in 2018, after the central province of Henan. Seventeen other Chinese cities are expected to have ended 2018 with a GDP of more than 1 trillion yuan. Today's Headlines Would you like to receive our daily news? Sign up today! Breaking news Sign up for breaking news alerts from morning-times.com!!! Week in Sports Get a weekly local sports round-up from www.morning-times.com every Saturday morning!!! Lansdale, PA (19446) Today A few passing clouds. Low near 50F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight A few passing clouds. Low near 50F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Major League Baseball has apparently decided that there are 42 too many minor league baseball cities and, according to Commissioner Rob Manfred, after the 2020 season, that will change. There will be a new agreement between the majors and the minors signed and a lot of cities will lose their Alipay allows people to send money to relatives in Beijing jails Alipay teams up with the Beijing Municipal Administration of Prisons (BMAP) to provide better service for prisoners and their relatives. Photo from the Weibo account of Chinanews.com. Relatives of prisoners in Beijing jails can now use Alipay to send money to an incarcerated family member's online account, which prisoners will now be allowed to access and use under the Beijing Municipal Administration of Prisons (BMAP), Chinanews.com reported on Jan. 14. This move marks the BMAP's latest attempt to build a smart prison with the help of Alipay. The prison administration explained that online payment is now connected to the e-commerce platform and medical service system of the prison. The online system aims to provide convenience for prisoners and their families. Relatives can make deposits using Alipay, registered with their real names. The deposit service is free of charge. This article is part of State of Health, a series examining health disparities, how they affect Michigan's children and seniors, and the innovative solutions being developed to address them. It is made possible with funding from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund. In 2016, the Otsego County Commission On Aging (OCCOA) piloted the CommunO2 SuperApp, a new online platform designed to help reconnect seniors to their communities. With a modest goal of reaching 300 older adults over six months, the program attracted 1,800 registered end users, as well as 14 partner organizations, within four months. One of those users is a homebound woman with multiple sclerosis who can now participate in her church remotely. Another is an assisted living center resident who reconnected with her sister abroad after 15 years and now video chats regularly with her through the app. Betty (in pink) connects with her sister in the old country using CommunO2 with the help of Mary, a retired senior volunteer in Otsego County. Betty had not seen her sister in about 15 years. "Some of these things were seemingly small leaps in quality of life, but when folks were reflecting that it truly made a difference in their lives, we knew we were onto something that we wanted to expand," says OCCOA executive director Dona Wishart. Studies have shown that social isolation and loneliness can have serious negative impacts on older adults' health, and many resources and programs already exist in Michigan to address isolation among seniors. But Stephanie Leibfritz, community health manager at MidMichigan Medical Center-Midland, says many residents don't know how serious isolation can be or where to look for help. "There's really a lack of knowledge about loneliness and social isolation as a social determinant of health," Leibfritz says. "It does impact a significant number of aging adults." However, new and ongoing efforts around the state are working to promote healthy aging by connecting older adults to their communities and the resources available to them. Keeping in touch Developed by Minneapolis-area entrepreneur Joel Ackerman, CommunO2 is an online platform designed to help users connect with friends and family, as well as local services, arts and cultural organizations, government offices, faith centers, and more through one central, streamlined interface. Joel Ackerman. While there's no shortage of online communication apps today, Ackerman says those apps don't necessarily work well together, provide one community standard for users, or offer much technical support. "That's a very complex environment, especially for novice users, people who may not have grown up with current technologies," he says. Wishart first learned about the platform Ackerman was developing more than 10 years ago and saw the potential it had for linking people not only to their own social network, but also plugging them back into their community and its resources. She told him: "When you're ready for pilot testing, consider Otsego County, and let's see if we can move this forward to diminish social isolation in a new way." This year, OCCOA and CommunO2 will expand the effort with a two-year pilot funded by a Michigan Health Endowment Fund grant. Work will continue in Otsego County and also extend to Traverse City and Flint with the help of local partners the Area Agency on Aging of Northwest Michigan and Valley Area Agency on Aging. Dona Wishart.The expanded pilot will also work with Michigan State University's School of Social Work to measure outcomes and social determinants of health. Organizers hope to reach 5,000 end users by the end of the pilot and 28,000 users by 2025. As the population continues to age, Wishart says a shortage of direct care workers also presents a challenge. She hopes efforts like CommunO2 can help make the connection between OCCOA's many resources and the older adults they serve. "We are going to need to provide services in a new way, and some of that can indeed be through technology," she says. "We just have to work to figure it out carefully. We have to be willing to take on some risks for innovation, and we need to find some new creative solutions to add quality and meaning to life." Reaching out In Midland, a new partnership between MidMichigan Health Foundation, Senior Services of Midland County, and Michigan 211 is forming to raise awareness of the negative health effects of social isolation for older adults. That program, called Bridge to Belonging: Partnership to End Loneliness, will also connect seniors in need to local services. Leibfritz is leading the new effort along with Katherine Dollard, director of behavioral health for MidMichigan Health. Starting with a basic survey given at the medical center's offices, staff will determine what services seniors could benefit from and refer them to services through 211, which connects Michiganders to nonprofit and government resources. Stephanie Leibfritz, community health manager at MidMichigan Medical Center-Midland, and Katherine Dollard, director of behavioral health for MidMichigan Health. The goal is to increase connections, enhance social support, and improve social skills for older adults in the region. Individuals with psychological or social barriers that can lead to chronic loneliness will be referred to a staff behavioral therapist for counseling. The program is starting in a few practices and the emergency room at MidMichigan Health Center-Midland, but the goal is to provide screenings throughout the MidMichigan Health system. MidMichigan Health serves more than 20 counties in mid- and northern Michigan. Seniors play poker at Sanford Activity and Dining Center in Midland. In addition to screenings, triage, and referrals, Bridge to Belonging will launch an education and awareness campaign on the health effects of loneliness and the need to reach out to family and friends considered at risk. Leibfritz hopes the program will not only intervene on behalf of seniors in need but also help prevent isolation to begin with. "It's really a change in the care model in the health system, to be able to work on prevention versus treatment," she says. "In my mind, that's huge." Working together This year in Washtenaw County, another unique new partnership will launch Intergenerational Solutions for Healthy Aging, a pilot program that connects seniors to members of the next generation. Working in teams, Washtenaw County Girl Scouts and older adults will examine issues and resources like transportation, access to healthy food, home visit programs, and lifelong learning opportunities in the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti area. They'll then design and implement programs to address seniors' needs, with the additional aim of introducing a new generation to career opportunities in the fields of aging and health. The program is a collaboration between Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Generations United (GU); GU's newly formed Michigan team, led by Ann Arbor resident and GU senior fellow Bruce Astrein; Girl Scouts Heart of Michigan; and a senior organization partner to be determined. Generations United's Michigan team. "When you think about social isolation, the two groups that report feeling the most isolated are younger people and older people, so to work together to try and address what's causing people to feel so isolated and what's preventing them from connecting, we think it's just a win-win-win way of approaching it," says GU executive director Donna Butts. Donna Butts. If it goes well, the plan is to replicate the program with other youth service organizations and senior groups in neighboring counties and, eventually, across the state. Astrein, who has a long history of working with children, families, and poverty, was inspired by past successes he'd seen with intergenerational programming. He pitched the idea to GU, which was founded in the late '80s in response to what Astrein calls the "false dichotomy" that young people and older people were taking resources away from each other. "Rather than get drawn into that argument, there are ways to think about this where we could work collectively and benefit young and old with smart policies and smart programs, and it's not about pitting one against the other," Astrein says. Astrein was also troubled by seeing family programs like the ones he had built over his career being undermined and underfunded in recent years. "Having spent a lifetime working on these programs, it was difficult to sit by and not want to help advance them," he says. Eric Gallippo is an Ypsilanti-based freelance writer. MidMichigan Health photos by Ben Tierney. [January 14, 2019] Sogou CEO Xiaochuan Wang Delivers Keynote Speech at 2019 Las Vegas "China Night" LAS VEGAS, Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Sogou Inc. (NYSE: SOGO) ("Sogou" or "the Company"), an innovator in search and a leader in China's internet industry, announced its CEO Xiaochuan Wang delivered the keynote speech at the 2019 Las Vegas "China Night," an annual event that brings together leading consumer electronics businesses ahead of CES. Las Vegas "China Night" is jointly hosted by the Consulate General of the P.R. China in San Francisco and the Organizing Committee of China Information Technology Expo (CITE). Under the theme of "Innovation and Cooperation in an Era of Great Change," this year's event brought together over 300 leading Chinese and American entrepreneurs with the aim of sharing learnings and facilitating collaboration. During his keynote speech entitled, "Technological Progress and the Evolution of Civilization," Mr. Wang noted that the rapid development of the internet and AI have accelerated the evolution of human civilization into a new era of "Intelligent Civilization." In this new era, technology empowers and enables humans to communicate more freely across languages, cultures and locations, and benefit from the immediacy of information. Mr. Wang noted that language barriers still exist, particularly for many in China, despite Chinese being the most widely spoken language in the world. Cross-language communication is therefore increasingly important, becoming a crucial link in connecting China with the world. For Wang, AI-powered machine translation will be the "ultimate breakthrough" that leads humankind into the "Intelligent Civilization." While the information civilization has gradually evolved into the intelligent civilization, Mr. Wang predicted that Sogou's Vocational Avatars that can enable more natural interactions between humans and machines could greatly improve human efficiency and become a future technology trend. Sogou's Vocational Avatars provide users with information via a more seamless and lifelike human-to-machine interaction. Sogou and Xinhua co-developed the world's first AI news anchor which is now in daily use. Sogou's Vocational Avatars also provide personalized medical and legal advice for users and will be widely used in cutomer service functions. As a leader in language-centric AI technologies, Sogou's human-to-machine translation technologies have ranked first in many internationally renowned competitions, including WMT 2017 and IWSLT 2018, and their application is widespread. Sogou's AI-powered machine simultaneous translation technology was successfully used to provide bilingual Chinese and English interpretation during Mr. Wang's keynote speech and panel discussions at Las Vegas "China Night." This marks yet another international event outside of China to leverage Sogou's world-leading technology. Sogou's human-to-machine translation technologies are expected to support more international conferences, acting as a bridge between different languages and cultures, and thus fulfilling Sogou's mission to make it easy to communicate and get information. Safe Harbor Statement This announcement contains forward-looking statements. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about our beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current plans, estimates, and projections, which involve inherent risks and uncertainties. We caution you that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, intense competition in the market for search and search-related services; our need to continually innovate and adapt in order to grow our business; our reliance on Tencent platforms for a significant portion of our user traffic; and uncertainty regarding the extent and reach of PRC governmental regulation of sponsored search. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in Sogou's Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2017 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 28, 2018, and other documents Sogou files with or submits to the Securities and Exchange Commission. About Sogou Sogou Inc. (NYSE: SOGO) is an innovator in search and a leader in China's internet industry. With a mission to make it easy to communicate and get information, Sogou has grown to become the second largest search engine by mobile queries and the fourth largest internet company by MAU in China. Sogou has a wide range of innovative products and services including the Sogou Input Method, which is the largest Chinese language input software for both mobile and PC. Sogou is also at the forefront of AI development and has made significant breakthroughs in voice and image technologies, machine translation, and Q&A, which have been successfully integrated into our products and services. For media enquiries, please contact: Rachael Layfield Brunswick Group Tel: +86 10 5960-8600 Email: sogou@brunswickgroup.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sogou-ceo-xiaochuan-wang-delivers-keynote-speech-at-2019-las-vegas-china-night-300777645.html SOURCE Sogou Inc. [ Back To www.mobilitytechzone.com\LTE's Homepage ] WikiLeaks says it has collected enough funds to file a lawsuit against the Guardian for publishing an uncorroborated story about alleged meetings between former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and Julian Assange. The whistleblowing website has thanked all its supporters who contributed to its GoFundMe campaign, launched on November 27 following the publication of an article by the Guardian, which claimed that US President Donald Trumps disgraced former campaign manager Paul Manafort had held secret talks with Julian Assange at least three times in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where the Australian has been holed up since 2012. The donations have recently hit the $50,000 threshold, enabling the whistleblowing site to formally launch proceedings against the renowned British newspaper, WikiLeaks said, calling on its supporters to keep the money flowing. Legal action will now commence (but more is required to complete), it tweeted on Monday. When it launched the campaign, WikiLeaks set up the ambitious target of $300,000. It has so far raised $51,749. WikiLeaks seeks to challenge the Guardian in court over its source-based bombshell, co-authored by its former Moscow correspondent Luke Harding, alleging that Manafort had traveled to London three times over four years prior to the publication of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) email leaks. The report relies on Ecuadorean intelligence sources and documents provided to the Guardian by the countrys intelligence agency. In its GoFundMe appeal, WikiLeaks suggested that the intelligence agency might have deliberately fed the British publication false information, which it was happy to take at a face value. WikiLeaks also noted that it was not the first time the Guardian put out a false story about Assange. The initial report was refuted by both WikiLeaks and Manafort, who called it totally false and deliberately libelous. While no other outlet has confirmed the Guardians report, the Washington Times reported that stamps in all three of Manaforts passports indicate that he visited England only twice, in 2012 and either 2010 or 2016, with the latter marking not clear. The Guardian alleged that the meetings it refers to took place in 2013, 2015 and 2016. Also on rt.com Fake story: Ecuadorean diplomat blasts Guardians Assange-Manafort meeting report The story has also been dismissed as fake by former senior diplomat at the London embassy Fidel Narvaez, who worked as Ecuadors first secretary and a counsel from 2010 to July 2018. The diplomat, who now resides in London, said that there were no meetings between Assange and Manafort on his watch. He argued that it was practically impossible to enter the embassy without being noticed, considering it is surveilled 24/7. Moreover, a visitor would have needed to receive a permit from the ambassador and security personnel, which cannot be done without leaving some kind of record in the embassys logs. Despite a storm of criticism led by ex-Guardian writer and now co-editor at the Intercept, Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian refused to retract the story, but included the denials by Manafort and WikiLeaks. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Turkeys Erdogan says planned 20-mile safe zone in Syria may be extended further Turkeys Erdogan says planned 20-mile safe zone in Syria may be extended further Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that he viewed a planned 20-mile (32km) safe zone in Syria positively and added that its range may be extended further. Erdogan said earlier that he had discussed a safe zone which Turkey would set up in Syria during a phone call with US President Donald Trump, Reuters reported. Mondays call between the two leaders came after Trump threatened Turkey with economic devastation if Turkish forces attacked the Kurdish YPG militia. Speaking to reporters in parliament, Erdogan also said he would most likely meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on January 23.Source : RT - Daily news The worlds largest diamond producer, Russias Alrosa, is ready to launch operations in Zimbabwe two years after mining projects in the crisis-stricken country were shelved, the company chief executive Sergey Ivanov said. According to Ivanov, the details of the projects will be negotiated in the near future. Alrosa is reportedly planning to continue exploration of the region with the support of the Zimbabwean government. Im sure well be able to discuss prospects of our participation in the sphere of geologic exploration activities and development of deposit with a high degree of exploration maturity, Ivanov told journalists. We are ready to share all of Alrosa's technology when it comes to grading and preparing diamonds for sale, as well as the necessary know-how so that Zimbabwe could get back the position the country had on the global diamond mining market for several years, he added. In December, the Russian diamond miner set up a subsidiary Alrosa (Zimbabwe) Limited in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare. Alrosas geologists and mining engineers will arrive in the country in February to start operations, according to the company. According to Ivanov, Zimbabwes authorities are currently implementing a wide range of legislative changes that would let Alrosa enter the countrys market and negotiate more serious projects with Zimbabwean partners. On Monday, Zimbabwes President Emmerson Mnangagwa said that the southern African country is counting on Alrosas support to expand its diamond industry. Mnangagwa is making his first visit to Moscow since becoming president. He succeeded Robert Mugabe in November 2017, who ruled the country for 38 years. Alrosas major production assets are based in Russia, but the company also runs operations in Angola and stopped working in Zimbabwe in 2016. The African country's diamond production has seen a dramatic plunge of nearly 75 percent over the past five years. For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section Paramilitary force launches op to cleanse southern Libya of Islamic militants, gangs Paramilitary force launches op to cleanse southern Libya of Islamic militants, gangs A spokesman for Libyas powerful paramilitary based in the eastern city of Benghazi says its troops are launching an operation to cleanse the countrys south of Islamic militants and criminals. Ahmed al-Mesmari of the self-styled Libyan National Army that answers to Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar said on Tuesday that the operations aims to eliminate gangs, Islamic State terrorists and criminals in the south, AP reports. He said the operation will also try and stem illegal migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, describing it as an international problem. The UN recently deplored deteriorating security in southern Libya.Source : RT - Daily news Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his troops will continue to attack Iranian forces in Syrian territory. The warning comes after an IDF chief admitted that Israel targeted Iranian troops hundreds of times in Syria. I'm telling you, get out of there fast. We wont stop attacking, the prime minister said on Tuesday morning during a ceremony, in which he appointed Aviv Kochavi as the new chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces. DETAILS TO FOLLOW Netanyahu to Iran: Get out of Syria fast, we wont stop attacking Netanyahu to Iran: Get out of Syria fast, we wont stop attacking Source : RT - Daily news Chinas Change-4 probe has successfully germinated seeds on the dark side of the Moon in a miniature, artificial biosphere, providing hope for the future of sustainable, long-distance manned space travel. The probe conducted the first-ever soft landing on the dark side of the Moon on January 3 following a 20-day journey from Earth. En route, the craft was carrying cotton, rape, potato, arabidopsis (rock cress) seeds, as well as fruit fly eggs and yeast, kept in an artificial dormant state in a 7-inch-tall sealed container with air, water, and soil. All plants were chosen because they are small but hardy plants that can grow in a confined, tough environment. Also on rt.com New VIDEO shows Chinese probe roaming the dark side of the Moon The seeds only began growing once ground control singled to the probe to begin hydrating them and the cotton seed became the first-ever lunar sprout (plants have been grown on board the ISS, of course). The cotton seeds were the first to sprout but the rapeseed and potato seeds have now also sprouted, the mission team spokesperson told a press conference Tuesday. The plants are contained in a sealed container on board the lander creating a biosphere (an artificial, self-sustaining environment) which the Chinese government is hoping will be an early precursor to much larger scale projects that could one day feed and clothe long-distance astronauts as they journey through space in a sustainable way. Chinas Peoples Daily called it the completion of humankinds first biological experiment on the Moon. We have given consideration to future survival in space, professor Xie Gengxin, the experiments chief designer, told the South China Morning Post. Learning about these plants growth in a low-gravity environment would allow us to lay the foundation for our future establishment of [a] space base. Like this story? Share it with a friend! As a current print subscriber, you receive 24/7 access to our website and online e-edition at no additional charge. All you have to do is activate your access. To activate digital access, you will need your account number. You can find your account number on any recent subscription notice or bill. Keokuk, IA (52632) Today Mostly clear skies early with isolated thunderstorms developing late. Low 67F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Mostly clear skies early with isolated thunderstorms developing late. Low 67F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%. (Sanqin.com/Chen Feibo) With tables, chairs, a cashier desk, ornaments, and wall sculptures all made from corrugated cardboard, a bookstore restaurant in Xian, capital of northwest Chinas Shaanxi Province, has recently gained widespread public attention, sanqin.com reported. Opened at the beginning of 2018, the cardboard restaurant provides customers with Shaanxi style cuisine after 5 p.m. every day. With its unique location and style, the restaurant is now a firm favorite with those who visit the bookstore to peruse the shelves, as well as customers who want to try out a restaurant with a difference. Its nice to put down your mobile phone and read a book, and then enjoy a dish you like. It's reminiscent of my middle school days, said Liu Jing, a restaurant customer. The cardboard furniture not only helps to create a brand-new experience for customers, but also conveys the idea of environmental protection and a simple style of dining, Liu added. (Sanqin.com/Chen Feibo) The tables, made of corrugated card, are all one square meter in size, and come with four chairs, in three different adult-sized styles and one highchair for children. All the cardboard used in the restaurant was transported from Taiwan, China, according to restaurant owner Zhang Qiang, who disclosed that after learning about the properties and sturdiness of corrugated card, he created various pieces now used in the restaurant. Zhang explained that the adult chairs could each hold the weight of a person under 150 kilograms. He added that as the cost of cardboard furniture is higher than regular furniture, its unlikely that he'll be able to replace too many damaged chairs or tables. Therefore, maintaining the unique furniture is his biggest concern. (Sanqin.com/Chen Feibo) TAIPEI, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- More than 90 percent of employees in Taiwan are considering seeking a new job after the Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls on Feb. 5 this year, indicating low pay as a major reason, a survey released by Taiwan's online job bank Yes123 showed Monday. The rate of potential job-hoppers is the highest in 10 years, according to the survey. The estimated number of employed people in Taiwan is over 9 million. Among those who intend to change jobs, 55 percent said it was due to being dissatisfied with salaries, followed by poor welfare provided by their companies, no chance of promotion, and having a bleak outlook for their companies. As many as 65 percent of those said they had already begun to search for a new job. Nearly 85 percent of the respondents said they were considering securing a job outside Taiwan with a higher pay. Yang Tsung-pin, spokesman for Yes123, said a labor shortage could loom if the brain drain continued on the island, impacting Taiwan's overall competitiveness. In order to tackle the job-hopping boom, 94 percent of the surveyed companies said they planned to recruit new staff after the new year, and 63 percent said they would only fill the vacancies after employees left. The survey was based on questionnaires completed by 1,204 employees and 912 companies from Dec. 26 to Jan. 4. We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message. Asset forfeiture is a legal mechanism that allows authorities to seize and, provided certain conditions are met, permanently keep cash and property from people suspected of crimes. Forfeiture can happen under the criminal justice system, which requires a criminal conviction in order for property to be permanently forfeited. But it can also proceed under civil law, which does not require a conviction or even a criminal charge to be filed. Any Trump veto can than be overridden or upheld by the full Senate (as well as the House). It is in McConnells power to end the government shutdown by allowing the Senate to vote, up or down, on the funding bills. Jacobs op-ed was penned just before a storm dumped 6 to 12 inches of snow in the Washington D.C. area over the weekend, earning the nickname Snurlough due to the ongoing federal government furlough. Snowfall reports were issued from the NWS DC/Baltimore office once amounts fell above warning criteria 7 inches or more in 12 hours or less; or 9 inches or more in 24 hours. Anthony Ray Rivera told jurors he could see women still drinking inside the Happy Tap on Fourth Street in Bethlehem even though it was after 2 a.m. and tried to persuade the bartender to let him inside by sliding his ID under the door. The bartender, who testified Rivera banged so hard on a window that a neon Budweiser sign fell down, told Rivera she would call police if he didnt leave. Two men who then drove up to the front of the bar warned him to get out of here before it gets ugly, Rivera testified. Passage of this years budget went smoothly because Wolf learned he could not propose taxes or spending that had no chance of passing the Legislature, said Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. If Wolf wants more successes, he is going to have to talk to lawmakers sooner so they are not caught off guard, Browne said. Look, we all come to public service with convictions that we know we cant compromise, said the states 47th governor. I certainly do. And I know my friends in the Legislature do as well. So sometimes well disagree. And sometimes well have to agree to disagree. But that doesnt have to stop us from working together to make progress for Pennsylvania where we have common ground. For the occasion and all coming Senate sessions he will preside over, Fetterman disregarded his trademark jeans and Dickies shirt. Instead, he wore a dark suit that covered the tattoos on his arms, which depict his time as small-town mayor prior to 2018, when he was as elected as second-in-command of the nations sixth largest state. In this last election, we saw increased voter turnout in all 67 counties. But voting isn't the end of your responsibility in helping to shape our shared future. It's just the beginning. It's long past time we re-discover democracy together because if we're going to build the kind of trust we need to make progress in Harrisburg ... if we're going to renew our faith in Pennsylvania's future ... it won't come from me or anyone else on this stage. It'll come from you, the people of this great commonwealth. Though Barr said an attorney general should work in concert with an administration's policy goals, he broke from some Trump talking points, including the mantra that the Russia probe is a witch hunt, and said he frowned on "Lock Her Up" calls for Hillary Clinton. Trump has equivocated on Russian meddling in the 2016 election and assailed and pushed out his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for recusing because of his work with the Trump campaign. LONDON, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Conservative frontbencher Gareth Johnson resigned on Monday on the eve of a crucial parliament vote over the Brexit deal scheduled for Tuesday. Johnson, a government whip, said in his letter to the Prime Minister that he cannot "in all conscience, support the government's position when it is clear this deal would be detrimental to our nation's interests". The resignation came as Prime Minister Theresa May was battling for a last-minute support for the Brexit deal. Speaking at a factory in Stoke-on-Trent, May warned that if MPs voted down her deal, the most likely result would be a paralysis in parliament and a risk for no Brexit, which would mean a failure to deliver the result of the 2016 EU referendum. Johnson said he had spent the last few weeks trying to reconcile his duties to assist the government to implement the withdraw agreement despite his personal objections to it. "The 'backstop', contained in the agreement, gives our country no clear, unilateral path out of the European Union and ensures we will be fettered in our ability to negotiate trade deals with other nations in the future," he said. Johnson said the Brexit deal prevented Britain taking back control and instead could leave the country perpetually constrained by the EU, believing it would be "disrespectful" to the referendum result if this agreement were to be implemented. The controversial "backstop" plan refers to the Irish border backstop, one of the biggest stumbling blocks to the Brexit deal. "Backstop" is designed to avoid border checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It is considered by some British especially Brexiteers to be a trap to retain Britain in a customs union with the EU and pragmatically delay their "divorce". On Monday, European Union leaders wrote a letter to May with assurances, saying that if the Irish backstop were nevertheless to be triggered, it would only apply "temporarily" and in place for as long as strictly necessary. The EU is determined to replace the backstop solution on Northern Ireland with a subsequent agreement that would ensure the absence of a hard border on the island of Ireland on a permanent footing, according to the letter. The border that separates Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state, is among the most difficult issues in Britain's exit from the EU. The UK and Ireland are currently part of the single market and customs union, so products need not be inspected for customs and standards and have been transported freely. That could change after Brexit, as Northern Ireland and Ireland would then fall into different customs and regulatory jurisdictions, meaning that products would theoretically have to be checked. Both London and Brussels committed to avoiding the return of a "hard border" after the UK leaves the EU in March 2019. "This is the most significant vote that any of us will ever be part of in our political careers," she told lawmakers as debate ended. "The time has now come for all of is in this House to make a decision, ... a decision that each of us will have to justify and live with for many years to come." Parents opposed to the policy presented the school board with preventative measures and security changes they said could be used instead of Policy 705. While Wittig said the district is considering some of these suggestions including an early detection system that could warn authorities the moment gunshots go off in a building and changes to layout and infrastructure but still believe none of these suggestions address an actual school shooting. Among them was one that included clips from audio recordings of DiNardo and Kratz from their statements to investigators in which they confessed to the crimes. The recordings were revealed last year to have been leaked to the media by Kratzs former attorney, Craig Penglase, who was removed from the case and could be called to testify at future proceedings. Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. US Border Barrier Solution Rational discourse has been the overriding casualty of the border war. The break down in language is more than semantics. It has elevated into a divergence of culture that no longer shares a common value system or a cherished dream. The camps of discontent reside in separate and distinct jurisdictions. Government has failed at every level. People have become so polarized that trust in a community of citizens has been discarded for the purity of totalitarian globalism. The continued controversy over a border barrier differentiates more than a line between two countries. Even the furthermost betrayer of the Republic, Abraham Lincoln foretold of the consequences from a divided nation. At the June 16, 1858 acceptance speech for the Republican nomination for President in Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln spoke the following: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other." The connotation of slavery has a 21st century meaning that the progressive collectivists do not understand. Yet, they are the most eager advocates of pushing for a divided country. Today's society is designed to keep citizens in a "PC" slavery that is a hallmark of open borders invaders and their proponents. This res publica mindset does not advance or defend a commonwealth. Establishing an effective barrier is necessary to preserve the integrity of our territorial boundaries. However, the lack of will in Congress or in the Federal courts has proven that a sensible resolution to an entirely avoidable conflict is unlikely. So consider a method of action that can sidestep the radical extremists who are the neo-establishment. President Trump should direct the military to create an outpost that would be constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Trump should direct funds from the foreign aid allotments that go to countries that work against our own national interest. The key to this option is to lease from Mexico a one mile corridor south of the current border where a permanent barrier wall would be built outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress and Federal courts. Points of entry under strict restrictions would be enforced and locations for legitimate petitions to become an American citizen and adopt English as the official language would be a condition for application. Buses, trucks and train routes from Mexico would be scrutinized since individual crossing of the border would be illegal. This solution would avoid a repeat of General John J. Pershing's military expedition against Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa which was authorized by President Woodrow Wilson. If permanent military oversea outposts in Iraq and Afghanistan are supported by the warmongers, ponder the insanity of allowing a continuous flood of illegal's to overrun our country. Rejecting the obvious is a luxury that even the "Pseudo Emancipator" would question. The cultists on the United States Courts for the Ninth Circuit exceed at dividing the nation and are hell bent on their objective for this house to fall. Just maybe these usurpers of the original constitution need to experience the fallout of their reversible errors. Why not show some of those left coast bleeding heart sympathizers by buying up property adjutant to these robe magistrates and move in MS-13 gang members as next door neighbors. How long would it be before wall redoubts would pop-up around their abodes? Judicial accountability is a non starter among the barrister profession and certainly has bipartisan cover to keep the sellout of our natural (excluding DACA) born or naturalized citizens. A military patrolled barrier on Mexico soil can negate the treason that deranged lawyers and pompous judges routinely commit. By creating a no man's land, this small strip of leased ground can do more to preclude internationally funded and organized caravans from crossing into the United States. Lincoln's assertion that he does not expect the Union to be dissolved has already been proven wrong. America is under assault by the authoritarian factions that systematically work to destroy a sensible culture that educate responsible citizens. Universal humanitarianism paid for by deficit spending is the true immoral element. While the Federal government refuses to act responsibly, both parties continue to keep raising expenditures. A partial shutdown (25% of budget) proves that many governmental services are really not needed. As long as the Democrats refuse to fund and the courts rule against a border wall, the outline of this suggestion offers a viable alternative. The Korean Demilitarized Zone and the Israeli West Bank barrier or wall are two examples of barring population intrusions. Debate the political justifications if you wish, but do not deny that a wall can provide protection for your own territory. Historically, the Vatican and Constantinople Walls were most effective barriers for keeping out barbarian incursion. There was no division if a wall was needed. Only in this bizarre and distorted matrix of self-induced domestic suicide would a society allow the intentional surrender of our national sovereignty. Abandoning assimilation of immigrants guarantees the eradication of essential values and customs that created a country which was the envy of all other nations. As the inevitable bankruptcy from debt spawn fiat currency grows closer, the expansion of millions of marginally skilled and often sickly migrants only amplifies a vagrant influx, which cannot be afforded. The LBJ Great Society failed and the African-American community is waking up to the fact that the Democrat Socialists created the urban ghetto with their welfare programs. Now the entrenched egalitarians diluted in their off-the-wall absurdity need another group of serfs to push the Fabian model of collective ownership. Hostility towards President Trump's border wall plays into the hands of the globalists. Hating America by encouraging unrestrictive migration is a clinical disorder. Stop the lunacy and come to a state of sanity. Genghis Khan is at your gates, will you face this reality? SARTRE Discuss or comment about this essay on the BATR Forum http://www.batr.org "Many seek to become a Syndicated Columnist, while the few strive to be a Vindicated Publisher" 2018 Copyright BATR - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors. 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Are Global Stock Markets About To Rally 10 Percent? Technical Traders Ltd. is issuing new analysis which indicates the US and global markets may be poised for a dramatic upside price swing over the next couple. Recent events have driven asset class values to new valuations that may change the dynamics of markets for a few months. Prior to August/September 2018, many traders were fearful of the expectations of the US Federal Reserve, Global Trade Issues and the US Elections. Combine this with the end of the year liquidity issues and the threat of a US government shutdown over the wall funding and we have almost a perfect storm brewing for uncertainty and fear. Now, it appears, our custom global market indexes are showing signs that a bottom may have formed over the past few weeks and that the global equities markets may be poised for an upside move in the range of +10% to +20% over the next 2-4 months. What changed over the past month?, you might be asking? Valuation levels have changed. The chart below is a Weekly chart of our Custom Smart Cash index. We use this as a measure of global equity market valuation and to determine if and when pricing levels are changing in terms of total market capitalization. We can see from early 2018, the global markets peaked and began to move lower. Even though the US markets pushed higher throughout this time, the total global markets continued to deteriorate. Now, the valuation levels are near historic channel support and have begun to flip back to the upside (at least in the immediate term). If this continues as capital re-enters the global capital markets in search of undervalued opportunities, this capital will find quite a few opportunities in beaten up global equities. Pay attention because this could be the setup of a market bottom with relatively strong upside potential. One item to pay attention to is our Custom China/Asia index. This chart, below, is a Monthly Custom China/Asia market index. It may be somewhat hard to understand with all of these Fibonacci Arcs drawn on it, but to us, this is a very clear chart. These Arcs are an advanced way to look at Fibonacci price support and resistance. We look for how these arcs relate to price activity and how they converge in past and future price points. Our belief is that each price move initiates and perpetuates with a certain energy level and frequency. If we are able to identify this level and frequency, then we may be able to attain greater knowledge of the future price turning points, support, resistance, and other key information. As you can see, the bottom on this chart occurred right within the Top Arcs primary frequency levels near 4.5x the base frequency level or 2x the immediate frequency level. This is a fairly common level for the price to form tops/bottoms. 2X equals 200% of an immediate price level energy frequency. We believe China/Asia may experience an upside price swing of nearly +8 to +15% over the next couple of months as the global markets attempt a price recovery. This means that there may be some opportunity in the Asian markets through April/May 2019. We urge investors to be cautious of the Summer months of 2019 because we dont expect this move to last long. This means skilled traders will be able to find and execute a broad range of successful and profitable trading opportunities over the next 2 to 4 months. Get ready for 2019 to be a very good year for traders and learn how our daily market research, stock, ETF, and futures trading signals can save your time and money. Start executing the best opportunities today with www.TheTechnicalTraders.com . Chris Vermeulen www.TheTechnicalTraders.com Chris Vermeulen has been involved in the markets since 1997 and is the founder of Technical Traders Ltd. He is an internationally recognized technical analyst, trader, and is the author of the book: 7 Steps to Win With Logic Through years of research, trading and helping individual traders around the world. He learned that many traders have great trading ideas, but they lack one thing, they struggle to execute trades in a systematic way for consistent results. Chris helps educate traders with a three-hour video course that can change your trading results for the better. His mission is to help his clients boost their trading performance while reducing market exposure and portfolio volatility. He is a regular speaker on HoweStreet.com, and the FinancialSurvivorNetwork radio shows. Chris was also featured on the cover of AmalgaTrader Magazine, and contributes articles to several leading financial hubs like MarketOracle.co.uk Disclaimer: Nothing in this report should be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any securities mentioned. Technical Traders Ltd., its owners and the author of this report are not registered broker-dealers or financial advisors. Before investing in any securities, you should consult with your financial advisor and a registered broker-dealer. Never make an investment based solely on what you read in an online or printed report, including this report, especially if the investment involves a small, thinly-traded company that isnt well known. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report has been paid by Cardiff Energy Corp. In addition, the author owns shares of Cardiff Energy Corp. and would also benefit from volume and price appreciation of its stock. The information provided here within should not be construed as a financial analysis but rather as an advertisement. The authors views and opinions regarding the companies featured in reports are his own views and are based on information that he has researched independently and has received, which the author assumes to be reliable. Technical Traders Ltd. and the author of this report do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content of this report, nor its fitness for any particular purpose. Lastly, the author does not guarantee that any of the companies mentioned in the reports will perform as expected, and any comparisons made to other companies may not be valid or come into effect. Chris Vermeulen Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Mankato, MN (56001) Today A few clouds with an isolated thunderstorm possible after midnight. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low 72F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight A few clouds with an isolated thunderstorm possible after midnight. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low 72F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 30%. Tech-focused companies have welcomed new guidelines from the European Patent Office (EPO) that set out patentability criteria for inventions derived from artificial intelligence (AI) in the continent. In-house lawyers from medical device, automotive and technology companies say that the new guidelines, issued in November, have been useful in helping businesses understand how to apply for an AI patent at the EPO and what subject matter is exempt from patentability. The recent guidance is a good example of how a patent office can also help to give clarity and direction for the applicants, says the head of IP at a global medical device firm. The EPO is doing quite a good job of keeping guidelines at least at par with these advances and maintaining reasonable examination times Anita Shaw, a UK and European patent attorney at IBM, adds that the guidance has been useful, especially in the range of patentable and non-patentable subject matter examples provided. The vice-president of IPR at a medical device company says that the guidelines provide valuable direction for his firm. It is very helpful when patent offices aim to be at the forefront of technological development to keep up with business needs, and the EPO is doing quite a good job of keeping guidelines at least at par with these advances and maintaining reasonable examination times, he says. The IP adviser of a global automotive firm adds that the office has been quite active in addressing challenges to patenting computer-implemented inventions to deal with the issue that patenting software has traditionally been a difficult process. The new guidance, he says, is just one of several initiatives that are helping AI-focused businesses to protect their lucrative inventions. Article 52 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) states that inventions shall be granted in "all fields of technology" but that some subject matter is not eligible for protection when claimed as such. That matter includes scientific theories and mathematical methods, aesthetic creations and, most importantly, programs for computers which is a problem for AI patentability because the technology is seen by some as pure mathematical methods and nothing else. But the EPO has clarified that AI is patentable under certain circumstances. In its guidance, which came into force into force in November 2018, it outlined that an inventor must show the claimed subject matter has a technical character (although it may contain non-technical features) and that all features contributing to the technical character are taken into account for assessment of the inventive step. You cannot rely on non-technical features in claims to support inventive step," said Yannis Skulikaris, director of operations at the EPO, at Managing IPs European Patent forum last September. By example, if the claim is for a laptop painted red, you cannot rely on the fact that it is red to support novelty of inventive step because it is just an aesthetic element." Corporate sources say that while they are still digesting the guidance, key features include listed examples of what is patentable and what is not, a summary of the two hurdles businesses must overcome to ensure patent protection for AI inventions, and advice to be careful when using buzzwords and marketing terms commonly used for AI. But more still needs to be done in patent offices across the world to ensure that businesses can more efficiently get protection for their AI products. Harmonisation needed Some other offices have yet to be as helpful when it comes to AI patentability guidance. The Japanese Patent Office (JPO) has issued its own set guidelines, but sources say theyre still eagerly awaiting similar direction from the other major offices. Shaw at IBM says her company would welcome clarification of AI patenting laws to eliminate ambiguity, such as those associated with patentable subject matter and inventorship. It's always helpful in any guidance issued by patent offices to include a range of pointers and examples, such as the useful output from the EPO and JPO, she says. That is especially true in some areas where case law within AI has not yet built up. The recent guidance is a good example of how a patent office can also help to create clarity and guidance for the applicants AI is experiencing a particular acceleration in terms of funding and development. The tech is evolving so quickly and we need to see the timelines to grant across the global patent offices shortened, so that our clients are able to see a sensible and timely return on their investments. Nicholas Gambini, CEO at autonomous underwater drone maker Notilo Plus, adds that the challenge for his company in uncertain jurisdictions is how to demonstrate that its inventions are inventive without disclosing too much information to the public record. We are using AI tech that has already been developed for terrestrial applications but weve developed it to work in the water a complex environment where you have low luminosity, low lighting and poor visibility, and often cannot see more than one metre ahead, he explains. He adds that patenting this technology is about finding a balance between not disclosing too much and ensuring that examiners do not think the invention is obvious or infringing. There is also a lack of harmonisation when it comes to exempted subject matter across the big patent offices, which can be frustrating for businesses looking to streamline the patenting process for this technology. The tests for patentable or eligible subject matter vary globally it can be easier to get granted patents in some countries, says Shaw. It is a complex question of which office is best for patenting AI at the moment and we would need more data points to begin to answer it. She adds that her company is currently reviewing and inputting to developments in the US, such as in terms of 101 objections, digesting the recently issued examination guidelines from the European and Japan Patent Offices and watching developments in China. The vice-president of IPR at a medical device firm agrees that the process can be frustrating, and adds that the USPTO is far less consistent in its approach to AI patentability than the EPO or JPO. The USPTO seems to go back and forth on the matter all the time after various decisions, and we would definitely prefer a higher level of consistency from them and other patent offices, such as what we see from the JPO, he says. One source at a Japanese technology company says that the Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration does not consider AI to be patentable, but is currently reviewing its rules in light of the popularity of AI technologies. But the uncertainty and lack of harmonisation should hopefully not last too much longer. Shaw at IBM points out that earlier this year, the world's five largest IP offices (China, Europe, Korea, Japan and the US) earmarked AI as a priority. It is good to see a positive message on cooperation and harmonisation across global patent offices where possible, she says. The EPOs guidelines have been warmly welcomes by AI-focused companies and other patent offices have or are starting to follow suit. As guidance and the law develops, were likely to see far more successful applications in this field. The material on this site is for law firms, companies and other IP specialists. It is for information only. Please read our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Notice before using the site. All material subject to strictly enforced copyright laws. 2021 Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. For help please see our FAQs. Share this article Support Local Journalism The Malibu community needs trustworthy reportingbut good journalism isnt free. Please help keep us in print by making a contribution. HONG KONG, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- "Regulation and innovation should develop hand in hand," said a representative of Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) at the 12th Asian Financial Forum that opened here on Monday, calling for global regulatory collaboration to tackle various challenges in 2019. HKMA Deputy Chief Executive Eddie Yue made the remarks as he chaired a panel discussion on global financial risks and opportunities in 2019 that was attended by representatives of regulatory authorities of several economies. Yue was referring to "new variables" brought by the emerging financial and technological innovation, especially the recent rapid advancement in the fields of green finance and Fintech. According to him, the innovation may lead to problems such as cybersecurity risks and regulatory challenges. Echoing Yue's appeal, First Deputy Governor of the Bank of Russia Sergey Shvetsov also called for collaboration of "regulators globally" on the financial innovation. "Fintech can be future opportunities for emerging markets," he said, adding that the regulatory challenges it brings are cross-border ones. Saying "there should be more expectations for green finance," Chairman of Dubai Financial Services Authority Saeb Eigner also pointed out that this field is still in lack of global standard. The two-day Asian Financial Forum brought together over 130 policymakers, financial and business leaders and heavyweight investors from across the world to discuss the current global economic environment and share insights on the opportunities and challenges that businesses will face in the coming year. Besides challenges derived from the new trends, speakers at panel discussions also talked about other financial risks in 2019, including international trade conflicts, geopolitical uncertainties such as Brexit, as well as U.S. monetary policy normalization. "Today uncertainty is not so much about integration but about disintegration. Multilateralism and free trade have come under pressure, for example, with international trade conflicts. And with Brexit, disintegration is also at the moment a really big topic within Europe," said Burkhard Balz, a member of the executive board of Deutsche Bundesbank. "Against this background, from my point of view, it's essential to increase resilience of the financial system with post-crisis reforms that advance the overall systems stability," he suggested. Exton, PA (19341) Today A few passing clouds. Low 52F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight A few passing clouds. Low 52F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Weather Alert ...AIR QUALITY ALERT IN EFFECT FROM 9 AM THIS MORNING TO 8 PM CDT THIS EVENING... The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality is forecasting an Ozone Advisory Day for East Baton Rouge...West Baton Rouge... Livingston...Ascension...Iberville and Pointe Coupee Parishes...in effect from 9 AM this morning to 8 PM CDT this evening. The Air Quality Index indicates that ozone will be at the Orange level...which is unhealthy for sensitive groups. Increasing ozone levels may cause unhealthy air quality during afternoon hours. Active children and adults...the elderly and people with respiratory diseases such as asthma...should avoid prolonged outdoor exertion. Please take whatever voluntary steps you can to reduce emissions that contribute to ozone formation. Drive less and make sure your automobile is in good working condition. Make sure your gas cap is tight. Wait until after 6 PM to refuel your vehicle and use gas powered lawn equipment. More information about current air quality and what you can do to help prevent ozone formation is available at the D E Q website www.deq.louisiana.gov/enviroflash or by calling 8 6 6 8 9 6 5 3 3 7. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close (Photo/Chinanews.com) Due to the surge in development of smart manufacturing in China, the country is witnessing a growing gap in its employment structure, and it's predicted that China will see a shortage of 22 million high-end technical personnel by 2020, according to CCTV Business Channel. Currently, the increasing labor cost is forcing enterprises to apply higher numbers of robots and intelligent systems to their production force. For instance, Zhejiang, a province located in Chinas manufacturing base the Yangtze River Delta, is now suffering from a severe labor shortage, especially in the run up to Chinese New Year, a festival centered around family reunion. I have had to halt 500 machines because of recruitment failures, said Zhu Li, head of a clothing factory in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province. The workshops, which are supposed to be in busy operation, are now covered in dust, he added. Fan Boyuan, chairman of the board of a Zhejiang-based smart home solution company, explained that the material cost of the clothing industry had gone up by around 10 percent in recent years, but labor cost had increased by 35 percent. He is now investing in smart production, hoping to find a solution to the labor shortage and increase profits through industrial upgrading. However, the shortage of technical staff came shortly after the expansion of smart production. Fan noted that currently, there aren't many workers who know how to control smart production systems, and many high-end professionals are not willing to work in factories or workshops. The only solution is self-training, he added. Changes have affected both the production line and the workers. Those who are familiar with the industry and also capable of smart device operation are now in high demand. The urgent need for technical personnel in the employment market stimulated recruitment from vocational schools. Statistics indicated that in 2017, the employment rate of students from such schools exceeded those holding a bachelor's degree for the first time. However, these vocational schools are still facing difficulties when it comes to recruitment, and have experienced downward enrollment for six years since 2009. Although titles such as technician and senior technician are encouraging to an extent, the incentive systems are still facing problems in that industries are not doing enough to build a full workforce, said Zeng Xiangquan, dean of the School of Labor Relations and Human Resources at Renmin University of China. Experts believe that in addition to these incentive systems, the expansion of training channels for technical workers and the acceleration of vocational education development is also very important to fill the employment gap. Two months before he became the president of Mexico in 2012, Enrique Pena Nieto accepted a $100-million bribe from Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, a witness in the U.S. trial of the drug kingpin testified Tuesday. Alex Cifuentes Villa, a Colombian who worked closely with Guzman and is awaiting sentencing for drug trafficking, told a Brooklyn court that Pena Nieto had originally asked for $250 million though he also allowed that I may have some confusion with the numbers. The explosive accusation of corruption at the highest levels of government rocked Mexico, where a string of corruption scandals encircling Pena Nieto left him and his political party deeply unpopular as he finished his term last year. Pena Nieto did not immediately respond to the testimony. But when allegations of corruption came up earlier in the trial last year, a spokesman for the former president called them false and defamatory. Advertisement Claudia Ruiz Massieu, who served as foreign secretary under Pena Nieto and is now president of his Institutional Revolutionary Party, released a statement Tuesday saying the bribe allegation sounds completely implausible to me. Protected witnesses often seek benefits in exchange for saying what the authorities want, she said. We have to evaluate these kinds of statements with care. As president, Pena Nieto continued the strategy launched by his predecessor of seeking to weaken the countrys powerful drug cartels by killing or arresting their leaders. It was during his term that Mexicos armed forces captured Guzman in 2014 only for him to escape before being caught again in 2016. Pena Nietos administration then extradited Guzman to the United States to face trial on charges of drug trafficking and murder. Pena Nieto persecuted, captured and extradited the criminal Joaquin Guzman Loera, Eduardo Sanchez, a Mexican government spokesman, tweeted last year after one of Guzmans defense attorneys suggested that two Mexican presidents had received bribes from Guzmans Sinaloa cartel. On Tuesday in court, Guzmans defense attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, said that in meetings in April 2016 and November 2017, Cifuentes told prosecutors that Pena Nieto had reached out to Guzman in 2012. Cifuentes told them that Pena Nieto, who was elected that July, said that if Guzman gave him money, he wouldnt have to worry about continuing to run his drug business, Lichtman said. Advertisement The message was that Mr. Guzman didnt have to stay in hiding? Lichtman asked Cifuentes. Yes, that very thing was what Joaquin told me, Cifuentes responded. Cifuentes testified that Pena Nieto received the money through an intermediary in October 2012, two months before taking office. Pena Nieto was beset by a series of corruption scandals throughout his six-year term. Advertisement In 2014, journalists revealed that his wife had purchased a white marble mansion from a government contractor on favorable terms. He was also accused by journalists of shutting down federal investigations into bribery allegations that involved one of his close aides and the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht. His Institutional Revolutionary Party was implicated in a nationwide corruption scheme that involved funneling tens of millions of dollars in public funds to help the partys gubernatorial candidates. The scandals helped make Pena Nieto Mexicos least popular president since pollsters began taking surveys in the 1990s, and contributed to his partys miserable showing in national elections last summer. Mexicos new president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, ran on an anti-corruption message and won in a landslide last year as his leftist National Regeneration Movement, known as Morena, swept large parts of the country. Advertisement The sprawling drug trafficking case against Guzman has offered a insiders look at widespread graft involving officials, military and police. In court on Tuesday, Lichtman said Cifuentes also told prosecutors that a rival drug gang, the Beltran-Leyva cartel, was paying former President Felipe Calderon for military protection against Guzman. Cifuentes, however, said he didnt remember saying that. But he did recall other military and police corruption in Mexico. Cifuentes agreed that he told prosecutors that Guzman paid $10 million to $12 million to initiate military operations to kill or capture associates of the Beltran-Leyva cartel. Those were the amounts I would hear, Cifuentes said. Advertisement Cifuentes also said he and his wife worked with Mexican federal police to import cocaine from Argentina to Mexico. You told them that cocaine-filled suitcases were sent on airplanes? Lichtman asked Cifuentes. Yes, he responded. The police would have photos of the suitcases, to identify them, then would then sell the drugs, Cifuentes testified. Advertisement Police were the customers of the drug dealers? Lichtman asked. Yes, Cifuentes said. His testimony was scheduled to continue Wednesday. Special correspondent Plagianos reported from New York and Times staff writer Linthicum from Mexico City. Thousands of Guatemalans on Monday protested the governments ongoing attacks on an international anti-corruption commission and recent efforts to remove judges on the countrys highest court. Rallies, marches and roadblocks occurred across the nation, coinciding with President Jimmy Morales annual report to Congress, a speech akin to the state of the union address. For the record: An earlier version of this article said former Guatemala President Otto Perez Molina was convicted for his role in a customs corruption scheme. Perez Molina is awaiting trial on corruption charges. Were worried for Guatemala, said day laborer Francisco Xelemango, who participated in a march in Guatemala City. What the government is doing these days is just to protect government officials and to protect the corrupt. Guatemala has been in crisis since last week, when Morales abruptly kicked out a United Nations-backed anti-corruption commission that had been investigating him and several members of his family. Advertisement Morales ignored a ruling by the nations highest court that reversed that decision, and appears to support an effort underway by his allies in Congress to impeach the Constitutional Court judges who have opposed his efforts to expel the commission. Morales only briefly alluded to the crisis in his speech, which focused largely on his administrations work on infrastructure, social programs and other issues. With respect to the fight against corruption, my government continues taking action to guarantee transparency, he said. Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales speaks while presenting his governments annual report in Guatemala City on Jan. 14, 2019. (Orlando Estrada / AFP/Getty Images) Opposition lawmakers who boycotted the presidents speech accused Morales of thrusting the country into crisis so that he could protect himself. The actions of the president have brought about a constitutional crisis, a crisis of the state, said Sandra Moran, one of the lawmakers who sat out the presidents speech. In Guatemala City, the capital, more than 20 blocks in the city center were shut to vehicle traffic and a heavy police presence guarded the area as a protest march called by more than 60 social movement organizations sought to reach the central plaza. Miguel de Leon, one of the indigenous authorities leading the march, said he supports the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, known as the CICIG. Advertisement A representative from a traditional governance body in the Maya Ixil region 130 miles northwest of the capital, De Leon said the presidents recent actions are a dangerous slide backward toward the authoritarian regimes that dominated 20th century Guatemala. A 36-year civil war between the army and leftist guerrillas left more than 200,000 people dead, many of them indigenous Maya civilians killed by the army. We have suffered massacres and genocide and we feel sorrow at the possibility of history repeating itself, De Leon said. Since 2007, the international commissions independent investigators have exposed 60 criminal organizations and helped send 300 people to jail, said Ivan Velasquez, the Colombian jurist who heads the commission. Advertisement Former President Otto Perez Molina is awaiting trial on corruption charges. After Perez Molina resigned in 2015, Morales was elected on an anti-corruption platform. But he turned on the commission after he and his party came under investigation for illegal campaign financing. His brother and son were arrested in a separate corruption case. They have all denied the allegations. The presidents efforts to expel the commission included declaring Velasquez persona non grata in 2017, a decision overturned by the Constitutional Court. In August, Morales announced that he would not renew the commissions mandate, set to end in September. Days later, his government barred Velasquez from the country, alleging that he is a threat to national security. Advertisement The Constitutional Court again reversed the measure, but the government responded with open defiance, and Velasquez remained at the head of the commission from outside the country. After the commissions expulsion Jan. 7, all of its international staff left Guatemala. The U.S. government response to Morales actions in recent months has been largely limited to brief public statements in support of anti-corruption efforts but not explicit support for the CICIG. Protesters and opposition lawmakers say the constitutional order and democracy are under attack. The stakes are higher than ever with general elections just five months away, they say. The commission had an agreement with the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to assist the tribunal in ensuring fair and transparent elections. Advertisement In a statement Monday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet stressed the importance of guaranteeing the rule of law and respect for courts, prosecutors, human rights officials and the electoral tribunal. The proper exercise of their functions is fundamental in the current context and for the general elections to be held in the coming months. Respect for their safety and their physical integrity, as well as that of their families, must be guaranteed by the state of Guatemala, she said. Cuffe is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Kate Linthicum in Mexico City contributed to this report. Delivering a stinging defeat to prosecutors at the International Criminal Court, judges on Tuesday acquitted former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and former youth minister Charles Ble Goude of responsibility for crimes committed following disputed elections in 2010, saying the prosecution failed to prove its case. Presiding Judge Cuno Tarfusser ordered the immediate release of the 73-year-old Gbagbo and 47-year-old Ble Goude following the judgment, which came before their lawyers even presented a case. Tarfusser later suspended that order ahead of a followup hearing Wednesday. Prosecutors can appeal. In a written statement, they called the ruling disappointing and unexpected and said they would analyze the written decision when it was published and assess the appropriate next steps. Gbagbo was the first former president to go on trial at the global court, and his case was seen as a milestone in efforts to bring to justice even the highest-ranking leaders accused of atrocities. Advertisement More than 3,000 people were killed after Gbagbo refused to accept defeat by his rival and current Ivory Coast president, Alassane Ouattara. Tarfusser said a majority of the three-judge trial panel ruled that the prosecutor has failed to satisfy the burden of proof against both men. He said it was a matter of public record that Ivory Coast was wracked by post-election violence in 2010 and early 2011, but he said prosecutors did not present evidence that Gbagbo and Ble Goude formulated a plan for their supporters to unleash violence to keep Gbagbo in power. Prosecutors also failed to prove that speeches by both men incited violence, Tarfusser said. Neither Gbagbo nor Ble Goude spoke in court. Gbagbos lawyer Emmanuel Altit called it a victory for justice. Its also a victory for a man who was wrongly accused, President Gbagbo, Altit told reporters. Both men are expected to return to Ivory Coast, although it remains unclear when that will be possible. Rights groups lamented the rulings effect on victims. The acquittal of Gbagbo and Ble Goude is a crushing disappointment to victims of post-election violence in Ivory Coast, said Marie-Evelyne Petrus Barry, Amnesty Internationals West and Central Africa director. Karim Traore, 36, is one of those victims. Advertisement I lost my arm in 2011 because of pro-Gbagbo forces, he said. We do not understand the decision of the International Criminal Court to release the former president. We, the victims, have not been heard and it is a real shame. Amal Nassar, who represents the International Federation for Human Rights, called on prosecutors to appeal. The ICC as a whole should learn from its difficulties in convicting [former] political leaders bearing the highest responsibility in the perpetration of crimes and revise adequately its policy, Nassar said in a statement. As Tarfusser announced the acquittals, supporters of Gbagbo and Ble Goude stood and cheered in the courtrooms gallery. Even before the hearing started, dozens of supporters sang and danced outside the courts headquarters. Advertisement In Ivory Coast, there was an outburst of joy and relief in the Abidjan neighborhood of Yopougon, a Gbagbo stronghold. Above all, we wish to reach out to our executioners of yesterday to make a sincere reconciliation, said Ferdinand Zahibo, a central committee member of Gbagbos Ivorian Popular Front party. The government did not immediately comment. Both defendants had pleaded not guilty to four charges of crimes against humanity including murder, rape and persecution. The ruling was the latest defeat for prosecutors at the worlds first global war crimes court. The case against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who also was accused of involvement before he became president in post-election violence in his country, collapsed in December 2014. Last year a former Congolese vice president, Jean-Pierre Bemba, was acquitted on appeal of crimes allegedly committed by his militia in neighboring Central African Republic. Advertisement James A. Goldstone, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative, said the acquittal ruling underscores how important it is that the process to select the next prosecutor yields a person of integrity and sound judgment who is highly skilled at criminal investigation. The term of current chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda expires in 2021. Gbagbo has been in the courts custody since November 2011 and Ble Goude since March 2014. A former university professor who founded an opposition party well before Ivory Coast embraced democracy, Gbagbo spent much of the 1980s in exile in France. After returning to Ivory Coast, he lost the 1990 presidential vote and spent six months in jail in 1992 for his role in student protests. Advertisement He came to power in 2000 in a flawed election. In the 2010 race, Gbagbo placed first in the first round with 38% of the vote before losing to Ouattara in a runoff. Ouattara last year granted amnesty to 800 prisoners prosecuted for crimes connected to the 2010 post-election crisis, including Gbagbos wife, Simone, who also has been indicted by the ICC for crimes against humanity. Ivory Coast has refused to send her to the Hague. Fresh elections are scheduled in Ivory Coast next year. We are very happy, we are heading toward a genuine national reconciliation and we are only waiting for their return to bring about peace, said Assoa Adou, the secretary general of Gbagbos party. British lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected Prime Minister Theresa Mays blueprint for separating from the European Union, throwing the torturous Brexit process into new chaos and setting the stage for a parliamentary vote of no confidence in her government. The lopsided scale of the defeat, with 432 votes against and 202 in favor, came as a devastating blow to May, who has staked her political career on successfully steering Britain out of its decades-old participation in the 28-member bloc. That separation, which would have momentous economic and security consequences for Britain and its European neighbors, is supposed to occur in just 10 weeks. Tuesdays vote was the worst parliamentary defeat for a sitting British government in nearly a century. Her backers had hoped to limit defections within her party; instead, scores of them broke ranks, leading to the crushing 230-vote margin of loss. Advertisement By hallowed parliamentary tradition, a British prime minister who suffered such a thoroughgoing rebuke from lawmakers would step aside. But in political terms, Brexit has seemingly upended the laws of physics, and May signaled she would push ahead in her increasingly quixotic efforts to secure an accord. European leaders expressed dismay over the outcome and issued a sharp reminder of the timetable, which calls for Britains exit from the EU on March 29. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker voiced regret and added: I urge the United Kingdom to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. Time is almost up. May and her key Cabinet colleagues had made a last-ditch bid to shore up support. But the effort was in vain. The government respects the will of the House, the grim-faced prime minister said afterward. The defeat, she said, will mean more bitterness, more rancor. Within moments of the vote, opposition Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn excoriating May for sheer incompetence called a vote of no confidence in her government, to be held Wednesday evening. But Northern Irelands Democratic Unionist Party said it would back the prime minister, so she was considered likely to survive that challenge. While noisy protests took place outside, the scene inside was only a bit less discordant. Parliamentary proceedings were punctuated by cheers, jeers and a general ruckus. Even as the tally was being read out, Speaker John Bercow paused to bellow: Orderrrrrr! With passions running high, one member of Parliament, Tulip Siddiq, delayed her caesarean section by two days to take part, casting her vote from a wheelchair against the deal. The campaign for the 2016 Brexit referendum was a bitter one, exposing deep rifts between different segments of British society. The 52% of voters who favored leaving the EU felt Britain needed to take back control of its laws, borders and spending. Immigration also became a tinderbox. Advertisement Many who supported leaving the EU also felt that money sent by Britain to the EU each year would be better spent improving the overburdened National Health Service and dealing with other domestic needs. They also disliked the fact that Britain was not free to strike its own trade deals with other countries outside the EU. But the 48% who voted to remain in the bloc believed, with equal passion, that Britain would be safer and more prosperous in the EU. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets of London to protest that the referendum result did not reflect true national sentiment. May, who became prime minister after the referendum and the resignation of her predecessor David Cameron, faced the unenviable task of trying to marry those diametrically opposing views a task she has struggled with for months. The doomed deals central sticking point was over how to prevent a hard border from emerging between Northern Ireland which is to leave the EU with the rest of the United Kingdom and Ireland, an EU member. A fortified frontier, with guards and customs posts, would threaten the hard-won peace accord of 1998, which followed decades of sectarian strife. Advertisement After the June 2016 referendum, Britain triggered Article 50 of the principal EU treaty, setting the countdown clock in motion for departure. But May could ask the EU for an extension, which the bloc, seeking to avoid chaos, might well grant. At least one parliamentary faction, the Scottish National Party, has already called for a postponement. Some questioned whether Brexit would take place at all. The idea of a second referendum dubbed a Peoples Vote by its backers has considerable public support but would need the approval of a divided Parliament. Exasperated European officials appeared to obliquely refer to the possibility of a do-over. If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is? Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, wrote on Twitter. Advertisement The EU has firmly ruled out any substantive changes in the negotiated accord, saying the deal that Parliament rejected was the only one on offer. May could return to Brussels to search for some small concessions, and bring those before British lawmakers for another vote. But mere tweaks would be unlikely to change the outcome in Parliament. In what had already been a disorderly process, Tuesdays vote raised even more rancorous questions. Everyone is aware that we are entering uncharted territory, Anand Menon, director of the think tank UK in a Changing Europe, said before the vote. Advertisement The tumult renewed the specter of leaving the EU with no accord in place, or crashing out. A no-deal Brexit has been described by economists as a doomsday scenario, one highly disruptive to trade and likely to set off a deep recession. Consumers might face expense and scarcity of goods that were previously freely available, such as some medications. Most lawmakers oppose crashing out, though for different reasons. But the parliamentary mechanism for preventing it is unclear. Some of Brexits most ardent proponents, though, seemed to embrace the chaos. Boris Johnson, Mays former foreign secretary who quit over objections to the deal she presented, said the government should be actively preparing for no deal, with ever more enthusiasm. Advertisement Special correspondent Boyle reported from London and Times staff writer King from Washington. Explosions and gunfire rocked an upscale hotel in Kenyas capital, Nairobi, on Tuesday in a terrorist attack that sent people fleeing into the streets and left body parts on the ground. The Somali militant group Shabab told several Western media organizations that it was behind the attack. We are currently conducting an operation in Nairobi, the groups spokesman said to Al Jazeera. Kenyan national Police Chief Joseph Boinnet said in a news conference that armed attackers remained inside the complex in what we suspect could be a terror attack. Police at the scene said there might still be hostages in the building, which was cordoned off. There were no official tallies of dead or injured. Advertisement Smoke from burning cars rose in the air outside the DusitD2 hotel and office park on Riverside Drive in Nairobis Westlands neighborhood. The building was surrounded by heavily armed police and ambulances as wounded people were carried out on stretchers. Heavily armed police moved slowly through the complex evacuating stores as frightened civilians poured out of shops with their hands in the air. Yvonne Nkirote, who works at the Red House communications firm, said she had stopped by the Amadiva nail salon when she heard a massive explosion. I saw body parts and blood on the ground right outside, she told the Washington Post as she was escorted out of the complex by police. There she was reunited with several work colleagues, and they burst into tears upon finding each other safe. Another worker at the complex, Sandeep Sura, said he saw the attackers. I saw two very young guys with AK47s, he said, adding that they were wearing all black. Everywhere outside the hotel were wounded people and pools of blood. I am in 14 Riverside drive hiding in a bathroom and we are under attack, tweeted one man who described himself as being at the scene of the blast. There was a massive bombs blast then gunshots, please. Advertisement The complex has five buildings, one of which is an upscale hotel popular for conferences and press briefings. The other buildings hold offices, including those of many multinational companies, including Visa and Shell. The complex is also a popular shopping destination. Kenya has been repeatedly attacked by fighters from the militant Shabab movement based in neighboring Somalia, most dramatically for Nairobi in 2013 in an attack on the Westgate mall that killed 67 people. Four attackers also died. In April 2015, nearly 150 people were killed and dozens more injured when Shabab militants stormed Garissa University in northeastern Kenya. Witnesses at the time said that gunmen entered the universitys dormitories and opened fire, at times separating Christians and Muslims, then executing Christian students. Advertisement The standoff lasted 16 hours, and four of the gunmen were eventually killed when they detonated suicide vests. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Kenya since a bombing at the U.S. Embassy in 1998 killed more than 200 people. The attack also comes on the third anniversary of the El Adde attack, when 250 Kenyan soldiers serving in Somalia were wiped out by Shabab fighters. Paul Schemm in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, contributed to this report. The Poway home of San Diego Padres great Tony Gwynn, who died five years ago, has an unexpected visitor. The Gwynn family lost the home to foreclosure last summer and it has remained vacant. In December, neighbors noticed people at the house, including one man who seemed to spend a lot of time there. Turns out, an unidentified squatter is living there, officials with the property management firm responsible for the bank-owned property told the San Diego Union-Tribune. Efforts to evict him have been complicated by Californias complex squatters rights laws, but civil proceedings have been started to evict the man. We want to address the neighbors concerns, but we cant just knock down the doors, Poway Sheriffs Lt. Christopher Collier said. There are laws that we have to abide by and facts that have to be checked out. Advertisement The sad part in all of this is the fact Gwynns house is in foreclosure. A street named after him runs nearby, and theres a statue of him nearby. The home is valued at $2.3 million and while there are no reports I can find as to where his family is living now, lets hope they landed on their feet somewhere. When: 4:30 p.m. PST. On the air: TV: Prime Ticket; Radio: 830. Update: Devin Shore, acquired by the Ducks on Monday in a trade with the Dallas Stars for Andrew Cogliano, said he would join the team Tuesday in Detroit. He has 82 points in 209 games, all with the Stars. The Ducks, winless in their last 11 games (0-7-4), face a Red Wings team that is 2-6-2 in its last 10 games. Sign up for our daily sports newsletter PHNOM PENH, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia on Monday broke ground for the construction of the third ring road encircling capital Phnom Penh under the concessional loan from China. Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen and Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Wang Wentian presided over the ceremony, which was attended by more than 10,000 people. The 47.6-km road, along with four flyovers and eleven bridges, will be constructed under the preferential buyer's credit loan from the Chinese government. Shanghai Construction (Group) General Company will undertake the construction, which is expected to be completed in 42 months, Hun Sen said. The four-lane road will connect National Road No. 4 in Chaom Chau 3 commune in southwestern Phnom Penh with National Road No. 1 in Kandal province's Kien Svay district in the eastern part of Phnom Penh. "The road is crucial to reduce traffic volumes in the urban center, and it is very useful for the people and will contribute to supporting Cambodia's economic growth," Hun Sen said. He expressed profound gratitude to the government and people of China for having provided a great amount of assistance to Cambodia for infrastructure development projects. "Most of the investment capital for infrastructure development projects here is from the People's Republic of China," he said, adding that thousands of kilometers of roads and bridges have been built in the kingdom with China's support. Ambassador Wang said China was very pleased to assist Cambodia to develop transport infrastructure, which is one of the key elements for socio-economic development. "The road will not only boost economic development in areas along it, but also further improve the image of Phnom Penh, as well as promote investment and tourism," he said. He said the excellent ties between China and Cambodia have not only benefited the peoples of the two countries, but also importantly contributed to maintaining peace and stability in the region. Last Sunday, my longtime friend Marijane Herbert and I were among 150 guests who arrived at the council rooms of USC Verdugo Hills Hospital to meet multimedia artist Gayle Roski and iPhone artist Kitty Keck, whose artworks are now featured on display in the hospitals corridors. The Satin Trio, a jazz ensemble, played as guests gathered for coffee, tea and mimosas to chat before the official program began. Joyce Ruygrok, left, visits with Robert Moore and Amy Ross during the Jan. 13 art opening at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital. (Jane Napier Neely / La Canada Valley Sun) The opening reception brunch, sponsored by the Keck Healing Arts Council, was just lovely. The hospitals executive chef, Jesus Veyna, and his team outdid themselves, presenting an extensive brunch menu that included a made-to-order omelet bar, citrus garlic marinated Atlantic salmon fillet roasted in a crispy citrus herb sauce, sliced oven-roasted strips of tri-tip beef sirloin, and grilled potatoes with onions, tomatoes and peppers. Fresh fruit was also on the menu. Following that repast, guests could sample from the dessert offerings: tiramisu, an assortment of mini pastries, dark chocolate cake and cheesecake. Keith Hobbs stepped to the podium and, in his role as the hospitals chief executive, welcomed guests and introduced the featured artists as well as Dr. Lawrence Douglas Dorr, a USC orthopedic surgeon who spoke about his Operation Walk Teams mission to Guatemala. Roski, a watercolorist, had illustrated a book about the mission. Photographer Kitty Keck, left, and watercolorist Gayle Roski greet guests at the Jan. 13 art reception held at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital. (Courtesy of Kenneth Selko) Also speaking at the reception were Sue Wilder, chair of the hospitals foundation board, and Julie Shadpa, art therapist and curator of the Healing Arts Exhibit. Hospital VIPs at the reception were Kerri Yoder Hubbard, executive director at USC VHH Foundation and Stephanie Van Sickel, director of major gifts. Also there to greet guests was Tina Marie Ito, vice chair of the hospital foundation. It was a very nice event and the works by Roski and Keck will surely be enjoyed by patients and visitors to the hospital. Jane Napier Neely covers the La Canada Flintridge social scene. Email her at jnvalleysun@aol.com with news of your special event. This is a story of two amazing Glendale women. Not that Glendale women arent amazing, but Liza Boubari and Marianne Jennings are standouts because they serve women and children in the community. A cold morning in front of a flickering fire at Foxys restaurant earlier this month brought out the mellow side of Boubari, president and founder of HealWithin International, her new nonprofit organization. Being a busy clinical hypnotherapist for adults wasnt enough for Boubari she wanted to heal children, especially those without mothers due to unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances. Boubaris inspiration was her grandmother, Rosaline, whose mother died during The Walk of the Armenian Genocide. At 5 years old, Rosaline was motherless. Boubari wants to use her training in alternative healing therapies to help children like her grandmother. A mother may be missing due to death, incarceration, institutionalization or having walked away from her family. Boubari has already begun working with motherless children 8 to 16 years old in an after-school program. She uses art healing, sound healing, creative writing and mindfulness techniques to draw out the child. When the child is in the middle of an art project, for instance, she may ask, What are you drawing and realizing Were doing therapy without the child realizing theyre in therapy, she said. As a 13-year-old Armenian teenager, Boubari wasnt allowed by her parents to attend her grandfathers funeral. Armenians are very protective of their children, said Boubari, who feels that she never got to say goodbye to her grandfather. As an adult, she has accepted the circumstances, and she wants other children to do the same, perhaps a little faster than she did. In order that her services are offered on a sliding scale, according to financial need, Boubari is applying for grants and puts on her annual 3E Event (Evoke, Embrace, Evolve) to raise funds. Boubari described a 14-year-old patient who asked her mother to pick her up at school. On the way to school, her mother was killed in a traffic accident. After that, the teen was destructive, out of control and overeating. After three sessions of integrative and holistic techniques with Boubari, the young patient realized she felt guilty, thinking she was responsible for her mothers death. The fast-paced therapy helped the girl realize that losing her mother was not her fault. Boubaris next class for children without mothers will begin in February. Jennings is a double threat. She has been president of the La Crescenta Womans Club for two years and was recently installed as president of the La Canada Flintridge Orthopaedic Guild. Between the two organizations, some $36,000 has been donated to worthy causes in the past year via close to 20 events, large and small. The Womans Club donates student scholarships, supports La Crescentas Prom Plus and a Girl Scout troop. The club also donates to organizations that are part of the clubs monthly events, such as an upcoming meeting in which members and guests will learn about the Grossman Burn Center in West Hills. A $150 donation by the club will go to the center. The guilds major fundraiser is its Book and Author Luncheon. Last fall, $22,000 was raised for the Orthopaedic Institute for Children. Jennings was reservations chair for the event, which takes 10 months to prepare. The expected audience is 200 supporters. A good board makes a good president, Jennings said. I knew I could juggle each presidency. Jennings is a mother of four children and grandmother of nine. I try to stay active in the community. Its not about me, she added. Ruth Sowby Rands may be reached at ruthasowby@gmail.com. UC Irvine professor Armin Schwegler likely didnt imagine that the Spanish he picked up at weekend parties with classmates of his youth would one day lead him to study the roots of a Creole language that combined Spanish words with a grammar system that migrated from Africa. During his 30 years at UCI, a major outcome of Schweglers work has been reconstructing Latin Americas African past through the history of Palenque, a 400-year-old Colombian community established by people of African ancestry who escaped the slave trade. Using their language, Palenquero, Schwegler was able to find clues that helped determine the origins of the language and, subsequently, of the people who spoke it. Schwegler, a linguist and professor of Spanish and Portuguese, has studied a dozen languages in his career despite grade-school teachers who told him he couldnt do it. At the age of 13, I flunked out of school, Schwegler said. My teachers told me I was incapable of learning foreign languages. The Switzerland native, who grew up speaking French and Swiss German, went on to complete his schooling and then traveled to California while still a teenager to learn English. When I landed here the first people I heard, they were actually speaking Spanish, Schwegler said. I literally thought I was in the wrong country. Some of his classmates in his English courses were from Honduras, Venezuela and Mexico. Within months he was speaking both English and Spanish with ease. His interest in languages led him to UC Berkeley to pursue a Ph.D. in linguistics, and he became interested in how language structures change over time. Residents of the 400-year-old Colombian village of Palenque sit outside their homes. (Courtesy of Armin Schwegler) A young Palenque resident guides a horse across a waterway near the Colombian village. (Courtesy of Armin Schwegler) I saw one sentence of this language called Palenquero that attracted my attention because it was kind of an unusual pattern, Schwegler said. More than 95% of Palenquero consists of words from the Spanish lexicon, but a Spanish speaker wouldnt be able to understand it. It has a grammar of its own, Schwegler said. The village of Palenque was formed by slaves who fled Cartagena, Colombia, a major port of the slave trade in the Americas. As a graduate student, Schwegler went to Colombia in 1985 with the intent of going to Palenque and learning the language. A local family took him in and he spent months there. Though he wasnt the first researcher to contact the Palenquero people, he was the first to spend periods up to several months living in the area and becoming fluent in their language. He returned several times and spent summers living in the 4,000-person village, including with his wife and young daughter. At a funeral ceremony, Schwegler uncovered a key to understanding the languages history. He observed a ritual in which elders chanted songs containing unrecognizable words that had been passed down through oral traditions. I recorded these chants and eventually I broke the code and figured out how to decipher these things, Schwegler said. The songs contained references to African places Congo, Angola and Loango, a pre-colonial kingdom that existed until 1883 in what is now largely the Republic of Congo. This pointed Schwegler to the region that was sung about and specifically to Kikongo, a language in which he was able to trace words from the burial songs. UC Irvine professor Armin Shwegler poses with Juliana Cassiani, a Palenque resident he met through his linguistic research in the Colombian village. (Courtesy of Armin Schwegler) He determined that the Creole language was based largely on a grammar system from the Kikongo spoken by early settlers of Palenque, combined with a mostly Spanish lexicon of the community. Schwegler proposed that the Palenqueros were nearly direct descendants of the Kikongo-speaking region, contradicting the widely held belief that the slave trade had forced the migration of people from across Africa. The data led me in that direction, Schwegler said. And so gradually I began to publish more and more, and then eventually openly affirmed in writing that this was my hypothesis. In 2010, DNA testing made it possible to lend more evidence to Schweglers theory when population geneticists became interested in his research and put their scientific practices to work. DNA analysis determined that the ancestors of Palenque came from a small Congolese region known as Myombe, where Kikongo is still spoken. No matter how strong the evidence, Schwegler believes that with time and technology, such as advances in DNA sampling, more information will come to light. The biggest danger in research is when you think you really have the answer or most of the answers thats when you find out youre probably wrong, he said. So thats the nature of research. Its a step-by-step kind of thing. The Costa Mesa Police Department recently released a playful video on social media of K-9 auditions for its newly relaunched police dog program. With two officers in directors chairs serving as judges and a roll call of disinterested puppies as candidates, it was clear the departments next police dog wouldnt be coming from those tryouts. But one dog did meet the standards and has joined the force in a restart of the K-9 program, which had been dormant since 2011. Bodi, a 3-year-old Dutch shepherd from the Netherlands, began responding to calls with his handler, Officer Nick Dempkowski, on Dec. 26, the Police Department said. Bodi is the first of two new members slated to join the K-9 force. Officer Candice McMorris, the departments first female K-9 handler, is expected to select a partner in March and be deployed by May, the department said. Costa Mesa police dog Bodi and his handler, Officer Nick Dempkowski, began responding to calls Dec. 26. (Courtesy of Costa Mesa Police Department) K-9 units are a force multiplier and valuable resource for Police Department personnel on a daily basis, the department said in a statement. Since Costa Mesa police deployed their first service dog in 1988, the city has had 10 K-9 handlers and 12 dogs, the Police Department said. The dogs help officers with searches and apprehension and can be trained in narcotics and explosives detection. Since 2011, when the police dog unit was dissolved amid department cutbacks, Costa Mesa has relied on neighboring agencies to help with K-9 services when needed. The units return is part of what the department called a rebuilding. The Orange County Museum of Art cleared a major hurdle Monday in its long-running quest for a new home when Costa Mesa planning commissioners unanimously approved its master plan to build at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. The 53,875-square-foot museum will be the latest addition to the Segerstrom Center, which includes other well-established cultural and performance spaces such as the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Samueli Theater and Judy Morr Theater. The OCMA building designed by architect Thom Mayne and his firm, Morphosis will include permanent and special exhibit space, a glass-fronted exhibition corridor facing a walkway along Avenue of the Arts, a cafe, a museum shop and a landscaped outdoor terrace. The structure will more than double the exhibit capacity that OCMA, an acclaimed venue for modern and contemporary art, had at its former home at 850 San Clemente Drive in Newport Beach, which closed in June after 41 years. The master plan also calls for a 10,000-square-foot expansion sometime in the future. I think to have the visual arts represented in such a dynamic way really kind of puts the exclamation point on the citys more-than-credible reputation as a world-class arts center, said Planning Commission Vice Chairman Byron de Arakal. Im very proud to support this project and Im looking forward to it becoming a reality very soon. Officials have said they expect to open the new facility in 2021. Until then, the museum is operating at an interim space at South Coast Plaza Village in Santa Ana. OCMA is committed to enhancing Costa Mesas designation as the City of the Arts by constructing a world-class home that sets a new standard for architecture in the region while complementing the existing aesthetics of the [Segerstrom] center and the area, museum director and Chief Executive Todd Smith said, referencing the citys official motto. It will do so, he said, by serving as the premier venue for the visual arts of the 20th and 21st centuries, by providing access to the wonders and potential of our visual world, by educating and entertaining students of all ages and by adding to the richness of life in Costa Mesa and the region. The commissions vote on the master plan is final unless appealed to the City Council within seven days. Commissioner Carla Navarro Woods called the museum the perfect addition to an already perfect space. Im super excited about this project, she said. What a great way to start the new year for Costa Mesa. OCMAs move has been in the works for more than a decade. Museum officials announced their intent to relocate in June 2008, saying they had received legal title to a donated 1.64-acre parcel at the Segerstrom Center. Smith and Terry Dwyer, president of the Segerstrom Center, said Monday that the two agencies are putting the finishing touches on an official land-transfer agreement. In 2016, OCMA agreed to sell its Newport Beach property to Related California, a developer that proposed building a 25-story, 100-unit condominium tower called Museum House on the site. Proceeds from the sale would have helped pay the museums relocation costs, which have been estimated at $50 million. However, the Museum House project drew a public challenge in the form of a referendum petition, prompting the Newport Beach City Council to revoke its approval of the plan in February 2017. OCMA later agreed to sell the site and an adjoining parcel to Vivante Newport Center LLC, a subsidiary of Nexus Development Corp. Though the museums Costa Mesa location is still years from opening, Mondays commission meeting provided a preview of sorts in the form of a scaled-down replica that sat on a table in front of the commissioners. Its nice seeing the model, but, man, its going to be great someday to see the building there and be able to go with my family to experience art in Costa Mesa, said commission Chairman Stephan Andranian. A year ago, President Trump received a heros welcome at the American Farm Bureau Federations 99th annual convention in Nashville, cheered for rolling back regulations, revamping an Obama administration water rule and for being the first president to address the group in 25 years. In New Orleans on Monday, he made good on last years promise to return for the groups centennial meeting. What can I do? I like farmers, Trump told the appreciative crowd after traveling from a snow-covered Washington that remained frozen in a partial government shutdown for a 24th day, in a funding impasse over his proposed southern border wall. But the cheers he received, from those who waited in hourlong security lines to hear him speak inside the citys riverfront convention center, belied a more complicated relationship with Americas farmers, who have largely supported him. Advertisement Most still do, though they have been hurt in recent months by the tariffs that top trading partners have slapped on U.S. farm products, in retaliation for the tariffs Trump first imposed on their countrys goods. And now, a shuttered government isnt processing the subsidy checks that many farmers rely on. If theres one thing farmers need and want, its reliability and predictability, said Jamie Johansson, president of the California Farm Bureau Federation. The angst you will find is, he has not provided that in the tariff situation around trade, Johansson said. But when he ran, we knew exactly what we were getting. Although Trump won support across the countrys heartland, he has long been clear about his hard-line, protectionist positions on trade. As president, he has followed through on ending the United States participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the farm bureau supported for the new markets it would have opened in other Pacific Rim nations; he renegotiated the quarter-century-old North American Free Trade Agreement; and hes taken a confrontational approach to try to reverse the U.S. trade deficit with China, so far unsuccessfully. For many farmers, the trade tension especially with China has meant unpredictability, lost market share and lower prices for their products, while the shutdown has left some growers unable to get loans and subsidies essential for the looming season. The Agriculture Department is among the agencies shut down, its annual funding hostage to the standoff over the $5.7 billion Trump wants for a wall. The president, in effect, counseled patience. Were doing trade deals that are going to get you so much business, you wont believe it, he told them. A lot of great things are going to happen. We are fighting for the American farmer and we are fighting for the American dream and for the products made and grown with pride right here in the USA, Trump said near the end of his speech. The greatest harvest is yet to come. Yet Trump spent much of his speech talking about illegal immigration and the wall he wanted to build. The president insisted that, despite his tough talk, he would make it easier for foreign farm workers to cross the border for seasonal jobs comments which drew some of the biggest applause. Although Trump made the case that he had been a friend to farmers, he did not directly acknowledge the tough times that they now faced because of his trade and border-wall actions. Advertisement He touted the 2017 tax cuts that reduced the number of individuals subject to the estate tax, although, contrary to his and Republicans claims, few of the wealthy beneficiaries are small farmers and ranchers. The president also boasted of his efforts to cut regulations, increase the availability of corn-based ethanol at gas stations and pass a farm bill in December. But the tit-for-tat tariffs since Trump began the current trade war the United States has imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of goods, or half of all imports from China, which in turn has put new tariffs on $110 billion in U.S. goods, or 85% have cost small farmers like Jerry and Nicky Cox. They run a farm in Four Oaks, N.C., and have seen the market for their tobacco dry up now that China is no longer buying it from American producers. The Trump administration in September directed that $12 billion in assistance be doled out to producers of commodities such as corn, cotton, pork, soybeans and wheat that have been hardest hit by retaliatory tariffs. But now, because of the government shutdown, the Coxes and other farmers havent been able to turn in their applications for relief because the Farm Services Agency offices in their counties are closed. Ill wait it out, Jerry Cox said, and one day maybe Ill turn it in. Advertisement Unlike Jerry, wife Nicky did not vote for Trump in 2016 and is less forgiving of the uncertainty surrounding the business their family has run for 50 years. Some of the things that are going on now do hurt us, in terms of the tariffs, she said. Were feeling it. Jerry remains hopeful, though he says hes not sure if hell vote for Trump again in 2020. I think he knows hes got to help the farmers, and I think hell come around, he said. Most farmers dont want a handout. They just want to be able to sell their crop at a profitable price. I think most farmers are like that. Advertisement Many of the members of the farm bureau, more than 6 million farmers across the country, run small operations. Yet on trade policy, if not on some other areas, their sentiments align with large agricultural businesses. The universal view is that farmers in middle America want trade, not aid, said one Farm Bureau executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Everyone wants to make an honest living on their own terms. Almost across the board, the executive said, our members know the tariffs arent good, but a lot of them are defending their votes from 2016 and have a hard time admitting they could have been wrong. Albert C. Beatty, who has overseen his familys 500-acre farm in Harrells, N.C., for 45 years, didnt vote for Trump. He is blunt about the effect of both the tariffs, whiche he said had cut profits in half on his soybean crop, and now the government shutdown, which is delaying the processing of loans he needs to begin planting timber next month. Advertisement We need to be getting all our loans squared away so we can get operating money by March, Beatty said. If the government isnt open by the end of the month, were hurting. According to Johansson, the California Farm Bureau Federation president who runs a small olive and citrus farm in Oroville, just north of Sacramento, many farmers agree with Trumps rationale for taking on China, but the effect of Chinas retaliatory tariffs has been severe, especially on the states walnut, citrus and sweet cherry farmers. They have really felt the pain, he said, because 25% of all our citrus from California is exported. California citrus, Johansson said, accounted for $2 billion of the $3 billion in citrus that China was importing annually before the tariffs took effect. Advertisement Trumps imposition of tariffs on other top trading partners, including Canada and Mexico, have remained in place even after they agreed in principle to the new trade deal, which still must be ratified by each countrys legislature. Removing the tariffs, Johansson believes, would provide significant relief to farmers who count on Canada and Mexico purchasing what they produce. One out of every two acres in California that we farm has to go into the export market, he said. Thats what keeps the prices up is the demand. When that goes away, thats when things get ugly even for the little guy like myself. The latest from Washington The House voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to condemn white nationalism and white supremacy, a measure prompted by the comments of Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who openly questioned why those terms had become offensive. Having been stripped of his committee assignments Monday and facing further reproach, King went to the House floor Tuesday to say that he would support the resolution while continuing to protest that he had been misquoted in the New York Times article. There is no tape for this interview I did. Theres no way to go back and listen, he said, conceding that he might have said the quoted words but challenging how they have been interpreted. That ideology never showed up in my head. I dont know how it would have come out of my mouth. The resolution, introduced by House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), mentions Kings remarks in its preamble, but the measure does not directly rebuke King himself. It passed 424-1, with Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) voting no because he favors a censure of King. Advertisement Clyburn, the highest-ranking African American congressional leader, called white nationalism and white supremacy clear and present dangers to our great Republic in floor remarks Tuesday. When elected representatives give cover and comfort to those who spread racial divisiveness, we embolden those on the fringes on our society, and we have seen some of the results, he said, citing the hate-motivated murders of black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., and synagogue attendees in Pittsburgh. King sat apart from his colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle as Clyburn spoke. Moments later, King rose, made the sign of the cross and descended into the well of the House to give his remarks. King noted he came from a family of abolitionists, before ultimately calling on his colleagues to support a measure that is intended to serve as a serious admonition against him. All men and all women are created equal, he said. It is in my heart, it is in my soul, and it is in my works. But those words came too late for his own Republican colleagues, not to mention scores of Democrats who are ready to pursue more serious actions against King, including censure -- the most serious House sanction short of expulsion. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third-ranking House Republican, called Tuesday for King to find another line of work, a day after GOP leaders moved to punish King by stripping him of his committee assignments and King earned a rebuke from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) condemned Kings comments but stopped short of calling for his resignation. I think thats up to Steve King, he said. Advertisement Two Democrats have filed censure resolutions that are set to see floor action by Wednesday. Speaking to reporters Tuesday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) praised Republican leaders for their action but left open the possibility that he would vote for a censure resolution. We havent definitively decided what the next step ought to be, Hoyer said. Hoyer exploded when asked how Kings behavior compared to that of the last House member to be censured, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.). Advertisement Kings conduct, he said, far exceeds Rangels actions, which included improperly using his office to solicit funds and failing to pay taxes on a vacation home. Hoyer served as majority leader during Rangels 2010 ethics proceedings and pushed to reprimand Rangel, a lesser punishment than censure. What King is doing and what others have done is to encourage the undermining of the basic principles of our country, he said. In my opinion, that is a more dangerous phenomenon than anything Charlie Rangel did. The controversy over King was ignited when he said in a New York Times interview published last week, White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization how did that language become offensive? It followed a long string of remarks over the years disparaging immigrants and minorities, as well as a seeming embrace of far-right foreign politicians and parties that have been openly hostile to those groups. Advertisement Asked why the GOP conference had not taken action against King before, McCarthy said that he is a brand new leader and that he had recently researched Kings past comments. There is no room for white supremacy, McCarthy said. We dont take this lightly. Last year, through the campaign and Kings election to a ninth term, House Republican leaders remained silent about Kings views. In recent weeks, Republicans have seen a potential alternative to King after Iowa state Sen. Randy Feenstra announced that he will challenge the congressman in the 2020 Republican primary. King served on the House Judiciary, Agriculture and Small Business committees in the last Congress. Advertisement Reacting to the loss of Kings committee posts, Feenstra said Monday that voters had lost their seat at the table because of Congressman Kings caustic behavior. In a statement Monday, King said: Leader McCarthys decision to remove me from committees is a political decision that ignores the truth.... Ultimately, I told him, You have to do what you have to do, and I will do what I have to do. At a closed-door Democratic caucus meeting Tuesday, Clyburn presented his resolution condemning white nationalism. According to multiple attendees, Clyburn said it was written to win near-unanimous support among Democrats and Republicans. Clyburn did not express support for more serious censure resolutions being drafted by other Democrats, attendees said, but neither did he discourage them. He said votes on the other motions, being offered by Reps. Tim Ryan of Ohio and Rush will take place Wednesday. Advertisement He didnt discourage Rush or Ryan from what theyre doing, said Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.). Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) said passage of Clyburns resolution is going to clearly make an expression that we are not tolerating that kind of thing anymore from House members. I hope this becomes a signal to the American public that we will not tolerate bigoted statements and verbally muddy statements from people on our side, he added. Several Democrats, including Rush, argued that the House should go further than Clyburns resolution. Advertisement Anything short of censure is shallow, Rush said. Steve King has made a career of making racist statements. That is the only thing he is known for and this pattern of rabid racism must be confronted head-on by the House of Representatives. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said he thinks the Clyburn resolution is just the beginning. I dont think there is any place for him or those comments in the United States Congress.... Weve got to get rid of the climate and to show all the citizens of the United States that thats not who we are as a country. Meeks said the onus is on Republicans to oust King. Advertisement They should do it, he said. They should be the ones to say, We cant tolerate this within our party, that this will eat us up like a cancer. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said lawmakers should consider referring King to the House Ethics Committee for potential expulsion. I think censure is a minimum of what we should be doing, and we should at the very least be in agreement with both caucuses on that, she said. Folks in my district dont think that any sitting member of Congress should be embracing white supremacy. John Wagner and Mike DeBonis write for the Washington Post. Sen. Rand Paul plans to undergo hernia surgery at a private hospital in Canada because of injuries he suffered when a neighbor tackled him while he was doing yard work at his Kentucky home. The Republican lawmaker is scheduled to cross the border for outpatient surgery scheduled sometime during the week of Jan. 21 at a hospital in Thornhill, Ontario, his attorneys said in a recent filing in Pauls lawsuit against Rene Boucher, who attacked Paul. The surgery is related to the 2017 attack, the court document says. Boucher pleaded guilty to assaulting a member of Congress and was sentenced to 30 days in prison. Federal prosecutors are appealing the sentence, saying 21 months would have been appropriate. Paul is scheduled for surgery at Shouldice Hospital, which touts itself as a world leader in non-mesh hernia repair. Advertisement This is a private, world-renowned hospital separate from any system and people come from around the world to pay cash for their services, Paul spokeswoman Kelsey Cooper said in an email Monday. In choosing Shouldice, Paul will receive care in a country that offers its citizens a publicly funded, universal healthcare system that runs counter to Pauls approach to American healthcare policy. Paul, who ran for president in 2016, touts private-market approaches for U.S. healthcare problems. Pauls chief strategist, Doug Stafford, pointed to Shouldice Hospitals private status in pushing back against media reports about the senator going to Canada for treatment. Its literally the opposite of socialized medicine, he tweeted. The hernia procedure is estimated to cost $5,000 to $8,000, the court document said. Paul suffered multiple broken ribs in the incident. Boucher has said the attack was triggered by Paul stacking debris near their property line in Bowling Green and that he lost his temper. Paul sued Boucher last year seeking damages for physical pain and mental suffering from the attack. A jury trial is scheduled to begin this month in Bowling Green. After presenting our evidence to the court and jury, we will ask the jury to carefully consider all evidence and to make a fair allowance based upon the entirety of the facts and circumstances related to this attack and plaintiffs injuries, Pauls attorneys said in the filing. Pauls lawyers also said that a biomechanics expert is prepared to testify that Pauls injuries were similar to those from a 25-mph car crash. Advertisement Bouchers attorney, Matt Baker, said Monday that were in the process of getting ready for trial. Baker said that Boucher has made a $30,000 judgment offer to Paul. The Pentagon has agreed to keep several thousand U.S. troops deployed on the U.S.-Mexico border until Sept. 30, again expanding a controversial mission that began last fall and already was extended once. The troops role will transition from hardening border crossings to mobile surveillance and detection and putting up more concertina wire between ports of entry, according to a Pentagon statement. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan approved the Dec. 27 request from the Homeland Security Department for an eight-month extension of the current deployment, which was supposed to end this month. Shanahan took over the Pentagon after James N. Mattis resigned in late December in protest of President Trumps decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. Trump has not nominated a permanent Defense secretary. Advertisement As of last week, about 2,350 troops were deployed to the border, with roughly 600 in Texas, 650 in Arizona and 1,100 in California, mostly at the San Ysidro port of entry, according to Michael Kucharek, a spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command. We need support at the border and [the Defense Department] is helping, said Katie Waldman, a Homeland Security spokeswoman. Trump initially sent about 5,900 active-duty troops to assist the Border Patrol on the southwest border a week before the Nov. 6 midterm election. Trump argued that the troops were needed to prevent so-called caravans of migrants from Central America from entering the United States. Most of the migrants remain in Mexico. On Oct. 29, Trump tweeted, This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you! The move prompted criticism that Trump was using the Pentagon for a partisan political agenda, not to counter a military threat, as well as concerns that the deployment could violate a federal law that prohibits troops from engaging in law enforcement on U.S. soil. Troops on the border are authorized to use force if necessary for self-defense. They were not involved in several recent clashes when Border Patrol agents fired tear gas at rock-throwing migrants and others. The extended deployment was announced late Monday during the partial government shutdown over Congress refusal to meet the presidents demands for $5.7 billion for his proposed border wall. Tens of thousands of Border Patrol agents, Customs and Border Protection officers, Coast Guard crews and other border security personnel have gone without paychecks since the shutdown began on Dec. 22. Advertisement Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border. Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process. This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2018 Trump visited a border post in Texas on Jan. 10, two days after delivering a prime time TV address about conditions on the border. A new migrant caravan set out from Honduras on Tuesday, and Trump seized on the news to push for his wall. A big new Caravan is heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras Only a Wall will work. Only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe! Stop playing political games and end the Shutdown! he tweeted. Advertisement A big new Caravan is heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras. Tell Nancy and Chuck that a drone flying around will not stop them. Only a Wall will work. Only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe! Stop playing political games and end the Shutdown! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2019 Military operations at the border so far have mostly consisted of installing and reinforcing barriers, providing aerial support, helping maintain vehicles, deploying technology to help detect people at night, and assisting with medical aid. The troops have installed up to 70 miles of concertina wire along the border, Kucharek said. In an exit interview with The Times last month, John F. Kelly, then the White House chief of staff and a retired four-star Marine general, dismissed concerns about the border being militarized. Advertisement Generally speaking, the U.S. military doesnt particularly like to be deployed in the U.S., Kelly said several days before he left the White House. But he said the military will follow orders as long as they are legal, adding, The military wouldnt allow itself to be used politically. molly.otoole@latimes.com Twitter: @mollymotoole Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a central figure in the Democratic Partys debate about the #MeToo movement, is preparing to join a 2020 presidential primary contest that features a record number of women in the wake of the midterm election tidal wave of female candidates. Gillibrand, 52, announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, which was taped Tuesday afternoon, in advance of a weekend trip to Iowa, where the first 2020 Democratic contest will be held. Im going to run for president of the United States because as a young mom I am going to fight for other peoples kids as hard as I would fight for my own, she said. She will join a rapidly growing field that for the first time will offer Democrats a wide choice among female candidates. Hillary Clinton in 2016 faced an all-male Democratic field before she became the first woman to win a major party nomination. Disappointment over her upset loss to Donald Trump and continuing debate over why she failed is already shadowing the efforts of women who now follow. Advertisement The 2020 lineup already includes Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who were among the first to take formal steps to enter the race. Sen. Kamala Harris of California has just completed a book tour and is expected to make a formal announcement this month. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is also considering a run and said in a television interview Tuesday that her family supported the idea of her running. The only time more than one Democratic woman ran in the presidential primaries was in 1972, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. That year, Reps. Shirley Chisholm of New York and Patsy Mink of Hawaii both ran, although, unlike this year, neither was considered among the top tier of candidates. Gillibrand is expected to open her campaign headquarters in Troy, N.Y., a city near Albany that was part of her congressional district when she served in the House from 2007 to 2009. On Wednesday, she plans to follow her Colbert interview with a family brunch and news conference at a diner in Troy. Her trip to Iowa will be her first visit to the early voting state at least since 2016, according to Iowa Starting Line, a nonpartisan website that keeps track of political visits to the state. She is scheduled to hold public events Friday in Sioux City and Sunday in Cedar Rapids, with other stops across the state in between. The trip will invite comparisons to Warrens, whose inaugural barnstorming tour in Iowa two weeks ago drew hundreds of cheering supporters at each stop. Gillibrand was appointed to the Senate in 2009 after Clinton left to become secretary of State in the Obama administration. In the Senate, she has staked out a more liberal profile than she had in the House, when she represented a district that is more Republican and rural than the state as a whole and took more conservative positions on immigration and gun rights, among other issues. In the Senate, she has been an advocate for gay rights, helping push for repeal of the militarys dont ask, dont tell policy. She spearheaded legislation combating sexual assault in the military. Her political action committee, called Off the Sidelines, focuses on helping female candidates, and she raised $7.1 million for them in the 2018 midterms. Among 2020 candidates, Gillibrand is likely to lean the hardest into her record as an advocate for women. Advertisement Background documents released by her campaign staff underscored the importance of women as voters and candidates in Democrats big midterm election gains in 2018. The lesson of 2018 is that the future of the Democratic Party is with women, the document said. Women made up 58% of Democratic presidential primary voters in 2016 and will decide who Democrats nominate in 2020 to take on Donald Trump. Her record on issues of particular concern to women, however, has not been without controversy within the Democratic Party. In 2017, in the early, stormy days of the #MeToo movement, she was the first senator to call for Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota to resign after multiple accounts of sexual misconduct. Gillibrand was applauded by many women, but other Democrats allied with Franken viewed her statements as a rush to judgment and hold a grudge against her for leading the charge. Advertisement Also in 2017, Gillibrand stirred an uncomfortable debate among women and many fellow Democrats by saying in an interview that President Clinton should have stepped down after his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky was revealed. Her remark came at a time Republicans were grappling with sexual assault allegations against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore as well as long-standing allegations about Trump. Many Clinton loyalists viewed Gillibrands comments as a betrayal. Philippe Reines, a top aide to Hillary Clinton, upbraided Gillibrand on Twitter. Over 20 yrs you took the Clintons endorsements, money, and seat. Hypocrite, he wrote on Twitter. Interesting strategy for 2020 primaries. Best of luck. Gillibrand has been a leading Trump critic and endeared herself to the anti-Trump resistance by being the Senate Democrat who voted most consistently against the presidents nominees. She was the only senator to vote against James N. Mattis nomination to be Defense secretary, which was approved 99 to 1. Advertisement janet.hook@latimes.com Twitter: @hookjan BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- China is open to international cooperation in its future space missions, officials from the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) said Monday at a press conference on the Chang'e-4 probe. Wu Yanhua, deputy head of the CNSA, said China is willing to work with the international community to push forward the frontiers of space exploration on the basis of equality, mutual benefit, peaceful use and inclusive development. He expressed gratitude for the international attention from foreign counterparts and media on the Chang'e-4 mission, noting that China has been open for cooperation in its space exploration. Wu said China is also willing to contribute more Chinese wisdom to the international aerospace development. On China's space cooperation with Russia, Li Guoping, secretary-general of the CNSA, said that Russia is one of the key partners in China's space programs. Under the mechanism of regular meetings between Chinese and Russian heads of governments, the two countries have set up a space cooperation committee and are expected to carry out cooperation in projects like lunar and deep space exploration, Earth observation, satellite communication and space debris till 2022. Li noted that lunar and deep space exploration is an important area in China-Russia space cooperation. The two countries plan to collaborate on the Russian orbital spacecraft Luna-Resurs-1 (Luna-26) and the Chinese project of landing on the south pole of the moon. On the future China Space Station (CSS), Li said China is expected to complete the construction of the space station in 2022. So far, China has carried out cooperation in manned space mission with Russia, Germany, France and the European Space Agency and hopes to have more international cooperation in equipment research, space application and taikonauts training. He added that China announced in Vienna last May that all member states of the United Nations are welcome to cooperate with China to jointly utilize the CSS. Li noted that all foreign counterparts are welcome to participate in its future lunar and deep space missions, especially the lunar probe which plans to land on the south pole of the moon. According to Li, a total of 10 kg of payload on the orbiter and lander will be open to international partners. Meanwhile, the relay satellite Queqiao can still work for about three to five years in space, and China welcomes the international community to carry out science and technology research with the satellite. On space cooperation with the United States, Wu said the scientists of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) of NASA cooperated with the team of the Chang'e-4 mission to study the landing of the Chang'e-4 probe. The U.S. side has offered the orbital data of LRO and the Chinese side has provided the landing timing and location. By referencing the footage released by China of Chang'e-4's descent onto the moon, the LRO team has been able to pinpoint where the lander touched down, and NASA posted related images. Wu said leading countries in space exploration should focus on cooperation and make more contribution to mankind's quest and journey into the universe. China announced Friday that the Chang'e-4 mission, which realized the first-ever soft-landing on the far side of the moon, was a complete success. The Chang'e-4 probe touched down at the preselected landing area on the far side of the moon on Jan. 3, and the rover Yutu-2 drove onto the lunar surface late that night. Named after the Chinese moon goddess "Chang'e," China's lunar exploration program, which began in 2004, includes orbiting and landing on the moon and bringing samples back to Earth. According to the CNSA, the program has achieved five continuous successes, referring to Chang'e-1, Chang'e-2, Chang'e-3, a test craft for Chang'e-5 and Chang'e-4. To the editor: President Trump must contend with a dire emergency all right. But it doesnt exist at a border, where apprehensions continue to decline. No, it exists inside the White House: Trumps presidency faces an existential crisis. In 2016, he dug himself a demagogic hole by promising to build an impenetrable border wall. He dug deeper last fall in the midterm election campaign, exaggerating the harm done by undocumented immigrants. Having suffered disappointing election results, Trump agreed to support a bill passed unanimously by the Senate to keep government open. But that changed when hard-right commentators called him on his unfulfilled wall-building promise. Now, with Democrats controlling the House, it isnt so easy for Trump to please his base. Desperate times call for desperate measures, hence his emergency. Advertisement David Schaffer, Santa Monica .. To the editor: Trump claims he wants to protect the safety of the American people and therefore needs $5.7 billion to start building a wall along our southern border. Since there is scant evidence of any real threat to Americans posed by illegal border crossings, perhaps Trump can turn his attention to a very real national emergency the threat to our safety from mass shootings. Since 1999, more than 500 Americans have died in mass shootings such as those in Parkland, Fla.; Virginia Tech University; Orlando, Fla.; Isla Vista, Calif.; Columbine High School in Colorado; Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut; and Las Vegas. Perhaps Trump can address this crisis by exercising his emergency powers, which would save many American lives at a cost far less than $5.7 billion. David Medrano, Alhambra .. Advertisement To the editor: Neither our political leaders nor our mainstream media have done much to inform the American people as to what the issue of border security is really all about. Trump wants to build a wall, but he fails to explain how a wall will eliminate drug smuggling. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) oppose the wall, but they fail to explain why it wouldnt cut down on illegal immigration. Since the shutdown began, much of the media have focused on Trumps intransigence by reporting his latest tweets and off-the-cuff comments. Although theres no real news in any of this repetitive nonsense, the media apparently feel obliged to report it, keeping Trump in the public eye. Under these circumstances, how can we expect the American people to have an informed opinion about the partial shutdown of their government? Advertisement Alexander W. Astin, Los Angeles .. To the editor: It is time for Congress to make clear that for the long-term good of our democracy, Trumps form of political extortion cannot become an acceptable way for a president to act. In this case, the leaders from each party need to lock themselves in a room and hammer out an agreement that 67 senators and the majority of House members will support. It should first be to get the government open again and include an absolute requirement for a serious debate leading to comprehensive immigration reform. Advertisement Dan Linn, La Jolla Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook To the editor: Doyle McManus optimistic piece on our resilient democracy is based on a narrow perspective that puts the blame of our dysfunctional government on President Trump while disregarding that damage to our democracy has been accumulating for decades. Both Democrats and Republicans have contributed to the incoherent and disintegrative leadership that permeates American politics, resulting in the ideological intransigence that promotes partisanship and obstructs reason, cooperation and compromise. Concentrating resistance efforts on defying an incompetent leader might delay catastrophes, but it distracts us from relevant issues such as education, income inequality, politicized courts, gerrymandering and more. Overlooking these vexing challenges will eventually thwart any attempt to preserve whatever is left of our democracy. Berta Graciano-Buchman, Beverly Hills Advertisement .. To the editor: McManus optimistic column reassures us that the strength of our democracy is protecting us from a Trump autocracy. But what about the credibility of the United States? Low as it might be right now, the world knows Trump does not represent our values. In other words, the world will forgive us. Once Trump is gone, the new president (presumably one who doesnt lie, is well-versed, reads, is collaborative and possesses integrity) will very quickly restore the credibility of the United States and the presidency. The next president will have the opportunity to return rationality to foreign policy, repair our international relationships, restore the Paris climate accord, return civility to the White House, assure our friends and allies that were with them, and hold our adversaries accountable. The world knows Trump is a damaged figurehead. Most world leaders are doing their best to work around Trump until he is gone. The United Nations General Assembly laughed at our president when he bragged about his accomplishments. They were laughing at Trump, not the United States. William Goldman, Palos Verdes Estates Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook I was a 16-year-old student at the High School of Music and Art in New York when the citys teachers began a series of walkouts in 1968 that continued for months. There was no way I was going to cross a picket line, so like thousands of other kids I was left with a lot of time on my hands. Those days have been on my mind this week, as Ive thought about Los Angeles students during the current teachers strike. I was a serious violin student, so one option for me, as my teachers were manning the picket line, was to spend more time practicing. My older brother had a better idea. He had graduated from the University of Iowa a few months earlier and was home trying to write and figure out his next move. He proposed teaching two courses, with me as his sole pupil: one on Shakespeare, the other on Puccini. Advertisement Ill take the Shakespeare one, I told him, but Ill pass on Puccini. Im not into opera. Let me play you one thing, he said. He gently removed a record from its sleeve and placed La Boheme on the turntable. Then he carefully moved the needle to Musettas Waltz. When the track was over, my mind was changed. OK, Ill try it. My brother has always had this effect on me. Once, when I was 14 and we were boarding the No. 4 bus to go to the Cloisters, he asked me: What do you know about Nicholas II? Nothing, and Im not interested, I replied, knowing he would happily fill our hour-long trip with a lecture. All right then, I wont tell you about Rasputin, or Alexei or OK, OK, tell me about all of it, I relented. Advertisement Years later, I got a degree in Slavic languages at UCLA. I dont know what my fellow students did during the New York teachers strike, but each morning, my brother held a seminar to discuss Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet and A Midsummer Nights Dream, complete with exams. He relished that part. There was no way I was going to cross a picket line, so like thousands of other kids I was left with a lot of time on my hands. Recently I came across some of those exams. After one of my answers, he had scribbled, Clearly you havent read the question carefully. Advertisement In the afternoons, we listened to and discussed La Boheme. I couldnt get enough of it. I had been raised on a wide variety of classical music, including vocal music. But opera had always seemed inexplicable and off-putting, with silly plots and outsized characters. I had made no attempt to climb inside it. My brother changed that. One night, at dinner, he announced that, since I had taken my final exam in La Boheme, we would be beginning Tosca the next day. No, Im not ready! I protested. Advertisement Our parents had been extremely tolerant as La Boheme blared from the living room day after day, but now they embraced my brothers new lesson plan. Were ready! they said in unison. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute So the next day we began my second opera, which I adored just as much as the first. In the end, the New York teachers strike of 1968 hooked me for life on opera. Even as I pursued my degree at UCLA, I earned money as a freelance violinist, often playing opera. I have also taught opera classes myself, introducing others to Puccinis Musettas Waltz, which still makes me feel as if my heart is going to explode, and moving on to a range of other operas, including my brothers favorite, Carmen. Advertisement I still play my CD of the stupendous performance of Musettas Waltz that my brother first played for me, with Victoria de los Angeles and Jussi Bjorling. I certainly hope the Los Angeles teachers strike will be brief. I hope the teachers get what they need so they can provide the best education for their students. But I also hope there are some remarkable older siblings out there with time on their hands. Constance Meyer is a violinist and violin teacher in Los Angeles. Its comforting for liberals to think that the government shutdown will finally turn President Trumps base against him. But thats not going to happen. Ive spent much of the last seven years studying voter responses to Republican policies and positions in Southern and Midwestern states. Many of these policies upended government services and economic stability, leading to disastrous real-world effects for many people, including many GOP voters. Time and again, I found that support for GOP politicians deepened, even as the policies these politicians implemented made the lives of people in their own states including those of their core supporters dramatically more dire. In Tennessee, for example, my colleagues and I held focus groups that included persons with chronic illnesses whose treatment suffered because state politicians repeatedly torpedoed Medicaid expansion linked to the Affordable Care Act. Many severely ill respondents who identified as Republicans backed their leaders efforts to undermine the ACA, even though such efforts undercut their own medical care and raised their doctor bills. Democrats cant expect Trump supporters to see the light simply because his policies negatively affect their lives. Advertisement In Kansas, I interviewed backers of Gov. Sam Brownback, whose tea party-fueled policies nearly bankrupted the state. Large tax cuts that he championed reduced revenue by about $687 million, or nearly 11% of the state budget, in the first year alone. Agencies such as Moodys and Standard & Poors downgraded the states credit rating. Yet many of the governors core supporters told me they voted to reelect Brownback to a second term even after his tax cuts eliminated funding for schools that their own children attended. In Missouri, I tracked the uptick in bloodshed that followed the loosening of longtime gun laws by GOP politicians, with encouragement from the NRA. Guns flooded into the state, and every category of gun-related injury and death rose as it became easier for people to buy and carry firearms. Yet Missouri GOP voters continued to back the politicians who sponsored such legislation. Politics, of course, is often messy and confounding. People identify with particular politicians for reasons that dont make sense to outsiders who dont share their politics. Sometimes one priority overshadows another. Yet several themes emerged from my research. One was an ability of GOP voters, especially those who mistrusted the government, to hold seemingly conflicting thoughts about government services. Id be dead without my Medicaid, one man told our focus groups, and next said, The ACA is socialism in its most evil form. Ineffective government also played to long-held biases and anxieties about race. One white Kansas parent who identified as a GOP supporter insisted that school budget cuts were justified because blacks just use school funds to rent party buses. More frequent were vague concerns about ways that minorities or immigrants usurped undeserved resources, such as when one respondent claimed that, the Mexicans, their food stamps, everything they want, were paying for it. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion Such concerns sometimes led to people standing on principle even when it harmed them. Ill never forget how a man pulling an oxygen tank because of severe lung disease told me he would rather die (and soon did die) than receive benefits from the ACA because it used my tax dollars on Mexicans and welfare queens. Data that my research team amassed showed how these kinds of mortal trade-offs shortened lifespans, and sometimes disproportionately harmed white communities that form the core of GOP support. To be sure, I encountered many GOP voters who simply believed in smaller and more effective governance, and whose political views were not driven by a sense that others were gaming the system. But such moderate voices were smaller in number among my research subjects, and they certainly havent held sway in recent elections. Advertisement Its important for Democrats to understand why some Trump supporters back him even when they are hurt by his policies. With government shutdowns, stock market plunges, Cabinet defections, or presidential lies, Democrats cant expect Trump supporters to see the light simply because his policies negatively affect their lives. They should respond to events such as the shutdown with reasoned critiques and pose concrete alternatives. But they should also understand that the chaos Trump creates serves his larger political aims by tapping into deep American fault lines of race, class and ideology. Jonathan M. Metzl directs the Center for Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt University and is author of the forthcoming book, Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing Americas Heartland. Before we get to the question of whether the president of the United States is a Russian asset, lets consider another question: When was the last time a popular and contentious conspiracy theory turned out to be true? Not a little true, but, like, really true? It does happen. Whittaker Chambers was right about Alger Hiss being a Soviet spy. The government really did put poison in legal alcohol during Prohibition. But even when conspiracy theorists earn the right to say We told you so, the actual reality often falls short of the mark. The motives of the conspirators arent as sinister as claimed, or the plot is better explained by incompetence than malevolence, or the scope of the conspiracy itself isnt nearly as vast as suspected. This has always been my problem with the most extreme versions of the Russian collusion theories. The British former journalist and politician Louise Mensch is an extreme version. Among her claims: Vladimir Putin had my late friend Andrew Breitbart murdered so that former Trump consigliere Steve Bannon could take over Breitbarts eponymous website; Russian intelligence planted Hillary Clintons emails on former Rep. Anthony Weiners laptop; pretty much the whole of the GOP leadership is in cahoots with the Kremlin. Advertisement The people who insist that Trump colluded with Russia start with the explanation the election was stolen by Russia and then pluck facts to fit. I have a similar problem with the Deep State theories that have bounced around the Trumpian right: President Trumps problems are all the result of the fiendish doings of a vast, nay, globalist conspiracy. The central premise, Infowars nutter Jerome Corsi writes in his book Killing the Deep State, is that President Trump is the target of a coup detat being undertaken by the Deep State, including the CIA, NSA, and other intelligence agencies that maintain a commitment to a globalist New World Order. The Deep State hates Trump, the argument goes, because his victory meant it could no longer continue running the international drug trade while supporting the military-industrial complex in a policy of perpetual war. Obviously, most sane people on either side of the Trumpian divide reject the cartoonish versions of their own positions. But similarities endure. Pattern recognition is one of humanitys great evolutionary advantages. It is the foundation for trial and error, the scientific method and reason itself. But it can also mislead us. Most conspiracy theories involve motivated reasoning in which we deduce backward from a result, cherry-picking which dots to connect to fit a preexisting idea. The people who insist that Trump colluded with Russia start with the explanation the election was stolen by Russia and then pluck facts to fit. And there are many such facts. But, as Trump defenders and even Trump himself will quickly note, there are many contrary facts as well. His energy policies, for example, are deeply contrary to Russias interests. The bombshell New York Times report that the FBI opened an investigation into whether Trump was a Russian asset strikes me as simultaneously understandable and outrageous. Trumps behavior in 2016 and early 2017 was enough to overload the pattern-recognition software of anyone not already committed to Trumps innocence at all costs, particularly if you were both reading the news and receiving raw, and occasionally flawed, intelligence such as the Steele dossier. Advertisement Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute Trumps disastrous hiring of actual Kremlin stooges and cronies, his praise of Putin, his lies about business dealings with Russia, his public beseeching of the Kremlin to release Clintons emails, his campaigns infamous meeting at Trump Tower with an actual Russian agent, not to mention his firing of the FBI director and his comments to Russian officials in the Oval Office: One doesnt even need to resort to Deep State theories to understand why the FBI would be concerned. But that doesnt necessarily make Trump a Manchurian president either. He or his campaign may or may not have colluded with Russia. The Department of Justice might have cut corners to get him. Still, rather than elaborate conspiracies, its far more likely that ad hoc decisions were made in the response to ad hoc actions by a candidate who thought he was going to lose and, later, by a president who didnt know what he was doing. Advertisement Jeb Bush was right when he predicted in 2015 that chaos candidate Trump would be a chaos president. The Atlantic just published a list, Unthinkable: 50 Moments that Define an Improbable Presidency, and what comes through most is that Trumps glandular, impulsive and often vindictive character is the only reliable signal in the noise that is his presidency. Any theory that doesnt take this into account is not likely to pan out. jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook A federal judge rejected the Trump administrations effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Pictured: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. (Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images) The fight is far from over, but a federal court decision Tuesday morning barring the Trump administration from asking about citizenship status on the 2020 census is heartening for those who see the move as a blatant attempt to dampen participation within immigrant-heavy (and Democratic-leaning) communities and thus shift political power and federal resources away from them. More broadly, though, the decision spotlights a recurring theme with the Trump administration: It cant get basic functions of government right. From the initial effort to ban people from certain Muslim countries from entering the country to environmental rollbacks to now something as simple as adding a question to the census, Trumps appointees have tried to run roughshod over laws and practices rather than following proper administrative processes. Advertisement The failures seem to have been taken from Trumps own dog-eared playbook of just forging ahead, damn the consequences, and see what he can get away with. But here again, the courts have stepped up to block the administrations overreaches something the Republican-led Congress failed to do for nearly two years even after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was caught in a lie about how the question came to be added. Ross initially said that the request came from the Justice Department to better arm it with data in pursuing cases, but the suggestion came from Trumps immigration hard-line advisor Steve Bannon. Secretary Ross violated the public trust. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman Civil rights advocates said from the get-go that the question was unnecessary in bringing voters rights actions, something government officials later acknowledged in court. Bizarrely, the government argued that even if the question was unnecessary, and even if the governments own experts said it would reduce the accuracy of the census, Ross had wide leeway to, in essence, do whatever he felt like. All the secretary is required to do is to provide a reasoned explanation, Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. Brett A. Shumate told the court. He doesnt have to choose the best option. Thats quite the approach to good governance Hey, close enough. In his 277-page decision, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman minced no words in castigating Ross actions. He defended the role of the Administrative Procedures Act in guiding the government toward sound decisions, and that Ross usurped it (legal citations omitted): Advertisement In short (or not, as the case may be), the Court concludes that Secretary Rosss decision to add the citizenship question to the 2020 census questionnaire, while not inconsistent with the Constitution, violated the APA in several respects. Those violations are no mere trifles. The fair and orderly administration of the census is one of the Secretary of Commerces most important duties, as it is critical that the public have confidence in the integrity of the process. And although some may deride its requirements as red tape, the APA exists to protect core constitutional and democratic values: It ensures that agencies exercise only the authority that Congress has given them, that they exercise that authority reasonably, and that they follow applicable procedures in short, it ensures that agencies remain accountable to the public they serve. That is not to say and the APA does not say that an agency cannot adopt new policies or otherwise change course. But the APA does require that before an agency does so, it must consider all important aspects of a problem; study the relevant evidence and arrive at a decision rationally supported by that evidence; comply with all applicable procedures and substantive laws; and articulate the facts and reasons the real reasons for that decision. The Administrative Record in these cases makes plain that Secretary Rosss decision fell short on all these fronts. In arriving at his decision as he did, Secretary Ross violated the law. And in doing so with respect to the census one of the most critical constitutional functions our Federal Government performs and a mainstay of our democracy Secretary Ross violated the public trust. Yes, he did. Monday unfolded as exactly the sort of day that wed hoped wouldnt happen. Frustrated teachers picketed Los Angeles Unified schools in the cold rain. Students who didnt stay home were walking the line in sympathy, or, if they showed up for classes, were corralled in auditoriums and gyms, often learning nothing. One high school had the students view Black Panther the superhero movie, not a documentary about the political organization. Now the question is how to avoid repeating scenarios like this for days on end. In theory, the two sides are in close agreement. Theyre roughly half a percent away on pay. They both say the district should lower class sizes and provide more counselors, nurses and librarians to the extent it can afford. The main disagreement is in that last phrase: When it comes to the districts finances, which should be the most easily determined aspect of negotiations, the two sides seem unable to agree on an objective reality. This should be the place where the states elected officials step in. Gov. Gavin Newsoms informal talks with both sides over the weekend produced no results, and if new Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond has been involved at all, his efforts havent been visible. He certainly hasnt made use of his bully pulpit to call on the two sides to take all measures to avert a strike. Advertisement Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute Intervention at this higher level is needed. More than that, Newsom and Thurmond are both seen as allies of teachers unions. Their interpretation of the districts financial situation and their pressure for the strike to end should carry some weight with United Teachers Los Angeles. Newsoms statement Monday on the strike wasnt much help. He points out that he has proposed extra funding for education, but as he knows, it hardly begins to cover the kind of hiring needed in L.A. Unified and throughout the state. Where Newsom and Thurmond might be persuasive is in pointing out the realities of L.A. Unified finances and pledging to search for new revenue streams that would bring Californias school financing in line with where it should be. In addition, they could pledge to bring more scrutiny to charter schools and their effects on traditional public education, a statewide issue thats important to the union. They also should urge the district and union to reach an agreement that might not immediately give UTLA what it seeks, but that dedicates any additional funding the district receives over the next couple of years to UTLA priorities. Such an agreement would provide a legacy for schools, instead of a sad disruption to public education for L.A.s students. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook On the eve of his confirmation hearings, William Barr, President Trumps nominee for attorney general, has told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he believes special counsel Robert S. Mueller III should be allowed to complete his investigation and that the results should be made public. Thats an encouraging signal from the nominee of a president who has repeatedly assailed the Mueller investigation as a partisan witch hunt. But senators need to press Barr for specific commitments that Mueller will be allowed to operate without political interference and will be able to share his conclusions of law and fact about all aspects of the investigation including, for example, the possibility that Trump obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James B. Comey. (The New York Times reported Friday that, after Comeys firing, the FBI launched a counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump had been working on behalf of Russia against U.S. interests.) In prepared testimony released before Tuesdays hearing, Barr, who was attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, expressed his utmost respect for Mueller and said that he would provide as much transparency as I can consistent with the law in sharing the special counsels conclusions. Thats not enough. Senators should press him to commit specifically to publicizing not just the results of Muellers investigation but detailed findings, even if Barr disagrees with them. For example, as a private lawyer Barr sent Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein an unsolicited memo suggesting that Trump could not have violated an obstruction of justice statute by firing Comey, regardless of his motive. But if Mueller nevertheless comes to the opposite conclusion, Barr shouldnt prevent that finding from being shared with Congress and the public. Advertisement Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute Barr also promised that under his leadership, the Justice Department would be a place where the rule of law not politics holds sway. To that end, he should provide the Senate with assurances that he would resist and inform Congress of any attempt by the White House to politicize the administration of justice. Finally, Barr should be asked whether he would endorse Trump granting pardons to associates, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. A president doesnt need anyones approval to grant a pardon, but an attorney general does have influence. And as attorney general in the first Bush administration, Barr supported pardons for former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and others charged or convicted in the Iran-Contra scandal because, Barr later said, they were unjustly treated. Trump has expressed sympathy for Manafort and complained before Manaforts guilty plea that the Justice Department applied tremendous pressure on him. Its hard to see how Barr could agree given his statement that he has confidence in Mueller. Given Trumps unhinged attacks on the Justice Department, its somewhat reassuring that he has nominated a respected professional to head it. But precisely because of Trumps hostility to the rule of law, Barr must go the extra mile in convincing the Senate that he wont be improperly influenced. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Its Tuesday, Jan. 15, and heres whats happening across California: TEACHERS STRIKE The overview: The walkout of 31,000 teachers union members proved to be the massive disruption hundreds of thousands of students and their families had feared. The vast majority of the districts parents and guardians are low income, and many had to choose between missing work to watch their children or sending them into an unknown situation at school. While campuses remained open, the skeletal staff struggled to keep students engaged. Only low attendance prevented an even more chaotic scenario of adults managing hundreds of students apiece. At the end of the day, the district reported that about a third of its K-12 students had shown up. Los Angeles Times The kids: It is unclear how many students opted to play hooky as their teachers walked out. But they cropped up throughout the city Monday on picket lines, in Starbucks branches, shopping malls and arcades basically anywhere dry and, in most cases, without adult supervision. Los Angeles Times Advertisement Parallels? The teachers strike and government shutdown: Political paralysis in blue and red. Los Angeles Times All was not lost: Bring in the taco trucks. Los Angeles Times Steve Lopez weighs in: This fight needs to go beyond L.A. if things are going to get better for the citys students. Los Angeles Times Mayor Eric Garcetti: The strike feels good but needs to end soon. Los Angeles Times Gov. Gavin Newsom: He wants more charter school transparency. Charters are a ghost lurking in the shadows of the strike. Cal Matters In solidarity: Hollywood, at least, loves the strike. Los Angeles Times And: Is Oakland the next to see a teachers strike? EdSource MORE TOP STORIES Advertisement Not the best PR, Part 1 If Mayor Garcetti runs for president, he could also face uncomfortable questions about a topic that has gripped City Hall: Why are FBI agents seeking evidence of bribes, extortion and money laundering possibly involving L.A. city officials? And why are two of his appointees one current, one former being scrutinized in that probe? A look at the potential political fallout for Garcetti and some of L.A.s other top leaders as the corruption probe appears to be growing. Los Angeles Times Earlier coverage: -- A widening FBI probe of City Hall corruption. Los Angeles Times Advertisement -- All roads lead to money from a downtown development boom. Los Angeles Times Not the best look, Part 2 PG&E has a long and unfortunate history of enriching its executives while displaying the most shameless corporate behavior imaginable, writes columnist David Lazarus. This pattern continues as the utility giant falls into bankruptcy amid huge potential liabilities from wildfires. Los Angeles Times -- Dont expect Sacramento to bail out PG&E. San Francisco Chronicle Advertisement -- How PG&Es failure is challenging the idea that utilities are a safe bet for investors. Wall Street Journal -- Who are the winners and losers in a bankruptcy? Bloomberg -- California Screamin on Wall Street. Bloomberg L.A. STORIES Advertisement Tragic: A UC Irvine freshman died over the weekend, resulting in the suspension and investigation of his fraternity and leaving his family heartbroken and filled with questions. As a family, were hurting, but were also concerned could it have been prevented? Is there something we, as a family, can do to make sure something like this doesnt happen again? said his father. Los Angeles Times Be safe out there: The first of a series of storms in Southern California dumped rain and snow, heightening the threat of mud and debris flows in areas scarred by recent wildfires, and closing a stretch of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu and the Grapevine section of the 5 Freeway. And more rain is on the way, prompting more evacuations. Los Angeles Times Plus: At least its good news for dry SoCal ski resorts. Los Angeles Times Amazing: UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi earned a perfect 10 on her floor exercise routine. Los Angeles Times Advertisement UCLAs Katelyn Ohashi during an NCAA college gymnastics match on Jan. 4. (Ben Liebenberg / Associated Press) Get the Essential California newsletter CRIME AND COURTS Justice charged: A state judicial watchdog commission on Monday charged Los Angeles-based state Court of Appeal Justice Jeffrey Johnson with nine counts of misconduct, including sexual harassment and squeezing the breast of a female justice. Los Angeles Times Advertisement Under review: Authorities in Butte County are investigating whether the overdose of three people at Gold Country Casino on Monday morning is related to a mass overdose in Chico over the weekend that left one man dead and more than a dozen others hospitalized. Los Angeles Times Plus: A TV reporter was attacked by a bystander while doing a segment on the overdoses. And it was caught on tape. Mercury News Fallout: A viral photo of slain Davis Police Officer Natalie Corona has sparked a backlash from a UC Davis student group, and a backlash to the backlash. Sacramento Bee POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT Advertisement Todays the day: Officials from the state health exchange Covered California are ramping up efforts to enroll people in health coverage as the deadline to sign up looms. Tuesday is the last day to enroll in a health plan in California. Los Angeles Times Leading the charge: Californias new battle against high-priced drugs. New York Times CALIFORNIA CULTURE Awkward: In a tense and emotional meeting Monday morning, former Pixar and Disney executive John Lasseter asked Skydance Animation employees for a chance to show that hed changed his ways, after multiple women accused him of inappropriate workplace behavior at his old job. Los Angeles Times Advertisement Who knew? Fried chicken. Donuts. Ramen. Now, Los Angeles is having a bagel boom. The New York specialty is getting a makeover in the L.A. hipster corridors. LAist One shot: The politics of Hamilton in Puerto Rico. Los Angeles Times On TV: A glitzy retelling of the Silicon Valley boom and bust cycle of the 1990s. The New Yorker Spooky: This woman loved Disneyland so much she decorated her husbands office to look like the Haunted Mansion. Orange County Register Advertisement Sad: A 5-month-old male giraffe born at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park was euthanized near the end of December after being gored in the stomach, probably by an antelope. San Diego Union-Tribune CALIFORNIA ALMANAC Los Angeles area: Rainy, 58, Tuesday. Rainy, 61, Wednesday. San Diego: Cloudy, 64, Tuesday. Partly cloudy, 66, Wednesday. San Francisco area: Rainy, 54, Tuesday. Rainy, 58, Wednesday. San Jose: Rainy, 55, Tuesday. Rainy, 60, Wednesday. Sacramento: Rainy, 53, Tuesday. Rainy, 58, Wednesday. More weather is here. AND FINALLY Advertisement Todays California memory comes from Ron Pinto: I first came to Los Angeles from my country on Dec. 29, 1966. We were living at an apartment on St. George Street in Silver Lake. On the 31st we went to a New Years party at the Beverly Hilton, and my eyes couldnt get any wider: Tuxedos, gowns, Beverly Hills wow! What I found most amusing was that the moment I stepped off the curb at the crosswalk, all cars in both directions would stop and not move until I stepped on the curb across the street. That was very different from what I was used to in my country and I thought it was funny, but later understood to be simple respect for pedestrians and respect for the traffic rules. I also looked at John Marshall High School, up the street from our place, and was always in awe. Such a beautiful campus that was. I do believe that Los Angeles has changed and that which made me smile no longer applies. People now are in a hurry to go places and pedestrians became a little less important. If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.) Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad. An armed man who entered a UPS processing facility Monday morning and held two women hostage for several hours was shot and killed by police as he left the building with the women, authorities said. Several officers fired at William Owens, 39, of Sicklerville, N.J., the state attorney generals office said in a news release. It did not detail the situation or explain why the suspect was shot. Owens had entered the business about 8:45 a.m. and fired shots, which did not strike anyone, before taking the women to a room and barricading himself inside with them, authorities said. Officials believe Owens had a prior relationship with one of the hostages, Gloucester County Prosecutor Charles Fiore said. The women escaped without serious injuries after the standoff in Logan Township, about 20 miles south of Philadelphia, Fiore said. Advertisement Multiple members of law enforcement fired at the man, who was armed with a handgun. He was pronounced dead at the scene, the news release said. Earlier in the day, Fiore said the suspect had been taken to a hospital after being shot but that his condition was not known. I heard one of my fellow employees say, Run, hes got a gun, then I heard the little pop of the gun, I guess, and we all ran and law enforcement took over, employee Allen Anthony Dowling said. Police evacuated the building and blocked access to the busy industrial park; nearby schools were put on a modified lockdown. Hostage negotiators talked to the suspect by phone as he held the women captive. Television news footage showed officers crouched behind a vehicle behind the buildings loading dock at the time. Shortly before noon, as Fiore held a news conference at a township building about 8 miles away, a short burst of gunfire was heard at the scene. Fiore later said he didnt know how many shots police fired or whether the gunman fired. There was an intervention, Fiore said. He did not surrender. Ji Zhi Wen Gao, written by Yan Zhenqing, a calligraphy master from the Tang Dynasty (618-907). It contains altogether 234 characters. Now it is collected by the Taipei Palace Museum. The Taipei Palace Museum's loan of a nearly 1,400-year-old calligraphy, which is considered one of the most precious Chinese treasures, to a Japanese museum has sparked outrage among cross-Straits netizens who condemned the Taipei museum of "flattering Japan and causing severe damage to the precious antique." A Sina Weibo user posted a photo on Saturday of a poster of the exhibit of Japan's Tokyo National Museum, saying an unrivaled work of calligraphy by Yan Zhenqing (709-785), one of the most influential Chinese calligraphers during the Tang Dynasty (618-907), will be displayed from Wednesday to February 24. The work was written by Yan to his nephew and is part of the Taipei Palace Museum's collection, according to the introduction on the website of the Tokyo National Museum. The user condemned the Taipei Palace Museum, which loaned the masterpiece to the Tokyo National Museum, for lending such a fragile treasure. An employee of the Tokyo National Museum told the Global Times on Monday that the calligraphy has been placed inside a glass box and the museum allows visitors to take photos as long as they do not use flash. However, another employee changed the statement in another interview by the Global Times later, saying that visitors are banned from taking photos to protect the cultural relic from harm. "Visitors who take photos of the work of calligraphy in the glass case will affect the cultural relic," said Gong Decai, a professor at the University of Science and Technology of China. Liu Zheng, a member of the China Cultural Relics Academy, told the Global Times that sunlight would seriously harm the ancient paper, so the relic is in jeopardy while being transported. "The Chinese mainland prohibits valuable cultural relics, especially paintings and calligraphy, from leaving the country," Liu said. Media reports from the island of Taiwan said the calligraphy is considered very precious, which is also one of limited exhibits among 70 items in the museum because of the vulnerability of the ancient paper. Though in the island of Taiwan, Yan's calligraphy has not been displayed publicly in 11 years and the last overseas exhibit was in 1997 in the US, so as to protect the cultural relic, according to the report. Netizens in the island of Taiwan denounced the museum as too "generous" to Japan's museum. "I need to fly to another country to appreciate our treasure," netizen Wu Mengru, who is a student at National Taiwan University, wrote on Facebook. Medically assisted reproduction does not raise risk of preterm birth and low birth weight Couples considering medically assisted reproduction (MAR) because they have difficulties conceiving naturally, have feared that they could do harm to their baby by opting for medical intervention. Doctors may warn that MAR raises the risk of preterm birth (less than 37 weeks of pregnancy) and low birth weight (less than 2.5 kilograms). It's a hard decision for couples with an unmet desire for children. Low birth weight children have more respiratory, cognitive and neurological problems than those born with normal weight. Preterm babies have elevated risks of heart defects, lung disorders, brain damage, and delayed development. The truth is that risks of preterm birth and low birth weight actually don't increase with MAR. This is the finding of a new study that has just been published in the medical journal The Lancet. Scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) together with researchers from the London School of Economics and Helsinki University analyzed a large number of Finnish siblings and did not find elevated risks. This is in contrast to a number of previous studies by other researchers who did find a rise in risks. Decision for fertility treatment freed from feelings of guilt "Couples with an unmet desire for children don't have to decide against MAR anymore, because they might allegedly increase the health risks for their child," says Mikko Myrskyla, author of the study and MPIDR director. However, the demographer points out that children born after MAR nevertheless have a higher risk for preterm birth and low birth weight than babies that have been conceived naturally. But these elevated risks have nothing to do with the medical intervention. Couples with conception difficulties always have this problem, regardless of their choice for or against fertility treatment. Why they have these increased risks is not yet fully understood by scientists. "The physiology of reduced fertility itself probably plays an important role," says Alice Goisis, another MPIDR author of the study. She stresses that although the already elevated risk is a burden for couples, the finding of The Lancet study would still make a big difference for them. "When deciding for medically assisted reproduction nobody has to have the feeling anymore that she or he is deliberately putting her or his child at extra risk," says the MPIDR researcher. Emotionally it plays an important role for affected couples if they have to deal with elevated health risks for their baby that they cannot change anyway, or if they increase threats knowingly, Goisis says. The latter is not the case when choosing MAR, as The Lancet Study shows. Considering for or against fertility treatment can now happen free from feelings of guilt and bad conscience. This is a relief for many, says Alice Goisis. To date more than five million children have been born thanks to medically assisted reproduction globally. Comparing siblings gives unambiguous results In the past, several studies had already tried to determine the true risk of medically assisted reproduction. However, their results differed strongly and were highly uncertain because they had often been calculated with biased methods and based on only a small number of births. Some studies did claim strongly increased birth risks through MAR. Myrskyla and his colleagues used a larger number of births for their study than any previous study. Out of over 65,000 children born in Finland between 1995 and 2000, they chose 1,245 siblings of whom at least one was conceived naturally and one using medical treatment. Since parents hardly change from one birth to another, comparing siblings allows the possibility to distinguish health risks between medically assisted reproduction and natural conception because the method of conception was the only relevant difference between births. With this comparison, the additional risks for preterm birth and low birth weight through MAR vanished. Excluding single causes often impossible due to lack of suitable data The siblings' method applied in The Lancet paper is known to be a technique which can reliably confirm or rule out single health risks. For the most part, data on a sufficiently large number of siblings is not available. However, Finland's national registries are one of the rare exceptions. They provide not only data on the date of the birth and information about the parents and siblings for researchers, but also the birth weight and duration of pregnancy. In most countries such linked datasets are not available and The Lancet study would not have been possible anywhere else. ### Original publication Alice Goisis, Hanna Remes, Pekka Martikainen, Reija Klemetti, Mikko Myrskyla, Medically assisted reproduction and adverse birth outcomes: have the risks been overestimated? Lancet, DOI 10.1093/sf/sox069 Published Online January 14, 2019 This story has been published on: 2019-01-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. William Barr, President Trumps nominee for attorney general, told a Senate panel Tuesday that he did not believe special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was on a witch hunt and said he would not fire Mueller without good cause. I would not carry out that instruction if asked to do so, Barr testified, adding he would not be bullied into doing something I think is wrong. On the first day of a two-day confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barr gingerly distanced himself from the president on several key issues, a move that appeared to mollify Democrats on the panel concerned about whether he would stand up to the White House if necessary. The 68-year-old Republican lawyer, who previously served as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s, said he had made no promises to Trump and that the president had absolutely not asked him to meddle in Muellers inquiry when they discussed his leading the Justice Department. Advertisement Barr also acknowledged that he believed a U.S. intelligence determination that a Kremlin-backed operation played a role in the 2016 presidential campaign, and he called Russian President Vladimir Putin a potent rival of the United States. Trump at times has challenged the U.S. assessment and has relentlessly praised Putin. I think the Russians interfered or attempted to interfere in the election, Barr said, and we have to get to the bottom of it. He did not categorically rule out recusing himself from supervising the Mueller probe, saying he would consult with career ethics lawyers at the Justice Department in light of his critical comments about the investigation in a memo last year. But he also did not commit to following their advice. I would consult with them, Barr said, and I would make a decision in good faith based on the laws and the facts that are evident at that time. If confirmed, Barr would replace Jeff Sessions, who was forced to resign in November after a rocky tenure. Trump had bitterly criticized Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation in early 2017, a rift between them that never healed. Barr also promised to look into the FBIs reported counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump was secretly working for Russia after he took office, and how the bureau conducted its inquiry into whether Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information when she was secretary of State. Barrs testimony contained no bombshells and he reiterated a pledge he made Monday to allow Mueller to finish his work and to make public as much of his final report as possible. Advertisement In response to questions from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the newly installed chairman of the committee, Barr said he was close friends with Mueller and believed the former FBI director was a man of high integrity. They worked together at the Justice Department in the early 1990s. I do not believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt, Barr said, rebutting Trumps frequent line of attack on the special counsel investigation. Barr confirmed that he met briefly with Trump in June 2017 about possibly representing the president as a defense attorney. He said he wasnt interested because he was busy in his private practice. Barr said Trump had expressed an interest in his friendship with Mueller. He said he told the president the Barrs and Muellers were good friends and would be good friends when this was all over and so forth. Advertisement I said Bob is a straight shooter and should be dealt with as such, Barr added. He did not speak again with the president, Barr testified, until they discussed his nomination to be the attorney general. Barr is expected to be easily confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate and is likely to pick up Democratic votes given his promises to protect Mueller and Barrs widely respected legal career. He served as attorney general from 1991 through 1993 and before that served as deputy attorney general and assistant attorney general. Advertisement For Barr, the law is clearly a family affair. Sitting behind him at the hearing were his daughters: Margaret, a former federal prosecutor; Patricia, a lawyer for the House Agriculture Committee; and Mary, a longtime federal prosecutor working in the deputy attorney generals office. Mary was joined by her husband, Mike, who is an attorney in the Justice Departments national security division, and their 8-year-old son, Liam, who will someday be in the Department of Justice, Barr quipped. One senator joked that the boy should go to medical school instead to earn more money. Barr fielded scores of questions on issues that in another era could have overshadowed the hearing. Advertisement He said he supported a national law that prohibited marijuana everywhere but told Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) that he would respect California and other states that had legalized the drug. To the extent that people are complying with state laws, distribution and production and so forth, he testified, were not going to go after that. He said he backed Trumps desire to build a wall along the southern border, though he did not seem to favor one as extensive as the president had suggested. Im advocating a system, a barrier system, in some places, he testified. He added that a wall would certainly halt the flow of drugs, though in some places it may not be necessary to have what people imagine as a wall. Advertisement Democrats pressed him about his tough-on-crime strategies when he was attorney general and their impact on high incarceration rates, particularly among African Americans. Barr defended his efforts, saying he had confronted violent-crime rates that were the highest in American history. Even so, he said, he would enforce a new law that rolled back some of the harsh penalties of the 1990s. Democrats grilled Barr about his previous criticism of the Mueller investigation, and some suggested he should step away from overseeing the special counsel. Barr had questioned the political makeup of the special counsels team and wrote a lengthy memo last year that described Muellers investigation into whether the president had obstructed justice when he fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017 as based on a legal theory that he called fatally flawed. Advertisement In response, Barr sought to downplay his analysis, saying it was based in part on speculation about Muellers investigation. Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein is overseeing the Mueller probe. Matthew Whitaker, the acting attorney general, refused to recuse himself despite the recommendations of a career ethics official that he take such a step. Barr agreed that Sessions made the right decision in recusing himself from the Russia investigation because he had worked on Trumps campaign. A whos who of former Sinaloa cartel chiefs have become cooperating witnesses in the sprawling drug-trafficking case against Joaquin El Chapo Guzman. But Alex Cifuentes, another leader in the multibillion-dollar drug operation, was able to offer a uniquely intimate view of his notorious ex-boss: For two years, the men were roommates in Guzmans mountain hideouts in northwest Mexico. Cifuentes, a member of a powerful Colombian drug-trafficking family that partnered with Guzman, testified Monday in federal court that he lived with the drug kingpin in variety of humble pine huts from 2007 until 2009 so that he could guarantee Guzman was sending the right amount of money back to Colombia for the cocaine, heroin and meth they were providing. And there was a lot of money to send: $40 million a month, he testified. And those modest huts, he explained, were also outfitted with tinted windows, plasma TVs, washer-dryers, an encrypted communication systems, two maids and heavily armed guards. Advertisement Describing himself as Guzmans right-hand man and his left-hand man, Cifuentes said he was essentially one of Guzmans secretaries with duties such as coordinating shipments of tons of cocaine and other drugs to New York, Los Angeles and Phoenix as well as to Canada. He said they made dozens of millions of dollars on their Canada trafficking alone. Guzman wanted to send drugs across Lake Champlain into Canada via boats; he was also looking to find a ranch with an airstrip in the country to make shipments easier by using aircraft, Cifuentes testified. Cifuentes also described another task Guzman gave him: having Christian Rodriguez, the tech wiz who became an FBI informant, killed. Guzman learned that Rodriquez was tapping the encrypted communications system hed created for the cartel after Cifuentes brother, Jorge Cifuentes, was arrested. We should look for him and kill him, Guzman told Cifuentes of his desire to have Rodriguez eliminated in retaliation for his betrayal. Cifuentes then turned to his own secretary for help in finding Rodriguez. But Cifuentes had a problem: I didnt know Christians last name, he said. Neither did his secretary who said shed try to use Google or Facebook to find him, according to text exchanges read in court. They never found him. And there was a less violent project Cifuentes worked on for nearly six years: writing a script for a movie and a book about Guzman, with his full participation. Cifuentes testified that his wife suggested Guzman make a movie and write a book to make money off his own story. Guzman planned to direct the movie himself, Cifuentes testified. Though they may have been in hiding in huts high in the mountains, there was still time for parties. Cifuentes recalled one birthday party for Guzman, at which he was given a white armored car, motorcycles and a camouflage Hummer, imprinted with Guzmans initials. Advertisement While a raid by the army was a constant threat in the mountains, Cifuentes said Guzman was always calm. His usual routine was waking up at noon, then returning calls and making deals as he walked through the trees on his property. He also always wore a camouflage jumpsuit to blend in with the jungle, Cifuentes testified. Guzman even admonished a guard once for giving him too much warning of a suspected army raid. Cifuentes said Guzman did not want to be woken in the middle of the night but if he had to be, Guzman told the guard he only needed five minutes notice. Even if Im naked, he said, Ill just run away like that. Plagianos is a special correspondent. Authorities in several Southern California communities issued evacuation orders Tuesday as a new round of rain soaked the region, causing minor roadway floods and downed trees. The third in a series of storms triggered the mandatory evacuation of about 300 homes nestled in the steep Malibu canyons amid the Woolsey fire burn area, but didnt bring as much rain as expected. We didnt get as much rain today as we thought we would, said Kathy Hoxsie, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. The evacuations were for todays storm that didnt pan out. Although the Malibu evacuation order was in place overnight, authorities said they would reassess the forecast early Wednesday. Advertisement Weather officials said the rain would pick back up during rush hour Wednesday morning, with heavier bands coming in by the afternoon. But the heaviest rain is expected from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Thursday, when a wide swath of Los Angeles County could see between 1.5 and 3 inches of rain, with potentially higher amounts in the mountains, Hoxsie said. At this point, were thinking its going to be below the threshold for having mud and debris flow, Hoxsie said. Thats because the rainfall will be slow and steady, not a deluge. On Tuesday, at a low-lying part of the Paradise Cove Mobile Home Park in Malibu, near where Ramirez Canyon Creek dumps into the Pacific Ocean, a small platoon of deputies with clipboards pounded on doors, presenting forms to residents who would not leave. I dont like hearing those rain accounts for the next 48 hours. But I have lived here since 1971, and there has been a lot of rain over the years, said resident Julie Sturgess after signing the declaration she wouldnt evacuate. Sturgess said the nearby creek had been improved over the years to include concrete elements. She said she heard debris start to come down the creek but was not planning to leave. Chris Frost, a veteran firefighter and longtime Paradise Cove resident who serves on the citys Public Safety Commission, said the rain will test the citys limits when it comes to handling mud and debris. Most people will get out of the area if the creek crests, Frost said, adding that Ramirez Canyon is dangerous because debris flows could block roads and prevent residents from leaving. Those folks should get out now, he said. Advertisement Schools were closed Tuesday and scheduled to be closed Wednesday in Malibu because of the rains, and the city opened its emergency operations center at 6 a.m. Evacuation centers were opened at Santa Monica High Schools south gym and the Agoura Hills/Calabasas Community Center, and shelters for large animals opened at Hansen Dam Equestrian Center and Pierce College. (Los Angeles Times) The weather service issued a flood advisory for western Los Angeles and Ventura counties through Tuesday night. A flash-flood watch was issued for recent burn areas of the Woolsey, Hill, Thomas and Whittier fires for the same time. In Burbank, officials issued a mandatory evacuation notice for homes along Country Club Drive above Via Montana beginning at noon Tuesday. The notice was changed to voluntary about 9 p.m. Advertisement Farther north, in Santa Clarita, Six Flags Magic Mountain closed for the day, blaming inclement weather. In Ventura County, school officials said four schools were closed because of heavy rain: Ventura High School, Cabrillo Middle School, De Anza Academy of Technology and the Arts Middle School, and Loma Vista Elementary School. Ventura County officials issued mandatory evacuation orders for the entire Bell Canyon community at the eastern end of the county as well as specific homes in the Oak Park neighborhood, unincorporated areas near Thousand Oaks and the Sage Mountain Senior Living Facility near Newbury Park. Evacuations also were ordered for homes east of Highway 33 near Casitas Springs as well as along Matilija Road and Highway 33 near the Wheeler Springs area north of Ojai. Advertisement Although Mondays storm closed a portion of Pacific Coast Highway and a section of the 5 Freeway known as the Grapevine both of which reopened later in the day few major roads were affected Tuesday. But a 29-mile stretch of Angeles Crest Highway in the Angeles National Forest was closed because of snow. The storm was bringing plenty of snow to the state, with the potential for dangerous mountain conditions. The Sierra Avalanche Center issued an avalanche watch for the Central Sierra Nevada, including the Tahoe Basin. Avalanche danger is expected to rise to high following a forecast of heavy snow and wind through Friday morning. In Northern California, forecasters issued a flood watch for Butte County, including the Camp fire burn area, that will take effect Wednesday afternoon. An evacuation warning was to be in effect for the community of Pulga from 10 p.m. Tuesday to 7 a.m. Thursday, the Butte County Sheriffs Office said. javier.panzar@latimes.com Advertisement Twitter: @jpanzar richard.winton@latimes.com Twitter: @LAcrimes Mexican authorities are preparing to close the largest Central American migrant shelter, known as El Barretal, in Tijuana. The closure of the shelter on the eastern outskirts of town signals a somewhat bittersweet end to the migrant caravan of 2018 that became a national obsession with effects still untold. The closure, scheduled for this week, is happening just as another caravan of thousands plans to leave Honduras for Mexico. Life inside El Barretal has settled into comfortable daily and weekly rhythms for the 700 or so remaining Central American migrants who arrived in Tijuana in November as part of a caravan of about 6,000. Advertisement Children go to school. Men wake before dawn and catch buses for work in construction or other odd jobs throughout Tijuana. Women wash laundry by hand and hang it to dry on the far-right side of the facility. One day last week, bachata music blasted from a stereo into a large courtyard, the heartbeat of the sprawling event space and concert hall where more than 3,000 Central Americans once took shelter in pitched tents and on cots. El Barretal, with a capacity for 7,000, was opened when the original shelter in Tijuanas Zona Norte neighborhood near the U.S.-Mexico border became overcrowded and flooded in deplorable conditions. Since those early, difficult days, many have moved on and gotten jobs and apartments in Tijuana. The number of migrants at the shelter is decreasing every day, volunteers said. The temporary shelter has worked and accomplished what we set out to do, and now we are winding down operations as these last remaining people find more permanent places, said Leonardo Neri, a federal volunteer and shelter coordinator. Volunteers said they expect to close the shelter on Tuesday. Several families said they pray their number is called to present their asylum case to U.S. immigration authorities before the shelter closes. Beyond that, they said, they dont know where else they may go. We are getting very close, Victoria Rodriguez said. We think maybe Monday our number will come up. We are packed and ready to go. Advertisement Rodriguez has two young children, both battling respiratory infections and coughs. She said she has considered no other options besides her number getting called. The El Barretal courtyard became like a town plaza home to dance nights, painting lessons and religious ceremonies. Its perimeter is lined with migrant-run businesses such as cigarette vendors and barbershops. Weve become a community, said Christian Lara from Honduras. Were always going to be friends with the people of the caravan. Look at what weve done. The truth is we will always talk with each other and keep in touch how we can. Two boys goofed off giving each other rides through the courtyard on a gurney used to bring supplies into the shelter. Advertisement Were actually going to miss it here in El Barretal, one said, laughing. A man playing the music on a boombox collects coins in El Barretal and at bus stops throughout Tijuana. He also sings, and he said he plays music that reminds people of home. I make a little money for food. I dont know about all these people or what theyre going to do, said Jose Gonzalez from Nicaragua, who was leaving the shelter in search of a cheap room to rent. I have no idea because I have nowhere to go after here. San Diegan Leticia Guzman of the Border Angels group has been bringing donations such as tents, sleeping bags, shoes and clothing to El Barretal every week. She has also been trying to persuade the federal agency running the shelter not to close it while families are still without a place to go. Advertisement There are children still in El Barretal whose families have no other place, she said. Where are they going to go? Its going to be an issue for the residents of Tijuana, for nearby businesses, for everyone, if these families are not at least placed in another shelter. Last week, authorities closed Contra Viento y Marea, a warehouse shelter closer to the border. They relocated about 40 migrants to a church shelter in the Las Playas neighborhood of Tijuana, near the beach. Jose Alexander Cherris said he was on his way to Padre Chava, another migrant shelter in Tijuana where he hoped to secure a place for himself and his 4-year-old son once El Barretal closed. I think they have room for us there, he said. Advertisement Cherris was among a group that tried to breach the border Jan. 1, but he said he and his son stayed farther back among the crowd and retreated at the first sign of tear gas. He said he still holds out hope of one day getting into the United States. I have faith. Besides, weve made it this far, he said. We are thankful for however they have been able to help us so far, he said of those who have been running El Barretal. Advertisement Wendy Fry writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune. A Los Angeles police detective went public Tuesday with allegations that another officer distributed sexually explicit photos of her throughout the LAPD and physically abused her several times, marking the latest in a series of sex scandals to rock the department in recent years. Det. Ysabel Villegas appeared in a downtown courtroom and was granted an extension of a restraining order against Officer Daniel Reedy, after Villegas filed a report last year detailing years of physical abuse and allegations that he leaked images of her that might violate Californias revenge porn law. In an application for a restraining order filed in November, Villegas acknowledged that she had been having an extramarital affair with Reedy, a veteran officer in the Los Angeles Police Departments Central Division, for roughly five years. The relationship turned bitter in 2016, Villegas alleged in the court filing, when Reedy became physically abusive. Villegas alleged that in 2017 Reedy began threatening to release photos he had taken of the pair engaging in sexual activity if she did not continue the relationship, according to the filing. Advertisement Villegas also accused Reedy of assaulting her at a Glendora diner last summer and threatening to expose their relationship to her husband, former Assistant LAPD Chief Jorge Villegas, the filing said. Attempts to contact Reedy were unsuccessful Tuesday. Jorge Villegas retired from the L.A. Police Department in October amid allegations he was having an improper sexual relationship with a female subordinate officer, sources previously told The Times. An LAPD surveillance unit later caught Villegas and the subordinate apparently engaged in a sex act in a parking lot, the sources said at the time. Jorge Villegas, who was present in the courthouse Tuesday morning, declined to comment. In issuing the restraining order, Judge James Blancarte described Ysabel Villegas claims as some of the most serious allegations that Ive ever had to read in this courtroom. The restraining order will remain in effect for five years, and Reedy must surrender all of his firearms, Blancarte ruled. It was not immediately clear how many people the photos had been sent to. In her filing, Villegas said she was contacted about the photos by several other officers. Her attorney, Lisa Bloom, said some officers had begun taking pictures of the explicit photos, rather than sharing them through text message, to avoid creating a record of who had access to the images. Reedys attorney, Michael Williamson, declined to comment after the hearing. The officer is on administrative leave pending an investigation, said Josh Rubenstein, the LAPDs chief spokesman. Bloom said a case has been presented to the Los Angeles County district attorneys office for possible criminal charges against Reedy. In addition to the assault claims, Reedys alleged sharing of sexually explicit photos could violate Californias revenge porn law. Under the 2013 law, it is a crime for someone to intentionally disseminate explicit photos without the other persons consent, while knowing that the images will cause emotional distress. Advertisement Sgt. Shawna Celello, a spokeswoman for the Glendora Police Department, confirmed her agency had presented a case to the district attorneys office, but declined to offer specifics. Shiara Davila-Morales, a spokeswoman for the district attorneys office, confirmed her agency was conducting an investigation involving Reedy but would not discuss the details. Bloom also contended that several Los Angeles police officers were aware the explicit images were being shared, something they failed to report to the department. They failed to protect her, and thats a real problem, said Bloom, adding that a civil lawsuit could be filed at a later date. Rubenstein said the matter is the subject of an internal investigation and declined to comment further. Advertisement During a brief news conference after the hearing, Ysabel Villegas said she could not believe her 30-year career with the LAPD had devolved into abuse allegations and humiliation. This is the last thing that I wanted to do. Im so sad that it has come to this, she said. Bloom also alleged that the LAPD had unfairly transferred Villegas out of the elite Robbery-Homicide Division as a result of the allegations. Rubenstein declined to comment on the transfer because it is a personnel matter. Law enforcement is still too often a frat boy culture, Bloom said. Advertisement The allegations against Reedy are the latest in a series of sex-related scandals to either embarrass the department or provoke a criminal investigation in recent years. The city had to pay out $1.8 million last year to settle a lawsuit stemming from allegations that an internal affairs lieutenant ordered officers to conduct surveillance on a female subordinate who refused his sexual advances. In other cases, LAPD Officer Kenneth Collard was charged with sexually assaulting a minor in Torrance in May, and former LAPD Officer Robert Cain pleaded no contest to statutory rape in August, after he was accused of having sex with a 15-year-old member of the departments cadet program. An investigation into those claims revealed a wider scandal involving stolen police cars and wild car chases. Times staff writer Cindy Chang contributed to this report. Though the partial government shutdown over President Trumps quest for a border wall has gone on for weeks, closing most immigration courts among other federal services, many immigrants are still showing up for their hearings. Those hearings are postponed indefinitely. Once the court reopens, it will send out new dates for people to appear in court. Those hearings will probably be months or even years into the future because of how many cases are pending and judges schedules are already tightly packed. In the meantime, judges, their clerks and government attorneys go without paychecks, and the court backlog often called out by the Trump administration as a pull-factor for migrants to come to the U.S. continues to grow. Ashley Negrette, an immigration attorney in San Diego, has a client who came from Mexico in late 2016 and applied for asylum. Her first individual hearing, where the judge would hear the facts in her case to make a decision, was originally scheduled for June 2018, then rescheduled by the court for this week. Now its going to be bumped again. Advertisement Luckily, my client is patient and understands that she has to wait her turn, but these delays undeniably cause hardship for her emotionally and financially, Negrette said. The upside to the court closure, said immigration attorney Kirsten Zittlau, is that for clients who may eventually go on to lose their cases, the delay will buy them a little more time in the U.S. The downside is that for some who have a good chance of winning their cases if theyre heard now, witnesses memories may fade or conditions may change in the country they fled. Immigrants who dont have attorneys often dont know that the courts are closed. The voicemail for the San Diego court was never updated to reflect the closure caused by the partial shutdown. They take time off work and pay for downtown parking only to be turned around once they reach the 8th floor of the A Street building that houses San Diegos immigration court. A lone security guard contracted through a private company stands outside the courts double doors, patiently explaining through language barriers that the court is closed. Others know that hearings are canceled, but they come anyway out of anxiety that somehow they will still be deported if they dont. Liza Delarea took a day off work last week to accompany her friend from the Philippines to immigration court in downtown San Diego. We knew it was closed, but we had to make sure it was closed, Delarea said. If she doesnt come to court, its going to be on her, not them. Advertisement Delarea took a picture of her friend in front of the courts closed sign before they left as proof that she had been there. Its frustrating, Delarea said of the delay. We cant do anything about it. Saman Nasseri, an attorney who specializes in immigration and criminal defense, also came to take a photo of the courts closed sign to send to his clients. He hoped the visual would ease some of their fears. They dont understand what it means that the government is shut down, Nasseri said. Its been a little bit of a nightmare. Advertisement Hes already had six hearings canceled and has four trials coming up in the next two weeks, he said. Meanwhile, at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, Judge Scott Simpson briskly worked through more than a dozen cases one afternoon last week. While those who have been allowed to remain free while their cases progress will have their hearings rescheduled months or even years into the future, court continues for those held in immigration detention centers. As with other federal employees still showing up to do their jobs in affected agencies in recent weeks, Simpson wont be paid during the shutdown. Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Rico Bartolomei is the only judge working in San Diegos downtown court. The rest have been furloughed. Advertisement He heard four cases last week for unaccompanied minors who are being held at Southwest Key facilities contracted by the federal government. Those are considered detained cases. He also heard detained cases over video conference for detainees in Imperial County, Hawaii and Guam. Whether theyre furloughed or working without pay, the shutdown is frustrating for immigration judges, according to Ashley Tabaddor, head of the National Assn. of Immigration Judges. Theyve already been under pressure from the Trump administration to push through the backlog of cases numbering more than 800,000, and the shutdown is only adding to the bottleneck. This means that when we come back, our already ballooning dockets are going to become even more, and we dont even have time to be able to sit down and figure out what were going to do with the cases that were canceled because were going to come back to a calendar that is scheduled years out in advance, said Tabaddor, who hears cases in the Los Angeles court. Everything is booked. Advertisement Shes heard from judges who have had to borrow money to pay their bills. She worries about court staff as well. The only ones who are winning [in this situation] are the ones who dont have a good claim and would be happy to get a few years delay in their case, Tabaddor said. She said the agency that runs immigration courts, the Executive Office for Immigration Review, was already running short on money before the shutdown and was planning to scale back on in-person interpreters. It was shocking to find out that in spite of the massive growth of judges weve seen in the past two years, they hadnt accounted for fact that more judges means more hearings, which means more interpreters, Tabaddor said. Before they hire judges, they need to make sure they have the money to support those judges. Advertisement Jason Aguilar, chief counsel for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency whose attorneys represent the governments perspective in immigration cases, is the only government attorney working at the San Diego court. His staff have similarly been furloughed. Because of how long it can take to finish an asylum case, some hopeful immigrants move to other parts of the U.S. and then fly back for hearings because they already have attorneys here. Those travel plans have been complicated by the shutdown. Tammy Lin, a San Diego-based immigration attorney, said one of her clients flew in from Texas this week for a hearing that got canceled. The man has already waited more than two years to have his case heard. Attorney Elizabeth Lopez of the Southern California Immigration Project, who specializes in asylum cases from African countries, had two clients who were supposed to come from Minnesota and Texas this week for hearings as well. Advertisement The airlines agreed to let them rebook their flights within 90 days, Lopez said. She hopes that gives them enough time. Kate Morrissey writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Mayor Eric Garcetti crisscrossed the country last year, arguing that Los Angeles is setting an example by boosting the minimum wage and investing in public transit, a record he says stands in contrast to the dysfunction of Washington, D.C. But if Garcetti runs for president, he could also face uncomfortable questions about a topic that has gripped City Hall: Why are FBI agents seeking evidence of bribes, extortion and money laundering possibly involving L.A. city officials? And why are two of his appointees one current, one former being scrutinized in that probe? Two months after FBI agents raided the home and offices of City Councilman Jose Huizar, no one has been arrested and no charges have been publicly filed. But as new details emerge about the probe, the investigation could nonetheless be a drag on the careers of politicians looking to keep their jobs or move up the ladder. Advertisement Huizar has already experienced some of the political fallout: In the wake of the FBI raids, he was removed from four council committees, including the powerful panel he headed that vets large real estate development projects. His wife, Richelle Huizar, also pulled the plug on her own campaign for council in the weeks after the searches. But Huizar is not the only politician who could be affected. Investigators have also scrutinized other City Hall officials, according to a recently publicized warrant that sought records from Google. In that warrant, agents said they were seeking evidence of possible bribery, extortion, money laundering and other crimes involving more than a dozen people, including Councilman Curren Price and current and former aides to Garcetti, Council President Herb Wesson and Huizar. The warrant also named executives of Chinese firms bankrolling downtown development projects. READ MORE: FBI corruption probe of L.A. City Hall focuses on downtown development boom The warrant does not say the FBI has gathered evidence of criminal activity by any of the people or companies named in the document. But experts say that the whiff of scandal around City Hall could be fodder for political rivals if Garcetti launches his campaign for president, even if the mayor had no role in any alleged wrongdoing. It certainly doesnt help Eric Garcetti to be connected in any way to the FBI probe, said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst and former USC professor. It allows opponents to reflect on his leadership, his judgment of character. Im not saying its right but it can happen. Jeffe added that unease over the investigation could be a bigger problem in a national campaign, since many voters dont know him from Adam. Garcettis political advisor, Yusef Robb, said he did not believe the federal probe would be an obstacle in a campaign if Garcetti ran for president. Every candidate will be scrutinized and questioned about their record, their fundraising and, if they are in the business world, their investments, he said. Advertisement Garcetti said he had zero tolerance for unethical behavior at City Hall and that Angelenos deserve to have public servants who act with integrity. Garcettis former deputy mayor of economic development, Ray Chan, and current public works commissioner Joel Jacinto, a Garcetti appointee, were both named in the Google warrant, which sought records from a Gmail account used by Chan. When Garcetti tapped Chan as a deputy mayor in 2016, he said Chan was among the proven leaders with proven records at City Hall. Before that, Chan was serving under Garcetti as the head of the Department of Building and Safety, which oversees permitting and inspections for development projects. It is unclear whether investigators are looking at his activities before Chan left his city job. More recently, Chan has worked as a consultant with a firm called CCC Investment Group. Advertisement Asked if he was concerned that people he had appointed are named in the warrant, Garcetti told reporters, I am not responsible 100% for everybodys actions in this building, elected officials and staff. But I do take my responsibility seriously and expect every city employee to participate fully and cooperate fully with the FBI. Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at UC Berkeley, said that, as it stands, the homelessness crisis and the Los Angeles Unified School Districts teachers strike are probably bigger challenges for Garcetti politically. But Schnur said the investigation could become a distraction on the campaign trail, likening the situation to the questions that dogged former Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum, who was mayor of Tallahassee as that city was the focus of an FBI probe. Gillum was never implicated in anything, but he had to answer questions about it all through the campaign, Schnur said. Advertisement Wesson, who is running for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, is also facing questions about his chief of staff, Deron Williams, who is named on the FBI search warrant. Asked Monday if he worried the FBI probe could become a distraction during his campaign, Wesson replied, My concern is about the city of Los Angeles, not me personally. Wesson spoke briefly about the probe Monday during a speech at the Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum, telling the crowd he had been unaware of the newest revelations until they were reported in the media. He refused to answer questions from the audience about Huizar, including whether he regretted putting him in charge of the committee that vets development projects. Price, who represents part of South Los Angeles, also said he knew nothing about the federal warrant. Advertisement Among the records that agents were scrutinizing was a document that appeared to be a list of business deals for CCC Investment Group, the firm that has employed Chan, the former deputy mayor. That document mentioned a China trip involving CD9 a common abbreviation for the 9th district Price represents. It also included a reference to Del, which is the first name of his wife. Price spokeswoman Angelina Valencia said the councilman has no idea what that excerpt meant. No trips to China are being planned, she said. Price has not spoken to investigators and is not aware of any of the matters listed in the warrant, but will cooperate with any investigation, Valencia added. Advertisement Jill Stewart, executive director of the Coalition to Preserve L.A., said it is still unclear how Price fits into the investigation. Nevertheless, she argued that Price should voluntarily step off the committee that vets development projects to make things as squeaky clean as possible. Her group, which is critical of planning decisions at City Hall, has called for the county grand jury to investigate how unusually large projects are approved. The information sought by the FBI in some cases quite broad, in others extraordinarily specific has troubling implications. The Google search warrant said investigators also were gathering information on bank accounts kept by Huizar relatives and possible hotel stays in Las Vegas. Beyond the warrant, an as-yet-unknown number of real estate developers have received grand jury subpoenas seeking information on meals, gifts, travel and other freebies that may have been provided to Huizar, his staff and his colleagues on the council, according to sources familiar with the FBI instructions. Advertisement The FBI investigation could also affect politicians beyond City Hall. The Google warrant also named George Esparza, a former Huizar aide who now works for Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo (D-Los Angeles). Esparza told The Times on Sunday that he stopped working for Huizar because he was profoundly uncomfortable with the councilmans activities. Carrillo told The Times that she trusts Esparza and has known him for 10 years. She said Esparza previously told her about the FBI probe and indicated that things went on in the councilmans office but he did not get more specific, Carrillo said. Im confident that hes dedicated to doing the work right now as my chief of staff and serving the constituents of the assembly district, she said. The probe could also help revive a proposal, long championed by Councilman David Ryu, to restrict political donations from real estate developers to city candidates. The plan was trumpeted by several council members two years ago as the city headed for a showdown over a ballot measure that would have cracked down on development. Advertisement But the plan languished at City Hall and was tabled by the Ethics Commission. Ryu said Monday that he plans to resurrect the idea. Ryu said his new proposal will also seek to restrict behested payments donations solicited by politicians for charities and other causes from developers. Federal investigators examining Huizar have instructed developers to turn over information on donations they made to Bishop Mora Salesian High School. The Times previously reported that Huizar had asked companies that do business at City Hall to donate to the school while his wife was working there as a paid fundraiser. This problem isnt going away and its real, Ryu said of the lack of public trust in local politicians. We have to address this problem head-on. Advertisement Times staff writers Dakota Smith and Doug Smith contributed to this report. emily.alpert@latimes.com Twitter: @AlpertReyes Authorities in Butte County are investigating whether the overdose of three people at Gold Country Casino on Monday morning is related to a mass overdose in Chico over the weekend that left one man dead and more than a dozen others hospitalized. A woman and two men, who were at the Oroville casino with a 5-month-old child, were taken to a hospital after showing signs of a drug overdose, the Butte County Sheriffs Department said. Authorities suspect they used heroin and said all three are now stable. The child was also taken to a hospital and is stable. Investigators are working to determine where the drugs came from and whether fentanyl was involved. Advertisement We are concerned that the potency of the illegal drugs on the street right now is very high or the possibility of the drugs being laced with another substance, which is causing these overdoses, Sheriff Kory Honea said in a statement. The incident comes after a man named Aris Turner died and several others overdosed at a Chico home Saturday. Police and firefighters responded shortly after 9 a.m. to the 1100 block of Santana Court and found several people in varying states of consciousness, Chico Police Chief Michael OBrien told reporters. The first two officers who arrived at the scene began to administer CPR and gave doses of naloxone, which is used to treat narcotic overdoses. OBrien said officers began carrying the drug last year because they often deal with heroin overdoses. OBrien said paramedics took about 12 people, aged 19 to 30, to Enloe Medical Center. The two Chico police officers who had arrived at the scene first were also taken to a hospital after saying they felt ill, OBrien said. They were treated and released. Authorities believe the mass overdose was caused by the ingestion of fentanyl or a similar drug. Fresno police were also investigating a fatal fentanyl incident in which three men were found unconscious last week on the floor of an apartment in the 900 block of Van Ness in Fresno. One died and two others were treated at Community Regional Medical Center and released, authorities said. The survivors told investigators that they had bought and cut up what they thought was powdered cocaine. Within two minutes of ingesting it, all three men began feeling light-headed and dizzy, said Deputy Chief Pat Farmer of the Fresno Police Department. A toxicology test showed the drug was pure fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that authorities said can be fatal even in small doses because it is often 50 times more potent than heroin. Advertisement Fortunately for them, a neighbor came to visit his friends at this apartment, saw them passed out on the ground and called 911, Farmer said. Its unclear whether the Fresno and Chico cases are related. The message that we want to get out to the community is that you dont know what youre purchasing. If youre going to be buying drugs on the street, you dont know what theyre cutting it with. In this instance, it was fentanyl, Farmer said. We knew that there was lot of cases on the East Coast and in the mid-United States and it was making its way to the West Coast. Well, we can say with certainty that its here. alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com Advertisement Twitter: @AleneTchek Los Angeles became the latest flash point for the national standoff between educators and public school districts on Monday, as national Democratic Party leaders aligned themselves with thousands of striking teachers in L.A. and the broader labor movement. The walkout by teachers, many wearing cardinal-red ponchos and carrying umbrellas as they marched in the rain through downtown L.A., drew support from several high-profile Democrats, including those with an interest in running for president in 2020. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has launched an exploratory committee for the 2020 presidential race, singled out members of United Teachers Los Angeles and Los Angeles Unified School District in a tweet Monday, writing, Im with our teachers all the way. Another possible presidential contender, Californias Sen. Kamala Harris, also tweeted her support, saying Los Angeles teachers work day in and day out to inspire and educate the next generation of leaders. Advertisement Mondays strike provided an opportunity for Democrats to reaffirm their support for public school teachers, particularly at a time when the national party is trying to recast itself as a protector of the middle class and when unions are losing power. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that teachers and other public employees cannot be forced to pay dues or fees to support their unions. The ruling has jeopardized the funding and membership of labor groups, who traditionally support Democrats. At the same time, the L.A. teachers union is facing legal and political challenges to its influence. The number of privately operated charter schools is growing, competing with district-run schools for enrollment. In 2017, pro-charter-school groups spent heavily on candidates they supported for election to the Los Angeles Unified school board. On Monday, United Teachers Los Angeles President Alex Caputo-Pearl highlighted Californias economic inequities and its Democratic majority among public officeholders, saying that the walkout was happening in a state as blue as it can be and in a city rife with millionaires. The strike, expected to affect nearly half a million students, followed similar walkouts by teachers in West Virginia, Arizona and other predominately red states. If strikes in some of those states were viewed as part of an anti-Trump wave, the action by L.A. teachers is more complex, given the powerful role unions continue to hold in left-leaning California. Also, leaders of the school district agree with the union that more state money is needed at Los Angeles Unified. This isnt West Virginia and this isnt Wisconsin, said former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a onetime union organizer who has become a staunch supporter of charter schools. This is a pro-union state. The money is in Sacramento. The union wants higher pay, smaller class sizes and more support staff, but is at loggerheads with Los Angeles Unified School District, whose leaders say that if they met all the unions demands, the district would be pushed to insolvency. Advertisement The L.A. situation has nuances, but those details werent apparent in any of the broad calls for support for teachers that rolled in from across the country. Democratic National Committee Chairman and former U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez said Monday that he stands with the Los Angeles teachers marching for the pay, resources, and working conditions they deserve. New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez praised the teachers on Twitter for taking a stand, calling them the unsung heroes of American democracy. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who is contemplating a White House run, told reporters at City Hall that he hoped there would be a quick resolution to the strike. He also said the unions goals made for a righteous cause. Advertisement Garcettis comments were in line with what other Democrats said, but the mayor is in a much more complicated position. He cant antagonize Los Angeles Unified Supt. Austin Beutner, who he is negotiating with to try to end the impasse. dakota.smith@latimes.com Twitter: @dakotacdsmith Staff writer Howard Blume contributed to this report. Los Angeles County supervisors inserted themselves into the LAUSD teachers strike on Tuesday, approving a vague, nonbinding plan to provide $10 million for healthcare at schools and to create programs for the thousands of students who are missing class during the impasse. The Board of Supervisors, which doesnt have control over the Los Angeles Unified School District, but does fund some student health centers, approved a measure to seek the additional funds to help pay for more nurses one sticking point in the negotiations between the school district and striking teachers. The county already provides some funding for school-based wellness centers in middle and high schools. The new plan would expand that to elementary schools, county officials said. FULL COVERAGE: LAUSD teachers strike Advertisement Proposed by Supervisors Mark Ridley-Thomas and Hilda Solis, the measure instructs the countys Department of Mental Health to find $10 million for enhanced mental health care and other wellness programs at LAUSD. It also directs county officials to work with schools to hire more health professionals. What we hope to do is give help to students and teachers, Ridley-Thomas said during the meeting Tuesday. The consciousness that emerges here, now, is that we have a responsibility to the well-being of the residents of the county of Los Angeles and surely that includes young people, students and, particularly, the schools. To the extent we can collaborate, I think its highly appropriate. The measure doesnt identify specific sources for funding and it doesnt bind the county to spending a specific amount. However, county staff said they will report back to the Board of Supervisors by spring with a detailed plan, which could include opening as many as 50 more student wellness centers across LAUSD and some other school districts an effort that began well before the strike. Its not just to help for the school district, said Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. Its not only an extension of our mission, but another way to accomplish our mission. All five members of the board, who voted unanimously for the measure, seemed to embrace the concept of the county spending more on mental health care in schools, which, historically, have had financial autonomy from the county. They cant do it on their own, said Supervisor Kathryn Barger. We may have to reinvent the wheel in terms of how we go about providing comprehensive services to our students. Separately, the board adopted a plan calling on county agencies to identify programs to occupy students during the strike, which has disrupted family schedules across Los Angeles as teachers forgo the classroom to push for higher pay, smaller class sizes and other demands. Advertisement Teachers, undeterred by more rain, flood picket lines for Day 2 of the LAUSD strike Solis, a former U.S. secretary of Labor who proposed the measure, called the strike a crisis. She urged officials to publicize kid-friendly programs and places, such as the countys recreation centers, parks and libraries as well as other services offered in partnership with the county, such as Metro transit and regional museums, which are already offering free or discounted ticketsduring the strikes. Both measures, proposed Friday, werent crafted entirely as a direct response to the LAUSD teachers strike, some officials said. But they do allow the five-member board each of whom represents roughly 2 million Los Angeles County residents a chance to weigh in politically on an event that is affecting thousands of families across the region with no end in sight. Canadian drug smuggler Robert Lloyd Schellenberg attends the court for his retrial on Monday at the Intermediate People's Court of Dalian in Northeast Chinas Liaoning Province. Photo: courtesy of Dalian Intermediate People's Court A court in Dalian, Northeast Chinas Liaoning Province on Monday sentenced Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg to death for smuggling drugs and participating in organized international drug trafficking. Schellenberg, 36, was convicted of smuggling 222.035 kilograms of meth. All of his personal property will be confiscated, the Intermediate People's Court of Dalian announced at Mondays retrial, 16 days after the Liaoning Provincial High People's Court sent back the case. Prosecutors claimed that Schellenberg was the primary culprit in the attempt to smuggle 222.035 kilograms of meth to Australia and was also suspected of participating in an organized international drug trafficking syndicate. Canadian drug smuggler Robert Lloyd Schellenberg attends the court for his retrial on Monday at the Intermediate People's Court of Dalian in Northeast Chinas Liaoning Province. Photo: courtesy of Dalian Intermediate People's Court According to the prosecutors, they received tips from a man surnamed Xu, who was the contact of Canadian Camela (pronunciation) in Dalian and helped him buy tires and rent warehouses to store the meth without knowing the truth. Xu, the witness, told the court that he picked up Schellenberg under instructions from Camela and accompanied him to buy tools in warehouse mall. The court said Schellenberg tried to conceal the meth in tires and transport them to Australia. Meanwhile, Schellenberg was also found to have connections with two other drug smugglers surnamed Jian and Mai with financial support from the same source. Jian and Mai were sentenced by the Intermediate Peoples Court in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. The court said prosecutors produced new criminal facts, and that the verdict did not violate the principle of no additional punishment for appeal. The new criminal facts refer that Schellenberg was not only the major culprit of drug smuggling but also engaged in organized international drug trafficking. Lin Wei, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who attended the trial, told the reporter that according to Chinas Criminal Law, the suspects who engage in extremely serious drug crimes shall be sentenced to death. This also applies to foreign criminals, he said. Schellenberg showed up in court wearing a white sweater. He looked calm after hearing the verdict. He claimed in court that he was framed by Xu and had nothing to do with the case. I am innocent and I am only a tourist. I did not buy tires and rent warehouses, he claimed. Photo: courtesy of Dalian Intermediate People's Court Schellenberg's attorney Zhang Dongshuo told the Global Times in court that his meetings with the defendant were guaranteed and carried out smoothly every time. Zhang said Schellenberg changed his lawyer and chose him based on the recommendation of the Canadian Embassy, and the embassy has been closely following the case. Three staff members from the embassy attended the court and they refused to make any comments. Legal experts said it conforms to the legal procedure that the retrial was conducted so soon. The Dalian Intermediate Peoples Court heard the case on March 15, 2016, and the first sentence of 15 years in jail was slapped on him on November 20, 2018 for drug trafficking and his personal property of 150,000 yuan seized, and ordered that he be expelled from China. Schellenberg appealed after the first sentence. He entered China on November 19, 2014 and was detained by police on December 1, 2014 in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province when he was trying to leave for Thailand. The proceedings started at 8 am and ended at 8 pm. Mayor Eric Garcetti said Monday that he is disappointed the LAUSD strike wasnt avoided, yet he remains hopeful an agreement can be reached by the end of the week or early next week. Speaking at a City Hall news conference on the first day of the strike, Garcetti told reporters he has played an active role in negotiations and has focused on the strike threat for the last two weeks. He said he has also spoken with Gov. Gavin Newsom, who he said expressed a willingness to help. This is the time to make an agreement, Garcetti said. There is not much that separates the two sides. There has been movement toward what the teachers have demanded and what the district can afford. Garcetti spoke empathetically about the teachers and appeared to criticize Supt. Austin Beutner for discussing the districts position. Advertisement Surprising people by press conferences isnt useful, he said. Im immensely proud of Los Angeles teachers today for standing up for what I believe is a righteous cause. I believe that lower class size, thats a righteous cause, he continued. I believe that support staff to keep our children healthy, to keep them counseled well for their college and their careers is a righteous cause. And I think that making sure we improve the schools we have instead of opening new ones is also a just and right cause. About 50,000 educators and supporters gathered in front of City Hall on Monday, with rain coats and umbrellas ready, before marching to the LAUSD headquarters. It was a sight Garcetti called electrifying. It gives me more energy for making sure we can get a just fair and responsible contract for our teachers and get teachers and students back to school, back to the classroom where they belong, he said. Garcetti outlined five goals he has been pushing for in his discussions: fair wages, smaller class size, support staff, new schools and district structure. We cant have a nurse one day a week and call that healthcare, he said of school support staff. Times staff writer Alejandra Reyes-Velarde contributed to this report. The latest on the LAUSD teachers strike As teachers braved the rain to strike in Los Angeles on Monday, politicians across California voiced their support for United Teachers Los Angeles. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the California Democratic Party and several members of the state Legislature encouraged negotiators to work toward a speedy resolution that prioritizes both educators and students. In a statement, he promoted the additional funding for education included in his proposed budget. This impasse is disrupting the lives of too many kids and their families, he said. I strongly urge all parties to go back to the negotiating table and find an immediate path forward that puts kids back into classrooms and provides parents certainty. Newsoms proposed budget, introduced last week, would help pay down billions of dollars in pension obligations carried by the school district, as well as provide funding for special education and early childhood education. Advertisement The budget also makes substantial additional investments in counties and providers by supporting children experiencing mental illness and investing in homelessness services all of which can translate into additional services and support for children served by LAUSD, the governor said in the statement. Alexandra Gallardo Rooker, the acting chair of the state Democratic Party, released a statement expressing her admiration for UTLAs goals to reduce class sizes and improve compensation for staff, although she said no one wants to see a strike. Californias students deserve to have teachers and school staff who are equipped with the resources necessary to help them succeed, she said. And on behalf of the California Latino Legislative Caucus, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego) praised teachers for going on strike to support their students. This strike is a measure of last resort, but one that is critical to ensuring the teachers in the nations second-largest school district are adequately compensated and have the resources they need to do their critical work for our children, she said. The latest on the LAUSD teachers strike Los Angeles teachers work day in and day out to inspire and educate the next generation of leaders. I'm standing in solidarity with them as they strike for improved student conditions, such as smaller class sizes and more counselors and librarians. https://t.co/WcUdrSOk7D Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 14, 2019 I stand in solidarity w/ @UTLAnow teachers in their fight for fair pay, smaller classroom sizes & stipends for materials and supplies. Teaching is one of the most valuable and indispensable professions. We need to treat educators with respect and dignity.https://t.co/NKrqvxXO3e Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 9, 2019 Advertisement alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com Twitter: @r_valejandra Not long after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Californias ban on foie gras, making it again illegal to produce or sell in this state, chef Tim Hollingsworth took to Instagram. Below a gorgeous video of the making of the foie gras funnel cake that was a signature dish at his Los Angeles restaurant Otium, Hollingsworth wrote a paean: Saying goodbye @otiumla to our Foie Gras Funnel Cake, a dish that was on the menu at Otium since day one. It received so much love and press for its nostalgia, taste and beauty Maybe youll see it again in another state or country. Hollingsworth has not been alone, as chefs across the city have spent the week since the Jan. 7 decision erasing the dishes from their menus and reflecting on what that absence means for their restaurants and, often, a culinary tradition. Its a tradition that many had fought for since the legal battle began, years ago. In 2004, Californias Senate passed a controversial bill that banned the force-feeding of ducks and geese, called gavage, that produces foie gras, a culinary delicacy. The ban wasnt enforced until 2012, sparking a long battle between chefs and animal rights groups and activists, who contend that the feeding method, in which corn is fed to the birds to purposefully enlarge their livers, is cruel. Many chefs, farmers and food writers have argued that that interpretation is anthropomorphism run amok that ignores centuries of agricultural tradition and the physiognomy of ducks and geese, many of which gorge themselves before migratory flights. In 2015, a Los Angeles District Court judge ruled that the state prohibition was at odds with the federal Poultry Products Inspection Acts, and struck it down. In 2017, the decision was reversed and the case went to the Supreme Court which finally declined to hear the challenge. In an op-ed last week, The Times declared that the pate party is over as it should be. Advertisement And so, California seems to be at the end of an era. Obviously, Im very disappointed, said Josiah Citrin, chef-owner of the fine dining French restaurant Melisse in Santa Monica, who took his dish of foie gras terrine with persimmons and yuzu off the menu when his restaurant opened last Tuesday. 15 years later its crazy, but Im not going to get in a lawsuit about it. Citrin, who trained in France, remembers foie gras as a special-occasion dish for his French grandparents, which is a tradition he loved continuing at his California restaurant. Foie gras has been a celebratory thing at Melisse. Caviar, lobster, foie gras, truffles: People look for these things for a celebratory occasion. But in the grand scheme of life, there are a lot bigger things to fight over. I mean, look: Its the Supreme Court. I cant choose what laws I follow and dont follow. Maybe Ill just eat it at home now. A diner spreads foie gras onto bread during lunch at the Presidio Social Club restaurant in San Francisco. (Eric Risberg / Associated Press) Chef Tony Esnault, who grew up on his own grandparents farms in the Loire Valley, is a bit more circumspect about the ban on the traditional food. Ive been cooking foie for many years I love to make terrines with it but everything changes, said Esnault, who runs the French bistro Church & State in downtown Los Angeles and is opening Knife Pleat, a French restaurant at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. next year. Its not the end of the world, says Esnault, who sees the issue as one of sustainability rather than tradition. You need to find new ingredients, because the world is changing and we need to adapt. Esnault, who went to culinary school in Lyon and cooked for Alain Ducasse for many years, says he took foie gras off his menu even before the ban. Its more stuck on the problem than the solution. You need to find solutions, you can maybe use monkfish liver instead. We have a great chicken liver mousse at Church & State. At home. we eat vegetables, grains and less and less animal protein. Advertisement An employee feeds a duck at Hudson Valley Duck Farm in Ferndale, N.Y. (Don Emmert / AFP/Getty Images) Ludo Lefebvre, the Los Angeles-based French chef who trained with Marc Meneau and Pierre Gagnaire, now runs the Trois Mec and Petit Trois restaurants, and whose Big Mec double cheeseburger was famously sauced with an epic foie gras bordelaise, had this to say: I wont get deep into the politics, but I believe the entire gavage process is misunderstood and sensationalized for shock value. But the law is the law; I have pulled foie gras off all my menus. I absolutely support animal rights and the ethical treatment of animals. I could 100% get behind PETAs efforts to go after big cattle and chicken production and make some changes in this world that actually make a difference, not only to the rights of the animals but that have a health impact on the majority of our population. So for now, cest la vie. I will miss foie gras. Hollingsworth, who spent 13 years at Thomas Kellers fine dining palace the French Laundry before opening Otium, says that while the foie gras funnel cake helped define his own restaurant and was one of the most popular dishes on the menu, hes stopped serving it and will see how this plays out. Advertisement Hollingsworth added: So while I will personally miss the ingredient and the dish, I dont love the controversy around it. I think food should be a unifier amongst us, not something that makes us fight or tears us apart. amy.scattergood@latimes.com Instagram: @AScattergood Following in the footsteps of Rachel Zoe, Brandon Maxwell, Karla Welch and many more, another red carpet stylist is getting into the fashion design game. Jason Rembert, whose clients include Issa Rae, John Boyega, Odell Beckham Jr., Zayn Malik, Rita Ora and Ezra Miller among others, will be launching a womens eveningwear collection named Aliette on Feb. 13 at New York Fashion Week. Rae debuted a look from the collection at Sundays Critics Choice Awards, a black, three-quarter sleeve corset dress with high slit. The line is inspired by the strong, intelligent and beautiful women that Im surrounded by daily, Rembert told WWD. Issa Rae arrives for the 24th Annual Critics Choice Awards in Santa Monica. (Nina Prommer / EPA-EFE / REX / Shutterstock) Advertisement Rembert, who was honored as Stylist of the Year by Harlems Fashion Row in September, has had many notable red styling moments, outfitting Insecure star Rae exclusively in black designers to host the CFDA Awards in June, styling Miller in gender-bending statement pieces, including a white feather Givenchy cape, during his Fantastic Beasts press tour, and helping Ora cultivate her London girl look. The market is full of options, but I feel like my view is unique, added the New York-based stylist, noting that the plan is to sell to select retail partners and build a direct-to-consumer business e-com with the first season. He decided to debut the collection, which he is funding himself, on Rae, because apart from my late mother Louisanne Aliette and my beautiful daughter Harper Aliette, Issa has inspired me daily since Ive began working with her. She is the epitome of the strong and intelligent women that I hope to reach with Aliette. A Queens native, Rembert has previously collaborated with Uri Minkoff on a nine-piece collection of travel accessories. Bette Midler is among the numerous admirers who are paying homage to Carol Channing, the unsinkable Broadway legend who originated the role of matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi in the musical Hello, Dolly! For Midler, who revived the role of Dolly in the 2017 Broadway production and earned a Tony Award for the part, there was only one Carol Channing, and there will never be another, she said in a lengthy statement to The Times on Tuesday. Channing died on Tuesday at the age of 97, and tributes from Hollywood to Broadway spoke highly of the beloved actress, just as Midler did. She was that rarest of stage creatures, an absolute original. From her instantly recognizable voice to her stature, which was close to 6 feet, with her wide-eyed take on the world she crept into theater-goers hearts and took up permanent residence there, Midler said. Advertisement She also recalled a particularly memorable afternoon with Channing. When Scott Rudin invited me to play Dolly in 2016, I immediately thought of her and went to visit. How could I not? She had played the part over 7,000 times around the world, and to the world, she WAS Dolly. It was one of the great afternoons of my life. She was gracious and she was generous, sharing with me the legends, the lore and the mechanics of Dolly, much of which had been lost in time, Midler added. I will forever be grateful to her for lighting my way to one of the most magical experiences of my performing life, and for the hours I spent in her company. I flat-out adored her and send her fans, her friends and her son, Channing Lowe, my condolences, although as far as I am concerned, she will live forever. Midler stepped away from the show in 2018, and Broadway star Bernadette Peters took over the titular role. On Twitter, Peters honored Channing by saying that she was show business and love personified. She was show business and love personified https://t.co/isNzReB733 Bernadette Peters (@OfficialBPeters) January 15, 2019 Carol was a true life-forcea kind and effervescent woman who never allowed the parade to pass her by! xo B pic.twitter.com/C2WSCsYZbl Barbra Streisand (@BarbraStreisand) January 15, 2019 Another famous Dolly, Barbra Streisand, who portrayed the character in the popular 1969 film adaptation, also paid her respects on Twitter. Carol was a true life-force a kind and effervescent woman who never allowed the parade to pass her by! Streisand wrote. Advertisement The musical is still being staged across the U.S., and its touring cast, including new star Betty Buckley, said Tuesdays performance in San Diego would be dedicated to Channing. We are deeply saddened by the passing of the one and only Carol Channing. She was a Dolly for the ages, and a true icon of the American Theater. Betty Buckley and the cast will dedicate tonights performance in San Diego to her memory. #HelloDolly pic.twitter.com/gKh0BNV6px Hello, Dolly! on Tour (@HelloDollyBway) January 15, 2019 Follow me: @NardineSaad How old is Dolly Gallagher Levi? The question arises whenever Hello, Dolly! is performed. The character is described in Thornton Wilders The Matchmaker, the basis of the musicals book, as a woman of an uncertain age. That provides a lot of casting leeway. Barbra Streisand was only 25 when she starred in the movie. Betty Buckley, now on tour with the recent Broadway revival at age 71, is a couple years younger than Bette Midler, who won a 2017 Tony for her performance in Jerry Zaks delicious revival. Broadway wags, however, have the best answer to this musical theater mystery. How old is Dolly Gallagher Levi? Whatever age Carol Channing happens to be at the time. Channing, who died Tuesday at her home in Rancho Mirage at age 97, was the original and for many the only Dolly. The actress unique combination of qualities the gawky glamour, the loony seductiveness, the killer comic timing found a welcoming home in the role of the fast-talking New York widow, a matchmaker with a business card for every occasion. Advertisement One of a kind, Channing was a like a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Gracie Allen, with a personality voice that could make a tune completely her own. When she sang, pixie dust shot into the air. She was an Al Hirschfeld cartoon sprung into swooning life. Channing in 1967, displaying a poster noting that Hello, Dolly! had sold out in Houston. (Ed Kolenovsky / Associated Press) RELATED: Bette Midler remembers one of the great afternoons of my life with Carol Channing Broadway fell in love with Channing as Lorelei in the 1949 musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. One song from the show, Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend, became her signature number. She was one of the few actresses who could make avarice adorable and gold-digging seem sweetly innocent. Walter Kerr, dean of the drama critics, was bowled over when he saw her in an updated version of the show, retitled Lorelei: The performer is not only a marvel to look at, shes equipped. Again and again in Lorelei she took a line that might well have laid there and played arpeggios on it, falsetto to bass, making it come out music, the night music of near-madness. Some doubted after Gentlemen Prefer Blondes whether Channing would ever find a role that would allow her to dazzle as daffily as Lorelei. She wasnt the first choice for Jerry Herman and Michael Stewarts new show Hello, Dolly! Producer David Merrick went to Ethel Merman and Mary Martin before eventually offering the role to Channing. She was in good hands with director and choreographer Gower Champion, who helped launch her career in the 1948 revue Lend an Ear. Dolly is a comic confection with genuine feelings; her zaniness conceals a soul. For all Channings artificiality, she was always giddily and gorgeously human. Farcical fun was her strong suit, but she wouldnt let the parade pass her by without feeling the ephemeral beauty of what she saw. Merman and Martin, no doubt inspired by what they saw, eagerly signed up for Hello, Dolly! tour of duties. Advertisement No one could claim a monopoly on a show that will always be with us, but whenever Channing stepped back into the role, audiences were there to appreciate the magical confluence. In her last tour, she was in her mid-70s. So what? Dolly Levi is a woman of uncertain age, and Carol Channing was a Dolly for all seasons. Carol Channing in an undated Times photo taken in San Francisco. (Los Angeles Times) charles.mcnulty@latimes.com Follow me @charlesmcnulty The Craft & Folk Art Museum is losing an ampersand and gaining a new name: The Wilshire Boulevard museum will announce Tuesday that it will go by Craft Contemporary, effective immediately. The new name is an attempt to better reflect what the museum has been emphasizing of late: the intersection of contemporary art, craft and design, as opposed to historical exhibitions or dedicated folk art shows. The name Craft Contemporary looks brightly to the future and plants us in the now, executive director Suzanne Isken said. The now may be more appealing to new and younger audiences. The museums visitorship and membership have tripled since 2011; it drew about 36,000 visitors in 2018 and has almost 900 members. A hipper and more accessible name, the museum said, will signal fresh and relevant to a greater numbers of visitors. Advertisement Of course wed love to keep growing and attracting more people. Is that part of the name change? Absolutely, Isken said. Its true that to a number of people, our board members say, that when they say craft and folk museum, people have an association to something very old and very dusty. The cut paper and multimedia installation Of night and light and the half-light by Chris Natrop was part of the Craft & Folk Art Museums 2015 Paperworks show. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times) Folk art is a tricky phrase, Isken said, one that conjures different meanings for different people. Its historical, its international, its traditional, its so many things, Isken said. That can be confusing to visitors, she said. As a noncollecting museum, Craft Contemporary doesnt have the same commitment to historical works that other museums might, though it does plan to offer educational programs about the history of craft. Were looking more at the process, the hands-on, the materiality, she said. And we felt that by calling ourselves the Craft & Folk Art Museum, that it was a little limiting. Cross-disciplinary artists, experimentation within mediums and the blurring of lines between formerly siloed categories of art, such as outsider art, all point to a trend away from categorization, Isken said. We feel like folk is a kind of craft; we dont see it as a separate category, she said. All this stuff folk art, craft, contemporary art, fine art, high art, low art, street art it all comes together in one category: art. So for us, those categories arent useful anymore. If youre weaving in Oaxaca, its craft. The change, Isken said, isnt meant to signal a shift in programming. What youve seen here over the last eight years is what youll continue to see, she said. Iskens museum has aimed to blur boundaries, she said, showing fine artists working in glass, metal, cut paper and even sugar alongside craft artists working conceptually. In 2015 it showed functional sculptural works by L.A. shoe designer Chris Francis, in 2016 it exhibited the painter and performance artist Gronks work in theatrical set design, and in 2017 it showed artist Betye Saars washboard assemblage works. Advertisement From the 2017 Betye Saar exhibition Keepin It Clean at the Craft & Folk Art Museum. (Carolina A. Miranda / Los Angeles Times) Art historian and craft specialist Jenni Sorkin said the new name is not only more fitting but also a branding necessity in the current Los Angeles museum landscape. The surrounding Miracle Mile neighborhoods profile is rising. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures plans to open later this year, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art aims to break ground on its new building early next year, opening in 2024 shortly after a new subway line deposits even more visitors into the area. Theyre the only space in the city other than the Craft in America Center, a small storefront space thats very under-recognized, focused on showing contemporary craft, Sorkin said. So I think this focuses and consolidates the mission to acknowledge studio craft history but moving forward into the 21st century. The name change will be the institutions second in 53 years. Artist and patron (and actor Noah Wyles grandmother) Edith Robinson Wyle founded a cafe and commercial gallery, the Egg & the Eye, in 1965. When it transitioned to a nonprofit museum in 1973, it was renamed the Craft & Folk Art Museum. Advertisement Rebranding, particularly in a social media-driven marketing landscape, is no small feat, and challenges lie ahead. For better or worse, the museum is known as CAFAM (pronounced as CAFF-am) and may lose traction in Google searches when the URL changes. But the awkward acronym was always an issue, Isken said. It doesnt mean anything. If you dont know us, what is CAFAM? It could be OXFAM, it could be ANYFAM, she joked. Pushback to the name change will be inevitable. Some may see it as a dis to folk art or worry who will educate the public about folk traditions. At a time when Los Angeles is seeing more contemporary ceramics, textiles, fashion and furniture design displayed in art galleries and design boutiques, and is seeing more contemporary art museums open here, does the city need another museum focusing on contemporary artists? Will some object to what appears to be a turn away from folk art or art from non-Western cultures? Theres always pushback because were going forward, Isken said. But theres nothing in our name or our mission that says we wouldnt show work from non-Western cultures. We aim to be more diverse. Advertisement Diluting the focus on folk art could create an opportunity for other institutions such as the Fowler Museum at UCLA, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana or LACMA, which is currently exhibiting Outliers and American Vanguard Art, a show partly about folk art. Thats what makes L.A. such a rich, cultural landscape, Isken said, all the choices. Anthony Sonnenbergs Vase (My Kind of Witches Cauldron) 2017, porcelain, stoneware, found ceramic objects, glaze and underglaze. It was part of CAFAMs inaugural clay biennial, Melting Point. (Anthony Sonnenberg) To mark its name change, Craft Contemporary will stage two free panels this spring: one addressing the history of the museum and the other, at which Sorkin will appear, on the future of craft. The first shows to debut under the new name will be Trinidad / Joy Station, a solo exhibition of work by L.A.-based Salvadoran artist Beatriz Cortez, and the third iteration of the Farhang Foundation biennial, Focus Iran 3: Contemporary Photography and Video, which this year spotlights Iranian youth. Both exhibitions open Jan. 27. Advertisement In 2018 the museum launched a ceramics biennial, Melting Point, which featured more than 27 living American artists experimenting with clay processes. In January 2020, Craft Contemporary will stage the second iteration of the biennial, The Body, the Object, the Other, focusing on representational forms in clay. A new website is coming this April, at which point the museum will commission an artist to redo its facade. Were thinking of craft as a verb the process of making, of turning materials and ideas into something, Isken said. Thats what defines us going forward. Advertisement deborah.vankin@latimes.com Follow me on Twitter: @debvankin This already was going to be a challenging year to fill out your federal tax returns after major tax-law changes took effect in 2018. Then the political dispute over the U.S.-Mexico border wall sent most Internal Revenue Service workers home last month. For the record: An earlier version of this article reported that Mark W. Everson served as IRS commissioner from 2000 to 2007. He served from 2003 to 2007. Now, with the government partially shut down as tax-filing season approaches Jan. 28, theres growing concern about whether a skeletal staff of IRS employees can handle the workload. The Trump administration said Tuesday that it would call about 36,100 additional IRS employees back to work without pay to process tax refunds. Advertisement But even if the shutdown ends soon and the agency gets back to full staff, the damage to this tax season might already have taken place because of less training time for IRS employees, difficulty hiring seasonal workers to help process returns and a slowdown in getting crucial IRS guidance to tax preparers. Its the biggest tax reform change in 30 years. There are going to be many, many millions more questions that are asked. Youve got a shutdown. Youve got fewer employees, said Tony Reardon, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents IRS workers. To me, he said, that is all a big brew that spells potential trouble. The IRS already has difficulties processing the roughly 150 million annual individual tax returns because the agency has been hit by staff reductions and political controversy in recent years. On last years filing deadline, there was a partial failure of the IRS electronic system that enables Americans to submit their returns online. The problem kept millions of Americans from meeting the midnight deadline and led the IRS to grant a penalty-free, one-day extension. Filing season is busy and compressed and challenging for everyone on a normal basis, said Edward Karl, vice president of taxation for the American Institute of CPAs. This will be particularly challenging year. The IRS is among about a quarter of federal agencies whose funding lapsed on Dec. 22 after President Trump and congressional Democrats couldnt agree on appropriations because of Trumps demand for $5.7 billion to fund the border wall. Trump had promised repeatedly during his presidential campaign that Mexico would pay for the wall. About 70,000 IRS employees roughly 88% of the workforce were furloughed, according to the IRS initial shutdown contingency plan. Issuing tax refunds is not among the agency tasks that would be allowed during a shutdown, which are limited by law to activities that are necessary for the safety of human life or protection of government property, the Nov. 29 contingency report said. Advertisement Only 9,946 of the agencys employees, or about 12%, were exempted from the shutdown and required to work, the report said. But an outcry about the effects of delaying issuing tax refunds led the Trump administration to declare last week that it was changing course. The Office of Management and Budget cited a law that it said created permanent appropriations for the payment of tax refunds, and the IRS announced it will be recalling a significant portion of its workforce back to work. We are committed to ensuring that taxpayers receive their refunds notwithstanding the government shutdown, IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said last week. A revised shutdown contingency plan released Tuesday increased the number of employees exempted from the shutdown to 46,052, or about 57% of the IRS workforce. Advertisement To process refunds, Reardon had estimated, the IRS needed to recall about half of its furloughed employees. Theyll be required to work without pay until the shutdown ends. People are not happy, as you might imagine, about potentially going back to work without being paid, he said. While being furloughed is difficult enough, going back to work requires spending money on work-related expenses while getting no paycheck. What does it take to get to work: fuel, child care? he said. All of these things cost money money that you might not have. The union filed a lawsuit last week saying that forcing federal employees to work without pay violated the Constitution and that the Trump administration was using a too-broad definition of essential government services that required working without pay. Advertisement Reardon said he understood why some of his union members who work for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency were deemed essential employees despite the shutdown. But processing tax refunds in no way is protecting life and property, he said. The IRS will begin accepting tax returns on Jan. 28. Last year, the filing window opened on Jan. 29. By Feb. 3, about 18.3 million returns were submitted and most of those were processed. The IRS issued 6.2 million refunds in that first week. Overall, the IRS issued about 112 million refunds in 2017. The average refund was $2,895, according to the IRS. People expecting refunds tend to file early, while those who have to pay taxes usually wait until closer to the April deadline. Advertisement Handling tax filing season is always Job One for the IRS, said Mark W. Everson, who headed the agency from 2003 to 2007. It is always a challenge, he said. You start out with an agency that is already wounded from the recent years of low funding. It doesnt have adequate people resources or system resources. This year, the IRS must deal with the major changes from the Republican tax reform legislation enacted in late 2017, which requires additional training and analysis, said Everson, who now works as vice chairman of specialty tax services firm Alliantgroup. While the tax law simplified tax filing for millions of people, there also were many changes to rules for deductions and on business income, he said. Advertisement For those who continue to itemize and who are business owners, it didnt simplify things at all. It probably made things more complicated for most, Everson said. Tax preparers have been waiting for final IRS guidance on some changes in the 2017 tax law, and the shutdown could slow or prevent that information from being received in time. That could lead to more requests for filing extensions this year. The first priority at this time of the year is processing the returns, said Eric Toder, a former IRS official who now is co-director of the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank. My guess is putting out further guidance is going to take a back seat to that. People are just going to have to figure it out. Taxpayers calling the IRS to ask questions also could face problems depending on how those services are staffed if the shutdown continues. Advertisement In 2017, the IRS received nearly 96 million phone calls, according to the IRS independent National Taxpayer Advocate. About 77% were answered and the advocate reported 90% customer satisfaction. Its already a stretched-thin agency, Everson said. Youre taking real chances here the longer this goes on. jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com Twitter: @JimPuzzanghera Mike Schabel remembers eating peanut butter and tortillas to save money while he and his wife paid off about $100,000 in student debt. So two decades later, when Schabel now chief executive of Kiswe, a video-streaming start-up found himself trying to compete for recruits against technology giants such as Amazon and Google, he adopted a novel approach: offering to help chip away at student loans. Trying to get and keep top technical talent is important, said Schabel, whose firm employs 45 people on the East Coast and abroad. Kiswe lacks a Silicon Valley powerhouse budget, but Schabel hopes the perk will help his company stand out to job seekers in a historically tight labor market. Advertisement The country has more job openings than available applicants, so finding the right fit for open positions is tough, he said. Kiswe began making $50 monthly contributions for staffers with student debt this month. I have folks fresh out of school who are doing their ... best to make ends meet, Schabel said. Theyve put themselves in massive debt to come work for me. Approximately 1 in 4 adults in the United States holds student debt, and the collective total hit $1.5 trillion last year, according to Federal Reserve data. As interest rates and tuition rise, Americas student debt crisis could get much worse Economists say the burden prevents or delays some people from having children, buying homes and starting businesses. The Society for Human Resource Management, a trade group that annually surveys roughly 3,500 HR professionals about the benefits at their workplaces, said more companies are offering to help recruits with student loans but the value of that perk varies widely. International consulting firm PwC introduced the benefit in 2016, offering $1,200 annually directly to the loan provider for six years. About 8,700 employees have signed up, the company said. Advertisement Even employees with no student loan debt tell us they are proud of the pioneering benefit, the firms chief people officer, Michael Fenlon, said in an email. They are proud the firm is taking on such a complex, important issue in our society, especially one they see negatively affecting their own friends, family and colleagues. Insurance provider Aetna unrolled its student loan payment program in 2017, sending $2,000 a year to loan service companies, with a lifetime maximum of $10,000 per worker. More employers are considering adding the benefit as it becomes harder to fill vacancies, said Alison Sullivan, an economic data researcher at employment website Glassdoor. Employers know that a lot of workers are strapped with student loan debt and expect to be chipping away at that for decades, Sullivan said. Advertisement The load disproportionately weighs on women and minorities, according to a recent analysis of government data from the American Assn. of University Women: Women with bachelors degrees take on about $2,700 more in loans than their male counterparts, and black women carry more student debt than any other demographic group. How student loans can follow you to the grave David Aronson, founder of Peanut Butter, a Chicago start-up that helps companies run loan payment plans, said the benefit has been slow to catch on because loan payments still count as taxable income unlike college tuition assistance. (Aronson named his company after his reliance on peanut butter sandwiches during his financially lean years.) Plus, he said, many of todays business leaders graduated at a time when it was easier to pay for college with a part-time job. Advertisement But Aronson said the number of his clients doubled in 2018 to 300. They include employers in technology, financial services and corporate offices. He expects that growth to continue if the countrys unemployment rate stays below 4%, as it has done for the last six months. Executives are starting to realize that the burden of student debt is very different than when they came out of school, Aronson said. Still, workers of all ages feel stuck with student debt. Former President Obama, for instance, has revealed that he finally paid off his loans when he was in his 40s. Advertisement Brooke Wood, 48, a branch supervisor at an Alabama Credit Union office in Birmingham, said her five-figure balance was like a woolly mammoth she tried to ignore. I dont like to look over there very often, she said. She studied theater at the University of Alabama and yearned to launch an acting career in New York. But steady income eluded her. Interest charges stacked up. She moved back to the South for stability. Then, this year, her employer introduced a new benefit. Advertisement Wood now receives an extra $50 each month to chip away at her student debt a meaningful contribution on top of her $55,000 salary, she said. It makes me feel more valued, Wood said. It also takes away some of that shame. Paquette writes for the Washington Post. In announcing layoffs last week, SpaceX pointed to its bid for riskier markets providing broadband internet via thousands of small satellites and building a spaceship for Mars transportation. What went unsaid was that the companys money-generating business of launching satellites may also face a squeeze, with new competitors on the horizon and fewer launches planned for huge commercial satellites that operate in a fixed position relative to the ground. SpaceX cited the need to become a leaner company when it said Friday it would lay off 10% of its more than 6,000 employees. The cuts appear to be concentrated at its flagship Hawthorne facility, where 577 employees will be let go, according to a state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice dated Friday. The cuts ranged from composites and propulsion technicians and manufacturing engineers to baristas, cooks and dishwashers. SpaceX declined to say whether its facilities in Texas, Florida, Virginia, Washington and Washington, D.C., were also affected. Orders have slowed for school bus-sized commercial geostationary satellites. Once as numerous as 20 to 25 per year, worldwide orders across the industry dropped to 17 in 2015 and 2016, according to a 2017 report from the Satellite Industry Assn. trade group. More recent industry order data arent publicly available, but experts say the trend toward smaller satellites for Earth imaging and communications has continued. Advertisement SpaceX launched 21 missions in 2018, up from 18 the year before. President Gwynne Shotwell told CNBC in May that SpaceX expected a slight slowdown in 2019 launches, but the company indicated Monday that it is targeting more missions this year than in 2018. SpaceXs workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, which has a starting price of $62 million, could also face greater competition in the future. Blue Origin, led by Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, is developing a rocket called New Glenn, which is expected to reach initial launch capability in 2020. United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. that competes with SpaceX for national security launches, is working on a new rocket called Vulcan Centaur. Also, newer entrants such as Long Beachs Virgin Orbit and Huntington Beachs Rocket Lab are specifically aimed at the burgeoning small-satellite market. Even though SpaceX ... has a competitive advantage, some of these new launch vehicle programs come along, maybe that competitive advantage will not be as distinct, said Marco Caceres, senior space analyst at market research firm Teal Group. Doesnt mean they wont have a very healthy launch rate. It means its going to keep it from doubling the number of Falcon launches. A SpaceX representative noted in a statement Friday the companys plans to succeed in developing interplanetary spacecraft and a global space-based internet. Either of these developments, even when attempted separately, have bankrupted other organizations, the representative said. This action [the layoff] is taken only due to the extraordinarily difficult challenges ahead and would not otherwise be necessary. The company is also preparing to send NASA astronauts to the International Space Station this summer in its Crew Dragon capsule. That project, along with the Starlink satellite constellation and the Mars Starship, are enough to challenge any company, said Greg Autry, director of the Southern California Commercial Spaceflight Initiative at USC. And he [SpaceX CEO Elon Musk] is trying to do all three at once. Musk may also be angling Starlink for military customers. In late December, the company won a $28-million contract for the U.S. Air Forces Defense Experimentation Using the Commercial Space Internet project. The idea is to test various commercial satellite constellations to see if they could eventually be leveraged for use by military aircraft. Advertisement Leasing their service, at the end of the day, makes a lot of sense for the DoD, said Greg Spanjers, chief scientist for the Air Force strategic development planning and experimentation directorate. Were just saying this is an important enough change that the Air Force needs to be in there as an early adopter and first customer. Commercial companies, including SpaceX, have said they intend to use the satellites to provide broadband service to home users, which means those costs have to be reasonably low on a per-user basis, said Brian Beal, program manager for the project. Contract award spending under this project could total $125 million to $250 million from fiscal year 2018 to fiscal year 2023, and companies could win multiple contracts under this program, Beal said. Expensive as they are, the satellite and Mars ship projects are central to Musks vision. Advertisement This is exactly why SpaceX is not a publicly traded company, said USCs Autry. Elon wants to create the future single-handedly during his lifetime. The good news for the laid-off workers is that demand for aerospace workers in Southern California is strong, said Judy Kruger, director of aerospace and advanced transportation at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. Major industry employers have had up to 2,000 open positions at any one time, she said. Some of them are still scrambling pretty hard to fill their hiring needs, Kruger said. samantha.masunaga@latimes.com Advertisement Twitter: @smasunaga The Mayor of the Polish city of Gdansk, Pawel Adamowicz, died on Monday after being stabbed at a charity event a day earlier, the director for medical affairs of the Medical University of Gdansk hospital, Tomasz Stefaniak, was quoted by the Polish Press Agency as saying. "We could not save his life despite all our efforts," Stefaniak said. On Sunday evening, Adamowicz was stabbed by a convicted criminal who rushed onto the stage during the finale of a charity event. The mayor was seriously injured in the heart and abdomen. Doctors reanimated Adamowicz on the spot and then transported him to the Medical University of Gdansk hospital, where he underwent five hours of surgery. Polish prosecutors said that the man accused of stabbing Adamowicz is being investigated on suspicion of attempted murder and will also be subjected to a psychiatric examination. Climate change helped fuel the deadly fires that prompted Californias largest power company to announce Monday that it would file for bankruptcy in the face of $30 billion in potential liabilities. In a grim twist, the bankruptcy of PG&E Corp. could now slow Californias efforts to fight climate change. UPDATE: Battered by wildfires and scandals, PG&E files for bankruptcy The Golden State has dramatically reduced planet-warming emissions from the electricity sector, largely by requiring utilities to increase their use of solar and wind power and fund energy efficiency upgrades for homes and businesses. Lawmakers recently set a target of 100% climate-friendly electricity by 2045. Advertisement But those government mandates have depended on PG&Es Pacific Gas & Electric unit and other utilities being able to invest tens of billions of dollars in clean energy technologies. PG&Es ability to keep making those investments could be in serious jeopardy once it files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, some energy experts say. Even before the company said it would file for bankruptcy, the looming threat of wildfire liabilities had decimated its credit rating, which raises the cost of borrowing capital. The massive Topaz Solar Farm in Californias San Luis Obispo County, an electricity supplier to PG&E owned by Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway Energy, also saw its credit rating downgraded to junk status last week amid fears the San Francisco-based utility wont be able to pay its bills in full. In the short term, PG&E might stop signing renewable energy contracts, although contracting had already slowed in the last few years as customers departed in droves for newly established local energy providers run by city and county governments. In the long term, renewable energy developers and their lenders may hesitate to do business with PG&E and, potentially, with other California utilities that could also face significant future wildfire costs. If were having a couple billion dollars a year of fire damage and insurance losses, quite apart from PG&E, this is going to put the entire state of California at risk, said V. John White, executive director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, a Sacramento-based trade group. PG&E to file for bankruptcy as wildfire costs hit $30 billion. Its stock plunges 52% Renewable energy firms were alarmed by the news of PG&Es impending bankruptcy filing, and its not hard to understand why. Solar and wind developers depend on stable, creditworthy utilities to buy electricity from their projects under long-term contracts known as power purchase agreements. Theyre able to get low-cost loans to build their projects because lenders see little to no risk of a utility defaulting on those contracts. But that calculus changes in a world where a 30-year power purchase agreement doesnt guarantee 30 years of payments at the agreed-upon price, said Ben Serrurier, a San Francisco-based policy manager for solar developer Cypress Creek Renewables. Theres concern in the industry that a Bankruptcy Court judge could order PG&E to reduce its payments to solar and wind project owners to help the company pay off other debts. Advertisement Once you start questioning the sanctity of contracted revenue, you begin to introduce a new risk into renewable energy project development. So much about project development is about reducing risk so you can reduce your capital cost, Serrurier said. A construction crew installs the rails that will support the solar panels at the now-completed Topaz solar farm in San Luis Obispo County on Feb. 3, 2012. (Joe Johnston / The Tribune) Its not just clean energy investments that are at risk. In another cruel bit of irony, PG&Es bankruptcy filing could also make it more difficult for California utilities to raise the capital needed to harden their infrastructure against wildfire, said Travis Kavulla, a former president of the National Assn. of Regulatory Utility Commissioners who now serves as director of energy policy at the R Street Institute, a center-right think tank. Bankruptcies are tough. It means people may lose their pensions or get them cut. It means people who invested in projects in California, based on what they thought was a pretty airtight business model of a regulated utility, are getting stiffed, Kavulla said. It could create longer-running harms where California is viewed as a market to avoid investment in. Advertisement PG&E has lurched from crisis to crisis since 2010, when one of the companys gas pipelines exploded in a residential neighborhood in San Bruno, killing eight people. The company was ultimately fined $1.6 billion by state regulators and $3 million by a federal judge. Last month, the California Public Utilities Commission accused PG&E of continuing to commit pipeline safety violations in the years after the pipeline explosion. More recently, deadly wildfires have made PG&E the target of raucous protests. The utilitys infrastructure was found to have sparked or contributed to more than a dozen fires that collectively killed 22 people in 2017. State investigators have yet to determine whether PG&E is also responsible for 2017s Tubbs fire, which killed an additional 22 people, and the 2018 Camp fire, which killed 86 people and destroyed most of the town of Paradise. PG&E, headed once again to bankruptcy, is anything but a master of disaster Some critics have called for lawmakers to break up the massive company, which serves 16 million Californians, and replace it with smaller, government-run electric utilities. But its unclear how feasible that would be, or whether it would accomplish anything more than transferring PG&Es huge liabilities to local governments. Advertisement Renewable energy developers, meanwhile, see stabilizing PG&E as an urgent priority. After a string of fires devastated Northern California in October 2017, clean energy trade groups began urging state lawmakers to help PG&E and other utilities cope with the liability that can ensue if their infrastructure sparks a fire. In a letter to legislative leaders last year, representatives of the solar, wind, geothermal and biomass energy industries said California must find a way to sustain financially solvent investor-owned utilities. Failure to act, they said, imperils our markets and progress toward our climate goals. The ability of California to meet its long-term greenhouse gas goals is directly dependent upon robust new investment in clean technologies. These investments are stymied with the addition of financial instability into the already complex California energy market, the trade groups wrote in the letter in May. Ralph Cavanagh, co-director of the energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, described PG&E as a tremendous asset for meeting the states climate change targets. Advertisement He said the states three big investor-owned utilities which also include Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric are crucial to making the investments needed to meet Californias ambitious climate targets, including the 100% clean energy mandate and a long-term goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. Those investments are likely to include more solar and wind farms, large-scale batteries and other energy storage technologies, and electric vehicle chargers. Utilities have been essential clean energy partners. We dont want to have to do without them, and we shouldnt have to do it without them, Cavanagh said. It would be much more difficult without them. Wind turbines dominate the skyline in the San Gorgonio Pass on Earth Day, April 22, 2016, near Palm Springs. (David McNew / AFP/Getty Images) Cavanagh thinks state legislators should change the law so that PG&E and other utilities arent held liable for fires sparked by their infrastructure unless theyre found to be negligent. Advertisement Our utility liability rules are unworkable. They menace every utility in California, and they need to be fixed, he said. This is not just about PG&E, and its a mistake to treat it as such. New Gov. Gavin Newsom could play a key role in determining how the state responds to PG&Es bankruptcy. At a news conference Monday, he said the state is still committed to investing in our climate goals. I do not believe, based on the information that I have, that those goals will be significantly altered in the short term as it relates to existing purchases of renewable energy. We are long-term focused on all of the existing requirements that PG&E has encumbered and embraced, Newsom said. The Legislature already gave the investor-owned utilities a measure of relief last year by approving Senate Bill 901, which allows them to charge ratepayers for some of the costs they may incur from the 2017 fires. But its unclear whether lawmakers have the appetite for another bill that will inevitably be derided as a utility bailout. Advertisement Jamie Court, president of the Santa Monica-based nonprofit group Consumer Watchdog, described PG&Es bankruptcy as a manufactured crisis designed to evade accountability to homeowners and ratepayers. This is designed to pressure a new governor, a new Legislature to do a new bailout after the ink is barely dry on the last one, Court said. Theres a phony crisis because theres not a nickel they owe to anybody in those fires yet. It hasnt happened. PG&E did file for bankruptcy once before, in the midst of an early-2000s energy crisis that stemmed from a failed deregulation scheme and led to rolling power outages in much of the state. But even veterans of that bankruptcy go-round say its difficult to predict exactly what will happen next. PG&E didnt have as many renewable energy contracts on the books then as it does now, and the states climate change targets werent as aggressive. A lot could depend on how the Bankruptcy Court judge handles the companys existing solar and wind contracts, with developers watching to see whether the owners of those projects keep getting paid in full. Advertisement Its also possible the effects of PG&Es bankruptcy may not be as serious as solar and wind developers fear. Ravi Manghani, director of energy storage at the research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables, said existing clean energy contracts will likely get renegotiated, with project owners being forced to accept lower payments. But in the long run, he said, California officials are still committed to the renewable future, and its not like the regions resource and reliability needs disappear with the bankruptcy. California wants 100% clean energy. But Los Angeles might invest billions in fossil fuels Another key factor: The investor-owned utilities arent the only ones buying clean energy in California. Advertisement Most new contracts in recent years have been signed by local energy providers known as community choice aggregators, or CCAs, which can be formed by city and county governments whose residents are served by an investor-owned utility. The government-run power agencies decide what kind of electricity to buy for their communities and how much to charge, while investor-owned utilities continue to operate the poles and wires. There are 19 CCAs operating in California, including Clean Power Alliance, which will begin serving nearly 1 million homes in Los Angeles and Ventura counties in February. CCAs have signed long-term contracts for more than 2,000 megawatts of renewable energy, according to the California Community Choice Assn. But the CCAs dont have the financial wherewithal of the investor-owned utilities, and many of them dont have credit ratings yet, said Matt Vespa, an attorney at the environmental group Earthjustice. He likes the CCAs but doesnt think they alone can eliminate planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions from Californias electric grid. When youre talking about the scale of what we need to do to aggressively decarbonize theyre not in a position to finance that, Vespa said. Advertisement sammy.roth@latimes.com Twitter: @Sammy_Roth Ren Zhengfei, the billionaire founder of Chinas Huawei Technologies Co., broke a years-long silence to dismiss U.S. accusations that the telecommunications giant helps Beijing spy on Western governments. Ren denied suggestions that Huawei aids the Chinese government in espionage, saying it has no regular contact with the government as his technology empire faces its biggest crisis in its three decades of existence. He also called Donald Trump a great president and said hell take a wait-and-see approach as to whether the U.S. leader will intervene on behalf of Huawei finance chief Meng Wanzhou. Meng Rens eldest daughter is in Canada facing extradition to the United States on allegations of helping defraud banks to avoid sanctions on Iran. The arrest of a top Huawei executive is a shot into the heart of Chinas tech ambitions, analysts say Advertisement The emergence of the reclusive Ren, who last spoke with foreign media in 2015, underscores the depth of the attacks on Huawei, the largest symbol of Chinas growing technological might. Mengs arrest helped crystallize fears about Huaweis growing clout in areas that include cutting-edge wireless infrastructure, semiconductors and consumer gadgets. The U.S. government has since persuaded a growing list of allies to blacklist Huawei networking equipment. I love my country. I support the Communist Party. But I will not do anything to harm the world, the 74-year-old Ren said in a round-table briefing, only his third formal chat with foreign reporters. I dont see a close connection between my personal political beliefs and the businesses of Huawei. Ren said he would decline any request from Beijing for sensitive information on Huaweis clients and stressed the potential for cooperation with the United States and Trumps administration. And he played down Huaweis role in the U.S.-China trade war, which has rattled investors and corporations worldwide. Huawei is only a sesame seed in the trade conflict between China and the U.S., Ren said from the companys campus in Shenzhen. Trump is a great president. He dares to massively cut taxes, which will benefit business. But you have to treat well the companies and countries so that they are willing to invest in the U.S. and the government will be able to collect enough tax. Ren, a legendary figure in Chinese business circles, is a uniquely placed voice in a conflict that will help define the global landscape in coming years. A string of Huawei executives all the way up to rotating Chairman Ken Hu have taken to media in recent weeks to deny allegations of espionage and challenge the companys accusers to provide proof of shady dealings. But the arrest in Poland last week of a sales executive accused of spying may have helped prompt the reclusive CEO to personally marshal Huaweis global response. The employee in Poland was fired over the weekend. Despite the potential effect on his business, Ren said he was confident Huaweis revenue would grow to $125 billion in 2019 from more than $100 billion last year. Huawei is not a public company. We dont need a beautiful earnings report, Ren said. If they dont want Huawei to be in some markets, we can scale down a bit. As long as we can survive and feed our employees, theres a future for us. Advertisement Ren built a company that generates more sales than Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. combined. In 2018, Huawei overtook Apple Inc. in smartphone sales. Rens quotes adorn the walls of the food court at Huaweis sprawling campus on the outskirts of the southern metropolis of Shenzhen, and employees speak of him in reverent tones. But its perhaps Huaweis newest and splashiest campus in neighboring Dongguan that better encapsulates its ambitions. Overseen by Ren himself, the Chinese company has built a clutch of faux European towns modeled after the likes of Paris and Verona, Italy, complete with a lake, castles and bell towers. The complex is so massive employees have to get around by train and its still expanding. Yet Huawei has become a target of scrutiny around the world. While the company is owned by its employees, the founders earlier career with the Peoples Liberation Army has constantly bred suspicion that it poses a security threat an accusation it has always denied. Still, several carriers are shunning its equipment over concerns the products may leave a back door for Chinese intelligence agencies. Within China, the U.S.-led effort to exclude Huawei as the world prepares to adopt revolutionary fifth-generation wireless tech is a national affront. The company remains a linchpin in Beijings effort to dominate future technologies by 2025, and a March 2018 document from the U.S. Treasury Department showed that Huawei had about a tenth of the essential patents for 5G wireless networks. That would put the company in a prime position to capitalize on the billions of dollars that will be spent rolling out the technology. Advertisement Im a strong supporter of the world building a unified technology standard, Ren said. Ren, who survived Mao Tse-tungs great famine to found Huawei with four partners in 1987, said Huawei will continue to engage with governments so they can better understand his business. He stepped back from daily operations in 2011 by introducing a rotation system that allows younger executives to run the company for about six months at a time. But he remained the face of the company on major occasions, such as when he accompanied Chinese President Xi Jinping to a Huawei office in Britain in 2015. The companys 2017 report shows he has a 1.4% stake, giving him a net worth of $2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Advertisement Over the last year the accusations against Huawei have intensified, compounded by Mengs arrest and the blocking or limiting of Huawei gear in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. Huawei firmly stands on the side of customers when it comes to cybersecurity and privacy, Ren said. A four-day walkout by 1,800 farmworkers who pick Halo mandarins has forced Wonderful Co. to restore a pay cut. Other job issues were left unresolved, though the nonunionized contract workers chose to return to picking the palm-sized fruit popular in school lunches. The United Farm Workers of America, which supported the walkout, said the company has not engaged in formal talks with the workers, despite its announcement of the restored pay rate. Its a big victory, but there are a lot of other issues, said Armando Elenes, secretary-treasurer of the UFW, which does not formally represent the workers. The union announced on Facebook late Monday that workers had decided to return to work. Advertisement Wonderful Halos is a trademarked marketing name for seedless mandarin oranges, a category that includes several varieties of clementines. They are picked during different seasons in a broad area of the San Joaquin Valley, stretching more than 150 miles from south of Bakersfield to Madera. Workers who were switching between these crops were told last week that the price paid for filling a bin with the fruit would drop from $53 to $48, effectively slicing their average hourly wage by a dollar or two, Elenes said. Although workers are guaranteed a state-mandated agricultural minimum wage, currently $12 per hour, many boost that pay through piece rates based on how much they pick. Amid a years-long agricultural labor shortage, Wonderful last month raised its minimum wage to $15 per hour, but only for the estimated 2,000 year-round, full-time workers it hires directly, including those who process and pack fruit and nuts. Wonderful Co. said Monday it has resolved the main concern raised by our third-party labor contractors and will restore the previous bin rate. The majority of our workers are back on the job, and we anticipate returning to normal operations soon, the company added. But strike leader Luis Benitez, a Bakersfield resident who has picked citrus for 15 years, said the company has not responded to complaints about unpaid time between reporting for work and starting to pick, among other issues. What we want is to talk to a representative of the company, he said. Elenes accused the company of trying to wash their hands by saying these are employees of labor contractors, when California law generally holds growers and contractors equally responsible for labor issues. Owned by Beverly Hills billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick, Wonderful generates $4 billion in annual revenue and employs about 9,000 people, half of them in California. It is among the fastest-growing packaged goods companies in the country, selling trademarked brands of almonds, pistachios, Pom Wonderful pomegranate juice, Fiji Water and mandarins, as well as wines under two brands and flowers through delivery company Teleflora. Advertisement The bulk of the harvesters on Wonderfuls 14,000 acres of mandarin orchards are hired through independent labor contractors, Elenes said. He estimated that 1,800 such workers left their shifts Friday and several hundred showed up to protest Monday at the companys Halo plant in Delano. The independent walkout could present an organizing opportunity for the UFW, which will petition to gain access to Wonderfuls fields, a precursor to a unionization campaign. These are workers who asked for our help, Elenes said, adding that the union will do whatever it takes to get the company to sit down with workers and discuss wages and conditions. Benitez and fellow leader Sara Garcia said they have not spoken with fellow workers about their opinions on seeking union representation for collective bargaining. Some crew bosses have threatened to fire workers who walked off, but most remained neutral, Benitez said. Workers have a few employment alternatives, including other citrus orchards and vineyards, Benitez said. He has a wife and child to support. Advertisement That pay is how we live, Benitez said. Its how we put food on the table, how we pay for gasoline to get to work. geoffrey.mohan@latimes.com Follow me: @LATgeoffmohan Theres no money in getting Chinese viewers hooked on MTV and Nickelodeon. Thats certainly the impression youd get from Viacom Inc.s apparent decision to sell its majority stakes in its Chinese TV channel brands. The media company has held talks with at least one Chinese entity about selling the businesses, a person familiar with the matter told Nabila Ahmed of Bloomberg News. The Wall Street Journal had earlier reported the potential deal. Its tempting to regard this as a casualty of the U.S.-China trade war, with heightened tensions seriously reducing the attraction of selling SpongeBob SquarePants and Beyonce to a Chinese audience. But in truth, the current spat is at best the last straw. While Viacom still sees significant potential in Chinas film industry, television has been struggling for years. Television is the bulk of Viacoms business globally, making up about three-quarters of revenue and, in recent years, more than 100% of operating income thanks to losses from its Paramount film studio. In China, the script is reversed. Almost all the potential lies in getting a blockbuster picture like Transformers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles past Beijings cinema censors and onto the limited quota of Hollywood films granted release. Television looks like a distinct also-ran. Advertisement The problem in Chinas television market is roughly the same as in the U.S. The worlds second-biggest media market is dominated these days by a handful of online players. About two-thirds of advertising yuan are spent on digital, according to eMarketer. Baidu Inc., Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. carve up about 80% of that sum, in much the same way that Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.s Google do elsewhere. Combined with the vast proliferation of television channels is the fact that Viacoms youth-oriented brands are barely distributed on the pocket-sized screens on which young Chinese, especially in urban areas, get most of their media content. Until last year, there was no non-TV outlet for MTVs content in China at all, and Nickelodeon has similarly been busy signing up agreements with local distributors to get its content on streaming platforms. The argument about China has always been about the growth potential of a 1.4 billion-strong market, but after almost 25 years of selling its TV brands in the country, Viacoms revenue split is still overwhelmingly dominated by the U.S. and Europe. Even if it could gain market share, theres the problem that advertising spending in the country as a whole is looking lackluster. From a period in the early part of this decade when Chinese ad spending increased as much as 50% annually, its now failed to hit a double-digit growth rate in six years, according to GroupM, WPP Plcs media agency. Spending still comes to some $90 billion a year, but as a share of GDP its been trending down for more than a decade. That dismal growth potential means its simply not worth the hassle of navigating Chinas byzantine regulatory environment, with or without trade tensions. Chief Executive Officer Robert Bakish, a veteran of Viacoms international operations, knows that as well as anyone. Asked about the potential for international audience growth at an investor conference last week, he pointedly left it out of his generally optimistic analysis. Its China, its a little bit of a can of worms, he added. You can say that again. Fickling writes a column for Bloomberg. A group of trustees from some of Americas biggest public pension funds are calling on companies to detail costs related to sexual misconduct and any measures theyre taking to address the problem. We dont see how it could possibly be accretive to corporate value to have a culture that allows for sexual harassment in the workplace, said Priya Mathur, the departing president of the $345-billion California Public Employees Retirement System, or CalPERS, the largest U.S. pension fund. Companies are losing customers, paying settlements and higher insurance costs and being distracted from their core strategies because they have to deal with this, Mathur said. Together with Sharon Hendricks the board vice chair of the $219-billion California State Teachers Retirement System, or CalSTRS Mathur formed Trustees United, a group of 13 of the states female pension fund trustees seeking to improve corporate disclosures on sexual harassment, violence and misconduct. They want companies to publicly declare how they investigate harassment complaints, disclose settlement costs to investors, and publish information about policies to protect workers and promote diversity. Advertisement Without sufficient data, we really dont know what companies are paying, Mathur said. The first woman to chair the biggest U.S. pension fund, Mathur will end her tenure this week. We can all list ways in which we think this is costly to companies and investors, but for us to do analysis and really identify which companies are developing a culture that is supportive of productivity and long-term value creation, we need more data, she said. California has been a leader in promoting diversity and taking action against harassment. As of 2019, new laws prohibit non-disclosure agreements in settlements of sexual harassment, assault or discrimination; require employee harassment training; and mandate that boards of publicly traded companies based in the state have at least one female director. The new group which also includes trustees from the Los Angeles City Employees Retirement System, or LACERS, and the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Assn. is asking its colleagues and pension fund trustees around the world to sign on to its principles. The idea for the group started on a bus ride after a trustees network meeting last March on investment risks from sexual harassment. Mathur, Hendricks, CalSTRS board chair Dana Dillon and CalPERS board member Theresa Taylor decided they needed to join forces. Over the course of the year, CalPERS and CalSTRS boards both adopted language in their investment policies aimed at pressing companies to disclose more about harassment. Similar language was proposed at a LACERS board meeting last week. I dont think were alone in tackling these issues, but were at the top of the investment chain, so to speak, and we have a unique opportunity and responsibility to take this on, Mathur said. Theres clearly an inflection point in our society where were saying were no longer going to tolerate this behavior, and thats an important signal to investors. Among those who believe that the press provides value for society especially local journalism that slaps state and municipal politicians hands out of the public cookie jar Alden Global Capital is a vulture investing firm that makes real vultures look good by comparison. The private equity firm and its subsidiary Media News Group, or MNG, have become renowned for buying up local newspapers and sucking them dry through layoffs and other ruthless cost-cutting. Media News has applied this strategy to a portfolio that now includes about 200 publications. Now Alden appears to be angling to turn another limping wildebeest on the American media veld into a carcass. On Monday, Media News Group announced a $1.4-billion hostile bid for Gannett Co. With 100 publications, including USA Today, Gannett is one of the nations largest newspaper chains. But it has been struggling financially, and its chief executive, Bob Dickey, has announced he plans to retire in May. Their focus is on a race to the bottom, collecting all the money they can on the way down. News industry analyst Ken Doctor, referring to Alden Global Capital Advertisement As newspaper industry observer Ken Doctor put it this week, a lame-duck CEO preparing to announce another quarter of trouble made Gannett eminently vulnerable to a takeover bid, and MNG struck. The bid underscores the dilemma facing the newspaper industry, especially at the community level. The old business model, based on print advertising by a combination of local and national advertisers, is on its way out; advertisers have too many other platforms to reach customers, and the vast majority of remaining newspaper readers are in the aging demographic that most advertisers dont care for. Savvier leaders in the news business know they have to make the transition to digital delivery, which is how readers increasingly receive their news. That means changing to a subscription model in which the readers pay directly for content. That requires more investment, not less. Gannett has been trying to move in that direction, as have other locally oriented chains such as Sacramento-based McClatchy. But thats not Aldens playbook. Their focus is on a race to the bottom, collecting all the money they can on the way down, Doctor told me. Alden is not alone. Its more brutal about cutting and not trying at all to find a digital future, he says, but he forecasts that 65% to 85% of local newspapers eventually will fall into the hands of those harvesting profits and not investing. The firms bid for Gannett promises more of the same. According to its announcement, upon taking over the company, Alden would immediately commit to a moratorium on digital acquisitions. Although the firm expressed in a letter to the Gannett board its desire to grow in the newspaper business over the long term, it also described itself as an industry consolidator and boasted of its track record of acquiring newspaper businesses and running them in a profitable and sustainable way. Gannett said only that it would carefully review the proposal from Alden. Alden is hardly the only newspaper owner focused on plunder. In December 2017, Tribune Publishing, then the owner of The Times, announced an extraordinary payout for Michael Ferro, its largest shareholder. Ferros Merrick Ventures was to receive an annual fee of $5 million in cash, payable on the first business day of January each year. The initial term of the deal was three years. In 2017, the company earned a profit of only $5.5 million. (Ferro earlier had headed off a merger bid for Tribune Publishing, then known as Tronc, from Gannett.) Newspapers have been shedding jobs consistently, but Alden has been cutting staff at about twice the rate of the industry as a whole. The company has cut employment at its Boston Herald to about 100 from 240 at the end of 2017. The San Jose Mercury News, which had a newsroom staff of 440 during the 1990s dot-com boom, was down to about 40 a year ago. Advertisement Alden also has been harvesting enviable profits. According to confidential financial reports that leaked into public hands, partially as a result of a lawsuit filed by one of Aldens investors, Aldens Digital First Media arm recorded an operating profit of 17% in 2017, well above most of its newspaper competitors. Digital First is the publisher of 38 California newspapers, including the Mercury News, the Orange County Register and the Los Angeles Daily News, as well as the Denver Post, the St. Paul Pioneer Press and many others. From its standpoint, the strategy is working great. The investor lawsuit, filed in Delaware Chancery Court last March by hedge fund group Solus, asserts that Alden has squandered much of its bounty from the newspapers on questionable or unprofitable investments. These include a $158-million investment in the Freds grocery store chain at $17.06 per share. The stock is currently trading at about $2.80. Aldens Media News Group, the parent of Digital First, invested an additional $10 million in an Alden-managed fund that invests in mortgaged-backed securities and commercial real estate. This diversion of resources from the newspapers to unrelated investments inspired an outbreak of resistance from Alden newsrooms across the country, including protest demonstrations and the publication of editorials critical of Alden in its Denver Post, where Alden has cut the newsroom staff by about 70%, reducing it to about 70 employees. Advertisement None of that has had a discernible effect on Alden. You cant protest against a hedge fund, Doctor says. Theyre impervious. Indeed, Aldens own website is utterly opaque it bears only the firms name and a full-screen photo of a redwood forest, with no place to click for further information. The firm didnt respond to a request for comment left at its New York headquarters. The signs are that Alden is counting on the last remaining newspaper readers in its circulation areas sticking with their papers out of habit of inertia, even as staff cuts drain away the quality of their journalism. Average circulation among Alden newspapers has been shrinking at about 10% a year, Doctor says, which is more than the average print decline industrywide, but not by much. Its a cynical approach, says Doctor. They know how much theyll lose in circulation, and that the diminution in editorial quality will have only so much impact on subscribers. But readership wont grow, either. The news industry needs a business model that looks to the future. The necessary investments wont be modest, and the returns wont be quick. But the Alden model points to a smaller readership, more uninformed and misinformed voters, and more political corruption. If youre a vulture capitalist, maybe your spreadsheets make that future look pretty bright. But it doesnt work for the rest of us. Advertisement Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com. Return to Michael Hiltziks blog. Three weeks before its release, a book by former New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson is continuing to draw controversy, this time after additional journalists have claimed that it contains inaccurate information. Last week, PBS NewsHour correspondent Danny Gold, who formerly worked for the broadcasting company Vice, took to Twitter to take issue with a passage in Abramsons forthcoming Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts. Gold posted a photograph of a passage in the book about a Vice correspondent reporting on the Ebola crisis in Liberia in which Abramson claims that the journalist failed to wear protective clothing while New York Times reporters did so: Wow, this is a straight up lie in @JillAbramsons book, Gold wrote."I was this reporter. Like every other reporter there, i was told by experts not to walk around with a PPE unless you were in the ICU. I also worked alongside Times reporters, who a. Gave me that advice and b. Did the same. PPE refers to personal protective equipment. On Monday, Vice correspondent Arielle Duhaime-Ross posted a thread on Twitter accusing Abramson of making six errors in a paragraph about her. Advertisement Duhaime-Ross noted that Abramson referred to her in the book as a transgender woman, which she isnt. During our chat, I told her Im a queer, gender non-conforming woman. She didnt ask for an explanation. She didnt ask for my pronouns, she wrote. In a series of follow-up tweets, Duhaime-Ross said that Abramson claimed she almost missed a story involving President Trumps decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, which Duhaime-Ross denies. Duhaime-Ross tweeted that a finished copy of the book corrected the passage about her gender, but nothing else. Another Vice correspondent, Jay Caspian Kang, tweeted a passage from the book in which Abramson refers to a protest in Charlottesville, North Carolina. Charlottesville is in Virginia. Kangs Vice colleague Elle Reeve noted that the passage also refers to white supremacist Christopher Cantwell as a southern white nationalist. Cantwell is from Long Island. On Monday, Abramson defended herself on Twitter, writing, The photos of pages circulating from my book are from uncorrected galleys, which have a clear disclaimer saying Please do not quote for publication without checking the finished book. Please do check out a finished copy of Merchants of Truth, available Feb. 5. She did not address any of the claims of inaccuracies by the Vice correspondents. Abramsons book first attracted controversy earlier this month, after a Fox News report quoted a passage from the book in which Abramson said that the New York Times was unmistakably anti-Trump. Abramson said the quote was taken out of context. On Twitter, users reacted to the allegations of inaccuracies in Abramsons book: Advertisement Ive got no idea what Jill Abramsons contract actually says, but in my book publishing days all authors signed a clause basically saying they affirmed the veracity & originality of their manuscriptbasically a CYA for us on fact-checking. This is ... bad. Helen Rosner (@hels) January 14, 2019 Merchants of Truth is slated for publication on Feb. 5 by Simon & Schuster. The novel you are about to read is true, writes David Bowman in the foreword to Big Bang. All the people who are mentioned just as Bob Dylan sang I had to rearrange their faces and give them all another name. Still, this novel is true history. Its a remarkable statement that raises dozens of questions. Bowmans not around to answer any of them; he died of a brain hemorrhage in 2012, when he was 54. He left behind three published books: two novels, Let the Dog Drive and Bunny Modern, and This Must Be the Place, a biography of the band Talking Heads. He was working on a few projects at the time of his death; Big Bang was perhaps the most ambitious one. Its also his masterpiece a sprawling, manic miracle of a book from a writer who never achieved the fame he long deserved. David Bowman, author of Big Bang (Chloe Wing) Big Bang might not be true history as Bowman claims its hard to know the distance between his tongue and cheek when he wrote that but its cast of characters is drawn from real life. Within the first few pages, the reader is introduced to Norman Mailer, Ann-Margret, Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon. We also meet President Kennedy; the novel is framed as a quasi-history of the years leading up to his assassination. Advertisement Bowman follows these and other midcentury historical figures as their lives take turns for the worse, and sometimes intersect with one another. Theres William S. Burroughs, the Naked Lunch author, who looks cadaverously beat and has a healthy appetite for bennies and horse. Burroughs ends up doing time (though not much) in a Mexican jail after he shoots and kills his wife in an alleged accident. Theres Lucille Ball, testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee in its investigation into communists in Hollywood, worrying her career could be irrevocably damaged. And then theres Jimi Hendrix, Joseph McCarthy, Howard Hunt, Benjamin Spock and a blind drunk Montgomery Clift, all navigating the 1950s and early 1960s with varying degrees of success. Its hard to explain the plot of Big Bang, because there really isnt one; rather, there are dozens of plots, which Bowman juggles with an agility thats breathtaking. The climax of the novel is the Kennedy assassination, and at times it seems as if Bowman is setting up some kind of elaborate conspiracy theory, but he resists any urge he might have had to concoct a bizarre fantasy. (As Bowmans friend Jonathan Lethem notes in the novels introduction, the late author at one point became obsessed with 9/11 conspiracy theories.) The novel ends starkly, where it has to, with a country somehow even more confused than it had been in the decade prior. There are a hundred reasons why Big Bang shouldnt work. Bowman has every opportunity to get carried away on tangents early in the book, its easy to wonder whether this will end up as a novel-length shaggy-dog story but he writes with a real focus, never abandoning any of the numerous plot lines that run through the book. His prose is elegant but stubbornly unshowy; he writes as if he were a documentarian, calmly reporting historical events with an assured and authoritative tone. Its a technique that allows him to recount (probably) imaginary events like Saul Bellow offering to lend Arthur Miller his pornographic magazines when the two are on a trip to Nevada. It sounds (and is) absurd, but Bowman consistently maintains his straight face and never winks to the reader or seems satisfied with his own cleverness. Perhaps most important, Bowman brings his characters to life the way only a novelist with real imagination can. We read about Patricia Nixon, watching her husband, Richard, as he delivers his famous Checkers speech; shes convinced that the spines of the prop books behind her husband all read Nixon is a crook. We encounter Don DeLillo, working as an advertising copywriter, staring at himself in the mirror and declaring, I am an extremely handsome young man. Bowman has a gift for drawing out the oddball in the celebrities he writes about, and the effect is sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes hilarious. Big Bang is a stunningly accomplished novel, both deeply American and deeply weird. So is it, as Bowman claimed, true history? Lethem, for his part, urges caution: Indeed, though Bowmans book is full of facts, none of them is to be considered strictly reliable. And of course it doesnt matter; this is, after all, a work of fiction, and a vastly entertaining one at that. The book jacket for David Bowmans Big Bang. (Little, Brown) Advertisement Perhaps Bowman gave his readers the biggest clue in the first of the novels two epigraphs: Tell it slant, the famous words of Emily Dickinson. Its telling that Bowman leaves off the beginning of the line: Tell all the truth. Maybe Bowman grew to believe his own fiction; maybe he predicted the post-truth era we now live in. Or maybe he was just heeding the last lines of Dickinsons poem: The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind. Schaub is a writer in Texas. :: Big Bang Advertisement David Bowman Little, Brown and Company: 624 pp., $32 The beef will be distributed among the Walworth County, Elkhorn, Delavan and Lake Geneva food pantries, where it will be offered to hundreds of needy families in the coming days. It feels good to carry out Nicks wishes, said Joe, one of Nicks brothers. Nick began farming in 2012, and he purchased the 143-acre Elkhorn farm in early 2017. After a year and a half of success with his new venture, he resolved to give back to his community. Before he passed, it was a conversation I was having with Nick, his father, Dominic, said. He said he was going to donate some cattle. According to his father, Nick was very religious. He always carried a Bible in his backpack, and his faith motivated him to help those in need. As a result, Nick wanted to donate three heads of his cattle to nearby churches. However, the Sergi family could not find a church with enough freezer space to store 1,200 pounds of beef, which is why family members gave it to food pantries instead. Its going to feed an awful lot of people, Dominic said. News Crime Rises Again in Downtown Although Violent Incidents Fall, Overall Rate of Most Serious Crimes Increases 6.1% China on Monday expressed stern opposition to participation by the United States and other countries in Taiwan's submarine production project. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying speaks at a daily press conference on January 14, 2019. [Photo: fmprc.gov.cn] Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying made the remarks when responding to media reports saying the United States has permitted some of its military enterprises to export technology to help Taiwan build submarines. Enterprises from the United States, Europe, Japan and India have reportedly demonstrated their interest to take part in the project. China's firm opposition to any countries' arms sales and military relations with Taiwan in any forms is consistent and clear-cut, Hua stressed at a regular press briefing. "We urge the United States and other relevant countries to fully understand how sensitive and harmful this matter is," Hua added. She urged these countries to adhere to the one-China principle and not to allow their enterprises to take part in Taiwan's submarine manufacture project in any forms. They must stop any forms of military ties with Taiwan, deal with Taiwan-related issues properly and cautiously to avoid severely jeopardizing relations with China as well as peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, she said. Editorial: 2019 should be the year of the migrant The mayor of Gdansk Pawel Adamowicz lies on the floor and is helped after being attacked during a charity event in Gdansk on January 13, 2019. AFP-Yonhap The popular liberal mayor of the Polish port city of Gdansk died on Monday after he was stabbed during a charity event the previous evening by an ex-convict who stormed onstage and said it was revenge against the country's main opposition party. Pawel Adamowicz, 53, died as a result of wounds to the heart and abdomen in spite of efforts to save him that involved a five-hour operation and blood transfusions, Health Minister Lukasz Szumowski said. "The fight for his life has been lost," Szumowski said. The assassination of Adamowicz, a six-term mayor who often mingled freely with citizens of his city, sent Poland into shock. Even before his death was announced, marches against violence were being planned to take place across Poland in the evening. In Gdansk, the city flag was lowered to half-staff and Masses were planned, including one in Warsaw that Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki planned to attend. Gdansk's Mayor Pawel Adamowicz attends a meeting in Gdansk, Poland October 23, 2018. REUTERS -Yonhap The right-wing ruling Law and Justice party faced accusations from its critics that an atmosphere of hatred against Adamowicz and other liberal political opponents helped instigate the attack. Government officials pushed back against that accusation, strongly denouncing the attack and stressing that the 27-year-old perpetrator had a history of violent bank robberies and possible mental illness. The ex-convict rushed onto the stage with a knife Sunday and stabbed Adamowicz then seized a microphone and said it was revenge against the opposition Civic Platform party, which Adamowicz belonged to for many years. Identifying himself as Stefan, he said he had been wrongly imprisoned under a Civic Platform-led government. "I was jailed but innocent," he told the audience of thousands. "Civic Platform tortured me. That's why Adamowicz just died." A handout photo made available by the City of Gdansk shows security staff trying to stop a man after he attacked Mayor of Gdansk Pawel Adamowicz during the 27th finale of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity in Gdansk, Poland, 13 January 2019. EPA-Yonhap Donald Tusk, a founder of Civic Platform who was prime minister when the attacker was imprisoned and who is now the president of the European Council, was traveling to Gdansk, his own hometown, to pay his respects, an aide said. "Pawel Adamowicz, Mayor of Gdansk, a man of Solidarity and freedom, a European, my good friend, has been murdered. May he rest in peace," Tusk tweeted. Deputy Chief Prosecutor Krzysztof Sierak said there were questions about the mental state of the attacker, who used a 14.5-centimeter (5.5-inch) knife on Adamowicz, and that two psychiatrists will examine him. He had served 5 years in prison and was released toward the end of last year. On Monday he was charged with murder. Adamowicz, who had been the city's mayor for more than 20 years, grabbed his belly and collapsed in front of the audience during the "Lights to Heaven" fundraiser organized by the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity. He had been out on the streets of his city earlier in the day to collect money along with volunteers across the country and spoke of tolerance and love just before he was stabbed. Jerzy Owsiak, the head of the charity, said on Monday that he was resigning from his position but would continue to work with the organization, which raises money for equipment for children in the cash-strapped state hospitals. Thousands of people gather in Warsaw under the slogan "Stop Hatred" on January 14, 2019 to protest against violence and honour Pawel Adamowicz, the late mayor of Polish port city Gdansk, who died after being stabbed in the heart by a young man at a weekend charity fundraiser. AFP-Yonhap Owsiak said he himself has been the target of threats and hate messages, including by some right-wing lawmakers, but that he is not getting any help from the police. He told a news conference that recently the level of public criticism is "touching on Nazi, fascist language, on threats." The attack triggered an outpouring of grief. Many donated blood in Gdansk on Monday. Some said they were given time off work to help save Adamowicz. Ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the country's most powerful politician, expressed his "great pain" and solidarity with Adamowicz's family. The government's critics, however, said that they believed that animosity voiced against Adamowicz by officials from Kaczynski's party, sometimes carried on state television, as well as by extremists from other groups, played a role. President of the European Council Donald Tusk speaks during a "Manifestation Against Hate and Violence" in Gdansk, Poland, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019. AP-Yonhap By Jung Min-ho A Chinese court has sentenced a Canadian man to death for drug smuggling, a decision that will likely further inflame tensions between Beijing and Ottawa. The Dalian Intermediate People's Court in northeastern China said Monday it convicted Robert Lloyd Schellenberg of being involved in smuggling 222 kilograms of crystal meth after a one-day retrial. He was initially sentenced to 15 years in prison, but the penalty increased after his appeal. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau criticized the ruling, which came after the arrest of Chinese tech giant Huawei's senior executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver a month ago. "It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply the death penalty," Trudeau said. Canada also updated its travel advisory for the country, urging its citizens to "exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws." According to the court, Schellenberg conspired with drug traffickers in 2014 to orchestrate the smuggling of more than 222 kilograms of meth from the Chinese port city Dalian to Australia. Schellenberg reportedly insists on his innocence, saying he came to China as a tourist. He has 10 days to appeal his sentence, which his lawyer told Reuters will most likely happen. His family released a Monday, asking the Canadian government to protect him. "The Schellenberg family cares deeply about our Robert who is being held under very difficult circumstances in China," the statement says. "As a family, we are communicating with our Member of Parliament, Mr. Ed Fast, who is working hard on our behalf to ensure that the Trudeau Government makes every effort to secure fair treatment for Robert. "The Schellenberg family requests that all Canadians stand with us and pray for the safe return of our loved one." The family and the Canadian government worried that China would use him as a bargaining chip for Meng's case. She was freed on bail and is now under house arrest. China vehemently protested when she was arrested on Dec. 1 and vowed to retaliate. At least 13 Canadian citizens have reportedly been detained in China since. China imposes the death penalty far more than any other country, according to Amnesty International, although the exact number is unclear. Police officers march past Hong Kong Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma Tao-li who attends a ceremony to mark the beginning of the legal year in Hong Kong, China January 14, 2019. REUTERS-Yonhap By Ng Kang-chung, Alvin Lum, Jasmine Siu Hong Kong's top judge said the judiciary is planning changes to procedures to speed up the handling of refugee claims amid a surge in such cases that has put much pressure on the already stretched courts. Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma Tao-li, in an unusual move, raised the issue while giving his address at the opening of the 2019 legal year on Monday. "The judiciary will be liaising with the Department of Justice with a view to exploring the possibility of introducing modest legislative amendments to facilitate a more efficient handling of such torture claims," Ma said. The topic, together with the independence of the judiciary and retention of experienced judges, formed a major part of his speech at Monday's ceremony. Ma did not go into detail but later said he was only seeking to make minor changes to court procedures. The Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal, Geoffrey Ma Tao-li (C), inspects Ceremonial Guard during the Ceremonial Opening of Legal Year 2019 at Edinburgh Place, in Hong Kong, China, 14 January 2019. EPA-Yonhap "What we have in mind are relatively minor changes and these deal with court procedures," he said, adding the Bar Association, Law Society and other relevant parties would be consulted. "In recent years, Hong Kong has seen an influx of persons who have made non-refoulement claims," Ma said. "The substantially increased workload on our courts resulting from this type of case has given and will continue to provide much pressure on our courts at all levels." Non-refoulement is the principle of not sending someone to a place where they may be persecuted. Hong Kong is subject to the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. When someone claims they could be subjected to torture, cruel treatment or persecution elsewhere, no party subject to the convention can repatriate the person to that place. Claimants can take their case to a Torture Claims Appeal Board if they are not satisfied with the results of the Immigration Department's screening. And if the appeal is not successful, they can apply for judicial review at the Court of First Instance. If this is refused, the decision is then appealed to the Court of Appeal and from there, to the Court of Final Appeal. Hong Kong's Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma (R) walks on stage to give a speech during a ceremony held to mark the opening of the legal year in Hong Kong on January 14, 2019. AFP-Yonhap Toyota RAV4 SUV / Courtesy of Toyota Motor Korea By Baek Byung-yeul Toyota Motor Korea CEO Nobuyuki Takemura Federico Casalegno, leader of Samsung Electronics' Samsung Design Innovation Center, speaks during a press conference in San Francisco, Friday. / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics By Baek Byung-yeul SAN FRANCISCO Samsung Electronics has been increasingly putting its emphasis on product design and its ultimate goal is to deliver meaningful experiences through beautiful yet functional products, the firm's design lab leader said Friday. "Our mission is to understand people and how people live so we can design new experiences to introduce into people's lives. We can do that through designing new products and new interfaces," said Federico Casalegno, head of Samsung Design Innovation Center. Samsung has been operating a design lab in the U.S. since 1994. After the lab was moved to San Francisco in 2012, the firm reorganized the design lab and renamed it to the SDIC in 2018. Casalegno holds a Ph.D. degree in sociology of culture and communication from the Sorbonne University in Paris. While working as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he founded the MIT Design Lab and the MIT Mobile Experience Lab. He joined Samsung in 2018. As the SDIC is dedicated to the integration of disruptive user-experiences to product design, Casalegno emphasized the importance of designing products based on user experience. To make more consumers buy more Samsung products, he added the design lab should consider every step of the purchasing process when designing a product. "This design lab is very unique because we are in the heart of Silicon Valley. We can work with startups in innovative ways. Our design center can produce global mega-hit products through local insights that Silicon Valley has," Casalegno said. "User experience is about how it works and how it looks like. Experience comes from the full journey across all touch-points. From awareness of the product to purchase it, every element of the journey must be holistically designed and be human-centered to provide great experiences." Stating the SDIC also has contributed to create stronger insights based on a deep understanding of consumer lifestyle trends, another mission of the design lab is studying about millennial consumers who were born between 1982 and 2000. "The millennial consumers have become a major consumer segment, we are trying to understand millennials' lifestyles and expectations," Casalegno said. Speaking of foldable smartphones, which the firm is expected to launch within 2019, Casalegno said Samsung is trying to come with the most innovative one in the market. "How to design the interface is very important. While it has to be only one interface in typical smartphones, there should be more interfaces in foldable phones. "Samsung has tried to make innovative products design-wise. The foldable phone is definitely challenging for us as nobody has done it. For the foldable smartphone, we will design the user experience by ourselves with innovative ideas," Casalegno said. Park Geun-hye's prime minister joins main opposition Former Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn's debut as a politician this week has invited mixed reviews. Hwang held a press conference Tuesday to announce he was joining the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP). Speculation is rising that he will run for the party leadership at its convention, Feb. 27, and ultimately aim to be the LKP's presidential candidate. Hwang's announcement comes amid an absence of proper leadership in the main opposition. The LKP has been slammed for its failure to change following the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye. Ex-Chairman Hong Joon-pyo, who ran in the presidential election against President Moon Jae-in, has aggravated public opinion of the party with his outbursts. It is too early to tell whether Hwang has the capacity to adequately fill the LKP's leadership void. As a public official, he had an illustrious career, having served in powerful posts such as justice minister from 2013 through 2015 and prime minister during the previous Park administration. Most of the criticism against his sudden emergence as a politician stems from his strong ties with Park. Many still associate him with the impeached former president as he served as her last prime minister and took on the post of the nation's acting president when the Constitutional Court of Korea removed Park from office in March 2017. He served in the post until Moon was elected in the presidential election in May the same year. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and other parties claimed it was inappropriate for him to enter politics when he had not shown remorse for his past. Even some LKP members are displeased with Hwang's decision to join their party as his presence could send out the undesirable signal that the LKP has gone back to being Park's party. It will be a long shot for Hwang to fulfill his political ambitions. Past prime ministers who entered politics and tried to become president, such as Lee Hoi-chang, have failed. Some worry Hwang lacks the leadership and character that are essential for surviving in the political world. During the Tuesday press conference, Hwang criticized President Moon's economic failures and claimed he had undermined national security. He also called for national unity. But he refused to be labeled as part of the "old evils" that the Moon administration has tried to get rid of just because he served in the Park administration. For those who supported Park's ouster, the remark could be viewed as arrogant. Hwang has a pretty good reputation among some of the older generation who supported Park and has an image of a reliable public official. But that will not be enough for him to succeed in politics. Only time will tell if Hwang is a timely addition to the LKP, or a shameful burden. Voices are growing against Moon's reckless energy policy An influential ruling party lawmaker's proposal to restart constructing two nuclear reactors is reigniting a debate over the Moon Jae-in administration's controversial push for a nuclear phase-out. Rep. Song Young-gil of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) said last Friday, "The government should resume the construction of two new nuclear reactors Shin Hanul 3 and 4 that it had halted." Song made the remarks during a meeting with representatives of the nuclear industry which has been hit hard by Moon's headlong "nuclear zero" drive. He is a four-term lawmaker who also heads the Presidential Committee on Northern Economic Cooperation. His proposal is drawing keen attention, especially as thick layers of fine dust have blanketed the country for the past several days. Song pointed out the problems of fine dust and global warming have become so severe that the nation has few other choices but to replace old coal-and oil-fired power plants. His comments are noteworthy in that a leading member of the National Assembly from the governing party has virtually called for the Moon Jae-in administration to revise its energy policy. Public opinion against the nuclear-free energy policy is spreading rapidly. A national campaign to resume the building of the two nuclear reactors collected more than 230,000 signatures in less than a month. This reflects the horrible side effects of the policy to eliminate nuclear power; which also include utilities turning toward deficit operations one by one, and related businesses, large and small, being forced to carry out massive restructuring amid aggravated bottom lines. Also, the nuclear industry's workforce is fleeing the nation with related research steadily declining, threatening to destroy the industry's ecosystem itself. The government's self-contradictory attempts to export nuclear reactors while shutting them down at home has also made it a laughing stock in global markets. The denuclearizing energy policy runs counter to resolving the fine dust problem as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Moon administration should not remain silent about the rapidly spreading ill effects of the nuclear-free energy policy. Song's remarks indicated that there are voices even within the governing party criticizing Moon's policy. One of the ruling party's duties is to rectify the government's mistakes. All responsible parties should join forces to correct the anti-nuclear energy policy decided unilaterally by environmental fundamentalists, and the sooner, the better. The recent capture of two American citizens, one from Houston, among Islamic State forces fighting in Syria is a stark reminder of the global nature of the conflict there and the recruiting powers of ISIS and other terrorist organizations. But it's also an opportunity to set a precedent that recognizes the right to due process for any American citizen apprehended in a foreign land and accused of taking up arms against the U.S. or, as in this case, a U.S.-backed militia. In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld that the U.S. government can designate a U.S. citizen or a foreign national as an "enemy combatant" and hold that individual as long as there are "ongoing hostilities" a nebulous concept in a seemingly endless war on terror. But in Hamdi the high court also ruled that any U.S. citizen designated an enemy combatant has both the right to due process challenging that designation and the right to petition for a writ of habeas corpus. As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor made clear in the court's opinion, "(A) state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens." Moreover, as most legal experts agree, the only place for U.S. citizens to be tried for alleged crimes against the U.S. whether those crimes be acts in support of terrorism or treason _ is in a U.S. federal court. That is especially true in war-torn Syrian territories or other areas where there is no functioning judicial system or impartial court to grant a writ of habeas corpus or provide due process. The Texan recently captured in Syria is Warren Christopher Clark, a 34-year-old University of Houston graduate identified in a 2018 report by George Washington University's Project on Extremism as an American attempting to join the Islamic State. Captured by Syrian Democratic Forces, a U.S.-backed militia comprised mainly of Kurdish fighters, Clark is a U.S. citizen and should be repatriated as soon as possible and granted the rights guaranteed all U.S. citizens under the Constitution, including due process and habeas corpus. As Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the ACLU's Center for Democracy, recently told us: "If the government has evidence that he committed a crime, and it wishes to incapacitate him, it should then transfer him to the U.S. and charge him in a federal court. That's the tried and true method of dealing with suspected terrorists who violate the law. What it absolutely should not do is seek to have him rendered to another country illegally or to hold him in a lawless status." As David Rivkin, a Washington-based attorney, conservative commentator, and expert on constitutional and international law, explains, the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was never intended for U.S. citizens. "From day one, the first (post 9/11) Bush executive order indicated that U.S. citizens would not be tried by military commissions. So, nothing Guantanamo related is relevant to those two U.S. citizens" recently apprehended in Syria. Both Rivkin and Hafetz agree that all American citizens apprehended overseas for supporting acts of terrorism or treason should be repatriated to the U.S. and tried in federal court. Indeed, as Rivkin explained, that's the ideal solution for any alleged foreign terrorist or enemy combatant apprehended in Syria or elsewhere to be repatriated to their home country and tried in a legitimate court of law. "The Kurds clearly want them repatriated for obvious reasons," says Rivkin. "They do not have the capability to try them with any semblance of due process. And since there's really no choice of trying them in situ (on site), they have to be tried by the judicial systems of whatever countries they're citizens of." The dilemma is what to do with alleged enemy combatants from countries that will not allow them to be repatriated, or where they will receive no due process and may be subject to torture, summary execution, or other human-rights abuses? Is Gitmo an option? President Obama vowed to close Gitmo, where now only 40 detainees charged under the U.S. military commission-system remain; while President Trump has pledged to keep it open and "load it up with a lot of bad dudes." But the fact remains that not a single detainee has been sent to Gitmo since 2008, and the U.S. is highly unlikely to use military tribunals in future cases involving irregular combatants. The more realistic solution is for the U.S. to set a precedent by swiftly repatriating American citizens accused of being enemy combatants and trying them in federal court or releasing them, if the court finds no just cause to hold them. The U.S. should then use every means at its disposal to pressure other countries to follow suit, repatriating their own citizens to stand trial in a fair and impartial setting. If that is deemed impossible, we agree with Hafetz and other human-rights activists that alleged enemy combatants should be repatriated to a "safe, third country, consistent with human-rights guarantees, such as those prohibiting torture and other ill-treatment." If there is evidence of criminal activity or treason, the detainee could then be prosecuted in a court of law, or released if there is no evidence. This may sound like a great deal of trouble to go to for individuals held captive thousands of miles away and accused of being enemy combatants. But we believe the rights of due process and habeas corpus are essential values and precisely the type of rights that terrorists seek to undermine. Creating a system that extends the rule of law by applying these values, except in times of war clearly delineated by congressional war powers, is part of the struggle necessary to win this conflict. The ongoing war on terror may require tough measures at times, but the first step in preserving our values is to live by them. The above editorial appeared in the Dallas Morning News. It was distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Monday called for efforts to ensure economic growth within a reasonable range. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang chairs a plenary meeting of the State Council which discusses a draft version of the government work report and analyzes economic work in the first quarter of 2019 in Beijing on January 14, 2019. [Photo: gov.cn] Chairing a plenary meeting of the State Council, which discussed a draft version of the government work report and analyzed economic work in the first quarter of 2019, Li said the country faces a more complicated development environment this year, with growing challenges and downward pressure on the economy, creating arduous tasks for the government. He urged efforts to strike a balance among stabilizing growth, promoting reforms, restructuring, improving people's well-being and preventing risks. The government will strive to innovate and improve its macro-regulation but not resort to massive economic stimulus, Li said. He said the country will keep economic growth within a reasonable range through range-based, targeted and precise regulation, and resist downward pressure with market vitality unleashed by reform and opening-up. The government will continue to improve the business environment, foster new momentums, improve weak links, expand the domestic market, and promote coordinated development among different industries and regions. Efforts will be made to extend the country's advantage of having sufficient maneuver room for economic development, improve people's living standards, promote high-quality development, and lay a solid foundation for securing a victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, Li said. He urged relevant authorities to better implement policies aimed at supporting enterprises and improving people's livelihood, stabilize and boost market confidence, and strive for a good start to the economy in the first quarter to create conditions favorable to achieving major economic and social development targets set for 2019. The country achieved its key economic and social targets in 2018, which Li said were "hard-won." The draft version of the government work report, which will be submitted for deliberation at the annual session of the National People's Congress in March, will be distributed to provincial governments and central government departments to solicit opinions, according to a decision made at the meeting. By Choi Sung-jin Since President Moon Jae-in took office 20 months ago, the relationship between Korea and Japan has been going steadily downhill. In a way, there is nothing strange about it, given the progressive leader's slogan is to "clean up old evils." Of course, the elimination of accumulated evils mainly concerns domestic politics. If one applies the same catchphrase to foreign policy, however, no other bilateral relationship is more problematic than that between Seoul and Tokyo. Histories of the two East Asian nations show Japan had been the unilateral assailant, and Korea the one-sided victim, since at least the 16th century. Ancient Korea delivered Chinese culture to Japan but what this peninsula got in return from the archipelago to its east has been ceaseless pillage and invasion. Japan even colonized Korea in 1910 and occupied it through 1945. Seventy-four years have passed since then, but most Koreans still regard with sufficient reason their Japanese counterparts as least likable people in the world. Koreans easily perhaps too easily forget and forgive foreigners' wrongdoing if only the latter "genuinely" regret and apologize. Japan has only reaffirmed it is unwilling or unable to do this many times. Take the case of "comfort women" for example. Japan and the previous Park Geun-hye administration settled the decades-old issue, at least ostensibly, in 2015. Tokyo put forth 1 billion yen ($9 million) not as compensation but as "humanitarian support" and made an apology "not from legal but from moral" obligation. In exchange for this superficial move, Tokyo managed to make the accord "final and irreversible" and called for relocating the girl statue an embodiment of sex slavery for Japanese troops during World War II far away from the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. Yes, the Park administration might be more to blame for the outrageous accord that completely betrayed not only the hopes of dozens of former "comfort women" alive but those of most other Koreans. Like father, like daughter, however. Her father, Park Chung-hee, a former officer in the Japanese Imperial Army who took power through a coup, hurriedly normalized bilateral relations in 1965 in large part to rehabilitate the economy and make up for his lack of legitimacy. Japan gave Korea $300 million as compensation plus $200 million in a low-interest loan on condition that South Koreans not make any more claims for compensation. So Tokyo could get away with 35 years of brutal colonial rule with just $500 million in total (about $4 billion in today's money), making the most of the anxiety of an illegitimate ruler in Seoul. The father and daughter committed unpardonable historical sins, inflicting enormous pains on former sex slaves and, more recently, thousands of surviving forced laborers. Despite the Korean Supreme Court's ruling, the Japanese government and WWII defense contractors refuse to pay compensation for forced laborers, citing the 1965 agreement. Most international legal experts, even some Japanese, say accords between governments cannot eliminate individual victims' rights to claim. This is only natural, given the protection of human rights should go ahead of time-worn statism of the 20th century. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pushing hard to make Japan a "normal" country, i.e., a country that can wage war, by revising the country's peace constitution. It's up to the Japanese people whether or not to follow their leader. Two things, however, are worrying Koreans: Unlike Germany, Japan is trying to restore its military power without fully reflecting on its shameful past, or justifying what it did, at heart. Second, Tokyo is using Korea for its ambition, as seen by the recent diplomatic dispute over the alleged radar lock-on incident involving a Japanese patrol plane and a Korean destroyer in the East Sea. How should Koreans deal with their unrepentant neighbor? Some of the so-called Japan experts here propose Koreans not demand more apologies, saying it would only estrange the Japanese people further. These experts say the Japanese put "promises," including those between countries, above all else, and will regard Koreans who appear to pursue justice under any circumstances as "unreliable" counterparts. Others say Japanese people are "realistic" and Koreans are "moralistic" so the two people should recognize they are different and respect each other, instead of forcing one's viewpoint on the other. They may be right or maybe not. One thing is certain, however, this is time to re-examine the bilateral relationship and start from the ground up. Korea cannot allow itself to be duped twice by the same trick. This year marks the centenary of the March 1, 1919, Independence Movement. A hundred years ago, Japanese occupiers killed at least 7,000 mostly unarmed, non-violent Koreans who rose to restore their nation's independence, and injured 10 times more people. Throughout this year, the entire nation will underscore the movement's historical significance which led to the establishment of the government in exile and the origination of the Republic of Korea as well as the need to get over the unfortunate past, much to the chagrin of Japan. Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently said Korea and Japan would not be able to attain anything if they bring history to the forefront. President Moon and Prime Minister Abe also agreed to shape a future-oriented relationship instead of dwelling in the past. These leaders are right. It is also true, however, the past is the mirror that shows the future. The world eerily resembles that of a century ago: Japan is allying with Britain again while the U.S. is isolating itself from the rest of the world. All Koreans, including those in North Korea, must not let history repeat itself in this part of the world, through reconciliation and eventual reunification. Choi Sung-jin is a Korea Times columnist. Contact him at choisj1955@naver.com. President Moon Jae-in, center, speaks at the start of his meeting with 128 executives from the country's top business groups at Cheong Wa Dae, Tuesday. Participants included Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, SK Chairman Chey Tae-won, LG Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and Hyundai Motor Executive Vice Chairman Chung Eui-sun. Yonhap By Kim Yoo-chul President Moon Jae-in asked the heads of the country's top conglomerates to invest more, Tuesday, vowing to revamp regulations to help them diversify their revenue sources. "I want firms to invest more in strategic and innovative sectors to transform our economy. The government will revamp regulations to help this transformation," Moon said during a meeting with the executives at Cheong Wa Dae. Moon said he felt "sorry" to see a steady decrease in facility investment by top conglomerates. "Big businesses are reviewing their investment plans, which I believe will be heavy and sizable. The government will create a special team to help make that happen," Moon said. The President said enthusiasm for fuel cells, electric vehicles, biotechnology, energy, non-memory semiconductors, fifth-generation (5G) technology and materials continues unabated with domestic and international providers prospering in their markets here. "The government will be very active to cut regulations. Hiring and investment are the core basis to guarantee the future of companies and secure new growth engines. Taking those paths boldly is the way to improve the economy and the people's quality of life," said the President. Moon added that the country requires a new industrial policy to take on its structural limitations and give more economic benefits to more citizens through innovation, Cheong Wa Dae officials said. The President thanked the leaders for expanding programs for co-growth with small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). "An entire industrial ecosystem that includes large companies and suppliers should be developed for South Korea to remain competitive, globally," he said. KT Chairman Hwang Chang-gyu asked the government to relax regulations on data privacy as wider access to personal data will help the country's dominant fixed-line operator develop its big data-driven and artificial intelligence-focused businesses. "Korea is ideally positioned over rival countries to develop AI and big data businesses. If the government relaxes regulations over data privacy, then this will be a huge boost to the telecom industry," Hwang said. Cheong Wa Dae said Moon directly handled questions from those attending the meeting which were moderated by Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) Chairman Park Yong-maan. Those participating included Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Vice Chairman Chung Eui-sun, LG Chairman Koo Kwang-mo, SK Chairman Chey Tae-won, Lotte Chairman Shin Dong-bin, GS Chairman Huh Chang-soo and Hanwha Chairman Kim Seung-youn. Presidential chief of staff Noh Young-min, presidential chief of policy Kim Soo-hyun, presidential chief of economic policy Yoon Jong-won, Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki, Trade Minister Sung Yoon-mo, Fair Trade Commission Chairman Kim Sang-jo and ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) floor leader Rep. Hong Young-pyo represented the government. Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, left, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Vice Chairman Chung Eui-sun, second from left, LG Chairman Koo Kwang-mo, third from left, Lotte Chairman Shin Dong-bin, fourth from left and Hanwha Chairman Kim Seung-youn walk into the lobby of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) building, downtown Seoul, to take on a bus heading for Cheong Wa Dae to attend a meeting between President Moon Jae-in and leaders of the country's leading conglomerates, Tuesday. Yonhap Defense Ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo speaks during a briefing Jan. 4 on the release of a video that refutes Japan's claims that a South Korean warship targeted a Japanese patrol plane with a fire control radar. Yonhap By Kim Bo-eun The conflict between Seoul and Tokyo over what the latter claims was the "painting" of one of its aircraft as a target by South Korean radar is set to stretch on, after generals' talks to address the issue ended up just confirming the differences between each side. The two countries held a meeting on the issue in Singapore, Monday. Attending from South Korea was Vice Adm. Boo Suk-jong, the chief director of military support at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Lee Won-ik, director general of international policy at the defense ministry. Lt. Gen. Atsushi Hikita, the director of operations at Japan's Joint Staff Office, and Takeshi Ishikawa, a senior defense ministry official, represented Japan. The row began after Japan accused the Navy warship Gwanggaeto the Great of targeting one of its P-1 maritime patrol planes with a fire control radar Dec. 20. Seoul denied this, and claimed the patrol aircraft flew over the destroyer at a threateningly low altitude at a time it was conducting rescue operations for a North Korean ship that had drifted into international waters in the East Sea. As the controversy grew, the two sides held a video conference Dec. 27 to resolve the matter. However, Tokyo released a video the following day claiming it was evidence that the patrol plane had been targeted. The operator of the aircraft is recorded stating that a radar was being directed at the plane. South Korea fired back by releasing its own vide in eight languages. While radar frequency data from Japan would be able to serve as evidence, Tokyo did not present the data at the meeting. It has contended this is classified information. Meanwhile, Japan requested the entire data from Gwanggaeto the Great's radar system, while offering the limited data it had collected. "This is a request that is difficult for us to accept," Defense ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo said in a briefing. "This is a highly discourteous request, and we see this as an obstinate claim that shows no willingness to resolve the issue." The two sides are expected to hold discussions on further meetings on the matter. The spat was exacerbated further because Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was reported to have ordered Japan's defense ministry to release its video. Reports said Abe made the order because he was angered by the ruling of South Korea's top court on Japanese firms involved in using forced labor. The radar row is set to further strain bilateral relations. By Park Ji-won The main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) decided not to recommend Jee Man-won, a controversial far-right figure, as a fact-finder for the May 18 Gwangju Uprising. The LKP recommended three conservative figures on Monday as members of the inter-parliamentary committee to be launched to find the facts over the May 18 student-led pro-democracy movement. It took four months for the LKP to name the three after a special act was introduced to form the committee. A special act took effect Sept. 14 to investigate human rights violations by the military during the May 18 democratic movement. Nine fact-finders should be recommended for the National Assembly speaker to form the special committee under the law. However, the committee wasn't launched as the LKP didn't submit its recommendations. A controversial figure considered a loyalist of Park Geun-hye, Jee's name was once floated for the committee but he failed to be recommended amid criticism by victims and the other political parties. Jee has been insisting the uprising was led by North Korean special military forces. Fifteen North Korean defectors pledged to file a defamation suit against Jee over his remarks for spreading false information about them. However, controversy will likely continue over nominating members of the committee, as victims are opposing the LKP's recommendations while Park loyalists insist Jee should be included. The LKP recommended Kwon Tae-oh, a former chief of a special operations team of the Combined Forces Command, Lee Dong-wook, a former reporter of the Monthly Chosun magazine, and Cha Ki-hwan, a former judge at the Suwon District Court. Victims' organizations insist the recommendations should be retracted as the three were critical of the incident. Hwang Kyo-ahn, former prime minister under Park Geun-hye administration, speaks during a press conference for his entry into the main opposition Liberty Korea Party at the National Assembly, Tuesday. / Yonhap By Park Ji-won Former Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn joined the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) on Tuesday, pledging to tackle the Moon Jae-in administration's economic policy and unify the conservatives. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and other opposition parties immediately criticized his entry into the political scene. "I will stop the Moon Jae-in government whose economic policy has failed and led to civil unrest. I will do my best to make the country live well together," Hwang said during a press conference at the National Assembly Tuesday. "Employees at small firms and small and medium-sized firms, the self-employed and young jobseekers are suffering from a poor economy. I will do my best to unify conservatives." His move came one year and eight months after he stepped down as acting president, having assumed the role after the impeachment of then President Park Geun-hye. He served as justice minister and prime minister under the Park administration. While he was prime minister, Park was impeached in March 2017 due to a corruption scandal. Insiders expected he joined the party to run in the party's leadership election on Feb. 27 in preparation for running for presidency, as recent polls showed that conservative voters like Hwang the most as a presidential contender for the 2022 race. When asked about his party leadership bid, he declined to answer but said he will decide it after listening to what LKP members, lawmakers and party branch chiefs say. Over the criticism of his connection to the impeached president and his responsibility a key figure in the former administration, Hwang rejected criticism over his alleged role in Park's scandal. "It is wrong to say all public servants who worked in the former government should be treated as part of the scandal," Hwang said. "There is a need to evaluate what was done well and what went wrong as it is." The ruling DPK and minor opposition parties immediately went all-out to criticize his return, saying the LKP is going back to the days of Park Geun-hye. "Hwang served as the justice minister and the prime minister as one of the key figures for the Park administration. He has a heavy responsibility for the political scandal related to Park and himself," Kim Tae-nyeon, the DPK's chief policymaker, said during a party meeting. "Without any sincere apology, he has returned to the political arena as if he was a triumphant general receiving a hero's welcome and is in the spotlight as a promising contender for the party's leadership." Kim Kwan-young, the floor leader of the minor Bareunmirae Party, said it was not desirable for Hwang, who has a huge responsibility for the scandal to join the LKP for the general election as trials related to Park are underway. /p> According to the white paper, North Korea has launched a special unit dedicated to carrying out special military missions, such as the assassination of the South's key figures. In November 2016, North Korea reported the establishment of a special unit via its state-run propaganda outlets, such as the Rodong Sinmun and Korea Central Television (KCTV), the white paper said. On top of that, the document stated Pyongyang has secured 50 kilograms of plutonium, which the ministry viewed shows the North holds capability to continue manufacturing nuclear weapons, according to the defense ministry. Former Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, right, ahead of joining the largest opposition Liberty Korea Party, meets the party's interim leader Kim Byong-joon at the party's conference hall at the National Assembly in Seoul, Tuesday. Yonhap Former Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who worked under the scandal-hit, ousted President Park Geun-hye, joined the main opposition party Tuesday, possibly heating up competition for the conservative party's new leadership. Hwang has been considered one of the potential contenders in the election for the Liberty Korea Party's leadership slated for Feb. 27. A recent poll showed that conservative voters prefer Hwang the most as a potential contender in the 2022 presidential election. Still, the former prime minister faces a stigma that he is closely affiliated with former conservative President Park, who was ousted in March 2017 due to a massive corruption scandal. Hwang served as acting president when Park was suspended from office by a parliamentary impeachment in late 2016. The LKP is still reeling from the fallout of Park's ouster. Hwang rejected criticism over his alleged role in Park's political scandal. Former Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, right, after joining the largest opposition Liberty Korea Party, talks with Rep. Na Kyung-won, the party's floor leader, at the National Assembly in Seoul, Tuesday. Yonhap "I don't agree with the criticism that all public servants who worked in the previous government are treated as part of deep-rooted ills," Hwang told a press conference. "There is a need to assess what was done well and what went wrong as it is. It is not right to evaluate everything as deep-rooted evils," he added. Hwang hinted at running in the party leadership election next month, vowing to end faction-based politics. The ruling Democratic Party (DP) and minor opposition parties denounced his return, saying the LKP is going back to Park's party while breaking its promise for reform. "Hwang served as the justice minister and the prime minister as one of the key figures during the Park administration. He has a heavy responsibility for the political scandal involving Park," said Kim Tae-nyeon, the DP's chief policymaker, at a meeting with party members. "Without any word of apology, he has returned to the political scene as if he was a triumphant general receiving a hero's welcome and is in the spotlight as a potential contender for the party's leader," he added. On Dec. 9, 2016, after former South Korean President Park Geun-hye was in hot water for her corruption charges, then-Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn bows during his national address at Seoul Government Complex. Korea Times file By Kang Seung-woo A unit of the World Health Organization (WHO) dealing with environmental pollution and healthcare issues will be established in Seoul in the first half of the year, the city government and the Ministry of Environment announced, Tuesday. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the WHO Asia-Pacific Centre for Environment and Health in the Pacific Region will open in the Seoul Global Center building in central Seoul and start official duties in May. The center is designed to provide countries in the region with the latest evidence on the nature and magnitude of existing and emerging environmental health risks. It will also assist in identifying and implementing policies to address these risks. The ministry, the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office and the local government signed a three-way memorandum of understanding (MOU) to bring the center to the capital. Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, Environment Minister Cho Myung-rae, WHO Western Pacific Regional Office Director Shin Young-soo and 100 guests attended the signing ceremony at Seoul Global Center. The organization will be the WHO's first environment and health center in the Asia-Pacific region, and the agency's second following its European one in Bonn, Germany, which was established in 1991. "To create a healthy society, where people are free from detrimental environmental conditions such as fine dust and climate change, we are hosting the WHO center in Seoul," Minister Cho said at the ceremony. "As the European center contributed to the international community after suggesting the criterion of fine dust, we hope the Asia-Pacific entity will exercise its leadership and expertise in addressing pending regional environmental issues." Seoul Mayor Park vowed to make the incoming organization a key facility in Asia-Pacific. "In collaboration with 31 Seoul-based international and local networks in the fields of environment and healthcare, Seoul City is set to help the WHO center play a key role in the region," Park said. The center, which plans to name its head and hire employees in March, will be divided into three teams one on air quality, energy and healthcare, another on climate change and healthcare, and the third on water and the living environment. According to the MOU, the center will submit its technical and financial statements to the city government and the environment ministry every year and its operations will also be assessed by them in the first, fifth and ninth years after its launch. For the operations, the ministry will pay 940 million won ($839,000) and the city 500 million won for the first year, followed by a respective 1.9 billion won and 500 million won the following year, although each contribution needs approval from the National Assembly and the Seoul Metropolitan Council. "Under the MOU, the WHO will raise 3.8 billion won each year from 2019 to 2023 for the center," said an official from the local government. Employees of Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth (CARE) call for the resignation of its head Park So-youn at the organization office in Seoul, Sunday, for having 250 animals euthanized without informing staffers and donors. / Yonhap By Kim Hyun-bin The government has started inspecting private animal protection centers amid the controversy over a local animal shelter's alleged euthanasia of rescued animals. Since December, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs has been inspecting private animal shelters, which is scheduled to be carried out through March. There are 293 animal protection centers that are supervised by local governments. Forty of them are in direct governmental control and the remaining 253 are private ones to which the governments outsourced. However, there are many more private animal shelters without the municipalities' surveillance, and the ministry is unaware of the total number. An animal activist group's report estimated the number at around 150 nationwide. "There is not even a government definition of what a private animal protection center is," said an official from an animal activist group, KARA. Such private shelters operate under a legal loophole. "Those facilities are not subject to regulations under the Animal Protection Law," a ministry official said. The ministry plans to grasp the situation of these facilities, such as how many centers are in operation and how animals are treated there. It also plans to meet and gather opinions from shelter operators in February, before it releases a mid-term report on their progress the same month. Most private animal shelters are operated by donations. However, only a handful of popular shelters receive sufficient donations to manage the organizations and shelters, and many smaller ones are suspected of being underfunded and understaffed. According to the ministry's 2017 data, there were 102,593 reports on lost or abandoned animals, and 20.2 percent of them were euthanized because of illness or some other causes designated by the law on mercy killing. This number was from the 293 protection centers supervised by local governments, not including data from private facilities. Last week, the animal protection issue emerged after a CARE employee blew the whistle that the group leader Park ordered the euthanasia of some 250 animals between 2015 and last year due to a lack of space at their shelters. By Dong Sun-hwa A Chinese-Malaysian teenager was caught allegedly pocketing money via phone fraud on behalf of a scam ring last Wednesday, according to Daegu Dongbu Police Station, Tuesday. The teenager, 18, swindled over 16 million won ($14,000) from three victims from Dec. 20, 2018, to Jan. 4, 2019, and sent the cash to the ring, according to police. But a police official told The Korea Times that the money was hard to trace because it was repeatedly moved from one overseas location to another, a typical voice-phishing method. "We are still trying to identify the ring's base," he said. The teenager reportedly called the victims and posed as a prosecution investigation officer, telling them their savings were in danger. He then asked them to transfer the money to a bank account that he said belonged to an employee of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) for protection. Police said the teenager was promised a 3 percent cut of the money. "A probe is under way to find out if he has been involved in additional crimes," another police official said. "The scamming methods are continually evolving. People should pay closer attention to phone calls that require the transfer or withdrawal of cash." Park So-youn has long been the most famous face of the animal rights movement in Korea. Yonhap President Moon Jae-in adopted Tori, a dog rescued by CARE, soon after being sworn into office in 2017. Courtesy of CARE By Jung Min-ho The leader of one of South Korea's largest animal rights groups is facing a police investigation and lawsuits from donors and her own staff after allegedly secretly exterminating more than 200 dogs and cats she "rescued" in front of cameras. Park So-youn, the founder and director of Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth (CARE), was once hailed as an animal savior who devoted her life to saving their lives, especially those abandoned. The group's no-kill policy, which she announced on Facebook in 2011, touched the hearts of many who share the same philosophy about how animals should be treated. Thanks to that bond of sympathy, CARE collected nearly 2 billion won ($1.8 million) from generous donors last year. Now everyone who thought they knew her is feeling betrayed because of what she allegedly did when the cameras were off. After media reports of her alleged lies, they realized that all her campaigns might have been nothing but media stunts. Park is now accused of euthanizing at least 230 of the dogs and cats CARE rescued from "animal abusers" between 2015 and September last year. She also is suspected of covering it up from the media, donors and even most of her own staff. According to a whistleblower, she ordered staff to "find new dogs and disguise them" so TV producers would not notice that CARE euthanized six of 12 dogs it rescued from a dog-fighting businessman in 2016. The whistleblower, who said she revealed the secrets to the media because she felt guilty about being part of what she thought was wrong, claimed CARE carried out rescue operations more than it could handle; one of the reasons, she noted, was Park wanted media attention that would help ensure a continued stream of donations. Viewers are mostly interested in watching such rescue efforts, but they pay less attention to what happens to the animals afterward, the whistleblower said. CARE's internal documents show that Park ordered a large amount of anesthetic drugs used for euthanasia before the "Namyangju Project," which was aimed at rescuing 200 dogs from a dog farm Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province, last July. Based on the purchase timing, many think she proceeded with the operation with a plan to kill some of the dogs later. A woman sheds tears as CARE officials call on its leader, Park So-youn, to resign for allegedly euthanizing more than 200 dogs and cats without telling them the truth, during their protest in central Seoul, Jan. 12. Yonhap BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- The mayor of Beijing said Monday that more efforts would be made to green the city in the new year, including creating more parks, planting more trees and expanding greenbelt areas downtown. The annual government work report, delivered by Chen Jining at the opening meeting of the annual session of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress, said 1,600 hectares of land would be vacated for greening purposes in 2019. The city has planned to add 16,667 hectares of forest this year, in addition to the 17,933 hectares completed in 2018, according to the report. A total of 1,683 hectares of land were vacated for greening in the last year, Chen said. Another 28 city leisure parks and 121 mini parks were added, bringing the coverage of parks within a radius of 500 meters to 80 percent citywide. An area of 66.7 hectares of the "green core" of the city, located in Tongzhou District, has been greened in the past year, together with the creation of several other wetland parks in and around the city, Chen said. Suburban districts including Yanqing, Huairou and Miyun will step up applications to be national-level forest cities through the establishment of a green development fund and green bonds to attract social capital, the report said. South Korea's tax agency said Tuesday that all foreign wage earners must file their year-end 2018 tax settlement by the end of next month, regardless of their nationality or length of stay. The National Tax Service said some income deduction or tax credit items are not applicable to foreigners and recommended that they take advantage of special taxation schemes, such as income tax reduction and exemption. The NTS said a foreign employee can choose to apply for a 19-percent flat tax rate for wage and salary income, including non-taxable income, received from the first date of providing service in South Korea to the taxable period, which ends within five years of that date. In the case of foreign engineers who have signed a technology introduction contract, or engineers who work as researchers in a foreign-invested company, a 50 percent reduction of income tax is applied to wage and salary income for two years. Foreign teachers and professors are exempted from income tax for a set period in most cases, two years if they come from countries with which South Korea has a taxation-related pact. The NTS said 558,000 foreign employees filed income tax worth 770.7 billion won (US$688 million) for year-end tax settlement in 2017. (Yonhap) By Steven L. Shields Forty years ago, during my first sojourn in Korea, I read Kim Eun-kook's now well-known novels. "The Martyred," his first, was written in English, and later translated into several languages. He was one of the first Korea-born writers of note and helped introduce modern fiction by and about Korean topics to the world. Kim was the first Asian writer to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Published in 1964, "The Martyred" was on the New York Times Bestseller list for 20 weeks. Kim's works are set during the 1910-45 Japanese occupation, 1950-53 Korean War and Park Chung-hee's 1961 coup. He taught for decades in universities in the United States. Korea has a rich and fast-growing library of modern literature. The list of writers of novels, short stories, and other works is long. Korean writers have taken a significant place in world literature. Their translators are also making names for themselves. These Korean writers, some contemporary and some from times past but reborn through modern editions and translations, not only represent the best of Korean literature, they are being received and honored globally. Many of these Korean writers are equal to the great writers of other cultures and countries. The , based in Seoul, is a government-affiliated organization founded in 2001. The organization's purpose is to introduce and promote Korean literature around the world. The LTI lists about 300 Korean writers whose works are available in translation. They publish a literary magazine and have an extensive collection of digitized works. Over the past few months, I've been reading an intriguing selection of books in English translation. The sponsors a monthly Literature Club. Books are selected by the literature committee, then club members buy the book and read it for discussion. One of the books I've read is Han Kang's "The White Book," translated by Deborah Smith. Han's bibliography is lengthy, with her novels having been translated into several languages. "The White Book" was on the shortlist for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize but was not selected. Han won the prize in 2016 for her book, "The Vegetarian." Jeong Yoo-jeong's "The Good Son," translated by Kim Chi-young, is a somewhat gory, but compelling psychological thriller on par with the likes of Stephen King. Some members of the RAS Literature Club were horrified at all the blood and gore. Jeong crafted a truly chilling psychopathic murderer as the protagonist in the story. As a reader, I was drawn in quickly and completely a roller-coaster of a story. Similarly, "The Hole," by Pyun Hye-young (translated by Sora Kim-Russell) has elements of psycho-drama. The tragic story of a man left paralyzed by a car accident, with his whole family dead except for his mother-in-law who resents having to care for him. I found myself in deep empathy with the poor man who was helpless to escape not just the prison of his broken body, but imprisonment by his mother-in-law, who turned out to be not quite so loving. Anton Hur, a multinational born and raised Korean, is making a name for himself in literature. His translations of "The Court Dancer," by Shin Kyung-sook and "The Underground Village," by Kang Kyeon-ae, read so well in English that Hur has been noted as sometimes being "too fluent." "The Court Dancer," is a tragic romance, set in the waning days of the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom. The story revolves around a young woman who is appointed to the royal court as a dancer and becomes a favorite of Queen Min. Catching the eye of a French diplomat, she is permitted to marry and leave for France. The story's historical setting includes many people of import, both Korean and expatriate. Shin, through Hur's excellent storytelling translation style, makes late 1800s Korea and France almost come to life. The RAS Literature Club's next read, "The Underground Village," is a collection of short stories by an early Korean feminist writer. Kang Kyong-ae (died 1944) spent much of her life in Manchuria with the resistance, fighting Japanese imperialism. Kang was married to a communist, and for several years edited the Manchuria edition of the Chosun Ilbo. Her short stories are true to life and clearly come from her own experiences as well as observations. Kang was an incredibly perceptive interpreter of her surroundings. The grit of survival Korean refugees faced on the frontier is often painful to read. At the mercy of greedy Chinese landlords, warlords, and conflict among the Korean community itself (communist, democratic, royalist), they were often lucky to find food or shelter. The RAS Literature Club is open to the public, but having read the book is a requirement for taking part. Contact club coordinator Hong Yon-joo ( ) for information. Steven L. Shields, a retired cleric, serves as a vice president of the Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (raskb.com) and is a columnist for The Korea Times. A shaman performs a ritual on Jeju Island. / Courtesy of Joey Rositano By Hallie Bradley Last October, Jeju Island's most beloved Shamanic shrine tree with a 400-year-history fell due to high typhoon winds, and Joey Rositano found himself mourning the loss with the people in the nearby Waheul village. The tree was an intangible cultural treasure familiar to many on the island and served as the village's spiritual center. It is shrines like this that Rositano has spent years documenting in order to shed light on the shamanic traditions of the island that reach back to before recorded history. He originally hails from Tennessee, but has lived on Jeju since 2006. He became enthralled with the shrine worship while there and for the past decade has sought to document through photos and video the rites and rituals many believed had disappeared. "Jeju's muism is one of the strongest living examples of Eurasian polytheism that we have in the world. It's quite likely this religion will die with the elder generation," Rositano said. "What can be salvaged as a physical representation of that culture are the shrines." Muism is a traditional Shamanism specific to Jeju, and there are over 400 related shrines on the island. Over the past decade the shrines have come into major news outlets from time to time as they were either desecrated or set to be torn down due to a contentious naval base being constructed. "There has been some action for sure in recent years to save the shrines," Rositano explained, "with more maintenance sponsored and funded by the island government." Some shrines were reinforced with stone, and saplings were planted where famous shrine trees had died. Still, commercial development has been a major issue and shrines have either been displaced or destroyed. Rositano says, "as far as recognition of the issue, this is something that has changed dramatically with people becoming more conscious that the Shamanic shrines are a cultural heritage." It is exactly this cultural heritage that Rositano seeks to document and share with the world in a three-part documentary film titled "Spirits: The Story of Jeju Island's Shamanic Shrines." Joey Rositano speaks to a Jeju diver who is holding freshly caught seafood in her hand. His upcoming documentary will focus on the spiritual faith of the haenyeo, Jeju's female divers. / Courtesy of Tanner Jones The delves into the concept of "Story Healing." The shrines on the island are often used for healing purposes, specifically dealing with emotional and psychological trauma. Healing through storytelling is a connection we have across cultures but Rositano explains, "On Jeju Island the techniques of such healing are applied in very concentrated and obvious ways." The second part in the series will focus on the faith of the "haenyeo," or women divers famous on Jeju Island, and the third part will delve into Jeju's mountainous area. Both will be released later this year. Rositano has also released a of the same name to share more of the intimate experiences he has had visiting the villages, meeting the villagers and viewing the shrine worship. Both the documentary and the book can be found on . Visit or for more information. Civic groups and family members of the deceased tenants in the Yongsan Disaster, a clash between tenants and police in a redevelopment area, call for punishment of those responsible for the forced eviction, in a rally near Cheong Wa Dae, Seoul, Tuesday, before the 10th anniversary of the incident that falls on Jan. 20. Five tenants and one policeman died in a deadly fire that broke out during a rooftop clash at a building in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, in 2009. / Yonhap Biennial defense white paper reflects inter-Korean peace By Lee Min-hyung Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo The Ministry of National Defense has removed its definition of North Korea as the "main enemy" in its latest defense white paper, reflecting of the ongoing inter-Korean reconciliation. "The South Korean military considers any force threatening the nation's sovereignty, territory and property as the enemy," the ministry said in the biennial white paper, published Tuesday. This is the first time since 2010 that the defense ministry dropped the term "enemy" when referring to North Korea in the paper. The decision is in contrast to the previous version of the paper in which the ministry called North Korea the "primary security threat" against South Korea. The 2016 paper also stated the North Korean regime and its military forces will remain as a major security threat as long as the North continues its military provocations. The ministry explained that the shifted stance against the North was in response to the regime's steps for peace and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. "Even if the two Koreas have repeated military confrontations and reconciliations, a new security environment has been established here following three rounds of inter-Korean summits and a U.S.-North Korea summit in 2018," the paper said. But the white paper also said the South views the North's weapons of mass destruction as a potential threat to peace and stability . "The military will also continue developing responsive capabilities against potential non-military threats, such as terrorism and cyberattacks," the paper said. The ministry's shifted definition on North Korea, however, is raising a controversy here amid concerns that the decision may have a negative influence for the military to maintain its security readiness. The unpredictable nature of the regime also comes as a major source of contention on the shifted definition of the North. Concerns are that the toned-down stance toward the North may reduce the South Korean military readiness to promptly deal with any potential provocations from the regime. A military official said no other countries use "enemy" in their white papers, so the ministry's decision to drop the terminology came in part against this backdrop. "We have taken into account terminologies from the ministry's overseas counterparts, but no countries have used such terms as "the enemy'in their white paperS," the official said. This has also cast an influence on the ministry's recent decision to tone down provocative rhetoric against the North, according to the official. Lingering threat from NK According to the white paper, North Korea has launched a special unit dedicated to carrying out special military missions, such as the assassination of the South's key figures. In November 2016, North Korea reported the establishment of a special unit via its state-run propaganda outlets, such as the Rodong Sinmun and Korea Central Television (KCTV), the white paper said. On top of that, the document stated Pyongyang has secured 50 kilograms of plutonium, which the ministry viewed shows the North holds capability to continue manufacturing nuclear weapons, according to the defense ministry. Kim Yong-chol, center, vice chairman of the regime's ruling Workers' Party Central Committee, shakes hands with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, while seeing him off at Pyongyang International Airport last Oct. 7. / Yonhap Seoul urged to raise voice against possible 'ICBM deal' By Lee Min-hyung Preparations for the second summit between the United States and North Korea are in full swing amid signs that their resumption of pre-summit high-level talks is imminent. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday (local time) that Washington and Pyongyang are in discussion to "work out the details" over the highly anticipated summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The remark is seen as an implication that the two sides are in an advanced level of talks to fine-tune such details as the timetable, location and agenda for the summit. Starting this year, the two sides have shown signs of resuming their stalled talks on denuclearization of the North, with Trump and Kim exchanging their bilateral willingness for the summit to resolve the ongoing deadlock in their negotiations. For this reason, it appears likely that Pompeo will meet with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of the regime's ruling Workers' Party Central Committee, in a short period of time, experts argued. The two officials planned to hold the high-level talks in November, in efforts to break their political impasse on the denuclearization of the North. But with the regime abruptly cancelling the schedule, their rare momentum for dialogue has since shown no signs of resumption. War of nerves between US, N. Korea Experts said Monday that North Korea will continue engaging in a war of nerves against the U.S. before the second summit. In this June. 12, 2018, file photo, U.S. President Donald Trump, right, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sentosa Island, in Singapore. AP-Yonhap Senior North Korean and U.S. officials may meet in Washington D.C. later this week for consultations on a second summit, a diplomatic source here said Tuesday. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to greet Kim Yong-chol, a top aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The source pointed out that the two sides are resolved to have face-to-face negotiations. "Given Secretary Pompeo's other commitments, it's true that (he's) available for the talks on Jan. 17-18," the source said. Pompeo has cut short a trip to the Middle East for a family funeral. By Jhoo Dong-chan Debate about the future course of the global economy are intensifying as it has clearly passed its peak and appears to be heading for a recession. Korea is particularly vulnerable to a global downturn as it is a small, open economy with a heavy reliance on exports. If the world economy slips into recession, it will become a perfect storm for the local economy, already beset by sagging domestic demand. Renowned think tanks, investment banks and scholars are equally divided into two camps on whether the global economy is heading for a recession. Some say this is the case and it will be second only to the Great Depression, while others claim skeptics are too jumpy. It is clear there are more pessimists who claim the global economy will be under the current slowdown for a while rather than seeing a turnaround, according to numerous sources at home and abroad. The World Bank said in a recent study, "Darkening Skies," that global economic growth is projected to soften from a downwardly revised 3 percent in 2018 to 2.9 percent in 2019, citing rising downside risks. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan Global bigwigs also reveal their fears. "It would be very surprising to see markets sort of stabilize here and then take off," former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in a recent interview with CNN. Another former chief of Fed, Chairwoman Janet Yellen, also displayed her concerns about mounting corporate debt. "High levels of corporate leverage could prolong the downturn and lead to lots of bankruptcies," she told CNBC. Former Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen Yale University economist and Nobel laureate Robert Shiller said the steep run-up in the current market rally is similar to the excesses of the 1920s before the October 1929 market crash and Great Depression. "I look at 1929 particularly as the end of the roaring 1920s and it ended in a bout of speculation. Between May and September of 1929 the stock market went up over 30 percent in just a few months," Shiller said in an interview with CNBC. "We're not exactly in that circumstance but we do have the market that has surged since 2009 so there is something of that spirit today." They commonly blamed the ongoing U.S.-China trade dispute, worsening corporate earnings, mounting global debt and China's deteriorating economic indices for the possible global recession. International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the global economy is expected to shrink because of the trade tension between the U.S. and China. New York University economist 'Dr. Doom' Nouriel Roubini said in a recent column the Trump administration's policies will bring about stagflation and that the risks of a financial crisis and depression are growing. However, big-name optimists claimed skeptics are exaggerating current developments. J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon "I think markets are overreacting to short-term sentiment around a whole bunch of complex issues," J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in a Fox Business interview. "My view is that the consumer is in good shape and is continuing to grow, and they have backwinds with jobs and wages going up. I think you're going to have decent growth in 2019 in America." Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Goldman Sachs Korea Managing Director Lee Jay-hyun, left, holds a promotional banner for the investment bank's charity event, "Sharing Bread Together," with Sun-In Founder and CEO Hugo Lee, second from left, and Korean Red Cross President Park Kyung-seo, third from left, at the Korean Red Cross branch in Nowon-gu, Seoul, Tuesday. Sun-In is a leading Korean specialty food ingredient manufacturer and distributor. Through the event, they provided freshly baked bread to children of more than 1,100 low-income families across the country the same day. / Courtesy of Goldman Sachs Korea GFriend members pose for a photo at a press showcase promoting their second full-length album "Time for Us" held in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap By Kwak Yeon-soo K-pop girl group GFriend comprising of Sowon, Eunha, Yerin, Yuju, SinB and Umji celebrated their fourth anniversary on Tuesday by releasing a new studio album with the sentimental yet powerful single "Sunrise." The lead track on "Time for Us," the follow up to last year's "Time for the Moonlight," "Sunrise" is a song that is packed with orchestral sounds as the sextet layer their vocals over the melody. Its lyrics compare a beloved person to the sun that is yet to rise. "This is the first album since our first full-length album LOL, released in July 2016, and our first release since Sunny Summer last July," member Umji said during a press showcase for promoting their second full length album at YES24 Live Hall in eastern Seoul, Monday. The song was released alongside a sophisticated music video that features the six members serving up intense choreography with elements like hand moves emulating the sun. For GFriend, the performance and style elements play a big role for them in shaping their concept. "I dyed my hair blonde to stand out in the music video. When the MV teasers were released, my fans told me that my style matches well with the concept," group leader Sowon said. "We put a lot of effort into of vocals," member Yuju said. "I think Eunha's four-octave high note in Sunrise would be noteworthy to watch." GFriend members perform their new single "Sunrise" during a press showcase promoting their second full length album "Time for Us" held in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap "Starting the long overdue pullout from Syria," Trump tweeted, adding US forces would continue to strike the remnants of the Islamic State (IS) from "many directions" and the "existing nearby base." "Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20 miles safe zone ...," Trump said, threatening to impose economic measures against Ankara if it attacks Kurds, but not giving details about the safe zone. At the same time, Trump also urged Kurds "not to provoke Turkey." The United States and Turkey have been falling into quarrels recently regarding the fortunes of Kurdish militia in northern Syria, which is an ally of Washington in the counter-IS campaign but a "terrorist group" viewed by Ankara. US National Security Adviser John Bolton said on January 6 in Israel that the United States would withdraw from Syria only after Turkey pledges to safeguard Kurds. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan later refuted it, saying "Bolton has made a serious mistake ... we will not have any compromise on this. What he said cannot be accepted." Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in an interview on January 10 that Turkey would conduct the planned military operation to thwart the threat in northern Syria, even if the United States delays the withdrawal. Bolton noted on the following day that the military environment in northern Syria was "very complex", warning that Turkey should not take any military action that is not fully coordinated through the military channels with the United States. Bolton also revealed that the discussions between the militaries of the United States and Turkey on Syria would continue next week, expecting the result of discussions would be acceptable on both sides. The Kurdish militia groups, which have been controlling areas in northern and northeastern Syria since the early time of the more than seven-year-long war, have felt the pinch after Trump's decision to withdraw US troops from Syria last month. Currently, there are about 2,000 US troops deployed in Syria. The US military has reportedly started withdrawing ground equipment from the country. City officials have claimed in recent days that crime is declining in Kokomo, but a shortage of public information has painted a foggy picture. Data released last week by the city administration shows an overall decline in violent crimes and property crimes, along with a decrease in the number of calls made to Howard County dispatch from within city limits. Kokomo crime data including homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft and motor vehicle theft is reported each year to the FBI for an annual crime report and is often released by city officials before the bureaus own publication. But not included in the citys media release is information about drug crimes or other offenses or overall arrest figures. Efforts by the Tribune to obtain those figures the FBI does not include drug crimes in its Uniform Crime Reports have been unsuccessful. In many ways, 2018 represented a crisis point for Kokomo and Howard Countys drug epidemic. One year earlier, the county had tallied its deadliest year ever for drug overdose deaths with 44 fatalities. In response, city and county agencies, along with nonprofit groups and concerned citizens, worked in 2018 to initiate various hastened reactions to the crisis. Those included the launch of Turning Point, a community initiative meant to help addicts and their families access addiction and healthcare resources, the opening of a medication-assisted treatment facility on South Reed Road and more. The most notable law enforcement action was Operation Law and Order, a multi-agency, four-month-long investigation that ended on May 1 when around 130 local and federal officers conducted raids and dismantled an alleged drug and firearms ring stretching from Georgia to Kokomo. Defendants in Kokomo drug, murder-for-hire case seek trial delay Defendants in a federal case that involves pounds of meth and thousands of dollars in drug m Overall, 14 people have been charged in an indictment filed on Sept. 18 in the federal Southern District of Indiana. In conjunction, three defendants faced charges in Howard County courts for their involvement in a murder-for-hire plot. Local officials have called it the most "serious" drug bust in Kokomos history. Part two of Operation Law and Order has continued with the highly-publicized arrests of dozens of meth users and dealers throughout the city. The Howard County prosecutors office, however, has yet to release 2018 drug-crime data despite a request from the Tribune. A similar request to the Kokomo Police Department has also gone unfilled. Meanwhile, it is unclear exactly how many arrests were made in Kokomo in 2018. Howard County Jail Commander Robin Byers said in an email that she is still compiling year-end figures. Health and success The media release titled Crime continues to decline in Kokomo shows that violent crimes dropped by 13 percent in 2018. There were 364 violent crimes reported in 2018 compared to 417 reported in 2017, according city figures. The most dramatic drop was seen in aggravated battery cases, which numbered 248 in 2018. That was a decline of 24 percent from the previous year. Homicides also dropped from six to four. There was, however, a dramatic increase in the number of robberies. Last year included 70 robberies, up from 48 in 2017. That is a 45 percent increase. Reported rapes increased from 36 to 42, a bump of 16 percent. Separately, property crimes declined in Kokomo by 14 percent with 1,426 reported in 2018 versus 1,669 in 2017. Theft dropped to a 24-year low, according to city officials, with 1,036 thefts reported in 2018. It was only the third time that number ended below 1,200 since 1995. In conjunction, burglaries dropped 25 percent to its lowest number since 2000. We are encouraged that both property and violent crimes are decreasing, said Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight in the release. It reflects well on our department and our community policing efforts. Goodnight also cited an increased willingness of sexual assault victims to report crimes committed against them. Weve seen an uptick in the number of people willing to report crimes that may have gone unreported in the past, said Goodnight. So we are seeing an increasing willingness to report crime while at the same time experiencing a decrease in overall crime. Kokomo Police Chief Rob Baker added: The women and men of the Kokomo Police Department have a high standard of professionalism. Their efforts are a primary factor in the health and success of our community. Additionally, city officials have highlighted numbers obtained by the Howard County 911 Communications Center that show a 14 percent decline in calls for service from within Kokomo. The KPD received 43,960 calls for service in 2018, according to the release, a drop from 51,441 in 2017. The city defines calls for service as calls made by the public requiring the assistance of police officers to resolve, correct or assist a particular situation. City officials have also pointed to a change in dispatch software that they believe makes the reported decline more significant. The software used by the [KPD] changed in 2014, so the way calls for service are logged changes as well, notes the release. Under the new system basic administrative calls were added to calls logged, including civil process, DARE classes, meetings, range practice, training and transporting prisoners. Despite the additional calls being tallied, Calls for Service have decreased each year since the change. Questions sent to the KPD about why violent crime and property crime numbers changed between 2017 and 2018 were not answered. Police staffing In April 2018, the KPD announced an updated hiring policy that officials said would produce a larger and more diverse list of candidates vying to join the police force. Changes in the policy, which were praised by Kokomo Fraternal Order of Police President Jeramie Dodd, put an emphasis on officers transferring laterally from other departments. Dodd said the altered approach would provide quality, already-seasoned applicants and save money on the training costs that exist with new, prospective officers going through the police academy. Meanwhile, KPD Maj. Brian Seldon said the department would also work to increase and diversify its candidate pool. We want our pool to reflect our community that we live, and our department to reflect that, noted Seldon. At the time, the department had 83 officers. The KPD now has 80 officers, according to a department spokeswoman. A request for data showing diversity levels within the citys ranks has not been filled by Kokomos human resources office. In comparison, data compiled by the FBI shows that in 2011 when the citys pre-annexation population sat near 45,000 the KPD had 103 officers. The citys population is now pushing 58,000. Still, Kokomos current police staffing number sits between similar-sized cities; for instance, it is below Anderson but above Greenwood, according to the most recent available FBI data set. Meanwhile, a 2016 study by Governing magazine found that jurisdictions with populations between 50,000 and 100,000 had on average 15.9 officers per 10,000 residents. Kokomo has roughly 13.8 officers for every 10,000 residents. Its unknown how that number will change in coming years, although city officials have placed an emphasis on publicizing police hirings. Most recently, the city announced in November the induction ceremony of a new KPD recruit named Zachary Griffith. Griffith began his career as a patrol officer for the Logansport Police Department and was the first KPD hire under the new lateral entry program. The premise of the program is to recognize the value of those applicants who have law enforcement experience, said Goodnight at the time. We did this with the hope of producing a larger and more diverse list of candidates. Lateral hires represent an effective avenue to get new officers on the job and on the streets in a timely manner. The city boasted that Griffith was the first of four officers going through the hiring process, and a public swearing-in ceremony was held for Griffith at a Kokomo Board of Public Works and Safety meeting on Nov. 7, with Goodnight reading an oath to the new officer. Still, despite city efforts, the topic of police staffing has remained a prominent criticism of Goodnights administration. Howard County Commissioner Tyler Moore brought the issue into the spotlight on Wednesday when, while announcing his mayoral campaign, he showed an advertisement describing Kokomo residents who love their neighborhoods but want to take them back. The central issue of his campaign, said Moore, will be the size of Kokomos police and fire departments. Im concerned with the level of the police force as well as firefighters, noted Moore. Im friends with many in both departments and Ive often heard their concerns with the staffing levels as they currently stand. Thats first and foremost. Will drug busts create change? Its still unclear what effect Operation Law and Orders major drug bust and its ongoing sweep of dealers and users has had, and could have, on Kokomos crime levels or its drug scene. Past comments from local officials, however, have expressed at best cautious optimism. As long as the demand exists, so will the supply, they say. And while there may be a brief muffling of drug crime in Kokomo, it likely wont last for long. Disorienting them in a way, disassociation or disorganization of wrecking this system buys us a little time, said Howard County Prosecutor Mark McCann in August. Im confident in saying, yeah, it has an immediate impact, maybe a short-term impact, but long-term, with the addicts we have and the users out there, the demand ... would need to change in order to make an impact. * The nuclear chief in Iran said Sunday that the Islamic republic has taken initial steps for 20-percent uranium enrichment to produce fuel for its nuclear reactor. * Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin on January 13 urged Lebanese officials to speed up the government formation in order to start necessary reforms in the country. * Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has ruled out calling an early general election, setting the stage for the nation to go to the polls in May. * The mayor of northern Polish city of Gdansk, Pawel Adamowicz, was stabbed by a man while he was on stage of a charity event held in the Baltic city of Gdansk on January 13 evening, local media reported. * The United Nations welcomed the decision by the parliament of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to ratify an agreement with Greece on a new name for itself, UN News reported Sunday. * Australia's Foreign Minister Marise Payne said on January 14 the nation has a "great concern" about the US plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. * Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammad al-Hakim said on January 13 that Iraq supports the restoration of Syria's suspended membership of the Cairo-based Arab League (AL). * Iran's Defense Ministry announced on January 13 that homegrown long-range cruise missile Soumar will be delivered to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in near future. * Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed on January 13 that Israel had attacked multiple Iranian sites in Syria over the weekend, in a rare public acknowledgment of such airstrikes. * The Turkish government and Turkish Cypriots have asked the United Nations to delay restarting negotiations for a solution to the Cyprus problem for at least five months, Cyprus' state television reported on January 13. * US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh on January 13 as part of his regional tour. * Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on January 13 ordered to set up a fund of US$20 million to evacuate African immigrants in Libya to their home countries. * France is willing to provide logistics support for the Libyan Interior Ministry, French Ambassador to Libya Beatrice du Hellen said Sunday. The French envoy made the remarks at a meeting with Libyan Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha, during which they discussed ways to boost mutual cooperation. * UN Special Envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame on Sunday (January 13) visited southern Libya for the first time since taking office in July 2017, where he met with tribal elders, academics and local activists. * Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrived in Baghdad on January 13 for talks with Iraqi leaders to discuss means to enhance bilateral cooperation. * Egypt will provide Jordan with half of its natural gas needs for power production in 2019 under an agreement signed Sunday. Jordan used to receive around 250 million cubic feet of gas from Egypt in 2004 and the volumes were reduced in 2009 and came to complete halt in 2011 after attacks by terrorist groups on the pipeline in Sinai that provides gas to Jordan. After the halt in Egyptian gas, Jordan resorted to importing more expensive liquefied natural gas. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. The Kasoa Divisional Police Command in the Central Region has arrested two persons who posed as gay men to blackmail and defrauded their victims believed to be homosexuals. The two, Philip Larbi (Ghanaian) and Sam Akai (Liberian), were arrested by the Kasoa Divisional Police Command at Gomoa Budumbura, a suburb of Kasoa in the Central Region. Explaining their ways of operation, ACP David Agyemang Agyem, the Kasoa Divisional Police Commander, explained that the two individuals often used an LGBTI app called grindr to lure their prospective victims and subsequently rob them. The suspects, Philip Larbi and Sam Akai Source: Citifmonline.com Source: UGC READ ALSO: You will lose everything you have acquired - Prophet tells NAM1 (Video) The divisional police commander said that the victims mostly LGBTI men, were lured to Gomoa Budumburam in the Central Region under the guise of meeting their partners for intimacy. According to him, upon arrival, they were threatened at knifepoint and all their monies and other valuables taken away from them. They lure these victims to the Budumburam Camp and rob them of their valuables and sometimes transfer monies of their victims from their mobile money wallet onto their phone, the Divisional commander said. READ ALSO: Armed police officers storm house of NAM1s mother to gather information The commander also mentioned that the suspects took nude photos of the victims and later threatened to post them on social media if they do not adhere to financial demands made by them. Meanwhile, the leaders of the group, namely Gadaffi and Sparta, are currently on the run after these two were arrested. ACP Agyemang further warned individuals who visit the grindr website to be wary of these black mailers since they are out there to do evil. Those who visit the grindr website which is an LGBTI site must be careful and must watch out for criminals since they are looking for people to devour ACP Agyemang noted. READ ALSO: Man jailed for 14-years in the Central Region for stealing 14-inch TV Yenkasa: What Did You Do Before, During and After Christmas?| #Yencomgh Click here to get the latest exciting English Premier League news. Get match highlights, reports, photos & videos all in one place. Source: Yen.com.gh Talent is often irrepressible and when combined with hard work, normally produces the archetypal successful person. Inasmuch as this is known, very few people can boast of having talent and being hardworking as well. But a young man who readily exudes both is Jonathan Buah. READ ALSO: Meet Yakubu Shahada, the female military officer whose beautiful photos are causing confusion on social media Known on social media as Jonathan Instyle, the artist and model has managed to gather a huge following due to his impressive outputs. Jonathan is currently in his early 20s but is the stylist behind many of his colleague models in Ghana. He got into the industry after completing Bethel Methodist School in Takoradi in the Western Region. Although he is mostly known to be a stylist, Jonathan is also an aspiring model who aims to carve a niche for himself in the profession. His impressive work is what has translated into his large following on the various social media platforms. READ ALSO: Meet the sculptor of Shatta Wale Currently, he boasts over 36,000 followers on Instagram and also has his own YouTube channel. Yenkasa: What Do You Think About Prophecies? | #Yencomgh READ ALSO: Why NAM1 was arrested in Dubai Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page. Source: Yen Newspaper The government is set to introduce a centralised admission system for all public tertiary institutions. This was proposed by a 9-member committee in its 2018 Tertiary Education Policy Document to the Ministry of Education. Known as the Centralized University Admissions and Placement Service (CAPS), this system will replace the current stressful and expensive system of applying to different Universities. READ ALSO: 4 by-elections to hit NPP before 2020 elections - Islamic seer drops prophecy Speaking at a stakeholders meeting held in Koforidua in the Eastern Region, Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education, Professor Kwesi Yankah, gave his full backing to the proposal. He explained that students will no longer have to apply to various universities but rather will now apply to one common platform like its done for the secondary schools. He added that some major Ghanaian stakeholders in the education sector had travelled to the UK and Nigeria to understudy how the system works. Among the stakeholders were some officials of the Ministry of Education, Vice Chancellors and Registrars. Meanwhile, the centralized admissions system will be chaired by Prof. Adow Obeng, former Vice Chancellor of University of Cape Coast, Prof. Yankah revealed. It is also expected to be formally inaugurated on Thursday, January 17, 2019. Yenkasa: What Do You Think About Prophecies? | #Yencomgh READ ALSO: Dont marry NPP men Asiedu Nketia advises NDC women Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page. Click here to get the latest exciting English Premier League news. Get match highlights, reports, photos & videos all in one place. Source: Yen Ghana When President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo won power after the 2016 general elections, he offered appointment to certain celebrities who campaigned for him during the elections. YEN.com.gh brings to you seven of those celebrities who received political appointments under Akufo-Addo. 1. Agya Koo Real name Kofi Adu, Agya Koo is a poular Kumawood actor who for over the years, thrilled Ghanaian with roles he played in movies. For almost a decade, Agya Koo was the most popular face in Ghanaian movies. Before the general elections in 2016, Agya Koo made known his political affiliation thus supported then aspirant and now president, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo. After winning, President Akufo-Addo appointed Agya Koo as tourism ambassador. His role is to use his talent to showcase Ghana so as to draw tourists into the country. Tourism is known to be one of the most promising cash-ins for Ghana's economy. Agya Koo. Source: Myjoyonline.com Source: UGC 2. Socrates Sarfo Known as a movie producer and a pioneer in the Ghana movie industry, Socrates Sarfo got appointed as Director of Creative Arts at the National Commission on Culture soon after President Akufo-Addo got into office. Before the elections in 2016, Socrates Sarfo, as a guest on many showbiz programs on radio publicly, threw his support behind Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP. Many at the time speculated that Socrates could be handed the deputy minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture position but that did not happen. Even though he missed out on that deputy ministerial position, Socrates was appointed into a national agency; a position he is still keeping till date. Socrates Sarfo. Source: Peacefmonline.com Source: UGC READ ALSO: Shatta Wale slams friends who reveal personal secrets on social media 3. Kwame A Plus When Nana Akufo-Addo won the 2016 elections and got into office, one person who got early appointment was popular musician A-Plus. Known in real life as Kwame Asare-Obeng, A-Plus was instrumental during the pre-election era where he often lambasted former President Mahama and his NDC. A-Plus often posted hard-hitting words on Facebook directed at the NDC and how he thought they were incompetent. While doing so, A-Plus revealed his support for Nana Akufo-Addo and how he is hopeful Nana Addo will do better. Upon winning the 2016 general elections, President Akufo-Addo appointed Kwame A-Plus as secretary to the CEO of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital. Not long after the appointment, A Plus took to Facebook and lambasted the two deputy Chiefs of Staff, accusing them of corruption. That rant led to many other issues and consequently caused A-Plus to lose his job. 4. Lucky Mensah Many Ghanaians remember Lucky Mensah for the popular song 'Nkratuo' which he released in 2011 to allegedly mock the then President Atta Mills of the NDC. NPP in opposition at the time capitalized on the song and got it played at their party rallies prior to the 2012 general election. Real name Alex Mensah, many Ghanaians were amazed because Lucky Mensah in 2006, campaigned for the NDC. Since the release of 'Nkratuo' in 2011, Lucky Mensah publicly announced that he is a supporter of the NPP. Prior to the 2016 elections, he was seen actively campaigning for the NPP thus upon winning, President Akufo-Addo appointed Lucky Mensah as a tourism ambassador. Lucky Mensah. Source: Graphic.com.gh Source: UGC READ ALSO: Shatta Wale accuses Shatta Michy of doing drugs 5. Mark Okraku Mante Currently the head of Creative Arts Council, Mark got appointed when Akufo-Addo came into power after winning the 2016 general elections. Mark Okraku-Mante who doubles as Programmes Manager of Hitz FM, is a household name in the Ghanaian music industry. He is known for producing music in the 90s and early 2000s before shifting full time to radio management. Okraku-Mante on many platforms confessed about his support for the ruling NPP government thus was not surprising to see him get an appointment. 6. Praye The music trio have been appointed by President Akufo-Addo as tourism ambassadors under his government. Even though Praye as a group was not together during the pre-election era of 2016, two of the three musicians threw massive support behind the then aspirant Nana Akufo-Addo. Praye performed on many NPP party rallies during the 2016 election campaign period. On winning, President Akufo-Addo rewarded the now reunited music group with the position of tourism ambassadors. 7. Diana Asamoah Even though many people like to disassociate politics from religion, gospel musician, Diana Asamoah, did not hide her support and love for the then aspirant Nana Akufo-Addo and his NPP. Diana Asamoah on some occasions, performed at NPP rallies during the election campaign prior to the 2016 elections. Diana Asamoah was handed the position of tourism ambassador after President Akufo-Addo took over office. Diana Asamoah. Source: YEN.com.gh Source: UGC READ ALSO: New list of top celebs who allegedly have huge sums of money with Menzgold pops up Yenkasa: What Do You Think About Prophecies? | #Yencomgh Click here to get the latest exciting English Premier League news. Get match highlights, reports, photos & videos all in one place. Source: Yen Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business. Venice, FL (34285) Today Cloudy with occasional light rain . Low 74F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%.. Tonight Cloudy with occasional light rain . Low 74F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. * Username This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely! A new set of rental rules in Victoria, which were formalised during the recent Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) hearing, could potentially put an end to short-term stay rentals. The rules included requiring tenants to give a three-day notice before moving in and attend an induction, as well as requiring owners in the building who overuse the induction process to pay for extra charges, according to a report by realestate.com.au. This came after Zheng Sheng Lim, co-owner of an apartment in the Imperial building at Sovereign Point Court, Doncaster, successfully challenged the rules that were supposed to ban short-term stays. Tony Mosca, Imperial owners corporation chairman, said that while a rule prohibiting short-stay rentals of less than three months had been acknowledged as probably invalid before the VCAT hearing was finalised, these newly approved rules would allow owners corporation to control the tenants length of stay. An owners corporation cant stop Airbnb. What we can do is put in rules so that people cant come and go willy-nilly, without knowing who is in the building. Its a de facto mechanism that means we can control who comes and goes, Mosca said. As a result of the decision, owners in the building would find it hard to follow the buildings rules and operate short-term stay rentals. The requirement that prospective owners would pay an extra $100 for any additional inductions beyond two in a year and a $300 fee if they required an induction outside of business hours also discourages short-term leasing, since it makes this type of renting less financially viable. Rob Beck, Strata Community Australia Victorian boss, welcomed the rules, saying that it is a timely update to the legal landscape for owners corporations, particularly with relation to short-term stays. Wed welcome interpretations that help owners corporations govern and keep the peace between owners and tenants, Beck said. Mark Pantti of Northern Michigan University explained to the Ontonagon Village Council the efforts to bring broadband service to rural areas and the benefits to school children of the area. The service would be mounted on the Ontonagon and White Pine water towers. The council approved the request. By JAN TUCKER [email protected] ONTONAGON - The Ontonagon Village Council Monday heard from Village Manager Joe Erickson that in the waning days of the Snyder Administration, the state approved a one-time Rural Community Demolition Grant program. He explained the program has $350,000 available and the maximum award of $50,000 for demolition of publicly owned blighted structures, with applications due Feb. 15. Councilman Tony Smydra noted the village of Ontonagon has all the criteria to apply for the demolition grant. The program defines what is considered "blighted" and Smydra added "we... By RICHARD JENKINS [email protected] IRONWOOD TOWNSHIP The township will stay the course with its ad-hoc salary committee for now, after the board of trustees voted Monday against establishing a more formal compensation commission. As part of the recent budget process, the township established a three-person committee made up of Trustee Marlene Saari-Mieloszyk, Trustee Kevin Lyons and resident Sharon Hallberg to examine issues related to salaries, raises and compensation FOR township employees. Saari-Mieloszyk, who heads the committee, reported Tuesday it has met for the first... YORK The construction of the new Lincoln Avenue water main is now in the heart of downtown as the intersection of Sixth Street and Lincoln has been closed. The construction has been steadily moving to the south since it started last fall in the area of the underpass. Because one-way traffic moves from the north to the south and the Sixth Street intersection is closed, that essentially means there will be no parking in front of the courthouse or across the street to the west . . . even though the construction is not yet quite in front of the courthouse. With no parking on the west side of the courthouse due to the water main construction and partial parking on the north side of the courthouse because of the expansion project there, parking for those going to the courthouse is currently more limited than usual. And with the construction blocking off front-door traffic to numerous businesses north of that, people have been wondering where to park. Those going to the courthouse and visiting the many downtown businesses are reminded that there are numerous areas to park in the downtown area that arent on Lincoln Avenue. There are public parking lots available along Platte Avenue, off Seventh, Sixth, Fifth and Fourth Streets. It is further alleged that the corporal failed to take adequate and reasonable measures to intervene and control the situation. Despite the plaintiffs screams for the corporal to take action, the corporal unreasonably hesitated to report the emergency and when she did, she simply stated, assault medical into the radio. Gruber says in the complaint that approximately four minutes elapsed between the beginning of the assault and the arrival of back-up responders. Due to this delayed response, the plaintiff incurred lacerations to her eyelid, nose and face with Donnells razor. And further the complaint says during this assault, the corporal ineffectively attempted to control the emergency by utilizing the pepper spray in her holster and instead, the corporal missed Donnell and sprayed the plaintiff with pepper spray. Attorneys for Gruber say she has been severely and permanently injured as a direct result of gross negligence. YORK Dylan L. Pritchard, 26, of Holstein, has pleaded not guilty to 15 charges six of which are felonies in a case where he is accused of taking law enforcement on a high speed chase that ended with him hitting a Nebraska State Patrol cruiser in York County. Pritchard, who remains in custody at the York County Jail, appeared in York County District Court on Monday, with his attorney, Sam ONeill. Judge James Stecker explained to Pritchard all the charges against him, which are: Count 1: Second degree assault, a Class 2A felony, which carries a possible maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Count 2: Assaulting an officer by using a motor vehicle, a Class 3A felony, which carries a possible maximum sentence of three years in prison, a $10,000 fine, and 9-18 months of post-release supervision. Count 3: Failure to stop and render aid, a Class 3 felony, which carries a possible maximum sentence of four years in prison, a $25,000 fine, and 9-24 months post release supervision. Count 4: Operating a motor vehicle to avoid arrest, a Class 4 felony, which carries a possible maximum sentence of two years in prison, a $10,000 fine and 9-12 months post release supervision. I woke up on July 2 and walked down to check on the goats and let them out to graze and I smelled the oil and walked into one of our fields. I was wearing waders and there were clumps of heavy oil, floating and sticking to trees and bushes, she went on. Oil was spotted clear down river even where the Yellowstone runs into the Missouri River in North Dakota. The spill impacted quite a few landowners and farmers. It went into some irrigation ditches. They spent $125 million on clean up and only recovered two or three barrels of oil. As a result of her experiences, Bonogofsky started writing and photography work. While she writes, she also keeps the farm and ranch going. There are a lot of people in rural communities who have a land ethic and a conservation ethic. The way we get past the divide is building actual relationships with people and learning that it is not an us vs. them thing. From my own experience, if we could just sit down and talk to each other and listen more, we would find more commonalities than we think there are. That doesnt mean we will agree on everything either. If we all believe in our democracy, which I think most of us do, we have to move into conversations with each other with an open mind. We all must do that. If we enter into conversations with a closed mind, our democracy has failed. French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday Britain would be the biggest loser if it crashed out of the EU without a deal, reacting to news that the UK parliament had resoundingly rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit divorce agreement. "First option, they go towards a no-deal. They say: 'there is no deal'. That's scary for everybody. The first losers in this would be the British," Macron told mayors during a town hall meeting. Macron was in the middle of an almost seven-hour debate with local officials when he was told of the result of the British vote. Rival groups of pro-Brexit and pro-EU demonstrators are rallying outside Britain's Parliament ahead of Tuesday's historic vote on a divorce deal with the European Union. Protesters seeking a new referendum on Britain's membership in the bloc are waving blue-and-yellow EU flags. Others, who want the U.K. to make a clean break with the EU, are brandishing placards declaring "leave means leave." A few are holding signs declaring their opponents "traitors." Britain voted by 52 percent to 48 percent in 2016 in favor of leaving the EU, and the country remains deeply divided over its relationship with its European neighbors. Some pro-EU legislators have complained of harassment by a group of militant Brexiteers, some of whom have adopted the yellow vests of France's populist street protest movement. Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday signed a decree making it easier for many Brazilians to own firearms, the first of many expected changes by the nascent administration to overhaul gun laws in the nation that leads the world in total homicides. Bolsonaro signed the decree in a televised ceremony in the capital of Brasilia, arguing that it and other changes expected to be pushed in Congress would help people defend themselves. The former army captain and far-right leader said his electoral win last year was a sign that citizens in Latin America's largest nation wanted to arm themselves. "The people decided in favor of buying guns and ammunition and we can't deny what the people want at this moment," said Bolsonaro, who during the campaign often made pistol gestures to supporters with his fingers. Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber informed Minister of Culture and Sport Miri Regev on Tuesday that it is impossible to interfere with the McJesus sculpture, featured in an art exhibit in the Haifa Museum, despite the governmental funding the institution receives. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The sculpture - which depicts the crucifixion of the fast food chains iconic mascot Ronald McDonald- was made by Jani Leinonen, a Finnish artist, and is part of an exhibition called Sacred Goods. Regev and Zilber (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky and Ohad Zwigenberg) Culture Minister Miri Regev, who has been accused of censorship for pushing legislation mandating national "loyalty" in art, called for the removal of the "disrespectful" artwork and implied that the institution was state- funded. In response, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel approached the Attorney General and asked for the office to intervene. After examining the case, Zilber informed Regev that the ministry cannot withhold funding from cultural institutions based on the content they present or on events they hold. Zilber specified and said that disrespecting religious values doesnt constitute a reason to decrease funding, while other viable reasons are not under Regevs jurisdictionsbut rather that of Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon. The controversial statue (Photo: Haifa Museum) Zilber listed the well respected artists whose work was presented in an exhibition about the image of Jesus in Jewish and Israeli art in the Israel Museum two years ago, and said that someone could have also considered some of the pieces shown there as offensive. With art being removed, restricted and censuredwe might have had that exhibition become an exhibition of empty walls, Zilber said. Freedom of expression is central in culture. Culture of all kinds is based on freedom of artistic expression, and the supreme court determined it is at the heart of freedom of speech and needs to be protected, said Zilber. Hundreds of Christians calling for the removal of the sculpture demonstrated at the museum on Friday. The police said rioters hurled a firebomb at the museum and threw stones that wounded three police officers. Authorities dispersed the crowds with tear gas and stun grenades. Church representatives brought their grievances to the district court Monday, demanding it order the removal of the exhibit's most offensive items, including Barbie doll renditions of a bloodied Jesus and the Virgin Mary. An Israel recovery team began mapping out the floor of the Danube in Budapest on Tuesday in search of the remains of Holocaust victims murdered on the riverbank in 1944 and 1945. Israel's Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem estimates that 565,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust, the majority of them deported to the Auschwitz death camp between May and July 1944. The residents of Israeli communities bordering Gaza, who for years have been dealing with Hamas rocket attacks and most recently incendiary airborne devices scorching their land, have found themselves battling another hazardous nuisance. Polluted sewage is being pumped from Gaza into the Israeli side of the border after a collapse of the local wastewater treatment plant, making the lives of the local residents a living nightmare. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Due to the dire economic situation in Gaza, the wastewater plant cannot undergo the needed treatments, prompting Palestinians living in the northern neighborhoods of the StripBeit Hanoun and Beit Lahiato drain sewage into Nahal Hanun, which crosses Israel and empties into the sea, polluting the groundwater in the process. In order to stop wastewater flow and reduce the environmental damage, the Water Authority has recently set up a pumping station near the Erez border crossing, which effectively made Israel responsible for water purification of the northern Gaza Strip. Before the Israeli intervention, the moshavim and kibbutzim near the borderNetiv HaAsara, Erez, Yad Mordechai, and Zikimsuffered from a continuous onslaught of mosquitoes and flies. Gaza landfills bordering Israel (Photo: Roee Idan) "The dangerous thing is that the Palestinians in Gaza pump water from water wells in an uncontrolled manner, polluting the groundwater we use," said David Rosenberg, director of infrastructure and water in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council. "They do not have the knowledge and the tools to pump groundwater and any drilling only results in salinity of the water. The environmental damage thats being done is tremendous. As well as that, massive piles of trash have accumulated in the area bordering the Eshkol Regional Council after three giant landfills were set up along the border fence, leaving the locals to cope with a putrid and toxic smell being carried by the wind across the border. The landfills are derelict as dry and wet waste gets mixed up and subsequently burned, increasing the environmental impact. Insects and rodents that breed in the landfills then also make their way across the border, infesting the Israeli communities. In addition, disease-ridden cats and dogs that feed off the landfill constantly breach the fence, engendering the local residents. "It's a daily war, and even though it may sound as something insignificant, swarms of mosquitoes invading from Gaza could result in a disaster for Israel," said a source in the Water Authority. A source from one of the local authorities along the Gaza border called the current environmental situation hopeless. "The environment is the last thing that the residents of Gaza are concerned with. Their solutions are temporary and usually do more harm than good. The government is aware of the situation, but hasnt done anything. The minor detained on suspicion of involvement in the death of Palestinian woman Aisha al-Rawbi is expected to be indicted with manslaughter, the State Prosecutor's Office said on Tuesday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Al-Rawbi was killed after settlers reportedly hurled stones at a vehicle in which she and her husband were driving in the West Bank in October. Meanwhile, the Magistrate's Court in Rishon LeZion extended by six days the remand of the teen who was arrested two weeks ago. Aisha al-Rawbi, right, and the passenger seat where she was sitting His remand was extended at the request of the police and the Shin Bet domestic security service. "As the probe into the death of Aisha al-Rawbi concluded, the investigation materials were transferred to the District Prosecutor's Office that has been working on this case from day one. An indictment was filed Tuesday at the Magistrate's Court in Rishon LeZion against the minor for grave security offenses. The youth was taken into custody on December 30, 2018, and his remand was extended three times since. The Honenu organization, which provides legal aid to Jewish terror suspects, claimed that the police had refused to transfer investigation materials to the minor's attorneys. "By failing to forward the documents that are supposed to be reviewed by the defendant's defense team, the police have crossed every red line," the organization said. The minor remained silent during questioning, however, the police and the Shin Bet say they have evidence tying him to the crime scene. A gag order has been placed on details of the investigation. In response, the minor's father claimed the Shin Bet was setting his son up. "We have the strong feeling our son is being persecuted. During the time of the incident, my son, along with dozes of his friends, attended a Shabbat mea. However, the system is systematically ignoring his solid alibi." Initially, the police arrested five teens on suspicion of committing grave terror offenses, including murder. On Friday, four out of the five Israeli teenagers were released to a six-day house arrest, during which the suspects are not allowed to speak with each other. Is it too much to ask for someone who is running in the elections that will take place in less than three months to present his positions to us? To try to understand why the polls are predicting that a man who has yet to open his mouth will be get the number of Knesset seats that could change the political landscape in Israel? Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter And then it happened . It was just a regular daywithout fireworks, or a press conference with promises to bring the smiles back to Israel's streets, and even without the mantra chanted by anyone who seeks to bring down the Likud government ("Netanyahu is dangerous to Israel"). Fifty seconds. That is how long Benny Gantz allowed himself to spoil us with a comment on a hot-button issue. And that is exactly how long it took him to inflame the right. Benny Gantz with Druze protesters outside his home (Photo: Motti Kimchi) From the New Right Party leaders Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked to the Likud Party Ministers Ze'ev Elkin, Yariv Levin, Avi Dichter and Miri Regevall of them sounded on Monday like part of a Greek chorus weeping at the moment of catharsis. So much fear toward someone who has yet to even present his candidacy; so much insecurity in these reactions to such a predictable and obvious statement. What did they expect, for Gantz to not express solidarity with the Druze community? Find me one senior officer who wouldn't have done the exact same thing as Gantz, who wouldn't have said on such an occasion that there is room to improve upon the law that so deeply offends our Druze brothers. Even Bennett, immediately after the vote on the Nation-State Law, apologized to the Druze community and said there's room to amend the law. So why is he jumping for joy at the chance to attack Gantz? Benny Gantz with Brig. Gen. (res.) Amal Asad (Photo: Motti Kimchi) On the other hand, it is rather amusing to see center-left parties vying for Gantz's attention, rushing to his defense, identifying with his position and trying to outdo one another in the process. What is clear is that this move of introducing the "Talking Gantz" was planned in a way that ensured the first words the former IDF chief spoke were under these particular circumstances. Gantz knew a delegation of Druze protesters planned to arrive at his home. He had enough time to plan what he would say on that occasion. It is quite possible that Gantz's strategic advisor, Itay Ben-Horin, is behind thishis firm also accompanies the Druze struggle, which is headed by Brig. Gen. (res.) Amal Asad. So this could have been a brilliant move by Gantz's advisors, who set up an ambush for the right on such a loaded topic, the kind the majority of the public identifies with and recognizes the commitment to and solidarity with the Druze people. In other words: Gantz's first public comment was done on a topic that has a near consensus, but also has the potential to rile up the right (and it worked). And maybe it's just us who are putting too much meaning in those 50 seconds featuring the star of the elections, the man who was quiet for so longuntil he spoke. And just like everything else that we've been waiting for for so long and therefore exaggerateit doesn't really matter what he said, as long as he said something. The Iranian Embassy in Beirut says recent comments by visiting US officials are a blatant interference in other people's business and an attempt to dictate orders. The rare statement referred to comments made by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a regional tour and those by David Hale, the US undersecretary of state for political affairs on a visit to Lebanon. Both vowed to step up efforts to counter Iran's activities around the region and expel from Syria "every last Iranian boot." The embassy statement called the remarks "provocative." It said Iran's military presence in Syria "does not need permission" from anyone because it was requested by the Syrian government and was done in full cooperation between the two countries. MOSCOWRelatives of former US marine Paul Whelan, who is being held in Russia on suspicion of spying, will visit Moscow next week and request to see him, Interfax news agency cited his lawyer as saying on Tuesday. Whelan, a former USmarine who also holds British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained by Russia's Federal Security Service on December 28. His family have said he is innocent and that he was in Moscow to attend a wedding. An art exhibit featuring a crucified Ronald McDonald has sparked protests by Haifa's Arab Christian minority. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Hundreds of Christians calling for the removal of the sculpture, entitled "McJesus," demonstrated at the museum in the northern city on Friday. The police said rioters hurled a firebomb at the museum and threw stones that wounded three police officers. Authorities dispersed the crowds with tear gas and stun grenades. Church representatives brought their grievances to the district court Monday, demanding it order the removal of the exhibit's most offensive items, including Barbie doll renditions of a bloodied Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Art exhibit featuring a crucified Ronald McDonald displayed at Haifa Museum Museum director Nissim Tal said that he was shocked at the sudden uproar, especially because the exhibitintended to criticize what many view as society's cult-like worship of capitalismhad been on display for months. It has also been shown in other countries without incident. The protests appear to have been sparked by visitors sharing photos of the exhibit on social media. Christians make up a tiny percentage of Israel's Arab minority and say they face unique challenges. "We need to understand that freedom of expression is interpreted in different ways in different societies," said Wadie Abu Nassar, an adviser to church leaders. "If this work was directed against non-Christians, the world would be turned upside down." Culture Minister Miri Regev, who has been accused of censorship for pushing legislation mandating national "loyalty" in art, also called for the removal of the "disrespectful" artwork. The museum has refused to remove the artwork, saying that doing so would infringe on freedom of expression. But following the protests it hung a curtain over the entrance to the exhibit and posted a sign saying the art was not intended to offend. "This is the maximum that we can do," Tal said. "If we take the art down, the next day we'll have politicians demanding we take other things down and we'll end up only with colorful pictures of flowers in the museum." Art exhibit featuring a crucified Ronald McDonald displayed at Haifa Museum But that did little to placate those who want the artwork removed. A protester remained camped out in a tent at the museum on Monday with a sign reading "Respect religions." Police watched closely as local Christians complained to reporters in front of street signs spray-painted with crosses and windows still shattered from last week's clashes. "This is very offensive and I cannot consider this art," Haifa artist and devout Christian Amir Ballan said. "We will continue through peaceful rallies and candle vigils... We won't be quiet until we reach a solution." Jani Leinonen, the Finnish artist behind "McJesus," has also asked that it be taken downbut for a different reason. He says he supports the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a Palestinian-led movement aimed at pressuring Israel to change its policies toward the Palestinians. The group has made significant gains in recent years, persuading a number of foreign artists to cancel performances in Israel. Tal said the museum won't bow to religious or political pressure. "We will be defending freedom of speech, freedom of art, and freedom of culture, and will not take it down," he said. Germany's domestic intelligence agency will investigate the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) to determine the extent to which the party has right-wing extremist motives, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. A spokesman for the BfV said he could not confirm the report by Berlin's Tagespiegel daily, but that the BfV would hold a news conference at 1400 GMT on the matter. During his 36 years in the Israeli Defense Forces, new IDF Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi sought to make changes everywhere he went. After assuming the chief of staff post on Tuesday, he will try, without detracting from the work of his predecessor Gadi Eisenkot, to promote significant moves to bolster the IDF and its strategy. One can guess that Kochavi will reiterate the words "sophistication" and "creativity" during General Staff meetings. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter As the Military Intelligence Directorate head, Kochavi upgraded the methods employed by the IDF to gather intelligence, promoted research and developed the field of cyber as well as established new units. He will do his best to duplicate this success as the army chief. But as chief of staff, he will be forced to work under different conditions. Kochavi receives his ranks, January 15, 2019 (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Even before mentioning the challenges posed by our enemies and the fact the General Staff knew better days than these, Kochavi's starting point is rather complicated. The new chief of staff was not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's first choice for the desirable post. In addition, Kochavi will not have a full-time defense minister at his side (since Netanyahu also holds the defense portfolio). Furthermore, Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir and military Intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Tamir Heimanwho did not come from the intelligence community were appointed not too long ago. Kochavi's first challenge will be keeping the IDF outside the political game amid the April 9 elections. He must be cautious, responsible, and brave in order to succedd in that mission. His second challenge will concern the IDF's manpower, both its conscript and reserve soldiers. While the drop in motivation to serve in combat units is not the military's fault, it is still its main problem. In cooperation with the Education Ministry, Kochavi will need to formulate a national plan to change this gloomy picture, because with all due respect to the IDF's advanced technology, the army cannot exist without Israel's finest youth. Moreover, the new chief of staff will have to find a way to keep career soldiers in the army, in both the technological apparatus and in combat units. Convincing company commanders to pursue a career in the army when most of their job comes down to carrying out operations in the territories and firing at infiltrators trying to breach the security fence is becoming challenging, especially in light of the fact they know the political echelon does not believe in maneuvering ground forces, not to mention their relatively low salaries in comparison to the job market. Former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot (Photo: IDF Spokesman's Unit) Former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot ended his term without launching a war, while his successor has four volatile fronts to contend withIran and its entrenchment attempts in Syria, Hezbollah on the Lebanese border, Hamas that rules Gaza, and the simmering West Bank. Russia's restrictions make every Israeli airstrike in Syria more complicated to carry out, while Damascus' air defense systems are improving. In addition, Iran continues smuggling high-precision guided weapons into Syria and Lebanon, and the chances for a Syrian retaliation are on the rise. Eisenkot ends his tenure with the northern front free of cross-border terror tunnels, however, the Jewish state's overarching goal is to prepare the army for a victory on that front, which will require the restoration of deterrence against Hamas that has weakened following the recent less than successful rounds of fighting in Gaza. In addition, the inheritance battle after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas step down will create a newand not necessarily a better reality. Kochavi, who is intelligent, reasonable and known for his self-criticism, will be very careful not to stir up media scandals, and therefore refrain from making outrageous statements during his term. But the new chief of staff's past actions in Lebanon, the West Bank and during his term as the Gaza Division Commander indicate he will not hesitate to apply force when needed. Kochavi is suitable and well-prepared to fill his new position, however, if he fails to make all the required changes, especially in the structure of the army and its adjustments to current challenges, he will find himself as the right man in the wrong place. Police arrested Tuesday five additional people on suspicion of planting an explosive device under a car of an Israel Prison Service officer in October 2018. The suspects allegedly committed the act because of their dissatisfaction with the prison terms of their incarcerated friends. The United States and North Korea plan to hold high-level talks in Washington this week to discuss a second meeting between their leaders, South Korean media said on Tuesday, as the old enemies seek an "interim" deal to revitalise nuclear talks. The meeting, led by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol, is due on Thursday or Friday, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported, citing an unidentified diplomatic source familiar with the issue. They are expected to finalise the date and venue of a second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the newspaper said. The US embassy in Seoul referred questions to the White House. The White House offered no immediate comment on the Chosun Ilbo report, while a State Department official said: "We don't have any meetings to announce." South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted an unidentified diplomatic source as saying Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol could meet this week. The North Korean delegation could visit the United States "as soon as this week" but plans have not been finalised, a CNN reporter, citing an unidentified source, said on Twitter. Trump wrote Kim Jong Un a letter, which was flown to Pyongyang and hand delivered over the weekend, the CNN reporter added, citing the source. South Korea's foreign ministry spokesman told reporters the North and the United States were "in contact" but it was "inappropriate" to comment on plans for talks. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday he had discussed a safe zone which Turkey would set up in Syria, during a phone call with US President Donald Trump which he described as positive. Monday's call came after Trump, who has announced a US troop withdrawal from northeast Syria, threatened Turkey with economic devastation if Turkish forces attacked a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia there. Residents of Netiv Haavot in Gush Etzion were shocked to discover recently that the man working the fields near their homes is Rizq Salah, a Palestinian terrorist who killed IDF soldier Guy Friedman 29 years ago. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter "We were alarmed to discover who he was. Our children play in these fields; it's a terrifying situation," said Orit Noy, a resident of Netiv Ha'avot. According to the Israeli Civil Administration, Salah, who currently resides in Bethlehem area, is cultivating private land he has proven ownership over near the temporary homes of Nativ Ha'avot. Rizq Salah working in the fields near Netiv Haavot But Yishai Hamo, the director of right-wing pro-settler group Regavim, claims the documents Salah presented to the Civil Administration do not prove his ownership of the land. Hamo said Regavim intends to ask the Civil Administration to examine the matter further. "Salah is a terrorist and a dangerous convicted murderer. Giving him permit to work a spitting distance away from residents' homes is simply inconceivable. This is an outrageous," he said. Shlomo Ne'eman, head of the Gush Etzion Regional Council, echoed his sentiments. "It is inconceivable that a terrorist who murdered a soldier is free to walk around near the settlement. We will not rest until Salah is expelled from the area," he said. Guy Friedman Paratrooper Guy Friedman was with his unit on operational duty in Bethlehem in December 1990 when several explosive devices planted by Salah went off near the city's governor's house. As a result, Friedman was seriously wounded and later succumbed to his injuries. Following the attack, Salah was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 2013, as part of an Israeli-Palestinian deal, more than 20 terrorists with blood on their hands were released from prison, including Salah. Since his release, Salah has joined the Palestinian security forces as well as began working in agriculture. About four months ago, the IDF issued a closure order to the land in question since Salah's claim to the plot hadn't been verified at the time. However, because the order expired a month ago, the convicted terrorist is free to cultivate the fields near the settlers' homes. Convicted terrorist Rizq Salah The IDF said in response that "To maintain security and the public order, the military commander in Judea and Samaria makes use of various kinds of orders and injunctions. Closure orders were issued from time to time on the land in question until the land's ownership was verified. After verifying (Salah's) right to the land, and in the absence of other security impediments, his access to the land was allowed." Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi entered the office of the Israel Defense Forces' chief of staff on Tuesday morning in the beginning of a new era. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The 22nd IDF chief started his day with a ceremony at the Kirya IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, where he received the rank of lieutenant general from Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Kochavi receives his lieutenant general ranks from Prime Minister and Defense Minister Netanyahu and from his wife (Photo: Motti Kimchi) "'I swear.' This is what I called out alongside my fellow soldiers in front of the Western Wall, which was for us a wall of support and protection. It has been 2,000 years, and this wall of protection has expanded and become the Israel Defense Force. I swore in front of generations of soldiers and became another link in the chain of generations that come each in turn to defend the state," the new IDF chief Kochavi said. "'I swear,' every soldier calls out, and packs into these two words the relinquishing of the private for the national. The national home is a wonderful creation like no other in the history of nations, but it is planted in a region that for religious and national reasons is trying to reject its natural roots. To defend our national home, we need a sobered outlook, a fit military force, the willingness to use that force, discretion and determination," he said. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi (Photo: Reuters) To his predecessor Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, Kochavi said, "In this spirit, Gadi, the IDF acted under your leadership and has repeatedly proven its abilities as the defender of the borders and the interior, using its long arm to destroy any threats. During your tenure, the IDF bolstered its units and increased its preparedness. I stand at the head of the military and on behalf of all of its soldiers and commanders, I thank and salute you." Concluding his remarks, Kochavi went back to his sworn oath at the beginning of his service in the IDF. "Like every soldier in his swear-in ceremony, I vowed at the time to dedicate all of my efforts to defending the homeland. Now, as the head of the General Staff, while I have national security and the good of the state before me, I make a new vow. There is much work to be done, good luck to us all," Kochavi said. Prime Minister and Defense Minister Netanyahu and new IDF Chief of Staff Kochavi (Photo: Reuters) Eisenkot summed up his own service in his remarks. "At the end of 40 years of service and four years as the IDF chief, I conclude a path that became my life's mission," he said. Describing his objectives as IDF chief, Eisenkot said he sought to leave behind "a fit, prepared and powerful military that bolstered its strength with wisdom and determination." To Kochavi, Eisenkot said, "Proudly I seek to pass on to you the command over the most precious asset of our nationthe Israel Defense Forces. The command over the military is passed on today to you, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, a commander worthy like no other to stand at the head of the Israel Defense Forces." Outgoing IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot (Photo: Motti Kimchi) "The military I give to you today is advanced and remains true to its roots and spirit. Over the many years in which we worked together in the field and in the General Staff, it has been my privilege to get to know you as a commander with immense fortitude and leadership and command abilities. Your determination and extensive experience will be dedicated in full to bolstering the IDF's preparedness and strength, maintaining its character and values, and nurturing the pride in the heart of its soldiers." Prime Minister and Defense Minister Netanyahu began his remarks by thanking Eisenkot for his 40 years of service. "Over the past four years, we have dealt with great challenges: the changing fronts in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon and other places. But there has also been on main element facing us: Iran and its terror proxies. We acted responsibly and with discretion to stop those who seek to harm us from growing stronger," Netanyahu said. Prime Minister and Defense Minister Netanyahu (Photo: Reuters) "All of the actions we've taken in recent years to build up the IDF's power were meant to bolster the military's readiness and achieve one goal: victory in war. And the stronger we are, the more we increase the chances of peace," he said. Netanyahu boasted about the warming ties with Muslim nations, saying that "Thanks to our intelligence, operational and technological capabilities, our ties with the Arab world are growing stronger than ever before. Leading Muslim nations are getting closer to us. They realize we're not their enemy, but a vital ally to lean on. By growing our military, our economy and our diplomacy, we have turned Israel into a rising world power." Eisenkot, he said, was a part of it as he met with his counterparts from Arab nations. Outgoing IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot looks on as Prime Minister and Defense Minister Netanyahu shakes hands with new IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi (Photo: Reuters) "Lt. Gen. Kochavi, you have a red beret on your shoulder, which symbolizes the special spirit of the Paratroopers: the steadfastness, the order 'after me,' and constantly striving for excellence," he said. "As an experienced military leader, you will now carry the grave responsibility of ensuring that the IDF fulfills its missions," Netanyahu said. "The objective is clear: To ensure our superiority over our enemies and to increase the qualitative edge we have over them. First, we'll work to bolster our offensive capabilities even more. We will ensure we have a crushing fist to attack our enemies with, both close and far." Concluding his remarks, the prime minister said that "if we are prepared to defend our country with all of our might, we might not have to fight an all-out war. And if we do, the IDF will handle this challenge, as will the citizens of Israel who will be united, and together we will ensure Israel's eternal existence." Kochavi receives his lieutenant general ranks from Prime Minister and Defense Minister Netanyahu and from his wife (Photo: Motti Kimchi) Kochavi and Eisenkot will later travel to Jerusalem to visit the National Hall of Remembrance on Mount Herzl and the Western Wall, and then have lunch at the President's Residence. After that, Kochavi will join the IDF's General Staff for a toast and a goodbye from Eisenkot at the Kirya base in Tel Aviv, including an honorary guard for the outgoing IDF chief. Kochavi, who was born in 1964, grew up in Kiryat Bialik. He is the second of the three children of the late Riba, who was a physical education teacher, and Shaul, a shop owner. Kochavi on his IDF enlistment day He began his IDF service in the Paratroopers' Brigade, excelled at infantry officers' course and went on to serve as the commander of the 101st Battalion, the commander of the Paratroopers' Brigade, the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate (MID), the GOC Northern Command, and the deputy IDF chief. He has a bachelor's degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a master's from Harvard University. Israeli satellite company ImageSat International released Monday images of the extensive damage caused to the ammunition warehouse at the Damascus international Airport following an Israeli airstrike on Friday night. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter ImageSat estimates that the arms depot contained Iranian Fajr-5 missiles, among others. The satellite images show the complete destruction of the warehouse, with three craters formed where the military compound once stood. Near the airstrike site, headquarters facilities and aircraft can be seen, which Syria said were damaged after being hit by shrapnel. Syrian Transportation Minister Ali Hammoud said the Israeli strike damaged the wings of several planes, putting them out of commission. "The fuel tanks are integrated into the wings of the planes, which is why it has completely disabled a number of our aircraft," Hamoud said to the Russian Sputnik news agency. The minister said that several buildings were also been damaged in the attack. In satellite images dated December 23, the arms depot is seen with its doors open, and trucks surrounding it. The size of the trucks, as well as the size of the warehouse itself, are in line with the estimation it was used as a missile depot. On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that the IAF struck Iranian targets in Syria over weekend, following Syrian reports of successful interceptions over Damascus. On Monday, Iran denied the claims made by Netanyahu that Israel had struck hundreds of Iranian targets in Syria over the past two years, and dismissed reports of its military presence in the region. "Israel's claims it has hit 200 Iranian targets over the past two years are baseless and false its only an attempt by the Zionists to conceal their ongoing failures in the region," said Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi. "The Zionists always spread lies and embark on psychological warfare to achieve their evil goals in the region. Iranian officials are in Syria strictly for consultation purposes. The Syrian government invited us in order to advise them on methods to fight terrorism," Qassemi said. The US administration expects Saudi Arabia to hold "every single person" responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi accountable, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday after talks with senior Saudi officials that also focused on Mideast crises and countering threats from Iran. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Pompeo also said that US President Donald Trump's threat to devastate NATO ally Turkey's economy if it attacks US-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria underscored America's commitment to its Kurd partners. He said he assumed Trump was referring to sanctions that could be imposed if Turkey takes military action against the Kurds but referred questions to the White House. US President Donald Trump and Jamal Khashoggi At the end of a trip to Riyadh, Pompeo said he had raised the Khashoggi case in his meetings with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as well as other human rights concerns, and the fate of women's rights activists who have been detained in the kingdom. "We spoke about human rights issues here in Saudi Arabia, women activists," he said. "We spoke about the accountability and the expectations that we have. The Saudis are friends and when friends have conversations you tell them what your expectations are." "Our expectations have been clear from early on: every single person who has responsibility for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi needs to be held accountable," Pompeo said. He said the Saudis understood and had reiterated pledges to pursue the case wherever it leads. He would not comment on US intelligence suggesting the crown prince may have ordered the killing. The relationship between Riyadh and Washington remains tense following Khashoggi's brutal slaying and dismemberment at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October. Members of Prince Mohammed's entourage have been implicated in the killing and US lawmakers have demanded America pull back its support of the Saudi-led war in Yemen. On the detained women rights activists, Pompeo said the Saudis had committed that the "lawful judicial process would take place and they would do so quickly and that they would continue down that path." "They understand the concerns that some have and they are going to do their best to communicate as appropriate," he said. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Pompeo traveled to Saudi Arabia as part of a broader Middle East tour that has already taken him to Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. He was to depart from the kingdom for Oman shortly after his meetings in Riyadh but canceled plans to wrap up the trip in Kuwait on Tuesday, due to a death in his family. At each stop, Pompeo has sought to reassure Arab leaders that President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw US forces from Syria does not mean Washington is abandoning the Middle East or the fight against the Islamic State group. Pompeo said he believed he had been successful in explaining Trump's position despite a lack of detail on exactly how and when the withdrawal will take place and differences with Turkey over the fate of US-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters after American forces leave. Trump tweeted late Sunday that the US will "attack again from existing nearby base if it (IS) reforms. Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds." Trump's decision to leave Syria, which he initially said would be rapid but later slowed down, shocked US allies and angered the Syrian Kurds. But Pompeo said the US message on the Kurds has been straightforward and unchanged since Trump made the decision to withdraw US troops from Syria last month. "The administration has been very consistent with respect to our requirement that the Turks not go after the Kurds in ways that are inappropriate," Pompeo said. "If they are terrorists, we're all about taking down extremists wherever we find them. I think the president's comments this morning are consistent with that." Kurdish fighters in Syria Asked specifically about what Trump meant by devastating Turkey's economy, Pompeo replied: "We apply sanctions in many places around the world. I assume he's speaking about those kinds of things but you would have to ask him." In Riyadh, he also tried to impress upon leaders the importance of a political solution to the conflict in Yemen, the Arab world's most impoverished country, and the need to step up efforts to counter Iran's increasing assertiveness in the region, manifested by its support for Lebanon's militant Hezbollah movement, Syria's government of President Bashar Assad, Shiite militias in Iraq and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. He lamented that the Houthis were not living up to pledges they made at UN-brokered peace talks in Sweden. "We need both sides to honor those commitments and to date the Iranian-backed Houthis have chosen not to do that," he said. Pompeo also pressed the Saudis on bringing an end to the near two-year-old dispute with its Gulf neighbor Qatar, which has badly hindered US efforts to create a united Arab military alliance to counter Iran. "It diminishes our ability to all work together," he said of the spat that began in June 2017 with Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates boycotting of Qatar, alleging it funds extremist groups and has too-cozy ties to Iran. In Doha on Sunday, Pompeo made similar remarks, but he said that while the United States could try to play peacemaker, it is ultimately up to the countries involved to resolve the situation. The Israel Police's National Fraud Investigations Unit is examining materials it received concerning a Likud government minister that have raised suspicions of alleged criminal activity, Army Radio reported Tuesday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter It is unclear what the materials relating to Communications Minister Ayoob Kara contain, but the veteran lawmaker said in response that he was "confident in my righteous and honest path." "I invite any official body to come and see there is nothing, because there was nothing, and there will be nothing. Simply nothing," he said, echoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's regular response to the investigations against him. Minister Ayoob Kara (Photo: Meir Ohayon) "It's a shame (others) keep dealing with trifles instead of my many achievements as the communications minister in the Israeli government," Kara said. If the examination does bring up suspicions of criminal activity, the head of the police's Department of Investigations and Intelligence is expected to seek the approval of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to launch an official investigation against Kara. Ripe grapes hang on vines protected from birds with a net at the Okanagan Valley's River Stone Estate Winery in Oliver, B.C., Monday, Sept. 12, 2016. A new study suggests it's the origins of the wine expert - not just the wine - that can impact perceptions of wine quality. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh The Israel Police is examining materials it received concerning a Likud government minister that have raised suspicions of alleged criminal activity. It is unclear what the materials relating to Communications Minister Ayoob Kara contain, but the veteran lawmaker said in response that he was "confident in my righteous and honest path." An Israeli recovery team will search Hungary's Danube river for remains of Holocaust victims, with Hungarian permission and assistance, so they can be buried in accordance with Jewish rite, a visiting Israeli official said on Monday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter According to Israel's Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem, some 565,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust, the majority of them deported to the Auschwitz death camp between May and July 1944. In October of that year, when the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross party took power in Hungary, thousands of Jews from Budapest were murdered on the banks of the Danube, according to Yad Vashem. Arye Deri in Budapest Interior Minister Aryeh Deri and an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, said his Hungarian counterpart, Sandor Pinter, had agreed to his request to provide special equipment to forensic experts from the Israeli volunteer Zaka who travelled with him to Budapest. "I hope that immediately, tomorrow, the righteous men of Zaka will bestow mercy on these highest of martyrs and bring them to Jewish burial," Deri said in a video posted on Twitter. The Hungarian Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to emailed questions for comment. Over the past decade, the army initiated and promoted hundreds of technological and infrastructure projects. Some, however, were inexplicably halted after years of development, and hundreds of millions of shekels of taxpayers' money that had already been invested, went essentially to waste. "No official in the defense establishment pays the price, only the Israeli public," said a senior defense source. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter About five years ago, Lieutenant A., a young computer programmer at Ofek, the computing unit of the Israeli Air Force, arrived for another day of work at the Kirya headquarters in Tel Aviv. He immediately realized that something had changed: an office, located right above his, was completely empty even though up until that day it had been teeming with life. "I asked my officiers what happened because I knew that they had been developing a large-scale and classified project there for months," he said. "I went up there and saw that it was completely dark, as if nothing had ever happened there. IDF's cyber intelligence work (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit) This tale characterizes the nature of information obtained by Ynet in recent months regarding this very issue. There is a common denominator to these stories: the projects are initiated and developed under a thick veil of secrecy and censorship aimed at, not only at the general public, but also the officials within the military. For instance, a multi-million dollar upgrade of the Air Forces operational command bunker in Kirya, dubbed the pit, that went way over budget due to its inadequate planning, still hasnt officially reopened and some of its outdated systems are still being upgraded, some eight years after the project began. Another example is a highly classified, large-scale Intelligence Directorates communications project that was simply shelved, despite the fact that close to NIS 800 million of taxpayers' money had already been spent. The project is believed to have been of extreme strategic and operational importance and got underway over 12 years ago. Despite the secrecy surrounding it, the military was forced to hire civilian technology companies, and set a rigid four-year timetable. Although the budget was initially set at NIS 400 million, it had to be doubled as the development progressed and ran overtime due to the constantly shifting demands of the defense establishment, until it was ultimately axed altogether five years ago after it was deemed no longer relevant. To put things in perspective, NIS 800 million is more than Israel's 2019 medicine basket budget (providing subsidized medicine) that could save the lives of thousands of patients. "You are constantly having talks about the project, persuading those in charge to approve NIS 40 million, then another NIS 15 million, and to keep the checkbook constantly open While outside the Kirya, there are mass protests against the cost of living, said a senior officer who was involved in the axed project during the time of the social justice protests back in July 2011. "It's much easier to get extra budget when it comes to intelligence, cyber or technological systems, because all of that money is given without anyone asking questions." Kirya headquaters in Tel Aviv (Photo: Dana Kopel) The senior official in the Defense Ministry became aware of the projects closure only three years ago, after demanding the IDF to produce a development report on it. Then-IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon, who positioned himself as someone who intended to cleanse the defense system of such wasteful spending, refused to either comment on the matter or explain the steps he had undertaken once the information reached him. Military Intelligence also refused to elaborate on the final cost of the project or explain whether any steps had been taken against those who managed and eventually shelved it. The IDF Spokespersons Unit said in an official statement the numbers presented in the article are incorrect and lack details. "Due to the prolonged development of the project, it has lost its relevance and effectiveness as the methods used by the enemy have undergone changes. After a thorough evaluation, it was decided to stop the development and future investment, said the statement. The Air Intelligence Group (Israel Air Force intelligence-gathering unit) also shelved a project after investing tens of millions of shekels in its development. The system, dubbed Orion, was supposed to interface the capabilities of the IAF intelligence, which is responsible for making operational intelligence accessible to the combat squadrons. After three years of intensive development, involving dozens of engineers and computer programmers, the project was halted due to the IAFs discovery that an alternative systemthat was already on the marketcould be used for the same purpose. IDF control room during Operation Protective Edge (Photo: Ariel Harmoni, Ministry of Defense ) The IDF Spokesperson's Unit said the project wasnt shelved but rather deemed unfit for the required standards once it had been already fully developed. "The development of the Orion system was completed in 2009, but after a few years it was decided that the system does not meet operational needs The IDF develops technological and operational projects in accordance with the constantly changing needs and challenges faced by various units in the military. said the statement. Expenditures leap by hundreds of percent, which the special committees in the defense establishment approve without demanding any clarifications, and senior officers manage these projects without significant supervision, said a senior source in the defense establishment. Outside companies exploit the defense ministry and these processes are repeated time and time again. More than 40 people stood on a slushy sidewalk in Toppenish in remembrance of the Indigenous people who have been murdered or have gone missing on and around the 1.3-million-acre Yakama Reservation over decades. Please disable your ad blocker, and refresh the page to view this content. TOPPENISH, Wash. They already know that stemming the epidemic of missing and murdered Native women is daunting. They are well aware of the grim toll it has taken, because many have lost loved ones and friends. As you look around us today, we all stand here as statistics, said Charlene Tillequots, a member of the Yakama Nation Tribal Councils Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Committee, during a community meeting Monday in the events center of Legends Casino. More than 200 people attended the daylong event about the issue. It was the latest of several happening around the state as a result of state House Bill 2951, which requires the Washington State Patrol to work with the Office of Indian Affairs, federally recognized tribes, tribal and other law enforcement and tribal leaders to determine how to increase reporting and investigation of missing Native American women. The legislation also requires the state to collect data on the numbers of missing Native women. In leading the meeting, Davis Washines, Yakama Nation General Council chairman, noted that officials involved wanted to focus on barriers and potential solutions. Several people spoke with emotion throughout the day, and leaders stressed that counselors were there to listen and help. Among those attending and speaking were several representatives of Yakama Nation Behavioral Health and its Victim Resource Program. Craig Bill, executive director of the Governors Office of Indian Affairs, has been leading the meetings around the state with State Patrol Capt. Monica Alexander, who is the agencys legislative liaison. The State Patrol must report the results of its study to the Legislature by June 1. Alexander and state Rep. Gina Mosbrucker, R-Goldendale, who sponsored the legislation, could not attend Monday as both were at the Capitol for the first day of the legislative session. The Vanished: Central Washington's missing and murdered indigenous women No one knows exactly how many Native American women have disappeared in our region. Sometimes, they turn up safe. Sometimes, they're never s Theres a significant crisis of underreporting, Bill said. Improving that is key to efforts to address a decades-old issue of violence against Native women. How do we increase our reporting? It really showcases, again, the need to partner, he said. How do we strengthen our community engagement with our law enforcement? Its really community-driven. Its tribally driven, he said. This is one step. We know that theres a long journey. No one knows exactly how many Native girls and women have gone missing on or near the 1.3-million-acre Yakama reservation. Many cases of missing people or mysterious deaths of women and men remain unsolved. During a two-year FBI investigation spurred by rumors of a serial killer, investigators found as many as 32 cases dating back to 1980. Law enforcement One of the goals is to establish partnerships and relationships among law enforcement, Washines said. Yakama Nation Police Commissioner James Shike and others from the Yakama Nation Police Department attended, as did officers from the Toppenish and Wapato police departments and the Yakima County Sheriffs Office. They noted good working relationships and pledged to continue working together in the future. Others included Sheriff Robert Udell, Yakima County Coroner James Curtice and Robert Thompson, senior investigator/analyst for the Washington Attorney Generals office. Youve seen the need for this database were putting together. The barriers are many. Jurisdiction is a main barrier who can share information with whom and how it can be shared, said Esther Moses-Hyipeer, a member of the Yakama Nation Tribal Councils Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Committee. How we do that is key. Making a report Those leading the meeting wanted to hear what challenges people face when reporting missing loved ones and possible solutions; and what types of activities, educational programs, trainings and more people would like to see in the community. Making a report as soon its clear that a loved one is missing is important, authorities said. Shike encouraged the public to report missing persons quickly. All of these reports will be taken seriously and investigated immediately, he said, noting his direct number: 509-865-2933, extension 4191. All information is helpful. Tribal police are striving to improve communication, Shike said, noting that the department has three female officers to take sensitive reports and will work with the Victim Resource Program so a family advocate can be present if necessary. People should feel free to contact detectives any time, he said. If you have a problem getting ahold of our detectives, call me, Shike said, also noting that his department plans to offer an anonymous tip line and rewards for tips. Lottie Sam, another committee member, is also chairwoman of the Yakama Nation Law & Order Committee. She joined Shike in encouraging people to make a missing persons report. Come forward and make that report, Sam said. File reports to establish that communication. As demonstrated by a recent and potentially terrible situation, the quicker there is a response, the faster authorities can address situations. In the late hours over the weekend, I received information that there was a potential abduction, said JoDe Goudy, chairman of the Yakama Nation. I contacted our law enforcement ... and that girl was found. It turned out that she had run away, snuck away from her guardian. It was not the first time, and that was unfortunate. I asked myself, What kind of preventative measures can be put in place? More attention Goudy is pleased that awareness has gotten to this level, he said. Im a son; I have a mother. Im a grandson. Im a nephew. I am a brother; I have a sister who passed. Im a father; I have a daughter, Goudy said. As we look at this, we as Yakamas, we wish to address the caretaking of our women. We wish to protect them. What prevents us from doing so? ... Ensure that they are loved, that they are cared for, they are protected. While data and reports are important, people want to see action and results, stressed Athena Sanchey-Yallup, committee chairwoman. They want to move forward and prevent having this as a norm. Among the efforts to do so, Washines urged those attending to contact their legislators national and state for results. Lets keep their feet to the fire, he said. You can contact our senators, also our congressional representatives, he said. Harare (AFP) - The streets of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, were deserted Tuesday after demonstrations against a government hike in fuel prices turned violent, an AFP correspondent said. Most shops remained closed and minibus taxis that usually transport workers from the suburbs to the city centre were scarce. In Kuwadzana suburb, police were on patrol and appeared to be forcing people off the streets. One resident, Tawanda Mataya, said he and his 17-year-old son had been beaten up by police. "It's so painful," Mataya told AFP showing swellings on his back. "I was standing at my gate to assess whether I could go to work then this group of police who were passing by started beating me. "My son who heard me screaming and opened the window to see what was happening was slapped several times." In a televised address late Saturday, President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced fuel prices would more than double, saying the hike was needed to tackle severe shortages and "rampant" illegal trading. The police used tear gas on Monday in Harare and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city, to disperse hundreds of protesters who burnt tyres, erected barricades and looted businesses on the first day of a three-day general strike. Security Minister Owen Ncube said the security action caused "loss of life" without giving figures on the number of dead and wounded. The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights said 13 people had sustained gunshot wounds in and around Harare on Monday. At least 200 people were arrested during the disturbances. On Tuesday morning the Twitter account of the Ministry of Information said that "public order has been restored." The Zimbabwe Trade Union Confederation (ZCTU), for its part, reiterated its call to strike. "Today it's day two of the Shutdown. We urge workers and citizens everywhere to stay at home. Don't give the violent a chance to harm you," ZCTU tweeted. Story continues "Our struggle is genuine and there must be economic reforms for the poor to survive." Mnangagwa took over from long-time ruler and autocrat Robert Mugabe following a military takeover in 2017, before winning a disputed election in July. Currently on a tour of European countries, Mnangagwa will attend the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, next week. CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) Opposition lawmakers in Venezuela moved Tuesday to pry the military's loyalty away from President Nicolas Maduro, offering protection to members of the armed forces who support a transitional government. Congress passed declarations finding Maduro's rulings invalid and giving amnesty to members of the military who help in "restoring constitutional order" to Venezuela. They say Maduro's second term, which began Jan. 10, is illegitimate and accuse him of usurping the presidency. Maduro has cultivated a stronghold within the military by appointing generals to powerful government posts even as Venezuela collapses in a historic economic and political crisis, creating steep challenges for the anti-Maduro politicians. "It's not going to be simple after 20 years of repression," said Juan Guaido, who leads the pressure against Maduro as president of the opposition-controlled National Assembly. Maduro maintains that he's Venezuela's democratically elected president, though the Organization of American States and a number of other nations have declared they do not recognize the legitimacy of his second term due to allegations of electoral fraud. The most popular opposition parties were banned from running in the May presidential election and leading opposition politicians were jailed or driven into exile. Diego Moya-Ocampos, an Venezuela analyst with the London-based consulting firm IHS Global Insight, said the military would be a key player behind the scenes to drive any chance of a regime change. The opposition is offering the armed forces incentives to break away rather than continue supporting Maduro, he said. "They're laying the institutional grounds for both the military and the police in an eventual transition," Moya Ocampos said. "It gives them incentives to defect rather than to collaborate with the Maduro regime." Many of Maduro's critics argue that the presidency is legally vacant and the 35-year-old Guaido is constitutionally in line to lead an interim government. Story continues Guaido says he's ready to step into the presidency temporarily and call for new elections, but only if he sees support from the military and common Venezuelans in nationwide street demonstrations set for later this month. OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro has already recognized Guaido as president and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a staunch Maduro foe who has President Donald Trump's ear on Venezuelan issues, said he has asked Trump as well to acknowledge Guaido's leadership. "Over 60 countries including the U.S. have stated that Maduro is not the legitimate President of #Venezuela," Rubio tweeted on Tuesday. "I have asked @POTUS to recognize @jguaido as the legitimate transitional President of #Venezuela if the National Assembly invokes" its constitutional authority. Maduro has largely ignored congress, arguing that it is outranked by a pro-government constitutional assembly. The pro-Maduro Supreme Court earlier had ruled that acts of the opposition-dominated congress are invalid. "Anyone who wants to mock the constitution and play politics, well, he'll have to face the constitution, the laws and the courts," Maduro said without mentioning Guaido. "The courts will put things in their place as always." Geneva (AFP) - Russia remains "in material breach" of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the US said Tuesday, raising the prospect that Washington will follow through on threats to ditch the agreement over alleged violations by Moscow. US and Russian diplomats met in Geneva amid widespread concern over the fate of the bilateral agreement, after US President Donald Trump said in October his country would pull out of the deal unless Russia lived up to its terms. "The meeting was disappointing as it is clear Russia continues to be in material breach of the Treaty and did not come prepared to explain how it plans to return to full and verifiable compliance," US Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, Andrea Thompson, said in a statement. "Our message was clear: Russia must destroy its noncompliant missile system," she added. Russia hosted the talks at its mission in Geneva and Moscow's delegation was led by deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov. There was no immediate comment available from Russia after the discussions, but ahead of the talks Ryabkov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying he was not optimistic for progress. "Recently we have noted that the American side has even hardened its tone, we see that as not a very favourable signal," he said Monday, according to Interfax. Last month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington would withdraw within 60 days from the Cold War treaty limiting mid-range nuclear arms if Russia does not dismantle missiles that the US claims breach the deal. Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the US hardline by threatening to develop more nuclear missiles banned under the treaty. The landmark treaty was signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 and led to nearly 2,700 short- and medium-range missiles being eliminated. It put an end to a mini-arms race in the 1980s triggered by the Soviet Union's deployment of SS-20 nuclear missiles targeting Western European capitals. UNITED NATIONS (AP) The warring parties in Yemen have refused to talk face-to-face during two meetings to discuss the redeployment of forces from the key port of Hodeida, which is to be overseen by a U.N. monitoring team, the United Nations said Monday. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said retired Dutch Maj. Gen. Patrick Cammaert, the head of the monitoring team, had to shuttle between representatives of Yemen's government and Houthi Shiite rebels who were in different rooms. Their refusal to sit in the same room was another indication of the lack of trust between the warring parties, and the difficulty in implementing the full agreement that Houthi and government leaders reached in Sweden on Dec. 13. Dujarric said Cammaert is trying to find "a mutually acceptable way forward" to redeploy forces from Hodeida, whose port handles 70 percent of the food and humanitarian aid imported into Yemen, as well as the smaller ports of Salif and Ras Isa and parts of Hodeida city that are critical for humanitarian efforts. "Recent discussions have been constructive" and Cammaert "continues to encourage the parties to resume the joint meetings in order to finalize a mutually agreed redeployment plan," Dujarric said. While U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths said last week that the government and Houthis "have largely adhered" to a cease-fire in the port of Hodeida and the surrounding area, he said progress on a pullout of rival forces, humanitarian access and other issues agreed to in Stockholm has been slow. He said new talks between the warring sides would not take place until there was "substantive progress." Griffiths had said there would be a new round of talks in January but diplomats said he is now looking to February. The Security Council is expected to vote this week on a British-drafted U.N. resolution that would establish a political mission headed by Cammaert to oversee implementation of the Stockholm agreement. The resolution would approve Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' proposal for up to 75 U.N. monitors to be deployed for an initial period of six months to oversee the cease-fire in Hodeida, demining operations and the redeployment of forces. Story continues U.N. officials said one issue Cammaert has faced since his arrival in Houthi-controlled Hodeida is his lack of freedom of movement on the ground. The conflict in Yemen began with the 2014 takeover of Sanaa by the Iranian-backed Houthis, who toppled the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. A Saudi-led coalition allied with Yemen's internationally recognized government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. Saudi-led airstrikes have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties and killed thousands of Yemeni civilians. The Houthis have fired long-range missiles into Saudi Arabia and targeted vessels in the Red Sea. Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, has been plunged into the world's worst humanitarian crisis. U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council last week that the humanitarian situation had not improved since the Stockholm agreement and "remains catastrophic," with 80 percent of Yemen's population over 24 million people now in need of assistance. "They include nearly 10 million people just one step away from famine," he said. Kampala (AFP) - Uganda's Supreme Court on Tuesday began hearing a petition to challenge a constitutional court decision removing an age limit cap of 75 for presidential candidates. Critics of the decision argue it would allow President Yoweri Museveni, 74, to seek re-election for a sixth term in 2021. A bill removing the limit was signed into law in December 2017 after a chaotic passage through parliament that saw MPS engaging in fisticuffs. The constitutional court upheld the amendment in a ruling in July 2018. Opposition lawmaker Winnie Kiiza and activist Kassim Male Mabirizi of the Uganda Law Society filed the petition challenging the constitutional court decision. They want the court to decide whether the amendment violated the constitution as it "was rushed through parliament amidst violence and chaos, where members of the opposition were either arrested or beaten by police and army", Kiiza's lawyer Ladislaus Rwakafuzi told AFP. "The other element of our appeal is for court to decide whether the president, who was elected before the constitutional amendment lifting the age limit cap of 75 years, should remain in office after clocking 75 years," he added. Having seized power at the head of a rebel army in 1986, Museveni is the only president most Ugandans have known in a country where the median age is less than 16. In 2005 Museveni scrapped a two-term presidential limit which has allowed him to keep running for office. Young Ugandans have recently been energised by pop star-turned-MP Bobi Wine, who spearheaded protests against the age-limit amendment and has rapidly become a thorn in the government's side. By Rodi Said and Tom Perry QAMISHLI, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State militants are "living their final moments" in the last enclave they hold near the Iraqi border, where U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are attacking them, an SDF official said on Sunday. A defeat of the jihadists in the enclave would wipe out Islamic State's territorial foothold on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River. A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said the SDF were making "great progress ... but the fight continues". The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of militias led by the Kurdish YPG, have driven Islamic State from a swathe of northern and eastern Syria with the help of the U.S.-led coalition over the last four years. Mustafa Bali, SDF media office head, said the SDF had stepped up attacks in the last two days and taken control of the area between the Islamic State enclave and the Iraqi border, cutting an escape route. "They are living the final moments and realize that this battle is the battle to eliminate them," he added. U.S. President Donald Trump last month announced he would withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, declaring they had succeeded in their mission to defeat Islamic State and were no longer needed. Since then, U.S. officials have given mixed messages. On Friday, the U.S.-led coalition said it had started the pullout, but officials later said only equipment, not troops, were going. Colonel Sean Ryan, the coalition spokesman, said: "The SDF is making great progress and continues to liberate more territory once held by ISIS (Islamic State), but the fight continues. "The lasting defeat of ISIS is still the mission and they still present a very real threat to the long-term stability in this region, so it is not over yet." The U.S. decision has injected new uncertainty into the eight-year-old Syrian war and spurred a flurry of contacts over how the security vacuum will be filled in the swathe of northern and eastern Syria where the U.S. forces are now stationed. While Turkey aims to pursue the Kurdish forces allied with the United States, the Russia- and Iran-backed Syrian government sees a chance to recover extensive territory. U.S. national security adviser John Bolton suggested last week that protection for Washington's Kurdish allies would be a precondition of the U.S. withdrawal. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called his comments "a serious mistake". Bali said the people of northern Syria and the coalition must discuss a plan for "after the elimination of Daesh, and to take measures to prevent Daesh reorganizing itself and returning once again". Islamic State still holds territory on the western bank of the Euphrates, between areas controlled by the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian-backed allies. (Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Kevin Liffey) Istanbul (AFP) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that Ankara would set up a "security zone" in northern Syria suggested by US President Donald Trump. Erdogan's comments came a day after he had a telephone conversation with Trump to ease tensions after the US leader threatened to "devastate" the Turkish economy if Ankara attacks Kurdish forces in Syria. Turkey has welcomed Washington's planned withdrawal of some 2,000 US troops from Syria but the future of US-backed Kurdish militia forces labelled terrorists by Ankara has poisoned ties between the NATO allies. Erdogan said he had a "quite positive" telephone conversation with Trump late on Monday where he reaffirmed that "a 20-mile (30 kilometre) security zone along the Syrian border... will be set up by us." Damascus meanwhile denounced Erdogan's "language of occupation" in talking about a security zone. "The statements made today by the Turkish president reaffirm that this regime... does not deal (with anyone) except in the language of occupation and aggression," state news agency SANA quoted a source at the Syrian foreign ministry as saying. The Turkish army has launched two major operations in Syria dubbed "Euphrates Shield" in 2016 and "Olive Branch" in 2018 to combat Syrian Kurdish fighters as well as Islamic State jihadists. But the last offensive sought to roll back gains by Syrian Kurdish fighters who have governed parts of northern Syria since 2012. The deployment of Turkish troops and their proxy forces in areas of northwest Syria has drawn accusations by some critics of a Turkish military occupation. "Comparing Turkey's presence in Syria with that of any other state or power is an insult to both history and our civilisation," Erdogan said. - Turkey 'to control zone' - Turkey is home to over three million Syrian refugees. Since early in the conflict, Ankara has called for a safe area backed up by a no-fly zone on its 900 kilometre (560 mile) border with Syria to protect civilians from air and ground attacks. Story continues But support for the proposal has waned. The plan was mooted to Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, so that a safe structure could be provided for Syrian refugees on the condition that Washington provides logistics and air support, while Ankara supplies ground security, Erdogan said. "Unfortunately Obama failed to take the necessary steps," he said, speaking to journalists after his parliamentary address. But after the discussion with Trump, Erdogan said that plan could be resurrected and the 20-mile "security zone" could be extended, if needed. It could be created in cooperation with the US-backed international coalition fighting against IS, which Turkey is also a member of. "We could create such a safe zone if coalition forces especially America provide logistical and financial support," Erdogan said. "That would also entirely prevent an influx (of refugees)." The Turkish leader however dismissed any presence of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia in that zone. Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said the security zone would "be controlled by Turkey, with the deployment of Turkish military, intelligence activity and the involvement of the locals." He said its modalities were being discussed with Washington, adding the Turkish army chief General Yasar Guler was due to meet Wednesday with his US counterpart in Brussels. - 'Trump's tweets saddened me' - US support for the YPG during the Syria conflict has been a major source of friction between Ankara and Washington. The US regards the YPG as an effective ground force in the fight against IS jihadists. Ankara has however threatened to launch a cross-border operation to eradicate Syrian Kurdish fighters it sees as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The PKK, which has carried out a decades-long insurgency against Turkish forces, is blacklisted by Turkey as well as by the United States. But there have been concerns in Washington that Kurdish groups are being abandoned to attacks in the future by the far more powerful Turkish military. Erdogan on Tuesday said Trump's tweet "saddened me and my friends", but added that the two leaders reached an agreement "of historic importance" during Monday's phone call. The Turkish president said he would visit Russia on January 23 for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin over the US troop pullout plan. Ankara (AFP) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that Ankara would set up a "security zone" in northern Syria suggested by US President Donald Trump. Erdogan said he held a "quite positive" telephone conversation with Trump late on Monday where he reaffirmed that "a 20-mile (30 kilometre) security zone along the Syrian border... will be set up by us." Turkey has welcomed the planned withdrawal of some 2,000 US troops from Syria but the future of US-backed Kurdish militia forces regarded as terrorists by Ankara has poisoned Ankara-Washington ties. Trump on Sunday tweeted that the United States would "devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds", a threat that drew angry retorts from the government in Ankara. Erdogan on Tuesday said Trump's tweet "saddened me and my friends", but added that the two leaders reached an agreement during Monday's phone conversation. "We have reached an agreement of understanding that is of historic importance," he said. Erdogan said Turkey would solve issues with a "spirit of alliance" with Trump as long as his country's sensitivities were taken into account. US support for the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) during the Syria conflict has been a major source of friction between the NATO allies. The US regards the YPG as an effective ground force in the fight against Islamic State (IS) jihadists. Ankara has however threatened to launch a cross-border operation to eradicate Syrian Kurdish fighters it sees as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The PKK is blacklisted by Turkey as well as by the United States. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump faced new heat Monday after news reports that he has hid from aides the details of discussions with Vladimir Putin and that the FBI investigated him as a potential national security risk who might be acting on behalf of Russia. Trump has repeatedly stressed that he simply admires strong leaders and is always prepared to work with any of his counterparts. "I never worked for Russia," Trump said vehemently on Monday. "I have relationships with almost everybody. That's a good thing, not a bad thing." But critics remain suspicious. Here's why: - Business ties - Beginning in the 2000s, the Trump Organization began marketing US real estate to wealthy Russians, some with Putin links. One particularly lucrative deal raised eyebrows: in 2008, oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev paid Trump $95 million for a Palm Beach estate that Trump bought for just $41 million four years earlier. Trump, meanwhile, pressed for years to develop a Trump Tower in the Russian capital. As he ran for president in early 2016, his lawyer Michael Cohen quietly negotiated to gain backing for the billion dollar project, using a former general of Russian military intelligence as a go-between. The effort only ended when Trump won the Republican party's nomination. - Campaign contacts with Russia - During the 2016 election Trump's campaign had numerous contacts with Russia. Aides sought to arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin. Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak met Trump briefly in a campaign event and met other advisers during the July Republican convention. Some campaign associates communicated with WikiLeaks over its publication of damaging Democratic communications allegedly hacked by Russian intelligence. Campaign chairman Paul Manafort offered to brief oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a Putin ally, on the election, and gave campaign polling data to a Russian business associate with intelligence ties. Story continues And top campaign officials met a Russian lawyer who had offered them dirt on Clinton. Later both sides insisted they only discussed Putin's ban on American adoptions of Russian orphans. After Trump's election victory, in back-channel talks with Kislyak, his future national security advisor Michael Flynn allegedly promised Moscow that Trump would lift sanctions after he takes office despite Russia's election meddling. - Russia meddling denial - Almost as soon as US intelligence concluded that Russia meddled in the 2016 election, Trump has rejected that narrative, putting him at odds with the entire US intelligence community. He has repeatedly called the Russia meddling probe a "witch hunt". "It is all a big fat hoax," he said Monday. When Trump met Putin in Helsinki in July 2018, he was asked in a joint press conference whether he believes Putin or his own intelligence agencies on Russian interference. "They think it's Russia," said Trump. "I have President Putin - he just said it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be." - Counterintelligence probe - On May 9, 2017, Trump fired FBI director James Comey, after Comey resisted his pressure to halt the investigation of Trump's campaign and Russia. One day later, Trump welcomed Russian Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and Kislyak to the Oval Office. As they met, according to reports, Trump disclosed top secret US information on the Islamic State group that exposed US and Israeli intelligence sources. At the same meeting, Trump told Lavrov that Comey was "crazy, a real nut job," according to the New York Times. "I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off," with the firing, he said. The two events together raised deep worries in intelligence circles and ignited the counterintelligence investigation of Trump reported by the Times on Friday. - Secrecy about Putin meetings - On Saturday, the Washington Post reported that Trump has purposely left his top aides uninformed about his interactions with the Russian leader. Trump's first meeting with Putin was at the G20 summit in Hamburg on July 7, 2017. After the meeting, the Post said, Trump took the translator's notes and swore her to secrecy. None of his closest aides received any notes on the meeting. The content of their next meeting, one year later in Helsinki, was also kept from senior officials. Three days later, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said: "I don't know what happened in that meeting." The White House rejected the Post report. "The Washington Post story is so outrageously inaccurate it doesn't even warrant a response," said Trump spokeswoman Sarah Sanders. "President Trump has actually been tough on Russia." BARCELONA (Reuters) - A Spanish charity boat which rescues migrants at sea has been blocked by authorities from operating in the Mediterranean, the non-governmental organization said on Monday. The Barcelona Maritime Authority, in a letter seen by Reuters, said the charity Proactiva Open Arms had violated international agreements that rescued migrants should be taken to the closest port available. The minority Socialist Party government has accepted hundreds of migrants rescued by Open Arms this year but anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise in Spain, which has seen a surge in people making the dangerous crossing by sea. Open Arms, which operates in the waters between southern Europe and Libya, has previously traveled to Spain to disembark migrants after being refused permission to do so in Italy and Malta. "Measures were not taken to ensure the disembarkment took place as quickly as reasonably possible. In contrast, the boat had to wait with a large number of people on board and subsequently travel for several days crossing the Mediterranean to arrive to a safe port," the letter reads. Open Arms will not be granted permission to resume rescue operations "until an agreement with the authorities of the relevant SAR [search and rescue] zones is in place," the letter continued. The Barcelona Maritime Authority, which is part of the Ministry of Public Works, could not be immediately reached for comment. Open Arms said on Monday it had appealed the decision. "Preventing us from saving lives is irresponsible and cruel. Cowardly politicians have set the counter of deaths running," Open Arms founder Oscar Camps wrote on Twitter on Monday. As of November last year, more than 600 African migrants had died trying to reach Spain since the start of the year, almost three times more than in all of 2017. Irregular immigration by sea has fallen on average across Europe, though arrivals to Spain have more than doubled annually to the rate of more than 1,000 people per week this year. In December, Vox became the first far-right, anti-immigrant party to win representation in a regional assembly in Spain since the end of the Franco dictatorship in the late 1970s. (Reporting by Sam Edwards) By Giulia Paravicini and Stanis Bujakera KINSHASA (Reuters) - Lawyers for the runner-up in Democratic Republic of Congo's disputed election exhorted the nation's highest court on Tuesday to order a recount of a poll they say was rigged. The Dec. 30 election was meant to lead to Congo's first democratic handover of power since independence from Belgium in 1960. But hope for a new era after 18 years of chaotic rule by President Joseph Kabila has faded amid bitter controversy. The second-place finisher, former Exxon Mobil executive Martin Fayulu, says he won with more than 60 percent of votes based on his camp's tallies, and that the official winner, opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi, struck a deal with Kabila. Tshisekedi and Kabila deny this. Hearings opened in a packed room at the Constitutional Court, which has until Friday to pass judgment. The nine-judge court is considered by the opposition to be friendly to Kabila, and Fayulu has said he is not confident. "We ask for a recount of the votes from all candidates, polling station by polling station," one of his lawyers said in a series of impassioned speeches. Another said results should not have been given with votes still being counted. Lawyers for Tshisekedi's Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) party said not enough evidence was produced to justify a recount. Congo's influential Catholic Church has said the results were inconsistent with those of its 40,000 observers. It has not said who it believes won, but three diplomats briefed on its findings said they indicated it was Fayulu. Wary of the kind of regional fallout triggered by previous crises in Congo, African countries are to meet this week to discuss the election. Regional approval is critical for the legitimacy of the next president. MEETINGS IN ETHIOPIA The Southern African Development Community (SADC), which includes power-houses and Kinshasa allies South Africa and Angola, has called an emergency meeting on Thursday in Addis Ababa. The African Union has also called a meeting on the same day in the Ethiopian capital that will begin after the SADC one. Kabila's diplomatic adviser, Barnabe Kikaya Bin Karubi, told Reuters he would attend the SADC meeting alongside foreign minister Leonard She Okitundu. SADC on Sunday called for a recount. South Africa and Zambia backtracked on Monday, although Zambia reiterated its call for a government of national unity. Tshisekedi's UDPS party also plans to file a challenge on Tuesday to the results of the legislative election, which took place the same day as the presidential vote. Although the presidential candidate of Kabila's ruling coalition, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, won only 24 percent of the vote, the coalition took more than 350 of 500 seats in the National Assembly, compared with about 30 for the UDPS. That could undermine Tshisekedi's ability to live up to campaign promises to break with Kabila's long tenure, which began in 2001 when his father was assassinated. France, Belgium, the United States and Britain have all expressed concern, but criticism from inside Africa could hold greater sway. Isolated post-election violence in Congo has many fearing a return to the conflict and upheaval that killed millions since the 1990s. In a cautious statement, the United Nations Security Council said it "welcomed the peaceful holding of the elections" and urged all sides to "preserve the generally peaceful climate". Council members Russia, China and South Africa had previously all erred against criticism. Congo is the world's leading miner of cobalt, used in electric car batteries and mobile phones, and Africa's biggest copper producer. It also mines gold and diamonds. But unrest, disorganization and corruption have left many in poverty and dissatisfied with Kabila's rule. (Additional reporting by Juliette Jabkhiro in Dakar, Writing by Aaron Ross and Edward McAllister, Editing by Robin Pomeroy, Angus MacSwan and Andrew Cawthorne) Freetown (AFP) - "Mary" was nine years old when her childhood abruptly ended. Three men fed her sedatives then raped her. Her mother, who had been washing clothes in a stream near their home in Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, got home to find her child lying on the ground distraught, her legs and dress stained with blood. "They put dirty clothes in my mouth and raped me," the girl told AFP, without giving her real name. The family reported the attack to the police and identified the rapists, but no charges were ever brought. Thousands of children and young girls were raped last year in Sierra Leone -- a silent epidemic of suffering in one of the world's poorest countries. According to police statistics, recorded cases of sexual and gender-based violence almost doubled last year, reaching 8,505 in a population of 7.5 million, up from 4,750 a year earlier. And of that number, 2,579 cases -- around a third -- involved the rape of a minor. But, as with the incidence of rape in almost every country, this shocking tally is almost certainly an understatement. "Mary" and her family plucked up the courage to report the crime: many do not. - 'Culture of rape' - "We have a culture of rape in Sierra Leone," admitted Chernor Bah of the UN's Global Education First Initiative at a demonstration in Freetown last month where more than 500 black-clad protesters took to the streets over violence against women. "The rape of minors is a national problem," rally organiser Asma James said. "The situation is sad, selfish, barbaric and inhuman and requires all of us, women and men, to speak up." Just weeks before, the country had been shaken by the rape of a five-year-old girl by her 28-year-old relative. Her attacker raped her anally, crippling her spine. Doctors at the Aberdeen Women's Centre in Freetown, which helps women and girls who have suffered from sexual violence and rape, said it was unlikely the child would ever be able to walk again. Story continues The attack sparked outrage, with many people demanding that child rapists face a lifetime behind bars -- calls echoed by President Julius Maada Bio himself. "Let me be very clear: men who rape girls deserve to be jailed for life," Bio said as his wife launched a campaign called "Hands off Our Girls". - Most victims under 15 - Reports of rape and the sexual penetration of minors, as child rape is legally termed, have steadily increased, according to the Freetown-based Rainbo Initiative, which provides free medical services and counselling to victims of sexual and gender-based violence. Figures collated by the centre show that in 2018, 76 percent of rape victims were aged 15 years or younger -- including babies. The rest of the victims were aged between 16 and 20. And every month, an average of 149 victims fell pregnant as a result of rape. "Children are brought to our centres in tattered clothes covered with blood stains," executive director Daniel Kettor told AFP. In Freetown alone, there were 1,491 cases of sexual abuse reported between January and October 2018, with the youngest victim just seven months old and the oldest aged 85. "Amongst the survivors, six were HIV-positive and 484 fell pregnant after being raped," Kettor said. Doctors at the centre examine the victims, looking for evidence of sperm specimens and blood stains around the genital area before providing them with a medical certificate which is necessary for police to open an investigation. - Rape and war - Those looking for an explanation of Sierra Leone's rape crisis often turn to the country's violent recent past. During a 10-year civil war (1991-2001), thousands of women and girls were subjected to widespread and systematic sexual violence and rape, a 2003 Human Rights Watch report found. In this pervasive environment, there has been little headway toward rooting out attitudes of sexual predation and prosecuting rapists. "Sexual violence against women and girls is a prevalent and destructive practice that still has deep roots in the country, despite various initiatives to eliminate it," Commissioner of Sierra Leone's Law Reform Commission Rhoda Suffian-Kargbo Nuni told AFP. Many attacks go unpunished, and those that are reported often fail to end in indictments or make it through Sierra Leone's judicial system, rights groups and police say. Court records show that in 2018, only 26 rape cases were successfully prosecuted and led to a conviction. Some cases fail to make it to court due to a lack of adequate facilities to carry out DNA tests to secure the necessary evidence. Others never get off the ground because the victims simply cannot afford the legal costs. "The police have limited resources to investigate sexual and gender abuse," says Superintendent Fatmata Daboh, who heads the Family Support Unit. "Many cases are settled out of court or without going to trial due to the lack of a forensic science lab to prove evidence." - A pledge for change - Sierra Leone's Human Rights Commission in 2017 highlighted systemic failures, including "inefficiencies and corruption in the judicial system" for many cases being settled out of court or never going to trial. Legally, rape is a criminal offence which carries a jail term of between five and 15 years, according to the Sexual Offences Act of 2012 -- a law that Sierra Leone reworked and toughened specifically to combat sexual predators. But such sentences are rare. In a high-profile case last year, a court in Freetown convicted a 56-year-old man of raping a six-year-old girl. He got one year in jail. The many failings have stirred anger and frustration -- but also a desire for change. "We are working on our law for strict punishment," said Justice Minister Priscilla Schwartz. Appointed to the post in mid-2018, she too attended the protest marches. Singapore (AFP) - Singapore insisted Tuesday it would still cane a British man convicted of drug smuggling despite a plea from London not to proceed with the punishment. Yuen Ye Ming was sentenced by a Singapore court last year to 20 years in jail and 24 strokes of the cane after he was convicted of drug-related offences, including trafficking, consumption and possession. Flogging with a rattan cane, a legacy of British colonial rule, is a common punishment in Singapore and the city-state rarely backs down in applying the law. Yuen was first arrested in August 2016 for drug-related offences and was convicted last year but released on bail pending sentencing, Singapore's interior ministry said. While out on bail, he was arrested again for similar narcotics offences, the ministry said. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt had asked his Singaporean counterpart during a visit to the city-state this month that Yuen be spared caning, a spokesman for Britain's foreign ministry said. "We strongly oppose the use of corporal punishment, such as caning, in all cases," the spokesman said. "The Foreign Secretary personally raised this with the Singaporean Minister for Foreign Affairs earlier this month." But Singapore insisted the punishment would be carried out. "Yuen committed the crimes while he was in Singapore, and must bear the consequences of his actions in accordance with our laws," the interior ministry said. While caning dates back to colonial rule, Britain abolished it as a punishment for criminals decades ago. Singapore has in the past rejected allegations from rights groups likening caning to torture. In 2015, two young German men were sentenced to caning and jail time for vandalising a metro train. Swiss national Oliver Fricker was also sentenced to caning and jail time in 2010 for vandalising a metro train. MADRID (AP) More than 100 firefighters and emergency workers in southern Spain searched Monday for a 2-year-old toddler who fell into a narrow and deep borehole. Rescuers have been unable to get into the borehole, which is no wider than 25 centimeters (10 inches) in diameter and is believed to go down more than 100 meters (330 feet). On Monday afternoon they were deploying three different approaches to reach the bottom of the well but without damaging its structure or blocking it with soil and rocks, local authorities said. According to rescuers, the boy fell into the hole early Sunday afternoon after walking away from his parents while playing in a mountainous area near the town of Totalan, northeast of the city of Malaga. The hole, which is too narrow for an adult to enter, had been bored a month earlier during water prospection works and had not been covered or protected, local media reported. The provincial representative of the Spanish government, Maria Gamez, said that firefighters using a robot camera in the early hours of Monday found a bag of candy that the boy was carrying when he went missing. It was some 75 meters down the shaft, where rescuers were unable to get their equipment further down. Civil Guard spokesman Bernardo Molto told Spanish public broadcaster TVE that efforts would now focus on using more sophisticated equipment to widen the hole while also digging separate tunnels to access the shaft. Asked whether the investigation is also considering any other reasons for the boy's disappearance, Molto told reporters that the authorities' priorities are "searching, locating and rescuing the boy." Toronto (Canada) (AFP) - A Saudi teen who caused an international sensation by defying her family and seeking asylum abroad on Tuesday vowed to fight for women's freedoms in her first public address since she was taken in by Canada. Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun captured the world's attention with a trail of tweets from her hotel room at Bangkok's airport, where she holed up after Thai authorities initially barred her from travelling on to Australia. Her emotional social media posts ignited a #SaveRahaf movement as she fled what she said was physical and psychological abuse from her family in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia -- and prompted quick action. She was granted refugee status and was welcomed by Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland after landing in Toronto on Saturday. "Today and for years to come, I will work in support of freedom for women around the world, the same freedom that I experienced on the first day I arrived in Canada," she told a press conference, reading from a prepared statement in Arabic. Standing in front of a large Canadian flag at the Toronto offices of refugee resettling agency Costi, Qunun denounced Saudi Arabia's strict male guardianship rules, saying: "I am one of the lucky ones." "I know there are unlucky women that disappeared after escaping and could not do anything to change their reality," she said through a translator. Her family has denied the abuse allegations. Reflecting on her own experience, she said: "I was not treated respectfully by my family and not allowed to be myself and who I want to be." "In Saudi Arabia, this is the case for all Saudi women except for those that have understanding parents. They can't be independent and need approval of their male guardian for everything." Rights groups have said she has renounced Islam, risking prosecution in her home country. - Making 'own decisions' - Upon learning of Canada's asylum offer, Qunun said her stress "melted away." Story continues Now, she said, she can make her "own decisions," including about travel and marriage. "I would like to start living a normal life, like any young woman living in Canada," she said. Shortly after her arrival in Toronto, Qunun went shopping for some warm clothes and connected with local acquaintances. Costi executive director Mario Calla said the agency is helping her find long-term accommodations, open a bank account, obtain Canadian documents, and enroll in English classes, as well as showing her how to get around and teaching her "about life in Canada." He noted concerns about her safety, citing online threats and saying guards have been posted at her temporary home. "She feels safe because she knows she is in a safe country. The people (here) have her best interest at heart and are trying to help her. She has seen the outpouring of support," Calla said. Qunun has admitted that threats posted on social media "scare her," he added. When she reads those posts, "her emotions go back and forth." On Monday, Qunun told public broadcaster CBC of her family: "My greatest fear is if they find me, I would disappear and I wouldn't know what would happen to me after that." She said that at home, she was "exposed to physical violence, persecution, oppression, threats to be killed. I was locked in for six months." "I felt that I could not achieve my dreams that I wanted as long as I was still living in Saudi Arabia," she said. But in Canada, Qunun said, she has felt "reborn, especially when I felt the love and the welcome." "Tell Canadians that I love them," she said. The Hague (AFP) - As prosecutors failed to land the scalp of yet another former national leader accused of crimes against humanity, the question echoed in the hallways of the International Criminal Court: is it fit for purpose? The acquittal on Tuesday of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo over post-electoral violence that killed 3,000 people was the latest in a series of blows for beleaguered ICC prosecutors. The court in The Hague was set up in 2002 to try the world's worst crimes, after years when the only route to justice for atrocities in countries like Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia was separate tribunals. Hamstrung from the start by the refusal of the United States and Russia to join, the court has since faced criticism for the fact that it has mainly taken on cases from poorer African nations. But the biggest challenge to the court comes from apparent overreach -- trying and failing to add top level leaders like Gbagbo to its trophy cabinet. "It compromises the faith in the ability of the Prosecution to bring cases against the most responsible in atrocity contexts and to satisfy expectations of victims and survivors," Carsten Stahn, professor of international criminal law at Leiden University, told AFP. Last year, former DR Congo warlord and ex-vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba was acquitted on appeal for crimes allegedly committed by his militia in the Central African Republic in 2002-2003. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta also saw charges of crimes against humanity over electoral bloodshed dropped by the ICC's prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, in 2014. The spotlight particularly falls on Gambia's Bensouda as the Gbagbo trial was the first real fruit of her own work at the ICC since taking over from previous prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. "Kenyatta and Bemba were warning shots. Gbabgo confirms the picture," added Stahn. "A clear lesson from these experiences is that there is a need for more thorough investigations leading to a sequence of cases per situation. Going immediately after high-ranking officials creates a strong risk of losing cases." Story continues - 'Serious questions' - The court has had more success targeting lower level war crimes suspects such as Congolese rebel warlords Thomas Lubanga and Germain Katanga, and Malian jihadist Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, found guilty of attacks on Timbuktu's fabled shrines. But Mark Kersten of the University of Toronto said the Gbagbo case would leave "serious questions about the ability of the ICC to successfully target and prosecute state actors." "No single case will make or break the ICC or the prosecutors office," he said, adding however that "the prosecutors office needs to convince the Courts constituencies especially victims, survivors, and states that their personal, financial, and political investments into the ICC are worth it." Marta Bo, an international law researcher at the Hague-based Asser Institute warns "one should refrain from basing an opinion about the Court based only on this one decision." - 'Africa not targeted' - Perhaps the only bright spot in the Gbagbo debacle was that it would undermine one abiding public conception about the ICC, analysts said. "One positive that the prosecutor may be able to take from this is that it undermines the notion that the ICC unfairly targets ousted African leaders," said Kersten. Stahn agreed that "the decision makes it harder to claim that the ICC is biased against Africa. It is demonstration of the application of high fairness standards towards the defendants." The ICC also faces broader problems in asserting its legitimacy. Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir, accused of genocide and war crimes by the ICC over the conflict in Darfur, has for years evaded justice as member states have refused to arrest him even when he has travelled to their territory. Hindering the ICC is the fact that it does not have its own police force and is therefore dependent on member states to carry out arrests. Yet a greater threat still may come from the United States as the administration of Donald Trump pursues an increasingly isolationist course that scorns international institutions. US National Security Advisor John Bolton warned last year that the United States would arrest ICC judges if the court pursued US servicemen over alleged war crimes in Afghanistan. By Lesley Wroughton and Stephen Kalin RIYADH (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday that Saudi leaders assured him everyone responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi would be held accountable, as Riyadh tries to resolve its biggest political crisis in a generation. Pompeo told reporters he had also raised a number of human rights issues with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, including women's rights activists who have been detained for months and some allegedly tortured. Khashoggi, a longtime royal insider who had become a critic of the crown prince, was killed in October in the kingdom's Istanbul consulate, prompting a global outcry including U.S. Treasury sanctions on 17 individuals and a Senate resolution blaming Prince Mohammed. A CIA assessment has blamed the crown prince for ordering the killing, which Saudi officials deny. At least 21 Saudis are under investigation in the case, with five facing the death penalty. Five officials were also fired, including a senior royal advisor. "They both acknowledged that accountability needed to take place. They talked about the process that is occurring inside their country, both the investigative process and the judicial process that is taking place," Pompeo said. "They reiterated their commitment to achieve the objective, the expectations we set for them." Pompeo last visited Riyadh two weeks after Khashoggi disappeared to press the key U.S. ally on the whereabouts of the Washington Post contributor, who disappeared after entering the consulate to obtain marriage documents. The outcry over the murder has tarnished the reputation of Prince Mohammed, strained ties with Western allies and focused attention on Saudi Arabia's domestic crackdown on dissent and the war in Yemen, where a Saudi-led and U.S.-backed coalition is supporting the internationally-recognized government. "Where friends think the other one has fallen short, I was very clear and candid about those things where America is not satisfied with and where they are not meeting our expectations," said Pompeo. He said he had also raised the Gulf Arab dispute with Qatar after saying a day earlier in Qatar that it had gone on for too long and was threatening regional unity needed to counter Iran. "We did talk about how we might put the Gulf rift back in a better place," he said. "I think theyd like to see that too. Its a matter of us all figuring out how to do it together, but mostly those countries figuring out how they can put it back together." WOMEN ACTIVISTS On Yemen, Pompeo and Prince Mohammed agreed on the need for continued de-escalation and adherence to agreements made at talks last month to end the civil war between the government and Iranian-aligned Houthis. "We talked about the fact that work done in Sweden on Yemen was good but we need both sides to honor those commitments. To date, the Iranian-backed Houthis have chosen not to do that," he said. They also discussed U.S. plans to withdraw troops from Syria, which Pompeo told reporters would not be affected by President Donald Trump's threat to devastate Turkey economically if it attacks a Washington-backed Kurdish militia in Syria. During meetings lasting 80 minutes total, Pompeo said he had raised human rights issues, including several women's rights activists detained last summer and accused of treason. "Their commitment was that the lawful judicial process would take place and they would do so quickly, and that they would continue down that path," he said. The sister of activist Loujain al-Hathloul has described how she was tortured and threatened, at times by the same royal adviser implicated in the Khashoggi murder. Saudi authorities deny those charges, and Prince Mohammed has said they have recordings showing the activists were working with foreign intelligence agencies. Dozens of other activists, intellectuals and clerics have also been arrested in an apparent bid to stamp out opposition to Prince Mohammed, who has consolidated power including with a sweeping anti-corruption campaign. Pompeo, whose earlier stops included Cairo, Abu Dhabi and Doha, proceeded to Oman to meet Sultan Qaboos but will skip Kuwait to attend a family funeral, a spokesman said. (Additional reporting by Sylvia Westall and Alexander Cornwell, Editing by Alison Williams, William Maclean) Mitrovica (Kosovo) (AFP) - A year after Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic was killed in a drive-by shooting in Kosovo, his unsolved murder continues to haunt this tense and crime-ridden corner of Europe, where the main suspect is still on the run. The 64-year-old was struck down by six bullets in January 2018 outside his party headquarters in the Kosovo city of Mitrovica, where the Ibar river draws a line between a mainly ethnic Albanian community in the south and Serbs in the north. The bleak city is still a hotbed of tension 20 years after Kosovo broke away from Serbia in a separatist war, a move Belgrade has never accepted. Like most of the Serb minority in Kosovo, Ivanovic did not recognise Kosovo's independence. But the articulate politician but was considered rare among his ilk for efforts to build bridges with Kosovo Albanians, whose language he also spoke. His strong criticism of Belgrade's policies made him a frequent target of the scathing campaigns of Serbia's scathing pro-government tabloids, as well as of the local political allies of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. But it also cast him as a symbol of resistance among Serbian opposition groups, who will march through Belgrade in his honour on Wednesday, the first anniversary of his death. Ahead of the demonstration, which comes amid a series of anti-government protests in Serbia, a mural was painted in Belgrade depicting Ivanovic's face with a sombre gaze, next to his words: "One cannot live in an atmosphere of fear". - 'Wild West of the Balkans' - After his death, Serbian authorities were quick to suggest the murder was fuelled by ethnic hatreds. However, many Serbs say they believe the murder was more likely linked to Mitrovica's criminal underworld. Ivanovic had long maintained that crime, not ethnic divides, was the biggest curse in impoverished Mitrovica. Dubbed the "Wild West of the Balkans," the city's northern half is said to be a smuggling hub for goods ranging from drugs to petrol. Story continues In off-record comments to the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) that were made public after his death, Ivanovic described how "informal centres of power" were calling the shots in North Mitrovica. He named Milan Radoicic, a well-known Kosovo Serb politician and Belgrade ally, as one of the key players. In late November, Kosovo special police attempted to arrest Radoicic, whom they suspect was connected to Ivanovic's murder. Although they arrested three other Serb suspects, including two policemen, in North Mitrovica, when they got to Radoicic's house, he wasn't there. The 40-year-old's whereabouts remain unknown, though he is widely believed to have taken refuge in Serbia. Speaking to Serbian media after the raid from an unknown location, he insisted he had "nothing to do with Oliver Ivanovic's murder". - Lie detector tests - Radoicic has enjoyed a rapid rise in Kosovo Serb politics in recent years, becoming the second highest ranking member of the main "Srpska lista" party in June 2017. Locals say he was present at nearly every important meeting in Mitrovica, though they are hesitant to talk about him publicly. "I had been unemployed for years and everyone told me to go to Milan (Radoicic)," said one man who requested anonymity, explaining that the quid pro quo was his vote for Srpska lista. Radoicic's alleged role in the Ivanovic murder has now become the latest strain in Serbia and Kosovo's bitter relations. The politician has received strong backing from Belgrade throughout the ordeal, with the Serbian president previously describing him as a leader who "protects Serbia in Kosovo". Since the police raid, Vucic has kept up his defence of Radoicic, recently telling public broadcaster RTS that he "not only did not kill (Ivanovic), but he did not participate in logistics, help or anything else." As evidence, he said Radoicic had passed a lie detector test. Rada Trajkovic, an ethnic Serb politician in Kosovo, blasted Vucic for coming to his defence. "At this decisive moment, which must define relations with Kosovo, the president of Serbia sets in motion all the resources and apparatus of the state to defend and protect a suspect for a Serb crime against a Serb in northern Kosovo," she told local newspaper Danas. "It seems almost incredible." Over in Pristina, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has also been urging Serbia to cooperate in the murder investigation and not become a "haven" for Ivanovic's assassins. But as with most matters of dispute between the bitter neighbours, few have hope of a rapid resolution. 01/14/2019 JSU named 2,049 students to the President's and Deans' Lists for their outstanding academic performance during the Fall 2018 semester. To be named to the President's List, a student must earn a perfect 4.0 GPA while attending full-time. Students earning a GPA of 3.5-3.99 while attending full-time are named to the Deans' List of their respective schools. To search the list of honorees, visit the JSU Merit Page. At a joint press conference with his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian in Amman, Safadi said the two countries believe that lack of a solution could lead to eruption of crises in the region, said a statement by the Jordanian Foreign Ministry. "We will work together with the international community to create the necessary political environment to move forward towards a two-state solution (to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict)," Safadi said. The Jordanian top diplomat said that Jordan highly values France's support to the two-state solution, adding that France plays a pivotal role in supporting the Palestinians. The bilateral discussions also covered the Syrian crisis and the need for coordinating efforts to reach a political solution in the country. "Our priority is to end the crisis," Safadi said, adding that Jordan will continue to coordinate with France, Russia and the U.S. to achieve a political solution as soon as possible. On the same day, King Abdullah II of Jordan also met with the French official to discuss ties and regional developments. Lagos (AFP) - In Nigeria, where religious and ethnic identity often determines support for a candidate, Mudi Bawa might well have been expected to vote for Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. Both are northern Muslims. But the fisherman had another reason to choose Buhari: the hope he could help him return to the home he had to flee when Boko Haram attacked. "There was tremendous improvement in security when Buhari became president," said Bawa, from Baga, in the northeastern state of Borno. "But unfortunately, in the last few months Boko Haram have resurfaced... The security situation has deteriorated," he told AFP. Few but the hardest of hardline presidential supporters would disagree with Bawa's assessment, as the country once again prepares to go to the polls. In opposition, Buhari benefited politically from the fall-out of the conflict, which saw the jihadists capture swathes of territory and declare a caliphate. President Goodluck Jonathan was lambasted for his government's response to the threat, and particularly his reaction to the high-profile kidnapping of 219 schoolgirls. Buhari, the former army general who once headed a military government in the 1980s, was seen as a better bet to restore order. - Persistent attacks - He made a strong start, recognising the need to re-energise the moribund regional force and rally the international community for support against extremism. Lost ground was recovered; the threat to sovereignty diminished; soldiers' morale improved as more equipment was provided. Thousands of hostages were rescued or released, including 107 of the 219 kidnapped Chibok girls; many internally displaced people began to return home. In December 2015, Buhari was confident enough to declare Boko Haram "technically" defeated. But the truth of that statement has since been repeatedly questioned. Suicide bombings and hit-and-run raids persisted, while troops were unable to stop another mass abduction of more than 100 schoolgirls from the town of Dapchi. Story continues More concerning still, according to analysts, is the wave of attacks by the Islamic State West Africa Province faction of Boko Haram against military bases. The latest happened on Monday in the remote town of Rann, near the border with Cameroon. A coordinated response from regional partners once again appears to be lacking. This month, even Buhari acknowledged Nigerian troops were exhausted and demoralised. "Boko Haram has shown it has not gone away," Josh Lipowsky, a senior research analyst at the Counter Extremism Project in New York, told AFP. "The government has to take further steps in order to fulfil its promises, which it has not yet done despite its proclamations." - Multiple threats - In nearly 10 years, more than 27,000 people have been killed in the Boko Haram insurgency. Mudi Bawa is one of some 1.8 million others still homeless. Aid agencies regularly warn the "humanitarian tragedy" caused by the years of fighting is one of the worst in the world. Buhari's record on tackling Boko Haram has been compounded by an upsurge in violence in the long-running resources conflict between farmers and herders in central states. Kidnapping for ransom and cattle rustling has increased across the north; militants pose an ever-present threat in the oil-producing south; while separatist sentiment has increased among pro-Biafrans in the southeast. The response to Boko Haram, secessionists and minority Shiite Muslims has seen the overstretched military accused of heavy handedness and grievous human rights abuses. Buhari himself has faced criticism for his slow response to the pastoralist conflict because he belongs to the same ethnic group as the nomadic cattle drivers. - The devil you know? - It is unclear to what extent national security will affect Buhari's bid to secure another four-year term of office on February 16. Certainly, the situation on the ground will at the very least make the logistics of holding an election problematic. Political violence is also a constant threat. Some states on the front line of the herders-farmers crisis swung to Buhari's All Progressives Congress party in 2015 and look unlikely to remain. Analyst Don Okereke said it was clear the "immense goodwill" Buhari enjoyed before 2015 had run out, assessing he had "over-promised and under-delivered". Buhari's main challenger, Atiku Abubakar, of the People's Democratic Party, has seized on the perceived failings. But it's unclear exactly what he would do. "Has (Buhari) been successful? No. But could the other guy (Abubakar) be successful? I just don't know. It's the devil you know and the devil you don't know," said Lipowsky. Buwa, for example, said he would vote for Buhari again as he had "no better option". "Whoever wins, it's not going to be rosy," added Okereke. "Nigeria will not become a safe-and-sound Eldorado overnight." Grand Bourgtheroulde (France) (AFP) - French President Emmanuel Macron attempted Tuesday to rebound from two months of often violent anti-government protests by launching a nationwide debate over the grievances fuelling the "yellow vest" movement. Macron travelled to the northern town of Grand Bourgtheroulde to kickstart what he has billed as a "great national debate" which he hopes will help turn around his presidency. The 41-year-old centrist passed a group of "yellow vest" protesters, some of whom shouted "Macron resign", en route to his meeting with 600 mayors which was broadcast live on French news channels for more three hours. In his opening remarks to the gathering in the sports hall of the town, Macron promised that all the questions raised by citizens would be given consideration. "There can be no taboos," he said in answer to accusations that he has tried to limit the scope of the debate to tally with his reform agenda. Defending himself for over an hour against charges that he has exacerbated inequality and neglected the provinces, he said: "People always want someone to blame. I feel that I'm fulfilling that role and I accept it." He again ruled out immediately repealing his controversial cuts to wealth taxes on high earners but said: "If some of the measures taken over the past 20 months were misguided they will be corrected." - 'Two-speed France' - Macron's poll ratings had already been in freefall before hundreds of thousands of protesters from rural and small-town France rose up in mid-November over fuel taxes. The protests snowballed into an anti-government revolt, with tens of thousands of demonstrators taking part in weekly rallies in Paris and other big cities that have regularly ended in clashes with police and vehicles being torched. Macron is hoping that returning to the sort of participative democracy he had championed during his grassroots election campaign will take the heat out of the protests. Story continues On Tuesday, several mayors spoke of a sense of abandonment and dwindling public services in sparsely populated rural areas. "We feel as if there is a two-speed France and wonder if we're not in the B category," Jean-Paul Legendre, mayor of Iville, a town of 500 people, told Macron. "We feel isolated and yet we're only 160 kilometres (100 miles) from Paris," added Jean-Noel Montier, mayor of Mesnil-en-Ouche, a collection of several remote villages. - 'No forbidden questions' - Tuesday's meeting sounded the start of two months of consultations across France on four main themes to have emerged from the "yellow vest" protests: taxation; France's transition to a low-carbon economy; democracy and citizenship, and the functioning of the state and public services. In an open letter to the French released on Sunday setting out 35 questions, Macron said he hoped "as many as possible" would participate in the town-hall-style discussions. "We won't agree on everything, that's normal, that's democracy. But at least we'll show we are a people who are not afraid to talk, exchange and debate." While the mayors gathered in Grand Bourgtheroulde appeared glad to be given a hearing, many "yellow vests" have reacted sceptically to Macron's initiative, seeing it as a ploy to undercut their movement. They point to Macron's refusal to discuss bringing back the ISF fortune tax as proof that he is not prepared to significantly change his policies. On Tuesday, police used tear gas to disperse a group of around 100 protesters who gathered near the meeting venue in Normandy. Analysts and many in Macron's own party fear the debate could spur a cascade of nebulous demands or calls for the repeal of longstanding laws, such as those that abolished the death penalty or allowed gay marriage. An Elabe poll Tuesday showed the French feeling conflicted about the debates, with 40 percent saying they intended to participate but 66 percent saying they did not think it would end the protests.Macron has announced other measures to try to end the social unrest, including scrapping fuel tax hikes and unveiling a 10-billion-euro ($11.5-billion) package of wage increases and tax relief for low earners. An estimated 84,000 people took part in last Saturday's protests. Buenos Aires (AFP) - Argentine President Mauricio Macri will hold talks with his new Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday likely to center on consolidating trade ties between South America's two biggest economies, officials said. Battling recession and seeking re-election this year, Macri needs to boost Buenos Aires's side of a steep trade imbalance with its main trading partner. Argentina is seeking to tap into Brazil's recent growth to boost its trade balance, after its exports to its neighbor fell from nearly $76 billion in 2013 to $58 billion in 2018. GDP growth in Brazil is expected to reach 1.3 percent for 2018, amid forecasts of 2.5 percent in 2019. Macri will travel to Brasilia for Wednesday's talks, the first meeting between the two leaders. The Argentine skipped Bolsonaro's January 1 inauguration to holiday in Patagonia instead. "It's likely the meeting will focus on trade issues, because politically the differences between the ultra-conservative Bolsonaro and the liberal Macri are huge," said analyst Bruno Binetti of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank. Some analysts say the economic openness advocated by Bolsonaro could negatively impact Argentine companies. "Argentina has everything to lose, not only because of a weakened Mercosur. If Brazil adopts further trade liberalization, Argentine companies will be punished by fierce competition from other countirs, particularly from Asia," warned economist Paula Espanol of Argentinian consultants Radar. Bolsonaro has made it clear that the regional trade bloc of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay is not a priority for his government. Both presidents agree "Mercosur should be a more flexible bloc, where countries have the freedom to negotiate free trade agreements with third countries instead of negotiating together as they have done so far," despite the resisance of industries in both countries, Binetti told AFP. The Argentine president will arrive in Brazil late Tuesday with a delegation including Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie, Defence Minister Oscar Aguad and Finance Minister Nicolas Dujovne. Faurie said that at the end of their meeting, the two presidents will issue a statement on Venezuela, where President Nicolas Maduro has begun a second term, despite an election victory deemed illegitimate by much of the international community. By Alex Dobuzinskis and Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Some 30,000 striking teachers demanding higher pay, smaller classes and more support staff from the nation's second-largest school district walked picket lines for a second day on Tuesday, with no new talks on the horizon between stalemated union and district officials. Negotiators for the Los Angeles Unified School District and the United Teachers Los Angeles have not met since union leaders rejected the LAUSD's latest contract offer on Friday night, calling the proposal an "insult." Asked Tuesday afternoon whether the two sides had any intention of returning to the bargaining table, an LAUSD spokeswoman said, "Nothing is scheduled at this time." The strike, shattering 30 years of labor peace by Los Angeles teachers, has not completely idled instruction in the sprawling district encompassing some 1,200 schools. The district has enlisted administrators and substitute teachers to keep classes open on a limited basis through the strike, though LAUSD reported only about a third of its 492,000 students showed up on the first day of the walkout. The high absence level is expected to cost the district $25 million in state funding, which is based on daily student attendance, according to LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner. CHARTER SCHOOLS Roughly 148,000 additional students are enrolled in LAUSD's independently managed charter schools, which for the most part have been unaffected by this week's labor strife. On Tuesday, however, a group of no more than four dozen unionized teachers at three LAUSD charter schools operated by a company called The Accelerated Schools also walked off the job in a separate dispute they said was focused on job security. Randi Weingarten, president of the parent union American Federation of Teachers, said the Accelerated work stoppage, while small in comparison to the larger strike, was symbolically important because it marked only the second charter school strike in the nation and the first in California. Story continues Teachers unions, while critical of charter schools they see as competing for public school resources, have nevertheless sought to organize charters' mostly non-union labor force. "We have to find ways to live together, but let's make the priority neighborhood public schools," Weingarten told Reuters. Aside from the education disruption, the teachers' strike could have implications for the political aspirations of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who is considered a likely contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Garcetti expressed support for the striking teachers on Tuesday, saying on Twitter, "I admire the courage with which they remain steadfast in demanding excellent schools and opportunities for our children." The mayor had previously avoided taking sides in the dispute, over which he has little practical sway because the LAUSD is governed by an independently elected school board that appoints its superintendent. 'JOIN ME ON THE BUS' Although the two sides remained at loggerheads on contract proposals, superintendent Beutner sought to highlight what he called their common goals. "We aspire to the same set of things, but we have limits," Beutner told a morning news conference. "We didn't set the limits." Beutner said the district has offered staff increases that would cost $130 million a year - more than county officials have said is available - while the union's demands would cost $800 million. Beutner offered to join teachers in lobbying state lawmakers to increase education funding. "Join me on the bus," he said. "Let's go." UTLA negotiators have demanded a 6.5 percent pay raise, as well as the hiring of more librarians, counselors and nurses, smaller class sizes and less standardized testing. Teacher pay currently averages $75,000 in the LAUSD, according to state figures. The district has offered a 6 percent hike with back pay. (Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Jane Ross in Los Angeles, additional reporting by Gina Cherelus and Peter Szekely in New York, Rich McKay in Atlanta; editing by Bill Tarrant and Cynthia Osterman) LONDON (AP) The Latest on Britain's exit from the European Union (all times local): 10:15 p.m. French President Emmanuel Macron is casting doubt on chances the European Union will renegotiate Britain's exit deal after British lawmakers roundly rejected the one their government reached with the EU. Macron said Tuesday night: "I don't really believe in this, because we already went as far as we could." He spoke in Normandy soon after Parliament voted 432-202 against the proposed divorce deal. He told British leaders to "figure it out yourselves" and wished them "good luck" in figuring out a way to leave the EU on March 29 without a clear plan. Macron is a strong defender of the EU and has pushed for the bloc to maintain a tough and unified position on Brexit, in part to prevent other countries from following the U.K. out the door. The French president predicted that Britain would ask for more time to negotiate. That would disrupt European Parliament elections in May, currently set to be the first without Britain's participation since the 1970s. Macron also said the 2016 Brexit referendum was "manipulated from the outside," but didn't elaborate. ___ 9:45 p.m. The Spanish government has warned that the Brexit deal British lawmakers rejected was "the best possible" and that reopening negotiations "would lead to a dangerous scenario." Spain's Socialist government said the deal the European Union and Britain's government struck "is the option that best defends the interests of both parties, as well as the rights of citizens and economic actors." It added after Parliament voted against the deal Tuesday that Britain departing on March 29 without a plan for its interactions with the EU post-Brexit "is an improbable and undesirable scenario, but one that can't be discarded." The government in Madrid said it has been preparing to deal with the consequences of Brexit if a new isn't negotiated and approved. Story continues Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell tells Spanish National Radio "the government here in Spain has done its homework and worked under the premise that this could happen, so it can be ready for any scenario." ___ 9:30 p.m. The company that operates the tunnel beneath the English Channel is urging British and European Union leaders to move quickly to work out rules that will allow traffic to continue smoothly after Brexit. Eurotunnel said it "duly notes" the British Parliament's rejection of a divorce deal between the EU and Britain's government, which was meant to prevent an abrupt severing of economic ties and soften the March 29 exit. The company said in a statement that 26 percent of EU-Britain trade passes through the tunnel. It asked for clarity to be provided soon on post-Brexit border and customs rules "to preserve the vital human, social and cultural exchanges that benefit both the U.K. and the EU." Eurotunnel carries freight trucks and millions of passengers annually between Britain and the continent. It opened 25 years ago as a powerful symbol of continental cooperation. The company pledged to work to minimize traffic disruptions after Brexit. ___ 9:15 p.m. The European Union's Brexit negotiator says that even though Britain's withdrawal date is a little more than two months away, the rest of the EU will not break ranks now that a divorce deal seems far off. Michel Barnier said after Parliament on Tuesday rejected the agreement the British government reached with the EU, "on our side we will remain united and determined to reach a deal." The 27 remaining member countries have remained united on the terms of Britain's departure, while division has marked the Brexit debate in Britain's capital. Frustrated with the situation in London, Barnier said, "Now, it is time for the U.K. to tell us the next steps." ___ 8:10 p.m. European Unions are calling on British Prime Minister Theresa May to make her intentions clear on Britain's withdrawal from the EU in the wake of Parliament's massive rejection of the divorce deal her government negotiated with the bloc. EU Council President Donald Tusk highlighted the political quagmire the 432 -202 vote represented, saying "If a deal is impossible and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?" Tusk has always held the EU's door ajar for Britain to remain a member, if future events allowed it. EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that since Brexit is set for March 29, "The risk of a disorderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom has increased with this evening's vote." Juncker said the deal's defeat forced the 27 other nations and his commission "to continue its contingency work to help ensure the EU is fully prepared" if Britain leaves without a post-Brexit agreement in place. ___ 7:45 p.m. Britain's Parliament will hold a no-confidence vote in the government after its Brexit divorce deal was crushingly rejected by lawmakers. Prime Minister Theresa May said the government needed to know if it still had the support of the House of Commons. May said lawmakers would consider the no-confidence motion on Wednesday. Her statement, after the Brexit deal was defeated in a resounding 432 -202 vote, pre-empted a call for a confidence vote by opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn urged lawmakers to defeat the government and trigger a national election. __ 7:40 p.m. British lawmakers have rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal by a huge margin, plunging U.K. politics into crisis 10 weeks before the country is due to leave the European Union. The House of Commons voted 432 -202 on Tuesday against the deal struck between Britain's government and the EU in November. Legislators from both pro-EU and pro-Brexit sides of Britain's political divide rejected May's entreaties to back the deal and deliver on citizens' the June 2016 vote to leave the 28-nation bloc. The defeat leaves May's leadership wobbling and the government with just a few days, until Monday, to come up with a "Plan B." Unless a deal is ratified, Britain is set for a disorderly exit from the bloc on March 29, with potentially tumultuous economic and social consequences. ___ 7:05 p.m. British lawmakers have begun voting on whether to approve or reject the divorce agreement between the government and the European Union. Prime Minister Theresa May told the House of Commons it was a "historic decision which will set the future of our country for generations." She said the decision is one "that each of us will have to justify and live with for many years to come." Wrapping up a multi-day debate, May urged legislators to "choose certainty over uncertainty" by backing the agreement and securing an orderly U.K. departure from the EU on March 29. Her words may fall on deaf ears - all signs pointed to a defeat for the deal that would plunge the Brexit process into turmoil. Lawmakers have started voting on an amendment to the deal, followed by a vote on the deal itself. ___ 6:25 p.m. The president of the European Union's executive arm is returning to Brussels to deal with Brexit issues as they might develop after British lawmakers vote on the EU's departure agreement with the government. An EU official, who asked not to be identified because of the developing situation, said European Commission President Jean-Claude returned from a plenary of the European Parliament in Strasbourg "to manage the situation following the vote in the House of Commons." Juncker often has been a key EU partner of British Prime Minister Theresa May during the 2-year Brexit negotiations. The EU official said it was "important that he is available and working in Brussels during the coming hours." British lawmakers are set to consider four proposed amendments to May's Brexit deal with the EU before they vote on the agreement itself Tuesday night. There were rumors that May might be in Brussels on Wednesday. --By Raf Casert in Strasbourg. ___ 5:40 p.m. Rival groups of pro-Brexit and pro-EU demonstrators are rallying outside Britain's Parliament ahead of Tuesday's historic vote on a divorce deal with the European Union. Protesters seeking a new referendum on Britain's membership in the bloc are waving blue-and-yellow EU flags. Others, who want the U.K. to make a clean break with the EU, are brandishing placards declaring "leave means leave." A few are holding signs declaring their opponents "traitors." Britain voted by 52 percent to 48 percent in 2016 in favor of leaving the EU, and the country remains deeply divided over its relationship with its European neighbors. Some pro-EU legislators have complained of harassment by a group of militant Brexiteers, some of whom have adopted the yellow vests of France's populist street protest movement. ___ 4:50 p.m. The president of the eurozone finance ministers' group has hinted at the possibility of changing the terms of the U.K.'s Brexit deal despite the European Union's insistence it can't be renegotiated. Mario Centeno said Tuesday that if the British parliament rejects the agreement struck with the European Union by Prime Minister Theresa May, "we will be able to change course." He tells Portuguese television channel S.I.C. that "we can always look again at the issues," but did not elaborate. Centeno, who is Portugal's finance minister, says, "Just about anything is better than a no-deal Brexit." Senior EU officials have so far ruled out a renegotiation of Britain's divorce agreement. ___ 1:25 p.m. British lawmakers will consider four proposed amendments to Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal before they vote on the agreement itself. As Tuesday's debate kicked off, Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow announced which amendments he had chosen for debate from more than a dozen submissions. They indicate the huge range of opinion among lawmakers about how Britain should pursue Brexit. One amendment from the opposition Labour Party rejects May's deal and also rules out leaving the bloc without agreement, while one from the Scottish National Party seeks to postpone Britain's departure from the EU. The other two amendments seek to limit the most contentious section of the deal, a temporary customs union with the EU intended to keep the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland barrier-free after Brexit. Voting is due to begin around 1900 GMT. ___ 11:55 a.m. Germany's foreign minister is playing down the possibility that British Prime Minister Theresa May will get a better Brexit deal if the agreement she's negotiated with Brussels is rejected by Parliament later Tuesday. Heiko Maas was quoted telling reporters in Strasbourg that while there would probably be new talks with the European Union, he doesn't believe "completely new solutions" will be offered. German news agency dpa quoted Maas saying that "we don't give up our hope that there'll be a positive vote because it would be a vote of reason not just for Europe but also for Great Britain." British lawmakers are expected to reject the current deal May has negotiated with the EU, raising the prospect of the U.K. crashing out of the bloc at the end of March without a formal agreement. ___ 10:55 a.m. The German government is denying a British tabloid report claiming Chancellor Angela Merkel has offered to help U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May get a better Brexit deal. Merkel's office said The Sun had wrongly reported on the contents of a recent phone call between Merkel and May. The newspaper cited an unnamed senior British official claiming Merkel believed the European Union would provide more concessions to London after Tuesday's vote in the U.K. Parliament. In a statement, Merkel's office said she "gave no assurances whatsoever that went beyond what was discussed in the European Council in December and what was laid down in the letter from Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk." British lawmakers are expected to reject the deal May negotiated with the EU, raising the prospect of the U.K. crashing out of the bloc at the end of March without a formal agreement. ___ 9:35 a.m. British lawmakers are preparing to deliver their verdict on Prime Minister Theresa May's divorce deal with the European Union after two years of political upheaval. Just 10 weeks before Britain is due to leave the EU, lawmakers vote late Tuesday on whether to accept the plan or risk leaving without an agreement on future relations with the bloc. May's deal faces widespread opposition, primarily because of language designed to prevent the reintroduction of border controls between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which some fear will indefinitely tie Britain to the EU. Former education minister Nicky Morgan warned that the U.K. wasn't ready for a no-deal Brexit, telling the BBC that "there are millions of people in this country watching Westminster and Parliament very anxiously today." ___ Follow AP's full coverage of Brexit at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit Amman (AFP) - Jordan's state security court on Tuesday sentenced a top Salafist leader to nine years in prison for "sedition" during 2011 protests. Abed Shehadeh, known as Abu Mohammad Tahawi, was found guilty of "actions inciting opposition to the government" at the demonstrations in the northern Zarqa region. Clashes broke out on April 15, 2011 on the margins of a rally organised by Tahawi, in which protesters called for the release of detained Salafists, who follow an ultra-conservative branch of Sunni Islam. The violence left 91 people injured, the majority of them security personnel, according to official figures. They coincided with anti-government protests in cities across Jordan. Some 150 Salafists were put on trial in August 2011 on charges including leading riots, "terrorist acts" and "illegal acts of destruction". The majority are being tried in absentia. Tahawi has been detained since his arrest in December 2015. Photo credit: AFP - Getty Images From Popular Mechanics Iran's home-brewed space program suffered an embarrassing failure today as its Safir rocket failed to deliver a Payam satellite into orbit. But to some U.S. government officials, this launch is not what it seems. They believe Irans space program is just a cover for the development of long-range missiles, though that view is not universally shared. The Safir rockets third stage reportedly ran into trouble after the launch from Imam Khomeini Space Center in Iran's Semnan province early this morning. Previously, American officials didn't think the Safir even had a third stage, so previous information about the rocket was either incorrect or the rocket launched yesterday incorporated a new invention. Safir is described as 72 feet long and just more than four feet wide. As a two-stage rocket, Safir had a launch weight of 26-27 tons at liftoff, most of that fuel, and was thought to be capable of carrying up to 100 pounds into low earth orbit. A third stage should allow a heavier payload. Out of eight launches between 2009 and 2019, four have been successful. Photo credit: Getty Images Iran claims to be developing its own spaceflight industry because no one else will sell satellites and rockets to the country, a claim that is pretty much true. Irans orbiters have so far been mostly remote sensing and imaging satellites, although it also claims to have sent two monkeys into orbit. There are no international agreements that prohibit the country from developing its own space rockets. However, senior Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, believe Iran is using the space launches to further its ballistic missile program, which could lead to missiles capable of striking the United States. However-while space rockets and ICBMs have a lot in common-The New York Times recently reported that the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community did not believe that was the case. Iran has been conducting space launches since 2005 and yet there has been little practical movement towards long range missiles in that time frame. Story continues Via Associated Press ('You Might Also Like',) Tehran (AFP) - Iran launched a satellite criticised by the United States as a breach of a UN resolution on Tuesday but it failed to reach orbit, the telecommunications minister said. Iran's arch foe Israel swiftly condemned the launch, which it charged was cover for the testing of the first stage of an intercontinental ballistic missile. "The Payam satellite was successfully launched this morning with the Safir satellite carrier," Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi told state television. "But the satellite unfortunately failed to be placed in orbit in the final stage." The Payam (Message in Persian) and its launch vehicle had gone through successful testing of its first and second stages, the minister said. But in the actual launch, the satellite failed to reach the required speed on detachment from the rocket in the third stage. Both the Payam and its carrier were designed and produced at Tehran's Amirkabir University of Technology. University head Ahmad Motamedi said Amirkabir had already received an order for a replacement, Mehr news agency reported. Iran also plans to launch another low Earth orbit satellite, the Doosti (Friendship in Persian), Jahromi said. He did not give a date for the launch but said the satellite was intended to orbit the earth at an altitude of 250 kilometres (156 miles). "We will do our best to place it in the orbit," he said. Iran has said repeatedly that its space programme, like its wider ballistic missile programme, is for scientific research and defence purposes only. The Payam and the Doosti were both designed to gather information on environmental change in Iran, President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday. "The satellite will give us all the information we need, and we will prove to the world that we are a country of science," Rouhani said. But Israel and its US ally both claim the space programme is cover for the development of longer-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads. Story continues "Iran is lying now that it launched an innocent satellite to space," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the abortive launch. "It actually wants to achieve the first stage of an intercontinental missile, in violation of all international agreements," he told a ceremony in Tel Aviv for the investiture of new armed forces chief of staff, Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi. "We fully support the United State's firm objection to this act of aggression," he added. Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Iran's plans to send satellites into orbit would violate the UN Security Council resolution that endorsed a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between major powers and Tehran. Tehran reined in most of its nuclear programme under the deal, since abandoned by Washington last year, but has continued to develop its ballistic missile and rocket technology. Security Council Resolution 2231 calls on Iran to refrain from testing missiles designed to be capable of carrying a nuclear weapon, but does not specifically bar Tehran from missile or rocket launches. Washington says the space launches violate the resolution. Iran's satellite-delivery rockets use technology "virtually identical" to nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, Pompeo said on January 3. "The United States will not stand by and watch the Iranian regime's destructive policies place international stability and security at risk." Tehran denied the planned launch was a violation of Resolution 2231. "The satellite is part of a civil project with purely scientific aims, foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told the semi-official ISNA news agency. "Iran will wait for no country's permission to conduct such scientific projects." The Payam satellite, first designed over a decade ago, was initially expected to be launched on a foreign-manufactured rocket, project manager Mostafa Safavi told ISNA in an interview published just hours before the launch. "The Payam is a non-military satellite with a non-military mission but some countries, thinking that it could have a military purpose, showed no enthusiasm for launching Iranian satellites," Safavi said. "When they did not cooperate for non-technical reasons, the satellite's specifications were altered and made ready for a domestic launcher," he added. Iran has launched several short-life satellites into orbit over the past decade, including the Simorgh and the Pajouhesh. Washington (AFP) - Explosive allegations that US President Donald Trump concealed conversations with Russia have thrown an unwelcome spotlight on interpreters, whose quick wit is vital to diplomacy and who stay scrupulously in the shadows. Interpreters, whether they are working at high-stakes international summits or in low-level court hearings, abide by a code of ethics not to divulge anything they hear. Trump fueled suspicions about his ties with Russia when, in a sharp break with standard diplomatic practice, he dismissed top aides for two hours of talks with President Vladimir Putin during their first formal summit in July. Only one American remained in the room in Helsinki -- Marina Gross, an interpreter provided by the State Department. House Democrats last year unsuccessfully sought to force Gross to testify about the summit, saying Trump's extraordinary actions required extraordinary measures in turn. Reviving concerns, The Washington Post reported that Trump snatched her notes after an earlier encounter with Putin in 2017 on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in Hamburg and instructed Gross not to discuss the conversation even with other administration officials. "It's actually unprecedented that we are in the spotlight as much as we are now," said Uros Peterc, president of the Geneva-based International Association of Conference Interpreters. Peterc, who quipped that his was the world's second-oldest profession, said that non-disclosure of conversations was the paramount principle of interpreters. "It's been clear since forever that an interpreter is somebody the principal has full and total trust in," said Peterc, who was part of the interpretation team in Slovenia for Putin's summit with newly elected US president George W. Bush in 2001. "It's the same thing when you go to a doctor. You don't expect the doctor to meet you on the street and say, 'How is that cancer?'" Story continues - Private meetings highly rare - Trump -- whose presidential campaign's relationship with Russia is the focus of a probe by special counsel Robert Mueller -- has denied secrecy about the summit and declared Monday on the snowy grounds of the White House, "I never worked for Russia." But even if Trump's motivation was solely to build a chummy rapport with Putin, US presidents virtually never meet alone with foreign leaders, especially ones regarded as adversaries. An aide -- generally a senior staff member of the National Security Council or, in some cases, the secretary of state or secretary of defense -- is normally taking extensive notes, said Michael Glennon, a professor of international law at The Fletcher school of Tufts University. "The intelligence community is frequently interested in subtleties in the phraseology and insights of the other head of state," said Glennon, former legal counsel at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Diplomats are also looking closely for any potential openings, "all things that might be lost on a president speaking or listening by himself," Glennon said. "It would be extremely unusual for a president to cut off all other members of his administration from the substance of what is said." - Deciphering interpreters' notes? - Even more rare would be for the interpreter to be taking thorough notes. Laura Burian, dean of the Graduate School of Translation, Interpretation and Language Education at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said it was doubtful that an interpreter's notebooks would even convey much. Interpreters rely on powerful short-term memory, seeking to remember and translate speaker's thoughts for only a matter of seconds or minutes. When jotting down notes, interpreters might only write down numbers or proper nouns that need to be precise, Burian said. "Looking back at it months or even a day later, it wouldn't reflect everything that was said in the room," she added. She also said interpreters have been concerned over the latest developments, although government-employed interpreters such as Gross have security clearances that could protect them. "Since World War II when the use of interpreters became more codified, you've just assumed that the interpreter will never be asked to speak," Burian said. The United States is not the only country where interpreters have faced calls to testify. The International Association of Conference Interpreters voiced alarm last month after authorities in Poland summoned an interpreter to learn about a conversation, also with Putin, by EU President Donald Tusk when he was the country's prime minister. The row on Trump has parallels to 1998, when independent counsel Ken Starr forced testimony from Secret Service agents guarding then president Bill Clinton to see if he had a dalliance with intern Monica Lewinsky, an unprecedented step that the Supreme Court refused to stop. San Pedro Sula (Honduras) (AFP) - Hundreds of Hondurans have set out on a trek to the United States, forming another caravan that US President Donald Trump cited Tuesday to justify building a wall on the border with Mexico. "A big new Caravan is heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras," Trump tweeted Tuesday. "Only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe! Stop playing political games and end the Shutdown!" As the procession left the town of San Pedro Sula under a steady rain Monday night, one of the migrants summed up their plight: "We are leaving because there is crime and no work," said Juan Garcia, 52. More than 500 people set out from the center of San Pedro Sula, which is 180 kilometers (110 miles) north of the capital Tegucigalpa. It was from the same transport hub that some 2,000 Hondurans left on October 13 in the first of a series of US-bound caravans. That and other migrant flows from El Salvador and Guatemala came to total some 13,000 people. More than half turned around and went home, eventually. Hundreds -- down from much larger numbers late last year -- remain at the Mexican border with the United States, held back by tougher border policies under Trump and support among his base for his proposed border wall. Trump has refused to sign off on budgets for swaths of government departments in a showdown with Democrats over funding for his border wall project, leading to the longest government shutdown in US history. The president has made the migrant caravans one of his main targets as part of his broader anti-immigration drive in mid-term elections last November. By Angeliki Koutantou and Renee Maltezou ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Sunday said he would call a confidence vote in his government after his coalition ally quit, leaving him bereft of a parliamentary majority and raising the possibility of snap elections. Earlier, Greece's right-wing defense minister resigned in protest at a deal ending a long running dispute with Macedonia over its name, saying he was taking his other six ministers in cabinet with him. The crisis left the fate of a 2018 deal changing the name of Macedonia to North Macedonia in limbo. Greek parliamentary endorsement of the name is required for the tiny Balkan nation to join the European Union and NATO. Macedonia's parliament has already ratified the accord with a constitutional amendment. Outgoing Defense Minister Panos Kammenos's Independent Greeks party had seven MPs, enough to get Tsipras's administration past the threshold of 150 deputies in the 300-member parliament. Tsipras's Syriza party has 145 seats and also the support of one independent lawmaker. "I have taken my decision and have informed the president of parliament that we will immediately move to the process outlined by the constitution for the renewal of the confidence in my government," Tsipras told journalists. The confidence vote is expected to take place later this week and parliamentary speaker Nikos Voutsis proposed Jan. 16. Kammenos said he would not support Tsipras in the vote. Syriza is trailing between eight and 12 points behind the main conservative New Democracy party, which also opposed the deal with Macedonia, in pre-election polls. A firebrand leftist, Tsipras was elected in 2015 on a platform of anti-austerity but was forced into a third international bailout to bring back Greece from the brink of bankruptcy. The country exited a bailout program in mid-2018. Kammenos, who forged a coalition pact with Tsipras in 2015, never concealed his hostility to the deal with Skopje. Greece has a province called Macedonia and long demanded Skopje change its country name to remove what Athens considered to be an implied claim to Greek sovereign territory. The wrangle had long frustrated Macedonia's EU and NATO aspirations. Greece is a member of both institutions and has a say in who gets to join, like other member countries. Kammenos said that any deal including "Macedonia" in the name of the Balkan state to Greece's north was unacceptable as the name was irrevocably tied to Greek civilization and culture. The Greek parliament's vote on the name deal has been expected later this month. The government hopes the pact will pass with the support of center-left and independent lawmakers. (Writing by Michele Kambas; Editing by Mark Heinrich) Berlin (AFP) - Germany's domestic intelligence agency said Tuesday it will step up monitoring for political extremism in the far-right AfD party, a blow to the party in a busy election year. The five-year-old AfD or Alternative for Germany, the country's biggest opposition party, opposes multiculturalism, Islam and the immigration policies of Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom it labels a "traitor". The BfV security agency shied away from immediate full surveillance of the entire party, including phone and email taps, the use of undercover informants and collection of personal data on MPs. But it "has first indications of AfD's policies that go against free-democratic fundamentals," said BfV chief, Thomas Haldenwang, announcing the agency has designated the party a "review case". The details gathered so far were insufficient to warrant full surveillance across the party, Haldenwang said. The agency will give heightened attention to the AfD's youth organisation JA, which is suspected of having ties with the extremist Identitarian Movement. It also placed under surveillance the AfD's most far-right grouping "The Wing" (Der Fluegel), led by nationalist Bjoern Hoecke. Hoecke has sparked outrage with statements on Germany's Nazi past, calling Berlin's Holocaust monument a "memorial of shame" and urging a "180-degree shift" in the country's culture of remembrance. The AfD's leaders immediately blasted the measure as "politically" driven, and its co-chief Alexander Gauland said the party will "take legal action against this decision". The BfV can place under surveillance individuals and groups, including politicians and parties it considers "extremist" and threatening to the state's liberal democratic order. It has in the past placed under surveillance some lawmakers of the far-left opposition Die Linke party, which emerged in part from the former East Germany's communist party. Story continues In recent months, the BfV reviewed inflammatory statements and social media posts of AfD members. News of the stepped-up BfV watch comes as a blow to the party, which in 2017 elections won 13 percent of the national vote and is represented in all 16 state parliaments. The populist party hopes to make further gains in European parliament elections in May and in three autumn state polls in Germany's formerly communist east, its electoral heartland. BERLIN (AP) Prosecutors in Germany say an army employee has been detained on suspicion of spying for the Iranian intelligence service. The federal prosecutor's office said in a statement that the 50-year-old German-Afghan dual citizen, whose name was only given as Abdul Hamid S. in line with German privacy rules, was detained Tuesday in the Rhineland in western Germany. He worked as a translator for the German army and is accused of having passed on information to the Iranian intelligence service. The German defense ministry confirmed the allegations but declined to give any further details. German news site Spiegel Online reported that the suspect spied on the army for years and had access to highly classified material including the German troops' mission in Afghanistan. Libreville (AFP) - President Ali Bongo was expected back in Gabon on Tuesday after a medical absence of more than two months during which security forces foiled an attempted coup amid rumours he had died. Gabon has been without an effective government for months since Bongo, 59, fell ill while attending an economic forum in Saudi Arabia on October 24, and was flown to Morocco to recuperate. After weeks of official silence fuelled speculation that Bongo was incapacitated or even dead, his vice president announced in December that the leader had suffered a stroke. Bongo's only appearance was his traditional televised New Year's Eve address, recorded in Morocco, in which he said he had "been through a difficult period". Critics seized on signs of his apparent ill-health, noting the address was unusually short, his speech was slurred and his right hand seemed stiff and immobile. Last week, the country put down a coup attempt, capturing the rebel chief and killing two of his men after a group of soldiers stormed a radio station to call for an uprising in Bongo's absence. They felt Bongo's New Year speech was "shameful", describing Gabon as "country (which) has lost its dignity." Then at the weekend, prime minister Julien Nkoghe Bekale announced reshuffles of the government and cabinet. Gabon's constitution states that ministers must take their vows before the head of state. The presidency said Bongo will preside over the oath-taking ceremony after returning on Tuesday morning -- his first public appearance since last October. "Doctors have judged that the journey does not present any danger for his health," a source told AFP. The Bongo family has governed the oil-rich equatorial African nation for five decades, and long maintained close ties with former colonial master France. Ali Bongo, 59, is the son of Omar Bongo, who became head of state in 1967 and died in June 2009, leaving a legacy of corruption allegations. Story continues As a young man, Bongo worked as his father's faithful lieutenant, travelling the world and building up extensive contacts in the United States and the Arab world at the time of the second oil boom. Diplomatic ties cooled after Ali Bongo's election and French authorities launched a corruption investigation into the family's assets. "I hope that his return is definitive, and that the period of recuperation is over," Marc Ona Essangui, a civil society leader, told AFP Monday. Libreville (AFP) - Since independence in 1960, Gabon has had only three presidents including a father and son from the Bongo family who between them have held power for more than five decades. Here are highlights in the history of the small central African country. - Leon M'Ba to Omar Bongo - Gabon becomes independent from France in August 1960 and nationalist Leon M'Ba is elected president the following year. He dies in 1967 and is succeeded by his deputy, Albert-Bernard Bongo, installed with the help of France. Bongo sets up a one-party state, ruling with an iron fist and benefitting from oil exploitation. He converts to Islam in 1973, changing his name to Omar Bongo. As the sole candidate, he is elected president in 1973, 1979 and 1986. A multi-party system is introduced after social unrest and riots in 1990 but Bongo nonetheless wins the elections in 1993, 1998 and 2005. Poll results are disputed or followed by unrest. - From father to son - Bongo dies from illness in June 2009 and, after a controversial election that August, one of his sons, Ali Bongo, is sworn in as president in a ceremony boycotted by the opposition. Despite an opposition challenge, the constitutional court approves the election results but there is deadly post-poll violence. The opposition slams Bongo's "authoritarianism" and "autocratic leadership". Violent clashes in December 2014 pit opposition supporters against security forces during a banned demonstration to demand Bongo's departure. The opposition says several people were killed. - Birth dispute - In 2014 Ali Bongo is plunged into a controversy triggered by a French journalist's claim that his birth certificate is forged and he is originally Nigerian, adopted by Omar Bongo during the Biafra war in the late 1960s. Vigorously denied, the scandal is used by Bongo's opponents to dispute his eligibility for office. The dispute leads to legal proceedings in France and Gabon. Story continues Before the August 2016 presidential election, the opposition again uses it -- in vain -- to call for the invalidation of Bongo's candidacy. - Post-election turmoil - The 2016 vote takes place in a tense climate after strikes and with the regime battling budget problems amid plummeting oil prices. Bongo's main rival is opposition leader Jean Ping, a veteran diplomat who once headed the African Union Commission and held senior UN posts. When the electoral commission announces Bongo has won, an unprecedented wave of post-election violence breaks out. Hundreds are arrested, the national assembly is set ablaze and security forces storm Ping's headquarters. Several people are killed. In early September 2016, Ping proclaims himself "president-elect" but weeks later the constitutional court validates Bongo's re-election. The ruling party Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) goes on to win a large parliamentary majority in long-delayed legislative polls in October 2018. - Absent president - Bongo falls ill in October while in Saudi Arabia to attend an economic forum and is transferred to Morocco for treatment. The first official details about his illness are only released on December 9 when officials say he has suffered a stroke. The lack of information and the president's absence sparks speculation that Bongo is incapacitated or even dead, with the demise of his father in a clinic in Spain 10 years earlier also shrouded in secrecy. Ali Bongo addresses his compatriots for the first time in a video message released on December 31 and recorded in Rabat in which he says he is "better" and was "preparing to meet you again soon." On January 7 renegade soldiers call on radio for the public to "rise up", in an apparent coup bid profiting from Bongo's absence. The rebel chief is captured and two of his men killed. On January 13 a new government is announced in a video message from Morocco, although it can only be sworn in before the president. Two days later, Bongo flies home after a medical absence of more than two months. Aix-en-Provence (France) (AFP) - A French woman accused of seducing and then poisoning elderly wealthy men had her sentence reduced on appeal Tuesday, after a court overturned two murder convictions in the case. Patricia Dagorn, dubbed the "Black Widow of the Riviera," was sentenced last year to 22 years in prison over the fatal poisoning of two men found dead in 2011 on the Cote d'Azur, and the drugging of two others. But the jury in the appeals court on Tuesday overturned the two murder convictions, despite the prosecutor's claim that Dagorn was "dangerous" and had "enjoyed killing these old men." Francesco Filippone, an 85-year-old retired bricklayer, was found dead from a Valium overdose in 2011, and one of Dagorn's lovers, Michel Knefel, was found five months later in a Nice hotel, also with Valium in his blood. No charges were filed at the time, but the investigation was reopened the following year after police found vials of Valium and personal documents belonging to about a dozen different men among her belongings. The documents included IDs, bank account details and health insurance cards. Before Filippone's death Dagorn had cashed a cheque from him for 21,000 euros ($25,600), money which she said was a gift to help her open a jewellery shop. Addressing the court before the verdict, the 58-year-old Dagorn said she was the "victim of a judicial error." However, the jury upheld the charges of poisoning two other men she met through a dating agency who survived. Dagorn had previously been sentenced to a five-year prison term for theft, fraud and sequestration involving an octogenarian in the French Alps in 2012 who had agreed to let her live with him in exchange for sexual relations. Police believe she may have met at least 20 men after arriving on the French Riviera in 2011, mainly via a matchmaking agency. Dagorn, who said she was beaten and raped by a former husband, continued her match-making endeavours while in prison, according to prosecutors. In 2013, she wrote to a Swiss dating agency in a bid to find a millionaire. Lyon (AFP) - French authorities on Tuesday banned the sale of a form of controversial weed-killer Roundup following a court ruling that regulators failed to take safety concerns into account when clearing the widely used herbicide. Roundup, owned by Germany's Bayer after its purchase of US agro-giant Monsanto last year, contains glyphosate which environmentalists and other critics have long believed causes cancer. The French food and environmental safety agency ANSES said in a statement that sales of Roundup Pro 360 were banned as of Tuesday following a court ruling earlier in the day. "As the ruling took effect immediately, market approval for Roundup Pro 360 has been cancelled," ANSES said in a statement to AFP. "The sale, distribution and use of Roundup Pro 360 are forbidden as of today." An administrative tribunal in Lyon, southeast France, ruled that ANSES should have given more weight to potential safety risks when authorising the use of Roundup Pro 360 in March 2017. ANSES said it was "examining (the ruling) closely". Environmental activists hailed the ruling, noting a 2015 study by a World Health Organization (WHO) agency which concluded that glyphosate was "probably carcinogenic". "It's a major ruling because it should eventually cover all versions of Roundup, as the court determined that all products with glyphosate are probably carcinogens," said Corinne Lepage, a lawyer for the CRIIGEN genetics research institute. The European Union renewed its authorisation of glyphosate for five years in November 2017, but President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to outlaw its use in France by 2021. In August, a California court ordered Bayer to pay $78 million to a groundskeeper with terminal cancer who claimed he had not been adequately informed of the alleged health risks. The company is appealing the ruling, saying scientific studies have proven glyphosate's safety. Glyphosate is used in weed-killers made by several companies, and is currently the most used herbicide around the world. PARIS (Reuters) - France is hoping that members of Britain's parliament will approve Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal, an official at President Macron's Elysee department said on Monday. Asked whether France would support an extension to the official deadline to Article 50 - regarding the timetable for Brexit - the official replied: "We would hope that the vote tomorrow is a favorable one." "Afterwards, if that is not the case, it will be up to the United Kingdom to make a certain number of demands and proposals to the European Union," added the official. The fate of Britain's March 29 exit from the EU is deeply uncertain since parliament looks set to reject May's deal on Tuesday. (Reporting by Michel Rose; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Alison Williams) Dave Majumdar Security, Its about a network and thats what gives us an asymmetrical advantage, so that why when I hear about an F-35 versus a J-20, its almost an irrelevant question. The Forgotten Reason an F-22 or F-35 Is Superior to China's J-20 Stealth Fighter One area that the Chinese are almost certainly lacking is what Air Combat Command commander Gen. Herbert Hawk Carlisle once described to me as spike management. Fifth-generation aircraft such as the F-22 and F-35 have cockpit displays that indicate to the pilot the various angles and ranges from which their aircraft can be detected and tracked by various enemy radars. When we apply fifth-generation technology, its no longer about a platform, its about a family of systems, Air Force chief of staff Gen. David Goldfein told reporters at the Pentagon on Aug. 10 . Its about a network and thats what gives us an asymmetrical advantage, so that why when I hear about an F-35 versus a J-20, its almost an irrelevant question. (This first appeared last year.) Indeed, as Goldfein noted, the Air Force will likely to continue its focus on a family of systems approach where networking and the sharing of data are key instead of fixating on the performance of individual platforms. A direct comparison of the Lockheed Martin F-35 and the J-20 in Goldfeins viewwould harken back to the his days of flying the Lockheed Martin F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighterwhich was almost entirely cut off from outside contact when buttoned down to penetrate enemy airspace. Youll see us focusing far more on the family of systems and how we connect them together and far less on individual platforms, Goldfein said. While Goldfein used the Nighthawk as a comparisonhe probably did not intend to suggest that the J-20s systems are quite as basic as the 1980s-era F-117. While accurate information about the J-20 is scarce, there are indications that the Chinese aircraft is equipped with a phased array radar, a robust electronic warfare systems and an electro-optical/infrared sensor that is similar in concept to the F-35s systems. However, while it is possible that the Chinese aircraft might have decent sensorsAir Force officials have suggested that the J-20 lacks the sensor fusion and networking to be as effective as the F-22 or F-35. Story continues One area that the Chinese are almost certainly lacking is what Air Combat Command commander Gen. Herbert Hawk Carlisle once described to me as spike management. Fifth-generation aircraft such as the F-22 and F-35 have cockpit displays that indicate to the pilot the various angles and ranges from which their aircraft can be detected and tracked by various enemy radars. The pilots use that information to evade the enemy by making sure to avoid zones where they could be detected and engaged. It is a technology that took decades for the United States to masterthrough a lot of trial and error. Recommended: What Will the Sixth-Generation Jet Fighter Look Like? Recommended: Imagine a U.S. Air Force That Never Built the B-52 Bomber Recommended: Russia's Next Big Military Sale - To Mexico? Meanwhile, at the same press conference, Air Force secretary Deborah Lee James decried the possibility of facing another year where the Congress fails to pass a budget. Even if Congress passes a full year continuing resolution (CR)which maintains the previous years spending levelsit would massively disrupt the Air Forces procurement efforts because the service would not be able to award new start program contracts. We certainly hope that wont be the case, we know the Congressional staffs are working very hard even while their members are back home this summer, but we are hearing that either a six-month CR or one-year CR is at least a possibility, James said. Indeed, Congressional sources are not optimistic about the prospects for a new budget in the fall. Thus, the Pentagon faces additional budget turbulence even as it grapples with a readiness crisis. Dave Majumdar is the former defense editor for The National Interest. Read full article Beijing (AFP) - A senior Chinese military official warned the US Navy Tuesday against any "interference" in support of Taiwan's independence, saying that Beijing would defend its claim to the island "at any cost". General Li Zuocheng, a member of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during a meeting in Beijing with Admiral John Richardson, the chief of US naval operations. China sees Taiwan as part of its territory to be reunified, despite the two sides being ruled separately since they split in 1949 after a civil war won by Mao Zedong's communists. The self-ruled island has its own currency, flag and government, but is not recognised as an independent state by the UN. Beijing has said it will not hesitate to use force if Taipei formally declares independence, or in the case of external intervention -- including by the United States, the island's most powerful unofficial ally. "The Taiwan issue is an internal matter of China, concerns China's fundamental interests and the national feelings of the Chinese people, and no outside interference will be tolerated," Li Zuocheng said in a statement released by the Ministry of Defence. "If anyone wants to separate Taiwan from China, the Chinese army will defend the unity of the motherland at any cost," he told the the US Navy chief. In recent months, US Navy ships have repeatedly passed through the Taiwan Strait, which separates mainland China from the island. Beijing views any ships passing through the straits as essentially a breach of its sovereignty -- while the US and many other nations view the route as international waters open to all. A recent US law encouraging mutual visits between US and Taiwanese officials has also angered Beijing. Washington, which broke diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979 to recognise Beijing remains the island's most powerful ally, and its main arms supplier. By Michael Martina, Philip Wen and David Ljunggren BEIJING/OTTAWA (Reuters) - China denounced Canada on Tuesday for "irresponsible" remarks after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused it of "arbitrarily" sentencing a Canadian to death for drug smuggling, aggravating already icy relations. Hours later, in an apparent bid to ease tension, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke of the "very important and long-standing ties" between the two nations. The countries have been at odds since early December, when Canadian police arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL], on a U.S. extradition request as part of an investigation into suspected violations of U.S. trade sanctions. Days later, China detained two Canadians on suspicion of endangering state security. Monday's death sentence for Canadian Robert Schellenberg for smuggling 222 kg of methamphetamines became the latest strain on ties. Freeland said Ottawa had formally applied for clemency for Schellenberg, as it usually does in the cases of citizens condemned to death abroad. "It's normal to have problems but we should also remember that the links between our two countries are very big," she told a televised news conference in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, adding Canada had been in touch with Beijing at a number of levels. "It is true that this is a difficult moment ... The best thing for both Canada and China, and frankly for the whole world, is to get past these current difficulties." Freeland's office did not respond when asked whether she had been trying to defuse tensions with Beijing. China has not linked any of the three Canadians' cases to Meng's arrest but has warned of severe consequences if she was not immediately released. Trudeau said it should be of "extreme concern" to Canada's allies, as it was to his government, that China had chosen to "arbitrarily apply" the death penalty. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying expressed "strong dissatisfaction" with that. "The remarks by the relevant Canadian person lack the most basic awareness of the legal system," Hua told reporters. Taking Canada to task for issuing an updated travel advisory warning citizens about the risk of arbitrary enforcement of laws in China, Hua said Canada should instead remind its people to avoid drug smuggling. "We urge the Canadian side to respect the rule of law, respect China's legal sovereignty, correct its mistakes, and stop making irresponsible remarks," Hua said. The ministry later issued its own travel warning, citing the "arbitrary detention" of a Chinese national in Canada. "NO NEW EVIDENCE" Schellenberg had appealed against an original 15-year prison sentence issued in November, but the court in Liaoning province sided with prosecutors at the retrial that the punishment was too light. A lawyer for Schellenberg, Zhang Dongshuo, said his client would appeal. Freeland said she had spoken to Schellenberg's father on Monday, adding it had been "a very emotional conversation for him". She gave no details. Zhang said there was insufficient evidence to prove Schellenberg was part of a drug syndicate, or that he was involved in smuggling methamphetamines. Even if the court accepted all the charges, it should not have increased his sentence, given that facts the prosecution gave as new evidence had already been heard, he told Reuters. "Chinese law stipulates that during an appeal, only if new evidence is discovered and retried can there be an increase in the severity of a sentence," Zhang said. Schellenberg was arrested in 2014. Asked about the case, the United Nations noted its opposition to the death penalty apart from exceptional circumstances. "The bottom line is that the death penalty shouldn't be imposed for any crime other than intentional killing," said U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville. Asked whether it had concerns about due process, he said: "In China there is generally a problem of lack of transparency in trials." Chinese state media has played up coverage of Schellenberg's case following the deterioration in relations with Canada. Drug smuggling is punished severely in China, and foreigners convicted of drug crimes have been executed before, including a Briton in 2009. Schellenberg had faced a number of charges in Canada related to drug possession and trafficking, according to court records. But international rights groups condemned Schellenberg's sentence, with some saying it was too severe and may have been politically motivated. (Additional reporting by Julie Gordon in Vancouver, Christian Shepherd in Beijing and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Nick Macfie, Andrew Cawthorne and James Dalgleish) Ottawa (AFP) - Canada is warning citizens to "exercise a high degree of caution" when travelling to China after a Canadian man was sentenced to death on drug trafficking charges. The revised advisory cautioned travellers of the "risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws," and noted that the "safety and security situation could change with little notice". The update came hours after a Chinese court on Monday sentenced Canadian citizen Robert Lloyd Schellenberg to death on drug trafficking charges after his previous 15-year prison sentence was deemed too lenient. Schellenberg, 36, had appealed against the court's original verdict. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Beijing of "arbitrarily" using capital punishment, deepening a diplomatic rift between the two countries. The sentence comes against the backdrop of Beijing's anger over the arrest in Canada of a top executive from telecom giant Huawei last month on a US extradition request related to Iran sanctions violations. Chinese authorities later detained two Canadian nationals -- a former diplomat and a business consultant -- on suspicion of endangering national security, a move seen as retaliation for the Huawei executive's arrest. Ottawa has called for the Canadians' immediate release, with the backing of the US, EU and several western nations. SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) California Gov. Gavin Newsom boldly declared his state a model for the nation Monday but said its leaders have failed to rein in the soaring cost of living and stem inequalities that are making it harder for people to achieve what he called the "California dream." "We face serious challenges some that have been deferred for too long," Newsom said in his inaugural address. "We face a gulf between the rich and everyone else and it's not just inequality of wealth, it's inequality of opportunity." Still, Newsom said it's California that can best defend U.S. values in the face of "incompetence and corruption" in Washington. He never mentioned President Donald Trump by name, but his speech was laced with sharp rebukes of Trump's policies, particularly on immigration. "The future depends on us," he said. "And we will seize this moment." Hours after taking the oath of office, Newsom proposed state-funded health care coverage for 138,000 young people living in the country illegally and reinstating a mandate for everyone to buy insurance or pay a fine part of former President Barack Obama's health care law that was eliminated by Republicans in Congress last year. The outgoing governor, fellow Democrat Jerry Brown, and other political dignitaries packed into a tent outside the Capitol in Sacramento for Newsom's address. A church choir from Compton and a Mexican-American band energized the crowd in a display of the 51-year-old Newsom's flashier style. The crowd became hushed and somewhat subdued when Newsom first began his speech, but laughter soon broke out when Newsom's 2-year-old son, Dutch, wandered on stage dragging a blanket. Newsom held him for part of the speech and, when he put him down, the 2-year-old alternated between hiding behind the podium and evading his mother's grasp while walking across the stage. Newsom's wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, eventually carried him off stage. Story continues Newsom praised Brown, a longtime family friend, for his fiscal restraint but signaled an unmistakable shift in priorities. He barely mentioned climate change one of Brown's signature issues water or the high-speed rail line Brown has championed. Instead, he focused on policies benefiting children and families, including early childhood education, health care and housing. He suggested California has failed to adequately care for suffering families. California is the world's fifth-largest economy but also has the nation's highest child poverty rate and largest homeless population. "We have the resources to ensure a decent standard of living for all," he said. "It's not a question of whether we can do this, but whether we will." He indicated he will be more willing to invest in those pricey priorities than Brown, who focused on saving money for a future recession and warned before leaving office that Democrats would overspend. Newsom will deliver his first budget address Thursday, offering a look at whether he can make fresh investments while keeping California's reserves stocked, as he's pledged. "For eight years, California has built a foundation of rock," he said. "Our job now is not to rest on that foundation. It is to build our house upon it." Democratic lawmakers praised Newsom for his focus on early childhood education, while Republicans, who are in the minority, held off on harshly criticizing the new governor. Other statewide elected officials also were sworn in Monday, including Eleni Kounalakis, the state's first elected female lieutenant governor. "Today California turns a page in its history," Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said. "With a new governor, we have the chance to reaffirm our commitment to be bold on behalf of the people who have elected us to serve." Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins said Newsom was "true to his word to bring big and bold ideas to the table," particularly his emphasis on affordable housing. Republican Sen. Jim Nielsen said he is eager to work with Newsom on wildfire threats but is skeptical that California can afford his other proposals. Newsom was light on specifics, but he brought a relatable touch to the speech by sharing life experiences. His parents divorced when he was young, and Newsom primarily lived with his mother, who he said worked three jobs. His father, William Newsom III, was a judge and friend of the wealthy Getty family. Newsom pledged to launch a "Marshall plan" for affordable housing and invest in early childhood and higher education. Newsom and his wife, an actress and documentary filmmaker, have four children. "All kids not just the children of a governor and a filmmaker should have a good life in California," he said. "No one should live in constant fear of eviction or spend their whole paycheck to keep a roof overhead." While Brown was prone to quoting philosophers and peppering his speeches with Latin phrases, Newsom quoted labor icon Cesar Chavez and a young, unnamed immigrant woman he met in Los Angeles. He told the crowd that he will strive to bring together all Californians, from rural to urban, citizen to immigrant, Democrat to Republican. "We will build one house for one California," he said. ___ Associated Press writers Don Thompson and Jonathan J. Cooper in Sacramento contributed to this report. Ibrahim Mena spoke out about a racist incident in his local supermarket. (Photo: Facebook/Ibrahin Mena) A Montana teacher is going viral after facing racism in a grocery store and responding with love. Ibrahin Mena, from Caracas, Venezuela, was grocery shopping where he ives in Missoula on Jan. 4, when a fellow shopper sought him out only to insult him. He posted a video about the experience on Facebook the same day, and its garnered the attention of more than 9.5K Facebook users. Though thats not what he intended. I think people need to know that this thing happened, he says at the start of the 6.5-minute video. But by people, he meant his family and friends, and had no idea it would get so much attention. I am sorry for my English but I think people need to know this things are happening and spread a message of love and tolerance. Posted by Ibrahin Mena on Friday, January 4, 2019 He goes on to explain that a man basically stalked him in the grocery store until he was met with an opportunity to insult him. Mena tried to avoid any confrontation, waiting for him to pass, but the man wouldnt leave. So Mena continued shopping, picking up a package of kitchen sponges that he was there to purchase. The guy told me, Those are perfect for you. You need to buy those to use for your skin. To use them, to take a shower and use it on your skin as much as you can until you can take your skin off, Mena says in the video, after holding up the sponges. That made me feel so mad, so bad, so sad, I wanted to cry I didnt have any answer to him I took the sponge and I left. But as he continued shopping, he couldnt stop thinking about how he could flip the script. When he was paying, he let two women who had very few items skip him. We need more people like you, he recalls one of them saying. Spirits lifted, he knew what he needed to do. So he recorded this video and posted it on Facebook. I think there is a message that needs to arrive in the heart of everybody in the world and its the message of love and its the message of helping one another instead of being a jerk with someone, Mena says. Story continues The teacher doesnt want to name the store at which this occurred. People have contacted me and made comments saying that the store should make a public apology. I dont want to create a negative situation for this business, he tells Yahoo Lifestyle. The store had nothing to do with the opinion of an individual person, and I think involving the store directly in my experience would challenge the message of love in my video. Thats especially true because this is one of very few times hes experienced racism since he was brought to Missoula to teach at a Spanish immersion school in August 2016. I have had a few racist experiences, he admitted. One of them happened when I was walking down the street and a random person stopped to yell at me, calling me a black rat. But he insists it doesnt happen often. Missoulians are so welcoming, he says. I feel so grateful to be walking in the street and people smile at me. In fact, grocery shopping is usually a very pleasant activity for him. It is almost every time that I go to the supermarket that someone stops me to ask me where I come from and we have very nice conversations. They usually welcome me and make me feel good with their nice comments. The response to his video has been just as warm. I just felt very touched about the amount of people who have wrote to me with powerful words that made me feel welcome and that I am not alone, he says. They have reminded me of the value of kind words. I can feel that every word they use is full of love. I have a lot of tears of gratefulness from all the support. The mostly positive reactions have only confirmed that he did the right thing. The response I have received constantly reminds me that I should always speak words of encouragement and support. We all need people with kind words. Every person that has written to me has made me very happy and I want to make others feel exactly the same. According to local news outlet Missoulian, his students have been equally supportive; one student brought him a poster with supportive notes from her and her family members. Other students have approached Mena to hug him and thank him for what he did. It has been super-touching for me, Mena told Missoulian. Having adults telling you, but kids come to me and tell me that, it made me think that I am being a good example for them. That is of extreme importance to him. I also made this video because I teach my students every single day that we need to take action to face problems and I would not have been a good example keeping silent about this, he told Yahoo Lifestyle. I want to be able to help my students when they are facing a problem like this or any other, but they need to be brave enough to speak up. He also works hard to teach his students to be open-minded and tolerant. Monday, for example, we held a videoconference with a Spanish teacher who lives in Turkey and we made a cultural exchange. He says hes not angry at the man who started this whole thing. I am convinced that many people do these things because they grew up with a lot of prejudice and not because they are bad at heart, he said. I would like to share with him and be able to show him that beyond race and color, we are human. We all have a heart and if we learn to communicate with heart, then we will understand each other. There is no ethnic, racial or linguistic barrier when speaking the language of love. Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. Since 1930, The Pierre, perched steps away from Central Park on Fifth Avenue, has distinguished itself as a lavish New York institution. But tapping into the hotel's opulent French heritageit was created by Corsican-born restaurateur Charles Pierre Casalasco and the upper floors are said to have been inspired by the Royal Chapel at Versaillesis the recently opened and impossibly chic hair salon on its fourth floor, Suite Reyad. With its whitewashed walls, herrington-bone wood floors, and a carved marble fireplace punctuating the main room, the pied-a-terre-like space is just what French colorist Reyad Fritas had in mind when he left his longtime post at Frederic Fekkai's flagship salon. "I wanted it to feel intimate like a modern Parisian apartment, so people could feel like they're at a home," he says. And from the sitting room, where one can sip on a cup of Mariage Freres tea on a curved gray suede sofa, or slip on a robe behind a sumptuous alcove of hanging velvet curtains (inspired by the tiny changing room that designer Yves Saint Laurent had inside his atelier at 5 Avenue Marceau in Paris, says Fritas) to the sun-drenched salon room bedecked with eight chairs, it elicits just that. Photo: Courtesy of Reyad Fritas At the studio, Fritas and his small, meticulously-assembled team, made up of four colorists (one of whom is his wife, Jax Williard Fritas) and three stylists, tend to a high-profile mix of celebrities, editors, and models such as Imaan Hammam and Cindy Bruna. And it's not just Fritas' white-glove balayage highlights, executed with the soft stroke of a French Impressionist painter, that has the salon bustling, but also deep conditioning treatments. "You can't achieve great hair color without healthy hair," explains Fritas. "People often spend a lot of time and money on getting the right color, but not the right treatments." Delivering hydration, repairing breakage, and imparting shine in one fell swoop, the Morrocan Hammam offering, which consists of saturating the hair in argan and sweet almond oils underneath a special steaming machine for 45 minutes to an hour is by far the most popular. "I'm French, but with my North African background, I always go back to the basics," he explains. "Essential oils are at the root of what works." And from Paris to New York City, with over 20 years of experience in the business, rest assured: Fritas knows the inner workings of hairbe it a honeyed brunette dye job or a nourishing homespun mask. Story continues Suite Reyad is located on the fourth floor of the Pierre, a Taj Hotel, 2 East 61st Street; suitereyad.com. https://assets.vogue.com/photos/5b4f48d9b8ba5b21ff4c57a2/master/w_660,h_165,c_limit/Banner-Beauty.jpg FDA approves new closure device for heart defect in premature babies originally appeared on abcnews.go.com One in 10 babies are born premature and Irie Felkner and her twin brother, Judah Felkner, were two of them. Born 13 weeks prematurely, they were unable to breathe on their own after birth and had to be placed on ventilators. They were transferred to a neonatal intensive care unit at Nationwide Childrens in Columbus, Ohio. Judah was able to breathe on his own and come off the ventilator after a week. But Irie could not. "She had a hole in [the artery coming off] her heart, a patent ductus arteriosus (PDA)," the twins' mother, Crissa Felkner, said. "Doctors tried to take her off of the ventilator nine times but she was unable to sustain herself since the PDA was there. A machine was keeping her alive." What sounds like a mothers worst nightmare is actually a reality for many families. The U.S. is sixth on the list of countries with the most preterm births. India, China and Nigeria top the list. (MORE: 911 audio shows shock, panic after comatose woman gave birth) Of the 15 million premature babies that are born each year, 1 million of them die of complications from being premature, according to the World Health Organization. One of these deadly complications is a PDA. On Monday, the FDA approved the groundbreaking use of a minimally-invasive device to close the hole and treat PDA in premature babies. This device, called the Amplatzer Piccolo Occluder, was used to treat the PDA in Irie. It is a small self-expanding mesh device (smaller than a pea) that is inserted through a tiny incision in the leg. It goes into the arteries of the body through a minimally-invasive catheter, enters the PDA and seals the hole. It is based on similar technology that Abbott has used for the past 20 years to perform minimally invasive procedures but that technology was previously only available for larger-sized babies, said a spokesperson for Abbott, the company behind the research and manufacture of the device. Story continues PHOTO: This tiny transcather device called the Piccolo Occluder is deployed in a minimally invasive procedure that seals the open hole present in babies who have patent ductus arteriosus (PDA). (Abbott) We were given four options, one of them being the Piccolo Occluder, which is what we eventually went with, Felkner explained. The other options were waiting and seeing if the hole would close on its own, medications to try to close the hole (but those are not always effective and have side effects), or open heart surgery.The Piccolo Occluder was not FDA approved at that time which did concern the Felkners. It was also the reason they waited a few days before deciding to go ahead with the procedure. After about a week of waiting and watching, a repeat echocardiogram, or ultrasound, of her heart showed that it had enlarged and that her condition was getting worse. She was not a candidate for surgery since she still only weighed 2 pounds. Suddenly, the procedure with the Piccolo Occluder turned out to be Iries only option for survival. She wasnt getting better so we had to take a leap of faith that this device would work, Felkner said. What is a PDA? The ductus arteriosus (DA) is a normal small artery that all babies have before theyre born that connects the two bigger and main arteries of the body, the aorta and the pulmonary artery. Its purpose is to shunt blood away from the lungs of the fetus and to the aorta since at that stage the fetus is getting its oxygen supply through the umbilical cord, not the lungs. Right after birth when babies are able to take their first breath, their lungs expand and the DA is no longer needed and closes on its own within the first five days of life. But in some babies, usually ones who are premature, the DA doesnt close like it normally should and remains open. This heart defect, called a PDA, can cause a decrease in the amount of oxygen in the blood that is delivered to the body's organs. Sometimes blood can flow in the reverse direction through this open defect, or hole, and into the lungs, causing fluid in the lungs and heart failure in babies, which is what happened to Irie. (MORE: Lack of paid leave, support at work partly to blame for low fertility rates: Experts) From clinical trial to FDA approval Three days after she had this procedure done, she was off of the breathing machine. This minimally-invasive procedure saved my daughters life and did not even leave a single scar. She has no limitations now. She is a normal toddler and can do anything her brother can, Felkner said. PHOTO: Once premature and dependent on a breathing machine to live for six weeks, Irie Felkner is now the vision of health. (Abbott) PHOTO: Irie, now over a year old, grins as she plays with her mother, Crissa Felkner. (Abbott) Before the approval issued today, there was no minimally-invasive option to correct this heart defect urgently in babies the size of Irie. They would either have to grow bigger in order to get a minimally-invasive device or have an invasive open heart surgery that had a high risk of complications, including death itself. Irie was treated as a part of the U.S. clinical trial called the ADO II AS, which enrolled 50 premature babies over the age of three days at eight centers across the U.S. Its results combined with that of a continued access protocol involving 150 more patients supported its safety and efficacy which led to the FDA approval. As the rates of prematurity in the country continue to increase, the addition of this modern technology is a big step forward in treating some of the smallest -- and most vulnerable -- population of all. Azka Afzal, MD, is an internal medicine resident physician in Houston and is a member of the ABC News Medical Unit. Washington Post media analyst Margaret Sullivan offered a broad defense of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Monday, lauding the freshman lawmaker for running rings around her critics online and suggesting the attacks on her were rooted in sexism. Having lavished her with positive attention, commentators seemed to feel a palpable joy in taking her down a few pegs, Sullivan wrote, noting some recent high-profile facts checks of Ocasio-Cortez statements. Its all way out of proportion powered, in no small part, by unacknowledged sexism. Sullivan zeroed in on a specific critic National Journal political editor Josh Kraushaar who said that Trump and Ocasio-Cortez both shared a similar penchant for media scolding after she attacked CBS News for not having named an African-American among a new crop of 2020 campaign reporters and producers. Also Read: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Fox Guest Calling Me 'Little Girl' Is 'Walking Argument to Tax Misogyny' How often do you hear the word scold applied to men? Not never, certainly, but not nearly as predictably as to outspoken women, the same ones who should modulate their voices and smile more, Sullivan said. Ocasio-Cortez didnt need Sullivan to defend her, and laced into Kraushaar herself over the comparison the the president. I keep thinking about this exchange bc there are many aspects that are concerning to hear from an *editor,* she tweeted. This is what false equivalence looks like: diminishing Trumps enemy of the people talk as scolding & describing my call to hire a black journalist as the same thing. With a social media presence that now dwarfs the nations most powerful Democratic politicians, Ocasio-Cortez has become a serious power in media and on Capitol Hill as journalists and fellow lawmakers struggle on how best to approach her left-of-center ideas. Ocasio-Cortez has managed to deflect the attacks on many of her critics, including a Washington Examiner reporter who made fun of her clothes, a Newsmax host who made fun of her childhood home and a Fox Business guest who called her a little girl on live television. Read original story Washington Post Media Analyst Says Ocasio-Cortez Criticism Rooted in Unacknowledged Sexism At TheWrap A New Hampshire mother is devastated after her 2-year-old daughter wandered out of the familys new home and died in the freezing temperatures. Courtney VanSchoick says shes been trying to stay strong since her daughter, Sofia VanSchoick, was found dead on the porch of the familys Newport home on Monday after spending several hours outside in the cold. I honestly dont know how Ive managed to keep going, the grieving single mom, 20, tells PEOPLE. I woke this morning for the first time without my baby girl and her twin brother has been looking for her since he woke up. Courtney says Sofia often wakes from her sleep and wanders into her room at night. But Sofia wandered outside early Monday morning without Courtney knowing and was unable to get back into the home, police said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. She remained outside for hours, and the temperature was just -8 degrees when Sofia was found. Courtney says the front door of the home was locked and the little girl must have unlocked it on her own. I didnt know she could open the door, she says of Sofia, noting that the family had just moved into the home a week before the death. Neighbor Shane Rowe and his girlfriend, who recalled hearing cries as early as 4 a.m., found the girls body just steps away from the front door, according to WISN. I saw a little girl next to the bottom of the stairway. I said to myself, I hope thats a doll, Rowe told WISN. My girlfriend came out, and she ran out and she went over and saw that she was actually a child. She banged on the door to alert the parents. Courtney says the banging woke her up, and she looked around for the little girl. I looked around for her and couldnt find her as I was going to answer the door. Then the thought popped into my mind and I ran outside and she was face down at the bottom of the porch steps, Courtney tells PEOPLE. I couldnt breathe all I wanted was to hold her in my arms. I ran and picked her up. Story continues When medics arrived, they performed CPR on the child in an attempt to save her life. Courtney says she was told to wait in the ambulance with her son, and when medics met with her, she knew her daughter had not survived. Preliminary results of an autopsy suggest Sofia died as a result of exposure to the elements and hypothermia, according to the police statement. An EMT came into the ambulance and didnt say a word. I knew right then that she didnt make it, Courtney says. I just held my son tighter. [The hardest part has been] waking up this morning and getting clothes for one child instead of two. I loved everything about her, she says. Looking into her deep blue eyes and feeling my heart just melt. Never being able to hear her little voice again, thats what I am going to miss most is never hearing her say mom again. The death is being investigated by Newport police and the Sullivan County Attorneys Office. Newport Police Chief Jim Burroughs told Valley News that the death is not considered suspicious but appears to be a bad accident. A GoFundMe page has been set up for the family. For a time, despite the high price on his head, Joaquin El Chapo Guzmans life wasnt so bad. Ensconced in a series of mountain hideouts in the Sierra Madre Occidental range of his home state of Sinaloa, on the west coast of Mexico, Guzman would typically wake up at noon, receive the mornings messages from a secretary, and eat lunch. On the rare occasions that his young wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, was visiting, he would feast on his favorite meal of enchiladas suizas a dish featured in a series of racy text messages read aloud this month in court before making some calls on a long-range cordless telephone. Guarded by three rings of armed guards, El Chapo, the alleged don of Mexicos Sinaloa Cartel, was treated to maid service in his mountain redoubts, and frequently hosted a seemingly endless string of visiting mistresses, indulging in his greatest vices: women, and his own myth. Until now, the details of Guzmans years on the run have been largely obscured, thanks in part to his success in lying low between his first prison break in 2001 and his eventual capture in 2014. But in a day of gripping testimony from a man who described himself as El Chapos secretary, his right-hand man, and his left-hand man, a portrait emerged Monday of the alleged kingpins life in hiding, a mix of creature comforts and the occasional mad dash into the hinterlands of Sinaloa, with the Mexican army hot on his tail. Alex Cifuentes, a Colombian drug trafficker who spent nearly two years embedded with Guzman in the mountains of Sinaloa, spent all day on the stand Monday, his second day of testimony against El Chapo, now in the third month of a trial that could put Guzman behind bars for life. Cifuentes hails from a family of drug traffickers from Medellin, and is the second member of the clan to take the stand and confess to working intimately with Guzman in the later years of his career, collaborating with the Sinaloa Cartel to smuggle thousands of kilos of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine into the United States. Alex Cifuentes, 51, corroborated much of the earlier testimony from his brother, Jorge Cifuentes, who testified in December; but while Jorge focused largely on the supply side of Guzmans alleged cocaine operation, Alex Cifuentes dug much deeper into Guzmans daily life during their years working together, and delved into the cartels business. Story continues Cifuentes was just the latest in a series of former high-ranking narcos to take the stand against the man they all say was once their boss. As he entered the courtroom last Thursday, the two men appeared to size each other up, nodding at one another as Cifuentes put a hand to his heart. When asked to identify Guzman in the courtroom, Cifuentes stood up, and squinted in the direction of the defense table. I cant really distinguish his eye color, but this is the first time Ive seen him wearing a suit, he said, drawing a chuckle from members of the public, and a smile from Guzmans wife. Like his brother Jorge, Alex Cifuentes got involved in the drug trade early in life, along with his siblings and some of their children. So thoroughly was the family involved, at every level, that he even discussed sensitive details of the business with his mother, according to phone calls intercepted by the FBI. By late 2007, the Cifuentes family had a line on a lucrative new partnership between their connections to cocaine suppliers in Colombia and Ecuador, and the Sinaloa Cartels smuggling routes, they all stood to make a fortune, Cifuentes told jurors on Thursday. And the opportunity came at a difficult time for the family: the eldest brother, Francisco Pacho Cifuentes, had recently been assassinated, and his younger siblings were looking for revenge; they had to pay a debt to Guzman that had been outstanding at the time of Pachitos death; and Alex, who had long suffered from alcoholism, had a near-death brush with pancreatitis, and was forced to travel to Mexico City for emergency surgery. On his way to Mexico, he told his siblings that if he made it, hed head to Sinaloa. Jorge needed about $10 million to pay the debt to El Chapo, Cifuentes said. I told them that if I managed to come out of the surgery, Id do whatever was needed. In addition to positioning their organization as a major supplier to the cartel, the family had another motive when Alex Cifuentes headed to Sinaloa: To go back and find out who killed our brother, so we could get revenge, Cifuentes said. So after he recovered from surgery, in the fall of 2007, Cifuentes headed for the mountains, flying from Culiacan in a shaky Cessna and landing at a clandestine airstrip manned by as many as 50 armed guards, who escorted him up a mountain in ATVs to meet Guzman. According to Cifuentes, El Chapo greeted him by expressing sympathy for the loss of his brother Francisco, but he soon got down to business: he wanted to be put in touch with one of the eldest Cifuentes brothers widows, with whom he hoped to coordinate cocaine shipments. The deals that followed, which included the sale of some of the widows farms to Guzman, gave Alex Cifuentes a glimpse of the master at work. He was a good businessman, Cifuentes recalled. Hes always trying to get an advantage on the deal. Following his arrival, Cifuentes stuck close to Guzmans side for almost two years. Arriving as an envoy of his familys Colombia-based organization, he grew into the role of a close aide to El Chapo, involving himself in nearly every aspect of Guzmans activities, which by then had expanded well past moving cocaine for Colombian suppliers. Cifuentes helped Guzman acquire weapons from several sources, including a corrupt army captain in Ecuador; the widow of a Honduran drug trafficker; and an Israeli narco based in Europe. He described how he worked to distribute Sinaloa cocaine in New York via a pair of Dominican traffickers; sold coke, meth and heroin in bulk to a Canadian mobster nicknamed Tony Suzuki; briefly looked into ferrying drugs from isolated properties on the American side of Lake Champlain to equally isolated properties on the Canadian side; and helped the cartel locate precursor chemicals for making methamphetamine, at one point having his assistant dictate a meth recipe to him over the phone. And, crucially, he worked with Christian Rodriguez, a young Colombian IT guy, to set up a wireless internet system in the mountains of Sinaloa and develop an encrypted messaging system that allowed El Chapo much greater ability to run the day-to-day operations of his organization until the FBI flipped Rodriguez and gained access to hundreds of recordings of Guzman allegedly directing his subordinates in all manner of illegal activities. It was Cifuentes, speaking on the encrypted network by that time hacked by the feds to his mother, who he told about Guzmans suspicion that Rodriguez was talking to the government, inadvertently tipping Rodriguez off and prompting him to flee to the relative safety of witness protection in the United States. (The attempt to track down Rodriguez may have been stymied in part by the fact that Cifuentes didnt even know the young tech savants name. In a recorded phone call with his assistant, who also later collaborated with the FBI, the assistant could be heard suggesting that Cifuentes google him, or look him up on Facebook.) He was there for some close calls, including an army raid in 2010 that involved a last-minute scramble through a canyon, armed to the teeth with automatic weapons and grenade launchers as soldiers closed in unsuccessfully. Throughout it all, Cifuentes stayed in the rugged backlands of rural Sinaloa, where El Chapo spent most of his time to avoid being captured. Despite his closeness with Guzman, Cifuentes said he remained something between employee, honored guest and prisoner. During the 18 or so months he spent alongside Chapo, the alleged cartel leader denied multiple requests by Cifuentes to return to Colombia, Cifuentes told jurors on Monday. Finally, in the spring of 2009, Guzman allowed Cifuentes to descend from the mountains, and he took up residence in Cancun, where he continued to collaborate closely with both his familys activities in South America and the cartels international smuggling network. Finally, in 2013, he was arrested. In the first day of his testimony Thursday, Cifuentes recalled an interaction he had had with Jorge, well before either of them ended up in American handcuffs, that gave a glimpse into his decision to testify against his former boss el Chapo. [Jorge] told me, and these were his exact word, that with the Americans I should confess the way that I would confess to God, he said. And that if I were to decide go to trial, he would be the first to testify against me. After nearly three months of trial, 10 cooperating witnesses, and dozens of hours of testimony, the end is beginning to come into sight, as the government winds down its case against Guzman. After the prosecution rests its case, the defense team will have a chance, finally, to call its own witnesses. According to a report in the New York Times, that could include Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez, a former Sinaloa state legislator and Chapos former lover, as well as an unnamed criminal the defense team hinted it intends to call from prison to testify on Guzmans behalf. For now, however, the parade of narco witnesses and law-enforcement officers testifying against el Chapo continues, with Cifuentes set to take the stand once again Tuesday morning. Ambassador Srivali joined the Thai Foreign Ministry in 1992, starting out as political officer on the American desk. He went on to serve at the Policy and Planning Division, then as economic officer at the Royal Thai Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, head of substance on the task force for Thailands chairmanship of APEC 2003, and director for subregional cooperation in Southeast Asia. He was appointed Deputy Permanent Representative of Thailand to the United Nations in New York between 2009-2012. Upon his return, he was appointed Deputy Spokesperson and Deputy Director-General of the Foreign Ministrys Department of Information. He was then promoted to Ambassador attached to the Ministry, before being appointed Director-General of the Department of ASEAN Affairs, where he led efforts to build public awareness of the nascent ASEAN Community. Before joining the foreign service, he studied international relations and comparative politics at Thammasat University; the University of California, Los Angeles; and the University of Southern California. He also worked as a journalist, translator/interpreter, and guitarist in a band. 1. When did you arrive in Hungary and what brought you here? On 17 March 2017, my first assignment as Ambassador. 2. Have you ever been an expatriate elsewhere? I lived in the US for 12 years before I became a diplomat. 3. What surprised you most about Hungary? The popularity of Thai massage. 4. Friends are in Budapest for a weekend - what must they absolutely see and do? Definitely the Castle District and the Parliament. If they have time, I would recommend the Gellert and Szechenyi thermal baths. 5. What is your favourite Hungarian food? Gulyas. 6. What is never missing from your refrigerator? Sparkling mineral water. 7. What is your favourite Hungarian word? Szerelem. 8. What do you miss most from home? The availability of great food day and night. 9. What career other than yours would you love to pursue? Journalism or music. 10. What's a job you would definitely never want? A job that causes pain to others. 11. Where did you spend your last vacation? In Croatia at Plitvice Lakes. 12. Where do you hope to spend your next holiday? Slovenia. 13. Apart of temptation what can't you resist? A good book. 14. What was your favourite band, film, or hobby as a teen? Band: Queen. 15. Red wine or white? Red. 16. Book or movie? Book. 17. Morning person or night person? Night. 18. Which social issue do you feel most strongly about? Social injustice. 19. Buda or Pest side? Buda. 20. What would you say is your personal motto? Empty the cup. Hungarian hospitals performed 10% more organ transplants last year than in 2017, the state secretary for health said. Hospitals saw increases in the number of kidney, liver, heart and lung transplants, Ildiko Horvath said after a conference organised as part of the European Unions EUDONORGAN project. Hungarian hospitals performed a total of 505 organ transplants in 2018, Horvath said. In 119 cases 22.6% of all donations the organ was donated from abroad, she said. There were 335 kidney transplants last year, a 12% increase over 2017. Hospitals performed 80 liver transplants, up more than 8% from 2017. Altogether there were 23 lung and 62 heart transplants, also more than in 2017. Sandor Mihaly, director of the Hungarian National Blood Transfusion Services transplant surgery division, said that far more people in Hungary would be willing to donate their organs after their death than the number of those who are aware of the legal regulations concerning organ donation. Fully 73% of Hungarians would want to donate their organs, but only 23% are aware of the legal aspects, Mihaly said. Melania Istrate, coordinator of EUDONORGAN, said that the project aims promote and increase social awareness about organ donation and strengthen training for healthcare professionals and other relevant actors in the field. Budapests Ferenc Liszt international airport has received a carbon neutrality certificate for the second consecutive year, Budapest Airport, its operator, said. The airport received the qualification from ACI Europe, the largest umbrella organisation of European airports, in recognition of measures implemented to fully counterbalance CO2 emissions in the course of operation. Since the launch of the programme in 2016, the airport has managed to reduce CO2 emissions per passenger by close to 50%, Gabor Szarvas, Budapest Airports environmental director, told MTI. The airport operator said it would take further major environmental measures to reduce its CO2 emission per passenger by another 10% between 2019 and 2021 as against the 2016 level. Photo: bud.hu Doctors & Nurses Jobs 2019 For Makkah & Jeddah Saudi Arabia Latest Airview Associates Pvt Limited Medical Posts Saudi Arabia 2021 Medical, health, mbbs and experienced personnel for the positions of Doctors & Nurses required for a well known and reputed Hospitals in Jeddah & Makkah Saudi Arabia. How to Apply on Airview Associates Pvt Limited Job Advertisement Apply as per details in job advertisement. In some cases, you may apply online at vacancies after registering at https://www.jobz.pk online. Note: Beware of Fraudulent Recruiting Activities. If the employer asks you to pay money for any purpose including processing to shortlisting, do not pay at all and report us using our contact us form. Apply as per instuctions & dates mentioned in official job ad. Govt jobs cannot be applied online here. Error & omissions excepted. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Jake Jarvis can be reached by phone at 304-935-0144, on Twitter at @JakeJarvisWV or by email at jjarvis@statejournal.com. Thank you for Reading. As a community service, our obituaries are always free to view. In order to better know our audience, we ask that you register to continuing viewing. Donate Now As a public service during this pandemic, the Jewish News is providing free, unlimited access to all articles. Jewish News is a nonprofit publication that is owned by the community and relies on community support. The Mountain States TRUSTED news source. Click here to stay informed and subscribe to The Charleston Gazette-Mail. Click #isupportlocal for more information on supporting our local journalists. Learn more about HD Media Please purchase a subscription to continue reading. If you have a subscription, please Log In . Your current subscription does not provide access to this content. If you believe you've gotten this message in error, please Log In. UPDATE: Second arrest made in pastor's death JACKSON, Miss. (AP) Police in Mississippi's capital city say a pastor was shot to death while unlocking a church for worship services, and his truck was stolen. The state's Republican governor, Phil Bryant, says on Twitter that he will join Jackson leaders "to stop this violence together or I will do so as Governor on my own." Jackson police say 62 year-old Anthony Longino was shot to death Sunday morning outside New Bethany Missionary Baptist Church. Officers learned two males confronted Longino while he was opening the church. One took his 2018 Dodge Ram 2500 pickup and the other fled in an older truck. Police say 22-year-old Marquez Hamilton was arrested late Sunday and is charged with capital murder. It was not immediately clear whether he has an attorney. JACKSON, Miss. (WTVA) - State road workers are helping wildlife officials monitor Chronic Wasting Disease. This fatal disease affects cervids such as deer. Cases have been reported in Pontotoc, Marshall and Issaquena counties. The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks (MDWFP) set a goal to sample 5,000 deer for the disease throughout the state during the current hunting season. Mississippi Department of Transportation maintenance workers are helping by alerting wildlife officials about roadkill. MDWFP has also established drop off locations throughout the state, which allows hunters to submit deer for sampling. Latin America Six-hour strike by Honduran public health workers over wage demand Some 35,000 Honduran public health sector workers struck nationwide January 9 over the failure of the government to deliver on a salary demand dating to 2018. The strike, which lasted from 6:00 a.m. to noon, drew attention to a demand last year of 4,000 lempiras (US$163) to compensate for the rising cost of living. To date, there has been no official response. The president of the Medicine, Hospital and Similar Sectors Syndicate (Sitramedhys), Miguel Mejia, denounced the governments apathy and irresponsibility concerning the demand. He added that recently representatives from all the national unions had been convoked, but only one person from the governmental commission named to deal with the demand showed up. Union leaders expressed hope that the short stoppage would bring the authorities to call for negotiations. Mexican auto parts factory workers strike to demand unpaid bonus Over 700 workers at six auto parts and equipment factories in the northeastern Mexican border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas turned off their machines January 9 and 10 and held protests over the nonpayment of a promised productivity bonus. The bonus of 3,300 pesos (US$172.40) in food vouchers was supposed to be deposited on January 8 but was not. On December 17, the government of the incoming administration of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced that the minimum daily wage of 88.36 pesos (US$4.62) would be doubled to 176.72 pesos in the northern maquila regions. The companies, which include Polytech, Dura, AFX Autoliv and Cedras de Mexico, claim that the increase does away with the need for the bonus, which is included in the collective bargaining agreement signed in January 2018. During a demonstration on January 10 in front of the Dura Plant 3, workers practically ran off Armando Trevino Rivera, delegate of the state secretary of labor, who had come to ask them to return to the production lines. The workers were also told by the secretary general of the Union of Laborers and Industrial Workers of the Maquiladora Industry that he was informed by government authorities that the unions 40,000 members had no right to an adjustment that they had anticipated that would have added 32,000 pesos (US$1,670) to their annual pay. Antiguan postal workers walk out over noxious and hazardous work environment Some 200 workers at the General Post Office in St. Johns, Antigua walked off the job January 12 to protest conditions in the building. Workers have walked out and protested intermittently over the last few months, but with recent heavy rainfall the problems have worsened. Leaky roofs resulted in damaged mail as well as the need to shut off electricity due to exposed wiring that could cause short circuits or electrocution. Mold and dampness, which have been common complaints, have increased from the rains. Another complaint has been the poor lighting. The General Post Office workers, huddled under umbrellas, demonstrated outside, carrying signs and chanting against not only conditions inside the building, but working conditions for letter carriers, including attacks by dogs and goats. In addition, according to an Antigua Observer report, The workers used the strike opportunity to voice their concerns about other issues to include the $105 per month for travel allowance and no risk allowance. Workers from at least eight other branches have since joined the General Post Office workers in solidarity. They say they will not return to work until the problems are remedied. Puerto Rican legal services lawyers strike, protest administrations refusal to sign agreement Lawyers for the Union of Legal Services (UASL) in San Juan, Puerto Rico struck and demonstrated January 8 to protest the intransigence of Puerto Rico Legal Services (SLPR), which provides legal services to the poor, regarding the collective bargaining agreement, which expired in June. The lawyers accuse the SLPR administration of contracting out work that should go to them, extending their workdays while reducing their incomes and reducing bonuses, substantially decreasing our income; substitute[ing] bonuses for productivity bonuses that management in the future will determine the criteria for granting them; strips those unionized of all the rights negotiated in the collective agreement, including the reduction of holidays, sick leave and flexible hours: increase[ing] the hiring salary, without doing justice to the lawyers who already work for Legal Services, and reduc[ing] substantially the contribution to the medical plan. Peruvian contract mineworkers strike over working conditions Contract workers at the Uchucchacua mine complex in Perus Oyon province began a strike January 9 against unsuitable working conditions. The striking mineworkers also mentioned unjustifiable firings as a reason for the walkout. Uchucchacua, where silver, lead and zinc are extracted, is part of Buenaventura Mining Company, Inc., the largest publicly traded precious metals mining company in Peru with some 17 assets across the country. Despite the mineworkers grievances, the Peruvian Labor Authority declared the strike illegal. Argentina: Marches and protests against public service fee increases Thousands of demonstrators marched in Buenos Aires January 10 against public service fees imposed by the government of president Mauricio Macri. The National Syndical Front, the CTA federations as well as social organizations participated in the action. Protesters marched to the National Congress building to demand an end to the Macri administrations austerity policies. Secretary general of the Truckers Syndicate Pablo Moyano and other union bureaucrats denounced Macris policies of hunger and adjustment and urged protesters to transform this uproar into millions of votes in October so that the right never again returns to govern in Argentina, without mentioning the anti-working-class policies of the previous Kirchnerista government. Argentine Labor Ministry quashes planned strike by lifeguards The Production and Labor Ministry of Argentina issued an order January 12 for binding arbitrationknown as obligatory conciliationto lifeguards in the city of Mar del Plata, forbidding them to carry out a strike planned for that day. Two lifeguards unions had called for the stoppage at private beaches in Mar del Plata over their demand for a 40 percent salary raise. The Chamber of Resort, Restaurant and Related Businesses had refused to budge from its offer of 34 percent. The obligatory conciliation decree imposes a 15-day waiting period for negotiations. The United States City of Everett, Washington to use buyouts to eliminate jobs The city of Everett, Washington announced it will go through with buyouts that will reduce the citys workforce by 300 jobs. Everett, whose population is over 100,000 and has a city workforce of 1,200 employees, faces an $11 million budget deficit that is expected to increase each year. Democratic Mayor Cassie Franklin and the city council attempted to push through cuts in health care benefits last fall as the contract for members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) expired at the end of last year. But workers voted against any renegotiation of benefits. So the city and AFSCME have conspired to utilize the buyout to attain those ends. Michael Rainey, an AFSCME official, called the buyouts fair and indicated that they aimed to eliminate workers at the higher end of the benefit scale. The buyouts are only available to about 330 of the 400 members of AFSCME. Many cities, while forgoing taxes on corporations and the wealthy, rely on property tax increases to meet shortfalls. But Everett passed a resolution limiting property tax increases to 1 percent. In a mayoral directive toward the beginning of 2018, Mayor Franklin stated the city would target city positions for elimination, reduce health care benefits, seek to find alternative service delivery models for major city departs such as fire, transit, libraries, city parks and other community services. Canada Ontario grocery workers continue strike Picket lines remain up at Baxtroms Independent Grocer in the town of Cornwall in eastern Ontario, with over 100 workers on strike for a living wage since November of last year when the employer left the bargaining table. The striking workers, organized under the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW), are fighting for a raise above minimum wage, which they are currently paid despite having up to 25 years experience. Baxtroms, an independently operated franchise of grocery giant Loblaw Co. Ltd., has continued to operate with nonunion workers and strikers who have crossed the picket line to return to work since the strike began. Contract talks broke down after the employer walked away from negotiations last year and has refused to return to bargaining or to communicate with UFCW negotiators. Amid intensifying negotiations between Turkey and the United States over Trumps decision to withdraw from Syria and Turkeys threats to invade the country, a US technical team is visiting Turkey today and tomorrow. The US team is expected to stress that Turkeys purchase of Russian S-400 air defence systems is unacceptable to Washington. Previously, Washington had indicated that it could respond to a Turkish agreement with Russia to buy S-400 surface-to-air missile systems by blocking Turkey from buying F-35 warplanes, and would bring Turkeys relations with the United States and the NATO alliance to a breaking point. The S-400 purchase would have vast military ramifications. By obtaining its first long-range air and anti-missile defence system from Russia, Turkey could conceivably close its skies to NATO fighters if necessary. On December 18, the day before US President Donald Trump tweeted his announcement of the withdrawal of all 2,000 US troops from Syria, the State Department informed the US Congress of a proposed $3.5 billion deal to sell Turkey Patriot anti-ballistic missile systems made by Raytheon. Washington has long urged Turkey to cancel its plans to purchase the Russian-made S-400 anti-ballistic missile system, but Turkey has replied that it would buy Patriot systems from Washington, but not on the condition of cancelling the purchase of S-400 system from Russia. On January 10, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu declared that Turkey would never accept US pressure to drop its purchase of S-400s from Russia to deploy Patriots. The U.S. made its first offer for the Patriots. But we are not in a position to change our deal with Russia on the S-400s. We have an immediate need to cover air space. In fact, we may purchase Patriots in the future as well. The S-400s are an accomplished deal. We never break our promises. Turkeys attempts to purchase air defence systems has long been a sore point in Ankaras relations with NATO, especially with the US. Ankara first decided to buy a long-range air defence system from a Chinese state-run company in 2013. Under US pressure, the Turkish government was forced to scrap the $3.4 billion programme altogether in November 2015. After the project was cancelled and the Turkish air force shot down a Russian bomber on November 24, 2015, threatening all-out war with Russia, Ankara expressed its intention to independently develop a missile defence system. This aim was not realised, however. After Russia retaliated by escalating its military posture and imposed economic sanctions against Turkey, however, Ankara tacked back toward Russia, agreeing to purchase the S-400 air and missile defence system. The decisive factor in Ankaras shift closer to Russia and China was its violent hostility to Washingtons cultivation of the Kurdish nationalists as proxies in the Syrian war. As the Islamic State (ISIS) militia grew in Syria and invaded Iraq, the imperialist powers turned to the Kurdish nationalist groups as a proxy ground force against ISIS. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could not adapt himself to these sudden, violent shifts in imperialist war policy, and Ankaras imperialist allies rapidly came to see him not as a strategic partner, but as an unreliable one. The imperialist powers responded in July 2016 with an attempt to organise a military coup in Turkey to oust and murder Erdogan. A section of Turkeys military launched an abortive putsch out of NATOs Incirlik air base, encouraged by Washington and Berlin. The failure of the coup attempt undermined Ankaras relations with the NATO imperialist powers. Ankara opposes Kurdish autonomy in Syria, fearing that it will provoke demands for Kurdish autonomy in eastern Turkey. To crush Kurdish nationalist forces still backed by Washington, Erdogan has twice ordered the Turkish army to launch bloody invasions of Syria: Operation Euphrates Shield (in August 2016) and Operation Olive Branch (in January 2018), directed against the US-backed YPG. In recent months, the Turkish government has threatened a new outright military occupation of large parts of Syria, targeting the YPG and other Kurdish forces, that could provoke war with Syria and a direct clash with US forces. After Erdogans threats, the Trump administration announced a withdrawal from Syria that flowed directly from an agreement reached between Trump and Turkeys president during a telephone conversation on December 18. As the WSWS previously noted: While Washington is no doubt anxious to avoid a potential military confrontation with Turkey, a member of the NATO alliance, the Trump White House has taken other measures aimed at restoring US-Turkish relations, which have been strained since the abortive July 2016 military coup, which enjoyed covert backing from Washington. Despite the Turkish governments repeated attempts to work out a deal with Washington to coordinate their policies, however, disagreements continue to mount. The conflict over a potential Turkish S-400 purchase comes just shortly after Trump threatened Turkey with economic destruction on Twitter if it attempted to attack the Kurds. Whatever the outcome of the dispute within the US ruling class, Turkey seems determined to launch a bloody military occupation in north Syria. Its preparations for a possible operation east of the Euphrates river in Syria are continuing intensely, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on January 11, on a visit to Turkeys border with Syria. We have Manbij and the east of Euphrates [River] ahead. Necessary plans have been made regarding this. Our preparation continues intensely, Akar said. Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) baggage screeners continued to call in sick at high rates Monday, forcing a growing number of airports to close security checkpoints and delay passenger travel. In addition to this weekends closures in Miami and Houston, Washington DCs Dulles Airport and Atlantas Hartsfield-Jackson Airport closed several screening lanes Monday. In Atlanta, CNN reporter Omar Jimenez tweeted: So Im at @ATLairport and this may be the longest security line I have ever seen. Even growing up here, and even for a Monday morning. One passenger told me hed been waiting over and hour and still had about 30 minutes to go. Figures from TSA officials indicated that no-shows remained more than double typical levels. The sick-out rate Monday was 7.6 percent compared to 3.2 percent at the same time last year. Expectations are that the workers boycott will only expand. Airports around the country are preparing contingency plans to deal with shortages of screeners. The sickouts are one reflection, in an unorganized form, of growing anger and determination to take action against what is now 24 days of uncompensated, compulsory labor for 420,000 workers and the lockout of another 380,000. The mounting resistance of federal workers is now joined by the strike of 30,000 teachers in Los Angeles, the nations second largest school district. Without a paycheck, an increasing number of federal workers and contractors are forced to choose between necessities. A government scientist in Brooklyn, New York told the World Socialist Web Site that he was forced to postpone medical tests on account of the $175 up-front deductible. A 31 year-old Department of Interior worker in River Falls, Wisconsin told NBC News that she has been forced to ration her insulin treatment for Type 1 diabetes because she is unable to afford the $300 co-pay. When her blood sugar rose to a dangerous level last week, she just tried to sleep it off. When it gets that high you can go into diabetic ketoacidosis, you can go into a coma, she said. I cant afford to go to the ER. I cant afford anything. I just went to bed and hoped Id wake up. The impact is spreading well beyond those employed or contracted by the government. President Trump went to New Orleans Monday to address the American Farm Bureau Federation convention, an exercise in political damage control under conditions where small farmers are threatened with the loss of their crops because the Agriculture Department, one of nine cabinet level departments deprived of funds in the partial shutdown, is withholding subsidy checks. Many of these farmers had already been hard hit by the impact of Trumps trade war policies. The missing subsidies include $12 billion in compensation for financial losses caused by Trumps imposition of tariffs against China and other countries. Bankruptcies have risen sharply in some farming areas. The New York Times reported that in Minnesota, farm bankruptcies have doubled compared to 2013 and 2014. Things have gotten so bad that dairy associations have begun advertising suicide hotline numbers. At the Farm Bureau convention, Trump reprised his anti-immigrant rhetoric and restated his hardline position against ending the shutdown unless and until the Democrats agree to include $5.7 billion for his border wall in legislation to fund the affected departments and agencies. The president also touted his efforts to gut federal regulations affecting farmers, telling the audience he would get government off your backs. Looming over the prolonged shutdown is the shuttering of agencies that Trump has harshly criticized or even threatened with elimination, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. On Monday, Trump rebuffed a proposal by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham to reopen the government for three weeks. Graham suggested that if by the end of that period no agreement on a wall had been reached, Trump could act on his threat to declare a national emergency and use the military to construct the wall, an unconstitutional seizure of quasi-dictatorial powers that would mark a major and irreversible step toward authoritarian rule. The Democratic Party and media outlets aligned with it such as the New York Times have either remained silent on Trumps threat to invoke emergency powers or endorsed it as a way out of the impasse. Senator Graham was joined Sunday on ABCs This Week by former North Dakota Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp, who called it a good idea. The Times has published news pieces and editorials presenting this open repudiation of the separation of powers and congressional authority as a politically realistic way out of the shutdown crisis. Trump, however, has backed off from issuing the declaration, at least for the time being, following opposition from within the Republican Party, principally over the tactical implications of enabling a future Democratic president to bypass Republicans in Congress. As Florida Senator Marco Rubio explained on CNBCs Squawk Box, Tomorrow, the national security emergency might be, you know, climate change. Nevertheless, a national emergency declaration remains a very real possibility. A retired federal worker told the WSWS that both the Democrats and the Republicans were playing political games and petty politics. They are ignoring what the population really needs, he said. We need programs for broader sections of the population, things like universal health care. Instead, people are going to have their food stamps cut off if the shutdown continues. When asked about the shutdowns implications for democratic rights and Trumps threat to declare a national emergency to construct a border wall, the worker said, The Democrats are treating this like it is business as usual. Around 2007, many Democrats voted for the building of a border fence. The US government already claims national emergencies to station troops overseas. They did it in Japan. The only difference is now they are doing it domestically. Referring to the mass protest in France against the government of President Emmanuel Macron, he said, I support the calls Ive seen for federal workers to wear yellow vests. On the role of the federal employee unions, he said they should claim that Trump is violating the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution by forcing employees to work without pay. We fought a civil war over this, he said. Its illegal to force labor. The federal workers could refuse to work, shut down the airports. That would affect everyone. That would resolve this shutdown very quickly. Sri Lankas government has suggested a meagre wage increase over three years for plantation workers to suppress their demand for a 100 percent pay rise. For the past three months, workers have been campaigning for an immediate doubling of their daily wage, from 500 rupees ($US2.74) to 1,000 rupees. They launched an indefinite strike in December, but the trade unions shut it down after nine days. Workers previously rejected a 20 percent or 100-rupee increase proposed by the Employers Federation of Ceylon (EFC), which represents the plantation companies. In separate meetings with the EFC and trade unions last Thursday, Plantation Minister Naveen Dissanayake and Labour Minister Daya Gamage suggested a three-year wage formula. During the first year, the basic wage would rise by just 125 rupees, or 25 percent. In the second year, it would increase by 25 rupees, or 4 percent, with another 25-rupee rise in the third year. Dissanayake said workers could earn 1,000 rupees or more with various allowances. He noted that the pay increase would improve according to the amount of tea leaves plucked. This means a worker could earn 1,000 rupees only with allowances directly tied to productivity, as proposed by the companies. Many workers are usually unable to meet the targets set for regular attendance and productivity. Allowances are also tied to price fluctuations in the global tea and rubber markets. Dissanayake asked the companies and the unions to sign collective agreements accordingly. Together with the employers, the government wants to end the wage protests and impose these agreements with the unions acting as an industrial police force for driving up workloads. Echoing the companies, Dissanayake declared that the unions needed to show concern about the industry and it was not possible to add pressure on the companies. The employers requested time to decide on the proposal. According to the media, unions have rejected the proposal and said they were firm over the 1,000-rupee demand. This is bogus posturing. Well aware of the widespread opposition among workers to lowering the demand for a 100 percent increase, the unions are seeking ways to deflect the unrest in the plantations. The unions participating in the discussions included the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), Lanka Jathika Estate Workers Union (LJEWU) and Joint Plantation Trade Union Centre (JPTUC). They have been engaged in secret talks with the employers and the government for several months and have shut down workers strikes and protests. Exposing the so-called firmness of the unions, LJEWU general secretary Vadivel Suresh, who is also the state minister of plantations, said his union could agree to a 150-rupee rise this year, just 25 rupees more than the governments proposal, with another 50-rupee increase next year. National Union of Workers (NUW) leader P. Digambaram, another government minister, earlier told the Lanka newspaper the 1,000-rupee demand was unjustified at the moment because the plantation companies profits had dropped. Lanka, which is controlled by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), published his declaration without any comment, indicating agreement with the NUW leader. The Planters Association made essentially the same assertion in a statement issued last month. The demands of trade union leaders far exceed the capacity, it insisted. We urge all stakeholders, especially, those whose daily living depends on this industry, to consider the fatality of the industry. The plantation companies continually complain that low tea prices make it impossible to meet the workers demand for higher wages. They say the industry is hampered by factors beyond their control. The low prices are a result of intensifying competition among tea-producing countries, including China, India and Kenya. As a result, Sri Lankas annual average tea export earnings declined from $1.63 billion in 2014 to $1.53 billion in 2017. Between January and August last year, the countrys tea export income dropped from $1 billion to $970 million, compared to the corresponding period the previous year. To impose the burden of this crisis onto the workers, the government and the plantation companies insist on scrapping the wages system and implementing a so-called revenue-share system that aims to increase output several-fold. Under this system, workers are given a plot of land with 1,000 or more tea bushes. The company sells them fertilisers and agrichemicals, deducting the cost from workers income. Where this system has been introduced already in some estates, the workers have rejected it, complaining they cannot earn enough income to live, even with their entire families doing the work. All the indications are that the EFC and the unions, backed by the government, plan to enter into collective agreements soon, behind the backs of workers, which will include terms tying workers to supposed revenue-share schemes and other productivity requirements. The plantation workers must reject these proposals and organise a common struggle, uniting with other sections of workers in Sri Lanka and internationally. Without a political fight against the government and the capitalist class, and the unions that prop up them, workers cannot defend their interests. To carry out this struggle, workers should establish their own action committees in estates, workplaces and neighbourhoods, totally independent of the trade unions. Workers at the Abbotsleigh plantations, near Hatton, have taken such an initiative, forming an action committee under the guidance of the Socialist Equality Party. Workers need a socialist program to defend their interests against the drive by the ruling class to impose the burden of its crisis. It is necessary to fight for a workers and peasants government that would nationalize the large estates, banks and all major enterprises under workers control, as part of the struggle for socialism internationally. Today marks the centenary of one of the most horrific and consequential crimes in world history. In Berlin on 15 January, 1919, Freikorps soldiers of the Garde-Kavallerie-Schutzen Division arrested Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the two leaders of the German Communist Party (KPD), which had been founded just two weeks earlier. Soldiers transported them to the Hotel Eden, where they were tortured before being taken away and murdered. The 48-year-old Rosa Luxemburg was among the most outstanding Marxist revolutionaries of her epoch. She gained notoriety for her sharp polemics against Eduard Bernsteins revisionism and the Social Democrats pro-war policies in the First World War, and was the undisputed theoretical leader of the SPDs revolutionary wing and later of the Spartacus League. Karl Liebknecht, who was the son of SPD founder Wilhelm Liebknecht and the same age as Luxemburg, embodied irreconcilable opposition to militarism and war. The bravery and determination with which he rebelled as an SPD parliamentary deputy against his own party, rejected war credits, and, despite persecution and suppression, fought and agitated against the war, won him the respect of millions of workers. In the November Revolution of 1918, he fought for the overthrow of capitalism. At a mass rally on 9 November he proclaimed the Free Socialist Republic of Germany. The frail Rosa Luxemburg was struck down with the butt of a rifle in the Hotel Eden foyer and brought to a car where she was shot. Her body was thrown into the Landwehr canal, where it was recovered only months later. Karl Liebknecht was executed by three shots from close range in the Tiergarten. The press subsequently reported that Liebknecht was shot while trying to flee and that Luxemburg was lynched by an outraged mob. The brutal murder of Luxemburg and Liebknecht marked a new stage of counter-revolutionary violence. Prior to this, the bourgeois state had ruthlessly cracked down on socialist opponents, and, as in the aftermath of the suppression of the Paris Commune in 1871 in France, took bloody revenge against revolutionary workers with mass executions. But the murder of the leaders of a revolutionary party by state organs without a trial or court judgment was a new phenomenon and set a precedent followed by others. Even the autocratic Tsarist regime generally banished socialist opponents to Siberia. The German ruling class thereby drew the lessons from the Russian Revolution, where the subjective factor, the role of Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolshevik party, was decisive in leading the proletarian revolution to victory. In the days prior to the murders, leaflets were distributed in Berlin with the slogan Kill their leaders! The murders proceeded with the approval of the highest levels of the state. Gustav Noske, the minister responsible for the Reichswehr and a leading SPD member, had ordered the Garde-Kavallerie-Schutzen Division, which was notorious for its ruthless violence, to Berlin to be deployed against revolutionary workers. During the Bloody Christmas of 1918, they fired artillery at sailors in revolt who had occupied the Berlin castle and brutally suppressed the Spartacus uprising. When a court martial acquitted those officers directly involved in Luxemburg and Liebknechts murder in May 1919, Noske personally signed the acquittal. Waldemar Pabst, who as head of the Garde-Kavallerie-Schutzen Division issued the order to murder Luxemburg and Liebknecht, was never charged. He was able to continue his career under the Nazis and in the post-war Federal Republic and died a wealthy arms trader in 1970. To this day, the SPD disputes its responsibility for Luxemburg and Liebknechts murder. But it is certain that Pabst spoke with Noske by telephone immediately prior to the killings. Pabst later confirmed on several occasions that he received the go-ahead from Noske. As he wrote in a 1969 letter which was found after his death, It is obvious that there was no way I could have carried out the action without Noskes supportwith Ebert in the backgroundand that I had to protect my officers. But very few people have understood why I was never called to testify or charged with an offence. As a cavalier, I acknowledged the SPDs behaviour at the time by keeping my mouth shut for fifty years about our cooperation. The ruling class had to kill Luxemburg and Liebknecht to prevent the revolution, which spread like wildfire throughout Germany during November, from overthrowing capitalism as it had done in Russia. The Hohenzollern regime, which capitulated in the first days of the revolution, could not be saved. But this only made its base of supportindustrial and finance capital, the big landowners, the military caste, and the reactionary judiciary, police, and administrative apparatusall the more determined to defend their social position. To this end they called upon Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the SPD, to form a new government on 9 November, 1918. Over the preceding four years, the SPD had demonstrated its unconditional loyalty to bourgeois rule with its support for the First World War. Ebert immediately aligned himself with the general staff of the army to suppress the revolution. Thus, the first revolutionary wave was bloodily suppressed, but this by no means resolved the question of which class would rule. Until October 1923, when the KPD missed an extraordinarily favourable revolutionary opportunity and called off a prepared uprising at the last minute, ever-changing class conflicts and revolutionary opportunities broke out. In addition, with the founding of the KPD at the turn of the year 1918-19, a crucial step forward in overcoming the SPDs betrayal and the Independent Social Democrats (USPD) centrist policies was taken. The USPD had been founded at the beginning of 1917 by deputies expelled by the SPD for their refusal to back war credits. Nonetheless, the USPD entered Eberts government in 1918 and served as a left fig leaf. The KPDs founding programme, authored by Rosa Luxemburg, made unmistakably clear that the KPD was not striving to replace the Hohenzollern regime with a bourgeois parliamentary democracy but to overthrow bourgeois rule. On 9 November the Hohenzollern regime had been driven out of power and workers and soldiers councils had been elected, the programme stated. But the Hohenzollerns were no more than the front men of the imperialist bourgeoisie and of the Junkers. The class rule of the bourgeoisie is the real criminal responsible for the World War, in Germany as in France, in Russia as in England, in Europe as in America. The capitalists of all nations are the real instigators of the mass murder. International capital is the insatiable god Baal, into whose bloody maw millions upon millions of steaming human sacrifices are thrown. The programme stressed that the alternatives were not reform or revolution, but socialism or barbarism. The World War confronts society with the choice: either continuation of capitalism, new wars, and imminent decline into chaos and anarchy, or abolition of capitalist exploitation. The words of the Communist Manifesto are the fiery writing on the wall above the crumbling bastions of capitalist society: Socialism or barbarism. Luxemburgs warning was to be confirmed fourteen years later. The Weimar Republic was not the product of a victorious democratic revolution, but of counter-revolutionary violence. The murder of Luxemburg and Liebknecht set into motion a development that ultimately led to the coming to power of the Nazis. They rested on the same social forces that the Ebert regime had rescued and strengthened. Hitlers paramilitary SA emerged out of the Freikorps. Part of the tragedy of Luxemburg and Liebknecht is that they underestimated the counter-revolutionary determination of their opponents. Otherwise they would have adopted better procedures and security measures to avoid falling into the hands of their captors. The death of its two most important leaders was a disastrous blow to the KPD. It hindered the necessary process of clarification and consolidation within the young party, which grew rapidly into an organisation of a quarter of a million within two years. And it also weakened the party in critical revolutionary situations. There is much evidence to suggest, for example, that the KPD would have taken power in October 1923 had a Rosa Luxemburg or Karl Liebknecht stood at its head rather than the indecisive Heinrich Brandler. Had Luxemburg and Liebknecht survived in 1919, not only German history, but also world history would have turned out differently. A victorious socialist revolution in Germany would have freed the Soviet Union from its isolation and thereby removed the most important factor for the growth of the bureaucracy and the rise of Stalin. It is also inconceivable that the KPD, under the leadership of the uncompromising internationalist Rosa Luxemburg, would have bowed to Stalins nationalist course, or supported his policy of social fascism, which paved the way for Hitler to come to power in 1933. The refusal of Stalin, and his German proxy Thalmann, to fight for a united front with the social fascist SPD against the Nazis divided and paralysed the working class. Based on a correct policy by the KPD, which had hundreds of thousands of members and millions of voters, the working class could have prevented Hitler from coming to power. One hundred years after her death, many political tendencies are trying to co-opt Rosa Luxemburg by portraying her as a left-wing reformist or feminist. The leaders of the Left Party, whose politics are much closer to those of Noske and Ebert than to Luxemburgs, made their pilgrimage once again this year to the tomb of the irreconcilable revolutionist to lay red carnations. The Berlin state senator for culture, the Left Partys Klaus Lederer, told the magazine Zitty that Luxemburg understood social change as a process of comprehensive democratisation and transformation, and sought to democratise all spheres of society, including business. In a statement on the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the KPD, the Left Partys historical commission asserted that with Luxemburgs murder, the possibility was destroyed of developing the KPD into a left-socialist party that did not follow the Bolshevik model. In reality, Luxemburg was a relentless opponent of the policies referred to by the Left Party as left-socialist. A large portion of her writings consists of polemics against Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky and other representatives of those policies, who inevitably end up on the bourgeois side of the barricades when the class struggle intensifies. Here is an example of an article published in the newspaper Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag) three weeks after the USPD joined the Ebert government: Independent social democracy is inherently a child of weakness, and compromise is the essence of its existence It has always trotted behind events and developments; it never took the lead Any dazzling ambiguity that led to confusion among the masses all the phrases of bourgeois demagogy that spread the veils, that obscured the naked, craggy facts of the revolutionary alternative during the war, found their eager support... A party of such constitution, suddenly faced with the historical decisions of the revolution, had to fail miserably In the hour that finally makes the socialist goals the practical task of the day, the sharpest, most inexorable divorce between the camp of the revolutionary proletariat and the open as well as disguised enemies of revolution and socialism the highest duty, the Independent Party hastened to enter into a political partnership with the most dangerous outposts of counterrevolution, to confuse the masses and to facilitate treachery. These words could also be used to describe the Left Party, which, however, stands far to the right of the USPD. Many commentators have been compelled to admit that Luxemburg would have been contemptuous of the feminism and other forms of identity politics that are now in vogue in petty-bourgeois circles. As Elke Schmitter wrote in Der Spiegel, The present insistence on disadvantage, whether due to birth or gender, status or religion, would have bored her. For Luxemburg, the overcoming of all forms of oppression was inseparably bound up with the overthrow of the capitalist system. One hundred years after Luxemburgs death, all of the contradictions of the capitalist system that made the period 1914-45 the most violent in human history are erupting once again. Nationalism, trade war and war dominate international relations. Far-right and fascist forces are on the offensive in many countries, with the explicit or concealed support of the state. In Germany, refugee policy is being dictated by the far-right AfD, in whose ranks Waldemar Pabst would feel at home. In the army, the police and intelligence agencies, right-wing extremist networks are active and are being supported and trivialised by the highest echelons of the state. This gives to the legacy of Liebknecht and Luxemburg a burning actuality. As Luxemburg formulated it in 1918, society once again confronts either continuation of capitalism, new wars, and imminent decline into chaos and anarchy, or abolition of capitalist exploitation. More than ever before, humanitys future depends upon the construction of a socialist and internationalist party in the working class based on the legacy of Marxism. The Fourth International, which is today led by the International Committee, and its sections, the Socialist Equality parties, are the only political tendency that embodies these traditions. While only two of the four engineers have concluded it is safe to reoccupy the building, some residents have moved back in to Opal Tower, either voluntarily or because their hotels were cancelled by the builder. The engineers for the body corporate say they are waiting on further information before they can declare the building safe to occupy, while the New South Wales (NSW) state government only released its own assessment by three academic engineers today. The builder, Icon, told residents in a letter on January 10 that engineers WSP, who designed the building, and Rincovitch Partners, had both declared the building to be structurally sound. No explanation was given, however, why a concrete panel on the 10th level of the 34-storey tower had cracked. The extent of temporary bracing that has been placed through a number of floorsup to a hundred jacks, each of which can support ten metric tonnes are being usedsuggest that there are still concerns the building will continue to shift. Icons letter stated: It is entirely up to the residents whether they want to move in or not. Our view and the view of the engineers is that the building is safe to occupy. Residents have complained about the lack of information. A one page letter sent on January 11 by Cardno Engineering, who have been engaged by the body corporate, called for completion of the reinforcing and asked for further tests to confirm finding of the non-compliant reinforcing in the precast on Level 10 and whether the significant spalling is a one-off occurrence or a systemic problem. The NSW government report released today, which was prepared by Professors Mark Hoffman, John Carter and Stephen Foster, stated that significant rectification works are required to repair and strengthen damaged hob beams and in some cases the panels that rest on them. It assessed that the probable cause was localised structural design and construction issues, but further investigation is needed. The building was partially evacuated on December 24 and then completely evacuated on December 27 after cracks in a six-by-three metre concrete panel were discovered and doors to some apartments were jammed by structural shifts in the building. Workers have stripped walls from some apartments to look for problems and drilled inspection holes in the walls of others. Residents of apartments close to the damage have had their possessions put into storage and have been told it will be six weeks before they can move back in. Those living in apartments with inspection holes will have to wait at least a week while minor repairs are done. The WSWS spoke with one resident on Sunday who was moving back in because Icon had cancelled their booking at the hotel. Icon had told residents on January 10 that they would no longer pay for accommodation from 11am on Sunday. They later backed down and extended this to Wednesday. Other residents have also moved back. A night photo of the building posted on Saturday night showed five apartments on one of the three sides of the building with their lights on. There are 392 apartments in the building. In a Facebook comment on the Opal Tower Sydney Residents page one tenant wrote: Have moved back in and getting on with life. A 2012 survey of 1,500 residents in NSW revealed that 85 percent of buildings constructed since 2000 have defects of one kind or another, compared with 70 percent overall. The WSWS was told by a resident of a 14-storey tower near Opal Tower that their seven-year-old building had had a hot water pipe burst in the lift well, disabling the lift for several weeks and forcing residents to take the stairs. Under the current law, if major defects (which means the building is uninhabitable) arise within the first two years of occupation then the builder must rectify the problem at their own expense. The builder is also liable for minor defects up to six years. Despite these nominal protections, building companies are often asset-free shell entities that can declare bankruptcy in the case of any liability. Ian Bailey SC, a professor and prominent construction barrister, told the Australian last week: People who are buying anything above three storeys dont have any protection at all. Michael Lambert, a former secretary of the NSW Treasury who authored a 2015 report into the building industry, told the Sydney Morning Herald last week that the defects at Opal Tower are likely just the top of the iceberg. Lambert noted the government had ignored most of the 150 recommendations he had made, except those relating to fire safety. His report found that the incidence of building defects is significant and the incidence appears higher in NSW than elsewhere. Builders Collective of Australias national president Phillip Dwyer told Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) news on Friday that the actual regulation and compliance of the industry is nowhere near strong enough and that is the core issue of why we exist and why we are concerned. On January 9, the WSWS spoke to Yogi, 33, who works in construction and is one of the tenants of Opal Tower forced to stay in a hotel. He asked: If the building is sound why have we got propping from the basement right up to the top in multiple locations? When told that industry leaders had said they were not surprised about these problems in construction, Yogi said: If these experts, the deans and the professors, have got these concerns, what satisfaction does that give residents of living in these sorts of buildings. Human life versus costs and profits. Theres no other way to put it out there. Do we care about human life or do we care about the big fat profits that are going to these corporations? Im all for business and profits, but ethics are being thrown out the window. Despite the escalating crisis there have been no further comments in the public over the weekend from either the Liberal-National Coalition state government and the only action demanded by the Labor Party opposition was for the release of the government report. There is also no public comment at all so far from the building industry union, the CFMMEU, or from the Greens. The initial response of the government and the opposition was to scapegoat the certifiers and building surveyors to divert attention from the rest of the industry. In Victoria, Australias second most populous state, this scapegoating has been extended with the announcement last week that the Victorian Building Commission will investigate up to five sites where Icon has a building permit, including a $250 million development in Docklands. The Australian Financial Review reported on January 10 that leading valuation firm Preston Rowe Paterson had downgraded prices of apartments in Opal Tower by 16 percent and issued an alert to their bank clients. Class action lawyers are already offering their services to the owners and tenants of Opal Tower apartments. Maurice Blackburn lawyers has offered to lead a class action on a no win, no fee basis and have costs of $6.2 million deducted from any settlement. The Australian revealed on January 11 that the state-owned Sydney Olympic Park Authority may be sued because it is the owner of the land, whereas Ecove, the developer, and the builder Icon may have no directly liability. The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, had previously been calling on residents to take legal action. Master Builders NSWs Brian Seidler told SBS News: Theres billions and billions of dollars worth of construction happening in NSW and this is a most unfortunate and I think an extraordinary example of something going wrong. In fact, far from being extraordinary, the faults in Opal Tower appear to be just a severe example of routine problems in residential construction. While sections of business fight between themselves to avoid liability and pass the cost on to home owners and residents, the inability to provide safe and secure housing in an advanced economy raises the need for workers to develop their own perspective to protect their interests. The author also recommends: Opal Tower structural flaws expose rot in Australian construction industry [7 January 2019] Evacuated Opal Tower residents in Australia express anger and dismay [8 January 2019] Flammable cladding rife in Australian construction industry [27 June 2017] At least 70,000 workers from 45 factoriesincluding tens of thousands of auto parts and assembly workers at companies that supply GM, Ford and Fiat-Chryslerhave launched a wildcat strike in the US-Mexico border town of Matamoros. The strike is a rebellion against both the maquiladora manufacturing corporations and the pro-company trade unions. Over 1 million workers endure low wages and sweatshop conditions at the 3,000 maquiladora factories that line the Mexican side of the border and account for 65 percent of Mexican exports. The strike is a powerful sign of the growing mood of insurgency among workers across the world. It takes place alongside a strike of 30,000 public school teachers in Los Angeles, growing yellow vest demonstrations against inequality in France, and widespread anger among US and European autoworkers over massive planned job cuts by GM and Ford. The workers decided to strike on Saturday at a mass general assembly meeting where the 2,000 in attendance repudiated the hated Union of Laborers and Industrial Workers of the Maquiladora Industry (SJOIIM) and agreed to elect representatives from their factories to direct their struggle free from the control of the union. After the meeting, strikers visited each plant to call out their coworkers and hang red and black banners on closed plantsthe traditional Mexican symbol of a factory occupation. In defiance of orders by the union to stay on the job until Wednesday, groups of workers fanned out across the city to block the entrances to the shuttered plants and to stand guard both day and night. Workers have also set up common cafeterias and other amenities for strikers. Workers are demanding a 20 percent wage increase, a bonus of 30,000 pesos (USD$1,500) and a return to the 40-hour workweek. Workers initially demanded a 100 percent wage increase, but this was reduced by the union when SJOIIM President Juan Villafuerte agreed to officially sanction the strike. The SJOIIMs decision to give official backing is a maneuver by the union to control and suffocate the strike. Workers are already posting screenshots online of text messages from union representatives threatening them with mass firings if they do not return to work immediately. Breyssa, a striking Matamoros worker, told the World Socialist Web Site, The union leaders are getting rich off the workers. Every day they take five pesos from our salary, and if you do overtime, they take a percentage of the hours you log in. In December, they take a portion of our holiday pay. One of workers chief demands is a reduction in union dues. Among the social media graphics workers are circulating is one that reads, The workers of Matamoros will never go back to paying 4 percent union dues. You cant have a rich union and poor workers. Another image states, Urgent notice: We need a representative from each factory to report urgently. New leaders are urgently needed. General strike January 16. A third says, All SJOII workers are being summoned to attend a special assembly. The order of the day will be the removal of the present union leader and his workgroup for failing to help. The mass meeting is scheduled for Wednesday morning. The companies on strike include Inteva, STC, Polytech, Kemet, Tyco, Parker, AFX and Autoliv. Pro-industry publications fear the strike wave may spread to other border towns, including Tijuana, Mexicali and Ciudad Juarez. The strike takes place just across the border from Brownsville, Texas, where Donald Trump visited last week to denounce Mexicans and Central Americans as criminals and to demand the construction of a border wall amid the ongoing US government shutdown. Among the main goals of this wall is to physically divide the working class of Latin America from their natural class allies north of the border. The US and Canadian auto unions have echoed Trumps nationalist, anti-Mexican rants in an effort to direct workers attention away from the real enemies: the corporations and their union collaborators. In November, when General Motors announced it was slashing 15,000 jobs in the US and Canada, the United Auto Workers and Unifor blamed Mexican workers for stealing jobs. Ford has also announced thousands of job cuts in Europe and, with more cuts forthcoming amid an international restructuring of the auto industry, the unions and companies fear that workers will unite across national boundaries in a common fight. At a recent Unifor union rally in Windsor, Ontario, a woman stood near the speakers platform dressed in a sombrero and poncho to insult Mexican workers. These are the racist views of the wealthy union leaders, not of US and Canadian workers who are looking for a way to stop the job, wage and benefit cuts. Mexican maquiladora workers are not the enemies of US and Canadian workers. They are exploited by the same companies and are engaged in the same process of production. While the union bureaucrats in the US make upwards of $200,000 per year, Matamoros workers make on average 176 pesos (USD$9.20) per day. Matamoros maquiladora workers also confront an enemy in the new government of Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), whose National Regeneration Movement (Morena) controls the national legislature. Matamoros maquiladora workers are angry that they will not receive a raise as part of AMLOs new free economic zone, aimed at facilitating the exploitation of Mexican workers by US manufacturers in the border region. Though AMLOs plan includes a 100 percent hike to the minimum wage, Matamoros workers will be negatively affected because they already make slightly more than the minimum wage. The corporations are using the minimum wage hike as an excuse to slash bonuses and benefits for all workers. Matamoros new mayor, Mario Lopez, who is a member of Morena, said in a late 2018 interview on Central TV that because of the minimum wage increase, maquiladora workers wage demands are not financially viable for the maquiladoras. In the same interview, Lopez admitted that he was involved in a backroom chat with the unions and the bosses to eliminate workers bonuses from the new contract. I am intervening to make sure the parties reach a conciliatory plan, he said at the time. Workers across the world experience the same conditions. Breyssa, the Matamoros striker, described life at her parts plant: In my plant there is always machine oil on the floor, and it is terribly loud. We are not given safe footwear or ear plugs for the noise. We had to bring our own safety equipment. Shifts are more than 10 hours per day, Monday through Saturday. We are on our feet without anywhere to sit, and sometimes we were forced to work overtime. We get there at 5:30 a.m. and leave at 6 or 7 at night. We are not allowed to go to the bathroom more than five times during our shift, and then we can only take five minutes. We are not able to drink much water, although it is often very hot in our work areas. Breyssa spoke about the threat of reprisals by the auto parts companies after the strike was announced: Many companies are threatening workers with mass firings. In companies like Kemet, workers have been locked out. In another company called AFX, workers are being threatened with violence if they hang a banner indicating that they are on strike. At another plant called Autoliv, the police were called and were used to remove workers from the property. Workers want this information to get out, but they are afraid. There have been many years of injustices and poor treatment, and we are tired. The WSWS contacted AFX corporate headquarters in Port Huron, Michigan and asked whether the company was threatening workers with violence. A representative said, I have no comment on that. The movement by workers internationally against job cuts, wage cuts and concessions is gaining momentum. On February 9, at 2 p.m. autoworkers will demonstrate at GM headquarters in Detroit, Michigan to show that they do not accept the job cuts and concessions announced by the auto and parts companies and are prepared to link up across all North America in a united fight for social equality. The WSWS urges auto workers and other workers in Mexico to contact us with your story and information on the strike. In the wake of the one-two punch of articles in the New York Times and Washington Post suggesting that President Trump is an agent of the Russian governmentor to be precise, that the FBI suspected that he was a Russian agent and opened a counterintelligence investigation (as the Times reports), and that Trump is concealing his private dealings with Putin as president (as the Post claims)the American media has gone into a McCarthyite hysteria. In the depths of the anti-Communist witch-hunt of the 1950s, with which the name of Senator Joseph McCarthy is indelibly associated, the question, Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party, an agent of Moscow, etc., became almost stereotyped. It was leveled at actors, directors, screenwriters, left-wing political activists, even mid-level government officials, who were hauled before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee or McCarthys Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. When President Trump made a prearranged call in to Jeannine Pirro of Fox News during her Saturday night program, she asked him, in a joking tone, Are you now or have you ever worked for Russia, Mr. President? Pirro was clearly phrasing the question as a way to mock the media assault spearheaded by the Times, and Trump responded in kind, denouncing the question as the most insulting thing Ive ever been asked. The Times and its media chorus responded, however, as Senator McCarthy would have. Aha, they declared, Trump didnt answer the question directly. Hes hiding something! The newspapers web site noted the exchange with Pirro on Sunday, writing, Mr. Trump did not directly answer the question. This became the media mantra over the next 24 hours. The Associated Press: [T]he president avoided directly answering when Pirro asked whether he currently is or has ever worked for Russia. The Hill: President Trump late Saturday declined to directly answer a question from Fox News host Jeanine Pirro about whether he had ever worked for Russia, calling it insulting. The Washington Posts opinion editor, James Downie: Pirros question triggered a two-minute rant, none of which included the word no. Similarly questions were raised on the Sunday television interview programs, with CNNs Jake Tapper, host of State of the Union, playing a tape of the Pirro-Trump exchange and declaring, The president did not directly answer the question. The media commentary came full circle with a front page report by Peter Baker of the New York Times, published Monday, which began: So it has come to this: The president of the United States was asked over the weekend whether he is a Russian agent. And he refused to directly answer. Bakers news analysis, an editorial in all but name, declared that this questionin effect, whether Trump is guilty of treason, a capital offensehas hung over his presidency now for two years. The obviously concocted frenzy over the are you now or have you ever been question is only one aspect of the campaign by the media, the Democratic Party and sections of the military-intelligence apparatus, which the WSWS has characterized as neo-McCarthyite, for good reason. The anti-Trump coalition in ruling circles has brought together the neo-conservative warmongers who bear the main responsibility for the war in Iraq, the liberal imperialists who backed the war in Libya and the current US intervention in Syria, and direct representatives of the military-intelligence apparatus itself. This unholy alliance can be seen in three columns published over the weekend, in the wake of the Times and Post reports, all of them embracing the Trump is a Russian agent allegation. On Monday the Washington Post published an op-ed column by Max Boot, one of the most notorious advocates of the Iraq war, under the scare headline, Here are 18 reasons Trump could be a Russian asset. In both style and substance, Boot is echoing McCarthy, who would stand at a podium declaring (always falsely) that he was in possession of a list of 18, or 59, or 240 known communists in one or another organization or government department. Boot enumerates his claimed 18 reasons, mainly a rehash of the now well-publicized contacts between various Trump aides and Russian officials, as well as the Trump organizations efforts to gain access to the Russian market. But he includes in his list of reasons, the fact that Trump attacks and undermines the Justice Department and the FBI, that he is pulling U.S. troops out of Syria, handing that country to Russia and its ally Iran, and that Trump is sowing chaos in the government through the partial shutdown and by installing acting appointees at top positions in the Pentagon and Justice Department, thus furthering a Russian objective of undermining its chief adversary. In other words, virtually any action Trump takes in his conflict with the military-intelligence apparatus or the Democratic Party is cited as proof that he is a Russian stooge. In Politico.com, former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, the leading anti-Russia operative of the administration of President Bill Clinton, has a column headlined, Its Already Collusion. Talbott dismisses any need to prove, through actual evidence, that Trump is a Russian agent. Its staring us in the face, he argues, from the record of Trumps foreign policy. Talbott presents the Putin regime as the full-fledged revival of Stalinism, claiming that the Cold War is back with several new and ominous features, the main one being the alignment of the US president with the ruler in Moscow. Trump is integral to Putins strategy to strengthen authoritarian regimes and undermine democracies around the world, he writes, calling this policy an unprecedented aberration that if it is allowed to persistit will jeopardize our security. He concludes, Trump has been colluding with a hostile Russia throughout his presidency. Well see if it started before that. Finally there is the column posted on the CNN website by Asha Rangappa, senior lecturer at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and Yale University, and a former FBI agent who specialized in counterintelligence operations, working in New York City after the 9/11 attacks. She writes, As a former FBI agent who conducted investigations against foreign intelligence services, I know that the bureau would have had to possess strong evidence that Trump posed a national security threat to meet the threshold for opening such an investigation. But the more important question now is not how or why the case was opened, but whether it was ever closed. Rangappa notes that closing such an investigation happens in one of two ways, determining that there is no threat to national security (a false alarm), or by taking actions to neutralize the threat. The former FBI agent concedes that what she calls the normal methods of neutralizing an intelligence threatmonitoring, denial of access to information, feeding false information, seeking to recruit or bribe the agent, or expelling them from American soilcannot be carried out against the president of the United States. The former FBI agent argues that even if Muellers investigation has uncovered no criminal actions by President Trump, Mueller could still deliver material to Congress to demonstrate that the threat to national security is ongoing, allowing Congress to impeach Trump and remove him from office. She carefully avoids any suggestion of the use of forcecertainly among the most common methods used by the intelligence services to neutralize targetsperhaps to avoid a visit by the Secret Service. But the implication is nonetheless there. The resort to anti-democratic and conspiratorial methods by Trumps opponents within the US ruling elite demonstrates that they are not genuinely hostile to his right-wing, authoritarian policiesthe persecution of immigrants, the brazen racism, the militaristic blusterbut rather seek to substitute their own equally right-wing and equally authoritarian perspective, including massive censorship of the internet and stepped-up US military intervention in Syria, Ukraine and other areas along the borders of Russia. The author also recommends: The FBIs police state operation against Trump [14 January 2019] In a massive display of social opposition, more than 50,000 teachers, school personnel, parents and students marched in downtown Los Angeles Monday on the first day of the strike by educators in the nations second largest school district. The walkout by more than 33,000 educators, the first in the city since 1989, is part of the growing wave of working class struggles in the US and internationally against austerity and social inequality. Monday morning began with teachers and their supporters picketing over 900 public schools across the Los Angeles Unified Schools District (LAUSD), a vast area that spans an estimated 920 square miles. Despite the pouring rain, striking teachers were joined on the picket lines by an estimated 10,000 parents, students and other community supporters. After picketing in the morning, teachers and their supporters got on Metro trains and rode them to Grand Park station in downtown Los Angeles. Tens of thousands poured out of the station and gathered in the park and on the steps of city hall. They then marched in a mile-long throng to the LAUSD headquarters on Beaudry Avenue. In comments to the press Monday, LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner made the absurd claim that only 3,500 teachers had marched downtown and that substitutes brought in as strikebreakers had carried out a normal school day. Reports by the Los Angeles Times, however, cited near empty school auditoriums where a handful of students sat throughout the school day. The struggle in Los Angeles is a battle against the powerful financial and political interests that are pushing for the privatization of public education across the US. Beutner, a former investment banker, was appointed by school board officials whose elections were funded by the Eli Broad Foundation and other billionaire school privatizers. The strike has won overwhelming popular support, with messages of solidarity flowing in from teachers across California, the US and internationally. Like their counterparts in LA, school officials in Oakland claim they are facing insolvency due to health care and pension obligations and are pushing for the closure of one-third of the districts schools while expanding charters. Three thousand teachers, parents and students marched Saturday to oppose privatization and demand improved wages and school funding. Far from mobilizing this powerful support, the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) and its parent organizations, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), are blocking any broader mobilization of educators and other workers across the state. They are encouraging illusions that the Democratic Party establishment, which controls the city and state government, will circumvent Beutner and address teachers demands. Beutners campaign to expand for-profit charter schools and privatization, however, has the full backing of both corporate-controlled parties. This was underscored by the statements on the eve of the strike. President Obamas education secretary, Arne Duncan, weighed in to denounce the Los Angeles teachers demands as unreasonable. In a statement on the strike Monday, newly inaugurated Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who was backed by the UTLA and other unions, made it clear he had no sympathy for the teachers demands and echoed Beutners self-serving statements that the teachers were hurting students by striking. This impasse is disrupting the lives of too many kids and their families, Newsom said. I strongly urge all parties to go back to the negotiating table and find an immediate path forward that puts kids back into classrooms and provides parents certainty. In his budget proposal Newsom, whose political career was funded by the billionaire Getty, Pritzker and Fisher families, has proposed no increase in per pupil spending, despite the fact that the state is rated 43rd in the nation. Instead, he has said he would follow the fiscally prudent model of his Democratic predecessor, Jerry Brown, who made some of the deepest public education cuts in state history. The UTLA is urging teachers to put their faith in the $700 million Newsom says he will provide school districts over the next two years to pay down their obligations to the California State Teachers Retirement System, which could free up $140 million for the LAUSD to spend on teachers and classrooms. Even if this pittance were spent on the schools, and there is no reason to believe it would, it would not solve the immense problems confronting LA teachers. Teachers have not seen a real raise in a decade, despite impossibly high housing and other expenses. They face chronic shortages of staff and supplies and the relentless campaign to drain resources to fund charter schools. Nor would this address the catastrophic social problems confronting the districts 650,000 students, 80 percent of whom are low-income and poor. Well aware that teachers are determined to fight school privatization and worsening social inequality, UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl, in a morning press conference, railed against billionaire privatizers and called for a mass protest in front of the California Charter School Association on Tuesday. He said the attack on public education came from every level of government. At no point, however, did Caputo-Pearl point out that it was the Obama administration and successive Democratic state governments in California that are responsible for these attacks. Moreover, the UTLA has already dropped teachers demands to oppose the expansion of charter schools, ceaseless standardized testing and other school reform schemes, accepting the bogus argument that these issues cannot be bargained under state law. Caputo-Pearl reiterated that increased state funding and school privatization could not be resolved through the strike but only by appealing to the Democrats to pass common sense legislation to cap charter school expansion. Also at the morning press conference were NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia and AFT President Randi Weingarten, who shouted out patronizing and empty slogans about how proud they were of LA teachers for standing up. Both union officials promised to support LA teachers in the same way they had striking teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona last year. This should be taken as a warning. The NEA and the AFT, which are allied with the Democratic Party, did everything to sabotage those statewide walkouts before they could coalesce into a national strike against the austerity policies of both corporate-controlled parties. Weingarten (annual salary $514,000) and Garcia (annual salary $317,826) did not pledge any money to provide strike benefits to teachers. Although the AFT and the NEA collectively control billions of dollars in assets, plus pension investments worth trillions, their local affiliate, the UTLA, has told teachers to bite the bullet and, if necessary, to apply for loans backstopped by the unions strike fund. Although there is widespread support for teachers from every section of workers, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is instructing its members, including school bus drivers, custodians and cafeteria, to scab on the strike. The UTLA has also told its 1,000 members who are charter school teachers to continue to work. It is impossible for Los Angeles teachers to fight the powerful corporate and political forces arrayed against them on their own. To spread the strike throughout the state, teachers must take the conduct of the struggle out of the hands of the unions by forming rank-and-file strike committees to reach out to educators across California, nationally and internationally. Rank-and-file committees should outline their own demands, including a 30 percent wage increase and the reconversion of all charter schools into public schools, and oversee all negotiations. Teachers should appeal to support staff and charter school teachers to defy the unions and join the strike. They should also reach out to other sections of workerslocked-out federal workers, Amazon, UPS and other logistics workers, oil refinery workers, dock workers, telecom, tech and manufacturing workersto build up support for a general strike to fight austerity and social inequality. More than 33,000 school teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nations second largest, went on strike Monday. Reporters from the World Socialist Web Site spoke to many teachers at strike locations and at a mass march and rally in downtown Los Angeles attended by more than 50,000 teachers, parents, students and their supporters. Like their counterparts who struck in West Virginia and other states last year, teachers and their supporters wanted to talk about the broader political issues behind the attack on public education, including the complicity of the Democrats who control every level of government in Los Angeles and California, and the explosive growth of social inequality in America. Many supported the call by the WSWS Teacher Newsletter to broaden the fight into a statewide and national strike by teachers and all workers against austerity and social inequality. During morning picketing at Hamilton High School in West Los Angeles, Nancy, who has been teaching for five years, said, We dont have a full-time nurse in our school or enough counselors. The ratio is one for every 500 students. Our classes are too crowded and were working with different learning disabilities. We are fighting for more teachers in our classrooms because education is primary. Beutner and Eli Broad want to privatize and expand charter schools. We are so against them. We want to have public schools available for all students in Los Angeles. We should have a statewide strike because that would show that we are all together for the same cause. Pablo, who is also a teacher at Hamilton, denounced both corporate-backed parties for their attacks on public education. The Democrats and Republicans get their money from the same sources, so they are doing the same thing. There is $1.9 billion in surplus budget to help community schools and to get more counselors and psychologists, so the money is there. This inequality will continue to exist in America. They want a class that is not so educated so that we wont challenge the one and two percent that controls society. David, another veteran teacher, said, The Democrats are joining with the Republicans. They are bought off by powerful corporations and they dont stand with us like we thought they would. I hoped the new governor, Gavin Newsom, would stand strongly with us. I was surprised that he isnt raising funding. Hes probably going to be like so many other politicians, just bought off. Referring to the comments of Arne Duncan, President Obamas education secretary, who said the Los Angeles teachers demands were unreasonable, David said, Id like to see him walk in our shoes and work in our classrooms. But they just follow the corporate line because it benefits him. But were making a last stand, being the second largest school district in the country, we have to fight this fight. We got pushed into this fight. It would be great to expand this to the Oakland teachers and elsewhere because there is power in numbers. The money is consolidated in so few hands, it just goes to their greed glands. The same issues facing teachers are the same for all labor no matter what country were in. Wherever people are having to work for a living and are unfortunately living from paycheck to paycheck, they are exploited and being taken advantage of. We are just not listened to anymore and we havent been listened to for a long time. Maybe its getting to that point where we do all have to join forces to fight this. I think this country is great but its great because of the people who are working hard and trying to make a fair wage, and not those who are only trying to get rich. A foreign language teacher added, They treat us like they are doing us a favor to grant us pay raises. Thats a joke because people are fighting for the minimum requirement and to have a respectful environment to work in. Theyre not doing us a favor. This is the basics, and this strike should have been done years ago. The walkout should be nationwide. Teachers are not only underpaid, the fact that they are treating us like this is disgraceful. We have to do whatever it takes and not go back to the classrooms until they provide the right environment for me and my students. If we keep showing up to work without this its like saying, disrespect us more. Calvin, a junior at Hamilton High School, said, Im out here to support the teachers fight for whats right for us. I really want to get politically involved with their fight. I know that a lot of my classmates want to get politically involved as well. Classes at our school are just too large. Not only that, but they we dont have a lot of courses anymore since many of those have been cut. Im really interested in Physics, for example, but some of our Physics classes have been cut recently. When asked about the need for a statewide struggle, Calvin said, I think youre right. This is a powerful movement right now and Im hoping it will inspire other students and teachers to join. Aiyama, a junior at Hamilton High, said, I am here to support the teachers because there have been so many teachers at this school that have supported me. I am in the music academy program, so whether it be academically, or for my extracurricular activities, or whenever I have needed anything, they have been there for me. I feel it is my duty as a student to support them back. Some teachers live paycheck to paycheck to help us have a career. They should not have to live like that. As to why California, the richest state in the country cannot provide sufficient resources for education Aiyama pointed to her sign , which read, LAUSD SPENDS 60+ MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR ON SCHOOL POLICE! IS THIS COLLEGE OR PRISON PREP? She explained, "It is ridiculous that they spend more money insuring we have police on campus instead of nurses, librarians, and counselors." WSWS reporters also spoke to several students at the downtown demonstration and at surrounding area schools. Lamuel and Eduardo attend Belmont High School, located north of the Los Angeles city center. They are both seniors. They were at the rally to support the teachers along with Lamuels mother, who is a biology teacher at Belmont High School. One of the big issues in my school is the number of students in each class, said Lamuel. In my AP English Lit class there are more than fifty students. Other classes have between 45 and 50 students. My mother is a teacher. I can see the stress that all this creates. When we moved to Los Angeles from the Philippines five years ago, we lived with other teachers for a while. I have seen them grading papers at three oclock in the morning. With so many students, teachers cant focus on all the students. Lamuels friend Eduardo spoke about the conditions in Los Angeles schools. At the beginning of the school year there were no desks for all the students in our English lit class. They had to sit on the side. The building itself is old. Water fountains stop working and there is a lack of open restrooms. Teachers buy supplies on their own without ever getting reimbursed. They buy rulers, crayons, pencils, even paper and notebooks, for their classes. Conrad, a special education teacher at Hamilton, expressed disgust over the failed efforts by the district last week to place an injunction on special education teachers, thereby preventing them from participating in the strike. Theyre talking about raising caseloads for special education teachers. Thats just something that we cant cope with. We have a lot of difficulties existing with our current caseloads of students. This is not just because of the special circumstances of each student but also because in many cases these students come from impoverished situations. It makes it all the more difficult. Asked about what he thought about the teachers struggle in Oakland, Conrad said, I actually grew up in that area and have two friends who are Oakland teachers. Just last night we texted, and they wished me the best of luck. They told me were watching you very closely, the whole worlds watching you. Good luck. Some teachers in San Francisco said they want to come down and be with us. Were all very excited to be here but it is difficult being out of the classroom and not getting paid. Asked about why the UTLA is not using its strike fund to pay teachers, Conrad said, Well, I dont know the details of the unions finances, but it would seem to me that if you have 30,000 teachers and you havent been on strike for 30 years, there should be a lot of money in that fund. Also, at the downtown demonstration was Aida, a teacher at Normont Elementary for 11 years. She is a special needs resource teacher and said the difficulties her students and staff faced brought her out to the strike. "How do they expect us to care for such large class sizes? And on top of that they put students with vastly different educational needs and abilities together, Aida said. We are not given enough staff or resources to meet their needs." En route to the downtown march on the metro train system, Stacy, a veteran of the Los Angeles teachers last strike three decades ago told the WSWS, I was on the line in 1989 and have been teaching for 33 years. For us, our school has a charter school co-located on our campus. The charter school took away our art room, music room and computer lab, and now were cramming kids into small spaces, and its completely unfair. From overcrowding and unfair wages, and not doing right by our children, something has got to change. The changes over the last 30 years havent always been obvious but clearly the systemic issues havent gone away. Were still in the same fight as we were in 1989. The claim that there is no money for schools is ridiculous. Intel is currently looking for a new Chief Executive Officer. The company is eyeballing several different potentials, and an Apple executive may be on the list. According to a report this week from Axios, Apples current Senior Vice President of Hardware Technologies, Johny Srouji, is potentially high on the list of potential candidates for the executive role at Intel. At the time of the report, however, it is not known if the interest in the role is reciprocated by Srouji, who may or may not be interested in taking up the charge of Intels banner. Srouji did, however, work for Intel dating back to 1990 and until 2005, so its not like hes completely new to the company. As SVP of hardware technologies, Srouji has overseen the companys push into, among other things, designing more of its own silicon. While not an insider, Srouji does have quite a bit of experience with the chipmaker, having worked at its Israel facility from 1990 to 2005. For Apple, Srouji joined the company in 2008 and has been leading development of the A-series processors ever since, beginning with the A4. Now, Srouji oversees the development of a variety of hardware, including batteries, storage controllers, app processors, and chips being developed by Apple as a whole. So, nothing official yet. Intels prior chief executive, Brian Krzanich, left the company almost seven months ago, so the company is indeed taking its time filling the big chair at the head of the table. [via Axios In the midst of a tour by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, ostensibly aimed at reassuring Washingtons Middle East allies in the wake of President Donald Trumps announced decision to withdraw US troops from Syria, a series of US actions have escalated tensions, posing the threat of a far wider war in the region. Pompeo has used his trip to eight countriesseven monarchies and the police-state dictatorship of Gen. Sisi in Egyptto make clear, as he put it over the weekend, that the Syria withdrawal is merely a change in tactics, while US strategy for asserting imperialist domination over the Middle East remains unchanged. The fact that a couple thousand uniformed personnel in Syria will be withdrawing is a tactical change. It doesnt materially alter our capacity to perform military actions we need to perform, Pompeo told reporters traveling with him during a stop in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday. In an interview with CBSs Face the Nation, Pompeo insisted that the absence of US troops in Syria would halt neither the US attacks on ISIS nor its military pressure on Iran. Those are the real missions, he said. The tactical changes weve made and the withdrawal of those 2,000 troops is just thata tactical change. Mission remains the same. It is apparent that the strategic focus remains US imperialisms drive to curtail Iranian and Russian influence in the region, including by means of military force. The US government has developed plans for military strikes against Iran, according to media reports. Monday, The Wall Street Journal cited current and former US official who said that the National Security Council, headed by National Security Adviser John Bolton, had asked the Pentagon last fall for military options for attacking Iran. The pretext for the attack plans was an incident last September in Iraq in which a Shia militia had fired mortar rounds into an open lot near the US embassy, harming no one and inflicting zero damage. There is no evidence whatsoever that the shelling was carried out on instructions from Tehran. Nonetheless, Bolton led a series of meetings aimed at preparing plans for a military attack on Iran. People were shocked, a former senior administration official told the Journal. It was mind-boggling how cavalier they were about hitting Iran. Bolton has been a longtime and fervent advocate of regime change in Iran, writing a column for the New York Times in 2015 titled, To stop Irans bomb, bomb Iran, and becoming the most aggressive proponent within the US administration of Trumps decision to abrogate the Iran nuclear deal last May and impose a series of escalating economic sanctions that are tantamount to an act of war. Bolton has repeatedly indicated that US policy in Syria is still aimed at driving out Iranian advisers, who are present in the country at the invitation of the government in Damascus. This posture was echoed by Pompeo in his jingoistic speech in Cairo on Thursday, in which he vowed that the US would continue its intervention in Syria to expel every last Iranian boot from the country. Meanwhile, Axios reported on Monday that Trump had repeatedly asked then-Defense Secretary James Mattis and other aides why the US Navy could not simply blow up Iranian boats in the Persian Gulf. In response to Pompeos statement and the reports of US military threats, Irans Foreign Ministry issued a statement Monday insisting that, The US must learn lessons from the defeat of its numerous warmongering policies in the region over the past decades and know that the Islamic Republic of Iran does not value such US threats and will not be swayed by them. Even as it escalated its confrontation with Iran, Washington also heightened tensions with its ostensible NATO ally, Turkey. Trump tweeted on Sunday that the United States was starting the military pull-out he announced on December 19, while the Pentagon clarified that it had only begun withdrawing some equipmentno troopsand that their pullout would not be subject to an arbitrary timeline. Will attack again from existing nearby base if it [ISIS] reforms, Trump tweeted. Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20-mile safe zone ... Likewise, do not want the Kurds to provoke Turkey. Asked in Saudi Arabia what Trump meant by devastating Turkey, Secretary of State Pompeo replied, Youll have to ask the president. The semi-incoherence of the US presidents tweetnot to mention the threatened eruption of a wider waris driven in large measure by the centrifugal forces unleashed by the US regime change operation in Syria, which relied initially on Al Qaeda-linked militiasfunneling in billions of dollars worth of arms and money as well as Islamist foreign fighters that ultimately strengthened the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), allowing it to overrun much of Iraq. Having failed in the protracted and bloody campaign to oust the government of President Bashar al-Assad, Washington shifted to a military campaign to defeat ISISall under the Obama administrationutilizing the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia as its principal proxy ground force, backed by devastating US airstrikes. Turkey, which Trump had indicated will replace the US as the main anti-ISIS force in northeastern Syria, regards the YPG as a branch of the Turkish Kurdish PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), which Ankara defines as a terrorist group and has combatted militarily for decades. The right-wing government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees rolling back the YPG from its border as its first priority, and the campaign against ISIS as a distant second. US attempts to square the circle between its NATO ally Turkey and its Kurdish proxies in Syria have thus far proven unsuccessful. Bolton, on a mission to walk back Trumps announcement that US troops were going to quickly abandon Syria in 30 days, was snubbed in Ankara last week, relegated to meeting with a government spokesman and deputy ministers, after he demanded that Turkey lay off the Kurds. Trump and Erdogan held a telephone conversation on Monday in an apparent bid to smooth over the friction caused by the US presidents tweet. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump expressed the desire to work together to address Turkeys security concerns in northeast Syria while stressing the importance to the United States that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian Democratic Forces with whom we have fought to defeat ISIS. Turkish officials said that Erdogan had reiterated his support for the US withdrawal and that he had discussed with Trump the potential creation of a safe zone carved out of a 20-mile-wide swath of Syrian territory. The two also reportedly spoke of the situation in Manbij, a Syrian town on the western side of the Euphrates River that had previously been held by the YPG together with US advisers. Turkey has threatened to send its forces into Manbij and has continued to build up troops and armor on its border with Syria. Meanwhile, an Islamist militia backed by Turkey has said that its forces are prepared to attack the area. For its part, the YPG appealed to the Syrian government, which has sent troops into the area around Manbij as the Kurdish militia has withdrawn. The threat of the town turning into a flashpoint involving a clash between the major powers involved in the Syrian conflict remains acute. Trumps political opponents within the Democratic Party and the military-intelligence apparatus continue to attack the Syria withdrawal proposal from the right, accusing the administration of bowing to Moscow and Tehran. The New York Times published an editorial statement along these lines Saturday titled, John Boltons Wars, expressing sympathy for bomb Iran Bolton for his mission of trying to explain, or even undo, the presidents more impulsive and erratic foreign policy decisions. The piece praised Bolton and Pompeothe two leading advocates of an escalation of US militarism in the Middle Eastfor trying to at least mitigate the damage caused by some of Mr. Trumps surprise pronouncements. Under conditions in which the Trump White House may well be tempted to provoke a major military conflict with Iran or Russia in order to divert public attention from the crisis conditions created by the government shutdown, the multiple investigations surrounding so-called Russian meddling and collusion, and the growth of the class struggle in the US itself, the supposed Democratic opposition is only pressing for an escalation of American militarism. Fourteen workers employed by air-conditioning manufacturer Daikin at its production facilities in Rajasthan, India have been arrested in midnight raids on their homes and slapped with frame-up attempted murder charges. Moreover, police are threatening to arrest hundreds more on trumped-up charges arising from an unprovoked police attack on a workers rally outside a Daikin factory in Neemrana, Rajasthan on January 8, the first day of last weeks 48-hour all-India general strike. Police have listed a further 17 workers by name and 700 unnamed workers in a charge-sheet that accuses them of attempted murder, rioting and numerous other grave crimes. The persecution of the Daikin workers parallels the Indian states vendetta against workers at Maruti Suzukis Manesar car assembly, located some 75 kilometers from Neemrana. Thirteen Maruti Suzuki workers, including all the leaders of the militant Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU), have been imprisoned for life on concocted murder charges. Daikin workers have been targeted for similar treatment for daring to wage a five-year-long struggle to establish their own independent trade union. As with the Maruti Suzuki workers, the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM and the smaller Communist Party of India (CPI), both of which have large trade union federations, have refused to come to the aid of the long-struggling Daikin workers. Around midnight on Tuesday, January 8, police violently roused the 14 workers and their families from their sleep and, in front of their distraught families, dragged the men away. Earlier that day, police and company-hired goons had brutally attacked a rally of 2,000 Daikin workers, leaving at least 40 of them seriously injured. The only crime of the workers was to have tried to hoist the flag of their newly government-recognized Daikin Air Conditioners Mazdoor Union. Champa, the 23-year-old wife of the arrested Daikin worker Ajay Kumara, described their nightmarish experience to the Times of India: We were both asleep when policemen reeking of liquor barged into our home. They abused and threatened us, before dragging my husband outside without bothering to produce an arrest warrant. According to a witness who spoke to a fact-finding mission involving representatives from the Peoples Union of Civil Liberties, company human resources personnel accompanied the police. The fact-finding mission also notes that none of the 14 now under arrest were named in the police FIR (First Information Report). These two facts indicate that the workers have been targeted for arrest at the express bidding of the company, just as the Maruti Suzuki workers were, because management viewed them as troublemakers, or more rightly militants. The police assault on the Daikin workers has taken place under the Congress Party government that assumed power in Rajasthan last month after defeating the Hindu-supremacist and stridently anti-working class Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in state elections. Based in Japan, Daikin is the largest air conditioning manufacturer both in India and the world. Its two Indian plants are located in Neemrana, about 120 kilometers southwest of New Delhi, in an area known as the Japanese industrial zone. Numerous other Japanese industrial giants, including Nissan, Mitsubishi, Mitsui Chemicals and Toyota, operate production facilities there, subjecting workers to sweatshop conditions with the full support of the government, police and courts. Police used baton charges, tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons in their attack on the January 8 rally. Many of the injured workers had serious head injuries and bone fractures. Among those severely injured were the union president, Rukumudeen, and general-secretary, Daulat Ram. The 14 arrested workers were produced in front of a court on Thursday, January 10, and unsurprisingly, given the judiciarys hostility to worker rightspromptly sent back to prison. Seeking bail, the workers have appealed to a higher court. So incensed are their fellow workers, they continued to stay away from work last Thursday and Friday, after the all-India strike had ended, halting production at both Daikin plants. In keeping with the foul anti-Muslim atmosphere the ruling BJP national government has cultivated, the company management warned the workers against electing a Muslim as their union president, claiming it could lead to communal riots. This has to be taken as a warning that company management, with the complicity of the authorities, could unleash violent Hindu extremists against the Daikin workers in an attempt to suppress their years long agitation against brutal working conditions. The Daikin workers have been bravely and unrelentingly struggling since late 2013 to establish a union to defend themselves against a dictatorial company management. In October 2013, close to 900 Daikin workers went on strike for 41 days demanding the right to form their own union. They also demanded the reinstatement of 125 of their colleagues who had been illegally dismissed for union activities. Subsequently, the workers continued to mount militant actions, uniting permanent, contract and so called fixed-term workers. This ultimately prompted an intervention by the then-BJP state government in 2016 to sponsor reconciliation talks. A tripartite agreement between the workers, the labor department, and company management was signed in Oct. 2016. It included a company promise to reinstate all of the victimized workers and to cease its campaign of harassment. Needless to say, the company did not live up to any of this, but instead indulged in further victimizations, charging various workers with misconduct. In 2017, Daikin fired a supervisor for refusing to write up a manufactured misconduct charge against a union leader, Yaadram. Although the workers were finally able to establish and formally register their own trade union in Sept. 2018, the company has adamantly refused to recognize, let alone negotiate with, it. Under the former BJP Chief Minister Vasundara Raje, Rajasthan spearheaded the push to dismantle national labour laws, enacting state legislation that allows companies in the so-called formal sector to more easily lay off workers and shut down plants. The BJP claimed bringing flexibility to the labour market would create jobs. The new Congress Party state government, as it has already shown with the assault on the Daikin workers, will be just as ruthless in enforcing the diktats of big business. It was a Congress Party government in the neighbouring state of Haryana that conspired with Maruti Suzuki to purge the entire 2400-strong workforce at the Manesar assembly plant and to initiate the frame-up of the entire leadership of the MSWU. The French government has been rocked by the movement of the yellow vests. Now French President Emmanuel Macron and the pseudo-left parties linked to the unions are calling for the unions to seize control of this movement. They aim to create conditions for the union bureaucracies to strangle the movement and block the growth of the workers struggles. The unions are totally subservient to Macron. Confirmation of this fact is provided by the recent report of AGFPA (Agence de Gestion du Fonds Paritaire National, Agency of Management of National Social Partnership Funds, AGFPAan agency established in 2015 to ensure transparency in the sources of funding for unions and business associations). The 2017 AGFPA report shows that the unions in France receive massive funding from both the state and employers. The yellow vest movement erupted onto the political arena independently of both the unions and the pseudo-left parties such as the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA), Workers Struggle (LO), and Unsubmissive France (LFI). This signified a break between the workers and the organizations which have strangled their opposition to the austerity and war policies imposed by successive governments leading up to the current Macron government. The pseudo-lefts are now spreading the lying claims via the media that the unions lead the workers movement. They are only sowing confusion. The unions are not the workers movement but hired agents of capital, which sabotage the struggles of the working class at every turn. The union leaders have repeatedly denounced the yellow vests. Cynically claiming to represent the working class, they have claimed that the yellow vest mobilization was one of the people, separated from the working class. The real reason for the hostility of the union officials is precisely the opposite: the yellow vest movement is a movement of the working class opposed to the domination of the state and the banks which exploit the workers but finance the unions. The following table, from the 2017 AGFPA report, reveals how funds overseen by the AGFPA were distributed among unions and employers organizations: The report emphasizes that in 2017 unions received 83,292,277 (US$95,786,120) from both the government and employers contributions. The allocation of funds by AGFPA is made in accordance with three goals defined in its mission statement: Mission 1: The formulation, administration, activation and evaluation of policies promoted within the framework of official institutions, where unions and employers are represented on an ostensibly equal basis. Mission 2: The participation of unions and of professional employer associations in the conception, implementation and follow-up of public policies related to the authority of the government, through negotiation, consultation and collaboration. Mission 3: The economic, social and trade-union training of those wage earners who are called upon to exercise official union functions, or of any union members in the workforce who find themselves in a situation of intervening on behalf of their fellow wage earners. These figures expose the class nature of the unions. They are totally bought, bribed by the state and the employers, to the tune of tens of millions of eurosa down payment for their collaboration in imposing regressive social policies and attacks on past gains of the working class. The unions approved the Socialist Partys (PS) Labour Law in 2016 and the Macron governments rail privatization in 2018, all the while ensuring that resistance in the working class to these policies did not transform itself into a political movement against Macron. The creation of the AGFPA occurred after the slush fund scandal of the powerful employers federation of the metallurgical industries (UIMM). During several decades, the UIMM had been misappropriating funds by secretly removing cash boxes, amounting to tens of millions of euros in cash, in order to finance the unions. During the UIMM trial, Arnald Leenhardt, who headed this federation from 1985 to 1999, explained that the UIMM had paid these sums to the five representative unions in the industry. The employers need strong unions. When there are strikes and the imprisonment of employers by angry workers, you are very happy to have a union capable of containing these outbursts, and channelling them back into a favourable perspective for returning to work. This mechanism through which the state pours tens of millions of euros into the unions coffers is only one of many money conduits utilised by the bourgeoisie to buy the services of the petty-bourgeois layers that run the union bureaucracies. According to the Perruchot report, accepted by the National Assembly in 2011 and published with the agreement of the Stalinist CGT (General Confederation of Labour) union in 2012, only a minute portion of the unions budget comes from workers dues. The rest comes from grants and monetary assistance provided by the state and the employers. To quote p. 165 of this report: As can be seen, almost 4 billion (US$4.5 billion) is probably allocated each year to the activity of the unions in France. The majority of these funds (90 percent) appears to come from the official status of the unions in companies and in the public service. Direct contributions from union members probably only make up 3 to 4 percent of the total, once other forms of government aid are deducted. The transformation of the unions from defensive organizations of the working class in the 1960s to instruments of the bourgeoisie financed by the state today is not the result of individual corruption specific to France. It is an international process, driven by the objective contradictions inherent to the unions themselves. The fundamental aim of all unions was to negotiate the wages of the working class with employers within the framework of the nation-state. The globalization of production has undermined this entire perspective and has therefore transformed the role that the unions can play today. Faced with a globalized economy, where internationally organized companies force workers in different countries to compete with each other, the unions reacted by attacking the wages and conditions of their workers to boost the competitiveness of the national economy. They strangled and allowed the employers to crush one strike after anotherthe public service workers in Sri Lanka in 1980, US air traffic controllers in 1981, the British miners in 1985, to name some earlier examplesin order to defend the profit interests of the employers. Since then, the International Committee of the Fourth International has emphasized, as the Parti de legalite socialiste wrote in its founding statement, that the emergence of globalization made it impossible to pursue economic policy or bargain for wages and conditions on a national level. The ex-colonial bourgeoisies national development strategies, the union bureaucracies nationally based bargaining, and Stalinisms autarkic orientation, had all been rendered obsolete. Instead, they all functioned ever-more nakedly as labour contractors, competing to slash workers pay and conditions in order to offer the greatest profit to international finance capital. In France, the UIMM launched its current slush fund in 1972. At this time, the bourgeoisie was organizing its counteroffensive against the rise of militancy in the working class after the May 1968 general strike. Having betrayed the general strike, the unions started their metamorphosis from defence organizations of the working class into agencies of bourgeois reaction. Their integration into co-management bodies and indeed into ministries in Francois Mitterrands Socialist Party (PS) government coincided with the collapse of their membership. The unions became empty shells that do not organize the class struggle at all, but collaborate in a social dialogue aimed at destroying the social rights of the workers. This graph shows how the unions have drastically slashed the level of strike activity in France since 1968: As a result, workers abandoned the unions en masse. The graph below shows the collapse in the rate of union membership in France: This highlights the necessity for the working class to create new organs of struggle to replace the moribund unions, and to turn to their international class brothers and sisters. The yellow vest movement has unmasked the mutual hostility that exists between the working class and the reactionary union bureaucracies. Throughout the struggles of the yellow vests in France, the teachers in the United States and tea plantation workers in Sri Lanka, the sections of the ICFI have called for the formation of rank-and-file committees of workers, independent of the trade unions. There is an alternative to the national programme of social dialogue and class collaboration of the union bureaucracy and the employers. It is the formation of international networks of rank-and-file committees. The decisive role of the sections of the ICFI in this process will be to clarify for the working class its historic task: the only way for the working class to satisfy its pressing social needs is through the transfer of political power to new organizations built by the international working class. Thus, the working class can re-establish in struggle the continuity with its historic traditions of struggle for socialism against capitalism. Thursdays announcement by Ford Motor Company that it will shutter plants and lay off thousands of autoworkers across Europe is the latest stage in a global offensive by the auto companies against the jobs, wages and conditions of the working class. Ford European President Steven Armstrong told the Financial Times on Thursday that the layoffs, part of an international $14 billion cost-cutting plan, would affect a significant portion of Fords 53,000 employees in 19 plants on the continent. He added that although Ford currently plans to maintain operations in Europe, everything is possible if we cant get the reset done. Thus threats of further cuts that are to be invoked to blackmail workers for more concessions in 2019. Tens of thousands of workers and their families who have given years of their lives are to be thrown on the scrap heap in what Fords January 10 press statement calls a reduction of surplus labor across all functions. This is to include the August 2019 closure of the Ford Aquitaine Industries plant in Blanquefort, the only Ford assembly plant in France, destroying 900 jobs and another 3,000 indirectly, and large job cuts at the Saarlouis Assembly Plant in Germany, where production of the C-Max model is to be discontinued. At least 370 workers are to be laid off at the Bridgend Assembly plant in south Wales, according to the BBC, with further layoffs expected from among the more than 13,000 Ford employees in Britain. Russian media report that the fate of Ford factories in the country is sealed, with anticipated closures of plants at Vsevolozhsk near St. Petersburg (2,700 workers) and Naberezhyne Chelny (1,000 workers). The working class cannot accept the right of the corporations to shut plants down, decimate entire communities and destroy the lives of tens of thousands of workers! Fords illegitimate actions are motivated by the single-minded desire to funnel ever greater sums of wealth into the pockets of its billionaire shareholders and financial speculators. Last year Ford paid out $2.3 billion in dividends alone, equivalent to $43,000 for every European autoworker. A struggle must be organized by workers against all closures, layoffs and concessions, through the formation of rank-and-file workplace committees at plants across Europe, to establish lines of communication with workers at plants internationally and organize a united counteroffensive. No faith can be placed in the trade unions, who will oppose nothing. Whether it be the CGT in France, the Unite union in the UK, IG Metall in Germany, or elsewhere, they all work as arms of management against workers. The single honest statement in Fords January 10 press release is its labeling of these organizations as its trade union partners, with whom it will work in pursuing its comprehensive transformation strategy. The Unite union in the UK has already made clear it will encourage voluntary redundancies in order to assist Ford and demobilize workers opposition. Officer Des Quinn declared that the challenge for government, the carmakers and the unions is to maintain the environment for the success of British manufacturingmeaning nothing more than workers in the UK accepting lower wages and more exploitative conditions. As for IG Metall, its attitude was expressed most bluntly by the Ford Joint Works Council leader Martin Hennig last August, when he boasted that Ford is going well and we make good money with them, before adding that we have to take costs into account. That must be the most important task of management. Hennig complained about the number of workers over 50. At such an age, he said, workers already have ailments. The unions across Europe have called no strikes, because they are working to push the cuts through at Ford and the entire industry. Last November, General Motors announced the closure of five plants in Canada and the US, and another two as yet unidentified plants outside North America. In Europe, as Ford announced mass layoffs, Jaguar Land Rover confirmed 4,500 jobs cuts over the next year. French carmaker PSA is now closing plants across Europe, destroying more than 3,700 full-time positions at its subsidiary Opel in Germany and hundreds at Vauxhall in the UK. In Germany, Volkswagen plans to slash 7,000 jobs at Hannover and Emden. As they help plan this onslaught, the unions aim to divide autoworkers in different countries and at different companies from each other. They pit workers against one another in a global race to the bottom, pushing workers to accept lower wages and conditions in every country in order to remain internationally competitive. The way forward for workers is to break free of the organizational stranglehold of the unions and wage an independent, international struggle. Workers need new organizationsrank-and-file workplace committees, democratically controlled by the workersto unify and mobilize the workers internationally in defense of the social right to a job. Such a fight by autoworkers would win immense support in the working class amid growing opposition among workers to social inequality, militarism and austerity and the big business policies of capitalist governments internationally. The year 2018 witnessed an initial eruption of working class struggle internationally, including mass teachers strikes in the United States, and closed with the ongoing Yellow Vest demonstrations in France, which are animated by deep anger over social inequality and the pro-business policies of the Macron government. Last Tuesday, GM workers in Oshawa, Canada, downed tools in a wildcat sit-down strikeinitiated independently of the Unifor unionafter GM confirmed the planned closure of the plant at the end of 2019. On December 9, autoworkers from all three US carmakers and other workers and young people attended a meeting in Detroit, Michigan, organized by the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter and the Socialist Equality Party and voted unanimously to establish independent rank-and-file committees to organize a fight against General Motors planned layoffs. The critical task confronting workers is to develop an independent political struggle, in opposition to all the parties and organizations that defend capitalism. The ruling classes in every country today offer the populations a future of austerity, trade wars and great power military conflicts, growing social inequality, and a turn towards police-state repression and dictatorship to suppress popular opposition. The answer is the taking of power by the working class as part of the fight for the United Socialist States of Europe, and the reorganization of economic life by the working class to meet social need, not private profit. This will include turning the giant automotive corporations into public utilities under the democratic control of the workers. The European sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International are intervening in the European elections to fight for this perspective. The Socialist Equality Parties and the World Socialist Web Site will give every assistance to workers who wish to organize a fight against the auto layoffs and link up with their counterparts internationally, and we urge workers to contact us today. Tonight will see Britains parliament finally vote on Prime Minister Theresa Mays proposed deal with Brussels on Britains exit from the European Union (EU). May is almost certain to be defeated, largely as a result of opposition in the Conservative Party and the Democratic Unionist Party to backstop arrangements to prevent the return of a hard-border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state. However, whatever follows, British workers will still confront escalating attacks on their jobs, wages and essential services. Todays meaningful vote, as far as the pro-Brexit faction of the Tories is concerned, must not be allowed to cut across their efforts to free themselves from the restraints associated with EU membership to securing independent trade deals with the US, China, India, etc., taking advantage of Britains role as a centre for global speculative finance and deepening its transformation into a cheap labour investment platform modelled on Singapore. All claims by the advocates of Remainin the Conservative Party, the Blairite wing of the Labour Party and the smaller opposition partiesto represent a progressive alternative are false. They are belied by their own history of defending big business and imposing cuts, and their embrace of the EU, even as it continued to impose austerity on workers throughout the continent on behalf of the major corporations, banks and its constituent governments. What is being fought out in Westminster is a conflict over which is the best means of advancing the interests of British imperialism under conditions of a ferocious trade war for control of global markets: within the European trade bloc, or as a junior partner of the UShopefully without losing access to the Single European Market that accounts for 40 percent of UK exports. Such has been the exposure of the reactionary nationalist agenda of Brexit and its impact that most polls show a shift of public support back towards Remain. But whichever side wins today, the struggle to be globally competitive, especially under the threat of a second economic crash to rival that of 2008, means a deepening offensive against working people. Believing the claims that EU membership is a means of opposing the xenophobia and right-wing reaction that characterises Brexit demands only a wilful blindness to the EUs long record of crimes against refugees and to the growth of far-right movements such as the Alternative for Germany, Frances National Rally, and their taking a governmental role in Italy, Austria, Hungary and elsewhere. The advocates of Remain have no such illusions themselves. Their sole concern, whether the Blairites or pseudo-left groups such as Socialist Resistance and Left Unity operating under the umbrella Another Europe is Possible, is with securing the place of British imperialism within the EU on which the privileged lifestyles of their upper-middle class constituency is based. They are even arguing against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyns pro-forma attempts to prioritise a no confidence motion in the government and the demand for a general election over supporting a second referendum to reverse Brexit. A general election will not resolve Brexit, write the Pabloites of Socialist Resistance. A general election is unlikely The key to the situation remains the issue that Jeremy Corbyn continues to ignore the issue of a second referendum. Left Unity adds cynically that it agrees with the socialist critiques of the EU but believes the possibility of international worker unity together with the democracy of the European Parliament provide the basis of seeing the EU as a terrain of struggle. [Emphasis added] The pseudo-left advocates of left leave in 2016 now all claim that a Corbyn-led Labour government is the only answer to continued austerity, even if this means retreating from their past support for a workers Brexit. The Socialist Party writes, The peoples vote that is urgently needed is a general electionso the Tories can be ousted and a Corbyn government brought in. After this, Exactly what deal Corbyns future negotiators could extract from the EU leaders cant be predicted in advance This a priori endorsement of whatever manoeuvres Corbyn will conduct with the EU, should he come to office, is proof that the pseudo-left groups, pro-or-anti-Brexit, are all appendages of rival factions of the Labour and trade union bureaucracy and of Britains ruling elite. Corbyn is not genuinely animated politically by his occasional use of anti-austerity rhetoric, but by a desire to protect British capitalism and save it from a deepening economic and social crisis by breaking the deadlock in Brexit. He frames his call for a general election and promise to table a no confidence motion in the government soon alongside a pledge to extend Article 50 to delay Brexit and conduct new negotiations with the EU. His aim would be to secure, At the very minimum, a customs arrangement with the European Union and if we can, to stop the danger of a no-deal exit from the EU on 29 March which would be catastrophic for industry, catastrophic for trade. Opposed to any struggle against big business, he has stressed, What Im saying is were campaigning for a country that is brought together by investment What were saying to the EU is: this is the political situation in Britain, where we have a country thats divided on this issue. We want to bring them together. A trade relationship helps to bring people together. Corbyn and his allies have already accepted that, should his no-confidence motion fall, he will then assume a statesmanlike role in ensuring a second referendumprioritising restoring EU membership over any defence of the working class against the attacks of the Tories and the employers. The Blairites are either demanding Corbyn gets his no-confidence motion out of the way or accept that Labour must be committed immediately to Remain. But Corbyn will inevitably fall into line, as he has so often before. His Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry was only the latest to confirm Corbyns trajectory of travel. The prime minister must call an election, she told parliament. But if she refuses, if Labours no confidence motion fails, and if we have to move to other options, including campaigning for a public vote, we will take no lectures from her about respecting our countrys democracy. The key to opposing austerity is not to place hopes in a general election and a Labour government, whether inside or outside the EU. It demands a unified struggle against the British, European and international capitalist class by the British, European and international working class. In every country, though largely unreported by the media and deliberately ignored by Corbyn, strikes and anti-austerity protests are breaking outalways in a rebellion against the stranglehold imposed by the labour and trade union bureaucracy. This initial upsurge will inevitably escalate as the crisis of the profit system deepens. Against the political apologists for Corbyn and Labour, the Socialist Equality Party urges workers to take up the strategy of international class struggle and socialism under its leadership. The second week of Brazils new government led by President Jair Bolsonaro, the fascistic former Army captain, has seen frenzied preparations to send a so-called pensions reform to the next session, which is to begin in February. The reactionary measure is unanimously seen by national and international investors as the single most pressing task in the sharp turn to the right taken by the Brazilian political system. In an attempt to illustrate the centrality of the so-called reform for the Brazilian and international bourgeoisie, pundit Maria Cristina Fernandes titled her Valor financial daily column of January 10, [Economy Minister Paulo] Guedess expenditures limit meets Trumps wall, arguing that, just as Trump, Guedes sees a government shutdown as an alternative. The Brazilian government shutdown would be automatically triggered by the so-called expenditures limit, a constitutional amendment voted by Congress in 2016, to stop the government spending more than allotted in the budget. In his first speech, Guedes signaled his willingness to use the threat of a shutdown to compel Congress to approve the pension reform. The reform has been a major objective within Brazilian ruling circles for at least four years, and has been articulated since the former Workers Party (PT) government of Dilma Rousseff, which was ousted in the 2016 impeachment. It has been repeatedly delayed by the government of her successor and former vice-president, Michel Temer, as it was itself rocked by corruption charges and appeared to be in danger of falling during the whole of 2017. Later, with the approach of the 2018 general elections, the fear of electoral defeats for the congressmen who voted in its favor pushed it off the agenda once again. Significantly, whatever popularity the fascistic Bolsonaro had gathered during his years as a member of the congressional coalition led by the Workers Party was due largely to his demagogic denunciations of the reform, for which he was fiercely criticized from the right by the bourgeois press and the Workers Party itself. Before its downfall, the PT claimed that the Brazilian economic crisis which sealed the fate of its government had been artificially caused by the refusal of right-wing parties in Congress, including Bolsonaros former Progressive Party and Michel Temers Brazilian Democratic Movement party, to vote for its austerity measures. The few months since Bolsonaros election, however, have seen an intensifying effort in favor of the reform, culminating in the declarations of Guedes. The central tenet of the reform is an increase of the minimum retirement age to 65, barely years shy of the life expectancy for the poorest Brazilian states and much higher than the 55 years of life for the average citizen born into the slums of South Americas richest city, Sao Paulo. Other proposed measures are the establishment of an individual capitalization scheme in which investment funds will be allowed to operate, the reduction of the minimum retirement benefit to 70 percent of the minimum wage (today, the minimum wage is the minimum benefit, paid to poor workers who were unable to pay pension taxes during their working lives), and the exclusion of sick leave periods from the 30-year contribution period necessary to claim retirement. The social impact of the widely hated reform will be nothing less than devastating. It is estimated that no fewer than 5 million families, composed of 17 million people, have the pensions of their eldest members as the major source of income, representing more than 75 percent of the household earnings. Valor estimated in 2017 that in 10 percent of Brazilian municipalities, pensions represent 25 percent or more of the GDP. In 82 percent of municipalities4,500 of thempensions add up to a higher value than all the federal, state and local taxes collected. The governments preparations for such a destructive measure are a string of measures to increase its repressive powers to confront the inevitable social explosions. In his first measure as president, the signing of the provisional measure nominating his cabinet, Bolsonaro entrusted his secretary, retired Gen. Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz, with the responsibility of overseeing, monitoring, coordinating and following the activities and actions of international organizations and NGOs in national territory. This deliberately limited but draconian language was immediately highlighted by NGOs and environmental organizations as reminiscent of the 1964-1985 dictatorship-era surveillance, then, as today, justified with right-wing nationalist language about protecting economic interests, particularly in the mineral-rich Amazon region. Even more sweeping measures are being presented under a pretext of fighting crime. Justice Minister Sergio Moro, the right-wing former district court judge responsible for the most prominent sentences in the Lava-Jato (Carwash) corruption probe that engulfed the whole political spectrum over the last four years, will reportedly present to Congress a law lengthening the period for provisional detention. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro himself has seized upon a series of attacks by organized crime gangs on retail and public infrastructure in the northeastern state of Ceara to announce his intention of extending Brazils draconian anti-terror law, introduced by the PT in 2016. The extension would cover the destruction of public or private property, a measure that will inevitably open the way for framing as terrorists those participating in anti-government demonstrations and, most immediately, Brazilians involved in the myriad of squatter movements The latter consists of tens of thousands of members, occupying what they claim fits the Brazilian Constitutions definition of unproductive property that should be targeted for expropriation by the state. Every one of these measures and announcements has been answered by the PT opposition and all the self-proclaimed nationalists with deepening prostration and an attempt to minimize the seriousness of the governments actions. If anything, the PT and its mouthpieces, CartaCapital and Brasil247, have deepened their search for a common ground with elements of the Bolsonaro cabinet, in expectation that the conflicts ravaging Bolsonaros team since the campaign may benefit the PTs next electoral efforts. The partys prostration had been clear from the immediate aftermath of the election, when with utter cowardice, PTs presidential candidate, Fernando Haddad, told a New York audience at the Peoples Forum promoted by Bernie Sanders and Yanis Varoufakis that we cannot cheer for mistakes of the government in order to increase our electoral chances, and that we will have four years of growth with Bolsonaro. The partys cynical posturing over the pension reform, first proposed by the PT, and the new presidents extreme-right Christian bigotrywhich the PT ignored when it was in alliance with these same tendencies in Congresshas been joined with a promotion of the many responsible military elements in the cabinet and an adoption of the right-wing language of the bourgeois press, criticizing Bolsonaros incompetence. The PTs efforts are fully directed to singling out the military hardliners as the adults in the room and tutors of Bolsonaro, whom they believe will oppose privatizations and a Trump-style, far-right anti-globalist foreign policy on the basis that they would harm Brazilian business interests, especially with China and Europe. On January 12, Brasil247 reacted to the formation of a Ministerial Council on Foreign Relations with a celebratory headline: Military start to isolate the insane Chancellorreferring to the far-right diplomat nominated by Bolsonaro as his foreign minister, Ernesto Araujo. The report continued in a laudatory tone: members of the military dissatisfied with the precarious ideas and agenda of Araujo have formulated the usual remedy against the incompetents: they will form a council for his area, virtually stripping him of his his powers. This followed yet another pro-military article by PTs former foreign minister, Celso Amorim, in CartaCapital on January 11, titled Will the military be the ones to save our foreign policy?, in which he pitched the military wing against the government, eulogizing the former junta: How to conciliate the nationalism ardently defended at least since [former junta head, Ernesto Geisel] with such a bowing to US interests?referring to Bolsonaros foreign policy. He concludes: we have to recognize that the most rational elements on international matters are precisely the military. So be it. That this pitch towards the military will extend well beyond the foreign policy realm is made clear by a myriad of articles and columns by self-styled nationalist pundits who since the PT first came to power have become its foremost propagandists. In a January 9 column in Folha de S. Paulo, economist Bresser-Pereira, a fixture of pro-PT events, wrote, we cant have governments that are at the same time neoliberal and right-wing populist, before predicting that the neoliberals wouldnt hold on to the government because their model is in crisis, as we see from the UK and Italy and calling for an alliance with center-right populists. The purported opposition of the military, on pragmatic, business grounds, to the evangelical Christian bigotry of Araujo and other cabinet memberswhich pundits worry will hurt investments and trade with the European Unionis a further justification for an appeal to the governments military wing. Pundit Luis Nassif wrote that Brazil already has a military government and the time is to leave this behind and fight against obscurantism. The true content of leaving this behind may be clarified by a December article stating that by the logic of the military, we shouldnt expect the fundamentalists to survive for long. The January 8 article by the PTs president, Gleisi Hoffmann, on Brasil247 ultimately exposes the depth of such discussions within the party. Condescendingly called We need to talk about national sovereignty and the military, it offers the military an amnesty for their opposition to the PT. She delivers a direct appeal, writing that the military taking part in Bolsonaros government will respond to their conscience about their methods and choices in the conspiracy to bring down the Workers Party. She concludes: But they will not be judged by future generations only on the basis of their moral or political choices, but mainly based on their commitment to national sovereignty. This all follows the Brasil247 November 29 posting of the results of an infamous poll claiming that 90 percent of its readership believed that the military group that surrounds Bolsonaro should intervene to stop him from subordinating Brazil to the foreign policy of Washington. At every point, such an appeal is based on a treacherous minimization of and cynical light-mindedness toward the depth of the crisis engulfing Brazilian ruling circles. Reacting to the latest cover of Brazils main right-wing weekly Veja magazine, comparing Bolsonaros government to the short-lived presidency of the populist Janio Quadros, in 1961, Brasil247 states: The most foolish inaugural week of a government in history made the traditional press see the obvious: Bolsonaros expiration date is that of a fake news item. Veja produced a cover highlighting how disposable this president is. It lauded Veja for pointing out that Bolsonaro has a political agenda that is confused, erratic and destitute of historical and political meaning. The first two weeks of Bolsonaros government expose not only the grave dangers confronting the Brazilian and Latin American working class, but also the utter hostility of the official left to seriously countering them. The PTs positions are class-based: Its constituency is not the working class, but the bourgeoisie and upper middle class layers worried about their investments, commercial agreements, stock prices and identity-based struggles for positions at the highest echelons of business. A regional German court in the city of Mannheim has dismissed a patent lawsuit filed by Qualcomm against Apple. The court claimed the suit was groundless and that Apple did not violate any of Qualcomms patents by the installation of its chips in Apples smartphones. Qualcomm says that it disagrees with the decision of the Mannheims court and that it will appeal against the decision. Apple has a history of infringing our patents, said Don Rosenberg, Qualcomms executive vice president and general counsel. While we disagree with the Mannheim courts decision and will appeal, we will continue to enforce our (intellectual property) rights against Apple worldwide. Qualcomm had previously been handed over a win in a separate patent case against Apple by the Munich court. The preliminary junction from the court forced Apple to stop the import and sales of the iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus in Germany across its 15 retail outlets. These models, however, continue to remain on sale through third-party resellers and carriers in the country. The Cupertino company has already appealed against the decision in a higher court. To enforce the sales ban, Qualcomm has even put aside 1.34 billion in security bonds in case the decision is overturned. The bond amount will be used to make up for the sales loss suffered by Apple due to the preliminary injunction. The legal battle between Qualcomm and Apple has only grown worse with time. Qualcomm did manage to secure a sales ban on specific iPhone models in China and Germany but despite that, Apple shows no signs of backing down in the fight. [Via Reuters Multimedia Producer Kara is an Emmy Award-winning digital producer. She is a Cincinnati native and an alumna of the University of South Carolina. She previously worked at WRDW-TV in Augusta, Ga., before moving to Nashville five years ago to work at WSMV-TV. Few people in northcentral Wisconsin can forget the Rothschild shooting in March of 2017, when Everest Metro Detective Jason Weiland and three other victims lost their lives. Honoring his memory is the focus of the "K-9 for Cops" donation program launched Monday by Crossroads K-9 Rescue, which will provide police departments in Wisconsin with a complete K-9 outfit: a fully-trained dog, car, equipment and resources. The program will honor Det. Weilands sacrifice in a way only a police dog can. More than that, the first dog will share both Jasons name and his badge number: 1274. When you spoke to Jason, it was always about, Lets do something, Lets get these drugs off the street, Lets help somebody, said K-9 for Cops program trainer Sean Dumais. And I think a dog really personifies that. A dogs always excited to go to work; always excited to do its job. The Rhinelander Police Department has been selected as the recipient for the first dog. Its really honoring for us to be involved in such a great opportunity to bring something out of tragedy, reflected Rhinelander police chief Lloyd Gauthier. Rhinelander was chosen largely because of Gauthiers perspective toward using K-9s in the community, one that Dumais says he feels is shared by the department as a whole. Rather than focusing solely on using K-9s to bust drug abusers, Gauthier sees them as a means of discovering the families in the community that need resources to combat narcotic abuse. For us, having a K-9 is more than just having a dog, he said. [It] gives us the ability to get involved with peoples lives. Gauthier explained that people who use drugs frequently make decisions that cut them off from their family and friends, leaving children to fend for and raise themselves. By using K-9s to lead officers to drug abusers and by extension their families, Gauthier hopes his department can get much-needed help to their dependents. Maybe these kids in these homes will have some sense of normalcy, he said. Thats my passion as an agency, and why K-9s are important, he explained. Children are a passion for us to protect, and we do whatever we can to help them. The whole department just has that same philosophy: that theyre really there for the community, Dumais said, adding that it was that quality that set them apart from other departments. Rhinelander's police department currently has a dayshift K-9 named Odin; the coming dog will be assigned to the nightshift. Gauthier says they'd planned on getting a second dog, but didn't dream it would come so quickly. The program kickstarts Monday, but Dumais has been collecting community support for it since November. Weve had a pretty good response so far, he said, with a number of community members looking to pitch in food and supplies. He plans to hold several major fundraising events this year, building the outfit needed to provide Rhinelander with the dog sometime this fall or early winter. Hes chosen a Florida kennel raising Belgian Malinois puppies for the first dog, and he expects the puppy will make the trip up to Wisconsin in just a couple months. Dumaiss future plans for the program include providing one fully-trained dog a year, plus a car and equipment, to police departments around the state that need one. He himself, an Iraq war veteran, has a long history in training police dogs, having trained dozens in the pastincluding K-9s used by the Los Angeles police and fire departments. For Dumais, nothing highlights the need more than the K-9 officer killed in the line of duty on Sunday in Duluth, Minnesota. He sees violence towards law enforcement as a big reason for helping officers: both human and K-9. For more information on the program, Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. * Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono on January 12 started his five-day visit to Russia, during which he will hold consultations on a peace treaty with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. * Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned Polish charge d'affaires to voice Tehran's protest at the European country's decision to host a conference that the US is going to hold against Iran next month, Tasnim news agency reported on January 13. * Kuwait will host the third Kuwait-US Strategic Dialogue Session on January 15 with an aim of further cementing relations and cooperation between the two countries, the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) said on January 12. The strategic dialogue will set a roadmap for cooperation between Kuwait and the US for the next 25 years in different fields, KUNA said. * Jordan on January 12 called for international efforts to end the stalemate in the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, state-run Petra news agency reported. * The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on January 13 morning that it has found another cross-border tunnel allegedly dug by the Hezbollah militant organization. The tunnel reaches a few tens of meters into Israel and stems 800 meters into Lebanon, the army said. * Venezuela "clearly, passionately" follows the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (UN) 2030 agenda, President Nicolas Maduro said on January 12. * US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held a telephone conversation on January 12 with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Syria issue, according to a statement issued by the State Department. * Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Saeb Erekat slammed Washington's call for a conference over Middle East peace in the Polish capital Warsaw. * Mongolia's National Agency for Meteorology and Environmental Monitoring on January 13 issued a cold weather warning. * Chief of Yemen's military intelligence agency Brigadier General Saleh Tamah injured in a Houthi drone strike against an army parade died of his wounds on January 13, a government official told Xinhua. * The death toll in Sudan's protests has risen to 24, said Amer Mohamed Ibrahim, head of a Sudanese government fact-finding committee in charge of investigating the recent protests in Sudan on January 12. * The European Union (EU) said it has deployed a high-level election observation mission to monitor next month's general elections in Nigeria. * A new powerful explosion hit the the state-owned oil refinery in Yemen's southern port city of Aden on January 12 evening, injuring at least 15 workers, a security official told Xinhua. The Sultanate of Oman is a Western Asia country located at the southeastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula. The Arab country occupies 119,500 square miles and is strategically positioned at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Oman shares both maritime as well as land borders with various countries. The three countries with which the Sultanate of Oman shares a land border are the United Arab Emirates to the northwest, Yemen to the southwest, and Saudi Arabia to the west. Oman also shares a maritime border with Iran and Pakistan. The Arabian Sea forms the coastal border to the southeast while the Gulf of Oman is the northeast of the country. History of Oman's Borders At the beginning of the 21st century, the border of Oman was grappling with insecurity, especially the border with Yemen. The conflict led to the erection of border fences and walls along large sections to curb unlawful cross-border issues. Initially, before the discovery of oil reserves, Oman and other Persian Gulf nations had not delineated the territories. Inhabitants roamed across the Arabian desert tending to their flock. Official borders meant very little while allegiance to a specific political unit was not a must. The only places with organized authority were near ports or oasis. However, the oil era brought the need to demarcate nations to confine ownership of the precious resource leading to the concept of the modern state. The Oman-Yemen Border Yemen is found on the southwest of Oman. The two share a border length of 179 miles long. The border begins at the tripoint between Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen and extends southwards towards the Arabian Sea. In 1992, the border was delineated following the merger of South and North Yemen as one state. The United Republic of Yemen and Oman consequently signed an agreement which allowed for cross-border movement of people and livestock as well as the right to water and grazing land. The two countries are linked to each other by a road which was constructed through a loan of $21 million dollars granted by the Oman government. The road has played a major role in both the growth of international trade and control of the cross-border movement of people. The border has seen the growth of bilateral trade especially after setting up the Al Mazyouna economic hub in 1999 by Oman. Residents living along the border have deep ties either through trade or marriage. Numerous sensitive facilities have been built along the border, one of them being the Royal Airforce of Oman airbase located approximately 50 miles from the border point. The base is also used by US forces after a diplomatic agreement signed by the two states. The major security threat between Yemen and Oman is the Al-Qaida in Arabian Peninsula abbreviated as AQAP. The AQAP is a terrorist group that has for many years terrorized people along the border. Over the years, Yemen has put efforts to fight the group which have led to a spillover of the group's activities into Oman. The relatively peaceful Al Mahrah province is a buffer region that safeguards the country from actions of the extremist group. Continued war in Yemen has led to the migration of a great population to Al Mahrah area where Oman has been providing humanitarian assistance. The greatest fear is that the AQAP group members may infiltrate into Oman and cause terror attacks. The threat has led the construction of a barrier along the northern border by the government of Oman. The security wall will not only contain terror groups but also curb smuggling and illegal trade across the two nations. The Oman-UAE Border The United Arab Emirates is to the northwest of Oman. The 250 miles border begins at the tripoint between Oman, UAE, and Saudi Arabia then extends northwards to the Gulf of Oman. In 1999 and in 2005, the two countries agreed on maps delineating their border. Despite both countries being on the list of members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the UAE government constructed a border wall in an effort to check illegal immigrants, drugs, and terrorism between the two countries. The security fence runs the entire of the border. Nevertheless, the wall has a negative effect on tourism and socialization due to restricted cross-border movement. The Madha Exclave The Madha exclave is a land region inside UAE but belongs to Oman. The 29 square mile territory is governed by the Musandam governorate of Oman. About 3,000 people live in the Madha. Interestingly, there is a counter exclave inside the bigger Madha exclave that belongs to UAE. The exclave is known as Nahwa. Both Madha and Nahwa have neither well-developed infrastructure nor booming economic activities. Oman-Saudi Arabia Border The Sultanate of Oman has a 420 miles long border with Saudi Arabia. The two countries have historical relationships, both adhere to Islamic teachings, and they belong to an association known as the Gulf Cooperation Council. In 1990, Oman settled border disputes with Saudi Arabia. Though the inner details concerning the boundary were not made public, the agreement provided for rights to share water resources as well as grazing fields. Nevertheless, the borderline is not yet finalized since Saudi Arabia is claiming some tracks of land in Oman and adjacent countries of Yemen and UAE. The border between the two nations is characterized by unmarked borderline due to the vast desert, sand dunes and a region known as the empty quarter which sparsely inhabited. Most of the border is unfenced though there are concrete posts which are placed at about 3 miles intervals. Therefore, if one happens to be somewhere between the posts, then it will be impossible to identify the borderline. Significance of Border Barriers More than forty countries across the world have border fences since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Most of the countries which have erected walls are in the Middle East. Some countries have walls and trenches as well as watchtowers, state of the art modern surveillance cameras, razor wire fences, human movement sensors, and communication gadgets. The barriers are to control illegal immigrants, halt terror groups from invading a country, or to prevent the illegal and harmful substance from being ferried into a country. Walls have also been erected to stamp authority and ownership in formerly disputed territories. Nearly 75% of countries in the world require drivers to drive on the right side of traffic. Although the majority drive on the right, there is no global standard driving system which causes some countries to require driving on the left. Left side drivers include the majority of former British colonies and the right drivers include US, Latin America and most European nations. The following is a summary of countries who drive on the left. List of Countries Who Drive on the Left Asia 15 Asian nations drive on the left. These countries include Hong Kong, India, Brunei, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. The history of driving on the left in Japan began during the Edo Period (1603-1867). In 1872, the British laid out the first railway line in the country. It was left-sided and laid the foundation for left-sided driving in Japan. East Timor started driving on the left in 1976 under Indonesian rule and continues to do so today.Macau and Hong Kong, unlike Mainland China, drive on the left. Thailand was never colonized but also drives on the left. Africa African countries have left-sided traffic including the former British colonies of Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Botswana, Malawi, Zambia, Namibia, Swaziland, Uganda, and Tanzania. Other former British colonies including Sierra Leone and Nigeria changed to right-sided driving because they border former French colonies. Mozambique, having been colonized by the Portuguese, drives on the left even though its former European power switched to right-sided traffic in the 1920s. Mozambique borders nations which drive on the left as well. Mauritius also adheres to left-handed traffic. Australia and Oceania Australia and its territories (including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island) all drive on the left. New Zealand and its territories (The Cook Islands and Tokelau) are also included in the list of left-handed drivers. Other territories that drive on the left include the former British colonies of Fiji, Pitcairn Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, and Niue. Nauru, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and Solomon Islands also have left-sided traffic. Europe The first legislation to make traffic left-sided in the UK was made in 18th century in London. This law required that traffic on the London Bridge keep left. The Highway Act of 1835 made this law applicable in the British Empire. Although most European countries switched to right-sided traffic in the 20th century, the UK still continues to drive on the left. Guernsey, the Isle of Man in addition to Jersey, being Crown Dependencies of the UK, also keep left. Ireland, Malta, and Cyprus have left-sided traffic as well. West Indies The UK Overseas Territories in the West Indies keep left which are Anguilla, Turks and Caicos Islands, Montserrat, Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands. Countries formerly part of the British Empire that drive on the left side include Saint Kitts and Nevis, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Saint Lucia, Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, and Grenada. The U.S. Virgin Islands also have left-sided traffic. History of Left-Sided Traffic Historically, the majority of the human population has always been right-handed. It is theorized that left-handed traffic began in the days of horse travel. The left-sided position but them at the advantage of having easy access to their sword with their right-handed in case of an enemy encounter. The state flower of Iowa is the wild rose, as designated by the state legislature in 1887. Although no particular species of the wild rose was specified, the wild prairie rose is commonly cited as Iowa's official state flower. In addition to serving as the state flower of Iowa, the wild rose is also a state symbol of North Dakota and the official flower of the United States. All varieties of the rose are considered to symbolize love, beauty devotion, and faith. Description of the Wild Rose The wild rose commonly blooms in Iowa from June until late summer. The flower has existed for millions of years and grows naturally throughout North America. The wild prairie rose, known as Rosa arkansana, derived its name from the Arkansas River. The flower has five petals, in varying shades of pink, and has yellow stamen in the center. Wild roses grow in a variety of habitats, including wooded and moist locations. Some wild roses grow together and form dense thickets, while others can grow more independently. The flower's petals and rose hips can be used in traditional medicines and are an important source of food for birds. Why Was the Wild Rose Chosen as Iowa's State Flower? For Iowans, the wild rose represents resilience, love, and beauty. Despite the state's dry and flat landscape, the flower blooms every year. Several species of wild rose are native to the state of Iowa, and differentiating between them can sometimes be challenging, as they are similar in appearance and have the natural ability to hybridize. Therefore, Iowa's legislature felt that the hardy flower was an appropriate symbol for the state. The legislation did not specify a single species but instead agreed that any species of wild rose that grows within the boundaries of the state could be considered an official state flower. Historical Use and Symbolism The wild rose has long been used by the indigenous population in North America for purposes including traditional medicines. For example, rose hips were boiled to make eye drops for treating infections. In the late 19th century, the wide distribution of the wild rose throughout Iowa generated support for its consideration as a state flower. Additionally, most Iowans already considered the wild rose as their favorite flower. However, many could not differentiate between the various species. Therefore, in 1896, Iowa lawmakers chose an image of the wild rose to be placed on a silver tea set that was to be presented to the US Navy. The following year, the flower was designated the official state flower of Iowa. According to Iowans, the wild rose is a symbol of beauty, love, passion, devotion, and sensuality. Additionally, Greek mythology associated the flower with Aphrodite, the goddess of love. As Nigeria celebrates her Armed force remembrance day today, Benue born music legend, Tuface Idibia, took to his Instagram page to drop a classy message for the Armed force class. The date (January 15th) is a day set aside to celebrate the countrys fallen millitary veterans no longer alive. What he said; Jamaica is an island nation in the Caribbean. It forms part of the West Indies and is among the largest islands in the Caribbean behind Cuba and Hispaniola Island. The country is situated 90 miles south of Cuba and 100 miles to the west of Haiti. The country is considered to have a mixed economy but is seen to rely overwhelmingly on the service sector particularly on tourism and finance. The country's GDP is $26.06 billion while the GDP per capita is $9,200. The service sector contributes an estimated 71.2% to the GDP while industry and Agriculture contribute 21.3% and 7.5% respectively to the GDP. The economy of the country has evolved remarkably over the years from heavy reliance on the agricultural sector to the mining, manufacturing, and service sectors. Jamaica's natural resources include bauxite, Limestone, gypsum, as well as an ideal climate favoring agriculture and tourism. Jamaica's Natural Resources Bauxite Interest in Jamaica's bauxite deposits began in the 1940s through development and exploration by the Alcan, Reynolds, and Kaiser Companies. The newfound interest in Jamaica's Bauxite deposits was sparked by an increase in global demand for aluminium during and after World War II. Jamaica's bauxite deposits were however not used during the war as the three companies from North America were beginning to survey and start operations. Exports of the mineral began in the year 1952 led by Reynolds followed by Kaiser a year later. Alcan, on the other hand, set up an alumina processing plant and began exportation in the year 1952 as well. By 1957, Jamaica had become one of the largest bauxite producers in the world with a production capacity of up to 5 million tons per annum. Rapid growth led to Jamaica becoming the second largest exporter of alumina in the world owing this to increased investment in refineries by companies involved in bauxite mining as well as foreign investment from companies such as Alcoa. Jamaica has since been surpassed by other countries such as Australia, China, India, Brazil, and Guinea. Currently, the country produces about 7% of total global production. Jamaica still holds some of the largest deposits Karst of terra rosa type of bauxite which is regarded to be of very high quality and is found in hollows of weathered Cretaceous white limestone outcrops which are found in large parts of the island. Limestone 70% of Jamaica's surface area is comprised of limestone. There are five major geological classes of limestone in Jamaica namely, Coastal Limestone, White Limestone, Yellow Limestone, Eocene Limestone, and Cretaceous Limestone. Coastal Limestone is mainly reefal material and rubbly limestone, while white limestone consists of pure, fine grain, white, soft marls; nodular rubbly limestone; fine-grained hard limestone, hard recrystallized limestone, and hard fossiliferous limestone. Colors of white limestone vary from white, grey, cream, pink, yellow and brown. Yellow limestone is considered impure limestone as it contains sand, clay, shales, and fossils, it is mainly yellow. Eocene limestone is distinctly hard, compact and grey limestone. Cretaceous Limestone is dark grey to black and is so hard and compact. Limestone is generally formed in marine conditions which suggest that the island was at one point submerged in the sea before later reemerging. The extraction of limestone is usually done through quarrying of open pits. Vegetation covering the deposit is usually removed first to expose the limestone. Soft deposits are extracted through heavy equipment while harder deposits are blasted. Gypsum Gypsum is mainly found in eastern St. Andrew in the Port Royal Mountains. It is mainly extracted through quarrying and is used in cement production. It is normally mixed 1 part gypsum and 20 parts cement. Most of the gypsum produced in the country is exported to the US. Marble Deposits of marble are found on Mt. Auburn, Serge Island, and areas around St. Thomas. The color of deposits at Bath is mainly white while deposits in Clydesdale are black. Marble is used as an ornamental stone. Silica Sand High-grade quartz sand is found in the Black River region. The deposits are normally irregular surface deposits. The purest deposits are used for the production of flint glass. Metals Small deposits of high-grade iron ore can be found on the slopes of the Blue Mountain Range. Magnetite-ilmenite sands are found in areas around the Alligator Pond. Copper deposits can be found in Swift River and Rio Grande districts, Charing Cross-Bella Gate area, Upper Clarendon, and Port Royal Mountains. The copper deposits are however not economically viable. Occurrences of lead and zinc have also been reported in the Hope District. The deposit was briefly exploited in the 1800s and later abandoned. Oil and Gas In recent years exploration of oil and gas deposits has increased. Presence of carbonaceous shales is an indication that the small island nation could have petroleum deposits. Companies such as Tullow Oil PLC have expressed keen interest in the sector. Reports from the company indicate that 10 of the 11 offshore and onshore wells have oil and gas. Some of the offshore areas which have been identified to the south of the island have indicated good exploration potential. Presence of oil has also been announced in the Trelawny parish after oil seeped to the surface, the findings are being evaluated for commercial viability. Environment Impact of Mining in Jamaica In the last five decades, mining activity, particularly bauxite mining companies, have led to the loss of tree cover in 5,099 hectares of land and the loss of 3,214 hectares of forest cover. The massive amounts of environmental degradation are caused by the use of open cast mining as a preferred mineral extraction method which primarily involves the complete removal of surface vegetation cover to expose mineral deposits. Government agencies, however, blame illegal logging and the continuous use of firewood as the primary cause of deforestation. Jamaica has, however, put much emphasis on rehabilitation and reclamation of mined-out land. Orchard crops and grass are normally planted on reclaimed land. The land rehabilitation project is deemed one of the most successful in the world. Isaiah Gardenhire is accused of stabbing a 13-year-old girl to death and committing other crimes while out on bond. He is in the Isabella County jail on a litany of felony charges and was out on bond in a case in Mason County. The Senator representing Bayelsa east constituency in the upper legislative arm of government in Nigeria, Benedict Murray Bruce, has slammed the federal government for the trader moni scheme. The highly vocal politician who is also the chairman of Silverbird group of company revealed that the poor require just education and capital- And not the paltry ten thousand Naira being disbursed by the federal government in the trader moni scheme. What he said; remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) The government shutdown has left hundreds of local federal workers furloughed or uncertain when their next paycheck will come. According to the Office of Personnel Management, there are 23,598 federal workers in Indiana. State Senator Ron Alting's office confirmed 500 of them live in Tippecanoe County. Lafayette Family YMCA wants to be a resource during this time of uncertainty. From now until Mar. 31, the YMCA is offering free memberships for federal workers affected by the shutdown. As we enter week four with no federal government operations, the ramifications are hitting people right here in the community. YMCA CEO Paul Cramer said uncertainty with income can be a detriment to health and family life. The new YMCA offers services for health, childcare, education and income. Cramer wants those federal workers to take advantage of their services. We have both hospitals Franciscan Health hospital and IU Health, we have junior achievement and also Ivy Tech Community College with the YMCA so we're all working together to help people reduce barriers, of health education and income, said Cramer. Cramer said they want to offer help with health and wellness, which often loses priority when financial uncertainty occurs. Affected federal workers can bring government identification cards to either of the two YMCA locations. Cramer said they will reassess the free membership deadline as the government shutdown continues. INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Indiana's early distribution of February's food stamp benefits due to the partial federal government shutdown has been moved up by three days. The state's Family and Social Services Administration announced last week that it would distribute February's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits this Saturday for about 585,000 Indiana residents. But the FSSA said Monday the U.S. Department of Agriculture informed it that those benefits must be distributed Wednesday as a one-time early benefit due to the ongoing government shutdown. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told states last week to issue the February benefits early. The FSSA is "strongly" encouraging Indiana's SNAP recipients to budget their February benefits to ensure that they'll cover their food needs throughout the month. Indiana's SNAP benefits are usually issued over a 19-day period each month. Kaduna Central Senator, Shehu Sani has hailed Aminu Tambuwal, governor of Sokoto state for suspending his campaign over the killing of over 30 persons in a village in the state. Tammbuwal put his campaign in Goronyo local government on hold, because of at least 30 persons, allegedly murdered by suspected bandits in Wurwanna village, Gandi district of Rabah local government. The bandits, were said to be over 100, when they attacked the village at about 1:30pm, fatally shooting sporadically anyone and anything at sight. Commending the governor, the lawmaker said the act shows that the Tambuwal walks the talk on morality, because he showed that human lives is worth more than political ambition. In his words: For Governor Tambuwal to suspend campaigns over the murder of 30 citizens in his state is commendable. He walks the talk on the morality of placing human lives above political ambitions. UTICA, N.Y. -- Two licensed psychologists have determined the suspect charged in Utica's double homicide on Tilden Avenue is not competent to stand trial. Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara tweeted that the Utica City Court received the results of Naythen Aubain's psychiatric examinations Tuesday morning. Both psychologists also say that Aubain is not fit to proceed, in accordance with the New York State Criminal Procedure Law. The 29-year-old is accused of killing his 90-year-old grandmother, Katherine Aubain, and their 87-year-old landlord, Jane Wentka. He was charged with two counts of first-degree murder. He was moved from the Oneida County jail to a facility run by the Office of Mental Health. Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara explained that sometimes people can fake their psych exam, sometimes people are on synthetic drugs, or sometimes people simply don't cooperate with the psychologist trying to interview them. Historically, we have seen this on many occasions where someone will be initially not competent and after they're in a facility, office of mental health facility for a period of time. Then they will be deemed fit to stand trial. A lot of times that's four weeks to six months, generally that's the time period we see when they do come back, said McNamara. The difference between this psych exam and an insanity defense is in this exam, they look at the status of the suspect now and if they can assist in their own defense. When they look at an insanity defense, the law looks at the status of the suspect at the time of the crime. Aubain, at his arraignment, wore a net around his head to keep him from spitting at people around him. Officials say Aubain was referred to the Utica City Mental Health Court last March following an incident, where police say he strangled his grandmother. Court records show he showed up for all of his weekly, required court appearances until the alleged killings. ROME, N.Y. -- An anonymous bomb threat was allegedly called into a student at Rome Free Academy Tuesday afternoon. Due to the threat, school officials have cancelled all afterschool activities. The school superintendent sent an email out to parents regarding the situation shortly after 2 p.m. A student allegedly got a call stating that there was a bomb in the art wing of the school. The wing was evacuated until buses could arrive to dismiss the entire student body, according to the superintendent. Authorities were called and did a sweep of the building, but no bomb was found. Police K9s were called in as a precaution, to make sure the scene was cleared. Officials say there is no reason to believe that school will be cancelled on Wednesday. UTICA, N.Y. -- Omar Ortiz, the man accused of killing Deon Williams in Utica last summer, appeared in court once again Tuesday. More information has been released about what allegedly happened on June 28 on Bleecker Street from police who responded to the scene. Omar Ortiz appears in Oneida County Court on November 7, 2018. Omar Ortiz appears in Oneida County Court on November 7, 2018. In court, they explained the process of what lead them to Omar Ortiz as their suspect. The first witness called to testify was Utica Police Sergeant Armstrong, who was called to the scene and talked to witnesses. He also was responsible for checking record, developing arrays of photos of the suspect. He said he picked four different arrays of Ortiz to show witnesses, and he was ultimately chosen. The next witness called at the Huntley hearing was Utica Police Department Investigator Shawn Rutty. He was the investigator who helped secure scene and interview witnesses. A witness to the killing, Ortizs grandfather, was one of the witnesses shown photos of the suspect. Former UPD Investigator Aaron Donaldson was the next to testify in the hearing he was the one to respond to the shots fired call He says he went to the back of the residence and saw the victim dead. The district attorney questioned the investigator about the process at the scene, and during cross examination described another witness claiming he was positive that Ortiz was at the scene of the argument. The next witness was Utica Police Sergeant Michael Curly who responded to the scene and focused on the suspect and word that he was in Erie, Pennsylvania. He testified about the car description, who Ortiz was allegedly with and on security camera video from the scene. Utica Police Investigator Jeremy VanHorne says he interviewed another witness, discussed the incident, and showed her the photo array where she chose Ortiz as the suspect. More witnesses will be called on February 1 at 10 a.m. The judge will determine what can be used at trial. Herkimer, N.Y. - Herkimer Central School District Superintendent Robert Miller says within two hours of Friday morning's deadly fire on E. Steele St. in Herkimer where three young boys lost their lives, ten extra counselors from three neighboring school districts were assembled and went to Herkimer Elementary School to help kids cope with the news. The three kids lost in the fire, ages 1, 6 and 7, were all brothers. The two older boys attended Herkimer Elementary School. Miller says the team of counselors have been helping a number of the boys' classmates who are struggling with the loss of a friend. He says the young students, mostly ages 6 and 7, have been responded to the tragedy in different ways, "A wide range, like anyone that reacts to grief, in a wide spectrum of ways." Miller says the same team of counselors were once again on hand at the school on Monday, and they're not only there to help the kids, but they're also there to comfort teachers who are dealing with the emotions of the tragedy, "Were just people, teachers go through the same stages of grief that everyone goes through and I think that we tend to focus on our students and our job, and know that getting through each day is important for both of us and our kids." Miller says the extra counselors will go back to their districts on Tuesday, but the counselors within the Herkimer Central School District will always be available for students and staff if needed. Meanwhile, Herkimer Fire Chief John Spanfelner was himself in a meeting Monday afternoon with other city leaders trying to organize a team of grief counselors to come in and talk to not only members of his fire department, but also members of the city's police department and D.P.W. who have responded to the fire scene since Friday and are struggling emotionally. Spanfelner said he was hoping to have counselors available for the city employees at some point on Tuesday. The #10yearChallenge has been trending on social media since the beginning of the week. All around the world including, people have taken the challenge of sharing via photos what they looked like 10 years ago and what they looked like now. However, Reno Omokri, a former aide to ex President Goodluck Jonathan has asked people to reject anyone, who uses the 10year Challenge to show off skin bleaching transformation. According to the author, Black is beautiful, and the only time an erotic love letter was ever written in the Bible, was by King Solomon to a dark skinned Shalammite woman. In his words: In the whole Bible, the only erotic love letter is a book of romance named Songs of Solomon, written by Solomon to a dark skinned, BLACK Shulammite woman. Black is BEAUTIFUL. Reject every man or woman that uses the #10yearchallenge to show a BLEACHING transformation. Over the last few years China has made a series of ambitious military reforms and acquired new technology as it aims to improve its ability to fight regional conflicts over places like Taiwan, according to a new report from the US Defense Intelligence Agency. "Beijing's longstanding interest to eventually compel Taiwan's reunification with the mainland and deter any attempt by Taiwan to declare independence has served as the primary driver for China's military modernization," said the agency's report, titled "China's Military Power." Asia Beijing China Continents and regions East Asia Military Military weapons North America Taiwan Technology The Americas United States Weapons and arms Armed forces The report, which was published Tuesday, added that "Beijing's anticipation that foreign forces would intervene in a Taiwan scenario led the (People's Liberation Army) to develop a range of systems to deter and deny foreign regional force projection." Earlier Tuesday in Beijing, China made plain to the US military that it is will countenance no interference on Taiwan, according to a report on the Chinese military's English-language website. "If someone tries to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese military will do whatever it takes to safeguard national reunification, national sovereignty and territorial integrity," Gen. Li Zuocheng, a member of China's Central Military Commission, told the US chief of naval operations, Adm. John Richardson, who is on a four-day visit to China. The US DIA report estimates that Chinese spending on its armed forces "probably exceeded $200 billion" in 2018, "a threefold increase since 2002." In a written introduction accompanying the report, the Defense Intelligence Agency's director, Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, wrote that China has used a variety of means to acquire advanced technology to bolster its military capabilities despite some countries attempting to limit its access to that technology over international concerns about Beijing's human rights policies. "China shifted funds and efforts to acquiring technology by any means available. Domestic laws forced foreign partners of Chinese-based joint ventures to release their technology in exchange for entry into China's lucrative market, and China has used other means to secure needed technology and expertise," Ashley said. While the report acknowledges that China spends significantly less on defense than the some $700 billion invested by the US in 2018, it says Beijing enjoys an advantage due to the fact that "China has not had to invest in costly R&D of new technologies to the same degree as the United States." "Rather, China has routinely adopted the best and most effective platforms found in foreign militaries through direct purchase, retrofits, or theft of intellectual property. By doing so, China has been able to focus on expediting its military modernization at a small fraction of the original cost," it said. 'Most modern weapon systems in the world' China is "on the verge of fielding some of the most modern weapon systems in the world. In some areas, it already leads the world," Ashley wrote. A senior defense official said the US was concerned that China's increased capabilities may lead its military commanders to advise its political leaders that they were confident of military success with regard to a campaign against Taiwan. "The biggest concern is that they are going to get to -- they are getting to a point where the PLA leadership may actually tell Xi Jinping that they are confident in their capabilities," the official said, referring to China's leader. The report notes that the vast majority of China's missile arsenal is capable of hitting Taiwan while also pointing out that Beijing has developed new weapons systems like the H-6 bomber armed with CJ-20 cruise missiles, which it says is capable of striking areas farther afield, such as US military installations on Guam. It says, "China has built or acquired a wide array of advanced platforms," including submarines, major surface combat ships, missile patrol craft, maritime strike aircraft and land-based systems that employ new, sophisticated anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles. "China also has developed the world's first roadmobile, anti-ship ballistic missile, a system specifically designed to attack enemy aircraft carriers," it says. "China's leaders hope that possessing these military capabilities will deter pro-independence moves by Taiwan or, should deterrence fail, will permit a range of tailored military options against Taiwan and potential third-party military intervention," the report said. Earlier this month Xi called on Taiwan to reject independence and embrace "peaceful reunification" with China in a conciliatory speech that nevertheless took a hard line on the self-governing island's political sovereignty and freedoms. And the Chinese leader added that "we make no promise to renounce the use of force. We reserve the option for all the necessary means." In response to Xi's speech, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said the island will "never accept" a "one country, two systems" arrangement with China. While the report says China has increased its military footprint in the South China Sea and has placed additional military facilities on man-made islands there, the Pentagon assesses that China is seeking to avoid a conflict. "I think both sides have managed to operate professionally. And we have -- it's not in the Chinese interests for a crisis to spiral in the South China Sea. I think that they are fairly comfortable with the progress they've made in building out this infrastructure down there, and then working on negotiations with the other claimant states over a longer term," the senior defense official said. During his China visit, Adm. Richardson said the US Navy would continue to send warships wherever international law allows, something the Pentagon says when undertaking so-called "freedom of navigation" operations near Chinese-claimed territory in the South China Sea. "The US Navy will continue to conduct routine and lawful operations around the world, in order to protect the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of sea and airspace guaranteed to all," Richardson said in a China-datelined story posted on the US Navy's website. He also called on China to avoid dangerous maneuvers during those US operations. "It important for all military, law enforcement, and civilian vessels and aircraft, including those in the PLA Navy, the Chinese Coast Guard, and the People's Armed Forces Maritime Militia, to operate in a safe and professional manner, in accordance with international law," Richardson is quoted as saying. "Consistent operations and behavior are critical to preventing miscalculation." Last fall, the Chinese destroyer Lanzhou came within 45 yards (41 meters) of the guided-missile destroyer USS Decatur near the Spratly Islands in an encounter the US called "unsafe." Mohammed Abubakar Adamu, on Tuesday, January 15th resumed as the acting Inspector General of Police, as Ibrahim Kpotun Idris takes a bow. Adamu was decorated by the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, President Muhammadu Buhari, at the State House, Abuja earlier on. Idris, retired today from service of the Police Force at the age of Sixty (60) Years. In a statement signed by Moshood Jimoh, the outgoing IGP deeply thanked the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria for the opportunity given to him to serve under his administration as Inspector General of Police. He also sincerely expresses gratitude to all Nigerians across the Country for the cooperation and support they accorded him and the entire personnel of the Force during his tenure. Idris, further asked that the same level of support and assistance, he enjoyed should be givento his successor. Quick facts about the new IGP The Acting IGP Adamu, is from Lafia in Nasarawa State. He holds and a holds a Bachelors degree in Geography. He joined the police force on 1st February, 1986 as Cadet Assistant Superintendent of Police. He attended several Senior Officer Courses on Law Enforcement, Crime Prevention, Control and Management within and outside Nigeria. Before his appointment as the Acting Inspector General of Police, he was a Directing Staff at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos, Plateau State. He was Commissioner of Police in Ekiti and Enugu States and also Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of Zone 5 Police Command Headquarters, Benin, Edo States. 25-Year-Old Whiz Kid #1 Stock Picker in U.S. (Ad) A lot of people claim to be the #1 Stock Picker in America. But few can back it up like Luke Lango. 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It also provides fragrance products in various forms comprising eau de parfum sprays and colognes, as well as lotions, powders, creams, candles, and soaps; and hair care products that include shampoos, conditioners, styling products, treatment, finishing sprays, and hair color products, as well as sells ancillary products and services. The company offers its products under EstAe Lauder, Aramis, Clinique, Lab Series, Origins, MAAAC, Bobbi Brown, La Mer, Aveda, Jo Malone London, Bumble and bumble, Darphin, Smashbox, Le Labo, Editions de Parfums FrAdAric Malle, GLAMGLOW, By Kilian, BECCA, Too Faced, RODIN olio lusso, FLIRT!, Kiton, and Tom Ford brands. It also holds license arrangements for Tommy Hilfiger, Donna Karan New York, DKNY, Michael Kors, Ermenegildo Zegna, Dr. Andrew Weil, TOM FORD BEAUTY, AERIN, and Tory Burch brands. 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Read More Vanguard THE Assistant Inspector-General of Police, AIGP Mohammed Adamu, who is said to have been favoured by President Muhammadu Buhari to replace the retiring Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, was on Tuesday morning at the Presidential Villa, Abuja Thisday Davidson Iriekpen writes that at the heart of the crisis rocking the Rivers State chapter of All Progressives Congress is the famous legal precedence that when a case is pending before a court, parties are to stay action until the issues are resolved The Sun The Olowu of Kuta, Oba Adekunle Oyelude Makama has applauded the recent exploits of Nigeria Army in recapturing Baga town, the Kukawa Local Government Council of Borno State earlier lost to the Boko Haram insurgents. Daily Times Deputy Senate President, Dr. Ike Ekweremadu has dismissed insinuation that there is division in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of the February 16 presidential election. Daily Trust The Police Service Commission (PSC) says it will monitor the conduct of police personnel during the 2019 General Elections to ascertain their adherence to professionalism. The Nation The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ogun State, Prince Dapo Abiodun, yesterday urged residents to vote for him and re-elect President Muhammadu Buhari, to ensure good governance. Tribune A House of Representatives member representing Baruten/Kaiama Federal Constituency in the National Assembly, Hon Zakari Mohammed has presented a tractor to farmers in Baruten Local Government Area(LGA) ahead of the farming season. 5 Ways to Win at Trading (Ad) More people are trading options... But most are doing it wrong... and LOSING money. Former Chicago Board Options Exchange trader reveals five secrets you MUST know before putting a penny in the market... Get the list of all five now. Could This Be the Biggest US Gold Discovery in Years? 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Bhd., Fameccanica Data S.p.A., Fameccanica Industria e Comercio Do Brasil LTDA., Fameccanica Machinery (Shanghai) Co., Fater S.p.A., Fountain Square Music Publishing Co., Gillette (China) Ltd., Gillette (Shanghai) Ltd., Gillette Aesop Ltd., Gillette Australia Pty. Ltd., Gillette Canada Holdings, Gillette Commercial Operations North America, Gillette Diversified Operations Pvt. Ltd., Gillette Egypt S.A.E., Gillette Group UK Ltd, Gillette Gruppe Deutschland GmbH & Co. oHG, Gillette Holding Company LLC, Gillette Holding GmbH, Gillette India Limited, Gillette Industries Ltd., Gillette International B.V., Gillette Latin America Holding B.V., Gillette Management LLC, Gillette Nova Scotia Company, Gillette Pakistan Limited, Gillette Poland International Sp. z.o.o., Gillette Poland S.A., Gillette U.K. Limited, Gillette del Uruguay, Giorgio Beverly Hills Inc., Hyginett KFT, Industries Marocaines Modernes SA, LLC "Procter & Gamble Novomoskovsk", LLL "Procter & Gamble Distributorskaya Compania", Laboratorios Vicks, Liberty Street Music Publishing Company, Limited Liability Company 'Procter & Gamble Trading Ukraine', Limited Liability Company with foreign investments Procter & and Gamble Ukraine, MDVIP, MERCK KGAA NPV, Marcvenca Inversiones, Modern Industries Company - Dammam, Modern Products Company - Jeddah, New Chapter, New Chapter Canada Inc., Olay LLC, Oral-B Laboratories, P&G Distribution Morocco SAS, P&G Hair Care Holding, P&G Industrial Peru S.R.L., P&G Innovation Godo Kaisha, P&G Israel M.D.O. Ltd., P&G K.K., P&G Northeast Asia Pte. Ltd., P&G Prestige Godo Kaisha, P&G Prestige Service GmbH, P&G South African Trading (Pty.) Ltd., PGT Health Care (Zhejiang) Limited, PGT Healthcare LLP, PPI ZAO, PT Procter & Gamble Home Products Indonesia, PT Procter & Gamble Operations Indonesia, Phase II Holdings Corporation, Procter & Gamble (Chengdu) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Sales Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (East Africa) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Egypt) Manufacturing Company, Procter & Gamble (Enterprise Fund) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Consumer Products Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Enterprise Management Service Company Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Health & Beauty Care) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Jiangsu) Ltd. 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KG, Procter & Gamble Gulf FZE, Procter & Gamble Hair Care, Procter & Gamble Hellas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Holding (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Holding France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Holding GmbH, Procter & Gamble Holding S.r.l., Procter & Gamble Holdings (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Home Products Private Limited, Procter & Gamble Hong Kong Limited, Procter & Gamble Hungary Wholesale Trading Partnership (KKT), Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care Limited, Procter & Gamble Inc., Procter & Gamble India Holdings, Procter & Gamble Indochina Limited Company, Procter & Gamble Industrial - 2012 C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Industrial S.C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Costa Rica, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Guatemala, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Panama, Procter & Gamble International Operations Pte. 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Ltd., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Belgium N.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Berlin GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Marketing Romania SRL, Procter & Gamble Marketing and Services doo, Procter & Gamble Maroc SA, Procter & Gamble Mataro, Procter & Gamble Mexico Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Mexico Inc., Procter & Gamble Middle East FZE, Procter & Gamble Nederland B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Investments B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Services B.V., Procter & Gamble Nigeria Limited, Procter & Gamble Nordic, Procter & Gamble Norge AS, Procter & Gamble Operations Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Overseas India B.V., Procter & Gamble Overseas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Pakistan (Private) Limited, Procter & Gamble Partnership LLP, Procter & Gamble Peru S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals France SAS, Procter & Gamble Philippines, Procter & Gamble Polska Sp. z o.o, Procter & Gamble Portugal - Produtos De Consumo, Procter & Gamble Product Supply (U.K.) Limited U.K., Procter & Gamble Production GmbH, Procter & Gamble Productions, Procter & Gamble Productos de Consumo, Procter & Gamble RHD, Procter & Gamble RSC Regional Service Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Retail Services BVBA, Procter & Gamble S.r.l., Procter & Gamble SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Satis ve Dagitim Ltd. Sti., Procter & Gamble Seine S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Procter & Gamble Services (Switzerland) SA, Procter & Gamble Services Company N.V., Procter & Gamble Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Share Incentive Plan Trustee Ltd., Procter & Gamble South America Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Spol. s.r.o. (Ltd.), Procter & Gamble Sports and Social Club Ltd., Procter & Gamble Sverige AB, Procter & Gamble Switzerland SARL, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Limited, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Sales Company Limited, Procter & Gamble Technical Centres Limited, Procter & Gamble Technology (Beijing) Co., Procter & Gamble Trading (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Tuketim Mallari Sanayii A.S., Procter & Gamble UK, Procter & Gamble UK Group Holdings Ltd, Procter & Gamble UK Parent Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Universal Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Verwaltungs GmbH, Procter & Gamble Vietnam, Procter & Gamble d.o.o. za trgovinu, Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.C.A., Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.R.L., Procter & Gamble do Brasil S/A, Procter & Gamble do Brazil, Procter & Gamble do Nordeste S/A, Procter & Gamble-Rakona s.r.o., Progam Realty & Development Corporation, Redmond Products, Richardson-Vicks Real Estate Inc., Richardson-Vicks do Brasil Quimica e Farmaceutica Ltda, Riverfront Music Publishing Co., Rosemount LLC, SPD Development Company Limited, SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics GmbH, Scannon S.A.S., Series Acquisition B.V., Shulton, Surfac S.R.L., Sycamore Productions, TAOS - FL, TAOS Retail, Tambrands Inc., Temple Trees Impex & Investment Private Limited, The Art of Shaving - FL, The Dover Wipes Company, The Gillette Company, The Gillette Company LLC, The Gillette co., The Procter & Gamble Distributing LLC, The Procter & Gamble GBS Company, The Procter & Gamble Global Finance Company, The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Company, The Procter & Gamble Paper Products Company, The Procter & Gamble U.S. Business Services Company, This is L., US CD LLC, Vidal Sassoon (Shanghai) Academy, Vidal Sassoon Co., WEBA Betriebsrenten-Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Walker & Company Brands, and iMFLUX Inc.. Ad Legacy Research New this week - 3,011 interested Man Who Picked Tesla, Bitcoin Makes Next Pick of the Decade" Picking the right investment of the decade can transform your life Today, the Wall Street legend who picked the last investment of the decade months (even years) before his peers will finally reveal his new #1 pick for the 2020s. Its not 5G, artificial intelligence, EVs, or clean energy. The answer will surprise you. Inspector general of police, Ibrahim Idris, today finished his tenure as a police boss and Adamu Mohammed has been drafted to act in acting capacity until the confirmation of another one. The former police boss however seems to be in the bad book of Dele Momodu as the Ovation magazine owner fired heavy shots at him following his retirement today. What he said: Bank of America Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides banking and financial products and services for individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses, institutional investors, large corporations, and governments worldwide. Its Consumer Banking segment offers traditional and money market savings accounts, certificates of deposit and IRAs, noninterest-and interest-bearing checking accounts, and investment accounts and products; and credit and debit cards, residential mortgages, and home equity loans, as well as direct and indirect loans, such as automotive, recreational vehicle, and consumer personal loans. The company's Global Wealth & Investment Management segment offers investment management, brokerage, banking, and trust and retirement products and services; and wealth management solutions, as well as customized solutions, including specialty asset management services. Its Global Banking segment provides lending products and services, including commercial loans, leases, commitment facilities, trade finance, and commercial real estate and asset-based lending; treasury solutions, such as treasury management, foreign exchange, and short-term investing options and merchant services; working capital management solutions; and debt and equity underwriting and distribution, and merger-related and other advisory services. The company's Global Markets segment offers market-making, financing, securities clearing, settlement, and custody services, as well as risk management products using interest rate, equity, credit, currency and commodity derivatives, foreign exchange, fixed-income, and mortgage-related products. As of April 15, 2021, it served approximately 66 million consumer and small business clients with approximately 4,300 retail financial centers; approximately 17,000 ATMs; and digital banking platforms with approximately 40 million active users. The company was founded in 1784 and is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Read More Intu owns and manages some of the best shopping centres, in some of the strongest locations, in the UK and Spain. Our UK portfolio is made up of 17 centres, including eight of the top-20, and in Spain we own three of the country's top-10 centres, with advanced plans to build a fourth. We are passionate about creating compelling experiences, in centre and online, that make our customers smile and help our retailers flourish. We attract around 400 million customer visits and 26 million website visits a year offering a multichannel approach that truly supports retail strategies. Our strategic focus on prime, high-footfall flagship destinations, combined with the strength and popularity of our brand, means that intu offers enhanced footfall, dwell time and loyalty. This helps our tenants flourish, driving occupancy and income growth. We are committed to our local communities, with our centres supporting nearly 130,000 jobs (representing about 3 per cent of the total UK retail workforce), and to operating with environmental responsibility. We have already met or exceeded a significant number of our 2020 environmental targets. Read More I only buy one kind of stock. 37 of these cash cows are in my portfolio right now... and for every dollar invested in them they are sending us 69 cents in dividends. That's an effective yield of 69% a year-every year. All without leverage, options, or gimmicks. Royal Bank of Canada operates as a diversified financial service company worldwide. The company's Personal & Commercial Banking segment offers checking and savings accounts, home equity financing, personal lending, private banking, indirect lending, mutual funds and self-directed brokerage accounts, guaranteed investment certificates, credit cards, and payment products and solutions; and lending, leasing, deposit, investment, foreign exchange, cash management, auto dealer financing, trade products, and services to small and medium-sized commercial businesses. This segment offers financial products and services through branches, automated teller machines, and mobile sales network. Its Wealth Management segment provides a suite of advice-based solutions and strategies to high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals, and institutional clients. The company's Insurance segment offers life, health, home, auto, travel, wealth, annuities, and reinsurance advice and solutions; and creditor and business insurance services to individual, business, and group clients through its field sales force, advice centers, and online, as well as through independent insurance advisors and affinity relationships. Its Investor & Treasury Services segment provides asset, cash management, transaction banking, and treasury services to institutional clients; correspondent banking and trade finance services for financial institutions; and short-term funding and liquidity management services. The company's Capital Markets segment offers corporate and investment banking, as well as equity and debt origination, distribution, sale, and trading services for corporations, institutional investors, asset managers, governments, and central banks. Royal Bank of Canada has a strategic partnership with Royal College Of Physicians & Surgeons Of Canada to support the needs of Canada's medical specialists. The company was founded in 1864 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Read More Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is a publicly owned asset management holding company. The firm specializes in early stage, acquisition, distressed investments, short-term financing to mid-market companies, corporate carve-outs, recapitalizations, convertible, senior and mezzanine financings, operational and capital structure restructuring, strategic re-direction, turnaround, and under-performing midmarket companies. The firm invest in attractive businesses through the public debt and equity markets or by providing financing. The firm invest in Business services, Industrials and Residential sectors. Through its subsidiaries, the firm invests in the property, power, and infrastructure sectors. Its property business includes owning and managing office properties, developing master planned residential communities, and offering clients bridge and mezzanine lending, alternative assets funds, and financial and advisory services. Through its subsidiaries, the firm operates hydroelectric power facilities, interconnections and transmission facilities in Northeast North America, and development of wind power in Canada. Through its subsidiaries, it invests in specialty funds including private equity and makes direct investments in real estate, energy, and resource assets. The firm launches and manages equity and fixed income mutual funds. It also manages real estate and hedge funds. The firm invests in equity and fixed income markets across the globe. It also invest in British Columbia, United States, Brazil, Australia, Chile, Uruguay, New Zealand. It prefers to invest between $2 million and $500 million in its portfolio companies. The firm also prefers to take both minority and majority stakes in its companies. It was formerly known as Brascan Corp. Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is based in Toronto, Canada with additional offices in Bogota, Colombia, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Calgary, Canada, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Gatineau, Canada, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, London, United Kingdom, Melbourne, Australia, Montreal, Canada, Mumbai, India, New York City, Perth, Australia, Shanghai, China, and Sydney, Australia. Read More Imperial Brands PLC, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, imports, markets, and sells tobacco and tobacco-related products. It offers a range of cigarettes, fine cut and smokeless tobacco, papers, and cigars; and next generation product (NGP) portfolio, such as e-vapour products, as well as oral nicotine and heated tobacco products. The company sells its products under various brands, including Davidoff, Gauloises, JPS, West, L&B, Bastos, Fine, Winston, News, Parker & Simpson, blu, Kool, Horizon, Jade, Cohiba, Montecristo, Romeo Y Julieta, Backwoods, Skruf, Golden Virginia, Rizla, and Knox in approximately 160 countries worldwide. It also provides logistics services that include the distribution of tobacco and NGP products for tobacco and NGP product manufacturers; and various non-tobacco and NGP products and services. In addition, the company is involved in the management of a golf course; marketing of papers; restaurant business; distribution of pharmaceuticals, POS software, and published materials and other products; printing and publishing activities; and provision of long haul transportation, industrial parcel and express delivery, advertising, and support management services. Further, it owns the trademarks; and retails its products. The company was formerly known as Imperial Tobacco Group PLC and changed its name to Imperial Brands PLC in February 2016. Imperial Brands PLC was founded in 1901 and is headquartered in Bristol, the United Kingdom. Read More The 15th of January every year in Nigeria is dedicated to our fallen gallant heroes, who took the fall for us to be at peace. The Armed Forces Remembrance Day is celebrated nationwide by every state government, the President, his vice, national assembly and so on. See some photos from the celebration Abuja Armed Forces Remembrance Day 2019! pic.twitter.com/Cv0qbDKHyy Bashir Ahmad (@BashirAhmaad) January 15, 2019 Today, we honour our servicemen and women who go over and beyond their call of duty everyday to keep our nation safe and preserve our peace and unity. We thank you and your families for your service and sacrifice for Nigeria. #ArmedForcesRemembranceDay pic.twitter.com/qsnQgtEDc5 Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki (@bukolasaraki) January 15, 2019 Kaduna Governor @elrufai is attending the Parade and Wreath Laying Ceremony in commemoration of the 2019 #ArmedForcesRemembranceDay at the Murtala Sqaure, Kaduna.#WeRemember pic.twitter.com/iHPXfToJdl Governor Kaduna (@GovKaduna) January 15, 2019 Delta To Any American Who Owns a Cell Phone (Ad) If you own a cell phone, then mobile service providers hope you never get to see this video that could soon go viral. His experiment could strike a bad chord with mobile phone companies. But youve got to see what this man discovered and what it means for phone users in the weeks ahead. Click here to see this video before it's removed First Republic Bank, together with its subsidiaries, provides private banking, private business banking, and private wealth management services to clients in metropolitan areas in the United States. It operates through two segments, Commercial Banking and Wealth Management. The company accepts deposit products, such as checking, money market checking, savings, passbook deposits, and individual retirement accounts, as well as certificates of deposit. It also offers a range of lending products that comprise residential mortgage loans, home equity lines of credit, multifamily loans, commercial real estate and construction loans, personal and business loans, single family construction loans, and other loans and lines of credit to businesses and individuals. The company's loans are secured by single family residences, multifamily buildings, and commercial real estate properties. In addition, it provides wealth management services, which include various investment strategies and products, online investment management services, trust and custody services, full service and online brokerage, financial and estate planning, and access to alternative investments, as well as investing, insurance, and foreign exchange services; and treasury services. Additionally, the company offers online and mobile banking services; refinancing services; and ATM and debit cards. As of December 31, 2020, the company offered its services through 92 offices, including 80 licensed deposit-taking offices in San Francisco, Palo Alto, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Newport Beach, and San Diego, California; Portland, Oregon; Boston, Massachusetts; Palm Beach, Florida; Greenwich, Connecticut; New York, New York; and Jackson, Wyoming, as well as 12 additional offices that provided lending, wealth management, and trust services. First Republic Bank was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Read More This Is By Far My #1 Income Stock (Ad) This company owns the bestselling drug in the world, which brought in $19.9 billion in revenue last year. And today, I want to give you the name, the ticker symbol and my full analysis completely free - no strings attached. Click here to get it. The following companies are subsidiares of Exxon Mobil: AKG Marketing Company Limited, Aera Energy LLC, Al-Jubail Petrochemical Company, Ampolex (Cepu) Pte Ltd, Ancon Insurance Company Inc., Barnett Gathering LLC, Barzan Gas Company Limited, Caspian Pipeline Consortium, Celtic Exploration Ltd., Coral FLNG S.A., Cross Timbers Energy LLC, Ellora Energy Inc., Esmeroon Oil Transporta Imperial Oil Limited, Esso (Thailand) Public Company Limited, Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd, Esso Deutschland GmbH, Esso Erdgas Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 15) Limited, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 17) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Angola (Overseas) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Chad Inc., Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Deepwater) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Offshore East) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited, Esso Exploration and Production UK Limited, Esso Global Investments Ltd., Esso Italiana S.r.l., Esso Nederland B.V., Esso Norge AS, Esso Petroleum Company Limited, Esso Raffinage, Esso Societe Anonyme Francaise, Exxo Holdings Inc., Exxon Azerbaijan Limited, Exxon Chemical Arabia Inc., Exxon International Finance Company, Exxon Luxembourg Holdings LLC, Exxon Mobile Bay Limited Partnership, Exxon Neftegas Limited, Exxon Overseas Corporation, Exxon Overseas Investment Corporation, ExxonMobil (China) Investment Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil (Taicang) Petroleum Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil Abu Dhabi Offshore Petroleum Company Limited, ExxonMobil Alaska Production Inc., ExxonMobil Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., ExxonMobil Australia Pty Ltd, ExxonMobil B Resources Company, ExxonMobil Capital Finance Company, ExxonMobil Capital Netherlands B.V., ExxonMobil Central Europe Holding GmbH, ExxonMobil Cepu Limited, ExxonMobil Chemical France, ExxonMobil Chemical Gulf Coast Investments LLC, ExxonMobil Chemical Holland B.V., ExxonMobil Chemical Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil China Petroleum & Petrochemical Company Limited, ExxonMobil Development Africa B.V., ExxonMobil Development Company, ExxonMobil Egypt (S.A.E.), ExxonMobil Exploracao Brasil Ltda., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Malaysia Inc., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Norway AS, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Romania Limited, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Tanzania Limited, ExxonMobil Finance Company Limited, ExxonMobil Financial Investment Company Limited, ExxonMobil France Holding SAS, ExxonMobil Gas Marketing Europe Limited, ExxonMobil General Finance Company, ExxonMobil Global Services Company, ExxonMobil Golden Pass Surety LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Company Holland LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Norway AS, ExxonMobil Hong Kong Limited, ExxonMobil International Services SARL, ExxonMobil Iraq Limited, ExxonMobil Italiana Gas S.r.l., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Inc., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Ventures Inc., ExxonMobil LNG Services B.V., ExxonMobil Lubricants Trading Company, ExxonMobil Oil Corporation, ExxonMobil PNG Limited, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical BVBA, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical Holdings Inc., ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, ExxonMobil Production Deutschland GmbH, ExxonMobil Production Norway Inc., ExxonMobil Qatargas (II) Limited, ExxonMobil Qatargas Inc., ExxonMobil Ras Laffan (III) Limited, ExxonMobil Rasgas Inc., ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, ExxonMobil Russia Kara Sea Holdings B.V., ExxonMobil Sales and Supply LLC, ExxonMobil Technology Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Funding Ltd., Fujian Refining & Petrochemical Co. Ltd., Golden Pass LNG Terminal Investments LLC, Golden Pass LNG Terminal LLC, Gulf Coast Growth Ventures LLC, Imperial Oil Limited, Imperial Oil Resources Limited, Imperial Oil Resources N.W.T. Limited, Imperial Oil/Petroliere Imperiale, Infineum Italia s.r.I., Infineum Singapore Pte. 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A journalist with the handle @Brendauji has recounted a beautiful story of Nigerian troops fighting Boko Haram in the Northeast. To mark today Armed forces remembrance Day, the journalist tells a sad story in the the most captivating manner, of how our gallant soldiers defy all odds to keep everyone of safe. Read below My first time in travelling in the Northeast combat area, gunfire started. Scared to pieces, I screamed. One of the soldiers in the truck looked at me and asked, Aunty, dont you like this ringtone? Should we change it for you? Tuesday is Armed Forces Remembrance Day; this thread is dedicated to Nigerian troops, who are fighting/have fought/will fight insecurity not only in the Northeast, but all over the country. It chronicles memorable experiences, stories of bravery, fear, passion, love, anger, sorrow, in the combat zone. Follow Who Know Road: Destination- Gamboru Ngala. It was a very slow journey. A portion of the route was bad, and in those places, IEDs could be buried by BH. So we wait for the EOD to manually clear before others drive thru. Each car drives following the tyre marks of the one- in front of it, to avoid BOOM. A journey that would otherwise take three hours, stretched to about eight. But we arrived in one piece. Thankfully, two years later, I travelled that same route and the IEDs were no longer a threat. One of the best parts of this journey was meeting the late Lt Col Abu-Ali, and witnessing his now popular decoration at night. May his soul and all the others who have gone, RIP. That night, what we witnessed was pure passion, love and brotherhood among the soldiers. Then tells the stories of some soldiers and how they and their spouse deal with being away from home for a long time. meeting the late Lt Col Abu-Ali, and witnessing his now popular decoration at night. May his soul and all the others who have gone, RIP. That night, what we witnessed was pure passion, love and brotherhood among the soldiers. ICYMI pic.twitter.com/zmcM6qtkpE Mngusuul Uji (@brendauji) January 13, 2019 DADDYS VOICE: This one is about an Air force fighter pilot then based in Yola, who had been there for long, and couldnt travel home often enough to see his wife and baby. Im always worried my baby will be growing without recognising me. So anytime I call my wife, I try to speak to the baby. She cant speak/ understand me now, but Im hoping that at least shell get familiar with my voice, so that when I go home, I wont be so much of a stranger to her. speak to the baby. She cant speak/ understand me now, but Im hoping that at least shell get familiar with my voice, so that when I go home, I wont be so much of a stranger to her. LOST BESTMAN- My wedding was due in a few weeks. We had one operation before I would take a pass and go home. My close friend was to be my best man. He was excited because his pregnant wife would also come for the wedding and he could see her. He died in the operation. LET ME HEAR YOU BREATH: My wife warned me not to send anyone to call her on my behalf if Im out of network area. The shock from are you Xs wife may traumatise her before she hears the rest of the msg. Often, after we speak on phone, shell refuse to cut the call, she tells, let me just hear you breathing, even if youre sleeping. She also tells of how fragile vehicles have led to the deaths of many soldiers and why funding for the military has to be reviewed. SOFT SKINS, SOFT TARGETS: We've lost several soldiers 'cos there aren't enough rugged vehicles. The Hilux/buffalo trucks often used are easily destroyed by bullets and landmines. The N/East Ops require a lot of MRAPS, this is why we need to review the funding/procurement policy pic.twitter.com/MngyZqwFJg Mngusuul Uji (@brendauji) January 14, 2019 Then of families left behind PSYCHO- The long weeks fighting the jungle, depression, fearing death, feeling like quiting, missing family, feeling unappreciated, feeling your labour is in vainWar messes up with your head. And it could be dangerous. Soldiers need serious psychological support for PTSD. pic.twitter.com/vErxyvg2Zc Mngusuul Uji (@brendauji) January 14, 2019 Man Who Picked Tesla, Bitcoin Makes Next Pick of the Decade" (Ad) Picking the right investment of the decade can transform your life Today, the Wall Street legend who picked the last investment of the decade months (even years) before his peers will finally reveal his new #1 pick for the 2020s. Its not 5G, artificial intelligence, EVs, or clean energy. The answer will surprise you. Click To See This #1 Pick. Thinking of buying options? DONT- Read this first (Ad) Options traders place high-risk trades, hoping for a big payout. But they lose... a LOT! That's why Jim Fink flips options trading on its head, making money over 85% of the time. His personal strategy guide could help you unlock as much as $67,548 in extra income. Click here for the dirty details Worldpay, Inc., through its subsidiary, Worldpay Holding, LLC, provides electronic payment processing services in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australasia. It operates in two segments, Technology Solutions, Merchant Solutions, and Issuer Solutions. The company offers merchant acquiring and payment processing services, such as authorization and settlement, customer service, chargeback and retrieval processing, and interchange management. It also provides value-added services, such data analytics and information management solutions, foreign currency management, and various funding options; and security solutions, including point-to-point encryption and tokenization at the point of sale and for e-commerce transactions. In addition, the company offers card issuer processing, payment network processing, fraud protection, card production, prepaid program management, automated teller machine driving, portfolio optimization, data analytics, and card program marketing, as well as network gateway and switching services. Further, it provides card and statement production, and collections and inbound/outbound call centers. The company serves merchants and financial institutions comprising regional banks, community banks, credit unions, and regional personal identification number networks through direct sales forces and referral partners. The company was formerly known as Vantiv, Inc. and changed its name to Worldpay, Inc. in January 2018. Worldpay, Inc. was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. Read More Wall Street Legend Who Picked Bitcoin in 2016 Shares #1 Pick for the 2020s (Ad) Picking the right investment of the decade can transform your life Microsoft in the 80sAmazon in the 90sApple in the 2000sBitcoin in 2016... Any one of these could have made you a millionaire many times over. Today, the Wall Street legend who picked the last investment of the decade The answer will surprise you. Ad Resource Stock Digest New this week - 2,002 interested Could This Be the Biggest US Gold Discovery in Years? See how this tiny, unknown gold company secured a prime land package right next door to the worlds two largest gold producers in Nevadas famed Carlin Trend where 84 Million gold ounces have already been extracted. Best of all, investors can still get in well below US$0.50 per share. 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You can opt out at any time. 5 Secrets to Making Winning Trades (Ad) Regular people are pouring into the market 10 million people became traders last year alone. But most do it WRONG... and lose big-time. Thats why you need to see the five secrets for making winning trades. Get the list of all five now. Speaker, House of representative, Yakubu Dogara, has called for the establishment of a special education fund for the children of our fallen Armed force. He made this revelation via his twitter handle today as Nigeria celebrate her fallen heroes. Dogara is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP who has been serving as a House of Representatives Member for Bogoro/Dass, Buachi, Nigeria Federal constituency since 2007. What he said; The Independent Greeks (ANEL) party is quitting the government over the Macedonia name deal, Greek Defense Minister and ANEL leader Panos Kammenos said earlier Sunday. The prime minister said that he has accepted Kammenos' resignation and will accept any other resignations submitted by ministers belonging to the ANEL, adding that Kammenos will be replaced by Admiral Evangelos Apostolakis, chief of the Hellenic National Defense General Staff. Kammenos had repeatedly said in recent months that his party would not vote for the Macedonia name deal, which was due to reach the Greek assembly for a vote later this month. Kammenos did not clarify whether the right-wing party will continue to support the left-wing SYRIZA party in parliament. The Macedonian parliament, in an initial vote, on Friday passed an amendment to the constitution, paving the way to changing the country's name to the Republic of North Macedonia. Macedonia is also the name of a northern province in Greece. Athens is worried that the use of the same name by the neighboring state could lead to territorial claims. South Africa: SAPS recruitment closes on Friday, youth urged to apply This story has been published on: 2019-01-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. The hearings of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into allegations of State capture, corruption and fraud in the public sector, including organs of State, is set to resume on Wednesday. Initially, the commission, headed by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, was set to resume on Tuesday, which was later postponed to Wednesday. The com... See more Tel Aviv University-led team discovers new way supermassive black holes are 'fed' Supermassive black holes weigh millions to billions times more than our sun and lie at the center of most galaxies. A supermassive black hole several million times the mass of the sun is situated in the heart of our very own Milky Way. Despite how commonplace supermassive black holes are, it remains unclear how they grow to such enormous proportions. Some black holes constantly swallow gas in their surroundings, some suddenly swallow whole stars. But neither theory independently explains how supermassive black holes can "switch on" so unexpectedly and keep growing so fast for a long period. A new Tel Aviv University-led study published today in Nature Astronomy finds that some supermassive black holes are triggered to grow, suddenly devouring a large amount of gas in their surroundings. In February 2017, the All Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae discovered an event known as AT 2017bgt. This event was initially believed to be a "star swallowing" event, or a "tidal disruption" event, because the radiation emitted around the black hole grew more than 50 times brighter than what had been observed in 2004. However, after extensive observations using a multitude of telescopes, a team of researchers led by Dr. Benny Trakhtenbrot and Dr. Iair Arcavi, both of TAU's Raymond & Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy, concluded that AT 2017bgt represented a new way of "feeding" black holes. "The sudden brightening of AT 2017bgt was reminiscent of a tidal disruption event," says Dr. Trakhtenbrot. "But we quickly realized that this time there was something unusual. The first clue was an additional component of light, which had never been seen in tidal disruption events." Dr. Arcavi, who led the data collection, adds, "We followed this event for more than a year with telescopes on Earth and in space, and what we saw did not match anything we had seen before." The observations matched the theoretical predictions of another member of the research team, Prof. Hagai Netzer, also of Tel Aviv University. "We had predicted back in the 1980s that a black hole swallowing gas from its surroundings could produce the elements of light seen here," says Prof. Netzer. "This new result is the first time the process was seen in practice." Astronomers from the U.S., Chile, Poland and the U.K. took part in the observations and analysis effort, which used three different space telescopes, including the new NICER telescope installed on board the International Space Station. One of the ultraviolet images obtained during the data acquisition frenzy turned out to be the millionth image taken by the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory -- an event celebrated by NASA, which operates this space mission. The research team identified two additional recently reported events of black holes "switched on," which share the same emission properties as AT 2017bgt. These three events form a new and tantalizing class of black hole re-activation. "We are not yet sure about the cause of this dramatic and sudden enhancement in the black holes' feeding rate," concludes Dr. Trakhtenbrot. "There are many known ways to speed up the growth of giant black holes, but they typically happen during much longer timescales." "We hope to detect many more such events, and to follow them with several telescopes working in tandem," says Dr. Arcavi. "This is the only way to complete our picture of black hole growth, to understand what speeds it up, and perhaps finally solve the mystery of how these giant monsters form." ### American Friends of Tel Aviv University supports Israel's most influential, comprehensive and sought-after center of higher learning, Tel Aviv University (TAU). TAU is recognized and celebrated internationally for creating an innovative, entrepreneurial culture on campus that generates inventions, startups and economic development in Israel. TAU is ranked ninth in the world, and first in Israel, for producing start-up founders of billion-dollar companies, an achievement that surpassed several Ivy League universities. To date, 2,500 US patents have been filed by Tel Aviv University researchers -- ranking TAU #1 in Israel, #10 outside of the US and #43 in the world. This story has been published on: 2019-01-14. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.